hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2229 obituary dr. syed husain mohammad jafri with the death of dr. syed husain mohammad jafri on january 20, 2019 in karachi at the age of 84, pakistan has lost a scholar of international repute. there are not many historians in pakistan who obtained two doctoral degrees in history. his first ph.d. was from the university of lucknow (india), and the other from the university of london. he joined pakistan study centre, university of karachi, as a founding director in 1983, from where he retired in 1998. he was the first co-editor of the hamdard islamicus. he remained till his last moments, a distinguished member of the advisory board of the hamdard islamicus. prof. dr. jafri was a trend setter in the field of the sectarian history of islam. he started his career as a teacher at the university of malaya (kuala lumpur) in 1962. he also served the american university of beirut as the shaykh zayed chair of islamic studies and the australian national university, (canberra). subsequently he joined the aga khan university, karachi as a full professor, where he held for a decade, the founding chair of islamic and pakistan studies. prof. dr. jafri travelled extensively to attend international conferences and seminars and also lectured at numerous universities in the usa, europe, asia and africa. he also served in a number of important national and international academic, cultural and socioreligious organisations. he was vice chairman of the executive committee of ‘islam and the west international’, geneva, switzerland, for two terms of three years each. besides several books and articles published in international journals, he has contributed to the encyclopaedia of islam, leiden; encyclopaedia of modern islamic world, new york; encyclopaedia of world religions, usa; al-munjid arabic hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2230 dictionary, beirut. some of important works of prof. dr. syed h.m. jafri are: origins and early development of shi‘a islam, published by the american university of beirut in the 1979 (it was translated in urdu as well); political and moral vision of islam (2000); iqbal, fikr-i-islami ki tahzib-i-jadid (urdu) which he edited and which was published by the pakistan study centre, university of karachi, karachi. may allah almighty rest his soul in peace and give his family the courage to bear this loss. amen! contents * editorial * a critique of mohammad arkoun’s views on the qur’én, sunnah and religious thought — prof. dr. thaheem ushama * social media, religion and religiosity in pakistan in the era of disruption — dr. tahmina rashid * reconciling the views of ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz (r.a) (d. 101 a.h./ 720 c.e.) on mosque decoration — assoc. prof. dr. spahic omer * the concept of istiîné‘ in islamic commercial law (sharê‘éh) and its possible role in the development of local farming in pakistan (istiîné‘ based model for financing agriculture) — dr. lutfullah saqib and azmat ullah turabi * the qur’énic version of the story of yousuf (joseph): labovian analysis of aziz-i-misr episode — dr. sardar muhammad * the impact of ×ajj on the society of bangladesh — mohammad thowhidul islam * a critique of the theocratic model of the sultanate of delhi — tehmeena noreen * the opposition of the shi‘ites towards kalém: with particular references to tarjêí asélêb al-qur’én and al-rawì al-basim by the zaidite muhammad ibn ibrahim al-wazir alsan‘éni (d. 840/1436) — dr. mufti ali * some reflection on paradigm shift in qur’énic interpretation on gender issue discourse 5 7 33 57 83 107 123 157 181 199 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid associate editor: dr. nigar sajjad zaheer published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy of this combined issue 330/070/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlii january-june 2019 nos. 1 & 2 — mahadab banu, dr. p.s. syed masood jamali * index hamdard islamicus, vol. xli, 2018 — kaleem chaghtai * obituaries 221 227 editorial in order to combat contemporary ideological and intellectual challenges, and to re-define islamic thought, a research based society is necessary. this aim cannot be achieved without emphasis on education and research in different fields of life. by publishing ‘hamdard islamicus’ which is one of the two research journals being published by hamdard foundation pakistan, we actually serve academia with the same clear motto and objective. this combined issue comprises valuable articles. in the first article from hungary, titled ‘abë huraira’s cat in goethe’s paradise’ the author is in search of answers to a few questions regarding one of the four privileged animals, like abë huraira’s cat, who are allowed to enter paradise. in the next article from malaysia, titled ‘establishing an exemplary islamic society (in turkey) – an analysis of bediuzzamén saêd nërsi’s reform’ the author estimates saêd nërsi’s contribution to islamic thought. the third research based article titled ‘branding in islamic commercial law – eyeing commercial gains versus opportunities for introducing sharê‘ah legal ethics’, is an effort to introduce and highlight some of the legal ethical aspects of the branding practices in islamic law, predominantly, in islamic commercial law. mohsin al-mulk, one of the leading muslim intellectuals of the subcontinent who have shown keen interest in reviving the intellectual tradition of islam, is discussed by the author from karachi university in his article ‘rethinking islamic intellectualism – mohsin al-mulk’s analysis of islamic epistemology’. the next article, ‘qualification of ijtihéd in present era’, is an attempt to point out certain terms and conditions required for ijtihéd in the present era. in the sixth article, titled ‘causality broken – synthesizing religion, philosophy and modern physics, confirming al-ghazélê’s win in the debate of the world’s pre-eternity by providing delay in effect’, hamdard islamicus 5 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the author deals with the central issue of imém ghazélê’s ‘taíéfut al-falésifah’, which concerns the world’s pre-eternity rotating around cause and effect. the next article, ‘the cultural accommodation of jesuits missionaries in china during 1595-1730 and its impact on chinese muslim scholars of hén kitéb literature’, is covers the period of the seventeenth and the first three decades of the eighteenth century, with special reference to han kitab literature. the last article, ‘the concept of arrogance in muslim and buddhist scriptures – a comparative analysis’, is actually a comparative analysis as claimed by the researcher. we would like, before we close this editorial, to share with our readers the illness of dr. ansar zahid khan, editor, hamdard islamicus and request for prayers for his speedy recovery. editor-in-chief hamdard islamicus 6 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 4\final\editorial islamicus.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 5 editorial this is the fourth and last issue of the hamdard islamicus for 2020. with allah’s mercy, this research journal has successfully completed its 43rd year of publication without a single break. the current issue comprises five articles which cover a comparative study of the holy qur’ān’s text and william shakespeare’s writings regarding four main vices of human being, analysis of the claim that islam is a religion of peace, conception of orthodoxy and heresy in islam, impact of mu‘tazilah and romantic interpretation of religion. the first article “sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders – remedies by the qur’ān and william shakespeare – (a comparative study)” presents a beautiful comparison between the injunctions of the holy qur’ān and william shakespeare’s literal work regarding four main evils – sloth, wrath, envy, and pride – present in every human being besides four main built in virtues – diligence, patience, compassion and humility – as per its fiïrah. the tendency of many non-muslim forces has been to present islam as a religion of terrorists and muslims as felons who compel people to accept islam by all means. the second article “islam: a religion of peace or force? an analysis based on the qur’ān, sunnah and islam’s heritage” controverts non-muslims’ claim and proves that islam is a peaceful religion. the third article “the dialectic of orthodoxy and heresy in early islam” beside discussing the concept of orthodoxy and heresy in islam, focuses on orthodoxy in islam, and the role of orthodoxy in defining heresy in islam. the first rationalist movement in the early history of islam was mu‘tazilah. this movement in its peak period tried to interpret the basic faith of islam in the light of human reason. the fourth article “mu‘tazilah, the first rationalist school of thought in islamic history: critical study of its ideology and approach” analyzes this forceful movement’s origin and its impact on contemporary and later periods. the fifth and last article “the romantic interpretation of religion” throws light on the philosophic approach of romantics to allah by adding examples of the european and eastern romanticism representatives’ views regarding god. editor contents * editorial * religio-scientific discourse and its impact upon exegetical approach confronting various responses and limitations — muhammad ashfaq — dr. manzoor ahmad alazhari * estoppel do the common law and sharê‘ah have the same approach? — dr. lutfullah saqib — rasheed ahmad faizy * the possbility of sense-data and its truth value in early kalém literature — abdul basit zafar * admissibility of computer evidence in islamic law and common law: a preliminary analysis — hafsa abbasi — dr. hafiz anwar * binding styles of qur’én manuscripts produced in the subcontinent from 14th till 18th century c.e. — saima syed 5 7 35 61 75 101 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid associate editor: dr. nigar sajjad zaheer published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlii july-september 2019 no. 3 contents * editorial * relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students at secondary level — dr. ayesha batool — dr. saghir ahmad * the effects of begging on human character and its remedy in the light of islamic teachings — habib ur rahman — mahmood ahmad * factors influencing the university choice decision of business sudents at higher education level: a case from pakistan — shagufta naveed — dr. muzammil khurshid * role of service quality dimensions on the customer satisfication and loyality towards islamic banks — hafiza sataisha zafar — ammara sarwar * the perspective of psychological freedom and avoiding freedom according to erich fromm — bulent akot * islamic perspective in consumer behaviour: effects of halal awareness and halal logo with mediating role of purchasing intention — ramaisa aqdas — azka amin * obituary editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: prof. dr. muhammad saad siddiqui associate editor: prof. dr. nigar sajjad zaheer published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websi tes: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] hamdard islamicus is indexed in scopus. articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 200 s. wacker dr. suite 3100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/payment should be in the name of the hamdard foundation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xliii april-june 2020 no. 2 5 7 19 33 45 67 89 109 f:\e\islamicus\2020\n0. 1\new folder\index.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 103 index hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, 2019 kaleem chaghtai research officer, hamdard islamicus author index 1. abdul basit zafar, the possibility of sensedata and it’s truth value in early kalam literature, no. 3, (july-sep), 61-73. 2. amna saeed (dr.), nafeesa naz, cultural and religious perspectives on gender based notions of widowhood in pakistani literature, no. 4, (oct-dec), 51-63. 3. gabor korvin (prof., dr.), humour of the prophet ( ): in search of a lost book, no. 4, (oct-dec), 97-102. 4. hafiz muhammad siddiqui (dr.), sadaf mehmood, demystifying the orient: imperative of veil and muslim women’s emancipation, no. 4, (oct-dec), 31-49. 5. hafsa abbasi, hafiz anwar (dr.), admissibility of computer evidence in islamic law and common law: a preliminary analysis, no. 3, (july-sep), 75-100. 6. lutfullah saqib (dr.), azmat ullah turabi, the concept of istisn‘ in islamic commercial law (sharê‘ah) and its possible role in the development of local farming in pakistan (istisné‘ based model for financing agriculture), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 83-105. 104 index 7. lutfullah saqib (dr.), rasheed ahmad faizy, estoppel – do the common law and sharê’ah have the same approach(a comparative jurisprudential approach), no. 3, (july-sep), 35-60. 8. mahadab banu, p. s. syed masood jamali (dr.), some reflection on paradigm shift in qur‘énic interpretation on gender issue discourse, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 199-213. 9. md. thowhidul islam, the impact of hajj on the society of bangladesh, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 123-156. 10. mufti ali (dr.), the opposition of the shi‘ites towards kalam: with particular reference to tarjih asalib al-qur’an and al-rawd albasim by the zaidite muhammad ibn ibrahim ibn al-wazir al-san‘ani (d. 840/1436), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 181-198. 11. muhammad ashfaq, manzoor ahmad al azhari (dr.), religioscientific discourse and its impact upon exegetical approach confronting various responses and limitations, no. 3, (july-sep), 7-34. 12. saima saeed, binding styles of qur’an manuscripts produced in subcontinent from 14th till 18th century c.e., no. 3, (july-sep), 101-108. 13. sardar muhammad (dr.), the qur’anic version of the story of yusuf (joseph): labovian analysis of aziz-e-misr episode, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 107-122. 14. sobia tahir (dr.), iqbal on religion and science: a critique, no. 4, (oct-dec), 7-30. 15. spahic omer (dr.), reconciling the views of ‘umar b. ‘abd al‘aziz (d. 101 ah/720 c.e.) on mosque decoration, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 57-82. 16. tahmina rashid (dr.),social media, religion and religiosity in pakistan in the era of disruption, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 33-56. 17. tauseef ahmad parray (dr.), recent qura’nic scholarship: a critical hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 105 evaluation of ziauddin sardar’s ‘reading the qur’én’, no. 4, (oct-dec), 65-95. 18. tehmeena noreen, a critique of the theocratic model of the sultanate of delhi, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 157-180. 19. thameem ushama (prof. dr.), a critique of mohammed arkoun’s views on the qur’én, sunnah and religious thought, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 7-31. title index 1. a critique of mohammed arkoun’s views on the qur’an, sunnah and religious thought, thameem ushama (prof. dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 7-31. 2. a critique of the theocratic model of the sultanate of delhi, tehmeena noreen, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 157-180. 3. admissibility of computer evidence in islamic law and common law: a preliminary analysis, hafsa abbasi, hafiz anwar (dr.), no. 3, (july-sep), 75-100. 4. binding styles of qur’én manuscripts produced in subcontinent from 14th till 18th century c.e., saima saeed, no. 3, (july-sep), 101-108. 5. cultural and religious perspectives on gender based notions of widowhood in pakistani literature, amna saeed (dr.), nafeesa naz, no. 4, (oct-dec), 51-63. 6. demystifying the orient: imperative of veil and muslim women’s emancipation, hafiz muhammad siddiqui (dr.), sadaf mehmood, no. 4, (oct-dec), 31-49. 7. estoppel – do the common law and sharê’ah have the same approach? (a comparative jurisprudential approach), lutfullah saqib (dr.), rasheed ahmad faizy, no. 3, (july-sep), 35-60. 106 index 8. humour of the prophet ( ): in search of a lost book, gabor korvin (prof., dr.), no. 4, (oct-dec), 97-102. 9. iqbal on religion and science: a critique, sobia tahir (dr.), no. 4, (oct-dec), 7-30. 10. recent qur’énic scholarship: a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar’s ‘reading the qur’én’, tauseef ahmad parray (dr.), no. 4, (oct-dec), 65-95. 11. reconciling the views of ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz (d. 101 ah/720 c.e.) on mosque decoration, spahic omer (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (janjune), 57-82. 12. religio-scientific discourse and its impact upon exegetical approach confronting various responses and limitations, muhammad ashfaq, manzoor ahmad al azhari (dr.), no. 3, (july-sep), 7-34. 13. social media, religion and religiosity in pakistan in the era of disruption, tahmina rashid (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 33-56. 14. some reflection on paradigm shift in qur’énic interpretation on gender issue discourse, mahadab banu, p. s. syed masood jamali (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 199-213. 15. the concept of istisné‘ in islamic commercial law (sharê‘ah) and its possible role in the development of local farming in pakistan (istisné‘ based model for financing agriculture), lutfullah saqib (dr.), azmat ullah turabi, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 83-105. 16. the impact of hajj on the society of bangladesh, md. thowhidul islam, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 123-156. 17. the opposition of the shi‘ites towards kalam: with particular reference to tarjih asalib al-qur’én and al-rawd al-basim by the zaidite muhammad ibn ibrahim ibn al-wazir al-san‘ani (d. 840/ 1436), mufti ali (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 181-198. 18. the possibility of sense-data and it’s truth value in early kalam literature, abdul basit zafar, no. 3, (july-sep), 61-73. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 107 19. the qur’énic version of the story of yusuf (joseph): labovian analysis of aziz-e-misr episode, sardar muhammad (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 107-122. key word index ‘arkoun see no. 1 in the title index bangladesh see no. 16 in the title index common law see no. 3,7 in the title index computer evidence see no. 3 in the title index critique see no. 1,2,9 in the title index cultural see no. 5 in the title index delhi see no. 2 in the title index estoppel see no. 7 in the title index gender see no. 5,14 in the title index hajj see no. 16 in the title index iqbal see no. 9 in the title index islamic law see no. 3,15 in the title index istisné‘ see no. 15 in the title index kalam see no. 17, 18 in the title index manuscripts see no. 4 in the title index mosque see no. 11 in the title index muslim women see no. 6 in the title index pakistani see no. 5 in the title index prophet ( ) see no. 8 in the title index qur’én see no. 1,4,10,17,19 in the title index 108 index rawd al-basim see no. 17 in the title index religious see no. 1,5 in the title index san‘ani see no. 17 in the title index sense-data see no. 18 in the title index sharêah see no. 7 in the title index shi’ites see no. 17 in the title index social media see no. 13 in the title index sultanate see no. 2 in the title index sunnah see no. 1 in the title index tarjih asalib see no. 17 in the title index theocratic see no. 2 in the title index umar see no. 11 in the title index veil see no. 6 in the title index widowhood see no. 5 in the title index yusuf (a.s.) see no. 19 in the title index ziauddin sardar see no. 10 in the title index hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 5 editorial this is the third issue of the hamdard islamicus for the current year. it comprises five research articles which discuss the religio-scientific discourse, implementation of islamic laws, kalém literature and the different styles and techniques in the binding of the holy qur’én. in the first article “religio-scientific discourse and its impact upon exegetical approach confronting various responses and limitation” the authors have examined the impact of religio-scientific discourse upon exegetical domain, considering the data and information from different relevant dimensions. this article may be a source and initiative for scholars to approach up to some possible extent towards a new dimension and thought. the second article “estoppel do the common law and sharê‘ah have the same approach?” provides the answers of some legal questions regarding estoppel one of the most important concepts, prevailing in common law, as well as available in sharê‘ah. in the third article “the possibility of sense-data and its truth value in early kalém literature” the author has analyzed the role of sense data, in early kalém literature while islamic theology was mainly based on reason and revelation. “admissibility of computer evidence in islamic law and common law: a preliminary analysis” is the fourth article which explores the principles of islamic law for electronic evidence in the areas of documentary (al-kitébah) and circumstantial evidence (qarênah). the last article “binding styles of qur’én manuscripts produced in the subcontinent from 14th till 18th century c.e.” highlights the hybrid techniques and designs of the binding of the holy qur’én. editor-in-chief contents * editorial * iqbal on religion and science: a critique. — dr. sobia tahir * demystifying the orient: imperative of veil and muslim women’s emanicipation. — dr. hafiz muhammad siddique — sadaf mehmood * cultural and religious perspectives on gender based notions of widowhood in south asian literature. — dr. amna saeed —nafeesa naz * recent quréni’c scholarship: a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar’s reading the qur’én. — dr. tauseef ahmad parray * humor of the prophet (œ): in search of a lost book. — prof. dr. gabor korvin * book review. 5 7 31 51 65 97 103 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: prof. dr. muhammad saad siddiqui associate editor: dr. nigar sajjad zaheer published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlii october-december 2019 no. 4 hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 97 humour of the prophet (œ): in search of a lost book1 prof. dr. gabor korvin, 1121 budapest, koeltoe-u, 2-4, a/3 hungary e-mail: gaborbhai@gmail.com had mohammed (œ), the holy prophet of islam, ever cracked a joke? this question occurred to me in the 1990s, when collecting authentic prophetic traditions2 on women’s political leadership. the pakistani judge, justice a. hussain (b. 1949)3, when writing about a certain íadêth about women’s alleged “deficiencies” excluding them from political roles, noted “in fact one view voiced by some eminent scholars is that the íadêth in question may be a humor like the joke that the prophet (œ) said that old women shall not enter paradise and when the old ladies felt perturbed the prophet (œ) explained that those who enter paradise will become young.”4 justice hussain meant, of course, that as jokes are generally based on logical contradictions5, according to the principles of islamic jurisprudence (uîël al-fiqh6) no valid legal conclusion can be drawn from them, even if they come from an authentic collection of aíadêth7. when in 1964 elections were held in pakistan under ayub khan’s constitution of 1962, field marshal ayub khan (63.31%), the médar-imillat (mother of the nation) ms. fatima jinnah (jinnah’s sister, 36.35%). mr. k.m. kamal (23%) and mr. m.b. ahmad (8%) were the candidates. ayub khan succeeded in obtaining a fatwé against the possible leadership of a woman from the ‘ulama, except from maulana mawdëdê (19031979), who was brave enough to issue a fatwé giving priority to the best public interest (istiísén) over a weak íadêth, possibly based on a joke8. are there any jokes in the prophetic tradition? when ‘ó’ishah (r.a.), the prophet’s (œ) wife, was asked if the prophet (œ) used to tell jokes, she always answered “yes”, then narrated some witty remarks like that about the old ladies and the paradise.9 he “also used to smile” 98 humor of the prophet... narrated ‘ó’ishah (r.a.), but “she never saw the prophet laughing”.10 the prophet’s healthy, happy “smile” is described in a wonderful íadêth: a man came to the prophet (œ) and said, ‘i have been ruined for i have had sexual relation with my wife in ramadan’. the prophet (œ) said, ‘manumit a slave’. the man said, ‘i cannot afford that’. the prophet (œ) said, ‘then fast for two successive months’. the man said, ‘i cannot do that’. the prophet (œ) said, ‘then feed sixty poor persons’. the man said, ‘i have nothing’. then a big basket full of dates was brought to the prophet (œ). the prophet (œ) said, ‘go and give this away in charity’. the man said, ‘by allah, there is no family in medina who is poorer than us’. the prophet (œ) then smiled till his premolar teeth became visible, ‘then feed your family with it”.11 the classical arabic collections of anecdotes and other remarkable stories12 contain many jokes attributed to the prophet (œ). al-zubayr ibn bakkér, a scholar at al-medina (d. 256ah/870 a.d.) wrote a whole monograph on the subject entitled mizéí al-nabêy (humour of the prophet). apparently, there is no extant manuscript of zubayr’s book, all we know about it is that it had been used by al-qasïellénêy’s in his commentary to bukhérê’s saíêí13. when i have found the references to zubayr book in sezgin and rosenthal (see footnote 13), i decided to get a copy of al-qasïellénêy’s commentary, look up the places where he quotes zubayr, and try to reconstruct zubayr’s original joke-book. (this was g.i. newby’s method of reconstructing a chapter from the earliest biography of mohammed (œ) by ibn ishéq, which had been left out from standard epitomized editions of ibn hishém. for the reconstruction, newby collected those portions from ùabarê’s qur’én commentary, and from his history, which were narrated on the authority of ibn ishéq by his students14. apparently both sezgin and rosenthal got their information about zubayr’s book from an odd footnote in the hungarian orientalist i. goldziher’s book, der islam. here goldziher also mentions zubayr, refers to the same place (ix, 500, 8) in al-qasïellénêy’s, but does not specify the edition. as goldziher had certainly been acquainted with the buléq edition of this work in 10 volumes (with al-navavê’s commentary on saíêí muslim printed on the margins15), i tracked down the same edition in the oriental collection of the hungarian academy of sciences’ hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 99 library, budapest. needless to say, p. 500 of vol. 9 did not contain any reference to zubayr’s work, actually i could not find a single reference to zubayr in the whole 9th volume! still, i had not given up. i started to go through the whole corpus of authentic aíadêth, and whenever i found anything sounding like a joke, i looked it up in the standard commentaries16 to see if there is any reference to zubayr. what i did not know at that time, and then learned the hard way, had been how difficult it is to “spot” a joke. a few examples will suffice to make my point. some aíédêth which might look as figurative or even humorous at the first glance, are in reality seriously meant. for example, in book 10 (the book of adhén17) of the saíêí bukhérê there are two similarly worded traditions (nos. 691 and 717) about the correct behaviour during prayer: “the prophet (œ) said. “isn’t the one who raises his head before the imém afraid that allah may transform his head into that of a donkey or his face into that of a donkey?’”; or “the prophet (œ) said. ‘straighten your rows or allah will alter your faces [to that of an animal]’ “. for the believer, remembering from the qur’én (v:65) how a group of the children of israel “were transformed into apes and swines” these are not jokes, but serious warnings. in the most frequently quoted íadêth against women’s political leadership mohammed (œ), having just heard that a princess had been raised to the persian throne, remarked, ‘no people who place a woman over their affairs will [ever] prosper’.18 while this is certainly not a joke, an infrequently quoted, lesser known narration by abu bakarah relates the story in a humorous form, as follows19: “i witnessed that a herald came to the prophet with good news of victory [when he was sitting] and his head in ‘ó’ishah’s lap. he jumped [up], then fell [back] sitting, then rose [again] to ask the herald. and when the herald told that the persians delegated their affairs to a woman, the prophet (œ) repeated thrice, ‘the men perish if they obey the women’.” in this version the utterance “the men perish …” might very well be just a playful hint (that is, a self-ironical joke), that even he, commander of the army, obeys the whims of a beautiful young wife. some of the prophet’s (œ) jokes have found their way to international folklore, as the story where he tells a woman that her husband “has a 100 humor of the prophet... whiteness in his eyes”. she fears that her husband is ill, but the prophet (œ) reassures her “is there any man who has not got whiteness in his eyes?”20 i found a íadêth, reported in several collections21, a variant of which has even turned up unexpectedly among american tales and urban legends22. i quote the íadêth from the “book of íudëd”23 in saíêí bukhérê24: “a beduin came to allah’s apostle (œ) and said, ‘my wife has delivered a black child.’ the prophet (œ) said to him, ‘have you camels?’ he replied, ‘yes’. the prophet (œ) said, ‘what color are they?’. he replied, ‘they are red.’ the prophet (œ) further asked, ‘are any of them grey in colour?’. he replied, ‘yes.’ the prophet (œ) asked him. ‘whence that greyness came?’. he said, ‘i think it descended from the camel’s ancestors.’ then the prophet (œ) said [to him]. ‘therefore this child of yours has most probably inherited the colour from his ancestors.” there exist modern parallels of the story in international folklore25. notes and references 1. originally, parts of this essay were meant to be included in my paper g. korvin, “women’s leadership through the history of islam”, hamdard islamicus, 22 (3)1999: pp. 17-51; in an abridged and popular form it appeared in the isaa review (canberra) 1(2) 2000: pp. 28-31. thanks are due to the independent scholars association of australia inc. (canberra) for their kind permission to republish it in a slightly changed form. 2. in arabic íadêth, pl. ahédêth 3. justice a. hussain status of women in islam karachi, law publ. co., 1987, p. 226. 4. see also f. rosenthal humor in early islam, philadelphia, u. of pennsylvania press, 1956; pp. 5-6; gazzali’s ihya ulum-id-din (engl. transl.), bangla desh, 1972, book iiii. p. 123; a. ali “humor literature: an arabislamic legacy” hamdard islamicus, 21 (1)1998: pp. 47-59. 5. schopenhauer in 1818 wrote that [in humour] “two or more real objects are thought through one concept, then it becomes strikingly apparent from the entire difference of the objects in other respects, that the concept was only applicable to them from a one-sided point of view” (quoted in j.a. paulos mathematics and humor, chicago, u. of chicago press, 1980: p. 3). hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 101 6. excellent modern treatment: m.h. kamali principles of islamic jurisprudence, cambridge, islamic text soc., 1991. 7. the “authentic six”, in decreasing order of merit, all stem from the abassid period: the saíêí of imam bukhérê (d. 256 ah); saíêí of imam muslim (d. 261 ah); sunnan of abu dawëd (d. 275 ah); sunnan of tirmidhi (d. 279 a.h.); sunnan of nasé’i (d. 303ah); sunnan of ibn méjah (d. 275 a.h.), these are arranged according to topics. imam ahmed hanbal’s (d. 241 ah) widely used musnad arranges the aíédêth with respect to their first narrator. 8. details in korvin op. cit.: p. 35. 9. r. qazhaya al-fakéha wa al-dahak fê al-taréth al-‘arabiy al-mashréqêy. beirut, 1998: pp. 126-128. 10. saíêí of bukhari (m.m. khan’s arabic-english version), medina, islamic univ., vol. viii. hadêth no. 114 on p. 74. 11. ibid., hadith no. 110 on p. 72. 12. al-nuwayri’s nihéyat al-‘arab; ibn ‘abdrabbih’s ‘iqd al-farêd; etc., see also the 10th-century book catalogue, al-nadêm’s fihrist (ed. & transl. by b. dodge, columbia u. press, new york, 1970) and rosenthal op.cit. pp. 4-7). 13. see a single sentence in sezgin’s geschichte des arabischen schrifttums, leiden, brill, bd. 1, 1967: p. 318 (“benutzte al-qastellénêy ix, 500, 8). the book is also mentioned in rosenthal op.cit. p. 5 footnote 3, but not listed in the fihrist, or in the other standard reference, brockelman’s geschichte der arabischen literatur, leiden, brill, 1943. 14. g.d. newby the making of the last prophet. a reconstruction of the earliest biography of mohammed. columbia, u. of south carolina press, 1989. 15. i. goldziher report on the books brought from the orient for the library of the hungarian academy of sciences, budapest, 1874, 42 pp. (in hungarian). 16. al-qastellénêy’s irshéd al-sérê, or ibn hajar al-asqalénê’s monumental fath albérê for bukhérê, al-nawawê’s commentary for muslim, etc. 17. adhén is the call to any of the daily five compulsory prayers in islam. 18. contained in bukhérê, tirmidhê, nasé’ê, and ibn ×anbal; detailed discussion in korvin op. cit. for a muslim feminist interpretation see n. abbott’s aishah, the beloved of mohammed, new york, amo press, 1973 (repr. of the 1942 edn.); and fatima mernissi’s woman and islam. a historical and theological enquiry. oxford, uk; basil blackwell, 1991; pp. 49-81. 19. in the musnad of ibn hanbal, vol. v, hadêth no. 20479. 20. quoted in gazzali’s ihya ulum-id-din (engl. transl.) , bangla desh, 1972, book iii, p. 123; rosenthal op.cit. p. 6, fn. 1, identified the motif with a persian folkstale. 21. see a.j. wensinck’s concordance et indices de la tradition musulmane, leiden, brill, 2nd ed., 1992, entry wld. 22. carl lindahl american folkstales from the collections of the library of congress, new york, routledge, 2004: pp. 521-524. 23. plural of hadd, that is penalties described in the qur’an for certain serious crimes. 24. characteristically, the chapter where the hadêth is listed, is called “méj’a fê alta’rêd” that is “concerning the round-about way of explaining something” (say, with an example, or a joke). 102 humor of the prophet... 25. antti aarne‘s the types of the folkstale: a classification and bibliography, helsinki, academia scientarum fennica, 1961, contains no parallels; s. thompson’s motif-index of folk-literature : a classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends. revised and enlarged edition. bloomington, indiana university press, 1955-1958 does give “white woman bears black child”: motif t562. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 4\final\the romantic interpretation.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 97 the romantic interpretation of religion afag sultan gyzy mammadova doctor of sciences in philosophy professor, azerbaijan state university of economics e-mail: mamedov.afaq@yandex.ru in this article the romantic interpretation of religion, the philosophic approach of romantics to god is analyzing by example of european and eastern romanticism representatives. it is the most important problem provoking interest in the philosophy of given universal social-cultural trend. substantiating the idea that god in romantics is more mystic than the subject of theology, the author notes that god performs in representatives of the given trend as the symbol of absolute truth, supreme justice, harmony beauty, spiritual ideal. key words: philosophic romanticism, romantic traditions, universal social-cultural trend, absolute truth, romantic mystic. one of the most important problems provoking interest in the philosophy of that universal social-cultural trend, as romanticism is the philosophic approach to the god, its religion interpretation. in the philosophy of romanticism absolute isn’t the theological image of the god. it is understood here as the supreme philosophic category. in romantics the god performs as the symbol of absolute truth, supreme justice, harmony beauty, spiritual ideal. though in the creativity of most representatives of philosophic romanticism, original and interesting ideas concerning the philosophy of religion are met, yet the romantic philosophy of religion is associated with the names of f. shelling, f.s chleiermacher and f. schlegel. the romantic philosophy of religion the eminent representative of romantic philosophy f.shelling (17751854) in theosophy defended the principle of identity: all is the god and the god is in all, since the god is not only the pure spirit, but also the nature. the blind and the dark, the irrational and rational beginning in it 98 the romantic interpretation of religion... state in unity. in reality the struggle of contradictions has antagonisms by its sources in the essence of god. if there is an evil in the life then it is inherent in the god, too. as the negative (evil, darkness), so the positive (good, love, light) characteristics are found in the god. the victory of the good over the evil helps to achieve the positive essence of divine individual. in shelling’s creativity the god is the selfcreative, at the same time the unfinished (imperfect, incomplete) individual. if it was perfect, ideal, then all in the life would be completed. [5] by shelling, in each of us there are two originsconscious and unconscious. the same one can say about the god. he also bifurcates. he is against himself, but he can’t be free from himself. in shelling’s philosophy the initial point in world creation is “the pure objective reality”, but the god states as “the independent subject of ontological origin”. firstly, the given subject exists for itself, then objectifying its free will realizes itself and visual environment. the subject changes into the object. thus, in theosophy of shelling the god stating as the infinity so the objective reality, from the pure potency changes into the urgent objective reality. its structure as the urgent objective reality is defined by the three ontological principlessubstance, cause and spirit. this layout is identical to the principle the god-father, the godson, the god-divine spirit. [6] if kant leads the knowledge about the god out the scopes of philosophic research object, then shelling acts entirely vice versa. however, it was incorrect to interpret it as the attempt to transform philosophy into theology. for a theologian, the god is a particular research object [5]. for shelling he is only the supreme basis of matter. by shelling, the proofs of god’s objective reality is unreal, but there is no need in it. in his theosophy “self-revelation of the god” passes three stages. on the first stage the absolute limits with that it is real. the second stage presents the transition from real into ideal. the third stage is connected with the overcoming of all differences. by philosopher’s opinion the selfrevelation of the god is also the self-restriction of the god, the restriction of his facilities. thus, the balance between the absolute freedom and the absolute necessity is provided. the life is not an accidental creation. hereby, if in pantheism the creator and the creation state in unity, then in shelling the nature and the individual, the contradictions flow together. two opposite virtues – love and egoism are inherit in the god. the egoism is real, but the love is the ideal origin. with the elimination of divine love of egoism exists the peace. by shelling “the matter is an unconscious part of the god”. as hegel, shelling suggests the idea of hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 99 natural religion. in shelling the natural religion is presented in mysticmythological plan. the natural religion is accompanied by the religion of “revelation” and the religion of “independent philosophic opinion”. [8] the philosophic approach to religion assumes the transformation of its forms through the comprehension of inner content. by shelling’s opinion, that who wants to believe doesn’t philosophize, but that who philosophizes, understands that, just the faith is not enough. in “the philosophy of revelation” a philosopher-romantic deduces the natural evolution of christianity, suggests the idea of unification of catholic and protestant churches and the formation of united integral religion on the base of reformed christianity. f.d. schleiermacher, deeply-adopted schools of plato, socrates, aristotle, jacobi, leibnitz, spinoza, kant, fichte, on the basis of their contrastive analysis had a conclusion that unlike tieck and schlegel, they express rational theology. in his opinion, the conversion of religion into sanctuary for illiterate and fanatic clergy leads to that, the intelligentsia turns away from it. from this viewpoint, f. schleiermacher considered it is necessary to use an philosophic-aesthetic approach to belief, to reform the religion via its scientific and artistic justification. he intended to prove the validity of the faith object on the basis of own mind and opinions. in his work “about religion”, f. schleiermacher wrote that faith in god arises from human’s natural essence and spiritual needs. “i write as the need given by god demands it. this feeling identifies my place in the universe, makes me such as i am. “in his opinion the essence and the purport of human life depends neither on supreme deific laws nor on ideas of immortality of soul, but on persistent, integral harmony, consistency between human cognition and wishes. relying on aristotle’s “the ethics”, schleiermacher considered that, the value of happiness is equal everywhere independent from human’s social state, education and lifestyle. the life is fair, but people are mistaken about its achievement ways. by schleiermacher the religion is neither metaphysics nor morals, “science is ability to comprehend and feel the infinity.”[6] philosopher, periodically applying the conception of the universe, defines it as “the most general and supreme formula of religion”. he considers that, the total characteristics to faith can be presented, only based on the given conception. schleiermacher highly estimated the role of mystic feeling and contemplation in the process of cognition and faith. in schleiermacher opinion, none of existing religions could present reliable, true knowledge 100 the romantic interpretation of religion... about god. the aim of his theosophy is not in exposing the divine secrets through the things essence and events research, as it was in existing religious studies, but in elucidating the source of mystic sense, enigmatic feeling. iow, schleiermacher’s theosophy is sooner a study about mystics, religious feeling, than per se study about god. in schleiermacher’s opinion religion is not obliged with neither a practice nor a theory. it is not a code of revelations reporting about the thoughts and desires of god, either. a religion binding with the feeling status is the desire of soul. and piety binds with the confidence in god’s existence. the existence of “infinite” and “absolute” is cognized by us through religious feeling. together with it is impossible “to discover” the existence of god by praying and dogmata. god is comprehended by uncertain sensations. just as god’s existence reveals in things and events of reality, exactly as the reality is realized in god. in accordance with religious philosophy of romanticism, the existence is created by divine absolute thought. with its principle thought and mind god’s existence doesn’t create anything unamenable to cognition logic. “the god, possessing the ability of perfect management, governs the world on the basis of rational laws” and he, himself does not go beyond his created laws. thus, in romantics opinions, there is nothing perfect that can break divine and natural harmony. subsequently, god standing out of ordered development of universe, didn’t interfere to the process of laws created by himself. unlike romantics, schleiermacher desiring an ideal world all his life, considered some unforeseenmiracle possibility as god’s protest against laws created by himself. therefore, it’s unreal to wait and desire anything inconceivable. along with other divine features, the mind as god’s attribute reveals in natural laws. god, the absolute original reflects his desires and commands in ordered beforehand natural laws. by schleiermacher, in practice there is a harmony between divine mystic feelings and rational cognition, mind. according to romantics, the merge of intellectual mind with religious feeling allows to comprehend these perception, discover world’s secrets. unlike philosophers-romantics demanding the absolute freedom for a man, schleiermacher limited freedom with the frames of religious sensations. in philosopher’s opinion, finite things amendable ante infinite things are free as between one another. schleiermacher considered religious dogmata and studies as the features succeeding mystic feelings and representing their ascertainment and realization. [1] the dogmata, subjected to time impact and converted in accordance to demands of hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 101 epoch, alienate from discovery of god’s true existence and sincere divine feelings. by schleiermacher all other religions are also subjected to corresponding “reforms”, as “veritable religion” can not be presented human judge directly, in a concrete space and time. god’s infinite existence becomes clear to human mind discretely and broken, but “absolute true knowledge” about god’s unity faces with the necessity of division into sects and religions. though the idea of unity of religious-philosophic context in france was reflected in works f.r.schatobrian “the genius of christianity”, this problem was not focused that was in ien. concentrating on mystic and poetic spirit domination in christianity, the author appraises it as the source of romantics’ creativity. f. schlegel considers poetry and philosophy as different forms or fields of religion. in his opinion, if a man was isolated from all conscious and unconscious religious faiths, he would become into any external, baseless one. the faith in preternatural power compiles the natural basis of human existence. schlegel considered god either gnosiological or ontological existence, in his work “ideas” wrote that, eternal life and secret world can be searched solely in god. “in him (god is considered) all spirituality is seized. he is an infinite individuality and united entire infinity” (4, p. 60). in his opinion, philosophy deduces from religion by logic. (…) philosophy isolated from religion can turn into infinite eternal work filled with poetry, a novel or a game that now called art”. schlegel marked that, any conception about god is an idle. the idea of ideas is solely the idea of deity. “when a man creates the idea of god, he becomes free and due to gains immorality. we don’t see god, however everywhere, in human’s soul with true feelings, in the depth of his creativity we see god, his power and might. a philosopher-romantic concludes that god is more mystic than a theology object. f. schlegel consistently directed to theosophy, to e.kant’s predecessors unlike them rejected the dependence of morality from religion. he considered that, morality is not in need of religion. with the help of pure practical mind, morality can regulate itself. even the faith in god has the source of human morality secrecy, its initial moral essence. human’s faith in god presents as necessary moral-ethic needs. in kant’s philosophy god performs not as a source, but as a guarantee of moral laws. though novalis is the founder of magic idealism, he was more rational in his views concerning to the essence of religion. talking about 102 the romantic interpretation of religion... the possibilities of science integration in future, novalis held the idea that, the identity of united science, united prophet and united god is possible by this way. novalis, holding the subjective idealism of fichte in theosophy, comparing it with newton, marked that fichte discovered the inner laws of world system. being under fichte’s impression, novalis wrote that, a sole miracle opened us the existence of god, is a sincere faith, inner conviction. novalis didn’t believe in fate predestinated by god. in his opinion, each man with infinite will, defines his fate by his activity. by novalis considered a man as a moral essence and each man has to regulate infinite will by inner moral, pass a severe judge inner. [7] a philosopher-romantic binds the source of faith to god with inner morality, moral-ethnic ideal and with “i” of a man. in his opinion, by abstraction of inner “i” and its elevation over individual “i”, the man’s intercourse with his inner “i” brings into the conversion to god and creates the ground for the conversion of philosophy into religion. moving away the social “i” from the inner “i”, deepening differences between the secret “i” and external “i” actualizes the need in communication with any pure and concealed one. like shelling, novalis endows god with personality and individuality. as many of his like-minded, novalis notices the defects of christianity and in his works writes about the creation of a new, more perfect religion. in his opinion, lessing could cope with this problem, if he was alive. in one of his letters to schlegel (on june 17, 1797) novalis, advancing concrete proposals marked that, his religion would combine philosophy and poetry. a new religion is not isolated from magic. in his opinion, christianity was too politicized. by this reason it is based on material. estimating kant and fichte’s merits in this field, novalis wrote that, they brought the religion into philosophy, however the limited by this. in his return letter schlegel wrote that, the time for creation of new religion came, but we had to be very careful in this case. [4] v.m. jirmunskiy in his book “german romanticism and modern mystic” touches this problem. the author asserts that, the faith in personal, christian god, symbolizing infinite world, from the beginning compared novalis from other romantics. [3] though european romanticism held to oriental mythology, mystic and philosophy, its attitude to islam and his divine book the koran, being ambiguous, mainly has a critical character. probably, it is connected with devotion of romanticism to national spirit, its religious fanaticism. romantics were the universalists and cosmopolitans as were the individualists and nationalists. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 103 3. oriental romanticism and religion: the analogous situation is observed in the representatives of muslim oriental romanticism. the representatives of syrian-american school of romanticism differ not so much by faith to orthodox religion as mystic faith in god. amir-arreykhani in his work “mystic song” wrote: “we worship neither to cross nor to crescent. we worship neither buddha nor jesus. we hate neither a muslim nor a jew. we are free. we are nether oriental nor west. the existence of our background is infinite. we are free”. [9. p. 106] the faith in orthodox religion is not so much characteristic for the representatives of oriental romanticism as the mystic faith in god. the religious institutions differed by faiths can not break the unity of god. as jibran wrote, “who you are, where you pray-in a church or in an altar, or in a mosque, you and i are the children of a man, as the unsteady ways of religion touched all us; spiritual values to us were given by loving fingers of that supreme existence”, “a man’s soul is a part separated from god in creation”, “judaism, brahmanism, buddhism, christianity and islam protects your ideas. in my opinion, there is only one universal religion” [10, p. 71] the well-known representative of azerbaijani romanticism hussein javid (1882-1944) in theosophy defended the principle of identity. he asserts that, a man has to cognize himself for the comprehension of absolute truth and the renunciation of earthly blessings, of true love in the name of god is not the main on this way: who wants to see god, be search it in the depth of his heart, in his pure soul whose heart and soul are faithful, always feels and sees god who has philosophic spirit never lives without god. [2, p. 110] hussein javid believes that, religion contains many qualities given a romantic spirit to art and especially to poetry and he used inner world, his thoughtfulness about the life and the dearth. islam, religious myths, legends and images from islamic history were means of expression his complex, contradictory and anxious feelings and ideas, his thoughtfulness about present, past and future, the assertion of his humanistic ideals. the philosopher-romantic hussein javid’s romantic philosophy of religion was directed to islamic study in the spirit of romantic ideal. 104 the romantic interpretation of religion... the escape from reality into spiritual world where the romantics gave more place to religion, made them to consider it such spiritual shelter which gives a man a harmony by himself, peace and consolation. conclusion the romantics attempted to comprehend the essence of religion, to find truth. in their opinion, nature is the source of all religions and faiths in the world. the romantics considered that, god is the result of man’s inner spiritual faith, the product of subjective moral feelings. if a man realizing his passions and will in his behaviour, is always under control of imperative moral feelings, he feels god in his soul. faith is inseparably linked with human existence. a man can not live without faith. so, god is an object and philosophic cognition. it is inseparably linked with the object of philosophic cognition. expressing the natural and preternatural bases of faith in god by different images, the philosopher-romantics highly estimated the role of mystics and fanaticism in a human nature, in control his behaviour by moral norms. however, the romantics hesitated in decision the problem concerning the expression of faith in god by religion. though, religion is the result of faith, after all the dogmatization of acts compelling to faith, didn’t satisfied most romantics. is religion changes more to man’s ideology than to his psychology, then sincerity passes away which leads to falsification notes and references 1. gayma r. romantic school. moscow, 1891, 774 pp. 2. hussein javid. complete works. baku, 2001, v. iii, 220 p. 3. v.m. jirmunskiy. german romanticism and modern mystic. stp, 1996. 4. the literary manifests of west-european romantics. moscow, msu, 1980, 683 p. 5. a.v.lukyanov, m.a. pushkareva. german classical philosophy of religion. teaching aid. publish. bash. su, ufa, 2002, 230 p. 6. reale j.antiserri d. peae western philosophy from background to nowadays. v.4 (from romanticism up to present). tootk “petropolis” stp, 1997, 880p. 7. novalis: philosophical writings. new york 1997. 8. schelling f.w.j. stuttgarter privatvorlesungen. torino, 1973, s85-110. 9. muhammad abdul-hajj, tradition and english and american influence in arabic romantic poetry, oxford, 1973, p. 354. 10. gibran k. sand and foam. new york. alfred a. knopf, 2000, 82 p. contents * editorial * communicaion ethics from the qur’énic perspective – an analysis of selected contemporary exegeses — dr. sohirin muhammad solihin and dr. noor mohammad osmani * zandaqah heresy during the early ‘abbésid era (750-850 c.e.) sociopolitical and economic factors — atta muhammad * the concept of the injêl in ×adêth literature – an analytical study — muhammad islam * how commitment to islamic values maintain marital stability — dr. rena latifa * an analysis of zakét distribution scheme in the light of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah in malaysia, brunei and singapore — dr. azman ab rahman and dr. muhamad sa‘dan abdul aziz * modern product liability law – juridical basis in islamic law — dr. muhammad akbar khan * øulí – facts and effects in sharê‘ah vis-a-vis efficacy of pakistani statutes and efficiency of the judges — dr. qazi attaullah and dr. lutfullah saqib * old versus new in the sa‘ëdi expansions of the mosque of the prophet (œ) — dr. spahic omer * methodology of mosque-oriented built environments – case study of contemporary mosques of iran’s cities — abbas jahanbakhsh and ahmad aminpoor * index – hamdard islamicus, vol. xl, 2017 — kaleem chaghtai 5 7 45 73 107 133 165 195 227 267 293 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: dr. ansar zahid khan published by hamdard foundation pakistan, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. telephones:36440184, 36616001-4, 36620945-49 telefax: (92-21) 36611755 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xli january-june 2018 nos. 1 & 2 f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 2\factors influencing.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 33 factors influencing the university choice decision of business students at higher education level: a case from pakistan 1shagufta naveed 2dr. muzammil khurshid 1department of islamic studies gift university, gujranwala, pakistan 2university of the punjab gujranwala campus, gujranwala, pakistan the purpose of the study is to explore the factors influencing the university choice decision of business students at the higher education level. a sample of 200 questionnaires was distributed to measure admission decision and applied factor analysis and multiple regression. the study found the following factors to influence university choice decision: the value of a degree from this school, a particular field of study available, size of the department, reputation of department’s faculty, the opportunity to work w/particular faculty, programme structure and requirements, research opportunities and postgraduate job placement. furthermore, the findings of multiple regression analyses represented a significant impact on the academic reputation of the university, work, social, and spouse. keywords: factor analysis; higher education; multiple regression; pakistan; university choice decision. introduction in the modern world, the sector of higher education has experienced relatively radical transformation due to which this sector has become competitive. the increased competition threatens the existence of many universities and to participate with limited capital for a larger quantity of prospective students is the point of dispute among institutions. in this competitive environment, it has become the dire need of institutions to pinpoint the factors which affect the student in the selection of institutions and thus attracting big chunk of the students. some studies have attempted to inspect that which method candidates use to choose a university. as kotler and fox (1995) emphasized that to pull prospective candidates, universities need to know how the universities may be chosen. recognition of the features that a prospective scholar may think in selecting a university 34 factors influencing the university choice... as compared to another is a subject of weight to proprietors who are worried about the efficiency of their enrolment process. plank and chiagouris (1997) stated that knowing the selection procedure of an institution is a tool with the potential for making the marketing plans for universities (raposo and helena, 2007). however, knowing the university selection procedure is not an easy task. choosing an institution is a grand and diverse decision for a candidate, not only in financial problems but also due to taking a decision which influences the future of student (litten, 1980; yost and tucker, 1995). the admission decisions of postgraduates have turned into an important indicator of mutual and educational problems. most of the students from educated families consider the rankings of the universities to observe which university attracts brilliant candidates. due to many reasons, how students decide universities and the indicators that affect those choices have become vital to many divisions of society. in the present century, students, parents even states suppose that everybody in society must get something from post-secondary education. a bachelor’s degree persists to be analyzed as a path to own satisfaction and monetary achievement. many studies express that higher education leads to high income, a good job, a good career, and a high quality of life. administrators of universities put a notice in accepting how candidates decide. the main lifeblood of universities is enrolments. students consider it a difficult decision when they come and choose the university. many factors are involved to select or not to choose a university. in the background of pakistan, a clear drift has been the mounting rivalry among institutions to attract scholars. several studies have found out the effect of work, social environment, spouse, and friends. above and beyond, the effect of friends is shaping to study. mcmahon quoted advice from academics, work, social environment, friends, and relatives choice does matter for students. therefore, it is proposed that the influence of work, social environment, academic reputation, family, and friends is significant. problem identification the significance of higher education can be judged by the way it benefits a student economically and socially. in pakistan, higher education is the topmost level. a bachelor’s degree is required for admission to postgraduate courses, leading to a master’s degree program. after the completion of master, m.phil and ph.d. programs are available for further advancement in education. (the compton encyclopedia, 1996). hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 35 most of the developing countries have picked up the pace and they have increased enrollment at college and university level manifold. however, pakistan has to yet gear up the spirit to increase student enrollment in the universities (brickman, 1995). public universities are not meeting the standards of the society due to many weaknesses whereas the private sector is emerging with greater speed in the field of enrollment of students. almost half the members of the total universities belong to the private sector. there is a general observation that quaid-azam university islamabad, national university of science and technology rawalpindi, national university of modern languages and sciences, shaheed zulfiqar bhutto institute of science and technology islamabad, iqra university islamabad and federal urdu university of science and technology mostly influence in university choice decision making. a clear gap has been found between the students’ choice regarding their academics, social, work, and spouse. problem statement students are considered the backbone of universities. there is a dualistic higher education system in pakistan that includes public and private institutions. in the current educational system of pakistan, different private universities keep trying of admitting students for business. due to competition, universities are offering a wide range of courses and other extracurricular activities to facilitate the students to choose the university of their choice. that is why one of the most disturbing problems for students is to choose the university. university choice decisions are defined as the beliefs, procedures, effects, and perceptions associated with the students’ decisions to continue their study. the main goal of this research was not only to explain university choice but also to provide an understanding of ways to select a university. research questions • which factors most influence on university choice decision? • is there a significant difference in the relative importance ascribed to the major university choice factors? objectives the objectives of the study are: 36 factors influencing the university choice... • to examine the potential factors affecting the university choice decisions of business students at the postgraduate level. • to analysis the gap between higher education institutions and university choice decisions of students. • to suggest the ways through which university choice decisions of students can be easy and beneficial for them. literature review an overview of the previous studies is presented in this section. moreover, this section encompasses the hypothesis and theoretical framework. the study intends to portrait the potential factors affecting university choice decisions. extensive researches have been conducted by various researchers on factors influencing the university choice decision (nagaraj, munisamy, jaafar, abdul wahab and mirzaei, 2008; yusof, ahmad, tajudin and ravindran, 2008; kusumawati, 2013, agrey and lampadan, 2014; naidu and derani, 2016). kankey and quarterman (2007) examined the factors influencing the university choice. the findings of this study propose that decisions of students are influenced by academic program, career opportunities, social activities and the financial aid, friends, affiliation of the university (religion, public, private), to collect data, a questionnaire was used and the sample was 196 students in the state of ohio. webb and coccari (1997) have empirically tested various factors to attract students. the empirical results based on a representative sample of 222 students from private and public universities and identified that academic reputation, marketability of degree, and library size are used to select a university. kallio (1995) investigated the relative effect of college choice decisions of postgraduate students. for this study, 1986 surveys were conducted at a university. this study pointed out that residence, quality of education, and academic reputation play a decisive role in university choice decisions. ghani et al. (2008) analyzed the determinants of malaysian adult learners and identified the factors alleged to be significant in selecting a university for distance learning. the outcomes give imminent to academics on the natural world and relative significance of the issues alleged important for adults. ethington and smart (1986) researched the persistence in post-graduate education. they concluded that both academic and social combinations are major for men and women, academics have a higher effect on men. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 37 methodology the current study is based on a survey of 200 business students enrolled in m.phil and ph.d. programs at different universities in pakistan. a field study was conducted to identify the factors influencing the university choice decision of postgraduate students. the data was gathered from different public and private sector universities of pakistan. out of 200 respondents, the refusal rate was around 4.5 percent so a total of 191 questionnaires were used for data analysis. the dependent variable of the study was the admission decision to enroll and the independent variables were academic, work, spouse, and social (kalio, 1995). the questionnaire was comprised of two main parts. the first section dealt with the demographic characteristics of the respondents including gender, age, marital status, and occupation. the second part of the questionnaire contained 28 items to accord the attitudinal evaluation of various statements related to independent variables and dependent variables by using a 6 point likert scale. firstly, this study runs factor analysis to test which factors are more important to get admission in m.phil and ph.d. programs. moreover, multiple regression was applied to test the hypotheses and to find the impact of independent variables (academic, work, spouse, and social) on the dependent variable (admission decision). for the reliability of the data, the internal consistency test was applied. the value of cronbach alpha was 0.834 which allowed proceeding further. four basic variables are considered as independent variables that affect the dependent variable of college or university choice decision. while those variables are academic, work, social life, and spouse. academic variable considers the student’s value judgment of the institution based on his/her perception of the school’s quality of professors, good academic reputation, quality of major(s) and courses he/she is interested in, quality of learning resources and facilities (library, computers, laboratories), the interaction between students and professors, and focus on postgraduate education. moreover, the social variable encompasses all activities that the university undertakes for the social life of students. e.g. a variety of extracurricular activities (clubs, music, theater, etc.), quality of social life/activities, the opportunity to be with his/her friends, and the opportunity to interact with students from different backgrounds. work variable refers to the job opportunities while spouse refers to the hostels to live with the spouse. in a similar work (kankey and quarterman, 2007) examined the factors influencing the university choice and utilized the same variables as an academic program, career opportunities after 38 factors influencing the university choice... graduation, social atmosphere and the amount of financial aid, friends, an affiliation of the university (religion, public, private). all these abovegiven variables contribute to decision choice. 27 items measure these four independent variables. the academic variable contains 14 items, work encompasses items, the spouse has 3 items and social contains 4 items. research design findings the findings of the factor analysis are mentioned in table 1. according to table 1, kmo, the measure of sampling adequacy is 0.737 which indicates that data is factorable to extract the most important factors from 28 items. table 1: kmo and bartlett’s test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling .737 adequacy. bartlett’s test of approx. chi-square 1910.824 sphericity df 378 sig. .000 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 39 so, the results find out 8 factors which are covering 62.9 cumulative variances (see table no. 2). table #2: total variance explained the factors are following: 1) “ value of a degree from this school”, 2) “particular field of study available”, 3) “size of the department”, 4) “reputation of department’s faculty”, 5) “opportunity to work w/particular faculty”, 6) “program structure and requirements”, 7) “research opportunities”, 8) “postgraduate job placement”. extraction sums of squared loadings % of total variance cumu lative% 6.337 22.632 22.632 2.353 8.404 31.037 1.931 6.898 37.935 1.609 5.745 43.679 1.505 5.373 49.053 1.356 4.843 53.896 1.282 4.580 58.475 1.243 4.439 62.914 rotation sums of squared loadings % of total variance cumu lative% 2.820 10.070 10.070 2.797 9.990 20.060 2.390 8.535 28.595 2.307 8.240 36.835 2.307 8.240 45.075 1.944 6.941 52.016 1.529 5.460 57.476 1.523 5.438 62.914 compo nent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 initial eigenvalue % of total variance cumu lative% 6.337 22.632 22.632 2.353 8.404 31.037 1.931 6.898 37.935 1.609 5.745 43.679 1.505 5.373 49.053 1.356 4.843 53.896 1.282 4.580 58.475 1.243 4.439 62.914 .994 3.551 66.465 .910 3.251 69.716 .881 3.145 72.860 .755 2.696 75.557 .744 2.659 78.215 .672 2.402 80.617 .636 2.271 82.888 .576 2.056 84.944 .568 2.029 86.973 .523 1.866 88.840 .462 1.650 90.490 .447 1.597 92.087 .401 1.431 93.517 .360 1.287 94.805 .325 1.160 95.965 .286 1.022 96.987 .259 .927 97.914 .238 .850 98.764 .208 .741 99.505 .138 .495 100.000 40 factors influencing the university choice... table no. 3 rotated component matrix (a) institution’s academic reputation. diversity of course offerings. value of a degree from this school. geographic location of the institution social/cultural opportunities. library facilities and collections. research and computer facilities quality of day-to-day campus life. admissions process and policies size of the department particular field of study available. reputation of department’s faculty. quality of teaching. research opportunities. quality of students enrolled in program. opportunities for friendships opportunity to teach. opportunity to work w/particular faculty. postpost graduate job placement. program structure and requirements. length of time to degree. ability to pursue studies part-time. spouse/partner educational plans. availability of child care. availability of university housing. ability to continue in current job. employer tuition reimbursement. will you take admission? extraction method: principal component analysis. rotation method: varimax with kaiser normalization a rotation converged in 13 iterations. table no. 3 of the rotated component matrix shows the loading values of these 8 most important factors, this table helps to rank the variables from one to eight. component 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 .264 .208 .376 -.203 .415 .139 .221 -.256 .026 .287 .364 -.094 .202 .093 .641 -.024 .058 .074 .801 .071 .026 .146 .047 .067 .294 .465 .427 .034 .192 -.109 -.015 .278 .039 .396 .623 .141 .360 -.167 -.001 -.164 .055 .317 .443 .260 .165 .347 -.325 -.237 .210 .172 .158 .037 .668 .306 -.117 -.001 .586 .259 .192 -.082 .104 .330 .041 .090 .599 .176 .128 -.171 .365 .212 -.195 .143 .112 .183 .182 .019 .144 .795 -.006 -.046 .040 -.058 .026 .000 .799 .087 -.007 -.046 .170 .495 .223 .720 .143 .433 .058 -.174 .046 .688 .181 .074 .021 .067 .065 -.105 -.052 .700 -.022 .122 .052 .068 .023 .014 -.185 .313 -.339 .071 .116 -.114 -.073 .465 .089 .340 .094 .146 .605 -.194 .103 .234 .230 .682 .051 .059 .076 .083 .140 .097 .102 -.075 .109 -.123 -.020 .035 -.053 .779 .616 .070 .030 .211 .054 -.080 .142 -.419 .130 .097 -.057 .244 -.111 .048 .776 -.112 -.060 -.003 .494 .496 .013 .156 .189 .230 .510 .203 .174 .397 -.112 -.106 .081 .152 .196 .146 .202 .681 .035 -.095 .131 -.141 .087 .211 .025 .026 -.041 .260 -.118 -.104 .260 -.015 -.129 .584 .432 .116 .207 -.086 .595 -.097 .076 .139 .115 .235 .259 -.038 .524 .031 -.111 .216 .103 -.008 -.035 .010 .103 -.061 -.138 .404 .022 .634 .233 .159 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 41 table 4: model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .453a .205 .188 1.14878 a. predictors: (constant), social, spouse, work, academic table no. 4 shows the model summary of multiple regression results. the value of r square is 0.205 which indicates that 20.5% of the variation in the dependent variable admission decision, is explained by the independent variables academic, work, spouse, and social. it also indicates that the model is a good fit for the data. moreover, table #5 represents the overall significance of the model. table #5 p-value is 0.000 that indicates that the model is significant which shows that the independent variables academic, work, spouse, and social are statistically significant and can predict the dependent variable. table 5: anovaa model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression 63.457 4 15.864 12.021 .000b residual 245.465 186 1.320 total 308.921 190 a. dependent variable: admission decision b. predictors: (constant), social, spouse, work, academic furthermore, table no. 6 shows that all independent variables are statistically significant and their coefficients are also statistically significant. the unstandardized coefficients are 0.733, 0.363, 0.410, and -0.547 for academic, work, spouse, and social respectively. table 6: coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients b std. error beta t sig. 1 (constant) -.072 .428 -.167 .868 academic .733 .228 .300 3.214 .002 work .363 .160 .184 2.269 .024 spouse .410 .111 .275 3.696 .000 social -.547 .154 -.342 -3.560 .000 42 factors influencing the university choice... a. dependent variable: admission decision the highest value of the unstandardized coefficient is 0.733 for academic which indicates that for each one-unit change in the academic variable, the dependent variable will change by 0.733. it exhibits that students more care about the academic characteristics of the university. the noteworthy point here is the unstandardized coefficient for social is -0.547 which shows that for one unit increase in social, the dependent variable will decrease by -0.547. the findings of the multiple regression analysis show that the academic reputation of the university is considered the most important factor and students prefer to get admission to wellreputed universities. conclusion the primary objective of this study is to find out the factors affecting the university choice decision of students in higher education. the study applied a factor analysis test to explore the important factors. moreover, multiple regression was also run to investigate the relationship between the concerned variables. the study concludes that university choice decision is a multi-factor decision. the study also concludes that the value of a degree from this school, a particular field of study available, size of the department, the reputation of department’s faculty, opportunity to work w/particular faculty, program structure and requirements, research opportunities, postgraduate job placement are most important factors. moreover, multiple regression analysis exhibits that there is a significant impact of the academic reputation of the university, work, social, and spouse to get admission in universities. this study provides important factors for universities to attract prospective postgraduate students because these factors can influence the enrollment process of universities. the study also concludes that universities should re-examination their strategies to attract students and hire qualified faculty members. this study suggests that higher education, pakistan should also address the issues of universities and should make suitable and implementable policies to promote higher education in pakistan. bibliography attiyeh, m. 1999. determinants of persistence of graduate students in ph.d. programs. education tale sting service. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 43 ethington, a., and smart, a. 1986. persistence to graduate education. research in higher education, 24 (3). 287-303. hurtado, s. 1994. graduate school racial climates and academic self-concept among minority graduate students in the 1970s, american journal of education, 102 (3), 330-351. kallio, r. 1995. factors influencing the college choice decisions of postgraduate students. research in higher education, 36 (1), 109-124. kankey, k., and quarterman, j. 2007. factors influencing the university choice of ncaa division i softball players. the smart journal, 3(2), 35-49. kotler, p. 1976. applying marketing theory to college admissions. in college entrance examination board (ed.), a role for marketing in college admissions. 54-72. new york: college entrance examination board. kusumawati, a. 2013. a qualitative study of the factors influencing student choice: the case of public university in indonesia, journal of basic and applied scientific research, 3(1), 314-327. latifah, i. 2015. “factors influencing malaysian students’ choice of major in universities in the united kingdom”. the online journal of quality in higher education, 2, 10-22. mcclain, d., b. vance, and e. wood 1984. understanding and predicting the yield in the mba admissions process. research in higher education 20(1), 55-76. mullen, a. l., kimberly. a., goyette and soares, j. a., 2003. who goes to postgraduate school? social and academic correlates of educational continuation after college. sociology of education, 76 (2), 143-169. naidu, p. and derani, n. 2016. a comparative study on quality of education received by students of private universities versus public universities. procedia economics and finance, 35, 659-666. nagaraj, s., s. munisamy, noor ismawati mohd jaafar, diana abdul wahab and t. mirzaei. 2008. “how do undergraduates choose their university? a study of first year university of malaya students”, fea working paper no. 2008–8, university of malaya. raposo, m., and helena, a. 2007. a model of university choice: an exploratory approach. mpra. smart, codina, a., and john, e. 1986. persistence to postgraduate education. research in higher education, 24 (3) said, j., nasir, n. m., and ghani, e. k., 2008. determinants of malaysian adult learners’ distance learning. us-china education review, 5 (5), 17-25. tatar, t., and oktay, m. 2006. search, choice and persistence for higher education: a case study in turkey. eurasia journal of mathematics, science and technology education, 2 (2), 115-129. webb, s., and coccari, l. 1997. doctoral programme what factors attract students. journal of marketing for higher education, 73-85. yusof, m., ahmad, s. n. b., tajudin, m. & ravindran, r. 2008. “a study of factors influencing the selection of a higher education institution”, unitar e-journal, 4(2), 27-40. contents * editorial * a study of the contemporary western academic approaches to history of the qur’én: the case of encyclopaedia of the qur’én. —iffat batool * a hebrew-skopos approach to translating muqaïïa‘ét in the qur’énic oaths —alalddin al-tarawneh * islamic viewpoint on surrogacy with the second wife —dr. muhammad qasim butt — prof. dr. sultan shah * khulafa-e-rashidên and the prosperity of religious minorities: an analysis — hafiz muhammad adeel, — dr muhammad riaz mahmood * the funding liquidity risk and bank risk: a review on the islamic and conventional banks in pakistan — saira ghulam hassan, — waeibrorheem waemustafa * index editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: prof. dr. muhammad saad siddique associate editor: dr. nigar sajjad zaheer published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websi tes: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy of this combined issue 330/070/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xliii january-march 2020 no. 1 5 7 29 53 73 83 103 hamdard islamicus 5 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 editorial this is a combined issue (no 1 & 2 of 2019) of the hamdard islamicus. we are missing our great mentor and editor of the journal, prof. dr. ansar zahid khan, while presenting this combined issue. he was an internationally recognized authority on history, whose temporal life came to end on 19th february 2019. earlier in january 2019 we lost first co-editor of our journal prof. dr. syed husain mohammad jafri. he was also a renowned academician of international repute. obituaries of both the luminaries are included in this issue. this issue comprises various research articles discussing qur’én, religiosity, theocracy and social media. the first article, “a critique of mohammed arkoun’s views on the qur’én,sunnah and religious thought”: an important article; which sheds light upon late mohammad arkoun’s views about the qur’én, that create considerable controversy. this article is a good criticism on arkoun’s view. social media has developed as a powerful alternative source of information having a significant impact on the society. the next article “social media, religion and religiosity in pakistan in the era of disruption” explores the broader scene of disruptive technologies in relation to muslims, islam and pakistan. it examines the social media landscape in pakistan and also points out the impact of disruptive technologies on the society in pakistan. the third article, “reconciling the views of ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz (d. 101 ah/ 720 ce) on mosque decoration” discusses the views of umar b.abd al-aziz, regarding mosque decoration and its emergence as the first muslim architectural deviations. the concept of istiîné’ offers, an alternative way for avoiding interest based loans. it presents a manufacturing contract for the accomplishment of various agricultural needs,thus solving the needs of low income farmers. the authors of the fourth article “the concept of istiîné’in islamic commercial law (sharê‘éh) and its possible role in the development of local farming in pakistan”discuss the concept of istiîné’, from the point of pakistani farmers. “the qur’énic version of the story of yusuf (joseph): labovian analysis of aziz-i-misr episode” is the fifth article analyzing labov’s model of narrative analysis and its application to qur’énic story of yusuf (joseph). ×ajj is an important obligation of islam. it is obligatory on all muslims subject to a few conditions. every year millions of muslims from the entire world gather to perform this sacred duty. this activity has a great and comprehensive impact on every muslim country. the sixth article is “the impact of ×ajj on the society of bangladesh”. the author emphasizes several reform movements in bengal as an outcome of ×ajj. “a critique of the theocratic model of the sultanate of delhi”, is the seventh article which argues that sultanate of delhi was neither a theocracy nor a sample of islamic polity. the next article is “the opposition of the shi‘ites towards kalém: with particular reference to tarjêí asélêb al-qur’én and al-rawì al-basim by the zaidite muhammad ibn ibrahim ibn al-wazir al-san‘éni (d. 840/1436). the title is self-explanatory of the main theme of the paper. various scholars have tried to interpret the rulings and admonitions by the qur’én. in recent decades there are few feminist approaches to differ from traditional exegeses on the gender equality issues and to try to form new qur’énic hermeneutics.the last article “some reflections on paradigm shift in qur’énic interpretation on gender equality issue discourse”is an attempt to study these feminist approaches. this issue includes two obituaries, two book reviews and the index of the hamdard islamicus vol. xli (2018) as well. editor-in-chief f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 4\final\content.pmd contents * editorial * sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders – remedies by the qur’ān and william shakespeare (a comparative study) — lutfullah saqib — muhammad amjad * islam: a religion of peace or force? an analysis based on the qur’an, sunnah and islam’s heritage — thameem ushama * the dialectic of orthodoxy and heresy in early islam — atta muhammad * mu‘tazilah, the first rationalist school of thought in islamic history: critical study of its ideology and approach — p.s. syed masood jamali — khalid waheed * the romantic interpretation of religion — afag sultan gyzy mammadova 5 7 35 55 71 97 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: prof. dr. muhammad saad siddiqui associate editor: prof. dr. nigar sajjad zaheer published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: editorial@hamdardislamicus.com.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websi tes: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] hamdard islamicus is indexed in scopus. articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 200 s. wacker dr. suite 3100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/payment should be in the name of the hamdard foundation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xliii october-december 2020 no. 4 * hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 51 cultural and religious perspectives on gender based notions of widowhood in south asian literature dr. amna saeeda nafeesa nazb aassistant professor dept. of humanities comsats university, islamabad doctor.amna9@gmail.com bresearch scholar dept. of humanities comsats university, islamabad this study aims to discuss the status of widow in comparison to the status of a widower, specifically about their right to re-marry, as portrayed in literature as a cultural reference and the qur’én as a religious framework. as cultural reference the novel the story of a widow by musharraf ali farooqi1 and the short story the eternal vine by ismat chughtai2 have been selected for the study respectively. the novel and the short story take into account the presumed status of the widows and widowers in south asian society. for the purpose of this study, comparative analysis of the novel and the short story under discussion is done using the comparative model proposed by tilly3 in integration with the comparative model proposed by walk.4 the article uses the theory of intersectionality proposed by crenshaw5 as the reference theoretical framework. the aim is to see how the male category is portrayed as the privileged one having a right to remarry even at an old age to a young girl while the female category is portrayed as the submissive category having no right to remarry at all. the evidence from the texts is studied in the light of qur’énic verses about widows as reference from the category of religion. keywords: widowhood, south asian literature, ismat chughtai, musharraf farooqi, the eternal vine, the story of a widow. the present research paper aims to discuss the status of widow in comparison to the status of a widower, specifically about their right to cultural and religious perspective...52 remarry, as portrayed in literature as a cultural reference and the qur’én as a religious framework. it also aims to bring to light the multiple categories of difference that intersect to form oppression and a source of manipulation for the widows in south asian society. for this purpose, the novel the story of a widow by musharraf ali farooqi and the short story the eternal vine by ismat chughtai are analyzed. as literature is a reflection of society, it is assumed that the behaviors shown in literature are practiced in the society. it is also aimed to focus that the categories of gender, literature, and culture intersect together to act as a source of oppression for the widows while religion actually liberates them specifically with respect to remarriage. the frame of reference for the comparison between the selected novel and the short story is the cultural and religious notions of widowhood as portrayed in literature for a female in contrast to a male in south asian society. for cultural category the selected literature serves as the reference of comparison and for religious category the reference from qur’én serves as the framework for the comparison to explore the gender based rights of widows/widowers. the rationale of comparison is the issue of unequal attitude/behaviour of society towards widows and widowers essentially the privileged status enjoyed by the widowers and the submissive status of widows in contrast to it. the organizational scheme of comparison selected for this research is text-by-text to avoid repeated alteration between the two texts. musharraf ali farooqi is a renowned pakistani-canadian writer, novelist, translator, storyteller, folklorist and essayist, born in hyderabad, pakistan in 1968. the story of a widow is the narrative of a lady in her early fifties, mona, who has recently gone through the trauma of death of her husband. she has grown-up and married daughters, amber and tanya, happily living in their houses. after the death of her husband, akbar ahmad, she lives in her house all alone, resuming her childhood hobby, gardening, to which she couldn’t give any time during the thirty years of her marriage, due to her tough schedule in serving her husband with his needs. this is how she plans to live the rest of her life. however, a revolutionary turn comes in her life with the arrival of a tenant salamat ali in her neighborhood, at the house of mrs. baig, her very nice friend. salamat ali himself has lost his wife a few years ago and has no children. the major turn comes when he sends mona a marriage proposal, upon which, she has to face bitter attitude by her own daughters and all family on her decision to re-marry. in contrast to it, the widower in the hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 53 story, salamat ali, being a male, faces no difficulty at all by anyone upon his decision to re-marry. the writer of the short story ismat chughtai is a sub-continent/ indian writer of urdu language. she is well known for her story the quilt which appeared in a lahore-based literary journal. she was among the pioneering muslim women to attain the degree of bachelors in art as well as in education, and has written many short stories, most of which have been translated into english. the eternal vine is the narrative of marriage of a girl in her teens to a widower in his fifties. uncle shujaat, the antagonist of the story has recently lost his first wife, and his sisters are in search of a ‘young’ girl to marry. kaneez fatima, a young widow is considered for it but she is not allowed to re-marry by her mother-inlaw. finally, a girl named rukhsana is selected for marriage to uncle shujaat. rukhsana, the protagonist is a teenage girl of the age enough to be uncle shujaat’s daughter. happily married, uncle shujaat becomes intoxicated with the beauty of his wife. with the passage of time, however, he starts to doubt her loyalty to him, accusing her of adultery. in the end of the story, uncle shujaat dies due to excessive use of chemical products to keep him young. thesis statement the story of a widow by musharraf ali farooqi is a novel that probes deep into the status of a widow in a society, and the questions raised by her family about her right to re-marry, though she has this right given to her by her religion. in contrast to it, the widower in the story, salamat ali, being a male, faces no difficulty at all by anyone upon his decision to re-marry. similarly, the eternal vine depicts the privileged status of a widower in a society, as uncle shujaat faces no hindrance, rather is supported by his family in his decision to re-marry. in contrast, the young widow kaneez fatima is not allowed to re-marry by her inlaws, though she too has this right by her religion. the purpose of this research is to explore, with the help of comparative study, gender inequality resulting in oppression for females, in south asian society. this oppression for widows is due to cultural behavioral norms attached with the female category of a patriarchal society. thus, the intersection of categories of religion, gender, literature and culture create coercion for the widows, which is important to highlight in the field of research. the problem of gender injustice for widows in comparison to widowers as portrayed and cultural and religious perspective...54 propagated through literature, though a serious issue, has rarely been researched earlier in literature. for this reason, the present research will open further arena for researching into the respective field. socio-cultural intersection of gender and religion gender is conventionally used as a term to differentiate between different classifications of nouns, including masculine, feminine and neuter or for the biological categories of male and female. with the passage of time, however, gender has come to be used as a cultural category rather than biological, with a set of habits being associated with both male and female categories.6 this categorization is used in the story and novel under discussion too, where being female or male alone decides the set of rights to be granted to widow or widower, respectively. the above phenomenon of differentiation on the basis of gender is termed as ‘gender injustice’. in contrast to it, ‘gender justice’ can be understood as a process that induces the women to question the authorities in their home, workplace, society, or the country for restraining the females’ right, on the basis of their gender, in taking decisions of their own will in any matter of their lives.7 the novel under discussion asserts the above-discussed idea in that the widow, subjugated and oppressed by her family and the society, in general, has to stand up to decide the matters of her life all by herself, thus fighting for gender justice. the concept of intersectionality is based on the notion of addressing more than one categories of difference, for example, race, gender, class, etc., intersecting together to form oppression, this multiplicity of categories playing a vital role in examination of complex problems in the society.8 similarly, collins (2000, 18)9 takes intersectionality as to “particular forms of oppressions, for example, the intersections of race and gender, or of sexuality and nations”. in her theory of intersectionality and the matrices of domination, she defines intersectionality as an “analysis claiming that systems of race, social class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, and age form mutually constructing features of social organization, which shape black women’s experiences and, in turn, are shaped by black women” (299). crenshaw’s (1989)10 notion of “the power of intersectional feminism”, is the critique of antidiscrimination doctrine and the intersectionality of feminism, gender, ethnic and class divisions. for crenshaw, the strategy of resistance and oppression can’t be addressed hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 55 by considering a single mode of resistance, instead, modes of resistance are multiple and are intersectional. crenshaw’s intersectional feminism examines the overlapping systems of oppression and discrimination that women face, based not just on a single category for example gender, but on ethnicity, sexuality, economic background and a number of other axes. the theory of intersectionality has found its widest application in the field of feminist and women studies, as noted by hancock11 that “the embrace of intersectionality has received its widest acceptance in feminist theory”. according to zinn,12 critical scholars in fields such as feminist studies apply collins’ intersectional concepts such as “outsider within”, “matrix of domination”, “interlocking oppressions” in their own intellectual projects, which shows applicability of this intersectional framework in feminist and women studies. the view of lykke13 about intersectioanlity is noteworthy, who defines it as a gathering place for open-ended investigations of the overlapping and conicting dynamics of race, gender, class, sexuality, nation, and other inequalities. singh14 notes that patriarchy encourages the identity of a woman only in relation to a male, as a mother, daughter or wife, which means she doesn’t have an identity of her own, rather she is only defined in relation to her male relatives, who are the ones to decide her fate, also that the a women is conventionally supposed to be all-giver, having the qualities of submission, passivity, sacrifice, compromise and tolerance, for her to be acceptable in the society as an ideal woman. in contrast, “to be a man in patriarchal society means to appear to be in control” (28). singh further holds the institution of family as the one to encourage, regulate and perpetuate the subjugation and supression of women. the society has unequal attitudes towards men and women, this gender discrimination being the manipulation and coercion of women by the hands of men.15 this is the result of categorising male a dominating, and females as a subjugating category, which is utterly wrong, for both are equal by birth. this is advocated by weininger16 as ‘the ideas ‘man’ and ‘woman’ cannot be investigated separately; their significance can be found only by placing them side by side’. similar equality for males and females can be seen in the verses of qur’én. research methodology in this research, the researcher makes use of the theory of intersectionality in feminist and women studies, proposed by crenshaw17 cultural and religious perspective...56 to see how gender injustice is perpetuated in the society through the representations in literature: widowers enjoying the right to re-marry, whereas widows being interrogated and questioned about their right to re-marry. the categories of difference are religion, gender, literature and culture. for this purpose, the comparative analysis method proposed by tilly18 is used to comprehend, understand the status and role of widows as expected and presumed by the subjects in south asian society. he proposed four types of methods for comparative analysis, including individualizing, universalizing, variation-finding and encompassing methods. out of these, method used as a model in the current research is the variation-finding method, which is defined by tilly19 as ‘establish[ing] a principle of variation in the character or intensity of a phenomenon by examining systematic differences between instances’ (82). the frame of reference can be described as the canopy under which we place our objects of comparison, it can be a theme or an idea in the light of which the objects are to be compared.20 for the present research the frame of reference for the comparison between the selected novel and the short story as the widowhood as portrayed in literature for a female in contrast to a male of south asian patriarchal society and compared to the qur’énic verses which clearly define the rights of widows of any society. comparative analysis on religious and cultural perspectives on the status of widow/ widower in south asian society and those who are taken in death among you and leave wives behind they, [the wives, shall] wait four months and ten [days]. and when they have fulfilled their term, then there is no blame upon you for what they do with themselves in an acceptable manner. and allah is [fully] acquainted with what you do. (the qur’én, ii:234) literature of a society is a reflection of the culture in which it is produced. in this regard, any social behavior depicted in literature, in general, is internalized by the subjects of that society too. this way, literature arguably is a means to see the practices and culture of a society. if seen from a critical eye, literature, somehow, becomes a means of subjugation and oppression for some specific subjects in the society; and a means for privileging other subjects. the literature under discussion, namely the short story the eternal vine and the novel the story of a widow are considerable in this regard as they place the widowers and widows in a specific position one as the privileged, the hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 57 other as the subjugated in the society, by their portrayal in the respective narratives, as revealed by comparative analysis of the texts. in the short story under discussion, the status ascribed to widowers is that of a privileged category who enjoy their right and complete freedom to re-marry even in old age. this is one of the striking characteristics of the story under discussion, and is evident from its’ very first line, bari mumani’s shroud was not yet soiled when the whole family began worrying about a new wife for uncle shujaat. a bride was now eagerly sought. whenever the women sat down after a meal and started leisurely work on garments for a dowry or a son’s bride-to-be, the talk invariably turned to the question of probable matches for uncle shujaat.21 the widower uncle shujaat, upon his decision to re-marry, despite his old age, is happily granted right to re-marry by his whole family. rather, it would be apt to say, that he, as portrayed in the story, being male in the society, didn’t need the right to be granted to him. instead, he took the decision of re-marrying all by himself as no consent or permission on his making the decision is shown to be taken by him from his family. instead, ‘when inundated with proposals, he became confused and handed the matter over to his sisters’22 which shows his independence in his taking the decision to re-marry. this independence is lacking in the case of the widows; kaneez fatima in the short story and mona in the novel. as discussed above, in contrast to widowers who are given the right to re-marry, kaneez fatima, the widow in the story under discussion, is oppressed by her mother-in law and is not allowed to re-marry. when the name of kaneez fatima is proposed by one of the relatives for uncle shujaat, it is discarded due to her mother-in-law who ‘since her son’s demise [she] has jealously sat guard over her daughter-in-law’.23 this behaviour of the society as shown in literature is followed in some areas of the country too, as it is substantiated by a research, according to which ‘in many families, as a custom in chitral (a district of khyber pakhtunkhwa), widows are not allowed to remarry as the property of that widow will remain with their heirs’.24 in this way, the widows, unlike widowers who enjoy their rights to re-marry, face oppression and are not given their due right by the family and/or society, which comes under the rubric of gender inequality. therefore, this is a grave situation, and the need of the time is to raise voice for the rights of the widows. the status of the widower in the novel under discussion is different from that in the short story. salamat ali, in the novel, enjoys a privileged position. throughout the entire novel, there is no hint of restriction of cultural and religious perspective...58 family or society upon him for his decision to re-marry, which confirms the notion of privilege for the widowers in the society. similar to the character of kaneez fatima in the short story, the widow mona (the protagonist of the novel) also faces oppression due to being female, unlike the males as discussed above who enjoy and use their right to re-marry. mona, having grown-up children, and being in her fifties, faces utter opposition of her family on her decision to re-marry after the death of her husband. the evidence of this can be seen in the novel when upon getting the marriage proposal by salamat ali, mona’s daughter tanya says to her, “what are you confused about? it would have been different if daddy had died young. everyone knows it’s difficult for a young woman to raise kids by herself. everybody would have understood that you had done it for us! now, however-”.25 this is highly questionable as widows have equal right to marry according to their wish, and family, by no means, has the right to question this decision. mona is not in any way involved with salamat ali, but upon receiving his proposal, she is interrogated by her very own daughter in a rude manner, as if she had done something gravely bad, “what are you going to do? the hostility in her daughter’s [tanya’s] voice was too obvious for mona to ignore”.26 this attitude of tanya as portrayed in the novel stands for the society on the whole, towards the widows. this interrogative tone is much louder when tanya further questions her mother, rather orders her to refuse for the proposal, which depicts the behavior of whole of the society, “why didn’t you say no to this man right away?”27 the grave oppression faced by the widow kaneez fatima as portrayed in the story is evident as due to her widowhood, she is not even allowed to leave the house ,‘the poor girl isn’t allowed to leave the house’.28 this is utterly negation of the rights of not only a widow, but a human in general too. the widower is allowed to re-marry, while the widow is not allowed. even more ironical is the fact that for the widower too, preference is of an unmarried girl, not a widow, ‘why should he go running after used goods when people are ready to present their daughters to him?’29. due to this behaviour, mostly the widowers normally get married, while the widows remained unmarried.30 in the story above discussed, the widower happily married by the support of his whole family, and his sisters themselves found him the match. in contrast, mona’s family, upon her receiving a proposal, instead of supporting her to re-marry, shuns and accuses her of staining the family’s reputation by receiving a marriage proposal in the age of fifty. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 59 her uncle says to her, “everyone who hears of it will spill on us!... they’ll think there was something in our niece’s behaviour or conduct that encouraged him to take matters to this extreme. and a neighbour to boot! how rumours will fly!”.31 this is substantiated by a un report, according to which, in pakistan, ‘the honour codes oppress all women, with a blanket of silence hiding the cruelty; and sometimes imprisonment, or even death, is inflicted on young widows who are suspected of bringing dishonour’ (2001, 7)32. for women, it is portrayed in literature that marriage after being widowed is deemed a sin, as portrayed in the previous story as well as in the novel under discussion that “a widow who seeks a second marriage was looked upon as a harlot in their society”33. if a woman is widowed, she is expected to give up any desire of remarrying, as mrs. kazi asks mona’s sister hina that she must discourage mona “from throwing away the labour of a lifetime! a woman’s reputation is all that she gains in this life. and this talk of a proposal of marriage-isn’t it also a little too late in the day?”34 in south asian patriarchal society, religious hypocrisy is at its peak. it is shown in literature that islam is misused as a tool or device of exploitation by the people. that is, subjects of the society use quotations from qur’én to support their stance, though it might be a wrong stance to take, in order to exert their power and restrain others according to their will. this is termed by omelicheva35 as ‘instrumentalization of religion’. this religious hypocrisy is evident in behaviour of people, who seldom act upon religious obligations, but are most active when it comes to defend their points with the help of islam. religious hypocrisy is also portrayed in literature with respect to the status of widows and their right to remarry. according to yilmaz36, “religion has always supplied the ready-made material for representing, asserting, and legitimizing old and new forms of authority”. evidence for this lies in the novel under discussion, in which mrs. kazi uses the same tool to target mona’s issue of proposal and remarriage, saying that “in good families it was considered very scandalous at one time to marry after one’s spouse died. especially for women. and some consider it very disreputable still!”.37 however, in the light of islam, widows have a complete right to remarry and the society has, by no means, any right to hold it back or keep widows from re-marrying, as according to a verse of qur’én, ‘those among you who pass away and leave wives behind their wives keep cultural and religious perspective...60 themselves waiting for four months and ten days. so, when they have reached (the end of) their waiting period, there is no sin on you in what they do with themselves in recognized manner. and allah is all-aware of what you do’ (ii: 234). in a similar manner, widows are given a right in inheritance too, as told in qur’én, ‘for them (the wives) there is onefourth of what you leave behind, in case you have no child. but if you have a child they get one eighth of what you leave’ (iv: 12). therefore, in the light of islam, there is no forbiddance for widows about re-marrying. rather, they have equal rights as the widowers to marry as per their will and choice, and the family or the society have no right to prohibit them in doing so. in short, widows have equal right as the widowers to take all the important decisions of their lives. they also have the right to re-marry according to their own will, after the death of their husbands, which is proved by the holy qur’én too, but is not shown in literature to be followed by the society. conclusion concluding the whole discussion in the light of the comparative analysis of the short story the eternal vine by chughtai and the novel the story of a widow by farooqi, it can be asserted that the status of the widows is falsely portrayed in literature as creatures to be oppressed, commanded and limited to the confines of their home. it is shown that culture, gender and society act as the major source of oppression for widows, while literature acts to give voice to the widows, and religion elevates and liberates them. thus, the categories of oppression turn out to be gender, culture and society, all taken together form multiple oppression for widows like mona and kaneez fatima, as per crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality in feminist studies (1989)38, while the category of religion acts as a liberator, and literature functions to give voice to the widows. in this way, the status of a widow in the south asian society is portrayed as oppressed in literature in order to highlight the problems faced by them. on the other hand, widowers are portrayed as a privileged category, having right to re-marry by their will and choice. in this way, gender inequality is perpetuated in society by presenting it in literature. this research will be of benefit to those interested in the sphere of literature and the status of widowers and widows in any patriarchal society. furthermore, it can open a new sphere of research into the hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 61 problems faced by middle-aged or old-aged widows regarding their autonomy and role in the context of any south asian patriarchal society. notes and references 1. farooqi, m. a. (2008). the story of a widow. canada: a. a. knopf. 2. chughtai, i. (2004). the eternal vine. in a chughtai collection: the quilt and other stories, the heart breaks free, and the wild one (4). retrieved from https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.524777/page/n5. 3. tilly, c. (1984). finding variation. in big structures, large processes, huge comparisons (pp. 116-124). russell sage foundation. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/9781610447720.11. 4. walk, k. (1998). how to write a comparative analysis [webpage document]. retrieved from https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/how-write-comparativeanalysis. 5. crenshaw, k. (1989). demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. university of chicago legal forum, 1989(1), 139-167. retrieved from www.chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf. 6. mitchell, k. (2011). gender theory. john wiley & sons. 617-623. 7. goetz, a. m. (2007). gender, justice, citizenship and entitlements: core concepts, central debates and new directions for research. in mukhopadhyay, m. & singh, n. (eds.),gender, justice, citizenship and development (pp 1557). new delhi: zubaan. 8. hancock, a.-m. (2007). intersectionality as a normative and empirical paradigm. politics & gender, 3(2), 248-254. doi:10.1017/s1743923x07000074. 9. collins, p. h. (2000). black feminist thought: knowledge, consciousness and the politics of empowerment (2nd ed.). new york: routledge. 10. crenshaw, k. (1989). demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. university of chicago legal forum, 1989(1), pp. 139-167. retrieved from www.chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf 11. hancock, a.-m. (2007). when multiplication doesn’t equal quick addition: examining intersectionality as a research paradigm. perspectives on politics, 5(1), pp. 63-79. doi: 10.1017/s1537592707070065. 12. zinn, m. b. (2012). patricia hill collins: past and future innovations. gender and society, 26(1), 28-32. doi:10.1177/0891243211426873. 13. lykke, n (2011), intersectional analysis: black box or useful critical feminist thinking technology. in h. lutz, m. herrera-vivar & v. l. supik (eds.), framing intersectionality debates on a multi-faceted concept in gender studies (pp 207– 221). 14. singh, a. v. (2016). the influence of patriarchy on gender roles. international journal of english language, literature and translation studies, pp. 27-29. 15. belkhir, j., & barnett, b. (2001). race, gender and class intersectionality. race, cultural and religious perspective...62 gender & class, 8(3), 157-174. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 41674988. 16. weininger, o. (1998). sex and character (1903). in bland, l. & doan, l. (eds.), sexology uncensored: the documents of sexual science (pp 27). chicago, university of chicago press. 17. crenshaw, k. (1989). demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. university of chicago legal forum, 1989(1), 139-167. retrieved from www.chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf 18. tilly, c. (1984). finding variation. in big structures, large processes, huge comparisons (pp. 116-124). russell sage foundation. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/9781610447720.11 19. tilly, c. (1984). finding variation. in big structures, large processes, huge comparisons (pp. 116-124). russell sage foundation. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/9781610447720.11 20. walk, k. (1998). how to write a comparative analysis [webpage document]. retrieved from https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/how-write-comparativeanalysis. 21. chughtai, i. (2004). the eternal vine. in a chughtai collection: the quilt and other stories, the heart breaks free, and the wild one (4). retrieved from https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.524777/page/n5 22. chughtai, i. (2004). the eternal vine. in a chughtai collection: the quilt and other stories, the heart breaks free, and the wild one (4). retrieved from https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.524777/page/n5 23. chughtai, i. (2004). the eternal vine. in a chughtai collection: the quilt and other stories, the heart breaks free, and the wild one (4). retrieved from https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.524777/page/n5 24. alam, a., ibrar, m., & khan, p. (2016). socio-economic and psychological problems of the senior citizens of pakistan. peshawar journal of psychology and behavioral sciences, 2(2), 249-262. retrieved from https://pjpbsicp.com/ index.php/pjpbs/article/view/77/5 25. farooqi, m. a. (2008). the story of a widow. canada: a. a. knopf. 26. farooqi, m. a. (2008). the story of a widow. canada: a. a. knopf. 27. farooqi, m. a. (2008). the story of a widow. canada: a. a. knopf. 28. chughtai, i. (2004). the eternal vine. in a chughtai collection: the quilt and other stories, the heart breaks free, and the wild one (4). retrieved from https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.524777/page/n5. 29. chughtai, i. (2004). the eternal vine. in a chughtai collection: the quilt and other stories, the heart breaks free, and the wild one (4). retrieved from https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.524777/page/n5. 30. alam, a., ibrar, m., & khan, p. (2016). socio-economic and psychological problems of the senior citizens of pakistan. peshawar journal of psychology and behavioral sciences,2(2),249-262.retrievedfrom https://pjpbsicp.com/ index.php/pjpbs/article/view/77/5 31. farooqi, m. a. (2008). the story of a widow. canada: a. a. knopf. 32. united nations. (2001). widowhood: invisible women, secluded or excluded. new york, owen, m. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 63 33. farooqi, m. a. (2008). the story of a widow. canada: a. a. knopf. 34. farooqi, m. a. (2008). the story of a widow. canada: a. a. knopf. 35. omelicheva, m. y. (2016). islam and power legitimation: instrumentalisation of religion in central asian states. contemporary politics, vol. xxii , issue 2, pp. 144-163. 36. yilmaz, i. (2011). beyond post-islamism: transformation of turkish islamism toward ‘civil islam’ and its potential influence in the muslim world. european journal of economic and political studies, pp. 245-280. 37. farooqi, m. a. (2008). the story of a widow. canada: a. a. knopf. 38. crenshaw, k. (1989). demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. university of chicago legal forum, 1989(1), 139-167. retrieved from www.chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 3\the influence of vincent van.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 97 the influence of vincent van gogh’s religious background on his works in the nuenen period prof. monther sameh al-atoum department of plastic arts – faculty of fine atrs yarmouk university – irbid/ jordan e-mail: monzeral@hotmail.com the current study aims to identify the impact of vincent van gogh’s religious life on his works of art during his stay in nuenen, and the mechanism of his employment in selecting the works of that period, using the analytical descriptive approach to interpret and analyze this stage. the study found that the background of the religious artist had a great impact on his works. depicting the lives and sympathy of poor and oppressed peasants, working classes and hard working classes as a sacred function of solidarity with human conditions, it represents religious depth and creates a profound spiritual impression, often drawing many works of farming and agriculture that gives a symbolic meaning to the fact that farmers are linked to land despite their misery lives. keywords: vincent van gogh, religious background, nuenen period, potato eaters. introduction the artist vincent van gogh is a post-impression artist whose works were neglected during his artistic career, only one of his paintings was sold in that time, and his art was recognized only after his death. his reputation goes back to his brother theo’s widow, where after his death she sold some of his paintings. she published some of his speeches that he wrote for her husband, which helped in spreading the story of his life, so his fame began spreading in artistic and literary circles alike, through which he expressed his philosophy through art, and carries with it his concerns, problems, ambition, works, relationship with others and his outlook on life. this research will highlight an important station of his life in the nuenen period, which is affected by his previous stages of life, especially 98 the influence of vincent van... the part related to his religious belief, although he did not succeed in it. he did not succeed in being a priest or a cleric after suffering for that long periods, and various attempts during which he turned over various christian and missionary sects, which eventually led to his refusal by the leaders of the religious community, which led to his increasing religious maturity and to a vision that differed from the clerics on one hand and his father on the other. to the conviction that the creation of the creator’s will lies in the human spirit and the ability to influence and assist others, and that his role can be to serve society, especially the poor and the simple community, by portraying their difficult lives to achieve the highest gains. by studying his personal, historical, religious, emotional and psychological biography, he loved nature very much, and he felt the suffering of simple people who work hard and earn their strength from the sweat of their foreheads, live a difficult life, and have taken on his responsibility to portray their suffering. he produced great works with symbolic semantics and deeper heavenly messages that cannot be understood without analysis and depth of details. the research will identify the artist’s personal background and the suffering that has lasted 37 years since his birth and its most important stations, through which the reader can be guided by the nature of the artist’s religious life, the mechanism and the way of preaching that he adopted and his view toward simplicity, austerity, exemplary example and its reflections on his works. the artist produced a well-documented and eloquent message to his younger brother theo, in addition to the messages he sent and exchanged with the senior literary figures, where he himself and his dreams, hallucinations and disease were dating. his philosophy was strong towards life, continuous rebellion, and his writings were full of nature beauty and others were about his works of art. only his brother theo, whose companion, was a close brotherhood that ended only with his death, could enter his own world, as he recorded many works through his letters to give them numbers. he recorded his journey in life, his vision and his emotions and feelings, starting from madness and gloom to suicide. problem of the study although the life biography of artist vincent van gogh in the nuenen period is an essential stage in his artistic life and religious depth, there hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 99 is poverty in studying this important stage, which was founded for his later artistic life stages that gained international fame. questions of the study · did vincent van gogh’s religious background affect his work in the nuenen period 1883-1885? · how did vincent van gogh express his religious perceptions in his works that produced in the nuenen period 1883-1885? objectives of the study the current study aims to identify the impact of vincent van gogh’s religious life on his works of art during his stay in nuenen, and the mechanism for employing his religious view of the selection and symbolism of the works of that period. importance of the study the importance of the current study is to highlight an important stage of life for vincent van gogh to supply the world’s libraries with this type of study, given the scarcity of analytical and critical technical courses covering this period, which may help researchers, draw their attention, and highlight this important stage of gogh’s life. methodology of the study the researcher used the analytical descriptive methodology in this study to interpret and analyze an important stage of artist vincent van gogh’s life. first: personal and artistic background. artist vincent van gogh was exposed to permanent shocks in his life that started since his birth on march 30, 1853, a year after the death of his brother who was born dead, so he was named after him, which negatively affected his psyche and caused a psychological shock to him because he saw himself as the alternative child. when he went to the church, he passed on a tomb called him, and since his early childhood he had always waned in the fields, creating a love for the dutch nature, 100 the influence of vincent van... which was imprinted in his mind and his heart was full of beauty. (biography.com editors, 2020). at the age of 11, his parents had been enrolled him in an internal school about 30 kilometers from his home, under the pretext of removing him from nature and the children of the peasants, he left school two years later, and when he reached 16, he had the first to deal with art works as a seller. he went to the hague in southern netherlands to work at “goupil & cie” in 1869, the international company for selling paintings, where his uncle was a partner, and then moved to the company’s headquarters in london in 1873 (hulsker, 1990). after that vincent moved to paris 1875, where he worked as a craft dealer or an art dealer for paintings, he moved from belgium to paris, and these are important stations for van gogh’s life, an important factor for his taste, art, and the growth of his esthetic sense and artistic experience. although his three brothers were working in the same profession, he left the company in 1876 after getting bored. he returned to england, where he worked as a language teacher assistant in a london school, started preaching among the poor, and in 1877 he returned to the netherlands and joined a religious doctrine in amsterdam but didn’t complete his study. in 1878, he was sent to the province of borinage in belgium, to work on a mission of missionary coal miners, and later his services were dispensed with. (meyers, 20a). in 1880 he decided to go to art to alleviate his self, encouraged by his brother theo, began to take drawing lessons in brussels. he moved to the hague in 1882 to practice photography at his relative’s photographer, anton mauve, a corot follower, and joined the arts academy in antwerp for a year. he returned to his village and home of nuenen in 1883, where his artistic career began taking a new ordeal, and the peasants were an important source of his work (trabaut, 1969). in 1886, a year after his father’s death, he moved to paris, where he was close to the artist francois millet, influenced by his style and his works, and learned from important artists such as paul gauguin, who had a great influence on him, claude monet, camille pissarro, edgar digas and others. this stage is considered an important stage in his artistic life, changing his style and changing his gray and brown colors into bright and clear colors, and changing his themes. (meyers, 2020 b) he left paris to arles in southern france in february 1888, where warmth and sun were found. he went out to the fields and drew them with great enthusiasm using strong, inflame colors especially using yellow hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 101 colors. and he called paul gauguin to stay with him in arles, recording the most famous situation when he cut his ear. the artist martin billy confirms that the reason for cutting off part of his ear is due to his brother theo’s decision to marry, which confused him with the loss of his family and his only friend, after which he was placed in the arles hospital until he left her to the sanatorium of saint-remy-de-provence in 1889, he was affected by japanese prints and publications during his stay there. in 1890, he moved to dr. gachet, a friend of artists in overy. in 1990, in a wheat field, he received a bullet beneath his heart thought to be a suicidebombing incident, which he died in two days before he died, writing, “i wanted my life to be like that” (smith, 2012). there are several studies by psychiatrists to determine vincent’s psychological disorders, but they were unable to determine exactly what the exact suffering, and many agreed that he had suffered from several psychiatric disorders, such as: depression, epilepsy, hallucinations, schizophrenia and syphilis, in addition to the autism confirmed by his sister elizabeth, as she have called him isolated and grandly and avoid looking into the eyes of others. (voskuil, 2005): (kalyan, & saurabh, 2015) second: his religious life and beliefs. he grew up in a religious environment, his grandfather, his uncles, and his father, theodorus, were religious men, which created a solid religious ground that had given him an interest in the bible and his teachings, and he was influenced by his father’s long-term personality, where his father was a good role model in this aspect and a life-giving. his father’s job helped others and those in need, going long distances to visit a sick person who was dying or suffering, and sending hope and reassurance, vincent loved being a cleric to follow his father’s religious approach and help others. after goupil finished his work in 1875, vincent returned to england in 1876 to work as a unpaid teacher at a port-view school in ramsgate. also, he joined the assistant secretary’s office, and worked there as interim secretary for priest jones in isleworth, who worked for the methodist church for nearly a year, where the boys taught the history of the bible. he was given the opportunity to present an exhorted sermon at the methodist eusseatic church in richmond in october, shortly after which he became a secular (outside of the priesthood) in the presbyterian 102 the influence of vincent van... church of norham green. after which he was arranged by his uncle as a writer and media writer at a library in dordrecht, where his religious fanaticism began to emerge and spin out of control, and his writings and ideas became drenched with an unbridled desire to become a preacher, and he moved from one church service to another exploring a great diversity among christian denominations. (bakker, n. & jansen, l. luijten, h., 2009) he later expressed his desire to act as a cleric and preacher in the suburbs of london,” (lt 69, 1876) as van gogh’s writing to theo: “you know i am going to the methodist church here on monday night” (lt 75, 1876), in the christmas period that year he returned home and found work in the dordrecht library. he stayed with his uncle jean van gogh, deputy maritime admiral, and his other uncle, johannes stricker, the first to publish “jesus’ life” in the netherlands to prepare for the acceptance exam, but van gogh did not show any improvement in the classic greek and latin study, he failed the exam, and left his uncle jean’s house in july 1878. then he took a three-month course at the vlaamsche opleidings school, a well-known protestant missionary school in the netherlands in the district of laeken, close to brussels (yongnam, 2017). in january 1879, he took up a temporary position as a missionary in the village petit-wasmes in the coal mining area of borinage in belgium, applying the principles of a priest. there he lived a difficult lifestyle and abandoned his possessions to live with the poor, sleeping in a straw hut in the back of the house of the baker, his place of residence. he was so seriously affected by their situation that he was giving them food and clothing, becoming a favorite and a “life donor” among miners, and he was known as the “mine christian”. this station is one of the most important stations in his life where he has practically experienced the life of poverty and misery, but the church authorities he contracted with have not like his deeds and actions, harassed him in this way, and dismissed him under the excuse or justification of “undermining the dignity of the priesthood” at the end of 1879 (meyers, 2020b). vincent left prokal and returned to the village of cuesmes viborinage where he succumbed to pressure and stress, he asked the family to return to latins, he stayed there for about a year until march, returning in october to cuesmes and stayed with a mine worker called charles decrucq charles. in this period, he began increasingly to care about drawing people and nature, in water colors, while his brother theo suggested painting in oil colors and taking art seriously, and then he traveled to brussels in the fall to start studying art with the famous hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 103 dutch artist willem roelofs, attending classes at the royale des beauxarts academic in brussels, he was registered on november 15, 1880 at the academy, where he studied anatomy and standard rules of modeling and perspective (trabaaut, 1969), but for him the idea of academic study was a blunder, because his ambition was to become an artist in the service of god. gogh was unable to support himself, and found himself unable to continue the issue of religion, finally he decided to put an end to the idea of being a priest or a preacher forever, and his love and interest towards miners and peasants became an existential issue in his artistic production, as the idea of suffering these classes became well established. this is what was mentioned in his speech to his brother theo (lt 194, 1881) confirms. although vincent was influenced by his father, his vision was different from his father’s, as he believed that faith did not stem from teachings but from a feeling of humanity toward others, especially the working and the old working classes of workers and peasants. in his letter, to his brother theo on 26 november 1882, he wrote “this feeling is completely out of theology, the fact is that the poorest of the squatters or peasants have moments of passion and inspiration that give a sense of eternal residence ... sometimes there is something undescribed in these aspects, nature all seem to speak, and for me i do not understand why everyone don’t see it and why they don’t feel it, nature or god speaks to everyone who has eyes, ears, and heart to understand (metzger 1996) van gogh’s father died in 1885 at the age of sixty-third, and he produced one of his important works in that period named “a silent life with the open bible”, work no. 1/ no. f117, by drawing the bible open with a flying candle. gogh produced this work to reconcile him after the death of his father and confirm what they both have more than the blood association, as his father wanted him to be a priest, and tried to support him in several stations. his father didn’t want him to be a painter, neither did he sympathize with gogh nor did he want to understand him when he became a painter. they were in several quarrel while they were in the house because of their opposing positions. in his view, gogh sees deeper things in the bible comparing him with his father, that is what we can see in his litters to his brother theo (154,1881). although he disagreed with his father, he continues to try to understand him. he sought to find a link with his father all the time also he wanted to obtain the father’s consent to be a famous painter. 104 the influence of vincent van... fig 1: still life with bible, oil on canvas, 65.7 x 78.5 cm., nuenen: october, 1885, amsterdam: van gogh museum third: examples of his work in nuenen in this part of the study, the important period of the artist’s life will be recognized. vincent van gogh in his village nuenen, which was the result of experiences and skills acquired over the past thirty years between psychological trauma since his birth and his failure to form a family, and his failure in the field of religion, and obtain a job to work in art trade, and to establish a stable relationship with his father, all of these events that preceded the time of nuenen formed the personality of van gogh, and helped him crystallized his ideas to arrive at a sublime idea of linking art to beliefs. after returning to huge, he went back to his village of nuenen, where his parents lived there. during this period, he appeared as a truly great artist who founded his later stages of artistic life, starting with drawing the lives of peasants and field workers, a subject that he was fond of, and affected by the style of francois millete had drawings. the technology that rambrandt implemented, it was clearly seen as a development in technology in this period and proved to be an applied learning experience that clearly crystallized his ideas, drew his artistic line, and determined his style and artistic way (national gallery of art, 1998). during his time in nuenen/antwerp between december 1883 and november 1885, van gogh produced more than 188 works affected by his religious beliefs, most of which were studies of his favorite work, “potato eaters “ (grant, 2014), and he also studied nature, houses and huts, animals, fields, and water mills. he drew herders, wood collectors, hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 105 field workers in agriculture and harvesting, and the daily work of houses: washing, sainting and sewing, as well as pictures of deer and animals, workplaces from abroad and inside, as many studies of personal porteries have done, people and faces have been drawn in different situations, and he have become interested in and felt a strong relation toward them. he used art as a mean of communication with poor people to achieve his message as a preacher and a human, and most of his works were serious studies of workers lives, “ the potato eaters”. the artist van gogh in nuenen’s time was challenging himself and very careful to master the techniques of the classical drawing, even though but the lack of academic study was an obstacle in his way. this period of the artist’s life caused many failures because he could not photograph people on the surface of the canons. these technical difficulties were represented by drawing people, especially the works that produced at the beginning of this period, as in the work of number (2)/ number (f129a), which was a rigid, semi-fixed and restricted image of its movement, and sometimes the forms of the people became a piece of nature around it and merged with the surrounding land. this is what we find in the inertia and work of the peasants, where they are portrayed as rocks by the artist, which amazes the viewer when he sees them with their strength and strong bonds with the soil on which they stand on. this is refined through the horizon line that was drew with a high skill, from here we find that the artist wanted to find a strong link between the farmer and the land. without the land, the farmer does not exist because it is the one who supplies him with the food of his day, as the artist depicted through him the hard and tired work of the farmers. fig 2: peasant man and woman planting potatoes. april 1885.33.0 x 41.0 cm. oil on canvas. kunsthaus zürich, zürich, switzerland. 106 the influence of vincent van... the long and dark shadows also emphasize the link between land and peasants in this work, that the idea of bending at work may not symbolize their position in society but may be respectful of the owner. this work has been created in a spirit of realism with some rebellion, which is not lost in its value and deep meaning. the work is therefore related to the extent that the peasant is connected to the earth that gives him strength and the color system used is very harmonious. the artist has chosen the horizon in a way that pressurizes the degree of curvature of the peasants on the ground, as well as the long shadows that they are fixating on the ground and firmly linking them to it. this image that the artist intended to convey to the scene shows his appreciation and respect for this class as important and great figures in society, and the artist has inspired this work as a lot of work by the artist jean-françois millete, who dealt with the issues of the great class. we find him influenced by his creations and adore him as a peasant’s advocate and reproducing many of his works (description picture, 2019). his attempts to form a family or friends were unsuccessful, his tormented soul was eager for love and did not find anyone to care about it, where he wrote in 1877 a letter to his sister willy, “i always got out of love stories with shame, and he tended to love and cause trouble”. he said that love needs to be made more effort to be achieved, and love is so much wanted, but he was unable to grant that he was obsessed with art in addition to his redness by women, as his emotional adventures ended with failure. starting from the relation with his cousin’s daughter, sen, the prostitute he met during his stay in the netherlands, where he described their relationship as a hapless couple, in addition to his subsequent relationship with agostina segatori, the owner of one of a famous restaurants at the time in paris, was born with the conviction that love was unworthy, that this work might represent his emotional inadequacy. in his work “a woman farmer near the stove”, it is considered part of a preparatory studies for the “potato eaters” panel, where vincent wrote to his brother theo during that period about the numbers of the peasants and peasant women drawn, plate no. f158. in these dark paintings, van gogh captured the effects of lighting by placing his model on light near fire or flame to create a contrast between shadow and light, and by correspondence to his brother theo in march 1885, he wrote: “i can’t show one painting now. but i do a lot of studies ... where it is difficult to determine where to study and when to start and end”. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 107 fig 3: peasant woman near the hearth. 1885.29.5 x 40.0 cm. oil on canvas. musée d’orsay, paris, france. fig 4: study for ‘the potato eaters’, oil on canvas, 33.5 x 44.4 cm., nuenen: early april, 1885, amsterdam: van gogh museum fig 5: the potato eaters, oil on canvas on panel, 72.0 x 93.0 cm., nuenen: april, 1885, otterlo: kröller-müller museum 108 the influence of vincent van... this work of vincent van gogh, which was drawn in the village of nuenen, has a great meaning, as he portrays a farmer woman farmer in her humble kitchen sitting in front of an open fire and the potato peel surrounded by darkness, as well as her face expressions, where the dark colors around her nose and two wings appear to be the factors of sadness and misery. the distribution of formal and color spaces in the work gives it an atmosphere of chaos and misery, which is represented by the method of cooking peasants on firewood, where the artist shows the difficult nature of life experienced by farmers and the industrious class during that period through expressing the place, its nature and conditions. this creation gave the work an unconventional value and create a mysterious feeling. looking at the works of van gogh in nuenen, the most important and largest accomplishment he had was the work of “ the potato eaters”, where the artist worked for more than two years to reach this satisfactory result, and was an effort and continuous and continuous working of serious and preparatory studies of this work, where there is a copy of it a preparatory is available in the van gogh museum in amsterdam, picture no. (4), and another study of it is available in the kroller muller museum. image no. (5) takes no. (78). the lithograph version of the “stone print”, which is located at the rijks museum in amsterdam, is a number (6) and takes the number (f 1661), of which there is a sketch on one of his letters to his brother theo, located at the van gogh museum in amsterdam, photo number (7). fig 6: lithograph (april 1885),26.5 x 32.0 cm. reversed, rijksmuseum, amsterdam hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 109 fig 7: vincent van gogh, letter from vincent van gogh to theo van gogh with sketch of the potato eaters, nuenen, 9 april 1885, pen and ink on paper, 20.7 x 26.4 cm, van gogh museum, amsterdam (vincent van gogh foundation) letter 492 the completed version is located at rijks museum vincent van gogh in amsterdam, where it takes number 8 (f 82), and vincent van gogh is considered the first and best of his paintings. fig 8: the potato-eaters. april 1885. oil on canvas. 82.0 x 114.0 cm. vincent van gogh foundation, rijksmuseum vincent van gogh, amsterdam, the netherlands. the general style used in this painting is the classic style, where the lines flow and agree in the work parts without stopping, the artist drew this painting to be one of his most important artistic projects, and to prove his artistic presence through which he expressed his professionalism. he described the harsh life of the peasant class, which was the foundation of physical communities and food security during that period. the artist depicts a three-generation rural family eating dinner with a light hanging lamp, on the surface of the work, but in its details the 110 the influence of vincent van... work carries symbolic, social, religious and human dimensions, as well as the visual dimension and artistic vocabulary of this genius work, intertwined to form a system of values. the artist wanted to depict the simple life of the public, and chose to depict the harsh and bitter reality of rural life, van gogh meant to portray the peasants in this harsh form to be more natural, and to express the reality, van gogh wrote his brother theo in his letter lt 497,1885), saying, “as you see it, i wanted to make that moment very special, the moment of these people eating potatoes in light of their small lamp with their rough hands, by which they grow, assuring that they got their food honestly, that this plate is creating a totally different lifestyle from the civilized one. so, i don’t want anyone to like the painting without knowing why i made it.” this work has its effect on everyone sees it, given its important theme of depicting the harsh nature of life in society’s bereaved-class families, it has been dramatically illustrated by the impact of all the dimensions, composition, and color involved. despite the dark colors of work, it remains bright despite the darkness that spreads throughout the work and suggests gloom and silence, as the artist has been awe in spreading light all over the panel. he brushed on some fine details to find light that comes out of the middle of the job to illuminate people’s faces from a lamp hanging above them that radiates the light for the session, people seem to come from another time between ghosts or angels. although he used various shades of dark brown, green is the dominant color and yellow is reddish. the use of dark, dark and rusty colors was deliberately used, the artist wanted to convey the sense and misery of these poor to all who see them. their faces are pale, gloomy, and rude, representing a bitter reality and an unknown future that may be even more unjust and harsh. we find in this work a family of five, who reached a high degree of poverty and obsession, peasants with rough and frayed hands and rough hard faces that gather around a square-shaped table, stowing over a plate of large-scale hot potatoes, which are heated from which steam rises, hands extend with fingers that look bony for their weakness and shaking. in a room that reflects poverty and need. he wanted to show that this hands which are around the plate are the same that work in the earth, and they earn their food from the sweat of their foreheads with honor and integrity. as he lived this life and knew it well, as he didn’t live an easy life. the four faces in the drawing that are all similar in their features, their parts, their suffering and their grief. this is can be evident from the appearance of the beads, the noses, the suffering eyes, and dry hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 111 and flat-looking faces, the raised bones and thick lips. as well as the burning skin color of the sun, wearing thick clothing and hats, and the rising steam of potatoes and the luster which shows the cooling atmosphere. the girl who sits at the front of the board is the youngest, and the artist has blinded her features, leaving her to reflect on the imagination and think about what her face might look like, as she may not has as much as the concern and gloom that other people have the board because of her young age. she may be more happy and less painful than the adults, and she has plenty of time to absorb that pain and feel the same fear and anxiety that has been smiled on the faces of others, as she has given the girl a touch of hope. but fear is dominating the general atmosphere of acting with a built-in fear over time that is clear to suggest that they are gathering their food first and foremost, and if there is no work tomorrow there will not have potato. a concern that extends to the features of the small and worn house that demonstrates the difficult nature of their living, very old and very random whether it is built or in its interior design or by distributing spaces and furniture to the top left of the panel. the pillar that supports the ceiling feels that it no longer bears the ceiling, while the windows feel that they have not been opened long ago, they are found in the room, built randomly, not geometric, the ceiling built on tree log layers topped by cane and a layer of cement or clay that does not seem safe due to its foot and its wobbly. over time, it may not hold out long, and in the upper left of the job there is a hanging clock, which may be at a standstill, though it doesn’t matter to them, it is forgotten as time forgot them with no return. the family is meeting around the table in a scene that draws its idea from the mainstream and sacred social order, which is the meeting of all family members to dine together. the choice of an artist for this important moment is an achievement in itself, but he managed to deepen the sanctity of the desperate family meeting that is being planted or reaped all day, and then they get the morsels. this is a philosophical view of a reality that is repeated in the quantity of what these produces and the amount of what they receive in return. the meditation of vincent van gogh’s work during his stay in nuenen reflected and highlighted the poor, living-fighting classes, he reflected his experience as a cleric and proselytizer for miners, who experienced the difficulty of that life and felt the injustice of this social class by the rich. 112 the influence of vincent van... in addition to the reflections of religious dismay that were refined during his previous periods. discussion the results of the study in the past, we conclude that the artist vincent van gogh’s background in religion influenced his works in the nuenen period, where he truly saw himself as a sacred and sympathetic to humanity. his religious role is to clarify the lives of peasants in order to achieve a higher goal of equality with other classes by highlighting their suffering and feeling, as can be seen from his works which is deep in religion and leaves a profound spiritual impression on its contemporaneous. the artist wanted to link art and religion in a different way, so that they cannot be separated, as van gogh has taken on it to express the suffering of the poor class, as a sacred function of solidarity with human cases and social oppressed through many of his works he drew in this period. he wanted to relieve them by deepening the pain to this level, and during this period he learned solidarity with the poor and their oppressed and their consolation, as he drew in many of his works in this period the couples, who wanted and sought it, and saw it from a religious and sacred point of view. van gogh expressed his religious perceptions in the nuenen period by addressing the topics of the social classes that fight for life, as the peasants’ pictures are working on the ground and get the morsels from their food from their own foreheads sweat with patience, sacrifice and hard work. he has more than drawn the works of drilling, agriculture and harvesting, and the life cycle that may represent more than death and life. he has also drawn subjects related to potato cultivation and harvesting, which indicates the symbolism of potatoes and their relationship to the food security of agricultural societies at the time. the color of potatoes in many works much like the colors and veneer of living in the hardness of life, he has also portrayed that his drawing of many farming works gives a symbolic meaning to farmers’ attachment to land despite their misery of living. notes and references 1. bakker, n. & jansen, l. &luijten, h. (2009) vincent van gogh: the letters: the complete illustrated and annotated edition (vol. 1-6) hardcover – illustrated, van gogh museum. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 113 2. biography.com editors. (2020). vincent van gogh biography(1853–1890). publisher, a&e television networks. retrieved date 16 april,2020 from; https:/ /www.biography.com/artist/vincent-van-gogh 3. description picture. (2019). description of the painting by vincent van gogh “the peasant and the peasant woman planting potatoes” retrieved date 25 march,2020 from: https://en.opisanie-kartin.com/description-of-the-painting-byvincent-van-gogh-the-peasant-and-the-peasant-woman-planting-potatoes/ 4. grant, p. (2014). the letters of vincent van gogh: a critical study. published by au press, athabasca university.retrieved date 05march,2020 from: https:/ /books.google.jobooks?id=c2l7awaaqbaj&pg=pa8&lpg=pa8&dq=artist+vin cent+van+gogh+(903)+produced+a+letter&source=bl&ots=xgsr4p0a8p&sig=acfu3u3 tm65rzritbksg3oz1iijwd_hayw&hl=en&sa=x&ved=2ahukewip46nlrrpqahvdmwkheqoalcq6aewfhoeca0qaq#v=onepage&q=artist%20vincent%20van %20gogh%20(903)%20produced%20a%20letter&f=false 5. hulsker, j.( 1990). vincent and theo van gogh: a dual biography. ann arbor michigan: fuller technical. 6. kalyan b.& saurabh r. (2015). the neuropsychiatric ailment of vincent van gogh, annals of indian academy of neurology, 18 (1), 6–9. 7. metzger, r. (1996). van gogh. hong kong: taschen. 8. meyers, b.( 2020 a).vincent van gogh. starr king school for the ministry. retrieved date 16 march, 2020 from: https://www.sksm.edu/wp-content/uploads/ 2014/03/holyeyes.pdf 9. meyers, b.( 2020 b).seeing with holy eyes: the life and art of vincent van gogh. retrieved date 18 may,2020 from: https://www.sksm.edu/wp-content/ uploads/2014/03/holyeyes.pdf 10. naifeh, s. & smith gw. (2012). van gogh: the life. random house trade paperbacks. 11. national gallery of art. (1998). vincent van gogh. washington. 12. tralbaut, m. e.. (1969).vincent van gogh. new york: the viking press. 13. yongnam, p. (2017). vincent van gogh’s christian faith and how it influenced his life and art. master thesis of philosophy, school of human development dublin city university. retrieved date 25 april, 2020 from: http:/ /doras.dcu.ie/21992/1/final_thesis_2017_dcu-30th-june-yongnam_park-final_.pdf 14. vincent. www.vggallery. com. paintings: az listings:retrieved date 06 march, 2020 from: http://www.vggallery.com/painting/by_period/nuenen.htm 15. voskuil, p. (2005). the illness of vincent van gogh. journal of the history of the neurosciences 14 (2), 169-75. f:\e\islamicus\2020\n0. 1\new folder\islamic viewpoint.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 53 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy with the second wife dr. muhammad qasim butt* prof. dr. sultan shah** *lecturer, gc university lahore e-mail: muhammadqasimb@yahoo.com **dean, faculty of languages, islamic & oriental learning, gc university lahore surrogacy is a technique of assisted reproduction that involves the employment of ivf in a distinct way.it is indicated in women who have a problematic uterus due to which they cannot gestate an embryo. although surrogacy appears to be simple, but ethical, legal, and psychological issues involved in it are complex.a majority of muslim jurists is against any kind of surrogacy; only a few of them approve it with strict regulatory measures. however, there is some hope for infertile muslim couples if the surrogate arrangement is made between a man and his second wife. this paper aims to highlight the islamic viewpoint on the possibility of surrogacy with the second wife. key words: surrogacy, gestational, necessity, mother, genetic mother, surrogate. by definition, surrogacy is the practice whereby one woman (the surrogate mother) carries a child for another person or persons (the commissioning couple) as the result of an agreement prior to conception that the child should be handed over to that person after birth.1the practice of surrogacy comprises two kinds. in the first kind, a woman is impregnated with the sperm of the commissioning male by ai. the surrogate contributes her ovum as well as uterus; this is known as “traditional surrogacy.” the other kind of surrogacy is coupled with ivf-et in which the embryo is transferred to another woman, who contributes only her uterus. this is known as “gestational surrogacy.” 54 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... verdict against surrogacy the opinion of majority of muslim jurists, the bodies of fatéwéí and islamic biomedical organizations is against the use of any kind of surrogacy. for instance, the seminar on human reproduction in islém held by the islamic organization for medical sciences (ioms) in 1983 a.d. stated in recommendation no. 5 while commenting on the practice of ivf-h: “it was also agreed that the practice is unlawful if it involves an alien party, whether in the form of semen, an ovum, an embryo, or a womb.”2 this means the procreation must be a role of a married couple, with the exclusion of donated sperm, ovum, embryo, or womb. the surrogate is not related to the commissioning father, so his sperm cannot be deposited in her womb in a traditional surrogate arrangement, as this is forbidden to use a uterus for an alien sperm. the prophet ( ) made it íarém by the following statement: ِر أَنْ ْوِم اْآلِخ ِ َواْليَ َّ ا ْؤِمُن بِ ِرٍئ يُ لُّ ِالْم َال يَِح ِرهِ اَءهُ َزْرَع َغْي ِقَي َم يَْس “it is not lawful for a man who believes in allah and the last day to water what another has sown with his water.”3 the preservation of lineage (íifð al-nasab) is a necessary objective of sharê‘ah and care must be taken in matters related to genealogy.therefore, the gestational surrogacy is also forbidden as it involves the donation of a human fertilized ovum to the uterus of an unrelated woman. the ioms symposium on “the islamic vision of some medical practices” held in 1987 recommended in the 14th recommendation: “it was unanimously approved to emphasize the fifth recommendation of the symposium on “reproduction in islém” regarding the prohibition of implanting a woman’s fertilized ova in another woman’s uterus. adequate precautions must be taken to prevent the use of fertilized ova in such an illegitimate pregnancy.”4 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 55 the council of the islamic fiqh academy of jeddah in its third session held in amman in 1986 discussed seven methods related to test-tube baby, as they used the term, though it is a misnomer. among these seven methods, only two were approved as permissible that concern homologous ai and ivf. the prohibited methods involve the donation of gametes, or transfer of embryos to unrelated women. one of them reads the following: “(prohibited is) the fertilization taking place in vitro between the semen and the ovum taken from the spouses, and the fertilized ovum is then planted in the womb of a volunteer woman.”5 this is the prohibition of gestational surrogacy with an unrelated (ghayr maíram) woman. this is strange to find that all five prohibited methods concern in vitro fertilization. the traditional form of surrogacy that involves in vivo fertilization in the surrogate by using a man’s semen has not been mentioned. the same council discussed the fate of surplus fertilized ova and reiterated its verdict on gestational surrogacy in another way in its sixth session held in 1990 in jeddah: “it is prohibited to inseminate fertilized ovules into another woman. precaution must be made to prevent the use of the fertilized ovules in an unlawful pregnancy.”6 the islamic fiqh council of makkah discussed the issue of artificial insemination and test tube babies in its seventh session held in 1984. the council detailed seven possible methods and prohibited all those among them that involve the donation of sperm, ovum or use of uterus of another woman. two methods were approved that involved ai and ivf between husband and wife. one of the prohibited methods relates to surrogacy: “the external insemination takes place in the test container between the sperm and ovum of the couple then, the zygote is planted in the uterus of a woman who volunteers to bear it.”7 on march 29, 2001, the islamic research council of al-azhar issued a decision that prohibited all types of surrogacy arrangements that involve a third party including use of cryopreserved gametes subsequent to divorce or the death of a spouse. despite these views, 56 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... some jurists approve of gestational surrogacy who disagree on whether the surrogate must or must not be a second wife of the husband8). for instance, abd al-mu‘ïê bayyëmê (d. 2012) argued for the permissibility of womb-leasing on the basis of an analogy with breast feeding.9 surrogacy with the second wife as seen above, the main thrust of all rulings related to surrogacy is on the risk of lineage that exists when the male and the surrogate are unrelated. however, the problem of lineage in the procedure of surrogacy may be removed if the commissioning male and the surrogate-to-be are related to each other with a valid marriage (nikéí îéíêí). as a general understanding, the participation of a third personin a husband-and-wife relationship has been denied by a majority of muslim jurists even if that third person is the wife of the commissioning male. one striking reference was seen when the islamic fiqh council, makkah, approved of surrogacy in 1984, on the condition that the surrogate is the second wife of the commissioning male. it says while commenting on the permissible methods of ivf: “the seventh method (in which the sperm and ovum are taken from the couple, and after their insemination in the test-container, the zygote is planted in the uterus of the other wife of the same husband, whereas she volunteers out of her own choice for this pregnancy on behalf of her co-wife, whose uterus is surgically removed) seemed to be permissible to the council, if it is really needed and the above-mentioned general conditions are met.”10 the collective wisdom of the council can be read in the words of the ruling. it was a conditional permission, and it laid down six conditions for this as follows: 1. the procedure of ivf shall be done with homologous gametes, i.e. “the sperm and ovum are taken from the couple.” 2. the male and the surrogate must be related to one another by a marriage, i.e. “the zygote is planted in the uterus of the other wife of same husband.” hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 57 3. the surrogate shall perform the procedure with her free choice; she cannot be forced to engage in it. moreover, she shall do this as a volunteer; not for the sake of money, as it says “she volunteers out of her own choice.” 4. there shall be a definite necessity for it as the first wife is a person “whose uterus is surgically removed.” 5. the other causes of necessity or need shall be justified and the procedure is done only “if it is really needed.” 6. the conditions of caution shall be observed and the procedure is done only if “general conditions are met.” that is, expert doctors shall perform the procedure; preferably a female shall do it, and a male doctor is consulted only in the absence of a female; a family member shall be present at the time of transfer of embryos; and the exposure of the female body is limited to the possible extent. the fatwé was a blessing for those couples who are infertile because the wife’s uterus has been removed. she becomes a barren after her hysterectomy, and there is no other choice for her to have her own child. obviously, she experiences hardship (mashaqqah) and suffers from a necessity (ìarërah). similarly, a woman who has premature ovarian failure may become barren because she cannot produce ovum. nonetheless, she has a uterus and can serve as a surrogate mother. she is also in need of marriage and children. moreover, if a husband’s wife has become barren after hysterectomy, he may marry a woman who has premature ovarian failure, now both women may benefit from surrogacy. the first wife will give ovum and the second wife will gestate. both will become mothers in this way. the holy qur’én proclaims concerning those who are in extreme necessity: ه َم َعلَْي َال إِثْ اٍد فَ اغٍ َوَال َع َر بَ ُطرَّ َغْي ِن اْض فََم “but whoever is forced (by necessity), neither desiring (it) nor transgressing (its limit), there is no sin upon him.”11 al-mashaqqah is more general than ìarërah and an easement (taysêr) is brought to remove the hardship. one way of ease is to allow in time of necessity what has been disallowed in normal situation. the 58 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... surrogacy with the second wife is not allowed when the first wife is healthy and fertile as there is no need of it. iìïirér and ìarërah, on the other hand, appear due to ìarar to the individual. when a person is afflicted with harm, he is in need of a way out to prevent himself from it. in such a needful situation, an effort is made to remove the harm as far as possible. therefore, if the first wife of the husband is ill and does not have a uterus a harm (ìarar) afflicts her that shall be removed: انِ ْمَك ْدِر اْإلِ ْدفَُع بِقَ َرُر يُ الضَّ “harm shall be repulsed as far as possible.”12 hence, when her ìarërah is justified, the surrogacy arrangement with the second wife that was impermissible in normal situation becomes permissible for her. the permission in her context means a concession (rukhîah) in her case due to necessity. although she may also remain content with her childless status as a matter of resolve (‘azêmah), but resoluteness of one woman does not prevent the other from choosing concession. rukhîah for her is to permit her surrogacy with a co-wife of her husband despite its prohibition for the general population of healthy women as per the juristic maxim: وَراتِ ُح اْلَمْحُظ ُروَراُت تُِبي الضَّ “necessities render the prohibited things permissible.”13 the qur’énic verse puts two limitations to the doctrine of necessity: the absence of al-baghy and al-‘adé’. now, the verse means that the concession due to necessity shall be extended to an individual who is not béghê, i.e., who does not surpass the extent up to which the need can be fulfilled, and who is not ‘édê, i.e. who does not transgress the limits of permission to enter into the sphere of prohibition. if the couple undergoing surrogacy with the second wife fulfil both conditions, they can be considered a suitable case for rukhîah due to iìïirér or ìarërah. obviously, the concession is given for medical reasons, not for hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 59 non-medical reasons. therefore, if someone performs gestational surrogacy with the second wife to preserve the physical beauty of the first wife, or to accomplish the pursuit of her career, or to relieve her of the pain and discomfort of gestation, then the concession will be revoked and the original prohibition will come into play: هِ َل بَِزَواِل ْذٍر بََط اَز ِلعُ ا َج َم “whatever is permitted due to an excuse becomes invalidated on cessation of the excuse.”14 the fatwé of 1984 was beneficial for women with a problematic uterus. it contained the spirit of consideration of public welfare (maîlaíah murîaléh). however, in 1985, the same approval was withdrawn. this raises doubts on the withdrawal, as the duration of one year is a very short period to judge the pros and cons of the previous ruling. the fatwé of the approval of the practice and its dissemination required time more than a year. even if people acted upon the permission, they would need more than one year to get a child via surrogacy with a co-wife. did the council receive sufficient data to come to a conclusion that the previous verdict had been problematic? if they did find it permissible a year ago, then for what reasons this was done? what appeared before them to change their opinion? if surrogacy with a co-wife was plainly against the principles of islém, then the members of a council could not have agreed to it for a while. in 1985, the ifc, makkah, gave reasons to revoke their previous verdict. their main concern is the risk of the possibility of another pregnancy in the surrogate by the husband’s intercourse. the surrogate will contain two zygotes in this situation, one with her own ovum and the other with the ovum of the first wife. the complications will occur as regards to the identity of each zygote. the observations made by the council follow: “the second wife in whom the fertilized ovum of the first wife was planted, may conceive second pregnancy before the closure of her uterus for pregnancy of zygote, through the husband’s intercourse with her in a period that is close to the plantation of zygote, then she delivers twins and it is not known who is 60 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... the child born out of zygote and who is the child born out of the husband’s intercourse. it is also not known who is the mother of the child born out of zygote and who is the mother of the child born out of the husband’s intercourse. one of the two pregnancies may terminate as leech or embryo and its abortion takes place with the delivery of the other pregnancy, which is also not known whether this child is out of the zygote or out of the husband’s intercourse. the whole situation causes the mixing of lineage from the side of real mother for each of the pregnancies. it also causes the confusion in respect of other related rulings. therefore, the entire issue made the council to stop its ruling on this case.”15 the argument for the reversal of the fatwé can be scrutinized in the following: 1. the husband can avoid copulation with the second wife for three previous menstrual cycles before performing the procedure of surrogacy. if he confesses of the conjugal act with his second wife, then wait for three menstruations to pass by to ensure that her uterus is now free. 2. the surrogacy may be performed after ultrasound examination of the uterus for clarification (istibré’ al-íamal). then, monitor her during the progress of the procedure. once implantation has occurred after embryo transfer, it is established that this embryo belonged to the first wife. after this time, if she gets pregnant with her husband, the age of both embryos will be different, so they can be easily distinguished. 3. another option is to perform the marriage contract (‘aqd alnikéí) between the husband and the second wife, and provide them separation for some time when there is no other impediment to copulation. this will establish khalwah îaíêíah, though actual copulation has not taken place. now, the uterus of the second wife is free and embryo transfer can be performed without any risk of another pregnancy. the husband may copulate with her after the delivery of this child. 4. there is another solution that the second wife may agree to surrogacy provided she has her first child with the husband and has passed the suckling period of two years. now, her hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 61 right of having a child is preserved and she can avoid copulation for three cycles before going for surrogacy for the first wife. this stipulation may be settled before the marriage contract. although, since 1985, the general prohibition on surrogacy with the second wife has existed in the muslim world, but the exceptional cases can be treated with the procedure while observing the following limitations of the sharê‘ah: 1. the marriage contract shall be valid. 2. the second wife shall give her consent to the procedure. 3. she shall be treated as a wife, not a ‘surrogate on rent’. she shall receive a dower (mahar), food and clothing (nafaqah) and accomodation (sukné) according to the custom and the agreement of the marrying parties. 4. the first child shall belong to her irrespective of the gender of the child, and surrogacy may be performed when two years of suckling have passed. 5. she may ask for the husband’s right to divorce to be delegated to her before performing the surrogacy. in return, she shall agree to relinquish her right to the custody of the child to the first wife. 6. the surrogacy shall be done only for one child irrespective of the gender of the child, and that must be performed after the second wife has received her own child. now, both women will have a child each. 7. both wives shall live with the same husband like any other polygamous arrangement after the procedure. 8. both women will become mothers in their respective manner. one is the ovum donor, the genetic mother, and the other has given birth, the surrogate mother. 9. as both are wives of the same husband, the right of visitation is secured. the emotional trauma to the surrogate mother may be relieved as she has her own child, and she can also visit the other child. the emotional bond between the genetic mother and the child is strong as he resembles her mother and gets her characteristics. moreover, the genetic mother may receive medicines for an induced lactation and breastfeed him to experience the feeling of suckling. in this way, the surrogacy arrangement is superior to the adoption of a child. 62 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... 10. the deprived women may be preferred for the second marriage in this case. such women might agree to the procedure to find a safe home and a comfortable life, otherwise they are neglected on account of poverty, disability, ugliness, orphanage, widowhood, divorcement, ignorance, and cultural drawback. if the second wife is of a lesser status than the first, she is more inclined to accept her as a competitor. the second wife will also tend to avoid confrontation with the first woman. the relationship of the first couple may persist due to love, while the relationship of the second couple will persist due to children. although the second wife is a marginalized woman, but she is the mother of both children in the home, hence, her status will improve in the family and in the society. real mother in gestational surrogacy the technique of artificial insemination involved separation between the conjugal and procreative acts. the in vitro fertilization involved the issue of collecting an ovum from a woman’s body and fertilizing it in a laboratory. now, the surrogacy poses another issue: the separation of ovum and uterus in procreation, i.e., a separation between the genetic mother and the gestational mother. in ai and ivf, the embryo belonging to a woman is sent back to her uterus. hence, the ovum and the uterus come from the same woman. but, in surrogacy the ovum and uterus are separated, which is unprecedented in islamic jurisprudence. the main concern is to find who is the ‘real mother’, whether a genetic mother (ovum donor) or a surrogate mother (uterus donor)? a sundry of juristic, legal, ethical and economic issues relates to the real mother that may be jeopardized in confusion of nasab to the woman. the muslim discussions on the subject vary with respect to the identification of the real mother in a surrogate arrangement. most of them consider the surrogate as the real mother because she suffers the pangs of pregnancy and childbirth, whereas some of them consider the ovum donor as the real mother because she is supplier of genetic matter of the child. the arguments that consider the employment of the word wélidah to refer to the real mother might not be very useful. this is because a perusal of the text reveals that the words umm and wélidah have hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 63 been used interchangeably. in surrogacy, to define the real mother with the term wélidah is difficult, because normally umm (the genetic source) is the wélidah (the birth giver) and each of these terms can be used for the other. consider the following verse that describes parental relations: هُ ا َوَحْملُ عَتْهُ ُكْرًه ا َوَوَض هُ ُكْرًه هُ أُمُّ انًا َحَملَتْ ِه إِْحَس اَن بَِواِلَدْي نَس ْينَا اْإلِ َوَوصَّ ْهًرا وَن َش الُهُ ثََالثُ َوفَِص “and we have enjoined on man kindness to his parents. his mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship, and his gestation and weaning (period) is thirty months.”16 the injunction of kindness is given to a man about his ‘wélidayn’ (wélid and wélidah), i.e., those who give birth (wilédah). one has to perceive with a neat caution that the term wélidah, as referred to in the word wélidayn, has been used synonymously with the term umm, which occurs in the next part of the verse. hence, wélidah (the birth giver) and umm (genetic mother) mean the same woman in this verse. the above verse reveals that the mother (umm) is the one who bears the child (íamalathu), then delivers him (waìa‘athu), and suckles him (fiîéluhu). among these functions of a mother, pregnancy (íamal) and delivery (waì‘) cannot be separated, but pregnancy (íamal) and suckling (raì‘) may be separated from other processes. with this separation, however, the status of the woman as a mother does not break down. she who breastfeeds is equal to the mother who bears the pregnancy and gives birth. in fact, a mother has four functions as mentioned in the qur’én: pregnancy (íamal), delivery (waì‘ íamal), suckling (raì‘) and nurturing (tarbiyah). three of them have been mentioned in the above verse. the fourth function is mentioned in the following prayer taught to the children to ask for their parents (father and mother): ِغيًرا انِي َص ا َربَّيَ ا َكَم ّبِ اْرَحْمُهَم ل رَّ قُ “say, my lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up (when i was) small.”17 64 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... pregnancy and delivery are biologically united, but suckling and nurturing may be separated. the foster mother (by milk) does not contribute ovum or uterus still she becomes a mother, whereas a surrogate is providing her uterus with full gestation, she shall preferably be called a mother. the utilization of the womb is fairly a good point of reference for a mother. the woman whose womb has been used for pregnancy shall be a mother. a number of qur’énic verses hint that a mother (umm) is the woman in whose womb the fetus resides: اتُِكمْ َه وِن أُمَّ ي بُُط ةٌ فِ ْم أَِجنَّ َوإِْذ أَنتُ “(he was the most knowing of you) when you were fetuses in the wombs of your mothers.”18 she is the woman who offers her womb so that the fetus undergoes its stages of creation in it: اتُِكمْ َه وِن أُمَّ ي بُُط ْم فِ ْخلُقُُك “he creates you in the wombs of your mothers.”19 she is the woman who delivers the child as the following verse says: اتُِكمْ َه وِن أُمَّ ن بُُط َرَجكُم ّمِ ُ أَْخ َّ َو “and allah has brought you out from the wombs of your mothers,”20 the above verses show that gestation has a special connection with the identification of a mother. ummuhét are the ones whose wombs are used for gestation and development of fetuses and the same are also wélidét as the fetuses come out of their wombs. in the last verse, ummuhét is used in the sense of wélidét. ummuhét, the plural of umm, may be used to refer to the gene pool of ovum donors of a person, that is, it may refer to his mother up to all women above her. the ×anafê corpus, al-hidéyah, comments on the prohibition of marriage with women in the following words: hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 65 الِ َج ِل الّرِ ْن ِقبَ ِه ِم ِه َوَال بَِجدَّاتِ َج بِأُّمِ َزوَّ ِل أَْن يَتَ ُج لُّ ِللرَّ اَل (َال يَِح قَ اٌت، إْذ اْألُمُّ َه دَّاُت أُمَّ اتُُكْم } َواْلَج َه ْم أُمَّ ْت َعلَْيُك َم الَى {ُحّرِ ِه تَعَ اِء) ِلقَْوِل َوالنَِّس اعِ ْجَم ْرَمتُُهنَّ بِاْإلِ ْت ُح ةً أَْو ثَبَتَ ُل لُغَ َي اْألَْص ِه “it is not permissible for a man to marry his mother and his grandmothers from the paternal or maternal side. this is because allah the almighty says: prohibited to you (for marriage) are your mothers. the grandmothers are also included in ummuhét, because al-umm (mother) means al-aîl (root, ancestry or pedigree). moreover, their prohibition has been established by consensus.”21 in this particular sense, the woman who is the source of ovum shall also be a mother (umm), in addition to the woman who gives birth. however, the term al-umm is not specific for the child-bearer, birth-giver and originator (aîl) of the ovum, the woman who breastfeeds a child is also known as umm (mother): ْعنَُكمْ ي أَْرَض تِ اتُُكُم الالَّ َه َوأُمَّ “(prohibited to you in marriage are) your foster mothers who nursed you.”22 in fact, one of the functions of a mother is suckling. the above verse referred this function to ummuhé, now the following refers the same function to wélidét. this shows that umm and wélidah are same in the text of the sharê‘ah: اِملَْينِ ْولَْيِن َك نَّ َح ْعَن أَْوَالَدُه َداُت يُْرِض َواْلَواِل “and mothers may breastfeed their children two complete years.”23 if the woman who gives birth is meant, the term wélidah may also be employed clearly: ِده هُ بَِولَ وٌد لَّ ِدَها َوَال َمْولُ َدةٌ بَِولَ ارَّ َواِل َال تَُض “no mother should be harmed through her child, and no father through his child.”24 66 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... another mother (umm) is the mother of a person’s wife and marriage has been prohibited with her forever (íurmah muîharah). al-hidéyah comments on the prohibition of marriage with them in the following words: ْدُخْل) ْم يَ ا أَْو لَ َل بَِه ي َدَخ ِه الَّتِ أُّمِ اْمَرأَتِ اَل (َوَال بِ قَ دِ ِر قَْي ْن َغْي ائُِكْم} ِم اُت نَِس َه الَى {َوأُمَّ ِه تَعَ ِلقَْوِل دُُّخولِ ال “he shall not marry with the mother of his wife, whether he has copulated with his wife or not. this is because allah the almighty says: (prohibited to you for marriage) are your wives’ mothers. this has been mentioned without the constraint of copulation.”25 ummuhét has also been used for the wives of the prophet ( ) also, despite the absence of any physical relationship with them. hence, a spiritual relationship with a woman is sufficient for the application of the term al-umm: اتُُهمْ َه هُ أُمَّ ِهْم َوأَْزَواُج ْن أَنفُِس اْلُمْؤِمِنيَن ِم ى بِ يُّ أَْولَ النَّبِ “the prophet (upon him be peace and greeting) is closer to the believers than their own selves, and his wives are their mothers.”26 most of the verses quoted above reveal that the term ummuhét or umm has been used more commonly in the qur’én than walidét or wéidah. the term umm is used in a wider sense. it may refer to the genetic mother (aîl), the birth giving mother (wélidah), the suckling mother (umm al-raìé’), the mother of wife (umm al-imra’ah) and the spiritual mother (umm al-mu’minên). in case of gestational surrogacy, umm (mother) may refer to the surrogate for her roles of pregnancy, birth and suckling, and also to the ovum donor because she is the aîl, the root of the genetic makeup of the child. by attributing the child to both mothers, there is no assault on the preservation of progeny and lineage (íifð al-nasl wa al-nasab). some muslims suggest that surrogate motherhood can be considered analogous to foster motherhood. as a foster mother gives hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 67 her milk for the nourishment of the child, a surrogate also gives her blood for the nourishment of the fetus.27 however, this analogy is faulty; firstly, because the surrogate places the fetus in her womb whereas the foster mother only breastfeeds him. secondly, the surrogate experiences the sufferings of pregnancy and childbirth which are not felt by the foster mother. thirdly, the foster mother may be unrelated to the father of the child but the surrogate shall be related to him as his co-wife to prevent the risk of adultery. the assault on the preservation of lineage is seen when the male and the surrogate are not married. only then, the prohibition of watering the plantation of another (siqé al-mé’zar‘a ghayr) is applicable. however, if both are married, the embryo transfer can be done to the uterus of the second wife as it is the watering of own plantation, not of another. the question arises that it also entails the transfer of an ovum from one woman to another; is it permissible? the answer favours the permission as the prohibition says: ِر أَنْ ْوِم اْآلِخ ِ َواْليَ َّ ا ْؤِمُن بِ ِرٍئ يُ لُّ ِالْم َال يَِح ِرهِ اَءهُ َزْرَع َغْي ِقَي َم يَْس “it is not lawful for a man who believes in allah and the last day to water what another has sown with his water.”28 it mentions mé’ahu (his water), and the pronoun refers to the male, not to the woman. the ovum of a woman is not included in the prohibition of water (sperm) of a man. therefore, if there is a need, the ovum of a woman may be allowed to enter the uterus of another woman. this is istiísén based on necessity. moreover, the ovum is also not present in its original form. it has changed to a zygote or an embryo. now, the embryo consists of ovum and sperm of a married couple, which is permissible. this consists of the water of husband, which is entered in the uterus of a wife, not in another woman. this is also permissible. the transfer of ovum, which is problematic, is not clearly prohibited, rather there is a silence about it that entails permission. even if someone claims disapproval of its transfer, still it may be allowed for a limited time due to necessity because the first wife is infertile due to the absence of her uterus or the presence of a faulty uterus. she has no other way to get her child except resorting to a gestational surrogate who is also her husband’s 68 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... second wife. lastly, it is impossible now to separate the ovum from the embryo and get it back to its original form. hence, it is not obligatory to separate it as per the following maxim: ُروَرةٍ َع َض َراَم َم ٍز، َوَال َح َع َعْج َب َم َال َواِج “nothing is obligatory with inability; and nothing is prohibited with necessity.”29 in a case of conflict for the custody of the child, a jurist has to decide which function of the mother is strong and effective than others that shall dominate her other roles and the child shall be given in her custody. apparently, that role is pregnancy and delivery, during which she bears hardship or pain mentioned as kurh and wahn in the qur’én: ا عَتْهُ ُكْرًه ا َوَوَض هُ ُكْرًه هُ أُمُّ َحَملَتْ “his mother carried him with hardship or pain and gave birth to him with hardship or pain.”30 نٍ ى َوْه ا َعلَ هُ َوْهنً هُ أُمُّ َحَملَتْ “his mother carried him, in weakness upon weakness.”31 despite that the child belongs to both wives, the genetic mother and the surrogate mother, preference is given to the surrogate because the pain and hardship of pregnancy and delivery is an effective reason for the basis of rulings in their conflict. this is because: 1. most verses of the qur’én relate to the pregnancy and childbirth, and not to the ovaries or ova. this is because the ovaries and ova are hidden and to build a legal ruling on them is difficult. it is impossible to judge the genetic mother with a naked eye. on the other side, pregnancy is a visible and apparent matter and to build a legal ruling on it is easy. therefore, the basis of ruling is made upon pregnancy (íamal), and consequently, childbirth (waì‘ íamal) is biologically united to it. the hardship of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth are the reasons due to which mothers are given a hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 69 higher status than fathers. these are effective in a conflict between a genetic mother and surrogate mother. since these hardships and pains are felt by the surrogate mother, her status is higher than the genetic mother, so, the child shall be given to the surrogate. 3. the federal sharê‘ah court of pakistan also gave the rights of the custody of the child to the surrogate and the petition of the commissioning father was disposed of. the case was farooq siddiqui vs. farzana naheed sharê‘ah petition no. 2/i of 2015. farooq siddiqui was a pakistani born american citizen whose wife was infertile. he made an oral agreement of surrogacy with farzana naheed at a cost of rs. 25,000. after giving birth to a daughter, the surrogate refused to hand over the girl. farzana, on the other hand, claimed that the story of surrogacy was false and she was his wife and wanted expenses for the upbringing of the child. 4. in cases of genealogy (nasab) of the child, the genetic source is not preferred to the visible source. for example, when a conflict arose between ‘abd b. zam‘ah and sa‘d b. abi waqqas, while sa‘d was asking for custody of a child who belonged to his brother ‘utabah out of adultery and ‘abd was claiming that the child was his brother as he was born to his father’s umm walad, the child was given to ‘abd b. zam‘ah despite his resemblance to ‘utabah b. abi waqqas, the biological father. the ruling al-waladlilfirésh (the child belongs to the owner of wedding bed) signifies that the decision is based on the apparent, not on the genetic source. similarly, even if the ovum donor is the genetic mother, the ruling shall be based on the apparent reason, that is the pregnancy (íamal). the child shall be handed over to the surrogate mother and his descent shall be attributed to her as the muslim jurists say: احِ أَوْ اَن بِالنَِّك َواٌء َك اْلِوَالَدةِ َس ُت بِ ْرأَةِ يَثْبُ ْن اْلَم ِد ِم ُب اْلَولَ فَنََس فَاح بِالّسِ “the descent of a child to a woman is proved by birth, whether by marriage or sin.”32 5. wilédah is close to firésh in its meaning as it occurs within the wedding lock, on a wedding bed. if firésh has been considered by the sharê‘ah in case of a male, not his sperm, then wilédah shall be considered for a female, not her ovum. therefore, preference shall be given to the woman who gives birth. moreover, this point of 70 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... view is more compatible with the qur’én as the qur’énic references are abundant for the woman who gives birth. 6. as firésh confirms nasab without claim, wilédah also confirms nasab without claim. the surrogate mother does not need to claim that the child belongs to her. the child, in fact, belongs to her by childbirth. if someone other than the owner of firésh claims the child, he has to bring evidence in support. the child shall belong to the owner of firésh as long as he does not go for li‘én. similarly, the ovum donor needs to claim the child. however, as long as the birth giver does not deny the child, he cannot be given to another woman. 7. if the child is given to the genetic mother, the need for the surrogate will end and she will be sent out of the home. this will cause harm to her. if the child is given to the surrogate, she also shall not hold the child in custody and deprive the first wife to harm her. both of them shall not harm each other as the juristic maxim says: َرارَ َرَر َوَال ِض َال َض “there should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm.”33 conclusion the opinion of majority of muslim jurists is against the use of any kind of surrogacy because there is a risk of illegitimate lineage that exists when the male and the surrogate are unrelated. however, this problem may be removed if the commissioning male and the surrogate are related to each other with a valid marriage. a woman who has become barren after hysterectomy has no choice other than surrogacy to have her own child. she experiences hardship (mashaqqah) and suffers from a necessity (ìarërah). she may be allowed this procedure due to necessity what has been disallowed for others in a normal situation if certain conditions are observed as follows: there shall be no harm to anyone involved in the process (la ìarar wa la ìirér). the informed consent of all, the first wife, the second wife and the husband, is essential. the husband shall provide mahar, nafaqah and sukné to the second wife. the second wife shall get the first child for herself, then perform surrogacy after two hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 71 years of suckling. if she agrees to give this child to the first wife, she shall be delegated the right to divorce. both wives shall live happily like any other polygamous relationship. with an agreement, both will become mothers and shall visit the child. however, if a conflict occurs, the surrogate mother shall be preferred. notes and references 1. margaret brazier et al., “surrogacy: review for the uk health ministers of current arrangements for payments and regulation,” human reproduction update 3, no. 6 (1997): p. 624. 2. http://islamset.net/bioethics/firstvol.html accessed march 9, 2019 3, abë dé’ëd, sulaymén b. ash‘ath, al-sunan (bayrët: al-maktabah al-‘aîariyyah, n.d.), 2: 248 ×adêth: 2158. 4. http://www.islamset.net/bioethics/vision/recom.html acessed march 9, 2019 5. the council of islamic fiqh academy, resolutions and recommendations of the council of the islamic fiqh academy (1985-200), jeddah, islamic developemnt bank, 2000, resolution no. 16 (4-3), p. 28. 6. the council of islamic fiqh academy, resolutions and recommendations of the council of the islamic fiqh academy (1985-200), p. 111. 7. the islamic fiqh council, resolution of islamic fiqh council makkah mukarramah (1977-2006) (muslim world league, 2006), p. 192. 8. aïé   abd alóïê al-sunbéïê, bunëk al-nuïafwa’l-ajinnah, dirésah muqéranah bayna al-fiqh al-islémê wa’lqénën al-waìê, cairo, dé  r al-nahìah alarabiyyah, 2001, p. 258. 9. ayman shabana, “foundations of the consensus against surrogacy arrangements in islamic law,” islamic law and society 22 (2015), p. 94. 10. the islamic fiqh council, resolution of islamic fiqh council makkah mukarramah (1977-2006) (muslim world league, 2006), p. 194. 11. al-baqarah 2: p. 173. 12. al-zarqé, aímad b. muíammad, sharí al-qawé‘id al-fiqhiyyah, damascus, dér al-qalam, 1409/1989, p. 207. 13. al-suyëïê, ‘abd al-raímén b. abë bakr jalêl al-dên, al-ashbéh wa ’l-naðé’ir, bayrët, dér al-kutub al ‘ilmiyyah, 1411/1990), 1:84. 14. al-suyëïê, al-ashbéhwa ’l-naðé’ir,, p. 85. 15. the islamic fiqh council, resolution of islamic fiqh council makkah mukarramah (1977-2006) (muslim world league, 2006), pp. 203-204. 16. al-aíqaf xlvi: p. 15. 17. al-isré xvii:24 18. al-najam liii:32 19. al-zumar xxxix:6 20. al-nahl xvi:78 21. burhén al-dên, abë al×asan ‘alê b. abë bakr, al-hidéyah fê sharí al-bidéyah al-mubtadê, bayrët, dér iíyé al-turéth al-‘arabê, n.d., 1: p. 86. 72 islamic viewpoint on surrogacy... 22. al-nisé’ iv:23 23. al-baqarah ii:233 24. al-baqarah ii:233 25. burhén al-dên, al-hidéyah, 1: 86. 26. al-ahzb xxxiii: 6 27. sharmin islam et al., “ethics of surrogacy: a comparative study of western secular and islamic bioethics,” jima 44 (2012): 3. 28. abë dé’ëd, al-sunan, 2: 248, ×adêth: 2158 29. muíammad b. abë bakr ibn qayyém al-jawziyah, i‘lém al-muwaqqi‘ên ‘an rabb al-‘alamên, bayrët, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1411/1991), 2:17. 30. al-aíqaf xlvi: 15 31. luqmén xxxi:14 32. al-késénê, ‘al’ al-dên, abë bakr b. mas‘ëd, badé’i‘ al-øané’i‘ fi tartêb alsharé’i‘, bayrët, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1406/ 1986), 6: p. 243. 33. ibn méjah, muíammad b.yazêd, al-qazwênê, al-sunan, bayrët, dér al-kutub al‘arabiyyah, n.d., 3: p. 338. ×adêth: 2341. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 2\islamic perspective in human behaviour.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 89 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour: effect of halal awareness and halal logo with mediating role of purchase intention 1ramaisa aqdas 2azka amin 1department of business administration iqra university karachi pakistan 2assistant professor, department of business administration iqra university karachi pakistan the purpose of the study is to find the relationship between halal awareness of the consumers of pakistan, halal logo imprinted on the halal products, the attitude of the consumers and their buying behaviour with the mediating role of purchase of intention in the pakistani consumer markets of different ages. survey questionnaire technique was used to collect the data from the respondents who were selected using the simple random sampling technique. moreover, to analyze the data, pls-sem technique was used in the study. the findings of the study depict that there is a positive correlation between halal food products awareness, the attitude of the consumers and purchase intention. in contrast, the halal logo does not carry much weightage in influencing the purchase intention of consumers in pakistan. the mediating role of purchase intention was also significant in the case of halal awareness and attitude of the consumer. lastly, the study points out some practical and theoretical implications, which can be utilized to capture a larger market share. keywords: attitude; buying behaviour; halal food; halal awareness; halal logo; purchase intention. 90 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour... introduction internationally, the food industry has been burgeoning rapidly, especially halal industry has seen significant growth in the global market and is considered as one of the fastest-growing business. the halal industry includes not only the food industry but also the services, e.g. the banking sector has rapidly been engaged in such practices for the past decade. in pakistan, islam is a dominant religion, and it is the religion which comes with certain food inhibitions and distinguishes between halal and haram. the dietary rules in islam which have to be followed by the muslims are found in the holy book al-quran as well as in the daily life practices of holy prophet muhammad ( ). the word “halal” has been derived from the arabic language, which means “permitted” and denotes the things, which are permissible to practice or to eat in case of food. in this era, muslims have abundant halal products and services from which they can choose. moreover, woolley and fishbach (2017) have corroborated in a study that food is an essential factor, which has been found to augment interaction between different ethnic and religious groups. as the food is considered to be a general need of the society and community at large, the consumers, especially the muslims, are anxious about the food they consume. according to heiman, gordon, and zilberman (2019), food consumption is going side by side with the rules and practices of the religion of the consumers; their cultural rituals and the definitions set by the society. ismail, othman, rahman, kamarulzaman, and rahman (2016) and (basheer, khan, hassan, and shah (2018)), have shown that as the religion islam is most rapidly growing around the globe, halal food is considered as an influential factor of islam. with the boost in globalization, many international and non-muslim businesses have entered the global market and owing to this, “halalness” has become a term which is widely used and it has become a significant concern for the muslims. additionally, as per the research conducted by mutmainah (2018), the things, which are of the major concern in the halal industry, include the manufacturing process through which are being made and the ingredients which are used in the process. as islam has set very clear and stringent rules, muslims are required to put every possible effort in taking the food which has been produced or processed as per those rules, and only consume what is halal. additionally, the literature reveals that non-muslims also widely accept the halal food because of the immense benefits it provides to its consumers including hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 91 the quality of the food, hygiene and safety from health-related problems (aziz & chok, 2013; haque & hindrati, 2020). furthermore, muslim markets now stand at the worth of around us$ 2.1 trillion, making it one of the top consumer markets in the world. if the pace at which it is growing continues, then it is expected to augment by more than 23 percent with the total muslim population, reaching 8 billion in 2030 (reuters, 2015). the potential of this market can be estimated by the fact that many international food chains and franchises have also introduced different ranges of halal food products. according to kapuge (2016), people around the world are becoming more concerned about the products they consume, regardless of their religion. additionally, it has been reported by adesoji christopher et al. (2019), the awareness in the consumers, whether they are muslim or non-muslim, has arisen because of their concern for what they are consuming, and this has led to seeking pertinent information regarding the product while purchasing it, such as, the ingredients and the manufacturing process used in making that product. moreover, fischer (2019) has introduced that it has become essential for the businesses affiliated with the muslim consumer market that they put the certification of halal or label the product with such logos to succeed in the halal food industry because the “halalness” of the product cannot be verified by the consumers. they are less likely to buy those products otherwise. the reason of this is that the other qualities of the product can be verified or tested with the sense of smell, touching the food or by tasting it but the halalness cannot be determined by these senses. hence, only a halal logo or printed certification can differentiate between a halal and a non-halal product. in this regard, haque and hindrati (2020) have asserted that because the halal product cannot be distinguished from a non-halal product without the appropriate logo, it corroborates the difference between an islamic logo and a conventional logo. likewise, to distinguish the halal product from a non-halal one, just like the logo, halal awareness is also an integral part while purchasing the product (aziz & chok, 2013). according to mostafa (2018), the halal food industry covers more than 17 percent of the global food market and stands at the worth of approximately us$ 700 billion per annum. additionally, varinli, erdem, and avcýlar (2016), has proposed that the growth in the halal food industry is primarily the result of an increasing population of muslims, which has been increasing considerably since the past decade. likewise, kawata, htay, and salman (2018) have shown that one of the most 92 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour... prominent reasons of the rapid growth of halal food industry is that it has been expanding not only in muslim countries but also in non-muslims countries. for instance, even in south africa, halal food has been demanded due to its qualities. the following figure shows the current and estimated growth of global halal food market: fig 1: market value of halal foods worldwide from 2017 to 2023 in muslim countries of asia continent, the increasing population largely contributes towards the potential of the halal food industry. for instance, pakistan, where almost 98 per cent of the population is muslim, is highly concerned with the halal food products and almost everyone questions the halalness of the products. according to salman and siddiqui (2011), people only buy halal food products in pakistan, and they tend to keep their halal awareness high. also, there is a much higher chance that the halal logo has positive impact on their purchase intention. in this study, the effects of halal awareness, halal logo and attitude of the consumers have been studied on the purchasing intention of halal food products. moreover, the effect of purchasing intent on consumers’ buying behaviour has also been studied. literature review halal the literal meaning of halal is “permissible” or “lawful”, contrarily non-halal means all those things, which are prohibited or not allowed to be consumed. muslims are allowed to consume all those items or products, which are categorized as halal in islam, and the violation of this rule is considered a sin and unlawful act. in the holy book qur’én, it has been hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 93 mentioned that: “o mankind! eat what is lawful and good on earth” (alqur’én, surat al-baqarah (the cow) ii:168). similarly, in a study, mukherjee (2014) has defined halal as the trust one puts in the cleanliness and wellness of the consumable items. it is inferred from the research that the dimension of halalness stresses on safety, purity and hygiene of the product as well as the method by which they are produced and the ingredients, which are used in the manufacturing process (hussain et al., 2016). moreover, kawata et al. (2018) have shown that the demand for halal food products is not only increasing among muslims but also other religions. halal awareness and purchase intention according to aziz and chok (2013), awareness of a consumer plays an integral role when it comes to purchasing intention of choosing a product or service. awareness is the primal part of the buying process; the customer first tries to know as much as possible about the product, and after getting the required knowledge, purchase intent is created if the product is as per the demand of the consumer (wu, zhou, & chien, 2019). in the same context, adesoji christopher et al. (2019) have proposed that people strive to enhance their knowledge and become aware of the product they are consuming, which has contributed towards extensive advertising campaigns by various organizations. in addition to this, omar et al. (2017) have asserted that religious teachings play a crucial role in consumer awareness. for instance, consuming non-halal products is considered a sin for muslims, and hence, they tend to keep themselves well aware of the product they are consuming. resultantly, halal awareness of muslims directly influences their purchase intention. similarly, galati, moavero, and crescimanno (2019) have maintained that awareness comes with the knowledge and understanding of a particular situation, product or service. in the perspective of halal food products, zakaria, majid, ahmad, jusoh, and zakaria (2017) have shown that the choice of a consumer to bargain a particular product is highly affected by his / her awareness of that product, i.e. if the awareness is high, there would be high purchase intent and vice versa. likewise, mutmainah (2018) have maintained that awareness about the halalness of a product has a positive relationship with the purchase intention of the consumer. additionally, bashir, bayat, olutuase, and abdul latiff (2019) have proposed in a study that in case of muslims, when they are buying a product, the most crucial factor, which influences their purchase intention, is their awareness 94 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour... about the product that either the product is halal or non-halal. further to this, saleh, ibrahim, and abd rahman (2019) have revealed that purchase intention is positively affected by the halal awareness of the market and consumers pay attention to the process by which a product has been made. foregoing in view, following hypothesis is drawn: h1: halal awareness and purchase intention have a positive correlation. halal logo and purchase intention according to hussain, rahman, zaheer, and saleem (2016), the halal logo is considered as one of the most critical components, which tells the consumers about the authenticity of the product and its attributes, such as production process and the ingredients used in that process. likewise, borzooei and asgari (2016) have asserted that when consumers are gathering information about the product to purchase it, there are a lot of uncertainties in their minds and halal logo is the most effective element in lowering those uncertainties and contributes meritoriously towards their purchase intention. similarly, haque and hindrati (2020) have seconded the study that halal logo is a vital source of information for the consumers and positively affect their purchase intention, and it removes the uncertainty in the thoughts of the consumers. moreover, shaari et al. (2019) have revealed that when buying a product, the customer seeks information regarding the halalness of the product. in the regard, if a product is certified and labelled with a halal logo, it helps the consumers to determine the halalness of that product. similarly, according to soleh, adawiyah, and afif (2019), the halal logo is an essential part of the product as it is the only visible thing in a product which influences the purchasing intention of the buyer. the halal logo is part of the essential certification and regulations of a halal product because, without a halal logo imprinted on the product, it is very arduous to confirm the halalness of the product (basheer, hafeez, hassan, & haroon, 2018; fischer, 2019). however, contrary to the aforementioned studies, lever and fischer (2018) have shown that, in muslim countries, the halal logo does not carry much weightage and consumers do not bother to look at the labels of the products as the halalness of the product in muslim countries is taken for granted, and the products are considered halal nonetheless the product has been imported from a non-muslim country. mostafa (2018) and basheer, siam, awn, hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 95 and hassan (2019) have asserted that the halal logo is the sign of trust and quality in the consumer market, and it shows that the manufacturer is concerned about the religiosity of the consumers. mostly, in muslim countries, the halal logo is considered as a symbol which is utilized to differentiate among the healthy, unhealthy and haram products (salindal, 2019). the above mentioned studies show that there is strong correlation between halal logo and purchase intention of the consumers owing to which the study proposes the following hypothesis: h2: halal logo is positively related to the purchase intention of the consumers. attitude and purchase intention according to kudeshia and kumar (2017), attitude is either a favourable or an unfavourable inclination of a person’s behaviour towards any item. similarly, phua and kim (2018) have defined the attitude as the evaluation of a practice which is triggered in a person when he/she interacts with an object. consumers’ purchase intention and their attitude in buying a product have extensively studied in the context of halal and non-halal in previous literature (ozgen & kurt, 2013), which makes these variables worth-studying. according to patel, gadhavi, and shukla (2017), the attitude of a consumer towards the product greatly influences the purchase intention. furthermore, khan and azam (2016) have asserted that, in the case of those products which have halal certification in a country, the attitude of the consumer directly influences the purchase intention. likewise, afendi, azizan, and darami (2014) showed that attitude towards halal food products has a significant impact on the purchase intention of the consumers. keeping in view, the findings from the literature mentioned above, the following hypothesis has been drawn: h3: attitude of a consumer has a significant effect on their purchase intention. purchase intention and buying behaviour according to rani (2014), buying behaviour can be referred to as the authority a customer has while deciding between “yes and no” in buying the particular items or services currently available in the consumer market. previous literature has highlighted many factors, which stimulate 96 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour... the consumers’ decision making power including internal (personality, age, beliefs) as well as external (family, social class, pervasive trends) factors (khaniwale, 2015; ramya & ali, 2016). accordingly, in order to capture the market segment, the management of an organization has to diagnose the buying behaviour of their targeted consumers, and for that, it is vital to grasp and influence the purchase intention of the customers (du, chen, & wu, 2019). furthermore, kapuge (2016) has asserted that buying behaviour being a qualitative factor can most easily and effectively be studied by revising the intent of the customers to purchase the product. likewise, rana and paul (2017) have maintained in a study that buying behaviour of the potential customers is directly influenced by the purchase intention of the consumers. the aspect of religion has increasingly being studied in order to understand its significance when the consumer is making a decision for an item or service. according to al-hyari, alnsour, al-weshah, and haffar (2012), consumers’ consumption decision and religiosity both are significantly connected and cannot be taken discreetly since the consumers become more cautious when they know that the product has been imported from a country, which is more likely to ignore the religious factors of their customers. similarly, hussain et al. (2016) have introduced that when the qualities and standards of the product are in line with the religious norms and rules of the consumers, they are more likely to buy that product such that their intention to buy that product is increased through which their buying behaviour is influenced. moreover, fazeli, shukla, and perks (2020) have asserted that buying behaviour of the consumers is directly affected by their purchase intention, which can only be manipulated by effectively producing the product, which meets their demands. keeping in view, the aforementioned studies, this paper serves the purpose to find the relationship between purchase intention and buying behaviour of the consumers in pakistani market pertaining to halal industry, and hence, proposes the following hypothesis: h4: purchase intention has a significant relationship with the buying behaviour of the consumers. purchase intention as a mediator according to du et al. (2019), buying a product is followed by a series of steps, which can be referred to as the purchasing process of a consumer. one of the final steps in buying a product is purchasing hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 97 intention, which according to singhal, jena, and tripathy (2019), can be defined as the probability of a customer to buy a specific product in a particular situation in future. a product is usually bought when there is a need to be fulfilled. according to martins, costa, oliveira, gonçalves, and branco (2019), purchase intention is at its highest when there is an urge to fulfil that need. furthermore, liu, bao, and zheng (2019) have asserted that purchase intention greatly influences the consumers in making a decision on buying specific products, which can be used by the marketers to capture the consumer market. as per the study conducted by varinli et al. (2016), a product is bought when there is purchase intention, and when purchase intention for that particular product is created, the consumer is more likely to buy that product in future, which means it affects the buying behaviour of consumers. moreover, bashir et al. (2019) have revealed that purchase intention positively influences the buying behaviour, and act as a mediator between halal awareness of the food and consumer behaviour. likewise, lim, osman, salahuddin, romle, and abdullah (2016) have shown in a study that the relationship between halal awareness of the product in muslims and their buying behaviour is strengthened by the mediating role of purchase intention. according to sharma and chawla (2017), buying behaviour is the mixture of the processes and actions which influences the decision making of the consumer while buying a product, including their mental and social processes. ur rehman, yusoff, zabri, and ismail (2017) have asserted that studying the buying behaviour of the customers has become vital for marketers and international organizations in order to augment their profit. furthermore, gautam and sharma (2017) have revealed that halal awareness has a positive influence on purchase intention and the consumer is more likely to buy that product in future, which depicts that purchase intention strongly mediates the relationship between halal awareness of the product and buying behaviour of the consumer. similarly, hussain et al. (2016) have found that there is a strong linkage between the attitude of the consumer, the purchase intention and buying behaviour. in accordance with the literature mentioned above, the following hypotheses are drawn: h5: purchase intention of the consumer strongly mediates the relationship between halal awareness and buying behaviour. h6: the relationship between the halal logo and buying behaviour of the consumer is mediated by purchase intention. 98 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour... h7: the relationship between the attitude of the consumers and their buying behaviour is significantly mediated by purchase intention. research methods the study has been conducted in a muslim country, pakistan, to find out the relationship between halal products awareness, halal logo, the attitude of consumers and their buying behaviour with the mediating role of purchase intention. the participants of the study were the common citizens who frequently visit the major local consumer markets. the country consists of more than 98 percent of the muslim population, which makes it ideal for studying the impact of halalness of the products on their purchase intention and buying behaviour. survey questionnaire technique was used for data collection using a five-point likert type scale. the questions ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree (starting from 1 to 5). lastly, the pls-sem technique has been utilized to analyze the data. measures the instruments selected for the research are taken from the previous literature pertaining to the chosen variables, which makes them authentic and relevant. the items were designed taking into account six items for socio-demographic variables and 18 items having the statements pertaining to the selected variables of this study with five-point likert type scale as introduced by (gwinner, 2006; vagias, 2006). furthermore, the scales used in the study are also taken from reliable resources. lastly, the unique items were used to measure each variable separately. data collection procedure the first section of the questionnaire included the socio-demographic information of the respondents, while the second section included the relevant question related to the study. before distributing the questionnaires to the consumers, it was clearly mentioned that it is up to their discretion whether to participate in the research or not and that the responses will be kept confidential. a total of 300 consumers were chosen for the study who were buying halal products from the consumer market. overall, 263 questionnaires were returned out of which nine were discarded because of a few unacceptable errors. finally, 254 questionnaires were considered for the analysis. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 99 theoretical framework halal awareness halal purchase buying logo intention behaviour attitude table 1: convergent validity results convergent validity test was used to study the relationship between the selected items pertaining to various constructs of the study. the constructs halal awareness halal logo attitude purchase intention buying behaviour items aw1 aw2 aw3 lo1 lo2 lo3 lo4 at1 at2 at3 at4 at5 pi1 pi2 pi3 bb1 bb2 bb3 cr 0.927 0.941 0.907 0.960 0.872 ave 0.809 0.801 0.663 0.888 0.695 loadings 0.881 0.907 0.910 0.980 0.792 0.873 0.924 0.864 0.726 0.877 0.825 0.771 0.971 0.939 0.916 0.815 0.846 0.839 100 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour... results of the test conducted delineated that a high correlation between all the items of the constructs could be found. the base of the analysis was the alpha and composite reliability of all the variables. in the case of our research, both alpha and composite reliability of variables were greater than 0.70 depicting a high correlation between the variables. likewise, the significance of the linkage between the variables was further supported by the ave value of the formulated constructs, which was higher 0.50. the following table shows the results of the convergent validity test: to analyze the discriminant validity, “heterotrait-monotrait” (htmt) has been employed. htmt is one of the latest methods to check the discriminant validity for the variables. to make sure that there is discriminant validity, htmt should be less than 0.90. in our case, the values are less than 0.90, which means that there is discriminant validity. the results of htmt ratio are shown in table 2: table 2 htmt ratio att aw bb lo pi att aw 0.571 bb 0.446 0.583 lo 0.081 0.144 0.065 pi 0.367 0.609 0.668 0.051 fig 1. model assessment hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 101 the regression analysis of the data has been shown in table 3. the data shows that there is a strong correlation between halal awareness of the consumers and their intent to buy the particular halal product. similarly, the attitude of the consumers and their purchase intention also has a significant relationship. contrarily, as per the data tabulated below, the halal logo does not show any significant relationship with the purchase intention. moreover, the purchase intention and the buying behaviour of the consumers also indicate a positive relationship. the following data support three hypotheses, namely, h1, h3 and h4 since the p-values of the said hypotheses are less than 0.05 and t-values are higher than 1.64 with no existence of zero in between the confidence intervals. on the other hand, h2 had a p-value of 0.084, showing no significant relationship between the halal logo and purchase intention in pakistan. the path analysis of this paper has been provided in table 3. table 3 path analysis confidence interval std. sample std t p 5% beta mean error statistics values 95% decision h1 aw > pi 0.516 0.509 0.061 8.509 0.000 0.375 0.624 supported h2 lo not > pi 0.123 0.103 0.071 1.730 0.084 -0.199 0.075 supported h3 att > pi 0.104 0.111 0.048 2.168 0.031 0.016 0.202 supported h4 pi > bb 0.583 0.586 0.039 15.036 0.000 0.507 0.667 supported fig 2: structural model assessment 102 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour... purchase intention has been taken as a mediator in the present study. to study its mediating role and the relationship among the variables, bootstrapping analysis has been performed. as per the analysis, the linkage between halal awareness and buying behaviour is significantly mediated by the purchase intention. similarly, the mediator has been found to support the correlation between attitude and buying behaviour. contrary to this, the link between the halal logo and buying behaviour is not affected by the mediating role of the purchase intention of the consumers in pakistan. in the case of h5 and h7, when the mediator is included, the variables showed a positive correlation, supporting both these hypotheses. the indirect effects of these two hypotheses are verified with the beta values of â = 0.301 and â = 0.061 and the t-values of 6.704 and 2.140, respectively. additionally, no zero exists between the upper and lower limits, which also corroborate the indirect path of the variables. the values of ll and ul of h5 and h7 supporting the hypotheses are: (ll = 0.214, ul = 0.390) and (ll = 0.010, ul = 0.120). table 4 indirect effects confidence interval std. sample std t p 5% beta mean error statistics values 95% decision aw >pi h5 >bb 0.301 0.299 0.045 6.704 0.000 0.214 0.390 supported h6 lo >pi not ->bb 0.072 0.061 0.043 1.688 0.092 0.120 0.043 supported h7 att > pi ->bb 0.061 0.065 0.028 2.140 0.033 0.010 0.120 supported discussion and conclusion the purpose of the study was to find the impact of halal awareness, halal logo and attitude on the purchasing intention of the consumers of pakistan towards halal food products. to investigate this issue, three hypotheses were drawn. out of these three, two hypotheses are supported hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 103 by the data analysis, which means the halal awareness and the attitude positively affected the purchasing intention in the consumer market of pakistan. additionally, the results are in accordance with the previous literature (aziz and chok, 2013; bashir et al. krishnan 2017). as the religion of population at large is islam, people are more aware of the products they consume; hence the halal awareness directly impact their purchasing intention. same was the case with the attitude of the consumers. however, contrary to this, the halal logo did not have significance, and that might be due to the reason that the people are well aware of the type and nature of the product and also as most of the food available in the markets is halal they do not bother with the certifications and halal logos on the products. moreover, as per the findings of this study, there is evidence that the purchase intention of the consumers in pakistan directly influences the buying behaviour (bashir, 2019; bashir et al., 2018; omar et al., 2012). the reason is that two of the three independent variables of the study have a positive relationship with the purchasing intention. the study also has various managerial and theoretical implications. in the case of theoretical implications, the study is crucial as it gives insight on how many consumers or potential customers in pakistan are aware of the products they are consuming and how their buying behaviour is affected. furthermore, the study also servers the purpose to enlighten from the managerial perspective, which would help the managers and upper echelon to understand better the consumer attitude and attributes, which can be utilized to capture the market. the findings are also beneficial for marketing managers to mould their marketing strategies in order to reach potential customers. this study also helps to understand those factors, which are the most influential in increasing purchase intention. for instance, it was found that the halal logo does not carry much importance in a country like pakistan as the consumers have a much higher level of halal awareness to compensate for that. furthermore, pragmatically on the applied side, this study gives insight to the halal food stakeholders and the food authorities in pakistan to better understand the consumer’s psychology and the factors, which influence the purchasing intention, which ultimately affects the buying behaviour. finally, the results lead to the conclusion that halal awareness and attitude of the consumers are the two most important variables, which influence their purchasing intention. for future research, other variables, such as the role of food authorities, can be employed to better understand the relationship between 104 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour... the selected variables. additionally, the study has been conducted in pakistan, where more than 98 percent of the population is muslim and is well aware of the halal products. in future, foreign consumers could be taken into account as to whether they would be likely to purchase the halal products or not. moreover, other variables, such as the quality of the halal products, the trust consumers are putting in the halal product producing companies, and the impact of religious teachings could be taken into consideration. bibliography adesoji christopher, o. o., omotolani, a. v., aderanti, a., damola, y. o., titilayo, o. k., & titilope, o. m. (2019). quality and safety awareness of ready-toeat foods among rural households in yewa communities of ogun state, nigeria. acta universitatis danubius. œconomica, 15(7). afendi, n. a., azizan, f. l., & darami, a. i. (2014). determinants of halal purchase intention: case in perlis. international journal of business and social research, 4(5), 118-123. al-hyari, k., alnsour, m., al-weshah, g., & haffar, m. (2012). religious beliefs and consumer behaviour: from loyalty to boycotts. journal of islamic marketing. aziz, y. a., & chok, n. v. (2013). the role of halal awareness, halal certification, and marketing components in determining halal purchase intention among non-muslims in malaysia: a structural equation modeling approach. journal of international food & agribusiness marketing, 25(1), 1-23. basheer, hafeez, m. h., hassan, s. g., & haroon, u. (2018). exploring the role of tqm and supply chain practices for firm supply performance in the presence of organizational learning capabilities: a case of textile firms in pakistan. paradigms, 12(2), 172-178. basheer, khan, s., hassan, s. g., & shah, m. h. (2018). the corporate governance andâ interdependence of investment and financing decisions of non-financial firms in pakistan. the journal of social sciences research, 316-323: 315. basheer, siam, m., awn, a., & hassan, s. (2019). exploring the role of tqm and supply chain practices for firm supply performance in the presence of information technology capabilities and supply chain technology adoption: a case of textile firms in pakistan. uncertain supply chain management, 7(2), 275-288. bashir, a. m., bayat, a., olutuase, s. o., & abdul latiff, z. a. (2019). factors affecting consumers’ intention towards purchasing halal food in south africa: a structural equation modelling. journal of food products marketing, 25(1), 2648. borzooei, m., & asgari, m. (2016). discovering perceptions of muslim consumers toward the icric halal logo. journal of islamic accounting and business research. du, j., chen, m.-y., & wu, y.-f. (2019). consumers’ purchasing intention and exploratory buying behaviour tendency for wearable technology: the moderating hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 105 role of sport involvement. paper presented at the 2019 international conference on industrial engineering and systems management (iesm). fazeli, z., shukla, p., & perks, k. (2020). digital buying behaviour: the role of regulatory fit and selfconstrual in online luxury goods purchase intentions. psychology & marketing, 37(1), 15-26. fischer, j. (2019). looking for religious logos in singapore. journal of management, spirituality & religion, 16(1), 132-153. galati, a., moavero, p., & crescimanno, m. (2019). consumer awareness and acceptance of irradiated foods: the case of italian consumers. british food journal. gautam, v., & sharma, v. (2017). the mediating role of customer relationship on the social media marketing and purchase intention relationship with special reference to luxury fashion brands. journal of promotion management, 23(6), 872-888. gwinner, c. (2006). 5-point vs. 6-point likert scales. infosurv white paper. haque, m. g., & hindrati, d. (2020). investigating awareness & knowledge, halal logo and religiosity affecting decision and lifestyle to consume halal culinary; case study of three indonesian regions in japanese restaurant. jurnal ilmu manajemen & ekonomika, 12(1), 27-31. heiman, a., gordon, b., & zilberman, d. (2019). food beliefs and food supply chains: the impact of religion and religiosity in israel. food policy, 83, 363-369. hussain, i., rahman, s. u., zaheer, a., & saleem, s. (2016). integrating factors influencing consumers’ halal products purchase: application of theory of reasoned action. journal of international food & agribusiness marketing, 28(1), 35-58. ismail, w. r. b. w., othman, m., rahman, r. a., kamarulzaman, n. h., & rahman, s. a. (2016). halal malaysia logo or brand: the hidden gap. procedia economics and finance, 37, 254-261. kapuge, k. (2016). determinants of organic food buying behaviour: special reference to organic food purchase intention of sri lankan customers. procedia food science, 6, 303-308. kawata, y., htay, s. n. n., & salman, a. s. (2018). non-muslims’ acceptance of imported products with halal logo. journal of islamic marketing. khan, a., & azam, m. k. (2016). factors influencing halal products purchase intention in india: preliminary investigation. iup journal of marketing management, 15(1), 20. khaniwale, m. (2015). consumer buying behaviour. international journal of innovation and scientific research, 14(2), 278-286. kudeshia, c., & kumar, a. (2017). social ewom: does it affect the brand attitude and purchase intention of brands? management research review. lever, j., & fischer, j. (2018). halal consumers religion, regulation, consumption: manchester university press. lim, y. j., osman, a., salahuddin, s. n., romle, a. r., & abdullah, s. (2016). factors influencing online shopping behaviour: the mediating role of purchase intention. procedia economics and finance, 35(5), 401-410. liu, c., bao, z., & zheng, c. (2019). exploring consumers’ purchase intention in social commerce. asia pacific journal of marketing and logistics. martins, j., costa, c., oliveira, t., gonçalves, r., & branco, f. (2019). how smartphone advertising influences consumers’ purchase intention. journal of business research, 94, 378387. 106 islamic perspective in consumer behaviour... mostafa, m. m. (2018). mining and mapping halal food consumers: a geo-located twitter opinion polarity analysis. journal of food products marketing, 24(7), 858-879. mukherjee, s. r. (2014). global halal: meat, money, and religion. religions, 5(1), 2275. mutmainah, l. (2018). the role of religiosity, halal awareness, halal certification, and food ingredients on purchase intention of halal food. journal of islamic economics, finance, and banking, 1(1), 33-50. omar, e. n., ramli, a. a., jaafar, h., abu hassan, l., othman, a. k., & ali, h. (2017). factors that contribute to awareness of halal logistics among muslims in the klang valley. advances in business research international journal, 3(1), 1-1. ozgen, o., & kurt, s. (2013). purchasing behaviour of islamic brands: an experimental research. paper presented at the 42nd annual conference of emac european marketing academy, istanbul, turkey. patel, j. d., gadhavi, d. d., & shukla, y. s. (2017). consumers’ responses to cause related marketing: moderating influence of cause involvement and skepticism on attitude and purchase intention. international review on public and nonprofit marketing, 14(1), 1-18. phua, j., & kim, j. j. (2018). starring in your own snapchat advertisement: influence of self-brand congruity, self-referencing and perceived humor on brand attitude and purchase intention of advertised brands. telematics and informatics, 35(5), 1524-1533. ramya, n., & ali, m. (2016). factors affecting consumer buying behaviour. international journal of applied research, 2(10), 76-80. rana, j., & paul, j. (2017). consumer behaviour and purchase intention for organic food: a review and research agenda. journal of retailing and consumer services, 38, 157-165. rani, p. (2014). factors influencing consumer behaviour. international journal of current research and academic review, 2(9), 52-61. reuters, t. (2015). state of the global islamic economy. thomson reuters, 2016. saleh, n., ibrahim, i., & abd rahman, f. (2019). determine the factors of influence the technological, organizational, environmental, halal awareness towards halalan-toyyiban risk management plan (htrmp). transportation, 2(09). salindal, n. a. (2019). halal certification compliance and its effects on companies’ innovative and market performance. journal of islamic marketing. salman, f., & siddiqui, k. (2011). an exploratory study for measuring consumers awareness and perceptions towards halal food in pakistan. interdisciplinary journal of contemporary research in business, 3(2). shaari, h., ahmad, n., mohd mokhtar, s. s., yusoff, r. z., khamwon, a., & putatchote, n. (2019). consumer purchase intention on halal packaged food products: does halal logo and ingredients matter? journal of islamic, social, economics and development (jised), 4(23), 78-86. sharma, a., & chawla, k. (2017). to study buying behaviour of consumers (branded products). singhal, d., jena, s. k., & tripathy, s. (2019). factors influencing the purchase intention of consumers towards remanufactured products: a systematic review hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 107 and meta-analysis. international journal of production research, 57(23), 72897299. soleh, m. n., adawiyah, w. r., & afif, n. c. (2019). the influence of the halal logo on cosmetic products on brand loyalty is mediated by brand satisfaction and brand trust. icore, 5(1). ur rehman, f., yusoff, r. b. m., zabri, s. b. m., & ismail, f. b. (2017). determinants of personal factors in influencing the buying behaviour of consumers in sales promotion: a case of fashion industry. young consumers. vagias, w. m. (2006). likert-type scale response anchors. clemson international institute for tourism & research development, department of parks, recreation and tourism management. clemson university. varinli, ý., erdem, e., & avcýlar, m. y. (2016). exploring the factors affecting purchase intention of halal certified foods in turkey: a pls-path modeling study. european journal of business and management, 8(4), 68-78. woolley, k., & fishbach, a. (2017). a recipe for friendship: similar food consumption promotes trust and cooperation. journal of consumer psychology, 27(1), 1-10. wu, w., zhou, l., & chien, h. (2019). impact of consumer awareness, knowledge, and attitudes on organic rice purchasing behaviour in china. journal of food products marketing, 25(5), 549-565. zakaria, z., majid, m. a., ahmad, z., jusoh, z., & zakaria, n. (2017). influence of halal certification on customers’ purchase intention. journal of fundamental and applied sciences, 9(5s), 772-787. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 103 book review the crescent in the west: image of the orient in english literature up to 1832 by abdur raheem kidwai, bean bassin, mauritius, al-ilm publishing, 2019 abdur raheem kidwai is a professor of english at the aligarh muslim university, india, and visiting professor fellow, school of english, university of leicester, uk (2006-2016). he has specialized in the study of orientalism in english literature. equipped with amazing literary and writing skills, he has devoted his time to penning several articles and books, especially on the depiction of muslims and islam in english literature. this book contains material from his ph.d. thesis originally titled as samples of the finest orientalism: a study of the orient in lord byron’s ‘turkish tales’ (leicester, uk, 1993), for an extensive audience. the work consists of three chapters, along with a bibliography of byron’s oriental reading kidwai starts by accentuating the factors which led europe to learn about islam and the muslims in general. the west, with the passage of time, termed islam to be a heresy and the muslims’ character to be wretched in nature. kidwai has pointed out the biased statement of r.w southern, who calls the period between 700-1100 to be the ‘age of ignorance.’ southern, however, seems to not have gone through the authentic historical records of islam for him to have uttered and termed the ‘golden era of islam’ to be the period of darkness. such a statement leads to the tendency of the emergence of the penning of polemical works. by highlighting this negative image at the very outset, kidwai provides a foretaste to the readers about what lies ahead regarding the image of islam projected by the western writers. in chapter 1, kidwai attempts to depict the causes of the initial interaction of europe with the muslim world. the genesis, according to kidwai, being the crusade wars in the middle ages, followed by the muslim conquests of spain in 711, which lasted till 1492, and another 104 book review important point of interaction between the two, being the ottoman empire undoubtedly. he also mentions the reasons of the distaste of the europeans for the ottomans due to which they have been negatively portrayed in the elizabethan english literature. moreover, kidwai intelligently uses his ace of spade in the citation of travel literature. this, according to him, paved the way, to some extent, for the europeans to change their negative attitude towards islam and muslims. kidwai shows diligence and accuracy in picking up the relevant materials without any sort of bias for muslims or the west. it is clearly visible that his toil and purpose is to provide the readers a non-discriminatory outlook of the projection of islam and the muslims in the works of these writers. what is more striking in the writing of kidwai is that even the minute detail has been expressed with reference; a commendable literary skill and ability. it depicts the scope of reading as well as the research conducted by kidwai. it will not be inappropriate to state that the first chapter persuades the readers to dwell into the other two remaining chapters. what is noteworthy is that they are very informative for those having a deep interest in studying and comprehending the history of the insights developed by the west regarding the orient and islam. the western approach consists of amalgamated perspectives, both positive and negative. though, most of the representations of islam by the western writers are negative, yet kidwai stresses the writings of those authors as well such as thomas gower, thomas brown and william jones, who speak of muslims highly. by highlighting both sides of the same coin, kidwai portrays an impartial picture in his writing. he is well aware of the fact that one cannot clap with one hand, which he does delineate in his analytical study. he offers a balanced interpretation of the sources as well. chapter 2 deals with the orient’s portrayal in byron’s turkish tales. kidwai appreciates the efforts of byron, who first went through a deep study of the orient, enabling him to authenticate his writings. he further points out that byron prepared his own notes with relevancy in order to bring the flavor of authenticity to his projection of the orient. byron shuns the methodologies of his contemporaries, who rely heavily on various citations to design their arguments regarding the life and manners of the orient. kidwai looks satisfied with byron’s presentation, as he avoids extravagance and elucidates his views and thought in connection with the text. according to him, byron, by not falling into overindulgence, eschews the process of disputatious writings in comparison to other western. this writers puts him in the list of those embarking on hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 105 a sedulous and literary voyage, passing through a positive avenue to reach an unbiased station. byron also employs his qualitative analytical method by not relying only on secondary sources. according to kidwai, byron’s orientalism is markedly different from that of the other western writers, marred by religious rancor and cultural astigmatism. byron is much more advanced in his thought thus assuming relevance in the modern world, which is full of plural and multicultural life. chapter 3 deals with the projection of the oriental female characters in the works of byron. kidwai cites the earlier works of the west in which oriental characters have been mentioned or discussed. however, these works, according to him, depict a loathsome image of islam. the orientals are termed as unscrupulous, cannibal, polygamists and traders of women. kidwai brings into light their low level of understanding of the islamic religion. moreover, byron’s female characters are of utmost importance. according to kidwai, the female characters, leila (the giaour), zuleikha (the bride of abydos) and gulnare (the corsair), differ from one another. byron’s portrayal of the different shades of femininity is notable; leila, being submissive, zuleikha, the sober and obedient one and gulnare, depicts masculine features by rescuing conrad from pasha syed’s dungeon. besides, kidwai highlights some essential themes like patriarchy, tyranny, adultery and interfaith marriage. however, they have been simply generalized by him.the absence of concrete proof to support his statements tones down the weight of his remarks. also, punctuation mistakes are seen in this work, which need to be avoided so that readers can benefit. a piece of suggestion to the author would be that in case a new edition of the book is on the way, the above-mentioned themes should be discussed in depth. reviewer: mohammad teisir bin shah goolfee research scholar department of islamic studies aligarh muslim university aligarh-202002, india gteisir@gmail.com f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 3\content.pmd contents * editorial * a comparative study of adoption of conventional banking and islamic banking in pakistan. — dr. muzammil khurshid — dr. muhammad riaz mahmood * insistence in the pre-islamic poetry a study of motives and causes — habib ur rahman — mahmood ahmad * corporate social responsibility in pakistan: mimicry of the west or a milestone guiding consumer behaviour? — rashid jehangiri — dr. muhammad shafiq * macroeconomic indicators contributing towards exchange rate volatility: evidence from income groups of the countries — amjad fakher — rana ejaz ali khan * the influence of vincent van gogh’s religious background on his works in the nuenen period — prof. monther sameh al atoum 5 7 19 39 61 97 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: prof. dr. muhammad saad siddiqui associate editor: prof. dr. nigar sajjad zaheer published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websi tes: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] hamdard islamicus is indexed in scopus. articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 200 s. wacker dr. suite 3100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/payment should be in the name of the hamdard foundation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xliii july-september 2020 no. 3 * hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2227 obituary prof. dr. ansar zahid khan (1 january 1934 to 19 february 2019) strange that a man who lived such a full life, should have it shown squeezed between two dates, as if they were bookends! but when a life is that full, that well-lived, and has influenced so many, then dates and death are mere statistics – only of theoretical interest. the true value and meaning of the man lives on, with his work. and our memories of him. ansar zahid khan was born on the very first day of the year 1934, in agra one of the most well-known cities of the then-undivided indian subcontinent. his early schooling matriculation and intermediate was done through the allahabad board, in 1948 and 1950 respectively. he obtained a 1st division in matric, and solid 2nd in subsequent examinations. agra university was his alma mater for his bachelor’s (1953) and master’s (in history, 1955), as well as b.t. his last examination passed in india was adib kamil, from jamia urdu, aligarh. he obtained his ph.d. in history (1974) from the university of karachi, pakistan. he started his professional career as a teacher of history. he taught in various colleges, as well as the department of history of the university of karachi. he retired on 31 december 1993, from the service of the government of sindh, as a professor of history. that was when hakim mohammed said acquired his services for hamdard (as professor and research director of hamdard foundation pakistan), for which he worked with dedication and loyalty till almost his last breath. seriously ill, he went to spend the last months of his life with his sons, in santa clara, california, usa, where he died, at the age of 85. actually, his association with shaheed hakim mohammed said began much before his retirement in 1993. hakim said was one of hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2228 the founding members of the pakistan historical society. dr. ansar zahid khan became first the society’s joint secretary in 1970 upto 1989, and from 1989 onwards, its general secretary. he meticulously edited the journal of the pakistan historical society (historicus), as well as another journal, the hamdard islamicus, for about 3 decades, and organized 11 international history conferences. he also guided 25 ph.d. scholars. he remained secretary of the hamdard education society for 27 years, and, from 1970, was a member of the executive committee and editorial committee of the institute of central west asian studies. he was also chosen as a member of the research board of advisors of the american biographical institute, in 1991, and was also honoured by a turkish research journal the journal of islamic research as a member of its international editorial board. he was a prolific writer, who authored, co-authored, or edited around 25 books, wrote numerous editorials, reviews, and articles, and has also left some unpublished work. of his many books, history and culture of sind (1980), which goes beyond his 1974 thesis in its scope, is likely to be republished, and his al-biruni: his life and work needs to be introduced to a new generation. he coauthored bahr al-asrar and tadhkirat al-umara, co-authored and edited road to pakistan, and almost finished work on three other books: editing and annotating english translation of tabaqat al-kabir, vol. iii, english translation (from persian) annotation and editing of volume lll of tadhkirat al-umara by kewalram, as well as of darbari akhbar: alamgir’s reign (1666-1707). in his personal life, he was very caring of his family and relatives. in his professional life, he encouraged and mentored his juniors, and was a beacon light to researchers, historians, and academia alike. words are insufficient to describe the void he has left. he worked tirelessly all his life. may his soul now rest in a wellearned peace. and may allah give solace and strength to his family and us. amen! hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 7 iqbal on religion and science: a critique dr. sobia tahir department of philosophy and interdisciplinary studies government college university, lahore e-mail: <chairperson.philosophy@gcu.edu.pk> this paper intends to highlight the salient features of iqbal’s thought regarding reconstruction of religious thought and its linkage with science. he has reiterated his aim in these words, “it may fairly be argued that in view of the more recent developments of science, such as the nature of matter as ‘bottled-up light waves’, the idea of the universe as an act of thought, finiteness of space and time and heisenberg’s principle of indeterminacy in nature, the case for a system of rational theology is not so bad as kant was led to think.”1 iqbal seems to be in a vigorous and rigorous state of mind to institute and launch a new and fresh theology based on the findings of modern science. the above quoted passage reveals the following aspects of his thought or better to say his foundational principles on which he wants to build the edifice or superstructure of his theology: iscientific progress of europe is a continuation of islamic intellectual tradition, heritage and culture; iithere is absolutely no matter of apprehension to derive benefit from european advancement in rationality and modern disciplines; iiifresh interpretation of islamic beliefs and even their reconstruction is quite justified in the light of european thought. the approach of iqbal is spirited and confident. like very many theologians of his time he is not afraid of judging beliefs in the light of science. either his vision was correct or erroneous, valid or fallacious, is a separate issue but his determination and resolve to break the intellectual deadlock and stagnation are, nonetheless, laudable. this paper has tried to cover the range of iqbal’s success in this endeavour. keywords: mohammad iqbal, recenstruction of the religious thought in islam, science. 8 iqbal on religion and science... introduction 19th century posited itself for the muslim world in the form of complete colonization by the western powers and the extreme tension between traditional faith and challenge of modernity. it was the time when islam came openly under fire by the western scholars and intellectuals for whom it stood not only as a symbol of backwardness but also the major reason for the same in the muslim world. ernest renan (1832-1892) is one such major and influential example according to whom islam was absolutely incompatible with both science and philosophy. in his doctoral thesis, averroes et l’averroisme (1852: ‘averroes and averroism’), he upheld this view very audaciously. he, in his lecture “islam and science” given at sorbonne and published in the journal des débats, march 29, 1883, attacked islam and arabs as innately incapable of doing philosophy and producing science. his ruthless attack was responded by a number of apologies one by namik kemal, the famous ottoman writer, poet and activist. surprisingly enough, jamal al-din al-afghani (1838-1897) and muhammad abduh (1848-1905) responded defensively. they were of the view that backwardness of the muslim world was not due to the islam per se, rather because of the contemporary muslim understanding of the islam. afghani, more or less submitted to renan’s opinion, however, he replaced the word “islam” with “religion”; agreeing with renan that almost all the religions exhibit such hostility or opposition towards reason. perhaps it would not be out of context to quote his original words here. he writes in response to renan, “if it is true that the muslim religion is an obstacle to the development of sciences, can one affirm that this obstacle will not disappear someday? how does the muslim religion differ on this point from other religions? all religions are intolerant, each one in its way. the christian religion, i mean the society that follows its inspirations and its teachings and is formed in its image, has emerged from the first period to which i have just alluded; thenceforth free and independent, it seems to advance rapidly on the road of progress and science, whereas muslim society has not yet freed itself from the tutelage of religion. realizing, however, that the christian religion preceded the muslim religion in the world by many centuries, i cannot keep from hoping that muhammadan society will succeed someday in breaking its bonds and marching resolutely in the path hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 9 of civilization after the manner of western society…no i cannot admit that this hope be denied to islam.” 2 this hope of afghani definitely came true and the muslim world soon started its march towards this destination, that is, to bring religion (islam) at par with science and modernization. the first visionary who was the herald and harbinger of this voyage was syed ahmad khan (1817-1898) of india. it was he who first of all felt the need of a new islamic theology of modernity in the muslim world to encounter the contemporary challenges faced by islam especially with reference to science. he called for a jadid ilm al-kalam (new theology) in his address to anjuman-ihimayat-i-islam at lahore in 1884. muhammad iqbal (1877-1938), the philosopher, and famous as the poet of the east, was the man who fulfilled this vision of syedd ahmad khan with writing his reconstruction of religious thought in islam. in the words of mohammad khalid masud, “in our view the reconstruction offers a new islamic theology of modernity in continuation to sayyid ahmad khan’s call for jadid ilm al-kalam. as evident from the publications still appearing in south asia with the title jadid ilm al-kalam, debate on the need for a new islamic theology continues, although the objectifications of modernity keep changing in the formulations of these new theologies. (he offers a recent example of muhammad shahab aldin nadwi’s jadid ilm al-kalam published by majlis nashriyat islam, karachi, pakistan in 1994). he further writes in the similar context, “muhammad iqbal’s reconstruction makes a major turning point in the growth of islamic theology of modernity after sayyid ahmad khan. this work consists of a series of lectures that he wrote and delivered in lahore, madras, hyderabad, and aligarh between 1924 and 1930. his theology of modernity differed from that of muhammad abduh (d.1905) the founder of islamic modernism in egypt who remained largely faithful to ancient islamic theology. iqbal observed that the “concepts of theological systems, draped in terminology of a practically dead metaphysics” could not help the reconstruction of religious thought. “the only course open to us is to approach modern knowledge with a respectful but independent attitude and to appreciate the teachings of islam in the light of that knowledge, even though we may be led to differ from those who have gone before us”. iqbal thus clearly endorsed sayyid ahmad 10 iqbal on religion and science... khan’s call for a new theology by clearly rejecting ancient metaphysics as a dead science.”3 iqbal on the meaning of religion and modern science before moving to iqbal, it would be unfair, not to pay tribute to a personality, who is the first islamic modernist in the true sense of the word. he is the man who braved the initial and ruthless blows of modernity directly but did not give in. he faced these attacks heroically not only academically and intellectually, but in almost all the fields of practical and political life. he fought the battle on multiple fronts and paved the way for the next generation of travelers. this man was no other but syedd ahmad khan, who developed a new set of principles for the interpretation of qur’én. in his taqrir fi usul al –tafsir (1892), he proposed 15 principles for the exegesis of qur’én. the ninth principle explains the relationship between the qur’én as the word of god and nature as the work of god. according to him, “there is no matter in qur’én disagreeing with the laws of nature.”4 this is the main maxim which is carried forward by iqbal and it has bestowed that strength on him with the help of which he has examined modern science without feeling any sense of inferiority or overwhelmingness. iqbal has paid extraordinary attention to the nature and laws of nature. it is interesting to note that he writes nature with capital n. he has laid emphasis on the qur’énic message to study laws of nature with a reflective attitude. iqbal in his reconstruction has specially and insistently highlighted the anti-classical spirit of islam and qur’én. he is of the view that qur’énic approach towards nature and reality is empirical, scientific and inductive. it believes in the particular and the concrete instead of the universals and abstracts. it would be fruitful to have a look on this passage of iqbal’s, “no doubt, the immediate purpose of the qur’én in the reflective observation of nature is to awaken in man the consciousness of that of which nature is regarded a symbol. but the point to note is the general empirical attitude of the qur’én which engendered in its followers a feeling of reverence for the actual and ultimately made them the founders of modern science…..the qur’én opens our eyes to the great fact of change, through the appreciation and hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 11 control of which alone it is possible to build a durable civilization.”5 [emphasis added]. as per iqbal’s analysis, one of the reasons of the failure of asian cultures was to approach reality exclusively from within and ignoring its outward aspect.6 for iqbal there is practically no difference between science and prayer or worship. since nature is the outward manifestation of reality and its observation or study is no less than prayer. hence the scientist who is closely judging or investigating nature is actually engaged in an act of worship. in his own lucid words, “in fact prayer must be regarded as a necessary complement to the intellectual activity of the observer of nature. the scientific observer of nature keeps us in close contact with the behaviour of reality, and thus sharpens our inner perception for a deeper vision of it……..the truth is that all search for knowledge is essentially a form of prayer. the scientific observer of nature is a kind of mystic seeker in the act of prayer.7 perhaps iqbal is more clear and categorical in the same outlook in the second lecture of the reconstruction, when he applies the philosophical test on the revelations of the religious experience. he has almost identified therein nature with the self or “i-am-ness” of the divine being. let us have an interesting read from his text, “now a self is unthinkable without a character, i.e. a uniform mode of behaviour. nature as we have seen is not a mass of pure materiality occupying a void. it is a structure of events, a systematic mode of behaviour, and as such organic to the ultimate self. in the picturesque phrase of qur’én it is the habit of allah……………… nature, then, must be understood as a living, ever-growing organism whose growth has no final external limits. its only limit is internal, i.e. the immanent self which animates and sustains the whole……..thus the view we have taken gives a fresh spiritual meaning to physical science. the knowledge of nature is knowledge of god’s behaviour. in our observation of nature, we are virtually seeking a kind of intimacy with the absolute ego; and this is only another form of worship.”8 nature is but god’ sunnah, the habit. for iqbal, human body too, (just like nature) is the accumulated action or habit of the soul.9 [emphasis added]. (the underlined and highlighted as bold will be critically analyzed by the end of the section). the fifth lecture of reconstruction, iqbal has exclusively devoted to the achievements of islam in the domain of knowledge, say science. 12 iqbal on religion and science... the lecture no doubt carries some very original and famous assertions of iqbal, for instance his claim which he has justified with apt examples, that “the birth of islam is the birth of inductive intellect”. another very novel and worth-considering idea of iqbal is regarding prophet’s unique position in history. he says, “the prophet of islam seems to stand between the ancient and modern world. in so far as the source of his revelation is concerned he belongs to the ancient world; in so far as the spirit of his revelation is concerned he belongs to the modern world. in him life discovers other sources of knowledge suitable to its new directions.”10 iqbal further unfolds the relation between nature, reason and revelation in the fifth lecture and writes, “the qur’én sees the signs of ultimate reality in the ‘sun’, the ‘moon’, ‘the lengthening out of shadows’, ‘the alternation of day and night’, ‘variety of human colours and tongues’, ‘the alternation of days of success and reverse among peoples’, in fact in the whole nature as revealed to the sense perception of man……..this appeals to the concrete combined with the slow realization that, according to the teachings of the qur’én, the universe is dynamic in its origin, infinite and capable of increase, eventually brought muslim thinkers into conflict with greek thought”.11 iqbal says that, “this intellectual revolt against greek philosophy manifests itself in all departments of thought. i am afraid; i am not competent enough to deal with it as it discloses itself in mathematics, astronomy and medicine”.12 however, this relation has been very beautifully elaborated by contemporary egyptian philosopher hassan hanafi: “islam was founded on the model of identity between revelation, reason and nature. the identity between revelation and reason produced philosophy and mathematics: arithmetic, algebra, geometry and music. the identity between revelation and nature produced hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 13 natural sciences: physics, chemistry, medicine, pharmacology, biology, botanic, mineralogy, and geology. in this model there was no distinction between mathematical, physical and human sciences. this model is based on the harmony between the order of revelation, the order of reason and the order of nature”13. iqbal, however, because of his love for the “concrete” quotes specific examples from islamic history to prove the muslims and the arabs as the real precursors of science. he very earnestly quotes from briffault’s making of humanity, “the debt of our science to that of arabs does not consist in startling discoveries of revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to arab culture, it owes its existence. the ancient world was, as we saw, pre scientific……..what we call science, arose in europe as a result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods of investigation, of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of mathematics in a form unknown to greeks. the spirit and those methods were introduced to the european world by the arabs”.14 iqbal has given the credit of theory of evolution to jahiz and ibni-maskwaih. interested readers may see the fifth lecture of reconstruction in detail, that is, “the spirit of muslim culture”. the discussion above leaves a healthy, satisfying and refreshing effect on the mind of the reader/listener. he heaves a sigh of relief and thanks that the muslim world has not only produced bigots, reactionary and anti-reason personalities who would declare sciences as witchcraft or condemn scientific progress as a warfare and conspiracy against religion. “after all” we have thinkers who are not afraid of this monster which has shaken the foundations of ancient/organized religion since its inception; because the very first and basic conflict of the conservatives and the moderns was founded on the premise that the discoveries of science were not in accordance with the religious beliefs (of any religion). however, the giant of modern and contemporary muslim intellectual tradition appears very certain and convinced, and, finds absolutely no fissure and cleft between the two rivals. for him the nature, revelation and reason are but one and the same thing; these utterances are very pleasant and encouraging, and most definitely the muslim world is direly 14 iqbal on religion and science... in need of this rational approach, since on this critical juncture of history the already enfeebled and debilitated muslim world may not afford to have a conflict with science. hence a reconciliatory vision is imperative. but here appears a very critical question of truth versus pragmatism. can and should the truth be sacrificed for the sake of “doctrine of necessity”? this is a separate and debatable issue, verily beyond the scope of this paper for the primary reason of paucity of time. however, a few comments are essential here to make some points clear. as far as the observation of the present author goes, mohammad iqbal is working with good intentions and as sincere thinker. he earnestly believes in his own systems of thought. however, his general scheme of ideas is based, rather on oversimplification of facts. moreover, the great philosopher has viewed the picture exclusively from the one side and has ignored the opinion of opponents which deserves due appreciation as far as its intellectual merits are concerned. is it justified to say that there is no difference between religion and science, whereas both have different and mutually exclusive methods? one is based on faith, submission and revelation while the other is founded on observation, experimentation, modification, falsification and even on total rejection. science never claims finality and absolute truth, whereas religion starts from a mighty and unchallengeable claim that, “this is the book beyond any doubt, guidance for the fearing who believe in the unseen”15. a believer is not supposed to observe at first the visible and then by observation move towards the invisible. on the contrary, s/he has to believe first in the unseen as an article of faith, and then strengthen the pre-existing belief with the help of the “signs of allah” prevalent in nature. for this too, the guidance is required from revelation and a divine messenger, because left alone with reason, s/he may believe in anyother god or creator not necessarily allah. moreover, s/he may believe in many equally potent, autonomous and mutually cooperating gods instead of the one, only, single and omnipotent god who has no rival or partner. this is a familiar case or fate of the natural theology. this is a very serious point to ponder and to say alone that religion is not dogma and not enough to counter a weighty argument. besides this, there are many other aspects of iqbal which are in need of thorough deliberation. the main inspiration of iqbal has come from the then, modern physics, which has today become a century old and innumerable new ground-breaking developments have taken place in it. a number of theories of iqbal’s time have been revised, modified, improved or rejected. his immense faith in einstein’s theory of relativity is astonishing and amazing, hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 15 he is overwhelmed with the results of einstein and is fondly eager to interpret or see qur’énic text in its light. his famous line in the first lecture requires special attention, “the theory of einstein has brought a new vision of universe and suggests new ways of looking at the problems common to both religion and philosophy,” strange, definitely strange!! neither einstein was a theologian nor does physics deal with religion at all. sorry to say, the discoveries of physics, especially those of modern physics deny through and through the role of a wise creator behind the universe for whom some room could be made with the help of classical mechanics which believed in the concept of force, action from the distance and rigid laws of nature. einstein, the exponent of the revolutionary theory which entirely changed the picture of the universe was himself a non-believer. his own theory could not convince him to testify the tenets of any religion including his own ancestral judaism. it is interesting to note that a philosopher of iqbal’s stature knew it well that physics deals with the physical things and has no link with religion, theology or spirituality etcetera, as he himself has acknowledged in the second lecture of the reconstruction, “thus physics studies the material world, that is to say, the world revealed by the senses. the mental processes involved in this study, and similarly religious and aesthetic experience, though part of the total range of experience, are excluded from the scope of physics for the obvious reason that physics is restricted to the study of material world, by which we mean the world of things we perceive”16. it is surprising that knowing all this so explicitly, he used physics as an apologetic method to prove the validity of religion. iqbal insists zealously on modern physics of which the one foundational rule is uncertainty principle. such an uncertain nature may definitely not be equated with that god who does not change his habits! moreover, the laws of nature are indifferent to human needs and desires and at times yield untold suffering and pain to humanity. should these be identified with the habits of god? iqbal has almost ignored this side of the picture. he has treated the problem of evil in his third lecture briefly and then has associated it 16 iqbal on religion and science... with the legend of the fall of adam. he has tried to interpret the legend symbolically assigning new meanings to the old terms. his elucidation of the legend makes a very fabulous academic read but it is very difficult and incomprehensible for an ordinary believer and reader. mohammad iqbal’s reverence for science is not as deep and profound as it appears from the outset. at places he is more than harsh towards the poor discipline and has used a word as offensive as “vulture” for it. see the passage that follows, “but we must not forget that what is called science is not a single systematic view of reality. it is a mass of sectional views of reality fragments of a total experience which do not seem to fit together. natural science deals with matter, with life, and with mind; but the moment you ask the question how matter, mind and life are mutually related, you begin to see the sectional character of the various sciences that deal with them and the inability of that science, taken singly, to furnish a complete answer to your question. in fact the various natural sciences are so many vultures falling on the dead body of nature, each running away with the piece of its flesh.17 at another place his position is hundred percent pro-religion and anti-science as he writes, “it seems that the method of dealing with reality by means of concepts is not at all a serious way of dealing with it. science does not care whether its electron is a real entity or not. it may be a mere symbol, a mere convention. religion, which is essentially a mode of actual living, is the only serious way of handling reality.”18 most interesting to note is that he has torn the phenomena of life and consciousness completely out of the domain of sciences and declared them beyond the scope of mechanistic explanation. a very detailed discussion on the same may be seen in the second lecture of reconstruction, wherein, iqbal has quoted j. s. haldane, wildon carr and bergson in support of his argument; rather these are the results of heavy influence of bergson. bergson in his creative evolution has declared life as beyond the reach of physics and chemistry. some passages from the same are worth quoting here: hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 17 “chemists have pointed out that even in the organic-not to go as far as organized-science has reconstructed hitherto nothing but waste products of vital activity; the peculiarly active plastic substances obstinately defy synthesis”.19 “to sum up those who are concerned only with the functional activity of the living being are inclined to believe that physics and chemistry will give us key to biological processes.”20 “the fact is, neither one nor the other of these two theories, neither that which affirms nor that which denies the possibility of chemically producing an elementary organism, can claim the authority of experiment. they are both unverifiable, the former because science has not yet advanced a step towards the chemical synthesis of a living substance, the second because there is no conceivable way of proving experimentally the impossibility of the fact”21. bergson was quite right when he wrote these passages in 1907. actually no living substance was chemically synthesized till his death (1941). so he left the world with strong belief in his theory. the case of iqbal is also not different who passed away even three years earlier, that is, in 1938. however, the destination of the chemical production of life in the laboratory was not very far. this too, happened in 1952, when stanley l. miller and harold c. urey in their famous urey-miller experiment produced 20 different amino acids in the laboratory. amino acids are the building blocks of proteins.they tested the alexander oparin’s and j.b. s. haldane’s hypothesis that life came into being through the chemical processes which took place under the primitive conditions of the earth. these conditions led to the formation of organic compounds through inorganic precursors. the epoch-making results of this experiment on the origin of life were published in 1953, which was conducted at the university of chicago.22 therefore, these ideas might have some value 90 years ago, but in the contemporary age of the very advanced medicine, biotechnology, genetic engineering, cloning, organ transplantation and stem-cell research, they appear nothing but immature. the recent advancements in psychiatry and neurology have almost replaced the obsolete ideas regarding mind and consciousness. contrary to iqbal’s views, consciousness is not something over and above the physics, chemistry and mechanistic 18 iqbal on religion and science... explanations but is quite subject to their laws. our thoughts, ideas, consciousness, emotions and all other mental phenomena respond to the psychiatric drugs. the flourishing discipline of biochemistry has revolutionized the world of medicine. it explores the relationship between chemistry and life or in the other words; it may be called chemistry of life. bergson has a similar attitude towards physics as well about which he opines, “the more physics progresses, the more it shows the impossibility of representing the properties of ether or of electricity, the probable base of all bodies, on the model of the properties of the matter which we perceive”.23 his disagreement with kant is well known whom he has criticized rather vehemently. in the similar vein he has written, “he (kant) did not consider in his critique of pure reason, that science became less and less objective, more and more symbolical to the extent that it went from the physical to the vital, from the vital to the psychical. experience does not move, to his view, in two different and perhaps opposite ways, the one conformable to the direction of the intellect, the other contrary to it. there is, for him, only one experience, and the intellect covers its whole ground. this is what kant expresses by saying that all our intuitions are sensuous, or, in other words, infra-intellectual”.24 what is the underlying current or logic of this approach? why do bergson and iqbal harbour this attitude towards sciences? why do they oppose kant so intensely? their position is clearly ambivalent which at times becomes openly hostile. the answer is that to accommodate freedom of will, human volition, mysticism and intuition they need a non-mechanistic explanation of the universe. they desire a world free from the categories of space, time and causality wherein human individuality may grow without any restriction. bergson has concluded his creative evolution on the following passage which is the gist of his entire philosophical endeavours: “so understood, philosophy is not only the turning of the mind homeward, the coincidence of human consciousness with the living hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 19 principle whence it emanates, a contact with the creative effort: it is the study of becoming in general, it is true evolutionism and consequently the true continuation of science provided that we understand by this word a set of truths neither experienced nor demonstrated, and not a certain new scholasticism that has grown up during the latter half of the nineteenth century around the physics of galileo, as the old scholasticism grew up around aristotle”.25 he has warned philosophy against becoming physics in these words, “we must remember that philosophy, as we define it, has not yet become conscious of itself. physics understands its role when it pushes matter in the direction of spatiality; but has metaphysics understood its role when it has simply trodden in the steps of physics, in the chimerical hope of going further in the same direction. should not its own task be, on the contrary, to remount the incline that physics descends, to bring back matter to its origins, and to build up progressively a cosmology which would be so to speak , a reversed psychology?”26 while in the introduction of the same book he has expressed, “in fact, we do not indeed feel that not one of the categories of our thought unity, multiplicity, mechanical causality, intelligent finality, etc. applies exactly to the things of life: who can say where individuality begins and ends”.27 iqbal has written in the more or less similar spirit, “modern atomism is, however, unique. its amazing mathematics, which sees the world as an elaborate differential equation; and its physics which, following its own methods has been led to smash some of the old gods of its own temple, have already brought us to the point of asking the question whether the causality-bound aspect of nature is the whole truth about it.”28 iqbal in the first lecture of reconstruction has beautifully elucidated the empirical and scientific spirit of qur’én which does not abhor the world of senses like greek philosophy. qur’én invites its reader again 20 iqbal on religion and science... and again to observe the order, purpose, regularity, uniformity and proportion of the material universe. the persistent, consistent and repetitive stress laid on its fascinating design, rivers, mountains, clouds, colours, rains, winds, weathers, days, nights, fruits, flowers, flavours, fragrances, ferries, oceans, plains, animals, birds, fish, light, shadows, sun, moon, stars, heavens, earth, institutions, men, women, creeds, languages, festivals, rites, rituals, and immense variety of objects is a hallmark feature of qur’én. nature is definitely a premise from which to infer conclusion is the duty of a reflective and contemplative soul, according to qur’én. hence the sentence of iqbal that nature is regarded as symbol is absolutely valid. hitherto no one may have any difference of opinion with him. however, he follows a drastically different trajectory in the second chapter which is definitely startling for any theistic believer, for whom the world is a creation of god, who had brought it into being out of nothing (ex-nihilo) by uttering the word kun (be)29 as a result of his sheer sweet will without any internal or external compulsion. here in the second lecture, iqbal takes a pantheistic position when he identifies the nature and its manifestations with the ultimate self. the ultimate self which is unique and nothing may be compared with him30; his unity is pure and un-analyzable into parts. how can he be declared identical with a universe so diverse and full of plurality and multiplicity? this is the stance neither of philosophy nor of science, rather of mysticism and quite in contrast with the shari’éh. this sort of pantheism has led to crude polytheism in various ancient religions. moreover, to identify the theistic god with nature and universe is an encroachment not only on his essence, which is pure and simple, but is also a tempering with his existence which is boundless. this is a sort of limitation imposed on him. the second point to ponder is the use of word immanent by iqbal which is a through and through pantheistic term. it is the opposite of transcendent. it would be fruitful to have a look on the definition and the etymology of the two. the literal meaning of immanent is “remaining within, indwelling, inherent, intrinsic, internal or subjective; hence limited in activity, agency or effect to the subject or associated acts. it is a derivative of latin immanens which stands for to remain in or near. philosophically speaking it is a term applied to a deity which is believed to exist in all things throughout the whole process of creation”.31 a brief explanation is going to be more helpful in appreciating the spirit of the point, “immanence is the quality of any action which begins and ends hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 21 within the agent. thus, vital action, as well in the physiological as in the intellectual and moral order, is called immanent, because it proceeds from that spontaneity which is essential to the living subject and has for its term the unfolding of the subject’s constituent energies. it is initiated and is consummated in the interior of the same being, which may be considered as a closed system”32. before elaborating the same a hurried glance on transcendence is essential. it means surpassing others, pre-eminent or supreme, lying beyond the ordinary range of perception, being above and independent of material universe. “the term transcendence, from the latin transcendere (to climb up), means to go beyond, surpass, or rise above, particularly what is given in personal experience. in theology, transcendence is associated with the beyond-ness and holiness of god, in the sense of the existence of god being prior to the physical cosmos and exalted above it. referring to divine ascent beyond the world, transcendence is frequently contrasted with immanence, the presence of god in the world”.33 now the meaning of iqbal’s assertion that the study of nature is actually the study of god’s behaviour may be easily analyzed. there are two immediately relevant points here: ithe study of god or his behaviour does not make the subjectmatter of science at all. this is the purview of theology, and science is verily not theology. no scientist, no matter how devout believer he is, has ever claimed that he was studying either god or his behaviour. this is basically a category mistake, mixing two separate areas of inquiry which are mutually exclusive; iito equate or identify god with the nature is clearly pantheism and in contrast with the theistic spirit of semitic tradition including islam. a theistic god is creator and may never ever be identical with his creature(s). on the other hand the pantheistic god is not a willful creator, rather the universe proceeds from his being, as is mentioned in the underlined statement above. this is known as emanation. this procedure leads towards a closed as well as a highly deterministic system as a logical consequence. whereas we have seen that iqbal is a great critic of both ideas; he is a staunch exponent of freedom of will and of an open and growing universe. being a very keen and brilliant thinker, iqbal himself was aware of his own bend of mind; therefore, he has acknowledged with great integrity 22 iqbal on religion and science... that the intellectual view of reality is always pantheistic. when he defines in second lecture the ultimate reality as rationally directed creative life, he admits frankly, “the operation of thought which is essentially symbolic in character veils the true nature of life, and can picture it only as a kind of universal current flowing through all things. the result of an intellectual view of life, therefore, is necessarily pantheistic”.34 there are some other passages in iqbal which present a very patent and obvious picture of pantheism. “the question of creation once rose among the disciples of the well-known saint bayazid of bistam. one of the disciples very pointedly put the common sense view saying: ‘there was a moment of time when god existed and nothing existed besides him.’ the saint’s reply was equally pointed. ‘it is just the same now’, said he, ‘as it was then’”.35 “reality is, therefore, essentially spirit………i have conceived ultimate reality as an ego; and i must add now that from the ultimate ego only egos proceed. the creative energy of ultimate ego, in whom deed and thought are identical, functions as egounities. the world, in all its details, from the mechanical movement of what we call atom of matter to the free movement of thought in the human ego, is the self-revelation of the ‘great i am’. every atom of divine energy, however low in the scale of existence, is an ego. but there are degrees in the expression of ego-hood……like pearls do we live and move and have our being in the perpetual flow of divine life.”36 “finite minds regard nature as a confronting ‘other’ existing per se, which the mind knows but does not make. we are thus apt to regard the act of creation as a specific past event, and the universe appears to us as a manufactured article which has no organic relation to the life of its maker, and of which the maker is nothing more than a mere spectator. all the meaningless theological controversies about the idea of creation arise from this narrow vision of finite mind. ………the real question which we are called hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 23 upon to answer is this: does the universe confront god as his ‘other’ with space intervening between him and it? the answer is that from the divine point of view, there is no creation in the sense of a specific event having a ‘before’ or ‘after’. the universe cannot be regarded as an independent reality standing in opposition to him. this view of matter will reduce both god and the world to two separate entities confronting each other in the empty receptacle of an infinite space.”37 here one thing must be made clear to be fair and just to the great thinker. when we say that he leans towards pantheism, it does not mean the monistic approach of spinoza or wahdatal-wajud of ibn arabi, for whom the substance is one and singular. (though some eminent scholars have identified him with ibn arabi too, see two last quotes of this section by ali abbas jalalpuri and altaf ahmad azami). for iqbal ultimate reality is essentially spiritual and one but he is more in line with pluralistic monadology of leibniz. though from the ultimate ego, only egos may proceed, but all these egos are individual and different from each other. hence, mohammad iqbal in his approach is more akin to wahdatalshahud. iqbal’s combination of science, theology and philosophy makes a highly academic reading; it is impressive and represents a brilliant and scholarly personality with very vast and incredible study. iqbal’s approach is first of its kind in the muslim world, hence very laudable and highly esteemed till date. however, the mix and blend of the various disciplines and areas of thought, he has presented could not avoid serious criticism on account of some inherent flaws, fallacies and inconsistencies. renowned pakistani intellectual, ali abbas jalalpuri, has found iqbal ambivalent towards pantheism, and ibn arabi. moreover, his great reverence for pantheist poet jalal al-din rumi and his notions regarding the absolute ego and the ultimate self clearly indicate his strong intellectual tendency towards pantheism.38 similar objection, but in very strong words has been raised by eminent indian scholar altaf ahmad azami, whose critique on reconstruction was published first time in 1977. his views may be summarized in the words as follows: iqbal and shaykh muhy al-din ibn arabi totally agree with each other regarding man, god and the state of certitude. in iqbal’s system there is no difference between man and god. he has three main points of disapproval with iqbal’s overall framework of thought: 24 iqbal on religion and science... ihe studied islamic theology in the light of western thought. scientific discoveries may be used to support religious beliefs; however they do not provide light to reconstruct islamic beliefs of which the source is god and they are changeless; iireligious experience is a dubious source of knowledge and not a trustworthy means to perceive god; iiiiqbal has interpreted qur’énic verses arbitrarily and out of context.39 another very valid point here is selective approach of iqbal while trying to prove his own favourite pre-conceived ideas. iqbal has not deduced results from qur’én, rather has used qur’én in support of those ideas in which he already believes firmly. we may say that the intellectual endeavours of iqbal in the field of reconciliation between science and religion may never be forgotten and will be remembered as a great contribution from a giant; but definitely they have flaws and weaknesses of their own which are not beyond criticism. concluding remarks the reconciliatory efforts of iqbal between science and religion are of great academic and intellectual merit. he enjoys a distinguished status in the modern and contemporary muslim philosophical thought. he wishes to bring the holy scripture at par with science or vice versa. he sees no noticeable difference between the two, and if there is any, it may be removed with the help of proper interpretation or has arisen due to the literal use of the language etcetera. iqbal, however, is one step ahead and has practically “deduced” scientific theories from the qur’én and has declared it the forerunner of science. his main motivation and inspiration have come from modern physics in general and the theory of relativity in particular. the constancy of speed of light has fascinated him exceptionally, and he has applied it on the famous qur’énic verse, “allah is the light of the heavens and of the earth” (al-qur’én, xxiv:35). he opines, “personally, i think the description of god as light, in the revealed literature of judaism, christianity, and islam, must now be interpreted differently”. why? “the teaching of modern physics is that the velocity of light cannot be exceeded and is the same for all observers whatever their own system of movement. thus, in the world of change, light is the nearest approach to the absolute.”40 hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 25 one of the underlying meanings of this interpretation is that the almighty was aware of the relativity physics since the times immemorial and that is why he used the metaphor of light for himself. in the other words, qur’én was already consistent with the revolutionary discoveries of modern physics and these could have been discovered out of it if somebody would have paid due attention. here one may recall the familiar claims of the enthusiastic muslims who after every new scientific discovery declare that qur’én has revealed the same fourteen hundred years ago. had it been the case, why didn’t they describe it before the science? interestingly, this is the tendency of almost all the believers, no matter whatever is their religion. people of various religions prove the truth, modernity and scientific natures of their respective religions with the help of the same science. one of the verses of the qur’én has been used to prove big bang. “do not the disbelievers see that the heaven and the earth were closed-up mass, and then we opened them out? and we made from water everything living. will they not believe” (al-qur’én, xxi:30). now the verse had been always there in the scripture, but no muslim theologian or scientist inferred big bang out of this, until this theory was propounded by the (western) scientists. this predilection is very dangerous not for the science but for the religion predominantly, because the scientific theories remain in the constant process of revision, modification and change. if one established theory is rejected, god forbidden, would you then say that the scripture was wrong? hence the fundamental principle of iqbal, that is, to reconstruct religious beliefs in the light of modern science is not only mistaken but also belittling for the religion because it gives edge to the science on religion. there are two points that need the attention of the reader: ihad there been no advancement in modern physics; had einstein not propounded the theory of relativity, then would the qur’én have lost its “true” meaning? it shows its desperate dependency on science, especially on physics. iiif the theory of relativity is amended, then qur’én should be amended or reinterpreted accordingly? if it is abandoned altogether the qur’én will also be abandoned? 26 iqbal on religion and science... iqbal has given the credit of theory of evolution to jahiz and ibn maskaweh; here two questions may be raised again: iif this theory was put-forward by the muslim scientists, it means that it is not in contradiction with the divine creation; then why the same theory by darwin was so overwhelmingly rejected by the muslim world? it is being resisted till date; iiunfortunately no one knows that this great idea originated in the minds of the muslim scientists, the world came to know it, when it was expounded by darwin in 19th century. it is interesting, rather not interesting but painful that when the classical physics enjoyed a distinguished status in 19th century, sayyid ahmad khan produced an exegesis of qur’én which was in accordance with the tenets of the classical mechanics and when it was replaced by modern physics, qur’én was immediately interpreted using its terminology! here the comment of abu-zayd is very pertinent, “this automatically implies that qur’én is at the mercy of the ideology of its interpreter. for a communist, the qur’én would thus reveal communism, for a fundamentalist it would be a highly fundamentalist text, for a feminist it would be a feminist text, and so on.”41 similarly iqbal, being a bergsonian has sought his philosophy in qur’én too. he has traced not only the serial and non-serial time in the two verses of qur’én, but also has explained the simple verses of qur’én regarding coming of days and night in such a tedious manner that they have nonetheless lost their clear and unambiguous meaning.42 rahim bakhsh shaheen has written a very interesting sentence in his book regarding the incomprehensibility of these lectures when delivered in lahore: “[ghulam jilani] barq recalls that the language of these lectures was so complicated and the thought presented was so subtle that no one among the audience could understand these lectures.”43 same is the case with construal of barzakh with helmholtz’s theory that nervous excitation takes time to reach consciousness. here a curious hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 27 blend of mysticism and physiology has been applied on the qur’énic concept of immortality of the soul.44 a passage from iqbal himself is going to be very interesting, “but since muslims have always sought the justification of their varying attitudes in qur’én, even though at the expense of its plain meaning, the fatalistic interpretation has had very farreaching effects on muslim peoples. i could, in this connexion, quote several instances of obvious misinterpretation; but the subject requires special treatment, and it is time now to turn to the question of immortality”.45 however, iqbal himself did the same very liberally in the reconstruction. an amusing point, here is that for iqbal, the true religion of the world is islam alone, therefore, he has found similarities with science in it. he might have chosen some other religion too, having a very scientific spirit, but did not. the baha’i religion is quite scientific rather its fundamental principle is harmony between science and faith but it could not attract his attention. as the pre-ghazali philosophers tried to philosophize islam; iqbal endeavoured to islamize philosophy and science. this leads to another tendency which has proved itself even more dangerous and harmful in results and consequences. this is known as islamization of knowledge, which is based on the same idea that qur’én is the source of entire scientific knowledge. this has been very effectively explained by nasr hamid abu zayd as he writes, “methodologically speaking there is nothing new in sayyid ahmad khan’s presupposition. however, the difference between his interpretation and the classical commentaries lies in the domain of meaning the modern meaning which considers science specially the natural science, to be the new religion of secularism. fascinated by the new world of science and discovery, he had to find a way to integrate it into the holy scripture. i propose here that the sayyid ahmad khan’s effort to open the meaning of qur’én to accept scientific findings is the embryo of what would later develop into seemingly opposite directions, namely an emphasis on the scientific supremacy of the qur’én (al-iskandrani 1880; 1883; 1897; aljawahiri 1971, al-sharafi 1990: 69-76), and an emphasis on the ‘islamization’ of knowledge and science. the first direction shows 28 iqbal on religion and science... that all scientific theories are implicitly alluded to in the qur’én. accordingly, the miracle of the qur’én extends beyond the classical theory of stylistic supremacy and takes in scientific supremacy. the second, the islamization of knowledge, seeks the islamic roots of modern knowledge.”46 abu zayd, also gives the reference of his own article regarding the scientific supremacy of the qur’én (al-ijaz-al-ilmi), published in the weekly supplement of al-ahram daily, 27th october, 2000, p. 2. according to the article, linking the qur’én to the scientific theory, which is changeable and subject to challenge apace with the development of human knowledge is actually tantamount to damaging the divinity and the eternity of the qur’én, the word of god.47 unfortunately iqbal has committed the same fallacy in his respective efforts to harmonize the two. hassan hanafi has discouraged this attitude in the following words which should be quoted here to be fair and honest to the author: “in modern times, reformed interpretations appeared to cope with new circumstances and the modern state of human knowledge and science. the scientific interpretation began to cope with modern scientific discoveries, showing that the qur’én had already referred to them, if not directly, such as theory of evolution, at least indirectly, such as theory of relativity. this interpretation began with the scientific discoveries of others, by external scientific knowledge, known by reason and experimentation. divine revelation followed human knowledge and was conditioned by it. since human knowledge is partial and changing, divine revelation became likewise. this interpretation gives muslims the false certitude that the qur’én already includes all scientific discoveries. therefore, they do not need western science. the west has science without faith, while muslims have science and faith. transfer of scientific knowledge does not necessarily imply the adoption of the scientific outlook.”48 notes and references 1. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, p. 144. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 29 2. answer of jamal al-din to renan’s journal des debats, may 18, 1883 in n. r. keddie’s an islamic response to imperialism, p. 183. 3. muhammad khalid masud, “iqbal’s approach to islamic theology of modernity”, (paper presented in iqbal memorial lecture organized by the department of philosophy, university of the punjab, lahore, april 10, 2008), pp. 2-3. 4. aziz ahmad, “muslim self-statement in india and pakistan 1857-1968”, otto harrasowitz, wiesbaden, 1970, p. 30 5. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, pp. 11-12. 6. ibid. 7. ibid, pp. 72-73. 8. ibid, p. 45. 9. ibid, p. 84 10. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, pp. 100-101. 11. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, p. 102. 12. ibid. 13. hassan hanafi, cultures and civilizations: conflict or dialogue? vol. i, (the meridian thought), book center for publishing, cairo, 2006, p. 451. 14. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, p. 190. 15. al-qur’én, vol. ii, pp. 1-2. 16. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, p. 26. 17. ibid, pp. 33-34. 18. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, p. 145. 19. henri bergson, creative evolution, tr. arthur mitchell, palgrave macmillan, new york, 2007, p. 22. 20. ibid, p. 23. 21. ibid, p. 24. 22. lazcano, a., bada,j.l., “the 1953 stanley l. miller experiment: fifty years of pre-biotic organic chemistry”, origins of life and evolution of biospheres, 33 (3), june 2004, pp. 235-242. 23. henri bergson, creative evolution, tr. arthur mitchell, palgrave macmillan, new york, 2007, p. 233. 24. ibid, p. 229. 25. ibid, p. 236. 26. ibid, p. 134. 27. ibid, p. xxxv 28. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, pp.146-47. 30 iqbal on religion and science... 29. al-qur’én, 36-72. 30. ibid, 42:11, (there is nothing like him; and he is the hearer, the seer). 31. encyclo, online encyclopaedia, http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/immanent, visited on 30/09/2011. 32. catholic encyclopaedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07682a.htm, visited on 30/09/2011 33. encyclopaedia.com, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/transcendence.aspx, visited on 30/09/2011. 34. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, p. 48. 35. ibid, p. 53. 36. ibid, p. 57-58. 37. ibid, pp. 52-53. 38. ali abbas jalalpuri, iqbal ka ilm-i-kalam, takhliqat, lahore, 2003. 39. altaf ahmad azmi, khubat-iiqbal: aik mutala’a, dar altadhkir, 2005, pp. 13-17. 40. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, p.51. 41. nasr abu zayd, reformation of islamic thoughta critical historical analysis, amsterdam university press, amsterdam, 2006, p. 91. 42. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, p. 39. 43. rahim bakhsh shahin, awraq-igum gashta (urdu), islamic publications, lahore, 1975, p. 193. 44. mohammad iqbal, reconstruction of the religious thought in islam, edited and annotated by m. saeed sheikh, institute of islamic culture, lahore, 2006, p. 95. 45. ibid, p. 89. 46. nasr abu zayd, reformation of islamic thoughta critical historical analysis, amsterdam university press, amsterdam, 2006, p. 31. 47. ibid, p. 36. 48. hassan hanafi, islam in the modern world, vol. i, dar kebba bookshop, heliopolis, 1995, pp. 492-493. f:\e\islamicus\2020\n0. 1\new folder\khulafa-e-rashideen on the prosperity.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 73 khulafa-e-róshidôn and the prosperity of religious minorities: an analysis 1hafiz muhammad adeel, 2dr muhammad riaz mahmood 1phd research scholar, department of islamic studies, university of gujrat, gujrat, pakistan. e-mail: muhammadadeel314@gmail.com 2assistant professor, department of islamic studies, university of gujrat, gujrat, pakistan. e-mail: dr.riazmahmood@uog.edu.pk islam is a message of peace, progress and prosperity for the entire mankind. this universal religion safeguards the respect, education, health, freedom and other facilities of life of the muslims as well as the nonmuslims. this is the reason that the prophet of islam ( ) established the state where steps had been taken for the prosperity and security of all the human beings without any discrimination. in the state of madina multi-dimensional measures were taken for the material and spiritual progress of the people having different religions. abu bakar (r.a), umar (r.a), usman (r.a) and ali (r.a) became caliphs successively after muhammad ( ). keeping in view of teachings of muhammad ( ), khulafa-e-réshidên took extra ordinary measures to protect the religious minorities. peace treaties were held with religious minorities. they were consulted in state affairs and provided freedom of having faith and worship of their choice. steps were taken to maintain their status and individuality and they were allowed to continue their business activities. it is quite beneficial to study and analyse those measures taken for the welfare of the religious minorities by khulafa-e-réshidên. these steps may be useful while planning the rights for prosperity and security of the religious minorities in the modern muslim states.this research article has been presented to fulfil this literary, scholarly, political and social need. key words: religious minorities; rights; state of madina; the prophet ( ). 74 khulafa-e-réshidên and religious minorities... introduction islam is a universal religion. it is the true representative of humanity. islam, that teaches love and respect for all other religions and peoples, does not have any rule or resolution that is against humanity. in islam, minorities are entitled to all rights which can be considered in an ideal society. the importance of the rights of minorities in islam can be judged from this blessed saying of the holy prophet ( ). he said, “if a person kills a non-muslim he would not smell the fragrance of paradise, even the fragrance of paradise is spread over the distance of forty years”1. these warnings are meant to enforce the law given by islam to protect the rights of minorities. islam came with the message of establishing a society with high human values. before the advent of islam every section of society was subjected to the oppression of the dominating persons. like other societies there was no concept of the rights for minorities before islam. islam has granted to minorities same status as the other citizens had. the holy prophet ( ) made the preservation of the rights and privileges of minorities even the protection of their religious rights a part of the constitution of the state of madina. during the era of khulafae-réshdên their rights were diligently protected and all the agreements were respected made with them earlier. the era of khulafa-e-réshdên is a true picture of islam which was politically and administratively alike as prophet’s era. today the issue of minorities has become a global challenge. history of islam witneses that in the islamic state, minorities had a high position to participate in state affairs and also held the state’s important responsibilities. all this was the result of the teaching given by holy prophet ( ). after the death of the holy prophet ( ), the khulafa-e-réshdên maintained the tradition of tolerance for religious minorities. the study and analysis of this glorious history of religious tolerance is extremely useful. this article comprises four parts. the first part covers the introduction of topic and the second section describes the welfare of minorities in the islamic regarding. the third part contains the role model of the holy prophet ( ) regarding religious minorities. the fourth section describes measures of the khulafa-e-réshdên for the prosperity of religious minorities. islamic teachings regarding the development of religious minorities islam teaches for providing education, health, financial support, peace hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 75 and respect to all the human being classes without any discrimination. allah says: there is no compulsion in religion, truth stands out clear from error, so whoever rejects evil and believes in allah, hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks and allah heareth and knoweth all things.2 it was said in another place: to you be your way and to me mine.3 the importance of the rights of minorities in islamic society can be judged from this blessed interpretation of the holy prophet ( ). he said, beware! whovere oppresses a minority person or seizes his rights or hurts him more than he can afford, or takes anything from him without his consent, i shall plead for him on the day of judgement4. this is not just a warning, but a law which was practiced in the islamic state during the period of holy prophet ( ). once a muslim killed a non-muslim and deceased’s heir came to the holy prophet ( ) for judgment. the holy prophet ( ) ordered the murderer to be murdered and he was killed5. role model of the holy prophet ( ) regarding religious harmony islam not only taught tolerance but also respected the beliefs of all religions, protected them and their places of worship from abusing. islam not only respected the other prophets but also regarded them as a part of the faith. after the migration, the holy prophet ( ) also made the foundation of a new society with faith among the muslims and gave them a platform. he paid his attention towards the relation with nonmuslims. the aim was to assure the availability of blessings of peace and security for all the humanity. when the holy prophet ( ) migrated to madina, most of the jewish population inhabit there, at that time three major tribes of jewish bannu naðir, bannu qurayða and bannu quanuqa‘ were famous tribes of madina. he contracted with jews of madina for complete religious freedom, the protection of life and property and the defence of madina, known as the mêthaq-e-madina.6 the purpose of the holy prophet ( ) was that all humanity should benefit from the blessing of peace and security, as well as the area of madina and the suburbs to be united. the closest neighbours to madina were jews. although they hated muslims, they had not yet expressed any confrontation and strife, therefore the holy prophet ( ) made a pact with them giving them complete freedom of religion. the main provisions of the treaty with the jews were that the prevailing rules of bloodshed and ransom will be continued. jews will have religious freedom and they will maintain friendly relations with the muslims. if a third party gets into a war, they will be 76 khulafa-e-réshidên and religious minorities... supportive of each other. when an external force attacks madina, jews will defend along with muslims. when one of the parties reconciles with the third power, the other will also have to be reconciled, although religious battles will be exempted. a federal government established due to the settlement of this treaty in madina and its vicinity, madina was the capital of this government, headed by rasul allah ( ). in order to further expand the sphere of peace the holy prophet ( ) also made similar agreements with other tribes as per the circumstances. islam had given non-muslims complete freedom throughout their history, they performed their religious rituals freely. similarly, a delegation of christians from najran came to serve and requested from protection from the holy prophet ( ). a contract was signed. as per its text: this is the contract from the holy prophet ( ) for the people of najran. under this contract all their goods are left in their possession on the condition that they will pay two thousand sheets (made in yaman), one thousand in month of safar and one thousand in month of rajab, and in return the najrani and their relatives will remain in the protection of allah and his prophet ( ), their places of worship and their patronage, and present people and non-existent will be safe and they will not be harmed. their designation will not be changed. people will be banned to take any interest and whoever takes interest next time, will be relieved from our responsibility. khulafa-e-réshidên and betterment and prosperity of religious minorities. the meaning of the khilafat is to succeed and to sit in one place after another. in fact, the khilafat is the vicegerency of the prophet ( ) for the ummah after him. it is the highest status in islam after the prophethood.8 the duties of khilafat are broad in islam that include the fulfillment of all religious and secular goals. those who became successors after the holy prophet ( ) are abubakr, umar, usman and ali (r.a). they established the government and made the position of khilafat like the real model set by holy prophet ( ) abubakr (r.a) and religious minorities abubakr (r.a) gave great privileges to minorities in his khilafat period and made several treaties with them, which are mentioned in history books. when khalid bin walêd (r.a.) retuned to iraq and iran hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 77 from the border of syria, he made agreement with the people of aanat as per order of abubakr (r.a.). the major points of this agreement were that: their churches and monasteries will not be demolished. they can perform their gong all the time except muslims’ prayers time. they can show the cross on their religious festivals. they have to give food to muslim travellers for three days. they have to take care of the lives and property of muslims when it is needed.9 another agreement made by khalid bin walêd (r.a.) for the people of ‘hera’ is that: do not support any disbeliever against muslims. do not oppose muslims. do not reveal our secrets for our enemies. if they do not abide by these provisions, their security will also be terminated on our behalf. if they are under our control, they will have all the privileges like other minorities. it is included in this agreement that the jizya will be forgiven for the elderly who are unable to do work, who are suffered by the catastrophic disaster and the poor who spends his time on charity.10 we receive many instructions which abubakr (r.a.) wrote or expressed to commanders of islamic army. the most important instructions are that he gave to commanders who were sent to syria. he said: i advise you to fear allah. fight with those who do not believe in allah. neither demolish a synagogue, nor kill the children, the elderly and the women. you will find many people who have limited themselves in churches and they do not have any interest in society, leave them alone.11 when the christians of najran refused to become muslim in tenth hijri, the holy prophet ( ) had guaranteed them, their lives and their religion in lieu of an annual amount and signed a pact having the terms of this guarantee. when the holy prophet ( ) departed from this world and the action against the rebels started in the period of abubakr (r.a.), the christians of najran feared that any action would be taken against them. a delegation of najran came to abubakr (r.a.) and requested him to renew their act. abubakr (r.a.) guaranteed to the delegation and renewed agreement. this agreement is from abubakr khalifa of the holy prophet ( ), their lives, the land, the nation, the wealth in their suburban villages and those who are in najran and those who have gone abroad, their churches and everything are protected by allah. army service will not be taken from them; they will not be treated harshly as well. neither priest will be separated from his position, nor any monk will be forced to give up his leadership. it is obligatory for them that they have to fulfil their responsibilities sincerely12. in the period of abubakr (r.a.), nonmuslims of the conquered countries were provided full guaranty for their rights. the rights given by holy prophet ( ) to minorities were also 78 khulafa-e-réshidên and religious minorities... given by abubakr (r.a.). the christians of “hera”, were assured that their monasteries and churches would not be demolished, those places would not be destroyed where they shelter themselves against enemies whenever needed. ringing bells will be allowed, the cross will not be banned at the festivals, from aged persons, disabled for work or serious illness, tribute will not be taken. umar (r.a) and religious minorities the rights of minorities were protected according to the teachings of the qur’én and sunnah during the reign of umar farooq (r.a.) as well. during the reign of his khilafat, several agreements were finalized with minorities, the most important of which is the agreement with the people of the monh of azan. no‘man bin muqran (r.a.) signed the treaty with monh of azan during the khilafat of umar farooq (r.a.). the important points of this agreement were as follows: they will neither be forced to abandon their religion nor their law would be altered. they would have to pay a partial fee once a year to the authorized person appointed by us. they will be supported and protected in lieu of jizya. in case of violation of conditions, the treaty will be abolished.14 when umar (r.a.) was appointed khalifa, the people of najran came to him, he had deported them from najran yemen and settled in najran iraq because he was worried that they would harm the muslims. he wrote to them: this is the agreement from amir al-mu’minin ‘umar wrote for the people of najran, those of them who are leaving (najran yemen) have the trust of allah, none of the muslims will harm them. whatever they cultivate for themselves in narjan iraq would be a charity in the way of allah for them, and a reward for their land which they are leaving najran. the jizya is waived for them for twenty-four months since their arrival.15 umar farooq (r.a.) thought for the minorities until his very last moment. he, in his last will exhorted his successor to observe the pledges with minorities. they should be protected and not be overburdened.16 umar farooq (r.a.) used to ask people ( ) about minorities. abu ubaida bin jarrah (r.a.) was the commander of islamic army when he conquered the fahl province of jordan by the power of sword, muslims army was divided into two groups with different opinions, one of them opeined that the occupied area should be distributed among the muslim soldiers. while the second one argued that since agriculture land is not in our jurisdiction, it would be appropriate that the entire hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 79 conquered area mey be declared as a common wealth and agricultural lands may be left to their current owners. tribute recieved from them may be handovered to islamic state. since there was no consensus among the two groups, the case was referred to umar farooq (r.a.). he, after a long discussion with other companions (r.a.) decreed that as per qur’énic order, the conquered agricultural lands would be left to their owners and tribute recieved from them would be deposited in the state exchequer. he continued: if we have enslaved the inhabitants, who will be the sponsor of the generations that come after us. they would not get any benefit from dhimmis. the descendants of slaves would also remain slaves till the day of judgment. so do not enslave them. instead, get jizya from them. for christians festival ‘easter’, he ordered that christians may be allowed to show crosses without flags outside the city. however, they may not be allowed to show crosses from nearby areas of mosques or muslim localities.17 when umar (r.a.) subjugated new teritories, treaties were made. some of the treaties mentioned in history are detailed and some are brief. the agreement of bait-al-maqudas written in presence of umar (r.a.) is that: people pf ‘alia’ (bait al-maqdas) are given protection by amêr al-mu’minên. no settelment will be made in their churches nor they would be captured or ruined. no christian would be forced to change his religion nor will be harmed nor any jew would reside with them in ailia. the undertakings given in this treaty are guaranteed by allah, his prophet ( ), khulafa and muslims subject to payment of jizya by them.18 when umar (r.a.) was returning from syria, he saw a few men standing in sunlight and pouring oil on their heads. he asked to people what is the matter? knowing that they did not pay the fine, that’s why they were being punished. umar (r.a.) asked the reason and found them impecunious. he ordered to release them and said “i heard the messenger of allah ( ) says: do not hurt people; god will punish them on the day of resurrection who punish people in world.19 umar (r.a.) was very active in the propagation of islam, he always expressed that no one can be oppressed for changing his religion. a christian slave of umar (r.a.) was always persuaded for conversion to islam, but when he refused, he said that there was no compulsion to accept islam.20 umar (r.a.) did not discriminate between minorities and muslims in terms of civil rights. murder of any dhimmi by a muslim was compensated by sentencing the muderer to death. no levy was recieved 80 khulafa-e-réshidên and religious minorities... from dhimmis except jizya and ‘ushr. disable to earn persons from minorities were also provided like muslims, financial support from bait al-mél. this law was enforced in the khilafat of abubakr siddiq (r.a.). umar (r.a.) continued it.21 usman (r.a.) and religious minorities the rights of minorities were protected according to the teachings of the qur’an and sunnah during the reign of usman (r.a.) as well. in the reign of usman (r.a.), a jew tried to be seditious in the presence of walêd bin ‘uqba (governor of kufa). jundab bin k‘ab azadi killed the jew. walêd imprisoned him and declared death sentence for the murderer. jundab escaped from jail with the help of prison-guard abë sinén. when the escape was revealed, on order of walêd b. ‘uqaba prisonguard was sentenced to death. this shows that the sancity of blood of muslims and non-muslim minorities is equal in the islamic state.22 usman (r.a.) appointed saad bin abi sarrah governor of egypt, he made a treaty with the chiefs of noba and all the inhabitants of area, extending from aswan to the mountainous border on the other side. as per treaty the people of noba were declared under the protection of allah and his messenger ( ) muslims army would not fight with them, nor would attack them.23 usman (r.a.) wrote a letter to the tax collecting officer to receive the levy with justice.24 it is important, to be honest, when ‘umar (r.a.) was martyred and usman (r.a.) was appointed as the caliph, people of najaran came to him in madinah. he wrote to walêd bin ‘uqba for the people of najran: stance of people of najran has come to me. i approve all the lands, given to them by umar (r.a.) in return for their yemeni lands. look carefully at what the prophet ( ) wrote for them, and complete with them what is listed.25 during the period of usman (r.a.), special care was taken that in the areas which were conquered by peace, no rights were stripped of them. areas of reconciliation included hajar, bahrain, elah, dum-ul jandal, and azhar which were the settlements recieved from them only what was mutually agreed. he continued earlier terms decided for the areas conquered by peace by his predecessors, such as the jerusalem, conquered by umar (r.a.) through reconciliation, and damascus by khalid ibn walêd (r.a.), as well as many areas of syria. similarly, balad khorasan, was reconciled with abdullah bin amir bin kreuz.26 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 81 ali (r.a) and religious minorities the reign of ali (r.a.) was very disturbing, but still the rights of minorities were not disturbed in his period. once a case came up in which the killer was muslim and the victim was non-muslim. he ordered by killer to be handed over to the deceased’s heirs and decided on the fatwa of umar (r.a.). but the deceased’s heirs wanted to take the diyyat and release of murderer. when ali (r.a.) came to know about this he called the deceased’s heirs and asked them whether there was any pressure? they replied no, then ali (r.a.) said: the blood of the nonmuslim of islamic state is the same as muslim’s blood.27 the holy prophet ( ) had an agreement with the people of najran, when they died, they came to abubakr (r.a.) for renewed contract. when abubakr (r.a.) died they came to umar (r.a.) after it usman and ali (r.a.). ali (r.a.) like his earlier khalifa, observed the treaties of the minorities and gave all the rights as per sharê‘ah. conclusion in the view of islam, every human being, regardless of religion, region or race, has right of respect and privilege. the life and honor of non-muslims are protected as well. in islamic state, the blood of a nonmuslim is as worthy as the blood of a muslim. islam has forbidden ikrah (compulsion) in matters of faith and religion. despite being the political power and superpower, islam has never forced the conquered nations for conversion to islam. islamic state never interfered in the religious affairs of non-muslims. their churches were not demolished and they were allowed to build synagogues in their populated areas. history of islam testifies that the khulafa-e-rashidên, provided tolerance, widespread capacity, indiscrimination, justice, and perfection to non-muslims. islam commands respect for humanity and its dignity. the prophet ( ) has set this example in practice for all ages, so it appears to have worked in all periods of islamic history, whether it was the madinah, the caliphate of rashidun, or their successor’s periods. notes and refrences 1. bukhari, muhammad bin ismaeel, al-jémi‘ al-saíií, ketab ul jizya, bab ism man qatala, 2995. 82 khulafa-e-réshidên and religious minorities... 2. al-qur’an, al-baqara ii:256 3. al-qur’an, al-kafirun cix:5 4. suleman bin dawud, sunan abudawud, ketab ul kheraj, babo tasheer, 3052 5. behaqi, ahmad bin husain, al-sunan-al-kubra, babo zufel khabre, 16342 6. shah mueen-ul-deen, tarikh-e-islam, (maktaba islamia, lahore, 2013) 1, 43 7. qasim bin slam, kitab-ul-amwal, (idara tahqiqate islamia, islamabad) 344 8. shah mueen-ul-deen, khilaft-e-rashida, (maktba muhammadia, lahore, 2014) 11 9. dr. hameed-ul-allah, siasi wathiqa jat, (majlas taraqi adab, lahore, 2005) 242 10. ibid, 235. 11. dr. khurshed ahmad fariq, abubakr (r.a.) k sarkari khutot, (idara islamiat, lahore, 1078) 120 12. ibid., 45 13. shah mueen-ul-deen, tarikh-e-islam, (maktaba muhammdia, lahore, 2013) 69 14. dr. hameed-ul-allah, siasi wathiqa jat, (majlas taraqi adab, lahore, 2005), 265 15. abu yousuf, kitab-alkhiraj, (mutarajm, niaz ahmed, maktaba rahmania, lahore), 213. 16. ibid., 340 17. dr. khurshed ahmad fariq, umar (r.a.) k sarkari khutut, (print line publishr, lahore, 1999), 84 18. ibid., 105 19. abu yousuf, kitab-alkhiraj, 341 20. shibli numani, alfarooq, ( naveed publisher, lahore, 2003), 30 21. abu yousuf, kitab-alkhiraj, 341 22. behaqi, ahmad bin husain, al-sunan-al-kubra, bab ul qisas, 8, 136 23. dr. hameed-ul-allah, siasi wathiqa jat, (majlas taraqi adab, lahore, 2005), 306 24. dr. khurshed ahmad fariq, usman (r.a.) k sarkari khutut, (idara islamiat, lahore, 1978), 114 25. abu yousuf, kitab-alkhiraj, 215 26. qasim bin slam, kitab-ul-amwal, (idara tahqiqate islami, islamabad) 236. 27. behaqi, ahmad bin husain, al-sunan-al-kubra, bab ul diyyat, 8, 34. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 4\final\muâ•ÿtazilah, the first rationalist school.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 71 mu‘tazilah, the first rationalist school of thought in islamic history: a critical study of its ideology and approach 1prof. dr. p.s. syed masood jamali 2khalid waheed assistant professor sais, b.s.a crescent institute of science & technology, vandalur, chennai, india. 1e-mail: dean-sais@crescent.education 2e-mail: kwfalahi@crescent.education mu‘tazilah was the first rationalist movement in the early history of islam. while the holy qur’an was the primary source of knowledge for muslims to think of oneness of god, his attributes, heaven, hell and other metaphorical issues, mu‘tazilites tried to interpret such dogma in the light of human reason and contradicted the mainstream muslim dogmas. the mu‘tazilites enjoyed a golden period under the patronage of alma’mun, the abbasid caliph. however, after withdrawal of the patronage, their doctrine lost ground in the society and gradually disappeared. nevertheless, their approach of critical thinking still has an impact on modern muslim thinkers. rejection of god’s attributes, creation of holy qur’an, status of grave sinner and creation of human action were significant ideological issues of mu‘tazilah. their ideology of freedom and free thought were based on rejection of fate and destiny. this paper attempts to critically analyse the major ideological issues of mu‘tazilah, in terms of their origin, development and dispute with scholars of aíl alsunnah wa’ljama‘ah. it also discusses contributions of mu’tazilites and impact of their ideology on intellectuals of later period. key words: mu‘tazilah, wéîil ibn ‘aïé, al-jabrêyah, al-qadarêyah, khawérij, grave sinner. introduction since the political turmoil started in the islamic history after the assassination of the third caliph ‘uthmén ibn ‘affén (r.a.), followed by the dispute between ‘alê ibn abê ùalib (r.a.) and mu‘éwiyah (r.a.), some critical issues emerged as a disagreement. a group from the party 72 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... of ‘alê (r.a.) later called khawérij1 parted on the issue of arbitration (taíkêm). since then controversy on various issues emerged and became a subject of debate and heated discussion among people. one of such issues was the status of a grave sinner whether to be considered believer or non-believer. when this question was raised in academic circle of al×asan al-baîrê2 (r), one of his disciples, wéîil ibn ‘aïé (699-749) differed with his teacher and opined that the grave sinner was neither believer nor unbeliever but having an intermediate position as sinner (fasiq). consequently wéîil left his teacher’s study circle. so al-×asan al-baîrê declared: “wéîil i‘tazala ‘anna” i.e. wéîil withdrew from us. i‘tazala is the root word of mu‘tazilah which means: those who withdraw and stand apart.3 the historians recorded that such disagreeing attitude in thought also appeared earlier. a group among followers of ‘ali ibn abi talib (r.a.) withdrew from him when disputed over a political issue. similarly, when al-×asan ibn ‘ali (r.a.) gave covenant to mu‘awiyah (r.a.), a group of his followers withdrew from the politics and restricted to a devoted life naming themselves as mu‘tazilah. however, most of the historians consider the incident of wéîil ibn ‘aïé as the starting point of the mu‘tazilah school of thought. goldziher, an orientalist tried to establish a link between the name of the mu‘tazilah and the life style of the group that since the founder and the early scholars of mu‘tazilah lived a pious life, renouncing the world and abstaining from the pleasure of the material life, they, therefore, were called mu‘tazilah4. however, this argument is not acceptable as all those belonged to mu‘tazilah could not be ascertained as pious. aímad amin tries to connect the name of mu‘tazilah with a jewish theological school called in hebrew ‘pharisees’ which means mu‘tazilah in arabic.5 the similarity between jewish mu‘tazilah and muslim mu‘tazilah was much closer in the sense that the jewish mu‘tazilah interpreted ‘torah’ in accordance with logic and philosophy whereas muslim mu‘tazilah interpreted the attributes of god in view of human reason. therefore, it was the group of jewish people who after embracing islam might have named the group as mu‘tazilah seeing the close similarity in their doctrine. al-jabriyah6 and al-qadariyah7 although the doctrine of mu‘tazilah movement had been established over the decades, it had initially absorbed the theological views that had already been discussed by some groups in baîrah and damascus. in this hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 73 context, the jabriyah and the qadariyah had played a significant role. during the period of umaiyyads, when cosmopolitan atmosphere had emerged as a result of intermingling of different nations like persians, romans and arabs, the muslim society had an exposure to a few theological issues that were debated by christians, jews and greek philosophers. acquiring knowledge of such issues, a few scholars tried to interpret the theological terms given in the holy qur’én in the light of human reason. al-ja’d ibn dirham (d. 736) had spoken about predestination in islam. one of his followers jahm ibn øafwén (d. 746) formulated a doctrine of complete divine determining. he rejected the free will and believed that human actions are fully determined by the god. rejecting a divine attribute, he also declared that qur’én is not eternal but a god’s creature. followers of this doctrine were called jabrêyah. as starkly opposed to jabriyah’s doctrine, another group, with the initiative of ma‘bad al-juhani (d. 699), advocated the free will rejecting any sort of predestination.8 they believe that it is the man who creates his own action which is not determined by the god. they even deny any prior knowledge of god about human action before it happened. the follower of this doctrine was called qadariyah advocated in baîrah by ma‘bad al-juhani and in damascus by his follower gíaylén al-dimashqê (d. 723). both were sentenced to death by the umayyad authorities. emergence of mu‘tazilah school one of the most critical issues debated in the second half of the first century of hijrah was the status of a believer who committed grave sin. khawarij had taken an extreme view that such a person is not a believer and hence will receive perpetual punishment in the hell. to the contrary, the murji’ah9 held opposing view that he would remain a believer and the god alone would judge his status. on the issue in question, waîil ibn ‘aïé a disciple of ×asan al-baîrê declared his view against his teacher that the grave sinner was neither believer nor unbeliever but holding a middle position until he would repent and the unrepentant would be in the hell for ever. quitting his teacher’s circle, waîil had established his own circle in baîrê. his friend ‘amr ibn ‘ubayd joined him. as a starting point of emergence of mu‘tazilah school of thought, this incident is dated, according to abu zahrah, in between 101 105 a.h/ 719 – 723 c.e.10 waîil was greatly influenced by the philosophical ideology prevailed 74 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... in those days to the extent that he absorbed many principles from other ideological movements. he had adopted negation of god’s attributes, rejection of eternity of qur’én from the jabriyah while he had borrowed the principle of predestination from the qadariyah. according to the historian al-öaíabi, mu‘tazilah is an inheritor of jabrêyah and qadarêyah. with the continued intellectual contributions made by mu‘tazilah scholars during the second and third centuries of hijrah, its basic principles were established and well defined. wéîil ibn ‘até (d. 749), abul hudhayl al-‘alléf (d. 840), ibrahêm al-naððém (d. 845), bishr ibn al-mu‘tamir (d. 825), abë ‘uthmén al-jéíið (d. 869) and abu ‘alê al-jubba‘ê (d. 915) were major contributors to the formation of mu‘tazilah movement. objectives of mu‘tazilah the mu‘tazilah initially appeared to defend islam through their powerful arguments and logical debates against zandaqah11, a group who were muslims in appearance but atheists in reality tried to launch an intellectual war against muslims. the group was consisting mainly of persians, jews and christians who unconvincingly had embraced islam. wéîil ibn ‘aïé was more enthusiastic to spread his school of thought to various parts of the muslim world. he started spreading mu‘tazilah principles through teaching, holding debates and authoring books. he had sent a number of trained delegates extensively from china in the east to morocco in the west. according to abë ×ilél al-‘askarê, waîil sent his preachers to africa, khurésén, sindh and ×ijéz. those preachers, leaving behind their country, family and wealth, dedicatedly served to spread mu‘tazilah ideology of islam.12 having empowered with eloquent speech, logical argument and philosophical approach, mu‘tazilites were able to convince their opponents. it was reported that having persuaded by powerful argument of abul hudhayl al-‘alléf, about three thousand persians had embraced islam. further, they felt imperative to establish islamic beliefs before the people of other cultures in their own logical methods from ancient greek philosophy and other sources. five principles of mu‘tazilah in the islamic history, mu‘tazilah was the first rationalist movement. its scholars also used partly the ancient greek philosophical approach to derive dogmatic conclusions from the qur’én. they tried to interpret hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 75 qur’énic texts pertaining to dogma in the light of human reason. the principles formulated initially by wéîil ibn ‘aïé had been later developed by his disciples and structured by abul hudhayl al-‘alléf. with the passage of time, dispute and differences of opinion among mu‘tazilah scholars over details of the principles led to their division into a number of subsects. however, in spite of their dispute, mu‘tazilah scholars remained agreed on five principles of their beliefs. thus, abul ×usayn al-khayyéï, a mu‘tazilite (d. ca. 900) asserts: “with acceptance of the five principles, one can be called or identified as mu‘tazilah”.13 al-tawíêd (monotheism) this was the crux of mu‘tazilah doctrines. they called for unity of god exempt from plurality of eternals. they admit that god is knowing, powerful and seeing etc. but they contend that these are integral parts of his essence. if these are not considered same with his essence, plurality of eternals will certainly arise which is clear unbelief and against unity of god. he cannot be divided into distinctive existences. following are some corollaries of this principle: (a) negation of god’s attributes (b) denial of beatific seeing of god by people of paradise (c) createdness of qur’én (d) god’s pleasure and anger are not connected with his essence as these are state which is mutable and prone to disappear (×adith). al-‘adl (divine justice) god is just and he cannot do injustice to his creation. god must reward the obedient for their good deeds and punish the sinners for their misdeeds. his justice demands human to be completely free in his act to choose good or evil. then, man will be fully responsible for their deeds. god does not create human actions. they argue that if creation of human acts is associated with god and not with man, how can he be held responsible for his actions and be punished for committing sins? would god not be unjust if he calls man to account for his sins and admit him to hell, if man is not free to create his acts? thus, human freedom is necessary requirement of divine justice. al-wa‘d wa-al wa‘êd (promise and threat) since god has determined reward for obedient and punishment for 76 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... disobedient. hence all actions of human being be they good or bad must receive recompense. manzilah bayn al-manzilatayn (intermediate state) there is an intermediate position for the grave sinner if he dies without repentance. he will be on the half way between faith and unbelief and can be considered neither a complete believer nor unbeliever. amr bil ma‘rëf wa nahi ‘anil munkar (enjoining good and forbidding evil) one must command good and strive to prevent the evil acts. thus, there are two necessary obligations for a believer i.e. to enjoin the right and forbid the wrong through any way. thus it is necessary means to stop social injustice and immorality and uphold virtues and morality in society. as ‘abdul jabbér says, “it is necessary, if possible, to reach a point where evil (al-munkar) does not occur in the easiest of circumstances or lead to something worse, for the goal is for evil simply not to happen.”14 reason as the first source of knowledge they asserted that the reason (‘aql) is the final arbiter of what is considered right or wrong. hence whatever has been revealed by god has certain theoretical reason to reach and understand the fact. thus, mu’tazilah school of thought was entirely based on human reasoning. the very first issue of ‘manzilah bayna manzilatayn’ which was raised by its founder wéîil ibn ‘aïé, was purely an intellectual issue and not based on evidence from qur’én or sunnah. it was the first seed on the basis of which all later principles of mu‘tazilah had evolved. according to islamic principles agreed upon during the period of the prophet ( ) and his companions – øaíébah and the third generation tébi‘ên, the sources of knowledge and evidence are four in the following prioritization: (1) qur’én (2) sunnah (3) ijmé‘– consensus (4) qiyés – analogy. but changing the sequence the mu‘tazilites had brought the reasoning as the first evidence preceding the qu’rén, sunnah and ijmé‘. qéìê abdul jabbar said, “the sources and evidences are four: (1) proving from reason (2) qur’én (3) sunnah (4) ijmé‘”. he justified his statement arguing that through reason alone we can understand that the qu’rén and sunnah are the revealed sources. in the absence of reasoning, one cannot differentiate between good and bad. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 77 therefore, reason is the first and foremost resource and evidence. of course, the qu’rén is original source in terms that it urges people to use their intellect and also happens to be the source of sharê‘ah rulings.15 according to mu‘tazilah, the most important knowledge is to know about god. it is not a natural process rather a theoretical knowledge to be gained through reasoning. it is obligatory for every human being to know god using his reason and intellect. the existence of god and his oneness cannot be proved except by human reason. although the revealed sources provide sufficient evidence for existence and oneness of god, it could only be understood through human reason. thus, mu‘tazilites justify their stand to give the first priority to the reason keeping revealed sources next to it. mu‘tazila’s stand on revealed sources the philosophical approach of mu‘tazilites towards the revealed sources led them to arrive at extreme views that could hardly be supported. their presumed ideology prevented them studying verses of the qur’én objectively with open mind. they considered their five principles as a yardstick to determine the meaning of the qur’énic verses. if a verse happens to be in agreement with their principles, it is considered to be having the most correct connotation with its denotation. otherwise, the verse falls under category of ambiguous verses (mutashébihat) and thus needs interpretation. applying this logic, scholars of mu‘tazilah went beyond the textual and contextual meaning of the verse in order to arrive at a meaning suitable to their ideology. this kind of approach can be obviously seen in their interpretations of the verses related to god’s attributes, fate and destiny etc. same approach had been followed by them towards sunnah too. the ×adith which falls into agreement with their principles is regarded as acceptable and otherwise, the others are either interpreted if possible or rejected. in this manner, mu‘tazilites criticized a number of ×adiths in terms of their text (matan) and reporters’ chain (isnad). “aímad amin says: “they judge ×adith by reason, rather judging the reason by ×adith.”16 al-naððam, a mu‘tazilah scholar said, “human reasoning may abrogate ×adith.”17 according to sunni principles, the primary legislative sources are qur’én and ×adith. but, by giving the first priority to the reason, mu‘tazilites thus accepted that halal, haram can be ruled by human reason. al-shahrastani (d. 1153) said, “the jubba‘i scholars like abu ‘ali 78 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... and abu hashim called to accept the legislation by reason alone as the reason is the source of knowledge and judgment.”18 closeness of mu‘tazilah to statesmen in order to strengthen and propagate their ideologies, such sects always tried to gain confidence and closeness to upper echelons of the government. from its inception, mu’tazilah were close to the heads of states and caliphs. prior to them, some other sects like jabriyah and qadariyah also followed the same strategy. al-qadariyah: its scholars approached yazid ibn walid ibn ‘abdul malik, a umayyad caliph. they persuaded him to embrace their ideology and provide state patronage and he acceded. they further influenced him to appoint their own people to key posts in government.19 similarly al-jahmiyah did. ja’d ibn dirham had become mentor of the last caliph of umayyad, marwan ibn muíammad who was nicknamed as marwan ja‘di.20 taking the advantage, ja‘d made the effort to spread qadariyah beliefs. however, when political crisis erupted in latter period of marwan, qadariyah activities were stopped. as for mu‘tazilah, its scholars strategized to get the state support from the start of abbasid rule. ‘amr ibn ‘ubayd, one of the early scholars of mu‘tazilah was a close friend of abu ja‘far al-mansur, even before he became caliph. he was not only his friend but also an advisor.21 hence ‘amr ibn ‘ubayd had got high courage and boldness during abu ja‘far’s regime and started to propagate his ideology confidently. this was one of the strong factors for spread of mu‘tazilah movement. caliph harun al-rashid also had a soft corner for mu‘tazilah. he had made some mu‘tazilites like ibn al-sabbak, thumamah ibn ashras closer to him to seek advice and fatwa (opinion). the closeness of these mu‘tazilites to the court of caliph earned them fame and respect among the people. however, as harun al-rashid was more pious, mu‘tazilites were not able to persuade him to spread their ideology. but it served as a source to develop their future activities. golden period of mu‘tazilah the golden period of mu‘tazilah started when the abbasid caliph al-ma’mun came to power in 198 ah/ 813 c.e. he was also one of the learned scholars and intellectuals of his time. he accelerated the translation movement with a strong desire to transfer knowledge from hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 79 the ancient greek philosophies to arab muslim society. being a student of abul hudhayl al-‘allaf, al-ma’mun was primarily admirer of mu‘tazilah’s principles. according to ibn kathir, a great effort was made by bishr al-marisi, a mu‘tazili scholar to bring al-ma’mun into the fold of mu‘tazilah even before he came to power.22 aímad ibn abi du’ad, a learned scholar and a leading proponent of mu‘tazilah occupied the key position in policy making council in the government of al-ma’mun and was appointed as chief judge. because of his continuous persuasion, alma’mun agreed to provide patronage to mu‘tazilah and made it a state sponsored school of thought. a number of key government posts were filled with mu‘tazili scholars who enjoyed the confidence of the khalifah. during this period, the issue of qur’én status had reached its crucial stage. from the very beginning, the mu‘tazilah negated attributes of god and therefore, according to their logic, qur’én is not eternal but created by god. while sunni muslims all together believed that the qur’én is the word of god, not his creature and hence eternal. ‘omar farrukh stated that since 212 ah/ 827 c.e. khalifah alma’mun had taken up this issue and tried to impose the mu‘tazilah’s view forcefully on every scholar. in 218 ah/ 833 c.e, while returning from battle field of minor asia, even on his way, in damascus, many scholars were interrogated and forced to declare that qur’an is a created being.23 by the written order of al-ma’mun issued to isíaq ibn ibrahim, the chief security officer of bagdad, the judges and government officials were also inquired. those who accepted the views of mu‘tazilah were freed and allowed to remain in their job and others were terminated.24 furthermore, many renowned scholars including imam aímad ibn ×anbal (r.a.) and even the ordinary people were subjected to torture and imprisonment. even though imam ahmed was freed from the prison after 18 months by al-mu‘tasim, he was again exiled by the next khalifah, alwathiq. al-buwayti, a famous egyptian jurist and disciple of imam shafi‘i (r.a.) died in the prison during the regime of al-wathiq. imam nu‘aym ibn ×ammad also died in prison. aímad ibn naîr al-khuza‘i was executed by al-wathiq and so forth. there were victims of state persecution galore. thus mu‘tazilites, with a strong state support, remained powerful to suppress the voice of their opponents during the regimes of three caliphs viz. al-ma’mun, al-mu‘taîim and al-wathiq (198-228 a.h) for a period of about 14 years.25 80 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... historians agreed that the whole episodes of torturing on account of mu‘tazilah had come to an end as soon as al-mutawakkil came to power in 232 ah/ 847 c.e. according to al-damiri, an egyptian writer of 14th century, this turning point took place even earlier than 232 a.h. in the later period of his rule, al-wathiq withdrew the state support accorded to mu‘tazilah. however it was al-mutawakkil who finally terminated the debate on the issue of qur’én in 232 ah and allowed the scholars to freely discuss issues according to sunni principles in the year 237 ah/ 851 c.e. he also eliminated the mu‘tazilah elements from key posts of the government. mu‘tazilah solution to issues of islamic creeds mu‘tazilah had attempted to find a middle way and solution to some main issues of islamic creeds arose during the 1st and 2nd centuries of hijrah. but a critical analysis of their stand on those issues shows that they failed to do so. rather, their approach had further complicated the issues and aggravated debate among the muslim society of that time to the greater extent. the issue of grave sinner (committer of major sins) for example, mu‘tazilite’s stand on the issue of grave sinner (murtakib al-kabirah) was an innovation and not based on the principles of islam and therefore it had opened heated debates among scholars. before mu‘tazilah’s stance, there were already three different opinions on the issue. khawarij the issue of grave sinner was initially brought to discussion by the khawarij. they believed that one who committed major sin was no longer a believer and hence had to be treated as unbeliever.26 murji’ah they believe that the grave sinner is still believer in all sense, because committing a major sin is nothing to do with his faith.27 ahl al-sunnah he is a believer and he has to be treated as one among the muslims. however, by committing such sin his faith would weaken until he repents. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 81 while these three opinions were under debate, wéîil ibn ‘aïé had come up with a new opinion that the grave sinner was neither believer nor unbeliever, but he was in an intermediate position as fasiq (malefactor) and would go to hellfire if he had not repented. he is no more muslim owing to committing grave sin but at the same time cannot be regarded as kafir as he has not rescinded his faith.28 this opinion seems to be a moderate stand, but it has no textual evidence from qur’én and ×adith. therefore, this innovated opinion of mu‘tazilah did not solve the problem, but further worsened the debates onc the issue. dispute over fighters of battles of al-jamal and siffin in the battles of al-jamal and øiffin, muslims got divided into two groups and fought against each other. the former was ‘ali ibn abi ùalib (r.a.) and his followers on one side, and ‘óyshah (r.a.) and her followers on the other side. the latter was between ‘ali (r.a.) and mu‘awiyah (r.a.). both internal wars among muslims had resulted into ideological differences which led to fierce disputes and arguments. before analyzing mu‘tazilah’s view point, it would be appropriate to first explore the opinions of other groups like khawarij, shi‘ah and aíl-us sunnah wa'l jama‘ah. khawarij they took a very strange stand on this issue. according to them, by fighting against a group of believers, ‘ali ibn abi ùalib (r.a.) and his followers became unbelievers. it obviously conflicts with their earlier opinion on the previous occasion. when al-jamal battle broke out they opined that those who fought against ‘ali (r.a.) and his followers became unbelievers. shi‘ah according to them, only those who fought against ‘ali (r.a.) in both battles were considered unbelievers. aíl-us sunnah those who fought against ‘ali (r.a.) were also believers. supporting or opposing ‘ali ibn abi ùalib (r.a.) in the battles has nothing to affect one’s faith (êmén). 82 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... mu‘tazilah one of the two fighting groups was certainly sinner (fasiq), but it cannot be determined as which one was. this was the wéîil’s opinion.29 according to ‘amr ibn ‘ubayd, both the parties involved in fighting in both the wars of al-jamal and øiffin were fasiq and hence they became disqualified to bear any legal witness.30 human action and its creator the rational and philosophical approach of mu‘tazilites in metaphorical issues had led them to adopt many extreme ideologies which hardly reflect true sense of scriptural texts. one of those issues was creation of human actions; who is the creator? man himself or almighty allah? according to aíl-us sunnah, everything is created only by the creator, almighty allah. even though human actions are done by him and with his own intention, the original creator is the almighty allah. secondly, mu‘tazilah argue that if it is believed that god is creator of human action be it good or bad, it will automatically necessitate that god is also creator of evil. but since god is absolutely good, evil cannot be attached to him. because if god creates evil, he should be evil. in kitab al-usul al-khamsa, ’abd al-jabbar states that: “it is the knowledge that god is removed from all that is morally wrong (qabêí) and that all his acts are morally good (íasanah). this is explained by the fact that you know all human acts of injustice (ðulm), transgression (jawr) and the like cannot be of his creation (min khalqihi). whoever attributes that to him has ascribed to him injustice and insolence (safah) and thus strays from the doctrine of justice.”31 such argument was well countered by sunni scholars. mu‘tazilites did not touch the question as who is the creator of harmful creatures as it also goes against their so-called belief of justice. however, mu‘tazilah believed that every human action is created by him alone, with his intention and therefore, he is liable for reward or punishment.32 on the contrary, if it is said that the creator is allah, man cannot be held responsible for his action. to prove this statement, mu‘tazilah attempted to put forth several arguments which were criticized and refuted by sunni scholars. in order to establish this ideology, mu‘tazilites used peculiar way in interpreting qur’anic texts and inferred a remote meaning. some examples are as follows: hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 83 example 1: “you do not see in the creation of the most merciful any inconsistency” (qur’én 67:3) based on this qur’énic verse, they argue that god’s creation is perfect whereas, human action is imperfect. therefore, human action cannot be a creation of almighty. example 2: “whoever wills – let him believe; and whoever wills – let him disbelieve” (qur’én 18:29) from this verse they argue that man creates his action. however, this verse relates human deeds to his own intention and affirms man’s free will, but it does not mean that man is the creator of his deed. the following verse clearly explains that the will of man is subject to will of almighty in terms of creation and bringing into existence. unless almighty wills, nothing would be created. “you do not will except that allah will” (qur’én 76:30) example 3: the holy qur’én narrates in many places that some of the prophets had confessed their mistakes. for example ódam (a.s.) and ×awwé (r.a.) said: “oh lord, we have wronged ourselves” (qur’én 7:23). quoting similar verses mu‘tazilah argue that man’s action is created by him alone. this argument also does not hold good, because the prophets confessed the mistakes committed by them and sought forgiveness from almighty allah. it does not mean that they are the creators of their sinful acts. human freedom and freedom of thought in the islamic history, mu‘tazilah were believed to have been pioneers to advocate idea of human freedom and freedom of thoughts in the second and third century of hijrah. this ideology had been derived from their belief in indetermination and denial of predestination. according to them, man creates his own actions and therefore he bears the responsibility 84 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... for consequences of his own actions. it is clearly asserted by mu‘tazilites that the man is the creator of his own action, will and wish.33 however, according to the common beliefs of muslims, god alone is the creator of everything including human action. on this issue also, mu‘tazilites deviated from mainstream beliefs of sunni muslims. as far as freedom of thought is concerned, they considered that the human reasoning is the primary source of knowledge. aímad øubíi says, “the credit goes to mu‘tazilites; they were the pioneers to declare the human reasoning as a source of religious knowledge”.34 the principle of critical thinking in established religious matters had led mu‘tazilites to take a divergent stand on several points: 1. critical thinking led them to the doubt as a tool to find the fact. 2. interpretation of qur’anic texts in a way which could cope with the results of human reasoning. 3. rejection of ijma‘– consensus of muslim jurists as one of the sources of shari‘ah (islamic law). 4. the unseen matters mentioned in the texts of qur’an and ×adith like punishment in graveyard, bridge of øêrat, shafé‘at – intercession, ru’yah – seeing god in the hereafter etc. were interpreted by human reasoning. some other beliefs of mu‘tazilites following are some other beliefs of mu‘tazilites as corollaries of their intellect.35 1. rejection of punishment and reward meted out to the dead in the grave and the questioning by the angels munkar and nakêr. 2. rejection of signs of the day of judgment, gog and magog (yajëj and majëj), and emergence of al-dajjal. 3. rejection of recording of human acts by angels (kiraman katibên). since god is well aware of all the deeds of his servants and hence there is no such need of the recording angels. 4. rejection of physical existence of the "tank" (al-×auì), the "bridge" (al-øêrat) and heaven and hell existed now which will come into being on the day of judgment according to their belief. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 85 5. rejection of the covenant (al-mêthéq). they believe that god neither spoke to any prophet or angel, nor will he cast a glance towards them. 6. rejection of the miracles (al-karémat) of saints (wali), since, if accepted, they would be misconstrued with evidential miracles of the prophets and cause confusion. 7. rejection of the ascension (al-mi‘réj) of the prophet of islam, but accepting the holy prophet's journey to the jerusalem. 8. deeds, in addition to declaration (al-taîdêq) are included in faith. therefore, they believe that great sinner will perpetually live in hellfire. inappropriate interpretation of texts all principles of mu‘tazilah were generally formulated on the basis of philosophy, reason and logic. for example, one of the crucial issues of their principles was “createdness of qur’én”. if one says that qur’én is not created but eternal, there will be two eternal beings: god and qur’én. eternity is owned by god only and anything else cannot be eternal or uncreated. therefore, it is quite logical to say that qur’én is created. it was purely an intellectual assumption of mu‘tazilah. however, they tried to prove that this concept was also derived from the meanings of the holy qur’én. in this matter, mu‘tazilites attempted to dishonestly interpret the verse and twist its meaning to be in agreement with their ideology. the verse referred by them is: “allah is the creator of all things” (qur’én 13:16). they argued that qur’én comes under ‘all things’ cited in the above verse and therefore qur’én is also created. their argument was countered that since the qur’én is the words of allah and the speech of god is one of his attributes and god’s attribute cannot be a thing other than god. further, they had deduced that the ‘human action’ did not come under ‘all things’ referred in the above verse and therefore human action is not created by god. from this point, one can certainly realize their conflicting arguments and understand how mu‘tazilites twisted the meaning of verse to support their assumptions. 86 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... in this context, the meaning of another verse, for example, was also misinterpreted by them. according to them, the verse “allah has power over all things” (qur’én 2:284) is not applicable to human action and thus allah has no power of creating human action. in mu‘tazilah’s principle, man is the creator of his action. sunni scholars agreed that allah cannot be seen. however, people of paradise in the hereafter can see him. this principle was formulated on the basis of qur’énic verses and several ×adith. but how the sight will take place is not known and not explained anywhere. mu’tazilah totally rejected the vision of god by adducing the logic that god cannot be related to a place and direction which is essential for vision. therefore they tried to interpret otherwise the verses and ×adith related to the vision. “that day faces will be resplendent, looking towards their lord” (75:22). this qur’anic verse is self-explanatory. the word ‘naðr’ (looking), when used with various prepositions, gives different meanings accordingly. ‘naðr fi’ means to analyse and examine and ‘naðr ila’ means seeing through eyes. in this verse, ‘naðr ila’ has been used which obviously means to see god through eyes in paradise. but mu‘tazilites blindly rejected to accept the obvious meaning of the word. role of mu‘tazilah in defending islam mu‘tazilite scholars like al-qéìi ‘abdul jabbar36 (d. 1024) and muíammad ‘ammarah claimed that the mu‘tazilah had played a vital role in defending islam and its beliefs. they argued that several volumes had been authored in this regard by mu‘tazilah scholars like waîil ibn ‘aïa, ‘amr ibn ‘ubayd, abul hudhayl al-‘allaf etc. some modern writers such as abu zahrah and aímad amin claimed that mu‘tazilah had played a considerable role in defending islam against its enemies. since such claim is mainly based on the books authored by mu‘tazilites and hardly referred by other general sources, it raises a doubt on veracity of the statement. however, the tremendous effort made by mu‘tazilah to spread the school is undoubted. impact of mu‘tazilah on some muslim scholars of 19th & 20th century with the downfall of mu‘tazilah in late half of the 9th century, their hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 87 ideology of freedom of thought started losing ground among muslim society and eventually vanished but the method of their logical thinking were inherited by others. aímad amin compares mu‘tazilah with the freedom party of modern egypt. he said, “if mu‘tazilah’s ideology lived and continued in the history, muslim society might have been more advanced and colourful today”.37 he also stated, “the modern reform movements of muslim world in 19th century followed the methodology of mu‘tazilah. the only difference is that the teachings of mu‘tazilah were based on religion, whereas the modern muslim renaissance focuses on intellectual affairs alone”.38 therefore, it is believed that the muslim reformers of 19th and 20th centuries had been strongly influenced by the ideology of mu‘tazilah, especially by their methodology of critical thinking. ash‘ariyah39 and maturidiyah40 whose thoughts widely prevailed later and existing till date, also used their method to argue their stand and counter mu‘tazilah principles. both schools were the by-product of mu‘tazilah movement. the later muslim intellectuals were somewhat under the influence of western thoughts and hence adopted defensive and compromising approach whereas mu‘tazilah, though, they partially used the greek philosophy but their approach was highly assertive to prove their ideology powerfully before the nations of other culture. they have never compromised with any principle of islamic prohibitions. for example, the case of riba (interest), some muslim scholars of 19th and 20th century under influence of western thought attempted to lessen case of bank interest as riba like sir syed (1817-1898), muíammad ‘abduh (18491905), muíammad rashid rida (1865-1935), fazlur rahman (1919-1988) and muíammad sayyid tantawy (1928-2010) etc. sir syed aímad khan sir syed was a great educationist and reformer who in 1875 founded muíammadan anglo oriental college which became aligarh muslim university in 1920, the first muslim university in south asia. in his exegesis and writings, the influence of mu‘tazilah ultra rationalism is visible. he, on many instances, quoted mu‘tazilah philosophers. he denied the miracles associated with holy prophet and other prophets arguing that such things are against the laws of nature and there is no such matter in the qur’én opposing laws of nature.41 hence he took verses related to miracles in metaphorical sense than in their literal meaning. everything 88 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... in the world is the outcome of independent chains of causes and effects which ultimately reaches the first cause intitiated by god and indestructibility of matter proves existence of god42. good and evil in things or reward and punishment for human deeds, all are based on natural laws and are independent of divine injunctions. he also considered wahi and ilhém a natural process. in all the matters, he tried to advocate the case of naturalism, natural laws or natural causation as the main basis. thus in the matter of unseen, he did not admit many established mainstream beliefs as they cannot be proved. he was branded as ‘naturist’. on the matters like jinn, devils, angels, facing qiblah, birth of the prophet ‘isé (a.s.), signs of day of judgment such as emergence of al-dajjél, bridge al-øiréï, al-‘arsh, al-kursi, al-lawí al-maífuð, alshifé‘ah, vision of god etc. he had given either radically weird interpretation or denied their physical existence by terming them “metaphor’. he also disagreed over ×adith as a primary source of shari‘ah and regarded the qur’én as the only one. those verses which could not fit to his principles, he explained them either through farfetched arguments or strange interpretation. for example, he interpreted miracle of bringing life to dead meaning death as kufr and life as êmén and the case of mi‘réj or seeing the dead birds alive by ibrahiim (n) as a dream or spiritual experience etc. he superseded mu‘tazilah on such issues. he had formulated fifteen principles of exegesis. however, it’s interesting to note that sir syed’s early writings were quite traditionalistic but after final downfall of mughal empire especially after great revolt of 1857 and establishment of full british rule, his thought greatly changed with western influence and so appeared in his later works. one can argue that bizarre thoughts in his works might be the outcome of a subjugated mindset with an attempt to reconcile the relationship between muslims and christians. this was the very reason that he segregated the worldly affairs esp. power of rule from religious aspects. it was inadequately argued that new religious ideas of sir syed were an effort of social reform among indian muslim society but it is self-evident that strange beliefs on matter of unseen are having no connection with social reform objectives. however, there is no denying of his sincere efforts towards social reforms. other intellectuals similarly, many other scholars followed the step and expressed farout and odd opinions on the matters of belief and unseen by rejecting the hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 89 authority of ×adith. the prominent among them in indian sub-continent were ghulam ahmad perwez, maulvi chiragh ali, aslam jairajpuri, mohammad ali lahori, khaja ahmad din amritsari, abdullah chakralwi, fazlur raíman etc. in order to reject, they first created doubt over texts of ×adith and questioned its contents and then took the verses for their strange and invented interpretation. however, positive aspects of their discussion should also be given consideration as an evolution of thoughts. some emerged in other parts of the world and advocated for rationalism and were alleged to have influence of mu‘tazilah in their ideology like muíammad ‘abduh, muíammad rashid riìa and naîr ×amid abu zayd (1943–2010) in arab world, harun nasution (1919– 1998) in indonesia, to name a few. in his work ‘theology of unity’, abduh appeared to have sided with mu‘tazilah ideology of human freedom. he further clarified it in terms of natural causality that allah has initially determined the laws for universe which function accordingly without involving god’s intervention and thus humans forge its own destinies. this notion was an echo of what sir syed expressed. a contemporary unorganized group also claim to be ‘neo-mu‘tazilites’ based in arab and other parts of world. there was fundamental difference between mu‘tazilah in early history of islam and the scholars of the last two centuries claimed to have been influenced by mu‘tazilites ideology. the former has not ever touched any islamic injunctions and teachings except few issues related to matters of creed rather they showed strict adherence to prescriptions and prohibitions of islam under the principle of ‘al-‘amr wa-al-nahi’. whereas the latter compromised on many issues and argued their case through defensive approach under influence of western ideology behind a shield of rationalism. a critique of mu‘tazilah they did not focus on other fields of knowledge and issues which were more needed at that time for ijtihad43. their all efforts and energies were centered on some points of religious beliefs and to make them official doctrine of the state and generally accepted by people. against their own principle of free will and freedom of thought, they tried to impose their ideology with force on public and those who refused to accept were subjected to severe persecution. thus it led to conflict and hostility among muslim society. in some cases they adopted a very weird and unacceptable stand. 90 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... for example, ‘amr ibn ‘ubayd considered all those who indulged in battles of al-jamal and îiffin as wrongdoers, though waîil held that either of the both sides was wrong but which one was not confirmed and thus associated with both. hence, they did not only accuse the companions of the holy prophet ( ) participated in these battles but also put them under intermediate status group as according to them the wrongdoers are neither believers nor unbelievers. in the matter of creeds, the difference between mu‘tazilah and the others was on the details of beliefs and their exposition or interpretation and not on rejection or acceptance of essential beliefs. both mu‘tazilah and sunni scholars agreed on oneness of allah, qur’én as a revealed book, life hereafter, heaven and hell, reward and punishment etc. but mu‘tazilah made disagreement in interpretation on such matters an issue of faith and unbelief and hence imposed forcefully. there was no denying of using reason to understand divine and prophetic commandments but mu‘tazilah made human reason as the first and final arbiter in the matter of unseen and destiny. whatever was not accepted by their reason, they either interpreted the texts of qur’én and ×adith or denied the obvious meaning of the texts. further, they used a verse by generalizing its meaning to argue for their beliefs but they ignored the same verse and did not argue with it if generalization went against their argument. their ultra-rationalism did not allow them to appreciate the fact that reason, like any other faculty, has its limitations and hence may err or fail to understand the truth in all its details. because of their disputative way of thinking, they themselves got divided into various sub-sects like wéîiliyah, hudhayliyah, naððamiyah, bishriyah, mu‘ammariyah, thumamiyah, jahiziyah, and jubba’iyah etc. they paved the way for opposition and conflict with mainstream religious doctrines. huge energies and efforts were consumed in putting forward the arguments and counter arguments by both sides and created an atmosphere of rift and conflict among muslim society. such energies would have been utilized for productive purposes if mu‘tazilah had not entangled the people in needless disputes over divinities and matters of unseen. ash‘ariyah and maturidiyah had to emerge as a new school of thought in islamic creeds just to counter mu‘tazilah beliefs. intellectual discourse and debate turned into a futile excessive argumentation nay a nitpicking and hair-splitting exercise. their highly intolerant attitude, forceful imposition of their beliefs hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 91 and use of threat and persecution to make people accept their beliefs created an atmosphere of hatred and intense resentment against them in the mind of public and thus they lost the public support. once political patronage was over, their ideology met with inevitable decline and gradually disappeared from the scene. the reprisal took place and the works of mu‘tazilah with an official ban were wiped out as their contentious ideologies with further differences after differences caused by its various sub-sects had become a source of serious internecine strife in the matter of beliefs among muslims. as mu‘tazilah attempted to reconcile reason and revelation and contended that these two things were not fully separate. but they failed to succeed in finding an acceptable formulation of solution than al-ash‘ari who made revelation primary but also accorded an important place to the reason. reasons for downfall of mu‘tazilah mu‘tazilah thrived and flourished because of government direct patronage though their doctrines were diametrically opposed to the beliefs held by mainstream masses of muslims. with the withdrawal of political support, the acceptance of their ideology did no longer survive and finally got abandoned. secondly, the persecution and atrocities against those who did not accept their beliefs created anger in public. not only eminent and great scholars like imam aímad ibn ×anbal (r.a.) were subjected to torture but also common people were persecuted. many were brutally executed for dissent. thirdly, majority of their intellectual debate was related to unseen matters (ghayb) which were supposed to be understood through revealed sources. fourthly, ash‘arites and maturidites emerged as a powerful popular force to counter mu‘tazilah beliefs. they used their argumentative methods of logic and critical thinking and applied the same against mu‘tazilah. finally, the muslim masses were greatly connected with classical scholars i.e. fuqahé and muíaddithin of their time and hence mu‘tazilah beliefs were not readily accepted even by groups of ordinary people. conclusion among all ideological groups in the history of islam, mu‘tazilah was 92 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... the most influential. even though some of the basic ideologies borrowed from khawarij, qadariyah and murji’ah in the initial stage, the mu‘tazilah’s principles were well defined in the later period.44 the ideological contribution made by wéîil ibn ‘aïé, abul hudhayl, al-naððam, bishr ibn al-mu’tamir, mu‘ammar ibn ‘abbad and other scholars were significant. as claimed that mu‘tazilites were typically equipped with logical knowledge, philosophical and rational approach which had helped them to attract younger generation and suppress the voice of their opponents. in the beginning of 3rd century of hijrah, under sponsorship of abbasid caliphs, the mu‘tazilah became more powerful and their ideology as a state doctrine was forcefully imposed on public. the opponents were imprisoned, tortured and even killed till the state sponsorship was completely terminated by al-mutawakkil in 232 a.h. on the other hand, ash‘ariyah had emerged as a powerful counter force which gradually defeated mu‘tazilah on ideological ground. on the issues like grave sinner, createdness of holy qur’én etc, ash‘arites effectively defied their arguments. thus the mu‘tazilah movement with all its ideology had gradually ceased. however, their logical and critical approach is still a living source in the minds of modern muslim thinkers. further, the emergence of such sectarian group was not a political phenomena as generally alleged by the orientalists and many studies and researches especially conducted in the west. for example, the principles of mu‘tazilah sect such as createdness of qur’én, denial of god’s attributes and vision of god, the issue of grave sinner etc. have nothing to do with connection of politics. rather these were purely questions of beliefs as a development of innovated ideologies in theological thought. this was the very reason that abbasid caliph al-mutawakkil seized the official support from mu‘tazilah and completely banned the debate on such issues since such movement was in no way helping the government rather creating an environment of mistrust between state and public and also among the people. intellectual discourse had never been stopped in the islamic history rather it had always been there from the very beginning in the form of intellectual exertion taken place as ijtihad on various issues. in latter centuries too, many scholars presented intellectual explanation with reason to understand the islamic injuctions (aíkém) and the wisdom behind prescription and proscription. what is needed and important for the future that debate on such thought should not be confined to a narrow perspective of reasoning only rather could be seen in broder perspective as an evolution of thoughts and intellectual approach. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 93 notes and references 1. the kharijites seceders (khariji pl. khawarij). the earliest sectarian group in islamic history, although they originally supported ‘ali ibn abi ùalib (r.a.) but turned against him after the battle of øiffin (657) when he agreed to submit his dispute with mu‘awiyah (r.a.) to arbitration. they accused him of rejecting the qur’énic instruction. later ‘ali (r.a.) was forced to fight them in the battle of nahrawan (658) and defeated. (oxford islamic studies online: http:// www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1274 accessed 21 sep 2019). 2. ×asan al-baîri, in full abu sa’id ibn abi al-×asan yasar al-baîri, (642-728) was a famous tabi‘i – a successor to øaíébah, he was renowned for his piety, ascetic life, deep knowledge, preaching and eloquence. he was born nine years after the death of the holy prophet ( ). he met many øaíébah including a number of senior ones like ‘uthman, talha (r.a.) etc. he had a very large study circle in the mosque of basra. 3. abul fatí muíammad ibn ‘abdul karim al-shahrastani, al-milal wan-niíal, vol. i (beirut: dar al-ma‘rifah), p. 62. 4. hasan jarullah zuhdi, al-mu‘tazilah, (cairo: matba‘at miîr, 1947), p. 3. 5. aímad amin, fajr al-islam, 16th edition (cairo: maktabah al-nahìah al-miîriyah, 1975), p. 289. 6. a theological sect who held that human actions take place entirely by will of allah and the man has no role to play. 7. another sect who held diametrically opposed view that human actions take place purely by human will and power. 8. al-shahrastani, al-milal wan-niíal, vol. i, p. 61. 9. murji’ah held god alone will decide whether or not a muslim had lost his faith. thus no one who once accepted islam, could be declared unbeliever. deed and faith are not related and hence deeds have no effect on faith. moreover, faith does not increase or decrease with performance of good or bad deeds. on the issue of grave sinner, khawarij and murji’ah are at opposite poles. 10. ‘umar farrukh, tarikh al-fikr al-‘arabi, ila ayyam ibn khaldun, 3rd edition (beirut: dar al-‘ilm lil-mala’in, 1951), p. 198. 11. the term zindiq pl. zanadiq or zandaqah was originally used for manichaeans/ zoroastrians the dualist (thanawiyah) having belief in two gods. so the people holding certain other beliefs mainly coming from the ancient persian religion along with islamic beliefs were regarded zindiq. the term was later applied for heretics. 12. ‘abdul laïif ibn ‘abdul qadir al-×ifði, ta’thir al-mu‘tazilah fil-khawarij wa-alshi‘ah asbabuhu wa-mazahiruhu, 1st edition (jeddah: dar al andalus alkha?ra’, 2000), p. 271. 13. ibid., p. 26. 14. ’abd al-jabbar, ‘kitab al-usul al-khamsah’ in defenders of reason in islam, richard c martin and others, oneword, oxford, 1997, p 92, qtd. in muhammad kamal, ‘mu‘tazilah: the rise of islamic rationalism’, australian rationalist, no. 62, 2003, p. 34. 15. al-qédê abdul jabbar, faðl al-i‘tizal wa-ùébaqat al-mu‘tazilah (tunis: dar altunisia, 1974), p. 139. 94 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... 16. aímad amin, öuíal islam, vol. iii (cairo: maktabah al-nahìah al-miîriyah), p. 85. 17. ‘abdullah ibn muslim ibn qutaybah, ta’wil mukhtalif al-hadith (cairo: maktabah al-mutanabbi), p. 32. 18. al-shahrastani, al-milal wan-niíal, vol. i, p. 81. 19. maímud isma‘il, al-×arakat al-sirriyah fil-islam, 1st edition (beirut: dar alqalam, 1973) p. 95. 20. abu al-×asan ‘ali ibn al-×usayn ibn ‘ali al-mas‘udi, muruj al-dhahab wama‘adin al-jawhar, vol. iii (beirut: al-maktabah al-‘aîriyah, 1988), p. 247. 21. ‘abdullah ibn muslim ibn qutaybah, ‘uyunul akhbar, 2nd edition, vol. i (beirut: dar al-kitab al-‘arabi, 1996), p. 241. 22. ismé‘êl ibn ‘umar ibn kathir, al-bidayah wan-nihayah, 4th edition, vol. i (beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 1988), p. 275. 23. farrukh, tarikh al-fikr al-‘arabi, p. 290. 24. abu ja‘far muíammad ibn jarir al-ùabari, tarikh al-umam walmuluk, 2nd edition (beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah,1405/1984), pp. 168-69. 25. muíammad abu zahrah, tarikh al-madhahib al-islamiyyah (cairo: dar al-fikr al-‘arabi), p. 500. 26. al-shahrastani, al-milal wan-niíal, vol. i, p. 141. 27. ibid., i: 169. 28. farrukh, tarikh al-fikr al-‘arabi, p. 223. 29. al-shahrastani, al-milal wan-niíal, vol. 1, p. 141. 30. abu manîër ‘abd al-qadir ibn ùahir al-baghdadi, al-farq bayn al-firaq, (beirut: dar al-ma‘rifah), p. 121. 31. al-shahrastani, al-milal wan-niíal, vol. i, p. 47. 32. farrukh, tarikh al-fikr al-‘arabi, p. 224. 33. al-shahrastani, al-milal wan-niíal, vol. i, p. 57. 34. al-qéìê abdul jabbar, al-mughni fi abwab al-tawíid wa'l-‘adl, vol. viii (cairo: dar al-miîriyah lit-ta’lif wat-tarjumah), p. 283. 35. mir valiuddin, “mu‘talizm”, in a history of muslim philosophy, ed. by m.m. sharif, pakistan, vol.1, book 3, pakistan philosophical congress (kempten: allgäuer heimatverlag gmbh., 1963) pp. 202-203. 36. prominent mu‘tazili theologian. an adherent of the shafii school of law, he was appointed chief justice (qéìê) under the buwayhids. his ‘faðl al-i‘tizal wa ùabaqat al-mu‘tazilah’ is a major source of mu‘tazili hagiography, and his ‘almughni fi abwab al-tawhid wa'l-‘adl’ is a major source for mu‘tazili doctrine. (the oxford dictionary of islam online, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/ article/opr/t125/e3, accessed 21 sep 2019). 37. aímad øubíi, al-falsafah al-akhlaqiyah fi al-fikr al-islami (cairo: dar al-ma‘arif), p. 41. 38. amin, öuíal islam, iii: 202. 39. followers of the school founded by abul ×asan al-ash‘ari (873-935) who was formerly a mu‘tazili but later abandoned mu‘tazilah doctrines and heavily opposed them. he showed a reaction against the extreme rationalism of mu‘tazilah and attempted to reconcile revelation and reason. 40. followers of the school founded by abu manîur muíammad al-maturidi (853– hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 95 944) who also opposed and countered mu‘tazilah doctrines and based the theology relying primarily on revelation with rational inferences when needed. 41. ‘aziz aímad, muslim self-statement in india and pakistan 1857-1968 (wiesbaden: otto harrasowitz, 1970), p. 31. 42. muíammad ismail panipati, (ed.), maqalat-i-sir syed, vol. i (lahore: majlis taraqqê-e adab, 1962), pp. 9-10. 43. use of abilities and effort to the fullest by a competent scholar to deduce logical solution to new cases. 44. ibid., iii: 207 bibliography ‘abdul jabbar, al-qéìê, al-mughni fi abwab al-tawíêd wa'l-‘adl, vol. viii, cairo: dar al-miîriyah li-al-ta’lif wa-al-tarjumah, n.d. ‘abdul jabbar, al-qéìê, faðl al-i‘tizal wa-?abaqat al-mu‘tazilah, tunis: dar al-tunisia, 1974. abu zahrah, muíammad, tarikh al-madhahib al-islamiyah, cairo: dar al-fikr al‘arabi, n.d. aímad, ‘aziz, muslim self-statement in india and pakistan 1857-1968, wiesbaden: otto harrasowitz, 1970. al-baghdadi, abu manîur ‘abd al-qadir ibn ùahir ibn muíammad, al-farq bayn alfiraq, beirut: dar al-ma‘rifah, n.d. al-×ifði, ‘abdul laïif ibn ‘abdul qadir, ta’thir-al mu‘tazilah fi'l-khawarij wa-al-shi‘ah asbabuhu wa-mazahiruhu, 1st edition, jeddah: dar al-andalus al-khéìra’, 2000. al-mas‘udi, abu al-×asan ‘ali ibn al-×usayn ibn ‘ali, muruj al-dhahab wa-ma‘adin al-jawhar, vol. iii, beirut: al-maktabah al-‘asriyah, 1988. al-ùabari, abu ja‘far muíammad ibn jarir, tarikh al-umam wa'l-muluk, 2nd edition, beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 1405/1984. amin, aímad, öuía'l islam, vol. iii, cairo: maktabah al-nahìah al-miîriyah, n.d. amin, aímad, fajr al-islam, 16th edition, cairo: maktabah al-naìah al-miîriyah, 1975. farrukh, ‘umar, tarikh al-fikr al-‘arabi, ila ayyam ibn khaldun, 3rd edition, beirut: dar al-‘ilm li-al-mala’in, 1951. ibn kathir, abul fida’ isma‘il ibn ‘umar, al-bidayah wa-al-nihayah, vol. i, 4th edition, beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 1988. ibn qutaybah, abu muíammad ‘abdullah ibn muslim, ‘uyun al-akhbar, vol. i, 2nd edition, beirut: dar al-kitab al-‘arabi, 1996. _________________, ta’wil mukhtalif al-×adith, cairo: maktabah al-mutanabbi, n.d. isma‘il, maímud, al-×arakat al-sirriyah fi'l-islam, 1st edition, beirut: dar al-qalam, 1973. kamal, muhammad, ‘mu‘tazilah: the rise of islamic rationalism’, australian rationalist, no. 62, 2003. panipati, ismail muíammad, (ed.), maqalat-i-sir syed (in urdu), vol. i, lahore: majlis taraqqi-e adab, 1962. 96 mu‘tazilah,... a critical study... shahrastani, abul fatí muíammad ibn ‘abdul karim, al-milal wa-al-niíal, vol. i, beirut: dar al-ma‘rifah, n.d. øubíê, aímad, al-falsafah al-akhlaqiyah fi al-fikr al-islami, cairo: dar al-ma‘arif, n.d. valiuddin, mir, “mu‘tazilism”, a history of muslim philosophy, kempten: allgäuer heimatverlag gmbh., 1963. zuhdi, ×asan jarullah, al-mu‘tazilah, cairo: matba‘at miîr, 1947. f:\e\islamicus\2016\no.2, 2016\abstarct\02-meaning.pmd hamdard islamicus 37 vol. xxxix, no. 2 meaning and siginificance of fasting in comparative perspective a study with special reference to judaism, christianity, and islam1 dr. mohammad akram department of comparative religion, international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan e-mail: mohammad akram <m.akram@iiu.edu.pk> though the ritual of fasting is common to most of the known religious traditions, its practice and symbolic value may vary considerably. this paper aims at a comparative study into meaning and significance of this ritual with special reference to the three semitic religions namely judaism, christianity, and islam. some interesting similarities and dissimilarities in this connection are noted. it is discerned that quite often fasting is observed in these religions to commemorate certain events of religious significance during specific days of the year. moreover, feasts and festivals which occur before or after various fasting periods in the selected religious traditions remind us of the social significance of this ritual. however, sometimes fasting also signifies spontaneous individual expression of thankfulness to, or repentance before god. it is observed that fasting in these religions is envisioned to facilitate self-control, invoke mercy and sympathy for others, create the sense of bondage, establish and assert religious identities, and release the negative feelings like guilt consciousness. in the final analysis, it is maintained that as a form of asceticism fasting does not necessarily imply negation of body or society. rather, by facilitating self-control and freedom from one’s inner fears and other emotional weaknesses it can also lead to a deeper affirmation of the self and greater integration into the society. hamdard islamicus 83 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the concept of istiønó‘ in islamic commercial law (sharô‘ah) and its possible role in the development of local farming in pakistan (istiønó‘ based model for financing agriculture) dr. lutfullah saqib1 and azmat ullah turabi2 1assistant professor (law and shariah), university of swat, 2international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan, e-mail:lutsaqib@gmail.com being typical muslim, the pakistani farmers, particularly those living in rural parts, always dodge interest based loan – an economic activity that is rigorously prohibited by sharê‘ah. islamic commercial law, on the other hand, offers, as an alternate way, the concept of istiîné‘ – a manufacturing contract – for the accomplishment of various agricultural needs. the present work, therefore, aims to prove that how this typical contract can be meritoriously applied in such a way to overcome financial problems of farming community, predominantly of those living in rural areas of the country. to achieve this, an istiîné‘ based model is proposed in the light of the theoretical framework, settled for it by the classical and contemporary muslim jurists.to establish the viability of the model, the focused group research technique of qualitative research is used. while following this, two hundred (200) local farmers, both from urban and rural, are interviewed. finding shows that the contract of istiîné‘ can be effectively used for the fulfillment of various agricultural needs – both for crop and non-crop sectors. the suggestions, received from the collected data, are inculcated in the model for the enhancement of its practical utility at ground level. keywords: istiîné‘, islamic commercial law, agriculture, sharê‘ah, farmers, financing, islamic bank, financial institution. hamdard islamicus 84 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 introduction agriculture is one of the most important sources of food for human on this earth since its very inception. a man when gets up early in the morning from his bed, at dawn, has used many agricultural commodities, by one way or another, till dusk. the same importance of agriculture in human’s life has been recognized by many scholars of the field.1 while having such significance, the development of such sector is indispensable for raising life standard, both at individual and collective level. the state’s responsibility, in this connection, is primary in nature, followed by other informal sectors of the society. of course, the governments, of various countries, have taken some concrete steps for enriching agricultural activities; however, the intended objectives are yet not achieved. being a dynamic agricultural country the governments of pakistan, too, has taken some initiatives for the development of agricultural sector, both at crop and non-crop levels. while following this, the central bank (the state bank of pakistan) has offered some guidelines for financing agriculture and its various subsectors; including local farming, horticulture, dairy farming, livestock, poultry farming, fish farming, etc. the guidelines for horticulture financing,2 guidelines for poultry financing,3 guidelines for fisheries financing,4 guidelines for livestock financing,5 guideline for financing scheme for small farmers,6 guideline on frequently asked questions (faqs) on agri financing,7 handbook on best practices in agri/rural finance,8 prudential regulations for agriculture financing,9 etc. are the well notorious among these. all financial institutions, both banks and other financial institutions, are asked to finance agriculture sector; according to the standards mentioned in these guidelines. however, active involvement of the financial institutions, in financing agriculture, has not achieved the required objectives, envisaged by the state bank from the issuance of guidelines. many reasons can be held responsible in this regard, however, the charging of interest on agricultural finance has occupied the first place, owing to fact that majority of farmers are typical muslims and , therefore, avoid interest based agricultural loans. interest, an economic activity that is strictly prohibited by sharê‘ah (islamic law), is not a preferred choice for such farmers – under any stretch of explanation from any corner.10 in order to cope with the situation, the hamdard islamicus 85 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 transaction of istiîné‘ (manufacturing contract) – a typical type of manufacturing contract in islamic commercial law – can be used a suitable alternate for fulfilling farmers’ needs, both for crop and non-crop activities. indeed, this financing mode of islamic finance, by its nature, is not so effective as for as the crop sector is concerned, however, the non-crop activities of agriculture i.e. manufacturing of heavy agricultural machinery, transport, irrigation etc., can be benefited more through its application.11 the suitability of istiîné‘ for financing agriculture is more comparatively to other modes of islamic finance like murébaíah (sale with cost plus profit), muséwamah (bargaining contract), salam (advance payment sale), mushérakah (partnership), diminishing mushérakah (partnership that comes to an end at sale), muséqah (watering contract), and muzéra‘ah (share cropping), etc. there are many reasons behind this aptness. firstly; by entering into this type of transaction with manufacturer, a farmer can get the commodity of his good choice, both in terms of quality and quantity. this facility, on the other hand, cannot be entertained by buying the same commodity from the local market. secondly, he (the farmer) is not supposed to pay the price on immediate basis rather he has to pay the same on installment basis – the most likely mode of payment for the farming community. thirdly, and above all, the transaction is the only one mode of islamic finance that can be used for the improvement of irrigation system; and no alternative can be found in this connection. this peculiarity, undeniably, further increases its importance in agricultural financing. the present paper has some inbuilt objectives; be cared in the whole discussion. the basic purpose is to trace out the real theoretical background of istiîné‘, envisaged by muslim jurists-classical and contemporary. such theory has to be enshrined in the proposed model for financing agriculture, particularly local farming in rural areas. additionally, the present work aims to find out the inevitable requirements of agriculture, both for crop and non-crop sectors, followed by their fulfilment through the operation of istiîné‘s based proposed model. unlike the works on the issue in the past, the proposed model has to be tested at ground level in order to affirm its viability. moreover, the difficulties hallowed in the previous models of istiîné‘, are rooted out in this work. hamdard islamicus 86 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the work also has some engrained limitations. for instance, the theoretical work on istiîné‘, produced by the classical muslim jurists, has not studied with minute details, owing to the fact of space constraints. furthermore, the work is purely conducted for the development of agriculture sector in pakistan, particularly local farming and, thus, the proposed model can be applied generically across the world. some inevitable changes, then, must be incorporated in the basic structure and mechanism of such before applying it to a particular country’s agriculture. likewise, the proposed model is designed for financing local farming and its various activities and other sectors of agriculture like poultry farming, fish farming, livestock, dairy farming, horticulture etc. are unnoticed in this regard. the reason is that a major chunk of farming community in the country belongs to local farming, predominantly in rural areas of the country. methodology the present work is qualitative in nature where its two famous techniques i.e. content analysis and focused group methods are followed for the investigation of the issue. while following the former, the contents available, in the shape of secondary data, on the concept of istiîné‘, has been critically analyzed. here the data is outlined from the work of classical and contemporary muslim jurists. the research work of non-muslim jurists on the concept of istiîné‘ is also resorted and regarded at various places. however, the work of classical muslim jurists is preferred more comparatively to the work of contemporary muslim and non-muslim jurists. the reason is, of course, the reliability of such work – for the classical muslim jurists’ work carries the best interpretation of various sharê‘ah’s concepts. the typical and online libraries are frequently used in this connection. the secondary data, in the present research, is also mark out from those journals which are related to the field of islamic banking and finance. the official website, predominantly that of the state bank of pakistan, is extensively used for the purpose to obtain the updated data. in order to check the viability of istiîné‘ based model, the focused group technique (of the qualitative research) has been used where two hundred (200) local farmers (of the country) hamdard islamicus 87 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 are interviewed. in this regard, the proposed model is first explained to the farmers in a lay man’s language for the purpose to make them understand. this is followed by the open group based discussion of farmers with each other – an indispensable approach for the better understanding of the proposed istiîné‘ based model. being very much illiterate, they are then interviewed through a very simple way i.e. without using the official and technical language. their views, regarding the proposed model, are recorded and reduced into writing. at this stage, various themes have been developed on the basis of such views. the model is then critically analyzed in the light of collected data through thematic analysis. the necessary modifications and adjustments, in the model, are made at this very stage (without compromising the basic principles of islamic commercial law) for the purpose to establish its practicability and sustainability beyond any thin glare of doubt. theoretical background of istiîné‘ ‘istiîné‘’ is an arabic word originates from “øana’” which means ‘manufacturing’, while regarding its technical meaning; the statements of fuqahé vary considerably. imém késénê, a well renowned jurist of the hanafê school, defines istiîné‘ as “a contract of something sold on guarantee in which the work is conditioned”.12 in the view of imém ibn ‘óbidên, “ it is a demand from a manufacturer to manufacture certain goods according to a given description”.13 maulana muhammad taqi usmani, a contemporary scholar, defines istiîné‘ as “to order a manufacturer to manufacture a specific commodity for the purchaser”.14 among these definitions the one which is produced by imém ibn ‘óbidên, the latest hanafê jurist, is more comprehensive in nature; for it tells about the basic principles envisaged by sharê‘ah for the contract of istiîna. like other commercial transactions, islamic commercial law has, of course, described some rules and regulations for the contract of istiîné‘. being a typical kind of sale, some of its rules are similar to those of general sale while others are special in nature and solely sanctioned by sharê‘ah for it. in the coming lines only the special rules will be focused in details – for the general rules are well established and known and, hence, need not to be discussed. hamdard islamicus 88 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 firstly, in the contract of istiîné‘, the manufacturer is required to manufacture the object from his own raw material; owing to the fact that the subject matter of the contract is the object itself, and not the work done by the manufacturer.15 this rule puts a demarcation line between the contracts of istiîné‘ and ijérah (personal services) where the subject matter is the work; done by the manufacturer. in this latter case, the material is provided by the orderer. imam késéni, while clarifying the statement, gives the example that if the orderer provides the blacksmith a piece of iron to make him a known vessel for an agreed fee, or provided a piece of leather to a cobbler to make him a shoe for a known fee, then this is permissible but there is no choice (law of option) in it, and hence it is not istiîné’ but ijérah.16 secondly, istiîné‘ contract is not binding in nature before the work is started by the manufacturer, at that stage either party can revoke it unilaterally.17 this rule is based on the general principle of the contract of sale, according to which a party can revoke the contract before he leaves the place where it is concluded.18 in islamic law, this place is typically called ‘majlis ul ‘aqd’. by the same token, when the manufacturer dies, spontaneously the contract of istiîné‘ comes to an end. this rule is applicable when the contract includes specific performance and the legal heirs of the deceased are unable to perform the contract. however, in the absence of the condition of specific performance in the contract, they have to perform the contract. but it is appropriate to mention that the contract of istiîné‘ does not come to an end at the death of the customer, and his legal heirs have to accept the delivery of goods and make the payment. nevertheless, in the researchers’ viewpoint this rule should not be followed strictly and some flexibility needs to be shown according to the specific circumstances that may arise. thirdly, istiîné‘ contract is very flexible regarding the aspect of payment. it is neither obligatory in this contract that the price is to be paid in advance, nor is it required that the price should be paid at the time of delivery.19 hence, the price may be totally or partially advanced or totally or partially deferred, or paid in instalments, or any other way on which the parties agree.20 both the parties may fix the time for payment at the time of the contract. fourthly, unlike as a rule of general sale, the time of delivery may not be fixed in an istiîné‘ contract, and therefore, the commodity may be delivered at any time. the question arises whether the orderer has the right to reject it at that time. the hamdard islamicus 89 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 jurists have different opinion in this connection. according to imam abu hanifa, the purchaser (customer) has the right to reject the commodity after inspection if it is not according to the specifications laid down in the contract. he cites that since istiîné‘ is a sale; the law of option can be applied to it; just like a normal sale transaction. however, according to imém abë yousuf, if the commodity is according to the specifications, agreed upon by the contracting parties, then the purchaser is bound to accept the commodity and has no other option.21 fifthly, for the validity of istiîné‘ it is necessary that the subject matter is non-existent at the time of contract. the reason is that purpose of such contract is to manufacture something and an exception to this rule is strictly prohibited.22 if the commodity is already in existence, and there is no need to manufacture it, then the justification for istiîné‘’s permissibility loses its ground. in the latter situation, the contract of salam is the most suitable to be applied. sixthly, the istiîné‘ is not binding in nature, and therefore, can be revoked by either party without the consent of the other before the manufacturer starts the work.23 majallah al-aíkém al-adêliyyah, however, does not accept the view point of hanafê school of thought regarding the non-binding status of istiîné‘.24 the approach of majallah, yet, sounds more logical though because it is in the interest of both parties to a contract. istiîné‘ as a financing tool for agriculture istiîné‘ arguably is the ideal mode of islamic finance which is applicable, principally, for non-crop activities. such mode of islamic finance is not, therefore, the most appropriate mode for crop activities – since this contract is concluded only where there is a definite demand already established.25 following this principle, it can be said that such contract cannot be concluded for natural goods or commodities.26 in other words it cannot be applied for financing fruit crops or non-fruit crops activities.27 the description shows that this transaction’s role, by its very nature, is more dominant in the non-crop sector, and hence, can not be used for the development of local farming; particularly in the rural areas of the country – a major chunk of the population i.e. 62 percent of the country’s population resides in rural parts and is directly or indirectly linked with agriculture for their livelihood.28 these areas, of course, remain mostly hamdard islamicus 90 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 ignored in terms of financing by the islamic banks and other islamic financial institution. the above discussion does not mean, by any way, that istiîné‘’s application is limited only to non-crop agricultural activities and, thus, it can not be used for the solution of other agricultural problems; confronted by farmer. for example, one of the major problems faced by the farmers of rural areas is related to the issue of watering their crops, including both fruit and non-fruit crops.29 although pakistan has rains in its most places and, has also the monsoon season as well, but these rains alone cannot bear out their needs; owing to the very high water wastage in the country. the archaic method of flood irrigation wastes 50 to 60 percent of water.30 because of this reason, they need some unconventional arrangements which can overcome their problems, and educate them on water savings at the same time. this can be possible by entering into istiîné‘ based arrangements. they can ask, for example, the islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions for the construction of water tanks, water pumps, tube wells, pipelines, channelizing water from reservoirs (pakistan’s agriculture depends on the gigantic network of canal-system;31 some of the reports describe that nearly 85 percent of pakistan’s cropped area is irrigated by canals),32 creating small passages which can be used to water their fields crops etc. majority of our farmers, on the same way, are facing severe irrigation problems to supply water to their land through pipes or channels. most of them need tube wells to overcome this problem. along with the tube well, farmers also need a proper system of pipes and channels that can properly irrigate their crops. these problems are rectified by majority of farmers in the interview sessions, conducted in the present work. the following graphical presentation confirms the same. istiîné‘ contract can help farmers in the solution of such problem where they can enter with the islamic bank or islamic financial institution for water management arrangements. similarly, farmers living in hot and cold areas are generally in need of enduring sheds to fig. 1 problems related to irrigatiion hamdard islamicus 91 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 protect themselves from sun, heat and cold. study makes known that these sheds are very significant for farmers who normally work from six to eight hours daily at a stretch in their field, both in summer and winter seasons – need take rest and respite from weather. moreover, most farmers’ houses are remotely located from their fields, making it difficult for them to move necessary equipment, back and forth, like rake, hoe, fork, shovel, spade, hand fork, trowel, wheel barrow, and watering can etc. these sheds come handy for storage purposes as well. farmers also use these permanent sheds or rooms to keep their fruits or corps to protect them from the bad weather, increasing their shelf life. in hilly areas, the source for irrigation is not the river’s water but the cold springs; excessively available in those areas. it is indispensable, for them, to have a proper system of channels and canals for the regular supply of water to their fields. in the absence of such facility, their production levels reduce manifold – in most severe case may cause food shortage at a particular locality. the islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions can help out farmers of such areas through the conclusion of istiîné‘ contract with them. most farmers reside remotely from their fields, and some of them do not even have their own house but live on rent. in order to solve both these problems, the contract of istiîné‘, in the view of researchers, is the best solution because according to a well-established principle of islamic commercial law, it is permissible to draw up an istiîné‘ contract for real estate developments on designated land owned by the final purchaser.33 while applying this principle, along with the principle that the price of istiîné‘ contract may be in the form of cash or tangible goods or the usufructs of an asset for a particular duration, a farmer can request the islamic bank or financial institution to construct a house on the land owned by him (the farmer). when the construction of the house is completed, the farmer has to transfer its usufructs (residence) to the islamic bank, as a price for istiîné‘ contact. after this, the islamic bank has to lease the house to the farmer on rent for a particular period of time. istiîné‘ can be affectively used, with the same potential mentioned above, for the development of livestock,34 fish farming,35 poultry farming36 and miscellaneous other areas of agriculture. this further increases its importance, even for middle and upper class of farmers, as all these hamdard islamicus 92 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 sectors require a great deal of investment at the inception of the business. this mode of islamic finance is, then, equally viable for all individuals. while this provides a source of livelihood for the poor farmers, it ensures a sound source of business for the middle and upper classes of farming communities. the following istiîné‘ based models can be effectively used for the fulfillment of farmers’ requirements mentioned in the previous passages. istiîna based model i + p istiîné‘ price (i) istiîné‘ commodity s1 (applications) fig. 2 istiîné‘ based model 1 it is pertinent to mention that islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions are financial institutions by origin and, therefore, it is almost impossible for them to manufacture the required agricultural istisnā‘ contract s2 contract of agency s4 heavy agricultural machinery construction islamic bank (seller in istisnā‘) (principle in agency contract) (purchaser in parallel istisnā‘) farmer (agent) (purchaser) parallel istisnā‘ contract 3rd party seller in parallel istisnā‘ istisnā‘ commodity securities s5 s3 hamdard islamicus 93 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 commodity (demanded by a farmer) by themselves. in order to cope with the situation, the islamic bank may also conclude istisna contract with a manufacturer to manufacture a commodity of the same description, mentioned in the previous istiîné‘ contact concluded with the farmer. it is, however, not necessary that the time of delivery and price in the second contract must be the same as in the previous one; since that would inconvenience the bank. once the commodity is manufactured, it will be delivered to the bank directly or to any other party on its behalf decided mutually in the contract.37 this arrangement is typically known as parallel istiîné‘. however, in the view of some researchers this type of arrangement (parallel istiîné‘) is not beneficial particularly for lower class of farmers; owing to many reasons. firstly, the farmers have to give higher price for the commodity as there are two prices i.e. the price paid by the islamic bank to the manufacturer and the price paid by the farmers to the islamic bank, and the difference between these two prices is the benefit of the islamic bank. due to the inclusion of a separate contract, price of the commodity increases and for this reason it is not wrong to say that parallel istiîné‘ contract is not in the interest of poor farmers.38 secondly, the degree of risk for a farmer increases in the parallel istiîné‘ contract as compared to direct istiîné‘ contract. it is quite possible that the manufacturer or construction company may not manufacture the required commodity or the required building within the stipulated time period which is mentioned in the contract. under such circumstances, the islamic bank cannot buy the required commodity from the local market as usually the istiîné‘’s commodity is manufactured by order. these are not primary goods as mentioned earlier, but produced when there is a specific, already established demand.39 in this case, the farmer may face the consequences for the default of others (manufacturer); whereas the bank can recover its loss through penalty clause – an unjust tool which is used as a risk minimization technique.40 thirdly, the contract of parallel istiîné‘ brings complexity in the procedure which can create difficulty for an illiterate farmer (majority of farmers in pakistan are illiterate and ignorant).41 but it does not mean that its application should be entirely ruled out for the agricultural sector, rather it should be limited only to those commodities which cannot be manufactured without a particular company. for example, if a farmer requests the islamic bank for manufacturing a tractor or hamdard islamicus 94 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 motorcycle or pickup or refrigerated van, then in such a situation, the bank has no alternative except to go for parallel istiîné‘ with a manufacturing company of such vehicles.42 for the common construction requirements e.g. buildings, bridges, factories, tube wells, permanent sheds, water channels and pipelines, digging wells other than tube wells, fencing and enclosures, establishment of slaughter houses, water tanks, water pumps etc., the financial institutions are supposed to have their own construction company and expert contractors to discharge the task. however, in the researchers’ point of view this arrangement is more hypothetical in nature, particularly, in the scenario of contemporary business techniques. steps involved in the model of istiîné‘ of course, each and every financial institution, has its own procedure for the provision of financing facility, however, in case of istiîné‘ the following steps must be adhered. s1: a formal request from the farmer to the financial institution for the conclusion of istiîné‘ contract. the application must be wide-ranging in nature, meaning there by, covering all aspects of the contract precisely and evidently. these aspects include, in the broad sense, quality and quantity of the commodity, nature of the price or modes of payment, place of delivery, time of delivery, nature of required securities, etc. s2: unlike the contract of murébaíah, the contract of istiîné‘ is concluded at the second phase through formal offer and acceptance. it means all conditions, involved therein, become binding in nature on the parties; the violation of which is tantamount to breach and subsequent remedies. s3: as the bank acts as a mediator, therefore, it concludes a parallel istiîné‘ contract with a manufacturing company, asking the same to manufacture the commodity according to the specifications mentioned in the first contact. s4: customer agency appears at this stage where the famer has to receive the commodity from the manufacturer on behalf of the bank. technically, it is called constructive possession of the bank. s5: at this stage, all types of required securities are furnished. hamdard islamicus 95 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 procedure for agricultural istiîné‘ (trail of the proposed model at ground level) there is a detailed procedure, mentioned in the accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi) for the contract of istiîné‘’s. according to this document, a farmer must give some specifications of the required commodity while entering into a formal contract with the islamic bank. these specifications include type, kind, quality, and quantity etc of the commodity. in addition, the price of the commodity, date of delivery, place of delivery must be mentioned in such contract. the clearance of all these specifications is declared mandatory by islamic commercial law; in order to avoid any future dispute between the contracting parties. at the conclusion of this step, the islamic bank orders (in the shape of another istiîné‘ contract other than the one which is concluded with the farmer) the manufacture to manufacture the required commodity; which it has undertaken to manufacture in the first istiîné‘ contract (with the farmer). at this phase, it is necessary that the specifications mentioned in the first contract are also stated verbatim in the second contract. when the required commodity is produced, then before delivery, the commodity remains at the risk of the islamic bank, but when the possession is transferred to the farmer, which may be actual or constructive in nature, then, consequently, risk also transfers to him.43 it is clear that transferring of authority from the islamic bank to the farmer to use the property, utilization, and consumption are to be considered constructive possession. in addition, when the agricultural commodity, required by a farmer, is manufactured or constructed or produced, then there is no need for a farmer and islamic bank to renew the offer and acceptance for the sale or purchase of the required commodity.44 at this particular point the variance between istiîné‘ and murébaíah transaction arises at the spot. in the latter case, the actual sale or purchase of the required agricultural commodity must take place. so, it is, therefore, easier for an illiterate farmer to understand the procedure of istiîné‘ as compared to that of murébaíah. it is the duty of islamic bank to deliver the commodity on the due date and not before that; as according to islamic commercial law, if the manufactured goods are delivered before the due date, the farmer can refuse to accept the delivery which, in this case, may create problems hamdard islamicus 96 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 for the islamic bank. however, there has to be some logic for such refusal.45 as mentioned earlier that istiîné‘ is a kind of normal sale transaction with some peculiar characteristics. like regular sale, it is not necessary in this contract that the price must be paid in advance, nor is it necessary that the price should be paid at the time of delivery.46 hence, the price may be totally or partially advanced or totally or partially deferred, or paid in installments, or any other way at which the parties agree.47 however, majority of farmers opt to pay in installments for the reason of their meager economic conditions. the data received through empirical research displays the same fact. the resulting graphical presentation may describe the whole picture accurately. fig. 3 payment in installments the statistics clearly indicates that 87% of farmers like to pay in installments rather than on spot, owing to the fact of their meager economic condition-mentioned earlier in the present work. however, the islamic financial institutions are supposed to keep the number of installments more comparatively to those kept by the conventional financial institutions. this tendency (for delayed payment) is very much advantageous for the financial institutions, as in this case, the charged price for commodity is usually more than the one charged on spot. however, being a sector dominated by the poor class; the financial institutions are advised not to charge too much profit from farmers payment in installments hamdard islamicus 97 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and relaxation should be awarded, in this regard, to the best possible extent. they are also advised to eliminate or reduce the collaterals and other securities, required against the price to be paid by farmers.48 these requirements are, more often than not; bring difficulties for farmers to get financing facility from financial institutions. majority of farmers show their disinclination to accept securities in the istiîna ‘contract. the following graphical presentation authenticates the same fact. fig. 4 willingness to provide securities the data clearly indicates that 71% of farmers are against the requirements of collaterals while 29% favor the same. this fact, indeed, confirms that majority of farmers belong to the lower class of the society and, therefore, are not in position to pay securities required by the financial intuitions. these institutions are, hence, required to revisit their financing techniques. unlike the previous groups, the latter group belongs to middle and upper class of farmers, and therefore, having the ability to furnish securities. it is permissible for the islamic banks and financial institutions to appoint the farmers as their agent by concluding a separate and independent contract of agency with them. this is the most suitable way, especially, when the contact of istiîné‘ is applied for house financing or hamdard islamicus 98 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 even project financing. the potential reason may be that it is an extremely difficult job for the islamic bank to supervise the manufacturing or construction process itself, and its practical involvement is almost impossible in the real sense. it is the duty of the farmer, after being appointed as an agent of the bank, to supervise the manufacturing or construction process; ensuring that the manufacturer or constructor is working as per wants of the contract, and the commodity is produced according to the specifications mentioned therein.49 however, the empirical data, received from the respondents, shows that majority of farmers are not willing to opt customary agency – for one reason or another. the following graphical production may draw the whole picture, accurately. fig. 5 willingness to become agent of the bank the data clearly indicates that 80% farmers are not ready to become agents of the banks (as for as the contract of istiîné‘ is concerned). the reason behind this approach is the illiteracy of the farmers, predominantly of those living in rural areas of the country, as mentioned in earlier pages of the present work. however, there are many other reasons that can be held responsible for the lack of farmers’ interest. firstly, unlike salam the subject matter in the contract of istiîné‘ is always a particular commodity, required to be manufactured by a manufacturer. in case of agriculture, such commodities are usually manufactured in industries that are not usually in the access of farmers. secondly, such industries hamdard islamicus 99 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 manufacture commodities according to approved standards of quality, and therefore, there is no need to ensure that the commodity is produced according to the specifications mentioned in the contract. thirdly, in the transaction of istiîné‘ the structure of agency contract is complex in nature, and hence, challenging for an illiterate famer to apprehend it. fourthly, and most importantly, according to islamic commercial law an agent can charge fee for his agency.50 the islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions are not ready to pay such fee, while the farmers, on the other hand, are not ready to provide services free of cost. conclusion and policy recommendation agriculture is not only a key source of food and employment but also a birthplace for the enhancement of human life standards. all classes of society i.e. lower, middle and upper class are associated to it by one way or another. the latter group usually faces very meager economic conditions and, therefore, are not in position to purchase basic agricultural inputs. they are, therefore, in tense need to be financially backed. in pakistan, such financial aid is provided by various sources, known as formal and informal sources. the previous sources include banks and other financial institutions, that by large, provide financing facility on interests bases which is austerely prohibited by sharê‘ah. as a substitute, islamic finance offers various modes for financing agriculture, among which istiîné‘ is the most appropriate and the important one. as mentioned earlier that majority of farmers, particularly those living in rural areas of pakistan, are not in position to buy basic agricultural tools i.e. like rake, hoe, fork, shovel, spade, hand fork, trowel, wheel barrow, and watering can etc. all these tools can be easily manufactured through istiîné‘ based transaction. this typical type of contract also can be applied, primarily, for manufacturing agricultural commodities, required by the farming community. these commodities include, not exhaustively, cultivator, cultipacker, chisel plow, harrow, spike harrow, plow, spading machine, stone removal implement, subsoiler, rotator, broad cast seeder, planter, plastic mulch layer, potato planter, seed drill, air seeder, transplanted, like fertilizer spreader, terragator, liquid manure, manure spreader, sprayers, etc. in addition to this, the farming community also requires vehicles for hamdard islamicus 100 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 transportation, houses construction, machinery for tube wells etc. all these can also be funded through the same transaction. in addition, sheds required by the farmers in their field for keeping their agricultural yield, can also constructed through this typical transaction of islamic commercial law. to achieve the intended objectives, the contract of istiîné‘ should be applied with its true theoretical background, envisaged by the classical muslim jurists in their prominent work. deviation from the original theory, by any stretch of explanation, may cause failure of the required results of such transaction. the discussion has enshrined some ideas, about the in-depth understanding of farmers’ community requirements and problems, in researchers’ mind-compelling the same to recommend some policy principals for financing agriculture, particularly, in financing local farming. following this, the financial institution should treat this sector of agriculture through special financing schemes, different from that of other sectors in term of profit ratio on the commodity, procedure of the transaction, payment of collaterals after the farmers purchase the commodity, appointment of the customer as an agent for the purchase of the commodity, periods for installments, amount payable in each installment, recovery procedure etc. the financial institution must purchase the commodity from the manufacturer on subsidized by price. such discounts must be passed to the farmer and, hence, the price may be decreased further, accordingly. inaddition, the state is under obligation to provide substantive subsidies on agricultural commodities, manufactured under istiîné‘ transaction. however, the commodities which are used in the local farming should be subsidized on priority basis. if the transaction is applied in its real philosophy, it will turn the transaction viable not only for islamic banks and financial institutions but, at the same time, also for the poor famers of this country, especially those residing in the rural areas. notes and references 1. it is rightly said by kierra decamp, pleaseant hill ffa, pleasant hillthat whenever a person gets up early in the morning and before his feet hit the floor, an industry we all take for granted becomes a part of our life i.e. agriculture .for example the sheet on our bed, the eggs of breakfast in our plate, the white milk hamdard islamicus 101 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 which we have in a glass in front of our twin eyes, and the clothes at our back are all exist because of agriculture. the times we walk towards the shower room, the floor which we use for walking, the soap, shampoo, conditioner and even the towel which are used therein etc. are the outcomes of agriculture by one way or another. in addition, whenever we style our hair, brush our teeth, apply our make up, and start our car, we have already used hundreds of modern agricultural products. in short without agriculture we would be inconvenienced, naked, malnourished, unprotected, and most important hungry ... (kierra decamp, pleaseant hill ffa, pleasant hill, lll, the importance of agriculture in everyday life, http://www.growmark.com/.../illinois%20winning%20essay.pdf (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 02. guidelines for horticulture financing, the agricultural credit department, state bank of pakistan. 03. guidelines for poultry financing, agricultural credit department, state bank of pakistan, http://www.sbp.org.pk/acd/2007/draft-guidelines-poultry-financing.pdf (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 04. guidelines for fisheries financing, agricultural credit department, state bank of pakistan, http://www.sbp.org.pk/acd/2007/guidelines-for-fisheriesfinancing.pdf (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 05. guidelines for livestock financing, the agricultural credit department, state bank of pakistan, http://www.sbp.org.pk/acd/2006/guidelines_livestock_c1.pdf (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 06. financing scheme for small farmers, agricultural credit department, state bank of pakistan (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 07. frequently asked questions (faqs) on agri financing, agricultural credit department islamic banking department, state bank of pakistan, http:// www.sbp.org.pk/acd/acd_faqs.pdf (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 08. handbook on best practices in agri/rural finance, agricultural credit department, state bank of pakistan, pp. 15-16, http://www.sbp.org.pk (accessed: december 25, 2012). 09. prudential regulations for agriculture financing, (updated on 29th january, 2014), agricultural credit & microfinance department, state bank of pakistan, p. 6, http://www.sbp.org.pk/publications/prudential/prs-agriculture.pdf (accessed: 26th march, 2014). 10. shari‘ah strictly prohibits interest based loans. there are many verses of the holy qur’én and ×adêth of the holy prophet (œ) that confirms this prohibition. for instance, in the holy qur’én allah, the exalted, says “o ye who believe! fear allah, and give up what remains of your demand for usury, if ye are indeed believers. if ye do it not, take notice of war from allah and his apostle. but if ye turn back ye shall have your capital sums: deal not unjustly and ye shall not be dealt unjustly (qur’én, ii:278-279). in another verse the lord of universe says “that they took riba (usury), through they were forbidden and that they devoured men’s substance wrongfully. we have prepared for those among men who reject faith a grievous punishment” (qur’én, iv:161). from jabir, may allah be pleased with him, said: “the messenger of allah (saw) has cursed one who charges riba, he who gives it, one who records it, and the two witnesses; hamdard islamicus 102 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and he said, “they are equal” (muslim sahih, chapter on riba, ×adêth no. 1598). 11. see for further details guidelines on islamic finance for agriculture, the agricultural credit department, islamic banking department, state bank of pakistan, http://www.sbp.org.pk/guidelines/islamicagriculture/guidelinesislamic-financing-agriculture-01-09-2008.pdf (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 12. abë bakr ibn mas‘ëd al-késénê, bédé’i‘al-sané’i‘, 1st edn., beirut, dér al-fikr, lebanon, 1996, vol. v, p. 213. 13. ibn ‘óbidên, radd al-muhtér, vol. vi, beirut, dér al-fikr, 2005, vol. 4, p. 221. 14. muhammad taqi usmani, an introduction to islamic finance, karachi, maktaba ma‘ariful quran, edition august 2008, p. 195. 15. abdullah bin mahmud bin muwdud al-musilî al-hanafî, karachi, qadimi kutub khana, kitéb al-bëyë’, vol. ii, p. 46. 16. késénê, bédé’i‘al-sané’i‘, vol. v, p. 5. 17. késénê, bédé’i‘al-sané’i‘, vol. v, p. 4; muhammad taqi usmani, an introduction to islamic finance, p. 196. 18. ibn qudémah al-maqdisê, al-kafê, 5th edn., beirut, al-maktab al-islémê, 1988. kitéb al-bëyë’, vol. ii, p. 43. 19. istisné‘, contract in islamic fiqh, publication series of tadamon islamic bank, shaban, 1412, february, 1992, fatawa and research department, p. 17. 20. muhammad faheem khan, islamic future and their markets, with special reference to their role in developing rural financial market, paper no. 32, p. 41. 21. késénê, bédé’i‘ al-sané’i‘, vol. v, p. 5. 22. shawkani, nayl al-awtar, dér ehié al-tourath al-‘arabê, 1st edn., 2001, vol. v, pp. 174-175. 23. késénê, bédé’i‘al-sané’i‘, kitab-al-istisné‘, vol. v, p. 4; muhammad taqi usmani, an introduction to islamic finance, p. 196. 24. majallah al-ahkém al-‘adaliyyah, the civil code of the ottoman empire (hanafê), section 392. 25. muhammad faheem khan, islamic future and their markets, with special reference to their role in developing rural financial market, islamic development bank, islamic research and training institute, paper no. 32, p. 41. 26. ibid., p. 41. 27. it means that such contract cannot be applied for financing wheat, paddy, sugarcane, cotton, potato, mustard, mung, tobacco, rapeseed, maize (hybrid), maize (local), mash, canola, lentil, soybean, groundnuts, sunflower, pear, dates, loquat strawberry, plum, tea, apple, guava, papaya, pomegranates, almond, palm, coconut, olive oil, litchi, cherry, mango. zizi, apricot, melon, banana, water melon, peach, mush melon, citrus etc. 28. omer farooq, pakistan economic survey 2009-10, government of pakistan ministry of finance, chapt. 2, p. 13. http://www.finance.gov.pk/ (accessed july 6, 2012). 29. ibid., pp. 124-125. 30. mohsin ali, agriculture problems in pakistan and their solutions, march 1st hamdard islamicus 103 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 2010, http://www.einfopedia.com/agriculture-problems-in-pakistan-and-theirsolutions.php (accessed july 13, 2012). 31. m. sharif zia, tariq mahmood, mirza b. baigand m. aslam, land and environmental degradation and its amelioration for sustainable agriculture in pakistan, quarterly science, vision, vol. ix, nos. 1-2 (jul-dec, 2003) and nos. 3-4 (jan-jun, 2004), p. 1. 32. pakistan’s food and agriculture systems, nathan associates inc. for review by the united states agency for international development, 2009, p. 5, http:// pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pnado507.pdf (accessed july 13, 2012). 33. accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi) 2010, bahrain, english version, istisna ’and parallel istisna’, shari’a standard no. 11, rule 3/1/8, p. 181. mujeeb baig, istisna as mode of financing, http:/ / www.alhudacibe.com/...%20istisna%20)/istisna%20by%20mujeeb%20baig.ppt (accessed july 21, 2012). 34. the government of pakistan, since last two years worked for the development of this sector and achieved solid results and resultantly. it witnessed a marginally higher growth of 4.04 percent against the growth of 3.97 percent last year. pakistan economic survey 2011-12, highlights p.1.http://www.finance.gov.pk/ survey/chapter_12/highlights.pdf cached (accessed july 15, 2012). the islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions can also help farmers in rearing their livestock through istisné‘. they can conclude such contract for the installation of milk storage chilling tanks, refrigeration plants, milk carrying containers, refrigerated meat storages and refrigerated containers, distribution vehicles such as motorcycles, pickups, refrigerated vans, construction or procurement of permanent sheds, water tanks, water pumps, tube wells and generators, fencing and enclosures, establishment of slaughter houses guidelines on islamic agricultural finance, islamic banking department, state bank of pakistan, p. 5, for cows, sheep, buffaloes, goats ,installation of tube wells, turbines, sprinkle or drip irrigation system, animal sheds, refrigerated storage, and fencing slaughter house water management etc. muhammad khaleequzzaman, islamic modes for agricultural financing products – murébahah and salam, al-huda training programme, 2008. http://www.alhudacibe.com/.../... (accessed july 15, 2012). 35. pakistan has total coastline of 1,120 km covering mekran (balochistan) as well as the coast of karachi (sindh) and a total fishing area of approximately 300,270 sq.km. (fishing industry in pakistan, overview, http:www. pakistanfishing.com/fishing-info/fishing-industry-in-pakistan (accessed july 15, 2012) because of the viability of this sector, the government of pakistan has taken some solid steps for its development in the last few years. because of this reason fisheries sector witnessed a growth of 1.78 percent against the growth of 1.94 percent last year, pakistan economic survey 2011-12, highlights p. 1. http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapter_12/highlights.pdf cached (accessed: july 15, 2012). istisné’ can also be applied for the effective development of fish farming. this can be done by the construction of cold storage, chilling or freezing plants, fish storage centre, pickups, vehicles, life boats, and fish or shrimp hatcheries etc. guidelines on islamic agricultural finance, islamic banking department, state bank of pakistan, p. 6. hamdard islamicus 104 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 36. istisné‘ is also effective in its implementation to the poultry farming. it can be used for the construction of broiler, layer, breeder and hatchery farms, feed mills, control seeds, automatic drinkers, tube feeders, generators, ventilators, table or breeder eggs storage refrigeration plants, transport vans, eggs and poultry carrying vans, distribution vehicles such as motorcycles, pickups, deep freezers, slaughtering and de-feathering machines etc., guidelines on islamic agricultural finance, islamic banking department, state bank of pakistan, p. 5. 37. ezzedine mohammad khoja, instruments of islamic investments, dallah al-baraka group research & development department instruments of islamic investment, http://www.iefpedia.com/english/wp.../instruments-of-islamicinvestments.pdf (accessed july 15, 2012). 38. lutfullah saqib, financing agriculture through islamic commercial transaction, p. 127. 39. muhammad faheem khan, islamic future and their markets, with special reference to their role in developing rural financial market, paper no. 32, p. 41. 40. aniss boumediene, is credit risk really higher in islamic banks?, the journal of credit risk, vol. vii, no. 3, fall 2011, p. 103. 41. mohsin ali, agriculture problems in pakistan and their solutions, march 1st, 2010, http://www.einfopedia.com/agriculture-problems-in-pakistan-and-theirsolutions.php (accessed: july 13, 2012). 42. lutfullah saqib, financing agriculture through islamic commercial transactions, p. 128. 43. accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi) 2010, bahrain, english version, istisna ’and parallel istisné‘, sharê‘ah standard no. 11, rule 6/4, p. 185. 44. ibid., rule 2/2/2, p. 179. 45. ibid., rule 6/3, p. 185. 46. istisné‘ contract in islamic fiqh, publication series of tadamon islamic bank, shaban, 1412, february, 1992, fatawa and research department, p. 17. 47. muhammad faheem khan, islamic future and their markets, with special reference to their role in developing rural financial market, paper no. 32, p. 41. 48. these collaterals are of a wide variety i.e. real estate, automobiles, cash accounts, investments, insurance policies, valuables and collectables, future payments, gold, ornaments etc. most of the financial institutions prefer primary collaterals (liquid assets) over secondary collaterals (illiquid assets) as the liquidation value of an asset decreases as the asset becomes more illiquid, johan f.m. swinnen and hamish r. gow, agricultural credit problems and policies duringthe transition to a market economy in central and eastern europe, food policy, 24, 1999, pp. 2147, www.ruralfinance.org/.../1217526012269_agricultural_credit_problems_ in_eca_region.pdf (accessed: march, 2013). however, in case of agriculture sector, the immovable property is favored by the financial institutions. in some countries’ financial institutions, the required value of such collaterals is very high and hence beyond the reach of farmers. majority of these farmers possess the lands as tenants and hence not legally authorized to mortgage such lands and very hamdard islamicus 105 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 few of them have their own land, improving agricultural microfinance barriers to the supply of agricultural lending in the philippines, final draft april, 2009. this study was undertaken by the innovations for poverty action (ipa) with support from the hanns seidel foundation/germany (hsf) which is financed by the federal ministry of economic cooperation and development (bmz) under the joint project: “microfinance capacity building program,” in partnership with the ninoy and cory aquino foundation (ncaf), formerly the benigno s. aquino, jr. foundation (bsaf), and the pinoyme foundation (pmf)). http:// www.poverty-action.org (accessed: january, 2013). the report of agricultural census 2000 shows that only 37 percent farmers of the rural areas have their own land while 61 percent of these land-owning households owned fewer than five acres, or 15 percent of total land, mazhar arif, agriculture and food security in pakistan, thematic paper, p. 13. 49. lutfullah saqib, financing agriculture through islamic commercial transactions, p. 133. 50. wahbah-al-zuhayli, al-fiqh-al-islémê wa-adilatuhkê, vol. v, p. 4058. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 2\role of service quality.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 45 role of service quality dimensions on the customer satisfaction and loyalty towards islamic banks 1hafiza sataisha zafar 2ammara sarwar 1the university of lahore, sargodha campus, pakistan. e-mail: sataisha.786@mail.com, 2e-mail: ammara.sarwar@sgd.uol.edu.pk, in the present research, the role of service quality is used to analyze the satisfaction level of islamic banking customers in pakistan. a preliminary questionnaire is applied to determine the factors that may influence customer’s level of satisfaction and loyalty. in this regard, convenience sampling technique is employed. in addition, a sample of 152 respondents is used for the study. furthermore, regression analysis is applied along with descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. the study depicts that all service quality dimensions have statistically significant and positive association with customer satisfaction level. moreover, the empirical findings concluded that an individual satisfaction level plays an important role towards their loyalty. the results provide islamic banking industry regulators, central bank, academicians and practitioners useful guides in their efforts to formulate adequate service quality mechanism to attract and retain more customers and to promote islamic banking channels. key words: customer satisfaction; islamic banks; loyalty; service quality. introduction islamic finance has grown and is being considered as a better alternative for dealing with the structural weaknesses of conventional financial system that was responsible for financial crises across the globe (rasheed, aimin and ahmed 2012). islamic banking is increasingly winning the confidence of consumers all over the world and that shari‘ah compliance is a comparative edge for islamic financial institutions besides the basic customer demand of service quality. the global advancement in the islamic banking practices has shifted the operations of financial 46 role of service quality... systems of the world, especially muslim economies, during the last couple of decades (ahmed, asutay and wilson 2013). although, many people are still puzzled and addle about islamic banking practices not only in pakistan but also in other regions of the world. islamic banking is getting recognition, yet conventional banking seems to be a well-established and biggest rival for this contemporary islamic banking industry (khattak, 2010). therefore, for widening customer base and attracting new customer is a need of time and cannot be achieved without a good satisfaction level/loyalty of existing customers (rahseed et al., 2012). the term ‘customer satisfaction’ indicates the fulfillment that customers derive from doing business with a business entity. it measures the happiness level of customers with a product or service that is provided by an organization (hill & alexander, 2006). in simple words, customer satisfaction is a measure of how products or services meet or surpass expectations of the customers which are being supplied by the company. it is a vital component for the retail banking channels as it impacts greatly on the profitability of the banks (levesque & mcdougall, 1996). due to dynamic nature of banking sector, as the competition increasing, both conventional and islamic banks are focusing on enhancing customer satisfaction by improving the standard of service quality in order to retain them for future business development (wisskirchen et al., 2006). organizations and businesses can enhance their revenues and attain sustainable competitive position in the market through the help of customer satisfaction (lewin, 2009). wirtz (2003) find that a satisfied customer also leads to long term profits by making a customer loyal to the business entity. the continuation of conventional and islamic banking has increased interest in the financial services in this digital age which require modernization and development and has become one of the major challenges for marketers to keep pace with the updated technology. with the introduction of first islamic bank in 1992 in pakistan banking sector, the country has witnessed the potential to grow in islamic banking system (khan & bhatti, 2008). after central bank binding to move towards shari‘ah compliant banking system by the year 2020, it can be observed that there has been a large potential for growth for islamic banks to meet customer satisfaction (cochran, 2003). therefore, a research work is required to study the association among the service quality dimensions and how they impact on the customer satisfaction level and customer loyalty. widening customer base and attracting new customer is a need of time and cannot be achieved without a good satisfaction level and loyalty of existing customers (rahseed et al., 2012). customers relate hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 47 their expectation to the service quality being provided by their banks and to achieve this, financial institutions are required to properly understand the needs and expectations of prospective customers to earn their loyalty (wilson, 1995). keeping with this background, this study tries to study the satisfaction level of customers and their loyalty within islamic banking industry taking into consideration some important attributes of service quality in pakistan. this study deals with the following research objectives: i. to determine the factors that affect quality of service in islamic banking sector of pakistan. ii. to explore whether determinants of service quality have a statistically significant impact on the customer satisfaction level in islamic banking sector of pakistan. iii. to examine whether customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty in the context of islamic banking sector of pakistan. there are number of studies available related to conventional banking system stream, however, very precise research work is available regarding to islamic banking system for the last few years on the islamic banking system as per my knowledge. this study is conducted to cover the gap and check service quality impact on customer’s satisfaction in this era where conventional banks also moved parallel to islamic windows/ branches. this study, like earlier researches, not only taken full-fledged islamic banks to represent the whole islamic banking stream but also consider conventional banks providing islamic window operations. moreover, sbp vision 2020 also evolves a stable and distinct islamic banking system based on shariah principles. thus, it is vital to conduct study on service quality attributes and check its influence on customer’s satisfaction for its practical implementation over the period. this gap stimulated the researchers to conduct a study in islamic banking domain. section i presents overview concerning islamic banking sector in pakistan. section ii consists upon a rigorous literature review. section iii defines the research methodology. section iv provides discussion on the research findings. lastly, section v is based on conclusion and recommendations. literature review customer relationship management (crm) is defined by many 48 role of service quality... researchers in different ways, say kirmaci (2012) stated that it is an organizational business strategy focused to help management in developing customer oriented teams and systems which are customer oriented and help to provide customers with best of their services and products. it is organizational strategy for customer communication on proper and consistent basis for the sake of getting sales incentives (azzam, 2014). bozgeyik et al. (2005) argued that it is organizational strategy to follow its customers to gain revenues, meet their expenses and to obtain market shares by grasping the opportunities exist in target market. the cooperation and coordination between all the customers and all business departments is the main aim of the customers-oriented relationship management (bozgeyik et al., 2005). for an organization, crm is key driver to convert their current consumers into loyal satisfied customers (bozkurt, 2000). the main focus of providing quality service is to make business profitable, building long term customers relationship with the focus of increasing productivity of firm to lower overall cost, and to create differentiation or customization by meeting the customer needs and demands (ergunda, 2003). crm results in customer loyalty as it promotes learning customer’s needs, expectations and by meeting their requirements they try to achieve competitive advantage (holloway, 2002). it is services or products offered to customer and their expectations upon which customer satisfaction depends if products or services above their expectations they got satisfied and eventually become loyal (galbreath & rogers, 1999). gurbuz (2008) stated that customer satisfaction and relationship management become an important in case of banking sector and their need to retain and build positive relations with their potiential customers. the banks and other financial institutions have direct connections and dealings with customers, so to build loyal customer association with clients they try to differentiate themselves on the bases of their services to their customers and continuous improvements going on there for it (rouholamini & venkatesh, 2011). it is acknowledged that conventional banks where shariah compliance would not be practiced often have strong customer satisfaction levels (mahamad & ramayah, 2010). othman and owen (2001) conducted a research work to investigate service quality influence on satisfaction in islamic banks. shariah compliance is assumed as a sixth type of service quality by some researchers. in most of the cases servqual is used to judge the service quality to find the impact on satisfaction of customer and ultimately on their loyalty while certain uses carter as a scale that is a modified form of servqual which have six dimensions along hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 49 with the shariah compliance factor. earlier researches revealed that the servqual scale instrument with carter scale addition having significant results become efficient determinants for the customer satisfaction. first, othman and owen (2002) examined customer satisfaction in shariah based financial institutes. in malaysia, to check the customer satisfaction on service quality basis tahir, bakar, ismail and wan (2006) used the modified version of servqual and conclude that customers are unsatisfied to the service qualities offered by islamic banks. but the customers of islamic banks suggested and rated shariah compliance as least important dimension among the quality service. mahamad and ramayah (2010) also conducted study to determine the influence of service quality on to the satisfaction level of customer among the shariah compliant islamic as well as traditional banks providing islamic banking products. they concluded that bank islamic malaysia berhad was ranked the highest for compliance to shariah law. however, for assurance, it has been ranked five. participants in the same study investigating satisfaction of customer and service quality by mahamad & ramayah (2010) ranked citibank as most important resource provider for other attributes such as empathy, assurance, reliability, and responsiveness which shows that bank has taking sufficient steps to satisfy customers. erol and el-bdour (1989) conducted quantitative study to explore behavior of both banking streams in jordan. these early findings showed that factors such as efficient and fast services, the credibility of the bank, and confidentiality were the main attributes in selecting the financial institute. naser, jamal and al-khatib (1999) in their study figure out that reputation of the bank and religious factor are the two prominent variables that patronage the individuals to open an account into the islamic banks. it has been suggested that organization should improve their services to meet the demands and requirements of customer (hanson, 2000). according to gonring (2008) organizations found it tiresomely difficult to retain their customers which is often tested through customer satisfaction and loyalty surveys. the satisfied customers show loyalty which brought business to the organization, while the dis-satisfied customers leave the organization and loss to the business. whereas, literature confirms that efficient management and utilization of organizational resources are the key concepts of organizational survival and growth that service sector also following for success. hence, in health sector if service delivery is not up to the mark patients will no longer believe on public hospitals. in 50 role of service quality... the banking industry, there are many dimensions actually of service quality. parasuraman, berry and zeithmal (1991) discover factors that connected with service quality are reliability, responsiveness, skills, accessibility, politeness, conversation, reliability, stability in addition to tangible factors. service sector focusing on increasing efficiency through decreasing unnecessary bureaucratic formalities, organizational hierarchies, structure, operations, culture and traditions, and creating conducive, responsive and collaborative environment for achieving organizational goals. wa-mwachai (2012) research highlighted that rigidness, inconsistency and irresponsiveness in service sector not only deteriorate the service quality but also diminish the satisfaction and confidence of customers. therefore, most of services sector studies, suggest the necessary improvements in services quality, either by reforming organizational structure, redefining organizational culture and traditions or applying the innovative approaches of service provision. 1. tangibility is the account of any firm’s actual structures and features which has effects on with their ability to offer solutions dependably and precisely to help their customers. it is usually considered to involve actual factors linked to services like musical instruments and apparatus, folks, actual features similar to houses and pleasant adornment and other visible services features (mohammad & alhamadani, 2001). 2. assurance has been defined as the ability for customers to feel safe in their transactions. assurance is a circumstance in which the behaviors of employees working in the bank look for to instill confidence within customers along with making sure that they will think risk-free because of their transactions (parasuraman, zeithaml & berry, 1988). 3. parasuraman et al. (1988) define empathy as the supply involving patient as well as person awareness with the firm in order to the customer. throughout they prolonged this kind of explanation to incorporate businesses: 1) acquiring operating a long time handy to any or all the customers, 2) finding the customers’ needs as the primary goal, 3) acquiring an understanding of the certain desires of these shoppers. employees who work with socially responsible companies see themselves as an extension of these companies, are more satisfied with their jobs and have high self-esteem because they are empathetic. 4. responsiveness is all about the particular readiness associated with companies to aid buyers by simply educating buyers the particular along with particular occasion while service will likely be executed along with making sure the particular solutions are generally induced along with personnel replies may also be induced (arasli et al., 2005). hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 51 5. reliability is the capacity for the firm to perform stated companies in a trusted and a precise method (parasuraman et al., 1988). reliability has to do with the provision of services at the appropriate specified time period along with determination to aid consumers. it also embodies an organization image resolution to make sure error-free information along with companies. vilnai-yavets and rafaeli (2006) find that customers are more satisfied if the physical or online environment has aesthetic ambiance. sanchez-franco and roldan (2005) found that website design and aesthetics significantly impact the appearance of the online experience which also influences user’s emotional reactions. aesthetically designed websites attract the customers and enable them to stay and surf more on the website, thus ultimately enhancing the chances for online buying (nusair & kandampully, 2008). jeon and jeong (2016) study had adopted a loyalty development framework to investigae the casual linkage between perceived service quality, website quality, satisfaction, loyalty and return intention. the research contributed that satisfaction and return intention plays a mediating role while gender acts as a moderating factor. many customers have different level of satisfaction after encountering the same experience or service (ultschy et al, 2007). carden and dellifrain (2004) shows that satisfaction of customer may be defined as the post purchase behavior framed by the contrast of the quality that customer requires to get from an exchange perceives actually receiving from an exchange. mcquilty, fin and wiley (2000) highlighted that due to the evaluative course of action customer satisfaction using affective components, evaluating pre-purchase expectations, and using awareness of efficiency developing the particular attitudinal view. judgment of satisfaction may possibly occur through low quality difficulties such as value, desires, as well as awareness regarding justness, and it requires expertise while using the provider or even support (al-eisa & alhemoud, 2009). due to its importance, it is closely associated with customer retentions as well as commitment which increase the future sales, increase spending of customers and building relationship among user and the supplier that enhance the level of customer tolerance for services and products failures (homburg, koschate & hoyer, 2005). for an organization, customer satisfaction is key driver on which the customers realize their power and make organization to listen them. organizations become more customer oriented to sustain their existence, to develop and to capture the market share (kirmaci, 2012). the main focus of the customer satisfaction is to 52 role of service quality... make profitable, long term customers relationship with the focus of increasing productivity of firm to lower overall cost, to create differentiation or customization by meeting the customer needs and demands (azzam, 2010). this customer satisfaction also results in customer loyalty as it promotes learning customer’s needs, expectations and by meeting their requirements they try to achieve competitive advantage (holloway, wang & beatty, 2009). the main concern of the customer satisfaction is to make profitable, long term customers relationship with the focus of increasing productivity of firm to lower overall cost, to create differentiation or customization by meeting the customer needs and demands (ergunda, 2003). this customer satisfaction results in customer loyalty as it promote learning customer’s needs, expectations and by meeting their requirements they try to achieve competitive advantage (park & holloway, 2003). it is services or products offered to customer and their expectations upon which customer satisfaction depends if products or services above their expectations they got satisfied and eventually become loyal (lodenius, 2011). the service sector constitutes the present globalized socio-economic system (wa-mwachai, 2012). in today’s competitive business environment, it is becoming tiresomely difficult for organizations to sustain their competitive advantage. (peirson, brown, easton, and howard, 2014) argued that service sector organizations had been finding ways through effective organizational service strategies to provide the good service quality to their customer for the organizational success. yuen and thai (2017) also suggested, to sustain the organizational advantage over their rivals by improving service quality, organizations are struggling towards fulfilling customers’ expectations through focusing on their ‘needs’ and ‘demands’ and also timely reviewing their economic circumstances, technology and the global trends. afsar, rehman and shahjehan (2010) argued that satisfaction to be achievement to need previous usage knowledge and also depends upon price tag while quality may be understood without having always demanding a new previous usage knowledge and also won’t generally depends upon price tag (zavareh et al., 2012). carden and delli frain (2004) argued that satisfaction is a behaviour following the purchase framed by the contrast of the quality that the customer requires an exchange really does receive in exchange. mcquitty, finn and wiley (2000) stated customer satisfaction as the evaluative course of action to help evaluate affective components pre-purchase expectations with the help of efficiency consciousness development of the attitudinal perspective. based on the hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 53 previous studies, it has been observed that there are number of studies are available related to conventional banking system stream, however, very precise research work is available regarding to islamic banking system for the last few years. this study is conducted to cover the gap and check service quality impact on customer’s satisfaction in this era where conventional banks also moved parallel to islamic windows/branches within pakistan. this study, like earlier researches, not only taken fullfledged islamic banks to represent the whole islamic banking stream but also take into account conventional banks providing islamic window operations. this gap stimulated the researchers to conduct a study in islamic banking domain. hypothesis of the study: h1: service quality dimensions have a significant impact on the satisfaction and loyalty of the customers. h1a: tangibility leads positively to the satisfaction and loyalty. h1b: assurance leads positively to the satisfaction and loyalty. h1c: empathy leads positively to the satisfaction and loyalty. h1d: responsiveness leads positively to the satisfaction and loyalty. h1e: reliability leads positively to the satisfaction and loyalty.. h2: customer satisfaction leads to the customer loyalty in the islamic banking sector of pakistan. service quality dimensions tangibility assurance empathy responsiveness customer customer reliability satisfication loyality fig 1. framework of the study research methodology the research study is essentially of a descriptive in nature, as it describes islamic banking customer’s responses for identified variables 54 role of service quality... of study. the research study is specifically designed to determine the service quality factors which play an important part in satisfaction and loyalty of islamic banking customers with special emphasis on the pakistan’s islamic banking industry. primary source of data collection is employed to collect data trough designing an appropriate research instrument. the population for this study is the islamic banking customers of 5 full-fledged islamic banks and islamic banking windows being operated through conventional banks of pakistan. the sample of study is taken from full-fledged islamic banks as well as from islamic windows. convenient sampling technique has been used to get sample from the population. this method has edge as customers are well acquainted with staff and have a better degree of willingness to respond. the questionnaire is also filled by direct interaction with the islamic banking customers. the responses have been collected from the islamic banking customers residing in lahore, pakistan. a pilot study was conducted before undertaking the actual survey. for collecting the data, the questionnaire is designed, and an initial pilot testing of the questionnaire is done from 40 respondents. the changes that were suggested by experts from islamic banking are incorporated, and then finally the research data is directly collected from islamic banks and islamic windows through the questionnaires with the support of islamic baking staff and through personal visits. a sample size of 180 respondents has been used for the study. however, out of 180 questionnaires distributed; only 169 questionnaires have been responded. upon scrutiny it has been found that 17 questionnaires were either blank in some fields or filled without understanding e.g. all fields are marked as 5 or 1. only 152 responses were properly filled up and analyzed. this represents a response rate of 76%. the gathered data is processed with the help of spss software. reliability refers to the extent that same answers will be obtained by using the same instruments. it is consistency and stability in the findings. for example, like research is related with high level of reliability then researcher needs to obtain according to the same results by using the same techniques. wilson (2010) explains that reliability issues are more related to the subjectivity of time, once the researcher adopts its then the level of reliability work will be compromised. table 2 shows that the alpha value for most of the scales closer to or above 0.7, which means that the survey instrument is reliable for further continuing our research work. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 55 table 1. list of variables used for study sr. # 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. data results and findings as this research study was conducted to find out the determinants/ items of service quality that influence on the loyalty and satisfaction of customers of islamic banks in pakistan, so it is considered that the appropriate target population should be aged above 18 years and are involved fully or in partial in the banking dealings. respondents should be variable/construct service quality:tangible service quality: reliable service quality: responsiveness service quality: assurance service quality: empathy customer satisfaction customer loyalty earlier studies lliachenko (2006); liu et al. (2009); sheng and liu (2010); javadi (2011); khan et al. (2017) parasuraman, (1994); zeithaml et al. (2000); yang et al. (2004); sung et al. (2009); ariff et al. (2012); al-hawary and alsmeran (2017); khan et al. (2017) parasuraman, (1994); lliachenko (2006); ahmad (2009); alhawary and al-smeran (2017) bresselles and durrieu (2008); ariff et al. (2012); khan et al. (2017) parasuraman, (1994); ahmad (2009); khan et al. (2017) wang et al (2001); ariff et al. (2012 ahmad (2009) lam et al. (2004); hawary and al-smeran (2017) 56 role of service quality... educated and most commonly belongs to the background of banking and finance background; so that they can understand the importance of research. the demographic summary statistics of the respondents are given in table 3. table 2. reliability analysis of constructs reason for choosing islamic bank’s products/services table 4 lists the participant’s responses pertaining to reasons for choosing the islamic banks specific products and services. 5.92% choose islamic banks products/services due to fast and friendly services, 40.79% chooses due to its products shariah compliance nature the main ingredient that differs it from the conventional bank products), 25.66% chooses islamic banks products/services due to higher profit on investments (roi), 9.21% for availability of finance facilities, 3.29% for provision of credit cards and 15.13% due to the islamic banks reputation in the market. correlation analysis to overcome the issue of multicollinearity, correlation matrix is used. table 5 shows that all variables are not interdependent on each other and lacks correlation among them as the value of each variable is less than the 0.70, which means that all variables are free from the issue of correlation (multicollinearity), which may be confirmed later on after performing variance inflation factor (vif) test. no. of items cronbach alpha value 03 0.716 05 0.777 04 0.759 04 0.710 05 0.759 04 0.804 05 0.876 30 0.951 variables service quality:tangible service quality: reliable service quality: responsiveness service quality: assurance service quality: empathy satisfaction level customer loyalty overall hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 57 table 3. descriptive statistics frequency percent cumulative percent gender male 116 76.3 76.3 female 36 23.7 100.0 marital status single 68 44.7 44.7 married 84 55.3 100.0 age (years) 20-30 68 44.7 44.7 31-40 58 38.2 82.9 41-50 20 13.2 96.1 51 & above 6 3.9 100.0 education intermediate & 6 3.9 3.9 below bachelor degree 60 39.5 43.4 master degree 86 56.6 100.0 income per less than 42 27.6 27.6 month 30,000 30,000 40,000 38 25.0 52.6 40,001 50,000 48 31.6 84.2 50,000 & above 24 15.8 100.0 type of bank fully fledged 92 61.2 61.2 isamic bank islamic window 60 38.8 100.0 total 152 100.0 table 4. reason for choosing islamic bank’s products/services reason frequency percent higher profit on investment 39 25.66 shariah-compliance 62 40.79 services (faster / friendly) 9 5.92 credit card provision 5 3.29 availability of finance facilities 14 9.21 bank reputation 23 15.13 58 role of service quality... table 5. correlation matrix ass emp rel res tan s l assurance 1 empathy .574** 1 reliability .583** .475** 1 responsiveness .549** .536** .636** 1 tangibility .404** .393** .528** .484** 1 satisfaction .545** .656** .575** .568** .573** 1 loyalty .540** .567** .605** .539** .612** .765** 1 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). regression analysis two regression models are used for conducting the study. the regressions for both models are discussed below: regression analysis for model # 01 the factors of service quality that have an influence on customer satisfaction in islamic banking sector of pakistan is estimated through the following multiple regression model. cs = α + β1as + β2em + β3re + β4rs + β5ta + t… (b) where, cs = satisfaction as = assurance em = empathy re = reliability rs = responsiveness ta = tangibility β 1-5 = coefficients t = error term table 6 provides the multiple regression coefficients for the model hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 59 1. the model shows r-square value of 0.587. this means that all the variables account for 58.7 percent of satisfaction level variability, while the remaining variation can be explained by other independent variables or factors which are not considered for this study. overall, the model is statistically fit as the f-statistics significant value is less than the 0.05 level of significance. furthermore, the f-statistics value is also less than the critical value of 41.417 at the 5 percent significance level indicating that model is fit statistically. table 6. multiple regression analysis regression statistics multiple r 0.766 r square 0.586 adjusted r square 0.572 standard error of estimate 0.491 f-statistics 41.417 prob (f-statistics) 0.000 table 7. regression coefficients model unstandardized standardized t sig. collinearity coefficients coefficients statistic b std. beta tolerance vif error (constant) .139 .262 .531 .596 assurance .084 .078 .079 2.086 .039 .839 1.192 empathy .420 .075 .385 5.569 .000 .772 1.295 reliability .148 .080 .143 1.848 .067 .773 1.294 responsive .097 .075 .097 5.290 .000 .875 1.143 ness tangibility .235 .057 .267 4.117 .000 .590 1.695 a. dependent variable: satisfaction the findings from the regression model (table 7) indicates that 60 role of service quality... there is positive and statistically significant influence of reliability, assurance, tangibility, responsiveness and empathy on the dependent variable (satisfaction) as the p-value is less than the level of significance of 0.05. this means that all five dimensions of service quality are the significant determinates of the satisfaction level. therefore, we fail to reject h1a, h1b, h1c, h1d and h1e. the beta coefficient of assurance tells that 1 percent increase in its value results in 0.084 percent increase in satisfaction level, keeping other variables constant. similarly, 1 percent increase in the empathy value results in 0.420 percent increase in satisfaction, 1 percent increase in the reliability value results in 0.148 percent increase in satisfaction, 1 percent increase in the value of responsiveness results in 0.097 percent increase in satisfaction value, and 1 percent increase in the tangibility value, increase satisfaction level value by 0.235 percent. regression analysis for model # 02 table 8 provides the simple regression coefficients for the model 2. the model shows r-square value of 0.585. this means that satisfaction variable account for 58.5 percent of loyalty variability. overall, the model is statistically fit as the f-statistics significant value is less than the 0.05 level of significance. furthermore, the f-statistics value is also less than the critical value of 211.545 at the 5 percent significance level indicating that model is fit statistically. thus, one can say that this model can be used to predict the loyalty. table 8. regression statistics regression statistics multiple r 0.765 r square 0.585 adjusted r square 0.582 standard error of estimate 0.523 f-statistics 211.545 prob (f-statistics) 0.000 table 9 also depicted that there is a statistically significant and positive association between satisfaction level and loyalty at the 0.05 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 61 level of significance. therefore, we fail to reject h2 and concluded that satisfaction is a significant determinant of loyalty. the research hypothesis is accepted with a coefficient (β) of 0.825 and p-value (sig) of 0.000. an increase of 1 in satisfaction level of customers in the equation would increase loyalty by 0.825. table 9. regression coefficients model unstandardized standardized t sig. collinearity coefficients coefficients statistic b std. beta tolerance vif 1 (constant) .658 .219 2.99 .00 satisfaction .825 .057 .765 14.54 .00 1.000 1.00 a. dependent variable: loyalty test of normality the results for the normality test are shown in table 10. in spss, two types of normality tests are run. one is shapiro-walk test which is used if we have a data set of less than 2000 observations, while kolmogorov-smirnov test is used for the elements greater than 2000. table 10. test of normality kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. statistic df sig. assurance .110 152 .200 .964 152 .301 empathy .103 152 .200 .976 152 .278 reliability .095 152 .200 .973 152 .274 responsiveness .145 152 .200 .965 152 .341 tangibility .172 152 .200 .933 152 .370 satisfaction .147 152 .200 .957 152 .346 loyalty .125 152 .200 .944 152 .322 a. lilliefors significance correction 62 role of service quality... conclusion and implications islamic banking claim to be entirely different from the conventional system of banking is the core comparative edge beside the basic need of service quality. the study inspects the association among dimensions of service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. the findings of this study conclude that there is strong association between different dimensions of service quality customer satisfaction leading to the customer loyalty in islamic banking customers of lahore pakistan. it has also been concluded that the people from age range 20-40 are more inclined to islamic banking. it is also found in this research that managers are supposed to advance the quality of bank services to maintain their clients as satisfied and loyal customers for long lasting advantage. the study established awareness about the association among customer relationship management and customer satisfaction concerning islamic banking of lahore, pakistan. the research study likes to propose some theoretical and practical recommendations for the better understanding of the problem statement and objectives. research and development is a need of time for islamic banking industry. islamic banks should develop innovative products to satisfy the needs of its growing customers. research is a basic element for speedy and sustainable growth. all stakeholders, bankers, practitioners and scholars should get together and realize the vast potential of islamic banks. despite of the fact of vital growth, islamic banking industry (pakistan) is facing numerous challenges. there is a lack of trained human resources and fewer understanding of common islamic banking model among general public. this study looks at the customer relationship management with core element of customer satisfaction and loyalty by selecting a number of customers from islamic banks and islamic windows of conventional banks from lahore pakistan. islamic banks should develop awareness and understanding about its products/services to content with conventional banks. another important element is upholding the motivation level of islamic bank employees so that their knowledge, appearance, attitude and service quality shows the glimpse of islamic culture to attract the customers for long lasting benefits. future study · the extent of this study is limited to the sample of some selected hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 63 islamic stream banks and windows geographically located at lahore on the basis of convenience sampling the future study may be expanded to large number of samples with wider geographical scope. · some other dimensions of shariah based compliance may be included keeping in view the social setup of pakistan. a research should be conducted to explore the elements on which even customers of islamic banks are not totally convinced or have some misconception. the removal/understanding of these kinds of issues will yield in a better degree of loyalty. · the customers of conventional banks may be researched for their views against islamic banking and steps to be taken to create awareness among them. the later research work explores the convincing techniques, helpful for islamic banks to fetch the customers from conventional banking. · the term customer relationship management has wider scope and factors like convenient location, standard transaction processing time, switching barriers etc. may also be added in future research to have a better outlook of the customer’s selection of islamic banks and their loyalty. research limitations the sample size is quite small due to limited budget and shortage of time. thus the research results may show some instability of measures and may bring in some degree of biasness. besides that the respondents are the customers of selected islamic banks which are located and taken from a single city of punjab, pakistan. they may not represent the breakdown of islamic banking customers in pakistan. further research may be conducted on a wider sample. this would provide more generalized conclusions for islamic banks. bibliography ahmed, a.a. (2009), compliance of financial disclosure in corporate annual reports of banking sector in bangladesh, unpublished phd dissertation, university of rajshahi, bangladesh. ahmed, h., asutay, m., & wilson, r. (2013). reflecting on islamic banking and financial crisis: risks, reputation and stability. islamic banking and financial crisis: reputation, stability and risks, 1-18. al-eisa, a. s., & alhemoud, a. m. (2009). using a multiple-attribute approach for measuring customer satisfaction with retail banking services in 64 role of service quality... kuwait. international journal of bank marketing, 27(4): 294-314. amin, m. and isa, z. (2008) an examination of the relationship between service quality perception and customer satisfaction: a sem approach towards malaysian islamic banking. international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management, 1(3): 191–209. arasli, h., mehtap-smadi, s., & turan katircioglu, s. (2005). customer service quality in the greek cypriot banking industry. managing service quality: an international journal, 15(1): 41-56. azzam, z. a. m. (2014). the impact of customer relationship management on customer satisfaction in the banking industry: a case of jordan. european journal of business and management, 6(32): 99-112. bugg holloway, b., wang, s., & beatty, s. e. (2009). betrayal? relationship quality implications in service recovery. journal of services marketing, 23(6), 385-396. carden, r., & dellifraine, j. l. (2004). an examination of hospital satisfaction with blood suppliers. transfusion, 44(11), 1648-1655. erol, c., & el-bdour, r. (1989). attitudes, behavior, and patronage factors of bank customers towards islamic banks. international journal of bank marketing, 7(6), 31-37. galbreath, j., & rogers, t. (1999). customer relationship leadership: a leadership and motivation model for the twenty-first century business. the tqm magazine, 11(3), 161-171. gürbüz, s. (2008). the effects of job satisfaction and organizational justice perception on organizational citizenship behavior. todaôe’s review of public administration, 41(4), 49-77. hill, n., & alexander, j. (2006). customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement. vt: ashgate publishing company. holloway, i., & wheeler, s. (2002). qualitative research in nursing. wiley-blackwell. homburg, c., koschate, n., & hoyer, w. d. (2005). do satisfied customers really pay more? a study of the relationship between customer satisfaction and willingness to pay. journal of marketing, 69(2), 84-96. jeon, m. m., & jeong, m. (2016). influence of website quality on customer perceived service quality of a lodging website. journal of quality assurance in hospitality & tourism, 17(4), 453-470. khan, m. m. s., shafiq, b., & farrukh, i. j. a. z. (2017). an empirical analysis of banking sector in pakistan: islamic versus conventional banks. uluslararas1 ôslam ekonomisi ve finansê araîtêrmalarê dergisi, 3(1), 60-93. khattak, n. a. (2010). customer satisfaction and awareness of islamic banking system in pakistan. african journal of business management, 4(5), 662-671. kirmaci, s. (2012). customer relationship management and customer loyalty; a survey in the sector of banking. international journal of business and social science, 3(3). levesque, t., & mcdougall, g. h. (1996). determinants of customer satisfaction in retail banking. international journal of bank marketing, 14(7), 12-20. lewin, j. e. (2009). business customers’ satisfaction: what happens when suppliers downsize?. industrial marketing management, 38(3), 283-299. mahamad, o., & ramayah, t. (2010). service quality, customer satisfaction and hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 65 loyalty: a test of mediation. international business research, 3(4), 72. mansoor khan, m., & ishaq bhatti, m. (2008). development in islamic banking: a financial risk-allocation approach. the journal of risk finance, 9(1), 40-51. mcquitty, s., finn, a., & wiley, j. b. (2000). systematically varying consumer satisfaction and its implications for product choice. academy of marketing science review, 10 (1), 231-254. mohammad, a. a. s., & alhamadani, s. y. m. (2011). service quality perspectives and customer satisfaction in commercial banks working in jordan. middle eastern finance and economics, 14(1), 60-72. naser, k., jamal, a., & al-khatib, k. (1999). islamic banking: a study of customer satisfaction and preferences in jordan. international journal of bank marketing, 17(3), 135-151. nusair, k., & kandampully, j. (2008). the antecedents of customer satisfaction with online travel services: a conceptual model. european business review, 20(1), 4-19. othman, a., & owen, l. (2001). the multi dimensionality of carter model to measure customer service quality (sq) in islamic banking industry: a study in kuwait finance house. international journal of islamic financial services, 3(4), 1-12. ozdemir, h., kocakoc, e., bozgeyik, z., & cobanoglu, b. (2005). recurrent retroperitoneal cystic lymphangioma. yonsei medical journal, 46(5), 715-718. parasuraman, a., berry, l. l., & zeithaml, v. a. (1991). perceived service quality as a customerbased performance measure: an empirical examination of organizational barriers using an extended service quality model. human resource management, 30(3), 335-364. parasuraman, a., zeithaml, v. a., & berry, l. l. (1988). servqual: a multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perc. journal of retailing, 64(1), 12-25. rasheed, h., aimin, w., & ahmed, a. (2012). an evaluation of bank customer satisfaction in pakistan, comparing foreign and islamic banks. international journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 2(7), 177-191. rouholamini, m., & venkatesh, s. (2011). a study of customer relationship management iranian banking industry. international journal of information technology and knowledge management, 4(2), 723-729. sánchez-franco, m. j., & roldán, j. l. (2005). web acceptance and usage model: a comparison between goal-directed and experiential web users. internet research, 15(1), 21-48. sharma, s. k. (2015). adoption of e-government services: the role of service quality dimensions and demographic variables. transforming government: people, process and policy, 9(2), 207-222. srinivasan , s . s., anderson , r . & ponnavolu , k . ( 2002 ) . customer loyalty in e-commerce: an exploration of its antecedents and consequences. journal of retailing . 78 (1), 41 – 50. tahir, i. m., bakar, n., ismail, m., & wan, w. (2006). customer expectations and perceptions of service quality in islamic banking: evidence from malaysia. journal of islamic economics, banking and finance, 2(1), 70-82. wirtz, j. (2003). halo in customer satisfaction measures: the role of purpose of rating, number of attributes and customer involvement. international journal 66 role of service quality... of service industry management, 14(1), 96-119. wisskirchen, c., vater, d., wright, t., de backer, p., & detrick, c. (2006). the customer-led bank: converting customers from defectors into fans. strategy & leadership, 34(2), 10-20. zavareh, f. b., ariff, m. s. m., jusoh, a., zakuan, n., bahari, a. z., & ashourian, m. (2012). e-service quality dimensions and their effects on e-customer satisfaction in internet banking services. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 40, 441-445. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 7 religio-scientific discourse and its impact upon exegetical approach confronting various responses and limitations mr. muhammad ashfaqa dr manzoor ahmad al azharib aphd scholar, islamic studies, hitec university taxila, pakistan e-mail:m.ashfaq.hrp@gmail.com bassociate professor of islamic law, hitec university taxila, pakistan e-mail: maalzahari1@gmail.com this paper aims to discuss various responses against exegetical approach which have taken place due to religio-scientific discourse (rsd) and its impact upon scholars and exegetes as a central point of the discussion elaborating rsd with different modes and limitations along with comparative sketch and nexus between both islam and science. the discussion has been divided generally into two main phases, one is about rsd and other is its impacts upon exegetical approaches. groups of scholars e.g. advocates or supporters, opponents with different tone called as rejectionists together with other two categories known as moderates and modernists are also important contributors to overall debate expressing their own opinions and vantage points. employing analytical method, we may examine question of clash or harmony from islamic perspective with historical background, different reactions from exegetes and scholars and various dimensions of impact upon exegetical domain. what are the exegetical responses, methodological approach with refrence to scripture’s inspiration towards knowledge as well as advancements in scientific research in order to judge the contextual clues by scholars along with thematic approaches? so, in current context, the latest awareness of discourse, methodological consideration with thematic approach, scholar’s carrier and background interweaved and knitted across the well-balanced response and reaction by exegetes against any new development in contemporary scientific uplift and progress along with epistemological consideration and limitations. keywords: religio-scientific discourse, exegetical responses, contextual consideration, thematic exegesis. religio-scientific discourse 8 introduction in this paper the impact of religio-scientific discourse (rsd) upon exegetical domain has been examined considering the data and information from different relevant dimensions i.e. islam and science in addition to their mutual link along with positive and negative responses. rsd understanding with different measurements prior to elaborating the desired impact has also been visited for data provision to analyse the subject thesis. it may be observed that due to this relationship, there exist an influence in varying degrees upon scholars and exegetes of modern era to interpret the scripture (nuîëî) with respect to scientific sign and discoveries presented by new advancement. as literature review exposed that a lot of data regarding islam and science as well as scientific exegesis has already been published but the domain of this article is relatively different. it may be a source and initiative for scholars to approach up to some possible extent towards a new dimension and thought. hence it is required to test the hypothesis that religio-scientific discourse (rsd) has impact upon the interpretative approaches or in order to grasp that there exist any mutual track among their views apparently different or even opposite where a number of scholars may incline unanimously towards truth i.e. the state of discourse where it should actually exist. for this purpose, already existing literature and available data analysis may help us to arrive at result after hypothetical testing due to different approaches that cause to expose real picture what scripture demands, and compatible with every time and domain. therefore, overall discourse may be demarcated as: i-religio-scientific discourse ii-rsd impacts upon rsd exegetical domain one phase of the discourse what on the other hand, an analytical has been wished for this paper is review has been given judging related to religion islam and rsd in the front line of various science, mutual nexus, limitations responses from exegetical and comparison. opinions of domain. religious scholars as well as different modes and limitations scientists regarding rsd. question in relation to contextual of consonance and dissonance consideration with critical from islamic perspective, qur’énic appraisal is also an integral part inspirations towards study of natural of discussion. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 9 inspirations towards study of natural of discussion. phenomenon have also been thematic exegetical domain and discussed and tried to provide methodological approaches have relevant aspects of discourse up to been measured succinctly with possible extent. comments at the end of each subtitle elaborations before final conclusion and recommendations. comparative analyses prior to execution of analytical method have been given in different phases of the paper to deal with what is demanded by the paper. in current contextual consideration we require to find the mutual place of guidance from nuîëî to guide and tackle the situation of present time considering thematic exegetical methodology. no doubt ijtihéd and analogical reasoning may cause to put forward again the scholars elaborating with their exegetical methodologies containing both situations i.e. current scenario to that of time of revelation with pondering over historical context and consulting that particular theme and scientific topic thoroughly with what is mentioned and indicated at different places throughout in the holy qur’én. in a nutshell, the overall discussion moves around the question of impact of discourse upon exegesis, their methodologies, one’s need to become familiar with text and context interconnection, scholar’s critical remarks, interpretative trends and switching the discourse with thematic exegetical mode to that of epistemological reflections along with discourse of clash and harmony between religion and science and contextual consideration. a succinct comparative sketch of religio-scientific discourse (rsd) prior to discussing scientific exegetical approaches analysing rsd that may also be called as discourse related to scientific exegesis (altafsêr al-‘ilmê)1, we are required to discuss some preliminary elaborations regarding religio-scientific discourse, mutual nexus between islam and science and is there any domain to tie up both up to some limitations or not which is necessary to help grasp the frame of reference for methodology or the knowledge that has been established through scholars’methodologies fluctuating between acceptance or rejection of rsd in accordance with various responses and argumentations. as the word science has been taken from latin “scientia” means “knowledge” is the study of natural world with proper well defined methodology or the knowledge that has been established through religio-scientific discourse 10 as the word science has been taken from latin “scientia” means “knowledge” is the study of natural world with proper well defined methodology or the knowledge that has been established through observations and experiments. cambridge advance learner’s dictionary defined the term science as:”the careful study of the structure and behaviour of the physical world, especially by watching, measuring, doing experiments and the development of theories to describe the results of these activities.”1 comparatively, religion on the other end, in addition to providing guidance (hidéyah) in the life deals also with super natural world and to know about whether, anything exists beyond the nature or not i.e. metaphysical approach. what has been investigated and produced by the modern research any new invention and cultural change close to that innovation, the discourse of text and context may provide very useful and applicable criterion that is not outside the domain of religion. although both the domains have different foundations, scopes and limitations, but some commonalities are also there that may also be considered important with their relevant areas and approaches some extent about perceptible world. as mehdi golshani (b.1939) in his concluding remarks concerning some fundamental questions of discussion on islam and the science of the nature, he put that: “in the qur’énic view, the study of nature is really the study of signs of god. therefore, scientific work is to be considered some kinds of religious activity.”3 no doubt, any sort of action which causes to proceed toward reality is religious activity either due to any advancement or rational approach. examining history, we may add that after the revelation, as time goes on day to day scientific research has also been exposing some important facts about nature that were not well known to the mankind earlier, allowing human mind to rethink over the creation and the order in the universe. so, it may also be added that science behaves like the servant of religion and it is the question of complementing religion instead of clashing with it. number of scholars having different religious convictions and greatly enriched by scientific knowledge have to admit the revealed facts and some have even expressed their trust in the scripture due to scientific background. for example ouspensky (d.1947) has spelled out that, “a religion which contradicts science and a science which contradicts religion are both equally false.”4 it means that truth is the common hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 11 paradigm for whole humanity. furthermore, a well-known remark stated by albert einstein (d.1955), one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, declares religion-less science is subject to lame and scienceless religion is blind one. he also admitted the fact declaring that “the more i study physics, the more i am drawn to metaphysics.”5 dr. maurice buccaille (d.1998) reinforced this concept stating in introduction of his book, that in islam, the discourse of religion and science has flourished like twin sisters. as a result, at the time of height of islamic civilization, science made astonishing developments in various fields, from which the west was later enlightened.6 similarly, father of thermodynamics, lord kelvin (d.1907), tried to convince that if you ponder over, you will be drawn by science to faith in god. one may find that science is not hostile but supportive to religion.7 nearly, all these scientists expressed that science and religion both are so closely related to each other and one may help understand other. atomic scientist engineer sulïén bashêr maímood (b.1940) added that“science has in fact turned out to be supporter of the revelations of the holy qur’én.”8 our view point in the light of this comparative elaboration is that the scientific advancement based upon facts and religious data are in harmony with each other. religion expands the vision of science and also gives the paradigm for the better use of scientific productions. on the other hand, science also has serving aspects of the religion that can be extended by the mutual relationship of scientists and religious scholars.it may also be added, that as the pendulum of time swings with the force of values depends upon the culture and relevant changes from time to time. so, religio-scientific discourse (rsd) is required to be revisited periodically that may provide chances to understand unattended aspects of phenomenon in comparative manner where religious guidance may become more transparent and understandable. rsd clash or harmony: investigating nexus from islamic perspective science from islamic perspective may be considered as supportive device which is helpful to know and understand various unattended dimensions of natural phenomenon where religion guides us how to deal with. as already pronounced mandamus and prohibition may become rationalized and crystal clear after any new scientific exploration with closer relation to the truth. facts (of life and nature) mentioned in scripture religio-scientific discourse 12 became more comprehensible later after the scientific advancements. scientific knowledge and proved facts may support the religious scriptures indicating that there is no wrangle and clash between them. the traditional conflict between religion and science began in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. it is pointed out by waíêd ud dên khén (b.1925) stating that the opponents of the religion tried to draw attention towards scientific research because of that various aspects of the universe have been explained, so ‘the god exists’, this hypothesis is not required any more. he added, in fact by this advancement of science, some realities addressed by the religion can be investigated with better scientific approaches.9 it means the question of clash is due to narrow-mindedness and unreasonable attitude towards rsd. furthermore, it is also affirmed by hérën yaíyé (b. 1956) that this atheistic understanding of science is not very old but a recent phenomenon. science and religion were never thought to be in clash with each other and science was accepted as a method of proving the existence of god.10 the main contributors of science belonged to the muslim’s world is a testimony for the mutual harmonic relationship between the religion and science. kecia alê (b.1972) and oliver leaman (b.1950) also stated as: “there can be no general incompatibility between islam and science since for many centuries the center of scientific investigation internationally was precisely the islamic world.”11 this is how islamic world welcomed scientific advancement and transferred to the next generation its rich contribution. karl von frisch (d.1982), a specialist in the field of ethology 12 known for remarkable research about honeybees and who was given a nobel prize in 1973, acknowledged that his research subject to be compatible with the scripture of islam. moreover, hérën yaíyé (b.1956) after a careful analysis of the comments of a number of scholars and scientists regarding religion and science has declared as: “for only then may science adhere to way of god. when a way opposite to religion is adopted, scientists waste both time and resources, and impede the progress of science.”13 referring to the qur’én and the sunnah of the holy prophet (œ) as the true source of information, he advised that the secrets of scientific hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 13 development, are only possible if guided by the qur’én. dr muíammad iqbél’s (d.1938) examination regarding rsd, based on the expression that both have different limitations and religion researches for special human experience in real sense, regarding the question of conflict, according to him, is due to misunderstanding, both religion and science interpret the same data of experience. he predicted the agreement between science and religion in the coming advancements as he added: “the classical physics has learned to criticise its own foundations. as a result of this criticism the kind of materialism, which is originally necessitated, is rapidly disappearing, and the day is not far off when religion and science will discover hitherto unsuspected mutual harmonies.”14 religion and science in their relevant foundation have different scope where mutual conflict and clash may not exist logically. nature is the manifestation of divine signs and therefore science and religion cannot be conflicting disciplines. rather, they are two (apparently) different expressions of the same truth. it is necessary to enlighten the mind with sciences, while hearts are required to be illuminated by religious teachings as indicated by badiuzaman said nursê (d.1960).15 in view of above discussion, it may be added that scientific advancements and religious teachings and fundamentals in reality are common relating to god’s truth. this harmony could be appreciated by broad-minded and well-versed people in multiple aspects of rsd and not by those religious scholars or scientists who reamain rigid in their approaches. in islamic philosophical thought it has also been endorsed that guidance both from science and religion is necessary for personality to be scintillated. rsd mutual nexus and qur’énic inspiration broadening mental horizon regarding the question of clash or harmony from islamic perspective, we believe that a knowledgeable person cognizant of both religion and science may understand rsd’s mutual nexus comparatively better. as far as the islamic scripture is concerned, it is stated in various verses of the holy qur’én inviting the human intellect and reason like “perchance religio-scientific discourse 14 they may reflect”.16 qur’énic inspiration towards this discourse has been mentioned which finds expression in various verses. for example some references are as, “thus doth allah make clear to you his signs: in order that ye may consider,”17 to divulge more detail up to man’s ultimate destination holy qur’én stated as:“do they not reflect in their own minds? not but for just ends and for a term appointed, did allah create the heavens and the earth, and all between them”18 similarly, we may visit some other verses and prophet’s saying laden with the message of inspiration for humankind to observe and reflect. the qur’én with inquiring phrases invites to reason, logic, rationality and intelligence so that one may be able to extract the pearls of meanings from the holy scripture with watchful mind towards nature that may leads us ultimately towards ultimate reality. this understanding more and more is associated with our limitations of contemplation, so that we may be blessed with the various connotations of these words along with observation of stated natural phenomena in the verses, in the heavens and the earth including the human beings. as in the holy qur’én it is also stated: “soon will we show them our signs in the (furthest) region (of the earth), and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the truth….”19 that is why the prayer, “o my lord! advance me in knowledge”20 was bestowed upon prophet muíammad (œ). what a perfect message is this from lord to prophet of islam? in the preamble to his book, sulïén bashêr maímood added that i reached at the conclusion after my long scientific carrier that every talk of the lord of universe (allah almighty) is the utmost limit of the truth. therefore, the points in the qur’én regarding the knowledge of things (‘ilm al-ashyé’) are the apex standard of the science… in fact the end of science is the beginning of the qur’én.21 therefore, in rsd islamic scripture has different status as compared to other religious texts. it may be added at the end of this discussion, science is a powerful tool that urges mankind to understand themselves and what is in the cosmos, with better ways in order to know what is being expressed by the natural phenomena. it may lead humanity to reflect deeper on one’s own existence and the surroundings that hold the creator’s signs. here is the islamic scripture that helps us in broadening our mental horizon. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 15 science is a source for the benefit of humanity and to know various dimensions of natural phenomena and their purposes. it is not a divine revelation but a little knowledge as compared to that of revelation. rsd impact confronting various responses from exegetical domain: an analytical review there are number of reactions concerning rsd from exegetical perspective and impact of this discourse upon exegetes and scholars in relation to scripture’s elaborations about a particular theme or topic. for example, one scholar may have either negative or partially negative response towards this discourse while other may comment positively in favour of qur’én and science relationship, having different outlooks with various limitations. dr yaíyé khélid abë milha explained the concept with reference to basïémê muíammad khir, dividing the discourse into four groups like modernists, advocates, moderates and rejectionists. a brief sketch of each categoryis necessary to synthesize data for analytical evaluation. modernists the modernists are those who try to bring the religious concepts and interpretations in accordance with scientific advancement. sometime the people having this approach have no more inclination towards metaphysical realities. for example miracles mentioned in the qur’én have been dealt with scientific prism as by sir syed aímad khén (d.1898) etc. robinson said about group that, “jesus does not create living birds from clay (iii:49),… nor does solomon have super natural powers which enable him to understand the speech of birds and ants.’22 so, according to robinson, modernists attitude towards scripture ignoring metaphysical realtiesis not imbued in the revealed guidance. moreover, dr abdul raímén commented that people having this approach are influenced by western approaches and interpret qur’énic verses in accordance with science pointlessly and beyond need.23 it shows that this nexus is not a reasonable attempt towards qur’énic exegesis as done by modernists. in brief it could be claimed that these scholars give precedence to the scientific approach and try to mold the qur’énic concept in accordance with science. metaphysical dimensions of the religion have also been religio-scientific discourse 16 handled scientifically by these scholars e.g. djinns have been rendered as microbes etc. so, the attitude of modernist towards rsd is some things exceeding more than what is required. advocates religio-scientifc discourse (rsd) has been encouraged by the group known as advocates. these scholars having keen interest in the subject matter with some limitations have been welcomed by various schools of thought approaching the holy qur’én from the scientific point of view. shaykh ùanïévê jawharê (d.1940) and musïafa al-maréghê (d.1945) may be included in this category although both have different approach to the field of qur’énic exegesis. we may judge their demands towards science as articulated by ùanïévê (d.1940). he advised to observe the nature, rich study of universe to proceed further for betterment of muslim ummah, thus helping reduce shortage of islamic scholars in the current field. in the exegesis of surah al-raímén, he emphasized on the study of natural phenomena indicating that about 750 verses of the holy qur’én are related to this subject of islam and science discourse.24 some scholars like ×émid al-ghazélê (d.1111), muíammad bin ‘umar al-rézê (d. 1210), ùahir bin ‘óshër (d. 1973), ùanïévê (d.1940) and matwalê al-sha‘réwê supported the scientific explanation with different limitations depending upon scholars own expertise and skill.25 for example sulïén bashêr maímood, a retired scientist from pakistan atomic energy commission, tried to explain next world, isthmus (barzakh) and eschatological writing about paradise and hell. dr syed masuad aímad added that qur’én and science both have rational and logical method to expose the cosmic secrets while qur’én is one step ahead inspiring towards thinking, reflection and meditation upon realities of universe… so qur’én brings movement, motivation and inspiration while science comes into existence due to this encouragement. in this way nexus between qur’én and science is like movement and action.26 examining exegesis of hamka, results revealed that out of four hundred (400) cosmic verses (ayét al-kawniyyah), 298 have been interpreted by him employing seven methodologies of interpretation including scientific approach elaborating creation, atmosphere, length of six days, theory of evolution and eschatology etc.27 one may visit in the writings of advocates having foot notes rich with scientific discussion. it may be added that although aforementioned schemes and of hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 17 interpretation may be called as supporters and advocates of scientific exegesis, there are further differences among their approaches and patterns procedure. they quote some relevant verses showing the legitimacy of the discourse what they adopted form qur’énic point of view. moderates this group may be placed in the middle approximately assigning them intermediary position with fluctuating opinions. they don’t extreme demand of scientific exegesis as desired by the scholars of modernists category. scholars like dr ‘aïé ur raímén (b 1942) may be included in this group although he is not an exegete but only due to comment about a phenomenon mentioned in sërah al-raímén (lv: 17).28 he explained it with respect to the earth internal magnetic field effects which cause “geomagnetic reversal” interchanging the north with south that happened more frequently about two times in 50,000 years. dr ‘aïé ur raímén stated that it is an interesting reality mentioned in the verse 17 of sërah al-raímén. he commented that, “obviously, each time the reversal of north and south occurs, east becomes west, and the west becomes east. the planet earth has therefore had two easts and two wests many times over its life period.”29 this is one scientific elaboration out of many interpretations that elaborates multiple dimensions of natural phenomenon. furthermore, bint al-shétê and maímëd shaltët also criticized the scientific exegesis while muíammadal-bahê, ×asan al-bana may be added to the group of moderates as stated by dr khélid abu milha.30 we may add that scholars and exegetes stated in either of the previous groups or mentioned now when we observe their well-balanced, vigilant, careful attitude towards the valid and proven facts of scientific achievement then that particular exegetical work of those scholars may be added to this category. these elaborations may expand the views of observer and thinker towards the apparent and hidden signs in lord’s creation and the truth ultimately. rejectionists according to this category the exegesis in the light of scientific data are sensitive and it is essential to be careful. they argued that qur’én is the book of guidance (hidéyah) but not a scientific treatise. abë religio-scientific discourse 18 isíaq al-shéïibê (d.1388 a.d.) discussed that fields of learning which were well known to the arabs while qur’én was being revealed in the light of objective of sharê‘ah. dividing these types of knowledge (‘ulëm) into beneficial and non-beneficial categories, he disallows to add physics, mathematics and logic etc. into qur’énic sciences (‘ulëm al-qur’én).31 so, co-relation of qur’énic verses with any new scientific findings has not been appreciated and not allowed by the group of rejectionists. al-shéïibê (d.1388 a.d) may be graded as the top of the list among the rejectionist of scientific exegesis. amên al-khulê (d.1966), muíammad ‘izzat darwaza (d. 1984), øubíê øélií, muíammad ×ussain al-dhahbê (d.1977) and syed quïb (d.1966) all rejected the qur’énic interpretation in the light of science.32 muíammad ×ussain al-dhahbê endorsed al shéïibê’s views as compared to al-ghazélê and added that to find laws, principles and theories of scientific knowledge in the qur’én is not the objective of verses laden with sign.33 shaykh maímëd shaltët (d.1963), abdul ‘azêm al-zurqénê (d.1948), muíammad bin luïfê al-sabbégh (b.1930), abd al-majêd al-muhtasib (b.1937) are also against this approach.34 furthermore, dr abdul raímén stated that their inclination towards science is strange because they corroborate qur’énic verses ludicrously. however, they know that their opinions are baseless, in spite of this they write (enhancing rsd) so that their view point can be considered as ‘scientific’.35 it may be added that these scholars thought that the most essential message of verse may be overlooked in this way focusing on scientific aspect of the phenomenon indicated in that particular verse. they don’t allow to correlate higgs boson particle36 (god particle) with finding from holy scripture.37 it is why rsd doesn’t appeal to the scholars of this category. we may add further, that it is essential not to obscure the meaning of qur’énic verse, therefore, to reject the interpretation involving rsd is one of the objective of this group. this division may be extended or divided further into sub-divisions for understanding multiple thought about any common issue of science and religion. what is scientific proof or remarks about a phenomenon and how religious guidance and concepts with numerous dimensions may lead to understanding is comparatively better way to deal them thematically. although due to various modes and aspects of rsd, some scholars and exegetes may not fit exactly into above mentioned categories. sometime a scholar expresses more than one opinions with slightly difference having resemblance with aforementioned categories where hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 19 we have to classify the rsd with respect to various modes instead of scholars like modernist or advocate. for analytical evaluation one may consider the following table for better understanding and data for critical appraisal before the discussion this group realized the importance of rsd and tried to elaborate scripture expressing its rational under standing whereas meta physical entries have been ignored by modernist. rsd has different degree of influence vis-à-vis the scientific awareness along with religious knowledge. these scholars are impressed by western knowledge and interpret qur’énic verses in accordance with modern scientific data frequently giving less importance to the meta physical realities. so, it is estimated that this category compara t ive ly may be called as partially misfit approach toward qur’énic interpretation. modern knowledge regarding any theme mentioned in the holy scripture may amplify the domain of understanding. sometime in current contextualization due to helpful data from rsd, as well as revealed guidance and instruction may become more prominent approaching to rational realm. it depends upon the methodology and ability of exegetes to put the concepts and nterpretation either towards exegesis worthy of praise (tafsêri maímëd) or t o w a r d s exegesis not welcomed and rsd has been encouraged by the group of advocates elaborating multiple dimensions of natural phenomenon. scholars having keen interest inmentioning scientific point of view along with religion tried to apply rational and logical method to in this way human mind may get open observing acumen and insight from the verses laden with the divine wisdom. on the rsd-oriented main concern/ analytical remarks/ response/ rsd impact evaluation overall category review of different modes and multiple aspects for measurement of rsd impact and its origin. modernists advocates religio-scientific discourse 20 moderates rejectionist other hand, in order to support rsd, it may be observed that number of verses have been corelated sometime partially accepted. they justify their view point quoting (cosmic) verses. this group may be placed in the mid, approximately assigning them intermediary position with fluctuation of opinions.they have no extreme demand of scientific exegesis as compared to modernist and advocates science has no more importance as compared to texts (nuîëî) and revealed guidance. it is estimated that a well balanced, careful attitude towards the valid and proven facts of scientific achievement may be called a reasonable exegetical work from scientific perspectives.this category may have equilibrium position either to delete something from moderates and advocates or to add something to rejectionist allowing admired al-tafsêr al ‘ilmê. qur’én is the book of guidance (hidéyah) but not a scientific it is wrong to claim that qur’én provides scientific data. assessing in mentioning scientific point of view along with religion tried to apply rational and logical method to expose the cosmic secrets. ( t a f s ê r i interpretation either towards exegesis worthy of praise (tafsêr-i maímëd) or towards exegesis not welcomed and ill-favored (tafsêri madhmëm) we may find certain exegetical views and interpretations like traditional, mystical (tafsêr-i ishérê) and some scholars having traditional-cummodern approached towards a phenomenon. actually for islamic scholars these are the alternative ways to visit the same thing either form scientific lens or from religious guidance. it is to be noted that scholars of different categories may have similar views or may be of changing opinion due to different changing opinion due to different context. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 21 in addition to this table, we may observe different modes for measurement of rsd impact and its origin to make it wider in order to understand the concept through analytical prism. different modes for measurement of rsd impact and its origin there are number of modes due to different approach to visit the same thing or issue with multiple thought that may be added to the integral part of rsd for example the context in which one conducts a survey to find out patients’ health condition being treated by recitation of qur’énic verses and their check medically on laboratories based data. similarly, direction of ka‘bah and rsd, ‘ilm al-munésabah, current context and extension in the domain of rsd instead of just scientific exegesis (al-tafsêr al-‘ilmê). we may add another mode that deal with the other fields of knowledge for example discussion of al-ghazélê in his treatise ‘incoherence of the philosophers’ about cause and effect and its comparison with quantum physics38. this research was conducted at mcgill university by umit yoksuloglu devji arriving at the conclusion that numerous parallels can be drawn between ghazélêan concept and quantum physics.39 try to explain qur’én by scientific way, therefore, suffer from the intrinsic disparity between the qur’énic views and scientific outlooks about universe as indicated by dr muzaffar iqbél (b.1954).40 and it is incorrect to say that qur’énic verses prefigure the modern scientific treatise. exegesis in accordance with science is sensitive case. to find laws, principles and theories of scientific knowledge in the qur’én is not the objective of verses laden with sign. we may add that perhaps these scholars are also not against the rsd. scientific findings are not ultimate and subject to change from time to time. epistemological judgment may be helpful to solve the dilemma. context. religio-scientific discourse 22 theories as necessary correspondence does not exist between the terminology and weltanschauung of modern science and that of the qur’én.41 moreover, according to zafar isíéq anîérê (d.2016), to say that holy qur’én is the source of scientific data, is a vehement claim that may create the epistemological confusion.42 the epistemological considerations43 are important for rsd in which it is necessary to find out the fundamental assumptions of science in the light of islamic injunctions and to judge the foundation of this concept in the very beginning of the islamic history along with the attention toward discourse epistemologically and observing its own relevant terminologies. in this way it may be assumed that, rsd becomes logically islamic discourse. there is another mode for understanding contextual consideration in which we try to determine the current concerns, issues, requirements that seem to be relevant to the message of the text under consideration. it is necessary to explore the present context relevant to the text with specific values and norms comparing present context with the sociohistorical context to that of releveled period evaluating the universality related or unrelated to the broader objectives and concerns of the qur’én as discussed by abdullah saeed.44 the demand of historical evidence45 of scientific exegesis from very earlier days of its development and later on is also important one. we may supplement this view quoting dr ùéhir ul qédrê (b.1951), as he expressed that the confused humanity due to whirlpool of greek philosophy at the beginning of islam was illuminated by the light of knowledge [spread by qur’én and sunnah] which results in the foundation of modern science.46 he further added that the reality of islam is being accepted by the progress of science. it is the most advanced religion, which not only seems parallel with the development of science step by step, but also a universal remedy for those scientific minds that may cause to confuse at the research track.47 furthermore, the discourse like ijéz al-ilmê (imitability) is the integral part to understand rsd having impact upon thought similarly as well as islamization of knowledge within its own limitation and scope. various impact measuring modes may be visited in the following illustration as: it may be added that if we look at the concepts of these scholars, we could find more or little variations in the outlook of scholars due to hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 23 which we can’t fit them exactly in the prescribed categories. it is necessary to differentiate both domains of knowledge either from science or religion in the perspectives of their origin and ingredients, scope and objective, man-oriented and god-oriented etc. it widens the scope of enquiry and helps look at various facets when we take into consideration impact measuring modes and mutual links and overlapping of sub-elaorations concerning rsd. so, religio-scientific discourse has many dimensions that may impact a scholar blessed with traditional knowledge along with modern scientific learning that may be seen in the field of exegesis. any interpretation by him may have some glimpses of scientific exegesis in the context of current era by applying relevant conditions in any upcoming spatio-temporal domain with new circumstances and challenges. examples of impact of rsd upon exegetical approaches the degree of impact varies from scholars to scholars depending upon their understanding of rsd different modes which may or may not appeal him and its various limitation with the knowledge of religious religio-scientific discourse 24 scriptures. in 1880, an egyptian physician muíammad bin aímad aliskandarénê (d.1889) published his book, the unveiling of the luminous secrets of the qur’én in which he discussed heavenly bodies, the earth, animals, plants and minerals etc.48 scientific interpretation of religious scripture also done by ‘abd allah basha fikrê, sayyid ‘abd al-raíman al-kawékibê (d.1902), and physician muíammad tawfêq (d.1920), all of whom either wrote exegesis or works supporting scientific explanation of the verses of the qur’én. for instance, akhtar ×ussain øiddique while discussing the topic ‘the impact of the qur’én on the development of the muslim geographic thought’ says:“the concept of water cycle is revealed in a number of qur’énic verses.”49 likewise, about fifty verses of qur’én for comparison with the latest discoveries of modern science have also been discussed by dr. halkëk nërbékê (d.1997) proving how each verse sheds light on numerous dimensions of modem science.50 we may consider an example of dr zaghloul el najjér (b.1933), who stated the percentage of different elements in the human body giving an important comparison of the sounding clay to that of decomposed body constituents. according to him the process continued when soil mixed with water and then it becomes mud, where water of mud dissolves the substances of the soil then a more special extract can be found in the unit of that clay. he proceeded with the following qur’énic references.51 by the process of vaporizing, we found the ‘sticky clay’ as qur’én states in the sërah al-øéffét (xxxvii:11). ‘abdullah yësuf ‘alê’ (d.1953) translated the verse as:“when just ask their opinion: are they the most difficult to create, or the other being we have created? them have we created out of sticky clay!”52 when this clay turned to dry gradually, it turns black and rotten as stated in sërah al-×ijr (xv:28). yësuf ‘alê’s translated the verse as: “behold! thy lord said to the angels: “i am about to create man, from sounding clay from mud moulded into shape.”53 that is ‘sounding clay of altered black smooth mud’ after that when dryness process increases it develops into ‘sounding clay’ or (øalîél) as stated in the qur’én that “he created man from sounding clay like unto pottery.”54 for man’s final shape, god breathes into it his soul after that it has been named as man (ódam), father of the whole humankind. after death the question of rebirth of human body is stated by dr zaghloul (b.1933) where he quoted holy saying of the holy prophet (œ) that on the day of judgment, allah (swt) will cause hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 25 water to descend from the sky and people will sprout from their coccyx, like plants from their seeds. he added that: “the body’s water content evaporates, and the body becomes part of the soil and merges with it, except for the coccyx that allah (swt) preserves with his mighty power until resurrection on the day of judgment.”55 it may be added that with respect to scientific view point, dr najjér (b.1933) tried to explain beginning of human life to that of its rebirth and eschatological discussion in the light of qur’énic verses and prophet’s holy sayings. the theme has been elaborated with the help of scientific data as well as how science endorses different religious views, although religion does not require scientific approval fundamentally. rsd and exercising exegetical limitations: a methodological approach we may understand methodological techniques that may help us to arrive at the conclusion closer to what message of verses contain in relevant context. so, we may divide this study as: thematic exegetical methodology and rsd thematic exegesis or topical exegesis is a way of interpretation in which scholars and exegetes collect the verses of holy qur’én related to a single theme and relevant topic without the condition to adopt the sequence of holy book. it may play an important role in these type of exegetical tendencies. m. anwar syarifuddin and jauhar azizy in the paper thematic scientific interpretation of the qur’én in indonesia, presented in international conference on qur’én and ×adêth studies (icqhs) 2017, concluded that a significant impact of mufassir’s background, especially related to their expertise in natural sciences to the interest of interpreting the cosmic verses and findings of contemporary science that contribute to the emergence of either element of scientific style of qur’énic interpretation in tafsêr literature in indonesia as well as the thematic scientific works of qur’énic understanding in forms of thematic treatises and compendia56 is an expression of religio-scientific discourse (rsd) and its impact upon exegetical approaches. similarly, some modern scholars with exegetical approach are interested to visit scientifically terms like ‘nuïfah amshéj’, al-‘alaqah, al-mudghah, mé’in muhên, al-saméwét al-sab‘u, rab alreligio-scientific discourse 26 mashriqayn57 and the word sulïén58 etc. ibn ‘óshër (d. 1973), in his exegesis, al-taírêr wa al-tanvêr, added that it can be concluded from the various meanings of ‘alaqah as defined by exegetes that it is a slice of blood in a lumpy condition, dried, damp, red in colour and is leechshape. there were even claims that it was called ‘alaqah because of its characteristic that sticks to the blood vessels on the uterus and obtaining the energy from the mother.59 elaborating further muíammad matwallê al-sha‘réwê mentioned ‘alaqah as a fertilized egg and scientist named it zygote that acquires its food from the uterus. that is the reason why women who are not pregnant will experience period, while pregnant ones would have the blood converted as the food for the embryo.60 we may add that every topic of religio-scientific discourse (rsd) may be visited in the light of thematic exegetical principles, visiting relation, correspondence and proportionality among verses (‘ilm al-munésabah) and current context with multiple views of scholars consulting number of references from islamic scripture where whole discourse should be harmonic with an expression closely related with qur’énic worldview. methodological limitations this concept may be understood considering three domains redundancy, circumscription and amplitude with reference to exegetical limitations. where we know number of statements and claims are exceeding regarding rsd, it is known as redundancy (zayédah ‘an al×éjah). for example, sulïén bashêr maímood an engineer, scientist and author of numbers of religious books about islam having noteworthy work and remarkable contribution (also discussed in advocates category), whereas he suggested to get energy form djinns as a fuel for energy crisis solution or even for atomic energy as expressed by dr hoodbhoy (b. 1950) in his book islam and science: religious orthodoxy and the battle for rationality. this is perhaps more than required working about rsd with reference to exegetical applications. moreover, dr øafdar jang réjpët, a senior scientist at desto61, concluded in his paper regarding djinns as something similar to the views of sulïén bashêr, referring to qur’énic claim that god made djinns out of fire.62 in addition to that, he added that a senior scientist dr arshad alê beg at the pcsir63 tried to measure the degree of hypocrisy (munéfiqah) in a society by mathematical formula.64 circumscription (taídêd-o-taqyêd) means restriction on those types circumscription (taídêd-o-taqyêd) means restriction on those types of hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 27 circumscription (taídêd-o-taqyêd) means restriction on those types of elaborations where argumentations take place in the light of qur’énic references as aforementioned may be called as redundancy (zayédah ‘an al-×éjah) and overstatement in the field of qur’énic sciences. there should be limitations so that misfit elaborations should be exempted and to mold them into acceptable limits within relevant methodological domain taking into consideration amplitude i.e. maximum limits in which we may exercise boundaries of discourse. as dr ×anfê aímad, a disciple of shaykh ùanïévê (d.1940), stated that our mentor in his voluminous exegesis al-jawéhir fê tafsêr al-qur’én al-karêm left no stone unturned in the field of scientific exegesis but at some places in the qur’én during interpretation he did what is more than a threshold line and crossed the limitations of meanings associated with verses.65 dr. aímad ‘umar abë ×ajr added that scientific research may be divided into three categories--hypothesis, theory and proven or valid facts. there is no question of contradiction with logically well-founded and proven facts. he also quoted al-maréghê (d. 1945) with similar views regarding religio-scientific discourse.66 while dr. yësuf al-qarìévê (b.1926) conditionally accepts scientific exegesis when this endeavour may cause an addition to already work done in tafsêr. it shouldn’t reject previous scholarship in the field of qur’énic interpretation declaring them as outdated.67 the commission on scientific signs of the qur’én and sunnah68 revolves around the recommendation and opinions establishing criteria for evaluating researches relating to the scientific signs in the qur’én and sunnah along with examining and coordinating the efforts of scientific researches. it also aims at seeking, examining, and evaluating the work of scientists in the field of scientific signs besides deepening the link between muslim and non-muslim specialists in the islamic and cosmic sciences. it is also recommended to offer scholarships for postgraduate research in this domain in addition to develop curricula in this respect publishing books and journals, organising conferences and seminars.69 dr yahyé khélid abë milha discussing about scientific issues in the holy qur’én, has drawn some conclusion while dividing the scholars into the four main groups like modernists, advocates, moderates and rejectionists. he said what was suggested by ‘the international commission on scientific signs of qur’én and sunnah’ (icssqs) established by muslim world league (rébïah al-‘élam al-islémê) at makkah that attempted to make the following rules: scientific exegesis should be rejected if it is based on scientific theories which have not yet reached the status of well-established facts. religio-scientific discourse 28 scientific exegesis should be rejected if it is based on scientific theories which have not yet reached the status of well-established facts. it should be rejected as well if it does not respect arabic language and if it is based on the premise that the qur’én is subservient to science, as well as, if it contradicts the qur’én and authentic sunnah of the prophet (œ). it is to be accepted only if it confirms to the general, wellknown rules and systematic methods of exegesis, which respect the linguistic rules and islamic sharê‘ah. it is accepted only from those scholars who have adequate knowledge of both the qur’én and the relevant fields of science.70 we may add that what is amplitude and maximum acceptable domain it should be in the light of numbers of opinions of scholars like dr yësuf al-qarìévê, dr. abdullah al-muîlií and icssqs’s suggested rules and limitations as well as in the light of whole discourse. so that we may be able to know the amplitude with the parameters considering what is necessary and leaving what is not. conclusion and recommendation examining the discourse one may conclude that both scientific advancement and religious teachings and fundamentals having reality are related to the common knowledge of god’s truth and also there is no question of clash among them. various responses from qur’énic exegetical scholarship confronting religio-scientific discourse (rsd) may have different tones with respect to the scholar’s background, field and nature of work e.g. traditional, theological, scientific, philosophical, juridical, mystical as well as exegetical methodologies. what is the common factor among their responses in front of rsd depending upon socio-historical context may have a harmonic line of their agreement mutually? for this we have to adopt a well balanced approach neither totally rejecting opinions of any category nor crossing the limitations considering what is circumscription (taídêd-o-taqyêd) for discourse or any redundancy more than what is required (zayédah ‘an al ×éjah). so, all the relevant data may be reviewed to construct the comprehensive methodology. a road map for proper epistemological consideration is a sketch of great importance, for instance some ingredients indicated by various scholars regarding religio-scientific discourse. collection of data and facts from the very beginning of islamic civilization, to divide it into various types, introducing some relevant terms, rehashing hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 29 the discussion within the domain of modern understanding, this looks like the proper field of ‘al fiqh’ al-‘ilmê’, assimilating number of discussed aspects and modes in the paper. as in the history of islamic jurisprudence due to diligence mistake, a jurist claims one reward out of two rewards (ajrén), so for the painstaking mental exercise of the scholars regarding the religio-scientific research in the light of well-defined methodology is also a remarkable endeavour. we may affix stated dimensions and views about rsd to categorize them according to their conditions and levels to set harmonic tone with islamic spirit manifesting islamic weltanschauung. as mazhar maímood quraishê (d.2011) stated that recent scientific development, no doubt, strengthen and amplify the earlier exegeses by providing them more comprehensive meaning.71 the domain of scientific study of natural phenomena requires to recognize the facts pondering over the creation of allah almighty and its various aspects emphasized by scientific advancement. it may cause to understand the multiple aspects of under observed things, which may broaden the mental horizon of exegetes and scholars for better contextual consideration of islamic scripture in current scenario. while any interpretative workdone by a scholar blessed with traditional and modern knowledge may have some glimpses of scientific exegesis in the context of his era with necessary conditions which may be called as sound and reasonable elaboration in any upcoming spatio-temporal domain with new circumstances and challenges. analyzing multiple views, we may add a question that is whether any prediction in the light of islamic scripture done by islamic scholars exercising their reasoning intellectually, is acceptable by the scientists of that field or not after justification. it may lead one to a research track whose precursors may be from qur’énic perspectives. it is also necessary to know that instead of just struggling to co-relate the subject discourse, muslims need to play the role as their forefather have done in the field of science and technology. there are some recommendations from different conferences and seminars on this subject as well as pieces of information from the discussions of islamization of knowledge that may be endorsed. we may develop the environment for the whole mankind, where the entire world be able to research on islamic scripture and qur’én, considering themselves its addressees in order to get instructions from it, and to religio-scientific discourse 30 grasp the facts that the qur’én is god’s revelation to prophet muíammad and it is guidance for whole mankind and djinn, instead of just for muslims. notes and references 1. scientific exegesis or al-tafsêr al-‘ilmê as defined by muíammad ×ussain aldhahbê, dr muíammad luïfê aløabégh, dr abdul majêd al-muhtasb and dr fahd al-rëmê with slightly difference each one stated definition of al-tafsêr al-‘ilmê. it may be added in the light of these definitions that it is an endeavour and ijtihéd of mufassir in order to infer contemporary knowledge, experimental and scientific understanding, cosmological, astronomical and philosophical facts and figures and their link, correlation and understanding from qur‘énic verses explaining phenomenon and cosmological indications. 2. colin mcintosh, cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary version 4.0, cald software, cambridge university press, 2013. data retrieved on dated 9 december 2018, fromhttp://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/science 3. golshanê, mehdê, islam and science, published by islamic research institute islamabad vol. xxxix, winter 2000, number 4, p. 609. 4. ouspensky, p.d., tertium organum, the third canon of thought: a key to the enigmas of the world, published, by claude bragdon, usa, september, 1922, p. 231. 5. data retrieved on dated 9 december 2018 form http://www.azquotes.com/quote/ 1177353 and http://www.working-minds.com/aequotes.htm 6. buccaille, dr. maurice, the bible,the qur’én and science, tr by alastair d. pannell,qézê publication 121 zul qur’énin chamber gunpat road lahore, p. ix 7. reason & revelation, a monthly journal of christian evidences, vol. xxvii, no. 4 apologetics press, inc april 2007, www.apologetics press.org 8. maímood, sulïén bashêr, the miraculous qur’én a challenge to science and mathematics, published by dér al-×ikmat international f-8/4 islamabad first edition june 2010. 9. khén, wahêd ud dên, mazhab aor jadêd challenge, maktabah al-risélah 1st edition 1966, pp. 9, 20, and his book religion and science, p. 68. 10. yaíyé, hérën, scientists confirm the signs of god, p. 51 11. kecia alê and oliver leaman, islam the key concepts, routledge publication 270 madison ave, new york 2008, pp. 29-30. 12. ethology is the scientific and behavioural study of animals, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. www.wikipedia.org . 13. yaíyé, hérën, the qur’én leads way to the science, first published by secilofset in istanbul, turkey in november, 1999, p. 185 website may be visited: www.harunyahya.com 14. iqbél, muíammad, reconstruction of religious thought in islam, sang-i mêl publication lahore, pp. 1, 33. 15. nërsê, badiuzaman said, the mysteries of the qur’én, published by jbd press hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 31 caglayan a.s izmir turkey 2006, p. 3. 16. yësuf ‘alê, ‘abdullah, the holy qur’én: text and translation, al-ó‘réf (vii:176), published by islamic book trust kuala lumpur malaysia, 2007. ‘he has created man’ 17. yësuf ‘alê, ‘abdullah, the holy qur’én: text and translation, al-baqré (vol. ii:219) 18. ibid,.al-rëm (vol. xxx:8) 19. ibid,. al-fuîîilat (vol. xli:53) 20. yësuf ‘alê, ‘abdullah, the holy qur’én: text and translation, al-ùéha (vol. xx:114), ً .a beautiful supplication bestowed by lord… َرِبّ ِزْدنِ�����ي ِعْلم�����ا 21. maímood, sulïén bashêr, kitéb-i zindagê: qur’én-×akêm kê sé’nsê tafsêr, sigma press urdu bazar rawalpindi, 2004, p. 15 22. robinson, neal, islam: a concise introduction. riclunond, surrey, curzon press 1999, pp. 73-74. 23. doê, abdul raímén, the science of qur’én: a study in methodology and approach, new dehli, publishers pvt, 1998, p. 347. 24. ùanïévê, jawhrê, ‘al-jawéhir fê tafsêr al-qur’én al-karêm’, vol. xxiv, muîïafa al-bébê al-×alabê and sons publishers egypt 1351, a.h, pp. 13,17, 22. 25. nadvê, dr razê ul islam and dr abdul tawwéb ×émid, qur’én-i karêm ké sa’ensê ijéz: ghor o fikar kay chand pahlë (sceintific i‘jéz of qur’én: some aspects of thought), vol. xxix, published in journal taíqêqét-i islamê aligarh, october-december 2010, p. 84. 26. aímad, syed masëd, islam and scinece, vol. xxix, taíqêqét-i islamê alêgarh publications, 2000, pp. 51-52. 27. syed bidin, sharifah norshah bani, the approach of interpretation implemented by hamka in tafsir al-azhar based on scientific exegesis, hrmars exploring intellectual capital, pp. 194-210. sharifah norshah bani bt syed bidin along with three other colleagues published a paper regarding tafsêr al-azhar a contemporary malay commentary with scientific approach to the qur’én compiled by ×éjê abdul malik karêm amrullah (hamka). www.hrmars.com/journals 28. yësuf ‘alê, ‘abdullah, the holy qur’én: text and translation…tr. sërah alraímén (lv:17) … (he is) lord of the two easts and lord of the two wests, 29. raímén, dr ‘aïé ur, the wondrous world of the science, published by eureka xpress karachi, p. 27. 30. yahyé khélid abë milha, scientific issues in the holy qur’én: the meaning and translation of verses relating to the creation of the universe, university of durham phd thesis, 2003, pp. 40-64. 31. al shéïibê, abë isíéq, al mawéfqét fê uîël al aíkém, vol. ii, al-maktbah altajériyyah cairo, pp. 79-81. 32. nadvê, dr razê ul islém and dr abdul tawwéb ×émid, qur’én-i karêm k sa’ensi i’jaz: ghor o fikar kay chand pahlë, p. 84 33. al-dhahbê, muíammad ×ussain, al-tafsêr wal mufassirën, vol. ii, maktbah wahbah cairo, 2000, pp. 359-362. 34. ibid, p. 84. 35. doê, abdul raímén, the science of qur’én: a study in methodology and approach, new dehli, publishers pvt, 1998, p. 347. 36. the higgs boson is an elementary particle in the standard model of particle physics, produced by the quantum excitation of the higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. 37. as a paper ‘god particle in the perspective of alqur’én surah yënan: 61 and modern science’, with the dimensions of perspective of science and perspective religio-scientific discourse 32 36. the higgs boson is an elementary particle in the standard model of particle physics, produced by the quantum excitation of the higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. 37. as a paper ‘god particle in the perspective of alqur’én surah yënan: 61 and modern science’, with the dimensions of perspective of science and perspective of al-qur’én has been written by sri jumini (department of physics program od sains al-qur’én university indonesia) and published in iop conf series, journal of physics, 2017, pp. 1-8. 38. the branch of physics concerned with quantum theory. ‘quantum physics allows for particles to be in two states [either particle or wave] at the same time. date retrieved on dated 9 december 2018 from web .https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/ definition/us/quantum_physics. 39. umityoksulogludevji, ai-ghazélê and quantum physics: a comparative analysis of the seventeenth discussion of tahéfat al-falésifah and quantum theory, thesis of master degree submitted to institute of islamic studies, mcgill university, montreal, canada august, 2003, p. 100 40. naîr, seyyed ×ossein, the study qur’én: a new translation and commentry on qur’én, (chapter written by muzaffar iqbal regarding scientific commentary on the qur’én, published in the study qur’én), new york: harperone, 2015, p.2945, 41. ibid,. p. 2943. 42. anîérê, zafar isíéq, scientific exegesis of the qur’én, journal of qur’énic studies, edinburg university press, vol. iii, no.1, 2001, pp. 102, 103. 43. the term epistemology is derived from the greek episteme “knowledge” and logos “reason”, it is the study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge and sometimes referred to as the theory of knowledge or by cald software “the part of philosophy that is about the study of how we know things” 44. saeed, abdullah, interpreting the qur’én: towards a contemporary approach, published by routledge 2006, p. 152. 45. we may visit tafsêr al-mëjéhid al-tébi‘ê (r.a) (d.722), elaboration of natural phenomenon stated in verse five of sërah al-raímén ( ٍْمُس َواْلقََمُربُِحْس������������بَان������������ (الشَّ comparing it with the technology of that time. as mujéhid al-tébê (ra) added that:” “یع��������نى بحس��������بان كحس��������بان ال��������رحى” … al-méwardê also extended the statement of mujéhid (r.a) commenting as” “ھم���ا ی���دوران مث���ل قط���ب ال���ر ح���ى”… (please visit tafsêr al-mujéhid, edited by abu muíammad al-sayëïê, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, beirut lebanon 2005, p. 278 )…by this explanation, we may imagine the movement and revolving of celestial bodies with respect to specific point and an external agent essential to force and movement of these heavenly bodies as comparatively understanding as hand mill requires external force. 46. al-qédrê, dr muíammad ùéhir, islam aor jadêd science, minhéj ul qur’én publications may 2001, p. 55. 47. ibid, pp. 70-71. 48. iqbél, dr muzaffar, science and islam, chapter 10, scientific exegesis, pp. 280281. 49. siddique, akhtar ×ussain, the impact of the qur’én on the development of the muslim geographic thought, published by iri islamabad occasional paper 2, p. 18 50. nërbékê, halëk, verses from the glorious qur’én and the facts of science, tr. metin beynam, karachi: indus publishing corporation, 1992. 51. al-najjér, dr. zaghloul, wonders of the ever glorious qur’én miraculous signs in the noble qur’én and their scientific implications, published by déral-tarjamah, p. 70 www.daraltarjama.com. 52. yësuf ‘alê, ‘abdullah, the holy qur’én: text and translation, trsërah al-øéffét (vol. xxxvii, p. 11). 53. ibid., sërah al-×ijr (vol. xv, p. 28). 54. ibid., sërah al-raímén (vol. lv, p. 14). hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 33 muslim geographic thought, published by iri islamabad occasional paper 2, p. 18 50. nërbékê, halëk, verses from the glorious qur’én and the facts of science, tr. metin beynam, karachi: indus publishing corporation, 1992. 51. al-najjér, dr. zaghloul, wonders of the ever glorious qur’én miraculous signs in the noble qur’én and their scientific implications, published by déral-tarjamah, p. 70 www.daraltarjama.com. 52. yësuf ‘alê, ‘abdullah, the holy qur’én: text and translation, tr. sërah al-øéffét (vol. xxxvii:11). 53. ibid., sërah al-×ijr (vol. xv:28). 54. ibid., sërah al-raímén (vol. lv:14). 55. al-najjér, dr. zaghloul, wonders of the ever glorious qur’én miraculous signs in the noble qur’én and their scientific implications, p. 73. 56. syarifuddin, m. anwar, jauhar azizy, thematic scientific interpretation of the qur’énin indonesia, journal of advances in social science, education and humanities research, assehr, atlantis press, vol. 137, pp. 47-48. 57. for more detail about the scientific elaboration of the phenomenon ‘rab almashriqayn’ and rab al-maghribayn’may be visited author’s already published paper referenced as: hamdard islamicus, vol. xl, no. 1, january-march 2017, pp. 7-29. 58. all relevant places in the qur’én from sërah al-insén: lxxvi:2 sërah almursalét: lxxi:20 and sërah as-sajdah: xxxii:7 and sërah al-raímén: lv:14 etc. may be visited for thematic exegetical approach. 59. ibn ‘óshër, muíammad al-ùéhir, al-taírêr wa al-tanvêr, dér al-tunisiyyah, vol. 18, pp. 23-24. 60. al-sha‘réwê, muíammad matwallê, tafsêr al-sha‘réwê, dér al-akhbér al-yawm, vol. 16, pp. 9979-9980. 61. desto stands for the defence science and technology organization. it was established in 1963 by the ministry of defence pakistan on the recommendation adopted from the national science commission. 62. hoodbhoy, pervez, islam and science: religious orthodoxy and the battle for rationality, zed books ltd., london and new jersey 1991, p. 144. 63. pcsir is abbreviation of pakistan council for scientific and industrial research. initially, it was established as pakistan department of research in 1951 and reformulated in 1953. 64. hoodbhoy, pervez, islam and science: religious orthodoxy and the battle for rationality, p. 143 65. aímad, dr ×anfê, al tafsêr al ‘ilmê lil ayét al kawniyyah fil al qur’én, dér almu‘éraf cairo 1960, p. 3. 66. abë ×ajr, dr aímad ‘umar, al tafsêr al ‘ilmê lil qur’én, dér al-quïbiyyah beirut 1991, p. 84. 67. al-qarìévê, dr yësuf, kayfa nata‘émil ma‘al al-qur’én al-‘azêm, dér al-sharëq cairo, 2000, p. 383. 68. after 1404 a.h and 1406 a.h in year 1423 a.h, the constitutional council of the muslim world league, issued a resolution to develop the commission under the name of ‘the world commission on scientific signs of the qur’én and religio-scientific discourse 34 sunnah’ in its 27th session. dr. abdullah al-muîlií„ was appointed as general secretary while commission also consists of general assembly, the administration board and the executive committee. 69. about 15 recommendations and opinions may be seen visiting uploaded data on web retrieved on dated 9 december 2018 from http://kep.org.sa/?p=1511&lang=en 70. yahyé khélid abë milha, scientific issues in the holy qur’én: the meaning and translation of verses relating to the creation of the universe, phd thesis from university of durham 2003, p. 60, one may visit www.aejaz.organd http:// en.themwl.org/content/international-commission-scientific-signs-quran-andsunnahlinks for more detail. 71. quraishê, mazhar maímood, introduction to muslim contribution to science and technology, published by islamic research institute islamabad 1998, p. 13 hamdard islamicus 7 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 abõ huraira’s cat in goethe’s paradise* gabor korvin 1121 budapest, koelto-u, 2-4, a/3, hungary. email: gaborbhai@gmail.com it is an old question of goethe forschung1 why did the poet include a cat, abë hurairah’s nameless kitten, among the four privileged animals allowed to enter paradise. around the end of the book of paradise of goethe’s west-eastern divan (west-östlicher divan, wöd for short), in the poem favoured animals (begünstigte tiere), after the ass of jesus (*), the wolf of muíammed (œ), and the dog of the seven sleepers (ashéb-i kahf), follows the cat, “here purrs abuherrirah’s cat/round him, with coaxings bland;/a holy creature sure is that/stroked by the prophet’s hand”2 (in the original:3 “abuherrira’s katze hier/knurrt um den herrn und schmeichelt:/ denn immer ist’s ein heilig tier/das der prophet gestreichelt”). these four simple lines suggest several problems: (1) why was the name of abë hurairah (r.a.)4 (companion and friend of muíammed [œ]) misspelled by goethe as “abuherrira”? (2) what were the sources for goethe in selecting these four animals to enter paradise? (3) why did goethe assume that the prophet (œ) stroked abë hurairah’s cat? the misspelling of abë hurairah’s name in goethe’s poem apparently has not been noted yet in the goethe literature. the kunyah (nom de –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *this essay first appeared in an abridged form, without endnotes and references, in the isaa review15(1)2016:25-28. thanks are due to the independent scholars association of australia inc. (canberra) for their kind permission to republish it in this expanded form. hamdard islamicus 8 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 guerre) of the prophet’s (œ) companion is properly spelled as abu hurairah, father of the kitten, where the arabic hurairah (kitten) is the diminutive5 of the word hirrah (cat). the misspelled name occurs among goethe’s handwritten notes to the wöd where we find6 “abuherriras katze olear saadi, p. 87”. here, “olear saadi” refers to the colligierten the misspelt name “abuherrira” in the 7th line of this page of the 1696, hamburg edition of the olearius translation reisebeschreibungen (collected travel writings) of adam olearius (1599-1671), a book that goethe borrowed from the weimar library when writing wöd , and which also contained as appendix saadi’s (sa‘dês’) gulistén,7 in the translation of olearius. the name occurs twice in olearius’ translation, once in tale 22 of book 3, where sa‘di tells about a wealthy man, “as well known for his avarice as hatim tai for his generosity”, who “for his life would not give a piece of bread to anyone, or feed the kitten of abuherrirah [sic] or throw a bone to the dog of the companions of the hamdard islamicus 9 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 cave” (ashéb-i kahf). the second occurrence comes a few lines later, where olearius explains8 that abuherrirah [sic] “heist ein katzenvater/ hat den namen bekommen/weil er eine katze sehr lieb gehabt und immer bey sich getragen/auch in offentlichen versamblungen. hat zur zeit mahumets und nach ihm gelebet/war dessen sehr guter freund/und täglich umb ihn ...”(i.e. his name means father of the kitten, because he had a favourite cat that he carried everywhere, even to public meetings. he lived in the time of, and after, maíumet (muíammed [œ]), and was his good friend, etc.). in the gulistén’s original persian text the name is naturally written without diacritical marks, that is somebody not familiar with the companion’s name and its meaning, or with the rules of arabic grammar, could have misread it as “abë herrira”, “abë haraira” instead of “abë huraira” – just as olearius did, who relied on the help of “eines alten persianers/nahmens hakwirdi” (an old persian, called hakwirdi) in translating the gulistan. orientalists and linguists (such as the british edward eastwick, 18141883, or the azerbaijan rustem m. aliev, born 1929, of course did not commit this error in their english or russian translations of sa‘di’s book. the hungarian zoltán halasi (b. 1954), also corrected the misspelled name in his translation.9 goethe must have had a sufficient knowledge of arabic10 to detect the error in the transcription of the name. he was always interested in oriental studies, between 1762-1765 he learned hebrew with a high-school principal in frankfurt, he read the latin translation of the qur’an11 in 1771-1772, and on the advice of johann gottfried herder (1744-1803) studied indian and persian poetry. he started to learn arabic at the age of sixty five, as witnessed by the practice-sheets of arabic script in his handwriting from between 18141819. according to a well-known story,12 on the 26th of september, 1815, in the last evening spent with his love, marianne von willemer (17841860, actress and dancer, the model for “sulaika” in wöd), goethe wrote the name “sulaika” in the sand with arabic characters. as max rychner notes in his edition of wöd13 “goethe soon made such a progress that he could read texts in arabic …. with the help of a dictionary”. in 1815-1817 goethe borrowed arabic grammars and dictionaries from libraries in weimar and jena.14 he even translated (with the help of the latin translation) a poem from the anthology of arabic war-poetry hamasa.15 his indebtedness to arabists is expressed by a four-liner, hamdard islamicus 10 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 at the end of the 1820 first complete edition of the wöd, where he dedicates the work “to our master” (“unserem master”) silvestre de sacy16 (1758-1838, the doyen of european orientalists). it is even more curious, how and why did goethe select the four animals (the ass, the wolf, the dog, and the cat), because we do not know of any single literary source, known or un-known to goethe, where these four creatures are mentioned together as candidates for paradise. in islam, there is no authentic narration (íadêth) about this,17 as the question belongs to the “matters of unseen”, that can only be learned by revelation. a popular fatwé18 of the late sheikh atiyyah saqr (19142006) of the azhar university refers the questioner back to qur’én commentators, according to whom ten animals will enter paradise: (1) the buréq (horse with wings) carrying the prophet (œ) on the night of alasré’ (ascension), (2) the she-camel of øélií (*); (3) the donkey of ‘uzayr (*); (4) the calf slaughtered by ibréhêm (*) for the angels, (5) the ram of ismail (*); (6) the hoopoe sent by sulaymén (*) to bilquis (the queen of sheba); (7) the ant mentioned in qur’én xxvii:18; (8) the dog of the people of the cave; (9) the fish that swallowed yunus (jonah [*]); and (10) the cow of the children of israel revealing the killer.19 goethe’s sources, in this respect, have been well researched,20 and none of them contains the cat. the first time when goethe possibly encountered this “animals in paradise” motif was in 1771, when he studied the latin qur’én translation21 (and the appended “refutations of the qur’én”) by ludovico maracci (1612-1700, italian orientalist, professor of arabic at the sapienza university, rome). on p. 79 of the ad refutate alcorani maracci listed four animals which (“according to some egyptian dervishes”) will go to paradise: “equum s. georgii, seu chiderellae, asinum jesu christi, camelum mahumeti; et canem septem dormentium” (the horse of st. george, the donkey of jesus [*], the camel of muíammed (œ), and the dog of the seven sleepers of the cave). in one of the favorite book22 of his youth, dapper’s travels, goethe found a slightly different version of the “10 animals”: (1) the camel of saleh (*); (2) calf of abraham (*); (3) ram of isméel (*); (4) the cow of moses (*); (5) the whale of jonah (*); (6) the donkey of prophet jeremiah (*); (7) the ant of solomon (*); (8) the hoopoe of the queen of saba; (9) the camel of prophet muíammad (œ); (10) the dog of the seven sleepers of ephezus.23 during the writing of hamdard islamicus 11 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 wöd hegot further information about the “selected animals” from his friend joseph von hammer-purgstall (austrian orientalist, 1774-1856) whose encyclopaedic work24 lists the “sieben berühmtesten tieren” (seven most famous animals) as: (1) hoopoe of salamon (*); (2) the dog of the seven sleepers; (3) the camel of øaleh (*); (4) the cow of moses (*); (5) the fish of jonah (*); (6) the snake of eve (*); (7) the peacock of paradise. when goethe looked up the seven sleepers in another reference book, he found at the end of a long english-language entry25 a further confusing information “and it is asserted, that the ass of the prophet jesus (*), the wolf of joseph (*), and the dog of the companions of the cave will all be admitted into paradise on the day of resurrection”. out of all these goethe selected only three, and – with his famous “lust zu fabulieren”26 – added a fourth, “abuherrira’s cat”, which had not been mentioned by any of the sources. it is the consensus of goethe experts27 that the inclusion of the cat was “goethe’s invention”. hans albert maier even claims (and katharina mommsen angrily refutes), that the number four of the selected animals was a “wicked joke” from goethe (in maier’s words “eine humoristisch ungalante bosheit”) because he placed exactly four animals in paradise to match the number of women being there (see his earlier poem, auserwählte frauen of the wöd). what could have been goethe’s sources to assume, as the single merit of the cat for going to paradise, that she was a “holy creature because the prophet’s hand stroked her” (“…/denn immer ist’s ein heilig tier/das der prophet gestreichelt”)? the cat is certainly a revered animal in islam (and many other religions), and according to the legend, the “streaks on the fur of the egyptian cat are the marks left where the prophet’s hand stroked it”.28 the story is repeated in all popular “cat books”,29 it is often mentioned in novels,30 for example “he told her that once he sailed to an eastern port where the people believed that the markings of a tabby cat were traces left by the fingertips of the prophet muíammed (œ)”, and is also associated with other religious figures. the persian expression gorba-ye mortazé-‘alê (‘alê’s cat) refers to people who, when in trouble, always fall on their feet – the legend supporting this tells that the cat obtained her righting reflex (of always falling on her feet) because “the first imém, ‘alê, blessed its back by caressing it.”31 christian legends place a cat in the nativity scene, see hamdard islamicus 12 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 leonardo’s study32 dated c. 1478 for the madonna della gatto (madonna and child with cat, british museum, london): in the picture a tabby cat watched over the baby jesus, and the letter m on its forehead still carries the mark of the grateful mary’s touch. these popular stories have never gained acceptance into the corpus of authentic íadêth, where cat is only mentioned a few times,33 like “a woman was punished because she had kept a cat tied until it died, and she was thrown into the hell.”34 the only authentic evidence that cats had free entry to the house of prophet’s (œ) and were not considered unclean, is narrated by ‘ó’ishah (g), his wife: “the messenger of allah (œ) said: it [the cat] is not unclean: it is one of those who go round among you”. she added: “i saw the messenger of allah (œ) performing ablution from the water left over by the cat”.35 one possible source where goethe could have learned about kindness of the prophet (œ) for cats is the olearius translation of sa’di’s other book, bustan, (persianische baumgarten), also appended to his collected travels, where we find “man streichelt wol eine katze uber den rücken/aber keinen hund nicht …” (one strokes the cat’s back/but not the dog’s) followed by the explanation “the dog is not clean/but the cat is clean/and she was loved by the prophet (œ)/ and it is also believed/that the cat will go to paradise” (der hund ist unrein/die katze hingegen sauber/und von ihren propheten sehr geliebet/sie glauben auch/daß die katz mit im paradies kommen werde).36 there is no clear evidence, such as the misspelled name abuherrira in the gulistan translation by olearius, proving that goethe had indeed read this text, and that it motivated him to include the cat among the selected four. but even if he did read it, the text does not mention that the prophet (œ) actually touched the cat himself, let alone that it was abë hurairah’s cat, so goethe must have had a further source. in my opinion, the answer to this puzzle will be provided by scrutinizing all grammars and chrestomathies used by goethe for his arabic studies, and we shall certainly find a little story (in simplified arabic, possibly taken from the big kitéb al-×ayawén of jéhiz or al-damêrê or similar collections) about abë hurairah’s kitten who did a service to the prophet (œ), and the grateful prophet (œ) cuddled her. hamdard islamicus 13 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 notes and references 01, i utilized the following works: hans albert mayer, goethe west-östlicher divan. kritische ausgabe der gedichte mit textgeschichtlichem kommentar. max niemayer verlag, tübingen, 1965, vol. 1: text, vol. 2: kommentar; katharina mommsen, “goethe und diez. quellenuntersuchungen zu gedichten der divan-epochs”. sitzber. da wiss., berlin k1 für sprachen, lit. u. kunst, 1961, jg. 4, 351 pp.; katharina mommsen, “der wolf und die frauen in “divan”-paradies”. goethe jahrbuch, band 150, 1988a. verlag hermann böhlaus nachfolger, weimar: pp. 294305; katharina mommsen, “goethe and the arab world”. bull. fac. of arts, alexandria university, p. 19, 1965; katharina mommsen, goethe und die arabische welt. insel, frankfurt/main, 1988b; kurt b. jankowski, “the establishment of oriental language studies in france, britain, and germany”. in: sylvain auroux et al. (eds.) history of the language sciences, mouton de gruyter, berlin, new york, 2006, vol. 2, pp. 1182-1196; anke bosse, meine schatzkammer fullt sich taglich … die nachlaßstucke zu goethes west-östlichem divan, dokumentation – kommentar. wallstein verlag, göttingen, 1999, 2 bde., 1252 pp. 02. english translation from johann wolfgang von goethe, west-eastern divan, in: twelve books, translated by edward dowden, j.m. dent & sons, ltd., london & toronto, 1914, pp. 187-188. 03. german text from hans albert mayer, goethe west-östlicher divan, kritische ausgabe der gedichte mit textgeschichtlichem kommentar, max niemayer verlag, tübingen, 1965, vol. 1: text, p. 234. 04. abk hurairah, “companion of the prophet mohammad (œ) and a zealous propagator of his words and deeds” – see i. goldziher’s entry in e.j. brill’s 1st encyclopaedia of islam, 1913-1036, vol. 1, pp. 93-94. he got his kunyah (= nom de guerre) “abu hurairah” that is “father of the kitten” or (colloquially) “somebody with the kitten” because of his legendary love of cats. 05. on the rules of forming the diminutive in arabic, see william wright, a grammar of the arabic language. 3rd reprint edn., vol. i, librairie du liban, beirut, 1981, pp. 166-175. 06. see bosse, 1999, vol. 1, p. 449; mommsen, 1988b, p. 360. 07. der persianische rosenthal: in welchem viel lustige und angenehme historien/ scharffsinnige reden/ nützliche lehrund grund-regeln/ sententzen und sprüche enthalten, transl. by adam olearius, hamburg, zacharias herteln, p. 1696. 08. see the facsimile of the text, athttp://digital.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/id/2005194 or bosse, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 451-452. 09. http://mek.oszk.hu/04200/04277/04277.htm#251 10. about goethe’s oriental studies see mommsen 1961, 1965, 1988b; katharina mommsen, goethe and the poets of arabia, camden house, rochester, ny, 2014; jankowski, 2006. 11. alcorani textus ex correctioribus arabum exemplaribus descriptus in latinum translates; appositis unicuique capiti notes; atque refutations: his imnibus praemissus est prodromus auctore ludovico maraccio, patavii, 1698. hamdard islamicus 14 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 12. sigfried unseld, goethe and the ginkgo, a tree and a poem, u. of chicago press, chicago, 2003, p. 41. 13. johann wolfgang von goethe, west-östlicher divan, ed. by max rychner, zürich, manesse, 1952, p. 572. 14. mommsen, 2014, goethe studied in this period johann david michelis arabische grammatik, göttingen, bossiegel, 1781; silvestre de sacy, grammaire arabe; jacobus golius, lexicon arabico-latinum, elsevier, leiden; franciszek meninski, ed., lexicon arabico-persico-turcicam, 4vols., vienna, kurzböck, pp. 17801802. 15. mommsen, 1965. 16. see e.g. jankowski, 2001. 17. housni alkhateeb shehada,mamluks and animals, veterinary medicine in medieval islam brill, leiden-boston, 2013, p. 77. 18. http://qa.islam.com/s/18367/which-are-the-10-animals-that-will-enter-intoparadise#gsc.tab=0 19. al-qur’én, ii:68. 20. mommsen, 1988a; hans albert mayer, goethe west-östlicher divan. kritische ausgabe der gedichte mit textgeschichtlichem kommentar, max niemayer verlag, tübingen, 1965, vol. 2, kommentar. 21. see notes and references 11. 22. the travel books of the dutch physician olfert dapper, frequently mentioned in goethe’s autobiography, the dichtung und wahrheit, as “dappers reisen” (see mommsen, 1988a, p. 295). 23. mommsen, 1988a, pp. 296-297. 24. j.v. hammer, enzyklopädische übersichte der wißenschaften des orients, aus sieben arabischen, persischen und türkischen werken übersetzt, leipzig, 1804, bd. 1, p. 324. 25. j.c. rich, “the story of the seven sleepers”, fundgruben des orients, bd. iii., wien, 1813, p. 147; see also mommsen 1988a, p. 299. 26. “loving to tell stories”, cf. goethe’s well-known epigram “vom vater hab ich die statur/des lebens ernstes fuhren,/vom mutterchen die frohnatur/und lust zu fabulieren/ ... (from father i get my physique,/also my earnest nature;/my story telling bent, glad heart/i have from my dear mother/ ... martin greenberg’s transl.). 27. mommsen, 1988a, p. 303; hans albert mayer, goethe west-östlicher divan, kritische ausgabe der gedichte mit textgeschichtlichem kommentar, max niemayer verlag, tübingen, 1965, vol. 2, kommentar, p. 425. 28. j. malek, the cat in ancient egypt, u. of pennsylvania press, philadelphia, 1993, p. 137. 29. annamarie schimmel, die orientalische katze, köln, diederichs, 1984; michael capuzzo & teresa banik capuzzo, cat caught my heart, bantam books, 1998; georgie anne geyer, when cats reigned like kings: on the trail of the sacred cats, ubc press, vancouver, 2004; sam stall, 100 cats who changed civilization: history’s most influential felines, quirk books, philadelphia, 2007. 30. ahdaf soueif, in the eye of the sun, bloomsbury, london, 1994, p. 274. hamdard islamicus 15 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 31. mahmud omidsalar, cat i, in: mithology and folklore, enc. iranica, 1992. vol. 5, fasc. 1, pp. 74-77. 32. british museum, london, reproduced e.g. at https://www.wga.hu/html_m/l/ leonardo/07study1/2benoi1.html 33. in øaíêí bukhérê the cat appears in 4 aíédêth, in øaíêí muslim in 15 aíédêth, in the sunan abu-dawud 5 times, in malik’s muwatta once. 34. øaíêí muslim, xxvi:4859; xxvi:5573; xxxii:6345; xxxii:6346; xxxii:6348. 35. sunan abë-déwud, i:0076, see also: muwaïïé, 2:2.3.13. 36. mommsen, 1988b, p. 360, fotnote 1. hamdard islamicus 16 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 addendum ab hurairah al-dawsê al-yamanê (d), companion of muíammed (œ). his name ‘abd shams (son of sun) as it denoted a pagan style was changed to ‘abd allah or ‘abd al-raímén when he became a muslim, but numerous other names have also been mentioned. he was called abë hurairah because, when he herded his people’s goats, he kept a (a female) kitten to play with. when he came to madinah the prophet (œ) was on the expedition to khaybar (7/629). accepting islam, he associated closely with the prophet (œ) on whose charity he depended, and was one of the poor men who were called ahl al-suffah.* he was devoted to his mother whom he persuaded to become a muslim. later ‘umar (d), the second caliph appointed him governor of bahrayn, but deposed him and confiscated a large sum of money in his possession. when ‘umar (d) later invited him to resume the post, he refused. marwan is said to have appointed abë hurairah his deputy when he was absent from madinah, but another version says amir mu’awiya (d) the ummayid caliph gave him this appointment. abë hurairah had a reputation both for his piety and his fondness for jesting. he is said to have died in 57, 58, or 59; but if it is true that he prayed at ‘ó’isha’s (d) funeral in 58, the date must be 58/678, or 59. he was 78 years old. although abë hurairah became a muslim less than four years before the death of the prophet (œ), he is noted as a prolific narrator of traditions from the prophet (œ), the number of which is estimated at 3500. aímad b. ×anbal’s musnad contains 213 pages of his traditions (ii, 228-541). 800 or more men are credited with transmitting traditions from him. there is a story, given in slightly different forms, in which he explains why he transmitted more ttraditions than others. he says that while others were occupied with their business, he stayed ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *the companions (d) of the holy prophet (œ) who had no place of their own to live, lived on a covered platform in the masjid-i nabavi. they were fed by the prophet (œ) and other companions (d) – ed. hamdard islamicus 17 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 with muíammed (œ) and so heard more than they. when he complained that he forgot what he heard, muíammed (œ) told him to spread out his cloak while he was speaking and draw it round himself when he had finished. abë hurairah did so, and thereafter forgot nothing he heard the prophet (œ) say. he had to defend himself against suspicions regarding his traditions; but whether this is genuine, or has merely been invented for the purpose of overcoming the suspicions of people at a later period, it is impossible to prove. (the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, vol. i [a-b], leiden e.j. brill, 1986, p. 129) announcement due to a number of reasons, the hamdard islamicus, issues nos. 1 & 2 of 2019 would be published as a combined issue (comprising pages of both the issues). regrets for inconvenience. (editor) hamdard islamicus 7 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 a critique of mo×ammed arkoun’s views on the qur’ón, sunnah and religious thought prof. dr. thameem ushama dean, international institute of islamic civilization and malay world iium, malaysia. e-mail: thameem ushama [ushama_thameem@yahoo.co.uk] this study critically analyses the writings of late mohammed arkoun, an arab–muslim whose post-modernist influence on contemporary muslims sparked considerable controversy. a content analysis explores his historicist approach to the qur’én, which employed a method ostensibly used to remove the concept of divinity from the text. he assumed that the holy book suffered from omissions, fabrications, distortions and interpolations between oral transmission and written documentation. this misperception is critiqued in detail in addition to his views on the sunnah’s legal status and his desire to simultaneously integrate secularism with religion and politics in muslim societies. the study concludes with an appraisal of his thought and cautionary advice. keywords: mohammed arkoun, qur’én, religious thought. introduction contemporary analyses of arkoun’s religious writings allow us to categorise him as a liberal post-modernist arab-muslim with a remarkable degree of influence. however, his portfolio is explicitly historicist and contrary to classical islamic scholarship. having lived his career in france, his reconstruction of contemporary islamic thought created an alchemical crucible filled with the west’s worldview and secular philosophy. his hamdard islamicus 8 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 works transparently attempt to bridge the gap between contemporary islam and the west via a secularized critical analysis that attempts to interpret the religious canon of the qur’én. he calls on contemporary muslim scholars to rethink, reconstruct, recast, renew and reinterpret islamic principles and concepts by utilizing scientific historical and sundry rational approaches epistemologically. his interpretations met with sound condemnation from scholars of ahl al-sunnah wa al-jamé‘ah. he is not only deemed a liberal but also hazardous to orthodox islamic doctrines, jurisprudence, ethics and social welfare, especially when one considers that the orthodox islamic worldview is inseparable from both political and social dimensions. although he has received wide recognition, acclaim and praise from muslim postmodernists, liberals and secularists, he has been rejected by the masses and authentic muslim scholars. arkoun’s views on religion are pointedly controversial among muslims. his intellection transgressed boundaries set by the fundamentals of authentic islamic thought and the majority of his conceptual and ideological interpretations are inconsistent with the main stream orthodox consensus. he not only disregards classical methodology but also rejects well-established theories, propositions and opinions of an extremely conscientious and systematic muslim ‘ulemé’ (salaf al-øéliíên). he planted dissension and doubt as to the qur’én’s authenticity by questioning its preservation and codification. he frankly denies the possibility of life hereafter and his propositions negatively impact muslims and others with regard to the divine origins of the revealed text. because he generated multifaceted dissensions and distractions that caused unprecedented scepticism in the minds of common muslims, it is appropriate to address his methods and intellectual integrity. since ‘doubting everything’ is a fundamental principle of post-modernist theory, assertions standing on this foundation often have crushing effects. his work impacted not only uneducated but also educated muslims, particularly those affected by the globalized liberalism, post-modernism and secularism. thus, a peculiar de-islamizing current attends his pen that propels muslims towards doubt. prior to engaging his discourse and “contributions”, we present a brief biography, referencing to his education and intellectual background. we also analyze arkoun’s religious thought by applying qualitative content analysis. as most of his works are in french, our scope is limited to hamdard islamicus 9 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 translations in arabic and english. we focus on methods used to present islam’s message to the arab-muslim world; ostensibly to eliminate religious stagnation and introduce historicism to counter islam’s classical approach to interpreting its religious message. a brief biography (1928-2010) born on 01 february 1928 in the town of taourirt-mimoun, grande kabylie, algeria, he received his primary and secondary education there1 and completed his first degree with the faculty of theology at the university of algiers, and a phd in arabic language and literature at the sorbonne in 1956. his mother tongue was berber; french his second and arabic his third language. he grew up in french schools, became a student of islam and made his way to the top of the french university system2 to become a lecturer of the arabic language. he studied under jacques berque,3 robert brunschvig,4 louis massignon5 and paul ricoeur.6 his teaching duty in strasbourg was instrumental to his contacting claude cahen7 who introduced him to historians of the annales school8 that had emerged there a quarter of a century earlier. in 1968, arkoun obtained a doctorate in philosophy at the sorbonne, an institution known for its secular humanist approaches to knowledge, education, science and religion. the university produces scholars infused with secular attitudes who promote non-spiritualized living regardless of one’s religious or cultural affiliation, and have produced numerous muslim modernists with an atheist orientation. not a few graduates have become champions of humanism and played pivotal roles in various academic circles by challenging the religious worldview, particularly that of islam. arkoun served as visiting professor at numerous universities in lyon, the new sorbonne in paris, the pontifical institute of arab studies, the university of california (los angeles), princeton and temple universities, and universities of louvain-la-neuve, wallonia, belgium, and amsterdam, etc. in 1980 he was the scientific director of arabica; a magazine published by brill, and has extensively lectured in a number of muslim countries. he successfully established an academic reputation with monumental studies on ibn miskawayh, a prominent persian philosopher and historian.9 in 2002, arkoun was appointed to the international jury of the unesco prize for the promotion of peace, and also became a member of the hamdard islamicus 10 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 arbitration committee for the arabic/french prize established by arab ambassadors in france. he has authored numerous books in french, english, dutch, indonesian and arabic, including rethinking islam (colorado, 1994), a modern critic of islamic reason (paris, 1998), and the un-thought in contemporary islamic thought (london, 2002). after retiring in 1995, he moved to casablanca, home of his moroccan wife. towards later years his distinctive voice influenced interfaith dialogues where he promoted the equality of all faiths and motivated people to accept this as truth. a climax came in 2001 when he delivered the gifford lectures at the university of edinburgh. however, recognition was lacking in algeria where he could not be buried for fear of an islamist backlash. he died on 14 september 2010 and was buried in casablanca.10 primarily trained by western institutions and academies, his education lacked significant islamic influence from muslim scholars, teachers, institutions or organizations. his focus being arabic language and literature, all of his writings were literary rather than religious in nature. characteristics of arkoun’s thought arkoun, an algerian-born french thinker, was influenced by modernism, contemporary science philosophical ideals of the enlightenment, and socio-political ideals attending the french revolution. with no solid islamic background, he endeavoured to establish his own method of interpreting islamic texts, stating, “… of course we do not want to turn the whole thing upside down, but we want to rethink and evaluate everything through another new lens.”11 he nevertheless tirelessly strove to establish a ‘western methodology of thought’ within the muslim intellectual world by using an uncompromising approach that was completely incompatible with islamic fundamental values, principles, and essential concepts. the attempt applied contemporary human/social sciences to islamic religious studies using history, anthropology, philology, linguistics, sociology, social psychology, archaeology, linguistic deconstruction, semiotics and hermeneutics – all to establish an exclusively personal view of religion and islam. his scholarship remained chiefly text-based with an insistence on placing the text within its historical context; thus treating it as a hamdard islamicus 11 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 manifestation of a particular historical consciousness. traditional islamic intellectual circles disregard his views, however, mostly because of their secular approach to soundly established religious knowledge. nonetheless, while as editor of arabica; he played an instrumental role in shaping western scholarship on islam. view of religion arkoun’s discourse reveals a distinct support for religious pluralism and it is clear that he accepted the crucial role of religion in society but with limitations. he agreed religions offered answers to many questions regarding natural phenomena. but when it came to the role of religion in day to day living, he claimed it was insignificant and chiefly limited to rites and rituals: in this sense, all what we call religion is only a formulation of ritual patterns and worship that helps integrate basic facts within our worldview. for example, muslims perform physical movements when performing prayers; christians do other physical movements, and buddhists still different physical actions.12 arkoun’s postmodernist position espoused that religious texts and laws should be interpreted on premises of historical and psychological backgrounds. thus, islamic revealed law is not applicable to all societies, especially the contemporary world. accordingly, each generation has respective cultural, mental and intellectual backgrounds; hence, a specific religion cannot possibly offer suitable solutions for subsequent or different sets of comperes. for him, the intellectual arena took shape in accord with diverse changes across the world. in this regard, he argued: if we try to establish a comparison between religious and intellectual as well as mental arenas, we will notice that the latter takes very different forms or combinations according to the diversity of human cultures and for different historical moments of the same culture.13 as example, he posits that a european muslim must have precise hamdard islamicus 12 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 ideas about the mental make-up of his own culture in particular, and then practice islamic and western life styles, concurrently. through this peculiar proposition, he dismantles islam’s base and lays a foundation for innovation. the suggestion is that religion is limited to certain duties and that each generation must develop proper approaches to solve their own problems, for which he assumes, there is no error in resorting to contemporary ideology. this immediately implies a negation of tradition and ancestral understanding, specifically for religion. hence, he posits that contemporary generations should liberate themselves from the clutches of religion and the past, and stand their own grounds on reason and conscience. arkoun therefore inspires demoralization of disenchantment from respective natural histories for all in general and muslims in particular, which then desacralizes politics, deconsecrates values and frees mankind from metaphysical restraints over reason and conscience. arkoun’s position is, therefore, absolutely secular. he claims religious texts are more properly understood within the context of their historical backgrounds and that one period holds no more importance or relevance or supremacy than another. this opinion raises questions of scriptural validity and its relevance to contemporary circumstances, and ultimately threatens to separate religion from orthodox origins (legitimacy). arkoun desired to separate muslims from their regard for the qur’én as a universally holistic guidance for all times and ages; and thus remove it from present consideration in a contemporary context, consequently confining it to seventh century c.e. many theories from german and french orientalists similarly called on muslims to revisit the qur’én’s relevance and compatibility in light of changing circumstances and current thinking. methodologies used to evaluate sacred books historical method arkoun’s intellectual goals required several methods.14 his use of the historical method can be traced to lucien paul victor febvre’s15 lecture on rablais (the religion of rablais) at the university of algeria early in the twentieth century. arkoun then read the journal al-hawliyat to learn how the school of al-hawliyat attacked factual history via hamdard islamicus 13 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 elements of actual fact. he then adopted what has been attributed to vygotsky as cultural-historical psychology, which considers historical moments as inseparable from mind, brain and culture. thus, he purchased a license to reanimate factual elements as chimera or myth. linguistic and semantic criticism inspired by algirdas julien greimas’ semantique structurale (structural semantics),16 arkoun started the paris semantic academy/ institute. he then advocated a new approach to reading the qur’én by utilizing semantic and critical methods of analysis. while emphasizing that the science of semantics obtained critical retrieval, he aimed to close gaps between himself and al-almana wa al-din and primary and secondary islamic sources that had emerged from traditional legacies. deconstruction jacques derrida17 borrowed the term ‘deconstruction’ from hedger. the method studies a legacy within its unified province then pulls its conceptions asunder based on a primeval foundation that deems inherent meanings impossible. this counter intuitive premise permitted the structuring of a doctrine of historicity that profoundly influenced arkoun’s criticism of islamic thought. the ideation inspired his criticisms to lean thereafter towards dissociation; thus clearing a path into history that facilitated a completely different approach to qur’énic exegeses. view of the qur’én arkoun treated the qur’én as a legacy that required critical evaluation by means of a linguistically-based deconstructive analysis (al-manhaj al-tafkiki). thus, he treated the text as a comparative historical narration, and navigated as if it were the prophet’s (œ) own speech, confessing, “my job is to address the qur’én with the standards of comparative historical criticism.”18 hashim salih commented that the fact that the qur’én addresses itself is merely an oversight on the part of arkoun.19 hamdard islamicus 14 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 temporal methodology arkoun therefore believed the qur’én was humanly structured and consequently denied its divinity, which comfortably facilitated his attempt to provide a linguistic resemblance between the qur’én and other manmade texts. he wrote, “i have employed the term ‘temporal methodology’ so that i may evidently invite the importance of reviving the philosophical position in arabic scholarship in particular, and in the world of islamic scholarship in general.”20 arkoun also believed that the qur’én had passed through several stages before reaching muslims.21 as such, it had to have experienced several transformations before reaching its final state of documentation. the first stage was utterance by the prophet (œ), a method he claims remains unknown: “it is in no way possible for us to know the primitive method and manner of how the prophet (œ) had been addressed or how he delivered the same to his companions. it ended with the death of his companions and was lost forever.”22 the second stage was transfer of the oral record to written documentation. he believes this transmission suffered negligence and textural omission. he argued that the transfer could not have been completed without omitting several passages in addition to ever-so-human picking and choosing as well as linguistic changes that generally occur under such circumstances. he therefore concluded that some of the oral record had been left out or lost,23 arguing the process was inherently faulty and that portions and/or meanings were inevitably misled or misconstrued and that some matters were likely added.24 according to arkoun, the text itself makes these distortions, fabrications and changes self-evident. he therefore believed that the qur’én was inauthentic, humanly fabricated, and therefore subject to critical evaluation from a rationalist perspective. this is, of course, perfectly in line with the ‘doubt everything’ post-modernist thesis that posits absolute truth and reality do not exist. his position caused much uncertainty and scepticism among many muslims who lost faith in the divinity of the qur’én. the muslim ummah must not fall prey to such careless seduction. the qur’én is myth in-fluenced by suggestions from his several mentors’s, arkoun also hamdard islamicus 15 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 attempted to determine a negative correlation between the torah and qur’én. he argued it is obvious that the qur’én, torah and gospels demonstrate deep-rooted similarities regarding human existence and history. however, unlike general historical covenants referring to previous nations, all three texts refer to existing believers on behalf of an earlier muslim ummah. given this scenario, the qur’én was a merely a form of simulated ‘living speech’ that continued to claim this exceptional status in perpetuity but for the good.25 however, arkoun regarded the qur’én as mythical and subject to higher criticism, after which it could be accepted or rejected.26 this very sensitive deduction pushed muslims into a controversial debate that conformed to the postmodernist derealization that ‘only images of images’ exist as simulations. based on this absurd philosophy, arkoun inferred the entire qur’énic narration is not factual but mythical. the qur’én’s legal status arkoun explored the linguistic contention that the term ‘qur’én’ was semitic, i.e., of hebraic origin,27 which then denies it as the source of islamic law. according to him, the qur’én comprises literary figurative and/or mythical narrations with connection with the factuality of real life: “certainly the qur’én is, like other previous scriptures, an amalgam of superb myths about civilization and the human condition; being such, it absolutely should not be taken as law for society.”28 arkoun also regarded the qur’én as self-contradicting in places, and thus unworthy as a source of binding law. in his min al-ijtihéd ila naqd al-‘aql al-islémi, when interpreting chapter 45:29, he says:29 … the third meaning of the term naskh is to ‘replace a text by another text’, or to repeal a previous text by a subsequent text. this is a product of islamic jurist structuralist thought when they dealt with paradoxical passages. they were bound to accept these texts in compliance with the perceived reality of islamic fiqh’s epistemology; therefore, they attempted to reconcile contradictions left over by a colossal legacy of earlier islamic scholars on law, theology, history, sociology, etc.30 hamdard islamicus 16 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 doubting the qur’én’s collection from the time of the prophet (œ) through the years of abë bakr (d) and ‘uthmén (d), arkoun described the qur’én’s collection per tradition then immediately denied the validity of these narrations. deeply emerged in orientalist critics, he shadowed references like the the history of the qur’én by theodor noldeke,31 as well as books by friedrich schwally, gotthelf bergstrasser, otto pretzl, and regis blachere’s le coran.32 a perfect mime, arkoun applied their historical criticism and hermeneutics to islam’s sacred scripture. he simply collated then transmitted their collective content and perspective without any reference to the well-ordered and faithfully maintained records of classical islamic scholars. arkoun did not use the words ‘qur’én’ or ‘dên’ and held that the very word ‘qur’én’ is copiously burdened with preconceived theological associations with islamic rites and rituals. instead, he used ‘qur’énic’ or ‘religious phenomena’. moreover, he claimed that the collection of the qur’én occurred during a politically turbulent period of struggle for power and legitimacy; therefore, he questioned the textual order of its arrangement in chapters and verses. according to arkoun, the qur’én’s transition from oral to written documentation remains unaccounted for. furthermore, he said “revelations” conveyed by the prophet (œ) occurred over a period of twenty years; therefore, there is no definitive way to know the initial state of its spoken transmission because this specific knowledge ended with the death of those who actually heard him speak. moreover, this transition from oral to written text (muîíaf) could not possibly have taken place without linguistic manipulation.33 he says even respective maséíêf records held by the companions differed in textual order. these criticisms, in addition to various religious issues, raised serious doubts among muslims regarding the collection of the text. however, none of these positions originated with arkoun. all were borrowed directly from other orientalists and western writers whose innovations he faithfully parroted, propounded and propagated, causing much confusion and dissension. orientalists never attempt to examine or comprehend the qur’én’s veracity. when they teach qur’én in western institutions of higher learning, they particularly and deliberately sow seeds of scepticism hamdard islamicus 17 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and confusion among muslims from the arab-islamic world. history lists several indoctrinated students who returned to their countries to unhesitatingly serve western interests in loyal uniformity with the western agenda to secularize the muslim world. an example is taha hussain, the egyptian who studied in france then returned to advocate secular education after becoming minister of education. he is noted for beginning the eradication of traditional islamic education in egypt and the imposition of modernism. as for interpreting the qur’én, arkoun argued that the most famous commentaries on the qur’én had been universally “imposed” as foundational texts and thus, orthodox dogma. he also remarked that there were as many explanations of qur’énic verses as there were commentators; thus claiming no limit to its interpretation. by contrast, he dubiously claimed the christian church had imposed firm control over textural interpretations whereas in islam there appeared to be no boundary.34 moreover, he said the qur’én, like the gospels, contains much metaphorical content that addressed the human condition but cannot be bound by rigid restrictions. the greater illusion, therefore, is to believe the latter can be effectively converted into concrete legalism and/or principles that can be applied to all cases, eras and circumstances. supernatural data and mythical tales, as related in the qur’én, were therefore better viewed as literary expressions. the implication being that a modified lexicon reflecting the aspirations and visions of real emotions could only be analyzed in terms of historical, sociological and linguistic philology and attendant psychology. regarding the qur’én’s historicity, arkoun followed an approach that placed the qur’én on the same footing as other world scriptures. for him, historicity and context equally applied to all human legacies without exception as to interpretation, regardless of type or level of revelation. thus, he determined to explain the qur’én in terms of historicity and viewed its interpretations, whether theological, doctrinal, literal, mystical or mysterious, as consequent to an intellectual heritage that was predominantly sectarian. hence, new commentators depended on interpretations that were primarily ideological choices made by old commentators. no one had dared to dismantle these interpretations either historically or philosophically. hamdard islamicus 18 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 rejection of the sunnah arkoun viewed the sunnah in even worse light. he considered the hadêth a body of fabrications and dire reflection of the dogmatic dominance that had led muslim societies directly into stagnation. coming so long after the prophet’s (œ) death, the sunnah’s documentation had, in his view, caused a perennial form of sectarian division that remained unresolved and seriously problematic. in his view, the hadêth literature enjoyed such pre-eminence that sects apparently granted themselves permission to harvest and compile ahédêth to advocate respective dogmas and agendas.35 he also claimed al-shafi’i had made the sunnah a second source of islamic law. in addition, arkoun attributed to the prophet (œ) some questionable matters related to certain experiences and innovations found in the sunnah. arkoun consequently created much confusion over the authenticity of sunnah in total. according to him, even the term, sunnah, could only be traced from 80 hijri onward, with al-shafi’ê being the first to use it. hence, he concluded that the so-called ‘sunnah’ followed long after the death of the prophet (œ). arkoun therefore assumed that the sunnah was situational and had emerged from various conflicts over political supremacy.36 islam and politics arkoun’s peculiar view of religion colored his understanding of islam’s relation to politics. being no different from muslim secularists, post-modernists and liberalists, he followed the orientalist bias. these schools of thought teach that religion has no role in politics except in particular historical contexts. he argued it is, therefore, absurd to believe religion and politics are inseparable, but that the muslim majority unfortunately considered the concept an unquestionable principle of faith. he also claimed that islam conflated political factors with spirituality and treated this “absurdity” as absolute doctrine: “if i remarked, as muslims usually say, there is no political sovereignty on earth except it is linked to divine sovereignty, i drop into the arms of the imaginary. therefore it is sufficient to open ones eyes a little to find that the opposite is true.”37 arkoun emphasized that rulers during the middle ages were never subject to the so-called ‘word of god’ but in spite of ‘ hamdard islamicus 19 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 this fact, social discourse claims that god or revealed religion governs or should govern.38 arkoun viewed commentaries from certain qur’énic scholars as results of competition for power in political and intellectual arenas and that their interpretations unjustly favoured sectarian perspectives. he concluded by saying that such politically flawed commentaries have generally been treated by common masses as holy scripture itself. here, at this point exactly, we see continuous interference and entanglement between fantasy and rationality. what we call ‘the word of god’ is actually a collection of texts from the torah, the gospels and the qur’én. these texts are left to interpretations by jurisprudents and scholars who determine their meaning and significance.39 arkoun proposed to separate religion from politics as a preeminent propagandist. he described the separation of political and economic systems from religion as the principal cause of european development in which the bourgeoisie played a crucial role: in regard to this area, certainly we should point out the importance of the role played by the bourgeoisie, a social layer among others. this class played a crucial role in shifting the border between religious, intellectual and political arenas in the european west.40 arkoun divided islam into three parts: the first being religious realms (din) of worship, ritual and customs; the second being temporal living (dunya) in the material world; the third being the state, which belongs to politics.41 these divisions, in his view, are unconnected and do not require the dominance of religion. therefore, he writes, jesus (*) said, ‘give to caesar what belongs to caesar, and give to god what belongs to god’, because even he could not control political and religious dimensions simultaneously. thus, there are two powers, one religious the other political. he argued that the bourgeoisie also existed and exerted a role in the development of the early muslim society, although islamic bureaucracy differed from the western capitalist system. hamdard islamicus 20 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 views on secularism arkoun’s approach to the islamic text was steeped in modern secularism as the best ideology for governance of the islamic state; a fact he thought should be acknowledged by all muslims. in fact, he played the role of secularism’s ambassador to the muslim world and claimed there were no contradictions of islamic principles and fundamentals, even as derived from his own life: i am a secularist teacher practicing secularism both in teaching and learning, which gives me a kind of islamic-secularist daily experience. i would like to say it in front of you from the beginning because some may think that i could not be part of secularization because of my islamic affiliation.42 he made concerted efforts to establish that individual muslims could maintain ‘aqêdah (islamic creed) and a secular life style simultaneously. he went further to say that scholars who deny the adoption of secularism in muslim society have misunderstood their own religion in addition to man-made ideologies: “islam itself is not closed to the face of secularization. in order to reach the doors of secularism, muslims have rid themselves of psychological constraints and restrictions.”43 he opined that religion cannot provide perfectly indisputable solutions for each generation and that no real difference between islam and christianity exists in this regard. hence, religious people are obliged to adopt man-made ideologies to truly solve social, moral, economic and other problems. he believed secularism emerged in response to unreasonable requirements found in islam’s sharê‘ah,44 as such, it should be well-accepted by muslim society. secularism, he said, is the great achievement of human history that ideally leads mankind’s pursuit of material living. in a speech on “secularism and religion,” he declared, “my stay in france taught me many things and finally led to the practice and intellectual conviction that secularization is one of the achievements and conquests of the human spirit.”45 he claimed it enjoyed greater success in christian communities and had concentrated his efforts on establishing it in arab nations. accordingly, secularism had two responsibilities. one to identify reality hamdard islamicus 21 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and the true human spirit; two, to find a suitable connection between both without restricting liberty. he strongly suggested that muslims review their history to motivate the acceptance of ideologies like secularism. he quotes the mu‘tazilite saga of opposition to orthodox arguments regarding the creation of the qur’én; claiming this was a popular community that produced a commentary on the qur’én by the mu‘tazilite scholar, al-zamakhshari. he says, if muslims were to turn to the 2nd and 3rd centuries of islamic history they would find examples of intellectual ideologies such as the mu‘tazilah sect, which had been oppressed by orthodox muslims at first but later became popular. so if muslims are ready to go back to their own history, they can accept ideologies like secularism.46 arkoun therefore believed that orthodox interpretations of islam do not represent the genuine faith, but rather distorted the original face of islam by linking it to political activities. the muslim world, he claimed, would likely have remained on top if mu‘tazilites had been given the opportunity to freely disseminate their ideas. unfortunately for islam, he asserted, the ash‘ariyyah school reigned supreme and rejected all ideas opposed to its tenets in order to protect historical, political and ideological interests. thus, he claimed, islamic orthodoxy shaped the muslim world of today by occupying the political arena for an over-extended period, despite protests that had eventually birthed arab-islamic nationalism. he writes: sunni islam has been associated closely with political powers that had been successive since the umayyad period. it is associated with innovations and heresies … arab-islamic rationalism has emerged through the struggle against legendary knowledge; against the religious imaginary.47 relevance of islamic law arkoun questioned the relevance of islamic law by indicating that associated qur’énic verses should be interpreted in their historical context hamdard islamicus 22 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and treated as a manifestation of the particular historical consciousness and moment that produced them. hence, he advocated a complete rethinking of islamic civil, criminal and personal law: the qur’én – like the gospels – is highly metaphorical when addressing human conditions. these metaphors cannot be clear laws. the great illusion is believing in the possibility of converting these metaphorical expressions into effective laws that are limited and applicable to all cases in all circumstances.”48 arkoun, therefore, restricts qur’énic teachings to original context, thereby indicating their irrelevance in the modern era. the qur’én apparently, in this view, had been specifically revealed for the prophet’s arabian society and it should not be applied to people and societies of the contemporary world: words should be understood by their structure in both temporal and spatial senses with respect to meaning in any language. therefore, allah says in sërah yësuf: ‘we sent down the arabic qur’én that you understand’, which implies a direct relationship between the arab identity of the qur’én and its positive mindset.49 an islamic evaluation of arkoun’s thought arkoun’s treatment of islamic principles contradicts fundamental islamic tenets and objectives. yaíyé bou‘azêz of the university of oran wrote in an algerian newspaper that he saw moíammed arkoun lecturing on islam at an international conference while drinking alcohol between sessions. arkoun did not deny the allegation, meaning he was not keen to practice islamic values in public although he claimed to be the true saviour of the islamic spirit. in 2003, a committee (the stasi commission) constituted by french president jacques chirac looked into banning the hijéb. two muslims were appointed as members, one was ×anifa sharêfê (who did not wear hijéb); the other was moíammed arkoun, who denied its validity arguing it was outdated and a symbol of backwardness. this resulted in a consensus by the commission to ban the hijéb as a religious manifestation or requirement. although born a muslim, arkoun hamdard islamicus 23 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 apparently never desired to be perceived as practicing islam as a way of life. according to some of his students, whenever asked, ‘are you a believer’ (?), he refused to answer. even a few days before his death some reporters claim he did not wish to respond to this question. arkoun sedulously discredited the qur’én’s sanctity as a revealed text, saying it can equally be considered or ignored. references to his discourses allow us to conclude his several positions were more that controversial as he denied numerous beliefs and facts such as life hereafter, the prophet’s (œ) protection from sin, and the right of god as law maker, etc. his attempts to justify his interpretations as ijtihéd in islam were based on his perception of a vacuum rather than clear conditions and regulations. hence, we cannot categorise his works as either ijtihéd or tajdêd. what is most important is to note is that his entire approach to islam was rooted in western influences and sciences bent towards modern liberal secularism. this biased ideology accordingly shaped his ideas on islam’s worldview. a major fallacy was his linking of morals and ethics to science rather than scripture. this error allows the unreliability of relativism to entertain invented imaginations.50 neither can arkoun’s works be seen as efforts to renew or be diligently constructive. to the contrary, he destructively criticized religion. his works excluded faith and eliminated ethical and moral dimensions of living. he replaced the latter with materialist interpretations from humanism’s portfolio, which is absent in both scruples and conscience. arkoun completely failed to describe how muslims understand and perceive islam. his perspective lacked any reference to sanctity and providential stability. he argued that islam should be subjected to criticism like any cultural heritage. for him, the qur’én was not living as inherited but rather (allah forbid) a dead mythical text bearing a historical mystique that had been turned into an imagined meaningfulness. thus, both ritual and practical praxis of ideological muslims no longer stemmed from an authentic text but from human minds and must be dealt with as such to remove any illusion of divine status. arkoun placed himself above the great scholars who had diligently acquired the right to interpret islamic texts. he brought in ideas that contradicted islamic fundamentals and planted baseless thoughts with a view to specifically demolish all vestiges of a sacred heritage, wherefore hamdard islamicus 24 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 he criticized all traditional scholars and interpretations. he knew that as long as muslims held traditional interpretations his thoughts and views could not possibly take root in the muslim world. nonetheless, critics of arkoun faithfully unveiled his intellectual and scientific fallacies; for example, his arguement that the companions had different versions of the qur’én. but arkoun’s theories were predisposed and designed on an ideological background rather than a religious platform. he even described himself as a political thinker and not a religious scholar. although islam highly values reason or intellect and holds men and women responsible based on their state of mind and erudition, islam does not allow reason to supersede or replace the revealed text for one extremely good reason: both text and reason derive from the same and only source, from god almighty. a critique of arkoun’s methodology arkoun demonstrated his understanding of historicity with a variety of western theoretical constructs and methodologies by applying ‘historical criticism’ to his evaluation of sacred scripture. he advocated the ‘deconstructive approach’ because it freed scripture from divinity and subjected it what was assumed to be a superior form of analysis. like a good proselyte, arkoun had whole-hearted faith in his method; so much so, he invited muslim scholars to apply it to the qur’én by arguing that muslim development depended upon divorcing the qur’én from divinity. a drawback of historical criticism in the analysis of sacred scripture pertains to its examination of authenticity and veracity based on nothing more than a humanist method devised by the orientalist, julius heinrich, its founder. akourn applied it to both torah and gospels and produced evidence for numerous textural changes, interpolations and distortions, exactly as stated in the qur’én. it is surprising judeo-christian theologians failed to oppose such thinkers and methodology. however, the same approach in no way applies to the qur’én because it has been safeguarded from all such human interference and distortion; i.e., from all changes and fabrications: “we have, without doubt, sent down the message; and we will assuredly guard it (from corruption)”51 – a passage without parallel in judeo-christian scriptures. arkoun’s methodologies are also fraught with conflicts, contradictions hamdard islamicus 25 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and inconsistencies due to his application of human scholarship and procedures. these include linguistic, sociological, psychological, anthropological, and new philosophical analyses, and specifically deconstruction as suggested by dreda, and archeological analysis per michel foucault.52, 53 arkoun heedlessly denied the values of ethics as he applied these “sciences” to the islamic legacy, especially to the qur’én and sunnah. obsessed with foreign approaches, he failed to apply his own powers of reason and contemplation. the reductionist disease presented by archeology alone had altogether subsumed his intellect. although the entire muslim world had long recognized the sunnah’s legal status, arkoun denied its sources and rejected its jurisprudence. strong contradictions characterized his views of mundane human intrusions as he frequently referred to meddling by islamic scholars on behalf of vanity or political rulers. prophet muíammad (œ) clarified his traditions and the muslim community even reached consensus on the sunnah from the time of the companions. hence, imém al-shéfê‘ê had added nothing except confirmations and reiterations of practices already evidenced by the companions. he therefore established an epistemology of islamic legal principles in his al-risélah, as understood in modern legal terms. in other words, al-shéfê‘ê’s al-risélah is considered the first magnum opus on the methodology of islamic thought.54 arkoun’s greatest paradox stemmed from his appreciation of scientific methodology while, at the same time, exempting himself from the robust application of intellectual effort.55 he never trusted islamic sources although they were richly available to him and infused with numerous scientific methods and exceptional scholarship. instead, he ran to the skirts of orientalists who were self-declared opponents of islam.56 arkoun’s dependence on their social sciences and humanities is like a man who seeks shelter from the desert by falling into a campfire. most of these devices self-destruct because, in many cases, they are paradoxical when left to themselves.57 exaggerations and overstatements with non-closure of open-ended assumptions employing pseudo-scientific terms are noted in much of his work. his applied terminology thematic exhausts translators and readers.58 examples include the following: myth, mythology, ritualistic ceremonials, symbolic, linguistic signs, primitive basis for indication, meaning and allegory, product (arising) of meaning, concord of narrative presentation, hamdard islamicus 26 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 historicity, rational faculty and non-rationality, social perception, imagination, standards of faith and non-faith; all, without exception, require reformation and moreover, are borrowed from contemporary scientific research.59 conclusion we have presented the approaches and methods used by arkoun to advance his reform of contemporary muslim thinking in an all out effort to counter what he believed was the irrelevance of erroneous muslim epistemology and the blind imitation fostered by classical methodology, which he believed had thrust the ummah into humiliating debilitation and stagnation. this paper sheds light on the negative implications he carried into muslim venues from his post-modernist thinking and background. we reviewed his solutions for socio-religious complexities and discussed the controversies he generated under the influence of modernism, liberalism, secularism, humanism and post-modernism. some of these features were described as new approaches and methods of innovation that propelled many a muslim scholar and exegete towards a new paradigm along with perplexities he invented, especially as regards to the qur’én and his rejection of its divine elements in favor of a mere historical product. nonetheless, it is impossible to thoroughly discuss arkoun’s approaches and strategies in so short a space. we found that jacques berque, robert brunschvig, louis massignon, paul ricoeur and claude cahen – all proponents of post-modernism, post-structuralism and other western ideologies – had remarkable impacts on arkoun’s islamic religious perspective; specifically in the linguistic realm in which he failed to discern differences between the language of western philosophers and authentic islamic philology. in other words, arkoun was simply their mouthpiece; a spokesperson and ambassador for his mentors. indeed, we found no evidence or trace of any authentic muslim scholar or intellectual who might be regarded as arkoun’s mentor or teacher. his religious thought merely mimed european secularism and those teachers he admired. thus, his career advanced solely via western scholarship, whereby his writings reflect a western version of islam that is vastly different from authentic islam. in addition, being primarily inspired by the french and german orientalists, arkoun vigorously criticized the qur’én from a completely hamdard islamicus 27 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 foreign perspective. key thinkers like theodor noldeke, friedrich schwally, gotthelf bergstrasser, otto pretzl and regis blachere were pivotal in forming his perspective in this realm and in accord with western secularism. orientalist writings resulting from different approaches to the historicity of the qur’én and its compilation so impacted arkoun with ambiguities that he abandoned his own powers of reasoning and rabidly questioned the text’s authenticity on their basis alone. consequently, he advocated the non-divinity of the qur’én as a mere product of historical processes. arkoun never utilized islamic sources in his religious discourse and preferred to parrot orientalist interpretations, perhaps with or without knowing the consequences. he persistently suggested that muslim scholars do the same if they wished to develop the ummah. his writings were so tainted by western philosophy that they remain difficult for the common readers to comprehend, although he did influence some muslim academics and students in institutions of higher learning. sadly, not a few were infected by his innovations and there are now institutions in the muslim world that utilize his works in their curricula for islamic studies, with or without foreseeing consequences. if inculcated and followed, arkoun’s views on religion and his approaches to scripture are exceptionally menacing to islam, especially regarding secularism, the qur’én, sunnah and the islamic law. his ‘deconstruction’ of the creed is devastating. were muslims to consider it useful and progressive, it would ultimately cause secularization and gradually de-islamize and convert the populace to be loyal proponents of western philosophy, methods, epistemology, worldview, culture and civilization. muslim activists and reformists seeking renewal and revival while struggling for holistic development and comprehensive excellence are often portrayed as extremists because their call adheres to islamic fundamentals, values and laws in all dimensions of life. the calumny is avidly promoted by vested-interest groups, journalists, scholars, politicians and academics, despite their actually knowing that muslims are preeminently peace-loving and peace-keeping. but why are muslim secularists, modernists, humanists, liberalists and postmodernists blatantly contrary and abusive of the authentic message of islam considered saviors or champions? answer: they serve neo-colonial interests through false hamdard islamicus 28 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 religious scholarship under western auspices. the scale of these two realities of the present age condemns arkoun as a reactionary extremist who rejected fundamental islamic principles and interpreted the message of islam through a western lens. he unjustly criticized worthy muslim scholarship and attempted to secularize muslims through borrowed ideals, theories and methodologies. having completed this summary, we offer the following recommendations. it is safe to say that arkoun’s work is far more than merely controversial; it is destructive and menacingly deconstructive and of no benefit for the muslim ummah at any level. it misleads, pollutes, contaminates and confuses thinking to such an extent that muslim society would disintegrate and enter into intense debates to reestablish the truth. the effects would cause muslims to neglect priorities and waste time and energy without the possibility of finding any resolution or consensus. arkoun’s educational training alone testifies to his distance from authentic islamic scholarship. hence, his exhortations and articulations do not conform to the islamic creed or worldview. the muslim ummah should be brought to understand that arkoun was an agent of western scholarship and propagandist for a distinctly western brand of islam. he disenchants, desacralizes, deconsecrates and inspires a particular muslim secularization that liberally accepts western materialist approaches to religion that demoralize and completely disregard classical islamic sources and legacies. he separates politics from islam while sincerely believing that muslims can follow islam and simultaneously lead secular lives in absolute contradistinction to the majority view of muslim scholars and intellectuals. to resolve and clarify all misconceptions, the latter perspective alone should be studied and robustly refuted from the perspective of genuine islamic sources and the maqéîid al-sharê‘ah. notes and references 1. “mohammed-arkoun–obituary”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/19/ (accessed 4-3-2018) 2. “mohammed-arkoun-and-the-modernization-of-islam.”/http://www.resetdoc.org/ story/(accessed 4-3-2018). hamdard islamicus 29 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 03. jacques augustin berque: french islamic scholar and sociologist with expertise in the decolonization of algeria and morocco. 04. robert brunschvig (1901-1990): french orientalist born in bordeaux who taught at tunis university. in 1932 he became professor of muslim civilization in algieria and in 1945 was appointed professor of arabic language and literature at bordeaux. ten years later he went to paris where he became director of the institute of islamic studies at the sorbonne and editor of studia islamica. 05. louis massignon (1883-1962): catholic scholar of islam and influential pioneer of catholic-muslim mutual understanding. some scholars mentioned that his research, esteem for islam and muslims, and cultivation of key students in islamic studies largely prepared the way for a positive vision of islam. 06. paul gustave ricœur (1913-2005): french philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutics. 07. claude cahen (1909-1991): 20th-century french marxist, orientalist and historian. he specialized in the islamic middle ages, muslim sources on the crusades, and medieval islamic society (works on futuwa orders). 08. the annales school: 20th century french historians who stressed long-term social history, named after its journal annales d’histoire économique et sociale, which remains its main source of scholarship along with numerous books and monographs. the school was highly influential in setting the agenda for historiography in france and numerous countries regarding the use of social scientific methods that emphasize social rather than political or diplomatic themes and is generally considered hostile to marxist historiography. 09. abu ali ahmad ibn muhammad ibn ya‘qub ibn miskawayh, known as ibn miskawayh (932-1030): a persian philosopher and historian from rey, iran; author of the first major islamic work on philosophical ethics entitled tahdhib al-akhlaq, which focused on practical ethics, conduct, and refinement of character. 10. mohammed-arkoun-obituary, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/19/ (accessed 4-3-2018). 11. muhammad arkoun, al-almanawa al-dên, beirut, dar al-saqi, 1995, p. 23. 12. ibid., p. 24. 13. ibid., p. 25. 14. mustafah kéhil, al-ansinahwa al-ta’wêl fi fikr muhammad arkoun, pp. 19-23. 15. lucien febvre: french historian best known for his role in establishing the annales school of history. he was an initial joint-editor of the encyclopédie française with anatole de monzie. febvre grew increasingly suspicious of theology and refused to view humans as being bound by forces beyond their control. he viewed religion and old ways of thinking as impractical and even dangerous in modern times. “in the general confusion of our time,” he wrote, “old ideas refuse to die and still find acceptance with the mass of the population.” he became convinced that changing religious views and attitudes was as difficult as influencing the outcome of political or social upheavals. he believed people needed better education to avoid the dangers of old ways of thinking. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lucien_febvre> 16. greimas posited the existence of a semantic universe he defined as the ‘sum of all possible meanings can be produced by value systems of an entire hamdard islamicus 30 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 culture or ethno-linguistic community’. but as the semantic universe cannot possibly be conceived in its entirety, greimas introduced notions of semantic ‘micro’ and ‘discourse’ universes, as being actualized within written or spoken languages and especially iconic texts. to justify the quandary of signification (production of meaning), he proposed the transposition of one level of language (the text) to another level he called the ‘meta-language’ and attended to adequate techniques of transposition. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/algirdas_ julien_greimas> 17. derrida referred to himself as a historian and questioned assumptions of the western philosophical tradition and also more broadly, of western culture. by questioning dominant discourses and trying to modify them, he attempted to democratize the university venue and to politicize it. derrida called his challenge to the assumptions of western culture “deconstruction”. on some occasions, derrida referred to deconstruction as a radicalization of a certain spirit of marxism. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jacques_derrida> 18. muhammad arkoun, térikhiyyah al-fikr al-arabi al-islami, trans. héshim øélêh, al-dar al-bayda’, al-markaz al-thaqafi al-arabi, 1996, p. 49. 19. muhammad arkoun, qadaya fi naqd al-dini, trans. héshim øélêh, beirut, dar al-tali’ah li al-tiba’ahwa al-nashr, n.d., p. 53. 20. muhammad arkoun, ma’arik min ajl al-ansinah fi al-sitaqat al-islamiyyah, trans. hashim salih, beirut, dar al-saqi, 1st edn., 2001, p. 84. 21. bahu, m., al-almaniyyun al-arab wa mawqifuhum min al-islam misr, al-maktabah al-islamiyyah, 2012, pp. 137-139. 22. muhammad arkoun, qadaya fi naqd al-‘aql al-dêni: kayfa nafham al-islam al-yawm, trans. hashim salih, beirut, dar al-tali’ah li al-tiba’ahwa al-nashr, n.d., p. 87. 23. ibid., p. 88. 24. ibid., p. 232. 25. arkoun, térikhiyyah al-fikr al-arabi al-islami, p. 125. 26. muhammad ibn abd al-aziz al-khalifal-sarhani, al-óthér al-istishraqi fi mawqif muhammad arkon min al-qur’én, n.p. al-maktab al-shamilah, 3rd edn., 2008, pp. 14-15. 27. muhammad arkoun, al-fikr al-islami naqdwa ijtihad, trans., héshim øélêh, beirut, dar al-saqi, 3rd edn., 1998, p. 77. 28. arkoun, térikhiyyah al-fikr al-arabi al-islami, p. 299. 29. allah (swt) says: “this our record speaks about you with truth: for we were wont to put on record all that you did.” (al-qur’én, xlv:29). 30. al-sarhani, al-óthér al-istishréqê fi mawqif muíammad arkoun min al-qur’én, p. 16. 31. theodor nöldeke: german orientalist born in harburg who studied in göttingen, vienna, leiden and berlin. some of nöldeke’s works are included in the origins of the koran: classic essays on islam’s holy book edited by ibn warraq. several of his essays first appeared in the encyclopedia britannica, and his article on the qur’én, with some others, was republished in a volume called oriental sketches. the articles dealing with persia were republished in a german volume, aufsätze zur persischen geschichte. hamdard islamicus 31 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 32. al-sarhani, al-athar al-istishraqi fi mawqif muhammad arkoun min al-qur’én, p. 16. 33. arkoun, al-almanawa al-dên, p. 33. 34. ibid., p. 86. 35. ibid., p. 12. 36. bahu, al-almaniyyun al-uruba mawqifhum min al-islam, pp. 204-205. 37. ibid., p. 31. 38. ibid., p. 32. 39. muhammad arkoun, al-qur’én min al-tafsêr al-mawrëth ila taílêl kitéb al-dênê, beirut, dar talia’h, 2000, p. 32. 40. arkoun, al-almanawa al-dên, p. 30. 41. ibid., p. 79. 42. ibid., p. 9. 43. ibid., p. 59. 44. muhammad arkoun, ayna huwa al-fikr al-islami, beirut, dar al-saqi, 2004, p. 82. 45. arkoun, al-almanawa al-din, p. 9. 46. ibid., p. 10. 47. ibid., p. 17. 48. ibid., p. 34. 49. ibid., p. 36. 50. muhammad arkoun, al-islam, auruba, al-gharb: rahanat al-ma’anawa irédatalhaymanah, trans. héshim øélêh, beirut, dar al-saqi, 2001, p. 87. 51. qur’én, al-hijr, 9. 52. though he denied it, he was often cited as a post-structuralist and postmodernist. his thoughts influenced academics, especially those in sociology, cultural studies, literary theory and critical theory. activist groups also found his theories compelling. 53. al-sarhani, al-óthar al-istishréqê fi mawqif muíammad arkon min al-qur’én, p. 28. 54. ibid. 55. ibid., p. 45. 56. khélid kabêr ilal, al-akhta’ al-térikhiyyahwa al-manhajiyyah fi mu’allifat muhammad arkoun wa muhammad ‘óbid al-jabiri: dirasah naqdiyyah tahliliyyah hadifah, n.p. dar al-muhtasab, 1st edn., 2008, p. 4. 57. al-sarhénê, al-óthér al-istishréqê fi mawqif muíammad arkoun min al-qur’én, p. 44. 58. arkoun, térikhiyyah al-fikr al-‘arabi al-islémi, p. 23. 59. khélid kabêr ilal, al-akhta’ al-térikhiyyah wa al-manhajiyyah fi mu’allifét muíammad arkounwa muíammad ‘ópbid al-jabiri: dirasah naqdiyyah tahlêliyyah hadifah, p. 13. hamdard islamicus 19 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 establishing an exemplary islamic society (in turkey) an analysis of bediuzzaman saôd nõrsi’s reform prof. dr. thameem ushama former head, department of usuluddin and comparative religion, director, centre for islamisation, international islamic university malaysia, kuala lumpur, malaysia. email: ushama_thameem@yahoo.co.uk; thameem@iium.edu.my the author provides a brief profile of saêd nërsi (1877-1960) contributions to islamic thought and specifically a content analysis of his risale-i nër (risélah-i nër) to explore his methods with regard to a moderate articulation of the qur’én’s message. the paper also discusses nursi’s method of problem solving through an academic discourse that integrates revealed and acquired knowledge. this method strengthens faith and unity by identifying social and intellectual maladies and providing remedies. nërsi’s riséle-i nër focuses on an exegesis that targets individual training, family reform and the gestalt cultivation of a muslim society. contemporary challenges are addressed vis-à-vis dangers presented by western imperialism as well as anti-islamic dynamics, including orientalism. we then introduce nërsi’s educational reforms, which stressed a more proper integration of scientific and religious instruction with a view towards modern technology and political struggles. finally, we review his emphasis on compassion and the importance of sincerity, in addition to the role of the sunnah and the elimination of doubt in believing hearts. keywords: saêd nërsi, riséla-i nër, turkey. introduction said nërsi’s notable contributions to islamic reform cannot be exaggerated, especially after the islamic caliphate’s abrogation and hamdard islamicus 20 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 turkey’s secular state declaration. the latter transformation replaced the islamic worldview with westernized culture and radically affected various aspects of traditional turkish society. popularly known as bediuzzamén, and despite unprecedented challenges and impediments, saêd nërsi proactively and pragmatically devised methods that dynamically differed from the traditional modalities of predecessors and contemporaries in the muslim world. the primal cause of his reforms lay in the worst plight islamic history has thus far recorded due to muslim secularism and nationalists who were influenced by the western zeitgeist that began to incorporate turkey as part of europe. during this period, all systems whatsoever be they intellectual, moral, political or academic seemed to thrust the muslim ummah towards a qualitative debilitation, deterioration and devastation of its traditional identity, religiosity, epistemology, morality and spiritual capacities that nearly annihilated the time-honoured islamic character of turkey. as secularism became the dominant national ideology, it entered every aspect of community living. secular nationalist forces enjoyed an unprecedented freedom to enforce archetypal strategies that obtained materialistic objectives at the expense of religious consciousness, both individually and collectively. in particular, turkey’s traditional academic system suffered superlative insults and became voraciously biased towards western pedantry with cunning results. muslims acclimated to secular thinking and its philosophy of materialism but without knowing its true ideological, ideational, epistemological and methodological principles and foundations. thus, these forces marginalized and gradually rejected islam’s exceptional ideals, essentials, principles, systems, values, laws and thoughts; all of which comprised a complete system that informed moral guidance based on a transcendent origin that preferred the felicity of true progress and success. turkey’s political conditions descended into chaos during the first quarter of the twentieth century due to rapid secularization and modernization programs carried out by the state under mustafa kamal ataturk, the so-called ‘father of modern turkey’. after analysing the abrogation of the ottoman caliphate, saêd nërsi came to appreciate mustafa kamal as an unpardonable foe of islam, one who had whole heartedly undertaken the task of destroying its edifice. despite this pitiable climate and unprecedented challenges from political opponents, nationalists hamdard islamicus 21 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 and secularists, nërsi advanced unique ideas to meet desperate social needs opposed by forces that prevented any successful application of his admirable reform proposals. as turkey endured a severe identity crisis induced by the official imposition of de-islamization, saêd nërsi vigorously responded by writing, speech and debate. the present work analyses his reform efforts to maintain and improve islamic culture, tradition, religiosity, unity and identity. qualitative content analysis is applied to his works, ideals and numerous contributions, most of which were originally written in the ottoman turkish language. hence, the scope of this paper is limited to works translated into arabic and english, most especially his magnum opus, riséle-i nër, which comprises 130 epistles. we focus on the methods he used to present islam’s message to the people of turkey for purposes of religious awakening with a view towards a conscious and collective realization of a pressing need to restore islamic living and counter contemporary moral decadence and ruination of sound traditions. we introduce readers to nërsi’s profile to inform them of his intellectual credentials and contributions to contemporary islamic thought while discussing his method as an instrument of moderation in the dissemination of islam’s message. a pertinent element is his approach to reform vis-à-vis riséle-i nër in which he adopted an innovative form of exegesis that trains modern muslims to better cultivate a society enlightened by islam’s worldview. the paper then reviews contemporary challenges to nërsi’s reforms as well as his admonitions regarding the dangers of western imperialism and anti-islamic influences such as orientalism, etc. this work’s final section concerns nërsi’s approach to the integration of the material sciences, modern technology and politics with religious curricula, which better guides students towards an informed and courageous confrontation of counterintuitive movements and thought. such pupils are better enabled to care for the community’s welfare while lauding the significance of sincerity among muslims based on lessons taken from the sunnah. nërsi also emphasized the elimination of doubt from the hearts of believers and non-muslims alike. saêd nërsi’s profile hailing from a respectable family whose parents were characterized hamdard islamicus 22 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 by piety and steadfast god-consciousness, said nërsi, a descendent of the prophet (œ), was born in 1877 in the village of nërs, an eastern province in turkey.1 his father’s name was mirza and his mother was called nuriyah.2 his lineage is traced to hasan (r.a.)on his father’s side and to husayn (r.a.) on his mother’s. his birth name was said and nursi was adopted from the town of his birth. he was also called bediuzzaman, meaning “the unique one of the age”. his mentor, fathullah, gave him this title due to nërsi’s brilliance and titanic bank of commendable knowledge, and also because he always gave precise answers to the most difficult questions and held forth with expertise in different sciences, abilities and arts, especially when compared to his contemporaries.3 he was granted his ijézah ‘ilmiyyah (scholarly certificate) on completing madarsah studies, which was the traditional religious college of the ottoman state. being a genius with a photographic memory, he memorized the entire qur’én in fifteen days and continued on to memorize another ninety works on the islamic sciences, including highly technical subjects. he also became an expert and competent scholar in the natural sciences owing to personal effort. it is no exaggeration to say he eventually became recognized as one of the most influential scholars and thinkers of the twentieth century. a universal thinker, nërsi’s works were written in prison, in exile and even on horseback and have since attained prominent positions in world literature. they substantially impact reader seven from other religions due to his moderate approach to exegetical presentations and religious exhortation. he is regarded as a peace-making hero who advocated unity and solidarity for the muslim ummah, as have other writers such as jamél al-dên al-afghéni and ×asan al-banna. his life was characterized by genuine sincerity, piety, steadfast god-consciousness and a deep commitment to the islamic value of ikhlés, as emphasised in his epistles. nërsi’s redoubtable courage never allowed any compromise of firmly held principles, policies and strategies in spite of persecution, constraints, assassination attempts (including poison), and tortuous abuse inflicted by secular state authorities. he upheld islamic principles without concession and was determined to live in conformity with sharê‘ah while conveying islam’s gestalt message to all of mankind. a remarkable event occurred during first world war (1914-1918) hamdard islamicus 23 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 when nursi volunteered as commander of a battalion that he formed with his owned students. he showed extraordinary heroism andwas taken captive to russia where he spent two and half years. he managed to escape and finally reached istanbul to continue his activities. nërsi’s problem solving approaches following are some approaches adopted by said nërsi’s da‘wah that are related to holistic reforms. academic approach saêd nërsi did not fully rely on the traditional methods of education his contemporaries advocated and practiced in many muslin nations. from his boyhood, he had discussed the matter of educational systems with several scholars, some of whom he emulated before ascending seats of fame and authority in the public eye. from the outset, unproductive teaching methods and reduced conditions in the madaris (religious educational institutions) caused him to ponder educational protocols. he became engaged in tracing responsibility for educational declines and promulgated ways to overcome pedagogical fallacies, weaknesses and shortcomings and even ventured into establishing educational institutions. by using unique strategies he redesigned teaching methodology and learning protocols. instead of emphasizing the traditional rudimentary focus on grammar, syntax, rhetoric, etc., he proposed motivational systems focused on meeting the challenges that faced the muslim ummah of his time, particularly in turkey, which had been the centre of a glorious islamic caliphate. his contemporary scholars spent their time reading texts and commentaries using classical modalities. although this contributed to the development of scholarship, their students were never immersed in emerging social issues and contemporary problems because this extremely conservative system lacked the curricula that developed critical/analytical thinking and problem solving skills, even though the science of logic was indeed taught but not appropriately emphasized. hence, they were isolated from the prevailing tides of mainstream society. as such, they could not address challenges faced by the muslim ummah in various parts of the hamdard islamicus 24 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 world. nërsi therefore rejected their system(s) and advocated innovative academic approaches. he also struggled to establish institutions that would produce scholars who more competently responded toa changing and perplexing world. considering his words and deeds, one can infer that he nearly succeeded in islamizing modern educational systems. in his day, teachers seldom embraced literature or other sources of knowledge until they finished one islamic book from beginning-to-end with all attending commentaries and footnotes. the method consumed far too much time for more appropriate intellectual development, which nërsi identified as a cause for insufficient utilization of knowledge and skills to benefit the ummah. unlike his contemporaries, saêd nërsi raised his voice against these out-dated, conservative and classical methods, even from his youth. his personally effective approach is expressed in the following lines cited from his autobiography. “said nërsi used to read one or two chapters and sometimes ten chapters of a book and leave it without finishing and then start another book. when his esteemed teacher shaykh muhammad al-jalali asked him to explain why he did that which was alien to traditional practice he answered, ‘i could not go through all these books nor could i understand everything in it. for me, these books resemble pearls in a box. the keys are within you. all that i expect from you is to lead me to the path that helps to reveal what is in the box. that is, what is the content of these books, so that i can choose topics that better suit me.”4 when his teacher asked, “of these which suit your nature”? he answered, “i could not differentiate between them. all are equal. either i understand the whole or none at all.” nërsi also indicated deficiencies and even fallacies of the arcane system and went further to criticize the rather poor and unhygienic conditions of scholars who practiced unsuitable and inappropriate life ways that weakened their effectiveness and favoured the failure of having positive impacts on society. hence, he was not loath to condemn the various defects of contemporary scholars. in his words: scholars forget to distinguish between the present and the past. hamdard islamicus 25 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 they insist on adhering-to and establishing opinions without comparing authentic proofs. in their da wah activities they do not maintain equilibrium between islamic and state laws and they also fail to differentiate between more and less important matters. they do not diagnose the social and political diseases of their time even within their own context. regarding treatment, they appear to drag people backward to the past with approaches that even maintain the language of the past.5 malevolent forces had infiltrated the ottoman caliphate during the seventeenth century and according to nërsi, the traditional system of education only served to quicken the decadence by its adherence to religious education at the expense of worldly knowledge. hence, traditional educationalists had systematically isolated themselves and students from contemporary scenarios and needs for generations. moreover, they had also destroyed or abandoned various branches of knowledge and sciences that had been handed down by highly esteemed predecessors who excelled in various scientific fields. due to this absurd negligence, decadence advanced while muslims became content within the confines of religious education yet actually expected development and success. an unimaginably huge chasm had therefore emerged between religious and non-religious knowledge; so much so, contemporary ‘alim claimed that even learning geography, chemistry and other natural sciences were acts of blasphemy. thus contaminated by ignorance and superstition, they searched for solutions that only exacerbated the controversies and complexities of their darkened journey. what is worse, they marginalized modern islamic scholars by branding them fabricators and antichrists. islam thus came to exemplify an edifice of the well-deserved disdain offered by arrogant disbelievers and infidels. saêd nërsi knew that development of society could not occur unless islamic scholars took up contemporary science and actually practiced shari‘ah, especially as applied to modern education. he also believed the old approach to the study of logic inadequately prepared students to answer modern questions and challenges or rebut doubts and misconceptions posed by islam’s detractors. the integration of religious and so-called ‘worldly’ materialist studies was required for a healthy balance rather than the unilateral biases either induced on their own. in hamdard islamicus 26 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the absence of such an effort, man was coerced to entertain decadence and misery. nërsi therefore concluded that muslim nations would not survive modern transformations if they adhered to archaic traditions. saêd nërsi solved the problem by integrating religious studies with modern worldly learning. he knew that islam’s enemies possessed technologies and inventions that were effectively applied to weaken and reverse any muslim advance. muslims would not survive these challenges unless they assiduously applied themselves to scientific and technological disciplines in the same manner as their enemies. hence, nërsi offered a uniquely integrated curriculum that used religious studies to enlighten the heart while modern scientific learning informed powers of reasoning. the integration allowed reality to stand forth as entirely self-evident as student faculties flourished in a well-adjusted manner. to the contrary, on their own, either learning pools collapsed into the tyranny of dogmatism in religion and the mistrust engendered by materialism. contemporary muslim scholars blindly believed that modern science and technology contradicted islam. hence, nërsi attempted to remove this reckless misconception by seeking to establish that all modern learning and technological developments were actually the legacy of muslim forefathers who had been inspired by islam’s worldview and successfully substantiated that true credit for the booming development of modern science undoubtedly belonged to islam. on the other hand, contemporary muslim lethargy also accorded room for the west to take credit-for and abscond with patents of modern science and technology. nërsi therefore stressed that muslims must obtain all disciplines from the west and redefine them according to the qur’énic paradigm with the decorum that attends islam’s tenets and tawhidic worldview. this is more precisely known as the ‘islamization of human knowledge’ in the words of mohamed kamal hassan, the twenty-first century malay intellectual whose contributions to the development and understanding of contemporary islamic thought is humbling. diseases of the ummah as a reformist, saêd nërsi diagnosed diseases of the muslim ummah and provided appropriate remedies. by doing so, he disentangled the web of decadence that had trapped the muslim world. the most epidemic of hamdard islamicus 27 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 several diseases was a profound lack of confidence among muslims in terms of socio-political living. consequently, many muslims preferred adolescent hostility while forgetting the inseparable relationships that bound the ummah by universal brotherhood. moreover, autocracy has also infected the ummah with egoist who snubbed sharê‘ah. hateful fanatics subjected scholars and laymen to vain disputes and all were tempered by the subversive influences of western culture, ideologies and civilization. autocracy was enormously harmful because it aborted the consultative system of the shuré, which is the backbone of the muslim executive world. nërsi therefore suggested a revival of the shuré that would liberate islamic legislators and allow them to gravitate towards the rejection of western culture.6 hence, one-by-one saêd nërsi diagnosed sociopolitical diseases and prescribed qualified approaches to remediation. by not accurately diagnosing a disease, any expert allows its advance to irremediable pathological complexity and demise. likewise, a reformer who holds forth answers to contemporary challenges must find the root of intellectual diseases and prescribe definitive treatment(s). conveying imén imparting imén (faith) to the hearts of believers accompanied by the firm establishment of qur’énic miracles are two realms in which said nursi’s dynamism differed from the traditional ‘ilm al-kalém of the past. saêd nërsi posited that knowing and/or understanding god through arguments presented by ‘ilm al-kalém were inadequate and did little to satisfy the mind. he also owned that øëfê mysticism failed to comprehensively introduce the truth as irrefutably contextualized by the qur’én and the prophet’s (œ) contributions.7 here it is where said nërsi and sayyid qutb agreed that muslims should not rely solely on theological or mystical approaches to strengthen imén. nursi emphasized strengthening imén’s foundation in the life of a muslim.he considered this the basis of the entire edifice of islamic civilization. arguably, if the foundation is weak building on it is futile. in his riséle-i nër, nërsi explained that strengthening the basis of �im n in an era of globalization and post-modern propaganda bears the utmost significance: the foremost and preferable duty is to kindle the light of faith and hamdard islamicus 28 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 strengthen it, and help the faith of others to flourish accordingly. be aware of selfishness and deception and move away from all elements that lead to these diseases. this is the foremost and expected duty. all other problems and diseases are caused by these key ailments. reasonably, true muslim scholars should cultivate amiability and humbleness in their life.8 we hold that saêd nërsi developed a unique method of presenting arguments to establish the significance of imén in the hearts of men. by advancing textual documents and reasonable opinions, he explained the particulars of iman and islamic conviction to all muslims.9 nërsi soundly dealt with belief in allah, angels, scriptures, god’s messengers, divine destiny and eschatology. encouraging unity profoundly concerned about the ummah’s disintegration, said nërsi noted that reformation and da‘wah efforts required motivational forces and meaningful actions if muslims were to stand united under the roof of islam’s edifice. he concluded that the division of the muslim world into nation states with compartmentalization based on nationalism provided western oligarchs with opportunities to infuse their venomous hostility to islam. toxic disunity spread like a pestilence and nërsi consequently emphasized the matter of muslim unity while innovating instruments of consolidation.10 one threatening division conspicuously arose that derived from differences in opinions and interpretations between muslim scholars. variations in understanding and applications of madhahêb (jurisprudence) regarding socio-moral and legal matters were primarily responsible for the discord. saêd nërsi was not unaware and raised his voice in protest. but this does not imply that he disbelieved in a diversity of legal doctrines that had developed over fourteen hundred years. however, he attempted to remove misconceptions of madhahêb disputes that provoked division. indeed, he honoured prevailing legal doctrinal differences and specifically followed the shafê‘ê school himself.11 however, he never tolerated discord over trivial matters that imperilled the ummah. he claimed to be a follower of ahl sunnah wa al jama‘ah but hamdard islamicus 29 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 never condemned shê‘ahs as infidels (kafêr) nor did he ever revile them. instead, he politely advised them to conform to the overriding importance of ahl al-sunnah. in one such speech he proclaimed: o ahl al-haqq who claim to be the ahl sunnah waal jamé’ah and o ahl al-shê‘ah who claim to love the family of the prophet (œ) much more, mitigate your conflict. demands of the time make this conflict meaningless. if you do not abstain from this debate, your enemies will use their strategies to destroy you. they will add fuel to the discord and thereby cause you to stand against each other until the turmoil leads to your ultimate destruction. so reject all trifling matters of disagreement. as you believe in the oneness of the almighty, you have so many sacred relations that bind you togetherand lead the way to unity and alliance.12 saêd nërsi’s risale-i nër saêd nërsi opined that the crucial problem confronting muslims was their lack of a true understanding of the qur’én. hence, he immersed himself in the qur’énic ocean to produce an intellectual exegesis even laymen can use. his riséle-i nër (the book of light)13 was written primarily for turkish muslims who had been forcibly isolated from the rest of the muslim world. these exegetic epistles are now being translated into major world languages including arabic, english and french. led by ustaz saêd nëri, the hayrat foundation in isparta, turkey is engaged in the effort, although other organizations produced earlier editions regarded as inadequate. nërsi’s approach to exegesis nursi did not apply the earlier methodologies or those used by medieval exegetes and his book of light is taken neither from eastern nor western philosophies but documented directly from the high throne of heaven in consonance with the qur’én. moreover, riséle-i nër is not a traditional exegesis and cannot be classified as modern because it is tafsêr ma‘nawê ‘aqlê. this singular intellectual effort sheds light on verses of the qur’én in a manner that answers all questions and clarifies hamdard islamicus 30 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 doubts that can arise in the minds of readers and critics. said nërsi expounded verses that include the belief in allah, the characteristics of his beautiful names, and the divine power that plays an absolute role behind changes and exchanges in the universe. nursi’s singular interpretation also explains qur’énic verses in accord with modern sciences. thereby he provides evidence to prove that the qur’én is central to all manner of knowledge and invention. he also argued that as the realities of the qur’én unfold, the inferiority complex that infected the muslim world would disappear, whereupon muslims would recover lost heritage, prestige and dignity. saêd nërsi successfully marshalled a complete rethinking of the splendid contributions of the muslim world that distanced islam from western intellectual trends and philosophies. nërsi’s tarbiyah as in other fields, saêd nërsi placed much import on the nurturing of spirituality within the human soul. this implies purification, reformation and guidance: spiritually, morally, intellectually and physically in manners that befit human dignity. because education is the most effective way of rearing dignified humans, students of riséle-i nër in contemporary turkey manifest spiritual enhancement by the remembrance of allah in halaqat al-dhikr. nurturing is essential to islam as a religious obligation that helps produce trustworthy individuals, ideal families and a superb society, which the qur’én calls the ummatan wasatan (a balanced or moderate nation). hence, muslim scholars are obligated to pay stringent attentions to the guidance and nurturing of individuals and the ummah to create and maintain the continuum of this ‘balanced nation’. this is why said nërsi left no stone unturned in nurturing and development schemes for which he applied numerous strategies. the training of individuals saêd nërsi maintained that the nurturing of trustworthy individuals was the basis for constructing a sustainable muslim society. the manner in which individuals are daily guided to learn and develop is prescribed hamdard islamicus 31 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 in the section of his riséle-i nër dedicated to learning the realities and beauties of islam and the fundamentals of islamic individualism. exploitation of these lessons necessitate that students of riséle-i nër obtain and engage lifelong learning skills. in terms of guidance, he emphasized the integration of knowledge with faith, saying, “a human being comes to this world so that he can develop and perfect himself by dint of knowledge and prayer”. hence, knowledge is disseminated and but tressed by informed faith. nërturing individuals when a muslim reminds himself of the teachings of both qur’én and sunnah, s/he becomes a very influential figure, a more complete human being and a practicing muslim caliph over other creatures. when individuals take time to fulfil obligations and repent for misdeeds while avoiding sinful acts, they contribute to selves, relatives, friends and national dignity. they also obtain a dwelling in jannah (paradise). a man must therefore protect himself from lying and backbiting and also keep his tongue alive by reciting the qur’én while remembering, glorifying and magnifying allah and sending greetings to the prophet (œ). he also keeps his sight lowered and away from what is prohibited, and removes his ear from ribald words. these efforts promote perfection throughout a muslim’s life becauses/he pays closer attention to sincere service in the cause of allah. guiding individuals to know allah perfectly and to correctly approach society are two major mechanisms nërsi advised for implementation. the former builds a strong relationship with allah and the latter does the same with society. thus, a man/woman earns honourable positions. the rearing of families for nërsi, the rearing of families was another important matter of equal importance because excellent families perfect society and thus reform every aspect of life. each person’s home is a small world where, should belief in the hereafter fail to rule, whimsical desires cause it to be thrown into hellfire. to the contrary, when faith rules it is filled with the light of imén. relationship and affection are engendered on the basis hamdard islamicus 32 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 of imén and cannot be limited to the boundaries of time and space but extend to the hereafter. hence, home life generates an enduring fortune wherein each individual lives with honour when his or her focus pivots on belief in ékhirah. affection therefore makes the home a microparadise on earth. said nërsi encouraged married couples to embed love and affection as their family roots with goodly treatment for each other so that the nurturing of children is perfected. the model couple loved each other and stood upon imén and treated each other accordingly in a heavenly manner because in leading a family in this manner they would never lose their company, even in the hereafter. thus, home life is the essential core of society and when correct, the entire society becomes correct. for this reason nërsi spent remarkable amounts of time on the reformation of home life and family living. saêd nërsi wrote an epistle on al-hijab in which he warned women of the ummah to protect themselves from the destructive forces of secular thought, especially suppositions that induced disrespect-for and denial of the tenets and rituals of sharê‘ah. he encouraged women to follow the commands of allah as he unravelled the lifeless tenor of western culture and caused them to acknowledge their duties and responsibilities for the household. a child’s first school is mother’s lap where conduct and behaviour are inscribed as never-ending influences upon the heart. mothers have an undeniable scope of influence in leading the ummah on the straight path. choosing a righteous wife is important because she has the most crucial role in conjugal living and duties in the home, even more so than her husband because she prepares both home life and atmosphere as well as instructs and cares for the children. justifiably, therefore, the home is regarded as her special kingdom. her behaviour impacts children more so than their father’s. to settle this matter with a sound islamic base, saêd nërsi quoted the íadêth in which the prophet (œ) said that a wife is the shepherd of her husband’s home. saêd nërsi said that a father must exhibit behaviour that sculpts his children’s sense of etiquette. hence, a father is careful to conduct his social and religious lives because if he fails in his commitment to the guidance of allah severe negative impacts will fall upon his children, even should they have religious instruction from the very outset of life. hamdard islamicus 33 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 hence, religious learning under an un-praiseworthy father cannot possibly function properly and will cause children to lean towards the commission of sins. therefore, both parents must do their best to practice islam’s codes of conduct to formulate and perfect their children’s behaviour.14 cultivating society said nërsi deemed the development and reformation of society his utmost priority and rendered lessons from riséle-i nër to people at all social levels. this effort comprised an institute called madrasah-i nëriyyah in which people learned issues related to imén and qur’énic realities. madrasah-i nëriyyah was known as a fountain of learning and nurturing in which nërsi frequently called on his students to establish it nationally. nërsi taught in this madrasah where people gathered with great enthusiasm daily. even if they only received lessons on riséle-i nër for fifteen minutes or so they considered themselves among the fortunate.15 graduates from higher madrasahs and islamic universities also disseminated knowledge herewith the goal of teaching everyone irrespective of age. hence, people from all levels of society attended nërsi’s lectures and those of his students. in fact, they became great social gatherings and subsequently played an unimagined role in returning secular turkey to islam. the madrasah-i nëriyyah adopted a two-way traffic system. on one hand, said nërsi tried to accelerate da‘wah activities towards the true teachings of both qur’én and sunnah and on the other he filled gaps created by a poorly systematized traditional educational system. with the establishment of madrasah-i nër, nërsi could implant seeds of faith and rejuvenate waning enthusiasm with a genuine thirst for knowledge. shortly after its establishment, the madrasah-i nër appeared in almost every turkish home as a mini version wherein family members gathered to learn riséle-i nër. in many other places people also gathered to learn. hence, riséle-i nër, in this context, initiated a revolution that prompted dynamic social transformations. reforming society when rendering services for reformation and the rearing and nurturing of trustworthiness, said nërsi was completely altruistic and hamdard islamicus 34 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 never expected worldly gain except for the pleasure of allah. he always advised his students to do the same. nërsi held that differences in opinion should be constructive rather than destructive and that every scholar should respect and tolerate the opinions of others. if an opinion seems defective from the perspective of either the qur’én or sunnah, the defect should be traced and established in a friendly manner and in conformity with the sirah. reconciliation is always preferable when possible because it preserves the integrity and unity of the ummah. all differences leading to separation and ultimately to the destruction of unity must be rejected; as such practices generate hostility and the mistrust that gravely erode muslim concord. with this in mind, nursi also advocated the negation of the term ‘i’, which he considered harboured pride and arrogance, which are unsuitable for believers. hence, he recommended never saying ‘i’ but rather ‘we’ as required. moreover, he rejected malicious conduct of any kind and taught that envy harms the envious a hundred times more than the envied, especially as envy does nothing to the envied. therefore, an envious man should consider what he does because he stands out as a denier of allah’s will and eventually earns god’s wrath and harms himself. moderation should be established in all societies and the rich should honour and show affection to the poor and vice versa. saêd nërsi taught that this is not possible until the practice of usury is ended and zakah for property is properly collected and administered. economic observance of zakah’s relevance is not limited to small personal areas or for certain individuals or society. zakah is a concrete pillar of all social life and functions to improve the financial life of all human beings by strengthening affection, love and honour between the rich and poor. in this regard, said nursi considered that true and effective nurturing of a human being and their community involved the purification of character as emphasized in the qur’én. the qur’énic propositions thereby suggest that the foundation of a society is mutual support rather than coercive power and greed. hence, to obtain a thriving society it is necessary to replace envious competition with mutual cooperation and support. significance of said nërsi’s methodology of learning the discussion has thus far conveyed that western education brought hamdard islamicus 35 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 drastic changes that victimized an extremely vulnerable islamic academia. muslims abandoned the reading of the qur’én in arabic in deference to english translations and engaged entertainments causing them to spend much time in vain activities and even became contemporary couch potatoes at local cafes discussing imported theoretical gibberish. it was therefore hardly possible to revert to islamic knowledge and qur’énic education without introducing unique methods that would appeal to the great muslim retreat. nërsi knew they must become re-attracted and consequently return to islamic knowledge and qur’énic education in a new way. here is where he successfully originated effective realms and for which allah facilitated the design of an epoch-making agenda that has since immensely influenced the ummah of mohammad (œ). the foremost cause of decadent education was a defectively dogmatic pedantry that failed to meet or respond to contemporary needs. they had even abandoned practical subjects such as history, chemistry, geography, etc. thus, scholars of said nërsi’s time and even preceding generations had become satisfied and were complaisant with the inadequate status quo that never turned an eye towards contemporary developments in various realms throughout educational history. at the same time, the west grew all too rapidly advanced by standing on the firm scientific foundations that were laid by islamic forefathers. saêd nërsi stood his ground to raise an intractable voice against the obsolete educational standards of his day. he rejected the unproductive teaching methods that required disproportionate periods of student time to study the useless minutia of obscure commentaries and footnotes. in a very short period of time he himself was able to read several books without resorting to commentaries and notes. in contemporary shadows of defeat and backwardness, muslims had actually begun to believe the west was their undefeatable master; one with which they could not compete. the fact was that this happened due to endogenous weakness directly consequent to a rather destitute muslim educational system. islam’s forefathers had indeed left a precious store of knowledge and sciences that had been dismissed as irrelevant by a contemporary army of ignorant mullahs and so-called scholars. this abandoned cache of knowledge contained a precious heritage that would help muslims recover and resurrect knowledge of their glorious past in preparation for a more glorious future. this is the aspiration that said nërsi imparted. hamdard islamicus 36 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 one of saêd nërsi’s deepest concerns regarded stereotypic muslim reading of the qur’énic language. hence, he encouraged people to read the qur’én in arabic rather than translations. saêd nërsi’s approach to political domains saêd nërsi took two different approaches to political interests. when the government helped religion, he cooperated but when it didn’t, he opposed it. hence, when the kemalist regime of turkey appeared to be destroying islam’s honour, nërsi bravely came forward to raise his voice against the government. he stood beside democrats hoping to create an environment that would aid and uplift the words of allah, restore sharê‘ah and re-establish islamic culture and values. however, democracy under mustafa kamal’s leadership changed everything after he completely barred sharê‘ah along with islamic symbols and displays, many of which were actively destroyed. at this point, nërsi raised his voice against kamal’s government as he attempted to re-orient turkish muslim towards shari‘ah. when his opposition became too conspicuous, mustafa kamal invited him to negotiate and even offered nërsi a position in his government, which nërsi rejected for the sake of islam because ataturk’s power and influence served only to erode turkey’s islamic culture. when adnan mundaris later declared sharê‘ah’s restoration, nërsi encouraged his students to assist mundaris. thus, we have nërsi’s typical political approach. his strategy was always to create an affable environment with political rulers, one through which islam could be taught and consequently spread without major impediments. nërsi did not, however, favour contemporary politics due unethical norms and practices, many of which were qualified by western philosophy. he complained that politics held forth a satanic sphere of ideas and that it was best to seek refuge with allah from them. according to him: the politics of the present, which is founded on self-interest, is a rapacious beast. if you feign affection for a ravenous beast, you will not attract its compassion but rather its appetite. it will turn on you with claws and fangs to rend what it desires from you.16 hamdard islamicus 37 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 when he was asked a question as to why does the new said avoid politics with such vehemence? he answered: he avoids it so vehemently in order to serve belief and the qur’én, which is of the greatest importance, the greatest necessity and is most pure and most right, and so as not to sacrifice unnecessarily and officiously for one or two doubtful years of worldly life the work of gaining more than millions of years of eternal life. for he says: ‘i am growing old and i do not know how much longer i shall live’; so for me the most important question should be working for eternal life. the prime means of gaining eternal life and the key to everlasting happiness is belief, so i have to work for that. and since i am obliged by sharê‘ah to serve people in respect of learning so that they may also profit, i want to perform that duty.17 nursi’s attribution of courage courage or bravery is a must for every muslim. history records that whenever anyone invites people to the truth, the regime of the day offers hostile opposition, which requires a fearless muslim and is also why all prophets ( ) were brave, straightforward and uncompromising. for example, prophet sulaymén (*) wrote to the ruler of saba’ saying: “be ye not arrogant against me, but come to me in submission (to the religion).”18 saêd néërsi feared no one and he showed exemplary courage throughout his life, especially in the face of rulers and governors. an incident that occurred on 13 april, 1909 bears evidence. he was arrested with others on the charge of being a ‘destructive element’ and threat to national security. he addressed army officials several times and eloquently defended himself in a court of martial law. i am a student of sharê‘ah. hence, i assess everything in light of the qur’én and sunnah. islam is my religion. reasonably, i evaluate everything in light of islamic values … thus i am addressing not only you but also all human beings of our time. realities will unfold and it is worth mentioning this here (with regards to the day when all hidden things shall be made manifest).19 therefore, i am preparing with all my strength for the life of the hereafter. if we are thousands of souls ready to be sacrificed for the sake of allah and his religion, it is therefore because sharê‘ah is nothing but a great hamdard islamicus 38 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 fortune for us. i advocate true shari‘ah, not that which hypocrites claim.20 when the court witnessed his sincere bravery and courage, it released him, although many others who were arrested with him were convicted and even sentenced to death. concern and caring muslim scholars should responsibly care, train and nurture people at all societal levels. their duties are not only confined to non-muslims but also include the purification of non-practicing muslims. nërsi’s contemporary era was filled with corrupting influences and people who ignored the islamic pillars of faith and which devastated the development of individual righteous characteristics and communal respectability, many of who resorted to drunkenness and shameful moral decadence. hence, muslim scholars are burdened with the substantial responsibility of cleansing and reforming members of such a dissipating ummah. said nursi was prompt to respond to this obligation by adopting three graduated forums that nurtured of a more forthright community: for individuals, families and society, respectively. the significance of sincerity sincerity (ikhlés) is the backbone of any deed (‘amél) but its absence renders a believer’s efforts fruitless. a da‘i should especially conduct him/herself with sincerity because artificial efforts have no impact in this world and neither do they bring benefits in the next. this great virtue was not absent in the life of saêd nërsi, who said: o my brothers, who are involved in serving the holy qur’én, be informed that sincerity is the soul of a deed and the foundation of all efforts and renders the shortest way to the desired goal. it is the great virtue that adorns the attributes of a believer21 when handling worldly life and its necessities. we have striven wholeheartedly to succeed and we must cultivate the sense of sincerity in all of our efforts so that we can benefit from the mercy of allah. if we fail to practice sincerity we are doomed. as allah says “nor sell my signs for a small price; and fear me, and me alone.22 o brothers of mine in the hereafter! and o my companions hamdard islamicus 39 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 in service of the qur’én! you know and you should know – and you do know – that the most important basis, the greatest strength, the most acceptable intercessor, the mightiest tower of strength, the shortest way to the truth, the spiritual supplication most likely to be accepted, the most wondrous means to all aims, the loftiest character trait and the purest worship in this world and especially in services related to the hereafter, is sincerity.23 thus, according to saêd nërsi, sincerity is the soul of a deed and the foundation of all efforts. it is the shortest way to reach the expected goal. it is the great virtue that adorns the attributions of a believer when handling worldly life and necessity. muslims must cultivate this sense of sincerity to benefit from the mercy of allah. if they fail to practice sincerity they will be doomed. therefore, it is manifest from his words that he paid much attention to the value of sincerity. contemporary challenges in the present era of scientific and technological advances the world constantly changes and reshapes cultural, social and political realms. as a result, the muslim world confronts unprecedented complexity. to accommodate and survive numerous challenges, contemporary muslim scholars must develop new approaches and modalities that defend against the materialism that causes muslims to fall from god’s many graces. the enemies of islam have fashioned multi-dimensional swords to attack its fundamentals. of these, materialistic humanism is the foremost ideology that serves to erode basic islamic values. orientalism is another challenge that strengthens the western hold on the muslim zeitgeist. western imperialism colonization by western imperialists challenged the muslim world with a civilization built on materialistic cravings. allah says: which then is best? – he that layeth his foundation on piety to allah and his good pleasure? – or he that layeth his foundation on an undermined sand-cliff ready to crumble to pieces? and it doth crumble hamdard islamicus 40 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 to pieces with him, into the fire of hell. and allah guideth not people that do wrong.24 western materialism tempted the muslim world away from its culture of following qur’énic knowledge and codes of conduct. this loath some consequence of colonization snatched muslim youths from the hearth of islamic education. when pinpointing the truth of the matter, we prefer to call this a judeo-christian effort to optimize opportunities to destroy the islamic edifice of world history. colonial powers initially attacked a rather dismal muslim educational system, one that provided a vulnerable gateway and allowed pervasive decadence to infiltrate the ummah. eventually, muslims rejected rather than repaired their traditional educational systems and accepted alien curricula. this purchased the loss of islamic perspectives that espoused the divinely articulated characteristics that decent societies required. at times, a student might have become vibrantly enthused with knowledge gained by worldly education “but could not advance in the formulation of a superb moral ground and spiritual premise in his life as the required elements of knowledge used for the utilization of human benefit rather than destruction.”25 thus, moral weakness infused intellectual capabilities and only worsened muslim decadence. the west then encouraged the translation of sharê‘ah into western languages, a process that further weakened skills in the arabic language and its venerable literature, the very medium of islamic education. these efforts led to numerous english translations of the qur’én so that people became accustomed to reading translated versions and left the original text behind. thereby, muslim propositions became fused with the subversive influence of western oriented academic pursuits. eventually, the muslim world accepted the english language and arabic lost its significance and appeal as the authentic language of the qur’én upon which the colossus of islamic literature had been constructed. moreover, islam had always emphasized that males and females should not mix freely. from an islamic viewpoint, the mixing of the genders in secluded spaces is prohibited and unlawful. nevertheless, western education systems caused the forbidden to become commonplace. they devised co-educational systems that the muslim world unhesitatingly followed. unfortunately, the pandemic spread across hamdard islamicus 41 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the entire arab-muslim world and some muslim scholars still advocate eco-education. orientalism orientalism holds robust, enigmatic opposition to islam and nonwestern cultures. this academic movement claims the qur’én is a product of prophet muíammad’s (œ) imagination and further argues that the sharê‘ah is also man-made and contains numerous conspicuous defects. they therefore hastened to correct these faults with facile challenges appear plausibly irrefutable. the occident ignores that it actual advances were founded on muslim science and educational protocols that also allowed the absolute faith in allah to flourish deep in muslim hearts and generate the inherent power that once maintained islam’s invincibility. hence, orientalism’s success depends on its ability to distort islamic knowledge at its sources. nonetheless, because the judeo-christian world separated religion and state vis-à-vis orientalism and secularism, they also managed a division between sharê‘ah and legislation that is alien to the islamic world. likewise, orientalism distorted elements within sharê‘ah; thus creating confusion and suspicion regarding the validity and practicability of islamic jurisprudence. this poses a monumental menace to the muslim ummah. imitation of western civilization nursi was aware of the significance of equality and fraternity for a healthy society. but western social systems exhibit the opposite. it is because modern western civilization has taken up a position opposed to the qur’én and failed to appreciate qur’én’s elliptical inimitability and miraculousness. according to him, the law of the jungle rules in the west.26 nërsi also held the view that the contemporary civilization has mesmerised people, and numbed the senses to such a degree that the civilized do not feel pain, hardship and suffering. the veil of carelessness is being rent through increased sensitivity due to developments in science. europeans’ idols and sciences of naturalism lead thousands of people to regret for blind imitation of western civilization. nërsi states: o sons of this land! do not try to imitate europeans! how can you hamdard islamicus 42 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 reasonably trust in and follow the vice and invalid, worthless thought of europe after the boundless tyranny and enmity it has shown you? no! no! you who imitate them in dissoluteness, you are not following them, but unconsciously joining their ranks and putting to death both yourselves and your brothers. know that the more you follow them in immorality the more you lie claiming to be patriots! because your following them in this way is to hold your nation into contempt, to hold the nation up to ridicule! god guides us and you in the straight path.27 concerns for ‘truth’ as a result of profound and serious analysis of the existing circumstances of his time, nërsi articulates on what philosophy and science, and qur’énic wisdom offer to social life of man. according to him, philosophy and science give rise to and support ‘force’, which is contrary to the islamic method of moderation that we derive from the wisdom of the qur’én and the prophetic example. islam never condones ‘force’ but modern knowledge and systems are not only silent but do not make sincere efforts to develop proper and permanent solution to solve this crisis. truth is hijacked and overshadowed by modern education and learning that were designed to serve certain vested-interest groups and establish their political supremacy and hegemony. nërsi remarks: philosophy accepts ‘force’ as its point of support in social life. it considers its aim to be ‘benefits’. the principle of its life it recognises to be ‘conflict’. it holds the bond between communities to be ‘racialism and negative nationalism’. and its fruits are ‘gratifying the appetites of the soul and increasing human needs’. however, the mark of force is ‘aggression’. the mark of benefit – since they are insufficient for every desire – is ‘jostling and tussling’. the mark of conflict is ‘strife’. and the mark of racialism – since it is to be nourished by devouring others – is ‘aggression’. thus, it is for these reasons that it has negated the happiness of mankind.28 having delineated briefly with transparency the objective and function of philosophy which is implicitly inspiring force and not peace hamdard islamicus 43 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 and truth as essential for humanity, nërsi draws the attention of people, particularly his students to contemplate on the revealed message registered in the qur’én and its eventual wisdom. he is of the view that the qur’én provides remedies to all sorts of social, moral, and spiritual diseases of mankind. the chronic disease of the support for ‘force’ is replaced by the cure of ‘truth’ in the wisdom of the qur’én. one of the essential criteria to establish an exemplary islamic society is exploring wisdom of the qur’én for all probable solutions. he remarks: as for the qur’énic wisdom, its point of support is ‘truth’ instead of force. it takes ‘virtue and god’s pleasure’ as its aims in place of benefits. it takes the principle of ‘mutual assistance’ as the principle of life in place of the principle of conflict. and it takes ‘the ties of religion’ class, and country to be the ties bonding communities. its aim is to form a barrier against the lusts of the soul, urge the spirit to sublime matters, satisfy the high emotions and urging man to the human perfections, make him a true human being. and the mark of the ‘truth’ is accord. the mark of virtue is ‘solidarity’. the mark of mutual assistance is ‘hastening to assist one another’. the mark of religion is ‘brotherhood’ and ‘attraction’. and the mark of reining in and tethering the soul and leaving the spirit free and urging it towards perfections is ‘happiness in this world and the next’.29 so during his reform endeavours, nërsi appealed to his countrymen to understand and realise the complications and implications of blind following of western philosophy and its systems including value free science which is secular in nature and materialistic in its aim. while doing so, he called on people to return to the qur’én in order to understand its wisdom that inspires truth instead of force. conclusion in the final analysis, we assert that saêd nërsi’s place in islamic history is indelibly momentous. this noble man realized the speed and scope of the decadence that was leading turkey to destruction and treated the turks in such a manner that they began to turn around. hamdard islamicus 44 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 sensible islamic scholars from around the globe are well advised to look into saêd nërsi’s work and make use of what is practically applicable. the turks had been rushing like cattle over a cliff into secularism but nërsi stood his ground and called them to comprehend islam’s comprehensive universality, and with singular approaches to the propagation of islamic message to which they responded with enormous zeal and enthusiasm. consequently, they are presently involved in compensatory efforts to restore sharê‘ah in turkey and repair aculture that was nearly destroyed by the kamalist regime. notes and references 01. bediuzzamén saêd nërsi, sirah dhatiyyah (1st edn.), ihsan qasim al-salihi (trans.), istanbul, dar sozler, 1998, p. 35. 02. ibid. 03. ibid., p. 65. 04. saêd nërsi, sirah dhatiyyah, p. 46. 05. bediuzzamén saêd nërsi, sayqal al-islam, ihsan qasim al-salihi (trans.), istanbul, dar sozler, 2004, p. 473. 06. ibid., p. 574. 07. saêd nërsi, al-maktubat, ihsan qasim al-salihi (trans.), istanbul, dar sozler, 1992, p. 306. 08. ibid. 09. ibid. 10. saêd nërsi, sirah dhatiyyah, p. 35. 11. ibid. 12. bediuzzamén saêd nërsi;al-lama’at, ihsan qasim al-salihi (trans.), istanbul, sharikat al-nasl li al-tiba’ah, 1993, p. 38. 13. collected from lamhat min hayat wa athar said nursi, p. 40. 14. abë dawëd, sunan abu dawud, vol. iii, p. 91. 15. it was reported by scholars such as al-minhaj (via imém nawawi) that a long term of learning is the best ‘ibadah a mu’min accomplishes and constitutes his/ her best moments spent. 16. saêd nërsi, the words, p. 751. 17. ibid., p. 740. 18. al-qur’én, xxvii:31. 19. al-qur’én, lxxxvi:9. 20. saêd nërsi, sirah dhatiyyah, p. 105. 21. saêd nërsi, al-lam’at, p. 241. hamdard islamicus 45 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 22. al-qur’én, ii:41. 23. imém beduizzamén saêd nërsi, the five epistles from risala-i nur, trans. hasan spiker, isparta, hayrat publishing, 2016, p. 83. 24. al-qur’én, ix:109. 25. abë a’lé maudëdi; we and the western civilization, p. 21. 26. muhammad binthila, “beduizzaman said nursi’s stand towards western civilization,” sukran vahide (trans.), in globalization, ethics, and beduizzaman said nursi’s risale-i nur, istanbul, sozler publications, 2002, p. 201. 27. beduizzamén saêd nërsi, the flahes collection, trans. sukran vahide, istanbul, sozler publications, 1995, p. 166. 28. beduizzamén saêd nërsi, the words, trans. sukran vahide, istanbul, sozler publications, 1992, p. 146. 29. ibid. hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xxxix april-june 2016 no. 2 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: dr. ansar zahid khan published by hamdard foundation pakistan, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. telephones:36440184, 36616001-4, 36620945-49 telefax: (92-21) 36611755 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands / usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 600/110/single copy 150/030/(inclusive of airmail charges) printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. contents * editorial * dna test of paternity in islamic law – implications for illegitimate children born less than minimum gestation period in malaysia – professor dr. sayed sikandar shah haneef * meaning and siginificance of fasting in comparative perspective – a study with special reference to judaism, christianity, and islam — dr. mohammad akram * some little known but inspiring examples of coexistence and cooperation between jews and muslims — dr. zubair zafar khan * affairs of mutual consultation (gleanings from the pakistani press) * obituary 5 7 37 61 93 105 f:\e\islamicus\2016\no.2, 2016\05-starting pages.pmd hamdard islamicus 5 vol. xxxix, no. 2 editorial the current issue of the hamdard islamicus no. 2 of 2016 comprises three research papers discussing legal, inter-religious and economic studies, gleanings from the pakistani press and an obituary. from malaysia, prof. dr. sayed sikandar shah haneef has critically examined the use of scientific technology in legal issues in his article entitled “dna test of paternity in islamic law: implications for illegitimate children born less than minimum gestation period in malaysia”. dr. muhammad akram (pakistan) has provided a comparative study of fasting in his article “meaning and significance of fasting in comparative perspective: a study with special reference to judaism, christianity, and islam”. “some little known but inspiring examples of coexistence and cooperation between jews and muslims” by dr. zubair zafar khan (india) presents muslims’ help and aid to the jews saving them from nazi persecution during world war ii even at personal risks. gleanings from the pakistani press throw light upon the problems of contemporary muslim world. this issue also includes an obituary on prof. dr. zafar ishaq ansari, professor emeritus of international islamic university, islamabad, known for his high standard of academic research. prof. ansari was a permanent member of the advisory board of our journal, the hamdard islamicus. editor-in-chief e:\islamicus\2018\no.1'2018\07) sulh (wm).pmd hamdard islamicus 195 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 øul× facts and effects in shari‘ah vis-a-vis efficacy of pakistani statutes and efficiency of the judges dr. qazi attaullah1 and dr. lutfullah saqib2 1senior civil judge/judicial magistrate, district kohistan, 2assistant professor (law & shari‘ah), university of swat, kpk, pakistan. e-mail: qaziofmalakand@gmail.com this work probes the notion of îulí with its minute details, in the context of adr (alternative dispute resolution). it discovers the generic term iîléh as one of the corresponding sharê‘ah’s phenomenon to adr of the conventional law. it argues that the mechanism and structure provided by the sharê‘ah for resolution of disputes through informal techniques is highly simple, easily understandable, vastly practicable, more expeditious in bringing finality to the issue, and above all, it is free of cost. it determines the criterion of fitness of a case for îulí and explores that îulí could be affected both in civil and criminal areas including major issues of the ×udëd offenses. the work also covers the details of the subject in pakistani legal system, with special reference to the efficacy of pakistani statutes, and efficiency of the learned judges on the subject. legal effects of îulí, both in the sharê‘ah and law, have been discussed comprehensively. proposals and suggestions for improvement also form part of this work. being the very common and efficient method in legal research so far, the qualitative research technique has been adopted in the present work, where the content analysis of the secondary data, available in the sharê‘ah and law on the subject under investigation, has been made with minute details. keywords: øulí, dispute, judge, law, case, resolution, alternative, settlement, sharê‘ah. introduction arising of disputes is the ever-connected and unpreventable hamdard islamicus 196 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 characteristic of human society. its sole responsible factor is the hankering nature of man that often appears in the shape of conflict of interest. to stop the birth of dispute is, therefore, almost impossible and every effort in this regard would not be more than a futility. what is necessary and wise is that dispute should not be left unnoticed, keep on growing till it begins challenging the peace of the whole society. they should be timely attended to, properly assessed, wisely managed and peacefully resolved. as the resolution of dispute has a direct nexus with law and order, tranquility of the society and productivity of its members, it has been a center of concern for philosophers, academicians, researchers, social workers and politicians round the world and throughout history. human history has witnessed two modes of peaceful dispute settlement i.e. (a) amicable resolution of dispute through informal techniques and (b) determination of dispute through formal adjudication. no doubt, the human history has also experienced the ending of disputes by might and use of force, nonetheless, it could not be considered as settlement of dispute, and it may rather be called ‘suppression of a dispute’. regular adjudication is, of course, a peaceful mode of settlement of dispute; nevertheless, it has some necessary irremovable features that do not suit the hasty and comfort-inclined nature of humans. these features have been the subject of criticism by scholars, researchers, judges, lawyers and other important stakeholders of the justice sector and are, as a result, frequently counted as “the defects of the formal adjudication”. the defects mainly include complexity of procedure, towering expenditure, unwanted adjournments, extremely lengthy cross-examinations, hardships faced by the party in the production of witnesses, and most significantly the longawaited finality of the verdict of the trial court. the situation goes further worsened when abuse of procedure becomes a common trait of the lawyers and the judges, for one reason or the other, could not save the proceedings from wanton, irrelevant and unwarranted performance of the counsels. problems in the process of execution of decrees are more troublesome than those of a hearing of a suit. juxtapose to it, the system of resolution of disputes through informal techniques is simple, cheap, expeditious, everlasting and, more importantly, easy in execution. it saves the time of the litigants, court and other related departments as it saves the wealth of the parties and expenditure of the government. these informal means are, now-a-days, known by a generic phrase of adr in hamdard islamicus 197 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 conventional legal paradigm; standing for alternative dispute resolution. two of its modes the mediation and conciliation correspond to the concept of ‘îulí’ under the islamic law (sharê‘ah). the sharê‘ah has its own system of informal means of dispute resolution that is more simple, easy and practicable as compared to adr of conventional law. according to the main stream of scholars (both classical and contemporary), this system is twofold and offers taíkêm and îulí as informal means of dispute resolution. taíkêm corresponds to arbitration and îulí would cover both ‘mediation’ and ‘conciliation’ of the conventional law. the sharê‘ah, principally, does not recommend meaningless and impracticable classification of informal means to ‘mediation’, ‘conciliation’ and ‘negotiation’ as provided by law. to it, all these phenomena are the ways leading to îulí, by one way or another. pragmatically speaking, even taíkêm is not a mode of amicable settlement in the sharê‘ah and is considered by classical muslim jurists (fuqahé) as a sub-branch (far‘) of regular adjudication (qaìé).1 this work is, however, confined to îulí with a further confinement to îulí in dispute between ordinary litigants, not being spouses. the focus mainly remains on procedure and effect of îulí in cases pending in courts. sulí between the states (nations), political warring factions and îulí in matrimonial issues have been kept out of its ambit and would be dealt within some other academic project. the work investigates the concept of îulí in the context of modern adr mechanism with particular reference to the pakistani legal system. for the purpose, analytical approach of quantitative research has been applied. what has been discovered in this work could be ultimately assessed from the thorough study of its content, it is, however, briefly stated that the work has examined the reasons of inefficacy of pakistani laws and inefficiency of the learned judges of the trial courts, on the subject. it has also explored the factors responsible for such defects, as it has offered suggestions for improvement in the shape of amendments, rectifications, and purpose-based fresh legislation. most significantly, the work has examined the compatibility of relevant provisions of the pakistani laws on the subject with sharê‘ah and has pointed out the areas which are not in consonance with the rulings of islamic law and jurisprudence despite the fact that consistency of laws with the sharê‘ah is a constitutional obligation.2 hamdard islamicus 198 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 need of ascertaining the meaning and limits of øulí (compromise) since long, various phrases like muîéliíat, rézinémah (in urdu), øulí, iîléí, øaléí, muîéliíat and musélamah (in arabic), ‘compromise’, ‘mediation’, ‘conciliation’ and ‘reconciliation’ (in english) are not carefully used. this careless, or to be more lenient, interchangeable usage would have been acceptable if kept confined to common conversations, but, unfortunately, this practice is not being given up even during sharing of talks, delivering lectures and authoring research papers on the subject and then its reading out in national and international conferences, seminars and workshops, specially arranged for resolution of disputes through amicable settlements. a damaging confusion has, therefore, been created that has placed the academicians, researchers and predominantly the practitioners at nowhere. this confusion is quite similar to that which is being faced by cotemporary mediators due to the unstopped number of approaches towards the meaning and limits of mediation in conventional law.3 so, it is the right time for ascertaining the meaning of øulí and defining its limits in the sharê‘ah – through a process of expurgation of all other relevant phrases including the meanings of its cognates. øulí, also known as musélamah, is an arabic noun used for a ‘peace restored state’ arising out of a peaceful settlement that operates as a contract between the disputing parties. its nearest synonym is øaléí; the antonym of faséd/brawl. the second antonym of øulí, could be mukhéîamah (a state of disagreeing). the most appropriate translation of îulí and its nearest fellow in meaning would ‘compromise’ or reconciliation [not conciliation in its technical sense which is covered by iîléh. iîléh refers to efforts for reform and restoring of peace through peaceful process. it means every procedure that ensures good and prevents evil. in brief, iîléí refers to efforts for reforms and efforts to set aright the affairs of people; as opposed to ifséd which means efforts for chaos and turmoil. in the present legal scenario, the phrase iîléí would cover all modes of alternative dispute resolution; including arbitration,4 and, as such iîléí, would be the appropriate similitude of the present day adr. øulí is the name of a contract of peace and also refers to a state of peace as opposed to a state of turmoil. to be more specific, the antonym of îulí is faséd whereas the antonym of is ifséd.5 the relation of iîléí hamdard islamicus 199 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and îulí is also that of a source and product. the termination of a dispute through the process of iîléh may either be in the shape of reconciliation (îulí) or other mutually accepted shape as an award. in the following, the methodology of qur’én, using iîléí and ifséd as antonyms inter se could be observed. it shall also be comprehended that how qur’én condemns the later and how it appreciates the former. the fact shall also surface that what the modern world knows as mediators or conciliators, the qur’én calls them muîliíën. what the contemporary writers know as miscreants, the qur’én lists them as mufsidën. when it is said to them: “make not mischief on the earth,” they say: “why, we only want to make peace!”6 and moses had charged his brother aaron (before he went up): “act for me amongst my people: do right, and follow not the way of those who do mischief.”7 give just measure and weight, nor withhold from the people the things that are their due; and do no mischief on the earth after it has been set in order.8 “and follow not the bidding of those who are extravagant, – who make mischief in the land, and mend not (their ways)9 there were in the city nine men of a family, who made mischief in the land, and would not reform.10 all the above verses and many other like it use both phrases of hamdard islamicus 200 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 iîléh and îulí; as opposite words. similarly, the holy qur’én has also used îulí and faséd as antonyms and referring to a ‘state of peace’ and a ‘state of disorder’ respectively. this could be seen in the following verses: if a wife fears cruelty or desertion on her husband’s part, there is no blame on them if they arrange an amicable settlement between themselves; and such settlement is best;11 mischief has appeared on land and sea because of (the meed) that the hands of men have earned …12 all the above verses clearly differentiate between iîléí and îulí; and also mention their antonyms for further clarification. so, they should not be confused inter se and both should be clothed with their separate meanings, particularly in research works, more particularly, when such works specifically focus on amicable settlements. the above distinction is also evident in the work of some famous commentators. for example allamé shabbir, while interpreting verses no. 9 and 10, of chapter no. 49 (al-×ujurét) writes: “make excessive efforts for the removal of differences. do not be a spectator to confrontation of your brothers, try to the best of your strength and intervene between disputants. you must fear allah while making such efforts”.13 mufti muíammad shafi has also taken iîléí in its broader sense and has not confined it to îulí.14 the significance of this distinction has also attracted the attention of the legal scholarship and the cotemporary researchers have concluded that îulí is a descriptive noun whereas iîléí (the use of its verb) refers to an act that brings îulí and removes its opponent i.e. faséd.15 it is probably because of the above distinction that the learned imam muslim, in his øéhií, has captioned the relevant chapter with iîléí, not with îulí.16 similarly, imém bukhéri has also captioned one of his chapters with iîléí.17 hamdard islamicus 201 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 from the above, it can be easily concluded that, technically speaking, îulí under the islamic law competes with réìinémah (urdu) ‘reconciliation’ and ‘compromise’ of conventional law. iîléí competes with all modes of adr: the ‘arbitration’, ‘mediation’, ‘conciliation’ and even the ‘negotiation’. this distinction has also discovered that what the modern world knows under the generic phrase of “adr”.18 the sharê‘ah has recognized it under the broad heading of iîléí. it is, nonetheless, highly expedient to explain at this place that unlike the conventional law, the sharê‘ah does not recommend the complicated classification of informal modes of dispute resolution. the problems and confusions that has caused the division of these modes to arbitration, mediation, conciliation, negotiation and a dozen more could, therefore, not find in room here. the sharê‘ah has a simple two fold division of informal techniques; (a) taíkêm; the adjudicatory process and (b) maîélaíat; the non-adjudicatory process. the former terminates in a binding decision whereas the later, if succeeds, results in øulí. the procedure for taíkêm and qaìé (formal adjudication) is the same. the modus operandi for maîélaíat may be mediation, conciliation, negotiation or any other.19 øulí: the technical aspect what has been explained above about the meaning and limits of îulí could also be observed in the work of classical jurists (fuqahé). almost all of their definitions reflect the contractual nature of ‘îulí’ and do describe it as a noun and not as an action or process of efforts for reconciliation. for instance, according to ibn ‘óbidên,“it is a contract which uproots the dispute and terminates the litigation”.20 its essentials are offer and acceptance”.21 here, the jurist has not only mentioned the ‘contract’, but has also stated its basic essentials, known as êjéb and qubël or sêghah under islamic law of contract. according to imém sarakhsê, “it is a contract permitted by the kitéb and sunnah”.22 ibn farhën mélikê has said,“sulí on account of admission is a contract of a sale”.23 here, the learned jurist has further specified it and has counted it as a ‘sale’ if the defendant submits a cognovits. the compilers of al-mujallah hold that “øulí is a contract that terminates a dispute consensually and is concluded through offer and acceptance”.24 this definition inter alia focuses on the objective of the contract of îulí and tells that how this contract could be concluded. the best definition is, however, that of hamdard islamicus 202 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 ibn al-hummém who says that, îulí literally means termination of a dispute and technically refers to a contract for resolution of dispute.25 being a contract, a îulí agreement must fulfill all requirements of a valid contract, such as, free consent of the parties, the parties being major, consistency with the objectives of the sharê‘ah, determinacy of the subject matter, consideration being lawful and many more. sharê‘ah places more emphasis on peaceful resolution of dispute. to it, regular determination of issues could be the last resort as compared to the other legal systems of the world, the sharê‘ah places more emphasis on the peaceful resolution of dispute. recourse to regular adjudication is the last option under it. there are numerous verses in the holy qur’én that prohibit ifséd and call for efforts for reformation. as a rule, for instance, the change in the will of a testator and telling a lie for a witness are major sins. for the purpose of reform, change in the will is, nonetheless, allowed. similarly, in making efforts for reform, telling a lie has been made permissible.26 besides, it is mandatory for a muslim to honor his vow; otherwise he shall pay various kinds of expiations. but if someone makes a vow that he shall not make any efforts for reform (to make peace between people), he is under obligation to break his vow, to pay expiation and should make iîléí between the people. by doing this, he will commit no sin.27 the relevant verse runs as: “and make not allah, by your oaths, a hindrance to your being righteous and observing your duty unto him and making peace among mankind. allah is hearer, knower.”28 the sayings of the holy prophet muíammad ( ) explain it further: “whenever one made a vow (not to do), and the otherwise he thought better, then he must adopt what is better”.29 another tradition offers the same concept as; “not the liar is he who makes peace between the people and speaks for welfare. i never heard the prophet ( ) permitting telling lies in any case except during war, in making reforms between people, and in talking to one’s wife or to one’s husband”.30 hamdard islamicus 203 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 some other tradition of the holy prophet muíammad ( ), like the following, further strengthen the importance of îulí “the prophet ( ) said to abi ayyëb ( ), should i tell you about the best of charity? he said, why not. the prophet ( ) said, make efforts for restoration of peace between the people when they began to make affray, and bring them closer to when they have repelled each other (iîléí dhét al-bain)”.31 khair is a phrase used by the holy qur’én in a number of places. it means a good deed. for the purpose of this topic, focus should remain on its use in three different chapters of the holy qur’én; the al-nisé’, the al-mujédalah and the al-qalém. admittedly, a mediator, off and on, holds secret meetings with each disputant party. these meetings are essential part of efforts to set aright the affairs of the people. in the qur’énic parlance, these meetings are known as najwé. it also denotes the concept of counseling or conferring. a najwé should be aimed for unification and betterment (al-birr, al-ma‘rëf and iîléí bain al-néss) of the people. there is a great reward for such counselors. if it is aimed at creating differences between the masses and deepening of already tense relations between them, it would be a satanic act (najwé min al-shaiïén), and hence, prohibited for being aimed for injustice (ithm and ‘udwén). such counselors are hinderers of the good because they are detractors and spreaders abroad of slanders, transgressors, and malefactors and intrusive. here, the phrases ‘detractor/hamméz and spreader abroad of slanders/mashshéen be-namêm particularly refer to the person who strives to create hatred and intensify enmities between people.32 the later phrase especially points to the go-between for creating misunderstandings. it is nothing else but ifséd; the opposite of iîléí. these are the characteristics of infidels and a muslim must avoid it.33 soon shall we brand (the beast) on the snout!34 what is being stated here may be found in the verse: a slanderer, going about with calumnies, (habitually) hindering (all) good, transgressing beyond bounds, deep in sin, violent (and cruel),with all that, base-born,35 hamdard islamicus 204 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the same idea can be inducted from the following verses: most of their secret conferrings are devoid of good, unless one secretly enjoins in charity, good deeds, and setting the affairs of men right. we shall grant who ever does that seeking to please allah a great reward.36 o ye who believe! when ye hold secret counsel, do it not for iniquity and hostility, and disobedience to the prophet ( ); but do it for righteousness and self-restraint; and fear allah, to whom ye shall be brought back. (9) secret counsels are only (inspired) by the evil one, in order that he may cause grief to the believers; but he cannot harm them in the least, except as allah permits; and on allah let the believers put their trust.37 in islamic judicial history, the judicial policy of caliph ‘umar b. khattéb ( ) has got its own significance. once he issued a directive and used the phrase yaîïaliíu. it is an intransitive verb, tracing back to the family of ifti‘él. it denotes the performance of some act by one’s own self.38 it requires no other person or thing as an object. on this analogy, the correct translation of his directives would be as: “return the disputants [pointing to pre-trial proceedings] so that they may themselves work out a peaceful settlement”.39 sometimes, recourse to amicable settlement becomes highly expedient. the méliki jurists are of the strong opinion that a judge should refer the litigants to affect compromise/îulí; if the case is deadly complicated or the litigants are relatives inter se.40 even a partial compromise (the partial adjustment of the suit) has been highly recommended. narrated ‘abdulläh bin ka‘b bin mãlik: ka‘b ( ) demanded his debt back from ibn abi ×adrad in the mosque and their voices grew louder till allah’s messenger ( ) heard them while he was in his house. he came out to them raising the hamdard islamicus 205 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 curtain of his room and addressed ka‘b ( ) “o ka‘b!” ka‘b replied, “labbaik, o allah’s messenger ( ).” (he said to him), “reduce your debt to half,” gesturing with his hand. ka‘b said, “i have done so, o allah’s messenger ( )!” on that the prophet ( ) said to ibn abê ×adrad, “get up and repay the (remaining) debt to him.”41 amazing is the fact that elucidationists (scholars with expertise in interpreting dreams) interpret the conciliation-revealing dreams as indicating goodness, welfare, health and prosperity. so, the inviting of a debtor to conciliation with no payment would mean guiding an astray to the right path. similarly, a compromise with the debtor on a part of the debt [partial adjustment] would mean the coming of good to the dreamer.42 for the above significance of îulí, almost every jurist, to whatever school of thought he may belong, has allocated a considerable part of his book to îulí. for instance, aalim b. al-ala; the author of al-fatéwé al-tétérkhéniyah has stated nine thousand six hundred and fifty five (9655) cases of reconciliation/îulí. imém al-sarakhsê had discussed îulí in six separate chapters.43 ibn qudémah al-maqdasi has given ten pages to îulí despite his extreme inclination to brevity throughout in his book.44 all other imminent jurists, such as ibn taimiyah, ibn qayyem, muíammad al-sharbini, muíammad b. ‘ali al-shawkéni, shamsuddên muíammad al-ramali, mansoor b. yësuf al-bahooti, shamsuddên muíammad al-dasëqi, ibréhêm b. ‘ali al-sherézê, ibn al-hummém and al-késénê have rich and valuable contributions to the subject. the contemporary contributors include ‘abdullah al-×émid, ali al-hammédi, hasan al-nidéni, maímood al-sayyed, and kémil aímad.45 wahbah al-zuhaili has specified near about three dozen of pages to îulí.46 in sharê‘ah, there is the concept of compromise between the plaintiff/claimant and a third stranger, not being a party to the dispute even. the stranger includes an uncalled mediator and self-appointed conciliator. if a third person, without permission of the defendant negotiates the dispute with the plaintiff, and they both arrive to an amicable agreement, the contract of a valid îulí is concluded. it would, however, be subject to the subsequent approval of the defendant. interestingly, if the third person himself accepts the responsibility of payment, if any, again the îulí is good. more fascinatingly, if a conciliator, during highly strained relations between the spouses, negotiates khul‘ with the husband on his own risk, without permission of the wife, nothing goes wrong with the hamdard islamicus 206 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 khul‘. even in the absence of such risk, khul‘ shall take place if the wife approves it subsequently.47 one can guess the significance of îulí from the fact that when once a compromise/îulí is affected and the parties accepted it, its revocation is not allowed even at the consent of both parties.48 discovering the criterion for fitness of a case for øulí this twofold subtopic points to twofold objective i-e (a) what issues are capable to admit îulí and what are not so capable? (b) in what kind of cases, the court would accept compromise? this would require us to answer some basic questions. for example: (a) whether civil and criminal nature of a case matters? (b) whether the punishment of an offense being ‘íadd’ is one and the only responsible factor to render a case unfit for îulí? it is incorrect to presume that civil and criminal nature of a dispute matters while considering a case for øulí the prime objective of a civil case is to provide remedy to the effected claimant. for the reason that almost all civil cases carry the element of infringement of a private right, the jurists of islamic law are at concurrence that civil issues are, as a rule, fit for compromise. of course, some cases may be exempted on the basis of public policy. for instance, the civil cases that necessarily require the decree of the court or the sanction of the court is the requirement of some act, may also be exempted such as the probate of a will or faskh al-nikéí (annulment of marriage contract) on the basis of a husband being not equivalent (ghair kufwë), or on the basis of dower being less than that of her equivalent (mithl), or on refusal of wife to accept islam after embracing islam by her husband, annulment under the plea of missing of husband and annulment on the plea of khiyér al-bulëgh (option of puberty).49 similarly, the cases where the rights of children, and weaker litigants are exposed to risk, should not be referred to conciliators under public policy. this list could, however, not be kept rigid hamdard islamicus 207 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and will always remain open to decrease and increase according to the demand of circumstances. the inclusion and exclusion in the list is the sole domain of legislature and the courts must not encroach thereupon. on the other hand, a number of criminal cases, particularly, the offenses against human body (jinéyat) including murder cases (qiîéî) admit îulí. imém abë ×anêfah argues that when ‘afw (absolution of murderer for no value) by the heirs of the deceased is allowed, how affecting a îulí (compromise against value that may exceed the limit of diyat) could be prohibited. clarifying the consequents of îulí further, he says that îulí renders the murderer as innocent in terms of life security, and if the heir kills him after affecting a proper compromise with him, the heir shall be executed in qiîéî (retaliation).50 ibn qudémah has claimed the concurrence of all schools in this regard.51 criminal offenses punishable with ta‘zêri punishment, on the same way, could be the subject of îulí. in most of such cases the compromising party would be the state, and in a very little number of such cases, the victim would be the compounding side. this later kind is currently known as victim-offender conciliation.52 the former kind (when the state compounds) is now-a-days dealt with under the concept of “plea bargain”.53 discussion in the following would also suggest that íudëd issues, even, could be the subject of conciliation. from here, it can be concluded that although most of the civil disputes could be resolved through îulí, it would, nonetheless, not lead to presume that civility of a dispute is necessary for rendering a case fit for îulí. had it been so, all civil cases would have been fit for îulí without any exception and no criminal case would have been fit for compromise. presumption of absolute bar on conciliation/øulí in ×udëd offences is unfounded a presumption has dominated the field that there is no room for compromise/îulí in íudëd issues. the presumption is due to our insufficient legal and judicial education and, more dominantly, lack of information about the islamic law and its jurisprudence. this absolute negation of îulí is not correct jurisprudentially. the legal fraternity, both academicians and practitioners, must differentiate between composition hamdard islamicus 208 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 of a case and composition of an offence; as far as íudëd issues are concerned. the commission of an unlawful act is an offence. when the event of this offence is reported to the authorities or the authorities themselves take cognizance of such offence, it becomes a case. no doubt, íudëd cases are not compoundable but íudëd offences, other than those of moral turpitude, may be compounded. abdullah b. ‘amru b. al-‘óî ( ) has reported the prophet ( ) to have said; “resolve íudëd issues amongst you by mutual apologizing (exonerating), because when they are reported to me, execution becomes obligatory”.54 another episode is that of øafwén b. umayyah when he forwarded the burglar of his cloth-sheet to the prophet ( ). the prophet ( ) ordered the amputation of hand. øafwén said, “i didn’t mean that! this may be a charity for him”. the prophet ( ) replied, “why didn’t you do that before you brought him to me”.55 mélik b. al-zubair b. al-‘awwém ( ) narrates that once zubair ( ) saw a person taking a thief to the caliph/sulïén. zubair ( ) wanted him to release the detainee. he responded that he would take him to the authority/sulïén first. zubair ( ) then said, “when you will bring him before sulïén, then say curse upon the interceder and the interceded for”.56 as a counter argument, it may be contended that the prophet ( ), as reported by abë hurairah and zaid b. khélid ( ), had nullified the compromise in a case of adultery, where the father of the offender had compensated the husband of the women, by giving him a servant and hundred sheep. the prophet ( ) executed the lady and punished the offender with hundred whips/lashes and a year of exile. “o onais, take her early in the morning, if she (still) confesses, then stone her to death”.57 this story negates the admissibility of îulí in íudëd. the objection is jurisprudential in nature and, therefore, has to be responded on the same way. it has already been explained, in the previous lines, that when the authority takes cognizance, no room for compromise remains. had this case not been reported to the prophet ( ), no punishment would have been inflicted? the incident, albeit, points to the power of the authority that on taking cognizance, he may declare the earlier compromise null and void. the following discussion will further clarify the above discussion. qadhaf is admittedly íadd irrespective of the fact whether the hamdard islamicus 209 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 right of allah or the right of victim is dominant. the jurists holding the later opinion advocate the admissibility of îulí in qadhaf. the shéfi‘ê school is of the view that the right of victim is dominant, inheritance would, therefore, run in qadhaf and that, on compromise, the punishment would stand dropped.58 this is an example of a situation where compromise be given effect at a very belated stage, long after the cognizance of the executive. imém mélik has also been reported to have permitted composition of qadhaf offence.59 imém méwardê is also of the same opinion.60 the law reforms committee of egypt has recommended the legislation on this view.61 the above evidences are sufficient to convince that it would be wrong to presume an absolute bar on îulí in íudëd offences. it may also be noted that the sharê‘ah does not recommend the reporting of íudëd issues to authorities, it rather discourages the same. in the famous case of mé‘iz al-aslami, reported by hazzal b. nu‘aim, the prophet muíammad ( ) alerted hazzal62 saying, “had you veiled him with your sheet, it would have been better for you”.63 necessary to be noted in this connection is that composition of such offences at the pre-reporting stage would not mean the expunging of the offence. the offenders shall remain sinful until sincerely repented. the composition would merely keep the commission unnoticed and the offender will escape proceedings only. the above details support the utilization of mediation and conciliation in íudëd offences before they are reported to the concerned authorities. in case of qadhaf, these mechanisms may be utilized even during the pendency of the case and even just before the execution of punishment; the extremely belated stage. the response of the defendant plays significant role in the classification and effects of øulí on the case øulí may be between muslims and non-muslim fighters (ahlul-íarb). it may be between the rebellions and the ruler (caliph). it may also be between disputing spouses. but this work would be kept confined to the îulí which may take place between ordinary litigants in connection with some property, transactions and commercial matters. while filing the written statement, a defendant either admits or denies the contents hamdard islamicus 210 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 of the plaint. sometimes, he submits an evasive reply that amounts to his silence (sukët). a compromise may take place in any of these three situations, resulting in different effects.64 this can be elaborated profoundly in the following. compromise on account of admission of the defendant (øulí ma‘ iqrér al-mudda‘é ‘alaihi) this may occur in a situation where the plaintiff claims the ownership of some property, which is in the possession of the defendant. the defendant, while submitting a cognovits,65 admits the claim. thereafter, if he affects a compromise with the plaintiff, giving him a part of the suitproperty or property other than the suit-property, or usufruct of a property for a determined period, there would be nothing bad in this agreement. all schools of thought concur on the validity of this agreement.66 now, if the subject of compromise is a property, other than the claimed one, the agreement shall take the color of a contract of sale; for there is a consensual exchange of two properties. all rules of the sale contract would become applicable in this situation. as effect, inter alia, it will create right of pre-emption in case the property was immovable. similarly, indeterminacy (gharar) may prove fatal for such compromise. various kinds of contractual options, such as, option of defect, option of examination and option of keeping certain conditions, shall also run. the existence and capability of handing over of the subject matter at the time of conclusion of îulí will become compulsory.67 the compromise will take the effect of a lease contract; if its subject matter happens to be a usufruct. resultantly, its period must be determined. the death of either party would vitiate the contract as it occurs in a lease contract.68 all schools of thought are at concurrence that all factors, that would invalidate a lease contract, would also invalidate this kind of îulí and the vice versa.69 compromise on account of denial of defendant (øulí ma‘ inkér al-mudda‘é ‘alaihi) it will take place where the defendant denies the claim of the plaintiff. in pakistani courts, this occurs in 99% suits. if the defendant, hamdard islamicus 211 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 during the hearing of the case, affects compromise with the plaintiff on a portion/part of the claimed property, as it occurs in near about 60% suits in pakistani courts. this type of îulí is permissible according to the ×anafi, méliki and ×anbali schools.70 they argue that the plaintiff believes himself justified and the defendant also believes himself right; but gives a part of the claimed property just to put an end to the dispute and to get rid of it as early as possible. this happens when some people, due to their noble status and undisputed repute in the society, or business in some significant enterprises, or to avoid oath proceedings in case of non-availability of plaintiff’s witnesses, do not want to be indulged in litigation. the îulí is a recommended/mandëb act, and that no part of this type of îulí renders a lawful as unlawful and the vice versa.71 that’s why imém abë ×anêfah says, “i see îulí ‘ala al-inkér permissible, for it satisfies the need of amicable resolution of disputes”.72 shéfi‘ê school and ibn abi lailé, on the other hand, see this kind of îulí impermissible. they argue that if a plaintiff takes the property falsely, it will be the devouring of another’s wealth which is taboo. if he takes it in a good belief, yet he takes a thing before the declaration of his title by a competent court.73 al-øan‘éni has expressed a middle view. he says that the absolute approval of this kind of îulí is as incorrect as its absolute denial. the ruling about this îulí shall vary from case to case. there is no bar on plaintiff to take something in return of his compromise; if he believes the genuineness of his claim. the denial of the defendant would make no difference. if he (plaintiff) knows the falsehood of his claim, the compensatory property or amount (badal al-îulí) would be taboo for him. as far as the defendant is concerned, there would be two situations. he would be under obligation (wujëb) to hand over the compensatory property to the plaintiff, if he believes the rightness of the plaintiff’s claim but denies it for some reasons. if the defendant believes the correctness of his own denial, his îulí would be permissible (mubéí) and he may give the compensatory property to the plaintiff to get rid of his fatigue.74 on the analysis of arguments forwarded by all the learned jurists, it could be easily concluded that they concentrated more on the religious side of the issue as compared to its judicial effect. by considering both hamdard islamicus 212 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 aspects of the matter, it would surface that in case of falsehood of claim, the plaintiff would be no doubt sinful but the court would give effect to the compromise, giving effect to the apparent facts and circumstances. in the absence of any malafide on his part, there could be no blame on him. as far as the defendant is concerned, he is, by law, allowed to dispose his property for any lawful objective, and what could be a lawful objective more than to get rid of cumbersome, lengthy, uncertain and counter-productive litigation. compromise on account of silence of defendant (øulí ma‘ sukët al-mudda‘é ‘alaihi) in this case, the defendant neither admits nor denies the claim. so it also covers evasive written statement. in connection with the validity of compromise in this situation, controversy between the jurists is the same as in the preceding kind of îulí i.e. îulí ma‘ al-inkér.75 the above shéfi‘ê’s opinion in îulí ma‘ al-inkér seems to have been based on his famous statement “no word can be attributed to one who keeps silence”.76 the opinion of the majority seems to have been based on the exception to the general rule “silence, in response-wanting situations, amounts to affirmation.77 in brief, according to majority, including ×anafis, all the three kinds of îulí, above mentioned, are lawful and permissible. resultantly, the title of the defendant in the subject matter of compromise shall cease.78 no retreat from compromise would be allowed. a subsequent suit for nullifying of compromise and restitution of such property shall be liable to dismissal. as a procedural effect, it is evident from the above that compromise/îulí operates as res judicata in the sharê‘ah whereas, in law, it creates estoppels by conduct only. legal effects of øulí when the contract of îulí is concluded, the law comes into action and clothes it with some legal effectsboth substantial and procedural. those could be concluded as below.79 1) it terminates the suit permanently and operates as res judicata,80 meaning-thereby; the court would not reopen the issue for regular hearing between the same parties. here, the sharê‘ah defers hamdard islamicus 213 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 with law and goes a step ahead of it by placing a bar on the fresh suit. in law, the îulí operates as estoppels81 only, and as such it does not bar the subsequent suit. in criminal side, îulí also terminates the case to the extent of victim and the right of ta‘zêr remains with the state. 2) when the îulí is on account of admission of the defendant in respect of immovable property, it will create right of pre-emption in the favor of a third adjoining person; as per details stated above. 3) when îulí takes the effect of contract of sale, it creates all requirements and consequential effects of sale, such as, all essentials of validity, transfer of title, option of return on account of defect (khiyar-e-‘aib) and option of examination (khiyar-e-rëyat) and many others. the rules of dissolution of contract of sale (iqélah) shall also apply. iqélah may be entered into by the parties, and the îulí contract may come to an end in all civil and criminal cases with the sole exception of îulí in murder (qiîés). 4) if the îulí turns to a lease contract, the relevant lease rules will govern it. fixation of the duration, death of one of the parties and the devastation and destruction of the subject matter would bring about many changes.82 5) when the îulí becomes as sale or gift, it will prevent any disposition in the subject matter of îulí, before taking possession, more particularly when the property is a movable one.83 6) once a compromise/îulí is affected and the parties accepted it, its revocation is not allowed; even at the consent of both parties.84 revocation through iqélah is a sole exception to this rule. problem with pakistani statutes and courts pakistani statutes do not mention the phrase “îulí” except shara‘i niðém-i ‘adl regulation 2009 wherein the terms îulí and muîliíên (conciliators) could be found.85 the mechanism provided by the regulation is highly confusing and the judges and advocates could not ascertain its contemplation whether it is arbitration or conciliation. the relevant provision contains the phrase îulí which points to non-adjudicatory process and at the same time, it provides for recording of evidence, inspection of the documents and visit and inspection of the spot which are the main features of taíkêm.86 this anomaly could be removed either hamdard islamicus 214 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 by some rule made under section 17, or by some judgment of the apex courts, but unfortunately neither the government has framed the required rules nor any judgment of the appellate fora has emerged in the long span of eight years. another such term is sélis (or thélith) which has been used in the small claims and minor offences courts ordinance 2001.87 this law also suffers from the same defect. on one side, it requires the thélith to issue a certificate of voluntariness (being pleased with the settlement) of the parties, and on the other, it requires him to issue an award which means his findings based on evidence and other solid material.88 one wonders how voluntariness and award would run together and how a process could be adjudicatory and non-adjudicatory at the same time with the same persons.89 this feature of the ordinance has rendered it almost redundant, and one could hardly find a court decision under it, particularly in the criminal jurisdiction. in the kp province, all judicial magistrates, civil judges and ‘iléqah qéìês are notified as judges of the small cases and minor offenses court, nonetheless, none of them have ever inked down a judgment under the ordinance.90 the conciliation courts ordinance 1961 is still intact. truly speaking, it is a dead piece of legislation and is poor to the extent that it even does not define conciliation. almost all its contents carry the features of binding arbitration, such as the mandatory adjudication of the scheduled civil and criminal cases by the conciliation courts, recording of evidence, the issuance of decree and then its execution, and the provisions of judicial review.91 the remaining statutes contain the phrases like ‘mediation’, ‘conciliation’, ‘reconciliation’, ‘compromise’ and ‘amicable settlement’. some of the examples of such laws could be the federal excise act 2005, finance act, 2007, income tax ordinance 2001, industrial relation ordinance, kp local government act 2013, sindh local government act 2013, punjab local government act 2013, income tax ordinance 2001 and many more. worth mentioning is also the fact that this country has no specific law on the subject where proper meaning and definition could be found, with ease, for the relevant terms. the multiplicity of phrases has created hardships, rather confusions, in understanding and ascertaining their meanings. whether all these terms carry the same meaning, similar meaning or distinct meanings? if they carry the same meaning, then why conciliation and mediation have been hamdard islamicus 215 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 collectively used in the code of civil procedure 1908?92 why the family courts act 1964 mentions both words of compromise and reconciliation?93 why the urdu terms of arabic origin “thélith” and “muîleí” were preferred in some special legislation? on the other hand, the present trend of internationally interchanged use of mediation and conciliation has further intensified the situation. the apex pakistani courts have also not touched this aspect in their judgments and the prevailing confusion, as a result, has been adversely affecting the impact and productivity of all provisions, calling for amicable and peaceful settlements. a proper legislation on the subject is, therefore, needed where all these anomalies should be cleared in the definition clause with further necessary explanations and details, such as, who could be a party to compromise and who couldn’t be, what could be the subject of compromise and what couldn’t be, and what would be the legal effects of a compromise in a civil case as well as in criminal? similarly, the procedure, scope and limits of compromise should also be clarified. as explained above, pakistan has no specific substantive law on conciliation and compromises, however, its legal system provides for procedure to be adapted by the courts at the time when the parties have already entered into a compromise. in civil cases, the pakistani courts invoke order 23 of the code of civil procedure 1908, for passing orders on the basis of compromise (îulí). in order to achieve the required number of monthly disposal, more particularly when the case is old and falls in the targeted zone under the judicial (policy making) committee, they accept compromises haphazardly and mostly remain unobservant. being in such a state of affairs, they give no consideration to denial or admission of the defendant. the details forwarded by jurists in this regard are altogether alien to them. the maximum they know is the fact that îulí is highly valued in the sharê‘ah. to them, a compromise merely means an agreed upon settlement, it has nothing to do with the stance of the defendant or any type of contract of sale, lease or gift. when the senior judges of the district judiciary were asked about the maintainability of the pre-emption suit, where the cause of action has been shown as a compromise on account of admission of the defendant, they replied that they would dismiss the suit for the want of absence of sale contract and would not accept the plea that the compromise of the present defendant in a previous case has amounted to contract of sale. similarly if the hamdard islamicus 216 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 compromise would carry the element of usury (ribé), they would accept it as valid agreement and would grant a decree accordingly. another good example could be given from pre-emption (shuf‘ah) cases pending in courts. if a pre-emptor affects a compromise with the defendant on some value against his right of pre-emption, the learned judge would allow it and would announce his judgment accordingly. he remains ignorant of the unsaleable nature of the right of pre-emption. in such a situation, a judge should, following all schools of thought, reject the compromise and dismiss the suit for the absence of element of harm (ìarar).94 had there been any harm, the pre-emptor would have never accepted value against it. in brief, they would have no care for the different legal effects of various kinds of compromise under the sharê‘ah. the situation is not different on criminal side and the learned magistrates and judges accept compromises in criminal cases as inattentively as they do in civil cases. whenever a compromise is presented before them, they follow section 345 (6) of code of criminal procedure 1898, and deal composition of an offence as acquittal and as such do not grant ta‘zêrê punishment even in appropriate cases. the pakistan penal code provides for ta‘ziri punishment in section 311 and section 338(e), under the warranting circumstances despite composition or wavering, in the offenses of hurts and qatl-i‘amd (murder). this confinement is not inconsonance with the sharê‘ah which permits rather calls for ta‘zêrê punishment in all offenses and criminal cases having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, despite composition and wavering.95 sad to say that no case of conviction could be found even under these two sections, what to say of the remaining penal sections. at present, in the kp province only, 201 civil judge-cum-judicial magistrates, 25 section 30 magistrates, 25 session judges, 100 additional sessions judges, and 12 judges of antiterrorism courts are functioning,96 and none of them has ever convicted any accused under the above sections. worth mentioning are the compromises in common murder cases i.e. the cases not falling within the meaning of terrorism. across the country, the session judges acquit the accused on production of compromise. usually, they do not ask the state’s representative (public prosecutor) of his opinion about ta‘zêr. in the sharê‘ah, when qiîés could not be imposed due to compromise, ta‘zêrê punishment becomes mandatory in appropriate cases and it may extend to imprisonment for life.97 mélikis are even of the opinion that the hamdard islamicus 217 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 judge is under legal obligation to award ta‘zêr if qiîés is taken away by compromise. they have even fixed the ta‘zêr in such a situation as hundred lashes and imprisonment for one year.98 during a training session on ×udëd laws in kp judicial academy, the participant judges were extremely astonished on hearing that there was an effective difference between ×udëd cases and ×udëd offenses and that there could be a space for îulí in the later. they were stunned on knowing that îulí could be affected in qadhaf cases; even at a very belated stage of hearing. under islamic law and jurisprudence, ta‘zêrê punishments have their own characteristics in terms of required proof, objectives and effects of compromise. except a very few number of cases where the ta‘zêr could be the right according to some jurists, punishment under ta‘zêr is the right of the ruler (government), technically known as íaqq al-salïanah. this right remains with the qéìê/judge despite compromise of the complainant and accused in criminal cases. in the sharê‘ah, compromise in criminal cases does not necessarily mean acquittal of the accused. the contents of the section 345(6) of the code of criminal procedure 1898 and ultimately the judgments of some apex pakistani courts on this subsection, which call for the necessary acquittal of the accused on the basis of compromise, are apparently inconsistent with injunctions of sharê‘ah or, at the least; they are misunderstood and misinterpreted as well. a qéìê/judge is supposed to see and check the contents of the compromise. in pakistan, at times, compromises reveal the statement of the complainant about the innocence or non-involvement of the accused in the occurrence. here the compromise shall lead to acquittal because it is not a compromise in the real sense; it is rather an admission by the complainant of baseless or inadvertent allegation against the accused. in most of the cases, compromises are affected in a way where the accused accepts the pardon of the complainant as against his transgression. here, the compromise amounts to the admission of fact by the accused. the courts in pakistan acquit the accused on the basis of compromise then and there. this practice is against the spirit of sharê‘ah. here, a qéìê or judge is required to consider whether the circumstances and facts of the case warrant infliction of punishment as ta‘zêr, and on finding reasons for doing so, he shall be under obligation to convict the accused and impose punishment despite compromise between the parties. of course, section 338(e) and section 311 of the pakistan penal code hamdard islamicus 218 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 1860 permit the relevant trial courts to award punishments as ta‘zêr despite of compounding of the offense by parties, having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case. this much is not sufficient and the discretion of judges and qéìês should be expanded to all offenses, punishable with punishment other than íadd. once, in response to the query of three-member bench of the supreme court, mr munir a. malik, the then attorney general of pakistan (agp) had formulated eighteen points and has sought the guidance of august supreme court of pakistan in connection of composition of offenses under section 345 of the code of criminal procedure 1898. the supreme court has observed that the trial courts and the high courts should not accept compromises with closed eyes. in one of his points, the learned agp claims that acceptance of the commission of the offence is a condition precedent for compromise.99 this stance is quite similar with îulí ma‘ al-iqrér (compromise on account of admission). to cope with the situation, on one hand section 345(6) of the code of criminal procedure 1898 should be amended accordingly, and on the hand, the judges, magistrates and qéìês should be imparted comprehensive training on the subject. conclusion the sharê‘ah has its own scientific system of informal techniques of dispute resolution. the system offers two modes for amicable and peaceful resolution of disputes: the taíkêm (self-binding resolution) and the îulí (non-binding settlement). this system is more practicable, expeditious, simpler and easier as compared to the modern adr mechanism. the adr is, no doubt, cheaper but the îulí and taíkêm are basically probono publico (free of cost). necessary difference should, however, be drawn up between iîléí and îulí. the former refers to a procedure where every effort for amicable settlement of dispute is made and, as such, it corresponds to the generic phrase adr, whereas the later means a contract between the disputants which uproots the dispute and terminates the litigation; and is similar to the total sum of mediation and conciliation of the adr modes. the sharê‘ah and law both recognize the resolution of disputes through peaceful modes, nonetheless, the former places more emphasis on it as compared to the later. in the sharê‘ah, if îulí is the important part of pre-trial proceedings on one hand, it is also hamdard islamicus 219 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 a process to be rewarded for in the eternal life on the other. worth mentioning is the fact that îulí operates as res judicata in the sharê‘ah, and operates only as estoppels in law. øulí can be affected both in civil and criminal cases. civil or criminal nature of a dispute does not determine the fitness of a case for îulí. the sole criterion is this connection could be the involvement of element of public policy in a case. necessary distinction should also be made between commission of ×udëd offenses and ×udëd cases. the former could be the subject of amicable settlement whereas the later couldn’t be so. qadhaf offences could be the subject of compromise; even long after it becomes a qadhaf case. almost in all cases of ta‘zêr, the compromising party is the government, and the judge or qéìê may award punishment despite the compromise between the parties, having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case. in the sharê‘ah, compromise in a criminal case does not necessarily amount to the acquittal of the accused, as it is required by section 345(6) of the code of criminal procedure 1898. the section should necessarily be amended, for it speaks against the injunctions of sharê‘ah . in the process of compromise in a civil case, stance of the defendant in his written statement plays a significant role and his îulí shall operate as sale, lease or gift as the circumstances may demand. there is multiplicity of phrases in adr enabling provision of pakistani statutes and it has caused confusions in understanding and ascertaining the meanings of those phrases. a comprehensive legislation on the subject of îulí has, therefore, become the need of the hour. the learned judges have developed a habit of accepting compromises blindly. this practice has largely defeated the purpose of laws, both on criminal and civil sides. to handle with the situation, judicial academies of the country should develop comprehensive refresher courses and should invite the judges for specialized trainings. the pre-service training manuals of the academies should also contain separate modules on the subject. notes and references 1. ibréhêm b. muhammad ibn farhun, tabîêrét-ulíukkém, beirut, dar-ul kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1995, p. 17. hamdard islamicus 220 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 2. article no. 227(1), the constitution of islamic republic of pakistan. 3. in conventional law, the mediation is, sometimes, defined by what it is actually not. several models of mediation have been invented and a number of approaches have been developed towards it. some differentiate between mediation and conciliation while some do not admit any difference between the two. some others have clothed it with the features of arbitration. almost all pakistani statutes have used mediation in the meaning of conciliation. the conciliators commission of japan treats mediation and conciliation in the same meaning. the uncitral model law on international commercial conciliation 2002 has expressly washed out any distinction between mediation and conciliation. the indian arbitration and conciliation act 1996, has used ‘conciliation’ in the meaning of arbitration. resultantly, no universal definition has been surfaced so far despite the overwhelming popularity of mediation as compared to the remaining modes of alternative dispute resolution (adr). this has confused the mediators and practitioners what to do and what should not. unfortunately, the boundaries between arbitration, mediation and conciliation are blurring day by day. [see the explanation attached to section 1(2) of the indian arbitration and conciliation act 1996. the free dictionary by farlex, newton arbitration, available at, http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/mediation-arbitration, last accessed on june 5, 2016. madabushi sridhar, alternative dispute resolution, 244, 245. article 1(3) of the uncitral model law on international commercial conciliation 2002. the text is available at http://www.sccinstitute.com/filearchive/ 2/21748/ml-conc-e.pdf (last accessed on feb. 26, 2015)]. 04. the specific mentioning of arbitration (taíkêm) is due to the fact that the sharê‘ah recognizes it as a sub branch (far‘) of regular adjudication (qéìê), for the reason that its process is adjudicatory and the award is binding. the jurists (fuqahé) are, therefore, at concurrence that an arbitrator must have the qualifications required for a qéìê (judge). so, it is not an alternative mode though informal. even a considerable number of western writers do not accept arbitration as a member of adr family. see, zainuddin ibn nujaim, al-baír-ur ré’iq, beirut, dar al-ma’arifah, n.d., vol. vii, p. 24. also see ibréhêm b. muhammad ibn farhun, tabîirat-ul hukkém, beirut, dar-ul kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1995, vol. xvii, p. 50. alaed din ali b. khalêl, mu‘ên-ul ×ukkém, p. 27. also see ibn ‘óbidên, ×éshiyah radd-ul-muhtar, vol. viii, p. 141. see also al-ghuzzi esa b. uthman, ódéb-ul-qaìé, p. 35. 05. al-sulíu min al-saléíi wa huwa did-ul faséd, wa al-isléíu néqid-ul ifaséd) please see for this text and the related discussion, al-shaikh qésim al-quunuwi, anês-ul fuqhé fita‘rifét al-mutadawiléti bain al-fuqhé, jeddah, dar-ul wafa, 1986, p. 245. also see mudghamish jamal abd-ul ghani, al-furëq fi al-lughah, beirut, al-resalah publishers, 2006, p. 369. see also muhammad amim-ul-ihsan, al-ta‘rêfét al-fiqhiyah, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 2009, p. 130. see also ali b. muhammad al-jurjani, kitéb-ul ta‘rêfét, beitut, dar al-ma’arifah, 2007, p. 124. 06. the noble qur’én, ii:11. 07. ibid., vii:142. 08. ibid., vii:85. hamdard islamicus 221 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 09. ibid., xxvi:151-152. 10. ibid., xxvii:48. 11. ibid., iv:128. 12. ibid., xxx:41. 13. shabbêr ahmad usméni, tafsêr usméni, iii:527. 14. mufti muhammad shafê, ma‘érif al-qur’én, i:544. 15. kamil ahmad abd-ud daim al-qazi, isléí dhét al-bain fi daw al-sharê‘ah al-islémiyah, al-eskandariyyah, dar al-eeman, 2014, p. 22. the author writes, al-sulíu huwa al-wasfu, wal-isléíu huwa al-fê‘lu li ihléli dhélikaal-waîfi wa izélati diddihê”. 16. muslim b. hajjéj, øaíêí muslim, kitéb al-‘aqdiyah, béb isléí al-íékim bain al-khasmain. 17. muíammad b. isma’êl al-bukhéri, al-bukhérê, kitéb al-øulí, béb iîléí bain al-néss. 18. pertinent here to note is the fact, that the phrase adr was invented in 1970s. before this, the terms ‘dispute settlement’ ‘conflict resolution’ and ‘ mediation’ etc were dominating the field. in the united states, no one used the phrase adr even in the 1970s. during this whole decade, libraries and other book-shelves were dominated by books titling ‘labor-management mediation’ and the term adr was yet to come in common usage. [jerome t. barrett & joseph p. barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, san francisco, jossey-bass, 2004, pp. 188-189, 256-257]. 19. even in law, the conciliation does not mean a compromise. conciliation is a noun from conciliate, a transitive verb. it literally means to pacify, to appease, and to make somebody less angry or friendlier especially by a kind deed. it is the action of stopping someone being angry. the word has got a latin origin: conciliatus, the past participle of conciliare that means to assemble or to unite. in other words, it is the bringing of two persons/things nearer to each other. this last meaning is very much closer to the technical sense of the term. technically, it means an effort of a third neutral person for bringing two opponents together to end a disagreement. some hold that conciliation is the settlement of dispute without litigation. [a s hornby, oxford edvanced learner’s dictionary, 310. merriam-webster online dictionary, available at http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/conciliate, last accessed on july 7, 2015. avtar singh, law of arbitration and conciliation, lucknow, eastern book company, 2007, p. 433]. 20. ibn ‘óbidên, radd-ul-muhtér ‘ala al-dur al-mukhtér, vol. xii, pp. 282-283. 21. ibid. 22. al-sarakhsê, al-mabsëï, quetta, maktaba rashdiah, n.d., vol. xx. p. 146. 23. ibn farhun, tabîiraï-ul ×ukkém, vol. ii, p. 55. 24. al-mujallah, section no. 1531. 25. ibn al-hummém, takmilah fatí al-qadêr, quetta, maktabah ashrafiah, n.d., vol. viii, p. 423. 26. mufti muhammad shafi, ma‘érif-ul qur’én, karachi, idarat-ul-ma‘arif, 2012, vol. i, pp. 438-39. see also abd-ul-qayyum, guldasta-i tafésir, multan, idara ta’lifat ashrafiyah, 1428 a.h., vol. ii, p. 156. hamdard islamicus 222 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 27. wahbah al-zuhali, al-tafsêr al-munêr, quetta, amir hamza kutubkhana, n.d., vol. ii, pp. 679-680. 28. the noble qur’én, ii:224. 29. muslim b. al-hajjéj al-qushairi, øaíêí muslim, kitéb al-aiman, , reported by abu hurairah, lahore, islami kutubkhana, n.d., p. 474, (the íadêth has also been reported by all siíéí sittah, except ibn majha]. 30. imam ahmad b. hanble, musnad ahmad, narrated by ummi kulthum, lahore, little star printers, n.d., vol. xii, p. 292. [in the reign of caliph ‘umar, a person asked his wife to disclose on oath whether she really loved him. the wife replied that if she was required to declare on oath, then the answer was ‘no’. the husband filed a complaint with ‘umar, and he summoned her. on her appearance, the caliph inquired about the statement. confirming the statement, she replied that she was under compulsion of oath to speak the truth. she asked astonishingly whether she could tell a lie after oath. ‘umar said, “you ought to do that. a connubium (legal co-habitation) need not to be necessarily love-oriented. people do live with each other as regard for religion and honor for their families”. see taufiq al-wa‘i, al-kitbah wa i‘adad al-khatib, al-mansurah egypt, dar al-yaqin, 1999, p. 291. 31. al-ùabarénê, al-mua’jam al-kabir, vol. iii, asif sadeeq printers lahore, p. 100, ×adêth no: 3825. 32. muhammad b. ali al-shaukani, fatí-ul-qadêr, riyadh, dar al-muayyed, 2009, p. 1901. 33. shabbir ahmad usmani, tafsêr usménê, karachi, dar-ul-isha’at, 2007, vol. iii, p. 745. 34. the noble qur’én, lxviii:16. 35. ibid., 11-13. 36. abul’l a‘la-maududi, the meaning of qur’én, english trans. by ch. muhammad akbar, al-nisa, iv:114, lahore, islamic publications, 2011, vol. i, p. 377. 37. the noble qur’én, lviii:9-10. 38. professor ahmad al-hamlawi, shazh al-‘urf fi fan al-sarf, beirut, dar-ul-fikr, 2003, p. 30. 39. ali b. khalil al-tarablasi. mu‘in al-×ukkém, pp. 122-123. also see mahir abdul majid abbud, al-uîël al-qédaiyah fê risélati al-férëq ‘umar (ra), beirut, dar al-lutub al-ilmiah, 2009, pp. 76-78. 40. abn farhun, tabsirat-ul-×ukkém, vol. ii, p. 54. see also ali b. khalil, mu‘in al-×ukkém, p. 123. 41. øaíêí al-bukhérê, kitéb al-khuîëmat, darussalam, riyadh, 1997, vol. iii, p. 345, ×adêth no. 2418. 42. muhammad ibn sirin, tafsêr al-aílém, chapter no. 53, cairom dar al-iddah li al-turath al-islami, n.d., p. 383. it may be noted that dream’s interpretation has been a separate and permanent discipline of sharê‘ah. the prophet muíammad ( ) said, “ru’ya (genuine dreams) come from allah and unreal dreams from sitan”. he said further that real dream is forty sixth of prophecy”. see the reference above and also øaíêí al-bukhérê, ×adêth no. 7005, and saíêí muslim, ×adêth no. 2261, as narrated abë qatédah. 43. muíammad b. aímad al-sarakhsê, al-mabsëï, beirut, dar al-ma‘rifah, n.d., vol. hamdard islamicus 223 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 xx, pp. 58, 133-170, 178. 44. qudémah al-maqdasi, al-muqhnê‘, al-rawhahh, qatar al-wataniyyah, n.d., vol. ii, pp.122-131. 45. their books are lil-iîléíê hadf wa minhéj (2004), qawé‘id al-t‘amul bain al-néîî, 1998, al-øulí al-qéìê, 2001, al-øulí wa al-taíkêm, 2003, iîléí dat al-bain, 2014, respectively. 46. wahbah al-zuhaili, al-fiqí al-islémi wa adillatuhu, damascusm, dar-ul-fikr, 1989, vol. v, pp. 293-324. 47. see fariduddin aalim b. al-‘ala, al-fatéwé al-tétérkhéniyah, pp. 230-237. also see wahbah al-zuhaili, al-fiqí al-islémi wa adillatuhu, vol. v, p. 320. 48. muhammad bin muhammad bin asim al-undulusi, sharí ibn al-néðim li tuífat al-hukkém, beirut, dar ibn hazm, 2013, vol. ii, p. 635. 49. muhammad muhyuddin abdul ×amêd, al-aíwal al-shakhîiyah, beirut, al-maktabah al-ilmiah, 2003, pp. 244-246. in faskh, some situations do not require the decree of the court such as faskh on the basis of apostasy or under the plea of falling within prohibited degree. here, the spouses may get selfseparation. the situations that necessarily require the decree of the court, as discussed above, are of very fragile nature. here, if recourse is not made to the qéìi or the qéìi is yet to decree the suit and one of the spouses dies, the surviving shall have no entitlement to legacy. for more details, consult the above reference. also see mufti aziz-ur-rahman, fatéwé dér-ul-ulëm deoband, karachi, dar-ul-isha’at, 1986, vol. vii, pp. 146-151. 50. al-késéni, badé’i‘ al-øané’i‘ fê tartêb al-sharé’i‘,vol. x, pp. 4653-4655. see also abdul karim zaidan, al-qiîéî wa al-diyat fi al-sharê‘ah al-islamiyyah, beirut, resalah publishers, 2007, pp. 125-127. 51. al-mughni, vol. vii, p. 755. 52. madabhushi sridhar, alternative dispute resolution: negotiation and mediation, p. 228. 53. section 25 and 25-a of nab (1st and 2nd amendments) ordinance, 2000. 54. sulaiman b. al-ashath, sunan abë déwëd, kitéb al-×udëd, ×adêth no. 971. the author has captioned the chapter as “appology in íudëd when unreported]. 55. mélik b. anas, al-mu’ïïa, kitéb al-×udëd, reported by safwan b. abdullah b. safwan, with urdu trans. by allama wahid-uz zaman, lahore, maktabah rahmaniah, n.d., p. 584. also see imam muhammad b. al-×assan, mu’aïïa al-imém muíammad, kitéb al-×udëd, with urdu trans. of mawlana shamsuddin, lahore, maktabat-ul-ilm, n.d., pp. 375-376. 56. mélik b. anas, al-mu’aïïa, kitéb al-×udëd, p. 585. 57. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhéri, kitéb al-×udëd, ×adêth no. 6827. 58. abë isíaq al-sherazi, al-muhadhdhab, vol. ii, p. 286. 59. muíammad b. aímad ibn rushd, bidéyat-ul-mujtahid, beirut, dar ihya al-turath al-‘arabi, 1992, vol. ii, p. 572. 60. abu al-hassan ali b. muíammad al-méwardi, al-aíkém al-sulïéniyah wal wiléyét al-dêniyah, beirut, dar al-arqam, n.d., p. 307. hamdard islamicus 224 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 61. aadil abd al-maujud, supervisor of the committee, taqnên al-sharê‘ah al-islémiyah, beirut, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyah, 2013, p. 734. 62. hazzal was the person who convinced mé‘iz to confess. 63. sulaiman b. al-ashath, sunan abë déwëd, kitéb al al-×udëd, ×adêth no. 972. 64. see al-mujallah, section 1535. also see fariduddin aalim b. al-‘ala, al-fatéwé al-tétérkhéniyah, quetta, maktabah rashidiah, 2010, p. 227. 65. it is a written confession by a defendant in an action that he had no defense. john burke, osborns concise law dictionary, p. 79. 66. al-sarakhsi, al-mabsëï, vol. xx, p. 147. al-késéni, badéi‘ al-øané’i‘ fi tarïêb al-sharé’i‘, vol. vi, p. 101. ibn al-×ummam, takmilah fatí al-qadêr, vol. vii, p. 423. ali b. khalil, mu‘in al-×ukkém, p. 123. ibn rushd, bidéyat-ul-mujtahid, vol. ii, p. 377. abn farhun, tabîirat-ul-×ukkém, vol. ii, p. 54. al-sherazi, al-muhazhab, vol. i, p. 333. al-sharbini, mughnê al-muhtéj, vol. ii, p. 177. ibn qudamah, al-mughnê, vol. iv, p. 482. 67. see fariduddin aalim b. al-‘ala, al-fatéwé al-tétérkhéniyah, p. 228. 68. ibid. 69. késéni, badéi‘ al-øané’i‘ fi tartib al-sharé’i‘, urdu trans. by mufti abdul wahid, lahore, diyal singh trust library, 2013, vol. vi, p. 135. ibn al-hummam, takmilah al-fatí al-qadêr, vol. vii, p. 31. al-dardir, al-sharí al-kabêr, vol. iii, p. 310. al-sharbini, mughnê al-muítéj, vol. ii, p. 178. ibn qudamah, al-mughnê, vol. iv, p. 483. 70. ibid. see also al-mustafa al-khinn, athér al-ikthiléf fi al-qawé‘id al-uîëliyah fi iktiléf al-fuqahé, beirut, muassasah al-risalah, 2012, pp. 545-546. 71. ibid. see additionally, al-sharbini, mughnê al-muítéj, vol. ii, p. 179. ibn qudamah, al-mughnê, vol. iv, p. 486. 72. muhammad al-khudhari bic, térêkh al-tashrê‘ al-islémi, beirut, dar al-qalam, 1983, p. 210. see wahbah al-zuhaili, al-fiqí al-islémi wa adillatuhë, vol. v, p. 296. 73. al-sherazi, al-muhadhdhab, vol. i, p. 333. al-sharbini, mughni al-muhtaj, vol. ii, p. 179. see also al-mustafa al-khinn, ‘athér al-ikthiléf fi al-qawé‘id al-uîëliah fi iktiléf al-fuqahé, pp. 545-546. 74. muhammad b. ismail al-øané‘ani, subul al-salam, beirut, dar al-ma’arifah, 2005, vol. iii, p. 93. 75. ibid. see also wahbah, al-fiqí al-islémi wa adillatuhë, vol. v, p. 297. 76. al-mujallah, section no. 67. wahbah al-zuhaili, uîël al-fiqí al-islémi, vol. i, p. 555. 77. dr. ramzi muhammad ali daraz, aíkém al-sukkët fi al-fiqí al-islémi, beirut, manshurat al-alabi al-huquqiyah, 2011, pp. 283-286. al-mujallah, section no. 67. zuhaili wahbah, uîël al-fiqí al-islémi, vol. i, p. 555. 78. wahbah al-zuhaili, al-fiqí al-islémi wa adillatuhë, vol. v, p. 298. 79. al-kasani, bédé’i‘ al-øané’i‘ fi tartêb al-sharé’i‘, vol. vi, p. 53. ibn al-hummam, takmilah al-fatí al-qadêr, vol. vii, p. 29. wahbah al-zuhaili, al-fiqí al-islémi wa adillatuhë, vol. v, p. 322. 80. res judicata is a rule of civil procedure that bars a fresh suit between the same parties on some issue already decided by a court of competent jurisdiction. it has been based on the principle that a thing decided should be received as truth hamdard islamicus 225 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and that a judicial decision is conclusive until reversed, johan burke, osborn’s concise law dictionary, london, sweet & maxwell, 1981, p. 289. 81. estoppels is a rule of law of evidence which precludes a person from denying the truth and correctness of a fact deposed by him in his previous statement and has led others to believe such, johan burke, osborn’s concise law dictionary, p. 136. 82. wahbah al-zuhaili, al-fiqí al-islémi wa adillatuhë, vol. v, p. 324. 83. ibid., vol. v, p. 322. 84. muhammad bin muhammad bin ‘aîim al-undulusi, sharí ibn al-néðim li tuífét al-×ukkém, beirut, dar ibn hazm, 2013, vol. ii, p. 635. 85. the sharai niðam-e-‘adl regulation, 2009, section 13. 86. section 13(1) of the sharai niðam-e-‘adl regulation 2009. it may be noted here that the first part of this law has been repealed by the establishment of civil mobile courts act 2015. this repealing law is, however, not yet inforce for want of notification from the provincial government of kp. the relevant section reads as under: (1) short title, extent and commencement. – (1) this act may be called the establishment of civil mobile courts act, 2015. (2) it shall extend to such areas of the province of the khyber pakhtunkhwa as government, in consultation with the chief justice of the high court, notifies from time to time. (3) it shall come into force on such date as government may, by notification in the official gazette, notify in this behalf. 87. the small claims and minor offences courts ordinance 2001, sections 2, 14. 88. the small claims and minor offences courts ordinance 2001, sections 14-16 89. one of the authors, dr. ‘attaullah, in his capacity of trainer at the kp judicial academy since its inception, has been, off and on, inquiring the learned trainee judges of such judgments but has not received a single reply in affirmative. 90. see sections 3, 8 and 11 of the ordinance. 91. the code of civil procedure 1908, section 89(a). 92. the family courts act 1964, section 12. 93. al-késéni, bad’i‘ øané’i‘ fi tartêb al-sharé’i‘, vol. vi, p. 53. ibn qudamah, al-mughnê, vol. v, p. 17. al-mardawi, al-inîéf, vol. v, p. 247, malik b. anas, al-mudawwanah, vol. iv, p. 377. 94. abdul qadir awdah, al-tashrê‘ al-jinayê al-islémi, beirut, muassasat al-risalah, 1984, vol. ii, p. 686. 95. https://www.google.com.pk/#q=peshawar+high+court, last accessed on september 25, 2016. 96. ibn ‘óbidin, ×ashiyatu radd-ul-muhtér ‘l al-dur-ul-mukhtér, vol. iii, p. 196. al-mawardi, al-aíkém al-sulïéniyyah wal wiléyét al-dêniyyah, p. 269. abdul qadir awdah, al-tashrê‘ al-jinayê al-islémi, vol. ii, p. 183 97. muhammad b. ahmad ibn rushd, bidayat-ul-mujtahid, beirut, dar ihya al-turath al-‘arabi, 1992, vol. ii, p. 96. 98. see for all eighteen points, http://nation.com.pk/national/02-oct-2013/agp-filesformulations-regarding-pardon-cases, last accessed on 10th feb. 2015. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 2\the effects of begging.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 19 the effects of begging on human character and its remedy in the light of islamic teachings 1habib ur rahman 2mahmood ahmad 1govt post graduate college samnabad, faisalabad. (pakistan) 2department of islamic studies university of gujrat, gujrat. (pakistan) allah almighty has made man the noblest of creatures and gave him the most important and high status among all creatures. he has given honor and respect to mankind. gaining wealth through begging, requesting from others, and wandering from door to door for money and food is damaging to human dignity. the article tries to present the detail of guidance recieved from the qur’an and hadith. keywords: begging; disgrace; human; ×adêth; islam; qur’én; self-respect. introduction economics and society have a close relationship with human life. where islam has given the right to protection of life, property and respect, it has recognized the right to obtain a legitimate source of livelihood for the sake of a peaceful life. without economic freedom, social and political freedom is impossible. without economic justice, there is no possibility of peace and tranquility. allah almighty has created man and not left him helpless in this world, but also provided the needful things for all the creatures. he has also given them the ability to use them. now it is the duty of man to be truly blessed with these blessings and facilities, whether he strives for the blessings of life in any way and by hard work to obtain lawful sustenance or earns his livelihood by adopting wrong and illegitimate 20 the effects of begging... means. begging is one of the worst, most shameful and ugly means of subsistence. exploring the trends of begging, exposing the real truth, conveying the rights of the deserving, eradicating the evil of begging in islamic society and creating a good islamic society, identifying the real beneficiaries of charity today are among important needs of the era. there is an important need of the era. the article in hands deals with the above mentioned problems. literal meaning of begging it is said that he had so much (wealth) that he could not support his family (ibn manzoor, j, 2012) it means a weak beggar who is deprived of means of livelihood for some reason and who asks for goods from others. according to imam shafi‘i, a faqeer is one who has nothing and a miskeen is one who has a little wealth to support his family, while according to imam abu hanifa, the opposite is true. (ibn manzoor, j, 2012) begging, is an undesirable act in any society of the world. it is a source of living for those who beg and a disgrace for the society. it is the root of nearly every other social evil as well. it leads to physical deterioration, mantel incompetency, preventable disease and starvation and wreaks lives by facing them into crime, mental abnormalities, family mal-adjustments and social irregularities”. terminological meaning “faqeer”the masculine noun is a dervish who keeps food for his children for at least one day and at most two or four days, as opposed to a poor person who has nothing, is extremely needy and helpless. (syed ahmad, maulvi, 1977) according to the writers of urdu daaira e maarif islamia in islam those who trust in god and do not ask for anything from others were called “faqeer” but ever since the beggars adopted this name, its meaning has changed and now the “faqeer” is not looked upon favorably in the society. (danish gah punjab, 1978) “begging (nature), individuals may gain all or part of their living by begging whether from door to door on in public place. in some cases, attempts to increase such income may be made by deforming or mutilating the body. this may be done deliberately by the beggar or may be done by an adult, possibly the parent, dependent on the begging of children. (saur, k. g. 1991) hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 21 (incidence) begging occurs frequently, particularly in developing countries, where unemployment and shortage of food are problems. (claim) beggars are evidence that either, society has failed, beggars confront individuals with this failure. moreover “begging”is too much telated to vagrancy and crime as reckless, says that:vagrancy and begging are criminal practices;and vagrancy and begging as associated with each other are violational behaviours (such as alcoholism, drug addition, prostitution, desertion, petty crims against property and so forth). (walter c, 1995) impacts of begging on human character begging reflects many and multi-dimensional negative effects on human character. some important and widely spread impacts are mentioned below. negation of self-sufficiency: self-sufficiency is an important attribute of human character, which is why the almighty has endowed man with abilities, knowledge and authority over other creatures. he has also arranged for divine knowledge for his further training. the son of adam gradually turned towards himself. he grows up and at one point he starts doing everything on his own. it is a sign of his authority, knowledge and ability that he can tear the chest of the mountains, turn the direction of the rivers, dig the bottom of the earth and occupies the minerals. he can tear the chest of the space and float there. but on the other hand, he who makes begging his way instead of working becomes a burden to the society. if a person is physically weak or infirm in any way or he does not reach the point where he can support himself in the pursuit of the necessities of life, then allah almighty has given his responsibility to his brothers. he has the right to convey his rights without hurting his selfrighteousness. the almighty has said: ُرومِ ائِِل َواْلَمْح وٌم. ِللسَّ قٌّ َمْعلُ َواِلِهْم َح ي أَْم ِذيَن فِ َوالَّ and those within whose wealth is a known right. for the petitioner and the deprived (al-qur’én: lxx:24) 22 the effects of begging... death of honor and dignity self-respect is a lofty habit in the presence of which man neither bows down before a man like himself, nor lowers himself from his rank. he repeatedly asks allah for his necessities. he never spreads his hands in front of any creature for any important or unimportant demand. أَلُونَ “ يَماُهْم َال يَْس ِرفُُهْم بِِس ِف تَْع َن التَّعَفُّ اَء ِم ُل أَْغِنيَ بُُهُم اْلَجاِه يَْحَس ا اَس إِْلَحافً ”النَّ [charity is] for the poor who have been restricted for the cause of allah, unable to move about in the land. an ignorant [person] would think them self-sufficient because of their restraint, but you will know them by their [characteristic] sign. (al-qur’én: ii:273) the prophet ( said: “those who make begging a profession, on the day of resurrection they will be in a state where there will be no flesh on their faces.” (bukhari, m, 2004) oppression of one’s self just as allah almighty has bestowed upon man the rights of other people, so he has bestowed upon him the rights of his body and soul. holly prophet ( ) said to a companion who intended to fast every day: ق ک ح ک علي و لنفس “and your soul is right over you.”(bukhari, m, 2004) the right of the body is to use it only as long as it can work. when it feels really tired, it should rest for a while. the body also has the right to be provided with a diet that maintains its immunity. too much food is cruel to the body. a food that makes you sick is also not right. it is also an injustice to the body to suffer from illness after eating and to spend on medicines. the greatest right of the body is to be provided with halal food and halal clothing. the one who begs, in fact, oppresses himself by throwing himself into the pit of humiliation. whenever a person does something that has hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 23 fallen from the human position, he pushes the nafs from his higher position to the lower position. humiliation and disgrace a person who earns a living by begging from the people instead of earning it, earns permanent humiliation and disgrace for himself. it is narrated on the authority of ibn abbas that the messenger of allah ( said: “if the begger knows what is in it for him (i.e. humiliation), he should never beg.” (bukhari, m, 2004) it is narrated on the authority of samrah ibn jundab that the messenger of allah ( ), said: of course, begging is to scratch the face by which a person injures his face, so whoever wants to keep it on his face and whoever wants to leave it, except to begging from the ruler or in a matter where he has no choice but to do so. “(abu dawood, s, 2016) livelihood breaks allah almighty has endowed every human being with different powers and abilities for earning a living. this is the essence of his humanity in life. a person who begs suffocates all his energies and abilities with his own hands. and the higher the number of beggars, the more the economy will sink in this society. this creates inequality and tension in the economy. islam has urged every healthy and wealthy person to strive for his own livelihood instead of receiving his share (zakat and sadaqat) from the wealth of others. when any force is used, it will progress. and if a force is suspended, it will eventually disappear. the messenger of allaah ( said: وّيٍ “ ر قس ذي م ني و ال ل دقہ لغ ل الص ”ال تح “he is not entitled to zakat if he is wealthy and able to earn due to his health.” (abu dawood, s, 2016) 24 the effects of begging... loss of thinking power the beggar is not only free from the worries of earning a living, but his thinking is also weakened. after the habit of begging, he does not care which job will be suitable for his future needs. there is no worry of fulfillment. such a person neither uses his mental abilities positively nor does any constructive work for his family and society with his hands and arms. the more beggars there are in a society, the more poor the society. it is necessary for the survival and development of the society that begging should be stopped completely. disadvantages of permanent poverty the beggar becomes accustomed to begging for food by escaping from hard work, so he does not have the confidence and belief that allah almighty can provide him with sustenance even through hard work. eventually, he sets up a permanent camp for the needy. the prophet ( said: ر“ اب فق ہ ب ح هللا علي ئلہ اال فت اب مس د ب ح عب ”ال يفت “whoever opens the door to begging, allah will open the door of poverty for him.”(ibn hanbal, a, 2009) he ( also said: “whoever is afflicted with poverty and expresses it before the people, his famine will not end, and whoever expresses it before allah, allah will provide for him sooner or later.” (abu dawood, s, 2016) torture of immorality in the eyes of the beggar, there is no place for any moral value. the virtues of morality only take root in the heart in which there is modesty, honor and faith. the beggar lies, deceits, hypocrites, flatters all the time. it spreads and tries, so all kinds of vices cling to it. beggars cause infectious diseases like impatience, irritability, overeacting to spread in the society. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 25 deterioration of health: people save their self-respect by giving dirty, defective, unclean, rotten and stale things to the beggars. consumption of such food destroys their health. the germs of permanent diseases hollow out their body. it is harém like interest and who eats such harém food their faces hang down. according to the command of the prophet ( , to beg is to peel one’s face with one’s hands. earnings from begging is like adultery: the prophet ( said: “only three types of men are allowed to begging: 1. the person who is in debt is allowed to beg as much as he needs. 2. the person who is starving and the neighbors also, admit it. 3. the narrator did not mention the name of the third person. however, if anyone begs except these reasons, consider qabisa as if he is eating the earnings of adultery. (abu dawood, s, 2016) prevention of begging in the light of qur’én and ×adêth just as wealth is essential for the necessities of life, it is necessary to adopt the preferred and best means of obtaining them. some sources of earning wealth are legitimate and popular and some are undesirable and rejected such as theft, robbery, deception, forgery and begging. the society considers them as despicable and shameful deeds and the whole of humanity is affected by them. the law and standard prescribed by islamic shari’ah for halal and harém, permissible and unlawful is explicitly described from divine revelation and instructions of the prophet ( . there are clear teachings and rules of qur’én and ×adêth for obtaining halal sustenance and avoiding harém. hardly any religion has paid as much attention to halal earning as islam has given to it. acquisition of wealth in a vicious and illegitimate way (such as begging) is prohibited and invalidated by the shari’ah. acquisition of illicit sources of wealth is also forbidden for the sake of social rights and public welfare. in islam, there are clear and unequivocal standards of halal and harém, in the light of which the schedule of living in a society is set. by following the same order and prevailing principles, it is possible 26 the effects of begging... to achieve worldly prosperity and ultimate success by moving towards welfare, security and betterment in the society. begging is an ugly act which the creator of the universe and his last messenger ( ) strongly disliked it. it has been condemned in the verses of the holy qur’én. one of the virtues of the teachings of the prophet ( ) is that he made man acquainted with his place and status in the universe. human being is the super creation of universe. so it is disgrace of a man on the basis of such virtues and perfections that he spreads his hand in front of a man like himself to fulfill his needs. the holy prophet ( ) removed this evil from humanity. he has solved all the psychological confusions of human beings which are the motivators of this burning passion of humanity. condemnation of questioning in the verse of holy qur’én, its condemnation is expressed in these words. ا“ اَس إِْلَحافً أَلُوَن النَّ ”َال يَْس they beg not importunately (al-qur’én:273) this (wrapping) is said when the seeker has humility in asking a question. that is, they used to ask people to do anything with or without humility. because allah almighty has described it as (ta‘afuf). and that they are known by their foreheads (signs). if they asked, their attribute (ta‘afuf). they would not have been described, nor would they have been identified by evidence or symbol, but their condition would have been very clear. (tabri, abu jafar, m) imam tabari, in his commentary on the above verse, has stated that it is not permissible to beg from the people by weeping and clinging to them. on the contrary, in present times the beggars are begging in such a way that allah’s refuge! it becomes extremely difficult to get rid of them. mahmoud alusi baghdadi writes in his commentary on this verse this means that the begger clings to the person in charge until he gives it to him. (aloosi, s) the commentary on the above verse in tafseer ibn katheer is as follows: hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 27 they do not burden the people with what they do not need. (ibn kathir, 1972) hazrat awf bin malik ashja’i narrates that the prophet ( ) took allegiance from us that you worship allah and do not associate anyone with him, and perform the five daily prayers and obey allah and he ( ) said one thing whispering and do not beg people for anything. hazrat awf says that i saw some of the companions of this group who pledged allegiance اه“ د ان ينالهااي ال اح ا يس دهم فم وط اح قط س يس (muslim bin hajjaj, 2014) “even if their whip had fallen, they would not have asked anyone to lift it.” explaining the awful effects of begging, the prophet ( ) narrated that beauty and light disappear from the face of the begger. (muslim bin hajjaj, 2014) after these warnings, a person can observe hunger. he cannot even imagine begging in front of anyone. order to act and strive to earn the prophet ( ) did not like idleness and laziness. the holy qur’én describes the believer’s engagement in good deeds. hamid-ud-din farahi has described the righteous deeds in these words: “which can lead to life and development for man and through which man can reach the highest stages of development which are inherent in his nature.” (islahi, ameen a) the holy qur’én mentions earning for halél sustenance as follows: رون“ ل هللا و اخ ن فض ون م ي االرض يبتغ ربون ف رون يض واخ بيل هللا ي س اتلون ف ”يق others travelling throughthe land, seeking of allah’s bounty; yet others fighting in allah’s cause (al-qur’én: lxxiii:20) this shows that the struggle for halél sustenance in islam is so great and high that it was counted along with the mujahideen. there 28 the effects of begging... are about 320 verses in the holy qur’én which mention the importance of action, the engagement of the doer and the rights and obligations of the rewarder. this determines the place and status of action in islam. (karam shah, m) explaining verse 37 of surah an-noor, mufti muhammad shafi‘i wrote about the economic style of the companions: this verse also shows that the companions were mostly traders or industrialists. (shafi, m) imam bukhari has narrated various traditions related to haddad (carpenter), tailor, weaver, (cloth weaver), carpenter, and (goldsmith) which attracts man towards earning. the affiliation of different professions (bazaz, qafal, jasas, qattan, etc.) with the names of the imams also shows what a comprehensive concept of righteous deeds these great scholars of knowledge and action presented to the people. imam sha’rani writes: “how good it would be for a tailor to glorify his needle and his saw” (al qarzavi, y) in the light of above mentioned references we can conclude that under the guise of separating religion from the world, the totally rejection of the world is extremely condemnable. on the contrary, earning halal food through hard work was considered as worship. islam has removed the obstacles that prevent a person from seeking halal sustenance, but he did not like to spread the word of begging by bargaining for honor and dignity. it is also important to clarify in the present context that there are two kinds of action and effort, and both teachings are proven by the prophet muhammad ( ). handicrafts, trade and industry holly prophet ( ) presented the example of a glorious prophet david ( ) and clarified the importance and greatness of manual labour in the social life. ہ بي هللا داود علي ده و ان ن ل ي ن عم ل م ن ان ياک يرا م ط خ ا ق د طعام ل اح ا اک م ده ل ي ن عم ل م ان ياک الم ک الس (muslim bin hajaj, 2014) hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 29 “no one has ever eaten better than he who eats with his own hands. indeed, the prophet david ( ) used to eat with his own hands.” imam muhammad ibn ismail bukhari, while establishing the title of the chapter of this narration, also proved his natural inteligence. the chapter itself clarifies the teachings of the prophet in this regard. he suggests the title is named: ده“ ه بي ل وعمل ب الرج “ كس mental and intellectual work this is the second kind of action and effort. the qur’én also repeatedly invites us to think and understand. explaining the importance of thoughtful action and its place in islam, obaidullah fahd wrote: “the rational thinking in islam is treated as one of the religious obligations of muslim ummah, while the intellectual activities are considered as their unavoidable duties’’ (ubaidullad f) steps to psychological elimination holy prophet ( ) was aware of the psychological flaws and shortcomings of man. because man is naturally desirous of dignity and status in society. that is why he resorted to this aspect to curb begging. in one sentence, sahib jawamai‘ al-kalam ( ) condemned begging and also instructed the method of protection of honor and dignity. abdullah bin umar ( ) narrates once the prophet ( ) was preaching charity on the pulpit and advising not to ask questions. at that time he said: فلي ة والس فلي،واليدالعليا المنفق د الس ن الي ير م ا خ د العلي ”الي ائلة“ الس (bukhari, m, 2004)\ “the upper hand is better than the lower hand, and the upper hand belongs to the one who spends, and the lower hand belongs to the one who asks.” 30 the effects of begging... the idea of kinship at the societal level, it is clear from the teachings of the prophet ( ) that the prophet ( ) made it obligatory for people of high status to start the obligatory and supererogatory almsgiving with their nearly relatives so that they do not remain needy. the title of a chapter of sahih muslim is: و دين و ل زوج واالوالد والوال ربين و ال ي االق دقہ عل ہ و الص ل النفق فض رکين انو مش ک the virtue of spending on relatives, husband, children and parents, even if they are polytheists. it is clear from this chapter that the reward for spending on those in need is double, one for building relationship and the other for charity. the holy prophet ( ) advised talha (r.a) to divide the garden among his relatives instead of others, so he divided it among his relatives and cousins. (bukhari, m, 2004) conclusion today’s tragedy is that the rich are trying to become the richest, the system of zakat prescribed by the shari‘ah to meet the needs of the poor is not being implemented in tits true sense, due to which there is an imbalance of wealth, on the other hand, those who have been blessed with good physical health by allah almighty are seen to be neglecting the earning of halal sustenance. nowadays the profession of begging has taken a very disgusting form. many healthy and wealthy people go around begging for money. this habit is also very prevalent in children. you have to deal with people everywhere who have made this disgusting work a source of livelihood. a study of the holy qur’én reveals in clear words that islam has issued instructions regarding both the seeker and the responsible person. there is a wide field of incentives for a person who spent his wealth for the sake of allah but at the same time there are clear instructions about condemning the beggars. on the one hand, islamic teachings are that people are encouraged to earn a living, on the other hand, muslims are also encouraged to keep an eye on the poor, the needy and the destitute and spend their extra wealth on the poor. so we must apply the golden principles of islam to solve this important problem of our society. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 31 recommendations . it is major responsibility of government to tack step for the eradication of begging.. people should also help the needy persons so they have no need of begging.. beggars should be educated in the light of islamic teachings. bibliography ibn manzoor, jamal al-din muhammad ibn mukarram, lisan al-arab, (dar sadr, beirut, lebnon, vol. 5, p. 60) h. w. flower, the concise oxford dictionary, (oxford at the clerendon press, 1918), p. 74) (1) charles arrandale,” the concise english dictionary”, (blaskies & sons ltd london, galasgow, dublan, 1960, p.60) “collins english gem dictionary”, (1954, p. 47) “webstres new school & office dictionary”, (1962, p.87) (2)james a.h. murray, henry bradly, w.a caragie, c.t oxions, “the oxford englishdictionary”, (1970, vol-1, p. 767) dr. j. m kumarappra, “our beggar problem”, (padma publication ltd bombay, 1945 (preface introduction p. 4) syed ahmad, maulvi, dehlavi, farhang asifia, (central urdu board, lahore, 1977, vol 3, p. 1019) k.g.saur, “encylopedia of world problems & human potential”, manchen new providance london, paris 1991, 4th edition, vol.1, pp. 297-298, (refsribton juner, c.j.a history of vagrants, beggars,begging:(1972) walter c. rockless, “the crime problem” (new york. appleton century-grafts, inc, 1995, p. 408) al maarij, 70 al-baqara, 2 bukhari, muhammad ibn isma’il, al-jami ‘al-sahih, kitab al-zakat, bab la sadaqat ill an zahre ghinan, (darul ssalam publishers, al riadh, hadith no.1421 abu dawud, sulayman ibn ash’ath al-sujistani, sunan abi dawud, book of zakat, (darul ssalam publishers, al riadh, hadith no. 1639) ibn hanbal, ahmad bin muhammad al-sheibani, abu abdullah, musnad al-imam ahmad bin hanbal, (beirut, 1421 ah, volume 1, p. 193) (3)tabari, abu ja’far muhammad ibn jarir, jami ‘al-bayaan fi tawil ay al-qur’én, (beirut, lubnan, 1420 ah, vol 5,p.598.) alusi, shahab-ud-din al-sayyid mahmoud al-baghdadi, ruh al-ma’ani fi tafsir alqur’én wal-sabe al-muthani,( beirut, lebnan, v3, p.48.) ibn katheer, hafiz emad-ud-din ismail bin katheer-ul-qurashi, tafsir-ul-qur’én-ulazeem, sohail academy lahore, 1972, vol 1, p. 324) 32 the effects of begging... (4)muslim ibn hajjaj al-qushayri, abu al-husayn, al-jami ‘al-sahih, kitab al-zakat, (darul ssalam publishers, al riadh, hadith no, 2399.) islahi, amin ahsan, tadbur e qur’én, (faaran foundation lahore, vol 8, p. 536) al muzzammil, 73 muhammad karam shah pir, zia-ul-qur’én, (zia-ul-qur’én publications lahore, vol 5, p. 410) (5)mufti, mohammad shafi, ma’arif-ul-qur’én, (ma’arif institute, karachi, vol 6, p.430) al-qardhavi, yusuf, islam and economic security (translated by abdul hameed siddiqui) al-badr public publisher, lahore, p. 44) a seminar on qur’én and science was organized at aligarh muslim university, india under the auspices of the institute of islamic studies. the above information is taken from the english article by obaidullah fahd, which covers pages 208-223 of the english section. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2215 book review god’s word, man’s interpretations: a critical study of the 21st century english translations of the qur’én, by abdur raheem kidwai, new delhi: viva books in association with k.a. nizami centre for quranic studies, aligarh muslim university, 2018, paperback,xvii + 178pp the huge amount of research done in the field of qur’énic studies particularly in the 21st century is a positive sign, for it shows on the one hand, the eternal significance of the qur’én and its message and on the other, the increasing attention of the academic experts of the qur’én globally. historically, orientalists had an undisputed monopoly over the subject, producing a plethora of translations of the qur’én and its interpretations in english. a clear manifestation, in this regard, is that up to 1900 all the translations of the qur’én were produced by the orientalists. however, of late, the trend has fairly reversed in favor of the muslims who are now showing a keen interest in the qur’énic studies and thus making a substantial contribution to the field. muslims from middle east to malaysia and those settled in the west and from other areas across the globe seem to be engaged in expanding their knowledge and understanding about various sensibilities and sensitivities related to the subject and thereby expose the threatening designs of orientalists. empirical data support this statement. for example, out of total 40 translations produced in the 21st century only 4 are by nonmuslims and the rest 36 by the muslims alone. further, among other centres operating globally that promote qur’énic studies and encourage and support the scholars in the field, k.a. nizami centre for qur’énic studies, aligarh muslim university deserves a special mention. dedicated to promote qur’énic studies and doing a commendable job, the centre has been training a group of young qur’énic scholars who are displaying their capacities to the fullest through their scholarly works to take the field to further heights. in this regard, among others, tauseef ahmad parray, ziauddin malik, hamid ekram, ubaid wafy, and sajid shaffi stand out. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2216 professor kidwai, besides being professor of english, is also the director of k.a. nizami centre for qur’énic studies at the aligarh muslim university. being the author of more than 36 books covering various literary topics and with a teaching experience of around 40 years, professor kidwai is a renowned qur’énic studies expert and a prolific writer and reviewer of english translations of the qur’én. god’s word, man’s interpretation: a critical study of the 21st century english translations of the qur’én is prof. kidwai’slatest publication. being a significant contribution that critically analyzes various 21st century english translations of the qur’én, the book, in essence, is the continuation of professor kidwai’s earlier academic endeavors that extends his critique by ‘cover[ing] most of the translations published between 2000 and 2017’ (p. xii). aimed at critically assessingthe english translations of the qur’én and the main contours of and shifting trends in the field of qur’énic studies, this work, as highlighted by the author, is an addendum to his two previous works: bibliography of the translations of the meanings of the glorious qur’én into english: 1649-2002 and translating the untranslatable: a critical guide to 60 english translations of the qur’én (p. xii). organized into 32 main chapters, the book also contains a comprehensive “preface” that spells out the objectives of the book, a much needed “appendix,” that presents a critical, nuanced examination of the orientalist enterprise vis-à-vis tafsêr studies, and a rich “bibliography” that lists about more than 290 entries. in the preface, the author underscores that, out of their baleful designand to serve their own objectives, how the message of the qur’én is misrepresented and misinterpreted particularly by orientalists, qadyénês, or other sectarian zealots (p. xi). the main body of the book makes a thorough yet comprehensive and critical assessment of 32 english translations of the qur’én—28 by muslim scholars of all shades of opinion and 4 by non-muslim scholars. the best part of the book is that it brings to light both strong and weak points of all these translations in terms of their quality and right or wrong presentations of things qur’énic. throughout the book, professor kidwai has remained impartial in his approach while examining various translations. from sectarian zealots among the muslims to orientalists and qadyénês, no one has escaped from the author’s objective analysis, rather, merits and demerits of their translations are described according to their objectives, quality, content, style, and subject matter. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2217 without taking sides with anyone, here are some of the examples illustrating the unbiased approach and analysis of the author. in the qur’én translated into english (2007) by alan jones, the author finds the return of the regrettable islam-bashing approach of the orientalists to misrepresent the words and message of the qur’én. while following the footprints of earlier orientalists, jones questions about the originality, style, and surah order of the qur’én, asserting that it is actually the plagiarized version of the bible. for instance, he unabashedly raises his objections about the originality of the qur’én in his opening note on the contents of the qur’én, quoted by professor kidwai, arguing that: “in fact, old testament stories, often in a guise somewhat different from that in the bible, dominate much of the narrative that occurs in the qur’én” (p. 28). professor kidwai shows with examples how the work of jones conjures up the image that the qur’én lacks proper style, order, and coherence (pp. 29-30) and that its message is extremely polemical, frequently demonizing the non-muslims (27-28). likewise, in the case of a. j. droge’s the qur’én: a new annotated translation (2014), the author excellently shows how droge because of his ideological presuppositions and ulterior design makes negative remarks on the authenticity of the qur’én such as: “it is a problematic text, teeming with lacunae, obscurity, and uncertainty of meaning, and marred by ‘later additions, glosses, and insertions’” (p. 106). professor kidwai however, notices that unlike other orientalists, droge’s work does not incessantly harp on the judaeo-christian origin of the qur’én. therefore, his comments on the nexus between the qur’énic discourse and the judaeo-christian tradition are not only objective but also symbolize the freshness of perspective (p. 109). by contrast, the qur’én: a new translation by thomas clearly reflects, according to professor kidwai, a clear departure from his predecessors and their islam-bashing mission. while addressing to non-muslims, cleary says that for them “one special advantage in reading the qur’én is that it provides an authentic point of reference from which to examine the biased stereotypes of islam to which westerners are habitually exposed” (p. 5). besides removing suspicions about the divine origin of the qur’én, clearly’s translation very often draws a novel comparison on a wide range of topics and themes between islam and buddhism, and reveals a number of common things between the two traditions, and thereby opens a new ground for inter faith dialogue and relations (p. 8). hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2218 one of the biggest challenges for the muslims has been to produce english translations of the qur’én that present true meaning and message of the qur’én in a language which is simple and easy to understand and consequently address some of the burning issues that emerged because of modernity and westernization. regarding this, the english translations of the qur’én by mustafa khattab, ahmad zaki hammad, and tarif khalidi truly do well not only in exposing western intellectuals and their fraudulent designs but also in providing an effective antidote to the muslims fearing to be swept down by the powerful currents of godless western modernity. they are remarkable translations which according to professor kidwai include a number of extremely helpful and reader friendly features and also “stand out for contextualizing the meaning and message of the qur’én for today’s readers who mired in the turbulent modernity and westernization yearn for divine guidance for leading life” (p. 128). while critically evaluating other contributions, professor kidwai points outby referring to various passages how various translators of the qur’én are involved in the obnoxious practice of using material from earlier works and thus miserably fail to show any regard for intellectual property rights. for example, translations of vickar ahamed (2005), leila bakhtiar (2007), sharif chaudhary (2010), peachy and johani (2012), and jibouri (2014) very heavily draw, sometimes ad verbatim, on earlier works of m. m. pickthall, abdullah yusuf ali, and a. j. arberry respectively. professor kidwai’s work is a fine assessment of various translations of the qur’én produced recently which evaluates the depth of the translators’ scholarship, ideological slants, and their impact on how they present the meaning and message of the qur’én to the readers. this commendable work is a valuable reference work for both scholars and students of qur’énic studies in particular. reviewer: dr. mohammad dawood sofi, post doctoral fellow, ankara yildirim beyazit university, ankara turkey hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2219 21st century qur’énic studies in english: a bibliography, by sajid shaffi, new delhi: viva books in association with k. a. nizami centre for qur’énic studies, aligarh muslim university, 2018, paperback xiv + 248pp sajid shaffi, a budding qur’énic researcherat the department of islamic studies, aligarh muslim university, has produced his enviable bibliography 21 century qur’énic studies in english: a bibliography. this bibliography brings into sharper light the knowledge and understanding of the qur’énic studies and some of the fresh developments by listing the latest publications in the field. the work lists all the latest developments in the field of qur’énic studies ranging from english translations and books to book chapters, articles, theses, and book reviews on the qur’én that have appeared between 2000 and 2017. in order to maintain the reader friendly nature of his work, which is both apt and appreciable, the main body of the work is divided into five major parts. they are preceded by, a concise and enriching “foreword” (pp. ix-xi) by professor kidwai and “preface” (pp. xiii-xiv) by the author which delineates the significance as well as structure of the book, followed by some reader-friendly contents as the “list of selected journals” (pp. 213-214) and “author index” (pp. 214229). in the “foreword”, professor kidwai emphatically points out the importance of a bibliographical work. besides being a treasure house of hard information, a bibliography, he states, “projects for a discerning eye the main contours, emerging trends, thrust areas and geo-political dimensions of the area of study under discussion” (p. ix). the author in part-i rightly begins with providing bibliographical details of 45 complete english translations of the qur’én. in order to steer clear of any ambiguity, sajid shaffi has decided against listing incomplete translations of the qur’én in this section (p. 3). this is followed by part-ii that covers information about 400 books produced on the qur’én. without randomly placing this material, shaffi has painstakingly categorized it according to the issues they deal with and has therefore divided this part into further seven sub-sections which are introducing the qur’én, art of the translation, interpreting the qur’én, qur’énic themes, comparative religions/scriptures, contemporary issues, and miscellaneous. the bulk of entries are covered in part-iii of the book that lists 1200 journal articles and book chapters. following the same pattern and methodology of sorting out the material as in part-ii, this section of the hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2220 book is further divided into 14 major headings and some of them into subheadings. part-iv covers book reviews on qur’énic studies and partv various phd and masters dissertations on the qur’én. all the five parts are complemented by significant data in the form of reference works on the qur’én. the division of the entries according to particular themes and sub-themes reflects consistency and systematic approach followed by shaffi which is commendable. this work, for this and other several remarkable features will, undoubtedly prove useful for researchers and students of qur’énic studies primarily because it serves as what professor kidwai calls “a treasure house of hard information” (p. ix). more importantly, the author has identified as well as placed everything and anything scientifically, making thus the tracking down process very simple and easy and in it lies the originality and indispensability of shaffi’s work. reviewer: dr. mohammad dawood sofi post doctoral fellow, ankara yildirim beyazit university, ankara turkey hamdard islamicus 157 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 a critique of the theocratic model of the sultanate of delhi tehmeena noreen lecturer department of history & pakistan studies international islamic university islamabad e-mail: tehmeena.noreen@iiu.edu.pk a number of historians have applied the term ‘theocracy’ for the political structure of the delhi sultanate. for them the delhi sultans were the pope and caesar combined in one. the sultans implemented islamic sharê‘ah for all communities. the ulama exercised the strongest influence in political matters and the caliphs were considered to be the supreme sovereigns. the persecution of hindus, their forceful conversions, destruction of temples and imposition of jizyah were all part of sultanate’s religious policy. this paper aims to rectify that these arguments are mainly generalizations based on few exceptions. the sultans had no religious authority nor was the sharê‘ah ever implemented. the sultans had only nominal allegiance to the caliphs and the majority of ulama worked for the sultans for their own vested interests. the conversions were also not forced although there were few exemptions but even they were politically motivated and same was the case with the destruction of temples. keywords: sultanate of delhi, religious authority, jizya, theocracy. the political structure of the sultanate of delhi has been regarded as a theocracy by a number of historians like r.p. tripathi, u.n. day, r.c. majumdar, ishwari prasad and hans raj among many others. then there are others who did not use the term theocracy but their description of the sultanate’s political system presents a similar picture. historians like h.m. elliott, v.a. smith, wolseley haig, h.h. dodwell, stanley wolpert, stanley lane-poole, peter hardy, romila thapar, and hamdard islamicus 158 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 sunil kumar etc. are among those who subscribe to these views. the aim of this paper is to first highlight the arguments of these historians in favour of the theocratic model of the delhi sultanate and then an effort has been made to counter these arguments to prove despite presence of certain features existed yet the political structure of the delhi sultanate was not theocractic. before giving their views on this argument it is necessary that the term theocracy must be defined. theocracy is derived from a greek word theokratia which means government by god. a greek historian named josephus flavius used this term for the very first time. theocracy, for him, was a type of government in which the sovereignty was attributed to god.1 according to the encyclopedia of religion, theocracy, is the “rule by god, and refers to a type of government in which god or gods are thought to have sovereignty”.2 theocracy is also defined as a form of government in which god or some deity is considered to be the real ruler, and his laws are considered to be the laws of the state, implemented by the priestly section of the society acting as his ministers.3 according to the dictionary of modern politics, a theocracy is run by clerics and where religious ideas and institutions have profound influence.4 henry sidgwick in his work the development of european polity explains the development of theocracy, and asserts that a state organization initially declares itself to be divine and organizes itself professionally only for the religious cause, and then after sometime, it starts gathering means to acquire secular powers so much so that the government in that state starts reflecting a theocratic character. subsequently this religious organization takes over the control of all the affairs of the state then we call that particular state a theocratic state.5 james smylie summarizing the theory of theocracy, and maintains that theocracy is a form of government in which all the authority is considered to be rested with god, and the rulers and priests are appointed and are answerable to him alone for they are his divine incarnations.6 thus theocracy is a state which shows the nexus of church and state and a merger of religious and political authorities. in other words theocracy is a form of government in which either god himself rules the kingdom or rules it through his deputies, whether they are kings or the priestly class. all of them are considered to be directly under god’s command. a brief description is made here to take an overview of the theocratic model. the most common statement that one comes across about the sultans of delhi while studying the historical works is, “the king was the caesar and pope combined in one”.7 it has been argued that hamdard islamicus 159 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 there was the concept of divine kingship in the sultanate. in which a king himself becomes the deputy of god, and performs religious duties along with the temporal ones, which is also a kind of theocracy. for the ordinary citizen of the sultanate of delhi, their sultan was the shadow of god on earth. thus they could hardly think of criticizing him or revolting against him. for revolting against the sultan was considered to be a revolt against god.8 it was thought that the sultanate was formed and consolidated for the promotion, promulgation and protection of islam. all the resources of the government were utilized to serve the religion. and this was how the political leadership of the sultans of delhi took the form of both secular and religious head of the sultanate. the sultans were termed as fanatics, bigots and extremists in their religious outlook. all the wars fought by the muslim rulers were assumed to be jihad against the infidels and there existed no other motives.9 the influence of sharê‘ah10 was also considered very extensive in the matters of the state. the sultans were not considered to be above it nor could they go against it.11 they were assumed to be supreme as long as they continued to adhere to the divine laws. the foremost duty of the sultans being the heads of the islamic kingdom was to uphold tenents of islam and sharê‘ah. and if they failed to do so, they became unworthy of authority and thought to have become illegitimate. they had to follow sharê‘ah as it was and they did not have the power to divorce religion from political matters. on the other hand the ulama12 exercised an undue influence in both religious and political matters.13 they supervised the laws of the state and determined whether these were according to the islamic principles or not. they insisted on giving the state a religious touch by implementing religious laws. these ulama were quite fanatic and orthodox having considerable hold on the sultans.14 they were so powerful that even the strongest of the sultans could not counter or challenge them and forced to let them formulate the state policy. the sultans too were in the habit of taking advice from the ulama on all matters.15 the sultans were under strict check of them and almost all sultans patronized their contemporary ulama. the qéìês or jurists were also chosen from among them. they were also capable of countering the sultans by issuing fatwés against them, which could result in the terrible revolts of the masses. even the strong sultans could not ignore their suggestions. the entire delhi sultanate was ruled by a singular law which was the islamic law and islam was the state religion.16 all the departments of the state including judiciary were designed according to it. the muslims hamdard islamicus 160 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and hindus alike were handled with the single recognized law. all the appointed judges were muslims and not a single hindu judge was ever employed by the state. since the judicial system was not based on secular principles it was natural that it operated against the non-muslims who were in great majority.17 the hindus were treated severely for the same crime for which the muslims were treated rather leniently since the faith of the accused in the case of hindus differed from that of the judge. it had been argued that the social, economic and religious conditions of the hindus were pathetic in the delhi sultanate as a theocratic state always works against those who do not follow the faith of the state. they were regarded as dhimmês or second grade citizens by the muslim sultans who made them inferior beings in their own lands.18 they suffered from discriminatory laws and they lived at the mercy of the sultans. the policy of intolerance and persecution was adopted towards the hindu subjects. because of their religious persecution thousands of hindus were killed since almost all the muslim rulers were inspired from the zeal of jihéd while fighting the infidels of india. the hindus for these historians were reduced to misery and poverty, and there were no opportunities of employment for them. all the respectable posts were reserved for the muslims and the hindus were not even considered for them.19 however, minor posts like those of clerks, water carriers and porters were given to the hindus. as for the taxes when implemented they were levied solely on the hindus or their heavy burden fell on them. even the most liberal sultans suffered from these flaws. then they had to pay a poll-tax called jizyah. in theory it was meant to be paid in order to have freedom of religion for the non-muslims as well as protection from the state. the imposition of jizyah was in fact an instrument of humiliation for the hindus and it was the proof that the ruling elite considered the locals inferior. although it was collected in lieu of military service the fact was that they were never recruited in the army nor they were allowed to join and they had to pay sum for an obligation they were not allowed to choose.20 they ilbari, khalji and tughluq dynasties were very passionate about the collection of jizyah. they were passionate to collect religious taxes from the hindus and all the hindus were condemned to pay them. but even after paying jizyah they were not allowed religious freedom. the burden of jizyah was so heavy that hindus in a large number embraced islam to get rid of it.21 the goal of the muslim sultans of delhi was to propagate islam hamdard islamicus 161 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and convert all the non-muslims and eliminate all the other religions of the region. for this purpose the conversion campaign was sponsored by the government and facilities were provided to the non-muslims to get them converted. there were only two ways, the sultans either bribed the infidels to embrace islam or forced them to get converted.22 for this purpose jobs were offered to the new converts as it was a trick to encourage more and more locals to get converted if they wanted economic prosperity. the resources of the state and royal treasury were used for the cause of conversion. the other and most common way was the conversion by force. because of sultans’ religious zeal thousands of hindus were slaughtered and forced to convert to islam. all of the delhi sultans were involved in this process. for the purpose of eliminating hinduism the sultans demolished hindu temples and idols.23 the hindus were forbidden to build new ones or rebuild the demolished ones. the above mentioned characteristics of the political system of the delhi sultanate are mostly exaggeration on the part of the historians who try to prove the existence of theocracy in the delhi sultanate. here an attempt is made to counter the above mentioned arguments. relationship of religion and politics in the delhi sultanate it is claimed that religion and politics complemented each other in state affairs in delhi sultanate. one of the reasons of this confusion arose from the early history of islam that presented the same picture. prophet muíammad (œ) laid the foundation of the first muslim state in madinah in 622 a.d. the statement of “pope and caesar combined in one” can be applied to this era of muslim history* since the prophet was both the political as well as the religious head of that state.24 after his demise the four pious caliphs (a.s) continued the practice polocies of the holy prophet (œ). however, with the rule of the umayyad and later abbasid caliphs, the caliphate changed into monarchy.25 these caliphs used to deal only with the political matters of the state, and they used to nominate their heirs. they regarded the caliphal lands as their family possessions, which is the most subtle feature of the concept of monarchy, and they also turned the public exchequer into their personal treasury. *western christian theocracy is actually a form of government in which a country is ruled by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. thus theocracy is entirely different from that islamic polity ed. hamdard islamicus 162 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 as for the sultanate of delhi there was no merger of political and religious authorities. the sultanate of delhi was based on the hereditary monarchy, a concept adopted from the ancient persian traditions, and not from islam since the prophet (œ) did not nominate any heir, nor any of the four pious caliphs.26 the royal treasury was generally considered to be the personal treasury of the sultan alone, and most of the time the whole of the booty and taxes used to go into it. for example, in 1259 ulugh khan (later sultan balban) brought the booty of thirty thousand tankas form mewat, all of which went into the royal treasury.27 the misconception about merger of religious and political authorities also had its origin in the use of the religious symbols by the sultans like the titles they adopted while ascending the throne, such as sham al-din, ala al-din and ghiyath al-din etc.28 the reason for the adoption of such titles was to present themselves as representatives of faith to secure the support of the muslim masses. these titles in fact had no practical purposes but only a symbolic appeal.29 malik khusrau khan after murdering sultan qutb al-din mubarak khalji in 1320, adopted the title of nasir al-din. he was regarded a usurper by the nobility and the public. thus he felt the need to adopt a religious title in order to keep the muslims under his control.30 there were other religious symbols used on the coins, for instance, by the sultans. sultan muhammad ibn tughluq, for example, used the inscriptions like “whoever, obeys the sultan, obeys god”, and “obey god and his prophet and those with authority amongst you” on his coins.31 another reason of the misconception of religious and political powers had come from the concept of divine kingship.32 this theory is the legacy of the ancient sassanid persia and has no basis in islam.33 in fact, the political philosophy of the delhi sultanate was mainly influenced by ancient persian as well as turkish and local hindu political traditions, operating largely in the framework of muslim political traditions. the ideal rulers for the sultans were not the prophet (œ) or the pious caliphs (a.s.) but the ancient persian and medieval turkish rulers like jamshed, afrasiyab, sanjar, tughril and khwarizm shah etc.34 nizami quoted saiyyid sulaiman nadvi who asserted that the sultans of delhi were not the representatives of islam. they were mostly new converts and hardly aware of the staunch islamic ideals.35 the most significant representation of the persianization was the introduction of the persian customs, traditions, etiquettes and ceremonies in the royal courts. the ilbari sultans were credited with introducing the persian outlook in the delhi sultanate. according to barani, the courts hamdard islamicus 163 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 of the delhi sultans, like the ancient sassanid emperors’ courts were decorated with grandeur and magnificence throughout the rule of the ilbari sultans so that it could create awe in the hearts and minds of the people.36 this practice continued during the rule of the later dynasties as well. in this regard, there were many non-islamic court etiquettes, like the tradition of pé’ibos or toe kissing which continued during the reign of the successive dynasties.37 the distinction between the low-born and highborn, which adhered to by some of the ilbari sultans was also a legacy of the persians. according to aziz ahmad, the persian imperialism flourished and influenced the political theory so much so that the islamic theory lost its face.38 many of the historians held the view that the delhi sultanate had religious basis. as discussed earlier, many muslim scholars, however, believed that the sultanate was, in fact, a monarchy having no legality in the islamic traditions. the fact is that they simply had to make a public face of sharê‘ah so that it could further enhance their prestige.39 however, many sultans sincerely respected sharê‘ah, which did influence their decisions. for instance, most of the taxes levied during the sultanate were illegal and it was almost at the end of the fourteenth century that sultan firuz tughluq abolished unlawful taxes but he was the only exception.40 in most of the cases religious traditions were set aside for instance barani has related that sultan balban believed that when it was a matter of the state, he would not care whether his steps were according to the laws of islam or not.41 sultan ala al-din khalji believed that politics had nothing to do with the religion.42 then there were many pleasure-seeking sultans who were very fond of singing and dancing, and also addicted to wine. the punishments inflicted on the offenders of the state, especially in the reigns of sultans balban, ala al-din khalji and muhammad ibn tughluq were also un-islamic in nature. another important feature of the medieval muslim state was their relationship with the caliphate. the caliph was considered to be the head of the entire muslim world. but the sultans of delhi had only nominal allegiance with the caliph of baghdad, and were fully independent in their dealings. even those historians who believed that delhi sultanate was a theocracy also believed that the caliph had practically no role in running the affairs of the sultanate.43 the sultans still viewed the allegiance to the caliphs in order to legitimize their rule. whenever a sultan received his investiture from the caliph, he in return showed his allegiance to him by inserting caliph’s name on the coins and the khutbah of the friday prayer was read in his name. excluding the few exceptions like qutb hamdard islamicus 164 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 al-din mubarak khalji and muhammad ibn tughluq, all sultans of delhi recognized the supreme authority of the caliph but it was only in ceremonial. therefore, many of the sultans did not receive investitures from the caliph, and still they ruled quite successfully. sultans balban and ala al-din khalji for example, are considered to be two great muslim rulers of india and both of them ruled without receiving recognition from their contemporary caliphs. sultan qutb al-din mubarak khalji not only did away with the references to the caliph, but himself proclaimed to be a caliph.44 sultan muhammad ibn tughulq, according to bada’uni, also believed himself to be the rightful person to be called the caliph.45 there used to be another benefit of the investiture which required obedience from the masses for the sultan. for instance, during the reign of sultan firuz tughluq in the manshur that he received from the caliph, it was written that those who disobey the sultan were actually sinners and will be punished on the day of judgment.46 however, the allegiance to the caliph was only symbolic in nature. in fact, the sultans cared little for the caliphate. it is evident from an incident, referred by sirhindi that when two years after the sacking of baghdad in 1258 at the hands of the mongols, the mongol ambassador arrived in the capital of sultanate they were given a royal reception by the delhi sultan.47 then there is the question of whether the wars fought by delhi sultans were out of their religious zeal or some other purpose. the fact is that the sultans were not religious warriors as portrayed by many historians basing their assumption on the medieval persian historical works. the basic characteristic of jihéd or holy war is the protection and promotion of the religion. not a single example of this kind of war was found in the war history of the sultanate since the conquests of the sultans were either for expansion of their empire or for booty collection. arnold declared it an allegation and opined that except for a few occasions the state never tried to protect or promote their religion in delhi sultanate.48 sultans iltutmish himself mentioned the secular nature of the sultanate and said that under the circumstances the royalty was facing it was not possible for him to be the defender of the faith.49 influence of ulama in state and politics it is argued that in the delhi sultanate the ulama had a profound influence in all matters of religion and politics. the fact is that the ulama used to advise to the sultans in matters of religion, but their suggestions were not binding on the sultans. however, there were instances when hamdard islamicus 165 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the sultan did or had to accept their recommendations, which has been discussed later in this work. there existed a symbiotic relationship between the political and religious authorities. the relationship between the sultans and ulama was beneficial for both of them. the ulama got high state positions, titles, stipends and grants from the rulers, while the ulama associated with the state machinery generally worked as tools to strengthen the position of the sultans. the sultans needed the support of the ulama in order to get support and retain hold on the people.50 the head of the religious authority was shaykh al-islam who often used to legitimize the acts and deeds of the sultans.51 some of the sultans used them in order to achieve their ends. according to nizami, whenever there was trouble in any area created by the muslim rebels the sultans used to send ulama there so that they could pacify the people of the region appealing to their religious sentiments.52 however, among the ulama there were those who sincerely contested the state policies which they perceived to be un-islamic, while there were others as well who supported the oppressive policies of the state, and allied themselves with the sultans for getting favours for themselves.53 moreover, sometimes they used to fabricate traditions of the prophet (œ) which the sultans used for securing the obedience of the masses.54 in this way the sultans of delhi took advantage of their alliance with the ulama who on the other hand, were ready to cooperate with the rulers for their own benefits. sunil kumar adds that “when the delhi sultan did dispense his favour, it was very much with an eye to the fact that the individuals he favoured would be useful in consolidating his authority.”55 the sultans never encouraged the influence of the ulama in matters of the state. although the ulama used to sit in the courts of the sultans and they joined them in their meals, their suggestions hardly influenced the political decisions of the sultans. sultan ala al-din khalji was known for his discouragement of the ulama’s interference in politics. barani related that he used to say that the politics had nothing to do with religion.56 similarly muhammad ibn tughluq was more influenced by the philosophers than the religious scholars. during sultan firuz tughluq’s reign, the political matters were not in the hands of the ulama. but since he was weak, he had to let them influence the state matters to some extent. even then, as banerjee pointed out, he used them as ‘safety valve’ for political disturbances.57 then there were other kind of ulama and mashé’ikh present in delhi sultanate as well who used to challenge the sultans and their hamdard islamicus 166 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 policies. for instance, according to bada’uni and sirhindi, during the reign of sultan muhammad ibn tughluq, a pious scholar named shaykh shihab al-din shaykh ahmad jam criticized the sultan and called him a tyrant. he had to lose his life when he refused to take his comment back.58 the same sultan was criticized by a faqêh (an exeget) named afif al-din for the devastating consequences of the sultan’s economic reforms.59 according to ibn battutah, there was another contemporary theologian of sultan muhammad ibn tughluq named taj al-din arifin who refused to meet the sultan when he wished it.60 these defiant theologians, however, generally did not belong to the court and thus were not supposed to support the state. on the other hand, the ulama related to the sultans’ courts served as legitimizers for them and for their policies and in return they received special favours from the government. existence of multiple legal systems it is also said about the delhi sultanate that there existed a single law, the law of islam. for some historians, with the arrival of the muslims in india the legal system of islam was applied on the whole of the delhi sultanate and all the other legal systems were abolished. the fact is that the conquest of the muslims in india never directly affected the social structure of the hindu society and the legal practices in the hindu populated areas were hardly disturbed. there was little contact of the rural population with the muslim authorities at the centre. the hindus lived in villages and they had little contact with the muslim laws’ application which was mainly in districts and not in the rural areas.61 the sultans of delhi, on the other hand, could not interfere in the personal law of muslims and hindus.62 similarly, the law of the government was though islamic, but it was never applied on the non-muslims. it is also incorrect to say that the delhi sultans abolished the hindu law and imposed islamic law on the hindus. the fact was that in personal matters, hindu law was applied, and only the criminal laws were administered by the government.63 the village panchéyats, on the other hand, were left undisturbed to deal with the cases among the hindus.64 in the villages, along with the panchéyats, the headmen also used to administer justice and worked as magistrates. the cases between hindus and muslims were, however, decided by the ordinary courts and on the principles of justice. according to qureshi, very few cases of hindu petitioners came to the state courts throughout the delhi sultanate period.65 yet in offences that could be termed as penal, the muslim and the hindus were all treated equally and with same yardstick. hamdard islamicus 167 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the argument about the existence of a single law system is based on assumptions for habibullah claimed that the modern historians know little about the law application systems of the medieval india because of the scarcity of the relevant material.66 also there was an absence of a centralized government in the delhi sultanate and it can be safely concluded that since the hold of the government in the far flung areas was weak, there could not be the possibility of the existence of a strong single legal system in the whole of the delhi sultanate. treatment of hindus in the delhi sultanate it is assumed that the most deprived and pitiable section of the population in the delhi sultanate was that of the hindus. the concept of dhimmê was criticized for it was believed to have a connotation of inferiority. as already mentioned, the meaning of this term has nothing to do with the social status of the non-muslims under the muslim rule; rather it is simply a technical expression of distinguishing subjects on the basis of religion. the allegation that there was no freedom of religion for the hindus is also mistaken and exaggerated. the fact was that they had complete religious freedom, and they were allowed to perform their rituals openly.67 the hindus were generally not discriminated in india during the rule of the delhi sultans. even in inns and other public spaces, there is no record of exclusion for the hindu travelers. instead the inns made special arrangements for the hindu guests. according to nizami, the founding sultans of delhi were actually impressed by khawaja moin al-din chisti’s concept of øulí-i-kul which meant peace with all.68 during the khalji dynasty, the hindus enjoyed equal status like that of the muslims, and no evidence is found of hindus being stopped by the rulers from practicing their religion.69 the tughluq dynasty was also tolerant towards the hindus. sultan muhammad ibn tughluq was free from religious and ethnic prejudices, and in his reign justice was for all. for instance, according to ibn battutah, a hindu complained about him and the sultan appeared before the qézi for the trial.70 the hindus were never stopped from practicing their religion and they lived freely.71 even the hindu literature of that time mentioned that there were no restrictions on hindus in the performance of their religious rites and rituals.72 similarly, the hindu culture, religion and art not only retained their vitality but they also flourished under the muslim rule, and were free from the control of the government.73 as for the imposition of jizyah, moíammad habib had argued that it hamdard islamicus 168 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 was not for the purpose of degrading or humiliating the hindus,74 it was merely a tax by which the non-muslims living under the muslim ruler get the rights of protection by the state apparatus.75 the fact was that there was no organized machinery to collect it. tripathi had said that jizyah “was gradually failing into disuse. the ablest of the delhi sultans were taking more interest in the secular revenue and were inclined to ignore jizya”.76 jizyah was also not a burden, for it was not imposed on all and sundry. for example, the poor, old, women and children were exempted from it. another important point is that the percentage of the payment of jizyah was different for different classes. thus, the financially weak people had to pay only a minimum amount in the name of this tax.77 in the context of implementation of jizyah, the most infamous figure is that of sultan firuz tughluq. he is accused of imposing jizyah on the brahmans as well those who were supposed to be exempted from it. what they failed to see was that though sultan firuz imposed it on all the hindus, it was not out of his committment to any religious obligation but it was imposed for financial purposes.78 moreover, during sultan firuz’s reign, jizyah was never collected thoroughly.79 another related argument as mentioned earlier, was that though jizyah was imposed in lieu of military service, and therefore, the hindus were not allowed to join the armed forces at all. this perception seems mistaken, as we come across many examples of the presence of hindu soldiers in the royal forces. andre wink maintained that from sultan qutb al-din aibek onward, the hindus were recruited in the royal army.80 similarly, according to habibullah, when raziyya sultana raided on the capital to regain her lost throne along with her husband, she had in her army many hindu mercenaries from jat and khokar tribes.81 isami related that when sultan ala al-din khalji was attacked by his nephew ikit khan, the sultan was defended and saved by his hindu guards.82 when ghazi malik (later sultan ghiyath al-din tughluq) went to fight against the usurper khusrau khan, his troops were consisted of hindus as well.83 therefore, the accusation was wrong as hindus did have a share in the army recruitment. another allegation attributed towards the delhi sultans was that they demolished all the temples and idols they found in india because of their religious zeal and hatred for other religions. the fact is that only some of the temples were destroyed, not all. there were instances when the sultans and their armies refrained from hurting them even during the war times. for example, a big and rich jain temple during the reigns of the early sultans was left untouched or “overlooked” by the muslim hamdard islamicus 169 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 armies on mount abu.84 besides, as argued by wolseley haig, the temples and idols that were knocked down were not out of sultans’ love for their religion.85 the basic reasons for the demolition of these temples were not religious but political and economic. the temples were destroyed only during wars and those which had some connection with the legitimacy of the regional rulers. for nizami the destruction of the temple signified the destruction of the legitimacy of the ruler.86 often a temple which was related to the ruler contained a deity which was supposed to protect the king and the kingdom. if the statue of deity was destroyed or humiliated, it symbolized the defeat and humiliation of the ruler. therefore, the delhi sultans used to take the deities from the destroyed temples and trampled them in the capital city. for richard m. eaton, this was done not out of religious fervor but the deities were the token of their victory.87 for instance, bada’uni related that, when sultan iltutmish attacked ujjain, he brought images from the major temples of the area and trampled them in delhi.88 similarly, afif recounted that sultan firuz tughluq invaded orissa in 1359 and brought the major deity from the famous temple of jagannath to delhi to be trampled over.89 it is important to note that the rulers who submitted to the muslim attacks, their temples were not harmed. during sultan muhammad ibn tughluq’s campaign in nagarkot, he refrained from demolishing the temple there.90 even sultan firuz tughluq, narrated afif, did not demolish the idol of jawalamukhi at nagarkot after its ruler submitted.91 on rare occasions, the mosques were built in place of demolished temples but again the reason was to assert the political supremacy and authority. for instance, sirhindi mentioned in his tarikh-i mubarak shahi, that ulugh khan during the reign of sultan ala al-din khalji destroyed the famous temple of somnath in gujarat in 1299 and built a mosque instead.92 the temples that were either never associated with any rulers or were formerly used for their legitimization were considered to be politically useless and generally left untouched and unharmed. like in the thirteenth-century india, twenty five temples at khajuraho survived muslim attack because they were already abandoned by the hindus.93 another major reason of attacking the hindu temples was to take hold of the treasures collected in those temples. at that time, the mongol armies were threatening the very existence of the sultanate. the treasures of these temples were used to organize campaigns against the invading mongols. according to jazjani, for example, malik ulugh khan (later sultan balban) once said that the royal army should raid on the hamdard islamicus 170 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 hindu lands to collect wealth from their temples to use it against the mongol aggressors.94 it is generally argued that during the delhi sultanate new temples were not constructed nor the demolished ones were allowed to be repaired. this argument is incorrect, for sultan firuz tughluq himself mentioned in his memoirs, futëíët firëz shéhê, that before his reign, new hindu temples used to be built.95 qureshi asserted that hindus were allowed to build new temples but with prior permission of the government.96 on the basis of evidence from the hindu texts, jackson argued that during the delhi sultanate, in the capital city a new temple with the name of sri krishna bhagwan was built.97 similarly, habibullah quoted cunningham who discovered a temple which might have been built nearly 1000 a.d. the temple also had pilgrimage records of the years 1241-90.98 nizami in his work saléïên-i delhi kay madhhabi rujíénét mentioned on the basis of a source titled dastusara, the construction of at least fifty new temples during the reign of sultan ala al-din khalji.99 the construction of new temples continued during the tughluq dynasty as well. similarly, sultan muíammad ibn tughluq declared that those who pay jizyah would be allowed to build temples.100 in addition, there were many cases in which the sultans gave permission to the hindus who wanted to repair their damaged temples. for example, during the reign of sultan ala al-din khalji, the governor of gujarat, alp khan gave the hindus permission for the reconstruction of a temple.101 a sanskrit inscription suggested that sultan muhammad ibn tughluq ordered to repair a siva temple in kalyana.102 sultan firuz was mostly condemned for the demolition of the temples. the fact was that the sultan had become angry because the majority of the temples were built without the permission of the government. thus he gave orders for their demolition.103 there is a view that mass conversion took place when the sultan of delhi forced the hindus to embrace islam or allured them by offering political patronage. eaton has challenged this view, and asserted that if it were the case, the mass conversion would have taken place in and around the center of the delhi sultanate, but it did not happen. the mass conversions in fact took place at the peripheral regions of the sultanate, particularly in western punjab and eastern bengal, where the state control and influence was lesser.104 the conversion process in india was neither organized, nor was it sponsored by the state. s.m. yusuf denied this allegation and asserted that the muslim state in india never showed signs of passion for the conversion of the locals. yusuf quoted in his hamdard islamicus 171 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 work the opinion of g. sarton that the muslims were tolerant towards other religions and their followers, since after centuries of muslim rule, the muslims were still in minority.105 the local îëfês, qéìês or the spiritual influence of a local shrine played a crucial role in conversion as well as developing the beliefs of the new converts.106 the îëfês of that time, especially the chishtis and suhrawardis, contributed to the promotion of islam.107 these îëfês preached islam all by themselves, and were not sponsored by the state. according to habibullah, sultan firuz tughluq stands almost alone in utilizing state machinery for the promulgation of islam,108 but banerjee denied it, and argued that if the sultan had encouraged conversion, there would have been instances of mass conversions.109 another allegation which was leveled against the muslim rulers of the delhi sultanate was that the doors of high governmental jobs were closed for the hindus. this allegation also is somewhat exaggerated since only during the rule of the ilbari sultans of delhi, hindus and even the local converts were not recruited as the sultans mistrusted them as it was the nascent phase of the delhi sultanate. zafar imam in his work, the musalmans of the subcontinent, agreed that the sultans of delhi, in the thirteenth century, showed selectiveness in their appointments, and the turks and the tajiks mostly filled the civil positions in the administration.110 but it was not done on the basis of religion rather on the basis of ethnicity and racialism. the perceived lack of trust and loyalty among the non-turks and non-tajiks was largely responsible for it. the ruling muslim elite mistrusted the hindus for they kept on rebelling against them while for the indian hindus the muslims were invaders and they had no trust in them which was natural on their part. in such a situation, lack of trust between the two parties resulted in the exclusion of hindus and converts from the governmental jobs, and thus on all major official positions the sultan’s family, friends and slaves dominated. sultan balban is the most infamous in this regard, but the fact was that he used to guard the interests of his own race.111 however, during the times of the later ilbari sultans, we come to know of different people in government positions like rajani, hathiya and birnathan, who were probably non-muslims.112 after the arrival of the khaljis, the doors of governmental positions were opened for people on merit. the hindus were also appointed on important positions. for instance, according to barani, during the reign of the founder of the khalji dynasty, sultan jalal al-din khalji, a hindu was appointed wakêl-i dar (head of the royal household).113 another hindu was appointed during the reign of sultan ala al-din khalji as a hamdard islamicus 172 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 treasurer.114 then during the reign of sultan qutb al-din mubarak khalji, samar singh jain was a high state official.115 during the reign of the tughluqs, more hindus were appointed in government positions. dusaju, whose father nain was an officer under jalal al-din khalji, received great favors from sultans ghiyath al-din and muhammad ibn tughluq.116 sultan muhammad ibn tughluq filled many important posts with the local people of india and even appointed hindu governors of his states. during his reign there was a hindu commander of gulbarga fort named bhiram rai who was a special friend of the sultan.117 the sultan, according to ibn battutah, also appointed a hindu named rattan as the governor of sindh/sehwan. the second wazir of daulatabad was a hindu named dhara dhar.118 afif recounted that even sultan firuz tughluq had hindu friends. a rajput named rai bhiru was a bodyguard of sultan firuz.119 moreover, according to barani, he honored hindu landlords because of their services to the royal army during the expedition to bengal.120 the sultans of delhi could never have successfully ruled without the contributions of the local population. they were aware that they needed the cooperation of the locals in order to run the administration. that was why, in the rural areas the old hindu officials, the khuts, muqaddams, and patwarês continued to be responsible for the rural administration and revenue collection.121 tara chand maintained that: when qutb al-din aibek decided to stay in hindustan, he had no other choice but to retain the hindu staff which was familiar with the civil administration….. brahman legists advised the king on the administration of the hindu law and brahman astronomers helped in the performances of their general function.122 the sultans of delhi ruled the tributary states through a number of hindu rulers who remained quite independent in their own lands, if they owed allegiance to the delhi sultan.123 often the rulers of the conquered areas were reinstated. in this regard, one of the strongest of the delhi sultans, ala al-din khalji contended himself to rule far-flung areas of the deccan indirectly.124 then there were other services which the hindus performed. for instance, the sultans utilized thousands of hindu constructors for building magnificent buildings.125 moreover, the brahmans helped in settling hindu disputes.126 the delhi sultans were accused of adopting the policy of hindu persecution. the fact was that the masses had nothing to fear from the hamdard islamicus 173 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 muslim sultans if they remained peaceful. nizami quoted from a hindu writer, sajan rai bhandari, that commoners of the delhi sultanate considered sultan ala al-din khalji an angel.127 the praise might have been an exaggeration, but it is a fact that sultan ala al-din khalji’s economic measures were not for the soldiers alone. the masses, both the hindus and muslims alike, and the commoners lived prosperously in his reign. elphinstone maintained that though sultan ala al-din was notorious because he had confiscated all the excessive property and wealth of the masses, the effected included both hindus and muslims and it was meant to stop the rich ones from causing upheavals.128 on the other hand, he ordered that no taxes should be implemented on the poor hindus. sultan muíammad ibn tughluq was also tolerant towards the hindus. it was at the end of his reign because of the failure of his ambitious plans that he became harsh in punishments, and in this connection his wrath largely fell on the muslims, including the îëfês and theologians. sultan firuz tughluq, as already mentioned, had good relations with his hindu subjects, and they lived happily in his times.129 the sultans were also accused of implementing inhuman punishments on the hindu rebels only. there is no denying the fact that the hindu rebels were tortured to death by sultans but almost the same kind of punishments were meted out to the muslim rebels as well. tughril, the governor of lakhnauti, for example, rebelled during the reign of sultan balban, who not only killed him but destroyed all his family including women and children as well as those who were suspected of having association with him.130 in punishing the offenders, the sultans never even forgave their own kin. sultan ala al-din khalji for instance, killed his own nephews and his own brother for the rebellion of his sons.131 similarly sultan mohammad ibn tughluq killed his own brother on the suspicion of revolt.132 during his reign the muslims suffered as much as the hindus. conclusion the sultanate of delhi was thus not exactly a theocracy. there was no fusion of religious and political powers, nor did the ulama unduly influence the political matters of the state. the hindus enjoyed protection under the muslim rule and so did their religion and their legal systems. they were though killed and subdued by the rulers, it was not out of their hatred for their religion but for political, military, economic and strategic consideration. the striking feature of the sultanate was tolerance towards hamdard islamicus 174 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the hindus and the followers of other religions. thus it can be concluded that the delhi sultanate was not a religion based polity and nor an islamic one because there were many things against the islamic political theory. notes and references 1. dewey d. wallace, “theocracy” in the encyclopedia of religion, vol. 14th. ed. mirce eliade, new york and london, macmillian publishing company, 1987, p. 427. 2. ibid. 3. the oxford english dictionary, vol xi., london, oxford university press, 1933, p. 272. 4. david robertson, a dictionary of modern politics, 2nd edn., london, europa publications ltd,. 1993, p. 460. 5. henry sidwick, the development of european polity, london, macmillian and co., 1920, p. 219. 6. james h. smylie, “theocracy” in the encyclopedia americana, international edition. vol. xxvi., danbury, grolier incoporated, 1987, p. 627. 7. n.k. sinha and nisith r. ray, a history of india, 2nd edn., calcutta, orient longman ltd., 1986, p. 278; r.c. majumdar, h.c. raychaudhuri and kalikinkar datta, an advanced history of india, 2nd edn., london, macmillian and co., 1950, p. 391. ishwari prasad, a short history of muslim rule in india: from the advent of islam to the death of aurangzeb. rev. edn. allahabad, indian press ltd., 1965, p. 229. 8. muíammad habib, “central government of the sultanate” in political, legal and military history of india, ed. h.s. bhatia. vol. iv., new delhi, deep and deep publications, 1984, pp. 300-301. 9. k.l. srivastave, the position of hindus under the delhi sultanate (1206-1526), new delhi, munshiram manoharlal publishers, 1980, p. 85. 10. shariah is the divine law in islam. it is a complete format of life that includes the rules for all the fields of human life both individual and governmental. to see the characteristics and principles of shariah see m.b.hooker, “shariah” in encyclopedia of islam, 2nd edn. eds, h.a.r. gibb. et. al., leiden, e.j. brill, 1967, pp. 321-328. 11. hans raj, history of medieval india, delhi, surjeet publications, 1986, p. 197. 12. the word ‘ulama’ (singular alim) is taken from the word ilm, meaning knowledge. thus an ‘alim means a knowledgeable person. in the delhi sultanate they were referred to as religious scholars. 13. radhey shyam chaurasia, history of medieval india (from 1000 ad to 1707 ad), new delhi, atlantic publishers, 2002, p. 138. 14. s.c. raychoudhary, history of muslim india (from 1000 ad to 1526 ad), delhi, surjeet publications, 1986, p. 224. 15. k.s. lal, history of the khaljis (ad 1290-1320), new delhi, vikas publishhing house ltd., 1950, p. 276. hamdard islamicus 175 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 16. u.n. day, the government of the sultanate, 2nd edn., new delhi, munshiram manoharlal publishers ltd., 1993, p. 198. 17. raychaudhary, history of muslim india, pp. 242-243. 18. mountstuart elphinstone, the history of india: the hindu mahometan periods, 5th edn., london, murray, 1866, p. 380. 19. k.s. lal, twilight of the sultanate, london, asia publishing house, 1965, p. 288. 20. prasad, a short history of muslim rule in india, p. 231. 21. stanley wolpert, a new history of india, new york, oxford university press, 1977, p. 114. 22. peter hardy, “growth of authority over a conquered political elite: early delhi sultanate as a possible case study” in kingship and authority in south asia. ed. j.f. richards., delhi, oxford university press, p. 217. 23. raj, history of medieval india, p. 188. 24. tavir anjum, “nature and dynamics of political authority in the sultanate of delhi”, in quarterly journal of the pakistan historical society. vol. i. liv (july-september 2006), p. 30. 25. k.a. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, delhi, nadwat almusannifin, 1958, p. 34. 26. m.h. syed, history of delhi sultanate, vol. ii., new delhi, anmol publications ltd., 2004, p. 376. 27. nizami, salatin-i-delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 32. the only exception was that of sultan nasir al-din mahmud who earned his own living by making and selling the copies of holy quran and considered the treasury to be the right of the masses. al-badaoni, muntakhab-ut-tawarikh, vol. i. eng trans. geroge s.a. ranking, karachi, karimsons, 1976, pp. 127-128. 28. for a list of the titles of the sultans of delhi, see appendix. anjum, “nature and dynamics”, pp. 58-59. 29. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, pp. 23. 30. although after his accession he became a hindu again and even in the royal palace hindu activities had started. zia al-din barani, tarikh-i firuz shahi. urdu trans. syed moin al-haq, lahore, urdu science board, 1969, p. 589. 31. edward thomas, the chronicles of the pathan kings of delhi, lahore, qausain, 1975, pp. 211-216 and 249-250. 32. according to this theory the king is the representative of god and thus he is superior to all the other humans. muhammad aziz ahmad, political history and institutions of the early turkish empire of delhi (1206-1290), lahore, research society of pakistan, 1987, p. 328. 33. kunwar mohammad ashraf, “political conditions under the sultanate” in political, legal and military history of india, p. 77. 34. tanvir anjum, “chishti silsilah and the delhi sultanate: a study of their relationship during 13th and 14th centuries”, unpublished phd diss., department of history, quaid-i-azam university, islamabad, 2005, p. 171. 35. saiyyid sulaiman nadvi, arab o hind k taaluqat, 115, as cited by nizami, salatin-i delhi kay mazhabi rujhanat, pp. 15-16. 36. barani, tarikh-i firuz shahi, pp. 80-81. 37. anjum, “nature and dynamics”, p. 39. hamdard islamicus 176 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 38. ahmad, political history and institutions, p. 327. 39. kunwar muhammad ashraf, “life and conditions of the people of hindustan (1200-1500 ad)-mainly based on islamic sources”, in journal of the asiatic society of bengal, letters, vol. i., karachi, indus publications, 1978, p. 135. 40. shams siraj afif, tarikh-i firuz shahi, 3rd edn. urdu trans. muíammad fida ali talib, karachi, nafees academy, 1965, p. 257. 41. barani, tarikh-i firuz shahi, p. 104. 42. he was the same sultans who according to barani was planning to introduce a new religion., ibid., pp. 390-391. 43. r.p. tripathi. some aspects of muslim administration, allahabad, indian press, 1936, p. 59. 44. i.h. qureshi, the administration of the sultanate of delhi. 2nd rev. edn., lahore, sh. muíammad ashraf, 1944, p. 32. 45. bada’uni, muntakhab-ut-tawarikh, p. 311. 46. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 24. 47. yahya ibn ahmad ibn abd allah sirhindi, the tariikh-i mubarak shahi. eng trans. k.k. basu, karachi, karimsons, 1977, p. 36. 48. thomas w. arnold, the preaching of islam, london, constable, 1913, p. 280. 49. s.m. ikram, history of muslim civilization in india and pakistan: a political and cultural history, 9th edn., lahore, institute of islamic culture, 2000, p. 164. 50. anjum, “nature and dynamics”, p. 74. 51. ibid., p. 45. 52. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 58. 53. ashraf, political conditions under the sultanate, p. 127. 54. for instance the tradition that said that “the sultan is the shadow of god on earth” which was actually derived from the ancient persian traditions. ibid., p. 75. 55. sunil kumar, the emergence of the delhi sultanate, ranikhet, permanent black, 2007, p. 220. if the sultans kept on fulfilling the demand of the ulama, they were his best of the companions. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhabi rujhanat, p. 20. 56. barani, tarikh-i firuz shahi, p. 424. 57. jamini mohan banerjee, history of firuz shah tughluq, lahore, progressive books, 1976, p. 69. 58. sirhindi, the tarikh-i firuz shahi, 119; and bada’uni, muntakhab-ut-tawarikh, p. 318. 59. ibn battutah, ajaib al-asfar. urdu trans. maulvi muhammad husain, islamabad, national institute of historical and cultural research, 1983, p. 150. 60. ibid., p. 154. 61. a.b.m. habibullah, the foundation of muslim rule in india: a history of the establishment and progress of the turkish sultanate of delhi: 1206-1290 ad. 2nd edn., allahabad, central book depot, 1961, pp. 250, 272. 62. qureshi, the administration of the sultanate of delhi, p. 49. 63. bakhshish singh, “legal systems under the sultans” in political, legal and military history of india, pp. 159-160. 64. habibullah, the foundation of muslim rule, p. 271. 65. qureshi, the administration of the sultanate of delhi, p. 162. hamdard islamicus 177 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 66. habibullah, the foundation of muslim rule, p. 271. 67. the delhi sultanate gave the hindus a status resembling alh-i kitab. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 67. 68. ibid., p. 112. 69. m.d. arshad, an advanced history of muslim rule in indo-pakistan, decca, ideal publications, 1967, p. 86. 70. ibn battutah, ajaib al-afsar, p. 137. 71. john keay, india: a history, new delhi, harper collins publisher, 2001, p. 242. afif, tarikh-i firuz shahi, p. 131. the reason that he banned women to go to temples was that he wanted to stop them and others falling into immoralities, he also banned the muslim women to visit shrines. zafar al-islam islahi, salatini delhi or shariat-i islamia, aligarh, rehan islam, 2002, pp. 14-15. 72. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 72. 73. syed, history of delhi sultanate, p. 28. the provincial courts kept the vernacular language of india alive and there was free contact of the hindus and muslims even through matrimonial means. qureshi, the administration of the sultanate of delhi, pp. 225-227. 74. muíammad habib, political theory of the delhi sultanate: including a translation of ziauddin barani’s fatawa-i jahandari, circa, 1358-9 ad., allahabad, kitab mahal, 1961, p. 69. 75. moinul haq,”the spread of islam in south asia” in islam in south asia, eds. waheed-uz-zaman and m. saleem akhtar, islamabad, nihcr, 1993, p. 57. the pay jizyah to acquire the right to have freedom of rituals, free existence of their social code and enforcement of their religious laws. syed, history of delhi sultanate, p. 381. 76. tripathi, some aspects of muslim administration, pp. 290-291. 77. habib has talked altogether differently when he said that there never existed anything like a poll tax. there was kharaj, a tax on the land and all the other taxes were called jizyah and they were taken from all the inhabitants and not on the basis of the religion of the payer. habib, political theory of the delhi sultanate, pp. 381. 78. banerjee, history of firuz tughluq, p. 124. after his accession to the throne the sultan ordered to abolish all non-sharia taxes in his realm because of which the royal income suffered a severe blow of about three million tankas. and that was the reason that he imposed it on the brahmans as well to meet his financial needs. nizami, royalty in medieval india, p. 32. 79. keay, india: a history, p. 242. sultan actually felt pity for the brahmans when they protested in front of his palace and he brought the rate of jizyah on a real low ground. agha mehdi hussain, tughluq dynasty, calcutta, thacker pink and co, pvt; ltd., 1963, p. 426. another interesting point is that except for the brahman protest against jizyah we never came across any example of hindu resentment against the imposition of it. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 72. 80. andre wink, al-hind: the making of the indo-islamic world. vol. ii, the slave kings and the islamic conquest 11th-13th centuries, new delhi, oxford university press, 1999, p. 81. hamdard islamicus 178 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 81. habibullah, foundation of muslim rule, p. 265. 82. abdul malik isami, futuh al-salatin. eng trans. agha mahdi hussain, bombay, asia publishing house, 1976, pp. 454. 83, nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 306. 84, keay, india: a history, p. 241. 85. wolsely haig, the cambridge history of india. vol. iii, turks and afghans, delhi, s. chand and co., 1958, pp. 88-89. 86. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 91. 87. richard m. eaton, “temple desecration and indo-muslim states” in beyond turk and hindu: rethinking religious identities in islamicate south asia. ed. david gilmartin and bruce b. lawrence, gainesville, university press of florida, 2000, p. 259. 88. badaoni, muntakhab-ut-tawarikh, p. 95. 89. afif, tarikh-i firuz shahi, p. 124. 90. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 346. 91. afif, tarikh-i firuz shahi, pp. 135-137; and peter jackson, the delhi sultanate: a political and military history., cambridge, cambridge university press, 1999, p. 289. 92. sirhindi, the tarikh-i mubarak shahi, p. 75. 93. wink, al hind, p. 2:324. the importance of the demolition of temples for political purposes has its history even in the pre-muslim rule in india. long before the arrival of the muslim turks the temples used to represent kingly authority. the hindu rulers of different regions also used to demolish these sorts of temples in order to get upper hand in the conflict. for instance in the tenth century indra iii, ruler of the rashtrakuta destroyed the temple of kalapriya which was patronized by his enemies. eaton, “temple desecration and indo-muslim states”, p. 256. 94. minhaj al-siraj juzjani, tabaqat-i nasiri. vol. ii. eng trans. h.g. raverty, lahore, amir publications, 1977, p. 816. again it was not only the muslim sultans who plundered the temples but the hindu chiefs also used to pillage the region of another hindu chief. for instance paramare king subhatavarman, the ruler of malwah destroyed and plundered a number of jain temples in gujarat in 1193-1210. another king harsha looted many hindu temples in order to enrich his treasury. habibullah, foundation of muslim rule, p. 321. 95. jackson, the delhi sultanate, p. 288. 96. qureshi, the administration of the sultanate of delhi, p. 220. 97. jackson, the delhi sultanate, p. 288. 98. habibullah, the foundation of muslim rule, p. 324. 99. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay mazhabi rujhanat, p. 77. 100. eaton, “temple desecration and indo-muslim states”, p. 261. 101. jackson, the delhi sultanate, p. 287. 102. eaton, “temple desecration and indo-muslim states”, p. 261. this temple was destroyed during the course of suppressing the revolt of baha al-din garshasp in kalyani. jackson, the delhi sultanate, p. 287. 103. qureshi, the administration of the sultanate of delhi, p. 221. the destruction of the temples could not be associated with the religious passion of the sultan hamdard islamicus 179 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 for he was the same sultan who brought asoka pillars form khizrabad district to firuzabad in 1356 as well as thirteen hundred sanskrit books to be translated into persian. banerjee, history of firuz shah tughluq, p. 186. 104. richard m. eaton, “approaches to the study of conversion to islam in india” in approaches to islam in religious studies, ed. richard c. martin, tucson, the university of arizona press, 1985, pp. 107-109. 105. s.m. yusuf, some aspects of islamic culture, lahore, institution of islamic culture, 1961, p. 30. 106. the shrines of farid al-din masud (baba farid) and baha al-haqq zakariyya in pakpattan and multan respectively became the center of devotion for the jats. for them devotion to islam was devotion to these shrines. eaton, “approaches to the study of conversion”, pp. 119-120. 107. aziz ahmad, studies in islamic culture in the indian environment, oxford, clarendon printers, 1964, p. 83. 108. habibullah, the foundation of muslim rule, p. 327. a point to be noted at this spot is that he was a mild natured sultan and his quality of appeasing the rivals and his forgiveness for the enemies melted many hearts. because of these acts of his mass conversion of mongols took place. keay, india: a history, p. 249 109. banerjee, history of firuz shah tughluq, p. 170. 110. zafar imam, the musalmans of the subcontinent, lahore, vanguard, 1980, p. 7. it was not done on the basis of religion but on the basis of ethnicity and racialism. a.d. murtaz, “non-muslims under the sultans of delhi (12061324)” in journal of the research society of pakistan (university of punjab, lahore) vol. xv, no. 4 (october 1978), p. 46. 111. even the distinction he and his predecessor sultan iltutmish made between the low-born and high-born were only on the basis of ethnicity, see footnote no. 1, nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 8. 112. habibullah, the foundation of muslim rule, p. 329. 113. barani, tarikh-i firuz shahi, p. 195. 114. jackson, the delhi sultanate, p. 279. 115. agha mehdi hussain, the rise and fall of muhammad bin tughluq, london, luzac and co., 1938, p. 316. 116. agha mehdi hussain, tughluq dynasty, calcutta, thacker pink and co, pvt, ltd., 1963, p. 315. 117. a.l. srivastava, medieval indian culture, allahabad, chugh publications, 1975, p. 145. 118. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 347. gardiner brown asserted “so far from oppressing is hindu subjects he showed himself the forerunner of akbar both in his restriction of sati and his employment of hindu princes in his military posts and competent hindus on high civil posts. he appears also to have been willing to allow other classes of hindus to prosper without interference.” see hussain, rise and fall of muíammad bin tughluq, p. 12. 119. afif, tarikh-i firuz shahi, p. 82. 120. barani, tarikh-i firuz shahi, p. 819. 121. qureshi, the administration of the sultanate of delhi, p. 222. hussain said that the hindu chief was the link between the local men and the provincial governors. hussain, tughluq dynasty, p. 12. hamdard islamicus 180 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 122. tara chand, influence of islam on the indian culture, 2nd ed., allahabad, indian press, 1963, p. 137. 123. the majority hindu tributary states kept their old religions and traditions alive and were completely free if they pay regular tributes to the center. syed, history of delhi sultanate, p. 387. 124. k.s. lal, history of the khaljis (a.d. 1290-1320), new delhi, vikas publishing house pvt, ltd., 1950, pp. 233-242. he also used to receive tribute and word of allegiance from the ruler of warangal. qureshi, the administration of the sultanate of delhi, p. 195. 125. jackson, the delhi sultanate, p. 279. the governor of bijapur in 1320 granted a whole estate to a hindu constructor of a mosque for his good work. 126. nizami, salatin-i delhi kay madhhabi rujhanat, p. 26. 127. ibid., p. 267. 128. elphinstone, the history of india, p. 399. 129. banerjee, history of firuz shah tughluq, p. 171. the only persecuted hindu was the brahman who went against the law and converted a muslim woman. 130. ibid., pp. 64-66. 131. isami declared that he killed his closest brother and intimate friend, almas beg on the suspicion of revolt. futuh al-salatin, p. 457. 132. ibn battutah, ajaib al-asfar, pp. 144-145. hamdard islamicus 117 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 causality broken synthesizing religion, philosophy and modern physics, confirming al-ghazólô’s win in the debate of the world’s pre-eternity by proving delay in effect naseeb ahmed siddiqui graduate student, international islamic university of malaysia, gombak-53001, kuala lumpur, malaysia. email: siddiqiunaseeb@gmail.com the central issue of imém al-ghazélê’s book ‘the incoherence of philosophers’ (taíéfut al-falésifah) concerning the world’s pre-eternity rotates around the cause and effect. according to philosophers once all necessary condition for a cause are fulfilled, its effect cannot be delayed by necessity. on the contrary, according to islamic theologians, it is not necessary. after 800 years, creation unveiled mysteries in its form, which both the parties (philosophers and theologians) did not know. however, who won the debate over world’s pre-eternity is still undecided. this paper will try to fill that gap by providing a new proposal which synthesizes religion, philosophy and modern science by proving that imém al-ghazélê’s proposition was correct: i.e., the delay in effect in presence of a cause is possible. it will be established using these three different domains of universe supporting each other. discussion on modern science will provide new insights on some of the core results of scientific theories, which have not been considered yet. keywords: pre-eternity, cause and effect, metaphysics, islamic theology, al-ghazélê, islamic philosophy, quantum physics. introduction in the history of islamic philosophy no book made such huge impact on islamic theology (‘ilmulkélam) and philosophy (falasifah), as the book hamdard islamicus 118 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 ‘incoherence of philosophers’ (taíéfut al-falésifah)1 written by hujjatul islam abë ×émid muíammad al-ghazélê during 1095 a.d. al-ghazélê explained in the religious preface of this book the reason for his lengthy book, refuting twenty central doctrines of philosophers. he says: “i have seen people thinking distinct from religious companion (muslim theologians) by virtue of intelligence and rejected very islamic belief. the change in philosopher’s mentality is due to their hearing if names like socrates, plato and followers who misunderstood them. due to philosophy and logical explanation of these great names, philosophers have given their intelligence and adopted the view which is against the islamic doctrine.”2 philosophers provide different lines of proofs for the world’s preeternity, but this article is concerned only with the central issue: a) world cannot be created from nothingness, hence temporal creation is impossible in time. b) once cause is present, fulfilling all the condition, it has to produce an effect. delay in effect is impossible. c) cause and effect are simultaneous in time. the priority of cause over effect is in essence and rank not in time. d) god as a cause by necessity creates, and if god is eternal and changeless, so is the world. the article will delve into detail on these questions avoiding arguments already presented by al-ghazélê. questions will be analysed based on philosophers’ own doctrine concerning the world and ultimate reality. in previous centuries the world has revealed to us some of the most bizarre nature underlying the substances. the article will use the frontier of scientific knowledge at present to gather the proofs against philosophers’ proposal. the article will trace the arguments to original greek sources wherever necessary and elaborate the views of science in detail. first of all, it is important to describe major work related to topic. marmura3 has discussed this conflict over pre-eternity in detail with the inclusion of ibn rushd’s arguments, making it more valuable. he only tackled the issue within the realm of both parties’ arguments and then to hamdard islamicus 119 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 conclude, who was more logical and that was al-ghazélê. marmura4 again attempted to analyse the second proof based on time for worlds pre-eternity. after analysis he concluded that the proof of philosophers from time is disjunctive syllogism and does not prove world to be eternal. the central metaphysical issue is not the nature of time rather nature of god’s causality. edward5 analysed the position of al-ghazélê on the second proof of philosophers on world pre-eternity, that world is posterior to god and god is prior to world, means only in essence god is prior to world not in time. it is clear that al-ghazélê was not a supporter of this idea and rejected it, but he concludes that this proof of philosophers itself was incoherent. rizvi6 came with the study of an isfahan thinker mêr déméd, on the same issue, who tried to settle the dispute between both the parties by developing a perpetual incipience which can voluntarily act to cosmos at the same time knowing cause of cosmos. he is solely responsible for bringing existence into it. goodman7 did the critical analysis of al-ghazélê’s contingency arguments, which proposes allah is the self-subsistent being and all other beings are depended on him. hourani8 also delves into the discussion between al-ghazélê and ibn rushd over pre-eternity. literature review revealed that, the issue has not been studied creating new arguments other than historical. similarly, it lacked the views of latest scientific inquiry, which this article seems to be the first to start. hence, articles claiming of analysing philosophers’ arguments with latest findings in science are new subject area to be investigated for other related topics also. in the discussion, first, the proof of philosophers will be explained from taíéfut al-falésifah. it will be followed by the objections from philosophical and scientific point of view. at the end it will be proven from modern science that in presence of cause, delay in effect is evident. debate over the world pre-eternity philosophers’ proof 1) temporal creation cannot proceed from eternal. if it is supposed that world came into being without god then, it was in pure possibility but to create its existence there must be a giver of preponderance hamdard islamicus 120 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 which will call the giver of first preponderance, hence infinity. nothing can create nothing, hence possibility of everything (world) coming into existence from nothing is impossible. with question why it did not come into existence before its supposed creation? who originated first giver? 2) if it is supposed from god, then from eternal only eternal can proceed, if not then why ‘he did not will the creation before its creation?’ it will be a change in eternal to suppose, that at one time he was not a willer of creation but later he became. it will also attribute (god forbid) the impotence of god. also, every will demands a previous will going to infinite. hence as long as god’s eternity is true so is the eternity of the world. 3) the temporal occurrence is necessary and caused, like event cannot exist without cause which necessitates it. it is not possible for necessitating being with all its condition fulfilled, nothing else awaited, to delay it’s necessitated effect. necessary causes necessitate effect, both are simultaneous and priority is only in the sense of essence and rank, not in time.9 these are the fundamental proofs connected with cause and effects. in dealing with them, we will not go one by one rather involve in the central issue and discuss all of them within that realm. objection and proof against pre-eternity on the definition of priority and simultaneous says aristotle, priority has five ways. (a) first is what belongs to priority in time, say plato is prior to aristotle. (b) second belongs to the ‘being’ whose sequence cannot be reversed, say unity is prior to two but its existence does not depend on two but two depends on one; father exist then son, reverse is not possible.(c) third belongs to priority in science and oratory, say word is prior to sentence. (d) fourth is what belongs to natural priority because of love and respect of someone. (e) fifth call a prior cause by nature containing existence, as to say ‘man is’ is correct but not as the cause of the existence. rather it is ‘man’s’ hamdard islamicus 121 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 existence which decides the correctness of the statement, hence it is existence which is a real cause not the statement. man’s existence is prior to its declaration.10 (c) and (d) does not concern here. in the rest, aristotle described in general, how priority can be defined. neither he defines any necessary condition for them nor priority necessarily precedes and proceeds with cause and effect. it is preceding and proceedings of priorities, as to say socrates is prior to plato and plato is prior to aristotle. similarly in sequence, unity is prior to all and existence is prior to proof. for priority, two things must proceed and precede each other as evident but there is a huge contradiction between (a) and (b). as per (b), unity is free from reversal; hence existence of unity denies its contrary, so no priority is possible in any sense.11 but (a) requires in time always two existences that should not be simultaneous to attribute ‘priority’. hence only two conditions come, either ‘priority’ ends at unity with certainty or is totally impossible. later is self-evident contradiction so only former option is left. considering this if one says – world is eternal with god, than this is wrong from (a) and (b) definition of priority. this is because the assertion of philosophers that cause and effects are simultaneous but cause is prior in essence not in time. however, there is nothing which can synthesize one of them prior in essence and rank but not in time, this differentiation is not evident. says aristotle: “has motion ever come to be without having previously been? and does it perish in turn in such a way that nothing is any longer in motion?”12 here motion underlies change whatever form it may be. he explains, change required two things – moved and mover. mover makes change in moved. at first, this contradicts his definition (a) and (b) of priority. what is the proof of priority of mover over moved in both time and essence? secondly, aristotle in chapter-13 of categories gives definition as to what could be called simultaneous: “those things are called simultaneous without qualification and hamdard islamicus 122 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 most strictly which come into being at the same time, for neither is prior or posterior. these are called simultaneous in respect of time. but those things are called simultaneous by nature which reciprocate as to implication of existence, provided that neither is in any way the cause of the others existence, e.g. the double and the half.”13 according to this definition, mover and moved are simultaneous in time or nature? only four possibilities are there. if philosophers deny simultaneous in time than, it is evident that mover or cause precede in time denying their own assumption.14 second, if they accept mover (cause) and moved (effect) simultaneous in time, they actually are denying the definition of priority. thirdly, acceptance of simultaneous by nature will not allow either one to be cause of others existence, hence mover cannot act on moved. fourthly, if they deny simultaneous by nature, it is totally impossible for creation to exist. in the same fashion, if god and the world both are eternal, they need to pass all the four conditions and in no case, world’s pre-eternity has any ground to pass, as per aristotle’s own methodology. hence, they cannot be calledsimultaneous, which denies ultimately that cause and effect are simultaneous without delay. further, if world’s pre-eternity is with god then, are they same in terms of essence and existence or different? if it is said, they are same in essence, then it is impossible for anything to exist when only movermover or moved-moved or cause-cause or effect-effect exist. on the contrary, if assumed differently, than its fallacy is evident, this is to saysun instead of producing light, create darkness. lastly, how the philosophers prove, one eternal by essence does not change (god) and other eternal (the world) is continuous in change, this is a contradictory statement. philosopher’s claim that eternal must proceed eternal is not a proof of eternity rather contrary to it. whatever definition they consider for ‘eternity’, it must be same for both cause and effect if eternal proceed from eternal. if it is considered everlastingness then it must proceed in future for both. and if it is said to be timelessness then it must be for both.15 everlastingness is defined as no beginning and no end, neither by existence nor by essence.16 essence belongs to the ‘whatness’ and existent what is attributed to that whatness or reality. hamdard islamicus 123 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 god, as philosophers admit, is eternal both by essence and existence; question is how they define both terms for world in first instance? they propose in their proof: “before creation world was in pure possibility of existence and non-existence, but it came to existence, it means some previous cause existed to choose existence from non-existence”.17 here arise two objections, first is what belongs to the definition of unity whose contrary based on priority cannot be surpassed. so once prior cause is there why there is a need to call infinite causes to support first effect? this is not logical to pursue till infinite, as philosophers also don’t like this idea. second objection is that once world existence is agreed upon, what is the essence of the world? essence or reality of the world cannot be ‘eternity’ because when philosophers are comparing worlds pre-eternity with god, then eternity is only one of the attributes of the perfect being god.18 now, what other essence of the world, philosophers will propose as eternity itself is not the essence of the world? if one says, its essence is ‘change’ as described by the aristotle and heraclitus, then it is contradictory because they assume god to be uncaused and changeless.19 how it is possible for one eternal to change constantly and one out of change being each other’s cause and effect? even attributing ‘change’ as essence of the world does not make sense. as for natural philosophers, change is what belongs to the very nature of things. pre-socratic period believed that matter is nature and aristotle proposed an internal principle of change to be the definition of nature which corresponds to substances. for him the form is ultimate principle behind change defining what the thing is.20 in this view, if the world exists with god, then two separate forms eternally existingis not possible. it will call two separate system of change one in which generation and degradation makes the process of change and second in which it does not happen. if both are same, what is the need of discussion? it is selfevident fallacy. even if one considers eternity of the world, there is no excuse to accept, that eternity of world and god are not same with above distinction. gods knowing of his ‘being’ and ‘what it is for’ are identical, free from intellectual intervention, free from manmade human’s hamdard islamicus 124 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 universal intellect or first intellect.21 intellect classifies order ‘of and in’ creation thus not worthy to use for allah the al-mighty as he said: ‘and there is nothing that could be compared with him’.22 this ‘nothing’ does not leave anything of metaphysics, philosophy and science. the sense can be felt when ‘i’ know i can do this, such knowing exclude intellectual intervention. but when i know ‘i do not know’, intellect comes into existence. with this i can deduce what ‘i do not know’ is possible or impossible for me. the conclusion will become part of ‘i’ for future decision and then intellect would play no role again. if it is evident then for allah ‘everything’ is known by himself. this ‘everything’ is that ‘nothing’ not worthy of comparison. secondly, it will be a ‘change’ to use intellect because that requires ‘movement towards intellect’. for allah, it is null and void as ‘nothing’ of ‘everything’ is out of his knowledge as described above. ‘change’ fulfils ‘what is not known’ but if something is known already, change becomes irrelevant. when i say, ‘i do not know physics’, means to acquire the knowledge of physics i need change but when i say, ‘i know mathematics’ then no change is required. if it’s evident, allah al-mighty says: “… allah has power over all things, and that allah comprehends all things in (his) knowledge.”– (lxv:12) when everything is known to him by ‘himself’, what is the change require for? heraclitus of greek says ‘change is the only constant’, which is correct in the sense that ‘nature is end oriented’ and end require a process to reach. process itself is a change and combination of specific movements. it is true; nature ends whatever one believes. what is born will meet goal, is known to every existence. so what is changing if ‘end’ is ‘known? the change is to ‘what is it for’ not what it is ‘itself’. as new baby is ‘i’ when he/she is born and then in old age he/she is still ‘i’ the change was in his process to achieve that ‘known end’. now, there are two things – the end is known but how to reach that end is unknown, hence incomplete and imperfect knowledge. change is for what was not in existence before. if allah is eternal, what defines change? to be living is not change but change is attached hamdard islamicus 125 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 to ‘nature’ it means change is not a constant for a ‘living’ being. god is ‘living’ rather than ‘living life’. never had he discussed about his life other than the attribute of ‘living’. so, heraclitus claim is null and void for allah al-mighty because he is out of change. as for aristotle, change is eternal because to initiate a change another change is needed. accordingly, if god is eternal, motion must be eternal. aristotle lags to show that initially allah al-mighty (in his word the unmoved mover) was not alone without any creation.23 in light of this lack, possibility of change is unimaginable. when god is eternal and self-sustaining annihilating all the possibilities within his knowledge, change is required for what? aristotle’s argument is reverse which needs a first motion, not the eternity of motion or change. if it is shown that, there was a first change; eternity of motion will be wrong. however, it can be argued if change is eternal, than relative to what? if in a room everything is stationary, what change one proposes until something changes? if that’s the case, in the beginning everything was ‘he’ alone with his attributes, why there is a sense of change? like to say, presence of teacher and student in a class does not initiate change (transfer of knowledge) until teacher ‘wills’ to do so. on the essence and existence of the world and god above assertion draws distinction between eternity of the world and god. former is with change and later out of change, then what other form of eternity philosophers define? the question remains open, what is the essence of the world? it can be said, there is no essence which can fulfil the requirement of that definition; every essence attributed to the world has one of the possible realities not the only one. latest findings in the worlds structure at micro-level, shows different realities of the world. the branch which deals with micro-structure of the existences is called quantum physics.24 it proclaims, on the basis of experiment that there is no single past and future of the world, the world in which we live is only one of the many possibilities that existed in past and will exist in future. due to probabilistic nature it exists in the form as it is now. it also affirms, the world has in-deterministic nature and particle can exist at two places at a moment. enlightened with this bizarre nature, modern scientist and philosophers agreed on the modeldependent reality of a thing. they professed that as model-dependent hamdard islamicus 126 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 philosophy, the planetary theory of ptolemy with the earth as the centre of solar system and of copernicus with the sun at the centre of solar system, both are correct, because on the basis of observation no one can deny either one.25 so there is no single reality or essence26 of the world for granted. it was shown through the experiments in quantum physics, that world has no deterministic nature rather it is working on probability. probability in the sense, based on current state of the world nobody can determine what will be the future existence, as was possible with newtonian world view. in quantum world no certainty exists for particles for any specific location rather based on data it can be said, that particular particle can probably exist at different positions without certainty. in this bizarre world a cat can be alive and dead at the same time.27 conclusion is that the world of philosophers has changed from pre-eternity to probability. now the question is not eternity but the very nature of many-world possibility and for sure that is not possible ‘if eternal proceed from eternal with no characteristic of eternity’. modern approach is relativistic which calls for many realities rather than only reality. it accepts objective reality rather than actual. the question which can be asked is of the plato’s when he says: “what about someone who believes in beautiful things, but does not believe in beautiful itself … do you think he is living in a dream, or is he awake? just consider: isn’t it dreaming to think – whether asleep or awake – that a likeness is not a likeness, but the thing itself that it is like?”28 in light of model dependent theory, realities are only ways to find reality but not the reality itself, as there are beautiful things but the question is what is the beauty itself? however, all this philosophy is based on observation and mathematical prediction, not about the eternal god but about the so called eternal world of philosophers. if that is the reality of eternal world which has no single reality then, how come it can proceed from the eternal, god, who has single, unaltered, unified reality? yes, it is admitted that these conclusions based on observation and calculation were not available to earlier philosopher, so it can be justified that their notion of pre-eternity was not correct when it comes to ‘only hamdard islamicus 127 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 eternal proceed from eternal’ as there is no single reality for the world. this discussion is at first a negation of their doctrine and secondly a proof that both are not same (god and world’s eternity), and if not same they cannot persist at the same time with different attributes at the beginning. contemporary exploration of universe has already predicted the ultimate fate of universe. as per data, there may be three shapes of the universe, flat, closed and open. they were predicted on the basis of visible and dark matter, dark and vacuum energy and average density of the known universe. the conclusion is that universe is flat but that is not at all the final verdict. whatever universe one assumes, there remains always contrary hypothesis opposed to the big bang. big bang theory proposes that the universe began by an explosion from a singularity. followed by the inflation which is responsible for everything we see including humans. later observation of edwin hubble claimed that the universe is expanding which came to decelerate because of einstein’s cosmological constant demanding deceleration with other factors. prediction of black holes comes which is attracting everything including light due to huge gravity. no one knows what happens after the matter crosses a limit called horizon. some predicted that, maybe that is a way to go in another universe like the hypothesis of wormholes. no one knows what exactly it is. it was then argued, if universe started from big bang and black holes are annihilating each thing, then universe must come again to singularity or in general term end followed by another big bang. to expand this idea, there are some theories like big crunch, big freeze, heat death, big bounce and big rip. scientists are finding big freeze theory more promising than others. as per big freeze, the universe due to its current expansion asymptotically will approach to absolute zero temperature. it is expected that the fuel of stars will be exhausted and the universe will become darker and black holes will dominate the universe followed by hawking’s radiation emission black holes will also disappear. big crunch propose that average density of universe is enough to stop expansion and start contraction.29-33 even though, the claim of flat universe which will expand forever based on the calculation of matter and vacuum energy is not the final conclusion. observational accuracy will reveal more accurate data about the structure and fate of universe because earlier observation did not detect vacuum energy at all, so it is probable hamdard islamicus 128 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 as to what does the data describe and existence of such theories which declare end of universe is self-evident due to complexity of universe. hence, the eternity in terms of everlastingness has no solid ground as science predicts both big bang and big freeze for the same universe. philosopher’s assertion of the eternity in terms of everlastingness is overshadowed by their own so called ‘eternal world’. second criteria eternity in terms of timelessness can be combined with temporal creation of the world in time. at first, if timelessness is taken ‘without time’ then it will be a serious attack on the philosophical definition of the time related to the world not for the eternal god, which philosophers already assumed to be out of change or time. this serious objection comes from plato, he says about the definition of time: “[the demiurge] began to think of making a moving image of eternity: at the same time as he brought order to the universe, he would make an eternal image, moving according to number, of eternity remaining in unity. this, of course, is what we call “time”.34 time is for the world, it is not a separate identity attributed to it. rather it is ‘within’ the world connected with motion that can be counted. and for demiurge35 time is not in him, neither he is in time, means demiurge is out of time and eternal. being eternal is to get out of time. with this, the world as we know cannot exist without time; they are from each other to make a sense. for aristotle, as discussed earlier, the unmoved mover is out of change but initiate change and time is related to motion or change, which is intrinsic to the world. then how come it is eternal in the sense of timelessness? if that is pure impossibility for the world to exist without time, then one has to admit its temporal creation which satisfies its opposite eternity. there is something between ‘without change – god’ and ‘with change – the world’, because without change can proceed only ‘without change’ not ‘with change’. in between them is something which is connected to both, is it will? will is a form and cannot be connected to the world with attribute of ‘with change’. there must be some external form of the will, which connects both, is it the ‘existence (either as light or spirit)’ of prophet muíammad (œ)? the third option is ‘nothingness’ to which philosophers make their arguments. in view of hamdard islamicus 129 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 this assertion of nothingness philosophers may argue that this is our position that, temporal cannot be created from eternal, it is like that the world came out of nothing, and if one accept world out of nothing than why there is a need for its maker.36 one can say: ‘neither it is impossible for the world to be created in time nor its existence out of nothing’. nothingness cannot be described in terms of pure possibility, impossibility and necessity of something, as they are pure mental forms of which existence and non-existence at the same moment are purely possible and impossible. the world is not only a form but also whole nature of change through matter (méddah), its existence is clear but not the essence and reality. moving backward from present state of the world will come a point where both its form and matter may have been started from ‘nothingness’, so nothingness must contain in itself these two qualities to satisfy the present condition of the world. to philosophers,37 both forms and matter are different, but where there is matter there will be form, they cannot exist without each other. the world as evident has both form and matter, then ‘nothingness’ cannot be other than what is inherent in its explosion. it can be said – ‘nothingness is unconsciousness of essence and existence until willed by the lord al-mighty’.38 it will be illogical to assert nothingness is eternal in any sense. as when something neither known to itself by essence nor by existence, what category of eternity philosopher define for it? or they are arguing over world’s pre-eternity or the pre-eternity of ‘nothingness’? essence is abstract; but existence as discussed can exist externally. for temporal world there must be relation either between essence and existence or essence and nonexistence. in the words of imém taftazénê: ‘the reality of a thing and its essence are that by which a thing is what it is, like ‘rational animal’ with reference to ‘man’ in contrast to ‘laughing animal’ and ‘writing animal’, since it is possible to conceive of ‘man’ without reference to them in as much they are among the accidents … a thing (al-shay) according to us, is the existent (al-mawjëd); and subsistence (al-thubët); realization (al-taíaqquq); existence (al-wujëd) and coming-into-being (al-kawn) are synonymous terms, and the meaning of them is selfevident.’39 hamdard islamicus 130 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 ‘nothingness’ cannot qualify such categorization of reality and essence, and we do not claim it a ‘thing’ also because it does not qualify the distinction. nothingness is not known to itself reserves intervention of some other being to make it known through his action. we say, this is the will of the lord which creates realization of ‘what it is’, to proceed the creation out of nothingness. this assertion is in no contrast with the contemporary view of the world also. creation out of nothing: encounter with pure arguments of physics as per dirac equation which was an attempt to unify the two different horizon of the so called ‘eternal world’ relativity and quantum physics, proposed one new particle same as electron in everysense but with positive charge. it was fundamentally a new look, but dirac claimed that positive charge particle is proton and due to interaction with other proton in empty space, they become heavier. he was not correct, because within few years, physicists have found the particles proposed by dirac equations within the cosmic rays coming to earth. that particle was called ‘positron’ the antiparticle, which motivated idea of similar antiparticles for other fundamental particle too. characteristic of thisnew particles is that when they meet (positive and negative charge), they annihilate each other emitting radiation. from here the term matter and antimatter came into existence. richard feynman was interested to look at it from relativistic point of view. he argued that, no particle can go beyond speed of light and if itgoes, it will go backward in time. this phenomena when observed, different observers will give different measurement of the same episode. he showed this phenomenon with diagram: fig. 1 (krauss, 2012) hamdard islamicus 131 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 if a single electron is moving through space, and for a very limited time that we cannot even measure precisely, electron moves with speed of the light. it gives impression to an observer that it is moving backward in time as shown in fig. 1. first it goes forward (up) than backward (down) than up again. in between, one pair of electron-positron comes into existence out of nothing. that new born positron meets with existing coming electron and annihilates leaving radiation and at the end remains electron that seems to be moving forward in time. this pair coming into existence and then becoming non-existentseems to underlie the idea of nothingness proposed earlier. their measurement however is not possible but their indirect effect is very well experimentally known andcannot be denied, these particles are called virtual particles. this property was tested on hydrogen atom with one electron showing spectrum within which forms a splitting area that signifies the existence of the virtual particles. based on dirac equation all the possible virtual particles can be known with very precision. the second proof came with the discovery of more fundamental particles within proton and neutron that are called quarks. virtual particles, reflecting the particle and field which convey the strong force between three quarks continuously exist and become non-existent. protons are the fundamental particles giving mass to the atom. when measured it is found that quarks themselves contribute almost very little of mass but the field created by them contributes most part of the energy which becomes the rest energy in proton, which atom contains and that is mass. this is astonishing, as to how field created by virtual particles which can be called ‘nothingness’ or in scientific term ‘space’ or ‘vacuum’ is a source of energy?40-43 that was the most mysterious discovery of era. later on it was found that to match the observed acceleration of the universe the energy needed was 30% of visible (the world) and 70% of the empty space, now called dark energy.44 now, it will be a wrong assertion that, this is due to god who is creating particles out of nothing as there may be more fundamental beings which only god knows and there is no hurry to claim. rather it can be claimed, if as per scientists including philosophers, the world is able to create its own things out of nothing then what premises do they have to negate the possible temporal creation of the world out of nothing by hamdard islamicus 132 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 ever powerful, god? if, philosophers and scientist accept itfor the world then, they must accept it for god too. it can be said: ‘initially only the god existed who is eternal encompassing all the power. he created consciousness to nothingness when he willed and it became everything. underlying in the natural law and events there exist hidden nothingness which will remain with them until god will’s again to make it unconsciousness of its essence and existence’.45 here, no attempt is made to show what the role of will is but to use it as a proof over philosophers claim that, temporal cannot proceed from the eternal, here we see that it proceeded. if this is true, then creation in time by default is true. nothingness is what god is not and nothingness cannot be eternal without essence and existence. similarly, as discussed, time is synonym of the world without which it has no meaning, which singled out the conclusion thattime and the world were created simultaneously. for the modern science, it is believed based on facts that if the universe is expanding it must be started from a singularity. this singularity is named as big bang, which due to huge density and temperature exploded creating everything what we see. it explain in great detail about the light elements, cosmic microwave background, large scale structure, hubble’s law and can be jointly explain by the quantum as well as relativistic approach. by knowing the expansion rate of the universe given by hubble, it is now known that big bang exploded some 13.8 billion years ago, which is the age of the universe. big bang is still not fully understood due to quantum phenomena attached to it at quantum level, so below the plank era,46 the reality is unknown. a new theory called ‘quantum gravity’ is in process to answer what lies behind the plank era.47-48 however, the aim of discussion is to provide demonstrative proof, asked throughout taíéfut al-falésifah by the philosophers, then here is the proof that as per experimental and demonstrative proof – the world is created out of nothing 13.8 billion years ago. both claims of philosophers have met their end, now no point providing the eternity of the world. this is another debate between physicist and theologians, even if physicist consider the creation of the hamdard islamicus 133 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 world with time, they do not mean it was due to god rather due to selfsustaining natural laws.49 causality broken: the proof of delay in effect ibn sêné (avicenna) had developed his theory of essential necessary, which became the landmark for the proof of world’s pre-eternity. this theory has two parts, first, only god is uncaused in all existent. second, everything is caused by necessity because it is incumbent upon existent to produce effect by its very nature. fire burns cotton by its very nature and any delay when in contact is impossible. it demands cause and effect are simultaneous and delay is not possible. this is the basic argument for world pre-eternity that, if god creates by necessity of his nature which is eternal and without change, then effect must proceed from him, just as the sun cannot but produce slight.50-51 imém al-ghazélê has not raised any objection to the first part that, god is uncaused but he severely attacked the second classification of ibn sêné’s essential necessary that god creates by necessity. it is not intended to delve into the discussion of what does ‘necessity’ means here, but an elaboration will make things clear. the idea of necessary being goes back to aristotle’s prime cause or the unmoved mover. according to him, the prime cause must be simple having no priority. he denies every existent to be that prime cause, because ‘things’ are combination of matter and form, matter is receptacle of form which demands change with this it is also not unity in the sense they depend on each other. this composite or holomorphic substance is particular existence which is the essence of its thingness, so its essence and existence cannot be distinguished. even if aristotle accept holomorphic primary substance in the sense other realities depends on it but at the end it is a combination of two. however he concludes that: “there must be some principle whose very substance is actuality and matter cannot be that. only form can be that pure actuality which will be out of change, things depend on it but it does not depend on anything, the unmoved mover or primary cause”.52 ibn sêné, following the same principle of simplicity, advocated the hamdard islamicus 134 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 same. he replaced the form and matter with essence and existence. for him beings are three; possible, necessary and impossible. all the generated things, he says, are pure possibility until they come into existence and are not necessary in themselves but necessary by something which is necessary in itself, this is al-mumkin fi-dhétih and al-wéjib bi ghayrih.53 every possible being is a combination of essence and existence54 and it is known that essence defines the reality of things, but that essence itself is not a logical form on the contrary it is real in itself. until it is connected by existence its essence cannot be known. for ibn sêné, existence is something added to essence. similarly like form and matter, every possible being when composed of essence and existence, needs a cause to make it necessary. when it is known, then what does necessary being (wéjibulwujëd) means? no possible being qualify to be a necessary being because it’s a combination of essence and existence, necessary in itself. existence requires a cause, so the same cannot be true for necessary being to become necessary in itself. what then is alternative? this is to ascribe pure existence to necessary being because essence cannot stand alone which will require cause to make it exist and which will be non-existence in another sense. so necessary being (wéjibul-wujëd) must be pure ‘existence’ without a separate essence, or its essence and existence are same. this implies the oneness and unity without any prior cause or change because it is necessary in itself and is a cause for all possible beings. as ibn sêné (avicenna) was not inclined towards the creation from nothing, he advocates the idea of emanation like neoplatonist and claims, god, by necessity, creates the world without any delay, and if god is changeless and eternal so does the world.55-56 once understood, it was more the requirement of ibn sêné’s own metaphysical system to have a being necessary in nature, which must produce by necessity. the objection of imém ghazélê was as per the qur’én that: verily, when he intends a thing, his command is “be” and it is!’57 the development of system regarding metaphysical reality is not new neither it is prohibited for true illuminist people. like, plato, aristotle, platonist, ibn maskawaih58 to name but few. ibn sêné also developed his system as per his right to prove the existence of god. in light of this, he cannot be blamed of disbelief; rather his rejection of voluntary action by will of god is the supreme premise available for scholars to rule something.59 however, this article will not attempt to discuss the nature hamdard islamicus 135 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 of his ‘necessity being’ but about his characteristic that ‘he creates by necessity because delay in effect after cause is impossible. for muslim theologians and ibn sêné as philosopher, god is uncaused and eternal having all the power in him. it can be said that: ‘if it is supposed that like god the world is eternal, then characteristic of eternal world necessarily follows from eternal god. so if delay in effect with cause is proved within the world, then it must be assumed that the eternal god can also delay the effect having all the power. as causal necessity within the world and from where it proceeds, is the central proof for the eternity of world, if it is denied, then it must be true for god also’. in view of the above premises it will be proven from modern science. at the quantum level things are unpredictable in the sense that, no one can find at a time their position and speed, which is called uncertainty principle.60 in second view, no one can say without measurement whether something exist or not, this is shown by the famous thought experiment of cat by schrodinger in 1935. then, as per theory of everything, which is supposed to be the m-theory, there are possibilities of 10500 different universes from a single sourcethe big bang, the first singularity.61 the creation reached from pre-eternity to probability, and surely ibn sina or any muslim philosopher would not allow the same multiplicity for the ultimate reality or cause god. they arefond of the idea that god can create multiples in purest and fundamental form – essence and existence, form and matter. the question is why then the eternal world is like this? even though based on theories of quantum physics, intellectuals have argued either in terms of multi-universe, deterministic nature, probabilistic nature and some even argued effect prior to cause called retro causality.62 this article argues that this is due to the delay in effect. photon is the basic particle of light considering particle theory of light. at high energies this photon can be split into two particles, negative electron and positive positron and their combination can further create the light particle photon. photon is supposed to be the carrier of energy ‘quanta’ responsible for photoelectric effect. this energy is responsible for worldly processes. to prove the claim, consider the below system: hamdard islamicus 136 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 fig. 2 suppose there is a source of photon, which is connecting with differently located television a and b through horizontal-vertical polarizer.63 to run the television a photon must go through the route 1 and for television b, through route 2. when there are lot of photons from the source then both the television will show football match without disturbance. because from ‘lot of’ some will be going to route 1 and some to route 2, but it cannot be predicted which photon is going to which route. condition is normal as we see but now consider only one photon to be supplied at once at two different times. let’s say at time t1 photon 1 is triggered from the source, but it should be known that for both televisions the ultimate source and cause is only one – the source itself. no one can predict now in which route the photon will go, so if it chooses route 1, then television b will not work, even though the person watching football match knows that cause (the source) is continuously providing photon. similarly, at time t2, photon 2 is triggered and it chooses the route 2, so television a will not work, even though cause with all conditioned fulfilled is acting. for both cases, the person in room, will obviously feel why there is a delay when source is producing photon? without knowing that television a is working. in the first case with photon 1 at t1, this is delay in the world of person watching television b and in second case; this will be a delay in the world of person watching television a. for both persons, condition is similar that in presence of source there is a delay in effect. similarly an outsider who is watching this process will surely feel the same, that there is a delay for a time for both the worlds comprising man and television. this process is happening in same duration of time. further, if it is supposed that, these two people with their television exist in two separate countries. then for one country there will be no hamdard islamicus 137 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 football at the same time when second country is watching the match. extend this idea further and replace countries with two separate universes. so at a time, in one universe in presence of cause, there will be no football match when other universe will be enjoying it. if that is not the delay in effect after presence of cause, then what type of delay philosophers propose? this is self-evident delay. it can be checked through experiment, locating cause or source at one location, and plan two distinct location for effect to take place without disturbing the cause itself. the selection of route is said to be by chance, chance is nothing but will itself which decide that chance, whether route 1 or route 2. that is what the epr paradox is all about that ‘how come one electron knows about its partner what it is doing at other place, when they both came from the single source.64 people have proposed hidden variables for the same reason. that is some kind of information exchange, but without knowing ‘when’ it does not make any sense and that requires interference of ‘will’. again it is not claimed that this is the will of god who is creating selection power to photon or directly controlling the act, as who knows what more fundamental things underlie within photon. on the contrary it is claimed that chance and delay are interrelated, chance must precede from cause and cause cannot be other then will which is the ultimate source of every kind of selection. selection can be between time, similar things, different things and whatever one can think of but will remains the primary source of action even if one has power to do anything. in light of the above discussion, if the world with all its multiplicities, generation and degradation, probabilities can delay the effect due to unknown reasons, then philosophers must assume the same for the lord without contradicting their own premises. if it is agreed then, on what basis philosophers will claim the eternity of the world if god as per his will can delay the creation in future? similarly, for uncaused god, it is more possible to delay the effect because of priorities in other attributes not appropriate for the world. the world itself is denying any possibility of its pre-eternity, and that is what the essence when al-mighty says in qur’én: “soon will we show them our signs in the (furthest) regions (of the earth), and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that hamdard islamicus 138 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 this is the truth. it is not enough that thy lord doth witness all things?”65 concerning the ‘necessity being’ (wéjibul-wujëd) of god there are two option. first is to attribute him a nature which by necessity creates and second is to attribute ‘will’ in place of necessity. in both the cases, creation will come into existence and if one disagrees then what is there to stop him? as for the first case, it is against the qur’énic description of god and creation. on the contrary second option is totally inline. it will be a good assumption to accept second option as far as muslim philosophers are concerned. they must know about the qur’énic interpretation about god and nature. ibn sêné’s denial of world’s temporal creation was his conception that ‘world cannot be created from nothingness’. as per him, his metaphysical system was the only metaphysical system to prove the existence of god which demanded ‘necessary being’ that creates by necessity. since, on that time it was impossible to comprehend creation from ex nihilo or ‘nothingness’. it was not a mistake on part of both ibn sênés and al-férébê to conclude ‘necessary being’ rather it was the knowledge of nature available to them at that time as their premises to prove god’s existence. now, 800 years later, after knowing the mysteries of the world, it will be totally wrong to assert any ‘words’ to their personality as far as this topic is concerned. in light of all the objections and proofs against the world pre-eternity, it would be always best to assert and proclaim the views of ×ujjatul islém imém ghazélê about this topic which he claimed in taíéfut al-falésifah: ‘the world was temporally created by an eternal will that decreed its existence at the time in which it came to be, that non-existence continued to the point at which (the world) began; that existence prior to this was not willed and for this reason did not occur; that at the time in which (the world) was created it was willed by the eternal will to be created at that time and for this reason it was created then’.59 hamdard islamicus 139 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 for the nature of god, let it be known then: our god does not act by necessity that by definition he has to act on the contrary he is voluntary in his action and he does whatever he wills. he does not require necessary causation to operate the universe rather he acts at every particle coming and going’ conclusion arguments and proofs about the world pre-eternity as given in the first discussion of taíéfut al-falésifah has been analysed with new perspective. the central argument proposed by the philosophers that cause cannot delay the effect and god is the necessary cause, so it must create the eternal world. philosophers claim was based on the assumption that the world cannot be created from nothingness. this has been refuted from philosophical and scientific arguments andis established that it is possible to delay the effect from self-evident proof.further, world’s temporal creation has been established through detailed analysis of philosophical as well as scientific proofs. the article established from the modern science that what al-ghazélê proposed in taíéfut al-falésifah is found to be correct with no deviation that world is not eternal and delay in effect is possible. notes and references 1. ghazzali and michael e (trans.) marmura, the incoherence of the philosophers, ed. daniel c. peterson, islamic translation series (usa, 2000), http:// library.perdana.org.my/bk_scan/297.261-gha.pdf 2. ibid. 3. michael elias marmura, “the conflict over the world’s pre-eternity in the ‘tahafuts’ of al-ghazali and ibn rushd”, ann arbor, mich., university of michigan press, 1959, https://philpapers.org/rec/martco-78 4. e. michael marmura, “the logical role of the argument from time in the tahafut’s second proof for the world’s pre-eternity,” 1959, pp. 306-314. 5. edward omar moad, “al-ghazali’s position on the ‘second proof’ of the ‘philosophers’ for the eternity of the world, in the first discussion of the hamdard islamicus 140 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 incoherence of the philosophers,” sophia 54, no. 4, december 15, 2015, pp. 429441, doi:10.1007/s11841-014-0458-5. 06. s.h. rizvi, “between time and eternity: mir damad on god’s creative agency”, journal of islamic studies 17, no. 2. march 23, 2006, pp. 158-176, doi:10.1093/ jis/etl003. 07. leen e. goodman, “ghazali’s argument from creation, (i),” international journal of middle east studies 2, no. 1, january 29, 1971, pp. 67-85, doi:10.1017/ s002074380000088x. 08. george f. hournai, “the dialogue between al ghazali and the philosophers on the origine of the world,” the muslim world 48, no. 3, july 1, 1958, pp. 183191, doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1958.tb02569.x. 09. ghazzélê and marmura, the incoherence of the philosophers. 10. j.l ackrill, aristotle’s categories and de interpretatione, clarendon press, 1963, https://books.google.com.my/books?id=7kiiaqaaiaaj&dq=ackrill,+j.+l.,+ 1963.+aristotle:+categories+and+de+interpretatione,+oxford:+ clarendon+press. &hl=en&sa=x&ved=0ahukewjq1uem8ej wahuls48khwxk cqcq6aeijzaa. 11. unity cannot precede another unity, only duality is a contrary to it. 12. aristotle (phy-250b 11-12). 13. aristotle (cate-14b24). 14. robert wisnovsky, avicenna’s metaphysics in context, cornell university press, new york, cornell university press, 2003, https://books.google.com.my/ books?hl=en&lr=&id=jp7xrnscqbuc&oi=fnd&pg=pr7&dq=avicenna’s+ metaphysics+in+context+&ots=n2ccfvvnfx&sig=jqn9yvh-co4s_ 1cmgphmysvj0tg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=avicenna’s metaphysics in context&f=false. 15. eternity has been defined by different ways from pre-socratic era till 20th century. famously it was proposed by plato in his timeaus, when he described the definition of time, followed by aristotle who defined the final cause of every matter to achieve eternity in his de anigma. al-kindê, however denies the preeternity of world proposing eternity as synonyms of divinity. then al-rézê, proposed that ‘eternity’ is infinite extension which does not supervene motion and within which god creates the world, hence he also consider world not eternal, see fakhr al-dên al-rézê, maïélib al-‘aliya min al-a‘am al-alihi, first, beirut, dar al-kitab al-arabi, beirut, 1987, https://www.alkitab.com/15729.html. 16. for the philosophers, they assume essence is identical to existence for the god, but in the sense of existence as a concept not as reality. see muhammad naquib, al-attés, on quiddity and essence: an outline of the basic structure, kuala lumpur, international institute of islamic thought and civilization, 1990. 17. ghazzélê and michael e (trans.) marmura, the incoherence of the philosophers. 18. the qur’én, lvii:3. there are different attributes (sifét) of allah almighty mentioned in the qur’én and eternity is one of them, so allah is not only eternal but powerful, knowledgeable, and living. 19. aristotle, complete works of aristotle, vols. i & ii, ed. jonathan barnes, sixth, new jersy, princeton university press, 1995, aristotle debated in his physics over the issue of eternal motion, proposing mover and moved for the task, phy-250b 11-12. similarly for him ‘nature’ itself means ‘internal process of hamdard islamicus 141 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 change’. for heraclitus see b84a, in which he made his famous notion – changing, it rests, which is now known as change is the only constant. for detail arguments see tf, ppp. 13-2. 20. ibid., aristotle, book of physics, chapters 1-2. he negates the premises of melissus and parmenides. 21. aristotle in book 8 of physics and book 12 of metaphysics describe that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world’, this corresponds to the unmoved mover and represent the active intellect. see for more detail on the discussion of active intellect – wisnovsky, avicenna’s metaphysics in context. 22. the qur’én, cxii:4. 23. even though, in his book of physics aristotle advocates the existence of an unmoved mover but he also maintains that its priority is not in time but as a cause precede effects. in the taíéfut, philosophers have the same meaning when they talk about the cause and effect relation. 24. quantum physics, was developed based on the work of de broglie, davidson and germer, schrodinger, heisenberg, neil bohr and copenhagen interpretation alastair rae, quantum physics: illusion or reality, cambridge, university of cambridge, 1986. 25. leonard hawkings, stephen mlodinow, the grand design, first, ney york, bantam books publication, 2010. authors have discussed latest findings in the study of physics. 26. muhammad naquib, al-attas, on quiddity and essence: an outline of the basic structure. 27. this is as per schrodinger’s cat experiment (thought experiment) in which he shows that as per quantum laws a cat inside the box can be both alive and dead until the box is open to check, see – schrodinger erwin. the resent situation in quantum mechanics: a translation of schrodinger’s cat paradox (tran. by john d. trimmer), proceeding of the american philosophical society, 1980. for original paper, see schrodinger’s erwin, die gegenwartige situation in der quantenmechanik, naturewissenschaften 23, pp. 807-812, 823-828, 844-849, 1935. 28. plato, plato in twelve volumes, ed. translated by paul shorey, cambridge, harvard university press, 1969; see, republic, book 5, 476c. 29. edward j. wollack, “cosmology: the study of the universe, universe 101: big bang theory,” nasa, 2011. 30. lawrence, m. krauss, a universe from nothing – why there is something rather than nothing, first, new york, simon & schuster, 2012. 31. e. hubble, “a relation between distance and radial velocity among extragalactic nebulae,” proceedings of the national academy of sciences 15, no. 3, 1929, pp. 168-173, doi:10.1073/pnas.15.3.168. 32. j. glanz, “astronomy: cosmic motion revealed,” science 282, no. 5397, december 18, 1998, pp. 2156-2157, doi:10.1126/science.282.5397.2156a. 33. yun wang et al., “current observational constraints on cosmic doomsday,” journal of cosmology and astroparticle physics, 2004, no. 12, december 15, 2004, pp. 006-006, doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2004/12/006. hamdard islamicus 142 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 34. plato, plato in twelve volumes, ed. translated by paul shorey, cambridge, harvard university press, 1969, plato in his timeaus 37d, while discussing the forms and cosmos describe the time. 35. according to plato, demiurge is the ultimate craftsman of the world and he is eternal not in time but out of change. it can only be reached through form not through matter or cosmos. 36. ghazélê and marmura, the incoherence of the philosophers. 37. plato’s theory of form and aristotle’s concept of form which is the ultimate nature of things, see book of physics. 38. nothingness’ in terms of taséwwuf has totally different meaning starting from junayd al-baghdé to imém ghazélê. for them, it is total fané in the lord which will give baqé to self. see majid fakhry, a history of islamic philosophy, 3rd edn., third, new york, columbia university press, 2004. 39. sharh al-aqa‘id, pp. 16-17, translation taken from, muhammad naquib, al-attas, on quiddity and essence: an outline of the basic structure, imam taftazani has written super commentary on imém nasafi’s al-’aq‘aid. 40. krauss, a universe from nothing – why there is something rather than nothing. 41. r.p. feynman, “the theory of positrons,” physical review 76, no. 6, september 15, 1949, pp. 749-759, doi:10.1103/physrev.76.749. 42. federico laudisa, “the physics and metaphysics of quantum field theory,” metascience 21, no. 3, 2012, pp. 621-623, doi:10.1007/s11016-011-9609-2. 43. günter nimtz, “erratum to: on virtual phonons, photons, and electrons,” foundations of physics 40, no. 9-10, october 16, 2010, 1221–30, doi:10.1007/ s10701-010-9503-6. 44. g. nimtz, on virtual phonons, photons and electrons, found. phys., 39, pp. 13461355, 2009. 45. it is in the qur’an that: “seest thou not that it is allah whose praises all beings in the heavens and on earth do celebrate and the birds (of the air) with wings outspread? each one knows its own (mode of) prayer and praise. and allah knows well all that they do” (xxiv:41). until there is consciousness of its being no creature would know the lord, at least consciousness in the sense of knowing their lord is must for everything’. so, the definition of nothingness also corresponds to this underlie concept of praising. 46. plank era, is a limit at quantum level below which both quantum and relativity law does not work. to remove this obstacle, a new theory called ‘quantum gravity’ is in processmichael heller,alain connes et al., on space and time, ed. majid shahn, first, cambridge, cambridge university press, 2008. 47. ian morison, introduction to astronomy and cosmology, wiley-blackwell, first, west sussex, wiley-blackwell, 2008, doi:10.1080/02634938508400517. 48. tai l. chow, gravity, black holes, and the very early universe: an introduction to general relativity and cosmology, first, new york, springer-verlag new york, 2008. 49. hawkings, stephen mlodinow, the grand design. 50. classification of possibilities by ibn sêné (avicenna) see sêné ibne, shifé, al-burhén, shifé, ed. a. badawi, first, cairo, association of authorship, translation and publication press, 1966. hamdard islamicus 143 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 51. sêné, ibne, shifé, at-.tabiya, ed. s. zayed, first, cairo, general egyptian book organization, 1983. 52. aristotle, complete works of aristotle, vols. i & ii. please see, metaphysics 1028a 27; metaphysics 1031a 17-18; metaphysics-1023a 12; metaphysics-1073a1 25 1028a 27. 53. sêné ibn, the metaphysics of healing (al-shifa) – a parallel english-arabic text, ed. michael e. (trans.) marmura, first, provo, ut, brigham university press, 2005. 54. this combination has ontological structure as per ibn sêné. for possible being essence remains possible until caused by necessity being to become existent. 55. néîir al-dên al-tusi, al-isharatwa al-tanbihat, ma‘asharh nasir al-din al-tusi, ed. sulayman dunya, first, al-qahira, dar al-ma’arif, 1957. 56. ghazzélê and marmura, the incoherence of the philosophers. 57. the qur’én, xxxvi:82, his command is only when he intends a thing that he says to it, “be,” and it is. from this it is not compulsory on god to must create by definition. 58. ibn maskawaih (d. 1030) was prolific philosopher who developed his own system of metaphysics in his book al-fauz al-asghar. he was one of the first far prior to darwin to propose the idea of evolution for this world. see, iqbal, muhamad. the development of metaphysics in persia – a contribution to history of muslim philosophy, london luzac and company, 1908. 59. muhammad iqbal, the development of metaphysics in persia – a contribution to history of muslim philosophy, first, london, london luzac and company, 1908. 60. w. heisenberg, “the physical content of quantum kinematics and mechanics,” ed. quantum theory and measurement, j.a. and zurek, w.h. wheeler, first, princeton, princeton university press, 1927, pp. 62-84. 61. h. becker katrin, becker melanie and schwarz john, string theory and m-theory – a modern introduction, first, cambridge, cambridge university press, 2007. 62. jan faye, “backward causation,” he stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, accessed october 12, 2017, https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi? entry=causation-backwards. 63. polarization, is due to polarizer which split the photon into horizontal and vertical polarization, however it does matter here. also see the double slit experiment to know the behaviour in detail. 64. a. einstein, b. podolsky and n. rosen, “can quantum-mechanical description of reality be considered complete?,” physical review, 1935, doi:10.1103/phys rev.48.696. 65. the qur’én, xli:53. 66. ghazzélê and marmura, the incoherence of the philosophers. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 31 demystifying the orient: imperative of veil and muslim women’s emancipation dr. hafiz muhammad siddiquea sadaf mehmoodb afaculty of shariah & law international islamic university, islamabad e-mail: hafiz.siddique@iiui.edu.pk bfaculty of languages & literature international islamic university islamabad the hegemonic discourse produced by west theorized veil as an imperative of muslim women’s oppression. this discourse further imprinted the binary of ‘us’ and ‘they’ aftermath 9/11. the discourse produced multifaceted interpretations to other the theocracy of its practitioners and sympathizes with the barbaric alterity of its followers. the controversy of interpreting and staging the otherness west attempts to protect the muslim women from the oppression of misogynistic muslim men and their religion. the current study deals with the dynamics of the discourse of otherness by posing the question of veil as an imperative of oppression or emancipation. to examine the factors of misrepresentation of islam and muslim women this research strengthens its argument in the frame of orientalism by edward said. the study is significant to examine donning veil as an epitome of oppression or emancipation under the rubric of feminist scholarship while providing counter study of qur’én and aíédêth. this paper investigates the theological interpretations of traditionalists and contemporary readings of islamic feminists to manifest the trouble of subjective interpretations. the study also helps to deconstruct the image of islam as backward religion by highlighting the underlying sagacity of islamic injunctions with specific reference to veil. the study concludes that islam is an egalitarian religion that does not allow gender discrimination. keywords: veil, orientalism, muslim woman, oppression, emancipation introduction the image of orient in occidental memory has always been othered by posing binary of barbaric, uncouth, uncivilized, mysterious and erotic 32 demystifying the orient... to civilized, modern, progressive and therefore dominant. the legacy of this binary has shaped new series of otherness as muslims, islam, fundamentalism, fanaticism and terrorism whose existence is a threat to civilization and democracy. this discourse is exacerbated after the tragic event of 9/11. the demonization of islam is reinforced in media, political and academic rhetoric. shaping the discourse of otherness enabled west to maintain its rule in the world. devoted scholarship has perceived islam as an opposing religion can challenge the existence of western hegemony with its orthodox practices.1 the occidental mission is therefore accelerated in the guise of teaching civilization and saving veiled muslim women from the oppression, backwardness and inferiority of gender apartheid society. west is engaged in promoting secular ideas to destabilize the orthodoxy of islam that would go against the interests of west. the veil is therefore demonstrated as a tool of oppression of muslim women to restrict their mobility in misogynistic public space. this practice is perceived by western feminists as a dress code that propagates women’s invisibility in public space with an assertion of social control and subordination. unni wikan argues that the stereotypical image of veil implies that with its “constraints on movement and self-actualization, seclusion must be inherently suppressive, therefore oppressive.”2 this stereotype is challenged by the muslim scholars with positive note as an imperative of emancipation which enables muslim women’s accessibility to public space with guaranteed social safety and security.3 farah azari argues that for veiled women in iran, the obligation of donning veil carries minimum amount in exchange with safe and secure social position which it promises.4 nonetheless, the question of veil as a tool of oppression or agency is probed by traditional and liberal intelligentsia which reveals subjective intrusions as dominant to interpret the veracity of the commandment. the ambivalence of the imperative of veil is, therefore, heavily dependent over its conflicting interpretations. this study is significant to contextualize the dialectic of veil in theoretical framework of orientalism in which muslim women is known as oppressed other. yegenoglu views orientalism as a frame that builds an ‘essential difference’ in which burqa‘ clad muslim women remain other since the true nature of these women is hidden and they are exposed in false and deceitful manner.5 thus, the strategic construction of veiled women in essentialist terms is represented as exotic and mysterious other. theorization of the discourse of otherness further reveals the hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 33 stereotypical representations of islam as religion which promulgates thick chances of misinterpretations of sacred texts of the nobel qur’én and aíédêth. amplified luminaries provide subjective interpretations which usually reinforce the orientalized version of fundamentalism. in the rubric of orientalism, this research examines the power dynamics that propagate the discourse of otherness with specific reference to oppressed veiled muslim woman. this study aims at demystifying the orient muslim women with reference to the politics of representation and interpretation in light of verses of the nobel qur’én and aíédêth of the holy prophet (œ). while reading diverse scholarship the present study deconstructs the misinterpreted and misrepresented imperative of veil by highlighting the savvy imperative of veil as a symbol of emancipation, respect and modesty that is therefore epitomizes civilized practice of a civilized religion that is islam instead of oppressive practice of backward and conservative religion. demystifying the orient by raising the slogan of english as the best nation endeavored to non-european territories in fifteenth century. these adventurous explorations produced a plethora of ethnographic calculations to demonstrate the uncouth and barbaric populace settled across boundaries and waiting passionately for their colonial fathers to teach them civilization. in orientalism edward said perceives this oxymoronic representation through his enunciation of the orient and occident. the orient epitomizes east, barbaric, uncivilized, conservative and feminine while the occident is the west, civilized, modern and masculine therefore legalizes the notion of colonization to enlighten the barbaric aboriginals. the otherness of orient to the occident is further manifested through ethnocentric representations of media and literature.6 contextualizing white man’s burden as an “interested desire”, gayatri spivak elaborates the legacy of colonial expeditions “to conserve the subject of the west, or the west as subject.”7 the barbaric orient remains a subject of exploration of the unknown, mysterious yet interested to certify civilization and modernity of the occident. said renders orientalism as a “system of representations framed by a whole set of forces that brought the orient into western learning, western consciousness, and later, western empire.”8 while perceiving the existence of islam as obdurate religion to subdue before the enlightenment of christianity, edward said argues a development in othering the orient: “fundamentalism equals islam equals 34 demystifying the orient... everything-we-must-now-fight against, as we did with communism during the cold war…the battle is graver, more profound and dangerous with islam.”9 edward said polemically scrutinizes west’s political interventions in non-western world by incessantly being engaged in “covering islam” that “obscures what “we” do, and highlights instead what muslims and arabs by their very flawed nature are.”10 the stereotypical clichés of islam reported by the western discourses are filled with negative images for instance islam as conservative religion is followed by fundamentalists whose presence is a threat to democracy. the end of cold war thus introduced western world with a new enemy as islam that can potentially deteriorate the settled civilizations.11 however, riffat hassan investigates this hostility even before the colonial collision; he argues that “propaganda against islam and muslims is nothing new in the west. it is as old as the first chapter of islamic history, when the new faith began to move into territories largely occupied by christians.”12 since the inception of islam as threat the otherness of muslims has been fixed as anti-democratic. this otherness is further affirmed after the fall of twin towers in september 11, 2001. the event is contextualized in the framework of orientalism and the image of islam traversed from fundamentalism to terrorism.13 said argues that media plays significant role in perpetuating the ideological demonization of islam but also it establishes historical connections of orientalized versions of otherness.14 the discipline of orientalism not merely provides cogent critique of western discourse but also implies counter representations which lughoud refers as “combating stereotypes work”15 to distinguish between the true and contrived representations. in postcolonial world constructed notions of otherness are continuously challenged by the colonized to suit their self interests on one end, and on the other the degree to which british imperialists’ aesthetic whims were altered by their colonial encounter.16 said’s orientalism identifies the differences of east and west in imaginary geography which is “an exclusively male province” where women remain absent or silent.17 reina lewis also contemplates over the absence of women in said’s orientalism as a dominant discourse articulated by a colonial subject that is incorrigibly male.18 said’s male oriented monolithic elucidation of otherness is challenged by lewis with an assertion that women are not merely subjects of colonial hegemony but they have provided lens to shape the orient as other and different.19 in this backdrop, postcolonial feminists have produced epistemological reception of defining the subject orient and celebrating the differences. lisa lowe investigates said’s orientalism as monolithic study of hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 35 constructing difference of orient and occident. for lowe, orientalism signifies deviating frictions which indicates instability of the orientalist discourse and its diversion from race, gender and class.20 her study provides an alternative perspective to perceive orientalism beyond the binary logic of otherness by considering the differences of class and gender. nashat and tucker highlight the construction of differences in gender regime by including race, class, ethnicity, religion, time and space which underlines the intricate constitution of gender as homogenous as well as heterogeneous subject of otherness under the umbrella of orientalism.21 gayatri spivak dismantles the hegemonic homogeneity of western feminist discourse wherein the varied heterogeneity is subsumed under the process of generalization. chandra talpade mohanty similarly notes the political oppression of the incongruity of the subject with the construction of “third-world difference”.22 she further notes that it is due to the ‘third-world difference’ western feminist discourse engages in a process of systematizing oppression through which power structure is established in the writings of western feminists.23 by generalizing the heterogeneous subjects through homogeneity spivak criticizes the hegemony of western discourse for elusive representations by stating epistemic violence. the difference as well as the generalization involves appropriation to construe politics of representation by othering the orient as subject known and unknown.24 as orientalism according to said is a form of discourse with its defining institutions, language, doctrines and the imperial administration25, this disciplinary discourse is “essentialising other cultures, people and geographical regions”.26 therefore, orientalism is specific discourse to create essential difference in prospect of women. under the aegis of western feminist discourse, the ‘third-world difference’ is essentialized through oppression, subordination and backwardness. the overarching concept of global sisterhood in western feminist discourse is replaced by mohanty with solidarity. she explains solidarity as a solution against the totalizing stereotype of oppression, backwardness, docility, uncouth and uncivilized, she exposits that diversity and difference are main triggers that should not be eliminated in building alliances.27 white men are saving brown women from brown men28 the construction of otherness of muslim women and her veil as symbol of oppression is prevailing in the historical accounts of travelogues, diaries, government archives, missionary reports and fictional narratives 36 demystifying the orient... to reaffirm the colonial suzerain. this discourse manifests “islam was a crude and dying religion, stressing alleged mistreatment of women as part of their anti-muslim rhetoric.”29 west with “inferiorising gaze” seems strive to liberate muslim women from unjust oppression and subordination of muslim men that is visible in practice of veil.30 nonetheless, the superior image of emancipation is presented in the form of unveiled western women.31 veiled woman symbolizes conservatism and echoes inferiority which embodies the uncouth, mysterious and uncivilized natives; it is a metaphor of both the “oppression of women” in colonial discourse and according to contemporary reception of islam renders “backwardness of islam”32. the stereotypical image of oppressive veiled women is elaborated by katherine bullock into six themes: i) hiding to oppress feminity; ii) veil is ostensibly refers to the difference of male and female which translates men as superior and women as inferior being; iii) it connotes women’s particular place inside the domestic sphere; iv) it is associated to patriarchal purport of female chastity and dignity; v) the veil can be obligatory; and vi) it is connected to the restrictions imposed on women on the name of islam.33 in this context, veiled muslim woman is a dormant figure of victimization, oppression, conservatism and therefore different and other from western unveiled woman who is modern, liberal and civilized. diverse controversies are promulgated due to this enigmatic religious doctrine of veiling in the mayhem of representation of orient/ occident, modern/ backward, liberal/ oppressive. the prominence and visibility of veil is a threat to civilizing mission for colonizers therefore the attempts are made as “white men are saving brown women from brown men”.34 ample of ethnographic and historical contributions in making veil other and alien, strategize the mission of civilization and unveiling through imposing the generalizing representation of speaking for the silence and the oppressed.35 such mission of totalizing the oppression through secular western feminist rhetoric, the muslim women with all its oriental background are stereotyped and misrepresented. hitherto western representations of veil have been stigmatizing and prejudiced. the process of othering is janus faced: it at first presents a vague picture of muslim women’s position in the society and simultaneously deploys an ideal image of modernity and freedom western women which is defined by donnell in terms of “despised difference”.36 this difference is inculcated by the western ethnographic diligence as in our moslem sisters, van sommer introduces her subject of muslim women as oppressive who needs to be voiced and known, “they will hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 37 never cry for themselves, for they are down under the yoke of centuries of oppression, and their hearts have no hope for knowledge of anything better” and therefore it is the divine duty of the white sisters to voice this difference and oppression.37 the book begins with reiterated gloominess of the oppressed muslim women who appeal the christian sisters to rescue them from the oppression on the name of religion and illumine the darkness in the ambiance.38 similar concerns of feminists were registered through their support of afghan war as saving mission of white man to protect vulnerable women from the subordination of taliban.39 laura bush affirms the war against afghanistan through their imperialistic version of white man saving brown woman by affirming that the owing to the militancy of the us in afghanistan, the indigenous women are not incarcerated in their home”, despite they are free in their everyday lives, she asserts that the struggle to wrestle against terrorism is an endeavor to emancipate muslim women40. this exposes that west invasion ensures freedom of afghan women from patriarchal oppression of taliban. to save afghan woman from brutal practices of taliban and to unveil the burqa‘ clad women have been posed as the prior objectives of the war. this reinforced otherness demonstrates occidental familiarity of oriental subjects that is examined and protected during saving mission in tear off your western veil, azizah al-hibri argues how tactfully this hegemonic discourse is silencing the other. she claims that western feminists do not endeavor to learn about islam or muslims instead their knowledge of islam is extracted from orientalist understandings of islam which unquestionably silences the voice of muslim women.41 while analyzing post 9/11 media images of veil, faegheh shirazi exposits that how historically ingrained stereotype of mysterious veiled women which is reiterated during war is used by advertising agency to attract consumers especially to sell sex.42 the propagated cliché of veil that is othered and alienated is demonstrated as inviting consumers to purchase the product that would also mean to purchase the exotic veiled women. while gauging the eroticism of veil, shirazi describes three main media strategies of manipulating the stereotypical image of muslim woman: a) an enigmatic veiled woman waiting for a white man; b) the subjugated woman forced to cover herself behind the veil; c) and the generic veiled woman, epitomizes nonwestern culture and geographical otherness.43 the politics of representation and otherness in the guise of saving mission is on the other hand, renounced in postcolonial context as being part of the “project of cultural 38 demystifying the orient... colonialism”.44 in context of saving mission, muslim clergy denounces feminism as an ideological apparatus to attack on islam by misrepresenting it as conservative and oppressive creed.45 imperative of veil and muslim women’s emancipation the society that islam wants to establish is not a sensate, sexridden society. . . . the islamic system of hijab is a wide-ranging system which protects the family and closes those avenues that lead toward illicit sex relations or even indiscriminate contact between the sexes in society. . . . to protect her virtue and to safeguard her chastity from lustful eyes and covetous hands, islam has provided for purdah which sets norms of dress, social get-together……and going out of the four walls of one’s house in hours of need.46 siddiqi’s enunciation of veil classifies women’s social position in the society. the generic reception of veil as specified dress code of muslim women ensures her modesty, her seclusion from the public space and protection from nuisance of sexual pestering. amplified scholarship is devoted to deem veil as symbol of modesty, liberation and protection or oppression and alienation. muslim clerics define veil as a symbol of chastity and modesty, nonetheless, it is also opposed as a cultural imperative of patriarchal domain to evict women from male dominated public space. while probing the underlying differences of opinions bullock states that the general postulation of veil as a tool of oppression is also shared by some muslim clergy who contextualize its practice in conservatism and backwardness of islam; nonetheless, the immediacy of this riposte is lurking in orientalist discourse.47 those who are pro-veil provide reference from the nobel qur’én and ahadith. the practice of veil is traced back at the time of holy prophet (œ) when muslims were instructed and commanded to adopt proper code of behaviour while they are in contact with holy prophet (œ) in his domestic space as holy qur’én explicitly states: hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 39 “o ye who believe! enter not the dwellings of the prophet for a meal without waiting for the proper time, unless permission be granted you. but if ye are invited, enter, and, when your meal is ended, then disperse. linger not for conversation. lo! that would cause annoyance to the prophet, and he would be shy of (asking) you (to go); but allah is not shy of the truth. and when ye ask of them (the wives of the prophet) anything, ask it of them from behind a curtain. that is purer for your hearts and for their hearts.48” this verse of surah al-aízéb is usually referred as the first commandment over veil which specified the separation of private and public space. pro and against veil luminaries have grounded their initial arguments on the basis of this verse. mauwdudi has analyzed the verse as obligatory for all women; it is not only specified dress code of holy prophet’s (œ) wives.49 madani provides similar illustrations of the following verse. according to him the specified dealings with prophet’s (œ) wives epitomize the appropriateness of similar commandment to all muslim women.50 nonetheless, rehman argues that the verse indicates distinguished social status and privileged position of his (œ) wives, “in no way could this obligatory duty of the wives of the prophet be forcibly thrust upon other muslim women as a compulsory duty” however, if they adopt this dress code then it signifies “noble gesture on their part”.51 this contradiction seems visibly resolves when allah almighty states: “o prophet (œ)! tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them (when they go abroad). that will be better, so that they may be recognised and not annoyed. allah is ever forgiving, merciful.”52 this verse categorizes the muslim women in general to observe the commandment of veil. however, it draws a dividing line between the believing and non-believing women. al-ùabari elucidates this distinction as prophet (œ) has been asked to tell his (œ) wives, daughters and the women of the believers that “they should not dress themselves like slave women by revealing their hair and face. rather they should bring their cloaks closer to themselves so that no dissolute person harasses them when he knows that they are free women.”53 al-ùabari’s 40 demystifying the orient... interpretation suggests that muslim women are not restricted to private space however when they go to the public realm their dress code should not appeal other men. in surah al-nër, allah almighty states the observation of screening with meticulous details: “and tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their modesty, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands or fathers or husbands’ fathers, or their sons or their husbands’ sons, or their brothers or their brothers’ sons or sisters’ sons, or their women, or their slaves, or male attendants who lack vigour, or children who have no sense of the shame of sex. and let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment.” 54 shahrur contends that female body is “visible adornment” that is therefore should not be exposed. in the absence of palpable evidence of adornment, shahrur divides female body into two anatomical sections. the first consists of the parts that are visible by creation as limbs and head, whereas the other part is not visible in creation for instance the armpits. he suggests that the anatomy that is not visible by divine design needs to be concealed, however, the societal moors and norms further determine the extent of concealing the body in the public.55 this contradiction seems resolve in a hadêth narrated by hazrat ayesha (r.a.) in which holy prophet (œ) forbade the exposure of body and explicitly highlights the conditions and body that can be uncovered: “when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this, and he pointed to his face and hands.”56 hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 41 in various ahadith abundant of direct or indirect references of veil are present that explicate and reinforce the imperative of veiling. these ahadith supply a comprehensive amount of understanding the conditions that are not explained in the noble qur’én. hazrat ayesha (r.a.) has narrated a hadêth in which holy prophet (œ) said: “allah does not accept the prayer of a woman who has reached puberty unless she wears a veil.”57 in the same context a hadêth is narrated by zaid ibn qunfudh that his mother asked from hazrat umm-e-salamah (r.a.) that: “in how many clothes should a woman pray? she replied; she would pray wearing a veil and a long shirt which covers the surface of her feet.”58 in another hadêth that is narrated by hazrat umm-e-salamah (r.a.), in which holy prophet (œ) aptly states that: “when a slave of one of your women has made an agreement to pay for his freedom (i.e. he is a mukatib) and can pay the full price, she must veil herself from him.”59 mawlana mawdudi with support of the above mentioned verse60 authenticates the veil of full body since her body is itself adornment. the verse not merely confines physical concealing instead it also suggests screening of her gaze that will purge her body and soul and endow her dignity and honour. while concealing their body and gaze the muslim women escape the possibilities of promiscuous intentions. muslim jurists from various schools of thought have diverse opinions on visible adornment and to cover the face and body. ×anafi jurists including al-sarakhsi and ibn abidin opine that woman has to cover her body including face to avoid the possibilities of seductive temptation.61 méliki jurists such as al42 demystifying the orient... dasuqi and al-sawi explain that whole body of a woman is considered as adornment including face and hands.62 shéfi‘ê jurists do not permit woman to show any part of a body even she is instructed not to talk to a stranger.63 imam ahmad ibn hambal denotes “woman adornment” is her whole body that also includes the nails of her hands and feet, he continues to explain that if a woman comes out of her confined social space neither her hands nor slippers be shown because the slippers describe the foot.64 imam ibn qayyim further elaborates the piousness of gaze is inevitable along with the full body concealing because it is the underlying reason of all licentious thoughts that can potentially impinge on negative feelings to astray mind and heart of any individual.65 in theological frame veil is referred to modesty, chastity and respect which manifests its maintenance of civility instead of backwardness and barbarity of oppression. the imperative of veil was pronounced as an act to discriminate the barbarity of pre-islamic society wherein women used to invite other men through their ostensible physical appearance. ali connotes this commandment as not to confine women’s liberty instead to conserve them from the molestation and harassment prevail at that time.66 both aíédêth and the verses of qur’én highlight veiling as an imperative of affirming modesty, scrupulous faith system and chastity which surely demonstrate the epitome of civilized behaviour. this particular dress code defines the ethics of a well established society where the erotic licentiousness is invisible and controlled however, in the society where women move while exposing their bodies seems more vulnerable to sexual lechery.67 by following the complete ethics and injunctions of islam the society provides as totality of civilization. the religion which underpins the piousness of gaze for both men and women cannot promote repression of one and dominance of the other. while contextualizing veil in historical frame the contemporary discourse of islamic feminists reiterates the need of reinterpretation of islamic principles according to the need of the hour. these feminists perceive patriarchy as primary force of oppression which is legalized on the name of islam.68 according to amina wadud, patriarchal norms of arabian society has deeply influenced the nature of the qur’énic enunciation and is still in practice for centuries with “interpretation and implementation”69, she further argues that the values of qur’én challenges advocacy of women’s oppression on the name of dignity which is legitimized through narrow and reductionist interpretations of islam and its sources.70 while scrutinizing women as “subjects of male construction” hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 43 wadud argues “what the qur’én says, and how it says it, what is said about the qur’én, and who is doing the saying, have been supplemented by a recent concern over what is left unsaid: the ellipses and silences”.71 asma barlas also claims male dominated exegete to confine women’s mobility and affirm their inferiority as weak and thus subordinate sex with misogynistic teachings of women’s innate inferiority which supplies a justification of women’ subservience and denial of her rights in patriarchal milieu further affirms their religio-social subordination.72 on the question of donning veil, fatima mernissi perceives the hegemony of male conceptualization to standardize women’s spiritual uprightness by restricting her mobility within private space73. mernissi argues veil as a tool of oppression that is derived from repressive social practices “mediocrity and servility” of male dominated society which does not have any link with the sacred texts of qur’én and aíédêth. without supplying scriptural references in support of her argument mernissi cogently bolsters her anti-veil discourse by framing qur’énic inferences in historical context.74 haida moghissi’s study scrutinizes veil as one of the conservative practices of islam that poses constraints over women’s mobility in public space. she refers to iranian revolution and algerian imposition of veil or die as an epitome of oppression.75 badran analyses that the concept of islamic feminism is filled with issues of agency and such revolutionary diligence in postcolonial context is regarded as western, and therefore being stigmatised as antithetical to islam76. this discourse perceives the barbaric practices of patriarchy in pre-islamic society as reshaped through the misrepresentation of divine text. however, the pro-veil clerics reinforce the notion of gender apartheid as code of conduct for a civilized society because qur’én refers to gender egalitarianism by stating the oneness of soul either men or women77. it reveals that women is not different from male counterpart since she is originated from the same soul and allah will bestow his celestial reward for both men and women for protecting their modesty78. thus the notions of oppression are not visible from the theological teachings of islam instead these are underlying in non-islamic and pre-islamic states where women were and still are regarded as object of amusement and subordination. on the name of re-readings, reinterpretations in post modern world of mini-narratives the underlying sagacity of islamic injunctions are obdurately challenged by post modern deconstructionists who do not provide textual references in order to escape the paradoxical explanations. 44 demystifying the orient... lughoud asserts the agency of women who veil. she argues that despite of orientalized version of stereotyped oppressed muslim women, the women are fully conscious of using veil as a tool to assert their agency in particular community. she emphasizes over the need “to work against the reductive interpretation of veiling as the quintessential sign of women’s unfreedom” also “to reduce the diverse situations and attitudes of millions of muslim women to a single item of clothing” and she suggests that “it is time to give up the western obsession with the veil and focus on some serious issues with which feminists and others should indeed be concerned”79. for bullock the controversy of donning veil as an emblem of repression or emancipation is highly dependent over the social constraints in which the sagacity of this imperative is lost. she argues that the muslim women are dispossessed from emancipated status because these obligations define concept of veil in the minds of common people which has little support from sacred text of qur’én, the sunnah, which is later on imposed as a common practice on the rest of women80. she examines the divided muslim community in prospect to interpret the divine book into two main extremes the traditionalists and the liberals. the corollary of traditional discourse is to present women as an oppressed ideal whereas secular attempts to liberate her from this oppression. bullock’s study concludes that there is some possibility of misinterpreting islamic discourse in light of patriarchal dynamics though, it is not essentially dominating its general principles81, however, it is necessary to believe the savvy proposition of veil that “‘islam’ does not oppress women, and that where ‘islam’ finds its expression in law, that law should not oppress or discriminate against women; and that where such burdens are to be found in law, they should be amended or removed, and that the qur’én and sunnah provide the legitimacy and wherewithal so to do.”82 conclusion this study has concluded that in contemporary situation the imperative of veil is stereotyped as the only practice of islam to alienate and oppress women from mainstream society. this stereotypical image of demonization of islam which promulgates patriarchal infrastructure is demonstrated through media, politics and academic discourse under the aegis of saving mission. through this saving mission and orientalized version of islam west maintains its dominance over islamic countries that need support and succour of their western civilized philanthropists. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 45 in the backdrop of diverse scholarship contemplating over pro-veiling and anti-veiling thesis, this study has argued that the religion of islam is misrepresented through hegemonic western discourse. it has been investigated that the dialectic of veil as tool of oppression as well as of emancipation is defended through subjective interpretation of the nobel qu’rén and aíédêth. it is examined that counter mini-narratives are produced to deconstruct the misinterpretation of the sacred texts though postmodern readings are also challenging the prudence of the holy texts. the societal disequilibrium which promulgates oppression is not because religion is interpreted in true sense instead the practices which seemed favorable to the dominant group are adopted as the true imperatives. this study has argued that the trouble of representation and misinterpretations provide subjective insights to question the underpinned savvy prescriptions of islam. the stereotypical image of veiled muslim women as oppressed does not have any connection with islam instead it is more close to the barbarity of patriarchy. muslim women as compare to non-muslim women are more strong and powerful because they gained all their rights of emancipation and equality fourteen hundred years ago without roaming in the streets, nonetheless, white women acquired the consciousness of their rights in the end of 1960s. therefore, it has become inevitable to reinterpret the holy texts by reinstating the underpinned prudence of islamic doctrines. notes and references 1. ralph braibanti, the nature and structure of the islamic world, (chicago: int. strategy and policy institute, 1995), 5. see also: bullock, k., rethinking muslim women & the veil: challenging historical and modern stereotypes, (london: international institute of islamic thought, 2002), xxxiv. see also: said, e., covering islam: how media and experts determine how we see the rest of the world, new york, vintage books, 1997, p. 143. 2. wikan, unni, behind the veil in arabia, baltimore, johns hopkins university press, 1982, p. 105. 3. el guindi, f., “veiling infitah with muslim ethic; egypt’s contemporary islamic movement”, social problems 8 (1981): pp. 465–485. 4. azari, f., “islam’s appeal to women in iran: illusion and reality” in women of iran: the conflict with fundamentalist islam, edited by f. azari. (london: ithaca press, 1983), p. 71. 5. yegenoglu, m., “veiled fantasies: cultural and sexual differences in the discourse of orientalism”, in r. lewis, & s. mills (eds.), feminist and postcolonial theory : a reader, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 2003, p. 547. 46 demystifying the orient... 6. said, edward, orientalism, (london: routledge, 1978), p. 2. 7. spivak, gayatri chakravorty, “can the subaltern speak”, in colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: a reader, edited by patrick williams and laura chrisman, ( new york: columbia university press, 1994), 66. 8. said, edward, orientalism, p. 203 9. said, edward, covering islam: how media and experts determine how we see the rest of the world, xix. 10. ibid., xxii. 11. huntington, samuel p., the clash of civilizations? (surabaya: papyrus, 1997), p. 22. 12. hassan, r., “religion, ethics and violence: developing a new muslim discourse”, in b. k. goldewijk (ed.), religion, international relations and development cooperation, (wageningen: wageningen academic publishers, 2007), p. 162. 13. boer, inge de., “imaginative geographies and the discourse of orientalism”, thamyris, (2003), pp. 9-10. 14. said, edward, orientalism, p. 26. 15. lughod, lila abu. “orientalism and middle east feminist studies”, feminist studies (2001), 27: p. 101. 16. macleod, d. s., & codell, j. f., orientalism transposed : the impact of the colonies on british culture, (aldershot: ashgate, 1998), p. 1. 17. stoler, ann laura, “carnal knowledge and imperial power: gender, race and morality in colonial asia”, in gender at the crosswords of knowledge: feminist anthropology, edited by micaela di leonardo, oxford, university of california press, 1991, p. 54. 18. lewis, reina, gendering orientalism: race, femininity and representation, london & new york, routlegde, 1996, pp. 17-18. 19. said, edward, covering islam: how media and experts determine how we see the rest of the world, p. 4. 20. lowe, lisa, critical terrains: french and british orientalisms, new york, cornell university press, 1994, p. 20. 21. nashat, g., & tucker, j. e., women in the middle east: restoring women to history, bloomington, indiana university press, 1999, lxi. 22. mohanty, c. t., “under western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses”, in feminist postcolonial theory, a reader, edited by & s. mills r. lewis, (london: taylor and francis, 2003), p. 49. 23. ibid., p. 51. 24. spivak, gayatri chakravorty, “can the subaltern speak”, in colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: a reader, edited by patrick williams and laura chrisman, pp. 66-111 25. said, edward, orientalism, p. 2. 26. ibid., pp. 108-109. 27. mohanty, chandra, t., “under western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses”, in feminist postcolonial theory, a reader, edited by & s. mills r. lewis, p. 7. 28. while criticizing the politics of british colonization, spivak argues how colonizers connive the legitimacy of their rule in non-western world with their civilizing hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 47 mission. through this statement she manifests the stereotype of oppressive women in male-dominated society. see for detail: spivak, gayatri chakravorty, “can the subaltern speak”, in colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: a reader, edited by patrick williams and laura chrisman, p. 93. 29. alvi, s. s., hoodfar, h., & mcdonough, s., the muslim veil in north america: issues and debate, toronto, women’s press, 2003, p. 163. 30. ibid., p. 13. 31. thobani, s., exalted subjects: studies in the making of race and nation in canada, toronto, university of toronto press, 2007, p. 218. 32. ahmed, leila, women and gender in islam, historical roots of a modern debate, new haven & london, yale university press, 1992, p. 152 . 33. bullock, katherine, rethinking muslim women & the veil: challenging historical and modern stereotypes, london, international institute of islamic thought, 2002, xxxii. 34. spivak, “can the subaltern speak”, in colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: a reader, 93. 35. bullock, katherine, muslim women & the veil: challenging historical and modern stereotypes, xviii. 36. donnell, alison, “visibility, violence and voice? attitudes to veiling post-11 september”, in veil, veiling, representation and contemporary art, eds. david bailey and gilanetawadros, cambridge, the mit press, 2003, 123. 37. van sommer, annie, our moslem sisters; a cry of need from lands of darkness interpreted by those who heard it, edited by samuel marinus zwemer, (americana, 1907), p. 3. 38. ibid., p. 1. 39. alison donnell, “visibility, violence and voice? attitudes to veiling post-11 september”, in david a. bailey & gilanetawadros (eds.), veil: veiling, representation and contemporary art, (cambridge, massachusetts: the mit press, 2003), pp. 124-126. 40. ibid., p. 126. 41. al-hibri, azizah. “tear off your western veil!” in food for our grandmothers: writings by arab american and arab-canadian feminists. ed. joanna kadi, (boston: south end press, 1994), pp. 160161. 42. faegheh shirazi, the veil unveiled. the hijab in modern culture, (gainessville: university press of florida, 2001), p. 10. 43. ibid., p. 20. 44. badran, m., feminism in islam: islamic and secular convergences, (oxford: oneworld publications, 2009), p. 221. 45. karam, azza. m., women, islamisms and state : contemporary feminisms in egypt, (basingstoke: macmillan, 1998), p. 6. 46. siddiqi, muhammad iqbal, islam forbids free mixing of men and women, lahore, kazi publications, 1983, vii-viii. 47. bullock, rethinking muslim women and the veil.challenging historical and modern stereotypes, xxxvi. 48. the holy qur’én, xxxiii: 53. mostly the translation of ayat of the noble qur’én in this paper are taken from picthal, the meaning of the glorious koran: 48 demystifying the orient... an explanatory translation (kazi publications, 1996. 49. abu al-a‘ala mauwdudi, purdah and the status of women in islam, (kazi publications, 1979) 50. dr. mohammed ismail memon madani, hijab: the islamic commandments of hijab (karachi: darulishaat, 2000), p. 13. 51. afzal ur-rahman, role of muslim women in society (seerah foundation, 1986), p. 422. 52. the holy qur’én, xxxiii:59. 53. al-tabari, abu ja‘far muhammad b. jarir, jami‘ al-bayan fi tafsir al-qur’én, (beirut: dar al-ma‘rifah, 1987), pp. 21:33. 54. the holy qur’én, xxiv:31. 55. shahrur, muhammad, al-kitabwa al-qur’én qira’ah mu‘asarah, beirut, sharikah al-matbu‘at, 1993, pp. 604-607. 56. abu dawud, sulayman ibn al-ash‘ath, sunan abi dawud, kitab al-libas, bab fima tubdeu al-marah min zinateha. 57. ibid., kitab al-salah, bab al-marah tusalli beghaire khimar. 58. ibid.,kitab al-salah, bab fi kamtusalli al-marah. 59. ahmad b. ali al-hajar al-asqalani, bulugh al-maram, kitab al-‘itq. 60. the holy qur’én, xxiv:31. 61. al-sarakhsi, muhammad ibn ahmad, al-masut, ((beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 2003), 10: 152. see also: ibn abidin, muhammad amin, radd al-muhtar ‘ala aldur al-mukhtar, (riad: dar aalam al-kutub), 1: 406. 62. al-dasuqi, muhammad ibn arafah, hashiya al-dasuqi ‘ala al-sharh al-kabir, (beirut: dar ahya al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah), 1: 214. see also: al-sawi, abu alabbas ahmad ibn muhammad, bulghat al-salik ila aqrab al-masalik, (dar alma‘arif, n.d), 2: 75. 63. al-nawawi, yaha ibn sharf, al-majmoo‘ sharh al-muhadhab (jaddah: maktabah al-irshar, n.d), 1: 100. 64. ibn taymiyyah, ahmad ibn abdul haleem, majmoo‘ al-fatawa, (saudi arabia: ministry of islamic affairs, 2004), 328/24. 65. ibn qayyim, muhammad ibn abu bakar, i‘ilam al-muwaqq‘in ‘an rabb al‘aalamin, (qahirah: maktabah al-kulliyyat al-azhariyyah, 1968), 80/2. 66. abdullah yousaf ali, the holy quran:text translation and commentary (3rd edn, kashmiri bazaar, 1938), 1126. 67. abu odeh, lama, “post-colonial feminism and the veil: thinking the difference”, feminist review, (1993), 43:29. 68. badran, m., feminism in islam: islamic and secular convergences, oxford: oneworld publications, 2009, p. 134. 69. wadud, amina, inside the gender jihad: women’s reform in islam, oxford: oneworld publications, 2006, p. 22. 70. ibid., 15. 71. wadud, amina, qur’én and woman: rereading the sacred text from a woman’s perspective, (oxford university press, 1999), xiii. 72. barlas, asma, islam unreading patriarchal interpretations of the qur’én, (austin: university of texas press, 2002), p. 14. 73. mernissi, fatima, the veil and the male elite: a feminist interpretation of women’s hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 49 rights in islam. translated by mary jo lakeland, (new york: addison-wesley, 1991), p. 194. 74. ibid., p. 87-88. 75. moghissi, haida, feminism and islamic feminism: the limits of postmodern analysis, (london & new york: zed books, 2002), pp. 42-46. 76. badran, m., feminism in islam: islamic and secular convergences, (oxford: oneworld publications, 2009), 221. 77. the holy qur’én, vi:1. 78. ibid., 33:35. 79. abu lughoud, lila, “do muslim women really need saving? anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others”, american anthropologist (2002), vol. 104, 3:786. 80. bullock, katherine, rethinking muslim women & the veil: challenging historical and modern stereotypes,xxiv. 81. ibid., xxvii. 82. ibid., xxv. f:\e\islamicus\2020\n0. 1\new folder\the funding liquidity risk and bank risk -.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 83 the funding liquidity risk and bank risk: a review on the islamic and conventional banks in pakistan 1saira ghulam hassan, 2waeibrorheem waemustafa, 1school of economics finance and banking, college of banking universiti utara, malaysia e-mail: sairananasimhbl@gmail.com 2school of economics finance and banking, college of banking universiti utara, malaysia e-mail: waeibrorheem@uum.edu.my the prime objective of the current study is to discuss the link between the funding liquidity risk and bank risk for islamic and conventional of pakistan. the international financial system has been implemented in the banking system of pakistan. irrespective of some unique aspects of the market, significant influence has been received from the internal banking system. two systems are being used in the banking sector of pakistan, which includes islamic banking and traditional banking system. the traditional system of banking involves interest on money. the depositor receives a specific amount over his/her deposits. however, the islamic banking system is based on shariah rules and policies. a major gap on liquidity research is that there is inconsistency in the relationship between funding liquidity risk and bank risk. this has resulted in different researchers giving conflicting views on the significance of various factors that influence liquidity risk or affected by the liquidty risk. the author has used the scopus database to find the literature on the relationship between the funding liquidity risk and bank risk. the study is among the pioneer studies on the issues related to funding liquidity risk and liquidity risk, and will be helpful for the policy makers, bankers and practitioners. key words: funding liquidity risk; liquidity risk; policy-makers; practitioners. introduction banking is the only sector in the economy where many risks are jointly managed (chiaramonte, 2018). the very nature of banks is 84 the funding liquidity risk... managing numerous and seemingly opposing needs. they always provide liquidity to their depositors when they demand for by checking account, and they also extend credit and liquidity to borrowers by credit lines (ghenimi et al., 2017). due to these crucial roles played by banks, they are exposed and always concerned with liquidity and solvency. by tradition, capital is held by banks to serve as a safety measure in the case of insolvency, as well as held liquid assets (i.e. securities and cash) as a safety measures against unforeseen depositors’ withdrawals or borrowers draw down (bawa, & basu, 2019). liquidity risk (henceforth lr) is regarded as the reliable tracker that leads to any austere market crisis; it is the ultimate fuse that carries the spark that explodes both credit and market risks and is the catalyst that often transmutes inaccessible loss measures to systemic contagious failures (chen et al, 2018). ahmad et al. (2019) noted that lr is the incapability of transacting at a reasonable price with proximity; it is regarded as the non-diversifiable systematic lr component. furthermore, international monetary fund (imf) (2008) contented that funding lr encompasses the incapability of a financial intermediary in servicing its liabilities when they due. it is regarded as the risk that occurs when the bank failed to immediately settle its liabilities at their due date (drehmann & nikolaou, 2013: boudt et al., 2017). banks lr is commonly created when banks involve in investing long-term asset with short-term debt because a bank that is unable to overturn maturing debt may fail in spite of being solvent (ratnovski, 2013). rise in uncertainty over banks’ solvency leads to major modern bank liquidity problem in some developed economies, which also played out a primary role in the general funding markets (laeven et al., 2016). this prompts the objective of the renewed basel iii in using the netstable-funding-ratio (a limitation on maturity disparity restricting refinancing volume falling due each date) and liquidity coverage ratio (requirement of liquidity) to solve the issue of lr in banks (basel committee, 2010). chen et al. (2018) further stressed that this unforeseen lr exposure can only be reduced through deposits transactions. banks that have high degree of deposits transaction may not experience high risk despite their exposure on the asset side to undrawn their loan payments, while banks that have loan-lr exposure will experience high risk without high degree of deposits transaction. during tight markets periods, when funds move into banks from the securities markets the deposit-lending hedge becomes specifically powerful, as it helps the firm in funding a liquidity crisis. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 85 the flr is the ability to “settle obligations with immediacy” and it is also known as bank specific liquidity (fall, & viviani, 2016). consequently, a bank is illiquid if it is unable to settle obligations in time. according to khan et al. (2016) dahir et al. (2018), the deposit ratio is considered as a proxy of firm’s ability of funding its liquidity crisis. the inability to fund liquidity crisis or simply saying the funding lr has emerged as one of the significant risk in pakistan countries (rajan, & narayana, 2017). the liquidity creation is at heart of all the banking risk theories. during the course of recent decades, the bank liquidity is in limelight of banking literature (dahir et al., 2018; drehmann & nikolaou, 2013). the liquidity management and associated risk have emerged as a focal point of regulatory reforms around the world (dahir et al., 2019). khan et al. (2017), claimed the inability of liquidity creation as one of the components of the banks risk and found that the when the firm’s ability to fund the liquidity increases, the liquidity creation increases and the increase the bank risk. nguyen (2017), argued that the commercial banks in the developing economies rely less on the interbank and hold more liquid asset, which make them more vulnerable to excessive risk taking in line with nguyen (2017). it is argued that the excessive liquidity in the form of deposit to asset ratio encourage banks to take risk and ultimately increase the bank risk. an overview of banking sector of pakistan banking play a crucial financial intermediation role in the economic system of any country. thus, banks have responsibility of providing fundamental services that include, but not limited to, acceptance and collection, as well as safe keeping of customers’ funds, which the banks usually transferred or exchanged for financial or economic benefits of the customers on their instruction (gomber et al., 2018). the bank’s services facilitate economic activities as well as promote greater efficiency being intermediaries in meeting the investment and liquidity needs of the economic agents in the financial system. the diversified banking sector of pakistan, which comprises of both the local as well as the foreign banks has undergone through a transitional phase with continues measure of deregulations and liberalizations. the prime objective of these measures was to stimulate the greater competition among the market players. meanwhile, the measures were also objected to streamline the regulatory policies of banking sector in particular. 86 the funding liquidity risk... the market structure of pakistan countries is highly concentrated (basheer et al., 2019a). the financial sector of these countries is supervised and regulated by the multiple agencies; however, the central banks usually play major role in any banking reforms. over the course of last twenty years, all the four banking markets are also undergone a series of regulatory reforms in terms of both the micro and macro prudential. however, the focus has been on the microprudential (aikman et al., 2019). the basic model in islamic banking is the sharing of loss and profit that is not similar to the traditional banking system (abd rahman et al., 2014). the operations mode for both islamic and conventional system also differs. the principles, which are manmade, are implemented in conventional banks. however, islamic principles or sharê‘ah laws are implemented in the islamic banking system. the aim of both systems is same, which is the maximization of returns or profits. the sharê‘ah restriction is followed by islamic banks. interest is charged based on the compounding rate of interest by the conventional banks for lending money. the partnership principles are used by islamic banks. income is fixed for lending of money by the conventional bank, but profit and loss sharing concept is applied by islamic bank. interest is charged by conventional bank even loss is being experienced by the organization. alternatively, the loss is shared by an islamic bank based on the finance method used, i.e. mushérakah or muìérabah. the islamic bank and conventional banks also differ in their concepts of money. the traditional banking system regards money as a product irrespective of the value storage and medium of exchange. a high price is charged for money than its face value (basheer et al., 2018). money can be rented as well in the traditional banking system. alternatively, money is not regarded as a commodity rather is used as value storage and medium of exchange (javed & basheer, 2017). the price of money is same as its face value in islamic banking. it is interesting to know that zakat is paid by islamic banks, but conventional banks do not pay. banking risk: an islamic perspective there is a difference in risk management in conventional and islamic banking system. risks are involved in some aspects of islamic contracts. the contracts are based on shariah principles. the products/services offered by islamic banks comply with shariah laws (ariffin et al.,2009; hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 87 hassan & hisham, 2020). the risk is based on the luck, which is referred as wager or a bet. however, human cannot deal with the risk and it is clearly based on luck. risk can be defined as any action, which does not ensure about the outcome. it was defined by elgari (2003) that respect and honor is defined by khaïar. it is also referred as over ruined supervision and bitterness. the actions, which lead to wager, are regarded as khaïar. khaïar is similar to the english word risk in modern arabic language. islamic risk has been defined by al-zuhayly (1989) as the danger or hazard, which is not ensured in making an agreement. risk has been regarded by al-suwailem (2006) as a damage perspective from the perspective of islam. this risk is not desirable in the transactions of a business. the concept of risk is covered by gharar that is related to the uncertainty in islam. the exposure of risk determines its intensity or degree. risk is regarded as chances of unexpected and undesirable outcomes that might be possible or impossible, advantageous or nonadvantageous. risk can be determined but it does not have much importance. however, it is not possible to measure uncertainty. there is a significant difference in the concept of gharar and risk (hassan et al. 2019; elgari, 2003). there is uncertainty involved in the transactions, which are based on contracts, in gharar. as per sharê‘ah, the contract based on gharar is considered invalid. rules are same for risk other than higher risk. it is a natural thing that risk may occur, and it cannot be avoided in every situation. however, a special risk is taken by two parties in gharar by making a specific agreement in the contract. it is risky to lend money to a rich individual based on murébaíah with no credit. it is not involved in gharar. alternatively, a product being sold on two prices is gharar. one way is the option for paying cash, and the other is as per the convenience of customer that how much he can pay. it involves less risk but is invalid. based on the risk in islamic, several schools of thoughts exist. these schools of thoughts differ according to the risk portrayed by various fiqh and madhhab. the following section involves discussion on gharar, which is referred as uncertainty in islam. the probability or risk in arabic language is referred as gharar. it refers to hazard, nevertheless, risk in business. moreover, it can be regarded as holding something, which is without knowing the outcomes. risk is taken without ensuring about the results. it may involve hasty decision making without being aware of the ultimate consequences. in sahih muslim, gharar has been stated as an action, which may result in negative consequences or 88 the funding liquidity risk... outcomes. therefore, according to hadith and islamic teachings, when a party tries to deceive the other party using unfair means and doubt is caused in contract negotiations, risk or gharar is included in this. this may make the contract invalid (al-hajjaj). muslims have been forbidden by islam for being involved in gambling. this act results in a high degree of uncertainty or gharar in a business relation, which is called mu‘émalét. it is forbidden to avoid abuses, abhorrence, and maintain harmony between the partners in the contract. moreover, mysir or luck game is not allowed in islam. any task or activity, which results in gaining profit without making any effort, is forbidden in islam. qimér and wager are prohibited in islam because of non-productive activity resulting from gambling. however, these activities result in gaining profit at the expense of the second party. اِس افُِع ِللنَّ يٌر َوَمنَ ٌم َكبِ ا إِثْ ْل فِيِهَم ِر قُ ِر َواْلَمْيِس ِن اْلَخْم أَلُونََك َع يَْس ذَِلكَ َو َك ِل اْلعَْف وَن قُ اذَا يُنِفقُ أَلُونََك َم ا َويَْس ن نَّْفِعِهَم ُر ِم آ أَْكبَ َوِإثُْمُهَم ُرونَ ْم تَتَفَكَّ اِت لَعَلَُّك ُم اآليَ ُ لَُك ّ ُن يُبيِّ they ask thee concerning wine and gambling. say: “in them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit.” they ask thee how much they are to spend; say: “what is beyond your needs.” thus doth allah make clear to you his signs: in order that ye may consider. (al-qur’én, ii:219) لِ ن َعَم ٌس ِم اُب َواألَزالُم ِرج ُر َواألَنص ُر َوالَميِس ا الَخم وا ِإنََّم ذيَن آَمن ا الَّ ا أَيَُّه ي ونَ م تُفِلح اجتَِنبوهُ لَعَلَُّك يطاِن فَ الشَّ o ye who believe! strong drink and games of chance and idols and divining arrows are only an infamy of satan’s handiwork. leave it aside in order that ye may succeed. (al-qur’én, v:90) رِ ي الَخم اَء فِ داَوةَ َوالبَغض ُم العَ َع َبينَُك يطاُن أَن يوقِ ُد الشَّ ا يُري ِإنَّم الةِ ِن الصَّ ِ َوَع َّ ِر ن ِذك دَُّكم َع ِر َويَُص ونَ — َوالَميِس م ُمنتَه ل أَنتُ فََه satan’s plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of allah, and from prayer: will ye not then abstain? (al-qur’én, v:91). it was seen by rasul allah that a camel was left untied by his bedouin. the bedouin was asked by rasul allah that why you have hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 89 left the camel untied. the answer of the bedouin was that i have strong trust on allah almighty. then, it was replied by rasul allah that you must tie your camel and then trust your allah almighty (narrated by attirmidhi). guidance has been provided by allah almighty in surah yusuf for risk management. hadith at tirmidhi has also given guidelines for managing risk. first of all, there is a need for mitigating risk through diversification. secondly, wealth should be protected by taking suitable and necessary measures for any expected loss. all such measures are in line with the principles of risk management, precautions, diversification, controlling and monitoring the process of risk management. liquidity in islamic bank it has become difficult to avoid fiqh al-mu‘émalat (islamic law) in the current system of islamic finance. if any business, bank, firm, or an individual aim at maximization of profits or revenue, this profit maximization must be in line with the teachings of sharê‘ah. the contracts must be made according to the guidelines of islam and teachings of rasul allah . for instance, riba has been forbidden as said by allah s.w.t in his book. ا} زم الزب ع وح ال البي ل هل {و أح and allah hath permitted trade and forbidden usury. (al-qur’én, ii:275) when riba is avoided, the profit maximization does not involve any unethical practices. this enables the business to work on ethical principles in islamic banking. an essential idea for interest elimination is included in islamic banking and finance system. regardless of eliminating risk, the trade and commerce activities in islamic banking have not been identified as a similar ability of riba (interest). therefore, it is believed by several people that interest is not used by islamic banks in their activities. the true thinking concept is involved in this, but it does not reflect the stand of an islamic bank. it can be said that trading and commercial doctrine ع) ب) is involved in islamic banking and value addition (البي and (الكس risk taking (زم is involved in gaining profit. the concept of risk (الغ management has been defined by hadêth and qur’én as below: 90 the funding liquidity risk... “we had already, beforehand. taken the covenant of adam but he forgot: and we found on his part no resolve.” (surah ùa ha: verse: 115). means, a man was born weak in nature and always liable to risk. so she has conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a remote place and the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree (surah maryam verses:22-23). the issue of funding liquidity risk in pakistan the lr has emerged as a significant and continuous threat to the smooth functioning of modern times financial intermediaries thrift institutions (aalbers, 2016). the aftermath of subprime crisis has made it realized to the financial institutions, that to avoid any crisis banks should maintain a safety buffer (duffie, 2019). however, the level of safety buffer from both discretionary and compulsory (from regulators) perspectives is still an unresolved mystery. brunnermeier, (2009) argued that, one of the reasons of subprime crisis of 2007-2009 is poor liquidity management. in an effort of providing support to their argument, they found that, lr through idiosyncratic channels could lead to bank failures. however, liquidity crisis does not only occur from because of low level of liquidity rather it can happen by excessive asset liquidity as according to acharya and naqvi (2012), the high liquidity level of assets can incline the banks to excessive risk taking which can also lead to bank failure. according to basel iii, it is mandatory for the bank to hold the minimum amount of liquid assets to avoid any crisis situation. the liquidity position of banks in pakistan is weak (basheer et al., 2019) as it is evident from the figures below that the percentage of liquid assets to total assets has decreased significantly over the period of last five years (see figure 1). fig 1: liquidity ratio source: bank’s audited accounts hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 91 bank explicit liquidity or flr is very important in the setting of maturity conversion in the banking record, which consists typically of illiquid assets (vanhoose, 2017). therefore, effective lr management supports banks to understand the requirements for cash flow. lr management is very vital because a liquidity short fall in a financial institution can have a multiplier consequence on the whole economy and predominantly on the bank risk. the deposit to asset ratio has been argued as the proxy of the firm’s ability to fund lr (khan et al., 2017). in a critical situation, deposits provide shield against lr by increasing the ability of bank of funding its lr (buch, & goldberg, 2015). however, increasing deposit ratio reduces the market discipline which in turn accelerate the bank risk taking (dahir et al., 2018; hassan & aziz, 2019). meanwhile, it also triggers the moral hazard behavior as high deposit level, may incline banks to take excessive risk taking as someone else will be bearing loss. according to drehmann and nikolaou (2013), deposit insurance acts like a put option on the banks assets and defines funding lr as banks inability of settling their obligation. thus, it can be argued that the lower deposit ratio increases the bank funding lr which in turn increases bank risk. the banking risk in pakistan banks is high (basheer et al., 2019a), and the total deposit to total asset ratio which according to khan et al. (2017) is the proxy of flr has a significant impact on the bank risktaking behavior. according to them the banks with excessive deposit take more risk which will lead them towards bank crisis. in pakistan, the funding lr ability of countries is not showing a single pattern. the deposit ratio indicates that the banks in pakistan can face difficulties in managing their liquidity issues, and ultimately enhance the bank risk. fig 2: funding liquidty source: bank’s audited accounts 92 the funding liquidity risk... funding liquidity risk (flr) and bank risk recent banking crises are major risk factors caused by the funding of lr (drehmann & nikolaou, 2013). to assist further comprehension, the terms of flr, funding lr, liquidity creation and market liquidity are firstly defined. flr refers to how easy it is for an institution to attain funding. it is also defined as the ability to obtain cash quickly. funding lr on the other hand entails the institution’s incapability of obtaining the needed amount of funding; lr is the incapability of financing cash outflows during certain periods. funding lr affects balance sheet liability whilst lr entails balance sheet asset. brunnermeier and pedersen (2009) delineated between market liquidity and flr and showed their correlation. market liquidity entails the cost involved in selling assets. market liquidity rises when assets can be sold quickly by an intermediary agent with approximate prices and low transaction costs. liquidity creation is a long-held concept which entails financing provision to the real economy. through it, banks can create on and offbalance sheet liquidity which was theoretically suggested by diamond and dybvig (1983) after observing that the balance sheet asset of banks is inactive. it is theorized that liquidity creation is only possible via balance sheet liability. liquidity creation allows for risk sharing between depositors and banks as they avert uncertainties with the depositors’ preference for the consumption timing; in short, banks allow them to make simple investments with prearranged profits. the depositors are allowed to make withdrawals at any time. another theoretical argument suggests that liquidity creation is possible on both the balance sheet’s sides i.e. asset and liquidity (berger & bouwman, 2009). banks that are active have more ability to convert illiquid assets to liquid assets; hence, liquidity creation can be generated on the balance sheet asset. according to umar and sun (2016), studies on liquidity are largely qualitative save for theirs which had explicitly defined flr, liquidity creation, and stock liquidity (or bank liquidity). the authors used the net stable funding ratio or nsfr (netstable funding ratio) to represent flr whilst stock liquidity serves as the representative of stock illiquidity. they also applied the equations model and the threestage least-square estimations concurrently in examining 188 banks operating in brics (an acronym of brazil, russia, india, china and south africa) between 2007 and 2014. the findings revealed that liquidity creation significantly and negatively affects flr i.e. when liquidity creation hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 93 increases, flr decreases. meanwhile, flr has no effect on liquidity creation. the findings also revealed that an increase in stock liquidity would negatively affect liquidity creation; in short, when stock illiquidity increases, liquidity creation increases as well. however, stock liquidity variation is not measurable by liquidity creation variation. that being said, stock liquidity has a direct effect on flr, although stock liquidity can affect flr via liquidity creation. according to khan et al. (2017), the bank lr in the form of inability of the institutions in meeting liquidity requirements (funding lr), has played a key role in all banking crises and especially in the recent episode of global financial crisis which is known as the subprime crisis. recently dahir et al. (2018) also shown consistency with the khan et al. (2017), argue that the lr offers a significant and constant threat to the smooth functioning and stability of financial institutions. similarly, many notable prior researchers (hong et al., 2014) argued that the lr is a significant determinant of bank overall risk. drehmann and nikolaou (2013), defined the funding lr is banks inability of settling obligation and measured it as bank’s aggressive bidding at central bank to secure liquidity. they also found significant relationship between flr and bank risk. the level of flr fluctuates over time; high liquidity levels may cause financial crises. hong et al. (2014) stated that excess capacity from balance sheet growth can be utilized by having the financial intermediaries search for prospective borrowers including those that have no loan repayment capability which leads to higher levels of aggregate liquidity that in turn leads to financial crises. in his theoretical model, imbierowicz and rauch (2014) indicates that increased bank assets liquidity causes reduced banking stability only during financial crises and not during regular times. the summary of literature on the relationship between the flr risk and bank risk is presented in the table 1 below. table 1. summary of literature on the flr risk and bank risk. author title method findings “flr and bank lending: evidence from vietnam” dang et al., (2019) dynamic panel data (system gmm) “panel data model shows that banks owning higher flr measured 94 the funding liquidity risk... author title method findings dahir et al. (2019) vo (2018) dahir et al. (2018) rokhimand min (2018) “capital, flr, and bank lending in emerging economies: an application of the lsdvc approach” “the role of bank funding diversity: evidence from vietnam” “flr risk and bank risk-taking in brics countries: an application of system gmm approach” “flr and risktaking behavior in southeast asian banks” “dynamic least squares dummy variable corrected (lsdvc)” panel regression dynamic panel data (system gmm) (dynamic panel data (system gmm) by higher ratios of deposit tend to lend more” “the empirical results reveal that flr is negative and significant, which suggests that higher flr reduces bank loan growth.” “banks with higher flr tend to participate in more risk taking activities.” “the study also reveals that flr risk has the substantial impact on bank risktaking, suggesting lower flr risk results in higher bank risk-taking.” “the study found that in contrast to developed countries, banks with lower lr indicated by higher deposit hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 95 author title method findings khan et al. (2016) adusei (2015) acharya and mora (2014) “flr and bank risk taking” “the impact of bank size and funding risk on bank stability” “a crisis of banks as liquidity providers” “static panel data (fixed effect) dynamic panel data (system gmm)” panel data panel data ratios tend to take lower risks” “they find evidence that banks having lower flr risk as proxied by higher deposit ratios, take more risk between banks specific factors and bank risk” “flr is in positive relationship with the bank risk “ “at the onset of the crisis, aggregate deposit inflows into banks weakened and their loantodeposit shortfalls widened.” the author has used the scopus database to find the literature on the relationship between the funding liquidity risk and bank risk. the above three studies are traced from the database. the three studies offer an inconclusive result as khan et al. (2017) and dahir et al. (2018) found that higher level of flr encourage the excessive risk-taking behavior, whereas, rokhim and min (2018) has shown contradiction with their findings. following the study of dahir et al. (2018), and khan et al. (2016), the current study has employed the total deposits to total asset ratio as 96 the funding liquidity risk... a proxy of funding lr. it is been argued in the current study that the banks deposit ratio determines the bank risk taking behavior. to capture the overall banking risks, the current study has planned to use the bank z-score (khan et al., 2016; dahir et al., 2018), loan loss provisions (khan et al., 2016) and its ability of liquidity creation. many prior researchers (khan et al., 2016) has argued the bank ability of liquidity creation as proxy of lrs. in particular, the current study has employed the measure of liquidity creation developed by berger and bouwman, (2009), and recently used by khan et al., (2017). the khan et al., (2017), found that the flr is positive relationship with three types of risk mentioned above. considering the importance of the relationship between liquidity creation and flr, and between liquidity and crr the following sections have shed light on them. according to the acharya and naqvi (2012), the when banks encounter with the larger cash flow, consequently the lower flr risk, the bank managers because of moral hazard behaviour lend at lower rate. they continued and argued that the reason behind lowering the lending rate is to increase the loan sale, which ultimately will enhance the compensation of management. according to the chiaramonte, (2018) banks only perform the costly audit, if the flr risk is high, however, in case of lower flr risk, mangers in most of the cases feel overconfident and go for the excessive risk taking. audits to determine managers’ decisions about the standard of lending will only be performed if the banks’ flr deficit is highly substantial. surplus deposits hence cause overconfidence among bank managers that their banks will not experience any looming flr crisis and that their lending practices will remain unquestioned. banks could experience capital shortage as a result of excess lending which in turn could lead to bank failure. cheng et al. (2015) used the principal agent theory to indicate that risk-prone managers need greater levels of compensation to operate in precarious financial firms because they face higher wealth-related uncertainties. to achieve this, the managers may be provided with more freedom in pursuing aggressive lending schemes when there is excess liquidity. there is a negative correlation between flr risk and market liquidity (drehmann & nikolaou, 2013). banks must maintain certain amounts of deposits with the central bank as liquidity reserve in the form of highquality liquid assets. over time, the level of flr fluctuates and concerns are rampant that high liquidity levels can cause financial crisis. adrian and shin (2010) indicated that the utilization of surplus capacity arising hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 97 from balance sheet growth is enabled by the search for prospective borrowers by the financial intermediaries regardless of whether the borrowers can repay the loan; therefore, greater aggregate liquidity levels can lead to financial crisis. the theoretical model of the correlation between bank assets liquidity and banking stability developed by bawa and basu (2019) indicated that increased bank assets liquidity can lower banking stability during times of financial crisis, but not during normal courses. liquidity increases can come from interest rate increases due to monetary policy changes. cheng et al., (2015) suggested that banks assume more risks during when risk-free interest rates rise because there is higher investment in risk-free bonds, which escalates the interbank market’s liquidity supply and drives more interbank lending. other banks’ investment in risky assets is also boosted by the increase in liquidity supply. therefore, theoretical and empirical literatures propose the close correlation between flr risk and bank risk taking. our first hypothesis supports the prediction of acharya and naqvi (2012) conclusion a major gap on liquidity research is that there is inconsistency in the relationship between funding lr and bank risk .this has resulted in different researchers giving conflicting views on the significance of various factors that influence lr or affected by the lr. several studies have been carried out on funding liqiudity and risk management in conventional banks in many countries such as khan et al. (2016) in usa, dahir et al. (2017), and dahir et al. (2019) on brics, chen et al. (2018) on develkoped economeis. however. till to date , in author knowledge little or attention has been given on the exploration of the impact of the funding lr on the bank risk in south asian countris. as a group of researchers have argued that the excessiev lr can also enocurge bank to take excessiev risk which ultimateky enhances the bank risk (adusei 2015: dang et al., 2019: vo, 2018; khan et al., 2016). whereas another group of reseracehrs argue a negative relationship between the funding liquity risk and bank risk (dahir et al., 2017; dahir et al., 2019: rokhim & min, 2018). meawnhile, the extent of the research is very limited to some selected countries particularly in south asian countries. moreover, there is a general dearth of literature on funding lr compared to other risks (such as crr). hence, this research is significant in filling the gap and lay the foundation for extended study on management of risk in general and fundung lr and bank risk of south asian banks in particular for conventional bank. 98 the funding liquidity risk... the present study identifies relevant factors affecting liquidity and thus contribute to better lr management. in this aspect, the fund managers are made aware of risk management techniques to manage the factors influencing lr of their banks. additionally, the focus on the funding lr was not pronounced until after the 2008 global financial crisis. previously, crr has been the priority of banking industry. now, attention is on lr as against managing interest rates and crr due to drying up of liquidity at the time of crisis . this increasing concern explains why liquidity is featured prominently in basel iii following the financial crisis. on the basis of islamic risk, there may exist many schools of thought. there is a difference in the thoughts based on interoperating of the risk by different mudzhab and fiqh. in this subsection, gharar (uncertainty) is discussed. moreover, it was said by prophet muhammad that he was asked by someone whether he should leave his camel untied by trusting allah or he must tie it and then leave the rest by trusting on allah. the prophet muhammad ( ) said that i would tie the camel and then trust allah. the above discussion is of key consideration and information, which could not be found in traditional knowledge. it can be said that everything involves the element of risk. this risk should be managed through compliance with islamic teachings and trusting allah swt. the way in which risks were managed by lady maryam (a.s.) and musa (a.s.) has been reflected by these verses. they managed their risks through the obedience of allah swt. based on the concept of risk in islam, several schools of thought exist. these thoughts differ based on their strategies to deal with risks due to a difference in fiqh and madhhab. according to the islam “gharar” is also referred as risk or probability and in arabic language that means risk, hazard and perils; nevertheless, in the terms of business it meant to take the hold of something without knowing or having no knowledge at all or to take risk oneself in a venture without a know-how of the exact results, or to make the hasty decisions by not calculating any hazard of the consequences. bibliography aalbers, m. b. (2016). the financialization of home and the mortgage market crisis. in the financialization of housing (pp. 40-63). routledge. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 99 abdul-rahman, a., latif, r. a., muda, r., & abdullah, m. a. (2014). failure and potential of profit-loss sharing contracts: a perspective of new institutional, economic (nie) theory. pacific-basin finance journal, 28, 136-151. acharya, v. v., & mora, n. (2015). a crisis of banks as liquidity providers. the journal of finance, 70(1), 1-43. acharya, v., & naqvi, h. (2012). the seeds of a crisis: a theory of bank liquidity and risk taking over the business cycle. journal of financial economics, 106(2), 349366. adrian, t., & shin, h. s. (2010). liquidity and leverage. journal of financial intermediation, 19(3), 418-437. adusei, m. (2015). the impact of bank size and funding risk on bank stability. cogent economics & finance, 3(1), 1111489. ahmad, i., salam, s., ahmad, a., & abbas, s. (2019). the nexus between credit risk and liquidity risk and their impact on banks financial performance: evidence from pakistan. sarhad journal of management sciences, 5(1), 67-86. aikman, d., bridges, j., kashyap, a., & siegert, c. (2019). would macroprudential regulation have prevented the last crisis?. journal of economic perspectives, 33(1), 107-30. al-suwailem, s. (2006). hedging in islamic finance (vol. 10). islamic development bank, islamic research and training institute. al-zuhaylî, w. (1989). al-fiqh al-islâmî wa adillatuh. juz vi & viii, damaskus: dâr al-fikr. ariffin, n. m., archer, s., & karim, r. a. a. (2009). risks in islamic banks: evidence from empirical research. journal of banking regulation, 10(2), 153-163. basel committee. (2010). basel iii: a global regulatory framework for more resilient banks and banking systems. basel committee on banking supervision, basel. basheer, m. f., hidthiir, m. h., & waemustafa, w. (2019). impact of bank regulatory change and bank specific factors upon off-balance-sheet activities across commercial banks in south asia. asian economic and financial review, 9(4), 419. basheer, m. f., khorrami, a. a. a., & hassan, s. g. (2018). patronage factors of islamic banking system in pakistan. academy of accounting and financial studies journal. bawa, j. k., & basu, s. (2019). restructuring assets reform, 2013: impact of operational ability, liquidity, bank capital, profitability and capital on bank credit risk. iimb management review. berger, a. n., & bouwman, c. h. (2009). bank liquidity creation. the review of financial studies, 22(9), 3779-3837. boudt, k., paulus, e. c., & rosenthal, d. w. (2017). funding liquidity, market liquidity and ted spread: a two-regime model. journal of empirical finance, 43, 143158. brunnermeier, m. k. (2009). deciphering the liquidity and credit crunch 2007-2008. journal of economic perspectives, 23(1), 77-100. brunnermeier, m. k., & pedersen, l. h. (2009). market liquidity and funding liquidity. the review of financial studies, 22(6), 2201-2238. buch, c. m., & goldberg, l. s. (2015). mini-symposium on international banking. imf economic review, 63(3), 375-376. 100 the funding liquidity risk... chen, y. k., shen, c. h., kao, l., & yeh, c. y. (2018). bank liquidity risk and performance. review of pacific basin financial markets and policies, 21(01), 1850007. chiaramonte, l. (2018). the concept of bank liquidity and its risk. in bank liquidity and the global financial crisis (pp. 5-34). palgrave macmillan, cham. dahir, a. m., mahat, f. b., & ali, n. a. b. (2018). funding liquidity risk and bank risk-taking in brics countries. international journal of emerging markets. diamond, d. w., & dybvig, p. h. (1983). bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity. journal of political economy, 91(3), 401-419. drehmann, m., & nikolaou, k. (2013). funding liquidity risk: definition and measurement. journal of banking & finance, 37(7), 2173-2182. duffie, d. (2019). prone to fail: the pre-crisis financial system. journal of economic perspectives, 33(1), 81-106. elgari, m. a. (2003). credit risk in islamic banking and finance. islamic economic studies, 10(2). fall, m., & viviani, j. l. (2016). a new multi-factor risk model to evaluate funding liquidity risk of banks. the european journal of finance, 22(11), 985-1003. ghenimi, a., chaibi, h., & omri, m. a. b. (2017). the effects of liquidity risk and credit risk on bank stability: evidence from the mena region. borsa istanbul review, 17(4), 238-248. gomber, p., kauffman, r. j., parker, c., & weber, b. w. (2018). on the fintech revolution: interpreting the forces of innovation, disruption, and transformation in financial services. journal of management information systems, 35(1), 220265. hassan, m.u. and dzakiria, h. (2019). the university students’ beliefs towards corrective feedback in learning english as foreign language in pakistan. international journal of recent technology and engineering, 8 (3), 4094-4100. hassan, m.u. and dzakiria, h. (2020). students’ beliefs towards written cf and their impact on writing accuracy in efl class: a pakistani efl context. international journal of advanced science and technology, 29 (6s), 648-658. hassan m.u and aziz, a.a. (2019). investigating the use of computer technology for e-learning in pakistani maddaris: case of religious teachers. international journal of distance education and elearning, 5 (1), 44-56. hong, h., huang, j. z., & wu, d. (2014). the information content of basel iii liquidity risk measures. journal of financial stability, 15, 91-111. imbierowicz, b., & rauch, c. (2014). the relationship between liquidity risk and credit risk in banks. journal of banking & finance, 40, 242-256. javed, m. a., & basheer, m. f. (2017). impact of external factors on bank profitability. epra international journal of research and development, 2(5), 1-11. khan, m. s., scheule, h., & wu, e. (2017). funding liquidity and bank risk taking. journal of banking & finance, 82, 203-216. laeven, l., ratnovski, l., & tong, h. (2016). bank size, capital, and systemic risk: some international evidence. journal of banking & finance, 69, s25-s34. nguyen, m., perera, s., & skully, m. (2017). bank market power, asset liquidity and funding liquidity: international evidence. international review of financial analysis, 54, 23-38. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 101 rajan, s. i., & narayana, d. (2017). the financial crisis in the gulf and its impact on south asian migrant workers. in south asian migration to gulf countries (pp. 308-327). routledge india. ratnovski, l. (2013). liquidity and transparency in bank risk management. journal of financial intermediation, 22(3), 422-439. rokhim, r., & min, i. (2018). funding liquidity and risk taking behavior in southeast asian banks. emerging markets finance and trade, 1-9. umar, m., & sun, g. (2016). interaction among funding liquidity, liquidity creation and stock liquidity of banks. journal of financial regulation and compliance. vanhoose, d. (2017). the economics of international banking. in the industrial organization of banking (pp. 89-113). springer, berlin, heidelberg. vo, x. v. (2018). the role of bank funding diversity: evidence from vietnam. international review of finance. hamdard islamicus 199 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 some reflection on paradigm shift in qur’ónic, interpretation on gender issue discourse mahadab banu1, dr. p.s. syed masood jamali2, 1research scholar, 2professor and dean, school of arabic & islamic studies, bsa, crescent institute of science and technology, chennai, india, e-mail: mahadab_sis_phd_2015@crescent.education the holy qur’én and ×adêth are the primary sources of knowledge for the religion of islam. their interpretation, therefore, has a larger effect and impact on right understanding of the divine intents. various interpretations have developed over the time in the field of theology and exegesis. this paper aims at exploring the views of some muslim women scholars viz. amina wadud, asma barlas, and fatima mernissi and their approach towards qur’énic hermeneutics. thus, the paper is an attempt to study the feminist approach to the gender equality as how their interpretations differ from the traditional exegeses and on what basis they have formed a new qur’énic hermeneutics in view of contemporary development in gender-equality and gender justice discourse. a critique by ayesha a. hidayatullah has also been presented. however, our discussion is only confined to a specific verse of chapter al-nisé’. keywords: muslim women, qur’énic hermeneutic, feminist, gender equality. introduction in recent decades, a shift in qur’énic hermeneutics approach has been propounded especially by the people like hasan hanafi, nasr hamid abu zayd, abdolkarim soroush, fatema mernissi, amina wadud and leila ahmed, to name but a few1. their interpretation of qur’énic texts is at variance with the classical interpretation. they have tried to analyze hamdard islamicus 200 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the issues in the context of contemporary developments so as to make interpretation more suitable and compatible with modern thoughts and developments in gender studies. hermeneutics is defined as understanding and interpretation of canonical texts. the qur’énic interpretation was done through exegesis and commentaries by the scholars called as tafsêr. thus, qur’énic hermeneutics (tafsêr) developed as a body of knowledge which aims to explain the true meaning of qur’énic texts and occasions of its revelation (asbéb al-nuzël). in later years, scholars framed various rules of interpretation and divided tafsêr into two major categories: (a) tafsêr bilmathur (b) tafsêr bi-al-ra’y. the former includes the interpretation of the qur’én by qur’énic verses and use of the explanations of the prophet (œ) and his companions whereas the latter comes from opinions based on reason and ijtihéd. in recent decades, some changes happened in hermeneutical theories and approaches which was introduced by modernist scholars like fazlur rahman (d. 1988), muhammad arkoun (d. 2010), and nasr hamid abu zayd (d. 2010). fatima maernissi, asma barlas and amina wadud etc. further added their own inputs in methods of qur’énic hermeneutics which was severely criticized by others. in this paper, an attempt has been made to study such development in qur’énic hermeneutics advocated by some feminist women scholars on the issues related to discourse on woman. they have tried to explicate the issue through new interpretations of qur’énic text and its translation. the discussion is mainly confined to a verse of chapter al-nisa on which modernist scholars differ from classical interpretation of the text. the verse discusses many gender related issues especially with respect to women. for example, the word “qawwémën” which has been a subject of debate and discussion among the modern and traditional scholars. it has been criticized that interpretation of traditional scholars seems not to be fair and thus unsuited with modern concept of gender equality. hence, to address the question of gender and women’s right from islamic philosophical perspective, a revisit of interpretation of qur’énic text is required. it has been further criticized by the modern feminists that interpretations of the holy qur’én made in the past seem to have been afflicted with patriarchal approach. consequently, the issues related to women were also perceived from the perspective of male hegemony and thus interpreted accordingly. citing the historical realities of that time, it was argued that there was a societal effect on the interpretation and understanding of the qur’énic verses. further, when the holy qur’én hamdard islamicus 201 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 was revealed during the 7th century, there was a male dominant society among arabs who were governed by male heads of their own tribes and hence the verses were directly considered a response to the sociopolitical conditions of that time. but the qur’én is transcendental in nature which lies beyond time and space and therefore its texts should be reinterpreted by taking into consideration the current social conditions. it was further argued as how an interpretation made during 7th century can also be equally applicable and compatible in present society of 21st century. since the late twentieth century, some women intellectuals started critically assessing traditional interpretations and conducting research on the interpretation of verses related to women issues especially the verse 34 of chapter iv(al-nisé’) of the qur’én. “men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because allah has given the one more (strength) than the other. and because they support them from their means. therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husbands) absence what allah would have them guard. as to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly) but if they return to obedience do not seek against them means (of annoyance): for allah is most high, great (above you all)”2 some muslim feminist writers and their thoughts amina wadud3 one of the contemporary feminists amina wadud advocates that the understanding of the qur’én be carried out in the context of existing realities and prevailing women issues with due consideration. she explicates three approaches of qur’énic interpretation concerning women: traditional, reactive and holistic4. she believes that ‘traditional’ method of qur’énic exegesis is not so holistic. it follows the same approach to interpret the verses from beginning to end and there is َ◌◌ّ hamdard islamicus 202 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 hardly any attempt made to link them with other similar themes, issues and principles. she further believes that since the traditional qur’énic exegesis scholars happened to be male, so exposition of women related issues from their own experience and perception is missing rather such issues were perceived from male perspective. whereas the reactive approach involves strong criticism against the traditional hermeneutics and considering them responsible for domestic violence, atrocities against muslim women citing the disappointing plight of women in muslim society as indirect consequence. in its gut reaction, this approach failed to distinguish the canonical texts and the interpretations and hence went to another extreme. however, a holistic approach of qur’énic interpretation tries to incorporate all concerning issues from modern, social, moral, economic and political perspective, including women’s own perception for their issues. amina wadud considers this approach to be more appropriate and acceptable. as for wadud’s approach towards the interpretation of revealed text, in her hermeneutical model, the first focal point is the context of the text revelation, then the grammatical composition of the text and finally the broad general view of the text. according to her, though the use of some terms was specific to the seventh century arabs but other terms are of universal application. in order to reach the right ‘spirit’ of the qur’én in different scenario and situations, a dynamic hermeneutical approach is required. one final interpretation of the text cannot be concluded as there are cultural and other social differences among the people worldwide which cannot be ignored and hence be taken into account. it does not mean that such approach will change or compromise the main notion and tenets of revealed texts rather it is a reflection of different understandings and capacities of people to analyze and apply rulings in diverse and ever-changing circumstances. for wadud, the muslim women seem to be immature and naive in their attitude and thus consider themselves as weak and inferior. as for the verse, “men are qawwémën ‘alé women (on the basis) of what allah has preferred (faììala) some of them over some other (on the basis) of what they spend of their property (for the support of women)”, she contends that not all men excel over all women rather some of the men excel over some women. similarly some women may surpass some men in some matters as the word baìa (some) indicates. hence, concluding an absolute superiority of men over women from the verse is not right. because if the meaning was to imply the superiority hamdard islamicus 203 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 of man, the verse would have been directly expressed as: “they (masculine plural) are preferred over them (feminine plural)”. she further argues that even in today’s practical world, all men are not the sole earning member rather both men and women together earn to meet expenses for their family. further as for another part of the same verse: “so good women are qénitên, guarding in secret which allah has guarded. as for those from whom you fear (nushuz), admonish them, banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. then, if they obey you, seek not a way against them”5, it has been typically interpreted by the commentators that a women should be obedient to her husband or the husband may beat her if she becomes too adamant to mend her unbecoming behavior. here wadud also argues that the word qénitên not specifically mean to be completely submissive or obedient rather it means the ‘good’ women as the same word has been used for both men and women throughout the qur’én characterizing them as subservient to allah. the word for specific meaning of obedience in arabic used is ùé‘ah. it is thus cannot be concluded as a condition for the wives to be completely obedient to their husbands in all respects. the verse also speaks about nushuz6 which can be ascribed to both genders. she opines that if there is a discord between the husband and wife then it should be resolved by following three steps according to the qur’én: the first step is reconciliation and the second one is separation so as to cool them off and the third and last step is the scourge (ìaraba).the separation can also mean that after the fight it is not practical that the husband and wife would satisfy their physical needs in such an emotionally disturbing situation or it could mean a separation of a day or few days or it can also be like a state of separation that occurs during divorce i.e. the ‘iddah period. the word ìaraba means ‘strike’. but wadud seems to be unclear in explanation of the word as she simply prefers to say that ìaraba does not necessarily mean to use violence. she also mentions different meanings of the word ìaraba like ‘to leave’ or ‘strike out on a journey’. she further concludes in her arguments: “there is no getting around this one, even though i have tried through different methods for two decades”7. she has adopted a strategy of saying ‘no’ while still showing full sanctity of the qur’én. instead of terming it un-islamic she prefers to say that explanation is against the accepted opinion. she also contends that there is a high need to make the text more dignified for the contemporary women than it was explained during seventh century as evolution of human understanding has now reached the universal justice and human hamdard islamicus 204 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 dignity. she further clarifies this notion by explaining that “qur’én never overtly advocated the eradication of the institution of slavery and concubinage”8 but now it is a universally accepted fact that this practice is unjust. so an interpretation in line with the times could be possible without corrupting the qur’énic text. unfortunately people have misconstrued the word ìaraba and added their own connotations from the implied meaning of the verse. such misconception led to approve domestic violence. there is a need to recourse to sequence of reconciliation and harmony rather than violence. the qur’én has clearly stated the relationship between the spouses as like garment to each other which demands mutual respect and honor and not hegemony of male or female. wadud focuses on the chronological development of the qur‘énic solicitousness for women progress. the qur’én came to eradicate the ill practices of the pagan arab society but its teachings cannot be restricted to them only. further, if all ill practices were to be abolished at once, it would have created problems with further complications and resulted into non-implementation of the divine instructions. it is a natural evolution in society which fosters social reforms with regard to women. hence, such transformation and changes are needed to be introduced on the basis of overall intent of the qur’én. asma barlas9 another muslim woman intellectual, asma barlas has also adopted a different hermeneutical approach to interpretation of qur‘énic text and termed the classical hermeneutics as patriarchal and non-egalitarian in nature. similar to amina wadud, she also believes that the traditionalist interpretations have not been deliberated in consideration of thematic and structural coherence rather there seemed to be verse by verse exposition. she contends that the qur’én is the words of god and can have multiple interpretations based on the textual context. she further believes that the earlier commentators seemed to have been inflicted with misogynistic understandings. to her, qur’én does not support patriarchy and traditional as well as contemporary scholars failed to properly interpret the sacred texts10. however, unlike the ultra feminists, she contends that the struggle for women equal rights and fairness can be made within the framework of the qur‘énic teachings. she first starts her arguments by posing questions like: does the qur’én teach sexual in equality or does the qur’én represent god as hamdard islamicus 205 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 father/male or teach that god has a special relationship with males or males embody divine attributes and females are by nature unclean, sinful and weak. also does it teach that the rule by father/husband is divinely ordained and an earthly continuation of god’s rule? she further poses another question: does the qur’én permit and encourage the liberation of women? that is whether the creation of god as well as human creation, ontology, sexuality and marriage relationships challenge sexual inequality and patriarchy? she believes that patriarchal customs and beliefs has been fed into islamic discourses through commentaries and super commentaries on the qur‘énic exegesis, the detailing of life of the holy prophet muíammad (œ) and explications of íadêth texts. men were mostly the ones who had developed such discourses. in order to understand the patriarchal reading, one should know the relationship between hermeneutics and history and also the connection between the contents of knowledge and the methods by which it has been generated. as for women liberation and anti-patriarchal readings, one needs to understand as how to read the texts, what kind of questions to be asked and answered. she defines the term patriarchy as follows: a) historically specific mode of governance rule by father and husbands is considered as a claim to rule over wife and children. b) further there is a biological difference between men and women because of which patriarchy was argued. she contends that the qur‘énic teachings are egalitarian and hence pro-patriarchal regime cannot be concluded from its texts. however, it does not mean that the qur’én does not treat men and women differently.11 she also defines qur‘énic hermeneutics by categorizing it into three aspects of god’s self-disclosure that generate liberated readings of the qur’én: the principles of divine unity, justness and incomparability. by divine unity (tawíêd), she demonstrates the “indivisibility of god’s sovereignty to challenge the theory which assumes male as an extension of god’s rule.” by justness, she reveals the term ðulm (harming to others by transgressing their rights) in the qur’én which clarifies that god never does any ðulm to anybody. from analyzing this term, she derives divine justice as “respect for the rights of the human as a moral agent”12. and god’s “incomparability” means that god is absent of anthropomorphic terms; this rejects the attribution of god as male, as represented in the hamdard islamicus 206 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 arabicgendered language used in the qur’én. thus “god is beyond sex/gender.”13 barlas asserts that in order to understand the divine intent, reading should be carried out holistically and intra-textually i.e. reading the qur’énic text with outward and inward meaning to reach divine intent. certain meanings are intrinsic to the text such that anyone can retrieve them if they employ the right method and pose the right questions. as regards the above-mentioned verse of chapter al-nisa’, barlas points out that any understanding of qiwémah as men to be superior because of their high intelligence and morality will be contradictory to the verse 9 of chapter tawbah14 in which the qur’én designates men and women to be awliya (friends, supporters) to each other. so the word qawwém cannot be interpreted to portray the husband to be a ruler over his wife. otherwise it would be concluded that the qur’én is flawed which can never be the case. thus, men and women are mutual protectors to each other. as regards understanding the word ìaraba, she contends that any reading to imply ‘hitting’ contradicts the qur’énic view of sexual equality and its teachings that marriages should be based on love, forgiveness, harmony and sukën (tranquility). fatima mernissi15 the basic premise of fatima mernissi argument is that gender inequity in the muslim society does not stem directly from islam rather it has developed through generations of “the male elite” authors who misinterpreted the qur’énic text in accordance with their own patriarchy influenced line of thinking. mernissi argues16 that calls to religious validation of misogyny are at odds with the original egalitarian intent of the prophet (œ). the inferior position given to women in some muslim societies is based on a false and male-dominant interpretation of the qur’én. according to her, due to the acceptance of anti-women attitudes in jewish and christian traditions that took hold of canonists (expert in christian church laws), these acceptances also crept into islamology, and thus affected interpretations related to narrating the life of the holy prophet (œ).17 on the issue of prophet’s objections and opposition to violence against women, mernissi has pointed out that the prophet (œ) never meted out any injustice to his wives in any part of his life and never did hamdard islamicus 207 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 any kind of discrimination between them. ibn sa‘d is reported to have said that the prophet (œ) never laid his hand on his wives or a slave or a person.18 the behaviour of the prophet (œ) was always an example for the people around him. however, sometimes, very kind and merciful behavior of the prophet (œ) for women bothered some men as they were having lurking fear of women becoming to defy their husband and show rebel attitude. based on íadêth of ibn sa‘d, mernissi has also added that the prophet (œ) always objected to women being beaten. some people accused women to have created a chaotic atmosphere in the family and made complaint to the prophet (œ) and hence they tried to justify women beating. the prophet (œ) declared that only the worst man could apply these kinds of cruel methods such as beating a woman. mernissi has also mentioned about a project of the prophet (œ) about gender equality during madinah period. mernissi further clarified that islam is as a consistent system of values and that the prophet muíammad’s equalitarian project is based on a detail of the arising of women’s free will as a situation that the organization of society should have considered19. thus, a woman has her finger on the pulse that is related to society and hence she declares her opinion about such issues. analyzing various aíadêth and qu’rénic verses, she concludes that they emerged out of a particularly critical point in the history of islam, when internal and external pressures threatened muhammad (œ), his wives and the fledgling religion. she claims that despite the “science” of íadêth interpretation, some elites continued to misinterpret the meanings of íadêth to serve their own way of thinking and agenda. this led to the exclusion of women and the embedding of pre-islamic tribal misogyny within the islamic tradition. mernissi identifies two aíadêth in particular as critical weapons in the male arsenal in continuing debates against female equality. the first, transmitted initially by a companion called abu bakr (r.a.), states, “those who entrust their affairs to women will never know prosperity.” the second, originated by abu hurayrah (r.a), both places women in the same polluting category as animals as well as excluding them from sacred space. according to íadêth science, the transmitters of íadêth must be both qualified and reliable for their íadêth to be valid. for both these originators, mernissi argues, this is not the case. examining the history and the reputations of both abu bakr and abu hurayrah (r.a.), she believes that both had personal reasons for the origination of such hamdard islamicus 208 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 anti-female íadêth. moreover, both men had reputations as liars. nevertheless, these aíadêth became part of the tradition and men continued to rely upon them. this runs contrary to the duty of muslims to question everything, even “authentic” íadêth. mernissi thus justifies her examination of these aíadêth and of the tradition in which they became entrenched not as counter to muslim practice but as part of it. mernissi states that the íadêth about communities where women coming to power wouldn’t get better has been rejected and discussed by many people in spite of the fact that bukhéri and other scholars have regarded it as authentic. again, according to her, canonists have not come to an agreement about the implementation of íadêths in terms of the relation between women and politics. it has been certain that there have been ones using the íadêth to keep women away from decisionmaking mechanisms. on the other hand, there have been others who think such arguments as groundless and far from convincing. mernissi has said that taberi has been one of them, and she has thought taberi did not find the argument sufficiently grounded in terms of women’s being deprived from decision-making mechanisms and isolated in politics20. 3. critique to the feminist interpretation aysha a. hidayatullah21 aysha hidayatullah has criticised22 the so-called feminist interpretation of the qur’én. she focuses on three methods of feminist interpretation of the qur’én: 1. historical contextualization method, in this case the historical conditions during the time of revelations of the verses must be understood and must read in the light of the changing circumstances in order to apply those principles in the current context. 2. intra textual method, in this method the verses are not interpreted individually rather they are comprehended and compared with verses that are related to the same context. 3. there are two aspects of tawíêdê paradigm to interpret the issue: firstly, claiming the male supremacy over the women is a form of shirk since god, being supreme, has all the powers and attribute of supremacy possessed by him alone and secondly, believing that the true and final interpretation of the qur’én can never be exactly achieved because the true divine meaning can only be known to the god. hamdard islamicus 209 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 she identifies two common issues in the feminist interpretations. firstly, the claim of gender differences is not clearly found in their arguments if the both gender (male and female) has any difference physically or psychologically but they claim perfect equality without clarifying natural differences. secondly, certain verses are very crystal clear and hence cannot be interpreted differently from the traditional exegeses. the verse (iv:34) uses the word ìaraba which clearly means ‘to beat’ thereby giving permission to husbands to hit their wives in severe circumstances. thus, it clearly shows the male control and sadly refuses the apologetic explanations of the feminist. hidayatullah however concludes that to address the questions about gender equality and injustices in the qur’én is rather a difficult task and sometimes it causes a threat to one’s faith but consequently it can also lead to finding new possibilities of interpreting the qur‘én. conclusion no feminist muslim scholars have denied the divine nature of qur’én, but to them, the conventional interpretations of the qur’én seem to be responsible for the misogynistic and patriarchal understandings. the methodology of approaching the text is also a major factor in employing the process of interpretation which can be termed as hermeneutical approach to get a better understanding of the divine intent. though, these female scholars speak about social justice in a more feminist point of view. but their assertion is a point of reflection that the qur‘én was a catalyst for changes in political, social, spiritual and intellectual lives of the pagan arabs. similarly the qur‘én can also be a catalyst for change in the present times of muslims and non-muslims if understood away from the presuppositions and presumed notions of some traditional interpreters and commentators. however, feminists’ interpretations seem to be an apologetic attempt made to reinterpret the verses showing male control and command. their interpretation more focuses on highlighting historical context and tradition of that age which differs with the contemporary era. however, interpretation may incorporate changed circumstances of various ages but essence and core of qur‘énic text should not be compromised from its real intents. moreover, the arabic words fail to support the feminist interpretation as it deviates from its original meaning to a distorted indefinite meaning. the feminists’ claim that traditional explanation of the verses hamdard islamicus 210 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 has been inflicted with male dominant society of that age does not hold true as the holy prophet (œ) has explained the issue by his moral precepts and practices in that age itself. there is no denying to the fact that the practice adopted by the prophet muíammad (œ) was meant to establish justice to the both genders. however, there is a pressing need to explore the major causes and find solution to the existing issues related to genderinequalities and injustices prevailing in the society. the modern concept of gender-equality to be analysed in the light of qur’énic texts and authentic íadêths rather resorting to go for apologetic interpretation of canonical texts by accepting the modern concept of gender-equality in toto. hence, in view of the changing circumstances of present world, the solution must be explored in the light of canonical text and precepts and practices of the holy prophet (œ) reported authentically without compromising the canonical textual meanings. the flexibility of the message of the qur’én has been reflected in the interpretation ability of the scholars to faithfully represent its text in accordance with the milieu of their respective times. hence, under new approach, modern scholars have also tried to attempt in this respect. however, it is matter of investigation as how far their interpretation has digressed from intent of qur‘énic text without corrupting it. as a matter of ijtihad, there is possibility of committing mistake or reaching correctness in their interpretation. qur’én as an eternal divine book is universal and timeless. hence, there is a need of continuous interpretation for the meaning of qur’énic texts in contemporary context and situations with the analysis of the past ones. all the works of tafsêr bir-ré’y are attempts of the human mind which termed as ijtihéd i.e. one’s exertion and strive to reach to the best understanding keeping in mind the best interest of the people and the divine intent. there is always room to gain new insight and depth in understanding by using our intellects and reasoning. the oft-repeated call of the qur’én to the human being is to use human intellect and thinking to find the answers and understand the universe towards the realization of the creator. since establishing a discrimination free socially just society can be achieved through divine rulings derived from the qur’én. hence, understanding of the qur’én without considering it a historical text should be made in space and time and should not be interpreted outside the context and spirit. hamdard islamicus 211 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 notes and references 1. progressive muslims: on justice, gender, and pluralism edited by omid safi, oneworld publication 2008, england. https://epdf.tips/progressive-muslims-onjustice-gender-and-pluralism.html 2. abdullah yusuf ali, the holy qur‘én – english translation (2010) 3. amina wadud (born in 1952) is an american muslim woman with a progressive focus on qur‘én exegesis (interpretation of the holy text). her research specialities include gender and qur‘énic studies. her major works include: qur‘én and woman: rereading the sacred text from a woman’s perspective; inside the gender jihad: women’s reform in islam. however she has been heavily criticized by people for her outspoken progressive views and alleged to propagate the ideology which doesn’t conform with established principles of islamic teachings. she also courted controversy by embarking on delivering a friday sermon and leading the mixed prayer. 4. see amina wadud. qur‘én and women(1999) 5. the qur’én, vol. iv, v. 34. 6. a disorder between married couple (amina wadud & syed qutb); the term nushuz has been applied to both men and women in the qur’én. when it is applied to the wife it is in regard to the husband. many believe it implies a rebellion, disloyalty, or disobedience to the husband. it cannot explicitly mean this because nushuz is used in the qur’én regarding both men and women. wadud, amina (1999). 7. see wadud (1999). 8. see wadud amina. inside the gender jihad (2007) 9. asma barlas (born in 1950), is a pakistani-american writer and academic. her specialties include comparative and international politics, islam and qur’énic hermeneutics, and women’s studies. she criticized patriarchal mode of qur’énic interpretation in her book: believing women” in islam: unreading patriarchal interpretations of the qur’én. 10. smith, jane i, p. 481. (hartford seminary). “believing women” in islam. unreading patriarchal interpretations of the qur’én.” (book review). the muslim world, fall, 2002, vol. xcii, pp. 3-4, 481-483. h.w. wilson wn: 0228801584012. “the argument of her book, however, which is to refute the claim that the qur’én in any way supports patriarchy, is based on her insistence that contemporary muslims must take responsibility for the recovery of the true and proper meaning of the sacred text. that muslims have not determined criteria for generating a “textually legitimate reading of the qur’én” she identifies as both a hermeneutical and theological failure. “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ %22believing_women%22_in_islam#cite_ref-smithp481_1-1 11. see gender and equality in muslim family law, (2014), p. 241. 12. see barlas, “believing women” in islam: unreading patriarchal interpretations of the qur’én (2002) 13. see riyani,irma & ecep. god is beyond sex/gender (2017) 14. “the believers, men and women, are auliya’ (helpers, supporters, friends, protectors) of one another….” (the qur’én: vol. xi, v. 71). hamdard islamicus 212 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 15. fatema mernissi (born in 1940) was a muslim feminist writer and sociologist whose works are concerned with analysis of historical development of islamic thought and its modern manifestation. hence, her works are focused on women and islam from a contemporary as well as from a historical perspective. her major contribution include: islam and democracy, the veil and the male elite: a feminist interpretation of women’s rights in islam, women’s rebellion & islamic memory, beyond the veil: male-female dynami in muslim society, women and islam: an historical and theological enquiry. 16. see mernissi fatema. the veil and the male elite (1991). 17. see koc. fatima mernissi and amina wadud (2016). 18. ibid. 19. ibid, mernissi 1991, p. 184. 20. see mernessi (1991). 21. aysha a. hidayatullah is a professor at the department of theology and religious studies, the university of san francisco, where she teaches courses on islam, gender, and race. she has done a comprehensive analysis of contemporary feminist interpretations of the qur’én developed since the late twentieth century. she argues that their interpretations rely on claims about feminist justice that are not fully supported by the text and hence there is a need of a major revision to their exegetical foundations. 22. see hidayatullah ayesha. feminist edges of the qur’én (2014). bibliography: aboul-ezz, merna (2017). book review: feminist edges of the qur’an. journal of international women’s studies, 18(2), pp 293-295 abdullah, yusuf ali (2010). the holy qur‘én: english translation, noida, india: goodword books. barlas, asma (2002). “believing women” in islam: unreading patriarchal interpretations of the qur‘én, university of texas press, austin; 1st edition. retrieved from www.researchgate.net ghafournia, nafiseh (2017). towards a new interpretation of qur‘én, vol. iv p. 34, journal of women of the middle east and the islamic world (hawwa), pp. 114 hidaytullah, aysha a (2014). feminist edges of the qur‘én, new york: oxford university press. kassam, zayn (2004). book review “believing women” in islam: unreading patriarchal interpretations of the qur‘én. the arab studies journal, vol. 11/12, no. 2/1 (fall 2003/ spring 2004), pp. 156-160. koc, cengiz (2016). fatima mernissi and amina wadud: patriarchal dominance and misinterpretation of sacred texts in islamic countries. international journal of humanities and social science, 6(8), pp. 176-184. manea, e (2011). rereading the qur‘én: a muslim woman’s perspective. journal of the dutch-flemish levinas society, 2011(xvi), pp. 21-29. hamdard islamicus 213 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 mernissi, fatima (1991). the veil and the male elite: a feminist interpretation of women’s rights in islam, mary jo lakeland (translator), new york: basic books. mir-hosseini, ziba; vogt, kari; larsen, lena; moe, christian(2013). gender and equality in muslim family law, new york: i.b.tauris & co ltd.. riyani, irma & ismail, ecep (2017). “god is beyond sex/gender”: muslim feminist hermeneutical method to the qur‘én. advances in social science, education and humanities research (assehr), 137, pp. 151-155. saeed, abdullah (2008). qur‘én – an introduction. usa and canada: routledge. wadud, amina (1999). qur‘én and women: rereading the sacred text from a woman’s perspective, new york: oxford university. wadud, amina. (2007).inside the gender jihad – women’s reform in islam, london: oneworld publication. f:\e\islamicus\2020\n0. 1\new folder\a hebrew skopos.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 29 a hebrew-skopos approach to translating muqaùùa‘ót in the qur’ónic oaths alalddin al-tarawneh assistant professor, department of translation, faculty of arts, zarqa university, p.o. box 132222, zarqa 13132, jordan e-mail: aaltarawneh@zu.edu.jo in qur’én translations, the muqaïïa‘āt offer their audience a fertile ground for debate because of the absence of unanimous agreement on their meanings and function in the original arabic text. to address the problem, this article presents a different approach to interpret the muqaïïa‘āt in arabic and then attempts to convey this meaning in the translation of the qur’én. the new translation is more intelligible than the current transliterations or ambiguous statements found in many versions. this aim is fulfilled by considering the translation studies (ts) perspective through its grounding in the skopos theory. moreover, the hebrew language, despite the rejection of early and recent muslim scholars, is deemed pivotal to the elucidation of the muqaïïa‘āt. it highlights the role of muqaïïa‘āt in discharging the function of a thematic summary of what is to follow in a particular chapter (as introductory remarks to the entire content of a chapter). hebrew evidences that translators of the qur’én should go beyond the literalist approach and muslim scholars should deter inaccuracies driven from personal and intuitive attempts and contemplate resources beyond the qur’én. keywords: muqaïïa‘āt, qur’én, skopos, translation studies (ts), hebrew, literalist approach. the qur’én incorporates numerous ambiguous verses and many scholars have attempted to personally overcome their indeterminacy. such instances are found in the muqaïïa‘āt (disjoined letters), also known as fawātií (openers). these muqaïïa‘āt offer muslims a fertile ground for debate. the situation becomes extremely confusing when these verses 30 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... are seen from the lens of qur’én translation because the ambiguity is exported to an audience whose native language is not arabic and who seek clear information about islam and the qur’én. unfortunately, the muqaïïa‘āt have never been paid their due attention in qur’én translations because of the absence of unanimous agreement on their meanings and function in the original arabic text. hence, only speculations made on personal opinions exist. in this context, the present article presents a different approach to interpret the muqaïïa‘āt in arabic and then attempts to convey this meaning in the translation of the qur’én. in so doing, the translation is likely to sound more intelligible than transliterations or ambiguous statements. those who use qur’én translations, whether or not they are muslims, try to achieve a viable understanding of the text; however, this aim is not fulfilled through transliteration and/or statements such as the muqaïïa‘āt are only known by allāh. the qur’én urges people to seek knowledge‘… are those who know equal to those who do not? only those who have understanding are mindful (alqur’én:xxxix:9). this paper presents the translation studies (ts) perspective through its grounding in the skopos theory that considers all translation to bean aim-oriented task. the objective of the article is to provide an intelligible translation of the muqaïïa‘āt for readers of english translations of the qur’én. the paper contends that the current translations of the muqaïïa‘āt circulated in many qur’én translations are inefficient and are inconsistent with the qur’énic siyāq (context), particularly the siyāq al-naîî (textual context). it argues that the muqaïïa‘āt have not been paid their due attention in the qur’én’s commentaries per se, as well as in the english translations of the sacred text. the paper also argues that hebrew is pivotal to the elucidation of the muqaïïa‘āt although many early and recent muslim scholars reject this premise and claim that the qur’én is a pure arabic text that is free from any foreign linguistic elements. therefore, this article explores the role that may be performed by the hebrew language in the postulation of a logical and sound interpretation of the muqaïïa‘āt in the qur’én and in qur’én translations. this proposition is not arbitrary or built on speculations. rather, evidence is provided to support this quest. the translations used in the discussion are selected on the basis of a question asked of many islamic institutions located in english-speaking countries (see note 47). the instances of the muqaïïa‘āt are extensive and they cannot all be included in the present exploration. the scope of this article is thus limited to the muqaïïa‘āt hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 31 found in the qur’énic oaths (five cases). the article begins by exploring the background and the main concepts required for the discussion: defining the muqaïïa‘āt, introducing the skopos theory, providing an overview of qur’én translations, highlighting the meanings and functions of the muqaïïa‘āt from the perspective of muslim scholars, and acquainting readers with qur’én translators and orientalists. subsequently, the article builds the connections between hebrew, arabic, and the qur’én, which leads to the central discussion and the conclusions. the muqaïïa‘āt these letters form the opening āyāt (verses) of 29 sūrahs (chapters) in the qur’én and contain fourteen different letters that are considered to be an integral part of any chapter. the letter(s) can stand independently or as a part of the initial āya (verse). as written text, the letters are orthographically joined like a word(s) even though they are treated independently when the verse is recited. thus, each letter is pronounced as if it were unconnected to the others. the signification of the muqaïïa‘āt remains a mystery; indeed, these verses are usually known as the enigmatic letters of the qur’én and have frustrated and intrigued muslims since the revelation of the qur’én. this inscrutability applies also to the original text, and not only to the translations of the qur’én. in fact, the search for an interpretation of such letters in qur’én translations results in transliterations and/or statements such as these letters are one of the miracles of the qur’én and none but allah (alone) knows their meanings1. in the same vein, qur’én commentaries offer explanations such as the individual letters in the beginning of some chapters are among those things whose knowledge allah has kept only for himself2. over time, scholars have tried their best to penetrate the fog that surrounds the meaning of these letters but unfortunately, the general agreement is that they are mysterious3. muslim scholars, qur’én translators, and western orientalists have made numerous assumptions about the intended function(s) of the muqaïïa‘āt. the limitations of space do not allow an extensive explanation of this topic, and only a few of the hypotheses can be mentioned. to start with, muhammad asad admits in his translation of the qur’én, the message of the qur’én, that the intended function of the muqaïïa‘āt has confused commentators from the earliest times. no evidence exists of the prophet ) explaining their purpose or of the companions having 32 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... ever asked him for any interpretation4. he adds that the companions and their immediate successors regarded the muqaïïa‘āt as abbreviations of certain words relating to allāh, and they tried to discover the meanings of the assumed contractions without success because all such interpretations are highly arbitrary and, therefore, devoid of any real usefulness5. asad concluded that the muqaïïa‘āt represent the inimitability and the wondrous nature of the qur’én that is beyond the human perception6. his comment that the muqaïïa‘āt were not open to debate since the time of the prophet ) is striking because this absence of questioning is not observed in the ×adīth (the prophetic tradition). put differently, it could be argued that the muqaïïa‘āt were not strange to the companions (for more elaboration on this point, see hebrew and arabic). according to another famous qur’én translator yousuf ali, the muqaïïa‘āt (in his words, the abbreviated letters) represent a case of mysticism: a muslim has to believe in them despite the dictates of reason, and their interpretation is only known to allah7. however, in a bid to offer a probable interpretation, ali links the muqaïïa‘āt to the verse that follows. in other words, ali makes meaning based on personal interpretation to establish the relationship between the letter(s) and the textual context (the words immediately after the muqaïïa‘āt)8. according to this article, this opinion would certainly be plausible if the proposed minor modification is applied. the present paper views the textual context as not limited merely to the words that follow the muqaïïa‘āt; it posits that the mysterious letters pertain to the context of the entire chapter in terms of the main theme(s) (see the discussion). the qur’én: english meanings by øaíīí international is another well-known qur’én translation. it refers to the muqaïïa‘āt as a revelation made to all but known only to allāh9. abdel haleem, a famous qur’én translator, asserts the existence of various interpretations of the muqaïïa‘āt10. one of the readings claims that they indicate that the qur’én consists of such letters that signify their own language; however, people who received the letters could not decipher them. he adds another possible interpretation of a stylistic nature and proposes that these letters are used as exclamatory devices to attract the listener’s attention just like an emphatic ‘no!’ or ‘indeed!’ at a start of a poem in the manner of the voice of the archangel gabriel who used this unusual way of calling attention, highlighting the fact that these letters are nothing like normal speech11. just like the innumerable other postulations, this opinion represents an attempt but does not yield decisive hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 33 meaning. nevertheless, there is fair ground to accept this view, but with a modification that limiting the muqaïïa‘āt merely to the exclamatory functionis implausible, as will be discussed in the later segments of this paper. it is pertinent, at this juncture to record some opinions of qur’én exegetists besides qur’én translators: ibn kathir elucidates that the knowledge of the muqaïïa‘āt is reserved only with allāh as nothing was reported by any of the many companions such as abu bakr, umar, uthmān, and ‘óli (r.a.).12 he also adds that the scholars did not agree on one opinion or explanation regarding this subject13. al-tabari’s commentary on the qur’én lists many ideas with regard to the muqaïïa‘āt. he starts by suggesting that the letters are used either as names for the qur’én, titles for chapters, as a secret of the qur’én, or to denote the greatest name of god14. he indicates that the letters (his personal opinion) were intentionally made discrete by allah who did not join them together to signify many meanings, and not just one15. another exegetist, alsha rāwi, does not support the quest to discover the meaning of these letters because allāh intentionally made them discrete16. the subject of the muqaïïa‘āt was also tackled by non-muslim orientalists. the german scholar the odor nöldeke states that the initial letters heading 29 chapters of the qur’én make no sense17. he asserts that these letters did not belong to muhammad’s text, and may represent the initials of those who were engaged in inscribing the oral revelation of the qur’én (monograms). through negligence, they may have become incorporated into the final form of the qur’én. nöldeke concludes on the meaning of the muqaïïa‘āt that none of the efforts in this direction, whether by muslim scholars or by europeans, have led to convincing  results (ibid). george sale, the british orientalist, regards muqaïïa‘āt as peculiar marks in the qur’én that function to conceal several profound mysteries18. he remarks that the meaning of these letters can be estimated by investigating their numerical value through the jewish kabbala art of gemtria19. palmer, another british orientalist, did not adopt a specific hypothesis to explain muqaïïa‘āt; however, his views lie between nöldeke’s theory (monograms) and the prevailing opinion of muslim scholars (allah alone knows what muqaïïa‘āt mean)20. it may be noted that scholars, muslims or not, do not agree about the function of the muqaïïa‘āt. if an opinion must be adopted, it would be the majority’s attribution of the knowledge of the letters solely to allah. in fact, those who were the closest to the prophet( ), the direct 34 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... source of revelation, summarised this dilemma. in the words of óbu bakr (r.a.), the companion of the prophet ) and the first caliph: in every divine write (kitab) there is [an element of] mystery and the mystery of the qur’én is [indicated] in the openings of [some of] the surahs21. moreover, abdel haleem emphasises the same point by saying that all the attempts to explain the muqaïïa‘āt are just speculations and this is why statements such as ‘god [allāh] knows best’ are frequently found after any interpretation is asserted22. this article proposes a perspective that is distinguished from all the assumptions mentioned above regarding what the muqaïïa‘āt are and why they are inscribed in the qur’én. the community where the qur’én was revealed was made of believers (jews and christians) and non believers (idolaters). both groups spoke arabic but the former additionally know other semitic languages such as hebrew and aramaic (their scriptures were written in them) which are very similar23. the latter group was aware of languages beyond arabic but did not use them in everyday verbal intercourse24 because of their connections with their community (jews and christians) and because of their profession as traders (oscillating between arabia and the territories of the persian and byzantine empires at different points of time)25. having established the linguistic awareness of the community at that time, the message of the qur’én is of an inclusive intent: we have not sent you [muhammad] but to be a mercy for mankind (al-qur’én, xxi:107). therefore, it is proposed that the muqaïïa‘āt are special exclamatory remarks to attract the specific attention of the jews and christians of that time. building on this theory, the interpretation of the muqaïïa‘āt should not follow the personal logic of a translator or a commentator. it should rather be rooted in the language of origin of these letters. this point about the source language must be stressed by the fact that the muqaïïa‘āt are not found in usual arabic as it was known in the past or as it is known in the present26. as discussed above, many interpretations of the muqaïïa‘āt as they occur in the qur’én per se have been suggested, and none of the readings is well-supported. most explanations are based merely on personal efforts and do not offer adequate evidence. thus, translations of the muqaïïa‘āt are executed through transliterations as may be seen in many current qur’én translations. that said, the present study proposes a novel way to disambiguate the muqaïïa‘āt and to solve its mystery by resorting to investigating the role that may have been performed by hebrew at the time of the qur’én’s original inscription. this opinion may evoke the disagreement of many, but not all, muslim scholars who reject hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 35 the biblical account of the israelites in general, and of hebrew in particular, as aids through which to explain the qur’én and the muqaïïa‘āt27. the muqaïïa‘āt in the qur’énic oaths the scope of the muqaïïa‘āt is extensive as they encompass 29 chapters, an expanse that is too vast to be recounted here. thus, this article does not treat all the muqaïïa‘āt in the qur’én. the scope of this study is restricted only to the muqaïïa‘āt found in the qur’énic oaths as indicated in the title as an initial step to instigate further research. the muqaïïa‘āt are used five times in the qur’énic oaths and these will be discussed in later sections. the present study limits itself to the oaths because of the few instances of the muqaïïa‘āt that may be suitably delved into given the limits of the paper’s word count. further, the approach proposed in the present paper to muqaïïa‘āt translation is applicable to other instances. in other words, the application of the interpretation and translation techniques28 would remain identical, so oaths are used as a sample for the present study whose results can be deemed representative. the language of the qur’én encompasses a stylistic diversity: strong and dramatic language is employed, evocative similes and vivid imagery abound, dialogues and oaths are combined with a direct divine address to the prophet muhammad ( ), to believers, and to nonbelievers29. the qur’én contains copious oaths ascribed to allāh (q. iv:65), the prophet muhammad ) (q. xv:72), the qur’én (q. l:1), creatures (q. liii:1, q. xcv:1), natural phenomena (q. lxxxi:18), places (q. xcv:2-3) and other phenomena. such pledges lend force and seriousness to an utterance. this style was very common and is believed to be akin to the rhymed prose of pre-islamic soothsayers30. the context is pivotal to the understanding of the oaths in the qur’én because some of them imply nouns described by an active participle. this practice is common in arabic: the meaning is understood by the listener or the reader without any felt need for the omitted noun31. for instance, sūrat al-øāffāt (q.xxxvii) begins with an oath waøāffāti. al-øāffāt is plural and its root is îf (row, line, lineup, queue, to line up). usually, the term is translated as by those lined up in rows or by the aligners aligning; however, it is understood to denote angel seven without the addition of a specific noun as the verses that follow are taken into account. the determination of the instances of oaths that include the 36 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... muqaïïa‘āt for discussion in this paper is not arbitrary. a review of some books dedicated to qur’énic i‘rāb (parsing) reveals specific cases where oaths are combined with the muqaïïa‘āt32. these occurrences are found in chapters yā-sīn (q.xxxvi), øād (q.xxxviii), al-úukhruf (q.xliii), qāf (q.l), and finally, al-qalam (q.lxviii). hebrew and arabic the connection between arabic and hebrew must be established before discussing the muqaïïa‘āt in the qur’énic oaths to justify why and how hebrew may be utilised as a basis for the interpretation of the muqaïïa‘āt. hebrew, like arabic, is a sematic language, though the two languages do not share identical features. hebrew comprises 22 letters while arabic has 28 letters. hebrew alphabets are pictographic: each letter represents a picture (as examined in the archaeological records of ancient semitic inscriptions). pictographs have names and convey a meaning whose relationship to the pictograph is established by function, and not by appearance33. for instance, the hebrew letter (fig. 1) (‘shin’) is a pictograph of teeth (the appearance) (fig. 2) and the functional meaning thereof is teeth, sharp, or press (chewing)34. the same pictographic process is applicable to arabic which shares the same semitic roots and was evolved from other sematic languages like syriac and aramaic, including hebrew35. fig. 1: fig. 2 shin however, arabic and hebrew unlike in terms of the meanings of the letters that form the two alphabets. if an arabic dictionary is consulted for a letter, there would be no separate entry stating the meaning(s) of the particular letter. conversely, hebrew letters are accorded independent entries that record all the possible meanings, direct or indirect, of the letter as it stands alone. in fact, every hebrew letter signifies a direct meaning based on its pictogram, and an indirect connotation on the basis of its use by the users of the language. for example, the hebrew letter (fig. 3) (beth) means house or tent (direct), and healthy, fat, to scatter, to blow, to sew, to turn, or to bring (indirect)36. fig. 3: beth hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 37 apart from this distinctive feature of hebrew, languages tend to have foreign linguistic elements imported from other tongues. the foreignness of some linguistic elements found in languages results from the linguistic interactions between users of different languages. this type of inter communication causes loan words that are adopted from one language (the donor) and added and incorporated into another with no or very little modification37. for example, the arabic word istabraq (thick silk) is originally persian but it found its way into arabic and is used by arabs. the concept of istabraq was a totally foreign notion with no extant word that could reference this unfamiliar object. thus, arabic speakers had to coin new vocabulary or to just use the readily available istabraq without any modification.37. another example is the english word abracadabra which bears great similarity to the term used in arabic (ābrakadābra). this aramaic origin word is used in magical texts or in spells cast by wizards in medieval europe and signify there has come to what was spoken38. borrowing or lending words is a natural phenomenon that does not degrade a language or value one language over another. in fact, borrowing enriches languages and provides a new word-stock for a variety of purposes. by linking the distinctive meaning of hebrew letters and the foreign elements found in languages, it may be said that the qur’én correspondingly contains words that originated in non-arabic languages, particularly hebrew. this assertion does not discredit the status of the qur’én. in fact, the task of interpreting some of the verses in the qur’én is difficult, especially if the commentator is not familiar with the linguistic and poetic arabic protocols used before the advent of islam, the al-jāhiliyyā (the pre-islamic period)39. while the language of the qur’én was not strange to arabs, the way this language was employed was unique. to cite just one example, ibn ×ayān draws the qur’énic word firdaus (garden) in an attempt to interpret the qur’én by making use of arabic poetry40. he states that this word is not arabic and is derived, in his words, from the roman language, meaning latin or greek. he mentions several potential significations such as garden, paradise, grapes or valleys full of trees. by resorting to several pre-islamic poetic verses, he settles on the meaning of garden. it is believed that at the time of the revelation, arabic was a hybrid language that drew its vocabulary from varied roots, particularly the semitic languages such as hebrew and aramaic41. this historical truth underscores the present assumption of the muqaïïa‘āt having hebrew origins that permeated into the text of 38 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... the qur’én. the qur’én is indeed the first book ever written or compiled in the arabic alphabet.42 since arabic is a phonetic language whose written form is correlated with the pronunciation of the words, the muqaïïa‘āt were transcribed into arabic letters during the process of the compilation of the qur’én. this transcription was executed by combining all the sounds of the muqaïïa‘āt into arabic as individual letters or words. but when they are recited, they are treated as independent sounds, which is unusual for arabic. to illustrate, two qur’énic verses (q ii:1) and (q xciv:1) start with the same word م however, they are not ;ال read in the same manner because the former is a muqaïïa‘āt and read as ‘alif lām mīm, while the latter is an ordinary word read as alam (as the initial word in a rhetorical question). moreover, the unique treatment of the muqaïïa‘āt is highlighted by the prophet muhammad ( ) as he demonstrated the rewards of reciting the qur’én: for every letter that is recited exists a reward; ‘alif lām mīm is not a letter with a reward, but three letters with three rewards43. in sum, since the objective of qur’én translations is to communicate its message clearly rather than to create an ambiguous rendering, muqaïïa‘āt are to be addressed as if they are components that hold meanings whenever a translation is initiated. the qur’én and qur’én translations a qur’én translation cannot equal the qur’én. it is a fact that translations of the qur’én are merely its interpretations in different languages. it must also be acknowledged that the qur’én is sacred only in arabic. it is worth remembering here that the eloquent arabs to whom the qur’én was revealed were unable to produce anything similar to this holy text. this quality of being unmatched renders translation a complicated task if the rendition intends to imitate the original text. fischer remarks: a koran translation is no easy task. the renowned arabists, scholars such as reiske, sacy, fleischer, de goeje, nöldeke and goldziher, among others, have avoided it, at least partially because they knew of its great difficulties44. the belief that the qur’én is the literal word of allah in arabic prevents many translators from taking anything other than the literal approach to the qur’énic text, causing numerous unintelligible and ambiguous occurrences in the target language45. one such case pertains to the muqaïïa‘āt. these letters are already complicated in the original text, but their inscrutability is exacerbated by the general resistance to venturing into this scholarship. this reluctance probably dates hundreds of years back as the majority of muslim scholars such as al-shāfi‘i, ibn hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 39 jarīr or abu ‘ubaidah did not accept the idea that the qur’én contains foreign elements46. therefore, the present paper attempts to provide a translation of the muqaïïa‘āt rather than a transliteration from the ts perspective. this process begins with the interpretation of the muqaïïa‘āt in the original text and then communicating those interpreted ideas into english. however, some points and concepts concerning the topic at hand must be clarified through ts. in the ts approach, the same text can have varied translated versions into the same target language (tl) to meet specific objectives or to serve particular audiences. this view forms the core of the functionalist school of ts. according to this viewpoint, translation is a process of communicating meaning as understood within its context rather than delivering linguistic correspondence, which is the principal objective of the linguistic school of thought in ts. in other words, the functional school regards translation not as a match of linguistic items between two languages, but as the meaning that is understood within a context and by means of extra-textual resources. out of this school emerges the skopos theory to help translators accomplish this mission to transfer meaning from one linguistic universe to another. etymologically, the word skopos is borrowed from greek and indicates  the sense of purpose or aim. in ts, this word becomes a technical term denoting a type of translation commissioned for a specific purpose. hans j. vermeer introduced the notion of skopos in the late 1970s, asserting that the final shape and form of a translation in the tl is governed by the skopos assigned to it. put differently, vermeer views translation as an action, and every action has a purpose47. the work ability of skopos vests in supplying information about the target text in terms of the function it is intended to serve, the expected audience, time, place and other relevant details. having received the requisite information, the translator then determines suitable approaches or techniques to fulfil this aim. skopos does not propose that a specific mechanism should be adopted by the translator. any means of translation is justified as long as it serves the skopos assigned to the translation task. besides, a text may be translated in myriad ways depending on the number of skopoi (plural) assigned to the commission translation commission. the muqaïïa‘āt, as has previously been noted, offer fertile ground for controversy in terms of their vastly different possible interpretations. the situation is different for the translation of the muqaïïa‘āt because qur’én translations offer transliterations and/or statements such as ‘only 40 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... allāh knows what they mean’.in this context, the skopos of this paper is to interpret the muqaïïa‘āt as found in the oath instances through the consideration of the hebrew language and to place the outcome of such deliberation as a translation that may be served to english speakers. this task necessitates the provision of a new method of interpretation to extract the meaning of the original and to subsequently transform the obtained signification into english. interpreting and translating the muqaïïa‘āt this article is an attempt to establish an understanding of the muqaïïa‘āt. this perception is built by making use of hebrew to penetrate the controversial meaning of the muqaïïa‘āt. it is a fact that many efforts have already been made in this regard but such efforts do not prevent the continuance of further endeavours. the present study proposes a new insight that is supported by evidence to mitigate the influence of personal explanations that are found in many extant instances. some hebrew dictionaries are consulted to effect the interpretation of the muqaïïa‘āt and to determine the meaning of the corresponding letter in hebrew. in other words, as the muqaïïa‘āt represent separate and independent letters when they are recited, these letters have equivalents in hebrew. the meaning of the hebrew equivalents is researched to their semantic potentials and they are compared with the qur’énic siyāq (context). siyāq performs a fundamental role in building the comprehension of the qur’énic meaning and therefore, in the translation of such signification. siyāq al-naîî (textual context) is particularly of great importance to the present paper. it denotes the linguistic parts that appear before and after a given termor phrase and that influence and limit the meaning of that word or expression48. put succinctly, words may have shades of meaning when they stand alone as they are read in dictionaries; however, their meanings become more specific once they are used in phrases or sentences. the application of componential analysis (ca) to isolate the semantic component of a word thus becomes vital. the present attempt to decipher the meaning of the hebrew letters and to limit the shades of meaning takes into account the context or the recurrent theme of the entire chapter rather than merely the surrounding words or phrases. the article uses three qur’én translations to highlight the current status of the muqaïïa‘āt. these translations were not selected randomly. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 41 a question was posed to a number of islamic institutions and their responses were analysed to choose the three49: the qur’én: a new translation by m. a. s. abdel haleem, the qur’én: english meaning by øaíīí international, and translation of the meanings of the nobel qur’én in the english language by al-hilali and khan. further, as described above, it was decided to investigate the instances of the muqaïïa‘āt is used in the oaths. cases of the muqaïïa‘āt in the oaths yā-sīn (al-qur’én:xxxvi) yā-sīn is the first chapter that contains the case of an oath where the muqaïïa‘āt are used. the muqaïïa‘āt are yā and sīn and the chapter is named after them. they are written as one word standing alone as the first independent verse. they are translated as follows in the translations adopted here: a. yā-sīn50. b. yā-sīn (these letters represent one of the miracles of the qur’én, and none but allāh (alone) knows their meanings)51. c. yā, seen (the letters) yā and seen52. these ‘translations’ are merely transliterations and sometimes a short note added to them. reading the translation does not communicate anything valuable other than a sense of mystery. that said, the proposed new insight through hebrew letters described in detail above divulges that yā and sīn correspond respectively to the hebrew letters, (fig. 4) (yud) and (fig. 5) (sāmikh). without any context, (fig. 4) (yud) could mean: hand, handle, place, power, strength, share, portion, make or throw53. similarly, the letter (fig. 5) (sāmikh) could be: support, rely on, trust in, aid, assist or encourage. these are numerous possibilities and therefore, the thematic context becomes crucial. we see in (q.xxxvii:2) an oath (surely made by allāh as these are his literal words) made by the qur’én; and the one being addressed is the prophet muhammad as seen in (q. xxxvi:3). in other words, the context is: i, allāh, swear by the qur’én, the book of wisdom, that you, muhammad, are indeed one of the messengers who follows the right way (preaching monotheism) and so on. the subject matter and the main theme of this chapter refer to 42 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... the antagonistic attitude adopted by the disbelievers toward muhammad ( ) and his message. moreover, allāh consoles the prophet and exhorts the believers to remain steadfast on the path of allāh to be rewarded in the after life54. this being the case and in light of the possible semantic meanings, it can be suggested that yā and sīn respectively mean power/ authority and support. in other words, the muqaïïa‘āt can be interpreted as divine support. this reading supports the view that the muqaïïa‘āt act like thematic summaries of the entire chapter. fig: 4 fig: 5 yud sāmikh øād (al-qur’én:xxxviii) the second chapter considered for this paper and containing an oath is øād. the muqaïïa‘āt in this chapter pertains to one letter, øād, which occursas a part of the first verse, and the entire chapter is named after it. in orthographic and oral representation, the letter stands alone and the three english translations read: a. øād by the qur’én with its reminding55. b. øād [these letters (øād etc.) represent one of the miracles of the qur’én and none but allah (alone) knows their meanings]. by the qur’én full of reminding56. c. øād. by the qur’én containing a reminder57. the same comment as made in the previous case is applicable here. the translation yield no meaning except to underscore the enigma. the signification of øād is not attainable whether it stands alone or is placed within a context. however, the riddle is solved by resorting to hebrew. øād in arabic is equivalent to the hebrew letter (fig. 6) (tsādi). without a context, (fig. 6) (tsādi) could mean fishing-hook, side (of something), hunting, chasing, righteousness, humility. of course, the context of the occurrence of the term would influence the final and most plausible meaning. an important matter with regard to oaths in arabic must be highlighted before an interpretation is proposed. an oath consists of the adāt al-qasam (participle), the ism alqasam (the name by which an oath is made), and the jawāb alqasam (the answer to the oath). to illustrate, wallāhi la’drussana (i swear i will study) is an oath; wa is hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 43 the participle, allāhi is the name of the oath), and la’drussana is the answer. in (q.xxxviii:1), the oath only consists of the participle and the name, and the answer is omitted, and yet the oath is clearly understood: it [the qur’én] is miraculous58, or it is the true book59. returning to the context, allāh begins the chapter with an oath made on the qur’én, a book that serves as a reminder to the people. the arrogance and defiance of the disbelievers form the subject matter and the overall theme of this chapter: they do not want to heed the preaching of the prophet ( ), whom they consider to be inferior. other stories such as david and solomon are mentioned to underline the theme of power and authority and how they affect people, who should repent and recall what they are meant to be. besides, the chapter contains the story of the devil who arrogantly refused allāh’s commands and thought he was superior to humans. the idea of humility and cautioning against arrogance form the recurrent themes of the chapter60. thus, in accordance with the hebrew equivalent letter the meaning of øād could be held as humility; and again, the letter øād would perform the function of summarising the chapter’s theme. fig: 6 tsādi al-zukhruf (q. 43) in the third chapter, al-zukhruf, the muqaïïa‘āt are represented by two letters that are orthographically joined but separated in oral recitation. these letters are íā and mīm which occur together in an independent verse. they are found in the above mentioned translations as follows: a. ha mim61. b. ×ā-mīm. [these letters represent one of the miracles of the qur’én and none but allah (alone) knows their meanings]62. c. ×ā, meem (øaíīí international, 2004, p. 487)63. again, only a transliteration is offered. using hebrew, íā and mīm are found to be equivalent to (fig. 7) (íet) and (fig. 8) (mīm) respectively. the meanings of (fig. 7) (íet) include fence, wall (protection), string, life, divide. on the other hand, (fig. 8) (mīm) could be understood as water, waves, mighty, perfection, completion. of course, these significations 44 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... embody semantic options in the absence of a context. a consideration of the context would limit the meanings to “water” and “divide” because as has been previously asserted, one of the assumptions concerning the muqaïïa‘āt pertains to their underlining of the inclusiveness of the message of the qur’én, particularly for the jews and christians. thus, the muqaïïa‘āt are created in hebrew to attract the attention of these groups and they function as thematic representations of the entire chapter that follows. the chapter al-zukhruf’s theme concerns mischiefs, stubbornness and superstitions of people and the message that allah never held back from sending his prophets. it also mentions the destruction of the wicked who opposed any religion prescribed by allah, and the chapter specifically recounts the history of the pharaoh and moses. having mentioned the theme and taking into consideration the function of inclusiveness of the muqaïïa‘āt, “water divide” may be posited as an allegory, just as the many others used in the qur’én, to the biblical narrative of the exodus (crossing the red sea by parting the water). ×ā and mīm may then be interpreted to allude to the exodus (the splitting of the sea). fig 7: fig 8: íet mīm qāf (al-qur’ān:l) in terms of its structure, the fourth chapter qāf which is almost similar to case 2, øād. it encompasses an oath and a one-letter of muqaïïa‘āt, qāf. the letter is not independent; it is a part of the first verse, and the entire chapter is named after it. in writing and reciting, this letter is separated and is translated in the following manner by the three selected translations: 1. qaf. by the glorious qur’én64. 2. qāf [these letters (qāf, etc.) exemplify one of the miracles of the qur’én and none but allah (alone) knows their meanings]. by the glorious qur’én65. 3. qāf. by the honoured qur’én66. as usual, the translations offer merely transliterations and sometimes append a statement void of any meaningful interpretation. nevertheless, hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 45 hebrew can help provide an explanation of qāf’s denotation. the hebrew letter (fig. 9) (quf) is equivalent to qāf and its dictionary meaning includes back of the head, circle (repetition), revolution (of the sun), sun, horizon, growth or holiness. before beginning the interpretation, the context of the oath in the first āya (q. l:1) must be considered: it consists of adāt alqasam (participle) and ism alqasam (the name by which an oath is made) but the answer is omitted. the answer is expected to be understood based on the basis of the verse that follows. the context covers the theme of the afterlife, particularly the idea of resurrection after death (a dead body turning into dust and scattered bones to be reassembled after years to be raised up as a living body). accordingly, arguments about the possibility of the resurrection are made, and the records of deeds are presented before everyone, and hell and heaven are described67. generally speaking, the theme of after life and resurrection are central to this chapter and considering the hebrew meaning based on this context, the meaning of qāf can be assumed in the sense of growth and revolution, or the idea of resurrection. fig 9: quf al-qalam (al-qur’ān:lxviii) as in øād, the fifth chapter, al-qalam, contains an oath in its first verse and demonstrates one of a muqaïïa‘āt consisting one letter, nūn. however, unlike øād, the entire chapter is not named after the muqaïïa‘āt. orthographically and orally, this letter is treated independently, and it has been translated as follows: 1. nun. by the pen! by all they write!68. 2. nūn [these letters (nūn, etc.) denoteone of the miracles of the qur’én and none but allah (alone) knows their meanings]. by the pen and by what they (the angels) write (in the records of men)69. 3. nūn. by the pen and what they inscribe70. repeating the same pattern, neither the context nor the transliteration defogs the meaning of this letter, which may again, be reasonably interpreted through the intervention of hebrew. the hebrew letter equivalent to arabic nūn is (fig. 10) (nun). without context, it may 46 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... symbolise fish, continue, offspring, heir, perpetuation, emergence, propagate or shine. to elucidate the context, the chapter presents as aconsolation to the prophet who was accused of being mad by disbelievers. the disbelievers also tried to intimidate him and sought to make him compromise with them71. in light of the context, the most suitable meaning is continue, meaning that you, muhammad, should continue in your mission no matter the resistance you face as you are the divine representative chosen to propagate the message of allāh and to make his religion flourish. as a result, nūn is interpreted as keep propagating the message  or keep up. fig 10: nun conclusion the present paper has described seen how many scholars regard the muqaïïa‘āt to be mysterious and ambiguous phenomena in the qur’én and has alluded to the vast numbers of assumptions that have been made about their meanings and functions. the majority of the extant scholarship tends to attribute the knowledge of the muqaïïa‘āt solely to allāh, believing this to be the best resolution to the disagreements on the muqaïïa‘āt’s problematic nature in terms of interpretation. this attitude has led qur’én translators, academics, and exegetists to largely neglect other possibilities of understanding the text of the qur’én. the scholars have particularly disregarded the potential role of hebrew in the elucidation of some parts of the qur’énic text. indeed, the present article ignites a small spark in this regard that may develop into a full-fledged research interest. adopting the linguistic intervention of hebrew would offer two-fold benefits for arabic and non-arabic ones: hebrew would help the former group understand the muqaïïa‘āt in their own language, and the latter would be able to obtaina more logical understanding from the qur’én translations. in other terms, the translation of the muqaïïa‘āt is examined in this paper from the aim-oriented perspective: the skopos to offer a translation that makes sense in english. the handling of the subject of this study is sometimes controversial as many early and current muslim scholars have refused to admit the intervention of foreign languages inattempting a more comprehensive understanding of the qur’én. it must be noted, however, that elements of borrowed linguistic terms are used in religious hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 47 rituals every day, including the word āmīn (amen), which is of hebrew origin and means so be it72. in addition to natural and human linguistic interactions, the inclusiveness of the message of islam helps to pave the way for the assumption that the muqaïïa‘āt were deliberately comprised of non-arabic origins to attract the attention of the jews and christians and to specifically address these groups of people. the examination conducted in this paper yields the understanding that the muqaïïa‘āt may be genuinely and reasonably held to discharge the function of a thematic summary of what is to follow in a particular chapter. in other words, both the placement and the signification of the muqaïïa‘āt (as introductory remarks to the entire content of a chapter) match the principal theme of the chapter in which they are used. this approach evidences that hebrew may be linguistically influential in arriving at cogent, bolstered and determinate interpretations of the muqaïïa‘āt rather than conjectures made on hypothetical and personal bases. the value of hebrew is attained by considering the role of the siyāq in accentuating the exact sense of the hebrew meanings, or the ca. put succinctly, hebrew, the siyāq and the componential analyses are combined in this study to offer very strong evidence that the muqaïïa‘āt are hebrew in their linguistic origins and that they act to provide overviews of the themes of the chapters they head. therefore, translators of the qur’én should not restrict their efforts to the literalist approach in the mistaken belief that such a method would maintain respect for the qur’én as the literal word of allāh. indeed, it is highly recommended to contemplate resources beyond the qur’én to avoid illogical statements from appearing in qur’én translations and to deter inaccuracies driven from personal and intuitive attempts at effecting translations. many speculations regarding the interpretation of the muqaïïa‘āt already exist; why should we not add the linguistic possibility of hebrew as a means of understanding them as long as the requisite evidence can be tendered? the qur’én consists of many verses that urge muslims to seek knowledge and truth. more research, on this proposal or others that endeavour disambiguation, is thus mandated. the absence of such scholarship would help to refute the claim that islam and the qur’én encourage the pursuit of knowledge and the advancement of understanding. acknowledgement: this research is funded by the deanship of research in zarqa university, jordan 48 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... notes and references 1. al-hilali muhammad t., and khan m., muhammd, the nobel qur’an: english translation of the meaning and commentary. madinah, king fahd complex, 1983, p.4. 2. ibn kathir ismail, tafsir ibn kathir. edited by safiur al-mubarakpuri, riyadh, darussalam, 2003, p. 102. 3. mainiyo, attahir and shuni, muhammad, “an analysis of the mysterious letters of the qur’an,” international journal of humanities and social science invention, 2014, no. 3, v. iv, p. 53. 4. asad muhammad, the message of the quran. gibraltar, dar al-andalus, 1980, p. 1322. 5. ibid. 6. ibid, p. 1323. 7. ali y abdullah, the holy quran english translation of the meaning and commentary. madinah, king fahd complex, 1989, p. 134. 8. the problem in this approach is that it opens the door for limitless interpretations because meaning is to relatively seen in various forms based on the reader's background. in other words, there is no clear methodology by which meaning is generated. 9. international øaíīí, the qur’an: english meanings. london, al-muntada alislami, 2004, p. 2. 10. abdel haleem m.a.s, the qur’an: english translation and parallel arabic text. oxford, oxford university press, 2010, p. 4. 11. muíyê al-din alddarwish, i‘rab al-qur’an wa bayanuh. alepo, dar al-irshad lillshu‘un al-jami‘iya, 1980, p. 293. 12. ibn kathir ismail, tafsir ibn kathir. edited by safiur al-mubarakpuri, riyadh, darussalam, 2003, p. 102. 13. ibid, p. 103. 14. al-ùabari abë ja‘far muhammad b. jarir, the commentary on the qur’an. translated by madelung w.f. jones, a, oxford, oxford university press, 1989, pp. 83-85. 15. ibid, p. 88. 16. alsha‘rawi muíammad, tafsir al-sha‘rawi. cairo, akhbar al-yawm, 1991, p. 108. 17. nöldeke theodor, the qur’an: an introductory essay by theodor nöldeke. edited by n.a. newman, pennsylvania, interdisciplinary biblical research institute, 1992, p. 21. 18. sale george, the koran. london, william tegg and co, 1877, pp. 42-43. 19. this art calculates the numerical value assigned to each letter in hebrew, then the calculations are used to explore the relationship between words and ideas. 20. palmer edward, the sacred books of the east. translated by friedrich müller, oxford, clarendon press, 1879, p. lxi. 21. asad muhammad, the message of the quran. gibraltar, dar al-andalus, 1980, p. 1323. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 49 22. abdel haleem m.a.s, “the role of context in interpreting and translating the qur’an,” journal of qur’anic studies, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 2018, no. 1, v. xx, p. 4. 23. suaeed sajah, muqatta’at in the qur’an: the wider semitic context, p. 6 https:/ /www.academia.edu/18497638/muqattaat (accessed on august 15, 2019). 24. beeston a. f. l, “languages of pre-islamic arabia,” arabica, 1981, no. 2, v. iii, p. 179. 25. shahid irfan, byzantium and the arabs in the sixth century. washington, d.c., dumbarton oaks, 1995, p. 270. 26. nöldeke theodor, friedrich schwally, gotthelf bergstréßer, and otto pretzl, the history of the qur’én. edited and translated by wolfgang behn, leiden, brill, 2013, p. 271. 27. al-ùayar msa‘id, “tafsêr al-qur’én bil-isra‘iliyat: naðra taqwimiya,” majalat m‘had al-imam al-shaïibi lilldirasat al-qur’énia, 2011, no. 1, v. xiv, pp. 30-31. 28. interpretation and translation may sound alike, however, in this article the former deals with only one language (monolingual) whereas the latter is concerned with two different languages (bilingual). the first thing is to provide an interpretation then a translation into a different language (translation is an interpretation in a different language). 29. mcauliffe dammen, encyclopaedia of the qur’én. leiden, brill, 2001, p. 2. 30. hawting, g.r, “oath.” in encyclopaedia of the qur’én, 2001, p. 261. 31. abdel haleem m.a.s, “the role of context in interpreting and translating the qur’én,” journal of qur’énic studies, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 2018, no. 1, v. xx, p. 52. 32. the books which were consulted are as follow: 1. maímëd sulaimén, i‘réb al-qur’én al-qarêm. 2. muíyê al-dên, iréb al-qur’én wa bayénuh. 3. muíammed al-ùayib, al-qur’én al-qarêm 33. benner jeff a, the ancient hebrew lexicon of the bible: hebrew letters, words and roots defined within their ancient cultural context. college stationm, tx, virtualbookworm.com publishing, 2005, p.20. 34. ibid, p. 32. 35. islahi ahsan a, pondering over the qur’én. translated by kayani, mohammed, kuala lumpur, islamic book trust, 2009, p. 99. 36. klein ernest, a comprehensive etymological dictionary of the hebrew language for readers of english. jerusalem, carta, 1987, p. 62. 37. al-sayuti jalaluddin, al-itqan fi ‘ulum al-qur’én. beirut, resalah publishers, 2008, p. 290. 38. stewart devin, “the mysterious letters and other formal features of the qur’én in light of greek and babylonian oracular texts.” in new perspectives on the qur’én: the qur’én in its historical context 2, by gabriel said reynolds, 323348, london and new york, routledge, 2011, p.341. 39. al-sayuti jalaluddin, al-itqan fi ‘ulum al-qur’én. beirut, resalah publishers, 2008, pp. 239-240. 40. ibn hayan muíammad bin yusif, al-baír al-muíêt fi al-tafsêr. beirut, dar alfikir, 2010, p. 232. 50 hebrew-skopos approach to muqaïïa‘āt... 41. luxenberg christoph, the syro-aramaic reading of the koran: a contribution to the decoding of the language of the koran. berlin, schiler, 2007, p. 327. 42. al-sayuti jalaluddin, al-itqan fi ‘ulum al-qur’én. beirut, resalah publishers, 2008, p. 53; [jémi‘ al-tirmidhi, eng. tr. by abu khaliyl, vol. v hadith#2910, darussalam, riyadh, 2007, p. 242] 43. luxenberg christoph, the syro-aramaic reading of the koran: a contribution to the decoding of the language of the koran. berlin, schiler, 2007, p. 66. 44. abdul-raof hssan, qur’én translation: discourse, texture and exegesis. london, routledge, 2010, p. 22. 45. al-sayuti jalaluddin, al-itqan fi ‘ulum alqur’én. beirut, resalah publishers, 2008, p. 288. 46. vermeer hans, “skopos and commission in translational action.” in the translation studies reader, by lawrence venuti, 191-202, london and new york, routledge, 2012, p. 198. 47. abdel haleem m.a.s, “the role of context in interpreting and translating the qur’én,” journal of qur’énic studies, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 2018, no. 1, v. xx, p. 47. 48. the question was: ?what are the most three qur’én translations being in use within your institutions? the number of the institutions which responded was 56 and all of them are based in english speaking countries. 49. abdel haleem m.a.s, the qur’én: english translation and parallel arabic text. oxford, oxford university press, 2010, p. 281. 50. al-hilali muhammad t., and khan m., muhammd, the nobel qur’én: english translation of the meaning and commentary. madinah, king fahd complex, 1983, p. 588. 51. international øahih, the qur’én: english meanings. london, al-muntada alislami, 2004, p. 431. 52. on this occasion and others, the meaning of hebrew letters are taken from the following three hebrew dictionaries: 1. benner, the ancient hebrew lexicon of the bible. 2. feyerabend, hebrew-english pocket-dictionary. 3. haralick, the inner meaning of the hebrew letters. 53. al-mehri a.b, the qur’én: with surah introductions and appendices. birmingham, the qur’én project, 2017, p. 377. 54. abdel haleem m.a.s, the qur’én: english translation and parallel arabic text. oxford, oxford university press, 2010, p. 290. 55. al-hilali muhammad t., and khan m., muhammd, the nobel qur’én: english translation of the meaning and commentary. madinah, king fahd complex, 1983, p. 609. 56. international øaíīí, the qur’én: english meanings. london, al-muntada alislami, 2004, p. 448. 57. maímud s. yaqët, i‘rab al-qur’én al-qarim. alexandria, dar al-ma‘rifa aljami‘iya, 1991, p. 3969. 58. al-tayib m. al-ibrahim, i‘rab al-qur’én al-qarêm: al-muyasar. beirut, dar alnafa‘is, 2001, p. 453. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 51 59. al-mehri a.b, the qur’én: with surah introductions and appendices. birmingham, the qur’én project, 2017, p. 397. 60. abdel haleem m.a.s, the qur’én: english translation and parallel arabic text. oxford, oxford university press, 2010, p. 316. 61. al-hilali muhammad t., and khan m., muhammd, the nobel qur’én: english translation of the meaning and commentary. madinah, king fahd complex, 1983, p. 660. 62. international øaíêí, the qur’én: english meanings. london, al-muntada alislami, 2004, p. 487. 63. abdel haleem m.a.s, the qur’én: english translation and parallel arabic text. oxford, oxford university press, 2010, p. 340. 64. al-hilali muhammad t., and khan m., muhammd, the nobel qur’én english translation of the meaning and commentary. madinah, king fahd complex, 1983, p. 521. 65. international øaíêí, the qur’én: english meanings. london, al-muntada alislami, 2004, p. 448. 66. al-mehri a.b, the qur’én: with surah introductions and appendices. birmingham, the qur’én project, 2017, p. 469. 67. abdel haleem m.a.s, the qur’én: english translation and parallel arabic text. oxford, oxford university press, 2010, p. 384. 68. al-hilali muhammad t., and khan m., muhammd, the nobel qur’én: english translation of the meaning and commentary. madinah, king fahd complex, 1983, p. 774. 69. international øaíêí, the qur’én: english meanings. london, al-muntada alislami, 2004, p. 582. 70. al-mehri a.b, the qur’én: with surah introductions and appendices. birmingham, the qur’én project, 2017, p. 551. 71. feyerabend karl, a complete hebrew-english pocket-dictionary to the old testament. berlin, schöneberg langenscheidt, 1905, p. 20. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2221 index hamdard islamicus, vol. xli, 2018 kaleem chaghtai research officer, hamdard islamicus author index 1. abbas jahanbakhsh, ahmad aminpoor, methodology of mosqueoriented built environments, case study of contemporary mosques of iran’s cities, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 267-292. 2. abdul khaliq aboya (dr.), rethinking islamic intellectualism: mohsin al-mulk’s analysis of islamic epistemology, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 81-95. 3. atta muhammad, zandaqah heresy during the early ‘abbasid era (750–850 ce): socio-political and economic factors, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 45-71. 4. azman ab rahman (dr.), muhamad sa‘dan abdul aziz (dr.), an analysis of zakat distribution scheme in the light of maqasid alshari‘ah in malaysia, brunei and singapore, no. 1 & 2, (janjune), pp. 133-163. 5. gabor korvin (prof. dr.), abu huraira’s cat in goethe’s paradise, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 7-17. 6. lutfullah saqib (dr.), saira afzal, branding in islamic commercial law: eyeing commercial gains versus opportunities for introducing shari’ah legal ethics, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 47-79. 7. muhammad akbar khan (dr.), modern product liability law: juridical basis in islamic law, no. 1 & 2 (jan-june), 165-194. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2222 8. muhammad islam, the concept of the injil in hadith literature an analytical study, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 73-106. 9. naseeb ahmed siddiqui, causality broken: synthesizing religion, philosophy and modern physics, confirming al-ghazali’s win in the debate of the world’s pre-eternity by proving delay in effect, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 117-143. 10. rena latifa (dr.), how commitment to islamic values maintain marital stability, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 107-132. 11. qazi ataullah (dr.), lutfullah saqib (dr.), sulh: facts and effects in shari‘ah vis-a-vis efficacy of pakistani statutes and efficiency of the judges, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 165-194. 12. sajila kausar (dr.), qualification of ijtihad in present era, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 97-116. 13. sohirin muhammad solihin (dr.), noor mohammad osmani (dr.), communication ethics from the qur’anic perspective: an analysis of selected contemporary exegeses, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 7-43. 14. spahic omer (dr.), old versus new in the saudi expansions of the prophet’s mosque, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 227-264. 15. thameem ushama (prof. dr.), establishing an exemplary islamic society (in turkey): an analysis of bediuzzaman said nursi’s reform, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 19-45. 16. wu juan (aisha), the cultural accommodation of jesuits missionaries in china during 1595-1730 & its impact on chinese muslim scholars of han kitab literature, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 145-174. 17. zohaib ahmad, the concept of arrogance in muslim and buddhist scriptures: a comparative analysis, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 175-195. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2223 title index 1. abu huraira’s cat in goethe’s paradise, gabor korvin (prof. dr.), no. 3 & 4 (july-dec),7-17. 2. an analysis of zakat distribution scheme in the light of maqasid al-shari‘ah in malaysia, brunei and singapore, azman ab rahman (dr.), muhamad sa‘dan abdul aziz (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 133-163. 3. branding in islamic commercial law: eyeing commercial gains versus opportunities for introducing shari’ah legal ethics, lutfullah saqib (dr.), saira afzal, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 47-79. 4. causality broken: synthesizing religion, philosophy and modern physics, confirming al-ghazali’s win in the debate of the world’s pre-eternity by proving delay in effect, naseeb ahmed siddiqui, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 117-143. 5. communication ethics from the qur’anic perspective: an analysis of selected contemporary exegeses, sohirin muhammad solihin (dr.), noor mohammad osmani (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), 743. 6. establishing an exemplary islamic society (in turkey): an analysis of bediuzzaman said nursi’s reform, thameem ushama (prof. dr.), no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 19-45. 7. how commitment to islamic values maintain marital stability, rena latifa (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 107-132. 8. methodology of mosque-oriented built environments, case study of contemporary mosques of iran’s cities, abbas jahanbakhsh, ahmad aminpoor, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 267-292. 9. modern product liability law: juridical basis in islamic law, muhammad akbar khan (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 165-194. 10. old versus new in the saudi expansions of the prophet’s mosque, spahic omer (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 227-264. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2224 11. qualification of ijtihad in present era, sajila kausar (dr.), no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 97-116. 12. rethinking islamic intellectualism: mohsin al-mulk’s analysis of islamic epistemology, abdul khaliq aboya (dr.), no. 3 & 4, (julydec), pp. 81-95. 13. sulh: facts and effects in shari‘ah vis-a-vis efficacy of pakistani statutes and efficiency of the judges, qazi ataullah (dr.), lutfullah saqib (dr.), no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 165-194. 14. the concept of arrogance in muslim and buddhist scriptures: a comparative analysis, zohaib ahmad, no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 175-195. 15. the concept of the injil in hadith literature an analytical study, muhammad islam, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 73-106. 16. the cultural accommodation of jesuits missionaries in china during 1595-1730 & its impact on chinese muslim scholars of han kitab literature, wu juan (aisha), no. 3 & 4, (july-dec), pp. 145-174. 17. zandaqah heresy during the early ‘abbasid era (750–850 ce): socio-political and economic factors, atta muhammad, no. 1 & 2, (jan-june), pp. 45-71. key word index ‘abbasid branding see no. 17 in the title index see no. 3 in the title index abu hurairah brunei see no. 1 in the title index see no. 2 in the title index al-ghazali buddhist see no. 4 in the title index see no. 14 in the title index hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2225 causality maqasid al-shari‘ah see no. 4 in the title index see no. 2 in the title index china marital see no. 16 in the title index see no. 7 in the title index communication ethics missionaries see no. 5 in the title index see no. 16 in the title index epistemology mosque see no. 12 in the title index see no. 8 in the title index ijtihad nursi see no. 11 in the title index see no. 8 in the title index injil saudi see no. 15 in the title index see no. 10 in the title index iran singapore see no. 8 in the title index see no. 2 in the title index islamic law sulh see no. 9 in the title index see no. 13 in the title index liability zakat see no. 9 in the title index see no. 2 in the title index malaysia zandaqah see no. 2 in the title index see no. 17 in the title index hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 61 the possibility of sense-data and its truth value in early kalóm literature abdul basit zafar department of kalém faculty of theology, ankara university. turkey, e-mail: <abdu.basit.zafar@ankara.edu.tr> though there were plenty of debates on the valid source of knowledge; is it reason or sense-data? until plato, apart from sophist, no one doubted the possibility of knowledge. along with sophists, the debate took a new turn. the questions they asked were doubting the validity of acquired knowledge and the possibility of any knowledge at all. so, is there a possibility of attaining true knowledge about anything? in islamic thought, such a problem of epistemology was first entertained by mu‘tazilite theologians. it could be said that one of the terms that formed the epistemological understanding of classic theologians and consequently shaped the form of classic islamic thought is senses (×is, ×avés). the subject of this study is to analyze the various motives laying under their epistemological attitude. the present study is aimed to give a brief view of theological speculation on sense-data, how it came to be accepted as certain and became dogmatic truth for attaining true knowledge. it is argued that in the early period of theological formation, apart from sam‘iyyét (valid news) and ‘aqliyét (sound reasoning), íissiyét (senses) were considered an integral part of the epistemological triad. it can be seen that islamic theology build its foundations on reason and revelation, for both sense-data plays an important role. if senses in themselves or the data collected by these senses are not valid enough, on what grounds then early kalém creed establish its truth value. afterwards, the study aims to question the reliability of the senses from a theological perspective. keywords: senses, kalém, sophists, dogmatic epistemology. 62 the possibility of sense-data introduction today looking at the works on the creed that were prepared in the formative period of islam, it could be said that muslim theological literature has massive compendiums on the wide range of subjects. these creed works are usually compact summaries on which later on commentary works, treaties and glosses were written. it can be seen that the very first chapters of these creed works begin with epistemological theories. therein, the definition of knowledge, types and valid sources of acquiring it are debated. the claim of the possibility of knowledge and how it could be acquired to reach god is drawn in polemical reflex to sophists. muslim mutakallimën were the pioneers in the notion of accepting the outer world as real as it is. theologians in these works coin the proposition that “things have unchanging (thébit) reality”1 as an initial postulate for building the reliability of islamic creed. it seems that by doing so, they tried very successfully to eliminate any chance of doubting the reality of the physical objects or outer world.2 it is also pointed out that mutakallimën criticized sophist’s view quite naively, establishing a dogmatic principle positing “things have unchangeable (thébit) reality (íaqé’iq)”. the role of sense-sensibilia the role of sense-data has primary importance in kalém epistemological system. méturêdê theologians defined knowledge (‘ilm) as a quality by which one is able to think and express in a clear way.3 ash‘arite theologians, in their expression of knowledge, state that “to know something as it is” or “it is the trust on what one acquires knowledge.”4 in mu‘tazilite epistemology, ‘ilm is understood as the confidence and belief (i‘tiqéd) about an object as it is.5 though méturêdê theologians kept the definition vague, the emphasis on the object as a separate and definite reality could be seen in mu‘tazilite and ash‘arite epistemology. theologians once embracing the possibility of true knowledge demarked three possible sources for it.6 i.intuitive / a priori (badêhê) ii.perceptive (×issê) iii.inductive/ deductive (istidlélê/ naðarê) the above-mentioned classification of knowledge is from abd alhamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 63 qéhir al-baghdadê (d.1037), the famous sunni theologian and heresiographer. even if some small variations could be noticed among theologians of different schools, their epistemology could be understood in primary categories of ×issiyét, sam‘iyyét and ‘aqliyét successively. the early kalém scholars had a dispute in regard to the number of senses and how they function. the early period referenced to a range of three to seven7, as far as human senses are concerned. however, with later generations, the dispute in the number of senses settled to five.8 in creed work of abë al-mu‘ên al-nasafê (d.1115) and al-baghdadi, we can see the final number of senses fixed to five. on the other hand, mystics circles, very much like sophists, never relied on sense-data to be the only source of knowledge. in addition, they too questioned the epistemic value of sense-data. sëfês, unlike theologians, consider their subjective experiences and intuitions (ilhém) to be the valid source of knowledge. then, it could be said that the foundations of any possibility of knowledge rely on the senses and sense-data. for the human reason to process any data, it must be perceived on the first hand. this sensed data is collected by sense organs. probably this is why sense (×avés) were defined as; “phenomenon that necessarily takes place in sense organ” it could be noticed that theologians mention senses with an additional attribute of “salêma,” meaning sound sense. abë isíéq ibréhêm alnaððém (d. 835), a theologian and philosopher, expresses it as data that necessarily get collected by healthy human sense organs and perceived by the soul (nafs). once sense-data is collected by the mind, only then rational faculty can make a judgement about it. the rational faculty (‘aql) or ‘aqliyét is thus a later function. the perceiving self it is interesting that classical theologians relied on the concept of human being to interpret the sources and value of true knowledge. for instance, mu‘tazilite of baghdad, especially al-nazzam, had a dualist image of human being. he believed that sense organs collect sensory data and the nafs (soul/anima) perceives it and makes judgements. unless there is any physical obstacle or biological impediment, such as a disease, the sense organs transmit sensory data necessarily. the soul collects the data, process it and make decisions on its behalf. on the other hand, mu‘tazilite of baîra, such as qaìi ‘abd aljabbar (d.1025), would use the word mudrik instead of nafs.9 for qaìi the perceiver is nothing other than the human body itself. it could be said 64 the possibility of sense-data that the baîran school gradually amalgamated the demarcated lines of an object in the outer world and the imprisoned soul in the body, by making body itself the object for perceiver of its perceptions. it could be argued that muslim theologians and sophist had a very different approach to sense-data and how it is perceived by any person (mudrik). on the other hand, an overlapping position could be seen among sophists and muslim øëfês, since both have their reservations, and approach sense-data with caution. muslim øëfês rejected the idea of an individual perceptive soul (nafs al mudrik) and considered the self to be a mere construct. in this way, not only they objected the authenticity of sense-data or reasoning faculty of mind but the very person who perceived these faculties in him. sophists, alongside øëfês, doubt the formal epistemological structure of theological paradigm. in such a diverse opinion, it is claimed that theologians, by creating polemical rhetoric, tried to humiliate if not convince these different approaches under one issue “those who doubt the possibility of true knowledge” on the authority of senses and reason.10 in this process of perception, if there is any error in sense-data that must be re-evaluated, the reason holds a belief about an object on first hand. in other words, sense-data provides the initial bases for reason/ mind. the reason, by experimentation and naðar, checks the validity of sense data. in such a two-way process, it becomes possible to attain true knowledge about any object. both founding pillars of kalém, i.e., reason and revelation, rely on the possibility of true sense-data. sophists, on the other hand, by denying the possibility of any valid knowledge through sense-data, also refute the truth value of revelation and reason.11 in contrast, theologians, who established their belief system on the difference between subject and object, i.e., observer and the observed object, makes a clear distinction between word and its signified meaning. muslim øëfês believed in only one true self, the real, apart from eternal god any other thing is an illusion in the broader scheme of things. it can be said that theologians felt it as their moral and religious obligation to not only take the outer world as real but to consider the world as perceived to be the way to find god. knowledge in actuality while defining knowledge, mu‘tazilite added a new element in it hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 65 which was later adopted by theological orthodoxy: tranquility of mind (sukën un-nafs). theologians with this modification closed any agnostic and sceptic approaches to the theological realm. it implies that the human mind only gets rid of doubts and false speculations once a firm belief is established; belief in objects as real in per se. on the other hand, muslim øëfê epistemology does not indulge in finding a stable human foundation for establishing any truth value. for øëfê, the dynamic life and a universe in constant flux is the reality. theologians, unlike øëfês, tried to found firm grounds in the outer world and believed it to be as real as they are themselves. perhaps this could explain the factors involved in the axiom of ‘things have unchanging reality.” we can see this axiom eventually becoming the founding principle of kalém theory of knowledge and dogmatic principle with later generations. here a perplexing question comes to mind: if the knowledge about anything should be measured by “tranquility of mind,” then probably sophists and øëfês may have it too. in other words, if these above mentioned three different approaches insist on the state of the subject (perceiver) then what makes them different from each other? it seems that mu‘tazilite, right after defining their understanding of knowledge, takes into account the state of perceiver as the real leap to build their theological arguments. such that all features and aspects of knowledge were put into one structural integrity to serve a practical purpose. sophists while questioning the essential nature of things, considering them being relative to most extent, theologians took a rather practical stance. by demarking the lines of knowledge, knowable and truth value of any data, credo evolved into the rigid epistemological structure. the øëfês, by refuting such epistemological structure, said no to the formal methodology. sophists that were refuted categorically the persistence of theologians with regard to their claim that objects have stable reality perhaps has its origin in their trust in god, who created these senses for a believer to grasp this reality as it is. if the observed world or human senses are not a valid source of knowledge, then on what grounds could theology get its foundations? three different groups were subject to polemic under sophists, ‘indiyyah these were those who considered the reality of any object to be 66 the possibility of sense-data nothing other than the belief of observer.12 to theologians, this group was undermining the objective reality in favour of subjective attitude towards it. this subjective truth could lead to the relativist grounds and consequently, no one could make a sole truth claim. this would create epistemological chaos where either no one will claim to have sole truth or everyone will argue on his or her own personal feelings to be valid. theological structures are based on the truth claims and hence considered such an approach to be a heretic. this creates epistemic chaos and social disorder on a wider scale. ‘ônédiyyah they denied any objective or ontological reality and considered it all to be a mere dream. this understanding creates no space for the reliability of sense-data nor reason of any sort and as life and whatever there is, is a meaningless dream, they could be called nihilist in contemporary terms. baghdadi’s solution for such people is to confront them with pain and induce torture on them.13 baghdadê states that their belongings and property should be confiscated. he ensures it to be the only possible way for them to understand eventually how real the world, self and life are. lé-adriyya the third group in this regard are those who do not think that human reason is capable enough to grasp the vastness of the universe or comprehend god. they claimed that an object can never be truly known in its essence or as it is. theological texts also criticize these agnostics for paving their way to lust and hedonism. méturêdê argues that no matter how much they would deny any objective reality, they would never involve in a declining business nor they will prefer intentional pain over pleasure. they would act in everyday life knowing the difference between what is beneficent and otherwise. so, their denial of objective reality or ultimate truth is mere conjecture and arrogance.14 the methodological problems as it could be noticed these categories are vague and truly based on a generalization, for there were people who lied in one or more categories at the same time. however, it could be understood that such hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 67 a group had the general principle of protagoras “man is the measure of all things.” baghdadi fears that this relativistic approach could never lay the ground for any epistemological understanding.15 because the doubt would only create more doubt. abë manîër al-méturêdê (d. 944) explains the situation in the following words: as for those who opt for the view that there is no knowledge other than personal convictions and belief, whatever he says will be real. such a person shall be beaten with a hard blow and shall be punished by cessation of his body parts.16 the provocative argumentations and somehow subjugated anecdotes against sophists and skeptics can be found in classic kalém literature. another method is used as rhetoric (jadal), such as the opponent in the debate (munaðarah), which seems to have embraced the general criticism of the sophists, then criticizes himself by asserting the exact opposite of what was said to the opponent.17 such methods were launched to reduce any unwanted speculation to absurdity. it could be seen quite evidently that mutakallimën neither considered these allegations seriously nor did they engage in epistemological pursuit. for theological mindset, each and everything has its certain position in the frame of reference. no two ontologies, i.e., god and man could be replaced in cosmic / theological structure. a subject and the objects of the outer world each have their own functions and reality. by the same token, they argue scripture (text) does not have infinite meaning or hidden interpretations. it is the very way mystics and øëfês did criticize theological reasoning (naðar) and dialectical method. from a theological point of view whatever lies beyond the frame of the reason is ambiguous and should be avoided. since it has a well-formed structure and hence was functioning adequately for the community of believers.18 likewise, mu‘tazilête polymath qaìi makes a clear distinction between the personal belief of a man and outer reality. he claims that subjective belief cannot alter the outer factual reality. if so, people would have changed their beliefs for the sake of changing objective reality. the ultimate real god, his existence and attributes would also be dependent or an individual’s beliefs.19 however, such a conclusion is necessarily false, for belief cannot change reality. dogmatic certainty it is evident that any approach that does not regard human sensual reality of any epistemological consideration also exceed linguistic 68 the possibility of sense-data boundaries in interpreting a text. because there are no proper linguistic or theological rules that must be followed. theologians resisted such attempts and refuted them immediately, which provoked gnostic (‘irfénê) interpretations of the physical and textual world. it could be considered as the reason for their firm belief in sense perception and outer reality because it supported their textual understanding and vice versa. in initial discussions of knowledge those who speculated the authenticity of sense-data were charged with heresy, isolation and infidelity. this shows that the theory of knowledge is a matter of faith. there could be seen three ways of dealing with such people who deny the reliability of senses.20 to use rhetoric and dialectical reasoning, to inflict pain on them, or to reduce their claim in absurdity reductio ad absurdum. it does not seem plausible that theologians perceived human reason or sense-data to be delivering the whole picture of the real. they were not concerned with speculation that could lead them into such questions. on the other hand, they relied on the ordinary human realm of sense perception and with experience of this very limited sense-data of the outer word, derived the proves for a creator. they, in fact, believed that the creator does not indulge in useless work. regardless of reducing their theoretical questions to absurdity, theologians have taken sophists as competent opponents and their arguments so seriously that they have made their first refutation to their impossibility of true knowledge. apart from propagating possibility of knowledge they did not accept any source other than reason, valid news and sound sense-data. in fact, as we have observed treaties on belief and ‘ilm consider belief in sense-data being a part of essentials of faith or perhaps even prior to it. since for confirmation of one’s faith, one has to have soundly functioning senses. on the other hand, a common expression quoted from øëfê sources rejects the whole epistemological foundation claiming ‘the world is a dream’, therefore, no reality of any sort could be attained. this leads to “ontological ambiguity of all things”.21 in this regard, even though muslim øëfês accepted dreams, inspirations or intuitions as a valid source of knowledge, mutakallimën strongly rejected it, for it is a very subjective experience. whereas van ess pointed out that, more than sophists, the actual target of theological polemics was gnostic shi‘ite groups, who also considered subjective inspirations and intuitions of a spiritual leader (iméms) to be valid. sometimes, any command of imém can actually abrogate the verses of qur’én. øëfês also considered inspiration as a source of hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 69 knowledge and rejected the standard set of senses and measurements to be very much relative. any such attempt was strongly condemned by theologians, because it will create ambiguity in the most important articles of life and faith, such as god, hereafter and objective morality. the whole effort was made to create a standard set of rules in law as well as in faith, such a standard structure would help to live a life under god’s command and rule of law. it seems plausible to assume that the theological debates were limited to refuting opponents by mere rhetoric or with harsh jargons, rather than seeking the understanding of their opponents. another reason for such a response lies in their strong belief in aristotelian logic. following aristotelian laws of thought, an object either exists or does not exist. true knowledge is either possible or impossible; rejection of one possibility necessitates the acceptance of the other. any third possibility would create fallacy. therefore, they believed that a refutation to any sophist’s negative attitude towards the possibility of knowledge and reality would be sufficient to prove the reality of the outer world.22 for instance, baghdadi asks a rhetorical question to those who deny the possibility of knowledge; is there a truth (íaqêqat) in the absence of truth? if they give an affirmative answer, baghdadi states they would have accepted some truth.23 there are many other examples of argumentations which clearly explain that sceptics doubted in speculative and theoretical realm of possibilities. on the other hand, for theologians, their speculations had no end in themselves and would just result in doubts, confusions and chaos. another reason for it could be their trust in god. since god had created the physical world including man, he had given man sound senses and reason to grasp the reality and admire god’s creation. god, in mu‘tazilite view, does not deceive man, neither does it engage in useless folly (‘abath). in kalém rational attitude there lies another axiom which is consistently used by creating inductive analogy from the physical world to divine realm: istidlél al ghayb al-shéhid. for kalém, the rejection of any knowledge about the visible world also creates an impossibility of knowing about the unseen world, endangering the belief in god. the way to know about the subjects belonging to the unseen and unknown world, such as about god and hereafter, is only possible by belief in the reality of the outer world. the unchangeable reality of the outer world creates the firm ground for theologians to initiate a debate of the existence of god. otherwise, no common epistemological ground can be attained for 70 the possibility of sense-data discussion. by positing such a key preposition, they tried not only to keep a stable image of the outer world but also the formal system made by kalém sciences. another reason lying underneath such an attitude is politics. in the reign of abbasid, with the initiation of translation movement, theologians wrote intensive refutations against manicheist, sophists, dualists along with their polemics against gulatshia, béïini and gnostics. the evolution of these refutations into belief axioms shows that theologians accepted and validated the existing political authority. another example is the axiom proclaiming “an evil and oppressing ruler is better than no ruler at all”.24 likewise, a fésiq leader (imém) shall be preferred over no imém at all. difference in approach the moroccan critic and theologian abed al-jabri, who is well known for his work on religious epistemological structures, expresses this scenario in terms of dialectics (bayén). theologians in the system have some basic characteristics; a) word bounds the signified meaning and text could not have infinite meanings, b) kalém constructs its cosmology on atomism, thereby atom (jauhar) is unchangeable (thébit). c) it is possible to give a religious verdict by creating a similar analogy for any new situation. now, in retrospect, it could be said that such a formative period shows the need for form and pattern. on contrary to bayén, there is ‘irfanê (gnostic) epistemology that considers the possibility of a meaning beyond the linguistic capacity of any word, intuitional and imaginary becomes as real as anything.25 theologian tries to define god in terms of his ontology and state that it is different from any physical matter. in kalém, the transcendent god has rules, moral commands and cosmic system by which he rules the universe. whereas in øëfê paradigm they reject the negative theology of mu‘tazilah and argue god is an eternal presence which cannot be conceived by reason. on this road, øëfês try to get rid of any ties to the physical world, to the realm of senses and devote themselves to the only true god. according to al-jabri, whether it is gnostic shi‘ite i.e. béïinê isma‘êlê or øëfês, all have a common understanding that reason is a veil.26 a hindrance in the experience of the real, sound reason and individual self-perception creates an impediment in union with it. in conclusion, theologians and creed formers insist that the world we live in is real, as a human individual self that perceives pain and hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 71 suffers. within this real world, the aim was to set a standard pattern from rituals to epistemology, to make the life of believer un-chaotic and meaningful. in a way, their aim has been to find practical solutions for the real world. for this reason, they tried to present a well-formed structure in all fields of human life. they did not make the slightest compromise to any approach that tried to get out of this structure. this is why scholastic theology seems to be conservative for they are keepers of tradition. sophists and øëfês in this way have a totally opposite epistemological stance. this contrast between the theologians and sophists/ øëfês can be seen as a representation of order and chaos, authority and anarchy or as structure and deconstruction present in a mega-structure of islamic tradition. notes and references 1. maturidi, ebu mansur; kitabu’t-tawhid, trans. bekir topaloglu, ôsam yayênlarê, ôstanbul, 2014, p. 12; nesefi, tabsêratu’l edille, ed,. hüseyin atay, øaban ali düzgün, diyanet vakfê yayênlarê, 2004, pp. 20-21; taftazanî, sher’hul akaid, trans. süleyman uludag, dergah yayênlarê, 85. for more detail see; mehmet dag; es’arî kelamênda bilgi problemi, ôslami ôlimler enstitüsü dergisi, vol. iv, ankara, 1980, pp. 99-102. 2. hasan aydên, ôslam kelamcêlarê ve ôbn sinâ’ya göre bilginin ômkanê sorunu ve sofistler, felsefe dünyasê, 2008/2, vol: xlviii, p. 97. 3. hanefi özcan, maturidi’de bilgi problemi, marmara üniversitesi ôlahiyat fakültesi yayênlan, ôstanbul, 1993, pp. 35-36. 4. mehmet dag, ibid, p. 103. 5. qadi abdul jabbâr, al-mughnî fî abwâb al-tawhîd wa-l-‘adl, ed., m. khodor nabha, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyah, beirut, 2012. vol. xii, p. 28; baghdadi, usulu’d-din, 5; hüseyin aydên, ebu’l hasen el-eî’arî’de nazar ve istidlal, fecr yayênlarê, ankara, 2012, pp. 373-377. 6. baghdadi, ibid, p. 299. 7. abdulkerim osman, nazariyyetu’tteklif, p. 49. 8. van ess, josef, ‘theologie und gesellschaft im 2. und 3. jahrhundret hidschra’, vol. iv, p. 40. 9. qadi abdul jabbâr, ibid, pp. 28-30. 10. hilmi demir, delil ve ôstidlalin mantêki yapêsê, ôsam yayênlarê, ôstanbul, 2012, p. 46. 11. ebu’lmuin en-nesefi, tabsiratu’l edille, p. 24. 12. maturidi, kitabu’t tawhid, pp. 239-240, baghdadi, usul ed-din,7; qadi abdul jabbar, el-mughni, vol: xii, taftazani, sherhu’l akaid, p. 87. 13. el-baghdâdî, kitabu usuli’d-din, first ed., ôstanbul, 1928,6; taftazani, sherhu’l 72 the possibility of sense-data akaid, 87. also see abë ja’far al-ùaíéwê (d. 933), aqidedu’t-tahaviyya, baghdadi, al faraq bayin alfiraq trans. in turkish; ‘mezhepler arasêndaki farklar’, trans. ethim ruhi fêglalê, tdv, bask1 8., ankara, 2017, p. 254; ebu’l muin en-nesefi, tabsêratu’l-edille fi usulû’d-din, vol. i, pp. 21-22. fahreddin er-razi, el-muhassal, trans. hüseyin atay, ankara üniversitesi ôlahiyat fakültesi yayênlarê, pp. 32-33. 14. maturidi, kitabu’t-tevhid, 52; abdulkerim osman, nazariyyetu’t-teklif, pp. 4950; taftazani, sherhu’l akaid, p. 87. 15. el-baghdadi, kitabuusuli’d-din, ibid, pp. 8-9. 16. maturidi, kitabu’t tawhid, p. 240. 17. van ess, joseph, skepticism in islamic religious thought, published in god and man in contemporary islamic thought ed. charles malik, american university of beirut, 1972, pp. 83-98. 18. ian almond, sufism and deconsrtuction a comparative study of derrida and ibn ‘arabi, routledge, 2004. p. 7. 19. ôbrahim aslan, dinin akli ve ahlaki savunusu, otto yayênlarê, p. 176. 20. aydên, ibid, pp. pp. 100-102. 21. ian almond, ibid, p. 114. 22. aydên, ibid., p. 97. 23. baghdadi, usulu’d-din, p. 6. 24. muhammed óbid el-cébirê, arap ôslam siyasal aklê, kitabevi yayênlarê, ôstanbul, 2001, pp. 454-458. 25. muhammed óbid el-cébirê, arap-ôslam kültürünün akêl yapêsê, kitabevi yayênlarê, ôstanbul, 2001, pp. 404-405. 26. muhammed óbid el-cébirê, ibid, pp. 404-405. bibliography abdul jabbér, qadi, al-mughni fi abwab al-tawhid wa-l-‘adl, ed., m. khodor nabha, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyah, beirut, 2012. vol. xii. almond, ian; sufism and deconsrtuction a comparative study of derrida and ibn ‘arabi, (routledge, 2004). al-l ùaíéwê, abu ja‘far; aqidedu’t-tahaviyya, aslan, ôbrahim; dinin akli ve ahlaki savunusu, ankara, otto yayênlarê, 2014). aydên, hasan; ôslam kelamcêlarê ve ôbn siné’ya gore bilginin ômkanê sorunu ve sofistler, felsefe dünyasê, 2008/2, vol: xlviii. aydên, hüseyin; ebu’l hasen el-eî’arî’de nazar ve ôstidlal, ankara, fecr yayênlarê, 2012). baghdadi, al faraqbayin alfiraqtrans. in turkish, ‘mezhepler arasêndaki farklar’, trans. ethimruhi fêglalê, tdv, baskê 8., ankara, 2017 baghdadi, usulu’d-din, (ôstanbul, 1928). dag, mehmet; eî’arî kelamênda bilgi problemi, ôslami ôlimler enstitüsü dergisi, vol. iv, (ankara, 1980). demir, hilmi; delil ve ôstidlalin mantêki yapêsê, ôstanbul, ôsam yayênlarê, 2012). hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 73 jébirê, mohammed óbid; arap ôslam siyasal aklê, ôstanbul, kitabevi yayênlarê, 2001. jâbirî, mohammed âbid; arap-ôslam kültürünün aklê yapêsê, ôstanbul, kitabevi yayênlarê, 2001. nesefi, ebu’l muin; tabsêratu’l-edille fi usulû’d-din, ed,. hüseyin atay, øaban ali düzgün, ankara, diyanet vakfê yayênlarê, 2004. maturidi, ebu mansur; kitabu’t-tevhid, trans. bekir topaloglu, ôstanbul, ôsam yayênlarê, 2014. osman, abdulkerim; nazariyyetu’tteklif. özcan, hanefi; maturidi’de bilgi problemi, ôstanbul, marmara üniversitesi ôlahiyat fakültesi yayênlarê, 1993. razi, fahreddin; el-muhassal, trans. hüseyin atay, ankara, ankara üniversitesi ôlahiyat fakültesi yayênlarê. taftazanî, sa’duddin; sher’hulakaid, trans. süleyman uludag, ôstanbul, dergah yayênlarê, 2010. van ess, josef, ‘theologie und gesellschaft im 2. und 3. jahrhundret hidschra’, vol. iv. van ess, joseph, skepticism in islamic religious thought, published in god and man in contemporary islamic thought ed. charles malik, beirut, american university of beirut, 1972. hamdard islamicus 123 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the impact of ×ajj on the society of bangladesh prof. mohammad thowhidul islam assistant professor of bangladesh studies, center for university requirement courses (cenurc) international islamic university chittagong (iiuc) kumira, sitakunda, chittagong-4318, bangladesh e-mail: tauhidcox@yahoo.com millions of muslims from around the world including bangladesh pour perform ×ajj every year. being the largest gathering of the muslims, the ×ajj has immense socio-economic and cultural impact on the muslim society. it develops a unique symbol of unity, equality, universality, coexistence, indiscrimination, peace and tolerance among the individuals, communities and nations belonging to different races, castes, colors, and languages, which create differences in everyday life of human society. the attitude of the ×éjjês of bangladesh towards women is more liberal than others as gender interaction is a natural part of ×ajj, while it is uncommon in the country. the positive teachings of ×ajj produced several reform movements in bengal such as the faré’iìi movement of ×ajji shariatullah. ×ajj works as a social platform of getting together for bangladeshi people at makkah and madinah. it has developed the private tour operating industry in bangladesh to facilitate the ×ajjês. transaction of billions of dollars takes place during ×ajj, while many commodities are exchanged informally. the ×ajjês enjoy a very special dignity and status in the society of bangladesh. ×ajj creates an opportunity for inter-cultural amalgamation combining various elements of different cultures. it increases knowledge of the ×ajjês both experimental and theoretical through various means. bangladeshi ×ajjês consider ×ajj as the preparation for death; and thus try to remain isolated from the worldly activities and observe the religious duties strictly. ×ajj not only moulds the ×ajjês into sincere and practicing muslims, but also the society at large with their honesty and piety. thus, ×ajj brings immense impact on the society, economy, education, religiosity and culture of bangladesh. the objective of this study is to identify diverse impact of ×ajj on different aspects of the society of hamdard islamicus 124 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 bangladesh. the methodology used in this study is composed of critical review of literature, analysis of relevant data and information from various secondary sources and interview with the experts and individuals concerned. it also includes various perspectives of the society with a view to better understanding the influence of ×ajj on the ×ajjês, non-×ajjês and the society at large. key words: ×ajj, society, economy, culture, impact, bangladesh introduction the ×ajj or pilgrimage to makkah is one of the five fundamental pillars of islam. it is promised to have the best and unique reward. so, ×ajj-i-baitullah (pilgrimage to the house of allah) has become a spiritual longing of every muslim. from the early history of islam, the muslims from far and near began coming to makkah every year to perform ×ajj. with the increase of global population and the expansion of islam in different territories of the world over the centuries, the number of ×ajjês increased accordingly. now, millions of muslims from around the world pour into makkah every year to perform ×ajj. the number of ×ajjês has increased by approximately 2,824% up, during the last 92 years, from just 58,584 in 1920 to 1,712,962 (1.713 million) in 2012.1 in recent decades, nearly one hundred thousand muslims go to perform ×ajj from bangladesh every year. being the largest gathering of the world muslim to take place on a regular basis every year,2 ×ajj has got immense socio-economic and cultural impact on every muslim society irrespective of their geographical, national and country affiliation. as the holy qur’én states: ِلیَْش���������َھُدوا they may witness benefits (provided) for“ َمن�������افَِع لَُھ�������ْم ویَ�������ْذُكُروا اْس�������َم هللاِ them and celebrate the name of allah.”3 the word من�������افع benefits’ widely includes all the socio-economic and cultural virtues in every society of the world. as a result of unity of opinion and unanimity arising from believing in one allah (swt) and being the followers of one guide bookthe holy qur’én and one prophet muhammad (œ), all muslims stand in a single rank facing the qiblah4 and go round a center with a single aim. it, thus, develops a unique symbol of unity, universality, indiscrimination and social coexistence by creating mutual understanding among the nations. hamdard islamicus 125 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the ×ajj not only moulds the millions of pilgrims who perform ×ajj, but also greater number of their friends and relatives who share experience of ×ajj through them. the religio-cultural and socio-economic impact of ×ajj is determined not only by the fact that it is one of pillars of islam, but by a range of particularistic factors which include local values, the pilgrim’s subsequent attitude and conduct, and the web of relationships in which they are embedded. no doubt, the society of bangladesh has widely been influenced by the institution of ×ajj in different ways and perspectives. the present study finds that ×ajj brings immense and diverse impact on the society, economy, education and culture of bangladesh, most importantly the spirituality of the ×ajjês as well as of the society at large. methodology of the study the methodology used in this study is composed of review of available literature, analysis of relevant data and information and interview with the expert and individuals concerned. the literature on ×ajj in islam and its history in bengal is read to understand the islamic view towards ×ajj, its significance and its historical relationship with the society of bengal. relevant data and information have been collected from different secondary sources including previous publications, journals, reports of several governmental and non-governmental organizations, research papers, periodicals, website of various institutions etc. to achieve the objective of the study, a good number of interviews have been taken from individuals of several categories such as ×ajjê (included male, female, highly educated, uneducated, political leader etc), muallim who teaches the ×éjjês during ×ajj, travel agents who are involved in ×ajj travelling, and such other concerned. the desire of this approach is to find concrete data together with practical experience to obtain the objective of the research. ×ajj and its significance in islam ×ajj literally means “to set out for a place”,5 “to go or proceed straight away to visit a holy place.”6 from islamic perspective, ×ajj implies to set out for makkah to observe the specific rituals during the hamdard islamicus 126 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 specified months. oxford dictionary defines ×ajj as “the greater muslim pilgrimage to makkah, which takes place in the last month of the year and which all muslims are expected to make at least once during their lifetime if they can afford to do so.”7 the months of ×ajj are the last three months of ×ijri calendar. these are: shawwal, dhul-qi’dah and dhul-×ijjah. following the divine instruction, the prophet ibrahim (*) first performed ×ajj making ka‘bah its center8 and later prophet muhammad (œ) made it mandatory following the qur’énic instruction. it is considered one of the fundamental religious duties of islam. ×ajj is obligatory for every able-bodied adult muslim man or woman who can financially afford the trip once in a life time.the holy qur’én says: “and proclaim the pilgrimage among men: they will come to thee on foot and (mounted) on every kind of camel, lean on account of journeys through deep and distant mountain highways; that they may witness the benefits (provided) for them.” 9 “pilgrimage thereto is a duty men owe to allah, those who can afford a journey;”10 the prophet (œ) said: “×ajj is mandated once, so whoever does it more (than that), then it is supererogatory.”11 “he who performs ×ajj seeking allah’s pleasure and avoids all lewdness and sins (there in) will return after ×ajj free from all sins, just as he was on the day his mother gave birth to him.”12 advent of islam in bengal and ×ajj arabia and indian subcontinent including bengal had a very long and flourishing trade contact. k.a. nizami remarked, “india’s relations with the arab world go back to hoary past. long before the rise of islam, there was brisk commercial contact between india and arabia and the arab traders carried indian goods to the european markets by way of egypt and syria.”13 islam had begun to enter into bengal through the hand of arab muslim traders long before its political presence at the beginning of 13th century.14 the then socio-political condition, particularly strict caste system in hindu society and corrupt of buddhism, had created the perspective for the rapid expansion of islamic faith. the teaching of social equality, justice and simplicity in islam impressed the lower classes of hindus and buddhists and they gradually became converted and flocked into the fold of islam.15 m. n. roy described as follows: “after the downfall of buddhism, the country found itself in a hamdard islamicus 127 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 worse state of economic ruin, political oppression, intellectual anarchy and spiritual chaos. practically, the entire society was involved in that tragic process of decay and decomposition. that is why not only the oppressed masses readily rallied under the banner of islam which offered them social equality if not political equality; even the upper classes offered their services to the foreign aggressor out of selfish motives. that shows that, while the masses were in a state of despire, the upper classes were thoroughly demoralised.....in any case, it is clear that at the time of mohammedan conquest, there lived in india multitudes of people who had little reason to be faithful to hindu laws and the traditions of brahmans orthodoxy, and were ready to forsake that heritage for the more equitable laws of islam which offered them protection against the tyranny of triumphant hindu reaction.”16 with the expansion of islam in bengal, the tendency of pilgrimage to makkah by the muslims to perform ×ajj as a fundamental religious duty also gradually developed. thus, the history of ×ajj from bangladesh is as old as the advent of islam. the muslims of bengal had travelled makkah for ×ajj during the time of the companions of the prophet (œ) on sailing ships from chittagong port.17 “nur qutb-ul-alam, for example, performed ×ajj several times in the 15th century. with an intention to perform ×ajj, mughul prince shéh shujé‘ left dhaka with the members of his family to go to makkah via arakan. ×éjjê muhammad mahsin performed ‘‘×ajj in the 18th century. ×ajjê shariatullah also visited makkah with the same purpose. during the british period, the muslims of bengal went to ×ajj by ship via mumbai.”18 until the 18th century, ×éjjês from bengal as well as india had the option of travelling to makkah either by overland caravans or by sailing ships. most of them preferred to go by the sea routes, primarily through the red sea, and occasionally through the persian gulf and rarely through the land routes. during mughul rule, several ships undertook the voyage, providing free passage and provisions for the pilgrims. there were three ships called the rahêmi, the karêmi and the saléri for the cost-free transportation for the pilgrims. the contemporary traveller john fryer keane (×éjjê mohammed amin) mentioned that these pilgrim ships weighed between 1400 to 1600 tons and often carried 1700 pilgrims each. they hamdard islamicus 128 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 used various deccan ports on the east and west coasts for ×ajj sailing such as port of surat in gujarat, which was described as bab-ul-makkah or the bandar-e-mubarak (blessed port). they used to send regular charity to makkah and appoint amêr-i-×ajj for the pilgrimage. during 984-989 (a.h.) (1576-1582) the akbar’s amêr-i-×ajj carried more than rs 600,000 in money and goods to be distributed to the people of makkah and madinah as charity, along with thousands of khil‘ats (robes of honour) and expensive gifts for the sharêfs of makkah. in 1659, badshah awrangazêb sent presents worth rs 660,000 to the sharêf of makkah. during the british rule, ×ajj continued to get regular attention. the famous tourist agency thomas cook and son was appointed in 1885 as the official travel agent of ×ajj with the responsibility of streamlining the pilgrimage trade. in 1927, a 10-member ×ajj committee was constituted headed by d. healy, esq., which provided services to the pilgrims. during the world war ii, when the number of ×éjjês reduced, the saudi government used to appoint muïawwifên or mu‘allims (guides for ×ajj pilgrims) since 1941 so that they could canvass for pilgrims.19 during pakistan period (1947-1971), the trend was still continued. now a days, more than one hundred thousand muslims go to perform ×ajj every year from bangladesh, the 4th largest muslim country20 in terms of population containing 8.4% of global muslim population.21 the number of ×éjjês from bangladesh in 2015 was 1,01,758,221,13,868 in 2016,23and 1,27,198 in 2018.24 impact of ×ajj on the society of bangladesh no doubt, ×ajj has diverse impact on every muslim society as well as of bangladesh. ‘although it comes fifth, ×ajj is very special in its impact. it involves an unforgettable journey which adds to its mystique and appeal. no one acquires a title for praying or fasting, but after taking that journey to the heart of islam.’25 in material life of the ×éjjês, there are the benefits associated with social interaction which furthers trade and increases knowledge.26 thus, diverse aspects of the society have been influenced by ×ajj in different ways at different levels ranging from international to individual. hamdard islamicus 129 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 social impact of ×ajj bangladesh is the 4th largest muslim country27 in terms of population containing 8.4% of global muslim population.28 89.7% of its total population is muslim, while the hindu constitutes 9.2%, buddhist 0.7%, christian 0.3%, animist and believers in tribal faiths is 0.1%.29 every year thousands of muslims from bangladesh make pilgrimage to the holy city of makkah for ×ajj and return home with new religious spirit, fresh islamic teaching and most importantly pure islamic ‘aqêdah. the spirit of ×ajj everyday leaves diverse impact, passive or active on the individuals, family and society of bangladesh. impact of ×ajj in the anti-colonial and reform movements the positive teachings of ×ajj produced several revolutionary movements in the history of bengal such as the faré’iìê movement led by ×éjjê shariatullah and the ùarêqah-i-muhammadiyah movement led by meer nisar ali titumir. both of them started the reform movement after their return from ×ajj. ×ajji shariatullah (1781-1840) of present shariatpur district,30 made a pilgrimage to makkah in 1799 to perform ×ajj, which privileged him with the opportunity of receiving education at makkah. it prepared him for the great role to be played by him in his later life. ×ajji shariatullah stayed there for 20 years and studied religious doctrines under shaikh tahir sombal. returning home in 1818, he found the muslims of bengal involving in many superstitious practices which appeared to him grossly un-islamic. for historical perspectives, the muslims of bengal had been following many indigenous customs, rituals and ceremonies which were far from islamic principles. these were infiltrated from the contemporary hindu society into muslim society because of their close contact and huge number of conversion from hinduism into islam.31 people here used to ascribe superhuman powers to the øëfês and pêrs such as giving life to the dead, being present at several places at a time and foretelling the future. because of these, people considered the shrine of a pêr as a place of pilgrimage. they offered fruits, flowers etc. at their tombs, illuminated them at night and thus the culture of worshipping the pêrs and øëfês widely spread in the muslim society of bengal.32 ta‘ziah observing the ‘óshërah procession in a clumsy way, participation in the hamdard islamicus 130 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 hindu festivals of durga puja, rathayatra and so forth are also mentionable in this context.33 the muslims of bengal, thus, steeped themselves in the superstitious practices. inflamed with a burning desire to reform the muslim society, ×éjji shariatullah tirelessly addressed the social gatherings for preaching the pure doctrine of islam indoors and outdoors, in village after village, district after district, which ultimately developed into an islamic reform movement. the objective of the movement was to purify the muslim society from the superstitious ‘aqêdah and practices and induce the muslims to follow the true teachings of islam. the movement popularly came to be known as the faré’iìi movement.the term faré’iìi was taken from the arabic rootword farì meaning obligatory duties enjoined by islam. the movement emphasized on the five fundamentals of islam, strict observation of tawíêd (pure monotheism) and condemned all deviations from the original doctrines as shirk (idolatry) and bid‘at (sinful innovation). numerous rites and ceremonies connected with birth, marriage and death were declared íarém (for bidden) such as chuttee, puttee, chhillah, shabgasht procession, fétiíah, mêléd, ‘urs, worshiping the pêrs, ta‘ziah etc. ×éjji shariatullah stressed on justice, social equality, and the universal brotherhood of muslims.34 the faré’iìi movement spread with extraordinary rapidity in different districts of bengal, particularly where the muslim peasantries were oppressed by both the hindu zamêndérs and the european indigoplanters. the zamêndérs used to impose different kinds of illegal taxes such as tax for hindu festivals as the kali puja, durga puja etc. ×éjji shariatullah directed his disciples not to pay the illegal taxes and thus there was a contentious relation created between the faré’iìis and the hindu zamêndérs. through continuous involvement with the hindu zamêndérs and the european indigo-planters, this religious reform movement gradually transformed into a socio-economic revolt. faced with such an effective islamic revivalist movement, the zamêndérs and the indigo-planters persecuted the faré’iìis ruthlessly through officially condoned acts of violence and terror. ×éjji shariatullah had also to face severe opposition from the conservative local ‘ulama who had scant knowledge of the original islamic practices and thus they wanted to preserve the existing traditional order. but the faré‘iìi movement won rapid popularity. on the death of ×ajji shariatullah, his only son hamdard islamicus 131 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 muhsinuddin ahmad dudu miyan who returned from makkah in 1837, after performing ×ajj and completing education, took charge of the movement in 1840.35 under his leadership, the faré’iìi movement turned into a strong and powerful agitation against british colonialism. bengal police estimated that dudu miyan had about 80,000 followers, while alexander forbes calculated it at 300,000.36 during the 1857 sepoy mutiny, dudu miyan was arrested and after his release he passed away in 1862. the number of followers of faré’iìi movement continued to grow steadily during dudu miyan’s son noa miyan’s time. but after the death of noa miyan in 1884, the movement seemed to have gradually lost its spirit and influence.37 the lack of strong leadership and the vigorous attacks of the zamêndérs and the opposition from the rigidly conservative ‘ulamé brought the gradual decline of the movement. ×éjji shariatullah and dudu miyan have been characterized as islamic revivalists, social reformers and peasant leaders in the history of bengal.38 for more than fifty years, the movement dominated the history of that territory, striving to create a genuine islamic order among the muslims. the movement turned into one of the most prominent anti-colonial and socio-religious reform movement in bengal in the 19th century. the faré’iìi movement strongly evidenced the power of ×ajj in creating the original spirit of islam in the mind of the ×éjjês and also showed that how revolutionarily it could impact the society of a country like bangladesh. the similar movement is ùarêqah-i-muíammadiyah [the way advocated by muíammad(œ)] movement in bengal led by meer nisar ali titumir (1782-1831) of 24 pargana district of present-day west bengal. this movement was originally founded by sayyid ahmad shahid (1786-1831) of rai bareli of uttar pradesh of india in the early 19th century which got momentum in bengal by the efforts of titumir. titumir went to makkah for ×ajj in 1822, where he came in close contact with great islamic reformer sayyid ahmad, the exponent of ùarêqah-i-muíammadiyah movement. he was motivated by the concept of the movement. returning home in 1827, titumir started preaching the idea of ùarêqah-i-muíammadiyah among the local muslims. he advised them to purify their activities from practicing shirk and bid‘ét, and inspired them to follow the true islamic way of life as advocated by the prophet (œ). his movement initially aimed at socio-religious reform, elimination of the superstitious practices from the muslim society such as hamdard islamicus 132 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 worshiping the saint, erecting shrines etc. the perspectives and objectives of both the faré’iìi and ùarêqah-i-muíammadiyah movement were almost similar. however, one difference was that titumir from the beginning emphasized on the idea of jihéd in islam and got involved in conflict with the oppressive zamêndérs, while shariatullah followed the policy of avoiding conflict. titumir got a very devoted and organized group of muslim peasants who had been oppressed by the local hindu zamêndérs. soon, he and his followers got involved in conflict with several hindu zamêndérs because of their sectarian attitude towards the muslim peasants and the imposition of illegal taxes. titumir formed a mujéhid force and trained them with indigenous arms. the increasing strength of titumir alarmed the zamêndérs and englishmen. subsequently, several expeditions were sent against titumir, but they were beaten back and suffered severe defeat.39 titumir built a strong bamboo fort at narkelbaria in october 1831 and recruited mujéhids (fighters). having completed his military preparation, titumir declared himself badshah (king) and urged upon the people to participate in jihéd against the british. he established his control over the districts of 24 pargana, nadia and faridpur. several zamêndérs had to pay tax to titumir instead of the british. in reaction, william bentinck sent a regular army against titumir under lieutenant colonel stewart consisting of 100 cavalry, 300 native infantry and artillery with two cannons. the mujéhids with traditional arms failed to resist the english army equipped with modern arms. titumir along with many of his followers was martyred in the battle field on 19 november 1831, with which the movement got an end.40 titumir’s movement began as a socio-religious reform movement. but the then socio-political circumstances compelled it to be characterized as agrarian one against the british colonial authority. no doubt, the teachings of ×ajj and the consequent realizations highly influenced titumir for such a purification movement which later on turned into an anti-colonial revolutionary movement. social perception towards ×ajj in bangladesh besides apparent impact, ×ajj also leaves several virtual and passive impacts on the personal, familial as well as social life of bangladeshi muslims. in bangladesh, the people generally think to perform ×ajj at the late age or late middle age. several types of thinking characterize this hamdard islamicus 133 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 realization regarding ×ajj. it is believed that pilgrimage to makkah is the last significant act of a muslim and a preparation to death. so, one should go to ×ajj after completing all the worldly responsibilities, as a beginning of his journey towards the next world. a pilgrim should leave for ×ajj only when all other debts have been discharged and all family matters and social obligations have been settled. similarly, old scores should be resolved, money should be set aside for the care of the family, and all children should be married prior to his departure for makkah. it is also sincerely believed that the money spent for ×ajj should not be borrowed from others but should be from the savings accumulated from ×alél (valid as per islamic teachings) employment, so that in the event of a pilgrim’s death there will be no outstanding financial or material debts. in this sense, after fulfilling all worldly responsibilities, the pilgrim departs for makkah with a clear conscience, and there he/she will be completely purified from all worldly indulgences. with such a realization of end journey and preparation to die or return home, many pilgrims bring with them the wearing of iírém (two plain white sheets of cloth), so that they can use these as their shroud. in order to make their life worthwhile, the pilgrims desire to die either in makkah while performing ×ajj, or after returning home as a ×éjji. thus, ×ajj is understood among the muslims of bangladesh as signaling the end to the material existence. after returning home, the ×éjjês earnestly try to remain isolated from the worldly activities so that they would not get involved in sins or indulgences again. this may cause harm to his purified life through ×ajj. the spirit of performing ×ajj in the early age is almost absent among the average muslims in the society of bangladesh and even among the ‘ulamé too. in recent years, the trend is getting changed steadily and many young educated people are performing ×ajj and the number is gradually increasing. there is a tendency of performing ×ajj more than once among the economically solvent muslims and particularly the ‘ulama. for example, shah meer muhammad akhtar of chittagong visited saudi arabia 29 times to perform ×ajj and ‘umrah,41 shah maulana mohammad abdul jabbar visited makkah and madinah 33 times,42maulana hafez ahmad performed ×ajj six times.43 they usually encourage others to perform ×ajj and guide them from their own experience.44 dr. abdul quader, a professor of chittagong university, who performed ×ajj 11 times, said hamdard islamicus 134 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 in an interview with the author that there are two reasons behind performing ×ajj more than once, one is love for ka‘bah and another is the sense of purification. no muslim can deny the attraction of the holy ka‘bah, especially one who visited it once. the mua’llim, who acts as a guide for a group of ×éjji usually performs ×ajj several times. moreover, some ×éjjês undertake ×ajj al-badal or proxy ×ajj on behalf of others. they perform ×ajj several times on behalf of their parents, relatives or others who could not perform ×ajj for several reasons such as ill-health etc., or they passed away without performing ×ajj. it is believed that this ×ajj by proxy certainly earns the prime rewards (tíawéb) for the person in whose account it is performed, while it also confers rewards upon him who undertakes it. in this kind of cases, experienced ×éjjês are chosen with priority. social status of a ×éjji in bangladesh in the society of bangladesh, an aspirant ×éjji is spontaneously invited by his/her relatives and neighbours immediately after his/her decision to perform ×ajj. hosting the would-be ×ajji at least for one meal is considered as a very pious job as he/she is hosting the guest of allah (swt). many people usually accompany him/her to the airport or departure place and also welcome him/her after arrival at the station. everyone feels proud who could shake hands or hug the ×éjjês. after performing ×ajj, the ×éjjês enjoy a very special dignity. historical accounts on ×ajj also suggest that ×ajj confers social prestige and legitimacy.45 one who performed ×ajj is addressed as ×éjji, which is a very respectable title for anyone in the community. the ×éjjês are generally addressed as ‘×éjjê îéíêb’ (the honorable pilgrim), and their names are written with the dignified title ‘al-×éjj’. this title indicates that the person performed ×ajj and thus he/she would be given due respect. sometime, the real name of a person is overlapped under the title ‘×éjji séíêb’. the ×éjjis are believed as purified personalities and accepted slaves (maqbël bandha) to the almighty allah as allah (swt) accepted them specially to be his guests. not only the muslims, but even the non-muslims also show respect to them as purified ones. in a meeting or public gathering, the ×éjjês are given special place of honor. thus, ×ajj improves the social status of a muslim after performing ×ajj. this hamdard islamicus 135 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 change becomes remarkable both in the manner in which the ×éjjês behave with others as well as by the honor which others extend to them. everyone behaves quietly and respectfully with the ×éjjês in their company, avoiding topics of conversation or styles of expression which could be considered discourteous. the ×éjjês are given priority for the socially honored positions, for example the chairmanship/member ship in the governing committee of a school, college, madrasah or mosque, as well as in different local governmental/non-governmental bodies. another person could also be selected, but only after expressing unwillingness by the concerned ×éjjê. the opinion or advice of a ×éjji is honored by all. the businesses or social services run by a ×éjji are considered to be more reliable than those of others with the belief that they could not cheat or harm the clients; rather they would be more honest in their dealings. such changes of status open up new areas of influence for the ×éjjês, such as in adjudicating disputes, the settling of marriage negotiations, leading prayers in the mosque etc. impact of ×ajj on everyday life ×ajj brings significant changes in the daily life of the ×éjjês in bangladesh. ×éjjis are expected to be more religious and honest in their daily activities. after performing ×ajj, a ×éjji usually tries to observe all the religious duties strictly not only in his/her personal life but also in the family and social life. for example, the women who didn’t observe purdah (islamic dress code for a woman) before ×ajj, she rarely ignores purdah after ×ajj. similarly, a muslim who was in the habit of taking bribe, involving in interest-based transactions, or such kind of unfair and illegal means before ×ajj, he/she usually tries to avoid such kind of activities after ×ajj. they fear that it may damage his/her purification which is attained through ×ajj. one who did not wear beard previously, would hardly remove beard after ×ajj. the ×éjji regularly prays five times a day, and avoids cheating or stealing or disturbing anyone. even the ×éjji abandons morally dubious and frivolous pursuits and bad habits such as smoking, drinking alcohol, different types of games such as ludë (the board game), daba (chess) etc. it is believed that a ×éjji can never tell a lie; rather he/she always tries to speak the truth. a ×éjji makes a demonstrable effort to change his behavior in line with the hamdard islamicus 136 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 desire which society associates with ×ajj. this positive change at individual level of a ×éjji, undoubtedly impacts the society, as the individuals are the basic units of a society. the ×éjji encourages the members of his/her family and others to follow religious principles of islam. in some cases in rural bangladesh, it has been found that some ×éjjês would not go out of home for 40 days as a beginning of his purified life. a ×éjji not only protects himself by leaving usury-bribe or such kinds of unfair means, but also saves many others from involving in these corrupt practices. however, it is important to stress here that people’s expectation of a ×éjji’s behavior is positively very high. it is expected that the life of a ×éjji clearly be a model of spirituality and religiosity through prayer coupled with his/her concern for others, his/her judicial participation in social affairs and his/her behavior with those whom he comes into contact. a ×éjji rarely gets involved in social corrupt practices in bangladesh. if a ×éjji is observed getting involved in corrupt practices, it is generally believed by the mass people that he/she couldn’t perform ×ajj perfectly and thus, it was not acceptable to the almighty allah (swt). ×ajj offers bangladeshi ×éjjis a novel opportunity to interact with the members of the opposite gender in a religious setting, and to observe cross-gender interactions among muslims from different nations. in bangladesh, interaction between men and women who are strangers is very uncommon. women rarely go to the mosque and when they do, they typically pray in a separate area from men. but gender interaction is a natural part of ×ajj. men pray alongside women during the ×éjj. thus, ×éjjis’ views towards women and their rights in the society are more positive. they also express greater concern about women’s quality of life and discrimination against them in bangladesh relative to other countries. here, the ×éjjis are more likely to support girls’ education and female participation in the professional workforce than the non×éjjês. ×ajj changes the philosophy of life of a ×éjji. the ×éjji is spiritually transformed, which leaves a long-lasting impact on the family as well as the whole society. the transformative properties of ×ajj enable the ×éjjês to pursue a more spiritual life. this purified life style of ×éjjês creates the sense of honor in the mind of others towards them as well as influences others to perform ×ajj. thus, ×ajj brings a positive and hamdard islamicus 137 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 remarkable change in the life and society of the muslims of bangladesh as a force of islamization. sometimes, the image of ×ajj has exceptionally been manipulated by some secular or even communist political leaders who practically do not believe in the spirituality of ×ajj. they perform ×ajj with the intention of using the image of ×ajj to earn social respect, confidence of the mass people and manifesting them as religious personality to gain their ambitious leadership. so, it may be said that everyone does not perform ×ajj with pure niyyah (motive). in short, if a ×éjji maintains the spirit of ×ajj, then he/she is a true ×éjji; if he/she does not maintain the spirit of ×ajj, then he/she is a worse person. it means in the society of bangladesh, the social and spiritual value of ×ajj depends not only on divine judgment but also on public opinion. cross-national and universal impact of ×ajj from the socio-global point of view, thousands of people go to perform ×ajj from various parts of the country (bangladesh) as well as from all over the world having differences of races, colors, nations, cultures and speaking different languages. they mix across the lines of ethnicity, nationality, sect, and gender that divide them in everyday life. even bangladesh has more than 41 regional languages46 whereas the world has thousands of languages. although the ×ajj rituals last five days, many ×éjjês stay longer. most of the ×éjjês from bangladesh spend around 40 days worshipping in the cities of makkah and madinah. each ritual component of ×ajj is performed simultaneously with well over two million participants from across the globe. all the people, despite their diverse demographic attributes, wear the same unstitched clothes known as iírém,47 come together at one place, affirm a common identity by performing common rituals and exhibit unity, equality and discipline. this substantial mixing across national, sectarian, and gender lines emphasizes equality and universality. it negates the sense of discrimination and difference among human being on the basis of wealth, race, creed, language, and region. as a participant in a global platform with thousands of people of differences, ×ajj increases the desire for universal brotherhood, peace and tolerance in the mind of the ×éjjis towards others, both muslims and non-muslims. ×ajj helps to integrate the muslim hamdard islamicus 138 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 world, leading to a strengthening of global islamic beliefs and a sense of unity and equality with others who are ordinarily separated in everyday life by sect, ethnicity, nationality, or gender, but are brought together by means of ×ajj. these feelings of unity and equality extend across all artificial lines. this reflection has been observed among the ×éjjês of bangladesh in several social affairs. for example, the ×éjji is usually being asked to mediate in disputes among different groups or individuals, resolve family quarrels, offer advice, attend marriage negotiations, lead the social activities etc. in many social conflict resolutions, it is found that the decisions of ×éjjis are mostly more positive and tolerant than the opinions of non-×éjjis. this evidence suggests that the ×ajj increases tolerance and positive views in the mind of ×éjjês. the ×éjjês, thus, play an important role in creating peaceful co-existence among different socio-religious groups in the society. ×éjjês gain experience-based knowledge of the diversity of islamic beliefs and practices, gender roles within islam, and more broadly, the world beyond bangladesh. ×éjjês are also exposed to a degree of religious diversity within the recognized schools of thought, in a religiously sanctioned context in which all are accepted. ×éjjês update their beliefs most positively about nationalities as they are likely to interact with frequently. since followers of different schools of islam pray together in a congregation at makkah, this often leads to mixing of religious practices and diversities. impact of ×ajj as social platform there are about five million bangladeshi migrants working in saudi arabia. the ×éjjis, whose relatives are living in saudi arabia, take the time of ×ajj as an opportunity of their meeting with them. even many bangladeshi people, who live in different countries, particularly of the middle-east, use the occasion of ×ajj as an opportunity to meet the ‘ulama, shaikhs or family-members and relatives who come from bangladesh. thus, ×ajj works as a social platform of getting together for bangladeshi people at makkah and madinah. the ‘ulamé and shaikhs also use this opportunity to meet their disciples and visit different historical and spiritual places of saudi arabia and the middle-east.48 not only at makkah, but also several ×ajj agencies of bangladesh back at home hamdard islamicus 139 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 regularly arrange ×éjjê reunion programs. for example, ×ajj-i-baitullah ×ajj kafelah, a leading ×ajj agency in chittagong headed by giasuddin talukdar, a professor of chittagong university, regularly arranges ×éjji reunion program every year. this program brings the opportunity for ×éjjês of different localities to meet together, review their experience and share ideas. such programs create spiritual reawakening among the ×éjjês and remind them about their glorious times spent in makkah and encourage them to keep the promise that they had made during ×ajj with allah (swt). thus, the spirit of ×éjjês renewed and it leads to live a purified life whole the year through. economic impact of ×ajj the earliest arab-bengal relation was mainly based on commercial activities. after the advent of islam, early arab muslim traders had established trading contact with the costal lands of bengal. some indirect references in the writings of arab geographers (such as silsilat-ut-tawérikh by sulaiman, kitab al-masélik walmamélik by ibn khurradadhbeh, mu‘jam al-buldén by yéqët, nuzhat al-mushtaq by al-idêsi) strongly record a flourishing trade contact between arab and bengal.49 this early contact is evidently supported by archeological discoveries such as coin discovered at the ancient buddhist site of paharpur in rajshahi district dated on 788 a.c,50 and at the ruins of mainamoti in comilla district.51 this trade contact led to the emergence and expansion of islam in bengal. being one of the five fundamentals of islam, ×ajj attracted the muslims of bengal and their descendants to perform it and visit the holy sites of makkah and madinah. so, it is believed that the muslim merchants of bengal who went to arabia for trade, naturally they performed ×ajj. at the same time, the person who went to makkah for ×ajj, also had some trading concerns. they carried several local items to arabia when they travelled to arabia for ×ajj and brought arabian items with them when they returned home. thus, from the beginning ×ajj has economic implications. no doubt, there are diversified economic impacts of ×ajj on the society of bangladesh. ×ajj has lots of impact on the private tour operators of bangladesh hamdard islamicus 140 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 to facilitate ×éjjês of the country. the operators offer all kinds of support to the ×éjjês within the country as well as in saudi arabia. it includes visa processing, arranging air ticket, bus travel, accommodation, food and all kinds of logistic support in saudi arabia. in 2018, 1,27,198 ×éjjês performed ×ajj from bangladesh. the expense for package one was 397929 bdt and for package two was 331359 bdt. it may be estimated that the average cost was around 365000 bdt and the estimated total cost was (365000x 127198 = 46427.27 million bdt = usd559.36 million). most of the money is spent for air travel and accommodation in saudi arabia. as ×ajj involves huge number of activities, a good number of private tour operators have developed schemes to undertake the ×ajj activities. it generates profit also for the ×ajj agencies. there are, presently, about 1000 private ×ajj agencies in the country working in the field.52 the pilgrims of bangladesh can travel only by two airlines i.e. biman bangladesh airlines and saudi arabia airlines. around ×ajj activities, transaction of billions of dollars takes place commercially and thus, ×ajj has become an important concern in the economy of bangladesh. the ×éjjês travelling from bangladesh traditionally take different types of essential items along with them, such as cloths, essential medicine, etc. to use during their stay in saudi arabia. sometimes, they take several bangladeshi popular food or gift items for their relatives or friends living in saudi arabia. simultaneously, they bring many popular arabian items for bangladeshi family members and friends when they return from ×ajj. these include arabian dates, drinking water of zamzam, perfume, prayer-rug, cap etc. it is traditional in bangladesh that the bangladeshi ×éjjês after their return entertain their visitors with the water of zamzam and the arabian dates. sometimes, they use to offer gifts of prayer-rug, perfume, cap etc. among the closest friends and relatives. few ×éjjês, particularly women members, bring with them arabian gold mainly for their own use or for their sons’ or daughters’ wedding. thus, many commodities are exchanged informally between saudi arabia and bangladesh through the hands of the ×éjjês. though it has economic values, in most of the cases these have rarely been conducted for commercial purposes. about three million bangladeshi migrants work in saudi arabia hamdard islamicus 141 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 legally,53 while the number of illegal migrants is unofficially estimated to be around two millions. they are involved in different types of business in the holy cities of makkah and madinahh, particularly during ×ajj. the commodities include garment items, arabian dates, food items, prayer-rug, cap, perfume, miswék (teeth cleaning twig made from the salvadora persica tree known as arak in arabic) play items for kids etc. the ×éjjês buy these items for their relatives and friends at the home. it is assumed that the bangladeshi ×éjjês spend around 1000$ during their stay at saudi arabia for buying such types of gift items. thus, huge amount of commodities are exchanged between bangladesh and saudi arabia during ×ajj. though thousands of dollars are spent by the bangladeshi ×éjjês on the occasion of ×ajj, simultaneously thousands of dollars also returned to the country because of this business run by the bangladeshi traders in saudi arabia. cultural impact ×ajj, being practiced every year by thousands of multi-lingual and multi-cultural muslims together, has undoubtedly been resulting in cross-cultural interaction. it combines together various elements of different cultures particularly of arabia. ×ajj brings the unique opportunity of interaction among the muslims of different nations, sects and culture. it represents the largest annual confession of faith on earth where muslims meet one another and discuss their common affairs and issues which promote their general welfare. it also represents the greatest annual peace conference, while peace constitutes the dominant theme of the whole ×ajj season.54 ×ajj brings diverse cultural impact on the society of bangladesh. for example, in the society of bangladesh, after returning home from ×ajj, the ×éjjês usually begin to wear arabian jubbah55 in preference to western fashions. they also use head-covering keffiyeh or shemaghs56 at least occasionally such as during the time of performing weekly jumuah prayer in the mosque. thus, arabian dress culture becomes dress culture of ×éjjês in bangladesh. it has been considered as a symbol of dignity identifying a ×éjjê. several arabian and islamic cultures which have randomly been practiced among the arabian people such as hospitality to the guests, charity to the needy people, giving gifts, hamdard islamicus 142 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 helping the disable etc. influence the minds of ×éjjês. the bangladeshi ×éjjês after their return try to follow these practices in their everyday life. the beards of the ×éjjês are carefully groomed and trimmed. traditionally, the ×éjjês in bangladeshi society are unquestionably respected by everybody irrespective of socio-religious or political groups. they usually use the honorific title ‘×éjjê or al-×éjj’ before their name. the society of bangladesh tends to associate ×ajj with men rather than women, since very few women perform ×ajj comparing to men. a female pilgrim would become a local celebrity in the village area. the female pilgrims rarely use the title ‘al-×éjj’ or ‘×éjjiya’. it also varies based on age. it is believed that age brings seniority, and etiquette demands that young defer the old. consequently, young person who performed ×ajj would not be given equal status and respect associated in general with having performed ×ajj. it is, thus, socially problematic for a young pilgrim to claim the status of ×éjji and it is observed among the young ×éjjês in bangladeshi society that they are not used to using the title ‘al-×éjj’. even the people also usually donot address a young ×éjji as ‘×éjji øéíib’ or do not show equal respect towards them as to the old aged ×éjjês. in bangladeshi society, several in-house programs are arranged in honor of the person who decides to perform ×ajj. these programs are organized by his friends, relatives and neighbours and are generally followed by lunch or dinner. it has been believed to be an honorific act to find the opportunity of feeding the guest of allah (swt). sometimes, these programs turn into family and relatives get-together. like any other party, food is the prime course of these programs too, and of course would-be ×éjji is the chief guest. though, there are no official statistics or survey, it can easily be said that a would-be ×éjji on an average attends at least 10 to 15 pre-×ajj and post-×ajj feast programs. to see off an aspirant-×éjji is a unique feature in the society of bangladesh. close friends and family-members go with intending pilgrims to the airport to see him off. huge rush is seen in the airports on the occasion of the departure of the ×ajj flights. in the village areas, seeing-off an intending ×éjji is a big event. family-members, friends, villagers, relatives and neighbours gather hours before the departure of the ×éjji. they are bidden good-bye with tears from their residence. then they are taken to the nearest railway or bus station in the form of a big procession. the hamdard islamicus 143 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 number of greeters gets reduced at railway or bus station, and only close family-members and friends accompany the intending ×éjji on their way to the airport. they stay with the intending ×éjji or even outside the airport until the flight takes off. upon their return, the same practice is repeated. they are received by their close family-members, and friends at the airport, and later on the same railway or bus station, the same huge crowds are there to welcome the ×éjji. sometimes, the families and friends who missed the chance of inviting the would-be ×éjji before their ×ajj, arrange such programs after their return from ×ajj. ×éjjês briefly share their ×ajj experiences with the friends and relatives and influence them to perform ×ajj and visit the holy cities of makkah and madinah in the post-×ajj programs. the ×éjjês entertain the visitors generally with the drinking water of zamzam and arabian dates. these are believed to be symbols of barakah (blessing). sometimes, the number of visitors becomes too many that the water of zamzam that was brought by the ×éjji doesn’t reach all the recipients. in those cases, few drops of zamzam water is being mixed with the regular drinking water and then distributed among the visitors. everybody including the children and the aged are very eager to drink a little water from that with due respect to the holy water.57 many of them eat or drink it with the hope of being cured of their illnesses. the ×éjjês entertain close relatives, friends or dignified guests with some special gifts that are brought from the holy city of makkah. the special gifts include prayer-rug, arabian perfume (attar), prayer-cap, arabian jubbah, beads (tasbêí), miswak (teeth-cleaning twig made from the salvadora persica tree). distribution of gifts of makkah by a ×éjji has been the most attractive feature of post-×ajj programs. many ×éjjês in bangladesh bring with them the cloths of iírém (two plain white sheets of cloth) which they wore in makkah during ×ajj, with the spirit of preparation for eternal journey, intending to use these as their shroud. or they bring different sets of cloths being washed with the water of zamzam to use as their shroud. they also try to bring a part of the ghiléf (covering cloth) of ka‘bah to use it with their shroud. sometimes, they bring mud of the grave of jannatul baqê (a famous graveyard of the companions of the prophet (œ) to use it in their graves. it is believed that this wearing and mud may cause safety from the dangers in the graves after their departure from the worldly life. hamdard islamicus 144 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 with the influence of globalization and modern westernized cultural trend in the society of bangladesh, these particular cultures around ×ajj and its social impressions are gradually declining. now, many people, particularly young people of the country, donot show additional respect towards ×éjji only on account of being a ×éjji; rather they observe the reality and their practical life. they think that sometimes it is possible to become a ×éjji with the usual symbols but without any inner transformation. anyone can wear the right clothes, trim his beard, and call himself a ×éjji, but this does not suffice for his complete piety. now, people make judgments about the practical honesty and piety not with the symbols only. the person using the symbols without practical honesty is treated as a ‘×éjji in-name only’. thus, ×ajj being practiced among the muslims of bengal for centuries, has been exerting socio-cultural impacts on the various strata of the society. educational impact ×ajj increases knowledge of the ×éjjês both experimental and theoretical through various means. primarily, whenever a person desires to perform ×éjj, he/she simultaneously tries to learn the ways of performing ×éjj correctly. the intending ×éjji learns it either by way of studying the books written on ×ajj or from a learned person (‘ólêm). this learning, sometimes, includes many other religious aspects. he/she also tries to gather experience from the persons who already performed ×ajj. on the occasion of ×ajj, a good number of small booklets containing the rules of ×ajj are published in bangladesh by the islamic scholars or the ×ajj agencies. sometimes, these books are distributed free of cost by the wealthy persons as a gift to the intending ×éjjis, or they buy it from the market. the ×ajj agencies in bangladesh also distribute the ×ajj guidelines among the intending ×ajj is and arrange pre-×ajj training programs so that they can perform ×ajj perfectly. the main objective of such training programs is to guide, and train the intending ×ajj is as to how perform the ×ajj correctly. they also teach the intending ×ajj is the techniques to avoid the rush during ×ajj. bangladesh government also arranges ×ajj training program for the intending ×ajj is. these programs begin with recitation from the holy qur’én followed by na‘t (songs of to praise for prophet (œ). the speakers include mainly hamdard islamicus 145 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 islamic scholars (‘ulamé) and experienced ×éjjis. they deliver speech about their ×ajj experiences, important features of ×ajj, the rules, regulations and duties of ×ajj, the ways to perform ×ajj perfectly, locations of important places in the ×aramain, legal requirements in the country, laws of saudi government which must be followed by a ×éjji during ×ajj and other sensitivities of the land, which need to be respected. with the help of projector and other devices, the trainers inform the intended ×éjjis about procedure and mandatory requirements of ×ajj. these training sessions usually last longer than any other session of a pre-×ajj program as the intending ×éjjês are interested to know as much as they can about their scheduled journey. food is served at the end of the training sessions. after the training program, the intending ×éjjês devote themselves into studying and learning ×ajj rituals in details until they perform ×ajj. during their stay at the holy cities of makkah and madinah, the bangladeshi ×éjjês gather knowledge from different types of lectures and practices of global muslims particularly of arabia. several arabian scholars arrange religious discussion programs in the masjidal-×arém compound, where bangladeshi ×éjjês participate and acquire knowledge about several important islamic issues and practices. these lectures mainly focus on the importance of having pure ‘aqêdah (faith). bangladeshi ×éjjês, who have been experiencing of several bid‘at (sinful innovative practices) in the society of bangladesh, because of historical perspectives, receive exclusive knowledge of pure ‘aqêdah. thus, they can realize by comparison that many practices that they had performed earlier were originally not supported by islam. this realization reflects on their practical life after ×ajj. but, one disadvantage of these lectures, as has been marked by professor dr. b.m. mofizur rahman, who has performed ×ajj several times,58 is that these are conducted in arabic language, while majority of bangladeshi ×éjjis does not understand them and obviously they cannot get full benefit. though there are some lectures with bangla translation arranged by the ×ajj agencies or some bangladeshi associations in saudi arabia, major lectures have no translation facilities into any other languages. he also remarked that as many verses of the holy qur‘én and ×adêth of the prophet (œ) hung on the walls of masjid al-×arém in arabic, most of the non-arab people cannot understand the meaning of these verses and prophetic traditions. if these hamdard islamicus 146 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 lectures could be broad casted translating into other major languages and the wall posters could be hung incorporating translations, it would be better understood by the world muslim community including bangladeshi ×éjjês. many organizations like rabeta al-alam al-islami arrange many islamic programs during ×ajj season, where lectures are given by world-famous islamic scholars, from which the ×éjjês enrich their knowledge about islam and world muslim communities of different countries. ×ajj conference also takes place every year. the ×ajj agencies of bangladesh also arrange many educative programs which include important lectures by bangladeshi or bangla-speaking islamic scholars. many bangladeshi students studying in different universities of saudi arabia arrange different types of educative and instructive programs for the bangladeshi ×éjjês specially emphasizing on those issues which are closely related to the society of bangladesh. by participating in these variant programs, the ×éjjês of bangladesh enrich themselves with important knowledge of islam, understand the diversity of global muslim community, exchange their views, and come into close contact with the famous islamic scholars of different countries. thus, one kind of enhancement of knowledge and exchange of views has widely been taken place among the ×éjjês of bangladesh. many arabian shaikhs voluntarily arrange a good number of intellectual discourses in different venues and mosques during ×ajj, where bangladeshi ×éjjês also participate. professor dr. a.k.m. shahed,59 who performed ×ajj in 2013, remarked that he participated in these type of several programs and shaikhs also gifted him some books written on islam. he got huge benefits from these discussions and remarked that these were very thoughtful, effective and these mainly focused on pure islamic ‘aqêdah. sometimes, bangladeshi students studying there promptly translate the lectures of shaikhs into bangla for the better understanding and easy communication. he suggests for multi-lingual translations for greater benefit of the ×éjjês coming from different language backgrounds. many bangladeshi ‘ulamé go to perform ×ajj every year. they also attend different discussion meetings and cultural programs where they deliver valuable speech mainly arranged by the bangladeshi migrants in saudi arabia in honor of bangladeshi ×éjjês. professor dr. b.m. mofizur rahman,60 a renowned islamic scholar of chittagong, who performed ×ajj threetimes, participated in two such programs in 2015 and in six hamdard islamicus 147 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 programs in 2014 in the presence of hundreds of bangladeshi migrants and ×éjjês. professor dr. a.k.m. abdul quader,61 who performed ×ajj more than five times and every year he participated in several programs and also delivered speech. he estimated that bangladeshi migrants arrange more than 100 such religio-cultural programs in makkah during ×ajj. many bangladeshi islamic scholars, who live in different european and other countries, also deliver speeches before the bangladeshi ×éjjês during ×ajj in these kinds of programs. thus, it may be said that bangladeshi ×éjjês get a very rare opportunity to listen to the speeches from world famous islamic scholars during ×ajj. undoubtedly, it contributes to increase their knowledge about islam in general and ×ajj in particular. it makes them conscious, acquaintances them with diversity of islam and enlightens them with global thinking. many educated people of bangladesh who go to perform ×ajj, take the opportunity to bring many books from saudi arabia particularly the religious and historical books. the ‘ulamé and the people who understand arabic language usually bring the books for personal use as well as for libraries of their institutions. h.m. ataur rahman nadwi,62 who performed ×ajj second time in 2015, brought sixty kilograms of books during his departure from makkah, dr. masudur rahman,63 also couriered about 100 kilograms of book from makkah when he visited that sacred city. they brought the books particularly on tafsêr, ×adêth, fiqh and arabic language. professor dr. a.k.m. abdul quader also observed that during several lectures arranged by arabian shaikhs, he and many other participants were presented with many books. thus, many arabic books on islam are brought to bangladesh by the ×éjjês every year. so, ×ajj not only enhances the knowledge, perception and experience of the ×éjjês, but also opens the opportunity of learning islam from original source for the non-×éjjês of bangladesh. religio-spiritual impact ×ajj is a phenomenon of the spiritual journey of the muslim devotees and the stages of their servitude to the almighty allah. the essence of ×ajj is the journey towards the almighty allah (swt) and the external acts of ×ajj, devoid of presence of the heart, are not considered as worship. thus, ×ajj, as a religious obligation and spiritual act, undoubtedly hamdard islamicus 148 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 leaves immense religious and spiritual impact not only on the mind of the ×éjjês and non-×éjjês of bangladesh, but also the entire muslim society of the country. following the tradition of the society of bangladesh, all worldly obligations of a ×éjjê have almost been discharged before performing ×ajj. subsequently, a ×éjjê after his/her return devotes his full time to pursue a better advanced spiritual life. however, it does not mean withdrawing from the world completely. rather, it simply means that they can now do more spiritual activities. the ×éjjês of bangladesh use this care-free time in observing non-obligatory prayers either in their houses or in the mosques. it is sincerely believed that a ×éjjê after completing ×ajj will receive special raímat (mercy) from the almighty allah (swt) and his worldly problems would be solved easily.64 spiritually, the ×ajj works as a way of transition and transformation for the ×éjjês from a materialistic life to a very spiritualistic one. a ×éjjê, who performed ×ajj correctly, is believed to have returned from makkah free from all sins ‘as clean as a new born baby’. images of birth are felt and seen in the returning ×éjjês and their feelings. almost all the ×éjjês emphasize on the necessity of being exonerated by the almighty allah (swt) from the accumulated sins of their life. in this sense, a bangladeshi ×éjjê sees the ×ajj as a rite which marks the transition from a sinless life to a blessed death. closely connected to this concept of spiritual rebirth, purification is highly expected from the returning ×éjjês as a moral transformation. everyone in bangladeshi society expects those who have been to makkah for ×ajj to come back spiritually rejuvenated, displaying a new enthusiasm for the spiritual life. the ×éjjês often describe their ×ajj experience in terms of changed spiritual states. again and again ×éjjês tell about how they felt themselves transformed by means of ×ajj as recounted by dr. helaluddin noman65 who performed ×ajj in 2015. to quote him here: “when i went to makkah for ×ajj, i was happy and felt very blessed to see the holy ka‘bah. after my return, i felt very keen to see the house of allah (swt) again and again. this feeling could not be expressed exactly in words. it is an eternal and spiritual love.” mrs. razia begum,66 who performed ×ajj in 2013, described her feelings as: hamdard islamicus 149 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 “i cried when i was returning from the holy mosque of the prophet (œ) and baitullah. i felt as if i lost my parents or my sons and daughters. it is an attraction forever. still i cry whenever i see these holy places on the tv screens. every moment i feel to be there, i feel as if i left my ever known places. it changed my whole thinking. after every prayer, i pray to almighty allah (swt) to be able to go there again. i remember every time the days i spent over there. before ×ajj i prayed towards ka‘bah and during ×ajj i saw the ka‘bah. and after returning home, whenever i stand for prayer that lively ka‘bah has appeared in front of my eyes. it is an indescribable feeling.” ×ajj undoubtedly brings a tremendous change in the philosophy and attitude of ×éjjês towards life and livelihood. as dr. helaluddin noman described that he can never think to do something inconsistent with the islamic sharê‘ah though in minor issues. ×ajj made him stronger than before to be dependent on the almighty allah (swt) in every aspect of life. ×ajj creates a happy mood and cheerful attitude in the mind of ×éjjês and thus, ×éjjês feel better in everyday affairs of their daily life. these psychological transformation and spiritual change are manifested in the daily activities, realm of prayer and other kinds of religious activity of the ×éjjês in bangladeshi society. md. abu shama,67 who performed ×ajj in 2013, illustrated it well when saying: “when i went to makkah for ×ajj and saw everything with my eyes, touched with my hands, prayed at the premises of the ka‘bah, i am thinking very differently. my heart says, stay here forever and never leave it.” because of historical perspectives and lack of awareness on the part of the bengali muslims, many socio-cultural practices infiltrated from hinduism and buddhism into the muslim society. many superstitious practices are prevailing in the society of bangladesh such as worshipping the pêrs/awliés, decorating their graves/shrines, constructing prayer houses on the graves of pêrs/awliés, seeking their help, believing in their spiritual power after death, offering food and flowers in the names of pêrs/awliés, using amulets etc. when a person who had practiced these hamdard islamicus 150 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 infiltrated alien cultures or any bid‘at previously, and goes to makkah for ×ajj, he observesthere a very pure practice of islam which is entirely free from such kind of shirk and bid‘at. every muslim in the society of bangladesh unquestionably believes in the purity of islamic practices at makkah and madinah. this practical experience creates a permanent change in the devotional practices of a ×éjjê. thus, the ×éjjês who had the habit of such kind of shirk and bid‘at practices, they sincerely abandon these after performing ×ajj. the superstitious beliefs for decades have permanently been vanished as a result of performing ×ajj once. it is undoubtedly considered as a revolutionary change in the religious affairs of the muslim society of bangladesh. many people who were worshippers of graves of the saints previously, after ×ajj their minds turn towards pure tawíêd, as professor dr. a.k.m. shahed remarked.68 he gave examples of several individuals of his own village, whom he observed to be changed radically in their beliefs and practices after hajj. remembering his father’s ×ajj history in 1983, dr. a.k.m. shahed recalled that before his father’s journey to makkah, he concluded all kinds of economic transactions with the people from the belief that it might be his last journey. it was believed an eternal journey and preparation for next life. it leaves spiritual impact positively not only on the life of the ×éjjês, but also on his/her family members and the society to a greater extent. ×ajj can change the philosophy of life of a ×éjji by changing individual’s inner state, beliefs, preferences, and subsequently he could spiritually be transformed by performing ×ajj. thus, ×ajj brings a remarkable change in the life and society of bangladeshi muslims. ×ajj inspires ×éjjês to be a better muslim in both faith and practice than before. it encourages them to participate regularly in practices which they unambiguously identify as islamic. in this sense, it is seen as part of a process of islamization among them. ×éjjês are more likely to undertake obligatory and supererogatory (nawéfil/optional) prayers such as øalét-ut-tahajjud, qur’én recitation regularly etc. they become regular attendants in the mosques to perform five times prayers, observe obligatory and non-obligatory fasting and follow islamic principles strictly in the daily affairs of their individual, family and social life. the female ×éjjês are never seen to ignore purdah. the male ×éjjês rarely shave their beard as it goes against the sunnah of the prophet (œ). they try to avoid all kinds of unfair, unethical and un-islamic means in their hamdard islamicus 151 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 everyday activities. even, the ×éjjê for sakes morally unsound habits such as smoking etc. they rarely do cheat, tell a lie or break a promise with others in their social affairs. the ×éjjês inspire their fellow brethren and family-members to follow islamic religious principles in their lives. thus, in the society of bangladesh, life of a ×éjjê has ever been a model of spirituality and islamic religiosity. most probably majority of the ×éjjês do some religious commitment by self during ×ajj which they observe in their post-×ajj life. it increases their devotion to religious practice, honesty in social affairs and induces them to be more tolerant and kind towards the different social groups. it inspires them to keep pure belief consistent with the holy qur‘én and sunnah. ×éjjês in the society of bangladesh usually become more tolerant to the people from different religious groups, sects, and to the member of the opposite gender. ×ajj increases experience-based knowledge about global diversity of gender, color, region with in the muslim ummah and most importantly, diversity of opinion within islam. this knowledge leads them to interact broadly with other groups. thus, ×ajj, as an islamic religious obligation, inculcates islamic religiosity and inner spirituality of the ×éjjês of bangladesh. these are often reflected through their practical dealings in all through the rest of their life after ×ajj. they become more meticulous in their religious observances, more honest in their social affairs, more trustworthy in their interactive attitudes, more reliable in their family commitments, more confident in themselves, and most importantly, every moment they remain ever ready to meet their beloved lord allah (swt) with a purified life and honestheart bedecked with the jewels of absolute surrender to his will. conclusion ×ajj is the most complete and comprehensive form of worship in islamand submission before the almighty allah (swt). it disciplines the human being, teaches tawíêd, purifies his soul, creates unity with other fellow-believers without arrogance, prepares the mind for death, ushers in a feeling of humbleness, and strengthens the faith of a true believer in him. ×ajj has an enormous impact on the life of the muslims of bangladesh in all respect as the social and religious sentiments run side by side. ×ajj not only transforms individual life of the ×éjjês but also hamdard islamicus 152 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 collective beliefs and practices of the entire society that spread universal islamic values. every year thousands of bangladeshi muslims; male and female, perform ×ajj. this huge number of ×éjjês, with their practical learning and diverse experience from ×ajj, are exerting positive influence on different aspects of the society. it is the most vivid manifestation of believing in and practicing tawíêd (belief in a single deity of allah) and universal brotherhood. the ×éjjês practice true islam with pure ‘aqêdah (beliefs) during ×ajj, which contribute to the spread of pure islamic faith and practice among the muslims of bangladesh who have been practicing many social rites having relation to shirk (polytheism) and bid‘at (sinful innovation) because of historical, and socio-cultural interaction with the non-muslim religious groups. the ×éjjês work for social peace and wider tolerance towards different social groups irrespective of gender, sect religion, based on islamic teaching of justice and equality. ×ajj offers the most evident and effective lesson of equality and universality for mankind. it induces a shift from localized beliefs and practice towards global islamic practice. ×ajj increases tolerance and peaceful inclinations and leads to more favorable attitudes toward others, particularly, the women. it eradicates such vices as racism, murder, casteism, regionalism, nationalism etc. and permanently annihilates polytheism from the minds of the muslims who gather around the holy ka‘bah to submit themselves before the will of almighty allah (swt). ×ajj also helps spreading some arabian culture into the muslim society of bangladesh. the ×éjjês in the society of bangladesh enjoy a position of special respect.69 it also contributes to the spread of islamic knowledge primarily at individual level of the ×éjjês and at the collective level to an appreciable extent. several commodities are exchanged unofficially between bangladesh and saudi arabia during ×ajj, which facilitates the trading concerns with the prospect of a rise to a very remarkable level. spiritually, ×ajj represents the essence and spirit of islam, complete devotion towards the almighty allah (swt), self-sacrifice, equality, and in discrimination on the basis of color, race, caste, wealth or power. it not only moulds the ×éjjês into more sincere muslims, but also the society at large by their honesty and piety. ×ajj is a coveted preparation for the next life and it leads to a spiritual reawakening and improves social status. it creates the unity of thoughts and acts by performing divine injunctions and consolidating the pillars of social justice. the bangladeshi muslim’s keen attraction to hamdard islamicus 153 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the holy ka‘bah and the great assembly of the muslim ummah during ×ajj in a single place, evidently, create mutual understanding, unity in thinking and tendency of tolerance towards others. the most important factor of understanding is the equitable teachings of islam that bridge the gaps, bring hearts together, create a link between the east and the west, black and white, the arabs and the non-arabs, feel sympathy for one another. above allin the context of the society of bangladesh, it may confidently be said that ×ajj transforms a ×éjjê to be a better muslim in belief and practice, a better social member in dealings with the people, a better personality in feelings towards others. notes and references 1. sabir shah, “number of foreign ×éjjis grows by 2,824 percent in 92 years”, the news international, pakistan, october 25, 2012, last modified 4 october 2015, http://www.thenews.com.pk/todays-news-2-139473-number-of-foreign-hajjisgrows-by-2824-percent-in-92-years . 2. m.n. pearson, pious passengers: the ×ajj in earlier times, new delhi, sterling publishers pvt. ltd., 1994, p. 1. 3. al-qur’én, vol. xxii, p. 28, accessed february 10, 2017, http://quran.com/22/ 28. 4. qiblah is the direction of the place to which muslims must turn for prayer the ka’ébah at makkah. 5. abu ameenah b. philips, ×ajj and umra according to the qur’én and sunna, riyadh, international islamic publishing house, 1989, p. 33. 6. burhan al-din daluw, jazirat al-arab qabl al-islam, beirut 1989, vol. ii, p. 273. 7. oxford dictionary, accessed november 10, 2018, https:// en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hajj 8. al-qur’én, vol. xxii, pp. 26-27, and [mention, o muíammad], when we designated for abraham the site of the house, [saying], “do not associate anything with me and purify my house for those who perform tawaf and those who stand [in prayer] and those who bow and prostrate. and proclaim to the people the ×ajj [pilgrimage]; they will come to you on foot and on every lean camel; they will come from every distant pass. accessed february 10, 2017, http://quran.com/22/26-27 . 9. al-qur’én, vol. xxii, pp. 27-28. accessed february 10, 2017, http://quran.com/ 22/27-28. 10. al-qur’én, vol. iii, p. 97. accessed february 10, 2017, http://quran.com/3/97. 11. ibn hajar al-asqalani, bulugh al-maraam min adillat alahkam, book 6, ×adith 739, accessed november 10, 2018, https://sunnah.com/bulugh/6/13. 12. abu abdullah muíammad ibn ismail al-bukhari, sahih al-bukhari, book 25, ×adith 9, accessed november 10, 2018, https://sunnah.com/bukhari/25/9. hamdard islamicus 154 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 13. k. a. nizami, “introduction” in arab accounts of india, ed. dr. moíammad zaki, delhi, 2009. 14. md. thowhidul islam, “the advent of islam in bengal, an economic perspective”, iiuc studies 7, bangladesh 2010, pp. 91-106. 15. moíammad akram khan, moslem bhonger samajik itihash, social history of the muslims of bengal, dhaka, azad publications ltd., 1965, p. 83. 16. m. n. roy, the historical role of islam, delhi, 1981, pp. 82-84. 17. ahmadul islam chowdhury, a history of ×ajj pilgrimage via chittagong port of bangladesh, chittagong, 2017, p. 4. 18. syed ashraf ali, “×ajj,” in banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of bangladesh, eds. sirajul islam, bangladesh, asiatic society of bangladesh, 2003, accessed february 28, 2017, http://www.banglapedia.org/. 19. m. n. pearson, pious passengers, the ×ajj in earlier times, new delhi, sterling publishers pvt. ltd., 1994. 20. “muslim population by country,” pew research center, accessed february 12, 2017,http://features.pewforum.org/muslim-population/ . 21. “top ten countries with largest muslim population,” maps of world, accessed february 12, 2017, http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-tencountries-with-largest-muslim-populations-map.html 22. “×ajj package 2015,” bangladesh ×ajj management portal of ministry of religious affairs, accessed march 11, 2017, http://www. hajj.gov.bd/wp-content/uploads/ 2015/12/hajj_pakage_2015.pdf 23. “×ajj package 2016,” bangladesh ×ajj management portal of ministry of religious affairs, accessed march 11, 2017, http://www.hajj.gov.bd/wp-content/uploads/ 2016/12/hajj_pakage_2016.pdf 24. ×ajj package 2018,” bangladesh ×ajj management portal of ministry of religious affairs, accessed november 11, 2018, http://www.hajj.gov.bd/wp-content/uploads/ 2018/02/haj-package-2018.pdf 25. m. abdel haleem, “the religious and social importance of ×ajj”, in the ×ajj, collected essays, eds. veneia porter & liana saif, london, the british museum, 2013, p. 1. 26. akeel ibrahim al-ken, the ×ajj. past, present, and future: the communication aspect, ph.d. thesis, netherland, the university of leeds, 1995, p. 2. 27. “muslim population by country,” pew research center, accessed february 12, 2017,http://features.pewforum.org/muslim-population/ . 28. “top ten countries with largest muslim population,” maps of world, accessed february 12, 2017, http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-tencountries-with-largest-muslim-populations-map.html 29. “population census 2011”, bangladesh bureau of statistics, accessed february 10, 2017, http://www.bbs.gov.bd/ . 30. shariatpur named as such after the name of ×ajji shariatullah. formerly it was under the madaripur sub-division of bangladesh. 31. md. thowhidul islam, “the role of migration in the formation of early muslim community of bengal, 1204-1757”, journal of history and culture, (itihas o sanskriti) 1, bangladesh, islamic university kushtia, 2010, pp. 237-261. hamdard islamicus 155 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 32. md. akhtaruzzaman, “history of sufism in bengal: an introduction”, philosophy and progress journal 28, bangladesh, dhaka university, 2000, pp. 54-62. 33. muin-ud-din ahmad khan, history of the fara’idi movement in bengal, karachi, pakistan historical society, 1965, vol ii, pp. 37-38. 34. muin-ud-din ahmad khan, “shariatullah,” in banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of bangladesh, eds. sirajul islam, dhaka, asiatic society of bangladesh, 2003, accessed february 28, 2017, http://www.banglapedia.org/. 35. muin-ud-din ahmad khan, “dudu miyan,” in banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of bangladesh, eds. sirajul islam, dhaka, asiatic society of bangladesh, 2003, accessed february 28, 2017, http://www.banglapedia.org/. 36. iftekhar iqbal, “between puritan islamic and syncretistic muslim traditions in bengal, an ecological perspective on the faraizi movement,” bangladesh e-journal of sociology 8, no. 1. dhaka, 2011, p. 66. 37. ibid., p. 69. 38. muin-ud-din ahmad khan, islamic revivalism, dhaka, bangladesh institute of islamic thought, 2010, pp. 176-205. 39. ibid., pp. 141-162. 40. muin-ud-din ahmad khan, “titumir,” in banglapedia: the national encyclopedia of bangladesh, eds. sirajul islam, dhaka, asiatic society of bangladesh, 2003, accessed february 28, 2017, http://www.banglapedia.org/. 41. moíammad aman ullah khan, mohimamoy jiban (glorious life), chittagong, baitus sharaf anjumane ittehad, 2011, p. 100. 42. muhammad abdul hai nadwi, hazrat allama shah maulana moíammad abdul jabbar r., life and ideal, bangladesh, allama shah abdul jabbar foundation chittagong, 2012, p. 67. 43. ahmadul islam chowdhury, aasheqe rasul, mujaddede mahfil-i-siratunnabi hazrat shah maulana hafez ahmad r., bangladesh, 2007, p. 42. 44. hazrat shah moulana muíammad abdul jabbar, ta’alimul ×ajj, umrah and ziyarat, a chapter entitled cautions from experience, chittagong, allama shah abdul jabbar foundation, 2012, pp. 30-33. 45. hastings donnan, “symbol and status: the significance of the ×ajj in pakistan.” muslim world 79, no. 3-4. 1989, pp. 205-216; c. yamba, c., permanent pilgrims: the role of pilgrimage in the lives of west african muslims in sudan. edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 1995; dale f. eickelman and james piscatori, “muslim travellers: pilgrimage, migration, and the religious imagination.” in barbara d. metcalf, ed. comparative studies on muslim societies, vol. ix, berkeley, university of california press, 1990. 46. “bangladesh” languages of the world, accessed february 28, 2017, http:// www.ethnologue.com/country/bd 47. men wear two white sheets. women face less stringent requirements but typically also wear white. 48. aman ullah khan, mohimamoy jiban, pp. 100-116. 49. abdul karim, social history of the muslims in bengal, chittagong, baitush sharaf islamic research institute, 1985, pp. 31-33, m. mohar ali, history of the muslims of bengal, vol. i a, ksa, department of culture and publication of imam muíammad ibn sa’ud islamic university, 1985, pp. 33-34. hamdard islamicus 156 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 50. k.n. dikshit, memories of the archeological survey of india, no. 55, delhi, 1938, p. 87. 51. f.a. khan, recent archeological discoveries in east pakistan: mainamati, karachi:, pakistan publications, n.d., p. 11. 52. “list of ×ajj agencies of bangladesh,” ×ajj agencies association of bangladesh (haab), accessed march 11, 2017, http://www.haab-bd.com/ index.php?option=com_agency&itemid=26&lang=en&limitstart=1220. 53. “arab versus asian migrant workers in the gcc countries,” un expert group meeting on international migration and development in the arab region, beirut, department of economic and social affairs united nations secretariat, pp. 1517 may 2006, accessed december 11, 2016, http://www.un.org/esa/population/ meetings/egm_ittmig_arab/p02_kapiszewski.pdf. 54. akeel ibrahim al-ken, the ×ajj, past, present, and future, the communication aspect, ph.d. thesis, netherland, the university of leeds, 1995, p. 31. 55. a long outer garment resembling an open coat, having long sleeves, and worn especially by the arabian muslims. 56. a traditional square cotton scarf generally used by the arabian men to cover their heads. 57. ahmadul islam chowdhury, a history of ×ajj pilgrimage via chittagong port of bangladesh, chittagong 2017, p. 18. 58. personal interview with the author 59. ibid. 60. ibid. 61. ibid. 62. ibid. 63. ibid. 64. ahmadul islam choudhury, my first ×ajj-mobarak smriti (blessed memories), chittagong, 2005, p. 86. 65. personal interview with the author. 66. ibid. 67. ibid. 68. ibid. 69. syed ashraf ali, “×ajj,” in banglapedia: the national encyclopedia of bangladesh, eds. sirajul islam, bangladesh, asiatic society of bangladesh, 2003, accessed february 28, 2017, http://www.banglapedia.org/. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 2\relationship of information tranfer.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 7 relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students at secondary level 1dr. ayesha batool 2dr. saghir ahmad 1lahore college for women university lahore, pakistan. e-mail: drayesharana19@gmail.com 2virtual university of pakistan. e-mail: saghir.edu786@gmail.com students learning performance depends upon teaching methods of teachers. they teach students with different methods and approaches. informational transfer and conceptual development teaching are most common in schools. to identify relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students was the purpose of this study. it was a correlational and descriptive study. the school’s teachers were participants of the study. 150 teachers were selected from secondary schools by cluster sampling. a questionnaire was developed related to information transfer and conceptual development teaching for data collection on likert type scale. the authenticity of instrument was measured by pilot testing. furthermore, it is determined that there was a strong correlation between information transfer and conceptual development teaching. there was a near to moderate relationship between conceptual development teaching and learning performance of students. teachers should provide time in class to students so that they can share and discuss their ideas with friends and teachers can provide right direction in discussion. this procedure may provide support to students in conceptual learning. key words: conceptual development; information transfer; learning performance; teaching methods. introduction teachers are operators who instruct and help learners to develop information and skill in this field. moreover, they go about as models that 8 relationship of information transfer... students can notice and mimic. in this way, it is imperative to investigate how instructors approach educating to encourage learners turning out to be qualified future educators. teaching approaches are difficult combinations of teaching aims and intentions and procedures that instructors utilize during teaching (lunenberg, korthagen, & swennen, 2007). the concern of teachers and administration is developing learners’ capability to share ideas in classroom. the secondary school environment does not give enough real critical thinking and task based exercises for learners to be arranged intellectually for the sorts of issues they should comprehend in reality, or at their work environment. right when children are demonstrated a positive behavior, for instance, dealing with problems, they routinely disregard to see that their new capacity can be used to deal with a similar issue outside of school. in various cases, those who are skilled with explicit tasks normally experience problems moving thoughts picked up from these experiences to the handling of especially sorted out concerns in schools. these outcomes show the frailty of students to see the transferability of thoughts picked up from dealing with very much organized issues in classroom to ineffectively composed problems looked outside the classroom. moreover, the transferability of thoughts picked up from handling badly organized issues, similar to those accomplished in actuality, to the dealing with all around sorted out issues experienced in classroom (johnson, dixon, daugherty, & lowanto, 2011). two teaching approaches have been recognized which are most common. these are information and concepts development teaching. educators consolidate these two methodologies in various manners as indicated by various teaching settings and controls (stes & van petegem, 2014). furthermore, educators’ ways to deal with instructing impact learning ways of students. concerning the circumstance in instructor training, educators’ convictions concerning instructing have been developed during earlier education and school come across before inflowing educator instruction programs. these convictions impact the manners by which students educators see instructing and support of learner learning. subsequently, the test for the two instructors and learners is that they have to consider their teaching beliefs and ways to deal with educate, which are impenetrable to change once formed. instructors’ help for students as far as their educating is substantial in this procedure (rajuan, beijaard, & verloop, 2008; vanassche & kelchtermans, 2014). information transfer is a psychological practice whereby a student’s dominance of information or abilities in a single setting empowers them to apply that hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 9 information or aptitude in an alternate setting. since transfer flags that a student’s cognizance permits them to perceive how their insight can be applicable and to apply it viably outside unique learning conditions. it is usually viewed as a sign of learning (barnett & ceci, 2002). learning approach recommends that an assortment of instructing systems can assist students with arriving at the scholarly development to transfer information, incorporating practice with calculated understanding, relative situations, and clear guides for learning (nrc, 2000). transfer works in an assortment of ways. teachers ought to know about negative exchange, or the use of misjudged data and ideas when learning new information. educators can identify conceivable negative transfer by surveying learners’ earlier information. as to move, concepts development students can perform much better, where they apply their insight to a related setting like an alternate class or task; where they apply information in a random setting normally, similar to handle trips, social cooperation, or profession performance (kober, 2015). brophy, klein, portmore, and rogers (2008) stated that we need to desperately change the manner by which we teach learners through developing their concepts. the changing idea of work highlights the requirement for this extreme move. so as to alleviate the requirement for broad retraining at incredible expense to associations it is important that laborers can move their insight to new circumstances rapidly and productively. there are few factors that influence learning. these incorporate whether students learning capacity, remember information, the measure of time spent on learning, the measure of purposeful practice that is done past learning the assignment, their inspiration and commitment, conditions, and the metacognition of them (johnson, dixon, daugherty, & lawanto, 2011). students carry an abundance of information to each learning circumstance and without explicit direction from instructors, may neglect to associate regular information to subjects educated in schools (national research council, 2000). as metacognitive aptitudes of students develop their capacity to make associations with their learning encounters in school and turns out to be increasingly self-directed and programmed when taking care of issues. the idea of exercises inside issue based and venture based educational plans can help in confirming the critical thinking commitment by students. information transfer is a component of the closeness of move assignments and learning encounters. it is in this manner influenced by the setting of the first learning. in this way, individuals can learn in one setting but fail in different settings. at the point when 10 relationship of information transfer... learners are presented to different settings in their directions that incorporate models that exhibit a wide use of what is being instructed, they build up an adaptable portrayal of information and are probably going to digest the applicable highlights of concepts (spiro, vispoel, schmitz, samarapungavan, & boerger, 1987). one perspective of information transfer is that learners think problematic to transfer knowledge that they learn in schools since instruction disentangles material to make it simpler to educate. there is a developing notion that learning of this structure which uses problem oriented and venture based exercises, can upgrade students’ information transfer and critical thinking abilities (hmelo-silver, 2004). mahalik, doppelt, and schunn (2008), in an assessment of the adequacy of configuration based guidance, found that the designed approach of teaching is related with progress in accomplishment, commitment, and maintenance of conferment. the concept development of students before teaching is frequently seen by instructors as obstructions to learning, but they may fill in as assets if educators increment their comprehension about the scope of potential thoughts that learners hold concept clarity (larkin, 2012). socioconstructivist speculations urge educators to concentrate more on learner focused teaching practices (schneider, krajcik, & blumenfeld, 2005). therefore, teachers should prefer concept development teaching rather than knowledge transfer (mortimer & scott, 2003). fig 1: conceptual framework objectives following were objectives: 1. to explore information transfer teaching among secondary school teachers. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 11 2. to explore concept development teaching among secondary school teachers. 3. to explore relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students at secondary level 4. to examine difference between information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students in terms of demographic variables. research methodology nature of the study it was correlational and descriptive study. the relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students was explored by conducting survey. population and sample the school teachers were participants of the study. they were selected from secondary schools of lahore division. the sample from population was obtained by using cluster sampling. there are four division of lahore district. the two divisions were selected for participants’ selection. therefore 150 teachers were selected from secondary schools. instrument the questionnaire was developed related to information transfer and conceptual development teaching for data collection. the members of study gave their opinions on 5 point likert type scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. the validity and reliability of instrument were measured by pilot testing. experts validated the questionnaire by highlighting the weak areas. after validation, reliability was calculated of scale. the scale was reliable and detail is in table 1. table 1. reliability of instrument cronbach’s alpha no. of items .82 8 .87 11 12 relationship of information transfer... the above table shows the reliability of the research instrument. the questionnaire contained the nineteen statements about relationship between information transfer teaching and conceptual development teaching. the cronbach’s alpha was applied to check the reliability of the instrument. in first part there were 8 statements and reliability was .82, and in the other part there were 11 statements and reliability was .87, which is statistical significant. data collection and analysis the researchers collected data after validation of instrument. for this, they visited the schools and met head of schools. they were briefed about study purpose and took consent of data collection. then, teachers were approached in their classes and gave them questionnaire for filling. they gave their opinions on questionnaire. after getting data, it was analyzed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics. different tests (mean, standard deviation, pearson r, independent sample t-test and one way anova) were used for data analysis. data analysis is following in detail. findings table 2. mean and std. deviation of information transfer teaching items m sd students should study the provided material 4.25 .948 clear objectives 4.27 .739 focus on information 4.33 .764 help students 4.29 .822 provide notes 4.31 .778 provide information for passing 4.31 .768 deliver what i know 4.07 .891 material to build information 4.18 .890 table 2 shows the mean and standard deviation of the responses about the information transfer teaching that statement 1 shows that hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 13 most teachers were agree that students should study the provided material means value (m = 4.25, sd = .948), clear objectives (m = 4.27, sd = .739), focus on information (m = 4.33, sd = .764), help students (m = 4. 29, sd = .822), provide notes (m = 4. 37, sd = .778), provide information for passing (m = 4. 31, sd = .768), deliver what i know (m = 4. 07, sd = .891) and material to build information (m = 4.18, sd = .89). it is concluded that teachers use information transfer teaching approach in classrooms. table 3. mean and std. deviation of conceptual development teaching items m sd discuss topics 4.30 .730 deliberate key concepts and ideas 4.04 .904 encourage for creative thinking 4.32 .606 provoke debate and discussion 4.33 .539 provide opportunities for sharing 4.10 .775 develop own notes 4.22 .818 ways of thinking 4.09 .810 monitor students 4.22 .904 resources support 4.31 .714 present facts 4.25 .882 good presentation 4.25 .819 table 3 shows the mean and standard deviation of the responses about the information transfer teaching that statement 1 shows that most teachers were agree that i discuss with my students about the topics that are studying means value (m = 4.30, sd = .730), i give time to discuss different ideas (m = 4.04, sd = .904), motivate students (m = 4.32, sd = .606), focus on debate (m = 4.33, sd = .539), i provide opportunities to students to discuss their understandings (m = 4.10, sd = .775), develop own notes (m = 4.22, sd = .818), teaching develops new ways of thinking (m = 4.09, sd = .810), observe understanding and concepts of learners (m = 4.22, sd = .904), providing resources support for learning (m = 4.31, sd = .714), provide enough facts and information (m = 4.25, sd = .882) and good way of delivering lecture (m = 4.25, sd = .819). it is concluded that teachers use conceptual development teaching approach in classrooms. 14 relationship of information transfer... table 4. correlations between information transfer teaching and conceptual development teaching variables r sig. information transfer and conceptual .795** .001 development teaching table 4 displays the results of correlation test which was performed to identify the relationship between information transfer teaching and conceptual development teaching. the r value shows a significant relationship r = .795 at p = .001 was there. moreover, it is concluded that there was strong association between transfer and conceptual teaching. table 5. correlations of transfer and conceptual teaching with learning performance factors r sig. information transfer teaching .224** .001 conceptual development teaching .289** .001 table 5 shows the results of pearson correlation test which was performed to identify the relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance. the r value shows that there was significant positive connection r =. 224, r = .289 at p = .001. moreover, it is concluded that there was a relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance. table 6. an independent sample t-test applies to know the difference of the information transfer teaching and conceptual development teaching on the basis of gender factors g n m sd t df sig. information male 30 33.73 4.11 -.398 148 .691 transfer female 120 34.07 4.10 teaching conceptual male 30 45.40 4.75 -1.329 148 .186 development teaching female 120 46.67 4.69 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 15 table 6 shows that t-test was used to compare the transfer and conceptual scores of both genders. there was no statistical variance in information transfer p =. 691 and conceptual teaching values p =. 186. table 7: one-way anova for school difference variable ss df ms f sig. information 104.867 4 26.217 1.588 .180 transfer 2393.133 145 16.504 teaching 2498.000 149 conceptual 306.107 4 76.527 3.693 .007 development 3004.433 145 20.720 teaching 3310.540 149 table 7 represent that one-way anova used to check the dissimilarity in mean scores of information transfer teaching and conceptual development teaching on school difference. result show that there is no change of transfer teaching on the basis of their school difference f (4,145) = 1.588 at p =.180. result show that there is difference in mean scores of conceptual development teaching of teachers by school difference f (4,145) = 3.693 at p = .007. so, there is statistical variance in mean scores of conceptual teaching due to school difference. discussion the aim of the research was exploring relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students at secondary level. teachers describe that it is significant that the course is totally depicted as far as explicit targets that identify with the appraisal of the course and they center on covering the data that may be accessible from specific writings and readings. they develop teaching to assist students with passing the evaluation of the course. mostly teachers teach through information transfer teaching. many essential factors of information transfer teaching are used by teachers. teachers also put efforts in conceptual development of students. they agree that they give time to students to discuss main conceptions and ideas and inspire students to reorganize their current knowledge by creative mind. they entice them to participate in debate and discussion activities. teaching 16 relationship of information transfer... can play role in conceptual development of students. there was a strong relationship between information transfer and conceptual development teaching. there was a relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance. the findings of current study are following the results of past study conducted by cao, postareff, lindblom-ylänne, and toom in (2019). they observed that teachers perceived information transmission as an element of their teaching and some of them preferred teaching approach that related to student oriented. they found out that teachers used different approaches of teaching at a time. they used combination of teaching approaches information transfer and conceptual development of students. there was association between teaching approaches and students learning performance. conclusion teachers teach students by applying different teaching approaches. there are different approaches which teachers adopt while teachers but mainly are two for example information transfer and conceptual development teaching for students. information transfer teaching is just deliver lecture and no concern of teachers that students have clarification about topics or not. their intention is just to transfer knowledge and information and complete responsibility. the conceptual development is also a teaching approach in which teachers develop learning concepts of students rather than information transmission. they ensure concept development among students by examples and experiments and especially they give tasks to students and ask them perform practically by applying learned knowledge. this study was about examine association of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students. it was quantitative and correlational research. teachers described definite objectives regarding course assessment and focus on learning of students. they teach students with full commitment and support them to pass particular subject. they focus to deliver in class that they know already and facilitate learners to develop understandings of course. it is concluded that teachers use information transfer teaching approach in classrooms. teachers also motivate the class to learn new things on daily basis and store fresh knowledge and it is only possible when they learn things by self-effort and think critically by utilizing brainpower and ensure their participation in discussion activities and provide opportunities to students to discuss their understandings. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 17 they develop students thinking and concepts by conceptual teaching. it is concluded that teachers teach students by conceptual development approach. conceptual learning remains forever and it depends upon teachers that how they develop concept clarity among learners. furthermore, it is concluded that there was a strong relationship between information transfer and conceptual development teaching but there was a weak relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students. so, there was statistical difference in mean scores of conceptual development teaching of teachers on the basis of their school difference. recommendations there are some recommendations that represents findings of the study. 1. information transfer is teaching approach that teacher apply in classes for completion their responsibility not the learning of students. it promotes rote learning among students. 2. teachers need to develop students learning concepts based. the conceptual learning is long lasting and students can solve their problems in daily life. 3. the students learning is not effective. thus, it is teacher’s responsibilities to use conceptual teaching approach rather than information transfer to make students learning more effective. 4. teachers should force students to use their learning in daily life problems and for this teachers may pay concentrate on their conceptual development learning. 5. teachers should provide time in class to students so that they can share and discuss their ideas with friends and teachers can provide right direction in discussion. this thing may provide support to students in conceptual learning. 6. students may participate in debate and discussion activities for conceptual learning. discussion is helpful in conceptual development learning of students. bibliography barnett, s., & ceci, s. (2002). when and where do we apply what we learn? a taxonomy for far transfer. psychological bulletin, 128(4), 612-37. brophy, s., klein, s., portsmore, m., & rogers, c. (2008). advancing engineering education in p-12 classrooms. journal of engineering education, 97(3), 369-387. 18 relationship of information transfer... cao, y., postareff, l., lindblom-ylänne, s., & toom, a. (2019). teacher educators’ approaches to teaching and connections with their perceptions of the closeness of their research and teaching. teaching and teacher education, 85, 125-136. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.06.013 hmelo-silver, c. (2004). problem-based learning: what and how do students learn? educational psychology, 16(3), 235-266. johnson, s. d., dixon, r., daugherty, j., & lawanto, o. (2011). general versus specific intellectual competencies: the question of learning transfer. in m. barak & m. hacker (eds.), fostering human development through engineering and technology education (pp. 55-74). netherlands: sense publishers. kober, n. (2015). reaching students: what research says about effective instruction in undergraduate science and engineering? washington, dc: national academies press. larkin, d. (2012). misconceptions about “misconceptions”: preservice secondary science teachers’ views on the value and role of student ideas. science education, 96(5), 927-959. doi:10.1002/sce.21022 lunenberg, m., korthagen, f., & swennen, a. (2007). the teacher educator as a role model. teaching and teacher education, 23(5), 586-601. mehalik, m. m., doppelt, y., & schunn, c. d. (2008). middle school science through design-based learning versus scripted inquiry: better overall science concept learning and equity gap reduction. journal of engineering education, 97(1), 7185. mortimer, e. f., & scott, p. (2003). meaning making in secondary science classrooms. philadelphia, pa: open university press. national research council. (2000). how people learn: brain, mind, experience and school. washington, dc: national academy press. perkins, d. n., & salomon, g. (1992). transfer of learning. international encyclopedia of education, 2, 6452-6457. oxford, england: pergamon press. rajuan, m., beijaard, d., & verloop, n. (2008). student teachers’ perceptions of their mentors as internal triggers for learning. teaching education, 19(4), 279-292. schneider, r. m., krajcik, j., & blumenfeld, p. (2005). enacting reform-based science materials: the range of teacher enactments in reform classrooms. journal of research in science teaching, 42(3), 283-312. doi:10.1002/tea.20055 spiro, r. j., vispoel, w. p., schmitz, j. p., samarapungavan, a., & boerger, a. e. (1987). knowledge acquisition for application: cognitive flexibility and transfer in complex domains. (eric document reproduction service no. ed 287 155). stes, a., & van petegem, p. (2014). profiling approaches to teaching in higher education: a cluster-analytic study. studies in higher education, 39(4), 644-658. vanassche, e., & kelchtermans, g. (2014). teacher educators’ professionalism in practice: positioning theory and personal interpretative framework. teaching and teacher education, 44, 117-127. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2014.08.006 f:\e\islamicus\2018\no.1'2018\011) starting pages (new).pmd hamdard islamicus 5 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 editorial this issue has various articles on qur’énic doctrines, ethics and islamic values, islamic architecture, islamic law and divine books. “communication ethics from the qur’énic perspective: an analysis of selected contemporary exegeses” from malaysia provides a study on the ethics of dialogue and communication to others as embodied in the holy qur’én, based in the most appropriate manner in exegetical writings while dealing with others. the next study from u.k. discusses “zandaqah heresy during the early ‘abbésid era (750-850 c.e.)” in the light of socio-political and economic factors. from pakistan is presented “the concept of the injêl (bible) in ×adêth literature” based on an analytical study. from indonesia a study shows “how commitment to islamic values maintain marital stability”. a detailed and relevant study from malaysia is included as “an analysis of zakét distribution scheme in the light of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah in malaysia, brunei and singapore”. this with a theoretical background and actual official state management provides a detailed discussion on the actual use and distribution of zakét found in malaysia, brunei and singapore. the next article from pakistan presents “modern product liability law and its juridical basis in islamic law”. from pakistan a research provides the efficacy of pakistani statutes and efficiency analysed on the concept of “øulí: facts and effects in sharê‘ah and law vis-a-vis efficacy of pakistani statutes and efficiency of the judges”. saudi contribution in the renovation of masjid-i nabawi is discussed in the next article from malaysia under the title of “old versus new in the saudi expansions of the mosque of the prophet ( ). last is a study from iran on the “methodology of mosque-oriented built environments – case study of contemporary mosques of iran’s cities.” an index of the hamdard islamicus, vol. xl (2017), is also included in this issue. editor-in-chief hamdard islamicus 181 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the opposition of the shi‘ites towards kalóm: with particular reference to tarji× asólib al-qur’ón and al-rawö al-bósim by the zaidite muhammad ibn ibrahim ibn al-wazir al-san‘ónô (d. 840/1436) dr. mufti ali state institute of islamic studies serang, banten indonesia e-mail: muftiali.ali@gmail.com introduction the majority of shi‘ites, the mu‘tazilite, and the murji‘ite are regarded by the partisan of traditions (ahl al-íadêth) as heretics, innovators and even infidels. ibn taymiyya (d. 1328) regarded shi‘ites as the jews of the ummah.1 this term was based on the assumption that shi‘ites are mutakallimun, occupied with kalam, disputation and argumentation. modern literature supports the claim that no shi‘ites of classical period is opposed to kalam.2 despite extensive reference to tarjêí asélêb al-qur’én (hereinafter: tarjêí), al-jabiri, for instance, relies upon it in his discussion of some shi‘ite of ithna ‘ashriyyah’s attitude towards logic and greek philosophy and not towards kalam.3 in this paper, the author argues that the opposition to kalam as means of argumentation, is not a monopoly of the partisans of the tradition of sunnite affiliation whose spearheads are the hanbalites.4 kalam and the mutakallimun are also subjected to an opposition by shi‘ite. works by the zaidite ibn al-wazir, which include tarjêí5 and al-rawì al-basim fi dhabb an sunnat al-qawasim (hereinafter: al-rawì),6 represented the hostile attitude by certain shi‘ite theological denominations towards kalam and the mutakallimun. this is based on two assumptions: firstly, kalam, hamdard islamicus 182 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 in this instance, must be understood as a means by which the mutakallimun, use to defend their own creeds. thus, kalam is identified as a means of argumentation, a methodical tool in the discussion and a stylistic device for exposing ideas. secondly, kalam, in this regard, cannot be considered similar to ‘theology,’ in contrast to philosophy (falsafah) or jurisprudence (fiqh). in summary, kalam is considered only as a means which was typical of muslim theology, and not as a muslim theology itself.7 in the light of the works by ibn al-wazir, this paper argues that kalam and the mutakallimun also fell out favour by the shi‘ite. in dealing with this discussion, we try to discuss: (1) biography of the zaidite ibn al-wazir, (2) his censure of kalam as reflected in his works, (3) ibn al-wazir’s predecessors who allegedly opposed kalam and the mutakallimun, (4) the sources to which ibn al-wazir refers in the censure of kalam and the mutakallimun. biography of ibn al-wazir according to brockelmann, muhammad ibn ibrahim ibn al-wazir al-san‘éni, well-known as ibn al-murtada al-yamani was born in hajr al-zahrawain in 775 /1374 and died in san‘a in 840/1436.8 it is difficult to gather information about ibn al-wazir’s familial life. the biographical dictionaries do not inform us much about it. however, according to brockelmann, the information regarding ibn al-wazir’s genealogy can be found in a manuscript preserved in ambrosiana library (291, iv, 93-100), aïréf al-silsilah allati hiya asléf al-nubuwwa wa wiléya muniha muïïaîilah, by his descendant, ‘uthman ibn ‘ali ibn muíammad ibn ‘abd allah ibn al-wazir (d. 1052/1648).9 summarizing from a number of the biographical sources, al-hasani provides us with limited information concerning where ibn al-wazir studied and who his islamic studies teachers were. he starts by informing us that ibn al-wazir’s teachers were from san‘a and any other cities in yemen and mecca, modern day saudi arabia. al-hasani informs us that ibn al-wazir studied arabic and literature under the supervision of his brother, al-imam al-hadi ibn ibrahim al-wazir and al-qadi al-‘allama muíammad ibn hamza ibn muzaffar.10 he learned tafsêr and uîul al-fiqh from al-sayyid al-‘allama ‘ali ibn muíammad ibn abi al-qasim, al-sayyid al-‘allama al-nasir ibn ahmad ibn al-imam al-mutahhar al-hasani, al-shaykh nafis al-din sulayman hamdard islamicus 183 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 ibn ibrahim al-‘alawi al-ta’azzi. he also studied theology and the principle of islamic jurisprudence, fiqh, and mysticism under the supervision of al-qadi al-‘allama ali ibn ‘abd allah ibn abi al-khayr, al-qadi al-‘allama ‘abd allah ibn al-hasan al-dawari al-sa‘adi.11 ibn al-wazir not only studied in yemen. in a number of biographical sources, it is mentioned that he enjoyed academic supervision from scholars in mecca. this included al-shaykh al-muhaddith muíammad ibn ‘abd allah ibn zahira, al-shaykh najm al-din muíammad ahmad al-tabari, al-shaykh muíammad ibn ahmad ibn ibrahim, known as abu al-yaman al-shafi’i, al-shaykh ali ibn mas‘ud ibn ali ibn ‘abd al-mu‘ti al-ansari al-maliki, al-shaykh al-mu‘ammar abi al-husayn ibn ahmad ibn salama al-makki al-shafi‘i, jar allah ibn salih al-shaybani, al-sharaf ahmad ibn ali al-hasani, well known as al-fasi. madelung suggests that ibn al-wazir played a significant role in moderating the zaydite teachings to make it acceptable to sunnis. his voluminous al-‘awasim wa ‘l-qawasim represented his defense of the sunni school doctrine, criticizing the opposing zaydite teaching.12 madelung argues that ibn al-wazir had accepted the sunni canonical collection of íadêth as an authority in religion. the attempt of ibn al-wazir to favour the neo-sunni school is to accommodate the religious views and sentiments of the majority of the people who were under the zaydite imamate control. the long lasting imamate ruling in yemen until the modern time (1382/1962) is said to have owed its merit to ibn al-wazir.13 ibn al-wazir’s authority in islamic studies was generally well acknowledged. this was reflected by his contribution of a number of works, these included: al-‘awasim wa ‘l-qawasim,14 al-rawì,15 ôthar al-íaqq ‘ala al-khalq fi radd al-khiléfat ilé madhhab al-íaq,16 al-burhan al-qéti‘ fi ithbét al-séni’ wa jémi‘i ma ja’at bih al-shara‘i,17 qabël al-bashari bi ‘l-taysir li ‘l-yusra, tanqêí al-anðér fi ‘ulëm al-éthér,18 kitéb al-amr bi ‘l-uzla fi ékhir al-zaman, hasr ayat al-aíkém al-shar‘iyya, al-tafsêr al-nabawi, majma‘ al-haqé’iq wa ‘l-raqé’iq, al-tuífah al-safiyyé, al-ta’dêb al-malakëtê, kitéb al-qawé‘id, nasr al-a‘yan ‘alé sharr al-‘umyén and al-hassam al-mashhër. his popularity was reflected by his biography being quoted extensively by a number of leading biographers, these included: al-qadi al-hafiz ahmad ibn salih ibn abi al-rizal in matéli‘ al-budur, al-sayyid al-hafiz ibrahim ibn al-qasim ibn al-mu’ayyid al-hasani al-shuhara in ruwwat al-fiqh al-athér, al-sakhawi, al-taqi ibn fahd in mu‘jam and by hamdard islamicus 184 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 al-hafiz ibn hajar al-‘asqalani.19 it is therefore justified that he was considered as al-imam al-kabêr al-mujtahid al-muïlaq (the great savant and the independent mujtahid).20 according to madelung, ibn al-wazir established his own school. students who attended his school include salih ibn mahdi al-maqbali (d. 1108/1696), muíammad ibn ismé‘il al-amir (d. 1182/1768), and muíammad ibn ‘ali al-shawkani (d. 1250/1834).21 ibn al-wazir’s censure against kalam and the mutakallimun ibn al-wazir’s hostile attitude towards kalam and the mutakallimun was reflected in why he composed his works. in his introduction he states ‘…rajé’an an akuna min al-ladhêna qala allah ta‘éla fêhim (wa yara al-ladhina ‘utu al-‘ilm al-ladhina unzila ilayka min rabbik al-haqq wa yahdi ilé îêrat al-aziz al-íamid) wa lima warada fê faìl man intahara séíib bid’a min ghayr riya’ wa la suma’a ma’a alishara ilé jumal shafiya fi faìl kitéb allah ta‘éla wa faìl íémilih wa dhikr nabdh min al-akhbér al-warêda fih wa bayén ba‘d ma ishtaméla ‘alayh min al-dalé’il al-mughniyya fê al-i‘tiqéd ‘an al-ishtighél bikutub al-awé’il (hoping that i become one of those whom god the almighty said (but those to whom the (revealed) knowledge has been given hold that which hath been sent to thee from thy lord to be the truth, and that it guides to the path of the sublime, the praiseworthy22), because excellence is for one who rebukes the author of innovation without hoping to achieve fame and popularity, demonstrating healthgiving sentences which point to the virtue of the book of god the almighty and that of those who bear it, mentioning several news in it and revealing some of evidences in it, which surely renders [us] in no need of being occupied by the books of the ancients.’) 23 ibn al-wazir, in this work, not only criticizes the use of kalam and any argumentation of rational nature, such as jadal (debate), mara (disputation), or nazr (rational disputes), but he also opposes the use of logic and any other rational sciences to prove god’s existence, prophethood, the hereafter and any other theology or logic, which could lead people into heresy (zandaqah) and infidelity (kufr). after studying the individuals and their works, which ibn al-wazir discusses in his work, one may suggest that tarjêí represents the shi‘ite counterpoint towards kalam. ibn al-wazir often quotes the opposing views of the descendants of ahl al-bayt (the family of the prophet), hasan, hamdard islamicus 185 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 husain, ja‘far al-sadiq, etc towards kalam. he mostly refers to the scholars of the shi‘ite denominations, such as al-zamakhshari, al-imam al-mahdi muhammad ibn al-mutahhir, al-sayyid muhammad ibn yahya ibn al-hasan al-qasimi, etc. in censuring kalam, ibn al-wazir uses various expressions. this varies from light to harsh censuring. ibn al-wazir employs a light censuring tone towards kalam when the mutakallimun learnt the reasoning from the qur’én, which resulted in exceeding in their reasoning. they did not limit themselves to reason something which is useful and mentioned in the book of god the almighty.24 ibn al-wazir’s light censuring is also noticed when he discussed the hatred of the ahl al-bayt towards kalam. ibn al-wazir maintains that ali exhorted his son, al-hasan to follow what he learned from the pious forefathers and not to be occupied with disputation (al-khuîumét) and innovation (al-shubuhét).25 according to ibn al-wazir, ali’s reasoning for prohibiting his son from engaging in kalam was based on his knowledge that his son, al-hasan lacked knowledge of kalam and on his conviction of invalidity of this science and the evil it incurred on the belief.26 ibn al-wazir’s criticism towards kalam occurs in a number of statements, dealing with various contexts. when discussing the qualification of a mujtahid (an independent scholar who engages in ijtihéd), ibn al-wazir holds the opinion that the most important characteristic of a mujtahid is to avoid being occupied with the questions of kalém. his censure on kalém also occurs when he discusses the attitude of some members of the ahl al-bayt towards kalém. according to ibn al-wazir, muíammad ibn mansur said that abd allah ibn musa may god be pleased with him used to hate kalam on what people speak about. if a man told him about one who speculates (yatakallam) on what people speak about, he will say: o my god, make us die in islam and then he get silent.27 relying on al-jémi‘ al-kéfê of abu abdullah alhasani, ibn al-wazir opines that the pious ancestors exhorted the people to follow the tradition and to censure those who were involved in kalém. then he mentions those who censure kalém among the ahl al-bayt, these included ali ibn al-husayn, zayd, ja‘far al-sadiq, abd allah ibn musa, ahmad ibn isa ibn zayd, al-hasan ibn yahya ibn al-husayn ibn zayd ibn ali, muíammad ibn abd allah, ibrahim ibn abd allah, al-qasim ibn ibrahim, muíammad ibn ibrahim, and muíammad ibn mansur.28 ibn al-wazir quoted ali’s advice to his son, hasan, to avoid rational dispute (al-nazr) and to hold of what his predecessors had taken as a hamdard islamicus 186 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 principle and to avoid what they did not know.29 ibn al-wazir then discussed the attitude of two shi‘ite savants, sayyid abu talib and sayyid al-imam al-mu’ayyid bi llah towards kalém. in his opinion, eventhough they composed extensive works on fiqh and its usul and they did not produce any works on kalém, this was due to their hatred with being occupied by this science.30 their attitude towards kalam is also present in the poetry of sayyid al-‘allama yahya ibn mansur ibn al-afif ibn mufaddal31 who speaks against the mu‘tazilites. they consider it great school due to the length of its views and goodness of thought they forget that islam is in no need, before their invention, of every speech which arises lately they do not think that the prophet asked them to avoid they were not aware of it that his prohibition for it is repetitive.32 he mentioned that al-‘allama ibn al-mufaddal composed a number of treatises warning people to avoid being occupied with kalém and innovations.33 in another passage, ibn al-wazir identified people who are in different to being occupied with kalém to those who refuse the evils of the heretics.34 according to ibn al-wazir, kalam is useless for obvious reasons; firstly, to protect ourselves against the skepticism originating from our hearts. this can be achieved by understanding that god provides us with guidance. this is what the pious ancestors believed when they neglectedkalam.35 kalém confused and distracted people. those who are occupied with it, he causes his own destruction.36 similarly, ibn al-wazir maintains that those who refuse the unknown heresy (shubhat) and instead prefer with the science of kalém, resemble those who encounter deadly poison with hard medicines which probably become lethal for those who drank them. instead of encountering the poison, they may have been dead because of drinking such hard medicines.37 having been deeply occupied with kalém, the mutakallimën become doubtful, confused, be in enmity and accuse each other of being liars.38 ibn al-wazir mentions that some of the mutakallimën have regretted to being occupied with kalém. having deeply penetrated the science of kalém, ibn al-wazir’s opinion of ibn abi al-hadid39 was; if the one whom i deem greet is equal to the one who committed the offence against a severe calamity of the trials. hamdard islamicus 187 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 then i was in a perplexity (tih) without knowledge = and i delved into a deep sea without ships. al-shahrastani said in his nihéyah: i have paid a visit to all those institutions = i have already set my feet on those schools i did not see but the humble who refrained and got confused = lying on the chin and grasp his teeth due to his regret.40 ibn al-wazir then stated that occupying oneself with kalém could lead to innovation and to develop an interest in the questions of philosophers and innovators is very dangerous and inflicts a sickness to the sound hearts.41 there are a number of references in the qur’én and the prophetic tradition censuring against kalam, innovation and argumentation. in his opinion, some of the references contain the prohibitions of the innovations and the argumentation which is also on the qur’én and qadr. some of the references also deal with the prohibition of reflecting the essence of god and with the command of being doubtful with the ways of the people of kalém. ibn al-wazir’s criticism of kalém is also reflected in his quoting al-shaykh abu ali’s advice to his son, al-shaykh abu hashim: o my son, you should have known that i was in the past just like you, pursuing knowledge. i was often involved in debates. i seldom occupied myself with the deeds. in the past, when i was young and during the time when i was pursuing the knowledge, you are not like me. you are seldom involved in debates and you give much priority to deeds. nowadays, i am pursuing nothing other than the safety, being guided by the statements which read: the path of the pious ancestors provides us with safety, while the path of the followers of the pious ancestors (khalaf) become more knowledgeable. those who occupy themselves with debate and kalém are not willing to follow the path of safety and they are not protected from the enmity, injustice and the baseness.42 for these reasons, ibn al-wazir then exemplifies that it is plausible if the sayyid al-allama al-imam al-mu’ayyid bi ‘l-llah steered clear of kalém.43 ibn al-wazir not only censures kalém, he also criticizes the people of kalém (mutakallimën). his criticism is discernably understood by his statements that the scholars of kalém, the polemicists and the logicians could not admit to the pious ancestors that they were experts in their knowledge and they gave them a principle. if there is something in it, they should have changed their statements respecting it.44 when dealing with the censure of the pious ancestors (al-salaf) hamdard islamicus 188 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 against being deeply involved (al-ghulw) in kalam, ibn al-wazir stated that it is an obligation for a smart intellectual (al-aqil al-fitan) to steer clear of kalém and hold onto the teachings of god the almighty. in his opinion, the jurists of islam, the leading scholars of the tradition and all the pious ancestors abandoned kalém and prohibited people from being occupied with it.45 in another passage, ibn al-wazir discusses the attitude of the shi‘ite imams towards kalém. referring to the authority of al-qasim, al-hadi and al-nasir and to the author of al-jémi‘al-kéfê, he holds the opinion that zayn al-abidin, zayd ibn ali, al-sadiq, al-baqir, abd allah ibn musa, ahmad ibn isa and al-hasan ibn yahya were opposed to kalém. the attitude of those scholars, ibn al-wazir maintains, has been discussed in kitéb al-jumla wa ‘l-ulfa of muíammad ibn mansur.46 tarjêí not only represents ibn al-wazir’s hostile attitude towards kalam but also describes his censure of any rational sciences. this was reflected in a number of facts as was reported upon the authority of logical premises and rational principles.47 this was exemplified when al-hudhud confessed to the oneness of god and argued the truth of his belief of the existence of god based on the existence of the rain and plants of which all the animals are in need of. he did not read logic, nor was he knowledgeable of kalém.48 when they delivered a speech and gave a counsel, all leading scholars and amir al-mu’minên did not employ the premises of the logicians nor the principles of the theologians.49 ibn al-wazir also opposed logic. this is evident in his description of the pursuit of science. in his opinion, the pursuit of science even if it be in china includes religious sciences. in contrast, the pursuit of rational sciences, amongst which is logic, is prohibited.50 ibn al-wazir’s underestimation of the logician suggests his critical attitude towards logic. according to ibn al-wazir, the logicians, theologians and polemicists, could not consider themselves as experts in the sciences, because they could do nothing in comparison with the pious ancestor, in dealing with the establishment of the principle of the religion.51 the sources on which ibn al-wazir al-san‘éni relies when discussing the opposition of scholars towards kalém when discussing the opposition to kalém and logic, ibn al-wazir relies on the authorities and works of both sunni and shi‘ite scholars. he refers to ‘uqëd al-uqyén of al-imam al-mahdi muíammad ibn al-mutahhir, who is of shi‘ite denomination, while in other passages, he hamdard islamicus 189 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 relies on the works of abu hamid al-ghazali, who is of shafi‘ite juridical affiliation and sunnite theological affiliation. dealing with this discussion, ibn al-wazir does not always provide the names of the authors whose works he relies on. it is not uncommon that ibn al-wazir relies on the authorities without mentioning their works. the works and the authorities on which ibn al-wazir relies when discussing the opposition to logic and kalém in tarjêí. al-zamakhshari (p. 13, 152, 186) al-imam al-naïiq bi ‘l-haq al-sayyid abu tali (p. 14, 17, 32) imam al-ghazali (p. 22) ibn abi ‘l-hadid (p. 25, 26, 79, 103, 130) ja‘far al-sadiq (p. 31) hamidan ibn yahya al-qasimi (p. 34) mahmud al-mulahimi (p. 49) nur al-din abu abd allah hamidan ibn yahya (p. 88) abu huzail al-allaf (p. 100) hushsham al-futi (p. 100) hushsham al-bardha’i (p. 100) abu ‘l-husain al-basri (p. 100) zaki al-din mahmud al-khwarizmi (p. 100) abu bakr al-baqilani (p. 100) abu ya‘qub al-shahham (p. 100) abu ali al-jubba’i (p. 100) abu hashim (p. 100) abu husain al-khayyat (p. 100) abu ‘l-qasim al-balkhi (p. 100) abu abd allah al-basri (p. 100) abu rashid (p. 100) ibn matwih (p. 100) al-turtusi (p. 139) al-baghawi (p. 141) ibn taymiyyah (p. 142) al-murtadla ibn al-hadi (p. 155) the works: öiya’u al-‘ulëm (p. 42) hamdard islamicus 190 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 al-talkhêî (p. 71, 72) al-waðé’if ala madhab al-salaf (p. 81) the authorities with their works: ‘uqud al-uqyén of al-imam al-mahdi muhammad ibn al-mutahhir (p. 14) kitéb al-shifé of the qadi iyad (p. 14, 21, 185) al-sunan of ibn majah (p. 15) al-amali fi ‘l-×adêth (p. 15, 16) and sharí al-taírêr (p. 32) of al-imam al-néïiq bi ‘l-×aq al-sayyid abë ùélib. majma‘al-zawé’id of al-haythami (p. 16) al-jémi‘ of the hafiz muhaddith abu isa al-tirmidhi (p. 16) nahj al-baléghah of ali ibn abi talib (p. 17, 25, 141) al-tamhêd (p. 19), al-ziyédat (p. 45, 93), sharí al-tajrêd (p. 32, 73) and al-mi’yar (p. 74) of al-imam al-mu’ayyad bi ‘l-allah yahya al-husaini ibn hamza al-jumal al-islémiyyah of al-sayyid al-allama yahya ibn mansur (p. 19). al-jumla wa ‘l-ulfa of muhammad ibn mansur al-kufi (p. 19, 27, 30) al-jémi‘ al-kéfê of al-sayyid al-allama abu abd allah muhammad ibn ali ibn abd al-rahman al-alawi al-hasani (p. 19, 27, 31, 87, 102). sharí al-‘uyën of al-hakim abu sa‘id al-muhsin ibn karrama (p. 21) al-muíêï of the chief judge ‘abd al-jabbar (p. 21). al-mujtaba fi ‘l-istidlél of mukhtar ibn mahmud the mu‘tazilite (p. 21, 73, 75, 80, 99, 102, 110, 117). al-arba‘ën fi ‘l-kalém ‘alé al-nubuwwat of al-fakhr al-razi (p. 22) al-muntakhab of muhammad ibn sulayman (p. 31). al-arjuza of al-muttahir ibn yahya (p. 36). al-muhadhdhab of al-sayyid muhammad ibn yahya ibn al-hasan al-qasimi (p. 37-38). kitab al-‘ibar wa ‘l-i‘tibér of al-jahiz (p. 48, 92, 110). ‘awérif al-ma‘érif of umar ibn muhammad al-suhrawardi (p. 51). al-burhén of al-juwaini (p. 69, 72, 95). jém‘ al-jawami of al-subki (p. 69). al-minhéj fi uîël al-fiqh of al-baiìawi (p. 71). al-muíêï of ibn taymiyyah (p. 75). awé’il al-muíêï of ibn matawiyya (p. 76m 116). al-jémi ‘al-øaghêr of abu hashim (p. 78). hamdard islamicus 191 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 al-baligh al-mudrik bi ×ubb ‘alé al-baligh al-mudrik of al-hadi (p. 86). kitéb al-bassat of al-hasan ibn ali ibn al-husain ibn ali ibn amr al-ashraf (p. 87). kitéb al-tawíêd of muhammad ibn mansur (p. 93). al-fé’iq of rukn al-din al-khwarizmi (p. 103). kitéb al-arba‘ên (p. 107) and asrar al-tanzil (p. 110) of al-razi. al-tadhkirah of abu ali al-taymi (p. 138). al-×éwi fi uîël al-fiqh of yahya ibn hamza (p. 141, 159). kitéb al-fuîëî of ibn ‘arabi al-ta’i (p. 152). kitéb al-majéz of zaid ibn ali (p. 155). al-néîikh wa ‘l-mansëkh of al-qasim ibn ibrahim (p. 155). tafsêr al-kashshéf of al-zamakhshari (p. 161, 183). ibn al-wazir’s censure of kalém as reflected in his al-rawì al-basim as in tarjêí where arguments opposing kalém were present, so too do we find similar arguments in ibn al-wazir’s al-rawì. the following passages shall be devoted to discuss his censures of kalém and the mutakallimën. ibn al-wazir’s discussion opposing kalém in his al-rawì is based on the following arguments; the reason why the partisans of the tradition fault is because of their adherence to kalém.52 leading scholars of arts joined the traditionalists (al-muhaddithën) in steering clear of kalém.53 to avoid the interpretation of the traditions on the attributes and to prohibit people from being occupied with kalém is not a monopoly of the partisans of the tradition; this is also done by masters of theologians.54 this is reflected in; firstly, the statements by imam al-ghazali opposing kalém55; secondly, al-imam al-razi’s prohibition of studying kalém56; and thirdly, al-juwayni’s censure of kalém.57 the partisans of the tradition avoided kalam not due to their static comprehension but due to their obedience to the qur’én.58 in ibn al-wazir’s opening argument, he declared that the science of tradition is the most significant of all the sciences. this he argued because it is referred to by the uîëli, faqêh, arabic grammarian, philologist, mystic, interpreter (mufassir) and counselor (wé‘ið).59 like many other apologetics, ibn al-wazir also seeks the support for his opposition to kalém and the mutakallimën amongst the greatest authorities in islamic history.60 he maintains that imam al-ghazali was hamdard islamicus 192 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 a fervent opponent of kalém. according to ibn al-wazir, this is reflected in his statements opposing kalém, which can be found, in three of his works; al-munqidh min al-dalal, iíyé ‘ulëm al-dên and al-tafrêqa bayna al-iman wa ‘l-zandaqah. according to ibn al-wazir, in both of his works, imam al-ghazali stated in his iíyé’ ulëm al-din, that it is claimed that the use of kalém is to reveal the truth and to know it. the claim is far from being true. seeking kalém results in leading one astray. asserting his view, ibn al-wazir argues that imam al-ghazali stated in al-munqidh that the arguments of kalém does not acquaint one with any certainty. imam al-ghazali’s censure of kalém can also be found in other works. according to ibn al-wazir, in al-tafrêqa bayna al-ômén wa ‘l-zandaqah, imam al-ghazali argued that it is prohibited to be occupied with kalém.61 by considering al-razi62 a master of kalém and theologians, ibn al-wazir probably want to argue that even the masters of kalém themselves regretted being occupied with it. according to ibn al-wazir, al-razi stated; i have had experience of all the methods of kalém and of all the paths of philosophy, unfortunately i have not found in them either contentment nor comfort to equal that which i have found in reading the qur’én…’ likewise, al-razi asserts that the end of the intellectual enterprise is compos mentis, and most of the efforts of the scholars end in error.63 by referring to sharí muslim of al-qurtubi,64 ibn al-wazir explains al-juwayni’s attitude towards kalém. he then quotes the latter’s statements which are also mentioned by al-suyëïi in his sawn al-manïiq; ‘i have already abandoned the authorities of islam and their knowledge. i then travelled by the greatest sea. each time i sought the truth and freed from unquestioning imitation, i choked [by the water]. now i returned to the word of the truth; ‘you must follow a faith of the old women. you impose upon me my affair with sincere words. so, wo unto ibn al-juwayni!65 he used to say to his companions; ‘do not be occupied with kalém! so if i know that kalém occupies me to its highest point, i am not occupied with it.’66 ibn al-wazir, accordingly, cites the statements opposing kalém by his shi‘ite fellows. according to ibn al-wazir, yahya ibn mansur al-hasani, the most leading scholar of zaydite shi‘ite denomination, has repented from being occupied with kalém and has prohibited himself from it. his repentance and abstinence from occupying himself with kalém is aptly described in fine poetry which essentially states that if one wants to know what leads one to danger, is because of being occupied with kalém and debate.67 hamdard islamicus 193 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 ibn abi al-hadid, the author of the monumental sharí nahj al-baléghah whom ibn al-wazir regarded as a mu‘tazilite, is also referred to as one who opposes kalam. this is reflected in his poems lamenting him being perplexed, seeking the truth by means of the theological path. according to ibn al-wazir, ibn abi al-hadid stated; ïalabtuka jahidan khamsên ‘aman = fa lam ahîël ‘alé barér al-yaqên.68 likewise, ahmad ibn sannan’s report of his uncle, al-walid ibn abban al-karabisi with regard to the latter’s attitude towards kalém, does not miss the attention of ibn al-wazir who stated when al-karabisi lied on his death-bed, he asked his sons; ‘do you know if there is one who is more knowledgeable than me? they replied; yes. so he replied; you have to follow what is upheld by the partisans of the tradition, because i saw that the truth is with them.’69 ibn al-wazir continues to postulate that people abandon kalém not due to it being subtle and obscure, but because they were convinced by it being prohibited.70 according to ibn al-wazir, the mutakallimën tried to interpret the verse of the koran which reads ‘…wa jédilhum billati hiya aísan…’71 as a command for the muslims to undertake jidél (debate and argumentation). this thus justifies what they have done. regarding this question, ibn al-wazir replied from two points of view; firstly, that the phrase ‘wa jédilhum’, is conditioned with ‘billati hiya aísan’, and not a command of absolute jidél, i.e, billati hiya aísan. according to ibn al-wazir’s opinion, it is embodied in the prophet’s practice of jidél, which he does not follow the way the mutakallimën do.72 secondly, jidél should be practiced with ‘billati hiya aísan,’ means that god has taught in the qur’én to his prophet. however, engaging with the discussion with the people of heresy is prohibited.73 in another passage, ibn al-wazir stated that the prophet and his companions never occupied themselves with kalém.74 he continues that being involved in the dispute with the people of argumentation and being eager to invite them to debate will not be done by a knowledgeable individual and not justified by the enlightening book.75 ibn al-wazir also indicates that being involved in an affair which could lead to doubt, confusion and innovation is abhorrent.76 the sources and the authorities on which ibn al-wazir relies when discussing the censures towards kalém in al-rawì in discussing the censures towards kalém by his predecessors, ibn hamdard islamicus 194 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 al-wazir sometimes refer to the authorities and their works, and sometimes he mentions only the authorities. the sources and the authorities to which ibn al-wazir refers when discussing the censures towards kalém are al-mufhim fi saíií muslim by al-qurïubi, saíií muslim by al-nawawi, iíya ‘ulum al-din, al-tafrêqa and al-munqidh by imam al-ghazali, al-maqélét by abu al-qasim al-balkhi al-ka‘bi, kitéb al-ziyadat by al-imam al-mu’ayyad bi allah, yahya bin mansur al-hasani, sharí nahj al-balagha by ibn abi al-hadid, fakhr al-din ibn al-khatib al-razi, imam al-haramayn al-juwayni, nihaya al-iqdam fi ‘ilm al-kalém by al-shahrastani. notes and references 1. this statement is discussed elaborately by s.m. wasserstrom, ‘the si’is are the jews of our community an interreligious comparison within sunni thought,” in israel oriental studies, xiv (leiden: e.j. brill, 1994), pp. 297-324. 2. abrahamov in his islamic theology, for instance, suggests that though shared by a different denomination, the opposition to kalam and the mutakallimun are only a monopoly of the traditionalists, the shi’a has no place in his discussion of those who have hostile attitude towards kalam and the mutakallimun. see, abrahamov, benyamin, islamic theology traditionalism and rationalism, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 1998. the most leading scholar of islamic theology, josep van ess does not suggest us any information pertaining to this subjectmatter. twice he mentioned ibn al-wazir in his theologie und gesselschaft, but he does not indicate any objection or opposition by the latter to kalam. he deals with him rather with regard to scholars’ controversy on ru’ya (visio beatifica). see, vol. iv, pp. 415, 511. 3. see, ‘ali husain al-jabiri, al-fikr al-salafi ‘ind al-shi‘a al-ithna ‘ashriyya dirasa tahliliyya li mawqif al-fikr al-salafi fi ‘l-islam ‘umuman wa ‘ind al-ithna ‘ashriyya ‘ala wajh al-khusus min mantiq wa falsafat al-yunan, beirut, masnhurat ‘uwaidat, 1977. 4. here i was inspired by van ess’ identification of kalam with two senses: narrow and broad. the narrow sense, he argues, points to ‘a technique by which the mutakallimun use for defending their conviction.’ here, thus, ‘kalam is identical with an instrument of argumentation, a methodical tool in real discussion and stylistic device for the expansion of ideas.’ while the broad significance of kalam, according to van ess, points to ‘something like ‘muslim theology,’ in contrast to philosophy (falsafa) or jurisprudence (fiqh).’ van ess dscusses this topic in ‘disputationpraxis in der islamischen theologie: eine vorläufige skizze,’ in rei, 44 (1976), pp. 23-60; and in ‘early development of kalam,’ in studies on the first century of islamic society, ed. g.h.a. juynbol, carbondale & edwardsville, southern illiniois university press, 1982, pp. 109-123. hamdard islamicus 195 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 5. this work is published twice: in cairo by idara tiba’a al-jam’iyya al-‘ilmiyya al-azhariyya al-misriyya in 1349/1931 and in beirut by dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya in 1984. 6. this work is published in damascus by idarat al-tiba’a al-muniriyya. 7. for this assumption, the present author is inspired by j. van ess’s article, ‘early development of kalam,’ in juynboll, g.h.a. (ed.), studies on the first century of islamic society, carbondale & edwardsville: southern illinois university press, 1982, pp. 109-123. 8. gal, s. ii, p. 249. 9. ibidem; cf, lofgren oscar and renato traini, catalogue of the arabic manuscripts in the biblioteca ambrosiana, rome, 1980, vol. ii, p. 144. 10. probably he was shamsuddin muhammad ibn hamza al-fanari al-hanafi who was born in 751/1350, studied in minor asia and egypt, became qadi in brussa, jailed during timur occupation and died in 834/1431. see, gal, ii, p. 303. 11. see, the introduction of the editor, muhammad ibn muhammad ibn yahya zibara al-hasani al-yamani, op. cit., p. 1-4. 12. madelung, w. ‘zaydiyya,’ ei2, vol. xi, pp. 477-481. 13. ibidem. 14. this work was published twice. the first was published in amman by dar al-bashir in 1985 (3 vols), the second was published in beirut by mu’assasa al-risala in 1992 (9 vols.). 15. this work consists of two juzs and was published in cairo (idara al-tiba’a al-muniriyya). the first juz deals with the discussion that the science of tradition is the most virtuous sciences (afdal al-‘ulum). the second juz discusses, among other things, the censure of kalam and its people. in this juz is also found the statement of al-razi, al-juwayni, imam al-ghazali against kalam. 16. this work was published in cairo by matba’a al-adab wa ‘l-muayyad (1318-1900). this work deals with the discussion. 17. this work was published in cairo by al-matba’a al-salafiyya (1349/1931). 18. this work was published in beirut by dar ibn hazm in 1999. 19. ibidem, p. 4. 20. ithar, op. cit., p. 59. 21. madelung, op. cit., p. 480. 22. bell, op. cit., p. 421, vol. ii, sura saba, xxxiv: p. 6. 23. tarjih, op. cit., p. 9. 24. tarjih, op. cit., p. 17. 25. tarjih, op. cit., p. 24-25. 26. ibidem. 27. tarjih, op. cit., p. 27. 28. ibidem. 29. tarjih, op. cit., p. 24. 30. tarjih, op. cit., p. 32. 31. according to brockelmann, yahya ibn mansur was the author of al-kashifa li ma’ani ‘l-jumal wa ‘l-usul. gal, s. ii, p. 995. 32. wa yarawna dhalika madhhaban musta’ziman min tuli anzar wa husn tafakkur wa nasu ghina al-islam qabl hututhihim ‘an kull qawl hadith muta’ akhkhir hamdard islamicus 196 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 ma zannuhum bi ‘l-mustafa fi tarkih ma istanbatuh wa nahyuh al-mutakarrir. see tarjih, op. cit., p. 33. 33. tarjih, op. cit., p. 36-37. 34. tarjih, op. cit., p. 44. 35. tarjih, op. cit., p. 45. 36. ibidem. 37. tarjih, op. cit., pp. 45-46. 38. tarjih, op. cit., pp. 50-51. 39. abu bakr abd allah ibn muhammad ibn ubayd ibn sufyan al-qurashi al-baghdadi was born in bagdad in 208/823 and died there in 281/894. he was author of monumental sharh nahj al-balagha (20 vols). he was regarded mu‘tazili in usul but shafi‘i in furu being objective in his attitude to the ahl al-bayt and explicit in his affirmation of the rights of ali ibn abi talib. many scholars believe that he was between shi‘i and sunni parties (bayn al-fariqayn), since he was inspired by sense of equity (insaf). see, vaglieri, l. veccia, ‘ibn abi ‘l-hadid,’ ei2, vol. iii, pp. 684-686. 40. tarjih, op. cit., pp. 50-51. 41. tarjih, op. cit., p. 52. 42. tarjih, op. cit., p. 67. 43. al-mu’ayyid bi ‘l-lah is yahya ibn hamza al-husayn, the author of al-tiraz, who died in dhimar in 749/1349. see fn, no. 1, p. 19; tarjih, op cit., p. 56. 44. wa kadhalika ‘ulama al-kalam wa ‘l-jadaliyyun wa ‘l-mantiqiyyun la yastati’un la yastati’un an yad’u ala al-salaf annahum hadu fi ‘ilmihim wa la mahhadu lahu qa’idatan. tarjih, op. cit., p. 90. 45. tarjih, op.cit., p. 67. 46. tarjih, op.cit., p. 102. 47. tarjih, op. cit., p. 49. 48. ibidem. 49. ibidem. 50. tarjih, op. cit., p. 40. 51. tarjih, op. cit., p. 90. 52. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 9-10. 53. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 10-11. 54. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 11. 55. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 12. 56. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 13. 57. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 14. 58. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 15. 59. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 4-5. 60. this is comparable, for instance, with al-suyuti’s reference in his sawn al-mantiq to a great number of his predecessors who regarded as the opponents of kalam. 61. al-rawd, op. cit., p. vol. ii, pp. 11-12. 62. fakhr al-din al-razi, abu abd allah muhammad ibn umar ibn al-husayn who was one of the most celebrated theologians and exegetists of islam was born in 543/1149 in rayy. he studied kalam under the supervision of his father, diya al-din abu ‘l-qasim who wrote ghayat al-maram, in which he showed himself hamdard islamicus 197 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 a warm partisan of al-ash‘ari and whose teacher was abu ‘l-qasim al-ansari, a pupil of the imam al-haramayn. he studied philosophy to al-majd al-jili and fiqh to al-kamal al-samnani. he was buried in herat in 606/1209. al-razi’s works are huge in numbers, the majority of which are concerned with kalam (40), philosophy (26), and exegesis (5). see, anawati, g.c. ‘fakhr al-din al-razi,’ in ei2, vol. ii, pp. 751-755. 63. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 14. 64. abu ‘l-abbas ahmad ibn umar al-qurtubi who was an eminent maliki scholar was born in cordoba in 578/1173 and died in alexandria in 656/1259. he was a teacher of traditions and the most prominent expert on the arabic language. his work, al-mufhim fi sharh muslim was often quoted by al-nawawi in a number of places in his own work. see, arnaldez, r., ‘al-qurtubi, abu abd allah muhammad,’ ei2, vol. ii, p. 512. 65. abu ‘l-ma’ali abd al-malik al-juwayni who was well-known as the imam al-haramayn was born in 419/1028 at nisabur and died in 478/1085. he was a leading scholar in usul al-fiqh (kitab al-waraqat fi usul al-fiqh and kitab al-burhan fi usul al-fiqh) and kalam (al-shamil). see, brockelmann, c, ‘al-djuwayni, abu ‘l-ma’ali abd al-malik,’ ei2, vol. ii, pp. 605-606. 66. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 14; cf, sawn al-mantiq, op. cit., p. 237. 67. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 12. 68. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 13. 69. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 14. 70. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 16. 71. the qur’én, chapter 16, verse 125. 72. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 139. 73. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 140-141. 74. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 137. 75. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 141. 76. al-rawd, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 17. bibliography primary sources san‘ani, muhammad ibn al-wazir, al, tarjih asalib al-qur’an ala asalib al-yunan, cairo, idara tiba’a al-jam’iyya al-ilmiyya al-azhariyya al-misriyya, 1349/1931. al-rawd al-basim fi dhabb ‘an sunnat abi al-qawasim, damascus, idarat al-tiba’a al-muniriyya. suyuti, jalal al-din, al, sawn al-mantiq wa ‘l-kalam ‘an fannay al-mantiq wa ‘lkalam, su’ada abd al-raziq and ali sami al-nashshar (eds.), cairo, dar al-nashr wa ‘l-tiba’a, 1970. wazir, ‘uthman ibn ali ibn muhammad ibn abd allah ibn al, atraf al-silsila allati hiya bi aslaf al-nubuwwa wa wilaya muniha muttasila, ambrosiana library, 291, iv, 93-100. al-jabiri, ali husain, al-fikr al-salafi ‘ind al-shi’a al-ithna ‘ashriyya dirasa tahliliyya hamdard islamicus 198 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 li mawqif al-fikr al-salafi fi ‘l-islam umuman wa ‘ind al-ithna ‘ashariyya ‘ala wajh al-khusus min mantiq wa falsafat al-yunan, beirut, manshurat ‘uwaidat, 1977. secondary sources abrahamov, benyamin, islamic theology traditionalism and rationalism, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 1998. anawati, g.c. ‘fakhr al-din al-razi,’ in ei2, vol. ii, pp. 751-755. arnaldez, r., ‘al-qurtubi, abu ‘abd allah muhammad,’ ei2, vol. ii, p. 512 bell, richard, b.d., d.d. the qur’an translated, with a critical arrangement of the surahs, edinburgh: t&t clark, 1937. brockelmann, carl, geschichte der arabischen literatur, 2 vols, leiden: e.j. brill, 1943-1949; 3 supplements, leiden: e.j. brill, 1937-194 ‘al-djuwayni, abu ‘l-ma’ali ‘abd al-malik,’ ei2, vol. ii, pp. 605-606. madelung, w., ‘zaydiyya,’ ei2, vol. xi, pp. 477-481. vaglieri, l. veccia, ‘ibn abi ‘l-hadid,’ ei2, vol. iii, pp. 684-686. van ess, josep, theologie und gesselschaft im 2. und 3. jahrhundert hidschra. eine geschichte der religi•sen denkens im frühen islam, berlin and new york, walter de gruyter, 1995, vol. iv ‘early development of kalam,’ in juynboll, g.h.a. (ed.), studies on the first century of islamic society, carbondale & edwardsville, southern illinois university press, 1982, pp. 109-123. wasserstrom, s.m., ‘the shi’is are the jews of our community an interreligious comparison within sunni thought,’ in israel oriental studies, xiv, leiden, e.j. brill, 1994, pp. 297-324. f:\e\islamicus\2018\no.1'2018\010) index 2017.pmd hamdard islamicus 293 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 index hamdard islamicus, vol. xl, 2017 kaleem chaghtai research officer, hamdard islamicus bait al-hikmah, madinat al-hikmah karachi, pakistan author index 1. a hamid sarong, sh., mh (prof. dr.), enforcing islamic law for non-muslims: a case study of indonesia, no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 99-119. 2. abdul haseeb ansari (dr.) and parveen jamal (dr.), ethical and islamic perspectives of biotechnology research and human consumption of genetically modified organisms, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 61-80. 3. bilal ahmad (dr.), genesis of qur’anic exegesis with reference to the companion ibn ‘abbas ( ) as its sourcecritical analysis of harald motzki’s isnad cum matn analysis of qur’an 15:90-91, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 7-29. 4. dr abderrazak belabes, the writings of muhammad hamidullah in french: trends and novelties, no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 67-98. 5. faridah yousuf (dr.), western and islamic perspective of strip search and undressing of inmates permissibility, practices and it’s jurisdiction, no. 4, (oct-dec), pp.121-144. 6. iftikhar hussain and lutfullah saqib (dr.), trade based transactions in islamic commercial law and their role in the development of hamdard islamicus 294 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the rural local agriculture sector in khyber pakhtunkhwa, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 83-115. 07. lutfullah saqib (dr.) and mueen aizaz zafar (dr.), a realistic approach to the concept of ijarah (leasing) in shari‘ah and its possible role in the development of agricultural sector in pakistan, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 71-99. 08. manzoor ahmad al azhari (dr.) and muhammad ashfaq, “lord of two easts and lord of two wests”: a mystico-scientific study of phenomenon stated in surah al-rahman, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 7-30. 09. mohd yaseen gada, islamophobia and its historical roots: content, context, and consequences, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 35-59. 10. mudasra sabreen (dr.), takhayyur: a reform methodology for pakistan, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 51-65. 11. mufti ali (dr.), imam al-suyuti’s original thought on the opposition to (greek) logic and theology in sawn al-mantiq wa’l-kalam ‘an fannay al-mantiq wa’l-kalam, no. 4, (octdec), pp. 07-43. 12. muhammad munir (prof. dr.), fundamental guarantees of the rights of the accused in islamic criminal justice system, no. 4, (octdec), pp. 45-65. 13. salman ahmed shaikh, review of divine economics framework, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 67-82. 14. sayed sikandar shah haneef (prof. dr.), end-of-life medical challenges: some reflections on muslim juridical discourse, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 31-50. 15. shahabuddin ansari, the history of the arabs calendar before islam, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 51-70. hamdard islamicus 295 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 16. spahic omer (dr., associate prof.), an analysis of the expansion of the mosque of the prophet ( ) by caliph ‘umar b. al-khattab (d. 24 ah/644 ce), no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 31-50. 17. sultan-i-rome (dr.), social system of swat yusufzais, no. 2, (aprjune), pp. 81-110. 18. thameem ushama (prof. dr.) and shihab hamood al tamimi, the history of sumaniyyah (buddhism) and its doctrines in the arabicislamic discourse: an analysis, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 07-34. title index 01. a realistic approach to the concept of ijarah (leasing) in shari‘ah and its possible role in the development of agricultural sector in pakistan, lutfullah saqib (dr.) and mueen aizaz zafar (dr.), no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 71-99. 02. an analysis of the expansion of the mosque of the prophet ( ) by caliph ‘umar b. al-khattab (d. 24 ah/644 ce), spahic omer (dr., associate prof.) no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 31-50. 03. end-of-life medical challenges: some reflections on muslim juridical discourse, sayed sikandar shah haneef (prof. dr.), no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 31-50. 04. enforcing islamic law for non-muslims: a case study of indonesia, a. hamid sarong, sh., mh (prof. dr.), no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 99119. 05. ethical and islamic perspectives of biotechnology research and human consumption of genetically modified organisms, abdul haseeb ansari (dr.) and parveen jamal (dr.), no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 61-80. 06. fundamental guarantees of the rights of the accused in islamic hamdard islamicus 296 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 criminal justice system, muhammad munir (prof. dr.), no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 45-65. 07. genesis of qur’anic exegesis with reference to the companion ibn ‘abbas ( ) as its sourcecritical analysis of harald motzki’s isnad cum matn analysis of qur’an 15:90-91, bilal ahmad (dr.), no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 7-29. 08. imam al-suyuti’s original thought on the opposition to (greek) logic and theology in sawn al-mantiq wa’l-kalam ‘an fannay al-mantiq wa’l-kalam, mufti ali (dr.), no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 07-43. 09. islamophobia and its historical roots: content, context, and consequences, mohd yaseen gada no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 35-59. 10. lord of two easts and lord of two wests”: a mystico-scientific study of phenomenon stated in surah al-rahman, manzoor ahmad al azhari (dr.) and muhammad ashfaq, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 7-30. 11. review of divine economics framework, salman ahmed shaikh, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 67-82. 12. social system of swat yusufzais, sultan-i-rome (dr.), no. 2, (aprjune), pp. 81-110. 13. takhayyur: a reform methodology for pakistan, mudasra sabreen (dr.), no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 51-65. 14. the history of sumaniyyah (buddhism) and its doctrines in the arabic-islamic discourse: an analysis, thameem ushama (prof. dr.) and shihab hamood al tamimi, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 07-34. 15. the history of the arabs calendar before islam, shahabuddin ansari, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 51-70. hamdard islamicus 297 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 16. the writings of muhammad hamidullah in french: trends and novelties, dr. abderrazak belabes, no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 67-98. 17. trade based transactions in islamic commercial law and their role in the development of the rural local agriculture sector in khyber pakhtunkhwa, iftikhar hussain and lutfullah saqib (dr.), no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 83-115. 18. western and islamic perspective of strip search and undressing of inmates permissibility, practices and it’s jurisdiction, faridah yousuf (dr.), no. 4, (oct-dec), pp.121-144. key word index accused see no. 6 in the title index agricultural see no. 1 in the title index arabs see no. 15 in the title index biotechnology see no. 4 in the title index buddhism see no. 14 in the title index calendar see no. 15 in the title index caliph see no. 2 in the title index companion see no. 7 in the title index divine see no. 11 in the title index economics see no. 11 in the title index ethical see no. 5 in the title index french see no. 16 in the title index fundamental see no. 6 in the title index greek see no. 8 in the title index hamidullah see no. 16 in the title index harald motzki see no. 7 in the title index hamdard islamicus 298 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 history see no. 14,15 in the title index human see no. 5 in the title index ibn ‘abbas see no. 6 in the title index ijarah see no. 1 in the title index indonesia see no. 4 in the title index islam, islamic, muslim see no. 3, 4, 5, 6, 14, 15, 16, 18 in the title index islamophobia see no. 9 in the title index juridical, jurisdiction see no. 3,18 in the title index justice see no. 6 in the title index khyber pakhtunkhwa see no. 17 in the title index law see no. 4,17 in the title index lord see no. 10 in the title index medical see no. 3 in the title index mosque see no. 2 in the title index pakistan see no. 1,13 in the title index prophet see no. 2 in the title index qur’an, qur’anic see no. 7 in the title index rights see no. 6 in the title index sawn al-mantiq see no. 8 in the title index shari‘ah see no. 1 in the title index social system see no. 12 in the title index strip search see no. 18 in the title index sumaniyyah see no. 14 in the title index surah al-rahman see no. 10 in the title index suyuti see no. 8 in the title index hamdard islamicus 299 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 swat see no. 12 in the title index takhayyur see no. 13 in the title index trade see no. 17 in the title index yusufzais see no. 12 in the title index f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 3\editorial islamicus.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 5 editorial this is the third issue of hamdard islamicus 2020. it comprises five articles discussing and analyzing conventional and islamic banking in pakistan, study of pre-islamic poetry, corporate social responsibility in pakistan, macroeconomic indicators contributing towards exchange rate volatility and the influence of vincent van gogh’s religious background on his works. the first article “a comparative study of adoption of conventional banking and islamic banking in pakistan” examines the adoption of conventional and islamic banking in pakistan and concludes that it may be fruitful for islamic banking to attain market share for islamic products and services. “insistence in the pre-islamic poetry a study of motives and causes” is the second article. it shows that insistence and determination are main principles for success in life. therefore, pre-islamic poets emphasized on virtues such as kindness, great hospitality and selfpreservation. the third article “corporate social responsibility in pakistan: mimicry of the west or a milestone guiding consumer behaviour?” strives to explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility and consumer-buying behaviour in context of the fast food industry in pakistan. the fourth article is “macroeconomic indicators contributing towards exchange rate volatility: evidence from income groups of the countries” exploring the macroeconomic factors contributing towards exchange rate volatility in group of economies segregated on the basis of income. “the influence of vincent van gogh’s religious background on his works in the nuenen period” is the fifth and last article of this issue. it identifies the impact of vincent van gogh’s religious life on his works of art during his stay in nuenen, and the mechanism of his employment in selecting the works of that period. editor hamdard islamicus 57 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 reconciling the views of ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz (r.a.) (d. 101 a.h./720 c.e.) on mosque decoration assoc. prof. dr. spahic omer kulliyyah of islamic revealed knowledge and human sciences international islamic university malaysia, malaysia. e-mail: spahico@yahoo.com this paper discusses the views of the 8th umayyad caliph, ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz (‘umar ii [r.a.]), on mosque decoration. it resolves an ostensible inconsistency between what he as the governor did to the prophet’s mosque in madinah, and what he intended to do to the great umayyad mosque in damascus after becoming the caliph. the paper concludes that there was no inconsistency whatsoever in ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) actions. this becomes evident when the matter is thoroughly explored against the backdrop of the extraordinary personality of ‘umar ii (r.a.), as well as the prevailing socio-political, cultural and religious developments in the muslim umayyad society. ‘umar ii (r.a.) only acted along the lines of the general laws that governed the birth and evolution of the identity of muslim architecture, at the center of which stood mosque decoration. thus, after presenting at the beginning of the paper ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) views in question, discussion about those laws follows. the discussion is tripartite, focusing on the consistency of ‘umar ii (r.a.)’ overall personality and character, the evolution of the identity of muslim architecture, and the emergence of the first muslim architectural deviations. keywords: ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz (r.a.), the prophet’s mosque, the umayyad mosque, mosque decoration, muslim architecture. introduction ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz (‘umar ii [r.a.]) was the most revered muslim ruler after the first four rightly-guided caliphs (al-khulafa’ hamdard islamicus 58 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 al-réshidën). so much so that he is regarded as the fifth rightly-guided caliph, though a period of about sixty years separates between him and ‘ali b. abi talib (r.a.) (d. 41 a.h./661 c.e.), the forth rightly-guided caliph. as the 8th umayyad caliph, he is also held as the first and arguably one of the greatest revivers of the islamic faith, culture and civilization.1 when the historians and biographers dwell on the contributions of ‘umar ii (r.a.) as caliph, they normally focus on the political, economic and religious aspects of his rule.2 however, rarely was there a scholar, before or now, who tried to analyze and eventually reconcile between the ostensibly conflicting views of ‘umar ii (r.a.) concerning mosque decoration, one of the emerging and pressing issues of the day. this is surprising because the latter is no less significant than the former in that it constituted the substance of the fast evolving phenomenon of the muslim artistic and architectural identity which functioned as the physical locus of the muslim cultural and civilizational consciousness and yield, facilitating and further spurring them. hence, understanding the points of view of ‘umar ii (r.a.) as regards mosque decoration, and by extension muslim architecture, greatly helps in understanding many other directly and indirectly related aspects of his personality and rule. at the core of the spiritual as well as cultural life of ‘umar ii (r.a.), firstly as the governor of madinah (87-93 a.h./706-712 c.e.) then as the umayyad caliph in damascus (99-101 a.h./718-720 c.e.), stood prophet muíammad’s (œ) mosque and the great umayyad mosque in madinah and damascus respectively. at the behest of the umayyad caliph al-walêd b. ‘abd al-malik (d. 96 a.h./715 c.e.) in damascus, ‘umar ii, as the governor of madinah, significantly enlarged and refurbished the prophet’s mosque, using mosaics, marble and even gold as decorative media. the job lasted from 88 a.h./707 c.e. to approximately 91 a.h./ 710 c.e. almost concurrently, from 87 a.h./706 c.e. to 96 a.h./715 c.e., caliph al-walêd was building the great umayyad mosque in damascus which was regarded as a wonder of the world on account of its unparalleled magnificence and beauty, using also mosaics, marble and gold – albeit to an unprecedented degree – for decorative purposes. later, when he himself became the caliph and had to move to damascus, ‘umar ii (r.a.) was so struck by the umayyad mosque and the extent of its decoration hamdard islamicus 59 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 especially, that he articulated some of the most astonishing and unfavorable views expressed with regard to the then-fast-growing marvels of muslim art and architecture. he is reported to have wanted to strip the mosque off its expensive and ostentatious decoration, covering it with white draperies instead.3 those views seem to have been at odds with what he had done slightly more than a decade ago in madinah with the prophet’s mosque. to alami,4 such was the case of ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) total transformation from being a typical umayyad, or just a mundane ruler and prince who enjoyed listening to music, eating good food and wearing fine clothing, to an exemplary zealous sufi or an ascetic. nonetheless, the views of ‘umar ii (r.a.) on mosque decoration were rather consistent. they just need to be carefully examined against the backdrop of the overall personality of ‘umar ii (r.a.), as well as the prevailing socio-political, cultural and religious developments in the umayyad state. the overarching character of the identity of authentic muslim art and architecture, which was slowly emerging, warding off a great many potential deviations and excesses, both at the conceptual and practical planes, played also a prominent role. this paper intends to do exactly that. it aims to reconcile between the seemingly contradictory views of ‘umar ii (r.a.) on mosque decoration taking the prophet’s mosque in madinah and the umayyad mosque in damascus as case studies. in the first part of the paper, different aspects of ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) attitude towards mosque decoration will be presented. then, free from elements of the umayyad socio-political and religious bias and fervor, as well as from the sentimental and overstated umayyad criticism by some of their opponents, the position of ‘umar ii (r.a.) will be thoroughly discussed. the discussion will be three-pronged concentrating on (1) the consistency of the personality of ‘umar ii (r.a.), (2) the evolution of the identity of muslim architecture, and (3) the emergence and impact of the first muslim architectural deviations. two different positions of ‘umar ii (r.a.) on mosque decoration in 88 a.h./707 c.e., one year after he had been appointed as governor of the prophet’s city of madinah, ‘umar ii (r.a.) was instructed from damascus by caliph al-walêd to reconstruct and enlarge the hamdard islamicus 60 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 prophet’s mosque. ‘umar ii (r.a.) applied himself to the task with vigour, completing it three years later in 91 a.h./710 c.e. the project involved the pulling down of the existing form of the mosque together with those apartments (íujurét) of the wives of the prophet (œ) as abutted the mosque on its eastern side, incorporating them into the mosque proper. the land and other houses that stood near the mosque and were also meant to be incorporated by the unprecedented mosque expansion were purchased from their owners in a way that satisfied all the parties involved. some people naturally hesitated at first and raised some objections, but in the end had no choice but to agree as the development plans had to proceed and neither they nor the government could maneuver for different solutions. when completed, the mosque measured about one hundred meters by one hundred meters, that is, ten thousand square meters.5 according to some accounts, however, the width of the mosque was eighty four meters and its length nearly one hundred meters, in which case its total area was about 8,400 square meters. the extension thus was about 2,768 square meters.6 there were three categories of workforce, owing to the size and complexity of the construction project. there were firstly local architects, engineers, artisans and general workers who partook in the demolition task as well as in the implementation of the initial and basic planning and building phases. they did their job in advance of the arrival of the more skilled personnel that al-walêd had undertaken to send from damascus, then the cosmopolitan muslim cultural and civilizational hub.7 it is narrated that the caliph even sought the assistance of the byzantine emperor in this regard. the latter responded by sending him additional craftsmen and building as well as decoration materials such as fine tiles, mosaic pieces, chains for lamps and gold for ornamentation. al-ùabari reported that the byzantine emperor sent “one hundred thousand mithqéls (a unit of mass equal to 4.25 grams) of gold, one hundred workers and forty loads of mosaic … al-walêd sent all that on to ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz”.8 ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) keenness in executing the assigned job was welldocumented by historians. though it entailed more than a few glitches, the assignment, nonetheless, was executed admirably. all the misunderstandings – actual or potential – ‘umar ii (r.a.) managed to overcome by means of his remarkable piety, humbleness, pragmatism, hamdard islamicus 61 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 open-mindedness and penchant for consultation with the people of knowledge, wisdom and piety. when it was finished, the prophet’s mosque was a sight to behold. its new walls were built on a solid foundation of stone on rock, with the structure above the surface constructed with cut and chiseled stone dressed in plaster. this was later on to be covered with marble, or decorated with mosaics. the thickness of the new western wall was less than one meter, while the eastern wall was thicker at one meter and four fingers (asabi’). the latter was strengthened due to its proximity to a stream which caused its collapse, along with the wall of the íujrah (the prophet’s wife ‘ó’ishah’s house that contained the graves of the prophet (œ), abu bakr and ‘umar [r.a.]).9 that connoted one of a few sustainability measures that rendered the mosque a reasonably environment conscious building. the columns, too, were of stone and reinforced with lead and iron to add to their strength and durability. they formed arcades that run parallel to the qiblah (direction of prayer) wall. the ceiling was of teakwood, decorated with gold. minarets were added to the mosque’s morphology for the first time; one minaret was provided for each of the four corners of the hypostyle mosque.10 one of them on the western side was taken down during the reign of caliph sulayman b. ‘abd al-malik (d. 99 a.h./717 c.e.) because it overlooked the house of marwén b. al-×akam (d. 66 a.h./685 c.e.) which was also the residence of the umayyad caliphs when they came to madinah. the two minarets that stood at the two corners of the eastern wall were about 27.2 meters high. the third one at the north-west corner of the western wall was one meter shorter. the dimensions of each minaret were 4 × 4 meters, making them square.11 this was the first time that the hypostyle mosque was built in such a way that colonnades or cloisters of stone columns on all four sides enclosed a vast inner courtyard. the roof of the mosque was double – a decorated ceiling below, of gilded teak, and a lead-covered roof above. that was in order to protect the mosque from the rain. the lower ceiling’s height was nearly 12.5 meters. the first who made the miíréb (a praying niche for imam or the prayer leader) in the form of a niche, as an important architectural innovation, was ‘umar ii (r.a.) who did so in the prophet’s mosque, regardless of whether he introduced it on his own or at the behest of al-walêd. similarly, there was in the mosque the first instance of a hamdard islamicus 62 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 domical vault in front of the miíréb, which was to become such a familiar aspect of muslim architecture.12 the miíréb stood where caliph ‘uthman’s (r.a.) maqîërah was earlier erected, perpendicularly in front of the place where the prophet (œ) used to lead his companions in prayers. this was so because both ‘umar and ‘uthman (r.a.) enlarged the mosque towards the southern or qiblah direction. after the two expansions, the prophet’s praying place (muîalla), next to the perfumed column (al-ustuwan al-mukhallaqah), remained clearly indicated and preserved. however, there was no any miíréb there yet, unlike what some scholars have contended.13 in passing, no other subsequent expansion took place towards the southern direction, and that is why the main miíréb even today stands where ‘uthman’s (r.a.) maqîërah and afterwards the first al-walêd’s miíréb had stood. it is called ‘uthman’s miíréb (al-miíréb al-‘uthmani) with caliph ‘uthman (r.a.) being its eponym. the foreign workers from byzantium were employed mainly for decoration purposes using gold and mosaics. half of them were romans and half copts from egypt. the former’s tasks focused on the roof and the rear of the mosque, while the former worked at the mosque’s front, including the qiblah wall. it was a general perception that the copts were more skilled and their work output more superb. some of the workers that handled mosaic decoration are reported to have said that their decorative themes revolved around the concepts of trees (vegetation) and palaces as articulated in relation to paradise (jannah). so concerned and excited was ‘umar ii (r.a.) about the matter that whenever a worker excelled in depicting with mosaics a large and beautiful tree, as a decorative motif in the mosque, he would reward him with an extra bonus of thirty dirhams.14 the mosque expansion did not prove to be a cheap undertaking, despite the prudent nature of ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) personality. for example, only for building and decorating the qiblah wall and sections of the double roof, he is said to have spent forty or forty five thousand dinérs.15 in addition, ‘umar ii (r.a.) also had all the mosques in madinah and its vicinity where prophet muíammad (œ) had offered prayers, rebuilt as well in carved stone. he likewise passionately busied himself with the general repair and improvement of the roads and other city amenities. he also dug the wells and built water channels for agricultural hamdard islamicus 63 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and civic use, amidst a host of other schemes for the improvement of local government, administration, justice and all aspects of social, communal and religious life.16 when he rebuilt and expanded the prophet’s mosque in madinah, ‘umar ii (r.a.) did so in his capacity as the governor of the city at the request of caliph al-walid who, in turn, was very pleased with the job when it was done. around the same time as the construction of the madinah mosque, the caliph himself was building the great umayyad mosque in damascus on a matchless scale. the latter building exercise lasted nine to ten years, three times the duration of the prophet’s mosque’s construction. when it was finished, the umayyad mosque was reputed as a mosque – perhaps, generally, a religious institution – of no equal in the whole world in terms of fine proportion, size and scale, construction excellence, durability and, above all, the brilliance of its decorative schemes and styles generously executed in gold, mosaics and marble with diverse colors. the mosque’s decoration depicted calligraphic inscriptions, geometric patterns, stylized interwoven floral motifs, and such stylized and denaturalized components as buildings, bridges, fountains, palaces, gardens and trees. to many people since the inception of the mosque’s existence, the scenes depicted represented a vision of paradise.17 titus burckhardt wrote about the decoration of the umayyad mosque: “the walls of the mosque were adorned with mosaics, of which only fragments survive; they represent fantastic towns and palaces, surrounded by flowers and bordered by rivers, all composed with great mastery of design and color, which bears witness to the survival of a school of byzantine art in the syria of the umayyads.”18 for the umayyad mosque, too, byzantine skilled workers, two hundred of them, were employed. some sources even suggest that al-walêd threatened the emperor that if he did not send his workers as requested, his lands would have been invaded and the byzantine religious and cultural heritage under muslims destroyed.19 the mosque thus was a source of religious and national pride to the people of damascus in particular, and muslims in general. it symbolized the cultural and civilizational strength of muslims in a land dotted with elements evocative of the centuries-old cultural and religious dominance of the byzantine empire and its christian orientation and character. it was an act of a hamdard islamicus 64 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 muslim civilizational self-assertion, so to speak. as a result, many exaggerated accounts and legends in relation to the status of the umayyad mosque have been concocted and articulated. some were even associated with prophet muíammad (œ).20 nonetheless, when he became the caliph, ‘umar ii (r.a.) developed an aversion to the decoration of the umayyad mosque, intending to take from it the gold, marble, mosaics and expensive chains used for lamps and deposit everything in the state or royal treasury (bayt al-mél, literally house of money or wealth). ‘umar ii (r.a.) contested that such was a sign of profligacy and wastefulness, as well as that people were distracted in their prayers by looking at those luxurious elements. he said that he wanted to substitute them by mud, ropes, white draperies and other natural and crude materials.21 however, when he was told that therein was a trap for the enemy, ‘umar ii (r.a.) relinquished his initial radical plans, much to the delight of especially the muslims of damascus and the whole of syria.22 that means that the umayyad mosque was built, primarily, in order to rival in splendour and magnificence the finest churches of syria so splendidly built that a great many muslims ended up holding them in high regard. hence, building the mosque enchantingly fair was meant to overshadow the christian churches and put thereby an end to such an unfavourable and increasingly disturbing custom. according to other reports, additionally, ‘umar ii (r.a.) was convinced by the people that most of the money used for the mosque’s lavish and so, controversial decoration was not from bayt al-mél. rather, the support came from the people either in the form of their personal contributions, or in the form of their war spoils. at any rate, the structure and decoration of the umayyad mosque was left intact.23 parenthetically – as a final point – nothing to the similar effect, which could be ascribed to ‘umar ii (r.a.), has ever been reported as regards the prophet’s mosque in madinah and its own decorative style and content. ‘umar ii (r.a.) never regretted them. the consistency of ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) personality the first point to be highlighted in the context of reconciling ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) views about mosque decoration is the striking consistency of his personality. as a person, governor and finally caliph, hamdard islamicus 65 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 ‘umar ii (r.a.) never substantially changed. there was never such a thing as adrastic volte-face or an evolution in his spiritual disposition and moral qualities from an ordinary umayyad prince engrossed in worldly pleasures, to an ardent sufi or an ascetic, as suggested by alami.24 in passing – as a small digression – the term sufi (îëfê) was first coined, most probably, around the second half of the 2nd a.h./9th c.e. century so as to refer to some ascetics and hermits who wore wool as opposed to other ascetics and devout men who wore linen and cotton. the idioms taîawwuf (sufism) and îëfê (sufi) did not gain wide currency until the first half of the 3rd a.h./9th c.e. century.25 what is certain is that during ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) era, sufism existed neither as a scientific discipline nor an established and discernable religious tradition. ‘umar ii (r.a.) was born in madinah. as a young man, prior to his appointment as the governor, ‘umar ii (r.a.) lived only in the city of the prophet (œ), surrounded by some of the best scholars of the day from the first and second generation of islam. during his childhood, though he enjoyed a life of ease and relative prosperity, he committed the whole qur’én to memory (íéfêz al-qur’én) and studied arabic grammar and poetry. he studied íadêth (the prophet’s tradition) from different religious masters. from his association with those authorities, ‘umar ii (r.a.) acquired a degree of scholarship which was acknowledged even by the greatest authorities in the fields of various disciplines. he is thus often described as a great jurist, muíaddêth (expert in the prophet’s tradition), mujtahid (an authoritative interpreter of the islamic law) and reliable íéfiz of the qur’én. he was reputed as one of the most knowledgeable persons in madinah, the seat of the islamic learning and the prophet’s tradition, to whom people often resorted from near and far for answering difficult religious questions.26 when he became the governor of madinah, ‘umar ii (r.a.) saw the appointment as an opportunity to put his gained knowledge and inherent genius to test by applying them at some of the highest and most demanding personal and social levels of life, adding thus an invaluable practical dimension to what he already had and was ready to offer to others. hence, he at first was reluctant to take up the governorship job to the point that caliph al-walêd was greatly puzzled. when asked why he hesitated to accept and go out to his new job, ‘umar ii (r.a.) replied that he was willing to do so only under certain conditions, the most hamdard islamicus 66 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 important one of which related to his outright rejection to follow the oppressive and iniquitous standards and practices of his predecessors. caliph al-walêd’s response was: “you are free to do in accordance with what is right and just, even if you would not be able to send us a single dirham of revenue”.27 as soon as he became the governor, ‘umar ii (r.a.) formed a council with which he run and managed the territories under his administration. the council consisted of the leading jurists (fuqaha’) and scholars of madinah. when he assembled them for the first time, he told them that he did not want to take any decisions without consulting them. if they found anyone, especially his officers, committing any acts of oppression or injustice, they must, he commanded them in god’s name, report the matter to him. he told them that such was a thing that would earn them heavenly rewards and a good name as supporters of the truth.28 the jurists and scholars, consequently, never stopped regarding him rather as one of them. they regularly prayed for god’s blessings on him and his righteous policies. in terms of his education, wisdom and eloquence, ‘umar ii (r.a.) was called “the best of men” and “the master of masters” in front of whom scholars and scientists felt as though they were just like pupils.29 in agreement with his personality, he seriously encouraged and facilitated knowledge-seeking, offering remunerations to teachers and educators. as a sign of things to come, many other small-scale reforms he also started off. within this spiritual and intellectual climate, reconstructing and enlarging the prophet’s mosque was undertaken. while doing his job, ‘umar ii (r.a.) must have been further motivated by the verity that the prophet’s mosque is the second most important mosque on earth – the first being al-masjid al-×arém in makkah – which via its status, overall function and glorious history served as a beacon and guidepost to all muslims. in addition, the prophet’s mosque is one of the three mosques to which pilgrimage is strongly recommended to be undertaken – the other two being al-masjid al-×arém in makkah and al-masjid al-aqsé in palestine. the prophet’s mosque, it follows, stands for an everlastingly global mosque with a global agenda, meaning and purpose. it is special, commanding a special treatment in every respect. hamdard islamicus 67 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) time as the governor in the city of the prophet (œ) – as well as in the cities of makkah and ta’if – was so extraordinary and productive that formal complaints forwarded by the people of the territories under his jurisdiction to damascus, the seat of the umayyad power, virtually stopped. moreover, as a result, many people started migrating to madinah and makkah from iraq, running from and looking for refuge from their governor, al-hajjaj b. yusuf (d. 96 a.h./714 c.e.). ‘umar ii (r.a.) regularly complained to al-walêd against the harshness and oppression of al-hajjaj towards his people in iraq, stressing that such was occurring “without any right (on his part) or offense (on theirs)”.30 however, this approach of ‘umar ii (r.a.) did not go down well with the infamous nature of al-hajjaj’s personality. he held it against ‘umar ii (r.a.) and wrote to al-walêd, pressurizing him to remove ‘umar ii (r.a.) from his job. al-walêd eventually bowed to the mounting pressure from iraq and in the year 93 a.h./712 c.e. dismissed ‘umar ii (r.a.). when he became the caliph in 99 a.h./718 c.e., ‘umar ii (r.a.) ultimately saw the post as an opportunity to diversify and take his reforms, which he in his limited capacity as the governor of madinah had once instigated, to a whole new level. if truth be told, ‘umar ii (r.a.) never coveted the post of the caliphate. he perceived it as too big a burden to bear, and it was placed on him without obtaining his prior opinion and consent. he reiterated on many occasions that he did not ask for the caliphate because there was no single muslim anywhere in the world who did not have a right upon him which he had to duly fulfill without demand or notice.31 indeed, that was a dreadful prospect which only a few persons as were granted a special spiritual insight were able to comprehend. being the governor where the scope of responsibilities was substantially smaller and their intensity lighter was in comparison distinctly less strenuous and exhausting. to ‘umar ii (r.a.), the caliphate thus was a necessary evil with which, he thought, he was greatly tested, and which on account of his unparalleled spiritual, intellectual and moral aptitude, on the one hand, and the will of those who mattered most in the state insofar as the wellbeing of muslims and the muslim community was concerned: the scholars, the righteous and the ordinary people, on the other, he had no choice but to reluctantly accept and responsibly discharge. he felt that he owed it to hamdard islamicus 68 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the religion of islam and the people, even if he personally had to suffer. his wife, fatimah, once said that ever since he became the caliph, her life and the lives of the members of their household became miserable. “may he never been made the caliph”, she exclaimed.32 thus, when ‘umar ii (r.a.) became the caliph, on the basis of mutual consultation as a new political culture, benevolence and respect for all, broad spectrum implementation of the national social, religious and economic reforms got into full swing. they covered education, morality, religious zeal and observance, inviting people to islam (da‘wah), welfare programs for the people of all strata of society, taxation systems, military, state administration and improving the umayyad establishment from the inside. it was as part of this wave of sweeping reforms and general developments that ‘umar ii (r.a.) said what he said about the decorative styles and elements of the great umayyad mosque in damascus which, as intended, had instantaneously become the symbol of the umayyad state and rule. those views were uttered when he relatively unhindered was carrying through his nationwide reforms deeply rooted in his clear islamic vision, mission and purpose. hence, there was nothing inconsistent in ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) personality – and so, in his views towards mosque decoration – at the beginning and end of his political career. there was only gradual maturation as well as crystallization of certain, especially complex, ideas and views, which naturally come to pass in people as they get older, more experienced and more insightful mentally and spiritually. as a standard-setter, ‘umar ii (r.a.) wanted to articulate an extreme sense of religious fervour and practical austerity in relation to the subject of mosque decoration, particularly in situations where many vested interests were also at play – and such was becoming increasingly widespread and condoned – so that the people could take those viewpoints into consideration in their future mosque building undertakings. he wanted to provide an antidote to what was fast becoming a potentially repugnant custom. the evolution of the identity of muslim architecture generally, it is asserted that the history of muslim architecture started in earnest with caliph al-walêd.33 notwithstanding the fallacy of this belief – for the history and identity of muslim architecture, which hamdard islamicus 69 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 lays emphasis more on the function and serviceability of buildings than on their sheer forms, started with the commencement of the first and exemplary muslim society in the prototype muslim city-state of madinah – it nevertheless clearly demonstrates that during al-walêd’s tenure as the caliph, some of the final acts of the crystallization and generous enrichment of the recognizable identity of muslim architecture, as well as its imposition and assertion on the world scene, were more prominent and vibrant than ever before, and rarely paralleled ever after. the whole matter was commensurate with the rest of the happenings on the cultural and civilizational scenes of the dynamic muslim state, embodying and mirroring their scale and potency. for instance, it was during the rule of al-walêd that in terms of its conquests and expansion the muslim state was approaching its zenith. it was then that andalusia (spain), transoxiana, sindh, samarkand and farghana were conquered. envoys were sent to china as well. thus, muslim architecture was increasingly becoming a global phenomenon. if it heretofore was extensively borrowing from other fairly advanced cultures and civilizations, while it was shaping its own distinct identity, the time has finally come for muslim architecture, while the muslim state was at the apex of its power, to start giving back to and enrich the general theater of the world’s architectural styles. indeed, the entire development signified a foremost law or principle of the evolution of civilizations. it was a natural thing and its currents could neither be stemmed nor redirected. that is why ‘umar ii (r.a.), despite being an embodiment of piety, simplicity and austerity, did not hesitate to partake in and contribute to the architectural developments in the state. in doing so, he even demonstrated a strong sense of ardor and enthusiasm. for example, when many people objected to the proposition of demolishing the houses of the prophet’s wives, which stood adjacent to the eastern side of the prophet’s mosque, significantly expanding the mosque towards that particular direction, ‘umar ii, after consulting the caliph in damascus, overruled the initial doubts and objections of the opposition and proceeded with the given task anyway.34 the people contended that the houses should have been kept intact so as to serve to everyone as signs of simplicity, propriety and purity. ‘umar ii (r.a.) did not deny the validity of their arguments and the aptness of their overall sentiments, but felt that by expanding the prophet’s mosque as envisioned by the caliph and himself, greater benefits were set to be hamdard islamicus 70 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 achieved. in its capacity as the second most consequential mosque on earth to which pilgrimage has been strongly urged, the mosque needed to welcome and accommodate the ever increasing number of worshippers and pilgrims. it had to epitomize, facilitate and further promote and advance the exceptional greatness and strength of the muslim community on the world scene, thereby advocating the islamic values and standards that stood for the root-causes of such civilizational triumphs. furthermore, ‘umar ii (r.a.) was happy to be associated with some of the greatest innovations in the realm of the vocabulary of muslim architecture. as mentioned earlier, while rebuilding the prophet’s mosque, the notion of the miíréb (the praying niche) was for the first time introduced in muslim architecture; as was the domical vault in front of the miíréb.35 the minarets were added as well for the first time to the morphology of the prophet’s mosque. their number was four. likewise, the extent, style and content of mosque decoration were unheard of in the holy cities of makkah and madinah. even in the whole of the muslim world, the only existing structure that could match the mosque was the dome of the rock in jerusalem, as part of al-masjid al-aqîé, which was built by al-walêd’s father, caliph ‘abd al-malik b. marwan (d. 87 a.h./ 705 c.e.). ‘umar ii (r.a.) was so enthusiastic about what he was doing that he used to reward with extra bonuses those who really excelled in their work. it is noteworthy that raja’ b. ×aywah (d. 112 a.h./730 c.e.), a leading scholar and jurist (faqih) of the day who was most instrumental in ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) appointment as the caliph, was also a calligraphist and was the artist most responsible for the detailed calligraphic and decorative inscriptions on the walls and ceilings of the dome of the rock.36 all this shows that the evolution of the identity of muslim architecture was at the heart of the development of the identity of muslim culture and civilization at large, one reflecting and supporting the other. there were no lines drawn between the religious and secular, and the spiritual and material, realms in the multidimensional social development processes to which the muslim state was subjected since the inception of its existence. that also shows that, accordingly, everyone was able to participate and make a contribution. the evolution of the identity of muslim architecture was thus all-inclusive, representing a framework for the implementation of islam. at a micro level, it mirrored the identity of islamic culture and civilization.37 hamdard islamicus 71 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 what ‘umar ii (r.a.) and some other prominent scholars and religious personalities, like raja’ b. haywah, have done was in fact an affirmation of a rising culture in the spheres of the built environment, something that was characteristic only of islamic civilization. the trend continued for many subsequent centuries and did not start to wane until the serious decline of islamic civilization when, as a consequence, the spiritual and material, and the religious and secular, aspects became at odds with each other and eventually separated. that further shows that just like every other vital sector of islamic civilization, architecture and its growth, too, were not only supervised and watched over from a distance by the intellectual and religious leadership in society, but also practiced, directed and regulated right on the ground where the correct translation of ideas and theories into practice was acutely needed. such was a truly commendable tactic subtly anchored in mutual consultations and a form of ijtihéd (the exercise of critical thinking and independent judgment). at times, the matter was tantamount to a minor form of ijmé‘ (the universal and infallible agreement of the muslim community spearheaded by scholars). an interesting additional illustration – as a small detour – is the creation of the city of baghdad in 145-150 a.h./762-767 c.e. by abu ja‘far al-mansur (d. 159 a.h./775 c.e.), the second abbasid caliph, which transpired less than a half a century after the caliphate of ‘umar ii (r.a.). in the course of building the city, the seat of the abbasid caliphate, imam abu hanifah (d. 150 a.h./767 c.e.), one of the most illustrious scholars and jurists in the history of islam, is reported to have been in charge of making the mud bricks until the construction of the city wall next to the moat, one of the two protective walls that encircled the city, was finished. he used to measure and count the bricks with the reed linear, a practice that proved so effective and feasible that the people emulated it thereafter. one of the city’s main streets was later named after him.38 there was also al-hajjaj b. arïéh (d. 149 a.h./ 766 c.e.), a traditionalist and jurist who lived in kufah along with abu hanifah and later served as the judge of basrah in iraq. he was the architect of one of baghdad’s main mosques by the orders of the caliph al-mansur, and he is said to have laid its foundations. it seems, furthermore, that he also played an important role in planning the northern suburbs of the city of baghdad.39 hamdard islamicus 72 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 obviously, ‘umar ii (r.a.) was regarding the creation of the great umayyad mosque as part of the natural evolution of the identity of muslim architecture as well. as the umayyad mosque and the prophet’s mosque in madinah were built almost at the same time, albeit with the former starting about one year earlier (87-96 a.h./706-715 c.e.) and finishing due to its size and complexity five years after the latter (88-91 a.h./707-710 c.e.), ‘umar ii (r.a.) could not really follow the exact developments as regards the construction of the mosque in damascus. he was so absorbed in the construction and enlargement of the prophet’s mosque that he had little or no time to genuinely worry about other projects somewhere else. in addition, he was dismissed as the governor of madinah three years before the completion of the mosque in damascus, so, whatever he might have felt or said about it following its completion was definitely for the consumption of his small inner circles of friends and family members, for he is said to have withdrawn into seclusion, strict religious observance and spiritual contemplation after his dismissal. however, on becoming the caliph himself, ‘umar ii (r.a.) developed some grave misgivings concerning the excessive decoration of the umayyad mosque, but not because he changed his views about muslim architecture and the laws that governed the evolution of its identity, but because such evolution was displaying signs of being tainted by certain deviational both conceptual and applied tendencies which resulted from myriad deviations and malpractices connected with several other critical segments of muslim civilizational development. thus, when ‘umar ii (r.a.) voiced his concerns about the excessive and disproportionate decoration in the umayyad mosque, suggesting that the matter ought to be corrected, he was only defending the intrinsic processes of the muslim architectural evolution. he was promulgating that muslim architecture must continue developing, but only along the lines of its natural principles and the principles as well as benchmarks of the islamic spirituality and ethics. deviating either from the intrinsic path of civilizational evolution and development, or the path of the islamic spirituality and ethics, was bound to present itself as the most unnatural and aberrant course of action. it, therefore, had to be rejected and set right. that ‘umar ii (r.a.) in the end did not strip the umayyad mosque of its extravagant decoration implies the astonishing power of the laws hamdard islamicus 73 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 which preside over the evolution of an architectural identity. it also implies how much ‘umar ii (r.a.) was aware of such laws and their authority, and how much he subscribed to their legitimacy. what’s more, ‘umar ii (r.a.) did not do away with the decoration in question because so dynamic and fast-evolving was the identity of muslim architecture, and so novel and embryonic were the deviations associated with it, that many ambiguities and questions about them kept emerging, but were left adequately neither answered nor solved. hence, many vague and debatable matters were to be given more time and extra chances to resolve themselves either as potentially constructive or detrimental aspects of muslim architecture. as we can gauge from ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) debates with the people regarding the decoration under discussion, it was still unclear whether those issues were set to become integral or deviational elements within the body of the muslim architectural identity. owing to that, ‘umar ii (r.a.) incessantly consulted people, respecting their opinions and collective wisdom, because the formation and maturation of authentic muslim architecture was the concern of the whole muslim community (ummah), rather than individuals, and was a global, rather than local, phenomenon. the emergence and impact of the first muslim architectural deviations the end of the 1st a.h., the beginning of the 8th c.e., century signified the zenith of the umayyad rule. the most outstanding epoch-making individuals who contributed most to the molding of one of the most memorable legacies were caliphs al-walid and ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz. with regard to the subject of muslim architecture, it was not a coincidence that exactly around that time it was coming of age and was expanding very rapidly and on a broad front. it was finding its own definitive language principally in its major forms, details and overall physical, intellectual and spiritual functions. if the creation of the dome of the rock between 69 and 73 a.h./688 and 692 c.e. was still regarded as belonging to byzantine art and as muslim only in terms of the choice of its constituent elements, and if the masterpieces of the second half of the 2nd a.h./8th c.e. and through the 3rd a.h./ 9th c.e. centuries, such as the great mosque of cordova in andalusia hamdard islamicus 74 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 (spain), founded in 169 a.h./785 c.e., and the great mosque of ahmad b. tulun in cairo, finished in 266 a.h./879 c.e., were regarded as the true representations of the fully developed and completely matured identity of muslim architecture,40 then the creation of the great umayyad mosque in damascus, and all the other high-profile building projects successfully executed during the reign of caliph al-walêd, including the reconstruction and expansion of the prophet’s mosque in madinah, signified a critical transition from the formative to the golden era in the history of muslim architecture. however, the latest developments came at a price. with the expansion and flourishing of muslim architecture, such deviations and outright vices as are normally associated with excessive and intense building pursuits, such as extravagance, pride, haughtiness, unhealthy competition, covetousness, self-indulgence, wealth misappropriation, commemorating and symbolizing rulers and dynasties, deadening symbolism and formalism, etc., started to emerge and slowly establish themselves on the muslim religious and socio-political scenes. the matter was exacerbated by the presence of some persons at the helm of the muslim cultural and civilizational reality who possessed inadequate intellectual, spiritual or ethical penchant as well as capacity. it is interesting to observe at this point that both the qur’én and the prophet’s (œ) sunnah are replete with enlightening edicts as to the true meaning, importance and objectives of building, warning of its two-edged and potentially hazardous nature. for instance, the prophet (œ) once said: “every building is a misfortune for its owner, except what cannot, except what cannot (that is, except that which is essential)”.41 he also said: “the day of judgment will not come to pass till people start competing in erecting high buildings”.42 some of the biggest architectural deviations for which al-walêd was responsible for setting in motion at least were constructing buildings with the intention of rendering them as symbols of power, rulers and dynasties, over-spending, pride and making certain aspects of architecture an end in themselves rather than the means. on that score, he is reported to have said, for example: “o people of damascus! you pride yourselves against others on four things: your air, your water, your fruits and your pigeons, and i wished to add you a fifth one, which is this mosque”.43 hamdard islamicus 75 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and the plan worked perfectly well. the mosque was universally regarded as a wonder of the world. it was even compared to a palace from paradise (jannah). it was held in awe by both muslims and non-muslims. but if it was a source of pride and delight to friends and allies, it was very much a source of distress and unhappiness to foes and rivals. the abbasid caliph al-mahdi (d. 169 a.h./785 c.e.), while paying once a visit to the mosque, lamented: “the umayyads outshone us (the abbasids) because of three things: this mosque for which i know no equal on earth; the nobility of their supporters; and ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz, by god, there will never be anyone like him among us.” two other abbasid caliphs, al-ma’mun (d. 218 a.h./833 c.e.) and al-mu‘taîim (d. 227 a.h./842 c.e.), are also reported to have expressed their highest admiration for the mosque when they visited the syrian capital.44 moreover, ibn ‘asakir reported that an official byzantine delegation while visiting on one occasion damascus sought permission to visit the mosque. when they entered and stood under its main dome, they were humbled by its greatness and beauty, feeling compelled but to praise the caliph as a man behind the vision and construction, and to secretly compliment the religion of islam which the mosque, both as a concept and sensory reality, was personifying.45 some historians reported that for the umayyad mosque’s construction al-walid brought together the best skills of persia, india, the maghrib (muslim west) and the byzantine territories. he spent the land tax (kharéj) of syria of seven years, and eighteen shiploads of gold and silver obtained as war spoils from cyprus, plus the mosaics and devices offered to him by the byzantine emperor.46 many others questioned, nevertheless, the accuracy of those reports, claiming that they were exaggerated, at best.47 apparently, al-walêd’s obsession with architecture and its far-reaching repercussions for other life sectors at last became a burden on the population. the predicament even worsened owing to the exploits of those members of the ruling umayyad family who followed in al-walêd’s footsteps. thus, when yazêd iii (d. 126 a.h./744 c.e.) ascended the throne, he made explicit reference to the matter by saying: “o people, i promise you i will not put one stone on another, nor a brick on another … i promise you not to use the money of one town in another one until the first town is well served, and its people are not in need”.48 hamdard islamicus 76 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 when ‘umar ii (r.a.) as the governor in madinah became thrust into the latest state developments as regards architecture, he without the slightest hesitation actively partook in them for the reasons explained in the preceding sections of this paper. however, following his dismissal from the governorship post, ‘umar ii (r.a.) devoted himself to spiritual isolation, contemplation and self-assessment which lasted about three years, from 93 a.h./712 c.e. to approximately 96 a.h./715 c.e.49 that phase of his life ended with the death of al-walêd and the commencement of the caliphate of sulayman b. ‘abd al-malik (d. 99 a.h./718 c.e.) for whom ‘umar ii (r.a.) acted as advisor. three years later, caliph sulayman died and ‘umar ii (r.a.) became the caliph following the earlier appointment by the former. during the phase of isolation and contemplation, ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) eyes became more opened to what exactly was transpiring in the state. he had then more time and was in a better position than before to assess the conditions. he was not burdened by the endless responsibilities of governorship, nor did he owe any answers or explanations for anything to anybody, save his consciousness and god. among the things that ‘umar ii (r.a.) must have realized were the seeds and the initial manifestations of the first architectural deviations at the forefront of which stood some aspects of the umayyad mosque, in particular its decoration. there is no mention of the decoration in the prophet’s mosque in madinah and whether he had ever developed a sense of regret concerning it, because, firstly, such was not as extensive, luxuriant and off-putting as was the case with the decoration in the umayyad mosque, and, secondly, because the prophet’s mosque enjoyed an extraordinary heavenly status in the islamic faith as well as in history and the hearts and minds of the people. so, upon becoming the caliph based in damascus, ‘umar ii (r.a.) decided to resolve the dilemma. his most farfetched plan was to eliminate altogether the problematic decorative elements. however, he changed his mind when, after consulting the people – as well as his consciousness – he realized that the decoration in question did not amount to clear-cut and conclusive deviations about which the people could arrive at a broad consensus. as such, it was better to leave the quandary as it was, for going against the will of the people in disputed and divisive issues, and worse yet, by imposing on them some difficult and to many unacceptable hamdard islamicus 77 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 propositions, could backfire and produce in the long run more damage than benefit. ‘umar ii (r.a.) thus felt that it was better to educate the people as to the real meaning of those subjects and themes as are pertinent to the notions of building, decoration and aesthetics taken as a whole. and surely, his intensive discussions on the subject of the umayyad mosque and its doubtful decorative styles served as the first and perhaps most emphatic lessons in that regard which have been passed on to posterity. it is on account of this that ‘umar ii (r.a.) never ceased to be a true source of inspiration and guidance to the muslims of all epochs in virtually all segments of the islamic culture and civilization building processes. practically ‘umar ii (r.a.) thought that his own behaviour and personal example will also serve as good lessons. hence, when it comes to the building enterprise during his tenure as the caliph, we are told that no single grand building was constructed. he constructed only a few necessary buildings of an ordinary type, and most of them were religious. after a mosque in madinah had collapsed, its governor drew caliph ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) attention to the necessity of rebuilding it. ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) reply was: “it was my wish to go from this world without having placed one stone or one brick upon another. however, rebuild this mosque on a medium scale with mud bricks”.50 there is a marked resemblance between this statement of ‘umar ii (r.a.) and the earlier one ascribed to yazêd iii where the influence of the former on the latter is readily apparent. finally, the following account sums up the above sentiment. according to ibn kathêr,51 al-walêd’s main obsession was building which was so impactful on the masses that they, too, were so preoccupied and passionate about it that whenever they met, they would ask one another: “what have you built?” and “what have you developed (in terms of buildings and estates)?”. whereas during the caliphate of ‘umar ii (r.a.), they would ask: “how are your prayers (and other religious obligations)?”, “how much of the qur’én did you recite today?” and “how much of dhikr (god remembrance) do you perform daily?”, reflecting thereby the extent and profundity of the effect of ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) personality and lifestyle on the masses, and confirming a life principle that cuius regio, eius religio, which means “whose realm, his religion”. hamdard islamicus 78 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 conclusion at the time of ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) governorship in madinah, then his caliphate based in damascus, the phenomenon of muslim architecture was coming of age and was expanding very quickly and on a broad front. its vocabulary was being enriched more rapidly and more generously than ever before. among the personalities who actively participated in the evolution of the identity of muslim architecture, contributing significantly to its manifold conceptual and palpable physical aspects, were ‘umar ii (r.a.) himself and caliph al-walêd, the latter definitely surpassing the former in many respects. at the core of the development of the muslim architectural identity stood the subject of mosque decoration, both as an idea and a tangible reality. because the mosque institution played the most prominent role in the growth of islamic civilization, on the one hand, and because the theme of beauty (aesthetics) occupies such a remarkable rank in the orb of the islamic message and, as such, in the muslim psyche, on the other, mosque decoration was no ordinary concern which the muslim mind needed to put up with. indeed, it was as good as a heavenly subject matter and so, two-edged. thus, if not correctly dealt with, it could entail some hazardous consequences. ‘umar ii (r.a.), certainly more than anybody else, was aware of the challenges posed by the rapid developments in the realm of muslim architecture in general, and mosque decoration in particular. accordingly, his views and concrete actions as regards mosque decoration were fluid, flexible, multi-dimensional and almost open-ended, so as to accommodate both the general precepts and specific guidelines of the qur’én and the prophet’s sunnah, and the growing exigencies of the time, space and cultural factors. ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) views signified that he was cognizant of the astonishing power and authority of the laws that hold sway over the evolution of an architectural identity, fully subscribing to their legitimacy. he indirectly defended the intrinsic processes to which the muslim architectural evolution and its most critical segment, mosque decoration, were subjected. he upheld that the authentic mosque decoration styles and systems must continue developing, but only in line with their natural principles and the principles as well as benchmarks of the islamic spirituality and ethics. swerving either from the intrinsic path of hamdard islamicus 79 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 civilizational evolution and progress, or the path of the islamic ethos, was bound to present itself as the most unnatural and deviant strategy. it thus had to be repudiated and rectified. surely, failure to come to terms with these physical and metaphysical variables that whittle the core of ‘umar ii’s (r.a.) position on mosque decoration inevitably leads a casual observer to contend that his views on the subject were rather incoherent. however, that would be grossly inappropriate and unfair to the authentic history of muslim architecture and mosque decoration, as well as to the amazing and standard-setting personality of ‘umar ii (r.a.). notes and references 01. nadvi, ‘abd al-salam,‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz, translated into english by m. hadi hussain, lahore, institute of islamic culture, 1978, pp. 113115. 02. al-zuhayli, wahbah, al-khalifah al-rashid al-‘adil ‘umar b. ‘abd al-‘aziz, beirut, dar qutaybah, 1998, pp. 135-140. al-sallabi, ‘ali muhammad, amir al-mu’minin ‘umar b. ‘abd al’aziz, cairo, dar al-tawzi’ wa al-nashr al-islami, 2006, pp. 68-88. nadwi, pp. 150-181. 03. al-ya‘qubi, ahmad b. ishaq, tarikh al-ya‘qubi, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 2002, vol. ii, p. 214; ibn ‘asakir, abu al-qasim ‘ali, tarikh madinah dimashq, beirut, dar al-fikr, 1995, vol. ii, p. 276. 04. alami, mohammed hamdouni, art and architecture in the islamic tradition, london, i.b. tauris, 2011, pp. 178-182. 05. al-tabari, ibn jarir, the history of al-tabari, translated into english by martin hinds, new york, state university of new york press, 1990, vol. xxxiii, p. 141; ibn al-athir, abu al-hasan, al-kamil fi al-tarikh, beirut, dar al-kitab al-‘arabi, 1983, vol. iv, p. 109; al-samahudi, ‘ali b. ahmad, wafa’ al-wafa, beirut, dar ihya’ al-turath al-‘arabi, 1997, vol. ii, pp. 513521. 06. isma‘il, muhammad, the archtecture of the prophet’s holy mosque, london, hazar, 1998, p. 43. 07. al-qu‘aiti, sultan ghalib, the holy cities, the pilgrimage and the world of islam, louisville, fons vitae, 2007, p. 69. 08. al-tabari, vol. xxiii, p. 142. 09. isma‘il, p. 43. 10. al-qu‘aiti, pp. 69-70; basha, ibrahim rif’at, mir’ah al-haramayn, beirut, dar al-ma‘rifah, n.d., vol. i, p. 463. hamdard islamicus 80 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 11. isma‘il, p. 44; ibn al-najjar, muhammad b. mahmud, al-durrah al-thaminah, makkah, maktabah al-thaqafah, 1981, p. 101. 12. creswell, k.a.c., a short account of early muslim architecture, cairo, the american university in cairo press, 1989, p. 46. 13. hamid, khalid muhammad, ma’alim al-masjid al-nabawi al-sharif, beirut, dar al-ma’mun li al-turath, 2003, p. 127. 14. al-barzanji, ja‘far, nuzhah al-nazirin fi masjid sayyid al-awwalin wa al-‘akhirin, cairo, matba‘ah al-jamaliyyah, 1914, p. 13. al-samahudi, vol. ii, pp. 515-520. 15. al-samahudi, vol. ii, p. 523. 16. al-qu’aiti, pp. 68-70; ibn al-jawzi, abu al-faraj ‘abd al-rahman, al-muntazim fi tarikh al-muluk wa al-umam, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1991, vol. vi, p. 285. 17. ibn kathir, abu al-fida’, al-bidayah wa al-nihayah, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1985, vol. ix, p. 158. ibn ‘asakir, vol. ii, p. 236. 18. burckhardt, titus, art of islam, london, world of islam festival publishing company ltd., 1976, p. 23. 19. ibn kathir, vol. ix, p. 153. 20. ibn ‘asakir, vol. ii, p. 236. 21. ibn kathir, vol. ix, p. 157; ibn ‘asakir, vol. ii, p. 273. 22. al-ya‘qubi, 2002, vol. ii, p. 214. 23. ibn kathir, vol. ix, p. 157; ibn ‘asakir, vol. ii, p. 273. creswell, p. 46. 24. alami, pp. 178-182. 25. karamustafa, ahmet, sufism, the formative period, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 2007, p. 6. 26. nadvi, p. 11; al-sallabi, p. 19. 27. ibn al-jawzi, abu al-faraj ‘abd al-rahman, the biography and virtues of omar bin abd al-aziz, translated into english by mahmoud salami, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 2001, p. 49. 28. nadvi, p. 13. 29. ibn al-jawzi, 2001, p. 41. 30. al-tabari, vol. xxiii, p. 201. 31. nadvi, p. 22; al-zuhayli, p. 139. 32. ibn al-jawzi, 2001, p. 251. 33. holt, p.m., lambton ann k.s. and lewis bernard, the cambridge history of islam, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1970, p. 703. 34. al-zuhayli, p. 125. 35. creswell, p. 46. 36. ibn manzur, muhammad, mukhtasar tarikh dimashq li ibn ‘asakir, damascus, dar al-fikr, 1985, vol. viii, p. 312. 37. omer, spahic, islamic architecture: its philosophy, spiritual significance and some early developments, kuala lumpur, a.s. noordeen, 2009, pp. 8-10. 38. al-ya‘qubi, ahmad b. ishaq, kitab al-buldan, beirut, dar ihya’ al-turath al-‘arabi, 1988, p. 13; le strange, guy, baghdad during the abbasid caliphate, connecticut, connecticut greenwood press, 1988, pp. 30-37. hamdard islamicus 81 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 39. al-tabari, vol. xxix, p. 6. 40. burckhardt, p. 9. 41. abu dawud, sulayman b. al-ash‘ath, sunan abi dawud, beirut, dar ibn hazm, 1997, hadith no. 5218. 42. al-bukhari, muhammad b. isma‘il, sahih al-bukhari, beirut, dar al-fikr, 1981, hadith no. 6588. 43. ibn kathir, vol. ix, p. 156. 44. ibid, vol. ix, p. 158. 45. ibn ‘asakir, vol. ii, p. 277. 46. alami, p. 166. 47. ibn ‘asakir, vol. ii, pp. 266-270. 48. alami, p. 166. 49. al-zuhayli, p. 127. 50. nadvi, p. 147. 51. ibn kathir, vol. ix, p. 172. hamdard islamicus 81 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 rethinking islamic intellectualism mohsin al-mulk’s analysis of islamic epistemology dr. abdul khaliq aboya assistant professor, department of philosophy, university of karachi, karachi-75270, pakistan. email: akaboya@uok.edu.pk introduction mohsin al-mulk is among those muslim intellectuals of the subcontinent who have shown keen interest in reviving the intellectual tradition of islam by exploring the intellectual dimensions in the context of the epistemic framework of islam. in this connection he stresses upon the need to draw compatibility between mé‘qël (rational) and manqël (narrated traditional) in the perspective of islamic theology. he tends to suggest that in order to attain the said objective one should develop an interpretive approach which may help one to represent those meanings of various concepts/terms which the revealed text intends to convey. he is of the view that such a stance will provide an impetus to develop one’s understanding in accord with the will of god and help one bridge the gulf between reason and tradition, the two essential sources of islamic epistemology. mohsin al-mulk tends to counter all such prevalent views which attempt to show incompatibility between the rational and traditional which may compel the muslims to accept the traditional knowledge uncritically. he further laments that some scholars undermine the significance of interpretive/rational understanding in matters pertaining to religion on the pretext that it may distract one from the truth that emerged in the tradition.1 he attributes such a misinterpretation to the ill-conceived relation between rational and religious sciences by the so-called traditionalists. hamdard islamicus 82 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 significance of traditional and rational sciences in order to defuse controversy between rational and religious sciences mohsin al-mulk aptly refers to al-ghazélê’s pioneering work revival of religious learning in which the author highlights the said issue in this way: “some think that science is opposed to religion. this is not at all correct. such a man sets up one learning of sharê‘at against another. the reason is his failure to co-ordinate the two. as a result such people go out of religion. such a man is just like a blind man who stumbles down against the furnitures of the house and says: why has this furnitures been kept in the path way? the house owner says: they are in their proper places. it is your blindness which is responsible for your stumbling. this is also the case with one who thinks that science is opposed to religion”.2 to substantiate his claim further mohsin al-mulk refers to the qur’én which emphasizes at so many occasions, god’s encouraging remarks for those who are eager to develop profound understanding of the qur’én as well as other worldly affairs with the help of reason instead of swaying with false assumption based upon profanation and alike. given this fact in light, this rational attitude also helps one to explore the meanings of the revealed text in accord to one’s ontological position which supersedes all other human capacities. in other words, the nature of revealed knowledge is such that it can be grasped and shared by different individuals in similar ways which reflects its objectivity and justifies the existence of a faculty called ‘aql (reason) and its significance in the discernment of truth and falsehood.3 to elaborate his point further he refers to the qur’én: “again turn thy vision a second time: (thy) vision will come back to thee dull and discomfited, in a state worn out.” (al-qur’én, lxvii:4). according to mohsin al-mulk and some other commentators of the qur’én, the said verse manifests god’s assurance for those who observe and experience the minutest details of the external world in the best hamdard islamicus 83 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 possible way. this may lead one to penetrate beyond the veil of appearance and one is likely to acknowledge and appreciate its perfection, beauty and order. as the region of inquiry is so vast and stretches beyond one’s knowledge that one’s eyes, aided with the most powerful telescope, will confess oneself defeated in trying to make a way into the ultimate mysteries. one shall find no defect in allah’s creation: it is one’s own powers that shall fail to go beyond a certain extent. for there are some hidden aspects in god’s creation and man is endowed with the power to explore them. man’s recognition of a rational faculty and its purpose is the first step in the sphere of epistemological inquiry. to make his point more vivid, mohsin al-mulk has differentiated between ulëm-i ‘aqlê (rational sciences) and ulëm-i dênê (religious sciences). he claims that the former can be categorized into two groups as they can be known through reason. one is necessary and badêhê (axiomatic) which are certain and understandable without reasoning or burhén (demonstration). the other one is naðrê (theoretical knowledge) and kasbê (acquisitive knowledge) attainable through reasoning. while the latter is revealed by god through his prophets ( ) to mankind concerning one’s ‘aqé’id (beliefs) or a‘mél (practices). here mohsin al-mulk seems to draw an analogy between syed ahmed’s distinction between word of god and work of god and his distinction between religious sciences and rational sciences. in fact he is interested in showing that the word of god ensures the possibility of knowledge in the sphere of religion and one’s rational faculty helps one to acquire knowledge pertaining to worldly affairs. hence the use of reason in worldly affairs as well as in religious affairs is complementary rather than contradictory, as there is an intimate relation between the two.4 he suggests that in order to develop a better understanding of faith one must explore a relation between religious and rational sciences which may lead one to appreciate the role of reason in religious understanding.5 he further consolidates his claim by referring to the following lines of the prominent muslim thinker, ghazélê, who states: “this [religious] knowledge is acquired by blind faith in the words of the prophets ( ). it can be earned after studying the qur’’én and sunnah of the prophet (œ) or hearing them for salvation of soul, even though knowledge concerning intellect is necessary, it is hamdard islamicus 84 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 not singly sufficient. as for health of body, some measures are necessary, but they are not alone sufficient without their actual application. special methods of medicines for cure should be learnt from the physicians. only intellect is not sufficient. he who calls towards blind faith6 only without application of intellect is a fool. on the other hand, he who relies on intellect only after giving up the qur’én and sunnah is a proud man.7 the two must be kept together”.8 to do away with the misconception that revealed sciences and rational sciences are absolutely two distinct spheres of inquiry and cannot be related in anyway, mohsin al-mulk argues that both the sciences should not be baffled with each other as the later compliments the former. in fact, one of the major causes behind such a misunderstanding is lack of commitment on the part of those scholars who do not bother to identify the manner in which reason expresses itself as a supplementary source of revealed understanding. moreover, there are two other reasons for such a misconception. firstly, those sciences which do not fall within the purview of rational sciences due to their imaginary and dubitable nature are wrongly categorized as rational sciences. secondly, those things which do not pertain to the revealed sciences and do not owe their origin in the revealed text or the traditional knowledge are supposed to be the sole concern of revelation. for instance the assumption of some of the greek thinkers that god has no knowledge about particulars and is aware only about universals is in absolute contradiction to the muslim belief that god is omniscient. and such a contradiction cannot be supported by any sort of rational proof as it has nothing to do with rational demonstration and is based upon mere imagination and doubt. for instance, an ignorant man’s claim that the earth rests upon a cow’s horn is not false for being incompatible with reason but due to the fact that one believes it to be the pronouncement of god and the prophet (œ) which is not factual.* hence the real cause of treating rational sciences and religious sciences as rivals is not due to their intrinsic nature but due to one’s inability to situate them in a proper perspective. in other words –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *it was a popular explanation of hindu mythology that the earth is held out on the horns of a cow. when she becomes tired she changes the horn and it causes earthquakes – ed. hamdard islamicus 85 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 mohsin al-mulk tends to convey that one should not relate things with rational science which are not concerned with it and result of one’s doubts and imagination. he further states that one who believes in the truth of religion and wants to transmit it to others must made scholarly efforts to demonstrate the role of reason in the understanding of the revealed text.9 misconceptions concerning the compatibility between traditional and rational mohsin al-mulk has identified four misconceptions that crept into the intellectual tradition of islam, which are enormously misleading. he is of the view that such misconceptions need to be dealt with due care in order to remove all sorts of misunderstanding concerning the role of rational and traditional knowledge in the making of islamic epistemology. epistemological foundations of islamic intellectualism in the intellectual tradition of islam one may observe that most of the scholars as well as lay men influenced by them are of the view that human reason cannot cognize everything with perfection. but such a view does not refute the possibility of utilizing one’s faculty of reason in the understanding of the revealed text. although it gives an impression that rational understanding is dubitable. while some scholars are of the view that tradition consists of god’s message in the form of revealed scripture and the sunnah, is not open to the slightest doubt and relating the former which is indubitable with the latter which is dubitable may result in various subtleties. scholars who follow the strict principle of dichotomy between reason and tradition and tend to argue that reason has no role in the making of tradition and whatever has been conceived by the philosophers and intellectuals so far in their research cannot survive the testimony of reason mean that reason is unable to grasp the true nature of things and may compel one to commit an error. hence to conceive any relation between revealed sciences and rational sciences is tantamount to relating the just with the unjust.10 mohsin al-mulk here seems to suggest that the problem is neither hamdard islamicus 86 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 with tradition nor with reason but it lies in treating them as two absolutely isolated epistemological spheres of inquiry incapable of contributing towards the growth of knowledge simultaneously. in fact he tends to convey that in the intellectual tradition of islam there is a sufficient room for rational understanding. he argues that one is certainly aware of the fact that almost everything one attempts to cognize can be characterized as which possess inner as well as apparent reality. as mentioned earlier, man is endowed with qëwwate madérik (rational faculty) and deserves to go beyond the apparent meaning and can explore inner reality of the things to the extent granted by god.11 mohsin al-mulk has aptly referred to al-ghazali in order to highlight the significance of human reason and the possibility of knowledge, who says that: “the attribute of man which makes him man and distinguishes him from non-humans and reflects willingness to pursue knowledge in the field of theoretical sciences and prepares one to intellectualize about the hidden nature of things is known as reason which everyone possess. for reason is the source of all the sciences. one who is not willing to utilize one’s rational ability awarded by god does not deserve the title of man. hence the excellence and rise of one’s intellect is dependent upon hard work and research as it leads one towards meaningful life”.12 mohsin al-mulk states that god has also emphasizes at many places in the qur’én upon the need to explore the inner nature of things and encourages those who engage themselves in such an intellectual pursuit as they deserves high reverence.13 referring to the qur’én which he believes to be the firm evidence which reflects man’s capability to explore the hidden reality of things says that: “contemplate the (wonders of) creation in the heavens and earth, (with the thought)”. (al-qur’én, iii:191). it implies that man’s thought concerning salvation provides an opportunity to relate all these glories with one’s own being. otherwise man would be a miserable and disgraceful creature among these beauties and wonders of nature. it is due to one’s rational faculty that man is hamdard islamicus 87 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 destined towards salvation and can be lifted even higher than these glories. in other words man’s ability to reflect on god’s creation leads him to imply that man is the finest creation of god. taking into account the epistemological foundations of research, mohsin al-mulk tends to convey that there are at least two mindsets which may set the pace for research in two different directions. he argues that the first kind of research is one in which except religious evidence (revealed truth) there is no other way to understand anything unerringly with the help of sense perception, investigation or experience. it means that the cognitive faculty possessed by man does not play any active role in the understanding or construction of knowledge. the second kind of research is one, which beside religious evidence is also supported by observation, investigation as well as experience. thus in the case of the former one may commit an error whereas in case of the latter it is unlikely to do so. it implies that whatever one conceives on the basis of reason and experience alone is not necessarily true, similarly what one understands through revelation alone is not necessarily untrue.14 in fact, mohsin al-mulk like syed ahmed, is interested in showing that human reason plays a significant role in the understanding of the revealed text which is not against the spirit of islam as it provides an opportunity to convince others argumentatively. but it does not rule out the possibility of committing an error. while it appears that in case of the latter (tradition) the possibility of committing an error is far reaching as it relies upon imitation rather than reason or experience. although one cannot undermine the importance of tradition for want of reason and empirical evidence. it means that reason as well as tradition mutually play a significant role in the interpretation of the revealed text. in the light of the above discussion mohsin al-mulk claims that it is obligatory upon every dedicated and true muslim in general and researcher in particular to work out the positive side of rational sciences. and if finds any compatibility with the teachings of islam; one must act out of prudence and give up a prejudiced attitude towards it. this may help one to at least neutralize the antagonism between religion and rational sciences and may pave the way for progress. he further attempts to construe his argument by drawing a distinction between the rational speculative methods of the wise men of greece in ancient times and hamdard islamicus 88 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 bounded rationality. he believes that the former is not directed towards any ultimate reality in a religious context and is erroneous due to the absence of divine providence. while the latter is purpose oriented and can guide one about the various interpretation of the revealed text in which reason and experience play an encouraging role. this may help one to realize that reason and tradition are intimately related. he further states that if one thinks that the authenticity of religious knowledge can be measured merely on the basis of reason and experience one commits a blunder. by doing so one proves oneself as mëqabir (unreasonable contender). mohsin al-mulk opines that it is the foremost duty of a genuine research scholar to identify which ideas are compatible with the intellectual tradition of islam and those linked with it unjustifiably in a historical process. this may prove beneficial in doing away with all the baseless accusations leveled against islam by its critics regarding the possibility of progress in islam and revive the true image of islam.15 mohsin al-mulk argues that the contemporary muslim mind cannot afford to ignore the rapid development of the prevailing sciences (modern sciences) due to their broadening scope, as they tend to explore researches in various fields. he contends that although some of them contradict some of the islamic ideas and one’s accepted convictions, it does not imply that one should give up such perusals. for islam itself emphasizes that it is farì-i kiféyah (collective duty) of the community of researchers to preserve the intellectual tradition of islam by removing such contradictions. it means that it is not sufficient on the part of islamic scholars to identify such contradictions and they are bound to work them out in order to show what is beneficial and what is detrimental for the growth of islamic intellectualism. thus, it is not sufficient to engage oneself in mere lip-service by declaring some of the sciences as íarém (forbidden) for two reasons. firstly, that this era is not ruled by a caliph like mu‘taìid billah (35th caliph of ‘abbésid dynasty) where one will give up the pursuit of rational sciences and philosophy on the basis of fatwé (religious opinion). secondly, if one thinks that the modern sciences may have negative impact upon the intellectual tradition of islam then one should critically evaluate this claim and establish it argumentatively in a convincing manner. because it requires a strong argument based upon tradition rather than any heresy hamdard islamicus 89 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 to refute or accept anything. otherwise one is not likely to get rid of the confusion regarding the compatibility between the rational and the traditional. for in the present era one cannot undermine the importance of modern sciences which play a pivotal role in the making of knowledge.16 relation between modern sciences and revealed sciences mohsin al-mulk argues that some scholars are mistakenly of the view that pursuing knowledge in the field of modern sciences such as mathematics, geometry and physics, and analyzing them in the context of the revealed text is an activity in vain,if not forbidden. they are reluctant to evaluate the legitimacy of modern sciences in the light of tradition through research. such scholars are of the view that inclination towards modern sciences does not necessarily result in atheism but is not fruitful either. mohsin al-mulk is quite critical of such an unscholarly attitude and considers it to be a hurdle for the intellectual growth of muslims. he is of the view that it is the style of the qur’én in which most things are described explicitly along with certain principles and guidelines. beside this, god in the qur’én also mentions some thought provoking delicacies of ‘ajé’ib (cuirosities) and gharé’ib (rarities) which need reflection. and for this reason mohsin al-mulk appreciates those who think and contemplate about the implicit meanings of things. thus, the more one is inclined towards the knowledge of the méhiyyat (nature, essence) of creation and explores the depths of heaven and the earth one understands is more likely to be strengthened by god’s grace. it appears that here mohsin al-mulk wants to convey that the audience of the qur’én can be classified into two groups. one are those interested not only in the apparent meanings of the text but are also keen to explore the interpretive meanings as well. others are interested only in the apparent meanings of the text. he further consolidates his argument by referring to imém rézê’s commentary of the qur’én in which the author explains the said issue by saying that the diction of the qur’én is such that it invites one to explore the interpretive meanings as well as intricate details of the text instead of relying merely upon the apparent meanings. he believes that this will lead one to explore the spirit and greatness of the revealed text which is necessary to the progressive dimension of islam. hamdard islamicus 90 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 rézê is critical of those who undermine the importance of reason in the understanding of the qur’énic text. he explains this fact with the help of analogical reasoning. he states that one’s belief that a particular book is of high worth for the reason that it is authored by a great scholar is more convincing when such a claim is supported by research. applying this analogy to god and the qur’én, rézê wants to convey that without any doubt one’s conviction based upon understanding will be unyielding to any misgiving and one is more likely to be convinced about the greatness and jalél (magnificence) of its author.17 significance of research in islam mohsin al-mulk states that some people believe that whatever is conveyed to mankind by god in the form of revelation through the prophet (œ) is absolutely true and does not require any endorsement and research.18 they are probably of the view that any attempt to interpret/understand the text is tantamount to challenging the authority of god, which is based upon false assumptions. responding to their claim mohsin al-mulk explains that there is no doubt in the truthfulness of the message sent by god through his prophet (œ) and the way it is interpreted by the prophet (œ). but any attempt to understand the said message does not imply that one is susceptible towards it as the purpose of any academic/research activity is to improve one’s own understanding which leads one to grasp the meanings of the text in a way willed by god. in fact the point he seems to convey is that in every age it is one of the most foremost duties of religious scholars to develop an understanding compatible with the originally intended meanings suppressed in the course of history due to distortion and the finite nature of man’s intellect. mohsin al-mulk is of the view that reason and tradition are the two important sources of interpretation and one needs to ascertain the compatibility between them at least for two reasons. firstly, by way of earnest research one is likely to clarify all such concepts which are wrongly associated with islam. it may help one to evolve a clear perspective of religion and minimize the possibility of misinterpretation and pave the way for the making of a genuine intellectual tradition of islam. secondly, research based knowledge prepares one for appropriate responses to all such criticism leveled by the critics against islam. it hamdard islamicus 91 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 seems that here mohsin al-mulk is pointing towards the possibility of creating an atmosphere conducive for an inter-cultural dialogue,19 which may in turn help one do away with all kinds of misconceptions. he believes that some of the scholars of islam are not interested in exploring the meaning of revealed text in a way intended by god due to lack of knowledge and an antagonistic attitude towards reason.20 he argues that those who are skeptical concerning the compatibility between reason and tradition are not aware of the true meaning of tradition and the constructive role of reason in the making of religious knowledge as well as tradition. such people claim that because in the past great scholars of islam paid no heed to the said issue then what has prompted some people in the present time to raise this issue. they might believe that to draw any compatibility between reason and the word of god and the sayings of the prophet (œ) (tradition) is a necessary condition to establish its authenticity which is an error. contrary to this due to the penetration of masé’il íakêmêyyah (philosophical problems) people began to criticize éqwél-i dênêyyah (religious sayings) which needs clarification. thus it is the need of the time to portray the true picture of islam by drawing from the tradition with the help of reason instead of any other external source. mohsin al-mulk further states that by establishing an argument that tradition and reason can go together in a way granted by god, one may be able to disprove those rationalists who do not value tradition. hence in the contemporary world it is a collective duty of the scholars to explore the possibilities of drawing compatibility between reason and tradition.21 to substantiate his claim, he aptly refers to the great religious scholar of the subcontinent, shéh wélê allah who explains this point in this way: “the concern with rationality in religious discussions develops and the doubts in the principles of practical beliefs manifest in such a way that the issues concerned are led towards the establishment of the rational arguments in accord with the traditional texts. furthermore, the coherence between the traditional and the rational and between the perceived and the interpreted on the ground of the essence of faith and one’s subjective efforts has been a prevalent norm among muslims as well as all the great scholars of world”.22 hamdard islamicus 92 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 disagreement concerning literal and metaphorical interpretation of the text according to mohsin al-mulk some religious jurists are of the view that the prevalence of rational sciences and its amalgamation with religious sciences may shatter one’s belief in the apparent meanings of the qur’énic verses and the sayings of the prophet (œ) as it provides room for metaphorical interpretation. for this reason ‘ulamé-i ðahêrê (a group of scholars who prefer the literal meaning of verses over metaphorical meaning) prevents the use of isti‘érét (metaphors), tashbêh (comparison) téwêl (interpretation) in the explanation of the revealed text. he believes that the cause of such a disparity can be attributed to the sect existing in some period of history known as béïinêyah firqah (a group of scholars relying only on the interpretive meanings of the verses).23 he further states that any attempt of the scholars to explain the text interpretively does not mean that one belongs to the sect which has absolutely forbidden the apparent meanings of the text. such an assumption has no room in islam as it necessarily compels to construct interpretive meanings of the text without any justification which defeats the sole purpose of interpretation in the context of tradition and reason. it encourages formality and artificiality. that is to say, there is no strict law which bounds one to explain the revealed text in either of the two ways mentioned above. mohsin al-mulk seems to suggest that both the approaches in isolation of each other are contrary to the teachings of islam and detrimental for islamic intellectualism. for this reason, due to the limitations of man’s cognitive faculties, the style of qur’én is adaptive to both metaphorical as well as literal explanation of things. for instance god’s saying that ‘huge angels carry my throne’, is the manifestation of his power and should not be taken in a literal sense as it is not an expression of a fact. and the responsibility for any such misunderstanding rests with the individual alone and not with the sharê‘ah (islamic law).24 mohsin al-mulk opines that too much reliance upon the apparent meanings of the text is detrimental as it distances one from the spiritual aspect of religion which guides man towards a higher form of civilization. mere dependence upon the apparent meanings tends to convey that islam as a guiding principle facilitates one only in the attainment of physical well being and apparent cleanliness and ignores the essential hamdard islamicus 93 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 aspect of one’s being, that is the soul, which is the major cause of various disagreements among scholars as well as lay-men. to clarify the said issue concerning the significance of soul, some of the scholars, such as al-ghazélê attempted to explore the underlying principles and reality of the islamic law which persuades one for the flourishing of soul. hence, al-ghazélê believes that those sciences rooted in tradition are such universalities which are indubitable and never lead one astray from the light one receives concerning the essence of things.25 it appears that here mohsin al-mulk tends to consolidate his argument regarding the legitimacy of the interpretive understanding of the text. on the other hand, the prevalent view is contrary to this approach according to which some ignorant people and a few scholars mistakenly believe that whatever has been associated with islam justifiably or unjustifiably should be accepted unquestionably.26 conclusion this paper aims to establish that mohsin al-mulk is interested in emphasizing upon the need to rethink a sort of amalgamation between the rational and the traditional with the help of hermeneutics, which are the two fundamental sources of islamic epistemology. he is of the view that apart from confining oneself to the apparent meanings of the text, another error committed by some of the scholars is that in addition to the revealed text and the sayings of the prophet (œ) they have also begun to rely upon the sayings and writings of some famous people. this was a big blow to the intellectual tradition of islam. for such a tendency provides room for false stories which are being intermingled with islam making it a religion of stories. the most important remedial measure, suggested by mohsin al-mulk to counter this problem is based upon the method adopted by the philosophers of islam in the past who were keen to pursue knowledge on the pattern of their greek predecessors. he believes that it is obligatory upon the muslims of the subcontinent to pursue knowledge in the realm of modern sciences to the extent attuned with tradition. for this reason he stresses upon the need to realize that anything which reaches us in a historical process in the name of tradition has to be scrutinized rationally. this may help one to distinguish between tradition proper and the so-called tradition. hamdard islamicus 94 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 notes and references 01. mohsin al-mulk, tahdhêb al-akhléq, munshi mohammad fadluddin publishers, lahore, 1895, vol. i, p. 133. 02. imém ghazéli, revival of religious learning, tr. fazl-ul-karim darul-ishaat, karachi, 1993, vol. iii, p. 22. 03. mohsin al-mulk, tahdhêb al-akhléq, munshi mohammad fadluddin publishers, lahore, 1895, vol. i, p. 134. 04. mohsin al-mulk, tahdhêb al-akhléq, munshi mohammad fadluddin publishers, lahore, 1895, vol. i, pp. 134-135, and imém ghazélê, revival of religious learning, lahore, tr. fazl-ul-karim darul-ishaat, karachi, 1993, vol. iii, p. 20. 05. mohsin al-mulk, tahdhêb al-akhléq, munshi mohammad fadluddin publishers, lahore, 1895, vol. i, p. 136. 06. this debate by ghazélê regarding the revealed understanding with reference to faith and reason remind me of st. augustine’s classical axiom “credo utintelligam,” “i believe that i may understand,” which emphasizes the importance of reason in religious understanding, see joe park, selected readings in the philosophy of education, new york, the macmillan company, 1958, p. 342. 07. here one can see a parallel between ghazélê’s approach towards understanding of the revealed text and the one expounded by aristotle in the context of ethics known as the ‘principle of golden mean’. the former is epistemological in orientation, according to which, one is not supposed to rely solely upon reason in an attempt to understand the revealed text as it may deviate one from the true path. nor one should absolutely give up the use of rational faculty and follow faith without understanding as it defeats the sole purpose of the divine message. it entails that the religious understanding has to be aided by reason. while the latter is ethical in nature which focuses upon one’s moral development by practicing the principle of golden mean or moderation guided by reason. in other words in order to live a moral life one should avoid extremes such as excess and deficiency. for instance wisdom is a means to cunningness (excess) and simplicity (deficiency), see joe park, selected readings in the philosophy of education, new york, the macmillan company, 1958, p. 4. 08. imém ghazélê, revival of religious learning, tr. fazl-ul-karim darul-ishaat, karachi, vol. iii, 1993, pp. 21-22. 09. mohsin al-mulk, tahdhêb al-akhléq, munshi mohammad fadluddin publishers, lahore, 1895, vol. i, p. 136-137. 10. ibid., p. 138. 11. ibid. 12. ibid., pp. 138-139. 13. ibid. 14. ibid., pp. 139-140. 15. ibid., pp. 140-141. 16. ibid., pp. 141-142. 17. ibid., p. 143. hamdard islamicus 95 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 18. this point is very well highlighted by the twentieth century islamic scholar fazlur rahman in this way: “the qur’én and the sunnah were given for intelligent moral understanding and implementation, not for rigid formalism”. see fazlur rahman, islamic methodology in islam, islamabad, islamic research institute, 2009, p. 74. 19. here mohsin al-mulk seems to be inspired by the research oriented work produced by syed ahmed khan, known as al-khuïbét al-aímadiyyah, in the history, as a response of william muir’s book life of mohammad, in which the author raised baseless objections against the prophet (œ). see sir syed ahmed khan, al-khuïbét al-aímadiyyah fil ‘arab wal sêrat-ul-muíammdiyyah, lahore, idarae dawat-ul-furqan, 2003. 20. mohsin al-mulk, tahdhêb al-akhléq, munshi mohammad fadluddin publishers, 1895, vol. i, p. 144. 21. ibid., p. 144. 22. ibid. 23. ibid., p. 145. 24. ibid. 25. ibid., p. 146. 26. ibid., p. 146-147. hamdard islamicus 145 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the cultural accommodation of jesuits missionaries in china during 1595-1730 and its impact on chinese muslim scholars of han kitab literature wu juan (aisha) faculty of usuluddin, the international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan. email: aishawujuan@yahoo.com allah (s.w.t.) created human being and guided them to meet each from time to time, for the divine purpose as mentioned in al-qur’an. o mankind! we created you from a single (pair) of a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may you know each other (not that ye may despise each other), verily, the most honored of you in the sight of allah is (he who is ) the most righteous of you. and allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things) (al-qur’én, xlix:13). well before the traditions of taoism and confucianism, buddhism was the first foreign religion which had been successfully fused with the local chinese culture and has survived until our modern days. all of these three traditions have witnessed, to some extent, alterations of their original teachings over time. confucianism had been the official ideology of the chinese feudal dynasties since the hén dynasty, except for the mongol yuén dynasty. the indo-origin buddhism has gradually changed its original form in order to merge with the chinese folklore, hence it became a mutually complementary way of life for the native chinese,1 despite the anti-buddhism movements that erupted from time to time in the history of china. confucianism, taoism and buddhism have created some sort of a triangular unity in the traditional chinese society; each tradition addressed a particular facet of life while forming a single unified entity. namely, confucianism dealt with the earthly life matters, taoism attended to the subject of eternity in this earthly world while buddhism created an escape for the souls to shortly disconnect from life-chores. hamdard islamicus 146 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the combination of these three traditions formed the main theme of chinese federal society. although some other religions such as monism, zoroastrianism, judaism, christianity and islam, etc. were also introduced in china during other historical periods, all, except christianity and islam, have long disappeared and have no more followers in china. the survival and development of islam and christianity in the land of china were due to the great will of allah (s.w.t.) on one hand, and the excellent cultural accommodation2 of their followers on the other another hand. brief history of the christian missionaries in china soon after the tang dynasty was established in the year of 618, the capable rulers of tang were not only able to successfully manage the domestic affairs in all fields, such as economics, trade, culture, etc., but also developed good diplomatic relations with foreign countries. the tang expanded its territory so largely that many adjacent small countries in the west region became tang’s attribute countries. the attributed populations, the diplomats, and traders from those countries were traveling back and forth across the silk road, both via land and sea. thus, the tang dynasty had the chances of interacting with multiple cultures and civilizations. in the early tang dynasty, many christians fled to china from the western attributed areas due to the indirect result of islamic expansion in the region. thus, some of them began to propagate their faith in china. they were known among the locals as “bo si jiao (persian religions)”. a carved stone tablet known as “the nestorian stele” or “the nestorian monument” was found in 1625 in xi’an which revealed that a group of nestorian christians have reached chang’an in the 9th year of the reign of zhenguan (635). in addition, the tablet mentioned that when the priest arrived the tang’s capital of chang’an, the chief minister of tang, fang xuanling received him at the western suburb of the capital. the nestorians were granted the emperor’s consent to build what was later referred to as the “church of the east in china”. it is widely believed that nestorian christianity was likely preached among native chinese. from the nestorian tablet, we learn that some of the nestorian christianity books were translated into chinese with the help of the chinese tang government. however, other researches revealed hamdard islamicus 147 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 that the nestorian christianity was greatly altered and corrupted even before 847. the above mentioned tablet carved in the 2nd year of jiande (around 749) applied many buddhist terms, which proves the deep influence of buddhism on christianity in china. it was said that the nestorian church in xi’an was converted into a taoist temple and the that the priest was expelled from the church during the anti-buddhism movement in 847. affected by the persecution movement against buddhists in wuzong period of tang dynasty, the nestorian christians have consequently disappeared from the land of china. in yuan mongol dynasty, china has welcomed the second envoy of christian priests. some dominican priests were sent by rome to the mongol rulers who succeeded in convincing some noble mongols to embrace christianity. moreover, some churches were established in the capital city and other regions. it was recorded that in many important mongols gathering places, prayer halls, both for muslims and christians, were present. however, all the mongol christians disappeared from the land of han chinese after the ming dynasty was established. thereafter, no traces of any form of han chinese christians seem to have existed during the ming dynasty. the society of jesus was a religious order of the catholic missions organized by the spaniard st. ignatius de loyola in paris in 1534 alongside other six persons. it was rectified by the pope paul the 3rd on the 27th of september 1540. the aim of the missions was “to strive for the propagation and defending of the faith and progress of souls”. its members were called jesuits by other religious orders. matteo ricci, with his practices of cultural accommodation with confucianism, the then orthodoxy ideology after the year of 1595, brought a new era for the missionary work in china. work of the society of jesus in the east during the time the european colonies were formed along the coastal areas of africa and asia during 16th century, priests were brought to perform religious services as well as to spread evangelism among the native populations. multiple catholic orders began to sponsor, train and send missionaries to the colonies. the founders of the society of jesus vowed, when the society was established in 1534 in paris, that they will hamdard islamicus 148 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 devoted themselves for the sake of freeing the holy land of jerusalem from the “muslim occupation” first and if not, they then were to remain loyal to the holy see.3 the overseas propagation of the faith was a major priority of the society of jesus since its establishment. st. ignatius de loyola did not make rules for preaching work, but he encouraged jesuits to learn about local languages and cultures, as in the cases of ireland and ethiopia.4 many jesuits departed on evangelical journeys all over the world. st. f. xavier5 was sent by st. ignatius de loyola to india in 1542. college of st. paul in gua, india became the first center of jesuits in asia. it was in india that father francis xavier developed the thought of learning local language and culture. after several years, he traveled to the far-east and landed in japan in 1549. he developed an interest in the people there due to their keen interest in new knowledge and their good moral character. when he learned that the origin of japanese culture derived from china, he soon developed a strong desire of spreading the gospels among chinese as he became aware that the chinese civilization would be the highest in the far-east of asia. but, unfortunately, he could not fulfill his desire of entering the mainland of china, due to chinese government’s strict restrictions towards the foreigners during that period. he died on the island of “shangchuan” nearby macao in 1552. the wishes of st. francis xavier would be fulfilled by his fellow jesuits afterwards. in 1552, the portuguese traders created their opportunity, by landing on the island of macao,6 to mend their ships and built the first settlement for westerners in china. many portuguese rushed to macao as soon as they received a permission from the local chinese government. it was said that at that time, among five thousands residents of macao, nine hundred were portuguese. at that time, portugal had the right of protecting churches. in no time, a center of chinese language and culture study center was established there by the jesuits. in the year of 1563, eight jesuits members worked in this center. in the early periods of their settlement in macao, jesuits adopted a wrong mission strategy and paid no attention to local culture studies. the work of preaching gospels had strong portugal culture, such as using the portuguese language and wearing portuguese dresses, to the extent of requiring the converts to change their nationalities to portuguese. the jesuits preachers of the time did hamdard islamicus 149 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 not respect the local culture and adopted an ill-mannered attitude towards the local converts.7 the spanish priest juan bautista ribeira remained in macao for three years and discovered that all his efforts have been wasted in vain. he returned to europe seeking support to return to macao, but this time with a rather perilous strategy. he proclaimed that hard power was the last option left to oblige the chinese to accept christianity. meanwhile, another jesuit member, melchior nunes barreto, who worked in macao shared similar views, therefore, he wrote letters to the emperors of europe suggesting to address the chinese emperor in a threatening tone to allow the missionaries to enter the chinese mainland by army forces. a similar weapon and gospels policy was practiced in philippine. the spanish augustinians even suggested to open the doors of mainland of china by guns.8 the work of jesuits started to take a turn after another prominent member of jesuits, father alexandro valignani (1538-1606),9 came to macao in july 1578. as the superior mission, india. his missionary work was successful in japan and where he established good relations with the local buddhist monks. he learned that some european were inflaming a propaganda to attack china by force. after he stayed in macao for ten months, he wrote a letter to the superior general of the society, in which he recommended a peaceful evangelizing work of cultural accommodation in china. a letter in which he strongly emphasized10 the importance of learning more about the chinese language, culture, customs, etc. the main points of cultural accommodation of father alexandro valignani were, respecting the culture or traditions of local people, building good relations with the upper class and the nobles of the society, pleasing people with earthly interest, etc. michel ruggieri11 and matteo ricci were thus, one after another, sent from gua, india to macao for the purpose of studying the chinese language and culture. after many attempts, they received permission to enter zhaoqing, the then capital of canton with other portuguese traders in 1583. after some years’ learning chinese language and culture in macao, in 1583, michel ruggieri and matteo ricci12 were sent to zhaoqin, the capital city of guangdong province, which was not very far from macao. advised by other jesuits worked in japan, both of them wore buddhist ropes with shaved heads. having learned from the previous experiences of the former hamdard islamicus 150 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 missionaries and studying deeply chinese confucian scriptures, matteo ricci made a policy of cultural accommodation in his preaching work among native chinese. with the hope of evangelizing the emperor of china, he started his long and hard journey to beijing, the capital of the empire in 1594. matteo ricci spent his last ten years of his life (1601-1610) in the capital city of beijing and he set an example for practice of cultural accommodation for the other jesuits in china and in india. first, they have scrutinized the local chinese traditions and customs before introducing the catholic faith to local chinese, which explains the concomitance with the confucian traditions. nonetheless, shortly after the death of matteo ricci, the predecessors jesuits, lead by father nicolas longgobardi,13 drifted off the course of matteo ricci in their preaching methods, which was perhaps one of the causes of the banishing of all christian missionaries in china after 1720’s. the practices of father ricci were named the principles of matteo ricci by the emperor of kangxi during the “chinese rites controversy”.14 examples from jesuits’ practices of cultural accommodation father m. ruggieri was the first person from the society of jesus to redact booklets about catholicism in han chinese. he translated the ten commandments into han chinese. by the end of 1584, another one of his books in han chinese, the newly edited true teaching of lord of heaven and holy religion from the country of west india (xin bian xi tian zhu guo tian zhu sheng jiao shi lu) was printed in zhaoqing. matteo ricci’s policy of cultural accommodation was rectified by the society of jesus,15 after he was appointed as the provincial superior of china mission in 1596. with the publishing of the book of tian zhu shi yi (the true meaning of lord of heaven)” in 1603, matteo ricci paved for a new era of christianity in the history of china. this book was translated into japanese in 1604 and reprinted three times by father alexandre valignani in macao. it was also translated into korean language, and into french in 1818.16 this book was one of the most important books of jesuits in china. another one of matteo ricci’s books, the ji ren pian (ten articles for the abnormal people) was hamdard islamicus 151 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 printed in beijing in 1604, and was a sort of critique of some buddhist concepts and superstitions in the chinese traditions. the third book, the correspondences, was a compilation of letters written by matteo ricci to the headquarter of the society of jesus in europe. both, paul xu guangqi (1562-1633) and yang tingyun (15621627) were chinese converts who played major roles in preaching catholicism and western sciences and technologies. paul xu guangqi redacted several books and articles about catholics, such as the articles of “pi wang (a refutation of misconceptions)” and “po mi (a refutation of superstitions)”. yang tingyu’s articles of tian shi ming bian (a comparative study between catholicism and buddhism)” and dai yi bian (a collection of questions) were the most famous. father jules aleni17 was a very important figure in the history of jesuits in china. he continued matteo ricci’s practice of cultural accommodation in china. in fujian province, he preached among the local ordinary people as well as the intellectuals who were impressed by his deep knowledge about confucianism and catholicism. he was named by the locals “the confucius of the west”, a great honor that even matteo ricci didn’t receive. his famous books on catholic faith were san shan lun xue ji (a discussion of catholicism in san shan) and wan wu zhen yuan (the reality of the universe). the main works of jesuits about their cultural accommodation were presented through their practical integration of confucian code of life as well as their evidencing catholic religious faith such as the existence of the creator, the life after death etc. in chinese classic scriptures. jesuits’ integration of confucian code of life in 1583, m. ruggieri and matteo ricci reached zhaoqing, in canton province. they both chose chinese names for themselves and wore gropes of buddhist monks with shaved heads. their idea might have resulted from the experiences of jesuits in japan were the observed the respectable social status the buddhist monks enjoyed. they both claimed that they came from tianzhu (name of the place referring to india).18 the local chinese were unable to distinguish them from the buddhist hamdard islamicus 152 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 monks in the beginning and accommodated them in a buddhist temple. they lived with buddhist monks for considerable amount of time until a residence of their own was built and named by the governor wang ban as “xian hua si (the temple of fairy flower)”. later on, they noticed that buddhist monks were not as respected as they were anticipating by the locals due to their poor education.19 matteo ricci soon realized that it was not possible for any foreign religion to spread among the chinese, because the “law of ming” prohibited the spreading of any heresy. there were strict regulations in the “da ming hui dian (the general law and regulations of ming)” stating that religious gatherings, practices, and associations forming without the permission of the government were not allowed. after comparative studies of buddhism and taoism, the early jesuits in china realized that confucianism was the closest to catholicism. matteo ricci himself admitted that among three the traditions of china at that time, confucianism was the closest to the catholic truth. soon after matteo ricci arrived mainland china, he noticed that “confucius was so much respected by his pupils and cults that they all gathered in public lecture halls and offered incenses and kowtow in front of his portraits … we should admit that no any other thought of chinese schools was closer than confucianism to the truth…”.20 after many years, the chinese convert xu guangqi openly expressed his desire of replacing buddhism by catholicism.21 matteo ricci was soon aware of the fact that, in the eyes of local chinese, the confucian scriptures were the only orthodox and they were the only authority on the view of opinions. he understood that the jesuits in china had to gain a respectful position within the confucian society in order to have a suitable platform for their preaching work. the local chinese would not listen to them should they replace the confucianism with the teachings of catholicism. except studying the “four books” of confucius, matteo ricci also paid great attention to strengthening his social links with the confucian scholars. in canton, a chinese confucian cui taisu advised him to remove his buddhist gropes and wear confucian literati clothes instead. after receiving visitator alexandre valignani’s consent, matteo ricci wore confucian elite dresses of “ju ren (the holder of master degree in the west)” on his way to nanchang in 1595. after entering nanchang, he soon made a lot of friends with hamdard islamicus 153 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 many confucian literati and officers there. he presented an article “on friendship” in a very refined chinese to king jian-an in nanchang, expressing his thoughts about befriending the chinese. the beautiful style of his writings draw the attention of the educated confucian chinese, at a time when western instruments such as the triangular prisms or the map of the world, were creating notable interest among the confucian elite. he told the chinese people that he came to china only for friendship, because he admired the highly civilized chinese culture and civilization.22 he became popular among the chinese literati in nanchang thanks to his rich knowledge about confucius books and his good command of the chinese language. the confucian literati called him respectfully “li zi” as “the master”, as they called “kong zi (confucius)”. thus, the year of 1595 could be regarded as the commence of jesuits’ open cultural accommodation with confucianism in china. in 1596, matteo ricci was appointed as the vice provincial of china mission and the major superior of the mission in china in 1597. hence, the policy of cultural accommodation suggested by alexandro valignani have survived for a little longer. jesuits’ evidencing existence of the creator in order to pack as many confucian terms as possible in the catholic work, matteo ricci carefully pondered upon the ethic system of confucianism and the teachings of catholicism. he noticed the similarities between the concept of “ren (the benevolence)” in confucianism and the concept of “ai (love)” in catholicism. in his book the true meaning of lord of the heaven, matteo ricci claimed that these two concepts were the same. he said: “ ‘ren’ in confucius means the love for others … the person who has ‘ren’ is the one who loves the lord of the heaven and the people.”23 in his other article of “twenty-five sayings” written in nanjing during 1599-1600, he wrote that “the great “ren” lies in the love of ‘shang di’ who created everything and put ‘ren” in the heart of human beings, so that humans may follow his order and perform “ren” amongst each other. in this article, he applied four other terms of confucian ethics i.e. “yi (righteousness)”, “li (propriety)”, “zhi (wisdom)” and “xin (fidelity)” to describe the catholic beliefs and rituals. actually, the concept of “ren” in confucianism is very different from “love” in catholicism. the basis of “ren” in confucianism is the human hamdard islamicus 154 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 intellect and the basis of “love” in catholicism is the faith of believing in the existence of god. matteo ricci made these two terms same in his book so that confucians would not rejected him at the very beginning. the existence of the creator: in order to certify the application of “tian zhu (the lord of heaven)” that was not a catholic innovation, rather a term which was already existed in confucian classics, matteo ricci has worked hard. he went through all the “five scriptures” and the “four books” of classical confucianism.24 matteo ricci, with his catholic view, held that the classical books of confucianism were closer to the truth and the popular scholar of zhu xi25 in ming dynasty, has committed many mistakes when commenting on some verses of the classical confucius books. the concept of existence of the “shang di” or “di” in the interpretations of zhu xi was corrupted by introducing some other concepts, like “li”, “taiji”, etc. to matteo ricci, “li” and “taiji” were dependable thing and they couldn’t have existed by themselves, so they couldn’t be the creator. in his book of the real meaning of the lord of heaven, matteo ricci recorded eleven verses in these chinese classics e.g. zhong yong (the book of mean), shi jing (the book of poetry), yi jing (the book of changes), about tian (heaven) and shang di (the supper god) in order to conclude that the concept of “our ‘deus’ in latin would best fit the ‘shangdi ’ in the classical books or scriptures of confucius.”26 actually, the word “tian” in the chinese classics, there was no clear margins between the meanings of natural sky and the personified heaven. traditionally, the chinese awe ship towards the sky was joined closely with the awe ship towards the earth. confucius did not appreciate the view of gods in yin-zhou time. the “heaven” in confucius books was not a personalized god, but a “god” who embodies philosophy, politics, and ethics only without any reference to religion. the early jesuits’ subjective assertion of “tian or shang di” in chinese classics was exactly the concept of “lord of the heaven” in christianity was rather too sweeping, which was criticized by the later confucians in the time of aleni. matteo ricci was subjective in interpretations. if the meaning of the verse met his needs, he used it directly and if the verse had an ambiguous meaning, he would interpret it himself. if the late confucian scholars’ interpretations didn’t embody the meaning he wanted, he would declare that the interpretations of that chinese confucian scholar was hamdard islamicus 155 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 wrong. for example, there was a verse in the zhong yong (the book of mean) of “that stated: the emperors left the palace for the sacrifices to serve ‘shang di’”. a great scholar zhu xi wrote in his interpretations of this verse that “hou tu was not mentioned in this verse after ‘shang di’ for the sake of conciseness”. according to zhu xi, “shang di” and “hou tu” together was the original meaning of confucius. in the traditional sacrifices of chinese emperors, this two objects were not separated and the sacrifices towards both made at one time with the sequence of the sky first and then the earth”. all the previous interpretations of the confucius classics by chinese confucian scholars held the opinion of omission of “hou tu ( the earth)”. zhu xi followed the previous scholars of commentary. matteo ricci rejected such interpretations which contradicted with the catholic teachings of oneness of god. he refuted the sayings of chinese confucian literati that confucius knew well that the only one object of sacrifices was “shang di” and he had no any reason to omit “hou tu” in the books.27 he argued that if “tian (the sky) in the interpretations of zhu xi was referring to the super power with the consciousness, then “tian” was as same as “shang di” as commented by zhu xi. if the “tian” was referring to the natural phenomena or bodies, then the “tian” was not “shang di”, because there were nine celestial bodies in the sky and there was no way all these bodies could be equal to the one “shang di”. in this way, matteo ricci rejected the theory of neo-confucianism that “tian” was “shang di”. the famous confucian scholars of his time feng yingjing and li zhizhao supported the opinion of matteo ricci in their preface of the book of the true meaning of lord of heaven. as far as the nature or attributes of “tian zhu” is concerned, matteo ricci followed the teachings of st. thomas aquinas’ summa theologica. jesuits in china allowed their new converts of confucian scholars to attend the ceremonies were they paid respect to confucius or their passed away ancestors. this way of integration of confucianism helped many famous confucian scholars to convert into catholics. the practice of matteo ricci’s “integrating confucianism and anti-buddhism” was continued for many years even after his death in 1610. many books and articles were written by other jesuits to defend the practices of matteo ricci.28 hamdard islamicus 156 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the early history of islam in china the chinese official scrolls of tang dynasty recorded that in the second year of yonghui, tang dynasty (651), the envoys of “da shi guo (the country of arabs in the time of othmén bin ‘affén [r.a.])”29 arrived in the capital of tang for the first time. they introduced their countries to the emperor of china.30 since then, the official friendly relationship between the chinese empire and islamic world was established. one hundred years passed and there the foreign muslims came to tang peacefully from time to time as traders by sea and land routes, i.e. the silk road. allah (s.w.t.) in his infinite wisdom knows what is the best for chinese that a serious rebellion, i.e. “rebellion of an-shi” took place on the royal court of tang in the winter of 755. an army of about 2000 muslim soldiers from the west region (central asia) reached the capital of tang on the request of the chinese emperor. the muslim army fought alongwith the chinese government armies bravely against the rebellion. at last, the capital was saved. many of the muslim soldiers remained in china as honorable guests and they married with local chinese women. there is a mosque in xian, named “da xue xi xiang (the great learning lane) mosque” in the center of the city and the local muslims believed that that was the site where those muslim soldiers studying chinese language. in tang and song dynasties, there were mainly foreign traders who mostly lived in the main commercial cities like the capital and coastal cities. the local chinese government used to locate them in a special place named fan-fang (foreigner settlement). inside fanfang, there was a qéðê (judge) who was in charge of their affairs according to the islamic sharê‘ah. for example, the first mosque in china was thus built in canton in tang dynasty. those muslim traders stayed in china as guests and their settlements of “fan fang i.e. settlements for foreigners” were usually separated with local chinese with fences and walls. under such circumstances, it is not difficult for us to image that the islamic da‘wah work among local chinese was very limited and the cultural accommodation between those foreign muslims and local chinese was mostly at individual level. in song and yuan dynasties, there were big foreign settlements of muslim traders in some south-east cities of china like quanzhou,31 canton, yangzhou, etc. hamdard islamicus 157 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 as mentioned by the famous morocco traveler ibn battutah.* the big muslim grave yards with arabic inscriptions on stone tablets of this period suggested that in quanzhou and yangzhou there was no native chinese muslim communities with strong religious identities formed in those coastal commercial cities in this period. for example, li zhi (15271602), a famous scholar of anti-neo-confucianism s in late ming dynasty, was born in quanzhou in a muslim family.32 but, unfortunately, the basic islamic concepts were absent in his books. he was attracted greatly by metteo ricci when he met the later on a religious debate with a famous buddhist monk in the winter of 1599, in nanjing. there was no evidence to show that he had relations with muslim scholars at his time. the muslim population of china was greatly increased during mongol yuan dynasty. a big number of muslims were brought from central asia areas into every place of china as technicians, soldiers, etc. their mother tongues were perhaps persian or dialects of central asia or arabic. the status of those foreign muslims in the country ranked the second, only next to the mongol rulers during this period. it is likely that it was easier for the muslims to have cultural accommodation with mongol rulers than with local han chinese. many of mongols converted into islam in yuan dynasty.33 but, the establishment of ming dynasty with strong han cultural identities in 1368 turned the cultural accommodation of those muslims to local han chinese culture. in ming dynasty, the people from the north west region were called generally the people of se mu, among them many were muslims. many muslims dispersed in different inland provinces in the immigration movements of se mu and the ming government gave them citizenship registration so that they could settle down like local han chinese. it was no doubt a great event in the history of islam in china that those muslims have survived in the land of china, no more as quests, but as citizens. but in another hand, their problems came out as well. for several centuries, the muslims in china used to pass their religious teachings to the next generations in their homes by oral. due to far away from their hometowns of the west regions and the policy of sinicization practiced all over the inland areas, muslims in the inland provinces no more spoke of their forefathers’ languages, arabic or persian –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *ibn baïïuïah was entertained by the chinese emperor. he stayed with a senior noble who invited the guest in a musical party in the river. the singers entertained him by recitation of a persian ghazal (a sort of poetry) by shaikh sa‘di. see ‘ajé’ib al-asfar (safarénémah-i ibn baïïuïah), by ibn battutah, urdu tr. maulvi muhammad hussain, islamabad, 1983, pp. 426-427 – ed. hamdard islamicus 158 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 or any other dialects, and could not understand the religious teachings of the scriptures. the ming government arranged several immigration movements in which people shifted from the north west to the south east. in order to save their religious identities, the muslims used to live together surrounding mosques and such muslim settlements were called “fang”. the social links among the members of “fang” were stronger than that with local chinese. with the passage of time, there was a need for them to deal with the people outside the “fang”. han chinese language was naturally adopted little by little. gradually, they lost their islamic identities as matteo ricci noticed when he traveled inside ming empire.34 sheikh idrês’ mosque scripture hall education fully aware the severe situation, muslim scholars started to find out ways of saving muslims from the religious disasters. one of the most outstanding scholars was sheikh idrês hu dengzhou (1522-1597) who was inspired by some scholars from central asia and established the “mosque scripture hall education” system. the main target of mosque scripture was to educate and train iméms, preachers or teachers and the pray halls of mosques were their teaching rooms. the mosque scripture hall education was similar to today’s niðém-i madaris ta‘lêm of deoband in india or pakistan. about thirteen books in arabic or persian were selected for main text books of mosque scripture hall education system. those books were about arabic or persian grammars, tafsir, ×adêth, fiqh, taîawwuf, etc. ‘aqêdah-i nasafi and sharí-i waqéyah were also among those text books. the teachers used to read the original texts in arabic or persian languages and then explained them in han chinese to the pupils. those explanations of iméms or teachers in mosque scripture hall education were mixed with great deal of religious terminologies in arabic or persian languages, like niyyah, naméz, øadaqah, kitéb etc., even up to today. many of them even could write the characters of han chinese, and invented another way of recording the explanations of teachers: using arabic letters and han chinese sounds, like urdu, etc. surely, this kind of mosque education helped greatly the muslims to keep the islamic identity in this big eastern empire and united the muslims all over the country under the banner of hamdard islamicus 159 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 ahl al-sunnah wa’l jamé‘ah (abë hanêfah jurisprudence school).but, it could not present the faith of islam to local chinese, perhaps because its teachings targeted mainly on solving internal problems of muslims and the lengthy course of the mosque scripture hall education with many incomprehensible terminologies in foreign languages decreased local chinese interest toward islam. the second noble mission was fulfilled afterwards by the scholars of hén kitéb literature. hén kitéb literature movement allah (s.w.t.) in his infinite wisdom knows his creatures and their limited mental capacities. he assures us that “we sent not a messenger except (to teach) in the language of his (own) people in order to make (things) clear to them” (al-qur’én, xiv:4). no doubt, mutual communications, dialogues, discussions, etc. between the preachers and audience are highly recommended in this verse. the practices of cultural accommodation of jesuits missionaries in china and india35 gave another expression of implementing the spirit of islam, though after many failures in their missionary work due to ignoring the cultural background of the local people. due to separation of chinese muslims from the muslim world for a few centuries, they got little chance to exchange the dawah experience with their common faith followers in muslim world. the muslim scholars were astonished to notice that preaching work of jesuits in the country, especially in south east area, during 1595-1620 was so rapid that many confucian literati of high officers on the imperial court even converted into this new foreign religion, like paul xu guangqi.36 the mosque scripture hall education system was introduced into nanjing37 around 1620’s. the famous muslim scholars of mosque scripture hall education were zhang shao shan, ma zhen wu, and their pupils ma jun shi, ma zhi qi and yuan sheng zhi, etc. nanjing soon became a center of islamic studies in the late of 1620’s and the early of 1630’s in south-east china, which attracted muslim youth all over the country and scholars abroad.38 as an internal factor, the “mosque scripture hall education system” played a important role for emergence of the movement of han kitab literature around 1640. the islamic scriptures in arabic or persian languages were called “jing or kitéb ( )” in the hén chinese. hamdard islamicus 160 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 except yusuf ma zhu, almost all writers of hén kitéb literature had background of mosque scripture hall education. indeed, the bi-linguistic education in hén chinese and arabic/persian in the “mosque scripture hall” paved the way for the hén kitéb literature movement. when muslim scholars in the area of nanjing wrote books in hén chinese language about islam, in the late ming and early qing dynasties, they called those books hén jing i.e. hén kitéb literature for high respect. the movement of hén kitéb literature was a revolutionary event in the history of islam in china, because it didn’t only help the han majority chinese to understand the basics of, but also helped the muslims who adopted hén chinese to study their religion almost one thousand years after they reached china. the hén kitéb literature movement was so import in the history of islam in china that some modern researchers like called it the “renaissance of islam in china”.39 according to saif haq, during the whole hén kitéb literature movement (1640-the end of 19th century), about sixty-six islamic books were written in or translated into hén chinese. the following muslim scholars were the main writers of hén kitéb literature: zhang zhong (1584-1670), dawood wang dai yu (1570-1660),40 wu zhongqi (1598-1697), yusuf ma zhu (1640-1711),41 and sélih liu zhi (1660-1730) during the period of 1640-1730. except sheikh sélih liuzhi, there is no any evidence that any other writers of hén kitéb literature translated the holy qur’én into han chinese before 1850. among the existing books of sélih, there was no translation of whole qur’én into chinese, but surah al-ikhlés only. it was possible that the chinese muslims were too cautious to translate qur’én into any other language. sheikh dawood recorded in his book that he was harshly criticized that explanations of islam in hén chinese language was sinful, an action of bid‘ah (adding anything to religioin)*. the whole holy qur’én was not translated into chinese language as late as around 1920’s till by a non-muslim chinese tie zhen, from japanese language. there were many causes which contributed to the movement of han kitab literature. apart from their knowledge of the chinese classics of muslim scholars, yet it was not the only factor; since the north-western areas, which had similar educational environments failed –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *similar objections were raised in india when the shah wali allah and his sons translated the holy qur’an into persian and urdu respectively – ed. hamdard islamicus 161 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 to create the hén kitéb literature movement despite the large gathering of muslims in the region. jesuits’ impact on chinese muslim scholars we would like to suggest that, the activities of matteo riccio and other jesuits in nanjing area played an external factor in the emergence of the hén kitéb literature in this period of time. that is to say, the activities of jesuits missionaries in china, especially in nanjing and its adjacent area of southern-east china like zhejiang, shandong, beijing perhaps stimulated the emergence of muslim scholars hén kitéb literature movement. this point of view was based on the following facts: firstly, the hén kitéb literature movement appeared at a time when jesuits’ work was popular in nanjing area. matteo ricci stayed in nanjing for not quite long time before he entered the capital city of beijing, and had full knowledge about muslim astronomers who worked in the imperial court as he mentioned also in the diary. nanjing and other two nearby cities of hangzhou and suzhou were the most important preaching centers of jesuits during and after matteo ricci. with the growth of catholicism in china, battles between local chinese and jesuits’ missionaries occurred from time to time. the anti-catholics movements in china after the death of matteo ricci made the jesuits and their work known to the public. the first anti-catholics movement was in 1616. a big church of hongwugang established in 1610 in nanjing was damaged and the jesuits priests were deported by the government.42 another anticatholics movement happened in 1637 in fujian province. in 1630’s, the activities of jesuits in china revived greatly. in south-east china, many local chinese converted into christianity. at last, the preaching of j. aleni in fujian province angered some buddhists and they raised the voice against christianity with confucian literati in fujian and zhejiang provinces in 1637. in the capital city of beijing, an eunuch of the court named wang learnt about the catholicism from some jesuits and decided to be baptized with the name of john. he spread the catholicism among the noble ladies in the “forbidden city”. by 1638, there were 38 converted ladies, including the former empress. in 1639, the number of the converts on hamdard islamicus 162 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the court increased to 50. adam schall even predicted at that time that the emperor and empress were not from the kingdom of god. according to the report of martino martini, in 1640, the gospel had reached thirteen out of fifteen provinces of china and there were sixty to seventy thousand of catholics.43 in the early 1640’s, the jesuits in china increased the publications of their books in han chinese. by the year 1642, there were ninetyseven books published by the jesuits in han chinese.44 the book of emmanuel diaz junior’s (1574-1659) sheng jing zhi jie (the commentary of holy bible) was printed in 1636 and 1642 in beijing. all the above activities of jesuits in south east area were not neglected by the muslim scholars there. in 1641, there was a religious polemics between father nicolas longobardi and a muslim scholar45 in the palace of king ningyang, in qingzhou, shandong province.46 according to nicolas longobardi’s report, the muslim scholar was defeated because he couldn’t explain the virgin birth of the lord and at last, the king accepted the catholic faith. the king ningyang was probably a muslim by birth, because his fore-father built the qingzhou mosque in the 25th year of jiaqin, ming dynasty. nicolas longobardi also mentioned in his writing that the king ningyang preferred the monotheism of islam. the fact that dawood wrote his three books around 1640-1642 after being encouraged by his fellows, perhaps was a response to jesuits’ work in that period. jesuits’ active preaching among chinese muslims have largely stimulated the muslim scholars too. during that period, it was a natural thing that some muslim scholars, including dawood wang daiyu were encouraged to write about islam in han chinese. around 1640, sheikh dawood stayed in the grand mosque of jingjue si in nanjing. secondly, dawood wang daiyu wrote three books. according to some scholars, his first book was probably the great knowledge of islam (qing zhen da xue). the real commentary on the true teaching (zhen jiao zhen quan), was engraved and printed for the first time in 1642. after that, he wrote another book, questions and answers about islam (xi zhen zheng da). dawood wang daiyu described the catholicism as “a religion resembling islam but not a right religion” with many proofs.47 there was a chapter in his book of “the real commentary”, named “ a religion seems to be truth (si zhen)” which hamdard islamicus 163 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 mainly criticized the practice of jesuits who regarded the “tian”, “shangdi” in chinese classics as the “lord of heaven.”48 dawood wang daiyu tried to differentiate the concept of “allah” with other concepts in chinese traditions. he selected two chinese words zhen zhu (the real god) as the chinese translation of “allah” in arabic and another two words of qing zhen (the pure and fine) which employed by the first emperor of ming as the chinese translation of islam. we found that two words of zhen zhu (the real lord) referring to the “tian zhu” were also employed in the works of yang tingjun,49 j. aleni and other catholic religious orders in china in the 17th century.50 but, the term “tian zhu” was more frequently used by them in the books of jesuits. it seemed that the term of “zhen zhu” was also used by other jesuits mixing with “tian zhu” in the early period and later became a distinctive islamic term in hén chinese after the appearance of the han kitab literature. thirdly, similar to matteo ricci, dawood wang daiyu in his books, integrated the classical confucianism and criticized the neo-confucianism. he hold that the noe-confucianism was totally wrong by identifying “tian” with “taiji” and “li” without any supporting evidence from the classics and that they contradicted each other.51 but he did not comment on the term of “shang di” in the classical confucius books and scriptures nor he discussed matteo ricci’s view of the matter. he concluded that allah alone was the creator of everything, including “taiji”, “li” and “tian”. furthermore, based on the concept of “tian” in newconfucianism, dawood argued that if “tian” is only a creature of the real god, then, the word of “tian zhu ” introduced by jesuits was not a right expression in hén language. he argued against the incompatibility of the word “tian zhu (the heavenly lord)”, stating that they cannot be combined, since “tian” was a creature and “zhu” was the creator. dawood wang daiyu quoted the famous tale of “pan gu”52 to support his opinion.53 yusuf ma zhu employed “zhen zhu” to refer to allah in his book the guidance of islam. a century later, sélih liu zhi in his book of nature and principle of islam again quoted the evidences of mentioning of “shang di” or “di” in the confucius classics and their interpretations by the later confucian scholars like cheng yi and zhu xi, to verity that “zhen zhu” in islam was the “shang di” in these classics. different with matteo ricci, we observed that sélih liu zhi did not hamdard islamicus 164 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 criticize the neo-confucianism, but defended the interpretations of “tian” in neo-confucianism by saying that it referred to the super power not the natural bodies. he, at last, concluded with many evidences that “shang di” in the confucius books and scriptures was the “zhen zhu (allah, the real god)” in islam.54 but he criticized the confusing names of “li (the principle)” and “qi (the air)” for the origin of the world.55 actually, prior to dawood, some muslim scholars already paid attention to the movement of catholicism in china. an examination of the difference between the two words of “tian” and “zhu” was also done by zhen yinbeng, even before dawood wang daiyu, in his book a collection of the books and their examinations in 1636 .he stated that in islam “worshipping ‘zhu’ is not worshipping “tian”, because all the things with shapes were the creation of the shapeless ‘zhu’ ”.56 fourthly, sheikh dawood in his first book of the correct answer (xi zhen zhen da) used the same style as father m. ruggieri’s in his book tian zhu shi lu and father matteo ricci’s tian zhu shi yi in the form of a question and answer. this was the style of st. thomas aquinas (1225-1274) in his book of summa thelogica and the accepted and general style of philosophical and theological debates at the paris university in the 13th century.57 but, it was not known to chinese in that time. fifthly, the similarities between the discussions of “tian zhu” in the books of jesuits and that of “zhen zhu” in the books of muslim scholars were clearly observed. in fact, the word “zhu” referring to allah was not at all present in any writing of chinese muslims, until the end of ming. the word of “zhu” was mentioned together in one verse for the first time in the form of “jing tian zun zhu (respecting the ‘tian’ and obeying the ‘zhu’) in 1602. in beijing. it was written on the stone tablet of niu jie mosque, beijing in 1602. it is interesting to mention that the introduction of the chinese word of “zhu (the lord)” into islamic terminologies and linking the two words of “tian” and “zhu” together in chinese happened after the jesuits’ writings.58 at this time, matteo ricci had been in beijing for more than one year. the tablet in the same mosque of nie jie, beijing written in the 41th year of wanli (1613) directly pointed out that “zhu” is the creator of the “tian” by saying that “people knew only the name of ‘tian’, but did not know why it was called ‘tian’. the creator of the ‘tian’ was the oneness of hamdard islamicus 165 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 ‘zhu’”.59 the emergence of han kitab literature was not earlier than 1630’s. the first book perhaps was sheikh zhang zhong’s ke li mo jie (the explanation of al-kalimat of shahadah).60 in the preface of this commentary, the chinese word of “zhen zhu (the real lord)” was used referring to god.61 in the later period, dawood wang dai yu and all later muslim scholars used the word of “zhen zhu (the real lord)” frequently in their hén kitéb literature. this term of “zhen zhu (the real lord)” is still widely used among chinese muslims at the present time. sixthly, similar policy of integration of classical confucianism against buddhism and taoism: all other muslim scholars in their hén kitéb literature, used the same policy of the jesuits, explaining their religion of islam in confucian terminologies or integration of confucian classics and attacking buddhism and taoism at the same time. because all writers of han kitab literature were scholars of confucianism, and it was very natural that they would explain islam in the frame of confucianism. they employed integral confucian traditions in their books in their inter-faith dialogue. for them, confucianism was part of their own cultural heritage alongside islam which they could not neglect. integration of confucian classics was not a policy for preaching their religion of islam like jesuits. at the same time, they attacked not only the later practices of taoists’ polytheism, but also carefully explained the concept of “tao” of laozi in “tao de jing” and in the cosmology of neo-confucianism with the cosmology of sufi school of thought. they refuted the buddhism and other superstitions in chinese folk religions, like fortune-telling, or practicing geomancy, etc. in order to explain the existence of the creator of the universe, the muslim scholars had merciless refutations towards the godless teachings of buddhism and polytheism in the buddhist practices. in order to verify the existence of the creator in the universe, dawood wang daiyu wrote a similar story which was or even is popular in muslims world that a ship on the river sailed itself without any sailor and loaded down its goods by itself without any worker. when the buddhist monk heard of it and said it was unbelievable, the teller of the story refuted him and said then, how could you tell us that there was no any creator who create and managed this properly organized universe and we should believe?62 another example was his refusal of the buddhist concept of emptiness of the universe by saying that they said the universe hamdard islamicus 166 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 was empty and could they also agree that their parents who gave birth to them have never existed.63 seventhly, affected by jesuits’ upper class preaching policy: encouraged by the successful experiences of jesuits in europe and india, matteo riccio succeeded in entering the “forbidden city” in 1600 as an auto-clock repairer. with the help of chinese convert paul xu guangqi, matteo ricci had close relationship with many high officers of ming government and some other jesuits worked in the court of chinese emperors as advisors, scientists, etc. the german astronomer schreck terrenz (1576-1630), who was friend of gallineo and kepler, came to the court of ming as an astronomer in 1621. since then, there were three sections of astronomers who worked in the imperial observatory due to the different ways applied in their observations and calculations: the chinese traditional way, the hui hui muslim way and the western way of jesuits. no doubt, jean adam schall (1592-1666)64 was one of the most important figures in the history of jesuits in china after matteo ricci. he was not only a theologian, but also expert in science and technologies. he started his services on the court of ming in the early of 1620’s and trained a chinese convert ignatius sun yuanhua how to use canons bought by chinese converts from portugal jesuits in macao. those canons played a very big role to defeat the attacks of tatar and jean adam schall earned big fame on the court. a factory of making cannons was set up beside the palace of beijing in 1636. when the qing dynasty was established in 1644, jean adam schall offered a new calendar to the new dynasty and he soon was appointed by the emperor of shunzhi as an astronomer and counselor of the emperor. the astronomers of jesuits had the upper hand in the “calendar controversy”65 of 1668-1670. ferdnand verbiest (1623-1688) worked for the emperor as the astronomer after jean adam schall (1592-1666). another two jesuits, joachim bouvet (1656-1730) and jean francois gerbillon (1654-1707) worked as scientists and envoys in the court of kangxi since 1687. observing the activities of jesuits in the county, muslim scholars were much worried and had their strong desire to introduce islam to the emperor. yusuf ma zhu wrote his huge volume of a guide to islam as an encyclopedia of islam in a beautiful classical han chinese and intended to present it to the emperor of kangxi. yusuf ma zhu stayed in beijing hamdard islamicus 167 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 in early qing dynasty during 1669-1684. yusuf ma zhu, carrying his memorial to the throne and the first volume of a guide to islam, followed the emperor who left beijing on a trip to the south-east of china in 1684 , but he did not succeed in meeting the emperor during this trip. he continued his effort and wrote another memorial to the throne in 1707 in his home town, with the great hope that the emperor would read his book. in his words to the emperor, yusuf stated that buddhism and taoism spoiled the teachings of confucianism, and islam was not a heresy but a truth that was close to confucianism. further, he highlighted that if islam could be practiced alongside confucianism in china, the country and chinese people would be prosperous.66 eighthly, some quotations of muslim scholars from the books of jesuits: in those hén kitéb literature, the muslim scholars employed a lot of new knowledge of the west and seldom mentioned the original sources. for example, sheikh yusuf scientifically the cause of the elapse of the moon and the sun67 and sheikh sélih tried to demonstrate the whole picture of the creation.68 it was probable that they referred the books of jesuits with the evidence that the names of the planets, places mentioned in hén kitéb literature were exact the same characters as in the books of jesuits.69 it was obviously that both sheikh dawood and sheikh sélih adopted the ancient greek ptolemy cosmology as jesuits by saying that the earth was the center of the universe, and there were seven planets moving in circles around the earth. but, they modified the theory by changing another two move less bodies in jesuits books into al-kursi and al-arsh. examples of muslim scholars’ ijtihéd in hén kitéb literature the holy prophet (œ) sent mu‘adh bin jabel (r.a.) to yemen to propagate islam and encouraged him and muslims in the light of qur’én and sunnah to do ijtihéd when they on then enter, countered with new problems. the chinese muslims scholars were also blessed with such capabilities of ijtihéd when they practiced islam in the late ming and early qing dynasties. with the spirit of ijtihéd, they solved many theoretical problems for common muslims by integration of chinese hamdard islamicus 168 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 confucian traditions. one of the examples was their invention of theory of double royalties. in the year of 713, some arab envoys came to the imperial court of tang dynasty and they were asked by the chinese officers to perform a traditional etiquette of greeting the emperor by “koutow”. they refused to do so, because it was like the sajdéh (prostration) in their prayers. obviously, they thought the emperor was treated by the subjects as a deity of worshiping. the refusal of muslim envoys’ “koutow (prostration)” made the emperor and chinese displeased, because it was regarded as offensive behaviors of uncivilized people.70 the muslim scholars were fully aware, on one hand, that the ming was a secular regime of neo-confucianism that the emperor of the country was the absolute authority of all subjects, and performing “koutow” in front of the emperors was an obligatory rite for the subjects. in another hand, they noticed that some catholic religious orders or personalities prohibited the chinese converts attending some ceremonies of remembering confucius or their ancestors, etc. resulted in many big movements of anti-catholicism in the countries since 1516. in order to save the muslims from such kind of troubles, sheikh dawood invented the theory of double loyalties i.e. there was no contradiction between loyalty to allah (s.w.t.) and loyal to the emperor of the country. he stressed that the loyalty of human being towards allah was more important for them than their loyalty towards the rulers and their fathers. the best loyalty was the loyalty of the emperors towards allah, because it was allah who raised him to the throne. so, obeying the emperor was the duty of every subject in the country. he did not reject the chinese traditional rites of “koutow” in front of the emperors and elders because it could be considered as only a posture of greeting each other. furthermore, he suggested that when the muslims performed sajdéhs (prostrations) during their prayers, they should put their foreheads on the earth and while they performed “koutow”, they may put their ears and the side of their heads on the earth.71 yusuf ma zhu and øélií liu zhi agreed with sheikh dawood’s above theory of double l oyalties. yusuf wrote that muslim subjects should pray in every jumu‘ah (friday) prayers for the long life of the emperor and the prosperity of the country.72 øélií even wrote that, the hamdard islamicus 169 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 emperor was the shadow of allah on the earthand if a person who was loyal to the emperor, he was loyal to allah … .73 of course, the term of “double loyalties” was only an innovation of muslim scholars under the typical political environments, though it was not that much accurate in the view of islam. the emperor was a human being only, it was not believable that a creature could be the “shadow” of the creator. but such interpretation had political significance that made the peaceful co-existence between the muslim minority and other nations or non-muslim government possible, which provided a shelter for muslims living in the confucian empire. even up to today, in many mosques, there were inscriptions written stones or woods following words “long life the emperor”. comparing the chinese hui hui muslims, the then pope of rome was rigid, and he could not manage this issue wisely which resulted in at last the “chinese rites controversies”, which resulted in the end of missionary work in china in 1720’s. naturally, in the light of islamic revelation, the chinese muslim scholars refuted not only the misconceptions of jesuits, like trinity and incarnation in their books, many superstitions in chinese traditions, but also mended the cosmology of neo-confucianism by introduction of allah (s.w.t.) into it as a creator. conclusion we may shortly conclude that some practices of cultural accommodation, like integration of chinese classics, confucianism, antibuddhism and taosim, upper class preaching, publishing books on christianity (starting with the most important theological concept like existence of the creator, etc.) was applied by matteo ricci and other jesuits as a preaching policy, helped them to gain a strong basis for the long term among the local chinese, which resulted in spreading catholicism in ming-qing dynasties of china. the muslims in china had gone through different historical periods and sought for co-existence with local native chinese for long time. partly inspired by the work of matteo ricci and jesuits missionaries, some chinese muslim scholars in south-east area of nanjing began to write books about islam in hén chinese language during 1640-1730 in the hén kitéb literature movement. the hén kitéb literature explained hamdard islamicus 170 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the basic principles of islam in a very refined classical chinese, not only to chinese muslims, but also to the local non-muslim chinese. it was the first time in the history of muslims in china that it made the inter-faith dialogue of muslims with other people possible. after 1920s’, the chinese muslim scholars of hui hui could use hén chinese language proficiently in their books about any topic of islam. alíamdulillah. notes and references 01. for example, the school of tian-tai adopted the taoist concept of dan-tian (the pubic region), lian-qi (a kind of spiritual training through breathing control and meditation) and introduced them to their meditation process and the school of huayan not only adopted five virtues of confucianism of “ren”, “yi”, “li”, “zhi”, “xin”,but also some moral values of buddhism like “not killing”, “not lying, “not drinking wine”, etc. and some teachings from “the book of changes”. 02. cultural accommodation has different definitions among scholars. according to prieto, accommodation is the adaptation of one’s message to one’s audience. see, andres i., prieto, the perils of accommodation: jesuit missionary strategies in the early modern world, journal of jesuit studies, iv, 2017, pp. 395-414. 03. see, holmes, j. derek and bickers, b.w., a short history of the catholic church, chinese translation by wang weijia, beijing: sapientia press house, 2008, p. 160; and see, hartmann, the brief history of the society of jesus, p. 4. 04. see, zhang guanggang, from the beginning of the west meeting with the east to the ritual controversy, beijing, people’s press, 2003, p. 211. 05. st. francis xavier (1505-1552), spaniard, was one of the founders of religious order “the society of jesus”. he was a beloved pupil of st. ignatius, the first superior general of the society of jesus ...; see, pfister, the notices, pp. 2023. 06. macao is an island in the south china sea, in the west of hong kong. the people of macao built a temple there named “temple of ma ge”, in order to ask protection from the status of “ma ge” for the fishers. macao was the sound of “ma ge” in portugal language. 07. see, matteo ricci, the correspondences, pp. 6-7. 08 see, qi yingping, a study of history of jesuits in far-east, p. 37. 09. alexandre valignani (1538-1606), came from a noble family of italy. in 1566, he joined the society of jesus. soon, he was appointed as the vistator of the far-east. after the death of francisca xavier, he became bishop of asia diocese. 10. see jiang weihan, the jesuits in ming-qing china, shanghai, the knowledge press, 1987, pp. 7-9. 11. michel ruggieri (1543-1607), from italy. he reached macao in july, 1578 and started to learn chinese there. he visited canton (guangzhou) several times as a translator of portugal traders during 1580-1582. he and matteo ricci established the first center of jesuits in zhaoqing, canton, china in 1583. hamdard islamicus 171 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 12. matteo ricci (1552-1610), born in macerata marche in italy in 1552. he joined roman collage of the society of jesus. in 1578, he reached gua, india by sea. he spent twenty-eight years in china. see, pfister, the notices, pp. 31-46. 13. nicolas longgobardi (1559-1654) was born in a noble family of italy. he came to china in 1597and stayed in china for fifty-eight years. he was appointed as the major superior of the mission in china after the death of father matteo ricci in 1610. 14. “chinese rites controversy” was a discussion between jesuits and other religious orders in china about some chinese traditional rites of reverencing confucius and the ancestors of the chinese converts. at last, it became a religious dispute between the society of jesus and the other religious orders in eu rope, and the holy see and the emperor kangxi of china also involved. 15. see, pfister, life of the society of jesus in the biographies china (1552-1773) and their books (notices biographiquee, p. louis pfister, the biographies of the society of jesus et bibliographiques sur les jesuit’s de l’aneienne mission de chine 1552-1773), translator of chinese feng zhengjun, beijing, china book town, 1995, vol. i, pp. 20-22. 16. see pftister, notices biographiques, vol. i, p. 41. 17. jules aleni (1582-1549) came from italy. he was sent to the far-east in 1609. he entered china in 1613, three years after the death of matteo ricci . he worked fruitfully in many places of china. he had very close relationship with many chinese high officers like xu guangqi and ye xianggao (1559-1627) who was the prime minister of the country. 18. tianzhu () was a holy land to the common chinese buddhists due to the famous pilgrim of monk xuanzang in early tang dynasty. 19. see, matteo ricci, the correspondences, p. 15. 20. see, bernard, le pere mathieu ricci et la, pp. 142-143. it was written in the letter of matteo ricci to roman dated on 13th sept. 1584. 21. see, paul xu guangqi, an appeal for the western studies, an xupian of documents of catholic eastern mission, vol. i, pp. 24-25. 22. see bernarrd, vol. i, p. 188. 23. see, matteo ricci, the true meaning of lord of heaven, chapter seven. 24. ibid. 25. zhu xi, one of the founder of neo-confucianism in ming dynasty. 26. see, matteo ricci, the real meaning of lord of heaven, p. 21. 27. see, matteo ricci, tian zhu shi yi. 28. see, xu zongce an abstract of the writings of jesuits. 29. the word of da shi came from the persian word tazi in canton dialect , see bai shouyi, the essays. 30. see, the old tang books, vol. 639, p. 4115. 31. quanzhou was the most famous sea port in song-yuan dynasties and there were so many foreign muslims from persian and arab countries there like canton today. they called it the city of zaitoon and the local chinese adopted this name as “ci tong”. 32. the fore-father of li zhi was a hén native chinese, who came from central china in the end of yuan dynasty to quanzhou. one of his sons became a sailor hamdard islamicus 172 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 and travelled to persian area. he married a muslim lady there and took her back to quanzhou. 33. in the mongol yuan period, one of a mongol general from noble family converted to islam and all the army under him including 150,000 soldiers also converted into islam. 34. matteo ricci wrote that, the saracens in china have very little to do with the preaching work among local native chinese and they were ignorant about their religious teachings except non-pork dieting. see, the diary, p. 114. 35. roberto de nobili (1577-1656), came from italy, had similar practices of cultural accommodation in his preaching work in india. 36. xu guangqi (1562-1633), came from shanghai and had high post in ming government. in 1600,he met matteo ricci in nanjing. after he got a high post on the court in beijing in 1604, he studied mathematics with matteo ricci and then translated the book of euclid’s elements into chinese. 37. nanjing, called yingtian fu formerly, was the first capital of ming dynasty. the founder of the ming emperor zhu yuanzhang built a mosque, named jingjue si , beside the palace for his muslim ministers. this mosque still remains in nanjing. it was said that in the beginning of ming dynasty, more than 25% of the population of nanjing were muslims. 38. for example, sheikh ashiq came from india to nanjing and taught book of tasawwuf to zhang zhong, who was one of the writers of han kitab literature. 39. see, saif al-haq, ‘the culture of islam in china’, ph.d. thesis of peshawar university, pakistan, 2007, and also, peterson, kristian, reconstructing islam: muslim education and literature in ming-qing china, american journal of islamic social sciences, vol. xxiii, no. 2, 2006). 40. dawood wang dau yu was born in the year between 1573 to 1619 and died in the year of between 1657 and 1658. see, jin yijiu, a study of wang daiyu, pp. 63-64. he was one of pioneers of the movement of han kitab literature. he wrote three famous books around 1640-1642 in nanjing. he went to beijing before the fall of the ming dynasty in 1644 and stayed in a mosque there. his life in beijing remained not much known to people. 41. yusuf ma zhu (1640-1711), was born in yunnan.he started his first education with the confucius scriptures in his hometown of yunnan and travelled to beijing in 1669 and started to learn islamic scriptures from muslim scholars there. he mastered han chinese well and started to write an encyclopedia of islam a guide to islam with the intention that it could reach the emperor kangxi. 42. see, zhou pingping, the catholicism dispersing, pp. 48-49. 43. see, a. lazzarotto, christianity in china according to “brevis relation” (brief account on the numerical strength and qualities in china), essays on religion and culture, pp. 14-15; “brevis relation” was a report written by martino martini in the end of 1654 in rome, in order to create public opinion favorable to the missionary methods of jesuits in china. 44. see, xu gongce, an abstract, pp. 338-342. 45. there was not any other source about this event except the record of jesuits. the name of this muslim scholar was not revealed , perhaps he was one of the imams in that city. in the end of ming dynasty, many noble people from hamdard islamicus 173 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 kings’family converted into christianity, which perhaps was the result of jesuits’ upper class preaching work in china. 46. see, ronnie po-chia hsia, catholicism and the late-ming society: several issues on long huamin’s preaching in shandong in chongzhen period, journal of the research of history, vol. ii, 2009. 47. see, dawood wang daiyu, the real commentary, p. 99. 48. professor jin yijiu, held that dawood was properbly talking about the neoconfucianism. see, jin yijiu, a study, pp. 189-190. 49. see, yang tingjun, dai yi pian. 50. see, yang tingjun, tian shi ming pian and dai yi pian; see also j. aleni, sa shan lun xue, pp. 437, 439; see, the book of zhen xue liu shi written by some of the franciscan fathers baneza, and incarnatine in 1664. 51. see, dawood, the real commentary, p. 103. 52. the tale of pangu began around the year of 220 that in the remote past of long ago, there was a huge elliptical object floating in the sky. a man named pangu staying inside with an axe in his hand. the only work of pangu was to hit the walls which surrounded him. at last, he succeeded to open the object. then, its upper part became the sky ,the part below him became the earth and his body became the mountains, rivers, etc. 53. see, dawood, the real commentary, pp. 104-105. 54. see, salih liu zhi, the shar‘iah of islam, p. 92. 55. see, salih liu zhi, nature and principle of islam, pp. 38, 55-57. 56. the original book was lost and some portions of it were kept in the preface of the book of salih liu zhi’s the seerah of last prophet (œ); see, salih, liu zhi, the seerah of last prophet (œ), p. 366. 57. see, schabel, chris, theological quodlibeta in the middle ages: the thirteenth century, leiden, brill, 2006, vol. i. 58. see, jin yijiu, a study of wang daiyu, p. 34. 59. see, jin yijiu, a study of wang daiyu, pp. 34-35. 60. this book was criticized by dawood as “many mistakes …”, see, dawood, preface of the real commentary, and yang xiaochun, a discourse of stilly explanation of kalimat criticized by wang daiyu in his the real commentary, journal of nanjing univ. (social sciences), vol. xlii(1), 2005. 61. see, xu gongce, an abstract, p. 18. 62. see, dawood wang daiyu, the real commentary, p. 202. 63. ibid., p. 418. 64. jean adam schall (1592-1666), was a scientist from germany. he spent 47 years in china and he was buried beside matteo ricci in beijing. 65. the mongol rulershired some muslim astronomers from the central asia and soon, an observatory was established in yuan capital of dadu. after the fall of mongol rule, the ming government employed them and they worked in nanjing for making calendars. one of the forefathers of sheikh dawood was one of those astronomers. metteo ricci wrote to the society of jesus asking them sending the best astronomer of europe to china with the intention of replacing muslims and getting close to the emperor. in 1660’s, a lot of disputes and controversies between jesuit astronomer jean adam schall and the muslim astronomer yang hamdard islamicus 174 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 guangxian who accused the jesuits of conspirators against the state. jean adam schall was put into jail in 1664 … at last, the muslim astronomer yang guangxian was dismissed from the post around 1668, the main reason was that his calculation of the sun eclipse was less inaccurate than that of jesuits’. 66. see, yusuf ma zhu, a guide to islam, pp. 74-75. 67. see, ibid., p. 650. 68. see, sélí liu zhi, nature and principle of islam. some modern scholars argued that, it was also possible that he benefited from other muslim scholars in persian and arabic, like mirsad al-‘ibéd by najm al-dên rézê, maqîad al-aqîé by nasafi, ash’at allamat and lawa’ií by aburrahman jémê, etc. see, sachiko murata, william c. chittick, and tu weiming, the sage learning of liu zhi, pp. 10-14. 69. see, déwood, the real commentary, p. 60 and see, matteo ricci, the structure of the universe. 70. see, the book of old tang, vol. cxcvii. 71. see, déwood, the real commentary, pp. 233-228. 72. see, yusuf, a guide to islam, p. 532 and sélií liu zhi, the sharê‘ah of islam, p. 132. 73. see, salih liu zhi, the shari‘ah of islam, p. 137. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 101 binding styles of qur’ón manuscripts produced in the subcontinent from 14th till 18th century c.e. saima syed (taxila institute of asian civilization) quaid-i-azam university, islamabad, pakistan email: sarisyed@yahoo.com this study within the framework of codicology, deals with almost 400 samples of the qur’én’s binding. the samples are to be put in the chronological frame between 14th till 18th century c.e. the significance of this study is to highlight the hybrid techniques and design of binding as well as to project the qur’én manuscript collection of ganjbkhsh library (gbl) islamabad. these manuscripts belong to different regions of the subcontinent, iran and afghanistan. the basic objective of binding is to protect written testament of religious manuscripts and official documents. these bindings are often distinctive in colour combination, techniques, materials and designs. the famous centres of book binding in 15th century were tabriz, baghdad, shiraz and heart that influenced the indian artisan’s work. it is noticed that, highly illuminated manuscript of the qur’én has well designed/decorated cover (binding). keywords: qur’én, manuscript, ganjbakhsh, library, binding. introduction islamic art and crafts gained importance in egypt, persia, turkey, india (india, pakistan, kashmir and bengal), spain, indonesia and china. one faith binds the whole muslim world notwithstanding the differences of land, language, race and culture. this common faith provided one path, where they assimilate and amalgamate the different cultural values. the visual representation of mixed cultural elements exposes the close bonding of muslim areas. 102 binding style of qur’én geographical boundaries and variations in climate affect the art materials, techniques and attributes of artisan work, but not faith or commitment towards religion. sacred text is always to be protected, covered and beautified in every faith and religion. binding is a protective cover of a book and necessary to ensure its long life. only a skilled person can do this job efficiently. many techniques are employed for better presentation of a book. the qur’én bindings of 14th to 18th centuries are not identical to each other due to regional and different cultural art elements. sometimes binding suggests the category of the patronage of royalty, religious scholars and common man depending on the quality and variety of expensive and inexpensive material used in it. different materials leather, paper, board, cloth, jewels, colours and precious metals are also used for the illumination of the binding of the holy qur’én. illuminated bindings are not associated only for the muslim community. it was an art practised even before the advent of islam. background of muslim bookbindings and binders the pages of the qur’én were kept in two wooden boards at the time of prophet muhammad (œ). the qur’én in the book form, carrying the name of the scribe (zaid bin thabit) is also found1. historians see the persian influence on arab society in art forms. however, arnold and grohman in “the islamic book” say that ‘the abyssinians claimed the credit for having introduced the codex to the arabs’. as regards the use of leather in binding, persians had established tanneries in present yamen’s capital san‘a. taif was famous for binding and yamen for red kid leather production. egyptian leather trade was flourishing in the beginning of the 13th century c.e. and became famous for arab binding during mamlëk period. leather work/binding was known west of spain, maghrib (north africa), by the 12th century c.e. the tradition of book binding spread in the entire muslim world. bound books were expensive but gained acceptance during abbasid empire2 (750-1258 c.e.). al-muqaddasi (946-991), a medieval arab geographer, author, scriber, bookbinder and merchant, also worked as binder to make fortune. he used to charge two gold dinars for the binding of a copy of the qur’én in the yamen. it was very high price which was paid to him for binding work. binder’s work gained importance under the patronage of the ruling class. bookbinder ibn abi al harish was associated with the library of al-mémën (813-833). hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 103 in the fifteenth century timurid period binders presented their work in an innovative way, cut work, foliage design and gilding were on top score. dëst muhammd (sixteenth century painter and calligrapher), ustad qiwaim al din of tabriz (the inventor of the cut work pattern), kamal al din and abd al wahhab (both associated to the royal library of shah tahmasp), mahmud chelbi (a turkish chief book binder among his family members at the time of sultan selim i) were famous in the history of the trade of book binding. in the 19th century in madinah excellent board’s preparation for binding and repairing is attributed to haji saeed efendi3. a cultural exchange programme existed among the nations since ancient times. skills or techniques in art work were passed on from generation to generation and travelled from one country to another. skilled persons were considered as for the clan, civilization and countries, they belonged to. in india, all forms of muslim art and craft, especially the art of book binding, were highly influenced by the persian style. as haldane mentions in the “islamic book binding” in 16th-17th century c.e. that all leather bindings from ulwar, an important east-west trade rout in seventeenth century, and rajputana were true replicas of persian style4. kashmiri artisan travelled to samarqand to learn the techniques of book binding during sultan zain al abdin’s regime. this serves as an evidence of cultural relations between the samarqand and kashmir. delhi, lahore, bengal and kashmir were the main centres for paper production as well as book binding. table 1 data gbl samples of the qur’én no. of qur’én copies with binding without binding 400 355 45 bar graph 1, showed difference between the covered (binding) and uncovered (without binding) samples of the qur’én. 104 binding style of qur’én gbl samples indicate that many covers have been changed due to deterioration, but not restored to their original form. these changed covers created problems for the investigators/researchers, in dating and chronological study of the manuscript. table 1 explaines the total numbers of samples, with bindings and without bindings. samples, with binding are 88.75 %and 11.25% without binding, however, roughly estimated at 10% to 15% out of 88.75%, have no original cover and have been changed by the owner/library due to decay. binding styles and tools a variety of tools were used for the ornamentation of the book bindings. compass and rulers were the main tools used in the design, making for the arabic style of book bindings. different types of cutters, hammers, nails and stamps were used for the cover decoration. leather1 is the main surface for decor. for embossed design, sometimes artisans used heated tools on the damped surface of leather. stamp2 tools are the pattern (of foliage, lines and texture) to create the design on the surface. in the 16th to 17th century (c.e.) panel stamps and the central square, rounded/oval shape were very common in islamic bindings (figure 1, 2). narrow repeating borders were done by means of a roller. different techniques were used for the binding purpose, which included blind tooling (figure. 2), doublure3, coptic leather work, lacquer4, filigree gilding with gold and silver on leather surface, wood and papier mache (figure. 1), etc. use of parchment and textile in binding is also examined5. coloured paper and marbling techniques on paper add to the beauty in binding decoration. it was done in many bindings of the qur’én (selected samples) at the outer surface of binding as well as inside the cover6. in the muslim art, there are three types of bookbinding which include box book binding, binding with flap and without flap. 1. goat skin and hair sheep skin was preferable material for islamic book bindings. 2. it is engraved design on wooden block or metal, pressed by hammer or hand pressure. it was associated to persians but found in earlier arabic bindings, it was also in practiced by the mamluk artists. 3. it was a kind of protection and covering the inner part of the book board. 4. this technique was also applied outer as well as for inner boards of the binding. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 105 fig 1: source: gbl. this image is also the part of m.phil dissertation of saima syed 2015. a small size . papier mache filigree binding without a flap of the qur’én 10071. a medallion is placed in the centre of the page and two pendent at the top and bottom enhance the beauty of the center piece. binding with flap muslim binders introduced the flap, which distinguished their work from the art of others. it was attached to the back of a cover and placed on the front cover. it would protect them from dust. the size of the flap depended upon the size of the cover (mostly one third of the width of the cover at top and bottom). it was like an envelope which is made of three structural works. boards which are covered with two leathers are made from hard sheet or pasteboards to make the back and the front cover of the book. a leather spinal column is used to hold these cover boards together as one. drawing no 1: style of leather binding with flap of the qur’én no. 10069, a: flap, b: back, c: middle joint, d: front of the binding (drawing is created on the software coral draw 9) 106 binding style of qur’én a flap envelope is attached to the back cover which is folded towards the front cover. this flap is used as a bookmark as well. the book readers used to put it under the text block to demarcate the pages after finishing the session of reading. such type of binding was present in the ancient manuscript of holy qur’én in horizontal format. gradually, with the passage of the time these disappeared as the horizontal format was transformed into the vertical format7. the box is easily made but it is not durable. its flaps are delicate and need to be repaired frequently. this type of binding is decorated by creating patterns, designs or by placing a string under the covering leather. binding without flap this binding has three main parts, front, back and spine. this style of book is very common nowadays, mostly light weighted books are designed in this style. cover is illuminated with floral patterns enclosed within frames. outer borders are filled with a repeating pattern of flowers. it is also made with three structural components front, back and joint. this glossy cover was produced in 1688 a late 17th century manuscript of binding style. the motif in the middle is bigger than the top and lower pattern. this indo-iranian style is also famous in turkey. outer frame filled with flower lace design highlighted the central frame of the binding. it also resembles the inside design of a qur’én manuscript, as first pages are decorated with floral motifs in the form of lace work which enclosed the text box. fig 2: leather binding with stamp tooling without gilding/embossed on leather of the qur’én no. 10069, source gbl, this image was used in m.phil dissertation of saima syed, 2015. a. panel one enclosed with ruled frame. b. ruled frame. c. double line to enclose the panel design. d. the small letter “a”/ mirror impact of “s” shape motif or foliage pattern in simple repeat. e. beautiful lace work in symmetrical corner of upper and lower portion. f. pendent located at the upper and lower portion of the central medallion. g. medallion filled with different patterns of the foliage. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 107 a. panel one enclosed with ruled frame. b. ruled frame. c. double line to enclose the panel design. d. the small letter “a”/ mirror impact of “s” shape motif or foliage pattern in simple repeat. e. beautiful lace work in symmetrical corner of upper and lower portion. f. pendent located at the upper and lower portion of the central medallion. g. medallion filled with different patterns of the foliage. h. four petal flower. the design of binding is filled with lace work, foliage and a box filled with leaf design. central motif is followed up, top to bottom, two small motifs filled with flower and leaves add the beauty of the cover layout. conclusion inclusive material, techniques and design made the book binding industry in the subcontinent progressive and alive. to maintain the quality of leather, leather industry met the local demand. leather was not only used for home utensils, clothings, tents, etc., but also for the bindings of valuable books especially religious books (the qur’én). leather industry flourished in many cities of subcontinent (indo-pakistan). a cover of the holy book is prepared by the processed leather which may be simple and sometimes with added sheen. the study indicates that leather is used in more than 90 % samples of qur’én bindings. that is a very higher in percentage when compared to other materials used in the craft. there are two main reasons for it. firstly, leather is processed and is an expensive material, it can be coloured and gilded, stamped, embossed and tooled (that’s why it is preferable to other material). secondly, it can be treated in many ways to make it durable. papier mache, marbling and different types of textile are also used for binding, but not sustainable in a variety of seasons that pakistan has. colours of leather, mostly for qur’én bindings are red, maroon, brown, blue and black. red and brown were fashioned in mughul period qur’én binding (18th century qur’én). style of binding is very simple like simple floral motif with geometrical shapes. in the 14th to 17th century bindings were based on experimental work of artists, cultural influences and progressed style was a hybrid. acknowledgement thanks to director iranian culture centre, dr. abu turab and organizers of gbl (ganjbkhsh library), who provided me sufficient data. special thanks to my thesis supervisor dr. rafiullah for hisguidance and moral support. 108 binding style of qur’én acknowledgement thanks to director iranian culture centre, dr. abu turab and organizers of gbl (ganjbkhsh library), who provided me sufficient data. special thanks to my thesis supervisor dr. rafiullah for his guidance and moral support. notes and references 1. martin levey, “mediaeval arabic book binding and its relation to early chemistry and pharmacology, transactions of the american philosophical society, philadelphia, 1962, p. 5. 2. ibid, p. 6. 3. gulnar bosch, jhon carswell and guy ptherbridge, “islamic book & book binding”, chicago, 1981, p. 6. 4. duncan haldane, “islamic book bindings”. the world of islam festival trust, london, 1983, isbn 0 905035322. 5. francois deroche, “islamic codicology”: an introduction to the study of manuscripts in arabic script, london: al-furqan islamic heritage foundation, 2006. 6. shela. s, blair, colour and gold: the decorated papers used in manuscripts in later islamic times, muqarnas, 2000, vol. xvii, pp. 24-36. 7. shela. s, blair, islamic calligraphy, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 2006. bibliography primary source ranjha, muhammad .n,catalogue of the manuscript of qur’én-i-majid in the ganjbkhsh library. iran–pakistan institute of persian studies, islamabad, pakistan, manza printing corporation,1993. secondary source bosch and carswell,“islamic book & book binding”. chicago, 1981. blair, shela. s, colour and gold: the decorated papers used in manuscripts in later islamic times. muqarnas17, no. 1, 2000, pp. 24-36. blair, shela. s, “islamic calligraphy”. edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2006. deroche,francois, “islamic codicology”: an introduction to the study of manuscripts in arabic script. london, al-furqan islamic heritage foundation, 2006. haldane. duncan, “islamic book bindings”. london, the world of islam festival trust, 1983. levey. martin, “mediaeval arabic book binding and its relation to early chemistry and pharmacology, transactions of the american philosophical society, philadelphia 52, no. 4 (1962), pp. 1-79. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 75 admissibility of computer evidence in islamic law and common law: a preliminary analysis hafsa abbasi* dr. hafiz anwar** *faculty member department of law, allama iqbal open university islamabad, pakistan e-mail: haf.abbasi@gmail.com **professor of sharê‘ah, international islamic university islamabad, pakistan computer technology and its various applications have come to pervade all walks of life — be it social media, economy, higher studies, e-commerce etc., common law principles on computer evidence are going through rapid change due to change in technologies and increasing use of electronic evidence in court. islamic law also lays down very strong evidential principles for electronic evidence. electronic evidence is treated as documentary and circumstantial evidence. in both the cases (when it is documentary or circumstantial evidence), it is admissible in civil cases. but its use is limited in criminal cases. that is, ×udëd and qiîéî cases cannot be decided solely on the basis of electronic evidence, unless corroborated by other evidences. islamic law does not provide rules for electronic evidence, but it does provide important general principles, that can be used to test the standards advocated by modern law. the present research shall explore the principles of islamic law for electronic evidence in the areas of documentary (al-kitébah) and circumstantial evidence (qarênah). then kitébah or qarênah, are discussed to ascertain standards of sharê‘ah in civil and criminal cases. key words: documentary evidence, circumstantial evidence, electronic evidence, expert testimony, islamic law introduction imagine a person wakes up early in the morning and he is informed admissibility of computer evidence76 that smart technologies and internet has ceased to work in his country, for a few days. what would his life be like? no cell phone, no internet, no laptops, no computers, no smartphones, no social media. this kind of life is unimaginable in this age. imagine the loss that his business would have to bear? or if he is an employee his institution would be at huge loss. ultimately the economy of that state would be facing huge shocks. the significance of computer, internet and smart technologies is far beyond our imaginations. this is the factor that has helped man reshape it rules and govern it as smoothly as possible. how is it possible that something which is so important for mankind is not being paid any attention from the point of view of islamic law? it is right time to identify rules of islamic law of evidence, dealing with computer and digital evidence. islamic jurisprudence provides for well-structured principles of law of evidence. these principles are general in nature. which are applicable to upcoming new situations. there is no denying the fact that islamic law does not provide specific rules for electronic evidence. however, it does provide important ‘general principles’ that can be used to test the standards set by modern law with a view to ascertain their compatibility with islamic law. these general principles can be derived from the areas of documentary (al-kitébah) and circumstantial evidence (qarênah), in islamic law. present research, first defines electronic evidence and discusses its types. then its significance is deliberated. it further covers stance of common law on electronic evidence, followed by how does it operate in civil and criminal cases. then legal basis for admissibility of electronic evidence is discussed and rules of documentary (al-kitébah) and circumstantial evidence (qarênah) are discussed one after the other, followed by qéìê’s approach to both in case civil and criminal trials. definition and types of electronic evidence electronic evidence is defined as, “information of probative value stored or transmitted in binary form”1. while binary represents the eventual storage format of all kinds of digital information, the term digital covers a broad range of data. so electronic evidence can appropriately be defined as “data (comprising the output of analogue devices or data in digital format) that is manipulated, stored or communicated by any manmade device, computer or computer system or transmitted over a communication system, that has the potential to make the factual account hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 77 of either party more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.”2 so, the definition of electronic evidence covers three aspects of information; 1. it includes all the evidence stored, created, altered in a computer 2. the computer devices include pcs, networks, phone systems, wireless devices, computer systems, smart cards, navigation systems, etc. 3. it includes only the data that is “relevant to the process by which a dispute, whatever the nature of the disagreement, is decided by an adjudicator, whatever the form and level the adjudication takes.”3 national institute of justice defined digital evidence as any information present in binary form and is reliable in courts. it is something which is present on a hard drive, a cell phone, laptop, flash card in a camera. electronic evidence is usually linked to electronic crimes, similar to frauds relating to credit cards, or pornography. but electronic evidence is used to solve all types of cases. for instance, a mobile phone call record or an email address may reveal malicious intention of a suspect and his relationship with other criminals.4 digital evidence includes any information, or data sent or received by an electronic device, which can be utilized during investigation. mason categorises computer evidence on the basis of human input used in them. these are: computer generated data this type of evidence is a document generated by computer and it does not involve human intervention. examples of these types of record are data logs, telephone connections, and atm transactions. the main evidential problem with this type of records is to establish that the computer program was working properly at that time. so here the testimony is not usually required as long as the system that generated the document is reliable.5 computer stored data it includes, the record of activities that involve the written content by one or more people. for example, emails, word processing files and admissibility of computer evidence78 messages. from the evidential point of view, it would be necessary to establish that the content of the document is a reliable record of human statement. here the witness who created the document must testify about the reliability. otherwise, it can come under hearsay, which will make it inadmissible in court.6 computer stored and generated data record consisting of a mix of both human input and calculations generated and stored by a computer. example of this type may be a spreadsheet that contain human statements (input to the spreadsheet program), and computer processing (mathematical calculations performed by the spreadsheet program). the evidential issue here would be to assess the document creation process. it means, to check how much of it is created by a human and how much of it is created by computer. it may be possible that human input could be hearsay, or the authenticity of the computer processing might be an issue.7 both issues shall be resolved accordingly. the above-mentioned classifications are explained in the case of elf caledonia ltd v london bridge engineering ltd.8 as it was rightly pointed out by the judge in the above case law that it is not always possible for the person who fed the data in computer to come and testify. so, there are some limits of such testimonies as well. significance of electronic evidence electronic evidence is the most important aspect of a crime and investigation. in fact, in the present times, it is very difficult to catch a criminal without any electronic evidence. there are many cases that support to this argument. one such case that shows the significance of electronic evidence is discussed below. in the case, the law enforcement agencies failed to solve the criminal case as there was no data in the modern gadgets to prove or disprove the facts. philip welsh was a taxicab dispatcher who worked in maryland. on february 2014, he was murdered at his home. at his workplace, he used technology and computers daily but at home, he never used such devices. he relied on landlines, hand written letters and typewriters. friends and family often prompted him to try a device or the internet, but welsh never did. when he was absent from work, it was later found hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 79 that he had been murdered. he lived alone and had no enemies. in fact, he was a loveable person. his home was open to taxi drivers, who needed a place to sleep between shifts. lack of digital evidence turned out to be a big hurdle in investigating the crime. police had no way to find out what welsh’s activities were or whom he met. without evidence such as text messages, emails, and web history, it was not possible to investigate. the murder of philip welsh remained unsolved and officers concluded that this happened due to the lack of digital evidence.9 electronic evidence in common law common law now relies heavily on electronic evidence. when a suspect is caught, the investigation officer gathers proofs from him. the main information sources that help assess any link to the crime are the mobile phones which may contain call records, text messages, internet browsing history, etc.10 it was observed by one of the us court in riley v california that, “modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. with all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many americans “the privacies of life”.11 it was also observed that the modern cell phones are not only phones but mini-computers in the hands of public, containing personal messages, social media posts, call records, browser history, contacts, things to do lists, personal notes, etc. all these activities’ data play a vital role in connecting the dots of crime and chasing criminals. mobile phones serve as a tracking system for the criminals. electronic evidence is almost unanimously accepted as a documentary evidence, real evidence and circumstantial evidence worldwide.12 it is admissible as a documentary evidence in the case where body or text of document is sought to be proved. it is acceptable as a real evidence where content of document is not an issue, but availability of electronic evidence in accused’s possession. for instance, presence of incriminating images or information in accused’s computer or phone.13 it is accepted as a circumstantial evidence when the case is to be proved through the circumstances. in public prosecutor v. neo khoon sing, accused worked at national environment agency northeast regional office. he sent three emails containing false terrorist attacks warnings, from his official computer, hacking websites of ministry of home affairs and prime minister’s office. police found out the actual location from where the emails originated. accused claimed defence of admissibility of computer evidence80 alibi. but circumstantial evidence showed that the official computer was used for these emails. he claimed that an imposter accessed his computer and did this. but computer evidence showed that some time after these threatening emails, official email was sent.14 so, this case like many others was solved on the basis of circumstantial evidence. modern means no doubt are of a great assistance to the law enforcement agencies but this technology is also being misused or abused. technology is helpful to the criminals as well. fragile nature of electronic evidence makes it prone to tampering, manipulation and destruction. the common law has tried to look into these problems. it is accepted worldwide that any evidence shall not be rejected solely on the ground that it belongs to modern technology. different forms of latest evidences are increasingly being used in courts. during trials, judges are mostly asked to make rules for admissibility digital evidence. the decision on admissibility impacts the final result of the case, whether it be a civil or a criminal case.15 courts keep on trying to grapple with rules of evidence to deal with this area. the ease in which these kinds of evidence can be fabricated brings hurdles in the way of admissibility. different kinds of evidence such as dvd, hard drives, sms/mms, chats, mails, and other kinds of computer generated evidence pose various problems and challenges for authentication.16 generally four standards are applied for admissibility of electronic evidence: 1. the evidence must be relevant to facts in issue. 2. evidence must be authenticated. this is the most important step of admissibility because it ensures complete trust or distrust of court on electronic evidence.17 it deals with the challenges of authorship and alterations. different techniques are applied for different kinds of electronic data, like, web content18, e-mails,19 business record and social media messages20 etc. following methods are usually used for authentication: a) authentication by testimony.21 b) authentication by technical opinion (expert testimony).22 c) authentication by circumstantial evidence.23 d) authentication by other technical methods, like hashtags, meta data etc.24 the drilling process of authentication does not take place in each trial. it is only exercised where it is challenged by the opponent parties. 3. if the evidence in court’s consideration is hearsay it is inadmissible. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 81 this rule is generally applicable to computer stored evidence where data is manually fed.25 4. “best evidence rule” which is derived from “original writing rule”, means that the evidence must be original, real, primary and direct. in electronic data it means that the copies produced through the mechanical process are exactly identical to the original. in common law printed duplicate copies are admissible as originals unless accuracy challenges are raised by the opponents.26 in common law electronic evidence is considered as reliable as physical evidence provided that the standards mentioned above are properly applied. in many european countries, three common situations are stated where electronic evidence is considered equivalent to traditional evidence. (1) the equivalence of paper documents with electronic document. in several legislations, the type of document is specified e.g. electronic receipts/contracts and notifications (fax) are compared with supporting paper receipts/contracts and notifications. (2) similarity of electronic signatures with handwritten signatures. (3) the equivalence of electronic mail to postal mail.27 there is a group of european countries,28 that assimilate electronic evidence with paper evidence. these countries give value to the electronic evidence as documentary evidence at trial.29 this is the case commonly practiced in majority of the countries, including usa, uk, pakistan.30 electronic evidence in civil and criminal cases electronic evidence is treated differently in civil cases than in criminal cases because of the difference in their rules.31 when electronic evidence is involved, one of the major differences between civil and criminal cases is, the chances of destruction of evidence. these chances are higher in civil cases because evidence is not usually seized, unlike criminal trials where the evidence is seized by the investigation officer.32 electronic evidence has gained importance in most of the areas/ activities of daily life, such as modern economic transactions, commercial marketplaces and methods of commitment of crime, etc. that is why, electronic data has largely affected civil and criminal trials. in civil cases for example, there is an increased reliance on electronic communications, for solving a case. it is now a common practice, to request for discovery of several millions of pages or emails in civil disputes. similarly, for investigation in criminal trials, reliance is increasing on social media sites, admissibility of computer evidence82 such as whatsapp, skype, facebook, etc, to gather evidence.33 response of legal profession towards electronic evidence in civil and criminal cases is in phase of fits and starts. electronic evidence in civil trials rules of obtaining and storing evidence for civil trials are mostly governed by civil procedure codes of different countries. for instance, recent developments in new federal rules of civil procedure (frcp) of usa and uk have tried to place to put some limitations on the kind of evidence that can be asked in electronic discovery, making the process less burdensome for both parties.34 principles of electronic discovery for civil cases stipulate that parties are under obligation to disclose relevant evidence, which are demanded by the other party. civil discovery means that parties have a right to request the court to compel the other party to hand over relevant evidences to them. parties make a list of documents that are required by them. other party upon request is bound to hand over, keeping the originals with them. methods of extracting evidence in civil discoveries are different from criminal investigation. recently a model for e-discovery called ediscovery reference model (edrm)35, was published which included following steps. i) information management.36 ii) identification of evidence37 iii) collection and preservation of evidence38 iv) processing39 v) reviews and analysis40 vi) production41 vii) presentation.42 in order to discuss working of electronic evidence in civil trials, a good example is ubs vs. zubulake43. this was the case filed by laura zubulake, against her boss ubs warburg, who promoted another person instead of laura, despite the commitment made to her at the time of appointment, of a promotion at that particular time. laura filed a case against gender discrimination at equal opportunity commission. the evidence of the case according to her were in emails exchanged between hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 83 ubs and laura. court ordered civil discovery of emails containing commitments made between plaintiff and defendant. resultantly, the debate heated up between the parties and laura demanded for more emails. the demand was refused by ubs on the grounds that searching for the requested pages would be cost prohibitive. laura told the court that she presented almost 450 pages of emails in response to which only 100 pages were presented by ubs, which means rest of the emails were deliberately removed or deleted. court asked ubs to explain the system of backing up of emails and data retention policies. after opinions were recorded by different experts, the court concluded that clearly the emails refused by ubs could be produced easily and that these emails were deliberately removed or deleted. the court resultantly decided to award 9.1 million to zubulake as compensatory damages and 20.2 million dollars as punitive damages. here it can be observed that proper management and archiving of electronic data is of immense importance in a civil trial. the reason is already mentioned above that in civil trials the evidence is the responsibility of the parties. in case of failure to produce required evidence, parties have to undergo heavy sanctions. electronic evidence in criminal trials in order to access the status of electronic evidence in criminal case, let us consider an example of a person fred who steals money from a bank through fraudulent fund transfer. fred uses a number of computers to hide his tracks. let us assume that fred uses a server run by a private university as his first intermediary and then a computer from public library. from his isp he first hacks a university computer, with access to the university computer established, he hacks the library computer. from the library computer he finally attacks the main server of the bank. fred is successful in guessing the password correctly. he creates a new account and instructs the computer that the account has $ 500,000 in it. he then transfers the money from new account to an account which is untraceable (offshore). the next day an officer from the bank finds out that money was transferred to a new account and is now missing. bank calls the police. the electronic crime scene looks very different. apparently there is neither any eye witness nor any piece of real evidence. a digital detective (expert) would assess the situation and will find out the ip admissibility of computer evidence84 (similar to a telephone number of internet) address of the person who hacked the account. the bank’s server kept a log of hacker’s connection to the bank computer. the detective starting from ip address would follow the bread crumbs from the bank to appellant’s computer. he would collect bits and bytes of electronic evidence in the system of bank and accused computer and assemble them in a way that identifies the plaintiff and proofs his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. the first step would be to obtain stored record from the four computers used in the server attacks home computer, university, library and then bank computers. the procedure for collection of electronic evidence in criminal cases (such as hacking) involve three stages; collection of evidence, surveillance and the forensic investigation of suspect’s computer.44 the key in most of the cases is to get access to the computer which was used to conduct this activity. if police gets an access to fred’s computer they would be able to get evidence of extra ordinary importance. it is possible for the detective to reconstruct details of what happened and when. even the deleted files can be recovered. let us assume that the detective successfully extracts incriminating information from fred’s computer. fred is found guilty and the matter goes to trial. prosecution will present witnesses in a sequence of incidents. first a person from the bank will testify that money was stolen. secondly, system administrators from intermediary banks will testify about the link in the chain of evidence. the system administrator of fred’s isp will testify about the criminal activity that took place through the system. finally, the government officials will testify that they found the computer from fred’s home. they will give any other circumstantial evidence which they found out from fred’s home such as, the user name and password of the bank written on a piece of paper, placed on the computer table. the government’s case shall be proved beyond reasonable doubt that fred committed the banking robbery. here in this case, the experts and the circumstantial evidence play a vital role, if the accused is interviewed and clues can be found from there. for instance, in another case, the accused stole fraudulently through a money transfer from the bank. the accused was a team member of password reset team. from among many other proofs against him, his lies during interview sessions and circumstantial evidence proved him guilty. he accessed the computer of office after his dismissal time from office. he came back to office 30 minutes after that. he was asked hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 85 about the reason of coming back, he said he came back to pick umbrella because it was raining. but the cctv footage showed that it was a bright sunny day. similarly, in case us v. siddiqui, the accused denied of being the author of incriminating chats. but the investigation officers found out a name and address on a piece of a paper on his table, which was given in the chats. in a nutshell, there are few things which are essential for a case of electronic evidence in criminal trials: 1. oral testimony, 2. expert testimony 3. circumstantial evidence 4. documentary evidence etc legal basis for admissibility in sharê‘ah there is no doubt that any direct precedent for electronic evidence in the time of prophet (œ) and classical fiqh is not possible. but the saying of the prophet “bayyinah is on claimant”45 is broad enough to provide many things including modern means of proofs. electronic evidence comes under two types of evidence and can be proven through them: 1. documentary evidence al-kitébah, 2. qarênah computer evidences and photographs are some strong analogous evidential foundations for electronic evidences. computer and digital evidence and rule of al-kitébah in the classical islamic law, documentary evidence was named as auréq, hujjéj, sijêl, wathêqah, mukhadar.46 documents in that time were physical only, such as written paper or parchment manuscripts. such definition of jurists for documentary evidence was based on their observation and the need of time. but the most important thing for content of a document is that it can give information on it. so keeping in view the modern era and reliance of society on electronic documents, admissibility of computer evidence86 islamic scholars willingly expanded the definition of documentary evidence and added modern evidence into it.47 the qur’én gives a lot of importance to documentation. for instance, it orders to write down the transaction or any debt which is to be returned. it explicitly states in surah al-baqarah “o ye who believe! when ye deal with each other, in transactions involving future obligations in a fixed period of time, write them, let a scribe write down faithfully as between the parties.”48 according to the above verse of the qur’én, a loan agreement signed by the debtor, will be a valid proof against his liability of payment. as electronic evidence is also a documentary evidence so this verse will also be applicable to electronic writings. for instance, younus sohaili, while writing about credit card transactions quotes above verse and analyses the concept of writing of a debt as below; “it is the opinion of the researcher that the credit card serves the purpose of writing the debt of the customer at the point of transaction. the card is swiped and the magnetic strip (or microchip depending on the design of the card) is read by the computer and the account of the customer is accessed via several levels of computer verification, afterwards the customer approves the amount of money that will be credited to his or her account and then the merchant will use the card reading machine to record or “write” that amount of debt onto the customer’s account.”49 many narrations from the prophet muhammad (œ) also established the precedent, regarding the orders about drafting legal documents and their enforceability in the court of law. for instance, prophet (œ) ordered his companion ‘ali (r.a.) to draw up a document in his name at ×udaêbêyah.50 another example is of prophet muhammad (œ) commanded his representative to draft a written agreement when he purchased a slave from one of his companions.51 guiding principles given by the qur’én and sunnah clearly established that documentary evidence had a significant role in agreements and commercial laws. this practice was unanimously endorsed by the companions of prophet (ijmé‘). muslim jurists also agreed that documentary evidence is a valid means of proof in islamic law.52 but the most important element for admissibility of documentary evidence whether in islamic law or computer evidence, is authentication. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 87 authentication of documentary evidence in islamic law acceptability of documentary evidence in islamic law is not absolute. allah, the exalted, in his book guides further about the criteria of admissibility. the qur’én explicitly states that “and bring to witness two just men from among you and establish the testimony”.53 after ordering to write down the debt, the same verse necessitates oral testimony of upright witnesses on transactions, in order to prove the authenticity and reliability in case of dispute. this does not mean that documentary evidence is inadmissible without oral testimony. this verse implies that there must be some surety which proves the authenticity of documentary evidence. as this practice is commonly used in western law as well, where electronic evidence is authenticated by witnesses.54 this happens in cases where there are doubts about the reliability of a document. on the other hand, if the document is of such a nature that it is selfauthenticating, then it does not need witnesses55. for instance, it was reported about prophet (œ) that he used to write letters and handed them over to his envoys who sent them forward without knowledge of its contents and the latter accepted them without asking for any verifications.56 judicial records of ottoman courts called sijjêls, are also a great proof to this argument. such court records were mostly referred to without testimony for future reference. majority of muslim jurists accepted documentary evidence as valid means of proof in islamic law.57 islamic law primarily relied on oral testimony. but documentary evidence was not less important. for authentication of oral testimony, purgation was necessary. condition of a specific number of witnesses for different wrongs, whether civil58 or criminal59 is also essential in the light of the qur’én and sunnah. purgation is derived from an arabic term tazkiyah60. it is formal procedure which is carried out by the judge to check out the character of witnesses. the admissibility of statement of the witness depends on good reputation and his trustworthy behaviour. it shows a sense of responsibility of a witness regarding the degree of truth he is likely to speak during a trial. if his good deeds are dominating in his personality upon his bad deeds, he is able to testify. islamic legal system puts great stress on purgation of witnesses. the reason is to get authentic evidence. according to imém sarakhsê, the statement of just and probable witness (shéhid ódil) is how authentic oral testimony can be acquired.61 similarly, documentary evidence is either authenticated by just witnesses or other admissibility of computer evidence88 sources which can prove of being trust worthy, such as public records, judicial registers, sealed documents, etc. so, it can be observed that authentication of evidence, whether oral or documentary, has an important place in sharê‘ah. application of islamic principles of documentary evidence on electronic evidence in civil and criminal cases as mentioned above, documentary evidence was unanimously accepted by the jurists. but the extent of its use depends on type of the trial, i.e. civil or criminal. in case of civil trials where the disputes related to money matters, a legal maxim in islamic law is applicable which says; “writings in the form of entries in merchant books, deeds of will, diaries, loan transactions, etc., are like talking to one another”.62 according to most of the jurists, such entries are admissible if they are authenticated by handwriting and signature experts or witnesses. this above mentioned rule is similar to “the best evidence rule” in common law.63 ibn qayyim does not require authentication of documents that are exchanged on daily basis as a customary practice. for example, as a proof of writing alone, he states; “when the interlocutor says what do you say about a stray animal engraved in its thigh, charity or endowment or locked”? is it appropriate for the judge to pass a judgment on the basis of such marks, the answer was yes. it is the opinion of mélikê school of thought and opined that such marks are stronger proofs than testimony. ibn qayyim also quoted imam ahmad who was once asked about the execution of deed of will found under the pillow of deceased person and there is no one to testify about it. he replied “yes if the handwriting of deceased was known for its uniqueness”.64 so if this situation is applied in civil cases, indeed electronic evidence is a very strong mean of proof, if it passes the tests of admissibility. the aim of both islamic law and common law is to seek evidence that is free of errors and tampering. in this situation, if the system that generates the electronic evidence is reliable, such evidence will be admissible without testimony. based on the precedents of use of such reliable documents commonly in islamic courts, the test for reliability of computer system is to be approved by an expert. but for business records the test is that the whole business is running on the basis of that data.65 jurists agree upon the admissibility of electronic evidence in criminal cases that has ta‘zêr punishments, but their opinion is differed upon for hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 89 establishing fixed crimes like íudëd and qiîéî.66 for instance, if there are some emails found from a boss who has tried to sexually assault his subordinates, it can be proven for the crime of sexual harassment. but the same messages, if they contain conversation about fun they both had dating alone with each other cannot be proven for íadd or ziné punishment against both, according to the majority. the argument given by the scholars are: 1. a legal maxim based on narration of prophet (œ) that governs prosecution of íudëd; “fixed punishments are nullified by doubts”.67 2. “the great danger of its fabrication and concoction for false charges, by saying that the ominous fabrication of uthman’s signature via a letter led to his tragic assassination.”68 there is a minority of group who believe that official letters can prove íudëd and qiîéî. for examples ibn qayyim is of the view that imam bukhari believed that one letter of the ruler to the other is admissible documentary evidence for crimes of homicide and íudëd. his opinion was based on example set by prophet (œ) when he wrote to jews for the payment of diyah to the family of deceased person and another by caliph ‘umar (r.a.) in íudëd punishments.69 but obviously, this example cannot be applied to document mentioned above which is merely a private email, unless it is corroborated by confession of both the parties who committed íudëd offence. it can be concluded here that application of electronic evidence in case of civil cases and ta‘zêr crimes is agreed upon by jurists. but the same cannot be applied in case of íudëd and qiîéî. unless they are corroborated by other stronger pieces of evidence, such as oral testimony that are stipulated in qur’én and confession of parties during crossexamination. but the importance of electronic evidence in today’s world cannot be denied because most of the criminals are caught on the basis of cctv films, video, recordings, pictures, call records, etc. these evidences are very strong in nature. these are the proofs and if authenticated properly cannot be negated by the accused. so there is a possibility that the guilty party is made to confess the crime during cross-examination or interviews. otherwise, íudëd and qiîéî on the basis of electronic evidence alone cannot be executed. in that case, judge has very vast powers under ta‘zêr punishments. in order to keep the peace and harmony of society, such criminals must be given deterrent punishments.70 admissibility of computer evidence90 computer evidence and its connection with circumstantial evidence there are two ways in which circumstantial evidence can be connected to electronic evidence. these two ways are illustrated with the help of two case studies to have a better understanding of the concept. 1. electronic crime is proved with the help of physical circumstantial evidence. a case u.s v. simpsons,71 illustrates it better. when the defendant objected that the conversation alleged to be between him and fbi agent, does not belong to him. the court rejected the plea and observed that government authenticated the chat room printouts by a number of circumstantial evidences. for instance, during the discussion in the chat room, the defendant gave the name, street number and email address. later, during search of defendant’s house, a page was found near his computer containing the email address, street number and telephone number given to the agent. 2. electronic evidence is circumstantial evidence itself. physical crime is proved with the help of circumstantial evidence which is electronic in nature. this can be best illustrated by a case, in year 2012, when a person named, christian aguilar disappeared. he was a friend of pedro bravo and both studied at the same university at florida. three weeks later, the dead body of augilar, was found from a grave, 60 miles away from his residence. he was last seen with his friend bravo. police suspected bravo had some relation with the disappearance. after search it was found that he was in possession of augilar’s backpack. the reason why bravo was upset with aguilar was that he had started a relationship with bravo’s ex-girlfriend. hence, digital evidence made this circumstantial case far more certain. electronic evidence experts had access to bravo’s cell phone and got many key pieces of proofs. examiners found out that in the cache for the phone’s facebook app, there was a screenshot of a siri search made near the time of aguilar’s disappearance that read, “i need to hide my roommate.” determining the tower that received signals from the cell phone, showed that bravo had moved far to the west after the disappearance. in the end, examiners were able to investigate that the flashlight app on the cell phone was used for almost one hour after the disappearance. after these evidences and proofs, bravo was tried in the court, in august 2014. during cross hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 91 examination he admitted the crime and was convicted of first-degree murder.72 in both the above mentioned situations, either of the party who has successfully established strong relationship between authentic electronic and circumstantial evidence, has got great chances to win the case. the matters in which electronic evidence is the proof itself, as a circumstantial evidence to the case, it is considered as a very strong proof. these proofs are a centre of attraction for the investigation officers because these proofs cannot be denied. for instance, dna test, finger prints, call records, text messages (record of the numbers and timings and on which texts are sent). qarênah in islamic law and rules for computer evidence circumstantial evidence in islamic law is lexically derived from the word qarênah. the word qarênah (pl. qaré’in) implies association, linkage, affiliation or genuine evidence. in the juristic sense, qarênah implies logical inference derived from certain facts from which a distinct conclusion can be reached at.73 technically, the meaning of qarênah in islamic jurisprudence is “some set of information or facts which demonstrate the presence or non-presence of a thing (fact). the evidence of fact must likely be proved in the court.”74 or it denotes “any signs and indications which show the existence or non-existence of a fact in issue (the thing claimed)”.75 proving or disproving a fact with the help of qarênah is endorsed by the qur’én, sunnah, and precedent of companions of prophet. the evidence in the qur’én includes: “so they both raced each other to the door, and she tore his shirt form the back. they both found her lord near the door. she said: “what is the (fitting) punishment for one who formed an evil design against your wife, but prison or a grievous chastisement? he said: “it was she that sought to seduce me from my (true) self” and one of her house hold saw (this) and bore witness, (thus) “if it be that his shirt is torn from the front, then her tale is true and he is a liar. but if it be that his shirt is torn from the back then she is the liar, and he is telling the truth!” so when he saw his shirt that it was torn at the back, (her husband) said: “behold! it is a snare of you admissibility of computer evidence92 women. truly, mighty is your snare!” o yësuf, pass this over! (o wife), ask forgiveness for your sin, for truly you are at a fault.”76 these verses relate the tale of prophet yësuf (joseph) in the qur’én and they are frequently cited in the fiqh books to legitimize the utilization of fortuitous proof in islamic law. the charge of enticement against the youthful yësuf was ruled outthrough circumstantial evidence alone. ibn qayyêm was among the advocates of the utilization of qarênah. indeed, even in ×udëd cases he stated that, “whosoever refuses to apply al-‘amarét and al-‘alamét (qarênah) in islamic law, verily, he has destroyed many rules and had neglected many rights.”77 most of the authorities, especially contemporary legal scholars, treat forensic evidence as a form of qarênah (circumstantial evidence). for instance, al-zuíaêylê maintains: “as a matter of fact in our contemporary time, there have emerged a number of powerful and clear forms of circumstantial evidences and indicators in the field of proof and evidence. for example, the identification of the culprit through fingerprints, blood testing, photographs, sound recordings, and blood sampling. . . . but the court has to be extremely cautious about using them as the chances of tampering with them are greatly worrisome.”78 prof. anwérullah, another contemporary thinker, classifies a number of forensic processes as circumstantial evidence. these include, autopsy results on the corpse, blood spots, finger impression, footprints, identification by tracks, handwriting samples, injury marks, violence marks on private parts of body of victim, and presence of incriminating objects, such as the weapon of the offence, and tire and radiator marks on the body of victim in case of accident.79 another renowned expert in this field, débur, includes forensic evidence as al-qaré’in al-mustaídathah (the modern types of circumstantial evidences). he points out that in case of an autopsy for determining the cause of death (for instance, when the criminal strangled the deceased and hanged him, just to show that the victim has committed suicide). other examples include blood tests for identification purposes or verification of finger impression and foot-prints, found on the objects used in the killing. all the above mentioned techniques, according to him, are tools which make the case stronger and a best source of hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 93 authentication.80 but this opinion is of a minority of jurists who are very few in number. majority of the jurists think that ×udëd and qiîéî cannot be executed on the basis of circumstantial evidence only without other corroborating evidences. but the judges have vast powers under the area of ta‘zêr punishments. if they are sure that wrong is being done by the accused they can give strict punishments. there are jurists who think that judge can even give death punishment by way of ta‘zêr. ibn taêmêyyah, ibn qayyêm al-jawzêyyah and ibn faríun integrated circumstantial evidence into fiqh doctrine of evidence and procedure. ibn qayyêm went so far as stating that physical indicators are stronger evidence than the testimony of witnesses, because they do not lie. expert witnesses, by knowing how to interpret physical indicators, or how to interpret “the language of things,” become indispensable aids to judges.81 conclusion classical islamic law did not leave any direct precedent for electronic evidence. but it did leave general principles given in sharê‘ah for evidence, which can help address new problems. rules pertaining to documentary evidence and circumstantial evidence provide a very strong analogical base for electronic evidence. these sharê‘ah principles can be easily compared with common law rules on electronic evidence to check their permissibility under sharê‘ah. computer evidence is a very vast field carrying a large number of types in it. significance of electronic evidence and its role in society is undeniable. it has put a great impact on trials and evidence system. most of the cases involve electronic evidence, whether it be documentary evidence generated electronically from a bankor a circumstantial evidence, derived from a cell phone of accused, or from internet browser history of accused. that is why judges are grappling with these issues and trying to settle the principles to have smooth working of electronic evidence during trial. four steps for seeking admissibility of electronic evidence are must. among them are relevance, authentication, rule against hearsay and best evidence rule. all these rules are designed to overcome the doubts attached to electronic evidence. fragile nature of electronic evidence leads to doubts about tampering, authorship etc. that is why authentication of evidence is of utmost importance. different kinds of evidence need different methods of authentication. electronic evidence operates differently in civil and criminal cases. admissibility of computer evidence94 in civil cases, electronic discovery is the most daunting task. similarly in criminal cases, evidence is seized by the investigation officers. the method of investigating, extracting, and presenting electronic evidence in court is very different from traditional as well as civil evidence. legal basis for admissibility in sharê‘ah is based on rules of documentary and circumstantial evidence. the qur’én gives special importance to kitébah. same is the case with sunnah of prophet (œ). during the glorious periods of muslim empires like abbasids, ottomans, documentary evidence was heavily used in courts and was referred to as a strong mean of proof. since electronic evidence is also a documentary evidence so it is admissible under islamic law. but islamic law admits authentic documentary evidence, either by testimony of just witnesses or documents which are self-authenticating (stamped, sealed), whose chain of custody is reliable and is free of doubts. similarly, electronic evidence shall be duly authenticated by the technological means available for its authentication or by just witnesses or experts, as per islamic law. this case may be applied unconditionally in civil cases, but in criminal cases this rule does not apply in case of ×udëd and qiîéî. these are fixed punishments, and cannot be executed solely on the basis of electronic evidence, due to element of doubt in it. if that element of doubt is erased by confession of parties, or oral testimony of just witnesses then ×udëd and qiîéî can be executed. there is no doubt that electronic evidence is a very strong circumstantial evidence, like, dna, finger prints, pictures, videos etc. these pieces of evidence strengthen the case a lot, especially if these evidences are corroborated by other evidences, they erase the element of doubt in it. the rule of documentary evidence in case of ×udëd and qiîéî applies to circumstantial evidence as well. but judges have very vast powers in case of ta‘zêr punishments. such offenders can be punished in a deterrent manner, to bring peace in society. notes and references 1 . scientific working group on imaging technologies. (1999). definitions and guidelines for the use of imaging technologies in the criminal justice system [on-line]. forensic science communications, 1(3). available: http://www.fbi.gov/ hq/lab/fsc/ backissu/oct1999/swigit2.html. 2 . dubey v (2017) admissibility of electronic evidence: an indian perspective. forensic res criminol int j 4(2): 00109. doi: 10.15406/frcij.2017.04.00109. https://medcraveonline.com/frcij/frcij-04-00109.pdf hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 95 3. ibid. 4. office of justice program, national institute of justice, digital evidence and forensics. https://www.nij.gov/topics/forensics/evidence/digital/pages/welcome.aspx 5 . stephen mason et al., electronic evidence 2nd edition (haryana: lexisnexis, 2012) 6. ibid. 7. ibid. 8. elf enterprise caledonia ltd v london bridge engineering limited [1997] scotcs 9. sean e. goodison, robert c. davis, and brian a. jackson, “digital evidence and the u.s. criminal justice system identifying technology and other needs to more effectively acquire and utilize digital evidence” rand cooperation, 2015, 3. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/248770.pdf. (last accessed, may 9, 2017) also in, dan morse, philip welsh’s simple life hampers search for his killer, washington post, may 6, 2014 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ crime/philip-welshs-imple-life-hampers-search-for-his-killer/2014/05/05/1fd20a52cff7-11e3-a6b1-45c4dffb85a6_story.html?utm_term=.cc88146e147f 10. for instance, a toddler died in the car by raising temperature. his father harris was caught because he had searched in his chrome similar information, like, what temperature is required to kill a child in a vehicle. see, michael pearson, “georgia toddler death: who is justin ross harris?” cnn news, june 28, 2014. http:/ /edition.cnn.com/2014/06/26/justice/georgia-toddler-death-father/index.html. (accessed january 30, 2017. 11. riley v california, 573 u.s. __ (2014), p. 32. 12. sayed sikanadar shah haneef “modern means of proof: legal basis for its accommodation in islamic law.” arab law quarterly 20, no. 4 (2006), p. 21. 13. ibid. 14. public prosecutor v. neo khoon sing [2008] sgdc 225. 15. dubey v (2017) admissibility of electronic evidence: an indian perspective. forensic res criminol int j 4(2): 00109. doi: 10.15406/frcij.2017.04.00109 https://medcraveonline.com/frcij/frcij-04-00109.pdf, p. 2. 16. ibid. 17. lorraine v. markel. 241 f.r.d. 534 (d. md. 2007), p. 14. 18. lorraine v. markel american ins. co. 241 f.r.d. 534 (d. md. 2007), at 18. 19. r v. mawji (rizwan) [2003] ewca crim 3067, [2003] all er (d) 285 (oct). 20. ira p. robbins, “writings on the wall: the need for an authorship-centric approach to the authentication of social-networking evidence.” minnesota journal of law, science and technology 13, no. 1. (2013). 21. states v. kassimu , 2006 wl 1880335 (5th cir. jul. 7, 2006) 22. frye v. united states, 54 app. d. c. 46, 293 f. 1013 (1923), daubert v. merrell dow pharmaceuticals, inc., 509 u. s. 579, 589 23. orin s. kerr, computer records and the federal rules of evidence, (2001), us department of justice, 18. 24. mason, electronic evidence, p. 254. 25. susan e.e.b. sherman, hearsay and evidence in the computer emergency response team (cert), p. 5. 26. paul rice, electronic evidence: law and practice, new york, aba publishing, 2005, p. 190. admissibility of computer evidence96 27. insa, fredesvinda. (2007), “the admissibility of electronic evidence in court (a.e.e.c): fighting against high-tech crime-result of a european study”, journal of digital forensic practice, 1:4, 29. available at: http://dx.doi.ord/ 10.1080/15567280701418049. 28. germany, belgium, spain, finland, france, ireland, italy, luxemburg, portugal and romania. 29. fredesvinda, the admissibility of electronic evidence, p. 29. 30. qanun-e-shahadat order, 1984, art 2(x) and 164. 31. larry daniel and lars daniel, digital forensics for legal professionals: understanding digital evidence from warrant to court room (waltham: elsvier, 2012), p. 113 32. ibid. 33. neutens, tijs, tim schwanen, frank witlox, and philippe de maeyer. “my space or your space? towards a measure of joint accessibility.” computers, environment and urban systems 32, no. 5 (2008), p. 334. 34. ibid. 35. electronic discovery reference model, edrm.net. accessed january 30, 2017. https://pacc-ccap.ca/pacc/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/edrm-chart_v3.pdf. 36. it includes getting electronic house in order. if a litigation management and the digital investigator is organized and he has a sense of what is located and where is it located? who has control over it? the task is going to be much more efficient. the particulars that we have been through in the last few pages which are required to conduct civil electronic discovery are particularly relevant here. 37. this process involves the location of potential esi sources.the content and scope, breadth and depth of relevant materials are identied. in this phase the main task is to figure out what is needed? what hard copies are there what soft copies they are going to be useful? who has access to the data? at this phase in house involvement is important. 38. this process may involve protection against destruction. electronically stored information is preserved from a variety of sources (e.g., tapes, pcs, networks, portable storage devices, etc.) and through a number of means. investigators are not allowed to carry on the investigation process on the originals. so they preserve it and copy it on some other sources. in this process a digital investigator has to make sure that the data may not have any alteration or manipulation, otherwise the data will lose its integrity in the court. 39. it involves conversion and reduction of data. the data is transferred from original or intermediate media to uniform media on which analysis is to be performed. 40. in this phase relevance and privilege of data is evaluated. hosting and searching 41. consists of the generation and delivery of reports to varied recipients (e.g., firm associates, partnering law firms, corporate legal counsel or other service providers). 42. it means presentation in court. 43. zubulake v. ubs warburg llc, 220 f.r.d. 212 (s.d.n.y. 2003). 44. orin s. kerr, “digital evidence and the new criminal procedure.” colum. l. rev. 105 (2005), p. 285. 45. prophet (œ) said, “evidence must be produced by the plaintiff and oath must be made by the defendant” kasani, vol. 7/287. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 97 46. muhammad al-zuhaily, wasail al-ithbat fi al-syariah al-islamiyyah fi al-muamalat almadaniyyah wa al-ahwal al-syakhsiyyah, (beirut: maktabah al-muayyad. 1994 47. sa‘di mustapa, mursilalaili, abdul rani kamarudin, and zulfakar ramlee saad. “reception of electronic evidence from islamic perspective.” australian journal of basic and applied sciences 9, no. 26 (sp) (2015), p. 31. 48. the qur’én [ii:282], translated by yusuf ali. 49. ahmad abdur-raheem sabree and younes souhaili, “evidence in the qur’én related to credit card transactions.” journal of islamic economics, banking and finance 113, no. 3158 (2015), 7/ 50. muíammad bin isma‘il (d. 256), saíií al-bukhari, vol. iii, (al-najat: dér al-tauq, 2001), bab: kaêfa yaktub, tradition no. 2698. 51. muíammad bin aímad bin abê sahl shams al-’ óa’ema alsarakhsê, almabsët, vol. xxx, beirut, dér al-ma‘rafa, 1993, p. 168. 52. sikandar shah haneef, modern means of proofs, p. 28. 53. the qur’én [lxv:2]. 54. states v. kassimu 2006 wl 1880335 (5th cir. jul. 7, 2006) 55. jonathan frieden, d., and leigh m. murray. “the admissibility of electronic evidence under the federal rules of evidence.” richmond journal of law & technology 17, no. 2 (2011), p. 16. 56. shams al-dên abë abd alléh muíammad ibn abë bakr ibn ayyëb al-zurê ldimashqê ×anbalê ibn qayyim, al-jaëzêah , al-turuq al-hukmiyyah fi al-siyasah al-shar‘iyyah, cairo, dér ul-madni, n.d, p. 220. 57. abd al-karim zaydan, nazam al-qada fi al-shari’ah al-islamiyyah, baghdad, matba’at al-’ani, 1984, p. 157. 58. in civil matters two witnesses are required in usual circumstances, for instance, child custody, marriage, contracts, wills, debts. etc. 59. in criminal cases number of witnesses is different in different type of offences. for instance in case of slandering and adultery four just witnesses are required. other hudood offences require two just witnesses. 60. purification. 61. muíammad bin aímad bin abê sahl shams al-’ óa’ema alsarakhsê, almabsët, vol. xvi, beirut, dér al-ma‘rafa, 1993), p. 112. 62. see articles, 1606 to 1612 of the mejelle, trans.tyser. c. r, lahore: law publication ltd, 1980. see also zaydan, nazam al-qada fi al-shari’ah alislamiyyah 157. 63. haneef, modern means of proofs, p. 29. 64. al-turuq al ×ukmiyah, p. 216. 65. mason, electronic evidence, p. 145. 66. haneef, modern means of proof, p. 362. 67. muhamad ibn ’isa al-tirmidhi, sunan al-tirmidhi, vol. iv, beirut, al-maktab alislami, 1988, p. 25. 68. haneef, modern means of proof, p. 363. 69. al-turuq al ×ukmiyah, 218. 70. ahmad syukran baharuddin et al., fiqh forensics: integration between sciences and islamic law for autopsies and identification of deceased, sains humanika 4:2 (2015), p. 3. admissibility of computer evidence98 71. 252 u.s. 465 (40 s.ct. 364, 64 l.ed. 665). 72. sean e. goodison, c. davis. robert, and a. jackson. brian. “digital evidence and the us criminal justice system.” 3. also in lauren effron, jim dubreuil and laura ramirez “girlfriend at center of gainesville love triangle never thought killer ex was capable of murder ” new york, abc news, aug 20, 2014.http:/ /abcnews.go.com/us/girlfriend-center-gainesville-love-triangle-thought-killercapable/story?id=25060406. 73. lisén al-‘arab, s.v “qarênah”, al-misbéí„al-munêr, s.v “qarênah”, 74. muíammad ‘amêm al-’ihsén al-mujaddê al-barkatê, qawa‘id al-fiqh, vol. i, karachi, sadaf publishers, 1986, p. 428. 75. milton j. cowan, dictionary of modern written arabic, 3rd ed., beirut, n.p., 1974, 760; elias a. elias, modern dictionary: arabic english, beirut, dar al-jalil, 1986), p. 537. 76. the qur’én [xii:25-29]. 77. muíammad bin abê bakr bin ’ayëb ibn qayêm al-jaëziah, al-turuq al-×ukmêyah (maktabah dér al-bayén, n.d), p. 4. 78. wahbah al-zuhaêlê, “al-fiqh al-islamê wa ’adiltuhu”, vol. vi, damascus, dér al-fikr, 1985, p. 556. 79. sikanadar shah ×aneef, “modern means of proof: legal basis for its accommodation in islamic law”, p. 343. 80. ibid, p. 345. 81. ron shaham, the expert witness in islamic courts; medicine and crafts in the service of law, london, the university of chicago press, 2010, p. 38. bibliography 1. alé’ al-dên abë bakr bin mas‘ud bin ‘aímad al-késénê, (d. 587h), “badé’i‘ al-øané’i fê tartêb al-sharé’i”. 2nd ed., vol. vii, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmêah, 1998. 2. al-nêsébërê. muslim bin al ×jéj abë al-×assan al-qashêrê, saíê„muslim., beêrët: dér ’iíyêé’ al-‘arabê. n.d). 3. al-jawziyyah, ibn qayyim, and muhammad bin abk bakr. “al-turuq alhukmiyyah fi al-siyasah al-shar‘iyyah (cairo: dér ul-madni, n.d), (1953). 4. al-shaf’ê, abë ×ussain yaíyah bin’abê al-khaêr al-‘imranê “albêyén fê-mazhab imém shafaê”, vol. xiii, jaddah, dér al-minhéj, 2000. 5. al-shêrézê . abë yësuf, “al-muhazab fê al-fêqh al-imém shaf‘aê”, vol. iii, dér al-kitab al-‘ilmiah, n.d. 6. al-qurtubê. abë ‘umar yësuf bin ‘abdullah, “al-kéfê fê fiqh al-madênah”, vol. ii, riadh, maktabah al-riadh al-×aditha: 1980. 7. al-damishqi. abdul mughnê bin ùalib bin ×améd bin ’ibrahêm, “albéb fê sharí„alkitéb”, beêrët, maktabah ‘ilmiah, n.d. 8. al-sarkhasê shamsud-u-dên muíammad ibn aímad ibn abê sahl, al-mabsët,, vol. xxx, beirut, al-ma’rifah publishers, 1998. 9. amnon. cohen, the guild of ottomon jerushelum. boston: brill, 2001. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 3 99 10. al-zuhaêlê wahbah, “al-fiqh al-islamê wa ’adiltuhu”, vol. x, .damascus: dér al-fikr, 1985. 11. dabër, anwar mahmud. al-qara’in wa dawruhafi alfiqh al-jina’i al-islami. cairo: dar al-thaqafah, al-arabiyyah, 1985. 12. seng, daniel kb. “computer output as evidence.” singapore journal of legal studies, july 1997 (1997), pp. 159-166. 13. duranti, luciana. rogers, corinne. sheppard, anthony. “electronic records and the law of evidence in canada: the uniform electronic evidence act twelve years later”, arhivaria70 (fall 2010); pp. 95-124. 14. davidson, alan. the law of electronic commerce. new delhi: cambridge university press, 2009. 15. daniel, larry and lars daniel. digital forensics for legal professionals: understanding digital evidence from warrant to court room. waltham: elsvier, 2012. 16. leroux, oliveier. “legal admissibility of electronic evidence,” international review of law, computers & technology 18, no. 2: (2007), pp. 193-220. 17. fredesvinda insa (2007), “the admissibility of electronic evidence in court (a.e.e.c): fighting against high-tech crime-result of a european study”, journal of digital forensic practice, 1:4, 285-289, accessed: may 9, 2017. http:/ /dx.doi.ord/10.1080/1da5567280701418049 18. finkelstein, sheldon m., and evelyn r. storch. “admissibility of electronically stored information: it’s still the same old story.” j. am. acad. matrimonial law. 23 (2010), p. 45. 19. goodison, sean e., robert c. davis, and brian a. jackson. digital evidence and the u.s. criminal justice system: identifying technology and other needs to more effectively acquire and utilize digital evidence. rand corporation, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/j.ctt15sk8v3. 20. goodison, sean e., robert c. davis and brian a. jackson. digital evidence and the u.s. criminal justice system: identifying technology and other needs to more effectively acquire and utilize digital evidence. santa monica, ca: rand corporation, 2015. http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/rr890 21. gauthier, johanne. “the admissibility of computer-generated evidence: an overview” canadian maritime law associates, november,1997. http:// w w w . c m l a . o r g / p a p e r s / a d m i s s i b i l i t y% 2 0 o f % 2 0 c o m p u t e r % 2 0 g e n e r a t e d % 2 0 e v i d e n c e . johanne%20gauthier. 28. nov. 1997. pdf (last accessed january 23rd, 2017). 22. haneef, sayed sikanadar shah. “modern means of proof: legal basis for its accommodation in islamic law.” arab law quarterly 20, no. 4 (2006), pp. 334364. 23. ibn nujaêm. zaên al-dên bin ibrahêm bin muíammad, “al-baír ar–ré’iq sharí kanz al-daqaiq”, vol. viii, dér al-kitéb al-islémê, n.d. 24. ibn rushd. abë al-walêd muíammad bin aímad, “bidéyat almujtahid wa nihéyat al-muqtaîid”, vol. iv, cairo, dér al-×adith, 2004. 25. ibn ‘óbidên, muíammad amên bin ‘umar, “héshiyah ibn ‘óbidên: rad al-muítér ’ala al-dér al mukhtér”, vol. vi, beêrut: dér al-fikr, 1992. 26. ibn taimêah, taqqi-u-din muíammad. (d. 728), majmê‘ fatéwé shaykh al-islém admissibility of computer evidence100 aímad b. taimêah, vol. xxxv, majma‘ al-malik fahad li-tabé‘ah muîhaf, 1995. 27. kerr, orin s. “digital evidence and the new criminal procedure.” colum. l. rev. 105 (2005), p. 279. 28. duranti. luciana, rogers, corinne, and sheppard. anthony, “electronic records and the law of evidence in canada: the uniform electronic evidence act twelve years later”, arhivaria70 (fall 2010); pp. 95-124. 29. ________________ “trust in digital records: an increasingly cloudy legal area”, computer law and security law review 28, (2012): 527 30. leroux, olivier. “legal admissibility of electronic evidence 1.” international review of law, computers & technology 18, no. 2 (2004), pp. 193-220. 31. meshal, reem a. sharia and the making of the modern egyptian: islamic law and custom in the courts of ottoman. cairo, oxford university press, 2014. 32. maësëa fiqhiyah al-qëêtêyah, vol. xlv, qëaêt: dér al-salésil, 2006. 33. mawsilee. abdullaah al, al-ikhtiyaar li ta’leel al-mukhtaar, ed. ‘ali abdulkhayr and muhammad sulaymaan vol. i. damascus: dar al-khayr publishers, 1998. 34. mason, stephen. et al., “electronic evidence” 2nd edition. haryana, lexisnexis, 2012. 35. _________________”electronic evidence: dealing with encrypted data and understanding software, logic and proof.” in era forum, vol. xv, no. 1, pp. 2536. springer berlin heidelberg, 2014. 36. posner, richard a. “an economic approach to the law of evidence.” stanford law review (1999), pp. 1477-1546. 37. rice, paul. p. electronic evidence: law and practice. new york: aba publishing, 2005. 38. robert, jerome j. , “a practitioner’s primer on computer-generated evidence”, the university of chicago. law review 41(2), pp. 254-280 39. muíammad bin isma‘il (d. 256), saíií al-bukhari, vol. ix al-najat: dér al-tauq, 2001. 40. swift, eleanor. “abolishing the hearsay rule.” cal. l. rev. 75 (1987), p. 495. 41. turner, philip. “digital provenance – interpretation, verification and corroboration”, digital investigation 2.1 (2005), pp. 45-49. 42. u.s government, searching and seizing computers and obtaining electronic evidence in criminal investigations, (general books, 2011), accessed: september 1, 2015. thttp://www.cybercrime.gov/s&smanual2002.htm, october 2004. 43. wakin. jeanette, the function of documents in islamic law. new york, state university of new york press, 1972. hamdard islamicus 73 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the concept of the injôl in ×adôth literature1 an analytical study muhammad islam lecturer, islamic research institure, international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan. email: mislamiri@hotmail.com the prophetic traditions constitute very authoritative, normative source of islam, second only to the qur’én. therefore, it is significant to explore the treasures of ×adêth in order to explain islamic view of the injêl, the book entrusted to prophet ‘ôsé (*), and its relation to the canonical gospels of the christians. for this purpose, the article begins with a discussion about waraqah b. nawfal’s manuscript of the injêl, referred to in one of the most authentic collections of aíédêth (i.e., bukhérê’s collection). it then develops to survey the aíédêth, which describe when and how the injêl was sent down, in order to highlight the nature of its revelation. the paper, afterwards, turns to the question of the corruption of the previous scriptures especially the injêl as addressed in the prophetic traditions. finally, it discusses how the prophetic narrations view the prophecies about the advent of prophet muíammad (œ) as foretold in the previous scriptures especially the injêl. the article ends with a critical appraisal and concludes that the prophetic traditions’ concept of the injêl is largely an extension of that of the qur’én. they also provide specific insights into how the corruption crept into the christian scriptures and whether the alteration was of both the text and meaning or of the meaning alone. introduction for muslims, the prophetic traditions have normative authority and constitute the divine revelation, though the words are of prophet muíammad (œ) himself. only the qur’én – the verbatim revelation of allah – has precedence over them as a source of the islamic law. muslims’ high regard for the prophetic traditions, therefore, makes them immensely crucial for the study of any religious concept in islam. islam does not proclaim to be an absolutely new religion.2 rather, it presents hamdard islamicus 74 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 itself as a continuation of the previous revelations entrusted to ódam, nëí, ibréhêm, mësé, dé’wëd, and ‘ôsé ( ), among many other prophets and messengers ( ).3 the injêl (gospel) stands prominent among the previous revelations not only because it was sent to prophet muíammad’s (œ) immediate predecessor prophet ‘ôsé (*), but also because it is associated with the largest religious community of the contemporary world.4 however, whereas the christians see the gospels as a record of revelation not the revelation itself* (because for them it is jesus christ (*) who is the revelation of god),5 the injêl perceived by the prophetic traditions – in agreement with the view of the qur’én – seems to signify a direct revelation entrusted to ‘ôsé (*). therefore, it is important to study the concept of the injêl as perceived by the prophetic traditions and investigate what is the relation between the christian gospels and the injêl mentioned in the íadêth literature. the study might lead to significant implications for the dialogue between two major religious communities of the world. literature review despite the importance of the topic, one hardly finds any significant study, specifically addressing the above-mentioned question. british missionary william gairdner (d. 1928) wrote an article “moíammedan tradition and gospel record: the ×adêth and the injêl” in 1915.6 he, however, solely focuses on how the christian gospels and muslim íadêth literature were preserved and developed in the course of history. drawing completely upon the late nineteenthand early twentieth-century orientalist ignaz goldziher’s (d. 1921) conclusions and opinions about the authenticity and historicity of íadêth literature,7 he proceeds to prove the superiority of the gospel record over prophetic traditions in terms of authenticity, reliability, and withstanding the onslaught of the historical critical method.8 although, the main thesis of this article does not directly relate to the present study, it did foreshadow wilfred c. smith’s (d. 2000) later proposition that christian gospels’ more accurate equivalent in islam is íadêth literature and not the qur’én.9 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *the four versions of injêl are in fact not the original divine message to ‘ôsé (*) but rather versions of four of his apostles, mathew, mark, luke and john. hamdard islamicus 75 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 sidney griffith (b. 1938), in his broader quest for the appearance of the earliest translations of the christian gospels into arabic, discusses three early muslim sources, which refer to the injêl or its contents. the first is ibn isíéq’s (d. ca. 767 c.e.) biography of prophet muíammad (œ). ibn isíéq quotes the gospel of john (15:23-16:1) as a scriptural proof of the future coming of prophet muíammad (œ). following earlier scholars (i.e., anton baumstark [d. 1948] and alfred guillaume10 [d. 1965]), griffith holds that ibn isíéq’s quotation certainly draws upon some version of the palestinian syriac lectionary.11 he also refers to certain “corrections and alterations,”12 which the biographer introduced to the text in order to make it in harmony with islamic doctrines, such as replacing the phrase “my father” with “the lord.” griffith concludes that ibn isíéq alone, or with assistance of some arabic-speaking christian, translated the syriac text into arabic in order to incorporate it into his biography. the second reference includes muslim sources especially the report of bukhérê, which narrate that waraqah b. nawfal, an older contemporary of prophet muíammad (œ) and cousin of his wife khadêjah (g), used to write/read injêl bi ’l-‘arabiyyah/bi ’l-‘ibréniyyah. griffith, however, confines himself mainly to the question concerning the language in which the gospel reached to waraqah and the language in which he used to write/read it. he suggests that the gospel in possession of waraqah was most probably in syriac and that he in all likelihood copied it in his native language, arabic. the last muslim source, which griffith discusses in relation to muslim references to the injil, is wahb b. munabbih (d) (d. 732 c.e.). he notes that wahb ibn munabbih (d) presents his accounts of the torah and the injêl in a manner that agrees with qur’énic teachings about their message.11 moreover, the sources of his reports, griffith continues, “were in languages other than arabic, most probably syriac, and possibly some greek.”13 griffith is obviously conscious of the difference between the muslim perception of the injêl and christian understanding of the gospels. that is why, he makes it clear from the outset that he aims to search for the earliest arabic translations of the canonical gospels and not to study the image of the injêl as perceived by the qur’én, prophetic narrations, or broader muslim tradition. american historian of islam david cook (b. 1966) – largely agreeing with griffith’s conclusion that arabic translations of the christian gospels did not appear until the early ‘abbésid period and that citations predating hamdard islamicus 76 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 this period drew upon individual, perhaps oral translations, often paraphrases, and not upon a larger translated text – studies verbatim or paraphrased new testament citations found in the íadêth literature in search for early arabic translations of the gospels.14 adding to the work of tarif khélidi,15 he collects fifty-nine íadêth selections, which in his view, are from the new testament. as most of these alleged citations are from matthew, cook proposes, “there was a muslim translation of the gospel of matthew into arabic, or at least of those parts which were not objectionable to the early muslims.”16 although, cook explores the vast corpus of íadêth,17 it is not his intention to elaborate the concept of the injêl as imagined by the prophetic traditions. this brief review of the literature shows that the limitations of the previous studies leave sufficient research gape to be filled by further research. the injêl possessed by waraqah b. nawfal it is significant to survey íadêth literature in order to illuminate the concept of the injêl preserved by waraqah b. nawfal. waraqah b. nawfal (d. ca. 611 c.e.) b. asad b. ‘abd al-‘uzzé b. quîayy was the cousin of khadêjah (g), the wife of prophet muíammad (œ). his lineage meets with that of the prophet (œ) on quîayy, the third grandfather of waraqah and khadêjah and the fourth one of the prophet (œ).18 in muslim literature, waraqah is remembered for his knowledge of the scriptures, both the tawréh (torah) and the injêl.19 he was one of the few makkans who renounced paganism and became monotheists before the advent of islam.20 muslim sources testify to his adoption of christianity.21 the famous historian muíammad b. ×abêb (d. 245 a.h.) explains, why waraqah leaned to christianity. according to him, waraqah composed an elegy, to mourn his christian cousin ‘uthmén b. al-×uwayrith, who was allegedly killed by ‘amr b. abê shamir, the christian sovereign of syria. when ‘amr b. abê shamir came to know the elegy he swore to kill warqah. on hearing this news, waraqah left makkah to take refuge in the territory of the tayy’ tribe, where he remained for a long time.22 tayy’ was one of the arab tribes into which christianity had penetrated before the advent of islam.23 then waraqah went to bahrain.24 again, bahrain was one of the arabian cities where christianity flourished prior to islam.25 a bahraini christian taught waraqah how to seek pardon hamdard islamicus 77 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 from the king. he advised him to go to the king and seek the protection of christ (*) from the king. as waraqah did what the christian told him to do, the king not only forgave him but also gave protection to him and his people. all this touched him so much that he felt an inclination for christianity.26 a tradition narrates that waraqah also visited negus, the king of abyssinia, after the unsuccessful military expedition of abrahah against makkah.27 nevertheless, its detailed account seems to be mythological more functional than historical. famous íadêth scholar ibn ×ajar (d. 1449) maintains that waraqah left makkah for syria and other lands in search of true religion. he accepted christianity and met those monks who followed the pure and intact religion of the prophet ‘ôsé (*).28 probably, from such monks he learned about the expected advent of a prophet and subsequently attested his prophethood as did salmén, the persian (d). the traditions, which describe the incident of the first revelation to the prophet muíammad (œ), relate that waraqah used to write or read the injêl. however, they do not agree on the language in which he used to write or read. bukhérê relates twice that waraqah “used to write al-kitéb al-‘arabê and write down from the injêl bi ’l-‘arabiyyah whatever allah wanted him to write.”29 the version of this íadêth, related in the øaíêí muslim is in accordance with this reading.30 in another place, however, bukhérê relates, “he used to write al-kitéb al-‘ibrénê and he would write down from the injêl bi ’l-‘ibréniyyah.”31 elsewhere he narrates, “he used to read the injêl bi ’l-‘arabiyyah.”32 a survey of íadêth literature shows that most of the traditions, including those of bukhérê, maintain that waraqah used to write or read the injêl bi ’l-‘arabiyyah.33 only one version of one tradition quoted in bukhérê reads that he used to write al-kitéb al-‘ibrénê, and write down from the injêl bi ’l-‘ibréniyyah.”34 muslim commentators of the íadêth do not see this variation of reading much problematic. they regard both readings as authentic, arguing that since waraqah knew both languages he wrote the injêl in arabic as well as in hebrew.35 even some commentators hold that waraqah was a polyglot and supposedly knew three languages, arabic, hebrew and syriac, arguing that the injêl had originally been written in syriac and that waraqah used to copy it in arabic and hebrew simultaneously.36 ibn hamdard islamicus 78 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 hishém, on the other hand, records, “waraqah professed christianity, read the scriptures, and heard from the people of the tawrah and the injêl.”37 however, he leaves mention of the language in which waraqah read or wrote the scriptures, perhaps to avoid creating confusion. it is important, however, to note that muslim scholars unfortunately did not inquire how this mutli-lingual injêl disappeared. perhaps, one reason for not preservation of waraqah’s injêl was that he did not live long after prophet muíammad (œ) experienced the first revelation of the qur’én. waraqah died circa 611 c.e. even before the prophet (œ) was directed to announce his prophetic mission publicly. muíammad ×amêdullah (d. 2002) opines that the word ‘ibréniyyah, mentioned in bukhérê, denotes syriac and not hebrew. he attempts to reconcile the variant readings of bukhérê’s report saying, “both may be true; having learnt syriac he could read in that language, and also translate in his mother tongue, arabic.”38 the inconsistency, however, has not been completely resolved, for bukhérê’s report manifestly reads that he used to write in ‘ibréniyyah as well.39 the famous orientalist aloys sprenger (d. 1893) proposes that the “hebrew” in question is actually the aramaic script employed by jews, and that in this narration it means that waraqah wrote arabic injêl in the aramaic script. therefore, in his view there is no real conflict between the two versions of the narration.40 this view has further been elaborated with some modifications by the lebanese historian kamél salibi (d. 2011) who holds that hebrew in this context “could have meant either biblical hebrew or aramaic. for the term often indicated the common script in which the two related languages could be written, rather than the language itself.”41 he argues that in post-exilic times, aramaic rapidly replaced hebrew as the common israelite language, and the hebrew script was maintained for it.42 he concludes that “the gospel which still existed in arabia in the seventh century a.d. – the one used by waraqah ibn nawfal – was most probably written in aramaic, not hebrew.”43 this implies that that injêl was written in aramaic, but using the hebrew script. however, griffith, criticizing sprenger’s view, says, historically there is not only the example of arabic speaking jews writing arabic in “hebrew” characters. syriac speakers also hamdard islamicus 79 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 employed their own alphabets to write arabic, a writing called garšuni in syriac. but waraqah, a meccan and a native arabic speaker, and not a jew but an alleged christian, would hardly have had any need to borrow the “hebrew” script. by this time the north arabic script, albeit with an obvious debt to the syriac script in its origins, would certainly have been available to waraqah.44 griffith inclines to hold that in all likelihood the christians of ×ijéz had their injêl in syriac during the prophet muíammad’s (œ) time, and that waraqah b. nawfal copied from the injêl in his native, arabic language. he argues that the arabic speaking christians had strong ties with and were influenced by the syriac speaking christians and that the language of the vernacular scriptures in much of syria and palestine before the rise of islam was the aramaic dialect known as palestinian syriac.45 he does not clearly mention the language of the injêl from which waraqah copied in arabic. however, one may safely assume, after analyzing his arguments, that it was syriac. he explains the variant of the narrative which reads, “he [waraqah] used to write al-kitéb al-‘ibrénê, and he would write down from the injêl bi ’l-‘ibréniyyah” as a later correction of the narrative, interpolated by someone who thought that the language of the original injêl was hebrew.46 however, this explanation may not be correct, for it is based on a disputed hypothesis, that is, íadêth literature was produced to meet the requirements of islamic apologetics. a book entitled the qass wa nabê suggests that waraqah was associated with the ebonite heresy and the injêl he possessed the hebrew gospel of matthew which is also known as gospel according to the hebrews.47 this view, however, is not correct either. because there is no evidence that this sect – which flourished in transjordan in the early centuries of the christian era – survived until the seventh and, what is more, in makkah.48 quite interestingly, ibn taymiyyah (d. 728 a.h.) proclaims – in the context of refuting the christian claim that the disciples translated the tawrah and the injêl into every language – that arabs never possessed any arabic version of the tawrah or injêl since the time of the messiah. even there had not been any manuscript of tawrah or injêl at all in hamdard islamicus 80 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 makkah, neither in arabic nor in non-arabic. his argument rests on the unavailability of the ancient arabic manuscripts of the scriptures as well as on the qur’énic verse (xxviii:46), which implies that no messenger came to makkans before prophet muíammad (œ).49 however, his argument seems to be fallacious partially because authentic sources indicate that the injêl in some form was found in makkah during the seventh century c.e.50 and partially because the above-quoted verse does not necessarily imply that there had not been any kind of scripture in makkah before the advent of islam. after analyzing the available data, it seems that the injêl possessed by waraqah – regardless of whether it was a complete manuscript of the injêl or only a fragment – was most probably written in syriac, not because bukhérê’s report may be interpreted as implying this. instead, because the historical evidences indicate that the language of the vernacular scriptures in much of syria and palestine – whence christianity came to arabia – before the rise of islam was syriac. this syriac known as palestinian syriac was, in fact, a dialect of aramaic.51 since hebrew and aramaic (palestinian syriac) used to be written in a common script – as salibi proposes – it is possible that muslim literature sometimes has confusingly named syriac as hebrew. therefore, it seems that when muslim literature reads, “he [waraqah] used to write al-kitéb al-‘ibrénê, and he would write down from the injêl bi ’l-‘ibréniyyah” it may mean that he used to write in syriac. on the other hand, those who hold that it was written in aramaic perhaps they mean by it palestinian syriac that was a specific dialect of aramaic. how and when was the injêl revealed? muslims believe that many divine books descended on the respective prophets ( ) prior to the qur’’én. some prophetic traditions clearly describe when and how these divine books or sheets (îuíëf) were revealed. therefore, an analysis of such narrations may help to understand the concept of the injêl as perceived by the íadêth literature. muslim muíaddêth sulaymén b. aímad al-ùabarénê (d. 360 h./ 917 c.e.) narrates on the authority of the companion wéthilah b. asqa‘ (d) who narrates from prophet muíammad (œ) the following: “the sheets of ibréhêm descended on the first night of hamdard islamicus 81 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 ramaìén; the tawrah descended on the sixth night of ramaìén; the injêl descended on the thirteenth night of ramaìén; the zabër descended on the eighteenth night of ramaìén; and the qur’én descended on the twenty-fourth night of ramaìén.”52 this tradition refers to the sheets of ibréhêm (*) along with the four famous divine books. the qur’én also makes brief references to them (liii:36-37; lxxxvii:18-19). it is interesting to note that this prophetic tradition describes all of these books revealed on the nights of ramaìén with an interval of about six days (i.e., 1st, 6th, 13th, 18th, and 24th of ramaìén). the zabër has been mentioned after the injêl, which is against the chronological order of their revelation, for the latter was revealed after the former. moreover, all of these scriptures have been described to descend in an identical pattern, which implies that the nature of the previous revelations, including that of the injêl, was the same as of the qur’én itself. however, there are some other versions of this íadêth, which differ from the above in some details. for instance, aímad b. ×anbal (r.a.) mentions the same tradition on the authority of same wéthilah b. asqa‘ (d) from the messenger of god (œ). however, he omits the mention of the zabër.53 on the other hand, ismé‘êl b. kathêr mentions that ibn mardawayh narrates the same íadêth on the authority of jébir b. ‘abd allah (d). however, he reverses the order of zabër and injêl as he makes the revelation of the zabër on the twelfth of ramaìén and of the injêl on the eighteenth of ramaìén.54 in spite of all these variations, these traditions indicate that each of these divine books, including the injêl, descended on its respective prophet on a specific night of ramaìén. perhaps for this reason, majority of muslim scholars hold that the previous divine books (i.e., øaíêfah, sheets, tawréh, zabër, and injêl) were sent down all at once and the qur’én was sent down to bayt al-‘izzah in the first heaven in the same way and then whence it descended on the prophet (œ) step by step.55 these narrations also signify the importance of ramaìén in relation to all revelations, especially the qur’én, which claims about itself that it has been sent down in ramaìén (ii:185), specifically on laylat al-qadr (xcvii:1). later muslim scholars provide specific details in this regard, perhaps using such traditions along with some biblical material. for instance, ibn kathêr narrates on the authority of abë zër‘ah al-dimashqê hamdard islamicus 82 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 (d. 281 a.h.) that the tawréh descended on mësé (*) on the sixth night of ramaìén; the zabër descended on the twelfth night of ramaìén after 482 years from the tawrah; the injêl descended on ‘ôsé b. maryam (*) on the eighteenth night of ramaìén after 1050 years from zabër; and the qur’én descended on the twenty-fourth night of ramaìén.56 it should also be noted that such prophetic traditions are in agreement with the qur’én, which maintains that the injêl was a divine book revealed to prophet ‘ôsé (*) by allah. they do not support the christian view of the gospels, which denies that god revealed to jesus (*) any specific book known as the gospel and maintains that the evangelists composed gospels after jesus (*) as a historical record of his life and works. certain prophetic traditions depict the previous scriptures as containing sërahs (chapters) in the same way as does the qur’én. they also compare some specific sërahs of the qur’én with previous revealed books, along with the injêl. aímad b. ×anbal (r.a.), for instance, mentions on the authority of wéthilah b. asqa‘ (d) from the prophet (œ), “i have been given al-sab‘ instead of the tawréh, al-mi’ên instead of the zabër, and al-mathénê instead of the injêl, as well as i have been given superiority by al-mufaîîal.”57 it is generally held that the term al-sab‘ or al-sab‘ al-ùiwél signifies first seven sërahs of the qur’én, excluding al-fétiíah, al-anfél and al-tawbah, (i.e., al-baqarah, ól-‘imrén, al-nisé’, al-mé’idah, al-an‘ém, al-a‘réf, and yënus).58 some scholars replace yënus with al-anfél and al-tawbah, considering them one sërah.59 al-mi’ên are those sërahs, which contain hundred and above verses. the term al-mathénê, on the other hand, is interpreted either as sërah al-fétiíah or as those sërahs, which are longer than al-mufaîîal but shorter than al-mi’ên.60 perhaps in the present context, it is better to adopt the second interpretation, for in another prophetic tradition, sërah al-fétiíah has been declared a unique sërah, which has no equivalent sërah in any previous revealed book.61 in some other versions of the above-mentioned prophetic tradition, al-mathénê were made substitute for the zabër instead of the injêl.62 elsewhere, al-mé’idah was made substitute for the injêl and al-×émêm for the zabër as well as the tawréh was described to be replaced by al-mathénê.63 it has also been reported that ùéha, ùésên, and ×émêm hamdard islamicus 83 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 were revealed to prophet muíammad (œ) from the tablets (alwéí) of mësé (*) and sërat al-baqarah from al-dhikr al-awwal.64 moreover, some less-authentic traditions state that the prophet was given al-sab‘ in place of the tawrét, al-ré’ét in place of the injêl, and sërahs between al-ùésên and al-×émêm in place of the zabër as well as he was exclusively honored by al-×émêm and al-mufaîîal, as none of the prophets ( ) ever recited them before him.65 it is obvious that these traditions differ markedly and it seems difficult to reconcile them. however, all of them do agree on that some parts of the qur’én – whatever they are – correspond to some previous revealed books. this view is further strengthened by the following saying of ‘abd allah b. [mas‘ëd] (d) which reads, “al-sab‘ al-ùuwél are like tawréh, al-mi’ên like injêl, al-mathénê like zabër and the rest of the qur’én is surplus (which has no match in the previous revelations).”66 on the other hand, it has also been reported that the prophet (œ) described some of the qur’énic sërahs viz. al-fétiíah, al-ikhléî, al-falaq, and an-nés, as the best sërahs, which had no similitude in the tawréh, the zabër, the injêl or even in the qur’én itself.67 it seems that the main thrust of such traditions is to establish the merits (faìé’il) of the qur’énic sërahs as well as to demonstrate the supremacy of the qur’én over the previous scriptures. however, they do imply that the authentic previous revelations – including the injêl – have been considered, in the íadêth literature, verbatim word of god as are certain sërahs of the qur’én and not as historical or biographical records compiled by the followers of the prophets ( ). some other traditions inform about the number of previous revealed books. however, such narrations too, have the problem of variations as they differ in their accounts. ibn ×abbén narrates – on the authority of abë dharr (d) – from prophet muíammad (œ) that allah revealed one hundred and four books. fifty sheets descended on shêth (*), thirty sheets on idrês (*), ten sheets on ibréhêm (*), and ten sheets on mësé (*) before the tawréh. moreover, the tawréh, the injêl, the zabër, and the qur’én descended (on their respective prophets [ ]).68 this tradition mentions some details about the contents of the sheets of ibréhêm and mësé ( ) as well. one also observes that it informs about the number of hamdard islamicus 84 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 divine scriptures and about the prophets ( ) to whom they were revealed. however, historical and sêrah literature provides some different information in this regard. muíammad b. yësuf al-øéliíê (d. 942 a.h.) mentions that sheets of ódam (*) were fifty one, of shêth (*) were twenty, and of idrês (*) were thirty.69 on the other hand, ibn iyés al-×anafê (d. ca. 930/1524) relates on the authority of al-tha‘labê that the books descended on the envoys are four: the tawréh, the injêl, the zabër, and the furqén. as far as the revealed sheets are concerned, they are 110:sixty sheets descended on shêth b. ódam (*), thirty sheets on idrês (*), and twenty sheets on ibréhêm (*).70 it is obvious that above-mentioned traditions, too, place the injêl and the qur’én in the line of all previous revealed books and do not indicate to any substantial difference between the natures of these revelations. this notion is corroborated by the qur’énic verse, “we have sent thee inspiration, as we sent it to noah and the messengers after him: we sent inspiration to abraham, ismé‘êl, iséc, jacob and the descendants, to jesus, job, jonah, óaron, and solomon, and to david we gave the psalms” (iv:163).71 however, this understanding leads one to the following question: if the prophetic traditions perceived the injêl as having the same revelatory nature as that of the qur’én, then what was their approach to the scriptures possessed by the christians of the prophetic era? the question of corruption the íadêth literature not only provides information about the history of the alteration of the previous revealed books,but it also informs about the nature of jewish-christian scriptural corruption, during the early islamic period. there are certain traditions, which explain how distortion crept into the previous scriptures of the people of the book, especially the injêl. they also shed light on motives behind the falsification of scriptures. the íadêth literature blames the rulers for corrupting the christian scriptures. a tradition – reported from ibn ‘abbés (d) – charges those rulers who came after the era of prophet ‘ôsé (*) of altering the tawréh and the injêl.72 such alteration, however, did not gain the acceptance of all christians as a minority of them continued to read the tawréh and the injêl in their intact forms. nevertheless, those who altered hamdard islamicus 85 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 their scriptures complained to the rulers that some of their coreligionists had annoyed them by reading intact scriptures and charging them with blasphemy for not judging by what allah had revealed. moreover, they asked the rulers to force the believers to read and believe as they themselves read and believed. consequently, the rulers called the true believers and gave them a choice between the death and reading the intact tawréh and the injêl. the believers, however, sought to strike a deal and accepted to live in exile.73 various forms of this self-exile correspond to three kinds of monastic life. one group said, “build for us a column (usïuwénah), then raise us up to it and give us something so that we could lift up our food and drink. thus we would not be able to mix with you.”74 another group chose a different path, saying, “let us roam about the land and wander, drinking what the beasts drink. if you find us in your territories, kill us.”75 yet a third group demanded, “build for us a dwelling in the desert and we will dig wells and cultivate herbs, so we would neither come to you nor pass by you.”76 since all tribes had friends among the believers, they let them choose self-exile.77 this tradition illuminates the beginning of monasticism in christianity on the one hand and explains the starting point of the scriptural alteration in christianity, on the other. it seems that the believers who made a deal with those who corrupted the scriptures correspond to the third category of those three christian groups, whose mention one finds in another prophetic tradition reported on the authority of ‘abd allah b. mas‘ëd (d). it begins with a quotation from prophet muíammad (œ) that those who preceded him subdivided into seventy-two groups of which only three were saved while the rest perished. the first of these actively opposed the unjust rulers. however, they were slain, defending the religion of god and that of ‘ôsé b. maryam (*). the second group lacking the courage of opposing the rulers, stayed among their people, preaching them about the religion of god and that of ‘ôsé b. maryam (*). however, the rulers also killed them, sawing them up into pieces. the third group lacking the courage of opposing the rulers and living among their people in order to preach them about allah and the religion of ‘ôsé b. maryam (*), wandered around the mountains, living as monks and hermits.78 on the base of the above mentioned, one may argue that the hamdard islamicus 86 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 attempts were made to corrupt the tawréh and the injêl by the rulers as early as after the ascension of prophet ‘ôsé (*). however, some faithful believers resisted such attempts. nevertheless, the powerful rulers overwhelmed and slew them. others changed the strategy and did not involve in direct opposition to the rulers. instead, they lived peacefully and preached to the masses. however, the rulers did not tolerate them either and killed them mercilessly. realizing their helplessness, the remaining true believers preferred to flee into the deserts and mountains to save their faith. as a result, the official christianity became corrupted having changed its scriptures while the true followers of prophet ‘ôsé (*) scattered into remote areas beyond the jurisdiction of the christian authorities in order to escape the persecution, probably preserving with them fragments of the original injêl of prophet ‘ôsé (*). the official christianity excommunicated them, declaring them heretic and their scriptures apocryphal and extra-canonical. one should not surmise, however, that the doctrines of the third group completely remained intact. it was hardly possible in such circumstances. in fact, the qur’én and the íadêth literature indicate that the doctrines of the third group also could not remain pure and that polytheism (shirk) crept into the beliefs of their subsequent adherents.79 however, they were the people, as the traditions say, among whom a few survived until the advent of islam. so “a man descended from his cell (îawma‘ah), a wanderer came forth from his wanderings, the one who had a constructed dwelling (îéíib al-dayr) came from his abode and they all believed in and confirmed the prophethood of muíammad (œ).”80 besides providing information about the history of the corruption of the previous scriptures, the íadêth literature sheds light on the perspective of the prophet (œ) and his companions to the scriptures available in the seventh century c.e. some traditions apparently indicate that the texts of the tawréh and the injêl were not distorted. instead, they were misinterpreted. bukhérê narrates on the authority of ibn ‘abbés (d) that the word yuíarrifën means that they displace (yuzêlën).81 then he further elaborates it by saying, “no one displaces the text of any book of god – the exalted and glorious – rather they commit taírêf, which means that they wrongly interpret it.”82 muslim scholars have differed, however, whether this further hamdard islamicus 87 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 elaboration is of ibn ‘abbés (d) or bukhérê’s explanation of ibn ‘abbés’s statement. shéh walê allah of delhi associates the literal distortion committed by jews with the translation of the tawréh and not with its original text and ascribes this view to ibn ‘abbés (d).83 however, other scholars ascribe this explanation to bukhérê himself. a íadêth scholar ibn al-mulaqqin (d. 1401 c.e.) is one of them.84 ibn ×ajar opines that both interpretations are possible. however, he prefers the second one as he writes, “bukhérê implies by yata’awwalënahë that they tamper with the intended meaning with some kind of interpretation (té’wêl), as if a hebrew word contained two meanings; one was clear and intended one and the other was farfetched, they would interpret it with the farfetched one.”85 it seems more plausible to ascribe this explanation to bukhérê rather than to ibn ‘abbés (d), for elsewhere ibn ‘abbés (d) has been said to have a different view. he says, why do you ask the people of the scripture about anything while your book (the qur’én) which has been revealed to allah’s apostle (œ) is newer? you read it pure, undistorted and unchanged, and allah has told you that the people of the scripture (jews and christians) changed their scripture and distorted it, and wrote the scripture with their own hands and said, “it is from allah,” to sell it for a little gain. does not the knowledge which has come to you prevent you from asking them about anything? no, by allah, we have never seen any man from them asking you regarding what has been revealed to you!86 al-ùabarê also narrates from ibn ‘abbés (d) while interpreting iii:78, “they are the jews. they used to add to the book of allah what allah never revealed.”87 such traditions shed light on the attitude of ibn ‘abbés (d) towards the scriptural corruption of the people of the book as well as demonstrate that his above-mentioned perception rested on the qur’énic judgment. because he argues, “allah has told you that the people of the scripture (jews and christians) changed their scripture and distorted it, and wrote the scripture with their own hands and said, ‘it is from allah’, to sell it for a little gain.”88 moreover, it should be kept in mind that above-mentioned bukhérê’s statement specifically concerns the tawréh and should not be generalized to include the christian scripture. hamdard islamicus 88 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 perception of ibn ‘abbés’ (d) may have been influenced by that of the prophet (œ) himself who did not like for his companions looking into the scriptures possessed by his contemporary people of the book.89 even he forbade the muslims from confirming or rejecting what the people of the book informed them about the contents of their scriptures and demanded them to say only, “we believed in whatever had been sent to us and whatever had been sent to you.90 it implies that the prophet (œ) was suspicious of the authenticity of the scriptures possessed by his contemporary jews and christians, though he showed immense reverence for the original scriptures sent down to the respective prophets ( ). some prophetic traditions imply that the jews of madinah possessed the hebrew tawréh and recited it in hebrew, but explained its contents to muslims in arabic.91 it also contained some intact portions of the original tawréh, viz., the injunction about the punishment of the fornication, which they attempted to conceal.92 the qur’én also refers to this matter in v:43. the jews and christians of the period of the prophet (œ), some traditions inform, possessed the tawréh and the injêl and they read them, but they neither practiced their teachings nor made use of them.93 such traditions, however, imply that the people of the book distorted the meanings of their scripture and sought false interpretations to avoid practising them. consequently, they were deprived of guidance, despite possessing the scripture. interestingly, in íadêth literature one finds that the jews of madênah were not only accustomed to the injêl, but also studied it. moreover, it appears as though the prophet (œ) thought that the jews of madênah revered the injêl. it has been reported on the authority of al-faltén b. ‘óîim (d) that a jew told the prophet (œ) that he had read the tawréh and the injêl. it has also been said that the prophet (œ) asked him about his prophecies in the tawréh and the injêl saying, “i ask you by him who sent down the tawréh and the injêl ... if you do not find me in both of them.”94 nevertheless, contrary to this, there are other traditions, which show that the jews of madênah disbelieved in prophet ‘ôsé (*) and the injêl whereas the christians of najran denied the prophethood of mësé (*) and the tawréh.95 the later report is further strengthened by the qur’énic hamdard islamicus 89 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 verse ii:113, though christians, in general, believe in mësé (*) and the tawréh. in sum, it seems that although the íadêth literature indicates to both kinds of corruption of the previous scriptures, especially of the injêl, it is the textual alteration, which is more obvious. prophecies about the advent of the prophet muíammad (œ) in íadêth literature, one finds a number of prophetic traditions, which indicate that the scriptures of the people of the book – the contemporaries of the prophet (œ) – contained descriptions of and prophecies about the prophet (œ). some of them have been narrated by the prophet (œ) himself. others have been ascribed to the companions of the prophet (œ) or their successors (al-tébi‘ën). the qur’én plainly states that the people of the book find the descriptions of prophet muíammad (œ) in their scriptures, “those who follow the messenger, the unlettered prophet (œ), whom they find mentioned in their own (scriptures) – in the law and the gospel” (vii:157) and refers to some specific similes, which had also been mentioned in the previous scriptures (xlviii:29). therefore, prophet muíammad’s (œ) and his companions’ eagerness to find them out in the then existent stock of the previous scriptures was only natural and logical. it is reported that negus, the abyssinian king, confessed in front of the companions who migrated to abyssinia, “i witness that he (muíammad [œ]) is the messenger of god; that we find him in the injêl; and that he is the messenger about whom ‘ôsé b. maryam (*) prophesizd.”96 the íadêth and sêrah literature preserves several traditions, which reveal that the prophet (œ) himself enquired from the people of the book about his prophecies mentioned in their scriptures. it has been reported on the authority of ibn ‘abbés (d) that the messenger of god (œ) wrote to the jews of khayber. after mentioning his companionship and brotherhood of, and corroboration for prophet mësé (*), he quoted the verse lxviii:29 and then asked them, i adjure you by god, by that which has come down to you, and by him who fed manna and quails to your forbears and tribes, hamdard islamicus 90 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 who dried up the sea for your forefathers to save you from pharaoh and his deeds that you must tell us whether you find in god’s revelations to you (the fact) that you should believe in muíammad (œ). and if you do not discover that in your scriptures, then you would not be enforced at all. (by now) what is right has become clear from what is error. and i call you to god and his prophet (œ).”97 the verse (lxviii:29), referred to in this letter, was revealed on return from ×udaybiyyah shortly after which the prophet (œ) launched a military expedition against the jews of khayber.98 therefore, most probably this letter was written not long after the pact of ×udaybiyyah (concluded in the end of 6 a.h.). there are several things to note in this passage. since prophet muíammad (œ) wrote this letter to the jews, he mentioned himself as a companion, brother, and corroborator of prophet mësé (*) in the opening part of the letter. he was so convinced of having been mentioned in the previous revelations that he referred to the above-mentioned verse and argued against the jews on its basis. he mentioned the blessings, which allah bestowed upon their forefathers, and asked them about his prophecy, adjuring them by allah who gave them such blessings. he assured them that if they really could not find his description in their scripture, he would not enforce them to accept it. some traditions reveal that the jews of madênah definitely knew that he was a prophet and found his description in their scripture, but denied him in envy. it is reported on the authority of abë hurayrah (d) that when the prophet (œ) asked ‘abd allah b. øëriyé,99 the most learned jew of madênah of his time, about his prophethood, he answered, “i know (that you are the messenger of allah [œ]) and the jews know what i know as well. your description has clearly been mentioned in the tawréh, but they envied you.”100 in some other traditions, the prophet (œ) informs the jews that they find his description in their scriptures. it is reported that the prophet (œ) passed by some jewish schools and said to the jews, “o jews, accept islam. for, by him in whose hand is my soul, you certainly find my description in your scriptures.”101 ‘abd allah b. ‘amr b. al-‘óî (d) who found at the battle of yarmëk two bags of scriptures of the hamdard islamicus 91 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 people of the book and used to relate from them a great deal,102 said, certainly, he is, by god, referred to in the tawréh as he is in the qur’én. “o prophet, we have sent you to give witness, to bring good tidings, and to warn, and to protect the illiterates. you are my slave and my messenger. i have named you al-mutawakkil”; a man not rough or uncouth nor one who shouts loudly in the markets; a man who does not pay back evil with evil, but one who forgives and pardons; and he will not take him until he sets the deviant community aright by having them bear witness that there is no god but allah. by him, he will open blind eyes, dead ears, and closed hearts.103 the same description, with slight variation, has also been reported from ‘abd allah b. salém and ka‘b al-aíbér (﷠ ), two well-known converted jewish scholars.104 some parts of this description have been reported from ‘ó’ishah (g), but she has been said to refer it to the injêl rather than the tawréh. it is reported that she said, “the messenger of allah (œ) has been described in the injêl as (one who is) not rough, nor uncouth, not one who shouts loudly in the markets, and (as one who) does not repay evil with the like, but pardons and forgives.”105 sometimes mistakenly this tradition is directly (marfë‘an) narrated from the prophet (œ) on the authority of ‘ó’ishah (g).106 moreover, some of these descriptions have been reported from her without a reference to the injêl.107 description of the prophet (œ) is not confined to the tawréh and the injêl.some narrations entail that prophet muíammad (œ) has been prophesied in the zabër as well. it is reported on the authority of wahb b. munabbih (d. 114/732) that allah revealed to prophet dé’wëd (*) in the zabër, o dé’wëd, there will come after you a prophet named aímad and muíammad, a truthful man, a lord; i will never be angry with him, and he will never make me angry with him. i have forgiven him before he disobeyed me, both his previous and his later sins. his nation is forgiven. i have made gifts to them similar to those i gave hamdard islamicus 92 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 to the prophets, and i imposed duties upon them that i imposed upon the prophets and the messengers, so that they will come to me on judgment day with their light like that of the prophets.108 many prophetic traditions record that a number of people in the prophetic period found or asserted to find the prophecies about and descriptions of prophet muíammad (œ) in the injêl available to them. suyëïê records from bayhaqê (d. 458 a.h.) on the authority of ibn ‘abbés (d) (d. 68 a.h.) that al-jérëd b. ‘abd allah (d) came to the prophet (œ), accepted islam and said, “by whom who sent you in truth, i have found your description in the injêl. and for sure, the son of the blessed virgin has prophesied you.”107 moreover, al-suyëïê and al-ólësê (d. 1270 a.h.) report from ibn sa‘d (d. 230 a.h.) on the authority of sahl, the freedman of ‘utaybah the following: he [sahl] was a christian of mirris and an orphan under the guardianship of his mother and his uncle. he used to recite from al-injêl. he said: i seized a copy of my uncle’s which i read. i happened to come to a leaf, writing on which was uncommon when i passed by it and touched it with my hand. he said (continuing) i discovered that some leaves seemed to be pasted with an adhesive. he said: i tore them and discovered the qualities of muíammad (œ). that he will not be of short stature nor of tall one. he will be of white complexion with two locks (of hair). between his two shoulders there is a seal. he will often sit with his legs folded. he will not accept îadaqah (for himself). he will ride the ass and the camel. he will milk she goat and will put on patched shirt and he who does that is free from pride and he will do that. he will be descendant of ismé‘êl; his name will be aímad. sahl said: when i reached this account of muíammad (œ), my uncle stepped in and when noticed the leaf he beat me and said: what have you to do with the opening of this leaf and reading it. i said: in it are the qualities of the prophet aímad (œ). thereupon he said: he has not yet come.111 these traditions indicate that some copies of the injêl, which contained the prophecies about the prophet (œ), must have survived in the arabian peninsula at least until the seventh century c.e. we do not hamdard islamicus 93 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 have enough information about them. however, one thing is confirmed that their contents must have been different from the canonical gospels, which do not contain such prophecies. some later authorities ascribe to prophet ‘ôsé (*) some prophecies about prophet muíammad (œ) without a reference to the injêl. ibn kathêr reported from muqétil b. ×ayyén (d. 150 a.h.) that the almighty and glorious allah revealed to ‘ôsé b. maryam (*) as follows, serve me well and listen and obey, o son of the pure, chaste, virgin. i have created you without a physical father and have made you a sign for the worlds, so worship me only, and explain to the people of sërén in syriac; tell those around you that i am the existent truth that will never pass away, believe in the arab ummê (unlettered) prophet; he who has the camel, and wears a midra‘ah (outer garment), and a turban that is his crown, and sandals, and has a cane that is his staff. his hair is curly, his brow is broad, his eyebrows are joined, his eyes are large, his lashes are fine, his eyes are black, his nose is curved, his cheeks are distinct, and his beard is full. the sweat of his face is like pearls; from him the scent of musk emanates. his neck is like a silver vessel, and along his collarbone gold seems to flow. he has hair that grow long and soft from his throat to his navel, his stomach bearing no other hair. he is broad of fingers and toes. he overshadows all when he is with others. when he walks he seems to emerge from the rock and flow from the stream. he has few progeny, – as if he meant males as is offspring.111 it is surprising to note, however, that most of the above-mentioned prophetic descriptions have also been narrated in the books of sêrah and especially of shamé’il in the same way, but without any reference to the previous scriptures. for instance, compare the above-mentioned passage with the following one: “it is reported from ‘alê (d) that the prophet (œ) was neither very tall nor short. he is broad of fingers and toes. he had a large head. the joints of the bones were also large. there was a thin line of hair from the chest to the navel. when he walked, it appeared as if he was descending from a high place.”112 the rest of descriptions also get mention in other íadêth.113 however, such descriptions do not have any parallels in the existing gospels. some hamdard islamicus 94 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 of them might have been derived from the same source whence the corpus of jesus’ sayings and stories emerged and scattered in the islamic literature especially in the ascetic books and in a genre of religious literature called “tales of the prophets” (qaîaî al-anbiyé’).114 raímat allah kirénawi (d. 1891), a famous muslim polemicist of the nineteenthcentury india, suggests that prophecies about prophet muíammad (œ) – recorded in early muslim literature on the authority of converted people of the book but not found in the present canonical jewish and christian scriptures – might have well existed in the scriptures of the jews and christians, which are lost in the course of history. a critical appraisal one notes that although the íadêth literature contains a number of useful references to the injêl, which was revealed to prophet ‘ôsé (*), some aspects are still in darkness. one finds references to the injêl, which was in possession of waraqah b. nawfal. however, information in this regard is insufficient. even the knowledge about the personality of waraqah is obscure. although, islamic sources testify to his adoption of christianity, they do not identify his denominational position among the christian sects of his day. moreover, neither the sources of his injêl are known nor did it leave any traces behind. however, since the islamic traditions attest to his traveling to syria, bahrain, and the territories of the tribe of ùayy’, one may surmise with some justification that he would have some association with either nestorianism or monophysitism, for these two denominations generally prevailed in these areas. the above discussion of the íadêth literature indicates that waraqah’s injêl was either in arabic or in ‘ibrénê or in both. however, the modern scholarship, both muslim and western, is inclined to hold that it was most probably in syriac from which he used to translate it into arabic. some classical ×adêth commentators also seem to have suggested such a view. moreover, if the ‘ibréniyyah mentioned in the íadêth literature is equated with the syriac then almost all inconsistency is removed. those íadêth traditions, which explain how and when the injêl was revealed and inform about the number of previous revealed scriptures help to conceptualize the nature of the injêl’s revelation. however, it hamdard islamicus 95 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 should be noted that comparatively less authenticity and consistency characterize such traditions. it clearly seems that the íadêth literature’s attitude towards the injêl is an extension of that of the qur’én. in the íadêth traditions, the injêl has been depicted as a divine revelation to prophet ‘ôsé (*). one finds many parallels between the qur’én and the injêl. both descended on a specific night of ramaìén. both were subdivided into sërahs and some specific sërahs of the qur’én were declared substitute for or simile of the injêl as well as others were supposed to be unique having no similitude to the contents of any revealed scripture. it may imply that the original injêl has been considered, in the íadêth literature, as verbatim word of god as are certain sërahs of the qur’én and not as a posthumous historical or biographical record of jesus’ logia and deeds. ×adêth literature points out the start of the corruption of the injêl and other christian scriptures and connects it with the conspiracies of the rulers. it draws attention towards the persecution of the faithful christians after the ascension of prophet ‘ôsé (*), almost in accordance with the accounts of the history of christianity as narrated by the christians themselves. however, it seems more likely to set the scene of the íadêth literature’s account of the persecution in the fourth century c.e. when the trinitarian church started a vigorous campaign against its opponents after the conversion of the roman emperor constantine i (r. 306-337 c.e.). although, the prophetic traditions mostly level the charge of corruption against the people of the book in jewish context, which is quite natural, in some cases, however, it does include the christian scriptures as well. whether this charge involves the corruption of both text and meaning or only of the meaning is a moot question, for the evidences support both views, though the charge of textual corruption is more explicit. notes and references 1. the term prophetic traditions or íadêth literature or prophetic traditions has been used in this study in a loose sense, which also includes the sayings of the companions of the prophet (œ). 2. the qur’én, xlvi:9. 3. ibid., iii:33; iv:163-64. 4. for the number of the adherents of different religions at the beginning of the hamdard islamicus 96 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 twenty-first century, see robert s. ellwood and gregory d. alles, eds., the encyclopedia of world religions, rev. ed., new york, ny, facts on file, 2007, vol. xiii, p. 87. 05. wilfred c. smith, islam in modern history, princeton, nj, princeton university press, 1957, pp. 17-18n13; smith, “some similarities and differences between christianity and islam: an essay in comparative religion,” in the world of islam: studies in honour of philip k. hitti, ed. james kritzeck and r. bayly winder, london, macmillan, 1959, p. 52; also see sidney h. griffith, “the gospel in arabic: an inquiry into its appearance in the first ‘abbésid century,” oriens christianus, 1985, vol. lxix, pp. 128-30. 06. william h.t. gairdner, “moíammedan tradition and gospel record: the ×adêth and the injêl,” the moslem world, 1915, vol. v, no. 4, pp. 349-79. 07. for his views on the development of prophetic traditions, muslim theology, and islamic law, see ignaz goldziher, muslim studies (muíammedanische studien), ed. samuel m. stern, trans. c.r. barber and samuel m. stern, 1967-1971, 2 vols., london, george allen and unwin; goldziher, the úéhirês, their doctrine and their history; a contribution to the history of islamic theology, trans. and ed. wolfgang behn, leiden, e.j. brill, 1971; goldziher, introduction to islamic theology and law, trans. andras and ruth hamori, princeton, nj, princeton university press, 1981. for a muslim criticism of goldziher’s and joseph schacht’s views on prophetic traditions and islamic law, see mohammad mustafa azmi, studies in early ×adêth literature with a critical edition of some early texts, indianapolis, in: american trust publications, 1978; al-azami, on schacht’s origins of muíammadan jurisprudence, lahore, suhail academy, 2004. for a brief historical and critical survey of the western criticism of íadêth literature, see jonathan a.c. brown, ×adêth: muíammad’s legacy in the medieval and modern world, oxford, oneworld, 2009, pp. 197-239. 08. it is not within the preview of the present study to evaluate author’s arguments and conclusions about the reliability of the gospel record and otherwise of the prophetic traditions. for a muslim position on the issue, see muíammad abu laylah, the qur’én and the gospels: a comparative study, cairo, el-falah for translation publishing, 1998; ghulam haider aasi, muslim understanding of other religions: a study of ibn ×azm’s kitéb al-faîl fi al-milal wa ahwé’ wa al-nahl, islamabad, islamic research institute, 1999; for methods and history of íadêth criticism, see nabia abbott, studies in arabic literary papyri ii: qur’énic commentary and tradition, chicago, university of chicago, 1967; muíammad muîïafé al-a‘ðamê , the history of the qur’énic text from revelation to compilation: a comparative study with the old and new testaments, leicester, uk islamic academy, n.d. 09. gairdner, “mohammedan tradition and gospel record,” 349; smith, islam in modern history, pp. 17-18n13. 10. alfred guillaume, “the version of the gospels used in medina circa 700 a.d.,” al-andalus, 1950, vol. xv, no. 1, pp. 289-296. 11. lectionary is a book containing certain parts of the bible selected for recitation on particular days of the year. following the jewish practice, the early christians started reading extracts from the old testament on the sabbath. later they added hamdard islamicus 97 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 extracts from the writings of the apostles and evangelists as well. during the third and fourth centuries, they devised several lectionaries (britannica encyclopedia of world religions, s.v. “lectionary”). one of them was the palestinian syriac lectionary of the gospels. for details on the palestinian syriac lectionary, see agnes smith lewis, introduction to the palestinian syriac lectionary of the gospels, ed. agnes smith lewis and margaret dunlop gibbs, london, kegan paul, trench, trübner, and co. 1899, pp. ix-xviii; edgar j. goodspeed, review of the palestinian syriac lectionary of the gospels, ed. agnes smith lewis and margaret dunlop gibbs, the american journal of semitic languages and literatures, 1901, vol. xvii, no. 3, pp. 191-192. 12. griffith, the gospel in arabic, pp. 149-50. 13. ibid., p. 150. 14. david cook, “new testament citations in the ×adêth literature and the question of early gospel translations into arabic,” in the encounter of eastern christianity with early islam, ed. emmanouela grypeou, mark n. swanson, and david thomas, leiden, brill, 2006, pp. 185-186. 15. tarêf khélidi, the muslim jesus, karachi, oxford university press, 2002. 16. cook, new testament citations in the ×adêth literature, p. 204. 17. it is pertinent to note that most of citations, which cook refers to, are from books of zuhud (asceticism) or térêkh madênat dimashq by ibn ‘asékir. however, ascribing these citations to íadêth literature, in view of the present writer, is problematic. moreover, a cursory comparison of some citations with the given places of the new testament led the present writer to the conclusion that many of them do not bear the least resemblance with the suggested biblical texts (for example, compare the citations 27 and 29 with matthew 8.5-8, 11-15 and matthew 10 respectively). 18. ghassén ‘azêz ×usayn, waraqah b. nawfal mubashshir al-rasël: ‘asruhu, hayétuhu, shi‘ruh, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1423/2002, pp. 49-50. 19. griffith, the gospel in arabic, p. 144. 20. ‘abd al-malik b. hishém, sêrat al-nabê, n.p.: dar al-fikr, n.d., vol. i, p. 242; also see c.f. robinson, “waraka b. nawfal,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, ed. p.j. bearban et al., 2nd edn., leiden, brill, 2002, vol. xi, pp. 142-143. 21. muíammad b. ismé‘êl al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, riyadh, dar al-salam, 1419/ 1999, ×adêth no. 3, p. 1. 22. muíammad b. ×abêb al-baghdédê, al-munammaq fi akhbér quraysh, ed. khurshid ahmad faruq, beirut, ‘alam al-kutub, n.d., pp. 156-158. 23. aímad b. abê ya‘qëb al-ya‘qëbê, ta’rêkh al-ya‘qëbê, beirut, dar sadr & dar bayrut, 1960, vol. i, p. 257. 24. al-baghdédê, al-munammaq, p. 158. 25. jawéd ‘alê, al-mufaîîal, baghdad, dér al-‘ilm li ’l-maléyên, 1976, vol. vi, p. 621. 26. al-baghdédê, al-munammaq, pp. 158-159. 27. ismé‘êl b. kathêr, al-sêrah al-nabawiyyah, ed. mustafa ‘abd al-wahid, beirut, dar al-fikr, 1398/1978, vol. i, pp. 367-368. 28. aímad b. ‘alê b. ×ajar al-‘asqalénê, fatí al-bérê sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê, riyadh, dér al-salam, 1418/1998), vol. i, p. 34. hamdard islamicus 98 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 29. al-bukhérê, saíêí al-bukhérê, ×adêth no. 4953, p. 886; ×adêth no. 6982, p. 1204. 30. muslim b. ×ajjéj, saíêí muslim, riyadh, dér al-salam, 1419/1998, ×adêth no. 252, p. 80. 31. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, ×adêth no. 3, p. 1. 32. ibid., ×adêth no. 3392, p. 567. 33. for example, see ‘abd al-razzéq b. humém al-san‘éni, al-muîannaf, ed. habêb al-raímén al-a‘zémi, beirut, al-maktab al-islémi, 1403 a.h., vol. v, p. 321; muíammad b. ×abbén al-busti, al-iísén fi taqrêb øaíêí ibn ×abbén, beirut, mu’assasat al-risélah, 1408/1988, vol. i, p. 218; aímad b. ×usayn al-bayhaqê, al-sunén al-kubré, hyderabad deccan, majlis dé’irat al-ma‘érif al-nizémiyyah, 1344 a.h., vol. ix, p. 5; isíéq b. ibréhêm rahwayh al-hanzalê, musnad isíéq b. rahwayh, ed. ‘abd al-ghafër b. ‘abd al-×aqq, madinah, maktabat al-imén, 1412/1991, vol. ii, p. 316; ya‘qëb b. isíéq al-isfaré’ênê, musnad abê ‘awénah, beirut, dér ma‘rifah, n.d., vol. i, p. 103. 34. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, p. 1. only abë déwëd sulaymén b. déwëd al-ùayélisê relates that waraqah used to read the injêl bi ’l-‘ibréniyyah, al-ùayélisê, al-musnad, beirut, dér al-ma‘rafah, n.d., p. 206. 35. aímad b. ‘alê b. ×ajar al-‘asqalénê, fatí al-bérê, vol. i, p. 34; yaíyé b. sharaf al-nawawê, saíêí muslim bi sharí al-imém abê zakariyyé yaíyé b. sharaf al-nawawê, beirut, dér al-fikr, 1424/2004, vol. i, p. 165. 36. maímëd b. aímad al-‘aynê, ‘umdat al-qari sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê, beirut, dér al-fikr, 1399/1979, vol. i, p. 52. 37. ibn hishém, sirét al-nabê, vol. i, p. 256. 38. ×amidullah, two christians of pre-islamic mecca, journal of the pakistan histortical society, 1958, vol. vi, no. 2, p. 102. 39. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, ×adêth no. 3, p. 1. 40. griffith, gospel in arabic, p. 145. 41. kamél s. salibi, who was jesus: conspiracy in jerusalem, london, tauris parke paperbacks, 2007, p. 60. 42. ibid., p. 61. 43. ibid. however, it should be noted that in the view of salibi the injil of waraqah is not one of the canonical gospels; rather it must have been a much older one, perhaps it dated as far as the fourth or fifth century b.c.e., associated with the qur’énic ‘isé (ibid., 63). for his radical views on the origin of judaism and christianity, see salibi, the bible came from arabia, london, jonathan cape, 1985, and salibi, who was jesus. 44. griffith, gospel in arabic, p. 145. 45. ibid., 147. 46. ibid., p. 145. 47. al-harêrê, abë mësa, qaîî wa nabê, beirut, n.p., 1979, pp. 56-59. it is entirely a polemical book, written in the wake of the civil war in lebanon during which muslim-christian relations reached their lowest ebb. for a critical review of it, see aímad ‘umrén, al-×aqêqat al-sa‘bat fê ’l-mêzén, beirut, al-mu’assasat al-a‘lamê li ’l-matbë‘ét, 1415/1995. 48. irfén shahêd, “islam and oriens christianus: makka 610-622 a.d.,” in hamdard islamicus 99 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the encounter of eastern christianity with early islam, ed. emmanouela grypeou, mark n. swanson and david thomas et al., leiden, brill, 2006, p. 18. 49. aímad b. taymiyyah, al-jawéb al-øaíêí liman baddal dên al-maîêh, ed. ‘alê b. ×asan b. néîir, ‘abd al-‘azêz b. ibréhêm al-‘askar, and ×amdén b. muíammad al-×amdén, riyadh, dar al-‘aîimah, 1414 a.h., vol. ii, pp. 80-82; vol. iii, p. 417. 50. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. i, ×adêth no. 3392, p. 567, ×adêth no. 4953, p. 886, ×adêth no. 6982, p. 1204; muslim b. hajjéj, saíêí muslim, ×adêth no. 252, p. 80. 51. de lacy o’leary, comparative grammar of the semitic languages, london, kegan paul, 1923, pp. 14-15. 52. sulaymén b. aímad al-ùabarénê, al-mu‘jam al-awséï, ed. tériq b. ‘awì alléh and ‘abd al-muísin b. ibréhêm al-×usaynê, cairo, dér al-haramayn, 1415 a.h., vol. iv, p. 111. al-tabarénê comments on this narration that only ‘imrén al-qaïïén narrated this íadêth from qatédah (d. 118 a.h.), and that it has been narrated from the messenger of god (œ) only by this chain. however, this claim is questionable, for ibn kathêr mentions that ibn mardawayh narrates this íadêth, though with some variations, on the authority of jébir b. ‘abd allah as well (see ismé‘êl b. ‘umar b. kathêr, tafsêr al-qur’én al-‘aðêm, ed. sémê b. muíammad salémah [n.p., dér taybah, 1420/1999], vol. i, p. 501; also see abë ya‘lé aímad b. ‘alê al-tamêmê, al-musnéd, ed. ×asan salêm asad, damascus, dér al-mé’mën li ’l-turath, 1404/1984, vol. iv, p. 135. 53. aímad b. muíammad b. ×anbal, al-musnad, commented by ×amzah aímad al-zayn, cairo, dar al-hadêth, 1416/1995, vol. xiii, p. 223. its chain is íasan, because of ‘imrén al-qaïïén. however, the rest of transmitters are thiqét (reliable) (see ibid., vol. xiii, pp. 223n16921). 54. ibn kathêr, tafsêr al-qur’én al-‘aðêm, vol. i, p. 501. 55. ibid. 56. ibn kathêr, qiîaî al-anbiyé’, ed. ‘abd al-qédir aímad ‘aïé, beirut, al-maktabat al-islémiyyah, 1401/1981?, vol. ii, p. 402. 57. ibn ×anbal, al-musnad, vol. xiii, p. 222. its chain is íasan, because of ‘imrén al-qaïïén (see ibid., vol. xiii, pp. 222n, 16919). 58 aímad b. ×usayn al-bayhaqê, al-sunan al-øughré, ed. ‘abd al-mu‘ïê amên qal‘ajê, karachi, jémi‘at al-dirését al-islémiyyah, 1410/1989, vol. i, p. 341. 59. ‘abd alléh b. muslim b. qutaybah, gharêb al-×adêth, beirut, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1408/1988, p. 54. 60. al-bayhaqê, al-sunan al-sughré, vol. i, p. 341. ibn qutaybah mentions that sometimes the number of verses in some al-mi’ên sërahs is less than one hundred (ibn qutaybah, gharêb al-×adêth, p. 54). 61. see muíammad b. ‘isé al-tirmidhê, jémi‘ al-tirmidhê, riyadh, dér al-salém, p. 646. al-tirmidhê declares it ×asan øaíêí (ibid., p. 647); ibn ×anbal, al-musnad, vol. xv, pp. 405-406. 62. sulaymén b. aímad al-ùabarénê, al-mu‘jam al-kabêr, ed. ×amdê ‘abd al-×amêd al-salafi, cairo, maktabat ibn taymiyyah, 1983?, vol. xxii, p. 75. hamdard islamicus 100 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 63. abë nu‘aym aímad b. ‘abd alléh al-aîbahénê, dalé’il al-nubuwwah, hyderabad deccan, majlis dé’irat al-ma‘érif al-‘uthméniyyah, 1369/1950, vol. i, p. 28. 64. muíammad b. ‘abd alléh al-×ékim, al-mustadrak ‘ala ’l-saíêíayn, ed. maímëd maïrajê, beirut, dér al-fikr, 1422/2002, vol. ii, p. 125. ×ékim declared it saíêí (authentic), but dhahabê narrated, in al-talkhêî, from aímad b. ×anbal that scholars of ×adêth gave up narrations of one of its transmitters, that is, ‘ubayd alléh (see, ibid., vol. ii, pp. 125n, 2129). 65. muíammad b. naîr al-marwazê, mukhtaîar qiyém al-layl, faisalabad, ×adêth akédmê, 1408/1988, p. 170. however, albénê declares it dé‘êf jiddan (very weak), because of one of its transmitters, khérijah b. mus‘ab (see muíammad néîir al-dên al-albénê, silsilat al-aíadêth al-da‘êfah wa ’l-mawdë‘ah wa atharuhé ’lsayyi’ ‘alé ’l-ummah, riyadh, dér al-ma‘érif, 1412/1992, vol. vii, p. 51). 66. ‘abd alléh b. ‘abd al-raímén al-dérimê, musnad al-dérimê, ed. ×usayn salêm asad al-dérénê, riyadh, dér al-mughnê, 1421/2000, vol. iv, p. 2140. its chain is da‘êf (weak), for al-musayyib b. rafi‘ who narrated it from ‘abd alléh b. mas‘ëd did not meet the latter (see ibid., vol. iv, pp. 2140n, 5). 67. ibn ×anbal, al-musnad, vol. xiii, pp. 344, 376; vol. xv, pp. 405-06. these aíadêth are authentic (see ibid., vol. xiii, pp. 344n17267, 376n17383; vol. xc, pp. 405-406nn, 20993-20994. 68. al-bustê, øaíêí ibn ×abbén, vol. ii, p. 77. the chain of this íadêth is da‘if jiddan (extremely weak), for one of its transmitters is ibréhêm b. hishém b. yaíyé b. yaíyé ’l-ghassénê whom abë ×étim and abë zur‘éh declared ìa‘êf (unreliable), though ibn ×abbén himself authenticated him (waththaqahu) (see ibid., vol. ii, p. 79n). 69. muíammad b. yësuf al-øéliíê, subul al-×udé wa ’l-rashéd fi sêrat kayr al-‘ibéd, ed. ‘ódêl aímad ‘abd al-mawjud and ‘alê muíammad mu‘awwid, beirut, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1428/2007, vol. i, p. 319. 70. muíammad b. aímad b. iyés, badé’i‘ al-zuhër fi waqé’i‘ al-duhër, cairo, matba‘at mustafé ’l-bébê ’l-halabê wa awlédih, 1919, p. 178. 71. the translation is of ‘abdullah yusuf ‘ali, the meaning of the holy qur’én, beltsville, md, amana publications, 1424/2004, pp. 237-238. 72. aímad b. shu‘ayb al-nasé’ê, sunan al-nasé’i al-sughré, riyadh, dér al-salém, 1420/1999, ×adêth no. 5402, p. 732. 73. ibid. itis important to note that jane d. mcauliffe misunderstands this tradition while referring to ùabarê’s commentry on the qur’énic verse lvii:27, as she thinks that the faithful group complained to the ruler against those who falsified the scripture and that the falsifiers chose the self-exile. she says, “goaded by the taunts of the falsifiers, the faithful group sought redress from a sympathetic authority, demanding that he order their coreligionists to cease the altered recitation. when the king complied with this request, the falsifiers took umbrage and chose to exile themselves rather than return to the original scriptures”, (jane dammen mcauliffe, qur’énic christians: an analysis of classical and modern exegesis, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1991, p. 264). 74. al-nasé’ê, sunan al-nasé’ê al-øughré, p. 732. hamdard islamicus 101 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 075. ibid. 076. ibid. 077. ibid., ×adêth no. 5402, pp. 732-733. 078. al-×ékim, al-mustadrak, vol. iii, p. 85. ×ékim declared it øaíêí (authentic). however, dhahébê, in al-talkhêî, declared it weak because one of its transmitters was ‘óqil b. yaíyé whom bukhéri declared munkar al-íadêth (see, ibid., vol. iii, pp. 85n, 3840). 079. al-nasé’i, sunan al-nasa’i al-sughra, ×adêth no. 5402, p. 733. 080. ibid. 081. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, p. 1303. 082. ibid. 083. aímad b. ‘abd al-raíêm al-dihlawê, al-fawz al-kabêr fi uîël al-tafsêr, aleppo, dér al-ghawthénê, 1429/2008, p. 29. it is pertinent to note that al-dihlawê first admits the existence of literal distortion in the tawrah but then explains it in a way that cannot be but distortion of meaning. 084. aímad b. ‘alê b. hajar al-‘asqalénê, fatí al-bérê, vol. xiii, p. 642. 085. ibid., vol. xiii, p. 645. 086. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, p. 1266. the translation is of muíammad bin ismaiel al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê,: arabic-english, trans. muíammad matraji, new delhi, islamic book service, 1997, vol. ix, pp. 357, 359. 087. muíammad b. jarêr al-ùabarê, jamê‘ al-bayén, vol. vi, p. 536. 088. al-bukhérê, saíêí al-bukhérê, p. 1266. the translation is of al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, arabic-english, vol. ix, pp. 357, 359. 089. al-darimê, musnad al-darimê, vol. i, p. 403. its chain is ìé‘if (weak), because of one of its transmitters mujéhid. however, the authenticity of this íadêth is no less than íasan (see ibid., vol. i, p. 403n2). 090. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, ×adêth no. 7362, p. 1266. 091. ibid., ×adêth no. 7362, p. 1302, ×adêth no. 7542, p. 1302. 092. ibid., p. 776. 093. muíammad b. yazêd b. méjah, sunan ibn méjah, riyadh, dér al-sélam, 1420/ 1999, p. 585; al-×ékim, al-mustadrak, vol. i, pp. 199-200. ×ékim declared it îaíêí (authentic) and dhahabê, in al-talkhês, agreed with him (see ibid., vol. i, pp. 199-200nn, 341-42. 094. al-ùabarénê, al-mu‘jém al-kabêr, vol. xviii, pp. 332-334. the author of al-méjma‘ declared its transmitters as thêqét (reliable) (see ibid., vol. xviii, pp. 332-334n, 854. 095. ibn hishém, sêrat al-nabê, vol. ii, p. 175. 096. ibn ×anbal, al-musnad, vol. iv, pp. 244-246. the chain of this íadêth is hasan (see ibid., vol. iv, pp. 244-245n, 4400). 097. ibn kathêr, al-sêrah al-nabawêyyah, vol. i, pp. 324-325. the translation is, with slight changes, of ibn kathêr, the life of the prophet muíammad, trans. trevor le gassick, berkshire, garnet publishing, 1998, vol. i, pp. 234-235. 098. ibn hishém, that ibn suriya later allegedly emnbraced islam. see, sêrat al-nabi, vol. iii, pp. 369, 378. 099. ibn kathêr, mentions that ibn suriya later allegedly embraced islam, see al-sêrah al-nabawiyyah, vol. i, p. 324. 100. ibid., vol. i, p. 324. 101. ibid., vol. i, pp. 326-327. hamdard islamicus 102 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 102. ibid., vol. i, p. 328. ibn kathêr notes that many previous muslim scholars used the term tawrah to denote the scriptures of the people of the book in general and that their perception of the tawréh is broader than what was actually revealed to prophet mësé (*) (ibid.). 103. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, p. 341. 104. ibid., muíammad b. jarêr al-ùabarê, jémi‘ al-bayén, vol. xiii, p. 164. 105. muíammad b. sa‘d, al-ùabaqét al-kubré, ed., ihsan abbas, beirut, dar sadir, 1968, vol. i, p. 363; al-×ékim, al-mustadrak, vol. iii, pp. 214-215. ×ékim declared it øaíêí (authentic) and dhahébê, in al-talkhêî, agreed with him (see ibid., vol. iii, pp. 214-215n, 4277). 106. muíammad b. ismé‘êl b. kathêr, al-bidéyat wa ’l-nihéyah, ed. ‘alê shayrê, beirut, dér iíyé’ al-turéth al-‘arabê, 1408/1988, vol. ii, p. 400. 107. aímad b. al-×usayn al-bayhaqê, dalé’il al-nubuwwah, ed. ‘abd al-mu‘ïê qal‘ajê, beirut, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1429/2008, vol. i, p. 315. 108. ibn kathêr, al-sêrah al-nabawêyyah, vol. i, p. 329. the translation is of ibn kathêr, life of the prophet muíammad (œ), vol. i, pp. 237-238. 109. al-bayhaqê, dalé’il al-nabuwwah, vol. ii, p. 105; abd al-raímén b. abê bakr al-suyëïê, al-durr al-manthër fi ’l-ùafsêr al-ma’thër, beirut, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1421/2000, vol. iii, p. 245. 110. ibn sa‘d, al-ùabaqét al-kubré, vol. i, p. 363. the translation is of s. moinul haq, trans., ibn sa‘d’s kitéb al-ùabaqét al-kabêr, karachi, pakistan historical society, 1972, vol. i, p. 426; al-suyuïi, al-durr al-manthër, vol. iii, p. 245; maímëd al-alësê, rëh al-ma‘énê fi tafsêr al-qur’én al-‘aðêm wa ’l-sab‘ almathénê, ed. muíammad aímad al-amad and ‘umar ‘abd al-salém al-salémê, beirut, dér iíyé’ al-turéth al-‘arabê and mu’assasah al-ta’rêkh al-‘arabê, 1420/ 1999, vol. ix, pp. 107-108. 111. ibn kathêr, al-sêrah al-nabawêyyah, vol. i, pp. 330-331. the translation is, with some variations, of ibn kathêr, life of the prophet muíammad (œ), vol. i, p. 239. 112. muíammad b. sërat al-tirmidhê, al-shamé‘il al-muíammadiyyah, ed. muíammad ‘afêf al-za‘bê, jeddah, dér al-maïbë‘ét al-×adêthah, 1409/1988), p. 19. 113. see al-bayhaqê, dalé’il al-nubuwwah, vol. i, pp. 268-275. 114. on jesus’ sayings and stories as preserved in muslim literature, see khalidi’s the muslim jesus, which also contains a detailed introduction, in which the author attempts to place this genre in its historical context. he names this kind of literature “muslim gospel.” 115. raímat allah b. khalil al-raímén al-kirénawi, izhér al-×aqq, ed. muíammad aímad malkawi, riyadh, al-ri’asah al-‘ammah li idarat al-buíuth al-‘ilmiyyah wa ’l-ifta’ wa ’l-da‘wah wa ’l-irshéd, 1410/1989, vol. ii, p. 587. bibliography aaîi, ghulam haider. muslim understanding of other religions: a study of ibn hazm’s kitéb al-faîl fi al-milal wa ahwé wa al-naíl, islamabad, islamic research institute, 1999. hamdard islamicus 103 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 abbott, nabia, studies in arabic literary papyri ii: qur’énic commentary and tradition, chicago, university of chicago, 1967. al-albénê, muíammad néîir al-dên, silsilat al-aíédêth al-öa‘êfah wa ’l-mawìë‘ah wa atharuhé ’l-sayyi’ ‘alé ’l-ummah, riyadh, dér al-ma‘érêf, 1412/1992. ‘ali, ‘abdullah yusuf, trans., the meaning of the holy qur’én, beltsville, md, amana publications, 1424/2004. ‘alê, jawéd. al-mufaîîal, baghdad, dér al-‘ilm li ’l-malayin, 1976. al-alësê, maímëd, rëí al-ma‘énê fi tafsêr al-qur’én al-‘aðêm wa ’l-sab‘ al-mathénê, edited by muíammad aímad al-amad and ‘umar ‘abd al-salém al-salémê, beirut, dér iíyé’ al-turéth al-‘arabê and mu’assasah al-ta’rêkh al-‘arabi, 1420/ 1999. al-aîbahénê, abë nu‘aym aímad b. ‘abd alléh, dalé’il al-nubuwwah, hyderabad deccan, majlis dé’irat al-ma‘érif al-‘uthméniyyah, 1369/1950. al-‘aîqalénê, aímad b. ‘alê b. ×ajar, fatí al-bérê sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê, riyadh, dér al-salém, 1418/1998. al-‘aynê, maímëd b. aímad, ‘umdat al-qérê sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê, beirut, dér al-fikr, 1399/1979. al-a‘ðamê, muíammad muîïafé, the history of the qur’énic text from revelation to compilation: a comparative study with the old and new testaments, leicester, uk islamic academy, n.d. –––, on schacht’s origins of muhammadan jurisprudence, lahore, suhail academy, 2004. –––, studies in early ×adêth literature with a critical edition of some early texts, indianapolis, in, american trust publications, 1978. al-bayhaqê, aímad b. ×usayn, dalé’il al-nubuwwah, edited by ‘abd al-mu‘ïê qal‘ajê, beirut, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1429/2008. –––, al-sunan al-kubré, hyderabad deccan, majlis dé’irat al-ma‘érif al-niðémiyyah, 1344 a.h. –––, al-sunan al-sughré, edited by ‘abd al-mu‘ïê amên qal‘ajê, karachi, jami‘at al-dirasat al-islémiyyah, 1410/1989. brown, jonathan a.c., ×adêth: muíammad’s legacy in the medieval and modern world, oxford, oneworld, 2009. al-bukhérê, muíammad b. ismé‘êl. øaíêí al-bukhérê, riyadh, dér al-salém, 1419/ 1999. –––, øaíêí al-bukhérê: arabic-english, translated by muhammad matraji, new delhi, islamic book service, 1997. al-bustê, muíammad b. habbén. al-iísén fi ttaqrib øaíêí ibn ×abbén, beirut, mu’assasat al-risélah, 1408/1988. cook, david, “new testament citations in the ×adêth literature and the question of early gospel translations into arabic,” in: the encounter of eastern christianity with early islam, edited by emmanouela grypeou, mark n. swanson, and david thomas, 185-223, leiden, brill, 2006. al-dérimê, ‘abd allah b. ‘abd al-raímén, musnad al-dérimê, edited by ×usayn salêm asad al-dérénê, riyadh, dér al-mughnê, 1421/2000. al-dihlawê, aímad b. ‘abd al-raíêm, al-fawz al-kabêr fi uîël al-ùafsêr, aleppo, dér al-ghawthénê, 1429/2008. hamdard islamicus 104 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 ellwood, robert s. and gregory d. alles, eds. the encyclopedia of world religions, rev. ed., new york, ny, facts on file, 2007. gairdner, william h.t., “moíammedan tradition and gospel record: the ×adêth and the injêl”, the moslem world, 1915, vol. v, no. 4, pp. 349-379. goldziher, ignaz. introduction to islamic theology and law, translated by andras and ruth hamori, princeton, nj, princeton university press, 1981. –––, muslim studies (muíammedanische studien), edited by samuel m. stern and translated by c.r. barber and samuel m. stern, 2 vols., london, george allen and unwin, pp. 1967-1971. –––, the úahirês: their doctrine and their history; a contribution to the history of islamic theology, translated and edited by wolfgang behn, leiden, e.j. brill, 1971. goodspeed, edgar j. review of the palestinian syriac lectionary of the gospels, ed. agnes smith lewis and margaret dunlop gibbs, the american journal of semitic languages and literatures, 1901, vol. xvii, no. 3, pp. 191-92. griffith, sidney h., “the gospel in arabic: an inquiry into its appearance in the first ‘abbésid century,” oriens christianus, 1985, vol. lxix, pp. 126-167. guillaume, alfred, “the version of the gospels used in medina circa 700 a.d.”, al-andalus, 1950, vol, xv, no. 1, pp. 289-296. al-×ékim, muíammad b. ‘abd alléh. al-mustadrak ‘ala ’l-øaíêíayn, edited by maímëd matrajê, beirut, dér al-fikr, 1422/2002. ×amidullah, muíammad. “two christians of pre-islamic mecca: ‘uthman ibn al-huwairith and waraqah ibn naufal”, journal of the pakistan historical society 1958, vol. vi, no. 2, pp. 97-103. ibn ×anbél, aímad b. muíammad, al-musnad, commented by hamzah aímad al-zayn, cairo, dér al-×adêth, 1416/1995. al-hanzalê, isíéq b. ibréhêm rahwayh, musnad ishaq b. rahwayh, edited by ‘abd al-ghafër b. ‘abd al-haqq, madinah, maktabat al-imén, 1412/1991. al-harêrê, abë mësé, qass wa nabê: baíth fi nash’at al-islém, beirut, n.p., 1979. ibn hishém, ‘abd al-malik, sêrat al-nabê, n.p., dér al-fikr, n.d. ibn ×ajjéj, muslim, øaíêí muslim, riyadh, dér al-salém, 1419/1998. ×usayn, ghassén ‘azêz, waraqah b. nawfal mubashshir al-rasël: ‘asruhu, hayétuhu, shi‘ruh, beirut, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1423/2002. al-isfaré’ênê, ya‘qëb b. isíéq, musnad abi ‘awénah, beirut, dér ma‘rifah, n.d. ibn iyés, muíammad b. aímad, badé’i‘ al-úuhër fi waqa’i‘ al-duhër, cairo, maïba‘at muîïafé ’l-bébê ’l-halabê wa awlédih, 1919. ibn kathêr, ismé‘êl, al-bidéyah wa ’l-nihéyah, edited by ‘alê shayrê, beirut, dér iíyé’ al-turéth al-‘arabê, 1408/1988. –––, the life of the prophet muíammad (œ), translated by trevor le gassick, berkshire, garnet publishing, 1998. –––, qaîaî al-anbiyé’, edited by ‘abd al-qédir aímad ‘aïé, beirut, al-maktabat al-islémiyyah, 1401/1981?. –––, al-sêrat al-nabawiyyah, edited by muîïafé ‘abd al-wéíid, beirut, dér al-fikr, 1398/1978. –––, tafsêr al-qur’én al-‘aðêm, edited by sami b. muíammad salémah, n.p., dér taybah, 1420/1999. khélidi, tarif, the muslim jesus, karachi, oxford university press, 2002. hamdard islamicus 105 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 al-kirénawi, raímat allah b. khalêl al-raímén, izhér al-×aqq, edited by muíammad aímad malkawi, 4 vols., riyadh, al-ri’asah al-‘ammah li idarat al-buhuth al-‘ilmiyyah wa ’l-ifta’ wa ’l-da‘wah wa ’l-irshad, 1410/1989. abë laylah, muíammad, the qur’én and the gospels: a comparative study, cairo, el-falah for translation publishing, 1998. lewis, agnes smith and margaret dunlop gibbs, eds., the palestinian syriac lectionary of the gospels, london, kegan paul, trench, trübner, and co., 1899. ibn méjah, muíammad b. yazêd, sunan ibn méjah, riyadh, dér al-salém, 1420/ 1999. al-marwazê, muíammad b. naîr, mukhtaîar qiyém al-layl, faisalabad, hadêth akédmê, 1408/1988. mcauliffe, jane dammen, qur’énic christians: an analysis of classical and modern exegesis, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1991. moinul haq, s., trans., ibn sa‘d’s kitéb al-ùabaqét al-kabêr, karachi, pakistan historical society, 1972. al-nasé’ê, aímad b. shu‘ayb, sunan al-nasé’ê al-øughré, riyadh, dér al-salém, 1420/ 1999. al-nawéwê, yahya b. sharaf, øaíêí muslim bi sharí al-imém abi zakariyyé yahya b. sharaf al-nawawi, beirut, dér al-fikr, 1424/2004. o’leary, de lacy, comparative grammar of the semitic languages, london, kegan paul, 1923. ibn qutaybah, ‘abd allah b. muslim, gharêb al-×adêth, beirut, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1408/1988. robinson, c.f., “waraka b. nawfal.” in the encyclopaedia of islam, edited by p.j. bearban, th. bianquis, c.e. bosworth, e. van donzel and w.p. heinrichs, vol. xi, pp. 142-143, 2nd edn., leiden, brill, 2002. ibn sa‘d, muíammad, al-ùabaqat al-kubré, edited by ihsan ‘abbas, beirut, dar sadir, 1968. salibi, kamal s., the bible came from arabia, london, jonathan cape, 1985. –––, who was jesus: conspiracy in jerusalem, london, tauris parke paperbacks, 2007. al-séliíê, muíammad b. yësuf, subul al-×udé wa ’l-rashéd fi sêrat kayr al-‘ibéd, edited by ‘adil aímad ‘abd al-mawjéd and ‘alê muíammad mu‘awwid, beirut, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1428/2007. al-san‘énê, ‘abd al-razzéq b. humém, al-muîannaf, edited by ×abêb al-raímén al-a‘ðamê, beirut, al-maktab al-islémê, 1403 a.h. shahid, irfan. “islam and oriens christianus: makka 610-622 a,d.”, in: the encounter of eastern christianity with early islam, edited by emmanouela grypeou, mark n. swanson, and david thomas, leiden, brill, 2006, pp. 9-31. smith, wilfred c., islam in modern history, princeton, nj, princeton university press, 1957. –––, “some similarities and differences between christianity and islam: an essay in comparative religion”, in: the world of islam: studies in honour of philip k. hitti, edited by james kritzeck and r. bayly winder, london, macmillan, 1959, pp. 47-59. al-suyëïê, abd al-raímén b. abê bakr. al-durr al-manthër fi ’l-tafsêr al-ma’thër, beirut, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1421/2000. hamdard islamicus 106 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 al-ùabarénê, sulaymén b. aímad, al-mu‘jam al-awsaï, edited by ùériq b. ‘awd alléh and ‘abd al-muísin b. ibréhêm al-×usaynê, cairo, dér al-haramayn, 1415 a.h. –––, al-mu‘jam al-kabêr, edited by ×amdê ‘abd al-×amêd al-salafê, cairo, maktabat ibn taymiyyah, 1983? al-ùabarê, muíammad b. jarêr, jémi‘ al-bayén ‘an ta’wêl ayy al-qur’én, edited by maímëd muíammad shékir, beirut, dér iíyé’ al-turéth al-‘arabê, 1421/2001. al-tamêmê, abë ya‘lé aímad b. ‘alê. al-musnad, edited by hasan salêm asad, damascus, dér al-ma’mën li ’l-turéth, 1404/1984. al-ùayélisê, abë déwëd sulaymén b. déwëd, al-musnad, beirut, dér al-ma‘rafah, n.d. ibn taymiyyah, aímad, al-jawéb al-øaíêí li man baddal dên al-maîêh. edited by ‘alê b. ×asan b. néîir, ‘abd al-‘azêz b. ibréhêm al-‘askar, and ×amdén b. muíammad al-×amdén. riyadh: dér al-‘aîimah, 1414 ah. al-tirmidhê, muíammad b. ‘isé, jémi‘ al-tirmidhê, riyadh, dér al-salém,1420/1999. –––, al-shamé‘il al-muhammadiyyah, edited by muíammad ‘afêf al-za‘bêð, jeddah, dér al-matbë‘ét al-×adêthah, 1409/1988. ‘umrén, aímad, al-×aqêqat al-sa‘bat fi ’l-mêzén, beirut, al-mu’assasat al-a‘lamê li ’lmatbë‘ét, 1415/1995. al-ya‘qëbê, aímad b. abê ya‘qëb, térêkh al-ya‘qëbê, beirut, dér sadr & dér bayrët, 1960. f:\e\islamicus\2020\n0. 1\new folder\a study of the contemporary.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 7 a study of the contemporary western academic approaches to history of the qur’ón: the case of encyclopaedia of the qur’ón iffat batool tafsir department international islamic university islamabad e-mail: iffat.batool@iiu.edu.pk the history of the qur’énic text is a central point of western studies due to its vitality and significance. in the present century, many anthological works produced by the western scholarship offer a large portion to this subject. what increases its significance is the contemporary western claims concerning the objective and impartial nature of their researches in this regard. this paper endeavors to highlight the major characteristics of contemporary western approaches to the issue of compilation. for this reason, the data in encyclopaedia of the qur’én is selected. moreover, the paper draws special attention to the advancements with regard to this topic. the paper concludes that for a better and objective understanding towards intellectual issues, it is essential for western scholarship to free itself from the bias and partiality. key words: qur’én, compilation, west, scholarship, objectivity introduction the qur’én, being the final message of allah, enjoys a fundamental status in muslim societies. due to its vital role, it has been the focus of western scholars’ research in the past. in the present era as well, a massive upsurge in the production of academic literature in qur’énic 8 western approach to history of qur’én... studies can be witnessed. diverse approaches are used in western academia to study themes of qur’énic studies, such as history of the qur’én with its sub-branches. a point to note is that despite the huge production of literature, nonmuslim scholarship could not gain acceptance in the muslim world. there are many factors that affected the credibility of the western qur’énic scholarship in the muslim eye. mostly, muslims have related this work to the tradition of orientalism that had its own agendas and plans associated with political power and dominance, as denoted by edward said in his works.1 classical polemical works influenced muslim thought to the extent that generally they discard western academic scholarship, setting it in the archetype of polemic tradition. although, one can witness a variety of styles and methodologies in the works of western scholars, yet what cannot be overlooked is the uniformity of their findings. the consensus of western scholars on the basic themes of qur’énic studies affected their credibility in the muslim eye. hence, a sense of disapproval for western academic works can be observed in the writings of even modern muslim scholars.2 one fine example can be of the late fazl-ulreímén, who convincingly says that the western attempts in the field of qur’énic studies are nothing except uncontrolled and wishful thinking with so-called canons of objectivity.3 fahad interprets western scholarship as ‘scholarly injuries’ inflicted upon the muslims.4 it might be for this reason that the majority of muslim opinion does not rank the western qur’énic scholarship in high esteem. moreover, oriental scholarship, according to them, has not tried to study islam according to the understanding of its devotees and hence it has its counterpart in the medieval qur’énic scholarship.5 on the other hand, contemporary western scholars hold the view that western academia is endeavoring to study islam applying the new research tools that guarantee a dispassionate and objective study of the qur’én.6 furthermore, the enlightenment has changed the old style and set advanced frameworks for the study of the qur’én.7 a glance backward demonstrates towards an evolution in the phases of the western islamic studies. the medieval image of the prophet muhammad from the false prophet and a mere fraud has developed in the modern ages to his recognition as a sincere leader. even in many writings, he has been acknowledged as a true prophet although for his own time. for instance, the traces of this approach can be found in the works of thomas carlyle (d.1881), and karen armstrong. moreover, their description of the qur’én as an absurd and hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 9 patchwork has changed to its recognition as a great book that had its lasting influence on the world civilization. at present, one can observe a massive upsurge in producing academic literature on the qur’én covering its history, manuscripts, literary styles, themes etc. this transformation of style and approaches in the study of islam in general and the qur’én in specific is an aftermath of the grave change in the entire paradigm of the western studies of art, science and religion in modern times. besides, another factor that influenced the overall methodological approaches towards the qur’énic studies is the muslim contribution in the western academia. it is quite evident that many of the renowned muslim scholars such as sayyed husien nasr, fazlur rehman (d.1988), mustansir mir, abdullah saeed have affected the western academia to some extent with their contribution. this paper intends to throw light on the issue by a critical examination of recent western academic contribution to the theme of the history of the qur’én, considering specifically the case of the ‘encyclopaedia of the qur’én’ by brill. the said compendium is the foremost work devoted entirely to the qur’én and is a major outcome of the joint academic endeavors of western scholarship. a critical analytical approach is followed for the evaluation of data in this paper. likewise, the important tools that are employed for the systematic study of the material are taken from the basic standards of research methods in religious studies and the science of critical thinking.8 researchers across the world are supposed to follow some technical rules in academic writing, be it related to science or religion. the negligence of these principles can affect the quality of the work. some among these are as followings: 1. a researcher is supposed to represent ‘others’ fairly. he/she should respect the dignity of the subject as it has the right to be represented truly. 2. impartiality is among the most significant prerequisites of any scholarship that claims to hold a just view on a question. 3. a researcher is supposed to build his arguments rationally. 4. he/she must not distort the evidence and facts. moreover, he/ she must not influence his/her readers by compelling expressions or argumentative deception. 5. a scholar should realize that the job of his/her scholarship is the betterment of intellectual understanding and not putting others down. 10 western approach to history of qur’én... an introduction to ‘encyclopaedia of the qur’én’: the abundance of academic works in the genre of qur’énic studies in the west determines the fact that it is a primary focus of the contemporary scholarship there. in this respect, some publishing companies are of grave significance. brill, a publishing house founded in 1683, with the mission statement: ‘to be a leading internationally publishing house in all domains of sciences’ is one fine instance. many significant, valuable and famous books have been published by brill in the field of qur’énic studies in the last two centuries.9 in the 20th century, western academia claimed to produce the century’s best work i.e. the encyclopaedia of islam. they also count the encyclopaedia of the qur’én as an excellent and remarkable success of the 21st century. after looking at the response to the encyclopaedia of islam, the encyclopaedia of the qur’én was designed to be more ‘academic’ and ‘scientific’ in approach and style. it is an extensive project on qur’énic studies. it is enormous and massive having almost 2919 pages in five volumes with an additional index volume of 860 pages. the back cover claims eq to be the first multi-volume reference work on qur’én with nearly 1000 entries. the assertion of the participation of hundreds of scholars from both muslims and non-muslims illustrates that the plurality of perspectives abounds in eq. it combines alphabetically arranged articles about the contents and themes of the qur’én that lie within the arena of qur’énic studies. by browsing the pages of the preface, one can easily identify the objectives for creating the encyclopaedia. the most crucial of them is to generate a work that can be the best embodiment of ‘scientific’ and ‘objective’ study of the qur’én.10 another important factor, according to the preface, is to bridge the intellectual gap that was created by the centuries confined scholarship of both muslim and non-muslim scholars.11 hence, for the achievement of this task, several muslim scholars and researchers were invited to contribute in this work by the editorial team that consisted of jane demmen mcauliffe,12 andrew rippin,13 uri rubin,14 angelika neuwirth15, and muhammad arkoun.16 it is important to note the reception of this huge compendium in the muslim world. a blend of opinions can be witnessed in this regard. generally, muslim scholars strongly nullify this piece of western scholarship. connecting this academic contribution to the tradition hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 11 of orientalism, they consider it a new wine in an old bottle.17 another muslim scholar declares it a propaganda rather than learning.18 therefore, the causes for the pejorative attitude of the muslim scholars towards encyclopaedia of the qur’én must be assessed. perhaps there are some sound realities that led them to disapprove of the work. taking a brief glance at some of the key features of this work may help explain this to some extent. muslim contribution in the eq is highlighted frequently by western scholars and mostly is introduced as an essential feature of the eq. this paper argues that the fact is not as claimed by the western academy. almost 278 authors have contributed to the eq. among them, there are 50 muslim authors and the overall number of their entries is 111 out of 694. this statistical assessment demonstrates that from the entire material of the eq, data coming from the muslim pen is fifteen percent only. moreover, there are approximately 36 articles associated with the qur’énic sciences. apart from three, all of these essential articles are contributed by non-muslim scholars, thus making their involvement ninetytwo percent in general. all significant entries, relating to revelation, compilation and chronology of the qur’én are primarily written by nonmuslims. this data can easily demonstrate the actual ratio of the muslim contribution in this work. it is also noticeable, that the muslim scholars who sustain a pivotal position in the managerial team of eq do not represent the well-established muslim point of view. it is quite manifest that muslim scholars’ contribution has been marginal in the overall material. the examination of the qur’énic terminologies demonstrates that all fundamental issues of the beliefs are written by the non-muslims, e.g., god, muhammad, sërah, ×adêth and the qur’én, etc. the muslim scholars were assigned topics of trivial nature such as ‘trips’, ‘sinai’, ‘ships’, ‘barrier’ etc. for the muslim contribution to be significant, they should also have been given the essential themes of the qur’én to address. another issue worth mentioning is that traditional western writers often undervalue the importance of muslim scholarship. in many traditional and contemporary writings, the tendency of “we know better” can be witnessed. a likewise treatment can be observed in numerous entries of the eq. this basic thread that runs through the entire eq is taken from the preface where the editor shows her reservations concerning the ambiguous nature of the muslim scholarship.19 as a result of the pejorative effects of the traditional polemical 12 western approach to history of qur’én... works, an unbroken chain of ideas can be identified in many regards. specifically, the idea of the borrowed nature of islam and the qur’én and a derogatory image of muslim scholarship is entrenched in western works, both classical and contemporary. concerning the notion of the borrowing nature of islam, alaðamê says that it is both assuming and aggravating how determined orientalists are to credit other cultures for every achievement of islameven something as simple as the separating of one verse from next with a dot.20 the case of history of the qur’én: the history of the text covers a range of subjects such as the origin, process of compilation, multiple readings and codices of companions. the more significance it has, the more complex it is. the reason to list the topic as complex can be demonstrated by the fact that generally it generates sensitivity among the muslims. to elaborate, the basic factor that has influenced the image of western scholarship in the muslim eye is their treatment of the issue of compilation, or in other words, the history of the qur’én. moreover, it is important since all other issues subordinate it. this is the core question that is dealt with by foremost western scholars due to its significance. hence, traditional western scholarship puts great emphasis on this topic. modern western scholars also discuss the collection of the qur’én with the same frequency. the muslim standpoint on the history of the qur’én: according to the conventional muslim understanding, the qur’én was sent down in fragments over a span of almost twenty-three years. since it was not revealed in one go, its preservation in one compiled form was impossible. thus, there arises the question of how the segregated content was put together. moreover, does the existing qur’én represent the same text revealed to the prophet? muslim traditions report all these issues. here, only the important details of the traditional sunnite view are mentioned. the word that is used for the entire course of the preservation of the qur’én is jam‘, which means collection, assemblage and gathering.21 in qur’énic sciences, this term refers to the acts of memorization of the qur’én and its writing. the word with its inference to the writing denotes three historical phases. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 13 1. the era of the prophet ( 2. the period of the caliph abëbakr (r.a.) 3. the time of caliph ‘uthmén (r.a.) the tradition states that the qur’énic text was preserved by the means of memorization and writing alike. during the age of the prophet muhammad ( , he used to memorize every word of the qur’én, as did his companions. at the time of his demise, many companions had memorized either the entire text or some parts of it. many muslim scholars have cited the names of those companions.22 as far as the writing is concerned, muslims are agreed on the opinion that whenever the revelation descended, the prophet ( ordered his scribes to record it in writing. historical accounts have listed at least 40 scribes who accompanied the prophet ( for this purpose.23 it is reported that different materials were used for writing, such as ‘usub (bark of palm trees), likhéf (stones), adêm (leather) riq‘(parchment), aktéf (bones), and aktéb (pieces of saddle-wood).24 at the time of the prophet’s death, the entire qur’én was written down, but not in the form of a complete book. during the reign of abëbakr (r.a.), as a result of the deaths of various ×ufféð, it was feared that most parts of the qur’én would be lost unless a written copy was prepared. consequently, zaid bin thébit (r.a.) was appointed to collect the qur’én in one place. in the process of collection, he took extraordinary precautionary measures to ensure accuracy and precision. in these copies, the verses were arranged but the surahs were not. instead, every surah was written and kept separately. this was called øuíuf.25 during the time of ‘uthmén, disputes arose among people in the recitation of the qur’én. when he was informed about these clashes by his general ×uìayfah (r.a.) ibn al-yaman, he constituted a committee of four people, zaid (r.a.) being their leader, to prepare copies from the îuíuf that were in the possession of ×afîah (r.a.), the daughter of ‘umar (r.a.) and the wife of the prophet ( . he also ordered his committee to prepare these copies in the dialect of quraish.26 on the completion of the mission, he dispatched these copies to main cities and ordered all other muîéíêf to be burnt. thus, muslims hold the view that the present qur’én is the facsimile of the revelation to the prophet ( . the western stance it is important to note that the matter of collection has a close 14 western approach to history of qur’én... connection with ‘ilm-al-×adêth (the science of prophetic narratives). accordingly, the apprehension of the entire issue is based on the narratives of the collection process. by and large, contemporary western scholars, in their discourses referring to the case of compilation, discuss these reports highlighting their doubts towards its authenticity. yet, some of them step forward and declare the traditions as nothing except forgery and fabrication e.g., burton and g.h.a. joynboll.27 in fact, they are influenced by the past theories inaugurated by gustave weil (d. 1889), alloys springer (d.1893), william muir (d. 1905) and ignaz goldziher (d. 1921) and more significantly by joseph schacht (d. 1969) in the twentieth century.28 nineteenth-century scholars expressed their skepticism towards the historicity of prophetic reports and declared that the transmission of ×adith remained oral in earlier centuries. among them, goldziher correlated the political aspect of the muslim society with tradition, asserting that the political view of the time found its expression in the form of ×adith. on the other hand, schacht, with an entirely diverse perspective, presented the idea of fabrication of ×adith, establishing his research on islamic jurisprudence and its development. he proposed the idea that prophetic traditions originated in the second half of the first century in contrast to the saying of the companions. moreover, according to him, isnéd system shows a tendency to project back the narration to the prophet ( in order to gain a higher status.29 the seminal treatise which remained the basis of all the subsequent works was that of theodore noldeke’s (d.1930) monograph on the history of the text of the qur’én. noldeke, following the norms of the western scholarship, declares the collection reports to be strikingly contradictory.30 richard bell, famous for his rearrangement of the qur’én, believes that many discrepancies in the narratives can be located about the issue of collection, or in other words, history of the qur’én.31 another scholar who dealt with this subject was arthur jeffery. jeffery too accepts islamic traditions partially along with his reservations. a reader can notice that these scholars, although showing their discomfort with the traditional reports, accept them to some extent. yet, another group of western scholars totally reject the collection reports such as alfonse mingana (d.1937), and john wansbrough (d.2002). many other scholars also maintain an identical premise. among them are crone and crook, norman calder, andrew rippin and angelika neuwirth32. summarizing the above discussion, western scholars can be grouped into two. first is the group who rely, to some degree, on the muslim hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 15 historical sources and recognize the traditional accounts on the subject of preservation of the qur’én. nevertheless, they are suspicious about the process. the second group, in short, with its rejection of the muslim accounts, introduced multiple theories concerning the codification of the qur’én based on a variety of evidence. many of these theories are dismissed by others because of the scarcity of sound evidence. moreover, as the revisionists themselves could not present satisfactory alternatives, their approaches led to what neuwirth deems as ‘paralysis in research’.33 the contemporary academic scholarship on ‘history of the qur’én: it would be appropriate to mention the basic factor behind the selection of eq for the review of the 21st century’s academic scholarship on the qur’én. the reason underlies the fact that this work is stated to be an advancement in the objective study of the qur’én. moreover, it deals with the theme of history from various dimensions with multiple approaches. yet, the important point is to notice whether there is any difference in the findings of the writers or not. the article that is entirely devoted to the theme of the collection is written by john burton titled “collection of the qur’én”. this article is based originally on his previous work published in 1977 under the title of “the collection of the qur’én” and the works of arthur jeffery “materials for the history of the text of the qur’én”. in his work, he discusses the notion of the collection in detail, interconnecting the abrogation theory and collection reports.34 although his core theory is similar to other scholars to a certain extent, yet he came up with this theme from quite a different angle using the notion of abrogation.35 burton’s other work that focuses on this concern is “the sources of islamic law; theories of abrogation”.36 this book is considered the first detailed, though too technical, western work on the theme of abrogation.37 burton dedicated both of his works to the notion of abrogation and its application in islamic law. in these writings, he strongly endorses the view that the jurists, in order to prove the operational status of the stoning rule, introduced the third mode of abrogation i.e. omission of wording without ruling.38 as far as his article in the eq is concerned, the writer, after elucidating the term collection, expresses his doubts regarding the collection reports as following: “muslim traditions on the collection of the qur’én must, like any other ×adêth, be tested by exposure to the wider background of islamic definition from which they emerged”.39 16 western approach to history of qur’én... immediately after this reservation, leaving ambiguity about the identification of the anonymous commentators, he says that most influential commentators and the majority of the legal scholars held the view that the entire qur’én was never collected.40 burton’s foremost claim is that the reports on the collection of the qur’én, either made by abë bakr or by ‘uthmén, were placed to serve some specific tasks. the collection narrations, as he believes, were created by the muslim legal scholars to explicate legal doctrines that are not found in the qur’én. in his works, he presents a detailed analysis of the relevant reports and points out the discrepancies in them. explicating the motives to invent these narratives, burton states that to validate the practices that had no base in the qur’én, the muslim jurists maintained that they are based on the verses whose wording is abrogated. this idea presupposed a situation that required the exclusion of the prophet from the collection.41 he states; “to accommodate the theory of abrogation, the collection had to be deliberately placed in the period following the prophet’s death, a motif that scholars (jurists) were keen to emphasize by repeating it in the collection tradition”.42 to reinforce his claim, burton says that the reports pertaining to the issue of the collections reveal inconsistencies and discrepancies, an indicator of the fabrication. to further elaborate the point, he brings forward some of the traditions and treats them as supplementary reports such as related to the collection of abë bakr, ‘umar, ‘uthmén and ‘alê (r.a.). he views all relevant traditions as a part of the drama that was designed to support the abrogation theory. the western scholarship, he expounds, has shown reservations about these reports. he declares that this is not the normal duplication of attribution. but, it was an attempt to report more than one aspect of the text.43 analysis john burton has focused his work on the specific dimension of the prophetic reports connecting it with jurists’ abrogation theory. the writer seems to be deeply influenced by the views of his predecessors. consequently, one can easily witness the reiteration of related phraseology such as forgery, fabricated, designed, etc. burton’s claim can be examined on many grounds. firstly, to evaluate the argument it is essential to explore the fact on a historical basis. the writer, by a close critical textual examination of the collection reports, concluded that all reports hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 17 are contradictory. this view led him to declare them all to be fabricated. in proclaiming so, he attributed the fabrication of the collection reports to jurists and according to him, it was a group of jurists who placed the narratives to fortify the notion of abrogation. a vigilant survey of the argument reveals the fact that it lacks historical dimensions. to elaborate more, the first book of islamic jurisprudence is alrisélah of imém shéfi‘ê (d. 204/820) written in the second quarter of the second century. in the developmental stages of islamic jurisprudence, this period is to be considered as the first phase. he was followed by the scholars of the fourth and fifth century such as muhammad bin isíéq al shéshê (d.344) aímad bin ‘alê aljaîîéî (d.370) and abë ‘alê al ×anbalê (d.428). one can observe that in fact, the development in this discipline took place in the fifth century by the emergence of many other works in this regard. even if it is admitted that burton intended an early date for this development at the beginning of the third century as motzaki illustrates, we have at our disposal sources before the development of jurisprudence. hence, it is very evident that the discourses of the jurists on the theory of abrogation started when the collection traditions were already known. if we go back to the earlier references of the collection reports, we find that these narratives were in circulation by the first half of the second century and even earlier. for instance, the earlier sources for these reports are musnad of ùiyélisi (d.204)44 and musnad of aímad bin ×anbal (d. 241)45. even the oft-repeated and key source of his works kitéb-ul-maîéíêif of abë dé’ëd (d.316) predate the development of jurisprudence discourses. burton, although using the plural noun of scholars or jurists, mentioned the statement of khaïtébê (d. 388)46 in this regard with the reference of fatíul bérê.47 the statement is as follows; ي ران ف ع الق م يجم ا ل لم انم ه و س لي هللا علي ون ص ل ان يك يحتم حف “ المص ه” ه او تالوت ض احكام خ لبع ن ورود ناس ه م ان يترقب ا ك لم the above-mentioned statement of imam khaïtébê would be translated as “probably, the prophet ( could not collect the qur’én in one copy as there always remained expectation of revelation abrogation of some rulings or wordings.” many later scholars of jurisprudence and qur’énic sciences followed khaïtébê in this view and expressed the same reason along with other factors. this demonstrates the fact that he can be considered as the key source of this opinion. now, by looking at the period of khaïtébê, one can easily apprehend the fact that he cannot be considered the originator of 18 western approach to history of qur’én... the reports in discussion as they were already in circulation before him. besides, burton right through his works mentions the plural noun of scholars that indicate his perception of a group of jurists that placed the tradition to fortify their position. hence, the interconnection of abrogation with the collection reports and subsequently with fabrication is invalid on a historical basis. secondly, the dearth of historicity is quite visible throughout the article. the second point to be examined is to see whether the theory of naskh, introduced by scholars of late centuries as burton believes, has no root in the earlier period of the prophet ( and his companions. it is a wellknown fact that the qur’énic text itself has the root word naskh and the term itself was well-comprehended by the successors.49 one instance is sufficient here. it is narrated about ‘ali bin abi ùélib (r.a.) that upon seeing a man in the mosque expounding the meaning of the qur’én for people, asked him if he had knowledge of al-nésikh and al-mansëkh.50 moreover, the earlier works on this subject such as qatédah b. d‘émah (d. 117), and of ‘aïé b. muslim (d. 115) dismiss the validity of the claims put forward by the author as they were extant before the works of jurisprudence. thirdly, it can also be observed that he has supposed four stages for the validity of the claim. 1. scholars have invented the theory of abrogation, specifically the third mode (abrogation of ayah with the continuation of law) to fortify their assertions. 2. for this purpose, they have invented verses claimed to be abrogated. 3. they have excluded the prophet ( from the collection. 4. they have designed numerous multiple reports about the collection. the above-mentioned process denotes an attempt of designing a long series of fabrications to prove a single or few rulings. for the sake of argument, if it is acknowledged that the jurists had fabricated an abrogated éyah or few to fortify their claim, was it not far easier for them to find their way by simply forging a ×adêth instead of going through a long procedure of forging many verses and mass of traditions followed by collection reports.51 it is rather illogical that the jurists have designed a complex system of chains and texts in order to fortify the claims or rulings the number of which is approximately not more than three.52 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 19 fourthly, it was not only jurists who discussed the collection of the qur’én in the scenario of abrogation. specialists of the sciences of the qur’én also talked about this topic. these scholars, with their understanding, tried to justify the compilation process after the demise of the prophet ( . these muslim scholars have endeavored to offer, according to their comprehension, some other factors also for compilation after the demise of prophet ( . this includes that the prophet could not compile the qur’én himself due to the absence of adequate writing material for that. some others added that as revelation was in pieces and according to situations, the prophet could not gather it in one copy. it is also narrated that there was a small gap between his death and the last revelation. thus, this short period was insufficient for the task of compilation.53 moreover, it can be noticed that although a majority of the scholars have accepted the third mode of abrogation, some scholars and jurists have shown their reservation relating to its possibility.54 hence, it can be noticed that if one group of scholars has placed the reports to justify the third mode, the second group could also have expressed their disapproval and rejection in the matter of this issue. the absence of this denunciation and criticism in the vast corpus of islamic accounts shows the weakness of burton’s arguments. furthermore, the author did not specify a group that invented the reports and its period. he did not explicitly declare whether they existed in the same generation or belonged to several generations. furthermore, if they were from one generation, how far was it practicable for them to communicate with each other on the same matter in an age when distances were of the journeys of months and not a single day? the geographical conditions of that time do not support this claim. burton did not fix the time period too. did they not face any protest or opposition? the well-known history of islam does not admit the existence of this absurd situation.55 furthermore, to have a glimpse of academic tendency, intellectual enthusiasm and historical consciousness, it is vital to mention some of the basic features of the traditional muslim society. in this regard abbot, describing the intellectual achievements of the second century, declares that these accomplishments could not have been possible without the initial steps of the companions and the intellectual heritage.56 a neutral succinct look over the classical period of islam reveals the academic trends of that era. from companions to successors and later generations, 20 western approach to history of qur’én... one finds not hundreds but thousands of students, out of their academic zest, traveling from region to region to acquire even one narration. for a single narration, numerous chains can be traced with minute difference.57 the intellectual and educational milieu of the muslim societies was so cognizant that very subtle rules have been formed by scholars to determine the eligibility of a student of ×adêth and more significantly, the science of ‘ilal al-×adêth has been designed to establish the credibility, vigilance and reliability of a transmitter.58 in an academic world, where a slightest and delicate deficiency in a transmitter results in his denunciation, it was hard for a single scholar, let alone a group, to fabricate a narration and ascribe it easily to the prophet. abbot describes the measures taken by specialists of ×adêth that at that time oral tradition went hand in hand with the written one, not as an aid to memory only but, as a control against oral fraud.59 moreover, this cultural heritage does not comprise some decades or a few years, it is spanning over fourteen centuries. consequently, it is not an easy task to just assume a narration is fabricated as one has the burden of proving evidence. fuat sezgin says in this regard that to determine the validity of a narration, one has to adopt a clear methodology. but, first of all, one has to free oneself from old prejudices and mere assertions of fabrication.60 so, here also it should be examined that whether it is excessive doubt and ‘scientific method’ that has been followed throughout the research or it is objectivity. as far as the general presentation of the notion of collection is concerned, the work has positive points with the predominance of academic faults. it is a norm of the articles in the eq to offer a general concept of the terminology in discussion with the illustration of the muslim view on this theme primarily and then to proceed towards other theories in this regard. this facet can be considered as a positive sign and a step forward in the scholarly field. yet, it is vital to assess the manner and style of representing the muslim stance. at the very beginning of his article, the writer comments that “it was held by most influential scholars and commentators that the entire qur’én was never collected”. the attribution of the consensus that their holy book was never collected to anonymous muslim scholars and commentators is very obviously a deformation of fact. an unacquainted reader can be misled by this over-generalization. moreover, the addition of the phrase “most influential scholars and commentators”, needs elucidation and clarification. for the sake of accuracy, the author is hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 21 supposed to identify the persons to whom he is referring. the methodology of inverting ideas is considered as flawed and questionable by experts of critical thinking. it draws the reader, unless well-informed, to confusion and uncertainty. as far as the interpretation of burton for islamic belief is concerned, he has based his interpretation on fatí-al-barê, one of the major commentaries for the text of øaíií albukhérê. but, at one very basic point, he misrepresented the original statement. likewise, he has made the reader suspicious by indicating the discrepancies in reports of collection. taking into consideration the text of ibn-×ajar, the reader apprehends that the basic factor for the first collection of the qur’én was the death of various companions and the fear of ‘umar that the text would be lost if the situation remained the same. as ibn-×ajar quotes; ران“ ن الق ير م ذهب كث that stands for “lest it might be lost”.61 ”في now coming to the phrase that burton has used, one can easily notice that he has altered the sentence as he says: “to provide a summarized version of the muslim reports…..those passages had neither been written down nor had the prophet’s successor collected the text. consequently, those passages had been lost.62 in another place, he says; “abë-bakr assembled the text for the fear of further loss”63 (the focus is on the italicized word) in the connection of the first paragraph that denotes towards the aforesaid statement about the loss of some passages. in a scholarly article, the work demands accuracy in the narration and citation of the sources, the lack of which affects the standard of the work. in the previous clause, the author committed two mistakes in citation. one is related to the translation of the exact text and the second is linked with the fallacy of addition in the citation. moreover, in the description and explanation of the idea, one has to be very accurate and factual and free from passing value judgments. it is observed in most of the entries of eq that authors attempt to commence the discussion with confusing remarks. hence, one can find a plethora of sentences such as “one has to be careful”, “one should not accept the traditions as fact value”, “narratives are dubious” etc. identical expressions are observed in this article too, as burton frequently reiterates his reservations and doubts throughout his work. while narrating the remaining ×édêth, he relied on the works that are listed in the category of secondary references. to establish primary results on secondary sources is irrational. the mainspring of these narrations in his secondary sources is kitéb al-maîéíêf,64 the work that 22 western approach to history of qur’én... has been a major source of other earlier western works too. his second source is material of jeffery, who edited kitéb al-maîéíêf with a preface. it is significant to note that both of these sources are not the first-hand sources for the issue of collection. furthermore, material of jeffery is assessed by many scholars and declared as unreliable for his overgeneralization and heavy reliance on unauthentic and limited sources.65 it is quite worth mentioning that a researcher while representing the views of others, is free to offer his/her views too. yet, in a scholarly piece of work, one is obliged not to pass value judgments. in doing so only, one can fulfill the academic and scientific requirements of the work. in the case of burton, he could not manage to escape from presuppositions and assumptions. he, after reporting the western uncertainties on muslim reports, comments that the entire drama is planned to serve some specific purposes. furthermore, reports and counter-reports were designed to achieve some particular goals. the author himself, while passing his judgments, could not offer any sound evidence for the alleged forgery. an unbiased reader can judge himself about the phraseology used for this purpose. the point worth mentioning here is that the theory presented by burton is dismissed by western scholars too. for instance, a modern scholar of ×adêth herald motzki declares his discourse as artificial and implausible. a quote from him may elaborate on the issue. motzaki writes; “a historical dimension is completely lacking in burton’s study of the traditions concerning the collection of the qur’én. he arranges different traditions to create a discourse which he thinks took place between scholars over a long period of time……… however burton did not try to check whether his scheme of evolution historically corroborated by the sources”.66 finally, in the citation of canonical reports, he has not followed one consistent scheme as he has mentioned the main and primary source in ×adith narration fatí al -bérê, but in the narration of many reports, he has relied on secondary sources such as materials of jeffery and the collection of the qur’én. this fluctuation in the plan has affected the standard of the work. likewise, in his primary sources, the first book he has mentioned is kitéb al -maîéíêf. nonetheless, he did not mention this work in his text directly despite the fact that most of the reports he has narrated are from this source.67 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 23 conclusion the human endeavor cannot be announced as perfect, ideal and faultless, as to err is an indispensable part of humans. every human attempt has its plus points and drawbacks. hence, to address these characteristics becomes crucial for a better understanding of matters. some significant peculiarities are as follows; it is necessary, for a better comprehension of the issue, to draw attention to a few significant points regarding the nature of critical approaches to the qur’én in the west. scholars hold that the recent approaches related to either field of ×adêth or qur’énic studies trace their roots, more or less, to the past and more significantly to the reformation period.68 among the major outcomes of that period was the treatment of religious traditions and scholarship with skepticism and uncertainty. rené guénon (d. 1951) considers this the dilemma of western civilization and expresses his views about this era saying that it has, in general, influenced the conception of the entire human history in a pejorative sense. history has been considered as a legend for which modern writers do not allow themselves to obtain any certainty. the modern period has produced purely a material mind that denies suprarational things. hence, he declares the modern look towards history as anti-tradition.69 the problem augmented when this approach was generalized in treating the traditions and texts of other religions and more significantly islam. the profound influence of modern philosophies has resulted in the way that they try to see everything with their own lens of skepticism that leads them to the excessive doubt and even rejection of historical facts. consequently, the thread of the fabrication of the islamic narration could be seen throughout the history of treatment with islam and in the present encyclopaedia as well. one fine example of this treatment is the present article. the pejorative conception of the church authorities resulted in the ill-treatment of overall classical scholarship. although the positive academic contribution of the muslim scholarship in the world’s civilizations is admitted by many western scholars,70 there is still a tendency of misrepresentation of muslim scholars. it is a reality that the occidental scholarship does not place the classical muslim intellectuals in high regard in the sense that their role is mostly perceived as working for their own interests and 24 western approach to history of qur’én... agendas. a thorough look into the works of foremost scholars reveals the fact that to inculcate doubts about the classical muslim scholars is a common feature of western scholarship. some instances of the patronizing behavior towards muslim scholarship are; “they have been twisting the qur’énic text for their specific agendas” and “they did not have sound and solid knowledge”71 bennett, in his discussion of the outcome of eighteenth-century humanist scholarship, illustrates the fact that although the secular wave did open some new ways to the study of islam, by and large, the overall behavior remained critical and subjective. they did not attempt to understand muslim beliefs from their perspective. a tendency of ‘we knew better’ and they (muslims) could not be trusted to identify islam was there.72 the example of the present articles fortifies this observation as burton, very insistently, charged muslim scholars of forgery and falsification of the facts. contrarily, he attempted to present western scholarship in high regard, continuously using phrases such as the ‘outstanding western works’ and ‘western experts’, leaving an impression of the western supremacy over all other works and findings. notes and references 1. orientalism; western conceptions of the orient with new afterwards (london: penguin books, 1995) see also the works of norman daniel, islam and the west; the making of an image. oxford, one world, 1997. 2. jamal zorbovo, the miraculous qur’én (2 of 11): the qur’én and orientalist shttp://www.islamreligion.com see also; fazl alrehmén, major themes of the qur’én, minneapolis, u.s.a., 1994, pp. 6-7. 3. alrehmén, fazl. some recent books on the qur’én by western authors . the journal of religion 64, no. 1 (jan, 1984.): pp. 73-95. 75 4. fahad ubaidullah, a critique of orientalism, its history and approach. hamdard islamicus. xv (4) 5. pervaiz manzur, method against truth: orientalism and the qur’énic studies. http://www.pmanzoor.info/method-truth.htm see also; tibavi a. l. english speaking orientalists . the muslim world. l, no. 111(1963.):185-204. 193 6. andrew rippin, “the reception of euro-american scholarship on the qur’én and tafsêr”: an overview. journal 0f qur’énic studies 14, no. 1 (2012): 1-8. 7. john voll,” changing western approaches to islamic studies”. in mumtaz ahmad, zahid bukhari and sulayman nyang, eds. observing the observer, the state of islamic studies in american universities. (london: the international institute of islamic thought, 2012), p. 29. 8. i have used the analytical tools mentioned in the following books; michael hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 25 stausberg and steven engler (new york: routledge, 2014), see also; barbara warnick and david s. heineman (new york: mcmillan publishing company, 2009) 9. some of the noticeable works are; the qur’én concordance’ by thomas milo, ‘the dictionary of qur’énic usage’ edited by elsaid badawê, ‘materials for the history of the text of the qur’én’, ‘god of justice. a study on the ethical doctrine of the qur’én, ‘the qur’én as text’, ‘the qur’én in context’, the transmission of various readings of qur’én’, ‘the yemeni manuscript tradition’ and ‘a qur’én commentary’ by ibn barrajén of seville, under the series ‘text and studies on the qur’én’. 10. jane dammen mcauliffe (general editor), encyclopeadia of the qur‘én (leiden: brill, 2001-2006) vol, 1. x 11. encyclopeadia of the qur‘én, vol, 1. xi 12. mcauliffe is a known scholar of qur’énic studies. she has served at many significant institutions such as the university of toronto and george town college. she has also offered her services to bryn mawr college as its eighth president. the focus of her interest in qur’énic studies is exegesis and interfaith dialogue. 13. andrew rippin was a canadian scholar of islam, (former professor of history and dean of the faculty of humanities at the university of victoria, british columbia, canada). he has contributed to the arena of qur’énic studies with many of his notable works. 14. uri rubin (b.1944) is a professor in the department of arabic and islamic studies at tel aviv university in israel. his fields of interest are early islam, qur’én exegesis, and early islamic tradition. 15. she is a professor of qur’énic studies from freie university, berlin, germany. 16. arkoun (1928-2010) was an algerian professor emeritus of the history of islamic thought at the sorbonne. he wrote extensively on islam and modernity with a critical approach. he passed away in 2010 in paris. 17. abdul rahim kidwai, “reference works on the qur’én in english: a survey.” journal of qur’énic research and studies 1, no. 2 (2006): pp. 2-21. 18. munir wasti, the qur’én; the book free of doubt, gujrat, university of gujrat press. 2009, p. 243. 19. encyclopeadia of the qur‘én, vol, i, x-xi 20. muíammad muîtufé ala‘ðamê, the history of the qur’énic text, muíammad muîtufé ala‘ðamê, england, islamic academy, p. 100. 21. alb‘lbakkê munêr, almawrid alwasit, bairut, darul ilm, 2002, p. 268 22. shamsuddin al jazarê, alnashr fil qir’é t al‘asher (al-makm ba‘ altijériyyah al-kubra) vol, i. p. 6. 23. qésim, b. salém, faìé’l al -qur’én ) bairët: dér ibn kathêr, 1995), p. 280 24. ibn jarêr, alùabarê, ed. shékir, aímad, tafsêr ùabari. moassasat al-risala, 2000), vol, i. 59. jaléluddên, al-suyëïê, al-itqén fê ‘loom al-qur’én, egypt, alhai’ah almiîriyyah, 1974, vol, i, 202. see also: badaruddên, alzarkashê, alburhén fê ‘loom al -qur’én, ed, muíammad, ibréhêm. egypt, dér ihya alkutub al ‘arabiyyah, 1957, vol. i, p. 297. 25. muhammad b. isma’il al -bukhérê, aljame‘ al øaíií, ed. muhammad zuhair 26 western approach to history of qur’én... (dér ùawq al -nijét, 1422), vol. 6. 183. 4987. ibn ×ajar, al‘sqalénê, fath al bérê, bairët, dér al -m‘erifah, vol, xi. 1379. suyëïê, alitqén, vol, i. p. 60. 26. bukhérê, aløéíêí, vol. vi. 183. 4988 27. joynboll (1935-2010), is a contemporary author on ×adith and its transmission. his major works are encyclopaedia of canonical ×adêth; studies on the origins and uses of islamic ×adêth and muslim tradition. 28. the former three scholars, in general, presented the theory of the unauthentic nature of ×adêth. but, it was goldziher and schacht approach that affected gravely on the course of hadêth studies. 29. goldzehir ignac, the origin of mohammaden jurisprudence, oxford, the clarendon press, 1950, pp. 4-5. 30. theodor noldeke et al, ed. wolfgang h., the history of the qur’én by, leiden, brill, 2013, pp. 213-233 31. watt, montgomery, ed. bell’s introduction to the qur’én, edinburg: edinburg university press, 1970 41 32. it is quite worth mentioning with regard to the last write angelika neuwirth that she partially acknowledges the collection tradition as she admits the ‘uthménic collection but, with this she considers the ascription of the fixation of text to ‘abdul malik (685705) more realistic. see: angelika, neuwirth. “structure and emergence of the community”, the blackwell, 143 33. heidemann stephan, the qur’én in context (leiden: brill, 2010), 9. 34. for this: see the fifth and sixth chapters in the above-mentioned book. 35. for instance, jeffery as well, declares the reports of collection to be fictitious as mentioned earlier in the section ‘views of western scholars’. 36. edinburg, edinburg university press, 1990. 37. louay fatoohi, abrogation in the qur’én and islamic law; a critical study on the concept of naskh and its impact (new york: routledge, 2013), p. 6. 38. “law and exegesis”, in approaches to the qur’én, p. 282. 39. encyclopeadia of the qur‘én, vol, i. p. 351. 40. encyclopeadia of the qur‘én, vol, i. p. 352. 41. the collection, 232 42. encyclopeadia of the qur‘én, vol, i. 360 43. encyclopeadia of the qurén, vol, i. 361 44. abu daëd, ùiyélisê, egypt, dér hijr, 1999, vol, i, 5. h, no. 3. 45. (moessesatul risala, 2001), vol, i. 238. h, no. 76 46. he is imam abë sulaimén aímad bin ibréhêm al khaïïébi. one of the legal scholars belonged to shéfi‘ê school of thought. 47. collection, 132. 48. ibn ×ajar, fatí al-bérê, vol. xi. p. 12. 49. see: 2: 106 50. qatédah b. da‘ama, alnasikh wa almansukh, baghdad, moessesatul risala, 1998, p. 9 51. ali, the qur’én, p. 243. 52. scholars have enlisted almost three examples in the category of the third mode of abrogation e.g. omission of wording without ruling. the most common examples are the adultery, and fasting with consecutive days. as far as the second and first hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 27 mode is concerned, burton’s theory does not apply on this as the abrogation of the wording with ruling as well, was of no use for any ruling. 53. ‘bdul ‘azêm alzurqéni, manéhil ul ‘irfén fi ‘uloomul qur’én, bairut, dér ul kitéb al ‘arbi. 2002, vol. i. 202. 54. shihab ul dên ólësi,, rëíul ma‘éni, ed. ‘óli bin ‘óbdul bérê (bairët, dérul kutub al ‘ilmia. 1415, vol, i. p. 351. see also: aímad bin ‘alê al ×anafê, al f aîël fil ‘usël, kuwait, wazaratul awqéf al këwaitiyya), vol, ii. p. 253. ‘abdul ‘aziz al -×anafê, kashf al -asrér (dar al -kitéb al -islamê), vol, iii. p. 191. 55. i have taken help in the formation of my ideas from the works of muhammad mohr ‘ali, the qur’én and the orientalists, (ipswich: jam‘iyat iíyaa minhajj alsunnah, 2004) and moulana gohar rehman, ‘uloom al–qur’én ( mardan: maktaba tafhêm alqur’én) and the work of herald motzaki the collection of the qur’én; a reconsideration of western views in the light of recent methodological developments, 15. retrieved on 27/10/ 015. https://www.scribd.com/doc/97592549/ the-collection-of-the-qur-an-a-reconsideration-of-western-views-in-light-ofrecent-methodological-developments 56. nabia abbot, studies in arabic literary papyri, chicago, the university of chicago press, 1957, introduction. 57. in the science of ×adêth, it is called ùuruq ul taíammul. scholars have categorized eight ways for narrating a tradition. see for instance: ibn e hajar, nuzhatul nazar fi nukhbatil fikr, ed, abdullah al ruhaili. riyédh, maktabatul malik fahad al wataniyya, 2001, p. 156. 58. among these traits the noticeable are; prayers in congregation, refraining wine, not to be lawless in life, to be truthful, having no mental defect as defined by the graet imam ibnul mubérak. see: al baghdédê, khatéb. al kiféya fi ‘ilm al riwaya. ed. al madanê, ibréhêm. madénê: al maktaba al ‘ilmiyya. vol. i. p. 79. 59. nabia, studies, 9 60. sezgin, fuéd, téêkhul turéth al ‘arabê, trans, mehmud hijazi, riyédh, idératul thiqéfa wal nasher, 1991, vol, i. p. 151. 61. ibn hajar, fatí al-bari, vol, 9. 11. 62. encyclopeadia of the qur’én, vol, i. p. 355. 63. encyclopeadia of the qur’én, vol, i. p. 356. 64. the narrative regarding the dictation of ubayy for zaid had been quoted in kitéb al -musahif. h. no, 29. 168. the second tradition about the inquiry of ‘umar about an ayah and his order of collection is also mentioned in the same book. see h. no 30. 171. this has been declared as almaqïu‘ .see fatí al -béri, vol, xi. p. 13. the ×adêth regarding the allegiance of ‘ali and his collection has also been quoted from the same source. the compiler has stated that collection here in its context stands for memorization. h. 31. 170. ibn ×ajar commented on the narrative saying “this is a weak hadêth for the breakage in chain”. see: vol, xi. p. 13. 65. for instance, the only oft-repeated source in his material is kitéb almaîéíêif. this book is famous for its narrations of weak traditions and generalization for the author calls even two or few readings of companions as maîéíêif. based on this book, jeffery too has used the title of maîéíêif even for two readings. moreover, jeffery has committed interpolations in the main text of kitéb almaîéíêif while editing this book. 28 western approach to history of qur’én... 66. the collection of the qur’én; a reconsideration of western views in the light of recent methodological developments. 15. retrieved on 27/10/ 015. https:// www.scribd.com/doc/97592549/the-collection-of-the-qur-an-a-reconsiderationof-western-views-in-light-of-recent-methodological-developments 67. encyclopeadia of the qur’én, vol, i. p. 361. 68. some scholars consider the renaissance and reformation of the same nature and results. hence, they date the modern period to the thirteenth century rather than fifteenth. see for instance: guénon, rené. the crisis of the modern world. trans: pallis, marco. london: luzac & co., 1942. 69. guénon, crises. 1014 70. see for instance the introduction of nabia abbot in which she presented a highly esteemed portrayal of muslim savants. studies, p. 11-31. 71. reynolds, the qur’én, 172, also see: mcauliffe, qur’énic christians, p. 258. 72. bennett, “new directions” in the bloomsbury companion to islamic studies, new york, bloomsbury, 2013, p. 88. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 5 editorial the fourth issue of 2019’s hamdard islamicus comprises five research articles and a book review. the first article, “iqbal on religion and science: a critique” highlights the salient features of iqbal’s thought regarding reconstruction of religious thought and its linkage with science. the second article is, “demystifying the orient: imperative of veil and muslim women’s emancipation” that investigates the theological interpretations of traditionalist and contemporary readings of islamic feminists to manifest the trouble of subjective interpretations. the study concludes that islam is an egalitarian religion. third article, titled, “cultural and religious perspectives on gender based notions of widowhood in south asian literature” based on a study of a novel and a short story to evaluate the status of a widow and a widower in south asian society. fourth article, “recent qur’énic scholarship: a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar’s ‘reading the qur’én’” is an assessment of ziauddin sardar’s ‘reading the qur’én’: the contemporary relevance of the sacred text of islam’ (2011/2015). last article, “humour of the prophet (œ): in search of a lost book” is a reflection of author’s perception about the sense of humour of the prophet (œ). editor-in-chief hamdard islamicus 47 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 branding in islamic commercial law eyeing commercial gains versus opportunities for introducing sharô‘ah legal ethics dr. lutfullah saqib1 and saira afzal2 1assistant professor (law and shariah), university of swat, swat, 2riphah center of islamic business, riphah international university, islamabad, pakistan. email: lutsaqib@gmail.com according to recent research, the ×alél (permissible in islamic law) food market represents 16% of the total global market, which is expected to double in the near future. a huge potential, therefore, lies in the target market of muslim consumers. in order to penetrate the ×alél markets, firms are employing brand islamization strategies as per rules of islamic commercial law. most firms, however, are doing so for extra commercial gains. in this paper an effort has been made to introduce and highlight some of the legal ethical aspects of the branding practices in islamic law, predominantly, in islamic commercial law. the purpose of this paper is to analyze specific commercial activities carried out in the name of brand islamization. one of the objectives is to raise awareness that increasing aspirations related toislamic branding are, in fact, masked activities of utilizing huge potentials that exist both for muslim and non-muslim firms. new methods of incorporation of islamic legal ethics in the brand design and developmental strategies are also explored in this paper. the paper clarifies that islamic brandingis not merely limited to the “×alél” factor but is one that is purely sharê‘ah (islamic law) compliant, both in substance and form. keywords: branding, islamic commercial law, islamic legal ethics, ×alél, sharê‘ah, ×arém. introduction the concept of islamic marketing is gaining momentum the world hamdard islamicus 48 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 over. this rising trend holds its roots in the muslim population which continues to increase rapidly across the globe. business corporations and researchers, in order to tap this huge potential, are closely studying the consumption patterns in the muslim consumer markets. it is therefore no surprise that changes taking place in the muslim communities around the world are followed with keen interest, and receive careful attention by academic and managerial circles to meet their specific needs.1 muslims are like supra-nationals who share common beliefs and value systems. these core values have a direct effect on their consumption patterns.2 muslim populations form a major portion of consumer markets, and research confirms that the muslim consumer market segment has been the fastest growing sector over the years.3 such a growth rate clearly highlights the potential of the muslim consumer market. contemporary brand analysts and brand managers are paying special attention to this market segment, “the muslim population”, and are analyzing their consumption patterns viz a viz their religious requirements in order to capture this market. multinationals have also been captivated by this emerging group of potential consumers as approximately 90% of the global ×alél market is being covered by them. despite the attention that the muslim consumer market segment is receiving, there is still no single specialized market that serves its specific needs.4 islamic branding is currently in its infancy and there is little common understanding of the concept. it encompasses: 1) products developed by islamic countries; 2) products developed to satisfy the needs of muslim consumers; and 3) products that are sharê‘ah (islamic law) compliant.5 there are arguments against islamic branding suggesting that islam allows muslims to do business, and other daily activities, in harmony with the ethical code of conduct. opponents of islamic branding activities profess that allah condemns those who are extravagant, which applies to extravagance in clothing as well as in food items.. this ×adêth (sayings) of the holy prophet (œ) is also used as a reference: “simplicity is part of faith”, he (narrator) said: “simplicity means an ascetic and rough life”.6 hamdard islamicus 49 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 however, another group favoring branding activities, supports islamic branding through these aíédêth: said, the holy prophet (œ): “allah loves to see the effects of his blessing on his slave.’’7 abdullah bin mas‘ëd (may allah be pleased with him) reported: the prophet (œ) said, “he who has, in his heart, an atom’s weight of arrogance will not enter jannah (paradise).” someone asked: “a man likes to wear beautiful clothes and shoes?” messenger of allah (œ) said, “allah is beautiful, he loves beauty. arrogance means ridiculing and rejecting the truth and despising people.”8 these two aíédêth support the views of those who are in favor of branding activities in the name of islam. this paper is aimed at highlighting the vision of both groups and presenting a clearer picture for better understanding on the topic. provisioning for islamic marketing and branding services has been gaining momentum. in a recent survey conducted by the economic intelligences unit limited organizations were asked about the importance of developing sharê‘ah compliant products and services. respondent firms showed highly significant results regarding the demand of sharê‘ah compliant products and services as illustrated in the following table.9 table 1 importance of developing sharê‘ah compliant products and services hamdard islamicus 50 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 while most multinationals are trying to fulfill the needs and desires of the fast growing muslim market segment, many of their senior managers are unaware of the true spirit of islamic laws and values.10 ×alél is mainly considered as the sole criteria for a brand to be islamic or nonislamic, whereas islamic belief system requires brand developers to have a deeper sense and understanding of its core values. this research work emphasizes the understanding of islamic values while developing an islamic brand. value maximization, trust worthiness, charging fair prices, and the use of appropriate promotional campaigns are some of the areas that have been highlighted in this research work. this paper has four objectives. the first objective is to develop a deeper understanding of the concept of islamic branding. the second is to evaluate the potential that muslim consumer markets possess. the third is to analyze the contemporary branding practices that are exploiting the muslim consumer markets in the name of religion. finally, the fourth is to draw a framework consisting of core islamic values that should be taken into account by brand developers and incorporated efficiently in brand developing strategies. this study is important as it bridges the existing gap in literature on islamic branding and marketing. facts have been interlinked with contemporary branding activities employed by various firms the world over. this paper will lend insight to managers in order to understand the islamic core values and their implications. some of the misconceptions of islamic rulings by managers are highlighted as are the primary reasons for neglecting brand building on the basis of islamic law. it has been advised that firms should not focus on short term profits but target long term benefits through brand building. literature review islamic marketing is an emerging field. due to various political, economic, and social factors the interests in understanding the needs and desires of muslim consumers has increased. the requirements of islam are complex and multifaceted backed by a very strong culture spread over centuries. these characteristics give a special dimension to islamic markets requiring specific marketing techniques involved in islamic marketing.11 sandikçi explained the reasons for an increasing interest in promoting islamic brands and involvement of big corporations in islamic hamdard islamicus 51 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 marketing activities.12 the author recommended firms engaged in islamic marketing to not rely solely on the ×alél feature but instead promote islamic brands in their true spirits. sandikçi’s research was an effective addition to the knowledge in the field of marketing, although the area of islamic marketing was broached only generically. to fill that void, this paper analyzes commercialization of the muslim consumer market potential through branding and suggests the incorporation of islamic legal ethics in its practices. nasr attributed the growing consumer trend to the increase of the muslim middle class population.13 this class is dispersed all around the world and can afford branded goods and services. jafari wrote about the emergence of islamic marketing, and criticized the use of islam as a mere marketing tool.14 he explains that this approach of marketers is undermining the scope of islam. he emphasized islamic marketing in its true spirit and indicated the resulting potentials and/or prospects. however, he does not touch on the area of islamic branding in particular. islamic branding has only evolved in the global markets over the last few years. alserhan highlights the importance and essence of islamic branding, makes a special reference to ×alél products, and also critiques various associated activities.15 wilson and liu analyzed the use of ×alél in islamic marketing and branding noting that the terminology is still not clear to many and ×alél can have far more applications, beyond merely analyzing the ingredients of eatables in accordance with the ruling.16 they concluded that there is need for further investigations in order to unveil the full range of interpretations underlying the term. they expand on the term ×alél and portray its implications as an islamic brand. wilson and liu addressed the challenges faced by ×alél conscious consumers in a later work, where they emphasize that the need for islamic brand developers to understand the underlying islamic values as most still do not know how to apply them when pursuing potential consumers.17 lada, suddin, geoffrey harvey tanakinjal, and hanudin amin applied the theory of reasoned action (tra) in order to investigate marketers and their ability to predict consumers’ intentions to buy a ×alél product.18 the study was conducted in malaysia and the response of malaysian consumers showed positive results as to where tra can be applied in order to predict the behaviours of consumer choices for ×alél products. hamdard islamicus 52 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 unfortunately, most branding activities are unscrupulously involved in blending religious and materialistic approaches. by branding on the basis of islamic philosophy, most brand developers focus on the concepts of ×alél and ×arém. instead, islam requires far more qualities in any product for it to be branded on the basis of islamic teachings. brand developers should seriously consider the spiritual requirements of muslim consumers.19 temporal analyzed the malfunctions in the current practices of islamic branding. he discussed in detail the impact of religiosity on muslim consumer choices.20 god consciousness highly affect’s muslim consumers’ choices. temporal suggested that managers should aspire to get a share of muslim consumer segments but only after a thorough understanding of the underlying concepts and philosophies of islamic ethical teachings. branding and marketing activities, today, are mixed with religion. instead of developing religious brands, firms should develop brands that are consistent with the religious beliefs. islam shares unique values that should be incorporated in brand islamization processes.21 islam strongly impacts the purchase behaviour of consumers. alihodzic vedad analyzed the impact of islamic values and beliefs on the purchase behaviours of its followers and found a strong link between consumer choices and religion.22 it has been established by various studies that religious teachings direct and influence the behaviour of its followers in a significant way.23 sharê‘ah is the islamic law which governs the behaviours of muslims. production and promotion of various products has been obstructed in some muslim countries. this reveals the significance of religious teachings in making purchase decisions by consumers.24 some studies directly measure the impact of religiosity on brand attachment.25 park, c. whan, deborah j. macinnis, and joseph r. priester stressed the importance of studying the impact of religious teachings on consumer behaviours suggesting that brand developers should first analyze as to what extent the degree of religiosity impacts consumer brand selection decisions.26 hassan, abul, abdelkader chachi, and salma abdul latiff described various islamic ethical values that can guide islamic brand marketers.27 they explain that every firm aims at profit maximization, but the incorporation of justice and equity developing strategies vary, and that is hamdard islamicus 53 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the actual essence of islamic marketing. dimensions of islamic ethical behaviour pertaining to the matters of islamic marketing were analyzed by mohiuddin and haque.28 they emphasized why it was important for firms to behave ethically. values of a conventional system and islamic system were compared by these researchers in order to evaluate the significance of the islamic ethical system. tufail and irfan (2009) evaluated various ethical systems that are prevalent in the business world today, stressing the importance of one’s sense of self responsibility and personal duty. rice and mossawi emphasized the importance of islamic values while preparing advertising messages for muslim consumers.29 in their article, they analyzed the impact of religious beliefs on consumer behaviour, noting that because consumer behaviour is highly influenced by religious beliefs, managers should consider religious values in their advertisements. methodology this conceptual paper employs a descriptive methodology in order to meet the study’s objectives. there is a scarcity of literature regarding the concept of islamic branding and marketing as it has not been largely researched. this paper aims to bridge that gap in the literature. of the objectives, the first is met by incorporating the knowledge base on branding and then relating it to islam. islamic branding, its various types and classifications, has been studied through existing literature. in order to meet the second and third objectives, secondary data has been taken from various sources including the recent survey of pew research center to illustrate the growth potential of the muslim consumer markets. secondary data from various brands and recent islamic branding promotions has been collected in order to evaluate its primacy and originality of branding practices in the name of islam. finally, primary sources of sharê‘ah have been used in order to provide key ethical concepts for branding activities in recent times. the authors introduce the practical implications of these islamic ethical bases. current practices of islamic branding have been facing serious allegations concerning acceptability and authenticity as most western multinationals are engaged in developing islamic brands.30 this happens because of the lack of hamdard islamicus 54 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 in-depth knowledge on the part of brand developers. the analysis performed in this research is, therefore, significant for current and future managerial implications. branding history and definition of brand brand is derived from brander, a word from the old norse language, meaning “to burn”.31 this evolved from the practice of producers or owners of cattle who burned a special ownership mark on their herds, later termed as a “brand” on their products.32 italians are said to be the first who used “branding” practices as they would draw a recognizable image or pattern known as “watermarks” on their papers.33 over the last few decades, branding has become part and parcel of commercial life. every organization, firm, nonprofit organization, or even political party is now mounting their image in the form of elegant brands to captivate audiences. in this ceaseless progression of brand building, the concept of brand equity has gained significance as a vital element of the firm’s value.34 firms are engaged heavily in cultivating potential brand images and reaping the fruits of uniqueness that those brands provide. as niall fitzgerald, chairman of uni lever, explains, “a brand is a storehouse of trust that matters more and more as the choices multiply … people want to simplify their lives.35 the persuasive and exclusive images of different products allow consumers to choose from various options. definitions of brand brands are defined in various ways and terms. paramaswaran, m.g. describes brand as, “a symbol of trust, a symbol of warmth, symbol of value, a symbol of premium or a symbol of loyalty. a brand is all this and more”.36 according to the american marketing association, “a brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or a combination of these, which, identifies the product or service of one seller or a group of sellers and differentiates it from those of the competitors”.37 usually the brand is a composite of a persuasive promotional message containing an idea or a message along hamdard islamicus 55 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 with the contents of the brand. the brand form or linguistic sign, is functionable at three levels, including the form of linguistic record (representativeness, meaning, and name positioning), the meaning of the linguistic sign (semantic and stylistic values plus lexical formula), and finally, the linguistic record (color, motifs, design of the symbols and type). branding islamic commercial law islamic branding is now gaining attention by multinational firms. after scrutinizing effective academic material on the subject, it is apparent that they realize the immense opportunities in this field. miles young (worldwide chairman and ceo of ogilvy & mather, international advertising, marketing and public relations agency) after attending the world islamic economic forum in kuala lumpur, asserted “islamic branding is going to receive serious public attention. there is a new big thing in the world of marketing – and it’s green. not the familiar grass green of the environment, however, but a deeper greenthe traditional color of islam”.38 islamic branding can be defined in three pertinent ways: a) branding products in compliance with sharê‘ah, also termed as islamic branding by religion; b) products that gain the tag islamic brand owing to their location or origin also known as islamic branding by origin; and c) islamic branding by the type of customers or brands that are specially created for muslim inhabitants of non-muslim countries.39 shan, the market leader in food industry in pakistan, is more than a suitable example of a food product that is being branded and advertised in the ×alél way. despite the fact that women are the prime audience for these products, they never advertised or tried to develop a brand by stereotyping women. there are other good examples of islamic branding that are not only using ×alél as a means to boost their finances but are also marketing their brands in sharê‘ah compliant ways. similarly, “jj” (junaid jamshed) and shahid afridi are two brands that are in total compliance with sharê’ah. these brands neither involve women for selling their products nor do they stereotype women with their brands. in fact, they do not even show the faces of male models in their advertising. hamdard islamicus 56 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 potential for commercial gains as per islamic law potential of muslim consumer market a huge and mounting ×alél tagged purchasing power by muslim consumers exists in countries like south africa, turkey, morocco, malaysia, india, egypt, iran, and saudi arabia. the us commerce department has targeted ten big emerging markets for export promotion. of the ten, turkey and indonesia are muslim countries while south africa and india have significant muslim minorities. some developed non-muslim states (e.g. germany, uk, and usa) also have a substantial market of muslim consumers. in france, the muslim population is almost one tenth of the whole population;40 while the us has been a country with the fastest growing muslim population ranging from six to eight million.41 according to a recent report, the world’s muslim population is expected to grow by about 35% increasing from 1.6 billion in 2012 to 2.2 billion in 2030. the growth of the muslim population is twice that of non-muslims with 1.5% of muslims vs. 0.7% growth of non-muslims.42 see table 2. table 2 muslim population (pew research center) the ×alél journal (power, 2009), a kuala lampur based magazine, notes that the growth of the ×alél food market has exploded in the past hamdard islamicus 57 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 few years by gaining an annual estimated size of $632 billion comprising 16% of the global food industry.43 out of the many factors identified for the immense growth of this ×alél and islamic type economy, whether in the finance sector or in relation to other products like real estate, hotels, fashion or insurance, was the single important factor of the large 1.6 billion muslim population. in an industry video shown at the conference held at the world ×alél forum, it was noted that “industry is at a verge now where ×alél has become more than a religious duty.”44 according to a recent survey of the economist intelligence unit, the muslim population of the world has increased to 1.8 billion, offering businesses the opportunity to turn their attention towards these demographics as 50% of the muslim population is under the age of 25 years and comprises 10% of the world’s population.45 the survey states that if multinationals and other organizations target sharê‘ah conscious consumers, then they are doing so at their own behest because the future of this target market seems outstandingly bright. potential is emerging in various products and service categories ranging from food, finance, fashion, tourism, all the way to pharmaceuticals. commercialization of the potential temporal in his recent book islamic branding and marketing: creating a global islamic business, has stated that most of the islamic brands are not doing well. a list of causes was presented, some of which follow:46 l most companies are focusing on short term gains instead of building long term bonds, l l firms are relying heavily on status-quo, or in other words targeting only those countries that have abundant resources, l l most executives involved in brand building through advertisement or promotions are doing so without keeping in view that islam is a complete code of life, hence ignoring islamic branding needs and covering only ordinary promotional techniques, and l l there is lack of support by islamic governments for transparent and accurate islamic branding practices. the concept of muslim purchasing has evolved over the years, hamdard islamicus 58 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 expanding from the limited connotation of avoiding alcohol and pork, and buying meat from the ×alél butchers, to include other facets that are sharê‘ah compliant. the significance of this islam sensitive customer segmentation came into prominence at the third annual world health forum where numerous stalls contained a basket full of islamic brands put on view by different multinationals. for instance, nestle had its ×alél breakfast cereals, power bars, and smarties candy at its stalls with the “×alél” word written, bold and prominent. even red bull presented a newer version of its drink for muslims. colgate and maggie are also ensuring muslim consumers that their products are ×alél and contain no prohibited ingredients. even though all of these big multinationals are presenting islamic branding versions of their products, there are many other aspects where those brands are not islam sensitive at all. fig. 1: ×alél skin care saleswomen (time magazine) as shown in the photograph in fig. 1, sales women with their heads covered with a scarf are presented at different forums and conferences. islam does not promote using women as an object to lure others or use evocative language or behaviours.47 it is evident in the picture that young women are selling “×alél skincare” for customers intending to perform pilgrimage. one could simply state this act of the company as the “commodification” of islam because to muslims ×ajj is an obligatory duty where every muslim completely submits him or herself before allah. the so called ×alél company is especially commercializing skincare products linking it to the sacred duty of muslims. recently, sun silk introduced a new shampoo in its existing product line as designed especially hamdard islamicus 59 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 for those muslim females who wear ×ijéb (headscarf). they have targeted a very sensitive and fundamental aspect of muslim consumers. however, their brand offering was non-sharê‘ah compliant showing a beautiful young woman wearing a very elegant scarf with a pair of jeans which is contradictory to islamic teachings. commodification as described by shirazi originates from the profit motive where attaching an idea, art, item, and belief to a commodity makes it highly influenced by religious and cultural values.48 these values thereby influence branding and advertising decisions. islamization of commodities has become a common commercial activity by the firms owned by muslims, and in particular by non-muslims, for the sake of profit generation. many have raised their voice against religious commodification emphasizing that by dressing up a doll with ×ijéb, and naming them “×ijébi dolls”, or simply putting a label ×alél does not make those products “sharê‘ah compliant” (see fig. 2). “islam” has become a buzzword for the commodification of numerous toys, household goods and a variety of services.49 most muslims do not accept these types of innovations associated with religious matters which christians may term as an adoption of the religion to modern times (eaton, 1994). there are many other examples of commercialized branding. it was discovered in france, in early 2011, that a ×alél brand’s sausage, claimed to be made of poultry, was actually dna tested and confirmed to be made with pork fats. this is ×arém, but the muslim community had been using it because it was claimed as a ×alél brand.50 hong kong shanghai banking corporation (hsbc), a worldwide renowned bank, has recently banned their operations of its islamic banking branches in several muslim countries. this was because the legislative bodies required all islamic banking brands to affirm to the sharê‘ah compliant procedures and limit their product line to the provision of only fig. 2 barbie and islam (shirazi, 2010) hamdard islamicus 60 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 a few services, for example in qatar and ksa (kingdom of saudi arabia). however, in other countries where less focus is given to this issue, its islamic banking branches are still operative. at times, firms owned by muslims also seem to engage in islamization related brand activities. for example, mecca-cola was introduced as a substitute to coca-cola after the boycott of western products. the brand was established due to the resentful emotions of muslim consumers who were aroused in reaction to the disrespectful attitude of some western countries towards the holy prophet (œ) of muslims. it was, however, a purely commercialized activity of islamic brandingas people, after consuming their beverage, would dispose of the bottles and cans into trash bins despite the fact that they were imprinted with the holy word “mecca”.51 usually, islamic branding of consumer goods is not rationalized by brand developers or marketers. for instance, in yemen “islamic socks” are sold for females with a stamp saying ‘made in china’ and displaying a photograph of a muslim girl with her face covered by a veil on the packaging. if we analyze the sharê‘ah traditions, we find that there is no particular requirement in sharê‘ah for muslim females to wear such socks. this commercialized attitude of non-muslim/muslim organizations is making ‘islamic branding’ a suspicious activity. muslims are voicing serious concerns about whether products are being particularly designed and developed by keeping in mind their religious beliefs or just used as a clever strategy towards commercial gains by targeting the developing muslim market segment. another growing concern is about the promotional campaigns of ‘islamic brands’. most of these brands are being developed and advertised through mega branding companies that do not take into account the essence of sharê‘ah compliance. consumer behaviour model and brand preferences religiosity and consumer behaviour religion plays a very significant role in establishing the behaviour and attitude of humans.52 research shows that the religious focus influences the purchasing behaviours of consumers.53 religiosity is a crucial aspect of human behaviour and attitudes, and the depiction of the same is often associated with the degree of being religious. this is a hamdard islamicus 61 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 multi-faceted notion containing numerous elements within similar practices, beliefs, experiences, and impact on an individual’s everyday life.54 it greatly influences human lives by affecting their goals, satisfaction levels, and motivations.55 culture has a crucial impact on consumer buying decisions and religion, being a fundamental part of culture, highly affects decision making of consumers.56 religion, therefore, is said to play a critical role in the consumer world in terms of influencing and shaping consumption patterns.57 it directly impacts the marketing communication by acting as a lens in the course of which marketers often decode important messages relative to the consumption patterns.58 religiosity and brand attachment brand attachment is often defined as a cognitive and emotional strength that connects a brand with the self. there are two unique elements of this definition from which the first is attachment of the brand with the self, while the second element is a strong emotional and cognitive strength that diverts and channels the resources of a person towards that particular brand.59 according to keller, the form of relationship that a consumer develops with a given brand may be of two types.60 it can be a cognitive preference (brand loyalty), or emotional attachment (selfconnectedness). emotion and cognition are the basic elements that tie brands with the self, and personalize experiences of an individual. memories of one’s use of brand generate strong cognitive plans that link a brand with personalized elements.61 links, that connect self with the brand are inherently self-relevant to the individual concerned.62 at the same time, the emotional element has a connection with self, giving it a hot effect.63 religion is said to be the most important element of cognition.64 religiosity, hence, plays a vital role in the connectedness of consumers with particular brands.65 cumulative effect in recent years, marketing has begun paying special attention to consumer responses toward brands. marketers need to predict how consumers might respond toward a particular brand and in the case of commercialization of islamic branding practices, religiosity, which affects and enhances attachment of the consumers with the brand, needs to be hamdard islamicus 62 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 taken into consideration.66 use of suggestive language in promotional campaigns of islamic brands allures the consumers to develop selfconnectedness with these brands because they affect both the cognitive and emotional elements of brand attachment. religion also plays a crucial role in consumers’ decision making processes by directing their attitudes.67 consumers predominantly develop attachment with these brands because of the religious affiliation and identification. this process of selfidentification, also known as socialization, guides individuals to learn various values, practices, and behavioural patterns that are socially acceptable.68 however, in islamic law, the qualification of any decision depends on the independent and free judgment of the concerned individual. the same needs to be applied to the global marketing activities.69 it can, therefore, be concluded that in most cases development of islamic brands is performed in a way that contains a hot effect for the buyer’s black box. it directly hits the decision process of buyers which ultimately leads them to purchase particular brands. see table 3. table 3 consumer decision making process with the increasing focus on islamic branding in the global market, many multinationals have started commercially exploiting this potential in the muslim consumer markets without giving any importance to the essence of the term islamic branding and its deeper meaning. the growing concerns about islamic branding can be used as an opportunity to introduce the environment marketing other stimuli stimuli technological product economic place plitical price cultural promotion buyer’s black box buyer’s characteristics buyer’s decision process buyer’s responses buying attitude and preference purchase behaviour: what the buyer buys, when, where, and how much. brand and company relationship hamdard islamicus 63 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the islamic ethical practices in the branding process and create necessary awareness and understanding. the unscrupulous intentions of segmenting markets focusing on the customers’ religion should be relinquished and a ban should be placed on targeting consumers because they belong to a specific religion. in this way, many firms can focus on satisfying the needs and desires of a large and growing segment that has common values and practices.70 opportunity for the introduction of islamic legal ethics islam is a way of life and moral values are the cornerstones of the teachings of islam. according to islam, morality is important for leading a good life while its absence causes the decline of individuals, nations and civilizations. some fundamental rights regarding the welfare of humanity are established by islam and enforced not only by law but by morality as well, and these are the core concepts to be followed under all circumstances. it is unanimously accepted by muslims that whatever is conducted with the view to provide welfare to the society, and is not against the basic principles of islam, is morally good. a complete code of conduct is presented to the followers of islam regarding moral and ethical behaviour that serves as a moral filter for doing business in a fair way. the islamic moral system touches each and every aspect of human life ranging from simple greetings to diversified international relations. it requires that people must fulfill their promises and avoid cheating and other prohibited activities. the guidelines for this islamic ethical system have been drawn from the interconnected concepts of justice, unity, and trusteeship.71 islam has paid much attention on the behaviour of its followers, and manners for an appropriate consumer and seller behaviour have been laid down in the divine book, al-qur’én. one verse of the holy qur’én says that islam does not allow the display of unaccepted behaviours in any way, either through word of mouth or through physical conduct, like misrepresentation, falsehood or cheating. friendly behaviours are appreciated by islamic teachings and muslims are advised to display pleasant behaviours in their dealings. the following verse aptly encompasses the above, “... and speak fair to the people ...”72 hamdard islamicus 64 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 speaking good words can be interpreted in several ways, such as abstaining its followers from misrepresenting, misbehaving or lying to others. while commenting on the explanation of this verse following hadith has been mentioned in which the holy prophet (œ) said: “do not consider any act of piety trifle, if you cannot do anything (greater) at least; speak to your brother with a smile”.73 this verse and the ×adêth of the holy prophet (œ) guide consumers and sellers toward a friendly behaviour. the moral system of islam commands muslims to practice the good and abstain from all evils in each and every aspect of their life. a ×adêth of holy prophet (œ) explains the required practices in the following words: “my sustainer has given me nine commands: to remain conscious of allah (swt), whether in private or in public; to speak justly, whether angry or pleased; to take on moderation, both when poor and when rich; to reunite friendship with those who have broken off with me; to give to him who refuses me; that my silence should be occupied with thought; that my looking should be an admonition; and that i should command what is right”.74 disclosure of complete information in islamic law the islamic legal ethical system upholds the dignity of human rights in every aspect of life, and hence the complete information about products and services is the primary right of every consumer. in most cases of islamic branding today some basic norms are missing that are the core of a sharê‘ah compliant business activity. for example, there is lack of honest communication and most companies use exaggeration and deception while representing their brands. some of the islamic teachings pertaining to these matters are clearly addressed in the qur’én: “truly, god guides not him who is a liar.”75 the qur’én further guides, “... give just measure and weight, nor withhold from the people the things that are their due.”76 hamdard islamicus 65 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the prophet muíammad (œ) condemned all manipulative promotional behaviours. it is narrated on the authority of abë huraira (d) that the messenger of allah (œ) happened to pass by a heap of eatables (corn). he thrust his hand in that (heap) and his fingers were moistened. he said to its owner, “what is this”? he replied: messenger of allah (œ), these have been drenched by rainfall. he (the holy prophet [œ]) remarked: why did you not place this (the drenched part of the heap) over other eatables so that the people could see it? he who deceives is not of me (is not my follower)”.77 while explaining this ×adêth, mauléna khalêl aímed presented the saying of allama khéïabi. khéïabi said that by saying laêsa mênné, the holy prophet (œ) declared that those people are not from his religion and his way of life, who deceive other muslims (their brethren), i.e., leaving his sunnah. it is clear from the previous qur’énic texts and ×adêth that the first and foremost duty of brand developers is to disclose the actual quality and quantity in the brand development process. pricing in islamic law it is a common practice that most of the well-known brands are priced higher, owing to their credibility in the market, as compared to others. frequently, these prices are unjustified and are usually charged to give a false impression to the customer that she or he is receiving something of superior value.78 brands formalize their pricing strategies and policies in a way to exploit the psyche of the consumers, which islam clearly rejects. ibn taymiah (1982) denounces all pricing practices where consumers are being charged very high prices without offering a justified quality or quantity. all instances of charging high prices come under the head of injustice in sharê‘ah. as the holy prophet (œ) said:78a “do not raise prices in competition.” islam also does not approve getting something easily, without working or striving hard for it.79 the debate is not on charging high prices for brand values regarding precious commodities. islam accepts that the hamdard islamicus 66 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 wealthy people can spend their money on expensive things. the advertising and branding of luxury goods and services by that logic is acceptable in wealthy communities: “... he has raised you in ranks, some above others; that he may try you in the gifts that he has given you.”80 “... wear your beautiful apparel at every time and place of prayer ...”81 however, islam at the same time condemns the flamboyant and showy consumption of these luxury products, as extravagance in the form of luxurious living and boasting of one’s wealth. similarly islam does not allow burning out one’s resources. according to the holy qur’én, “... and spend of your substance in the cause of god and make not your own hands contribute to your destruction; but do good …”82 “... wealth and children are allurements of the life of this world ...”83 “... of their wealth take alms so that you might purify and sanctify …”84 the most important character building traits of any muslim are humility and piety, so it can be stated that the uses of luxurious brands have a direct effect on these characteristics, and may lead to arrogance. a muslim must, therefore, keep his or her desires under control, rather than giving in to them. “and turn not your face away from people (with pride), nor walk in insolence through the earth. verily, allah (swt) likes not each arrogant boaster. and be moderate (or show no insolence) in your walking, and lower your voice. verily, the harshest of all voices is the voice (braying) of the ass.”85 the above mentioned verse limits the actions of companies, that they indulge in, in order to compete with other brands. tall claims are made by certain brands and exaggerated features are often boasted just to compete favorably with other brands. such activities misguide and hamdard islamicus 67 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 mislead the users of these brands. islam, however, presents the concept of piety which helps every action of its followers to be in accordance with the ethical system of islam. piety is described in islam in the following way: “it is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards east or west; but it is righteousness (the quality of) the one who believes in allah (swt) and the last day and the angels, and the book, and the messengers; who spends of his wealth, in spite of love for it, to your kin, to the orphans, to the needy, to the wayfarer, to those who ask and for the freeing of slaves; and to be steadfast in prayers, and practice regular charity (alms); and to fulfill their covenants which they made; and to be patient and perseverant in poverty and ailment and throughout all periods of panic. such are the people of truth, the pious.”86 a righteous person is the one who is most reliable and honest. the concept of piety is based on the belief that allah (swt) sees all of our actions and the accountability of every act depends upon the intentions while performing that act. this concept of intention has incredible alignment to the concept of islamic marketing, advertising, and branding. this concept is also very much relevant to the perception of tazkiyah (purification). conversion of wants into needs (an approach of islamic law) with the passage of time, the self-generated economy is being exploited by the marketers and is commercialized.87 wants and desires are being converted into needs. this approach is not approved by the moral system of islam. the concept that without having a particular brand a person feels deprived is not accepted in islam. it does not allow the material world to fill the hearts of muslims; rather, it commands them to remember allah (swt). a muslim needs to keep the material world in his hand, and allah (swt), in his heart. islamic legal ethics teaches us to stay firm and steadfast and not be lured by worldly gains, which means that a true person should not be distracted towards monetary gains, should remain solid and dedicated, hamdard islamicus 68 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 and counter any act leading to corruption. morality should remain supreme: “and allah (swt) loves those who are firm and steadfast.”88 profit maximization vs. value maximization islam does not approve the concept of profit maximization without taking care of the exploitation of the others’ rights. islam approves a centralized approach of value maximization in which a firm undertakes to maximize the value while incorporating the philosophies of integrity and impartiality in its strategies that result in the welfare of the whole society. islam advocates the welfare of the society rather than the affluence of a few people.89 saeed, ahmed, and mukhtar produced a rich document dealing with the islamic legal ethics of islamic marketing based on the concepts of justice. they have elaborated the islamic ethical system and explained three basic characteristics:90 1. the basis of all types of islamic legal ethics is the holy qur’én. it is a divine guidance for all mankind. 2. by origin these islamic legal ethics are absolute and cannot be subjected to any type of manipulation. 3. islam approves the theory of value maximization, rather than the self-induced motive of profit maximization. a blend of these characteristics provide a guideline for all marketing personnel and brand developers that islam does not approve any kind of alteration in ethical values for the sheer sake of profit maximization. “abë huraira (d), allah’s messenger (œ) said: “there will be three types of people whom allah will neither look at them on the day of resurrection, nor will purify them (from sins), and they will have a hamdard islamicus 69 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 painful punishment: they are, (1) a man who possesses superfluous water (more than his need) on a way and withholds it from the travelers; (2) a man who gives a pledge of allegiance to an imém (ruler) and gives it only for worldly benefits. if the imém gives him what he wants, he gets satisfied, and if the ruler withholds something from him, he gets dissafisfied; and (3) a man who sells something to another man after the ‘aîr prayer (a prayer which is offered before the sun setdown) and swears by allah (a false oath) that he has been offered so much for it whereupon the buyer believes him and buys it.”91 on another occasion, rifé‘ah (d) reported that he came with the prophet (œ), to the place of prayer and he saw people engaging in business. the prophet (œ) said, “o group of traders!” they answered him and turned toward him, and the prophet (œ) said, “verily, the traders will be raised on the day of resurrection with the wicked except for those who fear allah, behave righteously, and are truthful.”92 abdullah bin mas‘ëd (d) reported: the prophet (œ) said, “truth leads to piety and piety leads to jannah. a man persists in speaking the truth till he is enrolled with allah as truthful. falsehood leads to vice and vice leads to the fire (hell), and a person persists on telling lies until he is enrolled as a liar.”93 trustworthiness the islamic moral system does not allow anyone to dishonor others’ trust and expectations. expectations of consumers (muslim consumers in hamdard islamicus 70 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 most instances), greatly increases from an islamic brand. brand developers should not be dishonest or cheat its consumers by making false statements about the real value of the brand. for instance, if consumers recognize brand to be ×alél, it should actually be ×alél in all of its values and forms. as narrated by ×akêm bin ×izém, the prophet (œ) said: “the buyer and the seller have the option to cancel or to confirm the deal, as long as they have not parted or till they part, and if they spoke the truth and told each other the defects of the things, then blessings would be in their deal, and if they hid something and told lies, the blessings of the deal would be lost.”94 allama badr uddin ‘aini (d), author of ‘umadatul qéri, wrote commentary and explanation of this ×adêth that wéênn kétéma which means that the seller concealed the defects of the sold commodity and/or the buyer concealed the defects of the thing paid as price and wé kézabé means that seller misrepresents or misleads the buyer about the property of the goods sold by telling lies and buyer lies about the properties of the price paid.95 promotional islamic legal ethics it is stated in the holy qur’én “say a word directed to the right ...”96 the verse clearly indicates that islam does not allow promoting a thing which may lead towards misconduct or obscenity. it is incorporated in the islamic ethical system regarding marketing, branding and promotional techniques not to exploit others’ needs and wants by the use of any suggestive language or appeals, such as, invoking fear, sexual appeal, or emotional appeal. sometimes brand promoters use artificial research appeals and pseudo evidence in order to fascinate customers. these appeals and pseudo mechanisms are not approved in the islamic ethical system, as they exploit the minds and encourage extravagance in hamdard islamicus 71 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 customers by motivating their instincts towards the acquisition of particular brands. almost all promotional campaigns whether they are for some islamic brand, or other commercial products, stereotype women.97 it has become a common practice to fantasize things in promotions of brands in an excessively exploitive way to attract consumers. islam has incorporated a complete moral and ethical system that guides the designing of these promotional ads.98 our beloved prophet (œ) forbade and condemned all promotional behaviours that were formulated especially to manipulate and deceive others. he (œ) said: “the one who cheats is not one of us.”99 it is, therefore, recommended to organizations, whether muslim or non-muslim, involved in the process of islamic branding, to develop a complete understanding of islamic ethical system. they should keep in view all sharê‘ah related issues while designing, manufacturing, and developing an islamic brand. it is recommended in sharê‘ah to enter into divine guidance with complete submission. this is explained in the holy qur’én: “o you, who have believed, enter into islam completely [and perfectly] and do not follow the footsteps of satan (devil). indeed, he is to you a clear enemy.”100 this verse encourages us to build an islamic state and an islamic society purely based on the complete moral code of conduct that is presented by islam for the welfare of the whole society. managerial implications of research there are certain managerial implications for brand developers, both muslims and non-muslims, who develop islamic branding strategies in order to develop islamic brands. most of the western multinational firms are engaging themselves heavily in the development of islamic brands without even knowing the spirit of islamic values and beliefs. this research work will produce beneficial effects for academicians and hamdard islamicus 72 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 managers. another aspect for strategy developers is that islam does not prohibit profit taking, rather it is the exorbitant profit taking that is not appreciated in islam. the relationship between islam and modern terminology of islamic branding has evolved recently and numerous changes have taken place in the market. these changes require managers to apply the essence of islamic values while developing islamic brands. suggestions while analyzing various evidences of brand development in the name of islam, the following recommendations are provided for islamic brand developers: 1. managers should not consider muslims as a pre-existing homogenous segment. despite the fact that muslims share basic common beliefs, their approaches differ, even while choosing from islamic brands. 2. brand developers should focus on the traits of trustworthiness instead of building credit worthiness. 3. value maximization is the core principle of islamic teachings regarding responsibilities of the business world toward society. in order to penetrate deep into muslim consumers’ buying needs, organizations should keep a clear focus on this concept, rather than maximizing exorbitant profits. 4. organizations should not simply tag each and every product “islamic” (e.g. the aforementioned case of the islamic socks). 5. use of evocative language should not be used while promoting islamic brands. similarly, the use of female models should be avoided at all costs to promote an islamic brand. 6. packaging and promotion of islamic brands should be carried out thoroughly in line with islamic moral and ethical values. discussion and conclusion branding is not a new concept; it has been carried out when the term was not even coined. presently, branding is being used by almost all big business firms to earn higher profits. enormous opportunities have been created in the global muslim markets in recent years through the hamdard islamicus 73 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 increasing number of muslim consumers and penetration of international brands in their communities. surveys have shown a growing potential in muslim market segments and firms are heavily engaging in brand islamization processes. business organizations are using brands with islamic tags. some multinationals are appropriately presenting a new product line of islamic brands and ×alél products. similarly, some western multinational are presenting islamic product lines and engaging in capturing a good portion of muslim consumer markets. however, challenges are being faced by these business organizations in penetrating and obtaining acceptance in the markets. these challenges are attributed to the lack of awareness and/or knowledge of islamic rules, practices, principles, and procedures neglecting the true spirit of islamic values, and undue belief in brand developers. in addition, cultural differences persist in various muslim countries which, in most cases, are not taken into account. shift in the focus of the major organizations toward islamic branding is no doubt a good sign for muslim consumers, and provides a real potential for muslims who can develop their own markets based on islamic ways.101 however, firms should first adopt sincere, holistic approach towards the islamic moral system and culture. lack of desired attributes in islamic branding practices is criticized in academic and religious circles. this can be a mere outcome of the contemporary differences that prevail between the existing and actual islamic values and norms. alserhan criticized the practice of contemporary brand developers, who, according to him, discuss islamic branding while sipping wine and eating pork.102 this deprives islamic branding of its soul, because brands are built by emotions and feelings, through which consumers develop allegiance to a brand. among various contradictory beliefs, some highlighted in this study; a comparison is preformed among contemporary practices, and numerous islamic values, that need to be incorporated in branding practices. islam stresses the principle of value maximization for society, whereas contemporary business philosophy revolves around the principle of profit maximization. brands are developed on the basis of credit worthiness, which leads firms to charge excessive prices. this comes under the prohibition of extravagance in islam as spending too much on a commodity, is against the principle of piety. tazkiyah is a significant islamic belief which directs the behaviours of muslim consumers. hamdard islamicus 74 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 apart from product development islamic legal ethics , islam also stresses promotional islamic legal ethics. use of suggestive language, persuasiveness, alluring pictures, and using females as objects are just some of the promotional methods that are neither appreciated nor accepted in islam. according to islam, proper sharing of information is vital while promoting any product. a practice commonly attributed to brand developers is that they do not disclose product features clearly. anyone involved in the process of designing and introducing islamic brands must understand core islamic principles and practices that are relevant, and comply with them in letter and spirit.103 further research in the area of islamic marketing is also required. one important aspect that individuals from academic and managerial circles should focus on is that, instead of emphasizing and forming superficial policies, individuals and organizations should put-in sincere efforts to reap maximum benefits. notes and references 01. sandikçi, özlem, “researching islamic marketing: past and future perspectives”, journal of islamic marketing 2, no. 3, 2011, pp. 246-258. 02. alihodzic, vedad, brand identity factors: developing a successful islamic brand, anchor academic publishing (aap_verlag), 2013. 03. ali, a. rizvi, the islamic way of communication, aurora magazine, pakistan, 2012, retrieved from: http://auroramag.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/islamiccommunication/(accessed: 14th february, 2014). 04. temporal, paul, islamic branding and marketing: creating a global islamic business, john wiley & sons, 2011. 05. alserhan, baker ahmad, “on islamic branding: brands as good deeds”, journal of islamic marketing 1, no. 2, 2010, pp. 101-106. 06. ibn majah, vol. v, ×adêth no. 4118, eng. tr. dr. muhammad muhsin khanl darussalam, riyadh, 1997. 07. sunan al tirmidê, vol. v, ×adêth no. 2819. 08. øaíêí al-muslim, vol. i, ×adêth no. 147. 09. gibson, n. and mcfarlane, t., 2012. the shari‘ah conscious consumers: deriving demand, the economist intelligence unit. 10. temporal, p., “islamic branding and marketing: opportunities and challenges.” retrieved august 3, 2011-2016. 11. sand1ikçi, özlem and gillian rice. “islamic marketing: an introduction and overview,” handbook of islamic marketing, cheltenham: edward elgar publishing, 2011, pp. 1-14. hamdard islamicus 75 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 12. sandikçi, özlem. “researching islamic marketing: past and future perspectives,” journal of islamic marketing 2, no. 3, 2011, pp. 246-258. 13. nasr, seyyed vali reza, and vali nasr, forces of fortune: the rise of the new muslim middle class and what it will mean for our world, simon and schuster, 2009. 14. jafari, aliakbar, “islamic marketing: insights from a critical perspective,” journal of islamic marketing 3, no. 1, 2012, pp. 22-34. 15. alserhan, baker ahmad, “islamic branding: a conceptualization of related terms,” journal of brand management 18, no. 1, 2010, pp. 34-49. 16. wilson, jonathan a.j. and jonathan, liu, “the challenges of islamic branding: navigating emotions and halal,” journal of islamic marketing 2, no. 1, 2011, pp. 28-42. 17. ibid. 18. lada, suddin, geoffrey harvey tanakinjal and hanudin amin, “predicting intention to choose halal products using theory of reasoned action,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 2, no. 1, 2009, pp. 6676. 19. alserhan, baker ahmad, “on islamic branding: brands as good deeds,” journal of islamic marketing 1, no. 2, 2010, pp. 101-106. 20. temporal, paul, “23 the future of islamic branding and marketing: a managerial perspective,” handbook of islamic marketing, 2011, p. 465. 21. temporal, paul,. islamic branding and marketing: creating a global islamic business, john wiley & sons, 2011. 22. alihodzic, vedad, brand identity factors: developing a successful islamic brand, anchor academic publishing (aap_verlag), 2013. 23. cornwell, bettina, charles chi cui, vince mitchell, bodoschlegelmilch, anis dzulkiflee and joseph chan, “a cross-cultural study of the role of religion in consumers’ ethical positions,” international marketing review 22, no. 5, 2005, pp. 531-546; shyan fam, kim, david s. waller and b. zafer erdogan, “the influence of religion on attitudes towards the advertising of controversial products,” european journal of marketing 38, no. 5/6, 2004, pp. 537-555. 24. cyril de run, ernest, muhammad mohsin butt, kim-shyan fam and hui yin jong, “attitudes towards offensive advertising: malaysian muslims’ views.” journal of islamic marketing 1, no. 1, 2010, pp. 25-36. 25. mokhlis, safiek, “the effect of religiosity on shopping orientation: an exploratory study in malaysia,” journal of american academy of business 9, no. 1, 2006, pp. 64-74. 26. park, c. whan, deborah j. macinnis and joseph r. priester, “beyond attitudes: attachment and consumer behaviour,” 2006. 27. hassan, abul, abdelkader chachi and salma abdul latêff, “islamic marketing ethics and its impact on customer satisfaction in the islamic banking industry,” 2008. 28. mohiuddin, mohammad golam and m.s. haque, “behaving ethically: an essence of islamic marketing system,” european journal of business and management 4, no. 16, 2012, pp. 34-44. hamdard islamicus 76 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 29. rice, gillian and mohammed al-mossawi, “the implications of islam for advertising messages: the middle eastern context,” journal of euromarketing 11, no. 3, 2002, pp. 71-96. 30. sandikçi, özlem. “researching islamic marketing: past and future perspectives,” journal of islamic marketing 2, no. 3, 2011, pp. 246258. 31. maurya, upendra kumar and p. mishra, “what is a brand? a perspective on nrand meaning,” european journal of business and management 4, no. 3, 2012, pp. 122-133. 32. ritson, 2006. retrived from: http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/534969/ mark-ritson-branding-norse-fire-smokes-bland-brands/?dcmp=ilc-search (accessed: 20th december, 2014). 33. j. colapinto, famous names, the new yorker, 2011, pp. 38-43. 34. keller, kevin lane, “conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity,” the journal of marketing, 1993, pp. 1-22. 35. h. pettersen, fortifying the image, the beyond branding blog, 2004 retrieved from: http://www.beyond-branding.com/blog/2004/02/fortifying-brand.h (accessed: 10th march, 2014). 36. paramaswaran, m.g. understanding consumers: building powerful brands using consumer research, tata mcgraw-hill publishing company, 2003. 37. american marketing association, 2007. retrieved from: http://www.marketing power.com/ _layouts/dictionary.aspx?dletter=b (accessed: 28th october, 2013). 38. young, m. “more to islamic branding than meets the eye,” campaign uk, 23, no. 17, 2007, pp. 45-55. 39. alserhan, baker ahmad, “on islamic branding: brands as good deeds,” journal of islamic marketing 1, no. 2, 2010, pp. 101-106. 40. viorst, milton. “the muslims of france,” foreign affairs, 1996, pp. 78-96. 41. abdul-rahman, y.k. and a.s. tug, “lariba (islamic) mortgage financing in the united states,” in: proceedings of the second harvard university forum on islamic finance, pp. 9-10. cambridge, ma, harvard university, 1998. 42. pew research center, the future of the global muslim population, 2011 power, c., 15 june, 2009, halal: buying muslimes, time magazine, retrieved from: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171, 1902837,00.html (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 43. power, c., 15 june, 2009, halal: buying muslimes, time magazine, retrieved from: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171, 1902837,00.html (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 44. world halal forum, 2007, retrieved from: http://www.pmo.gov.my/ucapan/?m= p&p=paklah&id=3094 (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 45. gibson, n. and mcfarlane, t., 2012, the sharê‘ah conscious consumers: deriving demand, the economist intelligence unit. 46. temporal, paul, islamic branding and marketing: creating a global islamic business, john wiley & sons, 2011. 47. hassan, abul, abdelkader chachi and salma abdul latiff, “islamic marketing ethics and its impact on customer satisfaction in the islamic banking industry,” 2008. hamdard islamicus 77 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 48. shirazi, faegheh, “islam and barbie: the commodification of hijabi dolls,” islamic perspective 3, 2010, pp. 10-27. 49. ibid. 50. gibson, n. and mcfarlane, t., 2012, the shari‘ah conscious consumers: deriving demand, the economist intelligence unit. 51. alserhan, baker ahmad, “on islamic branding: brands as good deeds,” journal of islamic marketing 1, no. 2, 2010, pp. 101-106. 52. armstrong, karen, the battle for god: a history of fundamentalism, ballantine books, 2011. 53. o’connell, brian j., “dimensions of religiosity among catholics,” review of religious research, 1975, pp. 198-207. 54. ibid. 55. ellison, craig w. and kenneth c. cole, “religious commitment, television viewing, values and quality of life,” journal of psychology and christianity 1, no. 1, 1982, pp. 21-32. 56. cornwell, bettina, charles chi cui, vince mitchell, bodoschlegelmilch, anis dzulkiflee and joseph chan, “a cross-cultural study of the role of religion in consumers’ ethical positions,” international marketing review 22, no. 5, 2005, pp. 531-546. 57. shyan fam, kim, david s. waller and b. zafer erdogan, “the influence of religion on attitudes towards the advertising of controversial products,” european journal of marketing 38, no. 5/6, 2004, pp. 537-555. 58. michell, paul c.n. and mohammed al-mossawi, “the mediating effect of religiosity on advertising effectiveness,” journal of marketing communications 1, no. 3, 1995, pp. 151-162. 59. park, c. whan, deborah j. macinnis and joseph r. priester, “beyond attitudes: attachment and consumer behaviour,” 2006. 60. keller, kevin lane, “brand synthesis: the multidimensionality of brand knowledge,” journal of consumer research 29, no. 4, 2003, pp. 595-600. 61. berman, william h. and michael b. sperling, “the structure and function of adult attachment,” attachment in adults: clinical and developmental perspectives, 1994, pp. 3-28. 62. mikulincer, mario and phillip r. shaver, attachment in adulthood: structure, dynamics, and change, guilford press, 2007. 63. dwayne ball, a. and lori h. tasaki, “the role and measurement of attachment in consumer behaviour,” journal of consumer psychology 1, no. 2, 1992, pp. 155172; thomson, matthew, deborah j. macinnis and c. whan park, “the ties that bind: measuring the strength of consumers’ emotional attachments to brands,” journal of consumer psychology 15, no. 1, 2005, pp. 77-91. 64. mokhlis, safiek, “the effect of religiosity on shopping orientation: an exploratory study in malaysia,” journal of american academy of business 9, no. 1, 2006, pp. 64-74. 65. wuyts, stefan h.k., marnik g. dekimpe, els gijsbrechts and f,g,m, rik pieters, eds. the connected customer: the changing nature of consumer and business markets, routledge, 2011. 66. park, c. whan, deborah j. macinnis and joseph priester, “brand attachment: hamdard islamicus 78 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 constructs, consequences, and causes,” foundations and trends® in marketing 1, no. 3, 2008, pp. 191-230. 67. rossouw, gedeonjosua, “business ethics: where have all the christians gone?,” journal of business ethics 13, no. 7, 1994, pp. 557-570; gould, stephen j., “the buddhist perspective on business ethics: experiential exercises for exploration and practice,” journal of business ethics 14, no. 1, 1995, pp. 63-70. 68. storm, penny, functions of dress: tool of culture and the individual, prentice hall, 1987. 69. ahmad, m., “business ethics in islam, iiit, pakistan, islamabad,” google scholar, 1995. 70. temporal, p., “islamic branding and marketing: opportunities and challenges,” retrieved august 3, 2011-2016. 71. rice, gillian, “islamic ethics and the implications for business,” journal of business ethics 18, no. 4, 1999, pp. 345-358. 72. al-qur’én, ii:83. 73. øaíêí muslim, vol. vi, ×adêth no. 2626. 74. mohiuddin, mohammad golam and m.s. haque, “behaving ethically: an essence of islamic marketing system,” european journal of business and management 4, no. 16, 2012, pp. 34-44. 75. al-qur’én, xxxix:3. 76. ibid., xi:85. 77. al-nawawê, ii:770. 78. shaw, martin, civil society and media in global crises: representing distant violence, pinter, 1996. 78a. al-nawawê, ii:270. 79. ibid. 80. al-qur’én, vi:165. 81. ibid., vii:31. 82. ibid., ii:195. 83. ibid., xviii:46. 84. ibid., ix:10. 85. ibid., xxxi:18-19. 86. ibid., ii:177. 87. bovee, courtland l., advertising excellence, mcgraw-hill college, 1995. 88. al-qur’én, iii:146. 89. baig, a.a. and tarin, m.a., 2010, human resource development: another perspective, riphah international university, rcib, pakistan, islamabad. 90. saeed, mohammad, zafar u. ahmed and syeda-masoodamukhtar, “international marketing ethics from an islamic perspective: a value-maximization approach,” journal of business ethics 32, no. 2, 2001, pp. 127-142. 91. øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. iii, ×adêth no. 2358. 92. sunan al-tirmidê, vol. iii, ×adêth no. 1210. 93. øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. viii, ×adêth no. 6094. 94. ibid., vol. iii, ×adêth no. 2079. 95. badr uddin, ‘umadat ul qérê, dar-ehy al-turath al-‘arabi, beriut, vol. 11, p. 195. hamdard islamicus 79 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 096. al-qur’én, xxxiii:70. 097. alserhan, baker ahmad, “on islamic branding: brands as good deeds,” journal of islamic marketing 1, no. 2, 2010, pp. 101-106. 098. al-misri, ahmad naqib, the reliance of the traveller: a classic manual of islamic sacred law, modern printing press, 1991. 099. al-nawawê, ii:770. 100. al qur’én, ii:208. 101. temporal, p., “islamic branding and marketing: opportunities and challenges,” retrieved august 3, 2011-2016. 102. alserhan, baker ahmad, “on islamic branding: brands as good deeds,” journal of islamic marketing 1, no. 2, 2010, pp. 101-106. 103. rice, gillian, “islamic ethics and the implications for business,” journal of business ethics 18, no. 4, 1999, pp. 345-358. e:\islamicus\2018\no.1'2018\02) zandaqah.pmd hamdard islamicus 45 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 zandaqah heresy during the early ‘abbósid era (750-850 c.e.) socio-political and economic factors atta muhammad research scholar, university of leeds, uk e-mail: mlamuh@leeds.ac.uk the present study, while discussing zandaqah as a social and political phenomenon, deals with those individuals who were declared zindêqs and were prosecuted and persecuted as heretics during the early ‘abbésid caliphate from 750 to 850 (c.e.). the movements and individuals whose religious beliefs and practices did not conform to the religious doctrine of the dominant religious and political elite, were branded as zindêqs. the rebellious movements in persia and their leaders, including, among others, ustédh sês, al-muqanna‘, bébak al-khurramê, afshên and mazyér were declared heretics and were persecuted on the charges of having anti-islamic zoroastrian and manichaean agendas. in fact, there were social, economic and political grievances of the people of these areas that prompted them to rebel against the central government, and they were branded as heretics as they were against political and economic interests of the ‘abbésid caliphate in these areas. keywords: zandaqah, heresy, early ‘abbésid caliphate, social and political phenomenon, traditionalists. introduction the ‘abbésid period in muslim history is remembered as the period of development and progress in cultural, social, and religious spheres of life. the innovations in the fields of culture, society, religion and politics changed the dynamics of muslim society. some of the muslim schools of thought and sects struggled to give meaning to and fulfill their social and political ambitions. among these schools of thought and individuals, those who posed threat to the authority of the caliphs and the dominant hamdard islamicus 46 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 religious groups were branded as heretics. in muslim history, heresy has generally been treated as a religious or theological phenomenon by the historians. theological arguments and religious reasons have been overemphasized. other reasons of political, economic and social nature, and of discontent of the people, have been under-emphasized. this approach to heresy seems to be reductive, as it over-simplifies a complex phenomenon. the present study contests this view of dealing with heresy merely on theological and religious grounds, and explores the likelihood that, in addition to religious and theological causes of heresy, political, social and economic factors were also involved. it focuses primarily on the social, political and economic causes of heresy during the early ‘abbésid era stretching from 750 to 850 (c.e.). it tries to address the questions: why political dissenters were branded as zindêqs or heretics and were persecuted? what were the causes of the mass discontent among the population that led to rebellions in persia and central asia? why were these rebellious movements declared heterodox movements? while giving answers to these questions, the present study deals with the etymology of zindêq. it identifies the individuals who were declared heretics while also giving an empirical overview of the different heterodox movements in persia, and analyses the rebellious movements in persia and their leaders who were declared heretics during the early ‘abbésid era. zindêqs zindêqs were generally considered to be the followers of ménê. some of the zindêqs who accepted teachings of islam were branded as heretics during the early ‘abbésid caliphate. the term zindêq was so much in use during this period that even muslim opponents to the ‘abbésid government were declared heretics and were persecuted. etymology and meaning of zindêq zindêq is an arabic word (pl. zanédêq or zanédiqah, abstract/ collective noun zandaqah) most probably borrowed from the persian language. it was used most narrowly against manichaeans, and loosely for mulíêds, heretisc, murtêds, renegades, kéfirs, and unbelievers.1 the word zindêq appeared for the first time during the time of the séssénid empire hamdard islamicus 47 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 in persia and was used against manichaeism when that empire, having zoroastrianism as its official religion, started a campaign against the followers of other religions, including jews, buddhists, hindu-brahmans, christians and zndyky. during the fifth century an armenian christian writer eznik used the word zindêq in his writings for manichaeism. in the books of zoroastrian religion also, the word zindêq has been used for manichaeans.2 in the arabic language, the term zindêq was primarily used for manichaeans, while secondarily it was used for muslim heretics as well. according to mas‘ëdê (d. 956), the word zindêq first appeared during the time of ménê (216-274 c.e.) when zoroaster’s teachings were gathered together in the avesta and its interpretation, zand. for persians, anyone who introduced something in the book contrary to the book or zand, was called a zandê. the arabs changed the word to zindêq and used it for the dualist, thanawiyyah, having belief in two gods. according to the modern linguistic research, the word zandêq was borrowed from aramaic zaddêq, which meant ‘righteous’. the manichaeans also used the word zaddêqe for the ‘elected one’, i.e. for those who were full members of the manichaean community.3 in this early context, when used by the manichaeans the word was not pejorative, as it was used for the elected group of the community. josef van ess argues that zandaqah was a persian word. it was derived from zand, the commentary on the avesta.4 the arabs did not know the etymology of the word and it was soon applied to any deviation, error or unbelief.5 w. montgomery watt has defined the term as ‘vague’ and ‘irreligion’.6 it was used against those who were accused of having theological deviation, particularly towards manichaeism or dualism.7 according to another definition of the word zindêq, which was used by jahið (d. 868), it meant the wandering monks. it was also used for ménê and his followers. the word zaddêq was used for the elected class of manichaean hierarchy.8 e.g. browne argues that zaddêq is an aramaic word which means ‘righteous’. the arabic word îiddêq, which means ‘veracious’, is etymologically equivalent to zaddêq. thus zaddêq passed into persian in the form of zandêq, which was used by the persians before islam, and zindêq is the arabic form of zandêq.9 according to ùabarê, zindêqs were those who were involved in zoroastrian, manichaean and mazdakite practices. it was a ‘terrifyingly hamdard islamicus 48 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 vague’ term during the early ‘abbésid era.10 the manichaeans were severely persecuted during this early period11 because of their profession of dualism and their aggressiveness against islam.12 islamic thought did not particularly flourish at the early stage in the areas conquered by the muslims, who were in the minority in these areas. so the muslim religious elite were in favour of crushing manichaeism in these conquered areas because it posed threat to islam.13 in addition, during the early ‘abbésid period, the term zindêq was also used for zoroastrians, øëfê extremists, mu‘tazilah and the free thinkers.14 the term was used to encapsulate a wide variety of people of different religious outlook or ideology. muslim jurists have defined zandaqah in different ways. some believe that zindêq was the one who showed himself outwardly as muslims but inwardly practiced his former religion of manichaeism. during the early muslim history, some muslims were declared zindêqs, being accused of believing in dualism, that is, claiming that there were two forces in the universe, light and darkness, a conception of god that was different from the muslim conception of divinity. some jurists believed that those who questioned the fundamentals of islam, such as the prophethood of muíammad ( ), or the authenticity of the parts of qur’én were declared heretics, zindêqs.15 according to another group of jurists, zindêqs were those who were engaged in those acts that were prohibited in islam, such as adultery, fornication and the consumption of wine.16 so those who did not give proper respect to muslim teachings and practices were declared as zindêqs. as mentioned earlier, the word zindêq was borrowed in the first instance from the persian language. it was initially used against the followers of other religions, particularly against the followers of manichaeism and zoroastrianism. later on its use was extended to muslim social, political, and religious dissenters, who were declared as zindêqs and were persecuted. individuals branded as zindêqs zandaqah was a strange phenomenon of early ‘abbésid era when some individuals were accused of zandaqah and prosecuted and persecuted as heretics, including political opponents, religious dissenters, poets and also those who did not conform to islamic moral restraints. hamdard islamicus 49 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the persecution of zandaqah was not confined to the persians and central asians; arabs also became victims. during the caliphate of al-manîër (r. 754-775), ‘abd allah ibn al-muqaffa‘ (d. 756), was accused of zandaqah and was persecuted.17 muíammad ibn isíéq al-nadêm narrates that the harsh terms, written by al-muqaffa‘ on behalf of ‘abd allah ibn ‘alê, which annoyed caliph al-manîër, became the reason for the persecution of al-muqaffa‘ persecution.18 the terms written by al-muqaffa‘ were in these words: ‘and if any time the commander of the faithful acts perfidiously towards his uncle ‘abd allah ibn ‘alê, his wives shall be divorced from him, his horses shall be confiscated from the service of god (in war), his slaves shall become free, and the muslims lose from their allegiance towards him’.19 sufyén, the governor of basra, also had personal enmity towards al-muqaffa‘,20 who was accused of practising the manichaean religion and having an anti-islamic attitude and was killed by sufyén. the persecution of zindêqs gained so much importance during the caliphate of al-mahdê (r. 775-785) that a separate department was established having øéíib al-zanédiqah as chief examiner. two contemporary poets, bashshar ibn burd (d. 783) and øélií ibn ‘abd al-quddës (d. 784), were put to death by the orders of caliph al-mahdê on charges of zandaqah. bashshar ibn burd was accused of practising manichaeism and atheism.21 there were other reasons of political and social nature involved in the execution of bashshar ibn burd. in his poetry, he encouraged the umayyads to rebel against the ‘abbésid caliphate.22 belonging to a noble persian family, he propagated persian ‘national’ sentiments and encouraged persian clients, mawélê, to stand against the arab domination. he also engaged in theological disputes with the muslim theologians of basra.23 he was accused of zandaqah because his activities were perceived as being against the social and political authority of the ‘abbésid caliphs and also of the religious elite. øélií ibn ‘abd al-quddës was a member of an arab tribe or affiliated with an arab tribe. there is very little information available about his life. reynold a. nicholson claims that he used to preach at streets in basra and damascus so there is a possibility that this ‘public doctrine’ was perceived as a threat to the authority of the ruling elite. moreover, his was the philosophical mind of a poet, which could be a reason for his persecution as zindêq,24 though there was nothing heretical in his poetry hamdard islamicus 50 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and he was not critical of the religion of prophet muíammad ( ).25 it was his libertine way of life and free thinking that became the reason for the persecution of øélií ibn ‘abd al-quddës, bashshar ibn burd and ×amméd ajrad.26 another brilliant poet, abë nuwés (d. 814), was accused of zandaqah, of having blasphemous, dangerous and morally unacceptable ideas, and was consequently imprisoned. but there are different versions of the death of abë nuwés.27 this was the religious orthodoxy of the early ‘abbésid period that tested the urban intellectuals like bashshar ibn burd and abë nuwés of having manichaean and zoroastrian inclinations. there were questions of freedom of thought and an immoral way of life behind the accusations of zandaqah made against them.28 the religious and political authority of the dominant religious group, the traditionalists, and the ‘abbésid caliphs played an important role in declaring those muslims as zindêqs who did not follow islamic teachings properly and those who lived an immoral life. members of respected arab families were not spared from prosecution and persecution by the ruling authorities. the héshimis, ya‘qëb ibn al-faìl, his daughter and dé’ëd ibn ‘alê’s son, were brought as zindêqs before caliph al-mahdê. they were thrown into prison as the caliph had taken an oath not to kill a héshimi.29 abë ubaydallah mu‘éwiyah ibn yasér was an honest vizier and a capable officer of the revenue department during the caliphate of al-mahdê. he made many enemies due to his honesty. his son, muíammad or ‘abdallah, was declared zindêq and was ruthlessly killed.30 according to ibn khallikén, it was al-rabê‘ ibn yënus who induced caliph al-mahdê against abë ‘ubaydallah and caused the death of his son as zindêq.31 in the case of abë ubaydallah’s son, who was declared as zindêq and was persecuted, it is clear that there were political and not just religious causes of zandaqah during the early ‘abbésid period. caliph al-hédê (r. 785-786) closely followed the policy of his father in respect of the persecution of zindêqs. two people, yazdén ibn badhén, the secretary, and ‘alê ibn yaqïên, keeper of the privy seal, were executed during the reign of caliph al-hédê on charges of zandaqah.32 caliph hérën al-rashid (r. 786-809) continued the religious policy of orthodoxy and the persecution of zindêqs, though not in a severe manner. anas ibn abê shaykh was killed after being accused of zandaqah. he was an associate of the barmakês.33 caliph al-mé’mën (r. 813-833) did hamdard islamicus 51 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 not follow the policy of persecuting manichaeans of his predecessors as he grew up in an intellectual environment, and hence respected the educated and intellectuals who belonged to other religions as well. neomanichaeans were well treated by al-mé’mën, and it became fashionable to profess and show manichaeism.34 according to ibn nadêm, during the reign of al-mé’mën ibn yazdénbakht, who was accused of zandaqah, was pardoned by the caliph.35 famous zindêq movements and leaders the later umayyad and early ‘abbésid era witnessed many religiopolitical and social movements in persia. the inclusion of religious sentiments in these rebellions made them heterodox movements. these movements and their leaders were declared heretics by the ruling authorities when they perceived them as a political and social threat. these movements are also called khurramê movements. w. madelung argues that khurramiyyah was a religious movement founded by mazdak in the late fifth century. some islamic sources claim the movement to have been anti-islamic, as ibn nadêm writes in his book al-fihrist that these people were magians and followers of mazdak. they were very fond of pleasure in respect of food and drinking and also sharing their women, which they believed was according to the teachings of their master, mazdak.36 madelung maintains that the khurramêyyah were those who took abë muslim khurésanê (d. 755) as their imém and thus were also called muslimiyya, as abë muslim received support from the mazdakite community during the da‘wa movement against the umayyad caliphate. after the murder of abë muslim, khurramê mazdakite rose against the ‘abbésid caliph in revenge for their leader’s murder.37 jonathan p. burkey explores khurramêyyah and its roots in the socio-religious movement of mazdak during the séssénian rule (224651) in pre-islamic persia. they followed abë muslim during the ‘abbésid revolution of 749 c.e. after his murder by caliph al-manîër, they participated in rebellions against the ‘abbésid government.38 farhéd daftary also called these rebellions and revolts ‘khurramê movements’, when a large number of zoroastrian and neo-mazdakite communities supported these movements. they belonged to the lower social strata, particularly peasantry.39 according to j.j. saunders, though, it was an effort to revive hamdard islamicus 52 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the persian culture and sentiments in the eighth century that gave birth to the different fanatical and heretical sects and factions in muslim persia.40 e.g. browne recalls these movements as the movements of heresiarchs that arose in the persian land of the ‘abbésid empire.41 these movements emerged owing to the social and economic grievances of the local population. among the famous movements and leaders were bihéfarêd, sunbédh, isíék, the turk and baraz, ustédh sês, al-muqanna‘, muhammira, bébak al-khurramê, afshên and mazyér. bihéfarêd bihéfarêd was the leader of the bihéfarêdiyyah heretic movement of muslim persia. according to abë al-rayíén muíammad al-bêrëênê bihéfarêd pronounced himself a prophet and found many followers among the magians.42 ibn nadêm says that, he propagated the doctrines of magians. apparently, he accepted islam but inwardly practised the teachings of magians.43 farhéd daftary states that bihéfarêd had a zoroastrian background. he started a reform movement based on a blend of the ideas of zoroastrianism and islam.44 sunbédh sunbédh, was a zoroastrian who revolted in 755, during the caliphate of al-manîër, and started the popular khurramê movement.45 ùabarê states that sunbédh was a magian and was a supporter of abë muslim al-khurésénê. he was the leader of a rebellion that was started to avenge the death of abë muslim.46 according to maqdisi, sunbédh proclaimed himself as the successor and walê, of abë muslim khurasanê and vowed to take revenge for his death. sunbédh used the religious syncretism to acquire support from the different religious communities, particularly the muslims and zoroastrians. he preached that abë muslim was not dead and would soon return with mahdê and mazdak.47 according to some sources, he gathered 100,000 supporters and aimed at destroying ka‘bah (god forbid), which gave an anti-arab and anti-muslim aspect to sunbédh’s rebellion.48 caliph al-manîër sent jahwar ibn al-marrar al-ijlê to deal with sunbédh, who was defeated. he fled to ùabaristén, where he was killed. hamdard islamicus 53 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 isíéq, the turk and baraz isíéq, the turk, was one of those who participated and encouraged the khurramiyyah movement as he played an important role in the formation of the mubayyiìah (safêd-jémahgén in persian), ‘wearers of white’ movement against the ‘abbésids. they carried white banners against the black banners of ‘abbésids.49 later on, baraz, under the false name of ibréhêm ibn ‘abd allah al-héshimê, became leader of the safêd-jémahgén. he fled from the persecution of caliph al-manîër and resided in transoxiana, where he propagated the view that neither abë muslim and nor zoroaster were dead but would return and preach the true religion.50 ustédh sês another persian ‘pseudo-prophet’, named ustédh sês, revolted in 766-768 in the districts of herat (capital of herat province of today’s afghanistan), bédghês (a province of northwestern afghanistan) and sêstén (a historical region comprising parts of eastern iran and southern afghanistan).51 some sources maintain that he proclaimed himself as a prophet, but this assertion is controversial.52 among the followers and supporters of ustédh sês were peasants, khérijê tribesmen of sêstén and also turkish tribesmen. he gathered huge support from the villagers. later he was captured and killed at the orders of al-manîër in baghdad. al-muqanna‘ the most famous khurramiyyah movement in khurasan and transoxiana was that of al-muqanna‘ (d. 799).53 abë bakr muíammad ibn ja‘far al-narshakhê notes that he was a very clever man and learned magic and engineering at an early age, with which he attracted people. he gathered a large number of people around him and started plundering and looting the caravans.54 al-bêrënê says that he claimed divinity and preached the teachings of mazdak, resorting to killing and violence.55 he was killed in 779, during the caliphate of al-mahdê. muíammira muíammira were the mazdakites, those who followed the teachings of mazdak or were the supporters of khurramiyyah. they were called hamdard islamicus 54 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 muíammira, which meant ‘wearers of red’. they revolted in jurjén (now in iran). ‘amr ibn muíammad al-amrakê, who encouraged these revolts, was declared as zindêq and was executed in merv on the orders of caliph hérën al-rashêd.56 when the khurramiyyah, i.e. the muslimiyyah, began a rebellion under the leadership of muíammira in revenge for the death of abë muslim, the neo-mazdakite communities of western persia made common cause with the khurramiyyah, muslimiyyah.57 bébak al-khurramê the khurramiyyah movement reached its peak in its enmity against the arabs and the ‘abbésid caliphate when bébak khurramê (d. 838) started a rebellious movement against the ‘abbésid caliphate.58 according to ibn nadêm, the chief of the ‘khurramiyyah al-bébakiyah’ was bébak al-khurramê who claimed divinity and introduced violence in the khurramiyyah sect.59 bébak revolted in northwestern persia and posed a serious threat to the ‘abbésid empire.two other important people who were declared as zindêqs were afshên, who was a famous general of caliph al-mu‘taîim,60 and mazyér (d. 840), who was a member of the karinid dynasty of ùabaristén who revolted against caliph al-mu‘taîim.61 he was accused of heresy and was imprisoned during the caliphate of al-mu‘taîim, where he died. these people gave leadership to the rebellions against the early ‘abbésid caliphate. as has already been mentioned, these rebellions arose because of the murder of abë muslim khurésénê and the dissatisfaction of the masses with the new caliphate, since the promises that were made during the ‘abbésid da‘wah movement were not fulfilled. the leaders of these revolts and rebellions profited from the discontent of the people because of their personal interests, and provided leadership to these movements, which were declared as heretical movements by the ‘abbésid caliphs. rebellions in persia as heretic movements these movements were portrayed by some muslim chronicles as heretic movements. to understand the aspects and nature of these hamdard islamicus 55 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 heterodox revolts, it would be very useful to understand the issues of ‘class conflict, social reforms, and simple religious syncretism which invariably accompanied them’.62 the involvement of different religious groups like zoroastrians, khurramiyyah (neo-mazdakite), muslims and ghuléts63 in these movements made it easy for the ‘abbésid government to declare thesm heterodox movements.64 according to waardenburg, these religio-political movements were expression of popular religion,65 which was not tolerated by the religious elite nor by the political elite, which favoured normative religion. the ‘abbésids came to power claiming themselves legitimate heirs of the house of prophet ( ). they presented themselves as the champions of the cause of islam. their state was called the ‘blessed state’, al-dawlah al-mubérakah, by their supporters and followers.66 after the establishment of the ‘abbésid caliphate, some of those who helped them to come to power became dissatisfied with the ‘abbésid government, as the promises of justice and well-being of the people – later used as basis and catchphrase of the ‘abbésid revolution – were set aside.67 the ‘abbésids were very much aware of their political authority, even during the revolutionary activities; the extremist attitude of khidash (executed in 736) was rejected not because of religious reasons but because of losing the political authority over the revolutionary process, as extremism was derailing the political process.68 the oppressive rule started by the ‘abbésid caliphs dissatisfied shê‘ah and other groups. those who were dissatisfied with state policy, like the ghulét, participated in the khurramiyyah movement against the ‘abbésid government in persia.69 the religious and political groups whose religious, social and economic interests had not been met by what the ‘abbésid government had promised during the revolution, turned against them. they were declared heretic and were persecuted. right from the beginning, ‘abbésid caliphs understood the importance of persia. they tried to establish the political writ in these areas because the areas were important for the empire in respect of economy. azerbéijén and adjacent areas were rich in mineral resources like gold, iron, lead, silver and mercury.70 the crude oil of the areas like khurésén (the region comprising the land of modern-day northern afghanistan, eastern iran and parts of tajikistén and uzbekistén), azerbéijén was important for the state. it was used for lighting and hamdard islamicus 56 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 warfare.71 the mineral wealth of these areas attracted the arabs and they migrated there in great numbers during the early period of ‘abbésid caliphate. the fertile agricultural land of transoxiana, also called méwaréun-nahr during the ‘abbésid caliphate (the region between the ómu daryé and syr daryé rivers in central asia), and khurasan attracted the arabs to settle in these regions. as they were arriving in such numbers, the local population perceived them as a threat to their livelihood.72 during the early period, the ‘abbésid government began creating colonies in the areas at the foothill of elburz (a mountain range in northern persia). local people started a rebellion against the ‘abbésid government as the new immigrants started controlling the resources of local population.73 these rebellions against the ‘abbésid government were crushed and their leaders declared heretics. bédghês, where ustédh sês revolted, was important for the ‘abbésid government as it had a large number of silver mines. the urbanite muslims of khurasan were interested in taking bédghês. they used religion to legitimize their effort to take a hold on it. the local population stood against the government that posed a threat to their established traditional way of life, and against the urbanite muslims.74 the movement of ustédh sês was very much linked with the threat to the material well-being of local population, as the arabs and urbanite muslims of khurasan wanted to take control over the silver mines in the areas.75 when the local population of the areas abounding in mineral resources saw that their economic interests were in jeopardy, they rebelled against the usurpers. their revolts were branded as heterodox movements by the ‘abbésid caliphs and were crushed. the people and princes of mountainous areas like ùabaristén loved their culture, old traditions and beliefs and they were very keen to preserve their social customs and cultural values.76 the small princely states and their rulers, being conscious of their social and political status, wanted it to continue in the presence of semi-divine figures. so they resisted the process of islamization in their areas.77 during the umayyad caliphate, the city-states of the eastern empire like tukhéristén (part of the eastern persia during the ‘abbésid caliphate, which is presently part of afghanistan) and sogdiana (territory corresponds to the modern provinces of samarkand, bukhéré in uzbekistén and the sughd province of modern tajikistén) lost their independence when they were occupied by the hamdard islamicus 57 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 umayyads. after the ‘abbésid revolution, these city-states tried to regain their freedom and to implement their own social and economic structure, which they had enjoyed before the arab invasion.78 the religious syncretism, local cultural traditions and common enemy of these rebels created a sense of group feeling among them, the same group feeling as that of the urbanite ‘ulamé’ in khurasan and bukhéré.79 the resistance of the original inhabitants of areas like tukhéristén and sogdiana was seen as a threat to the political and economic interests of the ‘abbésids and the religious elite, aligned with the government, and was suppressed as a heretic movement. most of the leaders of these rebellious movements had personal material interests. these revolts were backed by the local people, with different religious beliefs and social values, in great numbers. the presence of these heterogeneous elements in these movements gave the ‘abbésid government the opportunity to brand them as heterodox movements.80 some of the arabs who settled in these areas during the umayyad caliphate also participated in these movements. they lost their jobs and prestige as a result of the occupation of their land by the new arabs settlers.81 the differences and disagreements between the local arabs who inhabited these areas during the umayyad caliphate and those who arrived after the ‘abbésid revolution encouraged local people to rebel for their independence.82 the reasons for the rebellions were based on political, social and religious grievances of the local people. the growing luxuries of the court of the caliphs forced the tax collectors to raise the taxes in the empire. the process of taxation created disputes between muslims and non-muslims, and also among the arabs themselves. moreover, there was a new social order that eliminated the old one, based on the stereotypical social thinking. this new type of social system became the cause of unrest and rebellion by the local people. before the ‘abbésid government, the local dehqéns (peasants and small landlords) had enjoyed political power. they were not only deprived of their political role, but also of social privileges that were taken over by the muslim military and administrative elite.83 the revenue based on tax collection played an important role in the urban development in the early ‘abbésid era. this created discontent among the rural population in khurésén.84 the rebellious movements were against both hamdard islamicus 58 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the political structure of the central government and the taxation system in these areas. the zoroastrians supported these movements to stop the dissemination of muslim culture, which was a threat to their old social and religious system. the zoroastrians showed more resistance against the arab encroachment than against islam.85 the zoroastrians and neomazdakites living in these areas belonged to the poor sections of society, and belonged partly to the peasantry. they were not satisfied with the unequal system of taxation and their increasingly deteriorating social position. when these movements started after the assassination of abë muslim, they supported them, as they had also considered abë muslim their leader.86 in fact, it was the grievances of local peasants and the growing differences between ‘haves’ and ‘haves nots’ that forced people to rebel against the central government. the religious beliefs and cultural practices of the people were under threat from the new social and religious order that became the cause of the movements like al-muqanna‘.87 according to daniel, the revolt of al-muqanna‘ was a genuine protest based on the social grievances of the peasants of central asia that was declared heretic as it threatened islamic social order in transoxiana.88 the rural population of most of those areas where these rebellions arose had their own local rulers and distinct cultural identity. the threat to the autonomous and traditional culture of these areas became the prime reason for the rise of these movements. political interests of different groups allied with the central government also played a critical role in these revolts that were branded as heretic movements. according to hugh kennedy, ustédh sês rebelled with his dehqénê followers in support of ‘isé ibn mësé (d. 784), who was the nephew of first ‘abbésid caliph al-safféí, when the latter was removed as heir apparent by caliph al-manîër in favour al-mahdê.89 ustédh sês revolted in soghdiana region where ‘isé ibn mësé was popular.90 the revolt of bébak al-khurramê posed a threat to the political, economic, social and territorial integrity of the ‘abbésid empire. being head of a socio-religious sect of khurramiyyah, bébak gathered a large number of poor peasants. they were ready to revolt under any leader who would preach the doctrine of salvation after death and prosperity in this world, both of which were bébak’s slogans. in addition, personal motives of gaining power and autonomy encouraged bébak to revolt hamdard islamicus 59 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 against the central government.91 the multiple causes of the revolts, from the social and economic interests to the political interests of the people of persia and central asia, forced them to rebel against the ‘abbésid caliphate. the ‘abbésids, perceiving a threat to their dynastic rule, labeled these movements as heretic movements. those who converted from one religion to another kept in mind their social status. they wanted to enjoy the same social status after converting to the new religion.92 the princes of the central asian regions were very proud of their culture and belief system. after conversion to islam, they expected equal status in muslim society as that enjoyed by the arabs. for example, mazyér, one of the princes of the region of ùabaristén, accepted islam. he was given the status of mawlé, the client of caliph al-mé’mën, but the prince insisted on being treated as an ally not as the client of the commander of the faithful.93 these social deprivations encouraged people like mazyér to rebel against the ‘abbésid government. there was conflict over political and territorial gains between ‘abd allah ibn ùéhêr, the governor of khurésén, and mazyér, the governor of ùabaristén. the latter was accused by the ùéhiridis, the ruling family of khurésén, who perceived a political threat from mazyér in the form of anti-islamic and anti-state activities.94 mazyér revolted against the ‘abbésid caliph al-mu‘taîêm as his political and social status was not accepted by the ‘abbésids because it was harmful to their political authority. so they declared mazyér as having an inclination towards other religions, with the support of the religious elite. the trial of afshên also showed an antagonism, to some extent, between the men of the sword, the military commanders, and the men of the pen, the secretaries. afshên represented the former group, while aímad ibn abê dé’ëd (d. 854) represented the latter. these were the secretaries who accused afshên of heresy. ‘abd allah ibn ùéhir had some connections with this latter group. ‘it was this group which stood behind the severe measures in the miínah and having failed to carry through its policies there found an outlet for its intentions in championing the cause of islam and the caliphate in the trials of bébak, mazyér and al-afshên.’95 the trial of afshên was a political trial96 and not a theological one. the abundance of mineral resources, the harsh attitude of tax collectors, and the growing control of migrated arabs on the mines hamdard islamicus 60 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 forced local people to rebel against the central government.97 the most common feature of all the revolts in the eastern areas was economic factors. most of the people joined revolt to win financial benefits. oppression and injustice by the central government united different groups of peasants, arabs and persians against the ‘abbésid government.98 moreover, ‘the uprising of bébak, the revolt of mazyér and the trial of afshên describe the weak grip of the ‘abbésid caliphs on the government and also the political and economic situation of the empire’.99 these movements challenged the political, economic and social hegemony of the arabs over the locals and ‘manifested anti-arab or even anti-islamic sentiments, rooted in manichaeism, zoroastrianism, mazdakism and other iranian traditions’.100 these movements and their leaders were declared heretic because of anti-islamic propaganda against them. in fact, these movements were not against islam but against the ‘abbésid caliphate. the people of the areas where these movements arose fought against the oppressive rule of the central government in order to save their social and cultural identity. zandaqah as a socio-political phenomenon these movements posed a serious threat to the political and religious establishment. its leaders were branded as zindêqs, sometimes for religious reasons and most of the time for other social and political reasons. those who were charged with zandaqah were accused of having an inclination towards manichaeism or dualism. sometimes those muslims were also declared zindêqs who did not give proper respect to islamic tenets and openly violated muslim beliefs and practices, and those who adopted a ‘libertine’ way of life.101 those who were accused of zandaqah did not belong to any particular group or faction; they included members of the ruling elite, arabs, persians, central asians, poets, philosophers and learned men. they were declared zindêqs and were persecuted. according to melhem chokr, zindêqs were charged with zandaqah on different grounds, such as tawíêd (unity of allah), shê‘ism, mu‘éraìah (challenge of the uniqueness to the qur’én), the fabrication of íadêth, as well as due to the association of zandaqah with shu‘ëbiyyah movement.102 chokr calls it a movement that considerably influenced hamdard islamicus 61 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the islamic law, theology and literature. those who sought religion through speculative theology were also accused of zandaqah.103 although zandaqah was a considerable challenge to the political elite, caliphate and religious elite, the zindêqs failed to organize themselves and pose a serious threat to islam.104 it was easy to prosecute someone on religious grounds as the dominant religious group, the traditionalists, had powers to regulate the religious doctrines, having a relationship of power with the ruling elite. in the opinion of muhammad qasim zaman, ‘zandaqah was a highly charged but ill-defined’ term in the early ‘abbésid society. the term, and its use and abuse, played an important role in defining boundaries of religious identities of different sects and schools of thought. according to zaman, though zandaqah was an ‘extremely diffused’ term, nevertheless it played an important role in defining ‘religious identities’ of different religious groups of the early ‘abbésid period.105 sometimes the ruling elite and religious elite, dealing with this problem, were apparently motivated by the possibility of eliminating their political and religious opponents in the name of fighting heresy. zandaqah of persian rebels and pro-‘alê groups was seen as having political ambitions. although early ‘abbésid caliphs considered it their religious duty to combat this growing heresy, they were more concerned for their political security.106 in the opinion of maímood ibréhêm, the ‘anti-materialist, anti-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian tendencies of manichaeism or dualism also ran counter to the political culture of ‘abbésids and their allies in the persian aristocracy’.107 therefore, the ruling elite feared the idea associated with manichaeism or dualism. marshall hodgson argues that the manichaeans were persecuted because they posed a threat to the intellectualism of the muslim doctors of theology.108 the traditionalists perceived a threat from the manichaean intellectual traditions as these traditions were influencing the intellectual muslim groups, which undermined the traditionalists’ social status as the dominant religious group. sometimes the ‘ulamé used zandaqah as a pretext against those who belonged to the opposite school of theology and law.109 most of the time, the enmity among the muslims was used for declaring someone heretic or zindêq.110 zaman writes in his book religion and politics during the early ‘abbésids that ‘the persecution of zandaqah must hamdard islamicus 62 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 also be seen in terms of what the early ‘abbésid state and its religious elite stood to gain from this challenge and their response to it. the persecution of “heresy” can be a crucial means of gaining consolidating and legitimating political power and social influence.’111 from a social point of view, heresy is primarily a matter of authority,112 and for the ‘abbésids, their political authority and security was very important for them. the early ‘abbésid caliphs proclaimed themselves as imém and, having this prerogative, tried to get rid of their religious and political opponents through zandaqah. they believed that this would increase their religious prestige and status as imém and caliph.113 according to m.a. shaban, caliph al-mahdê tried to reconcile with the pro-‘alê group but he failed to get support on religious and political grounds. after his failure, he started a campaign against religious and political dissenters.114 during the early ‘abbésid era, the ruling elite placed great importance on the sentiments of the ‘ulamé’ to gain their support, particularly during times of crisis and weak rule. bishr al-marisê was threatened on the question of the nature of the qur’én in order to please the proto-sunnê elements in baghdad during the weak governance of ibréhêm ibn al-mahdê (d. 839),115 who was an ‘abbésid prince, and was proclaimed caliph by the people of baghdad in 817. it is difficult to relate the movement of shu‘ëbiyyah to the movements of heresy. it looks reasonable to argue that the propagation of cultural superiority of the persians over the arab culture became one of the reasons for the traditionalists’ resentment. secretaries like ibn al-muqaffa‘ continued sassanian traditions that were disliked by the traditionalists.116 some of the poets and secretaries were very conscious of their own cultural and religious traditions. for example, ibn al-muqaffa‘ gave superiority to the traits of the persian culture over the culture of arabs in his writings,117 which was not acceptable neither to the religious nor arab elite. the persecution of people like ibn al-muqaffa‘ on the grounds of having shu‘ëbiyyah sentiments cannot be ignored. zandaqah was more a socio-political and economic phenomenon than a religious one. the questions of the security of the ‘abbésid caliphate, political ambitions of the ruling elite and the nature of the relationship of the religious elite with the ruling elite were most important in respect of zandaqah controversy during the early ‘abbésid period. hamdard islamicus 63 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 sunnê orthodoxy was made the state ideology by the early ‘abbésid caliphate except during the caliphate of al-mé’mën, al-mu‘taîim and al-wéthiq. those who had religious beliefs and practices opposed to the religious dogma of dominant religious elite and ruling elite fell victim to zandaqah and were persecuted. the early ‘abbésid caliphs used the term zindêq freely against their political and religious opponents to save and consolidate the ‘abbésid caliphate. conclusion though outwardly the political, social and religious dissenters were accused of having manichaean or dualist religious tendencies, there were other factors involved in the accusations that related more to the threat posed by these dissenters to the authority of the dominant orthodoxy and the state. as the ‘abbésid caliphate was in its infancy, so zandaqah was used to crush political opponents and to consolidate the empire. sunnê orthodoxy was the state ideology of the ‘abbésid caliphate, so those whose religious beliefs and practices were opposed to the ruling elite and religious elite fell victim to zandaqah and were prosecuted and persecuted. the rebellious movements in persia and central asia were declared heretical movements and their leaders were persecuted as zindêqs on the charges of having anti-islamic zoroastrian and manichaean agenda. these included, among others, ustédh sês, al-muqanna‘, bébak al-khurramê, afshên and mazyér. in fact, the people of these areas had social, economic and political grievances that prompted them to rebel against the central government. the political and economic interests of the ‘abbésid caliphs, and the political ruling elite of these areas that had shared their political, social, and economic interests with the central government, were also involved in crushing these rebellions as heterodox movements. economic factors played a critical role in the emergence of these rebellious movements. during the early ‘abbésid period, a large number of arabs started settling in the persian and central asian lands and occupied the fertile lands of the local people. moreover, the abundance of mineral resources, silver mines, gold, iron and crude oil in areas like azerbaijén, khurésén and bédghês made these areas important and strategic for the ‘abbésid caliphs. when people of these areas rebelled as a protest against the new settlers, who were taking their resources, the ‘abbésid caliphate perceived it as a threat to their economic interests and declared hamdard islamicus 64 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 these movements as heterodox movements, while accusing their leaders of being non-muslims. notes and references 01. f.c. de blois, ‘zindik’, the encyclopedia of islam, xi, pp. 510-513. 02. ibid. 03. ibid. 04. the avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of zoroastrianism. 05. josef van ess, the flowering of muslim theology, tr. jane marie todd, cambridge, harvard university press, 2006, p. 15. 06. w. montgomery watt, the formative period of islamic thought, london, oneworld, 1998, p. 171. 07. w. montgomery watt, islam and the integration of society, oxford, routledge, 2001, p. 120. 08. reynold a. nicholson, a literary history of the arabs, richmond, curzon press, 1993, p. 375. 09. ibid., see n. 2. 10. abë ja‘far muíammad ibn jarêr al-ùabarê, the early ‘abbésid empire: the sons and grandsons of al-manîër, the reigns of al-mahdê, al-hédi and hérën al-rashêd, tr. john alden williams, vol. 2, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1989, p. 27, see n. 78. 11. edward g. browne, a literary history of persia from the earliest times until firdawsi, (elibron classics series, replica edition), london, t. fisher unwin, 1902), p. 307. 12. bayard dodge, ‘mani and the manichaeans’ in medieval and middle eastern studies in honour of aziz suryal atiya, ed. sami a. hanna, leiden, e.j. brill, 1972, p. 102. 13. muíammad qasim zaman, religion and politics under the early ‘abbésids: the emergence of the proto-sunni elite, leiden, brill, 1997, p. 64. 14. dodge, ‘mani and the manichaeans’, p. 102. 15. abdullah saeed and hassan saeed, freedom of religion, apostasy and islam, burlington, ashgate, 2004, p. 40. 16. ibid. 17. ibn al-muqaffa‘ was one of the great literary personalities of the early ‘abbésid period. he was of persian origin, wrote arabic prose and translated indian and iranian literary works into arabic, f. gabrieli, ibn al-muqaffa‘, the encyclopedia of islam, iii, pp. 883-885. 18. abu’l-faraj muíammad bin isíéq al-nadêm, the fihrist of al-nadêm, tr. and ed. bayard dodge, new york, columbia university press, 1970, p. 259. 19. shams al-din abk al-abbés aímad ibn muíammad ibn khallikén, wafayét al-a‘yén wa anbé abné al-zamén (a biographical dictionary), tr. m. de slane, ed. s. moinul haq, vol. 2, new delhi, kitab bhavan, 1996, p. 225. 20. ibid. hamdard islamicus 65 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 21. ibid., pp. 32-33. 22. uthman sayyid aímad ismail al-bili, prelude to the generals: a study of some aspects of the reign of the eighth ‘abbasid caliph, al-mu‘taîim, 218-227 a.h./ 833-842 a.d., reading, ithaca press, 2001, pp. 12-13. 23. nicholson, a literary history of the arabs, pp. 373-374. 24. ibid., 374. 25. ibid., maímoud ibrahim, ‘religious inquisition as social policy: the persecution of the ‘zandaqah’ in the early ‘abbasid caliphate’, arab studies quarterly, xvi (spring, 1994), p. 60. 26. farouk omar, ‘some observations on the reign of the ‘abbasid caliph al-mahdi 185/775-169/785’, arabica 2, june., 1974, p. 141; ibrahim, ‘religious inquisition as social policy’, p. 56. 27. ewald wagner argues that according to one version he died in prison on charges of heresy. according to another tradition, he died in the house of a woman that was used as a bar, while according to another source, he died in the house of al-nawbakht, a learned shê‘ah family, ewald wagner, ‘abu nuwas’, the encyclopedia of islam, i, pp. 143-144. 28. hamid dabashi, truth and narrative: the untimely thoughts of ayn al-quìat al-hamadéni, richmond, curzon press, 1999, p. 195. 29. omar, ‘some observations on the reign of the ‘abbésid caliph al-mahdê 185/ 775-169/785’, p. 142. 30. moshe gil, a history of palestine 634-1099, tr. ethel broido, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1992, 289-290. 31. ibn khallikén, wafayét al-a‘yén wa anbé abné al-zamén, vol. vii, p. 244. 32. al-ùabarê, the early ‘abbésid empire, vol. ii, p. 140. 33. ibid., 250; the barmakis were a persian family who served as secretaries and wazêrs during the early ‘abbésid caliphate. they belonged to the iranian priest group of the temple of nowbahér near balkh before accepting islam. they enjoyed great powers during the caliphate of al-manîër, al-mahdê, al-hédê, and hérën al-rashêd. the most famous wazirs of this family were khélid ibn barmak and yaíyé ibn khélid. they fell from grace during the period of hérën al-rashêd. their property was confiscated, some were killed and some were imprisoned. the reason for the fall of the barmakês is controversial. see w. barthold and d. sourdel, ‘bramika’, the encyclopedia of islam, i, pp. 10331036. 34. browne, a literary history of persia, p. 507. 35. al-nadêm, the fihrist of al-nadêm, p. 805. 36. ibid., p. 817. 37. w. madelung, ‘khurramiyyah’, the encyclopedia of islam, v, pp. 63-65. 38. jonathan p. berkey, the formation of islam: religion and society in the near east, 600-1800, cambridge, cambridge university press, 2003, pp. 172-173. 39. farhéd daftary, ‘sectarian and national movements in iran, khurésén and transoxiana during umayyad and early ‘abbésid times’, in history of civilizations of central asia, ed. m.s. asimov and c.e. bosworth, vol. 4. delhi, narandera prakash jain, 2003, pp. 47-48. 40. john joseph saunders, a history of medieval islam, london, routledge, 2002, p. 113. hamdard islamicus 66 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 41. browne, a literary history of persia, p. 308. 42. abë al-rayíén muíammad ibn aímad al-bêrëni, the chronology of ancient nations: an english version of the arab text of athar-ul-bakiya of al biruni, tr. edward c. sachau, (elibron, classics series, reprint edition), london, elibron.com, 1999), 193. 43. al-nadêm, the fihrist of al-nadêm, p. 822. 44. daftary maintains that his teachings were against both the official zoroastrian establishment and orthodox muslims. he was killed by abë muslim khurrésénê in 749.45 his followers, mainly the zoroastrians, participated in the later heterodox movements in persia against the ‘abbésid caliphate. daftary, ‘sectarian and national movements in iran, khurasan and transoxiana during umayyad and early abbasid times, p. 47. 46. ibid., pp. 48-49. 47. al-ùabarê, the early ‘abbésid empire, vol. ii, p. 26. 48. as cited in elton l. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbasid rule, 747-820, minneapolis, bibliotheca islamica, 1979, p. 129; according to madelung, most of the people who joined his revolt were from jibal (a province in western iran during arab rule) and ùabaristén (a region on the southern coasts of caspian sea, part of the modern iranian provinces mézandarén, golestén and semnén). the people of jibal were peasants who were discontented due to the state’s uneven taxation policy. sunbédh killed many muslims, inflicted severe atrocities on others and tried to destroy the social fabric of the state, w. madelung, ‘sunbadh’, the encyclopedia of islam, ix, pp. 874-875. 49. berkey, the formation of islam, p. 172. 50. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbasid rule, 747820, pp. 132-133. according to daniel their white banner was symbol of ‘white’ religion of zoroastrianism against islam. 51. ibid., pp. 132-133. 52. browne, a literary history of persia, 317; daniel, while relying on ya‘qëbê al-dhahabê and suyëïê, argues that ustédh sês was amêr of herat. with his supporters, he participated in the da‘wah movement of ‘abbésids against the umayyad’s but later revolted against the ‘abbésids. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbasid rule, p. 133. 53. w. madelung, ‘ustédh sês’, the encyclopedia of islam, x, pp. 926-927. 54. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbasid rule, 747820, pp. 138-139. according to daniel, muqanna‘ belonged to the village of kaza near the city of merv. his name was aïé, ×ékim or héshim ibn ×ékim. al-muqanna‘ was his nickname, because he used to cover his face with a green or gold mask. in fact, he used to cover his face to veil his ugliness as he only had one eye. he served in the ‘abbésid da‘wah as an officer in the army of abë muslim. his movement gained popularity in soghdia, bukhara and transoxiana. this part of central asia was inhabited by christians, jews, buddhists, zoroastrians, orthodox and heterodox muslims and pagan ‘shamanists’, which made this area very fruitful for the growth of religious syncretism and of new religious doctrines such as that of al-muqanna‘. 55. abë bakr muíammad ibn ja‘far al-narshakhi, the history of bukhara, tr. richard n. frye, princeton, n.j., markus wiener, 2007, pp. 87, 89. hamdard islamicus 67 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 56. al-bêrënê, the chronology of ancient nations, p. 194. 57. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbasid rule, 747820, p. 147. 58. madelung, ‘khurramiyyah’, pp. 63-65. 59. according to d. sourdel, bébak was a native of al-madain. his persian name was pépak (in arabic, bébak). he became head of the khurramês after the death of the jawidhén ibn sahl and proclaimed that the spirit of jawidhén had passed into him. he encouraged people to rebel in the region of al-badhdh (not extant today, situated in the mountainous region of arran, in azerbéijén) and gave new strength to this social and religious movement. he introduced the teachings of mazdak in khurramês. he started his movement in 816-817 during the caliphate of al-mé’mën. caliph mé’mën could not win against bébak khurramê. in the reign of al-mu‘taîim (r. 833-842), he was defeated, captured and brought to baghdad, where he was executed as a heretic and rebel in january 838. the followers of bébak, bébakiyya, continued to wait for their leader till the eleventh century. d. sourdel, ‘babak’, the encyclopedia of islam, i, p. 844. 60. al-nadêm, the fihrist of al-nadim, p. 818. 61. he belonged to ushrusané (the mountainous district between samarkand and khudjanda, including the upper course of zarafshén river). the native princes of ushrusané were called afshên. his name was khaydhar (in arabic, haydar). he became ruler of ushrusané after the death of his father, afshên kawës. he played a very important role during the reigns of caliph al-mé’mën and caliph al-mu‘taîim in suppressing the revolts, particularly that of bébak. afshên was accused of heresy and died in prison in 841 during the caliphate of al-mu‘taîim, w. barthold and h.a.r. gibb, ‘afshên’, the encyclopedia of islam, i, p. 241. 62. mazyér (d. 840) was a member of the karinid dynasty, which ruled over ùabaristén from the time of khusrau (chosroes) i (531-579) until 840. he accepted islam and became mawlé of the commander of the faithful, caliph al-mé’mën. when he became ruler of ùabaristén, he began to use violent methods to gain more areas. the zoroastrian landowners of the region resisted him because of his brutal methods. he refused to accept the suzerainty of the ‘abbésids, refused to send them kharéj and proclaimed himself an independent ruler of ùabaristén. he revolted against caliph al-mu‘taîim. m. rekaya, ‘karinids’, the encyclopedia of islam, iv, pp. 644-647. 63. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbasid rule, 747820, p. 125. 64. ghulét is a plural of ghélê meaning ‘extremist’. according to marshal hodgson, in muslim literature, the term is used for those shê‘ah who are accused of exaggeration (ghulë) and who had free speculation without any limitation in religion. see m.g.s. hodgson, ‘ghulat’, the encyclopedia of islam, i, 1093-1095. 65. ibid., p. 130. 66. jacques waardenburg, islam: historical, social and political perspectives, berlin, walter de gruyter, 2002, pp. 88-89. 67. al-bili, prelude to the generals, p. 2. 68. c.e. bosworth and o.g. bolshakov, ‘central asia under the umayyads and the early ‘abbasids’, in history of civilizations of central asia: the age of hamdard islamicus 68 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 achievement: a. d. 750 to the end of the fifteenth century, the historical, social and economic setting, ed. m.s. asimov and c.e. bosworth, part one, vol. 4, delhi, motilal banarsidass, 1999, p. 30; berkey, the formation of islam, pp. 172-173. 69. zaman, religion and politics under the early ‘abbésids, p. 40. 70. bosworth and bolshakov, ‘central asia under the umayyads and the early ‘abbasids’, p. 30. 71. hugh kennedy, the early ‘abbésid caliphate: a political history, london, groom helm, 1981, pp. 170-171. 72. m.a. shaban, islamic history: a new interpretation a.d. 750-1055 (a.h. 132448), cambridge, cambridge university press, 1976, pp. 57-58. 73. bosworth and bolshakov, ‘central asia under the umayyads and the early ‘abbasids’, p. 24. 74. ibid., shaban, islamic history, p. 26. 75. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbésid rule, 747820, p. 137. 76. kennedy, the early ‘abbasid caliphate, pp. 183-184. 77. ibid., p. 176. 78. ibid., pp. 178-179. 79. shaban, islamic history, pp. 4-5. 80. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbésid rule, 747820, p. 146. 81. bosworth and bolshakov, ‘central asia under the umayyads and the early ‘abbésids’, p. 32. 82. ira m. lapidus, a history of islamic societies, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1988, p. 64. 83. bosworth and bolshakov, ‘central asia under the umayyads and the early ‘abbésids’, p. 31. 84. ibid., pp. 35-37. 85. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbésid rule, 747820, p. 196. 86. berkey, the formation of islam, p. 173. 87. daftary, ‘sectarian and national movements in iran, khurasan and transoxina during umayyad and early, abbasid times, p. 50. 88. bosworth and bolshakov, ‘central asia under the umayyads and the early ‘abbasids’, p. 37. 89. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbésid rule, 747820, pp. 146-147. 90. kennedy, the early ‘abbésid caliphate, p. 91; shaban, islamic history, p. 6. 91. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbasid rule, 747820, p. 133. 92. al-bili, prelude to the generals, pp. 73-74. 93. richard w. bulliet, conversion to islam in the medieval period: an essay in quantitative history, massachusetts, harvard university press, 1979, p. 41. 94. al-bili, prelude to the generals, p. 88. 95. ibid., and pekaya, ‘karinids’, pp. 644-647. hamdard islamicus 69 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 096. al-bili, prelude to the generals, p. 93. 097. g.e. von grunebaum, classicall islam: a history 600-1258, ed. katherine watson, london, george allen and unwin, 1970, p. 89. 098. shaban, islamic history, p. 59. 099. daniel, the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbésid rule, 747820, p. 22. 100. al-bili, prelude to the generals, pp. 92-93. 101. daftary, ‘sectarian and national movements in iran, khurasan and transoxina during umayyad and early ‘abbésid times’, p. 41. 102. zaman, religion and politics under the early ‘abbésids, p. 64. 103. melhem chokr, ‘zandaqah et zindiqs au second siecle de i’hegire’, book review by maímood ibréhêm, international journal of middle east studies, 4 (november 1995), pp. 504-505; according to nicholson, shu‘ëbiyyah were non-arabs, particularly persians, who suffered because they championed the cause of persian nationalism, and were against the domination of arab culture and tradition. see nicholson, a literary history of the arabs, p. 372. 104. chokr, ‘zandaqah et zindiqs au second siecle de i’hegire’, pp. 504-505. 105. zaman, religion and politics under the early ‘abbésids, p. 66. 106. ibid., p. 63. 107. omar, ‘some observations on the reign of the ‘abbésid caliph al-mahdê 185/ 775-169/785’, p. 140. 108. ibrahim, ‘religious inquisition as social policy’, p. 67. 109. marshal g.s. hodgson, the venture of islam: conscience of history in a world civilization, the classical age of islam, vol. 1, lahore, vanguard, 2004, pp. 290291. 110. saeed and saeed, freedom of religion, apostasy and islam, p. 40. 111. de blois, ‘zindik’, pp. 510-513. 112. zaman, religion and politics under the early ‘abbésids, p. 66. 113. lester r. kurtz, ‘the politics of heresy’, american journal of sociology, vi (may, 1983), p. 1087. 114. zaman, religion and politics under the early ‘abbésids, p. 83. 115. shaban, islamic history, pp. 21-22. 116. zaman, religion and politics under the early ‘abbésids, pp. 139-140. 117. s. enderwitz, ‘al-shu‘u biyya’,the encyclopedia of islam, ix, pp. 513-516. 118. gabrieli, ibn al-muqaffa‘, pp. 883-885. bibliography abë bakr muíammad ibn ja‘far al-narshakhê, the history of bukhara, tr. richard n. frye, princeton, markus wiener, 2007, pp. 87, 89. al-bili, ‘uthmén sayyid aímad ismail, prelude to the generals: a study of some aspects of the reign of the eighth ‘abbasid caliph, al-mu‘taîim, 218-227 a.h./ 833-842 a.d., reading, ithaca press, 2001. hamdard islamicus 70 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 al-bêrënê, abë al-rayíén muíammad ibn aímad, the chronology of ancient nations: an english version of the arab text of óthér-ul-békiya of al-bêrënê, tr. edward c. sachau, elibron classics series, london, elibron.com, 1999, reprinted, first printed in 1879. al-nadêm, abë’l-faraj muíammad bin is’íéq, the fihrêst of al-nadêm tr. and ed. by bayard dodge, vols. 1 and 2, new york, columbia university press, 1970. al-ùabarê, abë ja‘far muíammad ibn jarêr, the early ‘abbésid empire: the reign of abë ja‘far al-manîër a.d. 754-775, tr. john alden williams, vols. 1 and 2, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1989. asimov, m.s. and bosworth, c.e., history of civilizations of central asia: the age of achievement: a.d. 750 to the end of the fifteenth century, the historical, social and economic setting, ed., part one, vol. 4, delhi, motilal banarsidass, 1999. asimov, m.s., and bosworth, c.e. eds., history of civilizations of central asia, vol. 4, delhi, narandera prakash jain, 2003. berkey, jonathan p. the formation of islam: religion and society in the near east, 600-1800, cambridge, cambridge university press, 2003. browne, edward g., a literary history of persia from the earliest times until firdawsê, elibron classics series, london, t. fisher unwin, 1999. bulliet, richard w., conversion to islam in the medieval period: an essay in quantitative history, cambridge, ma, harvard university press, 1979. dabashi, hamid, truth and narrative: the untimely thoughts of ayn al-quìét al-hamadéni, richmond, curzon press, 1999. daniel, elton l., the political and social history of khurasan under ‘abbésid rule, 747-820, minneapolis, bibliotheca islamica, 1979. gil, moshe, a history of palestine 634-1999. cambridge, cambridge university press, 1992. grunebaum, g.e. von, classical islam: a history 600-1258, ed. katherine watson, london, george allen and unwin, 1970. hanna, sami a., medieval and middle eastern studies in honour of aziz suryal atiya, ed., leiden, e.j. brill, 1972. hodgson, marshal g.s., the venture of islam: conscience of history in a world civilization, vol. 1, the classical age of islam, lahore, vanguard, 2004. hough, kennedy, the early ‘abbésid caliphate: a political history, london, croom helm, 1981. ibn khallikén, shams al-dên abu’ al-‘abbés aímad ibn muíammad, wafayét al-a‘yén wa anba abna al-zamén (a biographical dictionary), rr. m. de slane, ed. s. moinul haq, vols. 2 and 7, new delhi, kitab bhavan, 1996. lapidus, ira m., a history of islamic societies, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1988. nicholson, reynold a., a literary history of the arabs, richmond, curzon press, 1993. saeed, abdullah, and hassan saeed, freedom of religion, apostasy and islam, burlington, ashgate, 2004. sardar, ziauddin and robin yassin-kassab, eds., critical muslim: the idea of islam, vol. 2, karachi, oxford university press, 2012. hamdard islamicus 71 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 saunders, john joseph, a history of medieval islam, london, routledge, 2002. shaban, m.a. islamic history: a new interpretation a.d. 750-1055 (a.h. 132-448), cambridge, cambridge university press, 1976. waardenburg, jacques, islam: historical, social and political perspectives, berlin, walter de gruyter, 2002. watt, w. montgomery, the formative period of islamic thought, oxford, oneworld, 1998. watt, w. montgomery, islam and the integration of society, oxford, routledge, 2001. zamén, muíammad qésim, religion and politics under the early ‘abbésids: the emergence of the proto-sunni elite, leiden, brill, 1997. ii. articles in research journals chokr, melhem. ‘zandaqah et zindiqs au second siecle de i’hegire’, book review by maímood ibréhêm, international journal of middle east studies, 4 (november, 1995). ibréhêm, mahmoud. ‘religious inquisition as social policy: the persecution of the “zandaqah”in the early ‘abbésid caliphate’, arab studies quarterly 16, 2 (spring, 1994). kurtz, lester r. ‘the politics of heresy’, american journal of sociology 88 (may, 1983). omar, férouk. ‘some observations on the reign of the ‘abbésid caliph al-mahdi 185/ 775-169/785’, arabica, 2 (june, 1974). www.jstor.org/stable/4055757 (accessed8 october, 2011). iii. articles in encyclopedias the encyclopedia of islam, new edn., leiden, brill, 1960-2002, art. ‘zindik’ by f.c. de blois, vol. 9, pp. 510-513. art. ‘khurramiyya’, by w. madelung, vol. 5, pp. 63-65. art. ‘sunbadh’ by w. madelung, vol. 9, pp. 874-875. art. ‘afshên’ by w. barthold and h.a.r. gibb, vol. 1, p. 241. art. ‘karanidis’ by m. rekaya, vol. 4, pp. 644-647. art. ibn al-muqaffa‘ by f. gabrieli, vol. 3, pp, 883–885. art. ‘abu nuwas’ by ewald wagner, vol. 1, pp. 143-144. art. ‘bramika’ by w. barthold and d. sourdel, vol. 1, pp. 1033-1036. art. ‘al-shu‘ëbiyya’ by s. enderwitz, vol. 9, pp. 513-516. art. ibn al-muqaffa‘ by f. gabrieli, vol. 3, pp. 883-885. art. ‘mazdak’, by m. guidi – [m. morony], vol. 6, pp. 949-952. m.g.s. hodgson, ‘ghulat’, the encyclopedia of islam, vol. 1, pp. 1093-1095. hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 65 recent qur’ónic scholarship: a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar’s ‘reading the qur’ón’ dr tauseef ahmad parray assistant professor, islamic studies govt. degree college, pulwama jammu & kashmir, india e-mail: tauseef.parray21@gmail.com the noble qur’én, no doubt, provides guidance in all domains of life, both individual and collective. this divine writ/sacred text is relevant for all time and place. thus, there have been attempts and efforts, from classical to contemporary eras, to write on the varied aspects of the qur’én broadly termed as the qur’énic studies. it is an interesting and exciting academic discipline, spread over a number of branches, to which muslims and non-muslims have contributed extensively: some branches include tafsêr (uîëlal-tafsêr), ‘ulëm al-qur’én, translations of the qur’én, qur’énic hermeneutics, contextualist approach to qur’én, thematic interpretations of qur’én, simple introductions to the qur’én and personal wrestling(s) with the sacred text. engaging with the sacred text is a substantial category, and one recent substantial addition in this category is ziauddin sardar’s reading the qur’én: the contemporary relevance of the sacred text of islam (2011/ 2015). in this essay, a critical assessment of sardar’s reading the qur’én is presented. the major objective of this essay is three-fold: (i) to identify precisely its subject-matter; (ii) to assess sardar’s approach and the conclusions he draws from his personal engagement with the divine text; and (iii) to highlight its merits and demerits, positive and negative aspects, with a critical approach. key words: noble qur’én; qur’énic studies; contextualism; thematic study; ziauddin sardar; reading the qur’én. introduction the noble qur’én is the divine writ and the sacred textwhich forms the basis of islam, its law, morality, politics, etc. it is “guidance 66 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... unto mankind” (q. 2: 185)1 providing guidelines in all domains of life, both individual and collective; and is relevant for all times and places. the scholarship on the qur’én (or qur’énic studies) is an interesting and exciting academic discipline, spread over a number of branches, to which muslims and non-muslims have contributed extensively. besides the tafsêr literature,2 ‘ulum al-qur’én,3 translations of the qur’én in various languages (especially english)4, and other inter-related aspects, many new trends in this field that have emerged during the last few decades ranging from qur’énic hermeneutics and contextualist approach to qur’én,5 to thematic interpretations of qur’én,6 simple introductions to the qur’én, and personal wrestling(s) with the sacred text.7 the last category is a substantial one, and one recent exemplary addition in this category is ziauddin sardar’s reading the qur’én: the contemporary relevance of the sacred text of islam (2011/ 2015).8 in this essay, an assessment of 2015 edition of sardar’s reading the qur’én is presented by reading as well as reflecting on its theme, objective, and major conclusions. the major objective of this essay is three-fold: (i) to identify precisely its subject-matter; (ii) to highlight sardar’s approach and the conclusions he draws from his personal engagement with the dynamic divine text; and (iii) to assess its merits and demerits, positive and negative aspects,with a critical approach. for this, it is better, and much apt to start with a brief academic introduction of sardar. ziauddin sardar: a brief profile one of the present-day influential scholar-critic,9 pakistani-born ziauddin sardar (b. 1951), who grew up in london, is an internationally renowned writer (on islam and contemporary issues), broadcaster, and cultural critic. described as one of the ‘leading contemporary muslim intellectuals’, sardar is presently the editor of the critical muslim, london an influential quarterly magazine of “ideas and issues showcasing groundbreaking thinking on islam and what it means to be a muslim in a rapidly changing, increasingly interconnected world”.10 the biographical details on his personal website (http://ziauddinsardar.com), mention that sardar is chair of the muslim institute (london), “a learned, fellowship society that promotes knowledge and debate”, and is the director of the centre of postnormal policy and futures studies, east west chicago.11 described as a “critical polymath”, and author (editor and co-editor) of about 50 books, he has written on a number of disciplines ranging hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 67 from islamic studies and futures studies to science policy, literary criticism, information science to cultural (relations, art criticism and critical theory. sardar’s scholarly contribution falls broadly in six areas: islam, islamic science, futures, post-modernism and trans-modernity, identity and multiculturalism and post-normal times. he is the author of such influential works as: (i) on the future of islam, his pioneering works are the future of muslim civilization (1979), islamic futures: the shape of ideas to come (1985), and future: all that matters (2013); (ii) his seminal works on science in muslim societies include science,technology and development in the muslim world (1977), the touch of midas: science, values and the environment in islam and the west (1982), and explorations in islamic science (1989); (iii) on post-modernism and orientalism, he wrote postmodernism and the other (1998), orientalism (1999), and islam,postmodernism and other futures: a ziauddin sardar reader (2003); (iv) his two volumes of biography and travel, which received wide acclaim, include: desperately seeking paradise: journeys of a sceptical muslim (2004) and balti britain: a provocative journey through asian britain (2008); (v) on islamic history, his major works are: islam: outline of a classification scheme (1979), muhammad: aspects of a biography (1978), hajj studies (1979), and mecca: the sacred city (2014); and (vi) his internationally best seller book is why do people hate america? (2002); and his collection of essays and critical writings includes how do you know: reading ziauddin sardar on islam, science and cultural relations (2006).12 besides, he has also many co-authored works with merryl wyn davie (b. 1948; a welsh muslim scholar, writer and broadcaster), and has published in many reputed journals, magazines, and has been a regular contributor (and columnist) with new statesman, the guardian, the independent, the times, new internationalist, etc. thus, sardar’s contribution to critical scholarship ranges far and wide. reflecting on sardar’s reading the qur’én in his reading the qur’én,13 sardar eloquently mentions that he writes and reflects on the qur’én as every muslim; he thinks in urdu and english; and builds on, and blends, the scholarship of classical to contemporary east and west (produced by muslims and non-muslims equally). he also mentions that he has read, among the modern intellectuals, syed abul a‘lé mawdudi, amin ahsan islahi, and sayyid 68 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... qutb; he utilizes the translations and commentaries of muhammad marmaduke pickthall, abdullah yusuf ali, a. j. arberry, muhammad asad, m. a. s. abdel haleem, and tarif khalidi; and is critical of alexander ross and n. j. dawood.14 besides this, sardar also states, at the very outset, in the ‘preface’ and ‘prologue’ that “reading the qur’én grew out of my ‘blogging the qur’én’ project for the british newspaper, the guardian”;15 wherein he has “attempted to read the qur’én to uncover what the text communicates” to him as an ordinary muslim, and not as a special reader. to put in his own words: “indeed i have no qualms in admitting that i am not the most qualified person to talk about the qur’én, let alone offer my own particular reading of the text and its meaning. i am not a íafið [one who memorizes qur’én by heart], an imém [one who leads the prayers], or an ‘élim (a religious scholar trained for years in religious seminary); although on certain bad days, i do imagine myself as a muslim thinker of some repute, worse! i don’t even speak arabic”.16 that is why sardar bypasses the classical scholarship on tafsir, hadith and fiqh, and instead he prefers to write about what the qur’én means to him in today’s context; and thus points out that he writes “as every muslim”; i.e., “as an individual trying to understand what the qur’én means to me in the twenty-first century”, by identifying, combining, and exploring various “methodologies and approaches” to show its relevance in the light of the “needs and requirements in contemporary times” and of “changing circumstances”.17 sardar believes that the qur’én is a “dynamic” and inter-connected text which: promotes “thinking and doing” simultaneously; demands “to stand up for justice and equity irrespective of circumstances”; seeks “change not through revolution but through renovation and evolution of human thought and action”; urges “communities constantly to scrutinize themselves and guard against all forms of inhumanity”; and, above all, polishes “the souls of individuals so that their humanity can shine” (italics added).18 he also believes that we should approach the qur’énic text with “fresh eyes” to make an effort “to distinguish the possible and potential shades of meaning from the various interpretations that have accumulated over centuries”, and “to read the qur’én on its own terms, to engage with its text unencumbered by prejudices and preconceived ideas”, so that “to understand, and encounter its words anew”.19 sardar also believes that the sacred text “requires effort and [such an effort] is not easy” and “demands an open mind and a modicum of hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 69 effort”. though, it “does not provide us with ready-made answers”, but it does guide us “towards a fresh understanding and appreciation of our eternal ethical and moral dilemmas and what it means to be human”.20 sardar believes in the thesis, and applies the same in this work as well, that “the qur’én has to be interpreted from epoch to epoch, generation to generation”; and the “natural corollary of this thesis”, for sardar, “is that it is legitimate for muslims to reject, enhance, go beyond and differ significantly from the interpretations of earlier times”.21 adopting this approach, reading the qur’én is divided into four parts; viz. overview; by way of tradition; themes and concepts; and contemporary issues, and includes, among others, a preface, prologue, and epilogue. ‘part one’ provides an overview, discussing the style, nature and structure of the qur’én, how the qur’én has been read and interpreted conventionally, problems and strengths of translations, and the burning question: who has the authority to interpret the qur’én? in other words, in this introductory part, sardar provides an autobiographical note of his islamic upbringing and learning to read the qur’én. in the second part, “by way of tradition”, commentary on first two chapters of qur’én surah al-fétiíah and al-baqarah is provided. among these two chapters, the first is “the summary of the qur’én”, “umm al-kitab: ‘mother of the book’;…[and] summation of god’s message to mankind, summary of the essence of the whole, the source from which all that follows flows”.22 the second is the longest chapter in the qur’én which provides “a compendium, or précis, of the themes and concepts of qur’én teachings” ranging from basic beliefs, fundamental islamic practices, to basic legal injunctions related to various aspects of human life individual and collective, which in fact “serves as a précis of the qur’én as a whole”, dealing with “topics which cover the entire gamut”.23 it is on these bases that sardar chose these two chapters as “the most direct way to establish a foundation for understanding the style and import of the qur’én as a whole”.24 and this interpretation, as well as categorization, is sardar’s own “interpretation”, which he has acquired through the study of qur’én, the “translations” and commentaries he consulted.25 in this part, thus sardar attempts “to engage directly with the qur’én” and to “search beyond the impasse of an idealized but unrealistic understanding and discover how the sacred text speaks to the pressing concerns” of the present times, “and the predicaments of the world” (the author lives in).26 he thus looks at diverse themes such as ‘attributes of god’ and ‘the straight path’ in al-fétiíah in the light of verses i: 1-4 and 1: 57, respectively;27 and as many as nineteen themes from surah al70 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... baqarah, which include: the qur’én and doubt, the hypocrites, paradise, fall and evil, children of israel, a ‘middle community’, virtuous people, law of equity, war and peace, ×ajj, apostasy and migration, marriage and divorce, qualities of leadership, majesty of god and freedom of religion, arguing with god, charity and usury, witness, and prayer. these 19 themes are taken from these groups of verses, respectively: ii: 1-7, 8-20, 21-29, 30-39, 255-57, 258-60, 261-81, and 28286.28 sardar opens each section by quoting selections from the first two chapters of the qur’én thus an attempt at a thematic study of qur’én, and not the traditional way of verse-by-verse, or ‘atomistic’, translation and interpretation. in the translations of these two chapters of the qur’én, sardar has utilized and consulted six translations namely of arberry, pickthall, yusuf ali, asad, haleem, and khalidi simultaneously, which made him obvious “the same words rendered differently by different translators”, and thus he realized “the significance of these differences”. sardar here presents to the reader “with the sense” he derives “from reading these translations together”.29 a reading of these two chapters brings sardar to conclude that both these chapters are a “summation and overview” of the whole qur’én, and “they communicate the essential message, illustrate the extraordinary nature of the text and the special character of the style”. indeed albaqarah introduces and covers, he continues, “the gamut of the themes, injunctions and principles” that he highlights and describes in the coming parts, whether themes, concepts, or contemporary issues/ topics.30 sardar reads the sacred text which he believes can be, and is, read at different levels ‘to tease out contextual and deeper meaning, to gain guidance for contemporary problems’; and he puts it in these words: the qur’én can be read on various levels. it can simply be an act of worship and devotion: as al-fétiíah is read during daily prayers, or the verse of the throne [óyat al-kursi, q. ii: 255] is used in devotional recitation. it can be read for religious guidance: to discover the articles of faith and importance of performing certain obligatory acts of islam such as zakét, íajj, and fasting. moreover, the qur’én can be read, as we have been trying to read it, to tease out contextual and deeper meaning, to gain guidance for contemporary problems, and to think with. ...and, of course, as with all religious texts … it can be studied as a scholarly endeavor, which requires some training, expertise and considerable study. what one takes from the text depends on how one reads, the purpose and effort invested in engaging with the qur’én.31 by looking at the noble qur’én as a whole, an integrated text and hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 71 reflecting on the principal technique of ‘context’ and ‘contextualization’ of this text the major ‘themes and concepts’, explored in part iii, range from prophets and revelation, time and history, truth and plurality, humanity and diversity, individual and community, to reason and knowledge, crime and punishment, rights and duties, nature and environment, ethics and morality, and reading and writing. these are the themes, in sardar’s assertion, not normally addressed individually in conventional commentaries. in many ways sardar is correct, as when we look at the contents of the works on the thematic study of the qur’én,32 like fazlur rahman, abdel haleem, abdur raheem kidwai, etc., what becomes evident is that they highlight as their titles clearly reveal different kinds of concepts, terms, themes, and teachings of the qur’én. a passing look at the titles of these works on the ‘thematic’ study of the qur’én, gives an impression that they (collectively) highlight major themes or basic terms, some essential teachings or main/ key concepts, etc. altogether. it also gives the impression that it depends on the author’s choice and the expertise, as well as on the circumstances and requirements (or more specifically on the need of the hour) which topics (terms, concepts, and themes) he selects, prefers, and highlights and which not. for instance, fazlur rahman’s major themes of the qur’én focusing on the concepts of god, man (as individual and his role in society), nature, prophethood and revelation, eschatology, satan and evil explores the theological, moral and social teachings and principles of islam, by engaging in a systematic study of the sacred text according to specic themes, instead of individual verses. the purpose for writing this book is highly noteworthy: the “extensive muslim and non-muslim scholarship on qur’én”, in rahman’s opinion, especially the “innumerable muslim commentaries”, which follows the style of verse-by-verse interpretation the ‘atomistic’ approach does not yield an effective weltanschauung and “insight into the cohesive outlook on the universe and life which the qur’én undoubtedly possesses”. so, by following a “synthetic exposition” and thematic approach, he authored “an introduction to major themes of the qur’én” for giving the reader “a genuine taste of the qur’én”.33 abdul haleem’s understanding the qur’én: themes and styles discusses in an easy-to-understand manner and providing the reader with useful insights some major themes of the qur’én that are pertinent to modern debates on qur’énic interpretation, like: the qur’én; al-fétiíah: the opening of the qur’én; water in the qur’én; marriage and divorce; 72 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... war and peace in the qur’én; tolerance in islam; life and beyond; paradise in the qur’én; the fate, divine and human, in the qur’én; adam and eve, and the story of joseph in the qur’én and the bible; the qur’én explains itself: surat al-raímén, and dynamic style. it is “intended to help the general reader, and also the scholar, to understand the qur’én by combining a number of approaches: thematic, stylistic and comparative”; because such kind of approach “is the only approach that can give a balanced view of what the qur’én says on any given topic”.34 kidwai’s the qur’én: essential teachings mainly deals, in a lucid and coherent manner, with the articles of faith, basic islamic pillars, and with social ethics. addressed to “the english-speaking reading public interested in grasping the meaning and message of the qur’én”, kidwai’s work is “intended to help readers get an idea of the qur’énic worldview”: and thus covers these concepts and themes: almighty allah, allah’s messengers, prophet muhammad (œ), life and afterlife, the qur’én, al-ghayb (the unseen),creation, mankind, prayer (øaléh), fasting, charity (øadaqah and zakét), pilgrimage (×ajj), believers, the straight way, man’s obligations towards his fellow human beings, treating parents, children, husbands/wives, good social behaviour, and making supplications to allah (dué). in brief, it is “intended to help readers get an idea of the qur’énic worldview” and thus contains and covers topics on the articles of islamic faith, god-man relationship, religious duties, and the islamic value system.35 thus, having a look on the themes and contents comparatively, sardar’s assertion seems more than justified that his selection of themes is unique and that these are the themes not normally addressed individually in conventional commentaries. similarly, in part iv, ‘contemporary issues’, the issues and topics highlighted are: the sharê‘éh (islamic law), power and politics, polygamy and domestic violence, sex and society, homosexuality, the veil, freedom of expression, suicide (and suicide bombing), science and technology, evolution, and art, music, and imagination. he has done this by bringing together verses from various parts of qur’én, to explore “the position of the qur’én and its possible potential meaning in relation to some of the pressing issues of our time”.36 parts i—iii, each, are preceded by a brief introduction as well. “every muslim can reel”, roll, and read out, as sardar puts very eloquently and articulately in the initial pages, under the heading ‘the qur’én and me’,37 “a string of commonly held attributes about the qur’én”; such as: it is divine, eternal, timeless, unique, perfect, a literary miracle, and hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 73 in précis, the final word of god. yet “they forget” and overlook, sardar prompts, “an obvious” and multi-dimensional fact: sacred texts, by their very nature, are “complex, multi-layered, allegorical, metaphorical, and an embodiment of pluralistic meanings. divine text does not yield divine meaning: the meaning attributed to it can only be the product of human understanding. a timeless book has meaning only in time. it can only speak to us in our own time and circumstances. our understanding of the ‘final word of god’ cannot be final. it can only be transitory and limited by our own abilities and understanding”. forgetting such undeniable fact underlines, sardar continues to accentuate, that the “struggle to understand and interpret scripture is perpetual”; because the “qur’én does not [and cannot] change”, but evidently the “potential” of thought and action of human life, and the “circumstances” and multifaceted “conditions” one faces, do change for they are “ever changing”, and always in move, movement, and modification.38 reading the qur’én, in this approach and on these criteria (standards and yardsticks), leads sardar to conclude that the “qur’én is a dynamic, interconnected text” that “does not provide a static [standing and stagnant] view of society; but actively encourages change, evolution, progress, and asks us constantly to adjust to change”. it also urges “to discover the underlying dynamics of the qur’én”, by connecting “one segment of the text to the next, and many other segments throughout the sacred text”. as an ‘eternal’ and ‘religious text’, it is “a source of guidance for muslims everywhere at all times”, inviting them “not to look backward but to see ahead”, to the future, so that “to change individual and social behaviour and transform society things that can only be accomplished in the future”. looking at this text with afresh, anew, and “with new determination”, leads one to realise, in sardar’s lexis, that it is “not a one-dimensional, reductive act” but is “a process, involving synthesis, looking for inter-connections, discovering context, wrestling with contradictions, and asking complex questions” and above all, as an “eternal text”, which by definition, “is open to all methods of reading”.39 reception of, and reviews on, reading the qur’én: assessing the assessment there have been a number of reviews, both praise-worthy as well as critical, on sardar’s work,40 which shows both the reception as well as reaction of the readers and reviewers. besides these reviews, there 74 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... is only one essay by steven d. ealy (senior fellow, liberty fund inc., usa) which engages sardar’s reading the qur’én.41 here, in this section, an assessment based on these reviews (and excerpts from them) is presented, so that to get an idea of what sardar writes and how it has been received and perceived. in his detailed critical review, abdur raheem kidwai (professor of english at aligarh muslim university, india) and a frequent reviewer and writer on qur’én translations and works on qur’énic studies published in the quarterly journal, the muslim world book review (mwbr),42 is of the opinion that sardar’s book “is highly ambitious in its conception, seeking to establish the relevance of the qur’én, …, in the face of numerous challenges and concerns of our times”.43 for kidwai, “sardar’s critique of the english translations of the qur’én is on the whole somewhat balanced and insightful”, and his “comments” and criticism on alexander ross, n. j. dawood and his “disapproval of large scale revision in the posthumous edition of abdullah yusuf ‘ali…by saudi arabia are well substantiated and perceptive”.44 his translation and interpretation of surah al fétiíah and al-baqarah, in part ii comprising of “neat thematic divisions” goes “a long way in familiarizing the readers with the meaning and message of the qur’én as elucidated by him”.45 his “exposition of major qur’énic themes and concepts” is no doubt noteworthy, but some of his views—for example, regarding prophet’s personality simply as a “human being”, his views on religious pluralism, íudëd and crime and punishment, etc.46 are “patently unconventional, even outrageous”.47 however, kidwai lauds sardar for his valuable contribution in bringing about a “universal, eternal message of the qur’én” through elaboration of themes like “qur’énic ‘theology of ecology’,48 exhorting that all god’s creations be treated with respect and reverence”, and he finds topics/ themes like ‘ethics and morality’49 by sardar “full of insights”, in which he elucidates the concepts of “charity, gratitude, moderation, and humility”.50 in kidwai’s assessment, sardar’s examination of some contemporary issues in the light of his (own/ personal) reading of the qur’én is “blatantly discordant with the consensus view of the muslim community down the ages … and some of his conclusions are even downright scandalous”. examples, highlighted by kidwai, in this regard are: sardar’s interpretation of sharê‘éh; institution of caliphate; his interpretation of q. iv: 34 as “one of the problematic verses of the qur’én,” his assertions about q. xxiv:31 and xxiv: 60; on gays, lesbians and homosexuality; íijéb; freedom of expression; music;51 and many hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 75 other issues.52 however, sardar’s stance views and interpretations on suicide and abhorrence of suicide bombings,53 against the backdrop of the current debate on this issue, are “remarkably faithful to the original islamic belief about the sanctity and sacredness of life” and are equally valid, for such “monstrous deed has no sanction in islam”.54 however, his overall assessment of sardar’s book is that it is a “tendentious work which presents a garbled and twisted understanding of the qur’én which will certainly offend muslim readers”, as sardar “has not spared anyone: god’s scheme of things, the prophet (œ) as a role model, the sharê‘éh, …, and fiqh. worse, he has the cheek to do so without having any grounding in the tafsêr scholarship and without any knowledge of arabic”,55 which sardar has confessed in the beginning of his work, and was quoted above in this essay as well.56 malise ruthven (an anglo-irish writer, academic and journalist; and a specialist of religion, islamic affairs, and the middle east)57 is of the opinion that sardar believes that “the qur’én is above all an ‘open’ book, a spiritual and moral resource that, properly understood, provides muslims with useful guidance through the complexities of modern life”. for ruthven, sardar writes “as ‘every muslim’ with a deep love” for the sacred text, and “rises to this challenge, wrestling with problematic passages that would seem to run counter to his generally progressive and enlightened outlook”. sardar is “to be commended”, in ruthven’s suggestion, “for opening the doors of a text” which “understood comprehensively, celebrates the divine in nature and emphasizes social justice, human responsibility and the wholehearted pursuit of knowledge”. ruthven also lauds sardar for his “efforts to dispose of problematic issues such as intolerance and gender inequality”, even though these efforts “will not satisfy everyone”. however, it is pertinent to mention that ruthven censures sardar for ignoring the “recent revisionist views” on the qur’én’s origins: “sardar does not engage with recent revisionist views of early islamic history suggesting that the qur’én may have originated in the strophic hymns of aramaic-speaking christians in palestine rather than arabia”.58 in her review in the independent, mona siddiqui (professor of islamic studies at glasgow university)59 regards sardar’s reading the qur’én as a book that “seemingly promises much at a scholarly level” with a “discursive and conversational” style, thus “inviting the reader to walk and talk with sardar on his personal journey through the qur’én, an exploration of how the text speaks to him”, or by that way to any 76 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... person, as a common muslim. professor siddiqui very briefly puts forth the overall theme of the four parts, in which sardar’s works is divided, which “are fairly short and reflect a varied stylistic mix of the personal, the anecdotal, the occasional musing on the philosophical and the simply descriptive”, wherein one finds “a more inclusive, moral and pluralistic meaning in the qur’én”. in siddiqui’s assessment, “the first is an overview in which sardar provides an autobiographical note of his islamic upbringing and learning to read the qur’én. … the second part looks at diverse themes. … sardar opens each section by quoting selections from the first two chapters of the qur’én [surah alfétiíah and al-baqarah]. in part three, sardar aims to reconnect more timeless themes such as community and prophecy to contemporary times by looking at the qur’én as a whole. in the final part, ‘contemporary topics’, he looks at a wide range of more controversial topics including the veil, homosexuality, assisted suicide and evolution”.60 however, this is only one side of the coin; the other side shows that siddiqui is highly critical of sardar’s work on many points; she says: (i) “sardar is wrong to assume that his approach, stressing the historical context, makes ‘his reading different from others’”; (ii) “in reading the qur’én without the ‘weight of the tradition’ where ‘great jurists supposedly gave unalterable opinions and interpretations’, sardar misunderstands the purpose of much of the muslim intellectual tradition. the writings of jurists within their own scholarly traditions were always tentative, discursive, allowing for debate and human vulnerability”; and (iii) “the insistence on individual engagement which sardar advocates may sound laudable but also runs the risk of even more fundamentalist and extreme interpretations of the qur’én”.61 in this context keeping both positive and especially (above mentioned) negative aspects in mind siddiqui is of the opinion that “sardar’s book will appeal to a certain intelligentsia”, who think and perceive things in line with sardar’s thinking, and thus she points out its strengths and weaknesses briefly as: “the strength of this book is that it is accessible to a wide audience; its weakness is that it also tries to maintain a scholarly undertone where the conclusions often sound a little hackneyed … [as] in the section on [woman as] witness, … homosexuality, …, assisted suicide,…”.62 faizur rahman (general secretary of the chennai-based forum for the promotion of moderate thought in islam) is of the opinion that sardar’s work is, in post-9/11 scenario, is a “prescription for anyone hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 77 willing to embark on an interpretive journey with ziauddin sardar into the heart of the locus classicus of islam, to find out what control it exercises over the muslim mind”. lauding sardar on highlighting various aspects, and on smashing the misogynist, orthodox, and other such conservative readings and interpretations, rahman sums up his assessment of this work in these words: “in short, reading the qur’én is an intrepid attempt to force open the doors of ijtihéd (independent thinking) which were slammed shut centuries ago by the conservative muslim clergy. it is a read for anyone interested in liberating islam from the ‘weight of tradition and classical commentaries’ that seek to discourage muslims from opening their minds to new knowledge”.63 in his critical review, maqbool ahmed siraj (in islamic voice, india) evaluates critically sardar’ work in these words: “reading the qur’én is a systematic dissection of the contemporary muslim thought as well as the classical interpretations and a bold attempt to prepare the template for blending the ideals, ideas and ideologies that rule the current human mind with qur’énic teachings. sardar rubbishes with ease pet passions of leading islamic movements and trashes much of the mumbo-jumbo that has got associated with the text in pursuit of transforming the scripture from a book of guidance to code of law, constitution et al.” however, siraj does not stop appreciating what sardar’s overall contribution through this book. he writes: “written in impeccable english, sardar … has done acommendable job in demolishing several myths surrounding the holy qur’én owing to the absence of intellectuals who could contextualize the teachings”.64 nidhal guessoum (an astrophysicist and professor of physics at american university of sharjah, and the author of islam’s quantum question:reconciling muslim tradition and modern science),65 in his assessment of sardar’s work, calls him a “progressive” thinker, and makes his opinions based on a reading of first two parts of sardar’s work.66 from the reading of these chapters, guessoum notes the following interesting ideas: (i) sardar adopts a highly personal style, oftentimes it is even autobiographical in presenting his own relation to the book, as is evident from the chapter ‘the qur’én and me’; (ii) he insists on the need to approach the text with fresh eyes, both by muslims and nonmuslims, and stresses the need for muslims to perform a personal reading and understanding of the book, keeping “authority” at arm’s length; (iii) he insists that every commentary of the qur’én (produced from classical to contemporary eras) must be read as a subjective and ideological 78 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... interpretation; (iv) the most interesting chapter, in first two parts, is ‘limits of translations’, where sardar explicitly shows a number of cases where the translation of the qur’én was used for reprehensible ideological purposes (like n. j. dawood and abdullah yusuf ali).67 from a number of other reviews and endorsements, the excerpts of which are available on publishers’ website, it becomes evident that sardar’s reading the qur’én “performs the essential democratic function of suggesting that the qur’én can and indeed ought to be read intelligently by the lay muslims and non-muslims alike, and effectively debunks the myth that the sacred book of islam is only accessible through the medium of arabic”. it makes not only “many timely and necessary points”, but is also “highly readable”, as it is “punctuated by beautiful metaphors … and witty, sometimes even risqué comments”.68 as per the review in booklist, sardar’s passionate approach in this work will “appeal to many open-minded readers of other faiths and those generally interested in spirituality”. islamic horizons assesses this book in these words: “sardar explores the qur’én from a variety of perspectives, drawing fresh and contemporary lessons from the sacred text.” for library journal, sardar’s work is a “helpful book for opening the minds of spiritually engaged readers interested in the place of holy books in today’s world”.69 for karen armstrong (author of a history of god and muhammad: a biography of the prophet), sardar’s book is a “lucid, scholarly and exciting book”, which “takes the reader on a spiritual and intellectual journey that is essential for muslim and non-muslim alike and addresses some of the most pressing needs of our time”. for professor farid esack (university of johannesburg, south africa), ziauddin sardar’s book is “the most exciting book on the qur’én in recent years; it is a poignant and intimate work on islam’s central text. sardar approaches the qur’én both as a lay believer, like the majority of muslims, and an astute scholar of islam … [making it] a wonderfully intelligent reading of a complex text within a contemporary context. … by providing the qur’én with a dynamic and empathetic voice on issues such as domestic violence, suicide, evolution, sex and sexuality, art, politics and power, sardar ensures the qur’én remains a warm, relevant and vibrant force within contemporary muslim discourse”. and for professor bruce lawrence (duke university), “if one could pick just one book to connect the muslim past with its complex present and future potential, reading the qur’én would be that book”.70 in my previous writings on sardar’s reading the qur’én, i hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 79 concluded that though one cannot swallow easily all what sardar reads and understands from sacred text, but, what is undeniable is that, it is a work to be read, re-read and worthy to reflect by every common muslim, especially youngsters, and by those who have little or no knowledge of arabic.71 sardar’s interpretation in conformity with the conventional thinking: some examples placed below are some excerpts from various sections / topics, so that to give a clear idea of what sardar believes, how he interprets the qur’én and things qur’énic, in the second decade of third millennium. the excerpts related to such concepts and topics like life, taqwé (godconsciousness), ‘ilm (knowledge), history, ethics/morality, ijtihéd, shëré, and pluralism are provided first, because these are the topics, the interpretations of which, by sardar, are in harmony and congruency with the conventional thinking, and has been appreciated by the reviewers72 as well. this is followed by some excerpts on some hotly/variedly debated topics and on which sardar holds an opinion that is ‘unconventional’. these include: sharê‘éh, prophet-hood, caliphate, íudëd/crime and punishment, íijéb, freedom of expression, his interpretations and assertions about music, gays, lesbians and homosexuality, and many other such ‘crucial’ and ‘critical’ issues. on the interpretation of these issues, sardar’s book has been labeled and branded as a “tendentious work which presents a garbled and twisted understanding of the qur’én which will certainly offend muslim readers”.73 life sardar believes that “life is one of the most precious gifts of god”; it is “sacrosanct”, and qur’én emphasizes “overall importance of preserving and conserving life” as in q. v: 32.74 life, of this world, is a journey, and “merely an amusement and a diversion” (q. xxix: 64); and in this journey we come across “many wonders that delight us as well as many sights that upset us”; we face happiness and grief, bliss and agony, pleasure and pain. in this life we face, as sardar compares it, like a play, “twists and turns” which comes as a test from god.75 sardar also believes, as do every muslim, that this life “is not ours. it does not belong to us. it is not our property or possession. … rather it is an aménat, a trust from god. we are merely trustees of our lives. we 80 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... have the responsibility of looking after this trust”. moreover, life is not meaningless, but has purpose (q. xxiii: 115). the purpose of life is, among others, “to seek justice and equity, to pursue knowledge and virtue, [and] to worship god”.76 he thus finds the rationale of committing suicide as a sin, as a violation of this trust, and as a denying of life’s purpose as well. “we cannot take our own life, simply because it is not ours to take. we have no choice. to commit suicide would be to violate the trust. it would be an act of monumental ungratefulness. it would be taking something that belongs to god. it would not be just be killing oneself but like killing all of humanity. hence, the unambiguous, categorical instruction in the qur’én: ‘do not contribute to your destruction with your own hands’ (q. ii: 195). … to commit suicide is to deny that life your life however meaningless it may appear. it is to fringe the right of the true author of life, who is the only one who can write an ending for your life. it is an act of usurpation, a vain attempt to acquire the attributes of god, this is why when you face god, after committing suicide, ‘he will say: begone! do not speak to me’(q. xxiii: 108)”.77 this, for sardar, is one of the rationales for declaring ‘suicide bombing’ as an un-islamic practice: “to consider suicide bombing as a military tactic, or as a way of fighting, is to violate everything that the qur’én and islam stand for”.78 taqwó in sardar’s interpretation, taqwé (god-consciousness), which is central concept of islam is “consciousness, an awareness of the certainty, reality, and presence of god that is experienced intellectually, spiritually, [and] emotionally”; it is the “basis of faith, the certainty on which belief is founded”; it is “the moment of insight”; and is the “reasoning consciousness”, which leads to “belief in ‘the unseen’ [al-ghayb] that which is beyond our physical and material perceptions”.79 besides having the “personal dimension”of strengthening man-god relationship through prayers and devotion, it is the concept of taqwé that “relates individuals to society”.80 on this aspect of taqwé, he says: “most of the muslims think that taqwé is acquired through prayer hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 81 and devotion, reading the qur’én and engaging in extra worship (dhikr, remembering god), in the middle of the night. now, of course, taqwé has this personal dimension, which is about strengthening our relationship to god. but i think taqwé must also manifest itself through our human relationships, our relations with all of god’s creations. … [for] taqwé is a sign of how you treat those who are less fortunate than you, how loving and caring you are, how you display your humility and respect, how you interact with your environment, [and] how you participate in building a viable and dynamic community. and it is not something that you acquire or advertise; it is something that is recognized in you by others, the community and society”.81 ‘ilm ‘ilm, the qur’énic word for knowledge, signifies that “knowledge is a form of remembering god… [and thus] the pursuit of knowledge becomes a form of worship which is accorded special status in the qur’én”. but for sardar, the “conventional types of worship does not necessarily make the worshipper intelligent, clever or wise”, but “knowledge can increase understanding, comprehension, and lead to wisdom”.82 the “emphasis on knowledge in the qur’én” (as, for example, in q. x: 5; xiii: 3; xxix: 20; xxxix: 9),83 “is an eye-opening: again and again, we are urged to study nature, explore the cosmos, measure and calculate, discover the situation and histories of other nations, travel the earth in search of knowledge, learning and wisdom”.84 also, he emphasizes that qur’én (in q. xxxix: 9) says, “how can those who know be equal to those who do not know?” and on this, he deduces that: “the qur’én seeks to establish a society of ‘those who know’, a knowledge society, [and] a society where reason and reflection, thought and learning, are not only valued but grounded in everyday reality. the situation in the muslim world today, where science and learning are conspicuous by their almost total absence, where irrationality and fanaticism are the norm, indicates just how far many muslims have deviated from the teachings of the qur’én”.85 history on the topic of “time and history”,86 sardar is of the opinion that 82 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... the “themes of time, the dynamics of change, and processes and patterns of history are interwoven throughout the qur’én”.87 al-‘aîr, as in sërah al-‘aîr (q. 103),88 which in every day parlance is translated as “afternoon” (as in the ‘aîr prayer), is a term that embodies the “notion of movement”.89 the qur’én asks the human being again and again to go through the world with open eyes and diligent hearts. “history in the qur’én”, in this context, thus “provides narratives of caution, seminal lessons in hubris and folly”; serving “as building blocks for the future”.90 no doubt, the “qur’én gives particular consideration to history and is full of historical passages”; “the qur’én uses history as a guide to the pitfalls of the future” and the emphasis is always “on the lessons that can be drawn from the historical narrative”, however, for sardar, “it is not history as we know it: chronological, detailed analysis of events and personalities, a comprehensive narrative of good and bad old days. rather the qur’én uses history as a guide to the pitfalls of the future. the emphasis is always on the lessons that can be drawn from the historical narrative”.91 he supports his viewpoint by the opening verses sërah al-fajr (q. lxxxix: 6-10)92: “this sërah goes on to contrast history with human nature. the main theme is how oppression, greed and love of wealth destroy people and places, cultures and civilizations, converting their glory and greatness to decay and destruction”.93 he further adds that the noble qur’én presents history as a “motor of change”, which leads “either to progress or to decay”. in qur’énic terms, thus progress is “not based on wealth, technology or splendor. civilizations rise and fall; cultures flourish and decay; ebb and flow in power are transitory fluctuations. all superpowers and technological civilizations have allotted periods: ‘there is an appointed term for every community, and when it is reached they can neither delay nor hasten it, even for a moment’ (q. x: 49).what matters in the final analysis is not might, power, the affluence of material means or even the accumulation of knowledge, but right conduct”.94 similarly, about ethics to which he devotes a full chapter, entitled as “ethics and morality”95 sardar mentions that the qur’én is the source of islamic ethics, yet it is not a book on islamic ethics. however, it is true that a “book of guidance is ultimately a book about ethics and morality. so it should not surprise us to discover that the qur’én contains numerous verses and passages about moral and ethical concerns”.96 also, for sardar, the basis of ijtihéd is the qur’énic verses of sërah al-‘ankabët (q. xxix: 69), which states: “but we shall be sure to guide to our ways those who strive hard [jahadu] for our cause: hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 83 god is with those who do good”. for him, who defines ijtihéd as the “systematic original thinking, based on the quré’nic injunctions to think and reason”, traces its origins from q. ii: 164, “those who use their minds”.97 similarly, regarding shëré, sardar is of the opinion that “the only term with any specific political connotation that appears in the sacred text is ‘shëré’ or consultation: “consultation in running the affairs of the community” (as in q. iii: 159). for him, it is a paramount principle in all affairs of the state which gives “legitimacy to political authority”, as q. iv: 59, which states: “you who believe, obey god and the messenger, and those in authority among you”.98 writing on “truth and plurality”,99 sardar initiates in this way: “the plurality of religion is a constant and recurring theme in the qur’én. far from adopting a hostile attitude to other religions, the qur’én promotes acceptance of religious plurality and treats other religions with equality (italics added).100 the “qur’én envisages”, sardar emphasizes by way of conclusion, “a religiously plural world, where different communities share different aspects of the divine truth”.101 he also highlights that the “qur’én’s pragmatic approach to religious pluralism is really quite amazing”, as “believers of all faiths, and none, are urged to recognize that religious differences exist and will continue to exist. they are asked to put their differences aside and collaborate with each other”, and as q. iii: 64 elucidates: “say, ‘people of the book, let us arrive at a statement that is common to us all”.102 sardar’s ‘unconventional’ interpretation regarding ‘controversial’ issues: some examples though the above examples show that sardar interprets these terms and concepts in ‘conformity’ with the traditional/conventional thinking, however, there are certain themes and issues which, being both contemporary and controversial as well, show his ‘unconventional’ interpretations and thus unacceptable to the traditionalist muslim majority. below are provided some examples of such kind of issues, some of which include: sharê‘éh, institution of caliphate, veil/íijéb, freedom of expression, and homosexuality. these are the issues which sardar examines in the light of his reading the qur’én but are, as kidwai puts it, “blatantly discordant with the consensus view of the muslim community down the ages” and the conclusions sardar draws from his understanding and interpretation are “even downright scandalous”.103 shari’ah for sardar, as he defines and interprets in a chapter on ‘the 84 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... sharô‘óh for sardar, as he defines and interprets in a chapter on ‘the sharê‘ah’,104 “strictly speaking, sharê‘éh is not a qur’énic concept”, however the word occurs twice in the qur’én (q. v:48 and xlv: 18). although it literally means “the way”, or “the path of the qur’én and the guidance it provides”, the term came into vogue in the 8th century ce, and thus “was socially constructed in history not just as law but also as morality”.105 for him, what is regarded as islamic law (sharê‘éh) nowadays is “essentially a body of juristic opinion that began to be socially constructed during the early abbasid period … [and thus] what is understood as the sharê‘éh [in present times] incorporates layer upon layer of classical legal rulings, known as fiqh, or jurisprudence”. he thus sweeps as: so the legal injunctions developed to solve the problems of a bygone era based on the social and cultural circumstances and understanding of a medieval society have come to be seen as the law and morality of muslim societies for all times! it is hardly surprising then that not much of the sharê‘éh has any contemporary relevance and bears little relationship with to what the qur’én actually says. this is why wherever the sharê‘éh is imposed… it reproduces the conditions of medieval times.106 he further argues that “the sharê‘éh is almost totally a human product”; it “has been turned into an ‘iron collar’ around the neck of muslim societies, and keeps them [far away] from moving forward into the twenty-first century”; and has thus “become truncated with history”. what is needed, he suggests, is that the “sharê‘éh has to become a vigorous, dynamic work of human reason”.107 caliphate for sardar, the term caliphate which, in the specific sense of the political institution, does not occur in the qur’én is derived from khalêfah, which he translates as the “vicegerent”, “trustee” and “trustee of god”:108 “the second most important concept in the qur’én” after tawhêd (as in q. ii: 30: “and when your lord said to the angels: ‘i will create a vicegerent on earth’…”).109 this term connotes that man “comes as a representative of a higher authority”,110 however it has “no connotations of a political authority, or political representation, or political organization”, hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 85 and therefore, the “conceptual introduction of the term khalêfah” has no political connotation, nor is it a political institution.111 thus, in a similar tune (as above related to sharê‘éh) in a chapter on “power and politics”112 he writes about caliphate in these words: “as a political theory, i would argue, the caliphate has no redeeming features, nothing to recommend it. … just as the sharê‘éh turned the believer into an empty vessel, so the political theory of caliphate transformed the citizen of a muslim state into passive, obedient servants”.113\ ×ijób/veil devoting a full chapter on “the veil”,114 sardar says: the term íijéb, occurring eight times in the sacred text, literally means “a curtain, partition, or screen”, and in “none of the verses íijéb is used in the sense conventionally understood by muslim societies as a piece of clothing covering the head and entire body; nor indeed he items such as burqa‘, ... nor niqéb,… black chédor .. nor the ‘abayé… . ×ijéb is something different all together”.115 for him, íijéb is used (as in q. vii: 46-7; lxxxiii: 15; and xlii: 51) “metaphorically to refer to a separation”.116 “but the verse particularly associated with the veil, the íijéb verses, is xxxiii:53”, which reads as: “believers, do not enter the prophet’s apartment …. when you ask his wives for something, do so from behind a screen”. thundering against both the islamic command and practice of íijéb, sardar dismisses this relevant qur’énic verse by saying that it “an exception that is particular, time-bound and distinct from the general rule”.117 and thus he contextualizes and interprets it as: “in practice, it has led to a vast and generalized injustice to women since it has been used to justify not only the seclusion of women but also a denial of education to women as well as other limitations”.118 for him, q. xxxiii:59, wherein the term jalébêb (sing. jalbéb) meaning either the ‘outer garment’, or mantle and cloak, occurs is “not seclusion from society but specifically going out and about which is the context in which mode of dress is mentioned” (italics added).119 on these bases, the conclusions he derives are: (i) the different forms of íijéb, “the niqéb, the burqa‘ or the chédor derive from the cultural traditions of regions beyond arabia not anything from the qur’én it says”; (ii) there is “no qur’énic warrant for burqa‘s, chédors, ‘abéyés and niqéb. there is no legal requirement, sanctioned by the qur’én or by the prophet (œ) that compels muslim women to wear specific dress, 86 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... to hide their faces from public, or to shroud themselves from top to bottom”; and (iii) ×ijéb is “a private and personal matter for each woman; the choice will no doubt be conditioned by culture, circumstance and history, and the choice of each individual should be respected”.120 homosexuality sardar devotes a chapter to “sex and society” and one to “homosexuality, in the fourth part/section of his work, under ‘contemporary issues’ category.121 he lays the grounds for the homosexuals (gays and lesbians) on these assumptions: “the term homosexuality does not occur in the qur’én. but the qur’én does mention ‘men who have no need of women’ [or ‘men who have no sexual desire’, q. xlii: 31: which is not explicit and clear] who these men are, but we can guess: either they have no sexual desire at all or they desire other men. … [and thus such men] can be elderly, impotent … or homosexuals”.122 he finds “oblique references to homosexuality” in q. xlii: 49-50 (where in mentioned, among others, that ‘god grants both male and female [offspring] to whoever he wills’) which, in sardar’s strange consideration “suggest that a male could have a female sexual orientation and a female could have a male sexual orientation; or at least their sexuality is ambiguous”.123 to homosexuality, the other reference occurs in q. xxiv: 60, which states: “no blame will be attached to elderly women who are not hoping for sex”. though this verse has been translated variedly, but for sardar “the essential message being conveyed here is that these women are not going to bear children and are not interested in sexual intercourse with men. the men could have passed the natural child-bearing age, or they are so old that they have no sexual desires, or they are mystic celibates but the description can apply to lesbian women” (italics added).124 he thus finds grounds for his opinion that “homosexuality is a natural god-given dispensation, part of the fiïraí or innate human nature of an individual”125; and here he agrees with, and openly confirms it as well, with scott siraj al-haqq kugle, the author of homosexuality in islam, who argues that “some human beings simply are homosexuals by disposition rather than by choice”; and also emphasizes that “whether the ‘cause’ of god’s creation, biological variation, or early childhood experience, homosexuals have no rational choice in their internal disposition to be attracted to same-sex mates”.126 after presenting such tenuous hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 87 and vague grounds for taking gays and lesbians as ‘a natural disposition of god’, sardar goes a step further, and questions the divine dispensation in these words: “it would be an unjust god who, after having given no choice to the individuals concerned, condemns them for being homosexuals. indeed such a condemnation would go against all the overwhelming emphasis on justice and equity that we find in the qur’én”.127 his justification of homosexuality is outrageous and indeed a distorted reading of the sacred text as well as of the history: “the widespread and rampant homophobia of muslim societies cannot be justified either on the basis of qur’énic teachings or the example of the prophet muhammad [œ]. on the contrary, the qur’én portrays homosexuality as a natural disposition and the sunnah is exemplary in its toleration of sexual orientation. the demonization of homosexuality in muslim history is based largely on fabricated traditions and reconstituted prejudices harbored by most muslim societies”.128 freedom of expression in a chapter on “freedom of expression”,129 sardar begins with the argument that “freedom of expression begins with total freedom of belief and conviction” as in q. ii: 256.130 he further argues that “freedom of expression is sacred”, on the basis that qur’én asks us “to argue in the ‘best way’ (xxix: 46) and ‘most courteous way’ (xvi: 125)”.131 he is also of the opinion that he finds “the whole idea of blasphemy irrelevant to islam”; and even goes further in his contention when he writes: “god, ‘the self-sufficient one’ in his majesty, is hardly going to be bothered if a few insults are hurled at him. he can certainly look after himself: ‘the most excellent names belong to him … (vii: 180)”.132 these are only a few examples, from a long list of crucial topics and critical issues raised and highlighted by sardar. besides these, there are some controversial and unconventional arguments put forth in the ‘epilogue’ as well.133 some of these arguments are: 1. “we find some contradictions in the qur’én … [though] they serve a special purpose”; 2. “context is everything in the qur’én” (italics added);134 3. “i have offered a historical reading of the qur’én. … without the weight of tradition, i have encountered the qur’én anew. … by largely ignoring the classical commentaries, i discovered that a 88 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... great deal of historic interpretation has taken muslim societies in the wrong direction” (italics added);135 4. “in interpreting the qur’én, we must differentiate between legal requirements and moral injunctions”, for “legal injunctions in the qur’én are relatively few; and most of them are quite specific and specifically time-bound” (italics added);136 5. “there are legal injunctions in the qur’én for example, those relating to crime and punishment and female witnesses that are deeply rooted in context of time of revelation. these legal injunctions made sense within their context; they are specific and not eternal”;137 and lastly, 6. “with much determination, …, we muslims have to teach ourselves to read and think about the qur’én, liberated from the weight of tradition and classical commentaries. … we need to read and think for ourselves, rather than simply repeat. [depending entirely on the scholars and scholarship of past] raises traditional scholars above the sacred text itself”.138 all these above mentioned points/arguments though exceptional are ‘unconventional’ and thus unacceptable to the conventional thought. it is, however, considerable that sardar highlights those themes and issues in parts iii and iv of his work in the light of the qur’én, which are faced by muslims (in present times) and confronted by humanity at large thus aptly showing the relevance of the divine writ in present times, and by that way, for all times. it also brings to the fore the fact that the noble qur’én is indeed “guidance unto mankind” (q. ii: 185), providing guidance on all aspects of life—both individual and collective. it is, therefore, worthy to quote sardar’s observations on what the message of qur’én is all about, and what is nowadays justified on the basis of this sacred text. the qur’én emphasizes on justice and equity, truth and plurality, ethics and morality, humanity and diversity, reason and knowledge, rights and duties, and reading and writing [and many such important themes]… are nowhere reflected in the contemporary muslim world. on the contrary, injustice and inequity, ignorance and illiteracy, oppression and inhumanity seem to be the norms. …a great deal of what is justified nowadays on the basis of the qur’én from autocracy to theocracy, suppression of freedom of expression, obscene accumulation of wealth to gross inequity, oppression of women to the denial of rights of minorities, exclusive hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 89 ownership of truth to suicide bombing has no relationship to the sacred text whatsoever.139 conclusion the above assessment i.e., summary of the major arguments put forth by sardar in this work and from the views and reviews of various scholars and writers reveals that sardar’s reading the qur’én has been appreciated as well as criticized. it is appreciable that sardar writes and reflects on the qur’én as ordinary muslim approaches it as a muslim living in a situation full of problems, challenges, and issues of diverse nature (related to all of us as humans). his approach and inter-connecting guidelines of this divine writ, which was revealed in 7th century c.e. and has effective answers for the problems we face today in this second decade of the third millennium an age of information technology, globalization, and what not. the arguments, statements, and the excerpts related to different terms, concepts, themes and issues clearly reveal what sardar believes, and how he interprets the sacred text in the present times. though one cannot absorb and imbibe easily all what sardar reads and understands from sacred text. what is also true is that his approach regarding the crucial and controversial issues like the shari’ah and caliphate, veil/ íijéb, freedom of expression, gays, lesbians and homosexuality, music, etc., cannot be accepted and recognized easily by every muslim for these are the ‘unconventional’views which are ‘discordant with the consensus view of the muslim community down the ages’, and thus deplorable for the conventional islamic thinking. notes & references: 1. the phrase “guidance unto mankind” (huddan lil-nass) is taken from the qur’énic verse 185 of surah al-baqarah, chapter 2. the english rendering of the verses, in this essay, are taken from m. a. s. abdel haleem, the qur’én: a new translation, oxford, oxford world classics, 2004 & 2005. however, where the verse/ part of a verse occur in a quotation, sardar’s (own) translation, or the translation he has adopted, has been retained. 2. recent works on the tafsir literature include: mahmoud m. ayoub, the qur’én and its interpreters, vol. i, albany, state university of new york press, 1984; ghulam ahmad hariri, tarikh tafsir wa mufasirun [history of the exegesis and 90 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... the exegetes], faisalabad, pakistan: kashmir book depot, 1999-2000; feras hamza, sajjad rizvi, and farhana mayer, an anthology of qur’énic commentaries, vol. i, new york, oxford university press, 2010; and walid saleh, “qur’énic commentaries”, in seyyed hossein nasr (editor-in-chief), the study qur’én: a new translation and commentary, new york, harper one, 2015, pp. 1645-1658 3. some of the recent works (in english) on ‘ulum al-qur’an are:ahmad von denffer, ‘ulum al-qur’an: an introduction to the sciences of the qur’an (leicester: the islamic foundation, 1983); abu ammar yasir qadhi, an introduction to the sciences of the qur’an (birmingham, uk: al-hidaayah publishing and distribution, 1999); recep dogan, usul al-tafsir: the sciences and methodology of the qur’an (clifton, nj:tughra books, 2014); and israr ahmad khan, qura’nic studies: an introduction (kuala lumpur, malaysia: maven international kuala lumpur, 2016) 4. on english translations of the qur’én, see for example, abdur raheem kidwai, bibliography of the translations of the meanings of the glorious qur’én into english, 1649-2002, a critical study, riyadh, king fahd qur’én printing complex, 2007); idem., translating the untranslatable: a critical guide to 60 translations of the qur’én, new delhi, sarup books, 2011. 5. on qur’énic hermeneutics/ contextualist approach to qur’én, see, fazlur rahman, major themes of the qur’én, chicago, bibliotheca islamica, 1980; suha tajifarouki (ed.), modern muslim intellectuals and the qur’én, new york, oxford university press, 2004; idem., the qur’én and its readers worldwide, new york, oxford university press, 2015); jane d. mcauliffe (ed.), the cambridge companion to the qur’én, cambridge, cambridge university press, 2006; andrew rippin (ed.), the blackwell companion to the qur’én, uk, wiley-blackwell, 2006/ 2009; abdullah saeed, reading the qur’én in the twenty-first century: a contextualist approach, london, routledge, 2013. 6. on thematic interpretations of qur’én, see amin ahsan islahi, taddabbur alqur’én, vol. ix., lahore, maktaba anjum khudaam al-qur’én, 1967; lahore, faran foundation, 2009); shaykh muhammad al-ghazali, a thematic commentary on the qur’én (trans.) ashore shamis, herndon, va: iiit, 2000; toshihiko izutsu, ethico-religious concepts in the qur’én (kuala lampur, malaysia: islamic book trust, [1966] 2004); idem., god and man in the koran: semantics of the koranic weltanschauung, tokyo, keio institute of cultural and linguistic studies, 1964; rprt. 1980; b. a. dar, qur’énic ethics, lahore, institute of islamic culture, 1960; qamaruddin khan, political concepts in the qur’én, karachi, institute of islamic studies, 1973; abu al-a‘la mawdudi, four basic qur’énic terms: ilah, rabb, ‘ibadah, deen (trans.) abu asad, lahore, islamic publications pvt limited, [1977]); t. b. (taleem ‘ali) irving, et. al.,the qur’én: basic teachings (leicester: the islamic foundation, 1992); muhammad abdel haleem, understanding the qur’an: themes and style (london: i. b. tauris, 2001 [1999]); abdur raheem kidwai, the qur’an: essential teachings (leicester: the islamic foundation, 2005); massimo campanini, the qur’an: the basics (london: routledge, 2007) 7. on qur’én for daily recitation, see, for example, mohamed elmasry, the qur’én: 365 selections for daily reading (ontario, canada: m.i. elmasry, 2003); sharif hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 91 chaudhary, meaning of the magnificent qur’én, lahore, pakistan: s. n. publications, 2010; abdur raheem kidwai, daily wisdom: selections from the qur’én, leicester, kube publishing ltd., 2011; idem., 365 sayings of the qur’én, mumbai, jaico, 2014. on simple introductions to the qur’én and personal engagements with the sacred text, see, abdul rahman i. doi, introduction to the qur’én, lagos, islamic publications bureau, 1976; khurram murad, way to the qur’én, leicester, the islamic foundation, 1985; farid esack, the qur’én: a user’s guide, oxford, one world publications, 2005 & 2007; hasanuddin ahmed, introducing the qur’én, new delhi, goodword books, 2005; bruce lawrence, the qur’én: a biography, london, atlantic books, 2006; mona sidiqui, how to read the qur’én, london, granta books, 2007. 8. ziauddin sardar, reading the qur’én: the contemporary relevance of the sacred text of islam, london, c. hurst & co. publishers ltd., 2011; new york, oxford university press, 2011. its two paperback editions were published, respectively, by hachette book publishing india pvt ltd., india in 2015, and second by oxford university press in february 2017. all the references in this essay are from paperback edition of 2015, and here in after is cited as sardar, reading the qur’én. 9. for biographical details, academic positions, and other details, see his personal website, http://ziauddinsardar.com/ziauddin-sardar-biography (last accessed on 15th march, 2017) 10. for details about critical muslim, see http://criticalmuslim.com/home (accessed on 15th march, 2017) 11. for details, see sardar’s personal website, http://ziauddinsardar.com/ziauddinsardar-biography/ (last accessed on 15th march, 2017) 12. ibid. 13. my previous writings on sardar’s reading the qur’én include: dr. tauseef ahmad parray,“(re) reading and reflecting on ziauddin sardar’s‘reading the qur’én’”, kashmir reader [kr] (daily newspaper from srinagar, j&k), 3rd feb. 2017, friday, p. 7, available online at http://kashmirreader.com/2017/02/03/ re-reading-reflecting-ziauddin-sardars-reading-qur’én/ (last accessed on 17th march, 2017); idem., “reading and reflecting on the ‘reading the qur’én’”, the muslim world leaguejournal [mwlj] (makah), 45, 6 (march 2017): pp. 58-63; idem., “thematic studies of the qur’én: an assessment”, mwlj, 46, 7 (april 2018): pp. 52-55 [hereafter cited as parray in kr, parray in mwlj2017 and mwlj2018 respectively] 14. sardar, reading the qur’én, pp. 39-54, 59. 15. ibid., p. 11. the guardian is a famous british daily newspaper, published from kings place, london (uk): www.theguardian.com 16. ibid., p. xiv 17. ibid., pp. xv, xviii, xix 18. ibid., p. 11 19. ibid., p. xiv 20. ibid., pp. xxi, xxii 21. ibid., p. xx 22. ibid., p. 60 92 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... 23. ibid., pp. 20, 60 24 ibid., p. 60 25. ibid., pp. 59-60 26. ibid., p. 59 27. ibid., pp. 63-70 28. ibid., pp. 71-208 29. ibid., pp. 59, 60 30. ibid., p. 211 31. ibid. 32. see note/ reference 6 above. 33. rahman, major themes of the qur’én, p. v 34. abdel haleem, understanding the qur’én: themes and styles, p. vi 35. kidwai, the qur’én: essential teachings, pp. v-vi 36. sardar, reading the qur’én, p. xxi 37. ibid., pp. 3-11 38. ibid., pp. 10-11 39. ibid., pp. 369-374 40. a list of these reviews is here: abdur raheem kidwai, “review: reading the qur’én, by ziauddin sardar”, the muslim world book review [mwbr], 31, 4 (summer 2011): pp. 19-25 [hereinafter cited as kidwai, in mwbr]; malise ruthven, “reading the qur’én by ziauddin sardar review”, the guardian, friday, 1st july 2011, retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/ jul/01/reading-quran-ziauddin-sardar-review [here in after cited as ruthven, in the guardian]; mona siddiqui, “review: reading the qur’én by ziauddin sardar”, the independent, thursday, 7th july 2011, retrieved from http:// www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/reading-the-quran-byziauddin-sardar-2308561.html[hereinafter cited as siddiqui, the independent]; a. faizur rahman, “book review: reading the qur’én”, daily news and analysis (dna), sunday, 3rd july 2011, retrieved from www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/ rview-book-review-reading-the-quran-1561706 [hereinafter cited as rahman, in dna]; maqbool ahmed siraj, “contextualising the holy qur’én”, islamic voice, january 2012, retrieved from www.islamicvoice.com/january2012/ bookreview/ [hereinafter cited as siraj, in iv]; nidhalguessoum, “ziauddin sardar’s interpretation of the qur’én”, irtiqa, monday, 4th july 2011, retrieved from http://www.irtiqa-blog.com/2011/07/ziauddin-sardars-interpretation-of.html [here in after cited as guessoum, in irtiqa] (all accessed, last, on 14th july, 2017); parray, in kr; parray, in mwlj 41. steven d. ealy,“the qur’én’s guidance to readers (through both principle and example) on how to read the qur’én”, apsa [american political science association] 2012 annual meeting paper, available on ssrn,www.papers.ssrn.com/ abstract=2110992, [ssrn id: 2110992], posted on 17th july, 2012 (last accessed on 14th july, 2017) 42. kidwai, in mwbr, pp. 19-25 43. ibid., p. 19 44. ibid., p. 20 45 ibid., p. 21 hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 93 46. for the details on these topics/ themes, see “prophets and revelation”, “truth and plurality”, “crime and punishment” (chapters 29, 32, and 36 respectively) in sardar, reading the qur’én, pp. 215-24, 235-40, 255-60 47. kidwai, in mwbr, p. 21 48. for the details on this topic, see “nature and environment” (chapter 38) in sardar, reading the qur’én, pp. 265-271 49. see, “ethics and morality” (chapter 39) in ibid. pp. 273-76 50. kidwai, in mwbr, p. 21 51. for details, see, “the shari’ah”, “power and politics”, “polygamy and domestic violence”, “homosexuality”, “the veil”, “freedom of expression”, “art, music, and imagination” (chapters 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, and 52), in sardar, reading the qur’én, pp. 285-368 52. kidwai, in mwbr, pp. 22-23 53. see, “suicide (assisted or otherwise)”, in sardar, reading the qur’én, pp. 34550 54. kidwai, in mwbr, p. 23 55. kidwai, in mwbr, pp. 23-24 56. sardar, reading the qur’én, p. xiv 57. ruthven, in the guardian, op. cit. 58. ibid. 59. siddiqui, in the independent, op. cit. 60. ibid. 61. ibid. 62. ibid. 63. rahman, in dna 64. siraj, in iv 65. nidhal guessoum, islam’s quantum question: reconciling muslim tradition and modern science, london, i. b. tauris, 2011. for the thoughts and views of guessoum, see, for example, stefano bigliardi, islam and quest for modern science, istanbul, swedish research institute in istanbul [srii], 2014. 66. guessoum, in irtiqa, op. cit. 67. ibid. 68. excerpts from the review in a the times literary supplement, available on hurst publications website at http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/reading-the-quran/ last accessed on 15thmarch, 2017. 69. excerpts from the reviews in booklist, islamic horizons, and library journal, available on hurst publications website at http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/ reading-the-quran/ last accessed on 15th march, 2017. 70. review excerpts mentioned on the back cover of sardar’s reading the qur’én, 2015 edition. 71. parray, in kr, op. cit.; parray, in mwlj, op. cit., pp. 58, 63. 72. a list of these reviews was provided above in note/ reference no. 34; examples are: kidwai, in mwbr; ruthven, in guardian; siddiqui, the independent; guessoum, in irtiqa; parray, in kr; and parray, in mwlj 73. kidwai, in mwbr, pp. 23-24 74. sardar, reading the qur’én, p. 345. the verse reads as: “if anyone kills a person 94 a critical evaluation of ziauddin sardar... unless in retribution for murder or spreading corruption in the land it is as if he kills all mankind, while if any saves a life it is as if he saves the lives of all mankind”. 75. ibid., p. 346 76. ibid., pp. 345, 346 77. ibid. 78. ibid., p. 349 79. ibid., pp. 72, 73 80. ibid., p. 247 81. ibid. 82. ibid., p. 253 83. for example, the verses q. xxix: 20 and xxxix: 9 read as: “travel throughout the earth and see how he brings life into being: and he will bring the next life into being. god has power over all things”; and “say, ‘how can those who know be equal to those who do not know?’” 84. sardar, reading the qur’én, p. 252 85. ibid., p. 253 86. ibid., pp. 229-233 87. ibid., p. 229 88. surah al-‘asr (q. ciii), in full, reads as: “by the declining day, man is [deep] in loss, except for those who believe, do good deeds, urge one another to the truth, and urge one another to steadfastness”. 89. sardar, reading the qur’én, p. 229 90. ibid., pp. 371-372 91. ibid., pp. 231, 232 92. these verses (q. lxxxix: 6-14) read as: “have you [prophet] considered how your lord dealt with [the people] of ‘ad, [or] of iram, [the city] of lofty pillars, whose like has never been made in any land, and the thamud, who hewed into the rocks in the valley, and the mighty and powerful pharaoh? all of them committed excesses in their lands, and spread corruption there: your lord let a scourge of punishment loose on them. your lord is always watchful”. 93. sardar, reading the qur’én, p. 232 94. ibid. 95. ibid., pp. 273-276 96. ibid., p. 273 97. ibid., p. 355 98. ibid., pp. 295-296 99. ibid., pp. 235-240 100. ibid., p. 235 101. ibid., p. 237 102. ibid., p. 239 103. kidwai, in mwbr, p. 23 104. sardar, reading the qur’én, pp. 285-291 105. ibid., p. 285 106. ibid. 107. ibid., pp. 289, 90, 91 hamdard islamicus vol. xlii, no. 4 95 108. ibid., pp. 89, 91, 297 109. ibid., p. 266 110. ibid., p. 266 111. ibid., p. 297 112. for details, see chapter 43, “power and politics”, in ibid., pp. 293-302 113. ibid., p. 299 114. for details, see chapter 47, “the veil”, in ibid., pp. 329-335 115. ibid., p. 329 116. ibid., pp. 329-330 117. ibid., p. 331 118. ibid., p. 332 119. ibid. 120. ibid., pp. 333, 34, 35 121. for details, see chapters 45 & 46, “sex and society” and “homosexuality”, in ibid., pp. 313-321, 323-328 122. ibid., pp. 3243 123. ibid., p. 323 124. ibid., p. 324 125. ibid., pp. 324-325 126. scott siraj al-haqq kugle, homosexuality in islam, oxford, one world publications, 2010, p. 2, as cited in sardar, reading the qur’én, p. 325 127. sardar, reading the qur’én, p. 325 128. ibid., p. 327 129. for details, see chapter 48, “freedom of expression”, in sardar, reading the qur’én, pp. 337-343 130. ibid., p. 337 131. ibid., pp. 338-339 132. ibid., p. 340 133. for details, see “epilogue”, in ibid., pp. 369-374 134. ibid., p. 369 135. ibid., p. 371 136. ibid., p. 372 137. ibid., p. 372 138. ibid., p. 373 139. ibid., pp. 370-371 e:\islamicus\2018\no.1'2018\08) old verses (wm).pmd hamdard islamicus 227 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 old versus new in the sa‘õdi expansions of the mosque of the prophet ( ) dr. spahic omer associate professor, kulliyyah of islamic revealed knowledge and human sciences, international islamic university malaysia, malaysia. e-mail: spahico@yahoo.com this paper discusses the relationship between tradition and modernity in the sa‘ëdi expansions of the mosque of the prophet ( ). two major expansions by king ‘abd al-‘azêz and king fahd have been targeted. the first expansion by the first sa‘ëdi king, during the kingdom’s formative years, is regarded as a precursor to the second one, which was truly epic and grandest of all previous expansions. the latter was necessitated by the factors of incessant overcrowding and king fahd’s need for boosting an islamic image. when completed, the mosque represented a harmonious blend between old and new, and between tradition and modernity. it was modern and progressive in terms of its form, structural performance and engineering means and methods, but traditional and conventional in terms of its embedded meaning, function and substance. the mosque oozed the aura of authentic islamic architecture. keywords: the mosque of the prophet ( ), king ‘abd al-‘aziz, king fahd, sa‘ëdi arabia, expansion. introduction just like most of their predecessors, the sa‘ëdis, too, showed great concern and affection for the mosque of the prophet ( ) in madinah, so much so that there was no sa‘ëdi ruler (up to king fahd who was the fifth king of sa‘udi arabia and who died in 1426 a.h./2005 c.e.) who did not leave a significant mark on the form and configuration of the hamdard islamicus 228 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 mosque. nonetheless, their contributions greatly varied, from epic to modest, and from original to auxiliary. as a result, scholars disagree as to how many expansions there were. some say four,1 others three,2 and yet others, who constitute a slight majority,3 say two. those who claim that there were four expansions have in mind the contributions of king ‘abd al-‘azêz (d. 1373 a.h./1953 c.e.), king faysal (d. 1395 a.h./1975 c.e.), king khélid (d. 1403 a.h./1982 c.e.) and king fahd, attributing one expansion to each of them. the only ruler that is omitted is the second king, king sa‘ëd (d. 1384 a.h./1964 c.e.), whose rule was marred by relentless internal tension, following which he was forced out from the throne and replaced by his brother faysal. to be fair to king sa‘ëd, furthermore, the first expansion of the mosque initiated by his father, king ‘abd al-‘azêz, had to be taken over by him following the latter’s death. the job was completed two years into king sa‘ëd’s reign. fig. 1 the mosque of the prophet ( ) after the first sa‘ëdi expansion by the first sa‘ëdi king ‘abd al-‘aziz. (courtesy of the “muhammad the messenger of allah” exhibition held in madinah in 2016-2017) hamdard islamicus 229 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 those who believe that there were three expansions do away with the name of king khélid, whose main contributions accounted for provision of vast shaded open spaces with minimum of other facilities outside the mosque’s western side. finally, those who maintain that there were two expansions omit the name of king faysal, whose contributions, like those of his successor, king khélid, centered mainly on provision of vast shaded open spaces outside the mosque’s western side. however, since king faisal conceived the project of clearing the huge and densely populated areas on the mosque’s western side, and building rather short-term and ephemeral shading structures for the newly created public spaces, or squares, there, he is regularly referred to as the originator of the idea and its executor. what his successor, king khalid, later did, by and large, was the extension of, as well as an upgrade to, the former. hence, king faysal generally comes ahead of king khalid in terms of contributions to the architectural evolution and growth of the mosque of the prophet ( ). in this paper, the view that there were only two sa‘ëdi expansions of the mosque of the prophet ( ) is adopted. those two expansions are ascribed to the first king, king ‘abd al-‘azêz, and the fifth one, king fahd. they were successfully carried out between 1370 a.h./1951 c.e. and 1375 a.h./1955 c.e., and between 1405 a.h./1984 c.e. and 1414 a.h./1994 c.e. respectively. the jobs of both king faysal and king khélid cannot be called expansions. they only served as provisional measures for a fast becoming desperate situation, on the one hand, and as transitions between the two comprehensive expansions, on the other. the first relatively moderate expansion is regarded as a reflection of the formative phase of the creation and development of the kingdom of sa‘ëdi arabia and its gradual assertion on the regional and global socio-political and economic stage. whereas the second expansion, which was the grandest and one of epic proportions, could be viewed as an affirmation of the identity, crystallized vision and further developmental aspirations of the kingdom. as always, the mosque signified both the means and goal of a common and unified civilizational drive. it was the beginning and end of a set of national interests. as an additional and extremely important dimension in the sa‘ëdi expansions was the impact of the emergence of globalization, end of hamdard islamicus 230 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 imperialism, decolonization, unprecedented newfound oil wealth which brought with it considerable power and influence, and the gradual growth of the sa‘ëdi society in sophistication and its equally gradual, but particularly cautious, embracing of modernization. thus, the paper both conceptualizes and contextualizes the two expansions from the perspective of the relationship between tradition and modernity in islamic architecture, which, in the case of the sa‘ëdi expansions of the mosque, oscillated between the moods of harmony and conflict, with the former seemingly outstripping the latter. the discussion in the paper is tripartite, concentrating on (1) a formative phase, (2) motives for the second epic expansion, and (3) assessing the originality of the architecture of king fahd’s expansion. a formative phase when on 23 september 1932 c.e./23 juméda al-awwal 1351 a.h., ‘abd al-‘azêz b. ‘abd al-raímén b. fayîal formally united the najd and hijaz regions into the kingdom of sa‘ëdi arabia, with himself as its first king – as a culmination of a long process that started on the night of 15 january 1902 c.e./6 shawwél 1319 a.h. with the capture of the city of riyadh – he knew that ahead lay winding and challenging roads of consolidation, unification and development that would require maximum tapping into his inborn qualities and talents, including courage, shrewdness, farsightedness and religious fervor. saddened by disintegration and the state of anarchy, ignorance and poverty in the arabian peninsula, resulting partly from the decline and ultimate collapse of the ottoman empire, and partly from the centuries old local conflicts and vendettas, he resolved to unify the ranks of his nation under the banner of islam and its monotheistic creed. king ‘abd al-‘azêz went on to unify the scattered parts and splintered tribes of the arabian peninsula. soon after establishing security in the kingdom, he began to organize the state. departing from the traditional administrative and organizational systems, he developed the modern advanced systems that were needed for the new state to function properly. the modern state also established diplomatic relations in accordance with officially recognized political representation, including the appointment of ambassadors.4 hamdard islamicus 231 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 king ‘abd al-‘azêz was a ruler highly regarded by his people. he was the father of the sa‘ëdi nation, establishing its unity and national identity, and laying the foundations of its modern evolution. he believed that his successes teemed from “his faith in islam and his determination to maintain and build on the traditions of the region.”5 “it remains this unique combination of faith and respect for traditions, while adapting to the technological developments of the modern world, which characterizes sa‘ëdi arabia today.”6 according to weston,7 after ‘abd al-‘azêz took riyadh in 1319 a.h./1902 c.e., his political career went through three different phases: about twenty-four years he expanded the kingdom, about nineteen years he ruled it in poverty, and about eight years he managed to the best of his ability – at times, mismanaging, though – its immense new wealth. it was towards the end of his eventful life, in 1370 a.h./1951 c.e., that king ‘abd al-‘azêz ordered that the mosque of the prophet ( ) be rebuilt and expanded. what he did, and how, was it consistent with his fig. 2 the mosque of the prophet ( ) after the second sa‘ëdi expansion by king fahd. (courtesy of the “madinah: the refuge of faith” museum in madinah) hamdard islamicus 232 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 personal qualities and nation building priorities. it reflected the overall spirit of the day. the mosque expansion took place as much because it was warranted architecturally as because it was needed for boosting the implementation of his nation building and consolidation agenda. the last time the mosque was rebuilt and expanded was during the reign of ottoman sulïén abdulmecid (‘abdulmajêd) (d. 1278 a.h./ 1861 c.e.), a job that lasted 12 years, from 1265 a.h./1848 c.e. to 1277 a.h./1860 c.e. thus, following the establishment of the kingdom of sa‘ëdi arabia, the mosque was not too old. during the period of the kingdom’s expansion and the period of relative poverty, the mosque underwent only some minor maintenance works and improvements. for example, during the years of 1348-1351 a.h./1929-1932 c.e. – just before the official establishment of the kingdom, when the region of hijaz, with the holy cities of makkah and madinah, was under ‘abd al-‘azêz’s control – some minimal refurbishment works took place in the mosque, affecting the ground, the walls, the columns and the arcades surrounding the courtyard.8 moreover, during a period of three years between 1354 a.h./1935 c.e. and 1357 a.h./1938 c.e., only three years after the creation of the kingdom, the egyptian government was commissioned to undertake some extensive restoration works that comprised the mosque’s ground, arcades, walls, entrances and minarets.9 though the latter occasion was consistent with the choice and agreement of the nascent sa‘ëdi government, it nevertheless displayed to what extent the new sa‘ëdi administration was still a work in progress. it was still fragile and needed much to be done in terms of upgrading its human resources, skilled workforce and technological advances in order to ensure a strong, sustainable and balanced growth for the country. despite all those efforts, the relatively long period of regional political upheavals that marked the crumbling of the ottoman empire and the gradual emergence of the modern kingdom of sa‘ëdi arabia, whose beginnings were steeped in abject poverty and yet, whose primary focus was the solidification of its political presence and power, contributed to the adequate maintenance of the mosque to be every now and then seriously compromised. the matter resulted in some physical aspects of the mosque to structurally critically deteriorate. it in the end led to the appearance of serious fractures on some columns and in the wall of the northern section of the mosque. the structural condition of the mosque hamdard islamicus 233 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 gained international publicity after some egyptian pilgrims had reported them in 1368 a.h./1948 c.e. the egyptian newspapers picked up the story and with apparent exaggeration made out of it an international issue that bordered on a scandal. calls were made for rescuing the mosque of the prophet ( ) from the sa‘ëdi incompetence before it collapsed. donation drives were instigated and media outlets as well as mosques and other public institutions were mobilized for the purpose.10 irrespective of whether the reports were true, grossly exaggerated, or were simply part of a ploy intended to tarnish both locally and internationally – especially in the eyes of muslims – the image of the newly created state of sa‘ëdi arabia and its ambitions not only to become the faithful servant of the holy lands of makkah and madinah, but also a regional as well as international force to be reckoned with, the reports were taken most seriously by king ‘abd al-‘azêz, putting him as much on the defensive as the offensive. no sooner had the egyptian reports reached the king than he contacted the egyptian prime minister asking him to stop the uncalled-for media witch hunt and indignation. indeed, there was so much at stake for the ambitious new state and its leadership, such as national pride, reputation, religious sentiments at home and abroad, and a good rapport with fellow muslims and their governments. as though partially giving credence to the circulating reports and somewhat admitting responsibility for their substance, king ‘abd al-‘azêz pledged to rebuild and enlarge the mosque. not only that; he decided to do so with his own money.11 he said that it was his duty to sustain in the best possible shape and condition the mosque, ensuring thereby the safety, security, wellbeing, services and comfort of its pilgrims and visitors, in their capacity as the guests of the most compassionate (ìëyuf al-raímén), as well as of the madinah citizens. he even went international by writing a letter to the entire muslim community (ummah islamiyyah) about his expansion plans and the raison d’etre for it.12 the resonating message was that as the servant of the holy mosque of the prophet ( ), king ‘abd al-‘azêz was simultaneously at the service of islam and all muslims and their religious interests. on top of all this there were the perennial issues of steady increase of pilgrims and visitors and their overcrowding inside the mosque, which also called for an expansion. after a couple of years of consultations and preparations, involving especially the egyptian and pakistani built environment and civil engineering hamdard islamicus 234 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 experts, the work started in 1370 a.h./1951 c.e. as with every other earlier expansion, the buildings surrounding the mosque, which stood in the way of the projected expansion, were first demolished and their owners duly compensated. in the following year, the foundation stone was laid. a year later, the foundation trenches were excavated at the western side of the mosque, near the gate or béb al-raímah where, according to a report presented by the egyptian engineers, moisture and humidity caused considerable damage to the wall. work continued for two and a half years, leading to the completion of the new extension. the mosque reopened in 1375 a.h./1955 c.e. during the reign of king sa‘ëd.13 for the work, a special office, or bureau (maktab), was created for the purposes of administering, monitoring and supervising all the matters as pertained to administration, management, finance, engineering and construction. the office had more than fifty officers, including president and several directors and managers covering a number of its sections. under the technical section, there were 14 engineers, 400 technicians and 1,600 workers. a special workshop, or plant (maîna‘), was also set up in the area called abar ‘ali on the outskirts of madinah, about 80 km from the mosque. the workshop existed for making bricks, stones and other necessary building materials. it had a number of engineers and other built environment experts, as well as 400 ordinary workers. in addition, imported building materials carried by more than 30 ships via the port of yanbë‘, a major red sea port in the madinah province, were provided. in total, there were more than 30,000 tons of materials thus imported.14 the new building works were characterized by reinforced concrete construction with columns supporting pointed arches. the ceiling was divided into square sections, similar to the wooden ceiling panels, which were decorated with different patterns. that way, the ceiling itself resembled a huge pattern that subtly integrated itself with the rest of the structure’s decorative patterns and elements featuring different sizes and shapes. the columns had capitals made out of engraved and pierced yellow brass, the bases of which were covered in dark marble. the column shafts were dressed in white marble and were painted white, a significant departure from an aspect of the individuality of the existing ottoman architecture in the mosque according to which the red color hamdard islamicus 235 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 was dominant, with column capitals of carved red stone and the bases of the columns covered in rings of brass. the ottoman columns were later also repainted white, so as to create a sense of connectivity and harmony inside the building. the depth of the foundations for the walls and columns was five,15 or seven and a half, meters, as per mubérakpëri.16 the mosque hitherto had five minarets. as part of the latest expansion, three of them: the majêdiyyah at the north-western corner, the suleyméniyyah at north-eastern, and the one near the béb al-raímah (the doorway of mercy) on the western side – all of which were in distinctive ottoman architectural style – were pulled down. in their place, two new minarets were constructed in a style similar to the new building, which could be best described as mamlëk revival style that served as an evidence of the continuous egyptian involvement along with their influences on the expansion mission. the two new minarets stood at the north-western and north-eastern corners at a height of 70 meters each. their foundations were 17 meters deep.17 each minaret was designed in four transversal sections or segments. the first was square topped by a square gallery, the second was octagonal topped by an octagonal gallery, and the third section or segment was round and was topped by a round gallery. the first square section of each minaret rose slightly above the level of the main building.“the first three sections were equal in height while the fourth was higher and topped by what appears to be a fifth segment of a ribbed polygonal shape ending with a ribbed cone.”18 the mosque now had four minarets at four corners. no new minaret was erected near the béb al-raímah. for the expansion, all parts of the mosque, except the entire southern roofed sector that included the original mosque of the prophet ( ), his tomb, his muîalla (praying place), the honourable rawìah, minbar (pulpit), notable historical pillars and some of the earliest expansions, were demolished. only some minor improvements and modifications were affected there, the most remarkable of which was building an additional western wall, and thus masking from outside the sector’s ottoman wall on that side. this job was unavoidable and was necessitated by some purely structural motives. hence, the rest of the mosque, which included the two courtyards with all of their western, eastern and northern arcades were completely destroyed, giving way to the new expansion project. hamdard islamicus 236 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 when completed, the whole mosque, comprising the new sa‘ëdi sectors along with the preserved southern ottoman qiblah side, was 16,327 square meters. of this total, 12,271 square meters were the areas – both old and new – affected by the sa‘ëdi expansion, and 4,056 square meters was the roofed southern ottoman area. in terms of the mosque’s overall size, the sa‘ëdi first expansion added 6,024 square meters to it. 70 million sa‘ëdi riyals were spent for the expansion.19 the expansion easily eclipsed all the similar efforts in history in terms of their magnitude, scale and expenditure. fig. 3 the mosque of the prophet ( ) seen from the southern qiblah side. the first two south-eastern and south-western minarets are part of the preserved southern ottoman area of the mosque, the next two belong to the first sa‘ëdi expansion, and the last and tallest pair of minarets belong to the second sa‘ëdi expansion. the mosque had five arcades at its rear, or the northern end, which run parallel to the qiblah. it also had three arcades at the western and eastern sides, running perpendicular to the qiblah. between the two hamdard islamicus 237 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 courtyards there was a wing that also had three arcades, running parallel to the qiblah like their northern counterparts. the width of each of these arcades was six meters. the floor was covered with marble. in all, the part of the mosque built by the sa‘ëdis had 232 round columns, 474 pilasters, two inner courtyards, 44 windows, 9 gates and 2 minarets. the length of the northern wall was 91 meters, and of the eastern and western walls, 128 meters.20 of the nine gates, the positions and names of five of them existed before and were retained because they were important historically and entailed important historical references. one of the gates whose location has been painstakingly observed and its name retained was the al-béb al-majêdê (the gate of majêd or abdulmecid) at the northern rear side, named after the ottoman sulïén who was the last to rebuild and expand the mosque before the sa‘ëdis. of the four new gates, two were named after king ‘abd al-‘azêz and king sa‘ëd on the eastern and western sides respectively, as the patrons and executors of the first sa‘ëdi expansion.21 what stands out perhaps most in connection with the first sa‘ëdi expansion was king ‘abd al-‘azêz’s wisdom, farsightedness and penchant for consultation and listening. as a result of such qualities, the entire honorable southern roofed sector that included the prophet’s original mosque, his tomb or burial chamber crowned by the magnificent green dome, his muîalla (praying place), rawìah, minbar, historical pillars and the traces of earlier expansions, was preserved and successfully integrated into the latest expansion plan. according to al-anîérê,22 it was a premeditated objective of the first sa‘ëdi expansion to impeccably integrate itself with the existing ottoman-style mosque, further enhancing it structurally and complementing as well as enriching it architecturally.23 had it not been for those qualities of the sa‘ëdi leadership, the most sensitive and, at the same time, most evocative, consequential and so, hallowed segment of the mosque would have been done away with as well. the king had to make some tough decisions after two egyptian expert committees had presented conflicting reports and recommendations. they had been commissioned to assess the architectural and functional state of the mosque, and come up with comprehensive reports and action plans. while one committee recommended the complete preservation hamdard islamicus 238 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and integration of the sanctified southern qiblah side of the mosque, the other committee, conversely, proposed that the area in question, except the prophet’s ( ) burial chamber, be destroyed and rebuilt like the rest of the mosque proper. the latter also proposed that the new design should increase the height of the structure by approximately ten meters, to 24 meters.24 finding it difficult to decide, and feeling the pressure of ordinary people, both locally and internationally, who wanted the most special segment of the mosque to remain intact, with the exception of some necessary restoration works to be accomplished on it, king ‘abd al-‘azêz sought yet another opinion, this time from a group of most competent pakistani building technology and engineering experts. following thorough studies, the latter decided in favor of preservation, rather than demolition, for the reason that the area of the mosque in question was structurally solid and was going to prove no impediment whatsoever to the planned expansion – to the delight of most people, including, certainly, the king himself. so earnest and genuine was the king about the matter that he from the very beginning engaged the services of only the best, and he did so by contacting and dealing with none other than the governments of both egypt and pakistan.25 this way, the king did not want to break away from the past. he knew that comprehending the present and successfully charting a future course depended on how the past is understood and dealt with. he knew that the southern sector of the mosque, in terms of its architecture, plan and decorative systems, denoted a historical reference and guide, thus serving to the people as an inspiration and motivation, as well as a source of enlightenment and spiritual guidance. it was more than just a structure, or an architectural space. the new mosque was a combination of old and new, seamlessly incorporated into one cohesive whole. most of the old sections were refurbished and enhanced in such a way as to make it difficult sometimes to pinpoint where they stopped and where the new ones started. one of the intended purposes and functions of the mosque – as advocated primarily by the ottomans – to be a kind of an exhibition, yet an open air museum, planned both to educate and inspire the people, was duly retained with a modern touch concerning the general development style plus the provision of facilities, services and products. hamdard islamicus 239 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the new expansion was meant to enrich the already invaluable legacy of the mosque. such was projected to be done artistically and architecturally and at both conceptual and physical planes. the presence of a great many mamlëk, ottoman and now modern sa‘ëdi components inside the southern qiblah section of the mosque presented the story of the evolution of the identity of islamic architecture. furthermore, since architecture represents the level of the cultural and civilizational consciousness of a people, the legacy of the mosque likewise stood for a story of the growth of islamic culture and civilization. the southern part of the mosque, it goes without saying, was as much a mirror into the past as it was a springboard to the future. it was a treasure. it had an unparalleled intrinsic value for all parties. destroying it would certainly have led almost everybody to regret sooner or later. this is so because the preservation of historic buildings is a one-way road. once it is gone, there is no chance to restore or revive a historic building or site. and the people will never know what will be valued and why in the future. preservation teaches the people to respect others and ensure thereby that they and their legacies are respected by others. equally, preservation helps the people find their place in the matrix of things and ideas, just as it helps not only the past, but also the present, acquire their due recognition and place in the people. finally, amalgamating old with new, or modernity with tradition, was implemented in the first sa‘ëdi expansion, principally, owing to king ‘abd al-‘azêz’s undisputed personal piety and certain especially religious revivalist tendencies.26 the decision, in turn, went a long way in propelling the new kingdom as a country with a vision that transcended its own cultural, historical and even ideological parameters, extending towards those of the whole muslim community. regardless of how some people might have interpreted those decisions of the formative sa‘ëdi leadership, they, nonetheless, enhanced significantly thereby their standing in the eyes of other muslims. had they destroyed and then rebuilt according to some novel means and designs the most honorable qiblah section of the mosque, they would have generated more questions than answers. the message aired to the world would have been that the sa‘ëdis were hijacking and privatizing the mosque of the prophet ( ). their civilizational mission would have appeared as though pure hamdard islamicus 240 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 sa‘ëdi rather than ummatic, i.e., belonging to and concerning the whole muslim fraternity. in that, furthermore, the sa‘ëdi detractors and outright enemies would have found an infinite substance for endlessly condemning and criticizing the kingdom. in short, demolishing the most sensitive part of the mosque under whatever pretexts would have been suicidal for the sa‘ëdis. marketing themselves as the true custodians of the holy lands and their holy mosques would have never been successful thereafter. preserving the oldest section of the mosque with the prophet’s elaborate burial chamber, or tomb, and other historical civilizational vestiges there, also helped the sa‘ëdis to justify many of their other equally sensitive religious initiatives and programs, the most important of which, certainly, was the purification of the holy cities of makkah and madinah and their environs of the myriads of impious customs and religious innovations accrued over many centuries. the sa‘ëdis needed to present themselves to the world as the bona fide champions of genuine islamization and global islamic revivalism, rather than extremists and sheer dogmatists bent on pursuing their narrow radical and excessive religious as well as national agendas. and surely, expanding the mosque the way king ‘abd al-‘azêz did only played into their hands, giving them the edge over their critics. motives for the second epic expansion following the first expansion undertaken by king ‘abd al-‘azêz and completed by his son, king sa‘ëd, the next full-fledged expansion was undertaken by king fahd. in between, king fayîal and king khélid furnished the mosque with vast shaded spaces outside its western side, described by mubérakpëri27 as mere shelters. the time span between the two major expansions was only 29 years. the second expansion was the greatest and grandest of all. it was an epic undertaking, producing one of the most remarkable buildings in the muslim world, which became a source of pride to muslims. it was the largest continuously roofed building in the world.28 its total size, including the surrounding piazzas, was more than 12 times the size of the first sa‘ëdi expansion. its capacity was to accommodate in excess of one million worshippers. hamdard islamicus 241 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 various reasons could be given for conceiving and embarking on such a mammoth project by king fahd. the following two are most striking: unprecedented crowding and the issue of boosting an islamic image. unprecedented crowding the first and most often cited reason for any expansion of the mosque of the prophet ( ) is increase in the number of pilgrims and visitors, leading to serious overcrowding, which, in turn, leads to the wellbeing of pilgrims being proportionately affected. this was the case especially with regard to the second sa‘ëdi expansion due to the following. the emergence of the modern kingdom of sa‘ëdi arabia coincided with the conceptual and actual cultural ascendancy of the phenomena of globalization and modernization. such phenomena, as a consequence, set in motion global movement of people, goods, ideas, values and systems. moreover, popularization of air travel, which dramatically changed the world and many people’s lives in more than one way – such as relating to increase in the speed of travel, aiding international businesses and tourism, and making the world more connected and globalized: economically, politically, socially and culturally – and which was closely connected to rising global prosperity, falling travel costs relative to people’s wages, and lower overall business and travel risk, contributed as significantly to the escalating cross-border and cross-continental movement of people. the airplane, thus, is sometimes regarded as the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. on the word of bill gates, former ceo of microcosm, the airplane became the first world wide web, bringing people, languages, ideas and values together.29 sa‘ëdi arabia in its capacity as a leading world oil producer, generating an enormous wealth for the country, and increasing manifold the standard of living of most sa‘ëdis, as well as in its capacity as the home of two of islam’s holiest sanctuaries, enhanced roughly from the middle of the 20th century its global stature not only in the eyes of muslims, but also among non-muslims as well. as the site of the ×ajj, or the muslim annual pilgrimage, which constitutes a fundamental pillar of islam, sa‘ëdi arabia, too, was one of the countries that had been hamdard islamicus 242 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 most seriously affected by the global developments. according to baz lecocq,30 over the last years, in average, 2.1 million people per year performed the ×ajj. these millions stand in contrast to the numbers visiting makkah half a century ago. on average, until 1946 rough by 60,000 pilgrims visited makkah annually, with at least half of these coming from the arabian peninsula. today sa‘ëdi nationals make up about a quarter of all pilgrims. based on another statistics, approximately during the past 60 years, the number of pilgrims increased about 26 times. in 1364 a.h./1944 c.e., only 37,630 pilgrims from outside sa‘udi arabia performed the hajj. but in 1414 a.h./1993 c.e., as many as 995,611 did so. the figure is expected to rise up to 4 million pilgrims in decades to come.31 the explanations for the staggering nearly thirtyfold increase in total pilgrims, and the even more spectacular growth of the number of foreign pilgrims in slightly more than half a century, are quite simple. first of all, the increasing world population in general led to larger numbers of pilgrims. second, the journey became safer and better organized during the 20th century. in those parts of the muslim world where it was not already (the ottoman empire), the organization of the ×ajj became a state affair, organized first by the colonial authorities, and by the postcolonial states afterwards. third, improving global economy, and despite growing disparities in the distribution of global economic wealth, an increasing number of muslims could afford to pay for the journey. fourth, the availability of cheap mechanical mass transport increased over this period of time. finally, muslim independence from colonialism, and more freedom for muslim minorities, especially those that lived under the communist yoke, played likewise a big role.32 the growth of ×ajj since approximately 1369 a.h./1949 c.e. has shown an increase of pilgrims by 100% for every decade. dramatic increases in pilgrims put severe strains on the cities of makkah and madinah, which had remained little changed for decades. at ×ajj-time, roads became impossibly congested, water scarce and pilgrim accommodation overcrowded.33 the only solution was a spontaneously comprehensive and hugely expensive program of expansion and renovation of the two holy cities’ infrastructure and ×ajj facilities, which began in the second half of the 20th century and still continues. as a matter of fact, ever since the kingdom was officially established, the sa‘ëdi inclusive hamdard islamicus 243 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 renovation and expansion programs were set in motion and never ceased. with brief hiatuses, the mission only moved from one level of intensity and volume to another, reaching a sort of a climax in the current stage. in order to tackle somehow the issue of unprecedented and endlessly increasing crowding in the mosque, especially during the holy month of ramaìén and during the ×ajj season, king fayîal and king khélid created the shaded spaces outside the mosque’s western side. the spaces were so vast that they were about three to four times the size of the total first sa‘ëdi expansion. the place, however, was neither pretty nor adequately functional. it provided the pilgrims and visitors with little comfort and relief, particularly in summer and winter when the people needed added protection against the elements. it also lacked some basic facilities, whereas the others were either insufficient or were not up-todate. in peak season, many people had to pray on streets and in other adjacent open spaces, risking thereby their safety and health, let alone their comfort and general well-being. to all intents and purposes, the place was a sign of desperation and the over whelmingness of the situation, and was calling for a brave and avant-garde initiative. the initiative, coupled with concrete plan of action, had to be like no other in history. it had to be commensurate with the predicaments the mosque and the city of madinah were facing. not only that; it had to be revolutionary and long-term. that is to say, it had to be so immense, functional, serviceable and ultramodern that no new expansion will be sensibly needed in a foreseeable future. unquestionably, the issue of unprecedentedly swelling overcrowding in the mosque of the prophet ( ) waited to be tackled head-on and fittingly resolved once and for all. no sooner had fahd bin ‘abd al-‘azêz ascended to the throne on the death of his half-brother king khélid in 21 sha‘bén 1402 a.h./ 13 june 1982 c.e., than he started preoccupying himself with the prospect of solving the perennial dilemma of the mosque of the prophet ( ). he was of the view that the existing facilities and conditions were neither sufficient nor conducive to the best fulfillment of the intrinsic purpose and function of the mosque and the city of madinah. in their capacity as the guests of the most compassionate (ìëyuf al-raímén), the pilgrims and visitors deserved more, even if they did not ask, and the sa‘ëdis, hamdard islamicus 244 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 both as government and ordinary citizens, were duty-bound to do their level best to make their stay in the kingdom as comfortable, safe, beneficial and memorable as possible.34 hence, when he visited madinah in the month of muíarram 1403 a.h./october 1982 c.e. – only four months after his enthronement – king fahd decided to embark on an unmatched expansion of the mosque, so as to finally solve all the outstanding crowding related problems. in addition, he chose to do so in style and make the mosque of the prophet ( ) the biggest and most beautiful mosque in the whole world, employing the latest and most sophisticated building technology and engineering advancements. the expansion was devised to represent a harmonious blend between old and new, and between tradition and modernity, in islamic architecture, using the existing ottoman part of the mosque and the first sa‘ëdi expansion as a blueprint and a platform for moving forward. the three: the ottoman section, the first sa‘ëdi expansion and the new impending one, were set to flawlessly combine and make up an aggregate that, even though so dynamic, modern and forward-looking, would remain faithful to the permanent islamic teachings and values in general, and to those associated with the mosque institution in particular.35 although there were physical demarcations that were relatively faintly delineating each of the three historical dimensions of the mosque, conceptual and spiritual distinguishing benchmarks did not exist. in this manner, when completed, the mosque was both modern and traditional. it was modern and progressive in terms of its form, structural performance and engineering means and methods, but traditional and conventional in terms of its embedded meaning, function and substance. in other words, the mosque oozed the aura of authentic islamic architecture. it epitomized one of a few exemplars of contemporary islamic architecture. as such, the mosque was also meant to serve as a catalyst for a total urban transformation and development of the city of madinah. that made perfect sense in that the same pilgrims and visitors needed a host of other exemplary facilities and services during their brief but hectic stay in the city, such as roads, transportation, accommodation, provisions, shops and healthcare. the city urbanization programs, therefore, were required to be as comprehensive, visionary and long-term as those hamdard islamicus 245 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 of the mosque. that made perfect sense, furthermore, because since its inception during the prophet’s era, the mosque was envisioned as a community development center, positioned at the heart of the city’s life and fabric, and influencing, guiding, besides dictating the fate of the latter. while deciding to make the mosque of the prophet ( ) the driving force in madinah’s future urban growth, king fahd clearly made it go full circle. boosting an islamic image during king khélid’s seven years in charge of the country, sa‘ëdi arabia became one of the richest nations in the world. by 1401 a.h./ 1981 c.e., khélid’s last full year as monarch, the kingdom’s income soared to usd 300 million a day. there was enough money for everything: palaces for the royal family; free schools and medical care for the people; and new highways, seaports, refineries and power plants for the country’s economy.36 the sa‘ëdis generally regarded their oil wealth as god’s reward to them as recognition of their piety.37 towards the end of king khélid’s reign, a few dramatic events on both local and international scenes took place. they significantly affected in many ways the kingdom’s affairs, and their profound impacts were still resonating across the country following king fahd’s ascension to the throne. those events were the seizure of al-masjêd al-×aram in makkah in 1400 a.h./1979 c.e. by a group of sa‘ëdi conservative rebels claiming that a political and religious revolution in the country had begun. the uprising ended in bloodshed. this event triggered significant protests by the shi‘ah in the city of qatif in the oil-rich eastern province as well. the protests that quickly morphed into widespread rioting spread to other towns and lasted three days, resulting in 17 people being killed, hundreds wounded, and several oil installations being sabotaged.38 the latter series of incidents looked yet more ominous when juxtaposed against the backdrop of the rise of khomeini and the subsequent iranian revolution in 1400 a.h./1979 c.e. the revolution was followed by iran-iraq war (1401-1409 a.h./1980-1988 c.e.) in which the sa‘ëdis openly and generously supported iraq. moreover, the beginning of king fahd’s rule coincided with the beginning of the end of the oil boom which hamdard islamicus 246 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 translated itself into the sharp fall in price, production and revenues. for example, the kingdom’s oil revenues plunged from usd 116 billion in 1402 a.h./1981 c.e. to just usd 17 billion in 1407 a.h./1986 c.e.39 the first set of events had one thing in common. all of the rebels in al-masjid al-×aram in makkah, the local shê‘ah population and the shê‘ah of iran spearheaded by their new charismatic leader, khomeini, accused the sa‘ëdi leadership of being corrupt, impious and materialistic. the leader of the nearly 300 rebels in the holy mosque in makkah, juhayman bin muíammad al-utaibi, while urging the people to join him and his revolution, denounced the sa‘ëdi royal family as un-islamic and said that power should be based on one’s devotion to islam alone. he described them as fraudulent, worshipping money and spending it on palaces rather than on mosques and other religious establishments.40 “he called for the sa‘ëdi princes to give a full accounting of their wealth and demanded that they break their diplomatic, military and educational ties to non-muslim countries.” he also demanded that the sa‘ëdi government stop selling oil to the west and stop investing money abroad.41 khomeini, too, made repeated television and radio broadcasts that attacked the house of sa‘ëd as “pleasure-seeking mercenaries” unworthy of ruling the holy cities of makkah and madinah and their holy mosques. at one point he asked: “how long must satan rule in the house of god?”42 accordingly, in the early eighties the kingdom of sa‘ëdi arabia was approaching something of the crossroads. hence, when king fahd took the reins of power, he had to adapt some of his major governmental programs and policies to the tune of the prevailing local and international socio-political and religious circumstances. even his image he had to adjust considerably, not due to principle, but due to political exigency. fahd had long held a reputation for being one of the sa‘ëdi liberals, and he was the chief architect of the kingdom’s modernization programs. his rise to power raised the hopes of sa‘ëdi progressives that longpromised political reforms would be enacted. however, those hopes were dashed shortly after fahd’s enthronement, as the strict implementation of the islamic laws and traditions continued unabated. worse was the fact that fahd’s succession coincided with the first inklings of the bursting of the country’s petrodollar bubble. it became a popular belief that since oil hamdard islamicus 247 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 wealth was bestowed by god due to the sa‘ëdi people’s piety, its dwindling was on account of god expressing his displeasure over the sa‘ëdis’ gradual drift from islam into materialism and westernism.43 reversing the trend, it follows, was the only avenue to reversing the country’s fortunes. in such an atmosphere, hopes that fahd could oversee liberal reforms quickly evaporated. instead – and true to many people’s expectations – he resorted to shoring up his islamic credentials and building a reputation of a wise, caring and moderate leader steeped in the spirit of the islamic message, so as to fend off the growing criticism at home and abroad targeting his policies and personal life.44 he might have been frustrated at first with the ‘ulamé (religious leadership), but he needed them onboard if he wanted to succeed in circumventing potential controversies and scandals – especially in the latter stages of his life – and in modelling himself as a true leader championing in equal measure the interests of islam, his people and all muslims. the strategy worked to a great extent and both history and public opinion were generally kind to king fahd, either singing praises to him or regarding him neutrally without taking any sides. as one of a few tentative reformist measures of king fahd, while addressing a meeting of scholars from the organization of islamic conference (oic) just a couple of weeks after his ascension, he called for the scholars to give up their monopoly on interpreting what is right and wrong in society. he also suggested a refurbishment of the practice of consultation or ijtihéd (independent reasoning) between scholars and believers that would reconcile the sharê‘ah with modern life. observers are of the view that the gist of his message was unpalatable to the ‘ulamé, who quickly distanced themselves. that might have caused the king to recoil and never mention the subject again.45 he might yet have regretted the content of his address, working thereafter on bolstering his religious reputation and commitments with the aim of offsetting the untoward repercussions his speech had earlier generated. this outlook of king fahd is epitomized by the following words of his: “the aims of kingdom of sa‘ëdi arabia are to strengthen god’s sharê‘ah and to stick to all its aspects of life, using all the natural resources which god gifted us, exert great efforts so as to achieve comprehensive development and to raise the citizens’ standards of living hamdard islamicus 248 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 so that they could live in peace and prosperity. moreover, god has enabled these countries to achieve so many things and we will achieve more and more due to god’s will and strength as well as the cooperation of citizens seeking to achieve such aims.”46 as part of the boosting of his and his government’s islamic image, king fahd undertook the most ambitious expansion of the mosque of the prophet ( ) (he also expanded as extensively al-masjid al-×aram in makkah, and restored al-masjid al-aqîé and the dome of the rock in jerusalem). despite the lean years of his tenure, often called the age of austerity,47 he spared no expense in carrying the epic expansion through. eventually, the cost of the expansion of the mosque of the prophet ( ) swelled to whopping 30 billion sa‘udi riyals. king fahd once said to the effect that investing in the expansion of the holy mosques meant investing in the country’s future. the noble mission will return ample goodness (khayr) and blessings (barakah) to the country and its people.48 in order to immortalize his association with the two holy mosques and his contributions towards their total transformation and painstaking upkeep, setting in the process some new standards for further popularization of the sa‘ëdi monarchy and legitimization of its undertakings, king fahd adopted the honorable title of khédim al-×aramayn (custodian, protector or servant, of the two holy sanctuaries or mosques). he was the first sa‘ëdi ruler to do so, thus reviving a tradition that dates back to legendary øaléhuddên al-ayyëbi (saladin) (d. 589 a.h./ 1193 c.e.) – according to some, even earlier – and which was widely articulated thereafter by some mamlëk and ottoman sulïéns as well.49 to ×émid ‘abbés,50 king fahd’s adoption of the title in question was an official declaration and endorsement of what was transpiring all along in the kingdom since its establishment. it was an overdue formal proclamation of the obvious. historically, the khédim al-×aramayn designation was oscillating from being merely honorable and hereditary, to being expressive and indicative of tributes for outstanding services rendered to the two holy cities and their holy mosques, and by extension, to islam and muslims at large. it appears as though the reason behind king fahd’s use of the title was a combination of both. after king fahd, king ‘abdullah (d. 1436 a.h./2015 c.e.) and the incumbent king salmén both followed suit and adopted the same honorable title. hamdard islamicus 249 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 proud of his royal family’s role in making the pilgrimages to makkah and madinah easier, more comfortable, cheaper and safer for muslims around the world, king fahd announced on 23 øafar 1407 a.h./ 27 october 1986 c.e. that he wanted a new and more humble title. he is reported to have said: “i want to replace ‘his majesty’ by something i adore and am honored to carry, and that is ‘khédim al-×aramayn.’” the title indicated the king’s belief and total care for the holy mosques. similarly, it implied all the aspirations in his mind and conscience, i.e., return to god, islam, sharê‘ah and serving the two mosques. that was considered at once an honor and responsibility.51 when once some sceptics questioned the timing and feasibility of such massive expansion projects under the existing challenging economic conditions, king fahd self-assuredly replied that he did not worry at all, for he knew that because the projects were intended to be undertaken most sincerely for the sake of god and for the benefit of the entire muslim community, god and his divine providence will guide him to the best of ways. the successful completion of the mosque expansion in record time – sceptics were arguing that between 20 and 30 difficult and taxing years were needed – plus what persisted of the country’s financial sustainability, a subsequent new oil boom and a new favorable business climate, were perceived as a heavenly reward for the heroic completion of the expansions (not only of the mosque of the prophet ( ), but also al-masjid al-×arém). the boons were seen as the return on the earlier investments, vindicating the courage of the king and his government.52 regarding the expansion assignment as a duty towards islam and all muslims, king fahd contacted mainly during a planning stage the muslim governments, in addition to some other relevant international consultative bodies, informing them of his government’s intentions, and seeking constructive advices and suggestions as to how best it should go about doing it.53 given that the mosque belonged to all muslims, it stands to reason that the king felt that they all should be duly informed and kept in the know about the development plans, and that their governments and other relevant agencies yet be allowed to express opinions and put forward suggestions pertaining to the nature and implementation of the whole thing. from the outset, king fahd took the mosque expansion to heart. he formed a ministerial committee which was headed by himself to supervise the expansion project. in order to ensure continuous progress hamdard islamicus 250 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 without even slightest delays and distractions, he appointed the emir, or the governor, of madinah province as his deputy. another executive committee was also formed, and was directed by the latter as well. the king made it a point to make site visits to the mosque project at least once a year to personally inspect the progress and quality of the work. his leadership as well as supervisory involvements from the project’s conception to its completion were both remarkable and painstaking. he meticulously and to the minutest details studied every architectural, artistic, engineering and operational idea, proposal, plan and design concerning virtually every aspect of the mosque’s development, making countless constructive remarks and suggestions in the process. for example, it was him who chose building materials for the mosque’s floor and walls. also, when his designers and engineers proposed that only one level be designated for parking with a capacity of 2,000 vehicles, the king objected on the grounds that it was insufficient. he then ordered that two levels with a double parking capacity be built instead.54 assessing the originality of the architecture of king fahd’s expansion following the second expansion, the mosque of the prophet ( ), including its external open spaces, or piazzas, which were designated as additional praying areas, could accommodate in excess of one million worshippers. it was a massive undertaking, resulting in the mosque becoming the biggest and architecturally most outstanding in the world. to some, the expansion represented “the realization of one of the most unique architectural feats in the world.”55 the entire mosque area, together with the piazzas, became 400,500 square meters. it encompassed the core of the city of madinah as it was during the prophet’s ( ) time. the mosque had three levels: a basement, ground-floor level and roof terrace. the latter is used as an additional praying space whenever required. since all the services for the building were relegated to the basement area, the space of the ground-floor level was completely freed to be used by pilgrims and visitors for worship purposes. this created panoramic views of the interior of the main praying floor without any visual barriers or interruptions between the arcades, axes and dividing walls. hamdard islamicus 251 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the height of the ground floor is 13 meters. the height of the basement, however, is only 4 meters, raised above the 20 meter deep foundations. the basement takes up an area identical to the ground floor. italian white carrara marble covers the floors of the main prayer hall at the ground-floor level. its cold feel is always a welcome cooling effect especially during the long hot summer months. at the roof level, floors are covered in white thassos marble which reflects heat, providing also a cool floor space. at the basement level, the floors are covered in ceramic tiles, governed by the functional requirements of that area.56 the plan of the expansion was rectangular. it featured a system that was formed by the repetition of units similar in form and dimension, which enclosed 27 courtyards adorned with sliding domes. the units are connected with a forest of columns and arches, forming numerous arcades some of which run parallel, and others perpendicular, to the qiblah side. the ceiling is based on a dimensional unit of either 6 × 6 meters or 18 × 18 meters, and is supported by a set of regular load-bearing columns at 18 meters intervals.57 the plan thus appeared as though a macro-arabesque, so to speak, consisting of endlessly intertwined flowing lines, axes, shapes and patterns. it followed a logic of geometry, the knowing and following of which prove invaluable if one wanted to aptly discover, appreciate and interact with the mosque. due to a forest of columns and arches that alternated white and bluish-grey voussoirs, the mosque often reminds of the interior of the great mosque of cordoba in spain where a forest of columns and arches, alternating red and white voussoirs, was famously featured. the second expansion incorporated 2,104 columns. all columns are covered with italian white carrara marble. the capitals have an octagonal base. they are made out of fine polished brass, engraved and carved in a floral geometric motif which is repeated on each of the four faces. above each capital is a rectangular frieze cast with three eight-pointed stars in artificial stone. the frieze surrounds each capital on four sides, with another artificial stone frieze worked in pyramid shapes running above it. four arches spring from each column (with the exception of the courtyard arcade in which there are three), to form the arcade spaces and the structure of the ceiling. the arches are covered in artificial granite in alternating bands of bluish-grey and white on the interior soffits, hamdard islamicus 252 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and embellished with decorative floral motifs at the top side corners of the outer arches as they meet the ceiling.58 a unique feature of the expansion project was the development of 27 main internal courtyards, each courtyard being capped by a state-ofthe-art sliding dome, which can be rapidly opened or closed according to the weather and can be used in unison or separately as required. elaborately carved stone friezes decorate the domes, and the courtyards have been paved in decorative geometrically patterned marble tiles. these mobile courtyard domes perform an effective environmental and climate-modifying function, contributing to the sustainable integrity of the mosque. they counteract the extreme seasonal changes in climate and control as well as support the air-conditioned environment of the building. “in summer, as the sun rises in the morning, the domes move silently over the courtyards, sealing the openings perfectly and thus providing shade and supporting the air-conditioning system. in the evening, the domes slide back, warm air radiating to the cold night sky. in winter this process is reversed, so that heat can be absorbed from the sun during the day and radiation prevented at night when the courtyards are covered. in addition, the white background of these domes had the added benefit of reflecting sunlight, thereby lowering the overall temperature of the structure.”59 it is notable that the design of the domes had to be considerate towards both the architectural proclivity of the new expansion and the mosque’s oldest and most revered section. the form of a shallow pendentive segmented dome was thus designed to complement the original majestic green dome above the prophet’s burial chamber, or tomb, with neither conceptually, nor visually, nor aesthetically challenging its pre-eminence, or integrity, within the mosque. furthermore, “the uniformity in the design of the domes, with their white exteriors interlaced with blue, was preconceived as creating a serene relationship with the sky, while reflecting upon the intrinsic values in the geometric designs which embellish the interior sphere of each dome.”60 the project also included six additional minarets, each one being 105-meter tall and crowned with a four ton gold-plated crescent. each minaret has a foundation 40 meters deep. the mosque now has 10 minarets in total. the development of the surrounding open areas and the seven newly constructed entrances ensured the smooth passage of hamdard islamicus 253 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 pilgrims into the mosque. an extension to the roof area for praying purposes has also been added, whilst also allowing for the possibility of adding another floor to accommodate worshippers in the future, boosting thereby the building’s sustainability prospect. in order to facilitate the movement of people across different levels, the building extension has also been fitted out with 18 staircases and 12 escalators placed at the most strategic places near the main entrances. the mosque became fully air-conditioned. the comfort of worshippers has been further enhanced by the unique and ingeniously conceived shading system. twelve enormous mechanically operated teflon umbrellas, six in each of the two open courtyards, have been deployed to protect pilgrims and help them withstand the high temperatures. their height – 14 meters when opened – corresponds exactly with the height of the eaves of the mosque and in this position they perfectly fit the proportions of the two courtyards. the umbrellas are programmed to open and close according to climate conditions. the process takes less than 90 seconds, drastically influencing the internal conditions of the building and reducing energy consumption.61 later during the time of king ‘abdullah, 250 similar umbrellas were installed in the mosque’s surrounding piazzas (thus totaling the figure to 262). the mosque project also included provision of extensive car parking facilities. a labyrinth of service tunnels, drainage systems and supply networks also now crisscrosses the area. in fact, the magnitude of support services made it necessary to construct a vast basement complex in which to accommodate the service equipment and wiring needs, as well as various other maintenance works. the reconstructed main gate leading into the mosque site, the new king fahd entrance, is situated on the northern side, and is topped with a profusion of domes and minarets on both sides. the exquisite decorations and architectural touches here and elsewhere are in complete harmony with earlier building work on the site, and they feature wonderfully crafted golden grilles, cornices, pillars, brass doors and marble works, as well as special ornately carved pigeon holes for the copies of the holy qur’an. the decorative systems of the mosque are admirable. they feature extensive calligraphy, geometry and floral patterns, often interwoven into intricate arabesques. the effects of these are further augmented by ingenious use and manipulation of rich and bright colors and abundant hamdard islamicus 254 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 light. as a result, the expansive prayer hall seems all the more magnified and outspread by its clever organization of arcades and repeated geometry. a view from one end of the mosque into any of the prayer arcades, displaying the seemingly endless progression of arches, generates a feeling of an infinite craving and a constant spiritual movement towards a higher order of ontological realities and experiences. the building thus accentuates the effects of its shape and volume, ensuring a strong chromatic impression as well. the decorative conceptualization that emphasized the repetition of the myriads of geometric units, often led to the creation of bigger and more complex patterns as a result of repetitions and unfolding. this regeneration, based on geometric principles, is what causes the ideas of proportion and harmony to be reflected and intuitively felt in the spaces. befitting its religious and historical significance, the building has much to offer to the body, mind and soul. the completeness of its structural, aesthetic and functional performances necessitates the completeness of experiences in its users. the building’s decorative styles engender a mixture of feelings of peace, tranquility, devotion, enthusiasm, elation and curiosity. it as much soothes and relaxes as it inspires and educates. for instance, while some decorative elements are used for demarcating the prayer bays running between the bases of the columns, others are used for demarcating certain structural components and entire units and their harmonious relationship with other components and units, and yet others are used for determining the positions and points of openings, arches, heights and both the vertical and horizontal lines with curvatures.62 the plan, design and decorative schemes of the mosque intimate that it was never meant to impose itself on its existential surroundings. nor did it intend to conquer, as it were, space, though its foremost objective was to carve out and enclose some of it. rather, the mosque was meant to be in complete harmony as much with its physical as with metaphysical truths and realities. the concern was how the end result will stand out when juxtaposed with the existing universal setting, a result of heavenly will and artistry, in terms of both the outward appearance and total function of the mosque: will it complement, or contrast with it; will it go well with it, or will it appear as if something of a misfit, an oddity, or even offensiveness? a perceptive observer easily gets a feeling that, as a corollary of hamdard islamicus 255 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 such an attitude, the space carved out for the mosque has been approached with reverence, not arrogance, as it is god’s physical realm where people are to live and operate as mere servants. it has been furthermore cut off in humility and with ease, harboring neither might, nor self-assertion, nor defiance. this is an important at once spiritual and intellectual lesson to be duly communicated to the people not only in relation to the mosque of the prophet ( ), but also in relation to the whole sphere of islamic architecture. besides, the ultimate objective of the mosque of the prophet ( ) – and indeed, of every other mosque – is to promote, inculcate and facilitate in a person peaceful and productive relationships with his creator and master, with fellow men and women, and with the rest of creation. accordingly, it is an islamic architectural precept that muslim architects, designers and structural engineers should strive to exhibit through their creativity and skills, anchored in the power of the islamic worldview, that the buildings designed by them interact with space, flowing into and becoming part of general space, instead of separating from it. buildings thus generally remain connected with outside space by means of the open inner courtyards, windows and other apertures. toward the same end, the edge of many muslim building is often crenulated, the skyline sometimes multiplied, and the vertical edges recessed or protruded with broken surfaces designed to lessen the impact of the cut-off in space.63 it goes without saying, therefore, that in islam, architecture – just like any other noble pursuit and craft taken up for the sake of pleasing god – is but a vehicle for aiding the accomplishment of the mission of islam, not a goal in itself. it is a form of worship, and those who practice it correctly will be rewarded correspondingly. the mosque of the prophet ( ) has further given prominence to this salient islamic architectural principle by rendering its surrounding spaces incorporated into the overall design scheme, forming from them open piazzas that essentially became transitional spaces between the surrounding town (space) and the mosque proper. these can be converted into additional prayer areas, should the need arise to accommodate a greater capacity than the interior of the mosque complex can hold, in particular during the pilgrimage season and the weekly friday jumu‘ah prayer. “the treatment of these spaces serves as an extension of the mosque complex, defining its exterior surroundings and ensuring a hamdard islamicus 256 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 coordinated link with the urban fabric. this can be seen in the squares which extend around the mosque and their link with the street network leading to the city and its urban matrix which encompasses administrative, commercial and residential buildings. the new mosque extension has been the heart and initiating force of the urban planning process.”64 the concept behind the new design was to achieve a harmonious integration between the existing historical areas and elements of the mosque, dating back to the mamlëkes, ottomans and the first sa‘ëdi expansion, and the new technologically advanced expansion, resulting in a balanced and organic entity. the protrusion of the oldest part of the mosque from the building’s main rectangle frame on the southern qiblah part signaled that the old architectural traditions of the mosque, along with the principles and values such traditions exemplified, connoted a basis of the building’s architectural legitimacy, and a point of reference for evaluating its overall operations and prospective future directions. therefore, to some, like badr,65 the plan of the mosque after the second sa‘udi expansion resembled somewhat a wide human upper body with broad shoulders. the protruding oldest ottoman part of the mosque brings to mind the idea of the head, and the first sa‘ëdi expansion lying under the former and very much inside the mosque proper, reminds one of all those vital organs that function in the chest directly beneath a person’s head and neck. without a doubt, the message that the allegory conveys is unmistaken insofar as the relationship between the old and new sections of the mosque are concerned. as a matter of fact, in terms of architectural design, plan and decorative style, king fahd’s expansion in many ways was inspired by and followed the first sa‘ëdi expansion. the latter, thus, was as much the former’s archetype, or antecedent, as its prelude, or overture. such a relationship was a proof of the mosque’s spontaneous and harmonious architectural growth, despite its immense size, instead of random and indiscriminate additions, or sprawls. moreover, the expansion was to concentrate on the amalgamation of the classical islamic architectural traditions, while at the same time accentuating the use of suitable building materials that distinguish the historical, alongside geographical, landscape of sa‘ëdi arabia, such as granite, marble and stone. the intention, additionally, was to simultaneously apply the latest advances in building technology and engineering through high-tech building designs, industrialized construction materials, production hamdard islamicus 257 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 as well as building methods and techniques. the pure vernacular styles of architecture in the arabian peninsula, employing mainly mud bricks, timber, earth plaster and stone rubble, were shunned, firstly, because, when it comes to durability, strength and visual appeal, they were inadequate for the sophisticated and ultramodern expansion, and, secondly, because they were essentially local in character and, as such, were not in a position to create a globally recognized and accepted brand of islamic architecture. architecturally, the expansion followed the mamlëke revival, or neomamlëke, style. it featured massive entry portals that easily remind one of massive êwéns in typical mamlëke four-êwén plans; façade recesses into which doors and windows are placed; colored glass and stucco grills for window openings and other smaller apertures; inlaid marble for surface decoration; intricate arabesque patterns with geometric and floral elements for decoration; calligraphy, particularly on horizontal bands that run across the façade of a building; stilted pointed arches with alternate white and bluish-grey voussoirs – a technique known as abléq in which the mamlëkes excelled; richly ornamented and embellished flat ceiling, clad in artificial stone, featuring carved floral and geometric patterns; and minarets that have different sections along the component parts of their shafts, resulting in an arrangement referred to as the three or four-tiered minarets. the one thing that the highly symmetrical mosque of the prophet ( ) did not adopt from the mamlëke architecture was the latter’s consistent asymmetry. in their overall composition, the mamlëke buildings, time and again, tended to emphasize the use of balance over symmetry. the alignment of the buildings with the different directions of the streets and the qiblah wall was emphasized. however, that was understandable in that the mamlëke society and architecture thrived, for the most part, in densely populated urban environments, such as cairo and damascus. frequent asymmetry in their buildings was not by design, but due to necessity. resorting to the mamlëke revival style was a reasonable course of action for the sa‘ëdis on account of the following two reasons. first, the last truly international islamic architectural style was that of the ottomans. however, the sa‘ëdis were not inclined to adopting it because of a considerable feeling of resentment many sa‘ëdis, thanks to the past political tensions and conflicts, harbored against the ottomans and their hamdard islamicus 258 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 heritage in the kingdom, as well as because of the comparative inappropriateness of the ottoman architectural style – whose main characteristic was the dominance of a central dome, often combined with a series of half-domes and small domes that cascaded from the former, which covers a significant part of the prayer hall – to thrive in a hot-arid, or desert, climate. in addition, although the ottoman mosque architecture struck a delicate balance between the internal and external spaces, it still could be regarded as introverted, or inward-looking, rather than extroverted, or outward-looking. whereas, such are the character, volume and scale of the mosque of the prophet ( ), plus the geographical and environmental setting wherein it had been planted, that the disposition of the ottoman mosque architecture would not have fully satisfied them. the latter parts of this reality even the ottoman sulïéns themselves had fully grasped. hence, they never contemplated the prospect of expanding and rebuilding the mosque of the prophet ( ) in an ottoman architectural style.66 second, the phenomenon of architectural revivalism has become popular globally since the 19th century. that was so in part as a romantic reaction to the impersonal and soulless nature of the industrial revolution. mass production of objects, including furniture and art, caused people to hark back to the “good old days”, firmly rooted in the prevailing trend of romanticism. while many people tried to re-discover themselves, no past style was safe from “updating” during the 19th century, especially in the united states. initially, classically inspired styles such as greek revival and roman revival were madly popular in the us because of the perception by americans that american democracy was based on the “democracies” of antiquity.67 as a consequence of these global trends, a number of islamic architectural revivalist trends in the muslim world also emerged. the mamlëke revival style played a significant role in the middle east because it represented in many ways a cumulative representation of most former islamic styles.68 as such, it was also most evocative of the fast-fading cultural and civilizational glory of muslims. it was still living on, both in the form of many functional masterpieces that were dotting the region, and in the minds and hearts of many people. it was most fluid and openended style, ever receptive to new ideas, refinements and enrichments. thus, for example, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the hamdard islamicus 259 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 20th century, the mamlëke revival style architecture was chosen for the majority of public buildings commissioned by the state in egypt. such was the case because of the increasing influences of europe and how the people responded to them, the wave of modernization in cairo, and, of course, because of certain religious motives.69 it was easiest for the sa‘ëdis, too, to relate to and accept the neomamlëke style while they were grappling with the phenomena of westernization, globalization and nation-building, trying at the same time to capitalize on the elements of populism and religion in their evolving political ideology. such a style was a combination of the familiar and the innovative, of the old and new.70 it was so flexible that it could endlessly incorporate into its orb as much of the elements of tradition as of the innovative and technological ideas and solutions of modernity. it could easily be described as islamic, yet modern, or modern, yet islamic, whichever appellation was making more sense and was more marketable to the people. no wonder that apart from the mosque of the prophet ( ), the sa‘ëdis embraced, partly or completely, the same neo-mamlëki style for many of their great many public buildings, including mosques. that was in equal measure a political, social and religious statement. it was a confirmation of the sa‘ëdi national development paradigm, and a part of the building of their own architectural identity. however, it also showed the extent to which egypt, from the beginning the epicenter of the mamlëke revival style, was still influencing the region, above all culturally and socially. conclusion there were two major sa‘ëdi expansions of the mosque of the prophet ( ), one by the first king ‘abd al-‘azêz and the other by the fifth king fahd. the first expansion took place during the formative years of the newly formed kingdom of sa‘ëdi arabia. it was thus regarded as a prelude to the second expansion, which is aptly described as epic and the grandest of all earlier expansions. its total area encompassed the entire core of the city of madinah as it was during the prophet’s era. at the end of each expansion, the mosque’s architecture was a combination of old and new, seamlessly incorporated into one hamdard islamicus 260 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 cohesive whole. following the second expansion, the three main dimensions of the mosque: the ottoman section, the first sa‘ëdi expansion and the latest one, were flawlessly integrated, making up an aggregate that, even though so dynamic, modern and forward-looking, remained faithful to the permanent islamic teachings and values, in general, and to those associated with the mosque institution, in particular. although there were physical demarcations that were relatively faintly delineating each of the three historical aspects of the mosque, conceptual and spiritual distinguishing benchmarks did not exist. both expansions, in principle, adopted the neo-mamlëke style in mosque architecture, which particularly at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century dominated especially in egypt the muslim leading architectural revivalist tendencies. this additionally demonstrated the extent to which egypt culturally and socially was still wielding influence over the kingdom. the mosque truly oozed the aura of authentic islamic architecture. it epitomized one of a few exemplars of contemporary islamic architecture. it is unheard of that anyone who visited the mosque had any serious complaints or unpleasant experiences relating to the building’s form, function, aesthetics, facilities and services, which is the strongest attestation to its architectural excellence. finally, the newly emerging local and global trends had a great many far-reaching implications for the form and function of the mosque. but the sa‘ëdi leadership appears to have quickly and fully come to terms both with the significance and magnitude of the subject matter. irrespective of what their inner spiritual motives might have been – and irrespective of what some people might say in favor of, or against, them – they were ready to pour their petrodollars amassed through exports of crude oil into the prospects of expanding and advancing the contours, function and services of the mosque and other correlated sites and their own infrastructure. they felt that they owed that, first of all, to the mosque itself, and to the entire muslim ummah (community). they witnessed the effects of the country’s vast wealth – which, when all is said and done, god had nothing but honored and greatly tested them with – amply manifesting themselves in all spheres of life, so, neither did they hesitate to bigheartedly sanction the same insofar as the mosque and its expected performances were concerned. such was always regarded as an act of servitude, philanthropy and remuneration, so to hamdard islamicus 261 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 speak, not only with respect to the pilgrims, but also to the mosque as an ideological concept and architectural reality. it must have appeared unfair to the sa‘ëdi leadership that the mosque should have been left lagging behind in mirroring god’s abundant boons and blessings, while all other sectors of society unselfishly did otherwise. they must have reasoned, furthermore, that such a scenario could even lead some people who harbored incorrect thoughts, or possessed weak faith, to disrespect the mosque and all the history, meanings and values it evocatively symbolized. without a doubt, nonetheless, to be in charge concerning any of the affairs of the holy city of madinah and its holy mosque denotes as much an individual glory and privilege as a communal and civilizational responsibility, the latter perhaps somewhat overshadowing the former owing to its infinitely diffused scope and ramifications. this principle that generally governed the evolution of the identities of the culture and civilization of muslims is derived from the following qur’énic words: “say: who has forbidden the beautiful (gifts) of allah which he has produced for his servants, and the things, clean and pure, (which he has provided) for sustenance? say: they are, in the life of this world, for those who believe, (and) purely for them on the day of judgment. thus do we explain the signs in detail for those who know” (al-a‘réf:32). god also says: “o you who have believed, do not prohibit the good things which allah has made lawful to you and do not transgress. indeed, allah does not like the transgressors. and eat of that which allah has provided for you (which is) lawful and good. and fear allah, in whom you are believers” (al-mé’idah:87-88). on this, prophet muíammad ( ) also said that when god bestows a gift on a servant of his, he loves to see the traces of that gift on him.71 notes and references 1. al-anîérê, néji muíammad,‘imérah wa tawsê‘ah al-masjid al-nabawê al-sharêf ‘abr al-térêkh, madinah, nédi al-madinah al-munawwarah al-‘adabi, 1996, pp. 165-197; al-jawéhirah, hénê, min al-masékên al-taqlêdiyyah ila natihat al-sihéb, al-‘imérah fi al-mamlakah al-‘arabiyyah al-sa‘ëdiyyah, al-ahsa, king faisal university, 2002, pp. 212-217. hamdard islamicus 262 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 02. al-raqêbah, abdullah, al-×araman al-sharêfan wa al-mashé’ir al-muqaddasah, riyadh, al-imam muhammad bin sa‘ëd islamic university, 2002, pp. 152157. 03. mubérakpëri, safêur raímén, history of al-madinah al-munawwarah, translated into english by nasiruddin al-khattab, riyadh, darussalam, 2002, pp. 78-82; isma’il, muhammad, the architecture of the prophet’s holy mosque, london, hazar, 1998, pp. 63-103; badr, ‘abd al-bésit, al-térêkh al-shémil li al-madinah al-munawwarah, madinah: npp, 1993, vol. iii, pp. 228234, 268. 04. niblock, tim, sa‘ëdi arabia: power, legitimacy and survival, london, routledge, 2006, pp. 31-39; al-khatib, ‘abd al-hamid, al-imém al-‘ódil, cairo, maktabah wa matba’ah mustafa al-babi al-halabi, n.d., vol. i, pp. 20-24. 05. al-kahténê, mohammad zaid, the foreign policy of king abdulazêz, leeds, university of leeds, phd thesis (unpublished), 2004, p. 5. 06. ibid. 07. weston, mark, prophets and princes, new jersey, john wiley & sons, 2008, p. 161. 08. badr, ‘abd al-bésit, al-térêkh al-shémil li al-madênah al-munawwarah, vol. iii, p. 228. 09. al-anîérê, p. 163. 10. ibid., p. 164. badr, ‘abd al-bésit, vol. iii, p. 228. 11. ibid., vol. iii, p. 229. 12. al-anîérê, p. 164. 13. ismé‘êl, muíammad, the architecture of the prophet’s holy mosque, p. 63; mubérakpërê, safêur raímén, history of al-madênah al-munawwarah, p. 79. 14. al-anîérê, op, cit., p. 183; abbés, hamid, qiîîah al-tawsê‘ah al-kubré, jeddah, majmu’ah bin laden al-sa’udiyyah, 1995, p. 258. 15. ismé‘êl, muíammad, p. 63; al-anîérê, p. 173. 16. mubérakpëri, safêur raímén, history of al-madênah al-munawwarah, p. 80. 17. ismé‘êl, p. 66. 18. al-anîérê, op. cit., p. 180. 19. ibid., p. 182. 20. al-raqêbah, abdullah, al-×araman al-sharêfan wa al-mashé’ir al-muqaddasah, p. 152. 21. ibid., p. 153. 22. al-anîérê, op. cit., p. 170. 23. ‘abbés, ×amêd, qiîîah al-tawsê‘ah al-kubré, p. 254. 24. badr, ‘abd al-bésit, vol. iii, p. 231. 25. ibid. 26. al-kilénê, kamal, abdulazêz al-sa‘ëd and contemporary islamic reform, n.np., n.pp., 2001, pp. 66-79. 27. mubérakpërê, p. 81. 28. al-anîérê, op. cit., p. 206. hamdard islamicus 263 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 29. knorzer, dietrich and szodruch, joachim, innovation for sustainable aviation in a global environment, proceedings of the sixth european aeronautics days, amsterdam, ios press bv, 2012, p. 16. 30. lecocq, baz, the ×ajj from west africa from a global historical perspective (19th and 20th centuries), inside “african diaspora”, vol. v, 2012, pp. 187214. 31. ‘abbés, ×amêd, p. 327. 32. ibid., lecocq, baz, the ×ajj from west africa from a global historical perspective (19th and 20th centuries), pp. 187 -214. 33. daham, ‘abd allah abd alraímén, the growth of the ×ajj: a decade of increasing pilgrims to makkah (1970-1979), claremont, claremont graduate university, phd thesis (unpublished), 1981, pp. 10-29. 34. al-anîérê, op. cit., p. 193; badr, ‘abd al-bésit, vol. iii, pp. 268-271. al-raqêbah, abdullah, p. 155. 35. órifin, syed aímad, architectural conservation in islam, case study of the prophet’s mosque, skudai, universiti teknologi malaysia, 2005, p. 133. 36. weston, mark, prophets and princes, p. 233. 37. wilson, peter and graham douglas, sa‘ëdi arabia, the coming storm, new york, m.e. sharpe, 1994, p. 60. 38. weston, mark, pp. 243-247. niblock, tim, sa‘ëdi arabia: power, legitimacy and survival, london, routledge, 2006, pp. 77-80. 39. weston, mark, p. 256. al-rasheed, madawi, a history of sa‘ëdi arabia, cambridge, cambridge university press, 2002, p. 149. 40. niblock, tim, sa‘ëdi arabia: power, legitimacy and survival, p. 79. 41. ibid., p. 77; weston, mark, p. 244. 42. miller, rory, desert kingdoms to global powers, new haven, yale university press, 2016, p. 51. 43. wilson, peter & graham douglas, sa‘ëdi arabia, the coming storm, p. 60. 44. ibid., p. 61; rashid, nasser and shaheen, esber, king fahd and sa‘ëdi arabia’s great evolution, joplin, international institute of technology, 1987, pp. 135137. 45. wilson, peter and graham douglas, p. 61. 46. development from weakness to greatness, riyadh, sa‘ëdi ministry of information, 1992, p. 4. 47. al-rasheed, madawi, a history of sa‘ëdi arabia, p. 150. 48. ‘abbés, ×amêd, qiîîah al-tawsê’ah al-kubra, p. 317. 49. bulliet, richard w., religion and the state in islam: from medieval caliphate to the muslim brotherhood, denver, university of denver, occasional paper series, paper no. 2., n.d., p. 8. 50. ‘abbés, ×amêd, p. 316. 51. development from weakness to greatness, p. 16. 52. ‘abbés, ×amvd, pp. 294, 316-317. 53. al-raqêbah, abdullah, al-×araman al-sharêfan wa al-mashé’ir al-muqaddasah, p. 155. hamdard islamicus 264 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 54. ‘abbés, ×amêd, p. 296; al-anîérê, néji muhammad, p. 195. 55. ismé‘êl, muíammad, the architecture of the prophet’s holy mosque, p. 314. 56. ibid., pp. 106-112, 249-255; ‘abbés, ×amid, pp. 344-348. 57. al-raqêbah, abdullah, pp. 156-161; badr, ‘abd al-bésit, vol. iii, pp. 276284. 58. ismé‘êl, muíammad, pp. 208, 214. 59. ibid., p. 183. 60. ibid., pp. 106, 184. 61. ibid., p. 170; ‘abbés, ×amid, pp. 344-348. 62. ismé‘êl, muíammad, p. 96. 63. al-féruqê, ismé‘êl, islam and architecture, inside: “fine arts in islamic civilization”, edited by m.a.j. beg, kuala lumpur, the university of malaya press, 1981, pp. 99-117. 64. ismé‘êl, muíammad, p. 103. 65. badr, ‘abd al-bésit, p. 269. 66. al-anîrê néji muíammad, p. 146. 67. cole, karl, revivalist architecture,www.curatorscorner.com/2010/02/revivalistarchitecture.html., 2010, accessed on august 19, 2017. 68. marei, laila, revival of mamluk architecture in the 19th & 20th centuries, cairo, the american university in cairo, phd thesis (unpublished), 2013, pp. 10-21. 69. idriss, nadania, architecture as an expression of identity: ‘abbés ×ilmi ii and the neo-mamlëk style, international conference on recent advances in geotechnical earthquake engineering and soil dynamics, scholarsmine.mst.edu/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2938&context=icrageesd, 2010, accessed on august 19, 2017; dizdar, gorcin,the neo-mamluk style in architecture, www.academia. edu/432897/the_neo-mamluk_style_in_architecture, 2010, accessed on august 19, 2017. 70. rizvi, kishwar, the transnational mosque, chapel hill, the university of north carolina press, 2015, p. 24. 71. al-jawziyyah, ibn qayyim, al-fawé’id, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1999, p. 204. bibliography ‘abbés, ×émêd. (1995). qiîîah al-tawsê‘ah al-kubré, jeddah, majmu’ah bin laden al-sa’udiyyah. al-anîérê, néji muíammad, (1996). ‘imérah wa tawsê‘ah al-masjid al-nabawi al-sharêf ‘abr al-térêkh, madinah, nadi al-madinah al-munawwarah al-‘adabi. órifin, syed aímad, (2005). architectural conservation in islam, case study of the prophet’s mosque, skudai, universiti teknologi malaysia. badr, ‘abd al-bésit, 1993. al-térêkh al-shémil li al-madinah al-munawwarah, madinah, npp. bulliet, richard w., (n.d.). religion and the state in islam: from medieval caliphate hamdard islamicus 265 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 to the muslim brotherhood, denver, university of denver, occasional paper series, paper no. 2. cole, karl, (2010). revivalist architecture. www.curatorscorner.com/2010/02/revivalistarchitecture.html. accessed on august 19, 2017. daham, ‘abd allah ‘abd alraímén, (1981). the growth of the ×ajj: a decade of increasing pilgrims to makkah (1970-1979), claremont, claremont graduate university. phd thesis (unpublished). development from weakness to greatness, (1992). riyadh, sa‘ëdi ministry of information. dizdar, gorcin, (2010). the neo-mamlëk style in architecture. www.academia.edu/ 432897/the_neo-mamluk_style_in_architecture. accessed on august 19, 2017. al-férëqê, ismé‘êl, (1981). islam and architecture. inside: fine arts in islamic civilization, edited by m.a.j. beg, kuala lumpur, the university of malaya press, pp. 99117. idriss, nadania, (2010). architecture as an expression of identity: abbés ×ilmi ii and the neo-mamlëk style, international conference on recent advances in geotechnical earthquake engineering and soil dynamics. scholarsmine.mst.edu/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2938& context=icrageesd. accessed on august 19, 2017. ismé‘êl, muíammad, (1998). the architecture of the prophet’s holy mosque, london, hazar. al-jawéhirah, hénê, (2002). min al-masékin al-taqlêdiyyah ila natihat al-siíéb, al-‘imarah fi al-mamlakah al-‘arabiyyah al-sa’ëdiyyah, al-ahsa, king faisal university. al-jawziyyah, ibn qayyim, (1999). al-fawa’id, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah. al-kahténê, moíammad zaid, (2004). the foreign policy of king abdulaziz, leeds, university of leeds, phd thesis (unpublished). al-khaïêb, ‘abd al-×amêd, (n.d.). al-imém al-‘ódil, cairo, maktabah wa matba’ah mustafa al-babi al-halabi. al-kilénê, kamé (2001). abdulazêz al-sa‘ëd and contemporary islamic reform, n.np., n.pp. knorzer, dietrich and szodruch, joachim, (2012). innovation for sustainable aviation in a global environment, proceedings of the sixth european aeronautics days, amsterdam, ios press bv. lecocq, baz, (2012). the ×ajj from west africa from a global historical perspective (19th and 20th centuries), inside “african diaspora”, vol. v, 2012, pp. 187214. marei, laila, (2013). revival of mamluk architecture in the 19th & 20th centuries, cairo, the american university in cairo, phd thesis (unpublished). miller, rory, (2016). desert kingdoms to global powers, new haven, yale university press., mubérakpërê, safêur raímén, (2002). history of al-madinah al-munawwarahm translated into english by nasiruddin al-khattab, riyadh, darussalam. niblock, tim, (2006). sa‘ëdi arabia: power, legitimacy and survival, london, routledge. hamdard islamicus 266 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 al-raqêbah, abdullah, (2002). al-×araman al-sharêfan wa al-mashé’ir al-muqaddasah, riyadh, al-imam muhammad bin sa‘ud islamic university. al-rasheed, madawi, (2002). a history of sa‘ëdi arabia, cambridge, cambridge university press. rashid, nasser and shaheen, esber, (1987). king fahd and sa‘ëdi arabia’s great evolution, joplin, international institute of technology. rizvi, kishwar, (2015). the transnational mosque, chapel hill, the university of north carolina press. weston, mark, (2008). prophets and princes, new jersey, john wiley & sons. wilson, peter and graham douglas, (1994). sa‘ëdi arabia, the coming storm, new york, m.e. sharpe. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 3\a comparative study of adoptions.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 7 a comparative study of adoption of conventional banking and islamic banking in pakistan 1dr. muzammil khurshid 2dr. muhammad riaz mahmood 1assistant professor, department of banking and finance, university of the punjab, gujranwala campus, gujranwala, pakistan. e-mail: muzammil.khurshid@pugc.edu.pk 2assistant professor, department of islamic studies, university of gujrat, gujrat, pakistan. e-mail: dr.riazmahmood@uog.edu.pk this study aims to examine the adoption of conventional and islamic banking in pakistan. a sample of 300 customers and employees was gathered through a questionnaire. the dependent variable was “adoption of cb or ib” and the independent variables were attitude, perceived behaviour control, social influence, innovation diffusion and public relations. the findings show that attitude, public relation, social influence, relative advantage and perceived behavioural control has a prominent impact on adoption decisions, but perceived behavioural affect adoption most significantly, as far as independent sample t-test is concerned, the results designate that attitude, perceived behavioural control, and innovation diffusion have a significant impact on adoption. keywords: adoption, conventional banking, islamic banking, independent sample ttest, pakistan introduction islamic banking is a system which follows shari‘ah which is 8 a comparative study of adoption... considered as a base for the islamic economic system. the organization of islamic cooperation (oic), provide the definition of islamic banks that is “an islamic bank is a financial institution whose status, rules and procedures expressly state its commitment to the principle of islamic shariah and the banning of the receipt and payment of interest on any of its operations” (oic, 2019). according to shari‘ah, the interest charges (ribé) is not allowed. in the view of abedifar and tarazi (2013) islamic economy is to realize greater justice in the human endeavor that can be only achieved by islamic financial institutions, therefore islamic banking system and islamic economy cannot be separated. the twentieth century is considered as the beginning of ib in modern world. actually, it was started when the prophet ( ) provided his services as an agent for his wife. ibs was introduced to satisfy the religious needs of muslims. on the contrary, cbs charges the interest which is not allowed in ib. so, muslims want to have an islamic platform that can be helpful for their financial transactions. rehman (2012) said that qur’én and sunnah are the basic sources to follow ib and islamic jurisprudence is considered as secondary sources. islamic jurisprudence is based upon the ijmé‘, ijtihéd and qiyés. according to chong and liu (2009), the first step towards ib was taken by establishing “the mit ghamr saving bank” in egypt in 1963s, which did not work properly. the two banking systems are the rivals that compete for the customers, but conventional banks attract more customers because of a higher return on investment and because of different opportunities for customers. as ib is based on shari‘ah and has a difficult procedure to get services and products for this they have to face more difficulties in influencing customers’ decision to adopt the ib system. islamic banking systems are emerging these days because people are not becoming more conscious about their religious’ responsibility not to get interested. this study investigates the influence of positive or negative attitude of people on their decision, perceived behavioural control, and social influence by incorporating government support through creating environment important for the growth of ib, public relations and perceived complexity, to examine influence of the adoption of ib. the foremost aim of this study is to discover the adoption of conventional and islamic banking in pakistan. moreover, this study makes a comparison of ib and cb. this paper is comprised of five sections; part 2 demonstrate literature hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 9 review, part 3 exhibits methodology of the research, part 4 displays the analysis and part 5 reveals conclusion. literature review an extensive literature is available on the islamic banking and the conventional banking (butt, saleem, ahmed, altaf, jaffer and jawad, 2011; ergec and arslan, 2012; amin, isa and fontaine, 2013; awan and azhar, 2014; tara, irshad and khan, 2014; ali and raza, 2015; lajuni, ming, yacob, ting and jausin, 2017; nawaz and haniffa, 2017; al balushi and locke, 2019). aziz and afaq (2018) studied the factors to adopt ib and measured the attitude, the subjective norms and the perceived behaviour control to increase the understanding of factors related to the adoption of ib. in the study, they used variance-based partial least squares structural equation modeling and the findings indicated that the attitude and the subjective norms have a relationship with the intention to adopt ib. usman, tjiptoherijanto, balqiah and agung (2017) made a study on the adoption of islamic banking and the results show that religious norms in the customers play an important role. other results show that it also affects the decision for using islamic banks indirectly. muhamad, anuar, kamarudin, aziz, pazil and muhammad (2015) observed that the promotion of ib in the society is a need of the hour, especially for the muslims. marimuthu, jing, gie, mun and ping (2010) pointed out that the cost benefits, service delivery, convenience and friends have a remarkable relationship with the adoption of ib. abedifar, molyneux and tarazi (2013) studied a country where the muslim population is in majority, their islamic banks are more stable than conventional with low credit risks. islamic banks also ask for extra charges for offering their services to their customers and their loan quality is not so much flexibility in terms of interest rates in the comparison of conventional banks. abduh and omar (2012) found the factors which may influence ib and the result shows that multiple factors can affect it. khattak and rehman (2010) investigated the awareness about ib. the basic question, that was tried to be answered by the author through this study, is what the reasons that encourage customers to adopt ib. are it was found that customers mostly prefer ib because of factors such as demographic variables, the image of the bank, shari‘ah rules implemented in islamic banks, a wider range of services, occupation and income level of customers, their ages, location of the bank. the above-discussed literature shows 10 a comparative study of adoption... that ib and conventional banking systems are the opposite of each other because the conventional system follows the interest and cannot survive without it. methodology a questionnaire was made and distributed to 300 banking customers and employees. the sample size includes 184 male and 116 female customers by using convenience sampling. the dependent variable was “adoption of cb or ib” and attitude, perceived behaviour control, social influence, innovation diffusion and public relations were the independent variables. the operational definition of independent variables is as follows: • attitude: how a person behaves or has an opinion about something. it includes factors such as perceived uncertainty and relative advantage. • social influence: according to research, how a person changes his/her behaviour change to meet the requirements of society (cialdini and goldstein, 2004). • perceived behavioural control: person’s perception of how he/she can perform ethical and moral behaviour. it includes factor-like govt. support. • innovation diffusion: a theory that explains how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread. it includes factors such as perceived complexity and compatibility. • public relations: it is focusing on the public image by a company or a famous person. in this research, cronbach alpha, descriptive analysis, factor analysis and t-test were applied. for measuring we have designed a questionnaire was based on two sections. section one shows demographic information of the respondents. section two includes information about the islamic banking system that why respondents had chosen ib. it was used to collect information regarding factors that were considered at the time of selecting ib. it mainly gives information related to the factors affecting choosing ib over the conventional banking system. the questionnaires hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 11 were filled by the users of conventional banks and ib, employees of conventional banks and ib and the general public. the conventional banks that were surveyed were habib metropolitan bank, js bank, allied bank. islamic banks which were surveyed were meezan bank, bank islami and dubai islamic bank. the survey has been conducted in different areas of pakistan to get information from different types of people related to the factors which influenced the choice the islamic banking customers and determinants that customers consider at the time of choosing the islamic banking system. the survey was conducted by distributing and filing a questionnaire from respondents. the respondents were selected because of availability; one can easily get our survey filled from different people. findings table 1 represents the respondent’s profile, analysis shows that there were more male respondents and the percentage was about 61.3%. most of the respondents were between the ages of 21-30 and the percentage was about 44%. most of the persons surveyed were privatesector employees with a percentage of 43.3%. almost 77% of our respondents were single. most of the people are highly educated having a bachelor’s and master’s degree and the percentage was about 57% and 33% respectively. most of our respondents were not using any banking system with the percentage of 33% and respondents of cb and ib were 25% and descriptive analysis showed how these factors are affecting the basis of demographic variables. to know which demographic variable factors are affecting more. for this purpose, we calculate the mean and standard deviation. as there is little variation between the mean of respondent’s gender (1.3867), age (1.5733) and marital status (1.2300). the table showed that these factors have the almost same effect on them, but standard deviations show that there is little dispersion in these variables. mean of respondent’s qualification (2.4367), occupation (2.7633) and type of banking system used by respondents (2.7167) showed these variables are almost equally affected by these factors. standard deviation showed that the latter three variables are more affected by factors. levene’s test shows that either the variance among variables is equally assumed or not, for that hypothesis is: 12 a comparative study of adoption... table.1 demographic profile gender male 184 61.3 female 116 38.7 age 20 or less 36 12 21–30 132 44 31–40 78 26 41–50 32 10.7 51 or above 22 7.3 occupational status student 86 28.7 business 16 5.3 private 130 43.3 government 19 6.3 others 49 16.3 marital status single 231 77 married 69 23 qualification matric or less 9 3 bachelor’s 172 57 master’s 101 33 professional 15 5 others 3 1 banking islamic bank 56 18.7 conventional 75 25 bank both 67 22.3 none 102 34 h0: σ12 σ22 = 0 (“the population variances of islamic and conventional banks are equal”) note: equal variance is assumed when the p-value of levene’s test is greater than 0.05 or less and vice versa. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 13 h1. attitude rejects the null hypothesis. h2. social influence accepts the null hypothesis. h3. perceived behavioural control rejects the null hypothesis. h4. innovation diffusion theory accepts the null hypothesis. h5. public relation accepts the null hypothesis. table 2: group statistics banking n mean s.d s.error system mean attitude islamic 56 19.9286 4.70921 62929 conventional 75 18.9467 3.93835 45476 social islamic 56 3.3571 1.36753 18274 influence conventional 75 2.7600 1.28231 14807 percieved islamic 56 10.5893 2.52102 33688 behavioural conventional 75 8.7333 3.16797 36581 control innovaion islamic 56 21.4464 3.42143 45721 diffusion conventional 75 19.5733 3.84558 44405 public islamic 56 10.2321 2.76991 37014 relation conventional 75 10.1600 2.50427 28917 t-test of independent sampling shows the comparative impact of dependent and independent variables, for that the null hypothesis is as; h0: µ1 = µ2 (“the two-population means are equal”) 14 a comparative study of adoption... table 3: independent samples test levent‘s test t-test for equality of means for equality of t df sig(2 mean s. error 95% variances tailed) diff. diff confidence interval f sig lower upper attitude equal 5.621 .019 1.298 129 .197 .981 .756 -.515 2.478 variances assumed equal 1.265 105.96 .207 .981 .776 -.557 2.521 variances assumed social equal .194 .660 2.563 129 .012 .597 .233 .136 1.058 influence variances assumed equal 2.539 114.3 .012 .597 .235 .131 1.063 variances assumed percieved equal 4.544 .035 3.612 129 .000 1.855 .513 .839 2.872 behavioural variances control assumed equal 3.732 128.4 .000 1.855 .497 .872 2.839 variance assumed innovaion equal 2.249 .136 2.889 129 .005 1.873 .648 .590 3.155 diffusion variance assumed equal 2.939 125.02 .004 1.873 .637 .611 3.134 variance assumed public equal .233 .630 .156 129 .876 .072 .462 -.843 .987 relation variance assumed equal .154 111.69 .878 .072 .469 -.858 1.002 variance assumed hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 15 note: accept the null hypothesis when the p value of t-test is more than 0.05 and vice versa. h1 there is an impact of attitude on the adoption of islamic and conventional banking services. h2 there is an impact of social influence on the adoption of islamic and conventional banking services. h3 there is an impact of perceived behavioural control on the adoption of islamic and conventional banking services. h4 there is an impact of innovation diffusion theory on the adoption of islamic and conventional banking services. h5 there is an impact of public relations on the adoption of islamic and conventional banking services. from the results and interpretation of factor analysis, we figured that attitude, perceived behavioral control and innovation diffusion are the variables that significantly involved in the adoption of the banking system. conclusion the present study seeks to find the adoption of ib and cb in pakistan. it is evidenced that attitude, perceived behaviour and innovation diffusion are the most important respectively. social influence and public relations have not a significant impact on the adoption decision. it may be fruitful for islamic banking to attain market share for their islamic products and services. ib can get high market share from conventional banking system by using more understanding procedures and by educating people. this study also reveals some important results about government support, public relation, social influence, innovation diffusion theory and attitude of customers in pakistan concerning the adoption of ib. this 16 a comparative study of adoption... study considers only a limited area of pakistan, so there are future possibilities to cover different areas of pakistan. pakistan is an islamic economy with persons of different religions and races. therefore, it is recommended to study muslims and non-muslims. in this study, only five variables were used to study the reasons affecting adoption, so far there is a possibility to develop a comprehensive model to check the factors affecting adoption. notes and references abedifar, p., tarazi, a. m. p., (2013). “risk in islamic banking”, review of finance, 17(6), 2035-2096. abduh, m., omar, a. m., (2012). “islamic banking selection criteria in malaysia: an ahp approach”, business intelligence journal, 5(2), 271-281. al balushi, y. and locke, s. (2019). “determinants of the decision to adopt islamic finance: evidence from oman”, isra international journal of islamic finance, 11(1), 6-26 ali, m., raza, a. s., (2015). “service quality perception and customer satisfaction in islamic banks of pakistan: the modified servqual model”, journal of total quality management and excellence, 28(5-6), 559-577. amin, m., isa, z., fontaine, r., (2013). “islamic banks: contrasting the drivers of customer satisfaction on image, trust, and loyalty of muslim and nonmuslim customers in malaysia”, international journal of bank marketing, 31(2), 79-97. awan, g. a., azhar, m., (2014). “consumer behaviour towards islamic banking in pakistan”, european journal of accounting auditing and finance research, 2(9), 42-56. aziz, s., afaq, z., (2018), november 26). “adoption of islamic banking in pakistan an empirical investigation”, cogent business and management, 5(1), 1-18. butt, i., saleem, n., ahmed, h., altaf, m., jaffer, k., jawad, m., (2011). “barriers to adoption of islamic banking in pakistan”, journal of islamic marketing, 2(3), 259-273. cialdini, b. r., goldstein, j. n., (2004). “social influence: compliance and conformity”, annual review of psychology, 55, 591-621. chong, b. s., liu, m. h., (2009). “islamic banking: interest-free or interest-based?”, pacific-basin finance journal, 17(1), 125-144. ergec, e. h., arslan, b.g., (2012). “impact of interest rates on islamic and conventional banks: the case of turkey”, journal of applied economics, 45 (17), 2381-2388. khattak, n.a., rehman, k. (2010). “customer satisfaction and awareness of islamic banking system in pakistan”, african journal of business management, 4(5), 662-671. lajuni, n., ming, p. w. w., yacob, y., ting, h., jausin, a., (2017). “intension to use islamic banking products and its determinants”, international journal of economics and financial issues, 7(1), 329-333. marimuthu, m., jing, w. c., mun, p. l.g. p. l., ping, y. t., (2010). “islamic banking: hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 17 selection criteria and implications”, global journal of human social science, 10(4), 52-62. muhamad, f. s., anuar, a. n., kamarudin, k. m., aziz, a. a. n., pazil, m. h. a., muhammad, z. m., (2015). “banking selection criteria: a study among muslims in kelantan”, international journal of marketing research review, 3(12), 93-10 nawaz, t., and haniffa, r. (2017). “determinants of financial performance of islamic banks: an intellectual capital perspective”, journal of islamic accounting and business research, 8(2), 130 -142. organization of islamic cooperation (2019). https://www.oic-oci.org/home/?lan=en rehman, m., (2012). “customer’s tendency towards the selection of islamic banking system in pakistan”, african journal of business management, 6(5), 2064-2070. tara, n. irshad, m. and khan, r.m. (2014). “factors influencing adoption of islamic banking: a study from pakistan”, journal of public administration and governance, 4(3), 352-367. usman, h., tjiptoherijanto, p., balqiah, e. t., agung, n. g., (2017). “the role of religious norms, trust, importance of attributes and information sources in the relationship between religiosity and selection of the islamic bank”, journal of islamic marketing, 8(2), 158-18 f:\e\islamicus\2016\no.2, 2016\abstarct\03-some little.pmd hamdard islamicus 61 vol. xxxix, no. 2 some little known but inspiring examples of coexistence and cooperation between jews and muslims dr. zubair zafar khan department of islamic studies, jamia millia islamia, new delhi, 110025, india. e-mail: drzubairzafar@gmail.com the world knows muslims and jews as one of the bitter enemies of each other especially due to the ongoing clashes between israel and palestine, paid by thousands of innocent lives from both sides. amid this hatred and violence many stories of coexistence and cooperation occurred but little known to both sides and the world. in this paper some of these stories and peace building initiatives are presented which could invoke the inspirations of love and compassion in the hearts of both sides and could be helpful in reducing the emotions of hatred and enmity. the readers will find unexpected behaviour of humanity and cooperation from both sides in contrast to what has been widely propagated that both cannot live together peacefully. keywords: muslims, jews, cooperation, coexistence, nazis, hatred, world war. hamdard islamicus 107 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the qur’ónic version of the story of yusuf (joseph): labovian analysis of azôz-i-miør episode dr. sardar muhammad assistant professor department of humanities comsats university islamabad, abbottabad campus, kpk, pakistan e-mail. sardarmuhammad2000@yahoo.com sardarmuhammad@cuiatd.edu.pk qur’énic narratives mostly show great affinities with human techniques of narration. this paper analyses the linguistic aspect of azêz-i-miîr episode, a sub-plot of the story of yusuf (joseph) as narrated in the holy qur’én. this episode maintains minimum standard to be a complete story. to highlight structural elements of this story, labov’s model of narrative analysis has been followed. the model gives description of a story through dividing it into six constituting parts, i.e. abstract, orientation, complicating action, result or resolution, evaluation, and coda. the study confirms the presence of all elements of labov’s linguistic model in the story. although the model has been designed to examine the structure of the stories of personal experience, the qur’énic story of yusuf (azêz-i-miîr episode) lends itself to labov’s model of narrative analysis so admirably well. in this way, the affinity and deep-rooted relation of human narrative with qur’énic stories is established. key words: azêz-i-miîr, yusuf, qur’énic narrative, labovian model. introduction narrative analysis is a common practice in modern literary and linguistic research. the study of ‘narrative’ comes commonly under the hamdard islamicus 108 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 purview of fiction and sociolinguistics. it is perhaps due to this fact that, researchers in the field of sociology, literature and linguistics need to look for common areas suitable for study through inter disciplinary approaches. the qur’énic narratives provide perhaps the best subject-matter for their quest. the stories from the holy qur’én have been extensively explored from a variety of angles. this paper is an addition to existing practice through following a modern linguistic approach i.e., labov’s model of narrative analysis. the model has its origins in the stories of personal experience. however, its application to qur’énic narratives has been more appealing to modern researchers. the significance of this area can be evaluated from the number of works produced by writers and scholars both from the east and west in the last two decades. research outcome in the field is in such a bulk that sometimes it turns out to bevery difficult to look for a topic to explore. online resources in the field are enough to confirm that the study of qur’énic text as literature is not only fascinating for muslim scholars but also for literary critics and researchers in linguistics believing in other religions. majority of such researchers is supporting and encouraging research in qur’énic literature. terri l. deyoung and selim s. kuru jointly supervised muíammad omer iqbal’s thesis, “the qur’én as a literary masterpiece within its historical and religious milieu” (2013). it shows the worth of subject-matter deliberated in current paper. this paper is an effort to trace the elements of labov’s model in azêz-i-miîr episode of the story of yusuf. before we proceed to apply labovian model, the nature and function of a narrative will be discussed in line with the theory being applied. for this purpose, the relevant part of the qur’énic text (xii: 21 to xii:56) will be thoroughly studied to find out specific labovian components in certain lines of the story describing the life of prophet yusuf (joseph) (a.s.) with reference to his presence at the house of alazêz in egypt and his encounter with his wife. six elements (abstract, orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution, coda) will be identified in the light of labovian definition of ‘narrative’. it is expected that the elements being explored will be recognized in the body of the qur’énic text. in this way, the basic objectives of this exploration will be achieved. it will be followed by a concluding statement. objectives 1. to examine appropriateness of labov’s model of narrative analysis to analyze sub-plots of qur’énic narratives. hamdard islamicus 109 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 2. to establish link of personal narratives to qur’énic narratives. 3. to demonstrate qur’énic narratives as modelwriting for story writers. literature review there are many critics and scholars who followed labovian approach to analyze qur’énic narratives. it is beyond the scope of this article to overview all or even maximum number of such researchers. commenting on labov’s model, ayaz afsar (2006) claims that “one reason for its popularity is that it enables rigorous comparisons to be drawn between literary narrative and the social stories told in everyday interaction. its structure of six components tends to make it best suited to literary narratives that are short.” 1 the model, in this way, appears to be more suitable for analyzing short stories and obviously apposite in examining the subject-matter of this paper. karen ann watson (1973),2 an admirer of labov’s model believes that the proposed frame work by labov and waletzky is formal as well as functional. although most analytical schemes for narrative analysis have been applied to literary narrative forms including myths, folktales, epics, and novel, but nothing can be learnt about their structure and functions without establishing their link to their social context. another step in this direction has been taken by nicole eagles (1994),3 whose paper on is based on the data derived from tape recordings of past personal heartbreaks experienced by the speaker at one time. the data is analyzed in the light of labov’s model with six structural elements. scholars from different social sciences have been significantly attracted to labov’s model. michael toolan rightly observes that, “the attraction of their (i.e. labov and waletzky’s) principles lies in their clarity, replicability, and their search for a basic pattern from which more complex narratives might be derived.”4 toolan’s remarks show practical worth of labov’s model, and rabia bajwa’s doctoral thesis (2012)5 is one of the best examples of labovian analysis of qur’énic narratives which explores the application of narrative analysis to five qur’énic stories in surat al-kahf (chapter seventeen) of the holy qur’én. the current paper is however, partially inspired by the works of ayaz afsar and rabia bajwa. ayaz afsar (2006) provided theoretical framework for this paper while rabia bajwa’s study (2012) gave practical application of labov’s model but her work does not include the story being discussed in this paper. their works are focused mostly, on hamdard islamicus 110 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 theoretical aspects of narrative analysis without actively exploring the whole body of story. ayaz afsar’s work however, encompasses practical application through identifying labovian elements in the body of complete story joining three sub-plots into a single whole. his abstract is based on yusuf’s dream (eleven stars, the sun and the moon prostrating themselves to yusuf) and coda is the interpretation of dream (his brothers prostrating themselves to yusuf). this paper is focused on one of the three sub-plots i.e., the second part (azêz-i-miîr episode). here, the story opens with yusuf in the house of al-azêz (in chains and seriously in trouble) in egypt and ends with yusuf in power and to replace al-azêz. from persecution to gratification, the events of story are dominated by the narrator’s (god) will. labovian definition of narrative william labov’s definition of ‘narrative’can hardly be discussed as an independent unit. it needs to be deliberated along with other components of his sociolinguistic theory of narrative structure. he cautiously confined the limits of this term by interpreting it as “one method of recapitulating past experience by matching a verbal sequence of clauses to the sequence of events which actually occurred.”6 labov’s views about ‘narrative’ seem to be based on his sociolinguistic academic background, and personal narratives developed through social experience. he sets parameters for a linguistic study of stories particularly focused on their structural elements. he ponders a story to be a living body with different constituting parts. after having deep contemplation and expanding the horizons of theoretical views he puts forward the main features of his model. labov believes that a narrative is composed of six elements. these elements include “1. abstract: “what was this about?” 2. orientation: “who, when, what, where?” 3. complicating action: “then what happened?” 4. evaluation: “so what?” 5. result or resolution: “what finally happened?” 6. coda: precludes further questions.7 in this way, he has added significantly to the scholarship on narrative analysis. like other stories of personal experience, the stories of holy qur’én can also be judged on the criteria set by william labov. the main plots of qur’énic stories or even their subplots lend themselves to labov’s model admirably well. if one goes through structural elements or categories, it obviously appears that each part of narrative structure serves different function within the frame of story. every structural part is supplemented and hamdard islamicus 111 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 supported by relevant questions. the questions indicate the functions of different elements or categories. the opening lines of story (abstract) are followed by orientation. the events of story shift to complicating action and proceed to the process of evaluation. at this stage, the events are concluded through resolution, and the listener is returned to present time (coda) with no further questions. labov’s narrative framework can be presented as follows: fig. 1: labovian framework abstract:what was this about? according to william labov’s model, an abstract is typically, but not always, found at the beginning of a narrative. it may be used to summarize the whole story within one or two clauses. it may also be used to describe the whole sequence of events of the narrative. the abstract may answer the basic question, “what was this about?” in this way, it can be safely stated that, the abstract can either be a response to a speaker’s question or an utterance to minimize the gap between the question and the answer. labov’s abstract seems to serve the function of summary. the azêz-i-miîr episode of the story of yusuf (joseph) opens with specific declaration: “thus, did we establish yusuf in the land, that we hamdard islamicus 112 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 might teach him the interpretation of events.”8 the abstract of story appears to be the plan of god to establish yusuf in egypt to teach him the interpretation of events (the interpretation of dreams). rabia bajwa (2012) claims that, “god does not always provide a summary as his abstract. at times, his abstracts are functioning more like attempts to establish his right to tell the story or to simply dramatically announce to his interlocutors that he is about to tell a story without much of revealing what the point of the story is.”9 2. orientation: who, when, what, where? in the structure of story, an orientation section is usually found after the abstract. orientation section is “formally, the group of free clauses that precede the first narrative clause. they serve to orient the listener in respect to person, place, time, and behavioral situation. not all narratives have orientation sections, and not all orientation sections perform these four functions. the overall view of narrative shows that the orientation section is a structural feature of a narrative structure.”10 the nature and function of orientation in the structure of a story has been broadly contested from a variety of perspectives. however, the views of labov and waletzky interpreted by anna de fina are in line with the structure of the selected story. “following their characterization, orientation has generally been viewed as: controlled and administered by the narrator in order to direct the listener and constituting a sort of background to the main action in the story world.”11 the introductory lines in the story set a stage for complicated action in near future. the orientation is designed in two facets. at first, the status of yusuf is going to be changed from slavery to socially admirable position. “and he (the man) from egypt who bought him, said to his wife: “make his stay honourable, maybe he will profit us, or we shall adopt him as a son.”12 it seems to be based on his righteous behaviour that azêz formed higher opinion about yusuf and expressed his hopes for yusuf’s good future. secondly, as soon as, yusuf is grown-up, he is bestowed with the prophetic wisdom and knowledge. “and when he attained his full manhood, we gave him wisdom and knowledge.”13 it confirms that yusuf is being prepared to face the challenges of life in near future. the narrator (god almighty) is fully controlling the events of this story. anna de fina’s views become more pertinent in this case who critically examines views put forward by labov and waletzky (1997) hamdard islamicus 113 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 about different stories of personal experience where the narrator is supposed to be able to control the sequence of events and fully in position to provide the interlocutors with necessary details of sequential progress. complicating action: then what happened? according to labov and waletzky (1997), “the main body of narrative clauses usually comprises a series of events that may be termed the complication or complicating action.”14 in other words, it is the main body of story. this section of story relates the sequence of clauses to that of events which actually happened. complicating action section answers the question, then what happened? as this is the main section of the narrative, it may be the longest part of story. it usually links orientation to evaluation. the result or resolution is naturally based on it. the final narrative clause that answers the question “what finally happened? is an extension and outcome of complicating action. in the story under discussion, there are three important features of complication or complicating action, i.e., desire, dialogue, and action. at first, it is human nature that humans are inclined to follow their desires. and she, in whose house he was, sought to seduce him (xii:23), and he would have inclined to her desire, had he not seen the evidence of his lord(xii:24).15 and secondly, it is comprised of dialogue or specifically defined as constructed dialogue. a constructed dialogue according to tannen (2005) is “animation of speech framed as a voice other than the speaker’s”.16 these dialogues seem to be performing key role in complicating situation with every passing moment. constructed dialogues give clear picture of events in succeeding parts of story. the dialogue between azêz’s wife and yusuf: aziz’s wife: come on, o you. yusuf: i seek refuge in allah, truly, he is my master, he made my living in a great comfort, verily, the wrongdoers will never be successful.17 it is perhaps a turning point in the story of yusuf. every other dialogue that follows is used for complicating the events of story and aggravate it. the dialogue between azêz’s wife and azêz, (qur’én xii:25), yusuf and azêz (qur’én xii:26), witness from the family and azêz (qur’én xii:27), azêz and azêz’s wife (qur’én xii:28), and azêz to yusuf and hamdard islamicus 114 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 azêz’s wife (qur’én xii:29), and the most important dialogue between azêz’s wife and women in the city (qur’én xii:32). thirdly, the action on the part of different characters makes the situation more serious. there are three major actions which make the situation more complicated. first, yusuf and wife of azêz raced with one another to the door, and she tore his shirt from the back (qur’én xii:25), second, the women in the city (in their astonishment) cut their hands (qur’én xii:31), and third, yusuf was sent to prison even after his innocence was proved (qur’én xii:35). in this way, the azêz-i-miîr episode of the story of yusuf meets all requirements of a major narrative plot. evaluation: so what? evaluation is the most important component of labov’s model of narrative analysis. labov and waletzky define it as “that part of the narrative that reveals the attitude of the narrator towards the narrative by emphasizing the relative importance of some narrative units as compared to others.”18 in this way, narrative analysis without evaluation seems to be insignificant. in this section, the narrator clearly defines the need of telling that story, and how it is more important and uncommon. in other words, evaluation serves to answer the question, so what? according to labov (1972), there are three main types of evaluation, i.e., external, embedded, and evaluative action. these categories of evaluation can be interpreted and traced in the frame of qur’énic narrative of yusuf (azêz-i-miîr episode) as follows: external evaluation the narrator standing outside the action turns to the listener and tells about the point of narrative and thus interrupts the flow of the narrative. interpreting the function of labovian evaluation, ayaz afsar (2006) claims that it is “related to the point of the story, to perpetuate the notion of self-aggrandizement, the narrator’s desire to make himself/herself look good in the narrative or create the best possible image of himself.”19 the statements from the text of the story reveal the best image of narrator as (1) omnipotent: “and allah has full power and control over his affairs” (qur’én xii:21), (2) supporter of virtue: “thus we reward the doers of good” (qur’én xii:22), (3) omniscient narrator: hamdard islamicus 115 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 “he is the all-hearer, the all-knower” (qur’én xii:34), (4) sovereign: “the command is for none but allah” (qur’én xii:40), and (5) merciful: “indeed, my lord is forgiving and merciful’’ (qur’én xii:53). embedded evaluation the narrator describes feelings at the time of the happening, rather than at the time of the telling, or attaching them to a third party who acts as observer. there are three phases of emotional progress, i.e., anxiety-phase, transitional-phase, and pleasurephase. at first, the narrator seems to be focused on representing anxiety and the feelings of desperation that yusuf, the main character in the story experienced, as the narrator pronounces, “thus it was, that we might turn away from him evil and immoral sins” (qur’én xii:24). the narrator presents emotional condition of yusuf at the time of actual happenings. secondly, yusuf in the prison, the state of transition from anxiety to happiness, as stated in the story, “so his lord hearkened to him (in his prayer) and turned away from him their snare” (qur’én xii:34). and thirdly, the state of being happy after being released from the prison, “thus did we give full authority to yusuf in the land, to take possession therein, when or where he likes” (qur’én xii:56). the narrator relates the feelings of main characters during the events of story as real as one’s own. evaluative action: report actions which reveal emotions. in other words, the evaluation is dramatized. the narrator describes actions rather than words. this includes actions that reveal the tensions of the actors or reportable emotions. peterson and mccabe (1997) claim that “every narrative has an emotional point, and this point appears in the narrative through evaluation.”20 there are four major actions which reveal the tension between different characters, (1) seduction: azêz’s wife closed the doors to seduce yusuf and tore his shirt from the back. (qur’én xii:23,25) shows tension between azêz’s wife and yusuf. (2) explanation of seduction: azêz’s wife prepared a banquet for women in the city and gave each one of them a knife and they cut their own hands (qur’én xii:31), shows serious strain between azêz’s wife and the women in city. (3) yusuf’s imprisonment (qur’én xii:35) reflects emotional stress between azêz and yusuf, and (4) yusuf’s release from the prison and azêz’s wife’s hamdard islamicus 116 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 confession of sin before the king (qur’én xii:51) shows major stress between the king and aziz, who is embarrassed. in this way, labovian evaluation helps to penetrate very essence of narrative. result or resolution: what finally happened? labov and waletzky (1997) 21 state that the resolution of the narrative is that portion of the narrative sequence that follows the evaluation. according to ayaz afsar (2006),22 the resolution of a story is normally reported in the final clause(s) of the complicating action. complication builds up to a final peak, after which comes a clause answering the question “what finally happened?”. there are two main points which set a stage for whole story, i.e., god’s declaration to teach yusuf the interpretation of dreams, and yusuf being seduced by the wife of al-aziz. the story of yusuf (azêz-i-miîr episode) opens with “thus did we establish yusuf in the land (egypt), that we might teach him the interpretation of events” (interpretation of dreams, according to tafsir ibn kathir) (qur’én xii:21). the events in the story gradually proceed to complicating action which reach the climax with women in the city cutting their hands and yusuf sent to prison (qur’én xii:35). its resolution also occurs in two points, i.e., yusuf’s knowledge in the interpretation of dreams recognized through interpretation of the king’s dream, and the king’s investigation into what happened between the wife of the azêz, the women in the city, and yusuf (qur’én xii:51). coda: precludes further questions labov and waletzky (1997) claim that “the coda is a functional device for returning the verbal perspective to the present moment.”23 coda in the qur’énic narratives has specific function. god as a narrator, puts forward a moralistic message to complete his point and end the narrative. to identify ‘coda’ in qur’énic narratives seems to be comparatively easier than tracing it in other personal narratives. in the labovian logic, the coda prevents any further questions about what happened and why it was significant. the significance of story is typically based on underlying moral lesson. ochs and capps (2001) observe that “narrators of personal experience evaluate protagonists as moral agents, whose actions, thoughts, hamdard islamicus 117 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and feelings are interpreted in light of local notions of goodness.”24 in this way, abstracts and codas in qur’énic narratives are related to each other, the abstract opens the events of story and the coda closes them. the closing lines of the story of yusuf (azêz-i-miîr episode) give two moral lessons, (1) “we bestow of our mercy on whom we will, and we make not to be lost the reward of the good doers” (qur’én xii:56), and (2)“and verily, the reward of the here after is better for those who believed and were fearing allah” (qur’én xii:57). annotation labov’s theory of narrative analysis seems to have two major functions in the life of a story’s audience (listeners). at one hand, it has academic role, the components of labov’s model provide necessary guidelines for understanding the basic structure of a narrative. on the other hand, its inspirational function is equally significant, the listeners may be able to follow this framework in composing stories of their own. abstract is the summary of the entire story which prepares the audience for what is going to be presented. the orientation section contains such information which sets the stage for whole narrative action. the complicating action is the peak of story which proceeds to resolution. resolution section carries main events which form the body of narrative. evaluation section is focused on plot, dialogue, action, and emotion, and coda presents underlying moral lesson. the story being discussed offers some qualities of god. the purpose of this story seems to be the introduction of god. he wanted to let himself be known to the people. the qualities of god narrated in the story are, (1) allah has full power and control over his affairs, (2) he is the all-hearer, the all-knower, (3) the command is for none but allah, (4) allah guides not the plot of the betrayers, (5) most merciful, (6) we make not to be lost the reward of the good doers. it can be stated that god recounts past experiences of his (personal) experience to give some moral lessons and every moral lesson comes out of his specific quality. labov’s approach to story-telling is rooted in the real world and thus has excessive appeal for the story-tellers as well as their audience. the stories he is focused on, describe and evaluate personal experiences with themes like, fear, anger, happiness, jealousy, resentment, love, hatred, pride, and embarrassment. the opinion of story-teller becomes more hamdard islamicus 118 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 important which explains the status of a story, whether it is worth telling or not? the purpose and the need of quré’nic narratives is clearly emphasized within the frame of stories through “statements of moral lesson”. labovian analysis of azêz-i-miîr episode can be summarized as follows: 1. abstract: what was this thus, did we establish yusuf in about? the land, that we might teach him the interpretation of events (xii:21). 2. orientation: who, when, and he (the man) from egypt what, where? who bought him, said to his wife: “make his stay honourable may be he will profit us, or we profit us, or we shall adopt him him as a son.” (xii:21). and when he (yusuf) attained his full manhood, we gave him him wisdom and knowledge (the prophethood). (xii:22) 3. complicating action: then and she, in whose house he what happened? was, sought to seduce him (to do an evil act), and she closed the doors and said: “come on, o you.” (xii:23) and indeed, she did desire him, and he would have inclined to her desire, had he not seen the evidence of his lord. (xii:24). so, they raced with one another to the door, and she tore his shirt from the back. they both found her master (husband) at the door. she said: “what is the punishment for him who intended an evil design against your wife, except that he be put in prison or a painful torm ent” (xii:25). hamdard islamicus 119 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 then it occurred to the men, after they had seen the signs (of his innocence), to imprison him for a time. (xii:35). 4. evaluation: so what? and the king said: “bring him to me.’’ but when the messenger came to him, (yusuf) said: “return to your king and ask him, `what is the state of mind of the ladies who cut their hands surely, my lord (allah) is well aware of their snare.’’’(xii:50). (the king) said (to the women): “what was your affair when you did seek to seduce yusuf from his (true) self?’’ the women said: “allah forbid! no evil know we against him!’’ the wife of the aziz said: “now the truth is manifest (to all); it was i who sought to seduce him, and he is surely of the truthful. ‘’(xii:51) 5. result or resolution: what and the king said: “bring him to finally happened? me that i may attach him to my person.’’ then, when he had spoken to him, he said: “verily, this day, you are with us high in rank and fully trusted.’’ (xii:54) (yusuf) said: “set me over the storehouses of the land; i will indeed guard them with full knowledge.’’(xii:55) thus did we give full authority to yusuf in the land, to take possession there in, when or where he likes. (xii:56) 6. coda: precludes further we bestow our mercy on whom questions we will, and we make not to be lost the reward of good doers. (xii:56) hamdard islamicus 120 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 conclusion labov’s structural model of analyzing narrative offers necessary framework to examine the effectiveness of narrative art developed by professional storytellers. labovian model is based on the outcome of research focused on narratives of personal experience narrated insociety, however, its aptness for analyzing the structure of qur’énic narratives confirms its probability to be used for a variety of narratives. this view of narrative structure, according to labov and waletzky (1997, p.38) may have greater significance in case of its application to narrative material derived from radically different cultures with similar research objectives to be achieved. six components of labov’s model placed in the text of the qur’énic narrative have been searched and highlighted. in this way, the sub-plot (azêz-i-miîr episode) has been confirmed as a complete story as defined by labov and waletzky (1997). labov’s model is basically designed to analyze personal narratives. the stories of personal experience are supposed to lend themselves to this model. through applying the model designed for personal narratives, to a qur’énic narrative, a link between personal and qur’énic narrative has been established. it also proves universality of qur’énic themes and compatibility of qur’énic style to modern literary technique of narration. as compared to other models of narrative analysis, labov’s model seems to be more appropriate for analyzing short stories. if one examines the structure of qur’énic narratives, he can obviously find that the qur’énic stories are either short in length or a long story is divided into sub-plots. therefore, it can be safely concluded that labov’s model is one of the most appropriate approaches to analyze qur’énic narratives. it can be applied to other narratives with moral and spiritual teachings like, biblical narratives, narratives of hinduism, buddhism, christian mysticism and øufism. as all elements of personal narrative have been found in the qur’énic narratives, it has been confirmed that, the structure of qur’énic narratives can be followed in composing modern literary stories. basic objectives set for this article appear to be achieved through following labov’s technique. notes and references 1. ayaz afsar, “a discourse and linguistic approach to biblical and qur’énic narrative”. islamic studies 45, no. 4 (2006): p. 494. hamdard islamicus 121 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 2. karen ann watson, “a rhetorical and sociolinguistic model for the analysis of narrative.” american anthropologist 75, no.1 (1973): p. 251. 3. nicole eagles, “achey-breaky heart: a labovian approach to the structural analysis of the personal narrative.” totem: the university of western ontario journal of anthropology 1, no. 1 (1994): p. 63 4. michael toolan, narrative: a critical linguistic introduction, london, routledge, 1988), p. 148. 5. rabia bajwa, divine story-telling as self-presentation: an analysis of surat al-kahf, washington, dc, georgetown university, 2012. 6. labov and waletzky, “narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience,” journal of narrative and life history 7, no. 1-4 (1997): p. 12 7. william labov, language in the inner city: studies in the black english vernacular, philadelphia, university of pennsylvania, 1972, p. 370. 8. al-hilali and m.m. khan, the noble qur’én: english translation of the meanings and commentary, madinah, king fahd complex for the printing of the holy qur’én, vol. xii, p. 21. 9. rabia bajwa, divine story-telling as self-presentation: an analysis of surat al-kahf, washington, dc, georgetown university, 2012, p. 41. 10. labov and waletzky, “narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience,” journal of narrative and life history 7, no. 1-4 (1997), p. 27 11. anna de fina, “crossing borders: time, space, and disorientation in narrative.” narrative inquiry 13, no. 2 (2003), p. 371 12. al-hilali and m.m. khan, the noble qur’an: english translation of the meanings and commentary, madinah, king fahd complex for the printing of the holy qur’én), vol. xii, p. 21. 13. al-hilali and m.m. khan, the noble qur’an: english translation of the meanings and commentary (madinah:king fahd complex for the printing of the holy qur’én), vol. xii, p. 22. 14. labov and waletzky, “narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience,” journal of narrative and life history 7, no. 1-4 (1997), p. 27. 15. al-hilali and m.m. khan, the noble qur’én: english translation of the meanings and commentary, madinah, king fahd complex for the printing of the holy qur’én, vol. xii, pp. 23-24. 16. deborah tannen, d. conversational strategies: analyzing talk among friends, oxford, oxford university press, 2005, p. 1. 17. al-hilali and m.m. khan, the noble qur’én: english translation of the meanings and commentary, madinah, king fahd complex for the printing of the holy qur’én, vol. xii, p. 23. 18. labov and waletzky, “narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience,” journal of narrative and life history 7, no. 1-4 (1997), p. 32. 19. ayaz afsar, “a discourse and linguistic approach to biblical and qur’énic narrative”. islamic studies 45, no. 4 (2006), p. 499. 20. carole peterson and allyssa mccabe, “extending labov and waletzsky,” journal of narrative and life history 7, (1997), p. 252. 21. labov and waletzky, “narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience,” journal of narrative and life history 7, no. 1-4 (1997), p. 35. hamdard islamicus 122 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 22. ayaz afsar, “a discourse and linguistic approach to biblical and qur’énic narrative,” islamic studies 45, no. 4 (2006), p. 509. 23. labov and waletzky, “narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience,” journal of narrative and life history 7, no. 1-4 (1997), p. 35. 24. elinor ochs and lisa capps, living narrative: creating lives in everyday storytelling, massachusetts, harvard university press, 2001, p. 47. hamdard islamicus 33 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 social media, religion and religiosity in pakistan in the era of disruption dr. tahmina rashid, associate professor international studies, faculty of arts & design, university of canberra, australia, e-mail: tahmina.rashid@canberra.edu.au my great grandfather took a mic from australia for the mosque he built in lahore a hundred years ago. the next day there was a fatwa against him that he has brought a devil’s tool from australia; these days it would be hard to find a mosque without it there.1 we are living in an era of disruption and the technological advancements have enabled us to manage work and family through remote access; replacing paper currency with cryptocurrency & phone wallets; and call centres with robot assistance. technological disruptions are impacting social as well as spiritual relationships, leading to the emergence of virtual religious/spiritual communities, weakening the territorial divide. new technologies have also unsettled the status quo in these communities, as disruptive technologies* have enabled the emergence of new power centres, platforms and voices. previously disempowered communities and groups are gaining agency using social media and effective use of global networks in the cyberspace. this paper explores the broader scene of disruptive technologies in relation to muslims and islam. it examines the social media landscape in pakistan within the broader milieu of disruptive technologies. the research seeks to explores the impact of disruptive *for the purpose of this paper, the term disruptive technology refers to the online/ social media platforms that have disrupted traditional congregations, religious hierarchies of established institutions and engagement with religion in physical space and introduced cyber/virtual space as an alternative mode to engage with religion and congregate, free from the established institutional and territorial boundaries. hamdard islamicus 34 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 technologies on the society in pakistan, examining the interplay of religion and religiosity in the era of disruptions, through four case studies selected from recent events in pakistan. the article makes use of secondary resources to appraise the broader milieu of social media then, critically examines these case studies to know the impact of social media. these case studies highlight that social media is a powerful medium utilised by social activists as well as religious groups, a new phenomenon in the context of pakistan. keywords: disruptive technologies; social media; religion & religiosity; pakistan. introduction similar to other societies, people in pakistan are increasingly relying on new technologies, and social media platforms have given voice to previously disenfranchised groups, youth, social activists and religious groups. in this situation it will be naïve to imagine that technology would not impact upon our spiritual lives; faith and religious selves. the negative impacts of virtual reality and virtual relationships have been widely debated and how the social media is fracturing our traditional relationship with family, friends and work colleagues. however, the research on the impact of social media on religious or spiritual lives has been rather limited. religious scholars and preachers have embraced internet technology in order to reach, engage and connect with their audience in new ways, taking religion outside the confines of established religious institutions and places of worship, into the pockets of followers via their mobile devices. when it comes to social media, its followers quickly embrace religiousinspired content, much more than the liberal democratic content that pushes for diversity, tolerance and interfaith dialogue. jensenhas noted that, “god is the second most sought after reality on the internet”2. george states that in 2001 “one out of every four internet users has sought religious or spiritual information at one point or another in their virtual travels”, demonstrating the significance of religion and spirituality in the lives of internet users.3 the research is exploratory in nature and is based on critical examination of secondary sources and interpretative analysis of the impact of disruptive technologies in pakistan. it aims to summarise, interpret and analyse scholarly works published in the context of social media and religion and religiosity, and employ disruptive technology as a framework to critically examine the impact of social media in pakistan. the research is designed in three parts; the first part deals with the broader context hamdard islamicus 35 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 of muslims, islam and era of disruption; the second part is an appraisal of disruptive technologies, new media and social networks in pakistan, and the final part is based on selected case studies from pakistan. the research conclusions note key findings regarding the usage of social media by social activists and religious groups and its impact through the selected case studies. muslims, islam and era of disruption theoretically speaking religions, themselves were a disruption to the (dis)order in various historical periods, introduced new ideas and ways of life to the people in the area where these were revealed and beyond, hence religious communities have hypothetically lived through the “eras of disruption”. while tracing the transformation of ummah, mandaville contends that: in early islam, oral transmission was the preferred mode of disseminating religious knowledge with each ‘alim granting his student an ijaza (‘license’) which permitted him to pass on the texts of his teacher….this state of affairs allowed the ulama and their associates (scribes, calligraphers, etc.) to maintain a virtual monopoly over the production of authoritative religious knowledge…. gradually muslims found it easier and easier to bypass the ulama in the search for authentic islam and for new ways of thinking about their religion….the new media opened up new spaces of religious contestation where traditional sources of authority could be challenged by the wider public….a long apprenticeship under an established man of learning [was] no longer a necessary prerequisite to legitimizing one’s own religious knowledge.4 he argues that digitisation of islamic sources has enabled muslims to engage with the scriptures in innovative ways, leading to virtual islam, virtual ulema and virtual ummah. however, virtual space can potentially replicate the physical world of islam, because the fundamentals would remain the same, as lawrence notes: there are still the same guideposts: the scripture (the qur’én), the person (the prophet) and the law (shari‘ah, and with it, the custodians of muslim standards, the ulama), but each—the book, the prophet, the moral custodian—has to be defined or redefined in hamdard islamicus 36 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 cyberspace. and since not all muslims have equal power or equal access to the web, there is already a pre-selection, a filtering, of muslim perspectives on the net.5 he further argues that, “muslim cybernauts will be pivotal players in the information revolution: women, men, øëfê, shi‘its, and sunnis will all play their distinctive, if not equivalent, roles”.6 bunt predicted that improved internet access will blur the line between “offline and online qur’énic content” yet “the organizations and individuals who are dominant in non-virtual contexts are not necessarily those who emerge at the top of a google listing”.7 he notes that these technological disruptions will especially benefit marginalized voices as well as minorities within muslim communities. george is of the view that: the virtual world may be used to simply repeat the “power” roles of conventional communities….in virtual religious communities, the authoritarian leadership of a single member controlling the group tends to be maintained in the electronic environment, just as there is a dominant, controlling leader in many face-to-face religious gatherings.8 the technological disruptions within the space of “religion and religiosity in the era of disruption” means that opportunities and challenges will be diverse for various stakeholders and this space would remain highly contested. smart phones have brought technology to our fingertips and the use of technology among people of muslim faith are no different from others they text; chat; download apps; play games; use social media, and shop online. there are websites and apps that cater to muslim population and have completely cloned popular social media such as whatsapp and facebook. despite resistance to the use of technology by a section of traditional muslims and numerous fatéwé issued by scholars of traditionalist islam religious scholars and communities have embraced technology. religious scholars increase their audience through online preaching hence the rise of ‘televangelical islam’. it has been argued that 1.6 billions muslims across the world are part of the global digital economy tapped by entrepreneurs and tech geeks alike, offering apps to cater to this niche market of muslims living in muslim countries as well as in the west. wheeler argues that the “internet is a vehicle for change, as well as a tool with which to maintain the status quo. it’s a vehicle for the voice of the small, at the same time that it is a tool of the state hamdard islamicus 37 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 security apparatus (the strong). it is a technology that both supports and interrupts islamic social values.”9 she raises the “question of access to the internet.… as the muslim world has been one of the slowest sectors of global civil society to transition to the information age”.10 she extends her arguments by suggesting that: the internet enables muslims who hold relatively marginal positions within their larger societies (from homosexuals to terrorists) to find community online, and to express their values in a way that the authoritarian states in which they often reside forbid. it is within this spectrum of cyberpractices that we glimpse the seeds of change, the power of the centre, and at the same time, the huge gaps between muslim life online, and the existence of the ummah world wide.11 it is not surprising then that muslim communities are embracing technologies to engage with wider communities, and are part of this global digital economy using apps/technologies such as bayan qur’én; feeling blessed; ×ajj net; ×alél gems; have ×alél will travel; investroo; islamic gps; islamophobia reporting; learn qur’én; mengaji app; modanisa; muslim pro; muzmatch; noor quest; qur’én academy; ramadan legacy; scan ×alél; seerah app; tarjimly; urban ×alél; dhabêíah especially catering to the muslims living in the western countries.12 barendregt argues that “muslim youngsters are adopting technology to distance themselves from older, traditional practices while also challenging western models.”13 stanton (2015) is of the view that religious communities need to re-evaluate the notion of community as “individuals can personalize, customize, and adapt just about everything in their lives” hence assuming that religious community members would not change and adapt with changing times and new technologies.14 he argues that in these times of social change resulting from disruptions, one can observe not merely the vulnerability but also the strength of religion, especially “if it remains attuned to the change and disruption taking place all around it”. he further contends that, “so long as religious ideas are compelling, so too will be our religious community. so long as religious ideas are out of touch, or unresponsive to social change, so too will be our religious communities.”15 disruptive technology has provided an avenue to broadcast preachers/scholars’ sermon/message to a large congregation who can hamdard islamicus 38 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 watch these at a time of their choice, however, one has to ask if it has disrupted the hierarchies or contents of the message or merely changed the mode of communication, replacing the physical with virtual presence. scholars alert that there is a possibility of losing spiritual humility in the efforts to increase the followers of the congregation as the future religious leadership will be in the hands of online performers rather than scholars and can potentially disrupt the existing hierarchies and status quo of religious order. george cautiously alerts that, “some practices… transformed by the technology… may detract from the sense of a religious gathering: verbal exchanges become shorter, emotional solidarity with co-participants is weaker, and there is less orderliness to the prayer meetings.”16 al-rawa suggests that there is “evidence that traditional religious preachers are finding social networking sites as very helpful tools to spread their messages and connect with online audiences.”17 he argues that: this online public sphere does not mean that the virtual islamic ummah as a whole is present there; instead, it is largely divided among often separate online communities in what is termed as the public sphericules…. this concept indicates that there is no ideal single public sphere as habermas envisioned; instead, there are multiple public spheres…. offline activists are moving online to spread their messages and organise, making the internet a polarised platform.18 he further states that on facebook the, role of the traditional preacher is taken over by a casual and often secular poster who stirs similar reactions found in real mosques. the facebook page organiser becomes a virtual preacher himself, and the online muslim community members who gather in these particular public sphericules tend to agree and follow his pro-islamic views…. besides, offline and online religious practices are closely connected, and there is a clear shift in authority as the traditional muslim preacher at the mosque is replaced by a layman who only needs to know basic facts about religion aside from knowing how to create a facebook page and post comments.19 new preachers no longer need the backing of established religious institutionsas they seek legitimacy from their online followers. this was hamdard islamicus 39 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 witnessed during a recent case involving personal conduct of a pakistani/ american preacher nouman ali khan whose followers dismissed allegations of inappropriate behaviour and effectively silenced the critics, highlighting the lack of accountability as well as the right to a fair trial through established religious institutions or the court of law.20 such incidents can potentially have significant disruptive influence, as social media users influence the outcomes of any grievances rather than using institutional mechanisms. it is also true that the anonymity in the cyberspace allows expression of dissent as well engagement with contentious issues without fear, however it does not mean that it will save users from harm as cyberspace replicates human behaviour and online bullying, harassment and stalking remains prevalent. while comparing the functions of physical and virtual spaces as argues that the, “technological developments have a tendency to offend at first sight, but they are accepted as a part of life very quickly if the role they fill is vital”.21 his comparison highlights the common features of faith-based practices in the mosque as well as virtual spaces utilizing social media, indicating the near replication of activities/rituals in the virtual space. table.1 the distribution of mosque activities into virtual and physical spaces functions of religious performed performed space physically virtually adhén (call for prayer) use minaret for call work with online to prayer and to adhén service indicate location of providers, list web prayer space. portal on affiliated web sites and search engine. ablution provide ablution list tutorials for fountain. the ablution ritual. khuïbah (sermon) provide screen and open portals for required equipment listening and for the projection watching previous of preach from the and/or further hamdard islamicus 40 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 ka‘bah. preaches. praying offer space for provide portals to praying postures attend prayers. like sitting, bowing, and prostrating. learning provide imam for provide portals for online consultation and educational programs, technical issues supply multimedia application. socializing create new or create chat rooms and modify existing billboards, create an spaces for awareness of the socializing. presence of others. source: as, (2006, 61) the digital mosque. with the expansion of religion in the virtual space, power bases of media-savvy religious figures would grow as compared to the traditional scholars and institutions. campbell argues that, “in the age of internet, the image of ummah as a network has become an important metaphor of providing continuity between ancient and contemporary aspects of islam”.22 the religious individuals potentially have more options and are not restricted by geography, meaning that the faith communities will no longer be defined by geography but rather by belief. it can be argued that individuals reinforce the existing beliefs rather than engaging with diverse ideas and viewpoints and even in cyberspace, associate with likeminded people hence the group members reinforce their beliefs and are further polarized, rather than understanding alternative views. this fits into the notion of “muslim ummah” as propagated by many but also used by criminal elements such as daesh to rally support across the globe. the tension arising from the marketing of religion becomes itself an important mediator of the relationship between piety, technology and expressions of individuality. adapting bayat’s analogy of “social nonmovements” it can be argued that ordinary muslims from different hamdard islamicus 41 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 geographical locations may seek social change and without being part of an organized social movement become a community visible in the cyberspace as well as physical space.23 the politicization of islam as a reaction of the western foreign policy agendas have pushed muslims to reflect on their identity as they navigate through the “secular” virtual public spaces to demonstrate the possibility of being muslim, modern and secular at the same time; by leaving a traditional muslim community and by carving out a modern muslim identity without assimilating in the west reclaiming the role of islam in the process. echchaibi calls the process “a strategy to define the terms of their entry into modernity and modern spaces. muslims become then “present” in modernity.”24 notwithstanding the impact and influence of disruptive technologies, critical engagement with the issue of access and filtering of information needs to be examined. what people search and how search engines filter information based on previous searches determines what is accessed. sunstein argues that: people should be exposed to materials they would not have chosen in advance . . . topics and points of view we have not sought out and perhaps find irritating, are central to democracy and even to freedom itself. . . . what is different is a dramatic increase in individual control over content, along with a corresponding decrease in the power of general-interest intermediaries . . . these intermediaries have performed some important democratic functions.25 it needs to be examined whether the status quo has been disrupted or the disruption remains an illusion, giving a false sense of empowerment and change – an adaptation of the status quo rather than invoking new interpretations. the era of disruptions provides information as well as misinformation blurring the distinction between expert and amateurs, preacher and the scholar, replicating the physical divide into the virtual space, rallying up hatred and intolerance in the name of religion. technological disruptions can potentially disrupt the existing religious hierarchies yet they will create new ones, replacing one set of social norms with the other, that may not necessarily be an innovation as individual behaviour is also influenced by societal norms. in the following section, disruptive technologies, new media and social networks in pakistan are broadly examined to understand the specific context. hamdard islamicus 42 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 disruptive technologies, new media and social networks in pakistan it needs to be acknowledged that internet and smart phones enable us to connect globally and seek information and build relationships in ways never imagined or experienced previously. social media have created new networks different from previous modes of networking as we rely on social media such as facebook; whatsapp; instagram; and twitter rather than writing letters or even emails, or by making phone calls. the world map of social networks highlights that facebook remains a preferred platform to connect in larger part of the globe. fig-1 global social media landscape source: http://vincos.it/world-map-of-social-networks/ in line with the global trends, facebook remains a preferred media in pakistan as well. as illustrated below there are over 45 million internet users in pakistan, 35 million of these use social media.26 in 2018, pakistan had 35 million active fb users, followed by whatsapp; instagram, and twitter users. hamdard islamicus 43 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 fig-2 pakistan’s social media landscape source: http://alphapro.pk/pakistan-social-media-stats-2018/ hamdard islamicus 44 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 “pakistan social media stats” has ranked fashion as number one industry, searched by facebook users.27 contrary to these findings, khan et al. have noted that pakistani users of social media follow sportsmen, religious scholars and marketing companies.28 pakistan social media stats analysis reveals that from 35 million facebook users, female proportion is 23%, while from 5.2 million instagram users, female proportion is 31%, highlighting the gender disparity in social media access and use among the population. this gender disparity is also prevalent when one examines the number of male and female religious scholars who have presence in the social media space (or otherwise) in pakistan. one can argue that social media now offers a public space for women to engage with and influence religious space, bypassing the hierarchies of established religious institutions. stahl argues that technology (computers) has been shaped by male values and traces its origin in scriptures, noting the disparity between male and female technology users.29 considering the number of women theologians in established religions and their presence in the social media space, one can notice that the number of women televangelicals remains low even in the christian world, and female preachers (voskamp,30 meyer,31 caine,32 and moore33) primarily have female audience. muslim women (scholars or otherwise) have also gained entry into this space and offer interpretations of islam (liberal/traditional alike) a legitimate public space previously denied to them. in pakistan, one can only note rafat hassan34; asma barlas35 and farhat hashmi36 though hassan and barlas are academics based in north america, while hashmi is based in pakistan, followed in pakistan as well as the west. hashmi opines: “it is sad that there is such a dearth of islamic scholars who are women. it is very important that women come into this field and invest their time into research in islamic studies. in fact, there is nothing against a woman becoming a muftiah”.37 despite the social media performance and large audience hashmi’s interpretations are influenced by traditionalist interpretations of islam, focusing on traditional role of women as home makers hence conforming to the norms rather than disrupting the space with new interpretations while addressing muslim women’s current concerns, even though she provides advice to muslim women on how to practice faith while living in the west. disruptive technologies have enabled a different engagement with the religion hence enhanced understanding on what it means to be a muslim in current times. it needs to go beyond the modern (liberal) narratives disseminated by the state or hamdard islamicus 45 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the scholars and critically evaluate on how people are using technology to reimagine their relationship with religion in their daily lives. pakistan thrives on its many contradictions and complexities, especially around religion, religiosity and new technologies. when it comes to social media, its followers in pakistan quickly embrace religious-inspired content, despite the fact that users search is more focused on fashion rather than faith. it is interesting to note that in 2000, only 133900 people in pakistan were internet users and this number rose to 44,608,065 in dec. 2017.38 during the same period nearly 89 licences were issued to establish new tv channels, some have little presence while the others such as ahlebait tv; ary qtv; azaan tv; bethat tv; bnsw tv; dua channel (shia sect); gawahi tv (christian community in pakistan); hadees tv; hadi tv (shia sect); haq tv; huda tv (shia sec); iqra tv; islam tv; islam channel urdu; labbaik tv; madani channel; makkah and medinah live; mashriq tv (pushto/urdu); minhaj tv; noor tv; paigham tv; peace tv urdu; raah tv; takbeer tv; tehzeeb tv; ummah channel have following among different sections of society.39 in addition to these tv channels, heaps of websites were developed and searched to engage with online community seeking information on faith and faith-based practices.40 number of preachers and scholars offering lectures via youtube has grown exponentially, some commonly noted names include: javed ahmed ghamdi,41 dr israr ahmed,42 tahir ulqadri,43 zakir naik,44 tariq jamil45 and noman ali khan46. mushrooming of tv channels has provided a forum to large and small groups alike, however, outreach and target audience rely on accessing the material via tvs. scholars, celebrity preachers and religious groups using social media have broader outreach and can rally support in real time, bring supporters on the streets to protest and create online forums to lobby for various causes. the next section analyzes four incidents in pakistan as case studies, particularly focusing on the use of social media employed by various religious groups as well as civil society, examining the disruptions resulting from the interplay of social media, religion and politics. case studies from pakistan electoral act 2017 in november 2017, the government in pakistan passed a bill “electoral act 2017” which the opposition parties opposed on grounds that the bill is politically motivated to restore previous prime minister hamdard islamicus 46 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 hence passed in haste without scrutiny.47 among other changes the bill removed a clause in voter registration (form a) ‘for general elections requiring an affidavit’ and instead included ‘declaration of faith’. it needs to be noted that section 7c of electoral bill 2017, “states that if an enrolled voter’ s belief in the finality of prophet muhammad’s (œ) prophethood is contended, they shall have to sign a declaration stating so, failing which their “name shall be deleted from the joint electoral rolls and added to a supplementary list of voters in the same electoral area as non-muslim””.48 in addition to the opposition of the bill on political grounds, social media was abuzz that the government has changed khatm-i-naboowat (finality of the prophethood) laws as well, thus the bill became a religio-political issue.49 this led to a sit-in protest by religious groups led by khadim rizvi in islamabad and lahore. the protesters declared the change as blasphemous and an appeasement of aímadês (ahmadis/qadianis were declared non-muslims in 1974). despite government assurances that there has been no change in the laws pertaining to khatm-i-naboowat, protestors wanted the federal minister for law and justice to resign, who earlier had posted a video message declaring that he believed in the finality of prophet muhammad (œ), yet his ancestral home was attacked by protesting mob, putting his family’s safety at risk. angry protesters had earlier attacked the residences of a number of politicians and parliamentarians, even injuring a member of the parliament.50 as the protests gained momentum, hundreds of protesters were arrested by the police in islamabad, resulting in retaliatory violence by the protestors against the police personnel as well as public buildings and assets. although the government had shut down facebook, twitter, and youtube in islamabad and rawalpindi to block coverage of the operation, it further fuelled the anger and more protestors reached the capital city to join the sit-in protesters. leaders of the protesters issued a list of demands once army was involved to end the political impasse, brokering a deal with tehreek-e-labbaik ya rasool allah (tlyr), accepting all their demands, even giving cash to protesters to return to their homes.51 social media was effectively used to garner support and mobilise protestors but also for propaganda regarding the contents of the electoral bill hence influencing the polity as well as seeking legitimacy that was witnessed during the general elections. tlyr led by khadim hussain rizvi contested elections under the registered name tehreek labbaik pakistan (tlp),52 won more than 2.23 million votes in the national assembly; more than 2.38 million provincial votes,53 hamdard islamicus 47 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 and got two mp elected in sindh province a spectacular rise for an organisation that gained national prominence less than a year earlier.54 zainab rape/murder case (2018) in january 2018, a minor girl (6y) was abducted and her body was found later dumped in garbage; the autopsy revealed that the child was raped and strangled to death.55 local communities were outraged as this was not an isolated incident in the area (notorious for crimes against minors) and police had failed to arrest the culprits in previous cases.56 during the protests tlyr workers clashed with the police and the protest took a violent turn, spiraling the law and order situation out of control.57 on failing to control the situation, the police used excessive force to disperse the protesters, further angering people, resulting in countrywide protests and condemnation by civil society activists; human rights organisations; politicians and celebrities. the head of a religious political party led zainab’s funeral prayer, in a show of solidarity with local communities as well as consolidate their position as representative of religious communities in pakistan. as the police failed to make any progresses, social media appeals “justice for zainab” enabled the relatives to access cctv footage that was widely circulated in an attempt to identify the abductor. this enabled the arrest of a young man from the neighbourhood, who confessed to the crime (including previous rapes/murders of minors), further evidence through the polygraph test and dna match confirmed that he was a serial rapist and murderer. due to public pressure and severity of the crimes the case was tried under section 7 of the anti terrorism act (ata) in anti terrorism court, which handed imran ali, four counts of death penalty; one life term imprisonment; 7-year jail term, and rs. 4.1 million in fines to be paid to the heirs of the victims.58 the supreme court rejected his final appeal in june 2018, and he was executed on 17th october 2018.59 one can witness the potential of social media and how it can lead to solidarity for a cause, gaining support from religious groups and activists alike. economic advisory council of pakistan appointments 2018 the current government of pakistan appointed a renowned economist prof. atif mian as advisor to economic advisory council in mid 2018. soon after the announcement a member of the parliament tweeted that hamdard islamicus 48 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the government should not have appointed an ahmadi. her own party (ppp) dissociated from the tweet and she was widely condemned for the tweet.60 initially this appointment was applauded for being made on merit rather than his faith, though ahmadis are barred from holding certain offices (president; prime minister; judges in the federal shariat court; legal practitioners for shariat court;61 council of islamic ideology). while there was support from the liberal/moderate sections of the civil society, encouraging the government to stand firm, various religious groups as well as religious political parties widely condemned the government even though there is no constitutional bar on such advisory appointments. opposition parties submitted a call attention notice in the senate raising objections to the appointment while the government defended its decision especially focusing on the rights of the minorities.62 religious groups not only condemned the appointment but also filed a petition in islamabad high court challenging the appointment on religious grounds.63 they also announced a sit-in protest in the capital after friday prayers and started mobilizing their supporters via social media. the government caved in and reversed the decision under the pressure exerted through social media especially twitter.64 blasphemy laws and the supreme court appeal of asia bibi (20102018) in june 2009, a mob had attacked the home of a christian family blaming a christian woman for insulting the prophet muhammad (œ),65 beating all family members. initially the police rescued the family, however, they later arrested asia bibi for insulting the prophet (œ), charges were laid a year later under section 295 of ppc. it was noted that a group of women had argued over asia bibi fetching/drinking water for muslim women.* in nov 2010, a district court sentenced her to death and a penalty of rs. 100,000.66 despite her death sentences, imam of peshawar’s oldest mosque, maulana yousaf qureshi, offered a reward of rs.500,000 to anyone for killing her if the courts fail to hang her an announcement supported by one of the urdu national newspapers.67 on 16th oct. 2014, lahore high court upheld the verdict of district court68 as well as issued a stay order against possible presidential pardon.69 *though there is no religious prohibition on muslims in sharing the utensils with nonmuslims, in many muslim communities/households across pakistan, separate glasses/ plates are used for non-muslim domestic helpers/workers. some muslims believe and practice this as a religious prohibition. hamdard islamicus 49 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 the then governor of punjab, salman taseer visited asia bibi in jail, where she was in solitary confinement due to fears for her safety in the prison. salman taseer was accused of blasphemy by religious groups for visiting asia bibi and was killed by one of his bodyguard in islamabad on 4th january 2011.70 on 2nd march 2011, minister for religious minority affairs, shahbaz bhatti was also assassinated for supporting asia bibi,71 both killings were hailed by religious right across the country, rejoicing on social media as well as through public rallies. despite online petitions for justice for asia bibi, and face book and twitter campaigns to free her, religious right have successfully sidelined the voices arguing for the reevaluation of the blasphemy laws in pakistan. under pressure from the religious groups the government dropped efforts to reform blasphemy laws.72 lahore high court decision was challenged in the supreme court on 24th nov. 2014, and appeal was accepted for hearing in 2015. salman taseer’s assassin was sentenced to death and executed on 29th feb 2016, and is revered by various religious factions who have turned his grave into a monumental shrine. considering that the religious groups had rallied against salman taseer and in support of his killer, one supreme court judge refused to serve on the bench established to hear asia bibi’s appeal, and later resigned for no reason, causing further delay.73 the supreme court admitted her appeal in july 2015, and after much delay reserved its final judgment on 8th october 2018, amid security concerns, and fears that religious groups would protest causing havoc across the country. tlp has warned the judges of horrible end if she is given clemency or allowed to leave the country.74 on 31st october, supreme court acquitted asia bibi and ordered her immediate release.75 religious groups led by tlp began protesting across the country, threatening the judges and asking fellow muslims to kill the three judges,76 called for mutiny against the army chief and demanded death penalty for asia bibi.77 social media especially twitter was used by tlp to rally support across the country as well as issue threats to public offices. initially twitter refused a request by the government to suspend khadim rizvi’s twitter account,78 however, it was later suspended.79 however, social media campaign led to countrywide protests, paralyzing the state machinery, and forcing the government to negotiate with the hardliners to end the protest, surrendering to their demands.80 conclusion social media has become an instrument of choice of not only the hamdard islamicus 50 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 disenfranchised communities, groups, minorities, and the marginalized, but also of established religio-political parties and activists of all kinds. it enables disruptions in the existing hierarchies, effectively seeking justice or manipulating the polity to further their agendas. one can argue that people living on the margins and peripheries have always experienced disruptions, however new technologies have enabled them to disrupt existing power hierarchies. it seems that social media as well as disruptive technologies have disrupted the existing hierarchies to some extent yet it has not changed the dominant public discourse. in the context of pakistan, the apologies offered by the tlp and its supporters for “unnecessarily hurting the sentiments”, the apology offered was not regarding their thinking or the discourse employed to incite hatred,81 or disruption of public life. social media is merely a tool in the era of disruption that can be used for any purpose by those who have access to smart phone and internet. as noted previously the access to new media is largely confined to urban areas in pakistan, primarily in the metropolises of karachi, lahore and islamabad. yet it would be naïve to assume that the impact remains confined to these cities, as tlp protests and online campaigns have indicated that in this era of disruptions, the marginalized groups become mainstream even if for a brief period. in the cases related to asia bibi; the electoral act and the economic advisory council, the religious groups have successfully transformed their influence from the social media to physical space influencing public discourse using religious idiom, supporting the status quo using disruptive technologies. while in the case of child rape and murder, the technological disruption enabled disruption of existing socio-legal order by pressurizing the state institutions but also using social media to gather evidence. it is interesting to note that the disruptions enable religious groups to occupy streets and exercise their constitutional/political right to protest and contest elections a tradition rooted in western democracy, while at the same time rejecting disruptions in their thinking liberal (western) thinking remains unacceptable to the traditionalists. these disruptions are emotive calls for emotive responses in the name of religion, amid fears of western influence and possible change in the thinking of masses. hence making use of social media in the era of disruptions to maintain the status quo in a way that suits the traditionalist is acceptable, while any change that disrupts their thinking is labelled as liberal/western are unacceptable. it can be concluded that social media may have provided a new mechanism to communicate in ‘real time’, the history of pakistan hamdard islamicus 51 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 reveals that islamic groups as well as human rights activists have successfully furthered their agendas even before the era of technological disruptions during the 1977 elections (pakistan national alliance/ tehreek nizam-e-mustafa) and the 1980s’ (women action forum). despite recent events and cases and the entry of new players and stakeholders, it would be premature to conclude that technology has disrupted existing hierarchies and power structures across institutions, religious or otherwise. notes and references 1. ayesha bux, quote from facebook (permission to include granted).. 2. susan ella george, religion and technology in the 21st century: faith in the e-world. hershey: information science publishing, 2006. p. 86. 3. ibid., 4. peter mandaville, transnational muslim politics: reimagining the umma. london, routledge. pp. 155–156. 5. bruce b. lawrence, “allah on-line: the practice of global islam in the information age.” in practicing religion in the age of the media: explorations in media, religion, and culture. new york, columbia university press, 2002. pp. 240-241 6. ibid., p. 51. 7. gary r. bunt, “rip. burn. pray.”: islamic expression online.” in religion online. new york, routledge, 2004. pp. 127, 134. 8. george, “religion and technology in the 21st century”op-cit., p. 163. 9. deborah wheeler, “islam, community, and the internet: new possibilities in the digital age.” interface: the journal of education, community and values 2, no. 2 (2002). accessed august 20, 2018. https://commons.pacificu.edu/cgi/ v i e w c o n t e n t . c g i ? r e f e r e r = h t t p s : / / w w w . g o o g l e . c o m . a u / &httpsredir=1&article=1010&context=inter02 10. ibid., p. 19. 11. ibid. 12. h t t p s : / / i t u n es . ap p le . co m/u s / a pp / ba yan qu r an 3 *qu ra n ph o n i c s*/ id525719136?mt=8; https://www.launchgood.com/project/feeling_blessed_app#!/ ; https://www.hajjnet.com/en/apps/; http://halalgems.com/; https:// www.havehalalwilltravel.com/; https://investroo.com/; https://itunes.apple.com/us/ app/islamic-gps/id891264546?mt=8; https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/islamophobiareporting-app/id1108760942?mt=8; https://learn-quran.co/; http://mengaji.com/; https://www.modanisa.com/en/welcome/?return=%252f; https://quranacademy.io/ ; https://www.ramadanlegacy.com/; https://www.muslimpro.com/; http:// www.noorquest.com/; https://muzmatch.com/; http://www.scanhalal.com/; http:/ /seerah-app.com/; https://www.tarjim.ly/en; http://www.urbanhalal.com/; https:/ /www.zabihah.com/; http://www.jannah.org/ 13. barendregt, bart quoted in lisa zahran, “the impact of technology on islam.” hamdard islamicus 52 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 beliefnet. accessed october 07, 2018. https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/islam/ articles/the-impact-of-technology-on-islam.aspx. 14. joshua stanton, “how does disruptive innovation help sacred communities?”.” the wisdom daily, may 7, 2015. accessed october 14, 2018. http://thewisdomdaily.com/does-disruptive-innovation-help-or-hurt-sacredcommunities/ 15. ibid., 16. george, “religion and technology in the 21st century”op-cit., p. 172. 17. ahmed al-rawi, “facebook as a virtual mosque: the online protest against online protest against innocence of muslims.” culture and religion 17, no. 1 (2016). doi:10.1080/14755610.2016.1159591. pp. 19-34. 18. ibid., p. 21. 19. ibid., p. 28. 20. https://muslimmatters.org/2017/09/24/navigating-the-nouman-ali-khan-scandal/, see also, https://stepfeed.com/a-muslim-preacher-was-accused-of-sexting-and-peoplehave-mixed-reactions-0859, see also, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ hannahallam/payoffs-threats-and-sham-marriages-women-say-a-celebrity 21. imdat as, “the digital mosque: a new paradigm in mosque design.” journal of architectural education 60, no. 1 (1984). p. 66. 22. campbell, heidi. when religion meets new media. new york: routledge, 2010. 23. asef bayat, life as politics: how ordinary people change the middle east. cairo: american university in cairo press, 2013. pp. 20-29. 24. nabil echchaibi. “disruptive visibilities. awakening records and the marketing of islamic media.” sociologica 83 (2014). doi:10.2383/79477. p. 15. 25. cass r. sunstein, “democracy and filtering.” communications of the acm 47, no. 12 (2004): 57. doi:10.1145/1035134.1035166. quoted in, henry c. lucas, the search for survival: lessons from disruptive technologies. santa barbara, ca: praeger, 2012. p. 199. 26. sorav jain, “30 amazing digital and social media marketing stats and facts of pakistan – 2018.” social media marketing tips. may 23, 2018. accessed september 07, 2018. https://www.soravjain.com/30-amazing-digital-and-socialmedia-marketing-stats-and-facts-of-pakistan-2018 27. “pakistan social media stats 2018.” pakistan social media stats and research summary 2018. june 03, 2018. accessed september 07, 2018. http://alphapro.pk/ pakistan-social-media-stats-2018/ 28. rehan khan; hikmat ullah khan; muhammad shehzad faisal; khalid iqbal; and muhammad shahid iqbal malik. “an analysis of twitter users of pakistan.” international journal of computer science and information security 14, no. 8 (2016). pp. 855–864. 29. william a. stahl, god and the chip: religion and the culture of technology. waterloo (ont.): wilfrid laurier university press, 2002. 30. https://annvoskamp.com/ 31. https://www.joycemeyer.org/ 32. http://christinecaine.com/ 33. https://www.lproof.org/ 34. http://riffathassan.info/ 35. https://faculty.ithaca.edu/abarlas/ hamdard islamicus 53 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 36. http://www.farhathashmi.com/ 37. farahnaz zahidi. “where are pakistan’s female muftis and islamic scholars.” mintpress news, january 2015. accessed september 07, 2018. https:/ /www.mintpressnews.com/mympn/pakistan-no-female-muftis-women-consult/ 38. “internet usage in asia.” 2017. accessed september 07, 2018. https:// www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm 39. http://ahlebaittv.net/; https://aryqtv.tv/; http://azaantv.tv/; https://bethat.tv/; https://www.bnswtv.ml/web/; http://www.duachannel.com/; http://www.ashura.tv/ ; https://gawahi.tv/; http://hadi.tvin.pk/; http://haq.tv.com.pk/; http://www.huda.tv/ ; https://www.islamchannelurdu.tv/; http://labbaiktv.net/; https://madanichannel.tv/ ; https://makkahlive.net/makkahlive.aspx; https://www.mashriqtv.pk/live-tv; http:/ /www.minhaj.tv/; http://noor.tvin.pk/; http://paigham.tv/; http://www.peacetv.tv/ en-gb/programmes/lang/urdu; http://raah.tv.com.pk/; http://takbeer.tv/; http:// www.tehzeebtv.com/; http://www.ummahchannel.tv/; 40. http://www.alhudapk.com/; http://www.islamonline.net; https://www.alislam.org/ ; http://www.islam101.com/dawah/course101.html; http://www.islam.tc/ask-imam/ index.php; http://al-islam.faithweb.com/tv.htm; http://www.themosquecares.com/ ; http://imamsonline.com/mosque-goes-high-tech-for-the-teachings-of-islam/; https:/ /bayyinah.com/ 41. http://www.al-mawrid.org/ 42. https://www.youtube.com/channel/ucwaqd2gvxiabzz9xejesgba 43. https://www.minhaj.tv/english/index.html 44. https://www.youtube.com/channel/uc3ymp7nqf514i1zh1evbzra 45. https://www.youtube.com/channel/ucct5l-davyk8utmqgu8gjtw 46. https://www.youtube.com/user/bayyinahinstitute 47. “govt bulldozes controversial election bill 2017 through national assembly.” dawn, october 2, 2017. accessed september 07, 2018. https:// www.dawn.com/news/1361268 48. inamullah khattak, and nadir guramani, “na passes bill to restore khatm-inaboowat declaration to original form in elections act 2017.” dawn, october 5, 2017. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.dawn.com/news/1361873 49. syed irfan raza, “govt defends controversial election law in na.” dawn, october 4, 2017. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.dawn.com/news/ 1361574 50. “law minister zahid hamid resigns as analysts predict defections in pml-n.” tribune,november 27, 2017. accessed october 14, 2018. https://tribune.com.pk/ story/1569364/1-law-minister-zahid-hamid-quits-tenders-resignation-pm/ 51. nosheen abbas, and sune engel rasmussen, “pakistani law minister quits after weeks of anti-blasphemy protests.” the guardian, november 27, 2017. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/27/pakistani-lawminister-quits-zahid-hamid 52. “list of enlisted political parties.” 2018. accessed august 13, 2018 https:// www.ecp.gov.pk/documents/generalelections2018/120.pdf 53. “pakistan caves to islamist pressure over minority economic advisor.” france 24, september 7, 2018. https://www.france24.com/en/20180907-pakistan-cavesislamist-pressure-over-minority-economic-advisor hamdard islamicus 54 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 54. imran ayub, “winning two pa seats, nascent tlp gets ready to enter sindh assembly.” dawn, july 29, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https:// www.dawn.com/news/1423491 55. atika rehman, “6-year-old zainab’s autopsy suggests child endured rape, captivity before murder.” dawn, january 11, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https:/ /www.dawn.com/news/1382243/6-year-old-zainabs-autopsy-suggests-childendured-rape-captivity-before-murder 56. “the rape and murder of zainab ansari has shocked pakistan.” news.com.au, january 11, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.news.com.au/world/ asia/the-rape-and-murder-of-zainab-ansari-has-shocked-pakistan/news-story/ 1da4d624f52e7b1f74b189bcc204cdd9 57. afzal ansari, “justice for zainab’ turns into rallying cry.” dawn, january 11, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018.https://www.dawn.com/news/1382209/justicefor-zainab-turns-into-rallying-cry 58. rana bilal, “imran ali handed death sentence on 4 counts, life term in zainab rape and murder case.” dawn, february 17, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.dawn.com/news/1389991/imran-ali-handed-4-counts-of-the-deathsentence-life-term-in-zainab-rape-and-murder-case; see also, rana bilal, “zainab murderer handed death penalty for rape, murder of 3 other girls.” dawn, august 5, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.dawn.com/news/1424934 59. nauman liaquat, “zainab’s rapist, murderer imran ali hanged at kot lakhpat jail.” dawn, october 17, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https:// www.dawn.com/news/1439400 60. “shehla raza deletes controversial tweet regarding atif r mian.” the news, september 3, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.thenews.com.pk/ latest/363387-shehla-raza-deletes-controversial-tweet-regarding-atif-r-mian 61. http://na.gov.pk/uploads/documents/1333523681_951.pdf 62. imran mukhtar, “govt hits back after campaign targets atif mian.” nation, september 5, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https://nation.com.pk/05-sep2018/govt-hits-back-after-campaign-targets-atif-mian 63. “ihc to hear petition against dr atif mian’s appointment.” september 5, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.samaa.tv/news/2018/09/ihc-to-hearpetition-against-dr-atif-mians-appointment/ 64. amir wasim, “analysis: what drove pti govt to reverse atif mian’s nomination.” dawn, september 10, 2018. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.dawn.com/ news/1432021 65. rob crilly and aoun sahi, “christian woman sentenced to death in pakistan ‘for blasphemy’.” telegraph, november 9, 2010. accessed october 14, 2018. https:/ /www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8120142/christian-woman-sentenced-to-deathin-pakistan-for-blasphemy.html 66. “asia bibi’s death sentence, 1 year completed.” (blog) posted november 9, 2011. accessed october 14, 2018. https://masihifoundation.wordpress.com/tag/asia-bibi/ christian women gets death sentence for ‘blasphemy’ “tribune, november 10, 2010. accessed october 14, 2018. https://tribune.com.pk/story/75926/christianwoman-gets-death-sentence-for-blasphemy/ 67. declan walsh, “cleric puts price on head of pakistani woman.” the guardian, hamdard islamicus 55 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 december 6, 2010. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2010/dec/06/cleric-pakistani-christian-woman-blasphemy 68. “judgment sheet lahore high court, lahore.” http://sys.lhc.gov.pk/appjudgments/ 2014lhc5574.pdf see also, “pakistan court upholds asia bibi death sentence.” bbc news,october 16, 2014. accessed october 14, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/ news/world-asia-29640245 69. jibran khan, “lahore high court issues stay order in asia bibi’s appeal against blasphemy sentence.” asia.news.it, june 12, 2010. accessed october 18, 2018. http://www.asianews.it/news-en/lahore-high-court-issues-stay-order-in-asiabibi%e2%80%99s-appeal-against-blasphemy-sentence-20187.html 70. “punjab governor salman taseer assassinated in islamabad.” bbc news, january 4, 2011. accessed october 18, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-southasia-12111831 71. declan walsh, “pakistan minister shahbaz bhatti shot dead in islamabad.” the guardian, march 2, 2011. accessed october 18, 2018. https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/02/pakistan-minister-shot-dead-islamabad 72. declan walsh, “pakistan mp sherry rehman drops effort to reform blasphemy laws.” the guardian, february 3, 2011. accessed october 18, 2018. https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/03/pakistan-blasphemy-laws-sherry-rehman 73. ali zain, “sc judge refuses to hear final appeal in asia bibi case”. october 13, 2016. accessed october 18, 2018. https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/pakistan/scjudge-refuses-to-hear-final-appeal-in-asia-bibi-case/ ; see also, dan wooding, “the supreme court of pakistan judge, who refused to hear asia bibi’s death penalty appeal, drops another bombshell by resigning.” october 24, 2016. accessed october 18, 2018. https://www.crossmap.com/news/the-supreme-courtof-pakistan-judge-who-refused-to-hear-asia-bibis-death-penalty-appeal-dropsanother-bombshell-by-resigning.html 74. “pakistan: islamic groups threaten supreme court judges ahead of asia bibi ruling.” worldwatch monitor,october 11, 2018. accessed october 18, 2018. https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2018/10/pakistan-islamic-groups-threatensupreme-court-judges-ahead-of-asia-bibi-ruling/ 75. “criminal appeal no.39-l of 2015.” 2018. http://www.supremecourt.gov.pk/ web/user_files/file/crl.a._39_l_2015.pdf; “asia bibi acquitted: complete supreme court verdict.” the news, october 31, 2018. accessed october 18, 2018. https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/387922-asia-bibi-acquitted-completesupreme-court-verdict 76. samuel smith, “muslims block roads, call for supreme court justices to be killed over asia bibi acquittal.” september 6, 2018. accessed october 18, 2018. https://www.christianpost.com/news/muslims-block-roads-supreme-courtjustices-killed-asia-bibi-acquittal-228280/; asia bibi blasphemy verdict: protesters target pakistan pm, army chief; call for assassination of sc judges.” times now news, october 31, 2018. accessed november 2, 2018. https:// www.timesnownews.com/international/article/asia-bibi-pakistan-blasphemyverdict-protesters-target-pakistan-pm-imran-khan-army-chief-general-qamar-javedbajwa-call-for-assassination-of-supreme/307606 77. “asiya bibi verdict: tlp calls for mutiny against pak army chief.” ani, october 31, 2018. accessed november 2, 2018. https://www.aninews.in/news/ hamdard islamicus 56 vol. xlii, nos. 1 & 2 world/asia/asiya-bibi-verdictt lp-calls-for-mutiny-against-pak-armychief201810312134120002/ 78 “twitter refuses to take down khadim rizvi’s account: shireen mazari.” 2018. dailytimes, november 4, 2018. accessed november 6, 2018. https:// dailytimes.com.pk/318442/twitter-refuses-to-take-down-khadim-rizvis-accountshireen-mazari/ 79. “khadim hussain rizvi’s twitter account suspended.” november 4, 2018. dawn, accessed november 6, 2018. https://www.dawn.com/news/1443541 80. “asia bibi: deal to end pakistan protests over blasphemy case.” bbc news,november 3, 2018. accessed november 4, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/ news/world-asia-46080067; see also, mansoor malik, “tlp ends protest after deal with government.” dawn, november 3, 2018. accessed november 4, 2018. https://www.dawn.com/news/1443244; see also islamic videos m.a. “allama khadim hussain rizvi complete press conference.” youtube video, 11:46. accessed november 14, 2018.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfw2gjer53u 81. “govt accepts tlp’s apology on inciteful speeches.” the news, november 18, 2018. accessed november 20, 2018. https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/395445govt-accepts-tlps-apology-on-inciteful-speeches-religious-minister-qadri. hamdard islamicus 98 vol. xxxix, no. 4 obituary prof. iqtidar husain siddiqui we have received the sad news about the passing away of professor iqtidar husain siddiqui, former chairman of the department of history, aligarh muslim university on 28 november 2016 in aligarh. dr. siddiqui (1937-2016) was known for his devotion to and encouragement of historical studies and research of medieval indian history. his own works such as afghan despotism in india (aligarh, 1969) has assumed the status of a classic. his studies on amêr khusrow, al-bêrënê and ibn baïïëïah were well received by the academia. his other remarkable work indo-persian historiography upto the thirteenth century (aligarh, 2010) and its enlarged edition indo-persian historiography upto the fourteenth century (2014) continue to inspire younger scholars as well as the senior ones. even after retirement he continued to work and was recently studying the life and contribution of ‘abdur raíêm khén-i khénén. he never neglected the need to promote scholarship in urdu language and one of his latest monographs on sufism is in urdu. the academia, his colleagues and others miss him. may allah almighty rest his soul in peace and provide solace to his family members – amen! hamdard islamicus 03-takhayyur.pmd hamdard islamicus 51 vol. xl, no. 3 takhayyur a reform methodology for pakistan dr. mudasra sabreen chairperson department of shariah, assistant professor (law), faculty of shariah and law, internatioinal islamic university islamabad, pakistan. e-mail: mdsabreen@yahoo.com eclectism or takhayyur denotes choosing opinions from different schools of thought within islamic law. this concept is based on nonadherence to a single school. although there is a huge debate over legitimacy of takhayyur among muslim jurists but it is used as a tool by muslim states to reform their family laws. this article will analyze takhayyur as a reform methodology as employed in pakistan. it is suggested that despite debate over legitimacy of takhayyur in islamic law it has been proved as a successful tool for reform. the laws made on the basis of takhayyur have been proved less controversial as compared to laws made on the basis of ijtihéd. introduction eclectism or takhayyur denotes choosing opinions from different schools of thought within the islamic law. this concept is based on nonadherence to a single school of law. the process of takhayyur sparked differences of opinion among the jurists of islamic laws and there is a huge debate over its legitimacy. despite this debate, takhayyur is used as a tool by muslim states including pakistan to reform their family laws. muslim states including pakistan have tried to reform their laws especially family laws in the past century by using methodologies of takhayyur and ijtihéd. due to space constraint ijtihéd as a reform methodology will not be discussed here. this article will analyze takhayyur as a reform methodology as employed in pakistan. this topic is very hamdard islamicus 52 vol. xl, no. 3 important as takhayyur is used as a reform methodology by the muslim states and choice of methodology affects the resultant law. the article suggests that despite the debate over legitimacy of takhayyur in the islamic law it has been proved as a successful tool for reform. the laws made on the basis of takhayyur have been proved less controversial as compared to the laws made on the basis of ijtihéd. there is no scope to discuss the opinions of fuqahé regarding legitimacy of takhayyur in detail so it will be just touched upon. this article will focus only on the use of takhayyur as a reform methodology. it comprises two sections: the first one deals with the use and legitimacy of takhayyur as a reform methodology and the second section analyses pakistan’s practice regarding takhayyur. it will be a socio-legal study so qualitative methodology will be used for the purpose of this research. books, articles and statutes will be consulted to find out opinions of scholars and approach of the modern muslim states including pakistan. effort will be made to consult original sources as well as modern writings by muslim scholars. reference is made to the statutes and case law wherever necessary. takhayyur: a reform methodology the word takhayyur literally means to choose.1 takhayyur means to switch between different schools of thought on different issues. the concept is based on non-adherence to a single school of law. all schools of the islamic law recognize the orthodoxy of each other.2 the principle of takhayyur not only gives a right to an individual muslim to resort to any other school than his own in a particular matter but is also a reform methodology. according to this concept diversity of opinion in the islamic law is considered a wealth and an asset and different opinions from different schools are used for the purpose of reform. due to the necessity and desire to find solutions for new challenges takhayyur is used in legislation, fiqhê books and even fatéwé.3 the condition for a person to practice takhayyur is that he/she should not combine the opinions of two schools.4 the principle of takhayyur is recognized by the ×anafê, mélikê and shéfi‘ê schools.5 according to the opinion of shawkénê, a renowned muslim scholar, the concept of adherence hamdard islamicus 53 vol. xl, no. 3 to a single school was evolved after the period of the four great iméms. there was no concept of strict adherence of a single school in their time period.6 the concept of adherence to a single school was developed in the middle of third century ×ijrê after the death of great iméms.7 shéh walê ullah in his book ×ujjah-tu-allah al-bélighah states that before advent of fourth century there was no agreement on taqlêd of one particular school. it was a general practice to contact any muftê for resolution of issue arisen regardless of his school. the concept of strict adherence to a single school was developed during fourth century.8 during the ‘abbésid’s reign judges did not consider themselves to be bound to follow a particular mujtahid or school rather they used to follow their own opinion. people used to ask for opinions of different scholars without considering themselves bound to follow a particular mujtahid.9 ibn al-qayyim, a ×anbalê jurist, is of the opinion that nothing is mandatory upon a muslim except what the qur’én and sunnah has made mandatory. it is binding upon a muslim to follow qur’én and sunnah and opinions of the øaíébah (companions [f]). by strict adherence to a single school a muslim may act against opinion of a îaíébê which has more sanctity than an opinion of a particular imém.10 ibn ×azm, ‘izz-ul-dên ‘abdussalém and abë shamah are also of the opinion that a particular school should not be followed rather the opinion which is in conformity with the qur’én and sunnah should be followed.11 muslim jurists have always considered a muslim free to choose any school he/she wants. coulson mentioned ibn taimiyah’s opinion that according to him adherence to a particular authority except the prophet muíammad (œ) was not a requirement. ibn taimiyah considered it permissible for a muslim to follow different scholars and said that scholars like abë ×anêfah, mélik, shéfi‘ê, aímad ibn ×anbal did not deny this right of a muslim.12 isnawi has mentioned opinion of al-amêdi that according to him to follow one school in one issue and another school in another issue is allowed.13 same is the opinion of zaidén.14 al-méwardê permits appointment of a judge from a different school than the appointing authority. according to him a judge has authority to follow any other school than his own if he considers it a sound opinion based on his own ijtihéd. strict adherence to the judge’s own school is not required. hamdard islamicus 54 vol. xl, no. 3 a condition binding the judge to follow a particular school is invalid according to al-méwardê whether it is a general condition or relates to some specific case or category of decisions. a judge is supposed to exercise his reason and to decide about the right solution of the case so he is not bound by such conditions.15 the principle of takhayyur is also mentioned by imém qaréfi. he mentioned in his book sharí tanqêí al-fuîël fi ikhtiîér al-maíîël about yaíyé al zunnnétê who allowed takhayyur on three conditions: that the opinions should not be combined or mixed in such a way to oppose consensus or to make it an opinion which is not given by any jurist; the jurist to be followed must be trustworthy; that a particular opinion should not be followed to seek rukhîah (concessions). qaréfi mentioned that there is consensus of opinions that a muslim may follow any of the jurists. he also mentioned consensus of the companions (f) that after seeking opinion of any of the companions a muslim is allowed to seek opinion on the same matter from some other companion (d).16 in the musallam al-thabët and its commentary the fawétií al-raímët the author is of the opinion that it is not binding on a muslim to follow one school, concessions cannot be sought in the same problem but can be sought in different problems.17 muíammad ‘abduh, the egyption scholar, gave the idea that a law should be formulated based on the ×anafê and other schools regarding mu‘émalét to fulfil social needs. according to him (in an egyptian context) adherence to the ×anafê school is not a necessary qualification for qéìês. he considered such a code to be helpful for qéìês and ordinary persons in application of the sharê‘ah law as they do not need to be involved in differences of opinion. it also provides certainty in a legal system as litigants will know which opinion in a particular matter will be applicable to them. ‘abduh’s disciple rashêd riìé further developed this doctrine.18 it is a kind of ijtihéd as it involves evaluation of opinions from different schools. it is the most common device used by the islamic states in formulating their laws based on the islamic law. reformers applied this principle to bring legislative reforms in the law applied by the state.19 in particular the principle of takhayyur has proved very successful in reforming the islamic family law.20 the majallah aíkém al-‘adalêyah was the first codification which was based on takhayyur and, although the ×anafê school was officially followed in the ottoman empire, hamdard islamicus 55 vol. xl, no. 3 the majallah borrowed some opinions from other schools as well.21 abë al-‘alé maudëdê, a renowned scholar from pakistan, also did not show strict adherence to any particular school in his writings rather he occasionally resorted to other schools keeping in view social needs.22 wielderhold presented a 17th century anonymous treatise which according to him was a shéfi‘ê treatise and has shown that takhayyur and talfêq were not the twentieth century phenomenon but were debated even in seventeenth century. the treatise said that if there is difference of opinion among jurists it is a duty of the judge and the muftê (jurisconsult) to look for an appropriate opinion. for giving a judgment or a legal advice any of the doctrines/opinions of different schools can be relied upon. if a companion (d) has issued an opinion and it is against the doctrine of main schools that opinion can be preferred. the only condition here is that the person exercising takhayyur should be aware of the reasons, conditions and circumstances of that opinion. a muftê is allowed to rely on a weak opinion but he should inform the mustéftê about weakness of that opinion. this could be done for the benefit of the community or for ìarërah (necessity). this is if the person is capable to make a preference.23 according to moors, in the seventeenth and eighteenth century syria and palestine, it was the practice of judges to refer litigants to judges from other schools to get relief for instance for dissolution of marriage. it means that they considered takhayyur a valid and correct practice.24 it is clear that takhayyur is considered permissible by muslim jurists and has been used in the past. muslim countries have used it as a reform tool in the twentieth century as well. in the process of reform the methodology of takhayyur went through three stages: in the first stage of reform opinions were taken from different schools, which was done by the ottomans in framing of the laws of 1915 and 1917. in the second stage legislators adopted opinions from individual jurists which were occasionally in conflict with the dominant opinions of the schools. the egyptian law of inheritance 1943 is an example of that. in the third stage patchwork or talfêq comes. in talfêq parts of opinions are patched together and the result is a new rule which is not held by any jurist.25 islamic states like pakistan, egypt, iraq, syria, tunisia and sudan found takhayyur as a most practical reform device and have continuously used hamdard islamicus 56 vol. xl, no. 3 it for effecting reforms.26 it is argued that a muslim is bound to follow islam and not a particular interpretation. in today’s world if a state wants to reform the law it must not adhere to a particular school.27 different opinions are considered equally authoritative and should be resorted to for finding solutions to recent problems. it is argued that strict adherence to a single school may result in reluctance in such a muslim to consult a scholar from any other school and may develop a feeling of prejudice towards other schools and their scholars. it may result in preference of opinion of an imém even though it contradicts a particular íadêh or opinion of a îaíébê (d).28 as people’s problems, customs and interests change with passage of time so the law changes. the islamic law comprises two sets of laws: definitive and probable. definitive are divine laws which cannot be changed whereas probable laws are based on ijtihéd.29 muslims are bound to follow divine rules but are not bound to follow opinions of jurists, if based on ijtihéd, as they are probable and not definitive. such opinions shall be followed if they fulfil social needs of a particular society otherwise muslim scholars should do ijtihéd. keeping in view public welfare and social need, opinions from different schools can be adopted.30 where there is scarcity of mujtahids, at least it is a duty of the scholars to evaluate opinions of different schools and then choose the one which has stronger evidence/argument.31 as in a modern state, laws are enacted through legislature, otherwise opinions of jurists will not have any effect; such preferred opinions can be enacted through legislatures in muslim states. it is a duty of jurists to formulate the whole process so that the wealth of opinions in the islamic law can be used. as members of parliament are not qualified to evaluate religious opinions this role must be played by the jurists. the concept of takhayyur in the indian subcontinent shéh walê ullah, (d. 1760) was of the opinion that the concept of strict adherence to a school was developed in the fourth century ×ijrê. before that the common practice was to consult any muftê regarding the issue in question regardless of his school.32 the best example of the use of the methodology of the takhayyur in indian subcontinent is when this hamdard islamicus 57 vol. xl, no. 3 methodology was used to resolve the issue of apostasy among muslim women in the beginning of twentieth century. in his article ‘apostasy and judicial separation in british india’ khélêd masëd discussed this case in detail. it is evident from this article that due to strict ×anafê law regarding dissolution of marriage, which only recognised impotency of the husband as a valid ground for dissolution of marriage, women started using apostacy as a legal device to get out of an undesirable marriage. ashraf ‘alê thénvê, an indian jurist, who in an earlier fatwé declared marriage of an apostacised wife null and void was compelled to change his fatwé due to the increase in the number of women using apostacy as a legal device. he was a follower of the ×anafê school like a majority of indian muslims. he was against takhayyur but to tackle this problem he resorted to the mélikê school and issued a revised fatwé. according to this new fatwa the mélikê opinion regarding acceptable grounds for judicial dissolution of marriage was adopted and several grounds including impotency, cruelty, non-provision of maintenance, prolonged absence of the husband etc. were declared valid for dissolution of marriage by courts. on the basis of this fatwé qéìê muíammad aímad kézimê from the ‘jam‘iyat al-‘ulamé’-e-hind’ presented a bill in the parliament which was passed as the dissolution of muslim marriages act 1939.33 after enactment of this act the mélikê law related to divorce became applicable on all muslims irrespective of their school.34 this act is still enforced in india, pakistan and bangladesh. this was the use of takhayyur which was inevitable. it is clearly better to choose the opinions of different islamic jurists than to abandon sharê‘ah entirely. there is a possibility that a particular opinion provides a better interpretation of a divine text or a particular opinion is based on a stronger evidence than another opinion or that opinion is suitable and fulfils social needs in a particular environment. in such scenarios choosing such an opinion becomes inevitabile.35 takhayyur as practised in pakistan pakistan initiated a process of islamisation to bring its laws into conformity with the islamic law. in this process not only were amendments made to laws in pakistan by the legislature but the judiciary also played hamdard islamicus 58 vol. xl, no. 3 an important role. islamisation of laws is considered a judge led process by some scholars.36 as far as methodology of reform is concerned there is no consistency in pakistan’s approach as it has practised takhayyur as well as ijtihéd in the past. there have been instances when pakistan actually practised takhayyur but claimed it to be ijtihéd.*37 section 4 of the muslim family laws ordinance 1961 is a good example here. in this section the legislature adopted the shê‘ah law of inheritance to give relief to an orphan child.38 according to section 2 of the shariat application act 1991 in interpretation of the qur’én and sunnah to follow one school is not necessary and opinions from different schools can be used for this purpose.39 in pakistan takhayyur is used not only by the state in the process of islamisation but also by the courts. there are certain rules in the pakistani family law which are borrowed from other schools despite the fact that the majority in pakistan belongs to the ×anafê school. in the indian subcontinent the device of takhayyur was for the first time used in drafting of the dissolution of muslim marriages act 1939. as discussed earlier, this act was based on the mélikê school and is still applicable in pakistan.40 according to the enforcement of shariah act 1991 ‘shariah’ means injunctions of islam as laid down in the qur’én and sunnah and is the supreme law of the land.41 this act gives the authority to the courts to interpret the laws in the light of sharê‘ah wherever possible. section 4 says that while interpreting the statute law if more than one interpretation is possible the one consistent with islamic principles and jurisprudence should be preferred.42 so the courts have authority to choose an interpretation which is closer to the islamic law. pakistani courts while exercising their discretion do not consider themselves bound to follow any particular school. in 1967 in khurshêd bêbê v muíammad amên the supreme court of pakistan said: ‘… it is permissible to refer to those opinions [of other sunnê sects other than ×anafês] which are consistent with the qur’énic –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *for instance the use of li‘én in determining the case of legal separation of husband and wife. if there is no tangible evidence of adultery, the court asks the two to swear five times about the accusation as true or false and in fifth swearing they implore divine curse on their spouse and then the court orders their separation and breakup of marriage as legal – ed. hamdard islamicus 59 vol. xl, no. 3 injunctions. a certain amount of fluidity exists, even among orthodox ×anafis in certain matters. in the case of a husband who has become mafqood-ul-khabér, for instance, mélikê opinion can be resorted to by a ×anafi qézê as is mentioned in the raddul mukhtér. … the learned iméms never claimed finality for their opinions, but due to various historical causes, their followers in subsequent ages invented the doctrine of taqlêd under which a sunnê muslim follows the opinion of only one of their iméms, exclusively, irrespective of whether reason be in favour of another opinion.’43 as the doctrine of precedent prevails in pakistan the decision of the supreme court is binding on lower courts. in mst. khurshêd jén v. fazal déd44 the lahore high court clearly said that in the case of conflicting views of earlier jurists the court is free to adopt any opinion. in fidé hussain v. naseem akhtar45 where admissibility of testimony of close relatives was in question the lahore high court held that testimony of close relatives will be admissible if it is corroborated by some other evidence. the court said that there is difference of opinion among fiqhê schools regarding this issue. the ×anafê school does not accept the testimony of close relatives but according to other three sunnê schools such testimony is admissible. the court was of the view that it is not bound to follow any particular school on a particular issue and can adopt opinions from other schools. it is evident from these cases that pakistani courts do not consider it mandatory to follow a particular school and so they have made use of the wealth of juristic opinions available in the islamic law. the concept of takhayyur brings flexibility to the islamic law. if adherence to a single school is emphasized it makes the islamic law narrow. the reforms which were based on ijtihéd have been more controversial as compared to the reforms made on the basis of takhayyur. section 7 of the muslim family laws ordinance 1961 is a good example here. this section requires the husband to give notice to the union council to make the divorce effective. without such notice divorce will not be effective. in the islamic law there is no such requirement and an oral divorce is effective. this section is greatly criticized by the scholars although according to the drafters of mflo it was based on ijtihéd. hamdard islamicus 60 vol. xl, no. 3 in 2000 in allah rakhé v. the federation of pakistan the federal shariat court declared section 7 of the mflo repugnant to the qur’én and sunnah.46 in 2004 in shaukat ali and another v. the state the federal shariat court said that failure to comply with the procedure given by section 7 does not invalidate ïaléq.47 the mflo is criticized by scholars as not based on islamic law.48 in a modern state like pakistan the wealth of the opinions of the jurists should be used in legislation. conclusion in islamic history strict adherence to a single school is a concept which was developed after third century hijrê. before that muslims were considered free to consult any mujtahid regardless of his school. a muslim is bound to follow qur’én and sunnah and not any particular school. as people’s problems, customs and interests change with passage of time so the law changes. muslims are bound to follow the divine rules but are not bound to follow opinions of jurists, if based on ijtihéd, as they are probable and not definitive. such opinions shall be followed if they fulfil social needs of a particular society otherwise muslim scholars should do ijtihéd. keeping in view public welfare and social need opinions from different schools can be adopted. where there is scarcity of mujtahids at least it is a duty of the scholars to evaluate opinions of different schools and then choose the one which has stronger evidence/argument. in the past century muslim states have tried to reform their laws by using methodologies of takhayyur and ijtihéd. after independence in 1947, like other muslim states, pakistan has tried to reform its laws. pakistan has been inconsistent as far as its reform methodology is concerned. the methodology employed by pakistan to reform its laws has been used occasionally on ijtihéd and occasionally on takhayyur. in this paper takhayyur as a reform methodology for pakistan has been analyzed. it was found that the legislations which were based on takhayyur were less controversial than the legislations based on ijtihéd, as in a modern state laws are enacted through legislature, otherwise opinions of jurists will not have any effect. such preferred opinions can be enacted through the legislatures in muslim states. it is a duty of the jurists to formulate the whole process so that the wealth of opinions in islamic law can be used. as members of parliament are; generally, not qualified to evaluate opinions this role must be played by the jurists. hamdard islamicus 61 vol. xl, no. 3 notes and references 01. ibn manðër, lisén-al-‘arab, beirut, dar ahya-al-turath al-‘arabi,vol. 1, 1988, pp. 258-259. [hereinafter ibn manzur, 1988]. 02. david bonderman, modernization and changing perceptions of islamic law, harvard law review, vol. lxxxi(6), 1968, 1174. [hereinafter bonderman, 1968]. for a discussion on difference of opinion among schools see muhammad khalid masud, ikhtiléf al-fuqahé: diversity in fiqh as a social contruction, wanted: equality and justice in the muslim family, ed. zainab anwar, selangor: musawah, 2009, pp. 65-90. [hereinafter masud, 2009]. 03. ihsan yilmaz, muslim laws, politics and society in modern nation states: dynamic legal pluralisms in england, turkey and pakistan, aldershot, hants: ashgate publishing ltd, 2005, pp. 39-43. [hereinafter yilmaz, 2005]. 04. john l. esposito, muslim family law reform: towards an islamic methodology, islamic studies, vol. 15(1), 1976, p. 20. [hereinafter esposito, 1976]. 05. j.n.d. anderson, modern trends in islam: legal reform and modernisation in the middle east, the international and comparative law quarterly, vol. xx(1), 1971, p. 13. [hereinafter anderson, 1971]; masud, 2009, p. 78. 06. muíammad ibn ‘alê al-shawkénê, al-qawl al-mufêd fi ‘adillat al-ijtihéd wa al-taqlêd, kuwait, dar al-kalam, 1396 a.h.), p. 45. hereinafter al-shawkénê, 1396 a.h. the great imams were flexible in adopting each other’s opinions as well. according to reports mélik has adopted few opinions of abë ×anêfa and abë hanêfa has adopted few opinions of mélik. for details see ahmad al-khairê, al-fiqh wa uîël al-fiqh min ‘amal al-imém muíammad zéhêd al-kauthari, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, pp. 209-213. hereinafter al-khairi]. 07. abdul mun‘im al-nimr, al-ijtihéd, beirut, dar al-shuruq, 1986, p. 200. [hereinafter al-nimr, 1986]. 08. shéh wali ullah, ×ujjah tu-allah al-bélighah, beirut, dar ahya al-turath al-‘arabi, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 438-440. [hereinafter shah wali ullah, 1990]. 09. ibid., pp. 240, 169-175. also see amêr bédshah, muíammad amên, taysêr al-taírêr, beirut, dar al-fikr, undated, vol. iv, p. 247. 10. muíammad bin abi bakr ibn al qayyim a-jawziyyah, i‘lém al-muwaqqi‘ên ‘an rabb al-‘ólamên, egypt, maktabah al-kulliyat al-azhariyah, 1968, vol. iv, p. 261. [hereinafter ibn al-qayyim, 1968]. 11. shéh wali ullah, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 442-445. 12. noel j. coulson, conflicts and tensions in islamic jurisprudence, chicago and london, the university of chicago press, 1969, pp. 33-35. [hereinafter coulson, 1969]. 13. jamél-ul-dên abi muíammad ‘abdul rahêm ibn al-hasan al-isnawi, al-tamhêd fi takhrêj al-furë‘ ‘ala al-uîël, beirut, dar-al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 2004, pp. 653656. [hereinafter al-isnawi, 2004]. 14. ‘abdul karêm zaidén, al-wéjiz fi uîël-al-fiqh, beirut, mu‘assasah al-risalah, 1987, pp. 407-411. [hereinafter, zaidan, 1987]. hamdard islamicus 62 vol. xl, no. 3 15. al-méwardê, al-aíkém al-sulïéniyah, translated as the laws of islamic governance, asadullah yate (translator), london, ta-ha publishers ltd., 1996, pp. 102-103. [hereinafter al-mawardi, 1996]. 16. shihéb-al-dên al-qarafê, sharí tanqêh al fuîël fi ikhtiîér al maísël, (al-maktabah al-shamilah), p. 468. [hereinafter al-qarafi]; birgit krawietz, cut and paste in legal rules: designing islamic norms with talfêq, die welt des islams, new series, vol. lii(1), 2002, p. 12. [hereinafter krawietz, 2002]. 17. ‘abd-al-‘ali muíammad b. nizém-al-dên al-ansérê, fawétií al-raímët sharí musallam-al-thabët, matb‘ah-alamiriyah, 1366 a.h.), vol. ii, pp. 405-407. [hereinafter al-ansari, 1366 a.h.]; nyazee, 1983, p. 26. 18. aharon layish, the contribution of the modernists to the seculaization of islamic law, middle eastern studies, vol. xiv(3), 1978, p. 263. [hereinafter layish, 1978]. 19. john l. esposito, muslim family law in egypt and pakistan: a critical analysis of legal reform, it’s sources and methodological problems, phd thesis submitted at temple university, michigan, 1974, p. 247. [hereinafter esposito, 1974]. for the first time the principle of takhayyur was used in majallah by ottoman empire. then the principle expanded and was used by different muslim countries. for a detailed discussion see norman anderson, law reform in the muslim world, london, the athlone press, 1976, pp. 47-58. [hereinafter anderson, 1976]. 20. norman anderson, islamic law today the background to islamic fundamentalism, arab law quarterly, vol. ii(4), 1987, p. 347. [hereinafter anderson, 1987]. 21. bonderman, 1968, p. 1177; aharon layish, the transformation of the shariah from jurists’ law to statutory law in the contemporary muslim world, die welt des islams, new series, vol. xliv(1), 2004, p. 89. [hereinafter layish, 2004]; anderson, 1971, p. 2. 22. rafiullah, haliya ‘aa’ili qawanin, fikr-o-naðar, vol. iii(4), 1965, pp. 284-285. [hereinafter haliya, 1965]. 23. lutz wiederhold, legal doctrines in conflict the relevance of madhab boundaries to legal reasoning in the light of an unpublished treatise on taqlêd and ijtihéd, islamic law and society, vol. iii(2), 1996, pp. 273-277. [hereinafter wiederhold, 1996]. 24. annelies moors, ‘debating islamic family law: legal texts and social practices’, a social history of women and gender in the modern middle east, eds. meriwether and tucker, westview press, 1999, p. 155. [hereinafter moors, 1999]. 25. imran ahsan khan nyazee, the scope of taqlêd in islamic law, islamic studies, vol. ii(4), 1983, pp. 23-24. [hereinafter nyazee, 1983]; al-nimr, 1986, pp. 226227; n.j. coulson, reform of family law in pakistan, studia islamica, no. 7, 1957, pp. 135-136. [hereinafter coulson, 1957]. 26. esposito, 1974, pp. 245-257; abdullahi ahmed an-na‘im, toward an islamic reformation: civil liberties, human rights and international law, new york, hamdard islamicus 63 vol. xl, no. 3 syracuse university press, 1996, p. 45. [hereinafter an-na‘im, 1996]; bonderman, 1968, p. 1181; coulson, 1957, p. 135. 27. oussama ‘arabi, studies in modern islamic law and jurisprudence, the hague, london, kluwer law international, 2001, pp. 23-24. [hereinafter ‘arabî, 2001]. 28. ghazalé ghalib khén, application of talfêq in modern islamic commercial contracts, policy perspectives, vol. x(2), 2013, p. 139. [hereinafter khan, 2013]. 29. imrén aísan khén nyazee, theories of islamic law: the methodology of ijtihad, islamabad, the international institute of islamic thought and islamic research institute, 1994, pp. 280-281. [hereinafter nyazee, 1994]. 30. ‘abdul kareem ‘uthméðn, talfêq aur doosray fiqhi madhab par fatwé: íudëd-oöawébiï, fikr-o-naðér, vol. xlviii(3), p. 121. [hereinafter ‘uthman]. 31. al-nimr, 1986, pp. 240, 365-370. 32. shéh wali ullah, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 438-440. 33. muíammad khalêd masëd, ‘apostacy and judicial separation in british india’, islamic legal interpretation, eds. masëd, messick and powers, harvard university press, 1996, pp. 193-203. [hereinafter masëd, 1996]. also see masud, 2009, p. 88; muíammad rashêd feroze, the reform in family laws in the muslim world, islamic studies, vol. 1(1), 1962, pp. 108-109. [hereinafter feroze, 1962]. some provisions of the act are not in conformity with the mélikê school. pakistan’s law departed from mélikê opinion regarding the scope of its definition of desertion, the length of the maintenance period, the cumulative nature of maintenance, the detailed procedures governing arbitration in maltreatment cases, and the form of judicial divorce; esposito, 1976, p. 20. 34. feroze, 1962, pp. 108-109. 35. khén, 2013, pp. 147-148. 36. lau, 2006, p. 211. 37. coulson, 1957, p. 136. 38. lau, 2006, p. 138. 39. muíammad munêr, precedent in islamic law with special reference to the federal shariat court and the legal system in pakistan, islamic studies, vol. xlvii(4), 2008, pp. 452, 458. [hereinafter munêr, 2008]. 40. anees ahmed, reforming muslim personal law, economic and political weekly, vol. xxxvi(8), 2001, p. 618. [hereinafter ahmed, 2001]; masë d, 1996, pp. 193203; feroze, 1962, pp.108-109; esposito, 1976, p. 20. 41. the enforcement of shariah act 1991, section 2. 42. ibid., section 4. 43. pld 1967 sc 97. 44. pld 1964 lahore, pp. 558-612. 45. pld 1977 lahore, p. 328. 46. pld 2000 fsc, p. 1. 47. 2004 ylr fsc, p. 619. also see fidé hussain v. mst. najmé and another, pld 2000 quetta, p. 46; m. parnian arooj v. mehmood sédiq, 2010 clc lahore, p. 258. 48. feroze, 1962, pp. 111-116. hamdard islamicus 64 vol. xl, no. 3 bibliography ‘abd al-‘alê muíammad b. niðém-al-dên al-ansérê, fawétih al-raímët sharí musallam al-thabët, matb‘ah al-amiriyah, 1366 a.h., vol. ii. abë al-hasan ‘alê b. muíammad b. habib al-basri al-méwardi, al-aíkém-al-sulténiyah, translated as the laws of islamic governance, asadullah yat, translator, london, ta-ha publishers ltd., 1996. ahmed, anees, reforming muslim personal law, economic and political weekly, vol. xxxvi(8), 2001. al-dehalwi, shéh wali ullah, ×ujjah tu-allah al-bélighah, beirut, dar ahya al-turath al-‘arabi, 1990. al-isnawi, jamél-ul-dên abê muíammad ‘abdul rahêm ibn al-hasan, al-tamhêd fi takhrêj al-furë‘ ‘ala al-uîël, beirut, dar-al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 2004. al-jawziyyah muíammad bin abi bakr ibn al-qayyim, i‘lam al-muwaqqi‘ên ‘an rabb al-‘alamin, egypt, maktabah al-kulliyat al-azhariyah, 1968. al-khairê, ahmad, al-fiqh wa uîël al-fiqh min ‘amal al-imém muíammad zéhid al-kauthari, beirut, dar-al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah. al-nimr, abdul mun‘im, al-ijtihéd, beirut, dar-al-shuruq, 1986. al-qarafi, shihéb al-din, sharí tanqêí al fuîël fi ikhtiîér al maíîël, al-maktabah al-shamilah. al-shawkénê, muíammad ibn alê, al-qawl al-mufêd fi ‘adillat al-ijtihéd wa al-taqlêd, kuwait, dar al-kalam, 1396 a.h. anderson, j.n.d., modern trends in islam: legal reform and modernisation in the middle east, the international and comparative law quarterly, vol. xx(1), 1971. –––, law reform in the muslim world, london, the athlone press, 1976. –––, islamic law today the background to islamic fundamentalism, arab law quarterly, vol. ii(4), 1987. annelies moors, ‘debating islamic family law: legal texts and social practices’, a social history of women and gender in the modern middle east, eds. meriwether and tucker, westview press, 1999. an-na‘im, abdullahi ahmed, toward an islamic reformation: civil liberties, human rights and international law, new york, syracuse university press, 1996. badshah, amêr and amên, muíammad, taysêr al taírêr, beirut, dar ul fikr, undated. birgit krawietz, cut and paste in legal rules: designing islamic norms with talfêq, die welt des islams, new series, vol. 42(1), 2002. bonderman, david, modernization and changing perceptions of islamic law, harvard law review, vol. 81(6), 1968. coulson, noel j., conflicts and tensions in islamic jurisprudence, chicago and london, the university of chicago press, 1969. esposito, john l., muslim family law reform: towards an islamic methodology, islamic studies, vol. 15(1), 1976. –––, muslim family law in egypt and pakistan: a critical analysis of legal reform, hamdard islamicus 65 vol. xl, no. 3 it’s sources and methodological problems, phd thesis submitted at temple university, michigan, 1974. feroze, muíammad rashid, the reform in family laws in the muslim world, islamic studies, vol. 1(1), 1962. haliya, rafêullah, ‘aailê qawénên, fikr-o-nazar (islamabad) vol. 3(4), 1965. ibn ménzër, lisén-al-‘arab, beirut, dar ahya-al-turath al-‘arabi, 1988. khén, ghazala ghalib, application of talfiq in modern islamic commercial contracts, policy perspectives, vol. x(2), 2013. layish, aharon, the contribution of the modernists to the seculaization of islamic law, middle eastern studies, vol. xiv(3), 1978. –––, the transformation of the shariah from jurists’ law to statutory law in the contemporary muslim world, die welt des islams, new series, vol. xliv(1), 2004. masëd, muíammad khalêd, ‘apostacy and judicial separation in british india’, islamic legal interpretation, eds. masëd, messick and powers, harvard university press 1996. –––, ikhtiléf al-fuqaha’: diversity in fiqh as a social contruction, wanted: equality and justice in the muslim family, ed. zainab anwar, selangor, musawah, 2009. munir, muíammad, precedent in islamic law with special reference to the federal shariat court and the legal system in pakistan, islamic studies, vol. xlvii(4), 2008, pp. 452, 458. nyézee, imrén ahsan khén the scope of taqlêd in islamic law, islamic studies, vol. ii(4), 1983, pp. 23-24. –––, theories of islamic law: the methodology of ijtihéd, islamabad, the international institute of islamic thought and islamic research institute, 1994. oussama ‘arabê, studies in modern islamic law and jurisprudence, the hague, london, kluwer law international, 2001. ‘uthman, ‘abdul kareem, talfiq aur doosray fiqhi madhab par fatwa: ×adëd-o-ìawébit, fikr-o-nazar, vol. xlviii(3). wiederhold, lutz, legal doctrines in conflict the relevance of madhab boundaries to legal reasoning in the light of an unpublished treatise on taqlêd and ijtihéd, islamic law and society, vol. iii(2), 1996. yilmaz, ihsan, muslim laws, politics and society in modern nation states: dynamic legal pluralisms in england, turkey and pakistan, aldershot, hants, ashgate publishing ltd., 2005. zaidén, ‘abdul karêm, al-wéjiz fi uîël al-fiqh, beirut, mu‘assasah al-risalah, 1987. cases allah rakhé v. the federation of pakistan, pld 2000 fsc, p. 1. shaukat alê and another v. the state, 2004 ylr fsc, p. 619. fidé hussain v. mst. najmé and another, pld 2000 quetta, p. 46. fidé hussain v. tasmeem akhtér, pld 1977 lahore, p. 328. m. parnian arooj v. mehmood sédiq, 2010 clc lahore, p. 258. khurshêd bêbê v muíammad amên pld 1967 sc, p. 97. mst. khurshêd jén v. fazél déd pld 1964 lahore, pp. 58-612. contents * editorial * abë huraira’s cat in goethe’s paradise — gabor korvin * establishing an exemplary islamic society (in turkey) – an analysis of bediuzzaman saêd nërsi’s reform — thameem ushama * branding in islamic commercial law – eyeing commercial gains versus opportunities for introducing sharê‘ah legal ethics — lutfullah saqib and saira afzal * rethinking islamic intellectualism – mohsin al-mulk’s analysis of islamic epistemology — abdul khaliq aboya * qualification of ijtihéd in present era — sajila kausar * causality broken – synthesizing religion, philosophy and modern physics, confirming al-ghazélê’s win in the debate of the world’s preeternity by proving delay in effect — naseeb ahmed siddiqui * the cultural accommodation of jesuits missionaries in china during 1595-1730 and its impact on chinese muslim scholars of hén kitéb literature — wu juan (aisha) * the concept of arrogance in muslim and buddhist scriptures – a comparative analysis — zohaib ahmad 5 7 19 47 81 97 117 145 175 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: prof. dr. ansar zahid khan associate editor: dr. nigar sajjad zaheer published by hamdard foundation pakistan, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. telephones:36440184, 36610039, 38241605, 36440035-42 (ext. 337) telefax: (92-21) 36611755 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy of this combined issue 330/070/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xli july-december 2018 nos. 3 & 4 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 697 issn :02507196 seeking answers in ruang (ny)aman: a study ofinterfaith pre-marital and marriage counselling in indonesia 1rosdiana, khamami zada, masayu mashita maisarah abstract one of the unresolved legal issues in indonesian marriage law which has generated more controversy over a longer period is the legal vacuum for couples of differing religions. the dilemma of uncertainty between marriage permissibility across religious lines and the refusal of civil authorities have enforced the interfaith couples tofind a way with circumventing the marriage law. few alternative ways have been done independently, but as it widely flourished and rapidly increased, the interfaith couples have tried to seek for solution socially. ruang (ny)aman is one of the alternative safe-space sharing platforms for interreligious couples and families. through social media, this organization has managed to organized a consulting event for interfaith-couple-to-be to let them prepare for their future household stability. using an empirical approach, this study sought to analyze the usage of social media for interfaith pre-marital and marriage consultation and its impact on searching for legality. this study argues that social media has become new counselling tools for interfaith couples in which they will use the platform for reference when it comes to verifying news or seeking information or opinions. the spiritual and social convictions may help interfaith couplesbond through shared values and beliefs, and encourage participation in shared activities. with this strategy, support on interfaith marriage could be gained through the participation of society in an open platform as part of co-construction on the interfaith matters. keywords: interfaith marriage, social media, ruang (nya)aman 1. introduction almost countries in the world cannot denied the chances and possibilities of having relations between those who have different religious beliefs with thereality of multi-religious setting.an interfaith relationship also has been identified as relation that involvesintimate interpersonal contact dating, cohabitation, and marriage between people of different beliefs (yahya & boag, 2014a). an interesting fact from this phenomenonis the multiple aspects affected such practices (i.e., religiosity, religious affiliation, cultural identity, family connectedness, social network, sexual values)which intended to be included but not limited to religious ones, although religiosity are still the most obvious factor influencing openness to 1 faculty of sharia and law, syarif hidayatullah state islamic university jakarta. email: rosdiana@uinjkt.ac.id 2 faculty of sharia and law, syarif hidayatullah state islamic university jakarta. email: khamamizada@uinjkt.ac.id 3 graduate school, syarif hidayatullah state islamic university jakarta. email: masayumashita91@gmail.com mailto:rosdiana@uinjkt.ac.id mailto:khamamizada@uinjkt.ac.id mailto:masayumashita91@gmail.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 698 issn :02507196 interfaith relationships (hughes & dickson, 2005; sprecher, 2011; cila & lalonde, 2014; yahya & boag, 2014a, 2014b; juneman & rahardjo, 2013; bhatoo & bhowon, 2018; yang & chang, 2017). yahya & boag (2014b) indicated religious teaching and cultural tradition as two aspects of religiosity which are relevant to understand factors influencing interfaith relationships. the religious teaching consists of spoken or written law that can be found in the holy books and other resources, while cultural tradition concerns more with cultural identity, traditions and beliefs about some acceptable actions and customs that were created by the people of that culture. some culture have evolved with time, whereas others follow the same traditions as they did the decade or even centuries ago. while debates between those who forced to stick with the traditions andthose who preferred to do some changes occurred, interfaith relationship somehow considered relatively common and acceptable in the society. in present days, with the reason to legalizing such practices, interfaith marriage has changed from the sociological, cultural, economic, religious and even legal setting. although commonly forbidden by religious teachings and still considered as taboo by most societies; with the increasing number of interfaith marriage practices, the phenomenon has represented a deep erosion of social boundaries.according to barnett (1962), this reality occurs with several causes: (a) existence of the group as minority, in which the rate will be higher than in a setting as majority; (b) unbalanced sex ration; (c) development of cultural similarities; (d) disturbing psychological factors; (e) acceptance of certain cultural values; and (f) weakening of institutional controls over marriage. put into an example to one of the majority muslim country, indonesia; where the practices could not be separated with the issues on plurality and diversity. in 1980s to 1990s, the intermarried couples were dominated by non-muslim community with a ratio 1:8. however, in the 2000s, the couples were subjected to more categories with muslim-christian (48%), muslim-catholic (42%), and the remaining 10% are muslim-hindu, muslim-buddhist, muslim-confucian, christian-buddhist, christian-hindu, and christian-confucian (aini, 2014; nurkholish, 2015). thesefindingsindicated the practices of interfaith marriage in indonesia which continues to increase year by year and spread almost to the corners of the country. from this reality, questions could bearising with respect to factors facilitating and inhibiting such relations. an interesting note to be highlightedfrom indonesian case is the unresolved legal issues which affected the legal vacuum for couples of differing religions. the 1974 marriage law does not address interfaith marriage directly, and for years the permissibility of marriage across religious lines was uncertain. this uncertainty somehow has been largely resolved by the various ruling from some of the religious bodies which stated clearly that marriage between persons of a different religion is forbidden. but while there is a broad agreement in both the legal community and the public at large, the legal authorities are far less certain on the issue. the registration marriage processes create barriers to the recognition of such marriages, with the civil registry offices (kcs) tasked who registering marriages of couples from differing religions and the office of religious affairs (kua) who only register marriages involving muslims. however, in practices, interfaith couples usually facing obstacles from the civil authorities who refuse to register with a similar argument on hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 699 issn :02507196 “unblessed marriage should not be legalized” (cammack in jones, et al., 2009; chou, wu, & chou, 2017). prohibition of interfaith marriage also may add other issues on children and heritage in the future which related to freedom of religion, equal treatment before the law, and the right to form a family. with this dilemma, interfaith couples who want to be married usually try to find a way by circumventing the marriage law. few alternative ways have been done independently, but as it widely flourished and rapidly increased, the interfaith couples have tried to seek for solution socially. consultation can become part of the solution with a basic idea that interfaith marriage practices have guideline and policy which may differ and even contradictory with the normal marriage practices and have a direct effect to the practitioners (eaton, 1994; ho, 2019; hughes & dickson, 2005; shaffer, 2008). ruang (ny)amanke:kinihas be chosen as the object of study as the alternative safe-space sharing platforms for interreligious couples and families. through social media, this organization has managed to gather people from different religious affiliation to discuss interfaith issues. based on the abovedescription, the study was aim to address following questions: what is the role of ruang (ny)amanas one of the facilitatorsforinterfaith pre-marital and marriage counselling bodies? how do the participants respond toward answers provided on their issues? and how do the participants feel it impacts upon them?participants of the following background partook in the study: (1) holding indonesian citizenship or permanent residence (pr); (2) represent one of six official religions in indonesia: islam, protestantism, catholicism, hinduism, buddhism, or confucianism; and (3)were in an interfaith relationship dating, cohabitation, and marriage during the data collection.as an introduction, part onewill highlight briefly onthe historical framework of the practices, providing the background and some current debate on the law. part twoexamines the role of ruang (ny)amanke:kini as one of the counselling facilitators. part threediscusses some findings related with the impact of interfaith marriages to the idea of legalizing such practices based on indonesia context. part four will provide summary and conclusions that might be useful to the study of interfaith marriage practices in indonesia. 2. interfaith marriage practices in indonesian context in the social history of indonesia, interfaith marriage practices had been recognized and implemented by the dutch colonial and kept in force by the government of newly republic of indonesia more or less three decades later. interfaith marriage recognized as a „mixed marriage‟ which arranged for the first time in the regeling op de gemengdehuwelijken, staatblad 1898 no. 158 before the birth of the marriage law no. 1 of 1974. one of the provisions in the regulations of mixed-marriage is in the article 7 paragraph (2) which stipulates that „the differences in religion, class, population or origin cannot be a barrier to marital sustainability‟ (purwahasanto, 1992:10-13). however, insofar as the marriage law is concerned, indonesia has not implemented a unified marriage law since its independence, where there were several marriage laws enforced at the time: (a) the islamic marriage law regulates the marriage among all indonesian muslims,(b) the civil code regulates the marriage among persons who are subject to western law, (c) the ordinance of 1933 for the marriage of indonesian christians, and (d) the customary law (hukumadat) for those who are neither muslims nor christians (subekti, 1973:9-15). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 700 issn :02507196 the above practices have forced the government to submit a new marriage bill to the parliament on 31 july 1973. after a long and heated debate and revision, the bill was then passed by the parliament on 22 december 1973 and signed by president soeharto on 2 january 1974, and today renowned as the indonesian marriage law no. 1 of 1974 (azra in salim, 2003:76-95).one interesting fact from this law is that themarriage law has not regulated all aspects related to marriage, such as marriage of different religions.with this statement, interfaith marriage in indonesia according to some experts and legal practitioners can be found in three views: 1) interfaith marriage cannot be justified and constitutes an infringement of the marriage as stated in the article 2 paragraph (1): „marriage is legitimate if it is conducted according to the laws of respective religions and beliefs of the parties involved‟. with this article, marriage from different religions is considered invalid and void by law. 2) interfaith marriage is permissible, valid and can be carried out because it is covered in a mixed-marriage as set in article 57 of the marriage law, i.e. two persons in indonesia are subject to different laws. according to this second view, the chapter not only governs marriage between two persons of different nationalities, but also regulates the marriage between two persons of different religions. 3) the marriage law does not regulate interfaith marriage matters. therefore, when referring to article 66 of the marriage law which emphasizes that other rules governing marriage shall be declared null and void. however, since marriage legislation has not been regulated, then the old regulations can be re-enacted, so the issue of marriage of different religions should be guided by mixed-marriage regulations (trisnaningsih, 2007:57). thiscategorization cannot be detached from the historyof religion itself. the prohibition of interfaith marriage in indonesia can be mapped out beyond indonesian legal contexts, since it was related to the development of islamic law. aini (2014) examined the historical roots of forbidding such practices, which accordingly, the reasons of prohibition can be traced back starting from the formation period of islamic history, to arabic paternalism which embedded in marriage law, to the political disharmony which had leads to religious segregation, and continuously until the dutch imperialism which strengthens the religious exclusion in indonesia. the legal categorization had localized and segregated indonesian communities through the application of the law, and the impact of this policy was the construction of the social-cultural identity. extreme exclusion created primordial sentiment and social and psychological barriers, particularly in the case of marriage. from this historical background, it could be understood that religious doctrines have greatly influenced the indonesian marriage laws in a variety of legal systems, and in the case of interfaith relationship, this influence is obvious in leading to a prohibition. apart from the above issues, many couples will still find ways to perform the interfaith marriage. one of the popular ways to perform interfaith marriage is through social organizations which facilitate the processes. paramadina foundation and the wahid institute are renowned to continuously organized events to solved the interfaith matters. however, there are still many groups who disagree and even condemned such practices directly or indirectly. as an alternative, conducting such marriage overseas become the other option for them to perform the practice legally and to get recognition from the law after it been registered to the civil registry office (kcs). yet this solution is less preferred since it forces couples to spend extra expenses. another solution that can be through is looking for a court decision. concerning this method, the intermarried couple is required to register their hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 701 issn :02507196 marriage at the civil registry office (kcs) since there is no governmental office to acknowledge interfaith marriages. in the case of an unregistered marriage, the women have no legal right to claim alimony at the time of divorce and children born of such marriages have no right of inheritance from their parents. the finaloption is by committing hypocritical religious conversion prior to marriage solemnization, and reconversion post the marriage contract in order to meet formally all legal conditions. this solution has often regarded that in indonesia, the state has managed religion by making religious practices less focused on spirituality and more a matter of state administration (rosidah, 2013; seo, 2013; aini, 2014; setiyowati, 2015; ansor & amri, 2016). concerning this matter, some of the religious bodies have made a different approach. with the reality of theincreasing number of interfaith marriage practices, religious doctrines in present days has been transformed and incorporated into social and cultural contexts (nurcholish, 2010, 2015; ahmad, 2016). a study by muchaddam (2014) should be highlighted to shows different opinions of religious leaders in indonesia towards the idea of legalizing interfaith marriage. table 1.1 demonstrates two different opinions on the legality of interfaith marriage in indonesia. group a argued that religious teaching had prohibited the practice of interfaith marriage with no exception, while group b assumed that inter-faith marriage is part of human rights. universal human rights have maintained that every human being has a right to build a family regardless of religious consideration. table 1: religious leaders opinions towards interfaith marriage practices group a group b indonesian council of islamic scholars (mui) indonesian conference on religion and peace (icrp) front pembela islam (fpi) human rights working group (hrwg) indonesia central leadership of muhammadiyah national commission for women central leadership of nahdhatul ulama national commission of human rights hindu dharma council of indonesia (phdi) indonesian church association (pgi) indonesian bishops conference (kwi) guardianship of the indonesian buddhist community (walubi) supreme council for confucian religion in indonesia (matakin) although the list of supporters are morein group b, in reality, the perspectives towards interfaith relationship are still dominant with the idea that such practices are forbidden.the disagreement among organizers in responding to the interfaith marriages are still happening, whereas the fulfillment of the right to marry is a part of human rights. in fact, the legal prohibition of interfaith marriage and a variety of resistance from prominent leaders to interfaith marriage cannot stop the practices. this observable fact should be an important reason for the constitutional court either to grant or deny the practical of interfaith marriage. the state has more responsibility in the form to clear the regulations or the actions of officials since indonesia is based on law. with this certainty, the quest for resolution was actedthrough social-cultural approaches by establishingappreciative public spaces as an attempt to support the practices. 3. ruang (ny)aman and the interfaith marriage practices hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 702 issn :02507196 one ofthe safe-space platformsprovided to share and discusspublic matters was kekini;founded by four indonesian ladies who were actively involved in humanitarian sector: ratna fitriani, kamala chandrakirana, ukke r. kosasih, and anik wusari.ke:kini was started from theidea of the importance of creating sustainable resources to support humanitarian work.accordingly, it was a basic need to have an open platform that can help people to feel safe and comfort on interacting, exchanging ideas and collaborating within the public space. through this activity,it was expected that all parties can take part in giving contribution to the country in their own ways.ke:kini was located at cikini raya no. 43/45, menteng, central jakarta and affiliated with indonesia untuk kemanusiaan (ika); a non profit organization (ngos) that support the realization of social justice and peace (adapted from http://www.kekini.org/tentang-kami). ke:kini has supportedthe community by providingspaces for work and/or other activities. one of the activity offered was named ruang ny(aman); a joint initiative of ke:kini‘ruang bersama’ co-working space, with magdalene and the o project.the idea of collaboration is for having a monthly gathering for women to freely share stories on some common issues that they are facing and possibly learn some life skill while they are into it. through this activity, it was hoped to be part of public solutionswhich can help to inspire indonesian women for a brighter future (adapted from https://magdalene.co/story/ruang-nyaman-a-safe space-to-share). in one of the session, ruang (ny)aman brought upan issue on „interfaith marriage dilemma‟featuring ahmad nurcholish; a consultant of interfaith pre-marital and marriageconsulting bodies under harmoni mitra foundation and activistfromindonesian center for religious studies and peace (icrp).as a practitioner, he productively wrote books and articles to share his experiences and ideas on interfaith matters.kado cinta bagi pasangan nikah beda agama (2008) and 101 menjawab masalah beda agama (2011) are two examples of his writing to be consumed by practitioners and non-practitioners. in the event that was held in mid-june 2018, 70 participants with range age from 20-30s attendedandbringdifferent topicstowards interfaith matterswhile seeking for solutions. in the consultation room, nurcholish started with elaboration on differences and similarities between religions and problems having in interfaith relationships.he expanded the explanation not only on religious issues but also regardingfamily connectedness as personal and social support. he ended up with an explanation on how to perform and counduct interfaith marriage until it will be legalized according to indonesia marriage law. by the end of the lecture, all participant are welcomed and encouraged to share their problems and opinions toward interfaith matters. one of the participants was rika (anonymous). she is a muslim who having relations up to 8 years with a hindu man who works in the indonesian national armed forces. her questions related to the difficulty to perform a marriage in indonesia since the administrative village or subdistrict are refused to give her a letter of approval with the reason that they are uncomforted with rika‟s family.while the law had mentioned to those who work as a civil servant must register their marriage in the civil registry office (kcs), rika and her partner are still unable to tie the knot properly. she delivered the question emotionally and seek for solution to the problem that she and her partner faced. receiving the question, nurcholish answered it with a solution that one of the partners must able to change or convert their religion the partners prior to marriage solemnization. accordingly, hindu and islam are two religions that shunned and strictly banned interfaith marriage practices. unlike christian or catholic who recognized the idea of „marriage dispensation‟, hinduism and islam will only formalized the marriage if the couple both are under the same religion. therefore, religious conversion becomes the only solution for them to achieve recognition for their marriage. http://www.kekini.org/tentang-kami https://magdalene.co/story/ruang-nyaman-a-safe-space-to-share https://magdalene.co/story/ruang-nyaman-a-safe-space-to-share hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 703 issn :02507196 another query comes from tony (anonymous). he is catholic and his future wife will be a muslim. tony asked that whether he need to solemnize his wedding with two ways: by performing marriage the office in religious affairs (kua) and gained blessings from the church. the issue that he faced was related with the registration of marriage to the civil registry office (kcs) where he was required to show a letter of approval from both parents. according to indonesian marriage law, couples who are above 25 years old are not required with the letter. however, the civil authorities from population and civil registration agency (discukcapil) make it become compulsory for tony and his partner with a thought to prevent undesirable things such as marriage cancellation. corresponding to tony, rio (anonymous) delivered the same question, with a same case that he is a catholic while his future wife is a muslim. his question expanded to the idea that he and his partner both undesired to do the religious conversion. responding to both matters, nurcholish answered that both of them are not necessarily to change their religion since in catholic and christian have similar teaching on marriage dispensation for interfaith marriage, as well as islam. related to islam, sarah (anonymous) delivered question regarding liken interfaith intimate relationship with adultery (zina/kumpul kebo). nurcholish responded from the normative approach, which accordingly, the quran and the law had stated on the permissibility of interfaith marriage. he mentioned several verses and interpretation of such practices. by quoting his book, he informed the audiences that although interfaith marriage practitioners were still discriminated in their own country, which by fact, the law and religion supported the practices. apart from above discussion, nurcholish extended his explanation to the issues of raising children in interfaith circle. accordingly, there are three models that can be adopted for interfaith family. the first model was through a prenuptial agreement, where couples stated before their marry concerning the religion of their future children: if the baby was boy, he will follow his father‟s faith; as for the girl, she will follow her mother‟s.the second model is the determination of children‟s religion based on birth order of the child. as for the third model, which are the most popular, let their children determine their own religion after they were introduced with both traditions.nurcholish compliment this explanation to ensure participants that interfaith marriage is legal in religion and law and has been practicedin indonesia for decades. 4. summary and conclusions from the above narratives, there are some notes that can be taken from ruang (ny)aman. ruang (ny)aman has become an alternative safe-space sharing platforms for all issues related to women and public affairs. in that room, participants are free to express their stories and problemswithout fear to be judged. in the „interfaith marriage dilemma‟ classes, the attendees are not merely practitioners, but families and other non-practitioners who are concerned to the issues are welcomed to share some notion. discussions between practitioner and non-practitionerwere held in order to find solutions and some collective supports. as we have been invited to join the participant, we are able to follow the event from the beginning to the end of the consultation session. other than attending the monthly gathering, we have been informed that the consultation was continuing through online platform. all participants were invited to join their social media such as whatsapp, instagram and facebook to received information regarding interfaith matters.close group discussions have been conducted to support interfaith marriage practices in indonesia. the action shows that the support and communication to interfaith couples do not stop at the end of classes, but they continuously expand their time to help other practitioners who wereunable to attend the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 704 issn :02507196 classes. social media has become the new way alternativeamong interfaith couples to communicate and share theirstories. through this activity, the consultation session is not limited to time and place since people with different beliefs were gathered under the same platform.they were shared with pieces of informationand stories of other couples and expected that the media can be referred to gain information on interfaith relationships. the online consultation become part of spiritual convictions wherean outsidercan help the interfaith couple to bond through shared values and belief which may encourage them to participate in shared activities. the goal of counseling is to assist the practitioner to view their differences flexibly and use them as an advantage while they develop a unique and blended culture. in this case, social networks and support will influence the quality of relations. interfaith couples who lack supportive communication from social networkscan lead to more problems and conflicts (eaton, 1994; hughes & dickson, 2005; shaffer, 2008; chapman, 2011). additionally, through this movement, it shows a generational shift in the communityin terms of attitudes toward interfaith relations. when the former generation has reluctant to accept interfaith relations, today, the young generation has moved toward openness and acceptance. this was based on the idea of human basic rights where people have the freedom to choose their partner in life. it was too often for interfaith couples to redraw, re-negotiate and even manipulate boundaries of the community only to accommodate their love marriages. hence, the sharing activity has given hope to the community that indonesia may arrange proper regulations for interfaith marriage with respect to their needs as part ofthe citizen. references ahmad, r. (2016). fatwa hubungan antaragama di indonesia: kajian kritis tentang karakteristik, praktik, dan implikasinya. jakarta, indonesia: pt gramedia pustaka utama. aini, n. (2014). inter-religious marriage and inter-generational religiou mobility in indonesia: pattern, rate, and correlates). faculty of sharia and law, state islamic university of syarif hidayatullah, jakarta, indonesia. ansor, m., & amri, y. (2016). beyond pious critical agency: women, interfaith marriage and religious conversion in aceh. analisa: journal of social science and religion, 1(2), 217-238. azra, a. (2003). the indonesian marriage law of 1974: an institutionalization of shari‟a for social change. in shari‘a and politics in modern indonesia. arskal salim (ed.). singapore: iseas. barnett, l. d. (1962). research in interreligious dating and marriage. marriage and family living, 191-194. bhatoo, s., & bhowon, u. (2018).voices of young women in interfaith marriages: experiences and challenges. asian journal of social science, 46, 281-303. cammack, m. (2009). legal aspect of muslim non-muslim marriage in indonesia. in muslim non-muslim marriage: political and cultural contestations in southeast asia. gavin, j., chee, h. leng, m. m. (eds.). singapore: iseas. chapman, k. (2011). interfaith marriage counseling: perspective and practices among christian ministers (master thesis). lubbock, tx: graduate faculty of texas tech university. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 705 issn :02507196 chou, p. c. wu, s. f., & chou, y. c. (2017). the perspective of indigenous culture – a case study of the truku tribe in east taiwan. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 2(1), 67-71. cila, j., lalonde, r. n. (2014). personal openness toward interfaith dating and marriage among muslim young adults: the role of religiosity, cultural identity, and family connectedness. group processes & intergroup relation, 17(3), 357-370. eaton, s. c. (1994). marriage between jews and non-jews: counseling implications. journal of multicultural counseling and development, 22(4), 210-214. hedi, f. anshori, a. g. h. (2017) legal policy of interfaith marriage in indonesia. hasanuddin law review 3(3), 263-276. ho, y.-i. (2019). discussion on the professional function of the agent of creative design industry from the perspective of cultural capital: take taiwan's interior design industry as an example. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 5(4), 152-161. hughes, p. c., & dickson, f. c. (2005). communication, marital satisfaction, and religious orientation in interfaith marriages. the journal of family communication, 5(1), 25 41. juneman, j., & rahardjo, w. (2013). influence of sexual values on perceived risk of interfaith marriage among unmarried urban students in jakarta. jurnal humaniora, 25(1), 3-13. leeman, a. b. (2009). interfaith marriage in islam: an examination of the legal theory behind the traditional and reformist positions. indiana law journal, 84, 743. muchaddam, a. (2014). hukum perkawinan beda agama. info singkat kesejahteraan sosial, vi(23). nurcholish, a. (2015). interfaith marriage in the constitution and the islamic law dinamics in indonesia. al-mawarid journal of islamic law, 15(1), 130-141. nurcholish, a., & baso, a. (2010). pernikahan beda agama: kesaksian, argumen keagamaan, dan analisis kebijakan. jakarta, indonesia: komnas ham dan icrp. purwaharsanto, fxs. perkawinancampuranantar agama menurut uu ri no. 1 tahun 1974 tentangperkawinan: sebuahtelaahkritis. yogyakarta: aktualita media cetak, 1992. rosidah, z. n. (2013). sinkronisasi peraturan perundang-undangan mengenai perkawinan beda agama. al-ahkam: jurnal pemikiran hukum islam, 23(1), 1-20. seo, m. (2013). falling in love and changing gods. indonesia and the malay world, 41(119), 76-96. setiyowati. (2015). “smuggling law” in inter-religious marriage in indonesia. southeast asia journal of contemporary business, economics and law, 8(4), 7-10. shaffer, t. j. (2008). interfaith marriage and counseling implications. in compelling counseling interventions: celebrating vistas’ fifth anniversary. g. r. walz, j. c. bleuer, r. k. yep (eds.). ann arbor, mi: counseling outfilters. sprecher, s. (2011). the influence of social networks on romantic relationships: through the lens of the social network. personal relationships, 18(4), 630-644. subekti, r. (1973). law in indonesia. jakarta, indonesia: gunung agung. trisnaningsih, m. (2007). relevansi kepastian hukum dalam mengatur perkawinan beda agama di indonesia. bandung, indonesia. yahya, s., & boag, s. (2014a). “my family would crucify me!”: the perceived influence of social pressure on cross-cultural and interfaith dating and marriage. sexuality & culture, 18(4), 759-772. yahya, s., & boag, s. (2014b). till faith do us part…: relation between religious affiliation and attitudes toward cross-cultural and interfaith dating and marriage. marriage & family review, 50(6), 480-504. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 697706 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 706 issn :02507196 yang, s. c., & chang, c. m. (2017). transnational marriage in taiwan: challenges faced and adaptation strategies adopted in experiencing a different culture. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 3(4), 142-147. hamdard islamicus 7 vol. xxxix, no. 3 tracing the concept of adr in sharô‘ah and law a comparative study dr. qazi attaullah1 and dr. lutfullah saqib2 1civil judge cum judicial magistrate, director instructions, judicial academy peshawar, peshawar, e-mail: qaziofmalakand@gmail.com 2assistant professor (law and shariah), university of swat, khyber pukhtunkhwa, pakistan. e-mail: lutsaqib@gmail.com the paper traces the concept of alternative dispute resolution (adr) in the sharê‘ah and law in general. the details of various modes of adr (arbitration, mediation, conciliation negotiation, taíkêm and øulí) have been left aside, owing to the fact of concentration on the issue under investigation. in this work, focus, therefore, remains on adr’s meaning, evolution, legal status, need and significance in both systems; with minute details. it also discusses the origin of adr in the modern law, the various stages through which it has been passed, the era of invention of the phrase ‘adr’ and the advantages of this mechanism of dispute resolution, both for the state and individual/individuals. as a complementary requirement, pakistani legal system has also been analyzed profoundly in the adr perspective. it also discovers the similitude of term ‘adr’ in the sharê‘ah. a comprehensive tabulated comparison between adr and formal litigation is made in the present work, followed by a comprehensive conclusion of the issue under investigation. in addition, content analysis technique of qualitative research method has been used for the critical analysis of the secondary data, available on the concept of adr and taíkêm, both in the conventional and islamic law respectively. introduction clash of interest, the core responsible stimulant of creating a dispute, hamdard islamicus 8 vol. xxxix, no. 3 is an integral character of human society. man, by nature, hankers after his interests. this often puts him in a conflict with his fellows.1 the birth of a dispute is, therefore, natural. it would be unwise and futile as well to claim stopping of its birth or its complete eradication from the society. on the other hand, it would also be imprudent to leave a dispute unnoticed till it starts challenging public tranquillity and peace. a dispute will always evolve; nonetheless, it should not escape resolution. this evolving-resolving process has been attracting the contemporary legal scholarship to the subject. human history has recorded three modes of dispute resolution so far; resolution of dispute by violence,2 resolution of disputes by regular formal adjudication and resolution of dispute by informal amicable means. in law, this later form is known as alternative dispute resolution (adr). in the sharê‘ah (islamic law), such an encompassing phraseology could not be found in the work of classical as well as contemporary jurists/ fuqahé (muslim jurists), nevertheless, they have dealt with the issue under the concept of taíkêm and øulí. adr means “a series of different modes of amicable, conclusive, and out of court resolution of dispute, almost resulting in a win-win situation”. it mainly includes arbitration, mediation, conciliation and negotiation. the phrase adr was first heard of in 1970’s and reached its climax in 1990’s, when lord woolf introduced his reforms to the civil justice system of england. having british legal legacy, first india and then pakistan followed suit. in the recently passed two and half decades, both the states have introduced a number of adr-mandating provisions to their justice systems. one may wonder why the whole world is running away from formal justice system to the informal one. a possible answer could be that that formal system was unable to keep pace with time and as such, became outdated. it is highly expensive and so keeps the majority of the litigants out-priced. being too lengthy, it is tiresome. it is complicated and the nature of human being is inclined to simplicity. it is dead slow in getting finality and that is inconsistent with the hasty nature of man. the main defects of the state-run courts are, therefore, inordinate delays, abuse of procedure, priority of legal justice over substantial justice, unnecessary and unwanted consideration of technicalities in decision making process, and preference of fairness over justness. skyrocketing fees of advocates, hamdard islamicus 9 vol. xxxix, no. 3 their professional dishonesty, lethargic appearance and wanton performance further add to the problem. on the other hand, adr techniques are local, simple, amicable, peace-ensuring, expeditious, conclusive and inexpensive. adr prefers resolution over adjudication. it ignores black-robed judges, well-dressed lawyers, and fine-panelled courtrooms as against ordinary sincere mediators while resolving disputes in houses made of mud or in tents built of grass fragments. adr is a blessing in a system where keynote is law rather than justice. because of the popularity of adr across the world, and its effective role in the resolution of national and international conflicts, a presumption has evolved that informal amicable modes of dispute resolution are the outcome of the contemporary think-tank of the modern world. this work first, rebuts the presumption by connecting these modes with the history of mankind. secondly, it explores the concept of adr in the sharê‘ah, and claims that the sharê‘ah has its own pillars of justice system, recommending peaceful settlements as first priority and warranting regular adjudication as last option. thirdly, it explores the working of adr in the pakistani legal system and its analysis on the touchstone of sharê‘ah. adr as a term and phrase the dispute resolution phenomena are as ancient as the history of mankind itself, nevertheless, the term adr is hardly half century old. even up to the end of 1970’s, the term was not in common usage. some writers are of the view that no one was using the term adr in this decade. other phrases such as conflict resolution, dispute settlement, mediation, arbitration and negotiation were dominating the field. a cursory study of adr timeline would, however, reveal that the precursors of this term were heard of in late 1970’s and early 1980’s.3 adr stands for alternative dispute resolution. some experts hold that ‘a’ stands for ‘appropriate’. according to them it is the parties to choose that what technique of dispute resolution would be more appropriate for their needs and interests. in some other jurisdictions of the world like australia and switzerland, the process is known as hamdard islamicus 10 vol. xxxix, no. 3 edr (external dispute resolution) and drt (dispute resolution tools) respectively. it is, sometimes also called cdr (consensual dispute resolution). in india, pakistan and afghanistan, it is named as ‘panchéyat’ and ‘jargha’. again there are some others who prefers cr (conflict resolution) and cpr (collaborative problem solving).4 adr as a concept to comprehend the concept of adr perfectly and to give a comprehensive definition to it, it is necessary to understand the meanings and limits of all the three components of adr; ‘alternative, dispute, and resolution. whether alternative or alternate strictly speaking, the word ‘alternative’ should not be confused with the word ‘alternate’. both words convey distinct meanings. the word “alternate” means happening of something in turn. an alternate day would mean leaving the day falling between two days. the word “alternative” means “different”, “instead of”, “replacement”, and “on the other hand”. it also means a situation where someone has an option between two things or when a second choice is offered while the first one also remains available. so it is a privilege of choosing one of the two things. in the absence of any second option, we would say that no alternative is available. it is, thus, clear that the word “alternate” signifies one after the other, whereas “alternative” denotes choice between two. in the presence of adr, the litigants are provided an opportunity to opt one of the methods of adjudication; formal or informal. they are given the choice either to go for determination of issues through regular litigation or for resolution of differences through amicable consensual settlement. the availability of this choice is an inspiring evidence to hold that the correct phrase is ‘alternative’. the appearance of the word ‘alternate’ in some writings, books and handouts seems mere inadvertence.5 the difference between the two is also appearing in arabic; the language of islamic law and jurisprudence. in the arabic language, hamdard islamicus 11 vol. xxxix, no. 3 alternative means “al-badêl” and “al-kheyarê”, whereas alternate refers to “al-mutanéwib”.6 as i have mentioned earlier that a comprehensive phrase like adr could not be found in any highly valuable work of classic and contemporary jurists of the islamic law, this distinction would really help us giving appropriate translation to adr in the islamic law. this translation could be “alfaîl ul badêl lilkhuîëmat” or “al-ïurëq al-hasmiah al-badêlah”. in pakistani legal system we may invent some suitable nomenclature such as “taîfiah ka mutabédil shara‘ê ùarêqah”. this urdu phraseology would also contribute to officializing of urdu language as required by the constitution of 1973.7 the distinction referred to above carries great significance, both in sharê‘ah and law and, therefore, should not be considered otiose. so, in connection with adr, the word ‘alternative’ would refer to judicious but not judicial procedures of dispute resolution. dispute dispute, when used as a noun, means conflict, contest, debate, controversy, quarrel, difference of opinion, subject of litigation, and disagreement between two persons, states and nations. it would also include the clashing of opposed principles, interests and benefits. the term as a verb means to put something into question or to challenge the validity of something.8 in this study, only its first usage will concern us. in arabic, the corresponding words for dispute are “nizé‘”, “khuîëmah”, “khiléf”, “munéqashah”, “mushékasah”, “jidél” and “sira”.9 these words, more or less, convey the sense of nizé‘ and khuîëmah, which mean subsistence of the disputed fact, state of continuance of adverse opinion particularly in respect of some corporeal object or some right relating to it. khiléf appears to be the second nearest meaning of dispute. the reason is that khiléf is usually used in non-corporeal matters like beliefs, values, standards, and moralities. the remaining terms are, though analogous to the term dispute, denoting serious situations emerging from dispute, when left unnoticed. dispute denotes a situation where opposite interests constitute a conflict. it is the point from where the differences between opponents hamdard islamicus 12 vol. xxxix, no. 3 originate. when a fact is viewed differently and is believed oppositely, a dispute emerges. in the civil law, the parties are considered to be at “variance” when one of them asserts the existence of a fact and the other denies the same. this assertion and denial constitute an issue: the name given to dispute by the code of civil procedure 1908. it is, thus, rightly said that when court does not find the parties at variance, it shall, without delay, announce its judgment.10 dispute, in its broad sense, also covers criminal justice. at the commencement of the trial, the tribunals frame a charge in respect of some fact asserted by the complainant and denied by the accused. in pakistani legal system, the subject matter of the dispute is determined at the stage of framing of issues in civil cases, and at the stage of framing of charge in criminal cases. according to the code of civil procedure 1908, issue arises when a material preposition of fact is affirmed by one party and denied by the other.11 it means that this law uses the term “issue” instead of “dispute”. so “issue” and “dispute” almost carry the same sense in civil law and contemplate the variance in stances. if the facts, raised by plaintiff, are admitted by defendant, no issue can arise and no dispute can emerge. consequently, court pronounces its judgment for an admitted fact need not to be proved.12 it seems that the word “issue” or “dispute” is similar to the phrase “fact in issue” in the law of evidence. according to alan tolyar, in criminal cases facts in issue are those which prosecution must establish in order to prove its case if accused refuses to admit the charge. he says further that even the accused may sometime bring a fact into issue by claiming alibi, insanity or sudden provocation. in civil cases, facts in issue may be framed from the pleading.13 the commentators of the qénën-e-shahédat order 1984 have also taken the phrase “fact in issue” in the meaning of a dispute. they maintain that, in criminal cases, the framing of charge contemplates “facts in issue” and framing of issues in civil cases exposes “fact in issue”.14 in the code of criminal procedure 1898, however, the word “dispute” has been expressly used. it means a reasonable dispute; dispute between parties who have each semblance of a right or supported right. hence, dispute may either concern to immovable property such as land or to the right of use of immovable property.15 hamdard islamicus 13 vol. xxxix, no. 3 it is clear from the above discussion that, “issue”, “dispute”, and “fact in issue” are analogues and, therefore, have an interchangeable use in legal fraternity. the word “dispute” has been discussed in numerous arbitration cases and cases of common adjudication, for example, halki shipping corporation v. sopex oils ltd [1998] wlr 726 [1998], london and amsterdam properties ltd v. waterman partnership ltd [2003]. all er.(d) 391. still it is a fact that the word ‘dispute’ has not been defined by any statute. a dispute, in the context of adr, most often refers to lack of compromise between the parties. some difference and bone of contention must do exist; otherwise, adr cannot be attracted. this rule is, however, not hard and fast because adr will work even in respect of such issues which have yet to attain the status of an actual dispute. for example, the business partners may concur to appoint an expert to decide an issue such as the valuation of shares.16 worthy to mention here is that, principally, the dispute must be of civil nature; for example, disputes pertaining to ownership, property, tenancy, business, matrimonial issues and the like. principally, criminal disputes cannot be referred to arbitration, particularly, cases of noncompoundable nature.17 a reference which would stifle the prosecution of a criminal is not proper. neither the magistrate can delegate his powers to arbitrators nor do the arbitrators confer on themselves the powers of a magistrate. so an award purporting to determine whether or not an offense has been committed has no legal cover. cases falling within the meaning of sec. 145 the code of criminal procedure 1898 [disputes as to possession of immovable property], can be referred to arbitration due to their civil origin. in kamini kumar basu v. birendra nath bose, the privy council held that the consideration for a reference would mater. if consideration is unlawful, such as stifling of a prosecution, the arbitration would be vitiated. but if the reference is lawful, the award would be proper even if results in the abatement of prosecution.18 similarly if an injured person is entitled to both civil and criminal remedies, his case may be referred to arbitration even if some crime as a result may be wiped out.19 according to the authors of mu‘jam lughét ul fuqahé, dispute is nizé‘ which means the claiming of right by one party and the refusal hamdard islamicus 14 vol. xxxix, no. 3 by the other to admit it.20 whether sharê‘ah also requires the civility of a dispute for the purpose of adr, a diversity of opinion is found. the civil and criminal nature of a dispute is not, however, the agreed upon criterion. in this connection, the difference of opinion between fuqahé has been caused by the division of rights in the sharê‘ah and necessity of court verdict in some areas. in the perspective of adr, the dispute has got its own meaning. here, it refers to a state of lack of compromise. resolution to resolve means to determine, to dispose of, to make a firm decision for doing some act. for the purpose of adr, it would denote the finding out of an acceptable solution to a dispute, also known as the amicable settlement of an issue. the word “resolution” will also cover a decision, reached by the majority of a forum.21 its loose application would also convey the sense of adjudication which may be either formal or alternative. the resolution can be achieved by the disputants themselves or by any neutral person like a judge and an arbitrator. in law, resolution means the official expression of opinion or will of a legislative body.22 the conclusion of findings is also known as resolution. the contents of resolution are considered as a kind of soft law. in the arabic language the word “resolution”, in the context of adr, will correspond to “faîal” or “íasm”, nonetheless the latter is more appropriate. “faîal” is nearer to regular adjudication in the current arabic usage. it means the decision of a dispute by fixation of guilt or liability through evidence whereas the íasm carries the sense of uprooting a dispute. resolution means “solution of a problem whereas decision means determination of the causer to problem”.23 to resolve and to decide should be thus differentiated inter se. these words, as already pointed out, would help us in giving proper terminology to adr in the sharê‘ah. besides, the factor of “acceptability” there is another line of demarcation between “resolution” and “adjudication”. for this reason, the word “resolution” was given to amicable settlements and the word “adjudication” was avoided. resolution must be acceptable to both sides hamdard islamicus 15 vol. xxxix, no. 3 but this is not necessary in case of formal adjudication. hence, the difference between “adjudication” and “resolution” is of effect and should not be presumed otiose. in the context of adr, resolution would mean an out of court, consensual and conclusive settlement. the above details of all the three components of adr would help us understanding the concept in the following manner. adr is an alternative to settlement of issues by regular courts and tribunals, by use of force and by resorting to the violence or by any other mean resulting in an unfair adjustment. most interesting is the fact that some practitioners of adr claim that not the adr, but courts are, actually, the alternative dispute process. so according to them, adr represents usual conflict resolution processes.24 giving a weight to historical aspect, this stance seems to be more agreeable to reason because, principally, the subsequent process should be considered as an alternative. the regular court system is undoubtedly later in time as compared to informal modes of dispute resolution. we add that, historically, adr techniques are, no doubt, alternatives but not to the courts rather they are alternatives to resolution of disputes by quarrel and violence. in the present scenario of actual existence of states and state-run courts, adr is an alternative to regular formal litigation. adr refers to the various amicable modes in which dispute can be settled by disputants themselves directly or by the intervention of neutral third person. these modes are known as arbitration, mediation, negotiation and conciliation. early evolution, collaborative law or collaborative divorce, restorative justice and ombudsman are comparatively less known modes of adr. amongst them, mediation and arbitration are analogous to “jargah” and “punchéyat” in the sub-continent of india. to a great extent, they correspond to the concept of “taíkêm” in the sharê‘ah. “isléí” would cover all modes leading to amicable settlement whereas conciliation would mean “øulí”. adr is, therefore, the name of various methods of resolving civil disputes; leaving aside normal adjudication. its subject may be individual’s problems, disputes between nations, groups, trade disputes and marital issues. settlement through adr is not only helpful in eradication of the bone of contention but it also instigates the participants to build a nice and smooth relationship for the future. adr encompasses a wide range of mechanisms for settling differences avoiding costly, hard in getting hamdard islamicus 16 vol. xxxix, no. 3 finality adjudication process.25 it is, sometime, referred to as “appropriate resolution” for the reason that option should be more appropriate to the disputed cause and to the disputants. in some countries like australia, the abbreviation edr (external dispute resolution) is preferred. in switzerland, adr is named as drt (dispute resolution tools).26 the textual books, however, while defining adr, refer to mediation, conciliation, arbitration, expert determination and ombudsman scheme, as the main process involving third party role. in a seminar on access to justice and adr, held on 22nd may, 2004, the then chief justice of pakistan, mr. nazim hussain siddiqi, said that adr was out of court settlement of disputes through various modes, such as arbitration, mediation, conciliation, early neutral evolution, and facilitation. adr is relatively a new term for dealing with an age-old problem, the problem of heavy backlog, the problem of delayed resolution of the disputes, and the problem of expensive litigation.27 the inductive analysis of what has been stated would result in the following definition of adr. “adr is a series of different modes of amicable, conclusive, and out of court resolution of dispute, almost resulting in a win-win situation”. the definition is, now, comprehensive and objective-based. it provides that adr is a generic collective phrase, encompassing various procedures. its objective is permanent, meaningful and peaceful settlement of a dispute, through non-judicial forums, persons and institutions. the word “amicable” would not exclude arbitration because, in this case, amicability refers to the agreement and choice of the parties in appointment of an arbiter, and to the acceptance of his award. it covers the resolution of disputes with the intervention of a third party and without such intervention, and as such encloses “negotiation”. hence, it is hard to agree with those who, by one way or the other, exclude “arbitration” and “negotiation” from the ambit of adr. need and justification for adr progress, prosperity and productivity of a nation depend upon the law and order situation. public tranquillity plays a significant role in the rising up of the stature or position of a nation. for achieving this objective, hamdard islamicus 17 vol. xxxix, no. 3 rule of law is emphasized in all the civilized states. so, the ways that are more efficient to bring peace, establish tranquillity and promote harmony should be, naturally, more welcomed. the system which will ensure these objectives in a quickest, cheapest and simplest manner, shall gain universal acceptability. pendency of disputes and advancement cannot run together. admittedly, behind every dispute, there is an effective cause. suspension of dispute is not the success rather the resolution of dispute should be the goal. formal adjudication is but mere disposal or suspension. it cannot eliminate the stimulant cause of the conflict. it is rightly presumed that adversarial adjudication, at maximum, declares one party victorious and the other vanquished. this does not provide an end to the dispute rather it may lead to a series of disputes and social tensions. keeping this end in view, second caliph ‘umar (r.a.), while issuing judicial directives to the qéìês said, “return the litigants to affect compromise for adjudication will bring hatreds to the masses”. on another occasion he pointed out, “enable the litigants, particularly, when they are relatives, to make an amicable settlement, for adjudication would create enmities amongst them.28 on the other hand, adr strikes at the very root of conflict on the basis of no bamboo no flute. it believes in resolution instead of mere disposal. here, both are victorious and no one is vanquished. there is less consumption of time, wealth and exertion. it is advisable for a qéìê to refer the litigants to adr, before the commencement of trial. the prophet muíammad (œ) said, “compromise is permissible amongst muslims provided it does not turn the unlawful to lawful and lawful to unlawful”.29 if the qéìê apprehends the adjudication will worsen the situation and will amount to bloodshed between the disputants, recourse to adr becomes imperative.30 litigation is a reaction which deepens the differences whereas adr is a response which uproots the dispute. the former promotes resistivity and the later encourages adjustment. there can be no life without adjustment rather “adjustment itself is life”, as emphasized by the famous poet dasarathi rangacharya. edmond burke, while delivering a speech in the house of commons, on conciliation with the american colonies round about 1775, said that all human benefits and enjoyments, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. hamdard islamicus 18 vol. xxxix, no. 3 adr is not meant to settle the national and international disputes only rather it answers the problems of middle class and to resolve the conflicts of the rich with the poor. adr thus ensures social justice.31 fixation of liability and establishing the fault and guilt is not necessary in each and every case. approximately, 90 per cent cases fall within the category which need not regular adjudication. such cases remain subjudice for irrational and cumbersome length of time, destroying the wealth and time of the parties. the precious time of the court is wasted and the national exchequer is burdened with useless expenditure. a large portion of population daily remains indulged in uncertain litigation which adversely affects their productivity. how and up to what time, this state of affairs can be left unnoticed? what answer, except adr, may be given to this challenge? there is strong need to consider adr before going for formal litigation. the courts of england and wales, after lord woolf’s reforms, are cautious in this regard. failure to adopt techniques of adr is fatal. in cowl and others v. plymouth city council, while hearing appeal against the decision of the high court, the apex court dismissed the appeal on the ground that the petitioner had failed to consider methods of alternative dispute resolution. the court held that no sufficient attention was paid to the requirement of avoiding litigation wherever possible, as suggested by lord woolf.32 similarly in dunnett v. railtrack, the court of appeal decided in favour of railtrack but penalized him for costs for the only reason that he had flatly refused to consider mediation despite the recommendation of the court of first instance. in another case hurst v. leeming, when justice lightman disclosed to the claimant that his case is of no merit and apprehension of costs was there. the claimant suggested that no costs should be awarded against him because he had proposed mediation and that it was the defendant who had turned it down.33 in india, the modern concept of loc ‘adélat is based on the fact that anglo-saxon courts could not deliver sufficiently. the lord woolf’s report also confirmed that civil justice system of england had lost the confidence of the litigant public. the leaders of the justice system of the united states, while expressing their low inclination towards formal justice, drew the attention of the americans towards adr and emphasized avoidance of litigation. the former chief justice of america warren hamdard islamicus 19 vol. xxxix, no. 3 burger was a long-time supporter of adr. his successor, william rehnquist, took the mission a step ahead. their efforts made it possible that the number of criminal cases that went for trial fell to 5 percent in 2002 from 15 percent in 1962. similarly, 11.5 percent of federal criminal cases went for trial in 1962. in 2002, the ratio fell down to 1.8 percent only.34 regular trial, in the us, is considered a total failure of society. samuel r. gross, a law professor at the university of michigan, said, “if a trial occurs, it usually means a whole lot of efforts by a whole lot of people have failed”.35 it was only the ineffectiveness of the us civil justice system that compelled the congress to enact civil justice reform act (cjra) of 1990, enabling all the federal district courts to promote adr methods to overcome the insufficiency of the adversarial system. they have also introduced the adr act 1998. now, in us, 90 percent cases are decided through adr. the american president abraham lincoln once said: “discourage litigation. persuade neighbours to compromise whenever you can. point out to them how the nominal winner is often the real loser; in fees, expenses and a waste of time. as a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of becoming a good man”.36 the situation is not different in canada, japan, australia, south africa, singapore, and so many other states, where adr is getting overwhelming acceptability and is becoming the usual and customary method of dispute resolution. in sri lanka, mediation failure certificate from the mediation board is a pre-requisite for filing a suit. in china, mediation is rooted in history and culture. in the muslim world, egypt and jordan have already introduced adr. in bangladesh, the former chief justice, kamal mustafa, has caused effective amendments for introducing adr in family and commercial laws. the situation in pakistan is tenser and the miseries of the formal justice system have given birth to a proverb in kp province which says, “may allah (god) not indulge you in a hospital or in a court”. the law and justice commission of pakistan has conducted a number of seminars on the significance of adr. time bound delay reduction (tbdr) plan was introduced by the national judicial policy making committee (njpmc), where special value has been given to the amicable settlement. the civil hamdard islamicus 20 vol. xxxix, no. 3 procedure code 1908 has also been amended in this regard. the judges of the supreme court as well as the senior advocates are writing papers in support of adr. the arbitration and conciliation bill 2009 is also waiting the assent of parliament. in more than 20 enactments like land revenue act 1967, electricity act 2003, income tax ordinance 2001, custom rules 2001, custom act 1969, sales tax act 1990, federal excise act 2005, family laws and banking act, separate provisions are available for informal amicable settlements. muîéliíétê anjuman (conciliation council) is the salient feature of local government ordinance 2001. the question is why the whole world is running away from formal justice system to an informal one? the answer is that formal system could not keep pace with time, and as such, it has become outdated. it is expensive and so keeps the majority of the litigants out-priced. it is too lengthy and is, therefore, tiresome. it is complicated though the nature of human being is inclined to simplicity. it is dead slow in getting finality and that is inconsistent with the hasty nature of mankind. though not physical, but a sort of fighting takes place in the dock and fighting is usually taken as last resort, as it is said in a persian-urdu proverb, “when no effort remains unexhausted, man begins to fight”. the main defects of the state courts are inordinate delays, procedural requirements, abuse of procedure, and priority of legal justice over substantial justice, unnecessary and unwanted consideration of technicalities in decision making process, preference of fairness over justness, problems of execution, and above all, highly belated finality. skyrocketing fees of advocates and their professional negligence are other fatigues. pitfalls in court ways of dispute resolution huge pendency there are two reasons for increased filing of law suits: increase in population and awareness in the masses regarding rights and obligations. no one can stop filing suits, particularly, in the situation where doors of the court are open for every person believing himself aggrieved. fair trial hamdard islamicus 21 vol. xxxix, no. 3 and reason-based judgments have made the people reposing higher confidence and faith in judiciary. for the reason that various departments including the other two pillars of the state are not performing their duties properly, the judiciary has been compelled to be more intervenient. all these factors have overburdened the courts and they cannot bear this burden alone. in an environment like this, the chief justice of india r.c. lahoti has rightly said: “now it is clear that the inlet (of water store) cannot be totally stopped. can we at least increase either speed of outlet or increase the number of outlets? one such new outlet is adr, which includes arbitration, mediation and conciliation”.37 it may be added that the safe way is the increase in the number of outlets, meaning thereby, increase in the forums of settlements of disputes because increase in the speed of the outlet (speedy and hasty hearings) would lead to mere disposal of cases, leaving aside dispensation of justice. this is what actually happened twice in pakistan. the directives of previous chief justice, mr. irshéd hassan khén (2000-2002), to all the state courts, for concluding all pending family cases within a short span of three months, was counterproductive to a larger extent. it amounted to meaningless and sometime even injurious disposals. what to say of the vanquished, the victor was unhappy with the decision in a considerable number of cases. the judges of family courts took the pre and post-trial conciliation just as the completion of a formality. in this regard, sincere efforts were intentionally avoided. consequently, the cases which were instituted only for the purpose of compelling the husband for good behaviour, ended with dissolution of marriage. in so many cases, the spouses requested the local religious scholars to declare such decrees as revocable divorce. majority of the judges could not differentiate between hasty hearings and expeditious hearings. the following details show the current pendency of peshawar high court. in the first three months of 2013, the cause list of the chief justice peshawar high court exceeded the figure of 100.38 despite this number of cases on cause list, in writ petitions, where, as a policy, short dates of hearing are fixed, the petitioner has to wait for months. when the date arrives, the case is adjourned due to lengthy cause list or some other hamdard islamicus 22 vol. xxxix, no. 3 reason. this is what happens in the writ petitions what to say of criminal and particularly civil appeals. the appellants has to wait for years and yet they are not certain whether proceedings would take place or their cases would be adjourned for one reason or the other. it would be injustice to call it dispensation of justice. delay of justice means denial of justice. litigation between state and citizens beside the services tribunal, the other civil courts and the apex courts have been burdened with cases in which state is either claimant or defendant. the heads of concerned departments, giving priority to their vested interests rarely show their interest in resolving disputes. they don’t apprehend expenses because the state fights against citizens at the cost of the citizens. the government functionaries are bound to deal with the citizens and government servants judiciously but they don’t. on account of malfeasance, they intentionally do some acts which create cause of action. consequently, the burden shifts to courts where they neither withdraw the cases nor allow it to get resolved. they file a second appeal even in cases where the first appellate court has upheld the decision of the court of first instance. they don’t hesitate in filing a review petition with the last appellate forum. the issues which they raise at the process of execution, is another problem. currently, more than 1600 cases against kp department of health only are pending in courts.39 behaviour of the advocates in countries like ours, where legal ethics are confined in the books and professional dishonesty has become general, the performance of the advocates is too poor to be described. no doubt the situation in the supreme court is comparatively better, nonetheless, majority of the clients are unhappy with the behaviour of their counsels regarding their nonappearance in the courts. it has been observed in so many cases that a counsel is sitting in his chamber or in bar-room but does not attend the court. sometimes, he pays no proper attention to his client and ignores his beseeching to appear before the court. in this situation, the poor hamdard islamicus 23 vol. xxxix, no. 3 litigant turns into a shuttle cock between the judge and the advocate. with great difficulty, and after waiting for a long time, when this counsel appears, the counsel of the other party disappears either surreptitiously or under the pretext of appearance in some other court. if the advocate apprehends loosing of case, he tries to adjourn the case by hook or crook. this often happens during the stage of recording evidence or when the case is fixed for final arguments. to achieve their goal, they even don’t hesitate to file unwanted petitions of revision. service of process the appearance of the parties consumes extra-ordinary time. sometime the plaintiff fails to provide true and complete address of the defendants or fails to the process fees in time and sometimes the defendant or a witness intentionally conceals himself. most of the process servers are untrained. their emoluments are small and cannot meet their basic needs. their strength also is usually insufficient for the area they are supposed to cover. hence an effective service of summons and notices cannot be expected. in cases where the defendant’s house can be traced by some additional efforts, he would report that the house of the defendant could not be traced due to its location in thickly populated area and the non-mentioning of the number of the house by the plaintiff. he, sometimes writes that the summons could not be served due to the rush of work and shortage of time. if a summon is served, it suffers from injurious mistakes and the court is to issue summons afresh. interestingly, at times, he requests the court that no one in the area knows the defendant, therefore, the plaintiff be directed to make the defendant shown, on spot, to the process server. in these circumstances, the plaintiff waits that when his next door neighbour defendant would appear in the court. often too late, he comes to know that it is the money which makes the mare go. adjournments there may be adjournments on reasonable grounds. the civil procedure code 1908 itself carry provisions for it such as power of hamdard islamicus 24 vol. xxxix, no. 3 the court to enlarge a fixed date for some act under section 148. adjournments may be on grounds of emergencies but frequent adjournments on frivolous grounds are really bad. delay in submission of written statements, list of witnesses, replications, depositing of various fees, production of witnesses and documents and above all non-appearance of the counsel under the excuse of being busy in some other forum, are very common. granting for hormonal relations between the bench and the bar, judges accept requests of advocates for adjournments. it is nothing else but a compromise at the cost of clients. in the process, the interest of the litigants is crushed and the judiciary fails to provide speedy justice to the aggrieved. it is quite clear that adjournments always go in favour of the aggressor. imagine that whom the bar and bench help? again imagine whom they harm? abuse of procedure it is an admitted fact that procedure is aimed to promote justice. its utilization in a way to defeat justice is its abuse. this abuse, sad to say, is often made both by the judge and a counsel. the judge should keep in mind that mere technicality should not defeat justice; the real and ultimate goal. any discretion provided by procedure should be used judiciously and equally. though it is really bad on the part of the judiciary, yet it occurs. the situation is worse on the part of the bar. the counsel often indulges the court in meaningless petitions just for the purposes of getting time, prolonging the proceedings, teasing the opponent and obtaining interlocutory orders for taking the case to appellate courts and forums of revisions. the original issue is, thus, put to dormancy, a new issue is created and a series of judicial reviews commence, leaving the real issue aside. in the process of execution, 95 percent of the objection petitions are filed with mere intention of delay and resistance in the satisfaction of the decree. the abuse of section 47 and order xxi rules 99,100 and 101 is rampant. section 47 the civil procedure code 1908 is aimed to determine the questions naturally arising between the parties. it never speaks that a party should deliberately raise questions as of right and the court be bound to determine them by recording pro and contra evidence. how it can be called dispensation of justice if execution of decree takes hamdard islamicus 25 vol. xxxix, no. 3 larger time than the obtaining of a decree in the suit. sometimes, if a suit takes two years, the execution takes four. in a number of cases, if a plaintiff succeeds to be alive at the time of getting decree, he passes away long before the satisfaction of decree. it is rightly said that the miseries of an aggrieved person begin at the time when the trial court passes a decree in his favour. does it not amount to an open deprivation? it does amount to it. an indian judge, while commenting on delays in execution, observed that order 21 had been the despair of an honest litigant and haven for unscrupulous judgment-debtors, as it gives uncontrollable freedom for raising technical objections and manipulating the skills of the trade.40 insertion of section 12(2) in the civil procedure code1908 has opened another window to the abusers.41 in a number of cases, the petitioner, being in conspiracy with the appearing defendants, does not attend the court in the hearing of the original suit. as soon as the suit gets resolved, he suddenly appears with a petition under the said sub-section claiming that the decree has been obtained by fraud, misrepresentation or want of jurisdiction. the sub-section was aimed to bar a fresh suit and to avoid the repetition and multiplicity of proceedings. now, the same thing is done though under another cover. preliminary arguments are heard. only and hardly 01 percent petitions are dismissed. in 99 percent cases the court orders the framing of issues, the submission of the list of witnesses and the production of pro and contra evidence. if it doesn’t mean hearing of a regular suit then what else does it mean? the purpose of the section is thus defeated. other causes of delay besides those mentioned above, the following are other causes of delay. 1) lengthy and meaningless cross-examination only for pleasing the clients. 2) lengthy arguments just to impress the client that his counsel is of a high caliber. 3) unnecessary citations just to combat the opponent counsel. 4) half-hearted attention of a judge in the framing of issues, creating grounds for reversal of proceedings. hamdard islamicus 26 vol. xxxix, no. 3 05) strikes of advocates on various occasions. 06) meetings of judicial officers as well as of advocates during court hours. 07) numerous judicial reviews. 08) reluctance of courts to refer cases to adr experts. 09) concentration of work with few senior advocates. 10) lack of required sincerity on the part of the judge during pre and post-trial conciliation in family cases. 11) rawness or inexperience of the reader of the court, resulting in unsuitable fixation of dates of hearings. the above list is not exhaustive in nature under any stretch of explanation, but the above-mentioned facts are sufficient to establish the need for adr. moreover, there are so many examples where civil litigation has given birth to serious crimes. adr saves lives, protects time, wealth and honour, ensures peace, security and tranquillity, and leads towards prosperity. on the other hand, litigation travels in the opposite direction. this reality could be seen in the statement about singapore which flows as under: “we introduced mediation primarily because of the understanding that adjudication is not always the most appropriate process, as disputes differ widely in nature. the courts must be able to offer the most effective, responsive and appropriate methods for resolving disputes. they must be able to offer alternatives to the traditional resolution path. with a variety of dispute resolution mechanisms available, disputants can then match the forum to their particular dispute rather than being required to fit their dispute to the adversarial forum. the subordinate courts have taken the lead and set the pace for the use of mediation as a dispute resolution process. unlike some other court jurisdictions where it had its genesis as a diversionary measure to deal with backlogs and delays, our motivation was different as the problem was absent. rather we saw an opportunity to reintroduce into our culture a process to which it was not a stranger. in fact, our own mediation roots can be traced back to the early 19th century.”42 hamdard islamicus 27 vol. xxxix, no. 3 status, need and justification of adr under the islamic law it is already noticed that adr corresponds to the word iîléí as it appears in the holy qur’én and sunnah. here, further explanation is given to support this claim. øulí is the name of a contract between two parties which refers to a state of restored peace. its antonym is dispute/ niza‘/faséd. iîléí means a process where efforts are made for reformation. so every act which leads to amicability, sobriety and ensures the restoration of peace is iîléí. a muîlií is a reformer whereas muîélií is a party to the compromise. the antonym of iîléí is ifséd which covers every act amounting to out-breaking of peace, disturbing of public tranquillity, creating, havoc and horror, and making mischief and chaos.43 there are many verses of the holy qur’én that describe iîléí and fiséd as juxtaposed concepts. the following few verses of the holy qur’én provide are sufficient evidence in this regard: when it is said to them: “make not mischief on the earth” they say: “why we only want to make peace!”.44 and moses had charged his brother aaron (before he went up): “act for me amongst my people: do right and follow not the way of those who do mischief.”.45 give just measure and weight nor withhold from the people the things that are their due; and do no mischief on the earth after it has been set in order;46 “and follow not the bidding of those who are extravagant, who make mischief in the land and mend not (their ways).47 �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝ˒�ǝ˔ǡǜӝ�ʉǜёհјƹ�ƹ˟ǝˏʉǜˉ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻ�ǡˑǝ˝ǜˏ�ǜˎ˥ǟˉ�ƹǜǃјƹǜǖ �ǜޜǟʧǟʭǡˇǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜˎ˥ǟʐǜʬ�ǡʽǟʏёʗǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡʡǟːǡʲѕƺǜǖ�ǟܖǡ˟ǜˉ�ǟۗ�ǟقǡˇǝːǡʥƹ�ǜǔǖǝdžʉǜ˜�ǟ˛˥ǟʥѕǟϼ�dzǜڙ˟ǝ˒�ǜǒʉǜˉǜǖ ʉǜ˝ǟʢǜϻǡʲјƹ�ǜʧǡʿǜʌ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡǝܙǜƴʉǜ˦ǡʯѕƺ�ǜdžʉё˘ˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝʭǜʦǡʏǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǜǔƹǜ֥ǟ˓ǡˏƹǜǖ�ǜˎǡ˥ǜˍǡˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝˆǡǖѕƺ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜޜǟʨёˏƹ -�ǜؑǟˆǟǡڑǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜʩǡ˒ѕƺ�ƹ˟ǝʿ˥ǟʹǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜʷǡ˜ǜdž�ǝʑǜʿǡʭǟʔ�ǟʑǜ˘ˢǟʧǜ˓ǡˏƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǜۡǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝ˒�ǝ˔ǡǜӝ�ʉǜёհјƹ�ƹ˟ǝˏʉǜˉ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻ�ǡˑǝ˝ǜˏ�ǜˎ˥ǟˉ�ƹǜǃјƹǜǖ �ǜޜǟʧǟʭǡˇǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜˎ˥ǟʐǜʬ�ǡʽǟʏёʗǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡʡǟːǡʲѕƺǜǖ�ǟܖǡ˟ǜˉ�ǟۗ�ǟقǡˇǝːǡʥƹ�ǜǔǖǝdžʉǜ˜�ǟ˛˥ǟʥѕǟϼ�dzǜڙ˟ǝ˒�ǜǒʉǜˉǜǖ ʉǜ˝ǟʢǜϻǡʲјƹ�ǜʧǡʿǜʌ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡǝܙǜƴʉǜ˦ǡʯѕƺ�ǜdžʉё˘ˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝʭǜʦǡʏǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǜǔƹǜ֥ǟ˓ǡˏƹǜǖ�ǜˎǡ˥ǜˍǡˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝˆǡǖѕƺ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜޜǟʨёˏƹ -�ǜؑǟˆǟǡڑǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜʩǡ˒ѕƺ�ƹ˟ǝʿ˥ǟʹǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜʷǡ˜ǜdž�ǝʑǜʿǡʭǟʔ�ǟʑǜ˘ˢǟʧǜ˓ǡˏƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǜۡǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝ˒�ǝ˔ǡǜӝ�ʉǜёհјƹ�ƹ˟ǝˏʉǜˉ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻ�ǡˑǝ˝ǜˏ�ǜˎ˥ǟˉ�ƹǜǃјƹǜǖ �ǜޜǟʧǟʭǡˇǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜˎ˥ǟʐǜʬ�ǡʽǟʏёʗǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡʡǟːǡʲѕƺǜǖ�ǟܖǡ˟ǜˉ�ǟۗ�ǟقǡˇǝːǡʥƹ�ǜǔǖǝdžʉǜ˜�ǟ˛˥ǟʥѕǟϼ�dzǜڙ˟ǝ˒�ǜǒʉǜˉǜǖ ʉǜ˝ǟʢǜϻǡʲјƹ�ǜʧǡʿǜʌ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡǝܙǜƴʉǜ˦ǡʯѕƺ�ǜdžʉё˘ˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝʭǜʦǡʏǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǜǔƹǜ֥ǟ˓ǡˏƹǜǖ�ǜˎǡ˥ǜˍǡˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝˆǡǖѕƺ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜޜǟʨёˏƹ -�ǜؑǟˆǟǡڑǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜʩǡ˒ѕƺ�ƹ˟ǝʿ˥ǟʹǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜʷǡ˜ǜdž�ǝʑǜʿǡʭǟʔ�ǟʑǜ˘ˢǟʧǜ˓ǡˏƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǜۡǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝ˒�ǝ˔ǡǜӝ�ʉǜёհјƹ�ƹ˟ǝˏʉǜˉ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻ�ǡˑǝ˝ǜˏ�ǜˎ˥ǟˉ�ƹǜǃјƹǜǖ �ǜޜǟʧǟʭǡˇǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜˎ˥ǟʐǜʬ�ǡʽǟʏёʗǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡʡǟːǡʲѕƺǜǖ�ǟܖǡ˟ǜˉ�ǟۗ�ǟقǡˇǝːǡʥƹ�ǜǔǖǝdžʉǜ˜�ǟ˛˥ǟʥѕǟϼ�dzǜڙ˟ǝ˒�ǜǒʉǜˉǜǖ ʉǜ˝ǟʢǜϻǡʲјƹ�ǜʧǡʿǜʌ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡǝܙǜƴʉǜ˦ǡʯѕƺ�ǜdžʉё˘ˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝʭǜʦǡʏǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǜǔƹǜ֥ǟ˓ǡˏƹǜǖ�ǜˎǡ˥ǜˍǡˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝˆǡǖѕƺ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜޜǟʨёˏƹ -�ǜؑǟˆǟǡڑǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜʩǡ˒ѕƺ�ƹ˟ǝʿ˥ǟʹǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜʷǡ˜ǜdž�ǝʑǜʿǡʭǟʔ�ǟʑǜ˘ˢǟʧǜ˓ǡˏƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǜۡǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝ˒�ǝ˔ǡǜӝ�ʉǜёհјƹ�ƹ˟ǝˏʉǜˉ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻ�ǡˑǝ˝ǜˏ�ǜˎ˥ǟˉ�ƹǜǃјƹǜǖ �ǜޜǟʧǟʭǡˇǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜˎ˥ǟʐǜʬ�ǡʽǟʏёʗǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡʡǟːǡʲѕƺǜǖ�ǟܖǡ˟ǜˉ�ǟۗ�ǟقǡˇǝːǡʥƹ�ǜǔǖǝdžʉǜ˜�ǟ˛˥ǟʥѕǟϼ�dzǜڙ˟ǝ˒�ǜǒʉǜˉǜǖ ʉǜ˝ǟʢǜϻǡʲјƹ�ǜʧǡʿǜʌ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡǝܙǜƴʉǜ˦ǡʯѕƺ�ǜdžʉё˘ˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝʭǜʦǡʏǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǜǔƹǜ֥ǟ˓ǡˏƹǜǖ�ǜˎǡ˥ǜˍǡˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝˆǡǖѕƺ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜޜǟʨёˏƹ �ǜؑǟˆǟǡڑǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜʩǡ˒ѕƺ�ƹ˟ǝʿ˥ǟʹǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜʷǡ˜ǜdž�ǝʑǜʿǡʭǟʔ�ǟʑǜ˘ˢǟʧǜ˓ǡˏƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǜۡǜǖ hamdard islamicus 28 vol. xxxix, no. 3 there were in the city nine men of a family who made mischief in the land and would not reform.48 imém réghib, while interpreting the word ‘íakam’, says that it means the staying of some action for the purpose of a iîléí (reform). in the case titled saeeda khénam v muíammad samê, justice a.r. cornelius held that íakam means a person of such social influence who could stay the wrong performance of an act.49 so doing such an act is iîléí not îulí. even the relevant verse of the holy qur’én adopted the word iîléí instead of îulí. iîléí bain al-néss (conciliation between people [al-qur’én, iv:114]) also refers to peace making process. aîloíë zéta bainikum (keep straight the relations between yourselves [al-qur’én, viii:i]) conveys the same sense. now, the distinction between îulí and iîléí is clear. so îulí is a contract whereas iîléí is a procedure. iîléí is the modus oprendi and îulí is one of its products. the jurisprudential relationship between îulí and iîléí is that of sharï and mashrëï lahu. no îulí without iîléí but not the vice versa. the conclusion is that the concept which is commonly known as adr is nothing else but the concept of iîléí under islamic law. this theory should not be made cloudy under the pretext of interchangeable use of îulí and iîléí in common parlance. the directives of ‘umar (r.a.), as mentioned in the beginning of this topic, are also suggestive of the fact that efforts for amicable settlement should have the priority and that recourse to the litigation should be made as a last resort. no one from the mujtahidên has dissented with the opinion which makes îulí mandatory in case of apprehension of serious consequences. the saying of the prophet muíammad (œ) also recommends amicable settlement within the limits of the sharê‘ah. nevertheless, we would like to clarify the sharê‘ah’s ruling for adr in the light of principles of uîël al-fiqh. 1) “command creates obligation unless the context demands otherwise” is the well-known rule of islamic jurisprudence.50 allah says, “so fear allah and keep straight the relations between yourselves”.51 so, there is command of allah regarding the removal of the bone of contention. nothing in the context appears to divert this obligation into recommendation rather other commands in the context �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝ˒�ǝ˔ǡǜӝ�ʉǜёհјƹ�ƹ˟ǝˏʉǜˉ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻ�ǡˑǝ˝ǜˏ�ǜˎ˥ǟˉ�ƹǜǃјƹǜǖ �ǜޜǟʧǟʭǡˇǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜˎ˥ǟʐǜʬ�ǡʽǟʏёʗǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡʡǟːǡʲѕƺǜǖ�ǟܖǡ˟ǜˉ�ǟۗ�ǟقǡˇǝːǡʥƹ�ǜǔǖǝdžʉǜ˜�ǟ˛˥ǟʥѕǟϼ�dzǜڙ˟ǝ˒�ǜǒʉǜˉǜǖ ʉǜ˝ǟʢǜϻǡʲјƹ�ǜʧǡʿǜʌ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ƹǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǡǝܙǜƴʉǜ˦ǡʯѕƺ�ǜdžʉё˘ˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝʭǜʦǡʏǜʓ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǜǔƹǜ֥ǟ˓ǡˏƹǜǖ�ǜˎǡ˥ǜˍǡˏƹ�ƹ˟ǝˆǡǖѕƺ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜޜǟʨёˏƹ �ǜؑǟˆǟǡڑǝ˓ǡˏƹ�ǜʩǡ˒ѕƺ�ƹ˟ǝʿ˥ǟʹǝʓ�ǜϻǜǖ �ǜǔ˟ǝʣǟːǡʳǝˢ�ǜϻǜǖ�ǟljǡdžѕǡϼƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǖǝʧǟʭǡˇǝˢ�ǜʷǡ˜ǜdž�ǝʑǜʿǡʭǟʔ�ǟʑǜ˘ˢǟʧǜ˓ǡˏƹ�ǟۗ�ǜǔǜۡǜǖ hamdard islamicus 29 vol. xxxix, no. 3 also demands obligation. same is the case with these commands, “if two parties among the believers fall into a quarrel make ye peace between them” and “make peace between them with justice and be fair”.52 2) a number of commands render dispensation of justice mandatory. take these verses for example, “allah commands justice the doing of good”53 and “judge in equity between them”.54 now a considerable number of cases pending in the court are not appropriate for formal litigation (qaìé). the resolution of such cases may only be obtained through adr techniques. at this stage, we are supposed to apply another rule of islamic jurisprudence and i.e., “an act essential for complementing an obligatory act becomes an obligation itself”.55 3) under the rule of fatí al-zara‘, it is incumbent upon the chief executive to open all such sources that lead to prosperity. steps towards prevention of harms {offences, torts and other civil injuries} and steps for the removal of inflicted harms, is the foremost duty of the ruler. so the chief executive is duty bound to open as many forums and modes for resolution of disputes, as possible. all the above facts would reveal that: 1) adr may be directed for use in ordinary situations. 2) adr is mandatory if the case is fit only for it. 3) adr is the integral part of trial procedure of the sharê‘ah. discovery of the alternative for the phrase adr in the sharê‘ah the point that needs to be noted here is the use of word “iîléí” in so many provisions of the primary transmitted sources of islamic law. it denotes and includes all the human efforts towards an amicable settlement and reforming strained situations. øulí, on the other hand, is the name of a justice-restored situation. a muslií means reformer.56 so iîléí is a generic name like adr; covering negotiations, mediations, conciliations and, above all, the consent-oriented arbitration. besides, îulí is a contract under the islamic law whereas iîléí is a procedural phenomenon. the following lines would further clarify this stance. hamdard islamicus 30 vol. xxxix, no. 3 it is noticed from the above discussion that adr corresponds to the word iîléí as it appears in the holy qur’én and sunnah. here, further explanation is given to support this claim. øulí is the name of a contract between two parties which refers to a state of restored peace. its antonym is dispute/nizé‘/faséd. iîléí means a process where efforts are made for reformation. so every act which leads to amicability, sobriety and ensures the restoration of peace is iîléí. a muîlií is a reformer whereas muîélií is a party to the compromise. the antonym of iîléí is ifséd which covers every act amounting to out-breaking of peace, disturbing of public tranquillity, creating, havoc and horror, and making mischief and chaos.57 enough number of the verses of the holy qur’én describe iîléí and ifséd as juxtaposed concepts. the previously mentioned verses are sufficient evidence in this regard. clothing iîléí with the meaning of adr, it becomes justifiable to hold that the islamic law is pioneer in the field. it introduced adr long before any other system. what has been covered by adr in law; has been covered by iîléí under islamic law. law describes four basic modes of adr; arbitration, mediation, conciliation and negotiation. the sharê‘ah describes two modes; taíkêm and îulí. the difference is in form only. law gives effect to technical differences between the various modes and thus makes it four. for example arbitration differs from the remaining on the basis of its binding nature. a third neutral person plays a role in mediation and conciliation but his role in the later is more proactive than his role in the former.58 negotiation refers to the direct communication between the parties.59 the sharê‘ah differentiates taíkêm from îulí for its quasi-judicial in nature and considers mediation, conciliation and negotiation as various modes leading to a contract of îulí between the disputants. taíkêm and øulí here, we would give a cursory touch to these concepts and would avoid details. taíkêm means arbitration and îulí means conciliation. the term “iîléí” literally means reforming but technically refers to efforts for restoration of peace, by removing differences through an amicable settlement,60 nevertheless, its interchangeable use with conciliation (îulí) hamdard islamicus 31 vol. xxxix, no. 3 is allowed. to be more specific, îulí is objective and iîléí is means towards such objective. islam, since its emergence, encouraged arbitration. actually the customs that were prevailing in the pre-islam arab society were recognized by islam provided they were found in consistency with the express provisions of sharê‘ah. these customs include qiîéî (retaliation), qasémah, mudérabah, salam, rahan (mortgage) and much more. taíkêm was one of such customs. it should be noted here that arab civilization is older than any other ancient civilization of europe. the state of yemen existed long before athens and rome.61 the famous battle al-basës, began with the death of a camel and continued for forty (494-534 c.e.) years.62 it claimed hundreds of lives. the dispute was eventually settled by the process of taíkêm. similarly, another famous war “dahis and ghabra” came to an end as a result of taíkêm.63 in the north of ka‘bah, a town hall was built and named as dér al-nadwah. the grand grandfather of quraish quîîai has been reported to be its founder.64 it was a community center where the decision-makers used to hold consultations, dialogues and to conduct meditation.65 matters of serious concern only could find a place on agenda of the meeting.66 the unsacred unsuccessful plan of assassination of the holy prophet muíammad (œ) was also approved in the al-nadwah.67 in the charter of madinah; the first ever written constitution of the world, the prophet muíammad (œ) was unanimously accepted as the final forum of arbitration.68 besides, earlier during the reconstruction of ka‘bah, a dispute arose between the leaders of local tribes of makkah on the point that who would have the honour to reinstall the sacred blackstone (al-×ajr al-aswéd). just before a conflict was likely to happen, muíammad (œ) was requested to arbitrate. the prophet (œ) used a wonderful tactic by placing the stone on a piece of cloth. he, then, directed the chiefs of every clan to hold the cloth from specified area and to take it to the designated place. when they did so, the prophet (œ) himself placed the stone at its place.69 as for as amicable settlement (îulí) is concerned, so numerous verses of the qur’én and a large number of aíédêth speak for it. øulí, its cognates and collocations can be found in more than 175 verses of the holy qur’én.70 most of the jurists of islamic law have specified independent chapters in their voluminous books for îulí. the hamdard islamicus 32 vol. xxxix, no. 3 ×udabiyah pact was the outcome of a peaceful settlement. actually, a great deal of conversations, negotiations, information sharing, exchanging of promises and other diplomatic efforts preceded the fact. similarly composite dialogues, comprehensive deliberations and a package of binding promises regarding liabilities of each side contributed towards framing of the charter of madinah*.71 the point that needs to be noted here is the use of word “iîléí” in so many provisions of primary transmitted sources of the islamic law. it denotes and includes all human efforts towards an amicable settlement and reforming strained situations: whereas îulí is the name of a justicerestored situation. a “muîilí” means reformer.72 so “iîléí” is a generic name like adr; covering negotiations, mediations, conciliations and above all consent-oriented arbitration. besides, “îulí” is a contract under the islamic law whereas “iîléí” is a procedural phenomenon. this point would be more clarified later but we should maintain that the distinction between “iîléí” and “îulí” is not useless. negotiation is one of the modes of adr. the history of negotiations is older than that of mediation. the first ever negotiation, for which an evidence could be available, is the negotiations that had taken place between the prophet noaí (*) and his people. the text of the abovereferred negotiations has been narrated by the holy qur’én. it flows as below: “the people of noah rejected the apostles.” “behold their brother noah said to them: “will ye not fear (allah)?” “i am to you an apostle worthy of all trust” “so fear allah and obey me.” “and no reward do i ask of you for it; my reward is only from the lord of the worlds.”73 woolf report and reforms: a contemporary march towards adr since long, the people of england and wales were complaining against the civil justice system. to them, the system was adversely contributing due to its complex adversarial nature. they shouted that the –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *there is no evidence showing any discussion on the terms of the charter – ed. hamdard islamicus 33 vol. xxxix, no. 3 system was outdated, complicated, unable to answer, snail-moving, unwelcoming and above all deadly expensive. in 1995, the national consumer council conducted a survey which explored that every three out of four (75%) litigants were extremely unhappy with the civil justice system. in order to defuse the situation, so many attempts were made but the government utterly ignored all reports and recommendations. clr report, report of civil justice review in 1988, and the heilbron hodge report 1993 went in vain. consequently, during 1990’s, the situation became so tense that it could not be left unnoticed any further. in march 1994, lord chancellor lord mackay had to appoint lord woolf; master of the rolls, to work out the ways for overhauling the civil justice system. in 1995, he submitted an interim report under the caption of “access to justice” containing 124 recommendations. 1n july 1996, he gave his final report with 303 recommendations. complexity of procedure, uncertainty of expenses and time, and the role of the parties were found to be the main causes of no confidence upon the system. he, inter alia, emphasized on encouragement of out-of-court settlement (adr) to such an extent that exposed the report to the drastic criticism of lawyers. in response, the labour government asked sir peter middleton to review the woolf’s reforms. in september 1997, sir peter submitted his repot and endorsed woolf’s reforms. in april 1999, woolf reforms were officially introduced that resulted in overhauling the civil procedure rules (cpr) and bringing about radical changes to the civil justice system. evidence suggests that, in the post-reform era, the number of civil actions launched in the high court has fallen massively. during 1990 and 1991, more than 350,000 cases were instituted in the queen’s bench division. by 2002 this had fallen to below 20,000 and this descending trend has continued growing. “judicial statistics reveal average waiting time from issue of a claim to trial has reduced form 85 weeks in 1998 to 52 weeks in 2005 in the county courts”.74 adr in pakistani legal system the constitution of pakistan 1973 provides foundation for alternative dispute resolution. it does not mention adr directly by its current nomenclature like indian constitution; nevertheless it provides general guidelines for it. article 2a, inter alia, requires that the muslims shall be hamdard islamicus 34 vol. xxxix, no. 3 enabled to order their lives in accordance with the teaching of islam and that social, economic and political justice shall be guaranteed by the state. if article 2a is read with the historic objective resolution adopted by the constituent assembly of pakistan on 12th april 1949 and section 4 of enforcement of shariat act 1991, it would keep the islamic laws at a superior level than other general laws of the country. “justice for all” particularly “social justice” is the main theme of articles 2a, 18 and 25. state is, therefore, bound to take steps for securing the ends of social justice. it is already explained that adr ensures social justice under the topic “need and justification of adr”. similarly, the status of adr under the islamic law has also been explained. article 37 enshrines the promotion of social justice and eradication of social evils. claus (d) of the article ensures “inexpensive” and “expeditious” justice. these two phrases are of great significance as far as quicker and cheaper justice is concerned. it is the duty of the state to make proper legislation in this regard and to set up necessary machinery therefore. no doubt the provisions of article 37 occurs in the “principles of policy” and is, therefore, not directly enforceable at law, nevertheless, they have been described as “fundamental to the governance of the state” and that article 9 of the constitution requires all state’s functionaries to act in accordance with those principles. the constitution itself provides for the appointment of arbitrator for the resolution of differences between the federation and the provinces.75 the arbitration act 1940 is the law that deals with the civil and commercial arbitration. the objective of this act is to provide expeditious remedy to the litigants; regardless the rules and procedure contained in the code of civil procedure 1908 and the qénën-i shahédat order 1984. section 89 (arbitration) of civil procedure code 1908, which was omitted by the arbitration act 1940, was again inserted as 89(a) , under the heading of alternative dispute resolution.76 the object of the section has been set out in the wording itself. it flows as under: “the court may, where it considers necessary, having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case with the object of securing expeditious disposal of the case, or in relation to a suit, adopt with the consent of the parties alternate dispute resolution method including mediation and conciliation”. hamdard islamicus 35 vol. xxxix, no. 3 order x rule 1 of cpc has also been amended accordingly: the institute of ombudsman (muítasib) has been effectively working since 1983, through presidential order.77 principal seat is at islamabad and its regional offices are working at lahore, karachi, peshawar, multan, quetta, faisalabad and dera ismail khan. at present, there are 09 institutions of ombudsman; four provincial muítasibs, and five federal muítasibs i.e. federal tax ombudsman pakistan, federal banking muítasib, federal insurance ombudsman, federal ombudsman against harassment of women at work place. vast powers, for an amicable resolution of a pending dispute, have been given to the wiféqi muítasib (federal ombudsman) under section 33 of the order. the order has overriding effect by virtue of section 37. provisions for peaceful resolution of the dispute are also available to all the remaining ombudsmen offices. the federal ombudsman institutional reforms ordinance 2013 has further enhanced the powers of ombudsman in connection with expeditious disposal of complaints. in addition, the conciliation of courts ordinance 1961 is also in the field. it provides for establishment of a court at the level of each union council. its jurisdiction is to hear cases of civil nature and offences mentioned in the schedule attached to the said law. in 2002, small claims and minor offences courts ordinance, was promulgated. its inter alia objective is to achieve amicable settlements through a “thélith” (arbitrator) by means of arbitration (other than under the arbitration act 1940), conciliation and mediation. all courts of senior civil judges/a‘lé ‘iléqah qéìês, civil judges-cum-judical magistrates/ ‘iléqah qéìês, in the district headquarters and sub-divisional headquarters have been notified as courts of small claims and minor offence, inaccordance with section 4 of the ordinance. our experience, however, reveals that these courts have not contributed up to the expectation due to their own original burden. it is very hard, and to some extent humanly impossible, for an individual judge to act in so many capacities; as family court, small causes and minor offences court, juvenile court, court of wards and guardians and much more. permanent and separate judges, like banking judge, labour judge and anti-corruption judge, should be appointed for the purpose. the previous arbitration (protocol and convention) act 1937 has recently been repealed by the “recognition and enforcement (arbitration agreements and foreign arbitral rewards) ordinance 2006”. under this hamdard islamicus 36 vol. xxxix, no. 3 piece of legislation, an arbitration council, consisting of representative of each party and the chairman of the concerned union council, resolves the disputes through mediation and conciliation. the ordinance is particularly useful for commercial and industrial community. the family courts act 1964 makes it obligatory for a judge of family court to make efforts for reconciliation between the litigating spouses at pre trial and post trial stages. sections 10 and 13 of the act can be utilized for the purpose. industrial relations ordinance 2002 also provides for the use of adr techniques. the concept of “shop stewards” and “joint works council” under sections 23 and 24 of the ordinance has inter alia been based on the philosophy of amicable settlements. to encourage adr, necessary amendments have been introduced to laws pertaining to customs, excise duties, sales tax, and income tax and banking matters. in 2001, all the four provinces promulgated local government ordinances that contain provisions for settlement of disputes at the union council levels. “inséf committees”and “muîéliíat anjumans” had been established. the objective of these institutions was to provide justice at doorsteps through cordial settlements. the ordinance has been repealed. now, all the four provinces have their own local government acts. each provides mechanism for amicable dispute resolution.78 shar‘i niðém-i ‘adl regulation 2009 and rules framed therein has empowered the court to appoint muîlií or muîliíên, subject to the consent of parties, for resolution of dispute. what has been stated above is a brief discussion about the present status of adr in pakistani legal system. for the future status of adr in pakistani legal system, the recommendations of international judicial conference 2012 provide sufficient evidence. the ex-chief justice of pakistan, iftikhar muhammad chaudhry, has also participated in all the working groups. judges of supreme court, chief justices, judges of federal shariat court and high courts, foreign delegates, supreme court bar association, pakistan bar council, bar councils and bar associations from all over the pakistan are participating in the event. law and justice commission of pakistan, while giving its report on international judicial conference 2012, made the following recommendations: 1) all the commercial contracts must incorporate mediation clause. hamdard islamicus 37 vol. xxxix, no. 3 prior to invoking arbitration or approaching the court, they shall attempt to settle through mediation. 02) all stakeholders, including the judges, advocates and corporate bodies must take a pragmatic approach to resolve the problems of the litigating public, by encouraging adr and attempting to resolve disputes through mediation. 03) stakeholders, at all levels, must be educated about adr and internal arbitration. the judges should be trained to deal with the cases in a manner that would encourage litigants to settle their disputes through methods of alternative dispute resolution. 04) the high court rules and other appropriate rules should be amended to remove caps on costs awarded to a winning party. costs of litigation should normally follow the event and the award of costs should reflect the actual legal costs incurred by a party. this would act as a deterrent to litigation and would encourage adr. 95) as a matter of policy, courts should be instructed to ask the parties to consider mediation in matters before them at the preliminary stage. each high court may set up a committee to explore any administrative changes that can be made in applicable rules to facilitate or encourage mediation at this stage. 96) the government and its corporations should insert standard mediation clauses in their contracts; this would help avoid significant portion of litigation. 97) the supreme court of pakistan should declare 2012 as the adr year. 98) the bar associations should motivate the advocates to attempt resolution of their clients’ dispute through adr. 99) the court should use order 10 rule 4 cpc more effectively and in a manner that gives effect to its objective, in order to restrict and control the conduct of litigation cases. 10) it has been noted that a good number of cases have been disposed of through court mediation; therefore, the court should maintain the data in this regard. each high court should frame the rules to make mediation compulsory in appropriate matters. 11) adr should be made a part of the syllabus of legal education, with law students being taught the importance of adr, as well as expertise hamdard islamicus 38 vol. xxxix, no. 3 in effectively resorting to methods of adr. furthermore, adr should not only be introduced as an academic subject at law schools but also in institutions imparting business studies. 12) the supreme court of pakistan may support efforts of karachi centre for dispute resolution (kcdr) in institutionalizing adr/ mediation. a memorandum of understanding can be executed between the federal judicial academy and kcdr to avail the services of kcdr’s faculty to train judicial officers in adr/ mediation. 13) kcdr should be encouraged to open its setups at lahore, quetta, peshawar and islamabad. classification of adr classification here means kinds or modes of adr. in the beginning of this study, it is noticed that adr is a generic name that encompasses a number of different procedures that lead to the common objective of amicable peaceful settlement. an acceptable resolution of a dispute may be obtained by mediation, conciliation, arbitration and negotiation. some argue that arbitration doesn’t come within the meaning of adr due to its binding and adversarial nature. some others hold that conciliation should not be included in adr. they consider it as a form of mediation. according to majority of writers, collaborative divorce or collaborative law is an independent mode of adr. restorative justice, early evaluation, family group conference, neutral fact-finding, ombudsman, moderated settlement conference, summary jury trial, early neutral evaluation, minitrial and conflict resolution are comparatively less known modes of adr. no doubt, these terms have some similarities, yet they differ inter se. for example, when each side presents a summary of its case to an audience of the clients and lawyers, it would be called mini-trial. if each side states his case to a panel of attorneys, it would be known as moderate settlement conference. it would be summary jury trial if the parties are to present their cases to a jury and magistrate. in early neutral evaluation the evaluator has to study the brief summaries of the case and then discover the expected consequences.79 those who exclude arbitration from the ambit of adr should know that the philosophy behind adr is a peaceful resolution that terminates the issue in a final way. this objective is well achieved in arbitration hamdard islamicus 39 vol. xxxix, no. 3 despite its adversarial nature. as far as its binding nature is concerned, it should not be forgotten that it is a consent-based and will-generated compulsion. conciliation and mediation are, no doubt, similar but not the same. as the role of a third neutral makes them similar, exactly the role of a third neutral makes them distinct. in mediation, the mediator facilitates only and rarely offers his opinion whereas a conciliator, besides facilitation, often offers his own proposals to the disputants. so as compared to mediator, conciliator plays relatively direct role in resolution of a dispute.80 furthermore, mediation and conciliation have been separately used in the process of legislation. in section 89(a) and order x rule 1(a), iii of the code of civil procedure 1908 (reproduced above) conciliation and mediation have been distinctly mentioned. west pakistan family court ordinance 1964, in sections 10 and 12, speaks for a pre and post-trial reconciliation.81 in indian legislation, both words have been used in different senses. according to madabhushi sridhar, section 89 of the indian civil procedure code (amendment) act 1999 speaks of conciliation and mediation as different concepts. mr. sridhar has also quoted the statements of justice jaganndha rao that differentiate between mediation and conciliation.82 in uk, conciliation is considered a more proactive process whereas mediation is understood as a more passive phenomenon.83 the rules of interpretation and construction will further clarify the situation. it says that no word of a legal provision should be left meaningless or redundant. every word should be given its due weight. courts should avoid construction that may render any word inoperative.84 even in case of repetition of the same word, presumption as to identical meaning is not of much weight. the same word may be used in different meanings in the same statute and even in the same section.85 consequent upon the above details, we may classify the modes of adr in two categories: 1) main and known modes. 2) less known modes. the first kind would include: 1) arbitration. 2) mediation. hamdard islamicus 40 vol. xxxix, no. 3 3) conciliation. 4) negotiation. the second kind would include: 1) collaborative divorce or collaborative law, also known as family dispute resolution (fdr). 2) early neutral evaluation. 3) moderate settlement conference. 4) summary jury trial. 5) mini-trial. 6) restorative justice. 7) family group conference. 8) natural fact finding. 9) ombudsman. dispute resolution directory, published by martindale-hubbell, in cooperation with the american arbitration association, in 1995, also mentions thirteen processes of adr.86 the above diagrammed list, in respect of less known kinds of adr, is not exhaustive. other terms such as expert appraisal, expert determination, counseling, facilitation, private judging, med-arb and medola (kinds of hybrid arbitration), conflict coaching, victim-offender mediation and on-line dispute resolution (odr) also refer to various modes of alternative dispute resolution.87 in the sharê‘ah, in view of the verse, “and adjust the matter of your difference”, 88 efforts for an amicable settlement come within the category of wéjib kiféyah. it means an act, whose performance is compulsorily required from the community as a whole and not from an individual specifically.89 but in what mode this communal obligation should be carried out, is not fixed. so in the absence of any specific modus operandi, the matter would fall in the category of mubðí (permissible/ optional). consequently, any mode that leads to the peaceful settlement is allowed under the islamic law; provided it goes in consistency with the text of qur’én and sunnah. on this analogy, the above classification of adr is quite good. it is, nonetheless, evident that the fuqahé’ (jurists), both classical and contemporary, have discussed only two modes of adr; taíkêm (arbitration) and îulí (compromise). to them, rest of the hamdard islamicus 42 vol. xxxix, no. 3 application would bring, are the standards whenever a comparison is required between two constructions or even between two phenomena.90 on the bases of this preface, we would compare adr with litigation. s.no. alternative dispute regular litigation resolution 1. the procedure is simplest the procedure is highly and easy-to-understand. no complicated. technicalities room for and no consideration plays effective role. nonof technicalities. one can state hiring of the services of an his case himself. expert could prove fatal. 2. principles of equity are regarded rules of common law are and thus equitable justice (qisï) applied and thus de jure is the out-come. justice (‘adl) is the product. 3. focus is on the substantial justice. focus is on legal justice. justness precedes fairness. fairness precedes justness. 4. adr experts are usually elders chances of misrepresentaof the locality of the disputants. tion and fraud are always chances of misrepresentation and there. an aggrieved person fraud are, therefore, rare to the is supposed to bear one of extent of nil. social pressure the curses; either to slaughter keeps the disputants away from his rights and remain calm practices disregarded by the on such decrees or to file a society generally. petition for cancellation of the decree and de novo trial. 5. personal knowledge of the elders personal knowledge of the and experts of adr are helpful judge cannot play any role and it may be easily utilized in in proceedings before him reaching to an acceptable rather it will provide a settlement. the proceedings, thus, ground for transfer of the become shorter. case to some other judge, prolonging it further. contd.......... hamdard islamicus 43 vol. xxxix, no. 3 s.no. alternative dispute regular litigation resolution 6. hearings are conducted in a hearing of the whole case single day or on few consecutive on a single day or even on days. the data remain fresh in consecutive days is hard to the minds of all concerned. the the extent of impossibility. resolution, therefore, leaves no the court is supposed to aspect unconsidered. maintain its diary under casemanagement policy. it becomes very hard for a judge to recall all the events of the hearings, while he is making the decision. 7. the nature of the case, somethe courts are reluctant in times, demands inspection of the arranging spot inspections spot or suit-property. the elders, themselves. the reasons, while conducting adr, either inter alia, are rush of work already know the spot or they and security problems. may easily arrange a visit to appointment of commissions the spot. neither there is any prolongs the hearing on one apprehension of security nor do side and subjects the parties the parties bear additional to additional expenses on the expenses. other side. in so many cases, it has been observed that either one of the parties or each of them refuses the appointment of commission for their inability to pay the fee. 8. the decider remains the same. there are unexpected, being local and being non-official, immature and frequent there is no apprehension of his transfers of judges. sometransfer. he deals the case from times, the transfer of 09 or beginning to the end. arriving to 10 judges takes place and a justifiable solution is more the hearing is yet to probable. complete. this piece-meal hearing hardly amounts to a right decision. contd..... hamdard islamicus 44 vol. xxxix, no. 3 s.no. alternative dispute regular litigation resolution 09. adr conductors can express a judge cannot express his their opinions just to test its opinion and if he does so, he acceptability to the disputants. becomes functus officio. they can put different proposals besides, it is not advisable to the parties. for him to make proposals though it may be beneficial for both parties. 10. disputants are before their chosen disputants are before a resolvers. they state their case in court, having some rules to a free and relaxed environment. be followed by the parties. there is no fear of contempt and they are usually hesitant and no apprehension of technical reluctant to speak. even mistake. their counsel precludes them from speaking before the court for their expressions may lead to a technical knock-out. 11. chances of adjournment are rare. unexpected adjournments official meetings, strikes, and law are frequent due to casual and order situation do not affect leaves of judges and the job. time-work is not confined magistrates, their lengthy to particular hours. official meetings, in-service trainings, national holidays, summer and winter vacation, strikes, non-availability of counsel for one reason or the other and above all limited official time. 12. a single case is fixed for hearing. a number of cases are fixed due care and full attention is for hearing. it becomes given. they hear the issue with humanly impossible to give the required patience. the required attention to each case. hasty hearings are frequent. contd...... hamdard islamicus 45 vol. xxxix, no. 3 s.no. alternative dispute regular litigation resolution 13. it is inexpensive. sometimes, the it is highly expensive. poor elders refuse honoraria and even litigants are out-priced. fees necessary expenditure of of the advocates are skytravelling, entertaining and rocketing. poor litigants stationery. it has also been prefer not to file a suit even observed that, a matter of in highly fit cases for hearing. honour and courtesy, they court fees, process fees, contribute from their own pockets commission fees, expenses while compensating a party. on production of witnesses especially the official ones, expenses on the production of official records, fees of the clerks of counsel (munshiénah) and fees of the attested copies of the record of the court break the spine of the litigants. very often, the expenditure of a case highly exceeds the real value of the suit. there are pains for no gains. 14. the issue gets finality soon due finality in decision comes in to a win-win situation. no doubt excessively belated stages. each side looses to some extent even interlocutory orders but it occurs on account of their create grounds for appeals own consent. so it is not a and revisions. petitions of defeat but a sort of consented appeal, review and revision withdrawal. against the full judgments are filed in 99% cases. one can found a lot of instances where the suitor passes away and the suit is yet to get finality. contd...... hamdard islamicus 46 vol. xxxix, no. 3 s.no. alternative dispute regular litigation resolution 15. execution is easy rather the execution is harder than the decision and execution come obtaining of decree in the simultaneously. no petition for suit. objection petitions know execution and no petition for no end. the abuse of section objection are filed. 47 and order xxi cpc is common. decree in hands of decree-holder becomes just a receipt of expenditure of the case and a certificate of completion of trial. 16. the real and effective cause of cause of enmity doesn’t flee. dispute is uprooted. hormonal torn relations between the relations are restored. state of winner and the looser deepen sympathy is promoted. issue is further. state of antipathy really settled. develops. issue is solved in the papers only. 17 the elders, arbitrators, mediators the language of the court, and conciliators, and the particularly of apex courts is disputants speak the same english. legal terminologies language. there is no problem in are also not easy to undercommunication. stand. a communication gap always prevails between the court and disputants. 18. admittedly decisions are based disputants and their on proven facts. when disputants witnesses, despite taking of are deposing before their village oath, give false statements. elders, they refrain from telling they depose tutored and prelies due to social pressure even dictated evidence. hence, though they have not been their veracity is rarely administered oath. the out-come shaken. resultantly, false is a fair as well as just decision. facts get authenticity. the product is a fair (according to law) but unjust decision. hamdard islamicus 47 vol. xxxix, no. 3 conclusion 01) adr stands for alternative dispute resolution. “alternative” is more appropriate than “alternate”. adr in some parts of the world is also known as external dispute resolution (edr), dispute resolution tools (drt). the phrase consensual dispute resolution (cdr) is also in field. some experts prefer “appropriate” over “alternative” whereas some others prefer “difference” over “dispute”. 02) the appropriate similitude for phrase adr in the holy qur’én and sunnah is “iîléí”. the term “øulí” should not be confused with iîléí despite their interchangeable use. 03) the suitable transliteration for adr, in the current arabic usage, is taswiyyat al-munéza‘ét al-badêlah or ×asm al-nizé‘ al-badêl. 04) the history of informal dispute resolution is as old as the history of mankind, nonetheless, the history of conflict resolution under the nomenclature of adr is hardly half a century old. 05) adr has its roots in divine religions. 06) primarily and historically adr is alternative to violence but in current civilized states, it is an alternative to formal adjudication. however, it is not a substitute for that. it plays only a complementary role to the regular judicature. 07) under the islamic law, formal litigation is lost resort. its procedural law must carry a provision for recourse to adr, as pre-trial proceeding. 08) adr uproots the dispute whereas adjudication disposes it of. 09) adr saves time and wealth and regular adjudication consumes them both. 10) adr brings peace, harmony and promotes cooperation. litigation creates hatred, enmity and brings the disputants to a state of antipathy. 11) in adr, justness prevails over fairness and justice is dispensed on the basis of equity. in formal litigation, fairness prevails over justness and justice is done within the meanings of legal provisions. in adr, justice and only justice is the objective whereas formal litigation aims at the application of laws to disputed facts, whatsoever the outcome may be. hamdard islamicus 48 vol. xxxix, no. 3 notes and references 1. this nature of man has been described by the holy qur’én in the following verses: “truly man was created very impatient, fretful when evil touches him; and niggardly when good reaches him.” (al-ma‘érij, lxx:19, 20, 21). “and violent is he in his love of wealth.” (al-‘aadiyét, c:8). 2. “by violence” does not only mean the use of force or might against one opponent. it includes all such modes of dispute resolution that carries the element of inhuman procedures such as trial by fire (the healing of wound/burns after walking on fire or the picking of an object out from within a fire safely), trial by hot iron (the turning of one pound heated iron rod to three pounds in the hands of the accused, after taking it to a 09 feet distance), trial by water (throwing of the accused after chaining him in a fatal position into a container of water, then convicting him/her upon floating and acquitting him/her upon drowning), trial by hot water (the keeping of the accused his hand elbow-deep in a boiling water and his acquittal on the non-appearance of blistering), trial by tagena, sassywood and ordeal bean (the ingesting of these poisonous seeds and tree-gums to the accused), trial by diving (a breath-holding test beneath the water, trial by snake (the safe lifting of a ring placed under a snake) and the like. all these procedures are collectively called ‘trial by ordeal’. see for further details, editors of the encyclopedia britannica, ordeal trial method, available at http://www.britannica.com/ebchecked/topic/431352/ordeal (last accessed on may 11, 2015). also see arallyn primm, a history by ‘trial by ordeal’, in mental_floss 2013, available at http://mentalfloss.com/article/50161/history-trial-ordeal (last accessed on may 11, 2015). also see peter t. leeson, ordeals, in journal of law & economics, pp. 691-714, available at http://www.peterleeson.com/ordeals.pdf (last accessed on may 12, 2015). 3. jerome t. barrett and joseph p. barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, us, jossey-bass, 2004, pp. 188-189. 4. jerome t. barrett and joseph p. barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, pp. 8, 256-257. also see sher muhammad mohmand, the pathan customs, islamabad, saeed book bank, 2011, pp. 14-15. see also abdul qayyum zahid mishwani, pashto pashto seend, afghanistan, daniish khparandoya tolana, 2012, p. 304. 5. see for ‘alternate’ section 89-a of the code of civil procedure, 1908. also see bench book published by ministry of local government and rural development, at page 5. see for ‘alternative’ order x, rule 1-a of the cpc, both pakistani and indian. 6. dr. hassan ghazalah, qémus dar al-ilm lil mutalazamét al-lafziah, lebanon, dar al-ilm lilmalaeen, 2007, p. 66. 7. see article 251(a) of the constitution that says, “the national language of pakistan is urdu, and arrangements shall be made for its being used for official and other purposes within fifteen years from the commencing day”. 8. a.s. hornby, oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, p. 439. see also p. ramanatha hamdard islamicus 49 vol. xxxix, no. 3 aiyar’s, advanced law lexicon, new dilhi, wadhwa and company, 2007, pp. 2, 1431. 09. hassan ghazalah, almutalazamét al-lafðiyyah, p. 442. 10. aamir raza, code of civil proceddure, order xv. rule 01, lahore, ganj shakkar press, 2000, p. 562. 11. aamer raza, code of civil procedure, pp. 555-556. 12. iqbal muhammad awan, qénën-i shahédat 1984, lahore, mansoor book house, 2008, p. 280. see also alan tolyar, principles of evidence, london, cavendish publishing limited, 2000, p. 2. 13. alan tolyar, principles of evidence, p. 1. 14. mahmud iqbal aawan, qénën-i-shahédat order 1984, p. 28. 15. shaikh, abdul halim, code of criminal procedure v of 1898, lahore, shah electric press, 1977, pp. 1:513, 514, 655. 16. d. fosket, the law and practice of compromise, scottland, thomson reuters (legal) limited, 2010, p. 5. also available at http://legalresearch.westlaw.co.uk/ wp-content/uploads/2013/01/prelim-pages-from-foskett-on-compromise-7etext.pdf (last accessed on feb.11 2015). 17. avtar singh, law of arbitration and conciliation, pp. 21-23. 18. kamini kumar basu v birendra nath bose, air 1950 pc 100: 57 ia 117: ilr 57 cal 1302. 19. nand kishore v international mercantile corpn ltd, air 1953 cal 415. v. narasimha raju vs gurumurthy raju, air 1963 sc 107. sudhindhra kumar v ganesh chandra ghosh, ilr (1939) 1 cal 241. 20. muhammad rawas qala jee and hamid sadiq qanib, mu‘jém lughét al-fuqahé, karachi, idarat ul quran wal ulum al islamiyyah, n.d., p. 196. 21. elizabith a. martin, oxford dictionary of law, uk, oxford university press, 2006, p. 463. see also a.s. hornby, oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, p. 1301. 22. thomson gale and lehman, west encyclopedia of american law, pp. 8, 343, available at http://www.amazon.com/wests-encyclopedia-american-law-volume/ dp/0787663670 (last accessed on feb. 11, 2015). 23. luis maaloof, al-munjid, translated by balyavi abu al-fazl abd-ul-hafeez, lahore, rr printers, 2011, p. 185. also see shams ul haq haqqi, oxford english urdu dictionary, not mentioned, oxford university press, 2013, p. 1431. 24. jerome t. barrett and joseph p. barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, us, jossey-bass, 2004, pp. 188-189, 256-257. 25. jerome t. barrett and joseph p. barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, p. xiv. 26. bright sambeth glasner, a report on adr of nov.6, 2006.pp 1-7, available at https://www.google.com.pk/search?q=bright+sambeth+glasner%2c+a+report +on+adr+of+nov.&oq=bright+sambeth+glasner%2c+a+report+on+adr +of+nov.&aqs=chrome..69i57.1207j0j8&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=utf-8 (last accessed on feb. 11, 2015). 27. justice nazim hussain, access to justice and alternative dispute resolution, 2004, page, 1, available at http://www.pakistanlawsite.com/lawonline/law/login.asp (last accessed on feb.11, 2015). hamdard islamicus 50 vol. xxxix, no. 3 28. muhammad b. abi bakr, ibn qayyem al-jauziyyah, ilam-ul mu’aqi‘ên, 1, p. 108. 29. muhammad b. ôsé al-tirmidhê, jémi‘ al-tirmidhê, kitéb al-aíkém, reported by kathir b. abdullah b. amr b. awf, ×adêth no. 1364, lahore, maktabat-ul-ilm, n.d., 1, p. 697. abu dawud sulaiman b. ash‘ath, sunan abi dé’ëd, kitéb al-‘aqayah, reported by abu hurairah, ×adêth no. 197, lahore, maktabat-ul-ilm, n.d., 3, p. 95. 30. ahmad al-dardir, al-sharí al-kabêr, egypt, maktaba ‘isa al-halabi, n.d., 4, p. 152. see also muhammad naeem abd-us-salam yasin, nazria ul da‘wa, egypt, ministry of religious affairs, 1972, 2, pp. 50-53. 31. madabushi sridhar, alternative dispute resolution, p. 1. 32. the times law report, tuesday, 8th january 2002, available at http:// asauk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2003/09/adr-update-4.pdf, last accessed on feb. 12, 2015. 33. advice services alliance, alternative dispute resolution, policy consultation paper, june 2003, 24,25,26, available at http://asauk.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2003/09/adr-policy-consultation-paper.pdf, last accessed on feb. 12, 2015. 34. barrett & barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, pp. 266-267. 35. ibid. 36. johan, nicolay and john hay, abraham lincoln, notes for a law lecture, july 1, 1850, available at http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/ lawlect.htm, last accessed on feb. 12, 2015. 37. madabhushi sridhar, alternative dispute resolution: negotiation and mediation, p. 3. 38. according to the statistics provided by mr. sharif ahmad, learned additional registrar phc, on 06:02:2013, the cause list was of 146 cases, on 14:02:2013, it was of 312 cases, on 09:03:2013, it contained 364 cases. see couse list issued for 09:03:2013, by office of the additional registrar peshawar high court. 39. the daily mashriq peshawar, april 7, 2015. 40. rsrtc v mohanlal khandelwal, 1985, raj lr 866. 41. this sub-section was inserted in cpc by virtue of ordinance x of 1980. 42. abigail e. ng and eric tin, leading change in the singapore’s magistracy: the seven working precepts, available at http://www.aija.org.au/mag01/singapore.pdf (last accessed on april 28, 2015). see also justice tassaduq hussain jillani, delayed justice and the role of adr, available at http://www.supremecourt.gov.pk/ ijc/articles/7/1.pdf, last accessed on feb. 12, 2015. 43. qasim b. abdullah al-qunuvi, anês-ul-fuqaha fi ta‘arêfat al-alféð al-mutadéwilah bain al-fuqahé , jeddah, dar-ul-wafa, 1986, p. 245. also see nasiruddin al-mutarrizi, al-mughrib fi tartêb al-mu‘érab, syria, maktabah usamah b. zaid 1979, 1, p. 478. al-jawhari, al-øiíéí, bairut, dar ul ilm, 1979, 1, p. 383. muhammad b. yaqub fairozabadi, al-qémës al-muíêï, egypt, matbaa mutafa al-halabi, 1952, 1, p. 243. ahmad b. muhammad al-fuyumi, al-misbéí al-munêr, egypt, al-matbaa al-ameeriah, n.d., 1, p. 528. 44. the noble qur’én, ii:11. 45. the noble qur’én, vii:142. hamdard islamicus 51 vol. xxxix, no. 3 46. the noble qur’én, vii:85. 47. the noble qur’én, xxvi:151-152. 48. the noble qur’én, xvii:48. 49. saeedah khénam v muhammad sami, pld 1952 lahore 113. 50. abd ul karim zaidan, al-wajiz fi uîël ul fiqh, lahore, dar al-kutub al-salafiyyah, 1986, pp. 292-294. 51. the noble qur’én, viii:1. 52. the noble qur’én, xlix:9. 53. the noble qur’én, xvi:90. 54. the noble qur’én, v:42. 55. imran ahsan khan nyazee, islamic jurisprudence, p. 67. see also muhammad naeem abd-us-salam yasin, naðariyat al-da’wah, 2, p. 51. 56. munir al-ba’alabacci, al-mawrid english to arabic, beirut, dar-ul-ilm, 1989). 57. qasim b. abdullah al-qunuvi, anês-ul-fuqahé fi ta‘arêfat al-alféð al-mutadéwilah bain al-fuqaha, jeddah, dar-ul-wafa, 1986, p. 245. also see nasiruddin al-mutarrizi, al-mughrib fi tartêb al-mu‘érab, syria, maktabah usamah b. zaid 1979, 1 p. 478. al-jawhari, al-øiíaí, bairut, dar ul ilm, 1979, 1, p. 383. muhammad b. ya‘qub fairozabadi, al-qémës al-muíêt, egypt, matbaa mutafa al-halabi, 1952, 1, p. 243. ahmad b. muhammad al-fuyumi, al-miîbaí al-munêr, egypt, al-matbaa al-ameeriah, n.d., 1, p. 528. 58. sriram panchu, mediation; practice and law, p. 295. 59. zaheer cheema, west’s legal thesaurus/dictionary, lahore, manzoor law book house, pp. 514-515. 60. muhammad rawas qalaji and hamid sadiq qunaibi, mu‘ajam lughét al-fuqahé, karachi, idarat-ul-quran, publications, n.d., p. 71. 61. muhammad hamidullah, the emergence of islam, islamabad, iri press, 2004, p. 187. 62. kamal sulieman salibi, a history of arabia, new york and michigan, caravan books, 1980, p. 68. 63. t. barrett with joseph t. barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, p. 13. 64. the members of this community centre were mostly from the family of qusai. only few members belonged to other clans. a person less than 40 years, while not possessing special aptitudes of leadership, could not be selected as a member. see dr. muhammad buyumi mehran, dirésat fi térêkh al-‘arab al-qadêm, riadh, jamiah al-imam muhammad b. saud al-islamiah, 1982, p. 406. 65. muhammad hamidullah, the emergence of islam, p. 193. 66. abdullah b. muhammad al-shaikh, seerat-ur-rasël (œ), urdu translation, jehlum, pakistan, javid riaz printers lahore, 1990, p. 44. 67. abul a‘ala maudëdê, seerat sarwar-i ‘óalam, lahore, h. faruq associate limited press, 1980, 2, pp. 720-721. 68. muhammad hamidullah, the emergence of islam, p. 198. 69. abdur rahman b. muhammad b. khuldun, térikh ibn khaldën, karachi, nafis academy printers, urdu translation, 1981, p. 36. see also t. barrett with joseph t. barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, p. 13. hamdard islamicus 52 vol. xxxix, no. 3 70. muhammad abd al-baqi fuad, al-mu‘ajam al-mufahras li alféð al-qur’én al-karêm, istanbul, dar al-da‘awah, 1987, pp. 410-412. 71. muhammad hamidullah, the emergence of islam, pp. 233-236. 72. munir al-ba’alabacci, al-mawrid english to arabic, beirut, dar-ul-ilm, 1989. 73. a. yusuf ali, the holy qur’én, text translation and commentary, chapter xxvi, the poets, verses 105-109. 74. anthony glaister, woolf reforms: lawyers continue to wrangle over merits a decade on, available at http://www.thelawyer.com/analysis/opinion/practice-areas/ city-analysis/woolf-reforms-lawyers-continue-to-wrangle-over-merits-a-decade-on/ 1000991 (last accessed on feb.12, 2015). also see michael zander, cases and material on the english legal system 10th edition, uk, cambridge university press, 2007, pp. 54, 138. also see national consumer council. seeking civil justice: a survey of people’s needs and experiences, 1995, ncc. see also gary slapper and david kelly, the english legal system, uk, taylor and francis, 2009, p. 334, also available at http://www.amazon.com/seeking-civil-justicepeoples-experiences/dp/1899581057 (last accessed on feb.12, 2015). 75. see articles146(3), 153, 154, 156, 159(4) 160, 184(1) and 17(2). 76. inserted by code of civil procedure (amendment) ordinance, xxxiv of 2002, dated 27.7.2002. 77. it was established by the establishment of the office of waféqê moítasib (ombudsman) order 1983 (i of 1983), now having constitutional authenticity under article 277a of the constitution of pakistan 1973. 78. see chapter vii (ss.96-99) of the punjab local government act, 2013. also see see section 72 and schedule iii, item 32, of the sindh local government act, 2013. see also chapter xvi, section 109 of the kp local government act, 2013. [in this later act, the relevant provision is, nonetheless, cloudy and needs further improvement to clearly incorporate adr techniques]. 79. t. barrett with joseph t. barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, p. 183. 80. madabushi sridhar, alternative dispute resolution, new delhi, lexis nexis butterworths, 2006, p p. 311-312. details are also available at http :// www.mediate.com/articles/ (last accessed on feb.12, 2015). 81. aasima jahangir, manual of family laws in pakistan, lahore, law book publishers and sellers, 2012, pp. 450-451, 466. 82. madabhushi sridhar, alternative dispute resolution, pp. 314-315. 83. henry j. brown and arthur l. mariot, adr principles and practice, uk, sweet & maxwell, 1997, p. 127. 84. m. zubair saeed, the interpretation of statutes as expounded by sir p.b. maxwell, lahore, pld publishers, n.d., pp. 13-14, 77. 85. s.m. zafar, understanding statutes, cannons of construction, lahore, pakistan educational press, 2008, p. 636. 86. t. barrett with joseph t. barrett, a history of alternative dispute resolution, p. 240. 87. madabushi sridhar, alternative dispute resolution, pp. 94-95, 100-101. details are als o availab le at ht tp s://www.go ogle.co m.pk/searc h?q=leaderadr+at+www.leader.com.au%2fadr.&oq=leader-adr+at+www.leader.com.au% hamdard islamicus 53 vol. xxxix, no. 3 2fadr.&aqs=chrome..69i57.755j0j8&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=utf-8 (last accessed on feb.12, 2015). 88. muhammad marmaduke pickthall, the glorious qur’én, text and explanatory translation, chapter viii, verse 1. 89. imran ahsan khan nyazee, islamic jurisprudence, islamabad, iri press, 2010, p. 64. see also ahmad hasan, principles of islamic jurisprudence, islamabad, iri press, 2007, p. 62. 90. m. zubair saeed, the interpretation of statutes, lahore, pld publishers 1996, p. 34. see also wahbah al-zuhaili, uîël al-fiqh al-islémi, damascus, dar ul fikr, 1998, 2, pp. 902-916, 1048-1056. see also abd ul karim zaidan, al-wajiz fi uîël ul fiqh, pp. 236-243, 245-250. see also avtar singh, introduction to jurisprudence, lahore, khyber law publication, 2001, p. 15. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 2\the perspective of psychological.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 67 the perspective of psychological freedom and avoiding freedom according to erich fromm bulent akot faculty of islamic sciences, yildirim beyazit university, ankara, turkey e-mail: bulentakot@hotmail.com freedom is a matter that people have been thinking about throughout history and have even fought wars for his sake. without freedom, one cannot truly discover his existence in this world. it is not possible for a person to realize himself or to perform perfect servitude for the transcendent being without freedom. how can one be free? how can freedom be achieved especially psychologically? the questions were also asked a lot. in this context, a psychological definition of freedom and what are the obstacles to freedom are also important. because the ideas of a psychologist like erich fromm on freedom are also important, the work has come to life around her. the study was carried out with the literature review method and was shaped by considering the views of a person about a concept. the issue of what freedom means has been debated for years. especially in the context of psychology and psychology of religion, it is aimed to conduct a study by erich fromm. the main goal in doing this is to satisfy a need in this field at the level of the article as much as possible. this study is composed of introduction and three parts. at the beginning of the article, the philological examination of freedom was started and its definitions were made in various fields. in the first part, it is talked about how to get psychologically free. the second erich fromm’s understanding of freedom was tried to be found. in the third part, erich fromm’s ways of escaping from freedom are discussed. key words: erich fromm; escape; freedom; psychology. summary it is possible to address freedom in terms of psychological, anthropological, moral, religious and sociological aspects. this study psychologically addresses the struggle of man against freedom. first of all, it is necessary to examine the concept of freedom linguistically from 68 the perspective of psychological freedom... past to present. the word must have been used to describe the antislavery legal term from an early period. what the qur’én envisages regarding the life of man is that he only serves allah. according to the sufis, the servant is free from servant exhaustion if he completes all servanthood. freedom in sufism is hidden in true servitude to allah. only allah is absolutely free. however, servants also have freedom. according to the sufis, liberation from worldly affairs aims to prepare for full acceptance to allah. this relationship is not intended to achieve individual freedom. the understanding of freedom in sufism was mostly associated with exquisite finishing by sufis. philosophically, the issue of freedom has been widely discussed. for example, according to descartes, man is free. this freedom is thanks to allah. spinoza also combines freedom and necessity. the truth is allah, who is free. spinoza is a dark determinist. kant, on the other hand, provides a definition of freedom that entails and obeys the law itself. according to kant, it is necessary to accept freedom as a postulate in order to explain how man can act morally. in the first part of the study there are things people need to do in order to be free psychologically. one must first realize the need for freedom. it should be able to mentally understand and adopt freedom. so he must be put to work, understanding what is freedom. for man, freedom means intelligence and love. freedom is non-submission to authority to exploit and extraordinary virtue. the first requirement is not freedom to pursue the purpose of life. accepting freedom, according to william james, is an imperative consequence of innovation, luck, pluralism and a developing world. in the second part of the study, erich fromm says that one’s behavior in society is directly related to his freedom. so in order to understand whether a person is free or not, we need to determine whether he is using his free will when making her decisions. most of the time, even if we think that the person is free and makes his own decisions, when we think really well, the person is constantly under the control and control of various powers and powers. it is the essence of the subject that we will deal with, capturing real freedom and getting rid of false freedom. according to fromm, the more free the individual is freed from the symbolic umbilical cord that connects his to the outside world. or it lacks freedom to the extent that it cannot be saved. as an example of such an understanding in the understanding of fromm, the teachings of protestantism from the christian sects revealed the individual. but it hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 69 made him more desperate and increased freedom. but it has created new kinds of addictions. according to fromm, the new freedom brought by capitalism to the individual in the last century has increased the influence of the protestantism on the individual through the religious freedom it has already given to it. the individual has become more abstracted alone. in this way he became an “individual”, but he became an individual who was confused and lacked a sense of security. according to him, the person has never had complete freedom. on the contrary, she is constantly escaping from freedom and using various escape methods while running. in fromm’s understanding, a person tries to escape from freedom involuntarily. he describes it under a number of mechanisms. according to her, there are three types of freedom escape mechanisms, namely authoritarian, destructiveness and robot compatibility. these mechanisms are escape mechanisms that result from the abandoned individual’s lack of security. there are two ways in front of them, after breaking the basic bonds that give security to the individual. if it goes the first way, the development that we call positive freedom takes place. the individual can establish a spontaneous relationship with the world through love and work, and a sincere expression of her emotional and mental abilities. thus, without giving up the independence and integrity of his individual self, he once again becomes a whole with man, nature and himself. the second way ahead is to stay behind, sacrifice his freedom and try to overcome loneliness by eliminating the gap between the individual me and the world. since the phenomenon of separation cannot be reversed, the individual cannot reach the relationship he has established with the world before emerging as an individual if he goes through this second path. in this way, it can never be reunited with the world, this road is escape from an unbearable situation that would make life impossible. as a result, the person who achieves moral perfection is the human liberated. the liberated person is the human who moves away from all ugly behavior. it is not dependent on any ideology. she loves the society she lives in, her land and history. but it doesn’t scream people because it doesn’t want to show off and propaganda. because they have no ambitions and passions. the free person is a hero who is not after heroism. introduction it is possible to address freedom in terms of psychological, anthropological, theological and sociological aspects. this study 70 the perspective of psychological freedom... psychologically addresses the struggle of man against freedom. the study was shaped based on a person’s views about a concept. in particular, it was aimed to carry out a study by erich fromm. in this section, starting from the word meaning of the concepts of freedom and its synonym, we will try to understand how the qur’an, islamic thinkers and some philosophers look at the subject. first of all, it is necessary to examine the concept of freedom linguistically from past to present. if we start by defining the concept of freedom used in the past instead of freedom; the word “free” in arabic has exactly the same “every” in syriac, in hebrew. the last mode is the result of some change under the influence of comparison. the jewish of aram used the same mode that exists in hebrew. the words “harh-rin” and “baht-run” appear in the words of tedmür and nebaïi, meaning; “free man” and “free woman”.1 the word “free” has been used extensively in early arabic to mean “sheriff (dignified) and hasen (good-beautiful)”. the word must have been used to describe the anti-slavery legal term from an early period. it is a very important situation that hür has a meaning beyond the meaning of abstract freedom in the history of the meaning. because, apart from its legal framework, the term free becomes a closed term among many terms of language. so, the following can be said: arabic has not recognized a term that is used practically to describe the full extent of the concept of freedom. when the western influence emerged at the beginning of the modern ages, the word old freedom was given a new meaning. in persian, the concept of liberty corresponds with ézéd. the word ézéd means that human freedom is linked to being born in a family belonging to elite social groups. the concepts of freedom found before non-arab peoples before entering islam have completely disappeared before this islamic attitude of freedom, in which arabic is based on these concepts as the basic form of expression.2 linguists also state that the word free derives from the opposite of the word cold (berd), har (hot). they define free or free as the opposite of slaves. after all, the free person has the dignity and encouragement morality that leads him to aspire for good natures. the slave is the opposite of this. this is exactly the point in terms of islam, freedom is handled in two ways; • first, freedom for the person who is not under the yoke of something. this is also called material freedom. the following two verses are hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 71 examples of this use; “free for free3 “i have made vows to you as a muharrar (dedicated to allah).”4 man is either free or slave, depending on whether he can act at his own will. after islam came, slavery was forbidden. no one can be used as a slave, and cannot be bought and sold. • the second part is the form of freedom, spiritual freedom, and it is called the human who is not dominated by condemned qualities such as greed and greed against worldly passions. it also finds expression in the form of not being a slave to the desires and the world. as a matter of fact,. the prophet ( ) pointed out this saying: “shame on the slave of dinar (money)”5 the qur’én guarantees the most basic features of human rights with its freedom of belief, theoretical and practical dimensions.6 what the qur’én envisages regarding the life of man is that he only serves allah. within the concept of caliph, islam defines man as being who can use his freedom in his attitudes and behaviors with his personal thoughts, but who is responsible for his choices with his free choice. in christianity, the key expression that defines man is “being a prisoner of innate original sin and death”. with this approach to define people, christianity basically differs from the human understanding of islam. in contrast to my approach that assumes islam’s innate sinlessness or independence from sin and creation with free will, christianity advocates human innate temptation.7 the issue of freedom in sufism philosophy has been covered with the concept of nafs in the islamic literature. according to the sufis, the servant is free from servant exhaustion if he completes all servanthood. it follows the servanthood without any trouble and burden. this is the office of the prophets and awliya. freedom in sufism is hidden in true servitude to allah. freedom from allah is neither possible nor reasonable. however, only allah is absolutely free. however, servants also have freedom. according to the sufis, liberation from worldly affairs aims to prepare for full acceptance to allah. this relationship is not intended to achieve individual freedom. the understanding of freedom in sufism was mostly associated with exquisite finishing by sufis. they described the free person as being able to resist all kinds of evil desires of his nafs and ultimately win and control him. sufist feels his absolute addiction deeply, and even for this reason he represents the opponent in himself and gains the concept of freedom in the whole space. as the liberty goes towards the spirit, the perceived liberty turns towards infinity.8 in this sense, 72 the perspective of psychological freedom... according to fakhr al-dên razi, freedom is the instinctive chastity of the nafs; it is virtue, but it is not something with education and training. in short, his body relationship is weaker, his mental relationship is stronger, and the yummy becomes more free. otherwise, the opposite is true. eflatën also pointed out this with the following words. “vile ego is in the horizon and shadow of nature. virtuous nafs are at the horizon and shadow of the mind.”9 philosophically, the issue of freedom has been widely discussed. for example, according to descartes, man is free. this freedom is thanks to god. his grace is a guidance. absolute freedom is only for god. god gave man a will equivalent to his own will. this is thanks to this; man is free. human freedom is not absolute, because the human will has been given to him by god and the power of man to use it is limited. a little differently, sipinoza also combines liberty and necessity, and the real free is allah. spinoza is a dark determinist. it is of the opinion that everything that is going on in nature is determined by allah and they are compulsory. according to the cyphosis, a free person is a person who lives only according to the orders of the mind. the freedom of the human is possible only with the mind. this is to live in accordance with nature. because the mind doesn’t want anything contrary to nature. sartre, one of the philosophers, is trying to deny human freedom and the existence of god. according to him, man has absolute freedom. he argues that freedom is formed and developed outside of man by saying, “human is doomed to absolute freedom”. in this way, an understanding of freedom without bases is unavoidable, dragging man to nihilism and bodilyness. one cannot be absolutely free.10 unlike sartre, kant provides a definition of freedom that entails a law on itself and compliance with it. according to kant, it is necessary to accept freedom as a postulate in order to explain how man can act morally. because freedom must exist in order for a person to say i should do it, to set a task for himself, to set moral laws for himself, so that he can command himself. it is necessary to count as a preliminary acceptance in order for man to be able to command moral actions by himself.11 according to another philosopher malinoski, freedom is to transform mandatory and sufficient conditions into effective actions with the cultural conditions created and to bring the results of these actions with full pleasure. therefore, it is necessary to have people who are equipped with cultural motives, means, values and gathered together. this means that freedom can only be defined based on the existence of an economic and political order, in short, a cultural order.12 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 73 freeing psychologically there are a number of actions that one has to do to be free psychologically. one must first realize the need for freedom. it should be able to mentally understand and adopt freedom. so it must be put to work, understanding what freedom is. for man, freedom means intelligence and love. freedom is not to be exploited, to bow to injustice and to be extraordinary virtue. the first requirement is not freedom to pursue the purpose of life. we cannot find purpose without freedom, we cannot question and discover what is the purpose of life, unless we get rid of our own small and insignificant desires, pursuits, ambitions and inability. all these are obstacles to our freedom. if we want to be free, we have to get rid of them. it is inevitable to have some elements for freedom.  the first necessity or first obstacle for freedom is that fear is not only fear of social pressure, but also fear of psychic insecurity. after all, there is no freedom when there is any internal or external coercion. if there is fear or coercion in the individual or social sphere, there cannot be freedom. how can a mind that pursues permanence, security, consciously or unconsciously, can be free? freedom comes spontaneously, it doesn’t run after it. freedom is revealed when there is no fear, when there is love in your heart.  freedom emerges when the mind is no longer looking for trust in the future or just knowledge. a mind that is loaded only with knowledge or who thinks it can do anything with knowledge is not a free mind. getting stuck with information restricts freedom, it is one of our barriers to freedom. the mind is free only when it can confront life at any moment, when every event, every thought, every experience can confront the reality. but this emergence is impossible when the mind is crippled by the past.  it is not freedom to escape without blocking, limiting or enforcing. a prisoner thrown in prison wants to escape and be free. he thinks just to escape. if i am angry, i feel that i will be free as soon as i can escape anger. if i’m jealous, getting rid of jealousy is not freedom; escaping is a way of expressing, not freedom. escaping, getting rid, suppressing is a way of expressing the same thing in another way.  freedom is not something freedom; is something in itself. it is freedom to love something because of it. there is freedom in painting, 74 the perspective of psychological freedom... not because it gains fame or location, but because you like painting. it is also very easy to do something, not because of the reward or punishment it brings to you, but simply because it is. loving something because it is the beginning of freedom.13  freedom is a mental quality and state. we question this quality. whatever you want without this quality, develop all the virtues in the world on yourself, you cannot be free. most of us are not free. we are slaves to this or that society, leaders, political parties, groups. so we have lost our human dignity. when we taste, smell, and know this extraordinary thing called freedom, human dignity can be in question. human dignity emerges with the establishment of freedom. but if we do not know freedom, we become slaves. isn’t that what’s happening in the world today? in order to get rid of the urge to commit to something, to be free from the desire to commit, one has to question his own way of thinking and talk to himself, with his own heart and desires. it is very difficult to do this. it requires patience, a sophisticated approach requires constant and persistent research into itself, without judgment or acceptance. but you will find that this is not easy and few of us are willing to take it.  you can only discover if you are free. only if you are free can there be a productive mind; but when the mind is free, there is endless energy, and this is the energy of reality. the defensive process of thought cannot be psychically free unless fully understood. only when the mind is completely free can one perceive what the truth is.  free man is virtuous, but a person who tries to be virtuous by following a society-created structure can never know what freedom is. therefore, he can never be virtuous. freedom, anger, authority etc. it is not free from things. freedom is a state of its own. it can only be experienced for itself, not because you are against something.14  even in the field of science, the mind must be free to discover something. the mind should not be blocked to learn something new. a mind that will understand the truth must really understand the holistic importance of freedom. in this regard, there are two kinds of freedom. first of all, freedom is something, this is a reaction. the second is not a reaction, it is to be free. freedom from anything is our response based on our choice, character, creation, and various forms of conditioning. we are talking about non-reactive freedom. a free mind is not a slave of anything, of any condition, of any particular order. although he specializes in a particular job, he is not a slave to it. a mind that frees everything it accumulates in itself, the daily reactions, is a free mind. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 75  freedom is the most important thing. freedom cannot be understood without intelligence, and intelligence can only be revealed when the cause of the problems is fully understood. the mind must be vigilant, careful, extraordinarily sensitive. thus, every problem can be solved as soon as it occurs. otherwise, real freedom cannot be mentioned. there is an incomplete, environmental freedom with no value.  a religious person is a free person, free from greed, jealousy, only free. man has to go beyond civilization and culture. but such a mental is capable of questioning and discovering truth, no other mind can do it. to question, find and discover, of course, freedom is necessary, not at the end. you cannot look, question, enter the unknown without freedom. freedom is imperative for a mind that wants to question.  you cannot achieve freedom only with your knowledge, prejudices, anxieties and fears. because these factors shape your perception, push you in other directions, and therefore the actual questioning ends. to really question it, one must be free from the self-centered activity.  freedom cannot exist without order. these two are interconnected. if you cannot have order, you cannot be in freedom. the two cannot be separated. freedom is not to do what we want. man cannot live on his own. for freedom, to be free, it is necessary to be extremely intelligent, sensitive, understanding. but no matter what culture, every person should be absolutely free. therefore, freedom cannot exist irregularly. freedom means love, freedom irresponsibility does not mean to do whatever you want to cause so much confusion in the world.15  one of the biggest obstacles to freedom is tasassup. in the place where there is no tolerance, there is tasassup. in taassupta, there is aggression as well as attachment to an idea. tolerance, respect for other beliefs and opinions, is the state of not being disturbed by different expressions. moral freedom means human desire to be good. freedom is the service of the human and the self-giving. as long as it serves the good, it has freedom. freedom also means dominating the ego. the distinction between free and slave is here. free protects the truth in a fundamental way, which is a love-based protection. the slave, on the other hand, protects the truth in a fear-based manner. if we look at freedom from a negative perspective, it is free from pressure factors and the burdens of daily life. likewise, it is free from evil and the factors that prevent human from reaching the true goal of humanity. it is real freedom to avoid the evils that human beings usually commit. “according to elbusti, in reality, the free person is the one who frees his ego from serving 76 the perspective of psychological freedom... his passions and weaknesses. he is the person who wants to be taken from him, tries to increase his good qualities and beautiful verbs. the free person represents all the supreme qualities. yet the slave represents all the bad and vile things in human nature. free people are pure friends who are earned sincerely and whose friendship is preserved sincerely. despicable people are expelled and fired, and free behave very friendly. every free is generous, not every generous is free.16 accepting freedom, according to william james, is an imperative consequence of innovation, luck, pluralism and a developing world. freedom has spread to all human life and the world as a whole. they emerge with new goals, values and actions, and shape our world. therefore, according to james, human life does not occur by coincidence; on the contrary, human life is basically the result of critical thinking and careful use of freedom. the use of liberties also describes a need to draw a moral perspective in sound decision making. james tells us that freedom will help us fight evil by throwing weights on the scales to uncover the moral nature of the universe.17 when an indifferent freedom is attributed to the individual, it is meant that he has the power to do this or that movement alone and independently of his own will. for this reason, the probability arising from the movements shows that the imagined individual’s choice is completely free. for freedom would have been an imaginary force if the body had determined the order and direction of movements by itself. because the body’s movements are the result of thought.18 there is a sense of religion in the depths of the human fitra. he feels the existence of allah in various ways in the depths of his fitra. often times it is not tied to a correct and firm belief system. it is buried in various superstitions and legends. but he always feels in a strong sense that he must have been a creator of this universe in the depths of his own fitra. regardless of the level of man, the universe influences his emotions at any moment and inspires different emotions as much as he can grasp and comprehend. each of them shakes it and penetrates deeply. in this, he begins to look for the creator of the universe, which has extremely wide and dazzling beauties. in his research, he sometimes finds the truth and is sometimes mistaken. however, the religion put by allah is in full agreement with the human fitra. in other words, there is an inseparable link between the belief system of religion put by allah and the fitra. the task of faith is to reveal the truth that is located in the depths of the human fit and covered by a number of curtains (anger, hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 77 jealousy, arrogance, selfish desires, fame, love of goods, love of authority, pride, etc.).19 so faith frees the soul from the chain of captivity and liberates it. it frees the person from the links that take him away from allah. well, what kind of a situation is human? “what makes people different from other living creatures is that the ashes are servants, not their slaves. “we exist only to live it, that is, the divine. we live with the idea of transcendent being that has been placed in us since creation. it is not possible to have an imperfection in the existence of love and in understanding and understanding people, and in respecting him, in doing so without his slave. our lord is not that we are addicted, but by heart. there is no need to shrink a person even to glorify him. allah created the human being as the being who sees the place, the sky and what is between them. according to this, if we talk about how our belief is and how it should be, it is the formation of faith, that is, the sources of belief in the person, which is much more important than what people believe. the believer must have truly realized what he believes in. an incomprehensible belief is sometimes the path that he fears for his fear and interests, sometimes what is believed to approach the divine, and sometimes to various groups. however, being aware of what you really believe is very different from all this. one must be free until the end so that the source of belief can be taken from one’s being.20 a person who cannot realize himself wants to live by establishing domination by eliminating others and eliminating them. the freedom of others does not concern him, especially since he is after his personal desires. people should be able to understand such behavior and be able to react to it. this is the first step to get rid of it. once you realize it, resistance must come to question their validity and consistency. therefore, what the individual should do as a primary job is not to do anything he does not want and to say no. he will be free to the extent he can do this and act in accordance with his own fitra. one of the evils that people do against their own freedom is their inability to take a stand against popular cultural elements. our age is that the capitalist understanding has become an unnamed slave. a new form of slavery has been created with the clothes it wears, the things they eat, drink, watch, listen, live and feel. all the imitations made without thinking fall into this group. against this, there is an extreme need for awareness. they should be able to think and realize whether they are doing it on their own or environmentally. in this way a real freedom can be mentioned. true freedom is through being a servant of allah. a freedom that we can define as abdullah can 78 the perspective of psychological freedom... only bring two world blisses. the person who is the servant of allah is free because he is freed from the servitude of the ego, the devil, the authority, the money, the desire for power, the pleasures and the lust. it is happy and peaceful because it is free. the blessings in the world have become a tool for him. erich fromm’s understanding of freedom erich fromm stands out with his studies on freedom in the field of psychology. while describing the concept of freedom psychologically, he says that one’s behavior in society is directly related to his freedom. in other words, in order to understand whether the person is free or not, it is necessary to determine whether he is using his free will when making his decisions. most of the time, even if we think that the person is free and makes his own decisions, when we think really well, the person is constantly under the control and control of various powers and powers. it is the essence of the subject that we will deal with, capturing true freedom and getting rid of false freedom. in other words, “the difficulty in understanding the extent to which our requests and our thoughts and feelings do not belong to us and to what extent they have been given to us from outside is very closely related to the problems of freedom and freedom. so what does freedom mean for modern man? our era has been freed from external ties that will prevent him from doing and thinking about what he sees fit. if he knows what he wants, what he thinks and feels, he will be free to act according to his own wishes. but he doesn’t know. in this case, it follows the wishes of anonymous powers and is adapted to a self that does not have it. the more he does this, the weaker he will feel and the more he will have to adapt. despite wearing a mask of entrepreneurship and optimism, the contemporary man has a great sense of powerlessness, as if he was paralyzed, leaving him to face upcoming disasters.21 according to fromm, the extent to which the individual is freed from the symbolic umbilical cord that connects him to the outside world, he is free, or lacks freedom to the extent that he cannot escape. but these ties give him a sense of security, a sense of belonging, his roots somewhere. the intent of the bond is called the bonds that connect the child to his mother, the primitive community member, his clan and the nature or the medieval man to the church and the social caste. the more a child grows, the more severed his first ties are, the more the pursuit hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 79 of freedom and independence develops. human existence and freedom are two inseparable elements from the beginning. freedom here is not a positive means of doing something, but not doing something is freedom in the sense that new actions do not occur as a result of instinctive indulgences. in addition, if the economic, social and political conditions on which the entire process of individualization of human beings do not form the basis for the realization of an individuality in the meaning mentioned above, and at the same time, people lose those ties that give them security, this makes freedom an unbearable burden. in this case, freedom is indisputable, life is meaningless and undirected. strong trends emerge, with a world and people who seek to escape this kind of freedom and to get rid of their sense of uncertainty at the expense of their freedom from uncertainty, and to seek refuge in a way or a relationship or submission. this kind of understanding of freedom came to the fore with the birth of various religious or political thoughts that emerged after the reform movements in times when the understanding of capitalist society began to spread in europe.22 in fromm’s understanding, protestantism teachings, one of the christian sects that emerged as an example of such an understanding, revealed the individual. but it made him more desperate, increased freedom, but created new kinds of addictions. here we will focus on the dialectical quality of the process of increasing freedom. in modern history of freedom wars, old powers and restrictions were seen as the main target, and the more it was lifted, the more it was naturally accepted that more freedom would be gained. however, although mankind has liberated itself from old enemies of freedom, we cannot adequately grasp the fact that new enemies of different types, which are basically internal factors that do not create external constraints, but which block the way for the full realization of personality freedom, have emerged. we think that freedom of worship constitutes one of the last utterances of freedom. for example, we cannot see properly that there is an idol acquired in the face of church and state powers that do not allow people to worship according to their own conscience, but that the contemporary individual has lost his ability to believe in anything that cannot be proved by natural science methods. in other words, we admire the increase of our freedom to break away from forces outside ourselves, and we close our eyes to inner constraints, difficulties, fears, and tendencies that tend to push the importance of victories against freedom’s traditional enemies into a decision. therefore, we should consider the problem of freedom as trying to 80 the perspective of psychological freedom... achieve more than the freedoms we have gained only during the development of contemporary history. we think that all that needs to be done is to defend freedom against forces that deny such freedoms. although it is inevitable to defend each independence that we have engraved with life, we forget that the problem of freedom is not only a qualitative problem but also a quantitative one. we ignore that we should not be content with the obligation to protect and increase traditional freedom, that we have to acquire a new kind of freedom that will give us the ability to realize our own individual, to believe in living with me.23 according to fromm, the new freedom brought by capitalism to the individual in the last century has increased the influence of protestantism on the individual through the religious freedom it has already given to it. the individual has become more abstracted alone. in this way he became an “individual”, but he became an individual who was confused and lacked a sense of security. there were no factors that would help defeat the obvious manifestation of this underlying insecurity. first of all, property supported his self. as a person, “he” and his property could not be separated. just as the person’s body is part of his self, his clothes or the house were also part of his self. the need to own property increased as the confidence in being a person diminished. if the individual did not own or lost it, it meant that he lacked an important part of his own self, and in a sense, neither he nor the others regarded him as a complete individual. other factors that support his self are dignity and strength. these are partly the direct result of property ownership and partly the success in the areas of competition. this sense of individual isolation and weakness in many people here is not something that the average normal person is aware of. this feeling has been concealed by the success of his business life, with various distractions, such as “having a good time”, “establishing a relationship”, “going left and right” after the security and distractions he found in his private or social relations under the daily course of his activities. but whistling in the dark does not light up. loneliness remains where there is fear and fright, people cannot stand it forever. they cannot bear the burden of “negative freedom” constantly, unless they progress from negative freedom to positive freedom, they have to sacrifice what is called freedom and try to escape from it. the main way of social escaping today is to submit to a leader like in fascist countries and to settle for compulsory adaptation as seen in our democracy.24 in short, the person has never had complete freedom. on the contrary, he is constantly escaping from freedom and using various escape methods while running. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 81 man’s escape from freedom in fromm’s understanding, a person tries to escape from freedom involuntarily. he says that he did these under a number of mechanisms. according to him, these mechanisms are escape mechanisms that occur as a result of the abandoned individual’s lack of security. once the basic bonds that give security to the individual are broken and the individual starts to see the world outside himself as a completely separate entity, there are two ways in front of the individual who has to overcome the unbearable weakness and loneliness. if it goes the first way, the development that we call positive freedom takes place. the individual can establish a spontaneous relationship with the world through love and work, and a sincere expression of his emotional and mental abilities. thus, without giving up the independence and integrity of his individual self, he once again becomes a whole with man, nature and himself. the second way ahead is to stay behind, sacrifice freedom and try to overcome loneliness by eliminating the gap between the individual me and the world. since the phenomenon of separation cannot be reversed, the individual cannot reach the relationship he has established with the world before emerging as an individual if he goes through this second path. in this way, it can never be reunited with the world, this road escaped from an unbearable situation that would make life impossible. there are three kinds of freedom escape mechanism in this care.25 these mechanisms are authoritarian, destructiveness and robot compatibility. authoritarian according to fromm, the first mechanism of escape from freedom is to obtain the power that the individual self lacks. in other words, there will be a tendency to abandon the independence of one’s own individual self and fuse his own self with something other than someone else in order to look for new secondary bonds that will replace the lost basic ties. more prominent forms of this mechanism appear in the desire to bow and dominate, or more precisely, masochistic and sadistic demands that exist in varying degrees in normal and neurotic individuals. the most common forms of masochistic tendencies are feelings of inferiority, weakness and individual insignificance. the analysis of people with these emotions shows that they consciously escaped and want to get rid of them, and that a power unconsciously pushes them to feel insufficient or 82 the perspective of psychological freedom... insignificant. masochistic demands in various ways have one purpose. getting rid of individual me and losing yourself. in other words, to get rid of the burden of freedom. this aim is evident in the masochistic demands that an individual sees to be overwhelmingly strong, or to seek submission to power. masochistic efforts are relatively successful in some circumstances. if the individual can find cultural patterns to satisfy these masochistic desires; it will gain some degree of security by seeing itself merged with millions sharing these feelings. but even in these cases, to what extent the neuroscopic manifestations are a solution, the masochistic “solution” is only a solution. the manifestations with neurosis are similar to out-of-mind behavior in a panic state. as a matter of fact, a man whose house is burned stands in the window of his room and asks for help, completely forgetting that nobody will hear him and that there is the possibility of escaping from the stairs, which will remain in flames after a few minutes. he yells because he wants to be rescued, and at that moment this behavior looks like a step on the road to recovery, whereas it will result in a definitive disaster. in requests with neuroses, the person acts with a difficulty that aims to escape from an unbearable situation that is basically negative. the desire or effort only develops in a way to bring about a false solution. in fact, the person reaches the opposite result of what he wants to provide. the neurotic person is a person who has not stopped fighting entirely against submission, but is also loyal to his magical assistant figure, regardless of what form or form he appears. his neurosis should always be understood as a fundamentally unsuccessful step towards resolving the conflict between basic addiction and the pursuit of freedom.26 destructiveness according to fromm, the second escape from freedom mechanism is destructiveness and is caused by individual weakness and intolerance of abstraction. i can escape from the feeling that i am weak compared to the world outside of us, by destroying that world. if i manage to destroy it, i will remain alone and isolated. but mine is a wonderful abstraction that doesn’t allow me to be crushed by the invincible power of objects outside of me. the destruction of the world is the last almost desperate attempt i can make to save myself from being flourish by it. sadism aims to cooperate with the object itself, to integrate it, and destructiveness aims to destroy the object. sadism, by keeping an individual hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 83 too small, by dominating others; destructiveness tries to strengthen it by eliminating external threats. destructiveness is the result of unlived life. the individual and social conditions that prepare the suppression of life produce the destructive passion that creates the warehouse, if the phrase that nourishes certain hostile tendencies of ‘against himself or others.27 robot compatibility according to fromm, the third mechanism of escape from freedom is robot compatibility. it is the solution found by the vast majority of normal individuals in contemporary society. the individual ceases to be himself, fully embraces the personality that cultural patterns offer to him, so that he is just like the others and as he expects them. the inconsistency between me and the world, as well as the sense of conscious loneliness and weakness, disappear with it. this mechanism is comparable to some animals changing colors to protect themselves. they are so similar to their environment that they are almost indistinguishable from their environment. the person who gives up his own individual self and becomes a robot becomes the same as millions of other robots around him and no longer feels lonely or worried. but the price he paid is high, he lost his own self. replacing original acts of thinking, hearing, and desire, with their artificial or counterfeit causes the original self to be replaced by the artificial self. the original self is the forming self that initiates mental activities. artificial self is actually an intermediary that represents the role that a person is expected to play. however, this tool performs this role under the name of self. this robotizes the individual. the robotization of the individual in the modern society increased the average individual’s helplessness and insecurity. therefore, it is ready to bow to new powers that allow it to get rid of security and suspicion.28 according to fromm, how will the individual using these three escape mechanisms be able to get free and how will they find their own self again? it is possible to say the following in response to the question. once man has been freed from all the bonds that give meaning and confidence to life, he tries to escape from freedom, namely negative freedom, to live because he is desperate in a modern society, devoid of power and trust. therefore, man is now dragged into a new commitment. this loyalty is different from the first ties that were not completely disconnected from it, although it was under the control of the authority or the social cluster. the escape does not give him the sense of security 84 the perspective of psychological freedom... he has lost. it only helps him to forget to perceive his self as a separate entity. man chooses to lose his self because he cannot stand alone. so freedom, that is, negative freedom in the sense of being free of something, leads to a new attachment and a captivity. therefore, a transition from negative freedom to positive freedom is necessary. positive freedom is achieved by the spontaneous effectiveness of the total personality that has acquired a holistic character. spontaneous activity is the free activity of the self. the spirit scientifically contains the meaning of sponte, the latin origin of the word. sponte means the free will of the person. here, when we say activity, we do not want to “do something” but to describe the quality of creative activity that can function in the emotional, mental and emotional experiences of the person and also in their will.29 from, one cannot truly achieve the purpose of being sent to this earth without being liberated. the religious understanding of the liberated person is based on the superior values that make people human, such as love, respect and freedom. in order for a person to truly say i believed, his faith must fill him with a force that shakes the foundation of his being. one should experience this shock with his emotion, thought, love and everything. he must be aware of what he believes in, and must see him either directly or with the signs as the palm of his hand. it is only possible to achieve this by capturing freedom. the person who imitates the beliefs of others is not really a believer. the person who tries to shape his belief with the influence of the religious and social communities (sect, congregation, political party, association, etc.) that his family is under the pressure of his environment cannot be seen as a truly believing and truly liberated person. this is but blindly believing to be a slave or slave of others. it is not to be a faithful and free person. blindly believers are either deceived or pursued people or ideas, as they see that their conscious or unconscious interest is on this path. if he does not find what he is looking for, this time he is chasing another person or idea so that he becomes neither a believer nor a liberated person. result freedom is that people live with a measure of what they do and are not under the yoke of any negative element. the morally liberated person achieves a happy and balanced life. in the first part of the study, ways of liberation in psychological perspective are explained. accordingly, human cannot achieve freedom without acquiring some qualifications. these can be explained as follows. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 85 • freedom is revealed when there is no fear, when there is love in your heart. since fears will prevent love from settling in one’s heart, one cannot be free. we must overcome fears and make room for love. freedom emerges when the mind is no longer looking for trust in the future or just knowledge. man cannot be liberated only through knowledge without experience. individuals who move away from life think that they can achieve everything through reason. individuals who have not experienced life are left unfinished. in this case, real freedom does not occur. one cannot find his own truth. • it is not freedom to escape without blocking, limiting or enforcing. it is necessary to struggle to be free, to be able to make peace with itself, to realize its diseases and to face it. freedom is not something freedom; is something in itself. it is freedom to do something only because it is not for the reward or punishment it will bring to man. the examples of worship not only for heaven and hell but only for allah are examples. such a person would be freed from the servitude of heaven and hell. it is only abdullah. • freedom is a mental quality and state. not everyone can be liberated because they are addicted to things and have anticipation. the survivors of the ties of the world are free. • as people become free, they begin to produce and do useful things. in this way he begins to perceive the facts. otherwise, it cannot discover and produce useful things. • free people are moral. he has made all his good virtues a habit. he has been liberated because he is away from anger, hatred, hate, arrogance, jealousy and all kinds of evil. • freedom cannot be understood without intelligence. intelligence can only be revealed when the cause of the problems is fully understood. • a religious person is a free person. religion liberates man. • freedom cannot exist without order. if you cannot have order, you cannot be in freedom. the two cannot be separated. • freedom is not what we want. man cannot live on his own. freedom requires a thought, love and respect for other creatures. erich fromm, the subject of the second part of the study, comes to the fore with his studies on freedom in the field of psychology. while describing the concept of freedom psychologically, he says that one’s behavior in society is directly related to his freedom. in other words, in order to understand whether the person is free or not, it is necessary to determine whether he / she is using his free will when making his 86 the perspective of psychological freedom... decisions. according to fromm, the extent to which the individual is freed from the symbolic umbilical cord that connects him to the outside world, he is free, or lacks freedom to the extent that he cannot escape. according to fromm, the new freedom brought by capitalism to the individual in the last century has increased the influence of protestantism on the individual through the religious freedom it has already given to it. the individual has become more abstracted alone. in this way he became an “individual”, but he became an individual who was confused and lacked a sense of security. there were no factors that would help defeat the obvious manifestation of this underlying insecurity. first of all, property supported his self. the person has never had complete freedom. on the contrary, he is constantly escaping from freedom and using various escape methods while running. in fromm’s understanding, a person tries to escape from freedom involuntarily. he also describes them under the name of a number of mechanisms. according to them, these mechanisms are escape mechanisms that are the result of the abstracted individual’s lack of security. these mechanisms are; authoritarian, destructiveness and robot compatibility. according to him, after trying to get rid of all the ties that give meaning and confidence to life, man tries to escape from negative freedom in an abstracted state in contemporary society. therefore, man is now dragged into a new commitment. the escape does not give him the sense of security he has lost. it only helps him to forget to perceive his self as a separate entity. man chooses to lose his self because he cannot stand alone. therefore, freedom, that is, the negative freedom in the sense of being free of something, has led to a new attachment and a captivity. therefore, a transition from negative freedom to positive freedom is necessary. positive freedom is achieved by the spontaneous effectiveness of the total personality that has acquired a holistic character. as can be seen, a person who reaches moral perfection can become free. the liberated person is the human who moves away from all ugly behavior. liberating loves the society, land and history in which it lives; but it doesn’t scream to people because it doesn’t want to show off and propaganda. because they have no ambitions and passions. the free person is a hero who is not after heroism. freedom is a human happiness. free person lives this happiness freely with his behavior. the human love, equipped with the culture of the ages and its own age, lives with all its might. because he took shape with these. the enviable actions are his actions. a free person is a person who truly believes and fulfills the hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 87 requirements of his faith. believing free human belief does not harm neither society nor others. he always tries his best to show the best moral behavior. being conscious of what he believes in what and what fulfills the requirements of his belief, the morally perfected and wandering at the immense peaks of freedom realizes the purpose of creation. notes and refrences 1. franz rosenthal, islâmda özgürlük kavrami, çev. vecdi akyüz, istanbul: ayisigy yayinlari, 2000: s. 25-26. 2. rosenthal, islâmda özgürlük kavrami, ss.27-31. 3. bakara, 2/178. 4. âl-i imran, 3/35. 5. buhârî, rikâk, 10; cihad, 70; ibn mâce, zühd, 8. 6. müfit selim saruhan, özgür ol, fecr yayinlari, ankara: 2019: s.63. 7. sinasi gündüz, “din ve bireysel özgürlük alani”, tezkire, 9/25 (2002), s. 57. 8. abdullah laroui, islâm ve özgürlük, çev., özkan gözel, tezkire, 9/10 (1996), s. 224. 9. rosenthal, islâmda özgürlük kavrami, ss. 43-45. 10. necati öner, ýnsan hürriyeti, ankara: vadi yayinlari, 1995: ss. 35-45. 11. osman bilen, “özgürlük krizi üzerine”, düþünen siyaset, ýstanbul: (2001), s. 32. 12. bilen, özgürlük krizi üzerine, s. 36. 13. jiddu krishnamurti, özgürlük üzerine, çev., nurgül demirdöven, istanbul: ayna yayinlarý, 2001: ss.2 7-39. 14. krishnamurti, özgürlük üzerine, ss. 39-51. 15. krishnamurti, özgürlük üzerine, ss. 51-64. 16. rosenthal, islâmda özgürlük kavrami, ss. 111-113. 17. celal türer, “william james’in pragmatik felsefesinde özgürlük-ahlak iliþkisi”, felsefe dünyasi, 27 (1998), ss. 8790. 18. ismail þimþek, “nurettin topçu felsefesinde özgürlük düþüncesi”, uluslararasi sosyal araþtýrmalar dergisi, 10/52 (2017), s. 1381. 19. muhammed kutub, ýnsan psikolojisi üzerine etütler çev., bekir karliga, ýstanbul: ýþaret yayýnlarý, 1995: s.2 95. 20 . kemal demirel, tanrinin onuru insan, istanbul: yapii kredi yayinlari, 1999: ss. 17-18. 21. erich fromm, özgürlükten kaçis, çev., semsa yegin, istanbul: payel yayinlari, 1996: ss. 19-24. 22. fromm, özgürlükten kaçis, ss.25-28. 23. fromm, özgürlükten kaçis, ss.30-37. 24. fromm, özgürlükten kaçis, ss.37-46. 25. fromm, özgürlükten kaçis, ss.117-118. 26. fromm, özgürlükten kaçis, ss.117-130. 27. fromm, özgürlükten kaçis, ss.130-133 88 the perspective of psychological freedom... 28. fromm, özgürlükten kaçis, ss.134-155. 29. fromm, özgürlükten kaçis, ss.155-166 bibliography bilen, osman. “özgürlük krizi üzerine”. düþünen siyaset. istanbul: 2001. demirel, kemal. tanrinin onuru insan, istanbul: yapi kredi yayinlari, 1997. fromm, erich. özgürlükten kaçiþ. çev. þemsa yegin, istanbul: payel yayinlari, 1996. gündüz, sinasi. “din ve bireysel özgürlük alani”. tezkire. 9/25 (2002): 52-61. krishnamurti, jiddu. özgürlük üzerine. çev. nurgül demirdöven, istanbul: ayna yayinlari, 2001. kutub, muhammed, insan psikolojisi üzerine etütler. çev. bekir karliga, istanbul: isaret yayiýnlari, 1995. laroui, abdullah, islâm ve özgürlük. çev. özkan gözel, tezkire. 9/10 (1996): 211228. öner, necati. insan hürriyeti. ankara: vadi yayinlari, 1995. rosenthal, franz. rosenthal, islâmda özgürlük kavrami, çev. vecdi akyüz, istanbul: ayisigi yayinlari, 2000. saruhan, müfit selim, özgür ol, fecr yayinlari, ankara: 2019. simþek, ismail. “nurettin topçu felsefesinde özgürlük düþüncesi”. uluslararasi sosyal araþtirmalar dergisi. 10/52 (2017): 1376-1384. türer, celal. “william james’in pragmatik felsefesinde özgürlük-ahlak iliþkisi”. felsefe dünyasi, 27 (1998): 81-90. hamdard islamicus 101 vol. xl, no. 1 obituaries zahida bano we announce, with deep sorrow, the passing of a quiet but strong pillar of hamdard pakistan: zahida bano sahibah, director of english publications. (to allah [s.w.t.] we belong and to allah [s.w.t.] is our return). zahida bano entered the service of hamdard almost four decades ago. she worked with hakim mohammed said, mrs lily anne d’silva and mrs sadia rashid, and formed bonds of friendship and trust, which she earned with her hard work and dedication to duty. neither advancing years nor worsening health turned her away from her strong work ethics, which may have forced her to adjust her working hours, but did not allow her to compromise the quality of her work or interfere with the job in hand. though her physical step sometimes wavered and even caused her to fall, her professional step remained sure and firm. these traits, along with her simple dignity, earned her the respect of all her colleagues, senior and junior alike. she handled much of the editing and all of the proof-reading of hamdard’s felicitation volumes honouring various world renowned scholars and scientists. this was also her well-undertaken responsibility for the journal hamdard medicus and occasionally hamdard islamicus, as well as four volumes of collection of essays of hakim mohammed said. in the month of october 2015, she suffered a heart attack, hamdard islamicus 102 vol. xl, no. 1 which left her too weak to return to her professional duties. a gradually worsening condition, caused her to breathe her last at about ‘isha on 10 january 2017. well educated, well read, exemplary worker, staunch friend: zahida bano, you are – and will be – much missed. hamdard islamicus hamdard islamicus 103 vol. xl, no. 1 dr. hamida khuhro dr. hamida khuhro, (1936-2017) an eminent historian and daughter of mr. muhammad ayub khuhro, one time the chief minister of sindh, passed away in february this year. although dr. khuhro belonged to a prominent political family of sindh, she preferred an academic life and authored a number of books on history. she also served twice as sindh education minister. dr. hamida khuhro got her early education in her village aqil (larkana district), but later she moved to karachi. she got her master’s degree from the university of karachi. she then studied at cambridge, oxford and london, and completed her doctorate in south asian history from the university of london. the title of her phd thesis was “the making of modern sindh: a study of british policy and its effects on social change in the region in the 19th century” (pbd. 1978 and 1999). dr. khuhro’s other works are: sindh through the centuries, a compilation of papers read at the international seminar on sindh in 1975; the making of modern sindh: british policy and social change in the nineteenth century and mohammad ayub khuhro: a life of courage in politics, a biographical sketch of her father. she co-authored a book entitled karachi: megacity of our times as well. besides these books, she studied and wrote on hur movement (1890) in a paper entitled: a nineteenth century guerrilla war. dr. hamida khuhro did not ignore our younger generation. she authored four books for children entitled a children's history of sindh, a children's history of punjab, a children's history of khyber pakhtunkhwa and a children's history of balochistan. urdu version as sindh ki kahani and sindhi version as sindh ji kahani of her book a children's history of sindh have also been published also. dr. khuhro taught at the universities of oxford, karachi and hamdard islamicus 104 vol. xl, no. 1 sindh. at the university of sindh in 1978, she was made the head of the newly established pakistan study centre. she edited its research journal, the grassroots as well. she also represented pakistan at various international forums such as the united nations. dr. hamida khuhro was quite close to the pakistan historical society and was one of its fellows. despite her poor health, she kindly accepted to be the chief guest for the inaugural session of the 23rd international pakistan history conference which was held at the university of karachi on 12th march 2013. her funeral prayers were held on 12th february 2017 and she was buried in karachi. may allah rest her soul at peace! hamdard islamicus f:\e\islamicus\2016\no.2, 2016\abstarct\01-dna test.pmd hamdard islamicus 7 vol. xxxix, no. 2 dna test of paternity in islamic law implications for illegitimate children born less than minimum gestation period in malaysia professor dr. sayed sikandar shah haneef international islamic university malaysia (iium), kuala lumpur, malaysia e-mail: syed haneef <zahid1@hotmail.com> dna testing of paternity represents the most celebrated achievement in the field of forensic technology to solve litigations on paternity in the modern legal systems. unlike the western law of evidence, the question of adopting dna test of paternity within traditional means of establishing paternity is a contentious issue among contemporary muslim legal scholars. some approve its restricted use, others advocate its complete adoption even to connect illegitimate children to the male party in an unlawful sex. an interesting development, however, is that on both sides of the discourse, it is agreed that dna test can be used selectively to identify corpses during natural catastrophes and other emergency situations. in this context, an important issue with which jurists and lawyers grapple in malaysia is the possibility of using istilíéq as the basis for solving the problem of illegitimate children born less than six months from date of marriage. as to whether dna test can be another framework is a question which this paper endeavours to explore. in the pages which follow, we delineate the modern juristic debate over use of dna test in determining paternity in general, and then its contextualization to the problem in malaysia. keywords: dna paternity test, muslim juristic debate, minimum gestation period. hamdard islamicus 175 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 the concept of arrogance in muslim and buddhist scriptures a comparative analysis zohaib ahmad lecturer, the university of lahore, pakpattan campus, pakpattan, phd scholar, the department of comparative religions, international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan. e-mail: hafiz.ctn@gmail.com. arrogance is generally identified as an attitude of sheer vanity. it is considered a negative element in most of the known religious traditions. elaborating its various types, sources, and results, both buddhist and islamic scriptures provide valuable information about it. many individual studies in both traditions are available analyzing this concept. however, a comparative study of it is still missing. this paper compares the element of arrogance as presented in the scriptures of both religions to trace out the similarities and differences between their stances on one hand and figure out how these findings can be used to promote interfaith dialogue on the other. presenting a feature by feature comparison of this concept along with its types, sources, and results, this paper finds out that there are more commonalities and fewer differences in both religions. they consider arrogance as a hurdle in accepting the truth and promoting peaceful relation. for them, it is an evil and unpleasant phenomenon which is the cause of failure not only in this life but also in the afterlife. therefore, it is suggested that both muslims and buddhists must control their arrogance to promote brotherhood and peace in the world culminating in salvation after following the teachings of their religions. keywords: arrogance, islam, buddhism, interfaith dialogue. introduction the holy qur’én enjoins upon muslims to develop positive relationships with the whole of humanity and invites other religious hamdard islamicus 176 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 communities as well to do the same. it is mentioned in the holy qur’én say, say: “o people of the book! come to common terms as between us and you: that we worship none but allah; that we associate no partners with him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, lords and patrons other than allah.”.1 this ayah, though addresses to ahl al-kitéb,2 provides a benchmark of interreligious dialogue. it invites the followers of the world religions to come together on common points among them.3 the growing tensions between the adherents of buddhism and islam4 persuade the scholars to promote the possibility of both political5 and interfaith dialogues.6 the hostile conflicts between the adherents of both religions in sri lanka, burma, and thailand are resulting in the loss of thousands of lives. buddhist monks, out of their arrogance,7 are influencing aung san suu kyi, the state counsellor and the so-called iconic figure of myanmar, to remain silent on the hidden genocide and forced migration of rohingya muslims. it is pointed out both by scholars and journalists that “[t]he rohingya problem is seen as composed of various clusters of past and present human rights violations in myanmar”.8 various buddhist groups are actively participating in violence against muslims.9 hence, the positive relationships between buddhists and muslims are needed to be encouraged from a religious point of view, and some progress has been made in mutual dialogue, although not so extensively. some buddhists do not believe in the spirit of dialogue as they think that it brings disgrace to buddhism. therefore, they criticize the process of interfaith dialogue.10 however, scholars point out that though, there are some irreducible doctrinal differences11 between buddhism and islam,12 there exist common grounds as well which can be exploited to bring out the fresh nutrients of peace and harmony. imtiyaz yusuf13 writes that there are “subtle compatibilities between them (buddhism and islam) when viewed from the perspectives of history and the phenomenology of religion.”14 giving importance to the mystical dimension of both religions is another point of departure.15 the ethical, moral, and social aspects of both religions yet provide another dimension of the dialogue. scholars point out that “mystical and ethical approaches are indeed the most effective bridges”16 in this respect. therefore, this research aims to advance the ethical dimension of the dialogue further by studying the concept of arrogance as depicted in the scriptures of both religions. however, the researcher deems necessary to mention hamdard islamicus 177 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 here that he is unaware of the source languages of buddhism such as pali and sanskrit. therefore, this research mainly depends upon the english translations of these primary sources. the concept of arrogance in buddhism and islam in simple terms, the word arrogance means an attitude of selfimportance. someone who gives importance to him/herself over others is called an arrogant. in the english language, words such as pride or conceit are also used to mean arrogant behavior. similarly, muslim and buddhist scriptures also use multiple words for it. in order to know, how both religions deal with the element of arrogance, it is inevitable first to understand their definition of this concept. by analyzing the equivalents of the term arrogance used in the scriptures of both religions, the current study initially tries to figure out the meaning of arrogance and then explorers its various types for its further elaboration. what is arrogance? in sanskrit and pali languages, for arrogance, terms such as mané (arrogance/conceit), adhiména (undue estimate of oneself), or atiména (conceit) are mainly used whereas the tibetan language adopts the term ngargya (conceit) for it. buddhism regards arrogance as a habitual behavior,17 a mental property,18 a bad reaction,19 and a painful feeling.20 buddhist scriptures identify that it is arrogance that makes someone not to accept what is true and right.21 dhammasangani, the first book of abhidhamma pitaka,22 addresses the question of conceit identifying it as the “desire of the heart for self-advertisement.”23 caroline rhys davids24 (1857-1942) points out that mana does not mean only a mere wish of self-advertisement. rather it is a state of mind or heart for selfadvertisement.25 an arrogant person, being preoccupied with her/himself constantly prefers her/his “self” over truth. abhidharmasamuccaya, a systematic account of abhidhamma and one of the most essential buddhist texts, explains arrogance as “exaltation of the mind (cittasyonnatib) which rests on the idea of self. its function consists of giving a basis for the appearance of contempt (agaurava) and suffering.”26 ye-shes rgyal-mtshan27 (1781-1830) placed arrogance hamdard islamicus 178 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 in the six basic emotions28 of human beings. while referring to abhidharmasamuccaya, he writes that arrogance “is a mental event which is a kind of inflated mind making whatever is suitable, such as wealth or learning, to be the foundation of pride.”29 the lotus sutra, one of the most important texts in mahayana buddhism, adds that someone who claims to attain something which s/he does not actuallyattain should be considered as an arrogant person.30 these definitions clarify that overlooking truth and claiming for something unattained results in an arrogant behavior that “creates the basis for disrespecting others and for the occurrence of suffering.”31 whereas in islam, a íadêth of the holy prophet muíammad (œ) defines arrogance as “disdaining what is true and having contempt for people.”32 thus, this íadêth mentions two notions to identify arrogance. the first notion is unacceptance of truth. in general, truth applies to every phenomenon whereas in its specific meanings it denotes the disbelieving in god. as sharaf al-nawawê33 (1233-1277) mentions that disdaining the truthhere specifically means unacceptance of god.34 similarly, al-raghib al-isfahani35 (died 1108) notes that the highest arrogance is concerning god as not accepting and worshipping him.36 in this respect, it is mentioned in sërah luqmén “when our signs are rehearsed to such a one, he turns away in arrogance, as if he heard them not, as if there were deafness in both his ears;”37 ibn kathir explains that it is the arrogance that stops people to worship allah. because of their arrogant nature, they do not revere the holy qur’én and turn their attention away from it. consequently, it also deprives them and keeps them aloof from truth and guidance.38 shahab al-din suhrawardi39 (1145-1234), drafts that conceit is a human thinking and imagination of greatness. it is an attribute of god. those who claim it are liars.40 the second notion is having contempt for others by considering them inferior. thus, when out of self-conceit, someone does not accept what is true and despise people, s/he is considered as an arrogant person in islam. al-isfahani writes that arrogance is one of the situations of man. an arrogant person considers her/himself superior to others.41 abu hamid al-ghazali42 (1058-1111) writes that it is one of the habits of nafs (self/ego) that not only motivates people to think themselves better than others but also intrigue them to feel pleasure in this perverted thinking.43 hamdard islamicus 179 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 it is mentioned in the holy qur’én that: and they rejected those signs in iniquity and arrogance, though their souls were convinced thereof;44 therefore, it can be concluded that, unlike buddhism, the issue of arrogance is directly related to god in islam on the one hand, and with the norms of society on the other. however, for both religions, arrogance is like a fatal disease and bad behavior that creates obstacles in accepting the truth. thus, according to both religions, arrogance and truth cannot live together. it is the pride of people that provokes them to consider themselves superior to others which results in contempt of others. types of arrogance buddhism considers arrogance as one of the three poisons,45 seven underlying tendencies,46 ten fetters,47 and seventeen defilements.48 it regards arrogance as a disease, a tumor, and a dart.49 the numerical discourses of the buddha talks about the following three types of arrogance. 1. omana or the “inferiority complex”. it is an inflated mind that considers itself lower than others. 2. atimana or the self-elevation is an inflated mind that presents itself superior to others. therefore, it is also called superiority-conceit. 3. adhiména or the self-overestimation. it is an inflated mind that overestimates itself while comparing with others.50 depending upon its intensity, some scholars divide it into further three categories: 1) profound conceit 2) extremely profound conceit 3) excessive conceit.51 mahayana buddhism divides arrogance into the following seven types: 1. nga-rgyal or “arrogance” is an inflated mind that considers itself superior to others even when it has inferior qualities. 2. lhag-pa’inga-rgyal or “exaggerated arrogance” is an inflated mind that considers itself equal to others. 3. nga-rgyal-las-kyangnga-rgyal or “outrageous arrogance” is an inflated mind that considers itself up to some extents better than others. hamdard islamicus 180 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 4. nga’osnyam-pa’inga-rgyal or “egoism” is an inflated mind that considers “i am all of what makes up my existence.” 5. mngon-par nga-rgyal or “arrogance of showing off” is an inflated mind that thinks that it has attained something even when it has attained nothing. 6. cung-zadsnyam-pa’inga-rgyal or “arrogance of thinking small” is an inflated mind that feels itself inferior to others. 7. log-pa’inga-rgyal or “perverted arrogance” is an inflated mind that thinks that it is right to make mistakes. thus, at this level, instead of having ashamed of mistakes one thinks them as achievements.52 islamic scriptures identify two dimensions of arrogance. the first dimension of arrogance is related to god which is positive whereas the other one ismostly related to human beings. it can either be positive or negative. al-isfahani writes that in reality, god has excessive good qualities; therefore, his pride is positive for he has the right to be proud.53 it is mentioned in a hadith of the holy prophet (œ): “allah almighty says pride is my cloak and majesty is my lower garment, and i shall throw him who views with me regarding one of them into hell.”54 hence, in islam, pride is one of the attributes of god, and for him, it is positive and good whereas, for humans, it is negative and bad. abdur rehman kailani55 writes that for arrogance, terms such as fariha, batara, maraha, ikhtala, fakhara, ashara, tamatta, and takabbara are mainly used in the holy qur’én.56 these terms denote varying degrees of arrogance which sometimes are positive and sometimes negative. these degrees are as follows: 1. fariha or “to rejoice.” it can be either positive or negative. it is positive when someone rejoices on the blessings of allah (swt) whereas it is negative when someone instead of showing gratitude, expresses pride. the holy qur’én provides an example of this type of arrogance as “exult not, for allah loveth not those who exult”57 while explaining the gist of this verse, al-tabari58 (839-923) writes that those who do not pay gratitude to god’s blessing are of arrogant nature.59 god does not like them, and therefore, in the end, they will manifest loss. hamdard islamicus 181 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 2. the second degree is bamïara. it denotes thanklessness because of the abundance of something. as it is stated in the holy qur’én: “and how many populations we destroyed, which exulted in their life (of ease and plenty)!”60 according to ibn kathir and alzamakhshari61 (1075-1144), this verse was revealed to warn the people of mecca who were over-proud in their way of living and used to negate god and his messenger.62 therefore, in islam, this sort of conceit is also strictly forbidden. 3. the third degree is maraha which denotes exalted attitude. it is considered a negative sign, visible from the actions of a person. the holy qur’én warns “nor walk on the earth with insolence”.63 according to fakhruddin razi64 (1149-1209), maraha means “intensive joy”. it is forbidden by god.65 al-ghazali divides arrogance into two types: hidden and apparent. he thinks that the former is the habit of nafs whereas the latter comes out as the signs of body parts. for him, the former is the real conceit as the latter is but the fruit of the former.66 therefore, being a visible sign, maraha is the fruit of hidden arrogance. 4. the fourth degree is ikhtala. be or become pompous. it is an inflated mind that considers itself greater than others. it is also considered as a negative quality and disliked by the holy qur’én. god says “for allah loveth not any arrogant boaster”.67 razi states that this sort of arrogance develops the feelings of lordliness in the human mind and thus it starts considering itself better than others. this feeling is nothing but arrogance.68 therefore, god warned that he does not like those who are self-deluded and boastful. 5. the fifth degree is fakhara. to be proud of something which is not even in the access of someone. it is also disliked by the holy qur’an. example of it is mentioned in the fourth point. 6. the sixth degree is ashira. the one who have all the abovementioned qualities and along with that s/he excessively boasts as well.69 it is also disliked by the holy qur’én: “they will know tomorrow who the insolent liar is.”70 7. the seventh degree is tamamïïé. walk in pride with open arms. it is also a visible sign of arrogance and thus disliked by the hamdard islamicus 182 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 holy qur’én saying: “then did he stalk to his family in full conceit!”71 according to ibn kathir, this verse was revealed about amr ibn hisham72 (died 624) who neither believed in the day of judgment nor accepted the truth and went to his people strutting in selfconceit.73 thus, his action was so disliked by god that he made it an example for the rest of humanity. 8. the eighth degree of arrogance is takabbara. it is the highest degree of arrogance. it is a state when someone starts having contempt for others and refuses to accept the truth.74 according to the holy qur’én, satan was the first one guilty of having conceit for god. as it is stated in the sërah al-baqarah: “and behold, we said to the angels: “bow down to adam” and they bowed down. not so iblis: he refused and was haughty: he was of those who reject faith”.75 it was nothing but his arrogance that stopped him from obeying the commandments of his lord. the above-mentioneddivisions show the varying degrees of arrogance explained by both the religions. in islam, arrogance can be positive when it is from god whereas it can either be positive or negative when it is from the human side. in most of the cases, it is regarded as a negative quality, strongly disliked by the holy qur’én. similarly, buddhism also offers various degrees or types of arrogance and identifies it as a negative quality. sources and causes of arrogance the connected discourses of the buddha expresses that thinking such as “i am”, “i shall be”, “i shall not be”, and “i shall consist of form” are the reasons of arrogance.76 it adds that gain and honor are sources of “conceit, self-exaltation, and contempt for others.”77 therefore, for buddhism, people who just think of themselves instead of whole humanity are constant victims of arrogance. the numerical discourses of the buddha states that“[c]onceit (mana) is conceiving oneself [to be better] based on birth.”78 thus, an arrogant person considers people of lower casts unworthy which is forbidden in buddhism. it stresses that regardless of cast or family anyone can learn or teach dharma. failing to learn dharma will not only hamdard islamicus 183 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 results in shallow knowledge but also becomes the cause of arrogance. therefore, buddhism maintains “[d]on’t arrogantly despise your dharma teacher.”79 moreover, it adds that arrogance can also be aroused from the strong dependence of confidence, wisdom,80 or lust.81 it warns that people who are involved in earthly desires are wasting their lives.82 these earthly desires are the causes of evils such as greed, anger, foolishness, arrogance, doubt, mistaken views and jealousy. the holy qur’an also identifies various reasons of arrogance. it considers polytheism and disbelieving as the major causes of arrogance. it has already been mentioned that satan, out of his arrogance, did not accept the order of his lord and therefore, considered wicked and evil in islam. according to islam, it was his “self” that intrigued him to disobey allah (swt).when it was asked from him why he did not prostrate adam, he answered that “i am better than he”.83 therefore, it is the thinking of “i am” that leads to arrogance. moreover, the holy qur’an considers those people arrogant who are not good to their parents, relatives, orphans, needy, neighbours, companions, and wayfarers.84 hence, disbelieving in god and disrespecting others arouse arrogance and pride. the holy qur’én warns that people who lie,85 plot evil in the land,86 pose themselves as the most powerful of all,87 and not accept the truth, are slaves of their “selves” and victims of conceit. the holy qur’én adds that abundance in worldly things such as wealth, property, children or earthly amusements to be the cause of arrogance.88 a íadêth of the holy prophet (œ) stresses that people because of their birth in noble families become arrogant and therefore, boast arrogantly about their forefathers. thus, he warns people saying: people must not boast about their forefathers who have passed away. certainly, they become the fuel of hell. if not, then they will surely be worse than the beetle that makes balls of dung with its nose. allah has vanished from you the conceit of pre-islamic times and its boasting on forefathers. a man is either be a devoted believer or an unworthy offender. they all are children of adam and adam was created from dust.89 reminding about the story of the creation of adam, the hamdard islamicus 184 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 above-mentioned hadith forbid muslims to show pride on their birth. al-ghazali categories causes of arrogance into following types: 1. the arrogance of knowledge: it is aroused when knowledge causes arrogance for people. mostly the scholars and academics are victims of this sort of arrogance. 2. the arrogance of action and worship: when because of their actions and worship people consider themselves better than others. mostly, the saints and sages are victims of this sort of arrogance. 3. the arrogance of lineage: when birth in noble families makes them arrogant toward others. 4. the arrogance of beauty: when people disregard others because of their beauty. mostly women are victims of this sort of arrogance. according to ibn al-jawzi (1126-1200) arrogance of beauty persuades females to backbite and criticize.90 5. the arrogance of wealth: when the people at the helm consider themselves better than others. mostly kings, traders, and landlords are victims of this sort of arrogance. 6. the arrogance of power: when because of their power and authority people consider themselves better than others. 7. the arrogance of companions: when because of the abundance of companions, slaves, or students, people consider themselves better than others. mostly kings and scholars are victims of this sort of arrogance.91 moreover, according to al-ghazali, conceit, malice, lie, and jealousy are also the causes of arrogance. the holy qur’én also mentions the physical signs such as walking on the earth exultantly, turning cheeks arrogantly toward people to denote arrogant behavior.92 similarly, a íadêth of saíêí muslim also mentions the physical signs of arrogance as, “allah will not look upon him who trails his garment out of pride”93 ibn arabi94 (1165-1240) wrote that one should not trail his garment in conceit as by doing that s/he will be following the rules of sharê‘ah which is a sign of piety. moreover, this act will save the garment from dust and filth.95 these signs, on the one hand, are useful to understand the phenomenon of arrogance and provides information, on the other hand, to protect oneself from it. it should be taken into consideration that islam sometimes hamdard islamicus 185 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 allows muslims to be arrogant in specified places.96 however, these are exceptional cases. hence, it can be concluded that both religions identify that “self” or the notion of “i am” is a major cause of arrogance. it is one of the reasons for non acceptance of truth. both religions warn people becoming proud because of their knowledge, wealth, beauty or birth in noble families. moreover, for both religions, an excess of worldly things and negligence towards the religious teachings arouses arrogance. results of arrogance buddhism believes that human beings are born with a will to get enlightened. however, an arrogant person cannot get enlightenment unless s/he gets rid over arrogance.97 therefore, it is mandatory for buddhists to avoid self-conceit for achieving nirvana, failing of which, will result in the suffering not only in this life but also in the life of hereafter.98 it is because if someone is intoxicated with arrogancethen it will turn her/his virtues into evils that eventually will result in nothing but an evil rebirth.99 the lotus sutra warns that people of arrogance have little faith.100 therefore, in order to understand sutras or dharma, it is necessary to abandon conceit.101 the heart sutra adds that arrogance and knowledge cannot live together.102 the connected discourses of the buddha considers conceit as “shoulder-load” that with each step trays into contact with the ground. it puts humans down to the four realms of misery that includes: anger the smoke: because the fire of knowledge does not shine when defiled by the smoke of anger. false speech the ashes: because the fire of knowledge does not burn when covered by false speech. the tongue is the ladle: my [the buddha’s] tongue is a ladle offering the dhamma sacrifice. the heart the altar: the hearts of beings are the altar, the fireplace, for my offering of the dhamma sacrifice.103 thus, arrogance is the sort of evil that gives birth to various other toxic evils, physically affects the health of a person,104 and ethically recognized as a vicious trait of personality. therefore, the hamdard islamicus 186 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 teachers of dharma say: “[t]here is no taming here for one fond of conceit”.105 the holy qur’én mentions in various verses that arrogant people are disliked by allah (swt).106 he does not help those who are arrogant. they will become the objects of his punishment107 and woe.108 a íadêth of the holy prophet (œ) warns that people who are arrogant and shy cannot get knowledge.109 it has already been mentioned that satan was guilty of having conceit, and thus, he was regarded among the disbelievers. according to abdullah al-qurtubi110 (1214-1273), it was his jealousy that made him to dislike adam (as). he spent thousands of years worshiping allah. however, because of his arrogance, he was considered a disbeliever.111 the place of arrogant disbelievers is hell112 where they will live forever.113 it should be taken into account that conceit is one of the characteristics of satan. so, the arrogant person is actually acquiring a characteristic of him and in this way s/he is following the footsteps of satan who is considered as “the open enemy” of believers.114 the holy qur’an clearly mentions that people who are arrogant will not get the guidance115 and suffer a painful punishment.116 it adds that the fruit of arrogance is a disgrace not only in this world but in hereafter as well.117 similarly, it is mentioned by the holy prophet (œ) that: “he who as in his heart the weight of a mustard seed of pride shall not enter paradise.”118 explaining this íadêth, al-ghazali writes that an arrogant is not allowed in the paradise because ethics of believers are the doors of it. conceit and pride do nothing but close these doors.119 thus, avoiding arrogance and embracing hospitality is the key to get success both in this world and the world hereafter. thus, it can be said that both religions dislike the character of arrogance and warn that arrogance results in disgrace in this world and in the hereafter. it is the reason for many other evils such as false speech, hatred, and anger. both religions warn that arrogance and knowledge cannot stay together. people who have arrogance are of little faith and therefore, failed to properly understand the teachings of their religions. conclusion to promote the possibility of interreligious peace and harmony among the followers of islam and buddhism, the current articleexplains how hamdard islamicus 187 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 both religions can deal with the phenomenon of arrogance. it has been revealed that: 1. the ethical and social dimensions of both religions are directly connected with their doctrines. thus, ignorance of the doctrinal dimension can result in less fruitful results. 2. both religions are anti arrogant in their nature and therefore, regard arrogance as an evil and wicked phenomenon. 3. they argue that people fond of conceit and pride are away from the truth and teachings of their religions. 4. out of their self-conceit, they think themselves superior to others that results in their shallow knowledge and contempt for others. 5. these people plot evils and create disharmony among the communities. therefore, to promote peaceful relations among the societies, it is necessary to get rid of arrogance. 6. both religions identify that the notion of “self” or “i am”, ignorance of religion or faith, and earthly desires such as wealth, property, or honor are the major sources of arrogance. 7. they warn that such people will suffer not just in this world but the world to come as well. the above results indicate that arrogance is the cause of various moral evils and has been denounced by the sacred books of both religions. teaching the equality of mankind, both religions promote the culture of interreligious peace and harmony. the genocide of muslims in burma, sri lanka, or thailand is nothing but a brand of infamy on the buddhists who are involved in this violence. it is their pride that provokes them to overlook the truth and consider others inferior. it must be remembered that buddhism and islam strictly forbid even to willfully injure any person. hence, both communities must revere the culture, religion, and identity of each other. notes and references 1. al-qur’an, iii:64. 2. some scholars argue that follower of religions other than christianity and judaism are also lies under the same term. see, reza shah kazemi, common ground hamdard islamicus 188 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 between islam and buddhism: spiritual and ethical affinities, jordan, fons vitae, 2010), xiv, xix; imtiyaz yusuf, “nationalist ethnicities as religious identities: islam, buddhism and citizenship in myanmar,” american journal of islamic social sciences, 34, no. 4, 2017, p. 101. 03. ismail ibn kathir (1300-1373), one of the most influential exegetes of the holy qur’an, points out that the term ahl al-kitéb is equally applicable to those religious communities which are not polytheists. see, ismail ibn kathir, tafsêr al-qur’én al-azém lil-hafêz ibn kathêr, vol. ii, riyadh, dar al-tayyibah, 1999, p. 55. 04. for further reading on this subject, see francis wade, myanmar’s enemy within: buddhist violence and the making of a muslim ‘other’, london, zed books, 2017. or see, http://www.bbc.com/urdu/regional-43297522, accessed on 3-15-2018. 05. for example, in their analysis of the political situation of myanmar, costa laoutides and anthony ware concludes that a national political dialogue is essential for peace in myanmar. for details, see costa laoutides and anthony ware, “reexamining the centrality of ethnic identity to the kachin conflict,” in conflict in myanmar: war, politics, religion, ed. nick. cheesman and nicholas farrelly, singapore, iseas yusof ishak institute, 2016, p. 62. 06. for example, in 2017, at sitagu international buddhist academy in yangon myanmar, a conference held where it is hoped that “the dialogue would serve as an example of religious harmony to all religious groups in conflict,” b.d. dipananda, “interfaith dialogue for peace, harmony, and security held in myanmar,” buddhistdoor global, https://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/interfaithdialogue-for-peace-harmony-and-security-held-in-myanmar, accessed on 03-03-2017. 07. for example, according to the guardian, “‘aung san suu kyii would like to help the bengali, but i block her,” says ashin wirathu with some pride”. no to mention that ashin wirathu who is a buddhist monk is famous for his communal violence against muslims in myanmar. see “‘it only takes one terrorist’: the buddhist monk who reviles myanmar’s muslims,” the guardian, https:// www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/12/only-takes-one-terroristbuddhist-monk-reviles-myanmar-muslims-rohingya-refugees-ashin-wirathu. accessed on 04-12-2018. 08. syeda naushin parnini, “the crisis of the rohingya as a muslim minority in myanmar and bilateral relations with bangladesh,” journal of muslim minority affairs, 33, no. 2, 2013, p. 281. 09. azeem ibrahim and muhammad yunus, the rohingyas: inside myanmar’s hidden genocide, london, hurst, 2018, p. 141. 10. see matthew j. walton and susan hayward, contesting buddhist narratives democratization, nationalism, and communal violence in myanmar, vol. lxxi, policy studies, honolulu, east-west center, 2014, p. 46. 11. this does not necessarily mean that there are no doctrinal points of agreements between both religions. there are some studies available that prove the significant development in this field as well. for example, see imtiyaz yusuf, “dialogue between islam and buddhism through the concepts of tathagata and hamdard islamicus 189 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 nur muhammadi,” international journal of buddhist thought & culture, 5, 2005. 12. kazemi, common ground between islam and buddhism: spiritual and ethical affinities, p. 1. 13. imtiyaz yusuf is currently serving as the director of the center for buddhistmuslim understanding, college of religious studies, mahidol university, salaya, thailand. 14. imtiyaz yusuf, “islam and buddhism relations from balkh to bangkok and tokyo,” the muslim world, 100, nos. 2-3, 2010, p. 178. 15. for example, the famous sufi teacher, idries shah (1924-1996) pointed out some similarities between zen buddhism and sufi thought. for details, see idries shah, the sufis, london, octagon press, 1999, pp. 362-363. 16. david scott, “buddhism and islam: past to present encounters and interfaith lessons,” numen 42, no. 2, 1995, p. 153. 17. the heart sutra: the womb of buddhas, trans. red pine, washington, counterpoint, 2005, p. 64. 18. points of controversy or subjects of discourse: a translation of the kathavatthu from the abhidhamma-pitaka, trans. shwe zan aung and a.f. rhys davids, oxford, the pali text society, 1915, p. 233. 19. ibid., p. 223. 20. conditional relations (patthana), trans. u. narada, 2 vols., vol. 1, bristol, the pali text society, 2010, p. xvii. 21. conze edward, buddhist texts through the ages , new york, harper torchbooks, 1964, p. xvii. 22. abhidhamma pitaka is the collection of seven books of the third basket of tipitaka. it deals with the principles that controls mental as well as physical processes. 23. a buddhist manual of psychological ethics of the fourth century b.c., trans. a.f. rhys davids, london, royal asiatic society, 1900, p. 299. 24. caroline augusta foley rhys davids was a famous british writer who translated some of the very important buddhist texts into english language for the first time in the history. 25. a buddhist manual of psychological ethics of the fourth century b.c., p. 298. 26. asanga, abhidharmasamuccaya: the compendium of the higher teaching (philosophy) by asanga, trans. sara boin-webb, fremont, asian humanities press, 2001, p. 12. 27. ye-shes rgyal-mtshan was a prominent tibetan buddhist scholar. 28. he defines emotion as “an ego-centered attitude which makes the mind restless when something occurs”. see, ye-shes rgyal-mtshan, mind in buddhist psychology, trans. herbert v. guenther and leslie s. kawamura, california, dharma publishing, 1975. 29. ibid., p. 68. 30. the lotus sutra: a contemporary translation of a buddhist classic, trans. gene reeves, boston, wisdom publications, 2008, p. 258. 31. jamgon mipham rinpoche, gateway to knowledge: the treatise entitled the gate for entering the way of a pandita, trans. james gentry and erik pema hamdard islamicus 190 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 kunsang, 3 vols., vol. 1, hong kong, rangjung yesh publications, 1997, p. 25. 32. muslim bin hajjaj, saíêí muslim, beirut, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 1991, p. 93. 33. sharaf al-nawawi is a prominent muslim thinker, jurist and íadêth scholar. 34. sharaf al-nawawi, sharah al-nawawi a’la muslim, riyadh, ideas home international, 2000, p. 151. 35. al-raghib al-isfahani is a prominent muslim linguistic, commentator of the holy qur’én and jurist. 36. al-raghib al-isfahani, mufradatu alféð al-qur’én, damascus, dar al-qalam, 2009, p. 697. 37. al-qur’én, xxxi:7. 38. ismail ibn kathir, tafsêr al-qur’én al-azêm lil-hafêz ibn kathêr, vol. 6, riyadh, dar al-tayyibah, 1999, p. 331. 39 he is one of the most important sufi masters of suhrawardi order of sufis. 40. abë al-hifî al-suhrawardi, ‘awérif al-mu’érif, egypt, al-maktabah al-il’amiyyah, 1939, p. 173. 41. al-isfahani, mufradétu alféð al-qur’én, p. 697. 42. a prominent muslim theologian, historian, mystic, and jurist. 43. abë hamid al-ghazali, iíyé’ ‘ulëm-ud-dên, beirut, dar ibn-e hazam, 2005, p. 1258. 44. al-qur’én, xxvii:14. 45. three poisons in mahayana buddhism are “envy, pride, and conceit or extreme arrogance.” see, the lotus sutra: a contemporary translation of a buddhist classic, p. 397. 46. seven underlying tendencies in theravada buddhism are sensual lust, a version, views, doubt, conceit, lust for existence, and ignorance. see, bhikkhu bodhi, the connected discourses of the buddha: a translation of the samyutta nikaya, boston, wisdom publications, 2000, p. 1564. 47. ten fetters in theravada buddhism are “sensuality, repulsion, conceit, speculative opinion, perplexity, the contagion of mere rule and ritual, the passion for renewed existence, envy, meanness, ignorance”. see, a buddhist manual of psychological ethics of the fourth century b.c., p. 297. 48. seventeen defilements in theravada buddhism are “lust, hatred, delusion, anger, hostility, denigration, insolence, envy, miserliness, deceitfulness, craftiness, obstinacy, vehemence, conceit, arrogance, intoxication, and heedlessness.” see, bhikkhu bodhi, the numerical discourses of the buddha: a complete translation of the anguttara nikaya, boston, wisdom publications, 2012, p. 62. 49. bodhi, the connected discourses of the buddha: a translation of the samyutta nikaya, p. 1259. 50. bodhi, the numerical discourses of the buddha: a complete translation of the anguttara nikaya, p. 1769. 51. thi n chau and sara boin-webb, the literature of the personalists of early buddhism, delhi, motilal banarsidass publishers, 1999, p. 67. 52. rgyal-mtshan, mind in buddhist psychology, p. 69. hamdard islamicus 191 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 53. al-isfahani, mufrédatu alféð al-qur’én, p. 697. 54. abë déwëd, sunan abê déwëd, riyadh, dar al-hadarah, 2015, p. 510. 55. abdur rehman kailani is a prominent muslim scholar, jurist, and an expert of the qur’énic sciences. 56. abdur rehman keylani, mutarédifat al-qur’én, lahore, maktabah al-salam, 2009, p. 112. 57. al-qur’én, xxviii:76. 58. muíammad ibn jarir al-tabari is a prominent muslim scholar, historian, and commentator of the holy qur’én. 59. muíammad ibn jarir al-tabari, tafsêr al-tabari, vol. xviii, cairo, dar hijr, 2001, p. 320. 60. al-qur’én, xxviii:58. 61. mahmud ibn umar al-zamakhshari was persian muslim thinker, theologian, and commentator of the holy qur’én. 62. ibn kathir, tafsêr al-qur’én al-azêm lil-hafêz ibn kathêr, 6, p. 248; mahmud ibn umar al-zamakhshari, al-kashshaf, vol. iv, riyadh, maktabat al-abikan, 1998, p. 516. 63. al-qur’én, xvii:37. 64. he is a persian polymath who written on theology, philosophy and tafsir. 65. fakhruddin razi, mafatií al-ghayb, vol. xx, damascus, dar al-fikr, 1981, p. 212. 66. al-ghazali, ihya’ al-‘ulum-ud-din, p. 1258. 67. al-qur’én, xxxi:18. 68. fakhruddin razi, mafatií al-ghayb, vol. xxv, damascus, dar al-fikr, 1981, p. 150. 69. while explain the meanings of this verse, al-tabari also provides a similar information. for details, see muíammad ibn jarir al-tabari, tafsêr al-tabari, vol. xxii, cairo, dar hijr, 2001, p. 140. 70. al-qur’én, liv:26. 71. ibid., lxxv:33. 72. amr ibn hisham or abu jahl was a polytheist of mecca. 73. ismail ibn kathir, tafsêr al-qur’én al-azêm lil-hafêz ibn kathêr, vol. viii, riyadh, dar al-tayyibah, 1999, p. 283. 74. keylani, mutaradifét al-qur’én, pp. 112-114. 75. al-qur’én, ii:34. 76. bodhi, the connected discourses of the buddha: a translation of the samyutta nikaya, p. 1259. 77. ibid., p. 530. 78. bodhi, the numerical discourses of the buddha: a complete translation of the anguttara nikaya, p. 1769. 79. a. charles muller, exposition of the sutra of brahma’s net, vol. xi, collected works of korean buddhism, paju, compilation committee of korean buddhist thought, 2012, p. 359. 80. conditional relations (patthana), 1, p. 159. 81. ibid., p. 162. hamdard islamicus 192 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 082. daisaku ikeda, the heart of the lotus sutra: lectures on the “expedient means” and “life span” chapters, santa monica: world tribune, 2013, p. 198. 083. al-qur’én, vii:11. 084. ibid., iv:36. 085. ibid., vi:93. 086. ibid., xxxv:43. 087. ibid., xli:15. 088. ibid., xviii:34; lvii:20. 089. abu ‘isa at-tirmidhi, jémi‘ al-tirmidhê, riyadh, bayt al-afkar al-duwaliyyah, p. 607. 090. ibn al-jawzi, minhaj al-qasidin, trans. muhammad suleman keylani, lahore, idarah-i ma’arif-i islamiyah, 2012, p. 345. 091. al-ghazali, ihya’ ‘ulum-ud-din, pp. 1262-1268. 092. al-qur’én, xxxi:18. 093. hajjaj, saíêí muslim, p. 1651. 094. ibn arabi was famous muslim sufi, philosopher, theologian, and poet. 095. ali ibn muíammad ibn arabi, al-futëhét al-makkiyyah, trans. ibrar ahmad shahi, vol. xxxvi, rawalpindi, ibn arabi foundation, 2016, pp. 171-172. 096. for example, in islam, during hajj, males are required to walk exultantly. moreover, the holy prophet (œ) allowed abu dujana (ra) to walk proudly against the enemy during the battle of uhud. see, ali ibn al-athir, usul al-gabah fi ma’rifat al-shabah, beirut, dar ibn hazam, 2012, p. 517. 097. bodhi, the numerical discourses of the buddha: a complete translation of the anguttara nikaya, p. 431. 098. rgyal-mtshan, mind in buddhist psychology, p. 70. 099. muller, exposition of the sutra of brahma’s net, 11, p. 298. 100. the lotus sutra: a contemporary translation of a buddhist classic, p. 85. 101. william gemmell, the diamond sutra, london, kegan paul, trench, trubner & co., 1912, p. 108. 102. geshe kelsang gyatso, heart of wisdom: an commentary to the heart sutra, london, tharpa publications, 1986, p. 13. 103. bodhi, the connected discourses of the buddha: a translation of the samyutta nikaya, p. 448. 104. eva feindler, anger-related disorders: a practitioner’s guide to comparative treatments, new york, springer publishing company, 2006, p. 193. 105. bodhi, the connected discourses of the buddha: a translation of the samyutta nikaya, p. 118. 106. al-qur’én, xxxi:18; iv:36; xvi:23. 107. ibid., xxviii:81. 108. ibid., lxxv:34-35. 109. al-darmi, al-musnad al-jami‘, beirut, dar al-bshair al-islamiyyah, 2013, p. 108. 110. abdullah al-qurtubi was a prominent muslim scholar, jurist, and commentator of the holy qur’én. 111. abdullah al-qurtubi, al-jami‘ li ahkam al-qur’én, vol. i, beirut, al-resalah publishers, 2002, pp. 442-443. hamdard islamicus 193 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 112. al-qur’én, vii:36. 113. ibid., xvi:29. 114. ibid., ii:208. 115. ibid., xlvi:10. 116 ibid., vii:133. 117. ibid., xxii:9. 118. hajjaj, saíêí muslim, p. 93. 119. al-ghazali, iíyé’ ‘ulëm-ud-dên, p. 1259. bibliography al-darmi, al-musnad al-jémi‘, beirut, dar al-bshair al-islamiyyah, 2013. al-ghazali, abu hamid. iíyé’ ‘ulëm-ud-dên, beirut, dar ibn-e-hazam, 2005. al-isfahani, al-raghib. mufradétu alféz al-qur’én, damascus, dar al-qalam, 2009. al-jawzi, ibn, minhaj al-qésidên, translated by muhammad suleman keylani. lahore, idarah-i ma‘arif-i islamiyah, 2012. al-nawawi, sharaf, sharah al-nawawi a’la muslim, riyadh, ideas home international, 2000. al-qurtubi, abdullah, al-jémi‘ li ahkém al-qur’én, vol. i, beirut, al-resalah publishers, 2002. al-suhrawardi, abu al-hifs, ‘awérif al-mu’érif, egypt, al-maktabah al-il’amiyyah, 1939. al-tabari, muíammad ibn jarir. tafsêr al-tabari, vol. xviii, cairo, dar hijr, 2001. —, tafsir al-tabari, vol. xxii, cairo, dar hijr, 2001. al-zamakhshari, mahmud ibn umar, al-kashshéf, vol. iv, riyadh, maktabat al-‘abikan, 1998. asanga, abhidharmasamuccaya: the compendium of the higher teaching (philosophy) by asanga, translated by sara boin-webb, fremont, asian humanities press, 2001. at-tirmidhi, abu ‘isa, jémi‘ al-tirmidhê, riyadh, bayt al-afkar al-duwaliyyah. bodhi, bhikkhu, the connected discourses of the buddha: a translation of the samyutta nikaya [in english], boston, wisdom publications, 2000. —, the numerical discourses of the buddha: a complete translation of the anguttara nikaya [in english], boston, wisdom publications, 2012. a buddhist manual of psychological ethics of the fourth century b.c. translated by a.f. rhys davids, london, royal asiatic society, 1900. chau, thien, and sara boin-webb, the literature of the personalists of early buddhism, delhi, motilal banarsidass publishers, 1999. conditional relations (patthana), translated by u. narada, bristol, 2 vols. vol. i, the pali text society, 2010. dawud, abu, sunan abi dawud, riyadh, dar al-hadarah, 2015. dipananda, b.d., “interfaith dialogue for peace, harmony, and security held in myanmar.” buddhistdoor global, https://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/interfaithdialogue-for-peace-harmony-and-security-held-in-myanmar. hamdard islamicus 194 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 edward, conze, buddhist texts through the ages [in english], new york, harper torchbooks, 1964. feindler, eva, anger-related disorders: a practitioner’s guide to comparative treatments, new york, springer publishing company, 2006. gemmell, william, the diamond sutra, london, kegan paul, trench, trubner & co., 1912. gyatso, geshe kelsang, heart of wisdom: an commentary to the heart sutra, london, tharpa publications, 1986. hajjaj, muslim bin, saíêí muslim, beirut, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 1991. the heart sutra: the womb of buddhas, [in english], translated by red pine, washington, counterpoint, 2005. ibn al-athir, ali, usud al-gabah fi ma‘rifat al-shabah, beirut, dar ibn hazam, 2012. ibn arabi, ali ibn muíammad, al-futuhét al-makkiyyah, translated by ibrar ahmad shahi, vol. 36, rawalpindi, ibn arabi foundation, 2016. ibn kathir, ismail. tafsêr al-qur’én al-azêm lil-hafêz ibn kathêr, vol. ii, riyadh, dar al-tayyibah, 1999. —, tafsêr al-qur’én al-azêm lil-hafêz ibn kathêr, vol. vi, riyadh, dar al-tayyibah, 1999. —, tafsêr al-qur’én al-azêm lil-hafêz ibn kathêr, vol. viii, riyadh, dar al-tayyibah, 1999. ibrahim, azeem and muhammad yunus, the rohingyas: inside myanmar’s hidden genocide, london, hurst, 2018. ikeda, daisaku, the heart of the lotus sutra: lectures on the “expedient means” and “life span” chapters, santa monica, world tribune, 2013. “it only takes one terrorist’: the buddhist monk who reviles myanmar’s muslims.” the guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/12/ only-takes-one-terrorist-buddhist-monk-reviles-myanmar. kazemi, reza shah, common ground between islam and buddhism: spiritual and ethical affinities [in english], jordan, fons vitae, 2010. keylani, abdur rehman, mutaradifat al-qur’an, lahore, maktabah al-salam, 2009. laoutides, costa and anthony ware, “reexamining the centrality of ethnic identity to the kachin conflict.” in conflict in myanmar: war, politics, religion, edited by nick. cheesman and nicholas farrelly, singapore, iseas yusof ishak institute, 2016. the lotus sutra: a contemporary translation of a buddhist classic, [in english], translated by gene reeves, boston, wisdom publications, 2008. muller, a. charles, exposition of the sutra of brahma’s net, collected works of korean buddhism, vol. xi, paju, compilation committee of korean buddhist thought, 2012. parnini, syeda naushin, “the crisis of the rohingya as a muslim minority in myanmar and bilateral relations with bangladesh,” journal of muslim minority affairs, 33, no. 2, 2013, pp. 281-297. points of controversy or subjects of discourse: a translation of the katha-vatthu from the abhidhamma-pitaka, translated by shwe zan aung and a.f. rhys davids, oxford, the pali text society, 1915. hamdard islamicus 195 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 razi, fakhruddin, mafatih al-ghayb, vol. xx, damascus, dar al-fikr, 1981. —, mafatih al-ghayb, vol. xxv, damascus, dar al-fikr, 1981. rgyal-mtshan, ye-shes, mind in buddhist psychology [in english], translated by herbert v. guenther and leslie s. kawamura. california: dharma publishing, 1975. rinpoche, jamgon mipham, gateway to knowledge: the treatise entitled the gate for entering the way of a pandita, translated by james gentry and erik pema kunsang. 3 vols. vol. i, hong kong, rangjung yesh publications, 1997. scott, david, “buddhism and islam: past to present encounters and interfaith lessons,” numen 42, no. 2, 1995, pp. 141-155. shah, idries, the sufis, london, octagon press, 1999. wade, francis, myanmar’s enemy within: buddhist violence and the making of a muslim ‘other’, london, zed books, 2017. walton, matthew j. and susan hayward. contesting buddhist narratives democratization, nationalism, and communal violence in myanmar, policy studies, vol. lxxi, honolulu, east-west center, 2014. yusuf, imtiyaz, “dialogue between islam and buddhism through the concepts of tathagata and nur muhammadi,” international journal of buddhist thought & culture, 5, 2005, pp. 103-114. —, “islam and buddhism relations from balkh to bangkok and tokyo,” the muslim world, 100, nos. 2-3, 2010, pp. 177-186. —, “nationalist ethnicities as religious identities: islam, buddhism and citizenship in myanmar,” american journal of islamic social sciences, 34, no. 4, 2017, pp. 100-119. hamdard islamicus 55 vol. xxxix, no. 3 islamic revivalism and its internal critics in the indo-pak subcontinent dr. husnul amin1 and prof. dr. abdul rauf2 1assistant professor of political science, department of politics & international relations, international islamic university, islamabad, e-mail: husnulamin@hotmail.com 2professor of political science, department of political science, university of peshawar, peshawar, pakistan. e-mail: abdulrauf@upesh.edu.pk recent scholarship on the practices of critique has unsettled the eurocentric assumption that critique is something specific to and the hallmark of secular/western societies. by implication, muslim societies and their various religio-social trajectories by virtue of their location in traditional-religious environments are unable to develop critique. based on talél asad’s, saba mahmood’s and others’ deviant approaches that question the validity of the stated thesis, this research focuses on an empirical example of dissident voices within and around mawdëdi’s ideology of political islam (and islamic state). the internal contestants challenged the internal logic, ideological premises of mawdëdi’s thought. the paper focuses on numerous examples in the sub-continental muslim intellectual tradition, wherein the dominant narrative of political islam in the modern muslim world was challenged by a number of scholars who were once close believers’ in mawdëdi’s ideology of islamic revival. methodologically, the paper analyses a number of key texts by mawdëdi and his internal critics within the framework of talél asad and saba mahmood.1 keywords: islamic revivalism, mawdëdi, ghamêdê, critique, waíiduddên, political islam. introduction despite phenomenal growth in academic scholarship on multifarious hamdard islamicus 56 vol. xxxix, no. 3 dimensions of political islam, the formidable intellectual responses by dissident scholarship in the sub-continental islamic tradition have largely escaped researchers’ attention. the location of s.a.a. mawdëdi (19031979) as the main ideologue and proponent of a systematic theory and worldview of contemporary political islam can hardly be overemphasized. hardly, a serious study on political islam can overlook mawdëdi’s formidable contributions to theorization and institutionalization of political islam.whereas mawdëdi and his major works on islamic state and the ideology of political islam are well known to the western academia, the critique and counter-narrative of a body of scholarship that seceded from mawdëdi is yet to be fully explored. this paper aims to bring to light the internal critique developed in the second half of 20th century in india and pakistan, and that questions mawdëdi’s ideological premises and its extension in the modern world. this research deals with the trajectory and genealogy of a body of critical scholarship that can be termed as “internal” to mainstream political islam, and specifically mawdudi, the main proponent, theorist and ideologue of political islam in south asia. the linchpin that connects these “internal” critics is the person2 and ideology of mawdëdi. in one way or the other, at one point of time or the other, the critics of mawdëdi dealt in this study were deeply influenced and motivated for social change by his ideas. though we are aware of the risks and intricacies associated with drawing such lines as “internal” and “external”, but we think that location of intellectuals as internal and external might lead to binaries and superficiality as well. yet, while conceptualizing these critics as “internal,” we borrow from david l. harvey: “critical theory at its most abstract and general level ... begins as a formal ‘negativity.’ as a dissenting motif, it selects some tradition, ideological premise, or institutionalized orthodoxy for analysis. as immanent critique, it then ‘enters its object,’ so to speak, ‘boring from with in.’ provisionally accepting the methodological presuppositions, substantive premises, and truth-claims of orthodoxy as its own, immanent critique tests the postulates of orthodoxy by the latter’s own standards of proof and accuracy. upon ‘entering’ the theory, orthodoxy’s premises and assertions are registered and certain strategic contradictions located. these contradictions are hamdard islamicus 57 vol. xxxix, no. 3 then developed according to their own logic, and at some point in this process of internal expansion, the one-sided proclamations of orthodoxy collapse as material instances and their contradictions are allowed to develop ‘naturally`.”3 while identifying the main problem with all kinds of religious discourses, edward said is of the view that these discourses are based on a “non-deconstructable ground of authority.” therefore, a religious discourse “serves as an agent of closure, shutting off human investigation, criticism, and effort in deference to the authority of the more-thanhuman, the supernatural, the otherworldly.”4 the criterion set in this paper for a scholar to be counted as internal is as follows: the scholar has spent considerable time and energies in digesting mawdëdi’s ideology of political islam and has practically contributed to the establishment of an islamic state as understood and formulated by him. the immanent critics then have developed dissent over mawdëdi’s ideological premise, object of analysis and key postulates. an internal discussion and debate have taken place to contest the meaning, structure, fundamental tenets and overall interpretation of content and strategy. the dissident has expressed his views in written text or spoken about in a way that is known to us. the main objective of conducting this research is to solidify and further strengthen the theoretical contribution by talél asad and saba maímood (2009),5 and specifically irfén ahmad (2011).6 the main gest of their academic effort is to invalidate the bold assertion in the western academic tradition that critique is secular and to examine that the tradition of critique is as much internal to islam, as to any other religious or cultural tradition. using asad’s and irfén’s theoretical formulation, this research focuses on a very specific empirical example of religious scholarship in south asia, that of political islam. following irfén, this research also proposes that critique has a central place within contemporary islam. it does so by focusing on the case of mawdudi’s ideology, basic premise and fundamental tenets and then how the immanent critics not only challenged his basic premises but also tried to correct it. the presence and examination of such an internal contestation within political islam questions the validity of a linear, continued, homogenous and non-changing islamic tradition. by bringing even another critical hamdard islamicus 59 vol. xxxix, no. 3 universe, and 5) the historical evidence.13 according to mawdëdi, the prophet (œ) not only reveals the message but also implements it.14 a number of scholars have argued that the islamists’ interpretation “is not a retreat into traditional interpretations but an innovative and original reworking of the canonical texts.”15 to address this issue, one should distinguish between mawdëdi’s hermeneutical approach and his epistemology. in the former, as art and science of interpretation, mawdëdi stood more for independent reasoning and ijtihéd than taqlêd; in the latter, he fell back on traditionalism. mawdëdi’s challenge to the traditional religious authority took many forms. in his writings, he aggressively criticized the static approach and role of ‘ulamé’ and pêrs in society. however, he struck a fierce blow to the traditional authority through his lucid style and “simple language avoiding scholastic terminology and style.”16 modern educated public could now understand religious text and theological debates, once the prerogative of traditional ‘ulamé’. thus, the intellectual monopoly and hegemony of one class was severely threatened. according to nasr, ‘mawdëdi’s significance does not lie in his scholarly contributions per se, but in creating an intellectual medium – in the form of a large number of texts – wherein modern socio-political themes could be discussed and addressed in an islamic context’.17 mawdudi’s ideology of islamic revivalism for mawdëdi, islam exceeds the bounds of mere faith and seeks to change social, political and economic order, invoking “change” of social order as an aim necessitated a hold on power positions and infrastructure of the state. this new conceptualization entailed: 1) introducing new meanings for key islamic notions that distinguishes them from traditional understanding; 2) instituting new relationships between concepts underpinning his political programme, and 3) injecting new energy into the organization of these concepts to equip them for mobilization of the masses. to understand his state-centric vision and political reading of islam, the four conceptual bases of mawdëdi’s ideology/worldview ilah, rabb, ‘ibédah and dên are discussed.18 an understanding of these concepts, says mawdëdi, is important because the central theme of the qur’én is constructed around them. over time, hamdard islamicus 62 vol. xxxix, no. 3 neighbouring region of iraq syria and iran*. the (arabian tribal) society was laden with exploitation, injustices and moral corruption. the first stage consisted of the inauguration of this movement when the prophetic leadership overlooked these partial issues in favour of a “total” and “comprehensive” change. his message touched on the very foundational issue of the system [the refutation of all system (lé) and the affirmation of divine rule on earth (illa allah)]. in this period, the leader, muíammad (œ), demonstrated islamic ideals through his moral excellence and personal character. slowly and gradually, kind-hearted individuals gravitated towards him and joined the nascent movement, and thus inaugurated the second stage of the islamic movement. this phase was full of suffering/agony in terms of pain, hardship, imprisonment, hunger and exile. it proved to be the “training camp of bearing with agonies.”25 muíammad (œ) elevated the holy community from their tribal and racial identities to an islamic identity. the movement proliferated in makkah until the next stage – migration to madinah arrived. after 13 years of struggle at makkah, a holy community of 250-300 individuals was available to establish and run an islamic state. in the fourth stage, the islamic state was formed. the concretization of abstracted islamic ideals was made possible in the fifth stage at madinah when an islamic system evolved. an islamic political, economic, educational and judicial system appeared as a complete system of life.26 finally, in eight years, the boundaries of this nascent islamic state extended beyond madinah to all the arab territories. historically, the contribution made by war in the prophetic struggle is overestimated. in reality, the expansion was the outcome of a bloodless revolution, which claimed 1000-1200 lives only, a relatively small death toll in bringing about such a comprehensive revolution.27 mawdëdi’s conceptualization of the aforementioned terms and the systemic approach accentuated criticism from traditional islamic scholars as well as from his close friends and interlocutors.28 the more technical and methodical critique came from waíiduddên khén, in late 1950s and early 1960s.29 according to khén, “in my view, the interpretation of religion in mawdëdi’s books has deviated from the true religion. although, the ingredients of mawdëdi’s composite explanation of religion are the –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *it may be noted that the arid desert served as a barrier to the persian and romans (byzantine) empires which allowed the nascent islamic movement to successfully confront arabian tribal opposition – ed. hamdard islamicus 63 vol. xxxix, no. 3 same, but the new relationship invoked in them has deformed religion and it [islam] seems an alien thing now’.30 for mawdëdi, the above is the natural way of bringing about a revolution following cause and effect relationship. it was not a supernatural phenomenon. this method, if properly replicated today, can produce the same results. in his lecture at muslim university aligarh,31 mawdëdi rationalized the process of bringing about an islamic government. irrespective of the nature of the government, it is the outcome of the interplay (dialectics) of historical and psychological forces. the mutual coordination of a number of initial prerequisites, societal forces and natural premises contribute to the formation of a specific government. to mawdëdi this process closely resembles the chemical or physical process. the logical result or outcome depends on the premises. mawdëdi considers the desired government an ideological entity, one different from other forms of governments. the world had not experienced mawdëdi’s envisioned state, which was realized by islam [in the city state of madinah]. the nationalist/secular state forms “the other” of mawdëdi’s ideological state, which is rooted in the idea of god’s kingdom. the kingdom of god thus formed would be unique for being governed by a corpus of pious individuals down from the clerical positions to the top brass. the emergence of such an ideal ideological state entails a specific process consisting of “islam as a movement and muslims as a party.”32 only those workers and leaders would qualify for running the movement who are ready to be transformed into specifically tailored individuals. they will propagate this message and a new system of education and training will evolve producing an alternative islamic intellectual leadership consisting of “muslim scientists”, “muslim philosophers”, “muslim historians”, “muslim economists”, “muslim jurists”, and “muslim political scientists”. this new leadership then challenges the prevailing system based on jéhiliyyaí. the ideal moral conduct of this genre would naturally attract pious elements from all around. in this transformed society, the “other” system would find it harder and harder to sustain itself. logically, the system with best preparation, for mawdëdi, will emerge triumphant. it seems that mawdëdi’s envisioned islamization project had a doublefocus: 1) islamization as a political project, and 2) islamization of knowledge as an intellectual project. the latter for tibi is a “civilizational project.” in tibi’s critical reflection, “[t]he islamist strategy combines the hamdard islamicus 64 vol. xxxix, no. 3 ‘islamisation of knowledge’ with the shar‘iétisation of law in its fundamentalist project of a de-westernisation of the islamic world and the world at large.”33 for mawdëdi, the very nature of the islamic sharê‘ah needs power, “by which he meant, capturing the machinery of the modern state.”34 mawdudi juxtaposes his process of islamic revolution with that of the french revolution (1789) inspired by rousseau, voltaire and montesquieu, the russian revolution (1917) motivated by the ideas of karl marx, leadership of lenin and trotsky, and the german social nationalism inspired by hegel, hitler and others. likewise, islamic revolution can become a logical outcome of the pursuance of workers, who exemplify qur’énic ideals.35 “the world is like a train powered by an engine which is fuelled by knowledge, ideas and research. its drivers are intellectuals and researchers. the train and the passengers boarding it are bound to move in the direction in which the drivers want them to. if a passenger is not willing to continue his journey into that direction, he can only turn around inside the train but is unable to change the direction of the journey. the only one way to change the direction of the journey is to control/occupy the engine’s driving seat, and drive it towards the desired course. the people occupying the engine/driving seat currently have gone astray from the path of god and bereft of islamic ideology. consequently, the train is intentionally leading the passengers into the direction of materialism and atheism. it is the time to change the course of the train. some people from among the god-worshippers should stand up and strive to seize the engine from the atheists. unless the driving seat is not captured, we are bound to move in the direction taken by the god-unaware drivers”.36 the above text reveals the following points: 1) knowledge, ideas, thoughts and intellectuals, as the realm of ideas are inextricably linked to political power/structure. in a gramscian sense, there is an “organic link” between the two;37 2) individuals’ agency/change potential is infinitely constrained by the structure; 3) a new realm of ideas through knowledge and research is required to emerge as a counter-hegemony to the existing hamdard islamicus 65 vol. xxxix, no. 3 hegemonies; 4) ultimate change will be the outcome of grabbing both positions (the state structure and the realm of ideas), and 5) islam will lead state and society in an entirely different direction than western materialism. in the above discussion, mawdëdi’s overwhelming emphasis on the state and structural constraints on individual’s capacity to bring about change does not imply that he denied free will and change potential of an individual. on the contrary, mawdëdi belongs to that category of reformers in the sub-continent who, to quote robinson, “heightened ideas of human instrumentality” and emphasised that “knowing means doing.”38 in the same quote above, mawdëdi clarified his position. one of mawdëdi’s important re-conceptualisations of old religious terms is his re-activation of jéhiliyyah – literally “ignorance”. in traditional usage, “the jéhiliyyah referred to the age of ignorance before the revelation of the qur’én to muíammad (œ).”39 mawdëdi employed the term to “refer to forces, which corrupted historic muslim societies, seeing jéhiliyyah as a type of counter-revolution which came to dominate muslim societies”.40 the turbulent history of the jama‘at’s has witnessed expulsions/ resignations of a multitude of activists including intellectual-scholars. mawléné nauménê’s resignation in 1941 was followed by more than 50 scholars-writers-‘ulamé’ from the jama‘at in the 1950s. likewise, mawlana ‘abdul raíêm left the jama‘at in bangladesh and developed his own intellectual trajectory. in the 1990s, a number of activists and ‘ulamé’ opposed the reforms inaugurated by qézê ×usain aímad – the then amêr of the jama‘at – and formed their own “islamic movement” (teírêk-i islémê). dr isrér aímad seceded from the jama‘at in late 1950s and jéved aímad ghamêdê in the 1970s. ghamêdê is closely linked to iîléíê, as he remained under the tutelage of iîléíê. a number of writers/scholars/activists belong to a category that expected a marxist revolution (of creating a society where people enjoy equal status) in mawdudi’s envisioned islamic state. this scholarship was misled by modern terms (such as revolution) liberally employed by mawdëdi to communicate his message. an empirical example of this category is kaukab øiddêq, “a onetime jama‘at stalwart and translator of mawdëdi into english.” according to nasr, mawdëdi did not approve hamdard islamicus 66 vol. xxxix, no. 3 “øiddêq’s openly marxian rendition of his views.” this resulted into øiddêq’s secession from the jama‘at41 another scholar of the faréhê school, waíêduddên khén, developed a critique of mawdëdi’s islamist ideology in his classic “error in interpretation” (t‘abêr kê ghalaïê) in the early 1960s. he left the jama‘at in 1962. khén, who was an activist in indian jama‘at and a member of its central executive, attacked the very basis of mawdëdi’s revivalist thought. the statement “political reading of religion” (dên kê siyésê tashreeí) was first used by khén in his methodical critique of mawdëdi (khén 1995). whereas the jama‘at, its ideology and organisation and its political struggle has received considerable academic attention, the seceding voices and their respective intellectual-social trajectories are often neglected. in what follows, i trace the historical roots of one intellectual trajectory – ghamêdê and his post-islamist thought. beginning with two prominent scholars whose influence on ghamêdê is substantial and defining. internal dissidents and their critique in 1961, a compilation of correspondence between mawdëdi and waíêduddên khén was published. the book named ta‘bêr ki ghalaïê (the erroneous interpretation). for almost two decades the book remained largely unnoticed in the academic scholarship. the book received central focus in pakistan when it was brought to limelight by another religious intellectual who based his critique of political islam mainly on the lines provided in this book. we will be discussing the gist of the critique in the following lines. mawléné waíêddudên khén once a leader of the jama‘at-i-islamii-hind for 16 years posed some serious criticism on mawdëdi’s whole episteme. in a treatise, ta‘bêr kê ghalaïê, he comprehensively dealt with his case against mawdëdi. his explanation of four terms, iléh, ‘ibédat, réb and dên which in the view of waíêddudên khén are the basis of mawdëdi’s episteme are alien in the light of muslim historical scholarship. there is possibility of error in understanding some tenets of religion by the scholars but there is no chance of misunderstanding of the insight of dên by them which mawdëdi claimed in his book.42 according to khén, though mawdëdi’s ideological framework encapsulates all essential parts hamdard islamicus 67 vol. xxxix, no. 3 of religion, still the problem arises due to the misplaced centrality given to an aspect (i.e., the obligation to impose religion through the state). to support his claim, khén refers to several empirical examples from mawdëdi’s works, such as, the obligatory prayers which is an independent act is translated in mawdëdi’s framework as the training process for the muslims for the struggle of establishing god’s rule on earth. thus mawdëdi’s reconceptualization of basic religious terms (such as prayer) and invoking new meaning into it, according to khén, is an attempt to deviate from the mainstream thinking.43 khén also criticized mawdëdi for conceptualizing islam as a “system of life.” for khén, the nature of religion is comprehensive though but it does not implicate that the essence of religion is a system of life. rather this is a relationship between god and his creature.44 mawléné amên aísan iîléíê (1904-1997) once an ardent supporter and second to mawdëdi only in the jama‘at (ji), also dissociated himself on the basis of his dissent over the issue of the authority of the amêr. primarily an exegete, iîléíê joined the ji after its establishment in 1941. he remained with mawdëdi and was also appointed as né’ib amêr (vice president). his importance in the ji can be gauged from his contribution towards religious and spiritual training of the ji activists. iîléíê seceded from the ji in 1958 which was considered as a formidable loss to ji. before his exit from the ji, in 1956, during the maachi goth episode,45 a heated debate took place over ji’s participation or otherwise, in active politics resulting in the resignation of some members and leaders which is considered as the end of ideology in ji by vali raza nasr.46 mawdëdi responded to internal dissents by making bold assertion that the pros and cons of the islamic movement is better understood by the leader than “others”.47 iîléíê then made it a point of discussion and writing in a series of essays appeared in different magazines.48 he evaluated the interpretation of texts, anecdotes and tradition of the holy prophet (œ) cited by mawdëdi for justification of his case. iîléíê asserted that if the gate of changing nature of the sharê‘ah and excuses for setting aside a tenet of islam is once opened by an islamic party due to expediency of the time then there would be no reason to blame the modernists for the same reason.49 iîléíê vehemently opposed mawdëdi and evidently asserted that none is authorized to amend the divine sharê‘ah.50 hamdard islamicus 68 vol. xxxix, no. 3 another point of contestation was mawdëdi’s use of the word “leader” for the prophet muíammad (œ). for iîléíê. deployment of political vocabulary such as “leader”, “party”, “movement,” and “practical wisdom (×ikmat-i ‘amalê)” will transform religion into a child’ play of politics.51 the more recent intellectual development in the above mentioned line of thinking is the one pioneered and inaugurated by a ‘modernist’ scholar jéved aímad ghamêdê. ghamêdê was once an activist in the ji in the 1970s, and a staunch supporter of mawdëdi’s ideology of islamic state. he rose to prominence in the last decade during musharraf era when the newly liberated private television channels aired his interviews and talk shows on various themes relating islam to modern issues. one of the key dissents ghamêdê expounded was his staunch criticism over the use of revivalist vocabulary by the islamists seeking support from islamic sources and islamic history. there are at least two senses in which ghamêdê’s reinterpretation of the prophetic career can be understood. in the very first sense, he might have explored/found a “stable” reference point/referent from where he really thinks mawdëdi has deviated in his interpretation. what is that? in the second sense, ghamêdê like mawdëdi’s political islam has his own intellectual and social scheme the focus of which is a reinterpretation of the prophetic career. ghamêdê strongly asserts that the islamists’ formulation of strategy by imitating the divinely guided life of the prophet (œ) was a grave mistake and clear deviation from the divine rules. this scheme, according to them, is divinely monitored and regulated, allowing no deviation. for ghamêdê, the concept of messengerhood (risélat) is a special status of the messenger (œ) that bestows on him a transcendental mission that ends in conclusive argument and administration of punishment to his opponents and reward for his supporters. this framework is called by ghamêdê as itmém-i ×ujjat (final argument). for ghamêdê, the central theme of the qur’én is a biographical account and the narrative of the prophetic admonition. the messenger (œ) is sent with an additional responsibility to administer his scheme of reward and punishment, which is assumed to be held on the day of judgment. in this capacity, the status of messenger (œ) is an elevated position with extraordinary responsibility. out of many prophets, only about 313 were assigned this divine task to establish divine scheme of hamdard islamicus 69 vol. xxxix, no. 3 reward and punishment on earth. this administration thus becomes an “historical testimony to the truth of the final day of judgment.”52 the established divine practice in this connection is that the messenger (œ) and his fellows will necessarily triumph over his nation in the messenger’s lifetime. he propagates the divine message until it becomes conclusive evidence with no excuse left with the addressees. in order to fulfil this heavy task, the messenger’s career is strictly and thoroughly guided and monitored by divine authority, and he has no liberty to take key decisions at his own discretion. all the stages of his career (preaching, migration, waging war etc) are divinely ordained and he is only to administer this whole scheme. it implies that the messenger (œ) and his fellowmen are divine instruments in this project. this divine scheme is not to be imitated in the contemporary world as is mistakenly done by the revivalists. the islamists have failed to appreciate this divine scheme.53 if compared to mawdëdi’s understanding of the prophetic mission, which was to establish divine kingdom on earth and which accordingly split the prophetic career along organisational stages, ghamêdê categorises them into thematic/conceptual stages. the common notion that encompasses these conceptual constructs is da‘wah and naîêíah. the above re-reading falls in sharp contrast to mawdëdi’s political reading of the prophetic mission. using ghamêdê’s re-reading as framework; a scholar invalidates mawdëdi’s islamist interpretation of the prophetic career in the following words: “muíammad at mecca was reminded time and again that his responsibilities do not exceed admonition … in this whole period, muíammad was not ordained to enforce religion nor enforcement of religion was declared the central aim of the messengerhood …. as a result of “preaching” and only preaching, without any “revolutionary struggle”, the islamic state of medina came into existence … for this “revolution”, muíammad never erected an “organisational structure”; he never established a system of pledging; and never handed over his followers a “strategy” for the enforcement of religion … the revolution that emerged fourteen hundred years ago cannot be an “exemplary strategy” for future revolutions”.54 hamdard islamicus 70 vol. xxxix, no. 3 so by implication of ghamêdê’s thought, the prophetic efforts shall not be imitable for the islamists’ political struggle, which is devoid of appreciation for physical laws as mawdëdi’s assertion was. “the life of the prophet muíammad (œ) and his fellows is not to be used as an example in this case [struggle for islamic revival] because he was obliged to fulfil the prophetic mission as a first order. for this purpose he never established a political organisation. and understandably so, as the messenger is never meant to struggle for a political change, rather, he concentrates on purification of hearts and souls of individuals. his mission is not to become an actor in the “power struggle” but to preach and imbibe the moral principles in politics and economy. in the same vein, if one expects the prophet to be a successful “banker” and “politician,” then he is mistaken. he is an inviter … he doesn’t come up with an “economic program.” he doesn’t bring any revolutionary program … the “caliphs” were not essentially ulama but “political leaders” who were also well-acquainted with religion … if the ulama and religious groups would redirect their energies towards raising collective consciousness through preaching, education and exhortation then none of the current “structures” can stand up to them: neither these status-quo intuitions; nor the us hegemony in the current form.55 leafing through his intellectual biography, ghamidi explains, “my own [intellectual] condition reflected a pantheon of ideas where i sculpted ideas and i worshiped them and then i smashed them down … in 1990, ultimately the ground was ready for laying the foundations of a new building/construct …. i was turning on 40, and had acquired clarity of thought to a greater extent … i am working on my authorial project for the last 17 years now”.56 in short, ghamêdê’s graduation to his current intellectual standing is rooted in constant ruptures and transformations. his dissatisfaction with the existing revivalist approaches and the breakdown of the traditional framework was instrumental in shaping his intellectual development. hamdard islamicus 71 vol. xxxix, no. 3 conclusion talal asad and others have opened an important theoretical debate on islam and the secularity of critique. this paper has narrowly focused on an empirical example of only some of the dissident scholars whose dissent and critique with mainstream islamic scholarship can be analyzed in the light of the immanent critique. as discussed, once close associates and followers of mawdëdi’s revivalist vision, have not only attacked the very foundations of his ideology but have also attempted to come up with an alternative understanding as well. the discussion that how this reinterpretation can lead to some key implications for islamic revivalism in pakistan and elsewhere is beyond the scope of this paper. however what is more evident is the prevalence of a body of scholarship that can be categorized as internal to revivalism, and has been critically engaged with the main ideologues. it is important to note that the criticism raised by khén, iîléíê and ghamêdê have also received critical reflections from internal as well as external circles. for example, in his research, asêf iftikhér (2005: 78-79) divided these critiques into three main categories: 1) those who charge ghamêdê with deviation from consensus position; 2) criticism on “ghamêdê’s interpretations vis-à-vis his arguments”, and 3) criticisms from within (that is, critiques posed by ghamêdê’s current interlocutors and ex-students). for instance, ghamêdê’s reformulation of sources (the distinction between ×adêth and sunnah, refutation of recognising qiyés and ijmé‘ as independent sources) has resented traditional ‘ulamé’ everywhere. rafêq considers ghamêdê an extension of the late 19th century modernist trend pioneered by sir syed ahmad khan and continued by ghulam aímad pervez and others. according to rafiq, ghamêdê is an innovator as well as a denier of ×adêth because these two are concomitant attributes.57 in his criticism, rafêq seems to define diverse intellectual trends in the sub-continent under one homogeneous category – modernism. according to rafêq, this heresy (modernity) has numerous shades: qédiéniyyat, perviziyyat, maghrebiyyat, tajaddud, moderation and enlightened moderation. for him, the following key features constitute modernity (and thus ghamêdê’s thought), “promotion of scepticism and wrong interpretation of the established hamdard islamicus 72 vol. xxxix, no. 3 religious injunctions; denial of the multiple qur’énic readings; refutation of ×adêth and sunnah; conspiracy of changing the true meanings of the religious terms; refutation of ijmé‘; obedience to the government despite having intellectual pride; disrespect for the ulama; the unholy attempt to present western civilisation in islamic terms; denial of veiling for muslim woman; denial of shar’ia penalty for drinkers, and approval of sculptures, music and playing musical instruments”.58 likewise, an ex-fellow of ghamêdê has addressed hermeneutics of post-islamism in critical terms. through empirical examples, anséri has identified the inconsistencies that might erupt due to application of these hermeneutics. for anséri, the emphasis on monovocality of the text and application of naðm theory will lead to another exclusivist interpretation of islam. for him, post-islamists seek to dilute the force of resistance within islam. he labelled this discourse as “survivalist islam.”59 critique is thus not limited to secular-western academic tradition. the practices of critique are as much internal to islamic scholarship as may be to any other academic tradition. there is ample room for future research to study and examine empirical examples and case studies in the light of talél asad’s conceptual framework. a good number of cases could be examined from within the deobandi islam for example. notes and references 1. talél asad et al., is critique secular?: blasphemy, injury and free speech, the townsend papers in the humanities, no. 2, los angeles, university of california press, 2009. 2. for example, see altéf ahamd azmê, iíyé-e-millat awr dênê jamé‘tain, revival of muslim ummah and religious organizations, lahore, dar al-tazkeer, 2002. 3. david l. harvey. “introduction” sociological perspectives, vol. 33, no. 1, spring, 1990. 4. read in darren e. dahl, “criticizing “secular criticism”: reading religion in edward said and kathryn tanner,” studies in religion/sciences religieuses, vol. 31, nos. 3-4 (september 2002), p. 360. hamdard islamicus 73 vol. xxxix, no. 3 05. see talél asad et al. 06. irfan ahmad. “immanent critique and islam: anthropological reflections.” anthropological theory, vol. 11, no. 1 (2011), pp. 107-132. 07. syed abul ‘alé mawdëdi islémi riyésat (the islamic state), lahore, islamic publications, 2000, pp. 268-307. 08. ibid., p. 282. 09. syed abul ‘alé mawdëdi, tanqêíét, lahore, islamic publications, 1939, p. 182. 10. ibid., p. 187. 11. muhammad riyéz kirménê, baîé’ir-i-mawdëdi: tafheemul-qur’én main jadêd ‘ulëm se istifédah (mawdudi’s insights: the use of modern sciences in the tafhimu’l-qur’an), lahore, maktabah-i-ta’mir-i insaniyat, 1988, pp. 29-40. 12. ibid., p. 33. 13. ibid., pp. 18-30. 14. mawdëdi, tanqêíét, p. 187. 15. bobby sayyid, a fundamental fear, zed books, n.p., 1997, p. 11. 16. vali r. nasr, mawdudi and the making of islamic revivalism, usa, oxford university press, 1996, p. 133. 17. ibid. 18. asef iftikhar “jihad and the establishment of islamic global order: a comparative study of the interpretative approaches and worldviews of abu al-a‘la mawdudi and javed ahmad ghamidi.”master’s thesis, mcgill university, montreal, pp. 2324; see also, nasr, 1996, p. 64. 19. syed abul ‘alé mawdëdi, qur’én ki chér bunyédê iîïeléíain: ilah, rab, ‘ibédat awr dên, lahore, islamic publications pvt. ltd., 2000, pp. 6-13. 20. ibid., p. 132. 21. ibid., p. 132; a more systematic organization and politicization of these terms can be seen in mawdëdi, process of islamic revolution, lahore, islamic publication, 1996, pp. 161-200. 22. mawdëdi, islamic revolution, pp. 33-34. 23. ibid., pp. 24-25. 24. see for details, mawdëdi, teírêk-i ózédi-i-hind awr musalmén, vol. 2, lahore, islamic publications, 1996. 25. ibid., p. 183. 26. ibid., pp. 186, 189. 27. ibid., pp. 186-90. 28. moez amjad, manhéj-i inqiléb-i nabawê: aik khudéwandê qénoon say ghalat fahmê (strategy of prophetic revolution: an erroneous understanding of a divine law), lahore, danish sara, 2000; also see altaf azmi, pp. 118133. 29. see wahêduddên khan, ta‘bêr kê ghalaïê (error in interpretation), new delhi, maktaba al-risala, 1995. 30. ibid., p. 21. 31. mawdëdi, “islami ×ukëmat kes ùaraí qéyem hoti hay?” (the process of islamic revolution) in teírêk-i ózédi-i-hind awr musalmén, vol. 2, lahore, islamic publications, 1996, pp. 161-200. 32. irfan, p. 79. hamdard islamicus 74 vol. xxxix, no. 3 33. bassam tibi, islam’s predicament with modernity, new york, routledge, 2009, p. 72. 34. f. robinson, “islamic reform and modernities in south asia,” modern asian studies, vol. 42, nos. 2-3 (2008), p. 276. 35. mawdëdi, islamic revolution, 1996. 36. mawdëdi, tanqêíét, p. 182, pp. 21-22. 37. thomas john butko, “revelation or revolution: a gramscian approach to the rise of political islam,”british journal of middle eastern studies, vol. 31, no. 1 (2004), p. 46. 38. op cit., p. 270. 39. yvonne haddad et al., the contemporary islamic revival: a critical survey and bibliography, usa, greenwood publications group, 1991, p. 27. 40. ibid. 41. nasr, making of islamic revolution, p. 75. 42. mawdëdi, chér bunyédê iîïelaíain, pp. 11-12 43. ibid., pp. 21-22, 258. 45. ibid., p. 140. 44. see for details, abdul rauf, ‘life and works of mawléné amên aísan iîléíê (1904-1997)’, pakistan journal of history and culture, vol. xxx, no.1, 2009, pp. 183-219. 45. sayyed vali reza nasr, the vanguard of the islamic revolution: the jamat-i islami of pakistan, london, i.b. tauris publication, 1994, pp. 40. 46. mawléné amên aísan iîléíê, maqélét-i iîléíê (collection of islahi’s), vol i. edited by khalid masud, lahore, faran foundation, 1991, pp. 86-88. 47. see for details, maqélét-i iîléíê (collection of iîléíê’s), vol. i. 48. ibid., pp. 247-48. 49. ibid., p. 90. 50. ibid., p. 93. 51. see iftikhér, p. 83. 53. see, moez. 54. ibid., p. 36. 55. ghamêdê’s interview with saleem safi, accessed at: http://www.tv-almawrid.org. 56. jéved ahmad ghamêdê, maqémaat, lahore, al-mawrid, 2008, p. 27. 57. shaykh muhammad rafêq, jéved ghamêdê aur inkér-e-×adêth, islamic books library, 2009, p. 10. 58. ibid., p. 9. 59. nédir aqil anséri, “synchronicity of language”, an unpublished paper, 2009. f:\e\islamicus\2016\no.3, 2016\abstract\03-islam, west and.pmd hamdard islamicus 75 vol. xxxix, no. 3 islam, west and constantinople a historical overview of evolution of the ‘turkish model’ in pre-modern age dr. fatima sajjad1 and prof. dr. umbreen javaid 1lecturer, university of management & technology, 128 awaisia society, college road, township, lahore, 2chairperson, department of political science, university of the punjab, lahore, pakistan, e-mail: fatima.sajjad@umt.edu.pk the term ‘turkish model’ became a catch phrase in the western as well as the muslim world following 9/11. during the arab spring, the idea was actively advocated by many in the west and the middle east. turkey as a modern muslim democracy was actively promoted as a ‘model’ for the rest of the muslim world. the land of anatolia owing to its geographical location has served as a bridge across islam and the west divide for centuries. the idea of the turkish model is generally traced back to the late ottoman era which was shaped by the impact of modern europe on the ottoman empire. the current study argues that in order to better understand the historical context of the idea of the turkish model, the relationship between islam, west and anatolia prior to the advent of the modern age must be examined as european modernization itself has been largely shaped by the impact of the muslim world on the west. the study presents an extensive historical overview of islam and the west encounter, their confrontation, cooperation and the historical role of anatolia as a melting pot of the two contending civilizations. keywords: turkish model, civilization, islam, west, confrontation, cooperation. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 2 5 editorial the second issue of 2020’s hamdard islamicus comprises six articles which discuss the relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching, the impacts of begging on human beings, factors influencing the university choice decision of pakistani business students, the role of service quality on the customer satisfaction, effects of halal logo and the perspective of psychological freedom and avoiding freedom. the first article of this issue “relationship of information transfer and conceptual development teaching with learning performance of students at secondary level.” tries to assess the inter-relationship of information transfer and conceptual development ... the most common approach being used in schools. “the effects of begging on human character and its remedy in the light of islamic teachings” is the second article which explores the unwanted and damaging impacts of begging on human character. the third article “factors influencing the university choice decision of business students at higher education level: a case from pakistan” highlights multiple elements which have strong influence regarding the university choice decision in pakistan. the fourth article is “role of service quality dimensions on the customers satisfaction and loyalty towards islamic banks” aiming at analyzing the role of service quality in order to assess the satisfaction and fidelity level of the clients of islamic banking in pakistan. the outcome of the study also serves as a useful guide for the islamic banking industry. “the perspective of psychological freedom and avoiding freedom according to erich fromm” is the fifth article which discusses the concept of freedom and significance thereof in human life. to author, one is unable even to offer prayers without freedom. the last article “islamic perspective in consumer behaviour: effects of halal awareness and halal logo with mediating role of purchasing intention” intends to analyze the connection between halal awareness of the consumers of pakistan and the halal emblem printed on various products. this issue includes an obituary as well. dr. murad wilfried hofmann was a part of the editorial advisory board of the hamdard islamicus since 2009. he always encouraged and guided us academically. editor contents * editorial * genesis of qur’énic exegesis with reference to the companion ibn ‘abbés as its source-critical analysis of harald motzki’s isnéd cum matn analysis of the qur’én xv:90-91 — dr. bilal ahmad * end-of-life medical challenges – some reflections on muslim juridicial discourse – prof. dr. syed sikandar shah haneef and dr. mohammed abbas bin abdul razak * takhayyur – a reform methodology for pakistan — dr. mudasra sabreen * review of divine economics framework — salman ahmed shaikh * trade based transaction in islamic commercial law and their role in the development of the rural agriculture sector in khyber pakhtunkhwa (proposed islamic financing models) — iftikhar hussain and dr. lutfullah saqib 5 7 31 51 67 83 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: dr. ansar zahid khan published by hamdard foundation pakistan, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. telephones:36440184, 36616001-4, 36620945-49 telefax: (92-21) 36611755 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/w.e.f. 1st january, 2017 printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xl july-september 2017 no. 3 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | treason in the context of indonesian criminal law 1 sofian, a, 2 faradila, a, 3 fitriasih, s. 1business law program, law department, faculty of humanities, bina nusantara university. email: asofian@binus.edu 2faculty of law, university of jayabaya, jakarta, indonesia 3faculty of law, universitas indonesia, depok, west java 16424, indonesia abstract: indonesian criminal law addresses treason in its penal code. since the ruling regime frequently uses the penal code articles to criminalize political opponents or members of opposition groups, the articles are interpreted broadly by both prosecutors and courts. this research discusses the construction of indonesian criminal law related to the definition and interpretation of treason used by the courts. a normative juridical approach was applied. it was found that indonesian criminal law does not provide any clear definition of treason. consequently, the courts rely on criminal law experts’ opinions. some criminal law experts interpret treason as an incomplete attempt, while others interpret it as assault. meanwhile, the courts interpret treason as any act intended to take the life of the president or vice president, undermine the government, or separate part of the indonesian territory from the republic of indonesia, including conspiracy to commit one of these offenses. since the courts do not put any limitation on the quality of the act, treason has been broadly interpreted and may even potentially include carrying the flag of a separatist group. in the future, the penal code needs to clarify the definition of treason so that it will not be interpreted too broadly. keywords: assault, attempt, crime against state, indonesian penal code, treason. 1. introduction in indonesia, there has been a long debate over the interpretation of the criminal act of treason, which is treated in the articles of the indonesian penal code. debate over the interpretation of what constitutes treason occurs among not only academicians but also law enforcement and civil society organizations promoting human rights. unfortunately, the penal code articles related to treason are often used by the ruling regime to criminalize political opponents. they are also used to deal with members of separatist movements who intend to separate from indonesia. according to the black law dictionary, treason is the offense of attempting to overthrow the government of the state to which one owes allegiance, either by making war against the state or by materially supporting its enemies (garner, 1999). http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 mailto:asofian@binus.edu hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | the penal code articles related to treason have a broad meaning as they can be interpreted differently by law enforcement and the courts. they are similar to the articles related to subversion found in law no. 11/pnps/1963. since the law can be used to criminalize any group opposing the ruling regime, its enforcement often violates human rights. it is a multipurpose act that does not have lexscripta. yet the spirit of the law is found in some articles related to treason in the indonesian penal code. judges have applied different interpretations of the penal code articles related to treason used by public prosecutors to prosecute defendants in treason cases. in some cases, district courts have convicted defendants based on the articles related to treason, but then the supreme court corrected them. in other cases, when public prosecutors have prosecuted defendants with articles related to treason, district court judges have acquitted the defendants. according to data from the civil society organization aliansi nasional reformasi kuhp, under president soesilo bambangyudhoyono, the courts disproportionately used the penal code articles related to treason. for example, cakalele dancers who hung a republik maluku selatan (rms) flag in front of the president were charged with treason. a similar case occurred in maluku, where people who hung the rms flag in a gold mine on buru island, maluku were convicted of treason (weda & eddyona, 2016, lin, xu & liu, 2017; biabanpeima, 2017). the criminal act of treason is regulated in book ii and chapter 1 of the penal code on crime against state. the inclusion of crime against state in chapter 1 of the penal code shows that it is perceived as the most serious crime. yet, although it is categorized as a serious crime, it is interpreted differently by criminal law experts. in addition to different interpretations of treason, criminal law experts have different interpretations of the elements of treason. therefore, it is important for the constitutional court to clarify the definition of treason and its related elements. based on the description above, this paper will discuss interpretations of treason in court decisions in indonesia and argue that the definition of treason needs to be revised in the indonesian penal code. 2. material and method a normative method was applied in the research. the articles regulating treason in the penal code were studied. in addition, court decisions for those convicted of treason were analyzed. comparative and historical approaches were used to strengthen the analysis. the comparative approach was used to draw a comparison with the formulation of treason in the dutch penal code. then, the historical approach was used to explore the history of the formulation of treason and the history of law no. 11/pnps/1963. http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | 3. legislation on treason according to hamzah, the netherlands is the only european country which, at that time, had an article on treason (aanslag) (hamzah, 2017; raksorn, 2016; abdul et al., 2015). penal codes of other countries generally include articles related to attempt (e.g., attempt to take the life of the king/president). the inclusion of articles on aanslag in the dutch penal code was triggered by the communist revolution in russia in 1918, when tzar nicolas ii and his family were slaughtered by communists. tzar nicolas ii was a relative of the u.k.’s king, who was a relative of the dutch king. since most european countries were kingdoms, the communist revolution in russia caused the ruling kings in europe, including the dutch king, to worry. therefore, the netherlands enacted the law on anti revolution (anti revolutie wet) on july 28, 1920 through staatsblad number 619. aanslag was also used for the first time in the dutch criminal code that year. aanslag is distinguished from poging. there are three elements of poging: intent, commencement of the performance, and incompleteness of the commencement of the performance not merely because of the individual’s will. articles on aanslag were included in the wetbook van strafrecth (wvs) voornedterlands indie in 1930, after the rebellion of the indonesian communist party led by muso. there were no articles on treason (aanslag) in wvs before 1930, but only articles related to attempt (poging) (hamzah, 2017; rayar, & stafford, 1997). in the indonesian penal code, treason is addressed in articles 87, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, and 140. these six articles are found in two different books. article 87 is placed in book i of the criminal code, which contains general provisions or rules. meanwhile, articles 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, and 140 are in book ii, which pertains to crimes. the placement of articles related to treason in two different books indicates that the penal code attempts to provide definitions of treason’s components as stipulated in article 87 (book i of the penal code). although an attempt is made to offer interpretations, the components of treason stipulated in article 87 of the penal code are not sufficiently described, and criminal law experts have developed various doctrines to interpret them. article 87 of the penal code stipulates the following. article 87 an attempt to commit an act exists as soon as the intent of the perpetrator has revealed itself by a commencement of the performance in the sense of article 53. the interpretation of jurisprudence cannot be separated from the philosophical root of hermeneutics. it is the theory and methodology of the interpretation of jurisprudence to find law in a real event (shidarta, 2010). http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | hamzah states that “treason” is the translation of the dutch word aanslag in article 104 of the criminal code, which is a copy of article 92 of the dutch penal code. article 92 of the english version of the dutch penal code, under the title “serious offenses against the security of the state,” stipulates the following. article 92 an attempt made with an object to take the life or liberty of the king, the reigning queen or the regent, or with an object of rendering any of them incapable of reigning, is punished by life imprisonment or a term of imprisonment or not more than twenty years or a fine of the fifth category. here, aanslagis translated as “attempt.” the question is, why? is it difficult to find a more precise wordin english, or is it because there is no aanslagis common law? hamzah says that aanslagis often translated as “attempt on man’s life” in english. according to the black law dictionary, “attempt” means 1. the act or an instance of making and effort to accomplish something, especially without success. 2. an overt act that is done with the intent to commit a crime but that falls short of completing the crime. attempt is an inchoate offense distinct form the attempted crime. under the model penal code, an attempt includes any act that is a substantial step toward commission of a crime, such as enticing, lying in wait for or following the intended victim or unlawfully entering a building where a crime is expected to be committed. williams says, an attempt to commit an indictable offense is itself a crime. every attempt is an act done with intent to commit the offense so attempted. the existence of this ulterior intent of motive is the essence of the attempt… although every attempt is an act done with intent to commit a crime, the converse is not true. every act done with this intent is not an attempt for it may be too remote from a completed offense to give rise to criminal liability, notwithstanding the criminal law purpose of the doer. i may buy matches with intent to burn a haystack and yet be clear of attempted arson; but if i go to the stack and there light one of the matches my intent has developed into a criminal attempt.” meanwhile, turner states, attempt is the most common of the preliminary crimes. it consists of steps taken in furtherance of an indictable offense which the person attempting intends to carry out if he can. as we have seen, there can be a long chain of such steps and it is necessary to have some test by which to decide that the particular link in the chain has been reached at which the crime of http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | attempt has been achieved: that link will represent the actus reus of attempt. (garner, 1999, 137) meanwhile, article 104 of the indonesian penal code stipulates, treason (aanslag) undertaken with intent to deprive the president or vice president of his life or his liberty or to render him unfit to govern, shall be punished by capital punishment of life imprisonment or a maximum imprisonment of twenty years.(soesilo, 1994, 108) lamintang interprets this article by dividing it into two main components: subjective and objective components. subjective component with intent objective component 1. treason (aanslag) 2. or undertaken 3. or to deprive of life 4. or to deprive of liberty 5. or to render unfit to govern 6. president 7. or vice president (lamintang & lamintang, 2010, 6) law experts interpret the components of treason differently. they can be divided into two groups based on their opinion: a. scientists interpreting treason as assault and violence b. scientists interpreting treason as incomplete attempt assault and violence soesilo explains that aanslagmeans assault to deprive the president of his life or liberty or to render him unfit to govern. aanslag is committed with violence and commences with performance (uitvoeringshandelingen). meanwhile, violence is defined as unlawful use of energy or physical power, such as hitting with hands or an object, kicking, etc. the commission of violence is also identified with rendering a person unconsciousness or helplessness. unconsciousness is defined as “not remembering or not being aware of himself or herself.” helplessness means not to having any power or energy or being unable to fight back, such as when someone’s legs or hands are with a rope, he or she is locked in a room, or he or she has been neutralized with an injection of drugs. as explained above, neither the penal code nor other criminal laws give a clear definition of treason or aanslag. lamintang states that the word http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | aanslagis derived from aanval (assault) or misdadigeaanrading (assault with bad intent), and he is not sure which possible derivation is correct. noyon and langemeijer define treason as violence or at least the attempt to commit violence. however, according to them, aanslag should not always be defined as violence because in practice, it sometimes is not preceded by violence. as an example, they mention an act intended to change the political course of the nation that is not preceded by violence. simons states that aanslagis any action taken with intent as described in article 104 of the penal code if it is prohibited under article 104 of the penal code and if it is more than a preparation and has been perceived as thecommencement of an action as stipulated in article 87 of the penal code. 4. incomplete attempt criminal law experts give different interpretations of aanslag. they may define it as an amputated attempt, i.e., omission of the “discontinuation of an act not because of the perpetrator’s intent.” moeljatno states that treason is a part of attempt. however, attempt has three components: “intent,” “commencement of the performance,” and “incompleteness of the commencement of the performance is not the perpetrator’s will” (moeljatno, 1982, p. 13). article 87 is included in book i of the penal code. it contains general provisions and gives the definition of some terms used in book ii and book iii. unfortunately, the general provision in article 87 is not sufficient. why does the penal code relate it to article 53? under article 87 of the penal code, treason has two main components: intent and commencement of the performance. the two components have been interpreted according to various doctrines. therefore, there are similarities between treason and attempt. thus, the interpretation of the commencement of the performance in treason can also be used to interpret the commencement of the performance in attempt. according to moeljatno, treason falls into the attempt category given the following conditions: (1) the defendant’s objective has been fully achieved and (2) if the defendant voluntarily resigns, he or she still can be criminalized. (1) attempting to commit a crime is criminalized if the intent has been seen from commencement of the performance and incompleteness of the commencement of the performance is not merely because of his or her will. intent and deliberateness are interpreted differently. an action is potentially deliberate if it is done with intent. however, if a criminal act has not yet been done, the intent still exists and has a spiritual nature that http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | gives a direction to an act. therefore, intent is not the same as deliberateness. commencement of the performance has three conditions: 1. objectively, what has been done by the defendant must approach the intended offense. or, in other words, it must have the potential to realize the offense. 2. subjectively, from the perspective of intent, what has been done by the defendant must be undoubted and directed to a certain offense. 3. what has been done by the defendant is against the law. commencement of the performance in the article above is interpreted as the commission of a crime and it is incomplete. prodjo dikoro and moeljatno express similar views. they view aanslagor treason as attempt targeting the president or vice president with intent and commencement of the performance. hiariej quotes the translation of treason from a dutch-english dictionary written by boers, a., “treason is translated from aanslag. aanslag is translated as “attempt” in english. therefore, he says that it is incorrect to translate aanslagas treason. instead, it should be translated as an “initial act of an action”” (hiariej, 2016, p. 328). he further says that treason must consider the adagium feloniaimplicatur in quolibetprodione which means that treason is a serious crime. therefore, it is not an attempt that is formulated as a complete or independent offense. instead, it is formulated so because it is related to the security of the state and the safety of the president and vice president and undermines the legitimate government and sovereignty of the state. commencement of the performance, according to memorie van toelichting, must be differentiated from preparation and performance. nevertheless, it is not easy to differentiate them and the matter is therefore left to a judge’s considerations. in this context, moeljatno states that preparation is to gain power and performance is to release the gained power. 5. analysis of court decisions this paper will analyze two court decisions that punished defendants who were found to have conducted criminal acts of treason. the first is the wamena district court decision regarding a group of six people who brought and intended to raise the bintangkejora flag in papua province. the bintangkejora flag (the morning star flag) is the symbol of the papua liberation organization (opm; organisasi papua merdeka), which is a group of people who intend to separate papua from the republic of indonesia and establish their own state. the six defendants intended to raise the flag on the grave of a papua liberation organization member in a small village in the province. however, the plan to raise the flag failed http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | because indonesian military and police personnel arrested them. during the arrest, the officers found a small bintangkejora flag as evidence. it was still rolled up and had not yet been raised on the grave. prosecutors charged them with treason under article 106 of the penal code. below are the components of article 106 juncto point 1 of article 55 of the penal code that were cited by the prosecutors: 1. treason component with an intent to bring the territory of the state wholly or partially into the hand of the enemy or to separate part thereof; 2. component of those who commit, ask to commit, and are involved in the crime. the prosecutors’ interpretation of treason was based on the opinions of two indonesian criminal law experts, wirjono prodjo dikoro and p.a.f. lamintang. wirjono stated that the word “treason” is derived from the dutch aanslag, which means assault. meanwhile, assault was not only interpreted as violence because treason as regulated under article 106 of the penal code was interpreted as any act done to endanger state law and the unity of the state. it was also interpreted as the commencement of performance as regulated under article 87 of the penal code, i.e., intent and commencement of performance. the defendants’ intent was to separate papua province from the republic of indonesia, and the commencement of performance was the act of bringing the flag and a series of other acts that the defendants had previously done, such as attending training and meetings with the leader of opm. prosecutors interpreted these acts as the commencement of performance to separate the province from the republic of indonesia. judges in wamena district court agreed with the general prosecutors’ opinions and found that the defendants had jointly conducted a criminal act of treason under article 106 of the penal code to separate papua province from the republic of indonesia. the defendants were each sentenced to eight years imprisonment. unfortunately, neither the defendants nor their lawyers appealed to a higher court. as the court decision above shows, the criminal act of treason was broadly interpreted by both prosecutors and judges, especially the interpretation of “commencement of performance.” the judges did not assess its quality in terms of whether or not it logically had the capacity to separate papua province from the republic of indonesia. they thought that the act of bringing bintang kejora flag to the grave had the potential to separate the province from the republic of indonesia even though the defendants had not bring any weapons with them when they intended to raise the flag on the grave and no violence had occurred. therefore, we argue that the judges applied a poor interpretation of the commencement of performance because the interpretation was only based on lamintang’s opinions, which they quoted from his book. the prosecutors and judges should have also considered other criminal law experts’ opinions to arrive at a better http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | interpretation. moreover, the court failed to present an expert witness who could give an interpretation of the components of commencement of performance in this case. if the court had been able to present an expert witness or other expert, the interpretation of “commencement of performance” would have been stronger. the act of bringing a flag should not constitute a commencement of performance because it did not have the quality to separate the province from the republic of indonesia. the second case also occurred in papua. the defendant, obaja kemesrar, was one of the district commanders of opm in salawati, sorong. he was invited by isakkalaibin, the military district commander ii of opm in sorong raja ampat, to attend a meeting. the aim of the meeting was to discuss their plan to raise the bintangkejora flag at the celebration of the opm proclamation. to attend the flag raising ceremony, kemesrarprepared two bows made of wood, 14 arrows made of bamboo, a military uniform, and a pair of boots produced by the indonesian military. the flag raising ceremony was intended to proclaim the independence of the republic of west papua. therefore, prosecutors charged kemesrar with conspiracy to separate parts of the indonesian territory from the republic of indonesia and to establish an independent state. he was charged under paragraph 2 of article 110 juncto article 106 of the penal code. the sorong district court stated that the defendant had legitimately and convincingly conducted the criminal act of conspiracy to commit treason, and it sentenced him to one year and six months imprisonment (decision number: 114/pid.b/2013/pn/srg). the charge and the court decision above show that the criminal act of conspiracy to commit treason was also broadly interpreted by both prosecutors and courts. conspiracy is a crime to commit the criminal act of treason, and it is treated under articles 106, 107, 108, and 110 of the penal code. in this case, the definition of conspiracy was broadly interpreted by both prosecutors and the court because the defendant only met and discussed something with some people who planned to raise the bintangkejora flag. the court perceived this as a conspiracy to separate west papua from the republic of indonesia and to establish an independent state, papua merdeka. they thought that the defendant’s act had the potential to establish an independent state. article 110 of the penal code does not give any interpretation of what constitutes a conspiracy. the interpretation of conspiracy is regulated in article 88 of the penal code. the article stipulates that a conspiracy exists as soon as two or more persons agree to commit a crime. although the defendant and some other people had agreed to raise the bintangkejora flag, he was arrested before committing the act. http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | raising the bintangkejora flag as a conspiracy was perceived as a criminal act of treason to separate part of the area from the republic of indonesia. the court interpreted the act of separating the area as treason without assessing the quality of the defendant’s actions. it was unreasonable to say that planning to raise the bintangkejora flag was an act that could separate the area from the republic of indonesia, especially since only a small number of people planned to commit the act while equipping themselves with bows and arrows—yet, the court gave this broad interpretation. further, under the penal code, raising a certain organization flag is not a crime. therefore, there must be another legal basis for the prohibition of the act. 6. conclusion as the discussions above show, the legal construction of treason is too broad. therefore, it must be returned to its original legal form, i.e., “attempt” that removes the third component. accordingly, the components of treason consist of (1) intent, (2) commencement of performance, and (3) to deprive the president or vice president of his life or liberty or to render him unfit to govern. it should be noted that commencement of the performance must contain violence or an act that makes the president or vice president powerless. this definition is aimed to prevent an interpretation of treason that is too broad. if treason is interpreted as an “assault,” the three elements must exist. therefore, aanslag(treason) is an offense that has two elements: intent and commencement of the performance. meanwhile, attempt as stipulated in article 53 of the penal code has three elements: intent, commencement of the performance, and incompleteness of the commencement of the performance is not merely because of the individual’s will. although the interpretation of treason as stipulated in article 87 of the penal code is not yet satisfactory, it at least has a given juridical basis. article 87 is included in book i of the penal code. it contains general provisions which describe the basis or principles of norms. book i does not concern offenses that merit criminal punishment but explains some offenses. additionally, it can be concluded that the courts have used a too broad interpretation of treason in cases where a defendant’s actions had no quality to undermine the legitimate government or separate parts of the indonesian territory from the republic of indonesia to establish an independent state. therefore, it is recommended that laws be enacted to place limitations to what acts constitute treason. one of the criteria is that the act must contain clear elements that can be categorized as treason. for example, if an act is aimed at separating part of the indonesian territory from the republic of indonesia, it must have the quality to do so. this quality can be assessed based on various factors such as the number of people involved in the act, the weapons they use, number of trained http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 hamdardislamicus, vol.43 no.s-2 (2020), 729 739 http://hamdardislamic us.com.pk/journal/ind ex.php/hamdardislami p a g e | military personnel, etc. setting such criteria is important for legal certainty and to enable the courts to identify whether an act is an ordinary crime or a crime against the state. the quality of an act considered in terms of whether or not it can threaten the security of the state can be an important indicator for deciding whether the act can be categorized as criminal treason. references garner, b.a. (1999). black’s law dictionary. eight edition, united states: thomson. hamzah, a. (2017). wrongly defining treason “(aanslag)”/mengartikan “makar” (aanslag) secarakeliru. accessed on: january 25, 2017. hiariej, e.o.s. (2016). principles of criminal law/prinsip-prinsiphukumpidana. yogyakarta: cahayaatmapustaka. lamintang, p.a.f., &lamintang, t. (2010). crime against the interests of state law /kejahatanterhadapkepentinganhukum negara, jakarta: sinargrafika. moeljatno. (1982). attempt offenses/delik-delikpercobaan. yogyakarta: fak. hukum ugm. rayar, l. & stafford, w. (1997). the dutch penal code, the american series of foreign penal codes (united states of america: rothman and co. shidarta. (2010). legal reasoning and reasoning law/penalaranhukumdanhukumpenalaran. yogyakarta: genta publishing. soesilo, r. (1994). the penal code and its comments/kitabundang undanghukumpidanasertakomentar-komentarnya. bogor: poleteia. supreme court decision number 38/pid.b/2011/pn.wmn/putusanmahkamahagung no. 38/pid.b/2011/pn.wmn weda, m. d., & supriyadi, w. e. (2016). the criminal act of treason in the draft of the penal code/tindak pidana makar dalam rancangan kuhp. jakarta, aliansi nasional reformasi kuhp dan elsam). lin, f., xu, l. z., & liu, y.t. (2017). study on app design of assisting new immigrant women with healthcare communication. journal of management practices, humanities and social sciences,1(1), 18-23. biabanpeima, m. (2017). the centers of crisis in the levant region: the golan heights. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 2(4): 264-269 raksorn, w. (2016). the role of russia, china, iran and their foreign policies towards syria on the arab spring. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(4), 204-220. abdul, h. n., hasmi, m., peck leong, t., masria, m., & rohana, s. (2015). towards predicting the walkability of pedestrian rail commuters in kuala lumpur conurbation. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 1(2), 48-61. http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 http://hamdardislamicus.com.pk/journal/index.php/hamdardislamicus/article/view/128 f:\e\islamicus\2016\no.4, 2016\06-starting pages.pmd hamdard islamicus 5 vol. xxxix, no. 4 editorial the current issue presents three research based articles, a book review and obituary. prof. dr. thameem ushama (malaysia) has thoroughly discussed the takfêrê problem faced by the muslim states in the current period in his article “radical muslim fringe groups’ recourse to takfêr (accusing muslims of infidelity): a critique”. the article also provides a way-out of this grave crisis. dr. nasim razi (pakistan) has compared and discussed the islamic law and common law in her article “islamic law vis-à-vis common law: a historical analysis in terms of rigidity and flexibility”. from nigeria dr. abdus-sami’i imam arikewuyo has discussed in detail the inter-faith clashes and their impact in his article “implications of ethno-religious conflicts and inter-group relations in nigeria on national development: a panacea from islam”. a book review is also a part of this issue. an obituary on the sad demise of prof. iqtidar husain siddiqui is included as well. editor-in-chief hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 1 5 editorial the first issue of the hamdard islamicus for ongoing year, a.d. 2020, is composed of five research articles which will discuss the contemporary western scholastic approaches regarding the holy qur’én, islamic stance regarding surrogacy, the approach of four guided caliphs of islam and some financial issues discussed in the light of islamic teachings. the first article namely “a study of the contemporary western academic approaches to the history of the qur’én: the case of the encyclopaedia of the qur’én” deals with the approach followed by contemporary western scholarship in determining the history of the qur’énic text .... a pivotal point of the western studies regarding the holy qur’én. “a hebrew-skopos approach to translating muqaïï’aét in the qur’énic oaths” is the title of the second article which aims at interpreting the muqaïï’aét by using skopos theory .... a niche theory in the field of translation study as against the conventional approach adopted by different exegeses of the glorious qur’én. the author of the third article entitled “islamic viewpoint on surrogacy with the second wife” explores the possibility of the application of surrogacy a medical process involving “in vitro fertilization” (ivf) by means of which a woman unable to gestate an embryo is made to conceive. muslim jurists are divided on this issue, according to the article. however, the authors of this sui generis article not only analyze various stand points of muslims jurists but also endeavour to elaborate the islamic stance on the possibility of the surrogacy with the second spouse. the title of the fourth article is “khulafé-e-réshidên and the prosperity of the religious minorities” that vigorously investigates the status of minorities under the reign of khulafé-e-réshidên. the last article of this issue is entitled “the funding liquidity risk and bank risk: a review of the islamic and conventional banks in pakistan.” as the title of the article testifies, it is aimed at exploring the relationship between funding liquidity risk and bank risk regarding islamic and traditional banks in pakistan. this issue includes an index of articles published in the journal during 2019. editor-in-chief hamdard islamicus 97 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 qualification of ijtihód in present era dr. sajila kausar assistant professor & sub-editor research journal uloom-e-islamia, department of islamic studies, the islamia university of bahawalpur, punjab, pakistan. email: sajilakousor@yahoo.com allah al-mighty sent the human beings in this universe with a complete code of guidance in the form of the qur’én and sunnah of the prophet (œ). both these sources guide different fields of life principally. the commandments of the qur’én and sunnah are unchangeable. no one can ignore them, but the problems of life are endless. and solution of all these problems cannot be presented in a single book. so, the shar‘êah has introduced the principle of ijtihéd to resolve all these issues. ijtihéd is not to create something new in religion rather it is to tell the point of view of religion about the newly born problems. but it should also be kept in mind that to perform ijtihéd there are certain terms and conditions, which if not fulfilled will spoil the concept of ijtihéd. these terms and conditions have been discussed and modified time to time. the former scholars of islam have a detailed discussion on this topic. the scholars of present era also have focused on this topic and have presented its requirements in the current era which are going to be discussed in the coming lines. keywords: ijtihad, mujtahid-i-mutlaq, present era. introduction of ijtihéd ijtihéd is an arabic word. it is derived from the root word jahd which literally means: strain or great effort.1 the verb jahéda or ijtahéda literally means: to exert oneself or do one’s best, and is generally used in an activity which entails a measure of hardship. thus, it would be in order to use it in respect of one who carries a heavy load, but not so if he carries only a trivial weight.2 the word ijtihéd is a noun, and literally hamdard islamicus 98 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 it means: exertion or putting in the greatest effort possible to achieve something.3 technically, ijtihéd is defined as: “the total expenditure of effort made by a jurist in order to infer, with a degree of probability the rules of sharê‘ah from their detailed evidence in the sources”4 it is also defined as: “the application by a jurist of all his faculties either in inferring the rules of shar‘êah from their sources or in implementing such rules and applying them to particular issues”.5 the above definition of ijtihéd in its technical sense is explicit on the point that only a jurist (faqêh) may practice ijtihéd. thus, the definition “precludes self-exertion by a layman in the inference of a ruling”.6 from all what has been said, we can see clearly that the word ijtihéd literally means exertion, and that from this literal meaning of the word, the scholars of uîël al-fiqh borrowed that word and used it for the exertion by a jurist of the greatest intellectual effort possible to arrive at the correct conclusion in the light of judgment of allah and his apostle, muíammad (œ) in any given problem. when a problem emerges, it requires much intellectual effort to gather all the relevant texts of the qur’én and ×adêth that may have direct or indirect bearing on the issue. and then, making a correct interpretation of these texts equally requires much effort. equally demanding is the problem of considering other texts with negative implications. therefore, arriving at the true judgment of allah and his prophet (œ) on any given problem is actually ijtihéd. qualification of ijtihéd ijtihéd is a very sacred and mandatory responsibility of the intellectuals of the muslim ummah. the qualification of these scholars must be clear and elaborated. in the coming lines the qualification and capability of a mujtahid is going to be discussed in the light of opinions of the jurists of present era. it will also be highlighted that who can be capable of this important duty today. but prior to it, it is necessary to discuss the proof of qualification of ijtihéd from the qur’én and sunnah. proof of qualification of ijtihéd from the qur’én and sunnah there are a number of verses of the qur’én which prove the status and qualification of a mujtahid and highlight its need in each era for the hamdard islamicus 99 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 guidance of people. and this process of guidance will remain continued till the day of judgement. for example it is said by allah al-mighty: “ask the followers of the remembrance if ye know not!”.7 this verse demands the continuation of ijtihéd and presence of mujtahid in each era. it is actually the demand of the shar‘êah. the qur’én advises the knowledgeable people to strive to approach reality through ijtihéd: “and if any tidings, whether of safety or fear, come unto them, they noise it abroad, whereas if they has referred it to the messenger (œ) and to such of them as are in authority, those among them who are able to think out the matter would have known it”.8 in this verse warning is given that it is being the tactic of enemy to spread rumours about peace and war and then achieve his target. so masses should be careful enough not to participate in spreading these rumours rather be responsible and convey them to authorities. so that the people with an ability of derivation can judge the situation and react in an accurate direction. it is also a mode of ijtihéd and the person having abilities of a mujtahid can perform it. in another verse it is ordered; “o ye who believe! obey allah, and obey the messenger and those of you who are in authority; and if ye have a dispute concerning any matter, refer it to allah and the messenger if ye are (in truth) believers in allah and the last day. that is better and more seemly in the end”.9 in this verse, muslims are ordered to refer the disputed matter among them to allah and his apostle (œ) i.e. consult the book of allah and sunnah of his prophet (œ) as these are the original and fundamental sources. a situation of conflict can emerge only when there is no any explicit text of the qur’én or sunnah in that matter. if it happens, it is the responsibility of the intellectuals to present the solution in the light of fundamental principles of the qur’én and sunnah. precedents are also there in the qur’én and sunnah and rules and regulations as well. think over them and solve the problems through ijtihéd. another verse also stresses upon the use of mental faculties; “so learn a lesson, o ye who have eyes!”.10 the background of this verse hints towards the disagreement of a group of jews (banë naìêr) with the prophet (œ) and were expelled from madinah due to their disagreement. it is also the mode of derivation to take results from precedents. so the historical events and stories of ups and downs of nations should not be taken only as stories, but rather hamdard islamicus 100 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 as guidance from them, and prevent one to repeat those evils. rather adopt those values which strengthened the nations. it is the duty of mujtahids and intellectuals to highlight the actual reasons and factors, evaluate them, and utilize the derivation and demonstration to accept the interpretations. the following saying of the prophet (œ) explains the status of a faqêh; “if god favours one of his creatures, he bestows on him the understanding of dên (makes him a faqêh)”.11 some people among these with understanding of dên achieve the prominent status due to their extensive knowledge, wisdom and intellect. they have a good ability of derivation and demonstration. in the terminology of shar‘êah they are called mujtahidên. on the basis of their knowledge and abilities of derivation, they can resolve the problems of any era, in light of teachings of the qur’én and sunnah. although struggle for knowledge is obligatory for each individual, but it is compulsory for those who have to lead the ummah and beware them from the ignorance. the qur’én declares in the sërah al-‘ankabët; “as for those who strive in us, we surely guide them to our paths, and lo! allah is with the good.12 it is interesting that in this verse the word our paths is used in plural form, which can also mean that there are different paths to approach a truth, and they are open to all those who struggle and makes efforts. in another íadêth the prophet (œ) said; “do struggle and ijtihéd, and everyone is bound to fulfill the purpose of his creation”.13 two other narrations can also be quoted in this regard; one of them makes it compulsory to demand knowledge for every muslim men and women. the prophet (œ) said; “to seek knowledge is obligatory for each muslim man and woman” and in an other íadêth, scholars (‘ulamé’) are considered the heirs of the prophets ( )”.14 the link of ijtihéd with later two narrations requires that ijtihéd is the central tool of knowledge and creativity in islam. all the above quoted verses of the qur’an and aíadêth of the prophet (œ) points towards the existence of knowledgeable people in each era for the guidance of ummah. they are duty bound to derive the rulings from qur’én and sunnah as per requirements of the era. but who are those intellectuals? what is the criterion of their qualification? in the coming lines, we have discussed the criteria from the point of view of the scholars of present era. hamdard islamicus 101 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 capability of ijtihéd ... opinion of the fuqahé’ (jurists) of the present era opinion of wahbah al-zuhaili among the jurists (fuqahé’) of the present era, wahbah al-zuhaili15 is a prominent figure. he has a detailed discussion on the conditions of mujtahid in his book uîël al-fiqh al-islémê. he has described eight conditions for a mujtahid. the first condition is that a mujtahid should have an understanding of verses of the aíkém described in the qur’én, their literal and terminological meaning. it is not compulsory for him to memorize all the verses of the aíkém, nor to memorize the whole qur’én, rather it is enough to have an understanding that which are the verses of the aíkém and from which sërah they are linked, so that he can consult them whenever needed. wahbah al-zuhaili seems to agree with the opinion of imém al-shaukénê that the knowledge of a mujtahid should not be limited to the verses of aíkém only “which are five hundred in number according to imém al-ghazélê, imém al-rézê and ibn al-arabê. the important thing for a mujtahid is to have a proper understanding of the qur’én and an ability of derivation of commands (along with a keen observation of verses) so that he can derive even from the verses containing qaîaî and amthél. the second condition is to have a deep understanding of narrations of aíkém. not only the understanding of their literal meaning, rather he should have a proper concept of commands of the sharê‘ah described in the text of a íadêth. it is also not compulsory, that a mujtahid should memorize all the narrations of aíkém; rather it is enough to have the ability to consult them whenever required. according to ibn al-‘arabê, the number of aíédêth of aíkém is three hundred and according to imém aímad ibn ×anbal, the number of narrations containing fundamental principles of guidance and providing basis of the science of sunnah are almost twelve hundred. according to wahbah al-zuhaili, this limitation is not appreciable; there is a large number of narrations of aíkém which are dispersed in collections of aíédêth (narrations). according to imém al-shaukénê, mujtahid should be familiar with the famous collections of hamdard islamicus 102 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 aíédêth (narrations). he should be aware of the books being arranged and compiled by the experts on the science of íadêth, for example sihéí-e-siïïah (six most accurate books of íadêth) and their concerned books as, sunan al-baihaqi, dér quïnê, sunan al-darimi etc. in the same way, the books of compilers who have maintained the authenticity of narrations (øiíat-e-riwéyat) for example, øaíêí ibn al-khuzaimah, øaíêí ibn ×abbén, øaíêí ×akêm neshépuri etc. it is necessary to be familiar with these usual collections of aíédêth; otherwise it might be possible that a mujtahid will be performing qiyés in the presence of íadêth. about íadêth, it is also compulsory to be aware of its sanad (chain of narrators) along with its matan (text), so that the status of íadêth should also be known to the mujtahid. the knowledge of nésikh and mansëkh (abrogation) of the qur’én and íadêth is mentioned as a third condition. any verse of the qur’én and íadêth (of proper status) which the mujtahid is being quoting as his argument, should be clear, whether its authority is continued or it has been abolished by any other verse or narration. the fourth condition is to have an awareness of the matters, on which ijmé‘ (consensus of opinion) has been held. he also should be aware of the places of ijmé‘, so that he should not present his opinion against it. it is not necessary that a mujtahid should consider all the issues on which ijmé‘ has been held, rather about specific issue on which he is going to present his opinion or fatwé (legal opinion). at least he should be aware that his opinion or fatwé is not against the ijmé‘. the fifth condition is that a mujtahid should be aware of the modes, methodologies and conditions of qiyés, has an understanding of reasons of divine orders and the modes of derivation from the text. he also should have understanding of needs and convenience of people. the principles and rules of sharê‘ah should be known to him. the sixth condition is that a mujtahid should have a full command over arabic language and its concerned sciences. it is necessary, as the language of both qur’én and sunnah is arabic, which is very wide ranged in scope. for derivation of commands from the qur’én and sunnah, it is necessary for mujtahid to have a grip over all the details, technical aspects and lingual complications of arabic language. it is not necessary to have a complete mastery of each science; rather it is enough to have an understanding of these sciences and the ability to hamdard islamicus 103 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 consult their concerned books. in this regard the book of imém al-réghib al-asfahénê mufradét al-qur’én and the book of ibn al-athêr al-nihéyah fi gharêb al-×adêth wa al-óthér are important. the seventh condition is the understanding of jurisprudence, as ijtihéd is based upon this science. in jurisprudence, discussion is performed on detailed arguments and arguments are supported by the order regarding a specific situation, so it is compulsory to understand that specific situation. for example; to know that whether the situation is of amar (order) or nahê (negation) is there ‘umoom (generality) in it or khuîëî (specification) etc. at the time of derivation, the understanding and the “order” (íukm) of each situation is necessary. to know these all, it is compulsory to have a complete command over the science of jurisprudence. the eighth condition is to have an understanding of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah (objectives of sharê‘ah). whenever, a mujtahid is going to perform ijtihéd; he must consider the maqéîid al-sharê‘ah for the derivation of divine orders. as the understanding of text and its implementation on issues and incidents depends upon maqéîid al-sharê‘ah. the understanding of secrets of sharê‘ah, its philosophy and general aims is much necessary for law making and derivation of commandments. because, sometimes the words of the text are containing more than one meaning. out of these extensive options, the preferable is one which is more in accordance with the objectives of sharê‘ah. in case of controversy of arguments, the argument nearest to sharê‘ah is preferred.16 wahbah al-zuhaili has described the qualification of mujtahid in detail. along with the thorough knowledge of qur’én, íadêth and arabic language, he has special focus on the understanding of objectives of sharê‘ah, principles of jurisprudence and methods of qiyés, as per the requirements of present era. moreover, the knowledge of abrogation of qur’énic sërahs and sunnah and a complete grip of ijmé‘ and qiyés is given priority over arabic language. among the scholars of present era, the opinion of wahbah al-zuhaili and shéh walê allah about the qualification of a mujtahid has much resemblance except one major contradiction that wahbah al-zuhaili considers it compulsory for a mujtahid to know the jurisprudence, whereas, shéh walê allah did regard it as necessary. i think the opinion of wahbah al-zuhaili has more weightage as it is the knowledge of jurisprudence hamdard islamicus 104 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 which bewares different modes of ijtihéd and their details which develop the true subject competency in a mujtahid. opinion of yësuf al-qardévi17 and abd al-méjid al-susuah some present jurists (fuqahé’) have especially considered the awareness of circumstances of society, taste and culture of people. for example, discussing the ability and capacity of mujtahid, yësuf al-qardévi has set this topic ma‘rifat al-nés wa al-×ayét i.e. mujtahid should have an understanding of the trends of people of his era, their nature and the way of life, their customs and usages and the collective circumstances, as well as the problems of life. yësuf al-qardévi has placed this condition at seventh number in the conditions of necessary for a mujtahid.18 another jurist (faqêh) of present era, ‘abd al-méjid muíammad al-susuah also has considered compulsory the above mentioned condition. he has set this topic: ma‘rifat aíwél al-‘asrê i.e. circumstances of present era, the trends of people, their habits, customs and usages.19 the concept of both the above mentioned jurists about the consideration of circumstances and era is taken from ibn al-qayyim. he has described this condition for muftês and rulers in i‘lém al-muwaqqi‘ên, because any legal order or fatwé (legal opinion) is being deeply concerned with the on going period, natures and habits of people, culture and civilization. therefore, if any change occurs in the period, habits and circumstances, the legal order or fatwé will also be changed.20 if a mujtahid is unfamiliar with the circumstances and thoughts of his period, it will be difficult for him to form an accurate opinion about the under discussion matter. as a mujtahid-fih (addressable issue of ijtihéd) is an important element of ijtihéd and is strongly linked with the period, society and circumstances. therefore, a mujtahid should know the thorough background of the under observation matter. he should also know the background factors and reasons which have created the problem. actually a mujtahid is like a consultant physician. as an expert physician suggests the treatment after diagnosing the disease, in the same way a mujtahid presents the solution after a complete observation of the actual problem of the disputing individuals and society. and as an honest physician does not allow his deeds to hinder during treatment, rather treats taking hamdard islamicus 105 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 guidance from the principles of medical science, in the same way, the mujtahid presents the point of view of sharê‘ah, very honestly. he presents the solution of problems with arguments taken from fundamental principles of sharê‘ah. as that physician cannot be successful which is expert only of medical science, but has not any knowledge of the personality of patient, his temperament, psychology and family history. in the same way, the opinion of the mujtahid will not be applicable, which only has a command of the science of revelation but is unaware of the social circumstances of his period, culture and civilization, customs and traditions. opinion of shéh walê allah according to shéh walê allah,21 it is conditional for a mujtahid that the matters in which he is intending to perform ijtihéd should be fully aware of the rulings of the qur’én and sunnah (about those issues). he should also know the issues in which ijmé‘ has been held. well aware of the conditions of accurate qiyés, he also should not be ignorant of the principles and cases, by collaborating and arranging them then only ijtihéd can be performed. he should also have a full command over arabic language. also have knowledge of nésikh and mansëkh (abrogation) of the qur’én. beware of biographies of narrators as well. however, ‘ilm-ul-kalém (philosophy) and jurisprudence (principles of law) are not required for an ijtihéd.22 as it has been explained earlier that shéh walê allah and wahbah al-zuhaili have described almost the same profile for a mujtahid. along with the deep understanding of qur’én, sunnah and arabic language, the knowledge of ijmé‘, qiyés and abrogation is also emphasized by both scholars. however, according to shéh walê allah, the science of jurisprudence is not required for a mujtahid, whereas, wahbah al-zuhaili has set it as a necessary condition. although shéh walê allah does not consider it necessary for a mujtahid to know the jurisprudence, but his insistence on a thorough analysis of qualification of a mujtahid shows that besides ijmé‘ and qiyés, he also considers it necessary to know those principles and incidents, collaborating which, the process of ijtihéd is accomplished. indirectly, these are the things which are discussed in jurisprudence. hamdard islamicus 106 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 along with jurisprudence, shéh walê allah has mentioned another science not required for a mujtahid, which is ‘ilm al-kalém, as the basic topics of ijtihéd are the issues of practical life, so shéh walê allah wishes to keep the mujtahid in touch with the practical life and away from the philosophical complications. opinion of ‘allémah subíê mahmaîénê according to ‘allémah subíê mahmaîénê,23 everyone is not capable to perform ijtihéd; rather it is compulsory to have a specific ability which enables a mujtahid to perform the duty of derivation of commandments properly. therefore it is the condition for a mujtahid that he should develop and had an accurate opinion. he also should be an intellectual, justice loving, with a pious conduct, having a perfect wisdom to understand commandments i.e. a complete awareness of the modes of derivation and legal arguments, along with, a thorough grip over language (arabic language). he should possess a complete know how of the commentaries of the qur’én, factors of revelation (asbéb al-nuzël), biographies of narrators, methods of jaraí wa al-ta‘dêl (criticism) and the reality of nésikh wa al-mansëkh (abrogation). he further said that shaïibi has added one more condition that a mujtahid should have complete ability to understand the objectives of sharê‘ah. he also explained that all the above mentioned conditions are compulsory for a mujtahid-i muïlaq (unrestricted mujtahid), whose goal is to perform ijtihéd in all the matters of fiqh. these are not compulsory for mujtahidin of other types. so it is enough for a mujtahid who has to perform ijtihéd in any specific matter, that he should be properly aware of the arguments and results of that focused matter.24 the opinion of ‘allémah subíê mahmaîénê about qualification of a mujtahid is very important as per the requirements of present era, as generally the conditions and qualifications described for ijtihéd seems impossible to be gathered in an individual in this era of specialization. every field of life has developed its numerous sub branches, and it has become impossible for a person to grasp all these sciences. so, the concept of tajazi-e ijtihéd (division of ijtihéd) can be the only practical hamdard islamicus 107 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 form of ijtihéd today, which ‘allamah subíê has given in the later part of his opinion. this concept of ijtihéd was initiated by imém ghazélê (505 a.h.) and later on was favored by various scholars like ibn qudémah, imém shaïibi, ibn al-humém etc. through this method, the opinion of any scholar about his field of specialization will be regarded as his ijtihéd in that specific matter. this is the only practical and acceptable method of ijtihéd in the present era. opinion of ‘allama muíammad iqbél ‘allama iqbél in his sixth lecture “the principle of movement in the structure of islam” amongst his seven very important lectures entitled the re-construction of religious thought in islam published in 1930, highlights various aspects of ijtihéd. he has not discussed the conditions of ijtihéd but has hinted towards this issue in these words “although this category of ijtihéd (i.e. ijtihéd-e muïlaq)” is accepted theoretically by ahl-e-sunnah, but practically it has been rejected forever after the establishment of madhéhib al-fiqh (schools of thought) by raising the barriers of conditions around the concept of ijtihéd-e muïlaq (unconditional ijtihéd), which are almost impossible to attain by an individual.25 iqbal has not analyzed the conditions of ijtihéd, otherwise he may not have considered them impossible, however as according to him, it is not possible to have all the conditions in an individual, it is necessary that ijtihéd should be collective instead of individualistic and one of its form can be a law of the legislative assembly. so it was his suggestion that; “ulama (scholars) must be a part of the muslim legislative assemblies, so that they can help and guide the open discussion regarding the questions of law”.26 but considering the political and social circumstances of that era and practical complications of this method, ‘allamah favored that method, which he considered much dangerous for islam and recommends it to be adopted temporarily. he said; “i recommend constituting a committee of ‘ulamé and muslim jurists hamdard islamicus 108 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 (law makers) should also be a part of it, which has studied the modern principles of law. its purpose is the safety and extension of the islamic law and if needed, its reconstruction in the light of modern circumstances. that spirit will be attained, which is present in the fundamental principles of islamic law. it is compulsory that this committee has a constitutional safety, so that no bill can be presented in the assembly regarding muslim personal laws until it has not gone through this committee.27 ‘allama has also raised questions about the expected activity of ijtihéd of this assembly. the first question is that surely in the assembly, there will be members who don’t have proper knowledge of islamic law, and then what will be its solution? he recommends this solution that the members of the assembly should be properly trained and necessary amendments should be done in the present system of law education.*28 the second question is that surely there will be non-muslim members in this assembly. whether the membership of assembly will be restricted to only muslim members or those non-muslims can also be included in the activity of ijtihéd? ‘allamah has not any proper answer of this question. he said; however, in india there is a chance of problems, as it is suspected whether the non-muslim members can be given the authority of ijtihéd or not?29 obviously all the fuqahé have considered “islam” as a basic condition for ijtihéd, however allama shaïibi raised a point over here. as considering the situation of the issues, he has considered unnecessary the conditions of arabic language in some matters, in the same way; he has accepted the participation of non-muslims in ijtihéd in some matters. he said: usuliyeen has approved the ijtihéd of such kéfir (non-believer) who denies the presence of the creator of the universe, prophethood and sharê‘ah. as ijtihéd is based upon such principles that are necessary to be accepted, ignoring it whether actually they are as such or not.30 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *another problem about the legislative assemblies is the position of non-muslims in a country as well as members of the legislative assembly. the other significant problem is the minority of muslims in a country like india where the the supreme court has banned triple ùaléq by the indian muslims – ed. hamdard islamicus 109 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 although the point of view of iqbal has been a topic of discussion and criticism in the religious circles, but actually he has hinted towards such aspects of ijtihéd, which have great weightage in the perspective of current era. discussing the conditions of ijtihéd, a very important point he has touched is that, today the mujtahid-i muïlaq can be seen only theoretically, practically no one is fulfilling this criteria. this is a great reality. the second point, which is to some extent relevant to this first one is that, in present era ijtihéd-e muïlaq seems entirely impossible, so the practical form of ijtihéd can only be adopted in collective mode. but how and by whom can that be performed? iqbal has various doubts in this regard. giving the responsibility of collective ijtihéd to the legislative assembly, he has expressed some reservation. one of them is the status of non-muslim members of the assembly. whereas, it is a reality that the form of collective ijtihéd adopted in present era, must be having a space for the opinions of the non-muslims also. as when we are talking about the opinion of the experts of different fields, then might possible a nonmuslim medical doctor will be the best expert of a medical issue and without his opinion, it will be impossible to understand the issue, or any economist, politician or expert of modern technology will be a non-muslim, and his opinion will be essential to properly understand the matter. therefore, in the present era, the collective mode of ijtihéd which will be adopted by acting upon the theory of tajézi-e ijtihéd can be the best solution to face the issues of practical life. in this regard, the opinion of imém shaïibi is supporting his theory of maqésid al-sharê‘ah (objectives of sharê‘ah) in true sense. opinion of mauléné abë al-a‘lë maudëdê according to mauléné maudëdê,31 the aim of ijtihéd is not to alter the divine law with human law, rather to properly understand it and with its guidance which enables the legal system of islam to be dynamic with the flow of era; therefore no any healthy ijtihéd can be done unless our jurists have the following features: i) believe in the divine sharê‘ah, firm faith of it being revealed, sincere intention of its pursuance, do not have any wish to get away hamdard islamicus 110 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 from it and to take the objectives, principles and values only from the divine sharê‘ah instead of any other source. ii) a good understanding of arabic language its rules, regulations and literature, as the qur’én is revealed in this language and the sources to find the sunnah are also in this language. iii) knowledge of the qur’én and sunnah, through which a person not only should be aware of partial commandments and their places, rather properly understand the entire sharê‘ah and its objectives. on one side he should know that what is the accumulative scheme of sharê‘ah to reform the human life and on the other side he should know that what is the status of each faculty of life in this scheme, what are the angles upon which the sharê‘ah wants to format it and what benefits are hidden in this formation. in other words, that knowledge of the qur’én and sunnah is required for ijtihéd which touches the true spirit of sharê‘ah. iv) awareness of the contribution of former mujtahideen of the ummah, which is not only required for the training of ijtihéd, rather for the continuity of legal progress as well. in any situation, neither it is the purpose of ijtihéd, nor it should be that each coming generation will destroy or set aside the interlinked building of former generations and start a new one. v) a know how of the circumstances and issues of practical life, as it is actually the requirement to implement the commandments of sharê‘ah and its rules and regulations upon them. vi) strong moral character is required for the jurist. the purpose to explain these characteristics is not that anyone who is going to perform ijtihéd has to present a prior certificate that he has these features, rather it is to tell that the growth of islamic law on accurate direction through ijtihéd is possible only when the system of legal teaching and training is prepared by the intellectuals with these characteristics. the legislation done by ignoring these values will not be able to absorb in the system of islamic law, nor can the muslim society digest it as a pleasant meal.32 mauléné maudëdi as himself was the founder of a reforming group “jama‘at-i islami” and was with the passion to educate the members of the society, for ijtihéd too, he wished to have the legal system on such hamdard islamicus 111 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 track which can produce such individuals enabled to perform it. he also considered these conditions as the criteria for the acceptance of any ijtihéd. opinion of abë al-×asan ‘alê nadvê according to mauléné abë al-×asan ‘alê nadvê,33 it is necessary for the revivalism and renaissance of dên, that muslim ummah especially its scholars and intellectuals utilize their capabilities of ijtihéd. what is meant by ijtihéd or capability of ijtihéd, he explained: by ijtihéd we mean the people leading and governing muslims should be capable to have a right decision individually and collectively in the newly faced issues of life. they should be familiar with the spirit of islam and islamic legislation and have enough ability of derivation to search out the solution of problems of ummah and can guide it in case of doubt. furthermore the ruling and leading class should have enough wisdom, knowledge and capacity, be ready for hard work to utilize the natural forces activated in the universe and hidden assets of wealth and power in the earth and can use them for the purpose of islam in a very beneficial way.34 as abu al-×asan ‘alê nadvê feels the decline of muslim ummah very seriously, the center of his intention was also the scholars and the ruling class, which, if will be reformed, the reformation of the entire ummah can be possible. he, therefore, considers it necessary for the scholars to be well acquainted with the spirit of islam individually and collectively, and solve the newly faced problems of life in the light of true teachings of islam. for the ruling class, he makes it compulsory to spend their knowledge, wisdom and abilities to search out the explicit and hidden assets created by allah almighty and to spend them for the welfare of muslim ummah. the conditions of mujtahid in present era the above mentioned conditions were generally discussed by former jurists in the field of ijtihéd. in jurisprudence, discussing the conditions of a mujtahid, many scholars have suggested some amendments according to the requirements of their periods. their examples have been presented while discussing the opinions of the jurists of present era. hamdard islamicus 112 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 this question can be raised today that what conditions can be considered compulsory for a mujtahid in the current era? whether the above mentioned all conditions will be compulsory or amendments and alterations can be suggested as per our current circumstances? following are some conditions, compulsory for the process of ijtihéd in present era. the science of qur’én and sunnah so far as the sciences of qur’én and sunnah are concerned, their knowledge and understanding is very compulsory. the condition is proved even by the qur’én and sunnah itself. o ye who believe! obey allah, and obey the messenger and those of you who are in authority; and if ye have a dispute concerning any matter, refer it to allah and the messenger if ye are (in truth) believers in allah and the last day. that is better and more seemly in the end.35 in this verse the word fê sha’in (in any matter) is used as a common noun. it means that the matter can be of any type (or structure) whether, it is concerned to religious matters or worldly matters, the first consultation will be of the book of allah and the sunnah of the prophet (œ). this topic is proved by a number of narrations as well, so it is mandatory for a mujtahid to have the knowledge of qur’én and sunnah as first priority. grip over arabic language as arabic is the language of the qur’én and sunnah, it is therefore, a logical requirement to have a grip over it. it is compulsory for a mujtahid to have full command over arabic language with all its grammatical details, so that the meanings of qur’én and sunnah can be clear to him with all its background. however, it is not compulsory for a mujtahid to memorize all the narrations, it is enough for him to have a deep understanding of the qur’én and sunnah and the ability to observe, locate and study them minutely after searching the concerned verses and narrations. hamdard islamicus 113 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 it is also compulsory for him to have the ability to determine the status of narrations by evaluating them on the principles of al-jarraí wa al-ta‘dêl (science of criticism). then, in the light of concerned texts, can sort-out the solution of under discussion issue, and present it to the ummah (people) and scholars. the modern sources of knowledge, cds and internet etc. have made it very easy to approach ancient books and latest researches. these sources should also be utilized in this era. the taste of ijtihéd allah al-mighty has created humans with different natures and tastes. each competent scholar may not be a successful mujtahid. it is therefore, compulsory to have a god gifted ability and natural tendency to perform ijtihéd, along with intellectual requirements. awareness of current affairs it is compulsory for a mujtahid of present era, to have a keen observation of circumstances and problems of his period. not only to have an awareness of the social, political and economical circumstances, rather (to have an understanding of) the international affairs, theoretical and political trends of different nations of the world as well. he should have the ability to implement the principals of sharê‘ah on the real problems of his period. in the present era, there are many economic, political, administrative and medical issues, which require to be highlighted legally and present the point of view of sharê‘ah about them in the light of the sources of sharê‘ah. it is also among the responsibilities of a mujtahid. conduct and character a very important condition for mujtahids, which cannot be ignored in present era, is a strong moral character. in case of both, the ijtihéd and fatwé, majority of ummah has always been relying upon the opinion of those intellectuals, which were prominent with their good moral character and pious practical life. the condition of ‘aìl of former jurists hamdard islamicus 114 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 was also to ensure that mujtahid should be a person with good conduct and strong moral character,36 conclusion the above discussion of opinions of scholars of present era about the profile of a mujtahid proves that they have considered ijtihéd a very sensitive and responsible activity in the islamic sharê‘ah. the basic requirements of this prestigious activity seems almost same by all scholars but their way of demonstration has a very beautiful variation which represents their background of reasoning and requirements of the eras. it can be concluded that the basic requirements to perform ijtihéd are understood as the knowledge of qur’én and sunnah of the prophet (œ) but all the other requirements are to achieve the perfection of the knowledge of above mentioned two fundamental sources and to gain the confidence of the ummah upon the performed ijtihéd. notes and references 01. ibn manzur, abë al-fazal jamal al-dên muíammad b. makram, lisén al-arab, beirut, dar al-fikr li al-taba‘at wa al-nashar wa al-tauzi‘, 1st edn., 1410 a.h./ 1990 a.d., vol. i, p. 520. 02. al-ghazélê, abë ×amêd muíammad b. muíammad, al-musïasfa min ilm uîël al-fiqh, cairo, maktabah al-tijariah al-kubra, 1356 a.h., vol. ii, p. 101; al-zarkashi, badar al-dên muíammad b. bahadur b. abd allah, al-bahar al-muheet, dar al-kutubi, 1st edn., 1414 a.h./1994 a.d., vol. vi, p. 167. 03. ibn manður, lisén al-arab, part 1, p. 521. 04. al-ghazélê, al-mustaîfa min ‘ilm uîël al-fiqh, vol. ii, p. 101; al-shaukénê, muíammad b. ‘alê, lrshéd al-fuhul ila taíqêq al-×aqq min ‘ilm al-uîël, beirut, dar al-fikr, n. d., p. 250. 05. abë zahrah, muíammad, uîël al-fiqh, beirut, dar al-fikr al-arabi, 1377 a.h., p. 379. 06. al-shaukénê, irshéd al-fuhul, p. 250. 07. al-qur’én, xvi:43. 08. ibid., iv:83. 09. ibid., iv:59. 10. ibid., lix:2. hamdard islamicus 115 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 11. al-bukhérê, abë abd allah muíammad b. ismé‘êl, al-jamai al-øaíêí,vol. iii; kitéb: al-‘ilm, hadêth no: 71, riyadh, dar al-islam li nashar wa al-tauzie‘, 2nd edn., 1419 a.h./1999 a.d. 12. al-qur’én, xxix:69. 13. al-‘amêdê, saif al-dên abë al-×asan b. abë ‘alê b. muíammad, al-aíkém fi uîël aíkém, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 1405 a.h./1985 a.d., vol. iv, p. 209. 14. ibn méjah, abë abd allah muíammad b. yazêd, sunan ibn méjah, kitéb al-sunnah, ×adêth no. 224, al-riyadh, dar al-salam li nashar wa al-tauzie, 2nd edn., 1419 a.h./1999 a.d. 15. shaykh wahba al-zuhaili (born 1932) born in dair atiah, syria is a prominent yet somewhat controversial syrian professor and islamic scholar specializing in islamic law and legal philosophy. he is also currently a preacher at badr mosque in dair atiah. he is the author of scores of books on islamic and secular law, many of which have been translated to english. he is chairman of islamic jurisprudence in the college of shariah at damascus university. he is also a signatory to the amman message and a common word documents. 16. wahba al-zuhaili, uîël al-fiqh al-islami, damascus, dar al-fikr, 1406 a.h./ 1986 a.d., vol. ii, pp. 1044-1049. 17. yusuf al-qardhavi (born 9 september, 1926) is an egyptian islamic theologian, and chairman of the international union of muslim scholars. he is best known for his programme al-sharê‘ah wa al-×ayét (sharê‘ah and life), broadcast on al-jazeerah, which has an estimated audience of 60 million worldwide. he is also well known for islam online, a popular website he helped found in 1997 and for which he now serves as chief religious scholar. al-qardhavi has published more than 120 books, including al-×alél wa al-×arém fi al-islam (the lawful and the prohibited in islam) and islam: the future civilization. he has also received eight international prizes for his contributions to islamic scholarship, and is considered one of the most influential such scholars living today. 18. yusuf al-qardhavi, al-ijtihéd fi al-sharê‘ah al-islamiah, kuwait, dar al-qalam, 1420 a.h./1999 a.d., p. 60. 19. férooqi, muíammad yusuf, ijtihéd: manéhij wa aséleeb, islamabad, islamic research institute, international islamic university, march 2009 a.d., p. 34. 20. al-susuah, abd al-majêd muíammad, dirésat fi al-ijtihéd wa fahm al-nass, beirut, dar al-basha’ir al-islamiah, 1424 a.h./2003 a.d., p. 34. 21. shéh walê allah (1703-1762 a.d.) was one of the most original and constructive thinkers of sub-continent with a clear appreciation of political realities. he tried to create a new ideological basis for the reconstruction of the muslim state. during 1737-38 he translated the qur’én into persian much to the disgust of the orthodox ulema. he set himself the task of removing the differences and bridging the gulf that separated the shê‘ahs from the sunnês and the ulema from the øëfiyah. he recommended the application of ijtihéd as against blind taqlêd. 22. wali allah, shah, iqd-ul jeed fi aíkém al-ijtihéd wa al-taqlêd, trans. muhammad mian siddiqi, islamabad, shariah academy, international islamic university, 1421 a.h./2000 a.d., p. 45. hamdard islamicus 116 vol. xli, nos. 3 & 4 23. subíê mahmasani born in beirut, lebanon, on january 29, 1909 was a lebanese legal scholar, practicing lawyer, judge, and political figure who contributed substantially to building the legal and civic foundations of the then-nascent country of lebanon, and whose writings on islamic jurisprudence remain authoritative works on this topic for legal scholars and researchers. 24. subíê mahmasani, falsafah shariat-e islam, trans. maulvi muíammad aímad ridhvê, lahore, majlis taraqqi-e adab, club road, 9th edn., 1419 a.h./1999 a.d., p. 181. 25. allamah muíammad iqbél, the reconstruction of religious thought in islam, ed. muhammad saeed shaikh, lahore, institute of islamic culture, 1423 a.h./ 2003 a.d., p. 133. 26. ibid., p. 139. 27. a.r. tariq, speeches and statements of iqbal, lahore, 1393 a.h./1973 a.d., p. 14. 28. allamah muíammad iqbal, the reconstruction of religious thought in islam, p. 140. 29. ibid. 30. al-shatibi, abë isíéq ibréhêm b. mësé, al-muwéfaqat fi uîël al-sharê‘ah, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, n.d., vol. iv, p. 52. 31. sayyad abë al-a‘la maudëdê (25 september 1903-22 september 1979), was an indian-pakistani scholar, philosopher, jurist, journalist, islamist and imém. his numerous works were written in urdu, but then translated into english, arabic, hindi, bengali, tamil, burmese and many other languages. he was the founder of jama’at i-islami, the largest islamic organisation in asia. 32. al-maudëdê, abë al-a‘la, tafhimét, lahore, islamic publications ltd., 13-e shah alim market, 5th edn., 1395 a.h./1975 a.d., vol. iii, pp. 11-12. 33. abë al-×asan ‘alê nadvê, 24 november 1914-1931 december 1999 a.d., was an indian, islamic scholar, and author of over fifty books in various languages. 34. nadvê, abë al-×asan ‘alê, madha akhsara al-alim bi iniíïét al-muslimeen, syria, dar al-qur’én al-karim, 1397 a.h./1977 a.d., p. 195. 35. al-qur’én, iv:59. 36. muíammad yusuf férooqi, ijtihéd: manahij wa aséleeb, p. 38. e:\islamicus\2018\no.1'2018\09) methodology (wm).pmd hamdard islamicus 267 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 methodology of mosque-oriented built environments case study of contemporary mosques of iran’s cities abbas jahanbakhsh1 and ahmad aminpoor2 1associate professor, 2ph. d candidate in the field of islamic architecture, architecture and urban design faculty, art university of isfahan, iran. email: abbasjahanbakhsh@yahoo.com in the desirable society of islam, the gathering place and pivot space is “the grand mosque”. this can be observed in establishing the al-masjid an-nabawi by the prophet of islam ( ). in a situation where many immigrants were deprived of a house and shelter, the prophet of islam ( ) established the al-masjid an-nabawi, which became a space for the faithful people to gather around the prophet’s guardianship. this process was also adopted in establishing the subsequent cities, such as baghdad where the congregational friday mosque was the gathering space in the middle of “the round city”. during the renaissance, by virtue of secular humanism, divine principles were rejected to be a guideline for social life and replaced with the findings and creations of autonomous human intellect. francis bacon in new atlantis (first published in 1627) chose a college as the center of the city instead of a temple or a church. a similar process is also observable in contemporary cities of iran, especially the capital tehran. studying the theoretic bases and the prophetic traditions, this article has searched for the strategies to revive the social role of the mosques by suggesting that, in designing the contemporary cities of iran, the emphasis should be on “the network of mosques” instead of the “transport network”. the center of the city would be the grand mosque, and the city would be divided into districts, which would be centered on their own neighbourhood mosques. keywords: islamic city, islamic architecture, mosque design, mosque functions. introduction if we admit that the main role of an architect and an urban designer hamdard islamicus 268 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 is to design a life container, and we consider their duty as to promote the quality of human social life through adjusting the space and the shell, then before we could design a construction or a city, we should have an appropriate image of the desirable community and architectural solutions which result in the improvement of human life; therefore, hereunder a desirable community based on the islamic teachings will be briefly discussed. foundations and theoretical framework according to the islamic beliefs, the human being in all of his choices is subdued to the divine’s “formative (takwênê)” will and does not have the power of disobedience, he – for the purpose of development and sublimation context – is provided with this chance in the limited opportunity of the world to either act against the “legislative (tashrê‘ê)” will of god, or he may subjugate his will to the legislative divine’s will and join the way of “improvement” and right path. the influence of the human will is not limited to personal life, rather it affects history and the community. within the community extension, the human wills are conjoined to each other and achieve a real unity; as in the human body, what makes it a unit and coherent body is the unifying will that is dominant over all of the body parts. the community’s unity too, is made from the unit wills dominance. the wills being knotted to the unit will, a kind of collective character is made which is noted by the holy qur’én as the fire leaders and the light leaders, and about the fire leaders we have in the qur’én: “… and the command of pharaoh was no right (guide). he will go before his people on the day of judgment, and lead them into the fire (as cattle are led to water): but woeful indeed will be the place to which they are led!” (al-qur’én, xi:97-98). the personage of each nation and country is so conjoined to the personage of the leader they are following, that they have become one personage and found a common destiny, up to a level that on resurrection day, they are called with the names of their iméms: “one day we shall call together all human beings with their (respective) iméms” (al-qur’én, xvii:71). eventually it joins one of two streams of historical guardianship, and hamdard islamicus 269 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 weakens one of them and strengthens the other one: “allah is the protector of those who have faith: from the depths of darkness he will lead them forth into light. of those who reject faith the patrons are the evil ones: from light they will lead them forth into the depths of darkness. they will be companions of the fire, to dwell therein (for ever)”. (al-qur’én, ii:257). when the products and subjects (including architecture and urban design) of these two streams of guardianship are placed in their own course of history, they become resources which can create higher capacities (whether for development or for aberrance). as a result of the emergence of a fundamental change in the western social values and worldviews since the renaissance, mankind didn’t continue following divine commands. instead he chose his autonomous intellect’s findings and creations as a guideline for his social life. the influence of this change on urban design can be traced in new atlantis written by francis bacon where he chose “the salomon house,” a college, as the center of the city instead of a temple or a church. the college was “the very eye”1 of the desirable described kingdom, and an institution which “above all hath the preeminence”2 bacon knew that the institutions of each society should correspond to the new social covenant. the society of contemporary iran cannot be considered as an exception. in order to achieve the islamic lifestyle, iran must use the management and advancement patterns which are different from the common models of western development. a civilization can be divided into three dimensions: hardware, software, and human resources.3 the hardware is the physical and sensible products of the society, while the software is a compound of ideologies, philosophy, and science, etc. pursuing the requirement of an islamic lifestyle exposes the structural weakness of the government experts who were trained in the software which produced the western civilization and could not produce rationality and different products, and even at least, it hasn’t been agile or optimized for such a production. the researchers’ investigations indicate the penetration of humanist, secularist and rationalist foundations into the common theories of human sciences, but in practice the muslim specialists also are in the habit of seeing the universe, the human being and knowledge in a different way and knew that they, in practice, offer the products hamdard islamicus 270 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 which had been similar to the ones of their western colleagues; an experience about which the english physicist paul davies declares: “many practicing scientists are also religious. following the publication of god and the new physics, i was astonished to discover how many of my close scientific colleagues practice a conventional religion. in some cases they manage to keep these two aspects of their lives separate, as if science rules six days a week, and religion on sunday.”4 that’s because the intertwined system of foundations, methods and theories of different sciences do not allow for influence and change in the scientific structure by the personal foundations of the researcher; and this issue creates a new necessity in revising the software which generates the scientific theories including the foundations, method, logic and the philosophy dominant over the method and logic. therefore, we can imagine a specialist in architecture or urban design who is muslim and performs the qur’én and prophet’s commands, but in professional life, according to the professional teachings that he had been subject to, and according to the standards and laws that are dominant over his job quality and profession, he is a soldier in the stream of secular civilization and makes effort in its solidification and supremacy. on the following, this article tries to investigate upon the principles and requirements in designing the mosques based on foundations and methods that are more compatible with islamic teachings; in this direction, the position of mosques in islamic civilization should be taken into consideration. the position of mosque in islamic civilization in islamic jurisprudence,5 we can see three kinds of mosque regarding the position of it within the structure of the islamic community: the central mosque, the grand mosque of the towns, and the local mosque. central mosque the central mosque is the sacred house of god, about which the supreme god says: “remember we made the house a place of assembly for men and a place of safety”. (al-qur’én, ii:125). the house hamdard islamicus 271 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 of god is the main center for the global community of islam and a pivot for the formation of the global population. in subsequent rankings, masjid an-nabawê and the al-aqîé mosque have a global role. the reason beyond the fact that performing a prayer in these mosques results in special effects and special rewards is that if a person performs a prayer in these mosques, the reward would be equal to that which a group of people would receive, and saying prayer in these mosques is as reviving the islamic community.6 these mosques are the first-ranked mosques which are considered as a pattern for other mosques of the islamic nation and in fact are the centers for the formation of the total of islamic nation. the grand mosque of the town the house of god is a place where all the muslims of the world gather. two other mosques are also the gathering places for the muslims on various occasions. in the next level, we have the mosques of the town. in every city, there should be a grand mosque in which the friday prayer is held, forming the social texture of the city. in historical cities of muslims, the grand mosque together with the government headquarters (dérul imérah), governmental tribunals and the judicial center formed the heart of the city. the grand mosque is the main core which distinguishes between the city and the village. for example in baghdad the congregational friday mosque was the gathering space in the middle of “the round city” of manîër. of course, merely considering that in a historical period, some muslims or their governors chose a special style for their clothing, housing, or urban design, does not make that style “islamic,” rather attributing something to islam means that it is coordinated with and according to the divine legislative will. such a claim requires a methodical proof. in order to ascribe any command or action to islam, we need special regulations and principles to which the science of jurisprudence is respondent. as we have in the jurisprudential definition of a city: the city is a place where we can find a governor or a judge.7 however; the orientalists and western researchers and many of their eastern muslim students8 have defined islamic architecture according to the architecture of some muslim societies and have come to results hamdard islamicus 272 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 which differ from the jurisprudential results. for example jean sauvaget considers the bazaar as the center of an islamic city but not the grand mosque.9 the local mosque the local or district mosques are in the third place among other mosques. the grand mosque and local mosques function in urban and neighbourhood scales respectively. throughout history, muslim cities had some mosques within the residential districts in which the daily prayers were held. regarding the number of mosques in a district, each district might have more than one mosque considering the religious, economic or social conditions.10 in this way the structure of islamic society is formed; a structure in which the imam of the islamic nation (ummah), the friday prayer leaders and the local mosque prayer leaders are placed respectively. this structure is an organizational structure indicating that the islamic nation (ummah) is formed around and defined by the mosques. the functions of mosque according to the islamic texts the most evident functions of the mosque include: abundant remembrance of god, performance of prayers, worship, and i‘tikéf.*4 “did not allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of allah is commemorated in abundant measure”. (al-qur’én, xxii:40). “… while ye are in retreat in the mosques”. (al-qur’én, ii:187). however, these are not the only functions of the mosque. it is recommended for muslims to devote a place in their houses as the prayer ground, as it is referred to by bukhérê in chapter “the mosques in the houses”.11 however, the mosques are not places merely for saying prayers and they are different from prayer grounds, as they are fundamentally different from synagogues, churches and the temples of –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *i‘tikéf is an islamic practice consisting of a period of staying in a mosque for a certain number of days, devoting oneself to worshiping during these days and staying away from worldly affairs. ten days i‘tikéf in the holy month of ramadan is a regular sunnah. hamdard islamicus 273 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 sikhs and buddhists. the mosque is the house of god, the house of people and the house of imémah. the mosque is the house of a god who is not merely the god like a retired watchmaker but also he is a live, permanent and protective god “whose hands is the dominion of all things”. (al-qur’én, xxxvi:83). this realm means the monarchy over every single thing. “is it not his to create and to govern?” (al-qur’én, vii:54). the mosques, first of all, are the houses of god and the houses of imémah: “behold! we gave the site, to abraham, of the (sacred) house”. (al-qur’én, xxii:26). ibréhêm, mentioned in this verse, is the very same one who had attained the position of imémah: “and remember that abraham was tried by his lord with certain commands, which he fulfilled: he said: “i will make thee an imém to the nations.” (al-qur’én, ii:124). preparing the “site of the house” for ibréhêm means that this place has been allocated for the position of imamate. the mosques are the houses of imémah and leadership,* and the relation between imém and imémah is formed through the structure of the mosques; therefore, it is the mosques which make the community. the word “house” has a special concept in islamic thinking and jurisprudence. the house is the center for nurturing the human being; it is a place where the individual personality of mankind is formed and is considered as the family’s privacy. there is also another kind of house which is the islamic community’s house (the mosque), the central mosque of which is the house of god. concerning this “house” the holy qur’én says: “the first house (of worship) appointed for men was that at bakka: full of blessing and of guidance for all kinds of beings”. (al-qur’én, iii:96). in fact, the first house built for the people is the very house which is in mecca that is a cause of guidance for the people of the world. out of this verse, it can be concluded that this house is not the only house being built for the people, but also all the mosques are constructed for the people; however, that special mosque was the first, making it a blessed construction and a guidance for the people of the world. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *having this view, there would be no need to struggle over the issue whether to call the prophet’s ( ) mosque (masjid al-nabawi) as the house of prophet ( ) or the mosque of the town. (for example see: ayyad, essam s., 2013, ‘the mosque of the prophet or the house of the prophet?’ journal of islamic studies, xxiv:3, suez canal university, pp. 273-334). hamdard islamicus 274 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 therefore, the purpose of the mosques is to educate and rear both the individual muslim and the muslim nation. these two types of muslims are mentioned in the following verse: “and remember abraham and isma’il raised the foundations of the house (with this prayer): “our lord! accept (this service) from us: for thou art the allhearing, the all-knowing”. (al-qur’én, ii:127). up to here, the islam is individual, “and of our progeny a people muslim, bowing to thy (will); (al-qur’én, ii:128). at this level the islam is considered as collective. the process of rearing the human community is like this. the process of rearing the society starts from rearing a complete person and continues by rearing his family and results in the emergence of the muslim nation. the emergence of “the muslim nation for you” is the purpose of establishing the mosques. this purpose has a lot of prerequisites and requirements. the muslim community means a community that is surrendered to the commands of god, and the relations among the members of that community are based on obeying god. all the mosques are the centers for managing and rearing such a community. for this reason, since the very beginning of islam, the holy prophet ( ) in the mosque both led the society and educated and reared the muslims. some prohibited functions according to the following traditions, selling and purchasing, administering legal punishments, and announcing a lost item are among the prohibited functions inside the mosque.12 according to the holy prophet ( ): “if you heard a man seeking for aberration in the mosque, tell him: god will not reply you, and indeed the mosque is not a place for such things”13 strategies to promote the social status of the mosques as it was mentioned in previous section, the mosque is the base of islamic civilization and the network of mosques is the path of leading the islamic nation. in different civilizations, you can find some buildings which had a basic role in forming the society and gathering the people; hamdard islamicus 275 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 for example in some pre-islamic cities of iran like other similar cities around the world, the palace or the castle of the governor was at the center of the city: fig. 1 the typical city layout during the period of medes14 the descriptions on the figure: 1) the king’s palace; 2) storages and treasuries; 3) residence of the king’s slaves; 4) barrack; 5) city; 6) market place (bézér); 7) residential areas aristotle suggests a “free agora” for the city which “should be clear of all merchandize”.15 of course the greek’s agoras did not stay committed to this request of aristotle and gradually admitted the various economic and social activities. romans too, in coordination with administrative systems and the special needs of their collective life founded the forums. the main activities being conducted inside the forums included hamdard islamicus 276 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 performing the administrative and political affairs of the citizens, doing commerce and sometimes dealing with some religious affairs. however, the situation is totally different in japan. in that land, since long centuries ago till the present time, the predominant political and social systems did not have a space for the individual as a free element and placed the human beings along the defined intellectual and behavioral axes of the system. the image of this can be found in the geometry dominant over the cities of japan. “hiroba” as “a place for collective life” in japan, never had a form like the squares of rome or greece. the basic pivot of the city had been a street, on both extremes of which the temples were usually placed. these temples comprised some open spaces which had usually been closed to the people and were merely allotted to the rituals.16 fig. 2 the plan and a section of collective space in japanese cities17 hamdard islamicus 277 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 in islamic cities, a situation different from these two eastern and western patterns is dominant. here, the mosques have a courtyard being opened to the people and people are free to gather in it; however, this gathering should not be under economical purposes (as in traditions where doing business and selling or purchasing are banned in such zones)18 and there should be no intention of ostentation or expressing the oratorical or poetic arts and the time should not be passed on fun and play or vanity; and also the mosque, unlike what was common in preislamic cities of iran, should not be under the control of a dominant or tyrant class of people. in this direction, one must notice the difference of freedom in the viewpoint of islam and in the greek meaning of it. in the humanistic meaning, freedom means to remove the barriers from the way of achieving what the ego seeks for.19 however, in islamic teachings, the passions have been declared as the greatest enemy of mankind, and freedom is expressed as getting released from the shackles made by passions and mundane beauties for the divine flight of the mankind, as expressed in the following qur’énic verse, “… and prohibits them from what is bad (and impure); he releases them from their heavy burdens and from the yokes that are upon them. (al-qur’én, vii:157). from this perspective, mankind does not possess even his own body or life and whatever he has is a trust from the wise lord, and he is only permitted to use them in the way of worshiping, which is the way of prosperity and felicity. with this view of life and society, the courtyard of the mosque is defined as a place for the collective life of the believers, and the islamic city is defined as a mosque-oriented city. the important question raised here is whether the strategies experienced by mankind which were used to change a place into a center, could be implemented for the mosques as well? the most important strategies are as follows: l increasing the height of a building l decorating the building l using new, attractive and creative forms l creating the temperature and environmental comfort l implementing the attractive functions for different people at different hamdard islamicus 278 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 ages, especially the recreational and commercial functions and creating the common urban needs. through studying the narrations inserted in the domain of construction and the function of the mosque, we can answer this question: a report from the holy prophet ( ) negates the strategies of increasing the height or decorating the building or making it dominant over others, and recommends making an awning: the holy prophet ( ) said: i see you building your mosques high after i am gone, just as the jews built their synagogues high and the christians built their churches high.20 the holy prophet ( ) said: i was not commanded to build high mosques. ibn abbés ( ) said: you will certainly adorn them as the jews and christians did.21 according to a narration by ibn zia from ‘ó’ishah ( ), by increasing the population of the muslims, they increased the area of the mosque and after a request by the muslims, the holy prophet ( ) allowed them to install an awning made from the body and branches of the palm for the mosque. then, it started raining over the muslims and it was dripping from the ceiling of the mosque. those who attendees of the mosque asked the prophet ( ) to allow them to cover the roof with mud, but the prophet ( ) did not let them and ordered them to follow the method of his excellency moses ( ) which was building an awning from straw and dry firewood. ‘ó’ishah ( ) says that the condition of the mosque had been the same till the time the holy prophet ( ) passed away.22, 23 also it is narrated from behaqê that the awning of moses ( ) had been such that when he raised his hand, he could touch the ceiling. (anîér – supporters – gathered a sum and took it to the prophet ( ) and suggested to reconstruct and adorn the mosque, and said up to what time should we say prayer under this ceiling that is a date palm’s straw. the prophet ( ) said: the ceiling of my brother’s mosque moses ( ), was like that, and i will not return from his way.24 maybe the spirit of all these commandments can be stated as negating the physical and material self-glorification bin malik said: the messenger of allah ( ) said: the hour will not begin until the people compete in (building) mosques.25 hamdard islamicus 279 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 of course it should be mentioned that this simplicity was not an obstacle for the mosque to serve as the heart of the muslims community.26 however; studying the historical performance of the muslims in most of the regions of the world indicate that this principle is not followed, and for the purpose of worshiping god and promoting it, some methods are taken that are negated by the religion. regarding the theoretical importance of this issue, we will briefly talk about the necessity of subordination to our master in the methods in addition to the necessity of subordination in goals and purposes: methodology of islamic thinking: subordination without comprehending the philosophy the understanding that a command is dispatched from the supreme god should be enough reason for the believers to submit to it, because he is the lord and owner of everything. of course a believer is aware that his lord is wise, knowledgeable and merciful, and he will not command but from the domains of mercy, wisdom and knowledge. but this subordination is not due to a comprehension of the philosophy of an action, but merely because of the divine’s command. this is the foundation of obedience. performing a physician’s command is not called obedience. if the patient himself comes to the physician’s recommendation, whether by studying or by experience, he will execute that knowledge, and there would be no need for the physician’s recommendation. what we mean by obedience, is in fact obeying the lord. this is what is interpreted as the covenant of obedience. this covenant is in fact the translation of – ómanné – “we started believing”: ”our lord! we have heard the call of one calling (us) to faith, ‘believe ye in the lord,’ and we have believed”. (al-qur’én, iii:193). ómanné means the covenant of obedience. it can be perceived from the ending verses of the sërah baqarah: “the messenger believeth in what hath been revealed to him from his lord, as do the men of faith. each one (of them) believeth in allah, his angels, his books, and his messengers. “we make no distinction (they say) between one and another of his messengers.” and they say: “we hear, and we obey”. (al-qur’én, ii:285). in this hamdard islamicus 280 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 verse the words “they declare” describes believing – óman. here the words “we started believing” – óman – means “they declared we hear and obey”. “obedience” is a condition for the faith covenant. when the faithful people say “o’ our god, we started believing in you”, that means o’ god, we accepted you as our lord and guardian and obeyed your apostle, and surrendered ourselves to your commands. most of the time, the most difficult divine tests are taken in this way as the satan was commanded to prostrate for a creature whose creation from soil he witnessed. the supreme god definitely could create his vicegerent from the best and the noblest materials, but in order to examine his servants, he prescribed for them to be created from worthless clay, and made the angles and the satan witness the creation of him, but the satan declared: o’ god please exculpate me from prostrating to mankind so that i worship you in a way that nobody had worshiped before. and the supreme god said to him that if you want to worship me, you have to worship me in the way that i commanded you.27 two other famous examples were given from the life of the prophet ibréhêm ( ), who was commanded to slaughter his son, and prophet mësé ( ), who witnessed the slaying of an innocent boy by khidhr ( ), which show that our capacity to understand is finite while the way of paradise and bliss is infinite and the main role of our intellect is identifying the divinely approved guardian who can guide us to that infinite goal.28 it does not mean closing rationality and reason, but it suggests a different methodology which instead of creating and inventing solutions based on an independent mankind intellect, seeks to understand and discover the solutions that the all-wise, allah, has revealed. it seems to be a shortcoming of most of muslim governors during the history that have constructed giant mosques that are felt to be accompanied by self-glorification and materialistic pride. comparing the two grand mosques of seljëk (11th century)29 and safavêd (17th century)30 periods in isfahan may confirm this issue. such an approach continues today in islamic societies as well as in other places where muslims design and construct mosques, and the design of mosques is considered to be the container of artistic creativity31 of the architect. failure to comply with this methodological principle has made it difficult to achieve a mosque-oriented built environment in contemporary cities of the muslim world, as urban and architectural experts prefer to hamdard islamicus 281 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 pursue the goals of religion with methods that they have “invented”, not by methods which have been “discovered” from islamic teachings. in order to prove this claim, a brief overview of the status of the mosques in contemporary iran will be mentioned. this theoretical discussion can be a guide for the muslim architects and urban planners, to remind us that we cannot adopt just any method or way with the purpose of promoting the islam or the mosque. but, we may not be able to expect those monarchs, because of whom many disasters have been recorded during the history, to have adhered to the jurisprudential commands and procedures. however, in the case of iran and especially after the victory of the islamic revolution we can see that in some cases and despite the guidance given by the leaders of the revolution, the former historical patterns are still being used. in order to illustrate this issue we will discuss about the congregational friday mosque (muîallé) as a case study in the next part. the condition of mosques in contemporary iran and some practical tips by the same procedure as mentioned about madênah and baghdad, in historical cities of iran such as isfahan, tabriz, qazvin, shiraz, etc. the grand mosques situated at the city central square were the gathering place. but from the qajar period (1795-1921),32 with the arrival of the military and, consequently, political, cultural and economic modernity, gradually the traditional urban patterns were replaced with modern urban patterns. a complete example of this change can be found in the capital: tehran. the urban plan of the city was designed by general alexander bohler, a french professor of military science with a number of iranian engineers. the pivot of the developed city was a new square (built in 1860’s) which called toapkhénah (“the place of cannons,” or “artillery barracks”) square.33 it was a central courtyard like other old squares but, unlike those squares, it did not include a mosque. its main function was the maintenance of modern warfare equipment, and the construction of the adjacent building was not a comprehensive mosque, but a building belonging to a modern institution: the “shéhê” (imperial) bank.34 hamdard islamicus 282 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 fig. 3 toapkhénah square, circa 1890, with shéhê bank instead of a mosque35 this square was supposed to bring a completely modern face to the iranian cities.36 during the victory of the islamic revolution in 1979 and afterwards, the social role of the mosques increased, and some cities began to build new congregational friday mosques in proportion to the increasing population of the cities. for example in tehran, considering the lack of space and the difficulty of access to the friday prayer in tehran university, it was decided to allocate a land with the area of one million square meters to construct the prayer ground. in this regard, the contemporary friday prayer leaders of tehran in 1988 wrote a letter to ayatollah khomeinê the leader of the revolution to specify their duties; ayatollah khomeinê replied: god willing, you will be successful in making an anti-blasphemy insight, in addition to constructing the tehran prayer ground. meanwhile, the plainness of the prayer ground should remind us of the plainness of the worshiping place of the muslims of the beginning of islam, and the glamour of the mosque buildings of the american islam should be strongly prevented. the supreme god approves all those who have assisted in hamdard islamicus 283 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 establishing the god’s mosques. (november 14, 1988 – ayatollah mousavê khomeinê).37 as it can be seen in the body of the letter, imém khomeinê as a fully qualified jurist, has explicitly specified the desirable physical conditions for a prayer ground; although in practice, when the job was consigned over to the expertise body, the dominance of mental patterns and university standards and teachings, that are often impressed by the western culture,* caused the prayer ground to take distance from the desirable religious plainness or get affected by the materialistic orientation. some pictures are provided below: fig. 4 tehran new grand mosque, muîallé38 of course constructing a mosque according to the characteristics provided in the religion requires to provide some appropriate environmental –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *the designer of tehran prayer ground is dr. parvis moayed ahd, who was first educated in university of beaux-arts in the field of architecture and then educated in paris sorbonne university in the field of urbanism. in 1956 he attained the ph. d degree in the field of s.a.d. and also he was given an honorary p.h.d. in the field of architecture (a.a.phd) by the sorbonne university in recognition of his cultural services. and also in 1963, in recognition of presenting cultural and architectural plans, he was given the first grade degree of architecture by the england royal university – a.ch.ass.scol-) http://www.musalla.ir/tabid/158/articleid/46/-46.aspx hamdard islamicus 284 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 backgrounds. for example one of the commands proposed by ayatollah araki in his courses regarding “urban flourishing systematic jurisprudence” negates the vertical development and the building of high and multi-floor constructions inside the cities; and by observing this command, the necessary background for constructing mosques which correspond to divine commands would be provided. in the present conditions, it would be more difficult to build such a mosque because the symbols of modern civilization, especially the banks and hotels, are being built with full ostentation. in spite of the efforts made to construct comprehensive and central mosques, the situation was different for local mosques. the most comprehensive statistical plan concerning the mosques and religious constructions is the plan provided in 1996.39 according to this census, in that year there existed 87908 religious places out of which the mosques with the number of 57635 being equal to 72 percent, comprising the largest share. other religious buildings included the prayer grounds, prayer rooms, shrines and mausoleums. after around 20 years the number of these mosques increased up to 72000. although this fact indicates a 25% increase in the number of mosques, regarding the increase in the state’s population from 60 million in 1996 to 80 million in 2016, the mosques per capita has decreased from 1 mosque per 1041 to 1 mosque per 1111 person. considering migration from villages to the cities, and the increase in the population density in the cities, more decrease in the mosques per capita has been witnessed at the level of megacities. the targeting for increasing the number of mosques can be calculated under two different criteria, one of them based on population and the other based on the spatial distribution. according to a plan being conducted in 2012 by the supreme council of cultural revolution, the access radius for 250 meters was specified as appropriate for the mosques, and thereupon, it was suggested to construct mosques for those districts which lack one. the megacity of tehran has 1746 mosques, which according to the access standard, there needs to be constructed 992 more mosques in this city. according to the population of tehran which is equal to 7341554, the mosque per capita in tehran equals one for 4205 people which in order to reach the state average, there needs to be constructed 5300 more mosques in tehran. hamdard islamicus 285 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 fig. 5 a sample of the first edition maps: specifying the zones with adequate and inadequate access radius to the mosques being constructed for tehran districts and being under construction for other cities of iran.40 the reviews done by the authors indicate four main barriers in supplying an appropriate mosque which are as follows: 1) uncontrolled growth of the city and an increase in population density, 2) dissatisfaction with the plain mosques and trying to make large and luxurious mosques, 3) not merging the mosque with appropriate and desirable functions, 4) lack of paying attention to the network of mosques as the pivot of urban development. a brief description of each item is given below: 1) uncontrolled growth of the city and an increase in population density: the uncontrolled growth of the city and an increase in population density has made the city unbalanced and it has become difficult to equally supply the different functions such as the mosque and other things. according to urban flourishing systematic jurisprudence,41 and by reviewing the narrations (riwéyét), it can be found out that in islam the city has some limitations and it would not be desirable for it to be developed without control. this important issue should be taken into consideration in preparation plans of the country. 2) dissatisfaction with the plain mosques that are without decorations and trying to make large and luxurious mosques: constructing large mosques, in addition to the problem of increasing hamdard islamicus 286 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the costs of construction and maintenance, causes the mosques to exit from the local scale and the possibility of visiting and human relationships are decreased. while through constructing two or a number of small-size mosques instead of a large one, we can have a more impartial and convenient distribution of the mosques and allow more potential for human and emotional bonds. for this purpose, we need to define the city based on different districts that are of identities. the supreme god says: “o mankind! we created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (al-qur’én, xlix:13). the characteristic of mankind’s creation in the form of tribes and branches leads them to be divided into smaller groups. this division makes both recognition and human relations possible, and underlies the increase in tenderness and social supervision. in designing the cities, careful attention should be given to the influence of the scale and providing for the local texture in the process of designing the cities. the idea of the neighbourhood unit which was proposed by clarence perry in the 1920’s follows such a relation.42 however, in this idea we can see that the primary school is assigned as the center of the district, while in islamic cities, this is the local mosques that are the centers of districts. 3) not merging the mosque with appropriate and desirable functions that can take place within the mosque. the second harm is relinquishing some functions which were usually taking place in mosques in the past or the islamic traditions and commands have suggested them as appropriate. for example, the mosques have been the places for teaching and learning since the beginning of islam.43 gradually and since the fourth century a.h., the schools were founded as the independent establishments. the formal history of the school, regardless of its informal adventure, started since the year 1067 (460 a.h.) by opening the baghdad great niðémiyah school.44 however, positioning of most of seminary schools next to the mosques and bazérs prevents the schools from getting separated from the people’s life stream. one of the successful physical patterns in this regard is the pattern of the school mosque which continues till the qajar era in iran.45 hamdard islamicus 287 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 because of the influence of modernity making way through iran and affecting the social systems including the education system, we could witness the separation of the schools from the mosques; a separation that has continued up to this time. the harms resulted from this separation has made some activists in the domain of education to make sporadic but effective efforts in bringing the education back to the schools.46 one of other functions that can be merged with the mosque is the public and specialized libraries. the mosques of the world of islam have been places for keeping religious and other books since the early history of islam47 (since 7th century). based on a statistic issued in 2014, the per capita of libraries area in iran is for 170 square centimeter and increasing it has little influence on increasing the per capita of the mosques;48 however, through planning for building the libraries inside the mosques, we have 7285 libraries being built in iran mosques which compromise 18858659 books, being used by the number of 1305809 permanent library members.49 and in the event of the request of the board of trustees of each mosque, the department of the mosques’ libraries will allocate a budget for construction or expansion of the libraries inside the mosques. if there is an urgency in the process of designing and ratifying the construction of new libraries inside the mosques, we can promote this relationship as well as the social role of the mosques. at the present time in the city of tehran and by an expense incurred by the municipality, 354 neighbourhood houses50 have been built to settle down the problems of the people of the neighbourhood and this duty can be merged with the neighbourhood (local) mosques. it is noteworthy to say that in order to promote the mosques’ social role, the strategies such as creating the commercial, recreational and sport spaces inside the mosques, cannot be used, because these activities are among the negated activities within the narrations and much more studies need to be done about the positioning of these places in the neighbourhood of the mosques. 4) lack of paying attention to the network of mosques as the pivot of urban development since the patterns for comprehensive and detailed plans of the hamdard islamicus 288 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 cities of iran have been derived from similar western plans, usually there is no independent and special place for the mosques within them and they have the following three parts: l the urban transit network l land use detailed plan l technical building codes as harvey shows, urbanization, in the history of western civilization has a very special role in the development of capitalism “[by] virtue of the changing patterns of commodity flows over space and by virtue of the very nature of the created and produced spaces and places over which such movements occur.”51 high-capacity transit ways were used to support the economic interchanges, a process which is compatible with a society whose main goal is economic growth, but if in another culture the main reason for gathering as a society is not an economic affair, it is sensible to replace the urbanization axis of such a society. as it was said, an islamic society is based on obeying god, and all the mosques are the centers for managing and rearing such a society. for this reason, it can be proposed that the main part of a comprehensive and detailed urban plan should be a network of mosques, through which flows the will of divine leaders, all over the society instead of a transit network which guarantees the “commodity flow over space”. of course it doesn’t mean an islamic city doesn’t need a transit network or a secular city doesn’t have churches or mosques, but the point is which component should be on the position of the pivot of urban development. conclusion the network of the mosques in the islamic society is the base of the formation of the islamic civilization and is a way for executing the will of a just guardian who is the base of the unity of the islamic society. for this reason in detailed plans, it deserves the highest importance. instead of concentrating on designing the pathways network, it is suggested to design detailed plans based on the mosques’ networks. in islamic commands and narrations, some special functional and physical hamdard islamicus 289 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 features have been suggested for the mosque which all have been summarized in the following table: table 1 desirable and undesirable functions and physical features of mosques “according to the mentioned islamic texts” desirable undesirable undesirable functions functions physical features worshiping and selling and buying heightening the remembering god constructions prayer announcing a lost person making the mosque dominant education administering legal decorating the punishments mosque i‘tikéf reading myths building the mosque for boasting on this basis, and in order to increase the social role of the mosques, the following items are suggested: 1. the city should be divided into distinct, districts having identities. 2. the local mosques should be designed as the center of the districts 3. the local scale should be observed in local mosques and building the mosques greater than what is necessary should be prevented. 4. the grand mosque should be considered as the center of the city. 5. the grand mosque should be built with appropriate area and enough capacity for the people of the city. 6. the uncontrolled extension of the cities and the unbalance within the population distribution should be prevented. 7. the luxury and squander in decoration affairs in the mosques should be prevented. hamdard islamicus 290 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 08. the mosques should be merged with compatible functions such as the local house, school and the library. 09. the incompatible functions such as the commercial, recreational and sport sections should not be designed within the mosques 10. the structure of the detailed urban plans should be corrected and a network of mosques should be part of the plans as the pivot of urban development. notes and refrences 01. bacon, francis, the new atlantis, auckland, the floating press, 2009, p. 20. 02. ibid., p. 33. 03. marashi, jafar, a new challenge in social categories, tehran, industrial management institute, 1997, p. 157, (in persian). 04. davis, paul, the mind of god, new york, simon &. schuster inc., 1992, p. 14. 05. adopted from araki, mohsen, the course for the mosque jurisprudence, tehran, 2013-2014. 06. ibid. 07. mohammad abdolsattar, osman, al-madina al-islamia, kuwait, alam al-moarefa, 1988, p. 16. 08. see: rabbat, n., what is islamic architecture anyway?, journal of art historiography, 2012. abu-lughod, j.l., the islamic city-historic myth, islamic essence, and contemporary relevance, international journal of middle east studies, 1987, 19(2), pp. 155-176. arkoun, m., islamic cultures, developing societies, modern thought, in: hayat salam (ed.), expressions of islam in buildings, singapore, concept media, 1990. negila, g.a., in jayyusi, s.k., holod, r., petruccioli, a. and raymond, a., the city in the islamic world, handbook of oriental studies, section 1, the near and middle east, v. 94, 2008, leiden, boston, brill. haneda, masashi and miura, toru, islamic urban studies: historical review and perspectives, london, kegan paul international, distributed by columbia university press, 1994. 09. al sayyad, n. and tureli, l., islamic urbanism, international encyclopedia of human geography, kitchin, r. and thrift, n. (eds.), oxford, elsevier, 2009, pp. 598-606. 10. mohammad abdolsattar, osman, al-madina al-islamia, kuwait, alam al-moarefa, 1988, p. 216. 11. bukhari, mohammad ibn isma’il, øaíêí al-bukhérê, arabic republic of egypt, ministry of endowments, the supreme council of islamic rites, the hamdard islamicus 291 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 committee for reviving the religious traditions, cairo, egypt, 1989, vol. i, p. 289. 12. ibn maja, sunan, al-hafiz, abi abdillah mohammad ibn yazid al-qazvini ibn maja, beirut, daroljail, 1997, vol. ii, p. 66. 13. muslim, ibn al-hajjaj, øaíêí al-muslim, cairo, dar al-hadith, 1991, vol. i, p. 397. 14. habibi s. mohsen, from village to city, tehran, publications of tehran university, 2001, p. 8. 15. aristotle, the politics, translated by ernest barker, new york, oxford university press, 2009, p. 278. 16. falamaki, mohammad mansour, formation of architecture in the experiences of iran and west, tehran, faza, 2006, pp. 73-77. 17. source, ibid., p. 78. 18. if you witnessed a person who sells or buys something in the mosque, tell him the supreme god will not give benefit to your business and if he announced a lost thing: tell him there will be no refund to your loss, al-tirmidhi, sunan, cairo, darolhadith, 1998, p. 394. 19. chirkov, valery i., ryan, richard m., sheldon, kennon m., human autonomy in cross-cultural context, dordrecht, springer, 2011, p. 4. 20. ibn majah, sunan, al-hafiz, abi abdillah mohammad ibn yazid al-qazvini ibn maja, beirut, daroljail, 1997, vol. ii, p. 61. 21. abë-dawëd, sulayman ibn al-ash’ath as-sijistani, sunan, cairo, daro al-hadith, 1998, p. 226. 22. ibn-zia, mohammad ibn ahmad, térêkh al-mecca & al-masjid al-×arém & al-madênah & al-qabr al-sharêf, mecca, al-maktaba al-tejaria mostafa ahmad al-baz, 1995, vol. i, p. 267. 23. some similar traditions in the same context have been cited in the following resources: koleini, mohammad ibn yaqoob, al-kéfê, tehran, dar al-kotob al-islamia, 1986, vol. iii, p. 296. bukhari, mohammad ibn ismaeil, øaíêí al-bukhérê, 1989, vol. iii, p. 364. 24. samhoodi, ali ibn ahmad, vafé al-vafé bel-akhbér dér al-muîïafé, beirut, dar al-kotob al-elmia, 2006, vol. i, p. 381. 25. ibn majah, sunan, 1997, vol. ii, p. 60. 26. spahic, omer, an analysis of the expansion of the mosque of the prophet by caliph ‘umar b. al-khaïïéb (d. 24 a.h./744 c.e.), hamdard islamicus, 2017, vol. xl(1), pp. 31-50. ayyad, essam s., i have not been commanded to apply tashyid to mosques’: a prophetic perspective of mosque architecture, journal of the islamic quarterly, 2015, vol. lix, pp. 1-34. 27. qotboddin ravandi and saeid ibn hebatollah, the stories of prophets (ravandi), mashhad, islamic researches center, 1988, p. 43. 28. mirbagheri, s. mohammad mahdi, basics of “the guardianship of the jurisprudent”, theory, qom, tamaddon-e-novin, 2015, p. 84, (in persian). 29. rafiee mehrabadi, abolghasem, the national monuments of isfahan, tehran, anjoman-e-asar-e-melli, 1973, (in persian). 30. ibid. hamdard islamicus 292 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 31. kuppinger, petra, piously creative: islam, art, and creativity in stuttgart, germany, culture and religion, october, 2017, pp. 1-20. 32. ettehadie nezam-mafi, mansoureh., qajar iran, in: the oxford handbook of iranian history, (ed.), newyork, oxford university press, 2012, pp. 319-345. 33. mehan, asma, manifestation of power: toopkhaneh square, tehran. spaces and flows. 2017, (2):77-88. bani masoud, amir, iranian contemporary architecture. tehran, honar-e-memari, 2006, p. 103, (in persian). 34. ghobadian, vahid, architecture of tehran during naseredin shah period, tehran, pashootan, 2006, p. 108. 35. source: denis wright, the english amongst the persians: imperial lives in nineteenth-century iran, i.b. tauris, 2001, p. 110. 36. habibi s. mohsen, from village to city, tehran, publications of tehran university, 2001, p. 141. 37. khomeini, rouhollah, imam khomeini’s scripture, tehran, imam khomeini’s works’ regulation and printing institute, 2001, vol. xxi, p. 189. 38. tehran prayer ground’s retrieved december 15, 2016. from:www. musalla.ir 39. statistical center of iran, statistical results of documentation of mosques and religious places. tehran. 1998. 40. source: supreme council of cultural revolution, preparation plan for the mosques of tehran. tehran. 2012. 41. ayatollah araki, mohsen, the course for urban flourishing systematic jurisprudence, qom, 2014-2016. 42. clarence arthur perry, the neighborhood unit, a scheme of arrangement for the family-life community, published in 1929 as monograph 1 in vol. vii of regional plan of n.y. regional survey of n.y. and its environs. 43. kiani, mohammad yousef, iranian architecture of the islamic period, tehran, samt, 2012. 44. hillenbrand, robert, islamic architecture, translated by iraj etesam, tehran, urban process and planning co., 1998, p. 216. 45. hosseini alamdari, arash; seyed ehsan mousavi, hamid keramati sheikholeslami, maryam saadatmand, the typology of the mosque-schools of iran based on the method of access, bagh-e nazar, 2017, vol. liii, pp. 57-68. 46. official website of the center of supervision on mosques affairs. retrieved march 18, 2018. from: news.masjed.ir/fa/newsagency/31020 47. laugu, nurdin, muslim libraries in history, al-jamiah, 2005, xliii, pp. 57-97. 48. statistical center of iran, the report of the indices for article 68 of the 5th plan of development 2010-2014, tehran, statistical center of iran, 2016. 49. official website of department of the mosques’ libraries: retrieved march 18, 2018. from: www.masjedketab.ir 50. official website of tehran municipality retrieved march 18, 2018. from: http://www.tehran.ir/default.aspx?tabid=135&articleid=17636& dnnprintmode= true&mid=501&skinsrc=[g]skins%2f_default%2fno+skin& containersrc= [g]containers%2f_default%2fno+container 51. harvey, david, rebel cities: from the right to the city to the urban revolution, london, verso, 2012, p. 42. ايجاد شبکه امامت راه حل پيوند مسجد ومدرسه f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 3\corporate social responsibilty in pakistan.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 39 corporate social responsibility in pakistan: mimicry of the west or a milestone guiding consumer behaviour? 1rashid jehangiri 2dr. muhammad shafiq 1phd scholar, institute of quality and technology management, university of the punjab, lahore, pakistan 2director students’ affairs, university of the punjab, lahore, pakistan owing to the fact that the corporate social responsibility (csr) activities initiated by the firms have gained enough momentum in the developed countries, whereas the impact of such activities on customers’ buying behaviour in the developing countries is however underexplored. this study strives to explore the relationship between csr and consumerbuying behaviour in the context of the fast food industry, the second largest industry of the country having 180 million consumers. based upon the theoretical foundations of social identity theory, the study offers and validates a unique model which takes into account the mediating role of corporate image between the relationship of csr and consumer buying behaviour. using a sample size of 1500 from five major cities of pakistan, the structural equation modeling reveals that csr has a significant positive effect on the consumer buying behaviour and corporate image mediates the csr and consumer behaviour nexus. this study provides empirical evidence for the firms by verifying the influence of corporate social responsibility as a major deciding factor to gather the long term patronage of the customers as an organizational objective in the fast food industry of a developing country key words: corporate social responsibility, corporate image, consumer buying behaviour, competitive advantage introduction the success of consumer based organizations lies in the fact that how consumers respond to the product and services offered by the 40 corporate social responsibilty... organizations and the initiatives taken. csr has become a very important aspect for consumers and they want the companies to establish and maintain their focus on the csr related activities (vitell, 2015). according to amatulli et al., (2018), csr has emerged out to be a leading research theme in majority of the consumer behavior literature. to demonstrate a desired buying behaviour, the customers expect the firms to be socially responsible. in the modern contemporary business world, being socially responsible has turned out to be an expectation rather than a competitive tool to attain the supremacy over competing firms. the globalization of the fast food industry has made the companies to expand their businesses beyond national borders and is evident from the presence of western fast food chains in the developing countries. with this expansion, the corporate social responsibility concept is getting momentum in the developing nations. the fast food restaurants that engage in corporate social responsibility initiatives tend to generate positive customers’ buying behaviour. thus csr initiative can be an essential practice to gather a long term competitive advantage among competing firms (lee et al., 2013). according to (tian et al., 2011), consumers tend to be favourable to the firms that communicate their csr initiatives in comparison to those firms that fail to do so. the firms’ csr initiatives have generated a positive reputation and image which eventually leads to improve their market share (porter & kramer, 2006). thus csr initiatives have been used by many firms to instill a positive image in the minds of the customers and also a differentiated tactic as a part of their overall management strategy. the positive corporate image resulting from csr initiatives could affect the consumers’ buying behaviour and will help build a long lasting relationship. many leading fast food chains like mcdonalds, yum! brands and starbucks have engaged in csr activities and have portrayed a positive image in the minds of their consumers, subsequently influencing the behavior. it is imperative to study the perceptions of their consumers in the developing countries, which will help them to device strategies to get hold of long term consumers’ patronage. though numerous studies have been conducted in the last few decades related to csr and especially on the relationship between csr and consumer buying behaviour, yet a little has been studied in the context of hospitality industry. past studies, conducted on (csr) have largely attempted to get an insight on the relationship of csr and the financial performance of the firm and how csr impacts the employees’ behaviour. it has been suggested by many past studies that the customers’ hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 41 loyalty, commitment, trust, satisfaction and perceptions are largely influenced positively by csr which further impact the consumer buying behaviour (chien & chi, 2019; ashraf, ilyas, imtiaz & ahmad, 2018; babic–hodovic, arslanagic – kalajdzic & imsirpasic, 2017; saleem, zahra, yaseen nikou, 2017; setiawan & sayuti, 2017; arslan & zaman, 2014; su & teng, 2018). many researchers have mentioned that the mediating or moderating variables should also be clarified between csr and its outcome rather solely gauging the direct impact of csr (anser et al., 2018) contrary to these results, other scholars have suggested that there is no significant impact of csr on consumer buying-behaviour and it cannot be considered an imperative factor in predicting the purchase behavior (al jarah & emeagwali, 2017; bhattacharya & sen, 2004; gurlek et al., 2017). due to these contrasting results by previous studies, this subject matter calls for a more extensive exploration to gather empirical evidence in favour of either of the outcomes. furthermore, the involvement of csr is also deemed crucial in the strategic marketing policies and business activities of an organization, which influences the consumers’ purchase behaviour (shukla, goel & tiwari, 2019; wang, 2018). it is inevitable to examine consumer buyingbehaviour from the spectacles of csr because most of the marketing strategies are based on this notion. therefore, in light of the ever progressing interest in csr and its importance in predicting the consumer purchase behaviour (arikan & güner, 2013); this study embarks on a journey to examine the impact of csr on consumer buying behavior and to study the mediating role of corporate image. literature review and hypothesis development corporate social responsibility the concept of csr has posed an issue in the academic research and business practices over the course of last 5 decades (dentchev, 2009; carroll & buchholtz, 2006). bowen (1953) carried out the initial csr theoretical development. although copious amounts of research have been conducted on this subject, still, the definition of csr has always been debated by the scholars (lee, 2008). this debate is instigated by the fact that csr is indeed a broad concept in its scope, and thus many scholars have provided their own definition. carol (1979) suggested 42 corporate social responsibilty... that csr encompasses certain expectations that the society has from an organization at given point in time. these expectations are from the economic, ethical, legal and philanthropic domains. . the view point of carroll (1979) was extended by dahlsrud (2008) and presented five types of csr which are economic, environmental, stakeholder, societal and voluntariness. numerous other researchers have presented csr as a concept explaining an array of principles, values and norms that influence behavior (sherwin, 1983). a broad and narrow view of csr was presented by (devinney, 2009). the broad view focused on environmental responsibility, social obligations and legal obligations whereas, narrow view was related to the organization’s obligation to earn profit. vitell (2015) more recently conceptualized csr in two types of exchange processes, which are voluntary and proactive. voluntary engagement highlighted the notion that the organizations should not participate in the activities that can cause harm to society at large and proactive engagement implies that firms should take part in the activities that present social benefits. this study follows the model presented by carroll (1979) and focuses on the four dimension of csr which are economic, legal, social and ethical. given that these four dimensions may directly influence the consumer buying behaviour of the customers, they are strongly associated with the fast food industry context. csr and corporate image corporate image (ci) is the impression of the company over its customers (nguyen and leblanc, 2001). according to lai et al., (2010) the stakeholders’ social concerns are addressed by corporate image of the organization. csr activities bear the tendency of creating a collective perception of the public towards a company (abimbola, & kleyn, 2012). this perception must be stimulated by consistent and apt communication of the csr activities of the organization. however, if the company employees the internally-controlled channels as opposed to the reactive communication channels for this communication of csr activities, they are considered deceitful by the consumers (wagner, lutz, & weitz, 2009). past studies are testiment to the fact that the companies those are engaged in csr initiatives are able to portray a positive image of them only through effective communication, and this positive image is rewarded by the customers in the form of purchases made by them (brown and dacin,; folkes and kamins, 1999; 1997 murray and vogel, 1997). hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 43 engagement in csr activities has been a success factor in creating a positive corporate image (golob & bartlett, 2007). this positive image augments customers’ loyalty and provides the organization its desired sustainability and competitive edge (lantos, 2001). even a negative corporate image can be switched to a positive one by investing in csr initiatives with stakeholders’ welfare as the motive. however, the existing literature is insufficient in providing the evidence whether this view is applicable in a developing economy like pakistan. this impact of csr on corporate image is not extensively explored in pakistan especially in the restaurant industry which accounts for the second largest industry in pakistan. considering these gaps in the csr literature and based on four csr dimensions presented by carroll (1979), the devised hypothesis is as follows: h1: csr has a significant positive effect on corporate image csr, corporate image and consumer buying behaviour a study on csr suggested that the challenges faced by organisations in developed countries in the implementation of csr initiatives are entirely different from the ones faced by companies in the developing countries (visser et al., 2010). in developing countries, business systems have largely delegated responsibilities to the private sector because of numerous issues like poor governance and weak institutions. additionally, the multinational companies operating in such developing countries are faced with several cultural, religious, and complex social challenges (werhane 2000). even though csr as a concept has been, for the most part, identified as a need of the hour, very little is known about its impacts on consumers’ minds and behaviours (vahdati, mousavi, & tajik, 2015). restaurants are such an organisation where the cunsumer of the end product is present inside the organiation and production and consumption is taking place simultaneously (davis et. al., 2008). if the csr initiatives are perceived as positive by the customers, they in turn incentivise the restauant by consuming its products (akanno et.al., 2015). social identity theory and csrconsumer behaviour relationship according to tajfel (1978) the social identity theory provides individuals a sense of belonging to a certain group. a feeling of trust and 44 corporate social responsibilty... positive emotions emerges among the individuals who enjoy similiarity being the part of that group (ashforth and mael, 1989). subsequently the perceptions and behaviour of the member are influenced by the social group (teng, 2017). moreover when individuals identify themselves as a part of a certain social group, they strive to conform to the established norms of that group because the conformance in the social group strengthens their individual identity (ambrose et al., 2018). for example teng (2017) studied the gaming community and he found out that the members of the gaming community influence the perception and behaviours of the fellow members. the contemporary studies on csr have set the stage for further exploration of this concept in light of consumer buying behaviour and its mechanisms and contigencies are required to be investigated in the context of devolping economies. thus, in the light of the available literature, there is a lack of studies that attempts to find the relationship of csr, corporate image and consumer buying-behaviour in developing economy, specifically in the fast-food restaurant industry. this gives rise to the second and third hypotheses of the study: h2: csr has a significant positive influence on consumer buying behaviour h3: corporate image mediates the relationship between csr and consumer buying behaviour corporate image and consumer buying behaviour the behaviour of customers is impacted by the positive corporate image (nan & heo, 2007).the relationship among corporate reputation, corporate retention and customer retention was explored by (nguyen & leblanc, 2001). the result inferred that a positive corporate image ensures customer retention and loyalty with the organisation. a similar study was conducted in the fmcg industry of pakistan by shabbir, kaufmann, ahmad, & qureshi (2010) where the relationship between customer relationship management and consumer buying in intention was explored with the mediating role of corporate image. the results indicated that the relationship between the two mentioned variables was being partially mediated by corporate image. based on the literature, it can be safely deduced that insufficient studies have been conducted to find the impact hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 45 of corporate image on consmer buying behaviour in a developing economy especially in context of fast food industry. keeping in view the above mentioned gap, the fourth hypotheisis of this study is mentioned below: h4: corporate image has a significant positive influence on consumer buying behaviour. fast food restaurants in pakistan fast food restaurants have become evidently popular in pakistan in the recent years owing to their ability to offer convenience of grabbing the food on the go, accessible locations, and economic pricing (memon, 2016). it has resulted in making fast-food industry, second largest industry of the country with a total of 180 million countrywide consumers (memon, 2016). furthermore, when fast food and food related businesses are considered, pakistan has the world’s 8th biggest market with an over 1000 large-scale food-processing companies (memon, 2016). there has been a tremendous shift in the eating habits and life-styles of people of pakistan, which has resulted in a drastic change in the pakistan fast food industry. an average household spends 42 percent of its income on food annually according to a study conducted to measure the performance of fast food businesses operational in pakistan. furthermore, each year there is a 10 percent growth in the overall retail sales of processed foods in pakistan. in addition to this, supermarkets have also risen to popularity as a one-stop shopping spot. ten percent of the total sales of these supermarkets are attributed to the retail fast food sales (memon, 2016). moreover, the western style fast food restaurants are also on the increase in pakistan because of the current trend of adopting western eating style. there is an overall 20 percent growth in fast food industry in pakistan because of the 21 percent annual shift in eating habits of pakistani citizens and the ever-increasing number of fast food restaurants (memon, 2016). this makes fast food industry one of the fastest growing industries of pakistan as well as of the world. conceptual model a graphic display of the interrelationships in the conceptual model is given in figure 1 46 corporate social responsibilty... fig 1: conceptual model material and methods population and sample it was planned to target consumers of the fast-food restaurants in pakistan as the study population. pakistan has more than 350 cities and every city has several fast-food restaurants. so, the number of restaurants was too large or unrecorded in all cities of pakistan. sampling frame considered for this study was derived from the list of restaurants registered with the relevant revenue boards of pakistan. therefore, the sample of this study considered the fastfood restaurants’ consumers of five popular cities of pakistan which are lahore, islamabad, karachi, quetta and peshawar. 297 restaurants were short listed by using the sample calculator. multistage sampling technique was incorporated to select from the sampling frame. five respondents from each of 297 restaurants, who were present at the restaurants, were asked to fill the survey questionnaires. instrument and measurement of variables a self-administrated questionnaire was used with closed-ended questions. ”. 16-items scale of carroll (1979) has been used to measure the csr on a 5-point likert scale. the scale had a cronbach’s alpha corporate social responsibility corporate image consumer buying behavior h1 h3 h4 h2 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 47 value of 0.89. a 5-item scale developed by nguyen and leblanc (2001) was adopted with a 5-point likert scale for corporate image. the reliability of this scale was 0.86. a 16-item scale of zeithmal (1996) was used to measure consumer buying behaviour. the reliability of this scale was 0.90. the evaluation of the variables were based on interval scale and five point likert scale 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree were used to measuring these variables. data collection a cross sectional survey was conducted in this study and the respondents were approached individually for data collection. the researcher with his hired team managed to personally visit 297 fast-food restaurants in five cities of pakistan. questionnaires were distributed to consumers who were availing the services at that time in the fast food restaurant with an aim to target five consumers from each restaurant. completed questionnaires were collected back immediately to guarantee a high response rate. 1485 questionnaires were distributed among the respondents of five different cities of pakistan i.e. lahore, islamabad, karachi, quetta and peshawar but only 1425 questionnaires were returned for further analysis, thus depicting a response rate of 95%. ethical considerations the information gathering for this research occurred through the researcher’s personal visit to potential respondents who were consumers, availing services of 297 fast-food restaurants in five cities of pakistan. in the same manner, potential respondents were given a descriptive statement at the start of questionnaire that elucidated the reason for this study, guaranteed the anonymity and confidentiality of respondents, educated them regarding their entitlement to leave the study whenever they wish to, and it was also explained that the returning of completed questionnaires will be considered as indication of agreeing to participate in research. the collected data was kept safe at the researcher’s custody. the names of the respondents were not demanded in the questionnaire to ensure its full confidentiality. finally, the researcher designed the questionnaire by keeping in mind the respondents’ sensitivity and not posing any question that could be addressed by false data and might evade socially unwanted inquiries. 48 corporate social responsibilty... data analysis a total of 1425 received questionnaires were carefully recorded in ms excel and spss. while the data entry was taking place, the postcoding of 1425 survey questionnaires was conducted followed by the rigorous scrutiny of the data regarding consistency, completeness and legitimacy. with the use of descriptive statistics, a total of 80 questionnaires were excluded from the data because of missing values in the responses. unengaged responses were identified using the standard deviation (sd) technique. all such records, which had a value of standard deviation below 0.5, were removed as it indicated that these respondents answered all the questions of the survey in the same manner. reliability and validity reliability of the questionnaire an inter-item correlation matrix was developed for each construct in order to evaluate the internal consistency of the constructs. there was no negative correlation found among the items of the same construct. afterwards, the value of cronbach’s alpha was also calculated for each of the three constructs under study. the cronbach’s alpha value of 0.7 and above is considered to be the acceptable range of reliability. the cronbach’s alpha values for the individual constructs and overall questionnaire are shown in table 1. it can be clearly seen that the cronbach’s alpha values of the entire constructs are well above 0.7. validity of the questionnaire bryman (2015) suggested that face or content validity should be considered as a minimum threshold to confirm the validity of a scale which is an intuitive procedure and has to be established by the researcher. in order to achieve face and content validity, a session was conducted of group comprised of quality experts, practitioners and academics to examine the degree to which the items of the construct were actually measuring the aforementioned constructs. the 34 items of measures of corporate social responsibility, corporate image and consumer buying behaviour were left over for data collection after that session and further confirmation took place after the pilot study. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 49 table 1: reliability analysis constructs number of items cronbach’s alpha corporate social 16 0.903 responsibility corporate image 5 0.863 consumer buying 13 0.90 behaviour overall reliability of 34 0.938 the questionnaire results descriptive statistics the result of the descriptive analysis is shown in table 2. it can be seen that majority 61 % respondents were male and 39% constituted female. the analysis of the age depicted an interesting result. the major chunk of the respondents was under 30 years of age (60%), which supports the notion that youngsters are fond of fast food. descriptive analysis suggested that majority of the respondents were of a younger age and were either students or at the beginning stage of their career, that supports the above mentioned notion of their presence at a fast food restaurant. exploratory factor analysis (efa) we used spss 23 to conduct exploratory factor analysis (efa). keeping abreast the requirements of structural equation modeling (sem), maximum likelihood extraction method with pro-max rotation was incorporated to extract the factors. since there were 34 items in the survey questionnaire intended to measure the three constructs; all 34 items were included in the efa analysis. while conducting efa an eigen value greater than 1 was considered as a threshold value. subsequently we found out that the pattern matrix divided the 34 items in to three factors by using the principle of eigen value greater than 1 (lattin et al., 2003). 50 corporate social responsibilty... table 2: demographic profile of the respondents sr. characteristics frequency respondents 1 gender male 758 61% female 480 39% age 2 20-30 741 60% 31-40 345 28% 41-50 130 10% above 51 22 2% 3 education high school 156 13% bachelor 700 55% post graduate 28 28% phd 35 4% 4 occupation student 441 36% employee 461 37% businessman 265 21% household 71 6% 5 income level less than 50,000 761 62% 51,000-100,000 268 21% 101,000 – 150,000 136 11% above 150,000 73 6% the total explained variance of all variables was 44%. the 11 items hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 51 of csr and consumer buying behaviour were causing a problem of cross loading with corporate image; therefore, they were deleted from further analysis because of their cross loading with other factors. after removing those 11 items, we conducted the efa again using the same procedure. the result showed that all the items were cleanly loading on three distinct constructs. validity of the items and model fit after extracting the three factors through efa, we conducted the confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) to ensure the validity of items and model fitness. cfa model fitness results are given in table 3, which shows that the values of all fitness indices for proposed three factor model are within threshold value range and model fit is acceptable. figure 2 representing the cfa and its results in detail. correlation analysis initially, bi-variate pearson correlation analysis was calculated among all study variables to analyze the relationships and their directions between the constructs, as given in table 4. the outcomes of correlation analysis indicated that all control variables except income level were significantly correlated with study variables. relationship among study variables and structural model we built a structural model based upon the research hypotheses once the measurement model was tested and multivariate assumptions were established. the structural model represents the relationship among csr, corporate image, and buying behaviour as shown in figure 3. table 3: model fit indices measure estimate threshold interpretation estimate (measurement (structural model) model) cmin 599.523 — — 599.524 df 185 — — 185 52 corporate social responsibilty... measure estimate threshold interpretation estimate (measurement (structural model) model) cmin 3.241 between excellent 3.241 /df 1 and 5 cfi 0.956 >0.95 excellent 0.956 gfi 0.954 >0.95 excellent 0.954 rmr 0.023 <0.08 excellent 0.023 rmsea 0.043 <0.06 excellent 0.043 pclose 1 >0.05 excellent 0.999 hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 53 figure 3: structural model it can be seen that values of path coefficients of the structural model for all the entire hypotheses are significant. table 4: correlations analysis sr# variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 gender 1 2 age -.19** 1 3 education -.05 .32** 1 4 income -.20** .48** .35** 1 level 5 csr -.18** .12** .10** .04 1 7 corporate -.19** .15** .09** .03 .63** .63** 1 image 8 buying -.23** .15** .06* .04 .68** .71** .79** 1 behaviour 54 corporate social responsibilty... note: * significant at 5% level, ** significant at 10 % level, *** significant at 1 % level we checked the model fitness of the structural model and the result depicted that the model fitness was adequate. table 5 shows the standardized regression weights for all the possible paths of the structural model. in the structural model, this hypothesis states that csr will have significant positive impact on corporate image. the values of direct effect for this relationship is 0.55*** which shows that the consumers with higher csr perception will have a positive corporate image as given in table 5. therefore, hypothesis h1 is supported. the second hypothesis h2 of this study states that the csr will have a significant positive impact on consumer buying behaviour. the value of the relationship of this link is 0.40*** as shown in table 5, which confirms hypothesis h2 that a positive perception of csr will have a significantly positive effect on consumer buying behaviour. therefore, hypothesis h2 is supported. table 6 shows the direct and indirect effects of csr on consumer buying behaviour. table 5: standardized regression weights for structural model path of variable estimate p value csr —> corporate image 0.55 *** csr —> buying behaviour 0.40 *** corporate image —> buying 0.41 *** behaviour note: * significant at 5% level, ** significant at 10 % level, *** significant at 1 % level the findings of sem depicts that there is a significant indirect effect of csr on consumer buying behaviour and the effect size is hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 55 0.23***, which entirely supports the proposed mediating path in h3. as both the direct and indirect effect between csr and consumer buying behavior is statistically significant, it can be suggested that corporate image is partially mediating the relationship between csr and consumer buying behavior. hence hypothesis h3 is supported. the hypothesis h4 of the study explains the relationship between corporate image and consumer buying behaviour. the value of the direct effect of this relationship is 0.41*** as shown in table 5, which further confirms that a positive corporate image will have significant positive influence on consumer buying behaviour. thus hypothesis h4 is supported. table 6: direct and indirect effects direct indirect p hypotheses effect effect value β value β value csr —> corporate image 0.55 *** csr —> buying behaviour 0.40 *** corporate image —> 0.41 *** buying behaviour csr —> corporate image —> 0.23 *** buying behaviour note: * significant at 5% level, ** significant at 10 % level, *** significant at 1 % level discussion on the findings of the study as suggested by the findings of the study, all the four hypotheses are supported. according to hypothesis h1 csr do have a significant positive effect on corporate image in the context of fast food restaurant industry in pakistan. the finding is consistent with the previous studies in csr literature. the result of the hypothesis h2 explains the fact that 56 corporate social responsibilty... if consumers of the fast food restaurant positively perceive the csr initiatives of the restaurant, it is going to positively affect their buying behaviour towards that restaurant. this finding is in line with various prior studies (amoroso & roman, 2015; rahim et al., 2011; beckerolsen et al., 2006; fatma et al., 2016). according to hypothesis h3 corporate image influences the consumer buying behaviour. the results of the study suggest that if consumers of a pakistani fast food industry develop positive corporate image about a restaurant, it will positively impacts their buying behaviour. the hypothesis h4 is a novel finding of this study, which suggests the mediating role of corporate image in predicting the consumer buying behavior in response to csr initiatives by fast food restaurants in pakistan. the results of the study confirm the relationship between csr and consumer buying behaviour is partially mediated by corporate image. managerial implications in a quest to maintain and sustain a competitive advantage, building a strong and loyal customer base is the main ingredient of this journey. the modern customer is more concerned about the issues pertaining to public welfare and society at large. if an organisation is actively participating in the csr activities and is communicating those initiatives to the customers, there are high chances that customer will become loyal to that organisation. this research has several managerial implications. the fast-food restaurants should engage themselves in csr initiatives and work on various mediums to communicate those initiatives to the customers. though genuine csr is noteworthy, still effective csr communication is a corner stone for developing customer loyalty as ‘transparency encourages competitiveness’ (chen and wongsurawat, 2011, p.56). csr initiatives demand fast-food industry to put their products and services for sales at a reasonable price, comply with law, participate and sponsor public events and aim to promote the overall social wellbeing of the society at large. this will help them to register a positive corporate image in the minds of the customers which eventually will influence their buying behaviour in their favour. limitations and future research this study examined the influence of csr on buying behaviour of hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 57 consumers in fast-food industry. we selected fast foods because of time and resource constraint, the future studies can include full service restaurants, cafeterias and fine dining restaurants. furthermore, the study was cross sectional in nature and self-administered questionnaire was adopted to collect data. the limitation can be overcome by using multi-time cross sectional design with time break. in future, researchers may replicate the study in different countries and different industries as consumers from different industries and countries may have their unique perceptions about csr, so in turn csr may show different kind of relationship with consumer behaviour. bibliography amatulli, c. korschun, m. angelis, d. & romani, d. (2018). consumers’ perceptions of luxury brands’ csr initiatives: an investigation of the role of status and conspicuous consumption. journal of cleaner production, 19(4), 277-287. abimbola, t., truman, m., iglesias, o., abratt, r., & kleyn, n. (2012). corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate reputations. european journal of marketing. akanno, s. n., che, f., radda, a. a., & uzodinma, i. (2015). corporate social responsibility and consumer buying behavior in the nigerian oil and gas sector. international journal of business and finance management research, 3, 90-97. al jarah, a., & emeagwali, o. l. (2017). corporate social responsibility and behavioral intention: the moderator effect of contextual factors: a meta-analytic examination. social responsibility journal, 13(4), 678-697. amoroso, d., & roman, f. (2015). corporate social responsibility and purchase intention: the roles of loyalty, advocacy, and quality of life in the philippines. international journal of management, 4(1), 25-41. anser, m. k., zhang, z., & kanwal, l. (2018). moderating effect of innovation on corporate social responsibility and firm performance in realm of sustainable development. corporate social responsibility and environmental management, 25 (5), 799–806.  ar1 kan, e., & güner, s. (2013). the impact of corporate social responsibility, service quality and customer-company identification on customers. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 99, 304-313. ashraf, s., ilyas, r., imtiaz, m., & ahmad, s. (2018). impact of service quality, corporate image and perceived value on brand loyalty with presence and absence of customer satisfaction: a study of four service sectors of pakistan. sciences, 8(2), 452-474. babic-hodovic, v., arslanagic-kalajdzic, m., & imsirpasic, a. (2017). perceived quality and corporate image in mobile services: the role of technical and functional quality. south east european journal of economics and business, 12(1), 114125. becker-olsen, k. l., cudmore, b. a., & hill, r. p. (2006). the impact of perceived 58 corporate social responsibilty... corporate social responsibility on consumer behavior. journal of business research, 59(1), 46-53. bell, e., bryman, a., & harley, b. (2018). business research methods. oxford university press. bhattacharya, c. b., & sen, s. (2004). doing better at doing good: when, why, and how consumers respond to corporate social initiatives. california management review, 47(1), 9-24. bowen, h. r. (1953). social responsibility of the businessman: harper & row, new york carroll, a. b. (1979). a three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate performance. academy of management review, 4(4). 497-505. carroll, a. b., & buchholtz, a. k., (2006), business & society: ethics and stakeholder management, thomson/south-western, mason, ohio. chien, l., & chi, s. (2019). corporate image as a mediator between service quality and customer satisfaction: difference across categorized exhibitors. heliyon, 5(3), e01307. dahlsrud, a. (2008). how corporate social responsibility is defined: an analysis of 37 definitions. corporate social responsibility and environmental management, 15 (1), 1–13. davis, k. (1960). can business afford to ignore social responsibilities? california management review, 2(3), 70-76. dentchev, na 2009, ‘to what extent is business and society literature idealistic?’, business & society, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 10-38.. devinney, t. (2009). is the socially responsible corporation a myth? the good, the bad, and the ugly of corporate social responsibility. academy of management perspectives vol no. 23, no. 2, 44-56. fatma, m., khan, i., & rahman, z. (2016). how does corporate association influence consumer brand loyalty? mediating role of brand identification. journal of product & brand management, 25(7), 629-641. folkes, v. s., & kamins, m. a. (1999). effects of information about firms’ ethical and unethical actions on consumers’ attitudes. journal of consumer psychology, 8(3), 243-259. golob, u., & bartlett, j. l. (2007). communicating about corporate social responsibility: a comparative study of csr reporting in australia and slovenia. public relations review, 33(1), 1-9. gürlek, m., düzgün, e., & meydan uygur, s. (2017). how does corporate social responsibility create customer loyalty? the role of corporate image. social responsibility journal, 13(3), 409-427. heliyon, 5(3), e01307 corporate image as a mediator between service quality and customer satisfaction: difference across categorized exhibitors. lai, c. s., chiu, c. j., yang, c. f., & pai, d. c. (2010). the effects of corporate social responsibility on brand performance: the mediating effect of industrial brand equity and corporate reputation. journal of business ethics, 95 (3), 57–469. lantos, g. p. (2001). the boundaries of strategic corporate social responsibility journal of consumer marketing, 18(7), 595-630. lattin, j., carroll, j. d., & green, p. e. (2003) analyzing multivariate data. thomson hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 59 learning. inc., toronto, canada. leblanc, g., & nguyen, n. (1996) cues used by customers evaluating corporate image in service firms: an empirical study in financial institutions. international journal of service industry management, 7(2), 44-56. lee, c. k., song, h. j., lee, h. m., lee, s. k., & bernh (2013) the impact of csr on casino employees’ organizational trust, job satisfaction, and customer orientation: an empirical examination of responsible gambling strategies. international journal of hospitality management, 33, 406-415. memon, n. (2016). fast food: 2nd largest industry in pakistan. pakistan food journal, 28-30. murray, k. b., & vogel, c. m. (1997). using a hierarchy-of-effects approach to gauge the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility to generate goodwill toward the firm: financial versus nonfinancial impacts. journal of business research, 38(2), 141-159. porter, m. e., & kramer, m. r. (2006). strategy and society: the link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. harvard bus. , rev. 78–93. rahim, r. a., jalaludin, f. w., & tajuddin, k. (2011). the importance of corporate social responsibility on consumer behaviour in malaysia. asian academy of management journal, 16(1), 119-139. saleem, m. a., zahra, s., & yaseen, a. (2017). impact of service quality and trust on repurchase intentions–the case of pakistan airline industry. asia pacific journal of marketing and logistics, 29(5), 1136-1159. setiawan, h., & sayuti, a. j. (2017). effects of service quality, customer trust and corporate image on customer satisfaction and loyalty: an assessment of travel agencies customer in south sumatra indonesia. iosr journal of business and management, 19(5), 31-40. shabbir, s., kaufmann2, h. r., ahmad, i., & qureshi, i. m. (2010). cause related marketing campaigns and consumer purchase intentions: the mediating role of brand awareness and corporate image. african journal of business management, 1229-1235. sherwin, d. s. (1983). the ethical roots of the business system. harvard business review, 61, 183-192. shukla, a., goel, g., & tiwari, n. (2019). consumer perception of corporate social responsibility and purchase behavior. international journal of business excellence, 18(1), 22-41. swaen, v., & chumpitaz, r. c. (2008). impact of corporate social responsibility on consumer trust. recherche et applications en marketing (english edition), 23(4), 7-34. tajfel, h. (1978). social categorization, social identity, and social comparison. in: tajfel, h. (ed.), differentiation between social groups: studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations. academic press, london,, 61-76. vahdati, h., mousavi, n., & tajik, z. m. (2015). the study of consumer perception on corporate social responsibility towards consumers’ attitude and purchase behavior. asian economic and financial review, 5(5), 831-845. visser, w., matten, d., pohl, m., & tolhurst, n. (2010). the a to z of corporate social responsibility. john wiley & sons. 60 corporate social responsibilty... vitell, s. j. (2015). a case for consumer social responsibility (csr): including a selected review of consumer ethics/social responsibility research. journal of business ethics, 130 (4), 767-774. werhane, p. h. (2000). exporting mental models: global capitalism in the 21st century. business ethics quarterly, 10(1), 353-362. zeithmal, v. a., leonard, l. b., & parasuraman, a. (1996). the behavioral consequences of service quality. hamdard islamicus 133 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 an analysis of zakót distribution scheme in the light of maqóøid al-sharô‘ah in malaysia, brunei and singapore dr. azman ab rahman1 and dr. muhamad sa‘dan abdul aziz2 1associate professor, 2assistant professor, faculty of syariah and law universiti sains islam malaysia e-mail: azman@usim.edu.my/saqdan910@gmail.com the administration in the collection and distribution of zakét system in malaysia, brunei and singapore are under the supervision of islamic religious council. the administration of zakét funds in malaysia is different because it has fourteen states. lembaga zakét selangor (lzs) as one of the zakét enforcement bodies in the state of selangor and it will be the focus for this research. in brunei and singapore, zakét distribution scheme under the jurisdiction of their own islamic religious council. the objective of this research* to ensure the zakét distribution scheme fulfilled the maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principle. a qualitative research methodology was undertaken by using the zakét reports and zakét websites. thus, all the schemes needed to analyse are based on the maqéîid al-sharê‘ah consisting of the five main principles; religion, life, intellect, lineage, and wealth. the finding of this research concluded that the zakét distribution scheme provided in malaysia, brunei and singapore were followed the maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principle. however, the new model of zakét distribution schemes propose, based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah, should be implemented. the implication of this research would be a great solution for zakét institutions in malaysia, brunei and singapore to improve all existing zakét distribution schemes to be more systematic and efficient. keywords: zakét distribution scheme, maqéîid al-sharê‘ah , malaysia, brunei, and singapore. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *this research is funded by universiti sains islam malaysia (usim) under the grant numbers usim:usim/frgs/fsu/32/51413jptfrgs/2/2013/ssi03/usim/02/01. the authors would like to thanks to universiti sains islam malaysia for their financial support. hamdard islamicus 134 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 introduction zakét is an obligatory religious duty on muslims to achieve divinely prescribed socioeconomic objectives. it is a financial aid adopted with full religious backing to support those poor and needy who are unable to help themselves to alleviate misery and poverty in society. hence, zakét distribution scheme has been introduced in zakét institutions to distribute the zakét funds received from the zakét payers. the importance of zakét has been emphasised in both the qur’én and sunnah and has been widely discussed by almost all the jurists either traditional or contemporary corpus of islamic law. zakét is obligatory on every muslim considered eligible for its payment in accordance with the islamic law. traditionally, zakét is said to have both a spiritual and economic effect. the explanation from this verse explains about the believers having a discussion regarding the position of infidels and the valid reason of their being punished by god. the infidels neglected the right of masékên and let them suffer in famished condition. apart from that, in the chapter al-qalam, allah has illustrated the story of orchard owners who colluded to gather all the fruits of their orchard, early in the morning, without allowing even a single needy person’s entrance in their garden. as a consequence from that, is that allah afflicts such groups with misfortunes as mentioned in the verse below: then there came on the (garden) a visitation from thy lord, (which swept away) all around, while they were asleep. so the (garden) became, by the morning, like a dark and desolate spot, (whose fruit had been gathered). as the morning broke, they called out, one to another, – “go ye to your tilth (betimes) in the morning, if ye would gather the fruits.” so they departed, conversing in secret low tones, hamdard islamicus 135 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 (saying) – “let not a single indigent person break in upon you into the (garden) this day.” and they opened the morning, strong in an (unjust) resolve. but when they saw the (garden), they said: “we have surely lost our way: “indeed we are shut out (of the fruits of our labour)!” said one of them, more just (than the rest): “did i not say to you, ‘why not glorify (allah)?’ ” they said: “glory to our lord! verily we have been doing wrong!” then they turned, one against another, in reproach. they said: “alas for us! we have indeed transgressed! “it may be that our lord will give us in exchange a better (garden) than this: for we do turn to him (in repentance)!” such is the punishment (in this life); but greater is the punishment in the hereafter, – if only they knew! (al-qur’én, lxviii:19-33). both chapters in the qur’énic verses delivered the same message of concern towards the faqêr and miskên. as a human being, the rich have to give assistance to the miskên in order to get a reward from allah. the miskên is a person who possess something but it is less than his niîéb (limit). he does some work but, on account of lack of material or physical resources, does not earn enough to support himself and his family.1 in the qur’énic chapter of al-dhériét, allah has mentioned the special characteristics of those who are granted paradise. they are the one who realize that the property owned by them has a right for the faqêr and miskên (needy and destitute persons). the act of giving zakét to faqêr and miskên are the obligation that has to be done as allah says: as to the righteous, they will be in the midst of gardens and springs, taking joy in the things which their lord gives them, because, before then, they lived a good life. they were in the habit of sleeping but little by night. and in the hour of early dawn, they (were found) praying for forgiveness; and in their wealth and possessions (was remembered) the right of the (needy) him who asked, and him who (for some reason) was prevented (from asking). (al-qur’én, li:15-18) hamdard islamicus 136 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the following verses of chapter al-asré’ further explain that true muslims should render due rights to the kindred, needy and wayfarer. and render to the kindred their due rights, as (also) to those in want, and to the wayfarer: but squander not (your wealth) in the manner of a spendthrift.verily spendthrifts are brothers of the evil ones; and the evil one is to his lord (himself) ungrateful. (al-qur’én, xvii:26-27). the islamic history shows the development of zakét institutions from the era of prophet muíammad (œ) until the umayyad and ‘abbéside dynasties*. after the hijra, the journey where the prophet muíammad (œ) migrated to madinah, the administration of zakét had been organized centrally where zakét institutions were established at the state level. there were formal appointments of zakét collectors as well as the introduction of record keepers.2 all the qur’énic verses discussed above were revealed during the stages of islam in makkah. the protection towards the faqêr and miskên had been one of the islamic missions to replace jéhilêyyah’s (dark ages) norms and society. during that time, zakét terminology has not been introduced, however, the correct terms used such as giving food, or to funding the poor and needy but not considered as an obligation yet. in other words, the concept used was simply referring to an act or virtue of almsgiving which is voluntary in nature as well as in accord with the sense or awareness of helping and providing the less fortunate people such as faqêr and miskên with the basic necessities. qur’énic and ×adêth revelation and issue of zakét there are many qur’énic verses and ×adêths that have been prescribed about the zakét in islam. and be steadfast in prayer; practise regular charity; and bow down –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *even after the ‘abbésid period the muslim rulers continued to collect and levy zakét. as late as the eighteenth century the mughul emperors received it from the rich. when the british ruled india (1857-1947), they ignored and abolished all the religion oriented muslim rites. however, the muslims led by their ulema unable to receive any help from the colonial masters, continued to pay zakét to the poor and the needy particularly in the month of ramaìén (see also addendum at the end of this article) –ed. hamdard islamicus 137 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 your heads with those who bow down (in worship). (al-qur’én, ii:43) it is not righteousness that ye turn your faces towards east or west; but it is righteousness to believe in allah and the last day, and the angels, and the book, and the messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves; to be steadfast in prayer, and practice regular charity; to fulfil the contracts which ye have made; and to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic. such are the people of truth, the allah-fearing. (al-qur’én, ii:177). by no means shall ye attain righteousness unless ye give (freely) of that which ye love; and whatever ye give, of a truth allah knoweth it well. (al-qur’én, iii: 92) zakét is the third of the five perennial divine commands to humanity. the prophet (œ) said in this regard: “islam is built on five (pillars): acknowledgement that there is no god but allah, and muíammad (œ) is his messenger, performing the prayers, giving the zakét, fasting in ramaìén, and performing ×ajj if one is able” (øaíêí muslim, 1, no. 0019). the notable companion of the prophet (œ), abë hurayrah, relates that a bedouin once asked the prophet (œ) to instruct him in a course of action that would cause him to enter paradise. the prophet (œ) replied: “worship god and join not anyone with him (in that worship)! resolutely establish the prayer (in your life). pay the zakét (annually). and observe the fast of (the month of) ramaìén” (saíêí bukhérê, no. 480). hamdard islamicus 138 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the íadêth above explains that paying zakét is an obligation to perform when one achieves the niîéb (limit) to those in need*. giving alms or zakét is one of the good deeds because the lives of poor and needy can be well-preserved as muslims should help each other. in another íadêth, it threatens those who refused to pay zakét. abë hurairah (d), related that the prophet (œ) said: “whoever is made wealthy by allah and does not pay the zakét of his wealth will be made like a bald-headed poisonous male snake with two black spots over its eyes. the snake will encircle his neck and bite his cheeks and say, “i am your treasure” then he recited the following verse, and let not those who covetously withhold of the gifts which allah hath given them of his grace, think that it is good for them: nay, it will be the worse for them: soon shall the things which they covetously withheld be tied to their necks like a twisted collar, on the day of judgment. to allah belongs the heritage of the heavens and the earth; and allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do. (al-qur’én, iii: 180) (øaíêí bukhérê, vol. ii, p. 281, no. 1403). based on the qur’énic version and of íadêths of the prophet (œ) zakét is very important in the islamic financial system and institutions because the obligation to pay zakét has been ordained. however, its distribution to the right recipients should be analysed in detail. zakét also benefits not only the one who receives it, but also the zakét payer as well. our scholars have enumerated the outstanding effects that zakét bequeaths to such individuals and their wealth. the act of giving zakat purifies the heart of the payer from selfishness and greed for wealth and develops in him sympathy for the poor and needy. on the other hand, those who received the zakét funds will purify the heart of the recipients from envy and hatred of the rich and prosperous, and fosters in him a sense of good will towards his muslims brother. zakét administration and management in malaysia, brunei and singapore malaysia, brunei and singapore have shared their experiences of –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *according to one interpretation the niîéb of zakét as per ahnéf scholars, is possession of value equivalent to 7½ tolés of gold (87.48 g) or 52½ tolés of silver (612.36 g) after passing one year’s time,. 2½ % of one’s savings is deducted as zakét – ed. hamdard islamicus 139 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 various approaches in zakét distribution towards modernization through effective collaboration and distribution channels. based on the annual zakét report, these countries have shown an increasing of zakét collection and distribution every year. throughout social media, advertisements, islamic preachers and other, zakét payers already aware that zakét is compulsory when reached its limit (niîéb). these countries administer their zakét based on the qur’én and the sunnah embodied within the legislative and political framework. this is to ensure that not only each muslim’s religious obligation is fully adhered to, but also to give a more structured and organized determination of the parameters of zakét distribution.3 amongst these countries, they have enacted such laws and regulations pertaining to the administration of zakét including in particular, its collection and distribution mechanisms. malaysia in malaysia, a jurisdiction of islamic matters such as zakét is under the supervision of states and administered by the state islamic religious council (sirc). there are many states in malaysia such as perlis, perak, kedah, sabah, johor, kelantan, terengganu and selangor who are collecting and distributing of zakét under the sirc or independent government body. sirc is a main body to govern islamic matters whereas lzs falls under the sirc jurisdiction and pertained to zakét governance only. zakét and fiïrah (state of selangor) regulation 2012 stated that for the purpose of enforcing regulation 41, the lembaga (board) shall create a procedure for zakét distribution including matters determined by the fatwé committee.4 zakét distribution system has been applied in every state and lembaga zakét selangor (lzs) is one of the zakét enforcement bodies. lzs plays a crucial role in collecting and distributing zakét to the zakét recipients (aînéf). based on the zakét administration report of selangor, it shows that lzs has distributed zakét coherently on five main programs which are religious institution development, educational development, economic development, social development and human development.5 to ensure the distribution of zakét achieves zakét goals, therefore, the distribution of zakét should follow maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles under the prioritization of religion, life, intellect, lineage, and wealth. hamdard islamicus 140 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 brunei darussalam zakét collection and distribution division (bakaz) is one of the divisions of the department of islamic religious council of brunei. the main function of this division is to collect and distribute zakét funds received from zakét payers to be distributed to 6 aînéf entitled in brunei. bakaz headed by a chief who reports to the secretary of the islamic religious council in the administration of the charity. disbursement or distribution is solely authorized by brunei islamic religious council. section 116 under the undang-undang negara brunei darussalam stated that zakét should be payable by a muslim who reached the limit (niîéb).6 generally, there are 8 aînéf eligible to receive zakét like faqêr, miskên, mu’allaf‘, amêl, al-ghérêmin, ar-riqéb, and fê sabêlillah. however, only 6 groups are entitled for the zakét distribution in brunei whereas mufti fatwé no 14 mkb 3/1969 excluded the slave (ar-riqéb) and (fê sabêlillah) (struggle in the way of allah) as zakét recipients. in brunei darussalam, there is no extreme poverty, but the problem is in the form of relative poverty.7 relative poverty could be further analysed when a family is incapable to buy basic household needs such as food, cloths and so on. on the other hand, in the zakét distribution, there was a drastic increase in the number of recipients since 2004.8 the number of recipients for both the monthly and annual aid is increasing considerably from 3,347 people to 13,298 people in 2004. the drastic increase occurred on the number of family members who depend on the zakét category, increased at about 300%, from 491 people to 1,520 people. while for annual aid categories, the head of the family of an increase in 2,595 people to 2,718 people (4.7%) but the dependents increased from 50 people to 8645 people (17.19%). this drastic increase is due to a change in the format of assessment. singapore in singapore, muis or known as majlis ugama islam singapura is vested with wide executive powers to supervise and administer islamic matters in singapore. the distribution of zakét is not the individual’s responsibility,9 but refers to the responsibility of the authority tasked with the matters of islam from the islamic community. this was the practice hamdard islamicus 141 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 shown by rasulullah (œ) and the khulafé’ (f) who appointed zakét officers during their own era. in singapore, muis is the organization responsible for the welfare of the islamic community including the zakét. collection and distribution of zakét such as zakét on savings, zakét on business, zakét on gold, zakét on shares and zakét on fiïrah were administered under muis.a collection of zakét is stated under the section 68(1) administration of muslim law act where the majlês (body) has the power to collect zakét in singapore in accordance with the muslim law. in addition, zakét on fiïraí refers to the allocated time from first of ramaìén’s month, to the time right before the eid prayers are performed.10 in addition, section 69(1) states that muis, with the approval of the minister, may make rules for and regulate all matters in connection with the collection, administration and distribution of zakét and fiïrah. another point of contention was having a centralized system of collecting and distributing zakét and zakét al-fiïrah. some commented that it would not be “practical” to implement the system because of existing economic inequality in the muslim community.11 the purpose of distributing zakét fund is to alleviate poverty, to protect the welfare, to improve economic hardship12 and to develop the infrastructure of muslim society through the distribution of income and wealth from the wealthy to the needy.13 zakét institution in malaysia, brunei and singapore has the responsibility to distribute and disburse the zakét funds received from the zakét payers. based on the zakét governance in these countries, the authors believe that the zakét distribution scheme applied should be disbursed in accordance of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles. there are many issues raised by zakét recipients like the zakét disbursed not in fair and just manner. henceforth, this research will suggest the implementation of new model of zakét distribution schemes based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah. indeed, the effectiveness of zakét distribution managed by the zakét institutions has become the main concern of the muslim society as they hope that zakét fund could free recipients from the clutch of poverty and improve their quality of life.14 the concept of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah in islamic jurisprudence, a principle of a higher objective of law or maqéîid al-sharê‘ah plays a significance position in contemplation of a hamdard islamicus 142 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 sharê‘ah ruling.15 maqéîid researchers during the muta’ékhirên (scholar of last period) lifetime such as ahmad al-raisuni gives the definition of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah as “ultimate goals guided by sharê‘ah for the human needs”.16 this definition is recognized by ibn ‘ashur, muíammad bin sa‘ad al-yubi and ‘allal al-fasi.17 the word “maqéîid” (sing as maqîad or maqîid) is referred to purposes, objectives, principles, intentions, goals and ends behind the islamic ruling. therefore, this research would highlight the importance of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah towards the zakét distribution system. this is to ensure that zakét institution has sharê‘ah guidelines in distributing the zakét funds based on the schemes provided. ultimately, maqéîid al-sharê‘ah are based on promoting manfa‘ah (benefits) for human and prohibiting mafsadaí (harm) which is adverse to human interest, here and after the world.18 it is unanimously agreed among islamic scholars that al-sharê‘ah will protect five (5) fundamental interests of human being that are observed where to protect ad-dên (religion and self-consciousness), al-nafs (life and personal dignity), al-‘aql (intellect and reason), al-nasl (lineage and progeny), and, al-mél (wealth and resources).19 al-‘adl (justice) and al-wasï (equity) are also playing a significant role in reprioritizing the order of the objectives. maqéîid al-sharê‘ah is concerned about the variation in the value based on current situation, places, ‘urf (custom) and mîlaíah. ibn qayyim al-jawziyyah has stressed the concern of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah in current time and places is fundamental and must comply in the process of current ijtihéd as its ignorance will give negative impact on islamic law.20 in other words, maqéîid al-sharê‘ah could be implemented for a new situation arises regardless the time, place and custom as long it is based on ijtihéd in the society. imém al-shaïibê stated that level of human benefits has differed due to the basic needs such as socio-economic, educational background and others.21 the features of islamic laws are dynamic and flexible which allow the arrangement of the laws’ objective coincidence with the human needs and essential.22 based on the islamic law perspective, levels of essential (maîlaíah) that must be protected are divided into three categories which are al-ìarëriyyét, al-íéjiyyét and al-taísêniyyét. i) al-öarëriyyét (essential) is a necessary requirement and choices hamdard islamicus 143 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 to the extent of the extreme necessity and urgency. öarëriyyét consist of the main things in the religion called al-ìarëriyyét al-khamsah namely the preservation of religion (ad-dên), life (al-nafs), intellect (al-‘aql), lineage (al-nasl) and wealth (al-mél).23 ii) al-×éjiyyat (complementary) is an objective or goal to achieve the necessary space in life, thus eliminating the hardships that normally bring trouble. even so, it did not attain the level of emergency or destroy human life on the whole system.24 iii) al-taísêniyyat (embellishment) is the act of doing something or customary practice that is good and noble and avoids things that could be improved by making perfect sense.25 al-ghazéli believes the interest of taísêniyyat is helpful and accommodating in pursuit of common purposes and fundamental interests, it is a complement to the achievement íéjiyyét (complementary) and ìarëriyyét (embellishment).26 based on the maqéîid al-sharê‘ah category above, it is to understand that there are methods and rules of islamic law in resolving the various issues that arise nowadays. therefore, proactive steps need to be taken as to understand and practice the concept of maqéîid alsharê‘ah in the definition of the concepts, theories, laws and the method.27 it can be seen in the teachings of islam as well as in the adjustment of al-sharê‘ah ruling based on the values of the current situations which are more dynamic and flexible. maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles can be implemented in zakét distribution scheme in malaysia, singapore and brunei zakét institutions. as far as concern, the schemes provided by these zakét institutions have fulfilled the aînéf’s need; however the scheme improvement in accordance of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah prioritization should be implemented. the suggestion to implement zakét distribution based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah will be discussed next. zakét distribution scheme in malaysia, brunei and singapore historically, zakét was collected from the wealthy residents of a locality and distributed to the poor and needy in that same locality. excess zakét was sent on to the central bait al-mél (treasury), usually after local disbursement had been thoroughly exhausted. in the time of the hamdard islamicus 144 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 first caliph, abë bakr (d), for example, he appointed ‘umar ibn al-khaïïéb (d) as zakét administrator, who directed the residents of the great cities of kufah, basrah, and damascus to select their most trustworthy countrymen as zakét collectors. nowadays, zakét distribution scheme plays a crucial role in administering the zakét funds received from the zakét payers every year. malaysia in malaysia, zakét distribution scheme in lzs has been chosen as a focus because of the highest state in collecting zakét funds. according to the zakét collection statistics, selangor has had significant developments in terms of zakét collection from only rm11.5 million in 1994 to rm244.5 million in 2008.28 lzs has distributed zakét funds to the eight zakét recipient’s categories which are: faqêr (poor), miskên (needy), ‘émil (zakét collector), mu’allaf (those who embraces islam), fê sabêlillah (for the sake of allah), gharimên (debtors), ibn-i sabêl (wayfarers) and riqéb (slaves). lzs plays a vital role in developing all the schemes for the zakét recipients in selangor state specifically.29 zakét is one of the important instruments in islamic economy system and plays significant roles in eliminating inequalities in the society.30 in this context, selangor state has distributed the zakét schemes amongst zakat recipients in accordance to their current need. brunei in brunei, the zakét distribution scheme is governed by bakaz. there are three departments of collection and zakét distribution based on brunei districts; belait tutong and temburong. as has been explained earlier, there is no extreme poverty in brunei, yet they have only relative poverty. relative poverty, often called overall poverty, describes a situation in which people lack the resources to obtain a balanced diet and have good living conditions and amenities, which are customary or at least widely encouraged or approved, in the societies in which they belong.31 the good distribution process of zakét to its entitled aînéf is based entirely upon the function of collecting zakét itself. it means that the distribution takes place in accordance with aînéf’s need based on time and situation. hamdard islamicus 145 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 singapore muis has provided much zakét assistance to alleviate the poverty issue amongst the poor and needy. muis guided the community in leading its religious life in the unique singapore social context. in singapore, zakét should be distributed to the eight aînéf which is the groups of people entitled to receive zakét. this is in accordance with the sharê‘ah law in chapter al-taubah verse 60, and muis is capable of distributing zakét to all the eight aînéf so those who receive zakét contribution are the rightful recipients. the singaporean muslim identity project which was started in 2004 is creating real impact as studies had shown that singaporean muslims clearly manifest the appropriate social ethos in their socio religious lives. muis’s zakét assistance is categorised into three program pillars. firstly, zakét empower which focuses on helping the needy to achieve self-reliance and secondly, zakét progress focuses on the developmental and educational needs of children of zakét recipients, so as to help them break out of the poverty cycle. lastly, zakét uplift program focuses on helping the needy who require long-term assistance to integrate into the community, such as the elderly and people with disabilities. an analysis of zakét distribution scheme based on maqéîid al-sharê‘ah zakét distribution schemes in malaysia, brunei and singapore have a vital role in helping out aînéf to continue their life. maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles can be applied by dividing scheme of zakét with referring to the five main principles which are: religion, life, intellect, lineage and wealth. based on the researcher’s observation and analysis, the researchers categorized zakét distribution schemes into code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah: religion (m1), life (m2), intellect (m3), lineage (m4) and wealth (m5). the code categorization is very important as to evaluate and divide all the zakét distribution schemes in malaysia, brunei and singapore based on maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principle. based on fig. 1, maqéîid al-sharê‘ah consisted into three main categories which are: ìarëriyyét, íéjiyyét and taísêniyyét. all the categories consisted of five main principles; preservation of religion (m1), preservation of life (m2), preservation of intellect (m3), preservation of lineage (m4) and preservation of wealth (m5). these five main principles hamdard islamicus 146 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 followed by its priority which begin with the sequences of religion, life, intellect, lineage and wealth. preservation of religion (m1) can be referred to the schemes that fulfilled the religious development in spite of the islamic missionaries program for the maîlaíah of society. in the context of preservation of life (m2), basic needs, living place, health, clothes, food, transport and welfare to provide for the better life in society. preservation of intellect (m3) can be deduced as a developing knowledge and soft skills to the aînéf. on the other hand, preservation of lineage (m4) could inculcate the islamic values, life change and good behaviour for aînéf family members. preservation of wealth (m5) can be seen as a medium to enhance the economic growth of aînéf by providing zakét assistance. the issues arose when the zakét distribution was not properly disbursed to the aînéf. it can be illustrated that, if there is no parameter for zakét distribution based on maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principle, the unfair distribution issues will happen again. there is a reason and wisdom why maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles play an intriguing role for aînéf development. not only that, the issue of unfair distribution will be continuous if the zakét institutions do not improvise their existence zakét distribution schemes. henceforth, the authors believe that the zakét fig. 1 the division of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah category source: azman, a.r. (2015). religion (m1) life (m2) intellect (m3) lineage (m4) wealth (m5) maqésid al-shari‘ah öaruriyyét (essential) ×éjiyyét (requirement) taísiniyyét (essential) hamdard islamicus 147 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 distribution based on code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principle will be a new suggestion to solve an unfairness issues in zakét institutions. collection of zakót funds in lzs, malaysia table 1 shows the collection of zakét distribution from 2009 to 2016. in 2009,32 the collection of zakét distribution was rm283.8 million and in 2010,33 it has increased to rm336.8 million. after that, in 2011,34 lzs managed to collect rm394.1 million and in 2012, rm451.3 million had been collected from the zakét payers on zakét wealth and zakét fiïrah.35 in addition, in 2016,36 lzs managed to collect up to rm673.7 million where the highest distribution took place. it can be seen that, the zakét collection is increasing on every year. table 1 collection of zakét in lzs from 2011 to 2016 year zakét collection (rm/million) 2009 283.8 2010 336.8 2011 394.1 2012 451.3 2013 517.3 2014 582.2 2015 627.2 2016 673.7 source: website of lembaga zakét selangor (2016). an analysis of zakót distribution scheme in lzs, malaysia zakét distribution scheme based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah in lzs shows preservation of intellect (m3) aspect has the highest distribution scheme with 27 schemes such as bursary and allowance for educational purpose. after that, the second highest distribution takes place for the preservation of wealth (m5) with 21 schemes such as business capital aid and agriculture capital aid. on the other hand, preservation of religion (m1) is the third highest of distribution with 18 schemes such as eid consolation and funeral expenses schemes. next, preservation of life (m2) has 13 schemes such as medical hamdard islamicus 148 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 t a b l e 2 a n ew m od el o f z a k é t d is tr ib u ti on s ch em e b as ed o n t h e c od e c at eg o ri za ti o n o f m aq é îi d al -s h ar ê‘ a h i n l z s r el ig io n ( m 1 ) l if e (m 2 ) i n te ll ec t (m 3 ) l in ea g e (m 4 ) w ea lt h ( m 5 ) e id c o ns ol at io n w a qf c o ns tr u ct io n f o r e d uc at io n m ar ri ag e a ss is ta n t m o n th ly a ll o w an ce s en io r c it iz en r eg is tr ar a ll o w an ce f un er al e xp en se s in d iv id u al h o u se t ra in in g an d c o u rs e m ar ri ag e a id h o u se r en t a id b ai tu l × a sa na h m o n th ly f o od a ss is ta n ce b ur sa ri es f o r lo ca l r eh ab il it at io n p ro gr am f o r b u si n es s c ap it al a id m an ag em en t st u d en t h iv d is ea se a în éf o r m u’ al la f c on st ru ct io n/ m an ag em en t k a fa ’s t ea ch er a gr ic u lt ur e c ap it al a id t ra in in g c en te r s he lt er h o u se a ll ow an ce m an ag em en t o f d a‘ w a h in d eb te d ne ss b ec au se o f s ch oo l f ee s (p ri m ar y/ f is he ry c ap it al a id u n it ( m u ’a ll a f) li v in g co st s ec on d ar y) m u ’a ll a f co n so la ti o n e m er g en cy a id s ch ol ar sh ip h o u se r ep ai ri n g a id a ll ow an ce ( t ea ch er / m ed ic al a ss is ta n ce m es ir s tu d en t’ s t ic ke t e nt re p re n eu r c lu st er p ro je ct r iq é b t ea m /d a‘ w ah p am el c on st ru ct /r ep ai r d ia ly si s tr ea tm en t r ep ai r s tu d en t p et ro l o r d ie se l a ll o w an ce r el ig io u s in st it u ti o n i n a cc o m m o d at io n i n (c ar s er v ic e) o v er se as s el an g or a n d m es ir r el ig io u s o ff ic er c o u rs e f lo o d a id b ur sa ry f o r p as ca d eg re e l iv es to ck c ap it al a id s ul ïé n i d rê s s h éh c on td .. .. .. hamdard islamicus 149 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 r el ig io n ( m 1 ) l if e (m 2 ) i n te ll ec t (m 3 ) l in ea g e (m 4 ) w ea lt h ( m 5 ) c el eb ra ti o n o f m us li m c on st ru ct io n /m an ag em en t t h e s el an g o r in te rn at io n al m an ag em en t o f t ai lo r g re at d ay h om e c lu st er is la m ic u n iv er si ty c o ll eg e w o rk sh o p c ir cu m ci si on a id s to rm a id t ex t b oo k s ch em e to t h e c om m u n it y c en tr e/ t ra n si t is la m ic r el ig io u s c o u n ci l h o u se of s el an g o r) f u n er al v an p u rc h as ed s p ec ia l f u n d fo r c h ro ni c a ll ow an ce f o r a tt en d in g is la m ic s o ci et y a ss is ta nc e d is ea se s b as ic r el ig io us c la ss es is la m ic v al ue s p ro gr am o ld f o lk s h o m e e d u ca ti o n g en er al r iq é b u ni t a ss is ta n ce m an ag em en t a ss is ta n ce c on st ru ct /r ep ai r o f b u rs ar ie s fo r ov er se as r el ig io u s o ff ic er m o nt h ly m o sq u e st u d en t a ll o w an ce m o sq u e e qu ip m en t q u r’ én m em o ri za ti o n r el ig io u s t ea ch er /s p ea ke r b u rs ar y a ll o w an ce ‘ó m il z a ké t f iï ra h s ch o o l f u rn it ur e e m o lu m en t fo r m a is ’s s ta ff (a ge n t o f z ak é t) e q u ip m en t c on st ru ct /r ep ai r o f b u rs ar y fo r r el ig io u s m o sq u e c om m it te e m em b er r iq é b r eh ab il it at io n h o m e s ch o o l (p ri m ar y/ a ll o w an ce c on td .. ... hamdard islamicus 150 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 r el ig io n ( m 1 ) l if e (m 2 ) i n te ll ec t (m 3 ) l in ea g e (m 4 ) w ea lt h ( m 5 ) c on st ru ct ‘ a q êd a h r ef in in g s ch o o l n ec es si ti es a dm in is tr at io n c en tr e a ss is ta n ce m an ag em en t p u b li sh in g / p ri n ti ng r iq é b r eh ab il it at io n c en tr e a ss is ta n ce a ct iv it ie s e xc el le n t s tu d en t b u rs ar y o ut re ac h p ro gr am e m o lu m en t fo r m it s t ’s c ou ns el lo r c o n so la ti o n t ea ch er c o n st ru ct / r ep ai r r el ig io u s in st it ut io n r et u rn t ic k et a ss is ta nc e r ep ai r s ch o o l’ s m u îa ll a (p ra ye r ro om ) t ra v el a ss is ta n ce s tu dy v is it b as ic r el ig io us c la ss t ea ch er a ll o w an ce 1 8 1 3 2 7 3 2 1 s o u rc e: w eb si te o f l em b ag a z ak ét s el an g or ( 2 01 6) . hamdard islamicus 151 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 assistance and dialysis treatment. lastly, preservation of lineage (m4) is the lowest scheme where only 3 schemes provided such as marriage aid and rehabilitation program for hiv disease. the researchers found that all zakét distribution schemes in lzs are distributed based on the five principles of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah. however, the schemes improvement in accordance priority of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles such as preservation of religion (m1) should receive more zakét distribution because religion is the main principle in al-öarëriyyét al-khamsah. hence, a new model of zakét distribution scheme based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah could improve the zakét distribution schemes in accordance with suitability of time, place and situation in lzs specifically. collection of zakat funds in brunei table 3 shows the collection of zakét collection in brunei from table 3 zakét collection from 2001 to 2016 in brunei year total collection (bnd$) 2001 9,849, 351 2002 13,804,900 2003 10,869,270 2004 11,173,064 2005 14,751,913 2006 11,096,859 2007 11,292,007 2008 11,820,873 2009 19,918,345 2010 11,323,100 2011 11,975,385 2012 13,792,766 2013 15,466,076 2014 16,923,245 2015 16,830,149 2016 17,413,561 source: zakét collection and distribution department (bakaz), 2016. hamdard islamicus 152 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 2001-2016. from the table above, the highest collection of zakét funds took place in 2009, totally bnd$19,918,345 and the lowest collection in 2001, totally bnd$9,849,351. after that, from 2010 until 2016, the collection of zakét funds also has increased every year. in 2010, bnd$11,323,100 was collected and followed by bnd$11,975,385 in 2011. as can be seen, the total of zakét funds collected is increasing again in 2016, where totally bnd$17,413,561. an analysis of zakót distribution scheme in bakaz, brunei there are 24 zakét distribution schemes that have been provided in brunei. however, the researchers have categorized the scheme in accordance to the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles. firstly, preservation of intellect (m3) has 8 schemes and is the highest zakét distribution scheme such as educational fees and examination fees. the second highest zakét distribution takes place in preservation of religion (m1) such as consolatory to the selected mu’allaf in performing pilgrimage and repairing or construction of muîalla (prayer room). next, preservation of wealth (m5) has the third highest schemes such as distribution tools and equipment’s to set up small business. for the preservation of life (m2), there are only 4 schemes such as house rent distribution (including water and electricity bill) and urgency distribution. however, there is no zakét distribution scheme provided under the preservation of lineage (m4). however, the schemes improvement in accordance priority of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles such as preservation of religion (m1) should receive more zakét distribution because religion is the main principle in al-öarëriyyét al-khamsah. it can be deduced that bakaz may overlook on preservation of lineage schemes such as marriage assistant registrar allowance, marriage aid and rehabilitation program for hiv disease schemes. on the other hand, it can be assumed that in brunei, there is no argument on zakét distribution scheme to preserve the lineage matters. hence, a new model of zakét distribution scheme based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah can improve the zakét distribution schemes in accordance with suitability of time, place and situation. hamdard islamicus 153 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 t a b l e 4 a n ew m o d el o f z a ké t d is tr ib u ti o n s ch em e b as ed o n t h e c o d e c at eg or iz at io n o f m a qé îi d a ls h a rê ‘a h i n b a k a z r el ig io n ( m 1) l if e (m 2 ) in te ll ec t (m 3 ) l in ea ge ( m 4 ) w ea lt h ( m 5) r ep ai ri ng /c on st ru ct io n m ed ic al e x pe ns es e d uc at io na l f ee s d ir ec t m o nt hl y o f d is tr im os qu e tr ea tm en t (f ee s to t he bu ti on fo r th e ba si c ne ed s tr ea tm en t ce nt re ) c o ns ol at o ry t o th e h om e re pa ir s di st ri bu ti on e x am in at io n f ee c ap it al f o r bu si ne ss se le ct ed m u’ al la f in (b ui lt /p ur ch as e/ ho m e se t pe rf or m in g pi lg ri m ag e up ) r ep ai ri ng /c on st ru ct io n h ou se re nt di st ri bu ti on s tu de n t d ec la ra ti on a d va nc ed b as ic c ou rs e of m u îa ll a (p ra ye r (i nc lu di ng w at er a nd f ee di st ri bu tio n ro om ) el ec tr ic it y bi ll ) p er fo rm in g pi lg ri m ag e u rg en cy d is tr ib ut io n s tu de n t c ar d d is tr ib ut io n to ol s an d ex p en se s eq ui pm en t’ st o se t up sm al l b us in es s c o ns ol at o ry a id t o s ch oo l tr an sp or ta ti on d is tr ib ut io n to pe rf or m p il gr im ag e fa re s in cr ea se t he r ev en ue r ep ai ri ng /c on st ru ct io n s ch oo l u ni fo rm of i sl am ic c en tr e m u’ al la f co ns ol at o ry a id s ch oo l e qu ip m en t r ep ai ri ng /c on st ru ct io n of r el ig io us s ch oo l 7 4 8 0 5 s o u rc e: z ak é t c o ll ec ti o n a nd d is tr ib ut io n d ep ar tm en t (b a k a z ), 2 0 16 . hamdard islamicus 154 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 collection of zakat funds in singapore zakét collection in singapore has increased every year because the zakét payer has the awareness to fulfil one of the islamic pillars in islam. the highest zakét collection was in 2012, $25.6 million had collected and $14.3 million in 2003 was the lowest collection. nevertheless, from 2004 until 2011, the number of zakét collection has increased year by year. in 2005, $15.1million was collected while $ 16.5 million in 2006 followed by $17.9 million in 2007. after that, in 2008, $20.0 million was collected, in 2009 totally $21.3 million, which in 2010, amounted $22.8 million. lastly, in 2016, $38.2 million had been collected by the muis. table 5 zakét collection from 2003 to 2016 in singapore year total ($)/million 2003 14.3 2004 14.6 2005 15.1 2006 16.5 2007 17.9 2008 20.0 2009 21.3 2010 22.8 2011 23.3 2012 25.5 2013 28.4 2014 31.8 2015 35.3 2016 38.2 source: muis annual report (2016) zakót distribution scheme in muis, singapore zakét assistance is a firm commitment from muis to ensure that the deserving faqêr and miskên muslims get the necessary support to hamdard islamicus 155 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 t a b l e 6 a n ew m o d el o f z a ké t d is tr ib u ti o n s ch em e b as ed o n t h e c o d e c at eg or iz at io n o f m a qé îi d a ls h a rê ‘a h i n m u is r el ig io n ( m 1 ) l if e (m 2 ) in te ll ec t (m 3) l in ea g e (m 4 ) w ea lt h ( m 5) m on th ly f in an ci al r et ur n a ir t ic ke t to a ca de m ic a ss is ta n ce s in gl e pa re nt : w id ow m u is e m po w er m en t as si st an ce ho m e co un tr y fo r ch il d re n e. g. t ui ti on or d iv or ce e in n ee d pr og ra m m es s p ec ia l as si st an ce in su ff ic ie nt h ou se ho ld p ar ti al p ay m en t fo r t ra in in g gr an ts f or du ri ng r am a ìé n fo r in co m e du e to l ar ge g c e ‘ n ’/ ‘o ’/ ‘a ’ le ve l ap pr ov ed s ki ll s m us li m r es id en ts nu m be r of d ep en da n ts ex am in at io nf ee s fo r up gr ad in g co ur se s co m m un it y ho m es / ch il dr en , af te r as si st an ce p ub li c a ss is ta n ce fr om r es pe ct iv e sc ho o ls re ci pi en ts m os qu e le ad er sh ip b re ad w in n er i n p ri so n m u is ’s s ch ol ar sh ip s up po rt iv e pr og ra m m e an d m an ag em en t or d r c gr an ts t o or ga ni sa ti o ns m o sq ue b e fr ie nd er s b re ad w in n er o r fa m il y is la m ic e du ca ti o n/ fe e a ss is ta nc e fo r sc h em e m em be rs i nc ur ri ng su bs id ie s ou ts ta nd in g ba si c hi gh m ed ic al b il ls du e to : ne ce ss it ie s bi ll s e. g. (a ) ch ro ni c il ln es s e. g. ut il it ie s bi ll s an d se rv ic e ki dn ey f ai lu re , ca nc er . an d co ns er va n cy (b ) m en ta l/ ph ys ic al ch ar ge s di sa bi lit y r el ig io us p ro gr am m es f o od a ss is ta n ce l b k m b ur sa ri es c om m un it y de ve lo pm en t c o n td .. .. .. hamdard islamicus 156 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 r el ig io n ( m 1 ) l if e (m 2 ) in te ll ec t (m 3) l in ea g e (m 4 ) w ea lt h ( m 5) f id ya h f o od c o re p ro gr am m e – d a kw a h an d p ub li c a dm in is tr at io n co st v o uc he rs sp ir it ua l an d li fe s ki ll ed uc at io n n ee d s c on ve rt s p u rc ha se o f m ed ic al e d uc at io n gr an ts f or s ta rt -u p gr an ts f or a dm in is tr at io n eq u ip m en t an d ne ed y fa m il ie s ho m eb as ed b u si ne ss ne ce ss it ie s g ra n t to d é ru l a rq a m l if e sk il ls p ro gr am m e m ad ra sa h d ev el op m en t f in an ci al a ss is ta n ce to a dm in is te r th e e. g. f in an ci al /b ud ge ti ng , an d as si st an ce af fa ir s o f n ew m us li m m ot iv at io na l w or ks ho ps , co nv er ts he al th m an ag em en t, is la m ic l ea rn in g cl as se s ‘ ó m il a dm in is tr at io n a sé ti d h a h (t ea ch er ) t ra in in g co st de ve lo pm en t y o ut h is la m ic e du ca ti on y o ut h de ve lo pm en t an d en ga ge m en t b as ic l it er ac y & nu m er ac y pr o gr am m e fo r ch il dr en 9 8 1 2 1 9 s o u rc e: m aj li s u ga m a is la m s in ga p u ra ( m u is ), 2 0 1 6 . hamdard islamicus 157 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 better manage their financial and social challenges. muis works closely with other national agencies and self-help groups to facilitate these families to achieve self-reliance. zakét distribution scheme in singapore has 39 schemes provided for the eligible zakét recipients. preservation of intellect (m3) has 12 schemes and it is the highest distribution to takes place such as educational grants for needy families and partial payment for gce ‘n’/‘o’/‘a’ level examination fees for children, after assistance from respective schools. the second highest distribution takes place in preservation of religion (m1) and preservation of wealth (m5) respectively. in preservation of religion (m1) 9 schemes are provided such as monthly financial assistance and special assistance during ramaìén for muslim resident’s community homes or public assistance recipients. nevertheless, 9 schemes also are provided for preservation of wealth (m5) such as muis empowerment programmes and community development. preservation of life (m2) has 8 schemes such as insufficient household income due to large number of dependants and breadwinner in prison scheme. lastly, preservation of lineage (m4) has 3 schemes only such as basic literacy and numeracy programme for children. however, the schemes improvement in accordance priority of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles such as preservation of religion (m1) should receive more zakét distribution because religion is the main principle in al-öarëriyyéìt al-khamsah. hence, a new model of zakét distribution scheme based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah could improve the zakat distribution schemes in accordance with suitability of time, place and situation. an analysis of zakét distribution scheme based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah in malaysia, brunei and singapore maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles based on their prioritization begins from preservation of religion (m1), preservation of life (m2), preservation of intellect (m3), preservation of lineage (m4) and preservation of wealth (m5). based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah in malaysia, brunei and singapore, the preservation of intellect (m3) is seen as the most prioritized scheme. in malaysia, there are 27 schemes provided by lzs whereas 8 schemes and 12 schemes in brunei and hamdard islamicus 158 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 singapore respectively. in lzs, preservation of intellect related with the schemes involved of educational assistance like bursaries for overseas student, school transportation fares and academic assistance for children. in brunei, examination fee and repairing or construction of religious school has been provided for aînéf whereas in singapore, dakwah (missionary) and public education is example of educational schemes. it can be concluded, these countries have allocated much zakét funds for the educational matters. if refers to maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles, the preservation of religion (m1) should receive the highest distribution because religion is a main priority in muslim life. the second highest zakét distribution scheme in lzs is the preservation of wealth (m5), 21 schemes such as outreach program and counsellor consolation. whereas, in brunei, the second highest scheme is the preservation of religion (m1) totalling 7 schemes and in singapore, preservation of wealth (m5) and preservation of religion (m1) are ranked the second highest. if refers to maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles, the preservation of life (m2) should receive the second highest distribution after religious matters. preservation of religion (m1) in lzs has18 schemes and is in the third place of zakét distribution scheme. mu’allaf consolation and funeral expenses are important schemes in preserving the religion of islam. the legal reasoning of these schemes is to help those in need especially from the faqêr’s and miskên’s background. preservation of wealth (m5) in brunei’s scheme has 5 schemes and is in the third ranked while preservation of religion (m3) is ranked in the third place and has 9 schemes. in preserving the wealth of aînéf, advanced basic course distribution and distribution to increase the revenue has been provided in brunei. however, in singapore, religious programmes and fidyah food vouchers are the schemes provided. if refers to maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles, the preservation of intellect (m3) should receive the third highest distribution after life affairs. the fourth highest zakét distribution scheme in lzs is the preservation of life (m2) and has 13 schemes provided like an old folks home management and dialysis treatment. it can be explained that these schemes are necessary to continue the daily life because it’s related with the life of a person. while in brunei and singapore, preservation of life (m2) is ranked in the fourth place. if refers to maqéîid al-sharê‘ah hamdard islamicus 159 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 principles, the preservation of lineage (m4) should receive the fourth highest distribution after intellectual matters. the fifth highest zakét distribution scheme is preservation of lineage (m4) in lzs that has 3 schemes. in brunei, there is no zakét distribution scheme provided under the preservation of lineage (m4) and singapore has1scheme only. if refers to maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles, the preservation of wealth (m5) should receive the last distribution after lineage matters. based on analysis above, the researchers concluded that all the zakét distribution schemes followed maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles but needed in term of five principles of prioritization. it is therefore suggested by the authors with a new model of zakét distribution schemes based on the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah in lzs, bakaz and muis. it can be seen that preservation of religion (m1) is the highest priority scheme under the maqésid al-sharê‘ah. preservation of life (m2) should be in the second place and preservation of intellect (m3) in the third place. preservation of lineage (m4) should be in the fourth place followed by preservation of wealth (m5) in the fifth place under the al-öarëriyyét al-khams principles. zakét distribution scheme can be implemented by the zakét institutions in lzs, bakaz and muis in ensuring zakét distribution system followed maqésid al-shari‘ah principles. conclusion in general, zakét distribution scheme in malaysia, singapore and brunei followed 5 main principles in maqéîid al-sharê‘ah which are: religion, life, intellect, lineage and wealth. zakét institutions act as an enforcement bodies to collect and distribute zakét funds in order to ease the zakét administration.37 the implementation of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah in all aspects of life is very important in achieving goals. islam has obliged all muslims of the entire of the world to pay zakét as one of the mediums to help each other. it has a strong and valid reason for paying zakét the faqêr and miskên. to ensure that administration of zakét system is well managed,38 the management of zakét institution should implement maqéîid al-sharêah principles as a new policy in the line of five principles in al-öarëriyyét al-khams: religion, life, intellectual, lineage hamdard islamicus 160 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and wealth. the findings of this research provides insight for zakét institutions to implement a new suggestion of zakét distribution scheme models in accordance of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principles towards the suitability of time, place and condition. recommendations the researchers have collected the existing zakét distribution schemes provided in lzs, bakaz and muis. after that, the researchers have categorized all the zakét distribution schemes into the code categorization of maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principle with codes of m1, m2, m3, m4 and m5. based on the code categorization, the researchers found that the zakét was disbursed not in the priority order. if we referred to maqéîid al-sharê‘ah principle, the sequences should begin from religion (m1), life, (m2), intellect (m3), lineage (m4) and wealth (m5). the researchers found that zakét distribution schemes in malaysia, brunei and singapore followed five main principles in maqéîid al-sharê‘ah, but need an improvement based on the prioritization of religion, life, intellectual, lineage and wealth respectively. the researcher also discussed that all the schemes will be reviewed based on the maqéîid al-sharê‘ah analysis as to ensure the zakét distribution schemes run effectively. it may be suggested that one of the mechanisms is to change life of aînéf throughout the religious (m1) spiritual because without religion, one can loss in life. the preservation of life (m2) is very important such as for basic necessities, living place, and welfare of aînéf to survive. however, the researcher believe that education assistance will give a long term impact to increase the income of aînéf, hence, they can free themselves from being poor and needy.39 apart from that, through the lineage assistance, it aims to ensure aînéf life is protected, so that they can be shaped as an excellent generation in future and free their family from poverty. the researchers suggest three new zakét models of distribution that highlighted five principles in maqéîid al-sharê‘ah prioritization which begins with religion (m1), life (m2), intellectual (m3), lineage (m4) and wealth (m5). in addition, these zakét institutions can refer to the new zakét model distribution introduced if it is suitable with time, place and situation. this new suggestion functions as a parameter to determine all hamdard islamicus 161 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 schemes conducted throughout three aspects; policy makers, execution of policies, and societies. notes and references 01. yusuf qarìawi, fiqh al-zakah, english translation by monzer kahf, jeddah, scientific publishing centre, king abdulaziz university, 2000; see also at abdus samad and glenn lowell, 2010, development of zakah and zakah coverage in monotheistic faiths, international journal of social economics, 2010, vol. xxxvii, no. 4, pp. 302-315. 02. nur syuhada adnan, kamaluddin amrizah and nawal kasim, intellectual capital in religious organisations: malaysian zakét institutions perspective, middleeast journal of scientific research, 2013, vol. xvi, no. 3, pp. 368-377. 03. regulation 43: procedure of zakét distribution, zakét and fitrah (state of selangor) regulation 2012. 04. lembaga zakét selangor; annual report, first edition, selangor, lembaga zakat selangor, 2014. 05. section 116, undang-undang negara brunei darussalam, majlis ugama islam dan mahkamah-mahkamah kadi, penggal 77. 06. aan jaelani, zakah management for poverty alleviation in indonesia and brunei darussalam. online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/69646/ mpra paper no. 69646, posted 22 february 2016 14:56 utc and see also at ravallion m (1998) poverty lines in theory and practice. lms working paper, 2015, p. 133. the world bank. 07. ibid., p. 18. 08. cut ‘zakét’ from new bill, say some muslim organisations, (1961, may 23); the singapore free press, p. 4; retrieved from newspapersg. 09. no author, no date, faq zakét fiïrah, majlis ugama islam singapura. 10. new council to advise president on muslim religion, (1965, december 20); the straits times, p. 4. retrieved from newspapersg, singapore, parliament, parliamentary debates, official report. 11. pranam dhar, zakét as a measure of social justice in islamic finance: an accountant’s overview, journal of emerging economies and islamic research, 2013, vol. i, no. 11. 12. faruk, omar senturk, a comparative guide to zakét: charity in islam, (trans.), erdinc atasever, newjersey, the light, 2007. 13. ahmad fahme mohammad ali, zakariah abdul rashid, fuadah johari and muhammad riìwan abdul aziz, the effectiveness of zakét in reducing poverty incident: an analysis in kelantan, malaysia, asian social science, 20015, vol. xi, no. 21, pp. 355-367; see details at ahmad sanep, 2009, agihan zakét merentasi asnaf: ke arah memperkasa institusi zakét/(distribution of zakat (tithe) beyond asnaf: toward the empowerment of zakét institution), prosiding perkem, 2015, vol. iv, jilid 2, pp. 62-74. hamdard islamicus 162 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 14. asyraf wajdi and nurdianawati irwani, n.d., maqéîid al-sharê‘ah, maslahah, and corporate social responsibility, the american journal of islamic social sciences, vol. xxiv, no. 1, pp. 26-45. 15. ahmad al-raysuni, naðriyyah al-maqéîid ‘inda as-shatibi, riyadh, dar al-‘alamiyyah li al-kitab al-islami, 1995. 16. ibn ‘ashër, muhammad ùéhir, maqéîid al-syarê‘ah al-islémiah, kaherah, dar al-salam, 2009. 17. mohammad zaid mustafar and joni tamkin borhan, muslim consumer behavior: emphasis on ethics from islamic perspective, middle-east journal of scientific research, 2013, vol. xviii, no. 9, pp. 1301-1307. 18. al-ghazéli, al-muîtafa min ‘ilm al-uîël, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 1993. 19. ibn qayyim al-jawziyyah and abd ‘aziz m. (ed.), i’lam al-muwaqqi’in ‘an rabb al-‘ólamin, beirut, dar al-fikr, 1977; see also at mohammad al-tahir al-misawi, ibn ‘asyur wa kitabuhu maqésid al-syariah al-islamiyyah, kuala lumpur, dar al-basyair li al-intaj al-ilmi, 1998. 20. al-shatibi, al-muwafaqat fi uîël al-sharê‘ah, beirut, dar al-ma’rifah, 1997. 21. mohammad hashim kaméli, maqésid al-sharê‘ah: the objectives of islamic law, islamabad, islamic research institute, international islamic university islamabad, 1999. 22. ‘izz al-din, qawé’id al-aíkém fi maîélií al-anam, beirut, dar al-ma’rifah, (n.d.); see also at al-shatibi, al-muwafaqat, cairo, al-maktabah al-tijariyyah, 2003. 23. al-shatibi and musa, a.i., al-muwafaqat fi uîël al-sharê‘ah, beirut, dar al-ma’rifah, 1997. 24. mohammad zaid mustafar and joni tamkin borhan, muslim consumer behavior: emphasis on ethics from islamic perspective, middle-east journal of scientific research, 2013, vol. xviii, no. 9, pp. 1301-1307. 25. al-ghazéli, abu hamid muhammad bin muhammad bin muhammad, al-muîtasfa min ‘ilm al-usul, beirut, dar al-ihya’ al-turath al ‘arabi, 1993. 26. mohammad fikri che hussain, pengenalan ilmu maqasid syariah, johor, perniagaan jahabersa, 2012; see at mohammad hashim kamali, principles of islamic jurisprudence, (cambridge, islamic text society, 2003), p. 351. 27. nurul husna haron, hazlina hassan, nur syuhada jasni and rashidah abdul rahman, zakét for asnafs’ business by lembaga zakét selangor, malaysian accounting review, special issue, 2010, vol. ix, no. 2, pp. 123-138. 28. maheran zakaria, the influence of human needs in the perspective of maqasid al-syari’ah on zakét distribution effectiveness, asian social science, 2014, vol. x, no. 3. 29. dauda abubakar, the giving and receiving of zakét: anthropological analysis of relationship between the ‘wealthy’ and ‘needy’ citizens in jos, nigeria, international journal of humanities and social science, 2013, vol. iii, no.9, pp. 289-296. 30. dogarawa ahmad bello, combating poverty through self reliance: the islamic approach, mpra paper no. 23139, ahmadu bello university, zaria-nigeria, 2006. 31. laporan kutipan dan agihan zakat di selangor bagi tahun, lembaga zakét selangor hamdard islamicus 163 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 (mais), 2009, available at http://www.zakatselangor.com.my/laporan-kutipandan-agihan-zakat/. (visited on 20-3-16). 32. laporan kutipan dan agihan zakét di selangor bagi tahun, lembaga zakét selangor (mais), 2010, available at http://www.zakatselangor.com.my/laporan-kutipandan-agihan-zakat/. (visited on 20-3-16). 33. laporan pengurusan zakat selangor, lembaga zakét selangor, 2011, available at http://www.zakatselangor.com.my/laporan-kutipan-dan-agihan-zakat/. (visited on 20-3-16) and see also laporan kutipan dan agihan zakat di selangor bagi tahun, 2011. edisi 2/2012, lembaga zakét selangor (mais), available at http:// www.zakatselangor.com.my/laporan-kutipan-dan-agihan-zakat/. (accessed 20 mac 2016). 34. laporan kutipan dan agihan zakat di selangor bagi tahun. edisi 1/2013, lembaga zakat selangor (mais), 2012, available at http://www.zakatselangor.com.my/ laporan-kutipan-dan-agihan-zakat/. (accessed 20 mac 2016). 35. laporan pengurusan zakét selangor, 2013; lembaga zakét selangor, 2014. available at http://www.zakatselangor.com.my/laporan-kutipan-dan-agihan-zakat/. (visited on 20-3-16). 36. norazlina abdul wahab and abdul rahim abdul rahman, determinants of efficiency of zakat institutions in malaysia: a non-parametric approach, asian journal of business and accounting, 2013, vol. vi, no. 2, pp. 33-64; see the explanation at hairunnizam wahid, sanep ahmad and radiah abdul kader, pengagihan zakat oleh institusi zakat di malaysia: mengapakah masyarakat islam tidak berpuashati? jurnal syariah, 2009, vol. xvii, no. 1, pp. 89-112; see also sanep ahmad, hairunnizam wahid and adnan mohamad, penswastaan institusi zakat dan kesannya terhadap pembayaran secara formal di malaysia, international journal of management studies, 2006, vol. xiii, no. ii, pp. 175-196. 37. azmén ab rahmén, mohammad haji alias and syed mohammad najib syed omar, zakat institution in malaysia: problems and issues, global journal althaqafah, 2012, vol. ii, no. 1, pp. 35-41. 38. azman abdul rahman, mohammad haji alias and syed mohammad najib syed omar, zakat institution in malaysia: problems and issues, global journal al-thaqafah, 2012, vol. ii, no. 1, pp. 35-41. 39. muhammad abdullah and abdul quddus suhaib, the impact of zakét on social life of muslim society, pakistan journal of islamic research, 2011, vol. viii, pp. 85-91. 40. mohammad hussain mohammad hussein, determinants of zakét institutions governance, college of business universiti utara malaysia, 2009. contents * editorial * imém al-suyëïê’s original thought on the opposition to (greek) logic and theology in øawn al-manïiq wa‘l-kalém ‘an fannay almanïiq wa‘l-kalém – dr. mufti ali * fundamental guarantees of the rights of the accused in the islamic criminal justice system – prof. dr. muhammad munir * the writings of muíammad ×amidullah in french: trends and novelties – dr. abderrazak belabes * enforcing islamic law for nonmuslims – a case study of indonesia – prof. dr. a. hamid sarong * western and islamic perspective of strip search and undressing of inmates, permissibility, practices and it’s jurisdiction – dr. faridah yousuf * obituary * book review 5 7 45 67 99 121 145 147 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: dr. ansar zahid khan published by hamdard foundation pakistan, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. telephones:36440184, 36616001-4, 36620945-49 telefax: (92-21) 36611755 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands/usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xl october-december 2017 no. 4 contents * editorial * the history of sumaniyyah (buddhism) and its doctrines in the arabic-islamic discourse – an analysis — prof. dr. thameem ushama and shihab hamood al-tamimi * islamophobia and its historical roots content, context, and consequences — mr. mohammad yaseen gada * ethical and islamic perspectives of biotechnology research and human consumption of genetically modified organisms — dr. abdul haseeb ansari and dr. parveen jamal * social system of the swat yësufzê — dr. sultan-i-rome * obituary 5 7 35 61 81 111 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: dr. ansar zahid khan published by hamdard foundation pakistan, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. telephones:36440184, 36616001-4, 36620945-49 telefax: (92-21) 36611755 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands / usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/w.e.f. 1st january, 2017 printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xl april-june 2017 no. 2 e:\islamicus\2018\no.1'2018\04) how commitment (wm).pmd hamdard islamicus 107 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 how commitment to islamic values maintain marital stability dr. rena latifa febyorita amelia, faculty of psychology, uin syarif hidayatullah, jakarta. e-mail: rena.latifa@uinjkt.ac.id a quantitative study with 47 respondents examined how commitment to islamic values can maintain marital stability. several studies have shown that the benefits of religious commitment can improve physical and mental health,1 including improved marital relations.2 simple regression analysis has been used to analyze the data. these findings indicated that commitment to islamic values significantly predict marital stability (r square = 0.487). commitment to the islamic values is assessed via religious participation and religious beliefs. the persons who have higher commitment to islamic values can maintain their marital stability better. involvement in religious activity can encourage persons to survive and struggle successfully in difficult situations in their marriage life and avoid divorce. keywords: commitment to islamic values, religious commitment, marital stability. research background nowadays, muslims are faced with a tough challenge of preserving islamic family values in a society that is not conducive towards preserving them. in spite of all the materialistic advancements, the widespread decadence of family values is open for all to see in this modern life. divorce is widely prevalent and increasing day by day. couples end up in divorce over trivial matters and simple disagreements. lack of trust among family members is high due to prevalence of abuse, extra-marital affairs and incest. it proves that the modern mentality is hesitant to accept the responsibilities of a married life and subsequently hamdard islamicus 108 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 allah (swt) is lifting the blessings of marriage and family up from their lives. thus, the very foundations of family are being terribly shaken and shattered in the society where we are living. the consequences of separation and divorce can be severe. research indicates that individuals who are divorced experience greater rates of psychopathology, physical illness, suicide, homicide, violence, and mortality from disease.3 in light of these marital stability statistics and the greater risk for mental and physical health problems among the separated and divorced individuals, identifying the factors that help marriages survive have important implications. furthermore, an understanding how these factors influence marital stability will help build a theory of marital quality and stability. this is the objective of the present study. the literature on marriage is dominated by researches on examining the factors that lead to marital instability or divorce/separation. more recently, there has been an interest in the role that religiosity plays in the stability of marital relations.4 interest in religion and spirituality has increased dramatically recently both within culture in general and within psychology. substantial literature now describe connections between religion and mental health, and between religion and physical health.5 most scholars of religion now agree that religion often positively affects mental health, but recent questions of interest have become more specific. who does religion affect positively and under what conditions? who does religion affect negatively and under what conditions? worthington suggested a model addressing such questions. he theorized that people who were highly religiously committed tended to evaluate their world on religious dimensions based on their religious values.6 the key variable in worthington’s model is religious commitment, which is defined as the degree to which a person adheres to his or her religious values, beliefs, and practices and uses them in daily living.7 the supposition is that a highly religious person will evaluate the world through religious schemas and thus will integrate his or her religion into much of his or her life. wilson and musick found, from this research, that the number of the respondents is very high who believe in a particular religious doctrine and implement the teachings of their religion in many religious activities were experiencing an increase in the functions of family and marriage hamdard islamicus 109 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 satisfaction.8 call and heaton mention when marriage couples participated in religious activities, they tend to dislike divorce and very little is thought of divorce in the household.9 involvement in religious activity was found to encourage individuals and couples to survive difficult situations in life and avoid divorce; such persons may also be afraid of sanctions (sin). brown, orbuch, and bauermeister found an association between religiosity and marital stability among the americans, both white and black.10 this study is based on the theory of religiosity that may improve problemsolving abilities in difficult situations and stressful conditions.11 whenever the individuals are able to manage themselves at conflict situation, it is likely to make marriage more stable than individuals who do not have this capability. in this study it will be tested whether an individual’s commitment to the islamic values can make their marriage more stable. marital stability is important as a basis of a healthy family. healthy family serves as a capital to build better civil society. theoretical framework marital stability criteria verderber and verderber describe that marital stability can be achieved when individuals and couples are able to manage its relationship where there is mutual understanding between each other and they feel satisfied with the achievements that were experienced together in the past. it takes energy and attention for a couple to manage and make their relation stabilized.12 keeping the positive sentiment override in a marriage may be done through gottman’s seven principles.13 the seven principles for making marriage work are: l enhance your love maps: the more you are familiar with your partner, the more intimacy happens. this is called having a love map of your partner. this helps maintain intimacy, and better prepares one to deal with stressful events and conflicts. l nurture your fondness and admiration: -– work to increase/recall/ unearth positive emotions about each other. the “fondness” and “admiration” aspects of couple relatedness are the antidote to contempt – it is a buffer to stressors due to a fundamentally positive view of each other. hamdard islamicus 110 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 l turn towards each other and not away: this principle is based on the idea of staying connected, and positively so. turning towards each other in small and regular interactions builds romance and connection beyond the cushioning of stresses. l let your partner influence you: accepting influence will make it easier for the husband to establish deeper love-maps, increase fondness and admiration, and to turn towards each other. l solve your solvable problems: 5 principles of problem resolution were found as key to happy marriages: soften your startup, learn to make and receive repair attempts, soothe yourself and each other, compromise, and be tolerant of each other’s faults. l overcoming gridlocks: gridlocks happen when people’s life dreams [hopes, aspirations, wishes] for their life are not being addressed/ respected by each other. when dreams are respected: couples are happier as they realize that marriage is supposed to help them with those dreams – and not manipulate the other out of achieving the goal. l creating shared meaning: some people look for a spiritual connection – finding meaning in the togetherness beyond the mere joint tasks of family life. symbols and rituals are helpful. there is a family “culture”, which gives shared meaning to their sense of togetherness. the “shared meaning” couple: discuss convictions in a way which blends each of the partner’s sense of meaning.the shared meanings will strengthen the marital friendship. buehlman and gottman in a research to create a coding system which determines the ways people talk about marriage to their partners, about the general perception of individuals associated relationship with a partner; where the interaction of these individuals determine existence or absence of the marital stability. this coding system by buehlman and gottman is divided into eight dimensions (fondness/affection, we-ness, expansiveness, negativity, disappointment and disillusionment, chaos, volatility, and glorifying the combined struggle):14 l three of the subscales are positive in nature: (a) fondness/ affection: rates expressions of pride, fondness, and affection for one’s partner, (b) we-ness: indicates unification in the marriage, and hamdard islamicus 111 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 (c) expansiveness: how expressive they respond to and expand on what their partner is saying. l two of the coding dimensions are negative: (a) negativity and (b) disappointment and disillusionment. the negativity scale indexes the extent to which spouses are critical of their partner, are vague about what attracted them to their partners, and display negative affect toward their partners. the disappointment and disillusionment scale assesses the degree to which each member of the couple has given up on the marriage by expressing depression or dissatisfaction about the relationship or not being able to articulate what makes the marriage work. l three subscales evaluate information about how the couple reports handling marital conflict: (a) chaos, (b) volatility, and (c) glorifying the struggle. the chaos scale rates the degree to which the couple feels out of control of their lives and buffeted about by elements outside of their control. example items include “the couple has a lot of unexpected or out of control marital conflict” and “the couple believes that unexpected problems have weakened their relationship.” the volatility scale measures the intensity, both positive and negative, of the spouses’ feelings for each other. highly volatile couples express feelings of great passion and yet fight frequently. examples of items that are used to measure this subscale include “the couple mention they like a good fight (having it out)” and “they feel emotions and other things intensely.” glorifying the struggle scale assesses the extent to which a couple has gone through difficult times but perceives their marriage to be stronger because of these experiences. their marriage is the center of their lives, and they are proud of the struggles they have gone through. example items include “the couple expresses that marriage is a struggle, but it is worth it” and “the couple is proud of the hardships they have been through.” klagsburn mentions the characteristics of a sustainable and stable marriage:15 1. the ability to change and adapt to changes. namely through the development of positive attitudes than see a change as a disturbing thing. hamdard islamicus 112 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 2. the ability to survive in conditions that can not be changed. a marriage should be based on awareness that every occurrence of a disagreement or a problem should not always be resolved, and in this case people sometimes have to let it happen as it is. 3. assumptions to stay committed. namely a shared firm belief on the values of a marriage as an institution that must remain solid and kept together in joy and sorrow, and the waves of life experienced. 4. trust. through this trust, an individual will feel safe (safety and security) in conjunction. trust is also the foundation for the growth of sexual intimacy and psychological, as well as one way of implementing loyalty. 5. the balance in terms of interdependence. individuals express their needs to their partners, especially emotional needs. this interdependence is dynamic, there is a role as ‘dependent’, and others act as a ‘giver of affection or attention’. 6. mutual enjoyment of activities. when this happens, the emotional and physical relationship becomes increasingly intertwined. couples not only share the same interests, but also compromise to accommodate mutual differences, and each also still pursuing his personal activities so that it can still make them mutually attracted to each other. there must be a balance between time spent together with the time in which they are apart and lead their respective activities. 7. mutual respect, sharing stories. sharing experiences can make people have a perspective on the present, allowing them to look at an incident which is potentially damaging to the marriage through what has been faced and solved together. this sharing of activities can be considered an entity that remind them of the capacity to survive based on what has happened in the past, so as to prevent the occurrence of instantaneous decision making when facing difficulties at present, or in future. islamic values in married life in islam, marriage is a legal contract (literary arabic: ‘aqd al-qirén, “matrimony contract”; urdu: /ala-lc: nikéínémah) between two people. both the groom and the bride are to hamdard islamicus 113 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 consent to the marriage agreement or contract of their own free wills. a formal, binding contract is considered integral to a religiously valid islamic marriage, and outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom and bride. there must be two muslim witnesses of the marriage contract. by getting married a person can, with the help of allah, overcome many of the traps of evil, for marriage helps him to lower his gaze and guard his chastity, as ‘abdullah bin mas‘ëd narrated:16 “we went with allah’s messenger ( ). while we were young men who had nothing. he said” ‘o, young men! you should marry, for indeed it helps in lowering the gaze and protecting the private parts. whoever among you is not able to marry, then let him fast, for indeed fasting will diminish his sexual desire.” prophet muíammad ( ) in a íadêth explains that getting married means following as-sunnah and completing a person half her/his religion. narrated by anas bin mélik ( ):17 a group of three men came to the houses of the wives of the prophet ( ) how the prophet ( ) worshipped (allah), and when they were informed about that, they considered their worship insufficient and said, “where are we from the prophet ( ); as his past and future sins have been forgiven.” then one of them said, “i will offer the øalét (prayer) throughout the night forever.” the other said, “i will observe øaum (fast) throughout the year and will not break my øaum (fast).” the third said, “i will keep away from the women and will not marry forever.” allah’s messenger ( ) came to them and said, “are you the same people who said so-and-so? by allah, i am more submissive to allah and more afraid of him than you; yet i observe øaum (fast) and also do not observe øaum (fast), i do offer øalét (prayer) and also do sleep and i also marry women. so he who does not follow my as-sunnah (legal ways) in religion, is not from me (not one of my followers).” the importance of marriage in islam is also narrated by sa‘d bin abê waqqéî:18 “allah’s messenger ( ) did not allow ‘uthmén bin mað‘ën ( ) to keep away from marrying (and other pleasures) and if he had allowed him, we would have gotten ourselves castrated.” marriage has an honorable position in islam. a muslim enters a new phase of his/her life, to build a family in which he will enforce religious values not just for himself but also on his or her spouse, children, and society. under traditional islamic jurisprudence, marriage hamdard islamicus 114 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 creates a unit of society that mutually accepts god as an integral part of every situation and decision, and recognizes mutual rights and obligations between spouses. through marriage, couples commit to a lifelong bond that is based upon mutual mental, spiritual, and physical gratification. such a home promotes and ensures equity and harmony, and is a source of shelter filled with peace, comfort, security, and continuity.19 according to islam, both men and woman have rights over each other when they enter into a marriage contract, with the husband serving as protector and supporter of the family most of the time, from his means as the the qur’én says: “men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband’s) absence what allah would have them guard. as to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance): for allah is most high, great (above you all).”20 this guardianship has two aspects for both partners: the husband is financially responsible for the welfare and maintenance of his wife or wives and any children they produce, to include at a minimum, providing a home, food and clothing. in return, it is the duty of the wife to safeguard the husband’s possessions and protect how wealth is spent. if the wife has wealth in her own capacity she is not obliged to spend it upon her husband or children, as she can own property and assets in her own right, so the husband has no right for her property and assets except by her will. a pre-marital agreement of the financial expectation from the husband is in the mahr (dower money), given by him to the wife for her exclusive use, which is included as part of his financial responsibility. marriage is defined in the qur’én as a compassionate and peaceful relationship that is grounded in love as this qur’énic verse says: “and among his signs is this, that he created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquillity with them, and hamdard islamicus 115 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 he has put love and mercy between your (hearts): verily in that are signs for those who reflect.”21 by describing spouses as “garments” for one another, islam encourages supportive, protective, and nurturing marital relationships as the qur’én said: “permitted to you, on the night of the fasts, is the approach to your wives. they are your garments and ye are their garments. allah knoweth what you used to do secretly among yourselves; but he turned to you and forgave you; so now associate with them, and seek what allah hath ordained for you, and eat and drink, until the white thread of dawn appear to you distinct from its black thread; then complete your fast till the night appears; but do not associate with your wives while ye are in retreat in the mosques.22 those are limits (set by) allah: approach not nigh thereto. thus doth allah make clear his signs to men: that they may learn selfrestraint.”23 in addition to being based upon gender equality, there is also a requirement for muslim couples to consult with one another as a means of engaging in joint decision-making within their relationships as the qur’én says: “those who hearken to their lord, and establish regular prayer; who (conduct) their affairs by mutual consultation; who spend out of what we bestow on them for sustenance.”24 however, within traditional islamic jurisprudence, there are jurists that maintain that women must be “obedient” to their husbands, as cited in the qur’énic verse iv:34, which refers to righteous women as being devoutly obedient. other scholars maintain that such an interpretation would contradict other verses citing equal responsibility for every individual before god, and hence interpret “obedience” to be an act due to god, not man.25-27 beyond the husband/wife relationship, parental responsibilities include being honest, just, and patient with children. islamic law holds parents accountable for rearing children who are physically and psychologically healthy, and able to contribute positively to society. in the hamdard islamicus 116 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 same vein children are charged with treating their parents with respect and gratitude, as the qur’én says: “and we have enjoined on man (to be good) to his parents: in travail upon travail did his mother bear him, and in years twain was his weaning: (hear the command), “show gratitude to me and to thy parents: to me is (thy final) goal.”28 in the event that conflict occurs within marriage, the qur’én requires it be resolved through mutual consultation and open discussion. allah (swt) warns the believers regarding the possibility of disaster in family and then prescribes methods to prevent such disaster. the qur’én says, “o ye who believe! truly, among your wives and your children are (some that are) enemies to yourselves: so beware of them! but if ye forgive and overlook, and cover up (their faults), verily allah is oft-forgiving, most merciful.”29 allah (swt) is warning the believers not to let their own family members be their enemies. in order to prevent that forgiveness, overlooking each other’s minor faults and asking allah’s forgiveness for each other have to be made a regular practice within the family. here are some references of islamic family values, which have been found in the qur’én and ×adêths: aim of life: first of all, a muslim family must determine its aim and objective. what is the ultimate goal of this family? the ultimate goal of a believer’s life is pleasure and forgiveness of god and salvation in real life in the hereafter. “say: “truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life and my death, are (all) for allah, the cherisher of the worlds: no partner hath he: this am i commanded, and i am the first of those who bow to his will.”30 strong base of knowledge: in order to determine aim in life, muslims need authentic knowledge, in order to implement in lives and hamdard islamicus 117 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 enhance qualifications. knowledge seeker welcomed by angels mentioned in a íadêth, it was narrated that zirr bin hubaish31 said: “i went to øafwén bin ‘assél al-murédi and he said: what brought you here?’ i said: ‘i am seeking knowledge.’ he said: i heard the messenger of allah ( ) saying: “there is no one who goes out of his house in order to seek knowledge, but the angels lower their wings in approval of his action.” seeking knowledge of the qur’én and sunnah has to be a continuous, regular program in the schedule of a muslim family. by seeking knowledge, a muslim comes to know that allah (swt) has made his messenger ( ) as the true role model and that the messenger ( ) has encouraged muslims to follow him. righteous actions: a muslim family obeys the commandments of its lord. øalét, øaum (fasting), zakét, íajj, íijéb and other divine injunctions have to be followed with complete sincerity and devotion. a muslim family makes sure that its earnings and expenditure are all through ×alél means. family members, especially parents keep themselves away from any discrepancy between their speech and their actions because they are the ones who become examples for their children. allah almighty says: “o ye who believe! save yourselves and your families from a fire whose fuel is men and stones, over which are (appointed) angels stern (and) severe, who flinch not (from executing) the commands they receive from allah, but do (precisely) what they are commanded.”32 family education: a saying goes in english, “charity begins at home”. in arabic it says, al-umm al-madrasah (mother is the school). if you want to teach truthfulness to your children, but you make them sleep every night by scaring them of policemen, whereas there is no real policemen around-what kind of message are they receiving? if you want to teach respect to your children, but you and your spouse curse each other in their presence, how will they learn respect? parents are responsible for the moral, ethical and the basic and essential religious teachings of their children which is their responsibility. allah almighty says in the holy qur’én: “and those who believe and whose families follow them in faith – hamdard islamicus 118 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 to them shall we join their families: nor shall we deprive them (of the fruit) of aught of their works: (yet) is each individual in pledge for his deeds.”33 learn your role and responsibility in the family: whether you’re a husband, wife, parent, child, sibling or relative, learn your position, role and responsibility in the family from the qur’én and sunnah. if all family members strive to fulfill their obligations, they all automatically get their rights and the family runs smoothly. as example, the responsibility of guardianship, supervision, and management of the family, in islam, have been set on the shoulders of men, as allah, the exalted, has stated in the verse iv:34 of the holy qur’én. be satisfied with little: the prophet ( ) as a true role model, has taught us to look towards those who are less advantageous. develop the culture of sacrifice and contentment with little (islamic terminology: qané‘ah). narrated ibn ‘umar ( ): allah’s messenger ( ) said, “a believer eats in one intestine (is satisfied with a little food); and a kéfir (disbeliever) or a hypocrite eats in seven intestines (eats too much).”34 this qané‘ah or contentment with little has been described as one of the characteristics of taqwé (consciousness and fear of allah) as allah said in the qur’én about patience (îabr), “be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.”35 this will manifest through the attitudes of family members that they will demand less as their own rights and strive more to give others their rights. they will sacrifice their own comforts, demands, money, will, opinions and luxuries for each other. the foundation of a happy family is mutual love and sacrifice. mutual consultation (shëré): family matters should be decided based on consultation. the prophet ( ) himself was asked to consult. if the person who was directly guided by revelation was commanded to consult, what about us? shëré (consultation) is a basic feature of islamic way of life. as qur’én explains about consultation that, “it is part of the mercy of allah that thou dost deal gently with them. wert thou severe or harsh-hearted, they would have broken hamdard islamicus 119 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 away from about thee: so pass over (their faults), and ask for (allah’s) forgiveness for them; and consult them in affairs (of moment). then, when thou hast taken a decision put thy trust in allah. for allah loves those who put their trust (in him).”36 help each other: from the spirit of love and sacrifice, members of a muslim family help each other. the prophet ( ) used to help his noble wives in household works besides doing his own chores by his own hand. narrated al-aswad that he asked ‘ó’ishah ( ), “what did the prophet ( ) used to do in his house?” she replied, “he used to keep himself busy serving his family and when it was the time for aî-øalét (the prayer), he would go for it.”37 communication: family members should continuously work on improving the efficiency of communication among each other. this includes honest and open communication between spouses and between children. family members need to take time to understand each other, be-friend with each other, develop closeness and emotional bond among each other and support each other at times of ease and difficulty alike. narrated ‘abdullah bin ‘amru: the prophet ( ) said, “al-wéîil is not the one who recompenses the good done to him by his relatives, but al-wéîil is the one who keeps good relations with those relatives who had severed the bond of kinship with him.”38 criteria of commitment on islamic values islam is a religion. religion is seen as a system of thought, feeling and behavior that is owned by a group of people who are devoted, loyal; have a code of ethics or rules that are believed to be the truth and used as a guide in social interactions.39 the values that are taught usually contain mercy, compassion and mutual help. hill defines religion as:40 l feelings, thoughts, experiences and behaviors that grew out of the search for something sacred; l a search or conquest purposes that are not sacred, such as identity, ownership, meaning, health, or welfare; l the quest for meaning which use certain methods such as rituals hamdard islamicus 120 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 or begging behavior, individuals who engage in this ritual identify each other and support each other as a group identity. religious commitment is defined as a level of values, beliefs and execution of religious teachings inherent in individuals in their everyday lives; where through the belief an individual evaluates his world through the religious eyes and belief that have become values that are integrated in many aspects of life (private, interpersonal and social life).41 the dimensions are: participation in religious activities, the daily behavior that guide the behavior of value based on religion, belief held about the values of the religion. religious commitment has been operationalized and measured in several ways, including membership or nonmembership in religious organizations, the degree of participation in religious activities (such as frequency of attending mosque for muslim and church for christian), the attitudes and importance of religious experience, and belief in traditional religious creeds.42 several studies have shown that the benefits of religious commitment brings about an improvement in physical and mental health.43 for example, individuals who have religious commitment are frequently present in a religious activity, where the presence in these activities from the results of research is mentioned as part of positive social behavior and the individuals involved have ties to support each other so as to improve the psychological well-being.44 wilson and musick also found from their research a number of respondents who believe a particular religious doctrine and implement on teachings of that religion in many religious activites are experiencing an increase in the functions of family and marital satisfaction is relatively high.45 call and heaton mentions the couples who participate in religious activities, tend to dislike divorce.45 involvement in religious activity was found to encourage individuals and couples to survive in facing difficult situations in life and avoid divorce. religiosity does have an important role to form attitudes in marriage. value contained in a religion usually strictly against divorce. if confronted by difficult conditions in the domestic life, then this prohibition accompanied by a sanction of sin from god or social sanctions of religious leaders and environment. value was also related to the behavior of the faithful and not having a free sex, be forgiving for acts of violence or infidelity of hamdard islamicus 121 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 spouse, full of love and respect. these values can transform individuals believed to be individuals who played by the rules and norms, avoiding the use of alcohol and/or drugs, and develop low stress, happiness and quality of life.47 brown, orbuch, and bauermeister found an association between religiosity and marital stability among americans whites and blacks.48 this study is based on the theory of religiosity improves problem-solving abilities in difficult situations and stressful situations,48 at which time the individual is able to manage themselves when a situation like this it would be likely to make marriage more stable than individuals who do not have this capability. in addition, participation in religious activities as part of a religious commitment is found also as a contributor to the marital stability.49 religious activities can be a social resource that can help improve the welfare of marriage and improve the resiliency during marriage life. socializing with people who have the noble values and norms, can be a role model for the individuals to behave good also to his family members at home. the individual’s involvement in religious activities are proven to reduce the divorce rate, but only less likely to assure the quality of marriage;50 means the individual’s involvement in religious activities does not necessarily guarantee the quality of a marital relationship.* moreover, if an individual participates in religious activities along with one’s partner, then it tends to be more stable than that just comes alone while his/her partner never participate in religious activities.52 behavioral differences that appear between an individual and his partner is in fact can increase the risk of disunity in marital relationship. for if an individual is present as part of a couple he can increase solidarity as a couple and can be a deterrent from the distractions of household. such individuals and couples have developed views, family values to be applied together in agreement. involvement in religious activities can foster the belief about the –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *the reason is that their involvement is partial and not based on sincere and firm belief in the day of judgment. moreover, each spouse should keep in mind this íadêth: the holy prophet ( ) said: “allah has not permitted anything that is more detestable to him than divorce” (sunan abê dé’ëd, vol. iii, darussalm, riyadh, 2008, book of divorce, p. 20, ×adêth no. 2177). islam admonishes both the spouses to care each other and protect their mutual rights – ed. hamdard islamicus 122 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 teaching of religious beliefs as well, so that individuals and couples have the positive spirit that any problems or pressures encountered in actual married life can be passed along, it can be maintained and there must be a way out. strong beliefs about the poor decision to divorce, can make individuals directing partner to stay afloat in difficult situations.53 method participants a convenient sampling procedure was used to draw a sample of newlyweds at jakarta region. respondents were initially recruited via e-mail, then we administered the scales of the marital stability scale and commitment to islamic values scale. respondents had to have been married for the first time within at least 6 months to 5 years of marriage. forty seven respondents were initially selected in this study. measures and material marital stability scale. measures about global marital perceptions via eight dimensions-subscales (fondness/affection, we-ness, expansiveness, negativity, disappointment and disillusionment, chaos, volatility, and glorifying the struggle).54 three of the subscales are positive in nature: (a) fondness/affection: rates expressions of pride, fondness, and affection for partner, (b) we-ness: indicates unification in the marriage, and (c) expansiveness: how expressive they respond to and expand on what their partner is saying. two of the coding dimensions are negative: (a) negativity and (b) disappointment and disillusionment. the negativity scale indexes the extent to which spouses are critical of their partner, are vague about what attracted them to their partner, and display negative affect toward their partner. the disappointment and disillusionment scale assesses the degree to which each member of the couple has given up on the marriage by expressing depression about the relationship or not being able to articulate what makes a marriage work. three subscales evaluate information about how the couple reports handling marital conflict: (a) chaos, (b) volatility, and (c) glorifying the struggle. the chaos scale rates the degree to which the couple feels hamdard islamicus 123 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 out of control of their lives and buffeted about by elements outside of their control. example items include “the couple has a lot of unexpected or out of control marital conflict” and “the couple believes that unexpected problems have weakened their relationship.” the volatility scale measures the intensity, both positive and negative, of the spouses’ feelings for each other. highly volatile couples express feelings of great passion and yet fight frequently. examples of items that are used to measure this subscale include “the couple mention they like a good fight (having it out)” and “they feel emotions and other things intensely.” glorifying the struggle scale assesses the extent to which a couple has gone through difficult times but perceives the marriage to be stronger because of these experiences. their marriage is the center of their lives, and they are proud of the struggles they have jointly gone through. example items include “the couple expresses that marriage as a struggle, but it is worth it” and “the couple is proud of the hardships they have been through.” religious commitment defined as the degree to which a person adheres to his or her religious values, beliefs, and practices and uses them in daily living.54 the supposition is that a highly religious person will evaluate the world through religious schemas and thus will integrate his or her religion into much of his or her life. its dimensions are: participation in religious activities, the daily behavior that guide behavior based on religion, belief about values of marriage based on religion. dimension indicator believes that marriage is worship making the prophet muíammad ( ) as an example of behavior in domestic life believes that all the good things and bad always are seen by god; so that all behaviours, thoughts and feelings can be controlled by attempts to have the best ratings in the eyes of god in times of difficulty, still believes that allah is with those who are in trouble; not hopeless diligent in studying religion and worship invites couples to participate in religious activities teaches religious values to their spouses and children participation in religious activities a shared conviction about the values of marriage hamdard islamicus 124 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 dimension indicator behaviour based on islamic values grateful for anything that is brought by her husband; grateful for the gift of his wife under any circumstances (pretty/not pretty, etc.) be patient on the behavior of couples sincere forgiveness keeping their íijéb, restrict themselves from nonmaíram (a person with whom marriage is permissible) trustworthiness (keep secrets households well) respect partner willing to serve her husband physically and mentally (as wife); support his wife physically and mentally as a gentle (husband) faithful to accompany each other in times of joys and sorrows maintaining the home and property of her husband permission from her husband (when leaving the house, when they want to fasting) communicate in every household problems avoid the nature of mutual distrust avoid selfish and overbearing not speak loudly, or being rude and arrogant in behaviour maintain cleanliness, always taking care of themselves and dress/food doing worship: prayer five times, fasting ramaìén, zakét fiïrah, ×ajj doing sunnah worship: performing tahajjud, ishraq, ìuíé, awwébên and other voluntary prayers, reading the qur’én, sunnah fasting whenever possible. we used 5-point likert-type scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree, in these two kinds of scales. simple reggression analysis was run on the variables to determine whether there were significant contribution between commitment to islamic values and marital stability. daily behavior based on islamic values hamdard islamicus 125 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 results the main results of this study indicate that commitment to islamic values significantly predict marital stability, indicated by f-count = 42.707 is more than the f-table = 4.06 , p-value = 0.000 which is much smaller than = 0.05. anova (b) model sum of df mean f sig. squares square 1 regression 8903.701 01 8903.701 42.707 , 000 (a) residual 9381.704 45 208.482 total 18285.404 46 a) predictors: (constant), commitment b) dependent variable: stable value r2 (r square) of the model summary below shows that 48.7% of the variance of marital stability can be explained by changes in the variable of commitment. it’s mean commitment variable contributed 48.7% to the creation of marital stability and the rest is determined by other variables, which is not measured in this study. model summary model r r square adjusted r std. error square of the estimate 1 , 698 (a) , 487 , 476 14.43892 in addition to determine the relationship between the variables, the researchers also conducted additional analysis about gender differentiation. the results can be seen in the table below: gender differentiation variable gender n mean t sig mean difference commitment to m 13 156.8462 2086 0.043 12.8756 islamic values w 34 143.9706 marital stability m 13 143.3846 1999 0.052 12.5905 w 34 130.7941 hamdard islamicus 126 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the table shows that the variables that have a significant level p<0.05 is variable commitment. based on this we can conclude that there is a differentiation in the average rate of commitment. then, by comparing the average of the two types of gender on variable commitment can be concluded that the men have an average commitment higher than women with the average difference 12.8756 the relationship between respondent ages with the commitment anova (b) model sum of df mean f sig. squares square 1 regression 361.684 01 361.684 , 940 , 337 (a) residual 17314.018 45 384.756 total 17675.702 46 a) predictors: (constant), age b) dependent variable: commitment the table showed no significant relationship between age of respondents with the ‘commitment on islamic values’, indicated by f = 0.940, p-value = 0.337 bigger than = 0.05. it can be interpreted that a person’s religious commitment is not influenced by age. discussion the main result of the study proves that the commitment of islamic values significantly maintain marital stability. a respondent who believes in the values of islam and implements the values of those in many activities, has experienced an increase in functions of the family and the stability in his/her marriage is relatively high. the commitment to the islamic values does have an important role to shape attitudes in marriage. the values of this prioritizing avoids divorce when confronted by any difficult conditions in the household. with commitment on religious teachings, an individual also has the ability to problem-solving in a difficult and stressful situation: he is patient hamdard islamicus 127 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and find a way out to pray and avoid negative emotions. when individuals are able to manage themselves in a situation like this it would be likely to make their marriage more stable than individuals who do not have this capability. in addition, participation in religious activities as part of a religious commitment is found also as a contributor to the marital stability.56 religious activities can be a social resource that can help improve the welfare of a marriage and improve the resiliency during marital life. socializing with people who have the noble values and norms, can be a role model for the individuals to behave in a good manner and also with one’s family members at home. involvement in religious activities can foster the belief about the teaching of religious beliefs, so that individuals and couples have the positive spirit that any problems or pressures encountered in actual married life can be passed along, it can be maintained and there must be a way out. whenever the individual participates in religious activities along with her/his partner, then it tends to be more stable than the one who just comes alone while her partner never participates in religious activities.57 behavioural differences that appear between an individual and his partner, in fact could increase the risk of disunity in marital relationship. if an individual is present as part of a couple it can increase solidarity of the couple and can be a deterrent from the distractions faced in the household; such individuals and couples develop views and family values to be applied together in agreement. lastly, the results of additional analysis, it was concluded as follows: l from the average rate of religious commitment, men have a higher commitment than women. we can make a premise: due to factors of male involvement in the religious activities more regularly than women (eg, in every friday prayers, men receive spiritual recharging; while the female does not). as well as factors of value investment of men as priests in the household that requires getting the process ‘tarbiyah’ (internalization of religious values) in depth, and then acquired religious knowledge must be transferred back to his wife; then in this case has happened twice cognitive processes in males that is getting knowledge from the teacher and also by teaching hamdard islamicus 128 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 back it to his wife. however, ideally these premises can be used as a basic reference for further research. l additional results showed no significant association between age of respondents with religious commitment. it can be assumed that one’s commitment in religion is not influenced by the age factor. the older learners is not necessarily more committed to religion, and vice versa younger age is not necessarily less commited to the teachings of the religion. it is likely influenced by the learning process and religious experience that are not only influenced by age, that older people not necessarily have more knowledge than younger people, or vice versa. notes and references 01. worthington et al., “the religious commitment inventory-10: development, refinement, and validation of a brief scale for research and counseling”, journal of counseling psychology, vol. l, no. 1, 2003, p. 84. 02. edna brown, terri l. orbuch and jose a. bauermeister, “religiousity and marital stability among black american and white american couples”, journal of family relations, vol. lvii, 2008, p. 196. 03. sybil carrére et al., “predicting marital stability and divorce in newlywed couples”, journal of family psychology, vol. xiv, no.1, 2000, p. 42. 04. annete mahoney et al., “religion in the home in the 1980s and 1990s: a metaanalytic review and conceptual analysis of links between religion, marriage, and parenting”, journal of family psychology, no. 1. 2008, p. 73. 05. ibid., p. 87. 06. everett l. worthington, “understanding the values of religious clients: a model and its application to counseling”, journal of counseling psychology, vol. xxxv, no. 2. 1988, p. 168. 07. ibid., pp.166-174. 08. john wilson, and marc musick. “religion and marital dependency”, journal for the scientific study of religion, vol. xxxv, no. 1, 1996, p. 38. 09. vaughn r.a. call, and tim b. heaton, “religious influence on marital stability”, journal for the scientific study of religion, vol. xxxvi, no. 3, 1997, p. 390. 10. brown, orbuch, and bauermeister, “religiousity and marital stability among black american and white american couples”, journal of family relations, vol. lvii, 20089, p. 194. 11. christopher g. ellison, “religious involvement and subjective well-being”, journal of health and social behavior, vol. xxxii, no. 1, 1991, p. 90. hamdard islamicus 129 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 12. rudolph f. verdeber, and kathleen s. verderber, inter-act: using interpersonal communication skills, belmont, ca, wadsworth pub. co., 1992, p. 143. 13. john m. gottman, and nan silver, the seven principles for making marriage worksummary, new york, three rivers press, 1999, pp. 4-14. 14. kim t. buehlman, john m. gottman, and lynn f. katz, “how a couple views their past predicts their future: predicting divorce from an oral history interview”, journal of family psychology, vol. v, nos. 3 and 4, 1992, pp. 298299. 15. francine klagsburn, married people: staying together in the age of divorce, toronto, bantam books, 1985, p. 319. 16. moíammad ibn ‘eisa at-tirmidhê, jémi‘ at-tirmidhê, trans. abu khaliyl, vol. ii, no. 1081, riyadh, darussalam, 2007, p. 452. 17. muíammad al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, trans. muhammad muhsin khan, vol. vii, ×adêth no. 5063, riyadh, darussalam, 1997, p. 19. 18. al-bukhérê, saíêí al-bukhérê, vol. vii, ×adêth no. 5073, p. 24. 19. alkhateeb, sharifa. “the marriage contract in islam”, (unpublished manuscript, 2004), pdf file. 20. the qur’én, iv:34. 21. ibid., xxx:21. 22. this is termed as i‘tekéf which is an important sunnah and had been a regular practice of the prophet ( ). muslim men who want to perfom i‘tekéf, live in mosques from 21st of the islamic month of ramaìén to the sighting of moon of shawwél. they remain busy most of this period in prayers, reciting the qur’én and supplications. a muslim woman intending to perform i‘tekéf passes it in the same way, but in a secluded portion of her home. 23. ibid., xlii:38. 24. ibid., 42:38. 25. zainab alwani, “the qur’énic model for harmony in family relations”, in change from within: diverse perspectives on domestic violence in muslim communities, ed. maha b. alkhateeb, salma elkadi and abugideiri, great falls, va, peaceful families project, 2007, p. 51. 26. azizah y. al-hibri, “an islamic perspective on domestic violence”, fordham international law journal, vol. xxvii, no. 1, 2003, p. 215. 27. gisela webb and amina wadud, “qur’én and woman: rereading the sacred text from a womans perspective”, journal of law and religion, vol. xv, nos. 1/2, 2000, p. 519. 28. the qur’én, xxxi:14. 29. ibid., lxiv:14. 30. ibid., vi:162-163. 31. ibn majah al qazwini, sunan ibn majah, trans. nasiruddin al-khattab, vol. i, ×adêth no. 226, riyadh, darussalam, 2007, p. 223. 32. the qur’én, lxvi:6. 33. ibid., lii:21. 34. al-bukhérê, øaíií al-bukhérê, vol. i, ×adêth no. 5393, p. 197. 35. the qur’én ii:155. 36. ibid., iii:159. hamdard islamicus 130 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 37. al-bukhérê, øaíií al-bukhérê, vol. i, ×adêth no. 676, p. 385. 38. ibid., vol. viii, ×adêth no. 5991, p. 27. 39. warren clark, “religious observance: marriage and family”, in: canadian social trends, statistics canada, catalogue 11. 1998, p. 3. 40. peter c. hill et al., definitions of religion and spirituality, 1998, in david b. larson, james p. swyers, and michael e. mccullough, eds., scientific research on spirituality and health: a consensus report, baltimore, national institute for healthcare research, p. 21. 41. worthington et al., “the religious commitment inventory-10, p. 85. 42. peter c. hill, and ralph w. hood, measures of religiosity, birmingham, al, religious education press, 1999, p. 205. 43. worthington et al., “the religious commitment inventory op. cit. 44. clark, “religious observance: marriage and family”, p. 5. 45. wilson, and musick, “religion and marital dependency”, canadian social trends, canada, p. 38. 46. call, and heaton, “religious influence on marital stability”, journal for the scientific study of religious, vol. xxxci, no. 3, 1997, p. 390. 47. clark, op. cit., p. 5. 48. brown, orbuch, and bauermeister, op. cit., p. 194. 49. ellison, “religious involvement and subjective well-being”, journal of health and social behaviour, vol. xxxii, no. 1, 1991, p. 90. 50. clem brooks, “religious influence and the politics of family decline concern: trends, sources, and u.s. political behavior”, american sociological review, vol. lxvii, no. 2, 2002, p. 208. 51. kieran t. sullivan, “understanding the relationship between religiosity and marriage: an investigation of the immediate and longitudinal effects of religiosity on newlywed couples,” journal of family psychology, vol. xv, no. 4, 2001, p. 623. 52. call, and heaton, op. cit., p. 390. 53. justin l. barrett and kenneth i. pargament, “the psychology of religion and coping: theory research practice”, review of religious research, vol. xl, no. 1, 1998, p. 89. 54. carrére et al., “predicting marital stability and divorce in newlywed couples”, journal of family psychology, vol. xiv, no. 1, p. 47. 55. worthington, “understanding the values of religious clients: a model and its application to counseling”, journal of counselling psychology, vol. xxxv, no. 2, 1988, pp. 166-174. 56. brooks, “religious influence and the politics of family decline concern: trends, sources, and u.s. political behavior”, american sociological review, vol. lxvii, no. 2, 2002, p. 208. 57. call, and heaton, “op. cit., p. 390. bibliography alwani, zainab, “the quranic model for harmony in family relations”, in change from within: diverse perspectives on domestic violence in muslim communities, hamdard islamicus 131 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 edited by maha b. alkhateeb, salma elkadi and abugideiri, great falls, va, peaceful families project, 2007. al-qazwini, ibn méjah, sunan ibn méjah, vol, i, translated by nasiruddin al-khattab, riyadh, darussalam, 2007. al-qur’én, translated by abdullah yusuf ali, al-madinah al-munawarah, king fahd holy qur’én printing complex, 1989. al-hibri, azizah. y. “an islamic perspective on domestic violence”, fordham international law journal, vol. xxvii, no. 1. 2003, pp. 196-224. alkhateeb, sharifa, the marriage contract in islam, unpublished manuscript, 2004. pdf file. barrett, justin l. and kenneth i. pargament, “the psychology of religion and coping: theory research practice”, review of religious research, vol. xl, no. 1, 1998, pp. 1-96. buehlman, kim t., john m. gottman, and lynn f. katz, “how a couple views their past predicts their future: predicting divorce from an oral history interview”, journal of family psychology, vol. v, nos. 3-4, 1992, pp. 295-318. brown, edna., orbuch, terri. l, bauermeister, jose. a, “religiousity and marital stability among black american and white american couples”, journal of family relations, vol. lvii, 2008, pp. 186-197. brooks, clem, “religious influence and the politics of family decline concern: trends, sources, and u.s. political behavior”, american sociological review, vol. lxvii, no. 2, 2002, pp. 191-211. carrére, sybil, kim t. buehlman, john m. gottman, james a. coan and lionel ruckstuhl, “predicting marital stability and divorce in newlywed couples”, journal of family psychology, vol. xiv, no. 1, 2000, pp. 42-58. call, vaughn r. a. and tim b. heaton, “religious influence on marital stability”, journal for the scientific study of religion, vol. xxxvi, no. 3, 1997, pp. 382392 clark, warren, “religious observance: marriage and family”, in: the canadian social trends, statistics canada, catalogue 11, 1998, pp. 2-7. ellison, christopher g, “religious involvement and subjective well-being”, journal of health and social behavior, vol. xxxii, no. 1, 1991, pp. 80-99. gottman, john m. and nan silver, the seven principles for making marriage worksummary, new york, three rivers press, 1999. hill, peter c. and ralph w. hood, measures of religiosity, birmingham, al, religious education press, 1999. at-tirmidhê, mohammad ibn ‘eisa at-tirmidhê, jémi‘ at-tirmidhê, t vol. ii, translated by abu khaliyl, riyadh, darussalam, 2007. al-bukhérê, muíammad øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. vii, vols. i, pp. 7-8, translated by muhammad muhsin khan, riyadh, darussalam, 1997. klagsbrun, francine, married people: staying together in the age of divorce, toronto, bantam books, 1985. mahoney, annette, kenneth i, pargament, nalini tarakeshwar, and aaron b. swank. “religion in the home in the 1980s and 1990s: a meta-analytic review and conceptual analysis of links between religion, marriage, and parenting”, journal of family psychology, no. 1, 2008, pp. 63-101. hamdard islamicus 132 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 sullivan, kieran t., “understanding the relationship between religiosity and marriage: an investigation of the immediate and longitudinal effects of religiosity on newlywed couples”, journal of family psychology, vol. xv, no. 4, 2001, pp. 610-626. verderber, rudolph f. and kathleen s. verderber, inter-act: using interpersonal communication skills, belmont, ca, wadsworth pub. co., 1992. webb, gisela and amina wadud, “qur’én and woman: rereading the sacred text from a womans perspective”, journal of law and religion, vol. xv, nos. 1/2, 2000, p. 519. wilson, john and marc musick, “religion and marital dependency”, journal for the scientific study of religion, vol. xxxv, no. 1, 1996, pp. 30-40. worthington, everett l. “understanding the values of religious clients: a model and its application to counseling”, journal of counseling psychology, vol. xxxv, no. 2, 1988, pp. 166-174. worthington, everett l. jr, nathaniel g. wade, terry l. hight, jennifer s. ripley, michael e. mccullough, jack w. berry, michelle m. schmitt, james t. berry, kevin h. bursley and lynn oconnor, “the religious commitment inventory10: development, refinement, and validation of a brief scale for research and counseling”, journal of counseling psychology, vol. l, no. 1, 2003, pp. 84-96. hamdard islamicus 83 vol. xl, no. 3 trade based transaction in islamic commercial law and their role in the development of the rural agriculture sector in khyber pakhtunkhwa (proposed islamic financing models) iftikhar hussain and dr. lutfullah saqib assistant professor university of swat, swat, khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan. e-mail: iftikharhussain693@gmail.com agriculture is the most noteworthy source of food through which farmers augment food supply for themselves and others. majority of these farmers in pakistan, predominantly in the kpk, belong to the lower class and, as a result, are not in a position to bear out their basic agricultural wants. they borrow it, therefore, from various sources on interest basis including organizations, banks and other various financial institutions. however, these institutions offer loan facility on interest basis which is stringently prohibited by sharê‘ah for a muslim farmer. being a complete code of life, islam gifts, as alternate, a comprehensive way for farmers and islamic banks to enter into various commercial trade based transactions, feasible and worthwhile for all the stake holders. these transactions can be divided into murébaíah, salam, and istiîné‘. the theoretical part of the work is primarily based on qualitative research technique and, therefore, the theoretical part is entirely based on secondary data, derived from the work of muslim scholars. a focussed group technique is used where the farmers and agricultural credit officers are interviewed regarding the proposed models. the testing of the proposed models proves that how the newly developed models are very much operable at ground level, having a potential to fulfil all farmers’ basic agricultural needs, both for crop and non-crop activities. keywords: agriculture, farmer, islamic bank, islamic financial institutions, rural areas. hamdard islamicus 84 vol. xl, no. 3 introduction food is the most imperative source for the survival of human life, and agriculture is one of the most important sources for such food. the people who belong to agriculture sector i.e. the farmers, majority of them belong to the lower middle class and lower class of the society and, therefore, facing financial problems, which must be removed.1 due to their meager economic condition, they are not in a position to get their agriculture requirements both for crop and non-crop activities i.e. seeds, fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides etc. as a result, they are incapable to take the intended benefits from their farming activities, and consequently, no mentionable change occurs in their economic growth. their living standard remains unchanged, and hence, no positive change befalls in their economic stability. the financial needs arise at three different phases i.e. in the beginning of a season, at the middle of a season and at the end of a season. to fulfil their agriculture needs, they resort to formal and informal sources.2 the informal sources of finance include friends, families, sellers and money agents.3 before the inception of pakistan, the farmers had used to receive loans from money agents. after 1947, the short term credit needs of the farmers were fulfilled by commission agents and relatives. such advances were for a short span of time and were mostly provided for productive purposes.4 the major formal sources of farm credit are ztbl (zar‘i taraqiéti bank limited),5 commercial banks, cooperatives credit and taccavi loans. these financial sources, however, provide financing on interest basis which is strictly prohibited by the islamic sharê‘ah (law). being typical muslims, the farmers in pakistan avoid securing loan on interest basis.6 therefore, there is a need of some alternative arrangements; acceptable in the commercial legal stream of islam. such problem may be solved by the islamic financing through the application of various modes of the islamic finance like trade based models, such as, murébaíah, salam and istiîné‘; participatory modes, such as, diminishing mushérakah, muìérabah, muséqah and muzéra‘ (all these are various kinds of sharikét);7 rent based modes, such as ijérah.8, 9 all these financing models can be meritoriously applied for the expansion of agriculture sector, like livestock, poultry, fish, dairy, horticulture and local hamdard islamicus 85 vol. xl, no. 3 farming etc. but among these various modes there are some modes that can play comparatively a major role in the uplifting of agriculture sector, especially local farming in the rural areas of pakistan. these modes include murébaíah, salam and istiîné‘. some renowned scholars of the field approve the same. murébaíah is the most important and suitable transaction for financing agriculture that may be applied to agriculture sector both for crop and non-crop activities.10 salam on the other hand is specially designed and structured for financing agriculture in the era of the holy prophet (œ) and surely can be applied in the contemporary world for the same purpose.11 in addition, istiîné‘ is a mode of finance, which may be effectively used for financing non-crop agricultural activities. objectives of the study the basic purpose of the present work is to investigate the basic agriculture requirements of local farming in khyber pakhtunkhwa (k.p.), predominantly of those who are living in rural parts of the province. moreover, it will strive to bear out all these primary requirements through the application of trade based modes of the islamic finance. a comprehensive structure and mechanism, based on the principles of islamic commercial law, will be developed for the implementation of these modes. being the most important objective of the present work, the viability of trade based modes of the islamic finance for all stake holders (local farmers, islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions) will be substantiated with solid arguments at ground level. limitations the present work has some inbuilt limitations. for instance, the application of only trade based mode of the islamic finance has not been applied for the development of local agriculture sector. there are some other modes as well like ijérah, mushérakah, and the diminishing mushérakah that can be pragmatic for the same purpose. however, in the present work all these modes are not debated and the whole focus hamdard islamicus 86 vol. xl, no. 3 is made on trade based modes of financing. in addition, the application of the trade based modes of the islamic finance is made to the local farming and other sector of agriculture like poultry farming, fish farming, dairy farming, horticulture etc. are left. the reason is that all these sectors are usually in need of huge investment, while the present work is only related to help out poor farmers; particularly those who are related to local farming in rural areas of kp. such shortcoming can be fulfilled through some other studies. the third limitation is related to the fact that models are proposed only for the local farmers of kp and, therefore, extension of such models cannot be made for other provinces of the country like sindh, baluchistan and punjab. for these regions same models can be proposed with major changes in their structure and mechanism; owing to the fact of variation in agricultural environment and requirements. review of literature agriculture financing is worthwhile option for islamic banks/ islamic financial institutions and farmers, as the former get reasonable profit, while the latter fulfills his basic agricultural requirements both for crop and non-crop activities. owing to this fact, many researchers have started work on various models of agriculture financing and its various facets. christen and pearce established a model for the financial requirement of rural communities.12 the model enlightened agriculture finance from various aspects. however, it was not practicable at ground level because of the idealistic approach of the authors. prowse presented a model on contract farming with minute details, beginning with the historical background of contract farming, followed by the limits of its use in the united states and other countries’ agriculture.13 however, the model presented in the work was not suitable for developing and underdeveloped countries; as the contract farming and its basic features were discussed in a special reference to advanced and developed countries like the united states and europe. pandey worked on contract farming models and declared them a suitable way for financing agriculture.14 pandey’s work covered all aspects hamdard islamicus 87 vol. xl, no. 3 of agriculture finance comprehensively. however, the work was purely related to the indian’s agricultural sector and, therefore, could not be extended to other countries’ agriculture. mittal, rashi, and s. p. singh maintained the high interest rate is a major constraint for farmers to get agricultural credit. they further added that almost seventy two percent (72%) of farmers consider high interest rate as an exertion in getting agricultural finance.15 the above mentioned conventional agricultural financing models are very much viable for banks and farmers. however, such models are not that much favourable for muslim farmers, owing to the fact that they avoid to secure loan on interest basis. being a typical muslim country, the case of pakistan is not different. because of this reason, the muslim scholars have worked out some agricultural financing models which are in compliance with the basic principles of islamic commercial law. saqib has worked on the application of various islamic financing modes to the agriculture sector in pakistan.16 the work is peculiar in nature; as being the first comprehensive work over the issue. all modes of the islamic finance and their applications to the agriculture sector in pakistan are discussed therein with minute details. nevertheless, the work is more theoretical in nature as the author did not test his proposed financing models through quantitative or any other method of testing. al-hashimi, muhammad ali alula have worked for the development of agriculture sector through the use of muìérabah financing.17 their work is very useful, as it moves majority of farmers from conventional financing system to islamic finance. however, it does not reflect the real structure of muìérabah envisaged by the islamic commercial law. lutfullah saqib, nadia nazeer, khurram khan, and mueen aizaz zafar have worked on the application of murébaíah mode of financing for sugarcane industry in the developing countries and suggest the active use of such mode for small farmers and small business owners for fulfilling their financial needs.18 but the study is theoretical and not based on empirical data, and hence, cannot be used with perfect approach. haroon rasheed and muhammad mudassar have developed practical innovative models that can be used in pakistan for financing hamdard islamicus 88 vol. xl, no. 3 agriculture.19 they offer various models for the possible application of salam for financing agriculture with the claim that such models are beneficial equally for farmers and islamic banks/islamic financial institutions. muhammad taimoor hassan, m. atif sattar, m. adnan tousif, nukhba nasir, mehwish sadiq and malka yasmeen has conducted a descriptive and qualitative study on the importance of islamic banking in agriculture sector.20 their work is composed of all types of islamic banking models that can be used for financing agriculture. they maintain that islamic banking can play a dynamic role in the expansion of agriculture and its various sectors. while having advantageous nature, the work also accommodates some hitches. for instance, the sample size used in their work is very small and, therefore, findings of the study cannot be stretched for other region’s agriculture. naeem ur rehman khattak and anwar hussain maintain that the islamic banking system is more effective as compared to other conventional banking systems in the distribution of income, reducing monopolies and controlling inflation.21 they recommend separate islamic agricultural banks for backing of the poor farmers, particularly in islamic world. lutfullah saqib , mueen aizaz zafar, khurram khan, kellie w. roberts, and aliya mueen zafar have developed al-qarì ul ×asan22 model for the development of agriculture sector, both for crop and noncrop activities.23 the work is virtuously related to the application of the transaction (mentioned above) to local farming and its various sectors. the work is the first one, where al-qarì ul ×asan is used as a tool for financing agriculture and, therefore, can be used as guidance for future research in the same field. however, it focuses mainly on local farming, particularly that of rural areas, and does not describe al-qarì ul ×asan application to other sector of agriculture like livestock, fish farming, horticulture, poultry farming etc. in other words, the work has a very limited application. additionally, the proposed model is not tested at ground level and, hence, many questions will arise at the stage of its practical utility. lutfullah saqib, kellie w. roberts, mueen aizaz zafar and khurram khan have also developed a salam base model for financing agriculture.24 the model is very viable for islamic banks and farmers. however, the hamdard islamicus 89 vol. xl, no. 3 model has not been tested through any method of quantitative/ qualitative research techniques, and, therefore, cannot be used with utmost certainty. organization of the study before embarking on the presentation of proposed models on the basis of various trade based modes of islamic finance like murébaíah, salam and istiîné‘, agricultural problems, faced by the farmers of rural areas in khyber pakhtunkhwa, are profoundly conversed. these agricultural needs have come to the knowledge of researchers through interview sessions during the collection of data. following this, the theoretical structure of murébaíah, salam and istiîné‘, particularly offered in the work of classical muslim jurists, is presented. this is purposely done in order to keep the proposed models’ structure in compliance to such a reliable theory. the theoretical session is then trailed by various trade based proposed models; structured in the light of classical muslim jurists’ work. such proposed models are then tested at the ground level, through focused group technique of qualitative research, in order to prove their viability, for all stake holders, without any doubt. methodology in the present research work the qualitative research methodology has been used for the investigation of the issue. while following this, first part of the research work is theoretical in nature, where information has been taken from secondary sources. such sources include books, reputed journals, magazines, newspapers, various official reports of the state bank of pakistan and official websites of financial institutions. the work of those scholars is cited and preferred who are very familiar with the field of rural agriculture finance. additionally, the work of local researchers has been preferred comparatively to others, owing to the fact that their well awareness of local agricultural problems. in order to test the proposed models at ground level, a questionnaire technique has been followed where a questionnaire is developed, containing various questions that are directly related to the proposed models by one way or another. the hamdard islamicus 90 vol. xl, no. 3 population sample has taken two hundred (200) local farmers; particularly those belonging to the rural parts of kp, where they are asked about various aspects of the proposed models. however, some rural areas i.e. swat, shangla etc. are resorted more during the collection of data, owing to the fact of their richer agricultural environment comparatively to others. from the sample of two hundred (200) farmers, forty (40) from swat, thirty from (30) from shangla, fifty (50) from malakand, forty (40) from lower dir and forty (40) from upper dir have been selected for interview. moreover, the farmers, of all these regions, are further divided into ten (10) members’ group in order to interview them with ease. each member of a group has an opportunity to talk about his various agricultural requirements and the newly proposed models. as majority of farmers are illiterate and, hence, not in a position to readout the questionnaire, the same was explained to them with minute details in very simple way for the purpose to make it more comprehendible. their responses were then critically analyzed with the proposed models in order to make the necessary changes and turn them more viable for all the parties involved therein. in other words, descriptive analysis of the collected data was made. problems of rural farmers there are many agricultural problems faced by the farmers, living particularly in the rural areas of khyber pakhtunkhwa. because of their illiteracy usually they find it difficult to overcome many of these problems.25 some of the needs and problems are summarized below: 1. farmers, particularly living in rural areas, are always in need of funds to caters to the financial needs arising at different times of harvesting cycle e.g. at the start of the cycle, money is required to buy basic agriculture inputs like seeds, fertilizers, herbicides and ploughing tools. similarly, during the middle of harvesting cycle, money is required to purchase ploughing tools, herbicides, weedicides, (weed killers), sprays and different agricultural tools. 2. farmers living in rural areas are in dire need of heavy agriculture machinery e.g. tractors, rice polishers, threshers, potato planters, hamdard islamicus 91 vol. xl, no. 3 ploughs, diggers etc. additionally, these farmers are also in need of funds for the maintenance of their farm machinery and other agricultural implements. the have to pay labour charges, water charges, utility charges etc.26 3. one of the main problems of the farmers belonging to the rural areas of khyber pakhtunkhwa is the irrigation issues. the problem of improper irrigation is very serious in nature and, therefore, if much attention is not given to the problem, then it can affect the per acre productivity very badly and may cause, food shortage in future. 4. due to lack of proper transport facilities, the rural farmers are not in a position to transport their crops to the nearest market timely and, therefore, cause huge loss of agriculture productivity.27 the provision of transportation plays a vital role in the development of agriculture sector, particularly in rural and remote areas of khyber pakhtunkhwa. further, these farmers are also unable to find customers who can give them ready cash for their agricultural products and they usually have to sell their yields on deferred payment basis. 5. the farmers are working in their fields from morning time till evening, so they are in need of permanent sheds to protect themselves from hot and cold climate for some time during their work. in addition, they can take rest in these sheds, whenever become tired from their work in the field. furthermore, majority of the rural farmers usually have their residents away from their fields and, therefore, it is very difficult for them to move necessary equipment like rake, hoe, fork, shovel, spade, hand fork, trowel, wheel barrow etc. to their homes. further, these farmers can also use these sheds for storage purposes and for keeping their crop and fruits to protect them. 6. the farmers of the rural area in khyber pakhtunkhwa are also in dire need of cartons for packing their agriculture products i.e. apple, peach, tomato etc. moreover, majority of these farmers do not have their own houses, and therefore, live in rented houses. all these problems can be solved effectively through the application of various islamic financing modes, particularly trade based modes. the hamdard islamicus 92 vol. xl, no. 3 required objectives (fulfillment of all these needs) can be achieved, when all these transactions are applied in their true spirit, envisaged by the islamic commercial law. sharê‘ah’s solution of rural agriculture problems through trade based modes of financing theoretical background the trade based mode of financing means a way of financing in which islamic banks provide financing facility through sale and purchase of commodities or assets.28 in the trade based modes, the islamic bank acts as a trader and provides goods on demand of the customer. this mode of financing has gained dominance among other products very quickly in the islamic banks and other financial institutions, owing to the fact that it is a safer mode of investment comparatively to other modes of financing. the various trade based modes are legalized by sharê‘ah (islamic law), because sale and purchase are much more important and necessary for the survival of human beings. as a matter of fact, human beings cannot produce each and every thing themselves and they are in a dire need of things like wheat, rice, fruits, vegetables and many more other things, produced by others. therefore, sharê‘ah has introduced the concept of sale and purchase, which is technically called trade based transactions. the legality of such transactions can be proved, generally, from many verses of the holy qur’én and sunnah of the holy prophet (œ). the following verses and aíédêth can be cited as examples: according to holy qur’én “o ye who believe! when the call is proclaimed to prayer on friday (the day of assembly), hasten earnestly to the remembrance of allah, and leave off business (and traffic): that is best for you if ye but knew!”.29 this verse clearly indicates the general permissibility for trade based transaction. another verse demonstrates the same permissibility by stating “allah hath permitted trade”.30 hamdard islamicus 93 vol. xl, no. 3 the sunnah of the holy prophet (œ) confirms legality of the trade based transaction. for instance the holy prophet (œ) says “do not sell the thing which you don’t have”.31 this íadêth although prohibits the sale of non-existent things (or prohibits the sale of a thing which is not owned by the seller) but circuitously it verifies the legality of trade based mode. another tradition (íadêth) says “the buyer and the seller have the option to cancel or to confirm the deal, as long as they have not parted or till they part, and if they spoke the truth and told each other the defects of the things, then blessings would be in their deal, and if they hid something and told lies, the blessings of the deal would be lost.”32 many of the jurists have also established legitimacy of trade based modes in their classical work. these jurists include imém al-shawkénê,33 imém al-késénê,34 ibn qudémah,35 ibn rushd,36 imém al-sarakhsê,37 and ibn ‘óbidên.38. among these jurists, the work of imém muíammad ibn aímad ibn abê sahal al-sarakhsê39 is very remarkable and discusses various aspects of trade based transactions with much detail. trade based modes of islamic finance the major trade based financing modes, envisaged by the islamic financing system are murébaíah, salam and istiîné‘. the classical muslim jurists have discussed all these transactions in their research work with minute detail. the following lines will clarify the above statement. murébaíah the word murébaíah has been derived from the word ribí, which means “profit”. literally it means “a sale involving the original price along with profit”.40 a well renowned ×anafê jurist imém sarakhsê considers it as a trust contract.41 the reason for declaring it as a sale contract is that the buyer trusts the statement of the seller that he has bought the commodity on the mentioned price. the main feature of the contract is that the seller should mention the price otherwise it will not be considered murébaíah rather as muséwamah.42, 43 hamdard islamicus 94 vol. xl, no. 3 islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions has adopted it as a mode of financing since long time. as a financing technique, it involves a request by the client to the bank to purchase certain goods for him. the bank does it for a definite profit over the cost, which is stipulated in advance with the client in the master murébaíah agreement (mma). additionally, such document also include nature of the price, nature of the installments, place of delivery, time of delivery, nature of the commodity both in terms of quality and quantity and any other necessary conditions. the financial institutions, in order to avoid the potential risks, appoint the customer as an agent for the purchase of the required commodity. this customer agency is allowed with the fulfillment of certain conditions.44 after getting the commodity from the supplier, as an agent of the bank, the customer informs the islamic financial institution about the same and offers for the purchase of the commodity. at this particular stage the murébaíah transaction is concluded formally between the parties where the contents of mma are re-included and signed. the accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi)45 has explained a comprehensive procedure which is followed by the majority of islamic financial institutions in various countries, both muslim and nonmuslim. salam salam is an arabic word, which literally means an “advance”. this meaning has been incorporated in its technical meaning also. according to késénê. “it is a sale in which the price is paid on immediate basis while delivery of the commodity is delayed.46 in the view of imém shéwkanê. “it is the sale of an ascertained property with a delayed delivery.47 muhammad taqi usmani, a modern contemporary scholar, defines this transaction as “a type of sale, whereby the seller undertakes to supply some specific goods to the buyer at a future date in exchange of an advance price fully paid on the spot”.48 salam, by its nature, has been structured and designed by sharê‘ah for financing agriculture.49 the holy prophet (œ) has allowed the transaction in order to help out poor farmers in fulfillment of their basic agricultural requirement. it is because of this reason that salam is one hamdard islamicus 95 vol. xl, no. 3 of the best options in islamic finance in financing agriculture, both for crop and non-crop activities. in such a transaction, the islamic bank will provide liquidity as price of the commodity in the beginning of a season. in response, the farmers will provide the crop for which they have made the transaction of salam with the bank or financial institution. the quality and quantity, place of the delivery, time of the delivery, price of the commodity etc. must be mentioned in the contract. it is pertinent to mention that the price of the salam commodity must be paid on the spot, otherwise, this will defeat the sole purpose of the transaction i.e. to finance the farmer timely. istiîné‘ istiîné‘ is an arabic word that originates from øana‘ which means “manufacturing”. it is a contract of something sold on guarantee in which the work is conditioned.50 the person who makes the thing is called the øéni‘, while the person who causes it to be made is called mustaîna‘ while the thing made is called maînë‘. the legality of this transaction has been proved by the jurists while stating that that the holy prophet (œ) once ordered for the manufacture of a ring of gold, and a barber to cut his hair.51 because of the legality of the transaction, some of the jurists like imém al-shawkénê, imém al-késénê, ibn qudémah, ibn rushd, imém al-sarakhsê, and ibn ‘óbidên devote separate chapters to this concept in their classical works. istiîné‘ is the ideal mode of islamic finance which can be applied to the agriculture sector especially for non-crop activities. such mode of finance is not an appropriate tool for crop activities, because it is concluded only when there is a definite demand already established.52 the statement shows that this transaction’s role is more dominant in non-crop sector, and hence, can be used for the development of local farming, particularly in the rural areas of the country, where 62% of the country population resides, and is directly or indirectly linked with agriculture for their livelihood.53 there are many non-crop areas in the local farming which are in despairing need of istiîné‘ contract for their development. for instance, the farmers in rural areas of kp are facing severe irrigation problems.54 the farmers use the orthodox method of irrigation hamdard islamicus 96 vol. xl, no. 3 that causes wastage of 50 to 60 percent of water.55 therefore, a technical irrigation based mechanism is required as an alternate which may be done through istiîné‘. in a similar way, the canals and tube well mechanism can also be developed by applying the same conventional mode of islamic finance. the accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi) has explained a full-fledged description regarding the advisory procedure that will be followed by the islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions for the conclusion of the contract.56 in such a case, the farmer will request the financial institution for the manufacturing of a commodity, having specific quality and quantity, and the latter will deliver the same on the due date mentioned in the contract. moreover, price of the commodity, nature of the installments, place of delivery, time of delivery and any other condition must be mentioned in the contract. application of trade based modes of financing to agriculture sector of khyber pakhtunkhwa the problems mentioned in the previous lines can be easily solved by islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions through the implementation of trade based modes of financing i.e. murébaíah, salam and istiîné‘, if implemented in its true spirit, rules and regulations prescribed by the sharê‘ah for the same. the problems mentioned at category no. 1 can be solved through the application of salam based transaction, where the farmer approaches an islamic bank for the conclusion of salam transaction. the islamic bank will conclude a contract with the farmer, where it will pay money in advance to the farmer for fulfilling his basic agricultural needs (purchase of seeds, fertilizers, herbicides, ploughing tools, weedicides, sprays and other different agriculture tools) in exchange of the coming crop. by this way the liquidity problem of a farmer can be solved. the following models will elucidate the whole procedure, necessary to be trailed by the islamic banks and farmers. it is pertinent to mention that all steps should be followed in sequence as mentioned in the proposed model, and in case of non-compliance, birth of some sharê‘ah’s issues may befall. hamdard islamicus 97 vol. xl, no. 3 steps involved in the model of salam the following are the various steps involved in the proposed model of salam. s1: a formal request from the farmer to the financial institution for the conclusion of salam contract. salam model no. 1 farmer requirements: agricultural inputs maintenance of farm machinery irrigation system (pipe line) farmer (seller) (agent) 2. contract of agencys2 1. salam contract s4 commoditys1 bank’s warehouse islamic bank (purchaser) (principle) salam price (i) salam output: farmer sale salam output as an agent of the bank s3 (securities) (agency fee) p i+p hamdard islamicus 98 vol. xl, no. 3 s2: a contract between farmer and financial institution for the conclusion of agency contract. s3: provision of securities by the farmer in order to protect liquidity of the financial institution. s4: delivery of the salam commodity as par mentioned in the contract. test of the proposed model of salam the collected data confirms the viability of salam based model for financing agriculture. after the critical analysis of the filled questionnaire, the following results are derived. l the data shows that 81% local farmers confirm the viability and applicability of salam transaction for financing purposes. such sort of recognition (by the farmers) is not given to any other modes of islamic finance in the collected data. the reason is the natural capabilities carried by this mode of financing for financing agriculture. the islamic banks and other islamic financial are required to think on the same way and construct new financing mechanism and structure on the same basis. l majority of farmers (78%) are against the securities required by hamdard islamicus 99 vol. xl, no. 3 the financial institutions owing the fact that they are having meager economic condition and, therefore, are not in a position to pay such collaterals and securities. the following graphical presentation has been drawn from the collected data. the financial institutions should look for other acceptable type of arrangements for the security of their liquidity. group based financing techniques may be the best alternate option in this regard. a group based security is a mechanism envisaged by the state bank of pakistan (the state bank of pakistan has issued financing scheme for small farmers on group based lending methodology whereby members of the group can borrow up to rs 200,000/without any collateral from financial institutions” ... handbook on best practices in agri/rural finance, 2014) for the facilitation of agriculture sector. according to this technique, a group of farmers apply to a financial institution for the provision of agricultural credit. all members of the group are made collectively responsible for the repayment of credit. for instance, if a group member does not pay the debt at the prescribed time, the whole group will be held liable for the same. due to social bonds and deterrence, a member of the group, usually, does not dare to default. by using such techniques, the banks and other financial institutions make safe their advanced liquidity. l majority of farmers i.e. 83% are not in favour of customer agency. hamdard islamicus 100 vol. xl, no. 3 the probable reason for this reluctance is the inbuilt illiteracy in the farmers’ community. they always avoid technical type of engagements, like customer agency, with the financial institutions. there should be some alternate arrangement for customer agency. for instance, any farmer of the same locality, other than the customer, can be appointed as an agent by the islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions. such an agent will not only represent the islamic banks in salam but also in other modes of islamic finance. the problems mentioned at category nos. 2 and 4 can be solved through the application of murébaíah based transaction, where farmers approach to an islamic bank and other financial institutions for the conclusion of a commercial transaction through murébaíah. the islamic bank signs a master murébaíah agreement (mma) with the farmer, which contains different details about the contract. moreover, the islamic bank appoints the customer as its agent to purchase the commodity for himself. by this way the bank protects itself from any risk that may arise in future. hamdard islamicus 101 vol. xl, no. 3 steps involved in the model of murébaíah the following are the various steps involved in the proposed model of murébaíah. s1: a formal request from the farmer to the financial institution for the conclusion of the purchase of murébaíah commodity. s2: the finalization of master murébaíah agreement between the company (original seller) (s5) farmer shall take delivery as an agent of the bank (s4) bank shall purchase input from the supplier contract of agency s3 s7 (securities) islamic bank (purchaser) (seller) farmer (agent) (purchaser) murébaíah based model murébaíah contract s6 murébaíah commodities govt. subsidies on commodities i (i) i+p application s1 (s2) mma hamdard islamicus 102 vol. xl, no. 3 islamic bank and farmer in which all minute details of upcoming murébaíah transaction are mentioned comprehensively. s3: conclusion of the contract of agency between an islamic bank and a farmer in which the latter will take possession of the murébaíah commodity on the behalf of the former. s4: the islamic bank will purchase the murébaíah commodity from the original supplier/seller. s5: the farmer will take delivery of the murébaíah commodity on the behalf of the bank as its agent. s6: after receiving the murébaíah commodity, the farmer will offer the islamic bank for the purchase of the same commodity. at this very point the typical transaction of murébaíah will be concluded. s7: as the price will be paid in installments, at this stage the farmer will provide securities as a security for the timely payment of all installments. test of the proposed model of murébaíah murébaíah is the most important mode of islamic finance that is excessively used by the islamic banks and other islamic financial institutions for financing purposes. this typical transaction has been proved a very much viable mode for financial institutions in the last few decades. keeping in view the successful historical background, the murébaíah model has been proposed and tested in the present work. the following response has been derived from the collected data. l majority of farmers (79%) have favoured the murébaíah model for financing their various agricultural activities, both for crop and non-crop sectors. however, they urged that the transaction should be used more for the provision of basic agricultural requirements (like agricultural tools, agricultural seeds, agricultural sprayers and etc.) than provision of heavy agricultural machinery (like tractors, thrashers, harvesters etc.). the following graphical presentation will clarify the situation further. l like salam the concept of agency has been disapproved by majority (73%) of farmers. the reason may be the same one as discussed in the previous lines. hamdard islamicus 103 vol. xl, no. 3 l majority of farmers (87%) approve the payment in installments. the reason is the meager economic conditions of farmers. however, 13% farmers, who disapprove the payment in installments and prefer immediate payment, belong to the middle class of farmers and, therefore, having good economic conditions. the following graph has been drawn from the collected data. . hamdard islamicus 104 vol. xl, no. 3 l majority of farmers ( 81%) farmers have strict observation regarding higher price of the murébaíah commodity than price of the same commodity in the local market. the data shows that this difference is not acceptable to farmers under any stretch of explanation. however, difference is institutional and market price is an indispensable phenomenon and, therefore, cannot be avoided. some midway approach is required for the solution of the problem. for instance, the banks may reduce the ratio of profit to some acceptable limit while the remaining difference may be subsidized by the government. l like salam, the requirement of high securities and collaterals in the contract murébaíah has been rejected by majority of farmers hamdard islamicus 105 vol. xl, no. 3 i.e. 76%. the reason may be the economic instability of farmers as discussed in the case of salam. here too, the group based insurance technique can be followed. similarly, the problems mentioned in category nos. 3, 5 and 6 may be solved through the application of istiîné‘ based transaction. in this case, the farmer will go to an islamic bank and submit an application to the bank along with the specification (type, kind, quality and quantity etc.) of the required commodity. the bank makes a proper contract with the farmer and manufactures the required commodity for the farmer. after manufacturing of the required commodity, the bank delivers it to that farmer on due date and the farmer pays the istiîné‘ price in installments. steps involved in the model of istiîné‘ the following are the various steps involved in the proposed model of istiîné‘. s1: a formal application from the farmer side for the conclusion of istiîné‘ contract. s2: a contract of istiîné‘ will be concluded between the islamic bank and farmer where all aspects of the transaction will be included hamdard islamicus 106 vol. xl, no. 3 e.g. quality of the commodity and its quantity, nature of the price, time of delivery, place of delivery and etc. s3: at this particular stage the contract of agency will be concluded between the farmer and financial institution where the former will receive the manufactured commodity from the manufacturer on the behalf of the latter. s4: a parallel istiîné‘ contract may be concluded between the islamic bank and a manufacturer to manufacture istiîné‘ commodity of the same quality and same quantity as mentioned in the istisné‘ contract, concluded between the islamic bank and farmer. istisné‘ based model no. 1 istisné‘ price (i) istisné‘ contract s2 istisné‘ commodity istisné‘ price (1) istisné‘ commodity islamic bank (seller in istisné‘) (principle in agency contract) (purchase in parallel istisné‘) 3rd party seller in parallel istisné‘ parallel istisné‘ conract s1 (applications) contract of agency s3 heavy agricultural machinery construction farmer (agent) (purchaser) shall supervise as an agent of the bank govt. subsidies i+p i+p s4 hamdard islamicus 107 vol. xl, no. 3 test of the proposed model of istisné‘ the proposed model of istiîné‘ has been accepted by farmers predominantly for irrigation purposes. however, some numbers of farmers also declare such transaction more suitable for the manufacturing of heavy agricultural machinery. the transaction, therefore, may be used with multidimensionality in agriculture. the response of farmers, given below, may be cited as solid evidence in this regard. l majority of farmers (77%) have confirmed the usefulness of the proposed model for financing agriculture. the graphical presentation of the same aspect is given below. l like murébaíah based model, the issue of payment in installments has been appreciated by majority of farmers i.e. 82 %. additionally, the farmers also asked for the stretchiness of installments periods. in other words, the price may be paid, for instance, in six months instead of four months. moreover, the farmers like to link the installments with the harvesting cycle; as they get some money from the sale of their agricultural yields. the following graphical presentation explains the same fact appropriately. . hamdard islamicus 108 vol. xl, no. 3 l majority of farmers (67%) have preferred the proposed model of istiîné‘ for the development of irrigation purposes rather than its use for manufacturing agricultural commodities . the reason is that that rural local farmers lack proper irrigation mechanism and structure and, consequently, agricultural production per acre is decreased in the last few decades. . . hamdard islamicus 109 vol. xl, no. 3 conclusion and findings majority of farmers in pakistan, particularly in the rural parts of khyber pakhtunkhwa (kpk), belong to the lower class. they always face severe meager economic conditions and, therefore, are not in a position to fulfil their basic needs, including social and agricultural. for instance, they can not afford to send their children to schools for basic education, to feed their family properly and to fulfil their basic agricultural requirements. the local farmers of such areas are always in need of financing facility for the purchase of basic agricultural inputs and agricultural machinery. such financing facility is provided by financial institutions, both for the crop and non-crop activities. while having other numerous flaws, financing is usually provided on interest basis; an economic concept which is strictly prohibited by sharê‘ah. being typical muslims, such farmers, therefore, avoid securing such agricultural credit and the problem, therefore, still remains unsolved. islam, as a complete code of life, provides an alternate to its followers in the shape of various modes of the islamic finance among which murébaíah, salam and istiîné‘ are the most important. these transactions are also called trade based modes in the islamic finance. having flexible nature and mechanism, all these modes may be effectively applied by the islamic financial institutions for financing local farming. however, the objectives, mentioned above, may be achieved if all these modes are applied in their true spirit i.e. prosperity of the society, and not mere as a source of profit. the proposed models, in the present work, are structured and designed in the present work in such a way to make them viable for all the stake holders i.e. the local farmers and financial institutions. after presenting a strong theoretical background from the work of classical and contemporary muslim jurists, these models are also tested at ground level to prove their usefulness beyond doubt. the collected data shows a very satisfactory response from the farmers regarding the practicality of such models for financing agriculture. for instance, majority of farmers have approved the expediency of all the three proposed models i.e. murébaíah, salam and istiîné‘. in a similar way, the payment in installments have been valued by the farmers in the proposed models of murébaíah and istiîné‘owing to the fact that they are not in a position to pay price of the commodity on immediate basis. they need some stretches in the length of installments. hamdard islamicus 110 vol. xl, no. 3 moreover, the concept of high securities and collaterals has been rejected utterly by farmers. in order to solve the issue, the concept of group based insurance technique has been proposed. in addition, the concept of agricultural subsidies is proposed in the present work. the customer agency’s option is disliked by the majority of farmers and, therefore, the alternate arrangements for the appointment of any farmer, other than the customer, of the same locality has been advised. keeping in view these findings, the present work, indeed, has some inbuilt implications. firstly, being muslim the farmers will like such trade based models as they are in compliance with the principles of sharê‘ah. secondly, islamic financial institutions will also be ready for launching such models; as all these are various modes of real trade and, therefore, having the potential to earn more profit comparatively to normal agricultural credit. thirdly, the islamic financial institutions, by concluding these transactions with the farmers, may enhance their customership, predominantly, in rural parts of the province. by this way they may also open new branches in such parts and, consequently, may augment their business. fourthly, by these proposed models,57 the farmers may fulfil all their agricultural requirements from the level of basic seeds to heavy agricultural machinery. fifthly, by entering into such arrangements, particularly salam, the farmers will get the reasonable price for their agricultural products. various studies reveal that they are deprived and cheated by the typical traders by purchasing their products at very low prices. notes and references 1. muhammad khalid bashir and muhammad masood azeem, agricultural credit in pakistan: constraints and options, pak. j. life soc. sci., 2008, vol. vi(1), pp. 47-49. 2. schaefer-kehnert, w. and von pischke, j.d. agricultural credit policy in developing countries/politique de crédit agricole dans les pays en développement. savings and development, 1986, pp. 5-29. 3. muhammad, i. and muhammad, i. agricultural credit role in the development of agriculture, peshawar, journal of rural development and administration, 1993, vol. xxv, p.4. 4. the details are taken from the gomal journal of agriculture. for further detail visit www.gomalagriculturejournal.yolasite.com hamdard islamicus 111 vol. xl, no. 3 5. the role of ztbl and its success in agriculture sector, particularly in local farming, can be evidenced from the fact that a substantial growth has been witnessed in the last few years in production rate. for example, the annual report of 2012 shows that production of major crops have increased tremendously. the production of cotton is raised by 18.6 percent, sugarcane 4.9 percent and rice by 2.4 percent. although the bank has disbursed less amount (rs.64,133 million) in 2012 as compared to 2011 (where rs.65,452 million has been disbursed). the secret behind this success is the determination for the bank of the development of agricultural sector both for crop and non crop activities, as prescribed in its mission statement ... see zara‘i taraqiati bank limited (pakistan), annual report, 2012, p. 32, http://www.ztbl.com.pk/ (accessed august 12th, 2014). 6. sharê‘ah strictly prohibits interest based loans. there are many verses of the holy qur’én and ahédêth of the holy prophet (œ) that confirm this prohibition. for instance, in the holy qur’én alléh, the exalted, says “o ye who believe! fear alléh, and give up what remains of your demand for usury, if ye are indeed believers. if ye do it not, take notice of war from allah and his apostle. but if ye turn back ye shall have your capital sums: deal not unjustly and ye shall not be dealt unjustly. (qur’én ii:278-279). in another verse the lord of universe says, “that they took ribé (usury), though they were forbidden and that they devoured men’s substance wrongfully. we have prepared for those among men who reject faith a grievous punishment”. (qur’én, iv:160). jébir, may alléh be pleased with him, said: “the messenger of allah (œ) has cursed one who charges ribé, he who gives it, one who records it, and the two witnesses; and he said, “they are equal” (muslim saíêí, chapter on ribé, ×adêth no. 1598). 7. sharikét” is an arabic word literally meaning mixing or ikhtiléï. “most of the partners are transgressing on each other (qur’én, xxxviii:24). sharikét, in islamic jurisprudence, is used for describing a contract of partnership. it is defined as, “a contract between two or more persons for participation in capital and its profit”. ibn ‘óbidên, raddul al-muhtér , beirut, dér al-fikr, 2005, vol. vi, p. 208. the sharikét can be divided into three classes i.e. sharikét-ul-ibéha (common sharing of things), sharikét-ul-milk (co-ownership) and sharikét-ul‘aqd (partnership through contract). 8. the word ijérah is an arabic word, equivalent of the english word “lease” and means “to give something on rent”, (muhammad taqi usmani, an introduction to islamic finance, editon august, 2008, p. 157). here the word “something” denotes benefits and services. as far as the technical meaning is concerned, the jurists have a different understanding of the transaction. according to ibn qudémah almaqdisê “it is the sale of usufructs”. (ibn qudémah al-maqdisê, al-kafê, 5th edition, beirut, al-maktab al-islémê, 1988. kitéb-alijérah, vol. ii, p. 300). in view of imém al-késénê, “it is a contract on usufructs for a known consideration” abë bakr ibn mas‘kéd al-késénê, badé‘ al-øané‘,1st edition, beirut, dér al-fikr lebanon, 1996, vol. iv, p. 256. 9. muhammad iqbal, islamic finance: an attractive new way of financial intermediation. international journal of banking and finance, 2013, vol. x, no. 2, p. 4. hamdard islamicus 112 vol. xl, no. 3 10. lutfullah saqib, mueen aizaz zafar, khurram khan, kellie w. roberts and aliya mueen zafar. “local agricultural financing and islamic banks: is qarì al-×asan a possible solution?.” journal of islamic accounting and business research, vol. vi, no. 1, 2015, pp. 122-147. 11. muhammad taqi usmani, an introduction to islamic finance, karachi, maktaba ma‘ariful qur’an, edition august, 2008, p. 186. 12. peck christen and douglas pearce, managing risks and designing products for agricultural microfinance, features of an emerging model,11th paper, printed at ifad in 2006 with the support of finnish supplementary funds, august 2005, http://www.ifad.org/ruralfinance/pub/risks.pdf (accessed august 17, 2013) … occasional paper 13. martin prowse, contract farming in developing countries – a review, savoir collection, 2010, afd’s research department, www.afd.fr/webdav/shared/ publications/.../12-va-a-savoir.pdf (accessed august 29, 2013). 14. tushar pandey, contracting and agricultural finance for small holdershi-tech farming and a case for public private partnerships, http://www.ncap.res. in/contract_%20farming/.../13.1%20tushar%20pandey.p (accessed august 17, 2013). 15. mittal, rashi and s. p. singh. “shifting from agriculture to agribusiness: the case of aromatic plants.” agricultural economics research review, 2007, vol. iv, pp. 541-550. 16. lutfullah saqib, financing agriculture through islamic commercial transaction. germany, lambert academic publishing, 2011. 17. al-hashimi, muhammad ali alula, the influence of islamic banking on agricultural development in sudan,graduate research masters degree plan b papers 10994, 1989, michigan state university, department of agricultural, food, and resource economics. 18. lutfullah saqib, nadia nazeer, khurram khan, and mueen aizaz zafar. “application of islamic banking instrument (murébaíah) for sugarcane industry in developing countries,” journal of islamic economics, banking and finance, vol. ix, no. 1, 2013, pp. 89-106. 19. haroon rasheed, muhammad mudassar, research on innovative models of islamic banking product for pakistani farmers, proceedings of the 7th international conference on innovation & management, http://www4.pucsp. br/.../26_research%20on%20innovative%20models%20of (accessed: 22nd february, 2014). 20. muhammad taimoor hassan, m. atif sattar, m. adnan tousif, nukhba nasir, mehwish sadiq, malka yasmeen, role of islamic banking in agriculture development in bahawalpur, pakistan, international journal of learning & development, issn 2164-4063 2012, vol. ii, no. 3. 21. naeem ur rehman khattak and anwar hussain, a review of the principles of islamic banking system for agriculture credit, pakistan, institute of development economics islamabad pakistan 2006, mpra paper no. 42038, posted 18 october, 2012. 22. the word qarì and ×asan are arabic’s equivalent of the english word loan, and beautiful, respectively. according to well renowned ×anafê jurist imém kasénê, hamdard islamicus 113 vol. xl, no. 3 its literal meaning is to “cut off”. in the view of ×anafê school of thought, it technically means “a specific transaction in which one party gives fungible property to another party for the purpose of receiving from him the fungible property back without any excess” (késénê, badé’i‘al-øané’i‘, kitab-al qarì, vol. vii, pp. 581-583.) some of the contemporary muslim scholars signify its technical meaning as “it is a voluntary loan without the lender’s expectations of any return on the principal”. hossein askari, zamir iqbal, abbas mirakhor, new issues in islamic finance & economics, 1st edn., singapore, john wiley & sons, 2009, pp. 197-210. 23. lutfullah saqib, mueen aizaz zafar, khurram khan, kellie w. roberts and aliya mueen zafar, “local agricultural financing and islamic banks: is qarì al-×asan a possible solution?”, journal of islamic accounting and business research, vol. vi, no. 1, 2015, pp. 122-147. 24. lutfullah saqib, kellie w. roberts, mueen aizaz zafar and khurram khan, salam – a realistic approach to the concept in islamic finance and its application to the agricultural sector in pakistan, hamdard islamicus, no. 3 (july-sep), 2014. 25. ibid. 26. guidelines on islamic finance for agriculture, the agricultural credit department, islamic banking department, state bank of pakistan, http:// www.sbp.org.pk/ guidelines/islamicagriculture/guidelines-islamic-financing-agriculture-01-092008.pdf (accessed: 28th february, 2014). 27. masood, a., n. ellahi and z. batool, “causes of low agricultural output and impact on socio-economic status of farmers: a case study of rural potohar in pakistan.” international journal of basic and applied science, vol. i, no. 02, 2012. 28. muhammad taqi usmani, an introduction to islamic finance, karachi, maktaba ma‘ariful quran, edition august, 2008, p. 186. 29. qur’én, lxii:08. 30 ibid., ii:274. 31. abë dawood, ×adêth no. 3503. 32 øaíêí al bukhérê, ×adêth no. 2079. 33. shawkénê, nayl al-awïér, dér ehi al-tourath al-arabê, 1st edn., 2001. 34. abë bakr ibn mas‘ëd al-késanê, bédé’i‘al-øané’i‘,1st edn., beirut, dér al-fikr lebanon, 1996, kitéb-al sharikah. 35. ibn qudémah al-maqdisê, al-kafê, 5th edn., beirut, al-maktab al-islami, 1988. 36. abë al-walêd muíammad ibn aímad ibn rushd, bidéyt al-mujtahid wa nihéyat al-muqtaîid, vol. ii, 1st edn., beirut, dér al-fikr, lebanon, 2003. 37. abë bakar muíammad ibn abê sahal sarakhsê, al-mabsëï, beriut, dar ehy al-turéth al-arabi, edition 2002. 38. ibn ‘óbidên, radd al-muhtér, vol. vi, beirut, dér al-fikr, 2005. 39. imém abë bakar muíammad ibn abê sahal sarakhsê was a prominent jurist of the ×anafi school in the 11th century. he was also known as “shamsul al-ó’immah” (“the sun of the leaders”). he was in prison for more than 15 years due to his juristic opinion against the ruler of the time. the mentioned book is a collection of his lectures delivered by him to his disciples while he was in hamdard islamicus 114 vol. xl, no. 3 prison. it is a very comprehensive book, spread over 30 volumes, contains detailed discussion of ‘ibédah and mu‘émalah. he discusses all their related issues in very details and tries to elaborate each and every single issue with practical examples from daily life. his work may effectively be used for introducing new methodology in the field of research related islamic jurisprudence. he also has a book on the principle of islamic jurisprudence which is an evidence of his intellectual capacity both in islamic law and its jurisprudence. he is considered an authority by the classical and contemporary jurists and weightage is always given to his jurisprudential verdicts. 40. marghinénê, al-hidéyah sharí bidéyat al-mubtadê, vol. v, p. 152. 41. sarakhsê, al-mabsëï, vol. v, p. 77. 42. it is a sale contract in which the seller does not mention the original price and the contract is concluded on bargaining basis. here the parties conclude the price through mutual agreement. 43. marghinénê, vol. v, p. 152. 44. “the original principle is that the institution itself purchases the item directly from the supplier. however, it is permissible for it to carry out the purchase by authorizing an agent, other than the purchase order, to make the purchase, and the customer should not be appointed to act as an agent except in a situation of dire need. furthermore the agent must not sell the item to himself; rather, the institution must first acquire the title of the item and then sell it to the agent” ... accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institution (aaoifi), sharê‘ah standard no. 8, rule no. 3/1/23, english version, p. 117. 45. the accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi) is an islamic international autonomous non-for-profit corporate body that prepares accounting, auditing, governance, ethics and sharê‘ah standards for islamic financial institutions and the industry. professional qualification programs (notably cipa, the shari’ah adviser and auditor “csaa”, and the corporate compliance program) are presented now by aaoifi in its efforts to enhance the industry’s human resources base and governance structures. this institution was established in accordance with the agreement of association which was signed by the islamic financial institutions on 1 øafar, 1410h corresponding to 26 february, 1990 in algiers. then, it was registered on 11 ramaìén, 1411 corresponding to 27 march, 1991 in the state of bahrain. http://www.aaoifi.com (accessed deceber 25, 2011). 46. késénê, bédé’i‘al-øané’i‘, vol. v, p. 201. 47. nayl al-awïér, kitéb al-salam, vol. v, p. 255. 48. muhammad taqi usmani, an introduction to islamic finance, karachi, maktaba ma‘ariful quran, edition august, 2008, p. 186. 49. salam was allowed by the holy prophet (œ) subject to certain conditions. the basic purpose of this sale was to meet the needs of the small farmers who needed money to grow their crops and to feed their family up to the time of harvest. after the prohibition of ribé they could not take usurious loans. therefore, it was allowed for them to sell the agricultural products in advance. similarly, the traders of arabia used to export goods to other places and to import some other goods to their homeland .they needed money to undertake this type of business. they hamdard islamicus 115 vol. xl, no. 3 could not borrow from the usurers after the prohibition of ribé. it was; therefore, allowed for them that they sell the goods in advance. after receiving their cash price, they could easily undertake the aforesaid business ... muhammad taqi usmani, an introduction to islamic finance, p. 186. 50. késénê, badé’i‘al-øané’i‘, vol. v, p. 213. 51. sarakhsê, al-mabsëï, vol. v, p. 139. 52. muhammad faheem khan, islamic future and their markets, with special reference to their role in developing rural financial market, islamic development bank, islamic research and training institute, paper no. 32, p. 41. 53. omer farooq, pakistan economic survey 2009-10, government of pakistan ministry of finance, chapt. 2, p. 13, http://www.finance.gov.pk/ (accessed july, 6, 2012). 54. ibid., p. 13. 55. mohsin ali, agriculture problems in pakistan and their solutions, march 1st 2010, http://www.einfopedia.com/agriculture-problems-in-pakistan-and-theirsolutions.php (accessed july 13,2012). 56. see for further details ... accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi), 2010, bahrain, english version, istisn ‘and parallel istisn’, shari’a standard no. 11. modern product (wm).pmd hamdard islamicus 7 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 modern product liability law juridical basis in islamic law dr. muhammad akbar khan assistant professor, faculty of shariah & law, international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan. e-mail: m.akbar@iiu.edu.pk the term “product liability” is used to identify the body of lawthat seeks to hold manufacturers and sellers financially responsiblefor their products not meeting safety standards. it is the area of juridical studies in which producers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make productmas available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause and make compensation to the victims of such defective products. this research paper expounds the emerging legal concept of product liability from the perspective of islamic law. the paper traces the roots of the notion of product liability in classical islamic legal tradition. it has attempted to explore the theoretical foundations of the product liability in islamic jurisprudence.it also embarks on defining the important notions such as producer, product, liability etc. from an islamic legal perspective to provide basis for an islamic concept of product liability. the examples for holding the sellers liable for defective products have been quoted and analysed from the traditional sources of fiqh. moreover, the paper has highlighted the need for substantive law development in the area of product liability in islamic law to meet challenges in the modern era of science and technology. the paper has been concluded with the findings that islamic law has provided concrete theoretical as well as practical solutions for the issues of liability arising out of defective products. the research is basically a legal doctrinal research which is essentially a method of qualitative research and library-based study. key words: product, liability, defects, shar‘iah, introduction the jurisprudence of consumer protection is expanding day by day, and it has covered many aspects of human life. there are many aspects hamdard islamicus 8 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 of the consumer law such as quality of goods and services, consumer credit finance, holiday laws, and consumer remedies etc. the area product liability law is a hybrid collection of inter-connected aspects of law. consumer protection against defective products has become unavoidable due to the advance technology and rapid increase in number of products and services. products form an integral aspect of all our lives. “product liability” is the term used to identify the body of lawthat seeks to hold manufacturers and sellers financially responsiblefor their products’ safety. product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make products available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause. although the word “product” has broad connotations, product liability as an area of law is traditionally limited to products in the form of tangible personal property.1 product liability has to be distinguished from “product safety”, which is a separate regulatory regime imposing administrative penalties and regulating control of unsafe products. both regimes have consumer protection as their common aim. after the industrial revolution and mass production of products, the necessity of protecting consumers’ rights by approving some rules regulating the relationship between producers and consumers is greatly felt. product liability law is the outcome of such an effort. it is a body of law which solves this problem and provides compensation for physical injuries and property damage resulting from defective and unreasonably dangerous products, and from the failure of a manufacturer or seller to warn the consumer of product dangers. there are many reasons of the harms caused by the products. the major reasons relate to behaviour and knowledge of product users, environment of use, design or construction of the product using safety analysis. changing the product or process design and improving quality management is easier than changing the human culture or behaviour and environments. it is for this reason that we observe an increase in manufacturer’s responsibility resulting in major changes in product/ process design. consequently, manufacturing innovation is found to be one major vehicle for reducing the risk of injury. product safety and liability laws (where they exist) are continuously being strengthened in order to protect the consumer.2 the basic purpose of the product liability is to insure the consumers right to safety; emphasised in the united nations guidelines for consumer protection.3 hamdard islamicus 9 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 product liability is a modern phenomenon, and so it is easy and interesting to track how legal systems have, within a relatively short space of time, reacted to this new topic.4 solutions have sometimes been developed by the courts out of existing legal principles, and at other times, solutions have been created by legislatures. because preexisting legal principles were similar in most countries, it is interesting to see the extent to which systems were prepared to amend their traditional concepts without having resort to legislation. as the new regimes claim to adopt strict liability, there is plenty of scope for comparison as to the actual extent to which they deviate from traditional forms of liability.5 product liability is actually the attempt to answer the question of to whom the risk of damage resulting from modern machine-guided mass production should be allocated. should it be allocated to: – the victim, as the price for his participation in the advantages of the industrial development, but to be borne as an inevitable act of god, – to the state, this means to all taxpayers in solidarity, or – provisionally to the producer having provided the cause of damage by manufacturing a product which did not meet the safety requirements that the public at large expects-provisionally to the producer, because he alone can distribute his expenses to the rather limited group of product users by incorporating them into his sales price? the answer to this question seems to be one of perspective: the traditionalist prefers the first choice, a citizen believing in state-organised solidarity the second, and the person devoted to state-free liberal convictions the last one. there are no other solutions than these three. one has to decide. good arguments exist for each of these solutions.6 in the developed parts of the world almost all countries have adequate legislation to deal with such issues e.g. consumer protect act, 1987 in united kingdom and eu directive on the liability of defective products, 1985 in european union etc.7 on the other hand, the situation in most of the muslim countries is entirely different and in this part of the world it is believed that the harm caused by a defective product is due to the will of god and the manufacturer is not considered to be liable for any of his fault or negligence, hence, there are no product liability laws in these countries.8 perhaps this is the reason that this area of law seems to be a new one for muslim jurists and that’s why very little amount of literature can be found on it from the perspective of islamic hamdard islamicus 10 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 law. whether or not such a belief has been endorsed by the shari‘ah is the focal point of this research.9 it is pertinent to mention here that in pakistan, the term ‘product liability’ has not been defined in any statute which is a proof of the lack of product liability regime in the country. currently there are various consumer protection acts in the country but only one act (punjab consumer protection act, 2005) has provisions about the liability of defective products. pakistani law on product liability is facing disparity and not clear as in many statutes on consumer protection (e.g. islamabad consumer protection act, nwfp consumer protection act, baluchistan consumer protection act) there is no reference to the liabilities arising out of the defective products. moreover, pakistani regime of contract and tort have failed to provide adequate protection to the consumers in product liability cases, it is, therefore, unavoidable to promulgate legislation based on the notion of strict product liability. under these circumstances, pakistan has two options to have an adequate regime for the liability of defective products i.e. to apply the english product liability regime that is based on eu directive on product liability that suits with the legal landscape of pakistan being a common law country and the second is to promulgate its own law on the subject based on the principles of islamic law as it has been highly stressed in the constitution of the islamic republic of pakistan that all the laws must be in conformity with the injunctions of islamic law. it is, therefore, one of the basic purpose of this research paper to trace the issue in the classical islamic legal literature. moreover, the research paper, in hand, analyzes the juridical foundations of modern product liability law and compares the same with the unanimously agreed principles of islamic jurisprudence that could be considered as the theoretical foundations for extending liability to manufacturers of defective and dangerous products. the legal concept of ‘product liability’ the term ‘product’ indicates an item which has been manufactured and then sold, perhaps through an intermediary, to the consumer. in market transactions the term “product’ is referred to anything that can be offered to market that might satisfy a want or need. it is also called merchandise. according to manufacturing, products are purchased as hamdard islamicus 11 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 raw materials and sold as finished goods; supplies are usually raw materials such as metals and agricultural products, but a product can also be anything widely available in the open market. in project management, products are the formal definition of the project deliverables that make up or contribute to delivering the objectives of the project”.10 there is no definition of product in the general english law of negligence. under the new rules, however, ‘product’ is a central concept – if no ‘product’ is involved then the new regime of strict liability will not be attracted. in the united kingdom it is usually taken to mean that class of liabilities to which commercial manufacturers and commercial suppliers of goods are subject because a good has caused some form of actionable loss to either a business, a consumer (someone who intends to use the product for private use) or a bystander.11 the term “product liability” is used to identify the body of lawthat seeks to hold manufacturers and sellers financially responsiblefor their products not meeting safety standards. it is the area of juridical studies in which producers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make products available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause. although the word ‘product’ has broad connotations, product liability as an area of law is traditionally limited to products in the form of tangible personal property.12 developments in science and technology constantly exert new pressures on existing legal concepts. the speed and accuracy with which those concepts are able to adapt to such challenges have important social and economic consequences.13 this phenomenon is due first to the higher standards of living which have led to an increase in the amount of consumer products and a corresponding increase in the possibility of damage caused by defective products. the quality and quantity of damage and injuries which these new manufactured products may cause has increased. this is due to the increase in number of dangerous products that are used by relatively ignorant customers. damage caused by a defective wagon in the tenth century was not as serious as injuries caused because of a car with a defective brake or a drug with dangerous side effects. therefore, someone must be held liable for products that prove to be unsatisfactory or that cause damage.14 once this occurred western legal system has developed its own law to protect consumers. the advancement of technology and change in trading methods has made product liability a very important legal issue of modern times. hamdard islamicus 12 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 juridical foundations of modern product liability product liability has been one of the fastest developing areas of law in both us and in europe in the second half of the twentieth century. the american law institute recently issued its restatement (third) of tort: product liability (hereinafter third restatement), which limits strict liability to manufacturing defects.15 the impact of this approach on state law is unclear. meanwhile in europe, following the enactment of the french product liability law in may 1998, all member states of the european community (ec) have implemented the ec product liability directive of 1985 (hereinafter ec directive), which requires member states to introduce strict product liability legislation.16 the eu directive became part of almost all the european countries including united kingdom in the shape of part-1 of the consumer protection act, 1987. while discussing the legal basis for modern product liability law, jane stapleton explaining the views of tony honore regarding ‘strictmoral enterprise liability’ writes that there is a coherent theme which does not link most existing pockets of tortuous strict liability, including those aspects of the product rules in the us and ec which are stick. it is the taking of risks in pursuit of financial profit.17 a non-consequential basis of these liabilities might be expressed in terms of a moral argument that if, in seeking to secure financial profit, an enterprise causes certain types of loss, it should be legally obliged to pay compensation to the victim. this is termed by them as the ‘strict moral enterprise liability’ argument to distinguish it from the diffused concept of enterprise liability, which has been used in many different and loose ways. the author argues that the moral enterprise liability provides a considerably better fit with those rules than economic theories, although still not a completely satisfactory fit. it is considered as the basis for the modern us and ec product liability laws.18 the nature and scope of product liability law the scope of product liability law is increasing day by day. after the industrial revolution and mass production of products, the necessity of protecting consumers’ rights by approving some rules regulating the relationship between producers and consumers is greatly felt. product hamdard islamicus 13 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 liability law is the outcome of such an effort. it is a body of law which solves this problem and provides compensation for harms caused to a person or property due to defective or unreasonably dangerous products, and from the failure of a manufacturer or seller to warn the consumers of potential threats in a product. there are many reasons of the harms caused by the products. the major reasons relate to behaviour and knowledge of product users, environment of use, design or construction of the product using safety analysis. changing the product or process design and improving quality management is easier than changing the human culture or behaviour and environments. it is for this reason that we observe an increase in manufacturer’s responsibility resulting in major changes in product/process design. consequently, manufacturing innovation is found to be one major vehicle for reducing the risk of injury. product safety and liability laws (where they exist) are continuously being strengthened in order to protect the consumer.19 the basic purpose of the product liability is to insure the consumers right to safety; emphasized in the united nations guidelines for consumer protection.20 islamic origins of modern product liability law the concept of ‘product liability’ in the islamic law in the islamic law, the term “product liability” specifically does not appear in these exact terms in the classical literature of fiqh. also, the fuqaha did not mention this term in their writings and manuals. however, this is not a strange rule in the islamic law as it has provided concrete principles to deal with such issues. the liability for manufacturing, marketing, importing and selling of defective products can be established under the islamic sharê‘ah through contract, tort and even on the basis of statutory law i.e. any law on any subject can be enacted provided it is based on the sources of islamic law or at least it does not violate any injunctions of the sharê‘ah.21 the product liability law emerged as a crucial legal topic after the industrial revolution starting in the 18th century while islamic laws which stopped developing at the tenth century did not provide for such liability in the strict sense of the word. the society at that time did not need such rules because, even though some primitive industry existed, manufactures sold their products directly to consumers, hamdard islamicus 14 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and the contract of sale was the basis of their relationship. hence, the traditional rules of law of contract and that of torts were considered sufficient to protect rights of the consumers. in this context, the wellknown contemporary muslim jurist dr. wahba al-zuhayli writes: “… the muslim jurists in classical fiqh could not discuss the liability arising out of the use of manufactured goods and products due to absence of such incidents in their age because in that period the technology and production processes were not much advanced as these are today.”22 the main concern of this research is with the principles of islamic law; however it is of great significance to quote some examples that there had been many proofs of liability for a defective product in the classical islamic legal tradition. in this regard, it is pertinent to quote here the famous ×adêth of the holy prophet (œ). it is narrated that the messenger of allah (œ) happened to pass by a heap of eatables (corn). he thrust his hand in that (heap) and his fingers were moistened. he said to the owner of the heap of eatables (corn), “what is this?” “messenger of allah (œ), these have been drenched by rainfall.” he (the prophet [œ]) remarked, “why did you not place this (the drenched part of the heap) over other eatables so that the people could see it? he who deceives is not of me (is not my follower).23 in another case, the muslim scholars ibn il-asqa said: ‘i bought a camel from a seller and when leaving the place of contract ‘uqba b. néfi‘ followed me and said: the camel seems fat and healthy; did you buy it for meat or travel? i said: for travel (×ajj). he said: its toe has a hole, and it is not appropriate for your travel. are you looking to rescind the agreement? the seller asked ‘uqba. ‘uqba responded: i heard prophet muíammad (œ) say that the contracting parties have the choice.24 there are many instances in which a subject matter thing (or good) was found defective and returned to the seller. a relevant case is the action of the ‘umar b. khaïïéb (d) who on seeing that a man had diluted milk with water punished him by spilling it away. one group of the jurists who uphold this principle have given this ruling, for it is reported of the prophet (œ) that he prescribed the watering down of milk for sale – though not for drinking purposes – hamdard islamicus 15 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 because if the milk is diluted the buyer does not know the relative quantities of milk and water, and for this reason ’umar (d) destroyed it.25 moreover, the attitude of islamic law is to prevent the occurrence of any harm to the consumers; hence, it has encouraged taking initiatives to block the ways that may lead to violation of consumer rights. this is materialized through the islamic principle of sadd ul-dharie’ (blocking the ways leading to unlawful results).26 therefore, it has always been considered a duty of the islamic state to look after the production processes of consumer products and a specific institution called ×isbah has been assigned the task to take care of business practices. the person who acquires profit from their production is held liable, and moreover any person who has caused harm to the other in one way or the other is bound to make good whatever the loss he has caused to the other. the institution of hisbah as a representative organ of islamic state is bound to provide adequate protection to consumers. the institution of ×isbah must take notice of different trades in order to guarantee maximum protection of consumers’ interests and maintain just weights27 and measures.28 some of these are such as fodder merchants and millers, bakers, bread makers, eateries (cook-shops), butchers, pharmacists, milk sellers, criers (brokers), weavers, tailors, repairers, ship-men, astrologers, letter writers, and rice merchants etc.29 the muhtasib must stop unfair trade practices. it must also take serious actions against unfair contract terms in order to block all the ways of exploitation. people must be allowed to provision themselves from each other without any intermediary. the muítasib must examine that the fodder merchants and millers may not mix bad wheat with good or old with new. they may not hoard grain. he must check that scales and weights used for the flour and those for money.30 he must inspect that the flour is fit for consumption. then the muítasib should maintain a proper system for bakers and bread makers. they should be ordered to make high roof ceilings for the bakeries-houses and wide vents for smoke. he must order that ovens shall be kept swept kneading-troughs washed and covered with straw mats.31 the muítasib must control cookeries-shops them by weighing carcasses before they are placed in the oven and after the removal; if the cooking has been completed there will be a diminution of a third.32 hamdard islamicus 16 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 under the islamic sharê‘ah an animal must be ritually slaughtered to make it edible.33 qur’én says: “forbidden to you (for food) are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, and that on which hath been invoked the name of other than allah; that which hath been killed by strangling, or by a violent blow, or by a headlong fall, or by being gored to death; that which hath been (partly) eaten by a wild animal; unless ye are able to slaughter it (in due form); that which is sacrificed on stone (altars); (forbidden) also is the division (of meat) by raffling with arrows: that is impiety. this day have those who reject faith given up all hope of your religion: yet fear them not but fear me. this day have i perfected your religion for you, completed my favour upon you, and have chosen for you islam as your religion. but if any is forced by hunger, with no inclination to transgression, allah is indeed oftforgiving, most merciful”.34 the sale and consumption of things mentioned in the verse of the holy qur’én is not allowed. similarly sale and consumption of blood is not allowed in islamic law. the holy prophet (œ) has forbidden the price of a dog and the price of blood.”35 fish and locusts are exempted from this rule.36 the butchers should not slaughter the animals in the streets and avoid polluting the same.37 thus, sale of anything that has been declared unlawful by sharê‘ah would be considered void. in case of weavers, the muítasib must check that the stuff must be well woven, compact in texture and of the full length agreed upon and the thread to be of good quality. all other specifications should be in accordance with the common practices or demands of the consumers. hence, the badly woven cloth, for instance, may be ripped apart and burned. it was for this reason that when ‘umar b. khaïïéb saw al-zubair’s son wearing a garment of silk he punished him by tearing it apart and when al-zubair said, “would you terrify the boy”? ‘umar (d) replied, “do not dress him in silk”! then again, ‘abdullah b. ‘umar (d) burned his yellow dyed garment at the bidding of the prophet (œ).38 similarly some jurists uphold this principle concerning the permissibility of destroying fraudulent work in the crafts.39 this principle of destruction of defective work in the crafts is quite similar to the modern hamdard islamicus 17 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 day notion of ‘product recall’ once its defects are proved. the defect is anything that reduces the actual value of the product and is recognised by the commercial custom (’urf tijari) in a particular age and place.40 it has been made obligatory upon milk sellers that the vessels belonging to them must be covered and their places of trade whitewashed and paved and the roof must be new, for flies like places where there is milk. for the mouth of the milk jars is likewise a stopper of clean palm-fiber is necessary. vats and other containers must be cleaned out daily with new palm-fiber and clean water so that the (milk) shall not too soon deteriorate in hot weather. the milk must be rich and unskimmed; otherwise its taste and fatness are gone. the sale of milk-diluted with water is utterly forbidden. the test for it is to throw in a spring of marshlentil.41 moreover, muslim jurists have also established the liability of shipmen for their negligence. ship-men shall be compelled not to overload their vessels inordinately for fear of sinking and they shall not set out during a gale. if they carry women they must set a partition between them and the men.42 in case of astrologers and letter writers, these professions are not allowed in sharê‘ah. if the muítasib finds anyone indulging in these practices he must expel him and punish him.43 the holy prophet (œ) said: “he who goes to a diviner and believes on his word, he misbelieves that which had been revealed through muíammad.”44 all the above examples denote that the islamic law not only imposes liability for the defective products but it also holds liable the service providers for their negligent and faulty services. hence, in accordance with the islamic law the state is authorized to promulgate adequate and concrete legislation to prevent violation of the rights of consumers. similarly, the courts could have jurisdiction to punish those who violate consumer rights under ta‘zir and in some cases diyyah (when it amounts to death) and arsh (when it amounts to inflict harm to any limbs).45 tracing the juridical foundations of product liabilityin islamic jurisprudence modern muslim jurists and writers have paid some attention to hamdard islamicus 18 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 criminal liability in the islamic law, but not much attention has been paid to the civil liability in it.46 this is a wide area and needs attention for purposes of compensations and damages. many of the rights of citizens are guaranteed through this area”.47 civil liability in the context of product liability under islamic law can be established in two ways: 1) contract and 2) tort. in case there is contract between the manufacturer and the ultimate consumer any liability arising from such a relationship will be dealt under islamic law of contract. in case there is no contract then the issue can be covered in accordance with the rules of islamic law of tort. hence, islamic law imposes the liability upon the producer/manufacturer for the harms caused to the consumer by their defective products. in order to develop the theory of product liability under islamic law, maqasid al-sharê‘ah can be of much help and importance. as it has been mentioned earlier that the objectives of sharê‘ah in relation to people are to secure their interest and avert harm from them. this objective has been taken care of in various ahkam that provide mechanism to protect the individual against the actual as well as expected harm. however, under islamic law the detailed rules about civil liability for defective products are mentioned in the law of contract and the law of torts. the basis of product liability under islamic law are two-fold i.e. a general theory of redressing the harm and secondly harm caused in due course of a business. the basic purpose is to compensate the person being harmed and give him an adequate remedy. in islamic law there are a number of principles and legal maxims on the basis of which the notion of product liability can be developed. however, two principles of islamic law are of great significance in this regard. these are the: (la darar wa al dirar), i.e. no harm and no counter harm and (al-kharéj bil-daman’) i.e. every profit has a corresponding liability. these principles are further elaborated in the context of product liability as follows: every profit has a corresponding liability (al-kharaj bil-daman) in order to establish the concept of ‘product liability’ under islamic law in the context of commercial transactions,48 the well known principle of islamic law ‘al-kharéj bil-daman’49 “al-ghunum bil ghurum” i.e. every profit has a corresponding liability is quite relevant.50 for example, the lessor bears all risks in respect of leased property. he takes liability hamdard islamicus 19 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 of loss, or damage, to his property. so he is also entitled to reap benefit from it in the form of rentals.51 the basis of this principle is a tradition of the holy prophet (œ) that a person purchased a slave, who stayed with him for some time. after some period, the buyer discovered a defect in the slave. he complained to the holy prophet (œ), who ordered his return to the owner. the owner asked that the buyer has used his slave, so he should be held liable to pay for the use. the prophet (œ) said: “benefit accompanies liability and risk”, meaning thereby that this benefit is against the risk and liability that he has borne, with regard to property, while in his custody, since if he had died before being returned, it would have died as his property.52 according to the principle, all types of profits in the islamic law are justified on the basis of liability (daman). this may be translated as: entitlement to profit (revenue) is based on a corresponding liability for bearing loss. this principle provides that a person is entitled to profit only when he bears the risk of loss. the principle operates in a number of contracts such as contract as sale, hire or partnership. a business man is entitled to profits and gain in his business because he is ready to bear loss. similarly, owner of a house is entitled to the rent of his house in the hiring contract because he subjects himself to the risk of its destruction and damages to it. this risk makes him the rightful owner of its rent. all profit that has occurred to the partners in a partnership contract is also attributable to this principle of liability. on the other hand, any access over and above the principle sum paid to the creditor by the debtor is prohibited because the creditor does not bear any risk with regard to the amount lent.53 the jurists have applied this principle consistently throughout the entire islamic law of contract and also in the law of business organization. almost every issue of the islamic commercial law is directly or indirectly traced back to this principle such as entitlement to profit, the issue of limited liability, the retaining of ownership in capital by the investor, as well the ratios in which the profit is shared etc. as the producer of goods and service provider both intend profit from their activities and therefore they should bear the loss as well. now the question of civil liability may be resolved here so any loss that accrues because of the manufacturer’s negligence may be corrected by putting a liability on him in favour of the consumer. thus, if the kharaj (profit) belongs to him, the liability for hamdard islamicus 20 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 bearing loss falls on him too. an explanation of this principle may be found in the words of al-kasani, the hanafi jurist. he states: “the rule, in our view, is that entitlement to profit is either due to wealth (mal’), or work (‘amal) or by bearing a liability for loss (daman). as for entitlement due to wealth, it is obvious, because profit is a growth in wealth and belongs to its owner. it is for this reason that the rabb ul-mal in a contract of muìérabah is entitled to profit and likewise the partner (sharik). in the cases of daman (liability for bearing loss), if the mudarib were made to bear the liability for loss, he would be entitled to the entire profit.”54 in the context of product liability consumers should expect to receive products that are safe as well as in working conditions and priced fairly, they should also be notified of any deficiencies. the basic issue in order to ascertain liability for the defective product is that who should bear the responsibility i.e. the manufacturer, the retailer, the importer, the seller etc. this situation becomes very clear after consulting the well known principle of islamic law which suggest that the perpetrator who has caused the wrong is bound to redress the victim. in this context, the basic principle that establishes the liability of manufacturers, retailers and sellers etc. for the damages caused by defectives products is “al-kharéj bil-daman” i.e. every profit has a corresponding liability.55 this is a wellestablished principle of islamic law. the liability arising from defective products is covered under the notion of daman al ‘uqud (contractual liability) under which if the seller sells anything defective that causes harm to any one, he can be held liable for that under the general principles of islamic law.this seems to be in compatibility with the theory of strict moral enterprise liability that is considered the basis of modern product liability law. this theory is advanced by jane stapleton according to which everyone who gains some sort of profit from an enterprise will be held liable in accordance with their proportionate in profit.56 no harm and no counter harm (la darar wa la dirar) islamic law prescribes certain rules which should be observed while redressing harm. these rules have been embodied in certain secondary hamdard islamicus 21 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 maxims. these maxims serve as controllers for the above mentioned primary maxims. these are: a greater harm may be avoided enduring lesser harm; to avoid the public injury a private injury may be suffered; repelling an evil will be preferred to securing a benefit and harm is not removed through another of the same nature. la darar wa la dirar, or al-dararu yuzal: there must be no incipient or retaliatory injury, or harm must be eliminated is the basic rule in this context.57 these principles of shari’ah provide the basis for product liability under the islamic law of torts. the principle means that the harm and retaliation by another harm is not allowed. it has been interpreted in two ways: harm is not allowed whether as an initiative or in response and no harm should be caused and none should be suffered.58 the source and phraseology of this maxim also cited as al-dararu yuzal59 is the íadêth reported by several compilers.60 causing initial harm to another in any way, shape or form is forbidden in islam, and retaliatory harm is also forbidden. if someone were to harm another’s fence or wall, it would likewise be forbidden for the victim of such action to respond by retaliatory destruction; rather, the solution would be to seek recourse through the judicial system. an example of the eradication of incipient harm is where the state/municipality may order a person to redirect his gutter if it flows into the public thoroughfare in such a manner that it causes harm to the passersby, or to tear down an addition to his property if such addition protrudes beyond his property line. article 345 of the majallah cites a more intricate illustration: “if an ancient defect in the thing sold appears after a defect has come to it while with the purchaser, the right of the purchaser to return it to the seller no longer exists, but he has a right to demand a reduction of the price.”61 thus, if a consumer buys cloth and becomes aware of a defect in the material, such as its being frayed or rotten, after having cut it into garments, he cannot return the cloth to the seller, because he has caused a new defect by his having cut the cloth. however, he can petition for a reduction in price based on the old defect. similarly, one of the sub maxims of the above mentioned maxim is al-öarar al-ashadd yuzal bil öarar al-akhaff: i.e. the greater harm is removed by a lesser harm. ibn nujaym illustrates this maxim in the hamdard islamicus 22 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 ruling regarding someone who takes illegal possession of a particular piece of lumber in his building. if the value of the building exceeds that of the lumber, then the owner of the building is given possession of the lumber after paying its due price. if, however, the lumber is more valuable than the building, then the ownership of the rightful possessor of the lumber is upheld.62 this rule can be applied in cases where there is clash between the interests of a producer and the general body of consumers in favour of the later because their interest is greater than that of the producer. it is also a well-established notion of the islamic law that the private harm is borne in order to avert a more general harm (yuta íammal al-öarar al-khéî li daf ’i al-öarar al-‘amm).63 this allows, for example, the proscription of a doctor from practice if it is determined that he is incompetent, and that permitting him to continue practice would endanger the lives of patients.64 another example is where the government could impose price restrictions on food suppliers, thereby causing them to profit less, but ensuring that their customers are not exploited.65 thus, the meaning of these maxims is that no injury be done to anybody in any circumstances and that injury should not be met with injury. it suggests that a person, who has suffered some grievance, should not inflict the grievance as he had suffered on another. the maxim is applicable to a considerable number of rulings of islamic law. the liability arising from a defective product is covered under the above discussed principles of islamic law of tort i.e. fiqh al-daman. if the seller sells anything defective that cause harm to any one, he can be held liable for it under the general principles of islamic law. the principle of elimination of detriment has been especially observed in the sphere of contracts and business transactions. the perpetrator who has caused the wrong is bound to redress the victim in all the cases. the above mentioned principle of islamic law has shown that under what rules of the islamic law of torts, anyone who causes harm to another directly or indirectly can be held liable for which the rule of privity was never a barrier under the islamic law of tort. tracing the basic notions of product liability in islamic law the modern product liability regime is based on the notions of hamdard islamicus 23 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 “producer”, “product” and the “liability” etc. it is, therefore, pertinent to explain the meanings of these basic notions from an islamic law perspective. the notion of producer and islamic law islam encourages all types of lawful commercial and business activities such as agriculture, manufacture, business, trade, and all the works and labour within the limits of sharê‘ah that produce any goods or services for the benefit of community is considered as worship. in this context, it is pertinent to quote the verse of the holy qur’én: “he knoweth that there may be (some) among you in ill-health; others travelling through the land, seeking of allah’s bounty; yet others fighting in allah’s cause, read ye, therefore, as much of the qur’an as may be easy (for you); and establish regular prayer and give regular charity; and loan to allah a beautiful loan. and whatever good ye send forth for your souls ye shall find it in allah’s presence,yea, better and greater, in reward and seek ye the grace of allah. for allah is oft-forgiving, most merciful.”66 islam has emphasized on more and more production so human needs be fulfilled but it gives a comprehensive code for consumption. the prophet (œ) endorsed the importance of legitimate ways of earning in the following words: “asked ‘what form of gain is the best? [the prophet (œ)] said, ‘a man’s work with his hands, and every legitimate sale”.67 islamic commercial law stress a lot on the fulfilment of human needs along with achieving a great spiritual satisfaction therefore it gives a balance system for earning and consumption of goods and services to stabilize the worldly life and life here after. sharê‘ah has encouraged the production of all beneficial things and condemned the production of harmful things to humanity. hence, many muslim scholars are of the view that production of tobacco is not allowed and smoking is prohibited. similarly the cultivation of opium is not allowed as it harms the society. for muslims consumption of alcohol is not allowed either. the point here is that in the islamic sharê‘ah the term producer has not been defined in any specific words by earlier jurists. hamdard islamicus 24 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the islamic sharê‘ah has not focused on the definition of producer rather it has focused on the product that is produced that whether it is good for consumption or not. all those things that are harmful to human life, intellect, family and wealth are declared prohibited both in its production and consumption as mentioned earlier in discussion on masélií (interest). this is one of the primary objectives of the shari‘ah to acquire manfa‘ah (benefit) and to reject madarrah (injury, harm) because the acquisition of manfa‘ah and the repulsion of madarrah represent human goals, that is, the welfare of humans through the attainment of these goals.68 hence, it is at first duty of islamic state to ensure that the products and production process are safe and not going to cause harm to the general body of consumers. if any statutory duty is violated the producer will be responsible for that. here it is pertinent to raise the issue that does the producer etc owe any duty towards the consumer being harmed by a defect in the product under the islamic law? the principle of islamic law that states: “every profit has a corresponding liability”.69 it covers all the stakeholders i.e. producer, manufacturer, retailers and suppliers etc. to be liable for any shortcoming on their part. thus the notion of liability in the islamic law is wider and it covers all those who extract benefit from the product and it is in conformity with the english product liability regime. though there is a debate among the muslim scholars about the acknowledgment of corporate personality.70 here producers and manufacturers include both natural as well as legal persons because the basic purpose of this thesis is to assess the liability of the manufacturers for producing defective products and their responsibility to compensate the victims of such products. anything that is explicitly prohibited by the qur’an and the sunnah, such things are not considered mal (property) in the sharê‘ah and their production is also strictly prohibited such as wine etc. apart from that there is no constraint from the perspective of shari‘ah to define the term producer. in islamic law, a muslim producer would be held strictly liable when he produces prohibited (íaram) products. the notion of ‘product’ and the islamic law in the classical islamic law no specific definition of the term ‘product’ hamdard islamicus 25 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 exists; instead the term ‘mabi’ has been used by the fuqahé‘ that means subject matter to indicate all sold ‘valuable’ things including ‘product’ in its contemporary meaning.71 islamic law has explicitly mentioned the criteria for íalél and íaram. besides, íalél and íaram there are certain things on which the islamic law is silent. the muslims are required to abstain from such doubtful things also.72 the general principle of islamic law regarding the ‘products’ is permissibility. all the beneficial and harmless things are permissible, unless explicitly prohibited by the sharê‘ah. this is based on the well-known principle of islamic law: “… the original rule for all things is permissibility unless the prohibition is proved.”73 this principle explains the scheme of sharê’ah, regarding íalél and íaram. allah (s.w.t.) out of his infinite and boundless mercy, has permitted certain things, and prohibited certain others. while doing this, he has secured human beings’ interests, and averted harm from them. there is another rule of sharê’ah that: “al-aîl fê al-manéfi’ al-ibéía wa fê al-maìér al-taírêm” i.e. the original rule about beneficial things is permissibility, and for harmful things is prohibition”.74 anything that is beneficial for the people is lawful, and a thing which is proved harmful, for them is unlawful.75 the notion of ‘liability’ in islamic law as far as the notion of liability is concerned, islamic law termed it as responsibility (dhimmah). in the the islamic law, the general principle is freedom from liability which is incorporated in the well-established principle of islamic law: “al-aîl bara‘t ul-dhimmah” i.e. freedom from liability is the fundamental principle.76 according to this principle of islamic law no one is liable to be penalized until his guilt is established by lawful evidence. till that time, he is presumed to be innocent. the reason is that innocence is a state of certainty, and guilt is doubtful.77 this presumption of innocence from liability is based on a íadêth of the holy prophet (œ) which places the burden of proof on the plaintiff. the prophet (œ) said: “the burden of proof is on plaintiff and the defendant must take an oath”.78 the liability under islamic law is classified into three kinds i.e. liability for worship, criminal liability and civil liability. this explains that how and when liability in islamic law can be assigned to the perpetrators. hamdard islamicus 26 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 strict liability in cases of defective products under islamic law here, it is pertinent to address the issue that whether or not islamic law approves strict liability in torts cases. further can such liability be extended to the cases of defective products? in this regard in the primary source of sharê‘ah, the holy qur’én in a number of verses propounds the strict liability of a tort-feasor in committing wrong. some of these are given below: “the blame is only against those who oppress men and wrongdoing and insolently transgress beyond bounds through the land, defying right and justice: for such there will be a penalty grievous.”79 “if any one does a righteous deed, it ensures to the benefit of his own soul; if he does evil, it works against (his own soul). in the end will ye (all) be brought back to your lord.”80 “o our lord! truly thou dost know what we conceal and what we reveal: for nothing whatever is hidden from allah, whether on earth or in heaven.”81 “not your desires, nor those of the people of the book (can prevail): whoever works evil, will be requited accordingly. nor will he find, besides allah, any protector or helper.”82 “say: “shall i seek for (my) cherisher other than allah, when he is the cherisher of all things (that exist)? every soul draws the meed of its acts on none but itself: no bearer of burdens can bear of burdens can bear the burden of another. your goal in the end is towards allah: he will tell you the truth of the things wherein ye disputed.” 83 while explaining the above verse, sayyid abë al a’lé mawdëdi (d.1400/1979) writes: “every person is responsible for whatever he does, and no one is responsible for the deeds of others”.84 so, a man cannot deny his liability after his intention is established. all these verses mean that a person will not be liable except for his own torts and wrongs. he cannot be accountable for the torts or mistakes of other people.85 the traditions of the prophet (œ) further elaborated the above principle. there are number of traditions regarding the matter, following are some of them: “you will not do him wrong and he will do you wrong”;87 hamdard islamicus 27 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 “indeed, your son does not commit any offence against you, nor do you commit any offence against him”;88 and the holy prophet (œ) said: “no person should be apprehended for an offence committed by his father or brother”.89 similarly, it has been mentioned in the last sermon (khuïbah hujjat ul widé’) of the holy prophet (œ) is as under: “beware; no one committing a crime is responsible for it but himself. neither the child is responsible for the crime of his father, nor the father is responsible for the crime of his child.”89 all the above traditions denote that in a tort action for what is committed by a person, he who acts is liable for what he has done, not another. muslim fuqaha‘ have also applied the rule of strict liability in their manuals. some examples are given below: 1. “if a person drowns people by opening up a river dam, or spreads fire, or destroys a building and causes loss of life, he is liable for his action”.90 2. “if any person destroys property of another, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and whether in his own possession or in the hands of some person to whom it has been entrusted, he is liable for the loss”.91 3. “if a person slips and falls upon and destroys any property belonging to another, he is bound to make good the loss.”92 4. “if a person destroys the property of any other person under the mistaken belief that it is his own, he is liable for the loss”.93 in the above cases the defendant is held strictly liable for accidental harm, independently of the existence of either wrongful intention or negligence. the fuqahé‘ have also followed the rule of strict liability in a number of cases e.g. “if a person, in the exercise of his right, does an act which involves a risk to another person or property of others, he will be held liable for the damage, if damage occurs. he should be held liable to ensure safety of those other persons. for instance, if a person carries timber along a public road and a piece of timber falls on a passerby and hamdard islamicus 28 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 causes damage to the person and property, the carrier (íémil) will be held responsible (ìémin) for the damage caused.”94 the contemporary muslim jurists termed strict liability as ‘al-mas‘ëliyyah al-taqîêriyyah’.95 this clearly shows that the rule of strict liability appears in islam and is not alien to the islamic law of tort. in both the defendant is liable because he has acted intentionally or negligently causing harm to the plaintiff’s interest. hence, the concept of strict liability is compatible to the islamic law. however, the english law is in a developed form today and the rule of strict liability is extended to many new situations including strict product liability as in english law this rule has been practised and applied intensively and thoroughly over a long period of time. muslim jurists should consider all the legal developments that have taken place in modern times. it is also pertinent to mention here that according to m. muslih-uddin, civil liability in islam is neither “fault liability” nor “strict liability”, but may be described as “damage liability”. thus general principle of liability in islam is “no liability without damage” which repudiates the idea of both “strict liability” and “fault liability” and steers clear of the confusion to which law of torts is subjected.96 in this case, establishing the liability will be comparatively easy. in the context of product liability, it is pertinent to mention that muslim jurists (fuqahé‘) held craftsmen (ajir mushtarak) strictly liable for destruction or harm to the products in their possession.97 ijérah (hire) has been legalised by islamic law due to the need of the general body of consumers to acquire goods and services and if the contract of lease is not legalized people will fall in trouble (mashaqqah). there are two types of ijérah contract; ijérat ul-ashkhés (hire of employees) and ijérat ul-ashyé‘ (hire of things).98 then ijérat ul-ashkés (services of persons) is further classified into two éjir mushtarak� (one who renders his services to everyone like a tailor, shoemaker and the like) and éjir khés (one who renders services to specific person).99 as a general rule a trustee is not liable for the loss of trust property if the loss occurs without any fault and negligence on the part of trustee. but in case of craftsmen and tradesmen, such as tailors, goldsmiths, shoemakers etc. the muslim jurists ruled that if the goods are lost or destroyed in their custody they would be liable to compensate. thus, if a tailor received a piece of cloth from his customer and while in his hamdard islamicus 29 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 custody some loss occurred to it, the tailor will be held liable to compensate the loss was a result of some calamity and act of nature.100 the reason for this ruling is that adopting the rule of non-liability for paying compensation by craftsmen whose trustworthiness is taken for granted may make them negligent about the goods in their custody with the result that the owners have to suffer great loss. they may abuse the trust and misuse the facility. now through this new ruling the burden of proof was shifted to the craftsmen, who had to show of negligence. hence, the craftsmen (éjir mushtarak), according to the dominant view in fiqh, wereheld accountable for the loss of goods in his possession if they are destroyed by his fault or transgression, the craftsmen were held liable for paying compensation.101 this ruling has been given by the jurists (fuqahé‘) on the grounds of public interest so that trustees and tradesmen exercise greater care in safeguarding people’s properties.102 it is reported that hazrat ‘ali (d) held craftsmen liable for the loss occurred to the property in their custody.103 this ruling, inter alia, highly ensures protection of consumers’ interests against harms etc. this illustration shows that the islamic law recognises the application of strict liability in cases of negligence by craftsman in order to safeguard interests of the consumers. the same rule has to be applied in cases of product liability. conclusion the ‘product liability’ is an emerging legal concept. the scope of product liability law is expanding day by day. the modern notion of ‘product liability’ is based on the well-established legal theory of ‘strict moral enterprise liability’ advocated by many renowned jurists such as tone honore and jane stapelton etc. the theory implies the taking of risks in pursuits of financial profits. if, in seeking to secure financial profit, an enterprise causes certain types of loss, it should be legally obliged to pay compensation to the victim. this is based on ‘moral grounds as well. hence it is termed as ‘the strict moral enterprise liability’. it has been argued by many jurists that the ‘strict moral enterprise liability’ as compared to other theories provides a considerably better fit for the issues of product liability. the theory is therefore considered as the basis for modern us and eu product liability laws.on the other hand, hamdard islamicus 30 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 in the islamic law, the term ‘product liability’ specifically does not appear in these exact terms in the classical fiqh literature.however, product liability is not a strange concept to islamic law and the roots of liability for defective products can be traced in many rulings, principles and maxims of the sharê‘ah. the rules of islamic law exist in the holy qur’én and the sunnah of the prophet muíammad (œ) and numerous instances can be extracted from the classical legal literature. in islamic law, the producer, retailer and seller etc can be held responsible for the defective products and compensate the victim under the islamic law of contract as well as the islamic law of tort. in this regard the islamic principle ‘al-khéraj bi al-daman’ i.e. every profit has a corresponding liability makes it very clear to hold all the stakeholders in profit liable for their defective products and services. similarly, the islamic principle ‘lé öarar wa lé öirar’ i.e. no harm and no counter harm makes it very clear that all types of harms has to be redressed. moreover, to cater for public interest or maîlaía any legislation that benefit the community can be promulgated such as strict liability in cases of defective products and services etc. muslim jurists in this sphere can even take benefit from the measurements taken in other jurisdictions in order to ensure protection and promotion of rights of the consumers. hence, the islamic jurisprudence is more comprehensive in cases of defective products provided and adaptable to the changing circumstances. notes and references 1. s.19, restatement (third) of torts: products liability. 2. khalid akhtar, nubla iftikhar, product liability and safety in the post wto era, paper presented at the pakistan’s eighth international convention on quality improvement at pcsir auditorium, lahore on august 21-22, 2004. 3. united nations guidelines for consumer protection available at: http:// www.un.org/esa/sustdev/publications/consumption_en.pdf last accessed on 2307-2013. 4. he who commits a wrong is said to be liable or responsible for it. liability or responsibility is the bond of necessity that exists between the wrongdoer and the remedy of the wrong (jhon salmond, jurisprudence, chapter on liability). 5. geraint g. howells, the relationship between product liability and product safety-understanding a necessary element in european product liability through a comparison with the u.s. position, washburn law journal, vol. xxxix, no. 3, 2000. hamdard islamicus 31 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 06. hans claudius taschner, product liability: basic problems in a comparative law perspective, book chapter in product liability in comparative perspective, edited by duncan fairgrieve, cambridge, p. 155. 07. abdullah m.a. al ghafari, the inadequacy of consumer protection laws in uae: the need for reform, phd thesis submitted to the school of law, brunel university, u.k., 2013, p. 280. 08. nagla sa’ad mahmud nasar, manufacturer’s liability under islamic law, (llm) unpublished thesis submitted to the law school, harvard university, u.s.a., 1985. 09. ibid. 10. michael g. faure, “product liability and product safety in europe: harmonization or differentiation?”, 2000, 53 kyklos: international review for social sciences 470; also quoted by m. fayyad’s in his article on the transposition of the european directive 85/374/eec on product liability into palestine and jordan: is it adaptable to islamic law? global law journal, 2012; thomas kadner graziano. “[ec tort law] and the german legal family”, tort and insurance law, 2008 available at: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2f978-3-211-775868_18, last accessed on 13.08.2013. 11. alistair clark, product liability, p. 25. 12. restatement (third) of torts: products liability, § 19; available at: http://www. primidi.com/product_liability accessed on 13.12.2013. 13. jane stapleton, software, information and the concept of product, tel aviv university studies in law, vol. ix, 1989. 14. sjostorm and nilson, thalidmoide and the power of the drug companies, penguin, 1972; nagela naseer, manufacturer’s liability under islamic law, llm (unpublished) thesis submitted to the law school, harvard university, u.s.a. 1985, p. 2. 15. restatement (third) of product liability: products liability s.2 (1998). for a detailed discourse about the american restatement and product liability, see jane stapleton’s an outsider’s view of the restatement of torts, australian product liability reporter, vol. xvi, no. 4, lexis nexis, butterworths. 16. geraint howells and mark mildred, is european products liability more protective than the restatement third of torts: products liability? tennessee law review, vol. lxv, summer 1998, number 4; available at: gonzález castillo, joel. “products liability in europe and the united states”, revista chilena de derecho, 2012., last accessed on 12.03.2014. 17. jane staplton, product liability, butterworth and co. publishers, uk, 1994, p. 186. 18. ibid. 19. khalid akhtar, nubla iftikhar, “product liability and safety in the post wto era”, paper presented at the pakistan’s eighth international convention on quality improvement at pcsir auditorium, lahore on august 21-22,2004 available at: http://www.piqc.edu.pk/casestudies/dr_khalid_akhtar_ product_liability_ and_safety_in_wto_case_study_piqc.pdf, last accessed on 12.11.2013. hamdard islamicus 32 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 20. see ‘united nations guidelines for consumer protection (as expanded in 1999)’, department of economic and social affairs, united nations, new york 2003, available at: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/publications/consumption_en.pdf, accessed on 23-07-2013. 21. the islamic contract regime of product liability has been thoroughly expounded in chapter 5, the islamic tort regime in chapter 6 and the islamic strict product liability regime in chapter 7 of the thesis. 22. zuhaylê, nazriat ul-daman, dér ul-fikr, p. 258. 23. al-tirmidhê, sunan, tradition no. 1315, vol. ii, p. 597; muslim, ibn al-hajjéj, saíêí, ihyé al-turéth’ al-‘arabi, beirut, vol. i, p. 99. 24. aímad b. hanbal (d. 241 a.h.), musnad, tradition no. 16013, mu‘assisah al-risélah, 2001, vol. xxv, p. 394. 25. ibn taymiyyah, aímad b. abd al-halim, ‘public duties in islam’, translated by m. holland, leicester, the islamic foundation, u.k, 1982, p. 50. 26. ibn al-qayyem, i’lam ul-muwéqên, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah’, beirut, vol. iii, p. 108. 27. qur’én says: “woe to those that deal in fraud” (lxxxiii:1). other related verses are: xi:84; xxvi:182; iv:107. 28. it is duty of a muítasib to see that the traders and shopkeepers do not indulge in short measuring. he must order possessors of scales to keep them free of oil and dirt. scales must be brought to rest before being used for weighing and the pans must not be touched by the thumb with fraudulent intent. scales must not be suspended from the hand. a trick used in weighing gold is to blow into the pan containing it or to fasten a fine strand of hair to one side. the muítasib must not forgive fraud in the use of measures and weights (al-méwardê, al-aíkém alsulïéniyah, vol. iii, p. 168; ibn taymiyyah, al-hisbah, vol. i, p. 55). 29. ibn al-ukhuwwah (d.729 a.h.), ma‘alim al-qurba fi aíkém el hisbah, dér al-funun, cambridge, vol. i, p. 238. 30. ibid., vol. i, p. 90. 31. ibid. 32. ibid., vol. i, p. 107. 33. see ódéb ul-dhibíah in al-mawsisa’ al-fiqhiyyah al-kuwaitiyyah, vol. xxi, p. 197; shah waliullah al-dihlawi, ×ujjat ullah-i albalighah’ dér al-jel, beirut, lebanon, vol. ii, p. 281. it is preferable that the slaughterer should be a muslim of full age and understanding who shall utter the name of god over the animal. slaughter by minors, blind or intoxicated persons is disapproved for the reason that they may err in making the sacrificial cut. any instrument which has a sharp cutting edge, even a reed or sharpened stone, is lawful for the sacrifice. camel should be slaughtered standing, oxen and sheep lying down. 34. qur’én, v:3. 35. al-bukhérê, saíêí, tradition no. 2086, vol. iii, p. 59. 36. al-jiziri, al-fiqh ’ala madhhah al-‘arba’h, dar al-kutub al-‘elmiyyah, vol. i, p. 10. 37. ibn al-ukhwah, ma’alim al-qurbah fi ahkam al-hisbah, vol. i, p. 99. 38. ibn taymiyyah (d. 728 a.h.), al-hisbah fi al-islém, dar al-kutub al-‘elmiyyah, vol. i, p. 52. hamdard islamicus 33 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 39. ibid. 40. al-marghinénê, al-hidéyah, vol. iii, p. 36. 41. ibn al-ukhuwwah, ma‘alim al-qurbah fi ahkalab al-hisbah, vol. i, p.1 29. 42. ibn al-ukhuwwa, vol. i, p. 222. 43. ibid., vol. i, p. 183. 44. al baihaqi, al-sunan al-kubra, kitabul qasamah, tradition no. 16496, vol. viii, p. 233. 45. khalifah, babakar al-hasan, ‘himyat al-mustahlik fi al-shari‘ah’, research paper presented in the international conference on “consumer protection in shari‘ah & law” conducted by the faculty of sharê‘ah & law of united arab emirates university, 6-7, december, 1998. 46. nyazee, islamic legal maxims, advanced legal studies institute, islamabad, 2013, p. 165-166. 47. ibid. 48. same principle would also apply in cases of liability for faulty services. 49. abë déwëd, sunan, tradition no. 3508, vol. iii, p. 284. 50. the principle according to majority view point does not apply to a case where a person has usurped, or unlawfully appropriated, property of another person. as such the usurper cannot be held entitled to benefit from the property, on account of his liability towards its real owner. 51. mansoori, sharê’ah maxims: modern applications in islamic finance, shari‘ah academy, international islamic university, islamabad, pp. 181-182. 52. ibn méjah, sunan, tradition no. 2243, vol. ii, p. 754; abë déwëd, sunan, tradition no. 3508, vol. iii, p. 284; al-tirmidhê, sunan, tradition no. 1285, vol. ii, p. 572; al-naséi‘, sunan, tradition no. 4490, vol. vii, p. 254. 53. al-tahawê, sharí ma‘énê al-athér, tradition no. 5734, vol. iv, p. 59; ‘abdul razzéq, muîannaf, tradition no. 14657, vol. viii, p. 145; ibn abê shaibah, muîannaf, tradition no. 20690, vol. iv, p. 327. 54. al-kasénê, (d. 587 a.h.), badé‘i’ wa al-sana‘i’, dér al-kutub al-‘elmiyyah, 1986, vol. vi, p. 62. 55. al-sarakhsi, al-mabsët, vol. v, p. 72; al-ghanim, majma’ ul-damanah, vol. i, p. 224; al-suyëïê, al-ashbah wa al-nazé‘ir, vol. i, p. 135; ibn nujaim, al-ashbah wa al-nazé‘ir, vol. i, p. 127. 56. to learn more about the strict moral enterprise liability read jane stapleton’s book on product liability, butterworths, 1993. 57. the counterpart of the above maxim in western law is the maxim ‘injuria non excusat injuriam’ meaning that one wrong does not justify another. see bryan a. garner, chief ed. black’s law dictionary, p. 1645. 58. ibn nujaim, al-ashbah wa al-nazé‘ir, vol. i, p. 74. 59. ibid., p. 72; muíammad siddêq b. aímad al-burnu, al-wajiz fi ’idah qawé’id al-fighiyyah al-kuliyyah, p. 192. 60. ibn méjah (d. 275/888), sunan, tradition no. 2340, vol. ii, p. 784; tradition no. 2342, vol. ii, p. 785. 61. the majallah, art. 345. 62. ibn nujaim, al-ashbah wa al-nazé‘ir min madhhab abi ×anêfa al-nu’mén, p. 88. hamdard islamicus 34 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 63. ibid. 64. al-burnu, muíammad siddiq b. aímad, al-wajiz fi ’idah qawé’id al-fiqhiyyah al-kuliyyah, p. 207. 65. khalil muíammad, the islamic law maxims, islamic studies, occasional papers 62, pp. 25-27. this sub-maxim has its counterpart in western law as “lex citius tolerate vult privatum damnum quam publicum malum” – the law would rather tolerate a private wrong than a public evil,” and its corollary “privatum incommodum public bono peusatur” – private inconvenience is made up for by public benefit (bryan a. garner, chief ed., black’s law dictionary, pp. 1653, 1676). 66. qur‘én, lxxiii:20. 67. aímad b. hanbal, musnad, tradition no. 17265, vol. xxviii, p. 502; ibn abi shaibah, mussanaf, tradition no. 23083, vol. iv, p. 554; al-baihaqê, al-sunan al-kubré, tradition no. 10397, vol. iv, p. 432. 68. al-ghazélê (d. 505 a.h.), al-muîïasfa, dar al-kutub al-‘elimiyyah, 1993, vol. i, p. 174. 69. ibn qudémah, al-mughnê, vol. iii, p. 489; shéh waliullah, hujjat-ullah albélighah, beirut, lebanon, vol. ii, p. 174; al-maqdisi, ziya‘ ul-din, al-sunan wa al-ahkém ’anil-muîïafa ’alaihi al-salam, dar majid a’siri, sa’udi ’arabiyyah, 2005, vol. iv, p. 389. this is based on the well known íadêth of the prophet (œ), see ibn majah, sunan, tradition no. 2243, vol. ii, p. 754; abë déwëd, sunan, tradition no. 3508, vol. iii, p. 284; al-tirmidhê, sunan, tradition no. 1285, vol. ii, p. 572; al-nasé’i, sunan, tradition no. 4490, vol. vii, p. 254. 70. malik, muhammad hafeez, an analysis of corporate entity and limited liability in islamic and western perspectives of corporate governance, international journal of business, economics and law, vol. ii, issue 3 (june) issn 2289-1552, available at: http://ijbel.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/an-analysis-ofcorporate-entity-and-limited-liability-in-islamic-and-western-perspectives-ofcorporate-governance-dr.-malik-m.-hafeez.pdf, last accessed on 12.05.2015. 71. m. fayyad, ‘misleading advertising practices in consumer transactions: can arab lawmakers gain advantage from european insight’? (2012), xxvi(3), arab law quarterly journal, p. 287. 72. ahmad, musnad, tradition no. 18368, vol. xxx, p. 320; al-darimi, sunan, tradition no. 171, vol. i, p. 269; ibn majah, sunan, tradition no. 3329, vol. iii, p. 243; al-nasé’i, sunan, tradition no. 4453, vol. vii, p. 241; ibn abi shibah, al-mussanaf, tradition no. 22003, vol. iv, p. 448. 73. ibn nujaim, (d. 970 a.h.), al-ashbah wa al-nazé‘ir, dar al-kutub al-‘elmiyyah, beirut, lebonan, 1999, p. 56. the principle ( ) is based on a number of verses of the holy qur‘én such as “it is he who hath created for you all things that are on earth; moreover his design comprehended the heavens, for he gave order and perfection to the seven firmaments; and of all things he hath perfect knowledge (ii:29); “and he has subjected to you, as from him, all that is in the heavens and on earth: behold, in that are signs indeed for those who reflect (xlv:13); and traditions of the holy prophet (œ) such as the prophet said: “god has enjoined certain enjoinments, so do not abandon them. he has imposed certain limits, so do not transgress them. he has prohibited hamdard islamicus 35 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 certain things, so do not fall into them. he has remained silent about many things, out of mercy, so do not ask about them” al-bayhaqê, vol. x, p. 23, ×adêth no. 20283. 74. al-qarafi (d. 684 a.h.), al-furëq, ‘al-‘ilm al-kutub, n.d. vol. i, p. 220; jamal ud-din, al-tamhid fi al-takhrij al-furu’ ‘ala usul, mu‘assisah al-risalah, beirut, p. 487. 75. smoking etc. is impermissible on the basis of this maxim because its harm has been proven, even though, no clear text prohibits it. 76. zarqa‘, al-madkhal al-fiqhi al-’amm, vol. ii, p. 270. 77. mansoori, sharê’ah maxims: modern applications in islamic finance, p. 144. 78. al-tirmidhê (d. 279 a.h.), sunan, dar al-gharb al-islami, beirut, 1998, vol. iii, p. 19. 79. qur’én, xlii:42. 80. ibid., xlv:15. 81. ibid., xiv:38. 82. ibid., iv:123. 83. ibid., vi:164. 84. mawdudi, sayyid abu al a’la, towards understanding the qur‘én, leicester, the islamic foundation, 1408/1988, vol. ii, p. 299. 85. ‘abdul basir, muhammad, strict liability in the islamic law of tort, islamic studies, iri, international islamic university, islamabad, vol. xxxix, no. 3 (autumn 2000), pp. 445-462, available on http://www.jstor.org/stable/23076062 accessed on 23/08/2013. 86. ibn méjah, sunan ibn méjah, cairo, ‘isa al-babi halabi wa shrukah, n.d.), vol. ii, p. 890. 87. ibid. 88. al-nasé’i (d.303 a.h.), sunan, maktabah al-matbuat al-islamiyyah, halb, 1986, vol. vii, p. 127; ’abdul qadir awda’, al-tashri’ al-jini‘ al-islami muqarinah bil qénën al-wadi, mu‘assisah al-rissélah, beirut, 1993, vol. i, p. 395. it means that in a tort action for what is committed by a person, he who acts is liable for what he has done, not another. 89. al-tirmidhê, sunan, tradition no. 2159, vol. iv, p. 31; ibn majah, sunan, tradition no. 2669, vol. ii, p. 890. 90. ibn hazm (d. 456 a.h.), al-muhallah, dar al-fikr, beirut, vol. xi, p. 219. 91. majallah, art. 912. 92. majallah, art. 913. 93. majallah, art. 914. similarly majallah states in art.916: “every person has a right of way on the public highway, subject to the safety of others. that is to say, provided no harm is caused to others in circumstances which can be avoided e.g. if a porter drops the load he is carrying on the public highway and destroys the property of another, the porter must make good the loss. if sparks fly from a blacksmith’s shop while he is working iron and set fire to the clothes of a passer-by in the public highway, the blacksmith must make good the loss”. 94. al-marghinani, al-hidéyah, vol. iv, p. 194; tabyin al-haqé‘iq, kanz ul-öaqa‘iq, vol. v, p. 146. 95. al-zuhaili, nazriat ul-öaman, p. 251. hamdard islamicus 36 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 096. muslih-ud-din, muhammad,the concept of civil liability in islam and the law of torts, pp. 351-353. 097. ibn qudamah (d. 620 a.h.), al-mughnê, vol. v, p. 391. 098. al-marghinanê, al-hidayah, vol. iii, p. 242. 099. some professions are strictly prohibited in sharê‘ah (qur’én, v:4) such as astrologers and if the muítasib finds anyone indulging in these practices must expel him and punish him( ibn al-ukhuwwah op. cit., pp. 67-68). the prophet (œ) said: “he who goes to a diviner and believes his word misbelieves that which had been revealed through muíammad (œ) (al baihaqi, al-sunan al-kubré, kitéb ul qasamah, béb al-takfêr, ×adêth no. 16494). similarly, prostitution, gambling and other unlawful services should be stopped by the authorities. 100. al-salami, muhammad al-mukhtar, al-qiyés and its modern applications, translated into english by muhammad hashim kamali, islamic research and training institute, islamic development bank, available at: http://uaelaws.files. wordpress.com/2012/05/al-qiyas-analogy-and-its-modern-application.pdf, pp. 108109. 101. al-sarakhsi, al-mabsët, vol. xv, p. 82. 102. al-marghinéni, al-hidayah, vol. iii, p. 242. 103. ibn al qudémah, al-mughnê, vol. v, p. 390. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 4\final\sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 7 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders remedies by the qur’ón and william shakespeare (a comparative study) dr. lutfullah saqib1 muhammad amjad2 1associate professor (law & shariah) university of swat, kp, pakistan e-mail: lutsaqib@gmail.com 2bacha khan university, charsadda, kp, pakistan e-mail: amjad.thana11@gmail.com man, by nature is weak and frail and cannot hold fast his ground against the strong and dominating temptation of evil. this is evident from his past history which teems with tales of greed and lust, of jealousy and sloth, indicating man’s unambiguous propensity towards evil. how divine scriptures and worldly books present and treat human nature explain the real state of affairs. these divine and worldly works include the holy qur’ân and the works of william shakespeare – a divine scripture and book of morality and works of art – which, in their own respective way and according to the purposes they serve, endeavour to pinpoint the evil side of human nature. not only this, they recommend ways and means to help man restore his lost fiïrâh. both the holy qur’ân and the works of william shakespeare, chiefly, his four great tragedies show that, apart from many other vices, human nature is, dominantly, in the strong grip of sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. however, at the same time, these works discuss and cure these illnesses with diligence, patience, compassion and humility. the present study, one of a kind, attempts first to highlight passages in both works which point out the vices, and second, those which offer them cure. the methodology adopted in this paper is qualitative in nature that exploits the content analysis technique for the exhaustive examination of the secondary data, painstakingly collected from both the works before arriving at any substantial findings. keywords: fiïrâh; human nature; negative human nature; nature; qur’ân; shakespeare; tragedies; verses; lines. 8 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... introduction in man, divine creation has undoubtedly attained, so to speak, the heights of creative perfection. however, the same claim cannot be confidently made of man’s physical build. though, in flesh and strength, one confesses, man badly fails to compete other creations, yet, the unique combination of his para-physical characteristics, coupled with his mental capacities, hoist him on the highest position in the hierarchy of divine creation. spoken that, emotions and desires, the predominant para-physical features, yet the arduous trial zones of man, are the real parameters of his moral strength. man, in other terms, is the finest yet the most complicated creation god ever created. this complexity arises from the fact that, in him, both negativity as well as positivity overlap in such a delicate way that one cannot say one from the other. however, human nature, over a span of thousands of civilized years, has proved unmistakable propensity towards evil, represented by base desires and emotions. man shirks goodness because it is the result of conscious effort1 which man often avoids due to his inherent sloth inextricably embedded in his nature. in other words, his soul is more bent towards evil. in man, sloth, wrath, envy and pride reign supreme2, alongside lust, gluttony and greed. all the religious books like the holy bible and the holy qur’ân as well as non-religious texts i.e. literary works like the works of william shakespeare3, therefore, focus on how to treat all these vices, especially sloth, wrath, envy and pride, proliferating in human nature. concomitantly, they endeavor to mature diligence, patience, humility and compassion in human nature to reinstate man’s lost fiïrâh4. the study of qur’ân reveals and maintains the same approach when it discusses vices before offering any solutions to them. this example would solidify the deduction: … lo! allâh loveth not such as are proud and boastful5. this selection from the holy book, in categorical terms, reveals that allâh (swt) denies his love and blessings to those who are van and proud as they remain so immersed in themselves that they hardly think of others, even their close relations. this pick clearly shows that the glorious qur’ân chastises those who are sinful because it is well aware of the fact that man by nature is weak and that he possesses and shows propensity towards evil. to say that the holy qur’ân just lays bare the evil side of man and does not offer any cures to them, would be profane. there are passages in the same surâhs which, in the same breath, recount both the vices and their cures. sometimes different technique is seen to have been used in the holy hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 9 scripture to discuss vices and their cures in different contexts. the proceeding example, though does not occur in the same context with the previous selection, yet it carries cure for pride: the (faithful) slaves of the beneficent are they who walk upon the earth modestly, and when the foolish ones address them answer: peace; ...6. this citation clearly indicates that those who are the true servants of allâh (swt) show humility and modesty and avoid bragging and assuming airs. certain non-divine works like works of literature, of course, follow the same method in discussing vices and neutralizing their effect by offering remedies to them. most of literary works, at times, come closer to divine scriptures in taking up moralizing as their main purpose. great writers like dante alighieri7, john milton8, john bunyan9, william blake10, etc. of antiquity and of comparatively modern age alike confirm the same. among these writers, william shakespeare’s approach, indeed, corresponds to the approach of the holy qur’ân by one way or another. all his works, especially his four great tragedies, i.e. hamlet11, king lear12, macbeth13 and othello14 take up human nature in its totality and reveal, with the same strength, its negative aspects and, at the same time, provide solid and practicable solutions to them. his plays are, therefore, replete with numerous examples where he comes down hard on these vices. the following example can be cited as a solid evidence where the bard of avon15 chastises pride as one of the main disrupters of human relations: but he, as loving his own pride and purposes,/ evades them with a bombast circumstances, / horribly stuff’d with epithets of war; …16. as in the holy qur’ân, in william shakespeare too, the vices and virtues find accommodation side by side or in different contexts. their purpose is, however, the same, i.e. to make man morally upright and good. the following example enumerates the virtues, including humility, in a good king and, therefore, in a good human being: but i have none: the king-becoming graces, / as justice, verity, temperance, stableness, / bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness (humility),/ devotion, patience, courage, fortitude. / i have no relish of them, but aboud / in the division of each several crime, / acting in many ways17. humility, one of the virtues, makes a meek man dear not only to his fellow humans but to god as well, thus, discouraging pride and arrogance in man. this entire discussion, indispensably, gives rise to the question as to why these works, especially the holy qur’ân and the works of william shakespeare18 focus on man and his nature. the answer may logically be put thus: since the main theme of the afore-cited works is 10 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... human nature19, it is, therefore, natural that both of them not only discuss it exhaustively in their specific ways20, but they also come up with solutions to mitigate the effects of vices and suggestions to ripen virtues in human nature. simultaneously, another question that comes to the mind of a vigilant reader, is “why the works of william shakespeare reflect the holy qur’ân in pinpointing and curing vices?”. one may deductively say that william shakespeare, a well-read person of his day, might have read the holy qur’ân and have, therefore, borrowed ideas from it.21 in the light of the above discussion, this descriptive study, which has been unique in its intent and content, has set certain objectives which are recorded here. the present study, therefore, aims, first, at identifying the four vices i.e. sloth, wrath, envy and pride in qur’ân and then at pinpointing their treatment offered therein. next, the researchers have endeavored to highlight the four deadly vices in the four tragedies of william shakespeare and the treatment he recommends therein to them. in the next phase, the treatments offered by both the holy qur’ân and william shakespeare are compared. at the end of the study, the researchers prove the superiority of the holy qur’ân in terms of its identification of the vices and their treatment. it is not irrelevant to mention that various research studies, almost of the same nature, have so far been initiated on human nature by renowned research scholars every so often in the field; however, no keen study has ever been carried out, so to speak, on the four important vices i.e. sloth, wrath, envy and pride from the said perspective, taking it as baptism of fire. the study has been carried out mainly on the holy qur’ân and the four tragedies of william shakespeare to belabor the point. it is to be noted that research work ought to be carried out on the three vices i.e. lust, gluttony and greed in similar paper in order to complete the list. moreover, this ambitious study would have been an impossibility without the help of the qur’ânic translations and exegeses by m. m. pickthall’s22, abdullah yusâf ali23 and tafsîr-al-jalâlayn24. the eye of the storm of the present study is only the four tragedies of william shakespeare due to the restricted canvas of the present work, thus, leaving out all his other literary achievements. similarly, the main focus of this study is the holy qur’ân and not of any other religious books i.e. the holy bible, torah, etc. virtues demand efforts while vices none there is no denying the fact that human nature is inclined towards evil because committing evil is far more easier than doing good as the hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 11 latter demands on man efforts for it. however, it does not confirm that there is no way back from evil ways to goodness. if one wills, with some conscious efforts, one can regain his virtue and position himself in the list of the blessed ones. in other words, if a man wants to redeem himself from the pitfalls of vices, he has to discover sources where he can find ways and means to restore his lost fiïrâh. the sources are not far to seek for those who endeavor for them. the holy qur’ân and other works of didacticism25 like the works of william shakespeare, for instance, can prove treasure trove of divine and worldly wisdom to cure the ills of human nature. to such people, therefore, allâh (swt) gives the good tidings of exalted positions both in this world and the hereafter. these ayâhs reveal the divine promise of reward for those who put in conscious efforts for being good: but as for him who feared to stand before his lord and restrained his soul from lust, / lo! the garden will be his home26. this selection shows that those who seek allâh (swt)’s refuge against vices would surely entitle themselves to the divine grace and would, indeed, find eternal bliss at the end. the following discussion will clarify the above with more minute details. sloth is spiritual death: diligence, spiritual revival this universe or even a tiny part of it, functioning since eternity, has never seen a moment of suspension since its inception, if it had ever had any. or else, this grand mechanism with all its grandeur and splendor would have come to a permanent halt and perished before soon. in the same vein, man, a cosmos miniature in himself, will meet the same end if adopted the unadopted path. his survival depends, therefore, like that of this grand universe, on constant diligence and strife. in other words, both man and the universe, are in a state of constant flux, hardly leaving any room for laziness and sloth. it is an unchangeable law of this grand machine to excommunicate and exterminate anything, including human race, if it shows any sign of collective laziness and tardiness. moreover, the lethargy, in individual capacity, not only disrupts the law of nature, it also enrages and disconcerts allâh (swt), the creator of the entire system. he, for the same reason, warns the lethargic with strong words of moral and spiritual annihilation and enunciates severe punishment for them, both in this and the hereafter, for going against his laws of diligence and strife. in this regard, the holy qur’ân says: 12 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... “lo! the hypocrites seek to beguile allâh, but it is allâh who beguileth them. when the stand up to worship they perform it languidly (lazily) and to be seen of men, and are mindful of allâh but little”27. this set of verses strongly signifies that sloth is, no doubt, a moral and spiritual disease that affects, in return, the physical and moral performance of a man, including as important an obligation as worship. sloth, like poison, permeates the personality of a man, thus, crippling his entire life. johnson, a renowned scholar puts the notion in these telling terms: “the roots of the sin of sloth are spiritual, not physical… it causes spiritual dejection and spiritual misery”28. it can be deducted in the light of the above quotation that spiritual sloth causes physical laziness and it is also true of the reverse. as was said earlier, however, there is not a single moral or spiritual disease to which allâh (swt) has not prescribed or suggested a cure. in this particular case, diligence is suggested as a cure that counteracts sloth in human nature and teaches man the value of time and his energies. it is, by now, quite clear that the holy qur’ân never discusses a vice for the sake of nothing, but never fails to offer a solution. as was said earlier, the entire universe is in a constant flux which is evident from the holy qur’ân where allâh (swt) says: “and (he) maketh the sun and the moon, constant in their courses, to be of service unto you, and hath made of service unto you the night and the day”29. this holy verse ascertains the fact that the universe is in constant movement and abhors sluggishness of any sort – also a very strong lesson for man. man should be as diligent and active as this universe, otherwise, he will be extinct, first, spiritually and then physically. william shakespeare, one of the greatest writers of all times, in his plays, magnanimously takes human nature in its entirety, showing that it has potential both for good and evil. he loves man with all his bestiality and divinity. similarly, he not only sheds light on the dark nooks of his nature but is also concerned with his divine virtues – the characteristics that bestow on him the title of the best of all allâh (swt)’s creations. the entire corpus of william shakespeare consisting plays30, sonnets and some narrative poems, indicates that he himself was a diligent person who abhorred all those who showed laziness. the following selection, taken from othello, hints at laziness, juxtaposed with diligence, leaving the inference to the discretion of his readers: hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 13 “virtue! a fig! ’tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners: … either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills”31. this selection shows that although man is well aware of the repercussions preceding both sloth and diligence, even then, he shows strong tendency towards the former and, thus, avoids the latter. as said earlier, shakespeare takes human nature in totality and is considerate towards man despite his frail nature. if there are numerous passages in his plays where shakespeare poignantly criticizes sloth in human nature32, there are others where he praises diligence in man in order to counter sloth and convince man of physical as well as of spiritual diligence. the following pick from macbeth eulogizes diligence in these words: “the king-becoming graces, as justice, verity, temperance, stableness, bounty, perseverance (diligence), mercy, lowliness, devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, i have no relish of them…”33. these lines show that diligence, one of the virtues in human nature, must be an attribute of all and sundry, down from the laborer up to the king. though decontextualized, the lines affirm the negative side of macbeth, the speaker, who shows indifference towards virtues, enlisted in the selection. no doubt, the audience finds him the king of scotland at the end of the play not by dent of his diligence but as a result of his murdering king duncan!34 it can be concluded safely that sloth is condemned, whether in physical form like laziness or spiritual, like procrastination, both by the holy qur’ân and william shakespeare, terming it as a dismembering vice in human nature. both the works, for one, admire diligence and pronounce it as an effective cure for laziness. wrath, the destroyer: patience, the preserver: wrath, the binary opposite of patience, is one of the deadliest sins that takes many shapes in human nature, from mild irritation to 14 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... revenge and murder. though, there are moments when ager is legitimate35, yet, as a whole, it is a cardinal sin and, therefore, prohibited. merriam webster dictionary defines wrath as “a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism”36; which clearly says that wrath is both a grave psychological and moral disorder that has troubled man since his inception. as a matter of fact, human relations are her soft target which have always received the brunt of it. the holy qur’ân, well aware of the fiery nature of man, is replete with relevant passages, such as this, showing moses (a.s.), a prophet, wrathful and indignant: “and when moses returned unto his people, angry and grieved, he said: evil is that (course) which ye took after i had left. would ye hasten on the judgment of your lord? and he cast down the tablets, and he seized his brother by the head, dragging him toward him. he said: son of my mother! lo! the folk did judge me weak and almost killed me. oh, make not mine enemies to triumph over me and place me not among the evil-doers!”37. here in this verse, moses (a.s.), a prophet, a morally strong human being, is shown enraged though over the godless practices of his people. morally superior, even prophets have anger in them! there is, therefore, no contradiction over the issue that human nature is ingrained with the seed of wrath; and if the wrath in man goes on unhindered and unbridled, it ruins both the sufferer and the victim. the holy qur’ân, however, does not forget to propound a solution to any moral ailment it discusses. if human nature is blighted with anger, as indicated above, at the same time, it has the capacity for patience. mercy, compassion, sympathy, fellow-feelings and humanity, to mention but few, are the right and, hence, the effective cures for wrath. in her exhaustive work, chodron explains the ethical effects of patience in these terms: “patience has a quality of enormous honesty in it, but it also has a quality of not escalating things, allowing a lot of space for the other person to speak, for the other person to express themselves, while you don’t react, even though inside you are reacting. you let the words go and just be there”38. here in this abstract, the writer, striking at the very roots of anger, gives an insight into the causes of wrath and recommends the hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 15 ways to control it. it suggests that if every person begins to give small spaces to others, the face of the earth will be different from the one today and will be a peaceful place. similarly, the holy qur’ân teaches man, in generic terms, how to practise and observe patience at the face of anger, especially, in the times of hardships, as is said in these divine verses: “o ye who believe! seek help in stedfastness and prayer. lo! allah is with the stedfast. / and surely we shall try you with something of fear and hunger, and loss of wealth and lives and crops; but give glad tidings to the stedfast, / who say, when a misfortune striketh them: lo! we are allah’s and lo! unto him we are returning. / such are they on whom are blessings from their lord, and mercy. such are the rightly guided”39. here in this set of holy verses, allâh (swt) promises his mercy to those who show patience40 and steadfastness, particularly, in the times of hardships when people, normally, resort to complaining and lose control over their nerves. on another occasion, allâh (swt) says regarding who forgive and show patience in these terms: “and those who shun the worst of sins and indecencies and, when they are wroth, forgive,…”41 win his favor because allâh (swt) does not like the wrong-doer. thus, the lord of the universe (swt) motivates the believers to control their anger and entitle themselves to the divine kindness. william shakespeare, the perfect delineator of human nature, never failed to delve deep into the unexplored recesses of human psyche and to unearth from there the real components of man’s nature. as far anger, shakespeare realizes for sure that man is in the steely grip of evil and that good is an almost extinct stuff in this world. his plays, especially his tragedies, do not lack places and passages42 where he shows his great distaste for anger. these lines, taken from othello, testify to the fact that no matter how sophisticated man has become in terms of his appearance, he still nurtures a volcano of anger, ever ready to erupt without much effort, before reason claiming the man: villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore, be sure of it; give me the ocular proof: or by the worth of man’s eternal soul, thou hadst been better have been born a dog that answer my waked wrath”43! 16 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... these lines exude uncontrollable anger aroused by revenge which makes man act blindly. like other dramatists, shakespeare too, based his plays, specifically his great tragedies, such as hamlet, macbeth, othello and king lear, on revenge, an offshoot of wrath. being an artful playwright, he exploits anger for his renowned tragedies which were destined to be immortal in the ages to come. it goes without saying that if a moral problem is hinted at, shakespeare, in the same context, recommends a solution to it. it is a common observation that pinpointing a problem is far easier than offering it a cure. though, drama is a different form and serves different aims, yet, it does offer a solution to a problem referenced in it. anger is a common theme in shakespeare’s tragedies and has, therefore, received ample space and suggestions for its cure in them44. these lines, taken from hamlet, have adopted direct moralizing technique and got the message home effectively: “o gentle son,/upon the heat and flame of thy distemper/sprinkle cool patience”45. william shakespeare at times, like the holy qur’ân, adopts instruction method in educating the audience, evident from this example. it is relevant to mention that such passages are the rarest where the elizabethan dramatist has resorted to direct moralizing because he knew the demarcation line between art and scriptures. both the holy qurân and william shakespeare, possessing a thorough and deep knowledge of human nature, teach man to practise patience against the unappeasable and uncontrollable wrath in human nature in such a convincing and powerful manner that even the worse natured men cannot resist the message in there. that is why both the works, though varying in degree and influence, carry universal appeal, thus surpassing the barriers of time and space. envy is cured by compassion allâh (swt) has created every individual of the entire human species different from the other, not only on the basis of appearance, but also on the bases of habits, attitudes, behaviours, likes and dislikes, talents, natures, and etc. even two brothers, born of the same parents, are not alike in any respect. every individual, therefore, has something special about them, exclusively conferred upon them. if one does not believe in this ‘natural variety’ and tries to be like the others by violating the diversity, it gives rise to two problems: first, that person is on the way hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 17 to kill his talents and, ultimately, his individuality; second, it shows that that person is suffering from envy, a sin. this point can further be illustrated thus: among the children of jacob ( ), joseph (a.s) was more pleasing to their parents46. it was here that the feelings of envy began to strike roots in the hearts of joseph (a.s)’s brothers and, as a result, he and his father had to suffer immensely for a major part of their lives. the concise oxford dictionary of current english defines envy in these terms: “a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by another’s better fortune etc.”47. this definition shows that envy engenders the feelings of ill-will which only produces resentment, hatred and antagonism in the heart of the envier. explaining the sin of envy, parott and smith, in their renowned work, maintain that: “envy is an unpleasant emotional experience that is said to occur when a person perceives that they lack another’s superior quality, achievement or possession and either desires it or wishes the other lacked it”48. envy, emotions of moral sickness, functions, as can be inferred from the above definition, at two levels. first, envy or jealousy does not allow a man to be contented with what he has. second, he nurtures ill-feelings for another person which is disruptive for the overall peace of a society. when suffering from envy, the envier compares himself with others in social, financial or mental achievements. both the selections show that envy is satan’s most effective weapon against man. the holy qur’ân, well aware of the ravages of envy, explains the point thus: “he said: what hindered thee that thou didst not fall prostrate when i bade thee?(iblis) said: i am better than him. thou createdst me of fire while him thou didst create of mud”49. this pick from the holy qurân confirms that envy results from comparing oneself with others on social, financial or mental grounds. even satan, the fallen angel, suffered from envy when allâh (swt) awarded the highest rank to adam (a.s) and ordered satan to bow before him. a satanic attribute, envy destroys both the one who envies and the one envied. envy, just said, destroys both the envier and the envied and is instrumental for the peace of a society. like all other evils, the holy qur’ân, therefore, treats envy as a chief sin and offers recommendation to alleviate it by promoting compassion, instead. those having compassion prioritize others over themselves that foreshadows a world full of love 18 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... and compassion. the renowned theologist and writer, karen armstrong, in her work, explains compassion in these words: “compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the sufferings of the fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect”50. this quotation, besides many other valuable points, tells that compassion promotes justice, equity and respect among the people and so establishes the fact that envy is only defeated by compassion and nothing else. understanding the importance and its valuable role in building a peaceful and just society, the holy qur’ân teaches compassion and sympathy in these golden words: “and serve allah. ascribe no thing as partner unto him. (show) kindness unto parents, and unto near kindred, and orphans, and the needy, and unto the neighbours who is of kin (unto you) and the neighbours who is not of kin, and the fellowtraveller and the wayfarer and (the slaves) whom your hands possess. lo! allah loveth not such as are proud and boastful”51. this selection is so succinct yet comprehensive a document on love, kindness, compassion, respect, assistant and sympathy towards humanity as cure that the loathsome envy cannot hold her ground before these feelings. this holy verse and many others indicate how elevated status has been assigned to love, compassion and sympathy and to those who are endowed with these characteristics. william shakespeare, an honest-to-human nature writer, portrays human nature in all its baseness and grandeur, never missing its nuances. envy, the cardinal sin, has always taken his fancy and has provided excellent stuff for his great tragedies. othello, one of the four tragedies of william shakespeare can be cited as an example. the name of iago, playing the devil in the tragedy, has come down to the present age as an embodiment of jealousy and envy. william shakespeare, the master artist, developed excellent plots round the evils of human nature including envy and manufactured literary masterpieces par excellence! the forthcoming hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 19 selection gives expression to the same blinding emotion which reeks of nothing but envy and malice: “for that i do suspect the lusty moor hath leap’d into my seat; the though where of doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards; and nothing can or shall content my soul till i am even’d with him, wife for wife or failing so, yet that i put the moor at least into a jealousy so strong that judgment cannot cure”52. the feelings, involved in the background, are really those of jealousy because it gnaws the inwards of the speaker, thus, making him miserable. as mentioned earlier, envy not only harms the victim but also the envier. it is proved that it is a grave moral disease that jeopardizes the peace and can literally undermine the strong foundations of a society. envy is such a strong a moral issue that even the mighty like beelzebub, fell to it and were thus “for ever fallen”53. othello revolves round a thwarted love and the ensuing jealousy that eats up many great characters and leaves behind a litter of tragic waste54 on the stage. envy, one of the most lethal of all sins, is the main motif55 present in shakespearean drama as he is well aware of this side of human nature. william shakespeare, being a humanist, never rejoices in the folly and evil nature of man. he treats and discusses compassion as rigorously because he knows that envy, present in human nature, attacks the holiest and the evilest alike and with the same ease. shakespeare, like other mighty writers of all ages, is the resonant voice of the pitiful, advocating compassion and, at the same time, censuring lack of compassion in human nature56, which is clear from these lines: “death, nature! nothing could have subdu’d nature to such a lowness but his unkind daughters. is it the fashion that discarded fathers should have thus little mercy (compassion) on their flesh? judicious punishment! ’twas this flesh begot those pelican daughters”57. these powerful lines, taken from king lear, clearly indicate the ravages of unkindness and compassionlessness in human nature. this 20 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... callousness does not spare even the nearest of relations and upsets them without repair. these, along with many others lines58, recommend compassion against the devastation of envy. the holy qur’ân and shakespeare are hard on the sin of envy and suggest treating it with compassion and kindness. both carry passages which testify to the fact that if envy damages the social and spiritual life of a man, compassion maintains and sustains the same. they seem to educate their audience in their unique ways with the objective to make humans better than they really are. pride changed angels into devils; humility makes men angelic59 pride, the deadliest of all sins, has, moreover, all other evils as its progeny and, always, at its disposal. pride, deeply embedded in human nature, makes man brashly exaggerate his strengths and brazenly minimize his weaknesses; it is nothing but pride that makes and compels man hide his trivial weaknesses, glaring shortcomings and audacious sins and, in addition, makes man try to impress others by his face, race and grace. again, it is pride that makes man self-centered and selfish, callously blind to his own blunders, and yet, suspicious and critical of others’ forgivable slips. above all this, it is the same pride that makes man’s life discontented and dissatisfied yet more competitive60! as was said in the start, pride, the breeder and warden of all evils of the world, has caused destruction more than any other sin. baruch spinoza, the medieval jewish philosopher, defines it in these terms: “pride is thinking more highly of oneself than is just, out of love for oneself”61. aware of the pillages of pride, the deadliest of all moral ills, the holy qur’ân, in order to purge human nature of its noxious effects, puts bars on it in these words: “turn not thy cheek in scorn toward folk, nor walk with pertness in the land. lo! allâh loveth not each braggart boaster”62. allâh (swt), here in this particular verse and others,63 denies the proud his love as they are scornful towards his creation. all these selections, culled both from the holy qur’ân and shakespeare and other christian writers, illustrate that pride, so far the most dangerous sin, has curled up the world in its deadly and strong coils. pride is rampant in the world which is evident from the fact that the heart of man throbs and swells with it. that is why the divine scriptures, particularly the holy qur’ân, have offered, without fail, solutions and cures to the eradication of pride, snuggled in human nature. as always, the holy book first identifies the sin of pride and then offers hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 21 ways and means for its cure by following which, man can loosen himself from the uncompromising clutches of pride. here too, the divine scripture offers solution to the evil of pride in these glorious and matchless terms: “and serve allah. ascribe no thing as partner unto him. (show) kindness unto parents, and unto near kindred, and orphans, and the needy, and unto the neighbours who is of kin (unto you) and the neighbours who is not of kin, and the fellowtraveller and the wayfarer and (the slaves) whom your hands possess. lo! allah loveth not such as are proud and boastful”64. these strong words, consisting of a message regarding compassion and sympathy towards those who are somehow below in worldly status, carry brilliant instructions of how to treat others in different situations. in other words, extending any sort of kindness and sympathy to others means trampling pride and ego under one’s feet; thus, restoring oneself to the grace of allâh (swt). all the scriptures and literary masterpieces testify to the fact that man by nature is weak and is more inclined towards sins than virtues65. william shakespeare, too, like other great writers from all ages, seems to be of the same opinion that man is more evil than virtuous. owing to this, the plots of his great tragedies are either entirely based on sins like pride and jealousy or carry individual passages which provide an insight into his in-depth knowledge and understanding of human nature. pride, in light of passages gathered from his four tragedies, is a moral and psychological disorder and, therefore, can be held responsible for the bad shape of the world. it was pride that deprived beelzebub, the archangel, of the divine grace and marked his downfall. the upcoming selection from othello sheds ample light on shakespeare’s understanding of pride: “… he (king stephen) was a wight of high renown, and thou (othello) art but of low degree: tis pride that pulls the country down; then take thine auld cloak about thee”66. from this passage, it can be safely concluded that shakespeare knows that pride in human nature dismembers the very fabric and upsets the mode of human society. though never used as the sole driving force in any of his great tragedies, william shakespeare certainly knows how 22 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... and where to exploit the vice of pride and other evils in human nature for his works67. like the holy qur’ân, the works of william shakespeare endeavour to offer solution to an evil he chooses to portray in his plays. it rarely happens that a vice occurs in his plays without any solution offered to it by the great writer. as compassion counters pride in human nature, shakespeare has penned down numerous passages where he encourages and praises sympathy and compassion in human nature against pride. this passage criticizes unkindness in order to inspire man to be compassionate especially in human relations: “death, nature! nothing could have subdu’d nature to such a lowness but his unkind daughters. is it the fashion that discarded fathers should have thus little mercy (compassion) on their flesh? judicious punishment! ’twas this flesh begot those pelican daughters”68. shakespeare, in these lines, invokes god’s wrath on those who cruelly treat others. compassion, the binder of all relations, it is inferred, can work miracles. there are numerous examples69 where he praises, directly or indirectly, compassion in glorious terms. the passages and quotations here, painstakingly selected from both the works, affirm that pride is a moral disease that contaminates everything it touches. both the texts condemn the cardinal sin of vanity in human nature and offers solution to it in the form of compassion, kindness and sympathy, thus, working diligently for the promotion of these feelings in the heart of man in order to counter the deep rooted pride in human nature and defeat it. social and academic implications of the research research is not a futile activity that aims, precisely, at blackening pages of paper and at being shelved for other researches for ready yet rare reference. it is, on the contrary, an academic activity that has both academic as well as social implications and are consulted where they are needed. research, primarily, pinpoints gaps in the existing body of research work or explores new areas of investigation both at social and intellectual levels. the present work, as referred earlier, carries a broad spectrum of social as well as academic implications in the targeted spheres. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 23 human society, as a whole, suffers, off and on, at the hands of human actions, often engendered by the negativity of human nature. now the permanent solution to these evil activities can be found in divine scriptures such as the holy qur’ân and worldly works like the works of william shakespeare. these works make efforts to pinpoint these devastating evils and to offer cures to them in forms of divine virtues. with this aim in mind, the present study is conducted to collect passages on the evil sides of human nature and on their cure in such divine and worldly works i.e. the holy qur’ân and the four tragedies of william shakespeare to guide the society towards the understanding of human nature. as hinted earlier, this study also carries implications of academic nature within its womb and offers the promise that it will prove helpful for the future and budding researchers in the related area. a rare species, the present study takes, for its province, the evil of sloth, wrath, envy and pride with raised eyebrow and, also, their counterparts, like diligence, patience, compassion and humility as their cures. these omnipresent and omnipotent vices, in the first place, are innate in human nature and cannot be completely rooted out. however, with little will power and effort, one can, surely, mitigate their effects both from their individual and social life. all religious scriptures, especially the glorious qur’ân, in this regard, can be of immense help as they recommend ways how to rein them so that the society may go unharmed by their ravages. all the works and real life events show that these characteristics are permissible as long as they play as positive force in human life. they, therefore, prove beneficial for the well-being of the society. however, when these characteristics exceed their prescribed limits and pose threat to the well-being of the society. the teachings of the divine scriptures contain these vices in limits and if they exceed the prescribed limits, they recommend and suggest ways to rein them and channelize them. moreover, if one is not religious and doesn’t read scriptures yet eager to rescue themselves from the clutches of evil, they can also find solutions in great literary works like those of william shakespeare, especially, his tragedies. these works not only cure evil in human nature but nurture and nourish the virtues there and, thus, make man better and virtuous. the only thing both the holy qur’ân and the works of william shakespeare remand is a will to be good. this study is unique in conception and execution because if, on the one hand, the holy qur’ân is the main source of guidance for human beings, particularly, the muslims, on the other, william shakespeare is 24 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... revered as a great figure and his works, therefore, enjoy great readership and reverence only after the holy bible in the christian world, (in the view of some scholars). this character gives the present study a universal significance and implication. with such significance, the present study not only makes man better but also plays a substantial role in bridging the gap between east and west based on religions. the academic implications of the present study cannot be underestimated and exercise as are as far reaching and permanent impressions as the social ones. the bulk of references of the work confirms and justifies the claim that efforts done are enormous because the mere collection and selection of data from the holy qur’ân and four tragedies of william shakespeare was a herculean task let alone analyzing it. it is justly believed that the study will prove to be a repertoire of information on the topic and a foundation stone for new works in the area. though limited in execution, the present study can lead to groundbreaking academic achievements in the future. future study human nature, in itself a broad term, demanding an exhaustive study, is discussed here from a relatively narrow perspective. this present study spotlights vices in human nature and their cures recommended by the holy qur’ân and the four tragedies of william shakespeare. delimiting the topic, the research takes into account only the four important aspects of human nature i.e. sloth, wrath, envy and pride and their counterpart virtues i.e. diligence, patience, compassion and humility70. this study may be replicated addressing the other aspects i.e. lust, gluttony and greed of human nature and their counterparts i.e. chastity, temperance and love. also, a same academic endeavor be initiated on the diverse aspects of human nature present in both works. human nature, as was said before, is a vast area of academic investigation and promises immense potential for research study. similar comparative studies on human nature be commenced where the works of other writers like william wordsworth71, robert browning72, christopher marlowe73, fyodor dostoevsky74, gogol75, and etc. are needed to be compared and contrasted with the holy qur’ân. likewise, human nature can be studied from qur’ânic and biblical perspectives which can surely lead to interesting insights on the topic. last but not least, views of different psychologists on human nature be collected and structured as research study as it is basically a topic of psychology. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 25 in the end, it can be suggested that new research tools, if applied, can bear positive fruits in the present case and can prove refreshing and rewarding in terms of findings. doing so will surely work as a ground work for many an authentic research and act as an impetus for new academic undertakings. conclusion in the present day world, human nature is one of the most debated topics of discussion among scholars from every field of knowledge, included psychology, literature, religion and philosophy. the debate takes a serious yet interesting turn when it comes to the question whether human nature is good or bad. as always, here too, comes three opinions on the topic: it is good, it is bad, it is mixed. this variation is visible when discussed in all the above mentioned disciplines. however, an overwhelming majority maintains that despite his weakness, man has the potential to be good. and if read closely, every divine and worldly written endeavour testifies to this fact as their sole enterprise is to enlist ways and means and to tell man how to be good again. these works include the holy qur’ân and the four tragedies of william shakespeare, the great elizabethan playwright and uncontestable delineator of human nature. these two works take human nature in totality and treat them as such. they, therefore, not only lay bare the evil in human nature, but they also offer solutions to his base nature by calling man back to fiïrâh. if they expose the evils of lust, gluttony and greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride in man, they offer chastity, temperance, love, diligence, patience, compassion and humility as cures. however, the current paper discusses sloth, wrath, envy, and pride and their counterpart virtues i.e. diligence, patience, compassion and humility due to its restricted scope. the main part of the paper consists of detailed discussion on the vices and their counterpart virtues supported with relevant passages, painstakingly gathered from both the works. the paper endeavours to show that both works censure sloth and proposes diligence as its cure. likewise, it condemns wrath in the strongest possible terms and offers patience as its cure. also, they denounce envy as the worst of evils and, in the same breath, counters it with compassion. equally, both the holy qur’ân and the shakespearean tragedies speak ill of pride and suggest humility as its best solution. the present study has universal implications as it not only pinpoints the vices but also their cures, thus, making it quite easy for the general 26 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... reader to know and note them. the reader finds substantial and tangible evidences regarding these vices and virtues in the holy qur’ân and the tragedies of william shakespeare. the present work, therefore, carries impacts of social and academic nature. on the social level, it aims to educate the masses on vices and their remedies and to help them make better human beings. this, in turn, will make the world a better and more peaceful place. moreover, the present study will help bridge the breach between muslims and christians and mitigate the resentment between the two communities. as for academic, the present study has been a groundbreaking work on the topic and contains potentials for proving a starting point in the academic and research field. it is confidently assumed that the present study has attained such academic heights that it will prove a cornerstone in the field of comparative studies on the topic. notes and references 1. burton watson, trans., hsün tzu: basic writings (new york: columbia university press, 1963), 157. 2. the list of seven deadly sins has been adopted from christian writings as the list is clear and focused. however, it is not claimed that it is an absolute list, excluding the possibility against the existence of any other vices in human nature. there are other vices which are not included here but do exist and carry far more reaching deadly effects. for instance, betrayal, ungratefulness, etc. are not listed here but have been playing strong roles in the life of man and can, therefore, serve a topic of a separate research work of the same or even greater magnitude. 3. william shakespeare (1564 – 1616), the great elizabethan playwright, was born at stratford-on-avon, a town in warwickshire (central england). he started his dramatic career as an actor. later, he took to rewriting the existing plays, sometimes in collaboration with other dramatists like giles fletcher the elder (1549?-1611). his 37 plays can be grouped as comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies and romances. of these, hamlet, macbeth, othello and king lear are the best known tragedies. he also wrote 154 sonnets and narrative poems such as the rape of lucrece and venus and adonis. after an eventful life, starting as an obscure wretch in a county in central england, he died on 23 april, 1616 as one of the greatest depicters of human nature. so far, william shakespeare has been one of the greatest playwright who delineated human nature so precisely which is unsurpassed even today. (see for details: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 523-525). 4. abdullah yusâf ali, in his authentic translation of the holy qur’ân, defines the term fitrâh as the divine pattern on which allâh (swt) has created man. it is divine and is, therefore, unchangeable (qur’ân, 30: 30). in other words, this verse maintains that though the good nature in man is corruptible and fallible, yet its core remains unscathed, uncorrupt and unalterable. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 27 5. qur’ân, 4: 36 6. qur’ân, 25: 63 7. dante alighieri (1265 – 1321), an italian writer of the antiquity, is one of the most revered writers who exercised a mighty influence on the poets of later generations. his ambitious work, divina comedia, consisting of inferno, a description of hell, purgatorio, a description of purgatory, and paradiso, a vision of a world of beauty, light, and song, is religiously inspired and inspiring … . (see for more detailed: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 133. 147 – 148). 8. john milton (1608 -74), one of the greatest english poets, wrote mostly on religious, social and political themes during the tumultuous times called puritan age (17th c.) that won him the admiration of the generations of writers. besides many works, his famous works paradise lost (1667), paradise regained (1671) and samsom agonistes (1671), as is evident from their titles, are based on religious and classical events and figures. (see for more detailed: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 382 83). 9. john bunyan (1628 – 88) was a tinsmith by profession. however, he raised himself to priesthood on the basis of sheer talent and won huge recognition during his life which has not waned. his most celebrated work is the pilgrim’s progress (1684), an allegory is a dream of the author. his works are remarkable for his simplicity of language. (see for more detailed: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 68 – 69. 458). 10. william blake (1757 – 1827), an engraver by profession, was the most independent and the most original poet of all the romantic poets of the eighteenth century. as a child he had visions of god and the angels looking in at his windows; and as a man he thought he received visits from the souls of the great dead, moses, virgil, dante, milton and all these go into the writing of his early poetry. his later and better known volumes are songs of innocence and songs of experience reflect two widely different views of the human soul. (see for further details: william james long, english literature its history and its significance for the life of the english speaking world, (india: a.i.t.b.s publishers, 2007), 328 332). 11. hamlet, a tragedy by william shakespeare, probably produced before 603-4, relates the story of young man named hamlet who seeks vengeance on his uncle who has allegedly killed his father, the king, and married his mother, the queen. the drama ends with all the main characters killed. (see for more detailed: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 243). 12. king lear, a tragedy by william shakespeare performed in 1606, is the story of lear, king of britain, and his three daughters, goneril, regan and cordelia. lear, intending to divide his kingdom among his daughters according to their affection for him, therefore, bids them say which loves him most. goneril and regan make profession of extreme affection, and each receives one-third of the 28 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... kingdom. cordelia, self-willed, and disgusted with their hollow flattery, says she loves him according to her duty, no more nor less. infuriated with this reply, lear divides her portion between his other daughters. … the king of france accepts her without dowry. soon after, goneril and regan reveal their heartless character by grudging their father the maintenance that he had stipulated for, and finally turning him out of doors in a storm. later, lear, whom rage and ill-treatment have deprived of his wits, is conveyed to dover by the faithful kent in disguise, where cordelia receives him. at the end lear dies of grief after all his daughters die of natural and unnatural deaths. (see for more detail: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 310). 13. macbeth, a famous tragedy by william shakespeare based on the story of treason and murder of one thane (a feudal lord in anglo saxon england [prior to about 1100 ad]) macbeth, the hero of the play, is obsessed so much with greed that he satisfied it with the blood of duncan, the king of scotland. though became the king of the country, however, he had to pay dearly for it. (see for more detail: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 348. 14. othello, the moor of venice, a tragedy by william shakespeare, is a story of love, intrigues and jealousy that devours othello, the moor, desdemona and others. (see for more detail: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 42728). 15. the longman dictionary explains the epithet the bard of avon used for william shakespeare, thus: “a poetic name for william shakespeare, based on the name of the river avon at stratford, where he was born“. (quirk, randolph. “longman dictionary of contemporary english.” essex: longman dictionaries (1987). 16. william shakespeare, othello, 1968, 1.1.12-14 17. william shakespeare, macbeth, 1967, 4.3. 90 96 18. william shakespeare has written some thir+ty seven or thirty eight plays including tragedies, comedies, tragicomedies, historical plays and romances of which four great tragedies i.e. hamlet, macbeth, king lear and othello are the most famous ones. moreover, he was a poet par excellence and wrote some of the finest narrative poems like a lover’s complaint, the rape of lucrece and venus and adonis and 154 sonnets. (see for more detail: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 523-25. 19. encyclopaedia britannica defines human nature as the fundamenta dispositions and traits of humans. theories about the nature of humankind form a part of every culture. in the west, one traditional question centred on whether humans are naturally selfish and competitive (see thomas hobbes; john locke) or social and altruistic (see karl marx; émile durkheim). a broader problem is that of determining which ostensibly fundamental human dispositions and traits are natural and which are the result of some form of learning or socialization. recent research in genetics, evolutionary biology, and cultural anthropology suggests that there is a complex interaction between genetically inherited factors and hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 29 developmental and social factors. basic drives shared with other primates are related to food, sex, security, play, and social status. language use by humans is now generally recognized as genetically enabled, though the acquisition of any specific language also requires appropriate environmental stimuli. some common behavioral differences between genders (e.g., regarding aggression) also appear to have a genetic basis, as does sexual orientation. (see for more details: ward, james. “encyclopoedia britannica.” (1886)). 20. since the purposes of divine scriptures like the qur’ân and literary works are substantially different, their techniques are, therefore, accordingly varied. the former adopts techniques of allusions, narratives, direct moralizing, analogies and comparison and contrast, etc., while the latter, especially drama, on the other hand, exploits irony, narrative, plot, soliloquys, asides, etc., explained in the proceeding pages. (see for further detail: martin grey. a dictionary of literary terms (singapore: longman, 1994). 21. the researchers, in their profound work, maintain that william shakespeare must have borrowed ideas for his romance play the tempest from the holy qur’ân and the arabian nights. they, to this end, provide evidences from all the works, thus showing close and striking affinities regarding characters and events in all the three books… (a. s al-garrallah & talal, a. h. b. oriental echoes: william shakespeare’s the tempest, the quran and the arabian nights. (2009). anglogermanica online: revista electrónica periódica de filología alemana e inglesa, (7), 1-13). 22. mohammad marmaduke pickthall (1875 1936), the british muslim novelist and koranic translator, lived an eventful life before he eventually converted to islam. not yet eighteen, pickthall had sailed for port said, hoping to learn enough arabic to earn him a consular job in palestine, with introductions in jerusalem. the orient came as a revelation. there he was mesmerized by its mystery. later in life he wrote: ‘... what struck me, even in its decay and poverty, was the joyousness of that life compared with anything that i had seen in europe. the people seemed quite independent of our cares of life, our anxious clutching after wealth, our fear of death’.and then, on 29 november 1914, during a lecture on ‘islam and progress’, he took the plunge, joining countless others of his kind. from now on, his life would be lived in the light of the one god of islam. however, it was not all ideal. he had to suffer because of his conversion and, therefore, lost his current job, and rejecting other lucrative jobs, he accepted the headmastership of a boy’s school in the domains of the nizam of hyderabad, outside the authority of british india. he fight the odds as his life was now led by one thought: the koranic translation in english. from 1929 until 1931 the nizam gave him leave-of-absence to enable him to complete his koranic translation. he travelled to germany to consult with leading orientalists, and studied the groundbreaking work of nöldeke and schwally, the geschichte des qorans, to which his notes frequently refer. eventually, approved by al-azhar, the translation duly appeared, in 1930, and was hailed by the times literary supplement as ‘a great literary achievement.’ in 1935 pickthall left hyderabad. his school was flourishing, and he had forever to deny that he was the fielding of e.m. forster’s novel a passage to india. (he knew forster well, and the charge may not be 30 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... without foundation.) he handed over islamic culture to the new editor, the galician convert muhammad asad. he then returned to england, where he set up a new society for islamic work, and delivered a series of lectures. despite this new activity, however, his health was failing. he died in a cottage in the west country on may 19 1936, of coronary thrombosis, and was laid to rest in the muslim cemetery at brookwood. (see for more details: murad, aabdul hakim. “marmaduke pickthall: a brief biography.” british muslim heritage (2012). 23. ”abdullah yusuf ali was born on 4th april 1872 in surat, gujrat in western india. he was the second and younger son of yusuf ali allahbuksh, an official in surat’s police force. he was educated in bombay and england. abdullah yusuf ali is best known for his english translation of the quran which is widely circulated and used in the english-speaking muslim world. he strongly desired to bridge the gulp between the east and the west. this led him to marry a british woman, teresa mary shelder, symbolizing his desire. later, this desire, coupled with his debt to the west and his strong faith in islam, took a more serious turn that resulted in the acclaimed translation of the holy qur’ân into english. his interpretation of the qur’ân was finished between the years 1934 and 1937. according to sherif, two forces worked on the core of his personality: his devotion to islam and his troubled family life. sherif, mohammad a. searching for solace: a biography of abdullah yusuf ali, interpreter of the qur’an. no. 165. searching for solace, 1994. 24. tafsîr-al-jalâlayn (“tafsîr of the two jalals”) is a classical sunni tafsîr of the qur’ân, composed first by jalal ad-din al-maíalli in 1459 and then completed by his student jalal ad-din as-suyuti in 1505, thus its name, which means “tafsir of the two jalals”. it is recognized as one of the most popular exegeses of the qur’ân today, due to its simple style and its conciseness: it being only one volume in length. tafsîr-al-jalâlayn has been translated into many languages including english, french, bengali, urdu, persian, malay/indonesian, turkish and japanese. there are two english translations. (see for further details: http:// main.altafsir.com/al-jalalayn.asp tafsîr-al-jalâlayn‘’, altafsir.com, accessed 16 june 2017. 25. (gr. ‘teaching’) didactic literature is designed to instruct or to persuade. its purpose is not purely or primarily imaginative, though many didactic works are prodigious works of the imagination, in which the imaginative material is ordered to illustrate a particular doctrine. … milton’s paradise lost and john bunyan’s pilgrim’s progress are examples of didactic literary works, based on or inspired by the scriptures. (see for further detail: martin grey. a dictionary of literary terms (singapore: longman, 1994), 89). 26. qur’ân, 79: 40, 41 27. qur’ân, 4:142 28. d johnson. the hard-to-define deadly sin of sloth. 29. qur’ân, 14:33 30. certain writers record them as 38 plays in total. however, majority of shakespearean scholars is of the view that the number of his plays is 37 and not 38. one group even claims the number to be 39. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 31 31. shakespeare, othello, 1968: act 1, scene 3. lines 316 – 2332 shakespeare, king lear, 1952: act 3, scene 4. line 94 33. william shakespeare, macbeth, 1967: acts 4. scene 3. lines 91 – 95. 34. since dramas are dissimilar from books of morality and manipulate different dramatic techniques and devices like suspense and poetic justice, their ultimate outcome (moral) demands patience and deep thinking on the part of the audience. 35. lars wilhelmsson, the seven deadly sins, 17 36. merriam webster dictionary 37. qur’ân, 7:150 38. p. chödrön, the answer to anger & aggression is patience, (2005). 39. qur’ân, 2:153, 155, 156, 157 40. qur’ân, 3: 134 41. qur’ân, 42: 37 42. shakespeare, othello, 1968: act 4, scene 2. lines 31 -32, hamlet, 1971: act 2, scene 2. lines 585 – 90, hamlet, 1971: act 3, scene 2. lines 253 – 54, hamlet, 1971: act 3, scene 4. lines 88 – 96, hamlet 1971: act 4, scene 3. lines 65 – 66, hamlet, 1971: act 4, scene 7. line 127, king lear, 1952: act 4, scene 6. lines 184 – 89, king lear, 1952: act 2, scene 4. lines 281 84, macbeth, 1967: act 4, scene 3. lines 227 – 228 43. shakespeare, othello, 1968: act 3, scene 3. lines 356-360 44. shakespeare, othello, 1968: act 1, scene 3. lines 204, 205, hamlet, 1971: act 3, scene 1. lines 73 – 76, macbeth, 1967: act 4, scene 3. lines 91 – 97, king lear, 1952: act 2, scene 4. lines 273. 45. shakespeare, 1971: 3.4. 22 – 24 46. lang, jennifer. “encyclopedia of world biography.” reference & user services quarterly 37, no. 4 (1998): 377-378. 47. della thompson, the concise oxford dictionary, 9th ed. (us: oxford, 1995), 453. 48. wg parrott, rh smith, distinguishing the experiences of envy and jealousy (1993). 49. qur’ân, 7:12 50. karen armstrong. charter for compassion, (2009). 51. qur’ân, 4:36 52. william shakespeare, othello, 1968: act 2, scene 1. lines 286 – 93 53. j. c. suffolk, paradise lost: books i & ii. (uk: university tutorial press, 1965), 29. 54. the good being destroyed along with the bad at the resolution of the play. often played out with the unnecessary loss of life, especially of “good guy” characters. (see for more details: mceachern, claire, ed. the cambridge companion to shakespearean tragedy. cambridge university press, 2013. 19-20). 55. motif (o. fr., from lat. ‘moving’) a motif is some aspect of literature (a type of character, theme or image) which recurs frequently. encountering with tramps in lonely places is a ‘motif’ common in wordsworth’s poetry. the chasm and dome of coleridge’s ‘kubla khan’ (1816) are motifs common to many other nineteenth-century poets. (see for further detail: martin grey. a dictionary of literary terms (singapore: longman, 1994), 186). 32 sloth, wrath, envy and pride as moral disorders... 56. shakespeare, hamlet, 1971: act 2, scene 1. lines 107 -115, hamlet, 1971: act 4, scene 5. lines 17 – 20, othello, 1968: act 3, scene 3. lines 145 – 50, othello, 1968: act 3, scene 3.lines 164 – 169, king lear, 1952: act 5, scene 2. lines 55 – 57. 57. shakespeare, 1952: 3. 4. 70 – 75 58. shakespeare, othello, 1968: act 4, scene 1. lines 194, 95, macbeth, 2014: act 3, scene 4. lines 39 – 42, hamlet, 1971: act 3, scene 3. lines 43 –47 59. worthington, everett l. humility: the quiet virtue. templeton foundation press, 2007. modified the quotation according to purpose. 60. wilhelmsson, lars. “the seven deadly sins.” notes 79: 80. 61. j. neu, (1999). pride and identity. in r.c. solomon (ed. wicked pleasures: meditations on the seven “deadly” sins (51-79). 62. qur’ân, 31:18 63. qur’ân, 4:36 64. qur’ân, 4:36 65. though man was created with fitrâh no doubt, yet the entire body of work, both divine and worldly, shows that his nature is weak and frail as is alluded to by the holy qur’ân thus: allah would make the burden light for you, for man was created weak (qur’ân, 4:28). similarly, william shakespeare absolutely agrees with what the holy book says regarding the issue. he, too, proves from the entire collection of his work that he takes man a fallible creature with multiple spiritual and moral weaknesses. his famous pungent remark on gertrude, the mother of hamlet, confirms the same, though in specific terms, when he says: frailty, thy name is woman (shakespeare, 1971: 1.2.146)! both these selections, therefore, firmly confirms the notion that man by nature is weak and is inclined towards evil and vice. 66. shakespeare, othello, 1968: act 2, scene 3. lines 88 – 91 67. shakespeare, othello, 1968: act 1, scene 1. lines 12 – 16, king lear, 1952: act 3, scene 4. lines 85 – 86, othello, 1968: act 1, scene 3. lines 386 – 88. 68. shakespeare, king lear, 1952: act 3, scene 4. lines 70 – 75 69. shakespeare, othello, 968: act 4, scene 1. lines 194, 95, macbeth, 2014: act 3, scene 4. lines 39 – 42, hamlet, 1971: act 3, scene 3. lines 43 – 47 70 . like the list of deadly sins, the list of divine virtues adopted here, is also borrowed from christian texts only for the sake of convenience and not for implying that it is the only or final list of virtues. there are virtues like charity, etc. though not included in the list yet exists. 71. william wordsworth (1770 – 1850), one of the elder poets of the romantic age, other being samuel taylor coleridge and robert southey. together with coleridge, he published in 1798 lyrical ballads. his well-known works are the prelude, intimations of immortality, etc. (see for more detail: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 620-21). 72. robert browning (1812 – 89), a victorian poet, the perfect practitioner of dramatic monologue, is famous for ambiguity in his poetry. his famous works are: sordello, bell and pomegranates, dramatis personae, etc. the characteristics of his poems were a strong psychological interest in human emotions and motives hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 33 and a tendency to obscure or deliberately torturous language. his lyrics, however, are delightfully simple and musical. (see for more detail: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 66). 73. christopher marlowe (1564 – 93) a playwright and one of the university wits, was a predecessor of william shakespeare. the writer of ‘mighty lines’ was killed young in a street brawl, most probably for his atheistical opinions. however, he left behind a valuable body of works that includes, tamburlaine, tragedy of dr faustus, the jew of malta, edward ii, and others. he also wrote splendid poems. (see for more detail: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 360). 74. feodor mikhailovich dostoevsky (1821 – 81), russian novelist. his major novels are crime and punishment, the idiot, the devils, and the brothers karamzov. his novels are notable for their depth of character analysis, preoccupation with abnormal psychology, and the humor of the absurd. (see for more detail: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 154). 75. nikolai vasilevich gogol (1809 – 52), russian writer. his masterpiece is the novel dead souls (first part). it was never finished and gogol destroyed most of the second part. his other works are evenings on a farm near dikanka, the nose, the inspector general (play). (see for more detail: dorothy eagle, the concise oxford dictionary of english literature, 2nd ed. (great britain: oxford university press, 1985), 225). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020) 126-133, https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 126 realizing the neutrality of government employees from political intervention 1 gema perdana, 2 ratih lestarini 1,2 faculty of law, indonesia university, jakarta. email:gema.perdana93@gmail.com abstract: one of the demands of the reformation is the abolition of the practices of corruption, collusion and nepotism (kkn) from the government system, this is to establish and realize competent and professional state apartments towards good governance. in practice, until now power holders still use it to strengthen the interests of certain groups and elites, so that the state civil service (asn) in carrying out its duties and functions always intersects political interests. thus, there is often an abuse of power due to the intersection between political policies which results in a decrease in the quality of public services, of course this will be very detrimental to society. this study sought to find out the formulation of optimizing the function of public services by asn from political intervention. politics this research uses a normative juridical method with reference to the historical approach and statute approach. arrangements related to the neutrality of asn in the government system since the independence regime has so far been strongly influenced by the legal politics of power holders, whether to be separated in a pure or semi-legal manner. asn has a big role in determining and running the government, so that its existence has a strategic role for incumbents in maintaining power. the merit system which is expected to be able to guarantee the attitudes of asn neutrality has not been fully implemented, because the regional head as the personnel development officer (ppk) has the authority to determine the career path of the asn. so that the presence of the state civil apparatus commission (kasn) is expected to be able to supervise the implementation of asn neutrality and the implementation of the merit system in filling positions and determining career paths. keywords: keywords: government employees neutrality, political intervention, and public service 1. introduction one of the demands of the reformation is the abolition of the practices of corruption, collusion and nepotism (kkn) from the government system, this is to establish and realize competent and professional state apartments towards good governance. in practice, until now power holders still use it to strengthen the interests of certain groups and elites, so that the state civil service (asn) in carrying out its duties and functions always intersects political interests. thus, there is often an abuse of power due to the intersection between political policies which results in a decrease in the quality of public services, of course this will be very detrimental to society. this study sought to find out the formulation of optimizing the function of public services by asn from political intervention. politics this research uses a normative juridical method with reference to the historical approach and statute approach. arrangements related to the neutrality of asn in the government system since the independence regime has so far been strongly influenced by the legal politics of power holders, whether to be separated in a pure or semi-legal manner. asn has a big role in determining and running the government, so that its existence has a strategic role for incumbents in maintaining https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ mailto:gema.perdana93@gmail.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020) 126-133, https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 127 power. the merit system which is expected to be able to guarantee the attitudes of asn neutrality has not been fully implemented, because the regional head as the personnel development officer (ppk) has the authority to determine the career path of the asn. so that the presence of the state civil apparatus commission (kasn) is expected to be able to supervise the implementation of asn neutrality and the implementation of the merit system in filling positions and determining career paths. one of the issues that is of concern currently is the intervention of political interests of group against the state civil apparatus (asn). this is not excessive because asn has a high level of vulnerability to conflicts of political interests. thus, asn that is expected to have professionalism in carrying out its role and function as a good government servant, will be difficult to actulize because they must be clashed with various kinds of interests from individuals and/or groups/classes. basically, the party that is able to politicize asn could be from internal or external party, which are their leaders or other parties. this certainly have a negative impact on the performance of asn. practically, the implications that might occur if there is political intervention in the state civil apparatus by incumbent heads are position placement that is not based on competence, but rather because of the marriage system factor rather than merit system (teddy & agus, 2016; dong & keshavjee, 2016). this then becomes personal matter in character establishment of asn, so that the objectives of the asn to have independence, objectivity and transparency in public services are difficult or even cannot be achieved (tedi & sri, 2017). according to the results of a study on the field of assessment and development of the state civil apparatus commission system (kasn), the form of violations related to asn neutrality often occurs in regional head elections and/or general elections (komisi, 2017; yang & chang, 2017). for example, an incumbent who will advance in election contestation through asn uses the local government budget to conduct socialization and covert campaigns by deliberately installing billboards or banners that are used to increase the incumbent popularity. another case is that an incumbent deliberately provide social assistance to the community, which is then suspected to be used as a tool to attract sympathy from the community. within 3 years of the commencement of simultaneous regional elections from 2015 to 2018 at least in the kasn data, there are 480 complaints reports of alleged violations committed by asn related to neutrality. from the background that has been conveyed, there are several issues that is crucial to be studied deeper, which are: (1) how is the regulation of neutrality of the state civil apparatus (asn) in indonesia; and (2) how is the influence of intervention of political interests on the current neutrality of the state civil apparatus (asn). 2. literature review akhmad aulawi in his research stated that through asn management which uses a merit system and the neutrality of government employees (asn) from political elements is expected to be part of the nation's solutions. effective management through a system of merit and neutrality of government employees from political intervention is a goal that is expected to create government employees who are https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020) 126-133, https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 128 professional, neutral and free of intervention, and able to provide public services for the community (akhmad, 2015). the difference made by researchers is based on the evaluation of the enactment of law no. 5 of 2014, the merit system has not been fully able to create neutrality and professionalism of government employees. however, there is another side, namely the position of the official or head of the region who is a political party person who has an important role in staffing management, namely as an official personnel advisor (ppk). 3. method this study uses a normative juridical method with historical and statute approach since the issues are related to the history of regulation of political position and neutrality of asn from the post-independence period until the enactment of act no. 5 of 2014 concerning state civil apparatus. the specification of this study is descriptive analitic as it is expected to provide ideal thoughts related to the political position on asn neutrality so that both can function accordingly. the data used in this study are secondary data obtained from library materials, which is then arranged systematically and analyzed qualitatively to achieve the ideal format about the political position and neutrality of the asn. 4. discussion a. history of political settings and neutrality of the government employees (asn) to clarify the development of the neutrality arrangements of asn in their position as government bureaucrats, we will divide into 4 phases which are the beginning of the independence and the old order regime (1945-1965), the new order regime (1965-1998), reformation (1998-2014), and the act no. 5 of 2014 on state civil apparatus. 1. asn position at the beginning of independence and old order regime (1945-1965) in its development, the establishment of civil servants, both during liberal democracy and guided democracy, has not received special attention. this is because there is an unnatural political game from certain parties groups that creates continuous chaos in the field of staffing. parties/certain groups try to influence and attract civil servants to become members, because civil servants generally have positions or skills that affect society at large (korpri, 1988). this triggers suspicion among employees of different parties/groups in the same office/institution. to overcome this problem, a presidential regulation (perpres) no. 2 of 1959 on prohibition of membership of political parties for state officials citizens of the republic of indonesia was issued. it states on article 2 that state officials as referred to in article 1 paragraph (1) are prohibited to become members or administrators of political parties. the consequences given if someone violates these provisions are honourly dismission from state company positions and so on. as for its implementation, the government issued a policy through circular (se) of president no. 2 of 1959 on the prohibition of membership of political parties for state officials that implement state authority outside of their position. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020) 126-133, https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 129 2. asn position on the new order regime (1966-1998) during the new order regime, the government assumed that pns must be given the freedom to associate and gather in political parties. this is firmly guided by article 27 paragraph (1) of the 1945 constitution that all citizens are equal in law as well as government and are obliged to uphold the law and government with no exceptions. furthermore, referring to article 28 of the 1945 constitution, freedom of association and assembly, issue thoughts with oral and written and so on are determined by the act. with the existence of act no. 2 in 1970, the opportunity for pns to participate in the political field is very wide open. this is proven by the follow up of government through presidential regulation no. 26 of 1970 concerning pns membership in political parties and golongan karya. if we notice the act no. 3 in 1975 concerning political parties and golongan karya, at that time there were two political parties which are the united development party and the indonesian democratic party, also one functional groups, which at the time of the enactment of this act was named golongan karya. 3. asn's position on the reformation (1998-2013) the regulation on staffing is regulated by the establishment of act no. 43 of 1999 concerning changes to act no. 8 of 1974 concerning staffing principles. article 3 paragraph (2) states that "in the position and duties as referred to in paragraph (1), civil servants must be neutral from the influence of all groups and political parties and not discriminatory in providing services to the community". this has become very contrary to act no. 8 of 1974, so explicitly that pns must be neutral in carrying out his duties including neutral in the political area. as a form of affirming the neutrality of civil servants, pp no. 37 of 2004 concerning prohibition of civil servants becoming members of political parties is formed. it is stated in the dictum section that "civil servants as elements of the state apparatus must be neutral from the influence of all political parties and groups, not discriminatory in providing services to the public, and are prohibited from becoming members and/or administrators of political parties". this is clarified in the explanation section of pp no. 37 of 2004 that "solidarity, and unity of civil servants, and to be able to focus all attention, mind, and energy on the tasks assigned to him, civil servants are prohibited from becoming members and/or administrators of political parties". 4. asn's position on the regulation of act no. 5 of 2014. one of which that is different from act no. 5 of 2014 is the term state civil apparatus (asn) in which if referring to article 1 number (1) states that "state civil apparatus hereinafter abbreviated as asn is a profession for civil servants and government employees by agreements working for government agencies". therefore, the scope of this act becomes wider, not only for pns. in the dictum of act no. 5 of 2014, it states that "it is necessary to build asn that have integrity, professional, neutral and free from political intervention, clean from the practices of corruption, collusion and nepotism, and able to provide public services for the community and be able to play a role as an adhesive element of national unity based on pancasila and the 1945 constitution of the indonesian https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020) 126-133, https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 130 republic of indonesia”. act no. 5 of 2014 provides reaffirmation that asn must maintain its independence and neutrality. this can be seen in the explanation section "in an effort to maintain asn neutrality from the influence of political parties and to ensure the integrity, compatibilities and unity of the asn, and to focus all attention, mind and energy on the tasks assigned, asn is prohibited from becoming a member and/or executive political parties". b. the influence of incumbent political intervention on the neutrality of the government employees (asn) according to wilson, state administration or pns function to implement political policies; administration matters or pns are outside political studies and not in the political field. wilson's concept is supported by frank goodnow who taught that there are two main functions of government that are very different from each other, which are politics and administration. politics is the side that is obliged to form and formulate policies, while the administration relates to the implementation of the policy (warsito, 2006). based on this, then what should be meant by the definition of neutral is a condition of someone who is impartial and does not have a certain attitude to other people or certain parties, or a condition of someone who are not influenced by any party outside himself. referring to the essence of neutrality, it can be stated that the neutrality of pns is only directed to carry out their duties and functions in the administration of government, development, and service to the community, without participating in political activities (apolitic). this means that neutrality does not stand in a vacuum, but correlates with the essence of objectivity, because the essence of objectivity always leads to neutral conditions. therefore, it is clear that neutral substance is impartial. indeed, impartial conditions will be fulfilled if they are outside the system and do not provide space for interventions of interest. (tedi & agus, 2016). the desire to bring neutral bureaucracy to politics is intended to avoid abuse of power against the bureaucracy. this is because the institutions led by bureaucrats have a function in providing services to the community, not merely to to meet certain personal and/or group needs. problematic matters in political intervention to the asn occurs on the placement of positions in the bureaucracy, because asn supervisor is a public official who is closely related to politics. the strategic position in the asn law is the existence of a civil service officers officer (ppk) who has the authority to determine the appointment, removal and dismissal of officials other than key high and middle high ranking officials and functional officials of key expertise owned by the president and can be delegated to the minister, leadership government agencies, secretaries-general, governors and regents / mayors who are all public officials who are closely related to the interests of political parties. the authority possessed by ministers and regional heads becomes a super great force, because with that authority they can arrange and fill strategic positions for the benefit of their groups, although in terms of regulation there is a merit system in filling the position, but in practice there is still currently an official staffing officer who haven't done it yet. this will certainly have an impact on the https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020) 126-133, https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 131 performance of government employees who want to have high career paths, because if they are not part of the group then careers will find it difficult to develop because strategic positions will be filled by loyal groups and help their performance. the head of the legal department of the east java provincial government's staffing agency explained that the position of the official personnel development officer (ppk) by the regional head had an impact on employee performance orientation, which should have turned public services into services of superior interests. this will certainly cause harm to the community, because public services should be based on community needs rather than based on the wishes of superiors only, so that all policies can be right on target and have an impact on society. actually the regional head is justified to have a priority program, but in personnel management it should be under the control of the highest ranking official who can objectively assess career paths, so that the bureaucracy does not have to intersect and be intervened by political interests. so that it takes a big commitment from the legislators, to position public officials who come from elections and public officials who come from internal careers. ministers and regional heads who are public officials of political parties should focus on making public policy not included in the position of filling and placement of career positions. whereas in the framework of the function of filling the executive government position, the highest ranking official in the agency is the secretary general or regional secretary who is appointed because of his performance and professionalism using the merit system. so that government employees will not worry about the continuity of their careers, because the focus on providing public services and careers will be directly proportional to the achievements and performance of individual government employees, not based on compensation. 5. conclusion regulations relating to the neutrality of government employees in indonesia have historically been very dependent on the legal politics of the legislators when they were positioned to be completely neutral, half neutral or not neutral in the sense that they could participate in politics and play the role of political parties in the status of government employees. government employees because they have a strategic role, so they must be regulated with all the arrangements so that the presence of government employees is only as much as possible to carry out public service functions on behalf of the government and the state. position of staffing supervisors (ppk) from the elements of political officials must be abolished and replaced by staffing supervisors who come from internal careers namely the secretary general or regional secretary, this in order to guarantee career continuity for government employees by always emphasizing the performance and achievements of public services not reciprocation of political officials. therefore this provision in the law must be changed and adjusted to the needs. in carrying out governmental duties, development and public services, politicization is surely very detrimental. the society as the owner of sovereignty does not get the services and the rights as they should be because of the asn who https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020) 126-133, https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 132 have been exposed to the politicization of political interests. it is clearly qualified as a betrayal to the state. this is a serious concern in act no. 5 of 2014 which mentions at least five times of the term ‘neutral’ and ‘neutrality’ as something that must be attached and must exist in an asn. the attitude of monoloyalty of an asn must be given as much as possible for the benefit of the nation and state. public officials, in this case is the power holders in the bureaucracy at the central, provincial or regency/city level, should properly contribute and support the actualization of the neutral asn. even though there are asn that become member and/or political administrator who occupies certain political positions, officials must be able to place the asn as neutral, not the other way around. political intervention activities on the asn will result a negative impact and even damage the image of the asn unity and also harm the public interest. an official is expected be able to separate the interests of personal politics/groups and the interests of nations and states. references dwiyanto, a. (2015). reformasi birokrasi konstektual. yogyakarta: gadjah mada university press. dong, l., & keshavjee, k. (2016). why is information governance important for electronic healthcare systems? a canadian experience. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(5), 250-260. komisi, a. s. n. (2017). netralitas asn ditengah intervensi politik, policy brief kasn tahun 2017. korpri, j. (1998). korpri dan perkembangannya. jakarta: korpri. thoha, m. (2007). birokrasi dan politik di indonesia. jakarta: rajawali pres. thoha, m. (2008). birokrasi pemerintah indonesia di era reformasi. jakarta: prenada media group. setiyono, b. (2016). birokrasi dalam perspektif politik & administrasi. edisi ketiga. bandung: nuansa. utomo, w. (2006). administrasi publik baru indonesia: perubahan paradigma dari administrasi negara ke administrasi public. yogayakarta: pustaka pelajar. ykpi. (1984). peranan dan tugas pegawai republik indonesia dalam pembangunan. jakarta: ykpi. akhmad, a.(2015). penerapan sistem merit dalam manajemen asn dan netralitas asn dari unsur politik dalam undang-undang aparatur sipil negara, diakses pada jurnal rechts vinding available online.https://rechtsvinding.bphn.go.id/jurnal_online/dpr%20p3i%20akhmad%20aula wi%20-%20asn_rev.pdf tedi, h. s. k., & setiajeng, s. (2014). kebijakan netralitas politik pegawai negeri sipil dalam pemilukada (studi di jawa tengah). padjajaran jurnal ilmu hukum,1(3). hendra, n.(2005). lembaga, badan, dan komisi negara independen (state auxiliary agencies) di indonesia: tinjauan hukum tata negara. jurnal hukum dan pembangunan, tahun ke 3(2). soewoto, j. (2016). hak asasi manusi masalah konsep, penjabaran, pelaksanaan dan pengawasan di indonesia. makalag pada dies natalis universitas brawijaya ke 31. jurnal media hukum, 23(1). https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://rechtsvinding.bphn.go.id/jurnal_online/dpr%20p3i%20akhmad%20aulawi%20-%20asn_rev.pdf https://rechtsvinding.bphn.go.id/jurnal_online/dpr%20p3i%20akhmad%20aulawi%20-%20asn_rev.pdf hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020) 126-133, https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 133 tedi, s., & agus, k. m. (2016). menyoal makna netralitas pegawai negeri sipil dalam undang-undang nomor 5 tahun 2014 tentang aparatur sipil negara. jurnal media hukum, 23(1). sudrajat, t.(2015). netralitas pns dan masa depan demokrasi dalam pilkada serentak 2015, jurnal ilmu administrasi, 2(3). tedi, s., & sri, h. (2017). rekonstruksi hukum atas pola penanaganan asas netralitas pegawai negeri sipil. jurnal mimbar hukum ugm, 29(3). tome, a. h. (2012). reformasi birokrasi dalam rangka mewujudkan good governane ditinjau dari peraturan menteri pemberdayaan aparatur negara dan reformasi birokrasi nomor 20 tahun 2010. jurnal hukum unsrat, 3(2) yang, s. c., & chang, c. m. (2017). transnational marriage in taiwan: challenges faced and adaptation strategies adopted in experiencing a different culture. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 3(4), 142-147. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ contents * editorial * redical muslim fringe groups’ recourse to takfêr (accusing muslims of infidelity) – a critique — prof. dr. thameem ushama * islamic law vis-à-vis common law – a historical analysis in terms of rigidity and flexibility — dr. naseem razi * implications of ethno-religious conflicts and inter-group relations in nigeria on national development – a panacea from islam — dr. ‘abdus-sami‘i imam arikewuyo * book review * obituary 5 7 43 67 91 98 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: dr. ansar zahid khan published by hamdard foundation pakistan, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. telephones:36440184, 36616001-4, 36620945-49 telefax: (92-21) 36611755 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands / usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/w.e.f. 1st january, 2017 printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xxxix october-december 2016 no. 4 f:\e\islamicus\2017\no.2, 2017\06-starting pages.pmd hamdard islamicus 5 vol. xl, no. 2 editorial the hamdard islamicus is known for representing various phases of muslim civilization. it discusses problems found in the interpretation of medieval as well as modern age and seeks to attain and provide ‘historical truth’. this issue comprises four research based articles. the first article “the history of sumaniyyah (buddhism) and its doctrines in the arabic-islamic discourse – an analysis” has been contributed by prof. dr. thameem ushama and shihab hamood al-tamimi (malaysia). mr. mohammad yaseen gada (india) discusses “islamophobia and its historical roots – content, context, and consequences”. from malaysia dr. abdul haseeb ansari and dr. parveen jamal present a very important and significant matter pertaining to human health in their article “ethical and islamic perspectives of biotechnology research and human consumption of genetically modified organisms”. dr. sultan-i-rome (pakistan) has analysed and discussed “social system of swat yësufzê” (yësufza'i). this issue also includes an obituary on the sad demise of syed sharifuddin pirzada, a leading luminary of pakistan in the domain of jurisprudence and legal studies. editor-in-chief f:\e\islamicus\2021\the prophecy of green arabia.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 29 the prophecy of green arabia and the possibility of miracle: a refutation of david hume’s theory of no miracle dr. rahmah bt ahmed h. osman*, naseeb ahmed siddiqui** *faculty of islamic revealed knowledge & human science international islamic university malaysia, malaysia **ontario tech university, canada email: siddiquinaseeb@gmail.com received on: 03-12-2018 accepted on: 28-01-2021 abstract despite the claim of scientific methodology to avoid revelation as a source of knowledge, the revelation inherently is science-friendly, and for some cases, the torchbearer unveils the mysteries of this universe. hence, it can surely benefit the natural sciences particularly and humanity in general; and there are numerous apodictic connecting the revelation and the universe. however, western scholars, specifically david hume denied altogether such relation that amplifies his argument to no miracle fantasy. this article attempts to analyse one of the prophecies of prophet of islam muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), regarding an ancient event that fixed the course of earth’s behaviour and hence further aggrandizes the deep democracy working beneath the verses and natural laws. this prophecy, according to ×adêth claims to engage with the ecological changes occurred in the arabian peninsula in the ancient time and unveils that arabian peninsula will become green again with rivers flowing abundantly. it signifies that arabia was green and will return to its previous state of greenery in the future. at first, this research narrates and explains the ×adêth in detail followed by an exposition of david hume’s no miracle theory based on testimonies. the arguments have been presented to support the idea of a green arabia in the past and how it will regain its greenery by considering scientific facts so far. it became apparent that, while considering the ice and warm ages along with abundant natural resources, the ×adêth is proven. it led to the complete denial of david humes’s no miracle theory according to his definition of testimonies. therefore, this paper established two important aims, at first, it breaks the conventional framework of western scholarship that did toil attempts to alienate revelation as a source of knowledge. 30 the prophecy of green arabia... second; for the first time it brings such a ×adêth and contextualizes it with scientific facts, besides providing answers of the implications. moreover, how the revelation describes the process of earth-in-making through ecological changes of millions of years. hence, the miracle is a part of natural law. keywords: green arabia, prophecy in islam, possibility of miracle, history of arabian peninsula, global warming, david hume and miracle. 1. introduction the relation between ×adêth and history is so vital to be ignored in the islamic world. the influence of ×adêth has two distinctive features in the promotion of related sciences. at first, the recounting of ×adêth narration in terms of its strict methodology1 also inspired the study of history. secondly, the ×adêth reveals excessive information about the social, political, and religious environment of pre-islamic and post-islamic arab and the places where islam came to power. térêkh al-raqqa waman nazalaha min asíéb rasël allah øalla allah ‘alaihe wa sallam wa `l-tébi’ên `l-fuqaha wa `l-muhaddithên by abu ali muíammad sad qushayri harrani (raímat allah ‘alaih) is a typical 10th century work which describes in detail the kinds of historical events that were being recorded. the book considered the biographies of muíaddithên, alongside the extensive different branches that sprung from the study of ×adêth compilation, to fix the method of transmission and transmitted both, in strict sense. it was followed by the separate and extensive studies about the cities to elaborate the changes islam brought with it like tarêkh baghdéd and térêkh nayshapër. furthermore, detailed discussion about the early islamic history can be found in the work of al-balédhurê in kitéb al-buldén and of imam al-tabari’s (raímat allah ‘alaih) huge work of térêkh al-ùabari.2 imam abu hatim al-razi’s (raímat allah ‘alaih), al-jarí wa al-ta‘dêl brought the ×adêth criticism to devoid tradition from any fabrication3. the central nerves for the history narration remained the strict methodology of traditionalist to cite the chain of transmitters relating any events which can be seen till 10th century. however, it waned with time and al-mésudi is credited to have left the practice of citing chain of transmitters4. however, the preface above has been set to highlight the intense relation between the ×adêth, its compilation and relation to the history recount in the early studies by ignoring the end results from the event hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 31 narrated. furthermore, the authenticity of ×adêth has been well preserved and it is the second source of islamic legal law without any major revolts by few5. keeping these opening remarks at the front, let us turn to the ×adêth, regarding the prophecy of green arabia. the ×adêth is narrated in øaíêí muslim, in the book of zakét, the prophet of islam (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) says: لُ رَج الرج تى يخ َض ، ح اُل ، و يفي ثَر الم تى يك اعةُ ح وُم الس ال تق “the day of judgment will not begin until wealth increases and becomes abundant, and until a man will go out with the zakét of his wealth and will not find anyone to accept it from him, and until the land of the ‘arabs goes back to being meadows with rivers” 6 2. research objectives the implication of this ×adêth is twofold. first, it is a historical event that combines both the past and future based on testimony but contained a prophecy which according to david hume, is not rational. secondly, it explicitly suggests that the 7th century arabia was not natural state of that place. therefore, it established a well-defined question that as to how arabia changed so drastically. this article tries to answer both these historical questions in some detail. 3. problem statement david hume and the conditions of testimony david hume was the scottish enlightenment philosopher popularly known for his proposals about empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. while developing his proposals being strict empiricist, he formulated a no-miracle ideology and supported it ferociously7. the basic argument of david hume to deny the existence of any miracle is based on the testimony itself. he explained as follows: “everyone agrees that the authority of the scripture and of tradition rests wholly on the testimony of the apostles who were eye-witnesses to those miracles of our saviour by which ا دًا يقبلُه ْد أح ال يج ه ف اةِ ماِل بزك اًرا ا َوأَْنَه ُمُروًج رب وَد أرُض الع تى تع ه ، و ح من 32 the prophecy of green arabia... he proved his divine mission. so our evidence for the truth of the christian religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses, because even in the first authors of our religion the evidence was no better than that, and obviously it must lose strength in passing from them to their disciples; nobody can rest as much confidence in their testimony as in the immediate object of his senses. but weaker evidence can never destroy a stronger;and therefore, even if the doctrine of the real presence were ever so clearly revealed in scripture, it would be directly contrary to the rules of sound reasoning to give our assent to it. it contradicts our senses which tell us that the bread isn’t flesh and the wine isn’t blood·; yet both the scripture and the tradition on which the doctrine is supposed to be built have less evidential power than the senses have when they are considered merely as external evidences, that is, and are not brought home to everyone’s breast by the immediate operation of the holy spirit”8 the argument and example included by hume that discusses the history of jesus (‘alaih as-salém) and his supposed death9 by default included qur’énic explanations too. hume has based his premise by stating such histories and then explained the relation between testimony, transmitters, facts, and evidence. he says that “a wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence”10. indeed, there is no exception to this statement but it can be asked how to decide about the evidence itself ? is it not possible to imagine a wise man who found his belief on revelation? indeed there were and are. nevertheless, hume will not allow this because the problem is not the revelation but the concept of experience. hence, he contended that, “in conclusions that are based on an infallible experience, he expects the outcome with the highest degree of assurance, and regards his past experience as a full proof of the future existence of that outcome”11. furthermore, hume also believed that time wanes the experience “obviously it must lose strength in passing from them to their disciples”12. he also accepts the fallibility of the experience, “though experience is our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact, it must be admitted that this guide is not altogether infallible”13. hence, hume then argues that the most important reasoning about our belief, is derived from the human testimony. he says: “no kind of reasoning is more common or more useful even hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 33 necessary to human life than the kind derived from the testimony of men and the reports of eye-witnesses and spectators”14 hume then countered his own arguments by saying that, the connection between chains of narration has causal explanation. however, he denies on the charges that, it is man’s experience which finds a necessary connection between two interrelated things, a notion al-ghazali (raímat allah ‘alaih) raised in 12th century arguing against the philosophers accusation of necessary link between cause and effect15. therefore, by analogy hume concludes that, “there is as little necessary connection between testimony and fact as between any pair of items”16. by dislodging such natural scientific philosophy, he sets the rule for transmitters of the report. it can be listed in the following manner:  if memories were not tenacious to a certain degree.  if men didn’t commonly have an inclination to truth and a drive towards honesty.  if they were not given to shame when detected in a falsehood.  if all these were not found by experience to be qualities inherent in human nature.  we would never have the least confidence in human testimony.  the word of a man who is delirious, or is known for his falsehood and villainy, carries no weight with us.  if evidence comes from the opposition of contrary testimony.  if contrary evidence comes from the character or number of witnesses.17 hume then concludes the testimonies based on the above possible errors related to transmitters and evidence of any events and says: “we entertain asuspicion concerning any matter of fact when the witnesses contradict each other, when there are few of them or they are of a doubtful character, when they have something to gain by their testimony, when they deliver their testimony with hesitation or with over-violent confidence. many other factors like these can reduce or destroy the force of anargument derived from human testimony”18 34 the prophecy of green arabia... 4. discussion there is no doubt that the argument of hume are in no case less evident than the evidence itself and probabilities of error in reporting events exist. however, it ought to be that hume did not find cristian scholars following the strict requirement of testimonies by evaluating its every aspect to avoid the chances of any mistake. they might not have followed the rules of testimonies set by hume. nonetheless, it will be no exaggeration that, hume was not impressed by the religious environment that engulfed the christian society, which lacks even the basic concept to define the criteria for testimonies. however, it is argued, the strict requirement, which hume visualized to be reasons for inaccurate testimonies, had been well guarded while narrating ×adêth. in the introduction, it has been elucidated, though, in hurry, the painstaking work by the islamic scholars to fulfil all the requirements which hume had supposedly devised after 600-700 years later than its islamic inception. it was not devoid of transmitters personal character, piousness, and truthfulness that hume could not imagine. furthermore, islamic ×adêth scholars had more strict criterion19 than hume have thought in the 18th century. however, by showing the fallacies in testimonies that might come from the listed requirements, hume ventured one step further and relates the matter altogether on a different horizon. he says: “consider, for instance, testimony that tries to establish the truth of something extraordinary and astonishing. the value of this testimony as evidence will be greater or less in proportion as the fact that is attested to is less or more unusual”20. there are problems with this statement. firstly, if some historical events what so ever it is, has fulfilled all the requirement of hume about supposed error, then why one further engages in analyzing the ‘nature of events’ itself. it is contradictory in the flow of argument.. people can believe that event and extract from that whatever is necessary for it. hume here contradicts himself. however, his intention is not the proportion of events and testimony but, as he says: “a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 35 the case against a miracle is just because it is a miracle as complete as any argument from experience can possiblybe imagined to be”21 again, it is contradictory. hume denied the necessary connection between cause and effect on the ground that it is the experience which confirms to such regularity, hence there is the possibility of no connection between testimony and facts. surprisingly, with the same analogy, hume claimed that natural laws have been established based on experiences. it simply means that ‘necessary connection’ between cause and effect became the focal point of both agreement and disagreement. at first, alghazali (raímat allah ‘alaih) had dealt with this issue in length22. secondly, the claim that ‘firm and unalterable’ experience has proved such rigidity of natural laws depends on the proclivity of events. suppose that in the time of hume, the universe was supposed to be eternal and static, and that was the rational examination throughout the centuries without any deviation. consequently, any contrary assumption would be considered a miracle because that was being practiced. however, with edwin, hubble people acknowledged that the universe is neither eternal nor static but is created in time and expanding. hence, on the definition of hume, it should be considered a miracle. furthermore, islam also teaches that the world was created and is not static...thence, contrary to directly jumping on this conclusion, it is just the matter of ‘definition’ in a different time and environment about the miracle. it creates another question, would it be considered then , the natural law established their existence being acknowledged by the human experience? as hume says, natural laws were never found to be violating themselves. the working principle of nature cannot be authenticated by mere acknowledgment of experience because that will only establish how some events ought to happen and not how they ought to be and why. furthermore, the necessary connection is still not proven, which hume asserts for testimonies. however, there is no need to indulge in this debate as ample has already been discussed after hume23. thirdly, hume has no basis to claim such contradictory claims because he does not believe in testimonies; hence on what basis he can assert that natural laws never deviated? it is thus, the same argument of hume, once to counter miracle and secondly to prove a miracle. such an important historical ‘claim’ will be considered a miracle in itself, as hume said, “no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless it is of such a kind 36 the prophecy of green arabia... that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact that it tries to establish”24. indeed, the falsehood of hume’s claim is miraculous than the miracle.the next question can be asked that if hume denies the miracle based on testimonies and immutable natural laws, thent would hume have to say about the future events which are devoid of any testimonies due to the non-existence of events? it has only a prophecy that something is going to happen, would hume consider it a miracle or not? here hume replied: “indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and that is the only reason why they can be admitted as evidence for any revelation. if it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell future events, it would be absurd to regard any prophecy as an argument for a divine mission or authority from heaven.”25 hume included all prophecies in the definition of miracles. to clarify it more, any claim based on natural laws for future events will not be considered prophecy because due to the immutable attributes of natural laws, once known in full, events can be predicted like, weather prediction and consider the science of astrology also, which is different. to simply put, hume denies any kind of miracle in the form of prophecy from religious grounds. once defined, there are lots of miracles that have been performed and recorded in the holy qur’én and ×adêth without any error and testimonies, which hume should admit as per his requirements. nevertheless, it would not be a wise way to indulge in historical debates. this is where the significance of quoted ×adêth will become apparent. as such the quoted ×adêth is related to future as well as past, about an environment which nobody knows until a century before. if it would be established that the prophecy made in that ×adêth is true then, hume’s contention will become conjectures which can be declared void and outdated. 5. prophecy: in search of a ‘cause’ since the beginning of its creation, the earth has gone through several transformation till it reached to serve life. it has a systematic ecosystem & ecology to inhabit different types of species distinct from each other but provides to each a resting place according to capacity. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 37 nature delivers the survival of the world through cause and effect. milankovitch has created the mathematical model based on the previous scientist’s research and predicted the cycles of weather change26. the search started with the same question that if there was an ice age, what was the reason behind its rise & fall? what made the earth went to glaciation and ice sheet to grow and withdraw? w.m. davis conducted a study on the ancient beach in 1933 and found that continental ice borne melted and released huge water that ocean level increased tens of meters. he thought to found a pattern of weather change and concluded, it is necessary for the earth to get warmer for some time before it gets cooled again.27 the second theory was proposed by james croll in the mid of 19th century by publishing his mathematical calculation in the ‘philosophical magazine’ with headings‘on the physical cause of the change of climate during geological epoch’28 which was based on the gravitational pulls of the sun, moon and other planets on earth motion & orientation. croll proposed that due to such action, the earth oscillates around the sun in a cyclic form that ranged from tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. between this period, for some years the northern hemisphere got less light, which changed the pattern of trade winds and finally a self-sustaining ice-age. the theory was simply remarkable as it considered the effect of cosmic causes on the earth29. then the most debatable theory of this field which was given by milankovitch a serbian engineer came into existence. he used the work of j.a. adhemer who was the first to suggest astronomical reasons for the ice ages in his book30 ‘revolutions of the seas’ and purported his theory of glacial climate using precession with the work of james croll who used both eccentricity & precession in the account. he contented that if sunlight was very weak even in the summer on the hemisphere for some centuries, then the developed ice sheet due to amalgamation of snow will become thick with time. as it will become thick it will reflect the sun’s heat much deeper, hence in the future it will become a continental ice sheet. conceptually it deals with the slow variation of the sun’s light at some particular area. the impact of this theory was so big that during the 1940’s, the text book started discussion the ice ages.31 milankovitch’s theory had a problem because it considered increased sun light in one hemisphere but decreased in the other hemisphere. that led to denial of a worldwide ice age pattern. it was said that an ice age which was based on paleoclimate record cannot be obtained from the milankovitch theory at all.32 38 the prophecy of green arabia... the radiocarbon dating technique can identify the age by studying the radioactive isotope of carbon-14. the lake deposit of western united states was measured with this technique andthe cycle of flood & draught was calculated to be 21000 years. that was very much close to what milankovitch had calculated. in 1947 harold urey invented one more technique based on oxygen content at a seashell. it depends on the water temperature that how much amount of heavier & lighter oxygen isotopes an organism takes from the sea bed, so the ratio of o18/o16 work as the thermometer to measure age33. accordingly, emiliani traced the layers of long core and found the records of temperature variation. emiliani published a paper in 1955 that was the world’s first high-quality record on ice age temperatures34. then the chemist hans suess found the cycle of the ice age to be 40,000 years which was near to milankovitch’s calculation of 41000 years. in 1960 fossil reefs revealed how the ocean levels rise and fall. after sometime, when oceanographers managed to extract deep cores of the ocean they found the cycle reached back to 400000 years rejecting the general opinion of four ice ages according to the pleistocene epoch. according to hans suess, ice ages were dozens because of irregular rise & fall of temperature and predicted that the new ice ages will start within few thousand years35. emiliani’s theory found new support from the scientist analyzing the species foraminifera, supposing that different species live underwater according to temperature variation and found dozens of glaciation in past contrary to accepted four36. due to such a claim whole traditional field of geology received a major blow. in 1968 broecker and others took the sample from barbados which convinced all that milankovitch’s theory is the number one in this run37. then in 1972 emiliani announced that the present cycle of climate is coming to an end and the warming of the earth due to human-made greenhouse gases might overwhelm the orbital shifts, so a runaway from glaciation will occur38. it was believed by the geologist that before millions of years earth flipped its magnetic field from north to south and vice versa, which can be found in the traces of lava & layers of sediments. geologists found a way to plot the chronology of lava through radioactive isotopes of potassium which decayed very slowly. from this formula, kukla accepted that the new ice age is very near39. most of the research started when attention was made to the ice sheets of greenland, scientist saw the changes in temperature of 10 degrees by working on the isotopes of oxygen. it was concluded further from the sample of greenland & antarctic that climate change was global, influencing both hemispheres at the same time40. during 1973 the hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 39 famous core of vema 28-238 was analyzed by nicholas (nick) shackleton which reached back millions of years with the inclusion of earth magnetic field reversal proposed to be before 70000 years. now it was possible to prepare mathematical data for long time for the cycle41. the celebrated work of hays, imbrie, and shackleton were of the same opinion and able to categorise the 20,000 years of the cycle into pairs which were the same as per astronomical calculation. so till 1970 most of the scientists convinced that orbital variation was the key factor for the ice age42. in the 1980’s a project started with the aim to analyse the spectral mapping (specmap) and resulted in the same spectrum cycle calculated by the astronomical theory with hundreds of millennia precision. five individual ice cores confirmed the same cause behind the movement of ice ages and that was a shift in earth’s orbit43. after this conclusion scientists combined the pattern received from the ice core & sea bed and the striking news was related to the up & downs of the co 2 level in the atmosphere as the function of temperature increase & decrease. by 1985 a soviet union team working at vostok station in antarctica analysed the ice core which reached to the warmer period after the cold one, a complete cycle. they saw that the concentration of co 2 was much lower in the cold period than warm44. similarly, one more ice core revealed the same cycle for the gas methane (ch 4 ). the conclusion of the vostok team was depending on the concentration of greenhouse gases which directly affects the orbital shift of the earth. the rise & fall of temperature will eventually result in the rise & fall of greenhouse gases, which will further enhance their concentration with the seasons. all this was based on the sunlight. in 2012 came the final call when scientists analysed different ancient cycles and claimed that the next ice age is due within few thousands years45. scientists published the record of the antarctic which included the major role of co 2 and ch 4 . they said, in the antarctic, the concentration of co 2 since 750,000 years ranged from 180 to 280 parts per million. on the contrary, the level of co 2 in 2012 ranged to 400 ppm and going up due to human interference with the natural ecosystem. the same thing has been recorded for the gas ch 4 46. in 90’s it was predicted that if the amount of co 2 doubled in the future then there will be 30 temperature rise and that will be a disaster. the opinions of scientists changed drastically47 and they added not only the variation of earth orbit but also the geological effect like massive creation, flowing ice sheets, chemicals changed in oceans. they argued that changes in co 2 and greenhouse 40 the prophecy of green arabia... gases depend not only on geochemistry & ocean circulation but biological activity also48. following that agreement, a new class of data came from the devil hole, nevada in 1992 which analysed the layers of calcite on the desert oasis. the data revealed that the age of glacial & interglacial was same as the ice sheet. but the ice age does not follow any specific pattern and depend on the internal connection between atmospheres, ice sheets, and oceans49. the conclusion of all such extraordinary effort understanding the pattern of changes in earth geography was well described by the spencer weard: ‘‘the close of an ice age came when a shift in sunlight caused a slight rise of temperature, and that evidently raised the gas levels over the next few centuries. the greenhouse effect then slowly drove the planet’s temperature a bit higher, which drove a further rise in the gas levels... and so forth. on the other hand, when the sunlight in key latitudes weakened, that would not only bring more ice and snow, but also a shift from emission to absorption of gases, eventually causing a further fall in temperature... and so forth. confirmation came in 2012 from evidence that the lag was confined to the antarctic ice cores: after an initial temperature rise followed by evaporation of co 2 from the southern ocean, globally the rise of co 2 had preceded the rise of temperature”50 our present pattern of climate change is not matching with a single historical data, on the contrary, it is opposite to what generally happened when by nature the geography of earth changes. as spencer weard says in his book: ‘‘our addition of gases to the atmosphere was initiating the process, with the temperature rise lagging behind the rise of gas levels. emissions were climbing at a far swifter rate than anything in the pleistocene record, so the lag was measured not in centuries, but mere decades. and already by the 1980s the levels of greenhouse gases had climbed far higher than anything seen for many millions of years. even if we stopped our emissions, would feedbacks drive things higher on their own? there were disturbing signs that feedbacks were indeed kicking in. drying forests and warming seawater were getting hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 41 less efficient at taking co 2 out of the air, and methane was seen bubbling up from arctic wetland force. all through the pleistocene, the greenhouse gas feedback had turned the planet’s orbital cycles from minor climate variations to grand transformations that affected all life on the planet’’51 consequently, neither global warming is an illusion nor it is as simple to explain. indeed, it is a natural occurrence that nature repeats as per its calculation with no fixed pattern. it can be sometimes up to one hundred thousand years to complete a cycle of ice and warm period and sometimes only 40,000 years. however, one thing is clear from the above fact that greenhouse gases are the most celebrated cause for the change in the earth environment. so, a further inquiry is made by considering the greenhouse gases (mostly co 2 & ch 4 ) for environmental change which are directly dependent on astronomical effects. now, it will be analysed what happened to arabian peninsula during these patterns. 6. was arabia green ever? the arabian peninsula rests in the middle of three continental weather patterns different from each other but closely connected. this single logical question raises further inquiry that how come arabia is so barren with such great environments nearby? in april 2014 at the university of oxford, a conference was called in the name of green arabia and that two days conference was very well summed up by huw groucutt that: ‘‘we can no longer ‘draw lines through arabia’ when considering the dispersal of modern humans. the peninsula, linking africa to europe and asia, was a critical nexus in early prehistory and demands the close attention of archaeologists in years to come’’52 researchers were of the common opinion that during several periods in pleistocene, arabia was green. rick potts and adrian parker said that: ‘‘the peninsula sits at the confluence of three major global climate systems: the mediterranean westerlies, the east african 42 the prophecy of green arabia... monsoons and the indian monsoons. the latter two in particular form the potent ‘inter-tropical convergence zone’, which during interglacials shifted northwards from its present position, bringing water and life to the arabian peninsula. this was vividly demonstrated by richard jennings using global climate models”53 the discussion involved the possible connection of human movements from south africa to arabian lands and elsewhere due to the meadowlands in arabia which were best for living. the leading researcher in this zone petragila had said: ‘‘many researchers contend that modern humans did not expand beyond their african homeland until 55,000 years or so ago, moving quickly eastward around the indian ocean to reach australia within 10,000 years. but even before he spotted those artifacts in the desert, petraglia had suspected that humans left their home continent tens of thousands of years earlier and wandered slowly eastward, deep into asia. an ancient arabia that welcomed modern humans with lakes and greenery fitted neatly into these ideas: “i understood immediately that it was a stepping stone toward south asia,”54 he and his research team are currently involved in searching the evidence to establish the fact that several times arabia was green in past. indeed they have got some beautiful and convincing historical proof to support their arguments. they say that: ‘‘petraglia’s group is using satellite data to map ancient lakes and river systems, and then traversing the vast region to confirm their findings on the ground. all told, they have pinpointed more than a thousand ancient lakes that were filled with water off and on during the past few hundred thousand years, along with hundreds of artifact-filled sites. in the past 3 years, his team and others dated a handful of these sites, the earliest of them to 125,000 and 211,000 years ago. what’s still missing are bones of the people who left the artifacts, which could reveal who the peninsula’s ancient inhabitants were modern humans or extinct human relatives”55 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 43 quoting one more researcher’s conclusion about the arabian land and its history: ‘‘during the wet spells, lakes filled up, rivers ran, and a savannah like environment resembling that of today’s east africa dominated arabia. “there could be tens of thousands of former lakes and wetlands” in arabia during the wet periods, says paul breeze of king’s college london, a hydrologist who has already identified 1300 paleolake and wetland sites in just 10% of the peninsula”56 figureure 1 shows the abundance of lakes and greenery in the ancient arabia. some findings support the increase in rainfall and vegetation in arabian lands which were the most suitable living place for humans crossing arabia from africa starting with the neolithic revolution57. the living example is the dhofar mountain of oman which is green like anything with a waterfall as shown in figure 2. figure 1: arabia’s ancient rivers and lakes58 it can be seen from figures 1 & 2, that rivers and green lands were flourished in great length especially the nearshore area of the red sea. arabian peninsula is the largest in the world which extends from yemen, oman, qatar, bahrain, saudi arabia, united arab emirates, and southern parts of iraq & jordan. 44 the prophecy of green arabia... according to the author, there is another important evidence that arabia could have been green & meadow and that is the existence of vast amount of fossil fuel. the theory behind fossil fuel generation goes back to thousands of years when plants & animals were buried under the ocean or land. they already contained the carbon content and due to high pressure & temperature below the land, finally converted to fossile fuels according to the type of biomass. now, logically a land can’t produce oil and gas which was never touched by the small amount of those needed raw material, plants, animals, and oceans. they are dependent on each other.without ocean, animal and plants can’t grow in such a huge amount which can produce the oil in such vast quantity. every action has its reaction, so for such a enormous effect in the form of fossil fuel must demand a greater amount of cause also. because such a huge amount of fuel cannot travel to arabian peninsula beneath the land or water from anywhere else. hence, it was a question for researchers that how in the middle of three different monsoon arabia became so barren? indeed it is all about nature and its pattern throughout the earth’s history. some amazing information about arabia have been revealed and the future will see the others soon. figure 2: a waterfall in the dhofar mountains of oman (credit: hanne & jens eriksen / npl) 7. the new proposal as per the above discussion that from the beginning earth’s ecological system got a balance between atmosphere and land. for this reason, the content of the atmospheric gases remains unaffected by the hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 45 weather patterns. there is no indication that anything changed inside the earth due to the changes in the content of the gases because nothing was there which could have been contributed to the increase of gases & other catalysts. whatever transformations earth had were solely based on the extra-terrestrial effect, mainly due to its orbital movement, shape, and eccentricity59. this view has been supported by many scientists and is still valid. it is a fundamental law of science that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change the form. hence, if we take the periods of prehistory or say before 100,000 years then to absorb the effect these catalysts would have been too long for the earth. after annihilating the effect, the earth changed its behaviour and pattern through which it sustained the life. these patterns are not so direct and straightforward to affect the ecological system. they also depend on the subpattern to transfer their effect further. through this process, the effect of the change in the atmosphere reaches the bottom of oceans, ice sheets and who knows where? the natural pattern is so connected with the deepest part of the earth that each cause takes thousands of years to become practical. to see our understanding, let us analyse the ocean carbon cycle. the ocean is called a carbon sink because it absorbs more amount of carbon than it gives back to the atmosphere. then carbon dissolves on the surface of the water but some amount remains as dissolved gas and other changed to other forms. due to photosynthesis, marine plants turned carbon into organic matter. shells and skeltons use carbon to form calcium carbonate. other than this route ocean receives carbon from the atmosphere through biological & chemical processes also.60 the amount of time needed for carbon to reach its final destination is not a short course but a lengthy route. until the received energy reaches its last bifurcation point no one can say energy is conserved. after settlement to the zero points, it is not capable to make any direct effect until it exceeds its range. it has taken thousands of years for each cycle to complete and then exceeds its absorbing capacity. it is since there were no other forces to fast this speed of cause and effect of earth’s ecological system. that’s why the duration of ice ages and warm ages were described as thousands of years based on several facts. moreover, it is a fact that when the earth has received heat from the sun, its temperature increased slowly and varies according to location. also, it was concluded that the concentration of co 2 & ch 4 increased proportionally with temperature, indeed that duration was so large. 46 the prophecy of green arabia... however, nowadays, there is no disagreement on this fact which we have seen earlier in regards to increase of co 2 & ch 4 . the basic point is that when greenhouse gases like co 2 , ch 4 and water vapour to name a few, are assembled in the atmosphere, they protect all infrared radiation heat going outside the earth, maintaining the temperature balance inside the earth. if not, then earth’s atmosphere could have been cold. because the heat of the sun can vapourise the ocean water to again convert it into rain but due to earth geography ice are already there and according to time ice area will increase so the cold, and by the slow process, it will cover the entire earth with self-generated cold with its personal further effects. it will happen if one negates the shield-like atmosphere responsible for controlling the earth’s temperature made of greenhouse gases. that is why the huge difference exists between venus & mercury temperature as science predicts to be because of thick greenhouse gases environment61. the major consideration of this greenhouse effect depends on the gases other than water vapour because they are natural patterns nobody can change their concentration until it got affected by the connected effects. no one can raise the ocean water level out of nothing or can absorb more heat from the sun which the earth usually gets as per its orbital position. it is a cycle, the more the water vapourises, the more the concentration of water vapour cycle will work faster than what its nature is. for this to happen, some cause must be there to accelerate this movement. based on this logical interpretation, co 2 & ch 4 were declared as the most important catalyst to change the pattern of the earth and the main reason for warming the earth. the above proposal is based on the fact that these gases can be created by humans and requires no direct effort from the outside earth. it is evident that whatever fossil fuel one uses, contains a certain amount of these gases. as per record, coal is responsible for the 43% co 2 emission, 34% is produced by oil, and 18% by natural gas. in 2011 alone due to fossil fuel 33.2 billion of co 2 was emitted into the atmosphere62. if the logical understanding of the earth atmosphere is correct then it is certainly rational that due to fossil fuels burning the concentration of co 2 & ch 4 has increased at faster rate compared to the previous pattern. and this is simply because now we have an extra players who is contributing to enhance the amount of these gases. every industry does agree that they are emitting gases with fine accuracy. if it is true then these gases will certainly increase the atmospheric temperature which will fast the cycle of vapourisation & rain. at this junction of time, water vapour will not get time to settle down as per their natural pattern hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 47 & law, on the contrary, they will increase and will join the co 2 and other greenhouse gases to further increase the temperature. one thing is clear, the recorded pattern of palaeocene age of temperature’s up & downs is changed in the positive side, it means they are changing faster than ever before. it cannot go faster if it does not get extra support from somewhere and, as discussed above, this support has been provided by fossil fuel which suddenly increased the concentration of greenhouse gases at this junction of history. it is a fact whenever pattern changes drastic modification occurs on the earth, the barren land become meadow & green and green land become barren, the ocean becomes desert and the desert becomes oceans. but from now onwards these changes will not take thousands of years because the creator of these patterns has already planned to cease the function of this nature, so he created the catalyst that can accelerate the time consumption and complete the pending task before the total full stop of the universe. the prophecy of meadow and green arabia is the one part of that promise and plan which will come true soon, and this global faster warming will be the basis of that change. this universe works on the fundamental laws of cause & effect, so if there is some effect there must be a cause behind it. this inquiry revealed the cause behind the changes in arabia and the fulfillment of prophecy. returning to the argument of hume that prophecy is a part of the revealation and must be considered within the definition of a miracle, has been positively met with reality. but surprisingly, no deviation from the natural law miraculously converted the whole ecological system of the earth. in establishing his arguments, hume has taken the example of legendary actors who were supposed to change the course of the earth. but hume was not aware of the work of ibn khaldun (raímat allah ‘alaih) who already criticized such type of legendry act as not supporting the events condition63. in absence of historical facts, hume was unable to comprehend the concept of the miracle. if, as this article tries to show, the prophecy of green arabia is correct, which is the case, then the arguments of hume can be considered incoherent. 8. conclusion this article brought a novel idea to deal with the religious prophecy from historical perspective. as per the prophecy, arabia will become a meadow and the rivers will flow in it, which was its previous condition. 48 the prophecy of green arabia... such extraordinary prophecy was investigated in two senses. first, in the historical context of the miracle debate initiated by david hume, who denied any kind of miracle based onsupposed errors in testimonies and acceptance of natural law as immutable. apart from including the past reports regarding the miracles, hume also included the prophecies in the definition of a miracle, which lessened the strength of his argument, and proved him wrong. secondly, it seeks to find out why such strange phenomena had arabia been through and how it will happen again. after analyzing the scientific records on the supposed ice and warm age, it was established that due to changes in greenhouse gases, such transformations happened in history and will again happen in near future but taking considerably less time than previous. once established, hume’s claim regarding the negation of miracle was proved wrong on the basis of testimonies that are authentic in the case of ×adêth narration and the evidence sprung in support of green arabia. therefore, it is not all the time reason rules, but all the time revelation does. notes and references 1. abë ‘amr ‘uthmén ibn ‘abd il-raímén øaléí al-dên al-kurdê al-shahrazërê ibnsalah, an introduction to the science of the ×adêth/: kitab ma‘rifat anwa ilm al×adêth, trans. eerik dickinson (qatar: garnet publishing, 2005), 384. 2. abu jafar muhammad bin jarir al-tabari , history of al-tabari . 1, the: general introduction and from the creation to the flood, trans. franz rosenthal (suny press, 1985), 434, muhammad kazim rahmati, “tradition and history,” in hadith: an entry from encyclopaedia of the world of islam, ed. gholamali haddad adel, hassan taromi-rad, and mohammad jafar elmi (kuala lumpur: islamic book trust, 2018), 69-77. 3. eerik. dickinson, the development of early sunnite hadith criticism/: the taqdima of ibn abê hétim al-rézê (netherland: brill, 2001), 150. 4. rahmati, “tradition,” 73. 5. muíammad ibn idris al-shéfi‘i, al-shéfi‘i’s al-riséla: treatise on the foundations of islamic jurisprudence, trans. majid khadduri (kuala lumpur: islamic texts society, 1987), 392. 6. muslim ibn al-hajjaj, sahih muslim (×adêth 2339), trans. nasiruddin al-khattab (riyadh: darrulsalam publication, 2007), 56. this information is also recorded in musnad of imam ahmed, 2-370. 7. norman kemp smith and don garrett, the philosophy of david hume: with a new introduction (uk: palgrave macmillan, 2005), 608. and also norman kemp smith, the philosophy of david hume: a critical study of its origins and central doctrines (uk: palgrave macmillan, 2005), 568. 8. david hume, enquiry concerning human understanding (oxford: jonathan bennett, 2017), 55. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 49 9. ahmad raza khan, kanz ul iman/: the treasure of faith, trans. muhammad aqib farid qadri (uk: ahlus sunnah publications, 2010), 158-159. 10. hume, enquiry, 56. 11. hume, enquiry, 56 12. hume, enquiry, 55. 13. hume, enquiry, 56 14. hume, enquiry, 57. 15. abu hamid al-ghazali, the incoherence of the philosophers, trans. michael e marmura (usa:brigham young university islamic translation series, 2000), 301, http://library.perdana.org.my/bk_scan/297.261-gha.pdf. 16. hume, enquiry, 57. 17. hume, enquiry, 57. 18. hume, enquiry, 57 19. iftikhar zaman, “the science of ‘rijél’ as a method in the study of hadiths,” journal of islamic studies 5, no. 2 (january 1994): 1–34., https://www.jstor.org/stable/26196671?seq=1. 20. hume, enquiry, 57. 21. hume, enquiry, 79 22. griffel, frank “al-ghazali, on causality and miracle: the 17th discussion of the incoherence” the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.ed. edward n. zalta (summer 2020), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/al-ghazali 23. daniel athearn, scientific nihilism/: on the loss and recovery of physical explanation (new york: state university of new york press, 1994), 57-61. 24. hume, enquiry, 59. 25. hume, enquiry, 68. 26. a. berger, “milankovitch theory and climate,” reviews of geophysics 26, no. 4 (november: 1988): 624-657., https://doi.org/10.1029/rg026i004p00624. 27. spencer r. weart, the discovery of global warming (cambridge: harvard university press, 2008), 240. 28. james croll, “on the physical cause of the change of climate during geological epochs,” the london, edinburgh, and dublin philosophical magazine and journal of science 28, no. 187 (august 1864): 121–37., https://doi.org/10.1080/14786446408643733. 29. james rodger fleming, “james croll in context: the encounter between climate dynamics and geology in the second half of the nineteenth century 1,” history of meteorology 3 (2006): 43-53, http://www.meteohistory.org/2006historyofmeteorology3/3fleming_croll.pdf. 30. maureen e. and raymo & peter huybers, “unlocking the mysteries of the ice ages,” nature 451 (2008): 284–85. 31. u.s. geological survey, a response to ‘milankovitch theory viewed from devils hole by. j. imbrie, a.c. mix and d.g. martinson, open-file report, u.s. geological survey. denver, 1993. https://scholar.google.comscholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2c5&q=a+response+to+%6 0milankovitch+theory+viewed+from+devils+hole&btng=. 32. michael d. petraglia, huw groucutt, ash parton, and abdullah alsharekh, 50 the prophecy of green arabia... “green arabia: human prehistory at the crossroad,” quaternary international 382 (july 2015): 1–7. 33. harold c. urey, “the thermodynamic properties of isotopic substances,” journal of the chemical society (january 1947): 562-81., https://doi.org/10.1039/jr9470000562. 34. cesare emiliani, “pleistocene temperatures,” the journal of geology 63, no. 6 (november 1955): 538–78., https://doi.org/10.1086/626295. 35. urey, “thermodynamic properties,” 562-81. 36. emiliani, “pleistocene temperatures.” 538-78 37. wallace s. broecker et wallace s. broecker, david l. thurber, john goddard, teh-lung ku, r. k. matthews and kenneth j. mesolella, “milankovitch hypothesis supported by precise dating of coral reefs and deep-sea sediments,” science 159, no. 3812 (january 1968): 297–300, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.159.3812.297. 38. cesare emiliani, “quaternary paleotemperatures and the duration of the hightemperature intervals,” science 178, no.4059 (october 1972): 398–401, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.178.4059.398. 39. george j. kukla and alois kocí, “end of the last interglacial in the loess record,” quaternary research 2, no.3 (november 1972): 374–83, https://doi.org/10.1016/0033-5894(72)90061-0. 40. c. c. langway, h. oeschger, and w. dansgaard, “the greenland ice sheet program in perspective,” in greenland ice core: geophysics, geochemistry, and the environment, ed. c. c. langway, h. oeschger, and w. dansgaard (washington: american geophysical union (agu), 1985), 1–8 41. john imbrie, “astronomical theory of the pleistocene ice ages: a brief historical review,” icarus 50, no. 2-3 (may 1982): 408–22., https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(82)90132-4. 42. j. d. hays, john imbrie, and n. j. shackleton, “variations in the earth’s orbit: pacemaker of the ice ages,” science 194, no. 4270 (december 1976):1121-1132, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.194.4270.1121. 43. j imbrie et al., “on the structure and origin of major glaciation cycles 1. linear responses to milankovitch forcing,” paleoceanography 7, no. 6 (december 1992):701-738, http://ceoas.oregonstate.edu/people/files/miximbrie_etal_1992_paleoc_milankovi tch_linear.pdf. 44. gabrielle walker, “the ice man ,” new scientist, january 29, 2000, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16522234-700-the-ice-man/ 45. see chapter first, wallace s. broecker and robert. kunzig, fixing climate/: what past climate changes reveal about the current threat—and how to counter it (new york: hill and wang, 2009), 253. 46. nicklas g. pisias and nicholas j. shackleton, “modelling the global climate response to orbital forcing and atmospheric carbon dioxide changes,” nature 310, no.5980 (may 1984): 757–59., https://doi.org/10.1038/310757a0. 47. e. j. rohling et al., “making sense of palaeoclimate sensitivity,” nature 491, no. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 51 7426 (may 2012): 683–91., https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11574. 48. peter u. clark, richard b. alley, and david pollard, “northern hemisphere icesheet influences on global climate change,” science 286, no.5442 (november 1999): 1104-1111., https://doi.org/10.1126/science.286.5442.1104. 49. gina moseley et al., “reconciliation of the devils hole climate record with orbital forcing,” science 351, no. 6269 (january 2016): 165–68., https://graz.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/reconciliation-of-the-devils-holeclimate-record-with-orbital-for. 50. spencer weart, “past cycles: ice age speculations,” last modified, january 2020, http://www.aip.org/history/climate. january 2020, https://history.aip.org/climate/ pdf/cycles.pdf. 51. weart, “past cycles: ice age speculations,”. 52. joe roe, “review of green arabia: human prehistory at the crossroads of continents,” papers from the institute of archaeology 24, no.1 (april 2014):17., doi:10.5334/pia.458.. 53. roe, “review,’’ 1. 54. andrew lawler, “in search of green arabia.,” science 345, no.6200 (august 2014): 994–97., https://doi.org/10.1126/science.345.6200.994. 55. lawler, “in search,” 996. 56. lawler, “in search,” 996 57. ash parton et al., , “alluvial fan records from southeast arabia reveal multiple windows for human dispersal,” geology 43, no. 4 (april 2015):295-298, https:/ /doi.org/10.1130/g36401.1. 58. lawler, “in search of,” 996. 59. hays, imbrie, and shackleton, “variations.” 1121-1132 60. shuang-jing wang, long cao, and na li, “responses of the ocean carbon cycle to climate change: results from an earth system climate model simulation,” advances in climate change research 5, no. 3 (september 2014): 123–30, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accre.2014.11.004. 61. john d fix, astronomy journey to the cosmic frontier (new york: mcgrawhill education, 2010), 768. 62. c le qú eréer´eré et al., “the global carbon budget 1959-2011 earth system science data the global carbon budget 1959-2011,” earth syst. sci. data discuss 5, no.1 (april 2012): 1107–57, https://doi.org/10.5194/essdd-5-1107-2012. 63. abë zayd ‘abd ar-raímén ibn muíammad ibn khaldën, the muqaddimah/: an introduction to history, trans. franz rosenthal and n.j. dawood (new jersey: princeton university press, 1967), 512. 01) communication (wm).pmd hamdard islamicus 7 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 communication ethics from the qur’ónic perspective an analysis of seleced contemporary exegeses dr. sohirin muhammad solihin and dr. noor mohammad osmani department of qur’an and sunnah studies, inernational islamic univesity, malaysia. e-mail: sohirin mohammad solihin [sohirin@iium.edu.my] this research studies the ethics of dialogue and communication with others as embodied in the qur’én based on exegesis written by contemporary exegetes. it concentrates on verses which highlight the most approripate manner to deal with others. the ethics of dialogue and communication comprises the whole aspect of sociological context which could be actualized in the form of concept of knowledge for human benefits. in view of the lack of proficiency in arabic, the most appropriate and convenient way of understanding the qur’én is to look into the views of contemporary exegetes. ethical guidelines in the qur’én surveyed in this study may help the readers to be sensitized on handling relationship problems, religious and communal tension which have plagued our world today. keywords: dialogue, qur’én, contemporary exegetes, manner and ethical guidelines. introduction the qur’én which represents the main source of guidance within the domain of the sharê‘ah delineates different aspects of ethics for communication and relation in order to maintain peace and justice. god created humanity with different tribes, races and nation to make collaborative effort to secure progress and goodness. due to cultural and religious influence, people may possess different styles of communication hamdard islamicus 8 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 in the society. the qur’én lays down the ethical principles of communication with the sole attempt of creating a harmonious life and common understanding. the message greatly emphasizes significance of human relations and communication through observance of ethics especially in a society which includes multi-cultural and religious beliefs. the objective of this study is to present the ethics of communication in the qur’én at various levels starting from individual, family, inter-religious as well as the communication with a superior in the community (i.e. governmental leader). it also analyzes the importance of applying the qur’énic guidance on communication ethic in human interaction. the problem is that the occurrence of tension and conflict in the society is mostly due to harshness of words uttered by an individual while dealing with others. since the qur’én is the book of guidance for entire humanity, then, it will be much advantageous to analyze the verses related to the ethic of dialogue and communication as an alternative of giving solution on the problems that human beings may face during interaction with others. in addition, there is scarcity of work on the ethic of communication specially of contemporary exegesis. in this study, we employ the method of deductive analysis from the views of contemporary muslim scholars in the field of qur’énic exegesis which emerged in the twentieth century as it mostly elucidates the verses with the use of sociological approaches instead of focusing on literal understanding toward the words of the qur’én. while scope of the study is limited in analyzing interpretation of verses related to the ethics of communication in individual, family, inter-religious discussion and communication with governmental leaders or rulers, the significance of the study lies on how humanity should take benefit from the qur’énic guidance related to the ethics of communication to maintain peace in the family, inter-religious community as well as dealing with different levels of superiors. etymological meaning there are different terms in the qur’én which convey the meaning what a dialogue and communication is about. noted among them are: al-íiwér, and al-mujédalah and al-mahéjah. in fact a dialogue or an argumentation may take place to clarify the blurring issue which may hamdard islamicus 9 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 cause confusion and misunderstanding. the example can be referred to the following verse: allah has indeed heard (and accepted) the statement of the woman who pleads with you concerning her husband and carries her complaint (in prayer) to allah: and allah (always) hears the arguments between both sides among you: for allah hears and sees (all things).1 the quotation below is another example of a dialogue mentioned in the qur’én: (abundant) was the produce this man had he said to his companion, in the course of a mutual argument: “more wealth have i than you, and more honour and power in (my following of) men.”2 the verse deals with the attitude of an ungrateful person whom god granted abundant of bounties. he felt superior to look down upon his colleague who got less fortunate in terms of social and economic status although he possessed strong faith and humbleness of character. the rich man proudly communicated to him with regard to his beautiful garden with water flowing underneath by saying, ‘i have got more wealth than you’. even he claimed that no one could compete with him in terms of dignity and power. the communication between the two reflect the level of belief of the less fortunate person and superiority of the rich who thought his wealth will never perish and even his residence excelled the garden of paradise.3 after listening to the speech from the rich man in the above verse, the listener who is committed to truth and justice responded by saying: “do you deny him who created you out of dust, then out of a sperm-drop, then fashioned you into a man”?4 in fact the one who had been granted with bounties should offer gratefulness to god who created humanity with good physical appearance and no one should deny the truth of the message rather to devote the whole activities to worship him.5 the dialogue and communication that took place between the two individuals in the above evidences can be interpreted as applicable for hamdard islamicus 10 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 resolving inter-personal and inter-group issues. in most cases, a dialogue serves as a medium for narrowing gap between people of different background, religion, culture, status quo, ideology, etc. moreover, a dialogue can be used as a means to arrive at a mutual consensus among disputing parties in a society. based on ethical conduct, during the dialogue or communication each individual must have the sense of tolerance and readiness to accept the truth especially when the other party convinces him with the use of cogent argument.6 sha‘réwê maintains that the ethics of dialogue and communication need to be worked out in an intellectual and scientific manner for the use of presenting and conveying ideas.7 another term for dialogue in the qur’én is the word al-jidél (lit. disputation). it means argumentation between two parties who endeavour to convince the other on a certain thing.8 mostly, al-jidél (argumentation) occurs due to the existing misunderstanding and enmity between the parties involved. a person who is involved in arguing with others is characterized with recalcitrance and stubbornness.9 the example can be referred to following verse which says: allah has indeed heard (and accepted) the statement of the woman who pleads with thee concerning her husband and carries her complaint (in prayer) to allah: and allah (always) hears the arguments between both sides among you: for allah hears and sees (all things).10 the above verse discusses the disagreement between husband and wife due to the existence of a misunderstanding. the ethics of argumentation is also visible in that verse whereby a husband approached the prophet (œ) regarding the matter which was conducted flamboyantly with the use of arabic expression (taíéwurakumé) (your dialogue) as if there was no enmity. another usual term is al-jidél which aims at defending the truth or negating the skepticism.11 that word is also used in the qur’én pertaining to the dialogue and relation which the muslims had with people of the book (jews and christians) as the verse says, and dispute ye not with the people of the book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong (and injury): but say, “we believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to hamdard islamicus 11 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 you; our allah and your allah is one; and it is to him we bow (in islam)”.12 apparently the use of the word al-jidél is also used to confirm the truth of the message given to the prophet (œ).13 at many times, followers of religion can be subjected to some forms of dialogues with others from other religion. those who believe (in the qur’én), those who follow the jewish (scriptures), and the sabians, christians, magians, and polytheists, allah will judge between them on the day of judgment: for allah is witness of all things.14 the above verse indicates the use of ethics of dialogue even when interacting with the people of the book, the jews and christians. apart from that there are also sabians who worship stars and magians who worship the fire. polytheists basically believe in god as the creator of the universe but they associate him with others.15 religious dialogue (íiwér al-dênê), is a mechanism to seek an understanding between people of different faiths. it is quite interesting to note the importance of a dialogue and relation across faithful boundaries as defined by hans kung in which he said, ‘there can be no peace among the nations when there is no peace among the religions. there can be no peace among religions without dialogue between the religions.16 then, one of the purposes of the dialogue is to achieve a peaceful and harmonious life among adherents of all religions. dialogue and communication across faithful boundaries the ethics and principles of dialogue and communication with other religious adherents should observe the following rules: first, we should agree on the diversity of religious tradition,17 which is initially to conduct a dialogue to bridge the differences in religious doctrines. this is in line with the purpose of creation within the diversity of race and nations as stated in the following verse: mankind was one single nation, and allah sent messengers with glad tidings and warnings; and with them he sent the book in truth, to judge between people in matters wherein they differed; but the hamdard islamicus 12 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 people of the book, after the clear signs came to them, did not differ among themselves, except through selfish contumacy. allah by his grace guided the believers to the truth, concerning that wherein they differed. for allah guides whom he wills to the straight path.18 the verse ensures that humanity consists of different ethnical backgrounds and nationhoods. they also represent a single family of adam and eve ( ) and the purpose behind the creation of diversity of races and faithful affiliation is to come out with common understanding and cooperation. there should not be any claim of superiority and undermining positon of others whatever the origin as the judgment on status of dignity is based on god’s consciousness.19 secondly, it should be conducted sincerely for introducing the uniqueness of the message. thirdly, we should believe that the truth must prevail and we should not compromise in matters related to belief. prophet muíammad (œ) was given clear guidance on how to deal with people. the message given to him emphasizes on the aspects of fairness and justice: o you who believe! stand out firmly for allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. be just: that is next to piety: and fear allah. for allah is well-acquainted with all that you do.20 god requires all believers to stand firmly in the defense of justice regardless of religious, racial and ideological beliefs. a person who does injustice in matter of judgment will not be reckoned as a believer although he may perform daily ritual services. close relations to others such as family and friends should not become a hindrance for the establishment of justice.21 fourth, dialogue and communication must be conducted in a good manner. one of the ways is that during a dialogue no one should undermine the doctrine of a particular religion. this guiding principle can be seen clearly in the verse below: and dispute you not with the people of the book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of hamdard islamicus 13 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 them who inflict wrong (and injury): but say, “we believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; our god and your god is one; and it is to him we have submitted.22 the purpose of dialogue and communication explained in the qur’én is to collaborate on certain important matters. this can be seen in the verse taken from the sërah ól-i ‘imrén: say: o people of the book come to common terms as between us and you: that we worship none but allah; that we associate no partners with him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, lords and patrons other than allah. then if they turn away, say: bear witness that we are muslims.23 sha‘réwê holds that whenever someone involves in a dialogue, he should avoid using harsh words which could annoy the feelings of others. the purpose of a dialogue, he holds, is to urge people on the things which are positive. it can be effective whenever a person resorts to the use of wisdom. god laid down ethics of dialogue and communication with the sole aim of taking out a person from disbelieve into belief and from the opposing truth to conviction. this could be only achieved through kindness and mercy. such manner can also be referred to in the verse which says: invite (all) to the way of thy lord with wisdom and fair preaching; and argue with them in a way that is better. truly, your lord knows best who has gone astray from his path, and he is the best aware of those who are guided.24 he clarifies further that the dialogue and communication should be conducted based on the educational level and belief of a person. it could also be done even with the atheists (al-mulíidën) and those who believe in god but, yet, they associate him with others (mushriks). however, the dialogue and communication with people of the book must be handled with utmost care as they believe in god as the creator of the universe and also believe in the messages given to the previous hamdard islamicus 14 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 prophets and messengers ( ) whom they were sent to teach monotheism and morality. in view of this, god gives direction to deal with them with the utmost level of goodness. sha‘réwê maintains that the meaning illabillatê hiya aísan (except with means better than mere disputation), the qur’én has given the guidance that it must be conducted with kindness.25 the fifth condition is that the dialogue and communication must be conducted with the use of wisdom (al-íikmah), best selection of the expression (al-maw‘iðah al-íasanah) and make the argument with the best manner. sometimes the issue of religious doctrine may cause sensitivity. hence, the qur’én gives the direction to argue with utmost care through the use of good words as referred to in the following verse: and dispute you not with the people of the book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong (and injury): but say, “we believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; our allah and your allah is one; and it is to him we have submitted.26 the verse mainly relates to the principle of communication and argumentation with people of different faiths by showing distinctive aspects of goodness on the concept of the revelation. dealing through fairness of communication, it will attract the sympathy from others. muslims should demonstrate moral conduct in the midst of society when they deal with people who subscribe to other religious belief. the harshness of communication toward them could become the main factor of having negative impression toward islam.27 even with those who worship idols, for the sake of maintaining a harmonious relationship and co-existence, islam prohibits the acts of vilifying and humiliating them. this ethical manner and mannerism have been clearly explained in the following verse which says: revile not ye those whom they call upon besides allah lest they out of spite revile allah in their ignorance. thus have we made alluring to each people its own doings. in the end will they return to their lord and we shall then tell them the truth of all that they did.28 hamdard islamicus 15 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 it reflects the stand point of those who worship other than god in which whatever they go into the wrong direction, they will regard their religions superb and will defend it even at the expense of their lives. god admonishes all muslims to deal with them by observing the ethic to gain the sympathy.29 although we may disagree with their spiritual practices, yet, we should demonstrate good behaviour instead of giving them mockery and humiliation. in a more vivid way, looking down toward theological system and deities of other religious adherents will be only potential in making them antagonist and recalcitrant. dialogue and communication requirements there must be certain principles for those who participate in a dialogue in search of a common ground in which all religious adherents involved in it could agree upon. an individual should equip himself with sufficient religious knowledge that can convince others on the undeniable fact that the issues of religion and human nature are inseparable. one cannot talk on the subject of man without relating to god and religion. this includes knowing religious affiliation and even ideological thought of other groups.30 the qur’én condemns those who involve themselves in a dialogue or communication without proper understanding and adequate preparation on the issues he/she would like to discuss. the following verse of the qur’én cautions that any human disputes and arguments should be based on prior knowledge: yet there is among men such a one as disputes about allah, without knowledge, without guidance, and without a book of enlightenment.31 muslim must possess the proper knowledge of the religion to prove the validity theological legal concept. they must also have the competency to convince the audience that there is no contradiction between revelation and scientific findings.32 the prophet (œ) advised that the one who preaches islam should take into account the subjects to whom he is addressing to. he is required not to speak to all believers beyond the mental capacity of the listeners. the preacher not only has to be knowledgeable but should hamdard islamicus 16 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 be able to apply some basic psychology in getting his message across to the other party. in this sense, not only knowledge is important but ethical principles and common courtesy and a little bit of psychology are also equally important in conveying the message of islam.33 in explaining the proper behaviour in calling others to islam this is what the qur’én says: say: “this is my way: i do invite unto allah, on evidence clear as the seeing with one’s eyes, i and whoever follows me. glory to allah! and never will i join gods with allah!”34 imém fakhr al-rézê asserts the exposition on the word al-baîêrah that relates to the use of clear evidence instead of following the fanciful desires. the use of clarity and strong argument, he holds, could easily convince others to accept it.35 to participate in a dialogue one should be ready to be governed with ethical conducts as it becomes the effective way of gaining the respect and sympathy of others. another aspect that should be given due attention is the way in which one expresses himself. alongside with this aspect, his body language should go in tandem. his disposition and body language should reflect the truth and of his willingness in accepting the opinions of others.36 moreover, anyone who is involved in the dialogue or communication must accept the fact that religious plurality is a part of the divine will with the sole aim of educating others. objectives of dialogue and communication the goal of dialogue and communication with other religious followers is directed to reduce religious tension and eradicate all evil deeds within the community. dialogue can be used as an effective tool to overcome the existing misconception and prejudice with a people of diverse religious background. it is expected that a goodwill dialogue among people of different religions can lead to a tolerant and harmonious society. mohammad natsir (1908-1993), the former prime minister of indonesia, believed that people have the right to defend their religious beliefs and principles.37 he argued that at times issues related to religion become sensitive due to the elements of blind faith and fanaticism. he further hamdard islamicus 17 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 stressed that one of the reasons as to why god sent heavenly books is to guide mankind in averting conflicts and maintaining peace. the prophet (œ) during his time in managing the state of madinah observed high level of tolerance in dealing with the people of the book (jews and christians). he used the divine guidance and wisdom of the qur’én in dealing with them. he showed no bias toward any one group living in madinah. the verse below depicts clearly the manner in which one has to deal with the people in a society: “… and i am commanded to judge justly between you. allah is our lord and your lord: for us (is the responsibility for) our deeds, and for you for your deeds, there is no contention between us and you. allah will bring us together, and to him is (our) final goal”.38 in the practical aspect, institutions of higher learning can initiate dialogue and communication on certain issues at different levels. at the community level, religious leaders can also apply the same wisdom and guidance as used by the prophet (œ) in handling problems brought to their attention. they have to be fair and just in dealing matters related to corruption, drug offences, communal disputes, etc. by being fair and just they would be able to change the perception of the people which has been influenced by the print and social media. underlining the above, most modern advocates of dialogue see many advantages in it to help maintain a peaceful co-existence and to combat hatred and religious fanaticism. the dialogue and communication should gear towards achieving the shared values and virtues as mentioned in the message of each religion, such as love (maíabbah), peace (al-salém), justice (al-‘adl) and tolerance. muíammad imérah, a wellknown muslim scholar from egypt is of the view that from its inception dialogue can galvanize goodness on the basis of cooperation among all nations. this is pretty much needed at present as the world faces multidimensional crises, from terrorism to radicalism.39 another aim of a dialogue is to seek common understanding between religious groups. muslims should be aware on the existence of religious plurality which is a part of god‘s will and each group must realize that until there is no fanaticism displayed by any one party among the dialogue parties, the compromise and negotiation will remain as an illusion.40 to justify his hamdard islamicus 18 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 claims on the urgency of the dialogue and communication he refers to the verse below: allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for allah loves those who are just.41 the above evidence also serves as a methodological theory of sociological relation in which, a muslim should not discriminate the communication with the rest of the community as long as they have no intention to ruin religious belief. in addition, they should not discriminate against others in term of offering kindness and even for having friendship with them on the condition that they be saved from negative intentions. even when they are not courteous toward us (muslims), we have to treat them in a good way and to educate them about good manners and ethics.42 maímëd ashër, the vice chancellor of al-azhar university, lays emphasis on the significance of a dialogue and communication to solve the problems which occur in this ‘modern life’ which is mostly influenced by secular ideas. according to him, a dialogue and communication is an attempt to seek a common ground of collaboration to promote virtues and give respect to each other. he elaborates further that the dialogue and communication is also aimed at encountering the negative cultural invasion which contradicts religious values and justice. in today’s world, the culture of hedonism and promiscuity are very alarming to the extent of contaminating the minds of the youth to be heedless towards the religious precepts on ethics. this condition has become the major obstacle in many religions. it has also compelled all religious leaders to work earnestly to overcome this situation. to remedy the condition, a dialogue and communication would be the best and meaningful option. as such, religious leaders should by all means give dialogue and communication the preference in solving problems within the followers of their religion and also with their counterparts in other religions. inter-individual dialogue and communication the revelation given to prophet muíammad (œ) primarily aims at maintaining peace and harmony with all mankind. it is inevitable that hamdard islamicus 19 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 misunderstandings, disputes and even conflict mainly stem from inappropriate dealing with others. in view of this, the message is very much concerned with the ethics of dialogue to be observed by all individuals in a community. kindness, common courtesy and saying good words through dialogue and communication become the main ingredients of achieving the level of god’s consciousness known in the religious term as taqwé (lit. pietty and fear of god). whenever a person wishes to reach the level of piousness he must observe the ethics of dialogue and communication by selecting good words, and kindness in dealing with others. there are several terms in the qur’én which denote the ethics of dialogue and communication to be observed during an interaction with others. the first is the word sadêdan which somehow elucidates the good word in communication with others. this word can be referred to in the following verse of the qur’én: o ye who believe! fear allah and (always) say a word directed to the right.43 a believer whenever he speaks in all circumstances, should observe the truth. the word sadêdan comprises several dimensions of meaning that relates to say the truth while communicating to others, conducting the task of enjoining the truth and forbidding the evil practice in society. moreover, it also deals with the discussion related to academic matters. nevertheless, saying the truth needs the use of ethics and courteous expression. from the theological aspect, observance of the ethic in communicating the truth to others would lead to virtuous deeds and god’s forgiveness.44 a husband and wife should be very cautious in their communication between themselves so as to maintain a harmonious life and relationship within the household. muslim preachers normally recite that verse to admonish the newly married couple on the importance of maintaining peace and harmony in their married life. hence, they need to be enlightened with the ethics of dialogue for a lasting happiness in their marriage. the word ma‘rëf which literally means goodness is also essential in maintaining good relationship with others. a good word used during a dialogue and communication with others most likely will produce hamdard islamicus 20 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 constructive resolutions. the word ma‘rëf is used to explain the position of one giving help/charity to the one who is needy. a kind word from the giver of charity is better than help or donation followed by words of insult and disgrace towards the recipient. the full translation of that verse from the sërah al-baqarah is as stated below: kind words and the covering of faults are better than charity followed by injury. allah is free of all wants, and he is most-forbearing.45 in fact the word ma‘rëf signifies the whole aspect of the teachings of islam which emphasizes goodness and justice. one of the central themes of all the heavenly books is to promote ma‘rëf in all aspects of human life. since ma‘rëf can be related to all areas of human life, it is not surprising to know that it has an important role in the human communication and dialogue. in the human communication, the role of ma‘rëf is to maintain peace and justice and at the same it prevents conflicts between two or more parties involved in a discussion. the reference below from the qur’én can further enlighten us on the role of ma‘rëf: you are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in allah.46 muslim ummah would not achieve the level of perfection whenever its members do not have the keenness of promoting goodness (ma‘rëf) and eradicating evil practices in a community. it is a strong reminder for all individuals to undertake the task of promoting goodness which includes saying the truth, kindness as well as using polite and ethical words while communicating with others. the prophet’s (œ) emphasis on the use of good and kind words in human communication can be referred to the following ×adêth (tradition) which says: whoever claims to believe in god and the day of judgement, then, he should say the good word or just keep quiet.47 extra care should be taken when muslims are engaged in a hamdard islamicus 21 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 discussion with people of other faith. at all times provocation, insult and mockery should be avoided when they are engaged in a dialogue and communication with others. it is believed by many experts in the area of communication that provocation, insult, mockery, etc. can ruin harmonious life. the prophet of islam (œ) has warned the muslims to control their tongue when he said: guard your tongue, stay in your homes and weep over the sins.48 the word al-iísén (lit. goodness or fairness and kindness) is another term which signifies the ethics of dialogue which should be maintained throughout the interaction with people of diverse cultural background. god created this world with different cultural diversities which stems from religious affiliations and even ideological beliefs. culture and ideology could be regarded as determinant of emerging human behaviour with different outlooks and characters. in dealing with others, especially with those who are at the lower level in terms of socio-economic status such as orphans and needy human beings are required to observe kindness to avoid annoying their feelings. good deeds without being followed by politeness in one’s actions are not good enough for one to qualify to be a good muslim. all good deeds such as charity, prayers, feeding of the poor and needy will be mere actions in vain if they are not paired with kind words and respect for those who are in need of help and assistance to overcome their difficulties. the following verse of the qur’én justifies good deeds and kind words are inseparable when providing help to others: worship none but allah; treat with kindness your parents and kindred, and orphans and those in need; speak good to the people.49 human interaction from theological angle should be conducted on the basis of following principles. first, to believe and worship oneness of deity is a prerequisite for the acceptance of human activities in the sight of god. it is a great sin for one to associate god with others, as it can annul all his activities and may even become the main cause of his disgrace. secondly, giving hands (help to) one’s parents with politeness hamdard islamicus 22 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 and taking good care of them. third, to communicate with the rest of the communities across faithful and cultural boundaries with the sole aim of maintaining harmonious relations.50 dialogue and communication within the family the purpose of marriage in islam is to maintain the continuity of generation. however, children sometime become great burden for the parents when they become rude, harsh and fail to show love and care that should be shown towards their parents. the qur’én specifically highlights the ethical and moral significance of this relationship in the sërah al-isré: and your lord has decreed that you worship none but him, and that you be dutiful to your parents. whether one or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honour.51 muslim theology asserts that the position of parents comes next to god. children should observe kindness towards them who have endured much suffering and hardship in raising them when they were infants. in their old age they must follow the ethics during communication with them to avoid being harsh to them. those who use rude words can hurt the feelings of their parents. the children should communicate with them with full respect and appreciation for their sacrifices to educate and raise them up to maturity. they are required to be more gentle and kind towards them especially when they become old and incapacitated.52 god warns all the believers to be cautious in communication with parents as it could be the major cause of ruining the family structure. hence, each individual should maintain commitment toward the truth and observe the ethical conduct to maintain continuous prosperity and peace of life.53 it is inevitably true that good communication and integrity would become the source of blessing and wellness of humanity.54 another aspect of good communication is to maintain harmonious relation. the qur’én lays stress on urgency of good communication and decency of conduct in the family.55 hamdard islamicus 23 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 children who use harsh and rude words can hurt the feelings of their parents. their daily communication must be conducted in full appreciation for their many sacrifices in educating and raising them to maturity. children are required to be more gentle and kind towards their parents when they become old and incapacitated. however, children may possess different behavioural patterns of character. naturally, parents pray and expect that they will be granted by god with children as ‘comfort of their eyes and with good physical appearance without any birth defects, with good intelligence and even ethical conduct. the qur’én records such expectation of parents in the verse saying: and those who pray, “our lord! grant unto us wives and offspring who will be the comfort of our eyes, and give us (the grace) to lead the righteous”.56 in some cases, the expectations of parents become mere illusion. instead of having children of fine character, parents may have to face children who are wayward and having attitudinal problems. they will be in great shock to see the children they have raised from childhood through great difficulties and challenges, toward the end, become their foes and adversaries. god has cautioned those parents who have to face such a situation: your riches and your children may be but a trial: but in the presence of allah, is the highest reward.57 it will be a much more difficult situation than the above for parents who have to face children who may become their enemies. in the qur’én, allah has cautioned those parents who have to face such a situation to forgive and overlook the mistakes of their children: o you who believe! truly, among your wives and your children are (some that are) enemies to yourselves: so beware of them! but if ye forgive and overlook, and cover up (their faults), verily allah is oft-forgiving, most merciful.58 it might happen that wives and children behave against proper hamdard islamicus 24 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 respect to follow the divine guidance and such kind of condition in fact represents a big trial and test for a husband. whatever the negative trait or attitudes, the husband should be consistent instead of turning toward a compliance of their desires. the thing he should remember is that he should not treat them harshly rather he must possess the spirit of forgiveness not to expose them to the shame or ridicule.59 in fact, parents in islam have a privileged position and children as their ward should later in life have to repay the kindness shown to them by their parents. it is an obligation for children to demonstrate noble character to them. in the islamic theology, the mercy of god depends on the level of kindness and treatment of a person toward his or her parents. whenever children apply politeness and feel responsible toward their parents especially in the midst of hardship, then, god will open the source of blessing and mercy toward them as highlighted in the following prophetic tradition, which says: the lord’s pleasure is in the parent’s pleasure, and the lord’s anger is in the parent’s anger.”60 besides highlighting the position and the plight of parents, the qur’én has also informed children on the ethical manners and duties they have to observe towards their parents. not only that, the qur’én also calls on the children to pray for the well-being of their parents. the following verse from sërah al-aíqéf highlights some of the obligations of the children towards their parents: we have enjoined on man kindness to his parents: in pain did his mother bear him, and in pain did she give him birth. the carrying of the (child) to his weaning is (a period of) thirty months. at length, when he reaches the age of full strength and attains forty years, he says, “o my lord! grant me that i may be grateful for your favour which you has bestowed upon me, and upon both my parents, and that i may do righteous good deeds such as please you; make my offspring good. truly have i turned to you and truly, i am one of the muslims”.61 parents struggled to bring them up as children with hardship and hamdard islamicus 25 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the mother weaned them within the period of thirty months full of caring and attention. hence, they should repay the parents by invoking for the goodness of their life. the ultimate strength of a person is ranging between age of 18 and 30 or 32. some scholars regard that the real or the best of manhood is between 30 and 40.* perhaps his spiritual faculties gain the upper hand after reaching the age 40.62 many researches in areas of psychology, sociology and family management have highlighted that poor communication skill or a total breakdown in communication seems to be the major cause of family problems; between the spouses or between parents and children. cheerful communication and proper dialogue that rests on ethical principles can contribute towards a harmonious and happy family. hence, all members of a family regardless of their status should observe common courtesy and mutual respect in their communication with all the members of his or her family. speak justly even if a near relative is concerned and fulfil the covenant of allah.63 in general, the well-being of the family is a crucial factor in bringing up a good society. when all the members of a society are good, then this will lead to the rise of a good nation. in a nutshell, a family that has and lives with good moral values and communication among its members can in a way contribute to the development of a good nation, that is morally and ethically strong. the ideal relationship between parents and children has been mentioned in many parts of the qur’én. the communication from the qur’énic perspective gives an indication that family relations (among father, mother and children) carried out in the most islamic manner in a way forms an act of ‘ibédah (worship) done for the sake of allah. all family members are rewarded for their good manners. all relationships which do not comply with the ethical behaviour approved by the islamic sharê‘ah are not deemed as ‘ibédah. this view is also being shared by mélik b. nébi, a muslim scholar from algeria. according to him, all family relationships in islam are spiritually linked between one member of the family with the other.64 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *it may be recalled that the holy prophet (œ) received the call for prophethood in his 40th year – ed. hamdard islamicus 26 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 dialogue and communication of luqmén with his son sërah luqmén is one of the chapters in which one can gain many valuable lessons on how children should deal and communicate with their parents. the advice given by luqmén to his son is also closely linked with the sociological establishment. he gave several advices which can also be considered as a will or waîiyyah. behold, luqmén said to his son by way of instruction: “o my son! join not in worship (others) with allah: for false worship is indeed the highest wrong-doing.” and we have enjoined on man (to be good) to his parents: in travail upon travail did his mother bear him, and in years twain was his weaning: (hear the command), “show gratitude to me and thy parents: to me is (thy final) goal.65 luqmén was very much concerned toward educating his son on monotheism. misconception on underlying this concept will, inevitably, lead him into the great sin of polytheism. he was also keen about moral education to avoid hardship of life when the parents suffer from physical weaknesses. god requires children to demonstrate ethical behaviour as a way of repaying kindness toward them for they faced a lot of hardship and difficulties to bring them from infancy up to the age of maturity. however, it might happen that some parents force their children to subscribe to other people’s belief. in such a situation, children should maintain commitment to islam and communicate with them in a good way to refute their request.66 luqmén was concerned with the future of his son. so he advised his son to dedicate his life to the activities that may please allah, and to worship him without associating any partner to him. this is, in fact, related to the theological concept. muslims should avoid committing shirk, the big sin which is unpardonable. it is inevitably true that the will of luqmén can be regarded as the first priority before he gave other important lesson to his beloved son. the concept of shirk which can lead a person out of islam has been mentioned in many places in the qur’én: allah forgives not that partners should be set up with him; but he forgives except that anything else, to whom he wills; to set up partners with allah in worship, he has indeed invented a tremendous sin.67 hamdard islamicus 27 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 associating others with allah can bring dangerous consequences in the life of a muslim. in view of this, it was very wise of luqmén to give advice to his son in order not to be trapped in this big sin. allah will not grant paradise when a person commits shirk. it has been clearly explained in the following verse of the qur’én: whoever joins other gods with allah, allah will forbid him the garden, and the fire will be his abode. there will for the wrongdoers be no one to help.68 shirk (associating allah with others) is considered as a form of ðulm (transgression and injustice). those who could not save themselves from the involvement of shirk will not get security and guidance as hinted in the following verse: it is those who believe and confuse not their beliefs with wrong – that are (truly) in security, for they are on (right) guidance.69 the second part of the advice given by luqmén can be referred to in the verse which says: “o my son!” (said luqmén), “if there be (but) the weight of a mustard-seed and it were (hidden) in a rock, or (anywhere) in the heavens or on earth, allah will bring it forth: for allah understands the finest mysteries, (and) is well-acquainted (with them).70 it focuses toward god’s surveillance on human activities in the world that will be taken into account on the day of judgement. whatever the level of virtuous deeds and the negative activity a person may involve, it will be subject to accountability. that is the reason luqmén highly emphasized in educating his son to be extra cautious in doing activities which should be solely aimed at gaining god’s pleasure. in fact, luqmén gave such advice in response to the question raised by his son in which he said, ‘if i commit a mistake in which no one could see it, how allah will see it?’, he asked. then luqmén responded as appeared in the above verse. the word khardala (a mustard-seed), it means the thing which is unknown in its weight and hamdard islamicus 28 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 cannot be measured with the scale). that indicates the accuracy of accountability to allah for one`s deeds as reflected in the word ‘in taku mithqéla íabbatin min kharìalin’ (if there be (but) the weight of a mustard-seed). sayyid quïb regards that it is the greatness of allah to know the thing which human beings regard as something invaluable.71 luqmén wanted to explain the vastness of allah’s knowledge which is beyond comparison. it can be visualized from the verse which is related to the command and prohibition of god to govern mankind. once they believe in the divine message, then, it is expected that they can achieve happiness in this world and in the hereafter. the third part of luqmén’s advice is the command to perform daily prayer by saying, ‘o my son! establish regular prayer’. so, after the advice of his father not to associate others with allah, is followed with the advice to observe regular prayer to dedicate one’s life in seeking allah’s pleasure. the father (luqmén) asked his son to observe regular prayer with patience to dedicate one’s life in seeking his pleasure. there must be a reason why luqmén laid emphasis on the significance of prayer. it is due to the fact, that prayer has an important role in the life of an individual and the society at large. one of the positive impacts of prayer is to maintain equilibrium between (material and spiritual elements). it also makes an individual admit the greatness of god to whom he or she should offer obedience. once a person performed it properly, he would feel safe and experience tranquillity within his heart. besides that, he would realize that all worldly matters that have been burdening him lifted from his chest. under such circumstances, one would enjoy peace of mind and a release from anxiety and stress.72 moreover, it also serves as a shield that protects one from all sinful acts in daily life. on a larger perspective, it trains a person on punctuality, discipline and trustworthiness. it also demands an individual to complete the task given to him or her in the most excellent manner. other than that, congregational prayers in a way can strengthen muslim unity. the role of prayer in bringing up a person on high moral values and one with integrity can be well understood in the following verse which says, and establish regular prayer: for prayer restrains from shameful and unjust deeds.73 hamdard islamicus 29 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 there are three fundamental aspects of the prayer in which the first starts with glorifying god followed with praises, invocation and seeking forgiveness. during the prayer, a person must read sërah al-fétiíah (the opening chapter) which highly emphasizes the importance of seeking divine assistance and guidance to avoid indecent behaviour. at the same time, it reminds him to be aloof from evil elements and thus saving him from the curse of god. secondly, the prayer is the reflection of humbleness through prostration and bowing down. this reminds one about the purpose of life to seek the grace and pleasure of god and keeping away from indulging in the evil practices. third, the prayer relates with purification of the heart to prepare a person come close to the creator and to maintain integrity and avoiding activities that could lead to evil practices. in short it, serves as a constant reminder to protect a person from crises.74 the other part of the waîiyyah given by luqmén is the advice to undertake responsibility of enjoining goodness and eradicating evil. this is mainly related to certain things to which luqmén gave his utmost preference. after he gave direction on the principles of education based on ùawíêd and actualizing of worship to be dedicated only to allah and to keep on remembering his surveillance toward activities of human beings, it was followed by enjoining the prayers as a way of purifying an individual from all sinful deeds. he also wanted his son to play a leading role in the community to undertake two things, enjoining the good and eradicating sinful and evil practices. however, it could only be done after one has changed himself or herself, before calling on others do the same. imém al-qurïubê regard that al-îaléh (the prayer) and al-amr bi al-ma‘rëf (enjoining goodness) al-nahê ‘an al-munkar (forbidding the evil practices) represent the highest level of obedience (al-ïé‘ah) towards allah. the goal of al-amr bi al-ma‘rëf is to induce people to perform everything which has been commanded by allah, within the parameters set by the legal principles of islam. while al-nahê ‘an al-munkar is to (admonish others to) abstain from all kinds of prohibition as stipulated in the islamic sharê‘ah.75 luqmén’s command to his son to undertake the responsibility of enjoining goodness and preventing evil practices is due to the fact that they represent the main duty of all the hamdard islamicus 30 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 prophets and messengers of allah ( ). without fail all of the messengers and prophets ( ) sent by allah, called for the eradication of evil and promotion of good deeds. at the same time, they became the good rolemodels that the believers could follow in terms of good behaviour, consistency in their prayer and in giving charity to the poor and needy. the qur’énic verse below is an evident proof that true believers should prevent evil, promote good deeds, be constant in prayer and provide help to the destitute: the believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practice regular charity, and obey allah and his messenger. allah will have his mercy on them.76 according to mawdëdê, true believers must incline to righteousness and abhor the evil practices. in addition, remembrance of god should become breath of their life. believers should also dedicate the whole activities to comply with the divine will to bring about special character that excels the rest of humanity,77 luqmén‘s advice to his son to undertake responsibility of establishing peace and justice in the community should be taken seriously. the demand for establishing peace and justice on the part of a muslim is a legacy left behind by all the prophets and messengers of allah (œ), very particularly by muíammad (œ) who was the last among all of prophets of allah. besides that, prevention of evil and promotion of good deeds within a society are greatly encouraged in the qur’én. below is one of the references found in the qur’én which calls on the eradication of evil and promotion of good deeds: ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in allah. if only the people of the book believed, it would be better for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors.78 the duty of enjoining good and forbidding evil is a noble duty as people involved in this effort will become the determinant factor in the hamdard islamicus 31 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 well-being of the society. they will be deemed as the saviors of the ummah. in view of this, again, the call of luqmén is also a call for the fulfillment of the divine call. it has been mentioned in one of the traditions of the holy prophet (œ) that the one who does the duty of the prophets ( ) will be placed among the prophets on the day of judgment. the following will be another reference from the qur’én on the subject of islamic da’wah related to prevention of evil and promotion of good deeds: let there arise out of you a group of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong. and they are the ones to attain felicity.79 luqmén also asked his son to exercise patience on whatever happens to him as phrased in the qur’én by the words ‘(bear with patient constancy whatever betides you)’. a thorough investigation into the advice given by luqmén to his son will reveal the fact that great effort and patience are the prerequisites in upholding the truth and propagating it to others in the community. contrary to the efforts done by good muslims, there will be a segment of people who want to promote evil deeds, injustice and exploitation. thus, the advice given by luqmén to his son is very relevant to all those who are out there to promote good deeds and prevent evils in the society. in carrying out the work of da‘wah (al-amr bi al-ma‘rëf), patience, perseverance and persistence are good qualities that should be maintained at all times by a social worker of islam. there is a great reward waiting in the sight of allah for those who endure all trials and tribulations in their effort to eradicate evil in the society.80 then we come to the other two advices given by luqmén which are related to humbleness and simplicity of man during his interaction with his fellow human beings, as one of the advices given by luqmén to his son: and swell not your cheek (for pride) at men nor walk in insolence through the earth. verily, allah loves not any arrogant boaster.81 that the divine message should be taken as the main reference of human activities to comply with the purpose of the creation to undertake hamdard islamicus 32 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 the mission of the human vicegerency. on the first part, we have to believe that all human beings are slaves of god and all of them are equal. whatever status a person may possess it is just a formality. the dignity would only be judged through the level of taqwé (god’s). hence, it is worthless for a person to behave arrogantly and rather he or she should acknowledge that superiority is the right of allah and he should regard himself as a slave and powerless.82 a very important point to note at this juncture on the advice given by luqmén to his son is that he asked his son to enjoin goodness and prevent evil in the society. he was aware that such noble work can only be achieved when one is humble and kind to the people of the society. a person should avoid being arrogant and not regard himself as a perfectionist. the person who undertakes the task of enjoining goodness and prohibiting evil deeds is regarded as a dé‘ê (lit. preacher) in islam. hence, the call toward others will not be effective unless his behaviour reflects genuine kindness. he should not regard himself as superior as it could spoil what he has uttered in front of the people. being a commander of goodness and the one who strives to eradicate evil practices in the community, he may feel superb due to the respect he receives from others. at the moment one may lose the respect he or she has earned from others. in the sight of allah, an individual who is proud of himself or herself will be deprived from getting any reward for his/her good deeds. in an ideal situation one only has to perform his or her duties in the best possible way and leave all other things to be decided by allah. this way of dealing with others will be surely liked by allah as that person tends to be humble in his sight. the advice given by luqmén to his son to be humble and patient can be complemented with what allah has said in the following verse from sërah al-furqén: and the faithful slaves of the most gracious (allah) are those who walk on the earth in humility and sedateness, and when the ignorant address them, they say, “peace”!83 the character of walking with humbleness does not mean to be like a weak or sick person with an attempt of giving impression of piety toward others. the prophet (œ) walked fast with full of confidence and his companions could not keep pace with him. whenever he came across an ignorant person who uttered absurd things, he left him hamdard islamicus 33 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 with politeness. this kind of attitude indicates the keenness of the prophet (œ) to undertake the task of serving the ummah to achieve the balance of life between physical and spiritual things instead of wasting of times.84 the tendency for man to be arrogant has also been mentioned in many different parts of the qur’én. one of which is in sërah al-isré. which speaks on human arrogance: nor walk on the earth with insolence: for thou canst not rend the earth asunder nor reach the mountains in height.85 after he prohibited his son not to indulge in arrogance, then, the naîêíah (lit. advice) was followed by another aspect of islam that is how to maintain the ethics in a dialogue and communication. the verse stated below calls the muslims to be gentle with people: and be moderate in your walking, and lower thy voice. verily, the harshest of all voices is the braying of the asses.86 he wanted to educate his son on moderation which is highly encouraged and indicates the perfection of the teaching of religion on the basis of al-wasaïiyyah (moderation). in communication, a person should not use excessive intonation as this may annoy the feelings of others. in addition to the use of the voice, the above verse also calls for humbleness in human behaviours, especially when one walks. the verse also calls for one to walk in humility. in modern times, driving or riding too fast, being arrogant, puffed up with pride, etc. are all behaviours that can be metaphorically associated to walking insolently. dialogue and communication with a superior dialogue with a superior represents a sociological relation with a group leader such as a manager, head of department of certain agency as well as a person in authority. in this aspect, we deal with certain ethical principles as contained in the qur’énic texts which could be used as a system of sociological communication with a leader to maintain a harmonious relationship, peace and justice. as pointed out hamdard islamicus 34 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 earlier on that the core of the teaching of the qur’én and behaviour of the prophet (œ) is to maintain peace and eradicate evil in the community which could be achieved through observance of ethical values. in fact, the ethics of dialogue or communication represent the major part of the belief. thus, the tradition of the prophet (œ) discusses the status of a muslim who loves peace and harmony: a muslim is the one whose tongue and hand are secured (from evil deeds) and a muhéjir (emigrant) who refrains from what allah has forbidden.87 in the sociological context mankind are known as social beings that interact with each other. they need a leader who is in charge to manage their affairs. a society which comprises various individuals needs an authority and leadership. in certain cases the relationship between a leader and individuals could be fruitless due to an inappropriate dialogue and communication between them. the divine guidance given to the prophet (œ) necessitates obedience of each community member toward his leader in term of goodness as illustrated in the following verse: o you who believe! obey allah, and obey the messenger, and those charged with authority among you. if you differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to allah and his messenger, if you do believe in allah and the last day: that is best, and most suitable for final determination.88 humanity cannot be separated from dealing with leadership and authority. whatever the policies made by a leader which may contradict justice, yet it should maintain loyalty toward truth and justice. in certain situation a leader may take the decision or policy which is against the public interests. all individuals should have the concern to remind him by observing the ethics of communication to bring him to the right track. one of the ethics in dealing with an authority who might be characterized with coerciveness and opposed to the standard of an justice, the duty of an individual is to remind him with mild words and offering of good hamdard islamicus 35 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 advice which may convince him about the wrong policy. the following verse can also be regarded as an injunction in reminding a ruler to follow the right conduct and behaviour and to avoid cruelty and injustice, invite (all) to the way of thy lord with wisdom and fair preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious. truly, your lord knows best, who has gone astray from his path, and he is the best aware of those who receive guidance.89 the above verse shows three things related to the change of negative attitude which may contradict the concept of justice in the community. first, is the use of wisdom to bring a person to follow the truth. secondly, it should be conducted with the use of the word almaw‘iðah al-íasanah (lit. good advice or exhortation). third, it should be conducted with the use of ethical argumentation (wajédilhum bi alllatê hiya aísan). guidance is needed and can also be applied at the state level in dealing between different political rivalries. each political group must have the agenda of governing people to maintain the right of equilibrium as well as the right of ownership and getting an equal opportunity through the work of peace and justice. in fact, the main purpose is to evaluate whether their policies suit the demand of the public in term of securing equal rights and justice. once, they observe the shortcoming they must have the courage to criticize through the dialogue and communication in a good manner and ethic to avoid a crisis and enmity. in fact the concept of dialogue could be conducted in the form of criticism. the purpose of criticism should be within the spirit of making improvement to those things that are lacking in terms of leadership. in view of this, criticism in this particular context could be used with the use of communication by observing the ethical conduct. criticism raised through the use of dialogue must be constructive and not destructive. worse if it is done with mockery. the practical example of ethical behaviour in term of the dialogue with the superior can be referred to the story of prophet mësé (*) who was delegated to see pharaoh who was characterized with authoritarianism and absolutism. god commanded prophet mësé (*) to convey the message to pharaoh to promote truth and justice and to avoid being an hamdard islamicus 36 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 oligarch up to the level of claiming himself as ‘the supreme lord’. this story is recorded in the qur’én. the pharaoh was arrogant when he said the following: saying, “i am your lord, most high”.90 the qur’én records the level of coerciveness of pharaoh by saying: go to pharaoh for he has indeed transgressed all bounds.91 mësé (*) and his brother hérën (*) were in a state of fear when they were given the task to such an authoritarian ruler like the pharaoh. even they were thinking to ask for some appropriate weapon to encounter the attack which might come from pharaoh. instead of giving them the expected weapon, god just required them to have a dialogue with him using mild words to convince him, “but speak to him mildly; perhaps he may take heed or fear (allah).”.92 the above evidence depicts the example of communication with a superior. although pharaoh who governed his people with an iron fist and dictatorship, yet, god required mësé (*) to communicate with him gently. kind words instead of harshness might reduce the level of anger and even could soften the heart of a person. it could also evoke awareness and even inspire a person noted for his high temper and stubbornness; a hard hearted person can be won over with the use of gentle communication. that was the only equipment that god granted to mësé (*) prior to see pharaoh to communicate the divine message.93 in fact, that could be regarded as an introductory part prior informing the purpose of his visit to the pharaoh’s place. god required him to tell the truth about the task which had been granted to him from his lord, creator of the whole universe and pharaoh’s at the same time. he appointed as messengers mësé and hérën ( ) as messengers to promote justice and annul all kinds of enslavement. thus, through the goodness of communication, mësé and hérën ( ) requested pharaoh to liberate israelites without torturing them. hamdard islamicus 37 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 they were required to meet pharaoh and to convey the message from their lord with the use of ethical conduct as stated in the verse below: “so go you both to him, and say, ‘verily we are messengers sent by the lord, so let the children of israel go with us, and afflict them not; with a sign indeed, we have come from your lord! and peace will be upon him who follows the guidance!94 the above verse contains some important characteristics of an ideal dialogue and communication that should take place. on the first part, both of them (mësé and hérën [ ]) when they met pharaoh, introduced themselves as the messengers of god. they simply said the truth about the task that was given to them by their lord as messengers of god (inna rasëlé rabbik). they did not accuse pharaoh as the one who has committed a grave sin when he claimed that he was the ‘supreme lord’. what they merely said were ‘we are simply messengers of your god! they did not say to him that “you are not the lord (mé anta birab). they informed him about the purpose of their meeting with him that they were there to make an appeal on behalf of the israelites to be released from their bondage. they did not threaten pharaoh initially of any wrath of god. in all modesty they only said ‘send forth, therefore, the children of israel with us, and afflict them not’. even in their reply to the arrogance of the pharaoh, they just said “with a sign, indeed, we have come from thy lord!” as a last word in their dialogue and communication with the pharaoh, they ended their appeal by saying: ‘peace to all who follow guidance.’ conclusion the qur’én was revealed to mankind as a source of mercy and guidance. mankind despite living in diversity of cultures, lifestyles and religious beliefs, needs to work hard and cooperate for world peace and stability. more than ever before, mankind needs to learn and acquire the true ethics of dialogue and relation to sustain peace and harmony all around the globe. the need for good communication and dialogue among the seven billion people of the world will be the decisive factors in hamdard islamicus 38 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 overcoming the major problems faced by the world, like conflicts among nations in the east and west, racism, extremism, terrorism, sectarian violence, bigotry, war, etc. wrong and unethical communication either in face-to-face dialogue or through the social media among people of different cultures and religions most likely can trigger a confrontational situation among the various groups that can destroy peace and harmony enjoyed by the citizens of this planet. in this regard, the qur’énic teachings call muslims to respect and cooperate with others regardless of their religious beliefs, customs, cultures and origins. the qur’én has laid down the basic guidelines for a peaceful coexistence at many different levels. the ethics of dialogue and relation is essentially for all frameworks of communication may they be between husband and wife, between parents and children or between an individual with other segments of the society. thus, the qur’énic ethics represent clear and discerning guidelines on the basis of fraternity. it has presented a good model for a peaceful coexistence and cooperation among mankind. in fact, it embodies the principles of ethics of dialogue and relation which guarantee a better life for everyone. notes and references 01. the qur’én, lviii:1. 02. the qur’én, xviii:34. 03. muíammad ùanïéwi, tafsêr al-wasêt, cairo, dar nahìah miîr li al-tibé‘ah wa al-tawzê‘, 1998, pp. 515-516. 04. the qur’én, xviii:37. 05. muíammad ùanïéwi, tafsêr al-wasêt, p. 517. 06. basam dawud ajk, al-×êwaral-islémi al-masêíê: mabédi, al-térêkh, al-mawìë‘at wa al-ahdéf, damascus, dar al-qutaybah li al-tiba‘ah, 2008, p. 20. 07. ‘abd al-raímén ×asan midani, öawébiï al-ma’rifah wa uîël al-istidlél wa al-munaðarah, damascus, dér al-qalam, 1993, p. 371. 08. muíammad mutawwali shé‘réwi, tafsêr sheikh mutawwali shé‘réwi, cairo, maïabi akhbar al-yawm, 1997, p.702 09. ali jirisah, ódéb al-×iwér wa al-munéðarah, manîurah, dér al-wafali al-tiba‘ah wa al-nashr wa al-tawzi, 1992, p. 19. 10. the qur’én, lviii:1. hamdard islamicus 39 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 11 muíammad mutawalli shé‘réwi, tafsêr sheikh mutawwali shé‘réwi, p. 150. 12. the qur’én, xxix:46. 13. muíammad kamal mawil, al-×iwér fê al-qurén al-karêm, beirut, dar al-farabi li al-tibé‘ah, 2000, p. 31. 14. the qur’én, xxii:17. 15. abë al-fatí muíammad b. abd al-karêm aímad shahrasténi, al-milal wa al-niíal, beirut, dér al-marifah li al-tiba‘ah wa al-nashr, 1998, p. 247. 16. anis malik taha, ×iwar al-adyan bayn jusur al-taféhum wa hifz al-huwiyyah, kuala lumpur, journal of tajdid, vol. xiv, no. 27, 1431h/2010 c.e. 17. ruqayyah taha jabir alwani, fiqh al-×iwér ma‘a al-mukhtalaf fi daw al-sunnah al-nabawiyyah wa al-öirésah al-mu‘éîirah, riyadh, jaizah amir naif bin abd al-aziz ali suud al-alamiyyah li al-sunnah al-nabawiyyah wa dirésah mua’sirah, 2005. 18. the qur’én, ii:213. 19. aímad b. muîïafa maréghi, tafsêr al-maréghê, cairo, muîïafé bab al-halabi, 1946, p. 142 20. the qur’én, v:8. 21. muíammad rashid riìé, tafsêr al-manér, cairo, al-haiah al-miîriyyah al-ammah, 1990, p. 193. 22. the qur’én, xxix:46. 23. the qur’én, iii: 64. 24. the qur’én, xvi:125. 25. muíammad mutawwali sha‘réwi, tafsêr sheikh mutawwali sha‘réwê, p. 240. 26. the qur’én, xxix:46. 27. muíammad ùanïéwi, tafsêr al-wasêt, p. 45. 28. the qur’én, vi:108. 29. sayyid quïb, fi úilél al-qur’én, cairo, dér al-shurëq, 1998, p. 1169. 30. khalid b. abdullah qasim, ×iwér aíl al-kitéb: uîëluhu wa manéhijuhu fê al-kitéb wa al-sunnah, riyadh, dér al-muslim, 1414 h, pp. 148-153. 31. the qur’én, xxii:8. 32. muíammad izzat darwazah, tafsêr al-×adêth, cairo, dér al-ilmi al-islami, 1998, p. 15. 33. alé al-dên fawri, kanz al-‘ummél fê sunnan al-aqwél wa al-af‘él, kuwait, muasasah al-risalah, 1981, p. 242. 34. the qur’én, xii:108. 35. muíammad al-razi, mafétií al-ghayb, beirut, dér al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 2000, pp. 17-18. 36. yusuf qaradawi, khitébuna al-islami fê ‘aîr al-‘awlamah, cairo, dér al-shurq, 1424h, p. 29. 37. muíammad natsir, fiqh da‘wah, jakarta, dewan dakwah islamiyyah, 2008, p. 57. 38. the qur’én, xlii:15. 39. muíammad imarah, al-×iwarél-adyén bayn al-naðariyyah wa al-taïbêq, cairo, maktabah wahbah, 1999, p. 167. . 40. muíammad ‘abd al-raíêm, al-ta‘éwun bayn atbé al-diyénah al-mukhtalifah, beirut, dér al-fikr al-arabi, 1987, p. 67. hamdard islamicus 40 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 41. the qur’én, lx:8. 42. muíammad ùanïawi, tafsêr al-wasêt, p. 335. 43. the qur’én, xxxiii:70. 44. abd raímén sa‘di, tafsêr al-karêm al-raímén fê tafsêr kalém al-mannén, beirut, muasasah al-risalah, 2000, p. 673. 45. the qur’én, ii:263. 46. the qur’én, iii:110. 47 muslim b. al-×ajjaj abë al-×asan al-qusyairi al-nisapuri, al-musnad al-øaíií al-mukhtaîar bi naqli al-‘adl an ‘adl rasulillah saw, beirut, dér ihya al-turath al-arabi, n.d., p. 68. 48. al-tirmidi, jémi‘ al-kabêr, beirut, dér al-gharb al-islami, 1998, vol. iii, no. 4, p. 184. 49. the qur’én, ii:83. 50. abd raímén sa‘di, tafsêr al-karêm al-raímén fê tafsêr kalém al-mannén, p.58. 51. the qur’én, xvii:23. 52. sayyid quïb, fê úilél al-qur’én, p. 221. 53. muíammad ùanïawi, tafsêr al-wasêt, p. 225. 54. wahbah zuhailê, tafsêr al-munêr fê al-‘aqidah wa al-manhaj, damascus, dér al-fikr al-mua’îir, 1418h, p. 122. 55. muíammad rashid riìé, tafsêr al-manér, cairo, al-haiah al-misriyyah al-ammah, 1990, p. 305. 56. the qur’én, xxv:74. 57. ibid., lxiv:15. 58. ibid., lxiv:14. 59. yusuf ali, the holy qur’an: english translation of the meanings and commentary, madinah al-munawwarah: king fahd holy qur’an printing complex, 1410 h, p. 1760. 60. tirmidhi, jémi‘ al-kabêr, vol. iv, chapter 3, p. 1899. 61. the qur’én, xlvi:15. 62. yusuf ali, the holy qur’én: english translation of the meanings and commentary, p. 1548. 63. the qur’én, vi:152. 64. malik ben nabi, miléd al-mujtama‘: shabakah al-‘aléqah al-ijtimé‘iyyah, damascus, dér al-fikr, 1986, p. 122. 65. the qur’én, xxxi:13-14. 66. sayyid quïb, fê úilél al-qur’én, p. 2782. 67. the qur’én, iv:48. 68. ibid., v:72. 69. ibid., vi:82. 70. ibid., xxxi:16. 71. sayyid quëb, fê úilél al-qur’én, p. 2784. 72. izzat darwazah, tafsêr al-×adêth, p. 133. 73. the qur’én, xxix:45. 74. muíammad ùéhir b. ashur, taírêr al-ma’na al-sadêd wa tanwêr ala ‘aql al-jadêd, tunis, dér al-tunisiyyah li al-nashr, 1984. 75. muíammad ‘abd al-raíim, al-ta‘awun bayn atbé‘ al-diyénah al-mukhtalifah, beirut, dér al-fikr al-arabi, 1987, p. 54. hamdard islamicus 41 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 76. the qur’én, ix:71. 77. abul ala mawdudi, tafhêm al-qur’én, leicester, the islamic foundation, 1990, p. 67. 78. the qur’én, iii:100. 79. the qur’én, iii:104. 80. muíammad kamal mawil, al-×iwér fê al-qur’én al-karêm, beirut, dér al-farabi li al-ma‘érif, 1420 h, p. 27. 81. the qur’én, xxxi:18. 82. sheikh mutawwali sha’réwi, tafsêr sheikh mutawwali sha‘réwi, p. 8545. 83. the qur’én, xxv:63. 84. sayyid quïb, fê úilél al-qur’én, p. 5057. 85. the qur’én, xvii:37. 86. the qur’én, xxxi:19. 87. muslim b. hajjaj al-quresihi nishépuri, al-musnad al-øaíêí al-mukhtaîar bi naqli al-‘adl an al-‘adli rasëlillah, p. 65. 88. the qur’én, iv:59. 89. ibid., xvi:125. 90. ibid., lxxix:24. 91. ibid., lxxix:7. 92. ibid., xx:44. 93. muíammad ùanïawi, tafsêr al-wasêt, p. 108. 94. the qur’én, xx:47. bibliography ‘abd al-raíêm, muíammad, al-ta‘éwun bayn atbé‘ al-dinéyah al-mukhtalifah, 1987, beirut, dér al-fikr al-arabi. ajk, bassém déwëd, al-hiwér al-islémê al-masêíê: al-mabédê, al-térêkh, al-mawdu‘ét wa al-ahdéf, 2008, damascus, dér al-qutaybah li al-tibé‘ah. ‘alê, sa’êd ismé‘êl, al-hiwér al-adyén manhajan wa thaqéfatan, 2007, cairo, dér al-salém li al-tibé‘ah wa al-nashr wa al-tawzi‘ wa al-tarjamah. ‘ali, yusuf, the holy qur’an: english translation of the meanings and commentary, 1410h, madinah al-munawwarah, king fahd holy qur’én printing complex. al-tirmidhi, jémi‘ al-kabêr, 1998, vols. 3 and 4, beirut, dér al-gharb al-islémê. alwéni, ruqayyah téha jabir, fiqh al-hiwér ma’a al-mukhélif fi daw al-sunnah al-nabawiyyah, 1426 h/2005 m, riyadh, jaizah amêr néif bin abd al-‘aziz alê su’ëd al-‘ólamiyyah li al-sunnah al-nabawiyyah wa al-dirésah al-mu‘ésirah. ashër, sheikh maímëd, 11th doha conference on inter-faith communication, 2011. 24-25/10/2011 from http://dicid.org/news_website_details.php?id=139 ashër, muíammad ùéhir b. muíammad ùéhêr, taírêr al-ma’né al-sadêd wa tanwêr ‘alé ‘aql al-jadêd min ùafsêr al-kitéb al-majêd, 1984, tunis, dar al-tunisiyyah li al-nashr. hamdard islamicus 42 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 fawri, ‘alé al-dên bin hussém al-dên al-mutaqi al-hindi al-burhén, kanz al-‘ummél fê sunan al-aqwél wa al-af‘él, 1984, kuwait, muasasah al-risalah. ×asan, muíammad khalêfah, al-hiwér al-dêni wa dawruhu fi muwajihét al-tatarruf wa al-irhéb, from http://www.al-islam.com imérah, muíammad, al-hiwér al-adyén bayn al-naðériyah wa al-taïbêq, 1999, cairo, maktabah wahbah. jirishah, ali, adéb al-hiwér wa al-munéðarah, 1412 h/1992 m, manîërah, dar al-wafa li al-tiba‘ah wa al-nashr wa al-tawzi. malik ben nabi, miléd al-mujtama’: shabakah al-aléqah al-ijtimé‘iyyah, 1986, damascus, dar al-fikr. midani, abd al-raíman hasan jankah, öawébit al-ma’rifah wa uîël al-istidlél wa al-munézarah, 1414 h/1993 m, cairo, dar al-qalam. mawêl, muíammad kamal, al-hiwér fi al-qur’én al-karêm, 1420 h/2000, beirut, dér al-férabê li al-ma‘érif. muslim b. al-hajjéj abë al-×asan al-qusyairi al-nisébërê, (n.d). al-musnad al-øaíêí al-mukhtaîar bi naqli al-‘adl an al-‘adl ila rasulillah (œ), beirut, dér iíya al-turath al-arabi. mawdëdê, abul ‘alé, toward understanding the qur’én, tafhêm al-qur’én, 1990, english version translated by zafar ishaq ansari, leicester, the islamic foundation. midani, abdal raíman hasan jankah, öawébit al-ma’rifah wa uîël al-istidlél wa al-munéðarah, 1993, damascus, dar al-qalam. maréghê, aímad b. muîïafé, tafsêr al-maréghê, 1946, cairo, muîïafé béb al-halabê. mursifê, muíammad muíammad, fi al-tarbiyyah al-islaméiyyah, 1987, cairo, maktabah wahbah. natsir, moíammad, fiqh da’wah, 2008, jakarta, dewan dakwah islamiyyah, indonesia. nisapërê, muslim b. al-×ajjéj abë al-hasan al-qusyairê (n.d). al-musnad al-øaíêí al-mukhtaîar bi naqlê al-‘adl an al-‘adl ila rasulêllah (œ), beirut, dér ihyé al-turéth al-arabê. qésim, khélid b. abdullah, al-hiwér ma‘ ahl al-kitéb: uîëluhu wa manéhijuhu fê al-kitéb wa al-sunnah, 1414 h, riyadh, dér al-muslim. qaradawê,yusuf , khitébuna al-islémê fê ‘aîr al-‘awlamah, 1424 h/2004 m, cairo, dér al-shurëq. quïb, sayyid, fê úilél al-qur’én, (1998), cairo, dér al-shurëq. rézê, imém fakhr al-dên muíammad b. ‘umar b. husein b. al-×asan b. alê al-tamêmê al-bakrê, tafsêr al-kabêr aw mafétih al-ghayb, 2000, beirut, dér al-kutub al-ilmiyyah). rida, muíammad rashêd b. alê, ùafsêr al-manér, 1990, cairo, al-haiah al-misriyyah al-ammah. sa‘dê, abd raímén b. nasir b. abdullah, ùafsêr al-karêm al-raíman fi tafsêr kalém al-mannén, 2000, beirut, muasaah al-risalah. sulamê, abd al-raíêm bin sumayil, al-hiwér bayn al-adyén, n.d, beirut, maktabah al-shamilah. sha‘réwê, muíammad mutawallê, ùafsêr sheikh mutawallê, 2002, sha’réwê, cairo, matébê akhbér al-yawm. hamdard islamicus 43 vol. xli, nos. 1 & 2 shahrasténê, abë al-fatí muíammad b. abd al-karêm aímad, al-milal wa al-nihal, 1410 m/1998, beirut, dér al-ma‘rifah li al-tiba‘ah wa al-nashr. ùanïéwê, muíammad seyed, tafsêr al-wasêt, cairo, dér nahdah misr li al-tibé‘ah wa al-tawzê, 1998. the noble qur’én, translated by muhammad muhsin khan and muíammad taqi-uddin al-hilali, 2001, riyadh, darussalam publishers and distributors. turkisténê, aímad sayfuddin, al-hiwér ma’a ashéb al adyan: mashru’iyyatuhu wa shurëtuhu wa ódébuhu, http://www.al-islam.com. toha, anis malik, hiwér al-adyén bayn jusër al-taféhum wa ×ifð al-huwiyyah, 1431 h/2010 m, kuala lumpur, journal of tajdêd, vol. xiv, no. 27. tirmidhê jémi‘ al-kabêr, 1998, beirut, dér al-gharb al-islémê. yësuf, muíammad idrês, al-jémi‘ al-øaíêí musnad al-imam al-rabê bin ×abêb al-rabê bin ×abêb bin umar al-azdi al-basrê, 1415 h, beirut, dér al-hikmah. zahirê, imém abi muíammad ali b. aímad al-ma‘rëf bin ibn ×azm, al-faìl fi al-milal wa al-ahwa wa al-niíal, 1405 h/1985 m, beirut, dér al-jêl. zuhaili, wahbah b. muîïafé, ùafsêr al-munêr fi al-‘aqêdah wa al-manhaj, 1418 h, damascus, dér al-fikr al-muasir. announcement due to a number of reasons, the hamdard islamicus, issues nos. 3 & 4 of 2018 would be published as a combined issue (with double pages). regrets from all of our readers, subscribers and sale agents for inconvenience. (editor) hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 9 translational trajectories in arabic-english translation of the holy qur’ón dr. alalddin tawfiq al-tarawneh zarqa university, zarqa, jordan aaltarawneh@zu.edu.joemail: received on: 24-02-21 accepted on: 26-06-22 abstract translation studies (ts), as a discipline, contains many terms describing the translational dichotomies governing the choices of translators, with recent examples including domestication and foreignization. this paper reviews and discusses this binary, in order to demonstrate how the exclusive adoption of one or the other may impact on the resultant meaning in the target language (tl). it also proposes an alternative approach helping the translator to move between various approaches, with the aim of capturing meaning and delivering it in a native-like manner. this approach is known as hybridization – a blend of two independent approaches in ts – with its application determined by parameters stating when a translation should be source-oriented or targetoriented. all examples are drawn from the holy qur’én, i.e. the book most frequently translated from arabic into english. it seeks to highlight the deficiency of an exclusive application of domestication or foreignization, and secondly, examine the efficacy of the hybridizing approach. the paper concludes that hybridization is both effective and meaning-oriented. the paper is qualitative and conceptual in nature. after a critical discussion of translation theories, the results are applied to a number of textual cases considered representative of mistranslated verses of the holy qur’én, that is, the interpretive paradigm to analyze multiple case studies. the results are then compared with the original text, followed by proposed alternative translations. finally, there is a conclusion and recommendations. keywords: translation studies; foreignization; domestication; hybridization; the holy qur’én. 1. introduction mailto:aaltarawneh@zu.edu.jo 10 translational trajectories … translation studies (ts) is a relatively recent and highly interdisciplinary academic discipline, focused on examining the practice and theory of translation. the practice of translation has evolved over several centuries, preserving and transmitting knowledge through the literary and philosophical works of the western roman empire in arabic.1 it has also been subject to an evolutionary process in how it is both commissioned and theorized, indicating a process of improvement in the discipline of ts, in order to meet the emerging demands of both translators and their clients. however, some practice previously considered acceptable is as no longer viewed as appropriate, and thus in need of being replaced. moreover, a unanimous agreement has not yet been established between ts scholars concerning a clear concept of translation,2 which tends to be seen in light of its assigned objective(s). this indicates a potential variation in techniques and approaches according to a work’s function and objective. this is known in ts as skopos, as discussed in more detail below. 2. background translation tasks are not all identical, with each commission, having its own specificity. however, the general aim is to deliver the meaning as understood in the source text (st) into the target text (tt) according to the norms of tl, i.e. a native-like use of the relevant styles and norms. this current discussion therefore focusses on a specific work translated from arabic into english, in the form of the holy qur’én, which, according to index translationum, the world bibliography of translation,3 is the book most translated from arabic into other languages. the holy qur’én is the holy book of islam and muslims. unlike the bible, the holy qur’én is only sacred in arabic, with any translation thus lacking any sacred status. apart from having been frequently translated, this work is also recognized as including many translational errors, which are generally attributed to the definition of the holy qur’én as being the ʻliteralʼ word of allah almighty revealed in arabic. this results in translators tending to adopt a highly literal (i.e. formal or foreignizing) approach when translating the work into english, believing that this is the most accurate method of maintaining its sacredness and avoiding changing the meaning of allah almighty’s word.4 3. research objective this current article critically examines the issue of such translations and proposes new means of improving both the process and quality of translation from arabic into english. these propositions are particularly applicable for non-technical texts, in the form of specialized writings undertaken by experts in the hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 11 relevant fields, i.e. science, technology, law and medicine. translators of such texts tend to vary in their approach, as such work requires prior understanding of the field, as well as awareness of ad hoc translational techniques.5 4. methodology this current article is primarily qualitative and conceptual in nature. firstly, there is a critical discussion of both the main and recent translational approaches currently in use. secondly, the results are applied to a number of textual cases considered representative of mistranslated verses of the holy qur’én. the article therefore adopts an interpretive paradigm to analyze multiple case studies, as this is considered an effective method of establishing an in-depth understanding of translational issues. thirdly, the results are compared with the original text, followed by proposed alternative translations. finally, there is a conclusion and recommendations. the translations employed for the discussion are as follows: 1. the koran interpreted: a translation.(arthur john arberry, 1996) 2. the meaning of the glorious koran.(pickthall, 1997) 3. the holy qur’én translated.(shakir, 1999) 4. the holy qur’én: translation and commentary.(yusuf ali, 2001) 5. the holy qur’én translation (mufti muhammad taqi usmani, 2010) these translations have been selected due to being wellknown and frequently employed by many western institutions and internet websites.6it should be clarified that these translations are not quoted for the sake of any assessment of their quality, but are rather used to instantiate cases in which the proposed translation trajectory is applied to highlight its applicability. 5. literature review although translation is a recent discipline, its practice is deeply rooted in history. this is indicated by the many terms coined to describe the methods espoused by translators while working on texts. the significant aspect of these terms is their dichotomy, i.e. being described as polar opposites. thus, cicero (46 bc) identified two types of translators: (1) the free translator (i.e. an orator) and (2) the literal translator (i.e. an interpreter). in addition, saint jerome (4th century ad) distinguished between sense-for-sense translation and word-for-word translation.7schleiermacher addressed this dichotomous nature of translation with the following statement: “either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, 12 translational trajectories … and moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.”8a number of further notable dichotomies in ts include: (1) harmonizing and literal translation by benjamin; (2) domesticating and archaizing translation by pound; (3) illusionary and anti-illusionary translation by levy; (4) dynamic and formal equivalence by nida; (5) formal correspondence and textual equivalence by catford; (6) indirect and direct translation by gutt; and (7) domestication and foreignization by venuti.9this reveals that translation has a long history of dichotomies when it comes to the different approaches adopted by translators. this current article focuses on the most recent dichotomy governing the discussion within ts, i.e. domestication and foreignization,10 as discussed in more detail below. 6. discussion 6.1. domestication venuti proposed the term ‘domestication’ for the strategy of normalizing st by reducing its strangeness, so as to create a fluent and transparent language in tl. this accords with schleiermacherʼs (1963) description (as cited above) of translation as leaving the reader in peace and moving the author towards him/her.11this strategy seeks to minimize the cultural and linguistic strangeness of st, employing cultural and linguistic norms to achieve readability and intelligibility in tl. this ensures that there is nothing recognizably ‘foreign’ in the text, either culturally or linguistically. nida, an important proponent of this approach, proposed the use of dynamic equivalence to establish the naturalness of the tl reader’s reaction to a text:–“that is, the way he would say it” or “to relate the receptor to modes of behaviour relevant within the context of his own culture.”12 this approach can be viewed as both practicable and beneficial, with its focus being on establishing readability and fluency. however, it also contains a number of drawbacks. domestication acts like an ethnocentric tool, reducing st foreign to the intended target reader, thus eliminating the cultural values of tl.13here, the criticism concerns the issue of cultural values, rather than the language itself, with a translated text required to be presented in a native-like manner, void of any stylistic or grammatical mistakes. this overlooks the importance of cultural values, which donate the uniqueness of the original text. ts views translation as a bridge between different civilizations, so minimizing the differences and enhancing the intercultural dialogue, in order to know the ʻother.ʼ many translators are thus dichotomous when it comes to the application of translational approaches, particularly the use of the domestication technique to fulfil the need for readability in tl. their application is exercised at both the cultural and hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 13 linguistic level, facilitating the translator as the “person who can draw aside the curtains of linguistic and cultural differences, so that people may see clearly the relevance of the original message.”14 domestication therefore creates a naturalness of response in terms of linguistic and cultural references, which can also be responsible for creating misconception or deception, i.e. the translator changes the foreign text, with all its uniqueness, in order to create a copy concomitant with the linguistic norms and cultural values of the target reader in tl. by doing so, the target reader is prevented from identifying the differences and so the opportunity of coming to understand the ‘other’, i.e. the text represents their own views and expectations. therefore, the application of domestication to achieve a natural response places a considerable degree of pressure on tt to accurately mirror and exchange knowledge and all cultural differences. this criticism arises from the fact that translation is “a more complex negotiation between two cultures.”15 a well-known example of how domestication miscommunicates cultural-embedded messages in order to achieve naturalness is one given by nida. he stated that philips (1954) translated the biblical verse 16:16 in romans “greet one another with a holy kiss” as “give one another a hearty handshake all around.”16this example is used by the proponents of domestication to demonstrate the benefits of native-like translations. nevertheless, it is not without controversy, as it instantiates the negative engagement of the translator when it comes to the issue of “the holy kiss”. this is not merely a linguistic component void of any cultural connotations, but remains a cultural practice used in everyday situations in the context of the middle east where the verses of the bible were first revealed. furthermore, it has subsequently acquired a religious attribute, becoming a religious ritual,17now known as “the kiss of peace”, i.e. a gesture of union of love in some churches during the celebration of the eucharist.18this can be seen to validate the criticisms levelled against domestication, as the translator’s choice of words miscommunicates the network of ideas present in the original text. thus, the translator has intervened in the text and by so doing devalued the original culture, as kissing, particularly between males, may not be a familiar practice in british culture. st can therefore be seen as having been culturally tamed to fit the norms of tl, resulting in the loss of the intellectual conversation. this then results in the dialogue between the two cultures being reduced to a monologue, particularly as tt already resonates with the target culture. in their attempt to study the swedish novel bert dagbok as translated from swedish into english, åsman and pedersen stated that: anyone reading it with the hope of learning more about the sc, i.e. sweden, is likely to be 14 translational trajectories … disappointed […] in other words, as much as the st is a novel about the everyday life of a swedish boy, the tt is a novel about the everyday life of an american boy.19 this issue concerns the authority the translator awards him or herself to create such a misleading translation under the pretext of naturalizing tt. this is an ethical concern of which all translators need to be aware. 6.2. foreignization the term ‘foreignization’ was proposed by venuti, being inspired by schleiermacher, who described it as a process in which the translator directs the reader towards the author, while at the same time leaving the author in peace. foreignization is an approach through which the translator places his/her translation into tl by deliberately breaking its conventions and expectations, so retaining the foreignness of st.20 this approach was supported by venuti who viewed it as “an ethno deviant pressure on those values to register the linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign text, sending the reader abroad.”21this approach views translation as an inter-lingual transcription of the original text in terms of the style and language, as well as the cultural connotations and foreign ideas present in tl, i.e. minimizing or overriding its influence in determining the linguistic and cultural imports of st. unlike domestication (which reduces the st to fit the norms of tl), foreignization highlights the differences between sl and tl, while at the same time emphasizing the role of translation in improving intercommunication and introducing the culture of the original text. this implies that the uniqueness of st is lost if it is forced to abide by the norms and established knowledge of the tl reader. however, it should be acknowledged that foreignization acts to counter the misconception of viewing translation as a fluent product in tl, i.e. void of foreignness. instead, foreignization places its emphasis on accuracy over the nativity of the language, so mirroring the distinctive linguistic and cultural elements of st. this results in the tl reader gaining a deeper understanding of a culture along with new insights. foreignization does not therefore aim to achieve a smooth readability and language fluency in translation, but rather focuses on tl’s ability to add new knowledge and facilitate intercultural dialogue between cultures. accordingly, translation is “more than using home-brewed variants and deleting unfamiliar references to the source culture.”22 however, foreignization is not without controversy, and this current article is also critical of its attempt to represent st hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 15 linguistically in tl in a radical manner. languages are considered the conduits through which knowledge is passed and so the application of foreignization to the linguistic aspect of st results in an exotic form of language being introduced into tl, one that fails to communicate the intended meaning of the original. thus, if the language in tl contains many aspects of grammar or style unfamiliar to tl readers, information may be neither communicated nor apprehended. meaning is paramount in the process of translation, with language the means of communicating an idea or meaning. this can be illustrated by the use of english as the official language of both the anglosphere and the indian subcontinent, despite these being culturally remote. this raises the possibility that two literary works can be written in perfect english in india and the uk representing a distinct cultural content, particularly when it comes to the exotic cultural representation of india in the west.23however, foreignization also has a number of benefits when it comes to communicating the distinct cultural elements of st in tl, in particular, due to its ability to identify cultural uniqueness, rather than the language perse. this confirms the advantages of applying foreignization to highlight cultural differences, as it facilitates intellectual communication and bridges the gap between different cultures. ghandhi (1869-1948) stated, “i do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. i want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible.”24this can be seen as the potential benefits of applying foreignization to capture cultural differences. 6.3. an alternative approach: hybridization as previously discussed, domestication and foreignization inhabit exclusive domains, i.e. once one is adopted by the translator, it is applied at both the linguistic and cultural levels. the exclusive application of one of these approaches for the same st would generate two contrasting texts in tl: (1) offering fluent and smooth language, while omitting the cultural trace of the original context and (2) providing an inarticulate, foreign language, but capturing the cultural nuances of st. domestication can therefore be seen to naturalize the st, as if(particularly in terms of the language and culturally-embedded elements)the original had been written in tl. foreignization, on the other hand, overcomes the deletion of the original cultural elements by projecting them as understood in their original context. however, in doing so, it imports linguistically foreign stylistic elements, which can fail to make sense to the target reader. this debate concerns exclusive naturalization or excoticization, i.e. being source-oriented or target-oriented. this discussion identifies the benefits of a blend of both aspects in overcoming this dichotomous tendency to achieve fluent and 16 translational trajectories … comprehensible language, while at the same time mapping the cultural uniqueness of st. this necessitates the implementation of a demarcation line highlighting the domain and workability of each term. this current article therefore, suggests the combining of domestication and foreignization within the same st. this intermediary translational approach is known as hybridization. it is neither source-oriented (i.e. foreignization) nor target-oriented (i.e. domestication), but rather moves between these polarities, in order to capture the meaning and cultural specificity of st, so resulting in a fluent and smooth use of language, one that is void of foreign instances. this approach recognizes that the target audience is unconcerned with the process of translation, preferring to read a text capable of fully representing the content of the original. the translated text opens up new horizons, so introducing the target reader to a new culture, and therefore demanding the preservation of the cultural specificity (or foreignness) of st in tt. furthermore, readers’ linguistic expectations demand such foreignness be delivered in language that is clear, smooth and natural. this can be seen as the philosophy of hybridization, which focuses on striking a balance between maintaining the cultural nuances and naturalizing the means of communication, i.e. the language in tt. respected uk ts scholar, mona baker, suggested that “translators oscillate within the same text between choices that venuti would regard as domesticating and ones he would regard as foreignizing. and, importantly, this oscillation serves a purpose in the real world – it is neither random nor irrational.”25 hybridization places no demarcation line in relation to being sourceoriented or target-oriented. the transition is governed by the objective26 assigned to the commission concerning a non-technical translation, which generally focuses on communicating the meaning in tl as understood within its original context. hybridization recognizes the following two forms of meaning. 1. the linguistic meaning. this is generated solely from the interaction between linguistic constituencies, being divided into literal (or plain) and figurative. 2. the culturally embedded meaning. this cannot be easily determined by relying solely on language and is divided into firstly, false cognates (otherwise known as ʻfalse friendsʼ)27and concepts that are culture-specific and unique to the st in terms of meaning and wording. 3. during the application of hybridization, meaning forms the criterion determining whether it is source-oriented or targetoriented, i.e. delivering the meaning form the sl into the tl as understood within the original context. all linguistic components (words or phrases) are made up of firstly, form (i.e. the oral or written symbols used to express meaning) and hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 17 secondly, content (i.e. understanding of the symbols (form) to determine meaning.28 in addition, any linguistic component related to form and content is divided into four cases: 1. a linguistic component whose form is easily traceably between sl and tl, with the content directly established as found in any dictionary. for example, looking up car in a bilingual dictionary gives the equivalent arabic word سيارة (sayārh). 2. a linguistic component whose form in sl does not match that in tl, yet the content is easily established in both sl and tl. for example, the english expression to warm someone's heart is expressed in arabic as to freeze someone's heart/chest, i.e. to have pleasant feelings. 3. a linguistic component whose form does match in sl and tl as found in dictionaries, yet the content or meaning is irrelevant. for example, although the concept of pilgrimage exists in both english and arabic حج (ḥajj) and is easily found in dictionaries, they do not match on the level of meaning, as both differ in terms of how, where and when this ritual is performed. what is meant here is that both muslims and christians perform the ritual of pilgrimage which sounds identical for the two parties. however, they are incomparable as muslims have fixed conditions to be met to consider what they perform is hajj. in contrast, christians are not consistent in terms of the conditions of pilgrimage and vary in terms of the application depending on the christian sect. 4. a linguistic component whose form and content do not match in sl and tl. such components are language-specific and mark the uniqueness of a language. for example, in english, boyfriend has no match in arabic dictionaries, in terms of either wording or meaning, while the same is also true of the arabic this lack of any equivalent results in such cases .(jihād) جهاد requiring transliteration and explanation. the hybridization approach can, therefore, be seen as leading the translator to oscillate in order to convey the intended meaning as it occurs within its context. this requires four techniques within hybridization, concomitant with the four cases noted above. 1. the naturalization technique. this is applied when the linguistic components in both sl and the tl are equivalent in terms of content and form. the technique naturalizes st in tl, with tt appearing as if written by a tl native speaker, i.e. meeting the linguistic norms of tl and the linguistic expectations of the audience. this is intended to break down the message of st, to be subsequently restructured according to the linguistic tl norms (i.e. plain language). this is the dominant technique used 18 translational trajectories … in translation unless the meaning in the st deviates from the first case to move to other cases. 2. the functional technique. this is employed in cases where the meaning, but not the form, of the linguistic component is traceable between sl and tl. this technique is concerned with the function of the expression rather than the words. the process entails capturing the intended meaning of st and presenting in an equivalent style in tl, i.e. ensuring the meaning is the same in both languages, but the words differ (figurative language). both the naturalization and functional techniques are concerned with cases of a purely linguistic nature, whether using plain or figurative language. 3. the thickening technique. this is concerned with culturally embedded messages across languages, being used when a linguistic component of sl and tl can be easily found and appear superficially mutual in dictionaries, while the content differs. this technique is employed to enhance the text by inserting additional information to that in st.29this preserves the equivalent component in tl as found in dictionaries, adding a footnote to highlight the differences when it comes to how such a component is perceived in the original context. this breaking of expectations enables the tl reader to recognize the distinctiveness and uniqueness of the other. this technique helps “to permit the reader to identify himself as fully as possible with a person in the source-language context, and to understand as much as he can of customs, manner of thought, and means of expression.”30 4. the annotated transliteration technique. this also focuses on culturally embedded messages across languages, being employed when number of linguistic components instantiate a perfect example of uniqueness in being languageand culturespecific, making it impossible for them to be reproduced by means of one-to-one equivalents. as with the thickening technique, the annotated transliteration technique uses footnotes to insert additional information, in order to overcome the issue of any divergence in content between sl and tl. thus, transliteration can resolve the issue of correspondence between forms, with the sound of the sl component being expressed in the alphabet of tl, with a footnote added to provide the relevant information. 6.4. the application of hybridization as stated earlier, this study applies the hybridization technique to the holy qur’én, as the book most frequently translated from arabic into english. this comparison is also beneficial due to hybridization being generally applied to nonhamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 19 technical texts. this section compares the outcome of hybridization to a number of well-known translations of the holy qur’én, with the aim of highlighting the feasibility of this approach, as well as its added value. as noted above, these translations are: 1. the koran interpreted: a translation. (arthur john arberry, 1996) 2. the meaning of the glorious koran. (pickthall, 1997) 3. the holy qur’én translated. (shakir, 1999) 4. the holy qur’én: translation and commentary. (yusuf ali, 2001). 5. the holy qur’én translation (mufti muhammad taqi usmani, 2010) four examples have been taken from the holy qur’én, representing the four cases of any linguistic component made up of form and content. three translations are used to highlight the common mistakes in each example, followed by the proposition of a new version through the use of hybridization. the first case is not problematic, as it instantiates the mutuality of form and content between sl and tl. however, linguistic specificities in both sl and tl can mean that such linguistic mutuality is not always attained. space constraints have dictated that this paper focuses on only two issues in this verse to examine on the workability of the naturalizing technique. the quranic verse 43, chapter 4 consists of a case that is highly mistranslated due to the foreignizing approach, resulting in the miscommunication and misrepresentation of the original content. adopting the foreignising approach leads to depict women as ‘dirty’ creatures that necessitate men to cleanse themselves once the they touch them, particularly before initiating any form of religious ritual like the recitation of the holy qur’én.31such a thing results in creating misconception in islam and misrepresentation of muslim women amongst non-muslims who reads the translations of the holy qur’én. 1. yusuf ali: ““…if ye are ill, or on a journey, or one of you cometh from offices of nature, or ye have been in contact with women, and ye find no water, then take for yourselves clean sand or earth, and rub therewith your faces and hands…”32 2. shakir: “…if you are sick, or on a journey, or one of you come from the privy or you have touched the women, and you cannot find water, betake yourselves to pure earth, then wipe your faces and your hands…”33 3. arberry: “…if you are sick, or on a journey, or if any of you comes from the privy, or you have touched women, and you can find no water, then have recourse to wholesome dust and wipe your faces and your hands…”34 4. usmani: “if you are sick, or in travel, or if one of you has come after relieving himself, or you have had contact with women, 20 translational trajectories … and you find no water, go for some clean dust and wipe your faces and hands (with it).”35 in these translations, touching women means that the ablution of men is nullified. in point of fact, the interpretation of this verse has nothing to do with the literal meaning of ‘touch’; it is the euphemistic function that is used to stand for sexual intercourse, meaning that the ablution is nullified by having sexual intercourse, not the accidental touch.36therefore, the correct translation of the original arabic word المستم (lāmastum) – literally, touch– should be ‘to have sexual intercourse’ the second case is also of a linguistic nature, while at the same time being concerned with figurative language, i.e. alluding to, without literally stating, a meaning. this employs the functional technique and seeks to establish a natural response to the facilitating of linguistic elegance and intelligibility in tl. this technique avoids any literal correspondence between words as found in dictionaries, because “meanings are not found exclusively in the words listed individually in the dictionary.”37 this can be illustrated as follows: the quranic verse 29, chapter 17 instantiates a clear example of how figurative language is lost in translation in the following examples: 1. yusuf ali: “make not thy hand tied (like a niggard's) to thy neck…”38 2. shakir: “and do not make your hand to be shackled to your neck…”39 3. arberry: “and keep not thy hand chained to thy neck…”40 4. usmani: “and do not keep your hand tied to your neck…”41 ensuring a hand is tied/shackled/chained to the neck conveys nothing but the image as read in these examples, and thus an expression meaningless for any native speaker of english, i.e. the imagined recipient of this translation. this indicates a need to revisit this translation in order to deliver the meaning of the original, i.e. the main aim of any translation. a native speaker of arabic would understand the meaning of the original verse as ‘do not bestingy’. however, this is not a sense conveyed by the existing translations, due to the foreignizing approach having failed to capture the intended meaning. this implies the need to activate the functional technique to ensure mutuality of expression in terms of the intended meaning, rather than the form, i.e. the meaning of the original is expressed in the idiomatic style of arabic. this is not the same of tl, inferring the need to use a different style to establish an identical meaning in english, i.e. an equivalent semantic impact. the quranic idiom ‘do not make your hand tied/ shackled/chained to the neck’, meaning ‘do not be stingy’ has an equivalent in english, which expresses the same meaning but takes a different form, i.e. ‘don’t be so tight-fisted’. this is the essence of the functional approach that seeks to capture the intended meaning, or function, of an expression, regardless of the form. the translator hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 21 can render the original expression directly as ‘do not be stingy’, but. in this case, the intelligibility of the text is somewhat compromised by the original expression being interpreted in english by means of simple words. the provision of equivalent expressions denoting an identical meaning would allow the translated text to appear nativelike, thus ensuring its readability. the third case is concerned with meanings that are culturally, rather than linguistically, embedded. arabic and english are generally considered culturally remote; however, all cultures retain a number of recurrent universal concepts, i.e. that of allah almighty. this concept is almost universal, but is viewed and identified in very different ways. thus, a superficial correspondence can be observed but not completely accepted. for example, muslims consider allah almighty as one and not comparable to human beings, whereas christianity sees god as understood through the prism of the trinity. such cases may need to be handled carefully during the process of translation, so as to convey an accurate and comprehensive set of ideas between the two languages. these words represent the specificity of a culture, while translation is presented as a facilitator of communication between two cultures, because, as noted by lotman, uspensky and mikaychuk.“no language (in the full sense of the word) can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have, at its center, the structure of natural language.”42 such language/culture-specific elements consequently need to be defined and introduced into tl with reference to their meaning in relation to specific cultures through the use of footnotes: “for those who do not know the background facts of which the author wanted his readers to think. the footnotes provide the needed information, but in a way that indicates they are not part of the text itself.”43 the application of footnotes to give supplementary information is accomplished by means of the thickening technique, i.e. the translator expands the text by indicting that specific information does not form part of the original. the recipients of the translation are therefore introduced to: (a) thicker context of the original and informing them of the shared knowledge between the original author and his/her readers, thick translation represents the original culture in a deeper and fuller manner, helping to reduce, even avoid, misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication.44 this can be illustrated by the quranic verse 17, chapter 19, which presents how the lack of any additional information may lead to misunderstanding in target readers. 1. pickthall: “and had chosen seclusion from them. then we sent unto her our spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man”45 22 translational trajectories … 2. shakir: “so she took a veil (to screen herself) from them; then we sent to her our spirit, and there appeared to her a well-made man”46 3. arberry: “and she took a veil apart from them; then we sent unto her our spirit that presented himself to her a man without fault”47 4. usmani: “then she used a barrier to hide herself from them. then, we sent to her our spirit, (jibra‘il) and he took before her the form of a perfect human being.”48 the context of this verse is mary, the mother of jesus, who left her people to remain in seclusion. there, god (allah almighty) sent her his messenger, the archangel gabriel, in the form of a human being to address her.49 the above translations, and in particular the italicized words, could be seen to indicate the word ‘spirit’ as related to the trinity. ‘spirit’ is the result of the domesticating approach to the original word روح(rūḥ),as found in any dictionary. it is also recurrent in the holy qur’én, but represents the archangel gabriel, rather than any reference to the christian trinity of the holy spirit.50it can therefore be observed that the words روح (rūḥ) and spirit are superficially identical, but are perceived in a completely separate manner. a footnote is added to clarify this concept as understood in the original context and so dispel any potential misunderstanding arising from tl, as noted by hassaballa and helminski: the word spirit is the literal translation of the original arabic word روح (rūḥ), but it refers in the quranic context to the herald of god (allah almighty), archangel gabriel, when making any contact with humans. this has not to be confused with the christian understanding of this concept.51 this enables the reader of translation to identify differences of understanding when it comes to identical concepts in the two languages. the fourth case represents a radical example of the cultural role of translation. this tackles the linguistic elements unique to a specific culture and its language, resulting in no equivalent (in either form or content) existing in any other language. unlike the previous case, there is no matching word in the dictionary in tl, resulting in a need for a transliteration, along with a footnote, i.e. annotated transliteration. the sounds of the original words are expressed by means of the tl alphabet, with a footnote inserted to clarify their meaning in the original. this can be illustrated by the quranic verse 61, chapter 19, which consists of a case focusing on a concept highly unique to the culture of arabs and muslims. 1. yusuf ali: “gardens of eternity, those which (allah almighty) most gracious has promised to his servants in the unseen: for his promise must (necessarily) come to pass.”52 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 23 2. shakir: “the gardens of perpetuity which the beneficent allah almighty has promised to his servants while unseen; surely his promise shall come to pass.”53 3. arberry: “gardens of eden that the all-merciful promised his servants in the unseen; his promise is ever performed.”54 4. usmani: “(they will enter) the gardens of eternity, promised by the all-merciful (allah almighty) to his servants, in the unseen world. they will surely reach (the places of) his promise. ”55 the italicized word (i.e. unseen), is a domesticating translation of the arabic word الغيب (alghayb). this is presented in dictionaries as ‘unseen’ (i.e. not seen or not noticed). the meaning of ‘unseen’ within a religious discourse in english is generally viewed as expressing a belief in christ without seeing him, i.e. the unseen christ, thus representing blind obedience and belief.56this is not the same when it comes to the arabic context. there is no equivalent english expression for الغيب (alghayb), either in terms of form or content. furthermore, no such meaning can be established, due to the lack of any existing counterparts. this results in the need for the arabic word to be transliterated, accompanied by a footnote to explain the meaning. the word ‘unseen’ is therefore replaced by a transliteration of the original as ‘al-ghayb’ and illustrated by altarawnehas follows: “it is a basic component of islamic belief system. it includes the knowledge of god (allah almighty) of whatever is going to happen in the future, the world of the unseen as the angels or jin – a creature where the satin belongs, god’s (almighty allah’s) plans regarding everything in this universe – being human or non-human – predestined even before the creation of universe, the knowledge of the afterlife and the resurrection, and the hell and the paradise. all that knowledge is only for god (allah) given to whoever of his servants (prophets)”.57 7. conclusion this paper has established that translation cannot be considered a science, as it is not judged in terms of formulas, i.e. one plus one equals two. instead, it established that translation is an art, requiring the negotiation of various options to make the final decision. firstly, it highlighted that translation is not determined by any fixed approach but is decided by the translator, who may move between a variety of approaches in order to convey the required meaning. secondly, it identified the role of the translator as seeking to establish meaning between st and tt, attained by neglecting the binaries in ts and adopting a hybrid approach to deliver meaning, i.e. the primary purpose of most of the translation tasks. thirdly, it 24 translational trajectories … examined how meaning cannot always be fully established between languages, resulting in the need to employ a number of different techniques. furthermore, the meaning in tl is required to express the exact meaning of sl, including in terms of its uniqueness and foreignness, even if this breaks the norms and expectations of the target readers. moreover, the delivery of meaning must be intelligible and elegant in tl. thus, translation is not judged by means of quantity, but in terms of quality, i.e. it is not an imitation of st, but rather a rewriting of the meaning in a different language. this article therefore concludes that translation is primarily source-oriented when it comes to capture meaning, and targetoriented when it comes to delivering the meaning in tl, according to its norms and the expectation of readers. hybridizing translation activity thus enables the translator to bridge the gap between the source and target audiences. hybridization assists in effectively communicating the cultural uniqueness and specificity of the former, while at the same time establishing an accurate comprehension and understanding in the minds of the latter. acknowledgment this research is funded by the deanship of research in zarqa university, jordan. notes and references 1jack spielvogel, western civilization: a brief history, (boston: cengage learning, 2016), 4. 2mark shuttleworth, dictionary of translation studies, (london: routledge, 2014), 63. 3"index translationum world bibliography of translation," unesco, accessed february 26, 2003, http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php url_id=7810&url_do=do_topic&url_section=201.html>. 4abdul-raof hussein, qur’én translation: discourse, texture and exegesis, (london: routledge, 2010) 62. 5ladan hosseinimanesh, and hossein vahid dastjerdi, “technical translation: a study of interference in three persian translations of “software engineering,” journal of language teaching and research 4, no. 1 (2013): 156-163. 6"english translation," qur’én corpus, dukes, accessed october 24, 2020,http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=2&verse=31. 7alalddin al-tarawneh,revisiting the translation of the holy qur’én: a new hybrid approach, (mauritius: lap lampert, 2019), 33. 8schleiermacher, the christian faith, cit. inpym, a. exploring translation theories, (new york and london: routledge, 2010), 11. 9aladdin al-tarwneh, “revisiting domestication and foreignisation methods: translating the qur’én by the hybrid approach,” international conference on islam and islamic studies, (los angeles: world academy of science, 2018): 15541563. 10lawrence venuti, the translator’s invisibility, (london: routledge, 2008) 94. 11shuttleworth, dictionary of translation studies,34. 12eugene nida, toward a science of translating: with special reference to principles and procedures involved in bible translating, (leiden: e.j. brill, 2003), 114. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 25 13venuti, the translator’s invisibility, 37. 14jan de waard and eugene albert nida, from one language to another: functional equivalence in bible translating,(nashville: thomas nelson, 1986), 37-39. 15hans trivedi and kar prafulla, “translating culture and cultural translation” in translation: reflections, refractions, transformations,ed. st-pierre, paul and prafulla c kar, (amsterdam; philadelphia: john benjamins publishing, 2007), 277317. 16nida,toward a science of translating, 64. 17al-tarawneh, revisiting the translation of the qur’én, 101. 18ralph n. mcmichael,eucharist: a guide for the perplexed, (new york: continuum/t & t clark, 2010), 121. 19palm asman, “how bert got into ned's head: domestication in the translation of literature for young readers,” perspectives: studies in translatology 21, no. 2 (2013): 143-155. 20shuttleworth,dictionary of translation studies,66. 21venuti, the translator’s invisibility, 46. 22kaisa koskinen, “domestication, foreignization and the modulation of affect.” kemppanen, h, m jänis and a belikova,domestication and foreignization in trasnslation studies (berlin: frank & timme, 2012): 13-32. 23al-tarwneh, revisiting domestication and foreignisation methods, 1559. 24harish thakur,gandhi, nehru and globalization, (new delhi: concept publishing company, 2010), 61. 25mona baker, “reframing conflict in translation” social semiotics 17, no. 2 (2007): 151-169. 26a discussion of the objective of translation concerns the issue in ts known as skopos. skopos was originally a greek word, meaning purpose or aim, which was introduced in the late 1970s by hans vermeer (vermeer 198). skopos judges the quality and process of translation according to the objective assigned to the translation commission, whether or not this can be fulfilled in tl. 27 a number of linguistic items can appear similar in sl and tl in terms of wording or dictionary-match, but differ when it comes to the intended meaning (e. a. nida 160). for example, pilgrimage in english and حج (hajj) in arabic refer to the same concept and appear in dictionaries as equivalents. however, they are perceived in completely different ways by the two cultures. 28abrus´an marta, nicholas asher and tim van de cruys, “content vs. function words: the view from distributional semantics,” sauerland, uli and stephanie solt,proceedings of sinn und bedeutung (berlin: zaspil, 2018): 1-21. 29kwame anthony appiah, “thick translation” callaloo 16, no. 4 (1993): 808819. 30hatim bassil and jerme munday,translation an advanced resource book, (london: routledge, 2004), 53. 31alalddin al-tarawneh, “combating the misrepresentation of women in qur’én translations: translational interventions,”journal of international women's studies 23, no. 1(2022): 1-13. 32qur’én corpus. english translation. 33qur’én corpus. english translation. 34qur’én corpus. english translation. 35the holy qur’én, surah the family of imran, trans. taqi usmani (karachi:maktabama’arifulqur’én, 2010). 36ibn kathir,tafseer al-qur’én al-adheem [the exegesis of the great qur’én] vol. 2 (riyadh: dar teebah, 1999), 203. 37james dickins, sandor hervey and ian higgins,thinking arabic translation: a course in translation method: arabic to english, (london: routledge, 2002), 79. 38qur’én corpus. english translation. 39qur’én corpus. english translation. 40qur’én corpus. english translation. 26 translational trajectories … 41the holy qur’én, surah the children of israel, trans. taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 42yu lotman, uspensky and george mihaychuk, “on the semiotic mechanism of culture,” new literary history 9, no. 2 (1978): 211-232. 43richard blight, “footnotes for meaningful translations of the new testament,” journal of translation 1 no, 1 (2005): 7-46. 44minhui, xu . “the theory and practice of thick translation” translation quarterly 73, no.1 (2014): 58-72. 45qur’én corpus. english translation. 46qur’én corpus. english translation. 47qur’én corpus. english translation. 48the holy qur’én, surah mary, trans. mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi:maktaba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010), 146. 49ibn kathir, tafseer al-quran al-adheem [the exegesis of the great quran] vol. 5, (riyadh: dar teebah, 1999), 178. 50al-tarawneh, revisiting the translation of the qur’én, 84. 51hesham hassaballa and kabir helminski,the beliefnet guide to islam, (new york : three leaves press, 2007), 98. 52qur’én corpus. english translation. 53qur’én corpus. english translation. 54qur’én corpus. english translation. 55the holy qur’én, surah mary, 146. 56thomas vincent, the true christian’s love of the unseen christ: a discourse chiefly tending to excite and promote the decaying love of christ in the hearts of christians, (london: digital puritan press, 2019), 74. 57al-tarawneh, revisiting the translation of the qur’én, 95. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 4\final\the dilalectic of orthodoxy.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 55 the dialectic of orthodoxy and heresy in early islam atta muhammad lecturer, govt. talim ul islam post graduate college chenab nagar e-mail: attam78@yahoo.com this article discusses the concepts of orthodoxy and heresy in islam. it focuses on orthodoxy in islam, and how orthodoxy played an important role in defining heresy. although no universal concept of orthodoxy exists in islam, whenever any particular religious creed got dominant position and enjoyed the support of the ruling elite, then dissenters were considered heretic as they were against the orthodoxy of that particular religious faction. in islam, heresy is related to the social and political challenges to the ruling elite and the dominant religious elite by dissenters, and there exists a symbiotic relationship between the orthodoxy of the day and the ruling elite. keywords: dialectic, orthodoxy, heresy, hetrodoxy, shari‘ah, bid‘ah. introduction in the history of mankind, religion has always played a significant role. throughout the history of religions, the question whether religion is applied in its original form or in some of its later interpretations, has been crucial. those who insist on the originality and purity of the revealed religion are called puritan and orthodox. they sometimes consider themselves custodians of the religious teachings and practices, while others, who are in favour of an interpretation of the religious doctrines adapted to the changing circumstances, are marginalised by the mainstream religious community, and get branded as heterodox. the former gives much importance to the textual meanings of the revelation, while the latter emphasises the interpretation of the religious doctrines.1 religion is closely related to the social and cultural dimensions of human life. the socio-cultural context has a strong relationship with the religious traditions, the two are interdependent, and at the same time “mutually reinforcing.”2 56 the dialectic of orthodoxy... heresy and orthodoxy emerge when a conflict occurs between sociocultural traditions and religious beliefs and practices. orthodoxy and heresy are complex phenomena. there is a deep relationship between the two orthodoxy and heresy in the history of islam. both are so strongly interrelated that one cannot understand heresy in islam without understanding orthodoxy. orthodoxy is a relative term. as there is not any particular word for “heresy” in islam, orthodoxy helps in defining the meaning of heresy. those religious groups and schools of thought that allied with the government played a critical role in defining orthodoxy and declaring others as heretics. etymology of the word heresy heresy is an english term borrowed from the greek word hairesis. there was a variety of meanings of the word hairesis in classical greek from where it has been derived. in greece, it was used for “choice,” “election,” and “decision or purpose effort.”3 this last meaning of the word is significant in respect to giving the idea of freedom of choice and freedom of doctrine. the connotation of the word heresy, or greek hairesis, or “choice” in antiquity was positive. it was used for certain philosophical groups or factions without considering it “scandalous and blameworthy.”4 it was also common to prefer one heretical group over the other without any negative connotation. the idea of the development of heresy is paralleled with the development of the institution of the church in european history. with the passage of time, the church gave much importance to doctrines in order to consolidate its position. from the second and the third century of the christian era, efforts were started to preserve the christian traditions in the face of greek philosophy and oriental mythology.5 until the late christian antiquity, the usage of the term hairesis or heresy was in a non-pejorative sense. early christians however used it increasingly, to refer to a “body of false beliefs and believers.”6 another greek word heterodoxia was closely related to the early christian sense of heresy, it meant “the act of mistaking one thing for another.”7 the church used both terms, and for some time they became almost synonymous in christian usage. during the early centuries of christianity, there was much diversity in belief and practices. as a result of the influence of the speculative philosophy of the greeks, through internal theological debates, persecution hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 57 of scholars, and with state support, a particular set of doctrines had been established, and its adherents were called orthodox, giving final authority to the christian church over the doctrinal faith, beliefs and practices. only the church clerge had the right to tell what it meant to be christian.8 the church felt the need for keeping its teachings pure, and thus criteria were developed to test the deviations. thus orthodoxy emerged under the authority of the church. a struggle started between orthodoxy and heresy (dissenters), and as a result an “official dogma” was established and “others,” who did not conform to the “official dogma” were declared heretics.9 until this time heresy more or less meant the difference in religious beliefs and practices. there were religious differences within the church. the most important thing for the church was an ecclesiastic authority, the authority over truth, and heresy was seen as a threat to the truth defined by the church itself.10 thus the idea of heresy as an evil emerged in the debates in the early church, which resulted in the establishment of councils that condemned various false doctrines and formulated the fundamental christian beliefs and practices.11 during this early time, heresy mainly manifested itself in the form of religious differences. the establishment of the christian church and the changing societal circumstances in the middle ages gave much importance to heresy in western society. the church having religiopolitical authority suppressed dissenters declaring them heretics in “the less stable, less communal and more competitive christian society.”12 owing to the strict papal authority, the medieval european society became a “persecuting society.”13 at that time, different ideas and philosophies were branded as heresies such as gnosticism, manichaeism, dualistic theories, and mysticism based on pantheism. in the early medieval period, “heretics did not see themselves as heretics” but as authentic christians, “who were claiming through the vita apostolica, the true teachings of the gospels.”14 when powers of papacy grew in europe after the tenth century, heresy became an observable phenomenon. in european history, a change came after 1000 a.d. when political and economic structures brought demographic changes. these structures brought competition in society. as individual efforts were made to improve life, the response from the religious and political authorities to control this change was critical in the emergence of dissenters in the society.15 from the tenth century onward, heretics were suppressed and persecuted by the church, and the term 58 the dialectic of orthodoxy... heresy was used in a negative and pejorative sense. thus, heresy has been a prominent feature of christian or western european history. the christian church that had authority over the christian faith crushed religious dissenters throughout the history of medieval europe. orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and their construction orthodoxy, heterodoxy and heresy are interrelated terms which cannot be understood in isolation. the heretics oppose those who consider themselves orthodox, and they are called heretic by the orthodoxy owing to their alienation from the mainstream religious beliefs and practices.16 orthodoxy in islam has vital importance as it is the orthodoxy which defines heresy, and to a great extent, it is the hostile relation of the two that helps understand heresy in islam. so it would be pertinent first to define orthodoxy in islam, and then elaborate upon heresy. in islam, there have been different schools of thought. every school of thought or faction has its own interpretation of religious beliefs and practices. in islam, there has been a powerful urge for self-discovery and self-expression. there is much space for resistance and protest within the muslim society. there is no concept of orthodoxy in islam that belongs to any single sect, as several schools of thought and sects claim to have “originality, unity and catholicity.”17 however, during the classical and medieval ages in islam each faction of the muslims considered itself the practitioner of true faith and declared other factions as infidel and heretic owing to their disagreement over faith, practices and beliefs. mohammad mujeeb argues that orthodoxy is to form such principles and rules through which a community is recognised as a uniform group as regards to its beliefs and practices. the community discourages efforts by the individuals of separating themselves through deviation. thus, the orthodox preserve their social norms based on their beliefs.18 orthodoxy is identified with tradition. orthodoxy is a belief in traditional doctrine.19 talal asad very interestingly defines tradition, having strong relations with the institutions of the past from where it started, as a way of teaching, instructing correct beliefs, and practices, and to modify it in a social context.20 so a muslim tradition is a tradition which is being implemented in the present but having past practices as a role model. in the history of muslim civilization, a group of muslim scholars or ulama opposed vehemently any speculative, logical interpretation of the revelation. any interpretation other than the literalist was unacceptable hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 59 to them. this group of ulama was labelled as having “zero-orthodoxy”21 of the acceptance of divine revelation without asking how. so any deviation from that zero-orthodoxy was rejected as “innovation” (bid‘ah). this type of orthodoxy was encouraged by those ulama, who were “anxious to protect the integrity and moral of communal life.”22 so this tendency of zero-orthodoxy in both sunni and shia communities accused every innovation, even persecuted it as heresy when supported by the ruling elite. zero-orthodoxy was not followed by other schools of thought, including the sunni schools of thought, because the slightest departure from the so-called orthodoxy would be considered deviation, innovation and consequently heresy, while this had never happened with other muslim schools of thought in the history of muslim civilization.23 the word orthodoxy is used by those scholars who could not find its substitute. orthodoxy opposes every belief and practices of the muslim religious community that does not fit under its “umbrella – typically, a very small umbrella.”24 orthodoxy resists deviation vehemently. so those who differ are declared heterodox. another concept used by alexander knysh is “orthodoxy-in-making.” according to him, it emerged when some vital aspects of religious establishment faced danger from “numerous inquisitive schismatic” factions. the criticism from the heterodox elements of society towards orthodoxy helped in ‘reformulating’ orthodoxy on the correct lines and gave cogency to orthodoxy for future criticism. muslim orthodoxy was a final draft of the collective efforts made by the muslim intellectuals belonging to different, sometimes opposed, religious backgrounds. as a result of a long period of argumentation, “spontaneous orthodoxy” emerged which was, in the words of knysh, a “fluid body of more or less generally accepted beliefs, theological ideas and practical guiding principles.”25 according to talal asad, orthodoxy is neither something that is ignorable, nor having particular doctrines but it is related with power. he maintains that orthodoxy is not just a particular set of beliefs and opinions, but it is a “relationship of power.”27 it is the power of regulating the correct practices and condemning incorrect practices. at the same time, the muslim tradition has continuously been changed. so, according to asad, there is no fixed form of orthodoxy in islam. it is the specific social, cultural and historical contexts that help in understanding, defining and formation of muslim tradition and orthodoxy. as a result of conquering vast lands, when muslims migrated to the new areas, they faced new challenges at intellectual and socio-cultural levels. they modified muslim 60 the dialectic of orthodoxy... traditions according to the new environment, at the same time, maintaining conformity with the qur’an and sunnah of prophet muhammad ( ). when those groups which contributed to the revision of the orthodoxy became part of the socio-cultural power in the new environment, a revised form of orthodoxy emerged.28 in islam, there is no essential type of orthodoxy. islam gives space to a fluid form of orthodoxy which has developed with the passage of time, as some scholars argue. josef van ess argues that orthodoxy is established after a process of “consensus and network of power.”29 the sunni muslim jurists are divided into four primary schools of fiqh, namely, the maliki, the hanafi, the shafi‘i and the hanbali. it was originally permissible to discuss issues according to these four schools of thought, but with the passage of time, a practice of following only one school of fiqh emerged and, thus, orthodoxy emerged in the form of strictly following the practices of a selected one of the schools of fiqh in practical matters.30 according to muhammad qasim zaman, ahl al-sunnah and ashab al-hadith or ahl al-hadith”31 are orthodox schools of thought in islam.32 without any organizational structure, ahl al-sunnah have played an important role in preserving and enforcing islam brought by prophet muhammad ( ) without any change, in the new circumstances.33 sunni orthodoxy emerging through the early debates over different theological issues between different schools of thought and sects. sunni orthodoxy proclaimed of having kept the original islam because it had the teachings of prophet muhammad ( ) and the religious thoughts of the early muslim community. with the passage of time, it has changed radically from its origins, because of the political influence of the ruling elite,34 formed itself into a dominant religious group, allied with the ruling establishment, it earned a prominent position in formulating religious beliefs and practices and declaring others as heretics in the history of muslim civilization. orthodoxy promotes an official religion that always serves the interests of the ruling elite. both official islam and normative islam proclaim religious authority because they believe in revelation and the sunnah of prophet muhammad ( ), the only divinely sanctioned authorities. official islam supports political authorities who legitimize its interpreted form of religion35, consider the universal norms and traditions valid for every sphere of life and every age. they believe that the religion of islam, brought and practised by prophet muhammad ( ) and crystallised by early muslim jurists and theologians, regulate muslim rituals and practices, which is called shari‘ah.36 orthodoxy also discourages hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 61 popular islam. in the history of islam, differences between popular and normative forms of religion also contributed to heterodoxical attitudes in the society. while dealing with the popular forms of islam, the orthodox section argues that any practice that has no precedent in quran and sunnah of prophet muhammad ( ), is popular islam and thus heretical. according to the orthodox, popular islam is beyond the pale of true religion. ibn taymiyya (d. 1328), an orthodox jurist-theologian, argued that every act which was unlawful according to shari‘ah was bid‘ah (innovation), shirk i.e. believing in the faith of more than one god, and must be suppressed by the state having the official religion.37 orthodoxy gives importance and validity to its interpretations and its religious beliefs and practices. an orthodox rejects any other form of islam even having the slightest difference of opinion or practices. scholars who developed the idea of authentic islamic orthodoxy take examples from muslim history. in the history of islam, whenever there was persecution of some groups, it was the dominant religious group that helped the ruling elite in this respect. there is no authentic orthodoxy in islam. according to muhammad asad, in the history of islam, men were persecuted only when they “deviated from the ‘orthodox’ theology of the day.”38 throughout the classical and medieval muslim history, different religious factions allied with the political authorities at different times. when mu‘tazilah allied with caliph al-mamun (r. 813833), the inquisition was against the traditionalists. when orthodox or traditionalists allied with caliph al-mutawakkil (r. 847-861), the mu‘tazilah or the rationalists were persecuted. it is the universality and beauty of islam that allows its diversity. it permits communities to practice islam along with their indigenous cultural and environmental heritage. it was this universal character of islam that was practised in synthetic form in syria, pietistic form in madinah, and a gnostic form in iraq. gibb argues that in islam, orthodoxy emerged after a long process. the most critical factors in this respect had been the political and religious dominance of arabs over other people, the attitude of the ruling elite, the madinah school of thought as a repository of the qur’én and hadith.39 another factor was the separation of religion from state. early rashidën caliphs had exercised power through their moral and religious excellence and maintained the balance between state and religion. after them, the balance was disrupted when military power took the place of religious and moral dominance. the people of madinah did 62 the dialectic of orthodoxy... not accept this separation of religion from state and refused to accept the worldly ways of umayyad rulers. this attitude of madinah scholars raised their importance in the eyes of other people.40 these scholars continued giving importance to religion over state and politics and formulated religious beliefs and practices that were more or less acceptable for the rulers. this attitude continued when the abbasid caliphate was established. the abbasid caliphs made an alliance with the madinah theologists, gave moral support to them, and even persecuted those who were against the religious approach of the medinan scholars, like dualists, gnostics and the mu‘tazilah.41 finding a term equivalent with orthodoxy in islam is difficult. the term orthodoxy is used differently in christianity and islam. in christendom, orthodoxy is more a combination of authority and right belief regulated by the church.42 however, in islam, there is no institution of orthodoxy having a final say in defining the truth. any religious faction allied with the power has right for the interpretation of the revealed religion. there are examples in muslim history when jurists and ulama interpreted shari‘ah in the best interest of the ruling elite.43 thus, jurists and theologians helped the state in securing its political and social interests. in islam, right beliefs are not enough. with right beliefs, there is a need of right practices which is called orthopraxy in islam. islam puts more emphasis on correct practice, i.e. orthopraxy, than on correct belief, or orthodoxy,44 though, as talal asad argues, both orthodoxy and orthopraxy are essential. orthodoxy or correct belief is crucial as it helps in following “the correct model” from the past not only in beliefs but also in rituals.45 muhammad asad discusses religious practices and beliefs in the context of christianity and islam and states that christianity has become a religion of success in the future life, life after death. christianity stresses only “a set of beliefs, dogmas and transcendental hopes,” contrary to this, in islam, there is no division between ‘physical,’ and ‘spiritual’ aspects of life. islam is a religion of activity in the individual as well as in social life.46 heresy plays a central role in defining the boundaries of orthodoxy.47 the circumstances and challenges posed by heterodoxical ideas played an important role in the formation of an orthodoxical attitude toward muslim doctrines. with the passage of time, orthodoxy got firm roots in the muslim community, having influence over masses and a relationship with the power. the orthodox were of the opinion that those who reinterpreted the religious doctrines were compromising the purity of religion. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 63 conceptualising heresy in islam there is no particular word for heresy in islam. it is commonly defined as a deviation from the right path – of proper islamic beliefs and practices laid out by god and preached and practised by prophet muhammad ( ). from the early period of muslim history, muslim scholars and intellectuals had engaged themselves in questions of revelation, prophetic tradition as well as the relationship between universal norms and local practices. among muslim scholars, differences of opinion arose in the fields of ‘ibadat (worship) and mu‘amalat (dealings with fellow human beings), as well as differences on theological issues. these issues would sometime provoke bitter controversy among scholars, who could even attack their opponents with accusations of infidelity or kufr, apostasy or irtidad, hidden apostasy, and heresy. these debates created conflicts in the muslim community, which eventually developed into heterodoxy, and consequently, heresy, infidelity, and zanadaqah arose when politically powerful religious groups allied with the ruling elite.48 the differences in beliefs and practices among different schools of thought and sects gave emergence to heresy which did not tolerate the theological views of others. after the demise of prophet muhammad ( ), muslim legal experts interpreted theological doctrines. later on, when the religio-political authority backed these theological doctrines, any deviation from the established path was termed as bid‘ah, and this term came to be used for those religious beliefs and practices that were condemned by the religious and political authorities as novelties. some scholars labelled these innovations as being beyond the pale of established islamic beliefs and practices, and thus condemnable, while others defended them as “good innovations,” which were not against god’s law.49 bid‘ah means ‘innovation,’ and generally refers to any belief or practice for which there is no example in the times of prophet muhammad ( ). some muslims believe that every bid‘ah is wrong. there are muslims scholars who believe that there is a difference between a bid‘ah which is good, hasana or praiseworthy, also called mahmëdah, and a bid‘ah which is bad, sayyi’ah or blameworthy, madhmëmah. there is a difference between bid‘ah and heresy. it is not a heresy to practice such religious beliefs that do not have precedent during the times of prophet muhammad ( ), on the basis of confusion and keeping the “principle of good and bad as necessary.”50 islam encourages an innovative approach in respect to keeping in mind the betterment of humanity. 64 the dialectic of orthodoxy... according to farhad daftary, heterodoxy is a sort of rebellion, a revolt, a deviation from established orthodoxy.51 in muslim history, there did not exist any rigid orthodoxy; instead, every theological group considered its own orthodoxy as genuine, and accused its opponent’s views as heresy owing to the absence of ecumenical councils or a supreme church authority having the full powers to formulate “orthodox dogma.”52 while it is generally accepted that the “people of hadith” and asharis,53 the sunni muslim sects were orthodox in their beliefs, other sunni schools of thought did not accept them, especially their metaphysics and the speculative nature of the asharis’ thoughts borrowed from the mu‘tazilah.54 during the abbasid caliphate, there was much less religious freedom than in the era of the umayyad caliphate owing to the symbiotic relationship between the state and orthodoxy.55 during the early abbasid caliphate, theologians and the ulama were given respectable positions in state administration. as most of these ulama were hadith scholars, belonging to the sunni school of thought, this encouraged the formation of sunni orthodoxy.56 this relationship of sunni orthodoxy with the state was advantageous for both; it gave powers to the state against religious and political opponents declaring them heretics, unbelievers, while it gave security to the sunni against the shia and rationalistic schools of thought. for the proto-sunnis, who made an alliance with the abbasid caliphate, a large number of people of different religious identities and way of living fell under the banner of heresy or zandaqah. those who did not practice the muslim beliefs properly, according to the proto-sunni view, were declared, heretic or zindêqs. they included extreme shia groups, those who forged false hadith, qadariyyah, those who believed in the createdness of the qur’én, and mutakkalimën (experts of ilm alkalam or scholasticism).57 during the early abbasid caliphate, the sunni traditionalist orthodoxy declared those who did not conform to the traditionalist theological doctrines as heretics. kalém is an arabic word meaning ‘speech.’ technically, it is defined as ‘speculative,’ “rational theology” or scholasticism. it was an exciting intellectual development in the history of islam. the experts of kalém, called mutakkalimën, were also declared heretics by the orthodoxy. they borrowed non-quranic concepts, mostly from greek science and philosophy. among those who were opposed to mutakkalimën was abu-yusuf, a hanafi judge (d. 798), who dubbed them as zandaqah.58 there is much room for reason and rationalism in islam reason.59 j. kraemer argues that the m‘utazilah and other rationalist philosophers were not persecuted because they gave importance to reason over hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 65 revelation but because they adopted such a system which damaged islamic law and they tried persuade others to accept their views. contrary to this, there were indeed heretics (e.g., ibn al-rawandi) who were considered an enemies of islam because their “rationalism attacked the revealed religion in general and islam in particular.”60 so the rationalists and philosophers were not persecuted just for their philosophical attitude toward theological issues. there is a deep relationship between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. it is difficult to understand heterodoxy or heresy without understanding orthodoxy. political power and religious authority, of course, in most cases cooperate and support each other. talal asad argues that orthodoxy is a relationship of church and power to uphold the correct practices and to suppress incorrect ones.61 he maintains in his thought-provoking essay medieval heresy: an anthropological view that there is a great need to understand the circumstances and traditions which created orthodoxy. “heresy is first and foremost the product of a power process in which truth is authorized and error is anathematized.”62 heresy is “going astray from the right path, deviation from proper islamic norms and beliefs laid out by the god, and preached and practiced by the prophet ( ).”63 according to another scholar of muslim history, there are various explanations of heresy like that of “doctrinal idiosyncrasies, political machination, nationalist assertion, popular class struggle, rationalism and liberalism.”64 islam is a religion of ‘catholicity,’ having many different ideas in it and when muslims forgot that catholicity, they started branding others as heterodox.65 ideological differences between muslim and christian societies define the difference of heresy within the two societies. heresy in islam has been a prominent feature throughout the classical and medieval muslim history. in the early period of muslim history, differences arose among the muslim community over issues of interpreting the religious beliefs and practices. with the passage of time, those who were against the interpretations of the dominant religious group were declared heretics by this group, stating that there was no place of novelties in islam. as far as the idea of heresy in islam is concerned, the relationship between the religious elite and the political elite is decisive. it is this relationship that defines heresy in islam. conclusion in islam, there is no firm type of orthodoxy as in the christian context. it was the relationship of the dominant religious group with the 66 the dialectic of orthodoxy... ruling elite that defined and determined orthodoxy. orthodoxy has remained a relative term throughout muslim history. the challenges and threats posed by the heterodoxical elements within muslim society helped in formulating an orthodoxical attitude of the ulama, who perceived danger for the religion itself and for their social and religious status. the personal wishes and inclinations of the ruling elite towards a particular school of thought and the influence of contemporary politics also played their part in the formation of orthodoxy in islam. there is no consensus on heresy in islam. generally, heresy in islam is much more dependent on the socio-political challenges, the symbiotic relationship between the ruling and the religious elites, and particularly on the attitude of the ruling elite toward dissenters and to what extent they pose a challenge to the ruling elite. if tolerance towards other schools of thought, sects and religions is replaced by an intolerant attitude due to political and social ambitions of the ruling elite, and decreasing social privileges of the religious elite, then heresy emerges. the behaviour of orthodoxy towards the dissenters and the response of the dissenters to this behaviour play a central role in the emergence of heresy. heresy and orthodoxy are so interrelated that without understanding one the other cannot be understood. intolerance and dogmatism on the part of orthodoxy gave rise to heresy. although no universal concept of orthodoxy exists in islam, whenever any particular religious creed reached dominant position and built out a relationship with the ruling elite, then dissenters were announced heretics as they were against the orthodoxy of the particular religious faction. there cannot be any fixed type of orthodoxy and heresy in islam as far as the interpretations of different schools of thought are concerned. islam is not against the notion of rationalism and philosophy. it has been the symbiotic relationship between the state and religious elite or the ulama that formed orthodoxy, and on this basis, they declared social and political dissenters as heretics, beyond the pale of the mainstream muslim community. notes and references 1. mubarak ali, “puritan and popular religion,” dawn, past present, january 8, 2012. 2. keith a. roberts, religion in sociological perspective (california: wadsworth, 2003), preface by the author, xiii. 3. kurt rudolph, “heresy: an overview,” the encyclopedia of religion (new york and london: macmillan, 1987), 6: 269-75. 4. josef van ess, the flowering of muslim theology, tr. jane marie todd (cambridge: hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 67 harvard university press, 2006), 11. 5. george cross, “heresy,” encyclopedia of religion and ethics (london and new york: t and t clark, 2003; rpt), 6: 614-25. 6. john b. henderson, the construction of orthodoxy and heresy: neo-confucian, islamic, jewish, and early christian patterns (new york: suny press, 1998), 17. 7. ibid. 8. randolph c. head and daniel christensen, orthodoxies and heterodoxies in early modern german culture: order and creativity 1550-1750 (leiden: brill, 2007), 5-6. 9. karlfried froehlich, “heresy,” the encyclopedia americana (danbury: grolier incorporated, 1987), 14: 137-38. 10. talal asad, “medieval heresy: an anthropological view,” social history, 11 (october 1986): 355. 11. lester r. kurtz, “the politics of heresy,” american journal of sociology, 6 (may, 1983): 1087. 12. asad, “medieval heresy,” 345. 13. r. i. moore, “the formation of persecuting society: power and deviance in western europe, 950-1250,” book review by robert e. lerner, the journal of interdisciplinary history, 4 (spring, 1989): 659-60. 14. asad, “medieval heresy,” 354. 15. ibid., 352-53. 16. john taylor, “an approach to the emergence of heterodoxy in medieval islam,” religious studies, 2 (april, 1967): 197. 17. robert langer and udo simon, “the dynamics of orthodoxy and heterodoxy: dealing with divergence in muslim discourses and islamic studies,” die welt des islams, 48 (2008): 278. 18. mohammad mujeeb, the indian muslims (new delhi: munshiram manoharlal, 1985), 56. 19. roberts, religion in sociological perspective, 4. 20. talal asad, “the idea of an anthropology of islam,” center for contemporary arab studies, occasional paper series, georgetown university (march 1986): 14. 21. the term was coined by dr. tawfiq ibrahim, an arab scholar, but he never elaborated it. alexander knysh has elaborated the term. 22. alexander knysh, “‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ in medieval islam: an essay in reassessment,” the muslim world, 1 (january, 1993): 63-64. 23. ibid., 64-65. 24. william c. chittick, faith and practice of islam: three thirteenth century sufi texts (albany: state university of new york press, 1992), 166. 25. knysh, op. cit. 65. 26. langer and simon op. cit. 276. 27. asad, “the idea of an anthropology of islam,” 15. 28. richard m. eaton, ed. india’s islamic traditions, 711-1750 (new delhi: oxford, 2006), introduction by the editor, 25-26. 29. as cited in langer and simon “the dynamics of orthodoxy and heterodoxy,” 279. 68 the dialectic of orthodoxy... 30. mujeeb, the indian muslims, 57. 31. the people of hadith, ahl al-hadith, were the most influential piety minded people after the caliphate of rashidun. they held the hadith reports of prophet muhammad ( ), the chief source of religious authority after qur’an. they were often called orthodox. they aligned themselves with the past, emotionally and, neglected contemporary realities of muslim society. by their piety, they gathered a number of followers, particularly in baghdad. see marshal g. s. hodgson, the venture of islam: conscience of history in a world civilization, vol. 1: the classical age of islam (lahore: vanguard, 2004), 386. 32. muhammad qasim zaman, religion and politics under the early abbasids: the emergence of the proto-sunni elite (leiden: brill, 1997), 61. 33. jacques waardenburg, islam: historical, social and political perspectives (berlin: walter de gruyter, 2002), 98. 34. fazlur rahman, revival and reform in islam: a study of islamic fundamentalism, ed. and intro. ebrahim moosa (oxford: oneworld, 2000), 30. 35. waardenburg, islam, 94-95. 36. ibid., 97. 37. ibid 85. 38. muhammad asad, “is religion a thing of the past?” islamic studies, 2 (summer, 2010): 265. 39. h. a. r. gibb, mohammedanism: an historical survey (new york: oxford university press, 1962), 107-8. 40. ibid., 109. 41. ibid., 110. 42. knysh, “‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ in medieval islam,” 54. 43. ali, “puritan and popular religion.” 44. timur kuran, islam and mammon: the economic predicaments of islamism (princeton: princeton university press, 2004), 89. 45. asad, “the idea of an anthropology of islam,” 15. 46. asad, “is religion a thing of the past?” 263. 47. kurtz, “the politics of heresy,” 1085. 48. maribel fierro, “heresy and heretics,” in medieval islamic civilization: an encyclopedia, ed. josef w. meri and lere l. bacharach. vol. 1 (new york and london, routledge, 2006), 321. 49. fierro, “heresy and heretics,” 320. 50. j. robson, “bida,” the encyclopedia of islam 1: 1099. 51. farhad daftary, the ismailis: their history and doctrines (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1990), 36. 52. knysh, “‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ in medieval islam,” 52. 53. asharism was the name of a theological and philosophical school of thought, founded by abu al-hasan ali ibn ismail al-ashari (d. 935), during the tenth and eleven centuries. asharis stood midway between the mutazilahs’ unbounded the rationalism and traditionists extreme orthodoxy. they use the dialectical reasoning of mu‘tazilah and kalam (scholastic theology) to safeguard faith. they were called orthodox mutakallimun. one of the fundamental differences between the mu‘tazilahs’ rationalist kalam the asharis orthodox kalam was that the later gave hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 69 preference to revelation over reason in case of conflict between them. see m. abdul hye, “ash‘arism,” in a history of muslim philosophy, ed. and intro. m. m. sharif, vol. 1 (karachi: royal book company, 1983), 220-43. 54. knysh, “‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ in medieval islam,” 53-54. 55. reynold a. nicholson, a literary history of the arabs (richmond: curzon press, 1993), 372. 56. ibid., 366. 57. zaman, religion and politics under the early abbasids, 66. 58. w. montgomery watt, the formative period of islamic thought (oxford: oneworld, 1998), 185. 59. as quoted in the message of quran, tr. and commentary muhammad asad (gibraltar: dar al-andalus, 1984), foreword by the commentator, ii. 60. as cited in fierro, “heresy and heretics,” 322. 61. asad, “the idea of an anthropology of islam,” 15-16. 62. asad, “medieval heresy,” 356. 63. fierro, “heresy and heretics,” 320. 64. taylor, “an approach to the emergence of heterodoxy in medieval islam,” 200. 65. ibid., 198. bibliography chittick, william c. faith and practice of islam: three thirteenth century sufi texts. albany: state university of new york press, 1992. daftary, farhad. the ismailis: their history and doctrines. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1990. eaton, richard m. ed. india’s islamic traditions, 711-1750. new delhi: oxford, 2006. ess, josef van. the flowering of muslim theology. tr. jane marie todd. cambridge: harvard university press, 2006. gibb, h. a. r. mohammedanism: an historical survey, new york: oxford university press, 1962. head, randolph c. and daniel christensen, orthodoxies and heterodoxies in early modern german culture: order and creativity 1550-1750. leiden: brill, 2007. henderson, john b. the construction of orthodoxy and heresy: neo-confucian, islamic, jewish, and early christian patterns. new york: suny press, 1998. hodgson, marshall g. s. the venture of islam: conscience of history in a world civilization, vol. 1: the classical age of islam. lahore: vanguard, 2004. kuran, timur. islam and mammon: the economic predicaments of islamism. princeton: princeton university press, 2004. mujeeb, mohammad. the indian muslims. new delhi: munshiram manoharlal, 1985. nicholson, reynold a. a literary history of the arabs. richmond: curzon press, 1993. rahman, fazlur. revival and reform in islam: a study of islamic fundamentalism. oxford: oneworld, 2000. roberts, keith a. religion in sociological perspective. california: wadsworth, 2003. sharif, m. m. a history of muslim philosophy, ed. vols. 2. karachi: royal book 70 the dialectic of orthodoxy... company, 1983. waardenburg, jacques. islam: historical, social and political perspectives. berlin: walter de gruyter, 2002. watt, w. montgomery. the formative period of islamic thought. oxford: oneworld, 1998. zaman, muhammad qasim. religion and politics under the early abbasids: the emergence of the proto-sunni elite. leiden: brill, 1997. ii. articles in research journals kurtz, lester r. “the politics of heresy,” american journal of sociology 6 (may, 1983). moore, r. i. “the formation of persecuting society: power and deviance in western europe, 950-1250,” book review by robert e. lerner, the journal of interdisciplinary history 4 (spring, 1989). taylor, john. “an approach to the emergence of heterodoxy in medieval islam,” religious studies 2 (april, 1967). langer, robert and simon, udo. “the dynamics of orthodoxy and heterodoxy: dealing with divergence in muslim discourses and islamic studies,” die welt des islams 48 (2008). asad, talal. “the idea of an anthropology of islam,” center for contemporary arab studies, occasional paper series, georgetown university (march 1986). knysh, alexander. “‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ in medieval islam: an essay in reassessment,” the muslim world 1 (january, 1993). asad, muhammad. “is religion a thing of the past?” islamic studies 2 (summer, 2010). iii. articles in encyclopedias the encyclopedia of religion. (new york and london: macmillan, 1987), art. “heresy: an overview” by kurt rudolph, vol. 6: 269-75. the encyclopedia americana. (danbury: grolier incorporated, 1987), art. “heresy” by karlfried froehlich, vol. 4: 137-38. encyclopedia of religion and ethics. (london and new york: t and t clark, 2003; rpt), art. “heresy” by george cross, vol. 6: 614-25. medieval islamic civilization: an encyclopedia. (new york and london, routledge, 2006), art. “heresy and heretics” by maribel fierro, vol. 1, 321. the encyclopedia of islam, new ed. (leiden: e. j. brill, 196o), art. “bida” by j. robson, vol. 1: 1099. iv. articles in newspaper ali, mubarak. january 8, 2012. “puritan and popular religion.” dawn. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 512 issn :0250-7196 education in disruption 4.0 era development of work culture in elementary school at banjarmasin south kalimantan indonesia 1ahmad suriansyah, 2sutarto hadi, 3aminuddin p putera, 4aslamiah this study was aimed to analyze the model of the work culture in elementary schools. this study used the qualitative approach using the case study type. the research instruments were researchers themselves. the data were collected using an in-depth interview, participation observation, and documentation. the respondents were selected using the snowball sampling technique. the data were analyzed using the model developed by creswell. the verification of the data was done through credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability criteria. the findings showed that the model for the development of work culture in elementary school start from the vision, mission, norm and value, strategies of the schools, quality and equity. in the process development of the commitment, competency, autonomy, empowering and continues improving the teachers, internal and external monitoring and external standard of quality work. keywords: work culture, elementary school, education, qualitative approach. 1. introduction now everyone is surprised and get busy by the arrival of a new era which known as the industrial revolution 4.0 era or also known as by the name disruption era. industrial revolution 4.0 era requires human resources who are intelligent and characteristic to master the ability to face tough challenges and completions regionally and globally. this is the reason why the current and future indonesia human resources must have the characteristic (performance characteristic: hard work, disciplined, resilient, not easy to give up, complete and has the characteristic of moral values such as faith and piety, honest, humble, polite/ morals), competency (creative thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration and problemsolving), literacy (reading and writing, numeracy, scientific literacy, ict fluency/technology skills), language skill, cultural awareness, logical thinking) and the ability to communicate within the global world. facing this challenge, indonesia is demanded to produce human resources with the 1 lambung mangkurat university, indonesia. email: a.suriansyah@yahoo.co.id 2 lambung mangkurat university, indonesia 3 lambung mangkurat university, indonesia 4 lambung mangkurat university, indonesia mailto:a.suriansyah@yahoo.co.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 513 issn :0250-7196 best quality. this process is done by establishing the best quality of education from early childhood education (paud) until higher education. the world now is currently facing industrial revolution 4.0 or which known as industrial 4.0. according to mckinsey global institute’s analysis, industrial 4.0 is giving great and wide impact especially on the employment sector, in which robot and machine have replaced a lot of employment opportunities in the world. for this reason, the industrial revolution 4.0 has to be addressed wisely and carefully. this industrial era, with its connectives and digitalization, can increase the efficiency of the manufacturing chain and product quality. on the other hand, this industry is going to vanish 800 million employment opportunity in the whole world by 2030 because it will be taken over by robots. this can be a threat to indonesia as a country who has quite high labour force and unemployment rate. this is the reason why the government need to address this change correctly through developing strategies that can increase the competitiveness of national industries while creating wider employment. by observing various changes and innovations as well as the existing developments, the government of indonesia is currently implementing strategic steps which determined based on the making indonesia 4.0 road map. this effort was made to accelerate the realization of the national vision that has been decided to take advantage of the opportunities in the industrial revolution 4.0 era, which is to get indonesia into the top 10 countries that have the strongest economy in the world in 2030 (satya, 2018). quality becomes indonesia citizens’ hope and attention and becomes very urgent and strategic because the quality of education in various types and levels of education is still a problem and does not meet the expectations of all parties. even though uu sisdiknas bab xiv, article 51 has stated that "management of higher education units is carried out based on the principles of autonomy, accountability, quality assurance and transparent evaluation" (uu no: 20), as also strengthened peraturan pemerintah nomor, bab xv, article 91 section 1 that "every education unit in the formal and non-formal channels is required to carry out education quality assurance" (pp no: 19). furthermore, it is emphasized through article 91 section 3 that "quality assurance of education must be carried out in stages, systematically and planned in a quality assurance program that has a clear target and time frame" (pp no: 19). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 514 issn :0250-7196 the education nationally still faced to complex issues, incomplete equal distribution issues in education and the lows of the relevance of education with the social requirement as yet faced further with life issues. there are poor quality results of educations. according to data 2017, the ranking of indonesia stands on rank 5 in asean (other issues is the character of the student such as student scuffle, drugs, teacher beating by student and vice versa, immoral violation, even the most common is glueing in the elementary school. moreover, it is currently becoming one of the quality indicators of low graduation rate in cpns (candidates for civil servant) participant selection in various type/sector occupations joined. it causes concern in society. many factors become the reasons for poor quality education even very complex, such as human resources (quantity and quality), sources of funds, supporting facilities for education and learning culture, and work culture as well as various other factors including educational policies and the community environment. one of the factors that have not become a concern or has not been formed from the elements of education providers up to the school level is a quality-oriented work culture (quality culture). known by many people in the business world and has succeeded in making progress for them it seems like it has not affected the world of education as a whole and comprehensively. minister of research, technology, and education mohamad nasir explained, based on earlier evaluation of the country’s readiness in facing the industrial revolution 4.0 indonesia was expected as a country with high potential (rohida, 2018). although, indonesia is still below from singapore, at the level of southeast asia indonesia’s position is quite calculated. while related to the global competitiveness index in world economic forum 2017-2018, indonesia ranked 36th, up by five ranks from the previous year 41st position out of 137 countries (mukhlasin, 2019). 2. literature review quality improvement in an educational institution environment at any type and level is strongly influenced by work habits, work culture and organizational culture that are interrelated. without a work culture and quality work culture, quality improvement will not be achieved as desired and become a demand of the community (memon, soomro, & kumar, 2018; suriansyah, 2010; suriansyah, 2017) the efforts to improve quality hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 515 issn :0250-7196 can be done by improving the quality of the education process at the school level. one thing which is very urgent but often forgotten is the management organization model in improving the quality of the process is the implementation of total quality management (tqm). implementation of tqm seeks to ensure that all members of the organization can create, innovate and excel in activities that become their respective duties and responsibilities, by involving, empowering, giving recognition and appreciation to all people fairly and equally (equity and equality). to improve the achievements of organizational members, staff must be involved and provide for their needs. therefore coaching and training, understanding of the vision, mission and goals and strategies of all people in their work, as well as giving recognition of their contributions to improving organizational performance becomes a very important, fundamental and strategic thing. research that has been done on organizations including educational organizations generally agrees that the need to change organizational culture requires the implementation of total quality management (tqm) as an approach to organizational management (adebanjo & kehoe, 1999; ahmed, loh, & zairi, 1999; chen, kang, & guo, 2020; kanji & yui, 1997; manley, 1998; vermeulen, 1977). ciampa (1991) has also suggested that organizational culture can be strongly altered through continuous improvement programs, which are the implementation of important elements in tqm. however, in its implementation, this change cannot occur in a short time. organizational culture is not something that is created by a leader alone or something that can be escorted and predicted by members of the organization. quality organizational culture is something that is assembled and formed and is the result of everyone in the organization, so cultural change is far from impossible, even though quality work culture is a slow and difficult process to achieve maximum change in a short time. this means that changes in work culture can be done through a process that is consistent and continuously carried out by the leadership. since more than a century ago, the study of organizational culture has become a special attraction for experts, especially in the context of understanding and practising organizational behaviour as a quality work culture. schein (1997) suggests that organizational culture includes two dimensions, namely (1) dimensions of external environments; in which there are five namely: (a) mission and strategy; (b) goals; (c) means to hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 516 issn :0250-7196 achieve goals; (d) measurement; and (e) correction, and (2) the dimensions of internal integration in which there are six main aspects, namely: (a) common language; (b) group boundaries for inclusion and exclusion; (c) distributing power and status; (d) developing norms of intimacy, friendship, and love; (e) reward and punishment; and (f) explaining and explainable: ideology and religion. the quality of work is very closely related to the work culture that is owned and underlying the people in carrying out activities related to their daily tasks and functions. the common thing is that educators and education staff are often bound by habits without any willingness to change the work process with new things as a result of creativity and innovation, while quality will not succeed without a quality process. a quality process is something that must be formed through quality work habits. to reach the stage of quality work habits must start from the leadership of educational institutions to the lowest level, namely students (alatrash, 2018; suriansyah, 2010; suriansyah., 2017). various studies proved that the formation of quality work culture can be done by implementing total quality management (tqm) or widely known as integrated quality management. this model leads to changes in traditional work culture towards more focus on quality work culture, therefore, it is very strategic if implemented in the world of education from pre-school to university. a touch of tqm will be able to grow a quality work culture and a quality education process which in term will produce quality products. implementation of integrated quality management in the performance and management of the educational institution, in general, is focusing on cultural development and work quality from each person in the organization. this is important because quality development can be achieved with improving the activities and the process of the activities. the problem is that how high-quality culture can be invented in the implementation of education until the school level. 3. methods this study used the qualitative approach and multi-case study. the research instrument of this research is the researchers themselves. the data were collected using the in-depth interview, participation observation and documentation. the key information of the research is principals, hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 517 issn :0250-7196 supervisor, parent, community leaders and board of education. the respondents were selected using a snowball sampling technique. key informants who participated in this study consisted of school principals, deputy principals, teachers, community leaders, education offices from superior and outstanding elementary schools in banjarmasin and alumni from the school. the data verification is done through credibility, transformability, dependability and confirmability criteria. the data analyzed using the model developed by creswell. 4. results and discussion based on the results of the analysis of interview, observation and documentation data obtained the description of the quality work culture is strongly influenced by several factors that are interconnected, mutually influencing and mutually reinforcing namely: the vision, mission, norm and value, strategies of the school and quality and equity. in the process development of the commitment, competency, autonomy, empowering and continues improving the teachers, internal and external monitoring and external standard of quality work. based on the findings above, the model of improving the quality of work culture can be formulated as follows. figure 1: the quality of work culture hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 518 issn :0250-7196 4.1. vision, mission and basic values in quality work culture from various research results, there is a similarity that changing organizational culture is a necessary condition for the successful implementation of total quality management (tqm) towards a quality work culture (adebanjo & kehoe, 1999; ahmed et al., 1999; ciampa, 1991; kanji & yui, 1997; manley, 1998; vermeulen, 1977) and owlia and aspinwall (1997) penn state university (zairi, francis, ahmad, ali, & bomtaia, 2007). changes in work behaviour and culture must begin by establishing a vision, mission, characteristics, behavioural values and values work culture that is clear and understood by all people (members of the organization), therefore intensive, comprehensive and continuous socialization is accompanied by an evaluation of its understanding by all members of the organization because values, vision and mission are basic values for the creation of a quality work culture from an organization (wilkinson & dale, 2001). strong belief in the value system will be the basis and make it easier to solve word problems. therefore, without a strong understanding and belief by staff towards values, vision and mission, the involvement and sense of ownership of the institution will be weak which can result in performance at work. building commitment towards value, vision, and mission is done through socialization and the most important is through the excellent examples from parts of all of the educational institution leader in forms of speech, action, and behaviour towards daily activities. the study that has been done by the experts has proved the important role of leader as a strong commitment model in the implementation of duty and is quality-oriented (speech, action, and performance) will bring a big impact towards the commitment of the staffs (cummings & worley, 2001; lee, roberts, lau, & leung, 1999; powell, 1995; rivers & bae, 1999). therefore, the equality of chief and teachers, educational staffs along with stakeholders proceeding to the institution is one of the elements of the determinant of a successful forming of qualified work ethic. the achievements of a school in creating innovation and program in aspect enhancement are influenced by the ability of the headmaster in changing the behaviour, manner, and actions of educators in everyday activity (hoy & miskel, 2013). 4.2. the continues and programmed improvement of competence from many studies discovered that organization, in this case, is a part of educational institution needing competent improvement effort and be done hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 519 issn :0250-7196 continuously along with the advancement of education and technology with the public's demands. those things mentioned has also been declared by many results that affirm the improvement of competence is a major need to shape skilful work tendency and ethic. sallis (1995) stated that total quality management (tqm) can be understood as continuous refinement philosophy before the organization's goal which can be achieved by the participation of all components in said organization. this proves that the continues improvement of competitiveness is the most important element in the application of competent work ethic as been said by cruickshank (2003) and zairi et al. (2007). the training of scholars and educational staffs becomes strategic as an endeavour to enhance human resources in the organization (dean jr & bowen, 1994; hackman & wageman, 1995; sitkin, sutcliffle, & schroeder, 1994). it becomes more strategic in the context of implementing new things resulting from innovation in the field of work (ahire, waller, & golhar, 1996; hackman & wageman, 1995). this will be realized and strengthen the organizational culture towards a quality work culture. but this improvement must be based on increasing competency based on the results of the test assessment (tna) (suriansyah, 2017) thus the efforts to increase competence will be by the needs of the organization and individuals in the organization will improve the quality of the implementation of the main tasks and functions. 4.3. incentives and recognition every human being needs recognition of his existence and what he does and requires incentives as an appreciation for what he does. therefore it is needed a leader who can give credit to those who have fair achievements to anyone without discrimination. this recognition and appreciation can foster work motivation and increase the confidence and effort of each individual. this was stated by ehige and akpan (2004), thor (1994), awonaya (1977), okokie (1996), de jong and den hartog (2007) and eisenberger and cameron (1996). any change must be accompanied by a reward system because this will affect the achievement and implementation of changes in work. incentives/rewards as a reward or appreciation are not always interpreted by giving an amount of money or position, but also recognition of one's achievements and the existence of a form of appreciation will be very meaningful for an educator and educational staff and can increase work motivation. conversely, achievements that are not recognized/valued can reduce motivation and loyalty of one's work. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 520 issn :0250-7196 4.4. empowering and involvement educator and education everyone needs to be recognized what is done as a result of his thought and work. therefore everyone needs to be given autonomy in carrying out work without feeling tightly regulated. with autonomy can give birth to the growth and development of one's creativity. autonomy and involving the implementers must be considered as an effort to build a sense of ownership and in the context of forming this quality culture (aslamiah, 2019). autonomy will increase employee involvement, communication and involvement in decision making reducing the gap between the needs of employees (educators and education personnel) and the organization (akdon, 2006; mosadegh, 2006). the involvement and the empowerment of educators or teachers on making decisions, policies, guidance, sop and some of the things that related about the matter of institution will build their responsibility feelings especially on making every decision that made. this is important and will decide the success of total quality management (tqm) as an effort to build a culture of quality works (blazey, davison, & evans, 2003; françois et al., 2003; huang, chuan, & chen, 1998; lawler, mohrman, & ledford, 1995; mcadam & kelly, 2002; merron, 1994; mosadegh, 2006; young, charns, & shortell, 2001). according to dean jr and bowen (1994) and ahire et al. (1996) this can make the organization as an organization that is always based on a quality culture and has a positive relationship with involvement in work, job satisfaction, career satisfaction and organizational commitment. the formation of a quality work culture will not succeed if empowerment and autonomy are not given. suriansyah (2017) and aslamiah (2019) emphasize that there is a positive relationship between work involvement and organizational commitment in shaping individual behaviour, and work involvement is a strong predictor of organizational commitment. someone whose work involvement is low indicates low organizational commitment. the empowerment is indicating the process of increasing the emotional and cognitive capacity of the individuals to make some significant choices while translating them into actions. professional empowerment is regarded under the shadow through which teachers are properly facilitated through teaching resources, time management, and various indicators of job innovation (ddungu, 2014). meanwhile, suriansyah, aslamiah, iwan, and dalle (2019) recommended that university administration and other authorities should hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 521 issn :0250-7196 reasonably contribute to promoting the idea of teacher empowerment as it is important for the growth of the education sector. for this purpose, concern authorities should emphasize those factors which can further enhance the empowerment of teaching faculty 4.5. autonomy in the work implementation everyone wants to have autonomy in carrying out work without feeling tightly because the autonomy that is given will be able to make growth and development of one's creativity. autonomy and involving implementers must be considered as an effort to build a sense of belonging and in the context of forming this quality culture. autonomy will increase employee involvement, communication, and involvement in decision making reducing the gap between the needs of employees (educators and education personnel) and the organization (mosadegh, 2006). akdon (2006) stated that autonomy will take greater responsibility for educators and education in a lower rank, which in turn gives freedom of thought and action in one group thereby increasing its commitment to an organization. while, maassen, gornitzka, and fumasoli (2017) stated that institutional autonomy as the foundation of university ideology is the basis of renewal in the last decade, therefore strong leadership can be a good model for everyone and can involve everyone in making the decision (newman, schwarz, cooper, & sendjaya, 2017). involved staff will enable the development of innovative ideas because staff trust allows ideas to develop with diverse substance (newman et al., 2017). thus, the effectiveness and efficiency of work implementation will be higher. 4.6. commitment & character multiple studies established that high commitment from the staffs for everyday works and oriented at the high quality of word based on the modal commitment indicated by the leadership to the staff. speech, action, and performance commitments will be model for the staff (aly & akpoi, 2001; cummings & worley, 2001; lee et al., 1999; powell, 1995; rivers & bae, 1999). therefore it needs similarity between the commitment of the leaders and the commitment of education, education staff also institutional stakeholder are one of determining elements for successful implementation of total quality management (tqm) in the establishment of quality work culture (suriansyah, 2018) because commitment is an important factor in achieving the goals that have been set (jazzar & algozzine, 2006). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 522 issn :0250-7196 those are mentions above are according to rosenholtz (1989) stated that teacher commitment has a positive relationship with organizational performance. kushman (1992) also stated that the teacher's high commitment to the organization has a positive relationship with student academic achievement. many studies give the results, the teacher that has a high commitment are the important factors that influence on student learning, the academic achievement of students kushman (1992) and leithwood, jantzi, and steinbach (2003) and ross and gray (2006). whereas students who have teachers with low attention to students and a high number of absences. the results of the latest research have reported by suriansyah (2018) found that teacher commitment made a significant contribution to the creation of a conducive learning environment, and give accelerate the improvement in the quality of student learning outcomes. the results of this research also have the similar result with the previous studies conducted by aslamiah (2014); aslamiah (2019) which states that organizational commitment influences on performance. on the other hand, internally the faculties, departments, and academics have to make necessary responses proactively and positively towards the changing trends and developments in the external environment, thereby putting new challenges to their autonomy and empowerment in terms of their knowledge expertise, research, curriculum development, instruction, management, and organizational performance (hussin & ismail, 2009; ohlin, 2019; tarman, 2012). 4.7. participatory and collaborative leadership educational leadership and leader in school are believed to be the determining factors in the success of schools in achieving the desired goals. this is evident from various research results (aslamiah, 2014, 2019; homburg, krohmer, & workman. jr, 1999; suriansyah, 2010; suriansyah., 2017; young et al., 2001) which concluded that leadership provides a major contribution not only to satisfy but also ocb and the performance (performance) of teachers in schools previously, in aslamiah (2019), stated that good human resource performance can be achieved through education/training, leadership and incentives available to them. of leadership is a leadership style participatory style is an action that is needed to ensure customer satisfaction. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 523 issn :0250-7196 wiyono (2013) states that transformational leadership tends to empower human resources effectively and efficiently, so leaders can develop strong visions, communicate goals, and create an organizational environment that encourages motivation and commitment of members to develop sustainably. this condition enables leaders to transform organizational elements through future challenges and needs. meanwhile, suriansyah and aslamiah (2018) found that quality public schools were led by school principals who adopted a transformational style. various studies have consistently shown that leadership plays a major role in directing organizational activities to the best performance. hesselbein and goldsmith (2006) explain that an influential leadership profile is when a leader shows commitment to service to all people, likes people and can work with them, patience and tolerance and maturity and with them (educators and education staff) work hard. this shows that the leader has a collegial, collaborative and participative style. successful leaders are leaders who carry out joint tasks with educators and educators as well as people they lead with together, in togetherness and for togetherness towards quality institutions. leadership in primary and secondary schools that are successful in building quality education is the principal's leadership style that is more inclined to transformational leadership with a collectivity and collegiality approach (aslamiah, 2019). 4.8. periodic and continuous monitoring and evaluation monitoring and evaluation are one of the elements of total quality management (tqm) that can formwork habits and work culture towards a better and quality work culture if done correctly and correctly target. monitoring and evaluation through stakeholders, educators, and education staff and even through students (students or students) to guarantee quality service (in the sense of quality work culture) is one of the important things in the tqm model. as stated by zhao (2003) that the quality of education can be measured by student satisfaction and external customer satisfaction such as the community and parents. to ensure student satisfaction can only be done through monitoring and evaluation (monitoring and evaluation) periodically and continuously (hellström, 2006; jong & hartog, 2007). by the opinion of blazey et al. (2003) which states that monitoring is needed to achieve achievements because from this activity accurate, precise and objective information will be obtained. the results of monitoring and evaluation activities must be followed up with appropriate and relevant hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 524 issn :0250-7196 feedback for more innovative behavioural changes including quality cultural behaviour. 5. conclusion based on the results of the analysis and discussion as described above, it can be concluded as follows: 1. the results of quality education and accessible in the era of disruption 4.0 can only be produced through a process of quality implementation. a quality process will produce if a quality work culture has been created in the environment. 2. a quality work culture can be developed from the belief of all people towards values, norms, vision and mission that are socialized and understood and recognized as visions, mission and values by all members of the organization. for this reason, intensive, systematic and continuous socialization is needed to build understanding and beliefs about values / norms, vision and mission as well as institutional goals. 3. to build a quality work culture, pillars are needed, namely: the foundation of the vision, mission and value, the quality policy and its achievement strategies. furthermore, the necessary character and commitment of staff, competence and professionalism, adequate autonomy for staff, empowerment and participation of all staff, appreciation and recognition of staff contributions as well as continuous and programmed development and improvement. 4. to achieve the six elements leadership is needed with a transformational, collegial and collaborative approach; transparency and accountability. 5. to ensure the process runs according to the expected quality, internal and external monitoring and quality standards from external parties are needed as a reference. references adebanjo, d., & kehoe, d. (1999). an investigation of quality culture development in uk industry. international journal of operations & production management, 19(7), 633-650. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443579910271656 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 525 issn :0250-7196 ahire, s. l., waller, m. a., & golhar, d. y. (1996). quality management in tqm versus non-tqm firms: an empirical investigation. international journal of quality & reliability management, 13(8), 8-27. https://doi.org/10.1108/02656719610128466 ahmed, k. a. p., loh, a. y., & zairi. (1999). cultures for continuous improvement and learning. total quality management, 10(4/5), 426-434. akdon. (2006). strategic management for educational management. bandung, indonesia: alfabeta. alatrash, a. (2018). impact of using total quality management on the financial performance of companies listed on the palestine exchange. international journal of business and economic affairs, 3(6), 244-252. aly, n., & akpoi, j. (2001). total quality management in california public higher education. quality assurance in education, 9(3), 127-131. aslamiah. (2014). interaction between leadership and learning environment with teachers satisfaction and commitment in banjarmasin kalimantan. unpublished doctoral dissertation. universiti utara malaysia, indonesia. aslamiah. (2019). superior education in the industrial revolution era 4.0. banjarmasin, indonesia: universitas lambung mangkurat. awonaya, b. (1977). expertsessing x-ray problems of education: recommend adoption of tqm principles. jakarta, indonesia. blazey, m. l., davison, k. s., & evans, j. p. (2003). insight to performance excellence in education. milwoukie, wisconsin: asq quality press. chen, y. n., kang, j. l., & guo, c. u. (2020). the construction of meta-evaluation indicators of taiwan’s university program evaluation: jcsee program evaluation standards as a framework. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 6(2), 10-24. ciampa, d. (1991). total quality. reading, ma: addison-wesley. cruickshank, m. (2003). total quality management in the higher education sector: a literature review from an international and australian perspective. total quality management & business excellence, 14(10), 1159-1167. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1478336032000107717 cummings, t. g., & worley, c. g. (2001). organization development and change (7th ed.). cincinnati, oh: southwestern college publishing. ddungu, l. (2014). university lecturers’ professional empowerment and turnover in uganda. makerere journal of higher education, 6(1), 35–54-35–54. de jong, j. p., & den hartog, d. n. (2007). how leaders influence employees' innovative behaviour. european journal of innovation management, 10(1), 41-64. dean jr, j. w., & bowen, d. e. (1994). management theory and total quality: improving research and practice through theory development. academy of management review, 19(3), 392-418. ehige, b. o., & akpan, r. c. (2004). roles of perceived leadership styles and rewards in the practice of total quality management. the leadership & organizational development journal, 25(1), 24-40. eisenberger, r., & cameron, j. (1996). detrimental effects of reward: reality or myth? american psychologist, 51(11), 1153. françois, p., peyrin, j.-c., touboul, m., labarère, j., reverdy, t., & vinck, d. (2003). evaluating implementation of quality management systems in a teaching hospital’s clinical departments. international journal for quality in health care, 15(1), 47055. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/15.1.47 hackman, j. r., & wageman, r. (1995). total quality management: empirical, conceptual, and practical issues. administrative science quarterly, 40(2), 309-342. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 526 issn :0250-7196 hellström, a. (2006). conceptions of process management – an anlysis of the discourse in the management literature. paper presented at the 9th international qmod conference. liverpool, uk. hesselbein, f., & goldsmith, m. (2006). the leader of the future. new york: jossey bass. homburg, c., krohmer, h., & workman. jr, j. p. (1999). strategic consensus and performance: the role of strategy type and market-related dynamism. strategic management journal, 20(4), 339-357. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)10970266(199904)20:4%3c339::aid-smj29%3e3.0.co;2-t hoy, w. k., & miskel, c. g. (2013). educational administration: theory, research and practice. new york: mcgraw-hill. huang, y. s., chuan, m., & chen, c. k. (1998). tqm implementation in taiwan: a field study with taiwan top 500 companies. hussin, s., & ismail, a. (2009). goals, components, and factors considered in university development. asia pacific education review, 10(1), 83-91. jazzar, m., & algozzine, b. (2006). critical issues in educational leadership. boston: pearson. jong, j. p. j., & hartog, d. n. d. (2007). how leaders influence employees’ innovative behavior. wisconsin: emerald group publishing limited. kanji, g. k., & yui, h. (1997). total quality culture. total quality management, 8(6), 417428. kushman, j. w. (1992). the organizational dynamics of teacher workplace commitment: a study of urban elementary and middle schools. educational administration quarterly, 28(1), 5-42. lawler, e., mohrman, s. a., & ledford, g. e. (1995). creating high performance in fortune 1000 companies. san fransisco, ca: jossey-bass. lee, s. f., roberts, p., lau, w. s., & leung, r. (1999). survey on deming’s tqm philosophies implementation in hongkong. managerial auditing journal, 14(3), 136-145. https://doi.org/10.1108/02686909910259112 leithwood, k., jantzi, d., & steinbach, r. (2003). fostering teacher leadership. in n. bennett, m. crawford & m. cartwright (eds.), effective educational leadership. buckingham, uk: open university press. maassen, p., gornitzka, å., & fumasoli, t. (2017). university reform and institutional autonomy: a framework for analysing the living autonomy. higher education quarterly, 71(3), 239-250. manley, j. e. (1998). symbol, ritual, and doctrine: the cultural ‘tool kit’of tqm. journal of quality management, 3(2), 175-191. mcadam, r., & kelly, m. (2002). a business excellent approach to generic bencmarking in smes, bencmarking. an international journal, 9(1), 7-27. https://doi.org/10.1108/14635770210418551 memon, s. b., soomro, s. b., & kumar, s. (2018). assessing the work engagement, work practices and work performance in banks. jabs, 4(3), 165-184. merron, k. (1994). creating tqm organization. quality progress, 27, 51-54. mosadegh, r. a. m. (2006). the impact of organizational culture on the successful implementation of total quality management. the tqm magazine, 18(6), 1-10. mukhlasin, a. (2019). educational leadership in the industrial revolution era 4.0. tawadhu journal, 3(1), 674–692. newman, a., schwarz, g., cooper, b., & sendjaya, s. (2017). how servant leadership influences organizational citizenship behavior: the roles of lmx, empowerment, and proactive personality. journal of business ethics, 145(1), 49-62. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 527 issn :0250-7196 ohlin, c. l. (2019). information and communication technology in global word. research in social sciences and technology, 4(2), 41-57. okokie, e. e. (1996). total quality management implementation in negerian companies. management review, 2, 39-49. owlia, m., & aspinwall, e. m. (1997). tqm in higher educationa review. international journal of quality & reliability management, 14(5), 527-543. powell, t. c. (1995). total quality management as competitive advantage: a review and empirical study. strategic management journal, 16(1), 15-37. rivers, p. a., & bae, s. (1999). tqm implementation in health care organizations. total quality management, 10(2), 281-289. rohida, l. (2018). the influence of the industrial revolution era 4.0 on human resource competence. indonesian journal of management and business, 6(1), 114–136. rosenholtz, s. j. (1989). workplace conditions that affect teacher quality and commitment: implications for teacher induction programs. the elementary school journal, 89(4), 421-439. ross, j. a., & gray, p. (2006). transformational leadership and teacher commitment to organizational values: the mediating effects of collective teacher efficacy. school effectiveness and school improvement, 17(2), 179-199. sallis, e. (1995). total quality management in education. london: bidles ltd, guildford and kings lynn. satya, v. e. (2018). indonesia's strategy for facing industry 4.0. jakarta. retrieved from https://bikinpabrik.id/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/info-sendek-x-9-ip3di-mei2018-249. schein, e. h. (1997). organizational culture and leadership. san farnsisco: jossey-bass a wiley company. sitkin, s., sutcliffle, k., & schroeder, r. (1994). distinguishing control from learning in total quality management. academy of management review, 19(3), 537-564. suriansyah, a. (2010). model of quality work culture: case studies in the university of lambung mangkurat banjarmasin. unpublished doctoral dissertation. university utama malaysia, malaysia. suriansyah, a. (2018). building quality education based on quality culture. inauguration speech for professor in the field of leadership and educational organization. paper presented at the lambung mangkurat university open senate meeting, december 3, 2018. suriansyah, a., & aslamiah. (2018). teacher's job satisfaction on elementary school: relation to learning environment. the open psychology journal, 23, 1-10. suriansyah, a., aslamiah, n., iwan, w., & dalle, j. (2019). the relationship between university auotonmy, lecturer emposerment, and organizational citizenship behavior in indonesia university. journal of social studies education research, 10(4), 127-152. suriansyah, a. (2017). implementation of the total quality management model to support quality of work culture at primary school teachers education program in lambung mangkurat university. australian journal of basic and applied sciences, 11(9), 179-186. tarman, b. (2012). innovation and education. research in social sciences and technology. retreived from http://ressat.org/index.php/ressat/article/view/3. thor, l. m. (1994). introducing the human side of total quality management into educational institution community college. journal of research and practice, 18(4), 359-368. http://ressat.org/index.php/ressat/article/view/3 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 512528 http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk 528 issn :0250-7196 vermeulen, w. (1977). cultural change: crucial for the implementation of tqm. training for quality, 5(1), 40-45. wilkinson, a., & dale, b. g. (2001). integrated management system: a model based on a total quality approach. managing service quality, 11(5), 318-330. wiyono, b. (2013). principal transformational leadership (concept, measurement and development). malang: fip un malang. young, g. j., charns, m. p., & shortell, s. m. (2001). top manager and network effects on the adoption of innovative management practices: a study of tqm in a public hospital system. strategic management journal, 22(10), 935-951. zairi, m., francis, a., ahmad, h., ali, n. a., & bomtaia, k. (2007). tqm implementationputting theory into practice example of best practices in higher education institutions. e-tqm journals, 1(1), 1-40. zhao, f. (2003). enhancing the quality of online higher education throught measurement. quality assurance in education, 11(4), 214-221. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880310501395 f:\e\islamicus\2017\no.3, 2017\06-starting pages.pmd hamdard islamicus 5 vol. xl, no. 3 editorial this issue presents five research based articles about the various aspects of the cultural, and judicial aspects of the muslim ummah in the contemporary world. the first article is “genesis of qur’énic exegesis with reference to the companion ibn ‘abbés ( ) as its source-critical analysis of harald motzki’s isnéd cum matn analysis of qur’én xv:90-91” in which the oriental construction is disproved and position of ibn ‘abbés ( ) as the father of qur’énic exegesis has been confined. in the second article the author studies an important medico-legal problem of the “end-of-life medical challenges: some reflections on muslim juridical discourse”. the third article proposes the concept of “takhayyur as a reform methodology for pakistan” to resolve knotty legal problems by restoring to different fiqhi schools. the next article studies the “review of divine economics framework” for muslim ummah. the last article “trade based transactions in islamic commercial law and their role in the development of the rural local agriculture sector in khyber pakhtunkhwa (proposed islamic financing models)” discusses a significant issue and proposes its solution as per islamic sharê‘ah. editor-in-chief hamdard islamicus 105 vol. xxxix, no. 2 obituary prof. dr. zafar ishaq ansari we announce the passing away of prof. dr. zafar ishaq ansari, a permanent, notable member of the advisory board of our journal, the hamdard islamicus. prof. ansari (27 december 1932-24 april 2016), after graduation from the university of karachi joined the mcgill university, canada and did his ph. d. (1966) on the contributions of the two celebrated classical muslim jurists and fuqahé’, imém abë yësuf and imém muíammad b. al-×asan al-shaibénê. he also acquired mastery over arabic, persian, english, french and german languages. he started his teaching and academic career from the department of oriental studies of the princeton university (usa). he also taught at various international universities. in pakistan he served as the president of the international islamic university islamabad (iiui) and since 1988 had remained the director general of its islamic research institute and also the editor of its quarterly research journal, the islamic studies. after retirement he was appointed as professor emeritus of the university. he was also a member of the international scientific committee of unesco. prof. ansari was noted for his high standard of academic research, particularly about rendering the celebrated work of mauléné syed abul a‘lé maudëdi, the tafhêm al-qur’én into english entitled towards understanding the qur’én of which so far ten volumes hamdard islamicus 106 vol. xxxix, no. 2 have been published. he was author of a number of books and articles on history, religion, law, qur’én, ×adêth and other social sciences. he has contributed a large number of research articles to journals of international repute and to encyclopaedia britannica and encyclopaedia of religions. he will be long remembered for his contributions and it will not be easy to fill the gap created by his demise. may allah rest his soul in peace and grant solace to his bereaved family members and his well wishers – amen! islamicus hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 862 issn :0250 the urgent need for the establishment of waqf bank: the case of indonesia 1nun harrieti, 2lastuti abubakar abstract indonesia is crowned as country with enormous muslim inhabitants in the world which also has a huge potential in improving the welfare of its people through islamic social finance instruments, especially money waqf. social funds such as waqf are often ignored due to their non-commercial nature, whereas it has tremendous potential when it productively managed. indonesia require a better waqf management and one of the solution is to establish a waqf bank. waqf bank is an institution which is detach from any orientation of economic profit and fully dedicated to social welfare. yet, a further research is still required to discover a proper waqf bank business entity. this research was engaging a normative juridical research method with analytical descriptive approach. in maximizing the money waqf management in indonesia, the business entity model which can be established is sharia banking, with a focus as a manager of money waqf which is in line with its aim and function carried out in sharia banking law, sharia bank also has a social function, one of which as a sharia financial institutions of money waqf recipient. keywords: islamic social finance; money waqf; sharia banking; waqf bank. 1. introduction data from global islamic finance report (gifr) in 2017, stated that 87.19% of indonesia‟s 237 million populations are muslim. and this is become a very significant main capital for indonesia in developing islamic economics. islam has governed all aspects of human life, whether it is something related to aqidah, syariah, and akhlak. economic activity which is part of muamalah activities are also regulated in islam. the obligations to conduct of islam guidance as a whole (kaffah), including the economic activities is the right of citizens which is protected under 1945 constitution amendments specifically article 28e: “(1) each person is free to worship and to practice the religion of his choice, to choose education and schooling, his occupation, his nationality, his residency in the territory of the country that he shall be able to leave and to which he shall have the right to return. (2) each person has the right to be free in his convictions, to assert his thoughts and tenets, in accordance with his conscience. (3) each person has the right to freely associate, assemble, and express his opinions.” 1 faculty of law, padjadjaran university, bandung, 40132, indonesia. email: nun_harrieti@yahoo.com 2 faculty of law, padjadjaran university, bandung, 40132, indonesia. mailto:nun_harrieti@yahoo.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 863 issn :0250 the guarantee of protection and compliance of citizen‟s rights need to be supported by government policy in implementing basic norms in the 1945 constitution (muhammad, 2016). currently, the needs of muslim in indonesia of economic activities in accordance with the religion guidance is accommodate by a dual economic system, where those are recognized and carried out based on two different principles, namely the conventional economic system and sharia economic system. the conventional economic system underlies all its activities based on conventional economic system and on the other hand the sharia economic system underlies its activities based on sharia economic system. islamic economic is a rabbaniyah, ilahiyah, insaniyah, morality and mid economy muhammad, 2007; shama, 2018). this value has an impact on all aspects of the economy in the sector of assets in the form of production, consumption, circulation and distribution (yusuf al qardhawi, 1995). as a ilahiyah economy, islamic economic has very high aspects of transcendence, holy, which combines it with material aspects, the world (profaneity). the starting point is allah and the aim is to seek allah‟s fadl through the way (thariq) which doesn‟t contradict what allah has outlined (muhammad, 2007; lynn, 2015). in connection with the actualization of ilahiyah value, it is also recognized that this value is as the soul of islamic economic activity, therefore all concepts and applications must not deviate from the corridor of this value, even more emphasized that this value must not separate from all human being activities (arifin, 2008; alahoul, azizan, & alwi, 2016). conceptually exhibit islamic guidance regarding muamalah iqtishadiyyah (economic activities) is a whole and comprehensive system, as the affirmation of allah, udkhulu fil-alsilmi kaffah, it means to enter into islam completely (and perfectly) (mardani, 2011). the definition of sharia economics in indonesian laws and regulations is contained in the supreme court regulation no. 2 of 2008 concerning compilation of sharia economic law (hereinafter written khes). article 1 number 1 khes states that sharia economy is a business or activity carried out by individuals, groups of people, business entities that are incorporated or not incorporated to comply with commercial and non-commercial needs according to sharia principles. it was also stated that islamic economic is a set of legal norms originating in the qur'an and al-hadist that govern the economy of mankind (zainuddin, 2008). khes is determined by considering the needs of guidance for judges regarding economic law according to sharia principles for the success inspection and resolution of islamic economic disputes as referred to article 49 letter i along with the explanation of law no. 7 of 1989 as amended by no. 3 of 2006 concerning amendments to law no. 7 of 1989 concerning religious courts (religious court law), law no. 19 of 2008 concerning state sharia securities (sbsn law) and article 55 of law no. 21 of 2008 concerning sharia banking (sharia banking law). one sub-system of the islamic economic system is the islamic financial system. the financial system is the economic structure in a country that plays a role and performs activities in various financial services which organized by financial institutions (andri, 2010). the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 864 issn :0250 financial system has a very vital function in the modern economy (andri, 2010). the financial system serves to provide a payment mechanism, provide funds for financing / credit, the creation of an instrument of exchange (money), and as a medium of savings mobilization (andri, 2010). sharia financial system is a financial system which confront those who need funds and those who have excess funds through financial products and services in accordance with sharia principles (andri, 2010). sharia finance in the islamic economic system, is not only about commercial finance, but also includes social finance with the same goal of achieving falah (prosperity in the world and the hereafter) (ascarya, 2016). islamic commercial finance such as partnerships, buying and selling, rent and so on, as well as islamic social finance such as zakat and waqf. the sharia financial system in indonesia is implemented by financial institutions which its activities are based on sharia principles or also called the sharia financial services institution (ljks) consisting of sharia banking, sharia capital markets, sharia insurance, sharia pension funds, sharia financing institutions, and other sharia financial services institutions. sharia banking consists of sharia commercial banks (bus), sharia people financing banks (bprs), and sharia business units (uus). the sharia financial industry in indonesia has unique characteristics compared to other countries, such as malaysia and the gulf cooperation council (gcc) countries which more focus on investment banking and islamic financial markets. the fundamental difference is located in the orientation of the retail segment and the industry complexity which includes various types of islamic financial services institutions, such as the sharia people financing bank (bprs) and islamic microfinance institutions that play a role in construct the unique characteristics of the sharia finance industry in indonesia. sharia financial institutions have two roles at the same time, namely as a business entity and social entity (andri, 2010). as a business entity, sharia financial institution serve as an investment manager, investor, and service provider (andri, 2010). as a social entity, sharia financial institutions serve as managers of social funds for the collection and distribution of zakat, infaq, and alms funds (andri, 2010). social funds such as waqf are often ignored due to their non-commercial nature, whereas based on data released by gifr in 2017, the potential for cash waqf calculated by the indonesian waqf board (bwi) is estimated reach up to rp. 120 trillion (around us $ 8.93 billion) per year. this potential must be optimally utilized, especially in the development of sharia financial institutions in order to achieve people's welfare. waqf is one of the sharia economic scope that has great potential in improving people‟s welfare. in islamic terminology, waqf means “a dedication of property either in expressed terms or by implication, for any charitable or religious object, or to secure any benefit to human being’ (siti, 2006). waqf in indonesia have been specifically regulated in the law of the republic of indonesia no. 41 of 2004 concerning waqf (waqf law) and government regulation no. 42 of 2006 concerning the implementation of the waqf law (pp waqf). article 1 paragraph 1 of the waqf law states that waqf is a legal act of wakif to separate and hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 865 issn :0250 / or surrender a portion of his property to be used permanently or for a certain period in accordance with their interests for the purposes of worship and / or public welfare according to sharia. the majority (jumhur) ulama provides a definition of waqf, that is to keep an object that can be utilized, while the asset‟s ‘ain neither lost nor diminished due to loss of its benefits, as long as the use of property is permitted according to islamic law (nurul, 2013). waqf property includes both movable and immovable objects. one of the waqf property in the form of movable objects is money. as the purpose of waqf is to utilize waqf property in accordance with its function, the presence of a professional nazhir is indispensable in managing money waqf, so that the efficiency of the money continues to grow and be able to provide maximum benefits. nazhir is the party that receives the waqf property from a waqif to be managed and developed according to its purpose. currently, management of money waqf in indonesia are involving many parties, namely (1) the indonesian waqf board (bwi) as supervisor of the management and development of money waqf which conducted by nazhir, (2) nazhir as manager of money waqf, (3) sharia financial institutions receiving money waqf (lks-pwu) as the party that issues the money waqf certificate, and (4) general director of waqf empowerment which act on behalf of the minister of religion as supervisors of waqf money that conducted by lks-pwu. lks-pwu only acts as the recipient of a money waqf and issues a money waqf certificate, but its management remains the responsibility of nazhir. certificate of waqf money is a letter of evidence issued by lks-pwu to the waqif and nazhir regarding the submission of money waqf. assignment of waqf money through lks-pwu is intended as a deposit (wadi'ah), then nazir can manage it by considering the will of the waqif and the investment manager's recommendation (if necessary). the mechanism of money waqf management is considered still not optimal. there are several factors that cause waqf in indonesia has not yet played a role in empowering the people‟s economy, including: (1) public understanding of the laws and objects represented, (2) socialization, (3) institutional issues that are still not maximally collecting waqf money, and (4) lack of government sensitivity to exploit the potential for money waqf, so that public access to channeling waqf is still not optimal and transparency in management and allocation of waqf funds is not optimal, and this can reduce people's trust to distribute waqf (qurratul‟aini, 2017). lead to the discovery of ideas regarding establishment of waqf bank in indonesia. according to mohammad tahir sabit haji mohammad of malaysia university of technology, waqf bank is defined as follows (mohammad, 2011): “waqf bank is intended to mean as one that is an interest free, not-for profit, and social bank the capital of which is dedicated mainly to social welfare, provision of micro financing, and economic development of the poor and under privileged.” waqf bank is an institution which is free from any orientation of economic profit and is fully dedicated to social welfare by providing financing for small businesses and focusing on the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 866 issn :0250 economic development of marginal communities. once social finance and commercial finance can be implemented optimally, it can produce enormous potential in supporting development and improving people's welfare. it is interesting to investigated what is the model of a waqf bank business entity in the context of optimizing the management of waqf money in indonesia. 2. research methodology this research was engaging a normative juridical approach. the normative juridical approach method is a method that focuses on researching secondary data consisting of primary legal materials, secondary legal materials and tertiary legal materials. secondary data has a very broad scope, including legislation, literature books, legal journals, newspapers, magazines, to official documents issued by the government (soerjono, 2006). in this study, a waqf bank business entity model will be examined in the context of optimizing the management of waqf money in indonesia. the research specifications that used in this study are analytical descriptive. the specification of analytical descriptive research is by making systematic depiction of facts including the description of applicable regulations (soerjono, 2006) . the description research aims to solve the actual problems currently faced by collecting data or information to be compiled, explained, and analyzed (beni, 2008). therefore, this research will illustrate various legal issues obtained through a positive legal inventory, the discovery of the principle of law and the discovery of the law in concreto concerning the waqf bank business entity model which aims to obtain a comprehensive and systematic picture through a process of analysis, using legal regulations, legal principles, and legal understanding regarding waqf bank. theo waqf banking entity model in optimizing the management of money waqf in indonesia one of the scope of islamic economics is waqf. waqf in indonesia is regulated in the waqf law. article 1 paragraph 1 of the waqf law states that waqf is a legal act of wakif to separate and / or surrender a portion of his property to be used permanently or for a certain period in accordance with their interests for the purposes of worship and / or public welfare according to sharia. waqf literally means detention (habas), but its legal meaning is the dedication of a property or giving it away in charity for the benefit of certain property for a good purpose other religious, pious, or charitable (abdur rahman, 2015). waqf has enormous potential in improving the welfare of many people and one form of waqf property is money. the indonesian ulema council (mui) has issued a fatwa on money waqf stipulating that money waqf (cash waqf / waqf al-nuqud ) is waqf which conducted by a person, group of people, institutions or legal entities in the form of money. included in the definition of money according to this fatwa are securities. the legal status of money waqf is jawaz (permissible) and waqf money may only be distributed and used for matters that are permitted by syar’i as hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 867 issn :0250 well as the principal value money waqf must be guaranteed its sustainability, may not be sold, granted, or inherited. as implementing regulations of the waqf law and waqf government regulation (pp) have been legitimized by the minister of religion of the republic of indonesia no. 4 of 2009 concerning administration of money waqf registration (pma admistration registration for waqf money). there are differences in the scope of the money waqf object as specified in the mui fatwa regarding money waqf and the scope money waqf as specified in the laws of waqf. mui fatwa about waqf money determines that securities are included in the scope of money, so when referring to the fatwa, money waqf not only in the form of money, but also in the form of movable objects, namely securities, but the provisions of waqf legislation distinguish between waqfs of movable objects in the form of money (money waqf) with waqf of movable objects other than money including securities. then the definition of money waqf in this article is money waqf as referred to waqf legislation. submission of waqf money in indonesia is submitted through lks-pwu which already has a ministerial permit on the recommendation of bwi. lks-pwu submitted the waqf certificate of money as evidence of the receipt of waqf assets in the form of money from the waqf. money waqf certificate is a letter of evidence issued by lks to wakif and nazhir regarding the submission of money waqf. then the waqf certificate was registered with the minister of religion by lks-pwu on behalf of nadzhir. lks-pwu places waqf money into a safekeeping account (wadi'ah) in the name of nazhir designated by the wakif, meaning lks-pwu has a product of receiving funds based on the deposit agreement provided that the lks-pwu can manage the deposit for safekeeping until nazhir determines otherwise, thus the contract used is the wadi'ah yad dhamanah. article 48 pp waqfs stipulate that the management and development of waqf assets can only be done through investments in products of islamic financial institutions and / or islamic financial instruments. nazhir can only manage and develop the properties of money waqf at the said lks-pwu if the lks-pwu accepts the waqf for a certain period of time. management and development of waqf assets carried out at a sharia bank must follow the savings insurance institution program and if done in the form of investments outside sharia banks must be insured with sharia insurance. in reality, the mechanism for managing waqf money has not yet had a significant impact on improving people's welfare. although nazhir has the authority to manage money waqfs, the waqf pp limits it by determining that the management and development of money waqfs can only be done through investments in islamic financial institution products and / or islamic financial instruments, meaning nazhir can only determine in islamic financial institution products or islamic financial instruments in which waqfs will be invested. on the other hand with this mechanism the lks-pwu actually participates in managing waqf money through its products, but the full authority to determine which products are used remains in nazar's hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 868 issn :0250 hands. so that both nazhir and lks-pwu have limited authority in managing waqf money in indonesia. mohammad tahir sabit explained that the function of money waqf as a social instrument in the welfare of the people could be a function of the existence of a waqf bank (fahmi, 2017). according to m.a. mannan, waqf bank is a bank that holds waqf funds. money waqf can act as a supplement to funding various social investment projects managed by islamic banks, so that it can turn into a waqf bank. the establishment of a waqf bank could also be allowed, if it could be for the benefit of waqf, its beneficiaries, and is in the interest of the public (maslahah amah) (mohammad, 2011). referring to the waqf legislation in indonesia, the submission of waqfs must be made through lks-pwu. there are several types of lks which are referred to as islamic financial services institutions (ljks) as specified in law no. 21 of 2011 concerning the financial services authority (ojk act) which consists of sharia banking, sharia capital markets, sharia insurance, sharia pension funds, sharia financing institutions, and other sharia financial services institutions. sharia banking consists of sharia commercial banks (bus), sharia people financing banks (bprs), and sharia business units (uus). waqf banks should be in the form of institutions that act as financial intermediaries, considering that waqf banks play a role not only as recipients of money waqfs but also managers of these waqfs. sharia financial services institutions that act as intermediary institutions are sharia banking and baitul maal wat tamwil (bmt) which are included in the category of sharia microfinance institutions (lkms). bmt is a microfinance institution with sharia principles that has special characteristics, namely baitul maal which contains social values which raise funds and distribute funds to the public in the form of zakat, infaq sodaqoh, besides that there is a tamwil element which contains commercial business values that collect and distribute funds to the public middle down (nourma, 2017). the results of the current conclusions can be concluded that until now bmt management still uses various regulations, this is due to the special characteristics of bmt and types of legal entities that can be either cooperative or limited liability company (nourma, 2017). until now there are no laws that specifically regulate bmt in indonesia, besides that the narrow range of bmt is not on a national scale, it will be a significant obstacle if the waqf bank in indonesia is a bmt business entity, considering that waqf banks do not only have the role of managers waqf funds but also recipients of waqf funds, so with indonesia's vast territory and a very large population, an institution is needed that is able to reach all levels of society both in terms of revenue but also its management. on the other hand bmt can be a strategic partner of waqf banks in the distribution of financing through the management of waqf money, according to the characteristics of bmt which have a significant role in community empowerment and micro businesses that do not have access to banking institutions. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 869 issn :0250 recently, to increase waqf acceptance, bwi collaborated with 18 (eighteen) national sharia banks incorporated in the lks-pwu whose task was to increase waqf acceptance by developing various payment innovations. islamic banking as a business entity has an intermediation function that carries out profitable business activities and as a social entity the islamic banking carries out its social function as a baitul mal institution and collector of social funds derived from waqfs of money, as specified in article 4 of the law no. 21 of 2008 concerning sharia banking (sharia banking law). according to the sharia banking law, a bank is a business entity that collects funds from the public in the form of deposits and distributes them to the public in the form of credit and / or other forms in order to improve the people's standard of living. the sharia banking industry has the greatest assets compared to other sharia financial institutions, so sharia banking has a very strategic role in the development of the sharia financial industry, including in indonesia. gifr data for 2017 records that the growth of the sharia banking industry has experienced a rapid growth of an average of 19.95% in the last five years, although it slowed down in 2014 and 2015. industrial growth was also seen from an increase in market share to more than 5% of total indonesian banking assets in 2016. total assets of islamic banking were recorded at rp. 365.65 trillion (us $ 27.21 billion) or 5.33% compared to total commercial bank assets of rp. 6,852 trillion or us $ 509.97 billion. the financial services authority (ojk) as a regulator and supervisor of sharia banking in indonesia has established a strategic plan in the development of sharia banking as outlined in the 2015-2019 sharia banking roadmap for indonesia. the roadmap contains strategic issues or fundamental problems that still occur in the sharia banking industry, as well as policy directions and activity programs that support the achievement of policy directions and involve various stakeholders in the framework of developing the sharia banking industry that can make a significant contribution to the national economy which is based by sustainable economic growth, equitable development, the stability of the financial system and the highly competitive islamic banking industry. strategic issues faced and impact on the development of islamic banking in indonesia include the incompatible vision and lack of coordination between governments and authorities in the development of islamic banking, inadequate capital, small scale industries and individual banks and low efficiency, low cost of funds expensive which has an impact on the limitations of the financing segment, products that are not varied and services that do not meet public expectations, the quantity and quality of human resources (hr) are inadequate and information technology (it) that has not been able to support the development of products and services, understanding and public awareness is still low, and regulation and supervision are still not optimal. facing the strategic issues of national sharia banking, a vision for developing national sharia banking was developed, namely "realizing sharia banking that contributes significantly to sustainable economic growth, equitable development and financial system stability and high competitiveness." the vision is then elaborated in the form of policy directions along with hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 870 issn :0250 work program and implementation plan consisting of seven policy directions, namely strengthening the policy synergy between the authorities and the government and other stakeholders, strengthening capital and business scale and improving efficiency, improving the structure of funds to support the expansion of the financing segment, improving service quality and product diversity, improve the quantity and quality of hr and it and other infrastructure, increase literacy and community preferences, and strengthen and harmonize regulation and supervision. one step to improve bank stability is to diversify its funding structure. islamic banking is expected to balance the market share of the commercial and corporate segments, as well as increase support for cross-border trading activities. other funding sources must also be considered to strengthen the liquidity and authorized capital of islamic banks for the expansion of financing distribution, one of which is through optimizing the management of waqfs, zakat and shadaqah as well as in order to increase the integration of social functions into islamic bank business activities. the collection of waqf funds in islamic banking, on the one hand can help strengthen the capital structure of islamic banks and on the other hand the management of money waqfs can be done in a professional and more structured manner. the reach of sharia banking which is currently quite large both through branch offices and through financial services without offices (smart behavior) is expected to be able to reach all levels of society in collecting waqf funds and channeling them back to achieve the objectives to be achieved in waqf management money and sharia banking itself, which is to improve the distribution of people's welfare. examples of banks that have optimized the implementation of commercial finance and social finance are social islamic bank, ltd (sibl) in bangladesh. sibl is an extraordinary banking model, the aim of which is to eradicate poverty and empower families through social investment based on a participatory economic system. targeting poverty, sibl is indeed a concept of 21st century participatory three sector banking model in one. in the formal sector, it works as an islamic participatory commercial bank with human face approach to credit and banking on the profit and loss sharing. it has a non-formal banking sector too with informal finance and investment package that empowers and humanizes real poor family and create local opportunities and discourages internal migration. the bank has another sector to monetize the voluntary sector and management of waqf, mosque properties and has introduced cash waqf system for the firs time in the history of banking. in the formal corporate sector, this bank, among others, offers the most up-to-date banking services through opening of various types of deposit and investment accounts, financing trade, providing letters of guarantee, opening letters of credit, collection of bills, leasing of equipment and consumers durable, hire purchase and instalment sale for capital goods, investment in low-cost housing and management of real estate, participatory investment in various industrial, agricultural, transport, educational and health projects and so on. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 871 issn :0250 voluntary banking uses the waqf model and sharia grameen model supported by waqf funds, non-formal banking uses the sharia grameen model and individual models for microbusinesses, while corporate banking provides ordinary banking products and services. sibl developed a model where cross-subsidies and low-cost financing for microbusinesses occur. the purpose of utilizing funds from the management of waqf money managed, among others, are to: improve the living standards of the ummah, rehabilitate the disabled, improve the living standards of slum dwellers, help orphanage education, scholarships, school development, madrasas, courses, academies, and universities, funding research, assisting in nursing education, researching specific diseases and establishing research programs, setting up hospitals and blood banks, assisting projects for job creation that are important for eradicating poverty. it is a challenge in indonesia that islamic banking is able to optimize its functions in the implementation of the commercial economy and the social economy, especially in producing money waqfs so that the results can improve the welfare of the people at large. therefore, the renewal of sharia banking regulations and waqf is the main thing so that the concept of waqf bank as implemented in bangladesh can also be implemented in indonesia, especially the provisions regarding the role of lks especially sharia banking in managing money waqf not only acting as lks-pwu, but more from that role as manager of waqf money (nazhir). in accordance with its characteristics, bmt can be a strategic partner of waqf banks in channeling waqf funds through a linkage program and reach out to non-bankable communities. the cooperation of various stakeholders has become an urgent matter in the formation of this waqf bank, especially the government as a policy holder and bwi as an institution formed in the context of developing and advancing representation in indonesia. islamic banking with a focus as the manager of waqf money can be a model of waqf bank business entities in indonesia. waqf bank was formed with the body of a sharia banking business that focuses on the implementation of its business activities in the management of waqf money. 3. conclusion the model of a waqf bank business entity that can be established in indonesia in the context of optimizing the management of money waqf in indonesia is in the form of sharia banking with a focus as a manager of money waqf. 4. suggestion renewal of islamic banking regulations and waqf money regulations in indonesia is needed in the establishment of waqf banks, especially regarding the authority of sharia banking in managing money waqf, so that sharia banking does not only play the role as lks-pwu but also can play a role as nazir. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 872 issn :0250 references abdur, r. i d. (2015). shariah: the islamic law. kuala lumpur, malaysia: a.s. noordeen. andri, s. (2015). bank dan lembaga keuangan syariah. jakarta: kencana prenada media group. alahoul, m. h. m., azizan, n., & alwi, n. h. (2016). factors that affect the use of malaysian e-learning websites by visually impaired users in the transfer of islamic knowledge. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 1(1), 30 40. arifin h. (2008). hukum ekonomi islam (ekonomi syariah) di indonesia aplikasi dan prospektifnya. bogor, indonesia: ghalia indonesia. ascarya, l. (2016). integrasi keuangan komersial dan sosial islam untuk meningkatkan stabilitas sistem keuangan dan pembangunan sosial-ekonomi. proceedings of soft launching forum wakaf produktif dan inisiasi pencanangan hari wakaf produktif, bank indonesia, jakarta, indonesia. beni, a. s. (2008). metode penelitian hukum. bandung, indonesia: pustaka setia. fahmi, m. (2017). bank wakaf: solusi pemberdayaan sosial ekonomi indonesia. indonesian journal of islamic literature and muslim society, 2(1),73. lynn, k. k. (2015). an analysis of the relationship between foreign trade and economic growth in myanmar during 1990-2014? international journal of business and administrative studies, 1(4), 114-131. mardani, l. (2011). hukum ekonomi syariah di indonesia. bandung, indonesia: pt refika aditama. mohammad, t. s. (2011). permissibility of establishing waqf bank in islamic law. proceedings of internasional conference on society and economics development ipedr singapura, singapura. muhammad, a. (2016). hak asasi manusia dalam kerangka cita negara hukum (catatan perjuangan di mahkamah konstitusi). jurnal cita hukum, 4(10), 137. muhammad. (2007). aspek hukum dalam muamalat. yogyakarta, indonesia: graha ilmu. nourma, d. (2017). regulasi keberadaan baitul maal wat tamwil (bmt) dalam sistem perekonomian di indonesia. jurnal serambi hukum, 11(1), 96. nurul, h., & mohammad, h. (2013). lembaga keuangan islam tinjauan teoritis dan praktis. jakarta, indonesia : kencana prenada media group. yusuf, a. q. (1995). peran nilai dan moral dalam ekonoi islam. jakarta, indonesia: rabbani press. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 862 873 873 issn :0250 qurratul „aini, w. h. (2017). peran lembaga keuangan syariah penerima wakaf uang (lks pwu) bagi optimalisasi wakaf uang. ziswaf, 4(1), 43-44. siti, m. m. (2006). waqf in malaysia legal and administrative perspectives. kuala lumpur, malaysia: university of malaya press. soerjono, s., & sri, m. (2006). penelitian hukum normatif suatu tinjauan singkat. jakarta (indonesia): rajagrafindo persada. shama, a. (2018). islamic radicalization in the maldives: an analysis of the role of religious networks and proliferation of different religious narratives. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 4(5), 206-213 zainuddin, a. (2008). hukum ekonomi syariah. jakarta, indonesia : sinar grafika. law of republic of indonesia no. 21 years 2008 concerning syaria banking. law of republic of indonesia no. 41 years 2004 concerning waqf. f:\e\islamicus\2021\fire symbolism in the holy qurâ•žan analysis of contrary connotation.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 101 fire symbolism in the holy qur’ón analysis of contrary connotation dr. sardar muhammad department of humanities comsats university islamabad, abbottabad campus, kpk, pakistan e-mail. sardarmuhammad2000@yahoo.com recieved on: 06-12-2020 accepted on: 15-01-2021 abstract the study of symbolism not only helps to develop better understanding of the meanings of the qur’énic themes but also promotes qur’énic literature. this article analyses “fire” as a qur’énic symbol that represents a variety of literary and contextual meanings and interpret all its indications discussed in the precious text of holy qur’én. the significance of fire symbolism can be evaluated from its usage in the qur’énic text more than any other symbol. it has a unique position in the qur’énic style to signify directly conflicting concepts. to assimilate opposing connotations of the “fire” in different situations, zepetnek’s model of ideological inclusion (theory of comparative literature) has been followed. this is a model that allows the acceptability of diversified literary and contextual meanings of a single term. this model is adapted by various researchers and its adaptability, appropriateness and practicability is overall accepted. thus, this model is apt for verifying different meanings of the “fire” from the text of holy qur’én like, cool and hot, war and peace (safety), comfort and torment, creation, and annihilation of jinn, sacrifice and punishment, guidance and misguidance, blessing and infliction, construction and destruction, life, and death. in view of this model, the qur’énic text having “fire” symbolism and its contrary connotation has been observed. key words: fire, symbolism, contrary, connotation, zepetnek, inclusion, holy qurén 1. introduction the study of literature, either qur’énic or human, may be incomplete without illustrating or explaining symbolism. by dint of its non-scientific 102 fire symbolism in the holy quran... subject-matter, literature is usually supposed to be focused on abstract ideas which need literary symbols to interpret their meanings. the study of symbolism, in this way, provides new avenues for a pluralistic analysis of symbols. sometimes, the meanings of literary symbols are opposite to each other. this article examines contrary connotation of fire symbolism with reference to its usage in the text of the holy qur’én. the variety of connotations in the holy qur’én has made lexical meaning of this term almost insignificant. intrinsically, the fire is one of the four commonly known basic elements of universe (fire, water, earth, and air), the result of combustion, a chemical reaction. it consists of carbon dioxide, water vapour, oxygen, and nitrogen. extrinsically, the fire provides modes of explanation in the most varied domains. it is thus a privileged phenomenon which can explain anything. it shines in paradise and burns in hell. it is cookery and it is catastrophe. it is a pleasure for the good and punishment for those who play with it. it is good and also bad. the term “fire” has been used for nearly two hundred times in the holy qur’én. the fire as a symbol has two basic functions. at one hand, it elucidates intangible spiritual concepts, symbolic ideas, notions, and perceptions of human life as abdullah says, “our duty here is to prepare ourselves for the true life, the life that comes after this life. from this point of view there is an allegorical meaning to all experiences that we have while on earth. this life is the medium by which our future life is decided.”1 on the other hand, it offers two conflicting meanings in different situations. one meaning of fire is an antonym to other meaning. zepetnek’s approach (elaborated in section: 5) of ideological inclusion relates contrary meanings of fire in a single unit. 2. objectives  to demonstrate contrary connotation of fire symbolism to explore opposite meanings of “fire” in the holy qur’én. to examine the appropriateness of zepetnek’s model of ideological inclusion. 3. review of literature many scholars have tried to examine symbolism through choosing symbols from the text of the holy qur’én. it is neither possible nor the hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 103 scope of this article to overview all or even majority of researchers who explored symbolism with reference to the textual information of the holy qur’én. their research is primarily focused on symbols like, water, food, trees, animals, birds, fire, and the parts of human body. symbolic meanings of such elements from material world have been analysed from specific angle through keeping in view the comments of scholars either from qur’énic studies or from arabic literature. that is why, symbolism could not be developed as an approach to analyze major qur’énic themes. however, some researchers’ contribution is still admirable. rashidi (2011)2 emphasizes the importance of qur’énic symbolism and suggests that whenever the words are insufficient to express religious facts, the symbols are the best tools of expression. either there is qur’énic concept or the states of øufism, or gnosticism, symbolism facilitates in expressing the inexpressible facts or realities. symbolism is supposed to be based on social or cultural values. the islamic culture with its roots in qur’énic education has symbols which represent the concepts like, virtue, vice, purity, enlightenment, blessing, purgation, anger, pride, damnation, salvation, eternity, generosity, transcendentalism, etc. the symbols in muslim societies have their own varieties particularly based on their local traditions. the use of symbols is an approach to abstract ideas, but their meanings may be different from society to society. rafe (2020)3 introduces a system of precise index-based multiple patterns matching, which identifies qur’énic verses in any text and recognizes them. in order to ensure exactness, the symbols or signs of arabic accent are completely removed from the input text. then a unique process (set of rules) changes the detected threads into indicators and detects qur’énic verses by focusing on indicators consecutiveness. to increase the search speed or accelerate the function of this system, the stored threads in databases are decreased at a large scale. such a technological system based on electronic symbols to detect or locate qur’énic verses in a text may help to understand the meaning of qur’énic symbols. sheikh and dixit (2015)4 discuss the medicinal plants mentioned in the holy qur’én. according to this study, nearly 19 plant species belonging to 18 families have been mentioned in the holy qur’én. these plants have special medicinal properties. the second part of this study is comparatively more important. in this part, the plants mentioned in the holy qur’én are discussed which symbolize qur’énic concepts relating to human welfare and sacredness associated to holy places, food, and 104 fire symbolism in the holy quran... practices. the holy plants such as fig, olive, date palm, and pomegranate, the fragrance plant such as zinger, basil and camphor and nutritious plants like, onion, garlic, and lentils. all plants mentioned in the holy qur’én represent human welfare in one form or the other. schum (2018)5 analyzes the bird symbolism, particularly focusing on hoopoe (hudhud). this is perhaps the same bird (hudhud) mentioned in the holy qur’an who represented kingly authority of hazrat suleiman (‘alaih as-salém) (solomon). as a solar symbol, it has been associated with kingship, familial holiness, and wisdom. its body is believed to possess powerful magical and medicinal properties. schum claims that hoopoe (hudhud) is the central character of farid-ud-din ‘attar’s (raímat allah ‘alaih) poem, “the conference of the birds”. he argues that, instead of developing independent tradition of literature related to hoopoe, the muslim world drew upon and continued ancient and antique traditions. gasimova (2015)6 examines the intertextual use of qur’énic text in the depiction of facial features, specifically in the sufi symbolism of the eyes in classical azeri turkic sufi poetry. at first, the article explores linguistic, historical, and geographical boundaries of this tradition. then the manifestation of holy scripture is traced in human face. gasimova’s research reveals about fifty qur’énic themes discussed in the poetry of poets like, imad-ud-din nasimi (d. 820), mirza jihan shah haqiqi (d. 871) and shah ismail khatai (d. 930) (raímat allah ‘alaihim). gasimova’s argument on the symbolism of the eyes is focused on its different examples like eye-man, eye-heart, eye-murderer, eye-magician, eyelashes, eyelid, tears, and glances. achrati (2003)7 explains hand and foot symbolism through examples from the history and the text of holy qur’én. he opines that, symbolism of hand and foot have as long history as that of human being. they assumed different religious and literary forms. achrati also explores in historical times, their ethnographic and mythological expressions. he also examines the way these symbolisms reorganized in the qur’énic text to fit strictly in the meaning of monotheism. he believes that, only a multidisciplinary approach can relate these symbols to linguistic traditions of the eastern and southern coasts of the mediterranean sea. zargar (2014)8 interprets “water” as a qur’énic symbol which stands for many different concepts. in the image of water, the reader can see life, knowledge, and purity, which reflects symbolic heritage of islam. water as a paradise represents pleasure and state of being free from material compulsions. water as original beauty has several different hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 105 connotations like, unaffected (permanent shape), unaltered (permanent colour) and unbothered (not replaced with another compound). it is primary substance for life (basic element of life for animals and plants). the composing elements of body are earth, water, heat, and moisture. water as knowledge (water in the dream signifies knowledge), water as unity in multiplicity (two types of water, sweet and salt-water in similar form). similarly, the water is also symbolically considered as ritual purifier, and symbol of selfless sympathy. elkouche (2014)9 introduces the camel with reference to the verse of holy qur’én, “do they not look at the camels, how they are made”10 the symbolic description of camel and its possibility to pass through the eye of a needle, apparently a metaphorical expression, has been a subject of controversy regarding it symbolic interpretations or exact meaning. elkouche has discussed it along with qur’énic imagery. in the holy qur’én it is declared, “to those who reject our signs and treat them with arrogance, no opening will there be of the gates of heaven, nor will they enter the garden, until the camel can pass through the eye of the needle: such is our reward for those in sin”11 elkouche, interprets the image of the camel and the eye of the needle, and concludes his argument that the entry of unbelievers in the paradise is as difficult as the entry of camel into the eye of needle. hassan (2014) describes symbolic significance of food. he suggests that eating is a matter of faith in islam. it has four different aspects. at first, the food is either íalél (lawful) or íarém (unlawful). the muslims are supposed to avoid unlawful food. the second aspect is fasting in the holy month of ramaìén (ramazan). third aspect is the slaughtering of sheep during ×ajj and eid-ul-aìha. and the fourth is, expiation (kafférah), by which the muslims compensate for their unfasted days in ramadén. the slaughtering of sheep has greater symbolic importance. it is an acknowledgement of the unique sacrifice of hazrat ibrahim (‘alaih as-salém) who opted to sacrifice his son. the expiation (kafférah) is symbolically attached to social harmony. since freeing a slave is not possible, feeding the poor and clothing them are good options. mentak (2014)13 analyzes the tree as a qur’énic symbol. it is an interesting image which is not focused by majority of readers. the tree in the holy qur’én is used to represent some concept, idea, or way of 106 fire symbolism in the holy quran... life. a positive concept is signified by good tree and negative idea by bad tree as mentioned in the qur’énic text.14 the lote tree, according to mentak (2014) is symbolically used for extreme boundary. nobody knows the nature of lote tree which is near the garden of refuge (however it is not mentioned in the holy qur’én). the tree also represents immortality, “but satan whispered to him; he said, “o ódam, shall i lead thee to the tree of eternity and to a kingdom that never decays?”15 the tree appears to be one of the major qur’énic symbols which stands for a variety of ideas. keeping in view existing scholarship on different qur’énic symbols, fire symbolism needs to be explored from the text of holy qur’én with contrary connotations. 4. fire symbolism symbolism, according to cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary, is “the use of symbols in art, literature, films etc. to represent ideas”. michael ferber expounds ‘the fire’ as a symbol and suggests that its importance is based on its different forms like, “the sun and stars, lightning, volcanoes, sparks from int, burning logs on a hearth, candles, oil lamps, conagrations of a city or forest, that its symbolic meanings in literature are as manifold as the forms a ame may take.”16 in this way, the fire as a symbol appears to be the rich material for discussion simultaneously in science, religion, society, and literature. the meanings of “fire” according to ferber “are not only manifold but sometimes ambiguous: what warms can burn; what illuminates can dazzle and blind. fires are found on earth, in heaven, in hell, and in purgatory; they bring life and death; they can kill by burning up or by burning out.”17 (the power of fire as suggested by ferber, appears to be an exaggeration. it may represent zoroastrians’ perspective). the opposing connotation of the term “fire” in the text of the holy qur’én suggests that the devices of rhetorical style of the sacred text aptly evoke emotions within the readers or audience like any work of literature composed to achieve specific effects. therefore, it is important to explore the text of the holy qur’én to highlight the contrary meaning of fire symbolism with different effects on readers in different situations. the fire may represent several ideas which sometimes appear to hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 107 be conflicting to each other. the fire stands for purification, renewal of life, energy, protection, visibility, destruction, the medium for conveying messages. it may symbolize spiritual power, transcendence, illumination, manifestation of holiness, the breath of life, inspiration, and enlightenment. “fire and flame can both typify the heart. both are ambivalent as being either divine or demonic, creative, or destructive; they are the means of devouring all created things to return them to original unity. both represent truth and knowledge as consumers of lies, ignorance, illusion and death and as scorchers of the impure.”18 the fire is such a unique symbol which can be used to explain anything either religious or social. the opposite meanings of “the fire” make it unique. it is perhaps the only symbol simultaneously used for a variety of concept. in this way, the holy qur’én confirms its meaningfulness, and the poets, writers and debaters exploit its connotations for their own specific purposes. bachelard rightly observes, “in comparison with the intensity of fire, how slack, inert, static, and aimless seem the other intensities that we perceive. they are not embodiments of growth. they do not fulfil their promise. they do not become active in a flame and a light which symbolize transcendence.”19 5. contrary connotation of fire symbolism in the holy qur’én for the sake of juxtaposing conflicting or contrary meanings of “fire” in the text of the holy qur’én, zepetnek’s theory of comparative literature has been followed. it provides necessary framework for putting side by side two different meanings of “fire” in their specific context. zepetnek’s model of comparative study is based on his assertion about comparison as “theoretical, methodological as well as ideological and political approach of inclusion”20. it has been followed by a number of researchers in comparative analysis of literary forms and terms. figure: 1.0 108 fire symbolism in the holy quran... inclusion may be interpreted as a logical activity to facilitate two different meanings of one literary term and place them together under the umbrella of symbolism. however, the effectiveness of “inclusion” as a model of research may depend on its existence as goal-oriented (to achieve particular goal), reciprocal (shared by both sides), equality of both participants, objective analysis, and retention of individual position by both participants (words being juxtaposed). as fire symbolism is a literary term, its two contrasting meanings, if placed side by side, will have impact on its readers more than any other literary interpretation of the text of holy qur’én. 5.1. cool and hot the fire denotes two different conditions opposing to each other. although the qualities (adjectives) cool and hot have contrasting meanings yet they are represented by a single term, “fire”. in poetry, the poetic license allows a poet to give new meanings to existing words under the umbrella of symbolism. similarly, the study of qur’énic text as a literature helps to understand symbolic meanings of fire with a conflict. in the holy qur’én, the fire represents “cool” as translated by abdullah yusuf ali, “o fire! be thou cool, and (a means of) safety for abraham!”21 symbolically the fire has been divided into two opposing types, the fire of allah (cool on ibrahim) and the fire of nimrod, they said: “burn him.”22 the fire is supposed to be hot enough to burn, “those who reject our signs, we shall soon cast into the fire: as often as their skins are roasted through, we shall change them for fresh skins, that they may taste the penalty: for god is exalted in power, wise.”23 the statements “burn him” and “be thou cool” may be semantically opposite but the symbol (fire) representing both ideas simultaneously shows incomparable literary grandeur of the qur’énic style. it presents opposing concepts in such a way that their presence becomes interdependent. although the holy qur’én is neither a book of hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 109 literature nor it is supposed to be a literary composition, yet the use of figurative language makes it appealing to human emotions more than any literature. zepetnek’s model of ideological inclusion (figure 1.0) provides necessary guidelines for juxtaposing the terms cool and hot and unites them in the body of the fire. 5.2. war and peace (safety) war and peace are apparently opposite situations. it appears to be surprising if the opposites are represented by a single term. such an ideological inclusion as suggested by zepetnek (figure 1.0) may be possible only through literary symbolism. the fire symbolism in the text of the holy qur’én may represent war and peace simultaneously. the qur’énic text at one hand asserts, “amongst them we have placed enmity and hatred till the day of judgment. every time they kindle the fire of war, god doth extinguish it; but they (ever) strive to do mischief on earth. and god loveth not those who do mischief.”24 on the other hand, the fire gives the message of peace and safety. the qur’énic statement emphasizes, “o fire! be thou cool, and (a means of) safety for abraham!”25 the fire as a symbol represents opposite concepts and provides conditions for their juxtaposition. 5.3. light and darkness fire symbolism appears in the text of the holy qur’én more than any other literary device. it seems to be a tool to represent opposite phenomenon. the terms, light, and darkness may have many connotations and their interpretations may lead to completely opposite directions, however, the fire as a symbol, may represent both terms and pave the way for establishing a link or conceptual connection through zepetnek’s model of ideological inclusion (figure 1.0). the qur’énic text clearly supports this assumption, 110 fire symbolism in the holy quran... “their similitude is that of a man who kindled a fire; when it lighted all around him, god took away their light and left them in utter darkness. so, they could not see.”26 the fire illuminates the area where it is kindled. at the same time, it represents darkness (hell), “of those who reject faith the patrons are the evil ones: from light they will lead them forth into the depths of darkness. they will be companions of the fire, to dwell therein (forever).”27 5.4. comfort and torment ease and luxury are supposed to offer great temptation for human being. the torment on the other hand is hardly welcomed until a serious issue or noble cause may exist behind it. the term “fire” may represent both conditions under the umbrella of qur’énic symbolism. the “fire” suggests its meaning as comfort, relief or well-being as stated in the holy qur’én, “and have you seen the fire that you ignite? is it you who produced its tree or are we the producer?”28 the fire producing tree is perhaps a reference to such trees which produce fire if two of their pieces are rubbed together. before the creation of matchsticks such trees (commonly grown in arabian desert) could have served as matchsticks. the fire gives comfort in cold weather. it is used to cook meal and keep human body warm. similarly, the fire is used to denote the pain, suffering, or torment. the holy qur’én affirms that those who do not believe in the day of judgement or reward, “the day they will be tormented over the fire. (and will be told), “taste your torment. this is that for which you were impatient.”29 although the concepts of comfort and torment are mutually conflicting, yet their symbolic meaning provides necessary justification for their association in zepetnek’s model of thematic inclusion (figure 1.0). it is perhaps the use of symbolism which makes the style of qur’énic text a rich source of inspiration equally for readers and researchers of linguistics and literary stylistics. 5.5. creation and annihilation of jinn the term “fire” in the text of the holy qur’én has been cited for hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 111 more than once, as a raw material for the creation of jinn. one of the verses of the holy qur’én declares in first person (we), “and the jinn we created before, of intensely hot fire.”30 the second description is in third person (he), “and he created the jinn of a flame of fire.”31 however, third description is in iblis’s words, “i am better than him. you created me from fire and created him from clay.”32 in the light of qur’énic verses, el-zein elaborated the composition of jinn, “it is characterized by a brilliant flame of very high intensity mixed with smoldering wind and has a special arabic name, mérij, which means “mixed with”. it is almost as if the jinn were composed of hell itself or are a living hell.”33 the fire also represents annihilation of jinn. the obliteration of jinn is cited in the holy qur’én along with human being. “and if we had pleased, we would certainly have given to every soul its guidance, but the word (which had gone forth) from me was just: i will certainly fill hell (fire) with the jinn and men together.”34 the fire also signifies eternal dwelling place for misleading jinn. the qur’énic text confirms, “and on the day when he shall gather them all together: o assembly of jinn! you took away a great part of mankind. and their friends from among the men shall say: our lord! some of us profited by others and we have reached our appointed term which thou didst appoint for us. he shall say: the fire is your abode, to abide in it, except as allah is pleased; surely your lord is wise, knowing.”35 the connotation of fire as a material for the creation and annihilation of jinn shows that the opposites can be united (figure 1.0) only through symbolism. 5.6. sacrifice and punishment the fire as a symbol offers contrasting connotations like sacrifice and punishment. sacrifice is a voluntary act (positive in meaning) but punishment is a penalty (negative in meaning). sacrifice is “an act of 112 fire symbolism in the holy quran... giving up something especially for the sake of someone or something else or something offered as a religious act.”36, punishment, on the other hand, is “the act of making a wrongdoer suffer: the state of being made to suffer for wrongdoing, or the penalty for a wrong or crime.”37 the sacrifice is explained in the holy qur’én, they said: “god took our promise not to believe in an messenger unless he showed us a sacrifice consumed by fire (from heaven).” say: “there came to you messengers before me, with clear signs and even with what you ask for: why then did you slay them, if you speak the truth?”38 the fire, for punishment, is repeatedly used in the text of the holy qur’én. an explicit example of fire as a punishment is, “they will want to get out of the fire, but they will not be able to. they will have an everlasting punishment.”39 similarly, the qur’énic verse states, “they will say, ‘our lord, give him who brought this on us double the punishment in the fire!”40 although the meanings of sacrifice and punishment are contrasting to each other yet through following zepetnek’s model (figure 1.0) their link under fire symbolism, an umbrella term, could be established. 5.7. guidance and misguidance the guidance and misguidance are two parallel but opposite meanings of the fire. guidance “is the act or function of guiding; leadership; direction.”41 misguidance, however, “to guide wrongly; misdirect.”42 the fire has been used to represent guidance in qur’énic text, “when he (musé) saw a fire and said to his family, ‘wait here. i can make out a fire. maybe i will bring you a brand from it or will find guidance there.”43 the fire shows allah almighty’s intention to lead his prophet to hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 113 himself. the fire is an introductory sign through which the journey of the prophet musa (‘alaih as-salém) on the path of prophethood is started. another connotation of the fire is misguidance. the leaders of the people call them to fire. they mislead them to wrong path. the holy qur’én declares, “we made them leaders, summoning to the fire, and on the day of rising they will not be helped.”44 at one hand, the fire guides to prophethood and ultimately taking responsibility to guide the people, on the other hand, the fire stands for misguidance which ultimately leads to hell or eternal damnation. it conforms with zepetnek’s model (figure 1.0). 5.8. blessing and infliction the fire signifies concurrently the concepts of blessing and infliction. blessing is “a thing conducive to happiness or welfare.”45 infliction is however, “something (such as punishment or suffering) that is inflicted (to cause something unpleasant to be endured).”46 in the light of lexical interpretation of both terms, their meanings emerging from fire symbolism can be explored in the text of the holy qur’én. the qur’énic description of blessing through fire symbolism can be highlighted, “but when he came to the (fire), a voice was heard: “blessed are those in the fire and those around: and glory to god, the lord of the worlds.”47 similarly, the meaning of fire as infliction is clearly mentioned in the qur’énic verses, “and what can make you know what is the crusher? it is the fire of god, (eternally) fueled, which mounts directed at the hearts. indeed, hellfire will be closed down upon them, in extended columns.”48 the unique style of holy qur’én allows varying ideas to be united. zepetnek’s model of comparative analysis (figure 1.0), in this way, appears to be an appropriate research technique in juxtaposing different connotations of fire with reference to the text of the holy qur’én. 114 fire symbolism in the holy quran... 5.9. construction and destruction the fire is either used for baking bricks to be used in the construction of buildings or to burn the bricks or stones to be nothing but ashes, cinders, or embers. the fire makes the bricks hard and stronger enough to construct buildings. the fire in this case has symbolic as well as real value. the holy qur’én states, “pharaoh said: o chiefs! no god do i know for you but myself: therefore, o haman! light me a (kiln to bake bricks) out of clay, and build me a lofty palace, that i may mount up to the god of moses (musa): but as far as i am concerned, i think (musa) is a liar.”49 another angle to examine the fire is its destructive nature. it is perhaps one of the reasons behind choosing the word “fire” for all types of hell. the fire as a symbol of destruction can be highlighted in many chapters of holy qur’én. the holy qur’én states, “but if you do not and you will never be able to then fear the fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers.”50 the stones in the fire have symbolic importance. stones are companions to human being in constructing buildings as human houses. when the houses of disbelievers are transformed into house of fire the stones cannot be dissociated. only through ideological inclusion (figure 1.0) the link of constructive and destructive natures of fire can be established. 5.10. life and death it appears to be more interesting but complicated nature of the fire to represent life or means of life at one hand and death or extermination of the means of life on the other. the fire out of green tree shows the presence fire in life. the plants are living organism and production of fire through rubbing two parts of a tree (specific fire producing tree) indicates the existence of fire along with water. the tree functions as a matchstick. the stoves kindled with that fire are used to cook meal and other activities of life. the holy qur’én asserts, hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 115 “the same who produces for you fire out of the green tree, when behold! you kindle therewith (your own fires).”51 the second aspect of fire symbolism is death. the fire-whirl can be deliberated as one of the best examples. it is developed when the wind is created by wildfire which may turn into a whirlwind of fire. it usually kills through burning and destroys almost everything in its surroundings including basic means of life. the holy qur’én explains, “would one of you like to have a garden of palm trees and grapevines underneath which rivers flow in which he has from every fruit? but he is afflicted with old age and has weak offspring, and it is hit by a whirlwind containing fire and is burned. thus, does god make clear to you [his] verses that you might give thought.”52 the destruction or death of the means of survival through fire is symbolically discussed to interpret the significance of life after death. the situation of a person who devotes his life for the riches of this world is like that old man whose source of income is turned to ashes too late in life to create a new one. the opposites have been associated through ideological inclusion (figure 1.0). 6. discussion the study of fire symbolism with reference to the textual information from the holy qur’én is primarily focused on three basic points, i.e., contrary connotation, fire as a qur’énic symbol, and zepetnek’s model of ideological inclusion. contrary connotation can be regarded as a fundamental and one of the major defining features of symbolism. while choosing concrete examples for abstract ideas the writer is usually interested in keeping in view the reader’s need, intellectual capacity, and level of motivation. the reader’s need, either physical, social, or spiritual, motivates him to explore the allegorical meaning of concrete symbols. his intellectual and motivational levels determine the extent to which the reader will pursue the meaning of symbols to comprehend the writer’s real message. contrary or conflicting meanings of fire are interesting but their interpretation on one page of the text is really challenging. if something 116 fire symbolism in the holy quran... is good at the moment, it can hardly be declared bad at the same time. if one concept is signified by one word its opposite concept must be shown by another term. even if one word is used for a single idea it may also have other meanings, but its own negation is apparently impossible. the fire can stand even for its direct opposite. it makes it unique in the world of symbolism. it stands for heat and at the same time for coldness, light, and darkness, and even good and bad. the connotation of fire can be classified into many groups and surprisingly every group at least two words represent “fire” but their meanings are mostly contrary to each other. the fire as a qur’énic symbol has been extensively explored. the fire has been used for a variety of meanings. in the text of the holy qur’én, it promotes the concept of enlightenment at one hand and represents damnation on the other. it stands for creation and also for destruction. it disseminates simultaneously, the idea of happiness and also anger, construction and destruction etc. its overall meaning, almost dominating a major part of qur’énic text is punishment. the use of the term “fire” for about two hundred times in the holy qur’én confirms the status of “the fire” as a qur’énic symbol. to establish the link of two opposing ideas with their mother term “the fire” zepetnek’s model of comparative study has been followed. the appropriateness of zepetnek’s model of ideological inclusion appears to have been confirmed. it has been established that this model can be followed in any comparative study of abstract ideas, including religious, social, political, and literary themes. previously, the model has been followed mostly in literary studies, however, it meets necessary criteria for research methodology appropriate in qur’énic, biblical, buddhist, and mystical studies. 7. conclusion fire symbolism in the holy qur’én: an analysis of contrary connotation, is the study fire symbolism used in the text of the holy qur’én. an analysis of contrary connotation of fire symbolism through dividing it into ten opposing pairs like, cool and hot, war and peace (safety), light and darkness, comfort and torment, creation and annihilation of jinn, sacrifice and punishment, guidance and misguidance, blessing and infliction, construction and destruction, and life and death, shows that, “the fire” is a major symbol which overwhelmingly dominates hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 117 the text of holy qur’én. basic objectives of this study have been achieved. it can be safely concluded that the style of the holy qur’én exclusively accommodates the contraries under the umbrella of symbolism. notes and references 1. naeem abdullah, concepts of islam (bloomington: xlibris, 2011), 177. 2. hadayat rashidi, “the qur’énic symbolism”. international journal of current research 3 no. 11 (2011): 264-269 3. vahid rafe and morteza nozari, “an efficient indexing approach to find qur’énic symbols in large texts”, indian journal of science and technology 7 no. 10 (2020): 1643–1649 4. sheikh and dixit, “plants in the holy qur’én: a look”, world journal of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences 4 no. 8 (2015) :715-738 5. timothy schum, “from egypt to mount qaf: the symbolism of the hoopoe in muslim literature and folklore”, journal of islamic and muslim studies 3 no. 1 (2018) :37-57 6. aida gasimova, “qur’énic symbolism of the eyes in classical azeri turkic poetry”, oriens 43 no. 1 (2015): 101-153. 7. ahmed achrati, “hand, and foot symbolisms: from rock art to the qur’én” arabica 50 no. 4 (2003): 464-500 8. cyrus a. zargar, “water”, islamic images and ideas: essays on sacred symbolism (jefferson, nc, and london: mc farland & company, 2014), 112-123. 9. mohamed elkouche, “the camel”, islamic images and ideas: essays on sacred symbolism (jefferson, nc, and london: mc farland & company, 2014), 183191. 10. abdullah yusuf ali, the holy qur’én: text and translation (kuala lumpur: ibt, 2007), (88:17) 11. ibid, (7:40) 12. naglaa saad m. hassan, “food”, islamic images and ideas: essays on sacred symbolism (jefferson, nc, and london: mc farland & company, 2014), 146155. 13. said mentak, “the tree”, islamic images and ideas: essays on sacred symbolism (jefferson, nc, and london: mc farland & company, 2014), 124-131. 14. abdullah yusuf ali, the holy qur’an: text and translation (kuala lumpur: ibt, 2007), (14:24), 25 15. ibid, (20:120) 16. michael ferber, a dictionary of literary symbols (new york: cambridge university press, 1999): 72 17. ibid, 72 18. j.c. cooper, an illustrated encyclopaedia of traditional symbols (london: thames and hudson ltd, 1978), 66. 19. gaston bachelard, the psychoanalysis of fire. trans. alan c. m. ross (london: 118 fire symbolism in the holy quran... routledge & kegan paul, 1964), 111. 20. zepetnek, comparative literature: theory, method, application (amsterdam: rodopi, 1998), 17. 21. abdullah yusuf ali, the holy qur’an: text and translation (kuala lumpur: ibt, 2007), (21:69) 22. ibid, (21:68) 23. ibid, (4:56) 24. ibid, (5:64) 25. ibid, (21:69) 26. ibid, (2:17) 27. ibid, (2:2570 28. ibid, (56: 71-72) 29. ibid, (51:13-14) 30. ibid, (15:27) 31. ibid, (55:15) 32. ibid, (38:76) 33. amira el-zein, islam, arabs, and the intelligent world of the jinn. (new york: syracuse university press, 2009): 32. 34. abdullah yusuf ali, the holy qur’én: text and translation (kuala lumpur: ibt, 2007), (32:13) 35. ibid, (6:128) 36. “sacrifice.” merriam-webster.com 37. “punishment.” merriam-webster.com 38. abdullah yusuf ali, the holy qur’én: text and translation (kuala lumpur: ibt, 2007), (3:183) 39. ibid, (5:37) 40. ibid, (38:61) 41. dictionary.com “guidance(n.),” accessed january 14, 2021,https:// www.dictionary.com 42. dictionary.com “misguidance(n.),” accessed january 14, 2021, https:// www.dictionary.com 43. abdullah yusuf ali, the holy qur’an: text and translation (kuala lumpur: ibt, 2007), (20:10) 44. ibid, (28:41) 45. merriam-webster “blessing.” accessed january 14, 2021, https://www.merriamwebster.com 46. merriam-webster “infliction.” accessed january 14, 2021, https://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary 47. abdullah yusuf ali, the holy qur’an: text and translation (kuala lumpur: ibt, 2007), (27:8) 48. ibid, (104:5-9) 49. ibid, (28:38) 50. ibid, (2:24) 51. ibid, (36:80) 52. ibid, (2:266) hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 119 bibliography abdullah, naeem, concepts of islam (bloomington, indiana: xlibris publishing, 2011), 177 achrati, ahmed. “hand and foot symbolisms: from rock art to the qur’an”. arabica 50 no. 4 (2003), 464-500. ali, abdullah yusuf. the holy quran: text and translation. (kuala lumpur: islamic book trust, 2007). bachelard, gaston. the psychoanalysis of fire. trans. alan c. m. ross. (london: routledge & kegan paul, 1964), 111. cooper, j.c. an illustrated encyclopaedia of traditional symbols (london: thames and hudson ltd, 1978), 66. elkouche, mohamed, the camel. islamic images and ideas: essays on sacred symbolism. ed. john andrew morrow. jefferson, (nc and london: mc farland & company, 2014), 183-191. el-zein, amira, islam, arabs, and the intelligent world of the jinn. (new york: syracuse university press, 2009), 32. ferber, michael. a dictionary of literary symbols. (new york: cambridge university press, 1999), 72. gasimova, aida. “qur’énic symbolism of the eyes in classical azeri turkic poetry”. oriens 43 no. 1-2 (2015), 101-153. naglaa saad m. hassan, food. islamic images and ideas: essays on sacred symbolism. ed. john andrew morrow. jefferson, (nc and london: mc farland & company, 2014.), 146-155 mentak, said. the tree. islamic images and ideas: essays on sacred symbolism. ed. john andrew morrow. jefferson, (nc and london: mc farland & company, 2014), 124-131. rafe, vahid and morteza nozari. “an efficient indexing approach to find qur’énic symbols in large texts”. indian journal of science and technology 7, no. 10 (2020), 1643–1649. rashidi, hadayat. the qur’énic symbolism. international journal of current research 3, no. 11 (2011), 264-269. darakhsa sheikh, ashwini kumar dixit. “plants in the holy qur’én: a look”. world journal of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences 4 no. 8 (2015), 715-738. schum, timothy, “from egypt to mount qaf: the symbolism of the hoopoe in muslim literature and folklore”. journal of islamic and muslim studies 3 no. 1 (2018), 37-57. mentak, said. the tree. islamic images and ideas: essays on sacred symbolism. ed. john andrew morrow. jefferson, (nc and london: mc farland & company, 2014), 124-131. cyrus ali zargar, “water. islamic images and ideas: essays on sacred symbolism. ed. john andrew morrow. jefferson, (nc and london: mc farland & company, 2014), 112-123. steven totosy de zepetnek, “comparative literature: theory, method, application”, (amsterdam and atlanta, ga: rodopi, 1998), 17. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 820 issn :0250 supporting and opposing islamism: the views of millennial members of indonesian islamic organizations (iios) and religious gatherings (pengajian) in sydney and canberra australia 1dzuriyatun toyibah, 2 eva mushoffa 3 wiwi siti syajaroh 4ade rina farida, 5fadhilah suralaga abstract this article examines to what extent do indonesian muslim millennial members of indonesian islamic organizations (such as nahdlatul ulama &muhammadiyyah) and pengajian in australia support islamism. it is based on two research methods, online questionnaire with 106 respondents and in-depth interview with 27 key informants consisting of 17 ustadz (religious teacher), some ketua pengajian (heads of religious gathering), and 10 millennial muslims members of iio and pengajian living in sydney and canberra. islamism is measured by using more detailed questions relating to the support of three core elements of islamism: (1) the implementation of islamic (sharia) law in muslim majority countries and in non-muslim majority countries; (2) support the acquisition of power for the muslim community; (3) the restoration of the caliphate for the sake of uniting muslims the world over. this study found that, in line with the trend taking place in other islamic countries, islamism has been understood in various ways, such as radical and moderate interpretations wherein the number of those supporting both radical and moderate islamism is greater than those criticizing and opposing it. however, this does not mean that they support jihadist violence and extremism. keywords: islamism, indonesian millenial muslim, nahdlatul ulama, muhammadiyyah, pengajian 1. introduction indonesia is often heralded as a muslim-majority country that breaks negative western stereotypes about islam. islam in indonesia is considered compatible with democracy, because the more devoutly muslims practice islam the more likely they are to accept democracy (mujani, 2003). various scholars from both the west and indonesia have 1universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta 15419 jakarta. email: dzuriyatun.toyibah@uinjkt.ac.id 2 universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta 15419 jakarta. 3 universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta 15419 jakarta. 4 universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta 15419 jakarta. mailto:dzuriyatun.toyibah@uinjkt.ac.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 820 issn :0250 5 universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta 15419 jakarta. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 821 issn :0250 investigated ideas regarding islam, democracy, human rights, civil society and gender equality in indonesia (azhar, 2015, lussier, 2011; mujani, 2003; ramage, 2002; robinson, 2009) and most of them show optimistic findings. world leaders have pointed to indonesians as practicing a more moderate and tolerant form of islam. during her 2009 visit to indonesia, hillary clinton proclaimed: “if you want to know whether islam, democracy, modernity, and women‟s rights can coexist, go to indonesia.” (hoesterey,2019; saahar, sualman, hashim & mohamed, 2017). both clinton and madeline albright have called indonesia‟s democratization process the ideal model for the countries of the so-called arab spring. certainly, indonesia has been found to be more democratic and open than other muslim countries. in the 2016 democracy ranking by global democracy ranking, indonesia was ranked 65 of 118 countries and was placed in the middle democratic country band. this was ahead of every other muslim-majority country in the middle east, north africa, south asia and southeast asia (campbell et al., 2015; nair, 2017). similarly, in terms of women‟s rights indonesian muslim women are well ahead of their sisters in other parts of the muslim world. indonesia only ranked 88 out of 144 on the world economic forum‟s gender gap index for 2016, however this is ahead of every other muslim-majority country in the middle east, north africa, south asia and southeast asia except bangladesh (72) and azerbaijan (86).the bottom quintile of the gender gap index is dominated by muslim-majority countries (schwab et al., 2016). additionally, indonesia has already had a female head of state. this data makes it clear that indonesian islam in practice is more democratic, supports human rights and opposes islamism.6 one of the key factors supporting this trend is islamic associational life (hefner, 2000) (lussier et al., 2012). indonesian islamic organizations (iios) such as nahdlatul ulama & muhammadiyyah are among the most prominent civil society organizations strengthening democracy in indonesia. the role of these organizations promoting indonesian islam at home has been studied in depth .7the ideas of democracy, pluralism, and humanism have been discussed on many occasions and obtained positive and warm responses. scholars from islamic-based organizations, both traditionalists and modernists, have developed new ideas in islam and found ways to compromise between islam and these new social movements (antlöv & wetterberg, 2011; webber, 2006). a quiet recent survey (sakai & fauzia, 2014b) confirm previous argument that the influence of radical groups such as fpi (front pembela islam), hti (hizbut tahrir indonesia) in indonesia is still very limited although studies focused on these groups are very numorous. 6regarding islamisme (webber, 2006) notes that, the nu‟s opposition to islamism and support for democratic politics has both a theological and practical justification. the nu believes, as did the founding fathers of indonesia after the second world war, that an attempt to create an islamic state would lead to civil war and/or the break-up of the country. similarly, mainstream organized islam in indonesia according to him has played a helpful role in indonesia‟s democratization as well as in bolstering the dominance of a secular over religious political orientations to oppose islamism. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 822 issn :0250 nevertheles, some new trends have been more common among indonesian muslims indicated that the support for islamism has increased significantly. this can be seen from some evidence such as the acceptance of political islam, the approval of to use violence to promote beilef on islam, actively showing the intentions and acts to adopt islamic values and morals in daily life, agressively promoting islamic symbol in the public sphere (sakai & fauzia, 2014a). in other words, indonesia in the one hand has been claimed to be a democratic country with support from some islamic organizations (iios) such as nahdlatul ulama and muhammadiyyah. while on the other hand, some islamic groups popularize islamisme and radical islam which are opposing democracy such as fpi & hti are flourishing. it is important to note that very little attention has been afforded to understand how indonesian muslims live abroad and how iios function beyond the country‟s borders. this article aims to describe the attitude of indonesian millennial members of iios (such as nahdlatul ulama & muhammadiyyah) and pengajian in australia towards islamism. this topic is important for at least two reasons. the first reason, indonesian islam after soeharto has been considered to turn to conservative ideas (bruinessen, 2011). examples of some important changes are the bombing attack in 2000 which happened on christmas eve and later the bali bombing in october 2002. another surprising phenomenon are under democratic system many districts issueng syari‟ah local regulation despite the fact of the failure to bring back jakarta charter to be adopted by the constitution, and the emergence of some new islamic movement in various forms such as political party (prosperous welfare party/pks), hizbu at tahrir indonesia (hti), tablighi jama‟at and salafi movement, and the conservative group within the existing islamic organization such as nu and muhammadiyyah has strengthened. additionally, the council of indonesian ulama (mui) 2005 issued a fatwa that secularism, liberalism, and pluralism are forbidden (haram). those marked the important changes of indonesian islam from moderate and tolerance to the concervative turn. the emergence of this new face of indonesian islam post-soeharto does not mean that the progressive islam has dissappeared. wahid and ma‟arif, two prominent figure of progressive islam still keep promoting their ideas. however, their power has lowered and the concervative ideas have challenged the progressive islam significantly (bruinessen, 2011). second reason, based on previous studies, there is a tendency that youths in diaspora are vulnerable to radicalization and are in support of political islam in many countries (keddie, 2018; nilan, 2017). those studies rely on data from muslims from middle eastern countries. muslim youths in the diaspora of liberal countries have to negotiate two sets of norms: western norms to reward economic and educational achievement, and islamic norms to be a good muslim (nilan 2017, 4). from the perspective of western society, muslim youths are considered as “outsiders” and “dangerous foreigners”, and in this regards, muslim youths have defined themselves as an hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 823 issn :0250 object of prejudice in their professional life, while concurrently, their lifestyle has been beyond their family tradition. following giddens (1991 in ritzer 2011) and beck (1992 in ibid), young people have grown up in uncertain and precarious society, especially young muslims, they experience more risks and uncertainties than others. consequently, young muslims in the diaspora may be influenced by two different discourses: radical islam or popular culture (nilan, 2017). indonesian millenial muslims, members of nahdlatul ulama, muhammadiyyah and pengajian (religious gatherings), living in australia could be influenced by indonesian islam that is understood to be compatible with democracy and opposing islamism. similarly, they could be influenced by radical islam, which is indicated by supporting islamism that has recently been flourishing among both indonesian muslims in indonesia and youth muslims in the diaspora. 2. literature review and conceptual framework the term islamism, according to mozaffari (2007), has just emerged following the islamist revolution in iran (1978-1979). previously, other terms were more frequently used, such as „islamic fundamentalism‟, „radical islam‟, „islamic revival‟, and „political islam‟. the term islamism indicates a type of political islam where violence is accepted with strong criticisms of the west. further, he argues that islamism is constructed based on the term islamic totalism which construes islam not merely as a religion in one‟s private life, but as a total system to guide politics, the economy, and social life as well. islamism considers the “islamic state” as a must to ensure the implementation of sharia law. in this regard, mozaffari (2007) defines islamism as: “… a religious ideology with holistic interpretation of islam whose final aim is the conquest of the world by all means.” the term islamism, according to mozaffari (2007), has just emerged following the islamist revolution in iran (1978-1979). previously, other terms were more frequently used, such as „islamic fundamentalism‟, „radical islam‟, „islamic revival‟, and „political islam‟. the term islamism indicates a type of political islam where violence is accepted with strong criticisms of the west. further, he argues that islamism is constructed based on the term islamic totalism which construes islam not merely as a religion in one‟s private life, but as a total system to guide politics, the economy, and social life as well. islamism considers the “islamic state” as a must to ensure the implementation of sharia law. in this regard, mozaffari (2007) defines islamism as: “… a religious ideology with holistic interpretation of islam whose final aim is the conquest of the world by all means.” two elements: „islam‟ and „ism‟ indicates a bi-polar composition of islamism. „islam‟ refers to a religion with its particular history and civilization, and „ism‟, according to pipes (2005), is equivalent to other ideologies such as marxism-leninism and fascism. islamism is an ideology to restore the glory of the medina islamic civilization created by the prophet muhammad and his followers, the first four caliphs. accordingly, there is a need to interpret hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 824 issn :0250 islam holistically, embracing all aspects of din (religion), dunya (way of life), and dawla (government). islamism aims to reestablish the medina model and the caliphate for the islamization of the world because islamist believe islam is a universal religion and its goal is to rule the whole world. this goal can be achieved through various means in which violence and terrorism remain debatable. some groups ban violence while others adopt violence and terrorism as viable means of action. islamism and post islamism has been used interchangeably on account of their having very similar messages. post-islamism still maintains the core message of islamism to maintain islam‟s political identity, but it articulates how islam, democracy, and modernity can be connected. in bayat‟s words (2013, in tajuddin (2016), “… it wants to marry islam, democracy, and modernity”. it is believed that both islam and democracy promote freedom, equality, and social justice. however, some muslims continue to maintain radical islamism to oppose and fight against democracy and modernity. this follows achilov and sen (2017) classification on political islam into radical and moderate groups, which are comparable to islamism and post-islamism (see table 1). table 1: classification of islamism types of islamism characteristics accepted political system support for political pluralism parliamentary system in which all political parties can compete men of religion should not have influence on how people vote over government decisions support for individual civil and political rights government and parliament should make laws according to the wishes of the people accommodative support for both sharia and secular law government and parliament should make laws according to the wishes of people in some areas and implement shari‟a law in others radical islamism intolerance toward political pluralism a system governed by islamic law in which there are no political parties or elections support for exclusive rule of government should implement only the laws of hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 825 issn :0250 the sharia law the sharia another classification of islamist may be based on its commitment to democratic principles (accommodationist vs non-accommodianist), and the implementation of islamic teaching (contextualist vs legalist). accommodationists and contextualists consider the importance of social and political realities, accordingly, they may be in support of implementing democratic process. by contrast, non-accommodianists and legalists or hardliners believe that they should interpret the qur‟an and sunnah by using the legalist perspective and they tend to oppose democratic norms (achilov & sen, 2017). an element of radical islamist accepting violence can be classified into violent radicalism. this group is a minority of islamism, but it is destructive and dangerous for mankind. the principal indicator of islamism in berman and stepanyan, (2003: 30) is whether children were sent to madrassas, or islamic religious schools. a survey by the wvs asked respondents in islamic countries to measure the degree of islamism by asking whether they agreed that the state 'should implement sharia only' as the law of the land (kaufmann, 2005). the most recent study by sakai and fauzia (2014) measured islamism by asking the following three topics: (1) should khilafaislamiya or an islamic state be established in indonesia; (2) is the use of violence permissible to fight for islam; (3) muslim women should wear a cadar (a veil that covers the entire face). islamism (tausch & heshmati, 2016) is measured by using indicators such as: politicians must believe in god; male and female university students should not attend classes together; sharia law is a must; women shouldn‟t become political leaders; parliaments have no right to pass laws in islamic countries; boys are considered more important in obtaining a university degree than girls; jews can not be accepted as neighbors; the influence of religious leaders on how people vote is important; it is important to limit the influence of cultures from the us and other western countries; muslim majority countries must be lead by men with good understanding of islam; wife‟s obedience is a must; the political rights of non-muslims must be inferior to that of muslim‟s. 3. material & methods this article combined two research methods: first, online questionnaires were distributed among 18 to 40 years old members of nahdlatul ulama, muhammadiyyah and pengajian in australia, and this resulted in 106 replies. first of all, we contacted the pci (pengurus cabang istimewa) of nu, muhammadiyyah, and some pengajian established in australia8. 8 nahdlatul ulama, muhammadiyyah and group of pengajians are classified differenly because it is assumed that they are different based on their affiliation to iios in indonesia. nahdlatul ulama, muhammadiyyah are formally declared their affiliation to iios in indonesia while cide and groups of pengajian consider their group hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 826 issn :0250 we distributed online questionnaire among those three groups (nu, muhammadiyyah, and pengajian) by asking their assistance in distributing our online questionnaire via their social media platforms especially whatsapp). according to (muttaqin et al., 2016), there were at least 34 indonesia muslim groups that established a pengajian. we focused our online questionnaire distributed among pengajians connected to cide (centre of islamic da‟wa and education) located in sydney. cide was selected because it used to be the indonesian islamic centre originally established in australia and it does not have direct connection to indonesian islamic organizations. the head of cide introduced some religious gatherings (groups of pengajian) such as iqra academy, ashabul kahfi, al amin, imfact, one sister. secondly, in-depth interviews were conducted in sydney and canberra on account of the following reasons: (1) both cities represent different characteristics as the former represents a large city with substantial muslim population in australia; by contrast, the later represents a small city with a small number of indonesian muslim population. (2) muslims in both cities are quite actively engaged in religious gathering activities. the in-depth interviews are carried out with 27 key informants living in sydney and canberra (17 ustadz/religious teachers, heads of religious gathering (pengajian) including from nahdlatul ulama, muhammadiyyah; and 10 participants of the millennial generation involved actively in the religious gathering). in this study, islamism was quantitatively measured in more detail by asking questions on the following topics. the first element relates to the respondent‟s agreement on the implementation of islamic (sharia) law in muslim majority countries such as indonesia (p27) and in non-muslim majority countries like australia (p28). the question included their agreement about the implementation of hudud islamic criminal laws in muslim majority (p36) and non-muslim majority countries such as australia (p37); the importance of halal product for food products (p33) and islamic banking product (p34); the rights of women in islam to be a female president (p32) and the obligation to wear hijab for a muslim woman (p35). the second topic delved into the respondent‟s support in the acquisition of power for muslim community: to elect leaders or parliamentary members who can fight for the islamic sharia (p29), to vote for an islamic party (p30), to nominate a muslim candidate (p31). finally, the last topic refers to the respondent‟s agreement with the restoration of the islamic caliphate for the sake of uniting muslims around the world (p38). islamism in the in-depth interviews was observed by focusing on the informant‟s opinions about basic principles of islamism, which according to (mozaffari, 2007) and (pipes, 2005) covers the following topics: (1) restoration of the medina and caliphate model; (2) an “islamic state” is a must to ensure the implementation of sharia law; (3) islam embraces all with no or limited formal affiliation to iios. however, they cooperate in some of their activities. similarly, nu and muhammadiyyah established pengajian as well. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 827 issn :0250 aspects of din (religion), dunya (way of life), and dawla (government); (3) the final goal of islamists is world conquest by all means. 4. results supports for islamism according to the descriptive analysis in table 2, all indicators of islamism obtained a rather strong agreement. table 2: descriptive statistics of islamism statements agreed disagreed p27 islamic law (sharia) must be implemented in muslim majority countries such as indonesia. 63.21% 36.79% p28 islamic law (sharia) must be implemented for the muslim population in non-muslim majority countries such as australia 37.73% 62.27% p36 i agree on the implementation of hudud islamic criminal laws in muslim majority countries such as indonesia. 48.11% 51.88% p37 i agree on the implementation of hudud islamic criminal laws for muslim populations in non-muslim majority countries such as australia. 16.98% 83.02% p32 muslim-majority countries such as indonesia cannot be led by a female president. 39.62% 60.38% p35 a muslim woman is obliged to use the hijab. 83.97% 16.04% p33 i only consume food products that have halal labels. 75.48% 24.30% p34 i only use sharia bank products 31.13% 68.87% p29 the aim of the general election (elections) in both muslim and non-muslim majority countries is to elect leaders or parliamentary members who can fight for islamic sharia 52.83% 47.17% p30 in elections, muslims must vote for an islamic party. 55.66% 44.34% p31 in elections, muslims must vote for a muslim candidate. 72.65% 27.35% p38 i agree on the establishment of khalifah/khilafah islamiyah for the unity of muslims around the world. 55.66% 44.34% the most important indicator, according to the partial least square estimation method, is the statement that islamic law (sharia) must be implemented in muslim majority countries such hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 828 issn :0250 as indonesia (p27), wherein the agreement to this statement reached 63.21%. the respondents were realistic for not expecting sharia law to be implemented in non-muslim majority countries such as australia, resulting in a disagreement value of 62.27% and agreement at 37.73. in relation to this topic, an australia born ustadz who has been a part of the indonesian muslim community since he studied islam in indonesia and gotten married to an indonesian woman, responded that the possibility of sharia law implementation in australia as follows: well, i suppose it depends what part of sharia law, because it's we can't say i don't think i'd ever see anything like saudi arabia here in australia, then the people would never want that. but could there be something i don't know to what extent maybe another example like aceh or i don't know about brunei, or..but perhaps i suppose it depends on what matters if we had the opportunity there are certain things as a muslim i think i'd like to see of course we want to implement the quran as much as we can. most of the respondents (83.97%) agreed that a muslim woman is obliged to wear the hijab (p35). this is echoing the wvs survey in algeria, bangladesh, egypt, indonesia, iran, iraq, jordan, nigeria, pakistan, and saudi arabia stating that more than 70% of muslims think that the veil is important or very important (tausch & heshmati, 2016). islamism significantly correlates with the acceptance of the veil. however, in terms of the rights of women to become a president, respondents were more likely to hold a progressive view. most of the respondents consider that muslim-majority countries, such as indonesia, can be led by a female president (60.38%)/(p32). in this regard, the opinions from the in-depth interviews varied between supporting and opposing women leadership. one informant considered women leadership as a very important aspect and it is most appropriate in islam by mentioning the role of khadijah (the prophet muhammad‟s wife), yet she remained unsure about women holding a role as president. similarly, another informant believes that women should not take on a decision-making role such as a governor. women are more suitable to assume safe roles such as a lecturer, teacher, and others, but not a decisive role. in my opinion,said one interviewee, “women should not become a governor or president. it is more appropriate for women to become teachers or lecturers.” another aspect of islamism is to seize power and strive to elect muslims as leaders or representatives of the muslim community in order to advocate for the implementation of sharia law. bayat (2013) has emphasized the importance of grasping the power of the state for islamism. this relies on one of the principles of islamic teaching, namely “command right, forbid wrong”, which historically is closely associated to the prohibition of sinful acts such as drinking wine and prostitution. they believe that the state is the most effective institution to enforce “the good” and hinder “the bad”. three indicators were formulated to question the respondents about their agreement on the importance of seizing power for the muslim community. among those three questions, the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 829 issn :0250 support to elect a muslim candidate as a must obtained the highest response by 72.65%, followed by the agreement to vote for islamic political parties and electing leaders or parliamentary members who can fight for the islamic sharia in elections by 55.66% and 52.83% respectively. the restoration of the medina and the caliphate model is shown by posing questions relating to the establishment of the islamic caliphate for the sake of uniting muslims the world over. the respondents who agreed reached 55.66%. the strongest intention to implement islamism can be seen from their agreement on the implementation of sharia law and hududislamic criminal law for muslim populations in muslim majority countries and non-muslim majority countries, such as australia (37.73% and 16.98% respectively), and the use of sharia banking products (at 31.13%). although these sharia elements require extra efforts in their implementation, some respondents still choose to agree. a high preference for islamism is not surprising because their religious teachers commonly discuss these topics and they tend to support islamism. this is mentioned in the in-depth interviews. the following explanations below are provided to describe in more detail how the selected participants and religious teachers interpret and understand each aspect of islamism. understanding and interpreting basic principles of islamism restoration of the medina and the caliphate model one important aspect of islamism is the restoration of the medina model and the caliphate for the islamisation of the world. this was mentioned by informants from iqra and cide. an informant from iqra believes that no one can oppose the caliphate. similarly, a respondent believes that the caliphate system is mentioned in the hadith, therefore it will subsequently happen in the future. a female informant believes in the possibility of the islamic state as it has been implemented by the prophet muhammad, and it will become a reality in the future on account of god‟s power. she is aware about her lack of understanding regarding this issue because she had not learned about the issue intensively, but she believes in her teacher‟sexplanation. further, she argues: if one day the political system under the prophet muhammad were to exist, we could not say that the caliphate was appropriate for the prophet‟s period only. so, i don‟t know mypersonal opinion about this topic. i just listened to all their sayings and “oh, so that‟s how you think about it, alright, alright” ( a female member of pengajian in sydney). a participant from muhammadiyyah mentioned a similar opinion that the caliphate system is possible, no one can deny it as it is god‟s will. god has determined the caliphate and as his creation, men can only follow his destiny. we may return to the time of the prophet, in which a leader is elected but god‟s will intervenes in the election. the steps of establishing a caliphate has been mentioned in hadith. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 830 issn :0250 however, some realize that the opinions of muslims regarding this issue vary according to their interpretation. an informant from iqra academy australia, disagreed with the understanding of the caliphate that is proposed by hizbut tahrir, an organization which introduced and popularized the caliphate as a political system to replace the democratic system. by contrast, he understood khilafah as a leadership style for individuals in the family as a family leader and khilafah as rahmatan lil „alamin (a blessing/mercy to all creation), not using the caliphateto force their will and pretend their interpretation as the truth and deny different interpretations. accordingly, he was not surprised with the results indicating that the support for khilafah and islamic state in the quantitative method is very significant. he mentions: no one can deny the caliphate, but does it represent the system that existed in the past, and should it be implemented as it is or could we reinterpret it? i emphasize that the caliphate applies to ourselves, in that everyone is a khalifah, as a head of the family, a khalifah in my organization (iqra) and i am the president of majlis syura. as a caliph i have to move and make islam work not to impose my mind and my interpretation to become the only source of what is considered as truth (a male member of iqra academy sydney). another informant explained that ustadz and imams in australia are generally in support of the caliphate system, but they respectively have numerous different meanings of the term caliphate. according to the informant, during a general islamic gathering (pengajian) attended by almost the majority of muslims in australia, a speaker mentioned his opinion in support of the caliphate. an audience then asked him about which one is important, symbol or value, with an example of the importance of the caliphate. the speaker did not oppose the argument, he asked the audience instead about how should the caliphate take its form. should it be an “islamic state”, an international organization, as it has been established recently in the form of oki, or an international parliament. according to him: i strongly agree with the argument that the caliphate in islamic teaching is flexible. let‟s think realistically, muslims need to support each other, especially muslim minority challenged by violence in some countries like china. they need help from a high-level muslim coordination, which cannot be conducted at a state level. this makes the caliphate relevant. but, i really disagree about “an islamic state” experiment by isis (a male member of pengajian in sydney). “islamic state” is a must to ensure the implementation of sharia law the strongest argument stating that “an islamic state” is obligatory was mentioned by a member of australian national imam council (anic). according to him, the declaration that a country is an islamic one and that the values of islam serve as the foundation of the country is important. islam and the state are integrated as a single unit, wherein both are inseparable not only in indonesia but in the universe. islam embraces all aspects ofdin (religion), dunya (way of life), and dawla (government), with its goal being world conquest. he mentions as the following: hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 831 issn :0250 both the islamic state and the values of islam are important. countries that reject the establishment of an islamic state, reject islam for the benefit of the universe. this does not only apply in indonesia but in all other countries as well. they don‟t need only to adapt the values but also need to integrate islam and the state... the organizers of sisters in islam believe that the islamic state is a solution for social problems in indonesia. she expressed her disappointment with indonesia being a muslim majority country with high levels of criminal rate for murder, deceit, and theft. muslims who live in non-muslim countries such as australia do not have the privilege of implementing islamic law. indonesia should try implementing islamic law to suppress the high rate of criminal activities such as murder, because in islam killing a muslim means killing the whole community of muslims. she expects that the implementation of islamic teachings will compel people to think deeply before committing a serious crime like murder. according to her, an islamic state was operational during the period of the prophet muhammad, and now some of the middle eastern countries have claimed to reproduce the islamic state. however, she realizes that criminal and social problems in those countries remain. in this regard, she doesn‟t know how to start formulating an islamic state, but she trusts muslim experts to initiate how islamic state can be executed as it has been taught in islamic teachings. however, a participant member of pengajian who used to be a member of hizbut tahrir believes that the islamic state is not an ideal choice for both indonesia and other countries because the current situation is different from the conditions the prophet was in. he argues as the following:….that‟s the thing, when they talk about the islamic state, they talk about the islamic state in the old days, for me it‟s not suitable for indonesia now because sometimes there‟s a lot of questions that i would sometimes ask the teachers and the preachers in hizbut tahrir, the answers were not clear. we live in different situation, different condition from the prophet period, and i don‟t think islam is static but dynamic. islam is supposed to go forward not backwards. with all the innovation and technology, islam needs to catch up with that, we should not be going backwards embracing all aspects of din (religion), dunya (way of life), and dawla (government) (a male member of pengajian in sydney). an ustadz from cide (centre for islamic dakwah and education) who teaches muslim youth intensively considers the topic of political islam as an advanced topic and it should not be taught as a priority topic. he focuses on how young muslims grow in australia, and how they can be good muslims, such as by conducting prayers properly. he realized that topic of khilafah has multi interpretable understandings. personally, i try to focus on the many muslim youths that have grown up in australia in particular, many have not learned the basics about islam, and yes, there are many who are promoting the concept of khilafah and political matters, and myself, i've seen that and i've experienced some of that myself and i realized that, in my opinion there's a lot more that we need to learn and focus on before getting involved in political matters (an ustadz in sydney). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 832 issn :0250 however, as a muslim he expects to implement all islamic teachings from the ritual, economic, social, and political aspects. he realized that some aspects of islam is incompatible with australian norms, culture, and law. muslims can choose islamic teachings to live their life, yet in some aspects there are particular problems that relate to other australians, even for australian muslims, australian law is more imposing and is the highest reference for all cases. while muslims can refer to islamic teachings for issues pertaining to inheritance, if any other members of a family prefers in using the australian law, the issue would be resolved based on the australian law. in terms of the implementation of sharia economy, the respondents generally appreciated sharia banking as a noble effort to start operating under the islamic system. they are aware of the fact that there are inconsistencies and weaknesses of islamic banking being implemented under the capitalist system. islamic banking operated by conventional banks is certainly not perfect. they support them nonetheless, and expect the system to improve. indonesia as a muslim majority country must establish and develop sharia banking and other islamic financial products to protect muslims from riba practices well, it‟s a good development and it‟s not perfect yet, even here it‟s not perfect, but it‟s agood effort to begin with, and i think of course it still needs improvement, to make it 100% perfect is impossible, but i guess it‟s a good start, and it still needs time to work. in indonesia, i believe it‟s something new, because unlike malaysia or other parts of the middle east, it‟s still new in indonesia. but it‟s just my opinion according to my research (a male member of pengajian in sydney). the most important aspect of islamic finance is to prevent muslims from committing practices of riba. at times, islamic teachings may function in non-islamic institutions. an informant, who is a religious teacher actively involved in wamu (a pengajian in wollongong) but lives in sydney, believes that substance is more important than using islamic labels for a product (form) that does not emanate islamic values. this does not only relate to islamic banking, but other aspects of islam as well. islamic states, like saudi arabia, that are unable to implement islamic values such as justice, are less valued than secular countries that are capable of implementing islamic values. i don‟t believe in a substantial islamic state, the substance from my foundation does not necessarily mention the name of islam because i would rather believe the substance than the form. it‟s unrealistic, it will be, i don‟t deny khilafah, but, i still don‟t see this stage yet, because we don‟t. we live in australia and we don‟t talk about it.... (a male member of pengajian in sydney). world conquest by all means the strategy used to achieve the goal of islamism includes various models from a peaceful approach to a violent model (mozaffari, 2007). most muslims believe in the obligation to spread islam throughout the world, and they keep spreading islam although they live in non muslim countries. they know it is difficult, but they believe that all are possible with god‟s hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 833 issn :0250 permission. they still expect islam to be influential in the country they are living in now in the future. when they consider the islamism principles as unrealistic to implement under recent conditions, they would be pragmatic enough not to enforce them, but some still keep the implementation of those principles as their agenda. accordingly, some aspects of islamism obtained low agreement percentages such as the implementation of hudud islamic criminal law for muslim populations in non-muslim majority countries such as australia and the agreement to use sharia banking products that only reached 16.98% and 31.13% respectively. while the majority believed in the importance of running an islamic state and the caliphate, the informants generally rejected violence and extremism. some believed that the caliphate would bring about love into the universe (rahmatan lil alamin), but it is not the caliphate imposed by the ht or isis. muslims cannot force other groups to follow the idea of an islamic state. we accommodate, indonesia is like, hmm it‟s…how do we say, likethere are many people in indonesia that, even though we are the majority, but we can‟t really force it into whatever the majority wants to shape indonesia into. as muslims, we can‟t deny that an islamic state willnever happen. because it did happen, historically. can we apply the system here in australia? i don‟t know how. how can someone explain properly to me. explain how they‟re going to apply that back here. but, to me, i can‟tdenyit. it occurred in the past, it should be applicable now or in the future. but how is it possible? i don‟t know (a male member of pengajian in sydney). similarly, many informants rejected the caliphate by hizbut tahrir (ht). based on his experience when he was a member of ht, a participant thought that an exclusive means proposed by hizbut tahrir to impose sharia law is unrealistic. i used to be a member of hizbut tahrir for maybe 5 or 6 years. when you are in hizbut tahrir, it was like exclusive, because when you live in western countries there are some things that hizbut tahrir want to impose, like they want to impose sharia islam here in australia, it doesn‟t make sense because the muslim population here is less then 3% (a male member of pengajian in sydney). the agreement to support sharia and islamic state among respondents according to him is the result of brainwashing and their lack of knowledge. they repeatedly listen to explanations about the caliphate, the islamic state, and sharia, as a result, they become more easily influenced there are no other experts on islam to clarify the explanations. a millenial informan explains: a lot of sheikh remind you to be good, to be kind to other people, that kind of topic is okay, but when they talk about politics, they try to force an idea. so, people, when they hear that kind of topics (to accept the caliphate islamiyah and islamic state) and they don‟t have enough knowledge, that‟s what creates that idea …and when i hear that kind of topics, this is hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 834 issn :0250 not what i had in mind when i first joined hizbut tahrir (a male member of pengajian in sydney). this especially applies to those who are vulnerable to radicalism on account of not having good family support. the loneliness of living in australia as a stranger and not having many friends are conditions he had previously experienced. this has been experienced by an informant: being a member of hizbut tahrir at the time, i could be easily manipulated at the time because people do brainwashing and stuff. they tell you one thing every day for the next 5 years, even if it‟s wrong, it becomes true, so yeah, the young people are vulnerable and they lack proper knowledge, and some of them don‟t have a family so they don‟t worry about anything else (a male member of pengajian in sydney). similarly, most informants are not interested to impose the idea of islamic finance and sharia banking. although personally some informants prefer to use sharia banking and want to promote it, they do not want to force it upon others. they merely want to make sure that islamic banking can be introduced and be an alternative system and alternative choice for muslims. the conventional system must be available because she knows that not all economic activities can be covered by islamic banking. we accommodate, indonesia is, like, hmm it‟s…how do we say it, likehas many people in that even though we are the majority, but we can‟t really force it into whatever the majority wants to shape indonesia into.so, i think we should, indonesia should be able to accommodate those groups. so, they can still choose what muslimslet‟s say that they want to conduct business through the conventional bank, it is up to them, but we promote and encourage them to, hmm… support islamic banking (a male member of pengajian in sydney). islam as a rahmatan lil a‟alaimien is frequently mentioned as islamic values have been implemented universally in many countries. both inclusive and exclusive interpretation about the nature of islamic da‟wah were discussed by the informants. this mostly relates to the character of universal islam wherein islam should be beneficial for the entire universe. an imam explained that countries rejecting the implementation of islamic state have rejected the principle of islam as a rahmatan lil a‟alaimien. both islamic countries and islamic values are important, and both must be combined. islam must be introduced via a more practical strategy, not merely through speech but also from the conducts of muslims. according to him, more and more non-muslims are converting to islam not because of speeches but because they are inspired by the acts of muslims. some examples of good conducts carried out by muslims supporting non-muslims to convert to islam are the way muslims treat the homeless, distribute food for them, and muslims‟ participation to clean australia. we expect to persuade non-muslims, to treat others with kind acts and they will be curious to know about islam. i have been here for 25 years and i witnessed the increase of the muslim hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 835 issn :0250 population by almost 31%. i believe the muallaf are inspired by good examples of muslims that they decided to convert to islam (a member of australian national imam council/anic from indonesia). he considered the strategy to call to islam by telling people the truth as extreme sometimes. he criticized some behaviors that are forbidden in islam, and he really believes that his decision to criticize is compulsory in islam and should not be considered as extreme. in other words, muslims must ignore the label of extremist because speaking the truth is a muslim‟s obligation. he believes muslims must tell people about the truth to touch people‟s heart, tell the truth or otherwise as it is regardless of our reluctance to do so. however, most muslims have an imperfect understanding of islam, even muslim professors, some don‟t want to practice islam and they tend to show a negative image about islam in the public domain. 5. discussion based on the descriptive statistics in table 1 which is further strengthened in table 2, it can be concluded that the support given to islamism principles outweighs its opposition. table 3: the classification of islamism variables of 106 respondents category frequency percentage highly non-islamist 14 13.2 non-islamist 26 24.5 islamist 44 41.5 highly islamist 22 20.8 total 106 100.0 highly non-islamist 14 13.2 non-islamist 26 24.5 islamist 44 41.5 highly islamist 22 20.8 total 106 100.0 highly non-islamist 14 13.2 non-islamist 26 24.5 statistically, this can be proven by applying the cfa model and rescaling of latent variables of islamism from the 12 indicators to obtain the score between 0-100. the categorization is as follows: 0 – 25 : highly non-islamist hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 836 issn :0250 25 – 50 : non-islamist 50 – 75 : islamist 75 – 100 : highly islamist table 2 shows that the percentage of highly non-islamist and non-islamist reaches 37.7%, while the islamist and highly islamist reaches 62.3%. grinin (2018) defines islamism as a political trend and ideology, widespread among muslims, especially, of arab countries. the influence has been expanded to indonesian millennial muslims members of indonesian islamic organisations in sidney and canberra, but this idea remains conceptual in terms of being implemented in their country of origin not in country where they are currently living in. the participants believe with varying degrees to islamism principles and to keep the islamic traditions (islamic law, political islam, shari‟ah economy) to be practiced in indonesia as their country of origin because indonesia is a muslim majority country. it seems that they do not support the implementation of an australian political system (the system of the country they are living in now). more than 50% support sharia law, islamic party, muslim candidates, consume only halal food, and consider restoration of the caliphate as a universal principle of islamism. they support putting islamic ideas and principles at the center of life in indonesia as a country with a muslim majority. the positive response about islamism among respondents can be influenced by various aspects such as their religious teachers (ustadz), although the topics (of islamism) are not exclusively touched on in pengajian, their parents, and social media. the respondents in this study are actively engaged in religious gatherings, some independently established in sydney and canberra and do not have particular affiliation to mainstream iios, some are indirectly affiliated to iios such as muhammadiyyah, nahdlatul ulama, and tarbiyah movement. however, the religious teachers are commonly invited from iio and there are some religious teachers from the middle east, and australian muslims. explanations pertaining to islamism principles in religious gatherings are considered clear and easily understood by those who are just starting to learn islam. this is stated by an informan, a quite famous ustadz in sydney. religious teachers hold strong islamism principles, and they convey these messages to beginners learning islam. those who just learned islam are likely to become very excited in understanding islam. they want a simple explanation of islam and they avoid complicated terminologies, therefore simple explanations about the caliphate and other islamic principles are very interesting to them (an ustadz of cide). he believes indonesian muslim millennials are very enthusiastic to learn islam, but they do not like complicated explanations about islam. however, the support for islamism is likely only at conceptual and discursive levels, instead of a technical one involving the implementation of the ideas of islamism. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 837 issn :0250 however, some respondents chose not to support islamism. they don‟t want to implement islamic law (sharia) in indonesia (at 36.79%); do not consider wearing the hijab as a compulsory for muslim women (at 16.04%); do not have to consume food with halal label (24.30%); do not consider voting for islamic political parties and electing muslim candidates as compulsory (at 44.34% and 27.35% respectively), and they do not want to establish the caliphate islamiyah (at 44.34%). unlike religious gatherings with strong intention to promote islamisme, some groups intend to introduce islam in a more inclusive way. the pengajian does not have any intention to convert non-muslim. their agenda seems to oppose islamism. an informant provided the following explanation.. my pengajian just tries to introduce that there is an islamic community here in canberra. there areislamic values and norms here. but it is not to influence people to become a muslim. we invite people to know more about islam. but we do not have any intention to ask them to convert. for example during ifthar, we invite non-muslim people to have ifthor together. we do ifthor with other non-muslim society in my house. so they experience diversity. that might not happen in another circle (a coordinator of pengajian in canberra). according to one of our respondents, the stance of not supporting islamism is considered as a kind of liberal attitude. it is important to note that those who are highly non-islamist in table 2 (13.2%) chose to have been a board member at nahdlatul ulama (nu) or muhammadiyyah. this means that some iios still maintain non-islamist teachings abroad, yet these are not very popular among millennial members of pengajian. achilov and sen‟s idea (2018) to classify radical and moderate islamists (table 1) is useful but not very similar to this study. this classification is too simple to understand the situation of millennial members of iios and pengajian because it covers those who support islamism, butcould not explain those who oppose it. moderate islamists are accommodative, supportive of pluralism, accepting of both sharia and secular laws, and they believe in individual civil liberty. radical islamists, on the other hand, seek to form and strengthen exclusive sharia law, reject democratic pluralism, and support the superiority of religious individuals (muslims). by contrast, arifianto (2018) categorizes the responses of indonesian islamic movement toward islamism principles into four types: integration, moderation, non-violent radicalism, and violent radicalism. first, the integration model declares a rejection of the islamic state and their acceptance of pancasila and democratic principles. second, moderation declares a support to pancasila as well as islamist policies and acceptance of democratic principles. third, non-violent radicalism declares acceptance of the islamic caliphate and refusal of pancasila yet it denies revolution, and finally, the violent radicalism model declares acceptance of the islamic caliphate and refusal of pancasila and support for revolution. although dissimilar to achilov and sen‟s classification (achilov & sen, 2017) it may still be comparable, wherein the highly islamist classification in this study is probably close to radical islamist. they may be intolerant against political pluralism, support sharia law hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 838 issn :0250 exclusively, and believe in the superiority of leaders with strong religiosity. they prefer the implementation of sharia law, criminal hudud law in muslim countries, prefer to vote for islamic political parties and muslim candidates, consider hijab as a female muslim obligation, and consume food with halal label. only a limited percentage are still eager to adapt such principles in non-muslim countries, but this indicates the strong degree of islamism. radical islamists cannot accept secular law voluntarily, although they are living in a secular country. an informant believes that australia is a country of immigrants. all groups and religions have rights to influence and to shape the character of australia. according to him, prior to the europeans, malay muslims had discovered australia and they can cooperated with native australians. he believes that australia is under the colonization of european and non-muslims, and in the future he expects islam to have greater influence than it currently has. he appreciates the political culture of australia that respects his rights but he cannot be proud of the fact of australia as a modern and advanced country. yet, australia is not an islamic country although some believe that australia has adapted islamic values. he still has a dream of australia will be developed into an advanced modern democratic country, declare islam explicitly. 6. conclusion support for islamism has been a trend in many countries. this study strengthens previous researches that have found youth to play a significant role in supporting islamism. grinin, korotayev, & tausch, (2019) shows the social base of islamism originates from various representations, such as intelligentsia and those with university level education and good practical skills to organize. they come from a middle class background, and are urban youths aged between 20 and 30 years who are disappointed with nepotism, corruption, and social injustice. they usually hold a dream of building an islamic state and have a superficial image of islam. further, it is believed that youth domination in islamist groups is not only important but also a distinctive characteristic of the movement. both leadersandfollowers of these groups areveryyoung (robert, 2010). following sakai and fauzia (2014), support for islamism to establish an islamic caliphate and islamic state as well as to implement sharia law does not mean support for radical islamists to call on other muslims to wage jihad. supporters of islamism believe in the importance of islam in their everyday life both socially and politically, therefore, islamism has become an influential and stable factor in domestic and foreign policies throughout all countries with muslim majority population. furthermore, most muslims are now very excited to become better muslims by following pure/genuine islam, which they believe to have been taught by the prophet muhammad. islamists impose to seize power while reformists of islam strive to reach their goal gradually. the questionnaire distributed in this study is somehow formulated based on the reformist‟s strategy to establish islamist agenda. reformists reject the use of violence and follow democratic procedures to seize power. furthermore, they hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 839 issn :0250 apply a gramscian strategy to establish moral and political hegemony with hope in future islamization of the state when the society has come to accept islam (bayat 2013). in bayat (2013), most of islamists support post-islamism to activate the role of religion in the public sphere where its influence has begun since post-islamism iran. it was initiated by religious scholars, youths, women activists, and students who believe in the values of democracy, the separation of religion and state, the rights of individuals, equal rights based on gender, and tolerance. especially, the view of islamism among respondents has been shaped by indonesian islamism as their country of origin. the reformation era has facilitated the flourishing of democratization, and has concurrently been taken advantage of by groups of islamists to advocate the goals of islamism. they strive to follow democratic procedures to implement sharia peacefully from personal level to state level. in general, the classification of islamism in indonesia can be divided into moderate and radical groups. muslim brotherhood, hizbut tahrir, and the salafis choose to realize sharia gradually; other radical militant groups choose to realize islamism in aggressive ways such as calling for jihad in some conflict regions, or sweeping and attacking cafes. people who are labeled as liberal muslims oppose both types of islamism as they believe that both types of islamism have distorted islam by bringing it into politics. both types of islamism as well as liberal islam have obtained support from indonesian millennial muslims members of iio and groups of pengajian in australia, and the moderate islamist type is likely to have greater support than the other. references achilov, d., & sen, s. (2017). got political islam? are politically moderate muslims really different from radicals? international political science review, 38(5), 608–624. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512116641940 antlöv, h., & wetterberg, a. (2011). citizen engagement , deliberative spaces and the consolidation of a post-authoritarian democracy : the case of indonesia (issue 8). arifianto, a. r. (2018). islamic campus preaching organizations in indonesia: promoters of moderation or radicalism? asian security, 00(00), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14799855.2018.1461086 azhar, m. (2015). the concept of religious democracy as a new political philosophy for countries with moslem predominant. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 1(1), 19-28. bayat, a. (2013). post islamism: the changing faces of political islam. oxford university press. berman, e., & stepanyan, a. (2003). how many radical islamists? indirect evidence from five countries. http://www.econ.ucsd.edu/~elberman/funfert.pdf bruinessen, v. m. (2011). what happened to the smiling face of indonesian islam? muslim intellectualism and the conservative turn in post-suharto indonesia. https://dr.ntu.edu.sg/bitstream/handle/10220/7533/wp222.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed= http://www.econ.ucsd.edu/~elberman/funfert.pdf hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 840 issn :0250 y campbell, d. f. j., pölzlbauer, p., barth, t. d., & pölzlbauer, g. (2015). democracy ranking 2015(scores).http://democracyranking.org/ranking/2015/data/scores_of_the_democrac y_ranking_2015_letter.pdf grinin, l., korotayev, a., & tausch, a. (2019). islamism, arab spring, and the future of democracy. springer international publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91077 2 hefner, r. w. (2000). civil islam: muslims and democratization in indonesia. princenton university press. file:///d:/user/downloads/robert w. hefner civil islam (2000).pdf hoesterey, j. b. (2019). is indonesia a model for the arab spring? islam, democracy, and diplomacy, 47(1), 157–165. kaufmann, e. (2005). islamism , religiosity and fertility in the muslim world. muslim world, 1–44. keddie, a. (2018). disrupting (gendered) islamophobia: the practice of feminist ijtihad to support the agency of young muslim women. journal of gender studies, 27(5), 522– 533. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2016.1243047 lussier, d. (2011). activating democracy: political participation and the fate of regime change in russia and indonesia [university of california, berkeley]. file:///d:/user/downloads/escholarship uc item 2dq5g9jc.pdf lussier, d. n., fish, m. s., lussier, d. n., & fish, m. s. (2012). indonesia : the benefits of civic engagement indonesia. the benefits of civic engagement, 23(1), 70–84. mozaffari, m. (2007). what is islamism? history and definition of a concept. totalitarian movements and political religions, 8(1), 17–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/14690760601121622 mujani, s. (2003). religious democrats: democratic culture and muslim political participation in post-suharto indonesia [the ohio state university]. http://repository.bakrie.ac.id/56/ muttaqin, a., arifin, a. z., & wajdi firdaus. (2016). problems, challenges and prospect of indonesian muslim community in sydney for promoting tolerance. komunitas: international journal of indonesian society and culture, 8(2), 169–184. nilan, p. (2017). muslim youth in the diaspora. routledge. nair, b. b. (2017). the politics of tourism representations: discourse analysis of british travel, brochures about incredible india. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 2(4): 230-23 pipes, d. (2005). islam and islamism. middle eastern studies, 40(2), 161–182. https://doi.org/10.1080/00263200412331302027 ramage, d. (2002). no title. routledge. file:///d:/user/downloads/9780203074763_googlepreview.pdf ritzer, g. (2011). sociological theory 8th edition-george ritzer-uploaded by university of sargodha taimoor ali (8th ed.). mcgraw-hill. http://democracyranking.org/ranking/2015/data/scores_of_the_democrac http://democracyranking.org/ranking/2015/data/scores_of_the_democrac http://repository.bakrie.ac.id/56/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 820 841 841 issn :0250 robert afl, w. (2010). the roots of islamist popularity. october 2014, 37–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/0143659022000036612 robinson, k. (2009). gender , islam and democracy in indonesia. file:///d:/user/downloads/9780203891759_googlepreview (1).pdf sakai, m., & fauzia, a. (2014a). islamic orientations in contemporary indonesia : islamism on the rise ? 1369(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2013.784513 sakai, m., & fauzia, a. (2014b). islamic orientations in contemporary indonesia: islamism on the rise? asian ethnicity, 15(1), 41–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2013.784513 schwab, k., samans, r., zahidi, s., leopold, t. a., ratcheva, v., hausmann, r., & tyson, l. d. (2016). the global gender gap report 2016. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/gggr16/wef_global_gender_gap_report_2016.pdf tajuddin, a. (2016). development, democracy, and post-islamism in indonesia. international journal of social science studies, 4(11), 41–50. https://doi.org/10.11114/ijsss.v4i11.1924 tausch, a., & heshmati, a. (2016). islamism and gender relations in the muslim world as reflected in recent world values survey data . society and economy, 38(4), 427–453. https://doi.org/10.1556/204.2016.38.4.1 webber, d. (2006). a consolidated patrimonial democracy ? democratization in post suharto indonesia a consolidated patrimonial democracy ? democratization in post suharto indonesia. 0347. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510340600579284 saahar, s., sualman, i., hashim, m. a., & mohamed, w. a. w. (2017). political advertising and young voters information needs. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 3(5), 215-222. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/gggr16/wef_global_gender_gap_report_2016.pdf hamdard islamicus 67 vol. xl, no. 4 the writings of mu×ammad ×amidullah in french trends and novelties* dr. abderrazak belabes researcher at islamic economics institute, king abdulaziz university, jeddah, saudi arabia. e-mail: abderrazak belabes [asbelabes@gmail.com] the aim of this article is to shed light on the main features of muíammad ×amidullah’s writings in french from 1935 to 1994, as well as some new aspects of his scientific life in paris where he lived from 1948 to 1996, with particular regard to his correspondence, ignored to this day, with the french orientalist henri massignon. for medical reasons, his niece had to repatriate him to the united states where he died in 2002 at the age of 95 years. for us, muslims of france, the most prominent work of muíammad ×amidullah is the translation of the holy qur’én into french reissued twelve times. he is the first muslim to translate the holy qur’én into french. the other monumental work of this uncommon scholar is the biography of the prophet (œ) reissued five times and translated into several languages. keywords: muíammad ×amidullah, french literature, trends, novelties. introduction despite their undeniable importance, the writings of muíammad ×amidullah in french are still beyond the reach of the overwhelming majority of non-francophones apart from translations carried out in isolation from time to time. hence the need to shed light on the features that characterize this literature in the light of new knowledge. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *a revised version of the paper presented to the international conference ‘the legacy of muíammad ×amidullah and its contemporary relevance’’, february 17-18, 2017, jamia millia islamia, new delhi. hamdard islamicus 68 vol. xl, no. 4 the present study focuses on the following question: what are the trends and novelties of ×amidullah’s writings in french? in this context, only the facts unknown in his biography will be approached in the light of the correspondences of louis massignon with which he maintained a privileged relationship for three decades, sometimes going as far as raising suspicion assigning him the role of informant indigenous in the constitution of orientalist knowledge. after specifying the data collection protocol, sketching the french scientific context in which ×amidullah operated, and shedding light on his relationship with the orientalist louis massignon, the study tackles the major trends of his writings in french through the distribution of writings by year, medium of publication, nature of the writing, and the major themes: qur’én, life of the prophet (œ), law in islam, economic system in islam, muslim question of the indian peninsula. the conclusion summarizes the main lessons learned from the analysis of these writings and proposes recommendations for future research dedicated to the thought of this exceptional scholar. the data collection protocol the present study is based on one hundred and sixty-four writings and interviews (appendix), ×amidullah in french compiled mainly from the following sources: l the study ‘contributions of muíammad ×amidullah in islamic economics’ by abderrazak belabes1 who compiled some writings in french, english and arabic. l the sudoc catalog, which is a network of french libraries with more than twelve million references.2 l the website of the french national library ‘gallica’.3 l the ‘catalogue of dr. ×amidullah’s books and articles in various languages’ compiled by nadira mustapha,4 taken from her master’s thesis “muíammad ×amidullah and islamic constitutional law”, supported at the mcgill university of montéral.5 l the scanned compilation of daniel-youssof leclercq which contains hamdard islamicus 69 vol. xl, no. 4 documents written by ×amidullah anonymously, under pseudonym or with his agreement.6 some references do not mention the name of the publication medium. the french scientific context in which ×amidullah operated beyond the subject matter, as historian sadek sellam7 rightly points out, there are two major aspects that distinguish the scientific work of ×amidullah: on the one hand, the valorization of the islamic scientific heritage based on the original manuscripts (makhtkëïét) unknown to the french orientalists. hence louis massignon’s remark: “you have supported a good thesis, but without citing any oriental author”. on the other hand, the concern to make known the classical muslim historians unknown or underestimated for one reason or another. through this unprecedented approach, he was the interlocutor of the french orientalists with ease, without complex or complacency, at their head: maurice gaudefroy-demombynes (1862-1957), william marcais (1872-1956), louis massignon (1883-1962), henri laoust (1905-1983), philippe marcais (1910-1984), charles pellat (1914-1992). in his book, ‘introduction to islam’, he8 rightly notes: “the muslim does not need lessons or advice from those who do not believe or do not practice islam”. if his erudition aroused admiration, his epistemological posture does not fail to arouse mistrust and suspicion on the part of some. in his book review devoted to the book ‘the prophet of islam’, the orientalist georges vajda (1908-1981)9 writes: “the documentation of his two large volumes is very ample; it uses materials that have little or no use to date and benefits from direct knowledge practically rejected by almost all western orientalists, the places where the astonishing career of the founder of islam took place”. the manuscripts in question were collected as indicated by ×amidullah10 in the libraries of hedjaz, yemen, syria, lebanon, palestine, egypt, turkey, germany, holland, france, afghanistan, algeria, india. in a book review of the same work, marcel pacaut11 writes: “muíammad ×amidullah’s work is not a book of history, it is a testimony, the testimony of a believer who undertakes to explain the hamdard islamicus 70 vol. xl, no. 4 life, the work and the thought of the founder of islam [œ] and yet, i dare to say, this book has as much, if not more, interest than the most of the scientific studies on muíammad (œ)”. furthermore, in his book “islam and capitalism”, maxime rodinson (1915-2004)12 describes ×amidullah as an “apologist” and a close associate of the muslim brotherhood, although he never adhered to this movement. for his part, paul balta13 presents ×amidullah as a believer, that is, a muslim who fulfils his daily religious obligations. this does not favor the development of critical thinking. as pierre bourdieu,14 a sociologist and professor at the collège de france, the social sciences and militancy, independently of its value framework, can constitute the two sides of the same work: the analysis and critique of the social reality which contribute to its transformation by the creation of new purposes and, consequently, new means of action. as far as the public is concerned, it is necessary to distinguish between his writings intended for researchers and those intended for the general public, in particular, the translation of the holy qur’én (1959), ‘the prophet of islam’ (1959), ‘the pilgrimage to mecca’ (1960), ‘prayer in islam’ (1960), ‘why fast?’ (1961), ‘introduction to islam’ (1966). for decades, he invested himself in the intellectual and moral support of young muslims through the creation of the islamic cultural center in 1952, which included among its members haydar bammate (1889-1965), malek bennabi (1905-1973), eva de vitray-meyerovitch (1909-1999), who embraced islam in 1950. his classes on sunday were much appreciated at 23 rue boyer-barret, headquarters of the association of islamic students in france (aeif) and then at the da’wa mosque at 19 rue tanger. his approach showed that one could be perfectly muslim without denying his original culture. as noted by the french writer malika dif, who embraced islam for more than forty-five years, and author of numerous books for muslims in france,15 “×amidullah is one of the muslim personalities who have paved the way for us. he was the first one who showed us that we could be perfectly muslim and european. for the french of my generation, converted to islam, the writings of ×amidullah were the first books that made sense of our practice without denying our western culture”.16 hamdard islamicus 71 vol. xl, no. 4 a focus on the relationship between ×amidullah and massignon although he is considered the greatest french orientalist, the accusation of espionage pursued louis massignon for most of his life. in march 1953, the journal of al-azhar university ‘majallat al-ahzar’ accused him of being interested in øëfism only to divert muslims from the true faith.17 the journal denounced him as an agent of the christian missionaries and the french colonialist policy.18 arab nationalists and muslim reformers were not left behind. they presented him as an agent in the service of colonialism to compete with lawrence of arabia.19 the reflection of orientalists, like any human, is not fixed. it can evolve according to the events of life. as historian sadek sellam20 points out, louis massignon radically changed his attitude towards muslims following a letter from one of his students, the algerian essayist and thinker hamouda bensai (1902-1998) who prepared a dissertation on abu ×émid al-ghazali (1058-1111) at the sorbonne university where he was related to louis massignon, and influenced malek bennabi (19051973), of whom he was a friend. after the massacres of 8 may 1945 in algeria, hamouda bensai, hospitalized in paris, received a letter from massignon requesting permission to visit him. the response of hamouda bensai was unequivocal. “i blame myself for having loved you”, he wrote, reproaching him for making him believe in the possibilities of dialogue between an “arab muslims and french christians”. this letter profoundly affected massignon, adviser at the time of the french government for muslim affairs, who admits to having had “much difficulty in reading it”.21 his article “critical hour between france and islam” published in the newspaper combat of 22-23 june 1947 testifies to this sentiment: “for some time now, it was said, a discontent grows and responds in the muslim world, with cries hostile to france”,22 his preface23 to the book of max vintejoux ‘the arab miracle’ confirms this evolution which remains unknown to the muslim world: “it is true that the arabs at present are discouraged by the evil that is said of them. so it is up to their hosts, like vintejoux, and myself, to shout to our arab friends to hold out, to resist all this enslaving propaganda which proposes to them to renounce their honor, their tradition, their ancestors, to capitulate before the colonialist force and the capital of the banks to conform their way of thinking and hamdard islamicus 72 vol. xl, no. 4 acting to this false civilization of robots that no longer believes in itself, nor in god, and aspires to subdue universe to a climate of american “digests” imbeciles, written in “basic” (or in “pigeon”) english. all this fabrication of fake ersatz will fall shortly. let them hold on? the world needs them”. the relationship between ×amidullah and massignon and the letters they exchanged24 must be approached in this evolving context to avoid amalgams, while relativizing the beliefs surrounding orientalism such as “all powerful people surrounded themselves with researchers in their pay”.25 this is what makes the difference between a fixed ideological posture and a historical research, worthy of the name, that evolves according to archival documents and writings buried in the hidden treasures of large public or private libraries. the distribution of ×amidullah’s french writings per year the distribution of ×amidullah’s french writings per year (fig. 1) shows that the author has devoted his whole life to research since his ph.d. thesis in history defended at the university of paris (1896-1968) in 1935 to 1994, two years before leaving for the united states for health reasons. his publication has been regular since 1954 when he benefited from the position of research supervisor, and a few years later research director, at the national scientific research center (cnrs) with the support of louis massignon and henri laoust, with whom he was a collaborator. in practice, the activity of each researcher assigned to the cnrs’s research laboratory is evaluated periodically based on his activity report and the list of his publications. in a letter dated february 21, 1962, louis massignon writes to ×amidullah: “send me, in summary, the elements of the report that i must provide on your activity at cnrs”.26 in addition to purely scientific references, other aspects such as the dissemination of science, teaching activities, science-society relations and openness to the outside world are considered. in a letter dated november 5, 1953, concerning his project of teaching at the university of istanbul, ×amidullah wrote to louis massignon: “i have been to see mr. virolleaud,27 who agrees with my departure for istanbul. ms. meyerowitch28 tells me that the director of the cnrs also agrees on this”.29 in addition, the figure shows that the scientific activity of ×amidullah did not stop at retirement in 1978. hamdard islamicus 73 vol. xl, no. 4 fig. 1: temporal distribution of ×amidullah’s french writings (source: prepared by the author) distribution per the medium of publication the distribution per medium of publication by volume (fig. 2a) and percentage (fig. 2b) shows that most of ×amidullah’s french writings were published in the form of articles (85%), then in books (11%), chapters for books and interviews (2%). despite his displayed muslim identity, his articles are published in the most prestigious french journals and magazines devoted to oriental fig. 2a distribution per the medium of publication (in volume) fig. 2b distribution per the medium of publication (in percentage) (source: prepared by the author) hamdard islamicus 74 vol. xl, no. 4 and islamic studies (fig. 3), which is not easy. among these journals, were the following: l revue d’études islamiques: founded by louis massignon in 1927; l bulletin d’études orientales: created in 1931 on the initiative of french researchers working in the middle east; l ‘revue de l’occident musulman et de la méditerranée’ of aix-enprovence: originally ‘revue de la méditerranée’ founded at the university of algiers in 1944 by jean alazard (1887-1960), dean of the faculty of letters and director of the national museum of fine arts of algiers. he is the ancestor of the current journal revue des mondes musulmans et de la méditerranée; l arabica : a journal of arabic and islamic studies founded in 1954 by evariste lévi-provençal (1894-1956) historian, orientalist, and french islamologist. fig. 3 the journals and magazines that published ×amidullah’s french articles (source: prepared by the author) hamdard islamicus 75 vol. xl, no. 4 distribution per the nature of writing the distribution per nature of writing by volume (fig. 4a) and percentage (fig. 4b) shows that most of these publications are written (93%) in the form of articles or books. (source: prepared by the author) they are followed by two translations of ×amidullah from arabic to french: l the first is ‘the botanical dictionary’ of abë hanêfah al-dênéwarê (828-896) (1973), published in cairo by the french institute of eastern archeology, 1973.30 among the six volumes, only two have survived to the present day. volume 6, reconstructed from citations and passages of other works by muíammad ×amidullah contains the names of 637 plants. it complements the work of bernhart lewin (1953), who ranked 400 plants, classified according to the arabic alphabet. l the second is ‘the great book of the international law’ (the fig. 4a distribution per the nature of writing (in volume) fig. 4b distribution per the nature of writing (in percentage) hamdard islamicus 76 vol. xl, no. 4 kitéb as-siyér al-kabêr) by muíammad ibn al-×asan al-shaybénê (749-805) (1989) published in ankara by türkiye diyanet vakfi, 1989-1991,31 to show that the international law was a discipline in the muslim world as early as the eighth century. then a preface to the book ‘life of the prophets’ by abul al-×asan alê nadwê (1914-1999), translated from arabic to french by de mohammed benhamza.32 the major themes of ×amidullah’s french writings the translation of the holy qur’én for the french-speaking muslims, ×amidullah is famous for his translation of the holy qur’én from arabic to french, carried out in six months and encouraged by maurice gaudefroy-demombynes and louis massignon to overcome the deficiencies of régis blachère’s translation.33 the translation of ×amidullah was reissued twelve times between 1959 and 1989 with a preface to the latter, an introduction and notes. it is the eighth french translation of the qur’én since 1647 as shown in fig. 5. fig. 5 history of translations of the holy qur’én into french (1647-2009) (source : prepared by the author) hamdard islamicus 77 vol. xl, no. 4 it is more a translation intended for the general public than for a specialized or scholarly public. as louis massignon notes, “the main interest of this translation of the qur’én is that it is the reflective work of a muslim, a thinker and a believer: that this holy book concerns personally. he lives with the qur’én, he wants to translate it into french as he recites it in arabic, with a naked faith”.34 hence its success among young muslims born in france or converted to islam and the choice of the king fahd glorious qur’én printing complex35 to adopt it with some revisions that are necessary to any human effort regardless of its quality or merit. the life of the prophet muíammad (œ) the life of the prophet muíammad (œ) is the second major ×amidullah’s french writings and occupies almost a sixth of his writings in french available today (fig. 6) over a period of more than half a century since the beginning of his ph.d. thesis in paris in 1934, supported fig. 6 proportion of ×amidullah’s french writings on the life of the prophet (œ) (source: prepared by the author) the life of the prophet (œ) 16% hamdard islamicus 78 vol. xl, no. 4 in 1935, until 1990 (fig. 7). the interest of his thesis is to shed on the existence of intense diplomatic activity during the lifetime of the prophet (œ). it has not failed to arouse the admiration of louis massignon, one of the members of the jury of the ph.d. thesis, according to whom the realization of a work as colossal on the basis of original manuscript constitutes an admirable tour de force. on 1st february 1935, as he was about to embark in marseilles to india, ×amidullah wrote to massignon:36 “as i leave your country, a little precipitate, i feel obliged to assure you of my sincere gratitude. indeed, it was you who had encouraged me to come to paris; and for about a year of my stay at the metropole de france, you helped me in my studies despite your busy schedule. fig. 7 temporal distribution of ×amidullah’s french writings on the life of the prophet (œ) (source : prepared by the author) yesterday, on the day of the defense of my ph.d. thesis, your remarks of praise have touched me enormously and you have given me much to think about your instructive critic. i would therefore like to present you once again my most cordial thanks”. another letter to massignon dated 22 february 195137 shows that hamdard islamicus 79 vol. xl, no. 4 table 1: ×amidullah’s french writings on the life of the prophet (œ) year original title in french translation to english 1935 documents sur la diplomatie documents on muslim diplomacy in musulmane à l’époque du prophète the time of the prophet (œ) and the et des khalifes orthodoxes orthodox caliphs 1939 les champs de bataille au temps battlefields in the time of the du prophète prophet (œ) 1955 la lettre du prophète à héraclius the prophet’s (œ) letter to heraclius et le sort de l’original and the fate of the original 1959 le prophète de l’islam the prophet of islam (œ) 1960 problèmes internationaux lors de la international problems at the birth of naissance du prophète the prophet (œ) 1964 la psychologie des grands ennemis the psychology of the great enemies du prophète of the prophet (œ) 1965 original de la lettre du prophète à original of the prophet’s (œ) letter to kisra kisra 1969 la date de naissance du prophète the date of birth of prophet muhammad muíammad (œ) 1970 le chef de l’état musulman à the head of the muslim state at the l’époque du prophète et des califes time of the prophet (œ) and the caliphs 1973 le premier empire musulman du the first muslim empire of the time of temps du prophète et de ses trois the prophet (œ) and his three successeurs successors 1973 les frères et soeurs de lait du the prophet’s (œ) milk brothers and prophète sisters 1974 le prophète de l’islam en tant the prophet (œ) of islam as an qu’éducateur educator 1975 sur la trace du saint prophète dans on the track of the holy prophet (œ) ses voyages en arabie de l’est in his travels in east arabia contd....... hamdard islamicus 80 vol. xl, no. 4 year original title in french translation to english 1977 les voyages du prophète avant the prophet’s (œ) journeys before l’islam islam 1979 l’émigration du prophète the emigration of the prophet (œ) 1980 muhammad, prophète de dieu muíammad (œ), the prophet of god 1981 les ambassades du prophète the embassies of the prophet (œ) et d’abu bakr auprès de and abu bakr to the emperor heraclius l’empereur héraclius et le livre and the byzantine book of the byzantin de la prédication des preaching of destinies and the embassy destinées et l’ambassade du of the prophet in china prophète en chine 1981 la tolérance dans l’œuvre du tolerance in the prophet’s (œ) work prophète à médine in medinah 1982 le village arabe au temps du the arab village at the time of the prophète de l’islam prophet of islam (œ) 1983 l’original de la lettre du prophète the original of the letter of the aux co-rois de l’oman prophet (œ) to the co-kings of oman 1985 six originaux des lettres du six originals of the letters of the prophète de l’islam: étude prophet of islam (œ): a paleographic paléographique et historique des and historical study of the letters of lettres du prophète the prophet (œ) 1987 muhammad, le prophète de l’islam muíammad (œ), the prophet of islam en tant qu’éducateur as an educator 1988 l’individu (musulman et nonthe individual (muslim and nonmusulman) face au pouvoir à muslim) facing power in the time of l’époque du prophète et de ses the prophet (œ) and his first caliphs premiers califes 1988 problèmes constitutionnels aux constitutional problems in the early premiers temps de l’islam islamic period 1990 les gens de la race noire dans la people of the black race in the life of vie du prophète de l’islam the prophet of islam (œ) 1991 la rédaction du hadith aux the writing of the ×adêth in the early premiers temps de l’islam days of islam (source: compiled and translated by the author) hamdard islamicus 81 vol. xl, no. 4 the life of the prophet (œ) is a major theme of his research: “as you know, the period of the prophet (œ) was my special subject and i kept pushing my research in the same direction”. in the introduction to his book ‘majmu’ét al-wathé’iq al-siyésiyah lil ‘ahdi al-nabawê wa al-khiléfah’ (compilation political document during the prophetic period and the caliphate), he writes:38 “despite my attachment to collecting all that has been attributed to the prophet (œ), prayer and salvation on him, i have only retained here what has been authenticated as proved written”. law in islam the law in islam is the favourite subject of ×amidullah, after the qur’én and the life of the prophet (œ), as a result of his previous study. a graduate from osmania university, where he served as an assistant to the faculty of law, he obtained a ph.d. thesis in 1933 from the university of bonn on ‘die neutralität im islamischen völkerrecht’ (principle of neutrality in muslim international law). from 1936 to 1946 he served on the osmania university for teaching international law. without going into details, the topics dealt with in his french writings, are varied as shown in table 2. as such, on the basis of these sources and others written in other languages, it deserves a ph.d. thesis. the economic system in islam in a book review of ×amidullah’s book ‘the prophet of islam’, the orientalist georges vajda39 writes: “the author, a lawyer, scholar and expert in political science, is very attentive to the legal, administrative, social and economic aspects of nascent islam”. he had the privilege of consulting most of the economical manuscripts before they were published: ‘kitéb al-kharéj’ (book of property tax) of qéìi abë yësuf (d. 798), ‘kitéb al-kharéj’ of ‘yahyé ibn adam (d. 818), ‘kitéb al-amwal’ (book of revenue) of abë ‘ubaid al-qésim ibn salém (d. 838), ‘kitéb al-amwél’ of humaid ibn zinjawih (d. 885), ‘kitéb al-kharéj wa øina‘at al-kitéba’ (book of property tax and administrative art) of qudémah ibn ja’far (d. 948).40 in addition, he was apparently the first to devote an economic hamdard islamicus 82 vol. xl, no. 4 table 2: ×amidullah’s french writings on law in islam year original title in french translation to english 1951 nouvelle étude des sources du droit new study of the sources of islamic islamique law 1953 règne conjoint: la théorie et la joint reign: islamic theory and practice pratique islamiques 1957 la constitution de la république constitution of the islamic republic of islamique du pakistan pakistan 1960 le droit romain a-t-il influencé le has roman law influenced islamic droit islamique ? law? 1962 la notion du droit international the notion of private international law privé 1963 la genèse du droit de la preuve en the origin of the law of evidence in islam islam 1964 la loi constitutionnelle du pakistan the constitutional law of pakistan 1965 les liens entre la religion et le the links between religion and the law droit en islam in islam 1968 la philosophie juridique des the legal philosophy of muslims musulmans 1970 le statut du non-musulman selon the status of non-muslims according l’islam to islam 1971 le contrat de la monogamie the contract of the obligatory obligatoire en islam et l’épisode du monogamy in islam and the episode of calife ‘abbasside al-mansour the caliph ‘abbésid al-manîour 1973 problèmes constitutionnels aux constitutional problems in the early premiers temps de l’islam days of islam 1974 le problème des origines des the problem of the origins of personal sûretés personnelles dans l’islam security in islam 1974 l’application du droit islamique à the application of islamic law to la société moderne modern society 1980 les droits de l’homme dans human rights in the teaching of prophet l’enseignement du prophète muíammad (œ) mohammad 1984 contribution musulmane au droit muslim contribution to international international law 1989 arbitrage international international arbitration 1989 liberté d’expression freedom of expression (source: compiled and translated by the author) hamdard islamicus 83 vol. xl, no. 4 chapter in the writing of the life of the prophet (œ),41 knowing that the iraqi historian saleí aímed al-alê (1918-2003)42 published an authoritative article on ‘the level of prices during the first century of the hegira’. it will be followed by other publications; firstly: ‘economic organization at the beginning of islam’ by the iraqi historian abdul-azêz al-douri (1919-2010),43 ‘social and economic life during the prophetic era’ by the iraqi historian akram dia’a al-umari.44 ×amidullah45 also seems to be the first to use the notion of islamic economics in his article entitled ‘islam’s solution to the basic economic problems – the position of labour’. he also used the notion in french in his article entitled ‘the foreign policy of pakistan and its background’, published in the french journal ‘politique étrangère’, (foreign policy) where he stressed that “the raison d’être of pakistan was the desire of the vast majority of these inhabitants to live an islamic life. the first and most important principle of pakistan’s foreign policy was therefore the fulfillment of islamic duties”. one of the consequences of this principle46 “is that the pakistanis want to keep their neutrality in the struggle between communism and capitalism. the islamic economic system is an independent system. islam cannot agree with materialism either among the capitalists or the communists”. it is interesting to examine the link between ×amidullah’s reflection on the economic system in islam and the ph.d. thesis of the syrian lawyer, academic and politician mouhssine barazi (1904-1949)47 ‘islamism and socialism’ supported on 7 june 1929 at the university of paris, at a time when syria was occupied by france (1920-1946). among the distinctive features of this ph.d. thesis is the exploration of the relationship between islam and socialism, concluding that the latter, by denying private property, was incompatible with the rules of islamic jurisprudence and that it was therefore inadmissible to justify which is commonly referred to as islamic socialism in reference to canonical texts or historical facts.48 it should also be pointed out that ×amidullah uses the notion of islamic economics from a comparative perspective, and those of ‘economic system’ (1959) and ‘economic system in islam’ (1966) in his writings for the general public as shown in table 3. this question deserves to be explored beyond the consideration of the precursor known to historians of science and technology.49 hamdard islamicus 84 vol. xl, no. 4 table 3: ×amidullah’s french writings on the economic system in islam year original title in french translation to english 1957 al-ilaf, ou les rapports économicoal-ilaf, or the economic-diplomatic diplomatiques de la mecque prérelationships of pre-islamic mecca islamique 1959 système économique, in le economic system, in the book ‘the prophète de l’islam life of the prophet (œ)’ 1961 banque sans intérêt a suggestion for an interest free islamic monetary fund 1961 le monde musulman devant the muslim world in front of the l’économie moderne modern economy 1966 système économique de l’islam, economic system of islam, in the book in initiation à l’islam ‘introduction to islam’ 1974 le problème des origines des sûretés personal security in islam the problem of the origins of personal security in islam 1975 la connaissance musulmane du muslim knowledge of petrol and gas pétrole au moyen age during middle age (source: compiled and translated by the author) the muslim question in the indian peninsula (south asia) after defending his ph.d. thesis on 31 january 1936 at the university of paris, ×amidullah returned the next day to ×yderabad aboard a boat from the port of marseille to that of bombay as evidenced by a letter sent from the phocean city to louis massignon on 1 february 1936.50 he maintains contact with paris as correspondent in india for the ‘revue des études islamiques’ (journal of islamic studies), as evidenced by two articles (table 4) entitled ‘letter from india on the movement of islamic studies in india’ (1937), ‘letter of india’ (1938). in september 1948, the indian army annexed the state of ×yderabad whose prince was muslim. shortly before this event, on 21 august 1948, the prince of hyderabad sent a delegation to the united nations security council to demand respect for the territorial integrity of ×yderabad. ×amidullah was a member of this delegation, which was composed of five members. hamdard islamicus 85 vol. xl, no. 4 table 4. ×amidullah’s french writings on the muslim question in the indian peninsula year original title in french translation to english 1937 lettre de l’inde sur le mouvement letter from india on the movement of des études islamiques dans l’inde islamic studies in india 1938 lettre de l’inde letter from india 1950 le progrès des études islamiques the progress of islamic studies in au pakistan pakistan 1951 la politique étrangère du pakistan pakistan’s foreign policy and its et son arrière-plan background 1955 défense de la culture islamique defense of islamic culture during the pendant la domination anglaise english domination of india de l’inde 1957 la constitution de la république constitution of the islamic republic of islamique du pakistan pakistan 1957 les études islamiques au pakistan islamic studies in pakistan 1964 la loi constitutionnelle du pakistan the constitutional law of pakistan 1969 les etudes islamiques à haiderabadislamic studies in hyderabad-deccan deccan 1971 la vérité sur l’inde et le pakistan: the truth about india and pakistan: intrigues impérialistes au pakistan imperialist intrigues in east pakistan oriental 1980 le pakistan, passé et présent pakistan, past and present 1990 les derniers miracles de l’islam the last miracles of islam in france en france et en inde and india (source: compiled and translated by the author) the mission did not succeed and ×amidullah never returned to ×yderabad, his land of birth. in a letter from paris to louis massignon dated 5 january 1948, he wrote: “i have read, in cuts from the indian newspapers i have received, that at the university of ×yderabad the language of instruction (i. e. urdu) has been replaced by hindi with immediate effect” (bormans, 2009:3). in another letter, hamdard islamicus 86 vol. xl, no. 4 dated 29 november 1948, he referred to the “gandhi’s invaders in ×yderabad”.51 he went to nascent pakistan where he was invited to the drafting committee of the constitution. in a letter to louis massignon, dated 24 march, 1950, he wrote: “my humble work in the constituent assembly continues and there have been interesting results; but i do not know if the high-placed will accept them. nevertheless, there is an undeniable insistence on the part of the people for the islamization of laws”.52 preferring scientific research to endless political debates, he resigned from the committee and moved to paris in a modest apartment at 4 rue tournon, where the famous french poet alphonse de la martine (1790-1869) lived.* conclusion the study of ×amidullah’s french writings has shown that the author has devoted more than sixty years of his life to scientific research since his ph.d. thesis from the middle of the 1950s to the beginning of the 1990s, two years before his departure to the united states for healthrelated reasons, with a continuous concern for the valorization of the islamic scientific heritage, on the basis of original manuscripts, so that the study of islam is not dependent on intellectual modes, nor on state and group interests. hence the moderate use of the adjective ‘islamic’ in the comparative study to avoid any unwarranted generalization. in his mind, the muslim world includes societies, languages, and varied experiences, which must be studied carefully. most of his writings have been published in journals and magazines (85%), then in books (11%) or chapters in collective works and interviews (2%). the other activities, first the translation, represent only a very small part (2%). this is explained by his status as a researcher at the cnrs, from 1945 to 1978, for which, like any other research institution, the publication of articles in scientific journals is an important issue. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *late pir hussamuddin rashdi commenting on his disappointment for preparing the first constitution of pakistan said: the day he came and said that beaurucrates in the constituent assembly of pakistan disagree in collecting material and books on various constitutions. i am disgusted and leaving. next day he flew away to paris – ed. hamdard islamicus 87 vol. xl, no. 4 the main themes dealt with are the translation of the qur’én, the life of the prophet (œ) with a preference for diplomatic relations, the law in islam, the economic system in islam, the muslim question in the indian peninsula which remains a topical subject with the problem of ‘status of rohingya people’. the interest of this study, as my fellow researcher abdul azim islahi, who is also from ×yderabad, rightly pointed out to me, is to compile the writings of the author in french and for translating eventually into urdu and english to make them available for researchers from all horizons. notes and references 01. belabes, abderrazak. contributions of muíammad ×amidullah in islamic economics (in arabic), in wednesday seminars 2010-2011, jeddah, islamic economics institute, king abdulaziz university, pp. 55-120. 02. http://www.sudoc.abes.fr/ 03. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ 04. https://archive.org/details/acatalogueofbooksandarticlesofdrmuhammad hamidullah 05. mustapha, nadira, muíammad ×amidullah and islamic constitutional law, 2002, a thesis submitted to the faculty of graduate studies and research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts and humanities, mcgill university, montreal, june, pp. 172-177. 06. https://mdhamidullah.wordpress.com/index-liens-vers-les-articles/ 07. sellam, sadek, muíammad ×amidullah (1908-2002), 5 august 2012, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=abaswotofkg 08. ×amidullah, muíammad, introduction to islam, gary, 1970, international islamic federation of student organizations, p. 2010. 09. vajda, georges, m. hamidullah. le prophète de l’islam, revue de l’histoire des religions, 1960, vol. clviii, no. 1, p. 110. 10. ×amidullah, muíammad, note sur la littérature religieuse de la nouvelle turquie, annales de la faculté de droit d’istanbul, 1959, p. 72. 11. pacaut, marcel, ×amidullah, (muíammad) – le prophète de l’islam. i. sa vie. ii. son œuvre, compte rendue, revue française de science politique, 1961, vol. xi, no. 3, pp. 720-721. 12. rodinson, maxime, islam and capitalism, translated from french by brian pearce, 1974, penguin books, pp. 35, 243. 13. balta, paul, l’islam, 2005, paris, le cavalier bleu editions, p. 125. 14 . bourdieu, pierre, pour un savoir engagé, le monde diplomatique, février 2002, p. 3. hamdard islamicus 88 vol. xl, no. 4 15. etre musulmane aujourd’hui (1998), les épouses du prophète de l’islam (2001), relations parents-enfants selon le coran et la sunna (2002), la maladie et la mort selon l’islam: rites et comportement (2008). 16/ bamba, amara, ×amidullah à istanbul comme à paris, saphinews, 22 janvier 2007. 17. majallat al-azhar, vol. xxv/7, rajab 1372/march 1953, p. 893. 18 . al-bahi, muíammad, al-mubashirkan wa al-mustashriqkan fi mawqifihim mina al-islam [the missionaries and the orientalists and their attitude towards islam], majallat al-azhar, vol. xxxi/4-5, jumada al-ula 1379/november 1959, pp. 394403. 19. munier, gilles. louis massignon et les dessous de l’orientalisme français, réseau voltaire, 10 août 2009. 20. sellam, sadek, al-macha’: sadek sellam wa tafkik qabiliyat al-isti’mar [al-macha’: sadek sellam and the decontruction of colonizablity], al-jazeera.net, 22 november, 2014. 21. sellam, sadek, l’œuvre inachevée, djazairess, 6 février 2009. 22. borrmans, maurice and de peretti, andré, louis massignon et le comité chrétien d’entente france-islam (1947-1962), 2014, paris, karthala, p. 17. 23. massignon, louis, préface de max vintéjoux. le miracle arabe, 1950, paris, charlot, p. 15. 24. borrmans, maurice, louis massignon, muíammad ×amidullah et sa traduction française du coran, in islalochristiana, rome, pisai, 2009, 35, pp. 31-49. 25. said, edward, l’orientalisme : l’orient créé par l’occident, traduit de l’américain, 2003, paris, seuil, p. iv. 26. borrmans, op. cit., p. 9. 27. it is a question of the historian of religions charles virolleaud (1879-1968); see: puech, henri-charles, éloge funèbre de m. charles virolleaud, membre de l’académie, comptes rendus des séances de l’académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1968, vol. cxii, no. 4, pp. 600-604. 28. eva de vitray-meyerovitch (1909-1999) was a researcher at the cnrs from 1945, where she headed the humanities department. she embraces islam in 1950. 29. borrmans, op. cit., p. 6. 30. ad-dinawarê, abu ×anifé, le dictionnaire botanique, reconstitué et traduit par muíammad ×amidullah, d’après les citations des ouvrages postérieurs, 1973, le caire, institut français d’archéologie orientale. 31. al-shaybanki, muíammad ibn al-×asan, le grand livre de la conduite de l’état [kitéb al-siyar al-kabêr = kitéb as-siyar al-kabêr], commenté par as-sarakhsi, traduit par muhammad ×amidullah, 1989, ankara, türkiye diyanet vakfi. 32. nadwi, abou al ×assan alê, la vie des prophètes, traduction de mohammed benhamza, préface de muhammad ×amidullah, 1993, paris, universel. 33. blachère, régis, le coran, traduit de l’arabe, [1947]1966, paris, g.p. maisonneuve & larose editeurs. 34. massignon, louis, préface à m. ×amidullah. le coran, 1977, paris, le club français du livre, 3e édition, pp. ii-iv, 3. 35. complexe roi fahd pour l’impression du noble coran, le noble coran et la traduction en langue française de ses sens, 2000, medine: complexe roi fahd pour l’impression du noble coran, p. ii. hamdard islamicus 89 vol. xl, no. 4 36. borrmans, op. cit., p. 2. 37. ibid, p. 5. 38. ×amidullah, muíammad, majmu‘at al-wathaiq al-siyasiyah lil ‘ahdi al-nabawi wa al-lhilafah [compilation of political document during the prophetic period and the caliphate], 1985, amman, dar al-nafais, p. 566. 39. vajda, op. cit, p. 110. 40. belabes, op. cit., pp. 78-81. 41. ×amidullah, muíammad, le prophète de l’islam, 1959, paris, vrin. 42. al-alê, saleí aímed, mustawah al-as’ar fi al-qarn al-awwal al-hijri [the level of prices during the first century of the hegira], al-thaqafah, baghdad, september 1951, pp. 18-21. 43. al-douri, abdul-aziz, fi al-tandhim al-iqtisadi fi sadr al-islam [economic organization at the beginning of islam], majalat al-‘ulim al-ijtimu’iyah, 1981, kuwait, special issue, pp. 75-90. 44. al-umari, akram dia’a, al-hayat al-iqtisadiyah wa al-ijtim’iyah fi al-áhd al-nabawki [social and economic life during the prophetic era], 1997, riyadh, dar kunuz ishbiliya. 45. ×amidullah, muhammad, islam’s solution to the basic economic problems – the position of labour, islamic culture, hyderabad (deccan), 10(2), april 1936, pp. 213-233. 46. ×amidullah, muhammad, la politique étrangère du pakistan et son arrière-plan, politique étrangère, vol. xvi, no. 2, 1951, pp. 138-139. 47. barazi, mouhssine, islamisme et socialisme, 1929, paris, p. geuthner. 48. vincent, a., chronique d’histoire des religions, revue des sciences religieuses, vol. xiii, no. 3, 1933, pp. 461; wallacher, johannes, reder, michael, and karcher, tobias, unternehmensethik im spannungsfeld der kulturen und religionen, 2006, stuttgart, w. kohlhammer verlag, pp. 53-54; martin, richard and barzegar, abbas, islamism: contested perspectives on political islam, 2009, stanford, stanford university press, p. 158; ende, werner and steinbach, udo, islam in the world today: a handbook of politics, religion, culture, and society, 2010, ithaca, cornell university press, p. 131. 49. clark j.t., the philosophy of science and the history of science, in marshall clagett (ed). critical problems in the history of science, 1959, madison, university of wisconsin press, p. 103; canguilhem, georges, études d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences, 2002, paris, vrin, pp. 20-22. 50. borrmans, op. cit., p. 2. 51. ibid., p. 3. 52. ibid., p. 4. hamdard islamicus 90 vol. xl, no. 4 appendix muíammad ×amidullah’s writings in french 01. documents sur la diplomatie musulmane à l’époque du prophète et des khalifes orthodoxes, préface de maurice gaudefroydemombynes, université de paris, faculté des lettres, thèse de doctorat d’université, paris, g.-p. maisonneuve, 1935. 02. lettre de l’inde sur le mouvement des études islamiques dans l’inde, revue des etudes islamiques, 1937, 11, pp. 301-305. 03. lettre de l’inde, revue des etudes islamiques, 1938, pp. 101-111. 04. les champs de bataille au temps du prophète, revue des etudes islamiques, tome xiii, 1939, pp. 1-13. 05. le progrès des études islamiques au pakistan, revue des etudes islamiques, 1950. 06. la politique étrangère du pakistan et son arrière-plan, politique étrangère, vol. 16, n° 2, 1951, pp. 135-144. 07. nouvelle étude des sources du droit islamique, congrès international d’istanbul, 2, 1951, pp. 253-259. 08. règne conjoint: la théorie et la pratique islamiques, rivista degli studi orientali, vol. xxviii, 1953, pp. 99-104. 09. le “livre des généalogies” d’al-balle “livre des généalogies” d’al-bal, in damas : bulletin d’études orientales, (1952-1954), tome xiv, pp. 197-211. 10. défense de la culture islamique pendant la domination anglaise de l’inde, lahore, panjab university press, 1955. 11. la lettre du prophète à héraclius et le sort de l’original, in paris, arabica, vol. ii, n°1, 1955, pp. 97-110. 12. les arabish de la mecque, studi orientalistici in onore di giorgio levi della vida, vol. i, 1956, pp. 433-447. 13. al-ilaf, ou les rapports économico-diplomatiques de la mecque pré-islamique, damas: institut français, 1957, 19 pp. 14. la constitution de la république islamique du pakistan, revue des etudes islmamique, 1957. 15. le congrès international des orientalistes à munich, qui a tenu ses hamdard islamicus 91 vol. xl, no. 4 assises à munich (mûnchen) du 28 août au 4 septembre 1957, pp. 34-37. 16. les études islamiques au pakistan, revue des etudes islamiques, 1957. 17. l’afrique découvre l’amérique avant christophe colomb, in présence africaine, février-mai 1958, pp. 173-183. 18. histoire de l’usûl al-fiqh chez les musulmans, annales de la faculté de droit d’istanbul, tome ix-xi, 1959, pp. 72-91. 19. note sur la littérature religieuse de la nouvelle turquie, annales de la faculté de droit d’istanbul, 1959. 20. le prophète de l’islam, paris, vrin, 1959, 2 volumes. 21. le pèlerinage à la mecque, paris, seuil, 1960. 22. la prière en islam, la pensée chiite, paris, 1960, n°4, pp. 9-14. 23. contribution de l’iran a la botanique et à la science juridique, pensée chiite, 1, 1960. 24. le droit romain a-t-il influence le droit islamique, pensée chiite, 2, 1960. 25. les premiers contacts arabo-islamiques avec l’afrique noire, pensée chi’ite, 1960, pp. 13-21. 26. problèmes internationaux lors de la naissance du prophète, pensée chi’ite, 1960, pp. 11-17. 27. bienfaits du coran pour la première communauté musulmane, pensée chi’ite, 1960. 28. noir de peau, blanc d’esprit, 1960, pp. 15-16. 29. nouveaux documents sur les rapports de l’europe avec l’orient musulman au moyen age, arabica: revue d’etudes arabes, vol. vii, 1960. 30. le coran dans toutes les langues (français), pensée chiite, 1960, pp. 18-21. 31. le coran dans toutes les langues (arabe), pensée chiite, 1961, pp. 17-20. 32. pourquoi jeûner? une étude sur le jeûne dans l’islam envisagé du point de vue spirituel et temporel, genève: centre islamique, 1961, 16 pp. 33. les bibliothèques publiques de médine, pensée chiite, 7, 1961, pp. 34-36. 34. le coran de fatma-zaida, centenaire d’un ouvrage mystérieux, pensée chiite, 8, 1961. hamdard islamicus 92 vol. xl, no. 4 35. le monde musulman devant l’économie moderne, revue de l’isea, paris, supplément n°120, série v, n°3, décembre 1961, pp. 23-41. 36. nouveaux documents sur les rapports de la france, de l’italie et de l’espagne avec les pays musulmans au moyen âge, pensée chiite, 7, 1961. 37. nouveaux documents sur l’iran médiéval (rapports avec la chine), pensée chiite, 9, 1961. 38. banque de prêt sans intérêt, pensée chi’ite, 12, 1962. 39. banque de prêt sans intérêt, france-islam, nos. 7-8-9-19, 1962, pp. 17-18. 40. islam: civilisation et religion, avec pierre marthelot et roger arnaldez, paris: fayard, 1965, 258 pp. 41. la notion du droit international privé, annales de la faculté de droit d’istanbul, 12, 1962, pp. 320-339. 42. le 1100 anniversaire de la mort de dinawari, turk bioloji dergisi, 4e série 3, 1963. 43. original de la lettre du prophète à kisra, rivista degli studi orientali, vol. xl, 1965, pp. 57-70. 44. la genèse du droit de la preuve en islam, recueils de la société jean bodin, 18, 1963, pp. 187-200. 45. le hajj, al-muslimoon, 1964, nos. 7-8, pp. 10-12. 46. la psychologie des grands ennemis du prophète, revue des études islamiques, 1964, p. 109-114. 47. les liens entre la religion et le droit en islam, recherches et débats, cahier n°51, juin 1965. 48. la loi constitutionnelle du pakistan, revue des études islamiques, 1964, 32, pp. 87-108. 49. introduction au kitâb al-mu’tamad fi usûl al-fiqh d’abû’l-hussain at-taiyib al-basri, damas, institut français de damas, 1965, tome ii, pp. 1-42. 50. initiation à l’islam, paris: imprimerie de carthage, 1966, 246 pp. 51. le musulman dans le milieu occidental et son retour au pays d’origine, in jacques berque et jean-paul charnay, normes et valeurs dans l’islam contemporain, paris, payot, 1966, pp. 192209. 52. la bible en tant que source canonique du droit musulman, franceislam, 7-10, 1967. hamdard islamicus 93 vol. xl, no. 4 53. l’initiation à l’islam et visages de l’islam (critiques littéraires), france-islam, no.1, 1967, pp. 5-6. 54. pourquoi prier seulement en arabe? france-islam, no. 1, 1967, p. 9. 55. le coran, livre saint des musulmans, france-islam, no. 1, 1967, pp. 12-13. 56. réponse à m. le prof. monteil, france-islam, no. 1, 1967, pp. 1718. 57. réponses à des correspondants, france-islam, no. 1, 1967, pp. 2-3. 58. le jour de l’an musulman, france-islam, nos. 2-3, 1967, pp. 7-9. 59. le hadith, la sunna, france-islam, nos. 2-3, 1967, pp. 25-31. 60. le ministre de dieu, l’imam, bulletin saint jean-baptiste, tome vii-8, juin-juillet 1967, pp. 385-396. 61. les etudes islamiques à haiderabad-deccan, revue des études islamiques, vol. xxxvi, no. 1, 1969, pp. 165-166. 62. la date de naissance du prophète muhammad, france-islam, n°2829, 1969. 63. les notions islamiques sur l’ange, colloque 1968 de l’alliance mondiale des religions, 1969. 64. la philosophie juridique des musulmans, annales de la faculté de droit d’istanbul, 18, 1968, pp. 137-152, 29-32. 65. le 1200 anniversaire de la mort de l’imam muhammad ac-chaibani: contemporain de charlemagne, islam medeniyeti, 20, 1969. 66. l’administration de la justice au début du califat: les instructions de ‘umar à abû mûsà al’ach’ari, in france-islam, n°32-35, 1969 1970, reproduit sous forme d’une brochure avec textes arabes des documents. 67. le chef de l’état musulman à l’époque du prophète et des califes, recueils de la société jean bodin, xx, 1970, pp. 481-502. 68. le saint coran, le monde islamique, n°1, décembre 1970, p. 6. 69. le prophète de l’islam. sa vie, son œuvre, france-islam, n°37-38, 1970, pp. 7-10. 70. les juifs furent-ils vraiment les habitants de la palestine? franceislam, n°37-38, 1970. 71. le statut du non-musulman selon l’islam, france-islam, n°41, 1970, p. 5. hamdard islamicus 94 vol. xl, no. 4 72. les anniversaires et les souvenirs, france-islam, n°45-46, 1970, pp. 10-11. 73. notices spéciales (sur la langue ourdoue et sur la notion de gens du livre), tradition et modernisme, 1970, pp. 125-127. 74. critique du livre de paul toinet, « religions sans frontières? », france-islam, n°40, 1970, p. 10. 75. critique du livre de montgomery watt « islamic political thought », france-islam, n°41, 1970, p. 15. 76. ce que l’islam reconnait dans le christianisme, réforme, 17 janvier, 1970, pp. 10-11. 77. le christianisme et l’islam lors de la rencontre de malazgird, france-islam, n°53-54, 1971, pp. 5-6/8. 78. la vérité sur l’inde et le pakistan : intrigues impérialistes au pakistan oriental, france-islam, n°53-54, juillet-août 1971. 79. le contrat de la monogamie obligatoire en islam et l’épisode du calife ‘abbasside al-mansour, france-islam, n°52, 1971. 80. un affront de l’éditeur garnier à l’égard de l’islam, 1971. 81. le pèlerinage à la mecque, 1971. 82. les musulmans: consultations islamo-chrétienne entre muhammad arkoun, hassan askari, muíammad ×amidullah, hassan hanafi …, postface par kamel hussein et daniel pézeril, paris, beauchesne, 1971, 140 pp. 83. consultation islamo-chrétienne, france-islam, n°59, 1972, p. 9. 84. la symbolique en islam, france-islam, n°59, 1972, pp. 14-15. 85. le premier empire musulman du temps du prophète et de ses trois successeurs, recueils de la société jean bodin, xxxi, 1973, pp. 509-532. 86. contribution des musulmans méditerranéens à la science his, revue de l’occident musulman et de la méditerranée, n°15-16, 1973, pp. 35-42. 87. la religion en évolution, france-islam, 1972-1973, pp. 68-74. 88. un nouveau système pour transcrire l’arabe en caractères latins, in mubarak, yuwakim. pentalogie islamo-chrétienne 4, les chrétiens et le monde arabe, beyrouth, ed. du cénacle libanais, 1973, pp. 129-131. 89. le dictionnaire botanique d’abu hanifa ad-dinawari (kitâb an-nabât de la lettre sîn à la lettre yâ’., reconstitué d’après les hamdard islamicus 95 vol. xl, no. 4 citations des ouvrages postérieurs, institut français d’archéologie orientale du caire, le caire, 1973. 090. problèmes constitutionnels aux premiers temps de l’islam, 1973, pp. 35-68. 091. les frères et sœurs de lait du prophète, france-islam, n°78-80, 1973. 092. le problème des origines des sûretés personnelles dans l’islam, recueils de la société jean bodin pour l’histoire comparative des institutions, tome 8, 1974, pp. 327-344. 093. l’application du droit islamique à la société moderne, le musulman, 1974, p. 11/14. 094. les fêtes religieuses en islam, le musulman, 1974, p. 20. 095. le prophète de l’islam en tant qu’éducateur, le musulman, 1974, pp. 19-20. 096. un grand serviteur de dieu nous quitte! mustafa valsan, franceislam, n°93-94-95, 1975, p. 15. 097. les escales arabes au début de l’islam, recueils de la société jean bodin pour l’histoire comparative des institutions, tome 32, 1975, pp. 191-206. 098. la femme en islam, le musulman, 1975, pp. 9-13/21. 099. abraham en islam, 1975, pp. 3-4. 100. la connaissance musulmane du pétrole au moyen age, franceislam, n°96-97-98, 1975. 101. sur la trace du saint prophète dans ses voyages en arabie de l’est, france-islam, paris, 93-94-95, 1975, pp. 3-4. 102. le coran (compte rendu de conférence), comprendre, n°95, 5 mai 1976, pp. 1-7. 103. les israëliyat ou données de source non musulmane dans la science islamique, france-islam, n°116-117-118, 1976, pp. 1-6. 104. pourquoi jeûner? 1977, pp. 32-39. 105. les voyages du prophète avant l’islam, bulletins d’études orientales, 29, 1977, pp. 221-231. 106. vieux textes persans chez les auteurs arabes, islami ilimiler fakultesi dergisi, 1977. 107. sahifah hammam ibn munabbih, texte en français et en arabe, paris, association des etudiants islamiques en france, 1979. 108. l’émigration du prophète, ligue islamique mondiale, bureau de paris, janvier 1979, pp. 1-5. hamdard islamicus 96 vol. xl, no. 4 109. muhammad, prophète de dieu, in hégire, an 1400, cultures, 1980, vol. 7, n°4, pp. 27-40. 110. les traditions islamiques, introduction et notes correctives de la traduction française el-bokhâri de octave houdas et william marçais, paris, association culturelle islamique, 1981, 282 pp. 111. les droits de l’homme dans l’enseignement du prophète mohammad, 1980, pp. 37-39. 112. la réunification du temporel et du spirituel, 1980, pp. 9-10. 113. le pakistan, passé et présent, 1980, pp. 5-10. 114. sur le coran, badr et la conquête de la mecque (conférence transcrite), 1980, pp. 65-66. 115. les fêtes chez les musulmans, pensée chiite, 1980, pp. 13-21. 116. activités de dawah islamiya en france et les problèmes connexes, papier présentée dans une conférence, 1981, 43 pp. 117. vieux textes persans chez les auteurs arabes, 1981, pp. 7-9. 118. histoire du mariage dans la société humaine, causerie du 15 novembre 1981, pp. 1-10. 119. la vie du prophète, 1981, pp. 6-10. 120. les ambassades du prophète et d’abu bakr auprès de l’empereur héraclius et le livre byzantin de la prédication des destinées et l’ambassade du prophète en chine, connaissance de l’islam, paris, n°7, mai 1981, pp. 14-20. 121. la tolérance dans l’œuvre du prophète à médine, in l’islam, la philosophie et les sciences, paris, les presses de l’unesco, 1981, pp. 15-33. 122. entretiens à l’ile de la réunion, le journal de l’île de la réunion, 14 janvier 1981. 123. l’histoire du coran, 1981, pp. 17-18. 124. les rapports islamo-chrétiens, quelques faits, 1981, p. 13. 125. le coran a confirmé tous les livres saints sauf ce qui fut abrogé, 1981, pp. 1-6. 126. le village arabe au temps du prophète de l’islam, in les communautés rurales, troisième partie: asie et islam, recueils de la société jean bodin, xlii, 1982, pp. 37-57. 127. documents inédits sur les débuts de l’islam en iran, connaissance del’islam, 1982. hamdard islamicus 97 vol. xl, no. 4 128. l’islam et son impulsion scientifique originelle, tiers-monde, 1982, vol. 23, n°92, pp. 785-790. 129. les femmes et l’islam, dialoguer, 1982, pp. 10-11. 130. compte rendu d’une conférence à tlemcen sur la codification du hadith, m. g. recherche de la vérité historique (visite en algérie), el moujahid, juillet 1982, 131. l’arrière-plan des guerres téléguidées de jamal et siffin, 1982, pp. 73-90. 132. l’histoire d’usul al fiqh chez les musulmans, 1982, pp. 8-17. 133. l’original de la lettre du prophète aux co-rois de l’oman, in connaissance de l’islam, paris, n°13, janvier-février 1983, pp. 4-9. 134. les débuts de traduction en arabe, 1983, pensée chi’ite, pp. 11-13. 135. théorie et pratique islamiques de la tolérance religieuse, 1983, pp. 13-16. 136. l’épisode du projet d’un testament-écrit par le prophète sur son lit de mort, 1983, pp. 13-32. 137. contribution musulmane au droit international, colloque francopakistanais, ive, paris, 14-16 mai 1984, unesco, paris : université rené descartes, 1984, 7 p. 138. pratiques islamiques, 1984, p. 14. 139. six originaux des lettres du prophète de l’islam: étude paléographique et historique des lettres du prophète, paris, tougui, 1985. 140. prière de l’univers, 1985, pp. 23-24. 141. un intellectuel islamique à la réunion, entretien, journal de l’île de la réunion, 19 juillet 1985, p. 10. 142. la symbolique en islam, le pré-saint-gervais: aslim, 1986. 143. quelques miracles perpétuels du saint coran, 1986, pp. 18-20. 144. marwan ibn al-hakam et ‘amr ibn al-’as, victimes de fausses accusations, turk kulturu arastirmalari, 24, 1986, pp. 63-71. 145. muhammad, le prophète de l’islam en tant qu’éducateur, paris, centre d’éducation islamique, 1987. 146. islam et christianisme, 3e édition, paris, association des etudiants islamique en france, 1987. 147. le mois sacré de ramadan, la voix de l’islam, n°5, 1987, pp. 3-8. hamdard islamicus 98 vol. xl, no. 4 148. problèmes constitutionnels aux premiers temps de l’islam, dar al azhar, 1988. 149. le beau modèle, la voix de l’islam, n°7, 1988, pp. 28-34. 150. après ramadan la piété continue, la voix de l’islam, n°8, 1988, pp. 10-12. 151. les liens entre la religion et le droit en islam, 1988, pp. 24-28. 152. lettre ouverte à mr. m. gorbatchhev, à propos des musulmans de crimée, 1988, pp. 33-35. 153. quoi et pourquoi de l’islam, l’index, n°1, novembre 1988, pp. 1-2. 154. l’islam, 1988, pp. 269-273. 155. l’individu (musulman et non-musulman) face au pouvoir à l’époque du prophète et de ses premiers califes, recueils de la société jean bodin pour l’histoire comparative des institutions, xkvii, 1988, pp. 94-116. 156. arbitrage international, 1989, pp. 109-114. 157. liberté d’expression, le musulman, 1989, pp. 21/33. 158. histoire de la rédaction du coran, le musulman, 15 septembre15 décembre, 1989, pp. 16-31. 159. lettre ouverte au roi fahd d’arabie saoudite, 1989. 160. les gens de la race noire dans la vie du prophète de l’islam, s.n., 1990. 161. les derniers miracles de l’islam en france et en inde, le musulman, 15 décembre-15 mars, 1990, pp. 24-25. 162. la rédaction du hadith aux premiers temps de l’islam, le musulman, 15 décembre-15 mars, 1991, pp. 13-16. 163. abraham, avec emile moatti et pierre roclave, paris, centurion, 1992, 166 p. 164. le 1400e anniversaire du parachèvement de l’islam, paris, association des étudiants islamiques en france, 1994. f:\e\islamicus\2021\metaphysical discourse from qurâ•žanic perspective.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 69 metaphysical discourse from qur’ónic perspective concerning allah, man and universe relationshipa study of sõrah al-ra×man muhammad ashfaq department of islamic studies hitec university taxila, pakistan email: m.ashfaq.hrp@gmail.com received on: 07-05-2020 accepted on: 21-01-2021 abstract this paper intends to visit the relationship among allah almighty, man and cosmos from islamic philosophical outlook along with a pivotal discourse from the holy qur’én especially in the light of sërah al-raímén. after visiting fundamental concepts of metaphysics, it is important to grasp the mutual links between microcosmic and macrocosmic entities in relation to the entire kingdom and its creator. contemplating this nexus, one may be familiar with the ethics, etiquettes and attitude to exercise these moral values and conduct accordingly. it is to locate oneself at the best and ideal position in the universe for physical and spiritual nourishment. employing qualitative research methodology, themes like concept of allah almighty in islam, perfect man and universal panorama from qur’énic weltanschauung is deliberated succinctly. regarding this mutual link, it is imperative to know that how the holy qur’én broadens one’s mental horizon in this direction. it leads us to ponder our attention grasping what wisdom is associated with universal rhythm and human existence where both are in the same boat in relation to their creator. this paper endorses the modus operandi in accordance with everlasting teaching of the perfect man (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in which overall discourse revolves around the concept of “ultimate reality” either observing multiple universal phenomena or meditating one’s own self. keywords: allah almighty, man and universe nexus, sërah al-raímén, perfect man, prophetic guidance, ultimate reality. 1. introduction and fundamental discussion this study incorporates discussion regarding the mutual nexus of allah almighty, man and the universe revisiting this relationship from the 70 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... qur’énic perspective seeking awareness and guidance in this regard. we may visit anthropocosmic relationship deliberating source of guidance or perfect man, perfect universal rhythm and allah almighty from islamic philosophical stance in relation to themes and concepts mentioned in the sërah al-raímén. one may generally visit this mutual link pondering over different qur’énic references. however, allah almighty has been expressed in sërah al-raímén aesthetically projecting his attributes e.g. the most merciful (al-raímén), knowledge provider, creator (khéliq) as indicated in the beginning, while sërah ends at the divine names expressing his majesty and generosity (dhul-jalél wal-ikrém). for human guidance, the prophetic teachings and instructions are the most important ones. prophet muíammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) has been bestowed with qur’énic ethics and allah almighty educated him regarding this miraculous book. he taught him the art of expression, as indicated at the beginning of sërah al-raímén (55:2,4). abdullah yusuf ali rendered the verse, “it is he who has taught the qur’én…he has taught him speech (and intelligence)”1 we may correlated this verse with the expression of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) stated in ×adêth number 1171 of øaíêí muslim: “i have been supported against the enemy with fear and i have been given the power of encompassing speech i.e. concise speaking but comprehensive in meaning (jawémi‘ al-kalim). while i was sleeping i was given the keys of the treasures of the earth, and they were placed in my hand.”2 these references of the holy qur’én and ×adêth indicated simultaneously the role of prophetic guidance regarding each and every issue demanding solution in any particular context. therefore, the question of the man with reference to the perfect man is an integral part of this study. however, the third important factor in this relationship is cosmos or what we say it as the laboratory in which one may exercise his ability with the aim of awareness towards reality taking into account functioning of this entire ‘fine-tuned system,’ phenomena and signs contemplating the abstract idea of lord’s unicity and tawíêd. hence, this discourse is hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 71 slightly different as compared to the available relevant literature reviewed for the development of this study. prior to discuss three dimensions of the relationship, the basic concept of the word ‘metaphysics’ is required to visit from a philosophical perspective. as the word, ‘metaphysics’ is derived from the two greek words ‘meta’ meaning over or beyond and ‘phusika’ means physics, thus the combination of both words stands for the study of the realm beyond the physics, tangible things and bodies. the cambridge dictionary of philosophy stated that metaphysics is broader in scope as compared to science, e.g. physics and even cosmology, one of its traditional concerns is the existence of non-physical entities, for example, the study regarding the existence of allah almighty etc.3 there is no exact and an agreedupon definition up till now, among the philosophers for metaphysics. so, we may examine some definitions in order to broaden our views regarding the subject matter for better comprehension. the word ‘metaphysics’ has been taken from the title given to aristotle’s treatise by an editor andronicus in 1st century b.c. it means that which comes after ‘physics’, in general, we can say that it is the study of a supernatural realm.4 moreover, metaphysics for popular mind indicates any nature of reasoning, excessively general, abstract and subtle while philosophical mind subject to what exists beyond what is available to the sense. d w hamlyn further states that; “metaphysics is the study of ontology in order to examine what fundamentally exists and what is the secondary (existence)”5. aristotle gave the name to the subject matter as “first philosophy” or “theology” in order to study of “first cause” that the discipline which is concerned with the ultimate nature of reality. it can be defined that metaphysics is the branch of philosophy, in which we study the first cause and the nature of being”6. an investigation of notion ‘reality’ is also the common denominator of this discipline. regarding the meaning of metaphysics, dr shehzad qaisar defined: “we can say that ‘physics’ stands for entire phenomena and beyond it are nomena, of which can be known by dint of intellectual intuition”7. consequently, we may think that man has an intrinsic ability to know allah almighty through cosmic signs. peter s. groff along with oliver leaman remarked that allah almighty is the only creator of the world from nothingness i.e. from ex-nihilo, absolutely without any other 72 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... support and interventions. he is an everlasting, all-powerful and direct cause of all things, without which nothing would have any power and effectiveness.8 for this study we may add with respect to rosenthal concept, he said, “metaphysics is a science specifically defined for enquiry of first causes of existing things in the world with the aim to know the one and unique allah almighty.”9 so, we may think that allah almighty, man and universe relation can be examined either in physical entities or metaphysically from the qur’énic worldview. we may add that any beautiful building and structure has attracting refection with the silent message of its builder and maker. it depends upon the work quality of the manufacturer. in islamic metaphysics, the central discussion is about the precise relation between allah almighty, man and universe claiming that the islamic metaphysics emerged within its own context and epistemological consideration. so allah almighty, man and universe, their mutual relation is also an important discussion in which qur’énic guidance and the way of action toughed by prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). these instructions play a vital role in providing distinct and unique manners. man as caliph (khalêfah) of allah almighty may observe cosmic signs along with a firm belief in allah almighty and trust in divine omnipresence prevailing everywhere, judging various aspects of his creation. this leads man to the acts as per required modus operandi from islamic instructions which are responsible to put him right towards the reality and ultimately towards the ultimate reality. 2. an anthropocosmic discourse vis-é-vis sërah al-raímén in this discussion, the term ‘anthropocosmic’ has two prongs, ‘anthropo’ that is man, and cosmos i.e. outer space and universe. in the other words, the universe may also be identified as macrocosm while human being can be entitled as a microcosm. ibrahim kalin explained the term in the words, “the intrinsic commonality and unity between the human as ‘subject’ and the universe as ‘object’ has been called the “anthropocosmic vision.”10 both terms are mutually linked portraying anthropocosmic glimpse revealing marvel view of allah almighty’s creation. in this regard, the study of the holy qur’én finds a unique projection stimulating the human sense. therefore, we may study sërah al-raímén examining how it addressed intrinsic human abilities getting one out from slumbering and to have awareness of self, allah almighty and cosmic signs. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 73 regarding the relation between microcosm and macrocosm, structural similarities between both, ibn al‘arabê (raímat allah ‘alaih) delineated a human sketch which is relevant to the functional entities of the universe. for example, in symbolic language, the spirit is like the sun which illuminates the body, the intelligence is like moon, five senses like the five stars, over and above, he stated that the lote tree of the extreme limit is configured as per human configuration.11 we may state that this figurative representation facilitates human thought and it domesticates humanity with the cosmos. the universe is like book to study indicated by said nursi (raímat allah ‘alaih) in relation to the book ‘al-qur’én’. furthermore, naîr stated in the islamic cosmological doctrine, discussing the views of brethren of purity (al-ikhwén al-øafé) that man cannot study the entire universe, he needs to look into himself as if man having the elements of the universe. universe will become known to him, due to the study of himself.12 then again, it is necessary to know the purpose integrating what is the ultimate objective. furthermore, he states that plants, animals and other beings have been created to serve the final purpose of man.13 thus universe shares beneficial and fruitful domains for human physical and metaphysical nourishment as per the islamic worldview with regard to allah almighty, man and the universe and their mutual relationship. we may look at various dimensions of sërah al-raímén to grasp the subject relation. the sërah states after the concept of the spreading of earth, zoological aspects of life on it, which are responsible for biological kingdom to sustain.14 from the first chapter of sërah, an important way of contemplation may also be extracted to know the sign of the creator. similarly, one may observe the expression of anthropocosmic sketch considering how sërah broadens one’s mental horizon as presented succinctly in the fig. 1. illustrated diagram explicates that sërah al-raímén discusses human creation in the verse (55:3) and (55:14) while after verse 3, sërah explains the cosmic bodies then it moves the human thought towards earth where in fig. 1 arrow at right side indicates the verses (55:10, 11, 12) demanding balance in the well-balanced cosmic system. after this external outlook, again in (55:14) creation of man has been discussed. moreover, sërah indicates an important cosmic phenomenon. similarly expanding human understanding and vision, after that ocean is under consideration, the most downward look as compared to the earth, where the left arrow 74 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... indicates the verses (55:19-24) giving a thought-provoking example in this regard. from this illustration, we can know that how the holy qur’én teaches human beings to broaden their mental horizon. it demands the best ways of life on practical bases and provides them with survival and dynamic thought regarding anthropocosmic perception. hence, we may say that instead of just absorbing in the exquisite of the creation, it is necessary to adopt the manner and ethics so that the ultimate destination and objectives of life should remain before of eyes of seeker (sélik). in anthropocosmic relation, the vision of tauíêd and risélah has a vital position with due importance in accordance with islamic philosophical thought. the concept of risélah has been stated in the paper under the title of the perfect man (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as an ideal source of guidance for the humanity in relation to supervising them concerning physical and metaphysical matters irrespective of race, colour and religion. 3. allah almighty, man and universe relationship: a brief visit of sërah al-raímén there are several qur’énic verses speak regarding the nexus among allah almighty, man and universe expressing the role of man in relation hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 75 to allah almighty and cosmos. however, from briefly study of sërah alraímén we may examine how the subject relationship has been dealt by the holy qur’én matchlessly throwing light upon multiple phases. visiting table-i one can know the human required role and character with reference to the mutual links in between microcosmic and macrocosmic entities in relation to the entire kingdom and its creator. table-i: metaphysical expression against verses of sërah al-raímén (55) verse no. (55:1) (55:2) (55:3) (55:4) metaphysical aspects of verses regarding triangular relation of allah almighty, man and universe study of the different verses of the sërah (55), depicts an important triangular relation of allah almighty, man and universe. existence of everything is directly related to divine name al-raímén and the whole anthropocosmic system is due to divine mercy. we may visit al-ghazélê (raímat allah ‘alaih) concerning this concept.15 however, according to the shah wali allah (raímat allah ‘alaih), al-raímén is one and only one name out of beautiful names of allah almighty which is the origin of this unitary system (universe). he stated that the multifarious aspects of this name cannot be totally comprehended. but the creation of the system from exnihilo (nothingness) and variations in it are directly related to the theophany of the most merciful (al-raímén) and his mercy (al-raímah).16 al-raímah is a pivotal discourse of islamic mystic philosophy. al-ghazzélê (raímat allah ‘alaih) added that if there is no divine mercy then it is impossible to know his lord, then being an effect of the divine mercy, it is (considered that man is created) in the image of the merciful one.17 exegetical remarks of al-qushayrê (raímat allah ‘alaih) shows that with his mercy he taught the holy qur’én, with his mercy one may reach the holy qur’én to recite and understand.18 other divine names can also be visited indirectly in these verses of sërah e.g. from the second 76 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... verse expresses that he is (al-‘alêm), and the third verse shows that he is (al-khéliq) etc. allah almighty and man relation is mentioned in the first four verses prior to the next verses, related to the universe. these verses also indicate prophetic intermediary position, role model and source of guidance (‘allama al-qur’én, khalaq al-insén, ‘allamah ul-bayén) as interpreted in exegetical literature.19 for example, al-baghawê (raímat allah ‘alaih) interpreted that he created muíammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and he taught him about what was and what will be.20 hence, this perfect man can guide the humanity in the light of divine bestowal. these verses indicate the dynamic styles of the universe. al-shanqêïê (raímat allah ‘alaih) said that (×usbén) means calculation and exact estimation assigned by allah almighty and the all-knowing (al-azêz, al-‘alêm). it is an expression of divine blessings upon the human race due to which they can know and calculate their daily, monthly and yearly affairs.21 he discussed this phenomenon referring to the qur’énic verses) (10:5) and (17:12). moreover, concerning verse (55:6), exegete also stated that the scholars differed about the meanings of (najm) as herbs or star. he preferred the meaning of (najm) as star in the sky and quoted the verse (22:18).22 the mutual relation of celestial bodies functioning accurately and perfectly in universal stability is evidence of their role and obedience. these heavenly bodies and their fine-tuned order indicate harmony and peace instead of clash in the universal realm. however, prostration may be an expression of peace, calm and total submission of all cosmic entities to the will of allah almighty. system of universal balance predicts the supreme working force behind the phenomena. this system shows submissive behaviour of the universe in relation to the force that initiates all causes and their effects. islamic metaphysical remarks and subtleties of (al-mêzén) having multiple dimensions guiding in the daily affair to that of (55:5) (55:6) (55:7) hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 77 the equilibrium of gigantic bodies in the universe with unique conceptual foundations.23 tawézan includes various dimensions of micro-cum-macro entities. it means justice (‘adl) and balance in the other affairs.24 cosmic order and its stability is a lesson for humanity to maintain balance in order to get rid of any tragedy and panic with respect to the smooth flow of social tempo. verses (55:10-13) draw the attention of a common man, scholars and also the scientists who know the importance in this regard. however, earth as a part of cosmos indicates the other heavenly bodies which can’t be seen with the naked eye, all are also dutiful and functional to the assigned responsibility by the allah almighty that can never be more than one. this verse has been repeated 31 times in the sërah i.e. about 40% of total verses. repetition is helpful in order to rethink over the mysteries prevailing in the universe and man’s inner self. it has been stated that, “the qur’énic reiteration [repetition] fertilizes the barren land of the heart and it satiates the human ears through the tuneful and melodious wave passing through them to every cell of the body. rhetoric of the holy qur’én raises the question that how beautiful is the lord, who revealed this marvelous, miraculous and inimitable book.”25 one may observe the unique method of lord’s remembrance (dhikr) in the islamic history of sufism. a way of practice towards gnosis (ma‘rifah) of ultimate reality. ingredients of the man and jinn creation have been stated in the verses. it shows the physical and metaphysical dimension of lord’s creations with the lesson that invisibility of things does not means that they exist not. some aspects has been discussed in the referred thesis.26 this phenomenon of two easts and two wests is an indication of the wisdom of the creator.27 different mystical literature like tafsêr al-lam’if al-ishérét and (55:8) (55:9) (55:10) (55:11) (55:12) (55:13) (55:14) (55:15) (55:17) 78 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... tafsêr al-tustarê etc. rendered it in symbolic language, the easts and wests of the heart and tongue concerning the spiritual realm. al-qushayrê (raímat allah ‘alaih) also interpreted as the other exegetical views that east of summer and east of winter and similarly west for both. he pointed out that the flowing of celestial bodies and their flow in order and sequence are (due to his grace), so that the creation could benefit from them. he further said east of heart and its west declaring and indicated that these qualities and insight have already discussed.28 moreover, al-tustarê (raímat allah ‘alaih) said, east of heart and west of tongue, east of and west of mushéhadah, and referred verse 40 of sërah al-ma‘érij (44:40) then extended his concept and stated ‘east of human body (limbs and organs functioning rightly) with sincerity (al-jawérií bil ikhléî) and discussed west in relation to human obedience (of allah almighty) apparent and hidden.29 however, mystical commentaries are metaphorical approaches pointing to the various other aspects as compared to the definite interpretation of the holy qur’én. the phenomenon shows the mutual link of allah almighty, man and universe on scientific bases and calculations. in the light of this verse, we can study the phenomenon of two river flowing together without mixing with each other. it has various dimensions to be understood as presented by islamic philosophers and exegetes.30 in this significant metaphysical discussion (as well as from the physical view of two rivers flowing together without mixing each other) one may consider, man and his lord at the extreme nearness, without any disruption in the concept of oneness of allah almighty. his oneness prevailing everywhere in the universe and in human’s self to recognize him. pearl and coral come out from the rivers, al-rézê (raímat allah ‘alaih) elaborated these verses (55:22-24) pointing towards various aspects. he declared that some blessings of allah almighty are for beauty (and aesthetics).31 his interpretation highlights the water (55:19-20) (55:22-24) hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 79 importance regarding different creations and phenomenon. these are the sources to understanding mutual link of allah almighty, man and the universe. al-qurïubê (raímat allah ‘alaih) extended the concept and added that pearls and coral come out from the water as corn, with (its) leaves and stalk for fodder as well as sweet-smelling plants come out for you from earth.32 abë ×ayén (raímat allah ‘alaih) discussed linguistic aspects of verse (55:24) and broadened the concept highlighting divine involvement regarding the functionality of these things. and the fullest benefit of created things are only from him almighty.33 hence, each thing in the cosmos draws human attention towards its creator. with reference to the metaphysics of islam, the verse (55:27) has a pivotal role in the discussion of subsistence (baqé) which is more importance than annihilation (fané). this is the unique status and glory of allah almighty in islam with the lesson of tawíêd and his oneness. moreover, scientific research revealing the facts supporting the concepts of ‘big bang’ and ‘big crunch’. it also indicates the islamic eschatological reality. one may take into account, the world of quark, its colourful realm and super-symmetry, a very swift movement of the micro world. it demands organizer and shows the possibility of the universal end. hence, he purpose behind the creation of cosmic system is mutually linked with allah almighty to man and allah almighty to universe. consequently, it shows allah almighty, man and the universe relationship. the study of this verse leads the human being to the ‘instantaneous study’ of the nature, then integrating the research into a single whole. in the microseconds, the variation and evolution in the universe are going on witnessing his glory. on the other hand, it is also a lesson for seeker (sélik) that at every instant, he needs the constant guidance, help and spiritual promotion in the journey towards the ultimate reality where the state of bewilderment (×aiyarah) is also there because his (55:26) (55:27) (55:29) 80 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... essence cannot be grasped exactly. hence, this is another way of thinking in relation to allah almighty, man and universe from the islamic perspective. (see. section 3.3 for detail) in the light of this verse, the question of the destiny may also be studied with the whole sketch of the sërah on one hand, and in the light of relevant verses on the other hand. in a mystical sentence, at every instant one should be vigilant in order to prepare himself taking in mind the event of standing before the lord. tafsêr al-rézê shows that the statement of verse is a proof of divine oneness (tawíêd). in general, you are unable to leave this planet. in case, you go out from the contours of heaven and earth, then, you will find the signs of tawíêd. what you will find outside are the definite and confirmed arguments of his oneness.34 al-ùabarê (raímat allah ‘alaih) mentioned, “if you are able to know what is in the heavens and in the earth, then know it, but you will not know it without (sulïén) authority and power, it means an evidence from allah almighty, the exalted is his praise.”35 scholars also discussed space travelling in the light of these verses. while mystical approaches also indicated that it means the spiritual journey, which needs to get rid of the impurities of bad actions which are a hindrance in the voyage towards the ultimate reality. for example, shaykh sha‘réwê (raímat allah ‘alaih) also explained the ascending night of the messenger of allah almighty (sal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in accordance with these verses.36 however, these verses indicate human relation to the universe and what i think the ‘cosmic ethics’ are required to exercise as bestowed by the allah almighty of islam. the apparent view of man may also express the nostalgia i.e. what has been done by him in the given limitations of time by his lord. they were captured by their forehead (conscious), is a metaphysical expression of the verse. (55:31) (55:33) (55:35) (55:37) hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 81 and capturing by foot may be called as physical view.hence, our behaviour is greatly concerned in relation to the subject relationship. verses of the sërah stating hell and its torment are very less in number. hell is stated with respect to hell and refusal of culprits. the mode of surëh to mention paradise is a different one. the fear and love of the lord, both have great importance in islamic mystical journey toward allah almighty. the peak of wisdom is the fear of allah almighty. it may be added that fear causes a change in brain and organs functions which eventually changes human behaviour as well. suhad tahseen concluded in the light of several qur’énic verses analyzing various dimensions of the notion ‘fear’. two points of his research findings, 10 and 11 are relevant to this study. he categorized fear into different types and commented that ‘praised fear’ (al-khawf al-maímëd) has a positive impact on human personality. it opens ways to the obedience of allah almighty. it stops to act upon the prohibitions. fear awakens man towards self-accountability, boldness and courage to seek truth and victory. his 11th finding speaks that due to this attribute, one will be bestowed with divine forgiveness, and entrance into paradise. he will acquire divine pleasure and allah almighty will shade in his shade while there will be no shade except his shade.37 it is an important source of inspiration to change oneself towards the right path. physical sketch of metaphysical reality has been demonstrated in the verses (55:48-58) with the expression of pure, pious and aesthetical reflection. benevolence (al-iísén) demands the state to remove the veil that exists between the man and his lord as in accordance with (øaíêí bukhérê, 50) that,“iísén is to worship allah almighty as if you see him, and if you do not achieve this state of devotion, then (take it for granted that) allah almighty sees you.”38 it is concluded (55:39) (55:41) (55:43) (55:44) (55:46) (55:48-58) (55:60) 82 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... in a research paper that, “islamic concept of benevolence is decorated with physical and metaphysical dimensions incorporating human necessities and needs in this world and in the world of hereafter searching for the better and well-civilized living tempo of … [it] demands a sense of social responsibility while on the other hand, it is the practice of sharê‘ah and excellent deeds at the station of al-iísén.”39 hence, every movement of life one should understand that he is in the protection of his lord. focusing on what actions are required to perform with reference to the subject discourse? due to different status of blessed ones’ different paradises will be awarded. al-qurïubê (raímat allah ‘alaih) quoted various opinions of scholars to understand these verses. he co-related the quality of ‘allah almighty fearing people’ in the light of prophetic sayings.40 syed quïb (raímat allah ‘alaih) stated that the two paradises mentioned later are for the people of right side i.e. ‘companions of right hand’ (aîíéb al-yamên).41 iîlaíê (raímat allah ‘alaih) also elaborated the concept that there may be more paradises as compared to already stated paradises. both referred to the two groups of righteous people discussed in the next sërah-56 (al-wéqi‘ah).42 moreover, the duality is an expression of variety as the whole scheme of sërah runs in twos.43 we may consider that consecutive discussion of two more gardens in addition to two already mentioned in the verse (55:46) elaborating the whereabouts of the blessed ones. it leads human concepts towards the reality of existence of metaphysical realm. the holy qur’én highlights maximum upward of ethics can be seen in the successive discussion of beauty in these verses teaching moral par excellence. al-rézê (raímat allah ‘alaih) interpreted that the apparent and outward appearance (ðéhir) of maidens are beautiful while their innermost (béïin) are based on goodness.44 islamic development of gardens, its organization seems like the sketch drawn from qur’énic paradise.45 how (55:62-68) (55:70-76) hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 83 aesthetics values inculcated persuading humanity to construct beautiful environment around them with respect to the universal beauty. the role of women in this world can be extracted from the character of a maiden mentioned in these verses. the universal role of divine names and attributes have great importance in islamic philosophical and mystical thought in relation to the human self and cosmic order. yësuf alê (raímat allah ‘alaih) remarked at the end (note 5221) that “bounty and majesty are the two leading ideas of sërah and the duty of man to make himself worthy of nearness to allah almighty.”46 majesty and generosity (dhul-jalél wal-ikrém) both are related to the aesthetic universal expression and both names have been stated two times in the sërah. (55:78) this overview makes it crystal clear that the islamic concept of allah almighty, man and universe plus their mutual relationship has multiple dimensions and guidance for humanity to play their role what naturally required encapsulating physical and metaphysical dimensions. adopting a similar way taking into account the principle of proportionality (‘ilm almunésabah) one can observe the beautiful co-relation of allah almighty, man and universe in different qur’énic references. for example, we may determine this link in the light of sërah al-baqrah studying a small part of it at the beginning of part-ii from rukë‘ 18 to 20 and so on.47 although the themes under discussion are related to different religious matters and injunctions about the performance of pray and pilgrimage, importance of messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) of allah almighty obedience, purification and wisdom as well as different ethical guidance etc. but one may observe what is the message given in the verses stating natural phenomena. in this three-cornered approach, the holy qur’én highlights that the demand for guidance (hidéyah) is indispensable and all-important for better performance around the universal milieu. 3.1. the perfect man (al-insén al-kémil): a complete source of guidance the verse of sërah al-raímén (khalaqa al-insén) that is “who created the man or the absolutely perfect man.”48 islamic scholars and 84 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... exegetes interpreted this verse that here takhlêq means the creation of (human beings and) ódam (‘alaih as-salém) as well as the creation of prophet muíammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam).49 dr syed g safvi discussing the concept of a perfect man in the light of rëmê’s thought explains the idea with geometrical shape, the sides of this shape subject to ‘universe’, ‘people’ and ‘guidance’ respectively while the center of this form is allah almighty and the perfect man is like ‘diameter’ which connects various segments to each other and develop the reflective relation from the center to side i.e. he is the representative and caliph of allah almighty.50 we may quote prophetic saying in relation to the verse (55:3) as: “allah almighty created adam in his image.”51 in the islamic perspective, the human being is the most polished and capable mirror where allah almighty may reflect himself. the essence of human nature is pure and able to receive the holy trust which the huge celestial bodies could not bear. dogan commented that “such profundity affords only the human beings such a level of comprehensibility that they can recognize, understand and relate to, allah almighty as potentially the perfect man (insén-i kémil).”52 the practical and practicable life of the messenger of allah almighty (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is an ideal link between, divine and material, revelation and reason, eternal and corporeal. so to understand the relationship between allah almighty, human being, and the universe, we should follow the ideal life of holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam).53 it is also a pivotal discourse of ibn al-‘arabê (raímat allah ‘alaih), where he elucidated that the perfect man or the universal man as the doctrine of the “muíammadan reality”, sophisticated expression given by him in his famous magnum opus (al-futëíat al-makkiyyah). the reality of prophet muíammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) that is al-×aqêqah al-muíammadêah. the perfect man is thus a central concept in the thought of ibn al-‘arabê (raímat allah ‘alaih) as the isthmus or barzakh through which allah almighty is manifested and known.54 ibn al-‘arabê (raímat allah ‘alaih) doctrine of perfect man55 may also be considered as: 1. it is the most fundamental origin of all entities. 2. it is cosmological, encircling all the archetypes of existence. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 85 3. it is the prophet, who represents the divine attributes, word or logos on the earth.56 the perfect man is the self-disclosure of the attributes (øifét) in their complete and perfect manifestations, as seen by the essence (dhét) at any particular moment in time. the ‘muíammadan reality’ reveals itself in its particular epiphanies (maðéhir) of appearance as different prophets and messengers from adam (‘alaih as-salém) to that of prophet of islam (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). the manifestation of real within the mirror of the prophet muíammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is the most perfect, most balanced and the most handsome reflection due to the mirror actuality.57 moreover, with regard to the question of guidance and obedience, shaykh remarked that the most highly influential figure of a man or the manifestation of prophet of islam (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), is the perfect man (al-insén alkémil) and loci of belief in allah almighty (maíal al-ômén billah ta‘élé), as well as the most perfect guidance for humanity towards reality.58 in relation to the message of starting verse of sërah al-raímén, we may quote jamil javed that anthropic principle in the light of the holy qur’én bestows a credible elaboration to the best product of the creation, the intelligent human being. this intelligent being has no option but to follow the social system created by allah almighty through his messengers.59 an ordinary man may continue his journey to acquire the state of perfection following the guidance revealed to prophet of islam (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). dr muíammad zia ul ×aq remarked regarding the idea of allah almighty that this vital concept has evolved historically. later on, it has been undergone through the various modes of transformation and culminated in the concept of tawíêd (oneness of allah almighty). the relation of man with allah almighty is the relation of creation and creator respectively which is the link in between allah almighty and his messenger perfect man, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). this nexus is based upon revelation which has been stopped after prophet of islam (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam).60 as perfect man (insén-i kémil) is the highest stage in the hierarchy of creation. dogan commented that in order to acquire better standards for life eradicating ignorance, poverty, disorder, and dishonesty. one may decorate himself due to moral par excellence and good character of the messenger of allah almighty (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam).61 in brief, these remarks supplements to 86 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... act upon the allah almighty given role model for the whole human. this may provide an ideal position to perform at the best station in the cosmic world. prophet muíammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was decorated by allah almighty with the qur’énic morality and awarded with the character traits by allah almighty, a perfect model for the whole humanity to be followed towards the ultimate reality. here the concept of perfect man has also the great importance. any new paradigm, for example, for any social milieu needed to be consulted it directly or indirectly studying and following this perfect standard. so, the solution of the problems is concealed in the method and following the footsteps of the prophet muíammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), to be acted upon with true letter and spirit. as a result, human conscious may aware to acquire how to deal with daily issues and one’s ethical role towards the others as well as towards the whole cosmic realm in the presence of islamic allah almighty. 3.2. the pivotal role of universe concerning subject discourse there are many qur’énic verses and themes stated in the sërah al-raímén elaborating universal phenomena. as the overall discussion leads us to think that the man is a big universe in his small miniature, while the universe is a small man in the large contour. metaphysical remarks of islamic scholars expounded the pivotal role of the universe with reference to man as well as allah almighty. dr. umar remarked that he (allah almighty) created the universe as the sum total of divine signs. he discloses the attributes therefore macrocosm is also an image of allah almighty with all due respect to immanence (tanzêh) and incomparability.62 iqbal discussed the character of universe and its expansion with reference the qur’énic verses adding that the universe is not a block entity and man is blessed with faculty of naming and capturing the concepts of identification. man’s knowledge is then conceptual one approaching the observable aspect of reality.63 he highlighted the involvement of allah almighty and man concerning universe jointly like ‘co-workers’ with respect to the separate role of each. speaking theologically along with philosophical history regarding allah almighty, majid added that, “qur’énic concept of allah almighty’s omnipotence and his sovereignty in the world, for it belonged to allah almighty alone to create or recreate the atoms and accidents which hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 87 made up physical objects in the world and to cause them to cease as he pleased and when he pleased.”64 we may observe how beautifully iqbél (raímat allah ‘alaih) highlighted: ايد ے ش ام ہ ى ناتم ات ابه ہ کائن ي ونُ 65 ْن فَيَُك دائے ُك ادم ص ے دم ى ہ ہ آرہ ک “perhaps this universe is still incomplete, instantaneously, there can be heard the cry of (kun fayakkën) ‘be, and it came into being’” this may be a philosophical interpretation of the qur’énic verse”. iqbal also expressed in a letter to professor nicholson, “the universe is not a completed act: it is still in the course of formation.”66 it shows the permanent involvement of creator in the universal innovation and rhythm. if the universe and its entities had not obeyed the required precision of divine law, then it is impossible to sustain. similarly, when human disobeys then it is an action against truth and collective rhythm of life which leads towards panic and disorder.67 visiting verses of sërah al-raímén regarding balance (al-mêzén),68 one may observe the wisdom mentioned in relation to equilibrium from common sense to that of the cosmic domain. commenting about the lofty moral purpose of universal existence, abu sulayman added that man due to his inbuilt nature comprehend that cosmic system is not created accidentally. creator has designed this universe with infinite precision and wisdom. on the other hand, allah almighty implanted highly spiritual values within human conscience to understand the divine origin of the universe.69 rosenthal also discussed the qur’énic verse (‘allamah ul-bayan)70 along with prophetic saying regarding the eloquent mode of expression that “some eloquent speech is as effective as magic”71 then he admitted that religious sciences are more useful than all the others. he invites that we have to turn towards these religious scholarships.72 he further commented that the objective of metaphysics may be understood due to pure reason, known as lubb in arabic that is ‘quintessence’ of each thing.73 this is a unique approach of the holy qur’én to stabilize reality into the human thought and consciousness addressing multiple aspects of the universe. whereas, manifold entities of the universe divulge the exquisite rhythm and order with the tacit approval of perfect creator. abu sulayman remarked: 88 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... “the marvelous orderliness to be observed in the universe and necessitate both its purposefulness and the moral principles on the basis of which it operates”74 man as a caliph (khalêfah) of allah almighty may perform good deeds in accordance with the divine will and his attributes are like guide-posts. one may decide to perform wisely by dint of his free will.75 in this way humanity may exercise well in relation to what is naturally desired regarding anthropocosmic realm. one may stand to acquire the maximum benefits from divine attributes modeling his inner self and conduct according to the perfect role model of prophet muíammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). as a result, human insight functions considering the universe as the expression of the divine signs. we may imagine why this dialogue has multiple phases of research towards the cosmic order. it highlights, conversely, the central role of the universe towards humanity as well as towards the ultimate reality. 3.3. a metaphysical discourse regarding a divine expression of sërah this title has been coined in the light of verse (55: 29) of sërah alraímén. in the verse, the arabic word ‘wajhu’ is rendered as ‘face’ in english along with many other meanings like front, sense, means, objective, methods, significance, aspect and viewpoints etc. have been stated in the arabic-english dictionaries.76 for the human being, we can say ‘face is the index of mind’ that is human’s identity lies in the face. hence, the face of person indicates person’s self and his reality. unal interpreted this verse as creatio continua that allah almighty continuously creates, annihilates and recreates the universe.77 it is also stated in different verses of the holy qur’én for example verse (2:115) as: َ ّ ِ إِنَّ ّ هُ مَّ َوْج واْ فَثَ ا تَُولُّ ِرُب فَأَْينََم ِرُق َواْلَمْغ ِ اْلَمْش ّ ِ ”َو مٌ “ ٌع َعِلي َواِس “to allah almighty belong the east and the west; whithersoever ye turn, there is the presence of allah almighty. for allah almighty is all-pervading, all-knowing.”78 the expression that allah almighty of islam is omnipresent, his presence everywhere in the universe promotes the concept of an hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 89 acquaintance of man with the universe. dr. ùahir ul qédrê rendered this verse as: “and the east and the west (all) belong to allah almighty alone so whichever direction you turn to, there is the presence of allah almighty (i.e. the essence of allah almighty is radiantly manifest in all directions) surely allah almighty is infinite, all-knowing.”79 when the word face is used in a figurative sense instead of literal meanings according to shaykh ibn al-‘arabê (raímat allah ‘alaih), essence (dhét) and reality (al-×aqêqah) are said to be the synonym of face (wajh), both of which can be comparable for the word nafs or self.80 while regarding the face of allah almighty, he posits that allah almighty’s face or essence lies beyond the human perceptions, as “whichever direction you turn to, there is a face of allah almighty,”81 the divine face means the self-disclosure of allah almighty.82 which shows the guideline directing to the method of understanding, perhaps from physics to metaphysics which is comprehensible and closer to the human intellect comparatively instead of understanding from metaphysics to physics at the end of one’s own reason, because for later condition allah almighty has bestowed upon us the prophetic guidance. moreover, syed hussain naîr stated the ‘face’ with respect to the divine names: “face (wajhu) means in reality the sum of the divine names and qualities as they concerned the world of creation, that is, the aspect of divine reality which has turned towards creation.”83 it can be visualized that how the beautiful starting of the existence was as verse expresses that all things will be perished except his face. from this, we can imagine that the starting of the things without any foundation, that is a beginning less, beginning. the verse of face ends with both attributes of the lord allah almighty that is majesty and generosity as well as dignity and munificence, which is an expression of justice and mercy respectively as an integrated message of the whole sërah. the first half of the verse انٍ “ ا فَ ْن َعلَْيَه لُّ َم may also be compared with the first part of 84”ُك ‘kalimah,’ that it is so closely related and analogous to the concept of ال “ “ the first part of the proclamation of faith i.e. ‘kalima-i tawíêd’ ه اال هللا) and the second half of the verse (ال ال َرامِ ْك َالِل َواْإلِ َك ذُو اْلَج هُ َربِّ ئ َوْج may also be read with the concept 85َويَْبق of “ االهللا ” which is an affirmation (athbét) after negation (nafê). perhaps, this is the way by means of which his mercy enwraps the servant, who eventually surrender his will before the beautiful lord. in 90 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... islamic theology “the face of your lord” as his “essence” (dhét) and “full of majesty and nobility” as his “attribute” (îifét), adding that allah almighty is beyond comparison. these two aspects of ه اال هللا may also be treated ال ال metaphysically. the first part‘there is no allah almighty (shahédah), refers to the affirmation of multiplicity (kathrah) in the existence through which the attributes of allah almighty manifest. syed hussain nac r added that “the second part, ‘but allah almighty’, annihilates any similarity and immanence (tashbêah) in existence by confirming the absolute unity of allah almighty’s essence, consequently transcendence (tanzêah) above creation.”86 now the question of lord’s subsistence is an important one from islamic philosophical concern. leamen added that (baqé) is the verb having meaning everlasting, remained, continued and perpetual. in the holy qur’én this term indicates the eternal attributes of allah almighty, as ئ يٌر َوأَبق ُ َخ َّ i.e. “allah almighty is the best and ever abiding.”87 َو it also shows the everlasting face of allah almighty with full of majesty and honour along with the concept of the everlasting survival, it also describes the hereafter, and dér al-baqé is the abode of everlasting existence.88 hence, these are the different phases of divine manifestation towards man, universes as well as in relation to the life of hereafter. dr. badr hashemi assigned a title for the verses (55:27-28) “divine presence forever” and advised to recite these verses with the last verse of the sërah i.e. lord possessor of the majesty and splendor the lord of supreme countenance.”89 hence, the remarks of scholars may extend our thinking regarding a dynamic view of the universe and self. furthermore, dr iqbél regarding the islamic mystical approach of ma‘rëf karkhê and al-qushayrê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) added that: “like avicenna they looked upon the ultimate reality as “eternal beauty”, whose very nature consists in seeing its own “face” reflected in the universe mirror. the universe, therefore, became to them a reflected image of the “eternal beauty”, and not an emanation as the neo-platonists had taught.”90 we can say that iqbal pointed out islamic thought providing the alternative against the emanation theory. in this metaphysical conversation, william c chittick further adds: “if the divine name were to be taken away; the veil would be lifted; and if the veils, which are the names were to be lifted, the unity (aíadiyyêah) of the essence (dhét) would become manifest.”91 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 91 here everything in the universe encourages us inviting to the beauty of lord showing the super control behind the phenomenal universe. this metaphysical discussion may be compared and analysed in relation to scientific development. scholars admitted that religion helps us towards the appropriate metaphysical context in relation to scientific advancement and safe milieu for humanity. in this way, physical dimensions of the universe will be under observation of science while ultimate cosmic truth is related to allah almighty.92 both dimensions of man or universes may not be ignored for their better play and performance mutually. so, we can say that in between these two statements of the sërah, a path is emerging out setting aside the weakness of ‘annihilation’ and moving towards the stability of ‘subsistence. ‘this process brings the man up and results in a comfortable life in this world and allah almighty’s mercy in the life hereafter. it envelops the exquisiteness of divine remembrance. 4. allah almighty, man and universe nexus: a journey towards ultimate reality we can recapitulate overall discourse considering the objectives and ultimate demand of the subject theme, where all concepts in islamic philosophy revolve around the fundamental creed of oneness of allah almighty (tawíêd). to proceed further elaborating allah almighty, man and universe relationship, we may quote the statement of dr. iqbal (raímat allah ‘alaih): “the main purpose of the holy qur’én is to awaken in man the higher consciousness of his manifold relations with allah almighty and the universe.”93 in islamic cosmological perspective, the study regarding man, cosmos and allah almighty shares the mutual links, having different dimensions. islamic philosophical views of naîr shows that the observation of nature is an act of allah almighty and his constant intervention in the world directly or indirectly. the order of cosmos totally dependent upon him. before the divine unity, there is an interrelation between all things in the cosmos and also between man and the cosmic milieu.94 dr. qaisar shahzad commented on the ibn al-‘arabê’s (raímat allah ‘alaih) metaphysical concept of the human body, a body without 92 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... which the spiritual realization and worships are impossible. he added that “having seen that the (human) body itself has the proper role in knowing allah almighty through his signs.”95 while dogan expands our view regarding the subject link, he commented, “the identity of mankind or his/her ego should be understood from the viewpoint of their vicegerency [caliphate/khiléfah] by representing the names and attributes of allah almighty on earth.”96 here we may correlate the qur’énic verse, “(say that we have taken on the colour from) allah almighty’s own colour, and whose colour is better than allah almighty’s? and we worship him alone.”97 therefore we may think that the degree of human perfection depends upon ‘up to what extent one decorates himself with divine colour and beauty’. or adopting maximum attributes of lord leads us to acquire the status of ‘his devotee’ or perfect men (of different levels) or even at the stage of “contented (pleased) self,”98 following role model and footsteps of the perfect man (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) a sole example of exercising the full divine attributes on the earth. abdul haq ansari added regarding shaykh ahmad sirhandê (raímat allah ‘alaih) that, “the world is dependent on allah almighty and is related to him as a shadow depends on its object, but the exact nature of this dependence is unknowable.”99 moreover, dr. burhén ahmad férëqê’s discussion regarding universe also elaborates the beautiful relation of allah almighty, man and cosmos, where he believes in the transcendence of allah almighty, who is completely beyond and totally dissimilar to the kingdom of man and the universe (khélq-i ké’inét ko méwr’é aor insén aor ‘ólam se mutabé’in aor kuliyyatan judé hona chéí’iye). he further states that the disappointment of man by reason of resistance, difficulties and feeling of extreme worry and sadness due to his own nature and the nature of the cosmos can only be removed only in the case that the remedial source must be different from them i.e. from all creations. he should have the absolute authority (qudrati témah) over them. the creator doesn’t need to expose himself up to some extent. but in fact, he cannot be comprehended totally.100 therefore, instead of the utmost struggle and leaving no stone unturned, the man may not be able to be familiar with spiritual truth exactly as compared to what he can acquire following the prophetic hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 93 guidance towards the gnosis (ma‘rifah) of allah almighty. hence, the role of man concerning this nexus developing his intellectual insight should be in accordance with the everlasting teaching of prophet muíammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). however, man either from the study of universal signs and or in-depth study of his own self may bring him up in this direction. in a similar tone, shagufta begum commented regarding the allah almighty and man relationship in the light of iqbal’s philosophy: “there are two ways of man to know reality. first is that we select the way of observation and think over the symbols of ultimate reality. the other way is to opt the direct relation through our inner self. through it we can get touched with those aspects of reality too, which are beyond our sense perception.”101 we may endorse both ways to grasp what is right and reality. on the other hand, islamic concept of tawíêd demarcates between transcendent creator and the created universe. it is not a static entity but it grows orderly and changes in a conscious fashion providing knowledge to the humanity.102 it is obvious that this relationship demands dynamic behaviour of human life enhancing himself in every next moment of life stepping forward towards moral par-excellence. in case, when one is well-aware of his ultimate objectives then he feels a thirst to saturate his inner self acquiring higher spiritual grade leaving behind what he has a second ago, during his journey towards ultimate reality. it is a mode and manner of practicing moral values at the station of al-iísén (benevolence) obeying prophetic teaching and exercising divine attributes. so, we may think that due to this spiritual invigoration, the role of his physical body and organs (jawérií) can play a vital role to accomplish the ultimate objective of life. in this way one may understand to locate or relocate himself in the cosmic world at suitable place to execute well in relation to allah almighty, cosmos and the other human beings. 5. conclusion after visiting various dimensions of allah almighty, man and universe relationship along with their mutual relation in which qur’énic guidance and prophetic way of action play a vital role in providing us with distinct 94 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... manners and conduct to adopt. man as caliph of allah almighty may observe firm belief in allah almighty and trust in his omnipresence prevailing everywhere, judging various aspects of his creation and cosmic signs. this leads man to perform as per required modus operandi from islamic instructions which are responsible to put him right towards the reality and ultimately towards the ultimate reality. however, from a brief study of sërah al-raímén we examined that the subject relationship has been dealt by the qur’énic verses exceptionally throwing light upon multiple phases. due to this approach, one can realize what is the essential and obligatory acts, human required role and character with reference to the mutual links in between microcosmic and macrocosmic entities in relation to the entire kingdom and its creator. how holy qur’én teaches human being broadening their mental horizon, demanding practiced based living style, providing them the way of dynamics thought regarding anthropocosmic perception. for example, sërah al-raímén put a remarkable address to the human consciousness repeatedly as 31 times awakening intrinsic human abilities to have awareness of self, allah almighty and cosmic sign. hence, instead of just absorbing in the exquisite of the creation, it is necessary to adopt the manner and ethics so that the ultimate destination and objective of life should remain before of eyes of seeker (sélik). the concept of risélah has been discussed as an ideal source of guidance for humanity in order to supervise them concerning physical and metaphysical matters irrespective of race, colour and religion. any new paradigm for any social milieu needed to be consulted directly or indirectly studying and following this perfect standard. as a result, human conscious may get awareness to acquire how to deal with daily issues and one’s ethical character for others as well as his role towards the whole cosmic realm in the presence of allah almighty of islam. this overview makes it crystal clear that the islamic concept of allah almighty, man and universe plus their mutual relationship has multiple dimensions and guidance for humanity to play their role what naturally required encapsulating physical and spiritual dimensions. in this threecornered approach, holy qur’én highlights that the demand of guidance (hidéyah) is indispensable, all-important and obligatory for better performance around the universal milieu. hence this relation may be read as allah almighty, man, universe and guidance (hidéyah)-relationship. so, either anthropocentric address or cosmic-oriented discourse, humanity may find a full-fledged package of guidance for qur’énic viewpoints. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 95 we may imagine why this dialogue has multiple phases of research towards the cosmic order. it highlights, conversely, the central role of the universe towards humanity as well as towards ultimate reality. therefore, the human being a representative of allah almighty on the earth, it is necessary to perform good deeds in accordance with the divine will and his attributes which are like guide-posts where one may exercise his ability wisely by use of his free will without confronting and opposing the universal truths. understandably, that this relationship demands dynamic behaviour of human life enhancing himself in every next moment of life stepping forward to the moral par-excellence. in case, when one gradually becomes well-aware of his ultimate objectives and living style in the cosmic realm duly then he feels a thirst to saturate his inner self acquiring higher spiritual grade leaving behind what he has a second ago, during his journey towards ultimate reality. notes and references 1. ‘abdullah yësuf ‘alê, the holy qur’én: arabic text english translation and commentary (lahore: ashraf printing press, 2006), 1597. 2. abul ×ussain muslim bin al-hajjéj, øaíêí muslim, ed. ×éfiz abë ùéhir zubair ‘au zai (saudi arabia: maktabah dér al-salém, 2007), (2:17). 3. robert audi, the cambridge dictionary of philosophy (england: cambridge university press, 1999), 563. 4. alan robert lacey, a dictionary of philosophy (london: routledge & kegan paul ltd, 1976), 206. 5. david w. hamlyn, metaphysics (oxford: cambridge university press, 1984), 28. 6. “about metaphysics,” the basics of philosophy, accessed may 6, 2020, https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_metaphysics.html 7. dr shehzad qaisar, metaphysics of khawaja farid (lahore: suhail academy, 2009), 22. 8. peter s. groff and oliver leaman, islamic philosophy a-z (george square; edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2007), 133. 9. franz rosenthal, the classical heritage in islam, trans emile and jenny marmorstein (london: routledge publication, 2003), 67. 10. ibrahim kalin, “islam and peace: survey of the sources of peace in the islamic tradition,” islamic studies 44, no. 3 (2005): 327-362. 11. qaisar shahzad, “human body in the sufi metaphysics of muhyi ud din ibn ‘arabi,”islamic studies 46, no. 4 (2007): 499-525. 12. seyyed hossein naîr, an introduction to islamic cosmological doctrine (great britain: thames and hudson ltd publications, 1978), 98. 13. ibid., 69. 14. yësuf ‘alê, the holy qur’én, 1598. 96 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... 15. abë ×émid muíammad bin muíammad al-ghazzélê, mishkét al-anwér, ed. dr. abë al-‘ulé ‘afêfê (cairo egypt: dér al-qawmêyyah, 1964), (1:68). 16. shéh walêalléh, badër al-bézighah (islamabad: national hijra council, 1985), 37-38. 17. abë ×émid muíammad bin muíammad al-ghazzélê, mishkét al-anwér, ed. dr. abë al-‘ulé ‘afêfê (cario egypt: dér al-qawmêyyah, 1964), (1:71). 18. ‘abd al-karêm bin hëzén abk al-qésim al-qushayrê, lam’if al-ishérét (eqypt: al-hay’ah al-maîariyyah al-‘ómah lil-kitéb, 1431), (3:503). 19. abë ‘abdullah muë ‘abdullah uiredal-qurï-bê, al-jémi‘li ’ahkém al-qur’én (qéhrah; eqypt: dér al-kutab al-maîariyah, 1384/1964), (17:152). 20. abë muhammad al-hussain bin masëd al-baghawê, ma‘élim al-tanzêl (riyadh: dér al-ùayyiba, 1997), (7:438). 21. muíammad amên bin muíammad mukhtér al-shanqêïê, ’adhw’u al-bayén fê ôdhéí al-qur’én bil qur’én (beirut lebanon: dér al-fikr, 1995), (7:491). 22. ibid., (7:491-492). 23. muhammad ashfaq, “scientific study of balance (al-mêzén) in the light of sërah al-rahmén,”. journal of islamic and religious studies 1, no. 1(2016):1-17. http://www.jirs.uoh.edu.pk/jirs/index.php?journal=jirs&page=article&op=view& path[]=10.12816%2f0032206. 24. muíammad bin ùahir ibn ‘óshër, tafsêr al-taírêr wa al-tanvêr (tunis: dér altunisia, 1984), 27: 439. 25. muhammad ashfaq, manzoor ahmad al azhari, “impacts of repetitive refrains upon human”thought and comprehension: an exegetical discourse from qur’énic perspective,” al-ilm 4, no. 1 (jan–june 2020): 11-25. 26. muhammad ashfaq, “study of scientific, metaphysical and aesthetic aspects of sërah al-rahmén” (ms thesis., hitec university taxila, 2015), 30–31. 27. dr manzoor ahmad al-azhari, muíammad ashfaq, “lord of two easts and lord of two wests”: a mystico-scientific study of phenomenon stated in sërah al-raímén,” hamdard islamicus 40, no. 1 (january-march 2017): 7-30. 28. al-qushayrê, lat’if al-ishérét, (3:507). 29. abë muíammad sahl bin ‘abdullah al-tustarê, tafsêr al-tustarê (beirut: dér alkutab al-‘ilmiyyah, 1423 ah), 159. 30. muhammad ashfaq, fozia altaf. “natural phenomenon manifested in the confluence of two bodies of flowing water: an exegetical approach with scientific discourse,” journal of religious studies 4, no. 1 (2020):1-26. doi: 10.33195/journal.v4i01.238 31. fakhr al-dên muíammad bin ‘umar al-rézê, mafétêí al-ghayb (al-tafsêr alkabêr) (beirut lebanon: dér al-fikr, 2000), 29: 90-91. 32. al-qurïubê, al-jémi‘ li ’ahkém al-qur’én, (17:163). 33. muíammad bin yësaf abë ×ayén, tafsêr al-baír al-muíêï, ed. sadaqê muhammad jamêl (beirut: dér al-fikr, 1420 ah), 10:61. 34. al-rézê, mafétêí al-ghayb, 29: 100. 35. muíammad bin jarêr abë ja‘far al-ùabarê, tafsêr jémi al-bayén an ta’wêl éy alqur’én ed. ahmed shakar (beirut: maw‘assisah al-risélah, 2000), 23: 43. 36. muíammad matwalê al-sha‘réwê, tafsêr al-sha‘réwê (al-azhar: islamic research academy, 1991), 14829. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 97 37. suhad tahseen elias dawlah, “hope & fear in the holy quran” (master thesis., an-najah national university palestine, 2007), 138. 38. muíammad bin ism‘éêl al-bukhérê, øaíêí bukhérê, trans dr. muíammad muísin khén (saudia arabia: maktaba dér al-salém, 1997), (1:82). 39. muhammad ashfaq, sajjad hussain, “islamic philosophy of benevolence (aliísén) and aesthetic reflection: a study of sërah al-raímén,” journal of islamic theology 1, no. 2 (2019): 1-11. http://jit.thesaharaa.com/index.php/jit/article/view/ 71. 40. al-qurïubê, al-jémi‘ li ’ahkém al-qur’én, 17:83-84. 41. ibréhêm shézlê syed quïb, fê zilél al-qur’én (al-qéhrah: dér al-shurëq, 1412ah), (6:34570. 42. amên aísan iîléíê, tadabbur-i qur’én (lahore: férén foundation, 2009), (8:148). 43. yësuf ‘alê, the holy qur’én, 1404-5. 44. al-rézê, mafétêí al-ghayb, (29:380). 45. muhammad ashfaq and manzoor ahmad al azhari, “impact of qur’én upon aesthetics and its evolution: a”religio-cultural discourse.” journal of islamic thought and civilization 10, no. 1 (2020): 212–234. doi: https://doi.org/10.32350/ jitc.101.12 46. yësuf ‘alê, the holy qur’én, 1406. 47. the holy qur’én (2:142-178) in addition to the verses (2: 164) in cosmic phenomena have been stated. 48. the holy qur’én (55:3). 49. al-rézê, mafétêí al-ghayb, (29:76). 50. syed g safvi, “perfect man in the rumi’s perspective,” transcendent philosophy 10, (2009): 119-134. 51. al-bukhérê, øaíêí bukhérê, ×adêth 6227, (8:138). 52. recep dogan, “the nature of man in islam,” the international journal of religion and spirituality in society 4, no.3 (2014): 27-39. doi:10.18848/21548633/cgp/v04i03/51093 53. dr. ali raza tahir, “allah almighty, human being, and universe (a viewpoint of nahjul baléghah)” institute of interdisciplinary business research 4, no. 12 (april 2013): 1273. 54. annemarie schimmel, mystical dimensions of islam (usa: the university of north carolina press, 1975), 272. 55. muhyêi-dên ibn al-‘arabê, al-futëíat al-makkiyyah (beirut lebanon: dér alkutab al-‘ilmiyyah, n-d.), (3:390). 56. syed hussain naîr, three muslim sages: avicenna, suhrawardi and ibn ‘arabê (lahore: suhail academy, 1999), 110. 57. willaim c chittick, sufi path of knowledge (lahore: suhail academy, 2006), 352. 58. ibn al-‘arabê, shajrét al-kawn, trans arther jeffery (pakistan: aziz publications, 1980), 123-125. 59. javed jamil, “purpose of the creation of man: qur’én’s true version of anthropic principle,” international journal of islamic thought 16, (dec. 2019): 51-63. https://doi.org/10.24035/ijit.16.2019.005 60. muíammad zia ul haq, rashad ahmad saljooq, “the concept of allah almighty in islam and the world religions: a comparative study,” al-idah 31, no. 2 (dec. 2015): 44-65. http://al-idah.szic.pk/index.php/al-idah/article/view/163. 98 metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective ... 61. recep dogan, “the position of human being in the universe according to islam,” sociology and anthropology 1, no.3 (2013): 146-147. doi: 10.13189/ sa.2013.010302 62. muhammad suheyl umar, “image of allah almighty: a note on scriptural anthropology,” iqbal review 52, no. 2, 4 (2011): 36-37. 63. sir muíammad iqbal, the reconstruction of religious thought in islam (london: oxford university press, 1934), 9-12. 64. majid fakhr, islamic philosophy, theology and mysticism: a short introduction (london: one world publications, 2000), 3-4. 65. sir muíammad iqbal, bél-i-jibrêl (lahore: taj company, 1935), 44. 66. sir muhammad iqbal, secrets of the self, trans. by reynold a. nicholson (london: macmillan publishers ltd, 1920), 12. 67. jamil, “purpose of the creation of man,” 62. 68. the holy qur’én (55:7-10). 69. abdul hamid a abu sulayman, the qur’énic worldview: a springboard for cultural reform (london: international institute of islamic thought, 2011), 87. 70. the holy qur’én (55:3). 71. al-bukhérê, øaíêí bukhérê, (7:336). 72. franz rosenthal, the classical heritage in islam, 69-70. 73. ibid., 67. 74. abu sulayman, the qur’énic worldview, 74. 75. saeed malik, a perspective on the signs of al-qur’an: through the prism of the heart (booksure publisher, 2010), 199. 76. “about wajhu” almaany dictionary, accessed may 10, 2020, https:// www.almaany.com/en/dict/ar-en 77. alê unal, the qur’én with annotated interpretation in the modern english (new jersey: light publication, 2007), 1241. 78. yësuf ‘alê, the holy qur’én: text and translation, 49. 79. dr. ùahir ul qédrê, the holy qur’én (lahore: minhéj ul qur’én publications, 2006), 31. 80. william c chittick, the self disclosure of allah almighty (lahore: suhail academy, 2000), 91. 81. the holy qur’én (2:115). 82. chittick, the self disclosure of allah almighty, 92. 83. seyyed hossein nac r, a young muslin guide to the modern world (lahore: suhail academy, 2004), 26. 84. the holy qur’én (55:26). 85. the holy qur’én (55:27). 86. naîr, three muslim sages, 109. 87. the holy qur’én (20:73). 88. oliver leamen, the qur’én an encyclopedia (new york: rutledge taylor & francis, 2006), 109. 89. badr hashimê, highlights of the qur’én (islamabad: holy qur’én research foundation (trust) nazim ud dim road f-8/4, 2014). 90. dr. muíammad iqbél, development of metaphysics in persia: a contribution to the history of muslim philosophy (lahore:bazm-e-iqbal, 1954), 88. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 99 91. william c chittick, divine names and theophanies: the meccan revelation selected from al-futûhât al-makkiya of ibn ‘arabê (lahore: suhail academy, 2004), 46. 92. dr. anwar saeed khan and dr. muíammad jamal nasir, “the creation of universe in the light of qur’én,” journal al-idah 33, no. 2 (dec.2016): 86-93. 93. iqbél, reconstruction of religious thought in islam, 8. 94. naîr, an introduction to islamic cosmological doctrine, 277. 95. shahzad, human body in the sufi metaphysics of muhyêi-dên ibn ‘arabê, 3133. 96. dogan, “the position of human being in the universe according to islam,” 147. 97. the holy qur’én (2:138). 98. the holy qur’én (89:27-30). 99. abdul haq ansari, “shaykh ahmad sirhandê’s doctrine of wahdat al-shuhëd,” islamic studies 37, no. 3 (autumn, 1998): 27. 100. burhén aímad férëqê, minhaj ul qur’én (lahore: idéra thaqéfat-i islémî, 1998), 102-105. 101. shagufta begum, “man allah almighty relationship in the philosophical system of iqbél,”al-hikmah journal 24, (2004):11-18. 102. fathi hasan malkawi, epistemological integration: essentials of an islamic methodology (london: the international institute of islamic thought (iiit), 2015), 5, 33. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 3\macroeconomic indicators contributing towards.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 61 macroeconomic indicators contributing towards exchange rate volatility: evidence from income groups of the countries amjad fakher rana ejaz ali khan department of economics, the islamia university of bahawalpur, bahawalpur, pakistan. the focus of the study is to explore the macroeconomic factors contributing towards exchange rate volatility in group of economies segregated on the basis of income. further analysis is extended to identify the role of underlying macroeconomic indicators in explaining the exchange rate behavior at level. the panel ardl cointegration and panel granger causality test are employed on annual data sets for the period 1995-2015. the results of the separate analysis have been compared in first place on the basis of determinants of exchange rate volatility and the determinants of exchange rate level and secondly on the basis of income groups of the countries (high income, middle income and low income). the results provide the evidence that exchange rate behaviour both in terms of volatility and at level is entirely governed by the selected set of macroeconomic indicators in all three panel data sets. the findings of the study validated the fundamentals based macroeconomic models of exchange rate determination and suggested that macroeconomic fundamentals played important role in derivation of exchange rate volatility as well as exchange rate level. moreover response of exchange rate volatility and exchange rate level to the different macroeconomic indicators has been observed very sensitive to the income level of the countries. the comparison of the factors of exchange rate volatility and exchange rate level will enhance exposure about the policies concerned about exchange rate behaviour. keywords: exchange rate, exchange rate volatility, macroeconomic indicators, high income countries, middle income countries, low income countries, pmg, panel granger causality jel codes f31, e31, e47, e01, n1 62 macroeconomics indicators contributing... introduction the theoretical and empirical literature asserted on the existence of linkages between exchange rate fluctuations and fundamental macroeconomic indicators. however as per research literature the role of macroeconomic variables in determination of exchange rate dynamics lacked general consensus. moreover most of the previous research had been devoted to determine the factors that explain and forecast exchange rate equilibrium at level. however a few number of studies have tried to investigate the relationship between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic indicators thus it is relevant to see whether volatility in exchange rates is just the result of overshooting more than the changes in the macroeconomic fundamentals. the theory has proposed several structural models that assume the patrons of exchange rate changes affected by macroeconomic indicators like portfolio balance models and monetary exchange rate models. in this respect most influential and mostly used exchange rate models are the monetary models of the exchange rate determination that depend on principle of interest rate parity and the purchasing power parity. the models which are designed to forecast and estimate exchange rate movements in relation to market fundamentals are called fundamentals based exchange rate models. however, meese and rogoff (1983) empirically established that exchange rate models based on fundamental macroeconomic variables failed to outperform the random walk models. the missing link between exchange rate and macroeconomic variables as identified by meese and rogoff (1983 a,b) got fame in theory as exchange rate disconnect puzzle. thus, in any case it is worth mentioning that influence of macroeconomic indicators on exchange rate fluctuations is undoubtedly an open issue and controversial as well. another factor regarding the varying results in this regard is that there exist a number of approaches of exchange rate determination which are suitable in one way and criticized in the other way. exchange rate as variable itself is proxied by number of ways like in real terms, nominal terms, in terms of volatility, as ratio of domestic currency to foreign currency, as ratio of foreign currency to domestic currency. withal, selection of macroeconomic variables in this respect varies (ricci et al., 2013; rapetti, skott & razmi, 2012; ojo & allege, 2014). the selection of macroeconomic variable in first place depend on the theory, secondly on the model selection (model being selected for analysis) and finally on the area of study. besides all of this the main matter of hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 63 research remained confined to the question that which macroeconomic variables drive exchange rate behaviour. in this context the current study is aimed at investigating the determinants of exchange rate volatility and exchange rate level for panel data sets of advanced countries and least developed countries. the study will contribute to the empirical literature by incorporating the exchange rate volatility to the conventional open economy macroeconomic models of exchange rate determination. moreover, it will try to fill the research gap regarding comparative analysis of the determinants of exchange rate volatility and determinants of exchange rate level in cross country perspective. further the econometric issues regarding application of panel data methodology have been tried to overcome by application of multiple methodologies with different econometrical assumptions. literature review most of the theoretical and empirical literature regarding exchange rate behavior is subject to determine the macroeconomic fundamentals of exchange rate level. it has created a kind of research gap in investigating the underlying variables which influence the exchange rate volatility. generally the empirical research regarding exchange rate behaviour can be divided into three major categories with respect to application of different approaches of exchange rate determination. in first place there come empirical studies that have applied monetary models. these studies used monetary fundamentals as the factors of exchange rate level (frenkel, 1976; hodrick,1978; bilson, 1978). second stream of empirical studies applied optimum currency areas in a way that these studies incorporate trade linkages, economic shocks to output, geographical factors and country size as the determinants of exchange rate level (aydin, 2010; prabheesh, malathy & madhumathi, 2007; rapach & wohar, 2002). respectively, third category of studies used new open economy macroeconomic theory wherein monetary and non-monetary indicators are modeled to estimate the exchange rate changes (engel & west, 2005; kearney & macdonald, 1990; mark & sul, 2001). by the time as concept of variance of exchange rate is getting weightage the researchers has shifted their attention to measure the elements contributing towards volatility. however, literature has identified a wide range of factors of determination of exchange rate by varying techniques, using different kinds of data sets for different economies and group of economies. for 64 macroeconomics indicators contributing... instance, per capita gdp (cakrani et al., 2013), net oil trade (aydin, 2010), trade (choudhri & khan, 2005; canzoneri, cumby & diba, 1999; ricci et al., 2013), population growth (aydin, 2010), remittances (vitek, 2009; aydin, 2010), trade openness (cakrani et al., 2013; aydin, 2010), foreign aid (aydin, 2010), government expenditures (mcpherson & rakovski, 1998; ricci et al., 2013), price controls (ricci et al., 2013), net foeign assets (vitek, 2009; ricci et al., 2013; aydin, 2010), fiscal imbalance (aydin, 2010), money supply (kandil & mirzaie, 2005), foreign direct investment (christiansen, prati, ricci & tressel, 2009; ojo & allege, 2014), foreign assets (christopoulos et al., 2012; ricci et al., 2013), inflation (ramasamy & abar, 2015; ojo & allege, 2014), imports (benetrix & lane, 2013; kemal & qadir, 2005); exports (kemal & qadir, 2005) and financial sector development (stavarek & maglietti, 2015). similarly, the macroeconomic indicators affecting the volatility of exchange rate have been analyzed and identified by a number of studies. they include national output (calderon, 2004), gdp (azeez, kolapo & ajayi, 2012), economic growth (ebaidalla, 2014; arratibel et al., 2011), financial openness (calderon, 2004), money supply (bobai et al., 2013), monetary aggregates (calderon, 2004), central bank independence (hau, 2002), foreign direct investment (khraiche & gaudette, 2013; bobai et al., 2013), government expenditures (calderon, 2004), current account deficit (bobai et al., 2013), terms of trade (rapetti et al., 2012; calderon, 2004), trade openness (hau, 2002; calderon, 2004; ebaidalla, 2014), exports (khan et al., 2014; zakaria, 2013), imports (khan et al., 2014) revolution and coups (hau, 2002), volatility in exports (supaat, jiun, tiong & robinson, 2003), volatility in imports (supaat et al., 2003), volatility in money supply (supaat et al., 2003; morana, 2009), volatility in output (supaat et al., 2003; morana, 2009), volatility in interbank rate (supaat et al., 2003), volatility in inflation (morana, 2009), credit (bobai et al., 2013) exchange rate regimes (calderon, 2004), exchange rate commitments (hau, 2002) and inflation (rapetti et al., 2012; bobai et al., 2013). a number of studies have given the evidence that there exist the bi-directional causality relationship between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic indicators. morana (2009) found bi-directional causality between exchange rate volatility and volatility in output, volatility in inflation and volatility in aggregate demand. giannellis and papadopoulos (2011) observed bi-directional causality between exchange rate volatility and interest rate differentials. arize et al. (2000) found bi-directional causality between exchange rate volatility and exports. mahmood, ehsanullah and hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 65 ahmed (2011) observed bi-directional causality between exchange rate volatility and public investment. dlamini (2014) observed inflation cause exchange rate volatility. azid, jamil, kousar and kemal (2005) observed bi-directional causality between real exchange rate and economic growth. ojo and allege (2014) observed bi-directional causality between nominal exchange rate and trade openness, inflation and interest rate. rehman (2014) observed bi-directional causality between exchange rate and total reserves. madesha et al. (2013) observed bi-directional causality between exchange rate and inflation. identification of the research gap . the literature provides limited evidence on the determinants of exchange rate volatility that has utilized multiple panel data sets and conducted a comparative analysis of the determinants of exchange rate level and exchange rate volatility covering the group of the economies segregated by income. . the exchange rate disconnect puzzle questioned the role of macroeconomic indicators in deriving the exchange rate behaviour. however none of the study has tried to investigate whether the questioned link between exchange rate and macroeconomic variables is sensitive to the choice of exchange rate level and exchange rate volatility as explained variable. . in application of cross country panel econometric analysis some studies assume the coefficient homogeneity (for example application of gmm estimators and panel granger causality) while others assume coefficient heterogeneity (for instance panel cointegration techniques) but there are very limited studies which have examined the said relationship in both referred contexts. research methodology model specification the objective of this study is to identify the relationship between the fundamental macroeconomic indicators and exchange rate volatility as well as exchange rate level. thus, an open economy macroeconomic model of exchange rate determination is devised. the functional form of the model is given as: 66 macroeconomics indicators contributing... exrv = f(gdpc, cab, fdi, fdev, gexp, inf, reserv ,trade) ………… (1) exrl = f(gdpc, cab, fdi, fdev, gexp, inf, reserv ,trade) …………. (2) where, exrv = exchange rate volatility (volatility series generated by garch model) exrl = exchange rate level (official exchange rate level measured as local currency units per us dollars gdpc = economic growth (measured by gdp per capita) cab = current account balance fdi = foreign direct investment (percentage of gdp) fdev = financial development (credit to private sector) gexp = government expenditures (percentage of gdp) inf = inflation rate (consumer price index represented in annual %) reserv = total reserves (current us dollars.) trade = trade openness (net trade in goods and services. data are in current us dollars) measuring volatility different kinds of distortions like political instability, economic interdependence, rise or fall in oil prices, supply or demand boom or crises, disasters, global or national financial crises and technological advancements caused widespread effects on the financial indicators, such as exchange rates. thus intensity of these elements is better explained by the volatility in the exchange rate time series rather than that of exchange rate values at current level. the process of capturing the hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 67 shocks and understanding the behaviour of series through driving the variance series is technically called volatility. through garch process the exchange rate series include lagged dependent variable (say exrt1) in the model to capture the elements of heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation and follow the above referred conditionality. in this way garch process generate the variance series of exchange rate that is called exchange rate volatility. the exchange rate volatility has been measured by simple garch (1,1) model in this study1. estimation techniques the current research study has selected three distinct panel data sets of high income countries, middle income countries and low income countries to estimate the connotation of the said relationship further panel auto regressive distributive lag (ardl) and panel granger causality test have been applied for the analysis. now a days, it has become a tradition to apply the cross country panel data frame work to different theoretical propositions. panel data estimation, technically, helped to tackle more complex issues that cannot be considered by purely time series analysis. panel data application allow individual heterogeneity among different units of the data set, moreover, it can remove the effects of omitted variables which are particular to the individual cross section units but remain constant over time. another advantage of panel data application is that the combination of time series and cross section dimensions in panel data lead to increase the degree of freedom that lead to resolve the issues of multicollinearity. panel cointegration the dynamic time series analysis cannot ignore the issue of non stationarity. three distinct types of unit root tests being differentiated on the basis of their statistical procedure, namely im, pesaran and shin test (ips), hadri langrange multiplier test (hlm) and levin, lin and chu test (llc) are applied to check the stationarity. modeling the panel cointegration the long run information in time series can be intact through the process of cointegration. cointegration not only facilitate in the course of 1. it is followed from the studies (ebaidalla, 2014; supaat et al., 2003; udoh et al., 2012; yunana et al., 2016). 68 macroeconomics indicators contributing... analysis of long run association among the considered integrated variables, moreover, it reparameterize the relationship into error correction model. this idea was formulized by granger (1981) and later on by engle and granger (1987) along with the estimation procedure and specification test. panel ardl approach pesaran, shin and smith. (1999) incorporated the dynamic heterogeneous panel regression into the error correction model by applying the auto regressive distributive lag, ardl (p,q) methodology. specifically, in cross country analysis where the long run coefficients and the speed of convergence towards the long run are parameters of interest, the panel ardl methodology is assumed as best choice. an important advantage of the panel ardl cointegration methodology is that it can be applied even if the selected variables have different order of integration. in other words, whether variables under consideration are i(0) or i(1). moreover, both the short run and long run relationship among the selected variables can be estimated simultaneously from the panel data set with large time dimensions and large cross sections. causal relationship in addition to understanding the exchange rate behaviour in response to its macroeconomic factors, the potential causal association between exchange rate and macroeconomic factors may be important to cover the scope of the research. in this respect application of granger causality test is considered to test the direction of causality among the selected variables. data source the annual data set for the panels of high income countries, middle income countries and low income countries covering the time period from 1995 to 2015 is taken from world development indicators (wdi) and oecd countries data. the countries having gross national per capita income 12376 dollars or more are taken as high income countries. the countries with gni per capita between 1026 and 12375 dollars are classified as middle income countries and the countries with gni per hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 69 capita 1025 dollars or less have been selected as low income countries. further in order to fill the missing values, the data have been retrieved from the official websites of the selected countries, especially websites of concerned country’s central banks and statistical bureaus. results and discussions estimation results for panel data set of high income countries panel ardl results for high income countries the result of three panel unit root tests for panel data set of high income countries have been represented in table 1. the test results indicate that some variables are stationary at level while some are stationary at first difference. the situation allows the application of panel ardl only. the results of panel ardl estimation are shown in table 2. this technique has an advantage that it does not assume homogeneity of the coefficients. further it allows the short run parametric coefficients to differ across the cross-sections, however it computes common long run coefficients. the estimation results of exchange rate volatility function for the high income countries shown in table 2 established that there exists a strong long run relationship between exchange rate volatility and the selected set of macroeconomic indicators. whereas error correction term shows the speed of adjustment which shows value of the coefficient of convergence is -0.1731, that is statistically significant and negative, which, clearly indicates no omitted variable bias. the long run results explain that gdpc, cab, fdi, fdev and gexp have negative impact on exchange rate volatility. further impact of inf, reserv and trade has been observed positive on exrv in long run (the findings are in line with bobai et al., 2013; devereux & lane, 2003; esquivel & larrain, 2002; grydaki & fountas, 2009). further reserv and trade are found to have positive contribution in exrv in long run and direction of relationship is not as expected. most probable justification of the positive long run relationship between total reserves and exchange rate volatility is that high income countries maintained a high level of total reserves and further increase in total reserves causes increase in exchange rate volatility (see for instance, grossmann, love & orlov, 2014). likewise increase in trade openness also results increase in exchange rate volatility in long run (ebaidalla, 2014; kilicarslan, 2018). 70 macroeconomics indicators contributing... table. 1 results of panel unit root tests for high income countries variables im, peseran levin, lin and hadri z-statistics and shin (ips) chu (llc) level first level first level first diff. diff. diff. lexrv -6.299 -6.281 8.434 3.335 (0.000) 12.361 (0.000) 15.973 (0.009) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lexrl -1.357 -2.519 -0.477 -8.631 7.856 13.464 (0.087) (0.005) (0.000) (0.316) (0.000) (0.000) lgdpc 4.389 -4.889 4.502 8.994 12.977 (1.000) (0.000) (0.000) 11.326 (1.000) (0.000) (0.000) lcab -1.743 -3.168 8.373 10.761 (0.041) 17.988 (0.001) 19.591 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lfdi -9.293 4.573 49.664 10.561 23.674 (0.000) 23.291 (0.462) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lfdev -0.904 -3.627 9.848 22.767 (0.183) 10.821 (0.000) 13.720 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lgexp -1.183 -2.149 12.329 13.230 (0.118) 12.843 (0.015) 16.781 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) linf -7.406 -9.579 8.582 25.246 (0.000) 19.522 (0.000) 21.051 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lreserv 0.411 -0.338 11.470 6.600 (0.659) 13.149 (0.367) 17.022 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) ltrade -0.257 -1.981 12.660 7.317 (0.397) 14.218 (0.023) 15.955 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 71 note: values in parentheses are estimated p values. the options used are: individual trend and intercept, lag length chosen by schwarz automatic selection (schwarz, 1978), kernel method of bartlett (bartlett, 1948) obtained by special estimation and bandwidth selection by automatic newey-west (newey & west, 1994) table. 2 results of pooled mean group regression of ardl for exchange rate behaviour in high income countries independent dependent variable dependent variable variables lexrv lexrl coefficient z coefficient z statistics statistics long run results lgdpc -0.0406 -4.85* -0.8731 -15.38* (0.000) (0.000) lcab -0.0196 -5.02* 0.0633 3.84* (0.000) (0.000) lfdi -0.0119 -5.99* 0.0882 7.53* (0.000) (0.000) lfdev -0.0317 -1.66*** 0.0035 0.14 (0.098) (0.886) lgexp -0.3244 -3.81* -0.7850 -6.13* (0.000) (0.000) linf 0.0503 5.75* 0.1258 6.06* (0.000) (0.000) lreserv 0.0265 4.93* 0.4193 11.72* (0.000) (0.000) ltrade 0.0032 5.53* 0.0136 7.50* (0.000) (0.000) short run results ect -0.1732 -4.93* -0.0141 -1.27 (0.000) (0.205) 72 macroeconomics indicators contributing... independent dependent variable dependent variable variables lexrv lexrl coefficient z coefficient z statistics statistics lgdpc -0.4759 -1.79*** -0.6523 -12.95* (0.074) (0.000) lcab -0.0185 -0.28 0.0011 0.21 (0.782) (0.832) lfdi 0.0281 0.98 0.0012 0.70 (0.327) (0.483) lfdev 0.0958 0.45 0.0216 0.76 (0.656) (0.450) lgexp -0.2822 -0.34 -0.2055 -4.90* (0.735) (0.000) linf -0.0234 -0.92 0.0094 3.35* (0.355) (0.001) lreserv 0.0145 0.17 -0.0107 -1.12 (0.867) (0.264) ltrade -0.0392 -0.41 0.0084 1.32 (0.679) (0.188) number of groups 44 44 no. of observations 880 880 log likelihood 2078.526 2791.97 note: *, ** and *** represent 1, 5 and 10 percent level of significance respectively. values in parentheses are estimated p values. the results represented on right hand side in table 2 are the panel ardl estimates for exchange rate level function. the results show strong long run association between the exchange rate level and macroeconomic indicators as all the independent variables are significant at level of one percent except financial development. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 73 table. 3 panel granger causality test results for exchange rate volatility (high income countries) causality unidirectional no causality no causality no causality no causality bidirectional unidirectional no causality observations 836 836 836 836 836 836 836 836 f-stat 5.24671 0.64414 1.89551 0.62291 0.95645 0.53669 0.09725 0.09906 2.05246 0.04025 7.57219 4.25401 2.25428 4.32820 0.42516 0.71823 probability 0.0054 0.5254 0.1509 0.5366 0.3847 0.5849 0.9073 0.9057 0.1291 0.9605 0.0006 0.0145 0.1056 0.0135 0.6538 0.4879 decision reject accept accept accept accept accept accept accept accept accept reject reject accept reject accept accept null hypothesis lgdpc does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lgdpc lcab does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lcab lfdi does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lfdi lfdev does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lfdev lgexp does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lgexp linf does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause linf lreserv does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lreserv ltrade does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause ltrade 74 macroeconomics indicators contributing... however the effect of gdpc and gexp on exrl observed negative and effect of cab, fdi, inf, reserv and trade observed positive (calderon, chong & loayza, 2002; eichengreen, 2007; rashidin, ullah & jehangir, 2017; saeed, awan, sial, & sher, 2012). however negative relationship between exrl and gdpc and gexp, whereas, positive relationship between exrl and inf in high income countries is against the theory (the findings of the study are in line with, cavallo, cottani & kahn, 1990; ojo & allege, 2014; ramasamy & abar, 2015). one of the main reasons of this theoretical deviation might be the peculiar nature of panel data set of high income countries. all the countries in this group of countries contained high level of per capita income more than 12376 dollars. panel granger causality test results for exchange rate volatility (high income countries) the results of pair wise granger causality test are given in table 3. it is observed that there exists bidirectional causality between exrv and inf (ali, mahmood, & bashir, 2015). however gdpc observed to affect exrv but exrv does not granger cause the gdpc. further reserv does not granger cause exrv but exrv granger cause the total reserves. the results have established that there exists a weak relationship between exchange rate volatility and the macroeconomic indicators. the results of panel granger causality test for exchange rate level (high income countries) the table 4 shows the pair wise panel granger causality estimates of exchange rate level function for the panel date set of high income countries. the results indicate bidirectional causation between exrl and cab and reserv (rehman, 2014). there exists unidirectional causality between exrl and gexp. likewise, trade granger cause the exchange rate level but exchange rate level does not cause the changes in trade openness (vijayakumar, 2014; yaya & lu, 2012). the results show the possibility of cause and effect relationship between exchange rate level and macroeconomic indicators in high income countries but the relationship did not seem stronger. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 75 table. 4 panel granger causality test results for exchange rate level (high income countries) null hypothesis lgdpc does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lgdpc lcab does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lcab lfdi does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lfdi lfdev does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lfdev lgexp does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lgexp linf does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause linf lreserv does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lreserv ltrade does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause ltrade observations 836 836 836 836 836 836 836 836 decision accept accept reject reject accept accept accept accept accept reject accept accept reject reject reject accept f-stat 2.13804 1.36063 5.09020 3.24792 1.71862 0.15544 0.17425 0.72136 1.80705 2.57080 0.54338 1.64994 14.2037 6.17514 3.13850 2.07803 probability 0.1185 0.2571 0.0064 0.0393 0.1800 0.8561 0.840 0.486 0.164 0.077 0.581 0.192 0.000 0.002 0.043 0.125 causality no causality bidirectional no causality no causality unidirectional no causality bidirectional unidirectional 76 macroeconomics indicators contributing... estimation results for panel data set of middle income countries panel ardl results for middle income countries the results of panel unit rest tests are represented in table 5 for middle income countries. the results show that some variables have unit root in the time series at level while others have unit root in the time series at the first difference. table. 5 results of panel unit root tests for exchange rate volatility (middle income countries) variables im, peseran levin, lin and hadri z-statistics and shin (ips) chu (llc) level first level first level first diff. diff. diff. lexrv 0.705 -22.337 0.023 14.994 11.283 (0.759) (0.000) (0.509) 19.417 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lexrl -4.237 -13.493 -2.593 16.622 16.314 (0.000) (0.000) (0.004) 41.041 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lgdpc 0.829 -8.106 -0.743 11.207 15.776 (0.796) (0.000) (0.228) 14.374 (0.000) (0.000)\ (0.000) lcab -5.038 -21.747 -6.775 13.091 12.032 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) 20.877 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lfdi -7.518 -27.920 -7.497 10.415 11.223 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) 27.860 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lfdev 1.182 -16.813 -0.341 15.321 9.859 (0.881) (0.000) (0.366) 19.506 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lgexp -3.295 -2.795 13.517 16.119 (0.000) 25.3452 (0.002) 26.364 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 77 linf -28.292 16.659 20.370 14.333 (0.000) 17.367 27.993 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lreserv 2.251 -18.826 2.767 11.771 13.783 (0.987) (0.000) (0.997) 21.899 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) ltrade -0.501 -18.864 1.949 10.628 11.677 (0.691) (0.000) (0.974) 19.768 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) note: values in parentheses are estimated p values. the options used are: individual trend and intercept, lag length chosen by schwarz automatic selection (schwarz, 1978), kernel method of bartlett (bartlett, 1948) obtained by special estimation and bandwidth selection by automatic newey-west (newey & west, 1994) the long run and short run results of pooled mean group (pmg) regression with dependent variable exchange rate volatility are given in table 6 on left hand side. the long run results explain that the exchange rate volatility in middle income countries is entirely determined by the macroeconomic indicators. the macroeconomic variables gdpc and inf have positive effect on exrv whereas cab, fdev, fdi, gexp and reserv have negative long run impact on the exchange rate volatility (the findings are in line with ali et al., 2015; arabi, 2012; calderon, 2004; hviding, nowak & ricci, 2004; kilicarslan, 2018; serven, 2003). the results of pooled mean group (pmg) estimation of exchange rate level function for panel data set of middle income countries are given on right hand side in table 6. the long run results show strong influence of macroeconomic variables in determination of exchange rate level. the results show that cab, gexp and inf have negative impact on the exchange rate movements in the long run. on the other hand impact of gdpc, fdev and reserv have been observed statistically significant and positive on the exchange rate level (chowdhery & hossein, 2014; eichengreen, 2007; iavorschi, 2014; ojo & allege, 2014; william & parsad, 2019). however negative impact of cab and gexp on exrl in middle income countries is against the theory. one of the major reason of this theoretical deviation is that middle income countries are facing persistent current account deficits further governments in these countries are spending more on non-tradable goods (see for instance, cakrani et 78 macroeconomics indicators contributing... al., 2013; william & parsad, 2019). further, the short run analysis shows that impact of gdpc, fdev and gexp is negative on exchange rate level and impact of inflation observed positive on exchange rate level. table. 6 results of pooled mean group regression of ardl for exchange rate behaviour in middle income countries independent dependent variable dependent variable variables lexrv lexrl coefficient z coefficient z statistics statistics long run results lgdpc 1.9799 10.75* 0.5240 7.05* (0.000) (0.000) lcab -0.0769 -2.41** -0.3308 -9.01* (0.016) (0.000) lfdi -0.0893 -1.65*** 0.0246 0.73 (0.098) (0.466) lfdev -0.5446 -4.60* 0.2356 4.35* (0.000) (0.000) lgexp -1.1526 -4.33* -0.1383 -2.17** (0.000) (0.030) linf 0.2837 5.34* -0.3016 -10.38* (0.000) (0.000) lreserv -1.2648 -13.07* 0.1442 3.51* (0.000) (0.000) ltrade 0.0075 1.26 -0.0063 -1.20 (0.208) (0.231) short run results ect -0.2414 -5.68* 0.0000 0.14 (0.000) (0.891) lgdpc -1.3417 -1.90** -0.6381 -14.15* (0.057) (0.000) hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 79 independent dependent variable dependent variable variables lexrv lexrl coefficient z coefficient z statistics statistics lcab -0.1361 -1.60 0.0047 0.87 (0.109) (0.385) lfdi 0.0517 0.44 0.0015 0.46 (0.658) (0.648) lfdev -0.4440 -0.98 -0.0881 -3.50* (0.326) (0.000) lgexp -0.2535 -0.25 -0.1260 -3.73* (0.799) (0.000) linf -0.0181 -0.23 0.0192 2.90* (0.819) (0.004) lreserv -0.2804 -1.24 -0.0186 -1.33 (0.217) (0.183) ltrade 0.3587 1.63 0.0010 0.13 (0.103) (0.897) number of groups 68 68 no. of observations 1360 1360 log likelihood -488.1488 3088.973 note: *, ** and *** represent 1, 5 and 10 percent level of significance respectively. values in parentheses are estimated p values. panel granger causality test results for exchange rate volatility (middle income countries) the estimation results of pair wise panel granger causality test are given in table 7. the results indicate existence of bidirectional causality between exrv and gdpc (the findings are in line with aliyu, 2009; morana, 2009). the results show government expenditure does not cause the exchange rate volatility while exchange rate volatility granger cause the government expenditures. 80 macroeconomics indicators contributing... table. 7 panel granger causality test results for exchange rate volatility (middle income countries) null hypothesis lgdpc does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lgdpc lcab does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lcab lfdi does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lfdi lfdev does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lfdev lgexp does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lgexp linf does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause linf lreserv does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lreserv ltrade does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause ltrade observations 1292 1292 1292 1292 1292 1292 1292 1292 f-stat 7.07957 2.74529 0.19462 0.14831 1.03883 0.65360 1.87629 0.89030 1.16678 4.93765 0.52850 0.34561 1.94341 0.47213 0.40221 1.52973 probability 0.0009 0.0646 0.8232 0.8622 0.3542 0.5203 0.1536 0.4108 0.3117 0.0073 0.5896 0.7079 0.1436 0.6238 0.6689 0.2170 decision reject reject accept accept accept accept accept accept accept reject accept accept accept accept accept accept causality bidirectional no causality no causality no causality unidirectional no causality no causality no causality hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 81 thus in case of panel data set of middle income countries the causality analysis provides the evidence of poor relationship between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic variables. panel granger causality test results for exchange rate level (middle income countries) the results of pair wise panel granger causality test have been given in table 8. the results indicate evidence of bidirectional causality between exrl and cab, fdev, inf, reserv and trade. further fdi and gexp do not granger cause exrl however exrl cause the changes in fdi and gexp. table. 8 panel granger causality test results for exchange rate level (middle income countries) observations 1292 1292 1292 1292 1292 null hypothesis lgdpc does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lgdpc lcab does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lcab lfdi does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lfdi lfdev does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lfdev lgexp does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lgexp f-stat 0.28030 1.53020 17.8314 11.4508 0.48296 3.44935 10.46953 1.6480 0.27709 3.20341 probability 0.7556 0.2169 0.0000 0.0000 0.6171 0.0321 0.0000 0.0000 0.7580 0.0409 decision accept accept reject reject accept reject reject reject accept reject causality no causality bidirectional unidirectional bidirectional unidirectional 82 macroeconomics indicators contributing... thus the causality analysis provides the evidence of strong cause and effect relationship between the exchange rate level and selected set of macroeconomic indicators (azid et al., 2005; khan, sattar & rehman, 2012; ojo & allege, 2014; rehman, 2014; sekmen, 2007) estimation results for panel data set of low income countries panel ardl results for low income countries the panel unit root test results for panel data set of low income countries are given in table 9. it is the case where selected variables have order of integration i(0) and i(1) thus preferred technique of cointegration is the panel ardl. the results of panel ardl cointegration are given in table 10. the long run results of the panel ardl show that exchange rate volatility in long run in low income countries is derived by macroeconomic indicators. the macroeconomic variables cab, fdi and reserv effect exrv negatively while gdpc, gexp, inf and trade influence the volatility positively in long run for panel data set of low income countries (arabi, 2012; arratibel et al., 2011; bobai et al., 2013; domac & mendoza., 2004; hviding et al., 2004). however results indicate weak relationship between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic indicators in short run. null hypothesis linf does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause linf lreserv does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lreserv ltrade does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause ltrade observations 1292 1292 1292 probability 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0602 0.0025 decision reject reject reject reject reject reject f-stat 11.5110 16.2884 40.0037 0.84273 2.81594 6.01955 causality bidirectional bidirectional bidirectional hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 83 table. 9 results of panel unit root tests for exchange rate volatility (low income countries) variables im, peseran levin, lin and hadri z-statistics and shin (ips) chu (llc) level first level first level first diff. diff. diff. lexrv -2.163 -18.110 -2.302 -20.220 8.519 10.860 (0.015) (0.000) (0.011) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lexrl -5.947 -8.083 -13.364 -13.310 10.736 4.341 (0.000) (0.000) (0.004) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lgdpc -2.677 -7.702 -2.779 -9.794 7.575 7.796 (0.004) (0.000) (0.003) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lcab -3.912 -15.972 -4.191 -17.691 2.993 1.461 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.001) (0.072) lfdi -5.519 -15.362 -4.865 -13.788 4.796 4.131 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lfdev -3.304 -12.521 -2.752 -12.765 7.691 4.918 (0.000) (0.000) (0.003) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) lgexp -5.266 -14.286 -5.637 13.918 8.025 13.201 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) linf -8.823 -15.955 -9.294 -17.094 2.831 43.762 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.033) (0.000) lreserv 0.763 -14.432 0.919 -16.644 6.357 9.892 (0.987) (0.000) (0.821) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) ltrade -2.446 -12.880 -1.177 -7.696 10.976 4.755 (0.007) (0.000) (0.119) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) note: values in parentheses are estimated p values. the options used are: individual trend and intercept, lag length chosen by schwarz automatic selection (schwarz, 1978), kernel method of bartlett (bartlett, 1948) obtained by special estimation and bandwidth selection by automatic newey-west (newey & west, 1994) 84 macroeconomics indicators contributing... table. 10 results of pooled mean group regression of ardl for exchange rate behaviour in low income countries independent dependent variable dependent variable variables lexrv lexrl coefficient z coefficient z statistics statistics long run results lgdpc 4.6048 7.00* -1.1011 -3.32* (0.000) (0.001) lcab -0.9513 -5.79* -0.1519 -2.04** (0.000) (0.041) lfdi -0.7053 -2.87* -0.3104 -3.57* (0.004) (0.000) lfdev 0.1986 0.54 -0.2174 -1.21 (0.587) (0.225) lgexp 5.1545 5.60* -2.3254 -5.07* (0.000) (0.000) linf 0.9355 5.45* -0.3146 -4.43* (0.000) (0.000) lreserv -0.6769 -2.01** 0.6040 3.69* (0.044) (0.000) ltrade 0.3118 3.67* -0.0111 -0.86 (0.000) (0.389) short run results ect -0.420 -6.67* -0.0249 -1.38 (0.000) (0.169) lgdpc -4.3478 -2.97* -0.4633 -6.37* (0.003) (0.000) lcab 0.3978 0.71 -0.0135 -1.85*** (0.479) (0.064) hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 85 independent dependent variable dependent variable variables lexrv lexrl coefficient z coefficient z statistics statistics lfdi 0.2036 1.64 0.0033 0.65 (0.101) (0.514) lfdev -0.4985 -0.80 -0.060 -1.57 (0.424) (0.116) lgexp -2.1872 -1.69*** 0.0072 0.06 (0.092) (0.952) linf 0.320 0.21 0.0241 3.24* (0.836) (0.001) lreserv 0.333 0.45 -0.0098 -0.41 (0.653) (0.679) ltrade -0.2395 -0.45 0.0402 2.94* (0.651) (0.003) number of groups 23 23 no. of observations 460 460 log likelihood -704.5 801.28 note: *, ** and *** represent 1, 5 and 10 percent level of significance respectively. values in parentheses are estimated p values. the estimation results of panel ardl of functional equation of exchange rate level for panel data set of low income countries are given in table 10. the long run results show strong influence of macroeconomic variables in determination of exchange rate level in low income countries. the results indicate gdpc, cab, fdi, gexp and inf have negative impact while total reserves have positive impact on exchange rate level in long run (acemoglu, johnson, thaicharoen & robinson, 2003; aizenman & riera-crichton, 2008; gala, 2007; kamin & rogers, 2000; ojo & allege, 2014; william & parsad, 2019). even though except trade and financial development all the macroeconomic indicators have statistically significant impact on exchange 86 macroeconomics indicators contributing... rate level but surprisingly direction of the relationship is against the theory for majority of the indicators, like gdp per capita, current account balance, foreign direct investment and government expenditures posed negative relationship with exchange rate level in long run for panel data set of low income countries. the low income countries contained deteriorated situation of macroeconomic indicators. these countries have low per capita income as low as less than 1026 dollars, high current account deficits, very low foreign direct investment inflows, backward and underdeveloped financial system, high inflation, low exports, high imports, low level of output and inadequate government expenditures. this is the reason that macroeconomic indicators i.e. gdp per capita, current account balance, foreign direct investment, government expenditures posed to have negative relationship with exchange rate level in low income countries. panel granger causality test results for exchange rate volatility (low income countries) the estimation results of pair wise panel granger causality test are given in table 11. the results indicate that there is no causality between exrv and fdev, gexp and trade. table. 11 panel granger causality test results for exchange rate null hypothesis lgdpc does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lgdpc lcab does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lcab lfdi does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lfdi observations 437 437 437 f-stat 1.92324 3.58848 2.42596 0.8062 2.71282 0.53075 probability 0.1474 0.0285 0.896 0.9226 0.0675 0.5885 decision accept reject accept accept reject accept causality unidirectional no causality unidirectional hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 87 further causality between exchange rate volatility and gdp per capita, current account balance, foreign direct investment, inflation and total reserves is unidirectional. thus in case of panel data set of low income countries the causality analysis provides the evidence of poor relationship between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic variables. panel granger causality test results for exchange rate level (low income countries) the results of pair wise panel granger causality test for exchange rate level function are given in table 12. the results explain that here exist no causality between exrl and cab, fdi and trade. the results show unidirectional causality between exrl and gexp, inf and reserves (kasman & ayhan, 2008; narayan & smyth, 2004). further analysis indicates there exist bidirectional causality between exrl and gdpc and fdev (ojo & allege, 2014; sekmen, 2007). null hypothesis lfdev does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lfdev lgexp does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lgexp linf does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause linf lreserv does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause lreserv ltrade does not granger cause lexrv lexrv does not granger cause ltrade observations 437 437 437 437 437 f-stat 0.00671 1.56828 0.68491 0.16380 1.81294 2.35491 1.01964 2.53429 0.70876 0.90158 probability 0.9933 0.2096 0.5047 0.8490 0.1644 0.0961 0.3616 0.0805 0.4928 0.4067 decision accept accept accept accept accept reject accept reject accept accept causality no causality no causality unidirectional unidirectional no causality 88 macroeconomics indicators contributing... table. 12 panel granger causality test results for exchange rate level low income countries null hypothesis lgdpc does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lgdpc lcab does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lcab lfdi does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lfdi lfdev does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lfdev lgexp does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lgexp linf does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause linf lreserv does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause lreserv ltrade does not granger cause lexrl lexrl does not granger cause ltrade observations 437 437 437 437 437 437 437 437 f-stat 23.8829 4.00942 0.35372 0.71560 0.67921 1.87044 5.81599 5.71254 7.02454 0.58566 2.065461 0.1887 3.57594 0.67188 0.75667 0.48644 probability 0.0000 0.0188 0.7023 0.4895 0.5076 0.1553 0.0032 0.0036 0.0010 0.5572 0.1280 0.0000 0.0288 0.5113 0.4698 0.6151 decision reject reject accept accept accept accept reject reject reject accept accept reject reject accept accept accept causality bidirectional no causality no causality bidirectional unidirectional unidirectional unidirectional no causality hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 89 the causality analysis provides the evidence of cause and effect relationship between exchange rate level and macroeconomic indicators for panel data set of low income countries. the main line of arguments and findings ø there exists strong long run relationship between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic indicators (arize, osang & slottje, 2008; calderon, 2004; macdonald, 1999; morana, 2009; udoh et al., 2012). however the overall causality analysis provides the evidence of feeble link between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic indicators. ø the study provides the evidence of strong relationship between the exchange rate level and selected macroeconomic variables in long run, short run and causality analysis as well (the findings are in line with engel & west, 2005; kim & mo, 1995; mark & sul, 2001; ojo & alege, 2014; ramasamy & abar, 2015; ricci et al., 2013). ø in long run period of time exchange rate volatility and exchange rate level both are substantially influenced by the selected set of fundamental macroeconomic indicators. thus it is quite justified to say that relationship between exchange rate behaviour (in terms of volatility and at level) and macroeconomic indicators is a long run relationship (the findings are in line with diamandis et al., 2014; lee-lee & hui-boon, 2007; macdonald, 1999; morana, 2009; vygodina et al., 2008). ø the pair wise causality analysis also provide the evidence of missing link between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic variables, however, the study proved the evidence of the existence of cause and effect relationship between exchange rate level and macroeconomic indicators. (see ahmad & ali, 1999; engel & west, 2005; dlamini, 2014). ø the study has proved the validity of fundamentals based macroeconomic models of exchange rate determination and negated the possibility of exchange rate disconnect in the current global analysis not only in case of exchange rate level but also for exchange rate volatility. 90 macroeconomics indicators contributing... ø the direction of the relationship between exchange rate and macroeconomic indicators (both in terms of volatility and level) found sensitive to the income groups (high income countries, middle income countries and low income countries) (the results are in line with aydin, 2010; bravo-ortega & giovnni, 2006; christiansen et al., 2009; devereux & lane, 2003; dhasmana, 2012; diallo, 2015; santacreu, 2015; serven, 2003; senadza & diaba, 2017). bibliography acemoglu, daron, simon johnson, james robinson, and yunyong thaicharoen. “institutional causes, macroeconomic symptoms: volatility, crises and growth.” journal of monetary economics 50, no. 1 (2003): 49-123. ahmad, eatzaz, and saima ahmed ali. “exchange rate and inflation dynamics.” the pakistan development review (1999): 235-251. aizenman, joshua, and daniel riera-crichton. “real exchange rate and international reserves in an era of growing financial and trade integration.” the review of economics and statistics 90, no. 4 (2008): 812-815. ali, tariq mahmood, muhammad tariq mahmood, and tariq bashir. “impact of interest rate, inflation and money supply on exchange rate volatility in pakistan.” world applied sciences journal 33, no. 4 (2015): 620-630. aliyu, shehu usman rano. “impact of oil price shock and exchange rate volatility on economic growth in nigeria: an empirical investigation.” mpra paper no. 16319, munich: university library of munich, germany, 2009: 4-15. arabi, khalafalla ahmed mohamed. “estimation of exchange rate volatility via garch model case study sudan (1978-2009).” international journal of economics and finance 4, no. 11 (2012): 183-192. arize, augustine c., thomas osang, and daniel j. slottje. “exchange-rate volatility and foreign trade: evidence from thirteen ldc’s.” journal of business & economic statistics 18, no. 1 (2000): 10-17. arize, augustine c., thomas osang, and daniel j. slottje. “exchange-rate volatility in latin america and its impact on foreign trade.” international review of economics & finance 17, no. 1 (2008): 33-44. arratibel, olga, davide furceri, reiner martin, and aleksandra zdzienicka. “the effect of nominal exchange rate volatility on real macroeconomic performance in the cee countries.” economic systems 35, no. 2 (2011): 261-277. aydin, burcu. exchange rate assessment for sub-saharan economies. no. 10-162. international monetary fund, 2010. azeez, b. a., funso t. kolapo, and l. b. ajayi. “effect of exchange rate volatility on macroeconomic performance in nigeria.” interdisciplinary journal of contemporary research in business 4, no. 1 (2012): 149-155. azid, toseef, muhammad jamil, aneela kousar, and m. ali kemal. “impact of exchange rate volatility on growth and economic performance: a case study of hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 91 pakistan, 1973-2003.” the pakistan development review (2005): 749-775. babtlett, m. s. “smoothing periodograms from time-series with continuous spectra.” nature 161, no. 4096 (1948): 686-687. benetrix, agustin s., and philip r. lane. “fiscal shocks and the real exchange rate.” international journal of central banking 9, no. 3 (2013): 6-37. bilson, john fo. “the monetary approach to the exchange rate: some empirical evidence.” imf staff papers 25, no. 1 (1978): 48-75. bobai, francis danjuma, shuaibu ubangida, and y. s. umar. “an assessment of exchange rate volatility and inflation in nigeria.” journal of emerging issues in economics, finance and banking 1, no. 4 (2013): 321-340. bravo-ortega, claudio, and julian di giovanni. “remoteness and real exchange rate volatility.” imf staff papers 53, no. 1 (2006): 115-132. cakrani, edmira, pranvera resulaj, and luciana koprencka. “government spending and real exchange rate case of albania.” european journal of sustainable development 2, no. 4 (2013): 303-310. calderon, cesar augusto, alberto chong, and norman v. loayza. “determinants of current account deficits in developing countries.” the be journal of macroeconomics 2, no. 1 (2002). calderon, cesar. “trade openness and real exchange rate volatility: panel data evidence.” working paper 294. central bank of chile, 2004. canzoneri, matthew b., robert e. cumby, and behzad diba. “relative labor productivity and the real exchange rate in the long run: evidence for a panel of oecd countries.” journal of international economics 47, no. 2 (1999): 245-266. choudhri, ehsan u., and mohsin s. khan. “real exchange rates in developing countries: are balassa-samuelson effects present?.” imf staff papers 52, no. 3 (2005): 387409. chowdhury, mohammad, and md hossain. “determinants of exchange rate in bangladesh: a case study.” journal of economics and sustainable development 5, no. 1 (2014). christiansen, lone engbo, mr alessandro prati, mr luca antonio ricci, and mr thierry tressel. external balance in low income countries. working paper. no. 9-221. international monetary fund, 2009. christopoulos, dimitris k., karine gente, and miguel a. león-ledesma. “net foreign assets, productivity and real exchange rates in constrained economies.” european economic review 56, no. 3 (2012): 295-316. cottani, joaquin a., domingo f. cavallo, and m. shahbaz khan. “real exchange rate behavior and economic performance in ldcs.” economic development and cultural change 39, no. 1 (1990): 61-76. devereux, michael b., and philip r. lane. “understanding bilateral exchange rate volatility.” journal of international economics 60, no. 1 (2003): 109-132. dhasmana, anubha. “india’s real exchange rate and trade balance: fresh empirical evidence.” iim bangalore research paper 373 (2012). diallo, ibrahima amadou. “exchange rate volatility and investment: a panel data cointegration approach.” expert journal of economics 3, no. 2 (2015): 127-135. diamandis, panayiotis f., anastassios a. drakos, and georgios p. kouretas. “exchange rates, fundamentals, and nonlinearities: a review and some further evidence 92 macroeconomics indicators contributing... from a century of data.” in international symposia in economic theory and econometrics, vol. 23, pp. 85-124. emerald publishing ltd, 2014. dlamini, bongani p. “exchange rate volatility and its effect on macroeconomic management in swaziland.” central bank of swaziland, 2014. domaç, ilker, and alfonso mendoza. is there room for foreign exchange interventions under an inflation targeting framework? evidence from mexico and turkey. world bank policy research, working paper no. 3288. the world bank, 2004. dornbusch, rudiger. “expectations and exchange rate dynamics.” journal of political economy 84, no. 6 (1976): 1161-1176. ebaidalla, ebaidalla mahjoub. “real exchange rate misalignment and economic performance in sudan.” african review of economics and finance 6, no. 2 (2014): 115-140. eichengreen, barry. “the real exchange rate and economic growth.” social and economic studies 56, no. 4 (2007): 7-20. engel, charles, and kenneth d. west. “exchange rates and fundamentals.” journal of political economy 113, no. 3 (2005): 485-517. engle, robert f., and clive wj granger. “co-integration and error correction: representation, estimation, and testing.” econometrica: journal of the econometric society (1987): 251-276. esquivel, gerardo, and felipe larraín b. “the impact of g-3 exchange rate volatility on developing countries.” g-24 discussion paper series. united nations conference on trade and development no. 16. centre for international development harvard university, 2002. frenkel, jacob a. “a monetary approach to the exchange rate: doctrinal aspects and empirical evidence.” the scandinavian journal of economics (1976): 200-224. gala, paulo. “real exchange rate levels and economic development: theoretical analysis and econometric evidence.” cambridge journal of economics 32, no. 2 (2007): 273-288. giannellis, nikolaos, and athanasios p. papadopoulos. “what causes exchange rate volatility? evidence from selected emu members and candidates for emu membership countries.” journal of international money and finance 30, no. 1 (2011): 39-61. granger, clive wj. “some properties of time series data and their use in econometric model specification.” journal of econometrics 16, no. 1 (1981): 121-130. grossmann, axel, inessa love, and alexei g. orlov. “the dynamics of exchange rate volatility: a panel var approach.” journal of international financial markets, institutions and money 33 (2014): 1-27. grydaki, maria, and stilianos fountas. “exchange rate volatility and output volatility: a theoretical approach.” review of international economics 17, no. 3 (2009): 552569. hadri, kaddour. “testing for stationarity in heterogeneous panel data.” the econometrics journal 3, no. 2 (2000): 148-161. hau, harald. “real exchange rate volatility and economic openness: theory and evidence.” journal of money, credit and banking (2002): 611-630. hodrick, robert j. “an empirical analysis of the monetary approach to the determination of the exchange rate .” the economics of exchange rates (1978): 97-116. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 93 hviding, ketil, nowak, mr m., and mr luca antonio ricci. can higher reserves help reduce exchange rate volatility?. imf working paper no. 4-189. international monetary fund, 2004. iavorschi, mihaela. “the influence of foreign direct investments and the current account of the balance of payments on the evolution of the lei/euro exchange rate in romania.” procedia economics and finance 16, no. 4 (2014): 448-457. im, kyung so, m. hashem pesaran, and yongcheol shin. “testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels.” journal of econometrics 115, no. 1 (2003): 53-74. kamin, steve b., and john h. rogers. “output and the real exchange rate in developing countries: an application to mexico.” journal of development economics 61, no. 1 (2000): 85-109. kandil, magda, and ida mirzaie. “the effects of exchange rate fluctuations on output and prices: evidence from developing countries.” the journal of developing areas (2005): 189-219. kasman, adnan, and duygu ayhan. “foreign exchange reserves and exchange rates in turkey: structural breaks, unit roots and cointegration.” economic modelling 25, no. 1 (2008): 83-92. kearney, colm, and ronald macdonald. “rational expectations, bubbles and monetary models of the exchange rate: the australian/us dollar rate during the recent float.” australian economic papers 29, no. 54 (1990): 1-20. kemal, m. ali, and usman qadir. “real exchange rate, exports, and imports movements: a trivariate analysis.” the pakistan development review (2005): 177-195. khan, abdul jalil, parvez azim, and shabib haider syed. “the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade: a panel study on pakistan’s trading partners.” the lahore journal of economics 19, no. 1 (2014): 31-66. khan, rana ejaz ali, rashid sattar, and hafeez rehman. “effectiveness of exchange rate in pakistan: causality analysis.” pak. j. commer. soc. sci 6, no. 1 (2012): 83-96. khraiche, maroula, and jeffrey gaudette. “fdi, exchange rate volatility and financial development: regional differences in emerging economies.” economics bulletin 33, no. 4 (2013): 3143-3156. kilicarslan, zerrin. “determinants of exchange rate volatility: empirical evidence for turkey.” journal of economics, finance and accounting 5, no. 2 (2018): 2042013. kim, benjamin jc, and soowon mo. “cointegration and the long-run forecast of exchange rates.” economics letters 48, no. 3-4 (1995): 353-359. leelee, chong, and tan huiboon. “macroeconomic factors of exchange rate volatility.” studies in economics and finance 24, no. 4 (2007), 266-285. levin, andrew, chien-fu lin, and chia-shang james chu. “unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties.” journal of econometrics 108, no. 1 (2002): 1-24. macdonald, ronald. “exchange rate behaviour: are fundamentals important?.” the economic journal 109, no. 459 (1999): 673-691. madesha, wellington, clainos chidoko, and james zivanomoyo. “empirical test of the relationship between exchange rate and inflation in zimbabwe.” journal of economics and sustainable development 4, no. 1 (2013): 52-58. 94 macroeconomics indicators contributing... mahmood, iqbal, major ehsanullah, and ahmed habib. “exchange rate volatility & macroeconomic variables in pakistan.” business management dynamics 1, no. 2 (2011): 11-22. mark, nelson c., and donggyu sul. “nominal exchange rates and monetary fundamentals: evidence from a small post-bretton woods panel.” journal of international economics 53, no. 1 (2001): 29-52. mcpherson, malcolm f., and tzvetana rakovski. exchange rates and economic growth in kenya: an econometric analysis. papers 651. harvard institute for international development, 1998. meese, richard a., and kenneth rogoff. “empirical exchange rate models of the seventies: do they fit out of sample?.” journal of international economics 14, no. 1-2 (1983a): 3-24. meese, richard, and kenneth rogoff. “the out-of-sample failure of empirical exchange rate models: sampling error or misspecification?.” in exchange rates and international macroeconomics, pp. 67-112. university of chicago press, 1983b. morana, claudio. “on the macroeconomic causes of exchange rate volatility.” international journal of forecasting 25, no. 2 (2009): 328-350. newey, whitney k., and kenneth d. west. “automatic lag selection in covariance matrix estimation.” the review of economic studies 61, no. 4 (1994): 631-653. ojo, ade t., and philip o. alege. “exchange rate fluctuations and macroeconomic performance in sub-saharan africa: a dynamic panel cointegration analysis.” asian economic and financial review 4, no. 11 (2014): 1573-1591. pesaran, m. hashem, yongcheol shin, and ron p. smith. “pooled mean group estimation of dynamic heterogeneous panels.” journal of the american statistical association 94, no. 446 (1999): 621-634. prabheesh, k. p., d. malathy, and r. madhumathi. “demand for foreign exchange reserves in india: a co-integration approach.” (2007): 36-46. ramasamy, ravindran, and soroush karimi abar. “influence of macroeconomic variables on exchange rates.” journal of economics, business and management 3, no. 2 (2015): 276-281. rapach, david e., and mark e. wohar. “testing the monetary model of exchange rate determination: new evidence from a century of data.” journal of international economics 58, no. 2 (2002): 359-385. rapetti, martin, peter skott, and arslan razmi. “the real exchange rate and economic growth: are developing countries different?.” international review of applied economics 26, no. 6 (2012): 735-753. rashidin, md salamun, irfan ullah, and mahad jehangir. “the influence of balance of payments and balance of trade on exchange rate in developing countries of asia: a case study of bangladesh, pakistan and india.” sonargaon university journal 1, no. 2 (2017). rehman, mushtaq. “analysis of exchange rate fluctuations: a study of pkr vs usd.” journal of managerial sciences 8, no. 1 (2014): 41-60. ricci, luca antonio, gian maria milesiferretti, and jaewoo lee. “real exchange rates and fundamentals: a crosscountry perspective.” journal of money, credit and banking 45, no. 5 (2013): 845-865. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 95 saeed, ahmed, rehmat ullah awan, maqbool h. sial, and falak sher. “an econometric analysis of determinants of exchange rate in pakistan.” international journal of business and social science 3, no. 6 (2012): 184-196. santacreu, ana maria. “the economic fundamentals of emerging market volatility.” economic synopses 2, the federal reserve bank of st. louis: 2015. schwarz, gideon. “estimating the dimension of a model.” the annals of statistics 6, no. 2 (1978): 461-464. sekmen, fuat. “cointegration and causality among foreign direct investment in tourism sector, gdp, and exchange rate volatility in turkey.” the empirical economics letters 6, no. 1 (2007): 53-58. senadza, bernardin, and desmond delali diaba. “effect of exchange rate volatility on trade in sub-saharan africa.” journal of african trade 4, no. 1-2 (2017): 20-36. serven, luis. “real-exchange-rate uncertainty and private investment in ldcs.” review of economics and statistics 85, no. 1 (2003): 212-218. stavarek, daniel, and cynthia miglietti. “effective exchange rates in central and eastern european countries: cyclicality and relationship with macroeconomic fundamentals.” review of economic perspectives 15, no. 2 (2015): 157-177. supaat, saktiandi, a. phang seow jiun, ng heng tiong, and e. d. w. a. r. d. robinson. “investigating the relationship between exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic volatility in singapore.” mas staff paper 25. monetary authority of singapore, 2003. udoh, edet joshua, sunday brownson akpan, daniel etim john, and inimfon vincent patrick. “cointegration between exchange rate volatility and key macroeconomic fundamentals: evidence from nigeria.” modern economy 3, no. 7 (2012): 846. vijayakumar, sinnathurai. “the effects of exchange rate on the trade balance in the sri lankan context after post liberalization.” international journal on global business management and research 2, no. 2 (2014): 1-12. vitek, francis. an assessment of external price competitiveness for mozambique. working paper no. 9-165. international monetary fund, 2009. vygodina, anna v., thomas s. zorn, and richard defusco. “asymmetry in the effects of economic fundamentals on rising and falling exchange rates.” international review of financial analysis 17, no. 4 (2008): 728-746. williams, a. paul, and s. prasad. “a study on the exchange rate determinants of selected asian countries’ currencies.” international journal of advanced science and technology 28, no. 19 (2019): 1202-1207. yaya, mehmet e., and xiaoxia lu. “the short-run relationship between real effective exchange rate and balance of trade in china.” international journal of applied economics 9, no. 1 (2012): 15-27. yunana, t. w., w. r. mato, yunana titus wuyah, and wada rantan mato. “economic implications of exchange rate volatility on macroeconomic variables in nigeria.” international journal of original research 2, no. 3 (2016): 116-123. zakaria, zukarnain. “the relationship between export and exchange rate volatility: empirical evidence based on the trade between malaysia and its major trading partners.” journal of emerging issues in economics, finance and banking 2, no. 2 (2013): 668-684. . f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 3\insistence in the pre-islamic poetry.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 19 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry a study of motives and causes araf abdulah mahmood alhbaby associate professor institute of fine arts in balad muataz.amj2020@gmail.com insistence and determination are main principles. they can be keys to success in life. their absence causes a lack in many related values and manners. therefore, pre-islamic poets consistently discuss the principles of insistence. they are self-made, insistent on educational, social, political, economic and warfare positive life aspects. therefore, poets gave some advice and guidance stressing virtues such as kindness, great hospitality and self-preservation even if these principles required leaving the tribe and relatives such as the lovers and family to maintain a social rank and value. therefore, these ambitions can only be achieved and realized by patience and flexibility. in the pre-islamic era, personality is valued in terms of rank, value, flourishing, vanity, and pride and dignity. keywords: insistence, pre-islamic poets, social behaviour, thinking methods, principles. introduction in the light of the above discussion, insistence seems to be one of the important supreme arabic self traits. the arabic personality consistently aims at nobility in the arabians. this is confirmed by the arabic studies in the field of social construction. arabs are brought up on virtue and originality and noble values. as long people attempt to change others’ opinion and the core of their thinking, the arabic mentality does not easily accept this change regardless of the degree of persuasion. the studies show that insistence in the preislamic poetry lies in the strength of the will and determination believing in the importance of the poetic heritage. this is because poetry can create a strong impression through the unification of the word and its meaning (1) because poetry carries the gist of the image and its glorious frame which are the title that researchers cannot ignore trying to reach 20 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... social peculiar facts, and emotional traits. the fact is the spiritual situation which fosters the relations among the sons of the society or city. therefore, the mind can purify the spirts from l whims to cohere in a shared ideal world (2) of originality and values which are part of the arabic existence in the world and that period of history. insistence remains a social behaviour and a conceptual activity that reflect the environment and its current environment. it converts these facts into an emotional conceptual process whose vocabularies are persistence which is a product of the environment that create a social cohesion with a language whose are horses, night, wilderness, invasions, wars, revenge, stubbornness, conflict, endurance, continuing the struggle and winning the struggle). other criteria are considered a threat to the personality of the individual who is fully ready to defend rejecting personality change. because people realize that cooperation fulfils their different needs, each individual is expected to play a role in the cooperation (3) which is a pride source. the thoughts, ideals, habits, beliefs, traditions, skills, thinking methods, life manners, family systems, parent narration heritages, stories, myths and boldness (4) and self-confidence are some of the attitudes. humans are a product of culture which is a system of behaviours based on traditions (3). culture frames poets, poetic ideas and sense imagery. this frame enabled the depiction of the values into masterpieces that stimulate masculinity and authenticity for the hearers when insistence makes people proud and reverent. poetry is “a language of emotions, agitation, soliloquy and mutual feelings” (5). this opposition creates positive and negative poles and can lead to alienation, hatred and malignity because the two parties’ ideas utterly disparate. this brings the two parties to a standstill ending in regret or success. if opinions cohere reality and society in which the individual is brought up, positive stubbornness emerges whose main aim is the insistence on the attitude. stubborn cases confirm masculinity and endurance to win the right. right, honor, pride and esteem return to those who want them. it is “emotions of a specific type, which take higher ideals as a topic for it such as the love of the truth, just and virtue” (6). insistence can be: insistence and advice insistence and advice are abundant in the pre-islamic poetry showing enhanced persistent pride. withdrawal which damages pride is forgotten hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 21 because it stems from a “voluntary act carried out only by implementation” (6) to reach a goal. ibn al-abras embodies these ideas describing his tribe, as it is the basis of his social life (7). he is resentful of tamim’s interfering. the matter is “their anger and condemnation of the deaths of bani amer” (8). therefore, he considers necessarily restraining perpetrators describing them with ridiculous words. this is a threat with some advice not to act otherwise they regret. he is proud of his tribe who do not fear death; they die with dignity or win. he paints a picture of the terrified women who are between life and death, fleeing or exile (9): bad interferences deserve fighting because they hurt agitates others particularly. those who interfere to what does not concern them will hear something unpleasant. in psychology, truth is made and, on which the practical philosophy is based, negates this possibility (10). however, advice remains a key and a solution for any problems, if the other party takes it. ibn al-abras uses conditional (if) with the negation in his saying (not mobilized), (did not obey) and (do not listen) at the beginning and end of the first verse. also, in the second verse, the clause (do not fear) is reinforced by a moral affirmation (whole) to give the tribe a speaking voice rejecting everyone who had their own separate opinions. this is a message that carries a sense of tolerance and giving rights. thus, the poet prefers wisdom to stubbornness because of its better results than that of stubbornness (9): we were informed that the timeems despite i lost the vanity of your father -------------------------------------he asked hijrbn, umm qattam”, if patient for our what our allies did let those cry whose women were hated for the slain of ‘ámir and angered i should not be blamed ----------------------------------------the spears, thirsty for blood, stab cestrum and honey are mixed in the day of women defense ask where to escape if you did not take the opinion and do not fear the blame of the whole tribe advice nor listen to a guide nor defend it with the tongue or hand do not ask to suppress a threat 22 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... the storytelling among pre-islamic poets is reinforced by one sided insistence, which is an attempt manage the debate in a persuasive and linguistic manner justified mentally and philosophically. the reprimands wrong insistence. some people are fully insistent while others not” (11). when these ideas crystallize, facts become clear, and their roots are established one the basis of wisdom and reason of advice. ibin al-sama presents unreasonable facts which are against the laws of argument and are devoid of evidence. in the first verse, his advice is conditional on acting. the answer to it with (if) is an opportunity to reveal the truth and restrain those who violate it. similar to other poets, he “is an imitator, like a painter” (12). he depicts event with expressions (12) that are logical, reasonable and close to reality (13): the repetition of the vocabulary reinforces the stubborn speaking voice. he starts his verses with the vocative to emphasize the issue and draw attention. he is motivated to react in a manner that he likes, in saying (i blame, my blame, i blame) in an artistic technique unique to the poet. then he resumes describing his crisis, which deprived him from sleeping and shook his entity because his people do not obey his advice after he forbids them to descend. thus, he is self-estranged in tension and in psychological strain called despair or frustration (14). therefore, he cannot regain his ability, superiority and control with competence. consequently, he expresses his suffering justifying it to the failure to use reason reinforcing his statement with evidence about the opponent’s fight preparations and the lack of equal forces. it is a self-appeal to think and remember his case and the case of his people alike (13): forgave their ignorance and mistakes, and descend to the place where the virtue if you justify yourself with wishes is seen in the world than the praiseworthy. you will not have glory nor approach it i blame some of your blame my blame is for every man and son of his mother i blame the people like khalid and by hand if you know the unseen, please tell like the foods of the passenger there is no nobility while people perish hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 23 insistence on drinking wine and the issue of revenge: refusal and acceptance insistence in the pre-islamic poetry may be unusual, as it contradicts the tribe’s values and customs. it may stem from an ill-considered personal endeavour, lacks of experience, and fulfilling world’s temptations such as drinking wine and women accompaniment which they are pound of (15). however, a moderate behavior is important and contradicting traditions is prohibited (16). the poets behave in this way after being convinced with the inevitability of death. thus, they exerted most of the efforts to please themselves with these things in addition to gambling (17) until islam came and prohibited them. bin al-abed insists on drinking it in spite of the blame. therefore, he is alone in his opinion believing in his ability to address his opponents in words and deeds using an effective language to respond to those who disagree with him. he uses (still) and (oh) combined with vocative. he wants to close the conversation by repeating the exclamatory verb (leave me) twice in the fifth line and at the beginning of the second part of tenth line insisting on his deed until dies with death spears (18): i told the arzdhs his companions witness for me publicly, the believed of thousands armed i told them that these allies they did not stay when they raided when i saw the horses coming i commanded them not to descend in the zig zag when i disobeyed me i stayed, with them i was member of my misguided and the sauda’a and people their commanders in the gear tied camped between two lines like a locust flock in a house and desert like locusts in the wind directions they did obey the right opinion and i see they were wrong and if the tribe guided i am ghzya tribe guided 24 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... thus, bin al-abed loves life with its values, pleasures, and customs with his belief in the extinction of the body. so, in war he fights while in pleasure he would receive the nature of the body (19). he paints a picture of suffering taking the form of a persistent, bold, patient and enabled man (18): pre-islamic poets portrays life in a bitter complaint with conflict and controversy, whose results yield the victory of destiny (19). with simile, he compares the death power over human, with an animal owner domination (18): in spite of the insistence on worldly temptations aiming at life filled with happiness, destiny, power and control over ability result in sorrow, still is my drinking alcohol and my thrill until all the clan avoids me the poor did not deny me oh, those who blame me for going to war oh, you cannot eternalize me because of the three needs of a man one of which is to drink wine the second is passion when i spend the cloudy day i am kind and we will know and my sale and my old and new money like a camel coated with tar nor do the rich or enjoyment, can you immortalize me if i give up leave me spend my money i do not care when i die like red wine which creamed when water added resorting to me like a running wolf leave me enjoying chubby nice women when we die who will die thirty if what has to be faced, comes so welcome when it is not lying nor weak for your life, death did not err a lad whenever a time leads to his death, i see living as a treasure incomplete, every night for the loose length and folded by hand and whoever is in rope criticized and the days do nor decrease but age hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 25 boredom and overall sadness. for example, they are saddened when they face a sudden attack that would result deaths. therefore, their hearts were filled with malice, hatred and grudge. thus, insistence has changed temporarily solve problems and shrink time to hours and days under a specific setting related to their issues. this is to resolve the situation by hatred and blood revenge to calm their souls. then, they restore their original beliefs, and this is what bin al-khattim embodied (20) in these verses, the poet addresses his opponent and with sharp dry words. he is proud of his people and their decisions. therefore, the collective expressions (of us, we landed, our prince and we must) carry the sense of unified confident insistence. he uses affirmative and negative forms “and they did not leave until drink came”. this makes the determination intense and aggressively quench malice and a deterrent to all stubborn attackers in the arabic texts. then they promised themselves to quit all tampering means such as drinking alcohol for a maxim period of thirty nights obeying the commander’s orders until they uphold the right of the people nobility for the fighters (15). those poets remain insistent depicting their tragic reality with benefits that are caused by anger which can only be relieved with a violent reaction such as a genocide to totally uproot the opponents as al-taghlebi did. moreover, he becomes peculiar with his opinion and is overwhelmed by his attitude, as he says (take the certain pledge on my age) to confirm his real intentions philosophically (22): and who fasted thirty nights on the wine —————————————when we landed, our prince said, our dear men dignity forgave, until came to you with the corpse —————————————wine is forbidden unless we fight they did not leave until drink came take the certain pledge on my age, i am not taking of my shield and a sword leaving all that is home until the day takes off night 26 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... insistence, stability and non-breaking in front of the calamities of eternity arabs are created proud, stubborn, insistent regardless of the needs and severity of the circumstances. thus, it the environment significantly impact refining their personality constructing it with pride, magnanimity, persistence, greatness, and prestige. so we find them sometimes resisting and giving up again (23). therefore, sometimes, we find the arabs accept the circumstances wisely, rationally followed by we comportment to win a struggle. all the environment of the pre-islam poets motivates excitement, and the exciting scene of their thoughts “so i am created from its sons and strong men because the desert instills courage and strength in them and teaches them pride to raise and adapt them on freedom” (23). al-absi discusses these ideas by asking himself to face the misfortunes with endurance, and insistence in a sharp speech charged with will. he is firm in his opinion, serious in his case, and he continues to discuss his stubborn attitude with an influential language and a will that does not soften or break confirming the saying: “one of the signs of impotence is attributing failure to fate” (24). he began his speech with a command (fight me) in the first line (exert efforts) in the second, with the second person pronoun (you and god did not know). in addition, he depicts an image of a confident knight for himself in the third line to show the truth of his matter and the strength of his determination, nature and the conditions of eternity. thus he does not allow restraining his powers or lose his determination (25): thus, he struggles and fights time, especially if the circumstances surrounding him contradict his own aspirations. these contradictions prevent achieving his desired goal, especially the ones related to passion and love. so he closes all the penetration outlets and does not allow all the external attempts to creep into his will to shatter his feelings. thus he presents fight me, night moistures, exert efforts to my enmity and stubbornness i have more vigor than rocks, and my teeth, if i were violent at night, on my right and on my left. you did not come to my mind i swear stronger than a knight guided me and answered me for my delusion. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 27 his sufferings in love stories filled with narration and description to offer hope for himself “feeling of freedom is an inner space, before it is an external organic practice. it is self-awareness, energies and capabilities in the enriched communication with others and interaction with them” (26). he draws whoever loved him with a spirit filled with faith. he addresses those who are able to overcome difficulties and create a shared common views because he would become vulnerable to mental disorders unless the crises are solved whether real or imaginary (6). he uses vocabulary of love (my heart is wandering my body is in the mountains of sand lying i am tears flowing and you are crying without tears god bless separation, and not keeping fighting mighty stubbornness and separation is killing me). so, his illiterate poem came to gather his sorrow with the joy of gathering (25). this growing feeling to achieve social life is an instantaneous and pushes the poet to enjoy gathering (27) to tell his love stories. at the end of his poem, the stubborn knight surrenders to his inevitable fate due to the resilient resistance of both parties. he realizes that the eternal power is stronger than all ability. he believes in the power of separation after being leading, not lead, commanding and not conferring. despite the tough circumstance, he persists, acts, resists and stands up against the misfortunes to release his ambitions. under different circumstances, he is “helpless, oppressed and unable to act or understanding” (28) and unable to overcome his crisis. al-salkah describes ailments that is full of sincere feelings and noble sense towards the distressed by fate. he expresses his fear and dignity associated with crying in poetry. his dialogue is unique addressing the intended using the present tense preceded by the negative (not) which is used to show continuity (do not cry) in arabic. this is to mitigate sadness, urging insistence and beautification to face misfortunes (29): may god not bless separation nor save it, i fight every mighty stubborn man, it tore my heart with spears and departure kills me without a fight. a shriek cried when he saw the neighborhood the distrust and poverty of the time offering his tasks without sand and steppe made him fear a present enemy country 28 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... the wisdom and experience of the poet are prominent and remind those who do not use their minds nor help themselves with farsightedness because the consequences of the eternity are often slowed but not neglected. so, they should improve, resist worldly temptation and not trust the consequences of fate and the power of time. for example, aledwani warns the mockers of time because it could change and is accused of betrayal and treachery (29): if eternity drags people i forbid others like him, tell the mockers “wake up, you will face what we did i am not a coward, but death and other people this is the age of its own, a record of its repetition at times. and whoever is deceived by time will find time a traitor according to the poets, stubbornness could be heavy burden on adamant and extremist people with thoughts, if they are not wise and open minded with a perceptive vision. thus, the poets suffer to change them with advice and are met with violent responses. they advise those people to follow logic and reason based on experience because “everything needs mind, and the mind needs experiments” (30). the poets depend on the saying “consciousness resists and wrestles in an irrational world” (31). so wisdom rationalizes people, and with passion fails them. this happens with those who do not take advice ending in disappointment and loss attached with remorse. for example, bin qais advised his opponent, bin mashar, not to fall into: “disappointment and loss”, “scandal and breaking” and “humiliation and insult. it is an affliction when decisions are the hands of those who the own them not those who contemplate them” (30) in particular when they keep wrong attitudes rejecting advice from the good people (32): and a distant from a country of failure so i said to him: do not cry your eyes, it will suffice for you to lose neighborhood meat did you not think that the eternity, change color and that the breaches of things it is an issue that is spent for us, and you will be rewarded. and tainted potable water two colors: one time and one lie? hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 29 the above lines show a visual poetic images in the first verse in the phrase (i saw) to reveal the truth and to prove credibility in judging the opponent for his being intentionally tyrannized. it is a logical expression and with justification, reinforced by evidence to give an excuse to himself for what happened from the reactions such as a threat to those who started the aggression in the seventh line (if they heard). this shows the horror of the scene through hearing. thus the conditional if came to show that the victim’s injustice and their right to self-defense on the one hand, and limit the treacherous behaviour on the other hand. the statement is reinforced in the demonstrative (that) in (you are killed every year and reconciled, that makes the forehead white) to uncover the truth with the fact of the white hair that covered the front of the head. this image depicts an aspect of the suffering caused by criminal injustice, perseverance, by repeated killing for no reason. in this image, various structures are passed on from one poet to another and to achieve the desired goal which is to bring the meaning closer. this is to show how rich is this rhetorical art, and the extent of its ability to continue the renewed output (33). the obstinate self may enter an internal struggle to assure glory, love for confrontation, and reject despair and breaking. this is because it carries a free ambition to meet the desire of freedom, insistence to i saw the people of shayban if you become the enemy, so when we left a jeweler after and you will not end until between and until the people stay overnight standing behind the horses, if they heard the vomiting, aba steadfast or belonging, when did we receive, horses whenever you meet us and the horses intentionally show grief and tyranny. then we were hostile by rabab and daram your reign, zahir and the insistence greed us spears are broken in brave hands saying “light of morning and the night is dark.” their shoulders are stretched they turned from the black, the two incumbent ministries. you see evil in their eyes bear the adulterers of their helms and clasps did not hang their weapons if it was a lame 30 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... restore rights and deter the perpetrators. therefore, we find the obstinate arabs have something that deserves and requires consideration and confrontation reasonably (34). it is a natural and legitimate right for a man to reject injustice and aggression, because self-assault means attacking the right to live. also, failure to punish the perpetrator exposes everyone to harm, (35) so determination emerged. bin abi salma shows ibn damdam’s self-strangeness after the murder of his brother (haram) by bin ward. therefore, his opinion is different from that of his tribe who wants to acquit the offender, and accept the conciliation while he insists on chasing the perpetrator in a well-prepared plan. he concludes his speech by his courage, ability to remove tyranny and deter the perpetrator with a good end (36): he addresses those who trusts his promise, threat in vocabulary suggesting a future full of revenge and revolution until he succeeds to bring the killer to justice (i will satisfy my need, then evade). he strongly evades his relatives to preserve the spirit of victory, which is almost or certain. although arabs are proud of their inherent values in their personality, they are attached to human philosophical and social values to regulate life, especially pride, dignity, hurting the feelings of others, disregarding, assaulting and transgressing. these lead them to insist on responding similarly to others. utilitarian persistence and behavior (generosity and wealth as a model) arabs are proud of utilitarian, generosity and good hospitality. generosity “constitutes an emotional outpouring, as the arabs are generous for my life, bless those living offenders damam and covered his intention, hesitate to execute i will satisfy my need, then he executed and no houses panicked i have a lion, with edged arms and fat bold, when tyrannized quickly revenges who disagreed with husayn ibn so he never showed it and did not evade my enemy with thousand horses behind me and, war stated quickly with hair and his nails are not trimmed otherwise he tyrannizes others hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 31 in nature because they live in the desert with scarcity of giving, they themselves start to give” (37). generosity is also a utilitarian behaviour aimed at a lofty humanitarian goal, which is to create a psychological atmosphere that is filled with happiness for the next guest. “he manages to make it a philosophy they defend according to a reasonable logic, and he adheres to it with an unlimited commitment and makes for what others are keen to collect” (38). of course, relatives may disagree one this matter, and he might be blamed to hinder those who search for nobility and create a good relationship between the two parties: the next guest and his future host. however, the poet’s culture remains the master of the situation for the poet to give his positive hopeful bright ideas. these ideas aim to change blaming minds persuasively with evidences. al-ta’i has lived through this psychological atmosphere with his family and loved ones. he unleashes his cause with a kind of insistence on his stance against the imams and his family with the weapon of faith with no despair and miserliness. he fights his opponents with the persuasive speech and a clear, impressive and influential language aiming to eradicate hopelessness and miserliness. his determined and persistent attitudes increase (39): perhaps this feeling is based on the strength and nobility of the will, hey nwar, be patient, blame me, and do not say for money that i perished: the miser sees money as one spending if a miser does, he is followed by the true speech is the men are followed wish the miser is seen by all people do not blame me for money i spend on lads are working and every day the pigeon do not say for the past: what happened hey, and if i was given paradise and confusion and the generous sees it as many bad braise and the inheriting owns the money by what they did in life when their coffin is carried similarly he does not host guests relatives the best spending is on relatives for death pushing him closer to death 32 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... which means the “insistence to do something is to overcomes the obstacles and difficulties” (40). insistence is manipulated by confronting wrong ideas and replacing them with new values of virtue and generosity. also, he addresses nawar in the form of the command request (“be patient”) and (blame me) in the first part of the first verse, and then apologizes in the form of prohibition (do not say) in the inability of the first line and the beginning of the second line. this repetition is a device for emphasis. when someone believes in something, repeats and insists on it, the subconscious implements it insistently” (21). also, the poet compares the condition of the miser who monopolizes money with the generous who insists on his belief in order to gain the consent of the creator and creature. with the help of the past verb (i said), al-ta’i also responds strongly to those who criticize his speech and opinion, especially those who mistakenly thought that virtue is harmful to the soul and perishing to money. because generosity is his private habit, others cannot interfere with what does not concern them to shake his consistent behaviour nor to break change his beliefs and their merits (39): in spite of the distinguished presence of the arab women, and their prominent position among the family and her loved poets, confronting their delusional concepts and false ideas remains in full effect. they are keen on money, and forget the consequences of miserliness. therefore, the poets continue to describe generosity in some detail. bin al-atham describes these concepts in a form interspersed with the command appeal (leave me) at the beginning of the first and second line justifying his speech with concrete evidence that generosity covers every defect because it is a form of masculinity believing in the sanctity of this charitable work (23). thus, opulence, generosity, welcome, cheer, and all the requirements of hospitality are linked ethical values (41): she said: your perished our money with i said: leave me that is a habit for generosity and yourself until it hurt your self every generous a habit they like leave me, miserliness, umm haytham, leave me and help me in, and i am a generous with related family, steals the good from the morals of men. increasing generosity and passion they get benefits from me hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 33 people face severe economic conditions that make them strong in order to resolve the crises. although they are in crisis, they remain insistently stubborn. people seek rights through implementing the issue that requires sacrifice (6). with suffering, poverty and destitution, those words come with all the meanings stubbornness, not listening to others who want to change these ideas. for example, bin al sides with other poets to confront those who dispute with him, even if they are his family and loved ones. he uses command (let me) and explains his insistence the values of (his pride and dignity) (his glory and his pride) (42): also, bin al-ward confronts every opponent because he defends his concepts. therefore, he honors, relatives, strangers and acquaintances (15) and guest and help the poor. he presents a poetic image in a dialogue combined with a contrast between sharing and solitude and i and you in the second verse to criticize his opponent through the present tense (you mock) in the second line (42): insistence to keep the self and leave the tribe insistence to leave the tribes does not mean that the tramp is intrusive or leaning on others, rather he has self-esteem, strong-willed, this is a present morning and a friend. feeding and good is a path for the t good by its people, but the morals of men are narrowed. let me for rich i seek, for i have to make it far and easy on them and despise the speaker seen the poor are the evil people and provide them with originality and good and hate it wife and children food and you are man who do not and you see that faint of right in my face i drink water and the water is cold i am a man who shares me do you mock me if you be obese i divide me foods to many and so i said to him: welcome, welcome and welcome every generous evades vilification by for your life, no country has narrowed 34 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... suffering with the pains of life, and does not allow the conditions reduce his ambition. he does not satisfy his whims because he aims at a splendour life and immortality. thus, he is committed to “insistence to persists in the rejection of affiliation” (43) except to those who help him it or resolve his crisis. otherwise, he prefers grave over adapting to humans insistently “so determined to implement what he believes in. these thoughts are portrayed in a psychological dialogue between himself and those who matter to him. however, he revealed himself in the dialogue and made others implicit” (44). this happens with al-azdi in his illustrative poem, which reiterate these ideas with the credibility and solid determination (45): bin al ward wishes to fulfil his desire” (38) in helping his loved ones to overcome this crisis. this feeling leads him to insist on taking risks to benefit the public. therefore, he encourages a revolution on the rich to change their bitter living reality to regain their dignity and pride. he uses conditional if to associate it with the answer to the verb, reinforced the three verbs (he did not send) (he did not rest) (did not sympathize). this is to give an excuse to himself for choosing this be cautious, pay attention to your the things were happened very clearly there are resorts from hams for the kind for your age sake, there is tense on men in land i have beside you light wolfs and tiger for hunger, i extend the evade ———————————— i put soil in my mouth but not extend if i was not avoiding shame i would get my soul is difficult and does not i told my intestines together issue i fight people than you and the needs were meet who fear despise isolate walking with fear, wish and have reason heavy haired hyena of mentioning and overcome it ————————————— my hand for a snack from one who mentions it the best food and drink dishonestly accept shame anywhere as if they are robes best woven hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 35 behaviour in the first line and condemning those who disagreed with the opinion. thus, he promises himself to remain with his poor relatives, just as he could not give up drinking water (45): these traits were inherited. they take risks in order to satisfy the sakes and provided money for the poor and dependents. conclusions and findings pre-islamic poets are divided in their attitudes to insistence into three groups. the first realized they are right and other discovered they are wrong. the third group adore wrong stubbornness to confront the opponent, and they are aware of it. the latter group believe they will gain victory to merely satisfy a subjective desire and show off rejecting authentic reality with dialogue and sterile argument combined with struggle. 1. insistence in the pre-islamic poetry reflects the culture of that era. it confrontation comport to oppose humiliation and insult. 2. insistence is considered a preventative measure to oppose those who attempt to strip the others’ dignity of, violate rights and tyrannize others because they have power. this oppressed, who love dignity, rank, prestige and glory, must obey opinion and follow decision. 3. insistence is life philosophy to face misfortunes and mystery even without success. it implies being persistent unless the situation is an out of control fate. 4. people feel remorse for the wrong behaviour of the adamant persistence ignoring wisdom and caution. 5. insistence is a natural human behaviour that reflects the living circumstances in the arab desert. 6. it is a self-expression to prove vanity, emotional pride and strong personality. 7. it is a sign of flexibility lack of the pre-islamic poets. 8. it is a procedural thinking for the poets to accept others’ opinion. if a man does not have a camel nor travel death is better for him than living i asked where are you leaving my aims are wide i would not leave the poor for the bad and his relative do not be passion to him poor getting donation from those who mention it and they asked tramp, what is the destination there is no specific direction as far as water cannot be left 36 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... notes and references 1. al-fadl, s. (1995). contemporary poetic methods. 1st edition. beirut: dar aladab. 2. hussein, a. (1988). man and time in pre-islamic poetry. cairo: egyptian renaissance library. 3. al-birkamu. (1963). the rebellious man (translated by nihad reda). 1st edition lebanon: karam press, philosophical library. 4. omar, f. (1969). history of arab literature, ancient literature from the beginning of pre-islamic to the fall of the umayyad state. part 1. 2nd edition. beirut: dar al-alam. 5. mahmoud, a., sh, et al. (1989). contemporary education, nature, and basic dimensions. kuwait: dar al-qalam, (d-i). 6. zidan, a. (1972). social thinking, its origin and development. the modern cairo: library, culture publishing press. 7. abddulhamed, n. (1975). felony of intentional homicide in islamic law, positive law. baghdad: dar al-resala printing house, yarmouk press. 8. abdul wahab, m., a., al., and muhammad n., al. (1973). divan with aggressive finger, collected. baghdad: al-jamhour press. 9. suna’at yahya, mudrak of al-tai,. hatem bin abdullah al-tai poetry collection and news. (narrated by hisham bin muhammad al-kalbi; analyzed by adel eleman jamal). cairo: madani press. 10. majeed, t. (1992). anartan diwan’s explanation of al-khatib al-tabrizi, margins and indexes presented .1st edition. beirut: arab book house. 11. fakhr, al. k. (1083). poetry of zuhair bin abi salma, workmanship of al-alam alshantamri. beirut: new horizons house. 12. al-jubouri, y. (1982). pre-islamic poetry, its characteristics and arts. 3rd edition. beirut al-resala foundation. 13. al-sadousi, a., f., m., b. (1998). the poetry of al-shanfari al-azdi, by (d. 195 ah). (investigated and appendix by dr. ali nasser ghaleb, revised by al-mana bin nasir; supervised by hamad al-jasser). 1st edition riyadh. 14. hanafi, a. h. (20012). al-shanfari al-saalouk, his life and his nation. cairo: the egyptian general book authority. 15. diwan abid bin al abras. (1964). dar sader, beirut. 16. abdel-rasoul, o. (1980). dureid bin al-suma court, ammunition of the arabs (59. dar al-maaref. 17. ali. a., diwan tarfa bin al-abed, the young pre-islamic poet, an investigation and study of his poetry and personality. kuwait: dar al-fikr for printing, publishing and distribution. 18. thuwaini, h., a., and awad, k., s. (1984). diwan al-silik ibn al-salka, its news and poetry, study, collection. 1st edition. baghdad: al-ani press. 19. al-assad, n., al. diwan qais bin al-khattim, investigation. beirut: dar sader. 20. hussein, m. diwan al-aasha al-kabir (maimon bin qais) explanation and commentary. alexandria: typical printing press. library of arts, jamamizt 42777. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 3 37 21. bin ishaq, i. al., y. (1966), divan orwa bin al-ward (244 ah), explained and analyzed and supervised its printing and development of its indexes by abdel moeen al-mallouhi, ministry of culture and national guidance: publications of the directorate of the revival of ancient heritage. 22. al-qaisi, n., h., (1972). studies in pre-islamic poetry. damascus and baghdad: dar al-fikr. 23. jarallah, al. (1412 ah). spring of the righteous and news texts. part 3. al-ali foundation. 24. al-salami, a. (1976). human behavior in administration. new edition. cairo: dar gharib press. 25. nafi, a., s. (1983). the artistic portrait in the poetry of bashar bin bard. amman dar al-fikr for publishing and distribution. 26. al-melihi, h. (2000). contemporary psychology. 1st edition. beirut: the arab renaissance house for printing and publishing. 27. salama, ah., a., and abdul-ghaffar, a, s. (1974). social psychology. dar alnahda. 28. al-qaisi, n., h. (2004). equestrianism in pre-islamic poetry (references, correction and revision by muhammad bin abd al-latif). 1st edition. beirut: world of books, for printing and publishing. 29. tales, a. (1973). the art of poetry, aristotle thales. 2nd edition (translated from greek, explained and verified by abdul rahman badawi). dar al thaqafa). beirut. 30. dikman, a., sh. (2011). moral values in islamic poetry, first-class poets, as an example 1st edition. damascus: tamouz for printing and publishing. 31. al-tamimi, a., m., b., al. (1987). the book the days of the arabs before islam collection. 1st edition. (investigated and studied by adel jassem al-bayati). beirut: book world, arab renaissance library. 32. al-dinouri, m., a. (1925)/ book of oyoun al-akhbar. the first volume, beirut: the arab book house. 33. duloye, r. (1955). camus and the rebellion. (translated into arabic by suhail idris). issues of contemporary thought, 1st edition. beirut. 34. ahmed, m., al. (1985). metonymy and its methods and locations in pre-islamic poetry. beirut: al-faisaliah library. 35. al-abd, s. (1954). principles of sociology. the egyptian anglo library: ljna albayan alarabi press. 36. mourad, y. (1954). principles of general psychology. 2nd edition. egypt: dar al-maaref. 37. al-iskandari et al. (2004). the detailed in the history of arabic literature in antiquity, medieval and modern times (revised by hassan al-hallaq) 38. shaker, ah., m. and harun, a., m. (1964). preferences, investigation and explanation. cairo: dar al-maarif. 39. akel, f. (1971). a dictionary of psychology. beirut: dar al-alam for millions. 40. al-youssef, y. (1985). articles in pre-islamic poetry. beirut: dar al-haqaqa for printing, publishing and distribution. 41. c.i.m. jude (1950). introduction to modern philosophy (translated by karim mona). baghdad: al-rabita press. 38 insistence in the pre-islamic poetry... 42. ismail. s. (1977). complete literature. ministry of culture press. 43. al-rajhi, n., sh (1986) al-muhalhal bin rabia al-taghlbi, his life and poetry, study and analysis. unpublished ma thesis. al-mustansiriya university. 44. muhammad, a., m. (2012). relativity in contemporary western philosophy. baghdad: general cultural affairs house. 45. al-fadl, s. (1998). constructivism theory in literary criticism. 1st edition. dar al-shorou hamdard islamicus 7 vol. xxxix, no. 4 redical muslim fringe groups’ recourse to takfôr (accusing muslims of infidelity) a critique prof. dr. thameem ushama former head, department of usuluddin and comparative religion, iium, malaysia. e-mail: thameem ushama (ushama_thameem@yahoo.co.uk) this paper analyses dogmatic extremism with a special focus on legal rulings regarding the matter of accusing other muslims of being infidels. it defines the arabic term according to the qur’én, ×adêth literature, and traditional islamic dialogues. the study employs a qualitative content analysis of relevant literature referring to issues relating to unbelief (kufr), polytheism (shirk), faith (êmén), accusing muslims of infidelity (takfêr), and legal injunctions holding societal implications. the scope is limited to the issue of takfêr advocated by organizations or individuals without focussing on their historical background. it attempts to correct misconceptions of islam as an unjust immoderate religion. it considers accusations of unbelief made in respect of (i) individuals who are guilty of acts of sin and disobedience; (ii) rulers who do not base their policies and judgements on the sharê‘ah; (iii) the subjects of such rulers who continue to accept the authority of a ruler who conducts himself in this way; (iv) and individuals who leave or withdraw from islamic organizations. the paper also includes scholarly critiques of extremist views on accusing muslims of infidelity and provides intelligent responses based on solid evidence from the sunnah, as well from the exegetes. keywords: disobedience, extremism, faith, infidelity, organization, sin. introduction current muslim life is threatened by extremism/radicalism, particularly with regard to interpreting religious injunctions and accusing fellow muslims of infidelity by radical muslim fringe groups. thus, this hamdard islamicus 8 vol. xxxix, no. 4 discourse focuses on the full range of efforts made by individual muslims or fringe groups who accuse other muslims of infidelity (takfêr) or apostasy (irtidéd). twentieth century scholars have increasingly discussed the phenomenon of extremism because it poses an advancing menace to peace by giving rise to hatred, enmity, hostility and disunity. the muslim world restlessly approaches a cross roads posed by the deadly challenge. according to researchers, extremism manifests in individuals and organisations due to misunderstandings and misapplications of sound islamic injunctions. strange conclusions and roguish presumptions have been drawn from the qur’én and aíédêth. the writer posits that such inferences do not comply with the fundamental islamic teachings, and as such, serve to negate the ultimate purpose of revelation (maqéîid al-waíê). many extremists/radicals enjoy a blind adherence to literal interpretations of islamic texts that lack ‘in-depth’ research and analysis. they make little concerted effort to examine their interpretations to ascertain if they align with the objectives of sharê‘ah (islamic revealed law). consequently, they submerge common, uneducated and innocent muslims in an ocean of chaos, controversy, confusion, contradiction, deception, delusion and dissension. this is primarily due to distortions that replace accurate trustworthy interpretations of the revealed islamic message. according to muslim scholars, extremism/radicalism manifests when accusing muslims as infidels or apostates for the reasons: [1] due to his/her disobedience; [2] a ruler who does not judge according to what allah has revealed; [3] followers of such a ruler; [4] a muslim who leaves a muslim organisation; [5] a muslim who does not migrate; and [6] for not accusing other muslims as infidels. none of these causes fully regards the rules of sharê‘ah with sober and informed consideration. furthermore, extremism also manifests as (i) the innovation of arbitrarily halting, affirming or declaring a position of judgement on someone pending verification or investigation; (ii) interpreting contemporary muslim societies as those equivalent with the era of jéhiliyyah (pre-islamic period); and (iii) passing rulings related to understanding of the concept of dér (the land).1 as the issue in hand is crucial, it is important to understand arabic terms used by the extremists in arguments, articulations and religious exhortations when discussing the issue of charging someone with unbelief (kufr). terms such as êmén (faith) and kufr (unbelief) are widely used hamdard islamicus 9 vol. xxxix, no. 4 in the qur’én and ×adêth literature. nevertheless, it is imperative to understand their true meanings in the light of the qur’énic and sunnatic perspectives that accord with the methodology applied during the early islamic period, and which held a genuine understanding of the texts. generally, a consensus on undistorted teachings has already been reached which effectively solves all societal problems. both terms (êmén and kufr) are more than sufficiently studied for purposes of highlighting the implications of employing them in the contemporary islamic discourse between moderate and extremist scholars. the term kufr, as used in the qur’én and aíédêth under different contexts, especially requires proper perspective. otherwise, detecting the extremist abuse that propels common muslims towards devastation by nurturing a culture of subversion that expels fellow muslims from the ummah is nearly unachievable. this paper analyses verses of the qur’én and aíédêth. it draws attention to explanations made by the companions (r.a.) and scholars who have studied extensively and have commented on the concepts of kufr and takfêr (the charge of ‘unbelief’ and ‘infidelity’). it endeavours to inform muslims and non-muslims of the islamic worldview and activate logical cognizance of authentic islamic injunctions and values, particularly on the matter of takfêr. it attempts to correct misconceptions about islam as an unjust immoderate religion. the methodology applied is that of a qualitative content analysis of relevant verses taken from the qur’én and aíédêth with special reference to accusing muslims of infidelity. the analysis is followed by a presentation of positions taken by the companions and their successors (tébi‘ên) (r.a.), as well by the qur’én’s exegetes, scholars and jurists. the scope is limited to the issue of takfêr, whether it is advocated by organizations or individuals, and not to study the historical background of the extremist or radical groups or their ideologues. considering limitations, this study provides only a few examples from early islamic sources. towards understanding the meaning of the term, kufr ibn féris mentioned that al-kéf, al-fé and al-ré are basic roots that indicate ‘hiding’ or ‘covering’ something. kufr is the opposite of êmén because it is like hiding the truth.2 the term means, to cover and to hide. kufr, kufrén and kufur mean ‘to be irreligious’, ‘to be an infidel’, and hamdard islamicus 10 vol. xxxix, no. 4 ‘not to believe in allah’.3 the term is used in different exegetical and juristic texts with different meanings, sometimes for the state of unbelief that expels someone from a community and at other times for the type of unbelief that does not exile a person from his/her own community. the term ‘unbelief’ has branches, like êmén. each branch of êmén is called êmén as allah says, “never would allah make your faith no effect.”4 in relation to this, abë hurayrah (r.a.) narrated that the prophet (œ) said, “faith has over seventy branches or over sixty branches; the most excellent of which is the declaration that there is no god but allah and the humblest of which is the removal of what is injurious from the path and modesty is the branch of faith.”5 among these branches, there are some, that if terminated, cause êmén to disappear such as the branch of the shahédah (evidence). there are others that even if people do not act on them, such people remain in the state of êmén, such as the last branch (of faith), which is the removal of harmful objects from roads. between them are unequal branches of great divergence. the same philosophy is applied to kufr, which also has roots and branches. some of which charge someone as an infidel and others, if holding one of them, he possesses a characteristic of kufr. in this regard, ibn sallam conveys that as far as the aíédêth regarding unbelief and polytheism are concerned, they do not specifically indicate that those who have the same attributes as mentioned in these aíédêth are infidels or polytheists. however, they also have different indications such as attributes and ways that are present among the infidels and polytheists.6 hence, unbelief (kufr) is of two types. the first is major unbelief (al-kufr al-akbar), which leads to the fire of hell forever. the second is minor unbelief (al-kufr al-aîghar), which inevitably threatens a person but does not lead him to the fire eternally.7 in succeeding pages, types of unbelief are analysed for the reader’s benefit and comprehension, thus, rendering true meanings of the term kufr and relevant issues. major unbelief major unbelief leads someone to hellfire forever. islamic texts treat unbelief as the opposite to faith. allah says, “if allah had so willed, succeeding generations would not have fought among each other, after clear (signs) had come to hamdard islamicus 13 vol. xxxix, no. 4 succeed in deceiving some people for some time but they cannot deceive all people for all times. when such a person is exposed, he loses all honour once and for all. as to the hereafter, mere lip service will carry no weight there because it is deeds alone that matter there.”17 these are some examples of major unbelief that justify one’s expulsion from the community of believers.18 minor unbelief minor unbelief brings threats to a person but does not lead him/her to the hellfire eternally. these include all forms of disobedience (sin), as sin is one element of unbelief.19 obedience is recognised as faith; hence, disobedience is accounted as unbelief. disobedience is the opposite of gratitude, as obedience is an act of gratitude.20 about this, allah says, “we showed him the way: whether he be grateful or ungrateful (rests on his will).”21 allah also says, “if anybody is grateful, truly his gratitude is (a gain) for his own soul; but if anybody is ungrateful, truly my lord is free of all needs, supreme in honour.”22 a few aíédêth mention unbelief synonymously with disobedience. we reproduce them for greater clarity and for the purpose of avoiding conflicts and confrontations. to begin with, ‘abd allah (b. mas‘ëd [r.a.]) narrated that the prophet (œ) said, “abusing a muslim is fusëq (i.e. an evil doing) and killing him is kufr (disbelief).”23 disbelief, as mentioned in the íadêth, does not mean that it drives someone out of the ummah. scholars reached this inference based on what allah says, “if two parties or groups among the believers fall to fighting…”.24 in this verse allah does not refer to them (the two parties fighting one another) as unbelievers; rather they are referred to as believers who fall into fighting. the induction is that it is inappropriate to call believers infidels merely because of fighting or disagreement. disagreements or differences of opinions cannot form a basis for the accusation of infidelity. along this line of thought, al-‘asqalénê reiterated that whenever a believer commits disobedience or sin, he is not regarded as an infidel, for allah has recognised him with the category of a believer. instead of accusing him of unbelief, an attempt at compromise should take place to hamdard islamicus 14 vol. xxxix, no. 4 maintain peace and harmony; he should not be driven out of the ummah merely due to fighting, nor can there be any unusual judgement. abë hurayrah (r.a.) reported that the prophet (œ) said, “two matters are signs of disbelief on the part of those who indulge in them: defaming and speaking evil of a person’s lineage and wailing over the dead.”25 al-nawawê remarked there were different views among scholars but the most appropriate was (i) to consider these characteristic activities of infidels and people of pre-islamic days. he further stated that (ii) these same characteristics lead a person into a state of unbelief and that (iii) they indicate ingratitude for allah’s blessings and compassion.26 ibn taymiyyah interpreted both matters as ‘signs of disbelief”, meaning that these characteristics are found in people as kufr in that they are like the actions of disbelievers but without implying that the observer of one branch of kufr would become a total disbeliever; that is, unless genuine kufr, as mentioned in the íadêth, is explicitly seen in such a person.27 al-‘asqalénê drew lessons from the aíédêth on the permissibility of employing the word kufr for qualities that do not drive someone out of the ummah and for monotheists who are also punished for their sins.28 al-nawawê remarked that this íadêth provided evidence for using the word kufr for something in which there is no denial of allah (such as being ungrateful to one’s husband or for the favours provided by allah), or his compassion and truth.29 moreover, what supports this principle is the classification of unbelief into two kinds, major and minor. using this approach, gross misconceptions of those who accuse others of unbelief evaporate. the íadêth teaching that monotheists will be taken out of hellfire further supports the argument. al-bukhérê infers that sins are due to ignorance but that a sinner is not a disbeliever unless he worships others along with allah. examples of unbelief are injustice, sensuality and ignorance, and these have been divided into two kinds. the first type expels a person from the ummah but the second does not.30 this assessment was reported by the prophet’s companions (r.a.), the most knowledgeable in the qur’én; those who knew islam intimately and fully understood unbelief’s elements. muslims who learned from them were/are superior, but later generations failed to comprehend and eventually became divided into two groups. one group advocated the exclusion of all those who committed hamdard islamicus 15 vol. xxxix, no. 4 major sins from the community, and went even further to pass the verdict of hellfire, forever, for those so condemned. the other group declared their own status as believers with perfect faith. hence, one group exceeded the limits and the other did not. nevertheless, allah guided “the people of the prophet’s patterns and the community” (ahl al-sunnah wa al-jamé‘ah) by showing them the path of moderation. hence, there is unbelief less than unbelief; hypocrisy less than hypocrisy; polytheism less than polytheism; sensuality less than sensuality; and injustice less than injustice.”31 unbelief and its consequences according to scholars, there are two significant principles that encompass the concept of unbelief. the first is that a person can hold elements of faith and unbelief concurrently. the second is that driving a person out of the ummah is dangerous and holds much risk. first principle good and righteous deeds are called ‘faith’ by allah when he says, “never would allah make your faith of no effect.”32 on the other hand, sins (disobedience) are referred to as ‘unbelief’. the prophet (œ) said, “abusing a muslim is fusëq (i.e. an evil doing) and killing him is kufr (disbelief).”33 hence, it is possible that some believers will have a branch or branches of unbelief or hypocrisy or ignorance. this is what the prophet (œ) meant when naming unbelief for some sins while not denying the faith of the sinner. this significant principle needs greater acknowledgement as the issue of redeeming sinners from hellfire (not to abide therein forever) is based on it, and is supported with evidence from the qur’én and sunnah. evidence from the qur’én allah says, “and most of them believe not in allah without associating (others as partners) with him.”34 ibn abbés said they have a part of faith for when they were asked, ‘who created the heavens, the earth, and the mountains,’ ‘they say allah.’ yet, they associate others with him in worship’. although the verse was revealed concerning arab polytheists, it is best to apply the ruling in general. hamdard islamicus 16 vol. xxxix, no. 4 allah says, “the desert arabs say: “we believe.” say: “ye have no faith; but ye (only) say ‘we have submitted our wills to allah’. for not yet has faith entered your hearts. but if ye obey allah and his apostle he will not belittle aught for your deeds: for allah is oft-forgiving most merciful.”35 here, allah considers both their islam and obedience to allah and his prophet (œ) by saying ‘they have no faith. evidence from ×adêth literature ‘abd allah ibn ‘amr ibn al-‘óî reported that the prophet (œ) said, “three characteristics make anyone who possesses them a sheer hypocrite; anyone who possesses one of them possesses a characteristic of hypocrisy till he abandons it; when he talks he lies, when he makes a covenant he acts treacherously, and when he quarrels he deviates from the truth.”36 this íadêth shows that hypocrisy and islam can be found simultaneously in one person.37 the inference is that a person remains a hypocrite until he abandons such acts, also implying he might not remain a hypocrite forever. likewise, a liar is regarded as committing a sin but the moment he stops lying he is no longer a hypocrite. what is drawn from the íadêth is that not all such acts expel a person from the ummah. hence, decreeing that a person committing such acts is in a state of unbelief is improper. second principle accusing a muslim of infidelity has severe consequences, so it is impermissible for a muslim to pass any judgement against another muslim unless there is irrefutable and authentic evidence. calling a muslim an infidel was also disapproved in a íadêth narrated by abë hurayrah (r.a.): “if a man says to his brother o kéfir (disbeliever), then surely one of them is such (i.e. kéfir).”38 hamdard islamicus 17 vol. xxxix, no. 4 this íadêth infers that accusing others of infidelity is not an insignificant matter but is vitally important. hence, utmost care should be taken in passing such a remark or judgement on others. the consequence is serious, to the extent that an accuser may reach the state of an infidel due to an unsubstantiated and false accusation. thébit ibn al-öaííék (r.a.) reported that … cursing a believer is like murdering him and whoever accuses a believer of disbelief, then it is as if he had killed him.”39 obviously, this íadêth does not endorse the concept of accusing a believer of infidelity, especially since a false accusation of infidelity is equivalent to murder. hence, regardless of situations and circumstances, a believer remains a believer and he shall not be accused as an infidel due to any kind of sin or disobedience, excepting polytheism. abë dharr (r.a.) narrated that he heard the prophet (œ) saying, “if somebody accuses another of fusëq (by calling him fésiq i.e. wicked person) or accuses him of kufr, such an accusation will revert to him (the accuser) if his companion (the accused) is innocent.”40 ibn daqêq remarks it is a severe threat to whoever accuses another of infidelity if the accused is innocent. some muslims have fallen into this predicament. unfortunately, the phenomenon persists as, compared to times past, present muslim society engages in the business of charging other muslims with infidelity due to minor differences and disputes. disagreement in beliefs and exchanging judgements of infidelity are spreading like a contagious disease. the aíédêth register stern warnings for those who accuse someone of infidelity. clear commands for restraint are evident, as the issue is related to the sharê‘ah. as the qur’én and sunnah stipulate solid principles, such judgements are not to be passed out on mere desire, whim, fancy, ignorance or bias. one who claims something due to absolute ignorance goes against the people of knowledge (ahl al-‘ilm), and by opposing them by accusing someone of infidelity, he eventually places himself among those who go astray. such an act is the sign of the highest order of ignorance as there is none greater.41 without knowing the esoteric sentiments of someone who appears indifferent and seems to reflect or manifest some dimensions of unbelief, even then it is not appropriate to accuse him of infidelity. thus, an infidel is one who expands his chest wide open for disbelief. the heart of an infidel is satisfied and at peace with unbelief, especially when due to his hamdard islamicus 18 vol. xxxix, no. 4 ignorance of what is against the path of islam. there is no value in any deed of unbelief by which the doer does not intend to leave islam and join a disbelieving community. likewise, there is no consideration of words uttered by muslims reflecting the meaning of disbelief unless they truly mean it and hold it as a creed.42 usémah ibn zayd (r.a.) said: “allah’s apostle (œ) sent us towards (the) huruqah and in the morning we attacked them and defeated them. i and an anîérê man followed a man from among them and when we took him over, he said, lé iléha illa alléh. on hearing that, the anîérê man stopped, but i killed him by stabbing him with my spear. when we returned, the prophet (œ) came to know about that and he said, “o usémah! did you kill him after he had said lé iléha illa alléh?” i said, ‘but he said so only to save himself.’ the prophet (œ) kept on repeating that so often that i wished i had not embraced islam before that.”43 this íadêth conveys that if a man confesses “there is no god but allah,” then it is unlawful for other muslims to kill him based on assumptions, suspicions or speculations. it also shows that the prophet (œ) demonstrated grave concern for muslims who take the law into their hands based on imaginations and conjectures. islam does not provide any room for the judgement of peoples’ actions without authentic and indisputable evidence. in islam, justice is one of the noblest values to uphold. due to severity of charging a muslim with disbelief, even though he may be a disobedient sinner, scholars regard it as wrongdoing. no muslim is allowed to spy on another muslim, or having spied, to swear by allah that he (the sinner) will not be forgiven or admitted to paradise. the fate of such a person will be that allah will send him to hell. even, if an individual is righteous and pious with full of devotion and good deeds, he will be subject to punishment if he curses by an oath that a sinner or disobedient person will not enter paradise. al-×anafê says that it is a great injustice to testify against someone that allah will not forgive him nor bestow his mercy but will enter him in the fire of hell where he would live forever, for it is a judgement for hamdard islamicus 19 vol. xxxix, no. 4 an infidel after death.44 the implication of calling a sinner an infidel is explicit when we know its consequences: [1] his wife is no more lawful for him and it is prohibited for her to remain with him (including her children); [2] it is obligatory on a ruler to punish him for changing religion after he has been declared an infidel; [3] if he dies in this state, sharê‘ah will not be applied; his body will not be washed; funeral prayer will not be offered and he will not be buried in the muslim cemetery; [4] if he dies in a state of unbelief, he will be cursed by allah and placed in the fires of hell where he would live forever.45 because these are the implications of charging someone with unbelief, great care must be taken in making such a judgement. those who make such judgements consciously or unconsciously ought to be advised of the grave consequences. organisations, groups, or societies subscribing to the philosophy of charging muslims with infidelity for different reasons should be counselled, educated and exposed to authentic aíédêth and edicts from trustworthy scholars who have deliberated such judgements. section i charging individuals who are guilty of acts of sin and disobedience with infidelity an established principle of ahl al-sunnah wa al-jamé‘ah is not to charge someone with infidelity for mere disobedience unless he believes in the permissibility of disobedience. al-ùaíéwê states that a muslim cannot be charged as an infidel for any sin that he commits because he follows the direction of prayer (ahl al-qiblah). hence, he is treated as a muslim as long as he does not consider that committing the sin is lawful. he also held that it is improper to declare that wrongs ‘do him no harm’ when done by the faithful.46 al-nawawê argues that muslims should know the opinions of truthful people and that nobody among those who follow the direction of prayer should be charged as an infidel due to sin, nor even those who follow mere desires, including people of innovation (ahl al-bid‘ah). however, whosoever rejects any basic principle of islam should be charged as an apostate or infidel, except for new muslims or those raised in rural environments who do not have hamdard islamicus 20 vol. xxxix, no. 4 adequate knowledge of the religion. such people should be instructed in the religion first, and if they continue to reject, only then can they be charged as infidels after exhausting all educational avenues. the same rule applies to those who admit fornication, drinking alcohol, gambling, murder and other clearly unlawful matters.47 at the same time, it is important to heed al-ùaíéwê ’s teaching that the people of truth (ahl al-×aqq) do not regard anyone an infidel due to sin (meaning disobedience and mortal sin) but without leaving the pillars of islam. ibn taymiyyah established that when it is said that ‘ahl al-sunnah wa al-jamé‘ah agreed on the issue of not charging a sinner as an infidel, it clearly meant disobedience such as fornication and drinking alcohol. however, as far as the four pillars and testimony are concerned, if anyone leaves one of them there is disagreement.48 evidence in the qur’én and aíédêth asserts punishment for those who commit moral sins such as theft, fornication, drinking alcohol and libel. this demonstrates that they should not be killed but rather awarded prescribed punishments. however, if they are infidels, then they deserve the punishment of apostasy.49 ibn sallém articulated reactions to the khérijites’ position that allah had disavowed their statement by prescribing punishments such as cutting the hand of a thief and lashes for a fornicator or accuser. if sin leads someone to become an infidel, the sinner should not be given any punishment except death. for the prophet (œ) said, “whosoever changes his religion, kill him.” if they are not regarded as infidels, then they should be given the punishment of cutting and lashes. ibn taymiyyah explained that every muslim knows that the prophet (œ) did not regard drunkards, fornicators, accusers or thieves as apostate. however, the qur’én and recurrent aíédêth mention different punishments for each instead of the punishment for an apostate: lashes for accusers and fornicators, the chopping of hands for a thief. however, if they are apostates, they can be killed.50 evidence from the qur’én according to al-‘asqalénê, al-bukhérê argued that if a believer commits disobedience (sin), he is not charged as an infidel because hamdard islamicus 21 vol. xxxix, no. 4 allah maintained the title of ‘believer’ for him.51 allah says, “allah forgiveth not that partners should be set up with him; but he forgiveth anything else, to whom he pleaseth; to set up partners with allah is to devise a sin most heinous indeed.”52 al-bukhérê further articulated that sins take place due to ignorance and that such sinners are not disbelievers unless they worship others along with allah. this is because of the saying of the prophet (œ), “you are a person who still has in him the remnants of the days of ignorance,” – also, “allah forgiveth not that partners should be set up with him; but he forgiveth anything else, to whom he pleaseth ...”. commenting further, al-bukhérê stated that the word kufr might be used metaphorically for disobedience, meaning ungratefulness rather than denial. this implies a kind of unbelief that does not drive a person out of the ummah, unlike the khérijites who believed that those who committed sins were infidels. the following text clearly refutes the khérijites’ position, “allah forgiveth not that partners should be set up with him; but he forgiveth anything else, to whom he pleaseth…”53 hence, whatever is less than kufr can be forgiven, meaning that setting partners equal with allah indicates kufr in the same manner as the person who denies the prophethood and mission of muíammad (œ) is infidel. although he does not set another deity as partner with allah, there is no disagreement among scholars that such a person will not be forgiven.”54 ibn taymiyyah reiterates that this stipulation does not include repentance because allah says, “say: “o my servants who have transgressed against their souls! despair not of the mercy of allah. for allah forgives all sins: for he is oft-forgiving, most merciful.”55 here the injunction is general because it means repentance, which is specific and provisional as revealed in sërat al-nisé’:48,56 which indicates that whenever a sinner repents and turns to allah, he/she is forgiven. allah willed upon himself the laws of grace and mercy. if anyone does a bad deed out of ignorance and thereafter repents and lives righteously, allah, the dispenser of grace, is most forgiving.57 evidence from sunnah there are aíédêth related to the matter of unbelief that inspire a true understanding of its meaning. considering limitations of the hamdard islamicus 22 vol. xxxix, no. 4 current discourse on the subject, a few aíédêth are now presented and explained. to begin with, anas bin mélik (r.a.) reports that the prophet (œ) said: “allah, the exalted, has said: o son of adam, i forgive you as long as you pray to me and hope for my forgiveness, whatever sins you have committed. o son of adam, i do not care if your sins reach the heights of the heaven, then you ask for my forgiveness, i would forgive you. o son of adam, if you come to me with an earth load of sins, and meet me associating nothing to me’, i would match it with an earth load of forgiveness.”58 allah is all-forgiving. the forgiveness of allah is subject to sincere prayer, supplication and repentance. even if sins are huge, it is possible to be forgiven if allah wishes; hence, one does not become an infidel due to sins, as is made obvious in this íadêth. ‘ubédah ibn al-øémit (r.a.) narrated that the prophet (œ) said: “whoever amongst you fulfils his pledge will be rewarded by allah. and whoever indulges in any one of them (except the ascription of partners to allah) and gets the punishment in this world, that punishment will be expiation for that sin. and if one indulges in any of them (stealing, illegal sexual intercourse, killing one’s own children, accusing an innocent person, disobedience to do good) and allah conceals his sin, it is up to him to forgive or punish him (in the hereafter).”59 al-‘asqalénê remarked on the íadêth, “and if one indulges in any of them and allah conceals his sin, it is up to him to forgive or punish him (in the hereafter),” there is clear refutation of the khérijites’ claim that those who committed sins and disobedience were infidels.60 the khérijites were regarded as the extremists of their day for this reason, among others. hence, it is necessary to negate and distance their elucidations, articulations and inferences. many contemporary muslims should learn of their approaches and vain religious exhortations. observing the present situation, one can reasonably deduce that numerous muslims hamdard islamicus 23 vol. xxxix, no. 4 have embraced the khérijites’ position. the absence of critical thinking and objective evaluative methods allow such personalities to disseminate false doctrines without realising the dire consequences, both here and hereafter. abë hurayrah (r.a.) mentioned a man who drank wine and was brought to the prophet (œ). the prophet (œ) ordered the companions (r.a.) to beat him. some companions (r.a.) beat him with their hands, some with their shoes and some with their garments (by twisting it) like a lash. when they finished the beating, someone said to the drunkard, ‘may allah disgrace you!’ on that, the prophet (œ) said, ‘do not say so, for you are helping satan to overpower him.’61the íadêth shows that the prophet (œ) forbade the companions (r.a.) to curse the drunkard. to the contrary, he regarded him as a brother and advised the companions (r.a.) to pray for him. if the drunkard were an infidel, the prophet (œ) would not have forbidden his companions (r.a.) to curse him. instead, he advised them to call him their brother and pray for him. from this, one can infer that a drunkard is not an infidel but rather a sinner and there is punishment for his sin. it also implies that a transgressor may have done good deeds during his life, which will be given to whom he had oppressed in this world on the day of judgement.62 after a careful study of the qur’én and aíédêth, it becomes evident that any consideration of disobedience as unbelief is an exaggeration (immoderation) or religious extremism. furthermore, it is contrary to islamic characteristics such as the ease of religion, facilitation, justice and holistic mercy. nevertheless, infidelity by means of disobedience, as believed and advocated by the khérijites, was one of their principal dogmas. arguments of ahl al-takfêr and our response kufr, according to shukrê muîtafa’s group, is not used in sharê‘ah except to indicate the opposite of êmén and its denial. thus, it refers to a general ruling that embraces many kinds, each with a specific name such as fisq, ðulm and khubth. when allah says, “he has made non-belief, wickedness and rebellion hateful to you”63, it means that hamdard islamicus 24 vol. xxxix, no. 4 these three elements are kufr according to the general rule and are different by names of figures, all-inclusive in the word, kufr. in substantiating this claim, they refer to the verse 35 of sërat al-aízéb. to shukri mustafa’s people, all such cited names of different figures mentioned in the verse denote one rule with one meaning, i.e., referring to all believers with each having a different name based on the quality of faith.64 likewise, according to them, fisq, ðulm and khubth refer to kufr. the ahl al-takfêr (people who call others infidels) called it kufr because of the insistence of disobedience. one may summarize this belief in the accusation of infidelity by means of disobedience as follows: [1] all disobedience (sins) is kufr to allah; [2] the classification of ‘infidel’ cannot be removed from the disobedient except by means of repentance; and [3] repentance is the renewal of islam. according to them, if a person disobeys once and does not repent, it shows persistent disobedience, hence, he is an infidel.65 they quote al-furqén:43, yésên:60, al-nahl:100, al-an‘ém:121, al-jinn:23, al-nisé’:14, al-baqarah:81, al-×ujurét:11 and al-baqarah:254 to substantiate the argument that sinful people are infidels. they also quote a íadêth narrated by abë hurayrah (r.a.) who reported that the prophet (œ) said, “all my followers will enter paradise except those who refuse.” they said: o allah’s apostle: “who will refuse?” he said, “whoever obeys me will enter paradise and whosoever disobeys me refuses (to enter it).”66 however, as we shall demonstrate, this íadêth is falsely explained to justify the conclusion that sinful or disobedient persons are infidels. the khérijites held this understanding with regard to the warnings (al-wa‘êd) and argued that a single disobedience is enough to make one remain in hellfire forever, but to enter the paradise forever, it is necessary to perform all obedience. the ahl al-sunnah wa’al-jamé‘ah adopt a moderate path. accordingly, the êmén of a person who commits moral sins is imperfect: he is a sinner and is driving himself towards punishment. nevertheless, it depends on allah’s grace/will, whether to punish (if he dies without repentance) or forgive him. ibn sallém remarked that not all disobedience and sins eliminate êmén, neither do they impose kufr, but such activity does deny the actuality of êmén and sincerity that allah has attributed to believers.67 hamdard islamicus 25 vol. xxxix, no. 4 on the position of the ahl al-sunnah wa’al-jamé‘ah, ibn taymiyyah comments that they do not declare that those who pray like other muslims are infidels simply due to disobedience and major sin as did the khérijites. rather, they state that the concept of brotherhood in êmén is firm and quite aside from disobedience. they do not remove elements of êmén from the deviant persons totally. they do not believe that they will be in hellfire forever, as did the mu‘tazilites. however, fisq is included in the name of êmén and does not come under the name of êmén by any means. they say, ‘he is a believer with imperfect êmén’ or ‘he is a believer due to his êmén’ but also that ‘he is a deviant due to mortal sins’. therefore, he will not be given the name generally, nor will the name completely removed.68 the ahl al-takfêr declare that a person is an infidel by means of disobedience and they use the qur’én as evidence. for example: “then seest thou such a one as takes as his allah his own vain desire?”69 – “did i not enjoin on you, o ye children of adam, that ye should not worship satan; for that he was to you an enemy avowed?”70 their interpretation is that whosoever follows his vain desire and pursues disobedience commits shirk. however, scholars teach that the verse is specifically addressed to mushrikën (polytheists) who worship their own vain desire. al-ùabarê had a difference of opinion regarding al-jéthiyah:23. according to some, it means one who takes desire as his religion and acts upon whatever he likes (without consulting the qur’én or sunnah). such people do not believe in allah nor forbid what allah forbids or permit what allah permits. his religion is his vain desire, which he follows and acts out. the ahl al-takfêr advocates that when a muslim commits a sin and does not repent, he becomes a disbeliever and will dwell in hellfire forever. however, this is a false stance because the qur’én and aíédêth indicate the lifting of punishment. for example, a believer is forgiven through repentance and this is consensus, as allah states, “he is the one that accepts repentance from his servants and forgives sins: and he knows all that ye do.”71 seeking forgiveness for sins protects a believer from hellfire. abë hurayrah (r.a.), on the authority of the prophet (œ), wrote: “if somebody commits a sin and then says, o my lord! i have sinned, hamdard islamicus 26 vol. xxxix, no. 4 ‘please forgive me!’ and his lord says, my slave has known that he has a lord who forgives sins and punishes for it, i therefore have forgiven my slave (his sins).’then he remains without committing any sin for a while and then again commits another sin and says, o my lord, i have committed another sin, please forgive me, and allah says, my slave has known that he has a lord who forgives sins and punishes for it, i therefore have forgiven my slave (his sin). then he remains without committing any sin for a while and then commits another sin (for the third time) and says, o my lord, i have committed another sin, please forgive me, and allah says, my slave has known that he has a lord who forgives sins and punishes for it, i therefore have forgiven my slave (his sin), he can do whatever he likes.”72 righteousness also removes sins. allah said, “and establish regular prayer at the two ends of the day and at the approach of the night: for those things that are good remove those that are evil: be that the word of remembrance to those who remember (their lord).”73 the prophet (œ) said, “five (daily) prayers and from one jumu‘ah prayer to the (next) jumu‘ah prayer, and from ramaìén to ramaìén are expiations for the (sins) committed in between (their intervals) provided one shuns the major sins.”74 furthermore, what the dead have done in terms of good deeds, such as giving alms, remain. on this, the prophet (œ) said, “when a man dies, his acts come to an end, but three, recurring charity, or knowledge (by which people) benefit, or a pious son who prays for him (for the deceased).”75 the intercession of the prophet (œ) and others for sinners on the day of judgement will be another safeguard from hellfire. anas ibn mélik (r.a.) reports that the messenger (œ) said, “my intercession will be for those of my people who have committed major sins.”76 major sins are like theft, adultery, drinking, gambling, etc. such muslims are sure to go to hell because of major sins but will be saved by the intercession of the prophet (œ). there is consensus among the ahl al-sunnah regarding the intercession of the prophet (œ) on the day of judgement. however, the khérijites and a group of mu‘tazilêtes denied the prophet’s intercession. they believed that muslims who commit major sins will remain in hell forever, contrary to the belief held by the ahl al-sunnah. hamdard islamicus 27 vol. xxxix, no. 4 section ii charging rulers who do not base their policies and judgements on the sharê‘ah with infidelity the qur’én explicitly mentions that the renunciation of the law of allah is an act of disbelief. this is stated in (al-mé’idah:44, 45, 47), but scholars differ in interpretations: [1] some say these verses refer to the jews who distorted the book of allah and modified the law; [2] the word kéfirën refers to muslims, ðélimën to jews, and fésiqën to christians; [3] kufr is lesser than known disbelief, ðulm is lesser than known oppression, and fisq is lesser than known immorality; [4] these verses, although addressed to the people of the book, aim at all of humanity, muslim or kéfêr; [5] the meaning of “whoever does not judge by what allah has revealed (hence denying), he is a disbeliever,” i.e., who acknowledges both injustice and immorality.77 the verse obviously means that whoever denies allah as the only judge, and also denies his law, is a disbeliever. there is no exception for jews, christians or anyone else because the address is general: ‘whoever judges without the law of allah’ – this includes everyone. however, the cause of the revelation was particular and not general. it is known that this insight was due to the broadness of the letter and not the particularity of the reason. however, ×udhayfah ibn al-yamén (r.a.) rejected the view that it was specifically sent in reference to the children of israel. the reality is, therefore, that judgement without the law of allah is disbelief, whether in action or faith, so qualifies. ibn abê al-‘izz al-×anafê mentions the condition of a judge who believes that the law of allah is not necessary and prefers an alternative or an underestimation of the law, even when knowing divine law comes from allah. hence, it is the greatest level of disbelief if he believes in the necessity of law, and yet, knowing this, deviates from the truth – such are regarded as disobedient. here, kufr is reckoned figuratively as minor disbelief.78 concerning matters of law, muíammad ibn ibréhêm remarked that this verse refers to disbelievers, due to disbelief in both faith and action. disbelief in faith varies regarding a judge who denies the superiority of the law of hamdard islamicus 28 vol. xxxix, no. 4 allah, the denial is no doubt of the basic principles of islam. this leads to major disbelief and expels him from islam. a judge who believes that laws other than the laws of allah are better and more comprehensive for humanity, in an absolute or relative manner related to the idiosyncratic issues is, without hesitation, considered a disbeliever, as this demonstrates clear preference for the law of man over the law of allah. without preference for the law of man while considering both equal degrees of truth, also leads to similar consequences because of the equalization. hence, such judges contradict al-shëré:11 and al-a‘réf:54. believing in the relevance of man-made laws that contradict the law of allah and his prophet (œ) is another affirmation of disbelief at the most atrocious of levels, by establishing judgements from various sources while denying the law of allah and his prophet (œ). unfortunately, this is a contemporary trend in muslim countries. making rules and judgements from ancestral customs dating to preislamic times while turning from the law of allah and his prophet (œ) is disbelief in action, but does not expel someone from islam. this is because judgements driven by motives and desires to judge by something out of allah’s law, even while believing the law of allah and his prophet (œ) are truth, account him as guilty. although this does not exile him/her from islam, the action is regarded as a major sin, even worse than known major sins such as fornication, consuming alcohol, etc., because what is stated as disbelief is worse than what is not stated or acted on. currently, exaggeration in charging judges of unbelief is obvious. concerning this, sélim al-bahansawê said that the ahl al-takfêr are of the opinion that all muslim judges are disbelievers and those who are under their judgement and restrain themselves from changing the situation by aligning with other groups “on the truth”, are disbelievers, because their allegiance is to the accused judge.79two things are now elaborated. the first is that of charging judges with unbelief without considering general details. the second is that of charging particular judges with unbelief without considering causes of ignorance, or duress, or other valid grounds. the caliph, ‘umar ibn ‘abd al-‘azêz (r.a.), faced hostility and enmity because he attempted to establish justice and for which cause he was poisoned. king negus and his kind are in the bliss of heaven, hamdard islamicus 29 vol. xxxix, no. 4 although not availing themselves entirely to the sharê‘ah due to the inability of distance and time, they judged according to their capability.80 hence, it becomes apparent that a judge can face obstacles/pressures that remove the law from the domain of major to minor disbelief. hence, holding forth the accusation of disbelief for such judges is legally prohibited. here is where cautiousness and attentiveness are especially obligatory in order to reach an acquittal. section iii the charge of unbelief of the subjects of such rulers people under rulers who do not enforce the law of allah have a different position. these are divided into two groups. the first group comprises those who obey their rulers and follow what they believe. these are of two kinds: (i) people who know that rulers have altered the religion and yet obey the alteration while believing it is legitimate to accept what allah has prohibited, and believing in the prohibition of what allah has made lawful – despite knowing that they trespass the injunctions. this group is regarded as having kufr towards allah almighty and ibn taymiyyah called it shirk.81 this circumstance is cited in sërat al-tawbah:31. regarding this, ‘adêy ibn ×étim (r.a.) reported: “i went to the prophet (œ) and on my neck was a golden cross and he said: o ‘adêy, throw away that idol and i heard him reciting al-tawbah:31, and said, “they (people of the book) were not to worship them but when they allowed something, they would make it allowed to themselves, and when they would forbid something, they would forbid it for themselves as well.”82 ×udhayfah (r.a.) remarked that as far as they were not fasting like monks or performing prayers for their sake, yet when monks and priests allowed something they allowed it for themselves, and when monks and priests forbade something they forbade it to themselves – this was their priesthood.83 (ii) the second kind of people are these: in spite of faith and hamdard islamicus 30 vol. xxxix, no. 4 belief in the proscription of the unlawful and the legitimisation as lawful by their leader, they obey in disobedience towards allah like a muslim who commits sin while knowing it is sinful. such people become encompassed by the law, as do those who commit sin. the prophet (œ) stated “obedience is required only in what is good.”84 in another íadêth the prophet (œ) stated, “it is obligatory for one to listen to and obey (the ruler’s orders) unless these orders involve one in disobedience (to allah); but if an act of disobedience (to allah) is imposed, one should not listen to or obey it.”85 on this íadêth, ibn al-qayyim wrote that ‘those who obey people in authority in sin towards allah is sinful’, hence, no excuse can be brought before allah and the sin of disobedience takes its charge, even if the matter had not yet been committed.86 nevertheless, even mere obedience in action does not imply takfêr, if obedience happens in faith. ibn al-‘arabê wrote that a believer who obeys a disbeliever shall become a disbeliever when such obedience happens in faith and it is the subject of disbelief and belief, but when obedience takes place in action while belief in tawíêd and faith remains, it is regarded as sinful.87 the second group comprises those who condemn and are displeased by the circumstance. based on the aíédêth, they are not regarded as sinful, although afflicted by sin caused by withholding their denial despite the capacity to do so. on this, the prophet (œ) said: “amêrs (leaders) will be appointed over you and you will find them doing good as well as bad deeds. one who hates their bad deeds is absolved from blame. one who disapproves of their bad deeds is (also) safe (so far as divine wrath is concerned). however, one who approves of their bad deeds and imitates them (is doomed). people asked, the messenger of allah: shouldn’t we fight against them? he replied: no, as long as they say their prayers.”88 al-nawawê said that whoever hates and is displeased with abominable acts will get rid of his sin and punishment. this refers to people who are unable to deny it through action or word but turn in displeasure within their hearts. the same is evident for whoever is unable to eliminate such sins when silent, but the sin happens while they are pleased with it or when not detesting it.89 hamdard islamicus 31 vol. xxxix, no. 4 the prophet (œ) said, “listen, have you heard that after me there will be leaders and whoever enters upon them, condones their lies and supports them in their oppression is not from me and i am not from him and he shall not drink with me from the pool. whoever does not enter upon them nor help them in their oppression nor condones their lies is from me and i am from him and he shall drink with me at the pool.”90 this íadêth explicitly states that people are not allowed to condone lies from their leaders or blindly support them in oppression. hence, it is clear that muslims should not help them in oppressive activities. this implies there should be no support for such oppressors. extremists, however, are generally disobedient to the cosmic law because they do not follow the path of moderation or fairness as shown by the prophet (œ) when he dealt with others; as such, they can never be condoned. in the light of some manifestations of these forbidden characteristics, extremists can be classified as oppressors because of their gross injustices, unbearable manipulations, and serious fabrications. currently, this is the circumstance when extremists accuse islamic groups of infidelity with allegations of obeying leaders who rule without islam’s law. they say a muslim becomes an apostate when he obeys whoever does not rule based on laws revealed by allah. nonetheless, loyalty and obedience do exist separately from action without the consideration of intention and belief. they also say that someone who acts when provoked by the one who rules without allah’s law, and is loyal and obedient towards him, manifestly deifies such a leader. circumstances are the same whether [1] a believer falsely believes that a ruler is implementing the laws of allah; [2] a believer is conscious that his/her ruler contradicts the sharê‘ah but believes that he cannot change it; thus, such a believer recognises that his/her obedience to such a ruler is sinful; or [3] one who realises a ruler contradicts the sharê‘ah but falsely believes this is due to the ruler’s sanctity that sanctions the legitimizing of prohibitions and the prohibition of the lawful. hence, they believe that obedience is obligatory without considering allah’s command.91 hamdard islamicus 32 vol. xxxix, no. 4 the evidence for the unbelief of such followers is that allah says, “they have taken their scholars and monks as lords besides allah, and (also) the messiah, the son of mary.”92 these say that devotion towards monks and their order is without reserve and that this is loyalty. the verse equalized practical devotion towards monks and deification of the messiah – proving that action and faith in the law are equivalent as both lead to polytheism. confirming this position is a verse pertaining to the children of israel, without exception and without separating sinner from non-sinner or believer from non-believer.93 section iv charge of unbelief of those individuals who leave or withdraw from islamic organizations extremists have developed a peculiar understanding for the concept of a muslim jamé‘ah (organization). they stress that the existence of many jamé‘ats (organizations) among muslims is impermissible. indeed, they reach beyond certain bounds to develop an exaggerated theory of jamé‘ah. according to them, the jamé‘ah is only one congregation from which separation or withdrawal is considered an act of disbelief. what they especially mean is their own jamé‘ah; in this case, jamé‘at al-muslimên, founded by shukrê muîtafa of egypt during the twentieth century. the definition of separation from a muslim jamé‘ah is timely for the contemporary muslim community, which is at a crossroads, being challenged by extremists and immoderate interpretations. the definition of separation varies. if due to methodology and separation from mainstream islam as a whole, it is regarded apostasy. proponents claiming that separatists are apostates (or infidels) quote a íadêth reported by ibn mas‘ëd (r.a.), that the prophet (œ) said, “the blood of a muslim man who testifies that there is no god but allah and that i am the apostle of allah should not be lawfully shed but only for one of the three reasons: married fornicator, soul for soul, and one who deserts his religion separating himself from the community”94 hamdard islamicus 33 vol. xxxix, no. 4 ibn daqêq says that what is meant by the jamé‘ah in the íadêth is a muslim society and that separation from it is apostasy from the religion.95 if separation is not ideological but structural, for example, denying a pledge of allegiance to an imém (leader), it is generally not regarded as disbelief, but is regarded a major sin. however, this view gives rise to another point, because history records that some companions (r.a.) refused their pledge to leaders of their age. al-‘asqalénê reported that ibn ‘umar refused his pledge to both caliph ‘alê and caliph mu‘éwiyah.96 later, he pledged to caliph mu‘éwiyah after the latter’s reconciliation with ×asan ibn ‘alê.97 even so, he later denied homage to anyone on the matter of controversy until ibn al-zubayr (r.a.) was assassinated and the caliphate was settled by ‘abd al-mélik ibn marwén, to whom he then pledged allegiance.98 the clear inference is that no one who does not pledge allegiance can be considered an unbeliever under similar circumstances. there are two relevant aíédêth. in the first, the prophet (œ) said, “he who separates from the community within a span takes off the noose of islam from his neck.”99 the second is the prophet (œ) said, “one who dies without having sworn allegiance will die the death of one belonging to the days of ignorance (jéhiliyyah)”100 al-nawawê says that ignorance was a chaotic condition without a leader.101 both of these aíédêth are abused by the ahl al-takfêr to favour their own theory. al-‘asqalénê says that the death of ignorance refers to the ‘state of misguidance’. death, here, is not that of a disbeliever but of a sinner. the analogy is this: ‘he dies the death of one who belongs to ignorance’, although he was not. it is intended as preventative. this view is supported by the íadêth that states ‘he who separates from the community within a span removes the noose of islam from his neck’. if separation or withdrawal is because of an armed struggle, called béghê (outrage) by jurists, it does not bring people to the level of disbelief. outraged people are excused by allah and not branded as infidels. in spite of this, extremists accuse anyone separated from their organization of infidelity. this is because of their false analogy that considers their own jamé‘ah the major (only) jamé‘ah. this is manifest extremism. hence, charging a muslim with unbelief because of outrage is clearly inappropriate. trivial differences in interpretations, approaches and methodologies do not necessarily lead people to unbelief. even those hamdard islamicus 34 vol. xxxix, no. 4 who fight for some causes are treated as brothers. therefore, if contemporary muslims nurture differences ideologically, methodologically, structurally or technically when approaching doctrinal, legislative or political issues, in no way can this become a basis for charging someone with unbelief. these passages clarify such matters by stating that muslims remain brothers and that their creed is not volatile; that is, unless an explicit and conscious confession is made to separate from or reject the religion. ahl al-takfêr’s position on apostasy for those separated from their jamé‘ah is based on two false arguments. the first is based on él-‘imrén:105-106. the second aíédêth states [1] ‘he who separates from the community within a span takes off the noose of islam from his neck’, and [2] ‘the one who dies without having sworn allegiance will die the death of one belonging to the days of ignorance’. these are the sources abused by extremists for their misguided/misguiding deduction(s). however, these verses address separation from principles of religion rather than separation from any group within the muslim community. they refer, in particular, to separations that afflicted previous people of the book. ibn kathêr wrote that allah forbade the ummah to resemble previous nations and communities in disputes and controversies, and in the abandonment of commanding righteousness and restraining from viciousness and atrocity.102 he also proposed that the way to avoid dispute is by adhering to the qur’én and sunnah, and also by clinging to the muslim community which is a group characterized as people gathered in righteousness who keep themselves as muslims. the jamé‘ah mentioned in the aíédêth does not refer to a particular group at all – as falsely claimed and understood – but rather to the muslim community as a whole. separation or withdrawal from a specific group of people (or tiny jamé‘ah), is in no way regarded an act of disbelief. this section iv clearly unveiled errors used to recruit members for extremist cum terrorist organisations in the name of islam. hence, their quoting of the qur’én and aíédêth out of context and in isolation, as legitimate claims, ought to be soundly rejected. conclusion our discourse allows us to conclude that islam, under no conditions hamdard islamicus 35 vol. xxxix, no. 4 whatsoever, advocates extremism/radicalism. islam’s messages are fair and moderate and do not allow fanaticism or religious bigotry. however, some muslims, due to ignorance and misunderstanding, pursue obsessions and resort to extremism. thus, they have become enemies of muslims, creating much tension and no end to turmoil. other contemporary muslims even manifest indifference when interacting with those of remarkable immoderation in words and deeds that are contrary to the faith. having analysed their views, interpretations and actions in the light of basic islamic sources, the present work makes it clear there is no room in islamic doctrine to accuse muslims of infidelity due to disobedience or sin. this study provides references to the considerable portions of the qur’én and aíédêth arriving at the right conclusions just cited. illustrations, explanations and elucidations based on qur’énic evidence as articulated by honourable exegetes and scholars; logically substantiate islam’s firm position, that soundly rejects extremism in religion. islamic doctrines that confute extremist positions were comprehensively elaborated and described for various aspects related to faith, unbelief, the charge of infidelity and polytheism with various legal implications. the study has analysed appropriate arabic terms that allow the more accurate perspective of exegetes who have dealt extensively with the subject matter in the light of the qur’én and aíédêth. we addressed the crucial matter of unbelief and its consequences to help eliminate misunderstanding among common and innocent people. the latter easily become intoxicated by false propaganda and diplomatic machinations proffered by fanatics and extremists who accuse others to achieve unilateral objectives in favour of vested interests. this paper discussed manifest extremism with special reference to [1] charging muslims as infidels or apostates due to disobedience and sin; [2] charging a ruler who does not judge according to what allah has revealed as an infidel; [3] charging a follower of such a ruler as an infidel; and [4] charging a muslim who leaves an organisation as an infidel. these efforts were specifically made to help educate people regarding historically documented forms of extremism, so that current behaviours are more appropriately understood. for purposes of greater clarity and practicality, the discourse also focussed on significant aspects and implications of major and minor unbelief. extremist accusing of muslims of infidelity has been a major issue hamdard islamicus 36 vol. xxxix, no. 4 in the ummah during the 20th century, and now extends to the 21st, serving only to further split and polarizing the ummah. jihédists, boko harém, isis, al-qé’eda, ùélibén and other radical groups claim sincerity as though they are the only ones fighting for truth and the establishment of islamic governance. using this excuse, they justify violence, hijacks, kidnaps, murders, suicide bombings and all forms of terror. nevertheless, this paper makes it robustly clear that all of these factions completely lack legitimate authority, and it further denies any religious justification for their actions. hence, they have no legal or moral validation. from an islamic textual perspective, their activities are indefensible, their claims are unverifiable, their origins are suspicious, and their knowledge of the religion is truly questionable. furthermore, they present numerous ambiguities. therefore, granting them any sympathy is unwarranted. legally, muslims cannot offer support them, morally or materially, at any cost. furthermore, the paper offers clarification for the contemporary categorization of people, which, unfortunately occurs too often without the provision of clear answers to questions raised by common people, as to who is reliable and who is not. recommendations the author now offers some recommendations for further work. key issues surround the muslims engaged in judging others, who then fight and kill them based on false allegations and ignorant adjudication. these should rather spend their knowledge and energy in uniting muslims under the truer banner of the complete islamic message. this will enable them to eliminate hatred, hostility and animosity amidst any people who differ or who disobey or commit sins. muslims should focus on social and educational development to prevent people from falling into extremism, fanaticism, or militant terrorism. institutions of higher learning in the muslim world should review the curriculum of the islamic sciences and develop courses that emphasize islamic priorities for the ummah as a comprehensive development with absolute cognition of contemporary human needs and realities. designing new courses is crucial for students to attain an undistorted message in the contemporary context, one that enables a properly oriented awareness of contemporary activities in terms of extremism and terrorism. hamdard islamicus 37 vol. xxxix, no. 4 muslims must realise that enemies are entrenched within muslim society who are not necessarily non-muslims; and this pertains to women who look ultra-modern, liberal, disrespect islamic dress, and even secularists. rather, the greatest enemy muslims have, is their own ignorance of contemporary realities. truly, there is a monumental need for muslim societies to learn the true message of islam. muslims must learn to respect one another, regardless of differences of opinions regarding religious views, interpretations, legal, political, cultural or educational matters. muslims must reject the blind imitation of unhealthy fundamentalism infused with obsessive compulsions. before accepting any religious explanation or view, efforts must be made to verify sources of information and authenticity. muslims must also uphold excellent ethical principles and values that support their unity. in other words, the ummah’s unity should be a foremost priority. the manipulation of the qur’én and aíédêth by selfproclaimed theologians, clerics, preachers and exegetes with a warped understanding of islam is undeniably real. such people must be identified and their shallow religious knowledge exposed via intellectual forums and healthy discourse. genuine muslim leadership must be made even more aware of their enormous responsibility and obligations. if islam is to be respected on a global scale, rather than permanently hijacked by muslim extremists, they must to take a clear stand on reforming the interpretation of scriptural sources by providing dynamic, competent, trustworthy islamic leadership with commendable foresight and praiseworthy qualities and characteristics that inspire trust. notes and references 1. al-luwayhaqê, a.r.m, al-ghulëw fi al-dên fê íayét al-muslimên al-mu‘éîirah beirët, mu’assasat al-risélah, 2nd edn., 1992, p. 264. 2. ibn féris, mu‘jam maqé’is al-lughah, iran, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, n.d. 3. milton cowan, ed., hens wehr: a dictionary of modern written arabic, london, macdonald and evans ltd., 1980. 4. al-qur’én, al-baqarah:143. 5. muslim, saíêí muslim, abdul ×amid siddiqi, trans., lahore, sh. muhammad ashraf, 1987, vol. i, p. 27. 6. al-jawziyyah, m.a.i.q., al-øaléh wa ×ukm térikha, al-qéhirah, al-maïba‘at al-salafiyyah wa maktabétuhé, 5th edn., 1399 a.h., pp. 53-54. hamdard islamicus 38 vol. xxxix, no. 4 07. al-luwayhaqê, al-ghulë fi al-dên fi ×ayét al-muslimên al-mu‘éîirah, p. 253. 08. al-qur’én, al-baqarah:25. 09. ibid., 257. 10. ibid., ól-‘imrén:86. 11. al-luwayíaqê, al-ghulë fi al-dên fi ×ayét al-muslimên al-mu‘éîirah, p. 253. 12. al-qur’én, al-naml:14. 13. sayyid quïb, in the shade of the qur’én, ‘adil øaléíê, eng. trans., leicester, the islamic foundation, n.d., p. 91. 14. al-qur’én, ibréhim:10. 15. s.a.a, the meaning of the qur’én, lahore, islamic publications limited, 7th edn., 1984, vol. vi, p. 13. 16. al-qur’én, al-baqarah:8. 17. maudëdê, the meaning of the qur’én, 1984, vol. i, p. 58. 18. al-jawziyyah, m.a.i.q, madérij al-sélikên, beirét, dér al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 1st edn., 1983, vol. i, pp. 337-338. 19. al-‘asqalénê, i.h, fatí al-bérê bi sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê al-qéhirah, almatba‘at al-salafiyyah wa maktabatuha, 1st edn., 1380 a.h., vol. i, p. 83. 20. al-jawziyyah, madérij al-sélikên, vol. i, pp. 337-338. 21. al-qur’én, al-insén:3. 22. ibid., al-naml:40. 23. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, muhammad muhsin khan, trans., lahore, kazi publications, 6th edn., 1983, vol. viii, pp. 43-44. 24. al-qur’én, al-×ujurat:9. 25. muslim, i.m.h, øaíêí muslim, taíqêq wa tarqêq, muhammad fu’éd ‘abd al-béqê, al-riyéd, r iyésah idérét al-buhuth al-‘ilmiyyahwa al-ifta’ wa al-da’wahwa al-irshad, 1980, book 18, tradition 1578. 26. al-nawawê, sharí øaíêí muslim, vol. ii, p. 57. 27. ibn taymiyyah, iqtidé’ al-sirét al-mustaqêm li mukhélafat asíéb al-jahêm, n.p., 1st edn., 1404 a.h., vol. i, pp. 207-208. 28. al-‘asqalénê, fatí al-bérê bi sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. ii, pp. 542-543. 29. al-nawawê, sharí øaíêí muslim, vol. ii, p. 67. 30. al-jawziyyah, madérij al-sélikên, vol. i, pp. 335-365. 31. al-jawziyyah, al-øaléh wa ×ukm térikhé, pp. 56-57. 32. al-qur’én, al-baqarah:143. 33. al-bukhéri, saíêí al-bukhérê, vol. viii, pp. 43-44. 34. al-qur’én, yësuf:106. 35. ibid., al-×ujurét:14. 36. muslim, øaíêí muslim, vol. i, p. 40. 37. al-jawziyyah, al-øaléh wa ×ukm térikhé, p. 60. 38. al-bukhérê, saíêí al-bukhérê, vol. viii, p. 80. 39. ibid., vol. viii, p. 81. 40. ibid., vol. viii, p. 44. 41. ibn taymiyyah, talhês al-istighéthah al-ma‘rëf bi al-radd ‘alé al-bakrê wa ma‘ahu al-rédd ala al-akhné’i, delhi, al-dér al-‘ilmiyyah li al-tibé’ahwa al-nashrwa al-tawzê‘, 2nd edn., 1405 a.h., p. 125. hamdard islamicus 39 vol. xxxix, no. 4 42. al-shawkénê, m.a.m, fatí al-qadêr, beirët, dér al-fikr, 1405 a.h., vol. iv, p. 578. 43. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. v, p. 396. 44. al-×anafê, i.i.a.a.m., sharí al-aqêdah al-tahéwiyyah, beirët, mu’assasat al-risélah, 1408 a.h., vol. ii, p. 437. 45. al-qaraìéwê, y. a, úéhirét al-ghulë fi al-takfêr, al-kuwayt, maktabat al-manér al-islamiyyah, 2nd edn., 1405 a.h., pp. 31-32. 46. al-×anafê, sharí al-‘aqêdah al-tahéwiyyah, p. 367. 47. al-nawawê, sharí øaíêí muslim, vol. i, p. 150. 48. ibn taymiyyah, majmu‘at al-fatéwé, vol. vii, p. 302. 49. al-×anafê, sharí al-‘aqêdah al-tahéwiyyah, p. 367. 50. ibn taymiyyah, majmë’at al-fatéwé, vol. vii, pp. 288 and 482. 51. al-‘asqalénê, fatí al-bérê bi sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. i, p. 84. 52. al-qur’én, al-nisé’:48. 53. ibid. 54. al-‘asqalénê, fatí al-bérê bi sharí saíêí al-bukhérê, vol. i, p. 85. 55. al-qur’én, al-zumar:53. 56. ibn taymiyyah, majmë‘at al-fatéwé, vol. viii, pp. 484-485. 57. asad, m., the message of the qur’én, gibraltar, dér al-andalus, 2nd edn., 984, p. 713. 58. al-tirmidhê, a.i.m.i, sunan al-tirmidhê, taíqêq, ahmad shakir, beirut, dar ihya‘ al-turath al-arabi, n.d., tradition 3540. 59. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. i, pp. 21-22. 60. al-‘asqalénê, fatí al-bérê bi sharí saíêí al-bukhérê, vol. i, p. 64. 61. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. viii, p. 506. 62. al-ùaíéwê, a.j.a.a.m.s, al-‘aqêdah al-tahéwiyyah ma‘a sharíuha li ibn abi al-izz, n.p., n.p. n.d., p. 361. 63. al-qur’én, al-×ujurét:7. 64. zayn al-‘óbidên, m.s.n, al-×ukm bi ghayri mé anzala alléh wa ahl al-ghulu, birmingham, dér al-arqam li al-nashrwa al-tawzê‘, 1st edn., 1407 a.h.), p. 161. 65. madkur, r.m., al-takfêr wa al-×ijrah wajhan li wajhi, al-qahirah, maktabat din al-qayyim, 1st edn., 1405 a.h., p. 78. 66. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. iv, p. 284. 67. ibn abi shaybah, al-ômén, al-kuwayt, dér al-arqém, n.d., p. 89. 68. ibn taymiyyah, majmë‘at al-fatéwé, vol. iii, pp. 151-152. 69. al-qur’én, al-jéthiyah:23. 70. ibid., yésên:60. 71. ibid., al-shëré:25. 72. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. ix, p. 440. 73. al-qur’én, hëd:114. 74. muslim, øaíêí muslim, vol. i, tradition 209. 75. muslim, øaíêí muslim, vol. iii, p. 867. 76. abë déwëd, sunan abë déwëd, vol. iii, p. 1326. 77. al-ùabarê, jamê‘ al-bayén an tafsêr al-qur’én, vol. vi, p. 252. 78. al-ùaíéwê, al-‘aqêdah al-tahéwiyyah ma‘a sharíuha li ibn abê al-‘izz, p. 302. hamdard islamicus 40 vol. xxxix, no. 4 079. al-bahanséwê, s., al-×ukm wa qaìiyyat al-takfêr, ammén, dér al-bashar, 2nd edn., 1985, p. 116. 080. ibn taymiyyah, majmë‘at al-fatéwé, vol. xix, p. 217. 081. ibid., vol. vii, p. 70. 082. al-bayhaqê, a.b.a.h.a, kitéb al-sunan al-kubré, beirët, dér al-ma‘érif, 1st edn., n.d., vol. x, p. 116. 083. al-ùabarê, jémi‘ al-bayén an tafsêr ay al-qur’én, vol. x, pp. 114-115. 084. al-bukhérê, øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. ix, p. 194. 085. ibid., vol. iv, p. 128. 086. ibn al-qayyim, madérij al-sélikên, vol. iii, p. 429. 087. ibn al-‘arabê, aíkém al-qur’én, vol. ii, p. 743. 088. muslim, øaíêí muslim, vol. iii, p. 1033. 089. al-nawawê, sharí øaíêí muslim, vol. ii, p. 243. 090. al-nasé’ê, a.a.r.a.s.a, sunan al-nasé’ê bi sharí al-suyëïê wa ×ashiyat al-sanadê, beirët, dér ihyé’ al-turéth al-‘arabê, n.d., vol. vii, p. 160. 091. al-hudaybê, h., du’éh lé quìéh, al-kuwayt, al-ittihéd al-islémê al-alamê li al-munazzamét al-tullébiyyah, 1st edn., 1405 a.h., pp. 155-156. 092. al-qur’én, al-tawbah:31. 093. al-hudaybê, du’ah la quìah, pp. 156-157. 094. abë déwëd, sunan abë déwëd, vol. 3, p. 1212. 095. ibn daqêq al-‘id, t.d.a.f, aíkém al-aíkém sharh ‘umdat al-aíkém, beirët, dér al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, n.d., vol. iv, p. 84. 096. al-‘asqalénê, fatí al-bérê bi sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. ix, p. 231. 097. al-‘asqalénê, i.h., tahdhêb al-tahdhêb, hyderabad, dér al-ma‘rifah alnizémiyyah, 1st edn., 1325 a.h., vol. ii, p. 295. 098. al-‘asqalénê, fatí al-bérê bi sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê, vol. xii, p. 202. 099. al-tirmidhê, sunan al-tirmidhê, traditions 2863 and 2864. 100. muslim, øaíêí muslim, vol. iii, pp. 1029-1031. 101. al-nawawê, sharí saíêí muslim, vol. xii, p. 238. 102. ibn kathêr, tafsêr al-qur’én al-‘aðêm, al-qahirah, dér al-kutub al-arabiyyah ‘isé albénê al-×alabê wa shuraké’uh, n.d., vol. i, p. 390. bibliography abë dé’ëd, sunan abë dé’ëd (1st edn.), (ahmad hasan, trans.), (1984), lahore, sh. muhammad ashraf publishers. al-bahansawê, s., al-×ukm wa qaìiyyat al-takfêr (2nd edn.), (1985), amman, dar al-bashar. al-bayhaqê, a.b.a.h.a., kitéb al-sunan al-kubré (1st edn.), (n.d.), beirut, dar al-ma’arif. al-bukhérê, øéíêí al-bukhérê (6th edn.), (muhammad muhsin khan, trans.). (1986), lahore, kazi publications. al-bukhérê, m.i. al-jémi‘ al-øaíêí, (n.d.), beirët, dér ihyé‘ al-turath al-arabi. hamdard islamicus 41 vol. xxxix, no. 4 al-‘asqalénê, i.h., fatí al-bérê bi sharí øaíêí al-bukhérê (1st edn.), (1380 a.h.), al-qahirah, al-matba‘at al-salafiyyah wa maktabétuhé. al-‘asqalénê, i.h., tahdhêb al-tahdhêb (1st edn.), (1325 a.h.), hyderabad, dar al-ma‘rifah al-niðémiyyah. al-‘asqalénê, i.h., al-iîébah fê tamyêz al-øaíébah (1st edn.), (1397 a.h.), al-qahirah, maktabat al-kulliyyét al-azhariyyah. al-×anafê, i.i.a.a.m., sharí al-‘aqêdah al-tahawiyyah, (1408 a.h.), beirët, mu’assasat al-risélah. al-huìaybê, h. du‘éh lé quìéh (1st edn.), (1405 a.h.), al-kuwayt, al-ittiíéd al-islémê al-alamê li al-munaððamét al-tullébiyyah. al-jawziyyah, m.a.i.q., al-øaléh wa térikhé (5th edn.), (1399 a.h.), al-qéhirah, al-maïba‘ah al-salafiyyah wa maktabétuha. al-jawziyyah, m.a.i.q., madérij al-sélikên (1st edn.), (1983), beirët, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah. al-luwayhaqê, a.r.m., al-ghulëw fi al-dên fi íayét al-muslimên al-mu‘ésirah (2nd edn.), (1992), beirët, mu’ssasat al-risélah. al-nawawê, y.s., sharí øaíêí muslim (2nd edn.), (1392 a.h.), beirët, dér iíyé’ al-turéth al-arabê. al-qaraìéwê, y.a., úéhirat al-ghulëw fi al-takfêr (2nd edn.), (1405 a.h.), al-kuwayt, maktabat al-manér al-islamiyyah. al-shawkénê, m.a.m., fatí al-qadêr, (1401 a.h.), beirët, dér al-fikr. al-ùabarê, a.j.m.j., jémi‘ al-bayén ‘an tafsêr ay al-qur’én (2nd edn.), (1373 a.h.), al-qéhirah, sharikatwa makïaba wa maïba’at muîtafé al-bénê al-halabê. al-tahéwê, a.j.a.a.m.s., al-‘aqêdah al-taíéwiyyah ma‘ sharíuha li ibn abê al-izz, (n.d.), p: n.p. al-tirmidhê, a.i.m.i., sunan al-tirmidhê, taíqêq, aímad shékir, (n. d.), beirët, dér iíyé’ al-turéth al-‘arabê. asad, m., the message of the qur’én, (2nd edn), (1984), gibraltar, déral-andalus. cowan, j.m. (ed.), hens wehr, a dictionary of modern written arabic, (third printing), (1980), london, macdonald and evans ltd. ibn abê shaybah, al-ômén, (n. d.), al-kuwayt, dér al-arqém. ibn al-‘arabê, a.b.m.a.a., aíkém al-qur’én, (n.d.), beirët, dér al-fikr. ibn daqêq al-‘id, t.d.a.f., aíkém al-aíkém sharí ‘umdat al-aíkém, (n.d.), beirët, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah. ibn féris, mu‘jam maqé’is al-lughah, (n.d.), iran, dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah. ibn kathêr, tafsêr al-qur’én al-‘aðêm, (n.d.), al-qéhirah, dér al-kutub al-arabiyyah ‘isé albani al-halabi wa shuraka’uh. ibn manðër, lisén al-‘arab, (1399 a.h.), beirët, dér beirët. ibn taymiyyah, a.a.h.a.s., majmë‘at al-fatéwé (1st edn.), (1372 a.h.), al-riyéd, matabi‘ al-riyéd. khan, s.h., fatí al-bayén fê i‘jéz al-qur’én, (1965), al-qéhirah, al-néshir ‘abd al-hayy ‘alê mahfëð. madkër, r.m. al-takfêr wa al-hijrah wajhan li wajíê (1st edn.), (1405 a.h.), al-qahirah, maktabat dên al-qayyim. maudëdê, s.a.a., the meaning of the qur’én, (7th edn.), (1983), lahore, islamic publications limited. hamdard islamicus 42 vol. xxxix, no. 4 mu‘jam al-kabêr, (2nd edn.), muhaqqiq, hamdê ibn ‘abd al-majêd al-salafi, al-qahirah, maktabat ibn taymiyyah. muslim.(1987). øaíêí muslim (abdul hamid siddiqi, trans.), (1987), lahore, sh. muhammad ashraf. muslim, i.m.h., øaíêí muslim, taíqêq wa tarqêq: muhammad fu’éd ‘abd al-baqê, (1980), al-riyéd, riyésah idérét al-buhuth al-ilmiyyahwa al-ifté’ wa alda‘wah wa al-irshéd. mustafé, s., al-tawsêmét, (n.d.), p.: n.p. quïb, s., in the shade of the qur’én, adil øaléíê, trans., (n.d.), leicester, the islamic foundation. yësuf alê, a., the holy qur’én: text, translation and commentary, (1989), brentwood, amana corporation. zayn al-‘óbidên, m.s.n., al-×ukm bi ghayri mé anzala alléh wa ahl al-ghulëw (1st edn.), (1407 a.h.), birmingham, dér al-arqam li al-nashrwa al-tawzi‘. “king faisal international prize for service to islam” for the year 2018 the interested candidate(s) in pakistan may contact: president hamdard foundation pakistan hamdard centre, nazimabad, karachi, pakistan. phone: (+92-21) 36616001-4 e-mail: hfp@hamdardfoundation.org last date for submission of nominations: 1st april, 2017 for any further information: url: www.kfip.org contents * editorial * lord of the two easts and lord of the two wests – a mysticoscientific study of phenomenon stated in sërah al-raímén — dr. manzoor ahmad al-azhari and mr. muhammad ashfaq * an analysis of the expansion of the mosque of the prophet (œ) by caliph ‘umar b. al-khaïïéb (“) (d. 24 a.h./744 c.e.) — dr. spahic omer * the history of the arabs’ calendar before islam — mr. shahabuddin ansari * a realistic approach to the concept of ijérah (leasing) in sharê‘ah and its possible role in the development of agricultural sector in pakistan – (development of ijérah based model for financing agriculture) — dr.. lutfullah saqib and dr. mueen aizaz zafar * obituaries * index – hamdard islamicus, vol. xxxix, 2016 — kaleem chaghtai 5 7 31 71 101 105 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: dr. ansar zahid khan published by hamdard foundation pakistan, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. telephones:36440184, 36616001-4, 36620945-49 telefax: (92-21) 36611755 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands / usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/w.e.f. 1st january, 2017 printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xl january-march 2017 no. 1 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 79 darul ulum deoband: preserving religious and cultural integrity of south asian muslims through structural and strategic innovations dr. muhammad naveed akhtar department of history, ghazi university, dera ghazi khan, pakistan email: nakhtar@gudgk.edu.pk received on: 12-08-21 accepted on: 26-09-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.326 abstract the end of mughal empire in the wake of war of independence 1857 left the muslim community of south asia political orphans; desperately facing religious and cultural assaults, political as well as economic victimization and marginalization under british raj. at this time of vulnerability of the muslim society, it was the educational institutions established by muslim ideologues which took up the task of strengthening, reforming and revitalizing the muslim society to cope with the challenges pushing them down to the bottom, they also helped them regain the lost confidence and integrity. these institutions were not merely educational bodies but the movements endeavoring for muslim renaissance in south asia. among them, one was darul ulum deoband which, from its inception to date, played a historic role in confronting the politico-cultural challenges to the south asian muslims by adopting dynamic political strategies and accommodating modern structural innovative modifications in the institutions. this, indeed, helped it be a popular movement and achieve its objectives. the present paper goes into some of important historical developments such as: socio-political circumstances which led to the origination of madrasah deoband, lofty vision and objectives envisaged by its founders, administration of educational-cum-institutional paraphernalia, nationalist stance and struggle for freedom carried out by the deobandi veterans, strategies and policies it adopted to deal with political challenges faced by the indian muslims during british raj and after https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.326 80 darul ulum deoband:… partition of india. it explores and discusses the factors which helped this school of thought be popular and become one of the major sects of islam. moreover, it also brings in the much debated issue of its stance on jihad, militant struggle and terrorism. by bringing to light the historical developments, vision of its founders, objectives they determined to achieve and strategies they devised to tackle the challenges, the paper argues that the main concern of darul ulum deoband’s activities was and has been to preserve the muslim culture in south asia and to restore the confidence of the muslim community which they lost after the first war of independence in 1857 and decline of mughal empire, and the modernist and innovative strategies it adopted to achieve its objectives, despite the criticism from within and outside, led to it emerging as one of the dominant sects of islam. keywords: south asia, british imperialism, nationalism, deoband movement, religious education, jihad, muslim renaissance, madrasah. 1. introduction after muslims lost their political might in south asia, the muslim educational institutions played an immensely significant role in uplifting the moral of the community and rescuing them form their political decline and socio-cultural degeneration. indian subcontinent witnessed almost a millennium of muslim rule from arab conquest of sindh in 711 ad to the ousting of last mughal emperor bahadar shah zafar (r. 1837-57) by the east india company after the war of independence 1857. the muslims, after establishing political dominancy over the course of such a long period, went into serious political decline and found themselves a minority population and in worst economic and political conditions. they suffered from socio-economic insecurities, as the british held them responsible for the initiation of the great mutiny 1857. consequently, they were banned from acquiring government jobs and their institution were denied funds, those found guilty of participating in the war were arrested and severely punished. besides this, the british raj began a process of modernizing the society and culture of south asia, by introducing modern education, democratic political structure, installing new technology such as railway and telegraph, and a new structure of civil-military bureaucracy as well as judiciary. these technological developments, although, beneficial for indian societies in many ways, were perceived as hazardous for the society and culture of south asian muslims by the most of muslim ideologues, particularly theologians. they consequently showed great resistance against them by opting for wider range of channels including inter alia: the militant hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 81 resistance, formation of educational institutions, reformation of the society by missionary activities, founding organizations for socioeconomic wellbeing of the society, and forming political parties to participate in the mainstream politics to defend their rights and interests. these movements included aligarh movement founded by sir syed ahmad khan (1817-98) in 1875, darul ulum deoband by maulan qasim nanautavi (1832-80) in 1866, anjuman-e-hamayat-e islam by qazi khalifa hamid-ud-din (1842-97) in 1884, and nadavatul ulema by maulana muhammad ali mungeri (1846-1927) in 1894. although all of these movements and their exponents were highly motivated to preserve the islamic culture in india, they were also anxious of the new sociocultural changes in the region under british rulers. the darul ulum deoband aimed at doing this by reforming the society on orthodox lines. its exponents were gradually convinced to participate in the modernization process initiated by the british raj and established the madrasah based upon modern and innovative paraphernalia, but they never shed off the orthodox ideology and faith system. this paper discusses the deoband strand of islam which adopted evolving innovative strategies and developed a vast network of other associated political and proselytizer organizations—such as jamiat ulema-e hind, majalas-e ahrar-e islam, jamiat ulema-e islam, tablighi jamat, and darul ifta (department to issue fatwa)1—,extended its influence and attracted the larger muslim population not only in south asia but across the muslim world and emerged to be one of the dominant sects of islam. over the course of its history, darul ulum deoband has been a burning subject matter of scholarly debates and studies for multiple reasons; the participation of founding fathers in great revolt of 1857 against east india company, reshmi rumal tehrik (literal meaning silk letter movement) attempting at overthrowing british raj in india, its adherence of religious orthodoxy, its nationalist stance and support for indian national congress against muslim league and creation of pakistan. since the last two decades, darul ulum deoband has attracted attentions of international scholarly forum because the militant or jihadist taliban operating in afghanistan or elsewhere belong to this very version of islam. this paper, nonetheless, argues that although darul ulum deoband has a controversial historical background as to its support for militancy and jihad as well as the nationalistic stance in the mainstream politics of south asia, its consistent intent and strive has been for preservation of muslim cultural identity and renaissance of muslim community in the region. this argument further extends, explaining that 82 darul ulum deoband:… darul ulum deoband always adopted multiple options, often contradictory in their nature, and dynamic strategies to deal with the challenges and to achieve its goals, which not only insured its longstanding survival and successes, but also turned it into one of the major sects of islam in the muslim world, or elsewhere. 2. research questions and methodology this study addresses some of the following important research questions: 1. what was the socio-political milieu of india which gave rise to renaissance movements like darul ulum deoband in south asia? 2. how did it respond to the british imperialism in india and the process of the modernization introduced by the colonial masters? 3. what are the historical landmarks in the struggle of darul ulum deoband movement against british imperialism in india? 4. what role did this movement play to reform and uplift the muslim masses of south asia? 5. what kind of innovative strategies were adopted by the proponent of this movement to extend its mission and it achieved a popularity as much as that it appeared to be a one of the dominant strandd of the islam not only in south asia but in rest of the world also. 6. lastly, it also deals with the question: how did darul ulum deoband tackle the blame that the terrorist groups operational in afghanistan and pakistan are adherent to by the philosophy of deoband school of thought? the methodology employed in construing the present discourse is descriptive-cum-analytical. the episodes having historical significance are narrated with descriptive methodology, yet the cause and effect relationships between distinct events, issues and phenomenon require analytical methodology so as to provide the discourse a meaningful construction. 3. review of literature this segment provides a critical evaluation of the existing literature, highlighting their major concerns and scope of the study and showing their limitations. further, it would provide an insight into that how the present work is distinguished from them. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 83 barbara daly metcalf’s enterprise islamic revivalism in british india: deoband, 1860-1900 (originally published in 1982)2 goes into the response of muslim religious scholars, particularly deobandi ulema, towards the british imperialism and their struggle for political uplift of the indian muslims. her undertaking explains how the struggle for protecting indian muslims’ right which, earlier was carried out by the rulers of muslim princely states was transformed in 19th century and that every task was taken up by muslim religious scholars. although, it explores and discusses the broader spectrum of deoband movement with respect to socio-political conditions of northern india and the schism within the muslims community, the temporal scope of her discourse is quite narrow, i.e. first forty years of this seminary and movement, from 1860 to 1900. it, nevertheless, pays no attention to the political strategies that darul ulum deoband adopted to increase the extent and intensity of the movement over the course of freedom struggle and post-colonial political history of south asia. muhammad moj’s narrative deoband madrassah movement: counter cultural trends and tendencies (2015) is mainly focused on the countercultural ideology, philosophy and political vision that the representatives of deoband movement evolved against folk islam and socio-cultural tradition popularized dominantly by sufi saints in south asia. it further puts its emphasis on pakistani socio-religious culture developed by the contribution of other sects such as barelwi (which comprises of 60 percent of pakistani muslim population), shia (10 to 15 percent) and ahle hadith (less than 5 percent).3 it therefore explains the militant and jihadist phenomenon provoked by taliban or other militant groups operating in afghanistan and pakistan. since it replicates the theory of counterculture, it provides mono-logical and unilateral understanding of the historical episodes and ideological phenomenon. rashid ahmad has penned a book in urdu language, titled as darul ulum deoband: bartanvi hind mein muslamano ka nizam-e talim [darul ulum deoband: the educational system of muslim in british india] (2004),4 which examines the stature and necessity of religious scholars in islamic world by discussing it historically and more specifically, during colonial period in india. further, it presents an evaluation of the role of the founding fathers of the darul ulum in great revolt of 1857. this work provides with details on the traditional education of madrassahs in post-colonial and the transformation brought by darul ulum deoband. however, it thoroughly overlooks the administrative and structural strategies adopted by this seminary to pursue its objectives. 84 darul ulum deoband:… darul ulum deoband ki jami’e-o mukhtasir tarikh [the concise and comprehensive history of darul ulum deoband] (2016)5 by abul qasim naumani provides an insider perspective of history of darul ulum deoband movement as well as core issues debated on the ideologies and activities of the legendaries associated with it. this book provides details on the historical background of this institution and services of the founders, working of sub-institutes of this seminary, ideological strand-points and conflicts with christian and hindu missionaries, academic programs and curriculum, official and administrative structure of the organization, small biographic details on dignitaries from india and pakistan representing this school of thought. another book of same genre and almost similar content matter is tarikh-e darul ulum deoband [history of darul ulum deoband] (n.d.)6 by maulana tayyab sahib, who has been one of the principals of deoband madrassah. as these works provide insider-view of history and issues, they come up with descriptive and apologetic mode of narration and methodology, lacking critical understanding and the objectivity of the discourse. there is another type of literature which discusses the nationalist standpoint of the deoband movement. zia-ul-hassan faruqi’s account titled the deoband school and demand for pakistan (1963)7 explains why deoband ulema opposed the demands of muslim league for separate states recounting the reasons, that it suspected the western educated leadership of the league, showed concerns over the potential bad treatment of muslims who would be left behind in india as a minority. they thought muslims would be divided even further. their missionary objective of spreading islam peacefully would be in danger. islam proposes to absorb the non-muslim rather than rejecting them. all of these reasons led the deoband school to oppose the league’s demand of a separate muslim state. deoband scholars from pakistan defend themselves against the blame by maintaining that deoband ulema had played a vital role in the pakistan movement and had supported qauid-iazam muhammad ali jinnah and muslim league. for instance, muhammad umar tohidi in an article “qiyam-e pakistan aur ulema-e deoband ka kirdar” [the formation of pakistan and role of deoband theologians] (2021)8 explains that shaykh al-hind maulana mahmood long before pakistan’s creation had declared india “darul harab”. similarly, he praises deoband leadership including ashraf ali thanvi and shabir ahmad usmani for being jinnah’s companions and partaking in the struggle for pakistan. in his undertaking tehrik-e pakistan aur ulema-e deoband [pakistan movement and theologians of deoband] hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 85 (n.d.), hafiz muhammad akbar shah bukhari states that the towering personalities representing deoband school of thought—such as maulana zafar ahmad usmani, maulan shabbir ahmad usmani, maulana muhammad shafi, maulana athar ali, maulana ihteshamul haq thanvi, and maulana idris kandlawi—not only became a source of quaid-iazam’s religious grooming but also, even before the creation of pakistan, started convincing the leader of the league to frame an islamic constitution for the newly born state, i.e. pakistan.9 going through the discussion above on the literature as to the history of darul ulum deoband, it becomes evident that all of the sources have presented distinct concerns and focus of discussion, with certain limitations. nonetheless, the present article recounts the innovative strategic and structural maneuvering of deoband movement to preserve the religious and cultural integrity of indian muslims and emerged as one of the dominant sect of islam in south asia. 4. discussion 4.1. the foundation of darul ulum deoband the ruthless british response to the mutiny of 1857, thousands of muslim mutineers were shot dead, and many mosques and madrasahs were destroyed as a result of brutal attacks of the british raj. the mutiny and consequent fall of the mughal empire caused termination of financing to the muslims’ education and madrasahs in delhi. worried for the financing and growth of madrasahs, the founders of darul ulum deoband initiated classes in the chatta mosque of deoband in 1866. the first tutor was mullah mahmud (d. 1886) and his first student was mahmud hasan deobandi alias shaykh al-hind (1851-1920), who later on played a key role in in administering madrasah affairs.10 the prominent figures revered as the founding fathers include: rashid ahmad gangohi (1826-1905), muhammad yaqub nanautavi (1833-84), shah rafi al-din (1836-90), sayyid muhammad abid (1834-1912), zulfiqar ali (1819-1904), fadhl al-rahman usmani (1831-1907) and muhammad qasim nanautavi (1832-80). reflecting on the growth and functioning of darul ulum, muhammad moj in his undertaking deoband madrassah movement: structural trends and tendencies states that one madrasah was not enough to fulfil the founders’ goal of preserving and protecting muslim culture in india, they consequently founded many others on same pattern in the upper doab area of north india. by the end of 1880, at least fifteen madaris comprehensively following the model of the mother 86 darul ulum deoband:… school were working in deoband, and by the end of the nineteenth century the fifty-plus madaris were functional in india.11 4.2. the vision and objectives of the establishment of darul ulum deoband in the muslim world, darul ulum deoband has been a pragmatic example of religious intellectual manifestation, knowledge production and political struggle against the oppressor and imperialist forces. the failure of great revolt 1857 in india left muslims in a state of extreme despair and political decline, the enthusiastic religious luminaries madrasah set up a new religious center at a small town of deoband aimed at preserving the socio-religious values and culture of the indian muslims under british raj. they intended to bring renaissance of the glorious and great past of the muslims by the means of educational empowerment, opting for militant struggle while finding it necessary and feasible, participating in modern political mechanism introduced by the british raj in south asia, and developing the institutions of providing religious guidance as to social, economic and cultural affairs of day-to-day life.12 syed mehboob rizvi writes that at this time of muslims’ predicament, the theologians basically felt it essential to establish a religious as well as scholarly seminary which could imperatively contribute in awakening of the religious consciousness of the muslims and their nationalization. therefore, it was decided that such a seminary should be established in deoband instead of delhi.13 a veteran of war of independence 1957 and a renowned religious scholar, haji imdadullah muhajir makki (1817-99) when informed that a madrassa had been established in deoband, exclaimed and replied: “subhan allah! you say we have established a madrassa. it is unknown fact that how many foreheads, at times of dawn, kept on prostrating and grumbling that god forbid! create the means of survival of islam and protection of knowledge in india. this madrassa is the fruit of those dawn prayers.”14 this statement by muhajir makki shows how deeply the religious leadership of the indian muslims felt about muslims’ predicament and survival of their religio-cultural entity. they were looking for a way to preserve islamic values and culture and to uplift their socio-political status by empowering them through knowledge, which they found they could do by establishing a deoband seminary. the basic principles and objectives of the method devised by maulana muhammad hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 87 qasim nanautavi (1833-80) considering the unfavorable conditions after the war of independence or the great revolt of 1857 were: inspiring people to acquire the knowledge of religious sciences and arts, popularizing the philosophy and teaching of shah wali allah muhaddith dehlavi (1703-62), responding to objections on islam raised by christians and hindus, spreading the message of the book and sunnah among both the muslim and non-muslim classes, shedding off the dependency of the institution and mobilizing the resources from within the muslim community to materializ the envisaged objects,15 adopting the language of ordinary indians as a medium of instructions except for the islamic disciplinary and philosophic lexicons, promoting scientific and intellectual awareness, and adhering to the principle of non-violence. 16 the above argument displays well that dar-ul-uloom was not merely a formal academic institution but it intended to attain lofty political and cultural goals. it was shortly after the demise of maulana muhammad qasim nanautavi that among the leading exponents of darul ulum its objectives became a subject of disagreement. some of its dignitaries considered it appropriate to confine the mission and activities to education and learning only, recognizing it a fundamental cause of its establishment.17 whereas, some overwhelmingly argued that the purpose of deoband seminary was not merely confined to imparting education but reforming the society and offering organized struggle to tackle serious national and political problems faced by south asian muslims, and gaining independence from the oppression of british raj.18 the ground realities of contemporary political arena has made its goals and objectives controversial among the scholars and students of the madrasah, divided on two opposing directions. anxious about the madrasah being blamed of supporting jihadist activities and being dubbed as the promoter of violence, the exponents intended to confine the scope of its activities to the teaching and learning. others who opposed it opined that its establishment was not merely for academics, but to restore the lost islamic grandeur and dignified status of india muslims through a practical struggle against the oppressors. they considered the earlier ones to be straying away from the path of the founding fathers of the deoband movement, even guilty of misrepresenting their jihadist contribution. 4.3. new strategies and trends in imparting religious education undoubtedly, the darul ulum deoband was established to impart traditional religious education to the muslim of india and it has never been faltered in its commitment. however, it adopted modern means to facilitate its mission and to attract the people towards its cause of 88 darul ulum deoband:… preserving muslim culture and traditions in south asia. in his revival from the below: the deoband movement and global islam, brannon d. ingram include a chapter “a modern madrasa” wherein he attempted to establish it that: “[i]t is too simple to view deoband as “traditional” in some respect (for instance, in terms of accentuating hadith and islamic law) and “modern” in others (institutionally and administratively resembling a british college more than a classic madrasa, for example). it proposes, rather, that tradition and modernity are so co-constitutive that deoband’s traditionalism is what makes deoband modern. deobandi valorization of “tradition—seen, for instance, in its privileging of “transmitted” knowledge above its “rational” counterpart (ma’qulat)… is hard to conceive before colonial modernity and attendant discourses of the indian secular gave new meaning to tradition itself. moreover, while the texts that deobandi scholars study are not modern, the idiom through which that learning to the public is, in part because “the public” itself is largely (though not exclusively) modern…”19 to excel in educational standards and popularization of the islamic education, darul ulum’s three distinct strategies are mention worthy: first, the public fund raising; second, emulation of english bureaucratic organization of the educational institution; and third, adaptation of urdu as medium of instruction. these initiatives express enough about the structural modernist tendencies of the madrasah. 4.4. fund raising strategy and its implications it was during the sultanate and mughal eras that the religious seminaries were granted patronage by the courts of the muslim rulers and aristocrats. they were consequently bound to abide by the state’s religious policies and to endorse them, which more often than were to serve the vested interests of the rulers than collective society.20 another impact of such kind financing to madrasahs was the alliance between the rulers and the ulema, among whom the fanatic ones often sought to find the opportunities to influence the behavior and mindset of the rulers to adopt the aggressive religious policies towards the non-muslim communities under their rule. diverting from this tradition of financing of educational institutions, darul ulum deoband, instead of collecting funds from royal or noble families, preferred to receive the public donations,21 which brought about twofold impact: it enabled the madrasah to take its decisions independently on the one hand, and the hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 89 general public to identify themselves with it on the other. 22 the people coming from all segments and all walks of life contributed with what they could for the foundation . these factors indeed enhanced its reputation among the people as well as the standardization of the education and merit. 4.5. modern organization and bureaucratization of the madrasah the establishment of the deoband madrasah was a watershed event in the history of islamic religious educational institutions. the founders and administrators emulated english structure of organization to run its educational, academic and administrative affairs. the madrasah was not adjunct to home or mosque. gradually, it attained classrooms and central library with possible facilities and in accordance with immediate requirements. the professionally trained staff was appointed to educate and train the students, and to deal with the administrative functions. the students were enrolled to study well-defined curriculum during a fix time period, and after the completion of their courses they were awarded with prizes in the convocation ceremonies. the madrasah was unique in its strategic planning as compared to the prior ones, as it issued annual printed reports highlighting and evaluating the progress and achievements. reflecting on these distinguished characteristics of the madrasah, barbara metcalf admires it as “unusual” and “a distinctive institution” and its system as “novel.”23 showing its moderate behavior, darul ulum has always welcomed non-muslim students, its policy was to accept hindu students as well. 4.6. adoption of urdu as medium of instruction in the history of islamic religious education in south asia, it was a groundbreaking decision on the part of darul ulum deoband that the language of the common people and indigenous nomenclature should be given a high importance for delivering religious educations. this was, in more than one way, a major development towards uplifting the confidence and social status of the people belonging to the lower classes. it was first time in the history of south asian madaris that urdu as a medium of instruction was given preference over arabic and farsi (persian). arabic then was a language of religious elites, whereas persian was adopted by court bureaucrats. the promulgation of urdu by administrators of the institution as a medium of instruction was primarily a tactic of making theological education more intelligible and accessible for the general public. persian and arabic had symbiotic significance for the elites, while urdu evolved to be the lingua franca of south asian 90 darul ulum deoband:… muslims mainly belonging to the lower ranks and social status. the most terrible cultural repercussion of providing education in persian and arabic was that it created a sense of alienation between the ruling migrant—from central asia and middle east to india—and native subjects. urdu being a language which originated and evolved in india helped express positive gesture and bring both social segments closer which, so far, had deeply distinct cultural legacy. it can also be observed that contemporarily darul ulum is no more critical of the use of english in educational pursuits. 4.7. three historical phases and pertinent strategies of struggle against british imperialism one of the most intriguing issues pertinent to the darul ulum deoband movement was the way it responded to british imperialism and what kind of political philosophy it espoused to confront with this challenge. it appeared to be a staunch opponent of the east india company and the british raj in india. the anti-imperialist struggle and strategies may be divided into three dominant trends: 1) the militant struggle against east india company in mutiny of 1857 2) the reshmi rumal movement to overthrow the british rule in india; 3) the nationalist politics marked by the founding of a political party jamiat ulema-e hind and collaboration with the indian national congress. in the great revolt of 1857, under the leadership of their teacher imdadullah muhajir makki (1817-99), two dignified figures among the founding fathers of darul ulum deoband maulana qasim nanautavi and maulana rashid ahmad gangohi, rebelled and fought against the british forces. they, defeating the british troops, captured the town of shamli in muzaffarnagar.24 following the foundation of darul ulum, its major proponents and ideologues, decided to distance themselves away from active politics for the time being in order to avoid british hostility. they had realized that the muslim community needed to be strengthened first, lest they lose the battle against the british and their objective of grabbing political control from them could not be materialized. shaykh al-hind mahmud hasan observed world war i as a chance to transform the deoband movement to militancy. he reached makkah on october 9, 1915, where he met ghalib pasha, who was one hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 91 of the ottoman empire’s most powerful governors. the governor pleaded with him to lend his assistance to the allies in their fight against the british empire in the course of world war i. he sent a long message to the indian muslims, urging them to keep fighting against british imperialism and assuring them that they will regain power from their oppressors. the conflict was viewed as a great opportunity by the freedom fighters to strike at the heart of british interests. they prepared themselves once again for militant uprisings against the british forces. maulana obaidullah sindhi (1872-1944) was sent by shaykh al-hind maulana mahmud hasan to kabul as a delegate, meanwhile he himself went to arabia.25 maulana obaidullah sindhi wrote a letter to shaykh alhind mahmud hasan in arabia, explaining to him the activities he performed in kabul. he narrated the plan of the exiled freedom fighters and mentioned names of persons directing the campaign against the british from india. they expected to launch popular mobilization and agitation campaigns as well as a tremendous armaments drive from all corners of the country. the message they intended to spread among their supporters was written on a piece of silk cloth. the british administrators intercepted this secret plot in time, and dubbed it as a “silk letter conspiracy.”26 following the unveiling of the silk letters conspiracy and the downfall of ottoman empire (khilafat) at the end of world war i, the ulema of darul ulum deoband actively participated in the khilafat movement and backed mahatma gandhi’s non-cooperation movement. this was the third watershed phase in the history darul ulum deoband movement’s anti-imperialist politics, when it strategized to work closely with the indian national congress (inc), by recognizing, adopting, and participating in the democratic process introduced by the british raj in colonial india. at this juncture, the veterans of deoband school of thought including husain ahmad madani (1879-1957), kifayatullah dehlawi (1875-1952), and maulana ahmed ali lahori (1887-1962), anwar shah kashmiri (1875-1933), abdul haq akorwi (1912-88), abdul halim siddiqui, and abdul bari firangi mahali (1878-1926) formally formed a political party in 1919, giving it a name; jamiat ulema-e hind (literal meaning, the party of indian theologians)27 intending to pursue their political interests as a part of mainstream politics. after the partition of india, the political activities were carried out by the leadership of the party inside pakistan under the name jamiat ulama-e islam. another political party which promoted socialist tendencies and closely worked with indian national congress, but was immensely inspired by religious philosophy and ideology of deoband school of thought, was majlis-e ahrar-e hind.28 jamiat ulama-e hind and majlis-e ahrar working in 92 darul ulum deoband:… south asian political environment, played a vital role in the freedom struggle and anti-communalist politics. 4.8. nationalist politics: divergence from ‘two nations theory’ the fact that darul ulum declared self-independence as its political goal in 1917, much before the indian national congress, reveals enough about the nature of its political concerns, future strategy and activity. jamait ulema-e hind supported the indian national congress’s nationalist philosophy and opposed the two nations theory along with the concept of india’s division. it instigated indian muslims to vote for the indian national congress endorsing the freedom of united india and denying creation of pakistan in 1947. jamiat ulema-e hind although, no longer a significant political force, still continues to exercise its political strength and force to help muslims resolve communal issues. darul ulum has always seen muslims as a community which has to be reinforced, but it does not support the notion of an islamic state, which was promoted by the all india muslim league in the 1940s. it advocates for a secular government system that allows people to practice their religion freely. it advocates for a secular governmental state that would allow all religious communities to practice their faith freely. if one overlooks those deoband ulema who supported the cause of all india muslim league to attain a separate muslim state, i.e. pakistan, an inaccurate picture of the darul ulum deoband’s role in the freedom movement is portrayed. these included maulana ashraf ali thanwi, maulana shabir ahmad usmani, and allama zafar ahmad usmai. acknowledging the services of these ulema, shabir ahmad usmani was honoured to raise the flag of pakistan in karachi and zafar ahamd usmani, in dhaka. once, the quaid-i-azam muhammad ali jinnah was asked whether there was any islamic cleric who authenticated the division of india on religious bases. jinnah replied that there was arshraf ali thanwi, and his support to the cause of muslim league was enough.29 shabir ahmad uman and maulana zafar ahmad usmani, because of their different approach as compared to the indian nationalist approach of jamiat ulama-e hind, formed another political part namely jamiat ulama-e islam in 1945. after the partition of india, it along with other politico-religious parties such as jamaat-e islami in pakistan, endeavored to affect the legislative and constitutional framework of the country.30 it thus appears that the political parties formed by deoband theologians based upon different political standings somehow became hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 93 instrumental in promoting and popularizing deoband strand of islam in south asia. 4.9. fatwa issuing-system and contribution of darul ifta in establishing socio-cultural order islam is known to provide its followers a comprehensive code of ethics and conduct through divine legislation—i.e. the holy quran and sunnah—and the knowledge of its interpretation through certain welldefined principle is known as fiqh. over the course of islamic history, the muslims have been consulting the islamic jurists (i.e. mufti) for the expert opinion (fatwa) to regulate their day-to-day social, economic and religious affairs.31 though the knowledge of fiqh originated in the lifetime of the prophet of islam hadrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyin sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam, its significance grew when the muslim world expanded through conquests and a big number of non-muslims entered the fold of islam. they carried a legacy of their early culture and religions and wanted to regulate their lives according to the guidance of islam. ifta or system of issuing, hence, helped those guidance seekers deal with their challenges and norms of islamic civilization be established and prevailed. observing these developments, professor nazeer ahmed puts it: “the new muslims brought with them not only their ancient heritage and culture, but methods of looking at the sublime questions of life in ways fundamentally different from that of the arabs. historical islam had to face the rationalism of the greeks, the stratification of the zoroastrians, the gnosticism of the hindus, the abnegation of the buddhists and the secular but highly refined ethical codes of the taoist and confucian chinese. add to it the internal convulsions in the islamic world arising out of the conflicting claims of the umayyads, the hashemites, the ahl-al bait and the partisan and fractious approach of the many parties to legal issues, and one has a good idea of the challenge faced by the earliest islamic jurists. fiqh was the doctrinal response of the islamic civilization to these challenges.”32 in context to british colonization of india and their attempts at modernizing its society and culture, the exponents of darul ulum deoband perceived these developments as an assault on their cultural and religious integrity and feared about the disintegration of muslim community. they, thus decided to significantly contribute in simplifying 94 darul ulum deoband:… the socio-cultural order of muslims in south asia. they did this by instituting a system of individual fatwas. in his critical appraisal of the fatwas issued by darul ulum deoband, m. riyaz hashami mentions quite interesting facts. he states that darul ifta, one of the suborganization of darul ulum deoband, has been issuing fatwas for the past 125 years and it receives over fifteen thousand fatwa petitions every year from diverse nations to resolve the conflicting status of socio-religious issues, regardless of their purpose or significance. a total of six thousand to seven thousand fatwas concerning socio-religious matters (i.e. duties and rights, what are permissible and what are forbidden by islam) and politico-cultural challenges (as to disputes, agreements, disagreements, and breach of agreements) faced by muslims living across the world are being sought online.33 historically speaking, the system of issuing fatwa introduced by darul ulum deoband had far-reaching implications. prior to it, during the mughal period, the mufti used to give a fatwa to the qazi (or judges) as a guide, as the rulers did not want the people to have direct guidance. they wanted to regulate the religious affairs through state institutions. this was because they were threatened by direct guidance, or misguidance, which might cause unrest among the people as to the incompliance of their policies with the religious teachings. the contemporarily adopted strategy by deoband ulema, and also followed by other muslim religious organizations, therefore, contributed to the much-debated issue of individual fatwa in its current form. these fatwas have had a huge impact on the general public seeking out religious guidelines and have prompted individuals to make their selfaccountability and to regulate the complexities of their social, marital, cultural and economic affairs of day-to-day life under the expert and wellqualified guidance of the muslim theologians. 4.10. emergence of deoband school of thought as major sect of islam undoubtedly, darul ulum deoband movement, which began in a little hamlet in north india called deoband, by adopting dynamic strategies in persuasion of its goals and making immense contribution in socio-cultural and political life of the south asia muslims, has grown into one of in-vogue sects of islam. it has made this possible by expanding the network of sub-institutions or connecting with other institutions having similar ideological orientation across india as well as other parts of the world. the tablighi jamaat (literal meaning the missionary organization) was founded by deoband ulema with the aim hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 95 of spreading islam all over the world. originally founded in 1920s by maulana muhammad ilyas who was greatly inspired by the spiritual ideology of his mentor maulana rashid ahmad gangohi,34 the tablighi jamaat though initiated for spiritual development of the individuals,35 intended to counter the activities of the christian missionaries and hindu revivalist movements such shuddhi (literal meaning, purification) launched by vedic scholar and founder of arya samaj named swami dayanand saraswati (1824-83) and sanghaton (literal meaning unification) initiated by his follower swami shraddhanand (1856-1926). thus, its main objective at the time of its formation was to prevent the muslims converting to be christians and hindus. 36 however, it is currently recognized as a transnational nonpolitical organization working to promote islam’s core ideology and belief system. there have been strong arguments in the past over its links and networking with the taliban and other extremist organizations. 4.11. darul ulum deoband and question to terrorism one of the crucial concerns for which the deoband movement has attracted the attentions of heated intellectuals on international scholarly forums over its alleged links with militant groups and its stance about the issue of terrorism. this growing apprehension appeared after the incident of 9/11, as the afghan taliban professed the deoband version of islam and its top brass leadership received education from the deoband madrasahs. added to this, one of the reasons behind this understanding was the involvement of founding fathers of the movement in jihadist activities during colonial period, as is discussed above. from 2006 to 2008, various terrorist attacks were held in major cities of india and consequently the muslim population had to face witch-hunt and victimization by the police.37 it however, would be a fallacious assumption to associate the ideology of darul ulum as militant one, without going into the historical dynamics of the its founding fathers’ involvement in revolt against british raj in india, and ignoring its efforts to reconcile with modernism and the process of democratization of india. moreover, the emergence of taliban and other terrorist groups in south asian states need to be evaluated in a specific context of international political developments as well as the regional socio-cultural constraints and economic deprivations. this however can be noticed that the ulema representing this school of thought, realising the seriousness of such blames, convoked a large scale all india anti-terrorism conference on 25th february, 2008; wherein the ulema issued the verdicts against the all kinds of terrorist 96 darul ulum deoband:… activities, unjust violence, brutalities and killing of innocent people.38 ulema from all corners of indian representing myriad sects participated in the conference and a joint verdict on condemnation of terrorism was unanimously ratified by ulema representing nadwatul ulama hind, jamat-e islami hind, jamaat-e islami, all india muslim law board and rabta madaris-e islamia (all india madrasah association). on 31st may 2008, islamic clerics who were more than 100,000 in numbers issued similar ‘fatwa against terrorism and unjust violence’ in public rally held in delhi, led by darul ulum deoband based in uttar pradesh.39 the venerated ulema of the muslim community of india expressed their grave concerns on ‘sinister campaign’ to malign islam by associating it with terror, and on wrong interpretations of quranic verses or ahadith (the traditions of the prophet hadrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyin sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam) to give any justification for the bloodshed of the innocent people. mufti habibur rehman acknowledged as the grand mufti of darul ulum deoband, stated that “islam rejects all kinds of violence, breach of peace, bloodshed, murder and plunder and does not allow it in any form.” 40 condemning terrorist acts anywhere in the world, president of jamiat ulama-e hind maulana arshad madani expressed it that “the voice we raised here will not be confined to deoband. we will oppose terrorism to every nook and corner of india. we will take this antiterrorism initiative to every state, every city and every town of the country.”41 the conference, according to maulana madani, was “beginning of a country-wide movement against terrorism and injustice.” convening of all india anti-terrorism conference (2008) has appeared to be a historical event leaving immense impact on sociocultural and political identity and status of south asian muslims, and particularly vulnerable muslim minority community in india. through this platform, darul ulum disseminated the massage of disowning and divorcing all those the individuals and organizations involved in terrorist activities either in india or elsewhere. this led to improve the confidence of the muslim masses who felt themselves alienated in multi-religious society, and contributed in mitigating the impression of muslims’ peaceful coexistence with other religious communities. this has also improved the image of the deoband madrasahs in india, pakistan and bangladesh; the clerics associated with them thoroughly denounce unjust violence and any of its form in the name of islam. darul ulum’s initiative for spreading peace and rejecting means of terror to gain political dominancy is welcomed by the largest muslim population, non-muslim hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 97 communities and the states which felt compelled to restructure their policies of witch-hunt and shootout. the states, nonetheless, need to devise more comprehensive policies to involve the madrasahs in the national solidarity programs and inter-faith harmony initiatives. 5. conclusion it is evident that darul ulum deoband movement was established by the indian muslim theologians in the wake of the failure of war of independence 1857 which had caused the abolition of mughal empire and politico-economic predicament of the south asian muslims. this movement emerged in reaction to british imperialism and modernist policies of the british raj in india. it aimed at reforming and uplifting the muslim society on orthodox lines, and preserving the muslim culture from the influence of modernism, christian and hindu missionary activities. although darul ulum deoband disseminated orthodox and traditional education among indian muslim, yet it advised innovative administrative and structural strategies to appeal to the common masses. fund raising from the common public instead of engaging elitist social segment, organizing the curricula, academic and administrative paraphernalia replicating the english bureaucratic model, and adopting urdu as a medium of instruction, all were the measure which were unprecedented in the educational history of the muslims of south asia. these strategies helped introduce a new educational and literary culture: breaking up the monopoly of those recognized to be the religious elites, stressing upon the necessity of arabic and persian languages; attracting the common people towards acquiring religious knowledge; promoting the urdu language and spreading it out in the areas other than where it had evolved. as to the anti-imperialist struggle of the darul ulum, it went through three historical phases: first, was the participation of its founding fathers in war of independence 1857; secondly, it conspired to overthrow british raj from india collaborating with turkey, germany, afghanistan and indian princely states, which is said to be reshmi rumal movment. after the disclosure of this plan of staging rebellion at the hands of british government, the third phase came when deoband theologians decide to enter the mainstream politics and formed a political party called jamiat ulama-e hind demanding freedom of india. during khilafat movement, its veterans collaborated with indian national congress and endorsed indian nationalist ideology. majalas-e ahrar-e hind, another political 98 darul ulum deoband:… organization which closely worked with congress, was also religiously inspired by deoband ideology. the theologians who differed from indian nationalist approach of jamiat ulama-e hind and supported all indian muslim league formed separate political party namely jamiat ulama-e islam which has rendered great deal of services in political and constitution development of pakistan. these political parties along with other proselytizing organization like tablighi jamaat and darul ifta has been instrumental in promoting and popularizing the ideology and philosophy of deoband school of thought. it is one of the major sect of islam in the contemporary world. darul ulum deoband holding a conference against issue of terrorism in 2008 has projected the softer image of islam declaring that islam condemns all sort of unjust violence and killing innocent human beings. notes and references 1darul-ifta is a one of highly significant department of darul ulum waqf deoband dealing with distinct aspects of a muslim’s life. the people from all across the world ask questions about their religious and social matters and the qualified experts of islamic jurisprudence (i.e. mufties) provides them the answers. “darul-ifta has always been center of attraction and held great respect and trust in public and court circles, accessed august 30, 2022, https://dud.edu.in/index.php/en?id=16; also see, داراالفتاء، دارالعلوم دیوبند، انڈیا (darulifta-deoband.com) accessed august 30, 2022). 2barbara daly metcalf, islamic revivalism in british india: deoband, 1860-1900 (new jersey: princeton university press, 2016). 3muhammad moj, the deoband madrassah movement: countercultural trends and tendencies (new york: anthem press, 2015), ix. 4rashid ahmad, darul ulum deoband: bartanvi hind mein muslamano ka nizam-e talim [darul ulum deoband: the educational system of muslim in british india] (lahore: idara-e thaqafat-e islamia, 2004). 5maulana abul qasim naumani, darul ulum deoband ki jami’ah-o mukhtasir tarikh [the concise and comprehensive history of darul ulum deoband] (new delhi: shaykh al-hind academy, darul ulum deoband, 2016). 6maulana tayyab sahib, tarikh-e darul ulum deoband [history of darul ulum deoband] (karachi: dar al-ishat, n.d.) 7zia-ul-hassan faruqi’s, the deoband school and demand for pakistan (london, new delhi: asia publishing house, 1963), 95-105. 8muhammad umar tohidi, “qiyam-e pakistan aur ulema-e deoband ka kardar” [the formation of pakistan and role of deoband theologians] jang (august 1st, 2021). 9hafiz muhammad akbar shah bukhari, tehrik-e pakistan aur ulema-e deoband [pakistan movement and theologians of deoband] (karachi: h.m. saeed & company, n.d.), 274. 10barbara metcalf, “madrasa at deoband: a model for religious education in modern india,” modern asian studies 12, no. 1 (1978), 112; rafiya nisar, shaikh-ul-hind maulana mahmud hasan and indian freedom movement (india: jamiat ulama-e hind publications, 2008), 55-67. 11 moj, deoband madrassah movement, 43. https://dud.edu.in/index.php/en?id=16 https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur https://darulifta-deoband.com/ur hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 99 12 farhat tabassum, deoband ulema’s struggle for the freedom of india (new delhi: jamiat ulema-i-hind, 2006). 13 syed mahboob zivi, tarikh-e darul ulum deoband [history of darul ulum deoband], vol. 1, (lahore: al-mizan, 2005), 169. 14 manazir ahsan gaillani, sawaneh qasimi [biography of qasimi], vol. ii, (lahore: maktaba-e rehmaniya, n.d.), 223. 15 moj, deoband madrasah movement, 29-44. 16 maulana ans hasaan, “darul ulum deoband kay qayyam ka maqsad aur majodah madaras ka kardar: tarikhi-o tajziyati mutaliya” [the objective of the establishment of darul ulum deoband and the character of contemporary madaras: a historical and analytical study], vol. 25, no. 6, (june, 2014) at: دارالعلوم دیوبند کے قیام کا مقصد اور موجودہ ,accessed may 29 (alsharia.org) مدارس کا کردار ۔ تاریخی و تجزیاتی مطالعہ موالنا محمد انس حسان 2021. 17 in favor of their standpoint, they mention that once maulana muhammad qasim nanautavi himself said: “we have covered the real purpose of darul uloom, teaching, islamic sciences.” 18 the proponent of this point of view quote hazrat shaykh-ul-hind maulana mahmud hassan’s statement, who was the first student of the madrasah and once stated it: “why did hazrat ustad [our teacher] establish this madrassa? was it merely for teaching, learning and learning? the madrasa was set up in front of me, as far as i know, after the failure of the riots of 1857, the intention was to set up a center under which people would be prepared to compensate for the failures of 1957.” 19brannon d. ingram, “a modern madrasa,” in revival from the below: deoband movement and global islam (california: university of california press, 2018), 32-33. 20mubarak ali, ulema aur siyasat [ulema and politics] (lahore: fiction house, 2012), 14-15; mubarak ali, ulema, sufis and intellectuals (lahore: fiction house, 2005), 5355; ali, bare saghir mein musalman mu’ashray ka almiya [the dilemma of muslim society in subcontinent] (lahore: tarikh publishers, 2012), 40, 64-67. 21metcalf, “the madrasa at deoband,” 112. 22tayyab, tarikh-e darul ulum deoband, 16-17. 23metcalf, “the madrasa at deoband,” 112. 24, tayyab, tarikh-e darul ulum deoband, 53-54 25maulana muhammad miyan (comp.), silken letters movement: accounts of ‘silken handkerchief letters conspiracy case’ from british records, trans. muhammadullah qasimi (new delhi: shaikhul hind academy, 2012) 3-4. 26mahmud hasan and his associates plotted to overthrow the british from india, acquiring the help of turkey, germany, afghanistan, and indian princely kingdoms. the conspiracy, yet, failed when the british revealed it, and turkey and germany were defeated in the war. mahmud hasan and maulana hussain ahmad madani, were captured and imprisoned in malta. 27farhat tabassum, deoband ulema’s movement for freedom of india (new delhi: jamiat ulema-i hind, 2006), 148-151. 28tahir kamran, “majlis-i-ahrar-i-islam: religion, socialism and agitation in action,” south asian history and culture (2013), 3-4, at: full article: majlis-i-ahrar-i-islam: religion, socialism and agitation in action (tandfonline.com) accessed september 2, 2022. 29mufti rafiq ahmad balakoti, “tehrik-e pakististan mein ulema ka kardar, eik propaganday ka jawab [the role of ulema in pakistan movement: a reply to a propaganda], bayyanat, jamiatul ulum al-islamia (april, 2016). at: تحریک پاکستان میں علماء کا کردار ایک پروپیگنڈے کا جواب | جامعہ علوم اسالمیہ عالمہ محمد یوسف بنوری ٹاؤن (banuri.edu.pk) accessed august 1, 2021). 30abu amar zahid ur rashdi, “jamiat ulama-e islami ki jadujehd ka tarikhi-o siyasi pasmanzar” [historical and political background of jamiat ulama-e islam], weekly http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan http://alsharia.org/2014/jun/darululoom-deoband-tajziyati-mutala-maulana-anas-hassan https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19472498.2013.824678 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19472498.2013.824678 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 https://www.banuri.edu.pk/bayyinat-detail/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%db%8c%da%ba-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%a1-%da%a9%d8%a7-%da%a9%d8%b1%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%db%8c%da%a9-%d9%be%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%be%db%8c%da%af%d9%86%da%88%db%92-%da%a9%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8 100 darul ulum deoband:… tarjuman ul-islam (march 4, 1988), at: جمعیۃ علماء اسالم کی جدوجہد کا نظریاتی اور تاریخی پس .accessed august 1, 2021 (zahidrashdi.org) منظر | ابوعمار زاہد الراشدی 31wael b. hallaq, a history of islamic legal theories: an introduction to sunni asul alfiqh (new york: cambridge university press, 2003); wael b. hallaq, the origin and evolution of islamic law (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2005); omar farahat, the foundations of norms in islamic jurisprudence and theology (new york: cambridge university press, 2019); n. j. coulson, a history of islamic law (london: transaction publishers, 2011); umar al-ashqar, history of islamic fiqh, trans. mishkah committee, (independently published, 2020); anver m. emon and rumee ahmed (eds.), the oxford handbook of islamic law (london: oxford university press, 2018); muhammad hashim kamali, principles of islamic jurisprudence (london: islamic text society, 2003). 32nazeer ahmed, “the development of fiqh” history of islam—an encyclopedia of islamic history, accessed june 14, 2021, https://historyofislam.com/fiqh-thedevelopment-of/. 33m. riyaz hashmi, “uttar pradesh: darul uloom deoband’s fresh decrees revive debate over relevance of fatwas” india today, november 10, 2017, accessed march 16, 2021, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/states/story/20171120-darul-uloom-deobandfatwas-eyebrows-posting-pictures-uttar-pradesh-1083409-2017-11-10, http://indpaedia.com/ind/index.php/muslim_personal_law:_india_(fatwas)#darul_uloo m_deoband.27s_fatwas accessed march 16, 2021. 34ayesha jalal, partisans of allah: jihad in south asia (new york: harvard university press, 2008), 267. 35moj, the deoband madrasah movement, 75. 36gene r. thursby, hindu-muslim relations in british india: a study of controversy, conflict and communal movements in northern india 1923-1928 (leiden: e. j. brill, 1975); prabhu bapu, hindu mahasabha in colonial north india 1915-1930: constructing nation and history (london: routledge, 2013); christopher jaffrelot, hindu nationalist movement and indian politics 1925 to the 1990s (london: penguin books, 1999); thamos blom hansen, the saffron wave: democracy and hindu nationalism in modern india (princeton: princeton university press, 1999). 37kamla kanta dash, “the fatwa against terrorism: indian deobandis denounce violence but policing remained unchanged,” international conference on radicalization crossing borders, global terrorism research centre (gtrec), political and social inquiry (psi), monash university, november, 2008, 26-28. 38muhammadullah khalili qasmi, “we reject all forms of terrorism: scholars from major schools of thought join hands,” deoband online, (february 28, 2008). at we reject all forms of terrorism: deoband deoband online (dated: july 31, 2021). 39dash, “fatwa against terrorism,” 26-28. 40“deoband first: a fatwa against terror,” times of india, june 1, 2008, at deoband first: a fatwa against terror | india news times of india (indiatimes.com) accessed july 30, 2021; bappa majumdar, “darul-uloom deoband issues fatwa against terror,” reuters, june 1, 2008, at darool-uloom deoband issues fatwa against terror | reuters accessed july 30, 2021. 41qasmi, “we reject all forms of terrorism,”. http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 http://zahidrashdi.org/787 https://historyofislam.com/fiqh-the-development-of/ https://historyofislam.com/fiqh-the-development-of/ https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/states/story/20171120-darul-uloom-deoband-fatwas-eyebrows-posting-pictures-uttar-pradesh-1083409-2017-11-10 https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/states/story/20171120-darul-uloom-deoband-fatwas-eyebrows-posting-pictures-uttar-pradesh-1083409-2017-11-10 http://www.deoband.net/blogs/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit1 http://www.deoband.net/blogs/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit1 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/deoband-first-a-fatwa-against-terror/articleshow/3089161.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/deoband-first-a-fatwa-against-terror/articleshow/3089161.cms https://www.reuters.com/article/idinindia-33848320080601 abstract 1. introduction 3. review of literature 4. discussion 4.1. the foundation of darul ulum deoband 4. 4.1. 4.2. the vision and objectives of the establishment of darul ulum deoband 4.3. new strategies and trends in imparting religious education 4.4. fund raising strategy and its implications 4.5. modern organization and bureaucratization of the madrasah 4.6. adoption of urdu as medium of instruction 4.7. three historical phases and pertinent strategies of struggle against british imperialism 4.8. nationalist politics: divergence from ‘two nations theory’ 4.9. fatwa issuing-system and contribution of darul ifta in establishing socio-cultural order 4.10. emergence of deoband school of thought as major sect of islam 4.11. darul ulum deoband and question to terrorism 5. conclusion hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 1 issn :0250-7196 women’s movement in the framework of modernist muslims in indonesia: aisyiyah and economic empowerment 1nur hidayah abstract: as a women’s wing organization of muhammadiyah, aisyiyah has been facing dilemma in reconciling its multiple identities as a woman, muslim modernist and indonesian organization. as part of the biggest indonesian muslim modernist movement with its ideology of progressive islam, aisyiyah has taken active parts in developing its socioreligious enterprises and economic empowerment of ummat/community at the grass-roots level. aiming to critically analyze aisyiyah’s economic empowerment programs using gender perspective, this paper will address a question to some extent aisyiyah’s economic empowerment seek to accommodate and reconcile their multiple womanhood, modernist muslim and indonesian identities and interests. using three indicators of women’s empowerment of resources, agency and achievements, it is argued that `aisyiyah’s women economic empowerment has benefited from its resources as the oldest muslim women’s organisations having vast networks and resulted in various economic empowerment institutions. such great achievements cannot be detached from the ideological framework of modernist muslims in indonesia that is undergoing an evolution from the theology of tajdid/renewal movement with the emphasis on the development of socio-religious enterprises towards the theology of al-ma`un seeking to make alignment and empowerment of the disadvantaged groups of the society, including the poor and women. however, in terms of agency, such aisyiyah’s economic empowerment has been forced to serve the gender ideology of modernist muslims that subordinates gender interests of women under the interests of ummat/community. however, such option is taken by aisyiyah as a strategy to strike a balance of its identities and interests as a woman, a modernist muslim, and indonesian organization and a strategy to respond to its surrounding political contexts in indonesia. keywords: aisyiyah, women’s movement, modernist muslims, tajdid/renewal, al-ma`un, theology, developmet of sosical-enterprise, economic empowerment, gender interests, indonesia. ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction being a women’s wing organization of an indonesian muslim modernist of muhammadiyah, aisyiyah has been often facing dilemmas when its multiple identities and interests: as a 1syarif hidayatullah state islamic university, jakarta, indonesia email: nurhidayah@uinjkt.ac.id https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 2 issn :0250-7196 woman organization, as part of a muslim modernist organization, and as part of indonesia, come into conflict. this partly reflected in aisyiyah’s position on some issues such as polygamy, abortion and happy family (keluarga sakinah) where its gender interests are placed as secondary. it has taken positions that demonstrate its priority for its allegiance towards its parental organisation, muhammadiyah and/or to national interest, sacrifying its gender interests to the subordinate level. previous studies on aisyiyah have polarized into at least three streams. the first one comes from mostly internal researchers who often take apologetic position toward aisyiyah, appreciating its achievement as the oldest women’s organization with various women’s empowerment programs within its vast network at the grass-roots level while often neglecting dilemma facing aisyiyah when its multiple identities and interests come into conflict (handayani, 2016; firdaus, 2016; nikolaou et al, 2019). the second one comes from some researchers using feminist perspectives who often take critical analysis over aisyiyah as a women’s wing organization of muhammadiyah that has to follow the gender ideology of its parental organization (marcoes, 2002; salam, 2016). the last one comes from scholars who take a gender perspective towards aisyiyah and its daughter organization, nasyiatul aisyiyah, by acknowledging their dilemmas in reconciling their multiple identities and interests while putting them within their socio-political contexts forcing them to take positions sacrifying their gender interests (abualsaud, 2019; doorn-harder 2006; syamsiyatun 2006; it 2005; white 2004). while most of the existing literature study the overall movement of these women’s wing organisations, there have been hardly any literature analysing aisyiyah’s economic empowerment program as part of its mission as a women’s wing of indonesia modernist muslim organisation using gender perspective. this paper seeks to fill such a gap in the literature. it will address a question of how aisyiyah has being accommodated and reconciled its multiple, often being conflicting, identities and interests in its economic empowerment program. it will employ the indicators of women’s economic empowerment: resources, agency and achievements (kabeer 1999; narayan 2005, golla et al. 2011, buvinic, 2017). these three interrelated input, process and outcome of empowerment will then be assessed in terms of their transformatory significance, the extent to which the choices made have the potential for challenging and destabilizing social inequalities and the extent to which they merely express and reproduce those inequalities (kabeer 1999). therefore it will also draw on the work of molyneux (1998) that distinguishes the agenda of women’s movement between that supports strategic gender interests and that of practical gender interests based on the gender ideology that each purports. the former is based on the satisfaction of needs arising from women’s placement within the sexual division of labour, and the latter involves claims to transform social relations in order to enhance women’s position and to secure a more lasting re-positioning of women within the gender order and within society at large. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 3 issn :0250-7196 using three indicators of women’s empowerment of resources, agency and achievements, it is argued that `aisyiyah’s women economic empowerment has benefited from its resources as the oldest muslim women’s organisations having vast networks and resulted in various economic empowerment institutions. such great achievements cannot be detached from the ideological framework of modernist muslims in indonesia that is undergoing an evolution from the theology of tajdid/renewal movement with the emphasis on the development of socio-religious enterprises towards the theology of al-ma`un seeking to make alignment and empowerment of the disadvantaged groups of the society, including the poor and women. however, in terms of agency, such aisyiyah’s economic empowerment has been forced to serve the gender ideology of modernist muslims that subordinates gender interests of women under the interests of ummat/community. however, such option is taken by aisyiyah as a strategy to respond to its surrounding political contexts in indonesia. to elaborate this argument, the paper will firstly briefly analyse aisyiyah within the framework of women’s wing of indonesian modernist muslim organization. it will then critically analyse aisyiyah’s women and economic empowerment programs using gender perspective. it will be followed by analyzing the strategy of aisyiyah’s economic empowerment within its religious-political contexts. it will then closed by conclusion. 2. modernist muslim organisations and its women’s wing: muhammadiyah and aisyiyah from theology of tajdid toward theology of al-ma`un in the colonial era, opposition against dutch colonialism in the early twentieth century was strengthened by the influence of islamic reformist ideas from the middle east pioneered by jamaluddin al-afghani (1839-97), muhammad `abduh (1849-1905), and rashid ridha (1865-1935). these thinkers raised concerns over the reality that muslim societies seemed to be lagging behind the scientific and technological advances of the west. they exhorted their fellow muslims to refer directly to the religious sources of the qur’an and sunna, combined with the use of reason through ijtihad, to carve their own path to face the challenges of western modernity. this idea has been further developed in indonesia through the establishment of modernist muslim mass organisations, including muhammadiyah in 1912. muhammadiyah was proclaimed as a dakwah movement based on the teaching of amar ma’ruf nahy munkar (qs 3: 104). muhammadiyah’s reforms are reflected in the ideas disseminated through the establishment and proliferation of religious educational institutions, voluntary associations, and print culture. such socio-religious enterprises are inspired by the spirit of al-ma`un (qs 107: 1-7), developed by kyai ahmad dahlan, that condemns muslims who worship god but do not perform social worship for the sake of humanity. this qur’anic surah even labels those who do not care of orphans and do not seek to eradicate poverty from the society as ‘denying the religion’. muhammadiyah has developed its dakwah works on three field: healing (health services), schooling (education services), and feeding (socialhttps://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 4 issn :0250-7196 economic services). in 2003, muhammadiyah has already had 161 universities, 5.500 schools, more than 300 hospitals, dan more than 300 orphanages. with the advent of globalisation, some scholar-activists of muhammadiyah, such as moeslim abdurrahman (2003), call for the contextualisation of the al-ma`un spirit by transforming charity works of muhammadiyah into a theology of al-ma`un, emphasising its liberative praxis. this comes from the awareness that people become poor not because they are lazy to work but rather as a result of unjust socio-economic-political structures that support the oppression and marginalisation of the poor and lead them into poverty. according to abdurrahman, poor people are not limited to those who are economically poor, rather poor people are those who experience social subordination including minority groups. furthermore, he recommended the application of the theology of al-ma`un by combating factors causing poverty, such as global capitalism and the culture of poverty. with the theology of al-ma`un, muhammadiyah calls the ummah (muslim community) to make alignment and empower the poor, oppressed, and marginalized. empowerment has been perceived as integral part of dakwah. dakwah is reinterpreted wider as a liberation movement. it is a movement to liberate the ummah from ignorance, marginalization, and powerlessness. 3. aisyiyah and women’s empowerment unders the supervision of muhammadiyah’s founder kh achmad dahlan and his wife siti walidah, aisyiyah was established on may 19, 1917, being developed from perkumpulan sapa tresno, a small group of educated girls in their teenage years and older women in kauman, yogyakarta, gathering to learn about islam and literacy. aisyiyah was ahead of its time by educating women at a time when women were confined by culture, colonial power and narrow understanding of religion (mulkhan 2007). these ideas were considered progressive at a time when few indonesians were sent to school, much less girls, and devout families often secluded daughters after puberty. during this national awakening, the traditionalist organisation of nu did not open membership to women. this was due not only to its assumption that women’s primary roles were domestic, but also its concerns about the risks for women within the context of the dutch repression of muslim organisations. at the time of aisyiyah was founded, women were in a shackled position, secluded and had no access to education. the establishment of aisyiyah can be seen as a resistance against colonial politics that limited access to education for muslims and women (marcoes, 2015). furthermore, muhammadiyah and aisyiyah have offered a progressive perspective enabling muslim women to have an option to participate in both private and public domains on the ground of the syari`ah principles, serving their roles of fighters of dakwah and tajdid. aisyiyah played an important role in the modernisation of the life of indonesian women. it primarily focused on the issue of dakwah (islamic propagation), religious education, and social services. they made programs to extend the services to muslim women such as social and medical programs for women, schools for girls, and majlis taklim (qur’anic study https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 5 issn :0250-7196 circles) for their muslim women members. nevertheless, the services provided by aisyiyah were still limited to addressing women’s practical gender interests, as they did not aim to challenge the unjust existing social order and women’s subordination. although individuals within aisyiyah might have disagreed with injustice facing women, such as the subordinate women’s position in the family and the practice of polygamy, the official organisation’ stance often demonstrated conservative gender perspective in line with that of its parental organisation. 3. aisyiyah and economic empowerment since its establishment until the end of new order in 1998, under antagonistic political context against islam and muslim in the colonial period, old order, and new order, aisyiyah has been forced to have limited choice of pursuing only its practical gender interests, hardly being able to negotiate and change the unjust power relations subordinating women. nevertheless, under such limited political context, aisyiyah has successfully developed invaluable social capital all over the country. it has develop various socio-religious enterprises. by 1930 or only thirteen years of anniversary, for instance, aisyiyah was running 32 schools with 75 teachers (wieringa 2002: 67). along with the muhammadiyah’s shifting from the theology of tajdid into the theology of alma`un since the reform era in 1998, aisyiyah has also gradually shifted its organizational discourse and activism. aisyiyah has adopted the vision of islam berkemajuan (progressivism) dan al-ma`un theology in its movement. in economic field, aisyiyah perceives poverty as a complex and multi-dimensional problem of development (aisyiyah 2015). it perceives poverty as mainly attributed to structural injustice due to public policies that do not make alignment with the interests of the poor. the policies have been mostly formulated to be more oriented to capital market and serve the interests of the corporates. due to such structural poverty, aisyiyah also perceives the strategy to eradicate poverty is not sufficient by only formulating income generating activities. rather it must be accompanied by series of raising collective awareness as well as a movement to transform public policies to end poverty and povertisation of the poor and women. aisyiyah also sees poverty in indonesia as having gender dimension. women tend to have higher rate of poverty than men. the poor women often experience and have to bear more burden of poverty, such as higher rate of maternal mortality, lower rate of schooling among girls at higher educational levels, more women’s labour participation in informal sector, lower wage for women workers, and women’s vulnerability to violence. furthermore, aisyiyah also concerns about the difficulty of poor women to access bank services, thus they tend to be prey of loan sharks. this lead poor women to be shackled with overburdened loans. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 6 issn :0250-7196 therefore aisyiyah recommends the government to make poverty eradication as priority. this is due to constitutional stipulation where the government has the constitutional task to leverage the living standards and create social welfare for its people. to supports its vision, up to 2015, aisyiyah has had boards of leadership at 34 provinces, 370 districts, 2332 regencies, and 6924 villages all over indonesia. aisyiyah has also run various religio-social enterprises for the ummah empowerment. these have ranged from 4.560 educational institutions from childcare into universities, 280 hospitals, clinics, and medical centers, and 459 orphanages and shelter centers. at the level of activism, aisyiyah has undertaken several economic empowerment programs. in the field of economy, aisyiyah has run around 400 cooperatives and pre-cooperatives to provide micro finance to micro enterprises. aisyiyah also runs the aisyiyah family economy business development program (bueka), to foster family economic activities by empowering housewives to generate income to augment the economic resources of their respective families. housewives are grouped into bueka groups comprising 10 to 15 members to conduct income-generating activities. through such bukeka groups, they can help their families earn more income without ignoring their household routines while doing so. up to now, aisyiyah have had over 5,000 groups nationwide. within the program, aisyiyah also had bueka groups which produced soap products, well known as melin that were internally marketed among members through preaching or other activities. in sidoarjo, east java, a wholesale group has even been established and tasked with collecting the products of bueka groups to be further marketed nationwide. furthermore, in dukun district, magelang regency, central java, for example, elderly housewives have been involved in an organic farming pilot project where they are encouraged to make use of their wasteland to grow vegetables, both for their own consumption and for generating additional income. 4. aisyiyah’s economic empowerment strategy looking at aisyiyah’s economic empowerment from its inception to the end of new order in 1998, it can be said that aisyiyah’s movement has been limited toward the pursuance of practical gender interests. there had been hardly any efforts to challenge the unjust structural relations that put women in subordinate positions. since the reform era, however, along with the evolution of muhammdiyah’s theology from tajdid theology into al-maun theology, asiyiyah has also gradually shifted its discourse and activisms. aisyiyah has adopted the vision of islam berkemajuan (progressive islam) dan alma`un theology in its movement. this can be seen in the aisyiyah’s discourse on structural poverty that criticize unjust structural systems causing the poverty as discussed above. in terms of resources of women’s economic empowerment, `aisyiyah has benefited from its vast networks at the grass-roots levels. being the oldest muslim women’s organization with more than 100 years of existence, up to 2015, aisyiyah has had boards of leadership at 34 provinces, 370 districts, 2332 regencies, and 6924 villages all over indonesia. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 7 issn :0250-7196 in terms of achievements, aisyiyah has also run various religio-social enterprises for the ummah empowerment. these have ranged from 4.560 educational institutions from childcare into universities, 280 hospitals, clinics, and medical centers, and 459 orphanages and shelter centers. however, in terms of agency, its progressive discourse addressing poverty and the need to challenge unjust socio-political structures, thus categorized as pursuing strategic interests, has been limited only to public issues. at the private level, being a women’s wing organization, aisyiyah has limited choice to challenge gender inequality. the notion of keluarga sakinah that aisyiyah has purported has been based on the traditional gender division of labour where men become the head of family while women are positioned at the secondary level as housewives. this can be exemplified in a statement by a vice head of economic boards of muhammadiyah when he comments on aisyiyah’s tanwir program that put economic empowerment as a central theme: “however, it should be noted that women’s economic independence does not mean that women (as housewives) decide everything without any consultation with husbands or other family members. economic independence means that women do not rely their economic households only to their husbands. women take active part in economic activities only to relieve their husbands’ burden in meeting the needs of the family.” (pakkanna, 2018) his statement reflects and emphasis the conservative gender role of women in the household. women’s economic empowerment has been confined to serve the interests of men as main breadwinner in the family. it does not envision women’s economic empowerment as a space where women gain access to economic resources to provide them wider opportunities to exercise their independent agency and change unequal gender relations in the private domains. some scholars have analysed factors causing such conservative gender ideology among modernist muslims. van doorn-harder has observed the gender ideology of muhammadiyah as a modernist muslim organisation that influenced its women’s wing organisations. she identifies women’s active involvement since the early formation of muhammadiyah as part of its vision to build a muslim society. she observes that the reformist ideology that muhammadiyah embraces has ’envisioned a moral rebirth of islamic society that moved them to reinterpret qur’anic teachings about women and strengthen women’s rights within the family’ (doorn-harder, 2006: 60). quoting stowasser (1993: 8), who remarks that ’[t]hese interpretations, however, were put forth not for the benefit of women in and of themselves’ but rather to benefit islamic society, doorn-harder (2006: 61) argues that although it encouraged women to participate in the movement, muhammadiyah also tried to restrain them by imposing rigid gender roles. in a similar vein, federspiel (1970, cited in mudzakir 2005: 180-181) observes that while muhammadiyah encouraged women’s social involvement, it also promoted the view of different roles of women and men, and of limited https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 8 issn :0250-7196 woman’s role in society. the limited autonomy aisyiyah had in its relation with muhammadiyah as a parental organisation can be illustrated by a statement of a former aisyiyah leader: “he is our counsellor. if the counsellor is good, he will [let] aisyah find its own way. but if the counsellor is bad he can restrict aisyiyah. muhammadiyah has the right to veto our decisions but that is very rarely applied. they also can fire members of the aisyiyah board, which they have done in the past. we cannot fire them and we don’t have a veto in their organization. you see, it is rather like a husband-wife relationship (wieringa 2002: 123)”. in a similar vien, the priority of aisyiyah for the ummah/community interests can be seen from nyai walidah’s message, as quoted by the general leader of `aisyiyah (2015) “do not let kitchen’s issues hinder you to undertake dakwah and jihad (fighting in allah’s ways)!” (djohantini 2012, p. 23). the limited role of `aisyiyah in its movement, however, should be understood in its surrounding political-religious contexts. in the colonial period, the context of rising nationalism and the struggle for independence strongly influenced the indonesian women’s movement that constituted part of the anti-colonial movement. women were mobilised for the nationalist project of independence and struggle against colonial domination. however, for women, nationalism is a contested process since it provides women an active and expanded role but simultaneously reinforces female roles of motherhood and compliance to ‘traditional values of femininity’ (pettman 1996). within this context, the indonesian women’s movement often faced dilemmas between different, and sometimes conflicting, allegiances to their multiple identities of their nation, religion, gender, class, and ethnic (hidayah, forthcoming). for aisyiyah, this double allegiance to nationalist and gender interests has been further compounded by the need to commit to religious teachings. this complexity was further exacerbated by hostile political and religious contexts that often not in favour of women. antagonistic political attitudes to islam during the colonial, old order, and early new order periods often placed muslims in a defensive position with regard to legislation concerning muslim and gender issues. these defensive positions often negatively influenced, if not sacrificed, muslim women’s gender interests (hidayah, forthcoming). such position had been continued in the consecutive period of the old order and new order. uhlin argues that, in addition to the new order regime’s domination of civil society, class structures, ethnic and religious-based compartmentalisation, supported by the global politicaleconomic structure at that time, the new order also exploited gender relations to underpin its regime. the regime exerted its control and hegemony by merging political parties and placed women’s organisations under the single umbrella of kowani (kongres wanita indonesia/indonesian women’s congress). robinson (1999) observed that the regime further tightened its control over women and homogenised views of female social roles by neglecting https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 9 issn :0250-7196 the diversity of gender relations that existed in the archipelago, through the formulation of the ideal type of a woman as a mother. the new order introduced the ideology of ’state ibuism’. building on the earlier concept of ibuism introduced by djajadiningrat (1992: 43-51), suryakusuma (1996: 98) defines state ibuism as ’the domestication of indonesian women as dependent wives who exist for their husbands, their families, and the state’. the gender ideology of state ibuism had a devastating influence not only on indonesian women as individuals, but also on the indonesian women’s movement. at an individual level, it limited a woman’s role to the domestic sphere by restricting women’s functions to being only mothers and wives. it limited women to actualise their potential in the public or political spheres. at the level of women’s activism, it also controlled women’s movements by banning gerwani and pressuring women to participate in state-controlled motherhood organisations, such as dharma wanita (the organisations of the wives of civil servants), dharma pertiwi (the organisations of the wives of military), pkk (pembinaan kesejahteraan keluarga/family welfare guidance), and other similar women’s organisations, associated together under kowani. wieringa (1995) observes the limitation upon the freedom of women’s organisations to organise at the grassroots level, except for socio-religious or charitable activities. generally only certain organisations whose ideologies were in line with the regime’s gender ideology were permitted to be active at the village level to support the regime’s developmentalist policies particularly family planning and building strong family unit as requirement for political stability to reach high economy growth. muslim women’s organisations such as aisyiyah were also mobilised to facilitate the dissemination of the policies as they not only have branches at the village levels but also were perceived to have religious legitimacy to persuade muslim grass-roots to participate in the regime’s policies. furthermore, the practical gender interests pursued by these muslim women’s organisations such as taking care of kindergartens, majlis taklim, orphanage, and charity activities were deemed as having no threat to the regime’s agenda. during the reform era, aisyiyah has gradually taken al-ma`un theology as liberative praxis of the organization. it responses to the proliferation of poverty following the financial crisis hit indonesia in 1998. as discussed above, although `aisyiyah’s discourse on economic issues has challenged the unjust economic-political structure, however, at the private issues, `aisyiyah still maintains its conservative gender ideology where women are put in the subordinate position under the men. such position is taken by aisyiyah as a ‘middle path’ amidst the harsh contestation between liberal and conservative islam seeking to gain the hearts and minds of moderate muslims in indonesia. being a mass muslim women’s wing organisations, aisyiyah is difficult to formulate a discourse that transgress the gender ideology of its parental organization. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 10 issn :0250-7196 5. conclusion aisyiyah as a women’s wing organization of muhammadiyah has played a vital role in advancing indonesian muslim women’s causes in the fields of education, health, and socialeconomic services. however, aisyiyah has been facing dilemma when their multiple identities and interests, as a woman, a modernist muslim and an indonesian organisation, come into conflict each other. however, being an auxiliary of modernist muslim organization, aisyiyah has often have to make allegiance to its parental organization and indonesian interests as priority and subordinate its gender interests. `aisyiyah’s women economic empowerment has benefited from its resources as the oldest muslim women’s organisations having vast networks and resulted in various economic empowerment institutions. such great achievements cannot be detached from the ideological framework of modernist muslims in indonesia that is undergoing an evolution from the theology of tajdid/renewal movement with the emphasis on the development of socio-religious enterprises towards the theology of al-ma`un seeking to make alignment and empowerment of the disadvantaged groups of the society, including the poor and women. however, in terms of agency, such aisyiyah’s economic empowerment has been forced to serve the gender ideology of modernist muslims that subordinates gender interests of women under the interests of ummat/community. although in terms of public discourse, aisyiyah has challenged unjust socio-political structures, its gender discourse at private level has positioned women as secondary being housewives who exist for husband and family. however, such option is taken by aisyiyah as a strategy to strike a balance of its identities and interests as a woman, a modernist muslim, and indonesian organization and as a strategy to respond to its surrounding political contexts in indonesia. references aisyiyah, l. (2015). tanfidz keputusan muktamar `aisyiyah ke-47 satu abad `aisyiyah. yogyakarta: pp `aisyiyah. abualsaud, d. (2019). men pause and women talk too much: power and gender negotiations in eliciting data during semi-structured interviews. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 4(6), 210-223. doi:10.26500/jarssh-04-2019-0603 abdurrahman, m. (2003). islam sebagai kritik social. jakarta: erlangga. buvinic, m. (2017). measuring women’s economic empowerment. overview. djohantini, s. n. (2012). pidato iftitah tanwir i `aisyiyah’. yogyakarta: pp `aisyiyah. firdaus, n. (2016). peran bueka (bina usaha ekonomi keluarga) “asiyiyah muhammadiyah sidoarjo dalam pemberdayaan ekonomi perspektif maqashid syariah. skripsi feb unair. golla, a. m., anju, m., rekha, m., & priya, n. (2016). understanding and measuring women’s economc empowerment: definition, frameworks, and indicators. handayani, p. (2016). aisyiyah and creative economy: women’s empowerment entreprises through family entreprenuership development in tanggulangin districts of didoarjo. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. 2 (2020), 1681-1691 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 11 issn :0250-7196 proceedings of national seminar on economics and business, faculty of economics and business muhammadiyah univeristy of sidoarjo. hidayah, n. (n.d). feminising islam in contemporary indonesia: the role of progressive muslim women’s organisations. london: routledge. pettman, j. j. (1996). boundary politics: women, nationalism, and danger. mary, m., & june, p., (eds), new frontiers in women’s studies: knowledge, identity, and nationalism. london: taylor & francis. kabeer, n. (1990). resources, agency, achievements: reflections on the measurement of women’s empowerment. development and change, 30(2), 435-464. kumari, j., & malathi, a. (1996). introduction: communalising women’s sexuality in south asia. kumari, j., & malathi, a. (eds.), embodied violence: communalising women’s sexuality in south asia. london and new jersey: zed books. marcoes, n. l. (2002). women’s grassroots movements in indonesia: a case study of the pkk and islamic women’s organisations. kathryn, r., & sharon, b (eds.), women in indonesia: gender, equity, and development. singapore. mulkhan, m. (2007). pesan dan kisah kiai ahmad dhalan dalam hikmah muhammadiyah. yogyakarta: suara muhammadiyah. narayan, d. (2005). measuring empowermenr: cross disciplinary perspectives. wahington, d.c: world bank nikolaou,, e. vasilis, p., nikos, a., yota, x., dimitris, m., fevronia, s., & maria, k. (2019). the contribution of women in local sustainable development. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 5(2), 97-105. doi:10.20474/jahss-5.2.5 pakkanna, m. (2018). aisyiyah dan gerakan ekonomi perempuan. republika. doorn-harder, v. p. (2006). women shaping islam: reading the qur’an in indonesia. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. white, s. j. (2004). reformist islam, gender, and marriage in late colonial dutch east indies, 1900-1942. canberra: australian national university. molyneux, s. m. (1998). analysing women’s movements. development and change. syamsiyatun, s. (2006). serving young islamic indonesian women: the development of gender discourse in nasyiatul aisyiyah 1965-2005. clayton: monash university. it, s. (2005). the women’s movement in indonesia: with special reference to the ‘aisyiyah’ organization (ph.d. dissertation). philadelphia: temple university. saskia, e. w. (2002). sexual politics in indonesia. new york, london: palgrave, macmillan. saskia, e. w. (2015). gender harmony and the happy family: islam, gender and sexuality in post-reformasi indonesia. south east asia research. salam, a. (2016). challenges faced by working women in al ain city, uae. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 2(5), 189-197. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 850 issn :0250 effectiveness financing through peer to peer financial technology at smmb (small and medium micro business) in indonesia 1nanik eprianti, 2zia firdaus n , 3neng dewi himayasari abstract the purpose of this research is to know how to apply financing and financing effectiveness through the financial technology peer to peer to smmb in indonesia. the research methods used are qualitative. primary data sources through interviews and secondary data are obtained from financial statements and books. the result of the research is the process of fintech financing on p2p lending products that often occur namely capital loans with the following financing requirements: complement the files related to personal data and business, the application process is simpler & fast disbursement without the need to submit a guarantee. then, based on observations conducted through previous research that financing through p2p fintech in smmb in indonesia has not been effective enough, where the company still has not implemented the 5c principles in providing financing, as well as the company still ignore the rules and restrictions issued by ojk number 77/pojk. however, the management of fund distribution services is still not qualified in minimizing risk, as well as the operation of the company is still less cautious so that it impacts on losses and debts that accumulate for smmb businesses. keywords: financing, p2p fintech, smmb 1. introduction technology is one of the community need, where the impact of the technological developments can build and develop the digital economy sectors. the community continues to develop innovation in the provision of services in lending activities, one of which is characterized by the provision of information technology-based money lending services that is assessed as contributing to national development and economy. money lending service based on information technology is very helpful in improving public access to financial services products online, both with various parties without the need to know each other. the era of technology is an era where community life and activities will be easier and more effective due to the role of the digital world. one type of start-up that is starting to rise in the leaves is in the field of financial technology (fintech). financial technology is a shortened 1neng dewi himayasari sharia faculty, islamic university of bandung. jl. tamansari no. 1, bandung city, west java, indonesia. email: nanikeprianti@gmail.com 2neng dewi himayasari sharia faculty, islamic university of bandung. jl. tamansari no. 1, bandung city, west java, indonesia. 3sharia faculty, islamic university of bandung. jl. tamansari no. 1, bandung city, west java, indonesia mailto:nanikeprianti@gmail.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 851 issn :0250 designation of the word 'financial' and 'technology' where it means an innovation in the field of financial services. fintech affects community transaction habits become more practical and effective also helps communities gain access to financial products and improve financial literacy. some examples of business are incorporated in fintech such as; the process of buying and selling stocks, payments, funds transfer, retail investment, financial planning (personal finance), and peer to peer lending. peer to peer (p2p) lending is a service of financial technology that is very helpful smmb in the capital. capital is a very significant issue of course to develop business and fulfill the financial needs of society. (htt) so, with peer to peer (p2p) lending community, smmb can borrow funds easily without collateral. financing or financing is the funding given by a party to other parties to support the planned investments, both self-made and institutions (dwi & renny, 2017; rianse & abdi, 2009). judging from the data obtained from the ojk at the end of the year 2017, there is a credit need for smmb capital amounting to rp1,700 trillion per year in indonesia. with a limited financial institution at the time, it could meet the capital of rp700 trillion only, so that there are still many remaining amounts to be fulfilled. meanwhile, the research result of the ministry of cooperatives and small business (ukm) at the end of 2017 showed, the number of msmmb in indonesia as much as 59.2 million and as many as 3.79 million from the overall results are already plunged into online. ukm's kemenkop also hopes to reach the target of 8 million smmb online in 2019. of these two data is proof that with the online loans based on fintech peer to peer lending or p2p lending which is currently mushed in indonesia is very helpful to develop smmb business, so that it can be more advanced, develop and bring a large turn over. that way, it will automatically increase the country's economy level. (bernik, azis, kartini, & harsanto, 2015; pasha, 2018) the implementation of financial technology is expected to play an active role to reach every element of society, especially people in 3 area (forefront, outer, and desolater) who still have not access the branch office presence of banking institutions. but the development of financial technology peer to peer lending is not followed by an increase in the understanding of the community, where as the service targets the underserved segment that is the society that needs funds in the amount of small in a short time, in addition, the process of financing submission in peer to peer lending makes it easier for people who cannot access banking services because it has no guarantee, resulting in a lot of people stuck problems in credit online. based on the research (paulino, gatpandan, rosas, & daniel, 2017; wijayanti, 2018) that this practice still considered to be there are many of the most of them as follows (1) the implementation of community activities and loan borrow done by the parties already know each other and should not be face to face; (2) of subjectivity risk analysis failed to have spent difficulties in fee collection of; (4) systematic recording acquittance; (5) failure system used by the organizers; (6) misinformation because the absence of direct verification (7) the mistake of transactions. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 852 issn :0250 the indonesian consumer institution foundation (ylki), since january 2018 has recorded 50 more complaints against online credit. the jakarta legal aid institute (lbh) announces that there are 1,330 entry reports from victims of the financial technology (fintech) peer to peer lending service or more popular with online credit names or ' online moneyness'. this complaint starts from billing, interest calculation system, and fines that are deemed to be less obvious. in fact, not a few consumers claim to be billed by the institution that gives the fintech where they apply for loans with actions that violate the rights of consumers. financial services authority data mentions until december 2018 fintech online credits already registered with the financial services authority as much as 78 their organizers are subject to the rules made by the regulator. the financial services authority and the investment alert task force have managed to block the 404 fintech-fake until october. this means that the amount of illegal fintech is far more than the one that is completely secure and registered with the financial services authority. legal aid institute in jakarta open a post for victims of a peer to peer fintech complaints because it feels that p2p does not have enough rules to protect the users of online lending applications, because many people are stuck with fintech peer to peer lending. they are p2p users feel safe at the beginning and when they are doing so is the risk of the unexpected. this is the biggest responsibility of ojk that should be able to conduct early detection of p2p illegal fintech applications, the ending of financial literacy feels like supported with difficult eradicate this illegal p2p fintech. based on the explanation above, the problem that will be reviewed is, how is peer to peer lending financing process, 2) what is the supervision of financial services authority on financial technology implementation, and 3) how is the effectiveness of financing through fintech peer to peer lending in indonesia. 2. research materials and method the method used is qualitative. according to its nature, this study included descriptive research describing the objects to be examined. in achieving the research objectives, the data related to the research will be collected and processed, so that it can be excavated the effective information or whether the financing through the fintech peer-to-peer-lending. the data source used in this research is primary data which is the data of interviews with umkm who apply for loans, while secondary data is the financial statements and books and journals related to the research. data collection techniques through the stage of observation of the space and interviews to speakers and documented to be used as research data. 3. result and discussion effectiveness effectiveness is a measure that states how far the target (quantity, quality and time) has been achieved by management, which targets are already determined in advance. (damayanti, nurhasanah, & eprianti, 2018) https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 853 issn :0250 the sense of effectiveness according to the english dictionary is derived from the word "effective" which means effects, consequences, influence or can bring results. in this case, the effectiveness of the meaning is the result obtained from the use of a technology that is suitable for its user purpose. (wildan, 2019) financing financing is the funding provided by a party to other parties to support the planned investments, both self-made and institutions. (rianse & abdi, 2009) financing is the provision of funds or bills likened to it in the form: 1. transactions for results in the form of mudharabah and mutanaqisah 2. transaction tenancy in the form of ijarah or rent a purchase in the form of ijarah muntahiya bittamlik 3. buy and sell transactions in the form of receivables, greetings, and istishna' 4. loan transactions borrowed in the form of receivables qardh; 5. transaction tenancy services in the form of ijarah for multiservice transactions based on agreement between sharia bank and/or uus and other parties requiring the parties to be funded and/or provided with funds to return the funds after a certain period of time in exchange for, without rewards, or share results. (nurhabitoolbars, nurhasanah, & eprianti, 2018) definition of small entrepreneurs in economic literacy, small entrepreneurs are referred to as small medium entrepreneurs (pfis) and business activities called small medium business (smmb). as for the understanding of smmb, the following will be described several definitions of smmb, among others are: (manurung, 2006) a) according to the shovel and sme, small business is a business entity owned by indonesian citizen, both individual and legal who have net worth of net worth as much as rp. 200 million or have a sales result of as much as rp. 1 milliard. b) according to the bps (statistics central agency) small business is a company that has tenakee 5-19, while micro enterprises between 1-4 org, medium enterprises 20-99 people and if more so-called big business. while the definition of medium enterprises, according to, said: (manurung, 2006) the business of the people who fulfil the criteria is the following economic activities: c) business that has a net worth greater rp. 200 million, -up to the most rp. 10 billion, excluding land and business buildings. d) a standalone business is not a subsidiary or branch of a company owned, mastered or affiliated, either directly or indirectly with medium or large-scale business. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 854 issn :0250 e) in the form of individual business, a business entity that has no legal entity or legal entity, including cooperatives (manurung, 2006). based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that referred to as small micro enterprises or smmb is a business activity undertaken by the indonesian businessmen played, both individuals and groups who have income from the results of its business activities between rp. 100 million, -up to rp. 10 billion, -per year. definition financial technology fintech comes from the term financial technology or financial technology. according to the national digital research centre (ndrc), in dublin, ireland, it defines fintech as " innovation in financial services” or "innovations in fintech financial services" which is an innovation in the financial sector that gets a touch of modern technology. financial transactions through this fintech include payments, investments, lending money, transfers, financial plans and comparative financial products. currently there are 142 companies engaged in fintech that are identified as operating in indonesia. (wijayanti, 2018) fintech classification the following are 4 classification of fintech according to bank indonesia: (muchlisin, 2018) a. crowdfunding dan peer to peer lending in this classification, fintech is useful as mediation that finds investors with capital seekers, like the marketplace in e-commerce terms. crowdfunding (mass or joint-base financing) and peer to peer (p2p) lending is supervised by the ojk (financial services authority). crowdfunding it is very useful to conduct fundraisers such as to fund a work, help victims of disasters and others. with fintech, fundraising can be done online, so that the fundraising will be easier and more efficient. b. market aggregator in this classification, fintech will serve as the comparator of financial products, where the fintech will gather and collect financial data to be used as reference by users. this classification can also be referred to by name comparison site or financial aggregator. for example, if a consumer wants to choose a house financing product, the fintech platform will adapt the consumer's personal financial data and provide the house financing product options according to the personal data entered. this option will be provided in accordance with the wishes and financial capabilities and consumer preferences c. risk and investment management the concept offered by fintech in this classification has functions like financial planner which is digital form. the user will be assisted to get the most suitable investment product according to the given preference. in addition to risk management and investment, in this classification, there is also asset management, where fintech will help the operation of a business so that it is more practical. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 855 issn :0250 d. payment, settlement dan clearing the types of fintech incorporated in this classification are payments such as payment gateway and e-wallet. this classification is supervised by bi (bank indonesia) because the payment process also includes the turnover of money which will be the responsibility of bank indonesia. as we mentioned above, payment gateway is one of the fourth classification examples. payment gateway is a bridge between customers and e-commerce (online buying and selling companies) focused on the payment system. with the form of fintech payment gateway, customers can choose the desired payment method. one example of fintech in the form of payment gateway is ipaymu.com. fintech financing measures online loan-based fintech peer to peer lending or p2p lending is currently mushed in indonesia is very helpful to the community especially for smmb in developing its business. here are 5 steps of fintech financing for business to run smoothly and results in accordance with expectations, namely: (pasha, 2018) a) select fintech lending registered in ojk select the existing and licensed fintech lending in the ojk (financial services authority) by visiting the www.ojk.go.id website . in addition, you can also get more information about of fintech. the goal is to avoid the fraud that the group is irresponsible for. b) apply for loan as needed make online loans in accordance with the required capital alias not overstated. do not forget to also do consideration of any fintech with detailed calculations ranging from the interest offered, the cost of fines, tenor and so on. c) do regular market research this research can be done by coming directly into the community or through the internet. that way, as a business person can find out who will be target targets and what is needed by the market or the community of the products you sell. d) enhance creativity and innovation in this case the need to hone creativity creates new ideas and do not be afraid to innovate. you can look for inspiration by often hanging out, sensitive to the surrounding environment, see-see from the internet or social media. e) do good promotions also, make sure you are active in conducting this promotion, as this will determine whether it is the sales or selling of products. the point, the more active and consistent the promotion, the more often the customers who buy the product. thus, sales turnover will continue to increase. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://www.ojk.go.id/id/berita-dan-kegiatan/publikasi/pages/penyelenggara-fintech-terdaftar-di-ojk-per-agustus-2018.aspx hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 856 issn :0250 ojk supervision on the implementation of fintech along with the development of fintech that continues to be stretched until now, must be balanced also with the presence of regulation and clear supervision over the course of the business. pursuant to article 5 of law no. 21 of 2011 on the financial services authority (ojk), which states that ojk is functioning to organize an integrated system of regulatory and supervision of all activities in the financial services sector. more clearly article 6 states that ojk carries out the duties of the arrangement and supervision of: a. financial services activities in the banking sector; b. financial services activities in the capital market sector; and c. physical activities in the insurance sector, pension funds, institutions, and other agencies in the institution, and other services. when referring to both chapters, ojk is the institution that performs the arrangement and supervision towards growing fintech. fintech startups include the financial services sector of both the bank's financial industry (ikb) and the non-bank financial industry (iknb) that are supervised by the ojk. arrangement and supervision become very important for fintech sustainability in indonesia. this relates to the legality of businesses that run because the implementation of fintech has a potential risk that is related to consumer protection, systematical stability, payment system and stability of economists. the aim of the arrangement and supervision by ojk is to minimize the risks and to support sustainable and stable economic growth. to respond to the current fintech problems the ojk has established the task force for the development of the digital economy and financial innovations to supervise fintech and at the end of 2016 precisely on 29 december 2016, ojk finally issued a setting about fintech is regulation of ojk number 77/pojk. 01/2016 on lending services based on information technology (lpmubti). the pojk contains rules regarding the provision, management and operation of information technology-based money borrowing services. (wijayanti, 2018) based on regulation of the financial services authority no. 77/pojk. 01/2016: the provider of borrowing and lending services based on information technology must qualify as follows: a) indonesian citizen b) legal entity of pt or cooperative c) modal min. rp. 2.500.000.000 type of fintech services in indonesia for smmb a.capital loans; types of fintech that provide capital lending services with a simpler filing process than conventional financial institutions such as banks. without the need to submit a guarantee or simply complete some document requirements only, this online lending service becomes an alternative to conventional bank loans or other lending companies. the loan filed can be liquid in a relatively short period of less than a week. b) digital payment services; this type of fintech with payment process is easy and safe, so it is able to attract more consumers and provide benefits for business people. one of the fintech that provides digital payment system is a genius application that synergizes with online transportation services company. jenius provides a rebate for customers who use the payment option with the application. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 857 issn :0250 c) financial arrangements services; types of fintech that offer financial management services. this service aims to assist smmb businessmen in managing the company's finances. services provided include budget creation, expense recording, investment performance monitoring, and free financial consulting. some fintech companies provide financial management services such as healthy wallets and ngaturduit.com fintech p2p lending solutions and optimization of smmb capital peer-to-peer lending or commonly abbreviated p2p lending, is an online based container that brings together a lot of people who need a loan (borrower) with many others who are willing to give a loan (investor). p2p lending systems that run fully online based make p2p lending service companies can run with inexpensive operational costs and offer their services at a much cheaper cost compared to ordinary banking companies. as a result, lenders will later be able to reap greater profits than the profit they can if it is just to follow the savings and investment programs offered by ordinary financial institutions. not only lenders, borrowers can also feel the advantage if they borrow money borrowed through p2p lending. the borrowers can borrow money with low interest rates, even after the company's p2p lending service providers already cut their service fees, such as platform fees and checking the financial condition of the borrower. peer-to-peer lending itself is a business phenomenon that is currently occurring in almost all countries. access to banking that is still not able to receive and still many smmb who cannot obtain financial services, utilized by the perpetrators of p2p lending as an opportunity. thus, fintech can be the solution and answer to the problems of access to business capital loans. in addition to the ease of submitting loans, security issues have also been secured by the government. this can be seen with the founding of fintech technology office by bank indonesia. through this institute, bank indonesia can supervise and regulate the regulation on fintech in indonesia. fintech present provides capital lending services with a simpler filing process than conventional financial institutions such as banks, so p2p is lending as an alternative to capital lending. p2p lending is here to solve the problem of "the missing middle" in communities and smmb that have a growing capacity but lack of access to funding. the community includes smmb that have the capacity to develop and need funding. we call this community segment "the missing middle". the role of p2p lending to marry a community that has not been bankable. "the missing middle" requires financial inclusion, such as funding, but still has enough track record to get credit from the bank. in the presence of fintech p2p lending platform will help smmb to gain financial access. (rumondang, 2018) how is peer to peer lending fintech distribution process? the distribution process of peer to peer lending is often the case of capital loans; where the community is quite qualified such as the completeness of files that relate to personal data and https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 858 issn :0250 business, but according to there are 5 ways for community in using (pasha, 2018) fintech peer to peer lending is as follows; 1. select fintech lending registered in ojk 2. apply for loan as needed 3. do regular market research 4. enhance creativity and dare to innovate 5. perform promotions appropriately it is necessary to understand and applied by the community, especially smmb in the effort to avoid the fraud that is not responsible group. how does the financial services authority monitor fintech implementation? the activity of borrowing money directly based on the agreement either written or unwritten is a practice that has been held in the midst of community life. money lending services based on information technology is very helpful in improving public access to financial services products online both with various parties without needing to know each other. based on ojk regulation no. 77/pojk. 01/2016 on money-lending services based on information technology (lpmubti), information technology needs to be regulated and supervised in the framework of user protection, maintenance of lending services borrow money-based information technology, and protection of national interests while providing a growing space for the pioneer company (start up company) in order to increase financial inclusion in indonesia. ojk regulation includes provisions to minimize credit risk, protection of users ' interests such as misuse of funds and user data, and protection of national interests such as anti-money laundering activities and prevention terrorism financing, as well as disruption to financial system stability. how is the effectiveness of financing peer to peer landing fintech in indonesia? based on the observations conducted through previous research that financing through the fintech peer to peer lending in smmb in indonesia has not been effective enough, this is seen from the community of smmb in the development of its business is still shortage of capital to develop and manage its business, where at the time of online learning is done, smmb still lack funds to restore the previous loan funds, thereby increasing the cost of msmmb. this is due to lack of public understanding of the initial step in financial technology financing, where the public must know the names of online companies that are registered formally and securely if used for financing. in accordance with the pojk number 77/pojk. 01/2016 on the service of borrowing money-based information technology (lpmubti). which aims to regulate the provision, management, and operation of information technology-based money borrowing services. this is different from the purpose of founding fintech peer to peer lending which is the solution and the answer to the problem of access needs of mms business capital. in addition to the ease of submitting loans, security issues have also been secured by the government. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 859 issn :0250 4. conclusion smmb play an important role for the small community in indonesia, one of which is the economic equality of the people to eradicate the people from the gulf of poverty. for this purpose, the government continues to innovate to provide the best for its people. the problem that always occurs in the stabilizing smmb in indonesia is the source of capital to improve the business of people, some people find it difficult to get access to capital loans for its business, especially for small people who do not have collateral for venture capital loans. ojk provides solutions for smmb in order to stabil the business by issuing a fintech product of peer to peer lending which is set out in pojk number 77/pojk. 01/2016 on money-based borrowing services information technology (lpmubti) y ang aims to regulate the provision, management and operation of information technology-based money borrowing services. the fact that the rules that have been issued by pojk become one of the breakthroughs for the maker of online lending-based application, this will be a boomerang for pojk because there is a legal vacuum inside. not a solution for smmb to obtain capital loans, thus it becomes a disaster because in the rules ojk does not strictly filter online lending applications where the community is finally a lot of people who fall in the loan application online fintech-based peer to peer lending that is not registered in the ojk. sanctions present in the pojk number 77/pojk. 01/2016 on money-borrowing services based on information technology (lpmubti) is considered to be not able to bind the makers of fintech-based online lending applications peer to peer lending illegal, so the sme community is expected to be smarter in choosing a capital loan product based on fintech peer to peer lending if it is necessary to improve its business. references bernik, b., azis, y., kartini, d., & harsanto, b. (2015). managing innovation of smes in creative industry for interactive game subsector and tv and radio subsector based on local wisdom in development of competitiveness business (case study smes in bandung). international journal of business and administrative studies, 1(2), 49-53. damayanti, m. d., nurhasanah, n., & eprianti, n. (2018). efektivitas program ekonomi produktif terhadap upaya pembentukan mustahik menjadi nuzakki. bandung: prosiding hukum ekonomi syariah. dwi, w. r., & renny, w. (2017). affecting compliant with the willingness to pay tax as an intervening variable factor (studies on the taxpayer owners of smes in pontianak kpp). journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 3(3), 152-163. haryani, i. (2010). restruksisasi dan penghapusan kredit macet . jakarta: pt. elex media. manurung, a. h. (2006). bisnis ukm (usaha kecil menengah). jakarta: kompas. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 850 861 860 issn :0250 muchlisin, r. (2018). analisis swot financial technology (fintech) pembiayaan perbankan syariah di indonesia (studi kasus 4 bank syariah di kota medan). jurnal ekonomi islam, 4(5), 335-357. nurhabibilah, i., nurhasanah, n., & eprianti, n. (2018). pengaruh pendampingan program puspa terhadap minat umkm syariah dalam pengajuan pembiayaan ke perbankan syariah. bandung: prosiding hukum ekonomi syariah. pasha, a. r. (2018, 12 3). cara kembangkan bisnis umkm dengan pinjaman modal dari fintech. online available from: https://www.cermati.com/artikel/cara-kembangkan-bisnis-umkm dengan-pinjaman-modal-dari-fintech perdana, j. (2017, mei rabu). marketeers.com. available from: http://goog.gl/m7bwbc paulino, h., gatpandan, m. f., rosas , and daniel, d. j. r. (2017). microsoft office specialist and microsoft technology associate certification:an integrated curriculum for technical skills validation. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 2(5), 277-283 ri, d. a. (1989). al-qur'an dan terjemahnya. bandung: cv. diponegoro. rianse, u., & abdi. (2009). metodologi penelitian sosial dan ekonomi; teori dan aplikasi. bandung: alfabeta. rumondang, a. (2018). the utilization of fintech (p2p landing) as sme capital solution in indonesia: perspective in islamic economics. proceeding international :conference on empowering moslem society in digital era, (p. https://doi.org/10.24090/icms.201). jakarta. wijayanti, t. (2018). pelaksanaan pemberian kredit berbasis tehnologi informasi oleh fintech kepada pelaku ukm. skripsi; universitas muhammadiyah surakarta . wildan, m. (2019). pengaruh persepsi kemudahan penggunaan, efektivitas dan risiko terhadap minat bertransaksi menggunakan financialtechnology(fintech). skripsi, universitas islam negeri walisongo . https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ http://www.cermati.com/artikel/cara-kembangkan-bisnis-umkmhttp://www.cermati.com/artikel/cara-kembangkan-bisnis-umkmhttp://goog.gl/m7bwbc c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd allah is the light of the heavens and the earth hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam vol. xliv oct-dec 2021 no. 4 editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid advisory board dr. manzoor ahmad former rector international islamic university islamabad, pakistan prof. dr. khaled abou el fadl prof. of law, ucla school of law university of california, u.s.a dr. hisham nashabe president, makassed university p.o. box 5832, beirut, lebanon prof. abdur raheem kidwai professor, department of english director, k.a. nizami centre for qur’anic studies aligarh muslim university aligarh, india dr. umar chapra ex-research advisor islamic research and training institute of the islamic development bank, jeddah saudi arabia prof. seyyed hossein nasr professor of islamic studies the george washington university gelman library 712 washington, d.c. 20052, u.s.a. prof. dr. a.h. johns professor emeritus the australian national university honorary professor the australian catholic university australia dr. farrukh habib co-founder and managing director alif technologies dubai, uae prof. dr. abdul azim islahi institute of qur’anic sciences (iqsc), aligarh, 202002, india prof. dr. ilzamudin ma’mur, ma professor of education of the faculty of islamic education the state institute for islamic studies (iain) “sultan maulana hasanudin” jl. jend. sudirman no. 30, serang, 42118 banten, indonesia prof. dr. anis ahmad vice chancellor riphah international university hajj complex road sector i-14, islamabad, pakistan hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 . .. editorial board editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid editor dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt assistant editor mr. kaleem chaghtai associate editor prof. dr. nigar sajjad zaheer assistant editor ms. haleema motiwala price inland foreign foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/ payment should be made in the name of hamdard foundation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan pak. rs. us $ annual single copy 650/ 165/ 120/ 35/ … published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, p.e.c.h.s. block 2, karachi,pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] mailto:editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk mailto:hfp@hamdardfoundation.org http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk/ http://www.hamdardfoundation.org/ http://www.hamdardlabswaqf.org/ http://www.hakimsaid.info/ for correspondence editor hamdard islamicus hamdard foundation pakistan head office, 16th floor bahria town tower, tariq road,pechs block 2, karachi, pakistan url: hamdardislamicus.com.pk e-mail: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk tel: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) 2 ... information for contributors • manuscripts must be composed in ms word format and typed double spaced with at least one-inch margin on all sides of a4 size and to be sent through ojs at journal’s official website. • manuscripts may preferably comprise 6000 to 7000 words. however, as per the importance of issue discussed in the article and its fine presentation, some relaxation may be acquired. • notes and references should follow the chicago manual of style 17th edition (end notes only) i.e. to be marked serially and placed at the end of the manuscript. • authors are requested to quote the english translation of the holy quranic verses from the editions of only mufti muhammad taqi usmani. • authors are requested to provide their c.v. mentioning their designation, permanent and present postal addresses along with their cell/whatsapp numbers and e-mail addresses. • all correspondence regarding the manuscript will be directed to the corresponding author. • ensure the submission is as requested by the journal and contains all relevant sections. see authors’ guideline available on journal’s official website. • non native english speakers are encouraged to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission. this is particular key for resubmission. • hamdard islamicus does not charge from its authors for publication of their articles in the journal. mailto:editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xliv oct-dec 2021 no.4 contents * editorial * makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic thought of jamaluddin al-afghani — dr. spahic omer * shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq al ‘aẓīmabādī & his scholarly contribution in serving the ḥadīth legacy — dr. syed abdul majid ghouri * isnād cum matn analysis of zakāt al-fiïr traditions: an analysis of harald motzki’s method — dr. bilal ahmad qureshi * abortion of janīn (embryo+foetus) due to human birth defects (anomalies) an islamic view with special reference to sharī‘ah maxims (qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah) — dr. fahd anwar * a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks from sharī‘ah perspective — abdul muneem — dr. nor fahimah mohd razif, — dr. abdul karim ali the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 11 43 77 95 59 objectives hamdard islamicus is an academic journal devoted to islamic research and scholarship. it serves as a forum for scholars to write objectively, analytically and, wherever necessary, critically on islamic history, philosophy, science, art, culture, archaeology, law and jurisprudence. it brings out the achievements of muslims in the fields of humanities, social and natural sciences. it aims at defining islam in terms of its fundamentals in a rational and liberal manner emphasizing, at the same time, the basic islamic ideals of universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice. it aims at interpreting the teachings of islam in such a way as to bring out its dynamic character in the context of the intellectual and scientific progress of the modern world. it provides an open forum for a dialogue among the fundamentalist, conservative and the modernist schools of thought among the muslims aiming at finding a balanced view. it endeavours, through dialogue, to find islamic answers to the questions relating to the social, political, economic and moral problems of the fast and drastically changing world of today. it transmits through english translations the speeches, learned papers and discourses expressed in urdu by highly qualified traditional scholars, the ‘ulema’, and, in this way, it communicates valuable material, otherwise inaccessible, to the non-urdu readers. it endeavours to promote better understanding between the islamic world and the west. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 indexing and abstracting bodies f:\e\islamicus\2017\no.4, 2017\islamicus (final)\08-starting pages (no.4).pmd hamdard islamicus 5 vol. xl, no. 4 editorial this issue comprises five research based articles, one book review and one obituary. the first article from indonesia entitled “imém al-suyëïê’s original thought on the opposition to (greek) logic and theology in øawn al-manïiq wa‘lkalém ‘an fannay al-manïiq wa‘l-kalém” throws light on the famous conflict between the followers of greek logic and traditional understanding of the divine message (the qur’én). imam suyëïê in his celebrated work the øawn al-manïiq wa‘l-kalém ‘an fannay al-manïiq wa‘l-kalém opposes the logicians’ arguments on their lack of understanding of subtleties of arabic phonetics and multiplicity of shades of meaning. the next article from pakistan entitled “fundamental guarantees of the rights of the accused in the islamic criminal justice system” lays emphasis on the fact that sharê’ah (the islamic law) ensures fundamental rights for all the individuals in a society. this includes the legal offenders so that the punishment meted out to them may not exceed the logical legal limits. dr. muíammad ×amidullah was an outstanding and celebrated scholar, known for his legal and islamic studies and history in several languages viz. urdu, english, arabic and french. though settled in paris, he was regarded as a citizen of the world. he made significant contributions to islamic studies in french also which are not available to non-french people. the author from saudi arabia provides in his article entitled “the writings of muíammad ×amidullah in french: trends and novelties” an idea of dr. ×amidullah’s french works besides his famous french translation of the holy qur’én and sirah of the holy prophet ( ). indonesia has become one of the countries facing serious criticism on the methods used in the implementation of islamic law. the government of aceh is the only indonesian province with the delegated authority to legally implement islamic law. the author from indonesia in his article “enforcing islamic law for non-muslims: a case study of indonesia” has presented and discussed a case study of aceh in which a non-muslim alcoholic-drinking dealer was punished by islamic criminal law. resurgence and exponential outlook of terrorist activities, local as well as international, has led to devise more effective and stringent methods of search and checkup. now one such popular method is strip search of the offenders and inmates besides x-ray scanning, pat and search. it allows the police to undress the offenders and examine their physical cavities. but these methods are often misused by the security personnel and police. the article from pakistan, “western and islamic perspective of strip search and undressing of inmates, permissibility, practices and it’s jurisdiction”, discusses its implications internationally and locally in pakistan as well. an obituary of one of the senior most directors of hamdard pakistan and close associate of shaheed hakim mohammed said, mr. masood ahmed barakati is also included in this issue. he had been and would be, known for his exemplary literary services. this issue includes one book review as well. editor-in-chief hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 785 issn :0250-7196 principles of islamic ethics in the islamic foreign exchange swap in islamic banking malaysia 1 azlin alisa ahmad, 2 mohd hafiz mohd dasar, 3 nik abdul rahim nikabdghani abstract islamic fx swap is one of the hedging mechanisms that will help financial institutions minimize foreign exchange risk as well as protects the value of assets from the market exposure. however, the islamic fx swaps is claimed to mimic conventional fx swap structure which is to some degree is incompatible with islamic financial ethics. this paper aims to analyze the application of the principles of islamic ethics in the islamic foreign exchange swap (islamic fx swap) within the islamic banking institutions in malaysia. this study used content analysis method of the qualitative approach. this paper concludes that in malaysia, the islamic fx swap operation in islamicbanking institutions runs based on the principles of islamic ethics. there are four principles of islamic ethics in the implementation of islamic fx swap, which are the absent of riba, the absent of gharar, the prohibition of excessive speculation and the prohibition of gambling. the implementation of islamic fx swap requires these ethical principles to ensure its operation complies with the shariah. key words: islamic ethics, islamic fx swap, islamic banking ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction ethics (akhlaq) is one of the main branches of islam after belief (aqidah) and islamic law (shariah).belief is fundamental for muslims because it relates all matters of life to allah swtas allah is the one god and the only creator that humankind must worship. islamic law is the rules and regulations that govern muslims‟life and conduct in the realization of the devine will(laldin, 2006). meanwhile, ethics is an integral element that co-exists alongside the implementation of islamic belief and shariah. islamic ethics covers all aspects of life, including social, politics, economics, behaviors, interactions, and management. islamic finance and ethical finance are two important subjects discussed widely in the global financial market crisis to ensure the sustainability of financial development goals (tariqullah & mohomed, 2017, kamran, & zhao, 2016). routinely, the description of islamic finance centers on it being ethical due to the prohibition of riba, gharar, and maysir in the products. the establishment of islamic banking and finance system aiming to fulfill the socio-economic objectives and the creation of a just, fair, and balanced society. 1 universiti kebangsaan malaysia, bangi, selangor. email: azlinalisa@ukm.edu.my 2 universiti kebangsaan malaysia, bangi, selangor 3 universiti kebangsaan malaysia, bangi, selangor mailto:azlinalisa@ukm.edu.my hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 786 issn :0250-7196 foreign exchange swap (fx swap) is one of the swap products categorized under derivative products. the purpose of this product isas ahedging mechanism that will help financial institutions minimize the foreign exchange risk fx swap protects the value of assets from the market fluctuation exposure ( alshannag, basah, & khairi, 2017, fadahunsi & barake, 2018 moles, 2016). the instability of financial markets such as the currency market and interest rate affect creditors and debtors with different risk stages and uncertainty. therefore, the international market uses the conventional fx swap as hedging, arbitrage, and speculative mechanisms (alamine, 2008; al-suwailem 2006; boris, & sergey, 2018, obiyathullah, 1999). vo et al. (2019) state, the development of the derivatives instruments such as forwards, futures, options, and swaps had a positive result on economicgrowth in the short term, as showed in, india, japan, and the u.s. the contemporary islamic finance scholars havebegun discussing the derivative contractand its operation as early as in the 80s and 90s. most scholars such as ahmad muhayyuddinhasan (1986), abu sulayman (1996) and taqi usmani (1999) rejected the obligations of the conventional derivative market due to the existence of shariahissues such as uncertainty (gharar), gambling (maysir), usury (riba) and short selling. hence, in april 2006, the collaboration between standard chartered saadiq bank and bank muamalat malaysia introduced the first shariah-compliant swap instrument by launching two products named islamic foreign exchange swap and islamic cross currencies swap. despite the introduction ofthe new products for islamic fx swap instrument, theyare still prone to criticisms by the scholars. the criticisms center ontheir operation for not fulfilling the shariahrequirements as they appear as a close copy or areplication of a conventional swap (ahmed, 2014; hamoudi, 2007; yusuf talal, 2007).furthermore, they also claim thatthe existing practice of islamic bankingproducts has not been able to achieve its goals, which is to be based on islamic moral values (mansour, khoutem, & majdoub, 2015). this paper aims to study the application of the principles of islamic ethics in the islamic foreign exchange swap (islamic fx swap). this study is critical because it paves the way in ensuring whether the islamic fx swapproducts operate based on moral principles or not, which marks the difference from the conventional products. the first section of the paper presents the overview of islamic fx swap and its function. the second section discusses the shariah issues related to it. the third section presents the principles of islamic ethics in the islamic fx swap, and the fourth section concludes the entire discussion. 2. fx swap overview fx swap is an agreement between counterparties to exchange a currency for another, at a predetermined time, without incurring foreign exchange risk (barkbu & ong, 2010). the fx swap concept has certain similarities with the forward contract concept due to the exchange of hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 787 issn :0250-7196 bank a bank b rm 400 million usd 100 million bank a bank b 2. forward date (january 1 2019) 1. spot date (january 1, 2018) rm 400 million usd 100 million two different currencies. the fx swap involves dual exchange while forward contract involves a single exchange (asyraf wajdi & shabnam, 2010). figure 1 illustrates the operation of an fx swap contract. in the figure, bank a, located in the united states, intends to convert usd100 million to myr400 million. the second party, bank b, located in malaysia, wishes to have usd100 million for investment purposes in the states. thus, bank a and bank b sign the fx swap agreement to exchange their currencies based on today‟s spot basis and agree upon a forward date and rate. on the maturity date, the parties reconverted the currencies into the original currency on a forward rate. both parties have agreed on a rate fixed on the day at the beginning of the contract. figure 1: operation of an fx swap contract 2.1. fx swap function banks and other financial institutions use fx swap widely to manage liquidity. bank or financial institution that does not fully utilize its foreign currency deposits may face risk liquidity when there are any changes in the foreign currency exchange rate (barkbu & ong, 2010). by entering the fx swap contract, any changes in the foreign exchange rates will not affect the financial institution or bank as it does not keep the currency by moving it temporarily to other parties. at the same time, the other parties may benefit the foreign currency exchange for their business purposes. for example, client a has malaysian ringgit currency, while client b has the us dollar currency. both parties enter the islamic fx swap transaction by converting both currencies on the spot and promise to reconvert the currenciesinto the original currency during a forward date. as a result, client a can use the us dollar for his or her business purposes as well as clientb, who is utilizing the malaysian ringgit temporarily.therefore, both parties are not at risk of exchange rates while the unused foreign currencies can benefit other parties (shamah, hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 788 issn :0250-7196 2003). meanwhile, the fx swap instrument is an alternative for companies that are seeking foreign currency financing for businesses, asset purchases, and investments in a country.likewise, financing companies can also minimize the lending cost of foreign currency by using the fx swap instrumentdue to the lending cost is higher compared to the cost of fx swap instrument (shamah, 2003). 3. the shariah issues on fx swap the conventional fx swap structure to some degreeis incompatible with islamic financial ethics due to the shariahissues such as usury, uncertainty, gambling, and excessive speculations. among the shariah issues that need to be addressed are: 3.1. shariah issue 1: riba the main shariah issue aboutthe fx swap contract structure is riba. it arises whenboth parties have fixed the forward currency exchange rate on the agreement date (spot date) (asyraf wajdi, 2009; khan, 1988; sakti, syahid, tareq, & mahdzir, 2016). therefore, this contract contradicts theshariahprinciples governing currency (bay’ al-sarf) and the principles of islamic ethics that emphasize the value of fairness in transactions. according to bay’ al-sarf concept, any transaction that involves different currencies is required to be exchanged on a spot basis. on the contrary, the fx swap structure involves the element of ribain the payment. as debt contract (al-qard) serves as the basis in fx swap debt contract transactions (obaidullah, 1999), therefore, a client who is using fx swap contract becomesa debtor and shall repay the future debt with an additional cost. the fx swap contract structure itself involves ribain the payment (oubdi & raghibi, 2017). some islamic financial scholars have supported this point of view, claiming that the transactions involve the sale of debt for a debt(bay al-daynbildayn)(usmani, 1999). basically,bay’ al-daynmay be imagined as a sale over an unpaid debt involving either two or three parties. shariah does not recognized this tyepe of sale due to the element of uncertainty in its repayment and contains the exchange of deferred forms of wealth (oubdi & raghibi, 2017). 3.2. shariah issue 2: gharar the second issuethat violates the principles of islamic financial ethics is the existence of gharar. gharar is one of the most strictly prohibited elements in islamic financial transactions and contracts. gharar can define as misrepresentation, fraud, uncertainty, risky or hazard that might lead to damage or loss (nehad & khanfar, 2016). two conditions that lead to ghararare the subject of a contract does not exist during the conclusion of the contract, and there is a deferment of goods and prices (fahim 1995; kamali 1996; khan, 1988; obaidullah 1998; usmani 1999).in short, the items or assets in fx swap do not exist, and the actual exchange does not happen. khan (1988) states that, if a transaction takes place, it will happen without any party having an asset. this transaction resembles the one mentioned in the hadith of the prophet saw regarding the ban of bay al-ma 'dum, which is the sale of items that the sellers do not own. other than that, hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 789 issn :0250-7196 gharar exists in fx swap whenthe agreed rate (forward rate) could not be expected in the future. this situation affects both of the contracting parties, and they may cancel the contract in the future if the agreed rate does not favor one of the contracting parties. if the agreed exchange rate exceeds the current exchange rate, one party may not exercise the obligation. both parties are also exposed to credit risk when either party defaults. according to nordin and asmak (2011), this situation is due to the reason that there is no particular authority can regulate the transactions as the clearinghouse supervises the future contracts. this clearinghouse exists to prevent uncertainty and gharar over the fulfillment of the contracts (kamali, 1999). each transaction is guaranteed because the clearinghouse acts as the seller for each buyer and the buyer for each seller in all future transactions (kunhibava, 2010). 3.3. shariah issue 3: maysir maysir or gambling refers to the easy acquisition of wealth by probabilities, whether or not it deprives theother‟s rights. al-suwailem (2000) and fahimah and azlin (2008) conclude that there are three characteristics of gambling that luck acts as the sole basis of the profitability where the winners get the losers‟ part. therefore, investors expose themselves to high risks conditions, and those risks do not add value to the country's economy. one of the characteristics of gambling is a zero-sum game, which is one party gets profit based on the loss of the other party. obaidullah (1998), al-suwailem (2006) and daud bakar (2008) explain that gamblinghappens when one of the contracting party face the risk of a loss while the other party will gaina profit. in the fx swap operation, both parties will set an exchange rate in the future, and that will expose them to profit and loss risks. if the exchange rate at the forward time exceeds the rate of the spot time, the client gains profit while the bank suffers losses.if the opposite happens, the forward exchange rate is lower than the spot rate; thenthe bank earns profits while the client losses. this situation resembles betting for fate as it happens due to the dependence on market prices. 3.4. shariah issue 4: speculation speculation activity is an unethical act. historically, financial crises around the globe have proven that speculation is one of the culprits. speculation may define as an act of buying and selling of commodity in the market, with knowledge of its volatility and the risk involved therein, for the purpose of making a capital gain. it can be understand that speculation occur when participant in the market intend to get a profit by buying shares at a lower price and sell to others at higher price(habib, 2017; salamon, 2015). according to rafikov and saiti (2017), there are six important elements in speculation namely:asset; buying; knowledge of market volatility; assumption of risk when waiting for positive or negative price change in the market; selling of the commodity; and intention of capital gain. the noble purpose behind the creation of fx swap is to enable hedging and managing speculationrisk. however, ironically, this instrument has becomethe most popular financial hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 790 issn :0250-7196 instrument used for speculation, which opposesits' original purpose. abdul rahman (2003), fahim (1997), obaidullah (1998), and tamer (2005) state that the elements of speculation take place in derivative markets when speculators are only interested in the market price changes. thespeculators will terminate contracts before the maturity period, whether they are already profitable or to avoid losses, and most of the contracts also do not involve any physical delivery of the asset. obaidullah (1998) and usmani (1999) argue that this kind of transaction can be considered as excessive speculation as they place expectationson themarket prices‟fate, meanwhile,the speculators, their motive is to take advantage from the market price changes. basically, the act of investors is based on their philosophical, religious or moral convictions of individual or collective investors (anas & mounira, 2009). according to al-suwailem (2006), dealers used 97.3% of the total amount of derivatives and, the end users used 2.7% of total derivatives. the percentageshows that dealers who are real speculators will dominate the derivative market while hedgers are the minority. most of the users entering a derivative contract intend to speculate instead of pursuing real businesses (saadiah mohamad & tabatabaei, 2008). 4. principles of islamic ethics in islamic fx swap in general, islam and other divine religions invite humankind to follow moral and ethical principles in every possible condition. therefore, it predominantly implies that the financial instrument and transactions to be disassociated directly or indirectly from corrupted businesseslike gambling, human trafficking, drugs, arms and ammunition, pornography and other activitiesthat fall under the grey areas when ethically and morally screened (rizvi, arshad, & lahsasna, 2014). other than that, in islam, there are numbers of criteria for financial instrument and transactions to be permissible and ethical. in terms of the principles, all derivative instrument and transactions must be free from riba,rishwah(corruption),maysir, gharar,excessive speculation and jahl(ignorance) (fahim, 1997; muhammad, 1997; obiyathullah, 1999). the development of islamic finance and banking products has introduced a new chapter ininitiatingislamic derivative products. as a public necessity, many academics, islamic finance practitioners, and shariah scholars have advocated for the use of such products and devices treating it as a necessity (hajjah) for risk hedging based on benefits (maslahah) (ayub & paldi, 2016). the emergence of islamic swap products has solved many shariah-related issues such as usury, uncertainty, gambling, and speculations. in general, there are five criteria must be met in order to avoid any misusing of islamic derivative instruments as what happened in conventional derivatives markets: (i) the derivative instrument and its underlying commodities are shariah compliant; (ii) the objective of derivative instrument is for real hedging; (iii) the transaction is based on real investment and real risk that contribute value to the real economy; (iv) the method and practice involved in risk hedging does not sever the risk from its underlying commodities; (iiv) the contract must be in accordance with the shariah standards as well as its objectives (maqasid al-shariah)(kasri & rahman, 2016; injadat, 2018; nordin et al., 2019, antara, musa, hassan, 2016). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 791 issn :0250-7196 bank a bank b rm 400 million usd 100 million bank a bank b 2. wa’d (1 january 2018) 1. spot date (1st january 2018) rm 400 million usd 100 million bank a bank b 3. forward date (1 january 2019) rm 400 million usd 100 million 4.1. ethical principle 1: ribafree the element of ribawithin fx swap occurs when the exchange of two foreign currencies does not occur on the spot, and it may be fixed by using wa’d contract. a wa'dcontract may definesuch exchange as a unilateral promise or undertakingthat refers to an expression of commitment given by one party to another to perform a particular action(s) in the future (concept paper of wa’d, 2016). the wa'd application in the islamic fx swap contract can be illustrated in the following figure: figure 2: wa'd pplication in the islamic fx swap contract on january 1, 2018, an investor intended to convert his rm400 million to usd100 million. the exchange rate at that time is usd1.00 equivalent to rm4.00. afterward, the investor and the bank carried out the exchange process. at the first stage,both parties executed the contract following al-sarf sales method because the exchange took place at the time the contract was sealed. at the same time, the investor and the bank entered into a wa’d agreement to execute the foreign currency exchange again at the agreed date (january 1, 2019) and the exchange rate (usd 1.00 = rm 4.00). on january 1, 2019, the foreign currency swaps were executed based on the agreement made on january 1, 2018. in the current islamic banking practice, the wa’dstructure allows the achievement of the foreign exchange contract function without contradicting the principlesof shariah prohibitions, which is riba (azizu, abdullah, & jubri, 2018; azlin alisa, edawati, & noor, 2014). besides, the wa'd concept is a reapplication of the traditional contract in islam in the contemporary islamic banking and finance products to resolve the ribaissue in fx swap. this innovation receives hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 792 issn :0250-7196 support from the shariah advisory council of bank negara malaysia (2010) where it has decided that islamic financial institutions must execute their derivative instrument such as futures contract, forward contract, option contract and swap based on wa’d. apart from that, the application of wa’d in fx swap is in line with the shariahobjectives (maqasid al-shariah)that emphasize the preservation of wealth (hifz al-mal). it also coincides with the principle of islamic ethics, which is protectingthe interest (maslahah) of both contracting parties. 4.2. ethical principle 2: ghararfree the element of gharar in fx swap occurs due to the non-existence asset in fx swap, and the actual exchange does not take place. the resolution to this issue is by requiring an underlying asset in fx swap transactions. since the fx swap depends on the foreign exchange currency, atawarruqcontract may be applied. tawarruq contractinvolves an assetas an underlying subject of the contract in a transaction (ahmad et al., 2017). thus, the fx swap transaction takes place based on the transaction of a commodity that eliminates the element of gharar. there are specific requirements set by the scholars on the underlying assets to ensure the transactionscomply with the shariah. firstly,the asset must be permissible (halal). secondly, the commodity must currently exist in its physical form. thirdly, the seller should have legal ownership of the asset in its final form(obiyathullah, 1999). 4.3. ethical principle 3: prohibition of excessive speculation another issue in the conventional fx swap practice is speculation activity. according to fahim (1995), not all kind of speculations isunethical due to the vital role of speculators who dare shift risks from others to them. speculation is permissible when it is helping the market shifts risks from the producers who are unable to bear the risks to parties who can. this permissible speculation isa requirementin the actual economic activities. therefore, the implementation of islamic fx swap still requires the elementsof permissible speculation to avoid mismatches from occurring in risk management. in islamic economics, it prohibits speculations that do not occur in the actual economic activities; moreover, when it is damaging the financial market.in order to ensure such speculations do not take place in islamic fx swap transactions, several islamic financial institutions provide a declarative document to obtain a guarantee from the counterparties subscribing to the product to ensure the use of the derivative instrument is only for hedging purposes not speculation (asyraf wajdi, 2009; zahan & kenett, 2012). the aim behind the use of the application of hedging and islamic derivatives should strictly centeron risk management. even though financial institutions can control the speculators, they are still unable to control speculation activities when it comes to the international market (saadiah mohamad & tabatabaei, 2008). however, most of the islamic banking practices reject this view because ofthe islamic banksthat act as an intermediary institution will ensure clients who subscribeto their islamic fx swapare real hedgers.the following figure shows the practice of islamic fx swap: hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 793 issn :0250-7196 figure 3: islamic fx swap as figure 3 shows, customer hedged his/her liability by using islamic fx swap from the islamic bank. if the islamic bank is unable to find the same risk that in line with its clients, it is necessary for the bank to swap the risk to another party that needs a real hedger. if the second party is also unable to bear the risk, it will transfer the risk to another party include islamic or conventional institution. the islamic banks will ensure that their clients and the second party who are dealing with them are real hedgers, while for the next parties, it is beyond the banks‟ responsibility. to ensure this speculative element can be minimized, the islamic financial institution itself needs to strengthen their enforcement and monitoring body to control the operation of islamic fx swap. an ethical aspects in the regulatory framework are also necessary in addition to prudent and sound controls. through regulatory body in islamic finance institution, it‟s provide an upper hand to shariah scholars to implement their authorities and make efforts for shariah compliance (ullah, harwood, & jamali, 2018). 4.4. ethical principle 4: prohibition of gambling elements the elements of gambling will cease with the resolution of speculation issues as they arethe worst form of gambling. according to obiyathullah (1999), the price change in the market is a result of the price of the underlying assets and not just based on chances. apart from having the real assets by using tawarruq contract, the exchange rates have also been fixed on the spot date, and that denies the elements of gambling in islamic fx swap. 5. conclusion this paper has reviewed the application of the principles of islamic ethics of the islamic foreign exchange swap. the study of the conventional practice of fx swap in financial institutions found that there are numbers of unethical issues in the implementation of fx swap such as riba, gharar, gambling, and speculation. riba occurs when the contracting parties fix the forward currency exchange rate on the agreement date (spot date). gambling exists in fx swap when the customer islamic bank institution 1 institution 2 hedged using islamic fx swap hedged using islamic fx swap hedged using conventional fx swap hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 794 issn :0250-7196 subject of a contract does not exist, and the actual exchange does not occur. the elements of gambling occur in fx swap when one of the contracting partiesprone to a loss while another party gain a profit. price fluctuation in the market causes speculators to take advantage of it. all in all, the implementation of the new contract innovation such as wa’d, tawarruq and monitoring efforts from financial institutions may eliminate the elements of riba, gharar, gambling and speculation in the islamic fx swap structure. acknowledgement this study is part of the research entitled “pembinaan parameter islamic swap dalampasaranderivatif islam di malaysia” with code frgs/1/2018/ss01/ukm/02/5. references abdul rahman, a. s. (2003). the permissible gharar ( risk ) in classical. islamic jurisprudence, 16(2), 3–19. ahmad, e. f., shihama, m., mohamad tarmizi, n. a., saidu mudi, s. m., djama, s. i., & muneeza, a. (2017). tawarruq as a product for financing within the islamic banking system: a case study of malaysian islamic banking system. international journal of management and applied research, 4(1), 31–43. https://doi.org/10.18646/2056.41.17004 ahmed, h. (2014). islamic banking and shari‟ah compliance: a product development perspective. journal of islamic finance, 3(2), 15–29. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2756072 al-amine, m. b. m. (2008). risk management in islamic finance an analysis of derivatives instruments in commodity markets. (h. h. p. e. cotran, m. hoyle, & m. lau, eds.) (1st ed.). boston: brill. al-suwailem, s. (2000). decision under uncertainity an islamic perspective. riyadh, saudi arabia. al-suwailem, s. (2006). hedging in islamic finance (1st ed.). islamic development bank. anas, e., & mounira, b. a. (2009). ethical investment and the social responsibilities of the islamic banks. international business research, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.5539/ibr.v2n2p123 antara, p. m., musa, r., hassan, f. (2016). theorising attitude towards islamic financing adoption in an integrative model of behavioural prediction: a proposed conceptual framework. journal of administrative and business studies, 1(1), 35-41. alshannag, f., basah, m. y. a., & khairi, k. f. (2017). the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate financial performance a survey of literature. international journal of business and administrative studies, 3(1), 9-15. asyraf wajdi, d. (2009). shariah parameters on islamic foreign exchange swap as hedging mechanism in islamic finance. international conference on islamic perspectives on management and finance 1 university of leicester; 2nd – 3rd july 2009 shariah, (july), 1–25. asyraf wajdi, d., & nurdianawati irwani, a. (2014). fundamentals of islamic banking. (a. elias & k. ishak, eds.) (1st ed.). kuala lumpur: ibfim. asyraf wajdi, d., & shabnam, m. (2010). the concept and operations of swap as a hedging hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 795 issn :0250-7196 mechanism for islamic financial. isra research paper, 14(14/2010), 1–58. ayub, m., & paldi, c. (2016). dichotomy between sharī „ ah compliance and the economic goals of islamic. finance institutions, 7(2), 331–350. https://doi.org/10.15341/jbe(21557950)/02.07.2016/017 azizu, n., abdullah, n., & jubri, m. m. (2018). the enforceability of wa„d mulzim (binding promise) from a fiqh perspective: a critical analysis of wa„d application in sukūk contracts. international journal of fiqh and usul al-fiqh studies, 2(1), 119–131. azlin alisa, e. s., & noor, m. (2014). the use of wa‟dan in islamic contract fx forward: weighting between maslahah and mafsadah. asian social science, 10(22), 332–342. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v10n22p332 bakar, m. d. (2008). hedging instruments in islamic finance. a paper presented to the 7th conference of the shari’ah boards of islamic financial institutions the accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi) kingdom, 2008. bank negara. (2010). resolusi syariah dalam kewangan islam (2nd ed.). kuala lumpur: bank negara malaysia. barkbu, b. b., & ong, l. l. (2010). fx swaps : implications for financial and economic stability. concept paper of wa’d. fahim, m. (1995). islamic futures and their markets with special reference to their role in developing rural financial market. islamic development bank, islamic research and training institute research paper, 1(32), 1–75. fahimah, r., & azlin alisa, a. (2008). perjudian dan spekulasi : satu perbandingan dari perspektif ekonomi islam. fadahunsi, a., & barake, l. (2018). gender and microϐinance in the united arab emirates: an exploratory review of concepts and policy issues. journal of management practices, humanities and social sciences. 2(2), 49-53. boris, t.e., sergey, s.i. (2018). marketing of innovative startup. international journal of business and economic affairs, 3(3), 91-100. doi:10.24088/ijbea-2018-33001 habib, f. (2017). the issue of speculation in islamic capital market. journal of islamic economics, banking and finance, 13(2), 90–101. hamoudi, h. a. (2007). jurisprudential schizophrenia : on form and function in islamic finance. chicago journal of international law, 7(2). injadat, e. (2018). the practical model of hedging in islamic financial markets. international journal of economics, commerce and management, 6(6), 134–140. kamali, m. h. (1996). islamic commercial law : an analysis of futures. the american journal of islamic social science, 13(2), 197–245. kamali, m. h. (1999). prospect for an islamic derivatives market in malaysia, 41(october), 523–541. kamran, m. r., & zhao z. (2016). millennium & financial development goals: economic indicators perspective of south asian countries. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 2(4), 133-151. kasri, n. s., & rahman, z. a. (2016). issues in islamic hedging practices : a critical analysis. isra research paper (vol. 88). kuala lumpur. khan, a. (1988). commodity exchange and stock exchange in islamic economy. the american journal of islamic social sciences, 5(1), 91–114. kunhibava, s. (2010). derivatives in islamic finance. isra research paper, 7, 1–54. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 796 issn :0250-7196 laldin, m. a. (2006). introduction to shariah and islamic jurisprudence (1st ed.). kuala lumpur: cert publications sdn bhd. mansour, w., khoutem, b. j., & majdoub, j. (2015). how ethical is islamic banking in the light of the objectives of islamic law ? journal of relegious ethics, 43(1), 51–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/jore.12086 moles, p. (2016). financial risk management (1st ed., vol. 2016). edinburgh: edinburgh business school. muhammad, m. b. (1997). caveat emptor versus khiyar al-ayb. american journal of islamic social sciences, 14(2), 208–230. nehad, & khanfar. (2016). a critical analysis of the concept of gharar in islamic financial contracts: different perspective nehad a 1 and a khanfar 2. journal of economic cooperation and development, 37(1), 1–24. nordin, n., & asmak, a. r. (2011). isu-isu syariah dalam kontrak derivatif : satu sorotan literatur. jurnal syariah, 19(2), 163–186. obaidullah, m. (1998). financial engineering with islamic options. islamic economic studies, 6(1), 73–103. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107415324.004 obaidullah, m. (1999). financial options in islamic contracts: potential tools for risk management. journal of king abdul aziz university: islamic economic, 11(1), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.4197/islec.11-1.1 obiyathullah, i. b. (1999). derivative instruments and islamic finance: some thoughts for a reconsideration. international journal of islamic financial services, 1(1), 1–33. https://doi.org/10.5897/jaerd12.088 oubdi, l., & raghibi, a. (2017). an overview on the practice and issues of hedging in islamic finance. international journal od contemporary research and review, 8(10), 1–9. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.15520/ijcrr/2017/8/10/335 rafikov, i., & saiti, b. (2017). an analysis of financial speculation : from the maqasid alshari‟ah perspective. humonomics, 33(1), 2–14. https://doi.org/10.1108/h-10-2016-0077 rizvi, s. a. r., arshad, s., & lahsasna, a. (2014). derivatives in islamic finance: the need and mechanisms available. international journal of financial services management, 7(3/4), 177. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijfsm.2014.065572 saadiah mohamad, & tabatabaei, a. (2008). submission cover islamic hedging : gambling or risk management ? in australian finance and banking conference. sakti, m. r. p., syahid, a., tareq, m. a., & mahdzir, a. m. (2016). shari‟ah issues, challanges, and prospects for islamic derivative: a qualitative study. journal of qualitative research in financial markets, 18(2), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1108/ara.2010.34118aaa.002 salamon, h. bin. (2015). speculation: the islamic perspective ; a study on al-maisir (gambling). mediterranean journal of social sciences, 6(1), 371–378. https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n1s1p371 shamah, s. (2003). a foreign exchange primer (1st ed.). england: john wiley & son ltd. tamer, s. (2005). the islamic financial system: a critical analysis and suggestions for improving its efficiency (european u). switzerland: peter lang ag. tariqullah, khan, & mohomed, a. r. n. (2017). ethical banking and islamic banking : a comparison of triodos bank and islami bank bangladesh limited. islamic economic studies, 25, 111–154. https://doi.org/10.12816/0036190 ullah, s., harwood, i. a., & jamali, d. (2018). „ fatwa repositioning ‟: the hidden struggle for hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 785-797 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 797 issn :0250-7196 shari ‟ a compliance within islamic financial institutions. journal of business ethics, 149(4), 895–917. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3090-1 usmani, t. (1999). what shariah experts say futures, options and swaps. international journal of islamic financial services vol. 1 no.1, 1(1), 1–3. vo, d., huynh, s., vo, a., & ha, d. (2019). the importance of the financial derivatives markets to economic development in the world‟s four major economies. journal of risk and financial management, 12(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm12010035 yusuf talal, d. (2007). the total returns swap and the “shariah conversion technology” stratagem. the shariah scholar’s journal, 2(4). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-0140173-7.2 zahan, m., & kenett, r. s. (2012). hedging instruments in conventional and islamic finance. electtronic journal of applied statiscal analysis, 3(1), 59–74. https://doi.org/10.1285/i2037-3627v3n1p1 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 77 … abortion of janīn (embryo+foetus) due to human birth defects (anomalies) -an islamic view with special reference to sharīʻah maxims (qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah) dr. fahd anwar department of physiology, rawalpindi medical university e-mail: hdrfahd@yahoo.com received on: 30-07-21 accepted on: 07-12-21 abstract the issue of aborting the embryos and foetus having anomalies is different from that of without anomalies. as the issue is new, so naturally the opinions of scholars differ from each other in sharī‘ah status of aborting such a foetus. this article attempts to search out the better opinion in the light of the primary sources of sharī‘ah and the research of the earlier scholars with special reference to sharī‘ah maxims (qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah). most of the scholars agree that the life begins after the spirit is blown in the developing human and this time is believed to be after the hundred and twenty days of fetal life. aborting the foetus having congenital anomalies before this time will therefore have a different status from the abortion after this time. but, still the developing embryo or foetus possesses the dignity and respect as it is going to become a full-term human being. the opinion of allowing the abortion of a janīn (foetus/embryo) in case of severe anomalies only, before the spirit is blown, is preferable. sharī‘ah maxims (qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah) are an important tool for deriving the religious rulings for the issue of abortion of malformed foetus. these maxims were discussed under the theme of article and their applications on the issue being discussed. this study will help in understanding the role of sharī‘ah maxims in establishing the religious rulings of aborting the embryos and foetus having anomalies. keywords: abortion, congenital anomalies, sharī‘ah maxims, harm, embryo, foetus. 78 abortion of janīn due to birth defect… … 1. introduction human birth defect or more technically the congenital anomaly is a structural abnormality of any type at birth, as a consequence of abnormal embryonic fetal development. it may be macroscopic or microscopic, on the surface or within the body of the developing human. the four clinically significant types of anomalies are: malformation disruption deformation dysplasia1 this article will deal with the issue of aborting the embryo due to any type of abnormality in the light of al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah. ‘ilm al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah (sharīʻah maxims) is a distinctive branch of uîūl al fiqh which represents a general trend of islamic legal thought. it aids us in understanding the methodology of jurists in deriving the religious rulings. al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah can be defined as follows: “general fiqh principles which are presented in a precise format, consisting of general shariah rulings of the particulars related to it.”2 2. literature review imam al dabbësi (died 430 hijrī) wrote tāsīs al naðar which contains qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah as the principles on the basis of which jurists especially íanafī jurists differ in opinion.3 there are many books in ‘ilm al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah which were written with the name of al ashbāh wal nazā’ir.the two most renowned are written by imām jalal al-din suyūïi shāfiʻī4 and famous scholar of ×anafi fiqh ibrāhim bin nujaim al-misri5. the most prominent work in the field of al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah in late centuries is majallah al aíkām al ʻadaliyyah6 compiled by a team of scholars under the direction of ottoman empire. in recent past sheikh muṣṭafā aḥmad al zarqā has paid special attention on qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah in his book al madkhal al fiqhī al ‘ām7 al qawā‘id al-fiqhiyyah: mafhumuhā, nashatuhā, taṭawwuruhā, darāsatu muallafātihā, adillatuhā muhimmatuha, taïbīqātuhā by dr.‘alī aḥmad al nadavī 8and al qawāʽid al fiqhiyyah: al mabādī al muqawwimāt al maîādir al dalīliyyah al taṭawwur by sheikh ya‘qūb al bāḥusayn9 are also among the prominent studies by the contemporary scholars in the field of qawā‘id. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 79 … a valuable article with the title al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah wal uîëliyyahwa maqāîid al sharī‘ah zāt al silah bi buhūth al khalāya al jizriyyah by shaikh sa‘d bin nāsir al shathrī10 in majallh majma al fiqh al islāmi discusses qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah related to stem cell research (scr). al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah (islamic legal maxims): concept, functions, history, classifications and application to contemporary medical issues11 is a phd thesis submitted to university of exeter in feb 2012. it is a valuable work written by fawzy sha‘bān elgeriānī. the author has selected six contemporary medical issues to find out the legal status of qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah for the novel issues. 3. research methodology it is an applied research which will focus on the application of the sharī‘ah maxims in contemporary medical issues. the opinion of jurists regarding the modern medical issues will be analysed in detail. the sharī‘ah maxims related to human life will be discussed along with their application in current medical issues. 4. discussion 4.1congenital anomalies congenital anomalies may be induced by genetic factors or by environmental factors that cause derangements during prenatal period. most common congenital anomalies, however show the family patterns expected of multifactorial inheritance with a threshold and are determined by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. these birth defects may be single or multiple and of minor or major clinical significance. the minor anomalies are those anomalies which have no serious medical consequence but may be an indicative of an associated major anomaly. major anomalies are changes in structure that may result in serious medical illnesses. approximately 3% of the newborns are born with severe congenital anomalies.12 most severely malformed embryos are usually spontaneously aborted during the first 6 to 8 weeks. some congenital anomalies are caused by genetic factors i.e. chromosome abnormalities and mutant genes. 80 abortion of janīn due to birth defect… … a few congenital abnormalities are caused by environmental factors i.e. infectious agents, drugs and environmental chemicals. however, most common anomalies result from a complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors.13 the human developmental anomalies during the prenatal stage vary from moderate to severe. a large number of these anomalies are because of the genetic and chromosomal factors transferred from the parents.14 numerically genetic factors are the most important causes of the congenital anomalies. about one third of all birth defects are due to the genetic factors. chromosomal aberrations are common and are present in 6 to 7 % of zygote. two kinds of changes occur in chromosome complements; numerical and structural. the changes may affect the sex chromosomes and/or the autosomes (chromosomes other than sex chromosomes). in some instances both kinds of chromosomes are affected. chromosomal abnormalities depict as abnormal physical appearance. some of the examples are as follows:  trisomy 21 or down’s syndrome manifest clinically as mental deficiency, flat nasal bridge, protruding tongue, congenital heart defects.  trisomy 18 syndrome manifest as mental deficiency, growth retardation, low set malformed ears etc.  trisomy 13 syndrome manifest as mental deficiency, sloping forehead, posterior prominence of heels, malformed ears etc. beside the genetic and chromosomal factors causing the fetal anomalies, other factors like drugs, poisons, chemicals and environmental factors also cause the fetal anomalies. look for example:  alcohol causes intrauterine growth retardation, mental retardation, joint abnormalities.  tetracycline causes stained, hypoplasia of enamel.  methotrexate causes multiple anomalies especially bony.  cytomegalovirus causes microcephaly, eye-defects, liver enlargement.  herpes simplex virus causes skin vesicles and scarring.  rubella virus causes intrauterine growth retardation, cardiac abnormalities etc.15 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 81 … 4.2 opinions of the contemporary muslim scholars regarding the status of the embryonic cells in order to detect the genetic (paternal) factors of fetal anomalies, the embryonic and fetal cells have to be studied. the scholars differ in the status of the embryonic cells whether being the embryo or not. according to first opinion, the embryonic cells resulting from the in vitro fertilization between the sperm of a man and his wife will be considered an embryo, even if not transferred to the uterus. this is the opinion of shaikh muḥammad mukhtār al salāmī and this is what is implied by the words of dr. ḥasan ‘alī al shāzilī.16 the scholars who keep the second opinion believe that the cells resulting from the in vitro fertilization will not be labeled as embryo. this is what is said by doctor omar al-ashqar, shaikh az al-dīn al-khaïīb, shaikh badral-mutawallī abd al-bāsit, doctor māmūn al-hāj, doctor taufīq al-wāī and many participants of the society of beginning and end of life (nadwah bidāya al ×ayāt al insāniyyah wa nihāyatuhā) in kuwait. according to shaikh badral-mutawallī: the participants of the society of beginning and end of life, agreed that the human life is from the fertilization of the egg with the sperm when it takes place inside the womb. the fertilization of egg with the sperm outside the uterus is of no value forever, and needs not to be given any weightage and any status from the religious point of view.17 the first opinion is based on the following: 1the embryonic cells are the first step in the creation of a human being. any injury or insult to them occurring during the experiments is against the dignity of the human being. 2the analogy (qiyās) of the fertilized egg in vitro upon the fertilized egg inside the uterus also implies that both have the same legal status. the scholars who keep the second opinion believe that the embryonic cells will not be considered an embryo before they are transferred into the uterus keeps the following arguments: 1. these cells which are produced from the in vitro fertilization cannot be called an ‘embryo’ because the embryo (janīn) is the one which is concealed. therefore, only the fertilized egg inside the uterus will be embryo. 2. the pregnancy starts only after the implantation of the egg (fertilized) in the uterus. all the other stages before it are not termed pregnancy and life is not present at these stages. looking upon the arguments, the first opinion seems stronger because of the following reasons: 82 abortion of janīn due to birth defect… … 1. this opinion prevents any injury or insult to the janīn which finally has to become a full human-being 2. the developing human has respect and dignity at every stage ranging from the clot to the full-term baby. 3. the janīn is called janīn because of its concealment in the maternal uterus. but it does not necessarily imply that the one which is formed by artificial fertilization of sperm and egg is not a janīn. the arabic word janīn is derived from ijtinān which is concealment. the janīn (embryo or foetus) develops in the maternal uterus, therefore, the word janīn is used to describe the real status of embryo. but as the embryo or janīn is the product of the fertilization of male and female eggs, therefore, even the fertilized eggs outside the uterus will be termed as janīn. 4. the opinion of the second group of scholars that the pregnancy occurs after the implantation of egg in the uterine wall weakens by the words of many scholars in past and present. for example imām al-ghazāli in iíyā says: “the drop of semen is the first most step of being, from its presence in when it reaches the womb of mother, as the child is not born from the sperm of man only but of the couple… the child is not born from the drop semen, until and unless mixed with water and blood of woman.”18 what imām ghazālī has said implied that the simple mixing sperm and egg is the beginning of child, whether the fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus or not. these quotations from the past and present scholars show that the creation of a human being starts after the fertilization and the implantation of fertilized egg in the uterus has no role in determining the status of fertilized egg being embryo or not. the above comparison implies that the preferred opinion is that the embryonic cells produced as a result of in vitro fertilization outside the uterus are same as the embryo inside the uterus. these cells are the precursors of janīn. like the janīn, any harm to its precursor will be impermissible. any laboratory tests or experimentation done on this primordial condition will be actually on embryo because it is capable of growing into further stages if proper temperature and food is provided. because these fertilized cells are the same as embryo, therefore, the abortion of embryos with anomalies or hereditary diseases, or ending hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 83 … their life with any other method, include these embryonic cells too, if these are removed or destroyed for this purpose. there are some laboratory investigations for the detection of any genetic anomaly in the embryo inside the womb of mother. many of them are not applicable before the sixteen weeks of pregnancy pass. once the anomaly is detected, the test is re-performed after two weeks. it means that the fetal anomalies cannot be established before the inbreathing of spirit. 4.3 the contemporary view of the muslim scholars about the abortion of janīn with anomalies the issue of aborting the embryos and foetus having anomalies is different from the abortion of the embryos and foetus without anomalies. the issue is unique in the sense that the scholars in the past did not discuss it from this angle. they discussed the abortion of janīn because of an illness in mother or due to other reason. they were not able to discuss the issue of a developing human with birth defects because sources were not enough at that time for investigation purposes. as the issue is new, so naturally the opinions of scholars differ from each other in aborting such a foetus. in the following pages we shall try to search out the answer in the light of the basic sources of sharī‘ah and the opinions of the earlier scholars. we shall split the discussion in the abortion of malformed janīn before the inbreathing of spirit and after the inbreathing of spirit. 4.3.1 the abortion of the malformed foetus after the inbreathing of spirit the contemporary scholars agree that the abortion of a foetus or ending his life by any means is impermissible after the spirit has been blown, no matter the anomaly is big (intense) or small (mild), curable or not and whether the person can live along with it or not. they consider the abortion or ending the life of such a foetus as a sin on the part of the doer and his co-person. it is deemed as a murder imposing the qiîāî (retaliation) or diyah (blood-money) or kaffārāh (penance) according to the kind of penalty done. the council of islamic fiqh academy while discussing the use of foetus as a source of transplant recommended the following: “the operation should be restricted to a case of natural abortion or an abortion for a lawful purpose and no surgical 84 abortion of janīn due to birth defect… … operation should be resorted to in order to remove the foetus unless it is essential to save the mother’s life”.19 the permanent committee for the discussion and issuing of fatwā, saudia (al-lajnahal-dā‘imah) issued a fatwā according to which aborting a foetus after hundred and twenty days is not permissible until and unless the life of the mother is endangered. the fatwā states: “after the third stage of development and after the completion of four months (one hundred and twenty days) abortion of janīn is not permissible until and unless the expert and reliable doctors report that the presence of janīn in the womb of mother will cause her death. this will be done after all the possible sources have been attempted to save the life of janīn. the abortion is allowed with these conditions to get rid of greater harm and to acquire the greater benefit.”20 the scholars infer upon the impressibility of the abortion of the foetus with anomaly after the blowing of spirit from the following: َم اللَّهُ إَِّلَّ بِاْلَحق َوََّل تَْقتُلُوا النَّْفَس الَّتِي َحرَّ “and do not kill a person whom allah has given sanctity, except rightfully21.” in this verse allah almighty has forbidden to kill a human-being without any true reason. the abortion of a foetus with anomaly or ending his life after the blowing of spirit is one kind of such a killing, therefore, forbidden. because the forbid (nahī) in this āyah is without any condition, therefore this āyah guides upon the impressibility of aborting the foetus with anomalies after the spirit has been blown in it. ‘abd allāh (raìi allah ‘anhu) narrates that the messenger of allah said: “the blood of a muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but allah and that i am his apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: in qiîéî for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from islam (apostate) and leaves the muslims22.” hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 85 … the reason for taking evidence from this tradition is that it shows the impressibility of killing a person without any valid reason and this act will be deemed as a big sin. the abortion of a malformed foetus and ending his life by any mean is a kind of killing a person without any right reason and therefore, it is impressible. the scholars in the present era agree that any attempt on the malformed foetus to end his life after the inbreathing of spirit is a sin and this act impose retaliation or blood-money or also it is not allowed for the guardians to get rid of them rather they should take care of them and struggle for their treatment in the hope of cure and decrease in illness and pain. they should be patient and hopeful for the reward from allah almighty. 4.3.2 the abortion of the malformed foetus before the inbreathing of spirit we have discussed in detail that most of the scholars agree that the life begins after the spirit is blown in the developing human and this time is believed to be after the hundred and twenty days of fetal life.23 aborting the foetus having congenital anomalies before this time will therefore have a different status from the abortion after this time. but, still the developing embryo or foetus possesses the dignity and respect as it is going to become a full-term human being. the contemporary scholars differ in the abortion of a malformed foetus (janīn) before the spirit is blown as will be seen in the following lines: one group of the scholars allow the abortion of a foetus/embryo having severe malformation or genetic anomalies up to the extent that these can neither be treated nor a person is able to fight with them. in such a case, if a committee of the experts with the help of available diagnostic tests recommends, the abortion can be done. this opinion has been adopted by many renowned scholars like shaikh yousuf al-qarìāvī, sheikh ḥabib bin al-khaujah24 and this is what was established by the international islamic fiqh academy of jeddah in its twelfth session held at makkah al-mukarramah in february 1990 according to which, the abortion of a malformed foetus is permissible upon the request of the patients before the passage of one hundred and twenty days when it has been established by the report of an expert committee, based on technical discussion along with the diagnostic tests that the janīn is suffering from severe malformation which is not curable. and if he is left to be born, his life will be painful for him and his family25. 86 abortion of janīn due to birth defect… … this group of scholars which keep the opinion of permissibility infer from the following: 1. the foetus before the spirit is blown is not a human being, and he has not attained the characteristic of a human. therefore, he is not having the personhood and if he is aborted for the valid reasons, there will be no sin. 2. the abortion of a foetus with severe incurable anomalies is a considerable problem that affects the life of an individual and the family. it raises a real need that should be fulfilled within the permissible limits. 3. sometimes, the foetus with malformation can endanger the life of the mother or at least creates a lot of problems in routine life activities; therefore, the relaxation should be given while the foetus is still not a human being. the second group of the scholars believe in absolute impressibility of the abortion of a malformed foetus/embryo before the inbreathing of spirit. they allow it only when the life of the mother is endangered due to the developing baby, this is the opinion of some of the contemporary scholars like dr. sa‘īd ramaìān al būtī, dr. miîbāḥ al mutawallī, dr.‘abd al fattāí idrīs etc.26 this opinion is based upon following reasons: 1. the following verse of holy qur’ān declares it impermissible: “and do not kill a person whom allah has given sanctity, except rightfully.” 27 2. the abortion of a janīn is killing of an innocent entity which cannot be permitted. there is no detail of abortion before or after the inbreathing of spirit. 3. the abortion of a malformed foetus is a kind of burying alive (al-wa’d aljāhilī) which was done to remove the burden of having a female child. this was strictly banned and its severity is described in this verse: “and when the girl-child that was buried alive will be asked for what sin she was killed.”28 4. the abortion of a malformed foetus does not comply with the principles of sharī‘ah which include the protection of progeny. 5. the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) expressed interest in having the child and inspired his companions too. ma‘qil bin yasér (raìi allah ‘anhu) narrates from him. “marry a fertile and loving woman, as i shall be proud of your great numbers on the day of judgment.29” hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 87 … 6. there is no need to abort the foetus as the medical equipment do not give us the definitive diagnosis of the anomaly. the abortion is not a matter that can be terminated by mere probability. 7. research has shown that the embryos and foetus suffering from severe anomalies abort spontaneously. genetic defects, especially chromosomal abnormalities, are the most common cause of spontaneous abortion during the first three months of pregnancy. in fact, in 60% of three cases chromosomal abnormalities are present.30 therefore there is no need to abort the foetus with anomalies as they abort spontaneously in early period of pregnancy. 8. the laboratory tests for the detection of the anomalies are not able to detect them before the sixteenth week of pregnancy. this is the time when the spirit is blown in the foetus. thus, it is not possible to abort the foetus before the blowing of spirit which is impressible even in the opinion of those who allow the abortion of malformed foetus before the spirit is blown. 9. allowing the abortion of malformed foetus will open the door of practicing the abortion for the mere reason of earning money. after the two opinions along with arguments have come before us, the first opinion seems the more reasonable. the second opinion is also based upon solid reasons but the first opinion is stronger due to the following reasons: 1. the inbreathing of spirit is the point where the human life starts in foetus. the human-being is made up of body and soul. before hundred and twenty days the foetus does not possesses the status of a human being. therefore this developing structure is not a human being. if for the valid reasons like severe anomalies in the foetus, it is aborted, it will neither be a murder of a human nor will be a burying alive done in pre islamic era. 2. the famous maxim ‘harm is to be removed’ will apply here as the baby born with severe congenital malformations will be in great trouble. also, the family will be suffering from lot of problems. this may affect the parents up to the extent that they will not be able to look after the other children. 3. the foetus before one hundred and twenty days is not a human being but a cluster of cells, therefore, definitive and accurate diagnosis with eye-witness would not be a necessary condition to get rid of it. rather if an expert committee on the basis of their knowledge, experience and the available scientific technology decides that the baby born will most probably be having the congenital anomalies, the abortion should then be allowed. likewise many other affairs around us are carried out on the basis of knowledge, experience and the opinions of the experts. 88 abortion of janīn due to birth defect… … 4. there are few tests like chorionic villus sampling (cvs) which can be performed at earlier stages. similarly, there are chances that the growing scientific technology in nearby future will provide us with the earlier information of the anomalies. 5. although, majority of the pregnancies with anomalies terminate automatically by spontaneous abortions in early period and many around the delivery, but some do not discontinue and therefore it seems reasonable to give relaxation to a person who intends to terminate such a pregnancy. on the basis of the above mentioned reasons, the opinion of allowing the abortion of a janīn (foetus/embryo) in case of severe anomalies (like heart defects, down syndrome, neural tube defects etc.) before the spirit is blown, is preferable. severe anomalies are such kind of severe malformations which are not curable, and if the baby is left to be born, his life will be painful for him and his family. however, because this will end the developing process and cut-off a structure which eventually would otherwise be a full human, and because some scholars consider it impermissible, one benefitting from the relaxation must do istighfār also. it should also be kept in mind that the dignity and privacy of the pregnant lady should be observed as much as possible. 4.4 qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah (sharī‘ah maxims) and abortion of janīn due to congenital anomalies now, we shall see how qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah help us in the determination of the religious rulings about the issue of abortion. maxim 1 االمور بمقاصدھا31 “matters are judged in the light of intention” application: a lady can abort her foetus with right or wrong intention. the wrong intention can be to avoid the economic burden. on the other hand, induced abortion may be for the right reasons which are following: iwhen the breast-milk of a lady finishes after the pregnancy and the father of the child is unable to hire a lady for feeding the child. consequently, there is a fear of death of the child who was on breastfeeding in the absence of alternate basic sources. iiwhen pregnancy has started but the lady is unable to bear it because of the other illnesses. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 89 … iiiwhen there is a strong probability of the child with incomplete structure.32 according to this qā‘idah, abortion is impermissible if it is induced for the bad reasons and it will be permissible if induced for the right reasons. maxim 2 الضرر یزال33 “harm is to be removed” application: if the continuation of the pregnancy becomes harmful to the lady like if the embryo dies or the pregnancy severely affects the health of the lady or endangers the life of the pregnant lady then abortion is allowed to remove the harm.34 maxim 3 ما جاز لعذر بطل بزوالہ35 “what is permissible because of a reason, becomes impermissible when the reason is lost” application: induction of abortion is permissible for a lady suffering with a serious illness or having a severely deformed foetus .but if somehow she gets rid of the illness or the defective growth of the baby corrects then the induction of the abortion will become impermissible maxim 4 ما حرم فعلہ حرم طلبہ36 “when it is forbidden to perform an act it is forbidden to request for it” application: the scholars agree that abortion of a baby after 120 days of pregnancy is strictly impermissible .the only exception to this ruling is when the pregnancy is threatening the life of the mother.37both the induction of labor and request to induce it is not allowed in a pregnant lady whose pregnancy has exceeded 120 days. 90 abortion of janīn due to birth defect… … maxim 5 الجواز الشرعی ینافی الضمان38 “legal permission is incompatible with liability” application: when it is allowed to induce the labour (as is the case when the pregnancy is threatening the life of a lady) no penalty will be imposed to the person who induces it. maxim 6 ال یجوز الحد ان یتصرف فی ملک الغیر بال اذنہ39 . “it is not allowed for anyone to intervene in the property of another person without his consent” application: the embryo once it has attained the status of a human being after 120 days, has its own dignity like a human. nobody can intervene in its property. because, embryo is not able to give the consent, nothing can be performed with it. the consent of the parents regarding the use of embryo or its part or its abortion is insufficient. maxim 7 المسلم مامور بان یدفع سبب الھالک عن نفسہ40 “a muslim is obligded to remove the cause of death from him” application: according to this qā‘idah , abortion is permissible if the life of the mother is being endangered because of the presence of malformed developing baby. maxim 8 اذا تعارض مفسد تان روعی اعظمھما بارتکاب اخفھما41 “when the two evils conflict, the greater is avoided by the commission of the lesser one” application: according to this qā‘idah, abortion is permissible to save the life of lady who is suffering from a life-threatening condition in the presence of an abnormal pregnancy. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 91 … one is the danger to her own life and the other is danger to the life of the developing baby inside the uterus. she has to choose one of them. if the baby is aborted, the mother is having the chance to get another baby. but if the mother is left as such and let to die, the baby will have no mother and also there is strong possibility that baby also dies. the death of the mother is a greater evil and it is preferred to avoid it by proceeding towards the abortion of the baby. 5. conclusion induced abortion is strictly discouraged in islam. however, for the valid reasons as in the case when the developing foetus is endangering the life of mother, abortion is permitted. most of the embryos with congenital anomalies are aborted by themselves. however if not aborted and also the life of mother is not in danger then it is impermissible to induce abortion after one hundred and twenty days of fetal life in order to avoid a defective child. qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah are an important tool in deriving the religious status of abortion of a malformed foetus. the first most comprehensive qā‘idah states that the abortion in the case of malformed foetus will be judged in the light of intention. if the continuation of the pregnancy becomes harmful to the lady then abortion is allowed to remove the harm. if somehow she gets rid of the illness or the defective growth of the baby corrects then the induction of the abortion will become impermissible when the two evils conflict, as in the case when the life of mother is being endangered by the presence of a foetus with congenital anomalies, the greater is avoided by the commission of the lesser one. under these circumstances, no penalty will be imposed to the medical professional who induces it as legal permission is incompatible with liability. notes and references 1 keith moore and t. v. n. persaud, the developing human, 6th ed., (philadelphia: w.b. saunders company, 1998) 68. 2 muṣṭafā aḥmad al zarqā , al madkhal al fiqhī al ‘ām, (dimashq: dār al qalam,1963), 965. 3 ʻobaid allah ʻomer al dabbūsī, tāsīs al nazar, (beirūt: dār ibn zaidūn, n.y.) 4 jalāl al-dīn ʿabd al-raḥmān al-suyūṭī, alashbāh wa’l-naẓā’ir fī qawā‘id wa furū‘ al-shāfi‘iyya, ed. m. tāmir and ḥ. ḥāfiẓ, (cairo: dār alsalām, 1998). 5 zayn al-dīn b. ibrāhīm ibn nujaym, al-ashbāh wa’l-naẓā’ir, ed. zakarīyā 92 abortion of janīn due to birth defect… … ʿumayrāt (beirut: dār al-kutub al-ilmiya, 1999). 6 cevdet pasha, al-majallah al-aíkém al-adaliyah, (beirut: al-maṭba‘a al adabiya, 1885). 7 al-zarqā, al madhkal al fiqhī al ‘ām. 8 ʿ alī aḥmad al-nadāvī, al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah: mafhumuhā, nashatuhā, taṭawwuruhā, darāsatu muallafātihā, ‘adillatuhā muhimmatuha, taïbīqātuhā , 4th ed, (damascus: dār al-qalam, 1998). 9 ya‘qūb bin abdul wahab al-bāḥiseen, al qawā‘id al fiqhiya, (riyaḍ: maktaba tu rushd, 1998). 10 saad b. nāsir al-shaṣrī, al-qawāid al-fiqhiyyah wa’l uîūliyyah wa maqāîid al-shrī‘ah zāt al-salih bi buhūth al-khalayā al-jizriyyah, majallah majma‘ alfiqh al-islāmī, 18 (1425ah), 225-265. 11 fawzy shaban elgeriani, “al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah (islamic legal maxims): concept, functions, history, classifications and application to contemporary medical issues”, phd thesis, university of exeter, 2012. 12 robert brian lowry, common congenital anomalies, canadian family physician medicine, 31 no 5 (1985), 1033-1037. 13 ibid., 196. 14 stuart campbell and christoph lees, obstetrics by ten teachers, 17th ed., (london: arnold publishers, 2000), 156-157. 15 moore & persaud, the developing human, 169-18. 16 ‘abd al fattāí maḥmūd, al-takhalluî min al-khalāyā wa’l-ajinnah allatī bihā tashwwah warāthī, vol 26, 32-33. ketabpedia.com/book_author/ -الفتاح-عبد سیادر-محمود / accessed on december 26, 2021. 17 ibid., 33. 18 abū ḥāmid muḥammad ibn muḥammad al-ghazali, iíyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn, vol. 2, (beirūt: dār al maʿrifah, n.d.), 51. 19 resolutions and recommendation of the council of islamic fiqh academy, 1985-2000, (jeddah: islamic development bank, 2000), 112. 20 saleh ibn fawzan, fatāwā almutalliqa bil-tibb wa‘l-marḍā, (riyadh: al riyāsah al aammah lil-buhūth al-‘ilmiyyah wa’liftā, 2013), 281. 21 the meanings of nobel quran, 6:151, translated by mufti muḥammad taqī usmani, (karachi: maktaba maʿārif al quran). 22 saíêí al-bukhéri, (87:17) translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 23 muhammad habīb bin al-khaujah, ‘ismat al dam al-janīn al-mushawwah, majallah majma‘ al-fiqh al-islāmī, vol. 15, 2004 , 286. 24 ibid., 273. 25 muḥammad ʻalī al bārr and zuhair aḥmad al sabāʻī, al ùabīb adabuhu wa fiqhuhu, (damascus: dār al qalam, 1993), 277. 26 al sayyid aḥmed al sayyid foodah, al ijhāḍ fī mīzān al sharīʻah al islāmiyyah , majallah qānūn al sharīʻah wal islāmiyyah, 21(2019), 1888-1890, https://jfslt.journals.ekb.eg/issue_9299_9319_.html, accessed on december 26, 2021 27 usmani, the meanings of nobel quran, 6:151. 28 usmani, the meanings of nobel quran, 81:8-9. 29 sunan nasai, (26:32), translated by nasiruddin al-khattab, (canada: https://jfslt.journals.ekb.eg/issue_9299_9319_.html hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 93 … darussalam publishers and distributors, 2007). 30 kimet. al. chromosomal abnormalities in spontaneous abortion after assisted reproductive treatment. bmc medical genetics. 2010, 11:153. 31 aḥmad bin muḥammad al zarqā, sharḥal qawāʻid al fiqhiyyah, vol 1, (damascus: dār al qalam, 1989), 47. 32 ‘abd al wāhid, marīdh wa ma‘ālij kay islāmī ahkām, (karachi: majlis nashriyyat islam, 1994), 224. 33 al zarqā, sharí al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah, 179 34 al bārr & al sabāʻī, al ùabīb adabuhu wa fiqhuhu, 277. 35 al zarqā, sharí al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah,819 . 36 ibid., 217. 37 al bārr, & al sabāʻī, al ṭabīb adabuhu wa fiqhuhu, 277. 38 al zarqā, sharí al qawāʻid al fiqhiyyah, 449. 39 ibid, 461. 40 muhammad amim al iḥsān al mujaddidi, qawā‘id al fiqh, (karachi: sadaf publishers, 1986), 121. 41 al zarqā, sharí al qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah, 201. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 1 issn :02507196 performance of hajj fund in indonesia and malaysia 1munifah syanwani, 2roikhan mochamad aziz, 3acep r jayaprawira, 4nur hidayah, 5pramesti sekar abstract badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th) are two kinds of financial hajj institutions in managing hajj finances. the purpose of this research is to see the performance of badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) portfolio compared with tabung haji (th) portfolio by using index series of badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) indonesia and tabung haji (th) malaysia obtained from financial report of bpkh and th. in addition, this study also analyzed the growth of badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th) asset and its potential in the future. the analysis method used is descriptive analysis, mann whitney u-test different test and independent t-test test with spss software-assisted. the results showed that there were significant differences both from the index return as well as the outstanding growth of the assets badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th). descriptively, the return index value of badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) is higher than tabung haji (th). based on the results of the powersim value model test, the prediction of the growth of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) in 2027 reached rp 243,580,739,407,051 and tabung haji (th) in 2027 reached rm 166,831,195. keywords: financial hajj; bpkh; tabung haji; return; outstanding assets 1. introduction in islam there is a pillar of islam. the fifth pillar of islam is hajj. to carry out the hajj, supplies and readiness of pilgrims are needed so that they can carry out the hajj properly. besides that, physical and spiritual readiness is very important because the hajj must be carried out with a healthy body, clean / halal property, healthy understanding, and a clean heart. after government established the hajj institution for services to manage persons of 1universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta, email: fasyanwani@gmail.com 2universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta, email: roikhan.ma@uinjkt.ac.id 3 universitas trisakti jakarta acepjayaprawira@gmail.com 4 universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta, nurhidayah@uinjkt.ac.id 5 dynivity institute jakarta hahslm472319@gmail.com mailto:fasyanwani@gmail.com mailto:roikhan.ma@uinjkt.ac.id mailto:acepjayaprawira@gmail.com mailto:nurhidayah@uinjkt.ac.id mailto:hahslm472319@gmail.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 2 issn :02507196 pilgrimage, then government developed institution of finance to manage the money of pilgrimage. the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) is a state institution that manages and develops hajj funds in the financial system based on islamic principles that are corporative with a special character. with the large significance and contribution of bpkh funds to the indonesian islamic financial and banking system, this could be a positive trigger for all parties (bpkh), islamic financial institutions, and islamic banking) (maulana, 2018; muliadi & feriyanto, 2018). operates to carry out public services based on separate laws (lex specialis). this status is needed because bpkh is a special financial management state institution with funding sources from pilgrims in the form of hajj pilgrimage implementation fees (bpih) and/or other hajj receipts, but still operates based on the principles of transparency, accountability, and professionalism applied in the financial industry, so that burden the government's annual budget (apbn), as referred to in the management of state finances (jumali, 2018; kittaniy, 2019). malaysia has taken a step further to save funds towards the hajj, known as tabung haji (th). th is one of the best hajj fund management places in malaysia that is able to fulfill the wishes and realize the prospective pilgrims to perform the hajj, established in 1963. the malaysian government under the ministry of trade and industry (miti) made the tabung haji institute an equity source (capital) of bumiputera in companies operating in the malaysian exchange. tabung haji (th) is a superior islamic financial institution in malaysia. established in 1963, th has more than 50 years of experience in deposit, management & hajj operations. the malaysian government under the ministry of trade and industry (miti) established the tabung haji institute an equity source (capital) of bumiputera in companies operating in the malaysian exchange. the technical implementation of investments offered by awl awm offers (ipos) is accepted through royal agencies and financial institutions. in 2007, the tabung haji institute passed 10 ipo investment offers from 25 proposed ipo bids. with an investment of rm 151.5 million. the ipo that has been disbursed by the tabung haji investment fund consists of seven companies on the main board, namely the property sector, construction (building), user, agriculture and commerce (services) and the three companies on the second board in the industrial sector and the users. 2. literature review hajj hajj etymologically comes from arabic, al-hajju which means: al-qashdu which is intentional or towards, intends, intending to go or intend to come to someone who is considered noble. terminologically, hajj is intentional to go to baitullah in a predetermined manner and time (aziz, 2016). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 3 issn :02507196 bedan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) hajj etymologically comes from arabic, al-hajju which means: al-qashdu which is intentional or towards, intends, intending to go or intend to come to someone who is considered noble. terminologically, hajj is intentional to go to baitullah in a predetermined manner and time (aziz, 2016; purba & sitorus, 2017). tabung haji (th) tabung haji or the tabung haji institute is the board of malaysian pilgrims. tabung haji was formerly known as the hajj affairs and tubes institute (luth). the main office is located at jalan tun razak, kuala lumpur. tabung haji provides savings facilities for pilgrims who will go to makkah through investments in islamic vehicles (muneeza, 2018). bpkh and th the difference between hajj financial management agency (bpkh) and hajj saving (th) such as investment in bpkh is sharia time deposits of rp. 54.6 trillion while in th is property of rp. 24 trillion. benefits of bpkh gives state sharia securities rp. 35.7 trillion while th gives deposits of rp. 19.8 trillion. determination of policy in bpkh is government debt of rp. 0.13 trillion while th is foreign investment of rp. 17.8 trillion. the financial structure of organization in bpkh prefers to profit sharing from securities and deposits while th prefers plantations, concessions and equipment rp. 11 trillion. and sharing of hajj fund management that received by customers in bpkh should be based on parliamentary discussion while in th is not including investments (aziz, 2018). portfolio performance or performance a portfolio is a combination or combination or set of assets, either in the form of real assets or financial assets owned by investors. in the formation of a portfolio, investors always want to maximize the expected return with a certain level of risk that they are willing to bear or look for a portfolio that offers the lowest risk with a certain level of return. portfolio characteristics like this are referred to as efficient portfolios (tandelilin: 2010, 157). return a portfolio is a combination or combination or set of assets, either in the form of real assets or financial assets owned by investors. in the formation of a portfolio, investors always want to maximize the expected return with a certain level of risk that they are willing to bear or look for a portfolio that offers the lowest risk with a certain level of return. portfolio characteristics like this are referred to as efficient portfolios (tandelilin: 2010, 157). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 4 issn :02507196 3. methodology calculation of returns of the indonesian hajj financial management agency and tabung haji malayaisa the test will be carried out with the return parameter in each portfolio of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) compared to the tabung haji (th) portfolio. the calculation results of the actual return level are based on the calculation of the level of monthly returns throughout 2012-2016. mathematically actual return can be formulated as follows: information: rt = return index on day t pt = prices on the day on the index of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) / tabung haji (th) pt-n = price on day-1 on the index of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) / tabung haji (th) calculation of growth outstanding assets of indonesian hajj finance management agency and tabung hajji malaysia in simple terms, the outstanding growth of hajj financial management agency (bpkh) and tabung haji (th) assets can be calculated by comparing the calculation of the outstanding assets of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) compared to / hajj tube (th) in a certain period with the previous period, so how much growth can be known (yahaya, 2016). the results of the calculation of growth outstanding assets of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) and tabung haji (th) are based on the calculation of monthly growth rates throughout 2012-2016. mathematically the outstanding asset growth of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) / tabung haji (th) can be formulated as follows: information: gt = growth of outstanding assets of badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) / tabung haji (th) at the time of t outstandingt = total outstanding assets of the badan pengelola keuangan haji / tabung hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 5 issn :02507196 haji malaysia at the time of t outstandingt-n = total assets outstanding of badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) / tabung haji (th) at the 1st time kolmogorov-smirnov test normal data can be tested by the kolmogorov-smirnov test. h0: data is normally distributed h1: data is not normally distributed test kolmogrov smirnov is defined by: d = ) )) where f is the theoretical cumulative distribution of the tested data distribution that is normal from the data. then the value of d is compared with the table at a certain level of significance α. independent test of two sample t-tests independent sample t-test is a type of statistical test that aims to compare the average of two groups that are not in pairs or not related to each other. not in pairs can be interpreted as a study conducted for two different sample subjects. homogeneity of variants tested based on the formula: data is stated to have the same variance (equal variance) if f-calculate <f-table distributionfree and vice versa, the data variant is declared to be unequal variance if fcalculate> ftable. non-parametric test the non-parametric statistical method is a test whose model does not specify the existence of certain conditions regarding population parameters which are the source of the research sample. non-parametric statistics are often called distribution-free statistics (distribution-free statistics) because the method does not require assumptions about population distribution patterns. many whitney u-test to determine the difference in the independent variable to the dependent variable, mann whitney u test was calculated. this consideration is carried out because the data is ordinal, large sample data and for two unequal samples. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 6 issn :02507196 mann-whitney test formula with normal distribution approach: ) with : u = n1n2 + ) e(u) = ) = √ ) r1 = number of first sample ratings n1 = number of samples 1 n2 = number of samples 2 system dynamics according to massachusetts institute of technology (mit), system dynamics is a methodology used to study the problems around us. unlike other methodologies that examine problems by sorting them into smaller parts, system dynamics sees the problem as a whole. 4. results 1. calculation of returns of hajj and tabung haji financial management bodies return index of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) has a higher value compared to the return of the tabung haji index (th) which is -0.04% with a standard deviation of 1.60%. table 1: return index name return standard deviation bpkh -0.04% 1.60% th -0.63% 1.85% as for the standard deviation value which is the opposite. the standard deviation value of the tabung haji (th) index has a higher value when compared to the standard deviation of the index of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh). the tabung haji (th) index standard deviation is 1.85%, while the index deviation standard of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) is 1.60%. 2. kolmogorov-smirnov test return comparison statistics of badan pengelola hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 7 issn :02507196 keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th). the asymp value. sig. (2-tailed) less than 0.05, h0 is rejected and h1 is accepted, meaning that it can be concluded that the data is not normally distributed. table 2: k-s test name return k-s sig 0.05 0.432 0.000 therefore, testing the significance of differences was done by mann whitney u-test. 3. difference test mann whitney u-test statistics return comparison index of badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th) the asymp value. sig. (2-tailed) less than 0.05, h0 is rejected and h1 is accepted. table 3: mwu test test statisticsa hajj return mann-whitney u 1194.000 wilcoxon w 3024.000 z -3.194 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) .001 it can be concluded that there is a significant difference between the return of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) and tabung haji (th). 4. calculation of growth outstanding assets of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung hajj (th) the results of the calculation of growth outstanding assets of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) and tabung haji (th). table 4: growth hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 8 issn :02507196 name growth outstanding aset bpkh -1.45% th -1.13% the growth outstanding of tabung haji (th) assets has the highest value when compared to the growth outstanding assets of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) which is 1.13%. while growth outstanding assets of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) is equal to -1.45%. 5. kolmogorov-smirnov test statistics comparison of the growth of outstanding assets of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th) the output above shows the asymp value. sig. (2-tailed) more than 0.05, h0 is accepted and h1 is rejected. table 5: k-s grwoth growth outstanding aset bpkh dan th k-s sig 0.05 0.161 0.089 it can be concluded that the data is normally distributed. therefore, testing the significance of differences was done by independent t-test. 6. independent differential test of t-statistical test comparison of growth of outstanding assets of the badan pengelola keuangan (bpkh) and tabung haji (th) the asymp value. sig. (2-tailed) less than 0.05 then h0 is rejected and h1 is accepted. table 6: growth outstanding of hajj asset levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df 18.930 .000 -2.707 118 -2.707 101.274 it can be concluded that there is a significant difference between the growth outstanding assets of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) and tabung haji (th). table 7: t-test hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 9 issn :02507196 t-test for equality of means mean difference std. error differen ce 95% confidence interval of the difference sig. (2-tailed) lower upper .008 -.31367 .11586 -.54310 -.08423 .008 -.31367 .11586 -.54350 -.08384 7. prediction of the development of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th) in the coming year the projected growth of assets of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th) in the next 10 years based on the results of the powersim model test. figure 1. bpkh forecast (idr) source: analysis, 2018. bpkh increased from rp 93.910.919.512.672 (usd 6,260,727,968 aor 6 billion usd) in 2017 to rp 103.302.011.463.939 in 2018 with upsurge of 10% in a year. and after 10 years, in year of 2027 bpkh will have total assets about rp 243,580,739,407,051 or us$ 16,238,715,960 (about usd 16 billion). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 10 issn :02507196 figure 2. the forecast (myr) source: analysis, 2018. th hiked from rm 64,320,648 (usd 15,436,955 or 15 million usd) in 2017 to rm 70,752,712 in 2018. and after 10 years, in year of 2027 th will have total assets about rm 166,831,195 or us$ 40,039,487 (about usd 40 million). 5. conclusion and suggestions 1. there is a significant difference between the return of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th). the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) has a higher return compared to tabung haji (th). descriptively viewed from the value of the index return of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) of -0.04%. while the return of the tabung haji index (th) is -0.63%. as for the standard deviation value which is the opposite. the standard deviation value of tabung haji (th) has a higher value compared to the standard deviation of the index of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh). the standard deviation of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) is 1.60%. the standard deviation of tabung haji (th) is 1.85%. 2. furthermore, for the growth outstanding of tabung haji (th) assets, it turns out to have a higher value than the growth outstanding assets of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) which is -1.13%. while growth outstanding assets of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) amounted to -1.45%. there is a significant difference between the return index of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th). based on the results of the powersim value model test, the prediction of the growth of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) in 2027 reached rp 243,580,739,407,051 or us$ 16,238,715,960 (about usd 16 billion) and tabung haji (th) in 2027 reached rm 166,831,195 or us$ 40,039,487 (about usd 40 million). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 11 issn :02507196 3. there is a significant difference between the return of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th). the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) has a higher return compared to tabung haji (th). descriptively viewed from the value of the index return of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) of -0.04%. while the return of the tabung haji index (th) is -0.63%. as for the standard deviation value which is the opposite. the standard deviation value of tabung haji (th) has a higher value compared to the standard deviation of the index of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh). the standard deviation of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) is 1.60%. the standard deviation of tabung haji (th) is 1.85%. 4. furthermore, for the growth outstanding of tabung haji (th) assets, it turns out to have a higher value than the growth outstanding assets of the hajj financial management agency (bpkh) which is -1.13%. while growth outstanding assets of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) amounted to -1.45%. there is a significant difference between the return index of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) and tabung haji (th). based on the results of the powersim value model test, the prediction of the growth of the badan pengelola keuangan haji (bpkh) in 2027 reached rp 243,580,739,407,051 or us$ 16,238,715,960 (about usd 16 billion) and tabung haji (th) in 2027 reached rm 166,831,195 or us$ 40,039,487 (about usd 40 million). references ang, r. (1997). buku pintar pasar modal indonesia (the intelligent guide to indonesian capital market). jakarta: mediasoft indonesia. aziz, r. m. (2016). teori h dalam islam sebagai wahyu dan turats. jurnal ushuluddin uin riau, 24(1), 103–120. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.24014/jush.v24i1.1347 aziz, r. m. (2018). hahslm theory as guidance of straight path in management of hajj and finance. kne social sciences dubai, 5(6), 105–120. https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v3i8.2503 jumali, e. (2018). management of hajj funds in indonesia. journal of legal, ethical and regulatory issues, 21(3), 1–9. kazan, h., & kultigin, u. (2014). credit portfolio selection according to sectors in risky environments: markowitz practice. asian economic and financial review, 4(9): 1208 1219. kittaniy, s. (2019). statecraft as art and practice in islamic civilization: the image of the muslim ruler in islamic heritage. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 5(5), 208–214. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.20469/ijhss.5.20005-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.24014/jush.v24i1.1347 http://dx.doi.org/10.24014/jush.v24i1.1347 https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v3i8.2503 https://dx.doi.org/10.20469/ijhss.5.20005-5 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 685696 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 12 issn :02507196 maslan, a. (2016). peranan lembaga tabung haji untuk meningkatkan ekonomi dan perkhidmatan haji orang melayu 1969–1984. melayu: jurnal antarabangsa dunia melayu, 9(2), 45-60. maulana, i., & rafdi, m. (2018). islamic currency swap: can be the best way to hedge indonesia hajj fund? global review of islamic economics and business, 6(2), 145–159. meera, a. k. m., & dzuljastri, a. r. (2012) islamic home financing through musyarakah mutanaqishah and al bay' bitsaman ajil contracts: a comparative analysis, african. journal of journal business management, 11(5), 45-60 muneeza, a., sudeen, a., nasution, a., & nurmalas, r. (2018). a comparative study of hajj fund management institutions in malaysia , indonesia and maldives. international journal of management and applied research, 5(3), 120–134. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.18646/2056.53.18-009 muliadi, s., and feriyanto, n. (2018). the effectiveness of shariah supervisory board on supervision and counselling in shariah rural bank mitra cahaya indonesia yogyakarta. journal of administrative and business studies. 4(1): 9-17 noor, k. b. (1989). sumbangan lembaga urusan dan tabung haji (luth) kepada masyarakat islam di malaysia (unpublished master’s thesis). jabatan fiqh dan usul, akademi pengajian islam, universiti kebangsaan malaysia. purba, p. r ., & sitorus. p. m. (2017). influence analysis of dissatisfaction, situational condition, and switching costs on the switching behavior of telkomsel postpaid card customers in batam city. . international journal of business and economic affairs, 2(3), 193-205 shuhaimi, m. (2011). tabung haji as an islamic financial institution for sustainable economic development. ipedr, 17(5), 40-50. tendelilin, e. (2010). analisis investasi dan manajemen porofolio. yogyakarta: bpfe. yahaya, h., majid, m. s. a., talaat, a., zulkifli, m. z., & talaat, n. (2016). tabung haji malaysia as a world role model of islamic management institutions. international journal of business and management invention issn, 5(11), 44–55. retrieved from www.ijbmi.org http://www.ijbmi.org/ hamdard islamicus 111 vol. xl, no. 2 obituary syed sharifuddin pirzada we sadly announce the passing away of syed sharifuddin pirzada, one of the oldest member of the pakistan historical society and a legal luminary of the country on 2nd june, 2017. born in burhanpur (south india) in 1923, he joined the legal profession in 1945 and was called to the bar at lincoln’s inn. he settled down in bombay (mambai), joined the muslim students federation and the muslim league. it brought him into contact with quaid-i-azam, who was also a member of bombay city muslim league. after independence he came to karachi and for some time taught law in the sindh s.m. law college. his legal expertise was recognized and in 1968 he was appointed pakistan’s attorney general, a post which he held three times. his legal expertise won international recognition also. he represented his country in international forums. he was appointed as a member of the international law commission (1978-1980) and also served as the chairman of the un sub-commission on prevention of discrimination against minorities. he was elected unanimously as the secretary general of the organisation of islamic conference (oic) as well (1985-1988). he had the honour of drafting the historic un general assembly resolution on jerusalem. his legal opinion was often sought by pakistani governments and rulers. he also authored a number of books, few of them are as follows: 1. evolution of pakistan 2. the pakistan resolution and the historic lahore session 3. quaid-i-azam jinnah’s correspondence 4. fundamental rights and constitutional remedies in pakistan 5. foundation of pakistan (3 vol. set) 6. collected works of the quad-i-azam (3 vol.). he would be long remembered for his legal expertise. may allah rest his soul in peace! amen! hamdard islamicus f:\e\islamicus\2021\guardianship of property in islamic law.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 121 guardianship of property in islamic law dr. mudasra sabreen department of humanities faculty of shariah and law international islamic university islamabad, pakistan email: mudasra.sabreen@iiu.edu.pk received on: 15-12-2020 accepted on: 08-01-2021 abstract a child has a right to have someone to manage its affairs during minority. guardianship is one of the basic rights of a child. guardianship includes guardianship of marriage, person (custody) and property. this research work is more focused towards the guardianship of property. in islamic law, the father is the guardian (walê) of the child’s property unless the interests of the child demand otherwise. this article explores rules regarding guardianship in islamic law and discusses relevant issues including conditions for guardianship, interdictions, best interests of the minor and termination of guardianship. as in pakistan, the law related to personal status is primarily based on islamic law, it is important to explore the islamic rules related to guardianship of property to provide a source for legal reforms. for instance, a mother can be a testamentary guardian but cannot be a guardian of property otherwise. islam is the law that preserves the rights and interest of all humans throughout their lives, without gender and race discrimination. the authorization of property guarding to a mother is an open concernment that scholars may conceptualize and discuss in view of child’s interests. this article recommends reconsideration of the said distinction and further argues that the islamic law always keeps best interests of child and considers child interest as primary. this research work is a qualitative study and comparison has been done among judgments and decrees of fuqaha’ (experts of islamic jurisprudence) and other legal opinions in islamic perspective. keywords: guardianship, guardianship of property, interdiction, islamic law. 1. introduction guardianship is a basic right of the child. due to tender age and lack of mental maturity a child is not capable to manage its affairs. 122 guardianship of property in islamic law... islamic law provides the institution of guardianship to ensure proper management of the affairs of the minor. there are three kinds of guardianships: guardianship of person known as custody; guardianship of marriage and guardianship of property. in this research paper we will endeavour to explore and analyse the rules of islamic law regarding guardianship of property. as in pakistan the law related to personal status is primarily based on islamic law it is important to explore the rules related to guardianship of property to provide a source for legal reforms. 1.1. research methodology this is a qualitative study, i have tried to access original sources of islamic law as well as writings of modern scholars regarding this issue. comparative study of ×anafê, mélikê, ×anbalê and shéfi‘ê schools have been done. with regard to guardianship ×anafê opinion has been flexible as compared to other schools so the researcher has especially focused on the ×anafê school. guardianship includes guardianship of person, marriage and property but in this study, we will only discuss guardianship of property. after discussing the concept of guardianship briefly, the researcher has explored the rules of guardianship of property. qualifications of a guardian, interdiction, and the ways to terminate guardianship have also been discussed. at the end conclusion will summarize my findings. 1.2. literature review in islamic law the concept of guardianship has been discussed extensively. if we look at the current literature on this topic we notice that writings by islamic jurists have dealt with rules related to custody and guardianship of marriage in detail but we cannot find a comprehensive study related to guardianship of property especially in the modern context. as law related to personal status in pakistan is primarily based on islamic law there is a need to study the issues related to guardianship of property so that it can become basis for reforms in pakistani law. in modern law all rules related to children revolve around their best interests. despite discussions on rules related to guardianship of property in classical books the phrase ‘best interests of the child’ has not been used.1 in books written by modern jurists we find frequent mention of the ‘interests of the child’.2 probably the term became prevalent after its incorporation in the convention on the rights of the child. in this paper the researcher try hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 123 to evaluate and contextualize the rules related to guardianship of property including the doctrine of the best interests of the child. 2. guardianship in islamic law wiléyah is the term used for guardianship in islamic law. it is defined as ‘the carrying through a decision affecting a third person whether the latter wishes or not’.3 there are two kinds of guardianship in islamic law: guardianship of person and guardianship of property. guardianship of person is further divided into three categories: (i) custody which is a duty to look after the child from birth until the age of discretion; (ii) the obligation to train and discipline the child which starts from discretion and ends at puberty and (iii) the guardianship of marriage.4 the concept of guardianship is based on a few verses of the holy qur’én and various ahédêth. islam introduced rules regarding the guardian’s authority to avoid pre-islamic practices of corruption especially in the case of the property of orphans.5 allah almighty says in the holy qur’én: “to orphans restore their property (when they reach their age) nor substitute (your worthless) things for (their) good ones; and devour not their substance (by mixing it up) with your own … when ye release their property to them, take witnesses in their presence”.6 in another verse allah almighty says: “come not nigh to the orphan’s property except to improve it until he attains the age of full strength”.7 allah almighty says: “… they ask thee concerning orphans, say: the best thing to do is what is for their good; if ye mix their affairs with yours, they are your brethren; but allah knows the man who means mischief from the man who means good and if allah had wished, he could have put you into difficulties: he is indeed exalted in power”.8 124 guardianship of property in islamic law... these verses are related to orphans and their guardians but rules related to general guardians are also derived from them. the purpose behind the concept of guardianship is that a minor cannot comprehend its transactions so there is a possibility of harm if the minor is given the authority to manage its affairs.9 guardianship is a combination of a right and a duty but the element of duty is stronger as compared that of right. the duty is imposed to protect the interests of the minor.10 the basic consideration in rules regarding custody and guardianship is the welfare of the child. if any of these rules is in contradiction with the welfare of the minor the rule shall not be enforced.11 as far as consideration of the best interests of the child is concerned in islamic law the presumption is that whatever is ordered by allah almighty is in the interest of mankind and whatever is prohibited by him is not in their interest. if parents ask the child to do something against the shar’êah it will be considered against the interests of the child so the child must not obey it. for instance in the case of shirk (unbelief or worshipping another god within islam) allah almighty says in the holy qur’én: “but if they strive to make thee join in worship with me things of which thou hast no knowledge; obey them not…”.12 this implies that there is no blind obedience to parents. parents have authority only if they keep themselves and the child within the limits prescribed by shar’êah.13 in classical books on islamic law the term ‘best interests of the child’ has not been used. in books written by modern jurists we find frequent mention of the ‘interests of the child’. probably the term became prevalent after its incorporation in the convention on the rights of the child.14 as far as classical books are concerned although the interests of the child are not clearly mentioned it is an underlined requirement to be considered by the islamic judge. a judge is expected to decide cases keeping in view welfare of the child. it can be noticed that opinions given by the scholars are based on welfare of the child but ‘best interests of the child’ has not been mentioned as a rule anywhere. the guardian of a person is not necessarily the same as the guardian of property. they could be two different persons. for a young child the mother is the best custodian while guardianship rests with the father. custody is considered subservient to guardianship and where custody is hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 125 with the mother, the father still has the right to supervise the child based on the reason that he is responsible for the child’s maintenance.15 guardianship includes the duties of bringing up the child to transform him into a good muslim, his/her education, training and protect his/her interests in all situations.16 guardianship is an institution established for persons who have deficient or no legal capacity17 like a minor, an insane person or a female. as far as minor children are concerned, it is their right to have someone to manage their affairs because of their immaturity and tender age. the duty of guardianship may become incumbent upon a person on three grounds: kinship, testament/will or order of the court.18 the court has authority in matters of guardianship according to a hadêth in which the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said “the sultén is a walê for the person who has no walê.”19 this hadêth confers authority of guardianship on the state if a person has no guardian. the state delegates this authority to judges who exercise it on former’s behalf. 3. guardianship of property a guardian is responsible to manage his ward’s affairs pertaining to property. guardianship of property means the authority to initiate contracts regarding property on behalf of the ward. it also includes protection of the property from every possible damage and to endeavor to increase its worth.20 in islamic law, guardianship of property lies with the father. the father is a natural guardian of his legitimate children. for an illegitimate child the mother is the guardian as the illegitimate child and the father have no mutual rights and obligations.21 there is agreement among the jurists on the guardianship authority of the father for legitimate children. the jurists differ on the order of guardians in the case of absence or disqualification of the father. according to the ×anafê school in the case of the father’s death, absence or disqualification, guardianship lies with the executer of the will appointed by the father, then the paternal grandfather how high-so-ever, then the paternal grandfather’s executor and then the judge. ×anafê scholars give preference to the father’s executor over the grandfather because if the father has appointed the executor in the presence of the grandfather, it means that he is considering that person better than the grandfather. except the father and the grandfather no other person has authority over property of the child unless appointed as a testamentary guardian.22 a judge has no authority 126 guardianship of property in islamic law... over the child if the father or the grandfather are alive. the mother has no authority over the property of her children. she can neither be a guardian nor can she have preferential right to appoint one.23 if all persons mentioned in the given order do not exist then the executor appointed by the mother will have authority.24 it is ironic and apparently contradictory that these scholars do not consider a mother capable to be a guardian but executor appointed by her enjoys this authority. according to the mélikê school, the following is the order for guardianship; the father, executor of the father, executor’s executor if any, the judge and the muslim community if there is no judge. other relatives of the child cannot be guardians unless appointed by the father or the judge. the ×anbalês follow the same order. in the shéfi‘ê school after the father guardianship devolves on the paternal grandfather how high-so-ever then to their executors and then to the judge. only the shéfi‘ês give priority to the grandfather over the executor of the father as opposed to other schools who give priority to the executor in such case. the judge may appoint an appropriate person as a guardian and it is the responsibility of that judge to keep a check on him. according to the shéfi‘ê school the mother cannot be a guardian except if the other person to be appointed as a guardian is a stranger. the mother will be given priority over a stranger.25 the principle in cases of guardianship is that the closer relative is preferred over the distant relative. this is based on the following verse of the holy qur’én: “… but kindred by blood have prior rights against each other in the book of allah”.26 if a closer relative is there the distant one has no authority unless the former is disqualified.27 a natural guardian, whether father or grandfather, has authority to appoint a testamentary guardian. the father or the grandfather can appoint more than one testamentary guardian. in such a case each testamentary guardian will have the authority as assigned by the father or the grandfather. if specific authority is not assigned, according to abë yësuf (raímat allah ‘alaih) , a transaction made by one of them will be valid without the consent of the others. abë ×anêfah and muhammad shaibénê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) disagree, according to them in this situation a transaction will only be valid if made by consent of all of them.28 the hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 127 mother has no authority to appoint a testamentary guardian. in the case of legitimate children the authority to appoint a testamentary guardian is with the father or the grandfather and in the case of illegitimate children this authority vests in the judge. the judge can appoint an appropriate person as the child’s guardian.29 this approach seems patriarchal and needs to be revisited. the child’s mother is expected to be more concerned towards welfare of the child as compared to the child’s grandfather. the father has authority to appoint a supervisor to keep check on the testamentary guardian so that he may not abuse his powers. the mother can be appointed as a supervisor (mushrif)30 or as a testamentary guardian by the father or the grandfather. this is the opinion of the majority of jurists. they based their opinion on the tradition according to which ‘umar (raði allah ‘anhu) appointed his daughter hafsah (raði allah ‘anha) as a testamentary guardian.31 express or implied acceptance of the testamentary guardian to this appointment is necessary. a testamentary guardian may be given limited powers related to some specific purpose in which case he will be considered guardian to the extent of that purpose only. he may be given full powers without any restriction in which case he will be considered guardian for all purposes. the condition for validity of such appointment is that the testator should have capacity to make such appointment at the time of making the will. he should be able to understand the nature and consequences of his act. such appointment by the father or the grandfather can be challenged on the ground of misconduct or other disqualification of the testamentary guardian and the judge has authority to remove him. in such situations the role of the judge is supervisory. the actions of a testamentary guardian will have legal effect till removal by the court unless he is a minor or insane. majority and sanity of the appointee are conditions for validity of the appointment. if at the time of appointment the guardian was sane but later became imbecile or insane his appointment will be considered void and the judge will have a right to appoint a new guardian.32 if a minor is appointed as a guardian and his appointment is not declared void by any court and he continues to exercise his powers till his majority, according to abë ×anêfah (raímat allah ‘alaih), his appointment even after attaining the age of majority will be considered void. according to shaibénê and abë yësuf (raímat allah ‘alaihimé), his appointment will be considered valid after attaining majority.33 if the male relatives in the given order do not exist the court may appoint the mother or any other relative as a guardian according to the 128 guardianship of property in islamic law... welfare of the minor. in this way a woman can be appointed as a guardian by a court. being a female is not a disqualification for guardianship.34 this seems contradictory. qualifications for a natural guardian and testamentary guardian are the same if a woman can be appointed a testamentary guardian, she should be considered equally capable to be appointed as a natural guardian. if the father or the grandfather has appointed a guardian through their will and the court considers that appointment illegal due to the absence of necessary conditions or qualifications for guardianship it can remove the guardian and can appoint a person appropriate for the post.35 a guardian is not all powerful in matters relating to property. he does not enjoy absolute authority to deal with the minor’s property the way he pleases. there are limitations on his authority. this will be discussed latter. 4. conditions for a guardian the following are the conditions for a guardian. 1. legal capacity. only a person with full legal capacity can be a guardian. there are three conditions appurtenant to full legal capacity: puberty, sanity and freedom. a person having deficient or defective legal capacity is not qualified for guardianship as such a person is not entitled to make his/her own transactions so he/she cannot be responsible for someone else.36 2. the guardian should have the same religion as the ward has. if his religion is different from the ward he will not be entitled to guardianship. as said earlier this is not a condition for a judge as a judge has authority over all subjects irrespective of their religion.37 a judge enjoys the authority delegated to him by the state and he is responsible to protect rights of all citizens irrespective of their religion. allah almighty says in the holy qur’én: “… and never will allah almighty grant to the unbelievers a way (to triumph) over the believers”.38 it means that non-muslims cannot be given authority over muslims. a guardian has authority over the child so according to this verse a nonmuslim cannot be a guardian of a muslim child. it is presumed that the hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 129 guardianship of a non-muslim can be proved detrimental for the child’s religious inclinations and morality.39 all schools agree that if the mother is a non-muslim and is appointed as a testamentary guardian, she can exercise powers to manage the minor’s property.40 as far as a testamentary guardian is concerned he/she should possess four characteristics: puberty, sound judgment, islam and honesty.41 for a testamentary guardian there is no such condition that he/she should be an heir or relative. appointment of a testamentary guardian is valid only if made by the father, the grandfather or the judge. the person who is appointed as a testamentary guardian should have all the qualifications of a guardian at the time of taking charge of the minor’s affairs. if he is lacking any of the qualifications at the time of appointment it will not affect his appointment but if he lacks any qualification at the time of taking charge of the minor he will be removed and someone else will be appointed as a guardian by the judge.42 apart from these conditions a guardian should be honest, mature and trustworthy. if the father is a spendthrift and cannot be trusted the judge may entrust the duty to look after the property of the child to a more trustworthy person.43 the guardian should have a good reputation in the community. if he lacks these qualifications he can be removed by the court. the actions of a minor or an insane guardian are void even if not formally held void by the court. if a guardian is not completely insane and is sane during lucid intervals only those of his acts will have legal effect, which are done while he was sane. this is the ×anafê opinion.44 for any other disqualification, the actions of the guardian are valid until cancellation of the appointment of the guardian by the court provided that the actions are in the best interests of the minor.45 4.1. authority/powers of a guardian there are two stages in the life of a minor with respect to authority of the guardian: the first stage is when the minor is below the age of seven years and the second stage is from the age of seven till majority. any act done by the minor before the age of seven has no legal effect. at this stage the guardian has full legal authority to act on minor’s behalf.46 after the age of seven till puberty the child can make beneficial transactions. those transactions which are vacillating between benefit and loss are enforceable after ratification of the walê. at this stage to some extent the guardian’s authority is shared by the minor. this is 130 guardianship of property in islamic law... according to the ×anafê school. according to other schools a minor’s actions have no legal effect till majority.47 the age of seven is very low with regard to financial transactions. hanafês’ opinion is based on discretion which is a question of fact, it means that only if a child possesses discretion he/she may be awarded right to conclude beneficial transactions not otherwise the general principle with respect to the authority of a guardian is that he can make a transaction if it is purely beneficial or vacillating between profit and loss. a guardian has no authority to make a transaction which is harmful or entails loss. this principle applies to a natural guardian, testamentary guardian and the judge.48 the father is a natural guardian of a minor if he is reliable and is of sound judgment. if the father lacks these qualities, he does not deserve to be a guardian. the father has absolute power in matters pertaining to property except for transactions which are purely harmful. according to the ×anafês and the mélikês, the father can sell and buy a minor’s property. there is no distinction between movable and immovable property as far as his authority is concerned. another opinion in the ×anafê school is that the father can buy property on a minor’s behalf but cannot sell it as it is a harmful transaction and a guardian is not allowed to do so.49 according to the ×anafês the natural guardian can sell and buy a minor’s property for himself whereas according to the shéfi‘ês it is not allowed for the guardian to do so. he can neither gift a minor’s property to someone nor can he take it as loan for himself. the father has authority to pledge a minor’s property to discharge the minor’s debt. there is a difference of opinion in pledging a minor’s property to discharge the father’s debt. according to abë ×anêfah and shaibénê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) the father can pledge a minor’s property to discharge his own debt whereas according to abë yësuf and zufar (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) he has no such authority. abë yûsuf and zufar (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) consider it a harmful transaction for the minor so they do not allow it.50 according to abë ×anêfah and shaibénê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) this transaction is not harmful as according to the rules of pledge of property if a minor’s goods are destroyed or damaged during the period of pledge they will be compensated by the person who has possession of the goods. secondly the father has a right in the property of the child according to the hadith “you (the son) and your property belongs to your father”51 as this transaction is beneficial for the father so it should be allowed. but even abë ×anêfah and shaibanê hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 131 (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) allow it only in dire need; for instance, if the father has no property of his own to pledge. if he has his own property, he is not allowed to pledge a minor’s property. the father is allowed to lease out a minor’s property but the lease should not be for very long time as probably it would be on a low rate which is against the best interests of the minor. the jurists did not discuss which period shall be constituted a long period. it is left to the courts to decide according to the facts of each case. it is not allowed for the father to lend a minor’s movable property to someone unless there is a custom in that area of exchange of goods/services as in that case the minor may be in need of borrowing something in future.52 in the case of the absence of the father and his executor, the grandfather is the guardian of the child. according to abë ×anêfah and abë yësuf (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) the grandfather’s authority over the property of the child is equal to that of a testamentary guardian as in the order of guardians he is after the father’s executor. according to the opinion of shaibénê (raímat allah ‘alaih) the grandfather is like the father and has same powers. according to him the grandfather is after the father’s executor in the order of guardians not because he has less love for the child but because the law gives respect to the choice of the father so he should have the same powers which the father of the child has. other ×anafis agree with abë ×anêfah and abë yësuf’s (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) opinion except that the grandfather has authority to sell or buy a minor’s property to himself whereas the executor cannot make such a transaction even if it is in the best interests of the minor.53 the father and the grandfather both can appoint a testamentary guardian. a testamentary guardian has the same powers as a natural guardian has, except he cannot sell or buy a ward’s immovable property without any just reason.54 the father has authority to sell a minor’s immovable property. in the case of a testamentary guardian this authority is restricted and the property can be sold only if there is a just reason for it; for instance to discharge debts of the minor, or for getting double value of the property, or there is loss in keeping the property (for instance when expenditure on the property is more than it’s income), or there are chances of destruction of the property, or when the property is in the possession of untrustworthy person and its recovery does not seem possible or if money is needed for the minor’s maintenance. the standard for a just reason is what is considered reasonable among the community.55 whether a particular reason is just or not is a question of fact so needs to be proved. 132 guardianship of property in islamic law... if the property is sold by the testamentary guardian without any just reason the transaction will be void. this is according to abë ×anêfah (raímat allah ‘alaih). in in the opinion of abë yësuf and shaibénê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) a testamentary guardian has no power to sell or buy a minor’s property in any circumstance. the natural guardian can restrict the powers of a testamentary guardian by will. another difference between the authority of the natural guardian and the testamentary guardian is that the natural guardian can buy a minor’s property for himself whereas the testamentary guardian is not allowed to do so. the testamentary guardian’s powers with respect to immovable property of the ward are more restricted as compared to movable property. the reason for the difference in the rule regarding movable and immovable properties is the presumption that movable property is perishable and immovable is not, so it is considered in the minor’s welfare to sell movable property to convert perishable property to some other form.56 ‘necessity’ is not a requirement for sale of movable property; the guardian can sell it for a benefit or for some other reason.57 a testamentary guardian is not allowed to sell property of a major who is interdicted after majority without order of the court.58 the guardian is supposed to act for the benefit of the minor but he will not be responsible for such loss which is inevitable in business provided he has exercised due care and diligence. the transaction must be bonafide on the part of the guardian. if the guardian has not exercised due care and diligence the minor can go to the court to avoid the sale. the guardian cannot purchase a minor’s property or take it as a debt as his duty is to protect the interests of the minor and not to gain benefit for himself.59 if there are two or more minors in the guardianship of the father he can sell one minor’s property to the other minor whereas a testamentary guardian has no such authority. the father can take a minor’s property on lease for himself but a testamentary guardian cannot make such contract with him/her. a testamentary guardian cannot pledge a minor’s property to discharge his own debt.60 a natural or testamentary guardian can enter into a partnership or trade on the minor’s behalf. he is required to show the care and diligence of an ordinary prudent man. he cannot do such business which is hazardous for the minor or which is immoral or illegal. if the guardian is appointed by the court then his powers will also be defined by the court. if he is given power to partition the shares of the heirs along with a minor he can do so.61 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 133 in the case of absence or disqualification of natural and testamentary guardians the judge has authority to appoint a guardian. the father’s or the grandfather’s authority to appoint a guardian is stronger than the judge. if the father or the grandfather has appointed a guardian through will but at the time of appointment of the guardian by the judge this fact was not known the appointment by the father will take precedence.62 after appointment of the guardian the judge will have supervisory duties. he himself cannot make any transaction on minor’s behalf but can keep a check on the guardian. powers of a guardian appointed by the court are the same as of a testamentary guardian with some restrictions which are discussed below. the guardian appointed by the court cannot buy or sell a minor’s property for himself even for the minor’s welfare. the reason for it is that he is considered an agent (wakêl) of the judge and the judge himself has no such right so his wakêl also lacks such authority. abë ×anêfah (raímat allah ‘alaih) is of the opinion that a testamentary guardian has this authority if it is in the minor’s welfare. according to abë ×anêfah (raímat allah ‘alaih) a judge while appointing a guardian has authority to restrict the guardian’s power whereas a natural guardian has no such authority to restrict the powers of a testamentary guardian. abë yësuf (raímat allah ‘alaih) disagrees and according to him to restrict guardian’s powers is permissible for the natural guardian. a judge cannot remove a testamentary guardian without just cause whereas he can remove a guardian appointed by him without any cause. a testamentary guardian can appoint anyone else as guardian through a will at his death whereas a guardian appointed by the court has no such authority.63 4.2. de facto guardian if a de jure guardian is not present and some other person is in charge of the property of the minor, islamic law recognizes his actions if these are for the child’s benefit or to fulfill his or her needs. such a person is called a de facto guardian. all those acts which are purely beneficial can be done by a minor if it has discretion or by a de facto guardian. such persons can do those acts which are necessary to fulfill a minor’s needs for instance selling or purchasing something on the minor’s behalf if he/she needs it. a person who takes up a foundling is also empowered to do such acts. the circumstances of the child and his or her needs are taken into consideration before recognizing these acts.64 134 guardianship of property in islamic law... if the mother deals with the property of the minor although she is not appointed as a guardian her acts will be recognized only if they are in the best interests of the minor. she will not be considered a de facto guardian but a fuìëlê (an unauthorized agent).65 a de facto guardian is recognized by islamic law as in some situations where a legal guardian is not appointed, he is the person who protects the interests of the minor. but only those actions of a de facto guardian are protected by the law which are a product of necessity and which are purely beneficial. when a legal guardian exceeds his limits by violating the conditions of his guardianship, does not protect the interests of the minor or is disqualified the de facto guardian can protect the interests of the minor until appointment of a new guardian. as far as the acts of a legal guardian who has exceeded his limits are concerned his acts are suspended and do not take effect until confirmation by the minor after attaining majority. such acts include harmful transactions. but if the guardian’s conduct is not trustworthy and he continuously acts against the best interests of the minor, the minor can go to the court against the legal guardian. the ruler or the king is the guardian for the person who has no guardian. it is the responsibility of the state to protect the rights of all people including children. the judge has the power to step in to protect the interests of the minor if required. in the case of misconduct of the guardian the judge has authority to remove him and to appoint a new guardian. it is a duty of the judge to supervise the guardian.66 if the guardian does not protect the best interests of the minor and it is considered against the minor’s welfare to live with that guardian or to be in his supervision the guardian will be removed by the court.67 5. interdiction interdiction or hajr means to restrict persons having no, or deficient, legal capacity from disposing of their property or entering in any transaction related to property. the persons under interdiction include the insane (majnën), the mentally deranged (ma‘tëh), prodigal (safêh), the imbecile (dhu-al-ghaflah) and a minor.68 the object of interdiction is to protect such people and their property as they are not capable to fully understand the nature and the consequences of their acts. the rule of interdiction of minors is based on the verse “to those weak of understanding make not over your property which allah almighty hath made a means of support for hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 135 you …”.69 a child before attaining discretion is considered as having no understanding and judgment so all his/her transactions at that stage are null and void. during the period between discretion and majority, some transactions of a minor are given recognition by the law. such transactions are categorized in three groups. at first there are purely beneficial transactions which if made by the child have legal effect without ratification of the guardian for instance acceptance of a gift. the second category is of those transactions which are purely harmful and which have no legal effect even if made with the ratification of the guardian. an example of such a transaction is to give a gift to someone. the third category is of transactions vacillating between benefit and harm, for instance partnership or involvement in a trade in which there are chances of profit and loss. such transactions are valid only after ratification of the guardian. in the case of purely beneficial transactions and transactions vacillating between profit and loss interdiction is lifted from the minor after the age of seven. the purpose for the lifting of interdiction in purely beneficial transactions is that it is in the minor’s welfare to allow such transactions whereas the reason in transactions vacillating between profit and loss is that to allow such transactions is necessary for the minor’s training and education. the minor while under the supervision of its guardian will make such decisions and will learn from them and on obtaining majority it will be easy for the minor to manage its own property. to provide such training is a duty of the guardian.70 interdiction of a male child is removed on gaining mental maturity and puberty. according to the majority of jurists the same is the rule for a female child. mélik (raímat allah ‘alaih) disagrees and according to him interdiction of a girl is removed only after consummation of her marriage.71 to link removal of interdiction with consummation of marriage means that a girl only becomes capable to manage her property after sexual intercourse. this research work raises the opinion that management of property has no apparent relation with sexual intercourse which should be based on rushd and capability to understand and manage financial affairs. there is agreement among jurists that if a person under interdiction has shown signs of rushd (sound judgment) he/she should be given his/ her property. according to shéfi‘ê (raímat allah ‘alaih) giving property to the minor who has become maor and has shown signs of rushd (sound judgment) has no need for a court’s order. mélik (raímat allah ‘alaih) however is of the opinion that property can be handed over only 136 guardianship of property in islamic law... by the order of the court. according to him interdiction can be removed only by the order of the court. the ×anbalês agree with shéfi‘ês and according to them there is no need for the court’s order.72 according to shaibénê (raímat allah ‘alaih), interdiction on the basis of minority is removed on attaining majority without declaration from a court. if the minor is safêh (prodigal) according to kasénê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) this interdiction cannot be removed except by the order of the court whereas according to shaibénê and shéfi‘ê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) there is no need for intervention of the court in this case. when the minor shows signs of sound judgment interdiction will be removed and his/her property will be handed over to him/her.73 if at majority because of any reason a person becomes unable to manage his property, there is a difference of opinion among the jurists regarding his/her interdiction. according to mélik and shéfi‘ê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) in this situation a major can only be interdicted by order of the court whereas according to abë ×anêfah (raímat allah ‘alaih) a major cannot be interdicted. ibrahim al-nakha‘ê and ibn sêrên (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) agree with abë ×anêfah (raímat allah ‘alaih), who considers the age of twenty-five years the final stage for removal of interdiction after which interdiction is not possible. it is not appropriate to fix an age to handover property as if the person is not capable to manage his/her property it will be against his/her interests to hand it over. shaibénê (raímat allah ‘alaih) does not consider intervention of the court necessary to interdict a major person whereas abë yësuf (raímat allah ‘alaih) considers it necessary. such a person’s transactions are not effective according to shaibénê (raímat allah ‘alaih) whereas according to abë yësuf (raímat allah ‘alaih) his/her transactions will be effective until interdiction by the court.74 the minor has no criminal responsibility and will not be liable for punishment. as far as civil responsibility is concerned a minor is liable for any tort committed by him/her and compensation will be taken from his/her property. if the minor has no property the payment of compensation will be deferred until the time, he/she will be able to pay. the guardian will be responsible to make arrangements for payment of compensation from the property of the minor but will not be responsible to pay it personally. this rule is for protection of the person and property of other people. under islamic law punishment can be withdrawn on the basis of valid excuses but ìamén or compensation cannot be. this rule is based on the concept of the capacity of destruction which is upon every person hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 137 regardless of his age or mental maturity. this opinion is agreed upon by jurists except some mélikê jurists who are of the opinion that a minor before the age of discretion is not liable to pay compensation in the case of destruction of property at his/her hands. the guardian will be vicariously liable for the minor’s actions only if the incident happened due to his negligence or instigation or command. he will also be responsible if he gave the property to the minor without prior permission of the owner and the minor has destroyed it.75 6. wages for guardianship rules related to the wages of a guardian are derived from the following verse of the holy qur’én: “if the guardian is well off, let him claim no remuneration, but if he is poor, let him have for himself what is just and reasonable” the verse also orders guardians to render accounts by saying: “when ye release their property to them, take witnesses in their presence but all sufficient is allah in taking account”.76 companions of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) differed with respect to interpretation of this verse. according to ‘umar (raði allah ‘anhu) if a guardian is in need, he is allowed to take from the minor’s wealth to fulfil his need but it will be considered a debt on him. according to ibn abbés (raði allah ‘anhu) he is allowed to take according to his need and it will not be considered a debt. according to abë hanêfah (raímat allah ‘alaih) the father can take from a minor’s property according to his needs and it will not be considered a debt but a testamentary guardian cannot take from a minor’s property even as a debt. according to another tradition abë ×anêfah (raímat allah ‘alaih) says that a testamentary guardian can take in the case of necessity but has to return it later. jassés (raímat allah ‘alaih) supports the latter opinion.77 according to the shéfi‘ê (raímat allah ‘alaih) school if the guardian is in need he can take wages from the property of the child otherwise not.78 another opinion is that for a testamentary guardian there are no wages unless the judge has fixed his wages. a judge can 138 guardianship of property in islamic law... also fix wages for a guardian appointed by the court. if, while appointing a testamentary guardian, the testator has mentioned that the guardian will perform his job voluntarily he is not entitled to wages.79 7. termination of guardianship guardianship is terminated in two ways: firstly, if the ward dies; secondly when the minor attains majority.80 the property will not be handed over unless there is puberty and rushd (sound judgment). if either of these qualities is missing the property cannot be handed over no matter what is the age of the ward. the purpose of this rule is to protect the interests of the child.81 according to abë ×anêfah, shéfi‘ê, hasan al-baîrê and ibn munzir (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) rushd means sound judgment in religion and in management of property. they include religion in it, as a fésiq (sinner) person is considered ghair rashêd (without rushd).82 mélik and ibn qudémah (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) disagree and according to them sound judgment is required only in the management of property.83 they are of the opinion that a fésiq person is considered ghair rashêd in the aspect of religion but not with respect to his property. the zéhirês consider sound judgment required only in terms of religion.84 according to abë ×anêfah (raímat allah ‘alaih) the property will be handed over at the age of twenty five.85 his opinion is based on the following verse: “and come not nigh to the orphan’s property, except to improve it, until he attains the age of full strength…”.86 abë yësuf and shaibénê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) disagreed and according to them property will not be handed over to the person till he/she shows signs of sound judgement.87 according to 138 até, thawrê, abë ×anêfah, shéfi, abë thawr and ibn munzir (raímat allah ‘alaihim) there is no difference between a girl and a boy with respect to the rules of handing over property. according to a tradition ahmad ibn ×anbal (raímat allah ‘alaih) is of the view that the property is not given to a girl unless she gets married and has a child or lives in her husband’s house for one year. the same is the opinion of ‘umar (raði allah ‘anhu) and shurayh (raímat allah ‘alaih). ibn qudémah (raímat allah ‘alaih) is of the view that a girl will be given property after puberty and sound judgement. according to hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 139 mélik (raímat allah ‘alaih) property cannot be given to a girl unless she gets married and her marriage is consummated. the reason he gives is that for a virgin the father has a right to marry her off so in the eyes of the law a virgin is like a minor.88 as far as use of the property by a major is concerned according to abë ×anêfah, shéfi‘ê (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) and a tradition from ahmad ibn ×anbal (raímat allah ‘alaih) a woman can use her property in whichever way she likes. mélik (raímat allah ‘alaih) is of the opinion that she can only use one third of her property without consent of her husband. according to a second tradition ahmad ibn ×anbal (raímat allah ‘alaih) agrees with mélik (raímat allah ‘alaih).89 being a woman is not a disqualification to manage property. to disallow a woman to use her own property is against her rights as an owner. this opinion is open for future research by following the primary sources of said schools of thought. 8. conclusion guardianship of property is a very important concept as it entails rights of a minor related to his property. in islamic law the father is the guardian (walê) of property and a child before the age of seven has no say in these matters. after the age of seven the child has authority to contract beneficial transactions, and transactions that vacillate between profit and loss, after ratification by the walê. with growing maturity, the child gets more say in matters and the guardian’s powers are curbed gradually. complete authority is granted on attaining puberty and rushd (sound judgment). the mother can be a testamentary guardian but cannot be a guardian of property otherwise. this distinction made by the scholars is strange and should be revisited. if conditions required for being a testamentary guardian of property can be fulfilled by a woman and she is considered capable to manage property why is she barred from becoming a natural guardian? this seems a patriarchal interpretation and needs to be revisited. it is recommended that this matter should be deliberated again by the scholars keeping in view the modern social context. a natural guardian and a testamentary guardian have almost the same duties. the only difference is the mode of appointment. if a woman is capable of performing those duties the fact of her being a female should not be important. a woman is considered capable of managing her own 140 guardianship of property in islamic law... property so she should not be disqualified from becoming a natural guardian. with regard to the best interests of the child in classical books this phrase has not been mentioned but it is an underlying consideration. it can be argued that with the passage of time islamic law has transformed itself with regard to the interests of the minor. in classical islamic law it was an under lying consideration but was not a paramount consideration whereas in modern islamic law the best interests of the child is considered a paramount consideration. the basic purpose of all the rules regarding guardianship of property is to protect interests of the minor. situation may vary in each case whatever is demanded by the best interests of the child should be done. notes and references 1. abë muhammad ‘abdullah ibn ahmad ibn muhammad ibn qudémah, al-mughnê wal sharí al-kabêr ‘ala matn al-muqni‘(beirut: dér-al-fikr, 1984), no. 4; abë bakr muhammad b. ahmad b. abë sahl al-sarkhasê, kitéb-al-mabsët (beirut: dér-ul-kutb al-‘ilmêyah, 2001), no. 24. ibn abë al-walêd muhammad b. ahmad b. muhammad b. ahmad ibn rushd, bidéyat-al-mujtahid wa nihéyat-al-muqtaîid (beirut: dér hazm), 1995, no. 4; fakhruddên hasan bin mansër al-uzjandê alfarghénê, fatéwa-i-kézee khén, trans. moulvi mahomed yusoof khân bahâdur and moulvi wilâyat hussain (new delhi: kitéb bhavan, 1986), no. 1; 2. fazlur rahman, “a survey of modernization of muslim family law,“ international journal of middle east studies 11, no. 4 (1980): 462; tanzil-ur-rahman, a code of muslim personal law, (karachi: hamdard academy, 1978), no. 1, 744-745; paras diwan, law of parental control, guardianship and custody of minor children, (lucknow: eastern book company, 1973), 57, 431-432. 3. ‘alê b. muhammad b. ‘alê al-sayyad al-zain abë al-hasan al-hussainê aljurjénê, tarifé, (beirut: ólam-al-kutb, 1987), 310; jamal. j. nasir, the islamic law of personal statu, (london: graham and tortman ltd, 1990), 205. 4. sélih jum‘a hasan al-jubërê, al-wiléyah alé nafs fê shar’êah al-islémêyah wa al-qénën (baghdad: mu,assisah al-risâlah, 1986), 32-34; wahbah al-zuhailê, fiqh-al-islamê wa adillatuh (damuscua: dér-al-fikr, 2004), no. 10, 7296, 7327. 5. david pearl and werner menski, muslim family law (london: sweet and maxwell, 1998), 426. 6. the holy qur’én (4:2, 5, 6). the english translation of the holy qur’én used for this work is by abdullah yousaf ‘alê, the holy qur’én (beltsville: amana publications, 1997). 7. the holy qur’én (17:34). 8. ibid. (2:220). hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 141 9. shaikh ‘alê al-khatêb, fiqh-al-tifl (beirut: mo’assasah al-a‘réf lil-matbu‘ét, 2002), 451; muhammad mustafé shalabê, ahkém-al-usrah fê al-islém (beirut: dér-al-nahdah al-arabêyah, 1973), 769. 10. pearl and menski, muslim family law, 426. 11. ibid., 411. 12. the holy qur’én (31:15). 13. m. siraj sait, ‘islamic perspective on the rights of the child’ in revisiting children’s rights: 10 years of the un convention on the rights of the child, ed. deirdre fottrell (the hague; boston: kluwer law international, 2000), 43; robert roberts, the social laws of the qur’én (london: williams and norgate ltd, 1925), 46-48. 14. hereinafter the crc. 15. shaheen sardar ali and m. nadeem azam, trends of the superior courts of pakistan in guardianship and custody cases (1947-92), a handbook on family law in pakistan, ed. cassandra balchin, (lahore: shirkatgah, 1994), 149; asaf a. a. fyzee, outlines of muhammadan law, (london, new york, bombay: oxford university press, 1955), 173. 16. ziba mir-hosseini, marriage on trial: a study of islamic family law (london, new york: i. b. taurus, 2000), 146. 17. abdul karim zaidan, al-wajêz fi usël ul fiqh (lahore: maktabah rehmaniyah), 92-95; wahba al-zuhailê, al-wasêt fê usël-al-fiqh al-islémê (beirut: dér-al-fikr, 1969), 170-173. 18. nasir, the islamic law of personal status, 205. 19. walê al-dên muhammad b. ‘abdullah al-khatêb, mishkét-al-masébêh (damascus: manshërét al-maktab al-islémê, 1961), ed. muhammad nésir al-dên al-bânî, no. 2, 169; muhammad yësuf mësé, al-nasab waathéruhu (cairo: ma‘had adirasét al-‘arabêyah al-‘ólêyah, 1958), 93-94. 20. sélih jum‘a hasan al-jubërê, al-wiléyah alé nafs fê sharê‘ah al-islémêyah wa alqénën (baghdad: mu,assisah al-risélah, 1986), 34. 21. tanzil-al-rahman, a code of muslim personal law (karachi: islamic publishers, 1978), no. 1, 702-703; zuhailê, al-fiqh-al-islamê, no. 10, 7256; nasir, islamic law of personal status, 156; john l. esposito, women in muslim family law (syracuse university press, 1982), 38. 22. yësuf qésim, haqëq-al-usrah fil fikh-al-islémê (cairo: dār-al-nahdah al‘arabêyah, 1987), 429; david pearl, 1987, 98; mësé, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 93; al-jubërê, al-wiléyah ‘alé nafs, 35; zuhailê, fiqh-al-islamê, no. 10, 7331; shaibānê, ahkām-al-usrah, 783-784; muhammad jawwād mughnêyah, al-fiqh ‘alā almadhāhib al khamsah: al-ja‘farê, al-hanafê, al-mélikê, al-shéf‘ê, al-hanbalê (beirut: dér-al-‘ilm lil malayên, 1977), ed. 5th, 639. 23. al-khatīb, fiqh-al-tifl, 461. 24. ibid. 25. zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7331; al-khatīb, fiqh-al-tifl, 463; mūsā, alnasab wa athāruhu, 92-93; al-jubūrī, al-wilāyah ‘alā nafs, 3536; mughnīyah, al-fiqh ‘alā al-madhāhib al-khamsah, 639. 26. the holy qur’én (8:75). 27. al-khatīb, fiqh-al-tifl, 455. 142 guardianship of property in islamic law... 28. shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 804-805. 29. syed ameer ali, muhammadan law, edition: 4th, (calcutta: thacker, spink and co., 1917), no. 2, 612-613. 30. shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 806. 31. zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7337. 32. ibid. 33. ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 609-610. 34. fyzee, outlines of muhammadan law, 175; zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7337. 35. mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 100-101. 36. zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7333, 7337; al-khatīb, fiqh-al-tifl, 453; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 787; mughnīyah, al-fiqh ‘alā al-madhāhib al-khamsah, 641642. 37. zakī-al-dīn sh‘abān, al-ahkām al-shar‘īyah lil ahwāl al-shakhsīyah (cairo: dār al-nahdah al-‘arabīyah, 1969), 681; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 788. 38. the holy qur’én (4:141). 39. al-khatīb, fiqh-al-tifl, 454. 40. ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 611. 41. zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7337; diwan, law of parental control, 428; mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 100-103. 42. shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 801. 43. ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 609-611; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 789. 44. fakhruddīn hasan bin mansūr al-uzjandī al-farghānī, fatāwa-i-kāzee khān, trans. moulvi mahomed yusoof khān bahādur and moulvi wilāyat hussain (new delhi: kitāb bhavan, 1986), no. 1, 327. 45. ibid, no. 1, 99. 46. ibn abī al-walīd muhammad b. ahmad b. muhammad b. ahmad ibn rushd, bidāyat-al-mujtahid wa nihāyat-al-muqtasid (beirut: dār hazm, 1995), no. 4, 1448-1449; al-jubūrī, al-wilāyah ‘alā nafs, 17-18, 35. 47. ibid. 48. ibn rushd, bidāyat-al-mujtahid, no. 4, 1448-1449; muhammad b. ahmad ibn juzayy, al-qawānīn al-fiqhīyah, 274; mahdi zahraa, “the legal capacity of women in islamic law,” arab law quarterly 11, no. 3 (1996): 249; zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7333; shaikh muhammad al-khudrī, usūl-al-fiqh (beirut: dār ahyā, al-turāth al-‘arabī, 1969), 93; shaikh hasan khalid and adnan naja, ahkām-al-ahwāl al-shakhsīyah fi shar‘īah al-islāmīyah (beirut: dār-al-fikr, 1964), 757; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 189. 49. zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7334; muhammad ibn ahmad ibn juzayy, alqawānīn al-fiqhīyah (details of publication are not available), 274. 50. shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 790-793; mughnīyah, al-fiqh ‘alā al-madhāhib alkhamsah, 644; zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7334. 51. abī abdullah muhammad b. yazīd al-qazwīnī ibn mājah, sunan ibn mājah in al-kutb al-sittah: sahīh al-bukhārī, sahīh muslim, sunan abī dā‘ūd, jāmi ‘tirmidhī, sunan al-nisā‘ī, sunan ibn mājah, ed. sālih b. ‘abd-al-azīz b. muhammad ibn ibrāhīm (ryadh: dār-al-salām, 1999), 2614. 52. zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7334; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 790-793; mughnīyah, al-fiqh ‘alā al-madhāhib al-khamsah, 644. 53. nasir, the islamic law of personal status, 214; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 798799. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 143 54. abī zakariyā yahyā ibn sharaf al-nawawī, rowdhah-al-tālibīn (beirut: dār-alkutb ‘ilmīyah, 2000), no. 3, 424; zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7336-740; mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 100-103; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 807-809; ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 616. 55. zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7336-740; mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 100103; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 807-809; ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 616. 56. ibid. 57. diwan, law of parental control, 429-431; ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 614615. 58. al-sarakhsī, 2001, no. 24, 189. 59. abī bakr ahmad b. ‘alī al-rāzī al-jassās, ahkām-al-qur’ān (matba‘ah alauqāf al-islāmīyah, 1335ah), no. 2, 49; diwan, law of parental control, 429431; ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 614-615. 60. zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7336-740; mūsā, 1958, 100-103; shalabī, ahkāmal-usrah, 807-809; ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 616. 61. mughnīyah, al-fiqh ‘alā al-madhāhib al-khamsah, 642; diwan, law of parental control, 436-437. 62. ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 611. 63. mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 105-107; zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 73427343; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 803, 809. 64. diwan, law of parental control, 533-534. 65. ali, muhammadan law, no. 2, 611-612. 66. diwan, law of parental control, 57, 431-432. 67. mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 83, 87-88. 68. ibn rushd, bidāyat-al-mujtahid, no. 4, 1445; abī muhammad ‘abdullah ibn ahmad ibn muhammad ibn qudāmah, al-mughnī wal sharh al-kabīr ‘ala matn al-muqni‘ (beirut: dār-al-fikr, 1984), no. 4, 550; al-zail‘ī 2000, no. 2, 251; abī bakr muhammad b. ahmad b. abī sahl al-sarkhasī, kitāb-al-mabsūt (beirut: dār-ul-kutb al-‘ilmīyah, 2001), no. 24, 178; ibn juzayy, 274; nasir, the islamic law of personal status, 193; al-khatīb, fiqh-al-tifl, 423-425. 69. the holy qur’én (4:5). 70. mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 65-67; al-jubūrī, al-wilāyah ‘alā nafs, 17-18, 35; mughnīyah, al-fiqh ‘alā al-madhāhib al-khamsah, 631-632, ibn qudāmah, almughnī, no. 6, 297-298. 71. ibn rushd, bidāyat-al-mujtahid, no. 4, 1446. also see 143 ‘ulūm, al-hajr wa ahkāmuhu fī al-shar‘īah al-islāmīyah: bahth fiqhī muqāran ‘alā daw almadhab al-khamsah (beirut: dār-al-zahra lil tibā‘ah wa al-nashr wa altawzī‘, 1980), 84-86. 72. ibn qudāmah, al-mughnī, no. 4, 552-553. 73. mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 109. 74. al-sarakhsī, 2001, no. 24, 185, 203; ibn qudāmah, al-mughnī, no. 4, 568-569; ibn rushd, bidāyat-al-mujtahid, no. 4, 1443-1444; mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 94; zuhailī, fiqh-al-islamī, no. 10, 7331; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 785. 75. mughnīyah, al-fiqh ‘alā al-madhāhib al-khamsah, 630-631; ibn juzayy, 278279; abdul basīr b. muhamad, “vicarious liability, a study of the liability of the 144 guardianship of property in islamic law... guardian and his ward in the islamic law of tort,” arab law quarterly 17, no. 1, (2002): 43-44, 46-47. 76. the holy qur’ān (4:6). 77. al-jassās, ahkām-al-qur’ān, no. 2, 64, 66-68. 78. nawawī, rowdhah-al-tālibīn, no. 3, 424-425. 79. mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 107-108; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 814. 80. mūsā, al-nasab wa athāruhu, 109. 81. ibn qudāmah, al-mughnī, no. 4, 554; shalabī, ahkām-al-usrah, 781. 82. nawawī, 2000, no. 3, 413-414; ibn qudāmah, al-mughnī, no. 4, 566-567; ibn rushd, bidāyat-al-mujtahid, no. 4, 1447; al-jubūrī, al-wilāyah ‘alā nafs, 365. 83. ibn qudāmah, al-mughnī, no. 4, 566-567; ibn rushd, bidāyat-al-mujtahid, no. 4, 1447; al-jubūrī, al-wilāyah ‘alā nafs, 365. 84. ibid. 85. al-jassās, ahkām-al-qur’ān, no. 2, 49; al-sarakhsī, 2001, no. 24, 183; alkhatīb, fiqh-al-tifl, 465-467. 86. the holy qur’én (6:152). 87. (al-zail‘ī, 2000), no. 2, 260-261; (al-sarakhsī, 2001), no. 24, 183. 88. ibn qudāmah, al-mughnī, no. 4, 560-561; ibn rushd, bidāyat-al-mujtahid, 14451446. 89. ibn qudāmah, al-mughnī, no. 4, 602. hamdard islamicus 31 vol. xl, no. 1 an analysis of the expansion of the mosque of the prophet (œ) by caliph ‘umar b. al-khaùùób (a.s.) (d. 24 a.h./744 c.e.) dr. spahic omer associate professor, kulliyyah of islamic revealed knowledge and human sciences, international islamic university malaysia, malaysia. e-mail: spahic omer [spahico@yahoo.com] this paper discusses the expansion of the mosque of the prophet (œ) in madinah by caliph ‘umar b. al-khaïïéb (a.s.). the paper concludes that the undertaking was in full consonance both with the spiritual benchmarks of the islamic message and the emerging socio-cultural traditions and norms of the nascent muslim community. so significant was the expansion and at such a critical juncture in the muslim history, that it set some high standards for the future development and nurturing of the spiritual as well as human dimensions in the sphere of muslim architecture. the main discussion of the paper focuses on three vital dimensions of the mosque expansion which proved significant for the early development of the authentic identity of muslim architecture: the role of consultation and mutual agreements, which is tantamount to what is today called public participation in architecture; the significance and impact of the dynamic process of institutionalization of the mosque of the prophet (œ) myriad religious, educational, social, cultural and political activities; and the austere, yet judicious, views of ‘umar b. al-khaïïéb (a.s.) on architecture which, by and large, reverberated the core of the islamic attitude towards the prospect of erecting buildings. the three dimensions are dealt with after the main physical features of the mosque’s expansion have been expounded. the paper also shows that so interwoven were the evolution of muslim architectural identity and the community development processes in islam, that successfully investigating the former without systematically referring to the latter can never be complete. thus, the orb of muslim architecture, both as a concept and sensory reality, should always be seen as a multidimensional, universal, fluid, vibrant, expressive and as much scientific, technological and applied, as spiritual, educational and ethical, phenomenon. keywords: ‘umar b. al-khaïïéb (a.s.), the mosque of the prophet’s (œ); expansion, madinah. hamdard islamicus 32 vol. xl, no. 1 introduction the mosque of the prophet muíammad’s (œ) in madinah is the second most important mosque on earth. it comes second only to al-masjid al-×arém in makkah. as per a tradition (íadêth) of the prophet (œ), performing a prayer in it is more valuable than doing so a thousand times elsewhere in ordinary mosques (al-bukhérê, 1981, ×adêth no. 282). the mosque was planned and built under the supervision and participation of the prophet (œ) himself as soon as he and his companions (îaíébah [ ]) performed the hijrah (migration) from makkah to madinah in 622 c.e.* at first, the mosque was just an enclosure. its walls, made of mud brick and raised over stone foundations, enclosed a roofless and unpaved area of approximately 1,200 square meters. there was no roofed section. three entrances pierced the southern, eastern and western walls. the northern side was the qiblah (prayer direction) wall facing al-masjid al-aqîé in jerusalem (al-quds). after 16 or 17 months following the hijrah, the qiblah was redirected from al-masjid al-aqîé to al-masjid al-×arém and so, the simple form of the mosque of the prophet (œ) responded accordingly: the entrance in the southern wall was bricked up since it started to function at once as a new qiblah side, while a new entrance was perforated in the northern wall which, heretofore had functioned as the qiblah side (creswell, 1989, p. 4; hillenbrand, 1994, p. 39). the mosque of the prophet (œ) was extremely simple because its initial functions were correspondingly simple. however, as the functions of the mosque – which since its inception were meant to operate as a community development centre, setting a precedent for all future mosques – were multiplying as well as intensifying, so did the form of the mosque respond in the like manner. in the end, at the time of the prophet’s passing away, the mosque of the prophet (œ) had become a –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *a basic and very important aspect of building mosques was that for its construction the earmarked land was purchased, although it was offered on voluntary basis. purchase of land for the mosque of the prophet (œ) decided for all times to come that all the mosques have to be built on grounds legally earmarked by a sale deed. it means that a mosque cannot be built on illegally acquired land. the same principles were applied to the building of graves – ed. hamdard islamicus 33 vol. xl, no. 1 dynamic multifunctional community centre with its relatively complex form, a far cry from what it was ten years earlier. such was expected, though, on account of a fundamental architectural rule that the form of a building follows and corresponds to its function, enfolding, facilitating and promoting it. the mosque of the prophet (œ) performed numerous religious and social roles and functions. the mosque, thus was a centre for religious activities, a learning centre, the seat of the prophet’s government, a welfare and charity centre, a detention and rehabilitation centre, a place for medical treatment and nursing, a place for some leisure activities (omer, 2013, p. 68). the following is a standard description of the form of the mosque of the prophet (œ) at the time of the prophet’s demise as given by most scholars: “in the construction method a stone foundation was laid to a depth of three cubits (about 1.50 meters). on top of that adobe, walls 75 cm. wide were built. the mosque was shaded by erecting palm trunks and wooden cross beams covered with palm leaves and stalks. on the qiblah direction, there were three porticoes, each portico had six pillars (palm trunks). on the rear part of the mosque, there was a shade (øuffah), where the homeless muhéjirên (migrants) took shelter. the height of the roof of the mosque was equal to the height of a man (with his hands raised)” (hamid, 1996, p. 226; al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 481; al-bukhérê, 1981, ×adêth no. 436; abë déwëd, 1997, ×adêth no. 451). about three years before his death, i.e., in the 7th year of the hijrah (629 c.e.), the prophet (œ), while duly answering the needs created by the rapid increase of worshippers as well as the rapid expansion of madinah as a prototype muslim city-state, significantly enlarged the mosque, making its measure approximately 2,500 square meters (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. 1, p. 338). when the prophet (œ) passed away in 10 a.h./631 c.e., the first muslim caliph, abë bakr (a.s.) (d. 13 a.h./634 c.e.), neither altered nor enlarged the mosque of the prophet (œ). however, when abë bakr (a.s.) was succeeded by ‘umar b. al-khaïïéb (a.s.) as the second caliph, the first expansion of the mosque came to pass. this paper critically analyses the undertaking of the first expansion, placing it within the context of the evolution of the identity of both muslim architecture and muslim civilization. after a presentation of the main physical features hamdard islamicus 34 vol. xl, no. 1 of the mosque expansion, the discussion of the salient points will proceed as three-pronged concentrating on (1) the role of consultation and mutual agreements in the expansion; (2) the expansion as a precursor of the institutionalization of the prophet’s mosque’s (œ) various activities; and (3) the expansion as an epitome of ‘umar’s (a.s.) austere views of architecture. (an imaginary initial simple form of the mosque of prophet muíammad (œ). courtesy of the hadarah tayyibah exhibition held in madinah in 2010-2012). the main physical features of the expansion the expansion of the mosque of the prophet (œ) by caliph ‘umar (a.s.) took place in 17 ah/638 ce. it was regarded as an outstandingly consequential event in the history of muslim architecture and civilization. it was a continuation of the prophet’s high community building standards. thus, some of the most authoritative anthologies of the prophet’s traditions (íadêth or sunnah), such as saíêí al-bukhérê and sunan abë déwëd, recorded it. that the details of ‘umar’s (a.s.) expansion were presented in the same accounts as featured the way the hamdard islamicus 35 vol. xl, no. 1 (an imaginary form of the mosque of prophet muíammad (œ) after caliph ‘umar b. al-khaïïéb’s expansion. courtesy of the hadarah tayyibah exhibition held in madinah in 2010-2012) prophet (œ) built and maintained the mosque – as well as with the details of the expansion of ‘uthmén b. ‘affén (a.s.) (d. 36 a.h./656 c.e.), the third muslim caliph, who succeeded ‘umar (a.s.) – testifies that what ‘umar (a.s.) did was utterly in accordance with the divinely established civilization development paradigms. moreover, that the account in question was recorded in the section, or book (kitéb), of prayer (îaléh) by al-bukhérê (d. 256 a.h./870 c.e.), and in the section, or book, of prayer (îaléh) by abë déwëd (d. 276 a.h./889 c.e.) as well, but in a chapter of “the reward of building mosques” demonstrates how important the subject matter was, especially in the beginning when a recognizable muslim architectural identity was yet to be established, and how much spiritual as well as civilizational meaning and substance it contained. by and large, ‘umar (a.s.) expanded the area of the mosque in the directions of the south, the west, as well as the north, with foundations of stone about 1.8 meters in depth. the total area measured about 70 meters from south to north and about 60 meters from east to west, that is, more or less 4,200 square meters (al-qu’aiti, 2007, p. 56). hamdard islamicus 36 vol. xl, no. 1 ‘umar (a.s.) could not expand the mosque in the direction of the east because most of the prophet’s houses, including the house of ‘ó’ishah ( ) (d. 59 a.h./678 c.e.), the prophet’s wife, that contained the graves of the prophet (œ) and the first caliph, abë bakr (a.s.) also and adjoined the mosque. expanding the area of the mosque towards the east would have entailed demolishing those houses and integrating the two graves into the mosque proper, which was then – and remained so for quite some time – an inconceivable proposition. such a sensitive mission was embarked on during a revolutionary and fairly justifiable mosque expansion by the umayyad caliph al-walêd b. ‘abd al-malik (d. 97 a.h./715 c.e.) in 88-91 a.h./707-710 c.e. even then, however, when the prophet’s houses deteriorated significantly in terms of their ephemeral forms, and when they lost somewhat their original significance and appeal, the matter proved exceedingly difficult to rationalize and defend. the new walls were of mud brick and about 5.3 meters in height. again, palm trunks, which in height were equivalent to the walls, were used for pillars, and palm fronds were used to cover the ceiling (al-bukhérê, 1981, ×adêth no. 436; abë déwëd, 1997, ×adêth no. 451). as seen earlier, during the prophet’s era, the height of the mosque’s walls and ceiling was equal to the height of a man with his hands raised. ‘umar’s (a.s.) alteration of the height, it goes without saying, was a remarkable environmental feature that facilitated the lighting, air circulation and aeration of the space. human individual and collective scale in the architecture of the mosque was also enhanced thereby, in view of the verity that people interact with their environments based on their physical dimensions, potentials and limitations. considering the new size of the mosque, as well as the enormous quantity of its visitors and worshippers, and the ever-increasing intensity of its roles and functions, the mosque was thus properly scaled to the community’s individual and collective capacities, exigencies and needs. according to some bizarre reports, the pillars of the mosque used to support the ceiling were made of mud bricks rather than palm trunks. however, such reports, as emphasized by al-samahudi (1997, vol. ii, p. 481), are unreliable and weak, and given that they contradict the authentic and mainstream sources, they are to be repudiated. the authors of such reports must have mistaken the building material of the walls for hamdard islamicus 37 vol. xl, no. 1 that of the pillars. furthermore, it was never reported that the pillars – or even a single pillar – of the mosque of the prophet (œ) were ever built of mud brick. they consistently were either of palm trunks, as was the case in relation to the construction activities of the prophet (œ) and those of the first two caliphs (although it is said that abë bakr (a.s.), the first caliph, did not enlarge the mosque, he nevertheless is said to have replaced its old and decaying palm trunk pillars with new ones or by stone ones, as was the case commencing with the expansion of ‘uthmén (a.s.), the third caliph. ‘umar (a.s.) also added three new doors to bring their number to six. each side – except the qiblah wall – had two doors. the floor was covered with matting of inter-woven palm fronds after it had been graded and covered with soft pebbles where necessary. at the time of the prophet (œ), the ground, at first, was both unpaved and uncovered. later, some parts were strewn with pebbles, and some mats of palm fronds were introduced as well. in addition, although its introduction dates back to the prophet’s era, the use of incense to perfume the atmosphere in the mosque on fridays and during the holy month of ramaìén, was sustained, yet institutionalized (al-qu’aiti, 2007, p. 56). ‘umar (a.s.) was the first to provide lights for the mosque of the prophet (œ) (mas‘ëd-ul-×asan, 1982, p. 128). the expansion based on consultation and mutual agreements the way islam looks at the enterprise of building is very delicate. while it regards it as indispensible for living and so, permissible – yet, at times, even highly praiseworthy – erecting buildings for whatever vain and harmful purposes, at the same time, is sternly rejected and condemned. like in most worldly matters, a middle moderate path is to be always pursued. indeed, how the prophet (œ) approached and treated the phenomenon of building while developing the city of madinah, including his mosque in particular, is the best illustration of the islamic attitude concerning the notion of erecting buildings. such accounted for a significant segment of his life pattern (sunnah). that’s why when ‘umar (a.s.) decided to embark on the assignment of enlarging the mosque of the hamdard islamicus 38 vol. xl, no. 1 prophet (œ) and altering its existing configuration, he knew all too well that the task needed to be in full conformity both with the spiritual benchmarks of the islamic message and the emerging socio-cultural traditions and norms of the nascent muslim community. (the mosque of the prophet [œ] seen today from the qiblah side) hence, from the outset, ‘umar (a.s.) maintained that his scheme in fact was neither of his, nor of people’s own accord, so to speak. rather, it was an extension of the prophet’s planning and development policies and undertakings. he used to say that if he had not heard the prophet (œ) saying that the mosque needed to be enlarged further, so as to accommodate the growing needs of the community, he would not have done anything to it (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 482). the prophet (œ) is reported to have uttered those words before his passing away, so any further mosque extension activities by him were overtaken by his demise. thus, ‘umar (a.s.) felt obliged to do what he did, ensuring legitimacy for his actions in the process. hamdard islamicus 39 vol. xl, no. 1 accordingly, in his capacity as the caliph, ‘umar (a.s.) saw himself as an executor of the prophet’s will. his job was a trust from god and was for the good of islam and the community. hence, making sure that people’s overall interests were preserved, and their proper life engagements encouraged and facilitated, had to be prioritized at all times. one of the most excellent strategies for successfully dealing with the pressing challenges was to engage the community in the projects of common interests, consulting them, seeking their feedback and arriving at mutual agreements and, if necessary, compromises. one of such projects was the expansion of the mosque of the prophet (œ) (badr, 1993, vol. i, p. 274; masudul-hasan, 1982, p. 128). according to some reports, it was a group of the people of madinah who, having been fully conscious of their participative rights and responsibilities which had been nurtured in them since the commencement of the islamic civilization agenda in madinah, approached ‘umar (a.s.) and suggested the obvious, namely, that the mosque be expanded (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 489) because its existing size and facilities were inadequate for the swelling needs and requirements of the rapidly increasing population of madinah, plus the needs of the incessant visitors to it as a place of pilgrimage. those who approached ‘umar (a.s.) for the purpose and thus expedited his historic decision might have been either individuals or groups as per different narrations. but it seems that the proposal which helped ‘umar (a.s.) make up his mind represented a pervasive madinah sentiment shared by many, which, nevertheless, was expressed candidly and most emphatically to ‘umar (a.s.) only by a few. at any rate, ‘umar (a.s.) proceeded with the expansion, having established a necessary legitimacy for it. one of the most challenging concerns was how to do away with the houses that stood in the way of the projected expansion, and, more acutely, how to compensate their owners in just and agreeable manners for the incurred losses. ‘umar (a.s.) is reported to have come up with four options, asking the house owners to choose any of them: to sell their houses for agreed-upon prices which were to be paid from state treasury (bayt al-mél); to allot agreed-upon empty lands for them anywhere in the city of madinah where new houses could be built from state treasury; to donate (the demolition of) their houses as charity (îadaqah) to muslims and their expansion project; hamdard islamicus 40 vol. xl, no. 1 to gift (the demolition of) their houses to muslims (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 483, 488). all the house owners ultimately consented, availing themselves of the four offered alternatives, except the prophet’s uncle, al-‘abbés b. ‘abd al-muïïallib (a.s.) (d. 33 a.h./653 c.e.), who adamantly refused to give up his house (masud-ul-hasan, 1982, p. 128; al-ya‘qëbi, 2002, vol. ii, p. 102). he refused to accept any of the presented options mainly because of some sentimental value that the house had for him. while arguing with ‘umar (a.s.) about the matter, al-‘abbés (a.s.) related that the house location was apportioned to him by nobody else but the prophet (œ) himself. the prophet (œ) even participated in constructing some sections of the house.“the house water-spout that pours inside the mosque had been installed by the prophet’s hand”, was one of the revelations of al-‘abbés (a.s.) (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, pp. 483, 489). ‘umar (a.s.) was fully aware that there was not much place for sentimental values and personal feelings when it comes to such collective civilizational undertakings of gigantic proportions as the mosque expansion in question, but he could not do much about the persistence of al-‘abbés (a.s.). he could neither force him to give up his house, nor was he in a position to seize it from him by force, in that mosques cannot be established on the premises of usurpation, unfairness and injury. hence, ‘umar (a.s.) had to elevate his consultation and reconciliatory exploits to another level. he thus appointed a renowned companion of the prophet (œ), ubayy b. ka‘b (a.s.) (d. 29 a.h./649 c.e.), to mediate between him (the government) and al-‘abbés (a.s.). ubayy b. ka‘b’s (a.s.) reasoning was that the act of expanding and rebuilding the mosque cannot even in the slightest be associated with any form of malevolence and wrong. and since al-‘abbés (a.s.) declined to relinquish the house, ‘umar (a.s.) had no right to take it from him by force. in view of that, ubayy b. ka‘b (a.s.) decided the case in favour of al-‘abbés (a.s.). in other words, he decided in favour of individual rights at the expense of the rights of the government. if truth be told, however, the incident was never a matter of individual versus governmental rights. it was only an opportunity to demonstrate the fundamental truth that governments exist because of, and for, people. they exist only in order to serve people’s best interests. the rights of people are essentially the responsibilities of governments, whereas the hamdard islamicus 41 vol. xl, no. 1 rights of governments are not necessarily the responsibilities of people. people signify governments’ strength, quintessence and the only source of legitimacy and power. thus, the quality and strength of governments depend on the quality and strength of the relationship between them and their people, and their longevity is conditioned by the longevity of such relationship. on hearing the judgment, ‘umar (a.s.) was unhappy, but was prepared to live and cope with it. on the other hand, however, al-‘abbés (a.s.) was so struck by the readiness of ‘umar (a.s.) to go to great lengths to implement the expansion project, as well as by his penchant for serving the interests of islamic egalitarianism and justice, that he forsook his accorded right as soon as it was pronounced. he remarked to ubayy b. ka‘b (a.s.), the appointed mediator by the government: “because you decided in my favour, i dedicate it (the house) as charity (îadaqah) to muslims” (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, pp. 483, 490; badr, 1993, vol. i, p. 276). it was only then that ‘umar (a.s.) and his government were able to proceed with the expansion, making a subtly struck balance between personal and communal interests and aims its strongest foundation. a precursor of the institutionalization of the mosque’s diverse activities having rebuilt and enlarged the mosque of the prophet (œ), ‘umar (a.s.) went on to enhance the code of ethics for its usage. one of the most arresting – to some even contentious – issues was his prohibition of reciting poetry inside the mosque. instead, he allocated an area that adjoined the mosque on its eastern side called al-buïayía’ for the purpose. not only for reciting poetry, but also for all other worldly, often idle, yet vain, discussions and arguments accompanied by noise, shouting, quarrelling and laughing, was the area designated. it seems that the area, or the quarter, contained some basic architectural elements so as to facilitate the intended purposes, for in some accounts the following words have been used “…‘umar b. al-khaïïéb bané fi nahiyah al-masjid rahbah tudda’a al-buïayía’…” which means “…that ‘umar b. al-khaïïéb (a.s.) built at a side of the mosque a place called al-butayha’ …” (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 498). hamdard islamicus 42 vol. xl, no. 1 on that score, ‘umar (a.s.) was the first who inspected the mosque after the nightfall (‘ishé’) prayer, making sure that no one unnecessarily stayed behind overnight and used the mosque for potentially unfitting goals. children were not spared either (al-øébënê, 1981, vol. ii, p. 608). he used to admonish the offenders of the code of ethics using terms like, for example, “do you know where you are?”, or “why are you raising your voice(s) in the mosque of allah’s messenger (œ)?”, or “in this mosque of ours, voices are not to be raised.”, or “mosques are built for remembering god, so, if you want to discuss your trade and some sheer matters of this world, then get out from them.” (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 498-499; al-øébënê, 1981, vol. ii, p. 608). on one occasion, ‘umar (a.s.) passed by a companion of the prophet (œ), ×assén b. thébit (a.s.) (d. 55 a.h./674 c.e.), while he was reciting poetry in the mosque, giving him a disapproving look. at that, ×assén (a.s.) said to ‘umar (a.s.) that he was reciting poetry in the mosque when there was someone better than him, i.e., the prophet (œ), in charge. then, he turned to another companion of the prophet (œ), abë hurayrah (a.s.) (d. 62 a.h./681 c.e.), and said: “did you not hear the messenger of allah (œ) when he said: ‘answer back on my behalf. o allah, help him with the holy spirit!” abë hurayrah replied: “yes, by allah” (al-nasé’i, 2007, ×adêth no. 716). not only that. the prophet (œ) once even set up a pulpit (minbar) for ×assén b. thébit (a.s.) in the mosque to defend him and his mission, and to lampoon or compose satirical poetry defaming the infidels and their agendas against the prophet (œ) and his islamic message (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 500). according to a report, once a man started abusing ×assén b. thébit (a.s.) in front of ‘ó’ishah ( ), the wife of the prophet (œ), whereupon she said: “do not abuse him, for he used to defend the prophet (œ) (with his poetry)” (al-bukhérê, 1981, ×adêth no. 3531). some people take this to mean that ‘umar (a.s.) was excessively harsh and was against poetry in particular. however, such was not the case in any way. ‘umar (a.s.) was neither exceedingly harsh, nor was he against poetry. he just lived ahead of his time, so his debatable, yet to some extent controversial, decisions need be properly contextualized. during the era of the prophet (œ), the mosque was a multipurpose and multidimensional community development center with a myriad of hamdard islamicus 43 vol. xl, no. 1 religious, educational, social, political and cultural activities being conducted under its roof. however, as time went by and the evolution of islamic society and culture intensified, those diversified activities started to institutionalize, both spontaneously and by design, in order to cater better for the growing needs of the muslim civilizational progress. as independent institutions, they were then sought to clearly define and mark out for themselves their conceptual, methodological and operational parameters and scopes. soon, that also necessitated their gradual physical, but never ideological, separation from the mosque as the “mother” institution, as well as from each other. the whole process could be dubbed as a process of ideologically harmonious institutionalization of the mosque’s activities, which hit unprecedented heights during the caliphate of ‘umar (a.s.) after the persian and byzantine empires had been brought to their knees and the islamic state expanded dramatically. when ‘umar (a.s.) expanded considerably the mosque of the prophet (œ) in madinah as the capital and nerve center of the islamic state, and when he established al-buïayía’ for reciting poetry, conducting other worldly discussions and for settling minor disputes in it, as part of his boosting of the code of conduct for using the mosque, ‘umar (a.s.) was consciously laying down a precursor to the impending full-fledged institutionalization whereby the mosque’s multiple activities were given the character of distinct institutions. the institutionalization process in question applied to various segments of the dynamic spiritual, socio-political, administrative and human development. hence, it is often asserted that the reign of the caliph ‘umar (a.s.) was a reign of institutions and institutional innovations and growth. indeed, ensuring the adequate status and function of mosques in relation to the newly emerging institutions featured most prominently in the hierarchy of ‘umar’s leadership and administrative priorities. while each and every new institution was to be accorded its due status and jurisdiction, the status and authority of the “mother” of all institutions, the mosque, where every other institution originated and to which they all eventually “returned” for the validation and endorsement of their programmes and achievements, could by no means be compromised, or undermined, even in the slightest. that is why, in addition, under the umbrella of mosques – rather than physically away from them – hamdard islamicus 44 vol. xl, no. 1 ‘umar (a.s.) established hundreds of schools throughout the country. highly qualified persons were appointed to teach and liberal salaries were allocated to them. as further examples, ‘umar also established and organized bayt al-mél or state treasury, courts of justice, war department, land revenue department, jails, police department, dêwéns and other buildings for administrative purposes (mas‘ud-ul-×asan, 1982, p. 513). at the same time, however, ‘umar (a.s.) paid special attention to the planning, building and functioning of mosques, on top of which was the mosque of the prophet (œ). that was so because the vitality and authenticity of the rising independent and specialized institutions hinged largely on the vitality and authenticity of mosques with collective vision and purpose. accordingly, he is said to have built about four thousand mosques. they were generally simple and unassuming buildings made of bricks and mud mortar. ‘umar’s (a.s.) main governors: abë mësé al-ash‘arê (a.s.) (d. 42 or 52 a.h./662 or 672 c.e.) in basrah, sa‘d b. abê waqqés (a.s.) (d. 55 a.h./674 c.e.) in kufah, and ‘amr b. al-‘óî (a.s.) (d. 44 a.h./664 c.e.) in egypt, played major roles in building most mosques as they lived in newly conquered territories and in newly built muslim cities. many of those mosques are still named after ‘umar (a.s.). ‘umar (a.s.),furthermore, was the first to provide salaries to iméms (prayer and other religious ceremonies leaders) and mu’adhdhins (those who call for prayers and together with iméms often look after mosques) due to the growing complexities and responsibilities entailed in their tasks (mas‘ud-ul-×asan, 1982, p. 127, 514; husain, 1977, p. 228). the expansion as an epitome of ‘umar’s austere views on architecture in terms of architecture, as a style and method of designing and erecting buildings, the mosque of the prophet (œ), following ‘umar’s expansion, was at once simple and impressive. it was simple insofar as its outward appearance was concerned, but with regard to its metaphysical meaning, significance and purpose, there was more to it than meets the eye. although the mosque was slightly modified from its original look and was considerably enlarged, it in essence did not depart from any of the hamdard islamicus 45 vol. xl, no. 1 fundamental notions, perceptions, strategies and methods of the prophet (œ) relating to the realm of architecture. however, such is the orb of architecture that perceiving, planning and designing its forms, spaces and ambiences in order that they reflect the functional, technical, social, environmental and aesthetic considerations of a people, are greatly governed by the exigencies of the time and space factors. thus, since it denotes a physical representation of a worldview, a belief system and life principles and values into the ever-changing parameters of space and time, there is very little especially in the corporeal manifestations of architecture that could be characterized by rigidity, permanence and constancy. that said, if the extensive developments, yet some radical changes, that were sweeping across the vast muslim state during the caliphate of ‘umar, (a.s.) are taken into consideration, it becomes clear that he and his government were in a legitimate position to deviate somewhat from the original form of the mosque, improving it and making it to some extent commensurate with the rest of the happenings in the state. however, he did not do so, firstly because he wanted to follow the prophet’s example to the letter – although he did not have to – and secondly, because of his own austere views on architecture which he was not ready to give up, or amend, notwithstanding the mounting pressure of the changing times and conditions. to ‘umar (a.s.), therefore, architecture was just a means; not an end. that in a sense signified a minimalist tendency where the subjects are reduced to their basic and necessary elements. hence, the mosque of the prophet (œ) in terms of its outward appearance created an impression of extreme simplicity, and its basic building ideas and materials seem to have served multiple visual and functional purposes. if there was no place in it for advanced building styles or materials, there was no place for any decoration blueprint either. ‘umar (a.s.) was explicit about the matter when he said in the course of expanding the mosque of the prophet (œ) that he was intending only to protect the people from the rain and the sun. he then ordered that the mosque be rendered neither red nor yellow (that is, not to be decorated) lest the people should be unnecessarily tried or exposed to temptation thereby (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 496). ‘umar’s (a.s.) general architectural goals revolved around making sure that the form followed and facilitated function, and that he hamdard islamicus 46 vol. xl, no. 1 never built more than what was genuinely needed. he did not want to get involved, wittingly or unwittingly, in some devastating architectural deviations and malpractices, such as extravagance, excessiveness, insincerity, competition and pride, setting thus some bad behavioral patterns to be followed by others. his motto for himself and others was to adhere to the prophet’s life patterns (sunnah) as the only criterion if the people wanted to succeed and thrive (al-ùabarê, 1989, vol. xiii, p. 68). herein, perhaps, lies one of the reasons why ‘umar (a.s.) did not expand the mosque towards the eastern side where most of the houses of the prophet (œ) and his wives stood. the houses exuded the architectural spirit of the original mosque as well, because they were both built and utilized by the prophet (œ). in actual fact, the mosque and the houses made up an enormous complex of the prophet (œ) whose main constituents, in terms of service, function and architectural propensity, finely supported and complemented each other. thus, if ‘umar (a.s.) extended the mosque towards the eastern side and demolished the prophet’s houses in the process, that would have meant an obliteration of one of the richest and most meaningful legacies that the muslim community possessed. the community would also have become bereft of an incredible source of spiritual as well as civilizational inspiration and guidance. ‘umar (a.s.) thus wanted the simple houses, where the best of mankind had lived and duly performed their life missions, to serve as a reminder and benchmark against which other future architectural undertakings could be measured. this could be further corroborated by the fact that some of the prophet’s houses adjoined the mosque of the prophet (œ) from the northern side as well. however, even though ‘umar’s (a.s.) expansion took place in that direction, he still kept them intact. he integrated them into the mosque proper, and the mosque’s endless activities and functions unfolded around them (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 494). in this way, just as intended, the people interacted with the houses and the messages they embodied more than ever before. little wonder, then, that in due course they became an adornment and treasure of madinah dearly cherished not only by its citizens, but also by all muslims who thronged into the city from far and wide. thus, when they were demolished as a result of the umayyad caliph al-walêd’s massive expansion of the hamdard islamicus 47 vol. xl, no. 1 mosque of the prophet (œ) some 71 years later, the city of madinah experienced one of its saddest days in history (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 517). those austere views concerning the enterprise of erecting buildings ‘umar (a.s.) consistently displayed throughout the tenure of his caliphate. for example, when muslims established basra and kufah as garrison cities in 16 a.h./637 c.e., they built houses using reeds as building material. then fire occurred and eighty roof structures were destroyed, not a single stem of reed being spared. consequently, the people sought ‘umar’s permission to use bricks for building as they were better and safer. ‘umar (a.s.) agreed but cautioned: “go ahead, but let nobody build more than three rooms for himself and do not let one build higher houses than the other. if you adhere to what is generally recognized as proper (sunnah), you will thrive” (al-ùabarê, 1989, vol. 13 p. 68). ‘umar (a.s.) is also reported to have prohibited the people from the two affected cities from constructing buildings that were higher than the “norm”. when the people inquired about the meaning of the “norm”, he said: “the ‘norm’ is that which keeps you well away from wastefulness but, at the same time, won’t make you lose sight of what you are aiming at” (al-ùabarê, 1989, vol. xiii, p. 68). also, the first to use a pulpit (minbar) during the friday (jumu‘ah) sermon – which later became one of the most recognizable elements of the language of mosque architecture – was ‘umar’s governor in egypt, ‘amr b. al-‘óî (a.s.), when he built his mosque in egypt. when the news reached ‘umar (a.s.), he wrote to ‘amr (a.s.): “i have heard that you use a pulpit and thus raise yourself above the necks of the muslims. is it not sufficient for you that you are standing while the muslims are at your heels? therefore, i urge you to smash it to bits” (ibn khaldën, 1987, p. 222). indeed, the views of ‘umar (a.s.) concerning the subject of erecting buildings echoed more than anybody else’s the views and practices of the prophet (œ) who, for example, said: “every building is a misfortune for its owner, except what cannot, except what cannot, meaning except that which is essential” (sunan abë déwëd, 1997, ×adêth no. 5218). “… the day of judgment will not come to pass till the people start competing in erecting high buildings …” (al-bukhérê, 1981, ×adêth no. 6588). hamdard islamicus 48 vol. xl, no. 1 the prophet (œ) also said that he was not directed to erect monumental mosques. the narrator of this íadêth (tradition), ‘abdullah b. ‘abbés (a.s.) (d. 68 ah/687 ce), commented: “you shall certainly end up adorning your mosques as both the jews and christians did” (abë déwëd, 1997, hadêth no. 378). surely, ‘abdullah b. ‘abbés (a.s.) did not say this of his own accord; rather, he just paraphrased a íadêth in which the prophet (œ) is reported to have uttered the same. as a result, ‘umar’s (a.s.) conduct became a normative reference whenever people wanted to refer to the evolution of the muslim ways of planning and building not only individual buildings, but also entire cities. people appreciated that ‘umar (a.s.) had left to posterity a comprehensive conceptual framework, which is deeply rooted in the quintessence of the islamic message as enshrined in the holy qur’én and the prophet’s sunnah, as well as an array of practical and applied solutions with respect to the development of the identity of muslim architecture. the first reference to this outstanding architectural legacy of ‘umar (a.s.) was made as early as in 29 a.h./649 c.e. when ‘umar’s (a.s.) successor, caliph ‘uthmén b. ‘affén (a.s.), also embarked on expanding the mosque of the prophet (œ). he regarded his initiative as an imitation of, or a follow-up to, ‘umar’s (a.s.), albeit within the context of the conditions and needs of his own epoch (al-samahudi, 1997, vol. ii, p. 502).the umayyad caliph al-walêd, too, did the same when he on an unprecedented scale also rebuilt and enlarged the mosque of the prophet (œ) (al-ùabarê, 1990, vol. xxiii, p. 141). conclusion since its inception, the mosque of the prophet (œ) was meant to be a catalyst for fostering and at the same time refining a muslim civilizational consciousness and output. it was not by chance, therefore, that it was positioned most strategically and right in the middle of the city of madinah, the prototype islamic city, which from the time of the prophet (œ) served both as a personification and microcosm of islam’s and muslims’ civilizational undeniable presence and aspirations of global proportions. that is why the name of the city is derived from the arabic words maddana and tamaddun which mean to civilize and civilization respectively. from the same root, the concepts madaniyy and mutamaddin, both of which denote civilized, civil and cultured, are derived, too. hamdard islamicus 49 vol. xl, no. 1 certainly, caliph ‘umar’s (a.s.) rebuilding and enlarging of the mosque of the prophet (œ) exemplified the avant-garde status of the madinah city and its principal mosque. the project not only called attention to the authentic viewpoints of islam as regards some of the most critical aspects of social and human development, but also set some high standards as to the future development and nurturing of the spiritual as well as human dimensions in muslim architecture in particular. it was on account of this that ‘umar (a.s.) is generally regarded as one of the most influential and upright leaders in history, which earned him the epithet alférëq which means “the one who due to a special insight distinguishes between right and wrong”. he is also regarded as one of the great contributors to the rapid growth and maturation of islamic civilization. in view of its consequential religious and social nature, ‘umar’s expansion of the mosque of the prophet (œ) was recorded apart from the books of muslim history, in the leading anthologies of the prophet’s tradition (íadêth or sunnah) as well. that shows that the main aspects of the expansion, such as maintaining the simple and unpretentious physical configuration of the mosque devoid of those transgressions and vices as are most commonly associated with planning and erecting buildings, honouring the principles of consultation and mutual agreements, as well as striking a delicate balance between the interests of individuals, society and the government in the midst of the relentless processes of community building and institutionalization of the mosque of the prophet (œ) diverse functions – all these aspects carried as much general spiritual and ethical undertones as specialized architectural tendencies and predisposition. so, therefore, ‘umar’s experiences affirmed in emphatic terms that authentic muslim architecture is one that typifies some of the most fundamental islamic teachings and values in an architectural process rather than in an architectural product. an architectural process starts with having a proper understanding and vision, which leads to making a right intention. it continues with the planning, designing and building stages, and ends with attaining the net results and how people make use of and benefit from them. authentic muslim architecture is a fine blend of all those phases and elements that are interwoven with the threads of the belief system, tenets, teachings and values of islam. what makes an architecture truly great from an islamic perspective are its metaphysical, spiritual and ethical dimensions, rather than the sheer physical and hamdard islamicus 50 vol. xl, no. 1 observable aspects, in relation to all the parties involved in the process: patrons, architects, engineers and ordinary users, and the implications of their dissimilar conceptual and practical relationships with architecture. bibliography abë dé’ëd, sulaymén b. al-ash‘ath, sunan abê dé’ëd, beirut, dar ibn hazm, 1997. badr, ‘abd al-bésit, al-térêkh al-shémil li al-madênah al-munawwarah, 1993, madinah. al-bukhérê, muíammad b. ismé‘êl, øaíêí al-bukhérê, 1981, beirut, dar al-fikr, 1981. creswell, k.a.c., a short account of early muslim architecture, 1989, cairo, the american university in cairo press. hamid, abbés, story of the great expansion, 1996, jeddah, saudi bin ladin group. hillenbrand, robert, islamic architecture: form, function and menaing, 1994, edinburgh, edinburgh university press. husain, s. athar, the glorious caliphate, 1977, lucknow, academy of islamic research and publication. ibn khaldën, abd al-raímén. the muqaddimah, 1987, translated from the arabic by franz rosenthal, london, rotledge and kegan paul. mas‘ëd-ul-×asan, ×adrat ‘umar farooq, 1982, lahore, islamic publications ltd. al-nasé’ê, sunan al-nasé’ê, 2007, riyadh, darussalam. omer, spahic, the prophet muhammad (œ) and urbanization of madinah, 2013, kuala lumpur, international islamic university malaysia. al-qu’aiti, sultan ghélib, the holy cities, the pilgrimage and the world of islam, 2007, louisville, fons vitae. al-øébënê, muíammad, mukhtaîar ùafsêr ibn kathêr, 1981, beirut, dar al-qur’én al-karim. al-samahudi, ‘alê b. aímad, wafa’ al-wafa, 1997, beirut, dar ihya’ al-turath al-‘arabi. al-ùabarê, ibn jarêr, the history of al-ùabarê, 1989, translated into english by gautier h.a. juynboll, new york, state university of new york press. al-ya‘qëbê, aímad b. isíéq, térêkh al-ya‘qëbê, 2002, beirut, dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 81 islamic education as perceived by edupreneurs of islamic schools conformance with the teachings of the holy qur’ón sajid ullah sheikh department of education, college of economics and social development, institute of business management, karachi, pakistan email: sajidullahsheikh@gmail.com dr. nasreen hussain department of education, college of economics and social development, institute of business management, karachi, pakistan email: nasreenhuss@gmail.com received on: 06-03-22 accepted on: 20-06-22 abstract despite expressly stating the aims and objectives of education in its policy documents, the government of pakistan has failed to bring out the essence of emergence of islamic education from the islamic ideology. since its independence in 1947, pakistan has remained a passive receptor of secular pedagogical models imported from the west. however, private islamic schools, which is a segment of private schools, that has emerged since the last forty years, claim to impart modern education while adhering to the islamic education system. to determine the authenticity of this claim, it is necessary to conform and verify their claimed aims and objectives with those as prescribed by islam. this qualitative study, using phenomenological research methodology, explores the aims and objectives of five private islamic schools through interviews and document reviews. the aims and objectives were analyzed in the light of islamic education as articulated by al-ghazali, a renowned islamic scholar. al-ghazali’s aims and objectives were outlined using content analysis. the study concludes that although private islamic schools have perceived aims similar to those of al-ghazali, yet the planned objectives and basic educational structure of islamic schools such as institution structure, education mailto:sajidullahsheikh@gmail.com mailto:nasreenhuss@gmail.com 82 islamic education as… delivery framework, child learning psychology, curriculum, language focus and assessment methodology are adopted from the western world. the government, islamic school administrators, and other stakeholders will benefit from the findings of this study. keywords: aims and objectives of islamic education, al-ghazali’s educational thoughts, islamic education, islamic schools 1. introduction as a system, schools intake young students in batches, which are termed as grades or classes and then pass them through an established curriculum for ten to twelve years. this passing through a rigorous process enables the young students to pursue either higher education or engage themselves in earning activities. but this process is not an inert or innocent activity, as the curriculum is designed precisely to achieve certain objectives around ideological agendas.1 the rationale for establishment of school structure is well explained by gatto,2 which is to control and predict the human behaviour. althusser considers school education as a stronger ideological state apparatus as compared to religious, family, legal and political apparatuses in achieving state agendas.3 its basic goals are the continuation of the current social organization and sustain national economic growth.4 dewey asserts that “there is a great deal of indoctrination now going on in the schools, especially with reference to narrow nationalism under the name of patriotism and with reference to the dominant economic regime”.5 hence, a state endeavours to develop the education system to achieve its national objectives. countries like america, england, france, russia and china, have tailor made their education systems to meet their ideological requirements. with regards to pakistan, the country’s education system is fundamentally governed through educational policies, which are derived from the past and prevailing constitutions. the constitution of pakistan, 1973, which is the prevalent constitution, clearly indicates that all our systems, including financial, economic, educational, judiciary and others should be in line with the teachings of the holy qur’én and sunnah.6 with regards to education, the same principle is reiterated in article 31(1) of the constitution of pakistan 1973; wherein, the state of pakistan is required to assist muslims to follow the basic principles and concepts of islam.7 these constitutional guidelines are also considered in pakistan’s education policies and categorically state that all the principles of hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 83 pakistan’s educational policy interventions should be in line with the constitution of pakistan, 1973.8 as such, the goals of education which should be based on islamic ideology, should not remain vague. since islam believes in an integrated life, there is no notion of dichotomy in education between islamic education and secular education. to educate its followers, islam stands for a comprehensive and consolidated system; however, at present, this comprehensive and consolidated islamic education system does not exist, even in muslim majority countries like pakistan.9 although more than seventy years have elapsed since pakistan’s independence in 1947, it still represents a society, which is a passive receptor of secular educational paradigms, imported from the western world.10 goals to design the educational system around the ideological perspective of pakistan still remain stagnant and docile and not much has been achieved on the ground.11 in pakistan, educational institutions for children can broadly be divided in two categories: schools and madéris. the ownership structure of schools can be classified into three: (a) public schools; (b) private schools, and (c) adopted schools (government schools adopted and managed by private sector). within the umbrella of private schools, a growth of new segment of schools can be witnessed, which can be titled as ‘private islamic schools’. these schools are similar to the conventional private schools in all aspects except that these schools claim to impart modern education along with islamic education while remaining in compliance with sharê‘ah. such private islamic schools are run by edupreneurs (entrepreneurs in the field of education) as well as non-profit organizations. shulman elucidates that edupreneur is “usually mission-driven and … found building new education organizations and businesses, developing the latest edtech tools, running new schools”.12 2. statement of the research problem although a segment of private islamic schools was initiated around forty years ago, endeavouring to impart education based on islamic ideology. however, it is yet to be established whether the proclaimed aims and objectives are in line with those as guided by the holy qur’én. 3. purpose of the study the purpose of this study is to explore the conceptions of islamic schools in pakistan regarding the aims and objectives of education and analyze whether these aims and objectives are in conformance with those as guided by the holy qur’én. 84 islamic education as… 4. research questions for the above-mentioned research purpose, this study focused on finding answers to the following research questions: 1. what conceptions do the edupreneurs of pakistani private islamic schools have about the aims and objectives of education system from the islamic perspective? 2. what are the aims and objectives of islamic education in the light of the holy qur’én as articulated by al-ghazali? 3. to what extent do the aims and objectives of pakistani private islamic schools conform to those as guided by the holy qur’én? 5. significance of this study this study will contribute in the following aspects of education:  it will bring into picture an important aspect in the islamisation of school education and conceptions developed by the contemporary edupreneurs and educators about islamic education.  it will present as to what aims and objectives of islamic education can be drawn from the thoughts and philosophy of al-ghazali.  it will help in unifying the aims and objectives of existing islamic schools.  it can provide a foundation for incorporating al-ghazali’s work into the educational curricula of the modern islamic world. 6. literature review “every nation in the world structures its educational programme to promote its specific culture and ideology”.13 similarly the objectives of education in a muslim country cannot be identical with the educational aims of the western nations.14 further, ali and hussien assert that islamic education’s goals must be derived from the holy qur’én and sunnah. accordingly, islamic states, being ideological states, should develop an educational system in accordance with the islamic principles.15 islam is not merely a set of religious activities, but it is a total way of life. accordingly, islam neither permits its segregation from any aspect of life, nor does it permit dichotomy in islamic education.16 shakeel, while elaborating this dichotomy in education opines that these systems are mutually exclusive and contradictory educational philosophies.17 further, mabud implies that islamic and western civilizations are built on diametrically opposed conceptions of life and are not compatible in spirit.18 islam stands for one hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 85 comprehensive and consolidated system for educating its followers. unfortunately, this consolidated and comprehensive islamic education system does not exist at present.19 further, it is observed that no coherent and organized efforts have been made so far in pakistan, either by the government sector nor by the private sector for the conceptualization of an effective islamic educational system at the school level.20 throughout the history of pakistan, a number of intellectuals and educationists have been striving to purge the above-mentioned yoke from pakistan’s education system. their aim is to develop an education system around the islamic ideology for schools. nevertheless, these efforts have largely been launched on individual basis21 and coordinated efforts by private sector can hardly be witnessed. effort can also be observed in the shape of islamic schools, which was initiated around forty years ago. islamic education is not a novel practice in pakistan, keeping politico-historical factors of the country in view. islamic school is yet, a unique and first experiment, which has gained popularity.22 in these schools, both matric and o’ levels streams are adopted with respect to curriculum. in spite of the fact that there is some agreement about the perceived aims of an islamic education system by the educators; nevertheless, they differ largely on the way they draw and prioritize their objectives.23 the present research explores the conceptions about aims and objectives of school education as adopted by the private educators of islamic schools in pakistan. these conceptions have been analysed in the light of aims and objectives of education as derived from al-ghazali’s teachings. several muslim scholars have pointed out that much of alghazali's advices on teaching and learning are still relevant today and have been widely accepted as conforming to the quranic principles. his teachings are applicable not only to the muslim world, but also to the non-muslim world's educational systems.24 the middle eastern educator and writer, al-ghazali, has been described as one of the most influential scholars in the islamic history and is considered as a reformer (mujaddid) of the eleventh century (fifth century a.h.) and also titled as ‘the proof of islam’. 25 the aims and objectives of education from al-ghazali’s perspective are derived from english and urdu translations of his works, especially his book al-iíya -ê ‘ulëm al-dên, ayyuhal-walad and from the research articles and phd thesis relevant to this research. the author’s literature review reveals that some studies26 have explored al-ghazali’s views on parental concerns of education and issues regarding children’s education. few studies are also found analysing the aims and objectives of islamic schools in the light of dr. muhammad iqbal (‘allémaí 86 islamic education as… iqbal).27 however, an analysis of the conceptions of islamic schools in pakistan regarding the aims and objectives of education in the light of alghazali’s conceptions of aims and objectives of islamic education is yet lacking. 7. research methodology 7.1. qualitative research before selecting the most appropriate methodology for any study, the key factor that has to be addressed is that it should be able to respond to the research questions and thereby meet the research goals. with this principle in mind, the most appropriate methodology for this research would be the qualitative research methodology. qualitative research can be well explained in terms of its defining features. marshall and rossman explain that the qualitative study is used to inquire and explore the perceptions and views of participants about their experiences.28 7.2 phenomenology three approaches are given by rossman and rallis, which are case studies, ethnology, and phenomenological within the context of qualitative study. 29 whereas creswell and poth discuss five conventional inquiry methods for qualitative studies, which are narrative studies, case studies, grounded theories, phenomenological studies, and ethnographic studies. 30 whereas a narrative research reports the life of a single person, a phenomenological study explains the significance of a term or a phenomenon through many persons of their lived experiences. 31 accordingly, this study used qualitative method using phenomenological approach. 7.3 sampling the sampling technique for this research study was nonprobability purposive sampling. as advocated by patton, “the logic and power of purposive sampling lies in selecting information-rich cases for in depth studying”. 32 7.3.1 participants and research context the number of participants depends upon the research approach being used. creswell and creswell explain that there is no specific answer to the question of how many participants should be selected for a qualitative research. 33 he has suggested a range from three to ten participants for phenomenological approach.34 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 87 sample size for the study was five edupreneurs of islamic private schools. in case of schools run by organizations, the person who was responsible for upholding and implementing the education as per the vision of the school was considered. these schools also met the following criteria:  these are at least ten years old in age.  these have classes from grade 1 to 10 (or 11 in case of o levels).  these have at least five thousand students. the reasons for selecting these schools were as following:  these schools are conceptually and organisationally well structured.  these have a greater representation, indicating its acceptability in the masses.  a body or a group of people are behind its vision and it has not been changed by in management at any point. private schools were selected for the following main reasons:  government schools do not proclaim to be islamic schools.  government schools do not have liberty to modify the government curriculum, whereas private schools have the right to change or modify the curriculum to align themselves to their vision. 7.4 research instruments 7.4.1 interviews: the conceptions of five islamic educators were explored using interviews for standardized open-ended questionnaire developed and arranged by the researcher with the intention of taking each respondent through the same sequence. this interview questionnaire comprised of probes as well. interview protocol was developed for a proper guide through the interview. this protocol included the following:  respondent related information  pre-interview introduction by the interviewer  interview questions and probes  consent form 7.4.2 pilot study: a pilot interview was conducted on a private islamic school, which was not included in the research sample. the short comings noted led to correction and modification of the interview 88 islamic education as… protocol and also to add a few more probing questions. the pilot test assists the researcher in refining contents, wording, length, etc. and also assists in its validity. 35 the modified interview protocol was reviewed by two educational experts for verification of internal validity, who suggested few modifications, which were incorporated. 7.4.3 document review: document review of al-ghazali’s work was done to explore his articulated educational aims and objectives. primary source of data collection was translation of books written by al-ghazali, mainly kitébul-‘ilm (book of knowledge) of al-iíya -ê ‘ulëm al-dên, munqiḍ min al-ḍalél (deliverance from error) and mêzén ul-‘amal (yardstick of actions). both urdu and english translations were read. other contents included research articles and dissertations on the relevant topic. the books prescribed in the curricula of the selected schools for class 1 (primary section) and class 6 (secondary section) were also reviewed to understand the linkage between the curriculum and aims and objectives of the respondents. 7.5 data analysis creswell & poth, merriam & tisdell and patton have given a comprehensive guide for data analysis and explicating valid information from the participants, which was followed in this research. 36 it is briefly enlisted in the following steps:  transcribing the recorded interviews  bracketing and phenomenological reduction  listening to the interview to get a gist and sense of the whole interview  thematic analysis for transcribing and interpreting the data will be applied using the following steps:  clustering the different parts of transcription with relevant meaning  determining themes from the cluster of meanings: the central theme emerges from different clusters  writing a summary for each individual interview  return to the respondents with descriptions and contents of the interviews for their confirmation on constructed meanings  contextualization of themes  composite summary  data triangulation using literature from their syllabus books 7.6 research findings hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 89 in order to better understand the responses, below is a brief profile of the schools along with the edupreneur’s introduction. to maintain confidentiality pseudonym have been used for respondents. 7.6.1 school 1. maryam’s school has been operating for more than twenty-five years and has branches in karachi. the total number of students is more than 5,000 male and female students in 10 branches. the education system followed is both matriculation and o’levels. maryam is the principal and directress of this school. 7.6.2 school 2. rehan’s school is operating for more than thirty years and has branches in all four provinces. the total number of students is more than 75,000 in more than 180 branches. the education system followed is matriculation. rehan is the principal and one of the founders of the school. 7.6.3 school 3. kashif’s school is operating for more than twenty-five years and has branches in all four provinces. the strength of students is more than 160,000 with more than 550 branches. the education system followed is matriculation. kashif is the principal and chief executive of the school. 7.6.4 school 4. kamran’s school has been operating for more than twenty-five years and has branches in all four provinces. the total number of students is more than 70,000 with more than 200 branches. the education system followed is matriculation. kamran is the in-charge of the whole system. 7.6.5 school 5. atif’s school has been operating for more than twenty years and has branches in all four provinces. the total number of students is more than 80,000 in more than 500 branches. the education system followed is matriculation. atif is the head of research and curriculum wing. 8. aims of education from islamic perspective: the educators’ conceptions for the purpose of better understanding, the aims of education were categorised into two: ‘primary aims’ and ‘other aims’. primary aims of education were kept at the highest priority level in comparison to ‘other aims’ and it directly related to the vision of the school. the interview protocol was designed accordingly. findings from the data collected through interviews from five educationists of islamic schools and content analysis of writings of al-ghazali are as following: 8.1 primary aims 90 islamic education as… with regards to the five selected interviewees, one common aspect was that their main educational aim was related to spiritual and moral side and not merely to the achievement of materialistic benefits. none of them formulated wealth, power or fame as the direct aim of education. for maryam, the main aim was to develop realization that human beings are “the vicegerents of allah almighty” and that “they have to perform their duties accordingly”, by understanding their role in the society. that role she pointed was “to establish the religion of allah almighty in themselves and in their surroundings.” kamran envisioned his school to be a platform “to invite people towards religion”. thus, education should enable students to review themselves and understand and identify what they can do, and then “select their role and responsibilities”. atif’s school’s vision was that education should be “value based” and should result in “a muslim society where islamic values and principles prevail.” within character building, kashif considered developing “honesty is most important aim.” al-ghazali linked the main aim of education with the purpose of life, which is salvation in the life hereafter.37 accordingly, for him the main aim of education is “to cultivate man so that he abides by the teachings of religion and is hence assured of salvation and happiness in the eternal life hereafter”. 38 however, al-ghazali considered education as a supporting tool that would be used to purify the hearts, as he thinks that true knowledge is a light, which is transformed to the hearts once they are purified. 39 this knowledge enables a person to abide the teachings of religion. 40 the respondents considered education as a science in itself, which will produce the desired aims, if it is applied to the students. 8.2 other aims based on the answers of respondents discussed in the preceding section, the following main themes were extracted as ‘other aims’ of education from the islamic perspective: 1. building character and personality with islamic values 2. seeking knowledge with reference to the holy qur’én 3. improving quality of citizenship 4. removing or reducing dichotomy in education system 8.2.1 building character and personality with islamic values. according to the respondents, one of the aims was establishing an institute which could focus on character building. rehan also referred to ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 91 wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam, who said that ‘he has been sent as a preacher of the religion’ and in another place, the prophet øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam said that ‘he has been sent for character building.’ rehan asserted that “education should give enough information to enable students to follow dên (religion); as well as dunya (worldly matters)” and “correction of one’s attitude and personality”. within character building, kashif considered developing “honesty as the most important aim”. he also highlighted the role of education that “if education cannot change a human internally, we think that education is incomplete.” apart from developing ethics, this also includes developing critical thinking as highlighted by maryam, and that results in a generation, which is good in ethics as well as intelligence. al-ghazali also concentrates on the significance of character building in childhood. a good upbringing will give youngsters a good character and help them to carry on with an honourable life. on the other hand, a bad upbringing will ruin their character and it would be hard to redevelop it.41 the education of character and the moral values is the main subject in al-ghazali's works, interlaced with the advancement of knowledge and comprehension. he asserts that enabling youngsters’ ethical advancement is one of the fundamental objectives of education.42 8.2.2 seeking knowledge with reference to the holy qur’én seeking knowledge was a very commonly quoted aim of education and respondents connected this with the holy qur’én in one way or the other. the vision of kashif’s school was to be an institution that would make the holy qur’én easier not only to read, but also to understand as well, and in order to achieve this he commented that “specific people and special schools were required.” his main motive was to change this and make it easier for people to learn and read the holy qur’én. for rehan, “giving enough information that students are able to follow religion and as well as the worldly matters” was his priority. for maryam, “the first thing is knowledge”. she also clarified that “whether we are studying science or any other subject, we are actually studying the creation of allah almighty.” maryam thinks that there should be no segregation in knowledge and states that “there is no separation, there is one knowledge, and the source of knowledge is allah almighty. he is the creator and whatever we are studying is coming from him.” al-ghazali views it in a different way. for him, true knowledge is not simply accumulation of facts and memorizing them, but rather “it stands for a light, which shines in the heart when it is cleansed and purified of its blameworthy qualities. through this light is revealed the truth of several things, whose names have hitherto often been heard”.43 al-ghazali accordingly insisted on illuminating the heart by removing 92 islamic education as… evils (bad habits), as the result of which knowledge will be revealed in such purified hearts.44 8.2.3 improving quality of citizenship atif’s main target was developing ‘useful citizens’ for the muslim society. apart from this, atif’s school also aimed at increasing literacy in poor areas, as he believed without literacy, one cannot give even the islamic education. accordingly, his school took an initiative to increase accessibility of students to schools. they gave more importance to establishing schools in such areas where poverty was more and children did not have the resources. yet, another aim was to give education to intellectually disabled children. further, atif asserted that “if we do not create a bond and relationship between our religion and our children, worldly education was worthless” and that “we cannot say we want to produce useful citizens of a muslim society.” al-ghazali connected this aim with the sharê‘ah’s requirement. he emphasized that besides developing one’s own self, people are entrusted with certain responsibilities towards developing the society in which they live, which are also obligatory, but jointly with other members of the society (farḍ-e-kiféyah).45 he gave the example of getting education in the field of medicine, which is to contribute towards society in the field of health and medicine. as the doctors will assist in keeping muslims in good health, thereby enabling them to worship and fulfil other responsibilities in a better position.46 8.2.4 removing or reducing dichotomy in education system rehan’s aim of establishing an educational institution was to serve as a link between the madrasah and the public school systems. he highlighted the fact that this dichotomy did not exist before british invasion of the sub-continent. the vision of the maryam’s school was to be a ‘model islamic school’ where islamic values were taught, by keeping the basic school structure intact. kashif aimed at minimizing differences of behaviour and habits of students at conventional schools and madéris as he mentioned that “the behaviour and habits of the children who belong to an islamic educational institute and the children of modern educational institutes are different, but we have tried to minimize this difference.” hence, kashif’s aim included providing both kind of education under one roof in the name of an islamic school and “we have tried our level best to make people understand the holy qur’én and its teachings.” hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 93 this scenario was not present in al-ghazali’s era. although, the concept of institutional education was introduced in his era, but there was no such dichotomy of religious education and modern education. 9. planned objectives based on the data analysis of responses of the interviewees and the content review of al-ghazali’s work, the following main themes were derived from the objectives conceived and drawn by the educators and al-ghazali: 1. conformance or deviation from conventional school system 2. integration of the holy qur’én 3. structuring curriculum and developing books 4. parent centric strategies 5. teacher centric strategies 6. student centric strategies 7. other objectives 9.1 conformance or deviation from conventional school system among the sample schools, there were schools which had no problem in conformance with the contemporary schooling operational structure; however, others were critical of the schooling structure itself. rehan expressed that his school’s objectives include imparting worldly education along with religious education. in doing so his school introduced practices like wearing uniform, and school curriculum as far as it did not conflict with islamic values. they also charged a reasonable fee in order to remove perceptions of being tagged as charity institution and to attract upper economic class and to meet the running expenses. kashif runs about 550 schools, which are operationally closer to conventional schools, and he calls this as his ‘business model’ in order to sustain expenses and to provide quality education. his school prescribes specifically designed books developed and published by an islamic organization. atif believes that literacy is a must for understanding religious education. he opined that “if a student knows how to read and write than only you can tell him what you want to say.” accordingly, his basic strategy is integration of islamic values in the existing system. he stated, “instead of making complete changes, we find ways to integrate islamic values and islamic teachings.” 94 islamic education as… no such objectives were conceived by al-ghazali, as the structure of modern-day school did not exist during his period. 9.2 integration of the holy qur’én the sample schools have integrated the holy qur’én and its teachings in their curriculum, which ranges from memorization to practically imparting the holy quranic teachings to their students and as such have a greater thrust of the holy quranic teachings in their educational process. in maryam’s school, there are regular holy qur’én classes in which students used to recite one surah every month and they learn it by heart. in addition to this, they also conduct weekly session to teach their teachers how to integrate the holy qur’én in all subjects. rehan claimed that the foundation of their school was based on the principle that whatever education given in their schools will be derived from the holy qur’én. their strategy also included memorizing the whole the holy qur’én by heart, as they thought that “there is no other education which is more important than the holy qur’én, whether it is in our schools or colleges or any other educational institution.” for al-ghazali, the holy qur’én was itself the main source of all curricula. he considered knowledge of allah almighty, his books, his prophets, the kingdoms of earth and heaven, as well as knowledge of sharê‘ah as interpreted by the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as the true knowledge.47 such knowledge also includes the study of certain worldly phenomena such as medicine, arithmetic, etc., which he classed as techniques. true knowledge can only be unveiled once the self has been cultivated through knowledge and application of the holy quranic teachings.48 9.3 structuring curriculum and books development most of the respondents’ school’s curriculum came from the requirements of the exam boards to which the schools were affiliated. both maryam and kamran’s schools prepared the students for appearing in the board exams; however, till class eight they did not follow the board curriculum. rehan’s school used internally published books, especially designed for children, who had spent time in íifð of the holy qur’én. kamran’s school aimed at removing examination system; however, in grade 9 and 10 they prepare students for board examination. kamran’s school had designed some books internally, but the parents were given an option not to use these books. atif’s school had also compiled small booklets on various subjects along with teacher’s guide. these were taught up to grade 10. al-ghazali did not differentiate the aim of education from the aim of the human life.49 he categorised the curriculum into farì-e-‘ain hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 95 and farì-e-kiféyah, relating these to the purpose of life. by farì-e-‘ain he focused on the developmental behaviour aspects of an individual student, while farḍ-e-kiféyah relates to the benefits of the whole society. he also prioritised the knowledge accordingly and kept the holy qur’én at a superior level followed by sunnah, tafésêr and then by other sciences.50 he did not prescribe the quantity of the curriculum and points out that it depends on individuals as to how much they can grasp. apart from contents of the curriculum, al-ghazali also considers the role of environment and children’s learning psychology as significant.51 9.4 parent centric strategies all the respondents agreed regarding the importance of parents in the education process and as such, training and awareness sessions should be conducted for parents in one form or the other. highlighting the role of parents in education process, kamran asserted that “we also train the parents of our students…. a child comes to us for only five hours, but they spend all their life with their parents.” kamran believes that parents are the best murabbê for school going children. accordingly, he said “we try to teach the parents how they can prove to be good murabbê for their children.” rehan’s school conducted monthly meetings with the parents in which they tried to address their (parents’) problems and share student issues. apart from this, rehan’s school regularly provided feed back to the parent through report cards. al-ghazali also considered the role of parents significant. he pointed out that a child is mostly influenced by his parents. accordingly, al-ghazali emphasised the responsibility of parents to develop all aspects of child’s initial education, from language and cultural traditions to religious and moral beliefs and practices.52 9.5 teacher centric strategies all five schools selected for the present study focused mainly on teachers as they considered them their critical success factor. maryam asserted that teacher training is the first thing which will help in achieving the aims of her school. she opines that contemporary teachers themselves are product of secular education and as such they are confused. in order to minimize distraction of fashion, the teachers too are prescribed a uniform. they have coordinator system, whereby when new teachers come, the coordinators are assigned tasks to guide them. kashif sees such challenges in male teachers as compared to female teachers and as such, the male teachers are provided with special sessions on islamic education. for kamran, his objectives can only be achieved if he has staff who is murabbê. 96 islamic education as… similarly, al-ghazali emphasised the role and impact of teachers as pivotal. he was of the opinion that the rights of the teachers are more than the parents.53 al-ghazali reminded that the parents affect child's present existence in this mortal life, whereas the teachers have an impact on children’s immortal life. unlike the selected schools, al-ghazali saw teachers as a complete school in and of themselves. he opined that the teachers were not subject to the regulations of the schools with regards to curriculum and believed that it is teacher’s responsibility to determine the quantity of curriculum for each student distinctly.54 9.6 student centric strategies maryam’s considered ranking of students in the educational endeavours as inappropriate. she said, “declaring students as position holders is not appropriate for us.” rehan highlighted that the basic idea behind his school’s planning is that they believed in progressive learning. he said, “in the beginning, basic things should be informed to them and then advanced matters should be explained.” rehan also asserted that “the ability of the child’s iq should be kept in view and from the very beginning islamic education should be imparted to the child.” kashif asserted the importance of discipline, but he confessed that “everything cannot be achieved by discipline, there are some things which kids want to do on their own-out of the class environment.” on the other hand, al-ghazali considered student’s own efforts and behaviour as important as teachers and parents. accordingly, he emphasized his guidance in the form of ten codes of ethics for students, which cover details from behaviour to their responsibilities towards the society.55 according to al-ghazali, student life continues till the grave.56 10. conclusion and recommendations 10.1 conclusion based on the research findings as discussed above, it can be concluded that there is a substantial identicality between perceived aims of education adopted by islamic schools and those as guided by the holy qur’én and articulated by al-ghazali. these aims fundamentally relate to the achievement of non-worldly goals such as closeness to allah almighty or success in hereafter. however, the planned objectives of educational interventions and educational structure of the islamic schools are basically adopted from the western framework of education. these schools lack a holistic vision or goal of education for preparing and nurturing a child as per islamic wisdom. the focus of islamic schools is basically on the development of professionals possessing islamic values. the attempts of these schools are fundamentally for alignment of their schools with the contemporary schooling system. similarly, science hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 97 books lack to develop an awe of allah almighty, whereas, the holy qur’én uses scientific phenomena for inculcating the awe of the creator. no planned emphasis was observed on transforming the existing pedagogy as per islamic teachings, except for one school, which planned to explore the islamic teachings with regards to pedagogy. these schools claimed success based on indicators of increase in students’ strength and popularity; however, these schools had no clear idea as to what will amount to educational success from islamic perspective. it can also be concluded that the islamic schools follow the western factory model of schooling like other conventional schools in pakistan. the western education system essentially prepares human resource for the state’s economic requirements.57 this is being critiqued by many western intellectuals for its ineptness to cater to the creativity and natural learning aptitude of children.58 this system of education in the form and structure of school was introduced to the society only two hundred years ago.59 on the other hand, the principles of islamic education were formulated and explained fourteen hundred years ago. the islamic education system of that time soon witnessed an emerging empire, which not only proved the advancement in theology, but also reached the heights of scientific inventions. many of those inventions form the basis of modern-day scientific wonders. 10.2 recommendations following are the recommendations based on the discussion on findings from this research:  in defining the aims and objectives of education from islamic perspective, first of all we have to remove two important confusions prevalent in our society.  first is the paradox of the term education. we have to clearly define it as a process of unfolding the human potential that the creator has created in him, and not ‘programming’, which is based on a set of predefined objectives or curriculum. in this definition, we should also clearly keep the art of earning ‘economic well-being’ separate from education, as this art is basically vocational training.  the second confusion is the ‘world view’. we will remain in a state of confusion if we are designing an islamic system wearing western secular glasses. we have to see things the way allah almighty wants us to see, that is, through the holy quranic perspective. the fundamental principle of which is that muslims are distinct nation with distinct aim of life (iqbal 2011). 98 islamic education as…  muslims of today’s world need to rethink on the aims and objectives of the islamic education. whether the existing objectives of education, which are adopted from the west will serve the purpose of imparting education based on the holy quranic principles. hence, it is strongly recommended that further research should be conducted to develop a model of education that is in alignment with the guidance given in the holy qur’én. references louis althusser, “ideology and ideological state apparatuses” in on the reproduction of capitalism, trans. ben brewster, (new york: verso, 1971), 236; christopher lizotte and nicole nguyen, "schooling from the classroom to the state: understanding schools as geopolitical sites," environment and planning c: politics and space 38, no. 5 (2020): 920-937, https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654420909396. john taylor gatto, dumbing us down: the hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling (gabriola island: new society publishers, 2005), 23. althusser, “ideological state apparatuses”, 252. ivan illich, deschooling society (mexico: harrow books, 1970), 29; ken robinson and lou aronica, you, your child and school: navigate your way to the best education (penguin, 2018), 18. john dewey, “education and social change,” bulletin of the american association of university professors (1915-1955) 23, no. 6 (1937): 472, https://doi.org/10.2307/40219908. government of pakistan (gop), the constitution of pakistan, 1973. (islamabad: national assemble of pakistan, 2018), 1. gop, the constitution of pakistan, 6. government of pakistan (gop). national education policy, 2009. islamabad: ministry of education, 2009, 31-32. muhammad abid ali, “an analysis of conceptions and practices of pakistani educators in private islamic schools in light of iqbal’s educational philosophy” (phd diss., international islamic university malaysia, 2011), 274-275; sanaa riaz, new islamic schools: tradition, modernity and class in urban pakistan (springer, 2014), 164-165. muhammad abid ali and suhailah hussien, “iqbal and modern islamic educationists, part 1: the perceived aims and objectives of education a comparative analysis,” journal of education and educational development 7, no. 2 (2020), 364-367. https://doi.org/10.22555/joeed.v7i2.26. ali and hussien, “iqbal and islamic educationists”, 365; riaz, new islamic schools, 164. robyn d. shulman “how to become an education entrepreneur: the top 5 voices you need to follow.” 2017, accessed on march 3, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/robynshulman/2017/08/19/how-to-become-an-educationentrepreneur-the-top-5-voices-you-need-to-follow/?sh=2aae749f233c. syed a.a. maududi, the education, trans. muhammad rauf (new delhi: markazi maktaba islami publishers, 2000), 97. ali and hussien, “iqbal and islamic educationists”, 364. ibid., 365. ali, “an analysis”, 257. muhammad danish shakeel, "islamic schooling in the cultural west: a systematic review of the issues concerning school choice." religions 9, no. 12 (2018): 392. shaikh abdul mabud, “the emergence of islamic schools: a contextual background,” in islamic schooling in the west, ed. mohamad abdalla, dylan chown and muhammad abdullah (palgrave macmillan, 2018), 11-33. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 99 ali and hussien, “iqbal and islamic educationists”, 364-367; m. mahmood, sarfraz ahmed, muhammad zubair, quaid ali, and hashim khan. "educational system of pakistan: critical analysis in islamic perspective.” asian journal of management sciences & education 5, no. 3 (2016): 96-103. ibid. waqar un nisa faizi, anila fatima shakil and abdur rehman. “development of islamic integrated education in pakistan since 1947: current needs for the globalized world.” global social sciences review 3, no.4 (2018), 460-461; riaz, new islamic schools, 164165. altaf hussain and najmunnisa khan. “critical evaluation of islamic schools, purpose and practices in karachi, pakistan,” habibia islamicus (the international journal of arabic and islamic research) 4, no. 2 (2020): 17-42, 17; riaz, new islamic schools, 165. ali and hussien, “iqbal and islamic educationists”, 364-367. nabil nofal, “al-ghazali,” prospects 23, no. 3 (1993): 1-19, 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02195133 syed abul hassan ali nadvi, saviours of islamic spirit (lucknow: academy of islamic research and publications, 1971); nofal, “al-ghazali”, 519. hassan asari “the educational thoughts of al-ghazali: theory and practice” (phd diss., mcgill university, toronto, 1993); latefah alkanderi, “exploring education in islam: al-ghazali’s model of the master-pupil relationship applied to educational relationships within the islamic family.” (phd diss., the pennsylvania state university, pennsylvania, 2001). ali, “an analysis”; ali and hussien, “iqbal and islamic educationists”. catherine marshall and gratchen b. rossman, designing qualitative research (california: sage publications, 2016) gretchen b. rossman and sharon f. rallis, an introduction to qualitative research: learning in the field (california: sage publications, 2016). john w. creswell and cheryl n. poth, qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches (california: sage publications, 2018). john w. creswell and cheryl n. poth, qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches (california: sage publications, 2016). michael quinn patton, qualitative research & evaluation methods: integrating theory and practice (california: sage publications, 2015), 230 john w. creswell and cheryl n. poth, qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches (california: sage publications, 2016). ibid. sharan b. merriam and elizabeth j. tisdell, qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation (san francisco: john wiley & sons, 2016). creswell and poth, qualitative inquiry and research design; merriam and tisdell, qualitative research; patton, qualitative research. abu hamid al-ghazali, the book of knowledge, trans. nabi amin faris (new delhi: islamic book services, 1962), 123. nofal, “al-ghazali,” 5 montgomery watt, the muslim intellectual: a study of al-ghazali (edinburg: edinburg university press, 1963). al-ghazali, the book of knowledge, 123-133. abu hamid al-ghazali, letter to a disciple: ayyuhal-walad, trans. t. mayor, (cambridge: the islamic text societies, 2005). al-ghazali, the book of knowledge, 121. 100 islamic education as… ibid., 40 ibid., 40 watt, the muslim intellectual. al-ghazali, the book of knowledge. ibid., 130. ibid. 130-131. watt, the muslim intellectual al-ghazali, the book of knowledge, 130; watt, the muslim intellectual. al-ghazali, the book of knowledge, 131. ibid., 40-45. ibid., 119-133. ibid. ibid. al-ghazali, letter to a disciple. gatto, dumbing us down; robinson and aronica, you, your child and school. ibid. robinson and aronica, you, your child and school. hamdard islamicus 105 vol. xl, no. 1 index hamdard islamicus, vol. xxxix, 2016 kaleem chaghtai research officer, hamdard islamicus bait al-hikmah, madinat al-hikmah karachi, pakistan author index 1. dr. ‘abdus-samici imam arikewuyo, implications of ethno-religious conflicts and inter-group relations in nigeria on national development – a panacea from islam, no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 6789. 2. dr. fatima sajjad and prof. dr. umbreen javaid, islam, west and constantinople – a historical overview of evolution of the ‘turkish model’ in pre modern age, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 75-100. 3. dr. husnul amin and dr. abdul rauf, islamic revivalism and its internal critics in the indo-pak subcontinent, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 55-74. 4. dr. muhammad akram, meaning and significance of fasting in comparative perspective: a study with special reference to judaism, christianity, and islam, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 37-60. 5. dr. naseem razi, islamic law vis-à-vis common law – a historical analysis in terms of rigidity and flexibility, no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 43-66. 6. dr. qazi attaullah and dr. lutfullah saqib, tracing the concept of adr in shari‘ah and law – a comparative study, no. 3, (julysep), pp. 7-53. hamdard islamicus 106 vol. xl, no. 1 07. dr. wan suhana wan sulong, transforming education through integration – islamic reformism and religious education in malaya, 1906-1957, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 35-59. 08. dr. zubair zafar khan, some little known but inspiring examples of coexistence and cooperation between jews and muslims, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 61-92. 09. mr. mohammad yaseen gada, revisiting the motivations for the crusades – a fresh analysis, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 35-59. 10. ms. shabnam parveen, a study of sir syed ahmad khan’s commentary of bible, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 61-85. 11. prof. dr. sayed sikandar shah haneef, dna test of paternity in islamic law – implications for illegitimate children born less than minimum gestation period in malaysia, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 735. 12. prof. dr. thameem ushama, radical muslim fringe groups’ recourse to takfir (accusing muslims of infidelity) – a critique, no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 07-42. title index 01. a study of sir syed ahmad khan’s commentary of bible, ms. shabnam parveen, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 61-85. 02. dna test of paternity in islamic law implications for illegitimate children born less than minimum gestation period in malaysia, prof. dr. sayed sikandar shah haneef, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 735. 03. implications of ethno-religious conflicts and inter-group relations in nigeria on national development – a panacea from islam, dr. ‘abdus-samici imam arikewuyo, no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 67-89. 04. islam, west and constantinople – a historical overview of evolution of the ‘turkish model’ in pre modern age, dr. fatima sajjad and prof. dr. umbreen javaid, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 75-100. hamdard islamicus 107 vol. xl, no. 1 05. islamic law vis-à-vis common law – a historical analysis in terms of rigidity and flexibility, dr. naseem razi, no. 4, (octdec), pp. 43-66. 06. islamic revivalism and its internal critics in the indo-pak subcontinent, dr. husnul amin and dr. abdul rauf, no. 3, (julysep), pp. 55-74. 07. meaning and significance of fasting in comparative perspective: a study with special reference to judaism, christianity, and islam, dr. muhammad akram, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 37-60. 08. radical muslim fringe groups’ recourse to takfir (accusing muslims of infidelity) – a critique, prof. dr. thameem ushama, no. 4, (oct-dec), pp. 07-42. 09. revisiting the motivations for the crusades – a fresh analysis, mr. mr. mohammad yaseen gada, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 35-59. 10. some little known but inspiring examples of coexistence and cooperation between jews and muslims, dr. zubair zafar khan, no. 2, (apr-june), pp. 61-92. 11. tracing the concept of adr in shari‘ah and law – a comparative study, dr. qazi attaullah and dr. lutfullah saqib, no. 3, (july-sep), pp. 7-53. 12. transforming education through integration – islamic reformism and religious education in malaya, dr. wan suhana wan sulong, 1906-1957, no. 1, (jan-mar), pp. 35-59. key word index adr (see no. 11 in the title index). bible (see no. 1 in the title index). christianity (see no. 7 in the title index). common law (see no. 5 in the title index). constantinople (see no. 4 in the title index). crusades (see no. 9 in the title index). hamdard islamicus 108 vol. xl, no. 1 dna (see no. 2 in the title index). education (see no. 12 in the title index). ethno-religious (see no. 3 in the title index). fasting see no. 7 in the title index). infidelity (see no. 8 in the title index). islam (see nos. 3, 4, 7 in the title index). islamic law (see nos. 2, 5 in the title index). islamic reformism (see no. 12 in the title index). islamic revivalism (see no. 6 in the title index). jews (see no. 10 in the title index). judaism (see no. 7 in the title index). law (see nos. 2, 5, 11 in the title index). malaya (see no. 12 in the title index). malaysia (see no. 2 in the title index). muslims (see no. 8, 10 in the title index). nigeria (see no. 3 in the title index). shari‘ah (see no. 11 in the title index). sir syed (see no. 1 in the title index). subcontinent (see no. 6 in the title index). takfir (see no. 8 in the title index). west (see no. 4 in the title index). f:\e\islamicus\2021\starting pages.pmd january-march 2021 vol. xliv, no. 1 prof. dr. a.h. johns professor emeritus the australian national university honorary professor the australian catholic university australia prof. seyyed hossein nasr professor of islamic studies the george washington university gelman library 712 washington, d.c. 20052, u.s.a. prof. dr. abdul azim islahi islamic economics institute king abdulaziz university jeddah, saudi arabia prof. dr. khaled abou el fadl prof. of law, ucla school of law university of california, u.s.a. prof. dr. ilzamudin ma’mur, ma professor of education of the faculty of islamic education the state institute for islamic studies (iain) “sultan maulana hasanudin” jl. jend. sudirman no. 30, serang, 42118 banten, indonesia life research professor hamdard institute of research on unani medicine hamdard university madinat al-hikmah karachi-74700 pakistan. dr. manzoor ahmad former rector international islamic university islamabad, pakistan prof. dr. anis ahmad vice chancellor riphah international university hajj complex road sector i-14, islamabad, pakistan dr. hisham nashabe president, makassed university p.o. box 5832, beirut, lebanon prof. abdur raheem kidwai professor, department of english director k.a. nizami centre for qur’énic studies aligarh muslim university aligarh, india dr. umar chapra research advisor islamic research and training institute of the islamic development bank, jeddah saudi arabia allah is the light of the heavens and the earth hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam vol. xliv january-march 2021 no. 1 editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid advisory board information for contributors l hamdard islamicus is published by the hamdard foundation pakistan, from head office, 16th floor bahria town tower tariq road, pechs block 2, karachi, pakistan. l only one co-author is allowed with the principal author of any article to be received for publication in the hamdard islamicus. l manuscripts must be typed double spaced with at least one inch margin on all sides of a4 paper. l two soft copies of the article (one with and the other without diacritical marks) composed in ms word format only must be sent through e-mail or saved in cd/usb. l notes and references should follow the chicago manual of style (end notes and bibliography) i.e. to be marked serially and placed at the end of the manuscript. l illustrations and photographs should be provided in high resolution and preferably in black and white tones. l authors are requested to quote the english translation of qur’énic verses from the editions of a. yusuf ali or pickthall only. l authors are requested to provide their c.vs. including designation, permanent and present postal addresses along with their telephone and cell numbers and e-mail id. l all correspondence regarding the manuscript will be directed to the principal author. l after publishing the article 2 complimentary copies (print version) of the relevant issue of the hamdard islamicus will be sent to the author. he/she would be provided a pdf version of his/her article as well. l the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. l the hamdard islamicus does not charge from its authors for publication of their articles in the journal. book review l for review two hard copies of the book must be sent. for correspondence editor hamdard islamicus hamdard foundation pakistan head office, 16th floor bahria town tower tariq road, pechs block 2, karachi, pakistan e-mail: editorial@hamdardislamicus.com.pk tel: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt associate editor: prof. dr. nigar sajjad zaheer assistant editors: ms. anam akbar mr. kaleem chaghtai published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: editorial@hamdardislamicus.com.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 650/120/single copy 165/035/foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/payment should be in the name of the hamdard foundation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xliv january-march 2021 no. 1 contents * editorial * pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism: south asia, turkey, and southeast asia — dr. arshad islam * the prophecy of green arabia and the possibility of miracle: a refutation of david hume’s theory of no-miracle — dr. rahmat bt ahmed h.osman — naseeb ahmed siddique * developing tools for peaceful coexistence: a qur’énic perspective — dr. ahmed al-kubise — dr. zia ul haq * metaphysical discourse from qur’ānic perspective concerning allah, man and universe relationship a study of sūrah alraímān — muhammad ashfaq * fire symbolism in the holy qur’én: an analysis of contrary connotation — dr. sardar muhammad * guardianship of property in islamic law — dr. mudasra sabreen * the abolition of capital punishment: an analysis of religiously inspired crimes in pakistan — dr. aisha tariq 5 9 29 53 69 101 121 145 objectives hamdard islamicus is an academic journal devoted to islamic research and scholarship. it serves as a forum for scholars to write objectively, analytically and, wherever necessary, critically on islamic history, philosophy, science, art, culture, archaeology, law and jurisprudence. it brings out the achievements of muslims in the fields of humanities, social and natural sciences. it aims at defining islam in terms of its fundamentals in a rational and liberal manner emphasising, at the same time, the basic islamic ideals of universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice. it aims at interpreting the teachings of islam in such a way as to bring out its dynamic character in the context of the intellectual and scientific progress of the modern world. it provides an open forum for a dialogue among the fundamentalist, conservative and the modernist schools of thought among the muslims aiming at finding a balanced view. it endeavours, through dialogue, to find islamic answers to the questions relating to the social, political, economic and moral problems of the fast and drastically changing world of today. it transmits through english translations the speeches, learned papers and discourses expressed in urdu by highly qualified traditional scholars, the ulema, and, in this way, it communicates valuable material, otherwise inaccessible, to the non-urdu readers. it endeavours to promote better understanding between the islamic world and the west. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 indexing and abstracting bodies madinat al-hikmah city of education, science and culture shaheed hakim mohammed said (1920-1998), a scion of the renowned south asian hamdard family, decided in 1948 to make the newly created pakistan his home. he settled down in karachi and by untiring, single minded devotion and commitment, braving all handicaps, created hamdard pakistan. he developed it into the leading pharmaceutical complex of eastern medicine in the country, run on the latest modern lines and techniques, supplying drugs of high quality and purity, backed with free clinical consultations to help ailing humanity. hamdard pakistan, under his leadership, also emerged as the leading philanthropic organization, and also tried to motivate people through dialogue, conferences, and journals like the hamdard medicus. in addition, he provided help to various institutions and academic bodies. he was restless to do more, and during one of his ×ajj pilgrimages, he envisioned the creation of a comprehensive city of education, science and culture: the madinat al-hikmah. work on it was initiated and funded by the hamdard foundation pakistan in 1981, in the picturesque surroundings of bund murad khan, 35 kilometers away from the city centre. today it is a beehive of activity, with children and youth engaged in academic, technical and sports activities, devoted to promoting learning and culture, and through it, help achieve moral and physical welfare, peace and progress. the bait al-hikmah library, hamdard public school, free hamdard village school, centre for horticulture and the hamdard university are the major institutions found here. the hamdard university’s mission provides value-based education to all students in its constituent institutions. its prestigious institutions – some based at the main campus and some in the city and some in islamabad include hamdard institute of management sciences (hims), hamdard college of medicine and dentistry (hcmd), hamdard al-majeed college of eastern medicine (hacem), shifa ul-mulk memorial hospital, naimat begum hamdard university hospital , hamdard university hospital – taj medical complex, hamdard institute of education and social sciences (hiess), dr hafiz mohammad ilyas institute of pharmacology and herbal sciences (hmiiphs), hamdard school of law, faculty of pharmacy and faculty of engineering sciences and technology (fest). the madinat al-hikmah continues to develop and grow. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 7 editorial the very first issue of the hamdard islamicus 2021 consists of seven articles that have approached the most demanding, challenging and strategic issues facing the present era in the islamic perspective. each included article has its own significance and a unique approach to meet the said problems. ‘pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism: south asia, turkey, and southeast asia’ is the first article of this issue, which analyses the impact of pan-islamic cooperation and civilizational exchanges between turkey, central asia, south and southeast asia. it mainly focuses on the intellectual legacy, achievements, and role of muslim intellectuals for the unity of the muslim ummah against the colonial drive. it tries to inspire optimism among muslims by suggesting a modern framework for providing cooperation for intra-socio-economic development. the second article, ‘the prophecy of green arabia and the possibility of miracle: a refutation of david hume’s theory of no-miracle,’ is a rational discussion that analyses one of the prophecies of prophet muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) regarding the miracle and ecological behaviour of arabian land and further discusses david hume’s theory which rejects the miracle concept. this article exhibits how western intellectuals failed attempts to alienate divine revelation as a source of knowledge. the author refutes david hume’s theory by demonstrating and analysing a prophecy of prophet muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as scientific and provides answers to these implications. the third article, ‘developing tools for peaceful coexistence: a qur’énic perspective’, unmasks the righteous path in the light of the holy qur’én for reaching peaceful coexistence between muslim and non-muslim nations in the current era of globalization. this article denies the controversy regarding pre-islamic civilizations’ influence over islamic civilization. it further emphasizes the need of presenting qur’énic solutions before the world, for harmony and tolerance among different nations of the world. the next article reflects the correct way for a human being to gain comfort both in the temporal and eternal worlds. in this article, ‘metaphysical discourse from qur’énic perspective concerning allah, man and universe relationship a study of sërah al-raímén’, the author tries to elaborate, with the help of sërah al-raímén, the undeniable strong relation between allah, man and the universe. it invites all to join the correct path by pondering on numerous clear signs of great integrity between all the creations included in the universe. the fifth article throws light on the great book of allah, having versatile meanings in different circumstances, using just a single word as a symbol. the author in his article, ‘fire symbolism in the holy qur’én: an analysis of contrary connotation’, has presented analysis of contrary connotations of ‘fire symbolism’ in the holy qur’én, through dividing it into ten opposing pairs. it highlights the unique feature of the inimitable book, the holy qur’én, to explain different antonyms by a single word. for comparative analysis of literary forms and terms, the author has followed zepetnek’s model for ideological inclusion. in the sixth article ‘guardianship of property in islamic law’, the issue of property’s guardianship of a child has been discussed comparatively. it reflects islamic teachings as well, regarding the rights of a minor in his/her best interest. as in pakistan, the law related to personal status is primarily based on islamic law, the author aims to explore the islamic rules related to guardianship of property to provide a source for legal reforms. the last article, ‘the abolition of capital punishment: an analysis of religiously inspired crimes in pakistan’ argues regarding another fiqh issue. despite international pressure for abolishing the death penalty, pakistan has retained enforcement of capital punishment on more than two dozen crimes, to meet justice. the author suggests jurists to study in depth to find a path as per islam’s guidelines for doing away with the death penalty for certain crimes which do not clash with the constitutional, religious and social limitations of the state. editor 8 editor hamdard islamicus 91 vol. xxxix, no. 4 book review orientalism in english literature: perception of islam and muslims. by a.r. kidwai, new delhi, viva books, 2016. isbn: 978-81-309-2692-6. pp. xxi + 282. inr 1395. in covering islam (1981), edward said, in his characteristic display of intellectual courage and honesty, had emphasized the orientalist conceit of the dominant, western-based global media and its tendency to reproduce damaging verbal and visual image of the muslim world in the following words: ‘for the general public in america and europe today, islam is “news” of a particularly unpleasant sort. the media, the government, the geo-political strategists and – although they are marginal to the culture at large – the academic experts on islam are all in concert: islam is a threat to western civilization. now this is by no means the same as saying that only derogatory or racist caricatures are to be found in the west. i do not say that, nor would i agree with anyone who did. what i am saying is that negative images of islam continue to be very much more prevalent than others, and that such images correspond not to what islam “is” … but to what prominent sectors of a particular society take it to be. these sectors have the power and the will to propagate that particular image of islam, and this image, therefore, becomes more prevalent, more present than others’. more than three decades on, and in the post 9/11 era, and the ongoing ‘global war on terror’, said’s words remain prescient as tropes and narratives of militant islam are not only being continuously used but have also intensified in media discourses and literary texts to produce, to quote stephen morton, ‘new regimes of knowledge that survey, regulate hamdard islamicus 92 vol. xxxix, no. 4 and criminalize particular muslim populations and islam more generally’. the challenges faced by contemporary muslim intellectuals under such circumstances in contesting these neo-orientalist narratives are rather daunting. they have to chart a distinctive path away from not only the confrontational radicalism of fundamentalist groups but also the distorted liberalism of several modernists who, in the name of representing muslim beliefs and attitudes from the inside, actually promote a western secular agenda. above all they also have to avoid the nervous rhetoric of apologetic muslim and western leaders who only keep repeating that all aberrant extremism has nothing to do with islam but selectively fail, to quote shahéb ahmed,‘to understand the fullness of the reality of what has actually been going on in the historical societies of muslims living as muslims’. orientalism in english literature: perceptions of islam and muslims joins recent scholarly writings that negotiate with such challenges. the modesty of its intended aim is quite clear, as stated in the ‘preface’ – to bridge the regrettable divide between the west and islam/muslims by way of tracking down the misrepresentation of history as well as the history of misrepresentation. in doing so it avoids any specific form of defensive or polemical or even neutral grounds but acknowledging the globalized, multi-faith condition of the world today, seeks to contribute towards opening up strong, vibrant channels of cross-cultural communication and understanding. the book brings together, under the rubric of a common theme – images of islam and muslims in english and european literature – articles, notes, book reviews and review articles by abdur raheem kidwai, an eminent professor of english at aligarh muslim university, india, written over the last twenty seven years. besides being a testimony to the dedication towards one’s object of study, the book is a valuable addition to the subfield of literary orientalism. this subfield within english literary studies, which was relatively unknown in the past, has assumed greater importance in the post 9/11 scenario of the ‘resurgence of islam’ and its repercussions on global politics. not that literary orientalism is an altogether new phenomena, for there have been pioneering works like byron porter smith’s islam in english literature (1939), samuel chew’s the crescent and the rose (1937), which have defined the parameters of the debates in the subject. the groundbreaking work, however, after which the subject, hamdard islamicus 93 vol. xxxix, no. 4 as it were, took off, was edward said’s orientalism in 1978. ever since then, and in larger numbers of late, substantial studies have emerged. the present volume joins scholarship of these works in identifying the forms as well as the contexts of the negative portrayal of islam/muslims in several canonical and popular cultural texts of the west while also taking care to appreciate the occasional positive depictions. norman daniels’s pioneering and definitive work on the construction of anti-islamic polemics in western literature and culture, islam and the west: the making of an image (1962) had confirmed the role of ‘misapprehension’ and ‘misrepresentation’ of ideas and beliefs of one society in becoming, in a distorted way, the accepted myths of another society, so much so, that its relation to the original facts were barely discernible. kidwai’s work reiterates this view emphasizing on the role of literary writings as a ‘rich source material’ and ‘mirror to popular perceptions and misrepresentations ‘ which ‘reflect’, ‘reinforce’ as well as ‘rectify’ the image of the ‘islamic other’. the first essay titled ‘perceptions of islam and muslims in english literature: a historical survey’ sets the style and structure of the entire volume. in our own times, the notion of a ‘medieval’ regressive and backward looking islam in perpetual conflict with a ‘developed and civilized’ west has its roots in christendom’s historic confrontation with the arabs and ottomans, as a result of which the ‘muslim world’ has become synonymous with that monolithic entity. it is an association that has been invested with a strong discourse of european cultural superiority over other cultures. kidwai appropriately begins with the west’s encounter with islam in the medieval period, dominated by the crusades, but balances it well with the spirit of convivencia or co-existence, particularly in andalusian spain, that prevailed over hostilities fuelled by negative and polemical depictions. the essay is a comprehensive survey of both positive and polemical portrayals in canonical and popular texts spanning through the early modern period of the european renaissance and enlightenment upto the romantic period. the sheer range and number of texts in their varying degrees of hostility to islam and their tolerant treatment by the author is not specific to this work alone and kidwai’s writings have been praised for this attitude by many established scholars in the west. the next chapter on william wordsworth carries forward this binary pattern, of depicting polemics and balancing it with positive portrayals, hamdard islamicus 94 vol. xxxix, no. 4 with an analysis of a lesser known poem titled ‘armenian lady’s love’ (1830) which conspicuously retains the conventions of medieval orientalism characterized by the oppressed princess waiting for the virtuous christian knight to liberate her from a tyrannical father. however, the tolerance of the author again gets foregrounded in the discussion of the famous ‘arab’s dream’ in the prelude where wordsworth acknowledges the role of muslims in preserving the cultures of greek antiquity which would later be passed on to the european civilization. having been a past contributor to the esteemed the byron journal and a specialist in literature of the romantic period it is expected that many of the subsequent articles which comprise this book will deal with english and european romanticism dominated by the towering figure of lord byron. here one cannot resist quoting at length the famous letter written by byron to thomas moore in may 1813: ‘stick to the east; – the oracle stael told me, it was the only poetic policy. the north, south, and west have all been exhausted; but from the east, we have nothing but southey’s unsaleables – and these he has contrived to spoil, by adopting only their outrageous fictions’. byron, who was europe’s ‘leading consultant in cultural capital’ had a flair for predicting the literary market and was responsible for not only encouraging the younger poet’s phenomenally successful lalla rookh but also the elder coleridge’s ‘kubla khan’. the role of oriental poetry in regenerating european aesthetics in the first few decades of the nineteenth century has even been described as ‘oriental renaissance’. however, romanticism’s participation in the dark legacies of western imperialism heavily overshadows this cross-cultural aspect of european literature and any discussion of the romantic poets’ engagement with the east has to struggle with these problems. byron’s complicity in the imperialist project of the ‘civilizing mission’ too has been debated at length. but kidwai, along with mohammad sharafuddin and naji b. oueijan, has been cited by scholars like peter j. kitson as absolving byron and stressing on his sympathetic treatment of the muslim world. the unsaleabilty of the poet laureate robert southey, as described hamdard islamicus 95 vol. xxxix, no. 4 by byron in the letter above, has been confirmed by scholars like nigel leask and javed majeed. in kidwai it gets a fresh lease of life through the contrasting approaches of byron and southey towards islam and muslims. the presentation of muslim characters in southey is a continuation of the crusading mentality where, in the battle between good and evil, christians always prevail. the muslim solidarity is held together only by their motive of plunder which their faith permits. in fact shelley’s orientalism too has been described as being akin to southey in his endorsement of colonial and evangelical incursions in the islamic lands. even though he used the islamic orient as a means of airing his radical views on the issues of political tyranny and religious obscurantism, his cultural narcissism prevailed over sympathetic and positive views. byron, however, is always described by kidwai as ‘true to life, reflective of his cross-cultural sympathies’. in byron’s works islam is not responsible for creating tyrants and oriental despots. rather, he avoids anti-islamic polemics by making his heroes anti-authoritarian and not simply anti-orientals. in the clash between muslims and christians, both groups are indistinguishable in their bigotry and pursuit of violence and unlike the poetry of the medievalist southey, byron portrayed both as flawed and liable to perish. byron never invents muslim characters to discredit islam and this according to kidwai is a significant departure from a centuries old tradition of demonizing islam in western literature. kidwai covers the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to include women poets as well in a separate chapter. after lauding the unconventional and flamboyant lady mary wortley montagu who also broke many of the stereotypes about the ‘harem’ of muslim rulers, kidwai discusses at length the works of emma roberts, maria jones, anne candler, felicia hemans and mary robinson. what is noteworthy about the orientalism of these women writers is the way they strive to convey an authenticity when writing about india and the orient and how this effort comes under strain when having to negotiate the conventions of literary orientalism. beneath the ‘gorgeous fabric’ of authentic reflection lies the yearning for home back in england. this ambivalent attitude of authentic representation and yet the inability to integrate is quite remarkable in these writers. the only time when the author’s tolerance is tested and set aside is while dealing with the neo-orientalism and wilful misperception of hamdard islamicus 96 vol. xxxix, no. 4 muslims, in certain contemporary fiction. one chapter on balwant gargi’s purple moonlight (1993) and another on jean p. sasson’s princess (1993) and princess sultana’s daughters (1994) convincingly bring out the regrettable retention of the crusading mentality of these contemporary hate literatures. more subtle, however, is the poise with which kidwai commends the ‘ingenuous’ anthology titled image and representation: stories of muslim lives (2000) which bring into sharp relief the ‘religiohistorical and socio-cultural milieu, misery and plight of indian muslims’. a note of hope, however, emerges again in the two chapters which discuss the novels of qaisra shahraz. her debut novel the holy woman (2001) has been described as elucidating the ‘islamic faith and practices as the natural way, perfectly consonant with an essential human nature and with late modernity’. shahraz also has the daunting task of distinguishing the core islamic teachings on various issues and their corrupted practices prevalent in many muslim societies which she carries out in her later novels – typhoon (2003) and revolt (2013) – as well in a sensitive and sensible way. her enigmatic protagonists stand out as typical muslim characters whose reverence for islam is undoubtable but who manage to cope with the challenges of both tradition and modernity. besides these searching articles on various aspects of literary orientalism, the volume also contains notes and book reviews which have been published in highly reputed journals known for promoting high quality and committed research. the notes which comprise bibliographies of oriental reading of canonical romantic poets like southey, byron, wordsworth, moore as well as verification of sources used by recent editors (including leslie march and, andrew nicholson and jerome mcgann) of these poets’ complete works are indispensable for future researchers on the subject. the assurance and confidence with which the author treats these materials is remarkable. the twenty six book reviews which comprise the rest of the volume are also a rich source of information on the subject. most of the titles covered in that section are cutting edge research works by leading scholars which have defined as well as intervened significantly in the existing forms of knowledge in this field. to what extent it would be correct to see a seeping of medieval ideas into the modern consciousness involves debates on western historiographical methods but the general agreement remains that if the hamdard islamicus 97 vol. xxxix, no. 4 medieval attitudes of anti–islamic hostilities were rooted in a sense of western inferiority, the modern attitudes were constructed through a gradual rise of the european sense of cultural and political superiority. in this context, the concluding words of the first essay by the author sounds a note of immense hope at a time when the past keeps returning to feed on the fears and anxieties of the present – ‘in a multi-faith, pluralist world of ours, we stand in need of better understanding, fostered by knowledge and nurtured by the spirit of tolerance, which can put an end to misperceptions about one another.’ dr. rafat ali assistant professor, dept. of english jadavpur university, kolkata-700032 india e-mail: rafat ali <asdak.yunzi@gmail.com> f:\e\islamicus\2021\developing tools for peaceful coexistence a qurâ•žanic perspective.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 53 developing tools for peaceful coexistence: a qur’ónic perspective dr. ahmed al-kubise*, dr. zia ul haq** *,**department of foundation of religion college of sharia & islamic studies university of sharjah, uae email: zulhaq@sharjah.ac.ae received on: 22-12-2020 accepted on: 03-01-2021 abstract this study highlights the past and potential qur’énic role in establishing peaceful inter-cultural interactions among nations. today’s world has shrunk into a global village. therefore, basing standards and protocols for peaceful coexistence according to guidelines and principles of the holy qur’én is appropriate, so every nation, while preserving its cultural values, may play its role in human development and ensure peaceful coexistence. in this regard, this study encompasses, points of harmony among societies, providing suggestions for formation of an organized, cultural and ideological platform from the qur’énic perspective. the study addresses a problem: many people believe that islamic civilization was influenced or affected by pre-islamic civilizations like the greek, persian and roman, therefore, islamic civilization must have derived some principles from them. on the contrary, the holy qur’én has already discussed fourteen centuries earlier, various aspects of different civilizations in detail. it mentions at various places the cosmic sunnahs (laws) and their impact on ancient civilizations. this research clarifies a fact, that guiding principles regarding moderation and peaceful coexistence are derived from the holy qur’én and impact of these qur’énic teachings are clearly visible in all aspects of islamic civilization. therefore, this research study clarifies the holy qur’én’s important role in establishing and strengthening peaceful coexistence among nations in all eras. keywords: peaceful coexistence, qur’énic perspective, world civilization 1. introduction in its aims and style, the holy qur’én is a complete code for life. 54 developing tools for peaceful coexistence... it removes any doubt in the human heart by offering solutions to all problems, both religious and secular. as allah almighty says: “allah almighty even knows the sly glances of the eyes and whatever the hearts conceal”.1 persons’ souls, creator, families and societies organise their lives. in fact, the holy qur’én is a highly systematic and reformative plan. studying the foundations of peaceful coexistence to strengthen social relationships has become a foremost priority in today’s small world because only through peaceful coexistence can better ties be built among civilisations. indeed, peaceful coexistence plays a decisive role in a nation’s development. therefore, principles of peaceful coexistence should be studied in an organised and scientific way, so all the world’s civilisations can draw close to ensure humanity’s progress and well-being. in the light of the holy qur’én, dialogue with others, based on moderation and aimed at harmony, can be a personal and general strategy for building relationships. disharmony among human beings has remained an important historical and philosophical problem still a focus of attention for today’s researchers. therefore, this study, from the perspective of qur’énic principles, aims at developing understanding of relationships between islamic and western civilisations. 2. objectives through the analysis of qur’énic verses and other evidence, the study aims to remove doubt and confusion about islamic civilisations based on misunderstanding of islamic teachings. global media’s accusations against islam regarding human rights need to be answered according to actual qur’énic content, which enjoins harmony, tolerance and peace. here, the researcher attempts to find those answers from the holy qur’én’s actual content. the study also aims at understanding qur’énic standards in order to promote peace among civilisations through resolution of conflicts and eradication of social disintegration. in globalisation’s wake, the importance of peaceful coexistence has gained impetus, so the study attempts to search out basic principles that form religious foundations, that muslims must follow, in order to establish ties of peaceful coexistence with other civilisations. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 55 3. literature review altaweel (1991) described peaceful coexistence as a concept in the field of international relations intended for the formulation of frameworks to ensure the acceptance of the multiplicity of human ideologies towards international issues. the concept insists on peaceful coexistence among followers of different religions. after world war ii, the term was also used to refer to cooperation among nations in the distribution of commercial interests on the basis of mutual respect and justice.2 updated communication tools have shrunk today’s world, transformed it into a small village, minimised distance and exploded knowledge and information and have promoted understanding and peaceful coexistence among people from various ideological backgrounds. the qur’énic approach towards peaceful coexistence with all human beings is demonstrated under a chapter entitled “kéfirën” (افرون .(ك the chapter mentions pagans and disbelievers who persecuted muslims on the basis of religion. in this chapter, the holy qur’én accepts ideological diversity and states, “you have your way, and i have my way”.3 the holy qur’én deals with human beings on the basis of unity under one creator and insists that muslims should peacefully interact with fellow human beings to maintain a peaceful world. it discourages forceful compulsion into accepting islam. in the qur’énic perspective, one can accept islam according to his conviction and will. the basic principle for the relationship of muslims with others is based on peace and tolerance. muslims’ commitment to their human relations is based on several moral principles, the most important of which are honour, mercy, love, equality and trust.4 from this standpoint, baraka concluded the legal aspect of the relationship between muslims and non-muslims. furthermore, the author demonstrated the principle of equality with non-muslims in constitutional rights throughout the various eras of islamic history. within these eras, all public authorities in the islamic state were committed to the rights and freedom established by the holy qur’én in the field of constitutional issues for citizens other than muslims.5 zaidan (1987) summarised the provisions related to non-muslims in islamic countries since the inception of islamic law, which takes the holy 56 developing tools for peaceful coexistence... qur’én as the basis for building society and establishing state. the state of islam prevails in the provisions of islam but does not restrict nonmuslims. instead, it ensures fundamental rights for non-muslims.6 in the same context, badran (1983) highlighted the qur’énic approach in dealing with non-muslims in certain social situations, such as relationships between muslims with non-muslims in contracts, crimes, food and so on.7 moreover, bardakoglu (2008) aimed to demonstrate how the relationship between religion, secularism, islam and democracy has been shaped in turkey and the relationship between various cultures over time. the author discussed the perception of turkish muslims and their position on freedom of religion and coexistence with different religious sects. the study concluded that the turkish case succeeded in managing diversity despite isolated events of disharmony.8 the brief literature review clearly indicates that previous studies focused on social aspects of the relationship between muslims and nonmuslims and presented opinions on issues specific to such a relationship. however, the present study focuses on clarifying the qur’énic position about coexistence with various human circles in the same manner that previous studies lacked the required clarification on the applications of peaceful coexistence in the contemporary scenario. the current study precisely addresses the practical aspects of peaceful coexistence in its various types from the qur’énic perspective. 4. definitions of cultural interaction the holy qur’én was revealed as a complete code of life so that people could be guided towards the true path. allah almighty says: “the book we have revealed to you o prophet is the truth, confirming what came before it. surely allah almighty is allaware, all-seeing of his servants”.9 “say, o prophet, “surely my lord has guided me to the straight path, a perfect way, the faith of abraham, the upright, who was not one of the polytheists”.10 in this age of globalisation, interaction among civilisations has gained immense importance, but relationships among civilisations are not a hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 57 commonplace matter rather an organisational and strategic matter based on different principles. thus, the relationship among civilisations should be studied, keeping in mind organised strategies. the objective of this research is in-depth study of cultural and civilised relationships among nations. therefore, the study analyses the process of building harmonious and moderate ties among civilisations by applying a methodological academic approach before tackling the actual topic. for clarification, some relevant terms are defined below. in the arabic language, the word ta‘éruf (ارف is used to describe (تع human interaction. therefore, ta‘éruful qaum (وم ارف الق is used (تع when people are introduced and mix socially (al-jawhari, 1974). the word ta‘éruf has also been used with the same meaning in a hadêth of our holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam): ف »11 ا اختل اكر منه ا تن ف وم ا ائتل ارف منه ا تع دة م ود مجن «األرواح جن the arwéí (souls) are a massed army. when they already know each other, they are friendly. when they do not know each other, they disagree. nawawi (raímat allah ‘alaih), after quoting several ulemas’ (scholars’) opinions, writes: ajnéd mujanda means a large group and varied assemblage. introductions of souls (arwéí) with one another purports that souls were created together. however later on when they entered into human bodies, they introduced with each other according to their characteristics and dispositions. in the beginning souls were of two types. but when they mixed with bodies, they parted ways because pure souls transferred into pure bodies and evil souls entered into impure bodies.12 while defining (ل ش) taghafaul and (تفاع ا ي according to the (تع islamic point of view, al-tuwaijri (1998) concludes: in the islamic perspective, interaction is a comprehensive term that comprises all meanings related to living in society. similarly, it denotes principles of discourse and rebuttal based on mutual respect. اني لَّ المع مَل ك ن أن يش عٍة يُمك و: ذو س المي فه ور اإلس ن المنظ ا م ”وأمَّ ا أن ن أيًض ايش ويُمك اكن والتع اون والتس ى التع دلُّ عل تي ت ال ترام ن واالح ي أحس التي ه دل ب وار والج م الح ل قي توعب التفاع يس ادل“13 المتب 58 developing tools for peaceful coexistence... an enlightened and peaceful future needs a practical, long-lasting, systematic strategy for laying a foundation for civilizational interaction, which in turn can help in establishing firm relationships among religious groups and civilisations. 4.1 literary meaning of civilisation in the literary meaning of civilisation in the arabic language, haìarah اره) is used for civilisation when it indicates urban life. its opposite (حض is bédiyah (ہ ادي رى) indicating rural life. thus, haìarê ,(ب means (حض city dweller, while budwê (دوى -means a village dweller or a rustic (al (ب jawhari, 1974). as a term, ‘civilisation’ has been defined differently by many scholars. it refers to powerful plans and systems to spread order, peace and happiness and to humanity’s intellectual and literary development14. ilm ud din defines civilisation as the following: ةٍ ٍة معيَّن ي بيئ ة ، ف ريّة معيَّن ٍة بش ش مجموع ط عي ارةهي نم ”الحض م لَّم القي ي س ة وف ذي تعتمدهالمجموع ام الّ ي النظ ل ف يتمثَّ ها.“15 دها لنفس دِّ ةالتي تح االجتماعيَّ “civilisation is actually a way of living of a specific people in a specific area according to their social standards and pre-determined system of life.” this last definition clarifies that every society is closely related to a civilisation. as such, different societies give birth to different civilisations. accordingly, the islamic civilisation is a practical example of islamic society and islamic values16. similarly, the british historian arnold j. toynbee17 states that “because human history is a history of civilisation, it is also a history of human societies”. in this context, civilisation and society are two sides of a coin because society is a group of organised individuals and civilisation is a systematic collection of organised principles practiced by a society.18 4.2. diversity is the qur’énic perspective both implicitly and explicitly, the holy qur’én places great importance on cultural diversity in its teachings and motivates people to accept differences among them. even in the matter of faith, the holy qur’én hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 59 admits the existence of other factions and holds dialogues with them, creating conducive environments in which both parties can accept the findings. in this way, parties succeed in finding truth either by acceptance or rejection. in fact, the holy qur’én calls differences of colour and language among human beings a sign and a marvel of god’s creation. allah almighty says: “and one of his signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your languages and colours. surely in this are signs for those of sound knowledge”.19 in this holy verse (نه الف الس ikhtilaf-al sinah means ,(اخت differences of languages, while ikhtilaf-al alwén (وان الف األ ل means (اخت differences of colours since human beings can be astonishingly different from one another in shape and complexion20. clearly, from the mention of language and colour the holy qur’én marks no essential difference among human beings. differences occur only in colour, language or other external attributes. it is an admitted fact that essence is reliable, while attributes, being temporary, have no credibility. in the verse quoted above, the holy qur’én has implicitly prioritised the equality of all humans’ essence. accordingly, differences of faith and thought among human beings have been acknowledged. in this perspective, allah almighty, while acknowledging civilisational differences among human beings says in surah hëd, “had your lord so willed, he would have certainly made humanity one single community of believers, but they will always choose to differ”.21 in other words, had allah almighty wished, he would have created all human beings according to the same pattern, but he wished them to differ and so included differences even in religion. acknowledging cultural diversity means introducing human groups to one another and allowing them to become acquainted with each other’s lifestyles and varied life experiences. such interaction can eliminate doubt and confusion among societies and civilisations about each other, and the idol of sectarianism can be demolished. humankind often speculates about other civilisations and societies and in ignorance, becomes suspicious of them. but when other civilisations are introduced, and as one society grows close to another, they can both learn, finally, that all the speculations 60 developing tools for peaceful coexistence... are just fabrications of mind22. for example, the islamic state of madinah was based on principles of ideological equality that did not determine decisions and policies on the bases of religion, gender and colour. this equality and peaceful coexistence resulted in establishment of islamic civilisation through active participation of all religions followers.23 in light of these qur’énic principles, serious academic efforts should be made in strengthening enduring relationships among current civilisations. 5. impact of qur’énic teaching on developing coexistence among civilisations the holy qur’én not only greatly emphasises strengthening relationships with others but also provides principles for positive relationships and peaceful coexistence. the following analyses qur’énic teachings relevant to strengthening relationships. the holy qur’én stresses adopting a path of moderation and balance in all life situations, so there will be harmony between soul and body as human nature demands. analogously, moderation is highly emphasised for ensuring peaceful coexistence among civilisations. according to some scholars, this characteristic distinguishes islamic civilisation. h.a.r. gibb states. “i believe that even today islam is inevitable for humanity because it stands as a moderator between east and the west. whatever islam has done for peaceful coexistence among human beings, no system has done that yet. therefore, if any mediator is needed to resolve the conflicts between east and the west, that moderator is islam only”.24 the holy qur’én enjoins us to follow moderate thoughts and a balanced, middle path in matters of religion. it strictly condemns extremism. in the holy qur’én, word (و ghulë, has been used for extremism. in (غل surah mai’dah, allah almighty says, “say, o people of the book! do not go to extremes in your faith beyond the truth, nor follow the vain desires of those who went astray before you. they misled many and strayed from the right way.”25 furthermore, ibn-e-abbas (raìi allah ‘anhu) has quoted our holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) saying: “people, beware of exaggeration in religious matters for those who came before you hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 61 were doomed because of exaggeration in religious matters”26. in the same way, the holy qur’én forbids extremism. allah almighty says, “ask, o prophet, “who has forbidden the adornments and lawful provisions allah almighty has brought forth for his servants?” say, “they are for the enjoyment of the believers in this worldly life, but they will be exclusively theirs on the day of judgment. this is how we make our revelations clear for people of knowledge”.27 the holy qur’én has named islami nation (ummah) as a mid-most (ummat) nation. “and so we have made you believers an upright community”.28 this verse asserts that abstaining from exaggeration and violence is required by every muslim, and thus muslims need to practice wisdom and moderation by establishing an environment of peaceful coexistence among other religions and civilisations. extremism opposes moderation, of course. islam enjoins its followers to moderation and forbids extreme behaviours. balanced behaviours unite human beings and call for dialogue among nations and religions by eschewing controversy. as perceived by scholars, islam’s universality emerges, in that its message is not meant for specific people.29 balanced behaviour unites human beings and calls for dialogue among nations/religions by ignoring controversies. universality of islam as perceived by the scholars is that its message is not meant for specific people.30 5.1. qur’énic principles for establishment of peaceful coexistence the holy qur’én prefers peace to war in islamic societies’ relationships with other civilisations. the word ‘islam’ itself is derived from the arabic root salémah (المه meaning peace. as has been said ,(س in the sërah ‘baqarah’ of the holy qur’én states, “fight in the cause of allah almighty against those who wage war against you, but do not exceed the limits. allah almighty does not like transgressors.”31 62 developing tools for peaceful coexistence... islam allows war against persecution. it does not promote war against the peaceful unbelievers just on the basis of their religion. terrorism is an act of aggression perpetrated by any individual or group for achievement of its personal, collective or political objectives and, in fact, terrorism is abhorrent in light of the holy qur’én because it exploits others for political gain. because of its targets, methods and objectives, it is un-islamic. islam expressly forbids fomenting riot both in muslim and non-muslim countries in the name of religion32. conversely, qur’énic principles for establishment of peaceful coexistence are laid on the foundations of mutual cooperation, compromise and justice. the holy qur’én clearly writes in this regard, “o humanity! indeed, we created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may get to know one another.”33 therefore, relationships among civilisations should be built on peaceful coexistence in which all human beings have security of rights34. this is evident from the following islamic principles. 5.2. freedom of religion islam teaches its followers to treat non-muslim inhabitants in an islamic country very well, and they should enjoy all facilities and privileges granted to (national) local muslims. in this way, they also have all the responsibilities that muslim inhabitants have. thus, rights related to security of life, property, religion and self-respect are equally shared by nonmuslims.35 5.3. tolerance towards other religions islam emphasises tolerance towards other religions on moral grounds for establishment of peaceful coexistence because liking differences in language and colour, differences in thoughts and ideologies are the ingrained demands of human nature. in this regard, the holy qur’én mentions, “had your lord so willed o prophet, all people on earth would have certainly believed, every single one of them! would you then force people to become believers?”36 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 63 indeed, the holy qur’én testifies for all sacred texts. just as islam acknowledges all religions, so muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) believed in all undistorted divine scriptures as revealed on moses, jesus christ and david (‘alaihim as-salém), allah almighty says in this connection that, “the messenger firmly believes in what has been revealed to him from his lord, and so do the believers. they all believe in allah almighty, his angels, his books, and his messengers”.37 similarly, the holy qur’én also admits that the books revealed on mësa (‘alaih as-salém) and ‘ôsa (‘alaih as-salém) were guidance from allah almighty and his divine lights. “indeed, we revealed the torah, containing guidance and light”.38 there can be no higher degree of acknowledgement, tolerance, mutual respect and peaceful coexistence than this, as mentioned in the verses above39. 5.4. guarantee of non-muslims’ rights in the light of qur’énic teachings, in an islamic state, all nonmuslims’ rights must be safeguarded. non-muslims must not be treated with prejudice or injustice thus, the holy qur’én commands the political establishment to administer governance with justice for every citizen. “allah doth command you to render back your trusts to those to whom they are due; and when ye judge between man and man that ye judge with justice”41 in an islamic state, therefore, establishment of an independent judiciary is essential for administration of unbiased and pure justice in which nonmuslim parties have equal opportunity to pursue their cases42. the concepts and information presented above demonstrate that the holy qur’én presents principles based on tolerance and peace for coexistence with non-muslims. in fact, islam advocated peaceful coexistence fourteen hundred years before the 1948 universal declaration of human rights.43 this information also discredits the misconception 64 developing tools for peaceful coexistence... that islam spread by dint of sword. on the contrary, islam spread by virtue of peaceful invitation (propagation) based on tolerance and respectful dialogue. 6. establishment of a peaceful environment for non-muslims in an islamic society islamic scholars of jurisprudence have clarified that it is incumbent upon the islamic state to be responsible for the security of the life, property and honour of every citizen, muslim or non-muslim, against any kind of danger (afifi 1991, 317).44 this also comes from the holy qur’én, which has enjoined exemplary principles for the protection of a stranger. it says, “and if anyone from the polytheists asks for your protection, o prophet, grant it to them so they may hear the word of allah almighty, then escort them to a place of safety, for they are a people who have no knowledge”.45 therefore, scholars of islamic law have explained that when nonmuslims enter muslim territory for trade, exploration or delegacy, they must be provided security by the islamic state until they safely return to their home country46. experts of islamic jurisprudence have also clarified that a man taking refuge in an islamic country will not be returned to his own country against his will even if a muslim prisoner is exchanged for his return47. 6.1. keeping promises/fulfilling treaties in consequence of a treaty, if non-muslim prisoners of war are to be given security, the muslims are bound by sharê‘ah to honour the pledge in letter and spirit. as allah almighty has decreed, “honour allah almighty’s covenant when you make a pledge, and do not break your oaths after confirming them”.48 in another place, allah almighty says, “honour your pledges, for you will surely be accountable for them”.49 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 65 muslims are therefore obliged to contact their enemies in war in a breach of the muslims’ pledge to notify the enemy of their treachery before nullifying the treaty. the holy qur’én exhorts in such cases and states: “if thou fearest treachery from any group throw back (their covenant) to them (so as to be) on equal terms: for god loveth not the treacherous.”50 however, when we thoroughly study islamic history, we do not find any incident in which muslims have broken promises or covenants. similarly, in islamic history, there is hardly any example of muslim treachery against international pacts51. it is evident that islam attaches great importance to development of relationships with other global civilisations, provided the relationship is based on justice and equality. balance and moderation carry high value in islamic teachings because they are prerequisites in every aspect of life. if a human body loses equilibrium because of illness or a society is disrupted when harmony among its various peoples is gone, in the same way, when balance and moderation do not exist in international bilateral relations, riots and wars find away52. in brief, the holy qur’én lays immense emphasis on peaceful coexistence and has advanced ever-lasting principles in this regard. in islamic history, examples of peaceful coexistence are found in the form of the ‘madinah treaty’ (ہ اق مدين and the (ميث ‘hudaibiah pact’ (ہ لح حديبي there is may be found as various (ص covenants implemented during the time of muhammad (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) or as muslims’ historical treaties with opponents in later times when islamic civilisation was at its zenith. 7. conclusion to ensure peaceful coexistence among civilisations, the holy qur’én presents a complete code with everlasting principles based on tolerance, humanism and moderation. this study reveals that diversities in colour, race, language or religious interpretations benefit humanity. these diversities offer an environment of constructive competition that can and will be used for humankind’s development. the holy qur’én emphasises interactions and dialogues to create and strengthen an atmosphere of peaceful coexistence. similarly, by condemning extremism and terrorism 66 developing tools for peaceful coexistence... in strict terms, islam stresses propagation of a culture of dialogue, peace and peaceful coexistence. irrespective of underlying differences among civilisations and cultures, the holy qur’én has indicated and highlighted universal values and principles related to human beings and civilisations. whatever the differences among civilisations and whatever their intensity, values of justice, truthfulness and trustworthiness are common to all, and these values can sufficiently strengthen an environment of peaceful coexistence within a context of diversity and plurality. islamic civilisation aims at developing peaceful coexistence among human societies and strengthening ties among cultures by promoting values of justice, truthfulness and trustworthiness. the holy qur’én stresses sensitisation of individuals to tolerance, peace, security and stability so that they can develop working relationships with all civilisations. the message of islam is universal; it therefore, acknowledges all divine religions and respects them by accepting all apostles and prophets (‘alaih as-salém). islamic civilisation based on moderation and harmony is part of human civilisation, providing universal principles for building confidence and cooperation with nations, mutual understanding among civilisations and a culture of constructive discourse with other religions and nations. from the qur’énic perspective, peaceful coexistence, building relationships and methods of communication, with diversity and respect for others’ opinions, are the best alternative remedies for resolution of conflicts among civilisations. this study finds that the holy qur’én can play a pivotal role in establishment of relationships among nations internationally. in this regard, qur’énic teachings’ foundation is laid on mutual understanding, dialogue, and common interest, protection of sanctities and assurance of liberty. these relationships are highly important for the security of human existence on planet earth. western scholars and media should eradicate suspicions regarding islamic history and civilisation so that gaps between eastern and western civilisations can be bridged and an environment of peace and peaceful coexistence may prevail globally. recommendations especially in light of the discussion above, the concepts of justice and peaceful coexistence should be studied in the context of qur’énic injunctions. moreover, the works of muslim and non-muslim scholars regarding peaceful coexistence from the qur’énic perspective should be incorporated into various countries’ educational curricula. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 67 notes and references 1. the holy qur’én (40:19). 2. altaweel t. qiîîah al-ijtihad al dêni fi masihêya’h wa al islam, (cairo: dar alzahra, 2017), 13-14. 3. the holy qur’én, (5:110) 4. ahmad, h. abdullah, “mazahir al ta’ush al ijtimai fil islam”, mujalla’h adab al farahidi 8, (2011): 143–144. 5. baraka, a. munim, al-islam wa al musafawat bain al muslimeen wa ghair al muslimeen fi usoor al tarikh al islami wa fi asr al hadith, (alexederia: mu’ssas’ah shabab al jamia, 2007), 85-86. 6 zaidan, a.karim, ahkam al zimmiyyin wa al must’meen fi dar al islam (beirut: mu’ssasa’h al risala’ah, 1987), 87. 7. badran, abu al ainain, al ilaqat al ijtimai’ah bain al muslimeen wa ghair al muslimeen fi al shari’ah al islami’ah wal yahudi’ah wal masihi’ah (beirut: dar al nahda’h al arabia’h 1983), 203. 8. bardakoglu, ali, “culture of co-existence in islam: the turkish case”, insight turkey 10, no. 3 (2008): 111–126. 9 the holy qur’én (54:2) 10. ibid, (6:161) 11 bukhari. al-jémi‘ al-saíêí al-mukhtasar: hadith no. 3158, edited by deeb, muhammad 3, 1213. beirut: dar ibn kathir, 1992; muslim. al-jémi‘ al-saíêí: hadith no. 2638, edited by fu’ad, muhammad 4. beirut: dar ihya al-turas alarabi, 2031. 12. nawavi, yahya. al-minhah fi sharh saíêí muslim ibn al-hajjaj 16, no. 2 (beirut: dar ihya al-turas al-arabi), 185. 13. tuwaijiri, abdel aziz. al-islam wa taa’ush al silmi bain al-adyén fi ufuq alqarni al-hadi wal ishreen (rabat, 1998), 17-18. 14. crozet, moris. the general history of civilization trans. abu raihan, fu’ad, 3rd ed.1, (beirut: uwaidat, original work published 1964), 16-17. 15. ilm ud din. al-mujtama‘ al-islami fi maríala al takween (beirut: daralnahdah al-arabia 1992), 6. 16. qasas, ahmad. nushu al-hadarah al islamiah (dar al shuruq, egypt, 2007), 113. 17. arnold j. toynbee. a study of history, trans. shibl, fu’ad 1, no. 1 (cairo: cultural committee of the arab league, 1960), 3. 18. linton, ralph. the tree of culture, trans. fakhri, ahmad 1 (anglo egyptian library, 1955), 65-66. 19. the holy qur’én, (30:22) 20. ibn kahthir. tafseer al qur’én al azeem, edited by muhammad salama sami 4, no. 2 (cairo: dar al-tiba’h, 1999), 114-115. 21. the holy qur’én, (11:118) 22. turkistani, ahmad. al-hiwar ma’a ashab al-adyén: mashruiyyatu wa shurutu wa adab (saudi arabia: al-maktabah al-raqami’ah, mecca, 2008), 17-18. 23. al-ali, nasir, “samahat al islam wa dawruhu fi taqaddum al hadarat al-insania’h”, al-sharq al awsat, no. 8515, march 22, 2002. 68 developing tools for peaceful coexistence... 24. jundi, anwar. aalamiat al islam, (egypt: dar al-itisam, 2005), 37-38. 25. the holy qur’én, (5:77) 26. nasai, ahmad. al-mujtaba min al-sunan:hadith no. 3057, edited by abu udd’ah, abdel fattah 5, (aleppo:1986), 286; ibn majah, muhammad bin yazid . sunan ibn majah: hadith no. 3028, edited by. abdel baqi, fuad 2, (beirut: dar al-fikar, 1995), 1008-1009. 27. the holy qur’én, (7:32) 28. ibid: (2:143) 29. shahood, ali. mawsu’ al mafahim al islami’ah (cairo: dar al-tiba’h, 2008), 728729. 30. zuhaili. wasatia’h al islam wa samahatuhu (beirut: daralsadir, 2003), 2627. 31. the holy qur’én, (2:190) 32. zuhaili. wasatia’h al islam wa samahatuhu, (beirut: dar alsadir, 2003), 5758. 33. the holy qur’én, (49:13) 34. safar, hasan. nazaratun istishraqia’h fi fiqh al ilaqat al-insaniah bain almuslimên wa ghair al-muslimên (jeddah: 2004), 37-38. 35. saqqar, sami, nizam al-aman fi al-shari’ah al islamia’h wa awza al mustaminin (rabat: king v university, 1971), 69-70. 36. the holy qur’én, (10:99). 37. ibid: (2:285). 38. ibid, (5:44) 39. omari, akram, al-mujtam’h al-madani fi al-ahd al-nabua’h: khasaisuhu wa tanzimatuhu al-ula (al-madina’h: al-majlis al ilmi, 2005), 16-17. 40. baraka, abdel monim ahmed. al-islam wal musawat bain al-muslimên wa ghair al-muslimên (alexenderia: mu’assas’h al-shabab, 2007), 102-103. 41. the holy qur’én, (4:58) 42. bakr, muhammad. al-sulta’h al-qazayi’ah wa shakhsia’h al-qazi fi nizam alislami (al-zhara lil ilam al-arabi, 1999), 652. 43. jafar. abd al salam. qawai‘d al-ilaqat al-du’alia’h fi al-qanun al-dua’li wa fi al-shari’ah al-islamia’h (cairo: maktaba salam al-alamia’h, 2002), 315-316. 44. afifi, muhammad, al-islam wa al-ilaqat al-dua’liah (beirut: dar al-raid alarabi, 1991), 317. 45. the holy qur’én, (9:6). 46. ibn kahthir. tafsêr al qur’én al azêm, edited by muhammad sami salama (cairo: dar al-tiba’h, 1999), 308-309. 47. ferjani, omar ahmed. uîël al-ilaqat al-dua’liah fi al-islam, (tripoli: public establishment for publishing distribution and advertising, 2002), 131. 48. the holy qur’én (16:91). 49. ibid, (17:34). 50. ibid, (8:58). 51. shoman, abbas. al-ilaqat al-du’aliah fi al-shari‘ah al-islamiah, (cairo: cultural publishing house, 2001), 103. 52. saleh, muhammad bin ahmed. wasatiah al-islam wa samahatuhu wa dawatuhu lil hiwar (dubai: dubai academic publishing, 2004), 36-37. hamdard islamicus 35 vol. xl, no. 2 islamophobia and its historical roots content, context, and consequences mr. mohammad yaseen gada senior research fellows, department of islamic studies, aligarh muslim univesity, aligarh-202002, (u.p.), india e-mail: [myyaseenm2@gail.com] the present study aims at exploring and analysing the contemporary islamophobia and its historical perspective tracing down through to the eleventh century crusades. it illustrates that islamophobia or “fear of islam” is not a new phenomenon; the prejudice and negative construction of islam as an existential threat developed in the eleventh century in context of the crusades.islam/muslims were diabolised in the popular consciousness, a propaganda pursued and deployed with great zeal by the ruling elite and clergy at particular moments. in this background, the paper discusses among other things the western europeans’ anti-islam discourse formation, its influence on the contemporary western policies and attitudes towards the muslim world. however, unfortunately this legacy of bitterness is overlooked by most europeans. many muslims see “islamophobia”, “war on terror”, “colonialism”, “imperialism” and other western policies and hegemony over the muslim world as neo-crusades. this paper argues that today islamophobia serves the us and its allies politically, economically in the same way as the crusades served the medieval christian europe against the muslim world. diabolising muslims and islam is central to the discourse. the paper advocates the intellectuals and academics to critically investigate and demystify the western misconceptions and negative image of islam/muslims because islamophobia is not only a threat to muslims but also to the rule of law and democratic values the world over. keywords: islamophobia, threat, muslim, islam, fear, crusade, discourse, west, india. hamdard islamicus 36 vol. xl, no. 2 introduction there is no doubt that in the west, islam is the most misunderstood and misrepresented religion. prejudice, hatred, fear against islam and the muslims are pervasive in the western discourse of islam. headscarves, hêjéb, burqa‘, harem, beard, cap, madrasah, mosques, minarets – like other symbols identified with the muslim culture are abuzz in the western media and other conservative works are increasingly seen as a rejection of western democratic values or, even worse, as a direct threat to the west. the integration of muslim immigrants has been on the political agenda of european democracies for several decades.1 however, the 9/11 terrorist attacks have only brought a significant change in the western imagination and perception of islam so much so that “muslim men are so dehumanized that since 9/11 they have become less than zero ... stripped of all legal rights afforded under us domestic and international law, force-fed like animals”.2 considering carl ernst’s statement, “it is safe to say that no religion has such a negative image in western eyes as islam”, and thus has surprised many as why islam is perceived negatively or misunderstood/misrepresented even in this age of postmodernism. emphasizing the point, ernst says, “it still amazes me that intelligent people can believe that all muslims are violent or that all muslim women are oppressed, when they would never dream of uttering slurs stereotyping much smaller groups such as jews or blacks. the strength of these negative images of muslims is remarkable, even though they are not based on personal experience or actual study, but they receive daily reinforcement from the news media and popular culture”.3 many scholars4 are of the opinion that such negative stereotyping against islam and the muslims have their origins in the medieval time when the christian europe orchestrated for the first time such a successful campaign known as the “crusades” wars against the muslim world in the eleventh century. the contemporary fear of muslims that exemplifies bigotry, prejudice, discrimination, violence against muslims could be seen as the modern manifestations of age-long hatred and hostility of the western european christian world. the ban on the muslim immigration in the us recently imposed by the newly elected us president donald trump clearly typifies the bitter legacy of west’s prejudice against the muslims. hamdard islamicus 37 vol. xl, no. 2 why is this so? how have the relationships between the muslim world and western europe and the united states impacted perceptions of islam, in the past and the present? how the anti-islam discourse took formation, and by whom and why is it produced and perpetuated; and who benefits from its survival and consistency? these are some but important questions, which have been raised by many scholars in the recent past. there have been only a handful of good scholarly works, which take these considerations into investigation and have attempted to demystify the west’s traditional worldviews toward islam/muslims, in order to present the factual and real experience of islam and the muslims, the victims of islamophobia: the particularistic attitude toward muslims that scholars have often described as an aversion to or “anxiety of islam”.5before we unveil the contemporary manifestations of the anti-islam sentiments, and the perpetuators of islamophobic monsters, it is significant to cast enough light on the history and background of anti-islam discourse; how and why it emerged in and propagated by the christian world. historical background of anti-islam discourse east and west-image and interaction the recent past has witnessed an exponential growth in the antiislam discourse – the notions of islam as violent, corrupt, deceitful, tyrannical, and perverse – in western europe. consequently, muslims are projected as fanatic, barbaric, extremists, backward, and uncivilized.6 as a result, violence, discrimination, surveillance, public profiling against the immigrant and domestic muslim population particularly in the us and the uk have increased at a tremendous rate. the western hostility toward islam and muslims is not just a post 9/11 phenomenon rather its seeds have been sown in the middle ages as ample precedents and evidences point that the crusades and europe’s imperialist ventures are important historical points of intersection between the west and islam, encounters that led to exaggerated stereotypes and caricatures of a violent islam.7 however, it was the launch of pope urban’s crusade in 1095 a.d. that marked the beginning of islam becoming the “normative, fundamental, hamdard islamicus 38 vol. xl, no. 2 quintessential, universal enemy”.8 the socio-political context of the eleventh century europe was quite dark; the pope needed an enemy to divert the conflicting groups; to claim and maintain the papal supremacy by reuniting the latin and greek church, in the east. on receiving a request to help the byzantine empire against the muslims, pope urban ii brilliantly converted it into an opportunity towards achieving his objectives. the muslim was made an enemy. pope urban ii invented and employed various symbolic and religious tools to malign islam and the muslims when he spoke of them as an evil or an alien race occupying their lands. the same discourse has survived down through the present age. religion played a comparable role to that of political ideology today. to put it simply in the words of todd h. green, “western perceptions of muslims as religious and political rivals drive most of the antagonistic rendering of islam throughout history,” however, “with political rationales increasingly dominating religious ones in the modern period”.9in reality, religious concerns were rarely the all important motives of the crusades.10moreover, the present anti-islam discourse is so powerful that it has distorted the western understanding of the muslim world and its culture to the level that the indebted genius and creativity of the great muslim minds which a large section of western scholarship still acknowledges have been thrown into shrouded mystery.since the historical evidences trace the christian animosity toward the muslims prior to the preaching of the crusades by pope urban ii, as early as in the seventh and eighth centuries but that hostility was quite moderate in tone. it began to shift in the mid–ninth century.11 jonathan lyons, in his islam through western eyes: from the crusades to the war on terror, has put it: the christian experience in both muslim-ruled and orthodox byzantium instead helped lay the groundwork for a later western anti-islam discourse that had very little to do with what muslims actually said, did, or believed. what ultimately emerged was a rigid and long-lasting corpus of polemical and apologetic works, defensive by nature and not overly concerned with anything but ridiculing the muslim faith and discouraging conversion on the part of christians and cultured arabization in general.12 in general, before the onset of the crusades at the end of the hamdard islamicus 39 vol. xl, no. 2 eleventh century, christian animosity toward muslims was diffused. muslims were not yet an enemy-in-waiting and certainly not a threat to the very survival of christendom, for the broader society islam remained much an “undifferentiated experience”.13 a drastic change occurred with the onset of the crusades. pope urban ii fixed the image of the muslim as the focal point for christian animosities. it was at this point of time in history that muslims became the fundamental enemy of christianity and christendom: “the muslim world became no less than ‘the antithetical system, the social antichrist’”.14 it is demonstrated that the crusades would not have been possible without creating an imagination of muslims as enemy – as an alien and evil race. paradoxically, crusades entailed cross-cultural exchange between the muslims and the christians that potentially contributed to the development of the western european “civilization”. mastnak goes on to claim that the “european history” is indeed the history of anti-islam discourse which lies at the core of the european imagination.15mastnak further writes: at the close of the eleventh century the latin west was coming out of a deep social transformation and redistribution of power that had taken place in an atmosphere overflowing with millenarian, eschatological, apocalyptic, and chiliastic fears and expectations and was determinedly striving for unity and peace among christians. it was then that muslims were made the enemy of christianity and christendom. constructing the muslims as the enemy was, in fact, constitutive of the formation of christendom –the unified christian society that found its realization in the crusades. this new holy war, in turn, would have been impossible without the elaboration of that enemy image.16 the anti-islam propaganda, however, has not been monolithic throughout its history, rather the attitude toward islam encompasses diverse forms in medieval and renaissance europe; it is observed: ... although modern stereotypes sometimes resemble those of the past, similar attitudes can arise for very different reasons. from the eleventh through the mid-seventeenth century derisive attacks by western authors were born of a nagging inferiority complex hamdard islamicus 40 vol. xl, no. 2 vis-à-vis arab civilization. in the course of the seventeenth century, however, the muslim states ceased to be a threat politically, and the west began to develop new secular views that demystified religion and diminished the threat of islam as a rival ideology. so in the modern period, derisive attitudes arise not from an inferiority complex but from a eurocentric sense of cultural superiority.17 moreover, those who hate and fear muslims do not correspond to a monolithic category but they do so for a variety of reasons and they foster this hostility in a diversity of cultural and political contexts.18 owing to its complexity and diverse phenomena, scholars, analysts, politicians, therefore, read the crusading subject not only in order to reconstruct a narrative of events, but also in order to examine the medieval attitudes toward the orient and the underlining its repercussions on the future of islam-christian relations. modern observers have described the “crusades” and their attendant literature – a nexus of knowledge and power – as forms of colonialism and proto-orientalism.19 for example, edward said sees western imagination of the east in a much wider context; he maintains that western stereotypes about the east had a very early beginning. if europe defined itself in relation to another, its oldest other lay immediately to its east. edward said writes: “the orient is not only adjacent to europe; it is also the place of europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the other”.20 thus, hostility towards islam and muslims has been a feature of european societies since the eleventh century of the common era. islamophobia in the modern age of technology today islamophobia is a global phenomenon. the term “islamophobia” has been traced as far back as the early twentieth century in a french article in 1925; however, the term gained institutional importance; popularized and articulated first as a concept in a 1997 report by the runnymede trust, a british think tank specializing in ethnic and racial diversity issues. the report defined islamophobia as “an unfounded hostility towards muslims” or “... a useful shorthand way of referring to dread or hatred of islam – and therefore a fear of all or most hamdard islamicus 41 vol. xl, no. 2 muslims” as well as “the practical consequences of such hostility in unfair discrimination against muslim individuals and communities, and ... the exclusion of muslims from mainstream political and social affairs”.21 the introduction of the term was justified by the report’s assessment in the context of muslims in the uk in particular and europe in general that “anti-muslim prejudice has grown so considerably and so rapidly in recent years that a new item in the vocabulary is needed”22 so that this form of prejudice – a serious social problem can be identified and acted against. it was coined based on more common “xenophobia” and “antisemitism” framework. in britain, the anti-muslim sentiment had grown considerably following the events: salman rushdie affair (1988-1989), the first gulf war (1990–91), the 9/11, the madrid bombings (2004), the london bombings (2005), the danish cartoon controversy (2005-2006), and the more recent charlie hebdo – a french satirical magazine with a history of ridiculing islam – event (2015). all these incidents stoked the flames of islamophobic acts – physical assaults, verbal abuse, and damage to property, and had fomented and alienated british muslims, “turned them into a viable political constituency, but one widely viewed as alien in its values and desperately in need of national incorporation”.23 since the runnymede trust report first published, the term “islamophobia” has gained a far greater recognition and prevalence across both the public and political spaces. nevertheless, there has been a great amount of opposition and counter claims from politicians and pundits who roundly reject islamophobia for they would like to reserve their rights to criticise “islamists” or muslims or islam. daniel pipes, a neoconservative american writer and political commentator whose views on islam and muslims are consistently biased, dismisses islamophobia and termed it as a disguise that protects muslim extremists. he questions the idea that “fear of islam” can be termed as irrational: what exactly constitutes an “undue fear of islam” when muslims acting in the name of islam today make up the premier source of worldwide aggression, both verbal and physical, versus non-muslims and muslims alike? what, one wonders, is the proper amount of fear? ... muslims should dispense with this discredited term [islamophobia] and instead engage in some earnest introspection. rather than blame the potential victim for fearing his would-be hamdard islamicus 42 vol. xl, no. 2 executioner, they would do better to ponder how islamists have transformed their faith into an ideology celebrating murder (al-qaeda: “you love life, we love death”) and develop strategies to redeem their religion by combating this morbid totalitarianism.24 the point worthy to note is that muslims are depicted as a collective body that is responsible for the violent acts committed by some individuals or groups who have interpreted and transformed the islamic faith into an ideology. moreover, the critics to islamophobia put the argument that criticism to islam vis-à-vis antithetical to democratic values, extremism, anti-christian, oppressive of women, culturally backward, and dedicated to establishing islamic law around the world, is being falsely labelled as islamophobia. similarly, it would be simplistic to suggest that muslims are presented as the victims of confrontation rather than aggressors – a commonly held view in the west. the ample empirical data and the prevalent social anxiety against islam in the west put the unfounded views of these pundits in sharp contrast.25 muslims have a very different understanding of their traditions and thus strongly disagree with the way these pundits represent them.26 nonetheless, scholars clearly distinguish between legitimate criticisms of muslims and their acts, which are entirely appropriate and necessary to healthy intercultural and interreligious relationships, and the biases of islamophobia, which prevent any serious conversation and understanding.27 thus, owing to its seemingly problematic nature of defining islamophobia and in a bid to refute claims of overgeneralisation or its non-existence, as highlighted by allen,28 this section draws on more definitions and other empirical evidences that underpin the islamophobic discourse. the european islamophobia report (eir)29 is an annual report, which was presented for the first time in 2015. it currently comprises 25 national reports regarding each state and the tendencies of islamophobia in each respective country. the current report features the work of 37 scholars who discuss the issue of islamophobia with the help of qualitative data. the eir report defined islamophobia as: when talking about islamophobia, we mean anti-muslim racism. as anti-semitism studies have shown, the etymological components of a word do not necessarily point to its complete meaning, nor to how hamdard islamicus 43 vol. xl, no. 2 it is used. such is also the case with islamophobia studies. islamophobia has become a well-known term used in academia as much as in the public sphere. criticism of muslims or of the islamic religion is not necessarily islamophobic. islamophobia is about a dominant group of people aiming at seizing, stabilising and widening their power by means of defining a scapegoat – real or invented – and excluding this scapegoat from the resources/rights/definition of a constructed ‘we’. islamophobia operates by constructing a static ‘muslim’ identity, which is attributed in negative terms and generalised for all muslims. at the same time, islamophobic images are fluid and vary in different contexts as islamophobia tells us more about the islamophobe than it tells us about the muslims/islam.30 the eir report incorporates other definition from counterislamophobia collective in france (cicf), which describes islamophobia as “… discriminatory acts or violence against institutions or individuals based on their affiliation, real or imagined, with islam. these acts are provoked by ideologies and discourses that create hostility and rejection of muslims”.31 recognizing the complex and multiple natures of definitions and meaning of islamophobia, the runnymede trust report identified prevailing attitudes that incorporate the following eight islamophobic mindsets and beliefs: 1) islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change. 2) islam is seen as separate and “other”. it does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them. 3) islam is seen as inferior to the west. it is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist. 4) islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a “clash of civilizations”. 5) islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political or military advantage. 6) criticisms made of the west by islam are rejected out of hand. 7) hostility towards islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards muslims and exclusion of muslims from mainstream society. 8) anti-muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.32 hamdard islamicus 44 vol. xl, no. 2 as we have mentioned the anti-islam and anti-muslim propaganda has a historical background that traces its roots primarily to the crusades. some scholars argue that islamophobia is, in fact, a modern phenomenon, a racism which emerges from white america’s history of racism and discomfort with people of colour;33 in europeans in the hatred of european jews, was later displaced onto its new muslim immigrants.34 this is partially true as it oversimplifies and undermines the historical christianmuslim hatred and dissent that is clearly evident from the ongoing discussion. nevertheless, the modern paradigm shift from anti-semitism to islamophobia has been disastrous not only to the muslim communities living as minority but essentially to the democratic setup of the european countries. since postwar british fascism was not only a matter of hating minorities but it was also an ideology that sought to explain social dislocation and depredation of working class through a rival narrative to that of the left. it represented immigration from the african and asian countries as an alien corruption of the british identity and survival, a betrayal which the far right ideology explained with jewish conspiracy theory. what actually was the ruling class, in fact, were not the british but a secret jewish group that pulled the strings of international finance, the media, and the revolutionary left. this has been revealed in the protocols of the learned elders of zion, the document forged by the tsarist secret police that contends to show how jews deliberately and deeply manipulated and controlled world events to their advantage. although popular racism against the immigrants and minorities was the means by which young recruits were drawn into the far right, but it was anti-semitism that remained a necessary ideological component which could propel them into a far more visible arena “because only jews could play a prominent role of the secret source of economic and political power that had weakened and corrupted the nation”.35 therefore, the british fascist parties such as the british national party (bnp) and the national front (nf) were aptly described as nazi in their ideology. it was in 1999, when bnp’s new leader, nick griffin, started on a strategy of trivializing this neo-nazi legacy. according to kundnani, griffin though still believed jews secretly controlled the media, publically tried to: remodel the party along the lines of more successful european counterparts, such as the front national in france, using the language hamdard islamicus 45 vol. xl, no. 2 of defending british cultural identity (rather than white racial identity) against a ruling elite that wanted to destroy it through immigration, multiculturalism, and appeasement of the muslim enemy within. instead of talk of a jewish conspiracy, it was about those in power being too “cosmopolitan” to have the real interests of the british people at heart; and islamic militancy was invoked to illustrate the dangers of immigration, capitalizing on the islamophobia of post-9/11 britain.36 although anti-semitism has remained central to the european far right of the twentieth century, but english defence league’s (edl)37 new relationship to the right-wing zionism reveals its break with conventional fascist ideology. in addition, it has actively embraced militant zionists against the alleged and false islamic threat. this change and reversal among the far right in europe from its historical anti-semitic ideology are primarily due to the culturalist politics of the war on terror that nowadays substituted islamophobia for anti-semitism.38 leaders like filip dewinter (belgium) and geert wilders (netherland) who eschewed their anti-semitism ideology often visit israel to meet right-wing members to foster alliance in order to fight and sabotage muslims i.ncluding palestinians. like dewinter and wilders, the edl has succeeded in gaining an overwhelming support from the jews in israel. it does not stop here, the jewish lobby has links with far right jewish groups such as the jewish task force in the us led by victor vancier, who was the national chairman in the 1970s of the terrorist jewish defence league.39 unlike in the uk, the us islamophobic far right functions through networks of bloggers, pundits, activists, and protagonists who vividly shape public opinion through the media. the propagators of islamophobia have successfully carved their careers; they have been showered with attractive funds to promote their biased thinking in university podiums, public places, and on various social media networks. consequently, many individuals “consciously manufacture and exploit the fear of islam in a manner unprecedented in mainstream political and media circles”.40 the venture of this cadre of individuals who have a profound influence on the public opinion has been termed “professional islamophobia”. professional islamophobia mainly includes conservative politicians, far right-wing activists and bloggers, and even ex-muslims making highly lucrative career hamdard islamicus 46 vol. xl, no. 2 of diabolizing the muslims and arabs. this cadre, in the words of nathan lean, is named as “islamophobia industry”,41 or labelled as “islamophobia network” by the center for american progress.42 the well-paid beneficiaries of professional islamophobia have influential political, media and publishing platforms from which they propagate and exacerbate western irrational anxieties and fear toward the muslim “other”. beneficiaries of anti-islam discourse – bonanza for its actors the effectiveness, consistency, and the survival of the anti-islam discourse have revealed that it is perpetrated by those institutions and social groups that stand to benefit from its longevity. there is a close and well-established relationship between rogue academics, pundits, journalists and government leaders, policymakers, politicians, political operatives, businessmen and industrialists, think-tanks, political action committees, boards, “private clubs,” “commissions,” “councils” and “groups.” in fact, this alliance, between neoconservatives, democratic hawks, evangelical christians and hard-line zionists and their pet “intellectuals” attests to a system by which “political interest groups, political ideologues, economic interests and policymakers symbiotically serve each other’s interests”.43 the discourse provides long-run bonanza to these social groups and institutions. writing in the 9/11 context, lyon writes, it “created a bonanza for the military-industrial complex, with lucrative procurement and service contracts, research-and-development investments ... for the security apparatus, with its expanded powers, larger budget, and growing cadres... and for the politicians who led the charge”.44 the far right, both in the uk and the us, relies primarily on large amounts of funding, support and publicity from different parts of the conservative movements ranging from tea party activists to ultra-zionists. however, it must be born in mind that the united states’ unshakable and unwavering support for israel is not because, in the words of sheehi, “pay to play” politics of corporate and lobby-run washington. but it is far deeper and more durable than that; it is the ideology that keeps the united states supporting israel even its gross international human rights violations. it is the same ideology that runs various modulations of islamophobia to maintain its global dominance. sheehi states that both the us’ and israel’s policy makers have admitted that israel is a hamdard islamicus 47 vol. xl, no. 2 “beachhead” of western and american values in the middle east region.45 nonetheless, both the us and israel have successfully maintained their hegemony in the region for their socio-political and economic interests. to run the business, an enemy was needed that they effectively portrayed in the anti-islam discourse. since 9/11, in the us, cadre of shadowy groups and individuals have spent millions of dollars to disseminate misinformation about muslims into the mainstream media, body politic and public consciousness in order to provide political cover for both the us’s war on terror, and israel’s war on palestinians.46 according to an investigation by the center for american progress, it is revealed that seven47 top conservative foundations donated over $57 million to islamophobia network between 2001 and 2012 that have helped fan the flames of anti-muslim hate in america.48 similarly, a 2013 report by the council on american-islamic relations (cair) identified thirty-seven us-based anti-islam groups and estimated their combined revenue at $119 million between 2008 and 2011.49 the in-depth investigation by the center for american progress reveals that the funding primarily goes into the hands of five key people and their organizations: frank gaffey’s center for security policy (csp) – “key source for right-wing politicians, pundits, and grassroot organizations, providing them with a steady stream of reports mischaracterizing islam and warnings about the dangers of islam and american muslims”; daniel pipes’s middle east forum (mef); pamela gellar and robert spencer’s stop islamization of america (sioa); steven emerson’s investigative project on terrorism; and david yerushalmi’s society of americans for national existence.50 however, the social and financial resources do not alone explain the success of these, once small fringe, anti-muslim organizations. there were other underlining factors working namely, “displays of negative emotion enable fringe organizations to transcend their obscurity and humble resources by appealing to the media’s legendary appetite for drama”.51earlier the “niqéb ban” in france and belgium; and (in 2017) the muslim “immigration ban” in the us further testify to the fear of a “foreign” culture invading the landscape of modernity. earlier in 2007, islamophobic activists and racists in the us such as pamela geller and robert spencer had begun showing interests in forming a trans-atlantic movement, involving various far right groups across europe. while attending a 2007 conference on the theme “counter hamdard islamicus 48 vol. xl, no. 2 jihâd in brussels”, they found the edl’s protests against islamisation of europe a welcome revolt. geller and spencer falsely predicted similar warning sign for the us if muslim and islamic growth was not halted. by 2008, these well-funded islamophobic activists joined together to form an organized network. pamela geller’s blog atlas shrugs52 group began closely work with robert spencer, whose jihéd watch53 website was operative under dawid horowitz freedom center.54moreover, a los angeles-based millionaire couple aubrey and joyce chernick used their foundation to fund robert spencer with “close to a million dollars between 2004 and 2009”.55 the same couple is also ardent supporters of zionist causes and major funders of pro-israel groups across the country.56 together, these groups of professional islamophobia and misinformation experts’ push erroneous reports and spiteful narratives and notions that “there is a conspiracy by muslims to take over the united states and that islamists have ‘infiltrated’ all levels of society”.57 conspiracy theories conspiracy theories play a dominant role in turning public opinion against islam and the muslims. like eurabia conspiracy theory in europe, the us developed a new conspiracy theory – sharê‘ah conspiracy.58 in europe, the infamous eurabian conspiracy theory holds that there is a secret plot between european politicians and arab leaders to facilitate mass muslim immigration, “subjugate europe, and transform the continent into an arab colony, eurabia”.59 like the jewish conspiracy theories in germany during the 1930s, no evidence is ever offered to prove either the plot or the actual likelihood that muslims will come to dominate demographically and thus rule over europe. it is a conspiracy hatched by everyone from the nationalistic english defence league to the dutch politician geert wilder, and is outlined in great detail in bat ye’or’s book eurabia: the euro-arab axis.60 the objective is to reveal the islamic enemy under the guise of fighting islamist terrorism, which is a mere appearance. in the us, it is the sharê‘ah law conspiracy theory, which holds that “alongside the use of violence is the strategy of stealth jihéd, which aims at the infiltration of national institutions and the assertion of muslims’ demands through the legal system”.61 it is a conspiracy pushed by hamdard islamicus 49 vol. xl, no. 2 everyone from the republican party to fox news, and is outlined indepth in mark steyn’s book american alone: the end of the world as we know it.62 the sharê‘ah conspiracy gained wider public attention with the distribution of twenty-eight million copies, of a propaganda documentary film (2005), obsession: radical islam’s war against the west.63 the americans, like the europeans, were made to believe that the muslim americans were seeking to replace the us constitution with the sharê‘ah law.64 however, the sharê‘ah law conspiracy theory can easily be dismissed as wildly absurd and ridiculous, but it is a theory that has gained footing nevertheless. after the 2015 terror attacks in paris, there is an unprecedented surge in the anti-muslim incidents sweeping the us. tracking anti-muslim violence, vandalism, discrimination, public policy and political speech throughout 2016, the islamophobia project established by the huffington post, recorded 400 stories of anti-muslim incidents in one year perpetuated by the supporters of donald trump. the project discovered that six major misconceptions are widespread in the american society that must be confronted and dismantled. these “6 rules of islamophobia in america” are 1) muslims are not american; 2)all muslims are terrorists; 3) pork is to muslims as a crucifix or garlic is to vampires; 4) all brown people are potentially muslim, and are therefore potentially terrorists; 5)islam is not a religion, it’s a violent ideology; and 6) there’s a secret muslim plot to take over and/or destroy the united states and/ or western civilization from within.65 islamophobia in south asian context – india and burma the anti-muslim hatred certainly exists everywhere yet not necessarily labelled as islamophobia, for example, the massive anti-muslim violence and massacre in gujarat (india) in 2002 and 2004; and against rohingya muslims in burma in 2015-17. it is unclear why these are not referred to as examples of islamophobia. apart from the western european countries, one of the most overlooked forms of islamophobia is a variety of anti-muslim prejudice, fear, and acts of terror against the muslims in south asia. one of the underlining narratives of the anti-muslim activists and far right groups in india and burma is the fear of increasing muslim population.66 by way of this, the anti-muslim groups perceive muslims’ taking over main positions and intruding in the government services until hamdard islamicus 50 vol. xl, no. 2 a time would come that muslims would hold control of the administration to transform the country into a muslim state. one of the essential features of the indian community is the hindu (majority) and muslim (minority) construction. since the partition of the indian subcontinent into india and pakistan in 1947, there have been various instances of crimes and violent acts, on record, against the indian muslims perpetuated by the hindu radical groups. muslims have been persecuted, massacred, raped, tortured, discriminated, detained, and suspected on many occasions. ayodhya (1992),67 gujarat (2002), muzaffarnagar (2013) to name a few are some of the worst anti-muslim episodes. it is reported that babri masjid’s demolition in ayodhya and the gujarat massacre of muslims were state sponsored to annihilate and oppress the muslim community.68 the situation today is much worse than ten years ago. a public narrative, as in the west, has been in place among the hindu community fostering stereotypes and negative images against the muslim community. hindutva or hinduness is an ideology propagated by the hindu right forces in india. concerning kandala singh’s statement, “the hindutva right discourse’s almost obsessive focus on demonizing the other i.e. the muslim ... the islamophobia conjured up by this discourse i.e. the negative and fearful characteristics it ascribes to the muslims, puts the onus of violence on ‘the muslims’ ”.69 the cohesive forces of hindutva – the bharatiya janata party (bjp), the rashtriya swayamsevak sangh (rss) and the vishwa hindu parishad (vhp) – increasingly take on anti-muslim overtones. the fears of growing hindu nationalist militancy under the bjp government, which came to power in may 2014, have brought large scale apprehensions for the muslim community. anti-muslim rhetoric by several bjp leaders, including members of parliament, stoked insecurities among muslims. the recent appointment (2017) of hard-line hindu monk yogi adityanéth as the chief minister of uttar pradesh (up) has further exacerbated anti-muslim sentiments in the state. an article in the washington post writes about him: adityanath is a controversial and deeply divisive figure for his militant, misogynistic and anti-muslim rhetoric. he has been a vociferous supporter of a campaign called love jihad, ostensibly to stop hamdard islamicus 51 vol. xl, no. 2 muslim youths from marrying hindu women, claiming, without evidence backing this up, that the intention was to convert them to islam. his supporters have called for digging up muslim women from their graves and raping them. in 2015, he said that if he was given the chance, he would install idols of hindu gods in every mosque. in an undated video uploaded in 2014, he said, “if [muslims] take one hindu girl, we’ll take 100 muslim girls. if they kill one hindu, we’ll kill 100 muslims.”70 moreover, whenever any violence or terrorist attacks happen in the country, like in the west, muslims are the first to be blamed and suspected even without any evidence. on mere suspicions, muslims have been arrested, tortured, detained for years after the judiciary would acquit them of their charges. it is safe to say that muslims reel under continuous fear of hindutva policy. they are labelled as terrorists, anti-nationals, and “pakistani”;71 and are treated as second class citizens because discrimination is prevalent in all fields of human index. in addition, the lynching of a muslim on cow slaughter row by the radical hindutva group is shocking. rise of vigilante violence is threatening the rule of law in india.72 similarly, in burma, racial tensions have escalated between the buddhist majority and the muslim rohingya minority. the burmese government treats muslims’ as the immigrant from the neighbouring bangladesh; and has refused to grant them burmese nationality.73 consequently, discrimination, stereotypes, and hatred have become natural instinct against the muslims. rohingya muslims are considered as “one of the world’s most persecuted minorities”.74 the recent rise of the ultranationalist 969 movement, led by the burmese militant racist monk ashin wirathu (who appeared on a july 1, 2013 international cover of time magazine labelled “the face of buddhist terror”), “reignited xenophobic fears about the supposed increasing influence of islam in burmese society”.75 provocative rhetoric and slanderous images from wirathu, ‘the burmese bin laden’, and other hard-line monks in the selfproclaimed organization for the protection of race, religion, and belief, have led to a rapidly worsening situation for the rohingyas. it is reported that since june 2012, over 140,000 rohingyas have been displaced and hundreds killed76 by burmese security forces. the increasing and unabated hamdard islamicus 52 vol. xl, no. 2 anti-muslim hostility in the region leaves the broader muslim community (about 4% of burmese total population) at risk as well.77 in short, the anti-muslim phenomenon is prevalent throughout the world – from europe, or india and sri lanka to the us and central asia, for example. islamophobia is not a new thing to emerge from vacuum; it has been present in western culture and society for many centuries; at different times and in varying contexts it has taken a multiplicity and diversity of forms and has fulfilled a variety of functions and interests.78 conclusion in a summary, while racism, anti-muslim and anti-arab sentiments have a long history in the western christian european culture starting from the crusades at the end of the eleventh century, legalized and systematic persecution against muslims took institutional form in the twentieth and twenty-first century. the same anti-islam sentiments and anti-muslims propaganda have served the needs of the emerging global powers post-cold war phenomena. but, the irrational and exaggerated fear of islam (islamophobia) reached a fever pitch of hysteria in post 9/11, which, if not addressed, arrested, and combated immediately, would exacerbate the gap between islam and the west to an irrecoverable retreat. the western portrayal of islamic culture and civilization has gross distortions generated by the fogs of ignorance, hatred, military and cultural wars. the fear has not been born in thin air, indeed, many key persons, think tanks, media outlets, and political leaders plot notorious and ridiculous notions day in and day out which form the backbone of the anti-islam phenomenon. moreover, the already existing narrative, or the “lewis doctrine”79, the “clash of civilizations”80 has become dominant in the aftermath of 9/11 and was the ideological basis for the wars in afghanistan and iraq as well as for the domestic attacks on muslims and arabs. the islamic threat rhetoric has provided the us legal apparatus to serve the goals of the war on terror – a process that has led to systematic violations of the rights of muslims – on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to use overwhelming military force for hegemony to gain access to the vital resources of the middle east especially the gulf oil. muslims, from east to west, have been the long-suffering victims of western racism, american imperialism, and israeli zionism. broadly hamdard islamicus 53 vol. xl, no. 2 speaking the us foreign policy shaped by the “war on terror rhetoric” has made the us imperialist mission obvious. in essence, the ideology that underpins this policy is that us has a special destiny among nations; and in order to maintain her hegemony on military, economic and political fronts, she can wage preemptive wars on any aggression. “the east is a career”81 (from disraeli’s 1847 novel), brilliantly and briefly fits in the western european judeo-christian intervention in the middle east. today, the west is combating terrorism; and islamist extremist ideology is seen as the main cause of the violence, which is open to debate. however, they fail to acknowledge the part played by the western states in constituting the global conflict between the west and islam. western states are themselves responsible for creating such an unpalatable belligerent atmosphere resulting in violent conflicts.the us foreign policy is mainly responsible for the contemporary violence both in and out of its nation. america’s unshakable support for israel has bedevilled relations between islam and the west. donald trump’s victory in the recent us presidential elections, and his appointments of an islamophobe, an alleged racist and a defender of torture to key posts, is seen, in various quarters, alarming to the muslims and black.82 thus, the need of the hour is to have a re-look on us policy and a positive approach toward and engagement with the muslims and their faith. similarly, in other parts of the world like in india and burma, a systematic anti-muslim propaganda is functioning under the patronage of the governments, which is serious if not surprising. clinging to absurd, fallacious and notorious notions and narratives about islam only harms intercultural understanding and unnecessarily raises suspicion about islam and the muslims. notes and references 1. jocelyne cesari, why the west fears islam: an exploration of muslims in liberal democracies, new york, palgrave macmillan, 2013, p. xiii. 2. sophia rose arjana, muslims in the western imagination, new york, oxford university press, 2015, p. 2. 3. carl w. ernst, following muhammad: rethinking islam in the contemporary world, chapel hill and london, university of north carolina press, 2003, pp. xvii, 11. hamdard islamicus 54 vol. xl, no. 2 4. john l. esposito, yvonne yazbeck haddad, jonathan lyons, vincent j. cornell, tomaz mastnak, to name a few. 5. peter gottschalk and gabriel greenberg, islamophobia: making muslims the enemy, lanham, md. rowman and littlefield publishers, 2008, p. 5. 6. for a detailed study of the western bias and prejudice against the muslims in general and the arabs in particular, see edward w. said, the question of palestine, new york, vintage books, 1980, especially pp. 25-26. moreover, “the establishment media, eagerly portrays every angry reaction to foreign aggression by every child anywhere in the muslim world as a manifestation of islamic fundamentalism, it rarely points out the fact that powerful fundamentalist christian and jewish forces support the more destructive military operations or geopolitical policies that trigger such violent reactions in the first place”, on this, see, ismael hossein-zadeh, “the muslim world and the west: the roots of conflict”, arab studies quarterly, 27(3):1-20, 2005, p. 9. 7. among others see, john l. esposito, islamophobia: the challenge of pluralism in the 21st century, 2011; who speaks for islam?: what a billion muslims really think, new york, gallup press, 2007, especially p. 46; edward w. said. orientalism, 1978, ziauddin sardar, muslim minorities in the west, 1995, beverley milton-edwards, interpreting islam, 2002, naina patel, beth humphries and don naik, the 3 rs in social work; religion,‘race’ and racism in europe, 1998; imam dr abduljalil sajid, “islamophobia: a new word for an old fear”, 2005, carl w. ernst, islamophobia in america: the anatomy of intolerance, 2013; vincent j. cornell, voices of islam, vols. 5, london, praeger publishers, 2007, vol. 1, voices of tradition, especially p. x; and tomaz mastnak. mastnak emphasizes, “we have to acknowledge and face the fact that there is a long history of deeply rooted hostility toward the muslims in europe. i believe that this hostility is not separable from europe’s most cherished ideals of liberty, rights, justice, peace, etc. it is, rather, part and parcel of the same complex web of thought as those ideals. if the existence of anti-muslim ideas and sentiments is not acknowledged, the complexity of what is called european thought gets lost, the ideals of liberty, peace, etc., cannot be taken seriously, and their realization, either willing or enforced, is going to keep playing havoc with the world”. on this see, tomaz mastnak, “europe and the muslims: the permanent crusade?” in the new crusades: constructing the muslim enemy, eds. emran qureshi and michael a. sells, new york, columbia university press, 2003, pp. 214-215, hereafter cited as mastnak, the new crusades; see also, mastnak, crusading peace: christendom, the muslim world, and western political order, berkeley: university of california press, 2002. the contemporary prejudice, hatred and fear of muslims and islam, observes sardar, is in fact a re-emergence of historical anti-islam and anti-muslim phenomenon that primarily originated during the crusade times, see, for instance, ziauddin sardar, “racism, identity and muslims in the west”, in muslim minorities in the west, eds. syed z. abedin and ziauddin sardar, london, grey seal, 1995, pp. 1-17; and for similar views of beverley milton-edwards, see his, “researching the radical: the quest for a new perspective”, in interpreting islam, ed. hastings donnan, london, sage, 2002, pp. 32-50, 33; w.b. bartlett, “preface”, in islam’s war against the crusaders, hamdard islamicus 55 vol. xl, no. 2 uk, the history press, 2008; liz fekete, a suitable enemy racism, migration and islamophobia in europe, london, pluto press, 2009; petter gottschalk and gabriel greenberg, islamophobia making muslims the enemy, usa, rowman & littlefield publishers, inc., 2008; salman sayyid, “out of the devil’s dictionary”, in thinking through islamophobia: global perspectives, eds. salman sayyid and abdool karim vakil, london, hurst & co. publishers, 2010, pp. 5-18. 08. tomaz mastnak, “western hostility toward muslims: a history of the present”, in islamophobia/islamophilia: beyond the politics of enemy and friend, ed., andrew shryock, bloomington and indianapolis, us, indiana university press, 2010, p. 33 (hereafter cited as mastnak, islamophobia/islamophilia). 09. todd h. green, the fear of islam: an introduction to islamophobia in the west, us, fortress press, 2015, p. 36. 10. for a useful discussion on the secular motivations of the crusades, see, muhammad yaseen gada, “revisiting the motivations for the crusades: a fresh analysis”, hamdard islamicus, 2016, vol. xxxix, no. 1, pp. 7-34. 11. the shift was as a result of the episode of the “martyrs of córdoba”. in the 850s, muslim authorities decapitated close to fifty christians found guilty of blasphemy, for publicly insult islam and reviling muíammad (œ), see, for example, mastnak, “western hostility toward muslims: a history of the present”, in mastnak, islamophobia/islamophilia, op. cit., p. 31. 12. jonathan lyons, islam through western eyes: from the crusades to the war on terrorism, new york, columbia university press, 2014, p. 52; for useful discussion on the origin and development of anti-muslim phenomenon, see, lyons, ibid., especially pp. 43-72. 13. ibid., p. 58. 14. mastnak, islamophobia/islamophilia, op. cit., p. 33. 15. mastnak, the new crusades, op. cit., p. 205. 16. mastnak, the new crusades, op. cit., p. 206; see also, tomaz mastnak, crusading peace: christendom, the muslim world, and western political order, berkeley, los angeles and london: university of california press, 2002, pp. 91100, especially p. 93. 17. david r. blanks, “western views of islam in the premodern period: a brief history of past approaches”, in western views of islam in medieval and early modern europe: perception of other, eds., david r. blanks and michael frassetto, new york, st. martin’s press, 1999, p. 14. 18. mastnak, islamophobia/islamophilia, op. cit., p. 26. 19. ibid., pp. 12-15. like edward said (in his orientalism), norman daniel also views the western canon of attitudes toward islam as having been emerged in “the middle ages and transmitted unchanged into the modern world”; for this see, ibid., p. 24; and norman daniel, islam and the west: the making of an image, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 1960, p. 307. 20. edward w. said, orientalism, new york, pantheon books, 1978, p. 1. 21. commission on british muslims and islamophobia (cbmi), islamophobia: a challenge for us all, london, runnymede trust, 1997, pp. 1, 4, retrieved on 13 april 2016 from http://www.runnymedetrust.org/companies/17/74/ islamophobia-a-challenge-for-us-all.html; see also, islamophobia research and documentation project at the center for race and gender, berkeley: the hamdard islamicus 56 vol. xl, no. 2 university of california, retrieved on 13 april 2016 from http://crg.berkeley.edu/ content/islamophobia/defining-islamophobia. 22. cbmi, ibid.; although the term “islamophobia” has become widely recognised and used in the contemporary world and established in academia through numerous conferences, journals, books, and research projects, especially in europe, there is still opposition to the term. this implies that the opposition expressed by the public is not merely an academic debate but rather a sign of the hegemonic power of islamophobic bigotry. 23. andrew shryock, “islam as an object of fear and affection”, in islamophobia/ islamophilia: beyond the politics of enemy and friend, ed., andrew shryock, bloomington and indianapolis, us, indiana university press, 2010, p. 4. a report published by the collective against islamophobia in france (ccif), – documents a 23.5 percent rise in “islamophobic acts” – physical assaults, verbal abuse, and damage to property since the charlie hebdo attacks in january 2015, see, “france sees rise in islamophobic attacks post charlie hebdo, report”, middle east eye, retrieved on 29 april 2016 from http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ france-sees-surge-islamophobic-attacks-after-charlie-hebdo-report-1496714716. 24. daniel pipes, “islamophobia”, new york sun, october 25, 2005, retrieved on april 25, 2016 from http://www.danielpipes.org/3075/islamophobia. 25. incidents of anti-muslim violence and discrimination are catalogued by several watchdog groups, ranging from the american civil liberties union to the american arab anti-discrimination committee. the annual reports by cair (the council on american-islamic relations) are especially detailed and are available online at http://www.cair.com/home.aspx. more specifically, cair’s assessment of islamophobia in the u.s. is found at http://www.cair.com/issues/islamophobia/ islamophobia.aspx; for further examples of anti-muslim attacks see imam dr. abduljalil sajid’s, “islamophobia: a new word for an old fear”, the american muslim, retrieved on 10 may 2016 from http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/ features/articles/islamophobia_a_new_word for_an_old_fear_part_i/. 26. see, for instance, gorran larsson, “islamophobia or legitimate concern?: contrasting official and populist understanding of opposition to muslims”, in in the tracks of breivik: far right networks in northern and eastern europe, eds., mata deland, michael minkenberg and christin mays, uk, lit verlag, 2013, p. 156. 27. more on this, in todd h. green, the fear of islam: an introduction to islamophobia in the west, minneapolis, fortress press, 2015, pp. 24-25, 278 (digital edition). 28. christopher allen, islamophobia, uk, ashgate, 2010, pp. 3-5. 29. european islamophobia report 2015 (eir), bayraklý and farid hafez, eds., istanbul, siyaset, ekonomi ve toplum arastirmalari (seta), 2016. 30. eir, p. 7. 31. ibid., p. 54. 32. ibid., the augean stables, “islamophobia and criticism of islam”, retrieved on 13/04/2014fromhttp://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-fromseconddraft/ islamophobia-and-criticism-of-islam/; and nasar meer and tariq modood, “refutations of racism in the ‘muslim question’”, in anti-muslim prejudice: past and present, ed. maleiha malik, new york, routledge, 2012, p. 131. hamdard islamicus 57 vol. xl, no. 2 33. stephen sheehi, islamophobia: the ideological campaign against muslims, usa, clarity press, inc., 2012, pp. 42-43. 34. ibid., p. 36; see, also, the augean stables, ibid. 35. arun kundnani, the muslims are coming: islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic war on terror, london, new york, verso, 2014, p. 242. 36. ibid., p. 243. 37. the edl is a far-right, anti-muslim street protest movement that seized the culturalist and reformist discourses of the official war on terror and gave them organizational form on the streets. they were made to believe that multiculturalism is a threat for the survival of european identity and that it is holding back the fight against muslim extremism; see, ibid., p. 241. 38. ibid., pp. 244-245. 39. ibid., p. 246. 40. green, op. cit., p. 169. 41. nathan lean, the islamophobia industry: how the right manufactures fear of muslims, london, pluto press, 2012; see, also, green, ibid. 42. wajahat ali, eli clifton, matthew duss, lee fang, scott keyes, and faiz shakir, fear, inc.: the roots of the islamophobia network in america, washington, dc, center for american progress, 2011, retrieved on 2 may 2016 from http:// www.islamagainstextremism.com/articles/dmjvg-fear-inc-the-roots-of-theislamophobia-network-in america.cfm. it provides useful data about the islamobhobia network of right-wing bloggers and activists, including the source of funding from hard-line conservative foundations and donors. 43. sheehi, op. cit., p. 43. 44. lyon, op. cit., p. 130. 45. see sheehi, op. cit., pp. 204-205. 46. see more in c.j. werleman, “who are the millionaires behind the islamophobic industry in america?”, middle east eye, wednesday 18 february, retrieved on 2 may 2016 from http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/who-are-millionairesbehind-islamophobic-industry-america-1487378765#sthash.oxu5p7in.dpuf 47. these include the donors capital fund; the richard mellon scaife foundations; the lynde and harry bradley foundation; the newton d. and rochelle f. becker foundations and charitable trust; the russell berrie foundation; the anchorage charitable fund and william rosenwald family fund; and the fairbrook foundation. 48. see, ali, et al., op. cit., p. 14. 49. see, kundnani, op. cit., p. 247; see also, c.j. werleman, op. cit. 50. ali, et al., op. cit., p. 27. 51. christopher bail, terrified – how anti-muslim fringe organizations became mainstream, us, princeton university press, 2015, p. 51. bail shows the sociological context of the cultural environment that shaped the anti-muslim understanding in the us after major events such as 9/11. 52. see, pamela geller, geller report, retrieved on 10 november 2016 from http://pamelageller.com/about/; geller, atlas shrug, retrieved on 10november 2016 from http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ 53. see, jihad watch, retrieved on 10 november 2016 fromhttps://www.jihadwatch.org/ hamdard islamicus 58 vol. xl, no. 2 54. see, david horowitz freedom center, retrieved on 10 november 2016 fromhttp:/ /www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org/ 55. kundnani, op. cit., p. 246; on this see also, lean, op. cit., pp. 134-135. 56. see, loonwatch “the connection between zionism & organized islamophobia – the facts”, loongwatch.com, 10 september 2010, retrieved on 2 may 2016 from http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/09/the-connection-between-zionism-andorganized islamophobia-the-facts/. 57. deepa kumar, islamophobia and the politics of empire, chicago, illinois, haymarket books, 2012, p. 179. 58. kundnani, op. cit., pp. 246-247; kumar, ibid.; lean, op. cit., pp. 40, 57, 62-65; and green, op. cit., pp. 176, 179. 59. kundnani, op. cit., p. 245; green, p. 242. 60. bat ye’or, eurabia: the euro-arab axis, cranbury, n.j., fairleigh dickinson university press, 2005; see also, kundnani, op cit., p. 245. 61. ibid., p. 247; on this, see also, for instance, stephanie wright, “reproducing fear: islamophobia in the united states”, in fear of muslims? international perspectives on islamophobia, eds.douglas pratt and rachel woodlock, switzerland: springer international publishing, 2016, pp. 45-65; naved bakali, islamophobia: understanding anti-muslim racism through the lived experiences of muslim youth (rotterdam, the netherlands: sense publishers, 2016), p. 15. 62. steyn, mark, america alone: the end of the world as we know it, us, regnery publishing, 2006. 63. ibid. 64. see, werleman, op. cit. 65. christopher mathias, “6 rules of islamophobia in america”, the huffington post, january 23, 2017, retrieved on 24 january 2017 from http:// w w w . h u f f i n g t o n p o s t . i n / e n t r y / i s l a m o p h o b i a a m e r i c a _ u s _ 587cf491e4b0e58057ff98e0. 66. india’s muslims, over 177 million, represent the world’s third-largest muslim population next only to indonesia and pakistan. in india, they constitute about 14.2% of total population and are the second-largest religious community in the country, census, 2011. for burmese fear, see, penny green, “islamophobia: myanmar’s racist fault-line”, aljazeera 30 april 2013, retrieved on may 21, 2017 from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/ 201342910920804170.html. 67. the symbolic issue that came to the fore was the temple–mosque controversy in ayodhya, a small town in north india. 68. according to a report released by the editors guild of india: “… the anticipated backlash took on the dimensions of a holocaust primarily aimed at the muslim community…” (editors guild, 2002:1). similar reports establish that the violence in gujarat 2002 was a case of targeted anti muslim violence, enacted with state complicity. 69. kandala singh, “islamophobia in india: a case study of gujarat 2002”, unpublished master’s dissertation, roehampton university, school of business and social sciences, 2009, p. 41. 70. nilanjanabhowmick, “meet the militant monk spreading islamophobia in india”, hamdard islamicus 59 vol. xl, no. 2 the washington post, march 24, 2017, retrieved on 25 may 2017 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/03/24/meet-the militant-monk-spreading-islamophobia-in-india/ 71. prashant jha, “‘isn’t this our country?’ why indian muslims feel shaken and ‘harassed’”, hindustan times, 29 may 2017, retrieved on may 29, 2017 from http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/isn-t-this-our-country-why-muslimsin-uttar-pradesh-feel-shaken-harassed/story-juowurpn8umpcvj13gzovi.html. 72. “vigilante justice in india”, the new york times, 28 may 2017, retrieved on may 29, 2017 from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/28/opinion/vigilante-justicein-india.html?_r=1. 73. francis wade, “islamophobia and the fear of ‘the other’ in myanmar”, aljazeera, 11 june 2012, retrieved on 21 may 2017 from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ opinion/2012/06/2012610134755390151.html 74. gabriella canal, “rohingya muslims are the most persecuted minority in the world: who are they?”, global citizen, 10 feb. 2017, retrieved on 18 july 2017 from https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/recognizing-the-rohingya-and-theirhorrifying-pers/ 75. james waller, confronting evil: engaging our responsibility to prevent genocide, new york, oxford university press, 2016, p. 257. 76. on this see, may bulman, “burma: rohingya muslim babies and children ‘being slaughtered with knives’, un warns”, independent, friday 3 february 2017, retrieved on 21 may 2017 from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/ burma-rohingya-muslim-babies children-slaughtered-knives-massacre-genocide-unwarns-a7561711.html. 77. waller, ibid. 78. ihsan yilmaz, “the nature of islamophobia: some key features”, in douglas pratt and rachel woodlock, op. cit., p. 22. 79. bernard lewis, “the roots of muslim rage: why so many muslims deeply resent the west, and why their bitterness will not easily be mollified”, atlantic monthly, september 1990, retrieved on 22 may 2017 from https:// www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1990/09/the-roots-of-muslim rage/304643; see also, for example, glenn e. perry, “huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’: rumours and clarification”, in islam in the eyes of the west: images and realities in an age of terror, eds., tareq y. ismael and andrew rippin, new york, routledge, 2010, p. 248. 80. the “clash of civilizations” theory was propounded first by bernard lewis (1990); samuel p. huntington cites it and borrowed the term from him in his article, samuel p. huntington, “the clash of civilizations? foreign affairs, vol. 72, no. 3, summer, 1993, pp. 22-49. but, later huntington dropped the question mark in his book, samuel p. huntington, the clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order, uk: penguin books, 1996. 81. benjamin disraeli,tancred; or, the new crusade, 3 vols., london, henry colburn, 1847, vol. 1, p. 161. 82. daniel dale, “trump appoints an islamophobe, an alleged racist and a defender of torture to key posts”, thestar.com, friday, nov. 18, 2016. c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd allah is the light of the heavens and the earth hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam vol. xlv july-september 2022 no. 3 editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid advisory board prof. abdur raheem kidwai professor, department of english, director, k.a. nizami centre for qur’anic studies, aligarh muslim university aligarh, india prof. seyyed hossein nasr professor, islamic studies, the george washington university, gelman library 712, washington, d.c. 20052, u.s.a. prof. dr. anis ahmad vice chancellor, riphah international university, hajj complex road, sector i-14, islamabad,pakistan. prof. dr. a.h. johns professor emeritus, the australian national university honorary professor, the australian catholic university, australia dr. farrukh habib co-founder and managing director, alif technologies, dubai, united arab emirates. prof. dr. abdul azim islahi institute of qur’anic sciences (iqsc), aligarh 202002, india. editorial board dr. gulnaz naeem associate professor, benazir bhutto shaheed university lyari, karachi, pakistan. dr. syed naeem badshah bukhari chairman, department of islamic studies, university of agriculture peshawar, pakistan. dr. irum saba associate professor, institute of business administration, karachi, pakistan. dr. salman ahmed shaikh assistant professor, shaheed zulfiqar ali bhutto institute of science and technology, karachi, pakistan. dr. aziz-ur-rehman saifee assistant professor, department of arabic, faculty of islamic studies, university of karachi, karachi, pakistan. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 . .. editorial team editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid editor dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt managing editor dr. shabeer khan assistant editor mr. kaleem chaghtai assistant editor ms. sadia ikram assistant editor web mr. sheikh adnan ahmed usmani price inland foreign foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/ payment should be made in the name of hamdard foundation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan pak. rs. us $ annual single copy 950/ 250/ 120/ 35/ … published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, p.e.c.h.s. block 2, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] mailto:editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk mailto:hfp@hamdardfoundation.org http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk/ http://www.hamdardfoundation.org/ http://www.hamdardlabswaqf.org/ http://www.hakimsaid.info/ for correspondence editor hamdard islamicus hamdard foundation pakistan head office, 16th floor bahria town tower, tariq road, pechs block-2, karachi, pakistan url: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk e-mail: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk tel: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) 2 ... information for contributors • manuscripts must be composed in ms word format and typed double spaced with at least one-inch margin on all sides of a4 size and to be sent through ojs at journal’s official website. • manuscripts may preferably comprise 6000 to 7000 words. however, as per the importance of issue discussed in the article and its fine presentation, some relaxation may be acquired. • notes and references should follow the chicago manual of style 17th edition (end notes only) i.e. to be marked serially and placed at the end of the manuscript. • authors are requested to quote the english translation of the holy quranic verses from the editions of only mufti muhammad taqi usmani. • authors are requested to provide their c.v. mentioning their designation, permanent and present postal addresses along with their cell/whatsapp numbers and e-mail addresses. • all correspondence regarding the manuscript will be directed to the corresponding author. • ensure the submission is as requested by the journal and contains all relevant sections. see authors’ guideline available on journal’s official website. • non-native english speakers are encouraged to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission. this is particular key for resubmission. • hamdard islamicus does not charge from its authors for publication of their articles in the journal. mailto:editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan. vol. xlv july-september 2022 no.3 contents * editorial * identifying the optimal cash waqf linked sukuk: indonesian experience — dr. rifki ismal * does islamicity affect economic growth? evidence from oic, high, middle, and low-income countries — mohd zia ur rehman — muhammad nauman khan — hakan aslan * political buzzer in islamic law and its impact on muslim society — wahyu abdul jafar * darul ulum deoband: preserving religious and cultural integrity of south asian muslims through structural and strategic innovations — dr. muhammad naveed akhtar * the effect of islamic work ethics on academics’ career success: the mediating role of psychological capital resources — mohammed mustafa mohammed, — mohammad nazrimohd nor — safiah omar — muhammad zia aslam — hasnunanipbustaman the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 9 7 29 101 53 79 objectives hamdard islamicus is an academic journal devoted to islamic research and scholarship. it serves as a forum for scholars to write objectively, analytically and, wherever necessary, critically on islamic history, philosophy, science, art, culture, archaeology, law and jurisprudence. it brings out the achievements of muslims in the fields of humanities, social and natural sciences. it aims at defining islam in terms of its fundamentals in a rational and liberal manner emphasizing, at the same time, the basic islamic ideals of universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice. it aims at interpreting the teachings of islam in such a way as to bring out its dynamic character in the context of the intellectual and scientific progress of the modern world. it provides an open forum for a dialogue among the fundamentalist, conservative and the modernist schools of thought among the muslims aiming at finding a balanced view. it endeavours, through dialogue, to find islamic answers to the questions relating to the social, political, economic and moral problems of the fast and drastically changing world of today. it transmits through english translations the speeches, learned papers and discourses expressed in urdu by highly qualified traditional scholars, the ‘ulema’, and, in this way, it communicates valuable material, otherwise inaccessible, to the non-urdu readers. it endeavours to promote better understanding between the islamic world and the west. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 indexing and abstracting bodies madinat al-hikmah city of education, science and culture shaheed hakim mohammed said (1920-1998), a scion of the renowned south asian hamdard family, decided in 1948 to make the newly created pakistan his home. he settled down in karachi and by untiring, single minded devotion and commitment, braving all handicaps, created hamdard pakistan. he developed it into the leading pharmaceutical complex of eastern medicine in the country, run on the latest modern lines and techniques, supplying drugs of high quality and purity, backed with free clinical consultations to help ailing humanity. hamdard pakistan, under his leadership, also emerged as the leading philanthropic organization, and also tried to motivate people through dialogue, conferences, and journals like the hamdard medicus. in addition, he provided help to various institutions and academic bodies. he was restless to do more, and during one of his ×ajj pilgrimages, he envisioned the creation of a comprehensive city of education, science and culture: the madinat al-hikmah. work on it was initiated and funded by the hamdard foundation pakistan in 1981, in the picturesque surroundings of bund murad khan, 35 kilometers away from the city centre. today it is a beehive of activity, with children and youth engaged in academic, technical and sports activities, devoted to promoting learning and culture, and through it, help achieve moral and physical welfare, peace and progress. the bait al-hikmah library, hamdard public school, free hamdard village school, centre for horticulture and the hamdard university are the major institutions found here. the hamdard university’s mission provides value-based education to all students in its constituent institutions. its prestigious institutions – some based at the main campus and some in the city and some in islamabad include hamdard institute of management sciences (hims), hamdard college of medicine and dentistry (hcmd), hamdard al-majeed college of eastern medicine (hacem), shifa ul-mulk memorial hospital, naimat begum hamdard university hospital , hamdard university hospital – taj medical complex, hamdard institute of education and social sciences (hiess), dr hafiz mohammad ilyas institute of pharmacology and herbal sciences (hmiiphs), hamdard school of law, faculty of pharmacy and faculty of engineering sciences and technology (fest). madinat al-hikmah continues to develop and grow. e:\e\islamicus\2021\no. 2\religious value practices and micro.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 37 religious value practices and micro enterprises’ performance in microcredit program dr. rosman mahmoodi dr ahmad suffian mohd zahariii ifaculty of business and management universiti teknologi mara terengganu, dungun campus, malaysia email: rosmanma@uitm.edu.my iifaculty of business and management universiti teknologi mara terengganu, dungun campus, malaysia email: ahmadsuf@uitm.edu.my received on:11-02-2021 accepted on: 26-05-2021 abstract the objective of this paper is to examine the practices of religious values and the enterprises’ performance in microcredit program. the primary data were collected from 756 micro enterprises under the microcredit program in which stratified sampling method was utilized for the data collection. the data were then analysed using the factor analysis and multiple regression analysis. the findings reveal that the practices of religious values are significantly related to micro enterprises’ performance. the factors of religious values such as virtue, observance and persistence have a significant positive relationship with micro enterprises’ performance. however, religious values such as truth and kindness indicate an insignificant relationship with micro enterprises’ performance. from the viewpoint of policy and business strategy, a comprehensive guiding mechanism involving business ethics and religious values among entrepreneurs should be implemented to ensure that muslim entrepreneurs do not deviate from the religious values set forth by their religion. total business ethics and the practices of religious values do not only guarantee success in the economic activities but also the promise of victory in the hereafter. this paper proves that religious values are important to the successful performance of a business. however, generally entrepreneurs are greedier in pursuing their business values rather than the religious values 38 religious value practices and micro... and their decision making is usually based on socio-moral considerations in which these are sometimes quite insignificant in explaining their business performance. stakeholders should take note that it is important to adhere to the religious values in order to determine business performance but the entrepreneurs’ attitude tends to make the values insignificant. keywords: business performance, religious value practices, kohlberg’s theory, islamic work ethic 1. introduction religious belief is one of the most influential determinants of individual’s behaviour as it has been given a lot of focus in the literature. according to previous investigations, some academicians suggest that studies on religious practice in entrepreneurs’ firms should be carried out (anderson, drakopoulou-dodd, & scott, 2000; burns, 2005; zulkifli & rosli, 2013). tiliouine and belgoumidi, (2009) assert that religious practice has become a source of strength to the entrepreneurs as it has the tendency to influence them. as a result, the implementation of religious practice in a firm provides the strength that can influence the personality traits and positive attitudes towards the success of muslim entrepreneurs’ firms. (gumusay, 2014). according to gotsis and korkezi (2009), religious experience, positive attitudes, intrinsic values and business orientation are emphatically connected with cultural elements and they provide a more significant level of monetary movement, financial execution and development. these factors will likewise affect the enterprising society, their perspectives and conduct (salimath & cullen, 2010). scholars have investigated the relationship between religious beliefs and entrepreneurial behaviour (yusuf, sinkovics, sinkovics, & yamin, 2020; irfan, 2020; candland, 2000; fernando, 2007; dana 2010; victor, ubi, & ubana, 2019)). in addition, previous research has also found that entrepreneurial factors are related with individual values (nur rahmah, wahyuddin abdullah, & salmah said, 2019; morris & schindehutte, 2005), particularly their internal values, such as their faith (kinjerski & berna, 2004). in the conventional perspective, business ethics is a specialized study of morally right and wrong conduct as it applies particularly to business policy, institutions and employees’ behaviour (velasquez, 1998). the study that focuses on values involving moral hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 39 considerations are honesty, responsibility, hard work, compassion and resilience (kotey & meredith, 1997), trustworthiness and responsibility (cunningham & lischeron, 1991) initiative, selfmotivation, dedication and commitment (megginson, 1997), leadership, self-reliance, and diligence (gadenne, 1998). an analysis done on studies conducted by researchers such as scheepers and van der slik (1998), clark and dawson (1996) and ter voert (1993) clearly show that religious factors can influence the formation of moral values and thus have a positive impact on business performance (ezanee mohamed elias, noorul sadiqin, azbiya yaacob, & siti norezam othman, 2018; schwepker & ingram, 1996; chusmir & koberg, 1988). the influence of religious factors on moral values is regarded crucial on the grounds that it can improve the religious values of business visionaries. moreover, it can increase the performance of their business in a better light (kotey & meredith, 1997). as a result, the business visionaries are now aware of the significance of the religious factors in promoting the success of the enterprises’ performance from time to time. the moral values that have become the focus of western study (such as scheepers & van der slik, 1998; kotey & meredith, 1997; schwepker & ingram, 1996; chusmir & koberg, 1988) clearly show the similarities of these moral values to the values that have been outlined in the holy qur’én and hadêths (yousef 2000). in the economic context, islam encourages the muslims to engage in business and some of the quotes from the holy qur’én and hadêths illustrate how islam reassures the muslims of the benefits gained if they engage themselves in business with sincerity. there is no other religion than islam that encourages the muslims to be involved in a lot of trading so much so that this economic activity is categorized as farì kiféyah (a collective obligation upon all the ummah (according to each one’s capacity) to perform it (such as jihéd, janézah prayer and burial, building mosques, building hospitals, undertaking ijtihéd … etc.) (mohamad mustapha, 2002). according to adnan and mohamad dahlan (2002), islam not only encourages its people to engage in business, but also outlines a clear framework of procedures and regulations in handling the business dealing. in order to clarify the relationship between islam and business, a complete model covering all aspects of the relationship has been presented (adnan & mohamad dahlan, 2002). according to them, 40 religious value practices and micro... a complete model and practices that need to be prioritized in achieving entrepreneurial goals based on the framework of islam such as the concepts of caliph, brotherhood, al-faléí, virtue, justice and balance, improvement of the ummah, zakat, alms and, developing and enhancing the social value and the concept of enjoining goodness. based on the established business model, it is clear that islam strongly encourages its people to engage in business activities, provides a variety of facilities to deal with, outlines the rules that must be followed and promises the benefits and rewards for those who do business based on the outlined religious principles. based on the positive features found in protestant work ethic (pwe), yousef (2000) and arslan (2001) explain that pwe is not much different from the islamic work ethic (iwe). according to furnham (1990), among the pwe features used are savings and productivity, precision and time saving, having a sense of pride in the work done, commitment and loyalty to the organization, the need for high achievement, honesty, possessing high internal selfcontrol, seeing ambition and success as a sign of god’s help. pwe is distinct from iwe in terms of the intentions found in iwe such as work ethic reflects the attitudes of the individual in favor of the success of the organization but they are not being emphasized in the pwe. in addition, iwe also emphasizes on the aspect of social responsibility and sees economic activity as an obligation (yousef, 2000, & arslan, 2001). therefore, all business activities carried out by muslim entrepreneurs are connected to the concept of ×ablummin allah (the relationship between a human being and the almighty ) and ×ablumminannés (the relationship between one human being and another human being (the social life). according to adnan and mohamad dahlan (2002), doing business is considered as a worship service because it is an economic activity that allows people to earn a living. the qur’anic philosophy explains that all human activities should be performed in order to gain the faléí (happiness and wellbeing) which means to achieve the perfection of the world and the hereafter (siddiqi, 1988). this principle relates the economic basis with moral values that should be used as norms. indeed, god promises happiness in the hereafter for traders who carry out their business activities by abiding by the prescribed laws (rusnah muhamad, mohd. edil abd. sukor, mohd rizal muwazir@mukhazir, 2008). hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 41 as entrepreneurship is a strategic area in this world, more people need to explore the islamic values. in addition to the economic objectives, entrepreneurship contains the pure values that the muslim community must cherish. moreover, according to fatimah, mohamad and joni (2013), zahrah, abd hamid, abd rani, and kamil (2016), victor, et.al, (2019), islamic countries are going to carry out religious practices in the firms because this is a pillar of the muslim entrepreneurs’ success (faizal, ridhwan, & kalsom, 2013). however, empirical studies of the relationship between religious values and business performance are still scarce. the significant relationship between religious values and business performance is not much empirically analysed in malaysia as compared to the many studies done on the relationship between these two elements in the west. (rohaizat & suzilawati, 2001). extensive studies done on this relationship in other countries such as qatar, saudi arabia, brunei, pakistan, turkey and bangladesh clearly show that there is a significant relationship between the practice of religious values and the performance of a business (schwepker & ingram, 1996). clark and dawson (1996) state that an individual’s religiousness has been depicted as an adept beginning stage for finding the distinctions in moral judgment and if the person has strong religious values he or she can differentiate between good and bad. in line with these arguments, the researcher considers it necessary to carry out this study for the purpose of examining the relationship between islamic religious value practices and micro enterprises’ performance in malaysia. 2. literature review 2.1 business performance according to the classical economic theory, business performance refers to an assessment of the achievement of business goals such as profit, sales revenue and business growth. management theory and behavioral theory relate business performance to the achievement of various business goals such as fulfilling social responsibility, satisfying customers’ needs and meeting stakeholders’ (shareholders, managers, owners and employees) demands. the measurement of business performance is based on the financial 42 religious value practices and micro... indicators mainly profitability (zinger, lebrasseur, & zanibbi, 2001), return on investment (gedenne, 1998), sales (venkatraman & ramanujan, 1987), return on equity (kalleberg & leicht, 1991) and asset growth (nwachukwu, 1995). swinney, runyan, and huddleston (2006), rhodes and butler (2004), covin and slevin (1989) propose the use of subjective methods based on operating indicators (nonfinancial) as the measurement mechanism in order to address the weakness of the financial data used for the performance measurement among small businesses. among the assessment elements used by kotey and merdith (1997) and gadenne (1998) include sales, productivity, production costs, innovative startups, job opportunities, profits, business growth, business networking and community contribution. whereas venkatraman and ramanujan, (1987) use measurements that are based on market trends, new product introduction, product quality, market effectiveness, value added production, and technological efficiency. 2.2 religious values and business performance in western countries, research on ethics and business performance is so widespread and in practice moral values are associated with the practice of religious values. according to homola, knudsen, and marshal (1987), many western scholars study the business ethics which is based on the ‘protestant work ethic’ by max weber. weber’s theory was formed as a result of a study conducted on the protestant economic activity described in the context of the western capitalist system. the literature on the influence of religion on entrepreneurship is largely dominated by weber. weber explains that religion is one of the main reasons for the differences between the western and eastern cultures. he links the effects of religious thought on economic activity, the relationship between social stratification and religious thought and the differentiation of the characteristics of western culture. the aim of this linkage is to find the reasons why western and eastern cultures develop in different ways. according to weber, his theme on protestant religious thought shows that it has a major influence on the development of the economic system in europe and the united states. not only the protestant religious thought influences the economic system but other factors such as rationality towards scientific endeavours, combination hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 43 of observation with mathematics, science of learning and jurisprudence, systematization of government administration and economic effort. religious studies according to weber merely examine one’s emancipation from magical influence, namely liberation from enchantment. this becomes a conclusion which he considers to be a very important distinguishing aspect of western culture. max weber tries to link between protestant work ethic and capitalist spirit. his thesis on pwe influences the growth of capitalist economy. this is in sharp contrast to the notion that religion cannot move the spirit of capitalism. weber’s study of how the relationship between puritanical religious doctrines and social facts, especially in the development of modern industry, has given rise to a variety of styles and values, where values are a benchmark for individual behaviour. weber notices that protestantism bolsters the quest for material addition by forcing the followers to buckle down, to be fruitful, and not to spend their acquired benefits on negligible things. he argues that the most common component of any society is religion, thereby stating that this historically has shown that religion has been a force for entrepreneurship because the discussion on religion and entrepreneurship has been found in most scriptures. although weber’s work is mainly on christianity, his theme on religious values can be argued for other religions as well (weber, 1930). his thoughts are extended by mcclelland (1987) who combines the hypothesis made by max weber on protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism. in a recent study conducted by de noble, galbraith, singh, and stiles (2007), they discover that religious orientation and worth based mentalities are seen as emphatically connected to more elevated levels of entrepreneurial activity. they further see that this finding could be credited to the significance of intrinsic religiosity for market behaviour and the impression of market equity. to fortify weber’s opinion, ibrahim and angelidis (2005), in their investigation of “christian based” companies in the united states of america discover that christian religious values and practices cherished in the hierarchical culture significantly affect productivity, seriousness, and overall economic performance. one key factor that has produced a great deal of discussion among researchers corresponding to the accomplishment of the business person is the religious attribute of the business visionaries 44 religious value practices and micro... (fatimah, et al., 2013). according to clark and dawson (1996), a person’s religiousness can portray his moral values in order to make a choice between the good ones and the bad ones. then again, audretsch, bonte and tamvada (2013) find that religion impacts business and that various religions fluctuate in the valence of this impact: “specifically, a few religions, for example, islam and christianity, are seen as helpful for enterprise, while others, for example, hinduism, restrain business enterprise.” (audretsch et al, 2013). according to tiliouine and belgoumidi (2009) religion is a human power and because of this, religious studies need to be practised by entrepreneur firms (anderson et al., 2000; burns, 2005). however, until now there has been little research on the practice of islam and its effect on entrepreneurship and this statement is supported by isa, zulkarnain, and osman gani (2011). the islamic religion is divided into religious beliefs; the aspects of religious practices such as praying, fasting, avoiding alcoholic beverages, taking care of their dressing and hairstyles (tiliouine & belgoumidi, 2009). the empirical study then suggests that studies in the field of entrepreneurship need to be made according to the religion practised by the entrepreneurs, as each religion is said to have different influences (mohamad zulkifli & rosli, 2013). previous researchers have also conducted their studies by using various religious constructs. these studies are conducted with varying perspectives in terms of respondents and types of business. the differences make each study unique which contributes to the findings from different views in the field of religious entrepreneurship studies. a study by agbim (2012), using dimensions of hope (faith), love (altruistic), meaning (calling) and expertise as spiritual dimensions show that only the elements of vision, meaning (call) and love (altruistic) are important predictors of entrepreneurial development. rafiki and wahab (2013) find that perseverance, risk management, honesty, trust in allah almighty, prayer are independent variables, while dependent variables are dimensions of satisfaction among muslim entrepreneurs. in addition, tlaiss (2014) finds that muslim women entrepreneurs find prosperity (faléí) in life and excellence (itqén) in their work while doing business. muslim women entrepreneurs hold to the values associated with islamic good and hard work (charity), honesty and truth (payroll and trust), justice hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 45 and equality (íaqq and ‘adl), and welfare (islam) and they consider themselves as important as they strive for the survival and success of their business. according to gümüsay (2014), success is based on socio-economic factors, ethical values and religious and spiritual values. in addition, a study by berghammer and fliegenschnee (2014) on muslim women by comparing religion and culture finds that the islamic religion reflects the daily religious and cultural life of muslim women. el-menouar (2014), in turn, finds that the five dimensions of the muslim religion such as religious fundamentals, duties, religious experience, religious knowledge, and orthopraxis are important. among the ethical guidelines of the islamic work outlined by al-maududi (1967) is it educates individuals whether employers or employees on how to carry out their ethical responsibilities which consist of honesty and right. according to rosman and rosli (2013), honesty and right include avoiding unlawful income, obtaining lawful resources, maintaining punctuality, conducting business without the influence of ribé, not committing fraud in business, possessing high commitment and using influence without “force”. this can prevent muslim entrepreneurs from falling into abusive acts like cheating and bribery. hoe, isa, hin, yunus, and abdullah (2012) in a study of successful female entrepreneurs in malaysia confirm that there is a strong influence in religious orientation on business success. the elements of honesty, trust, discipline and timeliness are in all religions. studies have shown that there is a significant relationship between religious orientation and business economic performance (zafir & fazilah, 2011; barro & mccleary, 2003; noland, 2005; tu, bulte, & tan, 2011). the study of the relationship between religious factors and business performance by rohaizat and suzilawati (2001) also find that honesty and kindness, trust, truth and fairness and equality show a positive relationship with business performance. in a similar vein, a study by mustakim, siti arni, and wan norhasniah (2014) discover that one of the factors that influences the implementation of the islamic work ethic is religious practice work ethics organized by islam can shape individuals or employees with high self-discipline. they will endeavour to comply with any rules set out in an organization such as performing work in accordance to procedures, punctuality, mutual respect and integrity. high discipline is a civilized way of life in which the employees are 46 religious value practices and micro... able to produce quality products or services (nor azzah & siti, 2013). research by rose and kumar (2010) find that those who practise the islamic work ethic also have the consciousness to innovate. the presence of this new idea is motivated by the attitude towards improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of the task. the findings presented by researchers such as yousef (2001) and rokhman (2010) show that the implementation of islamic work ethic has a positive impact on the organization in terms of commitment, dedication, job satisfaction, co-operation, creativity and improvement of work. similarly, research done by mustakim et al (2014) point out that there are seven islamic work ethic practised in organizations namely: work is considered as worship to god, discipline, trust, shëré (consultation), justice, continuous improvement and vigour. islamic work ethic practices have resulted in significant benefits to the workforce, to the organization itself and also to the public. gupta and sulaiman (1996) agree that belief in religion and ethical practices would have a positive impact on business success in the long run. at the same time, the study also show that the majority of owners/managers acknowledge that in real circumstances they are forced to do things which are unethical and contrary to their religious values. the ethical practices are influenced by various reasons, including intense competition, social and organizational environment, top-level behavior, friends and colleagues and the lack of effective guidance mechanisms in dealing with difficult ethical issues. this finding is consistent with the results of the study conducted by rohaizat and suzilawati, (2001) and kohlberg’s theory. other scholars have listed many work ethics including seeking the reìa (pleasure) of the almighty in doing work, bearing faith, being transparent, handling shëré (consultation), respecting the leader, conforming to promises, providing rewards and exercising patience (nur rahmah et al, 2019; abd hakam, 2002; ibn kathir, 2009; abu ‘id, 1996 and ismail, 1995) and carrying out responsibility and offering goodness (rosman, 2010). rosman and rosli (2013) list other work ethics such as considering zakét in business, being aware of words used in conducting a business, having the quality of being patient and sincere, being down to earth, being fair in a business transaction, being grateful with any results, being fair and just, and being truthful and responsible. muhammad, ilias, ghazali, abdullah, hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 47 and amin (2008) opine that honesty is not to be taken lightly because an individual will show up before god to legitimize his activities. 3. research methodology the small enterprises under microcredit program of kelantan, malaysia, were selected for the empirical study. the choice of location was because of two reasons in which firstly, the state has a large number of participants and secondly, kelantan has been given the status of ‘serambi mekah’ and islamic city. based on the sample size determination method proposed by sekaran and bougie (2016), the total number of people involved in the study was 380 persons from the amanah ikhtiar malaysia (aim) program and 376 persons from the tabung ekonomi kumpulan usahaniaga (tekun) program. amanah ikhtiar malaysia (aim) was established in 1987. the main objective of its establishment was to uplift households out of poverty through providing small loan to the rural poor. similarly, tekun nasional, formerly known as yayasan tekun nasional, is an agency under the ministry of entrepreneur and cooperative development, malaysia which was established on november 9, 1998. the purpose of establishing tekun nasional is to provide easy and quick financing facilities for bumiputeras to start and further develop their businesses. this made the number of sample surveys a total of 756 small companies. based on the list of participants in both programs, the strata selection was proportional to the sample. the population was divided into strata, based on the ten districts in kelantan. the sample size for each stratum was determined according to the proportion of the strata population from the whole population. this study relied on the primary data collected by the survey method. the data used in this study was a part of the study on the factors that affected the performance of small business. non-financial measures were adopted following the suggestions made by many researchers for example swinney et al. (2006), rhodes and butler (2004) and covin and slevin (1989). the present study utilised a subjective indicator of performance based on self-reported measure. the value items were mainly adopted from kotey and meredith (1997) and gaddene (1988). the performance construct was measured along the dimension of sales revenue, profitability, reduce production costs, business growth, community development, job 48 religious value practices and micro... opportunity, business stability, meeting market needs, customer satisfaction and business networking. the respondents were requested to assess their business performance on a seven-point scale ranging from “1= strongly dissatisfactory” to “7 = strongly satisfactory”. the value of cronbach’s for the scale in this study is 0.887 and all business performance items (except reduced production cost) has a factor loading which is greater than 0.5. indicating good convergent validity. two main factors, namely entrepreneurial values and management practice, were used as the control variables in the analysis of the study. the items involved under the entrepreneurial value factor included leadership, risk-taking, opportunity seeking, and self-motivation. the respondents were asked to rate their entrepreneurial traits based on scale “1 = extremely low” to “7 = extremely high”. the items for the management practice included marketing, finance, operations, human capital and were measured on a seven points scale with the frequency of “1 = strongly disagree” to “7 = strongly agree”. the establishment of the study instrument on the practice of religious values was based on the islamic employee reviews (such as adnan & muhammad, 2002, mustaq ahmad, 1999; beekun, 1997; haron, 1990; siddiqi, 1988; sobri solomon, 1988). a total of 19 items used, did not only involve adherence to compliance, honesty, fairness, and trust, but also included matters that were prohibited by religion (fraud, the practice of riba, and the use of influence for self-interest). respondents were asked to rate the importance of each religious value practice factor on a sevenpoint scale of “1= extremely unimportant” to “7 = extremely important”. factor analysis was employed in order to reveal the factor structure that was better among the 19 items. to test the relevance of factor analysis for the data set, the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measure of sampling adequacy was applied. the kmo value (table i) is 0.912, exceeding the recommended value of 0.6 (kaiser, 1974). the bartlett test of sphericity is also highly significant, supporting the factorability of the correlation matrix. a regression analysis was carried out to measure the relationship between the islamic value factors and business performance. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 49 table 1: kmo and bartlett’s test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.912 bartlett’s test of approx. chi-square 5174.063 sphericity df 171 sig .000 table ii shows the cronbach’s values for all the study variables above 0.7, consistent with what was suggested by nunnally (1978). the one-sample kolmogorovsmirnov test shows all the variables involved exceed the value of 0.5, indicating that all the variables involved are parametric data (normally distributed). this allows the data to be analysed using the multiple regression method. table ii: reliability and one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test construct item reliability test one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test cronbach’s α k-smirnov z asymp.sig. entrepreneurial values 23 0.938 1.077 0.197 management practice 24 0.912 1.136 0.151 religious values 19 0.871 1.070 0.203 business performance 12 0.887 0.972 0.301 source: based on the sample survey 4. data analysis and findings the 19 items used to measure religious values and the factor analysis results are shown in table iii. the principle components of factor analysis with varimax rotation was performed to reveal the 50 religious value practices and micro... factor structure better among the 19 items. the method reduced the 19 explanatory variables to four factors namely (1) virtuous, (2) truth and kindness, (3) persistence, and (4) observance. all the four factors explain 56.96 per cent of the total variance. as shown in table iii, all items have a factor loading greater than 0.5 and based on cronbach’s coefficient, indicating their reliability to be used in the model. table iii: religious value reliabilities and factors loading construct/measure coefficient factor alpha loading virtuous 0.824 v1. mindful of zakat obligations 0.677 v2. mindful of language 0.671 v3. patient and sincere 0.619 v4. humility and non-snobbery 0.613 v5. fair trading 0.595 v6. grateful for earnings 0.585 v7. genuine, honest and sincere 0.528 truth and kindness 0.813 t1. avoiding forbidden income 0.714 t2. halal sources 0.674 t3. true to one’s word 0.628 t4. avoiding usury 0.595 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 51 t5. no deception 0.594 t6. highly committed 0.561 t7. no coercion 0.488 persistence 0.690 p1. constantly efficiency-oriented 0.816 p2. not misusing influence to serve own interests 0.775 p3. emphasis on high work quality 0.620 observance 0.763 o1. prioritising duties towards allah 0.795 o2. regularly praying for assistance from allah 0.722 source: based on the sample survey table iv shows a comparison of the importance of practising religious values in the two microcredit programs involved. based on the mean value of all the items, respondents show that religious factors have a significant influence on their business performance. there are 14 items indicating the significant differences between the two programs. out of the four constructs, only observance variables show no differences. empirical studies reveal that there is a significant difference (t = 2.71, p <0.01) in terms of the importance of practising religious values between the aim and tekun microcredit programs. 52 religious value practices and micro... table iv: importance level of religious values by respondents in aim and tekun construct mean t-stat aim tekun (n= 380) (n=376) virtuous 6.0248 6.1558 3.168*** v1. mindful of zakat 6.0368 6.1250 1.321 obligations v2. mindful of language 5.9237 6.1303 3.770*** v3. patient and sincere 6.0395 6.1279 2.293** v4. humility and non6.0079 6.1436 2.478** snobbery v5. fair trading 5.9579 6.1303 3.107*** v6. grateful for earnings 6.1684 6.1254 0.836 v7. genuine, honest and 6.0842 6,2074 2.204** sincere truth and kindness 5.9981 6.1714 4.572*** t1. avoiding forbidden 6.1211 6.3511 4.297*** income t2. halal sources 6.2000 6.3085 2.028** t3. true to one’s word 6.1026 6.1463 0.755 t4. avoiding usury 5.9289 6.2101 4.710*** t5. no deception 5.8947 6.0824 3.405*** hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 53 t6. highly committed 5.8974 6.0346 2.547** t7. no coercion 5.8421 6.0665 4.095*** persistence 5.5500 5.9849 6.210*** p1. constantly efficiency5.9474 6.4202 2.185** oriented p2. not misusing influence 4.7316 5.7021 6.097*** to serve own interests p3. emphasis on high 5.9711 6.1702 3.148*** work quality observance 6.5132 6.4428 1.355 o1. prioritising duties 6.4789 6.4204 1.024 towards allah o2. regularly praying for 6.5479 6.4654 1.409 assistance from allah religious values 6.4947 6.5984 2.705*** notes: significant at: ** 0.05 and ***0.01, a with a seven-point scale, standard deviation for both programs ranging between 0.66 to 1.51 source: based on the sample survey descriptive statistics involving the mean value, standard deviation, and correlation among all the research variables are shown in table v. overall, the correlation value between the variables is relatively low. this explains the absence of multicollinearity problems that allow multiple regressions to be used for the data analysis a regression analysis was carried out to measure the relationship between the control variables, four islamic value factors, and business performance. the result of the analysis is presented in table vi. in model 1, the study employed two control variables namely entrepreneurial values and management practice. the value of r2 clearly shows that the two control variables explain 40.1 percent variance of business performance. 54 religious value practices and micro... table v: descriptive statistics and correlation variable mean sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 1.entrepreneurial 5.396 0.610 value 2.management 4.983 0.697 0.570* practice 3.virtuous 6.084 0.527 0.137* 0.166* 4.truth and 5.528 0.591 0.357* 0.614* 0.360* kindness 5.persistence 5.766 0.988 0.380* 0.368* 0.293* 0.462* 6.observance 6.478 0.714 0.121* 0.007 0.465* 0.273* 0.272* 7.business 5.076 0.690 0.436* 0.626* 0.112* 0.302* 0.171* 0.04 performance n = 756, * p < 0.01 source: based on the sample survey this finding explains that these two variables are very significant in influencing the prevalence of micro business performance. as explained, the objective of the study is to examine the influence of religious factors on the performance of micro enterprises. for this purpose, the analysis of the study included four variables of religion simultaneously (independent variables) with control variables as shown in model 2. the analysis of the findings shows that the total variance explained by the models as a whole is 42.3 percent to the variance in business performance (r2 change = 2.1), f = 91.43, p <0.01. based on the analysis of the findings in model 2, the entrepreneurship values and management practices have a significant impact on business performance. with regard to religious values, the result reveals that the virtuous factors have a significant relationship with business performance. ( = 0.147, p <0.01). hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 55 t ab le v i: m u lt ip le r eg re ss io n a na ly si s v ar ia bl es c ol li ne ar it y s ta ti st ic s m od el 1 m od el 2 t ol er an ce v if s te p 1 c on tr ol s e nt re pr en eu ri al v al ue 0. 62 9 1. 59 0 0. 11 7* ** 0. 12 5* ** m an ag em en t pr ac ti ce 0. 44 4 2. 25 2 0. 50 9* ** 0. 67 3* ** s te p 2 r el ig io us v al ue s fa ct or s v ir tu ou s 0. 49 4 2. 02 5 0. 14 7* ** t ru th a nd k in dn es s 0. 71 7 1. 39 5 0. 02 5 p er si st en ce 0. 70 4 1. 42 1 0. 08 5* * o bs er va nc e 0. 70 5 1. 41 9 0. 07 9* * r 2 ch an ge 0. 40 1 0. 02 1* ** r 2 0. 40 1 0. 42 3 a dj us te d r 2 0. 40 0 0. 41 8 f 25 2. 48 4* ** 91 .4 28 ** * 56 religious value practices and micro... this explains that a muslim entrepreneur needs to have good values such as good words, humility, honesty and modesty in order to convince customers and thus improve their business performance. the persistence factor that involves efficiency in business management, productivity and non-use of influence in achieving personal goals, also has a significant relationship with business performance ( = 0.085, p <0.05). in this regard, every muslim entrepreneur should always work hard by using their own strengths and competencies rather than relying on others to ensure the success of their business success. the observance factor also shows a significant positive relationship with business performance ( = 0.079, p <0.05). in this context the muslim entrepreneurs need to obey the religious orders and always seek the almighty’s help in all matters. only truth and kindness factor shows an insignificant relationship with business performance ( = 0.025, n.s). this insignificant relationship between the two variables is attributed to the practice of opposing religious values among muslim entrepreneurs such as committing a business fraud, engaging in usury, disobeying promises and ignoring the halal and illegal aspects of achieving their business goals. 5. discussion and conclusion the purpose of this paper is to present empirical findings on the relationship between religious value practices and enterprises’ performance. the sample of the study involved a total of 756 micro enterprise entrepreneurs from two major microcredit programs in malaysia (aim and tekun). the factor analysis and multiple regression were used to empirically explain the influence that exists between the factors of religious values with the performance of micro enterprises. the result of the factor analysis of all the 19 items of religious values involved in the study is categorized into four factors namely, virtuous, truth and kindness, persistence and observance. the multiple regression analysis was conducted on the influence of the effectiveness of all four elements on business performance. the findings of the study show that the virtuous factor is the most significant factor in affecting the performance of the micro enterprises involved. the values involved under this element include mindful of zakat obligations, mindful of language, exercising hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 57 patience and sincerity, observing humility and non-snobbery, being fair in trading, being grateful for earnings, and practising genuineness and honesty. in addition, the findings also show that the persistence factor items are always oriented towards efficiency, not misusing influence to serve own interests, constantly efficiency-oriented, and emphasis on high work quality. likewise, the observance factor which involves values such as prioritising duties towards allah and regularly praying for assistance from allah also has a significant positive impact on the performance of the micro enterprises involved. only factor involving truth and kindness such as avoiding forbidden income, halal sources, true to one’s word, avoiding usury, no deception, highly committed and no coercion indicates that there is no significant relationship between truth and kindness and the performance of micro enterprises. this situation is due to the fact that most entrepreneurs are more guided by socio-moral considerations rather than religious values when making decisions. this is consistent with the explanation made in kohlberg’s theory in which entrepreneurs who make decisions based on socio-moral considerations in order to maximize profit usually disregard the religious rules and regulations. he acknowledges that amongst the businessmen, there are those who do things that are prohibited by religion such as committing fraud in trading affairs (examples of scales and measures and quality of goods), handling businesses involving usury, adopting corruption, and other unethical behaviours and this information is also supported by rohaizat and suzilawati (2001), arslam (2000), and gupta & sulaiman (1996). in addition, there are also those who do not fulfill the obligatory matters such as performing their prayers and paying zakat which are the main thrust of religious life. their business goals are solely to gain maximum profit by disregarding the religious restraints. there are many reasons that influence them not to practise the religious values such as increasing stiff competition, influence of friends and competitors and scarcity of good guidance mechanisms in handling problematic ethical issues. however, when all the factors are combined, the findings reveal a significant relationship between the practice of religious values and the performance of small companies. these findings are consistent with the results of research conducted by ezanee et al., (2018), fatimah et al, (2013), rohaizat and suzilawati (2001), zafir and fazilah (2011) and the principles of 58 religious value practices and micro... iwe and pwe in the context of western capitalists. a comprehensive device containing the guidance on business ethics and religious values should be executed in the firms so that muslim entrepreneurs do not diverge from these religious and ethical values. total business ethics and religious value practices guarantee the success in the economic activities and also in the hereafter. 6. limitation and future research in developing studies related to moral and religious values on business performance in the state is quite taxing. the findings of this study are seen to contribute to the enrichment of the literature in the field. in this regard, studies on the influence of religion on business performance especially in developing countries should be intensified. this study only involves a total of 19 items of practice values in the context of the islamic religion. religious values such as religious matters, fair practices in competition, good time management, social responsibility and satisfying customers’ needs should be investigated for future research so as to gain a deeper insight on how these values affect business performance. medium and large-scale enterprises should also be included in the study in future because respondents from these enterprises would be able to provide a more comprehensive picture of the relationship between religious values and business performance. the involvement of respondents from various religions is also seen as necessary for comparative purposes to investigate the influence of different religions on the performance of companies. notes and references abdul hakam, a. biography of umar bin abdul aziz: enforcement of justice. jakarta: gema insan press, 2002. al-maududi, a. a. islamic way of life. karachi: islamic research academy, 1967. anderson, alistair r., drakopoulou-dodd, sarah l, and michael g. “religion as an environmental influence on enterprise culture the case of britain in the 1980s.” international journal of entrepreneurial behaviour & research 6, no. 1, (2000):520. adnan, a, and mohamad dahlan, i. islamic entrepreneurship. kuala lumpur: prentice hall, 2002. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 59 agbim, k. c. “spirituality as correlate of entrepreneurship development.” journal of research in national development jorind 10, no.3 (2012): 154-64. doi:10.4314/ jorind.v10i3 anderson, alistair r. “paradox in the periphery: an entrepreneurial reconception.” entrepreneurship \& regional development 12, no. 2, (2000): 91-110. https://doi. org/10.1080/089856200283027 arslan, m. “the work ethic values of protestant british, catholic irish and muslim turkish managers.” journal of business ethics 31, no.4 (2001): 321-339. doi:10.1023/a:1010787528465 audretsch, david b., werner bonte, and jagannadha pawan tamvada. “religion, social class, and entrepreneurial choice.” journal of business venturing 28, no. 6 (2013):774-789. doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2013.06.002 barro, robert j., and racheal mccleary. “religion and economic growth across countries.” american sociological review 68, no.5 (2003): 760-781. https:// doi.org/10.2307/1519761 beekun, rafik issa. islamic business ethics. herndon: the international institute of islamic thought, 1997. berghammer, caroline., and katrin fliegenschnee. “developing a concept of muslim religiosity: an analysis of everyday lived religion among female migrants in austria.” journal of contemporary religion 29, no.1 (2014): 89-04. doi:10.1080/ 13537903.2014.864810 burns, p. corporate entrepreneurship building an entrepreneurial organisation, hampshire: palgrave macmillan, 2005. candland, christopher douglas. “faith as social capital: religion and community development in southern asia.” policy sciences 33 no.3 (2000): 355–74. doi:10.1023/a:1004857811117 chusmir, leonard h., and christine s koberg. “religion and attitudes toward word: a new look at an old question.” journal of organizational behavior 9, no.3 (1988): 251-262. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030090305 clark, james w., and lyndon e dawson. “personal religiousness and ethical judgments: an empirical analysis.” journal of business ethics 15 (1996): 339-372. covin, jeffrey g., and dennis p slevin. “strategic management of small firms in hostile and benign environments.” strategic management journal 10 (1989): 75–87. cunningham, j. barton., and joe lischeron. “defining entrepreneurship.” journal of small business management 29, no. 1 (1991): 450-461. dana, leo-paul. entrepreneurship and religion. cheltenham: edward elgar publishing, 2010. de noble, alex. craig s galbraith, gangaram singh, and curt h stiles. “market justice, religious orientation, and entrepreneurial attitudes; an empirical study.” journal of enterprising communities 1 no. 2 (2007): 121-34. doi: 10.1108/ 17506200710752548 el-menouar, yasemin. “the five dimensions of muslim religiosity.” results of an empirical study 8, no.1 (2014): 53-78. doi:10.12758/mda.2014.003 ezanee mohamed elias, noorul sadiqin azbiya yaacob, and siti norezam othman. “enhancing business performance through religiosity leaderships style among 60 religious value practices and micro... the small and medium enterprises.” international journal of supply chain management7, no.2 (2018): 2051-3771 fatimah-salwa, a, h., mohamad azahari, a. and joni tamkin, b. “non-financial performance of micro credit entrepreneurs: does personal religious values matters?” international journal of economics and finance 5, no.6 (2013): 3444. doi:10.5539/ijef.v5n6p34 faizal, p. r. m., ridhwan, m, and kalsom, w. “the entrepreneurs characteristic from al-quran and al-hadis.” international journal of trade, economics and finance 4 no. 4 (2013): 191 196. doi:10.7763/ijtef.2013.v4.284 fernando, mario. spiritual leadership in the entrepreneurial business: a multifaith study. northhampton: edward elgar publishing inc, 2007. furnham, andrian f. “a content, correlational, and factor analytic study of seven questionnaires measure of the protestant work ethic.” human relations 43, no. 4 (1990): 383-399. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872679004300406 gadenne, david. “critical success factors for small business: an inter-industry comparison.” international small business journal 17, no 1 (1998): 36-57. doi:10.1177/0266242698171002 gotsis, george., and zoe kortezi. “the impact of greek orthodoxy on entrepreneurship: a theoretical framework.” journal of enterprising communities: people and places in the globaleconomy 3 june (2009): 152-175. doi:10.1108/17506200910960851 gümüsay, ali aslan. “entrepreneurship from an islamic perspective.” journal of business ethic130, no.(2014): 199-208. doi 10.1007/s10551-014-2223-7 gupta, j. l., and sulaiman, m. (1996). “ethical orientations of managers in malaysia.” journal of business ethics 15, no. 7 (1996): 735-744. haron din. human and islam. kuala lumpur: amiza publishing, 1990. hoe, c. h., isa, f., hin, c. w., yunus, j. m., and abdullah, h. h. “development of women entrepreneurs: the case of malaysia.” world journal of social sciences 2, no. 6 (2012): 123–145. corpus id: 59133723 homola, michael., knudsen d, and marshal h. “religion and socio-economic achievement.” journal for the scientific study of religion 26, no. 1 (1987): 201217. doi:10.2307/1385794 ibrahim nabil a., and john p angelidis. “the long-term performance of small businesses: are there differences between “christian-based” companies and their secular counterparts?” journal of business ethics 58, no.1 (2005): 187-193. doi:10.1007/ s10551-005-1413-8 isa mohammed adamu, zulkarnain kedah and ahad osman-gani. entrepreneurial motivation, performance and commitment to social responsibility: a conceptual analysis on the influence of islamic religiosity. paper presented at the 10th international conference of the academy of hrd (asia chapter) kuala lumpur, malaysia, december 3-6, 2011. ismail, i. the reward system in islam: towards creating a workforce excellent. paper presented at the seminar on implementing values in public administration 1995 at the malaysian institute of islamic understanding (ikim), kuala lumpur: malaysia, 1995. ibn kathir, i. ‘u. interpretation of the qur’an al-azim, 2. riyadh:dar tibbah li nashr wa tauzi, 2009. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 61 irfan, m. (2020). “a meta-analysis of islamic microfinance: case based evidence from india.” journal of islamic monetary economics and finance 6 no.1 (2020): 2150 doi:10.21098/jimf.v6i1.1202 kaiser, h. “an index of factorial simplicity.” psychometrika 39, no. 1 (1974): 31-6. kallerberg, arne., and kevin t leicht. “gender and organizational performance: determinants of small business survival and success.” academy of management journal 34 no. 1 (1991): 36-161. https://doi.org/10.2307/256305 kinjerski, val m., and berna j skrypnek. “defining spirit at work: finding common ground.” journal of organizational change management 17, no. 1 (2004): 26– 42. doi:10.1108/09534810410511288 kotey, bernice., and meredith g g. “relationships among owner/manager personal values.” business. international journal of economics and finance 5, no. 6 (1997). mcclelland, d. c. human motivation. new york: cambridge university press, 1987. mohamad mustapha. islamic entrepreneurship. petaling jaya: prentice hall, 2002. muhammad, m.z., ilias, a, ghazali, f.m, abdullah, r.c, and amin, h. “an analysis of islamic ethics in small and medium enterprises (smes).” unitar e-journal 4, no.1 (2008): 48-58. muhammad mustakim mohamed noh, siti arni basir, wan norhasniah wan husin. “strategies and factors influencing the implementation of islamic ethics (eki): a case study at jcorp.” global journal al-tahaqafah gjat 4 no.1 (2014): 97. mohamad zulkifli & mohd rosli. “entrepreneurial orientation and business success of malay entrepreneurs: religiosity as moderator.” international journal of humanities and social science 3, no. 10 (2013). morris, michael and minet schindehutte. “entrepreneurial values and the ethnic enterprise: an examination of six subcultures.” journal of small business management 43, no. 4 (2005): 453-479. doi:10.1111/j.1540-627x.2005.00147.x mohamad mustapha. islamic entrepreneurship. petaling jaya: prentice hall, 2002. mustaq ahmad. business ethics in islam. new delhi: kitab bhavan, 1999. noland, m. “religion and economic performance.” world development 33 no. 8 (2005): 12151232. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.03.006 nor azzah, k. and siti arni, b. ethics in islamic institutions: a study of factors driving its implementation. inside. islamic perspective on management: contemporary issues. ed. nor azzah, k., azian, m. and suhaili, s (kuala lumpur: akademi pengurusan yapiem, 2013)3-24. nunnally, j. c. psychometric theory second edition. new york: mcgraw-hill, 1978. nur rahmah, wahyuddin abdullah, and salmah said. islamic value of innovative performance in small and medium-sized enterprises: conceptual review of fathanah. prooceding of annual international conference on islamic economics and business.1st aicieb 2019. nwachuckwu, osita. “ceo locus of control, strategies planning, differentiation, and small business performance: a test of path analytic model.” journal of applied busienss research 11 no. 4 (1995):9-14. https://doi.org/10.19030/jabr.v11i4.5842 rafiki, ahmad., and wahab, kalsom abdul. measuring entrepreneurs’ satisfaction from islamic perspective: a study on small firms in north sumatera, indonesia. paper presented at 4th international conference on business and economic research, (indonesia, march 2013): 694-715. (2013). doi:10.13140/2.1.1986.9446 62 religious value practices and micro... rhodes, colbert and john s butler. “understanding self-perceptions of business performance: an examination of black american entrepreneurs.” journal of developmental entrepreneurship 9, no. 1 (2004): 55-71. rokhman, wahibur. “the effect of islamic work ethics on work outcomes.” journal of business ethics and organization studies 15, no. 1 (2010): 24-39. rohaizat, baharun., and suzilawati kamaruddin. “the effects of entrepreneurs’ personal religious values and business performance in information technology industry.” journal of enterprising culture 11, no. 1 (2001): 437448. doi:10.1142/ s0218495801000225 rose, radwan che., and kumar, n. “examining the link between islamic work ethic and innovation capability.” journal of management development 29, no. 1 (2010): 7993. doi:10.1108/02621711011009081 rosman mahmood., and mohd rosli m. “microcredit position in micro and small enterprise performance: the malaysia case.” management research review 36, no. 5 (2013):436-453. doi:10.1108/01409171311327226 rusnah muhamad, mohd. edil abd. sukor, and mohd rizal muwazir@mukhazir. “corporate social responsibility: an islamic perspective.” journal of accounting perspectives 1, no.1 (2008): 43-56. https://doi.org/10.22452/ajap.vol1no1.4 salimath, manjula s., and john b cullen. “formal and informal institutional effects on entrepreneurship: a synthesis of nation-level research.” international journal of organizational analysis 18, no. 3 (2010). 358-385. https://doi.org/10.1108/ 19348831011062175 schwepker, charles h., and thomas n ingram. “improving sales performance through ethics:the relationship between salesperson moral judgment and job performance.” journal of business ethics 15, no. 11 (1996):1151–1160. scheepers, peer., and frans van der silk. “religion and attitudes on moral issues: effects of individual, spouse and parental characteristics.” journal of scientific study of religion 37, no. 4 (1998): 678-688. https://doi.org/10.2307/1388149 sekaran, uma., and bougie, r. research methods for business: a skill-building approach. chichester: john wiley & sons ltd, 2016. siddiqui, mohammad a. “interpersonal communication: modelling interpersonal relationship.” an islamic perspective 5, no. 2 (1988): 239-246. https://doi.org/ 10.35632/ajis.v5i2.2844 solomon, sobri. perniagaan menurut pandangan islam, kuala lumpur: al-rahmaniah, 1988. https://www.worldcat.org/title/perniagaan-menurut-pandangan swinney, jane., rodney runyan, and patricia huddleston. “differences in reported firm performance by gender: does industry matter?” journal of developmental entrepreneurship 11, no. 2 (2006): 99–115. https://doi.org/10.1142/ s1084946706000350 ter voert, marijke. “the effect of religion on work attitudes in the netherlands.” social compass 40, no. 3 (1993): 3-44. doi:10.1177/003776893040001005 tiliouine, habib., and abbes belgoumidi. “an exploratory study of religiosity, meaning in life and subjective wellbeing in muslim students from algeria.” applied research in quality of life 4, no. 1 (2009): 109–127. doi:10.1007/s11482-009-9076-8 tlaiss, hayfaa. “how islamic business ethics impact women entrepreneurs: insights from four arab middle eastern countries. journal of business ethics 129, no. 4 (2014):859 877. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 63 tu, qin., erwin bulte, and shuhao tan. “religiousity and economic performance: microeconomic evidence from tibetan area.” china economic review 22, no. 1 (2011): 55-63. doi:10.1016/j.chieco.2010.09.008 velasquez, m. g. business ethics: concepts and cases. (4th ed). upper saddle river. nj: prentice-hall, 1998. venkatraman, n., and vasudevan ramanujam. “measurement of business performance in strategy research: a comparison of approaches.” academy of management review, 11, no.4 (1986): 801-814. doi:10.5465/amr.1986.4283976 victor, igwe nwachukwu., and ije ubana ubi. “the role of religious and cultural diversity on smes in cross river state, nigeria: implications from smes management perspective.” international journal of interdisciplinary research methods 6, no. 2 (2019): 13-22. weber, max. the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, trans. london: george allen & unwin ltd., 1930. yousef, darwish abdulrahman. “islamic work ethics: a moderator between organizational commitment and job satisfaction in across-cultural context.” personnel review 30 no. 2 (2000): 152-169. doi:10.1108/00483480110380325 yusuf, kurt., noemi sinkovics, rudolf r sinkovics, and mohamad yamin. “the role of spirituality in islamic business networks: the case of internationalizing turkish smes.” journal of world business 55, no. 1 (2020): 101034. doi:10.1016/ j.jwb.2019.101034 zafir, mohammad makbul., and fazilah mohamad hasun. “entrepreneurial success: an exploratory study among entrepreneurs.” international journal of business and management 6, no. 1 (2011): 116-125. doi:10.5539/ijbm.v6n1p116 zahrah, novia., abd hamid, siti norashikin., abd rani, samsul huda., and kamil, bidayatul akma. “enhancing job performance through islamic religiosity and islamic work ethics.” international review of management and marketing, 6, no. s7 (2016): 195-198. zinger, j. terence., rolland lebrasseur., and louis r zanibbi, “factors influencing early stage performance in canadian microenterprises.” journal of developmental entrepreneurship 6, no. 2 (2001): 129-51. zulkifli, r mohammad., and m mohd rosli. “entrepreneurial orientation and business success of malay entrepreneurs: religiosity as moderator.” international journal of humanities and social science 3, no. 10, (2013): 264 275. hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xxxix july-september 2016 no. 3 editor-in-chief: mrs. sadia rashid editor: dr. ansar zahid khan published by hamdard foundation pakistan, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. telephones:36440184, 36616001-4, 36620945-49 telefax: (92-21) 36611755 e-mails: islamicus@hamdard.edu.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] articles from this journal are indexed in the religion index one: acquisitions specialist, american theological library association, 300 s. wacker dr ste 2100, chicago, il 60606, usa. the hamdard islamicus is also indexed by the index to the study of religion online: a cross-searchable database and bibliography of journal articles (issn: 1876-6641) http://media.brill.nl/c/isr/ which is the online version of the brill journal science of religion, published by the brill publishers (netherlands / usa), p.o.box 9000 2300 pa leiden, the netherlands. articles and photographs in this issue may not be reproduced unless previous permission has been obtained from the editor. price inland foreign pak. rs. us $ annual 600/110/single copy 150/030/(inclusive of airmail charges) printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan. contents * editorial * tracing the concept of adr in sharê‘ah and law – a comparative study — dr. qazi attaullah and dr. lutfullah saqib * islamic revivalism and its internal critics in the indo-pak subcontinent — dr. husnul amin and prof. dr. abdul rauf * islam, west and constantinople – a historical overview of evolution of the ‘turkish model’ in premodern age — dr. fatima sajjad and prof. dr. umbreen javaid 5 7 55 75 hamdard islamicus 7 vol. xl, no. 4 imóm suyõùô’s original thought on the opposition to (greek) logic and theology in øawn al-manùiq wa‘l-kalóm ‘an fannay al-manùiq wa‘l-kalóm* dr. mufti ali state islamic university (uin) sultan maulana hasanuddin banten, indonesia, head of lp2m uin banten, jl, jenederal sudirman no. 30, serang-banten 42118, indonesia. e-mail: mufti.ali@uninbanten.ac.id the transmission of greek philosophy and sciences to the islamic world through the translation movement in the eighth and ninth centuries played a major role in accelerating the hellenizing process of that world. the emergence of scholastic theology (kalém) and islamic aristotelianism and neo-platonism (falsafah) in the islamic world is considered, in madjid’s opinions, as the direct cultural influence of it.1 this whole marvellous process of cultural transmission which led to the emergence of a rationalist movement in the islamic world was not a matter of chance. history tells us of the systematic attempt by al-mé’mën (d. 216/833), who was fascinated by the practical use of greek philosopy and sciences, and issued an explicit state policy to promote adoption of ‘the foreign culture’. according to fakhry, al-mé’mën himself, the seventh ‘abbésid caliph, was influenced by greek philosophy and, composed several treatises on theological questions in a speculative spirit. the speculative tendency in his theology promoted popular interest –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– *i would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to prof. dr. psj. van koningsveld of leiden university, who provided invaluable comments and corrections to the draft of this article. hamdard islamicus 8 vol. xl, no. 4 in scholastic theology and it supported the cause of the mu‘tazilites who sought to apply greek categories to muslim dogma.2 as a result of the explicit state policy and a core of learned individuals, popular interest in learning ‘new culture’ culminated in the translation into arabic of a great many greek treatises and books of philosophy and science, along with commentaries. al-mé’mën and his proponents, who exemplified what van koningsveld called ‘the ma’mën cycle’,3 represented the muslims with the inclusive cultural perception that it was necessary to enlist the assistance of other cultures in pursuing epistemology. thus, they represented the group of muslims who regarded their culture insufficient and sought to learn from the outside world. according to von grunebaum, this cultural perception paved the way for muslims to develop (a) “rational forms of thought and systematisation,” (b) “logical procedures,” (c) “methods of generalization and abstraction” and, (d) “principles of classification.”4 this inclusive attitude towards a foreign culture drew fervent criticism from those muslims who regarded their cultural achievements as selfsufficient and those who needed to learn nothing from the outside world.5 to borrow van koningsveld’s term, these groups who were hostile to ‘things foreign’ were represented by ‘the umar cycle’.6 since then history has witnessed consecutive disputes between those with an inclusive attitude toward foreign cultures and those who regarded islamic culture as self-sufficient. if the inclusionists were represented by rationalist groups, the most extreme of which was the mu‘tazilite group, then the exclusionists were represented by the traditionalists, the most extreme of which were the ahl al-×adêth, to borrow abrahamov’s classification.7 the ongoing dispute culminated in the event known as the mihna, the inquisition by the caliph al-mé’mën. this dispute led aímad ibn ×anbal, who did not recognize the createdness of the qur’én, to risk his life by challenging a major doctrine of the mu‘tazilite’s creed.8 therefore, it can be said that the ‘fruit’ of hellenism, i.e. scholastic theology (kalém) and islamic aristotelianism and neo-platonism (falsafah) met with opposition from a great number of muslims when they were introduced into the islamic world in the eighth and ninth centuries. the inclusion of logical concepts into juridical works, such as the theory of hamdard islamicus 9 vol. xl, no. 4 definition (al-íadd) and of demonstration (al-burhén), which were included by al-ghazélê in al-mustaîfé, his legal theory, is an obvious example of a muslim scholar’s effort to protect himself from the threat of traditionalists.9 the incineration of a great number of muslim philosophers’ works is further evidence of the traditionalists’ fervent opposition to falsafah. like islamic aristotelianism and neo-platonism (falsafah), scholastic theology (kalém) was considered as a part of the hellenistic tradition and it too became the target of traditionalists who prohibited against engaging in it by breaking off relations with, and banishing the mutakallimën and by refuting mutakallimën’s tenets.10 the fervour of the hostility of muslims towards kalém can be seen in al-suyëïê’s discussion in øawn al-manïiq wa ‘l-kalém (forthwith called: sm), which comprises more than 200 printed pages. sm revolves around the history and origin of logic, its introduction into the muslim world, the reaction of leading muslim scholars against it, its connection to theology and the reaction of muslim scholars against theology and the refutation against one who introduced logic into grammar. delving into the content of this work (i.e. sm), one is led to know that al-suyëïê adopts the persona of a systematic historian drawing our attention to the fact that logic and theology were opposed by muslims of various generations and even from the earliest period of islamic history. in his discussion of the muslim opposition to logic, al-suyëïê, for instance, systematically arranges his topic as follows: first he deals with the community of islam; furthermore he discusses the historical connection between the books of uîël al-fiqh and uîël al-dên to logic and the beginning of its spread among later scholars. finally, he enumerates chronologically the scholars who opposed logic, beginning with al-shéfê‘ê (d. 203/820) and ending with ibn taymiyyah (d. 729/1329). the same pattern holds true, when dealing with the muslim opposition to kalém. the significance of sm is represented, for instance, by al-nashshér’s reference to it as the most complete encyclopaedia dealing with the criticism of greek logic. accordingly he asserts ‘… wa hédha ‘l-kitéb yu‘tabar awsa‘ mawìë‘at fima fi maw-ë‘ naqd al-manïiq al-yënanê.11 in what follows, i have translated only the introductory part of sm, namely pages thirty-three to sixty-seven in the printed edition of al-nashshér. these passages contain the original thought of its author. hamdard islamicus 10 vol. xl, no. 4 the rest of the pages are merely al-suyëïê’s summarizing of more than twelve works of his predecessors who dealt with the censure of kalém. i hope that the translation helps us to understand the context of the religious dispute that drives al-suyëïê’s composition of sm. the translation of sm.12 to defend [islamic] logic and theology against the art of [greek] logic and theology introduction the reason for composing this book [p. 33]. praise be to god and peace be upon his worshippers whom he has chosen. long ago, in the year 867 or 868 [h] i composed a book on the prohibition against being occupied by the art of logic, which i named “al-qawl al-mushriq.”13 i included in it statements of the learned men of islam condemning and prohibiting the art of logic. i related in it that the shaykh al-islém, one of the scholars who has reached the degree of ijtihéd taqiy al-dên ibn taymiyyah composed a book to undo logic’s foundations, a book which i had not found at that time. twenty years passed without my finding it. then when this year came, and i told of what god had endowed upon me in attaining the rank of independent legal investigation,14 someone mentioned that one of the conditions for legal investigation is the knowledge of the art of logic, claiming that this condition was lacking in me. the poor fellow15 did not understand that i knew logic better than those who claim to know it and defend it. i know the principles of its foundations, and on that basis [p. 34]. i derived there from the insights as well as the knowledge rendered by the leading logicians of the day, with the exception only of our very learned teacher muíyi al-dên al-kafyajê.16 thus i searched for ibn taymiyyah’s book until i found it. i saw that he had entitled it naîêíah ahl al-ômén fi al-radd ‘alé manïiq al-yënén. in it, he expressed excellently his intention to undo the foundations of logic one by one and explain the corruption of its principles. so i summarized it in a little composition which i entitled jahd al-qarêha fi tajrêd al-naîêíah.17 then, many of the charlatans, who are far from real scholarship, eagerly said: what is the argument to prohibit it? on what hamdard islamicus 11 vol. xl, no. 4 sources did ibn b. øaléí rely in his legal decision to that effect? and other expressions of a similar nature. surprisingly, they defend logic but they are not mastering it, and they are busying themselves with it but they do not use it in their inquiries. they go at random in it like the weaksighted she-camel that beats the ground with her forefeet, and they only follow the right direction in discussion and deduction blindly. some of those who spent their life [in studying] logic met me. when one of them saw the statement of ibn al-øaléí in his legal opinions: wa laysa al-ishtighél bi ta‘allumih wa ta‘lêmih mimmé abéíah al-shéri‘ wa lé ‘stibéíah aíad min al-øaíabah wa’l-tébê‘ên wa’lé’immah al-mujtahidên wa’l-salaf al-îéliíên, [studying and teaching logic is not allowed by the law-giver, by the companions, the followers and by the leading scholars who are qualified to undertake ijtihéd, nor by the pious ancestors], he said: this is a testimony to the contrary, which is not accepted [p. 35]. thus, i said: by god, you neither followed the course of the scholars of the religious law nor relied upon that of the logicians! as for the scholars of the religious law, they say that if argumentum e contrario originates from the scholars of complete deduction, it is accepted and to be relied upon. this idea was also held by scholars of tradition, law and arabic, in language, grammar and syntax, rhetoricians – specialized in ma‘énê,18 bayén19 and badê‘20 and prosodists in a number of questions which are too long to be put forward. as for the logicians, they say that the general negative premise can be undone only by the particular positive one, viz. that it is said that it was permitted by a specific companion, follower of a companion or independent legal investigator. thereby the argument of ibn al-øaléí would be undone. but this is more difficult to find on the authority of one of the groups mentioned than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. as for al-défi‘ bi al-øadr [the way of argumentation entitled in logic], al-défi‘ bi al-øadr viz. plainly asserts something, i.e. to assert what is right or where it was taken from, this is not the manner used by anyone, be he a juridical scholar or a philosopher. thus, i decided to compose an elaborate book [to prohibit it]21 following the course of a comprehensive independent legal investigation and deduction to reveal the truth, in which i explain the correctness of hamdard islamicus 12 vol. xl, no. 4 what ibn al-øaléí claimed in relating the negation of permission [of being occupied by logic] to the people mentioned. when i had begun [to compose the book], and was obliged to mention the statements of the leading scholars in prohibiting the study of theology, because of the intricate connection between the two [p. 36], i entitled the book awn al-manïiq wa’l-kalém ‘an fannay al-manïiq wa’l-kalém (to defend [islamic] logic and theology against the art of [greek] logic and theology); but only god enables us to reach our goal. the beginning of the foundation of logic and the beginning of its passing into the religious community of islam and the beginning of those who connected the books of uîël [uîël al-fiqh and uîël al-dên] to logic and the beginning of its spread among later [scholars]. the first who founded the art of logic was aristotle,22 an inhabitant of isïakhr23 in the period of azdashir ibn dara,24 as it is mentioned by al-sahrasténi25 in al-milal wa‘l-niíal, by ibn al-øaléí,26 by al-nawawê27 in al-ùabaqét, al-kindi28 and ibn zëléq in térêkh miîr29 and others [p. 37]. it is clearly indicated in the words of someone who said:30 we cut our friendship with those stricken by the malady of kitéb al-shifé’.31 they died as adherents of the religion of aristotle, while we died in the religion of the chosen.32 ibn taymiyyah said in his quoted books: another [scholar] said: if you are joined in an affair by an evil person, do not feel ashamed or embarrassed:33 aristotle and the rapacious dog necessarily participate among animals. aristotle was mentioned specifically because he was the founder of logic in which he confirmed that every kind possesses a portion of its species, and that the human shares animality with the dog and the other animals. ibn taymiyyah said in his mentioned book: aristotle, the founder of logic was a greek and the first who asserted the sempiternality of the universe. he said: the greeks were infidel polytheists worshipping the hamdard islamicus 13 vol. xl, no. 4 planets and idols; they were much worse than the jews and the christians after they had abrogated and altered [the true religion]; they lived more than 300 years b.c. [p. 38]. when the christ was sent to them, they stuck to his religion. then, when the religion of the christ had been altered, they entered upon a religion which was a combination of íanifiyya and polytheism. some of it was true and some of it was false. it was better than the religion which was followed by their ancestors. (end of quotation). in another part of this book, he said: the greeks were polytheists worshipping idols and they were preoccupied by magic as is related on the authority of aristotle and others. satans led them astray and by them their magic was performed. however, they did not know that [the magic] was caused by the satans. may be they did not believe in the satans, but asserted that all that was caused by the force of the soul, by natural matters or by a celestial power. because, according to them [the greeks], avicenna and his followers, these three forces were the causes of the marvels of the universe; but they were ignorant of the other acts of the satans which have greater impact in spreading evil in the world than all this.34 in another place [of this book] he said: the foundation of logic was initially derived from geometry. they made it in figures similar to the figures of geometry. they named them limits (íudëd) because of the limits of those figures, in order that they were able to shift from a sensibly perceived form to an intellectual form. he said that this was due to the weakness of their intellect and their inability to know them except by using a far-fetched method. but god paved the way for muslims to obtain such a degree of knowledge, eloquence, good deeds and faith that they excel by it all kinds of the species of man. praise be to god the lord of the universe. (end of quotation!)35 [p. 39] as for the beginning of its passing into the religious community of islam, al-shaykh naîr al-maqdisê who is one of the leading scholars among our friends, said in his book al-×ujja ‘alé térik al-mahajja36 [the argument against one who abandons the mahajja (the proved way): abë muíammad ‘abd allah ibn al-walêd ibn sa‘d al-anîérê told me: i heard that abë muíammad ‘abd allah ibn abê zayd the malikite jurist in qayrawén37 said: may god regard the umayyads with mercy. there has never been among them a caliph who introduced innovations hamdard islamicus 14 vol. xl, no. 4 in islam. most of their governors and officials were arabs. but when the caliphate was removed from them and fell to the ‘abbésids, their dynasty was based on the support and the rule of the persians. in the hearts of most of their rulers lay infidelity and hatred towards the arabs and the dynasty of islam. they created innovations in islam which formed a mortal danger for islam. if there had been no promise of god to the prophet (œ) that his religion and its adherents would be victorious till doomsday, the persians would have annihilated islam, but they have broken it and marred its pillars. but god will keep his promise, if he wishes! the first of the innovations created by them was the importation of the books of greekdom to the world of islam. they were translated into arabic, and thus became widespread among the muslims. the man responsible for the importation of the books from byzantium into the lands of islam was yaíyé ibn khélid ibn barmak.38 there were greek books in byzantium; the king of byzantium feared that if the byzantines would study the books of greekdom, they would leave christianity behind and return to the religion of greekdom [p. 40]. thus, they would start to quarrel and their unity would be broken up. therefore, he collected the books in a place on which he built a construction covered by stones and gypsum so no one had access to it. when the command of the dynasty of the ‘abbésids fell to yaíyé ibn khélid, who was an atheist, he got tidings of the books in the edifice in byzantium. so he bribed the king of the byzantines with presents, without asking anything in return. when he sent him many presents, the king of byzantium collected his patriarchs saying: this man, the servant of the arab has given me a lot of presents, but without asking anything from me in return. but i am convinced that he does want something. i fear that his need will bring me into difficulties. thus, i became worried. then, when yaíyé’s envoy came to him, he asked him: tell your friend that if he has a need, he should say what it is. when the envoy told yaíyé, he answered him: what i need is that the books under the building be sent to me. i will take from them some of those i need, and send them back to him. when the king of byzantium had read his [yaíyé’s] letter, he danced with joy. then he gathered the patriarchs, the bishops and the monks declaring before them: i have told you that the servant of the arab did indeed have a need. he has expressed it and it hamdard islamicus 15 vol. xl, no. 4 is very trivial for me. i have an idea. please listen. if you acquiesce i will do it; if you have a different view, we will consult together until we share the same opinion. they asked [the king] : what is it? he answered: he wants to have the greek books. he will take what he likes and then return them. then they said: what do you think? he said: i know that our ancestor only constructed the building because he feared that if they fall into the hands of the christians, who would read them, this would lead to the corruption of their religion and the demolition of their unity. so i propose to send them to him and ask him not to send them back so they will be afflicted by them, while we will be rid of their evil! [p. 41] i am afraid that someone after me will dare to diffuse them among the people, so that they [the christians] fall from what frightens them. then they said: yes we agree, king! please, execute it! thus he sent the books to yaíyé ibn khélid. when the books came to him, he gathered all the heretics and philosophers. when he took out the book íadd al-manïiq [on the definition of logic], abë muíammad ibn abê zayd said: there were few who read this book, but were saved from heresy. he said: then yaíyé organized discussions and debates in his house concerning inappropriate subjects. every adherent of a religion spoke about his belief and discussed it while his [personal] safety was secured. i say the implication of these words is that it took place in the caliphate of al-rashêd,39 as al-barmaki was his minister. during his life, he fell out of favour. he was murdered in 187 [h]. al-øaléí, al-øafadê40 in his sharí lémiyyat al-‘ajam said: it is told that al-mé’mën, when he had concluded a truce with a christian king – i think he was king of the island of cyprus – wrote a letter asking from him the library of the greeks. they were collected there in a house to which no one could enter. the king gathered his advisers and consulted them about it. all of them, except for one patriarch, advised him not to supply the books. he [viz. king of island of cyprus] said: supply the books to them, these sciences have not entered any religious state without destroying it and ensnaring its scholars. a reliable man told me that al-shaykh taqiy al-dên ibn aímad ibn taymiyyah – may god have mercy upon him – used to state: i do not think that god will overlook [the sins of] al-ma’mën [p. 42]. he certainly will retribute him for what he has committed to this community due to hamdard islamicus 16 vol. xl, no. 4 his introduction of these philosophical sciences among its people. or words to that effect. then al-safadê said: actually, al-mé’mën was not the first to translate and arabize [foreign books], but there have been many [scholars] who translated them before him. thus, yaíyé ibn khélid arabized a lot of persian books, like kalêla wa-dimna and for his sake, the almagest, one of the books of the greeks,41 was arabized.42 it is generally known that the first to translate the books of the greeks was khélid ibn yaz êd ibn mu‘éwiyah since he was enthusiastically fond of the books of chemistry. the translators followed two methods of translating: the first was the method of yëíanné ibn al-biïrêq,43 ibn al-né‘ima al-×imîê44 and others, namely that one had to look at every single greek word and its meaning, and then bring a single arabic word synonymous in meaning with the greek one and thereby explain it. then he moved to the next word and did the same, until he completed what he wanted to translate. this method is bad for two reasons: the first is that, one cannot find an arabic synonym for each and every greek word. hence, it often happens that greek words have been rendered by arabic ones signifying the opposite. secondly, the peculiarities of [arabic] construction and syntax do not always match their correlative in another language. besides, many mistakes may occur when metaphors are used, which in all languages is frequently the case. the second method of translation is the method of ×unayn ibn isíéq,45 al-jawharê46 and others, namely that one had to look at a sentence and understand its meaning [p. 43]. one would then express its meaning in a correlative sentence from the other language, regardless of whether or not the words correspond exactly or differ. this method is more appropriate. because of this, books of ×unayn ibn isíéq need no revision except [his works] on mathematics, because he did not master [this field], contrary to the works of medicine, logic, physics and theology. the works he translated in those fields do not need correction. as for euclid,47 it was revised by thébit ibn qurra al-×arrénê,48 and so were the almajest and the intermediate works between the two.49 then he said: there has been a continuous controversy in this community since the prophet (œ) passed away concerning his death, burial, the question of his succession, legacy, the question of killing those hamdard islamicus 17 vol. xl, no. 4 who refused to pay the zakét, etcetera, and even concerning his illness – may god bless him and grant him peace – when he said: give me an inkwell and a piece of writing material in order that i write for you a letter so that you will not go astray after me. anas ibn mélik narrated that [the prophet (œ)] said: the banë isré’êl have split into seventy-one sects, while my religious community will split into seventy-two sects [p. 44]. all these sects are put in hell, except one, namely al-jamé‘a.50 he [the prophet (œ)] was the true and reliable one who does not talk falsely. he related that the community will split; once they have split, they will oppose each other. when they oppose each other, they will rely on confusions and argumentations. every sect will dispute those who oppose it, the door of debate will be opened. hence, everyone needs to argue in favour of his school and its statements using either rational or traditional arguments or a combination of both. therefore, this matter had not been safeguarded before al-mé’mën. on the contrary, it became worse and more harmful and by it the arguments of the mu‘tazilites and others became strengthened. the adherents of heresies, the opponents of the sunnah, adopted rational preliminary axioms from the philosophers and introduced them into their studies. thereby they broke open the confinements of their debate and built on them the foundations of their innovations. so the hole [of the garment] widened before the sewer, and the lighthouse of the single truth almost resembled the tripod cooking-pot and the traces of wasteland. this is the end of the words of al-safadê. in the history of ibn kathêr,51 in the biography of khélid ibn yazêd ibn amêr al-mu’minên mu‘éwiyah ibn abê sufyén, it is [stated] that he was a scholar and a poet to whom some expertise in chemistry as well as physics was attributed, and that he died in the year 90 of the hijra. the conclusion to be drawn from all these facts is that the sciences of the ancients had reached the muslims in the first century when they had conquered the lands of the non-arabs [p. 45]. but the sciences had not spread among them widely and had not become generally known among them since the ancestors had prohibited them from becoming engrossed in them. however, [the greek sciences] became popular in al-barmakê’s period, while their spread increased in the period of hamdard islamicus 18 vol. xl, no. 4 al-mé’mën because of the innovations he stimulated and the occupation with the sciences of the ancients as well as the extinguishing of the sunnah he promoted. in the history of islam,52 it is [stated] that the first who introduced philosophy into al-andalus a was prince of al-andalus, ‘abd al-raímén ibn al-×akam ibn hishém ibn ‘abd al-raímén ibn mu‘éwiyah ibn hishém ibn ‘abd al-malik ibn marwén al-umawê. he resembled al-mé’mën al-‘abbésê in searching for philosophical books, and al-walêd ibn ‘abd al-malik in his tyranny. he was the first umayyad who magnified the kingdom in al-andalus and clad it with the most superb magnificence. he introduced into al-andalus the wearing of embroidered cloths and the minting of dirhams, while there had existed no mint-house since its conquest by the arabs. he died in 229 [h]. al-ghazélê said in his iíyé: philosophy is not a separate science, but it comprises, four parts: the first is geometry and calculation; the second is logic; the third is theology; and the fourth is physics. we will provide a detailed explanation of these words below. the first who mixed the books of uîël with logic concerning the first who mixed the books of uîël53 with it, ibn taymiyyah states in his book: “never had anyone of the muslim thinkers paid attention to the method of the logicians. nay, the ash‘arites, the mu‘tazilites, the karamites, the shê‘ites and the other denominations condemned logic and asserted its corruption. the first who mixed logic with the uîël of the muslims was abë ×émid al-ghazélê. muslim scholars disputed with him, so frequently that it would take too long to enumerate them all here [p. 46]. as for the beginning of its spread among the later scholars, al-×éfið ‘iméd al-dên ibn kathêr said in his book of history [under the events concerning] the year 687 [h]: “one year after the tatars had occupied baghdad, al-khwéjéh naîêr al-ùësê made the astronomical laboratory, and he [also] made a house of wisdom in which there were philosophers. each of them earned three dirhams per day. there was also a house of medicine for the medical doctors, who earned two dirhams. to each muíaddith who worked in dér al-×adêth, half a dirham was paid per day. from that time, the occupation with philosophical hamdard islamicus 19 vol. xl, no. 4 sciences became widespread and prominent. [in earlier times,] people were only occupied by the philosophical sciences covertly. [however, now] instead of the recitation of the qur’én, baghdad became filled by songs, melodies and the recitation of poems. even after the recitation of prophetic traditions, [the people] studied greek philosophy, the methods of theology and the qarmatian interpretations.54 religious jurists were replaced by philosophers; instead of the ‘abbésid caliphs, there came the worst and most stupid rulers; instead of leadership and intelligence there came vileness and stupidity; instead of dilligent students, there came the stupid and the scoundrels; the occupation with different kinds of sciences such as exegesis, tradition, jurisprudence and the interpretation of dreams was replaced by the zajal, muwashshaí, dëbayt and mawélê.55 they were only occupied by these because of their sins. but god has never done injustice to his worshippers! these are the words of ibn kathêr. the leading scholars of the muslims who condemned or prohibited logic explicitly there is no doubt that a scholar who reached the degree of ijtihéd is prohibited from fabricating a statement never expressed by any scholar before, or creating an opinion which has not been expressed before [p. 47]. hence, one of the conditions for an independent legal investigation (ijtihéd) is the knowledge of the statements – both unequivocal and controversial – of scholars from among the companions (f) and those after them. in order not to undermine the agreement concerning the view he chooses, he is obliged to mention the sayings of the scholars which are relevant to this subject before establishing the proof, so that the book is composed following the method of ijtihéd. therefore i say: as for the companions (f) the followers, and their followers, there has not reached us any declaration of any sort concerning them because it did not exist in their time. it only started in the end of the second century, as mentioned before. in that time, al-imém al-shéfi‘ê – with whom god may be well-pleased – was alive, so he discussed it. he was the oldest of those who expressed a depreciatory view concerning it. hamdard islamicus 20 vol. xl, no. 4 the statement of al-imém al-shéfi‘ê on the prohibition of logic in this regard abë al-×asan ibn mahdê said: muíammad ibn hérën related to us that hamêm ibn humém related to us that ×armalah told us saying: i heard al-shéfi‘ê saying: the ignorance of the people and their controversies are only caused by their leaving the language of the arabs and their inclination to the language of aristotle [p. 48]. this statement was quoted with this chain of transmittors by the qéìê al-muslimên al-×éfið ‘lzz al-dên ‘abd al-‘azêz ibn qéìê al-quìét badr al-dên ibn jama‘a56 in his tadhkirah. al-shéfi‘ê pointed by this to what had happened in the period of al-mé’mën viz. the proclamation of the createdness of the qur’én, the negation of the [divine] vision and other innovations. [he said that] the cause of this was to be found in the ignorance of arabic and its rhetoric which comprises al-ma‘énê, al-bayén, and al-badê‘. his words “the language of the arabs” comprise all these aspects. the texts of the qur’én and the sunnah which are given in [that language], comprise all these aspects. [a second cause was that the rendering of [the arabic texts] in accord with the language of the greeks and the logic of aristotle follows a system which is different from the language of the arabs. the qur’én was only revealed and the sunnah only came by using the terminology of the arabs, their ways of discussion, communication, argumentation and deduction, which is not the same as the terminology of the greeks. each people has its language and conventional terminology. the exalted god said: “we never sent any messenger but with the speech of his people, that he might make (things) clear to them.”57 whoever shifts from the tongue of religion to another tongue and renders the existing religious texts in accordance with it, is ignorant and goes astray.58 he will never reach his goal. therefore we see many logicians discussing a juridical question and wanting to render it according to their scientific principles, making mistakes and missing what the jurists have said, without following their [juridical] principles. people know what has happened between our shaykh mentioned in the preface [of this hamdard islamicus 21 vol. xl, no. 4 book]59 and the ×anafite jurists viz. the many debates and controversies concerning fatwés, and their attribution to him of the fact that [those fatwés] did not follow the rules of jurisprudence. this was merely caused by the fact that he rendered them according to the principles of logical deduction. but the sharê‘ah possesses other principles, according to which the jurisprudence is formulated exclusively. whoever leaves them and departs from them will not attain the goal of jurisprudence. [i say this], notwithstanding the fact that the shaykh – with whom god may be well-pleased – is my teacher whose sandal is my crown. but this is the inescapable truth! he asked me several times to agree with his legal opinions related to the endowments but i did not agree with him concerning them at all [p. 49]. the aim of this discussion is the explanation of the statement of al-shéfi‘ê – with whom god may be well-pleased – namely stating that whoever renders the qur’én, the sunnah and the sharê‘ah according to the requirement of the principles of logic, will not attain the cases and will err, while if the rendering is undertaken to solve the principle question, it will be ascribed to innovation. this is the weightiest argument to prohibit this art that it is the cause of fabrication and innovation contrary to the sunnah as well as the aim of the legislator. it suffices [us] thereby as proof, derived from the words of al-shéfi‘ê – may god be pleased with him! corresponding to [the above-mentioned prohibition] is the prohibition against speculating about the ambiguous [passages] of the qur’én out of fear of distortion and dissension. the two shaykhs and others related from ‘ó’ishah (g) that she said: the messenger of god (œ) recited this verse: “he it is who hath sent down to thee the book has included in it clearly formulated verses; these are the essence of the book; other (verses) are ambiguous. now for those whose hearts are inclined to fall away, they follow the ambiguous part of it, out of desire for dissension while seeking explanation, though no one knows its explanation except allah: no one takes warning but those of insight.”60 he said: if you see the ones who follow up the ambiguous passages of [the qur’én], [then know that] those are the ones whom god named, and beware of them! al-ùabarénê narrated in al-kabêr from abë mélik al-ash‘arê (d) that he had heard the messenger of god (œ) saying: i only fear for my community three characteristics, viz. that they will abound in property hamdard islamicus 22 vol. xl, no. 4 and [hence] will envy one another and kill one another; that the book will be opened to them, and a believer will take it with him seeking its interpretation, but “no one knows its explanation except allah” [p. 50].61 the first who asked about the ambiguous passages of the qur’én was ‘abd alléh ibn øabêgh al-dérimê produced in his musnéd on the authority of sulaymén ibn yasér that a man called øabêgh arrived at madênah and began to ask about the ambiguous passages of the qur’én. so ‘umar (d) (the ii caliph) sent for him. he had prepared for him datestalks and asked [him]: who are you? he answered: i am ‘abd alléh ibn øabêgh. then he took one of those datestalks and hit him with it until his head bled. in [another] narration on his authority, [it is stated that] he hit him with a palm branch until he felt grave pain. then he left him until he recovered. then he again hit him and left him until he recovered. then, when he called him to come back [again], he said: if you want to kill me, kill me nicely! then he permitted him to return to his country and wrote a letter to abë mësé al-ash‘arê (d) [asking him] not to let any muslim befriend him. ibn ‘asékir in his térêkh62 narrated on the authority of anas that ‘umar ibn al-khaïïéb lashed øabêgh al-këfê because of a question [posed by him] concerning a variant reading (íarf)63 of the qur’én till the blood flew from his back. naîr al-maqdisê in al-×ujja and ibn ‘asékir narrated on the authority of al-sé’ib ibn yazêd that a man said to ‘umar b. khaïïéb (d): i passed by a man asking about (some) difficult passage of the qur’én [p. 51]. then ‘umar (d) said: “o god, enable me to meet him. indeed, one day the man came to ‘umar (d) asking him [about it]. then ‘umar stood and rolled up his sleeves and began to lash him. then he said: “clothe him in breeches, place him on a camel’s saddle and then send him to his [own] clan! then let a preacher standup and say: øabêgh sought knowledge, but failed to gain it. thus, he is still ignoble among his people after having been a chief among them. naîr al-maqdisê and ibn ‘asékir narrated on the authority of abë hamdard islamicus 23 vol. xl, no. 4 ‘uthmén al-nahdê that ‘umar (d) wrote a letter to the people of basra [asking them] not to befriend øabêgh. he said: would he have come, we would certainly have split, even if we had been a hundred [people]. ibn ‘asékir narrated on the authority of muíammad ibn sêrên, saying that ‘umar b. khaïïéb (d) wrote to abë mësé al-ash‘arê (d) [the governor asking him] not to befriend øabêgh and to stop his payment and sustenance. naîr in al-×ujja and ibn ‘asékir narrated on the authority of zur‘a, saying: i saw øabêgh ibn ‘asal in baîra where he looked like a scabby camel. he came to a group of people and sat down where they did not know him. then the other group called them: by order of the commander of the faithful, ‘umar (d)! then they stood up and called for him. shaykh naîr al-maqdisê narrated in al-íujja on the authority of abë isíéq that ‘umar (d) wrote to abë mësé al-ash‘arê: al-aîbagh has exerted himself sufficiently and lost what he had power over. if this letter of mine comes, do not give him a pledge of allegiance; if he is ill, do not visit him; and if he dies, do not attend [his burial]. naîr also narrated on the authority of abë ×urayrah, saying: when we were with ‘umar ibn khaïïéb (d), suddenly a man came to him asking about the qur’én, viz. whether it is created or not. then ‘alê said: this is a word which will bear fruit! if i were invested with your authority, i would cut off his head! the prohibition of al-shéfi‘ê to study theology for this very reason, al-shéfi‘ê may god be pleased with him – prohibited the study of theology [p. 52]. al-harawê produced in his book, condemnation of theology (kitéb dhamm al-kalém): it was narrated concerning the theologians and ‘umar’s verdict on øabêgh that this [verdict] from him indicates that the effective cause for him to prohibit the study of theology was fear for its stimulation of confusions and its leading to innovations. thus he forbade it, based on an analogy with the prohibition of speculating about the ambiguous passages of the qur’én. this analogy is sound. this very effective cause is in fact found in logic as well, as mentioned by al-shéfi‘ê. so the evidence for the prohibition of the study of it is deducted by analogy from the original case to which theology was hamdard islamicus 24 vol. xl, no. 4 compared, namely the ambiguous [verses of the qur’én] which it is explicitly forbidden to speculate about. this is a valid analogy which is weakened neither by a contradiction nor an objection. maybe the opponent [of this kind of analogy] refutes the existence of the effective cause mentioned in logic, but this kind of refutation is [a kind of] contention. no attention should be paid to it, because induction and deduction invalidate it. al-dhahabê said in al-mêzén in the biography of abë‘l-×asan al-zagënê, the ×anbalite jurist. he has a number of writings containing elements of the explanations of the mu‘tazila. he attributed him therewith because he supported them. but this is not one of his characteristics. however, it is rare that someone who studies theology is not led by his investigation to contradict the domain of the sunnah. on this ground, the scholars of the ancient generation condemned studying the science of the ancients [asserting] that theology has its origin in the science of the materialist philosophers [p. 53]. whoever wants to combine skillfully the science of the prophets ( ) and that of the philosophers will inevitably contradict both of them. but whoever gives up and walks behind the message released by the messengers ( ), without being pedantic or extreme – may god bless them for releasing their messages without going too far! follows the course of the pious ancestors. this religion and belief are blameless. we ask god for the blamelessness of our religion. (end of quotation). it may also be claimed that this particular form, viz the prohibition of the study of logic falls under the general scope of the texts which denote explicitly the prohibition of anything which stimulates corruption or anything from which dissension may be feared. so the prohibition would be deduced from the general meaning of the texts and not from the specific result of the deduction by analogy. the deductionist has to make use of both matters, so that both arguments support one another, while the peculiar result of the analogical deduction matches the general meaning of the texts. the qur’én uses the way of thinking of the arabs and their conventional terminology a remark: the comments of one of the scholars of the rational hamdard islamicus 25 vol. xl, no. 4 [sciences] on god’s saying “if there were any gods in the two of them except allah, there would have been confusion in both…”64 [that scholar] testifies to the soundness of what al-shéfi‘ê referred to. he said: this is a convincing argument, because he aimed at rendering it following the principles of logical deduction. but the qur’én follows the way of thinking of the arabs and their conventional terminology in the argumentation. the leading rhetoricians have classified the expression (êréd) of this qur’énic passage into the prosodic kind of [expression], which is called by later scholars as a theological matter and [a kind of] speculative argumentation; while the arabs and the muslims after them to whom the qur’én was revealed said that this verse is one of the weightiest arguments for the unity of god [p. 54]. if a human being is ashamed before god, he will not speak about [this verse] with such words. i do not aim by this as derogation (al-íaï) of the mentioned man, but as explanation that logic does not lead [us] to anything good. whoever pays attention to it, is far away from grasping the objectives of the sharê‘ah. thus there is a grave distance between him and religious truths. corresponding to this is what also befell the mentioned man when he was [interpreting] the words of the exalted god: “they will ask thee about the new moons …” until the end of the verse.65 he said: they asked about the crescent which did not appear in a thin form, then it increased gradually till it was full. so they were answered by explaining the underlying reason for it! and he turned away from answering what they asked about, because they were not among those who are investigating easily the details of astronomy. this saying comprises some distinct fallacies: the first is that the occasions of the revelation indicate that they asked about the underlying reason not about what he mentioned. secondly, it is unworthy to suspect that the companions (f) who had a deeper comprehension than all non-arabs and than the whole ummah did not belong to those who investigate the details of astronomy easily, while individuals of the later non-arab [scholars] have investigated them. third, that it was beyond divine omnipotence to convey this to their minds through an expression which they could comprehend. fourth, the companions (f) have studied many details of religious jurisprudence, difficult parts of the laws of inheritance, as well as of the acts of the hearts. what is the science of astronomy in comparison to that? it is hamdard islamicus 26 vol. xl, no. 4 more despicable and contemptible, even if it is based on a principle that deserves to be taken into consideration. most of the science is baseless and not supported by any argument [p. 55]. in contrast, arguments derived from the prophetic traditions and reports point to the contrary, as i explained in a separate composition. the author of this treatise was encouraged to compose it and the like by his striving [to study] the philosophical sciences and his being excited by intellectual abstruseness, with the result that he even thought that it was only easy for him and for his equals and that is impossible for anyone [else] to reach them easily, even the companions! but to allah we belong, and to him is our return! al-quïb al-rézê asked the shaykh taqiy al-dên al-subkê about the prophetic tradition [stating]: “every child is born in the original disposition,” and cast doubts on it derived from logic. the shaykh taqiy al-dên answered that the accident (al-maíël fih) in it was equal to its substance (al-mawìë) and not more specific than it. he argued for this similarity by a divine light [springing from the one] who was strengthened by prophecy. then he carried a long discussion in which he finally said: it is not possible to relate this prophetic tradition to it, but had this occurred in the words of someone other than the prophet (œ) – may god bless him and grant him peace – it would have been possible to do so. then al-quïb al-rézê repeated the discussion about it saying: you negated the possibility of relating this tradition to it, while you confirmed the possibility of relating the words of any one else to it; what is the difference? then al-subkê answered him that the person who says this is either insane or sealed-hearted so that he cannot differentiate between the speech of a prophet (*) and that of others. the reason for the innovation is ignorance of the language of the arabs i found that the ancestors before al-shéfi‘ê have indicated what he indicated, viz. that the reason for the innovation is ignorance of the language of the arabs. al-bayhaqê narrated concerning al-ba‘th,66 on the authority of al-aîma‘ê: ‘amr ibn ‘ubayd came to abë ‘amr ibn al-‘alé to discuss with him [the issue of] the necessity of the punishment hamdard islamicus 27 vol. xl, no. 4 for the disobedient: he told him: o ye abë ‘amr. does god break his promise? he answered: god will never break his promise. then ‘amr said: but [god] said: … and he then mentioned the verse of wa‘êd [threat].67 abë ‘ubayd then said: you have a non-arab background! the threat is not a promise (al-ê‘éd), then he recited a passage of a poem: “and verily, whether i threaten him or promise him, i fail to perform my threat, but fulfil my promise.” al-bukhérê narrated in his great history on the authority of al-×asan al-baîrê that he said: the only thing destroying them was their lack of having arabic! ibn qutaybah in his book on the interpretation of the difficult passages of the qur’én ibn qutaybah in his book ta’wêl mushkil al-qur’én said: the only person who knows the excellence of the qur’én is the one who studies it often and has a broad knowledge [of it] and understands the ways of expression of the arabs, the influence on the styles [of expressions] and [the points by which] god has distinguished the language of the arabs above all the [other] languages. certainly, there is not a single community to which eloquence as well as variety of expressions was given like those given by god specifically to the arabs. thus god made his knowledge, like he made the knowledge of every prophet among the messengers most similar to the things that exist in the era in which he was sent. thus, to mësé (*) belonged [the power to] split the sea, the hand, the cane as well as the eruption of the sea of têh as well as the other signs in the period of magic. to ‘ôsa (*) belonged [the capability to] revive the dead, create birds from clay, cure leprosy, and other signs in the period of medicine. to muíammad (œ) belonged the qur’én, the like of which could not be produced by the whole of mankind and genii, even if they were to gather together to do so and even if they would back up each other with help and support and the other signs in the period of al-hayén. the preacher of the arabs when he extemporized a speech at a wedding, a taídêd, a truce, etc. did not express it in one rhythm (wéd) hamdard islamicus 28 vol. xl, no. 4 but would fluctuate, sometimes abridging it for moderation, sometimes prolonging it with the purpose of making it better understood. sometimes he would repeat it with the purpose of assertion, while concealing some of its meanings so they became obscure for most of the audience. he might reveal some of it in order that some of the non-arabs could understand it; he might allude to something and mention it metonymically [p. 58]. his attention to the speech would be in accordance with the condition and the consideration of the gathering, the quantity of the congregation as well as the nobility of the position. moreover, he would not bring a completely corrected and purified speech, but one that was mixed, denoting the abundant with the deficient, the thick with the thin. all poetical metres into one metre, its goodness la baíasahu bahé’uhu wa la salabahu mé’uhu. it is like a flame of the live coal which you take out to kindle; like two planets coming close, the two lights diminish and the cloud is strung with yéqët, marjén, ‘aqêq and ‘uqbén. he does not make all of it of one kind, viz the noble with the high-priced and the valuable with the preserved. the words of the arabs are based on 28 letters. they are the utmost limits of the tongue, while the words of all the [other] communities are less than 28 letters. i can not find in any of their speeches a letter which is not found in our letters unless deviating a little in its pronunciation, like the intermediate letter uttered between the utterance of qéf and kéf, and the intermediate letter which is uttered between the utterance of bé’ and fé’. this is the way the arabs construct their words. to them belong the desinential inflection (al-i‘réb) which god created as a means to express them and as a power to order them and as a distinction in some conditions between two similar speeches and two different meanings, like the subject and the object. there is no difference between the two if the conditions of both of them are the same, viz when it is possible that the verb belongs to both of them, except by [using] its desinential inflection. thus, when someone says: hédhé qatêlun akhê with tanwên; while the other says: hédhé qatêlun akhê with the prefixing, the tanwên certainly denotes that he did not kill him while the omission of tanwên denotes that he in fact killed him. hamdard islamicus 29 vol. xl, no. 4 and when someone reads falé yahðunka qawluhum inné na‘lam ma yusirruna wa mé yu‘linën, (so let not what they say grieve thee; verily we know what they keep secret and what they say publicly) with the fatí and departs from the rule of being inchoative by [reading it] anna [instead of inné], and he made al-qawl in it to work as nasb, following the school of those who pronounce the alif of anna with nasb after al-qawl, like they pronounce it [anna] after al-ðann, he turns the meaning certainly away from its [right] direction and shifts it from its course, he makes the prophet (œ) become sad because of their saying: “verily god knows what they hide as well as what they disclose.”68 this is a form of unbelief from the part of him who does so deliberately and a sort of grammatical mistake, which is not allowed to expressed during the prayer, and worshippers are not allowed to tolerate it [p. 59]. the messenger of god (œ) said: “lé yuqtal quraysh sabran ba‘d al-yawm,”quraysh is not allowed to be killed after this day. whoever pronounces it in the apocopate form (viz. léyuqtal), implies as the apparent meaning that the qurayshite is neither to be killed if he apostatized, nor to be afflicted by the retaliation (qiîéî) if he has killed. whoever pronounces the final consonant with u (raf‘) it as raf‘, shifts the interpretation to the predicate of quraysh, namely is that he does not like one of them [the qurayshes] to withdraw from islam, thus deserving to be killed. as you see, the desinential inflection is how one differentiates between these two meanings. the two meanings differ by one letter by [using] the haraka al-biné’, by saying for instance: a man is cursed (lu‘na) if the people curse him; but if he used to curse the people they say he is a curse (la‘na), by vocalizing ‘ayn with a fathé. and a man is insulted if the people insult him. but if he used to insult himself, they say that a man insulted him. the same is true of huz‘at [one who is mocked] and huzaat (one who mocks) ìahika (laughing at), khuda‘a (one who deceives), khad‘a (delusion). two close meanings sometimes differ by changing a single letter so that the similarity between the two words is like the similarity between the two meanings [p. 60]. this is the case when they call salted water, which is drunk only in a state of emergency, sharëb, while it is called sharêb when [there is less salt] so the water can be drunk. thus they hamdard islamicus 30 vol. xl, no. 4 call a drop of urine falling on a cloth, if it is as small as the heads of a needle, nuîí, so it is valid. one is to sprinkle water on it, the sprinkling serving in lieu of washing. if there is more than that, then it is called nuìh (to sprinkle). this can only be compensated by washing. similarly, they call the act of holding with the fingers qabì (to grasp), the same word used for holding in the palm of the hand. to eat with the utmost parts of the teeth is qadm (to crunch), and to eat with the whole of the mouth is khaìm. something that rises from the earth is called íazn (rugged and hard ground), but if it stands out a little more it is called íazm (elevated ground). the person who suffers from cold is [called] khaîir (a man feeling cold in his extremities); if this is mixed with hunger, it is called khirî (hungry and cold). a flame that becomes extinguished is called hémida (in a state of extinction), but if its flame ceases while something of its coal still exists it is called íédida. a camel standing is sé’im (standing upon its four legs) but if it attenuated because of being bruised it is called îéfin (standing upon three legs and the extremity of the hoof of the fourth leg). ‘até (to give) is first called shakl, but if it is a compensation then it is called shakm (recompense). committing a single mistake in speech is called ghalïah (a mistake), but if it is for calculation, it is called ghalaï (committing error). the straightness in the eye is called khawas (narrow eyes), thus it is said khuwiîat ‘aynuh takhuîu khawîé, wa rajulun akhwaî wa ‘mra’atun khawîa’u. the likes can also be called al-khawî (narrowness or contraction of the outer angle of the eye) [p. 61]. the origin of al-íawî is al-íawî which stands for enclosing the eye (íiyéïa al-‘ayn), but if it is in its end, it is called íaws (to sew up). one thing may comprise many meanings, so from each meaning is derived the name of such a thing, like the derivation of mubïên from al-baïn al-khamês (empty belly); one who is big in the belly is called khalqat al-baïên; but if it is because of much eating, it is called mibïén (big or large in the belly in consequence of much eating). the insatiable is called baïn while belly sickness is called mabïën (having a complaint of the belly). they say: wajadta al-ìélla and wajadta fi al-qaîab, wa wajadta fi’l-íuzn wa wajadta fi ’l-istighné. all are attributed by fatí, and then they make substantive (al-ism) in al-ìélat wujëdan and wujdénan [viz hamdard islamicus 31 vol. xl, no. 4 wajadta wujud or wujdén al-ìélat], and in al-íuzn wujdan [viz wajadta fi’l-íujn wujdén], in al-ghaìab mawjuda [viz wajadta fi’lghaìab mawjidatan], and in al-istighré’i wajdan [viz wajadta fê‘listighné” wujdan] stand for many things. to the arabs belong the metaphors in their speech. their meaning is the method of the saying and its source of derivation. so some of them are al-isti‘érah, al-tamthêl, al-qalb, al-taqdêm, al-ta’íêr, hédhf, al-tikrér, al-ikhfé, nuzhér, al-ta‘rêd, al-ifsaí, al-kinéya, al-idéí, mukhéïabat al-wéhid, mukhétabat al-jamê. all communicate the one with the other; the groups speak with both. the objective is that the particular word stands for the general meaning and the general word stands for particular meaning. you will see many things in the chapter on al-majéz (metaphor), if allah wills. the qur’én was revealed in accordance with all these rules [p. 62]. therefore no one of the translators is able to translate it into any of the languages like the bible was translated from the syriac language to abyssinian and greek. the torah, the book of psalms and all the books of god – the exalted and the eternal – were translated into arabic because the metaphors of the non-arabs are not of the same extensive range as those of the arabs. do you not see yourself that if you want to translate his words: “wa imma takhéfanna min qawmin khiyénatan fa ‘nbidh ilayhim ‘alé sawé;” “if you fear treachery at all from any people throw back to them (their covenant) equally.”69 you cannot have these words derived directly from a meaning which you put down so that you encompass the whole of it and understand their contexts and show their hidden meanings. thus we can say: if there is a truce and a covenant between you and a people, and you worry for their unfaithfulness and that they might break it, tell them that you broke what you stipulated to them, and let them wage war in order that you and they know the breaking equally. the same holds for his word: “faìarabné ‘ala ódhénihim fi ‘l-kahf sinêna ‘adada:”70 “so we sealed up their ears in the cave for a number of years.” if you translate this literally, the person to whom it is translated will not understand it. if you say: “we have made them dead for years,” you are a translator of the meaning and not of the actual words. this also holds true for the words of the hamdard islamicus 32 vol. xl, no. 4 exalted and the eternal “wa‘l-ladhêné idhé dhukkiru bi éyéti rabbihim lam yakhirru ‘alayhé îumman wa ‘umyéné,” (those who, when they are admonished with the signs of their lord, droop not down at them as if they were deaf or blind).71 if you translate this literally, it can not be understood. but if you say lam yataghaffalë (they neglected not) you have provided the meaning by using another. the book of god has been opposed with criticism by the impugners of religion. they talk nonsense about it, left it, and followed its ambiguous passages by wishing dissension and allegorical interpretation, making use of dull understandings, poor sights and far-fetched speculation [p. 63]. so they took words out of context, and shifted them from their courses. then they judged them to be contradictory, an impossibility, an error, a corruption in naðm and in controversy. then they provided argument that might convince the weak and the inexperienced. so they spread the confusion in the hearts and put doubts in the minds. even though their inclination depends on their own consideration and interpretation, he who continues to be the messenger of allah (œ) already criticized this providing of proof from the qur’én against him, thus turning it to science because of his prophecy, and to the proof of his trustworthiness, challenging him, passage after passage, to bring a sërah similar to it. nevertheless, they are scholars of eloquence, rhetoricians, preachers, poets, and some of human kind who are characterized by sharp tongues and strong opposition in dispute together with mind, intelligence, and accuracy of opinion. god has described them thereby in several places of the book. sometimes they used to say the words are magic, poetry, and the words of kéhins, and sometimes they say they are myths of the ancients. but the holy qur’én did not tell [us] about them. neither did any of the narrations convey to us that they would attack it from the side of the critics. thus, i wished to draw good advice from the book of god, and to support it with clear arguments and evidences, and reveal to the people what they want. so i composed this book, to comprehend the interpretation of the ambiguous passages of the qur’én, deriving this from the exegesis with additional explanations. it comprises [information] about which i do not know any treatise by a scholar enjoying authority for his expertise in the languages of the arabs. [by composing this book, i want] to show the obstinate, the place of faithlessness and the way of potentiality without deciding the matter by an opinion or judging it by an interpretation [p. 64]. hamdard islamicus 33 vol. xl, no. 4 according to al-shéfi‘ê, the reason for the prohibition of theology is to be found in logic (there is no command to [make use of] it which can be found in the qur’én and the sunnah). al-shéfi‘ê indicated another reason concerning [the prohibition] of theology. it can be found in logic. al-nawawê condemned theology on the authority of al-karébisê72 who said: i saw al-shéfi‘ê, while bishr al-marêsê came to see him. he said to bishr: tell me what you are propagating. is it [studying] an eloquent and rational book, a binding obligation and an established prophetic tradition about which you found that the ancestors studied and questioned it? then bishr answered: lé illé annahu lé yasa‘uné khiléfuhu (it is only that we cannot stand for its contention). then al-shéfi‘ê said: you confessed yourself that you made a mistake. what is the use of disputation in jurisprudence and prophetic traditions? when he left, al-shéfi‘ê said: he is not happy. this statement denotes that the reason for the prohibition against studying theology is that there is no command [to make use of] it to be found in the qur’én and the sunnah. no discussion about it can be found among the ancestors. this is also the case with logic, namely that there is no command [to make use of] it to be found in the qur’én and the sunnah. there is no discussion held by the ancestors about it, contrary to the study of arabic which is commanded in the tradition. discussion about this can be found among the ancestors. this is the reason upon which ibn al-øaléí relied, when he decided to prohibit logic, saying: being occupied by learning and teaching it is not allowed by the law-giver nor by any of the companions (r.a.), followers, and leading scholars who reached the degree of ijtihéd. ibn al-øaléí seems to have deduced this reason from the reasoning by al-shéfi‘ê about theology [p. 65]. according to al-shéfi‘ê, another reason for the prohibition of theology can be found in logic (the fact that its style is different from that of the qur’én and the sunnah). al-shéfi‘ê has indicated a third reason to prohibit theology found hamdard islamicus 34 vol. xl, no. 4 in logic. al-harawê also produced [argument based on the authority of] abë thawr,73 who said: i heard al-shéfi‘ê say: my judgment of theologians is that they should be hit by a palm-branch, put on a camel and shown around the communities and tribes. this is the punishment for those who have neglected the qur’én and the sunnah and approached theology. by the authority of al-shéfi‘ê, he said: my way of dealing with the theologians is to strike their heads with whips and drive them away from their lands. this statement denotes that the reason for the prohibition of the speculation in theology is identified in the fact that its style is different from the qur’én and the sunnah. or it is because of neglecting the qur’én and the sunnah and forgetting them. this reason also pertains to logic. indication of the prohibition of the philosophical sciences: statement of al-shéfi‘ê in condemning theology, al-harawê said: ghélib ibn ‘alê told us that muíammad ibn al-×usayn related to us that al-×asan ibn rashiq told us that sa‘êd ibn aímad ibn zakariyé al-lahmê told us that yunës ibn ‘abd al-a‘lé related to us that he said: i heard al-shéfi‘ê saying: if i hear a man calling a name for the unnamed and a thing nothing, then testify against him that he is a heretic! the statement of abë ×anêifah in condemning the philosophical sciences a statement on the authority of abë ×anêfah – may god be pleased with him – was mentioned explicitly for condemning the philosophical sciences. in condemning theology, al-harawê said: tayyib ibn aímad told me that muíammad ibn al-×usayn told us that abë al-qésim ibn matawayh told us that ×amêd ibn rustam related to us that al-×asan ibn al-mutê‘ that ibréhêm ibn rustam said on the authority of ... : i said to abë ×anêfah: what are your comments on the disputes people innovated about the forms and bodies? then he said: [these are] the utterances of the philosophers. you have to follow the tradition and the course of hamdard islamicus 35 vol. xl, no. 4 the ancestors and beware of any novelties because they are innovations. this was produced by al-muðaffar ibn al-sam‘énê in kitéb al-intiîér, who said: a reliable man from among our friends related to us that al-shaykh abë ‘abd al-raímén al-sulamê related to us that abë al-qésim ibn matawayh told it to us. kalém was also explicitly prohibited following the principles of the rest of the founders of the schools. they argued this prohibition on the basis of the content of logic. for this reason later scholars of their adherents prohibited it explicitly, applying their principles. by the authority of ‘abd al-raímén ibn mahdê al-harawê said: i came to see mélik to whom a man was asking a question. he said: maybe you are one of ‘amr ibn ‘ubayd’s adherents. god has cursed ‘amr, because he fabricated the innovations of theology. if theology were a [real] science, the companions and the followers would have discussed it, as they have discussed the religious rules and laws. this statement from mélik who states clearly the reason for the prohibition of theology, like [the argument] on the authority of al-shéfi‘ê, mentioned earlier, and relying on ibn al-øaléí concerning logic. likewise, all the leading muslim scholars who explicitly prohibited theology also identified its ‘illé in [the fact] that the ancestors did not discuss it. thus [also] the prohibition of logic was produced following their principles because of the existence of this ‘illé in it. therefore it is necessary that we trace statements of the leading scholars concerning the prohibition of theology and their words about that. consequently, we will continue dealing with the subject-matter at hand. notes and references 1. madjid, nurcholish, ibn taymiyya in ‘kalam’ and ‘falsafa’ (a problem of reason and revelation in islam), michigan, umi dissertation services, 1997, p. 221. 2. fakhry, majid, a history of islamic philosophy, new york, columbia university press, 1983, 2nd edn., pp. 10-11. 3. van koningsveld, p.s., “greek manuscripts in the early abbésid empire: fiction hamdard islamicus 36 vol. xl, no. 4 and facts about their origin, translation and destruction,” in bibliotheca orientalis, lv no. 3/4, mei-august, 1998, pp. 345-370. 04. von grunebaum, g.e., “islam and hellenism,” in logic in classical islamic culture (ed.) g.e. von grunebaum, wiesbaden, otto harrassowitz, 1970, p. 25. 05. gibb, sir. h.a., “the influence of islamic culture on medieval europe,” in bulletin of the john ryland’s library, manchester, 38, 1955, pp. 82-98. 06. the ‘umar cycle refers to the group of muslim scholars who were hostile to ‘things foreign’, including the sciences of the greek. this cycle are the proponent of the policy of the caliph ‘umar ibn khaïïéb (d) who issued an order to sa‘d ibn abê waqqéî (d) for the destruction of persian books during the muslim conquest. they upheld the truth of a notorious legend ‘according to which caliph ‘umar had ordered his general ‘amr ibn al-‘óî (d) to destroy the famous ancient library of alexandria, after the conquest of the city by the muslim army.’ van koningsveld op. cit., pp. 362-365. 07. abrahamov, binyamin, islamic theology: traditionalism and rationalism, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 1998, vol. ii-x, pp. 1-12. 08. it is plausible that aímad rejected the concept of the createdness of the qur’én, for, according to wensinck, the doctrine was understood by aímad ibn ×anbal as ‘the very heart of the question of the qualities. we [viz wensinck] may suppose, therefore, that his rigorous defence of the eternity of the qur’én had its root in the feeling that this dogma followed from the unique nature of the holy book, whereas the mu’tazilite view in his eyes tended to lower the position of the words of allah.’ see wensinck, a.j., the muslim creed, its genesis and historical development, new delhi, oriental books reprint corporation, 1979, 2nd edn., p. 86. 09. al-ghazélê’s attempt to disguise his adoption of aristotelian logic by including it in his books on legal theory drew fervent criticism from a number of scholars of the traditionalist group, such as abë isíéq al-marjinénê (d. 513/1119), al-qushayrê, al-turtëshê (d. 520), al-mazêrê, ibn al-saléí and al-nawawê. see al-nashshér, ‘ali sémi, manéhij al-baíth ‘inda mufékkiri al-islém, cairo, dér al-ma‘arif, 1978, pp. 143-144. 10. abrahamov op. cit., p. 27. 11. al-nashshér op. cit., p. 224. 12. the printed edition of sawn al-manïiq that i rely on in this translation was edited by ‘alê shémi al-nashshér and su‘éda ‘alê ‘abd al-réziq, cairo, dér al-nashr wa’l-tibé‘a, 1970. 13. in this work al-suyëïê discusses either explicitly or incidentally the opposition of more than 40 leading scholars of various law schools against logic by referring to more than 28 works which deal either explicitly or incidentally with the same issue. 14. ×édhihê muqaddimat al-‘ulëm kulliha wé man lé yuhêïu bihê falé thiqata lahë bi‘ulëmih aîlan. [logic] is the introduction to all sciences. one who is not well versed in it, his authority in the sciences is not reliable at all.’ the first who heralds this – generally claimed – is al-ghazélê, in the introduction of al-mustasfé fi uîël al-fiqh, cairo, al-matba’a al-amiriyya, 1322/1904, i, 10. hamdard islamicus 37 vol. xl, no. 4 15. this refers to one of al-suyëïê’s chief opponents, shams al-dên muíammad ibn ‘abd al-mun‘im al-jawjarê, one of al-suyëïê’s rivals ever since they were in the ×ijaz together as students in 869/1464-5. according to sartain al-jawjarê called a meeting for a formal debate in the presence of the sultan, emirs and other notables. in response to the calling, al-suyëïê requested the presence of two other mujtahids besides himself, one to debate with him and one to referee, since he could not debate with any individual of inferior status. see, sartain, e.m., jal‘él al-dên al-suyëïê: biography and background, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1975, p. 59. 16. muíyi al-dên abë ‘abd alléh al-kafyajê the ×anafite”: muíammad ibn sulaymén ibn sa‘d ibn mas‘ëd al-rëmê al-barghamê to whom was given surname al-kafijê because of his being occupied much by the book al-kéfiyah on grammar. he was one of the teachers of al-suyëïê to whom he had drawn attention isagoge, an introduction to logic by porpyry. he was born in 788/1387 and died in 879/1475. see, al-suyëïê, kitéb al-taíadduth bi ni‘mati ’lléh, cairo, al-matba‘a al-‘arabiyya al-haditha, ed. e.m. sartain, pp. 29-124. 17. the abridgement of ibn taymiyyah’s naîiíah ahl al-ômén fi al-radd ‘alé manïiq al-yënén. 18. a part of rhetoric dealing with verbal expression of concepts and content. see, ruhê al-ba‘albékê, al-mawrid, arabic english dictionary, beirut, dér al-‘llm li ‘l-maléyinê, 1988. 19. branch of arabic rhetoric, dealing with metaphorical language and rhetorical art of the arabs generally. ibid. 20. a part of rhetoric dealing with figures of speech and the art of beautiful style generally. ibid. 21. the original sentence is cut off here. perhaps it is fi taírêmih [to prohibit it]. 22. aristotle was the son of nicomachus, the son of asclepius. his mother, phaestics, descended from one of the colonists who led the greek settlers from chalcis to stagira. he was born ca. 384 b.c. during the archonship of diotrephes (384383 b.c.). he died in 322 b.c. at the age of sixty-three. see chroust, antonherman, aristotle new light on his life and some of his lost works, london, routledge & kegan paul, 1973, i, p. 73. 23. istakhr or stagira (also staegeiros or stagiros) was a city assigned to either macedonia or thrace. stagira was founded during the 31st olympiad or in 656652 b.c. it was a joint colony of andros (the island of aristotle’s paternal ancestors) and chalcis, the town of aristotle’s maternal ancestors. stagira was a relatively poor and unimportant town, which was destroyed during the chaldician war (349-348 b.c.). chroust op. cit., i, pp. 288, 11. 24. perhaps azdashêr ibn déré is identical with diotrephes (384-383 b.c.). see, chroust op. cit., i, p. 73. 25. al-shahrasténê: abë al-fatí muíammad ibn abê al-qésim, a thinker and historian of religious and philosophical doctrines who was born in shahristén, khurasén (currently in the republic of turkmenistan). his monumental work, al-milal wa ‘l-nihal was written in 521/1127. he died in 548/1153. see, monnot, g., ‘al-shahrasténê,’ ei2, ix, pp. 214-216. 26. ibn al-øaléí was born in 577/1181 in irbêl and died in damascus in 643/1245. hamdard islamicus 38 vol. xl, no. 4 his muqaddimat ibn al-øaléí fi ‘ulëm al-hadêth was considered the standard work on the science of the tradition, and who was considered by al-suyëïê himself as one of the most knowledgeable persons of his time in exegesis, tradition and jurisprudence. see, al-suyëïê, th, 500. 27. muíyi al-dên abë zakariyyé’ yaíyé ibn sharaf ibn mira ibn ×asan ibn ×usayn ibn muíammad ibn jum‘a ibn ×izém al-hizémê al-dimashqê, who was born in muíarram 631/october 1233 in nawa south of damascus and died on wednesday, 24 rajab 676/22 december 1277 in nawa. heffening, w., “al-nawawi” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden and new york, e.j. brill, 1993, ed. c.e. bosworth et al., vol. vii, pp. 1041-1042. 28. abë yësuf ya‘qëb ibn isíéq, well-known as “the philosopher of the arabs” and the author of almost 225 treatises, was given several acknowledgements by several medieval muslim scholars. ibn al-nadêm regards him as the closest to aristotle among the muslim philosophers. al-kindê, according to ibn al-juljul, was the one who has written an essay on tawhêd according to the methods of the logicians. bayhaqê considered al-kindê to have combined in his works the principles of the law and those of the rational sciences. ibn al-khaldën, however, does not include him in his list of islamic philosophers, despite frequent references to him. see, jolivet, j & r. rashed, “al-kindê,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden, e.j. brill, 1986, ed. c.e. bosworth et al., vol. v, pp. 122123. 29. ibn zëléq: abë muíammad al-×asan ibn ibréhêm al-laythê who was born in 306/919 and died in 386/996 was an egyptian historian, the author of a number of biographical, historical and topographical works on egypt in the time of ihsidid and the early féïimids. see, lewis, b. et al., ‘ibn zulaq,’ in ei2, iii, p. 979. 30. in jahd al-qariía, al-suyëïê identifies the poet with ibn al-qushayrê. see, hallaq, w.b., ibn taymiyya against the greek logicians, translation with an introduction and notes, oxford, clarendon press, 1993, p. 173. 31. kitéb al-shifé’ (book of the healing [of the soul]) is one of the two principle works besides al-qénën fi al-tibb (canon of medicine) of ibn sina which made him an undisputed master in medicine, natural science, and philosophy (ei2, ii, 944). according to ja‘far ‘alê yasên, the book is written because of (1) the urge of ibn sêné’s disciples who asked him to write a comprehensive encyclopaedia in philosophy; (2) the defence for the intellectual dispute in which he was engaged; and (3) his inclination and keenness on being occupied with greek sciences. see, yasên, ja‘far ‘alê, faylasuf ‘alim: dirasa taílêliyya li íayét ibn sêné’ wa fikrih al-falsafi, beirut, dér al-andalus, 1984/1404, 1st edn., pp. 7475. 32. viz, the prophet muíammad (œ). 33. viz, naîêhat ahl al-imén fi al-radd ‘alé manïiq al-yënén. 34. ibn taymiyyah al-radd ‘alé al-mantiqiyyên, (ed. ‘abd al-samad sharaf al-dên al-kutubê), bombay, qayyima press sharafuddin and sons, 1368/1949, p. 106. there are a number of literal differences in quoting a number of words, which may spring from an error of typewriting of the editors of both books, between al-suyïëïê’s sawn al-manïiq which is edited by ‘alê shémi al-nashshér and ibn hamdard islamicus 39 vol. xl, no. 4 taymiyyah’s al-radd which is edited by ‘abd al-samad sharaf al-dên al-kutubê. such as wa qad la ya’rifuna in al-radd, in sawn: wa lé ya‘rifuna: wa qad lé yuqirrëna and bal qad la yuqirrëna: bal yuftuna anna dhélika and bal yazunnuna dhélika: ‘indahum (wa ‘inda) ibn sêné and ‘inda ibn sina. 35. the typographical errors also occur in this place. a number of words are wrongly quoted such as wa sammuh íudëd li íudëd instead of wa sammuh hudëdan ka íudëd; wa’l-‘amél al-îélêí instead of ma‘a’l-‘amél al-îélêí. see, ibn taymiyyah, kitéb al-radd ‘ala ’l-mantiqiyyên, bombay, al-maïba’a al-qayyima, 1949, ed. sharaf al-dên al-kutubê, pp. 137-138. 36. this work was edited by muíammad ibn ibréhêm ×érën as a part of his thesis in the university of madinah in 1409/1988. 37. qayrawén, arabized form of a persian karawén, was a big city in africa, into which the celebrated abë bakr al-baqilénê and muíammad ibn abë bakr ‘abd alléh muíammad ibn abë naîr ×ibat allah ibn ‘alê ibn mélik abë ‘abd alléh al-tamêmê were affiliated. al-×amawê, yéqët ibn ‘abd alléh al-rëmê, jacut’s geographisches worterbuch, ed. f. wustenfeld, leipzig, 1866-1873, iv, pp. 212214. 38. yaíyé ibn khélid was appointed wazir by ×érën al-rashêd. he was appointed a governor of adharbayzan in 158/775. in 161/778 he became a secretary tutor to prince ×érën, and he remained in office for 17 years, from 170/786 to 187/ 803. see, sourdel, d., ‘al-baramika,’ ei2, i, p. 1034. 39. al-rashêd bi’lléh, abë ja‘far al-manîër, the thirtieth ‘abbésid caliph, the son of al-mustarshid, was born ca. 501/1107-8. he was appointed a caliph after his father’s death in 529/1135. he died in 532/1138. see, hillenbrand, c., ei2, viii, pp. 439-440. 40. al-øaléí, al-øafadê, øéléí, al-dên abë al-ø afé khalêl ibn aybak al-øafadê the shéfi‘ête died in 746/1345. he was the author of the celebrated al-wafê bi’lwafayét. 41. kitéb al-majisïê, to the arab astronomers, was the name of the great astronomic work by ptolemy (the great compilation). al-ya‘qubi says in his historical work (written in 278/891, ed. m. th. houtsma, leiden, 1883, p. 151; “the book al-majisïê treats of the science of the stars and their movements; the meaning of al-majisïi is “the greatest book”. see, ei1, i, p. 313. 42. the elaborate discussion of this matter can be found in van koningsveld’s greek manuscript op. cit., pp. 345-372. 43. yëíanné ibn al-biïrêq was a younger contemporary of ×unayn ibn isíéq with whose aid he translated de antidotes. it is related that he was the physician of al-muwaffaq talía (d. 276/891) brother and mainstay of the weak caliph al-mu‘tamid. his son biïrêq ibn yëíanné was physician to the caliph al-muqtadir and al-raìê, and died in 329/941. see, meyerhof, max, “new light on ×unain ibn isíéq and his period,” in isis (1925), viii, pp. 685-724. 44. ‘abd al-masêí ibn allah ibn né‘ima al-×imîê was a translator who worked for the caliph al-mu‘taîim (218-227/833-842). he died in 220/835. 45. hunayn ibn isíéq abë zayd died in ca. 260/873. he was the headmaster of the well-known school of translation. he lived at baghdad during the reigns and partly at the court of ten calips, viz al-amên (809-813), al-ma’mën (d. 216/833), hamdard islamicus 40 vol. xl, no. 4 al-mu‘aîim (d. 225/842), al-wéthiq (d.231/847), al-mutawakkil (d.245/861), al-muntaîir (d. 246/862), al-musta‘in (d. 250/866), al-mu‘tazz (d. 253/869), al-muhtadê (d.254/870), and al-mu‘tamid (870-892). see, meyerhof ibid em. 46. perhaps this refers to abë naîr ismé‘êl ibn ×amméd al-jawharê, a celebrated arabic lexicographer of turkish origin who died ca. 393/1002-3. his fame was associated with his monumental dictionary téj al-lugha wa ‘l-sihéí al-‘arabiyya. see, kopf, l., ei2, ii, pp. 495-497. 47. euclid is one of the most well-known mathematicians whose name was synonymous with geometry until the twentieth century. he lived after the pupils of plato (d. 397 b.c.) and before archimedes (d. 287 b.c.). he taught in alexandria. euclid’s fame rests preeminently upon elements, written in thirteen books. according to bussard, translation of elements is made by isíéq ibn ×unayn (d. 295/910) son of the most famous of the arabic translators, ×unayn ibn isíéq. see, busard, h.l.l., (ed.), the first latin translation of euclid’s elements, commonly ascribed to adelard of bath: books i-viii and books x. 36xv.2, canada, pontifical institute of medieval studies, 1983. 48. according to busard, thébit ibn qurra (d. 288/901) was a scholar who prepared the second recension of euclid’s elements. he was a scholar who in his own right holds a major position within the history of islamic mathematics. see, busard op. cit, p. 3. 49. héjji khalêfa, kashf al-úunën, vol. ii, p. 388. 50. sunan ibn méjah, cairo, dér al-iíyé’ al-kutub al-‘arabiyya, 1373/1953, ed. muíammad fu’éd ‘abd al-béqê, vol. ii, p. 1322. 51. probably this refers to the most important of ibn al-kathêr’s works on the history of islam, al-bidéya wa ‘l-nihéyah. on ibn kathêr, see, loust, h., “ibn kathêr,” ei2, vol. iii, pp. 817-818. 52. térêkh al-dhahabê, térikh al-islém by shams al-dên al-dhahabê (d. 748/1348). this book is the greatest work of the author since it summarizes a number of historical books. thus it became a reference of great importance of historians such as al-safadê, ibn shékir al-kutubê, al-subkê, al-isnawê, ibn kathêr, ibn rajab, al-fayëmê, ibn daqméq, al-sibt ibn al-jawzê, al-sakhéwê, ibn ‘abd al-hédê, al-suyëïê. see, ma‘rëf, bashshér ‘awwéd, al-dhahabê wa miníéjuhu fi kitébih térikh al-islém, cairo, matba‘a ‘isé al-bébê al-×alabê wa shirkéhu, 1976, pp. 9-17. 53. here he means the books on uîël al-fiqh. 54. according to ibn kathêr, qarmatian interpretation means batinite interpretation (esoteric or allegorical interpretation) of the qur’én, (ibn kathêr, al-bidéya wa’lnihéyah, vi, p. 92). ivanov maintains that the term béïin (from batn, “belly” means ‘deduced’ (with the help of allegorical interpretation (ta’wêl). it leads to the doctrine that there is no ðéhir without its corresponding béïin and vice versa. thus, the knowledge of the bétin of each ðéhir, to its full extent, formed an exclusive prerogative of the imém, as did therefore the privilege of conveying its ta’wêl. qualified theologians, or anyone, could only offer a ta’wêl explanation with the authorisation and endorsement of the imém. the principles of ta’wêl, ivanov maintains, was violently condemned by the orthodox as easily leading to possible abuse, and chaos in religion. see ivanov, w., brief survey of the evolution of ismailism, leiden, e.j. brill, 1952, pp. 24-25. hamdard islamicus 41 vol. xl, no. 4 55. al-zajal is a popular arabic poem in strophic form; al-muwashshah is a postclassical form of arabic poetry arranged in stanzas; dëbayt is a rhymed poem consisting of four hemistitches; while mawali is a poem in colloqueal language. see, lane, e.w., arabic-english lexicon, cambridge, the islamic texts society, 1984, vol. i, p. 94. 56. the qéìê al-muslimên al-héfið ‘lzz al-dên ‘abd al-‘azêz ibn qéìê al-quìét badr al-dên ibn jamé‘a, belonging to the distinguished shéfi‘ê family of the mamlëk period in syria and egypt, was appointed shéfi‘ê chief judge of egypt in 738/1340 and remained in this position for 25 years. he died in 767/1366. see, salibi, k.s., “ibn djamé‘a”, ei2, iii, pp. 748-749. 57. al-qur’én, xiv (ibréhêm), 4, bell, i, p. 236. 58. viz the greek system. 59. namely al-kéfêjê. 60. al-qur’én, iii (‘ól-ê ‘imrén), 7, bell, i, pp. 44-45. 61. al-qur’én, iii (‘ól-ê ‘imrén), 7, bell, i, p. 45. 62. té’rikh madênat dimashq. see, gal, g. i, p. 331. 63. ×arf may mean various ways of reading the qur’én, as it is attached to the expression al-aíruf al-sab‘a, sometimes identified with al-qira’at al-sab‘a of the prophetic tradition ”unzila al-qur’én ‘alé sab‘ati ahruf and another tradition: “… qéla: faqulné innama ‘khtalafné fê al-qiré’a. qalé: fa ‘hmarr wajh rasëlalléh wa qéla: innamé halaka man kana qablukum bi ‘khtilafihim baynahum…” see, mukarram, ‘abd al-‘ali sélim, et al., mu‘jam al-qiré’at al-qur’éniyya, kuwayt, matbë‘at jamê‘at al-kuwayt, 1406/1986, i, p. 32. 64. al-qur’én, xxi (al-anbiyé’), 22, bell, i, p. 306. 65. al-qur’én, ii (al-baqarah), 189, bell, i, p. 26. 66. al-ùabarê interpreted yawm al-ba‘th as the day when the people were awakened from their graves. see, tafsêr al-ùabarê, xviii, p. 58. 67. there are a number of verses in the qur’én which deals with the concept of wa‘êd, such as xiv:14; xx:113; l: pp. 20, 28, 14, 45. 68. al-qur’én, xxxvi (yésên), 76, bell, ii, p. 439. 69. al-qur’én, viii (al-anfél), 58, bell, i, p. 168. 70 al-qur’én, xviii (al-kahf), 11, bell, i, p. 274. 71. al-qur’én, xxv (al-furqén), 73, bell, ii, p. 351. 72. al-husayn ibn ‘alê ibn yazêd al-baghdédê al-karabisê was referred to by al-dhahabê as faqêh baghdéd who studied jurisprudence under imém al-shéfi‘ê. he was the author of many works. he died in ca. 245/860. al-dhahabê, san, xii, pp. 79-82. 73. this probably refers to abë thawr ibréhêm ibn khélid ibn abê ’l-yamén al-kalbê who died in baghdad in 240/854. abë thawr, according to schacht, was a prominent jurisconsult and founder of a school of religious law. due to his stay in irak one generation after al-shéfi‘ê, abë thawr, schacht argues, “seems to have been influenced by al-shéfi‘ê’s methodological insistence on the authority of the íadêth of the prophet (œ), without, however, renouncing the use of ra’y as had been customary in the ancient schools of law.” see schacht, j., “abë thawr,” in ei2, i, p. 155. hamdard islamicus 42 vol. xl, no. 4 bibliography abrahamov, binyamin, islamic theology: traditionalism and rationalism, edinburgh, edinburgh university press, 1998. al-ba‘albaki, rëíê, al-mawrid, arabic english dictionary, beirut, dér al-‘llm li‘lmaléyênê, 1988. bell, r., the qur’én, translated with a critical re-arrangement of the sërahs, edinburgh, t&t. clark, 1937, 2 vols. brockelmann, carl, geschichte der arabischen literatur, 2 vols., leiden, e.j. brill, 1943-1949); 3 supplements, leiden, e.j. brill, 1937-1942. busard, h.l.l., (ed.), the first latin translation of euclid’s elements, commonly ascribed to adelard of bath, books i-viii and books x.36-xv.2. canada, pontifical institute of medieval studies, 1983. chroust, anton-herman, aristotle new light on his life and on some of his lost works, london, routledge & kegan paul, 1973, 2 vols. al-dhahabê, siyar a‘lém al-nubalé’, beirut, mu’assasa al-risala, 1986-1992, 25 vols., ed. shu’ayb al-arna’ut. al-ghazélê, abë ×émid, al-mustasfé min ‘ilm al-uîël, cairo, al-matba‘a al-amirêyya, 1322/1904, 2 vols. gibb, sir. h.a., “the influence of islamic culture on medieval europe,” in: bulletin of the john ryland’s library, manchester, 38 (1955), pp. 82-98. goichon, a.m., “ibn sêné,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden & london, e.j. brill & luzac & co, 1971, ed. b. lewis et al., vol. iii, pp. 941947. hallaq, w.b., ibn taymiyya against the greek logicians, translation with an introduction and notes, oxford, clarendon press, 1993. al-hamawê, yaqut ibn ‘abd allah al-rëmê, jacut’s geographisches wörterbuch, ed. f. wüstenfeld, leipzig, 1866-1873, 6 vols. heffening, w., “al-nawawi” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden & new york, e.j. brill, 1993, ed. c.e. bosworth et al., vol. vii, p. 1041. hillenbrand, c., “al-rashêd,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden, e.j. brill, 1995, ed. c.e. bosworth et al., vol. viii, pp. 439-440. ibn méjah, sunan ibn méjah, cairo, dér al-ihyé’ al-kutub al-‘arabiyya, 1373/1953, ed. muíammad fu’éd ‘abd al-béqê, vol. ii. ibn taymiyyah, kitéb al-radd ‘ala ’l-manïiqiyyên, bombay, al-maïba‘a al-qayyima, 1949, ed. sharaf al-dên al-kutubê. ivanov, w., brief survey of the evolution of isma‘ilism, leiden, e.j. brill, 1952. jolivet, j and r. rashed, “al-kindê,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden, e.j. brill, 1986, ed. c.e. bosworth et al., vol. v, pp. 122-123. khalêfa, ×éjjê kashf al-úunën ‘an asémê ‘l-kutub wa ‘l-funun, ed. serefettin yaltkaya and kilisli rifat bilge, istanbul, 1941-1943, 2 vols. kopf, l., “al-djawharê,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden & paris, e.j. brill, g.-p. maisonneuve and larose s.a., 1965, ed. b. lewis et al., vol. ii, pp. 495-497. hamdard islamicus 43 vol. xl, no. 4 lane, e.w., arabic-english lexicon, cambridge, the islamic texts society, 1984, 2 vols. laoust, h., “ibn kathêr,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden & london, e.j. brill and luzac & co., 1971, ed. b. lewis et al., vol. iii, pp. 817-818. lewis, b., et. al., “ibn zëléq,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden & london, e.j. brill and luzac & co, 1971, ed., b. lewis et al., vol. iii, p. 979. madjid, nurcholish, ibn taymiyyah in ‘kalam’ and ‘falsafah’ (a problem of reason and revelation in islam), michigan, umi dissertation services, 1997. ma‘rë, bashshér ‘awwéd, al-dhahabê wa miníéjuhë fi kitébihê térêkh al-islam, cairo, matba‘at ‘isé al-bébê al-×alabê wa shirkéhu, 1976. meyerhof, max, “new light on ×unain b. isíéq and his period,” in isis, 1925, viii, pp. 685-724. monnot, g., ‘al-shahrastani,’ the encyclopaedia of islam, new edn., leiden, e.j. brill, 1998, ed. c.e. bosworth et al., vol. ix, pp. 214-216. mukarram, ‘abd al-‘ali salim et al., mu‘jam al-qira’a al-qur’aniyya, kuwayt, matbë’ét jami‘at al-kuwayt, 1406/1986. al-nashshar, ‘ali sami, manahij al-baíth ‘inda mufakkirên al-islam, cairo, dar al-ma’arif, 1978. salibi, k.s., “ibn djama’a,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden & london, e.j. brill and luzac & co., 1971, ed. b. lewis et al., vol. iii, p. 748749. sartain, e.m., jalél al-dên al-suyëïê: biography and background, cambridge, cambridge university press, 1975. schacht, j., “abë thawr,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden & london, e.j. brill and luzac & co., 1960, ed. h.a.r. gibb et al., vol. i, p. 155. sourdel, d., ‘al-barémika,’ in the encyclopaedia of islam, new edition, leiden & london, e.j. brill and luzac & co, 1960, ed. h.a.r. gibb et al., vol. i, p. 1034. suter, h., “al-magest,” in the encyclopaedia of islam, 1st edition leyden & london, e.j. brill and luzac & co, 1913, ed. m. th. houtsma et al., vol. i, p. 313. al-suyëïê, kitéb al-tahadduth bi ni‘mati ’lléh, cairo, al-matba’a al-‘arabiyya al-×adêtha, ed. e.m. sartain ——, tabaqét al-hufféz, cairo, maktaba wahba, 1973, ed. ‘ali muhammad ‘umar, 2 vols. al-ùabarê, ibn jarêr, tafsêr al-ùabarê, cairo, 1954-1957, xviii, ed. a.s. ‘ali, mustafé al-saqqé et al. van koningsveld, p.s., “greek manuscripts in the early abbasid empire: fiction and facts about their origin, translation and destruction,” in bibliotheca orientalis, lv no. 3/4, mei-august (1998), pp. 345-370. von grunebaum, g.e., “islam and hellenism,” in logic in classical islamic culture (ed.) g.e. von grunebau, wiesbaden, otto harrassowitz, 1970. wensinck, e.j., the muslim creed: its genesis and historical development, new delhi, oriental books reprint corporation, 1979. yésên, ja‘far ‘alê, faylasëf ‘alim: dirésa taíêliyya li ×ayét ibn sêné wa fikrih al-falsafê, beirut, dé al-andalus, 1984/1404. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 813-819 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 813 issn :0250-7196 electoral justice for the presidential election: the implementation of the presidential threshold after constitutional court of the republic of indonesia decision number 14/puu-ix/2013. 1 dian fitri sabrina, 2 rosa ristawati abstract electoral justice is part of justice in general. as intended by the constitution, it is actually based on the concept of fairness and the social justice in the fifth principles of pancasila. the presidential threshold is a concept that aims to propose qualified candidates for president and vice president. the threshold has the purpose to set a limitation for the political party sitting in the parliament. the threshold requires political party or coalition of political party which have at least 25% of quota sitting in the parliament that may nominate the president and vice president. this paper has 2 issues, notably the electoral justice in the presidential election in indonesia and the implementation of presidential threshold in the presidential election in indonesia after the court decision. to analyze the issues, this paper uses normative method. the method is by analyzing the constitution and laws. the results of the analysis have who that the electoral justice is very important to be achieved in the presidential election. the court decision number 14/puuix/2013 considered that the presidential threshold is in order to strengthen the presidential system. however, the current presidential threshold as one of the requiretment in nominating the president and vice president is against justice. it is not supporting the electoral justice. key words: electoral justice, presidential election, presidential threshold. ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction general election is one of the democracies mechanisms in indonesia. as a democratic state, indonesia has to develop the general election on the basis of the people sovereignty (huda, 2014, qomariyah, 2019). in indonesia, the presidential election is conducted differently from the general election. election are stipulated in the indonesian constitution notably article 6a regarding on the presidential election and article 22e on the general election. in more details 1 airlangga university. email: diansabrina@ymail.com 2 airlangga university. email: rosarista.ocha@gmail.com mailto:diansabrina@ymail.com mailto:rosarista.ocha@gmail.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 813-819 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 814 issn :0250-7196 both are regulated by the laws. with regard to the presidential election in indonesia, the presidential threshold is applied. presidential threshold is the threshold for the candidate of the president and the vice president who is proposed by the political party or the coalition of the political parties. the constitutional court of the republic of indonesia (mkri) has several decisions regarding to the presidential threshold. the court in its decision number 49 / puu-xvi / 2018 considered that the presidential threshold is a product of the election law from the open legal policy. in this context, the mkri rejected the case and that the presidential threshold as it is regulated on article 222 law number 7/ 2017 was still existed. in several court decisions, e.g., the decision number 59 / puu-vi / 2008, the decision number 56 / puu-vi / 2008, the decision number 26 / puu-vii / 2009, the decision number 4 / puu-xi / 2013, the decision number 14 / puuxi / 2013, the decision number 46 / puu-xi / 2013, and the recent court’s decision, the decision number 53 / puu-xv / 2017, the court is consistent in confirming the presidential threshold. therefore, the presidential threshold is still being applied in the presidential election. referring to the recent court’s decision, the court considered that the presidential threshold is in order to strengthen the presidential system. it is in line with the intention of the amended constitution that to strengthen the government system, support from the political parties is very important. to this extent, the presidential threshold in indonesia is relevant to the multi-party system. the aims of simplifying the political parties in the nomination presidential process is addressed to simplifying the mechanism of winning in the presidential election. in this context, it is expected to have limited number of presidential candidates so that the constitutional requirement in the constitution for the elected president would be achieved. 2. literature review article 222 the law number 7 year 2017 on the election stipulates that the candidate of the president and the vice president in pair in the 2019 election who is proposed by the political party or the coalition political parties participated in the previous election and meet the requirement of 20% seats in the parliament or having 25% national votes in the previous legislative election is comprehensively considered based on the indonesian constitution and not on the basis of the factual reality. the presidential candidate shall not be based on the existence of the legal norms which strictly regulated the separation of the legislative election and the presidential election. on the other hand, it shall be conducted simultaneously in order to strengthen government and stable the government system. the presidential threshold to propose the candidate of the president in this context is assumed as reflection of social political reflection and the diversity of the community representation. therefore, in this point, it is assumed to be in line with the constitution and not a discrimination. the political party is one of that may have impacts as the application of presidential threshold. the law number 7 year 2017 has the point to determine the requirement of the presidential. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 813-819 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 815 issn :0250-7196 presidential threshold is 20% seats in the legislative ( dpr) or the 25% of the national votes that the political party or the coalition of the political parties has gained. according to the recent court’s decision, the presidential threshold is determined by the previous 2014 legislative election. based 2014 on the election result, there was neither political party gained 20% of the parliament votes nor the 25% of national votes. in this context, there was no political parties may propose the candidate of the president. the situation leads to the situation where there was no political parties met the requirement of proposing the candidate of the president. in further, it may ease the rights of the political party in proposing the candidate of the president. because constitutionally, proposing the candidate of the president is one of the constitutional rights of a political party. the requirement to have presidential threshold has lessened the constitutional rights of the political party to nominate a candidate of the president. to this extent, the presidential threshold is also assumed as discrimination for the political party. the impact of the presidential threshold against the number of the political party proposing the candidate of the president was also very significant. in the 2019 presidential election, political parties could not meet the requirement, so the only two candidates were eligible to be announced as the candidate of the president. the other new political parties only participated in the presidential campaign and only gave support to the candidate. this situation is actually not in accordance to the intention of the constitution. the mechanism provokes a different treatment between the ruled political parties and the new political parties. thus, the mechanism of presidential nomination process has go beyond the intention of the amendment of the indonesian constitution. the constitution clearly stipul that all political parties or coalition political parties may nominate the president and the vice president. therefore, in this context, presidential threshold may cause injustice in the political system and the political contestation. the constitutional court decision impact to the political parties and mostly for the political party which has seats in the dpr. it is because that the requirement to propose the presidential candidate is based on the votes in the election and not on the basis of the total national votes. in this context, there was political party in 2014 which had the stance to be absent or neutral stance in the 2019 presidential election. such political party may gain an absent stance or neutral stance because they shall not gain seats in the legislative (the dpr) and may gains the national votes which was exceed the parliamentary threshold or the electoral threshold. to this extent, the new political party may also take absent stance or neutral stance in the 2019 presidential election. the presidential threshold in indonesia is being assumed as in relevant because, the simultaneously election made the deadlock to only two pairs of candidates participated in the presidential election in 2019. in this context, the presidential election is not working properly as the requirement that may limit criteria of the political party eligible to be participat in the presidential nomination process. the 2019 election which was conducted simultaneously may become a reflection that the presidential threshold is in relevant to be applied. moreover, the presidential threshold contributes to the electoral injustice where not all the political parties hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 813-819 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 816 issn :0250-7196 could participate. the most important thing it that it may hinder the new political parties to participate in proposing a candidate of the president. this is also in relevant to the intention of the requirement of the presidential threshold which was actually in order to strengthen the presidential system in indonesia. an ideal mechanism which may accommodate presidential threshold and the rights of the political parties may only be by to making separation of the legislative election and the presidential election. this paper is about clarifying in short, the issue of the application of the presidential threshold from the perspective of electoral justice in the presidential election, in particular the application of the presidential threshold after the constitutional court’s decision. 3. materials and methods the research method used in preparing the issues uses legal research. legal research is a process to find the rule of law, legal principles, and legal doctrines to address the legal issues at hand. legal research is conducted to produce new arguments, theories and concepts as prescriptive in solving problems faced, the answers expected in legal research are right, appropriate, inappropriate or wrong, thus the results obtained in legal research already contain values (marzuki, 2007). the technique of the data collection used in this research was the observation, interview, interpretation of law, law documents, and court decisions. the result of reviewing the rasio legis of law is an argument for solving the legal issue being studied. the conceptual approach in this study moves from the views and doctrines that have developed in the science of law, specifically the law regarding the administration of equitable elections based on the presidential threshold. these doctrines, obtained through law books. interpretation approach is interpreted in constitution of the republic of indonesia and in this relation to law number 7 year 2017 concerning elections and regulations related to elections in order to find an new theories related to the political equality of political parties in the nomination of candidates for president and vice president. the case approach is carried out by examining cases related to elections based on the presidential threshold that is relevant to the proposed legal issues and analyzing the results of court decisions as a judge's consideration in issuing a decision. 4. result and discussion 4.1. the electoral justice in the presidential election justice is the constant and sustainable willingness that may be owned by every person and has the purpose to give what it has to be given. john rawls (rawls, 2011), firstly argued that justice is fairness which has principles that every person is free and rationally has freedom to develop their intention and gain better life when they have started. it is a basic condition for every person to participate in activities that they intended to participate. justice is a legal essence. secondly, hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 813-819 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 817 issn :0250-7196 rawls is not only mathematically formulated what it said to be fairness when people got similar portion as others. however, justice may also be reflected to the efficiency and effectiveness in the presidential election. different from the rawls’s concept on the justice, the cumulative justice is the justice which gives people the more as it is quality and quantity without calculating each of achievement. justice in the presidential election is the concept of ensuring the acts, procedures, and decisions which all relevant to the election process has already in line with the laws (the constitution, the laws, international legal instrument and other rules) and to protect and restore the rights of the election participants, the rights to be heard, and the conflict settlement in the election conflict that has to be resolved effectively and efficiently in accordance to the election law (ayoub & ellis, 2010). the presidential system is being protected with the mechanism of presidential threshold as the additional rules on the requirement to proposing the president and the vice president in article 6a (2) which stipulates that “the candidate of the president and the vice president is proposed by the political party or the coalition of the political parties participated in the previous election"(ayoub & ellis, 2010, ismail, 2020, kim, 2016). the article is clearly giving room for the political parties to participate in the election by proposing candidate of the president and vice president. to this extent, political parties are the representative of the people and that the relationship between the state and its citizens. in other perspective, the presidential threshold according to gotfridus is the minimum supports which may be needed by a party to get its representative in the legislative body. such definition may give emphasis that the presidential threshold may be required in the election in the form of numbers, percentages, or quota (gotfridus goris seran, 2013, singh & jain, 2016). 4.2. the implementation of the presidential threshold after the court’s decision the impact of the court’s decision no. 14 / puu-ix / 2013 for the election system in indonesia according to presidential threshold is simultaneously election. to this extent, it may reduce the rights of the political parties to achieve the requirement to participate in the presidential election. this may have consequence to the reduction of the rights of the political parties which could not make it the presidential threshold requirement or which in the previous election does not the percentages as required by the conditions (constitutional court decision number 14/puuix/2013). the provision limits political parties to propose 2019 presidential and vice presidential candidates based on the presidential threshold system. the application of the presidential threshold has the consequence of losing opportunities and citizens' rights through political parties that have not participated in previous elections to nominate their candidates. therefore, it must be considered, in accordance with the principle of fair elections in determining the threshold for the nomination of candidates for president and vice president and it should not be detrimental especially to minority groups. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 813-819 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 818 issn :0250-7196 determination of the president and vice president threshold must pay attention to the diversity of the people reflected in political aspirations (i dewa made putra wijaya., 2014). determination of the threshold needs to be done proportionally and pay attention to the political balance of the law simplifying the party and protecting political diversity. the determination of the president must not be based on consideration of the advantages and disadvantages that will be obtained by political parties. the limitations of political parties in the holding of elections are a limiting factor for democratic parties in indonesia. with a threshold, it reduces opportunities for individuals to run for president and vice president candidates through political parties and simplifies political parties because not all political parties have the same right in promoting candidates for president and vice president. this has become inconsistent in the holding of elections in indonesia because political parties that are part of the people do not have the freedom to determine the candidates they choose so that the political rights of citizens are lost. opportunities for legal problems can occur when simultaneous elections in indonesia still maintain the threshold provisions of the president and vice president for political parties to propose pairs of candidates for president and vice president. 5. conclusion presidential threshold provides an opportunity for injustice in the election of president and vice president in indonesia. there are two arguments notably namely presidential threshold restricting political parties to give their candidates in the election of president and vice president and all political parties participating in the election, they do not have the right to indicate candidates for president and vice president so that the candidates who enter the presidential and vice president elections are limited. references ayoub, a. & ellis,a. (2010). electoral justice: stockholm , sweden: the international idea handbook. dewa, m., putra, w, (2014). measuring the degree of democracy in law number 42 of 2008 concerning the general election of president and vice presiden. ius journal, 2(6), 654660. gotfridus, g. s. (2013). popular election dictionary: general vocabulary, indonesian experience and other countrie. yogyakarta, indonesia: graha ilmu. huda, n. (2014). development of constitutional law. yogyakarta, indonesia: fh.uii press. marzuki, p.m. (2007). legal research. jakarta, indonesia: kencana prenada media group. qomariyah, a. n. (2019). a pragmatic study of jakarta post and jakarta globe news headlines: after indonesian general election 2019. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 5(4), 128–137. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.20469/ijhss.5.20001-4 rawls, j. (2011). a theory of justice. yogyakarta, indonesia: pustaka pelajar. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 813-819 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 819 issn :0250-7196 kim, h. (2016). political correctness on david mamet’s oleanna. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(3), 195-203. singh, a. & jain, p. (2018). significance of political advertisements in indian society: a critical analysis on ‘swachh bharat mission. journal of management practices, humanities and social sciences. 2(2), 35-41. ismail, s. (2020). environmental management in uganda: a reflection on the role of nema and its effectiveness in implementing environment impact assessment (eia) of the greater kampala metropolitan area (gkma). journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 5(1), 1-13. doi:10.26500/jarssh-05-2020-0101 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 58-63 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamda rd islamicus/ p a g e | 58 legal aspect for managing waqf assets through company management: development of share waqf 1 helza nova lita, 2 zahera mega utama 1 universitas padjadjaran, jalan raya bandung-sumedang, jawa barat, indonesia. email: helza.nova@unpad.ac.id 2 universitas prof. dr. moestopo (beragama), jakarta, indonesia abstract: waqf (endowment) in the history of islam, is a social institution that has made a very significant contribution in the development of islamic societies, both in the economic, social and cultural fields. the management of assets waqf can be integrated by company productive activities. this article will discuss how the legal aspect for managing waqf through company management .the method used is normative juridical. research specifications are analytical descriptive. the management of aset waqf through company indicates the ownership of capital in favor of social interests. the benefit of ownership of the company is not only for the owner or but also for others, especially those who are economically living in poverty. this ownership structure is expected to reduce economic inequality in society. waqf shares can be a development of cash waqf schemes, and have been successfully implemented in several countries and provide great benefits not only for worship, but also education, health, economic welfare, and other social contributions. the management of assets waqf through company in addition to not conflict with the provisions of the applicable legislation and principles of shariah (islamic law). key words: waqf assets, company management 1. introduction waqf (endowment) as a form of philanthropy in islam has contributed greatly to improving the welfare of society. the institution of waqf has performed much of the tasks of the government (ministry of religion republic indonesia, 2008). one of the government's tasks in the economic field is how to strive to improve the welfare of its people, including efforts to create economic equality and poverty alleviation. waqf has also been an alternative to islamic teachings that can be used as an effort to alleviate poverty. waqf is one form of poverty alleviation efforts that have the characteristics for a long and sustainable. islamic finance has become incredibly popular among the major global development organisations for its ability to promote: (1) financial inclusion, particularly among the rural poor; (2) financial stability; and (3) economic development. the rise of islamic finance in the development community is best understood in the context of these claims. the development of legal reforms regarding waqf from each country shows a wide variety and influence of the past colonial government. indonesia has shown advanced developments regarding waqf and can be an example for other countries. india, pakistan, and bangladesh share the same origin, in laws enacted during the undivided british india, but they have introduced reforms in varying degrees since achieving their independence. a high degree of commonality therefore exists in their laws. according to the provisions of indonesian waqf law, waqif surrenders his property for a certain period of time or forever for the purpose of worship or welfare of the people according to islamic law. the purposes of waqf not only for worship but https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ mailto:helza.nova@unpad.ac.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 58-63 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamda rd islamicus/ p a g e | 59 also for education, health, and to serve and realize the potential economic to promote the general welfare. according to indonesian waqf law, immovable and movable objects can be waqf. shares as movable goods are deemed capable of stimulating results that can be dedicated to the benefit of the common people. shares will actually contribute a large enough compared with other types of commodity trading. dividends are the benefits derived from share investments. this investments increase along with the growth of the company. this article will discuss legal aspect for managing waqf assets through company management. 2. literature review as-syarikah (company) in islamic jurisprudence is divided into 2 (two) types of property companies (syariah amlak), and contract companies (syariah aqad). shirkah amlak is a partnership of two or more ownerships of a good without syirkah transaction. syirkah milk or syirkatul amlak is a company of property rights, it’s a company to a substance, such as a company in a substance inherited by two persons, or a purchase of them, or a grant given to them, or another (an-nabhani, 1996). shirkah property rights is divided into two: 1) shirkah ikhtiyar (voluntary), namely shirkah born to two parties who allied. for example there are two people who cooperate to buy goods, or two who get grants or testaments, and both receive it, so that both become allies in property rights, 2) shirkah jabar (forced), the fellowship that occurs between two people or more without as willing they are, for example, two people who get an inheritance, so that the inherited goods belong to the two persons concerned (az-zuhaili, 2011). shares are certain ownership rights over the wealth of the individual or a portion of ownership in a network of business the company (redmond, 2000, sundar & al harthi, 2015, fadahunsi & barake, 2018). shares is the amount of money invested by investors in a company. on investment is generally shareholders (aandelhouder, share holders) have benefit (harahap, 2011,willy, 2017). in fiqh muamallah, the corporate based on shares is part of syirkah 'inan. shirkah 'inan, which is a partnership of two persons to utilize joint property as capital for trading and profit divided for them. the scholars agree that this shirkah law is permissible. syirkah musahamah as part of syirkah 'inan is the most important type of capital company, the company whose capital is divided into the same small parts. each small part is called a share that can not be divided again. this shares can be traded. each shareholder is responsible for the par value of the shares (az zuhaili, 2011). every shareholder in a company whose capital is divided into shares or shirkah musahamah responsible according to the amount of capital respectively. in shirkah musahamah, the director of the company and its employees is considered a hired worker for shareholders. they get a certain salary, whether they participate in planting shares or not. the director of the company shall not owe on behalf of the company that exceeds the amount of its capital. if he does, then he has to guarantee it. there is no guarantee for the owners of capital except for the limited number of its shares. the company's profit is divided according to the ratio of the number of shares (az-zuhaili, 2011). transfer of shares in indonesia for the purpose of waqf in accordance with the provisions of law 40 of 2007 must be adjusted to the provisions of the articles of association of the company. besides, it is also based on the provisions of the https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 58-63 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamda rd islamicus/ p a g e | 60 directors ited liability company, hts to their owners. the on article 60 of la waqf of shares be reported & registered to the board of company the duty of nazhir to take care in accordance with the designation of waqf indonesian waqf law, the intended shares must meet the provisions of islamic shares. 3. methodology the methodology of normative juridical is used to analysis this article.this article will discuss more about the management of waqf through companies, specifically applicable legal regulations and islamic legal principles. this study uses descriptive analytic research specifications that illustrate the implementation of the rule of law and the practice of waqf management through companies both in indonesia and in several other countries to obtain a complete and comprehensive analysis. 4. results and discussion integrating waqf and company management based on shares waqf in indonesia based on article 16 on indonesian waqf law, the shares can be waqf object. through this share waqf, is one of the entry points for the integration of waqf and corporate. automatically, the increase in waqf assets is managed in conjunction with the line of business carried out by the company. management of cash waqf can also be used as capital to manage a business through the establishment of business entities, both in the form of legal entities or not. however, it is advisable to manage cash waqf through the establishment of a legal entity. this is so that there is a separation of the assets of the business entity sourced from the cash waqf and assets of the management of the company. waqf of shares must be registered. the board of directors of the company shall hold and maintain a list of shareholders. based on the provisions of article 50 of indonesian company law, waqf of shares be reported and registered to the company, including nazhir’s name and address, time, and classification of shares. nazir is the party mandated to manage endowments. waqf of shares follow this bellow scheme. based shares beneficiary of waqf (mauquf ala’ih) statement of wakif is writen in the deed of waqf divident of share w number 40 of 2007 on lim shares constitute a movable object and gives material rig right can be maintained against everyone. the position of shareholder to the company only limited involvement having participation in the shareholder general meeting held by the company and entitled to dividend. there is no general rule regarding the formalities and forms of deeds of transfer of rights necessary for the transfer of rights to shares on behalf of, only that the deed of transfer of such rights shall be submitted in writing to the company to record the date and day of the transfer of such rights in the list of shareholders or special list provided for it. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 58-63 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamda rd islamicus/ p a g e | 61 the deed of the shares waqf is a proof of wakif's declaration of intention to donate his share and will be registered on the name of nazhir. however, based on article 3 paragraph (2) of government regulation on waqf paragraph (2), it is stated that the register of waqf on behalf of nazhir does not prove nazhir's ownership. the competency of nazhir is very needed to develop share waqf. the utilisation of waqf of shares could include the goals which are related to the objectives of economic empowerment of the people. the dividends of shares as waqf based on waqf law could be used as capital for the economic empowerment of the people. ultimately it is expected that improve the social welfare and poverty reduction in society. practises of waqf corporate in some countries the practice of shares waqf in some countries is basically a development of the practice of cash waqf. magda ismail conducted research on the role of cash waqf in several countries. there are some the creations of cash waqf from each muslim country (mohsin, 2013). according to the authors the creation of cash waqf, which is directly related to the establishment of a company based on shares waqf is the company's waqf scheme (mohsin, 2013). shares waqf have been implementatied by johor corporation berhad (jcorp) in johor malaysia. it is executed by a subsidiary of jcorp namely waqaf an-nur corporation berhad (wancorp) which is a company with jcorp own guarantee. wancorp was established to take care of the assets and shares of jcorp group represented in addition to the role of 'maukuf alaihi' (beneficiary of waqf). based on the agreement between jcorp and the johor state islamic religious council (maij) on 4 december 2000, the maij agreed to inaugurate wancorp to exercise power and duties as a nazir based on the enakment of the religious state of islam of johor. the agreement also allows jcorp to continue to waqf its shares of the company following the corporate waqf's wahaf. all shares will be registered as waqf with maij on behalf of wancorp. as a nazir, wancorp will be responsible for taking care of all matters relating to these shares and simultaneously channel the benefits as contained in the pledge of waqf (borham, 2011). jcorp's corporate executed waqf rm200 million of shares in disseminated subsidiaries and rm50.27 million of shares in subsidiaries not listed in malaysia stock exchange. on june 29, 2009, wancorp has used the istibdal principle of johor land berhad. this reimbursement was made with a share unit in al-'aqar kpj reit, another subsidiary of jcorp listed in malaysia stock exchange. wancorp is responsible for channeling based on the waqf goals in which as much as 70% to jcorp as original investment, 25% to wancorp for fisabilillah and 5% submitted to maij (borham, 2011). in mesir, to develop waqf, nazhir cooperate with companies like companies iron, steel, sugar and others. in addition there are also nazhir who develop waqf by buying stocks and bonds from important companies. in this way, waqf can generate funds, and be used to maintain other non-consumptive waqfs such as mosques, madrassas, helping children who have no school fees and other social interests (nafis, 2013, kraipakorn, 2018) as a comparison material in various countries whose representatives have been well developed, they generally have a waqf board or an equivalent institution with a waqf board. for example egypt, saudi arabia, sudan, and others. waqf board in egypt has been established since 1971. waqf board in egypt is under the https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 58-63 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamda rd islamicus/ p a g e | 62 ministry of waqf or wizaratul auqaf. the main task of egypt's waqf board is to address various waqf issues and develop them productively in accordance with the regulations. besides, the egyptian waqf board is also obliged to investigate the problematic waqf, distribute the results of waqf and carry out all the activities that have been established. as a country that has experience in handling waqf issues,waqf is maintenaced by professionals in their respective fields. to facilitate its activities, egypt's waqf board also invites professionals outside of those who are already administrators. egyptian waqf board has the authority to manage and distribute the results of management to those who are entitled to the best, so that waqf can serve to welfare ummah. the important activity of egyptian waqf board is to develop productive waqf. in this case they works with companies, hospitals, banks, or developers to manage waqf assets. in addition, waqf board also buys stocks and bonds from big companies. all activities of waqf board in egypt are regulated with adequate legislation. in singapore, under the supervision and responsibility of the islamic council of singapore (muis), all the waqf land was settled in 2000. it established a commercial institution called warees investments pte ltd in 2002, which serves to manage and develop muis assets efficiently and professionals in the field of business. in singapore, all wakaf properties are managed by warees investments pte ltd, a 100% owned real estate company owned by muis. warees managed to build 20 housing units of waqf kassim, following a commercial building and educational institution wisma indah in changi road. endowment kassim annually benefits from the rent of wisma indah s $ 300,000.in addition warees also managed to raise cash waqf funds from 200,000 singapore muslim workers. every month their income or salary is deducted directly through their respective employers. all the collected endowments are used by muis for the construction of 23 large mosques in singapore which cost at least s $ 140 million (budiarto, 2012). the establishment of the company warees investments pte ltd in singapore shows an example of the overall management of waqf assets integrated with the company. basically, the capital used is waqf money which is then synergized with waqf objects. like the establishment of commercial buildings on waqf land funded from cash waqf. 5. conclusion shares waqf is one of the entry points for the integration of waqf and corporate. automatically, the increase in waqf assets is managed in conjunction with the line of business carried out by the company. shares waqf integrated with the activity of corporate is the right pattern to integrate the concept of development of waqf through modern, professional, and transparent management. based on the indonesian company law, the company issued shares on behalf of the owner. the company has authority to set the terms of ownership of shares in the articles of association in accordance with the provisions of the legislation. the type of personal shares previously which will be transfered as waqf also be adjusted with the articles of association of the company, whether including the type of shares that can be transferred or not. besides, it is also type of shares which not contrary to principles of shariah (islamic law). references https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 (2020), 58-63 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamda rd islamicus/ p a g e | 63 borham, a. s. (2011). implementation of the corporate endowment development of johor corporation berhad (jcorp). retrieved from http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/2035/1/abd._shakor_borham_fssw_%28ico h%29pdf.pdf. an-nabhani, t. (1996). building an alternative economic system of islamic perspectives [building an alternative economic system of islamic perspectives]. surabaya, indonesia: risalah gusti. az-zuhaili, w. (2011). fiqih islam wa adillatuhu v. jakarta, indonesia: gema insani. budiarto, u. (2012). wakaf di singapore. retrieved from http://tabungwakaf.com/index.php/artikel/hikmah/283-wakaf-produktif-di negeri-singa-merlion.html. fadahunsi, a., & barake, l. (2018). gender and microϐinance in the united arab emirates: an exploratory review of concepts and policy issues. journal of management practices, humanities and social sciences. 2(2), 49-53. harahap, m. y. (2011). law of limited liability company. jakarta, indonesia: sinar grafika. kraipakorn, d. (2018). bnk 48 a thai-japanese cultural commodity in the stagnation of thai music business: contemporary entertainment business history. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 3(4), 136-141. ministry of religion republic indonesia. (2008). new perspective of waqf in indonesia. jakarta, indonesia: empowerment waqf directory. mohsin, m. i. a. (2013). financing through cash-waqf: a revitalization to finance different needs. international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management, 6(4), 3-10. nafis, c. (2013). productive wakaf investment partnership. retrieved from http://bwi.or.id/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=704:pelu ang kemitraan-%09investasi-wakaf produktif&catid=27:opini&itemid=137&lang=ar redmond, p. (2000). companies and securities law, commentary and materials. new south wales: lbc information services. willy, s. (2017). analysis of financial ratios to measure the company's performance in the sectors of consumer goods at pt. nippon indosari corpindo, tbk and pt. mayora indah, tbk. international journal of business and economic affairs, 2(1), 45-51. sundar, c. s., & al harthi, f. n. s. (2015). impact of capital structure on firm's profitability with reference to companies listed on msm (muscat securities market). international journal of business and administrative studies, 1(1), 2328 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/2035/1/abd._shakor_borham_fssw_%28ico http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/2035/1/abd._shakor_borham_fssw_%28ico http://tabungwakaf.com/index.php/artikel/hikmah/283-wakaf-produktif-dihttp://tabungwakaf.com/index.php/artikel/hikmah/283-wakaf-produktif-dihttp://bwi.or.id/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=704%3apelu http://bwi.or.id/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=704%3apelu hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 666-673 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 666 modality in linguistic behavior in translation of al-mulk: pragmatic analysis 1* riza lupi ardiati, 2 pika yestia ginanjar, 3 kasno pamungkas, 4 titin nurhayati ma’mun abstract this research aims to analyze the modalities contained in the al-mulk, using the pragmatics leech and searle in rahardi (2003) and alwi (1992) approaches, as well as descriptive analytical methods. leech proposed four types of illocutionary related to social goals and maintenance of linguistic behavior, while searle revealed five illocutionaries based on the criteria. the results of the study found that in al mulk's there is a modalitay that refers to what was stated by leech and searle, that is convivial behavior in expressive illocutionary of praising propositions, and commissive illocutionary in the offers proposition. furthermore, conflictive behavior on expressive illocutionary is found in the form of threatening propositions. next, competitive behavior in expressive illocution is found in the form of warning propositions. on the other hand, competitive behavior also exists in the directive illocutionary in the form of an ordered proposition, then the begging proposition. collaborative behavior in directive teaching illocutionary is also found. keywords: translation of al mulk, modality, pragmatics 1. introduction the al quran is a living guide for muslims who are endless to explore, interpret, and implement in the daily lives of prophet muhammad’s people. since the al quran uses arabic, however, to interpret its contents more deeply, a good and recognized translation is needed. with this translation, we can truly study and understand the contents of the al quran. the language of the al quran has its own peculiarities. thus, in translating, accuracy is needed to interpret each element of linguistic behavior in it. in addition, the language of the al quran is also full of hidden meanings so it needs to be made explicit when we want to know the meaning of the utterances of each verse contained therein. one of the surahs which caught the attention of the writer was surat al-mulk. because the surah contains a variety of modalities, such as intentional, epistemic, dynamic, and other modalities that are represented by capability or dynamic modalities, in the form of the word capital "can", as stated in the following verses: ayat 1 ْْ ْٔس رَٰجَسَك الَِّر ٍء قَِد ْٓ َُ َعٰلّ ُمّلِ َش ٌُ ََ ثَِِٕدِي اْلُمْلُلُۖ tabāraka-l lażī biyadihi-l mulku wa huwa ‘alā kulli syai`in qadīr 1 faculty of cultural sciences, universitas padjadjaran. email: riza.lupi@unpad.ac.id; pika.yestia@unpad.ac.id; kasno.pamungkas@unpad.ac.id; titin.mamun@unpad.ac.id mailto:pika.yestia@unpad.ac.id mailto:kasno.pamungkas@unpad.ac.id mailto:titin.mamun@unpad.ac.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 666-673 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 667 ‘glory to allah who rules over (all) kingdoms, and he is almighty over all things. ' ayat 2 ُحَ ٰٕ اْلَح ََ َد ُْ ْْ َخلََق اْلَم الَِّر زُ ۨ ُْ ُْٔص اْلغَفُ َُ اْلعَِص ٌُ ََ ۗ ُمْم أَُُّنْم اَْحَسُه َعَمًلا َُ ِلَْٕجلُ allażī khalaqa-l mawta wa-l ḥayāta liyabluwakum ayyukum aḥsanu 'amalan wa huwa-l ‘azīzu-l-ghafụr ‘who creates death and life to test you, which of you is better in charity. then he is almighty and forgiving. ' verse 3 ٌَْل رَٰسِ مِ ٍدۗ فَبْزِجعِ اْلجََصَس ُُ ْحٰمِه ِمْه رَٰف ْٓ َخْلِق السَّ ٍد ِطجَبقاۗب َمب رَٰسِ فِ ُٰ ْْ َخلََق َسْجَع َسٰم زٍ الَِّر ُْ ْه فُُط allażī khalaqa sab’a samāwātin ṭibāqān mā tarā fī khalqi-r raḥmāni min tafāwut fa-r ji’i-l baṣara hal tarā min fuṭụr ‘he creates the seven heavens in layers. you will not see something that is not balanced in the creation of god the almighty. then look again, do you see anything that is defective? ’ in verses 1, 2, and 3 of the al-mulk surah, there is a modality of ability as well as a modality of desire / intentionality (volition) which means that god is able to control all the kingdoms so that he is able to rule and intend for everything. conditions bring the implication that no one or anything can hinder him. the volition mode, in the form of modal, the word "should", "wants", is also listed in paragraph 23 below: نَ َْ ب رَْشُنُس ًْٕلا مَّ َۗ قَِل اْْلَْفـِٕدَح ََ اْْلَْثَصبَز ََ َجعََل لَُنُم السَّْمَع ََ ْْْٓ اَْوَشبَُمْم َُ الَِّر ٌُ ْۨ قُْل qul huwa-l lażī ansya`akum wa ja’ala lakumu-s sam’a wa-l abṣāra wa-l af`idah qalīlan mā tasykurụn ‘say," he created you and made you hearing, visioning, and being conscience for you. (however), few of you are very thankful. ’’ in verse 23, the modality of desire appears in the statement "(however), you are very little grateful". the implication in this sentence means that it is proper for humans to give thanks and give thanks for all the gifts that god has given. in surah al-mulk, there are still many other verses which contain the modality category. all of that can be expressed in more detail by using a pragmatic approach through the functions of the leech and searle illocutions which emphasize the implicature in each speech. this is what the authors made as the focus of this research. 2. research methods pragmatics can be defined as the study of the meaning of utterance in particular situations. in a comprehensive program on language studies, as a communication system is complementary (leech, 1983, kimberley & louis. 2018; taher, shrestha, rahman, & khalid, 2016). meanwhile, according to yule (1996: 3), pragmatics is the study of meanings conveyed by speakers and interpreted by listeners. in other words, pragmatics is the study of the intention of speakers. rahardi (2003: 85) added, in the implicature, the relationship between actual speeches with the specific purpose that is not spoken is not absolute. in addition, an explanation of the implicature includes the development of the theory of the relationship hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 666-673 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 668 between the expression, meaning, meaning of the speaker, and the implications of a speech. therefore, it needs a thorough accuracy to interpret the use of language in the translation of al-quran verses. previously, research on surah al-mulk was conducted by muhammad munib in 2015. the research was titled al i'lāl fī sụrah al mulk: dirasah sharfiyyah, as can be read on the website http://digilib.uinsby.ac.en/ 2501. in that research, munib only examined surat almulk through the discipline of sharf (arabic morphology), especially regarding the types of i'lal and its rules. research on the al-mulk surah was also carried out by agus susanto in 2009. as for munib, susanto in a study entitled idhofah and its meaning in surat al mulk (http://digilib.uinsby.ac.id/7982/) also disclose the surah through the sharf discipline. he only describes the types of idhafah in the al-mulk and examines the various meanings contained therein. thus, the two studies are different from the research that the author did, both in terms of themes and approaches. in this research, the writer will use qualitative methods through descriptive analysis with synchronous time span. the use of this synchronic descriptive method is considered to focus attention on the characteristics and characteristics of the data naturally to produce actual language data (abdullah, laily ramli, & rafek, 2017; djajasudarma, 1993; hilao, 2016). in collecting data, the author firstly collects data and then creates and enters the data into the corpus. after that, the authors distribute data in accordance with the function of linguistic behavior. the data of this study were obtained from al-mu’asir, the al-quran color recitation compiled by aam amiruddin (2016). 3. results and discussion the term "modality" comes from the word "modality" (english) which is distinguished by its mood or mode. the first figure to express an understanding of what is now called modality is aristotle, based on the logical point of view of capital, namely the necessity, possibility, and impossibility (alwi, 1992; pradhan, 2016; sumingwa, 2018). however, in its development, interpretations of this modality vary from one expert to another. manigueneau (check alwi, 1992: 01) distinguishes "the modality of the mind", that is, the attitude of the speaker who justifies the mind, from the "appreciative modality", that is, which describes feelings of joy and sadness. this is supported by bally (alwi, 1992; desmit & machru, 2019; junnak, & veerachaisantikul, 2016) which states that modality is "a form of language that describes judgment based on reason, judgment based on taste, or the desire of the speaker in connection with mental perception or disclosure". thus, the speaker's attitude is not related to judgment based on reason (judgment intelligence) and judgment based on taste (judgment affect), but also with desire (volonte). in the context of the indonesian language, chaer (1993: 262) states that what is meant by modality is information in sentences stating the speaker's attitude towards the thing being discussed, namely regarding actions, circumstances, and events; or also the attitude towards the interlocutor. alwi (1992: 02) explains in more detail that the forms that describe the speaker's attitude are lexical elements and some are grammatical elements. the grammatical description of the speaker's attitude is called mode (mood). meanwhile, lexical expression of the speaker's hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 666-673 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 669 attitude means the form of language used is classified as words, phrases or clauses, such as "will", "must", "maybe", "wants", "can", and so on. in english, this is seen in the use of auxiliary verbs, such as "can", "may", "shall", "will", "must", and so on. however, the description of the speaker's attitude both lexically and grammatically does not mean that it does not cause problems. because, in addition to the semantic problem, there are also syntactic problems in the use of expressing modalities, such as "can", "must", and "wants". the words "can" and "must" can only be used as limiting verbs, while "want" can be used as limiting verbs or main verbs. the subcategory of modality also has differences, depending on the point of view of the experts who raise the issue of modality. quirk, et al (1972: 97), for example, divide the modality based on the following categorization: 1. ability: ability mode ("can", "can"). 2. permission: permission mode ("may", "can", "can"). 3. volition: desire mode ("will", "wants", "wants", "wants"). 4. possibility: mode of possibility ("maybe", "may be"). 5. bond and logical necessity: must mode ("must", "must"). meanwhile, alwi (1992: 36) shares indonesian modalities in more detail, as follows: 1. intensional modalities: desires ("wants", "wants", "wants", "will"); hope ("hopefully", "hopefully", "should"); and invitations and omissions ("come", "come on", "let"). 2. epistemic modalities: possibilities ("can", "can", "may", "maybe", "maybe"); tardiness ("guess", "taste", "guess"); must ("must", "must", "mandatory", "necessary", "proper"); and certainty ("sure", "trust"). 3. deontic modalities: permits ("may", "can", "can"); command ("prohibited", "do not", "may not"). 4. dynamic modalities: ability ("can", "can", "able", "able"). to discuss the modalities contained in the translation of this al-mulk surah, a pragmatic study of the speech illocutions is needed. thus, the purpose of speech in the verses of the surah can be understood. 3.1 modalities in the translation of surat al-mulk 3.1.1 modalities in competitive linguistic behavior the expressive category on illocution warns: ْٕسِ (1) ْْٓٓ اَْصٰحِت السَِّع َْ َوْعِقُل َمب ُمىَّب فِ ُْ ُمىَّب وَْسَمُع اَ ا لَ ُْ قَبلُ ََ wa qālụ law kunnā nasma’u aw na’qilu mā kunnā fī aṣ-ḥābi-s sa’īr ‘and they said," if (before) we listened or thought (of that warning) we would certainly not be among the fiery inhabitants of hell. " data (1) is verse 10 of surat al-mulk. there, the illocution warns that if only humans would follow his commands and listen to what his messenger, the apostle of allah, said, they would not go to hell and would become inhabitants of heaven. this illocution is a type of modality that states an order so that it is included in the deontic modality in declarative form because the second person, as the actualizer of the event, states explicitly as the subject of the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 666-673 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 670 sentence (alwi, 1992: 208). therefore, it should be, the revealing of his orders and the implicature of the verse is that humans must carry out god's commands. 3.1.2 category directives on illocutionary ordered زِ (2) َْ دُ ْٕم ۢثِرَاِد الصُّ ًٗ َعِل ۗ اِوَّ ً ا ثِ َْ ُس ٍَ َِ اْج لَُنْم اَ ُْ ا قَ َْ اَِسسُّ ََ wa asirrụ qawlakum awi-j harụ bihī innahụ ‘alīmun bi żāti-ṣ ṣudụr ‘and keep your word or reveal it. truly, he is all-knowing of all hearts. ' data (2) is verse 13 of surat al-mulk. there, there is an illocution ordered. this illocution aims to produce an effect in the form of actions taken by the speaker. this statement implies that god commands humans not to say anything that will hurt someone or a bad word. however, if the words are good, then state them. allah is all-knowing what is in the hearts and minds of men. illocutionary order is included in the deontic modality in declarative form because the second persona is the actual perpetrator of the event. 3.2 modalities in convivial linguistic behavior 3.2.1 expressive category on illocution inviting ْْ َجعََل (3) َُ الَِّر زُ ٌُ ُْ ًِ الىُُّش ْٕ اِلَ ََ ۗ ً ْشقِ ا ِمْه ِزّ ُْ ُملُ ََ ب ٍَ ْٓ َمىَبِمجِ ا فِ ُْ ْلا فَبْمُش ُْ لَُنُم اْْلَْزَض ذَلُ huwa-l lażī ja’ala lakumu-l arḍa żalụlan famsyụ fī manākibihā wa kulụ mi-r rizqihī wa ilaihi-n nusyụr ‘he is the one who made the earth for you easily explored, so explore in all directions and eat some of his sustenance. and only to him do you (return after) be resurrected. ' in data (3), there are invitation modalities that fall into the intentional modality (volition) category. the party who is the actualizer of the event is the speaker together with the interlocutor or others (alwi, 1992: 66). the data does not contain the word "let's" or "come on". however, the speech "explore" implies an invitation so that humans can enjoy the beauty of the earth to the fullest extent. that is because the earth produces a variety of foods that can be enjoyed until the end of human life so that in time humans will return to the creator. the linguistic behavior of this speech has a pleasant social purpose. 3.2.2 the commissive category on illocution offers َْٔه ِمْه َعرَاٍة اَِلْٕ (4) ُْٕس اْلٰنِفِس َْ َزِحَمىَب فََمْه ُِّٔج َٓ اَ ِع َمْه مَّ ََ ُ َٓ ّٰللاه لََنىِ ٌْ ْٔزُْم اِْن اَ مٍ قُْل اََزَء qul ara`aitum in ahlakaniya-l lāhu wa man ma’iya aw raḥimanā fa man yujīru-l kāfirīna min ‘ażābin alīm‘say (muhammad)," do you know if allah kills me and those who are with me or gives us mercy, (then we will go to heaven), then who can protect unbelievers from painful punishment? " the modality of wealth inherent in the speech "going to heaven" contains certain temporal and modality characteristics. that is because the will, as expressed through the words "shall" or "will" implies the element of prediction of the speaker for a non-sexual event. actually, keakan belongs to intentional modality, but has a semantic meaning. the implication of this verse states that people who do good deeds, as exemplified by the apostles, will be the ones who will go to heaven. conversely, those who behave badly will surely go to a bad place. god has offered humans so that, in the end, all decisions are in themselves. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 666-673 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 671 3.3 modality in conflicting linguistic behavior 3.3.1 expressive category on threatening illocution ْٕسُ (5) ِثئَْس اْلَمِص ََ ىََّم ٍَ ْم َعرَاُة َج ٍِ ا ثَِسثِّ َْ َْٔه َمفَُس ِللَِّر ََ wa li-l lażīna kafarụ bi rabbihim ‘ażābu jahannama wa bi`sa-l maṣīr ‘and those who disobey god will get the punishment of hell. and that's the worst place to come back to. ' the epistemic modality of certainty describes the attitude of the speaker who feels certain or convinced that the proposition he expressed is true (alwi, 1992: 123). in this case, data (5) is paragraph 6 of surah al-mulk and is included in the intraclausal certainty, includes the form "feel certain" and can be followed by the word "will". it is clear that the implicature of the verse states that those who violate the commands and rules set by god will certainly be rewarded hell. the threat of god is addressed to people who disbelieve and do not want to repent even though they have been given a warning. 3.3.2 directive category on asking illocution نَ (6) ُْ ًِ رَدَُّع ْْ ُمْىزُْم ِث ٌَرَا الَِّر َْٕل قِ ََ ا َْ َْٔه َمفَُس يُ الَِّر ُْ ُج َُ يُ ُشْلفَخا ِسٕئَْذ َْ ب َزأَ فَلَمَّ fa lammā ra`awhu zulfatan sī`at wujụhu-l lażīna kafarụ wa qīla hāża-l lażī kuntum bihī tadda’ụn ‘so when they saw the doom (on the day of judgment) was near, the faces of the disbelievers became grim. and it was said (to them), "this is the (doom) you were asking for." the modality of request included in the intentional modality category describes the attitude of the speaker who wants the interlocutor or someone else to do something. the will of the interlocutor to act as the actualizer of the event also characterizes the 'command', but this is different from the meaning of the command in the deontic modality (alwi, 1992: 71). the data narration (6) in verse 27 implies that human demands for good behavior will produce a path to heaven. however, those who behave badly will surely get bad results. 3.4 modalities in collaborative behavior directives category on teaching illocutionary نَ (7) َْ ب رَْشُنُس ًْٕلا مَّ َۗ قَِل اْْلَْفـِٕدَح ََ اْْلَْثَصبَز ََ َجعََل لَُنُم السَّْمَع ََ ْْْٓ اَْوَشبَُمْم َُ الَِّر ٌُ قُْل qul huwa-l lażī ansya`akum wa ja’ala lakumu-s sam’a wa-l abṣāra wa-l af`idah qalīlan mā tasykurụn ‘say," he created you and made hearing, vision, and conscience for you. (but) you are lack of gratitude. " the speech implication in the data (7) in verse 23 illustrates the teachings of the almighty through the muslim apostle, prophet muhammad, to mankind to give thanks for all the favors that have been given by him (in the form of senses and hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 666-673 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 672 conscience) because humans are always negligent and forgetful. therefore, the apostle did not tire of teaching that muslims always to be grateful. the purpose of this illocution is not ignoring social goals, but aims to produce an effect in the form of actions taken by the speaker. the modality contained in the verse is an appeal and is included in the intentional modality. 4. conclusion based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that the modalities contained in the translation of surah al-mulk can be in the form of: 1) deontic modalities in the expressive category on illocutionary warnings; competitive category on ordered illocution; and collaborative categories on teaching illocution 2) intentional modalities in the convivial category of illocutionary asking, appealing, righteousness, inviting 3) epistemic modality, in the conflictive category of threatening illocution, certainty. 4) dynamic modalities in the conflictive category of threaten and punish illocution. references abdullah, n. h., laily ramli, n. h., & rafek, m. (2017). mass lecture in language learning: what do the boys and girls think? journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 3(2), 115-123. alwi, h. (1992). modality in indonesia. yogyakarta: kanisius alwi, h. (2003). indonesian standard language. jakarta: balai pustaka chaer, a. (1993). indonesian language recognition. rineka cipta. desmit, n., & machru, m. a. (2019). his strength is my strategies: experience of an english teacher in indonesia teaching english for hyperactive students in inclusive class. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 4(2), 66-73 djajasudarma, t. f. (1993). semantics 2: understanding the meaning of knowledge . bandung: eresco hilao, m. p. (2016). creative teaching as perceived by english language teachers in private universities. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(5), 278-286. junnak, c., & veerachaisantikul, a. (2016). reporting verb in research projects of efl english major students. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 1(1), 41-46. kimberley, g., & louis, m. g. (2018). meeting in the middle: the challenge and promise of supporting stem learning through language and literacy infusion. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 4(6), 258-266 leech, g. (1993). pragmatic principles. jakarta: universitas indonesia muharam, a. (2016). al-mu’asir al-qur’an tajwid color. bandung: cv khazanah intelektual http://www.tafpublications.com/platform/articles/full-jahss4.6.3.php http://www.tafpublications.com/platform/articles/full-jahss4.6.3.php http://www.tafpublications.com/platform/articles/full-jahss4.6.3.php hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 666-673 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 673 pradhan, s. (2016). english language teaching: a next gate to social awareness. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 2(4), 156-158 quirk, r. (1981). a comprehensive grammar of the english language. london: longman group rahardi, k. (2003). get acquainted with pragmatic language knowledge. malang: dioma. sudaryanto, m. (1986). linguistic methods: towards understanding linguistic method.. yogyakarta: gajah mada university press. sumingwa, h. j. (2018). the english language program in osaka’s public elementary and junior high schoolsa study of cnets/alts’ perspectives. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 4(3), 186-193. taher, m. a., shrestha, p. n., rahman, m. m., & khalid, a. k. m. i. (2016). curriculum linked video (clv) as a tool for english language teaching (elt) at secondary school classrooms in bangladesh. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 2(4), 126-132. yule, g. (1996). pragmatic. yogyakarta: pustaka belajar. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 27 financial rights of woman on the dissolution of her marital relationship and death of her husband in islamic law and pakistani legal system dr. muhammad munir department of law, international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan. email: muhammadmunir@iiu.edu.pk received on: 10-03-22 accepted on: 26-06-22 abstract this article focuses on financial rights of the wife on the dissolution of her marital tie under islamic law and pakistani legal system. it explores the complexed issues involving the provision of dower/mahr for the wife, the provision of maintenance in various situations of dissolution of marital relationship, financial support for the children in case of separation, financial stipulations promised by the husband to his wife, and whether a widow can possess either the corpus of the property or receive its benefits upon the death of her husband when he has legally transferred either of the two to his widow? all the above issues are analysed under islamic law, statutory law where available, and case law in pakistani legal system. the main findings of this work are that dower is guaranteed to the wife but there are complicated issues where dower is denied and she has to resort to the court to receive it; that maintenance and lodging till the end of the waiting period (‘iddat) is always on the husband in case of separation but problems arise in case of separation through divorce or khul‘ where a woman accepts the deal that she will not claim either lodging or maintenance; that promises by husbands to recompense his wife a sum of money in the event of divorce remain unfulfilled because of the ruling of the supreme court of pakistan that family courts have no jurisdiction in the matter; that husband can gift either the corpus of his property or the usufruct to his widow if he so wishes; that courts have persistently ruled that conditions attached to a gift of property to a mailto:muhammadmunir@iiu.edu.pk 28 financial rights of woman … woman would be void but the gift would be valid; that courts have given apparently conflicting decisions on whether deferred dower becomes payable on demand or on dissolution of marriage either by death or divorce. finally, courts have developed elaborate principles of islamic law mainly derived from the hanafi school of thought, and with few exceptions, have followed these principles consistently. the main recommendations of this work are that the current judicial pronouncements of the august supreme court of pakistan that deferred dower could only be paid to the wife on separation by death or divorce may be overruled through an amendment in legislation and that the issue that the sum of money stipulated by the husband to be paid to his wife in case of divorce as a penalty or compensation or damages is not in the jurisdiction of the family court may be overruled through an amendment in the schedule to the family courts act, 1964 to expand the jurisdiction of the family courts. the methodology used in this work is doctrinal. keywords: financial rights, wife, dower/mahr, maintenance, stipulations, hiba, gift, property, corpus, usufruct, manéfi‘. 1. introduction in marital relationship it is the obligation of the husband to bear the burden of financial affairs of the wife and the family. the main financial rights of wife include: first, the dower/mahr that wife is either paid or promised by her husband; secondly, maintenance throughout the marriage; thirdly, financial stipulations promised by the husband to give a certain amount of money or compensation in case of divorce; and finally, making sure that his widow continues to either own or benefit from his property during the lifetime of the husband and upon his demise. in practice family laws in pakistan are only partially codified and courts have to apply and interpret them on the basis of sharê‘at (shari‘ah) as explained below. thus, judicial decisions are either based on codified family law (which is supposedly based on sharê‘at) or uncodified family laws which are based on ‘sharê‘at.’ the main questions explored in this work are mostly according to the hanafi school of thought and the decisions of the higher courts in pakistan. these questions include: what is meant by sharê‘at (which is urdu for shari‘ah) in pakistani legal system? are decisions of pakistani courts based on shari‘ah or statutory law? what is dower in islamic law? is dower a pre-condition for the validity of marriage? what is the importance of prompt and deferred dower? can a woman refuse herself to the husband if the prompt dower is not paid or is hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 29 delayed for some time and the marriage is already consummated? when does the deferred dower become payable? whether deferred dower becomes payable on demand or on dissolution of marriage either by death or divorce? is the wife who obtains separation through khul‘ allowed to receive the deferred dower if it is still outstanding? is the wife entitled to maintenance and lodging when the marital relationship is over through divorce or khul‘? can she obtain khul‘ on the condition that she will not be entitled to maintenance or lodging? whether the amount stipulated in the marriage deed where a man promises to give to his wife, in the event of divorce, judicially enforceable? can courts impose a penalty on the husband for divorcing his wife without any just cause, especially when she has committed no wrong and wants to keep her relation? finally, can a husband benefit his wife from the estate or assets left by him upon his death under islamic law and whether the same is judicially accepted in pakistan? these are some of the questions that are examined in this work, however, many related questions are explored along the way. this work also attempts to find the principles of islamic law elaborated and continuously followed by courts in pakistan in the domain of muslim personal/family law, especially in the issues under consideration. the discussion of the issues under consideration in islamic law are mainly confined to the issues that have already arisen in courts’ cases. the methodology followed in this work is that the main issues are explored briefly under islamic law, statutory law where available, and case law as decided by the superior courts in pakistan. fair observations are made on some decisions that are considered at odds with islamic law. 2. the nature of family law in pakistani legal system pakistan largely follows the common law system with local adjustments partly necessitated by islamic law, however, it may not be islamic law in its entirety or pure doctrine rather it is the interpretation by the superior courts. under the doctrine of precedent, lower courts are bound by the decisions and interpretations of higher courts. family law is partially codified in the shape of various acts, rules, regulations, and bylaws. thus, our family law system is a mixture or hybrid of codified and uncodified laws. however, it is the interpretation by the superior courts of these two areas of law that is considered as law in every particular issue of family law even in subsequent cases. issues within the family law that are not yet codified by the state are governed by shariat. muslim personal law act (mpla) 1962 provides that: 30 financial rights of woman … “notwithstanding any custom or usage, in all questions regarding succession (whether testate or intestate), special property of females, betrothal, marriage, divorce, dower, adoption, guardianship, minority, legitimacy or bastardy, family relations, wills, legacies, gifts, religious usages or institutions, including waqfs, trusts and trust properties, the rule of decision, subject to the provisions of any enactment for the time being in force, shall be the muslim personal law (sharê‘at) in case where the parties are muslims.”1 section 2 of the enforcement of shari‘ah act, 1991 defines the term sharê‘ah as “the injunctions of islam as laid down in the holy qur’én and [the] sunnah.”2 section 2 is further elucidated by the clause which states that, “while interpreting and explaining the shari‛ah the recognized principles of interpretation and explanation of the holy qur’an and [the] sunnah shall be followed and the expositions and opinions of recognized jurists of islam belonging to prevalent islamic schools of jurisprudence may be taken into consideration.”3 unfortunately, the act is silent on the scope of the phrase ‘prevalent islamic schools of jurisprudence’, therefore, it could be construed either as ‘schools that are accepted internationally’ or schools that are accepted within the country’. our courts have yet to apply and interpret this provision. section 4 of the above act provides that, (a) “while interpreting the statute-law, if more than one interpretation is possible, the one consistent with the islamic principles and jurisprudence be adopted by the court; and (b) where two or more interpretations are equally possible the interpretation which advances the principles of policy and islamic provisions of the constitution shall be adopted by the court.”4 as a matter of fact this act may be called as a paper tiger as judges and lawyers never consider its provisions while interpreting statutes. instead, they look at case law under the doctrine of precedent. on the other hand, there are many statutes governing many issues of family law in pakistan. these include but are not limited to: the dissolution of muslim marriages act (dmma), 1939, muslim family law ordinance (mflo), 1961, family courts act (fca), 1964 and so on. all these statutes are amended time again and are subjected to vigorous interpretations by our superior courts. generally, a family law case is brought to the family court which has jurisdiction in family issues and it has to decide the case within six months. appeal is allowed to the first appellate court which is hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 31 supposed to decide it within four months. there is no further appeal, however, either party may go to the high court under its writ jurisdiction. usually, the case is heard by a single bench and there might be an intra-court appeal or ica to a divisional bench. in some cases, either party may appeal to the supreme court against the decision of the high court. it is pertinent to note that both the first appellate court and the family court are exempted to follow the rigorous, time consuming and technical procedural rules while adjudicating family law cases within four months and six months respectively. in practice though it takes longer than the above-mentioned time frame to decide family cases.5 3. financial rights of wife: dower pakistani law does not provide statutory definition of dower, however, its meaning, nature, significance and definition of the term, has been explained in many cases by the courts. dower has many other names in arabic some of them are used in the qur’an and others in aíédêth of the prophet muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam. it is defined by al-babarti (786/1384) as “[t]he property which becomes payable by the husband as an effect of the benefits of marriage either through specification or due to the marriage contract.”6 according to ibn ‘aabidin (d. 1252/1836), dower is “[t]he [property] that becomes payable to the wife because of marriage contract or sexual intercourse.”7badruddin al-‘ayni (d. 855/1453) notes in his commentary on al-hidayah that al-kaki8 has mentioned several names for mahr,9 three of them are in the holy qur’én which are nahla (dower)10; ‘ajr (dower)11; and faridah (dower)12. the holy qur’én also mentions the word taul for dower.13 other names used are mahr14, sadéq also sidéq, pl. suduq ((bridal) dower)),15 and ‘uqr16. dower is an effect of marriage but is neither an element not a condition for marriage, however, it is obligatory. the holy qur’én says, “but it is lawful for you to seek out all women except these, offering them your wealth and the protection of wedlock rather than using them for the unfettered satisfaction of lust. and in exchange of what you enjoy by marrying them pay their bridaldue as an obligation.”17 allah also says in the holy qur’an, “give women their bridal-due in good cheer (considering it a duty); but if they willingly remit any part of it, consume it with good pleasure.”18 mahr is not a pre-condition for the validity of marriage, however. the holy qur’én says, “there is no blame upon you if you divorce your wives before you have touched them or settled a bridal gift 32 financial rights of woman … upon them. but even in this case you should make some provision for them: the affluent, according to his means; the straitened, according to his means – a provision in fair manner. that is a duty upon the gooddoers.”19 it is never a bride-price. according to kamal b. humam (d. 861/1457), “dower has been ordered to underline the prestige of the marriage contract and to stress its importance … it has not been enjoined as a consideration like a price or a wage, otherwise it would have been set as a prior condition”.20 nasir argues that dower “is neither an essential nor a condition for the validity or effectiveness of the marriage contract, nor to make it binding, nor is it mentioned as being so in any modern islamic legislation.”21 dower is confirmed by one of three things: consummation of marriage, seclusion of the husband and wife, or death of either one of them.22 however, the issue of dower always surfaces on the dissolution of marriage in anyway as is seen in the cases under consideration. dower may be named in the marriage contract or through the mutual consent of the parties in which case it is called mahr al-musamma (specified dower) but a marriage is valid without specifying it. the holy qur’én says, “or settle a bridal gift upon them, then (give them) half of what you have settled.”23 since there is no sin on the husband who divorces his wife without fixing her dower and since there cannot be divorce without a nikéí (marriage contract), therefore, marriage is valid even if dower is not fixed or mentioned.24 mahr al-mithal is the dower fixed for the wife after taking into consideration women of her equal status at the time of marriage. it is payable in situations when it is either not fixed or is unknown or the marriage contract mentions that there shall be no dower or what is named cannot be dower under islamic law or she was married on the condition that he will serve her for a specified period of time, in all these cases the mahr to be payable is called mahr al-mithal or standard dower. if the woman died before consummation of marriage and her mahr is not fixed, the husband has to pay standard dower. if the husband died before consummation and the dower is not fixed, his estate shall be liable to standard dower. if she is divorced before consummation when the dower is not fixed, no dower shall be paid as she will be entitled to a gift (which shall be up to half of the standard dower).25 the hanafi jurists argue that standard dower should be fixed according to the dower of other women in the family of the father of the woman. these women include her sisters, aunts, and her cousins. however, if no woman is found in her father’s family, then the dower of a woman who is from another family which is similar in status as her father’s family.26 wealth, beauty, age, intellect, and spirituality are hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 33 taken into consideration for determining standard dower.27 however, the region, virginity, the specific era, education, and perfectness in behaviour may also be assessed.28 both woman should be from the same region and era and that the dower of a woman related to her but living in a different region cannot be considered to determine mahr al-mithal because mahr varies from region to region and time to time.29 any property considered as valuable in islamic law can be given as dower whether movable or immovable. in addition, mahr al-mussama may be entirely or partially prompt (mu‘jjal) or deferred (mu’jjal).30 muslim jurists have disagreed about the minimum quantity of dower. according to the hanafi school, it should not be less than 10 dirhams31 or its equivalent property because of the saying of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) who is reported to have said, “dower shall not be less than 10 dirham”.32 the aínéf also state that the minimum dower shall not be less than the niîéb33 of theft which is one dinar or 10 dirham.34 they consider the hadêth which says, “find even if it be a ring of steel”35 to be in the nature of the prompt portion of dower. they argue that some of the dower should be paid before the consummation of marriage. to prove this point, they argue that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) stopped ‘ali b. abi talib (raìi allah ‘anhu) from consummation of marriage with fatima (raìi allah ‘anhé) till she was paid some of her dower. however, ‘ali said that he has nothing, on which the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) told him to give her his armour. ‘ali gave her his armour.36 the ahnaf opine that in case the mahr fixed is less than 10 dirham or its equivalent, the nikéí is valid but the dower is invalid and should be raised to 10 or more for its validity.37 there are many decisions in which judges have tried to elaborate some complicated rules about dower. abdul kadir v salima, 1886 described dower, under the muhammadan law, as “a sum of money or other property promised by the husband to be paid or delivered to the wife in consideration of the marriage …”.38 this approach has been criticized. according to justice tanzilur rahman, of the sindh high court, dower “is that financial gain which the wife is entitled to receive from her husband by virtue of the marriage contract itself whether named or not in the contract of marriage, in which case proper dower (mahr mithl) becomes due.39 the dower, therefore, is a right which comes into existence with the marriage contract itself except that in case the dower is deferred its enforcement is held in abeyance till 34 financial rights of woman … a certain event, i.e. dissolution of marriage by death or divorce, occurs.”40 according to justice khattak of the peshawar high court, “under mohammadan law dower is a mark of respect to the wife.”41in shah daraz khan v mst. naila42 dower was fixed as 30 tolas43 gold jewelry, ten of which was prompt and 20 was deferred but only six tolés was delivered by the husband but was taken back and never returned to the wife and thus, the entire amount of dower was outstanding. the marriage was dissolved by the trial court due to the brutality and illtreatment by the husband. the wife claimed her entire amount of dower of 30 tolés which was contested by the husband who pleaded that the dower was only six tolés which has already been paid. the family court decreed her suit to the extent of 24 tolés of gold as dower. both parties appealed to the first appellate court which partially allowed the appeal to the extent of dower. the ex-husband assailed both the judgments of the lower courts below. the husband alleged that his signature on the nikaínémah or marriage contract is fake, however, an expert proved it to be his signature. the high court accepted his claim that he has paid six tolés of gold jewelry to his wife and held that 24 tolas are still outstanding to the husband. in ghazala sadia v muhammad sajjad,44 rupees 1,000 was fixed as prompt and 50,000 was fixed as deferred dower. the wife alleged cruelty and although she had been delegated the right to divorce herself but she did not exercise it and, instead obtained separation through khul‘ from the family court which ordered her to return the prompt dower. however, the husband was ordered to pay her the deferred amount of 50,000. the district court dismissed husband’s appeal. on a writ petition to the lahore high court it was held that the words of section 10(4) of the family courts act, 1964, which says, “[t]he family court in a suit for dissolution of marriage, if reconciliation fails, shall pass decree for the dissolution of marriage forthwith and shall restore the husband the ×aq mahr received by the wife in consideration of marriage at the time of marriage”45, that the proviso “only talks of the restoration of ×aq-ul-mahr [dower] already received and its restoration [and that] withholding or relinquishment of deferred dower cannot be added to this proviso which the legislature never intended. had that been [the] intention of the legislature, after the word received, the words, or agreed to be received should have followed.”46 the court also observed that the husband has been cruel to the wife and that he has been the cause of discord between the two. the court cited babar ismail v mst. sheeba bashir,47 a decision of the sindh high court and mst. shaista v sh. liaquat ali sathi48, a decision of the lahore high court, where it has been held that hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 35 the prompt dower if already paid to the wife was to be restored and if it is not yet paid by the husband, it was not to be paid to the wife.49 however, the last sentence is contradictory to the ruling of the court in the instant case. the court also endorsed muhammad kaleem asif v a. d. j.50 in which it was held that the wife is not liable to restore dower or other benefits received by her in case of dissolution of marriage through khul‘,if she claims that the husband was the cause of discord.51 the court concluded that, “[a]s the right of khula [khul‘] has accrued to a wife for redressal of her grievance against her husband, the return of whole amount of dower becomes unnecessary and returnable amount may be reduced, in a case when the dissolution of marriage on the basis of khula [khul‘] is claimed also due to fault or wrong on the part of the husband.”52 the court also relied on khalid mehmood v anees bibi.53 however, a wife may claim any wrongdoing against her husband but a mere claim or accusation is not sufficient to give such a ruling. the accusation or claim must be proven. the main issue often ignored in khul‘ cases is that all allegations of cruelty and nonmaintenance etc., are not investigated by the court as it takes much more time as evidence has to be recorded and rebutted and witnesses will be examined and cross-examined in a full dress trial whereas in case of proceedings for khul‘, the case may be decided in one or two hearings without any trial. this shortcut suits the counsels, family courts, as well as the husbands but the wives have to return the dower if already received. however, if cruelty is proven the marriage has to be dissolved under the dissolution of muslim marriages act, 1939 (dmma) and not under khul‘. dissolution of marriage under the dmma means that the wife will not be returning her dower if paid. thus, our courts decide cases instantly but deprive the woman of her dower.54 4. case law on when does deferred dower become prompt while commenting on the importance of deferred dower the court observed in shah daraz case discussed above that, “the wisdom behind the classification of prompt and deferred dower is dependable upon the harmonious relation of the parties and particularly protection of right of women in unforeseen circumstances. the deferred dower is a sort of guarantee of a woman against ill-treatment, non-maintenance, desertion or any other abnormality in the matrimonial life including rash and arbitrary divorce.”55 the court has also reproduced the ratio from the supreme court decision regarding when should deferred dower becomes payable which had held, “that prompt dower is payable on 36 financial rights of woman … demand during the subsistence of the marriage tie whereas the deferred dower is payable on the time stipulated between the parties, but where no time is stipulated, it is payable on dissolution of marriage either by death or divorce. but, the deferred dower does not become “prompt” merely because the wife has demanded it.”56 the honourable high court has therefore held that, “deferred dower is payable on the time stipulated between the parties but where no time is stipulated, deferred dower did not become "prompt" merely because the wife had demanded the same, rather the same would be payable in the eventuality of dissolution of marriage either by death or divorce.”57 the court dismissed the petition of the husband. the honourable lahore high court has ruled in muhammad azam v a.d.j.58 that the wife was entitled to receive her deferred dower upon demand when her husband remarried. similarly in muhammad sajjad v a.d.j.59 the wife had sought recovery of dower, maintenance and dowery. the family court decreed her suit. the first appellate court upheld the same. the husband brought writ petition before the lhc. he assailed the decree on the ground that during the subsistence of his marriage he is not supposed to pay the deferred dower. the court ruled that the view that deferred dower could only be paid on death or divorce is not supported ‘by any recognized principle’; that ‘deferred dower shall always be treated as prompt if no specified period for the payment of dower is fixed’, that, ‘the classification of dower as prompt and deferred has no legal sanction behind it…’. the high court of azad jammu & kashmir has given a similar decision in tahir hanif v saira kosar60 on this point. in this case the wife filed two suits for recovery of deferred dower and maintenance. the dower was demanded at the time of rukhsati (wedding) and the husband promised to pay it after one year of the marriage. counsel for the husband relied on sadia usman’s case but justice sardar abdul hameed khan of shariat court of azad jammu & kashmir (aj&k) referred to an earlier decision of the lhc, dr subaira sultana case61 and held that if the time for the payment of deferred dower is not fixed “it will be payable on the eve of dissolution of marriage by death or divorce”.62 justice khan argued that the classification of prompt and deferred dower is practiced in society. it is incorporated for the convenience of the parties and does not have any legal sanction behind it. he asserted that deferred dower does not mean that it is waived or postponed until dissolution of marriage. the court did not interfere in the judgment and decrees passed by the trial court. it is pertinent to mention that the lhc had held earlier in dr subaira sultana63 case that if the time for the payment of deferred dower is not hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 37 fixed ‘it will be payable on demand of the wife’. however, there is a conflicting decision of the supreme court in sadia usman v m. usman64 in which sadia’s dower was fixed at pkr one million, half of it was prompt and was given as gold ornaments whereas half was deferred. dispute arose when the husband moved abroad and did not maintain his wife. sadia filed suit for recovery of deferred dower and maintenance. husband filed suit for restitution of conjugal rights. the family court decreed her suit for recovery of 500,000 and some money for maintenance. both parties appealed to the first appellate court which did not deal with recovery of dower and rather increased the amount of maintenance. both parties came to the islamabad high court in writ petitions and the court decided that the deferred dower cannot be paid during the subsistence of marriage unless it was agreed between the parties or death of either party or divorce. sadia appealed against this finding to the august supreme court where chief justice iftikhar muhammad chaudhry, as he then was, relied upon abdur rehman aljaziri’s kiéab al-fiqh ‘alé al-madhéhib al-arba‘ah, when he ruled that “we are of the opinion that prompt dower is payable on demand during the subsistence of the marriage tie whereas the deferred dower is payable on the time stipulated between the parties, but where no time is stipulated, it is payable on dissolution of marriage either by death or divorce. but the deferred dower does not become "prompt" merely because the wife has demanded it.”65 it is appropriate to mention what exactly is said in the original book of jaziri. while discussing the opinion within the hanafi school of thought, jaziri stated that “[a]nd when dower is specified for her: half of it prompt and half deferred and the time for the deferred is not mentioned, as if he said to her: ‘i marry you on 100, 50 prompt and 50 deferred and the time for the deferred [portion] is not specified, so, there is difference of opinion. some [jurists] argued, that the deferment is void and the entire dower shall be paid instantly; others say that the deferment is legal and it takes place at the time of separation either by death or divorce, and this is the correct view.”66 the above opinion seems to be available almost in verbatim in ‘alauddin al-kasani’s (587/1191)67 book as well as the famous fatéwa al-hindiya.68 the only addition in these two main treatises of the hanafi school of thought in the above text is the sentence, “as is the custom in our land” which is found in both badé’i‘ and fatawa. thus, it is through the force of custom, not the sanction of law, that the portion which is deferred becomes payable when the contract ends. the apex court has accepted this opinion within the hanafi school and endorsed 38 financial rights of woman … the decision of the ihc. the sadia usman’s case has been relied upon by the high courts in many cases.69 since this opinion has become a binding precedent, it can only be overruled either by a larger bench of the supreme court or by an amendment in law which would provide the quickest remedy for battered women for payment of their deferred dowers on demand. 5. legal effects of paid/unpaid dower: there are many legal effects depending on whether the dower is prompt fully or partially and when the prompt part is not paid for a specific period of time agreed by the husband and the wife. in case the dower is prompt and is not paid, the woman can refuse herself to the husband even if she has shifted to his house. in addition, the husband cannot legally prevent her from travelling, or going out of the house or from visiting her family. a husband cannot get back if he has given her part of the prompt dower because this was her legal right. it is the same if the dower was fixed but it was not mentioned whether the dower is prompt or deferred because dower is like a financial transaction in which both parties have the same rights.70 she cannot refuse herself to the husband if the time for payment of dower was fixed but it was not paid according to abu hanifah (d. 150/767) and muhammad b. hassan al-shaybani (d. 189/805) but abu yusuf (181/798) opines that she has the discretion to prevent herself.71 if the payment of the prompt dower was delayed for a month, she cannot refuse herself from her husband according to abu hanifah and shaybani because they consider it deferment due to an emergency but abu yusuf argues that she can refuse herself. however, in such a case if she did not refuse herself willingly from consummation or seclusion (khalvat al-saíêíah), she can still refuse herself till she receives her dower. similarly, he cannot prevent her from travelling according to abu hanifah but according to abu yusuf and shaybani, she cannot refuse herself whether the marriage is consummated or they had met in seclusion.72 in our part of the world in most cases half of the dower is prompt and half is deferred as is shown in many cases discussed below. in an earlier case of the subcontinent, the opinions of abu yusuf and shaybani were preferred. in abdul kadir v salima (1886) it was held that, “a muslim wife whose prompt dower had not been paid had no right to refuse herself to her husband if the marriage had earlier been consummated with her consent.” it was re-confirmed in anis begam v muhamamd istafa wali khan (1933), ns rabia khatoon v mohd hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 39 mukhtar ahmad (1966) which is still the position in india. however, in rahim jan v muhamamd, the lahore high court ruled according to the opinion of sahibayn when it said, “i do not find any principle of justice or reason by which the right of the wife to refuse the performance of marital obligations on account of non-payment of prompt dower may come to an end by her once surrendering herself.”73 this opinion was endorsed in nur-ud-din ahmad v masuda khanam when it held that, “the wife is under the muhammadan law entitled to refuse herself to her husband until and unless the prompt dower is paid to her”.74 the same was upheld in muhamamdi v jamil-ud-din in which it was ruled that, “another ground on which she can refuse to go to her husband’s house is the non-payment of the prompt dower.”75 this is the position in pakistan and bangladesh as far as case law is concerned. this view was confirmed in chanani begum v muhamamd shafiq,76muhammad ishaque v rukhsana begum.77 6. amount of dower on non-consummation of marriage under islamic law only half of the dower is payable in case of dissolution of marriage before consummation in case it is specified. however, in case it is not named and the marriage is dissolved, only mut‘ah is to be paid. allah says, “there is no blame upon you if you divorce your wives before you have touched them or settled a bridal gift upon them. but even in this case you should make some provision for them: the affluent, according to his means; the straitened, according to his means – a provision in fair manner. that is a duty upon the gooddoers. and if you divorce them before you touch them or settle a bridal gift upon them, then (give them) half of what you have settled unless either the women act leniently and forgo their claim, or he in whose hand is the marriage tie acts leniently (and pays the full amount). if you act leniently, it is closer to god-fearing. and forget not to act gracefully with one another, for indeed allah sees all that you do.”78marginani (d. 593/1197) argues that “mut‘ah is three dresses (that is three parts of a dress) according to the apparel of a woman of her status. these are the shirt, head covering, and the lion cloth.”79 in muhammad akbar v shazia bibi80 the husband/petitioner had transferred 99 kanals of land as dower for his wife/respondent as dower in 2004 when the marriage was solemnized. the marriage never took place and the wife was divorced. the husband alleged in his suit that the land was fraudulently transferred to the wife. the family court decreed husband’s suit but the respondent’s appeal was accepted by the first appellate court. the lahore high court dismissed the husband’s appeal and upheld the 40 financial rights of woman … decision of the first appellate court. the husband appealed to the honourable supreme court on the ground that the marriage was never consummated. the supreme court ruled that she is entitled to half of the dower because the marriage was not consummated. 7. maintenance of the wife the husband is under a legal obligation to maintain his wife throughout the existence of matrimonial relationship. it is difficult to find case law on maintenance during the marriage, however, problems surface as soon as the marriage is dissolved where the wife always claims maintenance amount till the end of her ‘iddat (waiting period) and permanent allowance. important issues regarding maintenance of wife are explained under islamic law first. allah says in the holy qur’én, “(during the waiting period) lodge them according to your means wherever you dwell, and do not harass them to make them miserable. and if they are pregnant, provide for them maintenance until they have delivered their burden. and if they suckle your offspring whom they bore you, then give them due recompense, and graciously settle the question of compensation between yourselves by mutual understanding. but if you experience difficulty (in determining the compensation for suckling) then let another woman suckle the child.”81 allah the exalted says in the holy qur’én regarding suckling of babies that “(in such a case) it is incumbent upon him who has begotten the child to provide them (i.e. divorced women) their sustenance and clothing in a fair manner. but none shall be burdened with more than he is able to bear; neither shall a mother suffer because of her child nor shall the father be made to suffer because he has begotten him. the same duty towards the suckling mother rests upon the heir as upon him (i.e. the father).”82 in addition, allah says, “whoever has abundant means, let him spend according to his means; and he whose means are straitened, let him spend out of what allah has given him. allah does not burden any human being beyond the means that he has bestowed upon him. possibly allah will grant ease after hardship.”83 the prophet muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam has emphasized on the maintenance of women in his last sermon when he said that, “[a]nd it is incumbent upon you [men] to provide them [your wives] clothing and sustenance in a fair manner.”84 the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is also reported to have told hind, the wife of abu sufyan, when she complained against her husband, “[t]ake from the property of abu sufyan what you need for yourself and your child in a fair manner.”85 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 41 in case of separation between the spouses if the husband divorced her, she is entitled to lodging and maintenance during the ‘iddat period whether the divorce is revocable or irrevocable and whether she is pregnant or not as long as the marriage is consummated.86 similarly, when separation is caused without divorce, she is entitled to lodging and maintenance on the above analogy.87 in case the separation is caused through khul‘ initiated by the husband on the condition that she will not be entitled to maintenance as well as lodging, she will still be entitled to lodging but not maintenance because lodging has the right of god in it, therefore she does not have the right to waive it.88 however, if she initiated separation through khul‘ on the condition that she will waive off her maintenance, she has the right to do so.89 this is so because her right to maintenance is already proven and she is allowed to leave it as compensation for khul‘. when dissolution of marriage is caused by the husband, she is entitled to lodging and maintenance whether it is affected by legal means or illegal ways as if he has sexual intercourse with her daughter from another marriage or mother when the marriage between the husband and wife is already consummated. however, when the dissolution is affected by her through a legal mean or an illegal way such as if she commits apostacy or kissed his father or son [from another marriage], she is not entitled to maintenance but is entitled to lodging on the basis of istiísén. however, if we use analogy, she will be entitled to both.90 in shazia v muhammad nasir91 the peshawar high court awarded maintenance to the wife and her child at the rate of rs. 2000 per month for the period she prayed for, and the minor child was awarded maintenance at the rate of rs. 1500 per month for the period the petitioner prayed for till his majority with 10% annual increase. the respondent had also contracted second marriage without the permission of the petitioner. the respondent husband could not prove that his wife had left voluntarily. the court held that maintenance is neither a gift nor a benefit but an undeniable legal obligation of husband. in syed abu talib shah v bibi rukhsar zahra92 it was held by the peshawar high court that a wife residing away from her husband on the basis of a lawful excuse is entitled to her right of maintenance whereas in kashif akram v mst. naila 201193 a wife who had deserted her husband without any lawful reason was held not entitled to past maintenance. in khalid bashir v shamas-un-nisa94 it was held that a child is to be maintained by the father even though the mother earns livelihood. according to marghinani, “[t]he maintenance of minor children is the 42 financial rights of woman … liability of the father and no one else participates in this with him, just like no one else participates with him in the maintenance of the wife.”95 as explained above the holy qur’én has put this duty on the father.96 in shayan through mst. shamim v nisar ahmad97 the lahore high court ruled that a mother cannot waive the maintenance right of a child by entering into an agreement with a father. it was held in gakhar hussain v surrayya begum98 that a father is required to maintain his unmarried daughter even when she is earning her living. the lhc has held in ch. muhammad bashir v ansarun nisa99 that a father is to maintain his unmarried adult daughters. this is so even if an unmarried daughter who refused to marry according to the wishes of her father.100 similarly, a divorced daughter, even when living separately, is to be maintained by the father as per the decision in manzoor hussain v safiya bibi101 by the lahore high court. the same was held in mian muhammad sabir v uzma parveen102 in which the divorced daughter was living with her divorced mother and not the father. the questions whether an adult son should be maintained by his father depends on the circumstances of his father and the son. in general, a son is maintained till attaining the age of puberty. 8. financial stipulations promised by the husbands to give a certain amount of money or compensation in case of divorce103 this section evaluates selected decisions from 2009 to 2017 on the following specific legal questions, first, whether the amount stipulated in the marriage deed that a man promises to give to his wife in the event of divorce is judicially declared as binding? secondly, can courts impose a penalty on the husband for divorcing his wife without any just cause, especially when she has committed no wrong and wants to keep her relation? finally, what are the formulations of muslim jurists regarding these conditions?104 in islamic law only the hanbali school of thought consider such stipulations as binding whereas the jamhër (the majority) of jurisprudents of the shéfi‛ê’s’105, malikis106 and hanafis,107 treat such conditions as invalid. the opinion of the hanbalis seem very strong, specific and solid,108 especially the prophetic saying, “the worthiest of all the conditions to be fulfilled are those that legalized women for you”109 which is the most important evidence produced by the hanbalis. however, courts in pakistan have not paid any attention to the opinion of hanbali jurists as far as this issue is concerned. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 43 both the august supreme court and the lahore high court have given conflicting judgments on whether the sum of money promised by the husband to recompense the wife in the eventuality of divorce. unfortunately, both the honourable courts have based their decisions on technicalities without articulating the merits of these stipulations. in addition, courts have not ventured to examine the position of muslim jurisprudents regarding such terms that are favourable to women. courts have delved into the issue whether family courts have the powers to decide such cases. in nasrullah v district judge,110 the main point before the lahore high court was whether the sum promised by the appellant to be given to his spouse can be treated as an ‘actionable claim’ and whether it is a ‘property’ for the purpose of item no. 9 of the schedule to the family courts act, 1964. the lhc answered the question in affirmative and confirmed the findings of the first appellate court. however, the decision of lhc in muhammad akram v mst. hajra bibi111is the polar opposite of nasrullah case. in this case another bench of the same court reached a different conclusion, that is, the promised sum is not an ‘actionable claim’ or property under item no. 9 of the schedule to section 5, i.e. “personal property and belonging of the wife.”112 the court gave a new interpretation to the phrase ‘personal property’ or ‘belonging’ available in item no. 9 and declared them as a “residuary provision”113, which can be used by the ex-partner to get back assets she had acquired during the existence of her wedded relation. the court declared items of personal use, such as clothes, or jewelry, and gifts she was given. the court ruled that whatever has not yet become the property of the ex-wife, rather she “has a claim to recover from the husband”114 is thereby exempted and it cannot be designated as an ‘actionable claim’ as per section 130 of the transfer of property act, 1882 (topa).115 in the opinion of the court ‘actionable claim’, is the one “for which an action will lie, furnishing a legal ground for an action and according to section 3 of the transfer of property act, a claim towards a debt.”116 the court ruled that the case does not fall in the jurisdiction of the family court.117 while deciding syedmukhtar hussain shah v saba imtiaz118 in the apex court, justice nisar, as he then was, elaborated his previous position in muhammad akram case and critically evaluated the decision of the lhc in nasrullah case,119explained earlier where such stipulations were declared valid and binding. he added to his earlier arguments that “when in entry no. 9 ‘actionable claim’ has not been provided by the legislature, it shall be improper and shall impinge upon the legislative intent and the rules of interpretation to add this 44 financial rights of woman … expression to the clause/entry.”120 it would have been appropriate to resort to the mpl (shariat) act discussed above as the issue was provided for by codified family law. the lhc has taken a different view in muhammad amjad v azra bibi.121 surprisingly, all the judgments discussed above did not take into account the decision of the apex court in muhammad aslam v mst. fateh khatoon,122 in which the amount promised by the ex-husband had been duly awarded. the crux of what is discussed in this section is that initially few conflicting judgments were given be the lhc but the matter was settled after the latest decision of the supreme court, that is, syed mukhtar hussain shah123which affirmed the view that cases involving such conditions in favour of women are outside the jurisdiction of family courts. in the punjab the schedule to the fca was amended in 2015 by adding the provision, “[a]ny other matter arising out of the nikéínémah”124 as a further ground for jurisdiction of the family courts. this means that the above decision of the supreme court in syed mukhtar hussain shah125is binding in the rest of the country and family courts have no jurisdiction in this issue. however, such amendments are required in the rest of the country to overrule the effect of this decision. 9. gifting the corpus or usufruct of the property to a woman: exploring a hidden legal circumvention to benefit helpless women some authors criticize the islamic law of inheritance. they argue that the one-eighth share of the wife in the estate of her late husband in case he has children is not enough.126 however, this can be addressed easily by the husband before his death by gifting either the corpus of his property or its usufruct. should this happen, his estate will not be divided upon his death and that his wife will either be the sole owner or will enjoy its benefits till her death. this procedure is known as gifting the corpus or benefits of the property and is used in situations where the wife is either issueless or it is feared that the children might throw their mother out of the family property and she will have nowhere to go.127 islamic law contemplates a gift as a “transfer of property or benefits thereof to another person for no consideration”.128 section 122 of the topa characterizes it as “the transfer of certain existing moveable or immoveable property made voluntarily and without hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 45 consideration, by one person, called the donor, to another, called the donee, and accepted by or on behalf of the donee.”129 the application of the law of inheritance to all, or some parts of the real property could be delayed by gifting of all or some parts of the estate.130 there are some conditions attached with hiba ‘umra (life grant) and ruqba.131the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) legalized ‘umra but did not allow ruqba. according to the hanafi interpretation, the conditions attached to ruqba are that the property will revert to the donor if the donee died before him. but if the donor died before the donee, then the property will remain with him or her (the donee). in other words, the one who survives the other will possess the estate. however, the hanafis consider the gift of ‘umrais an absolute one. there are different forms of hiba like hiba-bil-iwadand hiba-bishartul-iwad. hiba-bil-iwad literally means gift-for-gift or gift with something as compensation, a gift for which the donee pays a contribution voluntarily to the donor. thus, it seems like exchange of gifts by the two. the two gifts are not equal in value. giving the gift in compensation has enormous legal significance because once the return gift is given, it renders the gifts irrevocable and final. the compensatory gift is only symbolic in value as it is always trivial and insignificant in contrast to the first gift. the hanafi jurists also declare irrevocable gifts between individuals who are blood relatives within the prohibited degrees as well as gifts between husband and wife. hiba-bi-shartuliwad literally means gift with a condition for a reward, that is, when the donor asks for a certain thing as a reward. thus, it is like a barter arrangement. the south asian hiba-bil-iwad is considered by lucy as a unique transaction. she argues that it evolved in hindustan and was very much practiced when the english took over. she refers to this arrangement as ‘south asian hiba-bil-iwad.’ the british courts treated it as a unique arrangement as it was a circumvention of the law of inheritance. she asserts that the south asian hiba-bil-iwad is different from hiba-bi-shartul-iwad as well as hiba-bil-iwad which are well known in islamic law.132 she argues that “[b]ecause the ‘iwad is an integral part of the bargain from the beginning (rather than a spontaneous after-thought on the part of the donee), the south asian transaction, to this extent, resembles the hiba-bi-shartul-iwad. but it 46 financial rights of woman … differs from the hiba-bi-shartul-iwad in that there is no correlation in value between the two items exchanged, as in the hiba-bi’l-‘iwad, the ‘iwad may be (and often is) trivial and the transaction is essentially gratuitous.”133 she states that “the classical hiba-bi-shartul-iwad only becomes subject to the law of sale after possession of each component item has been delivered.”134 islamic “law makes a fundamental distinction between the substance of a thing, the corpus, and the use, profits, or benefits of that thing, the usufruct. ownership of the corpus of property and the right to use/enjoy/appropriate the usufruct of the property are separate and distinct aspects of a thing, and are capable of being transferred independently, as long as the inter vivos transfer involving the usufruct occurs first to different persons.”135 under ‘ariyat the benefits of the property are given whereas the corpus is not given.136 when an ‘ariyat is made for life time of the donee, it is called ‘umra. it is fitting to note that the jurisprudence developed in pakistan has reputed any customary or non-islamic transactions of ‘umra or gift of usufruct and they have been judging every such transaction as per the tenets of islamic law. our courts seem to have given different interpretations to the gift of usufruct and the gift of corpus. according to this interpretation, if a gift is intended to be usufruct only the condition of reversion of such property would be valid but if a gift of corpus is given then condition violative of the transfer of corpus is declared invalid. in mst. khan bibi v safia begum137the main issue before the lahore high court was whether a ‘life grant’ in favor of wife (respondent) was a gift of usufruct till her death and the property would revert to heirs of the donor or the donor himself or whether it be treated as ‘umra gift thereby the respondent widow be considered as the owner of the contested house and the stipulation of reversion be declared as void. the stipulation in the deed stated that “after the death of the wife, the whole house will revert to the donor or his heirs in its entirety.”138 the deceased had left two houses one of which was not contested but the second was given to his wife till her death. the case was brought by one of the two sisters of the deceased husband who was survived by his mother, widow, and two sisters. the trial court denied the claim of the sister and ruled in favour of the widow. the honourable lahore high court rejected the decision of the trial court and held that “[i]n these circumstances, it cannot be said that mst. ghulam safia took the property as an absolute owner. the ownership of the corpus of the house in question was kept by deceased abdur raheem and only hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 47 usufruct was gifted to the wife for her enjoyment during her lifetime.”139 the court took notice of the death of mst. ghulam safia during the pendency of the case and ruled that “the life interest created by abdur raheem in her favour has come to an end.”140 the court reverted the house to the husband and ordered it to be open for distribution amongst his legal heirs. in said akbar v mst. kakai141 a deed regarding land of 200 kanals was executed in favour of mst. totia begum by her brother on the condition to marry the appellant. upon the death of mst. totia begum the appellant asked the civil court to issue a declaration making him the only owner of the land in question after the demise of his wife to set aside the mutation of inheritance for providing to mst. kakai ½ of the estate. he argued that mst. totia khan had only a life interest in the said estate as he was the genuine grantee of the property in question. the trial court agreed with the assertions of the appellant and ruled that since the donee was prohibited under the deed to alienate the property or create any encumbrance, therefore, she only had a life interest and that mst. kakaihas no right to any share in the property. on appeal the district judge endorsed the decision of the trial court. mst. kakai appealed to the high court but she died during the pendency of the case. the high court ruled that the instrument was a gift of corpus and not the benefits of the property in favour of mst. totia begum and that the condition of prohibition of any mortgage or sale or alienation during her lifetime was void under islamic law. after considering the terms of the deed and relevant case law the honourable supreme court ruled that “we have no doubt in our mind that the gift in favour of mst. totia begum was of the corpus and was not merely of the usufruct for her life: rather it constituted her to be full owner of the property and the prohibition against any transfer or mortgage of the property by her during lifetime, being in defeasance of her rights under the gift the well settled principle of law became void.”142 the court opined that the gift was meant to convince the woman to marry the appellant and was thus a precondition for the validity of the gift. the apex court referred to nawazish ali v ali raza khan143 in which the privy council had established that “over the corpus of property the law recognises only absolute dominion, heritable, and unrestricted in point of time and where a gift of the corpus seeks to impose a condition inconsistent with such absolute dominion the condition is rejected as repugnant.”144 the appeal was, therefore, dismissed. 48 financial rights of woman … in farid v mst. noor bibi145 the main question deliberated upon before the lahore high court was that whether a land measuring 52 kanals and 10 marlas gifted to the wife could be revoked by the donor husband once it is completed in favour of the respondent. the husband gifted land to his wife upon marriage and the gift deed contained the stipulation that the land is given to her یتاکنح اثین ای نیح ایح (for life or remarriage). the husband soon divorced the wife and sued to have the gift deed cancelled arguing that it was given for her maintenance and that he is no more responsible to maintain her. the ex-wife contended that the grant was a gift which was complete in all respects and could not be revoked. the trial court declared the condition as void and the gift as complete and the learned district judge endorsed the same. the lahore high court argued that the phrase, that is, for life or remarriage “is a typical phrase with regard to the limited estate of a female under custom.”146 the court ruled that “the general rule of custom for the creation of such an estate is that in the absence of sons and descendants in the male line, the widows take the land on a life interest”147 and that “this right to hold the estate for life originated in her undoubted right to maintenance.”148 the court reasoned that “the gift in favour of the respondent is complete and absolute and the condition being void” and that “she has acquired heritable title in the land in dispute.”149 the court dismissed the case with costs. in abdul hameed v muhammad mohiyuddin150the main question before the larger bench of the honourable supreme court was whether a gift by the husband to his wife for life could be construed as a complete gift of immovable property, the condition of usufruct being void. the deceased husband had three wives, mst. karam noor being one of them and the two other wives had already died. the husband had duly mutated one of his immovable properties in the name of mst. karam noor. she died on 24 april 1985 and the plaintiffs got their share in the disputed property. it is at this point that the respondents challenged the order of mutation before the relevant assistant commissioner and the relevant tehsildar treated mst. karam noor as the exclusive owner of the disputed property which order was challenged before the trial court but the same was dismissed. the trial court considered the deed as ‘tamlêk’(ownership) which he treated as a gift and ruled that any condition thereby is void. the same was endorsed by the first appellate court and a single judge of the lahore high court held that the gift was valid and the condition was void. in appeal before the supreme court the counsel for the appellants argued hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 49 that since the land was given to the donee for her maintenance during her lifetime which means she has interest in the usufruct of the land but not the land itself. he stressed on the words guzérah (maintenance) and ta heenhayat (till she lives) in the mutation record. he pointed out that if the intention was to make her exclusive owner the donor would not use these words and phrases.151 he, however, agreed that if the corpus of property is gifted then attaching any condition contrary to the absolute ownership to the donee is treated as void.152 the court unnecessarily delved into almost all ahédêth literature about ‘umara; reproduced formulations of muslim jurists from secondary sources; and various english translations of many treatises of islamic law of the hanafi school of thought about ‘umara’, ‘ariyat’ and related terms in islamic law were quoted. the judgement also scanned the history of islamization in pakistan and its possible impact on the legal system without deriving any important conclusion for the case in hand. the court concluded that the gift of the husband was ‘umara and was a complete gift of property under islamic law153 and the condition attached to it was void.154 this case shows how close family members try to deprive women of any gift given to them by their husbands as the case was dismissed by five different forums, that is, the tehsildar, the trial court, the first appellate court, the high court and, finally a larger bench of the supreme court but the respondents were persistent in their baseless claim. in mst. raj bibi v province of punjab155 mr. habib ullah shah had duly gifted 146 kanals and one marla of land to his wife, mst. bhirawan bibi. upon the death of mr. habib ullah his legal heirs got mutation of inheritance in their favour in 1968. the widow challenged this mutation in the court of collector who accepted her appeal and declared her the full owner of the land. the legal heirs appealed to additional commissioner who accepted the appeal and declared mst. bhirawan as limited owner of the land in dispute. the widow challenged the decision in the civil court which was vehemently contested by the respondents. the civil court dismissed the case and ruled against her. in addition, her appeal was also dismissed by the first appellate court. thereby a civil revision was filed in the lahore high court on 25 april 1999 which was allowed. the same order was challenged by the respondents before the supreme court which remanded the same back to the high court. the court declared the gift as ‘umara156 arguing that the document had fulfilled all the ingredients of a gift; that the case is identical to abdul hameed v muhammad mohyuddin157, discussed above, thereby similar cases shall be decided 50 financial rights of woman … similarly. the court accepted the revision petition and set aside the judgments/decrees of the courts below and decreed the suit of mst. bhirawan. in haji muhammad yaqoob v muhammad riaz khan158 the main question before a single bench of honourable peshawar high court was that whether a gift in lieu of dower was hiba-bil-iwad; whether physical delivery of possession would not be necessary to complete the gift; and whether any condition attached to the gift would make it a gift of corpus or usufruct. as per the facts of the case fateh muhammad khan, grandfather of the petitioners, had transferred the land in dispute to his daughter-in-law, mst. mehboob sultana (step mother of the petitioners) through a registered dower deed (kabinnama). it was, however, stipulated that she could use the property for her life or her second marriage, but she had no right to mortgage or sell it and that the property would devolve upon her male children after her death. however, the revenue record had shown mst. mehboob sultana as full owner of the property and that she died issueless. her husband had two sons from his second wife. the petitioners brought a suit asking the court to set aside the mutation on the basis that a fatherin-law could not give dower to his daughter-in-law; that according to the deed document, mst. mehboob sultana had limited ownership and not full ownership; and that the mutations were the result of fraud and collusion. the civil court decreed the suit in favour of the petitioners. the same was, however, appealed to the first appellate court which was accepted and a revision petition was brought before the high court. his lordship, mr. yahya afridi produced many verses of the holy qur’én regarding the place and importance of dower; highlighted many aíédêth of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) regarding gifting the corpus or interest in property; delved into the formulations of muslim jurists about gifting the corpus or interest in property; and examined leading cases on the subject to conclude that the august supreme court has already ruled that “in cases of hiba-bil-iwaz [hibabil-iwaì] in lieu of dower and/or marriage, physical delivery of possession would not be necessary so as to complete the gift.”159 the supreme court had already ruled in murid hussain v ghulam ahmad160 that “questions of acceptance of such a gift or proof of delivery of possession were not relevant.”161 the court highlighted another aspect of a gift given to a bride by stating that “the sanctity attributed to the said transfer had been held and placed in at a much higher legal pedestal than a gift made to any other person.”162 the court concluded that the hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 51 transfer to mst. mehboob sultana was valid, binding and lawful and that “the stipulation of her enjoying such benefits during her life time would be void”; that “the stipulation of male lineage to inherit, would surely constitute the clear intention of the donor to pass on complete and absolute corpus of the disputed property to mst. mehboob sultana.”163the court endorsed the decision of the first appellate court and dismissed the revision petition. it can be seen that in the vast majority of cases the closest family members who would otherwise inherit in the absence of the gift to the wife try their best to exhaust all venues and many of them reach even the apex court, however, the high courts as well as the supreme court follow the letter and spirit of islamic law in this regard which is favourable to helpless and battered women. 10. conclusion under islamic law as well as pakistani family law wife is entitled to dower which may be prompt or deferred. unfortunately, judicial interpretation is divided on the issue whether a deferred dower becomes prompt when demanded by the wife or whether it is only given upon the dissolution of marriage through divorce or death. the current interpretation of this issue by the august supreme court in sadia usman case164may be removed by the state through an amendment in the muslim family law ordinance, 1961 (mflo). this is the only way to overrule the decision of the supreme court on this issue and bind husbands towards their obligations. secondly, maintaining the wife is the responsibility of the husband under islamic law as well as pakistani law. courts have given conflicting decisions on the issue when it is stipulated in a marriage contract that the husband has to pay a certain amount as damages or penalty or compensation. once again, the decision of the supreme court in syed mukhtar hussain shah165may easily be overruled by an amendment in the schedule of the fca, 1964throughout the country under which family courts could be given jurisdictions to decide issues where a husband stipulates that he will pay a certain amount of money as penalty or compensation or damages. the province of the punjab has already amended the law where family courts have got jurisdiction in such matters. this means that the above decision of the supreme court is binding in the rest of the country where family courts have no jurisdiction in this issue. this interpretation is not only against the injunctions of islamic law but is also against the standards of justice, fairness, and equity in addition to the denial of financial right to battered women. finally, under islamic 52 financial rights of woman … law as well as case law a husband can gift the corpus of the property or the benefits of the same (usufruct) to his wife and that courts have by and large accepted such gifts as valid and binding. in the majority of reported cases where husbands have gifted the properties with conditions such as ‘till her life’ or ‘for her maintenance’ or ‘the property to be given to her children upon her death’, the courts have declared the gifts accompanied by such stipulations as the gift of the corpus of property and have ruled such conditions as void and without any legal effect. thus, where husbands have given rights in properties to their wives, courts have endorsed the same and have given interpretation that favour women. in the majority of cases discussed above, courts have established elaborate principles of islamic law as per the hanafi school and have continuously followed these principles. references 1 see, section 2 of muslim personal law act (mpla) 1962 available at <http://punjablaws.gov.pk/laws/135.html> (last accessed 18 april 2021). 2 act x of 1991 available online at <http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/legislation/1991/actxof1991.html> (last accessed 12 november 2020). 3 ibid. 4 ibid. 5 see, muhammad munir, “fast-track procedure and slow-track results: time frame of family law case disposals in pakistan”, lums law journal, 8, no. 1, (2021): 43-60, also available at <https://sahsol.lums.edu.pk/sites/default/files/fast-track_procedure.pdf> (las visited 6 february 2022). 6 muhammad akmaluddin al-babarti, al-‘ainayahsharh al-hidayah (beirut: dar alfikr, n.d.), 3:316. 7 muhammad amin ibn. ‘aabidin, radd al-muhtar ‘ala al-durr al-mukhtar [of haskafi] (beirut: dar al-fikr, 3rd. edn. 1992), 3:101. 8 he is muhammad b. muhammad al-khjandi but is famous with the name qawamuddin al-kaki (d. 749 a.h.). he is the author of mi‘raj al-dirayah fi sharh alhidayah, and jémi‘ al-asrér fi sharí al-manar. see, muhammad ‘abdul hayy allaknawai, al-fawé’id al-bahiyah fi taréjim al-hanafiyah, ed. ahmad al-zu‘bi (beirut: dar al-arqam, 1998), 186. 9 mahmud b. muhammad badruddin al-‘ayni, al-binayahsharh al-hidéayah, ed., ayman salih sha‘ban (beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 2000), 5:131. 10 qur’an, 4:4. 11 qur’an, 4:24, 25, 5:25, 33:50, 60:10. 12 qur’an, 2:236, 237, 4:24 13 qur’an 4:25. 14 the word mahr is used in the hadêth in which the prophet is reported to have said, “so if he had sex with her, she is entitled to mahr …”. abud dawud suliman b. al-asha‘th, al-sunnan, kitab al-nikah, bab fi al-wali, hadith no. 2085. 15 hans wehr, a dictionary of modern written arabic, ed., j. milton cowan (beirut: librairie du liban, 1974, rep. 1980), 509 http://punjablaws.gov.pk/laws/135.html http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/legislation/1991/actxof1991.html https://sahsol.lums.edu.pk/sites/default/files/fast-track_procedure.pdf hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 53 16 which is indemnity for illicit sexual intercourse with a woman slave. see, ibid., at 629. 17qur’an, 4:24. 18 qur’an, 4:4. 19 qur’an, 2:236. 20kamaluddin b. humam, sharhfathulqadeer ‘ala al-hidayah, ed. ‘abdurrazzaq almahdi (beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 2003), 3:305. 21 jamal j. nasir, the status of women under islamic law and modern islamic legislation, (leiden: brill, 2009), 87. also available at <https://brill.com/view/book/9789004182196/bp000006.xml> (last accessed 28 april 2021). 22 ‘alauddin abu bakr al-kasani, bada’i’ al-sana’i’ fi tartib al-shara’i‘, ed., muhammad ‘adnan derveesh (beirut: dar ihya’ al-turath al-‘arabi, 2000), 2: 584. 23 qur’an, 2:237. 24kasani, bada’i’ 2:559. 25 ibid. 26 see, muhammad abu zahrah, al-ahwal al-shakhsiyah (cairo: dar al-fikr al-‘arabi 2005), 182. 27 fakhruddin ‘ali b. uthman al-zaila‘iy, tabi‘ên al-haqa’iqsharhkanzul al-daqa’iq (cairo: al-matba‘a al-kubra, 1313 a.h.), 2:154. also see, wahbah al-zuhaili, al-fiqh al-islamiwaadillatuhu (damascus: dar al-fikr, 3rdedn. 1989), 7:266. 28 al-dhusuliman al-dhu, ahkam al-mahr fi al-fiqh al-islami unpublished masters dissertation in comparative fiqh submitted to the faculty of shari‘ah& law at alazhar university, egypt, 1978, 86. 29shahbuddin al-shalabi, hashiyat al-shalabi ‘ala hamish tabi‘ên al-haqa’q li alzaila‘iy (cairo: al-matba‘a al-amiriyah, 1313 a.h.), 2:154. 30 see, salah muhammad abul haj, al-khra’it al-zihniyah fi al-ziwajwa al-talaq ‘inda al-hanafiyah (‘amman: markazanwarul ‘ulamalidirasat, 2020), 30. 31burhanuddin al-marghinani, al-hidayah, transl. imran a. k. nyazee (bristol: amal press, 2006), 1: 507. kasani, bada’i’, 2: 561. also see, kasani, badé’i‘, 2: 561. dirham is a silver coin and is equal to 35 grams of silver or one dinar of gold of five grams. see, abul haj, al-khra’it, 30. 32 see, abul hasan ali al-dar qutni, sunan al-darqutni, bab al-mahr, 3: 245. 33niîéb is the minimum amount of property which if stolen would make the accused liable to the cutting of his hand if proven guilty. in pakistan the minimum niîéb for theft as per section 6 of the enforcement of hudud ordinance vi of 1979 is 4.457 grams of gold. 34marghinani, al-hidayah, 1: 508. 35 muhammad b. isma‘il al-bukhari, al-jémi‘ al-saíêí, kitabfaza’il al-qur’én, hadêth no. 5030. 36 muhammad b. ‘ali al-shawkani, nail al-awtarsharhmuntaqa al-akhbar (cairo: matba‘a mustafa al-babi al-halabi, n.d.), 6: 195. 37kasani, badé’i‘, 2: 562. 38abdul qadir v salima (1886) ilr 8 all 149, para. 12. 39 the court has thus alluded to the two types of dower, i.e. prompt (mu‘jjal) and deferred (mu‘jjal). 40anwarul hassan siddiqui v family judge, pld 1980 kar. 477, at 483. 41zarin qaisha v arbab wali mohd, pld 1976 pesh. 128, para. 4. 42 2015 mild 73 [pesh.]. also available online at <https://cite.pakcaselaw.com/mldpeshawar-high-court/2015/73/> (last accessed 28 april 2021). 43 one tolé equals 11.663 grams. 442012 ylr 2841 lahore. https://brill.com/view/book/9789004182196/bp000006.xml https://cite.pakcaselaw.com/mld-peshawar-high-court/2015/73/ https://cite.pakcaselaw.com/mld-peshawar-high-court/2015/73/ 54 financial rights of woman … 45 section 10(4) of the family courts act, 1964. 462012 ylr 2841 lahore, para. 9. 47 2006 clc 1662. 48 pld 2006 lahore 158. 49 ibid., para. 8. 50 pld 2009 lahore 484. 51 ibid. 522012 ylr 2841 lahore, para. 9. 53 pld 2007 lahore 626. 54 for details of the various aspects of khul‘ in islamic law and pakistani legal system, see, muhammad munir, “the law of khul‘ in islamic law and the legal system of pakistan‘lums law journal, 2, no. 2 (2015):33-63; and muhammad munir, “challenging state authority or running a parallel judicial system?: ‘ulama versus the judiciary in pakistan”, lums law journal, 4, no. 1 (2017): 1-28; muhammad munir, “islami shariat awr pakistani qanun mei khul‘ ki haysiyatt: rasool akram salallahu ‘aliyhi wassalm ki sunnat ya ‘adalati ijtihad? (khul’ between islamic and pakistani law: sunnah of the prophet (pbuh) or judicial ijtihad?), shariah academy, international islamic university, islamabad, 2017; and muhammad munir, “one step forward, two steps back: the unending twist and turn regarding the law of khul‘ and its exposition by the superior courts in pakistan”, manchester journal of transnational islamic law & practice, 17, no. 1 (2021): 133-149. 55 ibid., at para. 9. 56 ibid., para. 10. 57 2015 mild 73, para. 11. 58 plj 2006 lah. 927. 59 pld 2015 lah. 405. 60 2016 ylr 440. 61 2000 clc1384. 62 2016 ylr 440, para. 17. 63 2000 clc 1384. 64 2009 scmr 1458. 65 2009 scmr 1458, para. 16. per c.j., iftikhar muhammad chaudhry for the full bench. 66 abdur rehman al-jaziri, kitab al-fiqh ‘ala al-madhahib al-arba‘ah, (beirut: dar al-kutub al-ilmiyah, 2nd edn. 2003), 4:139. 67 ‘alauddin abu bakr al-kasani, badé’i’ al-sané’i’ fi tartêb al-sharé’i‘, ed., muhammad ‘adnan derveesh (beirut: dar ihya’ al-turath al-‘arabi, 2000), 2: 580. 68fatéwa ‘ólamgiriya, (quetta: maktaba rashidiya, n.d.), 1:318. 69 see for example, syed sajjad hussain v judge family court, 2019 clc 1462. 70 kasani, badé’i’, 2:580. 71 ibid. 72 ibid., 2:251. 73 pld 1955 lah, 122, per justice kaikaus who adopted the view of abu hanifah. 74 pld 1957 dacca 242, per justice (rahman j). 75 pld 1960 (w.p.) kar. 663. 76 1985 mld 310. 77 pld 1988 kar. 625. 78 the holy qur’én, 2:236, 237. 79 burhanuddin al-marghinani, al-hidayah, transl. imran a. k. nyazee (bristol: amal press, 2006), 1:509. 80 pld 2014 sc 693. 81 the holy qur’én, 65:6. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 55 82 the holy qur’én, 2:233. 83 the holy qur’én, 65:7. 84 abu dawud, sunan, hadith no. 1908, and ahmad b. hanbal, al-musnad, 3:320. 85 bukhari, al-jami‘, kitab al-nafaqat, hadith no. 5364. also see, muslim b. al-hajjaj alnayshapuri, sahih muslim, kitab al-aqdiyah, hadith no. 1714. 86 kasani, badé’i’, 3:419. 87 ibid. 88 ibid. 89 ibid. 90 ibid. 912014 ylr 1563 (pesh). 922012 clc 1272 pesh. 93mld 571 karachi. 942015 mld 11 (lah). 95 marghinani, al-hidayah, 2:95. 96 the holy qur’én, 2:233. 972010 mld 695 (lah). 98pld 2013 lah 464. 992012 mld 1394 (lah). 100muhammad ali v judge family court, depalpur, 2010 ylr 520 (lah). 101pld 2015 lah 683. 102pld 2012 lah 154. 103 this section is an adaptation of muhammad munir, “multiplying zeroes: (in)validity of promises in marriage contracts under pakistani case law”, lums law journal 6, no. 1 (2019): 1-14. also available online at <https://sahsol.lums.edu.pk/lawjournal/multiplying-zeroes-invalidity-promises-marriage-contracts-under-pakistanicase-law> (last accessed 28 april 2021). 104 see, ibid. 105 abu zakariya al-nawawi, kitab al-majmu‘sharh al-muhadhab, (cairo: dar al-kutub al-islamiyah, 1982), 16: 250. 106 ibn rushd abu walid, bidayat al-mujtahid, (makkah: maktab nazar, 1995), 2:59. 107 see, ‘abdullah b. ahmad b. mahmoomd al-nasafi, al-bahr al-ra’iq sharh kanz aldaqa’iq along with manhatul khaliq ‘ala al-bahr al-ra’iq, ed., zakariya ‘umayrat, (beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 1997), 4:98 and neil b.e. baillie, a digest of moohummudan law, (london: 2nd edn., 1875 repr. lahore, 1965), 1:76. 108 muhammad munir, “stipulations in a muslim marriage contract with special reference to talaq al-tafwid provisions in pakistani law”, yearbook of islamic and middle eastern law 12, (2005-2006): 235-262 at 237-241. also available online at <https://brill.com/view/journals/yimo/12/1/article-p235_14.xml?language=en> (last accessed 28 april 2021). 109 muhammad b. isma‘il al-bukhari, sahih, hadith no. 2721; sulayman al-sijistani, sunan, hadith no. 2139. with slightly different words it is also reported by ahmad b. alhusain al-baihaqi, sunan al-kubra, chapter on nikah (beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 2003), 7: 405; ibn abi shaybah, mussanaf, ed., kamal yusuf al-hoot, (riyadh: maktabat al-rushd, 1409 ah), 3: 499. for details of stipulations in a muslim marriage contract, see, munir, “stipulations in a muslim marriage,” 237-241. 110 pld 2004 lah 588. 111 pld 2007 lah 515. 112 ibid, 517. 113 ibid. 114 ibid. https://sahsol.lums.edu.pk/law-journal/multiplying-zeroes-invalidity-promises-marriage-contracts-under-pakistani-case-law https://sahsol.lums.edu.pk/law-journal/multiplying-zeroes-invalidity-promises-marriage-contracts-under-pakistani-case-law https://sahsol.lums.edu.pk/law-journal/multiplying-zeroes-invalidity-promises-marriage-contracts-under-pakistani-case-law https://brill.com/view/journals/yimo/12/1/article-p235_14.xml?language=en 56 financial rights of woman … 115 ibid. 116 ibid. 117 for details see, munir, “multiplying zeroes,” 3. 118 pld 2011 sc 260. 119 pld 2004 lah 588. 120 ibid. 121 2010 ylr [lahore] 423. 122 1969 scmr 818. 123 pld 2011 sc 260. 124 see, the family courts act, 1964 as amended up-to-date at <http://www.punjablaws.gov.pk/index1.html> (last visited 13 february 2022). the new amendment was added by the family courts (amendment) act 2015 (xi of 2015). 125 pld 2011 sc 260. 126 j.n.d. anderson, islamic law in the modern world, (new york: new york university press, 1959), 78-80 and his “recent reforms in the islamic law of inheritance,” international and comparative law quarterly 14, no. 2 (1965): 350, 354. 127 it is also known as ‘ariyya which is gratuitous loan, or the transfer of the benefits of property. for details, see, ‘ala’uddin b. ahmad al-kasani, badé’i‘ al-sané’i‘ fi tartêb al-sharé’i‘, (beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 1984), 4:118; ‘ali b. muhammad almawardi, al-hawi al-kabir fi fiqh al-imam al-shafi’i‘, ed., ‘ali muhammad mu‘awad and ‘adil ahmad ‘abdul mawjud, (beirut: dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah, 1999), 7:114; muhamamd b. ahmad b. muhammad ‘alaysh, manh al-jalil sharh mukhtasar khalil, (beirut: dar al-fikr, 1989), 7:35. 128 syed ameer ali, mahommedean law, (lahore: law publishing company, n.d.), 1:34. 129 transfer of property act 1882 (act iv of 1882) available online <http://punjablaws.gov.pk/laws/8c.html> (last accessed 14 november 2020). 130 lucy carroll, “life interest and inter-generational transfer of property: avoiding the law of succession”, islamic law and society 8, no. 2 (2001): 245 at 247. 131ruqba( رقبي) under islamic law is a donation with the proviso that it shall either revert to the donor after the donee’s death or become the property of the donee upon death of the donor. wehr, a dictionary, 353. 132 carroll, “life interest,” 249. 133 ibid., p. 250-251. 134 ibid., at 251. 135 ibid. at 265. 136 ibid. at 266. 137 pld 1969 lahore 338. 138 ibid., para. 16. 139 ibid., para. 16. per shameem hussain qadri, j. for the divisional bench. 140 ibid. 141 pld 1975 sc 377. 142 ibid. also available at <https://cite.pakcaselaw.com/pld-supreme-court/1975/377/> (last accessed 25 april 2021). per muhammad gul, j. for the full bench. 143 (1948) 75 ia 62. 144 ibid. also available online at <https://cite.pakcaselaw.com/pld-privycouncil/1948/23/> (last accessed 25 april 2021). 145 pld 1970 lahore 502. 146 ibid., para. 9. per muhammad afzal zullah, j. for the single bench. 147 ibid. 148 ibid. 149 ibid., para. 10. http://www.punjablaws.gov.pk/index1.html http://punjablaws.gov.pk/laws/8c.html https://cite.pakcaselaw.com/pld-supreme-court/1975/377/ https://cite.pakcaselaw.com/pld-privy-council/1948/23/ https://cite.pakcaselaw.com/pld-privy-council/1948/23/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 57 150 pld 1997 sc 730. 151 ibid., para. 7. 152 ibid. 153 ibid., para. 39. 154 ibid., para. 44. the decision was authored by khalil-ur-rehman jj., for the five members bench. 155 2015 ylr 1500. it was decided by a single bench. 156 ibid., para. 12 157 pld 1997 sc 730. 158 2016 ylr 2492. 159mst. kaneez bibi v sher muhammad, pld 1991 sc 466. 160pld 1984 sc 392. 161 ibid. 162 2016 ylr 2492, para. 16. 163 ibid. para. 24. 164 2009 scmr 1458. 165 pld 2011 sc 260. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 87 .. preventive prophetic medicine in foods and beverages: an analytic study dr. kabiru goje department of foundations of religion, faculty of sharia and islamic studies. university of sharjah, united arab emirates e-mail : kgoje@sharjah.ac.ae received on 25-03-2021 accepted on 04-09-21 abstract this study revolves around investigating prophetic sayings related to preventive medication in components of food and drink. it therefore, explores the scientific facts of those hadiths. as such, the researcher defined the preventive medication, hence, studied these hadiths then chaptered them according to their scientific implications. the researcher therefore investigated; matters driven from those hadiths with special reference to the preventive medication. each hadith was then followed up accordingly with preventive scientific matters. this is then proven by contemporary scientists’ affirmations, coupled with what is empirically proven, considered its compliance with sharê’ah. this descriptive study revealed that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was so concerned about every aspect of human life including that of health. this was yielded from hadiths that infused preventive knowledge, which if humans could have made proper use of, they would have been prevented from many illnesses and healed from others. this preventive scientific finding is affirmed by the modern science. finally, the researcher recommended muslim medical doctors to further explore knowledge of prophetic medication. partly, because there are many illnesses and medications that prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) prescribed to, which were yet to be discovered in modern scientific discipline. keywords: preventive medicine, food and drink, islamic medicine mailto:kgoje@sharjah.ac.ae 88 preventive prophetic medicine in foods… .. 1. introduction studies have shown that religion has effectively worked as a coping and prevention strategy in health-related issues. religion has an important role in social integration and control. it is part of the culture or the way of life of a society, and it helps to maintain cultural traditions. society can only survive if people share some common beliefs about right and wrong behaviour.1 durkheim saw religion as a kind of social glue, binding society together and integrating individuals into it by encouraging them to accept basic social values. so, it is mainly through religion that an individual is socialized into the values of the society. this set of moral beliefs and values may have been so deeply ingrained through socialization that it may have an effect everyday on the behaviour of believers and nonbelievers alike.2 religiosity relates to the influence of social referents and thus may be viewed as analogous to construct from the theory of planned behaviour.3 linking health messages to religious or spiritual themes, or using religious elements on messages, may be appropriate motivational strategies. this can be done through manipulation of social effects such as linking health behaviours to specific religious commandments or using the norms of the faith as a source of positive or negative sanctions.4 as proved by emphasizing personal feelings of religious pride or shame can invoke attitudes towards health practices, argued for the suggestion of psychological literature on health and religion that the benefits to wellbeing flow from the social support, existential meaning, sense of purpose, coherent belief system and moral code that religion provides.5 examples of the health principles and prevention encouraged and promoted in islam:  hygienic principle: several quranic verses and hadiths have encouraged muslims on cleanliness, hand washing and brushing teeth.6  health promotion: safeguarding health, avoidance of harmful substance, quarantine, and isolation. 7  food safety: prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) encourages hygienic food. he also prohibits eating dead animals, consuming excreta eating animals, blowing or breathing inside drinks, drinking direct from sources e.g., bottles to avoid contamination, drinking together with animals (avoid zoonoses).8 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 89 ..  health wellness and fitness: prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) encourages exercise such as active working, swimming, dieting, horse racing etc. also he discourages overeating (bingeing), drinking alcohol, intoxicants, harmful substances, eating very hot food, obesity etc., he also prohibits eating and drinking while in standing position.9  environmental health: everyone has to take safe drinking water and care for environmental sanitation. islam prohibits urination in stagnant water or using it for taking bath, also guard against evacuating one’s bowels in sheds, by roadside and near water sources.10  maternal, child health and reproductive health: prohibition of abortion, having sexual intercourse during menstruation, deferring fasting in the month of ramaìan for pregnant and nursing mothers, encouraging long lasting breast feeding before weaning their offspring for two whole years, proper child education, giving psychological contentment to the family.11 the modifiable lifestyle behaviours, physical inactivity, poor sanitation and hygiene can result in the development of communicable, non-communicable and chronic diseases. today, foodborne, and chronic diseases create major global public health problems. as per a who report, an estimated 600 million people fall ill due to foodborne diseases globally every year causing an annual loss of about us$ 110 billion in productivity and medical expenses.12 religion has played a significant role in shaping people’s behaviour, attitude, modes of communication, interaction, and lifestyle.13 however little effort is made toward incorporating divine quranic and prophetic teachings in health promoting and preventive activities. some previous scholars and contemporary researchers have written about prophetic medicine or islamic medicine, but the researcher wanted in this research to select some hadiths related to preventive medicine in foods and drinks and study them analytically. 2. objectives maintaining health is very important in a human's life and is one of the religious duties, because it is a means for him to carry out the lawful duties in the required manner. prayers, fasting, ×ajj and seeking knowledge require sufficient health ability to carry them out, as well as performing the social life duties, commerce, trading, and others, also require the health and safety of the body, so the research aims to study the preventive medicine in foods and beverages based on sunnah perspective to preserve human health and fitness. 90 preventive prophetic medicine in foods… .. the study also aims to establish the new health promotion framework from prophetic traditions, by integrating the modern preventive medicine with the prophetic traditions. 3. problem statement muslims face health problems for not following the prophetic traditions. therefore, studying the hadiths narrated by the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in health prevention plays an important role in solving the problems of contemporary diseases. these hadiths contain a lot of prophetic guidance, advice, and directives; and the people following them, will get protection from many diseases and cure from others. the research problem presented for the study is summarised in answering following questions that can be raised about this title. 1. what is the meaning of preventive medicine? 2. what are the hadiths reported from the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) regarding health protection in foods and beverages? 3. what are the preventive measures included in these hadiths to preserve health? 4. literature review m. hedayatul islam, md saidul islam, fadzli adam viewed that, the traditions of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and his customs in dieting, sleeping, and cleanliness correspond to a “healthy life” that includes both body and soul, individual and society, humans and other species. this healthy lifestyle serves as a protective measure against fatal diseases and viruses so that the followers of islam can worship their lord allah almighty and engage themselves for the service of the humanity. also, they claimed that the ùibb al-nabawī has the potential not only to promote a balanced and healthy lifestyle as championed by the prophet of islam (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) but also to improve a moderate, healthy, and peaceful life.14 purnamaniswaty yunus described that islam is very concerned about health issues and even becomes a necessity to be treated. health is a crown for healthy people. so urgent, maintaining physical health, reason, and soul are absolutely integrated to achieve the perfect health condition. in the perspective of islamic law safeguarding soul and reason is part of hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 91 .. the maqéîid al-sharê‘ah coverage by the sunnah of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). the main principle of islamic teachings on health is to prioritize preventive measures (al-wiqéyah) rather than treatment or healing (al-‘iléj).15 anita abd rahman, aidalina mahmud elaborated in their article some examples and potential relation between the islamic approaches based on the evidence of the holy qur’én and sunnah with the existing practices in public health, focusing on how the fact that islam not only emphasizes physical but mental and spiritual health as well. it is therefore recommended, that more reference work should be done from the religious perspective to understand how the islamic concepts built upon the holy qur’én and sunnah could influence various health determinants and ultimately leading to a comprehensive healthy lifestyle. 16 5. methodology this study employs a qualitative research methodology with content, and deductive method of analysis. to actualize its objective, which is studying the preventive medicine in foods and beverages based on prophetic approach, the research relies on the primary sources of the sharê‘ah, the holy qur’én and the prophetic tradition, the research focused more on the prophetic traditions. the researcher also refers to some printed materials such as books, journal’s articles, conferences proceedings, relevant to preventive prophetic medicine and contemporary medicine. 6. definition of preventive medicine 6.1. the literal definition of preventive medicine. 6.1.1. the literal definition of preventive (الوقائي) : wiqéyah ) وقاية) ,yaqê (prevent) (يقي) ,waqa (prevented) (وقى) (prevention), wekaia (prevention), all mean keeping oneself from harmful things. (ِ الٌتٌوقٌي) altawaqqê (protection) protecting things from a bugaboo. the prophetic hadith mentions that: “anyone who does not turn in repentance will not be turned to nor will be protected or guarded.”17 92 preventive prophetic medicine in foods… .. it basically means that: allah almighty protects you from evils. it is also said that: “horse with horseshoe if it has been protected by shoe the hardened ground and thin hoof, its hoof protects from the hard position”. ibin al-ahmer said: “walking with strong build legs and lofty tip of hooves protects not only on the plain but hard ground as well”. this quote basically means that horses do not suffer the hardness of the ground, since their hooves are very strong.18 so, the literal definition of preventive is an ability of stopping something from happening or of stopping someone from doing something, or designed to keep something undesirable such as, harm, or accidents from occurring. 6.1.2. the literal definition of medicine (al-ïibb): the letters (ط (ùa and )ب ( ba are from the root of the word (طب) ïibb, one of these two letters refers to awareness and skills, while the other refers to extension and elongation. the first is medicine, which is knowing of things, where to say man is (ٌِطب) tabu, while (طبيب) ïabêb (doctor) is an ingenious and learned scholar of medicine. the plural of a small number of doctors is (اطبة) atebe, while the plural of a lot of doctors is (اطباء) atebah.ِ( ’الًطب ) al-tib (medicine) is another dialect derived from .doctor (طبيب) al-ïibb. the arabs address anyone who is learned as (الطب) al-ïibb (medicine) is used terminologically to refer to any science that deals with maintaining health and healing diseases. 19 6.2. the technical definition of preventive medicine preventive medicine is defined as preserving the general health of an individual and society by following the teachings and procedures for the prevention of communicable, expatriate, and genetic diseases before they occur, and to stop the spread of infection during disease outbreaks. it also involves improvement of life circumstances. prevention of accidents and psychological diseases are included as well, alongside care of a healthy human and protecting them from diseases.20 preventive medicine is defined by the american board of preventive medicine (abpm) as: “the specialty of medical practice that focuses on the health of individuals, communities, and defined populations. its goal is to protect, promote, and maintain health and well-being, and to prevent disease, disability, and death.21 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 93 .. to be more precise, it is possible to define preventive medicine as a science that deals with what keeps individuals and society in good health via two approaches. first, preventing diseases before they occur, and prevention of the spread of infections, and second by maintaining health via the improvement of life circumstances and preventing the occurrence of accidents and the reasons behind nervous tensions.22 7. hadiths of prevention with respect to food there are two sub-sections pertaining to these hadiths: 7.1. first sub-section what has been said by our prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) about avoiding malicious drinking and food? in this respect, three hadiths are quoted. two of them are: 1it was narrated by abu al darda (raìi allah ‘anhu), saying that “my close friend the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), advised me: “do not drink wine, for it is the key to all evils.”23 2it was narrated by ibn ‘abbas (raìi allah ‘anhu) saying: “keep away from wine, for it is a key of whole evils.” 24 7.1.1. parameters of preventive medicine in these two hadiths the two hadiths explain that the prohibition of wine is ascribed to the idea that it is the key to all evils, namely, its evils include all aspects of life, such as the religious, psychological, and health aspects. since islam is a religion of doctrine and legislation, there are conditions laid on who is responsible for executing these doctrines and legislations. this responsibility is not valid without these conditions. the onus lies on an individual’s mental health. due to the significance of the mind and its great value in legislative responsibilities, and in the individual’s relation to their environment, islam firmly forbids wine since its drinking leads to damage the mind and body. wine interferes with the mind, disrupts it, and cancels its temporal role. a drinker does whatever contradicts common sense, namely, loses his or her mind and money, avoid remembrance of allah almighty and prayers, causes enmity and hatred between brothers and friends and the public, and spreads the diseases and damages that destroy the mind, the body, and the heart. modern scientific 94 preventive prophetic medicine in foods… .. research emphasizes that drinking wine results in many damages and diseases.25 such as: aturmoil in the heart: wine causes the increase of the number of heartbeats, and even 1% alcohol may lead to increased heartbeats, then to a heart attack, and strain of cardiac muscles, which is the leading cause of death amongst alcoholics. 26 researchers have conducted extensive studies to determine the role of alcohol and its effect on heartbeat. some researchers find that drinking a little amount of whiskey (two or three bottles) decreases the amount of blood pumped by the heart in the stroke volume by reducing cardiac output in a minute, especially to patients of cardiomyopathy27. dr. brown wold pointed out that “wine frustrates the ability of the cardiac muscle to contract acutely or chronically even if it has been taken moderately”28. bhypertension: whenever pressure is doubled, agitation also increases in the arteries, leading up to an explosion in the brain, and ending up with partial or total paralysis29. chepatitis: the inflammation results in ruptured cells and fatty gatherings, leading to fibrosis and ossification of the liver, up to the stage of cirrhosis, which is incurable. many studies showed that the rate of liver cancer in cases of cirrhosis increases in the people consuming alcohol. 30 dother diseases caused by alcohol are congestion of the reproductive tract, ulcer, and infection of the digestive tract, alongside severe infection in the mouth, pharynx, intestine, nerves, and endocrine glands and senses.31 moreover, wine causes many psychological diseases that destroy the drinker and their environment. it is therefore clear that alcohol addiction leads to social, psychological, and health problems. therefore, allah almighty vilifies wine and describes it in the holy qur’én using two adjectives.  a great sin, allah says: “they ask you about wine and gambling. say, in both there is great sin, and some benefits for people. and their sin is greater than their benefit.” 32 drinking wine is a great sin due to its drawbacks and large consequences of drinking it. the damage may be to the body, self, mind, and money, as well as relationships between people. there is no sin as drinking wine, which damages everything in its path.  an abomination of satan’s works: allah says: hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 95 .. “o you who believe! wine, gambling, altars and divining arrows are filth, made up by satan. therefore, refrain from it, so that you may be successful”33 also, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) describes wine as a key of all evils, as mentioned earlier. al san‘ani said: “wine is the mother of khabé’ith (evils) and the focus of sins, whoever drinks it commits each obscenity and be negligent towards performing any worship. in addition, whoever drinks wine has ruined his or her religion and life.”34 7.1.2. parameters of preventive medicine in third hadith 3narrated by abu hurairah (raìi allah ‘anhu): the messenger of allah, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) says: “allah forbade wine and the price paid for it, and forbade dead meat and the price paid for it, and forbade swine and the price paid for it.”35 the hadith may be interpreted as that the prohibition of wine, dead meat, and pig’s meat is legislated to protect humans from the infections of many dangerous and life-threatening diseases. the islamic sharê‘ah law came with everything that is good for humans, and warned against everything that is harmful to minds, bodies, and religion. so, the good things are allowed, and evils are forbidden. among those forbidden evils are these things that have been mentioned in this hadith. each of them indicates a type of harm.36 the previous hadith detailed the damages caused by wine, while the next subsections will detail the harms that befell people upon the consumption of dead meat and swine. first: dead meat: according to islamic law, dead meat means the flesh of animals and birds that were not butchered but died in the wild. causes of death include diseases, ageing, eating poisonous foods, suffocation, or falling from high places. islam prohibits the consumption of meat of dead animal due to the stagnation of blood within the flesh. its consumption will lead to ill health. al razi, in his interpretation, pointed out “remember that the prohibition of eating dead meat is in accord with what is familiar and be in the mind of people since the blood is a very sensitive essence, so if the 96 preventive prophetic medicine in foods… .. animal dies, the blood will be stagnated in the veins of animals. then the blood will decay and lead to great damages to those who eat it.”37 modern medicine focuses on this matter, and researchers discovered a lot of diseases that are caused by consuming dead meat, such as: 1disorders in digestive system: this disease results from eating dead meat, this is due to increased bacterial activity. the longer the animal is dead, more and more microbes will be present which change the smell and taste of the meat. if anyone consumes this meat, he/she will be infected with disorders in the digestive system. the symptoms of this disease are vomiting, diarrhea, falling, and fainting.38 2tubercles: caused by stagnation of clotted blood in the veins of animals, constituting a medium that is conducive to the microbial growth and proliferation, as such resulted in meat contamination through the blood via albumin in the arteries and veins. these can be passed on to people who consumed these meats.39 scientists confirmed that there are more than one hundred diseases transmitted from animals to humans via consumption of meat from dead animals or birds. this further confirms the great wisdom of the islamic prohibition of consuming dead meat40. the second class is the prohibition regarding the consumption of flesh of swine: the most protective cases that maintain health and protect human from many diseases is the prohibition of consuming the flesh of swine. according to medical doctors, pigs are infected with more than 450 types of epidemic disease41, making swine a conveyor to many tiny dangerous creatures. therefore, swines are regarded as a carrier for many diseases, such as fibrosis of liver, indigestion, atherosclerosis, hair loss, infertility, memory impairment, emotional insensitivity and lack of pudency on anyone’s misbehaviour with his maíram (female kin)42. these diseases are regarded as common diseases compared to the following threatening diseases. ascrewworm, which is a very dangerous worm, which gathers in muscles of those who consume the flesh of swine. this worm causes severe pain and cripples muscle movement. it also concentrates itself on the diaphragm. the abundance of worms leads to cessation of breathing, and subsequently, death43. btaenea solium: it measures 2 3 m in length. it causes digestive disorders, anaemia, and attaches its follicles to the brain. its infestation to the brain causes madness and epilepsy44. cascasris worm causes tuberculosis and blockage of the intestines. there are many types of ascasris worms, such as hookworm, hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 97 .. which all cause bleeding, anaemia, and other diseases that might lead to death.45 there are more than thirty parasites that cause severe damage in different parts of the body of the individual who consumes the flesh of swine. doctors usually advise patients to stop consuming pork to cure them.46 the bacterial diseases caused by eating pork are tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, malta fever, and others, while viral diseases are encephalitis, myocarditis, flu, and stomatitis. microbial diseases, such as toxoplasma gondii, can cause fever, physical exhaustion, an enlarged liver and spleen, inflammation of the lungs and heart muscles, meningitis, as well as the loss of hearing47. labs of the world health organization (who) proved that the flesh of swine can transmit all microbial infectious diseases compared to other types of flesh48. lard is thought to be the cause of the spread of cancer of the colon and rectum, prostate, breast, and blood49. moreover, it causes obesity and related diseases that are difficult to treat. contemporary scientific studies also proved that the rate of fat in lard is more than other types of meat, since lard contains high cholesterol and fatty acids, which increas the rate of cholesterol in human blood. the consumption of lard might cause atherosclerosis since lard deposits itself in the arteries. as a result of this, a consumer of pork might be infected with hypertension, angina, myocardial infarction, and cancer.50 7.2. second sub-section narrated by arwa bin al zubair says about asma bint abi baker (raìi allah ‘anhé). “when she cut the loaf of bread into pieces during serves food, she covers the food for cooling and removing its boiling, then she says ‘’i heard the messenger of allah (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) says this way of serving of food is great for blessing.’’51 7.2.1. parameters of preventive medicine in this hadith this hadith expresses the benefit of eating food when it is cool, and not to eat when it is boiling, since it might be hazardous to health. so, our prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) tells us to leave hot food for 98 preventive prophetic medicine in foods… .. cooling and ask for allah’s blessing for protection from infection of diseases. contemporary medicine stressed that eating plenty of hot food leads to damaged health. hot food causes enzyme-related problems. doctors also point out that eating very hot food and drinks cause disorder in the stomach, while gum expose humans to ulcer of the mouth and cancer of the tongue and throats, as well as problems to the immune system.52 8. hadiths of prevention in relation to methods of drinking 8.1. first sub-section what has been said by our messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) about inhibition of breathing and blowing into vessel? this section details two hadiths first hadith: narrated by ibin abbas (raìi allah ‘anhu) that “prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) forbade blowing or breathing into a vessel”53 second hadith: narrated by abu hurairah (raìi allah ‘anhu) that allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “when anyone of you drinks, let him not breathe into the vessel. if he wants to continue drinking, let him move the vessel away (to breathe) then bring it back, if he wants.” 54 8.1.1. parameters of preventive medicine in these hadiths prohibition from breathing in a drinking vessel is clear in this hadith, regardless of whether one drinks alone or share. there are two aspects of wisdom in these two hadiths. first, the moral aspect: the moral wisdom of this hadith is shown in that the individual who drinks and sometimes breathes in the vessel will spoil the remainder of the drink in the vessel, so that the ones drinking after will not be able to. our prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) tells us not to blow into the vessel, even we see a small straw on the surface of the drinks but remove it and drink other parts. our prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) also directs us to avoid drinking in batches but should be done three times while breathing out of the vessel to keep the residue of drink off. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 99 .. these prophetic instructions have the high moral that our messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) wants his nation to promote towards humanity. second, the health aspect: this aspect expresses that if a man breathed in a drink or food, it generates air mixed with the harmful things, and others may be infected with some diseases if they drink and eat from the same vessel. contemporary doctors outline many damages and diseases caused by breathing or blowing into a vessel. they know that there are types of beneficial bacteria called probiotics, which live in the body of a human and help man resist diseases. these beneficial bacteria are used to activate the various biochemical reactions in the body. these bacteria concentrate in the stomach, heart, throat, and mouth, as well as other parts of the body. despite the benefits of these bacteria, they might become harmful, and sometimes fatal, or cause serious diseases at other times. the doctors explained that when the bacteria leave the mouth via breathing or blowing, they develop a protective outer covering to protect themselves from heat.55 they may be transported to other people in this state via any medium. these bacteria then start to move from the mouth through the esophagus to the stomach. when they arrive in the stomach, they may begin to activate and release urease enzyme, which may lead to the inflammation of the lining of the stomach, thereby causing a breach in the wall of the stomach, consequently the stomach may start digesting itself.56 therefore, it is advised that people should not breathe or blow in the drinks or foods, to protect themselves from serious diseases. 8.2. second sub-section two hadiths are related to the prohibition of drinking while standing: first hadith: anas (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported: prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) forbade that a person should drink while standing. qatada (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported: we said to him: what about eating? thereupon he (anas) said: that is even worse and more detestable (abominable)57. second hadith: abu hurairah (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported: prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “if the drinker while standing knows what is in one’s abdomen, him or her (drinker) will vomit.” 58 100 preventive prophetic medicine in foods… .. 8.2.1. parameters of preventive medicine in these hadiths both hadiths prohibit drinking while standing. the explicit meaning of this prevention is expressed as a ban. moreover, contemporary medicine emphasizes that drinking while standing is detrimental to one’s health. dr. abed al razak al kelani finds that: drinking while sitting is healthier and safer than drinking while standing, since what we eat, or drink will enter into the stomach slowly and gently. while drinking when standing leads to dropping the liquid or food into the stomach violently, and sharply crashes to the bottom of the stomach. the repetition of this process will loosen and lengthen the stomach, leading to indigestion59. dr. ibrahim al rawi said: “humans, while standing, are strung up. the balance apparatus is in the neurological centers and is highly effective in controlling body muscles for balance and upright standing.”60 it is a delicate process involving the neuromuscular system and puts much strain on the body while someone eats or drinks. the body relaxes when sitting, which will allow the digestive system to digest foods and drinks correctly. he added that eating and drinking while standing result in nervous reflexes carried out by the ends of the vagus nerve, spreading the lining of the stomach. if these reflexes were made severely and suddenly, they lead to the launch of a vagal inhibition, causing a knockout blow to the heart, which might result in fainting or sudden death.61 eating while standing is commonly regarded as dangerous, especially on the membrane of the stomach. the habit of eating or drinking while standing may affect and cause cracks in the membrane of the stomach. doctors noticed that 95% of ulcers of the stomach can occur more in the positions that are exposed to the crashes of morsel and dosages of drinks. the state of balance while standing accompanied by muscle spasms in the esophagus, hinders the passage of food into the stomach, will easily occur, and severe pain will lead to disturbed function of the digestive system.62 8.3. third sub-section first hadith: anas (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported that allah's messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) used to breathe three times in the course of a drink (i.e. he drank in three gulps).63 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 101 .. second hadith: anas bin malik (raìi allah ‘anhu) said that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) drank water in three breaths (that is, in three gulps, sips) and used to say, it is more pleasing and satisfying in this manner.64 8.3.1. parameters of preventive medicine in both hadiths both hadiths comprise of important preventive measures to maintain human health. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) guides muslims to drink in the same manner he did in the previous two hadiths, while also extolling its benefits, that is, his manner of drinking is more pleasing, easier, smoother in the course of food. drinking a great amount of water in batches without breathing might damage the esophagus or stomach, since the severity of dropping water without stopping might cause severe hiccups, especially if the drinker needs to breathe but does not stop. adopting the prophet’s manner of drinking will prevent this from happening.65 ibn al-qayyim mentioned that the prophetic manner of drinking refers to the two hadiths, which is the characteristic of removing the vessel from the mouth and breathing out of the vessel, then drinking again. it is clear from other hadith that if anyone wishes to breath while drinking, he has to remove the vessel from his or her mouth.66 he (ibn al-qayyim) added that one of the problems of drinking water in large batches is the blockage of the esophagus, since a great amount of water within the esophagus causes hiccups. so, it is better for health if one is to drink slowly and breathe while drinking. if the drinker drinks the first time, the inner smoke in the heart and liver will billow due to cold water, which is natural response. if the drinker drinks the water continuously and not take a breath, the drop of cold water will coincide with steam, which will crowd each other, causing hiccups.67 9. conclusion islam is a perfect and comprehensive religion. islam takes into consideration all aspects of life without excessive dealing or neglecting one aspect over others. the islamic attention to the human health stems from the necessity of applying the intention of creating human, which is the succession and the reconstruction of the earth. a sound human is better than a sick human in context of realizing the succession and reconstruction mission. 102 preventive prophetic medicine in foods… .. a human who looks intellectually to the legitimacy taboo in islam finds out that these taboos are contrary to common sense and cause damage to humans. the only safe manner to eat meat without damaging health is adhering to the prophetic manner in slaughtering animals. other different ways are considered a great danger to human health, as well as to morals and common sense. the instructions in prophetic hadiths in terms of foods and beverages refer to health instructions that lead to preventive health and savouring and enjoying what allah almighty allows to eat and drink. the study revealed that the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was so concerned about every aspect of human life including that of health. this was yielded from prophetic traditions that infused preventive knowledge, which if humans could have made proper use of, they would have been prevented from many illnesses and healed from others. this preventive scientific finding is affirmed by the modern science. notes and references 1 harold g. koenig, michael e. mccullough and david b. larson, handbook of religion and health. (new york: oxford university press, 2001), 21. 2 koenig, mccullough & larson, 23. 3 icek ajzen, persuasive communication theory in social psychology: a historical perspective. (amhers: university of massachusett, 1992), 27. 4 karen glanz, health behaviour and health education: theory, research and practice (san francisco: jossey-bass, 2002), 218. 5 richard eckersley, “culture, spirituality, religion and health: looking at the big picture”, the medical journal australia 186, no. 10 (may 2007), 2-3. 6 saleh abdul qavi al-sanbani. al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie, (yemen: n.p., 2004), 7. 7 hassan yassin. medical miracles in the quran and sunnah (cairo: wahibah library , 1997), 15. 8 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie, 9. 9 mahmoud hajj qassem mohammed qassim, altibu alwiqayiyu alnabawiu, (damascus: dar kutub al-ilmiyyah, 2001), 5. 10 rakeet hamad hassan rugait, alrieayat alshyt walryadyt fi al'islam (beirut : dar ibn hazim, 1997) 13. 11 yahya oyewole imam, “islam and reproductive health”, science and religion: global perspectives, (philadelphia: metanexus institute, 2015) 4-21. 12 who report, food safety, https://www.who.int/news-room/factsheets/detail/food-safety, accessed 27-08-21. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/food-safety https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/food-safety hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 103 .. 13 ajay gupta, mahesh sengamedu, rajesh sengamedu, vp rajesh, vivek mittal. wellbeing through food & discipline: the chaturmasa diaries (chennai: notion press, 2021), 12. 14 m. hedayatul islam, md saidul islam, fadzli adam. “preventive measures for a healthy life: towards an islamic perspective with reference to covid-19”, intellectual discourse journal 28 no. 2 (december 2020), 488. 15 purnamaniswaty yunus. “islamic integration and health: an approach to prophetic medicine” journal of research and multidisciplinary 2 no. 2 (september 2019), 172-182. 16 anita abd rahman and aidalina mahmud, “a review of islamic approach in public health practices” international journal of public health and clinical sciences 1 no. 2 (december 2014), 14. 17 al-adab al-mufrad (20:372), book of hadith, www.sunnah.com accessed 27-082021 18 muhammad abd al-rauf al-munawi, al tawkeef ala muhimat al ta’reef (beirut: dar al fiker, 1989), 478. 19 abu al-husayn ahmad ibn faris ibn zakar ibn faris, mujam maqayis allughah (beirut: dar al-jeel, 2002), 3, 213. 20 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie, 19. 21 theodore h. tulchinsky and elena a. varavikova, the new public health (third edition). (usa: elsevier inc. 2014),744. 22 dr. hassan bin ahmed bin hassan al-faki, al-ahkam al-adwiyyah fi shariatul islamiyyah, (riyadh: dar minhaj. 2004),15. 23 sunan ibn majah (30:3371), book of hadith, translated by: nasir uddin al khattab, (riyadh: darussalam, 2007) 24 hakim abu abdullah. al-mustadrak ala al-sahihayn: (1327) , ed. mustafa abdel qader atta, (beirut: dar-al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 1990). 25 yassin, medical miracles in the quran and sunnah, 57. 26 rugait, alrieayat alshyt walryadyt fi al'iislam, 45. 27 yassin, medical miracles in the quran and sunnah, 59. 28 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie, 103. 29 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie. 104. 30 rugait. alrieayat alshyt walryadyt fi al'iislam. 90. 31 rugait. alrieayat alshyt walryadyt fi al'iislam. 91. 32 the meanings of the noble quran (2:219), translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 33 ibid., (5:90) 34 muhammad bin ismail bin salah bin muhammad al-hasani al-kahlani al-san’ani, tanwīr sharḥ al-jāmi‘al-ṣaghīr edited by dr. muhammad ishaq muhammad ibrahim (riyad: dar al-salam, 2011), 1, 57. 35 suleiman bin al-ash`ath abu dawood al-sijistan, sunan abi dawood (23:3485), book of hadith (beirut: dar al-alamiyyah, 2009). 104 preventive prophetic medicine in foods… .. 36 abdullah bin abdur-rahmaan ibn saalih al-bassaam, tayseer al-a’laam sharh umdatul al-ahkaam edited by muhammad sobhi bin hassan hallaq (cairo: maktabat al-tabi`in 2006), 480. 37 muhammad bin omar bin al hussein al-tamimi al-razi al-shafi’i fkharu razi “ tafsir al kabeer wal mafatihul ghaib” (beruit: dar kutub al-ilmiyyah, 2000), 106. 38 yassin, medical miracles in the quran and sunnah, 52. 39 yassin, medical miracles in the quran and sunnah, 53. 40 al-sanbani. al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie. 17. 41 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie. 19. 42 qassim, altibu alwiqayiyu alnabawiu, 20. 43 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie. 26. 44 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie. 24. 45 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie. 27. 46 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie. 29. 47 qassim, altibu alwiqayiyu alnabawiu, 30. 48 al-sanbani, al iajaz al ilmi fi altib alwiqa’ie. 20. 49 qassim, altibu alwiqayiyu alnabawiu. 42. 50 qassim, altibu alwiqayiyu alnabawiu. 45. 51 suleiman bin ahmed bin ayyub al-tabarani, al-mu'ujam al-kabeer, (20247), edited by hamdi bin abdul majeed salafi (mosil: ulum wal-hikam, 1983). 52 qassim, altibu alwiqayiyu alnabawiu. 48. 53 suleiman bin al-ash`ath abu dawood al-sijistan, sunan abi dawood (26:3719), www.sunnah.com, accessed on 25-12-2020. 54 ibnu majah, sunan ibn majah (30:3427), book of hadith (beirut: al-risala, 2009). 55 dr. abdul razzaq al kilani, haqaqiq attibiyyah fil islam (damascus: dar alkalm, 1996), 25. 56al kilani, haqaqiq attibiyyah fil islam. 23. 57muslim bin al-hajjaj bin muslim al-qushayri al-naysaburi, sahih muslim (36:2024b), book of hadith edited by nazar bin muhammad al-faryabi abu qutaiba. (riyad: dar taibah, 2006). 58ahmad muhammad bin hanbal al shaibani, musnad ahmad ibn hanbal, (7808), edited by shuaib arnaout (beirut: muasssat ar-risalah. 1999). 59 al kilani, haqaqiq attibiyyah fil islam, 30. 60 yassin, medical miracles in the quran and sunnah, 65. 61 yassin, medical miracles in the quran and sunnah, 66. 62 yassin, medical miracles in the quran and sunnah, 69. 63 muslim, sahih muslim (36:2028). 64 ibn hanbal, musnad ahmad ibn hanbal, hadith no. 12189. 65 al-faki, al-ahkam al-adwiyyah fi shariatul islamiyyah, 61. 66 muhammad bin abi bakr bin ayyub ibn qayyim al-jawziyyah, zad al-maad, edited by shuaib arnaout (beirut: muasssat ar-risalah 1989), 210. 67 ibn qayyim al-jawziyyah, zad al-maad, 211. http://www.sunnah.com/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 690 issn :0250-7196 emergency concept in islamic law 1 norwili abstract al-qur'an and hadith have offered various solutions to many problems found in this world. however, recently the solutions for many contemporary issues can not be found in the qur'an and hadith. for the problems assumed having no solution in the qur'an and hadith, the jurists are finding solutions through the doors of ijtihad. one of these problems is the emergency condition. for the concept of emergency, islam gives legal statutes within islamic law. the statutes are sometimes permitting to be halal for things that decreed as forbidden due to the emergency condition. the haram can be seen as halal during the emergency only. however, after the emergency and the problem has been solved, the prohibited ones will stay haram just like before following the islamic law. this urgency has a relation to the frequency of natural disasters in indonesia, causing the loss of life, loss of job, etcetera, and many people may assume to do the unlawful acts under the emergency. this research paper explains about this emergency concept and how it should be implemented through the concepts found in al-qur'an and hadith. this research is descriptive qualitative. the data sources are al-qur'an, hadith, and various islamic law books about the emergency condition to find solutions that can be considered right. the result has found that there are some different perspectives in giving solutions for the emergency condition offered by the four schools of hanafi, maliki, syafi‟i, dan hambali. keywords: concept of emergency, islamic law, fiqh rules. ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction in islam, two guidelines can be used as references as islamic law to solve problems and judge giving punishments that are considered fair, namely, al-qur'an and sunnah (hallaq, 2009). alqur'an is the holy book of muslims (al-khowarizmi, akrim, lubis, & lubis, 2020) in providing answers to all personal questions and problems (edwin, 2016), which is sure to be true. meanwhile, sunnah is an arabic term that refers to the way of life of the prophet muhammad and is a role model that should be emulated in islam (alwazna, 2016; brown, 2009) which is often exemplified or uttered by him (shabbar & roberts, 2017). it shows no god but allah, and only the prophet muhammad saw, who can be followed by all muslims in the world (sirin & fine, 2008). even so, there are indeed many new problems that are not resolved in the al-qur'an and sunnah. it is because quoting verses that do not fit the context can be dangerous to do with religious texts (haleem, 2018). besides, many muslim thinkers think that the interpretation of 1 faculty of syariah, insitut agama islam negeri palangka raya, indonesia. e-mail: wili@iain-palangkaraya.ac.id mailto:wili@iain-palangkaraya.ac.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 691 issn :0250-7196 the qur'an and sunnah may be limited and inadequate to support the needs of the changing world (murnisa, 2002) and also because islam prioritizes ethics in solving problems (padela, et al., 2008). overtime in the early 19th century, lots of material from the qur'an began to be studied within the framework of the historical-critical method (azmi, 2017). even so, the explanation of everything that is al-qawan al-ammah (general rules) and al-mabadi al-kulliyah (universal principles) can be applied to all cases and problems that arise in human life both as individuals, as people, both those who are still living in the past, present, and future. even just listening to the chanting of the qur'an is believed to be able to help solve psychological problems (ghiasi & keramat, 2018). in fact, with a clear understanding of the translation and interpretation of the scriptures that underlie shari'a can show that decisions also require interference from the political system (government) (o'sullivan, 2001) because, in islamic law, muslims must follow the policies of the local government. they live (elbih, 2015). besides, one thing that needs to be remembered is when talking about any topic, it is necessary to assess both the normative or ideal aspects and what happened or the practical aspects (badawi, 2011). although all muslims have the same beliefs, behavior, and understanding of certain concepts may vary depending on the level of faith, socioeconomic status, education, awareness, and cultural context (al-aoufi, al-zyoud, & shahminan, 2012), which can influence how a person perceives a problem. islam is an independent ethics field (rispler-chaim, 1989) which can determine and solve problems through islamic law. ethical considerations in islam also consider the historical and cultural diversity of muslim communities living in many different parts of the world (sachedina, 2005). islam also encourages muslims to read the koran to find ethically correct (moral) solutions to everyday life problems in the present era by using their respective intellect and intelligence (brockopp, 2003). therefore, by in ving many matters relating to a problem as previously described, islamic rules and principles based on the al-qur'an and hadith can also be applied in this modern era. humans do not always live an ordinary, natural, and smooth life in a specific place and period in everyday life. in this case, it is not impossible if humans experience things beyond their ability to refuse, avoid, or overcome them. in other words, the occurrence of a situation that can endanger his life, such as threats from other people, hunger, and difficulty getting food, natural disasters, war conditions, epidemics, etcetera. ibn sina mentioned the problem of destiny or al-qadar, which is the main problem of reconciling the almighty provisions on human behavior and character and the reward and punishment in the hereafter as a way for god judge humans (houkani, 1966). according to time or destiny (encyclopedia of religion, 2020), human life has been determined by fate, fortune, mate, and death. for example, the disaster or the covid-19 pandemic phenomenon occurred recently in various parts of the world. coronavirus is a new type of virus transmitted to humans. this virus can attack anyone, including infants, children, adults, the elderly, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers. phenomena and conditions are hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 692 issn :0250-7196 certain things that cannot be avoided. the coronavirus or covid-19 that has entered indonesia is alert because the number of positive cases of covid-19 has reached 31,186 cases in indonesia itself. in contrast, the number of deaths itself has reached a total of 1,851 people. it has many consequences that do not only affect casualties. nevertheless, various economic and hunger problems resulted from conditions that made it impossible to earn a living. this situation cannot be imagined beforehand, and there is no power for humans to avoid it. in a situation described above, if we rely on the basic principles of justice and the benefit of humanity, islam offers a solution in the form of exceptions. this solution makes some of the demands of ukhrawi can be eliminated. in other words, it does not result in sin and punishment in the hereafter (zuhaili, 1997). it means that this exception makes it easier for humans to carry out their religious obligations according to conditions per the reality of life, that allah wants convenience and does not willing trouble. as allah says in q.s. al-baqarah: 185, which reads: ُُثُِكُىُٱْنيُْسَشَُوََلُيُِشيذُُثُِكُىُٱْنعُْسَش...ُيُُ … ُ ِشيذُُٱَّلله meaning: "allah wants convenience for you, and does not want trouble for you" (surah albaqarah [2]: 185). however, in this verse, that as humans in dealing with various phenomena and natural disasters, there is very easy to use arguments from the concept of emergency to obtain legal relief. it is even more so for the masses today, for example, leaving friday prayers with the excuse of avoiding the coronavirus even though in their area they are areas that are free of corona or are in the green zone. it cannot be justified if to allow what is prohibited or haram and leaving what is obligatory on the grounds of an emergency principle to get relief or convenience for him. assuming that there is no way out of avoiding this haram act, they argue that it is an emergency. the illustration above, of course, raises the question: is there a way that justifies this action, and has a factual basis, or can this action be able to deliver from unclean sins through the emergency door? is the emergency door which they hold as evidence of a syar' i emergency that allah declared to his servants, which is seen as one of the flexibility of islamic law that tolerates and is accurate for all times and places? is there still a place for what is forbidden or prohibited or an obligation forbidden after that? the concept of emergency that exists in islamic law has clear and firm definitions. thus, if the use of emergency arguments is inappropriate, then the wisdom meant by the coming of the shari'a will disappear so that sanctions and prohibitions become friends of desire and hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 693 issn :0250-7196 places where meaningless actions can escape and become fertile ground for chaos and turmoil. allah has warned it in q.s al-mu' minun verse 71: ُهىُ ُأَرَْيََُٰ ُثَْم ُۚ ٍه ُفِيِه َُوَيٍ َُوٱْْلَْسُض ُد َىَٰ ًََٰ ُٱنسه ُنَفََسذَِد ُأَْهَىآَءُهْى ُٱْنَحقُّ ُٱرهجََع َونَِى ٌَُ ْعِشُضى ُثِِزْكِشِهْىُفَُهْىَُعٍُِرْكِشِهىُيُّ meaning: "if the truth had indulged their lusts, the heavens and the earth would have perished, and everything in them. we have brought to them their pride (quran), but they turn away from that pride." (q.s al-mu' minun [23]: 71) based on the explanation above, this paper examines the concept of emergency in islamic law further. 2. methodology this research was adopting a qualitative descriptive method with literature studies. this qualitative research is an interactive process that enhances the understanding of the scientific community obtained by making new findings that are different from before by becoming closer to the phenomenon under study (aspers & corte, 2019). the data are described as descriptively concerning the literature. primary data is taken from the al-qur'an and hadiths related to the concept of emergency. secondary data is from books and books that explain the concept of emergency in islamic law. the data described through the al-qur'an and sunnah arguments, which show the law allows an emergency, then find the limit of emergency, find a solution regarding the size of consumption allowed in an emergency, and find lessons from an emergency, and finally draw a conclusion. 3. verses that allow about an emergency 3.1. the verses of the qur'an the qur'an, which contains direct instructions from allah (hidayatullah, 2013), is very beautifully written in magical and poetical arabic (kidwai, 2017), so that many have written it in calligraphy (hooker, 2019). not only to be written beautifully or read charmingly, but the koran is also mainly used as a reminder, giving awareness and attracting attention (al-ghazali, shamis, & alawiye, 2000). moreover, it makes it an essential reference text (masud, 2016) and is a blessing for muslims. they have an equal position in allah's eyes (rizvi, 1981) in guiding their lives. thus, daily life is considered as an opportunity given by god for humans to carry out his commands with real and clear rules (kim, 2007). in it, allah states what is permissible or lawful and which is not allowed or haram, which is understood as what is right and what is wrong (halstead, 2007). one example is what kind of knowledge can be studied and what knowledge should not be studied (huda, jibrail, jasmi, & zakaria, 2016). likewise, the rules of halal food hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 694 issn :0250-7196 are considered to be by shari'a (ambali & bakar, 2014). however, in times of emergency, things that are considered haram can be done or consumed. the arguments of the al-qur'an which state that a muslim is allowed to do something that is forbidden because in compulsion is the word of allah swt in surah al-baqarah verse 173: ُٱْضُطشُه ٍِ ًَ ُفَ ُِۖ ُٱَّلله ُِنغَْيِش ُثِهِۦ ُأُِهمه َُوَيبٓ ُٱْنِخُِضيِش َُونَْحَى َُوٱنذهَو ْيزَخَ ًَ ُٱْن َُعهَْيُكُى َو َُحشه ب ًَ ُإَِه ِحيىٌُ ََُغفُىٌسُسه ُٱَّلله ٌه َغْيَشُثَبغٍَُوََلَُعبٍدُفَََلُٓإِثَْىَُعهَْيِهُُۚإِ meaning: "verily allah only forbids for you carcasses, blood, pork, and animals that (when slaughtered) are called (names) other than allah, but whoever is forced (to eat it) while he does not want it and does not (also) transgress. there is no sin for him. allah is forgiving, most merciful." (q.s. al-baqarah [2]: 173). some commentators, such as al-saadi, interpreted the meaning of "while he does not want it" as someone only eating the forbidden because they have to. not even by enjoying or tasting it, this also means that he wants it. the meaning of the word of god "and not transgressing" is to eat it to the point of being full. meanwhile, mujtahid, ibn jubair, and others said that the meaning of the word of allah "while he does not want it and does not go beyond the limit" is the desire and action that exceeds limits that harm the muslims. so, those who want it and go beyond the limit are thieves, people who oppose the ruler without any restrictions justified by religion, travel to break family ties, and people who want to attack the muslims. al-qurthubi confirms this opinion because the original meaning of the sentence al-baghyu in language means damage. furthermore, al-qurthubi says that allah allows a person to eat or do all the unlawful actions in an emergency because he cannot get or do what is allowed. so, because nothing is allowed, it becomes a condition of allowing something that is forbidden (alqurtubi, 1996). in q.s al-maidah verse 3 it is also stated that: َُْخُِقَخُُ ًُ َُوٱْن ُثِهِۦ ِ ُٱَّلله ُِنغَْيِش ُأُِهمه َُوَيبٓ ُٱْنِخُِضيِش َُونَْحُى َُوٱنذهُو ْيزَخُ ًَ ُٱْن َُعهَْيُكُى َيْذ ُحّشِ يَخَُُوٱنُهِطيَحخَُُوَيبُٓأََكمَُ زََشدِّ ًُ ْىقُىرَحَُُوٱْن ًَ َُيبُرَكهْيزُْىَُوَيبُرُثَِحَُعهَىُٱنُُُّصِتَُُوٱْن ٱنسهجُُعُإَِله َُكفَُشو۟اُِيٍُِديُُِكْىُفَََلُرَْخَشْىهُُ ٍَ ِنُكْىُفِْسٌقُُۗٱْنيَْىَوُيَئَِسُٱنهِزي ِىُُۚرََٰ ى۟اُثِٱْْلَْصنََٰ ًُ ْىَُوأٌَُرَْسزَْقِس hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 695 issn :0250-7196 ذُُ ًْ ًَ ْهُذُنَُكْىُِديَُُكْىَُوأَرْ ًَ ُُۚٱْنيَْىَوُأَْك ٌِ َىُِديًُبَُُُۚوٱْخَشْى ْسهََٰ زِىَُوَسِضيُذُنَُكُىُٱْْلِ ًَ َعهَْيُكْىَُِْع ِحيى ََُغفُىٌسُسه ُٱَّلله ٌه ِ ثٍْىُُۙفَإ ِ َصٍخَُغْيَشُُيزََجبٍَِفُّْلِ ًَ ُفِىَُيْخ ُٱْضُطشه ٍِ ًَ ُفَ meaning: "it is forbidden for you to (eat) carcasses, blood, pork, (animal meat) that were slaughtered in the name of other than allah, those who was choked, beaten, fell, gored, and killed by wild animals, except those you had time to slaughter them, and (it is forbidden for you) to be slaughtered for idols. furthermore, (it is also forbidden) to draw fate with arrows, (to draw fate with arrows) is wickedness. on this day, the disbelievers have given up (overcoming) your religion, so do not be afraid of them and fear me. on this day, i have perfected your religion for you, and i have filled you with my favors, and i have accepted islam as your religion. so whoever is forced due to hunger accidentally commits sins, verily allah is forgiving, most merciful. "(surah almaidah [5]: 3) according to al-qurthubi (1996) the meaning of allah's word: "then whoever is forced due to hunger" means whoever because of an emergency must eat a carcass and other things that are forbidden in this verse. meanwhile, the meaning of god's word "sinfully" is not inclined to prohibition in the sense of not wanting and not transgressing. that is, without any intention of committing immorality, as allah swt says below: ب ًه ُِي ُرَأُْكهُىا ُأََله ُنَُكْى َُيبَُُوَيب ُإَِله َُعهَْيُكْى َو َُحشه َُيب ُنَُكْى َم ُفَصه َُوقَْذ َُعهَْيِه ِ َُّللاه ُاْسُى رُِكَش ُأَْعهَُىُ ُُهَى َُسثهَك ٌه ُإِ ُِعْهٍىُۗ ُثِغَْيِش ُثِأَْهَىائِِهْى ٌَ ُنَيُِضهُّى َُكثِيًشا ٌه َُوإِ ُإِنَْيِهُۗ اْضُطِشْسرُْى ٍَُ ْعزَِذي ًُ ثِبْن meaning: "why don't you want to eat (the clean animals) which are called the name of allah when you slaughter them, when in fact, allah has explained to you what he has forbidden on you, except what you are forced to eat. furthermore, most of them (from humans) want to mislead (others) with their passions without knowledge. indeed, your lord, he who knows better those who transcend limits" (q.s. alan'am [6]: 119). the meaning of allah's word: "why don't you want to eat what is called by the name of allah when you slaughter it, when in fact, allah has explained to you what he hath forbidden you"?. according to some scholars who are expert commentators are: "why do you mind eating halal food that when you slaughter the name of allah, what prevents you from eating it, while allah has explained and explained what is forbidden to you, except what you are forced to eat, which is in the form of things-that which has been forbidden on you, meaning that if you are forced to eat it because you endure hunger that has been sustained again, then it is allowed to you." hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 696 issn :0250-7196 thus, if it is related to the current relevance amid the covid-19 pandemic, then when the condition is felt increasingly urgent, it is impossible to earn a living, which results in a person not having the slightest amount of food to ensure their survival. based on the concept of emergency itself, this can be justified as the goal of al-maqasyid al shari'ah law, one of which is to protect the soul. it is in line with the above verses that all regulate exceptions for emergency reasons to protect the safety of life from death so that it overrides the existence of the danger, which is the cause of prohibition. because in a hungry state, the resistance of a large stomach becomes strong from food attacks without feeling sick. according to al-bazdawi and several scholars of other commentators, some in ordinary circumstances, in a state of emergency, allah gave an exception. to exclude from prohibition means to allow. the law that applies in an emergency is the same as that applies before the prohibition; both are allowed. 3.2. verses of al-sunnah every muslim is obliged to eat halal food. in this concept, islam teaches that the meaning of eating is for life and the body's health so that it can support daily activities, not eating for enjoyment alone (nimrouzi & zare, 2014). in islam, what food is allowed or not to be eaten is clearly stated in the qur'an, so it has become part of the identity of every mulism (kassam & robinson, 2014). every food that enters the body greatly influences the physical, mental, and psychological aspects. in islam, parents are encouraged to feed their children with excellent and halal foods and keep away from prohibited or haram (bidgoli, 2019). even some priests also recommend what foods are good for good and faithful (tbarsi, 1990). many foods and traditional medicines from a very ancient era were considered useful in maintaining health and treating diseases. after scientific research, these foods have been carried out since the prophet muhammad's time and other plant products with a full historical use history (ali, parveen, & ali, 2018). even so, in an emergency, eating food that is considered haram might be allowed. sunnah verses that show the possibility to eat haram food in an emergency include the following: ُسَُيَُُذُُْهُقُُُبلَُيُقَُشُِيُْانههُُاقذٍُيُوَُثُِأٍَُُُْعَُ ُثَهُاُُِللاُُِىلُُسُُب َُب ُثَُُِجُُيُِْصُرٍُُُضُسُْأ ُيَُهَُب بًَُُفَُُخُُصًَُُْخَُب ُيَُُِنَُُمُُّحُِيَُ ُنَُرَُاُُِبلَُ؟ُقَُُخُِزَُيًَُُْانٍُُْب ُوَُجحُُطَُصُْرَُُىُْا ُوَُجقُُزَُغزُْرَُُىُْنَُىا ُىُْكُُأَُُْشَُفََُُلًُقُْثَُُُىارَحزْفَئُُِىُْنَُىا ب.ُهَُثُِ meaning: "from abi waqid al-laitsi, he said," i said, "o messenger of allah, we are on earth that brings us to severe hunger, then what carcass is lawful for us? he said: if you do not get oil to serve as a light at night, do not get milk to drink, do not get plants to eat, then at that time you are allowed to eat the carcass "(narrated by ahmad). another hadith reads: hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 697 issn :0250-7196 ُسَُثُُِشُِبثُِجٍَُُُْعَُ ُثُِىُْبَُُكَُُذٍُيُْثَُُمَُهُْأٌَُُُهأَُُحُُشًٍَُُُ ُذُْبرًََُُفَُُبلَُقٍََُُُيُْبجُِزَُحُْيُُُحُِشُهحَُبنُْا ب...هَُهُِكُْيُأَُملسو هيلع هللا ىلصُفُُِيُُّجُِانُهُُىُْهُُنَُُصَُخُهشَُفَُُىُْهُِشُِيُْغَُوُنُِأَُُىُْهُُنَُُخٌُبقَََُُىُْهُُذَُُُْعُِ meaning: "from jabir bin samurat that a family who inhabits a house in al-harrat is in a state of a shortage of food said jabir: then their camels died or belonged to someone else, then the prophet gave an exception to eat it ..." (narrated by ahmad). naqli's verses, both the qur'an and the hadith above, form the basis of the rules for emergency matters and their laws in islamic fiqh. to this context, fiqh or islamic law has a long history, touching many subjects of study in the present era (al-alwani, 2005), including what has been explained, what can and should not be done, and emergencies. 4. limitation of emergency there are diverse schools of thought in islamic fiqh so that there are also many experts and claimants of islamic science who have different opinions (al-alwani, 2005). this school's age range varies, illustrating that imam malik is 13 years younger than imam abu hanifa and 103 years older than imam bukhari (arab news, 2012). there are four groups of mazhab in islamic jurisprudence, namely hanafi, maliki, syafi'i, and hambali, which differ in establishing laws because of the different times fuqoha that the problems faced are also different (badriyyah & az zafi, 2020). one simple example that is often debated is bowing when praying about how bent muslims are so that worship is considered valid and acceptable (reinhart, 2016). regarding haram or halal food, it is also a matter of debate. maliki and hanafi, who see that everything is haram and unclean, can be declared halal and suitable for eating if its original form has significantly changed and is far different (kashim, et al., 2015). maliki also allows eating nontoxic arthropods to eat other than grasshoppers prohibited by all schools (rahim, 2018). another example is that the four schools also have the same opinion regarding the approval of minors' marriage, which is no longer suitable to be applied in this modern era (maisarah, afrizal, zulfahmi, mauliza, & murni, 2019). the scholars also differed in terms of the emergency limit that allows doing (eating) something forbidden. in this paper, the emergency limitation is explained through expert fiqh scholars' opinions about its meaning, including the following: according to scholars from the hanafi school who built their thoughts on the teachings of abu hanifa, who had a great work 'al-fiqh al-akbar' which the abbasids liked and followed (warren, 2013). the meaning of an emergency that concerns hunger is if someone does not want to consume. it is feared that goods are prohibited; he could die, or at least his limbs will become disabled. a person who is forced to be killed or has one of his limbs cut off if he does not want to eat or drink something forbidden. thus it means he does not want to eat or drink something hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 698 issn :0250-7196 that is haram, while he is in a state of emergency that allows him to eat a carcass because he was worried about his life or one of his limbs (zuhaili, 1997). according to the malik school cleric, it was departed from the thought of malik bin anas with his collection of hadiths entitled muwatta (serrano, 2014). the emergency allowed to consume something forbidden is if there is a fear of life's safety based on belief or just conjecture (zuhaili, 1997). according to the shafi'i school scholars who contribute to theology, sufism, constitutional theory, and hadith (el shamsy, 2017), they see that the extreme hunger for money is not enough to be overcome by merely eating carcasses, etcetera. like other schools' scholars, they are not obliged to have to wait until death is imminent. because at such critical moments, there is no point in eating. even at such a time limit, it is not permissible to eat, because it is useless. they also agreed that a person could eat forbidden foods if he feared that he is starving or unable to walk or cannot ride a vehicle or is separated from his group or lost. it is because without eating anything, someone's worry about the appearance of a dreaded disease is the same as worrying about the data of death, even if he feels afraid during illness. it is according to one valid opinion (zuhaili, 1997). according to the ulama of the hambali mazhab, which is the fourth sunni school of islamic law based on legal and theological thoughts from the teachings of imam hambali (holtzman, 2015). the emergency that is allowed to eat something forbidden makes him feel worried that it will threaten his life. result in death if he does not eat them. according to imam ahmad, if someone who does not want to eat haram worried that he would starve or afraid that he will not be able to walk that he is separated from his group or is unable to ride a vehicle, he must eat it without being limited by a particular time (zuhaili, 1997). thus, if none of the things mentioned concern people, it is not justified if someone violates the origin of origin's general provisions, whether forbidden or obligatory. so, the emergency must already exist and not be still waiting. in other words, the fear of destruction or loss of life or property exists in reality and is known through strong conjecture based on the existing experiences. alternatively, suppose someone is convinced that there is an intrinsic danger to five fundamental needs. in that case, we also call something nurtured by religion and its conditions, namely religion, soul, honor, reason, and property. therefore, a person may adhere to legal provisions with exceptions to avoid harm, even if it may harm others. as stated in the rules of fiqh: ٌُِرَُذَُسَُفُْيَُُضَُبسَُعَُاُرَُرَُاُِ بًَُُهُِفُِّجَُأَُُبةُِكَُبسرُِاُثُِسًُشَُبُضَُهًَُُُضَُعُْأَُُيَُعُِوُْسُُُب hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 699 issn :0250-7196 it means: "when two interpretations are opposed, then stay away from the greater harm by doing the lighter ones." (as suyuthi in addariny (2019)) based on some of the jurisprudence experts' opinions above, the author can conclude that the emergency limitation allows eating something forbidden is if a muslim is threatened or will cause death to defend the five, namely religion, soul, honor, reason, and property. 5. size of consumption in an emergency the scholars do not differ, that if a person experiences hunger for long enough, and continuously he may eat the carcass until he is full. this law applies to other prohibited foods. however, if hunger is only temporary and a person in a state of emergency is likely to get expensive food in a not too long time, he may eat a carcass just to fill the remains of his life. it means that he should not eat more than is full. it is based on the agreement of the scholars. it is in line with fiqh principles, namely: ب.ُُهَُسُِذُْقَُثُُِسُُذهُقَُيُُُحُِسَُوشُُهضُهِنُُحَُثيُْبُأَُيَُ meaning: "what is obtained due to compulsion (emergency) is measured by its needs" (alsayuthi, 1990). regarding the problem of being allowed to eat a carcass until it is full, there are differences in opinion among scholars: according to the maliki school scholars, and the opinion quoted by imam ahmad, which is also the opinion of the shafi'i school scholars, someone who is in an emergency may consume forbidden food until he is full. he can also take it as a provision if he feels worried about having an emergency again. if he does not need it, he can throw it away (ath-thariqy, 1996). according to the opinion of scholars from the hanafi school, scholars from the shafi'i school and imam ahmad in the most valid opinion of the two narrations, as well as the opinion of ibn majusyun and habib, the scholars of the maliki school, someone who is in an emergency is only allowed to eat forbidden food to the extent that can overcome the rest of his life. as for the measure that can overcome the remnants of life, according to scholars from the hanafi school is that it enables a person to be strong in prayer and fasting. meanwhile, according to the opinion of the scholars of the shafi'i school, the measure that can overcome the remnants of life is to arrive at a normal state where people can no longer be allowed to eat the carcass. thus the emergency has disappeared and continues to eat the carcass outside the emergency period. it is prohibited (ath-thariqy, 1996). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 700 issn :0250-7196 based on the jurisprudence scholars' opinions above regarding the amount allowed consumed in an emergency, in essence, they agree that they can consume something that is forbidden, whether carcass, blood and pork. it is just that the size of the food there is a difference of opinion. some scholars allow consuming food that is haram because in an emergency until full. the authors respond to this problem tends to the opinion that the size of a person eats haram food because, in an emergency, it is only limited to the ability to survive and make efforts to find halal food. 6. wisdom behind the allowance of something under emergency allah's mercy on his servants is hinting at some legal provisions that can illuminate their religious and world affairs. allah explained something lawful and allowed it for them because, from the time he created them, he knew what could sustain their bodies and created them, knew what could sustain their bodies, and create goodness for them, so he made it legal for them. moreover, allah explained something that is haram because he had known what was harmful to them from the moment he created them. therefore, allah forbade them from it and forbade them. nevertheless, allah makes haram things lawful for people who are in an emergency when their bodies cannot stand upright without them. the scholars of jurisprudence say, several things can be done in an emergency, namely consuming food and drinks that are prohibited: carcasses, blood, pork, eating other people's property, and so on. according to scholars who write about general principles in islamic jurisprudence, that the wisdom of allowing eating unlawful food in an emergency is generally passed away to eliminate the narrowness of the converts. the wisdom of being able to eat illicit items on an emergency basis is to protect the person's life, for example, in arak, eating carcasses, blood, and pork. initially, consuming these prohibited items could endanger the health of those who eat or drink them. if it is forbidden, it is in his interest, not for the benefit of others. it is the wisdom of divine wisdom, or then it is permissible to consume these haram things. because if it is forbidden, it will cause a considerable danger described in the form of fear of death. that is why eliminating difficulties must be related to a religious principle that states that narrowness cannot be eliminated by bringing new narrowness (as-suyuthi, 1987). 7. closing there was a divergence of sentiment among the figures of fiqh scholars responding to the problem of implementing emergency law in an immoral state. a person on a trip aiming to rob or immoral acts against allah, in the middle, runs out of provisions to eat. according to scholars, hanafiah may eat something forbidden, such as blood, carcasses, and pork, on the pretext of saving someone's life from death. hanafi's scholars think that those who worship are also permissible for immoral people because it aims to save someone's life. meanwhile, the maliki hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 701 issn :0250-7196 school of thought says that disobedient people cannot get rukhsah beauty might later be used to help immoral people. this opinion is also supported by scholars such as ibn' arabi, saying that people who are on an immoral journey are not allowed to eat what is haram because allah gives this kindness to help. in contrast, people who do immoral do not need to be helped. if he wants to eat, he must first repent. references addariny, m. (2019, april 6). kaidah yang lagi viral "mengambil yang lebih ringan mudharatnya" . retrieved from https://muslim.or.id/45976-mengambil-yang-lebihringan-mudharatnya.html al-alwani, s. t. (2005). political science in the legacy of classical islamic literature. in issues in contemporary islamic thought (pp. 229-234). london, uk: international institute of islamic thought. al-aoufi, h., al-zyoud, n., & shahminan, n. (2012). islam and the cultural conceptualisation of disability. international journal of adolescence and youth, 17(4), 205-219. al-ghazali, s., shamis, a., & alawiye, z. (2000). sad. in a thematic commentary on the qur’an (pp. 494-501). herndon, va: international institute of islamic thought. ali, s. a., parveen, n., & ali, a. s. (2018). links between the prophet muhammad (pbuh) recommended foods and disease management: a review in the light of modern superfoods. international journal of health sciences (qassim), 12(s2), 61-69. al-khowarizmi, akrim, lubis, m., & lubis, a. r. (2020). classification of tajweed al-qur'an on images applied varying normalized distance formulas. icecc 2020: proceedings of the 3rd international conference on electronics, communications and control engineering (pp. 21-25). acm digital library. al-qurtubi. (1996). al-jami' li ahkam al-qur'an. beirut, lebanon: dar al-kutub al-'ilmiyya. al-sayuthi abdurrahman, j. (1990). al-asybah wa al-nadhoir fil furu'. bairut: darul kutub ilmiyah. alwazna, r. (2016). islamic law: its sources, interpretation and the translation of it into laws written in english. international journal of semiot law 29, 251–260 . ambali, a. r., & bakar, a. n. (2014). people's awareness on halal foods and products: potential issues for policy-makers. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 121, 3-25. arab news. (2012, may 4). imam malik: a star among scholars. retrieved from https://www.arabnews.com/[termalias-raw]/imam-malik-star-among-scholars aslan, e. (2019). a pluralistic account of religious upbringing in islamic religious education: fundamentals and perspectives. religious education, 114(4), 436-442. aspers, p., & corte, u. (2019). what is qualitative in qualitative research. qualitative sociology, 42(2) , 139-160. as-suyuthi. (1987). al-itqan fii ulumil qur’an. beirut, lebanon: dar al-fikr. ath-thariqy, a. b. (1996). fiqh darurat. jakarta, indonesia: pustaka azzam. azmi, a. s. (2017). crystallization of the quran: an analysis of john wansbrough‟s theory. wawasan: jurnal ilmiah agama dan sosial budaya, 2(2), 1-10 . hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 702 issn :0250-7196 badawi, g. (2011). muslim attitudes towards end-of-life decisions. journal of the islamic medical association of north america, 43(3), 134-139. badriyyah, l., & az zafi, a. (2020). perbedaan mazhab impat imam besar (hanafi, maliki, syafi'i, dan hambali) dalam pardigma hukum fikih. al-muaddib :jurnal ilmu-ilmu sosial dan keislaman, . 5(1) , 65-79. bidgoli, r. d. (2019). vegetarian food recommendation in the traditional islamic teachings to increase the fertility of men. journal of ethnic foods, 6(13). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-019-0014-6. brockopp, j. (2003). taking and saving life. the islamic context. in j. e. brockopp (eds.), islamic ethics of life: abortion, war and euthanasia (pp. 1-24). columbia: university of south carolina press. brown, j. a. (2009). sunna. retrieved from https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195390155/obo9780195390155-0083.xml edwin, s. (2016). frequent functions and references: personal solutions in sacred apples and destiny. in privately empowered: expressing feminism in islam in northern nigerian fiction (pp. 163-188). evanston, illinois: northwestern university press. el shamsy, a. (2017). shafi`is. retrieved from https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195390155/obo9780195390155-0148.xml elbih, r. (2015). teaching about islam and muslims while countering cultural misrepresentations. the social studies, 106(3), 112-116. encyclopedia of religion. (2020, august 11). free will and predestination: islamic concepts. retrieved from https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacstranscripts-and-maps/free-will-and-predestination-islamic-concepts ghiasi, a., & keramat, a. (2018). the effect of listening to holy quran recitation on anxiety: a systematic review. iranian journal of nursing and midwifery research, 23(6), 411–420. haleem, m. a. (2018). the role of context in interpreting and translating the qur'an. journal of qur'anic studies, 20(1), 47-66. hallaq, w. (2009). an introduction to islamic law. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. halstead, j. m. (2007). islamic values: a distinctive framework for moral education? journal of moral education, 36(3), 283-296. hidayatullah, a. (2013). muslim feminist theology in the united states. in h. m. aslan (eds.), muslima theology: the voices of muslim women theologians (pp. 81-100). frankfurt am main: peter lang ag. holtzman, l. (2015). ḥanbalīs. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/97801953901550210 hooker, v. (2019). „by the pen!‟: spreading ʿilm in indonesia through quranic calligraphy. in ilm: science, religion and art in islam (pp. 81-97). south australia: university of adelaide press. houkani, g. f. (1966). ibn sīnās „essay on the secret of destiny‟. bulletin of the school of oriental and african studies, 29(1), 25-48. huda, m., jibrail, b. y., jasmi, k. a., & zakaria, g. n. (2016). al-zarnūjī‟s concept of knowledge („ilm). sage open, 6(3), 1-10. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 703 issn :0250-7196 kashim, m. i., adnan, a. h., nasohah, z., yahaya, m. z., majid, a. a., husni, a. b., & samsudin, m. a. (2015). principles regarding the use of haram (forbidden) sources in food processing: a critical islamic analysis. asian social science, 11(22), 17-25. kassam, z., & robinson, s. e. (2014). islam and food. encyclopedia of food and agricultural ethics. retrievd from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0929-4_14 kidwai, a. (2017). muhammad marmaduke pickthall‟s english translation of the quran (1930): an assessment. in marmaduke pickthall: islam and the modern world (pp. 231-248). boston, ma: brill. kim, h. (2007). the islamisation of everyday life. in reformist muslims in a yogyakarta village: the islamic transformation of contemporary socio-religious life (pp. 83-110). anu press. maisarah, afrizal, zulfahmi, mauliza, f., & murni, f. (2019). minimum marriage age: study of fiqh of four madhabs. britain international of humanities and social sciences (biohs) journal, 1(2), 149-158. masud, m. (2016). “classical” islamic legal theory as ideology: nasr abu zayd‟s study of alshafiʿi‟s al-risala. in islamic studies in the twenty-first century: transformations and continuities (pp. 183-204). amsterdam, netherlands: amsterdam university press. murnisa, m. (2002). towards an african qur'anic hermeneutics. journal of qur'anic studies, 4(1), 61-76. nimrouzi, m., & zare, m. (2014). principles of nutrition in islamic and traditional persian medicine. journal of evidence-based integrative medicine, 19(4), 267-270 o'sullivan, d. (2001). the interpretation of qur'anic text to promote or negate the death penalty for apostates and blasphemers. journal of qur'anic studies, 3(20), 63-93. padela, a., shanawani, h., greenlaw, j., hamid, h., aktas, m., & chin, n. (2008). the perceived role of islam in immigrant muslim medical practice within the usa: an exploratory qualitative study. journal of medicine ethics, 34(5), 365-369. rahim, s. f. (2018). islamic jurisprudence and the status of arthropods: as alternative source of protein and with regard to e120. moj food process technol, 6(4), 330-340. reinhart, a. (2016). what to do with ritual texts: islamic fiqh texts and the study of islamic rritual. in islamic studies in the twenty-first century: transformations and continuities (pp. 67-86). amsterdam: amsterdam university press. rispler-chaim, v. (1989). islamic medical ethics in the 20th century. journal of medicine ethics, 15(4), 203-208. rizvi, s. (1981). kingship in islam: a historical analysis. in kingship in asia and early america: 30. international congress of human sciences in asia and north africa (pp. 29-82). mexico: colegio de mexico. sachedina, a. (2005). end-of-life: the islamic view. lancet, 366(9487), 774-779. serrano, d. (2014). malikis. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0220 shabbar, s., & roberts, n. (2017). taqlīd, ittibāʿ and ijtihad: contrast and complementarity. in ijtihad and renewal (pp. 61-77). london, uk: international institute of islamic thought. sirin, s. r., & fine, m. (2008). muslim american youth: understanding hyphenated identities through multiple methods. new york, ny: new york university press. tbarsi, h. (1990). makarem alakhlagh 5th ed. qom: sharif razi publication. warren, c. s. (2013). the hanafi school. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0082 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 690-704 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 704 issn :0250-7196 zuhaili, w. (1997). nazhariyat al-dharurat al-syar'iyyat: muqaranat ma'al-qanun al-wadh'i. jakarta, indonesia: gaya media pratama. f:\e\islamicus\2021\the abolition of capital punishment.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 145 the abolition of capital punishment: an analysis of religiously inspired crimes in pakistan dr. aisha tariq department of law international islamic university islamabad, pakistan email: aisha.tariq@iiu.edu.pk recieved on: 22-06-2020 accepted on: 04-01-2021 abstract internationally the focus on abolition of the death penalty has increased during the past few decades. however, 56 countries including pakistan still hold the punishment as an integral part of their penal systems. despite the fact, pakistan uses the particular sentence to settle the fate of offenders in approximately 27 assorted crimes, it still remains unclear what precise reasons provide support to the institutional legitimacy of this penalty. this paper is to explore and share the standpoint of pakistan as a muslim retentionist state. thus the research first expounds the islamic perspective on the death penalty and later it elucidates how this perspective has been incorporated in the constitutional and legal regime of the state. the paper concludes that pakistan should re-evaluate its position on retaining death penalty for those crimes which do not clash with the constitutional, religious and social limitations of the state. keywords: pakistan, death penalty, retentionist state, islamic law 1. introduction except only 56 countries, a greater majority of the states has abolished the death penalty either in law (these are the states which not only retain the death penalty in their statutes but also practically execute the punishment; such states are termed as ‘retentionists in practice’) or in practice (the states which though retain the capital punishment in their law books but have not carried out any executions since ten years or more. these countries might be considered, ‘retentionist in law’ or ‘abolitionist de facto’.)1 146 the abolition of capital punishment... the opponents of the death penalty assert that the particular punishment, under any circumstance, violates human rights norms. its imposition is against the universally accepted ‘right to life’ and that capital punishment is contrary to the prohibition of cruel, inhuman and degrading (or ‘cruel and unusual’) punishment. the death sentences continue to be handed down after trials which allegedly fall short of the international guarantees for a fair trial, including lack of adequate defense during the trials and appeals procedures. sometimes the legal and procedural lacunas turn into the cause of innocent executions. at the same time they claim that the capital punishment does not fulfill any penological goals and carries no special deterrent affects.2 despite these firm arguments, retentionist states are not only carrying but forcefully executing the capital sentence. they place social, constitutional/legal and religious reservations against the abolition of the particular punishment. pakistan is one of those retentionist states which retain the particular punishment in practice. constitutionally an islamic state, pakistan, carries this punishment for approximately twenty seven assorted crimes. the strings of capital sentence for a few of these twenty seven crimes are firmly tied with the islamic system of punishments. however the increasing worldwide pressures and changing circumstances strained the government of pakistan to mull over its position on capital sentence in 2008. this happened primarily because the perseverance of the death penalty had materialized as a budding impediment in seeking business from international markets especially from the european states that wanted the abolition of this punishment as one of the guarantees to award generalised scheme of preferences plus status (gsp + status) to pakistan.3 to embark upon the conflicting domestic and international scenarios, the government eventually put a provisional stay on execution of capital sentence in september 2008 instead of clearly retaining or abolishing the penalty. however the incident of terrorist attack on a school, situated in peshawar on december 16, 2014 which took 150 lives of students of age 5 to 16 years allegedly forced the government to reinstate the punishment right away especially to execute those heinous criminals who had been convicted under terrorism charges.4 this study is to discuss the point of view of pakistan as that ‘muslim retentionist state’ which maintained, restored and retains the particular punishment despite of all international pressures through especially invoking the religious and security centric reasons. the first part of this paper provides the islamic perspective of the death penalty. the second part argues about the unusual position of this punishment within the pakistani hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 147 legal system with special reference to its religious eminence that is strongly backed by the constitution of pakistan, 1973 (constitution hereafter) and which is virtually the major serious stance of the state to retain the capital punishment. the very next segment is an analysis of those issues of law and order which ultimately affect the whole social fabric and which are one kind of the impediments for the abolition of the death penalty in pakistan. the research concludes that the death penalty has a strong religious significance in pakistan and since the basic character of the constitution of pakistan is islamic therefore, the complete abolition of the death penalty is possible only through bringing an amendment into this basic character of the constitution. the espousal of such kind of constitutional amendment is nearly impossible in pakistani social scenario. therefore it is suggested that the pakistani legislature should reconsider those other two dozen common law crimes which have no religious association and for which the death penalty can be awarded. 2. the islamic perspective on the death penalty the holy qur’én states” “…take not life, which allah almighty has made sacred, except by way of justice and law. thus, does he command you, so that you may learn wisdom.”5 in islamic legal corpus, the expression al-íaqq is used for the corresponding english word “right”.6 the primary meaning of íaqq is “an established fact” and its secondary meaning is truth.7 islam divides the “rights” or “×uqūq” in two broader categories. these are, “×uqūq allāh” (the rights of allah almighty) and “×uqūq al-‘ibéd” (the rights of humans). all criminal, financial & social laws expounded through øharī‘éh ultimately fit in to this categorization of ×uqūq. while in the modern jurisprudence ‘state’ becomes party to the criminal case for the security and benefit of the society at large. in muslim states, when a case is presented through “state”, it falls in the category of ×uqūq allāh and is also defended by the state. while in ×uqūq al-‘ibéd, the individual and private rights of people are discussed.8 muslim jurists divide the crimes in three types; 148 the abolition of capital punishment... 1. fixed crimes and punishments (×add, plural ×udūd) specified by the foundational texts which generally come under the category of ×uqūq allāh. they are adultery (zinā), theft (sarqah), drinking alcohol (shurab al-khamr), slander (qadhaf), waging war against allah almighty (×arābah), apostasy (irtidād) and transgression or rebellion (baghi).9 (hadd with a fixed nature of penalties primarily safeguard the public interest by taking the sanction from the concept of huqūq allah. different from qiîéî, they might not be waived off by the private persons or by the head of state. according to most of the jurists, the ×add of qadhaf is the only exception, for which the punishment is regarded as both for ×aqq allāh and ×aqq al ‘abd.) 2. laws of retaliation (qiîéî) and financial compensation (diyat) for homicide and personal injury are also drawn from the texts but they are part of the category of ×uqūq al-‘ibéd. 3. in addition to it, there are penalties for offences not addressed by the texts and which are at the discretion of the state and are dealt through siyésah or ta‘zêr.10 now out of the crimes mentioned in the above-cited three sets, there are only five crimes for which the death penalty has been identified as an appropriate punishment in islamic criminal law. muslim jurists collectively treated a set of four acts as ‘×udūd crimes’ designed for capital punishment, i.e. adultery (ziné), apostasy (irtidéd / ridda) [the jurists held the blasphemy to be equivalent to the apostasy], highway robbery (×arébah or qat al-tarêq) and rebellion (béghi). and in a separate category from ×udūd, the death penalty is awardable for intentional murder through the law of retaliation (qiîéî). in islamic law the death punishment is justified by deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation and to protect the society by incapacitating the offender. 2.1. death penalty through the imposition of ×udūd the unlawful sexual intercourse between two people of opposite sex who are not married to each other is termed as adultery (zinā). the holy qur’én discusses the crime of adultery whereas its punishment is elaborated by the sunnah. the penalty for unmarried adulterers is flogging with 100 stripes while for the married, it is stoning to death.11 to inflict the penalty of zinā. sharê‘ah prescribes a very detailed and strict procedure of evidence. the holy qur’én says: hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 149 “those who accuse chaste women ‘of adultery and fail to  produce four witnesses, give them eighty lashes each . and do not ever accept any testimony from them for they are indeed the rebellious.”12 the óyat basically deals with ‘×add al qadhaf’ enforceable against the people who put false accusation of adultery against chaste women. however the jurists have deducted the rule of four witnesses for the enforcement of ×add al zinā. for this purpose, they say that the four eye witnesses must give complete details of the incident with corroborative evidences. a four time repetition of the narration to the judge on four different occasions by them is also required or the confession made by the offender (which has not been reverted later on) is necessary to precede the punishment. in case the four witnesses are not available but the crime might be established through the circumstantial evidences, the punishment under ×add shall not be carried out rather a ta‘zīri punishment will be awarded. nevertheless it is nearly impossible to satisfy the rules of evidence in such cases unless the act is performed at an open public space.13 the crime of ridda or apostasy is set forth in the holy qur’én. it says, “and whoever of you turns from his religion and dies disbelieving, their works have failed in this world and the next. those are the inhabitants of fire: therein they will dwell forever.”.14 this verse was interpreted by the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as constituting a ×add requiring the death penalty. muslim scholars have long debated over this crime. some see it as the modern equivalent to high treason while others take it as a rejection of islam altogether.15 except the some jurists from ×anafê and shi‘ah school of thoughts, most schools of islamic law consider the apostasy a ×add crime to be punished with death. they justify their claim that since the apostate becomes a potential enemy combatant therefore he should be penalized with death.16 some jurists include blasphemy within the meaning of ridda and treat it as a novel and severe form of defamation or qadhaf). these jurists criminalized apostasy and blasphemy alike.17 however some jurists deemed the blasphemy as a ta‘zêr.18 the crime of rebellion / transgression (baghéwat) is defined in the holy qur’én. it says: 150 the abolition of capital punishment... “if two parties among the believers fall in to a quarrel, make ye peace between them, but if one of them transgresses beyond bonds against the other, then fight ye all against him who transgresses until he complies, then make peace between them with justice and be fair (and just).”19 the commonly agreed definition of baghéwat refers to an unlawful uprising against the legitimate ruler (imém) by use of force (equivalent to treason and armed rebellion). however, since the muslims are entitled to rebel against unjust rulers thus the complexity involves to draw the line between lawful and unlawful rebellion.20 for the crime of ×arabah (qatl al tarêq), the holy qur’én has mentioned four penalties in surat al-ma’idah which include capital punishment, crucifixion, cross-amputation or banishment. it says: “the penalty of those who wage war against allah and his messenger and seek corruption in the land is to be killed, or crucified, or to have their hands and feet cut on alternate sides, or to be banished from the land. that is their disgrace in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a great punishment.”21 the different punishments deal with different situations arising during baghéwat. mélikê school of law recommends minimum penalties in each case while judge has the freedom to impose serious punishments if he finds severity in the crime committed. since in this ×add, sometime a relationship between the ×aqq allāh (regarding the imposition of ×add) and the ×aqq al ‘abd (in case of homicide) can arise thus contrary to the general rule about the concurrence of penalties, most schools hold that ×add precedes the qiîéî. in the case only if ×add lapses, e.g. because of the repentance of the culprit expressed before his arrest then the claims of man can become enforceable. the shéfi‘ê (raímat allah ‘alaih) however, give priority to qiîéî over ×add.22 2.2. death penalty through the imposition of qiîéî qiîéî or retaliation is another crime for which death penalty is fixed. the word qiîéî means equivalence. the rule of equal retaliation hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 151 is not only applicable for homicide but also for all types of bodily harms.23 for penal purposes, islamic law divides the crime of murder in two categories. one is intentional (the willful and intended murder) for which qiîéî (the killing of the offender in same way) can be claimed and the other is unintentional for which monitory compensation (diyét) is allowed. the crimes amounting to qiîéî are considered the breach of the ‘right of man’ (×aqq al ‘abd). therefore this is the discretion of the family of the victim either to take qiîéî 24 or to claim the blood money or diyét25. the state or no other person can intervene into or take away this right of the legal heirs of the victim. however this is very clear that the rule of equality and proportionality should be strictly followed in the infliction of qiîéî.26 just like ×udëd punishments, islamic law provides strict evidentiary requirements for the infliction of penalty of death through qiîéî. there is a requirement of two eye witnesses or a free, voluntary confession made with full understanding and acumen without having any compulsion or coercion upon the person. additionally, the testimony should be corroborated with evidences. if the evidential requirements are not fulfilled, the death penalty through qiîéî cannot be inflicted.27 2.3. death penalty through the imposition of ta‘zīr in addition to these crimes, islam allows to award death penalty through ta‘zīr and siyésah (ta‘zīr and siyésah both signify the punishments awarded by the state. although both expressions are sometimes used as synonyms however they refer to different concepts. ta‘zīr can only be imposed for the acts forbidden by the sharī‘ah while siyéysah may be administered for any act which can threaten the public peace.)28 while keeping in regard the principle of legality which stipulates that there is neither any crime nor any punishment without law. ta‘zīr crimes are lesser of the category of ×udūd and qiîéî crimes and may be applied; 1. where the ×add or qiîéî laws cannot be imposed due to weak evidence; 2. reduced penalties for inconclusively established, or insufficiently proven ×add and qiîéî charges where individual or social harm is perceived by the judge; 3. regulatory offences where an individual, social or public harm exists.29 152 the abolition of capital punishment... the most prominent imposition of siyésah is to award death sentence to habitual criminals for ‘striving after corruption in the land’. for example, the holy qur’én says, “the only reward of those who make war upon allah and his messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. such will be their degradation in the world, and in the hereafter theirs will be an awful doom”.30 the óyat further says, “save those who repent before ye overpower them. for know that allah is forgiving, merciful”.31 2.4. maqāîid al-sharī‘ah as a policy matter for the muslim rulers, the jurists have classified maîélií (benefits) into ìarërat or ‘necessary interests’, íéjét or ‘supporting interests’, and teísinét or ‘complementary interests’. öarërat or necessary interests are those without the protection of which there would be anarchy or chaos in the society.32 these are basically founded on the principle of relationship between ‘×ukm and ×ikmat’. one set of these rules ìarërat is termed as, maqāîid al-sharī‘ah or the ‘fundamental objectives of sharê‘ah (or the ‘higher objectives of sharê‘ah) according to which the purpose of revealing the injunction was in fact preservation of certain values, freedoms or rights which are essential for maintenance of balance among society. these maqāîid are preservation of faith, life,33 property,34 intellect,35 progeny36 and according to some, it also includes the preservation of reputation.37 “in the detailed scheme of rights and their normative structure, the priorities have been assigned not only with respect to the rights but also with respect to the right holder. in this scheme, everyone possesses rights but no one has a right above the right of allāh.”38 after this, the right of man of preservation of his life is kept at the highest pedestal. thus the muslim rulers should as a matter of policy create circumstances where these maqāîid can be safeguarded and preserved in the given hierarchy. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 153 3. reasons for the retention of the death penalty in pakistan 3.1. contemporary legal reasons the religious grounds are used as the principal plea against the abolition of the capital punishment in pakistan. in pakistan, the basic character of the constitution is islamic. article 2 of the constitution declares islam as the state religion. whereas article 2-a affirms the holy qur’én and the sunnah as the ultimate law of the land. islamic teachings are made part of public policy through article 31 while article 203-a to 203-j require that the legal verdicts should be in accordance with islamic injunctions. article 227, which is considered as one of the most influential provision of the constitution, maintains that no such law should be promulgated which is incompatible with the islamic injunctions of the holy qur’én and the sunnah. (besides article 227, there are other subsidiary laws such as enforcement of sharī‘ah act 1991, which has specifically been drafted to check the conformity of all minor and major statutes with sharī‘ah.) the combined effect of all these provisions of the constitution is that the islamic imperatives have the superior authority against rest of the statutes. the litmus test to determine the legal validity of every statute is its consonance with the holy qur’én and the sunnah. in other words, the holy qur’én and the sunnah are the ground-norms for pakistani legal system.39 the legal justification for the death penalty given by pakistan should be examined in the light of the afore-mentioned constitutional scenario. the particular punishment can be awarded against twenty seven crimes in pakistan. the common law crimes include the commission of immoral and illicit crimes against women (pakistan penal code, 1860 [ppc]40 section 354-a), crimes relating to property (ppc, section 365-a), dacoity and murder (ppc, section 396), hijacking (ppc, section 402-b), harbouring the hijackers (ppc, section 402-c), import and export of dangerous drugs (section 13 of the dangerous drugs act, 1930), various crimes against the state (sections 24, 26 and 31 of the pakistan army act, 1952), high treason (section 2 of the high treason act, 1973), maliciously hurting or attempting to hurt persons traveling by railway or damaging property belonging to railway (section 127 of the railways [amended] act, 1995), transportation of specific dangerous arms (section 13-a of 154 the abolition of capital punishment... the pakistan arms (amendment) ordinance, 1996), the crime of possessing narcotic substance (section 9 of the control of narcotics substances act, 1997) and for the commission of terrorist acts (section 6, 7 and 8 of the anti terrorism act, 1997). while the death penalty receives authority from direct and indirect islamic injunctions for intentional murder, adultery and crimes against religion and the respective law has been codified in accordance to these injunctions. the highest numbers of executions are however carried out for intentional murder and for the commission of terrorist acts throughout pakistan. this is pertinent to elaborate those relevant provisions here which get the punitive sanction from the islamic injunctions. under section 302 of the ppc, the intentional murder with reference to its punishment is further categorized into three kinds: (a) intentional murder liable to death through following the islamic rule of qiîéî under section 302(a); (b) intentional murder liable to death or life imprisonment through ta‘zêr (the punishment awarded through exercise of discretionary powers of the relevant court) under section 302(b) (read with section 311 and 338 [e-1]); (c) intentional murder punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to twenty five years, where the punishment of qiîéî is not applicable owing to deficient evidentiary requirements. the first two categories that carry the death penalty in one way or another ultimately connect to the islamic rules of punishment. the first category which is relevant to the rules of qiîéî (revenge or retaliation) is the most significant one; it is one of those punishments which are specifically provided in the holy qur’én and the sunnah of the prophet muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) (refer sec: 1.2). under the principle of qiîéî, the matter, after exhaustion of all the rights of appeal by the offender ultimately ensues straightly between the parties to the case. once the final conviction is pronounced by the court, the right of legal heirs of the deceased to take revenge from the accused (through giving the approval for the execution of judicially approved death penalty) or to let him off becomes operative. at this point they solely can decide about the fate of the offender and the state or the court can exercise no authority over this right.41 if the legal heirs decide to take revenge, the hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 155 court and the state are obliged to honour this decision by executing the death penalty and if they decide not to take vengeance through the way of qiîéî and agree to compound the offence, they can simply pardon the offender under the principle of al-’afw (the principle of forgiveness) discussed in section 309 of the ppc or can receive the blood money as diyat (which means the compensation money fixed by the government (in accordance with the islamic injunctions) as specified in section 323 of the ppc payable to the heirs of the victim or the legal heirs can compound their right of qiîéî by accepting badl-e-sulaí which is the mutually agreed compensation given under section 310 of the ppc. since constitutionally the islamic injunctions are the most superior part of the pakistani legal system therefore it might be stated that the state cannot use the power to wholesomely abolish the death penalty. because such usage of power would be against the rules prescribed under the penal law mentioned in the holy qur’én and the sunnah for the qiîéî; the constitution does not allow such bypass. under the second category of intentional murder, the death penalty might be awarded through ta‘zīr. this category also essentially takes its strength from islamic law. here the courts usually use discretionary powers to award death penalty under the principle of faséd-fil-arì to award death penalty through ta‘zīr.42 this islamic rule applies to the cases where the killer is a potential danger for the society or where he adopted an extremely atrocious or shocking method of killing which is outrageous to the public conscience at large, or if he has been previously convicted for the same crime or is a habitual offender or a professional criminal.43 such convict may be sentenced to death by the court in exercise of its discretion which may be gathered through the connecting circumstances under section 302(b) (read with section 311 and 338 [e-1]) of the ppc.44 here through applying this rule, the court may pronounce the death penalty even though a compromise had already taken place between the parties through the operation of the rules of ‘afw, diyat or badl-e-îulí.45 though the offence of adultery or ×add of ziné comes next in this list of crimes for which the death penalty can be pronounced under islamic law however the pakistani courts have never awarded capital sentence by applying the particular provisions of ×add of ziné ever since the inception of the crime in offence of ziné (enforcement of ×udëd) ordinance in 1979 under section. this is due to the strict testimony criterion fixed under the law which is basically derived from the islamic provisions mentioned in the 156 the abolition of capital punishment... holy qur’én and the sunnah. it requires, either the confession of the accused before a court of competent jurisdiction or at least four muslim adult male eye witnesses of the act of penetration and who satisfy the requirement of tazkiyah alshuhūd [that they are truthful persons and abstain from major sins (kabé’ir)] (provided that, if the accused is a non-muslim, the eye-witnesses may be non-muslims.)46 the prosecution could never present the mandatory proofs and evidences before the courts to apply the punishment as prescribed under the ×add of ziné. to tackle this matter, the courts pronounce the death penalty or any other suitable punishment for the crime of adultery under ta‘zêr. blasphemy committed against prophet muhammad (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) is another crime punishable with death through section 295-c of the ppc. in pakistan, the topic of blasphemy has held a special position ever since the time of its inception in law in 1986. a strong social relevance and influence which immensely affects the religious sentiments of common people of the country has been observed throughout since 1986 to date. and therefore, every effort to amend the law eventually proved grave.47 the law though contains death penalty for the commission of the crime of blasphemy however the punishment has never been executed for the crime. 3.2. contemporary reasons with regard to security & order system there are various reasons behind retention, reinstatement and maintenance of the death penalty in pakistan. besides other motives, the statistics prove that it works as a deterrent strategy and such deterrence plays its role in smooth running of the whole society. this claim might be better established through an analysis of crime statistics of pakistan during the trial-moratorium against the death penalty and after the lifting up of this temporary stay. the open crime data of pakistan indicates that the crime in the country constantly increased during the six years of ban on the death penalty (from 2008 to 2014) with an average of 17.86% as compared to the figures of 2007. whereas the total crime increase in these six years was of 27.53%. the crime against person and property shows upward trend with the average of 24.12% in comparison to the figure of 2007.48 while some obvious decrease was seen in the rate of some very serious hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 157 crimes after the reinstatement of the death penalty in december 2014. for example, the death toll through sectarian violence was at 767 in 2013-14 that diminished immediately towards 276 in 2015 and 131 in 2016.49 pakistan had been facing the most prominent intransigent hostility through terrorism since almost two decades.50 besides other repercussions such as economic loss, devastation of business industry, uncertainty, and insecure borders etc., the state has also been combating with a very complex frame of mind since 2001 after becoming an ally in ‘war against terror’. this war paved the grounds for allegedly reactionary terror campaign which started spreading like an endemic within the country in the form of frequent bomb blasts. this hostility reached at its peak during 2008 to 2014. according to the ‘national counter terrorism authority (nacta) pakistan’, 18,193 terrorist incidents in total took place since 2001 to 2017 in pakistan, out of which 11,977 occurred only during 20082014. however, in 2015, pakistan recorded a substantial drop in terrorist activity with 45% lesser attacks, 38% fewer deaths and 54% decrease in injuries than in the previous year. according to the south asia terrorism portal (satp) pakistan, total civilian casualties through terrorism declined 47.2% in 2015. this year pakistan had the third largest decline in deaths. there were 677 fewer deaths in pakistan. as a result, pakistan had the lowest number of deaths from terrorism since 2008. 2016-17 are the second and third consecutive years in which pakistan has seen a reduction in terrorism.51 the afore-mentioned violence industries have their own impact over the entire society with their separate spheres and methodologies to deal and cope with. pakistan’s stay on executions, being a fix situation, could not muddle through contemporary demands. the pause on death punishment mounted the sense of lack of deterrence in the society which upraised the incidents of terrorism and commission of heinous crimes. the condemned prisoners, particularly the terrorists started the intensification of their net from within the bounds of prison camps and instead they got punished, their associates started haggling and threatening of serious consequences to the government authorities in case of executions of their associated condemned terrorists.52 the members of higher judiciary as, justice mushir alam53 and even the government officials like the then interior minister, mr. rehman malik54 had been pointing out the trial-moratorium on death penalty as one of the prime obstacles to maintain peace and security and protection of human rights of the individuals within the country. 158 the abolition of capital punishment... as the fundamental requirement of both, the national law (under the pakistan prison rules no. 224 to 249 of 1978) and the international law, the authorities are required to completely segregate prisoners according to their criminal history sheets and age groups. however in pakistan, the penitentiaries are overcrowded and convicts (including high profile criminals who are condemned to death) generally intermingle and remain open to inspire, pressurize and influence the other prison fellows. during the pendency of the trial-moratorium the large numbers of 8000 death row prisoners were incarcerated in pakistani prisons with other low profile offenders. to avoid their negative influence on other offenders, the government, before halting the capital punishment should had constructed the separate prison camps to imprison the potential beneficiaries of moratorium; additionally, reasonable budgets should had been allocated to deploy a special task force for controlling these highly dangerous offenders. nevertheless no such measures were taken and consequently due to poor security system, the criminal networks and their members had got so powerful, well informed and connected to the dangerous prison inmates during five to six years of moratorium that they repeatedly attacked the prisons and got their hundreds of crime fellows escaped from there.55 as another upshot of the cessation of the death penalty, a clear increase was noticed in the feelings of dejection, hopelessness and helplessness in society in finding justice against the culprits. it grew as a provocation for the legal heirs of the victims to take revenge on personal level who actually had no prior motives to commit crime. and so the six years of trial-moratorium repetitively witnessed the mobs killing the dacoits and culprits under a belief of failure to get the offenders legally punished.56 thus the people started assuming that they themselves should settle the scores instead of invoking the legal methods. this was a new but very alarming phenomenon. therefore, it was vital with the law and security point of view to bring back the trust of the common people in state’s legal system by reinstating the capital punishment. 4. proof of the claim there are 27 crimes labeled with the death penalty in pakistan. the claim of this paper is that these crimes may be divided into three groups. the first category includes those crimes for which the death penalty is awarded under the islamic laws in qiîéî, ×udëd, the blasphemy, etc. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 159 the second category has in it those crimes which seriously threat the law and order of the state like terrorism, intentional killing, etc. the death penalty for the crimes falling in these two groups should be retained. the third category comprises nearly two dozen crimes like anti-narcotics, crimes against railway, etc. for which the capital sentences is awarded. state should reconsider its position on retaining the highest punishment for these offences. the first prong of the claim is proved by the constitutional sanctity afforded through the injunctions of islam since to do away with death penalty in these crimes, constitutional amendment is needed (refer sec: 2.1). for the second type of classification, the limb of the claim is proved by the fact that the death penalty falling in this group is prescribed as ‘a tool of deterrence’ against those who sabotage the law and order. the annual crime rates of reliable sources prove these claims (refer sec: 2.2). whereas, the third classification includes less serious crimes with minor constitutional, legal and social sanctions. therefore, the logical way to get through the increasing economic pressure of the international community to abolish the death penalty and to serve the domestic needs of the country is that the legislature should revisit its retention policy of the death penalty with reference to this list of crimes. 5. conclusion and suggestions pakistan got independence on religious grounds primarily. this fact can evidently be noticed in the constitution of the state which is certainly drafted in accordance with the beliefs of the common people. the constitution contains a vivid preamble and various specific provisions which declare and affirm that the state of pakistan ought to follow and operate the islamic laws and teaching. hence as a constitutional restriction, no law can be promulgated in the country which goes against the holy qur’én and the sunnah. the islamic injunctions allow the state to grant capital punishment in various cases to satisfy the parameters of justice. in this scenario, this is near to impossible for the legislature to abolish the death penalty especially for those crimes which take their authority from the islamic injunctions. on the other hand, pakistan has been facing a dreadful kind of terrorism specifically and a critical law and order situation generally to deal with which the legislature regards deterrence as the precise policy. this policy has also been proved successful in previous years after the lifting up of moratorium on executions. nonetheless, the state of pakistan, 160 the abolition of capital punishment... being the member of the international community, is facing an utmost pressure against the retention of the death penalty in its law and practice. to cope with the international pressures to abolish the death penalty and to attain the domestic religious, constitutional and security requirements, the government should revisit the provisions dealing with the capital punishment. for this purpose, the reasonable consideration is required to continue those executions which are supported by the religion based provisions and for the offences relating to terrorism; however a review should be made for the remaining list of two dozen crimes carrying the death sentence. notes and references 1. amnesty international. october 23, 2018. “abolitionist and retentionist countries (as of july 2018),” index number: act 50/6665/2017, https://www.amnesty.org/ en/documents/act50/6665/2017/en/. accessed: february 12, 2021. 2. william a. schabas, the abolition of the death penalty in international law (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2002); william a. schabas, the death penalty as cruel treatment and torture (boston: boston university press,1996); shigemitsu dando, “toward the abolition of the death penalty,” indiana law journal72, no.1 (1996: 7-19. http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol72/iss1/ 2 . accessed: february 18, 2021; michael l. radelet, ronald l. akers, “deterrence and the death penalty: the views of the experts,” journal of criminal law & criminology 87, no. 1 (1996-1997): 1-17, https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6901& context=jclc. accessed: february 18, 2021. 3. capital talk. geo news, november 13, 2014, http://pkpolitics.com/2014/11/13/capital-talk-13-november-2014 . accessed: january 2, 2015. 4. “pakistan school attack: pm sharif vows to end ‘terrorism,’” bbc news, december 17, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30517904; ahmad rashid, “viewpoint: how peshawar massacre changed pakistan,” bbc news, december 13, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35051628. accessed: february 18, 2021. 5. the holy qur’én (6:151) 6. syed muhammad anwar, “normative structure for human rights in islam”, policy perspectives, 10, no. 1 (2013): 79-104. 7. ibid; al-jurjani, kitaab al tareefat (beirut: dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 1982), 121-123. 8. rudolph peters, crime and punishment in islamic law, theory and practice from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2005), 7 9. burhan al-dīn al-marghinānī, al-hidayah (cairo: mustafa al-bāb al-×alabī, n.d), 94; shamas al-dīn al-sarakhsī, al-mabsum (beirut: dār al-ma‘ifah, 1986), hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 161 36;ibn rushd al hafid, bidayat al-mujtahid, (beirut: daar-ul-ma’arfa, 1982), 2, 394-95; badr aldin al-‘ayni, al-binaya (beirut: manshurat muhammad ‘ali baydun, 2000), 6, 190. 10. intisar a. rabb, doubt in islamic law, a history of legal maxims, interpretation and islamic criminal law (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2015), 31; abd al-qadir ‘awda, al tashri al-jinai al-islami (beirut: dar al-kitab al-‘arabi, 1968); m. cherif bassiouni, ed.,the islamic criminal justice system (london: oceana, 1982); imran ahsan khan nyazee, general principles of criminal law (islamic and western) (islamabad: advanced legal studies institute, 2010). 11. muslim (1690); abu dawood (4415); at-tirmidhi (1434). 12. the holy qur’én (24:4). 13. m. cherif bassiouni, “crimes and the criminal process,” arab law quarterly, 12, no. 3 (1997): 280-281. 14. the holy qur’én (5:35) 15. rudolph peters, crime and punishment in islamic law, 277. 16. ibid 64, 65. 17. intisar a. rabb, “negotiating speech in islamic law and politics: flipped traditions of expression,”in islamic law and international human rights law, ed. anver m. emon (oxford: oxford university press, 2012), 144-67; mohammad s. el awa, punishment in islamic law (indianpolis: american trust publication, 1993), 49-56, 61-62; khaled abou el fadl, rebelion and violence in islamic law (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001), 32. 18. rudolph peters, crime and punishment in islamic law, 277. 19. the holy qur’én (49:9) 20. rudolph peters, crime and punishment in islamic law, 578. 21. the holy qur’én (5:33) 22. rudolph peters, crime and punishment in islamic law, 58, 59. 23. the holy qur’én (2:178); (5:45); (6:151); sahih al bukhari, 9:83:17; sahih al bukhari, 9:83:32; sahih al bukhari, 9:83:50; sahih al bukhari, 1:3:111; sunan abu dawood, 39:4515. 24. the holy qur’én (5:45) 25. ibid. (4:92) 26. ibid. (2:186) 27. m. cherif bassiouni, “crimes and the criminal process,” arab law quarterly 12, no. 3 (1997): 269-286; maha abualfaraj, “evidence in islamic law: reforming the islamic evidence law based on the federal rules of evidence,”journal of islamic law and culture13, no. 2-3 (2011): 140-165; rudolph peters, crime and punishment in islamic law, 42, 45, 48. 28. ta‘zīr and siyésah are justified by a precedent of caliph umar who banished nasr bin hajjaj from medina because his beauty was a source of temptation for women. muhammad albabartý, alinaya sharh. al-hidaya (cairo: dar al-fikr, n.d.), 5, 245. 29. taymour kamel, “the principles of legality and its application in islamic criminal justice,” in the islamic criminal justice system, ed. m. cherif bassiouni (usa: oceana publications, 1982), 149; m. cherif bassiouni, “crimes and the criminal process,”arab law quarterly 12 no. 3 (1997): 269-286. 30. the holy qur’én (5:33). 162 the abolition of capital punishment... 31. ibid. (5:34). 32. muhammad munir, “øhar‘êah and the nation-state: the transformation of maqasid al øhar‘êah theory,” hazarah islamicus 6, no. 2 (2017). 33. the holy qur’én (2: 178); (6:151); (32:05). 34. ibid. (2:188); (4:11, 29). 35. ibid. (2:31-33); (96:3-5). 36. ibid. (2:205, 233); (6:151). 37. ibid. (4:148); (49:11, 12). 38. syed muhammad anwar, “normative structure for human rights in islam,” policy perspective 10 no. 1 (2013): 79-104 (92). 39. fida hussain vs. mst. najma, pld 46 quetta 2000. 40. pakistan penal code (act xlv of 1860). 41. anwar ul haq vs. the state, 2010 pcrlj 1380. 42. the holy qur’én (2:11, 27); (5:33). 43. hamid mahmood vs. the state, 1314 scmr 2013; muhammad vs. the state, 22 pld 2012 quetta. 44. khalid iqbal vs. mirza khan, pld 50 sc 2015; hamid mahmood vs. the state, scmr 1314 sc 2013; dilawar hussain vs. the state, scmr 1582 sc 2013; hassan vs. the state, pld 793 sc 2013. 45. micheal nazir vs. the state, pcrlj 33 quetta 2012; muhammad tahir aziz vs. the state, pcrlj 1787 ajk sc 2010. 46. section 203-a of code of criminal procedure, 1898 (act v of 1898). 47. malik mumtaz muhammad qadri vs. the state and the others, pld 2016 sc 17.. 48. "crime statistics,” open data pakistan, 2020, https://opendata.com.pk/blog/crime-statistics. accessed: february 18, 2021;”the crime report of five years issued,” the news, march 29, 2013. https://www.thenews.com.pk/archive/print/629546-crime-report-of-five-yearsissued. accessed: february 12, 2021. 49. "fatalities in terrorist violence in pakistan,” south asia terrorism portal.2016. http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/sect-killing.htm. accessed: september 12, 2018. 50. "casualties in terrorist violence in pakistan,” south asia terrorism portal. 20132015. http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/casualties.htm. accessed: january 01, 2018. 51. "global terrorism index 2016, measuring and understanding the impact of terrorism,”institute for economics and peace. nov 2016 / iep report, 20, http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/global-terrorism-index2016.2.pdf. accessed: march 13, 2017. 52. mir, amir, “implementation of death penalty may be resumed soon,” the news, december, 2014, http://www.thenews.com.pk/todays-news-2-263002-implementation-of-deathpenalty-may-be-resumed-soon. accessed: march 5, 2015. 53. siddique, tahir. “death row convicts operating from prisons: cj,” dawn news, january 4, 2013, hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 163 http://www.dawn.com/news/1015845/death-row-convicts-operating-from-prisonscj. accessed: february 18, 2021. 54. baloach, shahzad, “terrorists were operating their gangs from inside the prisons,” the express tribune, october 20, 2011, http://tribune.com.pk/story/277290/terrorists-operating-from-balochistan-prisonsmalik/ . accessed: february 18, 2021. 55. afp, “millitants attack bannu jail, nearly 400 inmates escape,” dawn news, april 15, 2012, http://www.dawn.com/news/710704/militants-attack-bannu-jail-400-inmatesescape. accessed: february 18, 2021; sherazi, zahir shah. “pakistani taliban free over 175 inmates in d.i.khan jailbreak,”dawn news, july 30, 2013, https://www.dawn.com/news/1032777. accessed:february 18, 2021. 56. "angry mob sets ablaze 2 dacoits”, dunyanews, last modified july 03, 2016 https://dunyanews.tv/en/pakistan/343743-karachi-angry-mob-sets-ablaze-2dacoits , “two alleged robbers set on fire in karachi”, samma webdesk, posted jul 3, 2016 https://www.samaa.tv/news/2016/07/two-alleged-robbers-set-on-fire-in-karachi/ , hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 51 fostering customer loyalty among muslim clients: strategies for islamic banks roni andespa department of sharia business management faculty of islamic economics and business, universitas islam negeri imam bonjol, 25171 padang, indonesia email: roniandespa@uinib.ac.id yulia hendri yeni department of management, faculty of economics and business universitas andalas, 25163 padang, indonesia email: yuliahendriyeni@eb.unand.ac.id received on: 04-08-22 accepted on: 04-03-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.499 abstract this research examines the influence of service quality, corporate image, customer satisfaction, and customer engagement on loyalty in islamic banks. the study was conducted by distributing questionnaires to 500 randomly selected west sumatra, indonesia respondents. this research uses structural equation model analysis. the findings of this study show that service quality and company image significantly affect customer satisfaction at islamic banks. it is indicated that service quality and company image significantly and positively impact customer engagement. it is found that all determinant factors, directly and indirectly, affect customer loyalty to islamic banks. from the results of this study, it is expected that islamic bank executives must identify the elements that influence customer loyalty because these factors directly or indirectly affect the customer loyalty variable. the results of this study can be used as a consideration for islamic bank managers in developing marketing strategies because they are closely related to the marketing performance managers need to control the service performance of islamic banks. theoretically, this research is also a new reference for researchers studying islamic banks. further researchers can adapt the model and variable indicators in this study, which can be applied further. keywords: islamic banks; determining factors; customer loyalty; mailto:roniandespa@uinib.ac.id mailto:yuliahendriyeni@eb.unand.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.499 52 fostering customer loyalty … sem analysis 1. introduction islamic banks operate with a distinct system from conventional banking, holding significant market potential for the future. the policies enacted by the indonesian government concerning islamic commercial banks are anticipated to expedite the growth of islamic financial institutions in indonesia, particularly in west sumatra.1 with a predominantly muslim population, west sumatra province is poised for swifter islamic bank development than other regions. given their religious adherence, the populace of west sumatra should favour islamic banks. nonetheless, previous research indicates that the advancement of islamic banks in west sumatra remains limited. consequently, islamic banking managers are urged to enhance efforts to attract more customers to engage in transactions through islamic banking channels. the growth of islamic banks' gross assets, financing, and savings in west sumatra lags behind that of neighbouring provinces. the following figure illustrates islamic banks' gross assets, funding, and depositor funds in nanggroe aceh darussalam, north sumatra, west sumatra, riau, and south sumatra. it indicates that the progress of islamic banks in west sumatra remains notably lower compared to other provinces. figure 1: the development of islamic banks in nanggroe aceh darussalam, north sumatra, west sumatra, riau and south sumatra2 bank executives must devise strategies to acquire and retain new customers.3,4 to ensure the rapid development of islamic banks in west sumatra, innovative and creative approaches based on customer needs must be implemented when islamic bank managers develop strategies to expand and maintain current markets. in formulating these strategies, islamic bank managers must recognize hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 53 that the current market demand is excellent service. therefore, islamic bank managers must understand that one effective method is to offer satisfactory services, which will later assist in recruiting new customers and retaining existing ones.5 it means that the most important thing islamic bank managers do is to create customer loyalty. customer loyalty is considered the primary factor determining profitability. many companies adopt this as a strategy to boost profits. customer loyalty in the islamic financial industry measures the extent to which customers make islamic finance their main choice in managing their finances. customer engagement is one indicator of success in creating customer loyalty to the bank.6 when a business successfully fosters long-term customer engagement, customers become loyal to the company.7 islamic banks must be able to foster interaction and communication with their customers. strong relationships between banks and consumers will keep customers continuously choosing the company's products or services.8,9 every islamic bank manager must work hard to ensure that customers are pleased with the service they receive from the company.10,11 however, providing excellent service to all customers is not easy for every islamic bank manager.12 satisfaction and loyalty are two things that can be influenced by the excellent service provided by the bank.13,14,15 companies that offer high-quality service will generate high customer satisfaction and ultimately increase customer loyalty.16 customers not only desire excellent service from islamic banks but also expect these banks to have an outstanding corporate image.17 an excellent corporate image motivates customers to opt for transactions at islamic banks. previous research has elucidated that corporate image is another crucial factor influencing customer satisfaction and loyalty.18,19 however, establishing a positive impression of islamic banks among customers is challenging. according to experts, corporate image significantly affects the loyalty of islamic bank clients, as customers feel reassured when dealing with a reputable organization.20 the research gap in this article lies in the need to further explore the interaction among the determinants of loyalty, such as service quality, corporate image, customer satisfaction, and customer engagement within the context of islamic banking. while many previous studies have investigated these factors separately, there is still a lack of understanding of how these factors interact and influence each other in shaping the loyalty of muslim customers in islamic banks. research delving into this interaction aspect will 54 fostering customer loyalty … provide deeper insights into the most influential factors in creating and maintaining customer loyalty in the islamic banking environment. therefore, research exploring the interaction among these factors will remain relevant and provide valuable contributions to advancing knowledge in management and banking, particularly in islamic banking. the benefit of the findings of this article for the future sustainability of islamic finance lies in how it elucidates strategies for fostering loyalty among muslim customers in islamic banks. islamic financial institutions can develop more effective strategies to retain and attract new customers by comprehending the factors influencing customer loyalty. it can contribute to the overall growth of islamic banking businesses, strengthen the stability of islamic finance, and broaden access to financial services aligned with sharêah principles for muslim communities. thus, the findings of this research have significant implications for the sustainability and growth of the islamic finance industry in the future. the structure of this paper consists of several crucial sections. it commences with an introduction, elucidating the scope and objectives of the research. the literature review follows the introduction, where relevant research and theories are examined and critically analyzed. next is the methodology section, detailing the approach and methods employed in conducting the study. subsequently, the results section presents the findings obtained from the research process, often accompanied by data analysis and interpretation. additionally, there is a discussion section where the implications of the findings are explored. finally, there is the conclusion and future research section. 2. literature review 2.1. customer loyalty (cl) one of the indicators of the success of islamic bank's marketing programs is having many loyal customers.21 customer loyalty is the behaviour of customers who regularly purchase from a company and continue to do so.22 creating loyal customers is an important task for every islamic bank manager. however, fostering loyal customers is challenging due to numerous competitors operating in the financial sector. the goal of retaining loyal customers is to enable them to support the company's growth in various conditions and situations. furthermore, if a company has many loyal customers, these customers will promote the company's products and reduce the promotional costs incurred by the company. consequently, company managers employ various strategies to retain customers.23,24 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 55 customer loyalty is an intriguing variable to explore, particularly in islamic banks. many methods can be used to measure the level of customer loyalty.25 previous research indicates that indicators of customer loyalty include repeat purchases, recommending the company to others, promoting products to close contacts, and not wanting to switch to other companies. 26,27 based on previous findings, it can be concluded that loyal customers are not interested in products offered by other companies and do not want to switch to other banks.28,29 previous experts have stated that loyal customers of islamic banks feel that the bank where they deposit/borrow money is the best.30,31 2.2. customer engagement (ce) customer engagement, the interaction between islamic banks and their customers, is vital to communication.32,33 in business, customer engagement refers to the relationship or communication between a company and its customers. it can arise from customers' interactions, emotions, and overall experiences with the banking services they choose to use.34 managers can build connections and interactions with all islamic bank customers using various methods and communication channels.35 customer engagement in marketing activities can be done face-to-face or through electronic media.36,37 effective communication and interaction between the company and customers contribute to the success of a business.38 customer engagement occurs when a company and its customers are deeply connected.39 indicators of customer engagement include good communication, enthusiasm for using services, positive feelings towards service providers, and active service usage.40 customers make purchases and feel like they are part of the company. when bank staff connect well with consumers, islamic bank managers indirectly bring their customers closer to the company.41 company-customer closeness fosters customer loyalty.42 consumers who have a good relationship and communication with the company are loyal customers.43 islamic bank managers must create customer engagement to maintain customer loyalty.44 based on previous research findings, it is known that customer engagement directly influences customer loyalty.45 experts have studied the correlation between customer engagement and loyalty.46 thus, the researcher's hypothesis is: h1: customer loyalty is directly affected by customer engagement. 2.3. customer satisfaction (cs) customer satisfaction is the gratification customers feel after purchasing a product or receiving a service from a company.47 customers attain this satisfaction when they compare their service 56 fostering customer loyalty … expectations with the actual performance of the purchased service.48 consequently, customer satisfaction is subjective; the degree of satisfaction varies depending on individual consumers. companies must survey whether their offerings meet customer expectations to determine whether customers are satisfied.49,50 surveys are conducted to assess the disparity between customer expectations and experiences.51 if customers are dissatisfied, the company's performance suffers.52 research on customer satisfaction in an organization is not something new. however, research still needs to be conducted to examine customer satisfaction, particularly in islamic banks.53 essential factors like customer satisfaction are crucial for islamic bank managers to ensure smooth company operations.54 when company customers feel satisfied, the company will benefit financially and non-financially.55 customer satisfaction also determines a company's performance.56 if a company has satisfied customers, its performance is deemed good.57,58 customer satisfaction plays a crucial role in driving loyalty across various industries.59,60 research in the hospitality, tourism, and healthcare sectors consistently highlights the strong correlation between satisfaction levels and customer loyalty.61 for instance, studies in the hospitality industry have indicated that satisfied guests tend to exhibit loyalty to specific hotels. similarly, satisfied tourists are inclined to remain loyal to destinations or service providers within the tourism sector.62,63 this trend extends to the healthcare industry, where satisfied patients often maintain loyalty to healthcare providers.64,65 the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty remains a subject of significant investigation within islamic banking. previous research in islamic banks has shown that customer satisfaction influences customer engagement.66 it has been observed that satisfied customers are more likely to engage with islamic banks and maintain long-term relationships. therefore, understanding and enhancing customer satisfaction is crucial for fostering loyalty and engagement within islamic banking institutions.67,68 thus, the research hypothesis is: h2: customer loyalty is directly and indirectly affected by customer satisfaction. h3: customer engagement is directly affected by customer satisfaction. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 57 2.4. service quality (sq) many previous researchers have extensively examined the relationship between service indicators and customer satisfaction.69,70,71 their studies have consistently demonstrated a significant and robust influence of service quality and satisfaction variables on customer loyalty.72 customer satisfaction is achieved when a company provides services that meet or exceed customer expectations, enhancing loyalty. experts affirm that excellent service from an islamic bank satisfies customers and positively impacts their loyalty.73,74,75 islamic bank managers must analyze the impact of service quality on customer engagement. it's observed that service quality indirectly affects customer engagement, as customers are more likely to engage with a company that provides excellent service.76 moreover, a strong correlation between service quality and customer engagement suggests that better service fosters stronger customercompany relationships.77 service quality encompasses all activities undertaken by a company to meet customer expectations, and it significantly influences customer loyalty.78,79,80 extensive research by academics confirms that excellent service leads to customer satisfaction, which, in turn, cultivates loyalty among customers.81,82 thus, the research hypothesis is: h4: customer satisfaction is directly affected by service quality. h5: customer engagement is directly and indirectly affected by service quality. h6: customer loyalty is directly and indirectly affected by service quality. 2.5. corporate image (ci) one of the most critical aspects of an islamic bank is its corporate image.83 it encompasses the consumer's perception of the company from which they purchase products or services.84 company managers gain significant benefits when customers have a positive impression of the company, thereby increasing the chances of acquiring satisfied customers.85 numerous previous studies have delved into the relationship between corporate image and customer satisfaction, particularly within the banking sector.86 experts have conducted thorough examinations of banks and have found that a positive corporate image contributes to customer satisfaction.87,88 a reputable company is more likely to foster greater customer engagement.89 positive perceptions of the company's image are directly linked to increased customer engagement.90 therefore, islamic bank managers must closely examine indicators of corporate image, as it significantly influences customer engagement. previous 58 fostering customer loyalty … researchers have established a strong correlation between corporate image and customer engagement.91,92 a positive corporate image benefits the company in terms of customer engagement and influences customer behaviour.93 satisfied customers are more inclined to recommend the company's products or services to others, while dissatisfied customers may spread negative information about the company.94 customer loyalty can be fostered through an excellent corporate image, as customers who perceive islamic banks positively are likelier to remain loyal to them.95 previous research has consistently shown that the company's image is pivotal in determining customer loyalty. therefore, the research hypothesis is: h7: customer satisfaction is directly affected by corporate image. h8: customer engagement is directly and indirectly affected by corporate image. h9: customer loyalty is directly and indirectly affected by corporate image. figure 2: research framework the figure above depicts the research framework designed by the researcher, illustrating the relationship between variables. this framework was developed based on the literature review, previous research findings, and observed phenomena in the field. 3. methodology 3.1. population and sample the study included all active customers of islamic banks in west sumatera, encompassing areas such as padang, bukittinggi, batusangkar, payakumbuh, solok, and pariaman. a questionnaire comprising 22 items was utilized for data collection. the total number hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 59 of research items was multiplied by 5-20 to determine the minimum sample size.96 consequently, the minimum required sample size was calculated to be 440. however, the total number of research respondents exceeded this minimum requirement, reaching 500 participants. 3.2. measurement development measurement development was accomplished by adapting relevant research conducted by previous researchers. this approach allows researchers to refine their focus and uncover specific issues within the study. the researcher adapted the measurement of the customer loyalty variable from 97 and 98. customer satisfaction variable from 99 and 100. the variable customer engagement of adaptation researchers from 101 and 102. quality of service variable from 103 and 104. and corporate image variable from 105 and 106. 3.3. data collection procedure in developing the research questionnaire, the researcher utilized a five-point likert scale ranging from very disagree to very agree for all indicator variables except customer satisfaction. the section on customer satisfaction utilized a five-point likert scale from very dissatisfied to very satisfied. following this, a trial was conducted with 90 respondents. subsequently, the questionnaire was distributed to 500 active customers in west sumatra, indonesia. 3.4. construct reliability and validity the next step involves measuring the validity and reliability of the research instrument. testing validity and reliability assures researchers that the questionnaire is dependable and accurate in assessing research issues. several criteria were considered to achieve this. these include ensuring a loading factor (lf) of more than 0.5 for all questionnaire items, an average variance extract (ave) value exceeding 0.5 for the study construct, α (cronbach's alpha) greater than 0.7, and a composite reliability (cr) score above 0.7 for all questionnaire questions.107 after fulfilling all these requirements, it was determined that all research constructs and questionnaire items were valid and reliable. the data below outlines the lf, α, ave, and cr test results. indicators lf α ave cr services quality (sq) 0.855 0.557 0.900 sq1 islamic banks have adequate facilities. 0.906 sq2 islamic bank employees empathize with customers. 0.701 60 fostering customer loyalty … sq3 islamic banks respond to customer complaints and requests. 0.668 sq4 islamic bank employees are reliable in their work. 0.819 sq5 islamic banks provide a sense of security for customers. 0.598 corporate image (ci) 0.846 0.538 0.894 ci1 customers are interested in islamic bank services. 0.896 ci2 islamic banks have a good reputation. 0.692 ci3 islamic banks continually improve services. 0.579 ci4 islamic banks innovate sustainably. 0.824 ci5 agreements between islamic banks and customers are different from other banks. 0.627 customer satisfaction (cs) 0.858 0.659 0.926 cs1 islamic banks have excellent service. 0.977 cs2 islamic banks have a service system that is per customer expectations. 0.641 cs3 islamic banks have technology that is to customer expectations. 0.612 cs4 customers are satisfied with transaction fees at islamic banks. 0.947 customer engagement (ce) 0.821 0.567 0.884 ce1 customers have good communication with islamic banks. 0.919 ce2 customers are enthusiastic about using islamic bank services. 0.654 ce3 customers have positive feelings towards islamic banks. 0.561 ce4 islamic banks use many media to communicate with customers. 0.825 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 61 customer loyalty (cl) 0.857 0.647 0.923 cl1 customers encourage people to use islamic banking. 0.959 cl2 customers intend to take advantage of islamic banking services in the future. 0.660 cl3 the customer recommends that others use the services of an islamic bank. 0.639 cl4 customers will not use services provided by nonislamic banks. 0.908 table 1: reliability and validity test source: output sem amos 3.5. the goodness of fit model in structural equation model (sem) analysis, researchers must assess the model's fit to proceed to the next stage. fit testing helps determine whether the proposed theoretical model aligns well with the collected data. figure 3: goodness of fit model the model is considered suitable if it meets predefined criteria.108 the evaluation of model fit after modification is as 62 fostering customer loyalty … follows: the chi-square value is close to 0 (0.147), the probability value is 0.988 ≥ 0.05, the cmin/df value is 0.001 ≤ 2.00, the gfi value is 0.975 ≥ 0.90, the agfi value is 0.980 ≥ 0.90, the rmsea value is 0.001 ≤ 0.08, the tli value is 0.990 ≥ 0.90, and the cfi value is 0.992 ≥ 0.90. based on these data, the research model is deemed feasible as it meets the established criteria. 4. results 4.1. respondent demographics most of the studied customers were male, accounting for 52.4%. the largest proportion of respondents fell within the age group of 31-40 years old, comprising 31.3% of the sample. regarding education level, most respondents were undergraduates, constituting 42%. the highest proportion of job respondents came from the private sector, making up 36% of the sample. additionally, the highest customer experience level observed was 9-13 years, representing 45% of the respondents. profile n % gender male female 262 238 52.4 47.6 age ≤ 20 21-30 31-40 ≥ 40 70 125 160 145 16 30 31.3 22.7 education level high school associate degree undergraduate degree postgraduate 80 112 210 98 16 22.4 42 19.6 occupation government sector private sector self-employed others 125 180 165 30 25 36 33 6 customer experience ≤ 3 4-8 9-13 ≥ 14 40 140 225 95 8 28 45 19 table 2: respondent demographics source: author's calculations this finding also illustrates that most islamic bank customers have been using the services for an extended period, which can influence their perceptions and expectations regarding service quality and the relationship with the bank. information about the profile and experience of islamic bank customers can provide hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 63 valuable insights for service providers in developing more effective marketing109 and service strategies. for example, service providers can tailor their communications and offerings to better align with these demographic needs and preferences by understanding that most islamic bank customers come from the private sector or have a bachelor's degree background. additionally, knowing that most islamic bank customers have long-standing experience, bank managers can focus on maintaining solid relationships with loyal customers.110,111 4.2. structural model the researcher then proceeded to the subsequent investigation stage, the structural equation model (sem) analysis. the structural model analyses the relationship between variables and indicators, and subsequently between one variable and another, to obtain a comprehensive research model. constructs estimate cs ← sq 0.433 cs ← ci 0.276 ce ← ci 0.230 ce ← sq 0.196 ce ← cs 0.516 cl ← sq 0.163 cl ← ci 0.241 cl ← cs 0.224 cl ← ce 0.435 table 3: standardized regression weights source: output sem amos the researcher proceeded by testing the regression among the research variables. after processing the research data, the results revealed the regression values between the research variables. the table above illustrates that the service quality variable positively influences customer satisfaction, with a regression coefficient of 0.433. these findings suggest that the corporate image variable statistically positively affects customer satisfaction, with an estimated value of 0.276. the parameter estimates for assessing the impact of corporate image on the customer engagement variable yield an estimated value of 0.230, indicating a positive effect. the regression analysis depicted above demonstrates an estimated value of 0.196, signifying that the service quality variable statistically positively influences the customer engagement variable. according to the regression analysis results above, the regression coefficient value is 0.516, suggesting that the customer satisfaction variable positively impacts customer engagement. 64 fostering customer loyalty … the discussion of these findings highlights several important considerations for further examination. firstly, service quality has a significant favourable influence on customer satisfaction. it underscores the importance for islamic banks to continuously enhance the quality of services they offer customers in terms of service delivery and products.112 secondly, corporate image also has a substantial impact on customer satisfaction. therefore, managers of islamic banks demand scrutiny of how the community perceives their bank and how this perception can affect customer satisfaction.113 thirdly, the findings also indicate that customer satisfaction positively impacts customer engagement. it suggests that customer satisfaction is crucial for retaining existing customers and increasing their engagement with the bank. it emphasizes the importance of prioritizing customer satisfaction in the business strategy of islamic banks.114 finally, this research provides a comprehensive view of the factors influencing the relationship between islamic banks and their customers. islamic banks can strengthen customer relationships and achieve long-term success by effectively understanding and managing these variables.115 the estimated value for evaluating the effect of the service quality variable on the customer loyalty variable is 0.163, indicating that service quality positively affects customer loyalty. the regression coefficient value representing the influence of the corporate image variable on the customer loyalty variable is 0.241, showing a positive impact of corporate image on loyalty. the regression value between customer satisfaction and loyalty variables is 0.224, indicating that customer satisfaction positively influences loyalty. additionally, the regression coefficient value of the customer engagement variables on customer loyalty is 0.435, suggesting that customer engagement positively impacts customer loyalty. the quality of service, corporate image, customer satisfaction, and customer engagement remain critical drivers of customer loyalty within islamic banking. it underscores the significance of these factors in fostering enduring relationships with customers by islamic principles.116 management within islamic banks can utilize these findings to bolster customer loyalty while adhering to islamic values. they may concentrate on enhancing service quality in alignment with islamic tenets, fortifying the company's image through principles of justice and compliance, ensuring heightened customer satisfaction by offering sharê‘ah-compliant products and services, and actively promoting customer engagement in activities that espouse islamic values.117 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 65 moreover, these findings underscore the necessity for marketing and customer service strategies to strengthen customer relationships within the sharê‘ah framework. islamic banks must ensure their marketing and customer service endeavours align with sharê‘ah principles. it involves enhancing the customer experience with halal and sharê‘ah-compliant offerings, fostering effective communication utilizing language consistent with islamic values, and cultivating deep-seated relationships while considering islamic business's ethical and moral dimensions 118. figure 4: structural model 4.3. influence value between research variables the table below presents the amos output, illustrating the influence values between research variables. the direct, indirect, and total effects of the research variables are as follows: constructs direct effect indirect effect total effect ci → cs 0.276 0.000 0.276 ci → ce 0.230 0.143 0.373 ci → cl 0.241 0.224 0.465 sq → cs 0.433 0.000 0.433 sq → ce 0.196 0.224 0.420 sq → cl 0.163 0.280 0.443 cs → ce 0.516 0.000 0.516 cs → cl 0.220 0.228 0.448 ce → cl 0.435 0.000 0.435 table 4: influence value between research variables source: output sem amos 66 fostering customer loyalty … table 4 presents the influence values between the research variables. the arrows between constructs indicate direct effects, while indirect and total effects are also provided. the construct of corporate image directly affects customer satisfaction, customer engagement, and customer loyalty, with influence values of 0.276, 0.230, and 0.241, respectively. additionally, indirect effects and total effects are observed for these relationships. similarly, the construct service quality demonstrates direct effects on cs, ce, and cl, with influence values of 0.433, 0.196, and 0.163, respectively, along with corresponding indirect and total effects. furthermore, there are direct, indirect, and total effects between cs, ce, and cl, illustrating the interconnectedness of these constructs within the study. 4.4. hypothesis testing there are nine research hypotheses, all supported by the research findings. after carrying out all the research processes, the authors can find answers to the research hypotheses. the table below shows the research hypothesis testing. constructs direct effect indirect effect supported (yes/no) ce → cl yes no yes cs → cl yes yes yes cs → ce yes no yes sq → cs yes no yes sq → ce yes yes yes sq → cl yes yes yes ci → cs yes no yes ci → ce yes yes yes ci → cl yes yes yes table 5: hypothesis testing source: output sem amos table 5 presents hypothesis testing results. the construct variables from customer engagement (ce) to customer loyalty (cl) show supported direct effects (yes). still, they do not have supported indirect effects (no), although overall, the hypotheses are supported (yes). hypotheses from customer satisfaction (cs) to cl demonstrate both direct and indirect effects (yes), and overall, these hypotheses are also supported (yes). similarly, the relationships between cs and ce and sq and cs show supported direct effects (yes). still, they lack supported indirect effects (no), although these hypotheses are supported overall (yes). furthermore, all hypotheses from sq to ce and cl, as well as from ci to cs, ce, and cl, exhibit supported direct and indirect effects (yes), and overall these hypotheses are also supported (yes). hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 67 5. discussion and implication this study found that customer loyalty is directly influenced by customer engagement. based on this finding, islamic bank managers should prioritize the development of solid relationships with customers.119,120 this will strengthen the bond between the bank and customers through more profound and more sustainable interactions, helping to increase customer loyalty. furthermore, islamic bank managers should continuously strive to enhance the customer experience in transactions and interactions with the bank. it includes providing friendly, efficient, and sharê‘ah-compliant services, thus increasing customer engagement and loyalty. 121,122 according to this study, customer satisfaction at islamic banks affects loyalty. based on this finding, the management of islamic banks can develop strategies such as identifying the key drivers of customer satisfaction within islamic banking, such as service quality, product offerings, convenience, or ethical considerations.123 they can continuously innovate and enhance product offerings to meet islamic banking customers' evolving needs and preferences. furthermore, they should emphasize trust and transparency in all banking operations, creating an environment where customers feel confident and secure in their interactions with the bank. the study found that customer satisfaction directly impacts customer engagement. based on this finding, managers of islamic banks can implement strategies such as enhancing customer satisfaction by improving service quality, product offerings, and overall customer experience to influence customer engagement positively.124 additionally, they can regularly gather and analyze customer feedback to understand their needs, preferences, and satisfaction levels, enabling targeted improvements to enhance engagement.125 furthermore, leveraging technology platforms and tools to facilitate communication, streamline processes, and provide convenient banking solutions can contribute to higher levels of customer engagement.126 according to the findings, the quality of services islamic banks provide impacts customer satisfaction. based on these findings, the manager of an islamic bank could implement several policies. firstly, they should understand islamic banking customers' unique needs and preferences and tailor services accordingly.127 it may involve offering sharê‘ah-compliant financial products and services that meet customers' ethical and religious requirements. secondly, the manager should adopt a culture of continuous improvement within the organization by encouraging innovation and regularly reviewing processes to identify opportunities for enhancement.128 furthermore, it is crucial to emphasize transparency in all customer transactions, 68 fostering customer loyalty … ensuring they can access clear and accurate information about the bank's products, services, and fees.129 the study results found that service quality positively and significantly affected customer engagement. based on these findings, the manager of an islamic bank should take several steps. firstly, they should enhance the quality of services provided by the bank.130 it may involve improving staff training, upgrading technological infrastructure, and refining operational processes to ensure efficient and effective service delivery. secondly, they should focus on customer engagement by strengthening interactions between the bank and customers.131 it can be achieved by offering responsive services, facilitating customer comments, and creating satisfying customer experiences. furthermore, this research discovered that service quality influences customer loyalty. based on this finding, the manager of an islamic bank should prioritize actions to enhance service quality, recognizing its direct impact on customer loyalty. it may involve implementing measures to improve various aspects of service delivery, such as staff training, operational efficiency, and technological infrastructure.132 additionally, the manager should focus on consistently meeting or exceeding customer expectations to foster trust and satisfaction, thereby increasing customer loyalty to the bank.133 this study reveals that corporate image positively affects the customer satisfaction of islamic banks. based on this finding, the manager of an islamic bank should take proactive steps to enhance the bank's corporate image.134 it may involve implementing strategies to improve brand visibility, reputation management, and communication efforts to portray the bank positively to customers. additionally, delivering high-quality services and maintaining transparency in all interactions can contribute to building a favourable corporate image.135 this study found that corporate image positively and significantly influences customer engagement. managers need to review the strategy for building the corporate image.136 they must ensure that the corporate image reflects the values customers desire and aligns with sharê‘ah principles. based on these findings, bank managers need to enhance interaction with customers. it can be achieved through more responsive customer service, reward programs, or promotional activities to strengthen the corporate image.137 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 69 this study also found that corporate image affects customer loyalty to islamic banks. the manager should review the bank's corporate image, ensuring it aligns with the values and principles of islamic banking.138 any inconsistencies should be addressed to bolster the bank's perception among customers. recognizing that corporate image impacts customer loyalty, the manager should introduce or improve loyalty programs tailored to the preferences and needs of islamic banking customers. these programs could encompass rewards, special offers, or personalized services to encourage repeat business.139 6. conclusion this study examines the determinant factors affecting customer loyalty in islamic banks. it was conducted by distributing questionnaires to 500 randomly selected respondents in west sumatra, indonesia, and employed sem analysis. the findings reveal that service quality and corporate image strongly and positively influence customer satisfaction in islamic banks. additionally, the study indicates that quality of service and company image significantly and positively impact customer engagement. furthermore, all determinant factors substantially and positively affect customer loyalty in islamic banks. however, there are several limitations to this study. firstly, it was conducted in indonesia, where most of the population is muslim. secondly, the research was limited to one province, west sumatra. thirdly, the study did not explore all factors influencing customer satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty in islamic banks. the study enhances our understanding of customer loyalty in islamic banks by identifying key determinants such as service quality and corporate image. it enriches theoretical frameworks in customer relationship management within islamic banking by highlighting their significant influence on customer satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty. additionally, it contributes to the literature by demonstrating how these factors impact customer behavior uniquely in islamic financial institutions. overall, the study advances theoretical knowledge on customer loyalty in islamic banks, suggesting avenues for further research and refinement within existing frameworks. the findings highlight the importance of service quality and corporate image in fostering customer satisfaction and engagement within islamic banks, emphasizing the need for high service standards and a positive brand image to enrich customer experiences. moreover, the results indicate that these factors substantially drive customer loyalty in islamic banks. this implies that initiatives aimed at enhancing service quality and bolstering the corporate image can increase customer retention and loyalty, which are crucial for the longevity and prosperity of islamic banking institutions. 70 fostering customer loyalty … references 1 nasfi nasfi, yunimar yunimar, and adi prawira, “the role of fintech in sharia rural bank west sumatra”, international journal of social and management studies 3, no. 2 (2022): 13–19. 2 nasfi nasfi, yunimar yunimar, and adi prawira, “the role of fintech in sharia rural bank west sumatra”, international journal of social and management studies 3, no. 2 (2022): 13–19. 3 tyas ayuningrum, and mochlasin mochlasin, “the influence of brand awareness, customer value and trust toward loyalty customers with satisfaction as intervening.” jiem: journal of islamic enterpreneurship and management 1, no. 2 (2021): 23–42. 4 hesti dwi lestari and imanda firmantyas putri pertiwi, “the effect of corporate social responsibility (csr), relationship marketing and shariah compliance on customer loyalty with customer emotional response as intervening”, social science studies 2, no. 1 (2022): 001–014. 5 ni luh putu indiani, i. made pulawan, and ni made santini, “which consumer groups are more loyal? evidence in indonesian banking industry”, montenegrin journal of economics 18, no. 1 (2022): 47–60. 6 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 7 c. h. ezurizzy and d. g. ademe, “e-service quality and customer engagement of online shops in bayelsa state, nigeria”, gph international journal of business management (ijbm) 5, no. 1 (2022): 76– 87. 8 darwin dhasan, and mayuree aryupong. “effects of product quality, service quality and price fairness on customer engagement and customer loyalty.” abac journal 39, no. 2 (2019): 82–102. 9 siti fatimah, “growing customer loyalty through excellent service and business ethics”, bjrm (bongaya journal of research in management) 4, no. 2 (2021): 1–6. 10 precious chikezie ezeh and anayo d. nkamnebe, “determinants of islamic banking adoption among non-muslim customers in a muslim zone”, journal of islamic accounting and business research 13, no. 4 (2022): 666–83. 11 hanieh mohammadzadeh taheri et al., “designing a model for the acceptance of innovation-based health services with a mixed-method exploratory approach”, new marketing research journal 10, no. 4 (2021): 81–89. 12 jamshed haidery, sayed wali shah mandozai, and hafizullahmeen amin. “investigating structural relationship between service quality, satisfaction and loyalty in banking sector of afghanistan.” economics and business quarterly reviews 4, no. 2 (2021): 151–63. 13 tyas ayuningrum, and mochlasin mochlasin. “the influence of brand awareness, customer value and trust toward loyalty customers with satisfaction as intervening.” jiem: journal of islamic enterpreneurship and management 1, no. 2 (2021): 23–42. 14 özgür kökalan and ahmet bingöl, “service quality of conventional and islamic banks in turkey”, trziste 33, no. 1 (2021): 59. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 71 15 mohammad niaz morshed, “service quality management practices for customer satisfaction in islamic banks of bangladesh”, international journal of innovative research and publications 1, no. 3 (2021): 47–59. 16 moh nasuka, tony wijaya, and anas hidayat, “the role of islamic marketing ethics for customer loyalty in islamic banking through customer satisfaction”, economic annals-xxi 187, no. 1/2 (2021): 189– 96. 17 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 18 lovemore chikazhe, charles makanyeza, and blessing chigunhah “understanding mediators and moderators of the effect of customer satisfaction on loyalty.” cogent business & management 8, no. 1 (2021): 1922127. 19 nicholas igbudu, zanete garanti, and temitope popoola. “enhancing bank loyalty through sustainable banking practices: the mediating effect of corporate image.” sustainability 10, no. 11 (2018): 4050. 20 lovemore chikazhe, charles makanyeza, and blessing chigunhah, “understanding mediators and moderators of the effect of customer satisfaction on loyalty,” cogent business & management 8, no. 1 (2021): 1922127. 21 moh nasuka, tony wijaya, and anas hidayat. “the role of islamic marketing ethics for customer loyalty in islamic banking through customer satisfaction.” economic annals-xxi 187, no. 1/2 (2021): 189– 96. 22 jamshed haidery, sayed wali shah mandozai, and hafizullahmeen amin. “investigating structural relationship between service quality, satisfaction and loyalty in banking sector of afghanistan.” economics and business quarterly reviews 4, no. 2 (2021): 151–63. 23 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 24 jamshed haidery, sayed wali shah mandozai, and hafizullahmeen amin. “investigating structural relationship between service quality, satisfaction and loyalty in banking sector of afghanistan.” economics and business quarterly reviews 4, no. 2 (2021): 151–63. 25 mohammad niaz morshed. “service quality management practices for customer satisfaction in islamic banks of bangladesh.” international journal of innovative research and publications 1, no. 3 (2021): 47–59. 26 bodo möslein-tröppner, michael stros, and david říha, “customer loyalty-related marketing measures in fashion markets”, central european business review 9, no. 1 (2020): 43–55. 27 nicholas igbudu, zanete garanti, and temitope popoola. “enhancing bank loyalty through sustainable banking practices: the mediating effect of corporate image.” sustainability 10, no. 11 (2018): 4050. 28 fatimah, “growing customer loyalty through excellent service and business ethics”. 29 jamshed haidery, sayed wali shah mandozai, and hafizullahmeen amin. “investigating structural relationship between service quality, satisfaction and loyalty in banking sector of afghanistan.” economics and business quarterly reviews 4, no. 2 (2021): 151–63. 72 fostering customer loyalty … 30 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 31 aminah osman, “customers’ satisfaction level of islamic banking service in kelantan, malaysia”, turcomat 12, no. 3 (2021): 489–96. 32 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 33 c. h. ezurizzy and d. g. ademe, “e-service quality and customer engagement of online shops in bayelsa state, nigeria,” gph international journal of business management (ijbm) 5, no. 1 (2022): 76– 87. 34 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 35 darwin dhasan, and mayuree aryupong. “effects of product quality, service quality and price fairness on customer engagement and customer loyalty.” abac journal 39, no. 2 (2019): 82–102. 36 c. h. ezurizzy and d. g. ademe, “e-service quality and customer engagement of online shops in bayelsa state, nigeria,” gph international journal of business management (ijbm) 5, no. 1 (2022): 76– 87. 37 c. c. williams and n. mackay. “customer engagement in retail banks: scale development and validation,” the retail and marketing review 16, no. 1 (2020): 40–52. 38 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 39 mohammad niaz morshed. “service quality management practices for customer satisfaction in islamic banks of bangladesh.” international journal of innovative research and publications 1, no. 3 (2021): 47–59. 40 c. c. williams and n. mackay. “customer engagement in retail banks: scale development and validation,” the retail and marketing review 16, no. 1 (2020): 40–52. 41 darwin dhasan, and mayuree aryupong. “effects of product quality, service quality and price fairness on customer engagement and customer loyalty.” abac journal 39, no. 2 (2019): 82–102. 42 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 43 nga thi vo, miloslava chovancová, and ho thanh tri, “the impact of e-service quality on the customer satisfaction and consumer engagement behaviors toward luxury hotels”, journal of quality assurance in hospitality & tourism 21, no. 5 (2019): 499–523. 44 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 45 darwin dhasan, and mayuree aryupong. “effects of product quality, service quality and price fairness on customer engagement and customer loyalty.” abac journal 39, no. 2 (2019): 82–102. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 73 46 c. c. williams and n. mackay. “customer engagement in retail banks: scale development and validation,” the retail and marketing review 16, no. 1 (2020): 40–52. 47 rusdianto rusdianto and mochammad jasin, “dynamic behavior of islamic banking customer loyalty in jakarta”, iqtishadia 14, no. 2 (2021): 179–96. 48 nicholas igbudu, zanete garanti, and temitope popoola. “enhancing bank loyalty through sustainable banking practices: the mediating effect of corporate image.” sustainability 10, no. 11 (2018): 4050. 49 fatimah, “growing customer loyalty through excellent service and business ethics”. 50 mohammad niaz morshed. “service quality management practices for customer satisfaction in islamic banks of bangladesh.” international journal of innovative research and publications 1, no. 3 (2021): 47–59. 51 rizal ula ananta fauzi, dian cita ningtiyas ari kadi, and arman hj ahmad, “the role of trust as mediator in the effect of religiosity and bank image towards consumers’ intention: an empirical case study of bank muamalat, indonesia.” asia pacific journal of social science research 6, no. 1 (2021): 22. 52 mohammad niaz morshed. “service quality management practices for customer satisfaction in islamic banks of bangladesh.” international journal of innovative research and publications 1, no. 3 (2021): 47–59. 53 fauzi, kadi, and ahmad, “the role of trust as mediator in the effect of religiosity and bank image towards consumers’ intention”. 54 aminah osman, “customers’ satisfaction level of islamic banking service in kelantan, malaysia.” turcomat 12, no. 3 (2021): 489–96. 55 mohammad niaz morshed. “service quality management practices for customer satisfaction in islamic banks of bangladesh.” international journal of innovative research and publications 1, no. 3 (2021): 47–59. 56 mohamed eid kilase ajoud and tahar ammar jouili, “healthcare service quality in government hospitals: evaluating patients’ satisfaction”, calitatea 22, no. 182 (2021): 106–9. 57 pierre mostert, eksteen theron, and jack kruger, “a disaggregated approach to establishing the antecedents and outcome of relationship quality in the south african banking industry”, international journal of services, economics and management 12, no. 4 (2021): 317–37. 58 mokgadi cleopatra taoana, emmanuel silva quaye, and russell abratt, “antecedents of brand loyalty in south african retail banking”, journal of financial services marketing 10, no. 4 (2021): 1–16. 59 boon liat cheng et al., “tourist satisfaction in the malaysia tourism industry: relationship between service innovation and destination image”, jurnal pengurusan 60 (2020): 1–18. 60 kökalan and bingöl, “service quality of conventional and islamic banks in turkey”. 61 khawaja fawad latif, “recipes for customer loyalty: a cross-country study of the hotel industry”, international journal of contemporary hospitality management 33, no. 5 (2021): 1892–1916. 62 ilisa fajriyati et al., “attributes influencing overall tourist satisfaction and its consequences for muslim-majority destination”, sage open 12, no. 1 (2022): 1–14. 63 cheng et al., “tourist satisfaction in the malaysia tourism industry”. 74 fostering customer loyalty … 64 nurdin sobari, andyan kurniati, and hardius usman, “the influence of islamic attributes and religious commitments toward halal wellness services customer satisfaction and loyalty”, journal of islamic marketing 13, no. 1 (2019): 177–97. 65 ezeh and nkamnebe, “determinants of islamic banking adoption among non-muslim customers in a muslim zone”. 66 c. h. ezurizzy and d. g. ademe, “e-service quality and customer engagement of online shops in bayelsa state, nigeria,” gph international journal of business management (ijbm) 5, no. 1 (2022): 76– 87. 67 nga thi vo, miloslava chovancová, and ho thanh tri. “the impact of e-service quality on the customer satisfaction and consumer engagement behaviors toward luxury hotels.” journal of quality assurance in hospitality & tourism 21, no. 5 (2019): 499–523. 68 c. h. ezurizzy and d. g. ademe, “e-service quality and customer engagement of online shops in bayelsa state, nigeria,” gph international journal of business management (ijbm) 5, no. 1 (2022): 76– 87. 69 bodo möslein-tröppner, michael stros, and david říha, “customer loyalty-related marketing measures in fashion markets,” central european business review 9, no. 1 (2020): 43. 70 mohammad niaz morshed. “service quality management practices for customer satisfaction in islamic banks of bangladesh.” international journal of innovative research and publications 1, no. 3 (2021): 47–59. 71 daniel ferreira polónia, ana alexandra da costa dias, and rui diogo soares dos santos, “patient satisfaction in hospital emergency services: a perspective from portugal”, international journal of productivity and quality management 31, no. 3 (2020): 349–68. 72 ajoud and jouili, ‘healthcare service quality in government hospitals’. 73 aminah osman, “customers’ satisfaction level of islamic banking service in kelantan, malaysia.” turcomat 12, no. 3 (2021): 489–96. 74 mohammad niaz morshed. “service quality management practices for customer satisfaction in islamic banks of bangladesh.” international journal of innovative research and publications 1, no. 3 (2021): 47–59. 75 darwin dhasan, and mayuree aryupong. “effects of product quality, service quality and price fairness on customer engagement and customer loyalty.” abac journal 39, no. 2 (2019): 82–102. 76 c. c. williams and n. mackay. “customer engagement in retail banks: scale development and validation,” the retail and marketing review 16, no. 1 (2020): 40–52. 77 c. h. ezurizzy and d. g. ademe, “e-service quality and customer engagement of online shops in bayelsa state, nigeria,” gph international journal of business management (ijbm) 5, no. 1 (2022): 76– 87. 78 möslein-tröppner, stros, and říha, “customer loyalty-related marketing measures in fashion markets”. 79 kökalan and bingöl, “service quality of conventional and islamic banks in turkey”. 80 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 75 81 mohammad niaz morshed. “service quality management practices for customer satisfaction in islamic banks of bangladesh.” international journal of innovative research and publications 1, no. 3 (2021): 47–59. 82 moh nasuka, tony wijaya, and anas hidayat. “the role of islamic marketing ethics for customer loyalty in islamic banking through customer satisfaction.” economic annals-xxi 187, no. 1/2 (2021): 189– 96. 83 siti ngayesah ab hamid, wan jamaliah wan jusoh, and suharni maulan, “the influence of spiritual brand attributes towards the corporate brand image of islamic banking institutions in malaysia”, jurnal pengurusan 61 (2021): 31–41. 84 nicholas igbudu, zanete garanti, and temitope popoola. “enhancing bank loyalty through sustainable banking practices: the mediating effect of corporate image.” sustainability 10, no. 11 (2018): 4050. 85 lovemore chikazhe, charles makanyeza, and blessing chigunhah “understanding mediators and moderators of the effect of customer satisfaction on loyalty.” cogent business & management 8, no. 1 (2021): 1922127. 86 fatimah, “growing customer loyalty through excellent service and business ethics”. 87 hamid, jusoh, and maulan, “the influence of spiritual brand attributes towards the corporate brand image of islamic banking institutions in malaysia”. 88 fatimah, “growing customer loyalty through excellent service and business ethics”. 89 c. c. williams and n. mackay. “customer engagement in retail banks: scale development and validation,” the retail and marketing review 16, no. 1 (2020): 40–52. 90 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 91 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 92 nga thi vo, miloslava chovancová, and ho thanh tri. “the impact of e-service quality on the customer satisfaction and consumer engagement behaviors toward luxury hotels.” journal of quality assurance in hospitality & tourism 21, no. 5 (2019): 499–523. 93 moh nasuka, tony wijaya, and anas hidayat. “the role of islamic marketing ethics for customer loyalty in islamic banking through customer satisfaction.” economic annals-xxi 187, no. 1/2 (2021): 189– 96. 94 taoana, quaye, and abratt, ‘antecedents of brand loyalty in south african retail banking’. 95 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia.” cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (2020): 1859849. 96 joseph f hair, barry j babin, and rolph e anderson, multivariate data analysis (new jersey: prentice-hall, 2014). 97 mostert, theron, and kruger, ‘a disaggregated approach to establishing the antecedents and outcome of relationship quality in the south african banking industry’. 76 fostering customer loyalty … 98 moh nasuka, tony wijaya, and anas hidayat. “the role of islamic marketing ethics for customer loyalty in islamic banking through customer satisfaction.” economic annals-xxi 187, no. 1/2 (2021): 189– 96. 99 fajriyati et al., “attributes influencing overall tourist satisfaction and its consequences for muslim-majority destination”. 100 sobari, kurniati, and usman, “the influence of islamic attributes and religious commitments toward halal wellness services customer satisfaction and loyalty”. 101 bayu arie fianto et al., “customer loyalty to islamic banks: evidence from indonesia”, ed. pantea foroudi, cogent business & management 7, no. 1 (1 january 2020): 1859849, https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1859849. 102 nga thi vo, miloslava chovancová, and ho thanh tri. “the impact of e-service quality on the customer satisfaction and consumer engagement behaviors toward luxury hotels.” journal of quality assurance in hospitality & tourism 21, no. 5 (2019): 499–523. 103 lovemore chikazhe, charles makanyeza, and blessing chigunhah “understanding mediators and moderators of the effect of customer satisfaction on loyalty.” cogent business & management 8, no. 1 (2021): 1922127. 104 indiani, pulawan, and santini, “which consumer groups are more loyal?“ 105 hamid, jusoh, and maulan, “the influence of spiritual brand attributes towards the corporate brand image of islamic banking institutions in malaysia”. 106 nicholas igbudu, zanete garanti, and temitope popoola, “enhancing bank loyalty through sustainable banking practices: the mediating effect of corporate image”, sustainability 10, no. 11 (2018): 4050, https://doi.org/10.3390/su10114050. 107 hair, babin, and anderson, multivariate data analysis. 108 hair, babin, and anderson. 109 zahra, fatima, and muhammad usman. "religious advertisements of islamic banks: aesthetic satisfaction and psychology of colors." karachi islamicus 2, no. 2 (2022): 46-56. 110 krisna nugraha et al., “factors influencing bank customers’ orientations toward islamic banks: indonesian banking perspective,” sustainability 14, no. 19 (2022): 12506, https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912506. 111 mahmoud yasin et al., “the role of customer online brand experience in customers’ intention to forward online company-generated content: the case of the islamic online banking sector in palestine”, journal of retailing and consumer services 52 (2020): 101902, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101902. 112 rizaldi yusfiarto et al., “examining islamic capital market adoption from a socio-psychological perspective and islamic financial literacy”, journal of islamic accounting and business research 14, no. 4 (2023): 574–94, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-02-2022-0037. 113 muhamad nadratuzzaman hosen, fitriyani lathifah, and ferry jie, “perception and expectation of customers in islamic bank perspective”, journal of islamic marketing 12, no. 1 (2021): 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-12-2018-0235. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 77 114 aamir abbas et al., “the role of islamic marketing ethics towards customer satisfaction”, journal of islamic marketing 11, no. 4 (2019): 1001–18, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-11-2017-0123. 115 tika kartika, achmad firdaus, and mukhamad najib, “contrasting the drivers of customer loyalty; financing and depositor customer, single and dual customer, in indonesian islamic bank”, journal of islamic marketing 11, no. 4 (2019): 933–59, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-042017-0040. 116 buerhan saiti, abubakar aliyu ardo, and ibrahim guran yumusak, “why non-muslims subscribe to islamic banking?,” qualitative research in financial markets 14, no. 2 (2022): 247–69, https://doi.org/10.1108/qrfm-01-2018-0005. 117 nur asnawi, badri munir sukoco, and muhammad asnan fanani, “the role of service quality within indonesian customers satisfaction and loyalty and its impact on islamic banks”, journal of islamic marketing 11, no. 1 (2019): 192–212, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-03-2017-0033. 118 ilham hassan f. mansour, “customers’ perceptions of selection criteria used by islamic bank customers in sudan: the importance of shariah compliance,” ssrn electronic journal, (2019), https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3480464. 119 yudi ahmad faisal et al., “examining the purchase intentions of indonesian investors for green sukuk,” sustainability 15, no. 9 (2023): 7430, https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097430. 120 c. c. williams and n. mackay. “customer engagement in retail banks: scale development and validation,” the retail and marketing review 16, no. 1 (2020): 40–52. 121 roni andespa, yulia hendri yeni, yudi fernando, and dessy kurnia sari, “a systematic review of customer sharia compliance behaviour in islamic banks: determinants and behavioural intention,” journal of islamic marketing, (2023), https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-06-2023-0181. 122 darwin dhasan, and mayuree aryupong. “effects of product quality, service quality and price fairness on customer engagement and customer loyalty.” abac journal 39, no. 2 (2019): 82–102. 123 ezeh and nkamnebe, ‘determinants of islamic banking adoption among non-muslim customers in a muslim zone’. 124 nga thi vo, miloslava chovancová, and ho thanh tri. “the impact of e-service quality on the customer satisfaction and consumer engagement behaviors toward luxury hotels.” journal of quality assurance in hospitality & tourism 21, no. 5 (2019): 499–523. 125 c. h. ezurizzy and d. g. ademe, “e-service quality and customer engagement of online shops in bayelsa state, nigeria,” gph international journal of business management (ijbm) 5, no. 1 (2022): 76– 87. 126 rizky yudaruddin, “financial technology and performance in islamic and conventional banks”, journal of islamic accounting and business research 14, no. 1 (2 january 2023): 100–116, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-03-2022-0070. 127 suzanna elmassah and heba abou-el-sood, “selection of islamic banking in a multicultural context: the role of gender and religion”, journal of islamic marketing 13, no. 11 (2022): 2347–77, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-05-2020-0160. 78 fostering customer loyalty … 128 n.a. nurdin and khaeruddin yusuf, “knowledge management lifecycle in islamic bank: the case of syariah banks in indonesia”, international journal of knowledge management studies 11, no. 1 (2020): 59, https://doi.org/10.1504/ijkms.2020.105073. 129 tria yulia rahmawati, miranti kartika dewi, and ilham reza ferdian, “instagram: its roles in management of islamic banks”, journal of islamic marketing 11, no. 4 (18 july 2019): 841–61, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-11-2018-0213. 130 selim ahmed et al., “the impact of islamic shariah compliance on customer satisfaction in islamic banking services: mediating role of service quality”, journal of islamic marketing 13, no. 9 (2022): 1829–42, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-11-2020-0346. 131 dipa mulia, hardius usman, and novia budi parwanto, “the role of customer intimacy in increasing islamic bank customer loyalty in using e-banking and m-banking”, journal of islamic marketing 12, no. 6 (2021): 1097–1123, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-09-2019-0190. 132 ghazi zouari and marwa abdelhedi, “customer satisfaction in the digital era: evidence from islamic banking”, journal of innovation and entrepreneurship 10, no. 1 (2021): 9, https://doi.org/10.1186/s13731-02100151-x. 133 ety saraswati, “market orientation, service quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty: study on sharia banking in indonesia”, golden ratio of marketing and applied psychology of business 2, no. 1 (2021): 26–41, https://doi.org/10.52970/grmapb.v2i1.157. 134 muhammad tahir jan and ali shafiq, “islamic banks’ brand personality and customer satisfaction: an empirical investigation through sem”, journal of islamic accounting and business research 12, no. 4 (2021): 488–508, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-05-2020-0149. 135 siti ngayesah hamid, suharni maulan, and wan jamaliah wan jusoh, “brand attributes, corporate brand image and customer loyalty of islamic banks in malaysia”, journal of islamic marketing 14, no. 10 (2023): 2404–28, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-09-2021-0309. 136 muhammad adli musa et al., “islamic business ethics and practices of islamic banks: perceptions of islamic bank employees in gulf cooperation countries and malaysia”, journal of islamic accounting and business research 11, no. 5 (2020): 1009–31, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-07-2016-0080. 137 hosen, lathifah, and jie, “perception and expectation of customers in islamic bank perspective”. 138 muhammad bilal zafar and ahmad azam sulaiman, “measuring corporate social responsibility in islamic banking: what matters?”, international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 13, no. 3 (2020): 357–88, https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm05-2019-0227. 139 muhammad muflih, “the link between corporate social responsibility and customer loyalty: empirical evidence from the islamic banking industry”, journal of retailing and consumer services 61 (2021): 102558, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102558. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 674 issn :0250-7196 an exploratory study of rhetorical devices in part thirty of the holy quran 1* hanik mahliatussikah, 2 dr. mohammad h. al-khresheh abstract rhetorical devices consist of verbal and meaning embellishments, in which the verbal portion first pertains to the word after which the meaning follows. if one of the words is substituted with its antonym, then there will be no rhetoric, meaning embellishment pertains to the meaning itself. by using the qualitative descriptive method, this study attempts to unveil instances of: antithesis, opposition, consonance, and paronomasia in part thirty of the holy quran. after a comprehensive analysis of most of the suras (chapters) of this part, it was found that the majority displays varying levels of consonance. there are complete and incomplete paronomasias. antithesis may be positive or negative, verbal or of meaning. as for opposition, it exists in part thirty but isn’t as frequently seen as antithesis. the style in this part of the quran is a literary artistic one that is rich with imagery and addresses emotions. its words are inspirational and its ideas are blended with emotion. part thirty of the holy quran includes 31 chapters that talk about doomsday resurrection and allah’s might. the pivotal point in this doomsday is allah’s doing and states that everything in this world belongs to him. such ideas are presented in a very artistic and eloquent style. keywords: antithesis; consonance; opposition; paronomasia; rhetoric; thirty 1. introduction there is no doubt that the quran is the spiritual space and flushing fountain of which human minds stand short of imitation. quranic texts are characterized by miraculous aesthetic features such as: rhetoric, assonance, paronomasia, text integrity, and rhythm, resulting from the musical tone gained due to the distribution of letters and word structure (al-shirazi, 1422). aestheticism, as al-judi sees it, is an expressive practice whose power is manifested in the word choice by which the rhetoric is reflected. allah loves beauty and that beauty is reflected in his creation. the beauty of arabic is incorporated into the characters and the sublime words of the quran that rank the highest (sump, 2016). among the rhetorical devices presented in part 30 of the quran are: antithesis, opposition, consonance, and paronomasia. antithesis and opposition pertain to semantic rhetoric, while consonance and paronomasia belong to the verbal type of rhetoric. the researchers used the qualitative descriptive method to unveil such figures of speech in that part of the quran. 1 arabic language department, faculty of literature, universitas negeri malang, indonesia. email: hanik.mahliatussikah.fs@um.ac.id 2 department of english language, faculty of sciences and arts, northern border university, saudi arabia. email: mohammed.alkresheh@nbu.edu.sa mailto:hanik.mahliatussikah.fs@um.ac.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 675 issn :0250-7196 the term 'rhetoric' linguistically implies creation. thus, the derivations from the arabic root “badaa” = created are “ibdaa” = creation, “bedie” = creator. in the quran allah in “baaara” sura, “the cow” he says; “to him is due the primal organic of the heavens and the earth.” 117. this implies that skies and earths are unequally created; they are unique (ibn manthoor, 2003). idiomatically, rhetoric is the science that embellishes speech to make it suit the situation of concern and seeks to clarify its meaning while avoiding redundant complexities. (al-jerhani, 1998). it is also defined as the science which determines the qualities that make a speech sound better and more sublime as it copes with the situation of concern (al-hashimi, 2006; irwin, 2019). there are two parts of rhetoric. the first one is concerned with meaning. it is a method which aims at ameliorating the meaning per se though it might affect the wording (ateeq, 2006). the second part is called verbal rhetoric. it seeks to improve the pronunciation though it might indirectly affect the meaning through ameliorating words (ateeq, 2006; sato, hamamoto, wright, & nakagawa, 2019). 1.1 problem of the study the problem of the study is incorporated in the following two questions: 1. what do we mean by rhetoric and how many parts does it have in figurative language? 2. are there any figures of speech in the 30th part of the quran? the importance of this study lies in its attempt to unveil allah’s miracles as demonstrated in rhetorical devices used in the quran and the way in which they were presented. it also lies in the endeavour to acquaint knowledge searchers and quran admirers with the meaning of rhetoric, in addition to eliciting the same from part 30 in the quran. it is also significant in that this study will enrichen the arabic library with its focus on rhetoric extant in part 30 of the quran., the study aims to unravel the identity of figures of speech in rhetoric and their place in part 30 of the holy quran, taking into consideration that the study is limited to the analysis of rhetoric as presented in part 30 of the holy quran in order to better understand the aesthetic qualities of the chapters of this part. 2. materials and methods the method adopted by the researchers is the descriptive qualitative analytical one, which has been applied to part thirty of the holy quran. this has been presented as follows: 2.1 rhetoric antithesis antithesis is blending a thing with its opposite. it is also known as contrariety, oppositeness, equivalency, divisiveness, etc. combining two opposites in one sentence (al-makki, 2006). the first person to define the term was (al-khaleel bin ahmed, 187 a.h) who classified it into two real and figurative. the former is the one whose two ends include read things such as two names, two verbs, two particles, or two opposites; while the latter is that one whose two ends include non-read things, but figuratively used (lashin, 1986). in the figurative antithesis; the objects of concern should be two opposites, the real and figurative antitheses, each of them could be either lexical or semantic. it also could be either positive or negative (al-jarjari, 1998). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 676 issn :0250-7196 as for meaning antithesis, it includes two opposite non-verbal meanings, , e.g. “you do nothing, but lie”, “they said: our lord doth know that we have been sent as a mission to you.” verses 15 & 16 from “yasin” (chapter). “sent” means “not liars”. antithesis has two types: positive and negative. the positive is that one in which the two options are either positive or negative, but in the negative type one of the options is positive and the other negative, command or proscription, antithesis is achieved through confirmation and negation of knowledge. it is also found in allah’s saying; “don’t fear people, but fear me,” metaphorical antithesis was termed by ibn jaafer as “equivalence.” there is another type of antithesis known as the hidden or moral. table 1: presents antithesis in part 30 of the holy quran “sura” chapter “aya” verse “nabaa” the (great) news “nothing cool shall they taste” verse (24) “save a boiling fluid” verse (25) ال٠ًزلًْٛف١ٙبًثشدا ًًٚالًششاثب ً إالًد١ّّب ًًٚغغبلب ً “naziat” those who tear out “but god did punish him.., in the hereafter as in the first” verse (25) األخشحًٚاألٌٚٝ “as if they had tarred but a single evening, or the following morn” verse (46) إالًعش١خًأًٚظذب٘ب “the abode will be hell-fire” verse (39) فئًْاٌذج١ًًُٟ٘اٌّأٜٚ “their abode will be paradise” verse (41) فئًْاٌجٕخًًٟ٘اٌّأٜٚ “abasa” he frowned “to him dost that attend” verse (6) فأٔذًًٌٗرصذٜ “of him wont thou unmindful” verse (10) فأٔذًعًٕٗرٍٙٝ “takwir” the folding up “when the blazing fire is kindled to fierce heat” verse (12) ٚإراًاٌجذ١ًُععشد “and when paradise is brought near” verse (13) ٚإراًاٌجٕخًأصٌفذ “infitar” the cleaving asunder “then shall each soul know what it hath sent forward and what it hath kept back.” verse (5) عٍّذًٔفظًِبًلذِذًٚأخشد “taftif” dealing in fraud “those who, when they have to receive by measure from hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 677 issn :0250-7196 men, exact full measure.” verse (2) اٌز٠ًٓإراًاوزبٌٛاًعًٍٝإٌبط٠ًغزٛفْٛ “but when they have to give by measure or weight to men, give less than due.” verse (3) ٚإراًوبًٌُٛ٘أًٚٚص٠ًُ٘ٛٔخغشْٚ “inshiqaq” the rending asunder “when the sky is rent asunder” verse (1) ٚإراًاٌغّبءًأشمذ “and when the earth is flattened out” verse (3) ٚارٔذًٌشثٙبًٚدمذ “buruj” the zodiacal signs “it is he who created from the very beginning and he can restore life.” verse (13) إ٠ًًٛ٘ٗٔجذا٠ًٚع١ذ “tariq” the night visitant “by the firmament which returns in its round” verse (11) ٚاٌغّبءًرادًاٌشجع “and by the earth which opens out…” ٚاألسضًرادًاٌصذع “al-ala” the most high “in which they will then neither die nor live.” verse (13) ثًُال٠ًّٛدًف١ٙبًٚال٠ًذ١ب “for he knoweth what is manifest and what is hidden.” verse (7) إ٠ًٗٔعًٍُاٌجٙشًِٚب٠ًخفٝ “gashiya” the overwhelming “for to us will be their return.” verse (25) إًْا١ٌٕبًا٠بثُٙ “then it will be for us to call them to account.” verse (26) ثًُإًْع١ٍٕبًدغبثُٙ “fajr” the break of the day “by the even and the odd.” verse (3) ٚاٌشفعًٚاٌٛرش “shams” the sun “by the sun and his glorious splendor.” verse (1) “by the moon…” verse (2) ٚاٌشّظًٚظذب٘بًٚاٌمّشًإراًرال٘ب “iqraa” read or proclaim “taught man that which he knew not.” verse (5) عًٍُّاإلٔغبًِْب٠ًًٌُعٍُ “baiyina" the clear evidance “… they are the worst of creation.” verse (6) أٌٚئهًًُ٘ششًاٌجش٠خ “… they are the best of the creation.” verse (7) أٌٚئهًًُ٘خ١شًاٌجش٠خ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 678 issn :0250-7196 “quraish” the quraish “… by winter as summer.” verse (2) سدٍخًاٌشزبءًٚاٌص١ف “… who provides them with security against fear” verse (4) ٚإًًُِِٙٓخٛف “nas” mankind “among jinns and among men.” verse (6) ًِٓاٌجٕخًٚإٌبط from the data presented above, one can observe that most of the instances of antithesis presented here is of the positive type except for that of “iqraa”: “taught”, “knew not” in which the antithesis was negative. as for the type of words, antithesis in part 30 of the quran was as follows: table 2: types of word antithesis no. type of word antithesis words 1 indefinite noun “bardan” cool. “hameeman” hot. “ashiyatan” – evening. “duhan” – morning. “kafaru” – disbelieved. “amanoo” – believed. 2 definite nouns “al-sama” – sky. “al-ard” – the earth. “al-jaheem” – the hell. “al-janna” – the heaven. “al-shams” – the sun. “al-qamar” – the moon. “al-shitaa” – the winter. “alsaif” – the summer. 3 past simple “qaddamat” – advanced. “akharat” – delayed. 4 present simple “la yamoot” – doesn’t die. “la yahya” – doesn’t live. “yubdiu” – stars. “yueid” – return. 5 particle “ilaina” – for us. “alaina” – to us. 6 in-between verb & noun “amana” – believed. “khawf” – fear. 7 in-between past and present “jallaha” – shows up glory. “yaghshaha” – conceals. from the preceding data, one discovers that the topics discussed in quranic verses, in which antithesis has been used, reveals the grandeur of the creator as seen in the creation of “sky” and “earth, “sun” and “moon”, “winter” and “summer”, “good” and “evil”, “hell” and “heaven”, etc. the aesthetic aspect of antithesis is its concordance with the association of idea as the antithetical words are closer to thinking than the synonymous and antonymous. 2.2 style of opposition this is a style based on creating an opposition between meaning, ideas, and images in order to achieve rhetorical goals and intellectual values (ateeq, 2006). according to ibn manthoor hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 679 issn :0250-7196 (2003), antithesis is grouping two opposition or more than two opposites. for ibn al-atheer (630 a.h), and al-sayooti (911 a.h), antithesis and opposition are identical. they all suggest calling this type of rhetoric opposition. opposition has a variety of types: two for two – two antitheses in the first hemistich and other two in the second consecutively. this is the top rhetorical style; or three antitheses against three, for against four, i.e four words against four meanings and so on and so forth (hasan, 2009). opposition in part 30 of the holy quran is as follows: “sura” chapter opposition “nabaa” the great news “and made the night as a covering.” verse (10) ٚجعٍٕبًا١ًًٌٌٍجبعب “and made the day as a means of subsistence.” verse (11) ٚجعٍٕبًإٌٙبسًِعبشب “naziat” those who tear out “then, for such as had transgressed all bounds.” verse (37) فأِبًًِٓطغٝ “and had preferred the life of this world.” verse (38) ٚاثشًاٌذ١بحًاٌذ١ٔب “the abode will be hell-fire.” verse (39) فبًْجًًُٕٟٙ٘اٌّأٜٚ “infitar” the cleaving asunder “as for the righteous, they will be in bliss.” verse (13) إًْاالثشاسًٌفًٟٔع١ُ “and the wicked will be in fire.” verse (14) اٌفجبسًٌفًٟجذ١ُ “al ala” the most high “the admonition will be received by those who fear (god).” verse (10) ع١ززوش٠ًًِٓخشٝ “but it will be avoided by those most unfortunate ones.” verse (11) ٠ٚزجٕجٙبًاالشمٝ “fajr” the breaking of the day “now, as for man, when his lord trieth him, giving him honor and gifts, then saith he, my lord hath honored me.” verse (15) ف١مٛيًسثًٟأوشِٓ ً فأِبًاالٔغبًْإراًِبًاثزالًٖسثًٗفأوشًِٗٚٔعّب hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 680 issn :0250-7196 “but when he trieth him, restricting his subsistence for him, then saith he (in despair), my lord hath humiliated me.” verse (16) ٚأِبًإراًاثزالًٖفمذسًع١ًٍٗسصلًٗف١مٛيًسثًٟأ٘بٔٓ “shams” the sun “truly he succeeds that purifies it.” verse (9) لذًأفٍخًًِٓصوب٘ب “and he fails that corrupts it.” verse (10) ٚلذًخبةًًِٓدعب٘ب “duha” the glorious morning “therefore, treat not the orphan with harshness.” verse (9) ٚأِبًا١ٌز١ًُفالًرمٙش “nor repulse the petitioner.” verse (10) ٚأِبًاٌغبئًًفالًرٕٙش “zilzal” the convulsion “then shall anyone who has done an atom’s weight of goods, see it.” verse (7) ٠شٖ ٠ًِٓٚعًًِّثمبيًرسحًخ١شاً “and anyone who has done an atom’s weight of evil, shall see it.” verse (8) ٠شٖ ٠ًِٓٚعًًِّثمبيًرسحًششاً the preceding data revealed that opposition in part 30 of the holy quran might be either in two words or more. the topics of opposition from the universe were skies and earth, day and night. from doomsday, we had hell and heaven, good deeds and wicked deeds, and the difference between believers and non-believers. in “al naba sura” we had the words night and day, implying rest and work; in the sura of “infitar”, we had the righteous blissed and wicked in fire. 2.3 rhymed style rhythm is a rhymed speech in which words at the end rhyme tighter. it was given this name because of similarity of ending (al-yamani, 2017). it is sound concord of the last words in a word. the best type of which is that one whose words are equal in length. among features of rhyme are: equality of words in length, strong structure, originality, and repetition free. the rhyme that catches the attention of the listener is that one with a clear musical expression that helps consolidate the idea. al-sakaki (626 a.h) says that prose rhyme is analogous to that of verse. for ateeq, a good rhyme is a well-structured one, which is void of useless repetition and gives speech sublimity and splendour. rhyme is of four types:  “al-metrif” it is that one in which the rhymed words differ metrically. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 681 issn :0250-7196  “al-mirsai” it is that one in which every word of a prose sentence or first hemistich in verse have the same meter and rhyme; i.e. it is that one in which words in one sentence or more agree metrically and rhythmically.  “al-mutawazi” it is the one in which the last word in the sentence agree with its counterpart metrically and rhythmically.  “al-mashtaer” is that one in which every hemistich has two rhymes different from those of the second hemistich, this type pertains to poetry. there are certain characteristics of rhythm in arabic which are: 1used words should be familiar and understandable by the reader. 2words should be subservient to meaning, not the other way around. 3each of the rhymed words should have a meaning different from the other without any repetition. (one should stop at the end of the word in order to maintain the rhythmical tone. the best rhyme for ateeq has the following characteristics: 1has equal number of words in each word. 2if the second sentence has to be extended, that shouldn’t go beyond moderation so as not to lose the rhyme with which the listener is concerned. 3has a long third sentence. 4the second sentence shouldn’t be shorter than the first. data on rhyme in the part 30 of the holy quran are as follows: mitrif rhyme: there are several verses that used “mitrif” rhyme in which the two rhymed words differ metrically but agree rhythmically: table 3: mitrif” rhyme in part 30 of the holy quran “sura” chapter rhyme “nabaa” the great news “have we not made the earth as a wide expanse.” verse (6) أًٌُجعًًاالسضًِٙبدا ً “and the mountains as pegs.” verse (7) ٚاٌججبيًأٚربدا ً “and the heavens shall be opened as if there were doors.” verse (19) ٚفزذذًاٌغّبءًفىبٔذًأثٛاثب ً “and the mountains shall vanish as if they were a mirage.” ٚع١شدًاٌججبيًفىبٔذًعشاثب ً “abasa” he frowned “by no means (should it be so) for it is indeed a message of instruction.” verse (11) hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 682 issn :0250-7196 والًأٙبًرزوشح “therefore, let whose will keep it in remembrance.” فًّٓشبءًروشٖ “exalted (indignity), kept pure and holy.” verse (14) “(written) by hands of scribes.” verse (15) “honorable, pious, and just.” verse (16) “woe to man what hath made him reject god.”ًverse (17) ِشفٛعخًِطٙشحً)64(ًثأ٠ذًٞعفشًٖ)65(ًوشاًَثشسًٖ)66(ًلزًًاالٔغبًِْبًاوفشًٖ (67) “takwir” the folding up “when the sun is folded up.” verse (1) “when the starts fall losing their lustre.” verse (2) “when the mountains vanish like mirage.” verse (3) (3(ًٚاراًاٌجذبسًعجشدً)2)(ًٚإراًإٌجًَٛأىذسد6ًإراًاٌشّظًوٛسدً) “buruj” the zodiacal signs “woe to the makers of the pit (of fire).” verse (4) “fine supplied with fuel.” verse (5) لزًًاصذبةًاالخذٚدً)4(ًإٌبسًرادًاٌٛلٛدً)5( “inshirah” the expansion “have we not expanded thy breast?” verse (1) “and removed from thee the burden?” verse (2) “the which did gall thy back.” verse (3) “and raised your name hugh.” verse (4) ً)4(ً ًأمطًظٙشن ًاٌزٞ )2(ً ًعٕهًٚصسن ًٚٚظعٕب )6(ً ًٌهًصذسن ًٔششح اٌُ ٚسفعٕبًٌهًروشنً)4( “kawther” abundance “to the have we granted the fount.” verse (1) “therefore, to thy lord turn in prayer and sacrifices.” verse (2) “for he who hateth thee will be cut off.” (3) إٔبًاعط١ٕبنًاٌىٛثشً)6(ًفصًٌٍٟشثهًٚأذشً)2(ًىئًْشبٔئهًً٘ٛاألثزشً)3( hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 683 issn :0250-7196 the suras cited above are examples on the “mitrif rhyme. they differ in meter, but rhyme together in the last word of the sentence such as words in takwir sura: وٛسد،ًفعٍذ،ًأىذسد mirsai rhyme: in this type, one word in prose sentence or hemistich has a word that it rhymes with, as presented in the following data: table 4: mirsai rhyme” in part 30 of the holy quran “sura” chapter rhyme “nabaa’ the great news “verily, they shall soon come to know.” verse (4) “verily, they shall soon come to know.” verse (5) والًع١عًٍّْٛ)4(ًثًُوالًع١عًٍّْٛ)5( “tariq” the night visitant “by the firmament which returns.” (11) “and by the earth which opens out.” (12) ٚاٌغّبءًرادًاٌشجعً)66(ًٚاألسضًرادًاٌصذعً)62( “duha” the glorious morning “treat not the orphan with harshness.” verse (9) “nor repulse the beggar.” verse (10) فأِبًا١ٌز١ًُفالًرمٙشً)9(ًٚأِبًاٌغبئًًفالًرٕذشً)61( “adiyat” those that run “by the steed that run with panting (breath).” verse (1) “and strike sparks of fire.” verse (2) ٚاٌعبد٠بدًصجذبً)6(ًفبٌّٛس٠بدًلذدب ًً)2( “and to that he bears witness.” verse (7) “and violent as he in his love for wealth.” (8) (8(ًٚإًٌٔٗذتًاٌخ١شًشذ٠ذً)7ٚإًٔٗعًٍٝرٌهًٌش١ٙذً) “takathur” piling up “but nay, you soon shall know.” verse (3) “again you soon shall know.” verse (4) والًعٛفًرعًٍّْٛ)3(ًثًُوالًعٛفًرعًٍّْٛ)4( from the above verses one discovers that the end of each rhymed word has the same rhyme and meter, e.g. the word in “adiyat” witness and violent. additionally, they are both preceded by words with the same meter and structure. 2.4 balanced rhyme the balanced rhyme is that in which the last words in the sentence agree in meter and rhyme. table 5: balanced rhyme in part 30 of the holy quran hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 684 issn :0250-7196 “sura” chapter rhyme “abasa” he frowned “from a sperm drop he hath created him.” verse (19) “then doth he make his path smooth for him.” verse (20) “then he causeth him to die.” verse (21) “then when it is his will, he raise him up.” verse (22) ًِٓٔطفخًخٍمًٗفمذسًٖ)69(ًثًُاٌغج٠ًً١غشًٖ)21(ًثًُإراًأِبرًٗفأخجشًٖ)26(ًثًُإراًشبءًأٔششًٖ (22) “takwir” the folding up “when the female (infant), buried alive, is questioned.” verse (8) “for what crime she was killed.” verse (9) إراًاٌّؤٚدحًعئٍذً)8(ًثأًٞرٔتًلزٍذً)9( “gashiya” overwhelming “they enter the blazing fire.” verse (4) “they are to drink from boiling hot spring.” verse (5) دب١ِخً)4(ًرغمًًِٝٓع١ًٓآ١ٔخً)5( رصًٍٝٔبساً “fajr” the breaking of the day “by the breaking of the day.” verse (1) “by the night twice five.” verse (2) “by the even and the odd.” verse (3) “and by the night when it passeth away.” verse (4) ٚاٌفجشً)6(١ًٌٚبٍيًعششً)2(ًٚاٌشفعًٚاٌٛرشً)3(ًٚا١ًًٌٍإرا٠ًغشً)4( “iqraa” read or proclaim “read in the name of the lord and cherisher when created.” verse (1) “created man out of a mere clot.” verse (2) الشأًثبعًُسثهًاٌزًٞخٍكً)6(ًخٍكًاالٔغبًًِْٓعٍكً)2( “falaq” the dawn “say: i seek refuge with the lord of the dawn.” verse (1) “from the mischief of created things.” verse (2) فًًاعٛرًثشةًاٌفٍكً)6(ًًِٓششًِبًخٍكً)2( “nas” mankind “say: i seek refuge with the lord and cherisher of mankind.” verse (1) “the ruler of mankind.” verse (2) “the god of mankind.” verse (3) hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 685 issn :0250-7196 (3(ًإًٌٗإٌبطً)2(ًٍِهًإٌبطً)6لًًاعٛرًثشةًإٌبطً) 2.5 paronomasia language wise, the term means conformity (al-maidani, 1996). however, in the idiomatic sense, it means similarity in pronunciation, not meaning, or homophones (hasan, 2009). homophones are not acceptable unless they are mentally accepted (al-jerjani, 471 a.h). it can be complete or incomplete; in the former, the phonemes are the same with regard to manner, type, number and order. paronomasia is of five kinds: “mumathel”, “mustawfa”. “mutashabel”, “mufrooq”, and “marfoo” (hasan, 2009). the mumathel and mustawfa are of the complete non-compound type (al-yamani, 2017). the complete “mumathel, is that one in which its two parts are the same with regard to types of characters, their number, order and quality; the two words should also be of the same type: either two nouns, two verbs, or two particles this is the highest type of paronomasia. as for the complete “mustawfa”, the two words agree in letter, type, number, order, and manner, but one of them has to be a noun and the other verb or non-verb. the “mutashabeh”, “mafrooq” and “marfoo” paronomasia are of the compound types. the complete compound is one whose words are one complete, but the other consists of one indivisible word, while the other comprises another word and part of another word. the “mutashabeh” is one, in which the constituents are similar (the single word and the compound one) in terms of pronunciation and writing. the “mafrooq” is the one in which whole single and compound words are similar in pronunciation but not in letter. the “marfoo” is the one in which one word is single while the other is compounded with one word or part of another word. the incomplete paronomasia is the one that differs in one or more of the four constituents: type of letter, number, order, and manner, in addition to difference in meaning. with regard to difference of letters, incomplete paronomasia is divided into two parts: 1distorted and written. in the former the two sides of paronomasia differ in manner and pause but agree in the other three: character number, type, and order whether the type was two names, two verbs, one verb or anything else. here the two rhymed words have the same number of letters and their order, but differ only in inflection. e.g. )ِٕٓزس٠ٓ(ًًٚ)ِٕزس٠(. 2admonishing and admonished. the written paronomasia is that one in which the two words are similar in writing but differ in letter dotting (abbas, 2004). e.g. ً ًٚ )٠ذغْٕٛ( .)٠ذغجْٛ( when it comes to differences in the type of characters, incomplete paronomasia is divided into two types: present and annexed paronomasia. the former is the one in which the two words of paronomasia differ in one letter whose point of escape are close, so the difference is in letters which are close in their escape. the letters that differ might be initial, medial or final (al-hashimi, 1418 a.h). e.g. ٠ًْٕٙٛ/٠ًشأًْٚ . hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 686 issn :0250-7196 the annexed paronomasia is the one in which the two similar words differ by one letter, which are not close to each other in pronunciation. this letter might be initial, medial or final. e.g. ًشذ٠ذً/ًش١ٙذً ً–ّ٘ضح/ًٌّضح . regarding the difference in letter number, there is a defective paronomasia, in which the two similar words differ in letter number (khudeir, 2010). e.g. ًأسعٍٕبً/ًسعٍٕبً–اٌغبعخً/ًاٌّغبق . regarding the difference in structure or order, there is an inverted paronomasia in which the letter order differs, but remains in agreement with respect to its type, number, and manner. e.g. ًعٛسحً/ًسٚعخً–دزفً/ًفزخ . this paronomasia has three forms: 1total inversion in which the letters in one word are totally in opposition to the other word such as فزخً/ًدزف. it is also called the balanced paronomasia (al-shirazi, 1422). 2partial inversion in which some letters are in opposition of some others in the other word. e.g. عٛسادً/ًسٚعبد. 3edge inverted paronomasia in which one of the two words is inverted at the onset of the line of verse or sentence, and the second at the end of the line or the sentence. e.g. ًعبق لغٛحً/ًٚوًًعبقًلٍجًٗلبط٠شث١ًٟلٍجًٗ . there is also what might be called defective paronomasia, in which letters of one of the two words are less than those of the other, while other traits like its type, manner, and order are the same. this type has three sub-branches: 1“al-mardoof” is that paronomasia in which the first letter is missing. e.g. ِغبقً/ًعبق. 22“al-muktanif” is one in which the middle letter is missing. e.g. ِطٛلخً/ًِمطٛفخ. 3“al-muttarraf” is one in which the missing letter is final. e.g. ًصً/ًعبص١خعٛاً–عبسً/ًعبسق . 4“al-muthayyal” is one in which more than one letter is missing from the end of one of them. e.g. اٌجًٜٛ/ًاٌجٛأخ. – (al-maydani, 1996). there are other types of incomplete paronomasia such as: 1“al-talafuthi” in which the two ends differ in writing, but agree in form. 2double or repeated paronomasia in which we have two words one is ancillary to the other. 3absolute paronomasia is that one in which the two words are completely identical without being derivatives (al-hashimi, 2006). 4derivational paronomasia is the one in which the two words have similar letters and order, with a common derivation, of which the origin remains the same (al-hashimi, 2006). some experts have divided ancillary paronomasia into two parts: derivational and semiderivational. said it is to be noted that the derivational paronomasia is believed by some to not be a type, except for the ancillary as paronomasia is conditioned by difference in meaning and the derivational type stems from one origin. to conclude, paronomasia may either be verbal (complete and incomplete with all its subsidiaries), or semantic which can be further divided into two parts: “idmar” and referential paronomasias. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 687 issn :0250-7196 the former triggers a similar word in the mind which implies a different contextual meaning, while the latter is the one in which one word is stated and the other is known through its reference (ibrahim, 1983). table 6: paronomasia in part 30 of the holy quran “sura” chapter “aya” verse type of paronomasia “tariq” the night visitant “surely (god) is able to bring him back (to life).” verse (8) إًٔٗعًٍٝسجعًٌٗمبدسً)8( “by the firmament which returns.” verse (11) ٚاٌغّبءًرادًاٌشجعً)66( the first “سجعخ” means resurrection. the second “سجع” means rain succeeding another rain. complete paronomasia “lail” the night “non shall reach it but those most unfortunate one.” verse (15) ال٠ًصال٘بًإالًاالشمٝ “but those most devoted to god shall be removed from it.” verse (17) ٠ٚزجٕجٙبًاالرمٝ االشمًٝ/ًاالرمٝ paronomasia present “takwir” the folding up “verily i call to witness the planets that recede.” verse (15) فالًالغًُثبٌخٕظ “go straight to hide.” verse (16) اٌجٛاسًاٌىٕظ اٌخٕظً/ًاٌىٕظ ancillary paronomasia “naziat” those who tear out “by those who gently draw out (the souls of the blessed.” verse (2) ٚإٌبشطبدًٔشطب “and by those who glid along (on errands of mercy.” verse (3) double paronomasia hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 688 issn :0250-7196 ٚاٌغبثذبدًعجب بإٌشبطبدً/ًٔشط اٌغبثذبدً/ًعجب “al-ala” the most high “therefore give admonition in case it profits.” verse (9) فزوشًإًْٔفعذًاٌزوشٜ روشً/ًروشٜ defective paronomasia “falaq” the dawn “and from the mischief of the envious one as he practices envy.” verse (5) ًِٚٓششًدبعذًإراًدغذ دبعذً/ًدغذ derivational paronomasia from the preceding data, the researchers discovered that paronomasia in part 30 of the holy quran could be complete, present, ancillary, defective, double, repeated (frequent), and derivational. 3. conclusion rhetoric is a science by which ameliorated speech can be distinguished, especially when applied in a clear and concise manner. it has two types: one concerned with meaning and the other with pronunciation (al-qazwini, 1998). from the rhetorical devices, we can observe instances of antithesis and opposition being used in part 30 of the holy quran. these are used to convey meanings in the rhetorical manner, which can influence the soul for the better. references --secret of rhetoric jeddah: dar al-madani, 1991. abbas, f (2004). rhetoric; its skills and strategies. irbid, jordan: yarmouk university al-hashimi, a. (2006). gems of rhetoric in meaning and speech. islamic publication center. al-jerjani, (1998). abdul qader, book of definitions. beirut, lebnon: dar al-fikr al-maidani, a. r. (1996). arabic rhetoric: basics, sciences, and skills. beirut: dar alqalam al-makki, i (2006). increment and embellishment in quranic sciences. sharjah, uae: sharjah university. al-qazwini, j. f (1998). rhetoric: an illustration. beirut: dar ihia al-iiium. al-shirazi, a. (1422). rhetoric in meaning, and speech. islamic publication institution. al-yamani, w. (2017). paronomasia in the holy quran. retrived from: https://forum.brg8.com/t305877.html.2015. ateeq, a. a. (2006). rhetoric. beirut: dar al-nahda. https://forum.brg8.com/t305877.html.2015 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674-689 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 689 issn :0250-7196 hasan,a. r. (2009). arabic rhetoric: principles and skills. damascus: dar al-qalam ibn manthoor. (2003). abu al-fadil. lisan al-arab. beirut, lebanon: dar al – fikr ibrahim (1983). wud altum. al-jinas in arabic brentwood, maryland. irwin, j. (2019). student critical thinking objectivism. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 4(3), 80-89. khadra, a. f. (2006). antithesis between ancients and moderns. khudeir, a. (2010). paronomasia in arabic: a rhetorical artistic study. baghdad: alqadisyeh university. lashin, m. (1986). abdul fattah. rhetoric in quranic styles. cairo: anglo – egyptian bookshop sato, k., hamamoto, k., wright, d., & nakagawa, h. (2019). a virtual reality-based language learning environment to teach sentence word order. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 5(5), 196-206. sump, n. (2016). the holy quran: an aesthetic. outlook. www.rabtasunna.com.2016. http://www.rabtasunna.com.2016/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 705 issn :0250-7196 provisions regulating commercial distribution contract in jordanian law mohammed khalil abu baker 1 , sara mohammed al-arasi 2 , mohammed fahmi al-ghazwi 3 abstract the commercial distribution contract, which might be local or international, is regarded one of the most updated methods in trading, selling, and marketing products, commodities, and services for consumers. as this type of contract urgently needs regulating, the study helps in illustrating the contract’s aspects, principles, effects, termination and obligations of both producer and distributor, in addition to, liquidation of contractual bond. through this type of contract is important, yet there is no legal statute to regulate it. due to this absence, a lot of problems emerge when it is put into practice. therefore, general laws are applied sometimes, or the law of agents or commercial brokers in others. consequently, it has become urgent to enact a legislation to regulate rules and provisions of the contract. the researchers came up to certain findings recommending that it is necessary to enact a legislation that regulates terms of this contract with regard to identity, definitions, principles, parties, obligations, party rights, laps of time with consequential effects, liquidating contractual bond pertaining commodities, trade mark, spare parts, customers with whom the distributor used to deal, in addition to other relevant outcomes of the contract. keywords: commercial agency; commercial distribution contract; distributor; franchise contract; mediation; producer 1. introduction the commercial distribution contract is one the most important methods for trading, selling commodities and services to which the producer’s resort to boost amount of production and profit. it also cares for delivering commodities to consumers in an easy and natural way, taking into consideration the consumer’s need and supply and demand. this study unravels that through tackling the issue of commercial contract, one might come to know about the significance of economy’s endeavors to seek for new markets, produce more commodities, products, and meet the market’s needs, relevant to supply and demand, “in addition to finding a legal way for competition. as a result of the absence of a legal regulatory framework that encourages commercial contracts, a lot of problems among producer, distributor, and consumer, emerge. this issue is interrelated with several laws among which are: commercial contract, law of agents, trade brokers, consumer protection 1 faculty of law, zaytooneh university, amman, jordan. email: m.abubaker@zuj.edu.jo 2 faculty of law, zaytooneh university, amman, jordan 3 faculty of law, zaytooneh university, amman, jordan mailto:m.abubaker@zuj.edu.jo hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 706 issn :0250-7196 law, and that of legal competition, in addition to, general rules in jordanian civil law regarding contractual liability. 1.1 problem of the study the current study tackles the provisions the jordanian legislator put down in order to regulate: commercial law, agents and trade broker’s law, consumer law, consumer’s protection law, competition law, and jordanian civil law of commercial distribution. in addition, it tackles nature of the law, obligation, parties involving producer and distributor, and the legal system to which this contract is subjected. it also poses a query of whether general rules of jordanian civil law can be applied as it doesn’t include anything relevant to that type of contract? moreover, the study argues the suitability of jordanian legislation to the relevant contract, the legal provisions to resort to and the impact of the contract being not legally registered. 1.2 objectives of the study they study aims to achieve several objectives among which are the following: 1to unveil the significance of commercial distribution contract regarding: concept, conditions, characteristics, registering, obligations of each party, producer, and distributor, besides consequential impacts of contract termination. 2to check if the jordanian legislator has tackled such a kind of contract or not and what he should do to regulate such kind of contracts. he didn’t deal with commercial law, law of agents and trade brokers, consumer protection law, competition law, or civil law. 1.3 significance of the study the significance of this study lies in investigating one of the most important issues in the area of distribution contracts which is an essential mechanism for developing economy through consolidating this type of contracts concerning products and services. in addition, it assures the need for legislators to enact rules and regulations to control practices resulting from the relation between producer and distributor in order to protect the consumer. as for the empirical aspect of the issue, enacting such a legislation regulating and balancing the relation between the producer and the distributor to serve the consumer. the legislation to be enacted should clarify contract principles, conditions, impacts, and termination. it is noteworthy that the jordanian legislator never put down specific rules to control such things for the relevant rules concerned with commercial agency contract, brokership, and consumer protection law proved to be insufficient. 1.4 limitations of the study the current study is limited to the commercial distribution contract in the jordanian commercial law and the laws of agents and trade brokers, in addition to flaws of hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 707 issn :0250-7196 competitions, consumer protection, jordanian civil law and rules controlling it. in addition, it investigated some specialized legislations in certain countries that regulate provisions of the contract. 2. literature review in this part of the study the researchers will outline the relevant literature as follows: qandaly (2018) in his dissertations entitled “distribution contracts”, he illustrated distribution regulations, its dual nature, fundamental distribution, its tools, and the transitional distribution contract in algeria as a model (ambikai & ishan, 2016; as & purba, 2017; lawyer, 2017). this study differs from the preceding one as it discusses provisions of the commercial distribution contract that is different from its transitional counterpart; it also differs in discussing the provisions of the contract in jordanian legislation. bin zeidan (2017) in his dissertation entitled “distribution contract withing the framework of competition law”, he tried to apply competition law on distribution contracts of law network of algeria, franchise contract, characterization expansion of fields of distribution contracts via competition council. the current study, unlike the previous one, discusses principles and conditions of the contract and termination in provisions in jordanian legislation. in his m.a thesis entitled “legal regulation of agent commercial distribution in palestine” al-kharoubi (2017) elaborated on the identity of the contract, its concept, conditions, and impacts on commercial distribution in palestinian legislation. the current study differs from the preceding one by focusing on commercial distribution in jordanian legislation. in his dissertation entitled “the law applicable to international commercial contract” shweiri, khalid (2009) elaborated on the international commercial contract and freedom of parties to opt for the applicable law. the current study differs from the previous relevant one in focusing on its counterpart from the perspective of jordanian legislation. 3. study methodology in this study, the researchers adopted the descriptive analytical method as it is the most propitious one for the induction of legal provisions. these were analyzed by the researchers in order to adopt an opinion they came up to from findings of the study to fill the gaps obstructing this type of contract. 3.1 study division the researchers divided this study into two subjects: the first tackles identity of commercial distribution contract which was subdivided into two requisites: the first deals with the concept and characteristics of such a type of contract, and the second tackles conditions and registration. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 708 issn :0250-7196 in the second topic, the researchers discussed the consequences of terminating agent contract. the topic was also subdivided into requisites: the first deals with producer’s and distributor’s obligations, while the second tackles contract termination, causes and consequence. 3.1.1 first subject: concept characteristics and principles of commercial distribution contract this type of contract is one of those that accelerate development of economy and trade. it is designed to regulate transactions between producer and distributor in relevance to commodity distribution, product selling and services. as for its concept, the commercial distribution contract, being a type of commercial agency, obligates identifying and distinguishing it from other similar types, in addition to, listing its characteristics which will be discussed in this part of the study. 3.1.2 legal concept of commercial distribution contract the jordanian legislator in article (2) of trade agency law specified the agent, commercial broker, brokerage and consumer protection. as for the commercial client, he is the person who represents his agent in the kingdom as he is his distributor against a certain payment or commission. the same article defines commercial broker to be the person whose job is to mediate in trade between two parties: a producer, distributor or an exporter registered outside the kingdom and paid for concluding or facilitating commercial transactions, without being a part of the contract or attached to any party. commercial brokerage, as defined by the article, is the mediation the person manages between two parties of the contract, or facilitation on commercial transactions with what ensures from them, against a certain wage without shouldering any of its consequencies. as for the law of protecting jordanian consumer, item (2) of the article defines the supplier to be the regular or moral person from public or private sector who practices the activity of selling, trading or manufacturing commodities for himself or for others. it also includes whoever puts his name or trade mark on the commodity he sells. from the preceding legislation, one notices that there is some sort of commercial distribution contract according to which the distributor works. in origin it is not more than commercial brokerage. jurists differed on the nomenclature of commercial distribution contract. some called it “commercial representation”. others like qalubi (1992) called it exclusive representation, which in article (2) of the jordanian law, is called the transitional distribution contract. jurisprudence regards it to be a modern contractual method according to which the producer, one of the contract parties, gives the second party the right to distribute the products and services and to market them against a certain amount of money the distributor is accountable to repay to the producer (qalubi). 3.1.3 distinguishing commercial distribution contract from others hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 709 issn :0250-7196 though this type shares some qualities with other similar contracts, yet it is distinct from: commercial agency contract, broker contract, supplier, and franchise. through the two contracts, the agency and the distribution, are both distribution ones, yet they differ in legal structure and stature of contractors. the jordanian legislator defined the commercial agency contract as a contract between the client and the agent according to which the latter is bound to import products of his clients distribute them, sell them and offer trade service inside the kingdom on his own or in lieu of the agent. thus, the agent’s duty is to conclude contracts for purchasing and selling, or to offer services on his own for producers, manufactures, traders or trader proxies (hamdi, 2017). this agent might be a normal or moral person. according to what preceded, the agent can sign contracts in proxy of his client. but the commercial distribution contract differs from the agent counterpart of which the researchers list down the following: 1the distributor sells and buys commodities for himself, thus the customer deals with him, not with the producer therefore, he is held accountable. 2the distributor benefits from the marginal profit between buying and selling prices. regarding the broker contract, the jordanian legislator defines it in article (2) to be “a person mediating between the two parties of the contracts to facilitate transactions without shouldering any consequences”. some of the differences between the two types of contract can be outlined in the following: 1the agent mediates to conclude contracts between parties in which he is not a party, while in the distribution counterpart he is. 2the distributor bears consequences of his acts and gains money from the difference between purchasing and selling prices, while the agent doesn’t. the distribution contract also differs from that of the supplier defined in article (2) to be: “the normal or moral person from a public or private sector who practices trading for himself or for somebody else regarding commodity distribution, trading, manufacturing, or providing service to the customer.” thus, according to the preceding definition, the distributor and his role is implied in that of the supplier which includes distribution. when compared to the franchise contract, the franchise binds the two parties for mutual commitments. it is similar to distribution contract as it regulates the process of distribution or service. but, still the franchise contract is singled out as it involves transmuting knowledge regulating future relations. the franchise contract is more inclusive than the distribution one because, in addition, it gives the right to the other party to utilize the trademark and offer services to the consumer. it thus incorporates a triad: selling, right to utilize the trademark, in addition to technical knowledge. 3.2 characteristics of distribution contract hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 710 issn :0250-7196 here are some of the characteristics of this type of contract: 1it is a consual contract in the sense that it becomes effective the minute the two parties agree to it in compliance with principles of discretion and flawlessness. 2it is a contract which was never specified by the legislator. therefore, the general contractual rules apply to it. 3it is binding for both parties, so it can’t be unilaterally terminated. 4it is a time-type contract, as time is essential and counts high. 5it is a compensatory contract in which one of the two contracting parties is paid against what he offers to the other party as manifested in the producerdistributor relationship. 3.3 principles of commercial distribution contract the following general principles should be present to hold this contract. these are: consent, subject, reason, necessary, eligibility of both agent and client on which the researchers elaborate as follows: 1. consent: it is important that the will of the two parties meet, regarding acceptance and confirmation for the contract to hold. article (5) of the jordanian law pertaining agents and brokers, stipulates that “nobody is allowed to practice trade agency or trade brokership in the kingdom unless registered in trade agents register or that of brokers”. 2. dealing with the subject of commercial distribution contract. one of the conditions of the contract is its feasibility. if it is not, then it is considered void. article (159) of jordanian civil law stipulates that “if the subject in itself is impossible at the time the contract signed, then it counts void. the subjects need to be known and specific. article (834) of jordanian civil law stipulates that agency to be correct, the deputized thing should be known and have a proxy. the contract subject should also be deployable, legal, and matchable with the general order and morals. 3. reason behind commercial distribution contract. both distributor and producer should explain the purpose behind writing this contract. it should be correct, accessible, complies with general order and morals, and of legal benefit for the parties. 3.4 the second subject: legal nature of commercial distribution contract jurists differed in characterizing commercial distribution contract ascribing it to any specific category. thus, the jordanian legislator didn’t include it in any category as manifested in article (2) of jordanian law (1) for the protection of consumer. in addition, the jordanian legislator in article (2) of agents and brokers law considered it part of the duties of the commercial agent and commercial agency. the researchers found out that though the distribution contract is a form of commercial agency, yet it has certain specific qualities outlined as follows: 1the contract concluded between the original client and the agent is independent from agency. it is similar to the relation between seller and buyer in which the distributor is entitled to distribute services, sell products for himself in an area agreed upon with the client. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 711 issn :0250-7196 2the distributor can work independently for himself, away from the clients and can specify the customers with whom he deals. 3the distributor has the right to utilize product or service commercials and have enough stock of commodities. thus, the commercial distribution contract is one of the forms of commercial agency contracts but without an independent legal entity. therefore, it can’t be developed as law. it, here, meets with economy based on services, selling and purchasing products, in addition to maintenance that is taken care of by the distributor who has enough knowledge about the product. for example, decree number 21/2009 of qatar court of cassation stipulates that to hold the distribution contract as a commercial agency one, it should have two partners distinguished with: 1the contract should be trade confined where the producer or wholesale dealer authorizes a local distributor to be the sole seller in a certain area. 2the distributor can do that in proxy of his client against a certain profit, commission, or payment. in this case, the agent acts in the name of producers or traders. any contract that doesn’t include these two factors can’t be a commercial agency contract. article (178) of the new egyptian commercial law stipulates that “contracts agent can practice agency duties and manage its commercial activities and be solely responsible for expenditures needed for such activities”. from what preceded, one can notice that the commercial distribution contract is one form of commercial agency ones, but characterized by certain qualities that distinguish it from: agency contracts, brokerage and commissioning. due to the absence of regulatory rules for this contract, general laws are henceforth applied. 3.5 second subject: effects of commercial distribution contract. item (10) article (5) of jordanian law, pertaining agents and commercial brokers, stipulates that: “pursuant to provisions of this law, no party of any non-registered agency enjoys any privilege the law granted to the client or agent; but still others can sue them as a nonregistered agency once proved in existance. the purpose behind registering such an agency is to protect rights of the two parties involved and rights of others. rights and obligations of producer and distributor will be tackled in the first requisite and termination of the commercial distribution contract in the second. 3.5.1 first requisite: the method of terminating commercial distribution contract the researchers in this requisite tackle obligations and rights of both producer and distributor and their effects on others. the obligations and rights are: 1producer obligations these are outlined in the following: hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 712 issn :0250-7196 ato implement the contract the producer, in compliance with terms of the contract, is committed to supply the distributor with the commodities, products, and services agreed upon throughout contract period and to secure flow of products and needed services to maintain sustainability. bto sell the product specified in the contract the producer is committed to restrict the sale of the product in the geographic area agreed upon. qalubi (1992) mentioned that “the agent is committed to purchase from the client a certain percentage of the product through a certain period of time. in return, the client is obliged to hand in the commodities in the amounts, schedules, and prices agreed upon at the suitable time and place.” cto transmute knowledge and provide information the producer is committed to provide basic information, technological and commercial consultations pertaining the product, and to supply the distributor with placards, spare parts and services after sale. such a thing might be registered in the contract. dto secure product quality the producer is committed to secure a good quality of commodities and service for the distributor who sells them to consumers. the producer is also held accountable for any manufacturing defects. he is also committed to hand in good products with the specifications accepted by the country in which they will be sold and to indemnify the consumer if they don’t meet such specifications (fawzi, 2006). eto pay commission to the distributor the producer is committed to pay the distributor the agreed upon commission or profit as it is a compensatory contract. article (55) of the jordanian trade law stipulates that “any commercial commitment intended to perform any service, can never by for free. if the two parties didn’t assign any payment or commission against that service, the creditor deserves the wage assigned for that job”. 3.5.2 client’s rights these rights are outlined as follows: 1catch the price from the agent. the client has the right to get the price from the agent at times stipulated upon in the contract. 2agent’s commitment to purchase the product from the client, exclusively. 3not to compete with the client or conclude any contract with others to sell or distribute any competitive product against that of the client. 4keep trade secrets of the product, subject of commercial distribution contract, confidential. 3.5.3 distributor commitments the contract obligates the distributor, being a party, to abide by: hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 713 issn :0250-7196 1to purchase products, services, and commodities of the producer. the distributor is committed to do that in compliance with whatever was agreed upon in the contract. the commodities, services, and products are usually specified monthly, seasonally, or annually. 2to exclusively commit himself to be provided by the producer. in compliance with the concept of the commercial distribution contract, the producer gives the right to distribute his product exclusively to one distributor who at the same time pledges not to purchase any other product to compete with that of his client. the distributor also commits himself to buy only the producer’s products, but he can distribute any other products dissimilar to those stipulated upon in the contract. 3to keep the product’s secrets confidential. the distributor is obliged to keep secrets of the product, whether those were commercial, industrial, or confidential and should never be unveiled. keelani (2014) pointed out that “confidentiality is a value of knowledge about capital, and such a value diminishes or vanishes once divulged to the public.” 4reselling products. the distributor is committed to sell or distribute the products or commodities and to protect trademark name. he is also committed to achieve the target agreed upon. he is entitled, as well, to make use of producer’s placards and means of marketing. 5return payment. the distributor is committed to pay for the products he receives in compliance with provision of the contract. the payment might be paid in toto or in periodic cash. 3.5.4 implication for others one of the qualities of the commercial distribution contract is that it is an independent one in which the client is responsible to the consumer and the distributor to others in the following: 1the commitment to the consumer to shoulder the responsibility regarding any manufacturing defect, but the implications of the contract are restricted to the supplier. 2commitment after-scale service: the distributors is committed to secure spare parts and maintenance center as stipulated upon in article (11) in jordanian law for agents and trade brokers. “one of the commitments of the producer of supplier undertaken in the contract is to secure spare parts and to erect necessary maintenance centers and provide the consumer with technological counseling. 3selling the commodity at the price agreed upon between the producer and distributor to ensure market competition and to protect the consumer in order to encourage him to keep buying the commodities with good quality. 3.6 effects of terminating commercial distribution contract hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 714 issn :0250-7196 3.6.1 contract termination the contract may, according to general rules, may terminate because of the following: 1breaching commitments of one party to the contract when any of the parties breaches terms of the contract, the other party has the right to ask for termination of the contract. this is one of the general rules stipulated upon in article (246) of jordanian civil law. termination might be caused by one party realsing himself from his commitments. for example, when the supplier declines from supplying the distributor with commodities, or not paying the distributor with the agreed upon commission or profit. the contract might also be breached by the distributor who might not pay commodity price or keep secrets of the supplier. 2lapse of time distribution contracted are usually singed for a specific period of time on which the two parties agree. the contract expires when this period lapses. the jordanian legislator gave the right to the distributor to ask the supplier for indemnity in case the latter terminates the contract before the due time once that distributor didn’t commit any mistake. as long as time period of the contract is specified, then no compensation is eligible for not renewing that contract. in article (189), the egyptian legislator in the new egyptian commercial law gave the right for the distributor to be indemnified even though the contract is time limited and not renewed by the supplier. the article reads: “if the contract is time limited and the client doesn’t intend to renew it at expiration, the agent has the right for indemnity the judge estimates even though the agreement was different”. the egyptian legislator justified that for the distributor being active in commodity promotion, customer’s increase, and his success.” 3 disappearance of legal identity the commercial distribution contract relies on persona considerations. there should be distinctions between the two parties for being an actual person or a moral one, besides the type of the corporation whether it was personal, financial, or individual in order to determine the implications resulting from contract termination are manifested in the following: 1whenever the distributor or the producer who has an individual corporation dies, becomes insolvent bankrupt, or his firm is liquidated in compliance with terms of law, his contract is transferred to his inheritors. 2if the personality of any of the two parties was moral, in cases of death inheritors become entitled to enjoy the deceased rights. 3in cases of insolvency, bankruptcy, liquidation, or corporate closure, the moral personality terminates for it is the subject to consider. thus, the contract terminates and every victim has the right for compensation. according to what preceded, the distribution contract expires for the corporate was liquidated and both distributor and moral persons were considered actually dead. 4dissolving the distribution contract according to article (244) of jordanian civil law, the contract and the contractual bond can be dissolved pending on agreement of the two parties. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 715 issn :0250-7196 according to article (241) of jordanian civil law, to dissolve the contract, it should exist and can be dissolved before the due time or while effective pending on the two parties agreement. “if the contract is correct, contractors can’t amend or breach it except via agreement litigation, or in compliance with a provision in the law.” (article 24). 5force majeure and emergency circumstances force majeure might hamper implementing the contract and meeting the obligations of both producer and distributor. article (24) of jordanian civil law stipulates that “in a binding contract, wherever any majeure force makes contract implementation impossible, the contract will be automatically dissolved. if the impossibility, was partial, its counterpart is considered dissolved. similarly, time impossibility in on-going contracts allows the creditor to terminate the contract pending information the debtor.” as for emergency circumstances, the jordanian legislator in article (205) specified the effects resulting from such circumstances. the article stipulates that “if general unexpected circumstances occur and implementing the contractual obligation became semi-impossible endangering the debtor with great losses, the court after weighing interest of the two parties, has the to mitigate the burden to a reasonable level for any agreement on disputed debt is considered void”. 3.6.2 impacts of expiry of commercial distribution contract the contract expires through parties agreement, or force majeure some of which might have impacts and others might not. the following are the cases for which the contract terminates: 1period expiry or dismissal approved by the two parties. in this case the contract terminates freeing every party from its obligations except those with an extension due to the contract such as supplying the distributor with the spare parts agreed upon in the contract, or not divulging secret’s of the producer during contract period. 2force majeure the contract in this case terminates itself and each party goes its way. article (261) of jordanian civil law stipulate that none of them is obligated to social security unless law and accord assures something else. 3contract termination due to disappearance of its parties when any party doesn’t meet its obligations, according to article (246), item (2) of jordanian civil law dictates indemnity if the case has any requirement. article (14) of agents and commercial brokers stipulates that: “if the client cancels agency contract before the due time for no mistake or legal cause, the agent has the right to be indemnified for the damage and the profit he lost.” 3.6.3 compensation and liquidation of contractual bond 1compensation hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 716 issn :0250-7196 illegal termination of the commercial distribution contract by any party dictates compensation for damage. among the cases that obligate compensation is terminating the contract for no legal reason as stipulated in article (14) of agents and commercial brokers. compensation resulting from this termination will be for the actual loss the agent who suffered from customers’ loss, loss of gains, and moral damage. as for the client, he can ask to be compensated for what he did for the agent regarding product promotion, services, and consumer’s enthusiasm to buy these products. based on item (b) of article (16) from agent and commercial brokers law, the liability cases related to damage and compensation expires after three years of contract termination. 2liquidating the contractual bond though the contractual bond between the producer and distributor terminates for any reason, yet some issues stay suspended and need solution. these include the commodities the distributor purchased from the producer and haven’t been sold yet. what about the commodities which couldn’t be handled as spare parts? this obligates the producer to supply the distributor with spare parts needed to complete the contracts signed with others. the researchers see that the stock of commodities left after contract termination need an agreement between the producer and distributor (zayadat, 1996). the agreement might be returning the products to the producer, added to them cost price and distributor’s profit. as for the spare parts that the distributors don’t need any more, they should be also returned to the producer at the cost price and profit. regarding supplying the distributor with spare parts for the sake of sustainability, this should be stipulated on in the contract to avoid legal problems that won’t be solved till the termination date of the contract. such things require that the contract should explicitly state them out and agree on the following: 1to restore stock of products. 2to maintain stocks for the distributor 3restoring the stock 4determining the value to be restored and the stock as well some issues might still be suspended between the producer and distributor which are customers and their future. such on issue must be agreed upon before signing the contract. the researchers also see that the contract between the producer and distributor should include things such as liquidating the contractual bond after contract terminates in addition to products, spare parts, trademark, corporate confidentiality, customers linked to the producer’s name, and trademark reputation. 4. conclusion the researchers concluded that the jordanian legislator didn’t give any attention to the commercial distribution contract, specifically the law of agents and commercial brokers. the distribution issue was included in the law of jordanian commercial brokers as incorporated in commercial and broker’s duties besides the law of protecting jordanian consumer which defined the supplier. no separate legislation was enacted for this type of contracts which is commercially effective and needs a law to develop it in order to protect rights of contractors. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 717 issn :0250-7196 4.1 findings the researchers came up to certain findings which they list as follows: 1the jordanian legislator didn’t enact a law to define, organize, register, or put down any rules and conditions for this type of contract. 2the legislator also never specified or regulated commercial distribution contract, nor did he specify obligations and rights of both producer and distributor. he also didn’t specify the contract goals, duration of time, products or services. 3the jordanian legislator didn’t handle impacts of this contract, termination with its consequences, liquidating contractual bonds and the results ensuing from that. 4due to the absence of rules that regulate this type of contract, both the distributor and producer interpreted everything from the perspective of general law in the commercial agency contract which they had to rely on as well. 5many problems emerged in the absence of laws pertaining commercial distribution contract. the general laws are unable to absorb this type of contract that has recently appeared and was concerned with capitals and work force that acquaints the producer with the commodities and products needed for customers. 4.2 recommendations 1the jordanian legislator need to enact a law concerned with commercial distribution contracts within a legal framework in order to protect rights of contractors and to apply it properly. 2when enacting such a law, the jordanian legislator need to address legal obligations for each party, contract duration, trademark, commercial secrets, services, and customers using the product, besides effects of contract termination. references al-kilani, m. (2014). the commercial and banking encyclopedia: international trade contracts in the field of technology. amman, jordan: dar al-thaqafa. ambikai., & ishan, z. (2016). comparative analysis of law on tort of deviant behaviors in malaysia and india. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(4), 243-249. as, y., & purba, c. s. (2017). the urgency of pontianak local public policy in emboding legal protection against teacher. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 3(6), 241-248. bin zeidan, zweina. (2017). distribution contracts within the framework of competition law (unpublished thesis). sidi m'hamed, algeria: algeria university. egyptian commercial law, no. (17), 1999 fawzi, m. s. (2006). interpreting jordanian commercial law. amman, jordan: dar althaqafa. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 705-718 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 718 issn :0250-7196 hamdi, i. (2017). legal regulation of commercial contract of agent distribution in palestine (m.a. thesis). nablus: an-najah national university. jordan commercial law, no. (12), 1966 jordanian consumer protection law, no. (7), 2017 jordanian law of agents and commercial brokers, no. (208), 2001 jordanian, civil law, no. (43), 1976. lawyer, l. a. (2017). the changing character of democracy in the pre and post-colonial cameroon: an old practice, a new word. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 2(1), 43-53. mughagab, n. (2009). the franchise: a comparative study. beirut, lebanon: al-halabi law circulations. qandali, r. (2018). distribution contracts. a dissertation issued by jeelani university. sidi: bel-abbas: algeria. qatari cassation decree, no. (21), 2009 qulubi, s. (1992). interpreting commercial contracts. amman, jordan: dar al-thaqafa. shweire, k. (2009). the applicable law of international commercial contract (unpublished dissertation). issued by yusuf bin khida: algeria. zayadat, ahmed al-omoosh & alwajeez inbrahim. briefing of jordanian commercial legislation. (1996). amman, jordan: dar wael for publishing and distribution. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 650-657 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 650 issn: 0250-7196 the implementation of legal protection and certainty principles for consumer of food and beverage related to micro and small businesses in aceh sri walny rahayu 1 , teuku ahmad yani 2* abstract the special province of aceh government has legal pluralism in its administrations. in its governance system, islamic law and customary law are also applied besides the state law. ulama (islam scholars) also have important roles in determining regional policies. actually, against islamic law, the process of food and beverage trade by micro and small business actors still uses hazardous and prohibited materials such as formaldehyde, borax and rhodamineb. this study aims to analyze and to explain the application of protection and legal certainty of food consumers and beverages marketed by micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes) associated with the halal product guarantee concept. it also explains the concrete policies adopted by the government of aceh as a competitive consumer protection standard. this type of research is sociological juridical, which observes reactions and interactions when the norm system relating to consumer protection and the guarantee of halal products works in the community. the approach was used sociologically and qualitatively. primary research data wasgathered from social facts processed by using descriptive analysis methods and was presented in a qualitative form. the research results show factors of the lack of consumer’s protection, namely: business actors’ difficultiesin obtaining capital, knowledge, and skills, lack of product innovation, difficulties in distributing goods, no product-branding, no consumer-loyalty program, lack of understanding of the rules of consumer protection and halal product guarantees, the traditionalaccounting records, not having business license, lack of local government supervision and the disharmonized between laws and regulations. concrete policies stipulated by the government of aceh arethe ease of business licensing procedures and acceleration of ownership of nonpaid halal certificates, especially for processed food business actors produced by home industry. thus it is recommended to establish a dispute settlement agency (bpsk), nongovernmental protection institutions (lpksm) in each regency/city; to conduct socialization, education as well as promotion of halal product guarantees in various events; to collaborate with the private sector as an assisting partner that can be used as a mentor for micro and small business actor in anticipating the industrial revolution 4.0. 1 associate professor, dr. s.h., m. hum., specializing in business law studies 2 associate professor, dr. s.h., m. hum., specializing in business law studies. email: ayoe_armans@unsyiah.ac.id mailto:ayoe_armans@unsyiah.ac.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 650-657 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 651 issn: 0250-7196 keywords: application of the protection and legal certainty principle, consumer protection, micro and small businesses, halal product guarantee in aceh. ______________________________________________________________ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 650-657 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 652 issn: 0250-7196 1. introduction food and drink are one of the basic human needs. the availability of adequate, safe, quality, nutritious food and drinks is the main prerequisite to realize dignified human beings and quality human resources. the quality of human resources is determined by the quality of the food and drinks they consume. thus, it is necessary to optimally providesafe and nutritious foods and drinks that are affordable, healthy, and halal guaranteed for consumers. the halal-ness of food and beverage products can be applied without ethnic, ethnic, cultural and religious restrictions. the progress of science and technology in the food industry has affected domestic and international food trade, leading to an increasingly diverse type of food circulating in society, either locally produced or imported. food consumed by the public passes through a chain of processes of production, storage, transportation, circulation until consumption by consumers. the government has empowered micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes), and formed law number 20 of 2008 concerning micro, small and medium enterprises (msme law) to realize the economic growth, equity, job creation, and poverty alleviation. the business development of msme players was obtained from the office of cooperatives and small and medium enterprises in aceh province 2016.there were 75,207 msme units in aceh, increased fairly high compared to 2014, which only amounted to 48,882 units. on december 31, 2016, there were total 53,216 units of micro-business operators. of which, 20,258 units (71%) were small business groups and 1,733 units (27%) were medium-sized businesses (diskopumkmaceh: 2017). indonesia also has law no. 8 year 1999 concerning consumer protection (the consumer protection act). however economical efforts in indonesia are considered insufficient to realize prosperity for all indonesian people. in its implementation of the substance, both in terms of norms and economic development goals, does not putconsumersof food and beverage in an advantages condition. they have not received maximum protection. other regulations relating to consumer protection, are law number 33 year 2014 concerning halal product guarantee (jph law), law number 7 year 2014 concerning trade (trade law), law number 23 year 2014 concerning regional government (local government law), law number 18 year 2012 concerning food (food law), law number 36 year 2009 regarding health. the implementation of the principles in law of consumer protection and certainty in the context of the organizing system in the province of aceh has startedwith law number 44 year 1999 concerning the implementation of the privileges of the province of the special region of aceh (privilegesprovince aceh law), law number 11 year 2006 (uupa year 2006), government regulation number 28 year 2004 concerning food safety, quality and nutrition, aceh qanun number 11 year 2002 concerning the implementation of islamic sharia in the field of aqeedah, worship and symbols islamic( islamic law qanun), aceh qanun number 8 year 2016 concerning halal product guarantee system (qanun sjph), and other regulations relating to msmes and consumer protection and halal product guarantee systems. this shows that there are adequate written norms in indonesia, especially in the province of the special region of aceh. the basis for the issuance of law number 44 year 1999 regarding the implementationprivileges provincial of aceh (aceh privileges law) is article 18b paragraph (1) of the 1945 constitution. in aceh applied arethe state law system, the islamic legal system, the customary law system, and the ratified international legal system (constante, daniel, & flor, 2019; rahayu et al., 2016; rahayu, 2018). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 650-657 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 653 issn: 0250-7196 based on the islamic legal system (sharia law), and the islamic sharia qanun, qanun number 8 of 2016 concerning halal product guarantee system was established. qanun (sjph qanun). the sjph qanun regulates the aceh ulama consultative assembly (mpu), coordinating with the food, drug and cosmetic assessment institute of the aceh ulama consultative assembly (lppom mpu aceh). this is done in the role of issuing halal certificates and guaranteeing the halal status of all food and beverage products circulated and traded in aceh province, (kn sofyan, 2014). concerning halal product produced by msmes, a product of public policy, the halal product guarantee act (jph law) has created legal loopholes and problems. since halal certificates are not compulsory for all business actors, msme players generally do not take care of halal certification, especially small and medium scale industries (khushnud, & qingjie, 2020; sudarmiatin, 2019; widodo, 2010). in addition, since indonesia as a participating country of the asean economic community (aec), the negative impact of food and beverage businesses controlledby large business actors most likely happens. this study aims to analyze and to explain the application of protection and legal certainty of food consumers and beverages marketed by micro, small and medium enterprises (msmes) associated with the halal product guarantee concept. it also explains the concrete policies adopted by the government of aceh as a competitive consumer protection standard. 2. methods this research is a sociological juridical study, observing the reactions and interactions that occur when the norm system works in society (law in concreto) and what is behindit from various applications of various legislation (behind the law) (fajar & achmad, 2010), and the emsm law as well as the consumer protection act so that the principle of protection and legal certainty for food and beverage consumers in the province of aceh can be approached sociologically and qualitatively (fajar & achmad, 2010). using a qualitative approach to gatherdescriptive-analytical data, the researchers used data stated by respondents in writing or verbally and studied behaviorsas an intact object of research. data taken through a qualitative approach were validated from its quality and relevance so that it can be reliable. field data collection through observation, in-depth interviews (depth interviews) with respondents and informants wasperformed by using interview guidelines as a research instrument (soekanto & mamudji, 1990). data processing and analysis were done by drawing conclusions based on primary data and secondary data and then analyzingby using qualitative and sociological methods. as a research procedure that produces descriptive data in the form of words and oral descriptions of people and observable behavior (moleong, 2007). 3. results 3.1 the application of the principle of consumer’s protection and legal certainty of food and beverage are associated with the concept of halal product guarantee the openness of the national market as a result of the process of economic globalization requires a guarantee of the improvement of people's welfare as well as certainty over the quality, quantity, and safety of goods and/or services in the market. although a set of rules has been held in consumer protection in indonesia, awareness, knowledge, care, ability, and independence of consumers to protect themselves and foster the attitude of responsible business actors are still not optimal and optimal in practice. the existence of law no. 23 of 2014 concerning regional government (uu pemda) results in the transfer of authority over sub-affairs of standardization and consumer protection to the authority of the provincial government. therefore, the government must pay special attention to national trade activities. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 650-657 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 654 issn: 0250-7196 another thing is the protection of consumers in the field of food and drink must meet the safety and quality standards of food, as regulated in health act article 111. this is done to fulfill consumer rights, namely the right of comfort, security and safety in consuming goods and / or services. article 155 paragraph (1) of law number 11 year 2006 concerning aceh government (uupa 2006) states that "the economy in aceh is directed at increasing productivity and competitiveness for the realization of prosperity and welfare of the people by upholding the values of islam, justice, equity, people's participation and efficiency in sustainable development patterns. this causes the government of aceh and district and city governments in aceh to have broad authority for economic development in aceh, including the strengthening of business actors ". therefore, the aceh government is obliged to protect the public from consuming nonhalal food, drinks, and medicines as well as non-halal cosmetics, biological chemical products, and genetic engineering products. norms of the rules contained in the 2006 bal are followed up through article 23 of the aceh qanun number 8 year 2014 concerning the principles of islamic sharia (islamic law qanun), "the government of aceh is obliged to implement a halal guarantee system for goods and services produced and circulating in aceh whose implementation is regulated by the aceh qanun ". the implementation of consumer protection by the government of aceh for muslims under the islamic sharia qanun and all acehnese people residing in aceh without looking at certain religious and ethnic groups issued qanun number 8 year 2016 concerning halal product guarantee system (qanun sjph). the sjph qanun is a form of responsibility for the government of aceh for halal products traded, both from and outside aceh. the sjph qanun also regulates traded products to meet hygienic standards. qanun sjph in protecting and providing guarantees to consumers and goods traded by business actors based on the principles of protection, justice, legal certainty, accountability and transparency, effectiveness and efficiency, and professionalism. the guaranteed implementation of halal products is aimed at providing comfort, security, safety, and certainty in the availability of consumer halal products as well as increasing added value for business actors to produce and sell halal products. business actors in the halal assurance system qanun cover all business activities from upstream to downstream. business actors are required to submit applications for halal certification for products that have not been halal certified; provide true, clear and honest information; maintain the halal process of the product; renew the halal certificate ofexpiration; report changes to the composition of the material to the aceh mpp lppom; display the lppom mpu aceh halal certificate to easily read by consumers; and include the halal logo of the aceh mpp lppom on the product packaging with a visible size, (article 33 sjph) prohibition for business actors is regulated by article 35 of the sjph qanun, producing and/or trading products that are not halal/not halal-certified; include a halal logo on product packaging that has not been halal certified; and/or provide information that is not following the laws and regulations. business actors who do not meet the provisions referred to in article 34 and article 35, are subjected to administrative sanctions in the form of verbal reprimands; written warning; not granted or revoked the production license; no distribution permit has been granted or revoked in aceh; revocation of halal certificate; no business license is revoked or revoked; and/or administrative fines. further provisions regarding administrative sanctions are regulated by a governor regulation. (article 36 sjph qanun). barriers factors that can be changed into challenges for msmes in the food and beverage sector in aceh province face the industrial revolution 4.0 as follows: 3.1.1 capital difficulties hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 650-657 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 655 issn: 0250-7196 msmes often have difficulty finding funding capital from banks due to the many requirements that have not yet been met. even though the msme law regulates the ease of obtaining business capital from banks by regulating the absence of collateral/collateral, banks make clauses that require collateral for msmes in credit agreement contracts. 3.1.2 knowledge and skills for raising enterprises the lack of knowledge of msme entrepreneurs about good business management makes it difficult to develop businesses. msmes only focus on producing goods, without thinking about how the business expansion strategy is even greater. 3.1.3 lack of product innovation one of the reasons for the difficulty of msme products competing in foreign markets is the low competitiveness of products. regarding the price offered, msme products in aceh are still far from the quality offered by national or foreign products. 3.1.4 difficulties in distributing goods many msmes have not had the network to distribute their products. most only focus on distributing goods to relations. 3.1.5 un-maximized online-marketing how to do online marketing is still a challenge for msmes today in aceh. this is due to the lack of knowledge of using the internet and adapting technological developments. even though many msme players had marketed their products online through social media, sites, marketplace but the effort as not as much as they need to gain the optimal result. 3.1.6 lack of understanding of branding (registered trademarks) although maintaining the quality of branding is very important, not many msme entrepreneurs are aware of the importance of branding for their products and businesses. thus, msmes only focus on selling, without thinking about how the quality of the brand of its products. 3.1.7 not conducting consumer loyalty programs msmes do not put great attention in creating consumer loyalty programs, such as regular promos, registration member, and the consumer community. maintaining customer loyalty is very important. the more often the msmes do the customer loyalty program, the stronger customer loyalty will be. customers will repeat orders and even voluntarily promote msme perpetrators' products individually. msmes have not understood nor practiced the rights and obligations of consumers and business actors. 3.1.8 still relying on manual accounting umkm performers stilldo accounting manually. this manual bookkeeping is prone to lose, damage, and even recap errors. 3.1.9 not having a mentor without having a business mentor, an msme entrepreneur will have difficulty to develop and make product innovation. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 650-657 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 656 issn: 0250-7196 3.1.10 not having a business license many of the msmes business have not had a business license. the majority of msmes also face challenges in the field of knowledge regarding aspects of legality and licensing, including requirements to how the process is taken in the process of managing their business license. 3.1.11 enforcement of weak sanctions even though indonesia nationally has several regulatory instruments concerning consumer protection, food security guarantees, the halal product guarantee act, and trade laws that strongly protect consumers, the effectiveness of these laws requires commitment, synergy, and socialization continuous education involving various sectorial elements. the eleven things that have been described above are the application of the principle of protection and legal certainty for consumers in the province of aceh during the industrial revolution era 4.0. number 44 of 1999, qanun of islamic sharia and qanun of halal product guarantee systems. 3.2 application of policies of the concrete government of aceh as competitive consumer protection standards the enactment of special autonomy in aceh, regulated by the bal 2006, article 125 paragraph (1) and (2), mentioned thatsyari'atislam (islam principles) implemented in aceh include aqidah, syariah and morals. furthermore, syari'at islam as referred to in paragraph (1) includes worship, ahwal al-syakhshiyah (family law), muamalah (civillaw), jinayah (criminal law), qadha’(justice), tarbiyah (education), da'wah (preach), syiar (talk), and the defense of islam. the implementation of islamic sharia in aceh is not only the personal and community responsibility of people living in aceh but also based on the provisions of article 127 of the 2006 bal act.it states that "that responsibility also rests with the aceh government and district/city governments". following the concept, both the central government and regional governments have the authority to make arrangements so that the relationship between business actors and consumers can be realized fairly. most importantly, the constitution of the idea of a 'welfare state' (asshiddiqie, 2010). thus, healthy either competition or unfair competitioncan occur between business actors. deception can be in the form of reducing the price of goods while the quality is lower than promised, or reducing the amount of the dose or reducing the quality of goods and the promised quantities. both of which have been detrimental to consumers, sincetheydo not get what was promised. the following outlines the policies of the aceh regional government in the field of food industry undertaken by the small and medium micro industries, as follows: 3.2.1 ease of licensing every business actor is obliged to have a business license from the government, either from the central government or regional governments at the provincial or district/city. licensing is often a barrier because of the long bureaucracy that must be taken by the msmes. for this reason, the regents and mayors at the research location have made efforts to anticipate this problem. simplifying and accelerating the licensing process were done by integrating licensing services under the investment and one-stop integrated services office. the office is specifically focused on serving requests for all permits authorized by regent/mayor to give msme actors’ integrated services for all hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 650-657 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 657 issn: 0250-7196 types of licensing. (mursidi, sh, head of legal division, central aceh district, interview results, mai 2019). this policy is expected to cut bureaucracy, which previously had many agencies to take care of the licensing. (muchlis, sh, head of the banda aceh city investment and integrated services office, interview results). 3.2.2 acceleration of halal certificate ownership by business actors business actors are required to apply for a halal certificate for their products. the certificatesof halal guarantee that halal food and drinks are certainly healthy, while those that are safe, healthy and clean are not guaranteedas halal. halal food and drink is a demand in islam. halal food and drinks are not only in the raw material but also in the production process. (deni candra, secretary of lppom mpu aceh, interview results). it includes legal requirements, as well as downstream business actors covering all businesses whose activities produce, and market, both locally processed and packaged. one aspect of the acceleration of the realization of halal food and beverages traded in aceh is the government. article 11 of the sjph qanun stipulates that "lppom mpu aceh is functionally subordinate and responsible to the chairperson of the aceh mpu and administratively responsible to the head of the aceh mpu secretariat". therefore, the government of aceh provides human resources, facilities and infrastructure, funding sources, cooperation, and halal product assurance information systems for the lppom mpu aceh. in granting halal certificates, lppom mpu has not quoted fees. however, in the future, the halal certificate will incur a certificate fee (deni candra, secretary of the aceh mpp lppom, interview result, 19 june 2019). the pattern of assistance from the government of aceh is a breakthrough. this is not regulated in the msme law. it only looks at the necessity of local governments to facilitate msme actors to obtain licensing facilities and ease of obtaining credit or financing from banking institutions. besides, by the sjph qanun, the government of aceh has also tried to make a breakthrough by cooperating with big business players in financing halal certification for micro and small businesses. this was confirmed in article 44 of the sjph qanun, "which requires companies operating in aceh, to finance halal certification for micro and small businesses as a form of corporate social responsibility". this obligation is in line with the provisions of article 74 of law number 40 the year 2007 concerning limited liability companies. 4. conclusion factors that cause msmes in the food and beverage sector unable to protect their consumers in accordance with positive legal norms in indonesia are business actors’ difficulties in obtaining capital, knowledge, and skills, lack of product innovation, difficulties in distributing goods, no product-branding, no consumer-loyalty program, lack of understanding of the rules of consumer protection and halal product guarantees, the traditional accounting records, not having business license, lack of local government supervision and the disharmonized between laws and regulations. concrete policies stipulated by the government of aceh are the ease of business licensing procedures and acceleration of ownership of non-paid halal certificates, especially for processed food business actors produced by home industry. thus it is recommended to establish a dispute settlement agency (bpsk), nongovernmental protection institutions (lpksm) in each regency/city; to conduct socialization, education as well as promotion of halal product guarantees in various hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 650-657 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 658 issn: 0250-7196 events; to collaborate with the private sector as an assisting partner that can be used as a mentor for micro and small business actor in anticipating the industrial revolution 4.0. references aceh’s qanun (special regional law) number 8 year 2016 regarding halal product guarantee system. asshiddiqie, j. (2010). konstitusi ekonomi. jakarta, indonesia: kompas penerbit buku, 2010. constante, i., daniel, c., & flor, v. (2019). incidence of ifrs for smes in the financial sustainability on the alpaquero textile sector of perú, 2018. journal of administrative and business studies, 5(6), 316-322. diskopumkm (2017). aceh. retrieved from https://bit.ly/3jz1qfa fajar, m., & achamd, n. d. y. (2010). dualisme penelitian hukum: normatif & empiris. yogyakarta, indonesia: pustaka pelajar. government regulation number 28 year 2004 regarding food safety, quality and nutrition. hasan, k. s. (2014). kepastian hukum sertifikasi dan labelisasi halal produk pangan. jurnal dinamika hukum, 14(2), 227-238. khushnud, z., & qingjie, z. (2020). study on banks’ risk assessment of financing smallmedium enterprises’ project: the findings and experience from uzbekistan banking sectors. international journal of business and administrative studies, 6(2), 86-96. law number 11 year 2006 regarding the government of aceh province. law number 18 year 2012 regarding food. law number 20 year2008 regardingmicro, smalland medium enterprises. law number 33 year 2014 regarding guarantee of halal products. law number 44 year 1999 regarding administration of special province of aceh. law number 7 year 2014 regarding trading. law number 8 year 1999 regarding consumer protection. moleong, l. j. (2007). metodologi penelitian kualitatif. bandung, indonesia: remaja rosdakarya. rahayu, s. w. (2016). penyelesaian sengketa perdata adat oleh peradilan adat melalui mekanisme alternatif penyelesaian sengketa di aceh dalam rangka pembentukan sistem hukum peradilan adat di indonesia. paper presented at laporan tahunan penelitian unggulan perguruan tinggi (pupt), universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia. rahayu, s. w. (2018). alternative dispute resolution through customary tribunal in the context of legal pluralism in aceh. international journal of civil engineering and technology (ijciet), 9(1), 476-483. regulation of mayor of banda aceh number 17 year 2016 regarding organizing halal tourism. ripain, n., amirul, s. m., & mail, r. (2017). financial literacy and smes’ potential entrepreneurs: the case of malaysia. journal of administrative and business studies, 3(2), 60-68. soekanto, s., & mamudji, s. (1990). penelitian hukum normatif. jakarta, indonesia: rajawali. sudarmiatin. (2019). place branding: place branding: an alternative model for empowering small and medium enterprises (smes). international journal of business and economic affairs,4(2), 77-84. uud 1945. widodo (2010). the halal product guarantee law must be revised. retrieved from https://bit.ly/2qirx5i ../../../downloads/diskopumkm https://bit.ly/3jz1qfa https://bit.ly/2qirx5i hamdard islamicus vol. xliv. no. 3 7 .. editorial this year’s third issue of hamdard islamicus presents an informative and inspiring bouquet of articles covering and elaborating islamic teachings pertinent to various spheres of life. these teachings keep man away from motivations of satan for inclusion of man as allah’s dutiful and blessed servants. finding appropriate and satisfactory guidance from islam for resolving a number of contemporary world’s issues, requires knowledge regarding the teachings of islam as per islam’s true spirit and high calibre to suggest specific way for choosing right path. the main and very basic sources of knowledge are the holy qur’én and sunnah, both have reached us through the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) of allah almighty. the holy qur’an and sunnah have provided certain principles named qawā‘id al-fiqhiyyah (islamic legal principles). regarding these qawā‘id an important book entitled al-ashbāh wa’lnaẓā’ir was compiled by ibn nujaym. the author of the first article of this issue entitled “the significance of al-ashbāh wa’l-naẓā’ir of ibn nujaym” has described remarkable features of ibn nujaym’s work which may be interesting for islamic scholars and lovers of islam. among all the worldly creatures of allah almighty, only human beings and jinns have been granted the power of thinking, feeling, analysing, freedom of expression and taking decisions subject to certain limitations. misuse of this freedom of expression often causes complaints against it. islamic and western systems of life react to this freedom, in remarkably different ways to each other. the second article of this issue entitled “freedom of expression and its restriction in islamic and western philosophy: an analysis of direct and indirect harm” deals with a highly important issue of the contemporary world. it proves in detail that injustice emerges from the absolute freedom of expression allowed by western liberal philosophy. while islamic philosophy grants permission of controlled freedom of expression with reasonable moral and legal restrictions. the author beautifully explains the merits of islam’s approach and demerits of western liberal jurisprudence which results in resentment, spoiling of human rights and even huge wars. 8 editorial .. every person dislikes losses and damages to him/her and personal belongings. based on this natural desire, institution of insurance has been created. islam has its own opinion for this practice and islamic scholars, after a thorough research, have introduced a rectified system of insurance as per islamic divine teachings and named it takaful. however, it is possible certainly that some participants of takaful also misrepresent their data either intentionally or unintentionally. for all such cases, experts of takaful have created different rules and regulations. the third article entitled “remedies for misrepresentations in takaful contract: current industry practice in malaysia” discusses in detail these circumstances, though focussing malaysian society, but from this discussion, ways of resolving relevant issues may be gained in other islamic countries as well. islam is the comprehensive and most logical religion. it covers each and every aspect of not only individual’s life but the whole society as well. allah almighty is most merciful to his creatures and he does not like any harm to be caused for anyone of his creatures. in this regard, he has bestowed upon mankind, detailed advice through his last book the holy qur’én and his last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) for living safely in the world. these advice include prohibition of certain foods and drinks for remaining healthy and getting protection against various diseases and ailments. the fourth article of this issue entitled “preventive prophetic medicine in foods and beverages: an analytic study” discusses in detail such prophetic traditions related to prevention of taking foods or beverages having prohibited elements. the author has tried to find and prove the reason of these prohibitions scientifically too. ignoring islamic teachings results into injustice and atrocities in a large sphere of society which includes owners of lands and their poor workers as well. man’s envy and urge for getting more and more compels him to grab vast areas of lands and taking labour from his poor farmers. he becomes so miserly and stingy that he often deprives his subordinate poor persons of even the basic rights of living. islam has given an ideal economic system to prevent the rich from becoming atrocious and protecting the poor from this atrocity, besides guiding the proper way of life for bestowing relief on the poor as well. the last article of this issue entitled “the holy qur’én’s voice of revolution against landlords” throws light on detailed injunctions provided by islam for maintaining a land system based on justice leading to prosperity for everyone. dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt editor hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 252-260 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 252 impact of covid-19 pandemic to the payment obligations to banks and financial institutions; a perspective from indonesian laws and regulations gunawan widjaja gunawan widjaja, universitas indonesia, upn veteran jakarta. email: widjaja_gunawan@yahoo.com abstract: covid-19 pandemic has caused difficulties; among them was financial distress. this situation has led to the issue of force majeure. the research aims to discuss the effect of the pandemic covid-19 to payment to banks and other financial institutions in indonesia, as to whether a force majeure event has happened and how to deal with it. this research is descriptive-analytical, normative legal research. it used secondary data, available for the public, consisted of primary legal sources and secondary legal sources with tertiary legal sources as a supplement. data obtained through the literature study were analyzed qualitatively. the researcher conducted triangulation to maintain the validity and reliability of data. result finds out that the covid-19 pandemic cannot be automatically used as force majeure reason concerning financial obligations. the government of the republic of indonesia has issued government regulation in lieu of law no.1 year 2020 that provides contingency plans for financial institutions to handle the covid-19 pandemic situation, which allowed banks and financial institutions to offer payment relaxation. keywords: covid-19 pandemic, force majeure, payment obligations. 1. introduction it was half a year ago since coronavirus was found to infect humans. however, it is only in late march 2020, president of the republic of indonesia declared the status of public health emergency based on president decree no.11 year 2020 (pd11-2020) (pri, 2020a). together with the issuance of the pd11-2020, the government of the republic of indonesia also issued government regulation no.21 year 2020 regarding large scale social distancing to accelerate the handling of corona virus disease 2019 (covid-19) (gr21-2020) (gri, 2020a) and government regulation in lieu of law no.1 year 2020 regarding state financial policy and financial system stability to handle corona virus disease (covid-19) pandemic and/ or to face threat that endangers national economics and/ or financial system stability (gril01-2020) (gri, 2020b). before the issuance of gr21-2020, in practice, the government of the republic of indonesia has encouraged voluntary social distancing. with the enactment of the gr21-2020, social distancing has become a must. social distancing was meant to limit certain activities of people in a particular community within a specific area, which was suspected that person in that area had been infected and/or contaminated with covid-19, to prevent the spreading of the disease or contamination. one of the effects of the compulsory large scale of social distancing (lssd) based on gr21-2020 was that people could not work from the office as usual. there were limitations in almost all industries, especially in real sectors, which may also influence financial sectors. the direct impact of lsdd has been perceived in society, where many people have lost their buying power. people have almost lost their income. those who used to work were send home with less payment; some even get laid off. those who worked independently were suffering from the effect of lssd. things must be conducted through e-facility (grs, 2020a). https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ mailto:widjaja_gunawan@yahoo.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 252-260 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 253 following those regulations, the president of the republic of indonesia, in early april, issued another president decree no.12 year 2020 regarding determination of non-natural disaster of covid-19 spreading as national disaster (pd12-2020 (pri, 2020b)). pd12-2020 was derived from law no.4 year 1984 regarding infectious disease epidemic (ri, 1984) and law no.24 year 2007 regarding disaster management (ri,2007). the pd12-2020 was, in fact, totally used two different laws as the basis of promulgations. ever since the enactment of the pd12 2020, there were many rumors, statements event opinions that stated or even recommended that the existence of pd12-2020 is the moment of force majeure. moreover, there was a compelling statement to annul or cancel contracts signed and concluded before the issuance of the pd12-2020 or before covid-19 was known to be pandemic. those statements were terrible for economic growth; not only will they increase un-performance in loans but also the collapse of financial institutions. this research aims discuss the conception of force majeure event; the relation between the existence of the covid-19 pandemic situation in indonesia as to whether it can be seen as a force majeure event in indonesia; the effect of the determination of pd12-2020 concerning the payment obligations to banks and other financial institutions in indonesia based on prevailing and current indonesian laws and regulations. 2. literature review the 6th edition of black's law dictionary (black; 1990) stated that: force majeure—french for "superior force"—as an event or effect that can be neither anticipated nor controlled. the term is commonly understood to encompass both acts of nature (e.g., floods and hurricanes) and acts of people (e.g., riots, strikes, and wars). in the 8th edition of black's law dictionary (garner, 2004): a force majeure clause. a contractual provision allocating the risk of loss if performance becomes impossible or impracticable, especially as a result of an event or effect that the parties could not have anticipated or controlled." the explanation given in both the 6th edition and 8th edition of black's law dictionary indicated that force majeure is beyond the control and cannot be anticipated before. both also referred to the impossibility or impractical of performing an obligation. force majeure was not an english legal term under english law. under english law, the existence of force majeure depends on the terms in the contract, as to whether it contained force majeure terms. there should be a definition of a force majeure event, and the impact and implications when the force majeure event occurred (debevoise & plimpton, 2020). in japan, there was no specific definition given for force majeure. based on the "freedom to contract" principle, the parties in a contract are free to set up their force majeure clause. in general force majeure clause in japanese contract will include: a. existence of an event beyond the reasonable control of the performing party; b. such an event cannot be avoided or mitigated by taking reasonable efforts; https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 252-260 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 254 c. the event resulted in a breach of the performing party (hogan lovells, 2020). regulations about obligations in indonesia are regulated in the indonesian civil code (icc) (subekti and tjitrosudibio, 2008), which was based on the old dutch civil code. the term "force majeure" in french or "overmacht" in dutch can be found in article 1245 icc, which stated that: the debtor needs not to compensate for costs, damages, or interests if force majeure or an accident prevented him from giving or doing an obligation, or because of such reasons, he committed a prohibited act. from the provision above, force majeure refers to a situation that makes an obligor cannot fulfill his/her obligation. in the usual case, any person who cannot fulfill his/ her obligation shall pay costs, damages, and compensations. if a force majeure causes the incapability of the obligor to perform his/ her duties, then he/ she cannot be imposed to pay the costs, damages, or interests. however, there is no explanation of what force majeure is. if the article 1245 icc was read further, it said that force majeure could be read as: 1. an event beyond the control of the obligor that made the obligor cannot perform his/ her obligation; or 2. a circumstance beyond the power of the obligor that if the obligor performs his/ her duty, he/ she is considered to do something unlawful (satrio, 1999) (muljadi and widjaja, 2004). if we look further, article 1244 icc (subekti and tjitrosudibio, 2008) stated that: if there is any reason for such, the debtor is compensated for costs, damages, and interests if he cannot prove that the non-performance or the late performance of such obligation is caused by an unforeseen event, for which he is not responsible, and he was not acting in bad faith. the article 1244 also allowing obligor to un-perform his/ her obligations without the obligation to pay compensations, damages, and interests if: 1. there was an unforeseen event (which cannot be predicted before); 2. the happening of the event cannot be contributed to the obligor; and 3. there was no bad faith from the obligor (that made his/ her innocent) (muljadi and widjaja, 2004). both unpredictable events and uncontrollable events regulated in article 1244 and article 1245 were similar to the meaning of force majeure defined in black's law dictionary. force majeure is an event that made default without punishment. it was an excuse or reason for not being punished because of an un-performance of the debtor. it was part of the agreement that formed the contract. in whatsoever circumstances, force majeure cannot be determined by only one party to the contract. it must be agreed between the parties in the contract. force majeure cannot be declared because of government regulations, president regulation, or any laws and regulations. force majeure does not raise annulment or cancellation of an agreement, especially terminating the obligations that came with the contracts as based on article 1338 icc, "all valid agreements become laws for those who made it. such agreements cannot be recalled other than by mutual consent, or under reasons stipulated by the law." it means that whenever an agreement can still be https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 252-260 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 255 performed, the parties are bound to complete the contract unless there was a condition that made the performance become (nearly) impossible. in such a situation, the implementation will be delayed until the condition ceases (muljadi and widjaja, 2003). obligations must be performed in good faith (subekti, 2007). it means that issues on force majeure arising from the issuance of government regulations, president regulation, or decree cannot be accepted. the intention of using government regulations, president regulation, or decree as force majeure to annul an agreement and to get rid of the obligations is something that cannot be acceptable in indonesia (widjaja 2020). in english law, the occurrence of a force majeure event may result in the delay of performance or termination of the contract. it should also be noted that some implementations can still be conducted even a force majeure event has occurred (debevoide & plimpton, 2020). in leases agreement, the existence of force majeure did not influence the payment obligation and other monetary obligations (ballard spahr, 2020). 3. methodology this research is descriptive-analytical. descriptive meant to elaborate and explain the concept of force majeure event and the regulations that have been issued during the covid-19 pandemic in indonesia. an analytical approach used to describe the relationship between the covid-19 situation and force majeure events connected with the prevailing and currently issued regulations. the analytical process will result in the opinion of the researcher as to whether the published rules concerning the covid-19 pandemic situation can be used as force majeure concerning the fulfillment of financial obligations to banks and other financial institutions. this research also uses the normative legal method. the legal method was used because the research issues involved the understanding of force majeure as legal terms. the researcher will use the legal deductive method to explain covid-19 as legal phenomena that may cause un-fulfillment of financial obligations. the research used a qualitative approach. the study explains the phenomena that happened in the indonesian community during covid-19. the qualitative approach made data analyzing sharper and more in-depth about the issues raised in this research. the qualitative approach was also in-line with a normative approach used in this research, i.e., to explain the relationship between the covid-19 phenomena in indonesia with legal norms of force majeure. data used in this research were secondary data, which were data available for the public. data can be freely accessed by any person that needs verification and validation of the information provided in this research. since the research was conducted to understand the problems in indonesia, most of the data were available in bahasa indonesia only; however, for the study, the researcher will do the necessary translation whenever it was required to understand the matters and issues being discussed in this research. data were obtained through literature research using a literature review. most of the literature can be obtained through the "google" data machine. data were chosen according to the relevancy to the research. keywords used the words "force majeure" and "covid-19" as the basis for the searching. the results of the research can be divided into two main categories. first was the result that included international definition and concept to force majeure concerning covid-19. the second was the results relating to force majeure in indonesia, particularly about the covid-19 pandemic situation in indonesia. the researcher also used secondary https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 252-260 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 256 data in forms of primary legal sources that consisted of prevailing laws and regulations that were currently enforced in indonesia, either it was promulgated before or during the covid-19 pandemic. secondary legal sources mostly contained doctrines developed by scholars concerning the force majeure concept and conception in indonesia. 4. discussion and conclusion in indonesia, given the covid-19 pandemic itself, as to whether covid-19 can be declared as force majeure, icc stated that it must be seen from the conditions. the conditions, as mentioned in article 1244 and article 1245 icc are: 1. an unpredicted event that made the obligor cannot perform his/ her obligation, which cannot be contributed to the obligor, and the obligor is innocent; or 2. an uncontrollable event that made the obligor cannot perform his/ her obligation; or 3. an uncontrollable event that if the obligor performs his/ her duty, he/ she is considered to do something unlawful. in the application of points 1 and 2, it could be agreed that the covid-19 pandemic is an unpredicted or/and uncontrollable event, even the law distinguished between unpredicted and uncontrollable. an unpredicted event referred to a more subjective occurrence that is only unpredicted to only several persons; meanwhile, uncontrollable referred to something that objectively cannot be controlled by most people (muljadi and widjaja, 2004). however, covid-19, as an unpredicted or uncontrollable event, does not necessarily mean that all obligor cannot perform their obligation. on how and when an obligor cannot perform his/ her duties, it must consider the nature of the duties that may be general or specific performances/ services that can only be conducted by a particular person or certain things that can only be produced the like. if there would be replacements in general without making a significant difference in performance, then an event of default would become something unnecessary. most businesses avoid being declared in default. once they were in default, it would mean losing their "goodwill" and future in front of their partners. it is why article 1338 paragraph (3) icc always emphasis on good faith in performance (muljadi and widjaja, 2003). as to whether covid-19 can cause a default in a contract and can be used as a reason to be excused from punishment caused by the default must therefore be concluded after taking thorough the contract. it also means that covid-19 can be used as a force majeure condition. on point 3, regarding the performance of obligor that might be considered to be unlawful, let us see the content of gr21-2020. even gr21-2020's heading is "large scale social distancing to accelerate the handling of corona virus disease 2019". the real regulations that enforce lssd were in the level of regional head regulation, such as governor regulation or mayor or district regulation (gri, 2020a). in jakarta, for instance, is dki jakarta governor regulation no.33 year 2020 regarding implementation of large scale social distancing to handle corona virus disease 2019 (covid-19) in dki jakarta province (gdkir, 2020). the regulation never prohibits person/ business to do their business; it only requires people to work at home. besides the application of the rule is limited on a territorial basis, the length of the condition for lssd was also determined for a certain period, using 14 days as basic terms with the https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 252-260 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 257 possibility of extensions. for dki jakarta, it could be read in dki jakarta governor decree no.380 year 2020 regarding the enactment of the implementation large scale social distancing to handle corona virus disease 2019 (covid-19) (gdkid, 2020). from those regulations, it can be said that the issuance of the government regulation, president regulation or decree, and other rules, except specific regional head regulation, does not prohibit anybody or other legal subjects to do business. when we refer to payment obligations to banks and financial institutions, we talk about a debtor who owed banks or other non-bank financial institutions (basheer et al., 2019; khan et al., 2020; hassan et al., 2020). they are natural persons with a private loan, consumer loan, mortgage loan, and legal entities with a corporate loan, investment loan, working capital loan, and others. it can be said that many of those individuals and legal entities, which are involved in real sectors, as debtors, are financially hurt because of the covid-19 pandemic. the financial matters will end up with the capability of those debtors to pay their loans to banks and other financial institutions. to anticipate the failure of payment, the government of the republic of indonesia has issued gril01-2020. the government regulation in lieu of law regulating the state financial policy and financial system stability to handle corona virus disease (covid-19) pandemic and/ or to face threat that endangers national economics and/ or financial system stability, that involve the relaxations in state finance. the relaxations were in the field of state income, including income from taxes, state spending, including local government finance and spending, and the efforts to handle financial institutions. concerning the efforts in handling financial institutions, the financial service authority was given authority to: a. provide written order to a financial institution to merge, consolidate, acquire, integrate, and/ or convert; b. determine an exception for certain parties from the obligations to disclose in the capital market to prevent and handle financial system crisis; and c. determine financial institutions, including banks, to conduct provision regarding the utilization of information technology in conducting general meeting of shareholders or other meeting based on prevailing regulations. to maintain the stability of the financial system that might happen to banks, bank indonesia was given authority to, among others: a. provide short term liquidity loan based on the syariah principle to systemic banks or other non-systemic banks; b. give particular liquidity loan for a systemic bank which has liquidity problems which do not comply with the requirement in point a. above; c. purchase state bond or state syariah bond in the primary market; and others. based on the above, bi has issued several regulations (pbi): a. "pbi no.22/4/pbi/2020 regarding an incentive for banks which provide loan for certain economic activities to support handling economic impact caused by corona virus pandemic. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 252-260 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 258 b. pbi no.22/5/pbi/2020 regarding the second amendment of pbi no.19/3/pbi/2017 regarding short term liquidity loan for conventional banks. c. pbi no.22/6/2020 regarding the second amendment of pbi no.19/4/pbi/2017 regarding syariah short term liquidity loan for syariah banks. d. pbi no.22/7/pbi/2020 regarding adjustment of implementation of several bi provisions as impact of corona virus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic. e. pbi no.22/10/pbi/2020 regarding the fifth amendment of padg no.20/10/padg/2018 regarding statutory reserved requirements in rupiah and foreign currency for conventional banks, syariah banks, and syariah business unit. f. pbi no.22/11/pbi/2020 regarding amendment of padg no.21/22/padg/2019 regarding macroprudential intermediation ratio and macroprudential liquidity buffer for conventional banks, syariah banks, and syariah business unit." besides the bi regulations, the financial services authority (ojk) has also issued: a. "pojk no.11/pojk.03/2020 regarding national economic stimulus as countercyclical policy as impact of the spreading of corona virus disease 2019. b. pojk no.13/pojk.03/2020 regarding amendment of pojk no.38/pojk.03/2016 regarding the implementation of risk management in using information technology by banks. c. pojk no.14/pojk.05/2020 regarding countercyclical policy as impact of the spreading of corona virus disease 2019 for non-banks financial institutions. d. pojk no.15/pojk.04/2020 regarding plan and organization of public company general meeting of shareholders. e. pojk no.16/pojk.04/2020 regarding the implementation of public company general meeting of shareholders electronically. f. pojk no.17/pojk.04/2020 regarding material transaction and changing in business activities. g. pojk no.18/pojk.03/2020 regarding witten order to handle banks’ problems. h. se ojk no.3/seojk.04/2020 regarding other conditions as market conditions that significantly fluctuated in the implementation of repurchase of shares issued by issuer or public company." based on those issued regulations that support the sustainability and continuation of banks' operational and financial capacity, currently, banks are lowering the interest rate, extending the period of payment, providing extra facilities, reducing the principal amount, and conducting reorganization in payment, including providing a grace period of payment. it means that the covid-19 pandemic shall not influence the obligations of debtors to banks and financial institutions. there would be no force majeure conditions as based on non-punishment default. as seen from the efforts conducted by banks, they are trying to make debtors, not in the states of defaults. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 252-260 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 259 references basheer, m. f., hameed w. u., sabir s. a., & jehangir, m. s. (2019). islamic business ethics and islamic banks performance in malaysia: does sincerity matter? . hamdard islamicus.42(4). 217 224, black, hc. (1990). black's law dictionary centennial sixth edition. st. paul, minn: west publishing co. ballard spahr. (2020). force majeure and covid-19. https://www.ballardspahr.com/ /media/files/alerts/force-majeure-and-covid-19---03-20.pdf debevoise & plimpton. (2020). covid-19 and its impact on english law contract. debevoise in depth. https://www.debevoise.com/ /media/files/insights/publications/2020/03/20200318-covid19-and-its-impact on-english-law.pdf garner, ba. (2004). black's law dictionary, 8th edition, st. paul, minn: west publishing co. government of the republic of indonesia. (2020). government regulation no.21 year 2020 regarding large scale social distancing to accelerate the handling of corona virus disease 2019. state gazette year 2020 no.91, supplement no.6487. government of the republic of indonesia. (2020). government regulation in lieu of law no.1 year 2020 regarding state financial policy and financial system stability to handle corona virus disease (covid-19) pandemic and/ or to face threat that endangers national economics and/ or financial system stability. state gazette year 2020 no.87, supplement no.6485. governor of dki jakarta. (2020). dki jakarta governor decree no.380 year 2020 regarding the enactment of the implementation large scale social distancing to handle corona virus disease 2019 (covid-19). governor of dki jakarta. (2020). dki jakarta governor regulation no.33 year 2020 regarding implementation of large scale social distancing to handle corona virus disease 2019 (covid-19) in dki jakarta province. hassan s. g., waemustafa, w., & hidthiir m. h. b. (2020). the funding liquidity risk and bank risk: a review on the islamic and conventional banks in pakistan. hamdard islamicus.43(1). 77-94, hogan lovells. (2020). the covid-19 pandemic and force majeure clauses in japan. https://www.hoganlovells.com/~/media/hogan-lovells/pdf/2020 pdfs/2020_03_27_v2_japan_force-majeure-clauses.pdf khan a. b., basheer, m. f., iqbal j., & hatim, m. (2020). global financial crisis 2008 09, macro-economic variables and the performance of ftse bursa malaysia hijrah shariah index: a case of malaysian stock market. hamdard islamicus.43(1). 94-99, muljadi, k. and widjaja, g. (2003). contractual obligation, jakarta: rajawali pers. muljadi, k. and widjaja, g. (2004). obligations in general. jakarta: rajawali pers. president of the republic of indonesia. (2020a). president decree no.11 year 2020 regarding the determination of public health emergency corona virus disease. president of the republic of indonesia. (2020b). president decree no.12 year 2020 regarding determination of non-natural disaster of covid-19 spreading as national disaster. satrio, j. (1999). the law of obligation: general obligation. bandung: alumni. subekti, r. and tjitrosudibio, r. (translator). (2008). indonesian civil code (burgerlijk wetboek). jakarta: pradnya paramita. subekti, r. (2007). contract law. jakarta: intermasa. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://www.ballardspahr.com/-/media/files/alerts/force-majeure-and-covid-19---03-20.pdf https://www.ballardspahr.com/-/media/files/alerts/force-majeure-and-covid-19---03-20.pdf https://www.debevoise.com/-/media/files/insights/publications/2020/03/20200318-covid19-and-its-impact-on-english-law.pdf https://www.debevoise.com/-/media/files/insights/publications/2020/03/20200318-covid19-and-its-impact-on-english-law.pdf https://www.debevoise.com/-/media/files/insights/publications/2020/03/20200318-covid19-and-its-impact-on-english-law.pdf https://www.hoganlovells.com/~/media/hogan-lovells/pdf/2020-pdfs/2020_03_27_v2_japan_force-majeure-clauses.pdf https://www.hoganlovells.com/~/media/hogan-lovells/pdf/2020-pdfs/2020_03_27_v2_japan_force-majeure-clauses.pdf hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 252-260 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 260 the republic of indonesia. (1984). law no.4 year 1984 regarding infectious disease epidemic. state gazette year 1984 no.20, supplement no.3273. the republic of indonesia. (2007). law no.24 year 2007 regarding disaster management. state gazette year 2007 no.66, supplement no.4723. the republic of indonesia. (2018). republic of indonesia law no.6 year 2018 regarding health quarantine. state gazette year 2018 no.128, supplement no.6236. widjaja, g. (2020). president decree on corona as national disaster and force majeure for business. https://badakpos.com/keppres-corona-sebagai-bencana-nasional force-majeure-untuk-dunia-usaha/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://badakpos.com/keppres-corona-sebagai-bencana-nasional-force-majeure-untuk-dunia-usaha/ https://badakpos.com/keppres-corona-sebagai-bencana-nasional-force-majeure-untuk-dunia-usaha/ f:\e\islamicus\2021\pan-islamic international cooperation.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 9 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism: south asia, turkey and southeast asia dr. arshad islam department of history & civilization international islamic university malaysia, malaysia email: arshad@iium.edu.my received on: 06-10-2020 accepted on: 21-01-2021 abstract non-western cultures and peoples, such as the islamic, hindu, confucian, and orthodox christian, have been systematically oppressed, colonized, and dominated by the ideology, arms, and economies of the west for over two centuries under the imperialist clash of civilizations’. numerous techniques have been adopted by the oppressed peoples of asia, africa, and latin america to resist this domination, to promote peace, harmony, and stability. one of these strategies that was manifest during the anticolonial movement in south asia, turkey, and southeast asia was panislamism. it was relatively forgotten until interest was re-awakened in the ottoman legacy of turkey as a leading civilization in asia and the wider muslim world. most modern developed literature is premised on the assumption that western civilization is the model to be aspired by all developing nations. assistance in economic development is generally assumed as accepting a raft of western neo-imperialist demands that may be contrary to asian and african cultural mores. in response to this, nationalist movements have become increasingly sceptical about the international development agenda, therefore, eurasian and south asian countries such as china, india, pakistan, russia, and turkey are increasingly rejecting subservience to the political and cultural demands of the west. this paper examines the impact of the pan-islamic cooperation and civilizational exchanges between turkey, central asia, south and southeast asia. this is mainly based on persian, urdu, english and dutch sources, focused on the intellectual legacy, achievements, and role of muslim intellectuals on the unity of the muslim ummah against the colonial drive and preserve legacy of caliphate supporting physical and monitory cooperation. this paper also explores the examples of the role of pan-islamism in resisting european colonialism. it particularly analyses the role of indian muslims 10 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism... in assisting the ottoman caliphate, the role of the ottomans in sumatran resistance to dutch colonialism, and the resumption of pan-islamic ties manifest in modern turkish disaster relief efforts in indonesia. pan-islamism is already a powerful force in international development. the paper concludes that pan-islamic platform offers great scope for developing countries to autonomously assist each other without the shackles of the neo-imperialist agendas, recovering their historical position and dignity as vibrant, compassionate societies. key words: islamic civilization, pakistan, pan-islamism, turkey, south asia, southeast asia, western civilization. 1. introduction the 18th and 19th centuries were the most tumultuous periods in the history of the muslim world. following the turko-russian war (17681774) and russian annexation of the crimea in 1783, the ottoman empire lost its hegemony in the black sea and it began an interminable process of decline. the muslims of central asia and other parts of the world at large increasingly came under the influence and then direct control of european imperial interests, particularly the french, british, and russian empires. in some cases, reigns of terror, inhuman suppression, and persecution led to influxes of muslim refugees to regions still under ottoman protection. muslims were unable to halt encroachment in the caucasus in the 1850s and 1860s, yunan province in china in the 1860s, egypt (1881) and the sudan (1884). the string of continual defeats exposed the weakness of institutions and regimes in the muslim world, and their susceptibility to european hostility. early attempts at liberal economic reforms and adopting superficial aspects of western culture under tanzimat during the period 1839-1876 did little to reverse the ottomans’ decline. a series of wars and corrupt self-serving political entrepreneurs hampered development, until sultan abdul hamid ii (r. 1876-1909) began to centralize authority from 1878, which enabled the coordination and development of ottoman infrastructure throughout the empire, facilitated in some cases by pan-islamic financing, and panislamism became the cornerstone of ottoman foreign policy until the end of world war i (wwi) (farooqi 1983, 283; kia 1996, 30-31; ozcan 1997, 52; nadvi 2015, 152-53; pay 2015, 284; niemeijer 1981, 35, 37; qureshi 1999, 52-53). this study presents a brief review of notable studies in this field in the next section, followed by an explanation of the political ideology of hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 11 pan-islamism. it then explores the implications of pan-islamism in regard to south asia, explaining british policies toward muslims, the role of abdul hamid ii and the hejaz railway, allama shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) and indian muslim activism and the medical mission of dr. mukhtar ansari (raímat allah ‘alaih). it then explains indian muslims’ support for the khilafat movement (1919-1924), followed by an analysis of ottoman engagement with southeast asia, with its implications for modern islamic cooperation between turkey and the region. 2 literature review this study explores the global implications of pan-islamism in anticolonial resistance and development, looking at the cases of south asia, turkey, and southeast asia, utilizing primary and secondary sources. some key studies that have contributed to this field include naimur rahman farooqi’s “pan-islamism in the nineteenth century” (1983), which galvanised modern appreciation of this neglected aspect of late ottoman foreign policy. with regard to other areas of the muslim world, mehrdad kia (1996) explored “pan-islamism in late nineteenth-century iran.” however, this study is primarily concerned with south asia, and indian muslims’ responses to pan-islamism. qureshi (1985) analysed the political activities of islamic scholars in the indian subcontinent from 1556-1847, including ottoman pan-islamism. niemeijer (1981) specifically outlined the nature of the khilafat movement in india (1919-1924), while more general studies of indian muslim engagement with the ottomans relative to british imperialism are given by ozcan (1997) and pay (2015). the most authoritative source on allama shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih), the most prominent pro-ottoman activist in south asia, is the urdu biography hayat-i-shibli by syed sulaiman nadvi (raímat allah ‘alaih). 3 objectives the objectives of this study are:  to explore the political ideology of ottoman pan-islamism and its engagement with south and southeast asia.  to analyze south indian responses to pan-islamism in relation to sultan abdul hamid ii, the hejaz railway, and material and ideological support for the ottoman empire among south asian muslims. 12 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism...  to identify the contemporary relevance of this historical experience as a basis for modern international cooperation among muslim countries, with relevance to turkish relief efforts in southeast asia. 4. pan-islamism pan-islamism is rooted in the doctrinal belief in the unity of all muslim believers in a single community (the ummah). in islam, the eponymous submission of muslims in obedience to allah almighty and his messenger, the prophet muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), is their goal in life. it is a matter of faith for muslims to follow islam, as part of which they must submit their egos to the revealed knowledge of the holy qur’én and sunnah. this is reflected in the believers being united together in this project, and allah almighty has warned the muslims not be divided, which will be a cause of defeat in worldly terms, arising from the spiritual illness of disputation and egoism, as iterated in the following qur’énic verses: “o ye who believe! fear god as he should be feared and die not except in a state of islam. and hold fast all together by the rope which god (stretches out for you) and be not divided among yourselves; and remember with gratitude god’s favor on you; for ye were enemies and he joined your hearts in love so that by his grace ye became brethren; and ye were on the brink of the pit of fire and he saved you from it. thus doth god make his signs clear to you: that ye may be guided.”(the holy qur’én, 3: 1023) “and obey god and his apostle; and fall into no disputes lest ye lose heart and your power depart; and be patient and persevering: for god is with those who patiently persevere.”(the holy qur’én, 8: 46) these verses allude to the fact that from the beginning of its history, the muslim ummah has only been able to resist those seeking to extirpate it by submission to allah almighty, unity, and patience, seeking the blessing of continued existence from allah almighty. consequently, muslims throughout the world essentially aspire to be one spiritual unit, like cells hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 13 in a body, mutually assisting each other in times of need, which is exactly how the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) described the nature of the ummah as being is equivalent to a human body: “the likeness of the believers in their mutual love, mercy and compassion is that of the body; when one part of it is in pain, the rest of the body joins it in restlessness and fever”(øaíêí al-bukhéri, 6011, øaíêí al-muslim, 2586) the european colonial project sought to replace this primordial ethos of islamic religion with various forms of tribalism (i.e. nationalism), which they did with great success throughout the muslim world in a classic divide-and-rule strategy, pitting arab against turk and jew, albanian against greek, muslim against hindu, and so on, sowing the seeds of many of the geopolitical problems that continue to blight the world today (and fill the bank vaults of europe and north america). however, there was resistance to this strategy throughout the oppressed lands, notably the case of pan-islamism, to which sultan abdul hamid ii appealed. the ottoman “sultans” became caliphs after sultan selim i (r. 1512-1520) defeated and hanged the last mamluk sultan tumanbay on 14th april 1517 at one of the main gates of cairo. the ‘abbasid caliph al-mutawakkil (d. 1543) formally assigned to sultan selim and to his heirs all rights to the caliphate, at a ritual held in the mosque of aya sofya in istanbul, assuming responsibility to maintain the holy sanctuaries at makkah and madinah and the pilgrimage routes. in aleppo, sultan selim i took the title, prior held by the mamluk sultans of servant of the two holy sanctuaries (khédim al-×aramayn al-sharêfayn). the title of “caliph” was rarely used in practice by the ottomans until this vestigial relic of the prophetic era was galvanized by its utility in anticolonial resistance by the ottomans and other muslim peoples from the late-18th century to the final demise of the ottoman state following wwi (hitti 1970, 704-05; holt 1970, 319-20; ozcan 1997, 51; nadvi, 2015, 550-51). sultan abdul hamid ii promulgated this idea and asserted his position as the “commander of the believers”. the ottoman sultans explicitly used the phrases of islamic unity (including ittehéd-e-islami, ittehéd-edên, and ukhuwwat-e-dên) in their official correspondence with muslim rulers in india, central asia, and southeast asia, specifically warning against foreign incursions, advising muslims to unite and rally against their common enemies (tekin and islam 2018, 1051). the historic role 14 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism... of the ottomans in helping other muslim lands resist imperialism is often deliberately forgotten nowadays, but they were particularly instrumental in warding off russian aggression against central asian khanates who demanded help and protection from the caliphs against russian expansionism, including in bukhara, khiva, and khokand (farooqi 1983, 287; ozcan 1997, 46; pay 2015, 285; wasti 2006, 957). pan-islamism is for muslims essentially a religious concept, associated with the islamic prohibition of discrimination based on ethnicity, and in modern political terminology is can be understood as an ideology calling for socio-political solidarity among all muslims. the darwinian empires of europe, with their obsessions of racial hierarchies and taxonomies of “national” cultures, always found the cosmopolitan and eclectic tapestries of muslim societies very difficult to apprehend, and watched with consternation how an oppression or outrage against muslims on one side of the world could cause an insurrection on the other. this existential bond among muslims was activated by sultan abdul hamid ii during the ‘golden era’ of european imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to arouse the islamic conscience and mobilise muslims to seek emancipation and advancement by fighting imperialism and the process of westernization, and fostering the unification of the muslim ummah (qureshi 1985, 17-19; farooqi 1983, 290; ozcan 1997, 48-48; wasti 2006, 959). 5. south asia 5.1 british policies towards the muslims following its alliance with the ottomans in the crimean war (18531856), british policy in relation to muslims was based on an angloislamic alliance to contain russian influence in central asia and eastern europe, and avoiding discontent among subject muslim populations in india, southeast asia, africa and elsewhere. the british had always cynically leveraged their generally favourable relations with the ottomans to boost their credentials in dealing with muslim governments. for instance, in 1799 they prevailed upon sultan selim iii (r. 1789-1808) to recommend them to tipu sultan (r. 1782-99), the ruler of mysore, to cement friendly relations with the british and pave the way for their insidious colonization of india. in the latter half of the 19th century, this strategy was applied on a larger level to thwart russian encroachment in central asia, which hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 15 was perceived as an implicit threat to british india. british expeditions into the northwest frontier in 1838-1842 and 1878-1880 had failed to establish any permanent foothold, thus they attempted to establish an alliance between bukhara, kashgar, and british india under ottoman suzerainty. between 1870 and 1873, all these efforts were made in the name of pan-islamic activities, with full cooperation from the ottomans. in april 1877, just after the beginning of the russo-turkish war, sultan abdul hamid ii sent a diplomatic mission to afghanistan to seek support for ongoing war against russia, which was in british as well as ottoman interests (qureshi 1985, 243; farooqi 1983, 287; kia 1996, 32; ozcan 1997, 12-13, 75; husain 2001, 20; wasti 2006, 956; pay 2015, 286). apart from these flirtations with pan-islamism as part of their colonial strategy, the british authorities in india continued their duplicitous power games and betrayals to extend their creeping domination over south asia. on the pretence of the fear of russian aggression in afghanistan, the british authorities secured permission from the amir of sindh to navigate the indus up to the afghan border, which formed the pretext for the british machinations to conquer sindh in 1843. in the same style, the british authorities used sultan selim iii to ingratiate themselves with tipu sultan of mysore, then betrayed the third anglo-mysore treaty of 1792 and made a wanton attack on mysore in three directions, killing the heroic sultan in battle on 4th may 1799 (burton 1877, 31; kirmani 1958, 145, 156-58; khan 1959, 155; qureshi 1985, 243; ozcan 1997, 12-13; quddusi 2004, 13, 15, 33). 5.2. sultan abdul hamid ii’s pan-islamic appeal and indian muslims’ support two decades after the devastating results of the indian revolt (1857), the muslims of south asia were greatly affected by the turkorussian war of 1877-78. due to the gravity of the situation indian muslims mobilised the masses to raise donations and collect funds to support their turkish brothers and sisters, led by the ulama. allama shibli nu‘mani (raímat allah ‘alaih) (1857-1914) was instrumental in collecting donations in his hometown, azamgarh, for the ottoman sultan abdul hamid ii. shibli raised 3, 000 rupees and handed the amount to husain hasib afendi, the ottoman consul in bombay. in addition, a number of other eminent indian scholars like maulana qasim nanatawi (raímat allah ‘alaih) (1833-80), ahmad ali muhaddith (raímat allah ‘alaih) 16 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism... (d. 1880), maulana muhammad mazhar nanatawi (raímat allah ‘alaih) (1823-85), and rashid ahmad gangohi (raímat allah ‘alaih) (18261905) raised funds for the financial backing to the mujéhidên, their widows, and orphans, and common muslims in eastern europe. this monetary aid was anticipated to raise ottoman morale and express the global solidarity of the muslims. for this benign cause fervent support came from the well-known islamic centres, like darul-ulum deoband, nadvat ul-ulama lucknow, and the farangi mahal. the colonial government was greatly vexed by these developments, and was apoplectic when shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) and other prominent ulama from across south asia held a meeting at kanpur in 1898 in which they declared sultan abdul hamid ii the true caliph and leader of all muslims (nadvi, 2015, 152-53; sepetcioglu 2015, 54; qureshi 1985, 237, 241; metcalf 1982, 168). 5.3. the hejaz railway apart from raising funds for the ottoman military cause, indian muslims donated a huge sum to finance the hejaz railway. this project was the brainchild of sultan abdul hamid ii, who used pan-islamism to strengthen his rule and to rally the muslims throughout the world, raising resistance to encroaching european imperialism. it was designed to improve communications between egypt, mesopotamia, the levant, and modern turkey, in addition to making it easier for people to perform the hajj pilgrimage. the hejaz railway, funded by global muslim support, was also the flagship of the pan-islamism policy. the faithful donated to the railway through ottoman consulates worldwide, including in egypt, india, kazan, morocco, and south africa. apart from common muslims’ donations, huge sums were generously paid by the khedive of egypt, the shah of iran, and the nizam of hyderabad. the railway was 1, 464 kilometres long, costing 3 million ottoman liras, equating to around 430 kg of gold. the south asian muslims were at the forefront of this endeavour, with great solidarity and islamic brotherhood being manifest in lavish mass donations by from almost all the major cities of the subcontinent, including baluchistan, bombay, calcutta, hyderabad, karachi, and rangoon. in india, a special committee was set up for the purpose of collecting contributions for the ottomans, and indians from all walks of life donated about 40,000 ottoman liras. contributions from india and egypt were viewed as a protest to the british colonial authorities (ekinci 2016, 1-3; ozcan 1997, 108-110; pay 2015, 286; ochsenwald 1980, 3, 5; usul 1999, 19-21). hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 17 5.4 allama shibli and indian muslim activism during 1895 and 1896 the western press raised much furore about the armenian-turkish civil war and actively spread salacious reports demonizing the turkish forces. on 21st february 1896, shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) wrote a sarcastic retort in the azad newspaper of lucknow, in which he exposed the propaganda issues at play and critically analysed the rumours being spread by the western press. in 1897, when greece attacked turkey, shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) refrained from active political activity as a member of muhammadan anglo-oriental college (mao), and he restrained himself from uttering anything on this issue. shibli was overjoyed when, in 1908, sultan abdul hamid ii declared that turkey would set up democratic institutions on the plan of enver bey (1881-1922) and others. the sultan would mention each member of the anjuman-i-ittihéd wa tarraqi, including the committee of union and progress (cup) (ôttihat ve terakki cemiyeti) that took the lead in this regard, and spoke highly of each individual. shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) praised the perspicuity of sultan abdul hamid ii in conceding to the demands of his people to take turkey towards democracy, without destroying the nation, thus avoiding bloodshed and civil strife. a revolution took place without a single drop of blood being shed. shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) had hoped for many momentous and positive events to follow this major shift from absolute monarchy to a more democratic framework (ozcan 1997, 133; nadvi 2015, 552-54; pay 2015, 286; sepetcioglu 2015, 51-53). in the indian subcontinent, shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) inspired a younger generation of intellectuals, particularly in their concern about the ottoman caliphate and pan-islamism. his passionate poems and articles published in the muslim gazette stirred up many political activists, like maulana abul kalam azad (1888-1958), maulana zafar ali khan (18731956), maulana muhammad ali jauhar (1878-1931), and his brother maulana shaukat ali (1873-1938) (raímat allah ‘alaihim). shibli’s radical ideas inspired the muslim masses in general, and they also had a profound impact on muslim intellectuals. zafar ali khan (raímat allah ‘alaih) was moved by shibli’s poems on the evils inflicted upon islam and inspired by his articles published in the muslim gazette. he was also influenced by the writings of the editor of al-hilal, maulana abul kalam azad (raímat allah ‘alaih) (nadvi 2015, 508-09, 557; qureshi 1985, 244; sepetcioglu 2015, 55-56; minault 1999, 156-57; minault 1999, 40). shibli’s revolutionary poems published in muslim gazette (urdu 18 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism... weekly, 1912-13, by wahiduddin selim and syed shabbir hasan, lucknow), al-hilal (urdu weekly, 1912, by maulana abul kalam azad, calcutta), hamdard (urdu daily, 1913, by maulana muhammad ali jauhar, delhi) and zamindar (urdu daily, 1903, by maulana zafar ali khan, lahore) created a sensation in the country that developed political interest among the muslims. soon his collection of poems was seized by colonial officials in bengal and the united provinces. on the occasion of the balkan wars (1912), shibli wrote his most stirring poem shahr-i ashëb-i islém (‘city of islam in ruins’) to show his solidarity with the turks, which left a great impact upon the indian muslims (nadvi 2012, 119-21; nadvi 2015, 554-55; qureshi 1985, 233, 244; qureshi 1999, 37, 64; niemeijer 1981, 38; sepetcioglu 2015, 56-57; minault 1999, 158). he recited this long and steering poem before a public gathering at lucknow for the collection of donations for turkey, to wailing crowds. shibli’s poems prophesied many things that turned out to be true. khwaja kamaluddin (1870-1932) a from lahore repeatedly shed tears after reading these verses in london, and wrote a letter to shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) in which he quoted the verse “chérégh-i-kushta-e maífil se utthega dhuén kabtak?” (‘how long will rise the billowing smoke from the extinguished lamp?’) (nadvi 2015, 556-57; minault 1999, 40-44). written in the aftermath of the italian-turkish and balkan wars, this lament represents a genre of poetry in which the poet bemoans the destruction or social, economic and political decline of a city, country or state. this genre of poetry is known as shahr-i ashéb-i islém (city of islam in ruins) how long will remain the prestige of a nation when dominion is gone, how long will rise the billowing smoke from the extinguished lamp? the very mantle of the sultanate has been torn to smithereens, how long will the fragments continue to fly in the sky? morocco has fallen, iran gone; it is to be seen, how long the diehard sick turkey survives? fast deluge of unmitigated calamity that is surging from the balkans, how long could it be warded off by desperate sighs of the oppressed?! how long could it be stopped by the smokecreen of the sighs of the oppressed, how long will the half-dead martyred to keep the show going?! hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 19 they revel in listening to the cries of the oppressed, how long will the infirm orphan keep on this chord?! 5.5. dr. mukhtar ahmad ansari’s medical mission on the initiative and with the great efforts of maulana muhammad ali jauhar (raímat allah ‘alaih), a medical mission under the stewardship of dr. mukhtar ahmad ansari (1880-1936) (raímat allah ‘alaih) was sent to turkey in november and reached istanbul on the last day of 1912, remaining in turkey until late june 1913, to provide medical aid to the casualties of the balkan wars, assisting injured soldiers and refugees. the other members of this mission included shuaib qureshi, a minister in the state of bhopal, chaudhry khaleeq al-zaman, an advocate of lucknow, abdul rahman siddiqi, a member of the bengal assembly, abdul aziz ansari, and others. most of these young volunteers were then pursuing their studies at mao college. such was their islamic bond and commitment to the cause and attachment with the turks that they put their educational pursuits on hold, to be part of the noble medical mission to help their muslim brethren in grieving turkey. this was the first major contribution of the indian muslims to their turkish brethren and it was as significant in inspiring pride among muslims at home in india as it was in providing the help needed. dr. mukhtar ahmad ansari (raímat allah ‘alaih) got more print media attention because of the regular reports sent home by him that was published in the comrade, an english weekly newspaper published at calcutta, 1911 by maulana muhammad ali (raímat allah ‘alaih). in an act of vengeance and frustration, the british authorities hurriedly closed the comrade after the letters on turkey were published (nadvi 2015, 556-57; nadvi 2012, 12224; qureshi 1985, 233; sepetcioglu, 2015, 57). there was a deeply moving and emotional scene at the lucknow railway station, when dr. ansari (raímat allah ‘alaih) was leaving for delhi, en route to constantinople. many local dignitaries had come to see him off. dr. ansari (raímat allah ‘alaih) was standing at the door of the railway compartment, while allama shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) was standing on the platform, looking up at him. just as it was time to say goodbye, the head of this great scholar, which had refused to bow down before powerful tyrants, bent down and kissed the boots of dr. ansari (raímat allah ‘alaih), in veneration of his service to the allah almighty and his messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) by 20 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism... departing to the ottoman caliphate to serve the victims of war; tears rolling down his eyes and washing the dust of the boots. the train moved on, taking with it the precious jewels of islamic honour and dignity (nadvi 2015, 558; qureshi 1985, 233). after the end of the balkan wars (1912), dr. ansari’s medical mission returned to india and landed at bombay. by sheer chance allama shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) was in bombay, and without delay, he went to receive dr. ansari and the delegation at the docks. as he was disembarking, allama shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) stepped forward to kiss his feet, but this time dr. ansari excused himself, allama shibli (raímat allah ‘alaih) said, “it is not your feet, rather they represent the suffering of islam”. it was these very sentiments that found expression in the form of a lament which he read out before a gathering in bombay that had been convened to felicitate members of the medical mission which had just returned from turkey. it is a very heart-rending poem. 5.6. welcoming dr. ansari this poem was recited in a gathering, in bombay, convened in honour of the returning indian medical mission to turkey led by dr. ansari (raímat allah ‘alaih) (nadim 2014, 307-08; nadvi 2015, 55859; nadvi 2012, 128-29; qureshi 1985, 233-34; sepetcioglu, 2015, 58). balkan war: 1912 we offer our fervent thanks to allah almighty, the almighty on the safe return of the delegation of ansari. you traversed thousands of miles to serve our brethren; this was true islamic spirit, this was manifest compassion. leaving the country, forsaking the family, and traversing a vast distance bravely, by god’s grace, you did endure these travails admirably. for stopping you there was much in form of tumult, voices of anguish and pain and lament the grieving eyes of relatives, and their piercing, longing looks; anguish of torn hearts, and the soaring sparks of filial love. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 21 but the love for islam overcame all hurdles; leaving everything behind you managed to reach there in spite of many problems. in truth, you’re both an ansar (helper) and a muhéjir (migrant); as forsaking your countrymen you reached there to fulfil the requisites of friendship. none can attain, even in their dream, such wonderful bliss; night-vigil for the sick and injured which you did endure. in truth, it befits you to claim leadership; because the turkish mujéhidên you nursed with care tender. no amount of accolades the community may shower on you may be adequate, for pains you endured in providing succour to soldiers of religion. for you a string of pearls has far less value glass pebbles for, you have witnessed, in the eyes of the orphans, gems real. appreciate you will how cherishes islam life, having witnessed wanton blood-letting of the christians. despite the virtual effacement of the islamic sympathy, one can still discern, within your throbbing heart, some flickers of compassion. seen you have the declining fortune of the muslims, the turning of tides of time you have observed. how can the dwellers of hindustan fathom your heart’s pains, for, seen you have the ever-increasing tyranny. you have heard the heart-wrenching lament of the orphans; seen you have the unhappy faces of the destitute widows. burning alive the dwellers, after plundering their homes; seen you have, the new norms of the western powers. 22 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism... the massacre of the muslims, and the destruction of the turks; seen you have, the results of consequences of the assurances of gladstone. it is you who have sutured the wounds of the warriors; seen you have, the blood-stained garments of the martyrs. we have seen those many varied calamities, seen we have, many kinds of distress. have seen the shades of tear shedding eyes, have seen the rose-coloured cheeks of the faithful martyred play? from you we get some trace of those who love the community; seen you have since those enamoured of islam. intense love and fervour of islam, if anyone has understood, it’s you; seen you have since the majnën of islam’s layla. if there is still some hope to hold on, seen you have also, since, the signs of the secrets power. it would be no surprise, should bounce back the ship after being drowned, seen we have, since, the overturning of fortunes like this. if acceptable to providence is an old person’s supplication, these, then, are hands raised in prayer, and this then is shibli nu‘mani! (nadvi 2015, 558-59). 6. indian muslims’ support for khilafat movement (1919-24) after abdul hamid ii was deposed in 1909, the caliphate continued in name only, with increasing realisation among muslims worldwide that it was no longer an authentic political force. the muslims of the indian subcontinent wholeheartedly supported the idea of the restoration of the caliphate, thus they launched khilafat movement, led by maulana muhammad ali and shaukat ali (raímat allah ‘alaihimé) (known as the ali brothers) (qureshi 1999, 68-69; qureshi 1985, 256-57; niemeijer 1981, 35). the movement gained mass support, and abadi bano begum, aka bê ammé (raímat allah ‘alaih) (1850-1924), the mother of the ali brothers, called on her sons to die for the restoration of the caliphate. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 23 her support became the talk of the day and was sung by people in public gatherings. shafiq rampuri (raímat allah ‘alaih), a local poet, recounted her sentiments in his rhetorical poetry: said the mother of muhammad ali: sacrifice your life for khilafat! with you is also shaukat ali sacrifice your life for khilafat! if i see you tarrying i will renounce my motherly rights over you, and i will never consider you a brave man! sacrifice your life for khilafat! unseen hands will come to help; now this government will surely perish until doomsday it will never rise again. sacrifice your life for khilafat! if you suffer from a cough never ask the government for water; never ever feel worried for your old mother – you have to courageously step forward, uttering ‘the declaration of faith’ so as to be successful in the exam sacrifice your life for khilafat! had i have seven sons i would have sacrificed all of them in the cause of khilafat this is the way of islam. i will give a clarion call on the day of judgment and will take in the presence of the truth and file a petition against this government. 24 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism... sacrifice your life, my son, for khilafat! we did not feel peace now. sacrifice your life, my son, for khilafat! (zaidi 1998, 593.) 7. southeast asia this section gives an overview of the pan-islamic links between the turks and the acehnese. the first official relations between the two countries started in the mid-16th century when portuguese conquered malacca and the sultanate of aceh petitioned the sublime porte for military support from the caliph against the aggressor. the ottoman sultan suleyman the magnificent (r. 1520-66), responded to the call of both sultans qutb-ud-din bahadur shah (d.1537) of gujarat, and sultan alauddin ri‘ayat shah al-qahhar (r. 1537-71) of aceh. this bond was further cemented on the earnest request of the acehnese ruler to the ottoman sultan selim ii (r. 1566-74), who agreed to lend a hand to the aceh against the portuguese. however, the planned military assistance was disrupted and unable to reach aceh due to a zaidi rebellion in yemen. ottoman military experts sent to the region in the 16th century established a military academy named askar-i bayt al-muqaddas during the period of sultan iskandar muda. these soldiers permanently settled there and never returned to their homeland, and it is believed that these soldiers were buried in the turkish graveyard of banda aceh that exists today. this diplomatic relationship between the two states continued until the reign of sultan iskandar muda (r. 1607-36). after this there is no report of any official mission continued between the two states until the mid-19th century (qureshi 1985, 241-42; reid 1967, 267-68; schmidt 1992, 62; rozali 2014, 94-95; casale 2010, 59). diplomatic links were resumed when the acehnese sultan ibrahim mansur shah (r. 1838-70) sent an appeal to the ottoman sultan abdul majid i (r.1839-61) in 1849, swearing fealty to the ottoman caliphate. however, at this juncture the dwindling ottoman empire led to it being preoccupied with its own domestic troubles towards westernization, afar from its traditional islamic drive, until the pan-islamic vision of the last defacto caliph, sultan abdul hamid ii, who was very much concerned about the aceh-dutch war of 1870-1903. sultan abdul hamid ii effectively extended ottoman foreign policy worldwide due to the authority of the caliphate, and took very strong stances that forced the dutch to reverse their policy of seeking to restrict inhabitants of the ‘dutch east hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 25 indies’ from going on the hajj pilgrimage. pan-islamism broadened ottoman links to help the muslims of aceh from the dutch onslaught (schmidt 1992, 57; tekin and islam 2018, 1050). the ottoman sultans and their subjects displayed their concern for muslims worldwide. at the beginning of the 20th century, both states ceased to exist, but the islamic bond between their peoples was re-established a century later in 2004 after the acehnese tsunami, which reactivated islamic brotherhood in the form of turkish awqaf, red crescent, and individual charity organizations in aceh, which played a crucial role in rehabilitating the people by building/ restoring houses, schools, hostels, hospitals, clinics, mosques, orphanages, and giving scholarships to poor and needy students (schmidt 1992, 57; ozcan 1997, 27). 8. conclusion during the 19th century the development of industrial capitalism in europe led to european imperialism throughout the world, and muslim communities during the 19th century experienced numerous popular movements and state-led initiatives in response to the emerging new world order. at the political level, the traditional muslim empires (the most important of which were the ottomans in the middle east and mediterranean, the safavids in persia, and the mughals in india) seemed to be in inexorable decline. the territories under the auspices of the ottoman government shrank and the state was impoverished by a series of ruinous wars with russia and austria during the period (1768–1830), inaugurating a period of intense introspection and attempts at reform. in its formative period, during its continual expansions, the ottoman state was based on a war footing, extracting booty and taxes from conquered and subject peoples in exchange for living under the relative peace of ottoman rule. following the end of ottoman expansionism, military elites deprived of booty began turning to internal plunder during the 17th century, extorting onerous taxes and bribes from the populace, and strangling economic potential in bureaucracy and corruption. attempts to stop the rot, such as the auspicious incident (1826) and the tanzimat reforms (1839-76), appeared to make limited headway. the state sought to increase agricultural production and achieve social peace by gradually offering a variety of incentives to villagers, first to the christian peasants in the balkans and ultimately to the muslims, including the right to own land and freely sell their crops. however, it was never able to create the conditions to facilitate industrial capitalist development on par with the 26 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism... european states that increasingly encroached upon and colonised former ottoman territories. this paper finds that the most significant attempt to reinvigorate the ottoman state and the muslim ummah in general was achieved by sultan abdul hamid ii, at the cost of bankruptcy. under his pan-islamic programme, the ottoman state became a bastion of anticolonial resistance and practical financial and logistical assistance to promote socioeconomic development. he created far-reaching and profound links with muslim communities around the world, giving hope and succour to millions of muslims, and providing a model of resistance that was followed by generations of anticolonial leaders, muslim and non-muslim alike, including abul kalam azad (raímat allah ‘alaih) (d. 1958), mahatma gandhi (d. 1948), and muhammad ali jinnah (raímat allah ‘alaih) (d. 1948) who ultimately ended the british empire in india, and soekarno and mahathir who built modern indonesia and malaysia. the historical experience of ottoman pan-islamism offers scope for modern efforts toward socio-economic development in the spirit of muslim cooperation, which can be explored by further research on similar phenomena, in a state and non-governmental organizational context. sultan abdul hamid ii and pan-islamism marked a sea change, between the inexorable managed decline of ancient non-european civilizations, seen in the end of mughal india, qing china, and the indo-malay sultanates during the 18th and 19th centuries, and a new dawn of the possibility of genuine resistance to occupation and domination among the peoples of the muslim world, potentially involving civil society actors as manifest by the muslim responses of south asia, with the scope for positive socioeconomic development without capitulating to the imperialists’ demands. it was only through the disease of nationalism that the imperialists were able to divide and conquer the peoples of africa and asia, but the case of pan-islamism offers a transcendent humanitarian ideology that can support mutual cooperation, support, and respect among muslims and with others that can offer a genuine path toward political and social freedom that remains as relevant today, in the era of imf domination, as it was in the era of the european empires. references the holy qur’én abu abdullah muhammad bin ismail bin ibrahim bin al-mughaira al-jufri al-bukhari, øaíêí bukhéri hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 1 27 abu al-husayn muslim ibn al-hajjaj al-qushayri, øaíêí muslim ali, maulana mohammad. my life, a fragment: an autobiographical sketch, edited by mushirul hasan, 261. new delhi: manohar publishers and distributers, 1999. burton, richard francis, sind revisited: with notices of the anglo-indian army; railroads; past, present, and future, etc. london: richard bentley and son, 1877. casale, giancarlo, the ottoman age of exploration. new york: oxford university press, 2010. david lelyveld. aligarh’s first generation: muslim solidarity in british india. princeton: princeton university press, 1978 by ekrem burga ekinci, “hejaz railway: a historic line to islam’s holiest cities” (daily sabah, october 28, 2015). https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2016/10/28/hejaz-railway-a-historic-line-toislams-holiest-cities farooqi, naimur rahman. “pan-islamism in the nineteenth century.” islamic culture 57, no. 4 (october 1983), 283–296. philip k hitti. history of the arabs from the earliest times to the present. london: macmillan publishers ltd, 1970. edward j. jurji, the cambridge history of islam: the central islamic lands; the further islamic lands: islamic society and civilization. (cambridge: at the university press, 1970), edited by p. m. holt, ann k. s. lambton, and bernard lewis. the central islamic lands from pre-islamic times to the first world war, journal of church and state 13 no. 3, (autumn 1971), 523–526, https://doi.org/ 10.1093/jcs/13.3.523 khudadad khan, lubb-i-tarikh-i-sindh :the soul of sindhi history, edited by nabi bakhsh khan baluch, silsilah-i-nasharat-i anjuman-i sindhi 13. karachi: sindhi adabi board, 1959. mehrdad kia. “pan-islamism in late nineteenth-century iran.” journal of middle eastern studies 32, no. 1 (january 1996), 30–52. mir hussain ali khan kirmani. the neshani hyduri. translated by w. miles. calcutta: susil gupta (pvt). ltd, 1958. h. t. lambrick, sir charles napier and sind. oxford: clarendon press, 1952. barbara daly metcalf. islamic revival in british india: deoband, 1860-1900. princeton: princeton university press, 1982. minault, gail. the khilafat movement: religious symbolism and political mobilization in india. new delhi: oxford university press, 1999. nadim, khalid. shibli ki aap biti: shibli’s own story. azamgarh: darul mussanefin shibli academy, 2014. nadvi, syed sulaiman. kulliyat-i-shibli: the collected works of shibli. azamgarh: darul musannifin shibli academy, 2012. nadvi, syed sulaiman.. hayat-i-shibli: life of shibli. azamgarh: darul musannefin shibli academy, 2015. niemeijer, a. c. the khilafat movement in india, 1919–1924. amsterdam: springer, 1981. ochsenwald, william. the hejaz railroad. charlottesville: university press of virginia, 1980. 28 pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism... ozcan, azmi. pan-islamism: indian muslims, the ottomans and britain (1877–1924). leiden: new york: brill, 1997. pay, salih. “indian muslims, ottoman empire and caliphate during colonial period.” international journal of business and social science 6, no. 2 (2015), 284–289. aijazul haq quddusi. tarikh-i-sindh: history of sindh 3, lahore: matba’ qaisar academy, 2004. i. a. qureshi, ulema in politics: a study relating to the political activities of the ulema in the south-asian subcontinent from 1556 to 1947. delhi: renaissance publishing house, 1985. m. n. qureshi. pan-islam in british indian politics: a study of the khilafat movement, 1918–1924. leiden: brill, 1999. anthony reid. “nineteenth century pan-islam in indonesia and malaysia.” journal of asian studies 26, no. 2 (february, 1967), 267–283. e. a. rozali. “aceh-ottoman relation in bustan al-salatin.” mediterranean journal of social sciences 5, no. 9 (december, 2014), 93–100. schmidt. through the legation window 1876–1926: four essays on dutch, dutchindian and ottoman history. leiden: netherlands historisch-archaelogisch institute te istanbul, jan. 1992. t. e. sepetcioglu. “the image of turks among indian muslims: the case of balkan wars.” journal of ottoman legacy studies 2, no. 2 (2015), 50–73. tekin, alaeddin, and arshad islam. “turkish waqf after the 2004 aceh tsunami.” intellectual discourse 26 (december 2018), 1047–1064. usul, ibrahim (edited). the hejaz railway. istanbul: albaraka türk, 1999. wasti, s. tanvir. “the 1877 ottoman mission to afghanistan.” middle eastern studies 30, no. 4 (december 2006), 956–962. zaidi, ali jawad. hamari qaumi shaeri: our national poetry. lucknow: uttar pradesh urdu academy, 1998. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 9 identifying the optimal cash waqf linked sukuk: indonesian experience dr. rifki ismal , indonesiabank indonesia and tazkia institute rifki_ismal@yahoo.comemail: 22-07-3accepted on: 2 22-05-received on: 27 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.500 abstract the national waqf body (bwi) and ministry of finance (mof) have implemented a model called cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) and issued the government of indonesia sukuk (islamic securities) namely sukuk waqf indonesia (swi) in 2020. the intention behind applying cwls model is to accelerate waqf as one of the islamic social funds and particularly, to optimize the collection of cash waqf with islamic securities to serve the public and at the same time to diversify the sovereign securities (sukuk) in the islamic financial market. indeed, it is very crucial to assess the feasibility of the cwls model as a new sovereign sukuk instrument in the market despite its sharia compliant aspect. especially, it needs to undergo a robust academic assessment such as formulation of the model, optimal level of each party such as the government, waqif, waqf management agencies (nadzhir), etc . this is the objective and main motivation of the research. the paper will answer the following research questions: (i) what is the quantitative formula of swi model especially swi issuers and holders? what is the formula of the optimal impacts of swi model, taking into account two types of waqif? finally, what is the optimal formula for project financing, given the total cash waqf investment? then, the paper technically constructs and develops the quantitative formulas of swi instrument namely bwi, ministry of finance (mof), waqf management agencies (nadzhir), partners of nadzhir and waqf investors (waqif). swi formulation is derived based on swi’s terms and conditions, cash flow, intentions of waqf investors and tenor of swi. later, the optimal impacts of swi are measured by formulating the present and future values of waqf investment to assess the net present value (npv) and limit theories to find variables determining the optimal swi impacts on the public via project financing taking into account two types of waqif namely temporary waqif and permanent waqif. finally, the paper contributes to the academic assessment of cwls model (swi instrument) particularly, it identifies variables determining the https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.500 10 identifying the optimal … optimal implementation of cwls model which might benefit the waqf stakeholders. keywords: cash waqf, sukuk, nadzhir, cwls model 1. background the modern approach to managing islamic endowment (waqf) is allowing cash as another type of waqf. practically, waqf takes the form of physical assets such as land, house, car and, buildings but lately, other types of assets such as islamic securities, insurance, including cash are being accepted as waqf, as long as they are used for public benefits and comply with islamic principles. in indonesia, cash waqf is stipulated in: (i) indonesia islamic council (majelis ulama indonesia – mui) verdict (fatwa) number 29 the year 2002 on cash waqf and, (ii) national waqf body (bwi) regulation number 1 the year 2009 on guide for cash waqf development1. fortunately, indonesia has a huge potential for cash waqf. at least, its amount is between idr20 billion – idr25 billion or usd1.42 billion – usd 1.78 billion coming from potential waqf donators (companies, private including individuals and government)2. this cash waqf fund is available to finance public infrastructures such as public hospitals, state schools, mosques, and, traditional markets3. a huge amount of cash waqf can even potentially finance some public infrastructures such as airports and, sports centers (football fields). assuming that the government is the one to provide the public (social) facilities, compared to financing it with commercial funds (which require a return to be paid by the government to the investors), financing with cash waqf can give some benefits to the government, particularly; cash waqf does not require any payment of return as waqf itself is one of the charity (gracious) instruments in islam4. a return paid in waqf contract (if any) is considered a kind payment of return in order just to appreciate the social investors (waqf investors or waqif). hence, occupying cash waqf can lessen the government budget particularly to pay for compensation (for example: return, interest) of the commercial funds. bwi and the government (ministry of finance) of indonesia have a model called cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) and has issued the sovereign sukuk (islamic securities) namely sukuk waqf indonesia (swi) in 20205 as a realization of the cwls model. cwls is derived from the experience of indonesia in developing waqf, optimizing cash waqf and at the same time diversifying sukuk instrument in the islamic financial market. bwi attempts to increase the collection and utilization of cash waqf by constructing cwls model and fortunately, the government of indonesia is also willing to hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 11 diversify its sovereign sukuk series by issuing a new series named swi, which is waqf based sovereign sukuk. even though cwls has had a verdict (fatwa) from the national sharia board (dsn) to approve the sharia aspect of the model, there has been no academic assessment or theoretical formulation to formulate and asses cwls model or to measure the optimal impact of swi in assisting the government to construct social projects. moreover, no secondary data of swi is available since it has been issued only one time so far; in march 2020. in fact, it is very crucial to assess the feasibility of the cwls model as a new sovereign sukuk instrument in the market despite its sharia compliant instrument. as such, the paper attempts to comprehend the sharia aspect of the model (fatwa) by conducting the academic assessment by formulating the swi model, and determining the optimal level of each party; the government, waqif, waqf management agencies (nadzhir), etc. particularly, the paper will answer the following research questions: (i) what is the quantitative formula of swi model, especially swi issuers and holders? what is the formula of the optimal impacts of swi model, taking into account two types of waqif? and finally, what is the optimal formula for project financing given the total cash waqf investment? the paper endeavours to conduct an academic assessment, especially to develop the quantitative formula of swi to assist its application in the economy by considering the benefits of cash waqf and the need of the government to build public (social) projects (facilities). the cwls model involves some parties namely national waqf body (bwi), ministry of finance (mof), waqf management agencies (nadzhir), and partners of nadzhir and waqf investors (waqif). following the formulations of cwls model, the paper measures the optimal impacts of the model, taking into account the two types of waqifs namely; temporary waqif (who invest in cwls temporarily) and permanent waqif (who invest in cwls permanently). 2. literature review on cash waqf and sukuk indonesia has some potential in waqf for examples6: (i) there are 414,829 locations of waqf land with the total areas of 55,259 hectres, (ii) the total amount of waqf assets is idr2050 trillion and, (iii) total collections of cash waqf is amunted idr180 trillon per year. however, there are some challenges in utilizing cash waqf in indonesia, mainly7: 12 identifying the optimal … 1. lack of public understanding on cash waqf and hence the need for bwi to intensify waqf socialization and promotion programs. 2. less professional waqf management agencies (nadzhir) which leads to less optimal cash waqf management to be used to finance the social projects. 3. less performed cash waqf collectors which include bwi and islamic financial instutions as waqf collectors (simply called lks-pwu). the development of cwls model and issuance of swi are solutions to increase the public understanding on cash waqf and to improve the performance of nadzhir, since cwls model requires professional nadzhir and to accelerate cash waqf collections via sukuk issuance (swi issuance). referring to mui fatwa number 29 year 2002 on cash waqf, terms and conditions of cash waqf are as following8: 1. cash waqf is a charitable action conducted by a person, an institution or legal institution in the form of cash money. 2. included in the term of money are the islamic securities. 3. cash waqf is lawful in islamic law. 4. cash waqf can only be utilized for sharia (islamic jurisprudence) based activities. 5. principle of cash waqf has to be guaranteed: non tradable, not to be given and not to be inherited. furthermore, some of the most important points of bwi regulation number 1 year 2009 in relation to cwls are: 1. article 3: waqf funds are accepted either permanently or temporarily (at least 5 years). 2. article 5: waqf funds can be paid to islamic financial instutions which are legally permissible to receive waqf funds (simply called lkspwu). 3. article 8: lks-pwu issues both temporary and permanent waqf certificates depending on types of waqf funds. 4. article 10: waqf funds should be managed for productive projects for the sake of the public, directly and indirectly. 5. article 13: benefits (charitable monetary compensation) can be extended to other social projects (public empowerment), directly or indirectly. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 13 in addition to those two references, the national sharia board (dsn) of the indonesia islamic council (dsn-mui) has issued the dsn opinion with regard to the idea of cwls from bwi, which is dsn opinion number b-109/dsn-mui/ii/2019 regarding the compliance of cwls with islamic principles9. based on dsn letter, in principle, cwls idea has complied with islamic principle as long as it follows: (i) terms and conditions of cash waqf principles (the one stipulated in mui verdict number 29 year 2002 on cash waqf) and, (ii) requirement to manage waqf funds as regulated in bwi regulation number 1 year 2009. those three references are followed and become the basis in the formulation of cwls model in order to make it sharia compliance. since cash waqf is linked with sukuk (islamic securities), some requirements of sukuk have to be considered, particularly10: 1. every sukuk issuance has to have a real project, in this case, a public (social) project becomes the underlying of sukuk issuance. 2. sukuk issuer can be the obligor. and in a cwls model, government is the issuer of cwls. 3. sukuk can generate income for its investors. since cwls is a social (charity) based sukuk, return (coupon) is not compulsory. 4. in maturity of sukuk, its principal needs to be returned to the investors. cwls (referring to waqf verdict and regulation) can return the principal to its investors (waqif) if it is a temporary waqf or does not return it to its investors if it is permanent waqf. in addition to some facts from the previous studies and verdicts above, there are two types of cash waqf namely temporary and permanent cash waqf with some unique features based on waqf act number 41 year 2004, which are11: no features temporary cash waqf permanent cash waqf 1 tenor (duration) 5 years no minimum duration 2 nominal minimum idr10 million no minimum amount 3 investment investment product of lks-pwu islamic investment product 14 identifying the optimal … 4 principle amount paid back to investor never returned to investor lately, some researches on cwls have been conducted to stress on some points; firstly, the integrated cwls model for community food security by modifying the central bank of bahrain sukuk model with a salam contract12; it constructs and proposes the design of cwls model but does not produce the optimal formula of the sukuk issuance. secondly, the paper conducts a research on the model of cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) as the instrument for food security in indonesia sdgs and limits its assessment to only analyzing cwls for food security in the sdg context but not for other purposes13. thirdly, an analysis of cwls model as a financing instrument for economic recovery from the impacts of covid-19 pandemic14. this research adopts a descriptive qualitative method to find out whther that cwls can become a sustainable islamic financing instrument to finance the economy after the pandemic. however, it does not assess each party (i.e nadzhir, waqif, lkspwu, etc) which is involved in cwls. fourthly, there is another paper which assesses cwls for the economic security during the pandemic period15. but again, it focuses only on the pandemic period and is not large enough to capture the general purposes of cwls. fifthly, a paper on evaluation of the issues, challenges and future direction of cwls (namely swr 001) issuance. it finds that issues and challenges of cwls are new product announcement, limited partners for waqf distribution, low coupon rate, lack of public understanding and, incomplete literacy16. for the future cwls issuance, the paper suggests that waqf stakeholders need to improve communication strategies, ease of service and professionalism of nadzhir17. nevertheless, the same as the previous researches, the paper does not develop and provide formulas of the optimal waqf investments by waqif. regarding financing the government project, sixthly, the research explores cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) as an alternative instrument for infrastructure financing. but, this paper merely adopts a qualitative method to propose a cwls model without providing quantitative formulas of the optimal social (waqf) infrastructure projects, managed by nadzhir18. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 15 however, the paper at hand is very different and more specific than the six researches above in terms of: 1. using parties involved in cwls issuance and employing a quantitative method which is mathematical formulation based on net present value (npv) concept and project finance theory to calculate the financial implication of cwls investment, 2. deriving optimal formulas of swi issuance, swi holders and waqif investments both temporary waqif and permanent waqif and, 3. dentifying optimal conditions of the cwls invesments. 3. research objectives and method 3.1. research objectives the paper conducts an academic assessment especially to develop the quantitative formula of swi instrument to assist its application in the economy by considering the benefits of cash waqf and the need of the government to build public (social) projects (facilities) taken into account parties involved in the model namely the national waqf body (bwi), ministry of finance (mof), waqf management agencies (nadzhir), partners of nadzhir and waqf investors (waqif). then, it finds the optimal formula for the amount of cash waqf, project financing and both temporary and permanent waqf by using finance formula since this also answers the research questions listed previously. 3.2. research method technically, the paper adopts project finance theory as it constructs a financing model for project financing using cash waqf. project finance has two phases namely; construction and development phase and, operation phase. it then engages some parties such as: (i) project sponsors (entities that manages the project), (ii) borrower as the user of funds, (iii) financial advisors, (iv) lender which lends fund (liquidity) to finance the project and, (v) construction company which construct the project19. figure 1 below describes parties engaged in the project finance. in relation to the case of the paper, the first party is the regulator or bwi which regulates the waqf project. the second and the seven parties are the lending bank and sponsors which is waqif (waqf investors), the third party is the suppliers of raw materials for the project construction, the fourth party is the plan operator or ministry of finance (mof) which manages and operates the waqf project. the fifth party is the constructor which is hired by mof to 16 identifying the optimal … construct the waqf project. the sixth party is the project user or the public (mauquf ‘alaih). source: modified from4 figure 1: parties engaged in project finance in essence, bwi is very important, especially to ensure that the waqf project complies with the state’s rules on waqf and sharia (islamic jurisprudence) principles for waqf. lending bank and sponsors take part as fund providers to finance the waqf project. next, supplier of raw materials, plan operators and constructor are parties determining the construction and development of the project such as duration of the project, quality of the infrastructure, etc. finally, project users are the public who will benefit from the project. further, quantitative method which is, formulating quantitative equation based on cost of equity function and, net present value (npv) formula, is employed. cost of equity (ke) is formulated as  fmfe rrrk  in which rf is the return coming from risk free asset, rm is the market return and β is risk of the securities20. the cash flow of the project finance is determined by gross revenue minus gross expenditures (such as operating cost, taxes, pre debt service, drawdown, debt and interest repayments). technically, the future value of the project (fv) is formulated as      n lt ln rcffv 1 in which cf is the cash flow of the project and r is the rate of return of the project21. the optimal future value comes from the partial derivative of the fv equation. taking into account project financing and cash flow of the project, the paper constructs formula of swi in the following section. even though investors of cwls are social investors who do not expect any return from waqf investment, measuring the value of hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 17 current investment with respect to the future values (simply called the present value or pv) is always requested and formulated as:  nr pv   1 1 22. then, the net present value (npv) represents the net value (differencies) between the future and present values. the prospective project or asset is shown by a positive npv while the negative or zero npv is the less prospective or even can be perceived as the worst project. since the cwls model is composed of temporary and permanent waqf investments, the optimal investment of the latter is assumed to be continuous random investment, independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) variable, and is counted with the infinite limit formulation of: p p wlim  ~p(pµ, pσ2)23. this means that when p approaches infinity, the sum converges to normal distribution. 4. cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) model and swi instrument to answer a set of research questions before, the next sub sections constructs the quantitative formulas of the swi model, swi issuance, swi holders and finally the optimal impact of swi model. 4.1. formulation of swi model in addition to sukuk requirements mentioned above, even though swi is not yet being issued by the government, formulation of cwls model still has to consider its terms and conditions which are: 1. swi is issued by ministry of finance. 2. swi is offered via private placement only to bwi (nadzhir) which collects waqf funds from nadzhir partners. 3. the minimum amount of private placement is idr50 billion. 4. tenor of swi is 5 years and renewable upon requested. 5. the government pays coupon to swi holders (waqif) just to appreciate for their social investment in swi. 6. upon agreement by waqif, swi coupon is used to finance other (supporting) social projects, related directly or indirectly to the swi project. as in figure 2, cwls model starts from waqf investors (waqif), both permanent waqif and temporary waqif who invest in 18 identifying the optimal … cwls model (swi instrument) and place the funds in nadzhir partners (both lks-pwu or non lks-pwu) (arrow number 1) who are receivers of waqf funds. the funds are then placed by nadzhir partners in nadzhir (bwi), (arrow number 2a) and followed by the issuance of cwls certificate (arrow number 2b). when the waqf funds have exceeded the minimum amount of private placement in swi, bwi (nadzhir) places them in swi, issued by ministry of finance (arrow number 3a). the government then issues swi certificate to bwi as the legal document for placing fund in swi (arrow number 3b). basically, the government has a list of social projects (facilities, infrastructures, etc) to be financed by waqf funds under swi instrument. once waqf funds are received, the government determines social project to be financed which complies with waqf criteria as well (arrow number 4). as the government intends to appreciate waqif (waqf investors), it pays coupon to swi holders (arrow number 5). figure 2: cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) model and swi instrument upon receiving coupon payment, bwi leaves it to nadzhir partners (distributor of waqf funds) (arrow number 7) to reconfirm if such a coupon is agreed to be used upon for supporting the related social projects (arrow number 8). in the maturity time, the government (ministry of finance) returns the principal of swi to bwi (arrow number 9) which is then extended to nadzhir partners (arrow number 10). for temporary waqif, nadzhir partners return the principal after which, they may decide to continue or end the social investment (waqf). whilst, for the permanent waqif (arrow number 11), the principal is non-returnable as they have already released the ownership of the cash waqf, as such nadzhir (bwi) can keep rolling over it in cwls model. 4.2. formulation of swi issuance hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 19 based on swi model above, the issuance of swi (wt) comes from both temporary waqf (ws) and permanent waqf (wp) or wt = ws + wp. social project (pt) is financed from swi funds after deducting some funds for liquidity (lt) purposes (such as non-operation cost, miscellaneous cost, etc) or pt = wt lt. given the certain tenor of swi, pt is formulated as: nt ppppp   ...321 (1) ɵp is proportion of pt from the beginning up to the end of period of swi, or simply  n nt pp 1  (2) meanwhile, liquidity (lt) connects with the amount of waqf funds and can be formulated as nt wwwwl   ...321 (3) or  n nt wl 1  (4) hence, the optimal social projects pt is pt = max (wt lt). 4.3. formulation of swi holders (waqf investors or waqif) as waqf investors, both types of waqif (permanent and temporary) invest preliminary as i0 (initial social investment) which is i0 = w0. during the waqf period, they will get coupon (mt) regularly (for example yearly) or simply formulated as: nt mmmmm  ...321 (5) whilst, m is determined as a certain portion of the waqf investment or mn = βwn as such: nt wwwwm   ...321 (6) or 20 identifying the optimal …  n nt wm 1  (7) thus, in the maturity time of swi (im), the government will pay the temporary waqif the principal of waqf (wsm) plus coupon (essentially, the waqif released the coupon back to the project as mentioned before): ism = wsm + mt because (wsm = w0) (8) then  n tnsm wwi 1 0  (9) and practically it is only 0wi sm  ism is the value of the matured investment of the temporary waqif. for the permanent waqif, they will not get either (principal and coupon) because all of them have been released to the nadzhir for the sake of the public. but, the government counts their social investment as: pnppppnppppm wwwwwwwwi   ...... 321321 (10) or   n n pnpnpm wwi 1 1  (11) 4.4. optimal impact of swi a. from temporary waqif as they invest temporarily, these type of social investors have specific tenor of investment. assuming they only invest one time (no roll over at the end of the swi contract), their period of swi is only 5 years. further, principal of waqf will be taken in the maturity time while coupon is used for supporting the social project. then, formulations of this type of waqif are below: waqf activities are hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 21 snsssnsst wwwwwww   ...... 2121 (12) or  n ntsm wwi 1  (similar to equation 9) (13) liquidity spending in the tenor is  n nt wl 1  (similar to equation 4) (14) whilst project financing is pt = wt lt, then               n n n ntt wwwp 11  (15) or               n n n ntt wwwp 11  (16) as assumed, they invest only in 1 round (5 year), the formulations above become: 5215215 ...... ssssss wwwwwww   (17)  5 1 55 nwwi  (18)  5 1 5 nwl  (19) then,               5 1 5 1 55 nn wwwp  or    ttt wwwp  4555  (20) the optimal condition of the investment in this period is: 22 identifying the optimal …    4155    tw p (21) and this is achieved if: 5 54     and   4 15     (22) b. from permanent waqif as they invest permanently, these type of social investors do not have specific tenor of investment and have even released their ownership forever for the sake of the public benefit. assuming the investment keeps rolling over and coupon is also used for supporting the social project. then, formulations of this type of waqif are below: waqf activities are pnpppnppt wwwwwww   ...... 2121 or (23)   n pn n pnpm wwi 11  (24) liquidity spending in the tenor is  n nt wl 1  (similar to equation 4) (25) whilst project financing is pt = wt lt, then                  n n n n n pnt wwwp 11  (26) or               n n n n n pnt wwwp 111  (27) as the permanent waqif permanently invest in swi, the optimal impact is: hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 23       p p p p p p wflimwflimwflimp     (28) considering the very last permanent investment is wp, then: a.   pp wp wwflim p    and   pp wp wwflim p    thus   pp wp wwflim p   (29) b.   pp wp wwflim p     and   pp wp wwflim p     thus   pp wp wwflim p    (30) c.   pp wp wwflim p     and   pp wp wwflim p     thus   pp wp wwflim p    (31) d. ppp wwwp   or    1pwp (32) finally, as stipulated in the terms and conditions of swi, the minimum placement of waqf funds in swi are idr50 billion and if the permanent waqif permanently place idr50 billion in swi, then the permanent impact would be:       p p p p p p wflimwflimwflimp 505050     then, (33)  505050 p or    50p (34) 5. findings of the research: the optimal features of swi from the formulations and calculations above, some findings of the optimal features of swi in relation to maximum project financing, impacts of the temporary waqif and permanent waqif are in the following: no main features formulas 1 total cash waqf invesment wt = ws + wp 2 max project financing pt = max (wt – lt) 24 identifying the optimal … 3 max impact temporary waqif               n n n ntt wwwp 11  4 max impact permanent waqif       p p p p p p wflimwflimwflimp     table 1: formulas of the optimal cwls features table 1 shows key success formulas in applying cwls program by issuing swi. first, the key success in the issuance of cwls depends on both the values of temporary waqf and permanent waqf. certainly, the permanent waqf promises a more optimal waqf project financing than the temporary one. however, considering that waqf is not yet well educated and socialized among social investors (waqif), it needs intensive promotion of cwls program particularly investment in swi. thus, more issuance of swi is highly recommended to generate the optimal waqf project financing. the ministry of finance (mof) and bwi play an important role to ensure more frequent issuances of swi and social projects to be financed by the instrument. second, the max project financed by cash waqf relies on the max values of the total collected cash waqf minus liquidity to be reserved. in this case, an efficient usage of liquidity (such as efficient construction, cost efficiency, robust liquidity management including liquidity risk mitigation) can maximize waqf project financing. however, since cwls program is the brand new type of sovereign sukuk in indonesia, an optimal liquidity management requires strong committment of the government, bwi, nadzhir, lks-pwu, constructor of the projects and other related parties. this committment can be realized by having (for example) a memorandum of understanding (mou) among parties for the mid and long terms project financing (financed by swi issuances). third, the max impact of temporary waqif is determined by the total waqf and coupons coming from waqf investment minus liquidity for the executing the project. in this sense, the ministry of finance (mof), bwi and related parties in construction and operation of the waqf project have to optimally utilize it in order to receive maximum benefits and pay well expected coupon to the temporary waqif. even though temporary waqif are experted to re-donate their return (coupun) to futher support the needies (users of the waqf project). the last but not the least, the max impact of the permanent waqif is the combination of the unlimited allocation of both regulator hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 25 waqf and coupon minus liquidity to do the project. similar to optimizing the temporary waqf investment, maximing the utilization of waqf project becomes one of the key success factors to increase the contribution of permanen waqif. then, a well communicated cwls model to the public is a must to prolong the maximum impacts of swi in the public. 6. conclusion swi instrument as the implementation of cwls model promises benefits for the government (ministry of finance) as the issuer of swi. these are as follows: 1. swi might ease the government budget spending, especially to provide public (social) facilities such as public school projects and public hospitals because cash waqf is a zero cost of fund financing instrument. the coupon paid by the government is purely and simply a form of an appreciation of the government to both permanent and temporary waqif. 2. swi does not require any payment of return and thus the project can potentially be optimized for the sake of the users (public) which are both muslim and non-muslim. 3. swi coupon paid to temporary waqif can even be reused to support the public projects, which gives a double social impacts to the society. the temporary waqif only expects to receive their initial waqf investment at the end of the swi period. 4. permanent waqif permanently places their funds in the instrument. hence, its social investment impact is even more significant to the economy and society (public) than the temporary waqif. formulating the swi instrument suggests that optimization of swi is mostly determined by the amount of waqf funds placed in swi, coupon rate as it re-supports the project financing and less liquidity ratio besides the length (tenor) of swi. however, taking into account, the outputs of the paper, swi can potentially be a new islamic based fiscal instrument to serve the public and take part in the national economic development of a country. even though this is initiated by indonesia, other countries having similar interest and islamic finance industry such as malaysia, pakistan, bangladesh and middle eastern countries, might consider this sukuk innovation and take benefit from this assessment. 7. limitation of the research the paper limits its assessment on the formulation of clws model, particularly the swi instrument and finds the optimal 26 identifying the optimal … formulas for waqf investment, project financing and the impacts of both temporary and permanent waqf to complement the stakeholder’s understanding when executing the cwls model. nevertheless, it does not capture the market and investors sides such as market and investors’ perceptions and expections and the social impacts of cwls model. this might become areas for the future research. notes and references 1badan wakaf indonesia (bwi), “regulation number 1 year 2009 on guide for cash waqf development” accessed january 7, 2020, https://www.bwi.go.id/3652/2019/09/regulasi-wakaf/peraturan-bwi-no-1-tahun2009-tentang-pedoman-pengelolaan-dan-pengembangan-wakaf-uang/. 2bank mumalat indonesia, “cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls)” accessed january 10, 2020, https://www.bankmuamalat.co.id/ziswaf. 3kompas, “how big the potential of indonesian waqf funds is?” accessed january 7, 2020, https://money.kompas.com/read/2018/10/15/193728426/ seberapa-besar-potensi-wakaf-uang-di-indonesia. 4muhammad l. hamidi, andrew worthington, tracey west and rifki ismal, “the prospect for islamic social banking in indonesia,” journal of islamic monetary, economics and finance 3, no. 2 (2019). 5republika, “the success of cwls: due to committment of many parties” accessed january 7, 2020, https://republika.co.id/berita/q70qyl383/cwls-sukses-kemenkeuberkat-sinergi-banyak-pihak. 6knks, “the digital development and integration of the national waqf data” accessed may 26, 2022, https://knks.go.id/isuutama/29/pengembangan-digitalisasidan-integrasi-data-wakaf nasional#:~:text=berdasarkan%20data%20sistem%20informasi%20wakaf,mencap ai%20rp180%20triliun%20per%20tahun. 7diah sulistyani, nur asikin, soegiantoand bambang sadono, “the implementation and development of cash waqf in indonesia,” jurnal usm law review 3, no. 2 (2022). 8majelis ulama indonesia (mui), “indonesia ulama council (mui) verdict number 29 year 2002” accessed january 7, 2020, http://mui.or.id/wpcontent/uploads/files/fatwa/29.-wakaf-uang.pdf. 9”national sharia board (dsn) opinion number b-109/dsn-mui/ii/2019 regarding the compliance of cwls with islamic principles”, indonesia national sharia board unpublished document (2019). 10international sharia research academy (isra), “sukuk: principles and practices,” (kuala lumpur: isra and sc publication, 2017). 11junaidi abdullah, “mechanism and cash waqf development in indonesia,” jurnal zakat dan wakaf (ziswaf) 4, no. 1 (june 2017). 12patria yunita, “cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) model: for indonesia sustainable food security,”al awqaf: jurnal wakaf dan ekonomi islam 13, no. 1(2020). 13kiki h. siregar, chon c. r. manday, bakhtiar efendi, “model of cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls): the indonesia food security instrument sdg,” jurnal kajian ekonomi dan kebijakan publik 6, no. 2 (july 2021). 14muhammad idhiel, fitriawan rahman, nurwahidin, naif adnan, “an analysis of cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) model as a financing instrument for economic recovery from covid-19 pandemic impacts”. jurnal bimas islam 14, no. 1 (2021). 15nur sa’idatulrohmah, “cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) for economic security during covid-19 pandemic,” adilla jurnal ekonomi syariah 5, no. 1 (january 2022) . 16muhammad abdul mannan, “linking islamic commercial and social finance with special reference to cash waqf as new strategy of interest-free-micro-credit for family empowerment of the poor towards establishing world social bank: a case hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 27 study approach”, journal of islamic monetary, economics and finance3, (2018): 1 24. 17rozaq muhammad yasin, “cash waqf linked sukuk: issues, challenges and future direction in indonesia,” jurnal ekonomi dan bisnis islam 7, no. 1 (january june 2021): 100 – 112. 18ubaidillah, masyhuri, nanik wahyuni, “cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls): an alternative instrument for infrastructure financing,” indonesian interdiciplinary journal of sharia economics (iijse) 4, no. 1 (july 2021): 35-49. 19andrew fight, introduction to project finance (oxford: butterworth heinemann, elsevier, 2006). 20stefano gatti, project finance in theory and practice: designing, structuring, and financing private and public projects, (london: academic press, elsevier, 2008). 21ing petr jiricek and mgr zdenka dostalova, financial management, 2nd edition, (zcek republic: vysoka skola polytechnicka jihlava, jihlava university of technlogy, 2010). 22pamela peterson drake and frank j. fabozzi, the basic of finance: an introduction to financial market, business finance and portoflio management (usa: john wiley and sons, 2010). 23michael b. miller, mathematics and statistics for financial risk management (usa: john wiley and sons, 2012). e:\e\islamicus\2021\no. 2\editorial islamicus.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 7 editorial contemporary world has a number of challenges for muslim ummah. foes of muslims know very well that islam gives the best way of life and gives the best code of conduct for human beings. they are aware of the fact that the will of the muslims for transforming their lives as per teachings of islam, would lead to their renaissance. therefore, they try to deviate muslims from the right path and perplex them in unnecessary debates, and fascinate them in unethical practices. they endeavour to prove islam as a religion that teaches atrocity, heinousness and cruelty. on the other hand they try to detach them from the principal and basic source of knowledge and perfect code of life, the holy qur’én. this issue of the hamdard islamicus makes a beautiful and meaningful collage of articles replying forcefully to some of the said challenges by reasonable logics. it suggests executable ways for removing human evils from muslims and create a helpful atmosphere for building and improving islamic society. the first article “islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied by prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam” rejects the assertion of islam’s opponents that islam is a religion of terrorism and violence. it proves in detail that islam is the comprehensive religion that exhorts on compassion to take care of all the creatures in the world including animals. therefore, the allegation that islam encourages terrorism is absurd. the second article “religious value practices and micro enterprises’ performance in microcredit program” throws light on the practices of religious values and the enterprises’ performance in microcredit program. the findings of the study show that factors of religious values such as virtue, observance and persistence have a significant positive relationship with micro enterprises’ performance. this study foregrounds the blessings of islam appearing as the result of complying religious practice in trade activities as well. a distinct manifestation of the compassion exhorted by islam 8 editorial are parents of anyone. allah almighty himself the most merciful and beneficent has bestowed a great mercy and compassion in the parents creatures especially human beings. above it, islam gives a complete design of parent-child relationship. discussing this distinct feature, the third article of this issue “parenting is counseling: the relationship of the parent-child in islam” asserts that every child has its own personality, feelings and emotions, therefore the parent and child relationship needs to be revamped as per islamic guidance according to the individuality of each child. it is necessary to nurture the new generation in correct dimension and to develop it for being an asset for the entire nation. among other challenges faced by islam there is an alerting question for insurance. as islam discourages the conventional insurance, it was needed to modify conventional insurance to make it acceptable by islam. takaful insurance has been developed keeping this need in mind. in the fourth article of this issue “the determinants of family takaful demand in pakistan”, the authors have tried to analyse the relationship among the factors and family takaful demand in pakistan. the last article of this issue “rhetorical devices in the qur’én: grammatical shift and communicated subject matters in surah albaqarah” presents the great rhetoric of the holy qur’én in very own words of allah almighty. the holy qur’énic communication is abundant in rhetorical devices. grammatical shift or iltifét in arabic, as a rhetorical device, is considered a linguistic ornament that is used widespread in the holy qur’én. editor untitled hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 57 family takaful (islamic life insurance) in bangladesh: operational dilemmas and remedial approaches dr. issa khan department of shari’ah and management, academy of islamic studies, university of malaya, 50603, kuala lumpur, malaysia email: issa@um.edu.my dr. md. mahfujur rahman islamic businesses school, universiti utara malaysia, 06010, kedah, malaysia email: dr_mahfuj@yahoo.co.uk dr. azian bin madun department of shari’ah and management, academy of islamic studies, university of malaya, 50603, kuala lumpur, malaysia email: azianm@um.edu.my received on: 24-03-2022 accepted on: 28-01-2025 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.469 abstract takaful industry in bangladesh has been facing numerous problems. the study explores the operational dilemmas of family takaful (islamic life insurance) in bangladesh and recommends approaches to meet the challenges. a qualitative method is used in this study, using data from thirty-two respondents, along with officers and sharê‘ah board members of takaful companies, as well as takaful participants. the findings revealed a lack of legislation, regulations, and policies for the development family takaful in bangladesh. furthermore, mismanagement and profit-driven activities have adversely affected the family takaful industry in bangladesh. the ignorance of participants about the family takaful is another setback in establishing a sustainable takaful industry in bangladesh. the study proposed strategies to overcome the challenges such as the family takaful industry in bangladesh may use commercial contracts that give sharê‘ah-specific funding and adopt different models of takaful in accordance with the legislation of malaysia. the findings of the research will be immensely useful in overcoming the constraints that the family takaful in bangladesh is now confronting. mailto:issa@um.edu.my mailto:dr_mahfuj@yahoo.co.uk mailto:azianm@um.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.469 58 family takaful in bangladesh … keywords: family takaful, operational dilemmas, government, company, participants, remedial approaches, bangladesh. introduction takaful has been gaining momentum since its inception. the main contribution is from the muslim society especially in southeast asia, africa, and the gulf cooperation council (gcc) region as there is a large muslim population.1 in the realm of islamic finance, the equivalent of the insurance industry is known as takaful. the arabic word “takaful” is derived from “kafala”2 meaning to protect and guarantee.3 the concept of takaful dates back more than a thousand years .4 at the international muslim conference held in jeddah, king faisal invoked all muslim countries to reconstruct their banking systems in the light of sharê‘ah.5 because of this conference, a group of businessmen who had earlier established the islamic banking system in 1983 launched the takaful industry in the private sector of the country. ‘islami insurance bangladesh limited’ was established in 1999 as the first takaful company in bangladesh.6 bangladesh is a muslim majority country. therefore, local demand for takaful is growing in the country.7 currently, six full-fledged family takaful and three full-fledged general takaful companies are offering their services in the country.8 until today, separate rules and regulations have not been introduced by the government to guide the operations of takaful companies. the whole insurance industry is governed by the insurance act 2010, which conflicts with the principles of takaful, resulting in various obstacles to takaful companies.9 regardless of the conflicting principles between conventional insurance and takaful services, little research has been conducted on insurance in bangladesh, particularly the family takaful.10 these merits in-depth research into the field of family takaful in bangladesh. objectives and research questions of the study 1. the objective of the study is to identify the challenges that hinder the operation of the family takaful business in bangladesh and 2. to propose remedial strategies to overcome the challenges based on the objectives, two research questions can be formed: 1. what are the challenges of family takaful in bangladesh that hinder the operation of the family takaful business? and 2. what are the strategies can be proposed to overcome the challenges? hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 59 literature review definition of takaful takaful is defined by several muslim scholars as well as some islamic financial institutions, i.e. billah, et al11 defined: takaful is a mutual guarantee or assurance, based on the principles of al-‘aqd (contract), provided by a group of people living in the same society, against a well-defined risk or catastrophe affecting one’s life, property, or any possession of value. the islamic financial services board (ifsb) and the international association of insurance supervisors (iais)12 described takaful as: "the islamic counterpart of conventional insurance and exists in both life ("family") and general forms. it is based on the concepts of mutual help and solidarity". basically, takaful is an alternative to the conventional insurance system which follows the sharīʿah guidelines to provide the necessary services to its participants against any unexpected harm, damage, or loss if it happens among them. it is also called islamic insurance.13 types of takaful general takaful in most cases, a general takaful agreement is a short-term plan in which takaful participants make contributions and takaful firms invest and manage their contributions in a manner that is considered to be acceptable. because participants in general takaful often perceive their donations to be a contribution to their fellow participants, the tabarru‘ contract, also known as a gift, is most commonly employed in general takaful. there will be an annual distribution of an extra surplus that will be distributed to the members by the corporation.14 general takaful covers motor takaful, including the protection of private cars, motorcycles, and commercial vehicles, while non-motor takaful covers health, property, fire, personal accidents, and many more.15 family takaful family takaful is a long-term insurance in which most members plan to contribute in order to fulfill their long-term needs. the family takaful covers life, whole life, endowment takaful, universal takaful, marriage takaful, education plan, íajj and ‘umrah.16 most of the time, operators in family takaful split contributions into two parts: one goes into the participant's account, and the other goes into the subscriber's account (tabarru‘ account) to cover the losses of other participants. both accounts are invested in 60 family takaful in bangladesh … ways that are legal according to sharê‘ah. based on the contracts, the takaful operator gets paid a fee or a share of the investment profits.17 sharê‘ah principles of takaful most contemporary islamic scholars and regulatory bodies, i.e., muḥammad taqī usmanī and alī muḥiuddin al-qarah-dāghī, the accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi), the sharê‘ah advisory council (sac) of bank negara malaysia (bnm) strongly urge takaful companies to observe islamic principles in order to be sharê‘ah compliant for their islamic insurance services. the first principle is indemnity.18 it is a legal principle that stipulates the takaful operator to pay full compensation to the participant in the event of an actual loss when the company has adequate protection. this principle is widely used in general insurance, and rarely applies to life insurance and health insurance.19 the second principle is cooperation. most contemporary islamic scholars agree that the insurance policy is legally permissible when it is based on the principle of cooperation.20 the principle of tabarru‘ (donation) is a basic principle of takaful where every participant must have a sincere intention of cooperating with other participants in case of peril or difficulty.21 besides tabarru‘, the principles of muìārabah (profit-lose sharing) or wakālah (agency system) are also an important model of takaful.22 in the muìārabah contract, the company acts as a muìārib (entrepreneur), the participant acts as a rabbul mal (capital provider) and profit or loss is distributed according to the agreed ratio between the company and the participant. however, in the wakālah (agency) model, the company acts as an agent for the participants and charges fees for services that are provided to the participants on the basis of a fixed amount or an agreed profit ratio.23 all contracts should also be free from elements of ambiguity and all-important information in the contracts must be transparent between the takaful company and its participants.24 in terms of commitment, the participants must pay insurance premiums at a specific time that is agreed upon signing the contract. the takaful company should pay suitable compensation without delay and procrastination when a risk is encountered.25 the takaful contract is not intended to achieve material gain,26 rather it aims to provide help and assistance for each participant who suffers a loss. this is the principle of humanity.27 islam allows people to accumulate wealth and keep it for the future for the protection of society in a permissible manner according to sharê‘ah.28 the takaful company should observe all the provisions and principles of sharê‘ah in all business activities and investments and avoid illegal dealings.29 the internal sharê‘ah supervisory board is hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 61 also required to determine and monitor all activities, especially new products or services. the government should introduce dedicated regulations to monitor takaful activities through the sharê‘ah board.30 in the absence of regulations, takaful companies must form sharê‘ah boards to observe the activities of the takaful company.31 differences between takaful and conventional insurance takaful is an agreement between the participants to share joint responsibility for any loss or damage from the fund to which they donate collectively. table 1: key differences between takaful and conventional insurance sources :32and 33. issues takaful insurance regulatory framework sharê‘ah accepted laws, fatāwé, decisions of the sharê‘ah board, cases are solved based on sharê‘ah statutory law, case law, judgements of court, tradition and customs source of law holy qur’én, sunnah, consensus, analogy man-made and laws secular company relations the company works as an operator, trustee, manager, and entrepreneur buyer and seller advisory board sharê‘ah advisory board is compulsory sharê‘ah advisory board is not formed investment all investments must be permissible based on sharê‘ah compliance. not required to follow sharê‘ah risk sharing responsibilities for loss or damage. risk is transferred to another party. purpose solely based on mutual cooperation and solidarity solely based on commercial aspects element free from interest (riba’), gambling (maisir) excessive uncertainty (gharar). no restrictions fund participants are owners of the fund and the company manages it. the company is the owner of the fund. nomination in the family takaful, the nominee acts as a trustee and distributes the whole wealth among inheritors. the nominee is the sole owner of the wealth. model muìārabah(profit-loss sharing), wakélah, (agency) hybrids, waqf (endowment) no restrictions 62 family takaful in bangladesh … it is free from excessive gharar (uncertainty), ribā (interest) and maisir (gambling).34 the conventional practice of insurance, however, is based on interest and is considered impermissible in the sharê‘ah.35 the main distinctions between takaful and insurance are listed above (table 1): takaful industry and its challenges it was mentioned earlier that king faisal invoked all muslim countries at the international muslim conference in jeddah to reform their banking structures based on islamic sharê‘ah.36 as a result of this conference, the first country to establish a takaful company was sudan in 1979.37 soon after, many takaful companies were introduced in many muslim and non-muslim countries around the world. the regulatory framework is an important tool that supports a company or a system to boost its market growth. however, the regulatory framework for takaful is missing in many countries. for example, in bangladesh, pakistan and nigeria, the takaful companies are operated under an insurance act, which is completely contrasted to the nature of takaful. the skilled human capital will assist the company to fulfill its target and goals. the takaful industries need more skilled human capital in order to create and innovate products and services. the absence of knowledge about sharê‘ah and its principles in some employees may lead to sharê‘ah issues in the products or the islamic image of the company. qualified sharê‘ah scholars will assist the takaful company to comply with its activities according to sharê‘ah and show a good reputation to the public. however, there is a shortage of skilled sharê‘ah board members for the takaful industry in many countries.38 many people are not aware of the benefits and nature of takaful. some misconceptions related to islam and the takaful system among people lead them to run away from takaful services. some people think takaful and islamic finance are for muslims only as they apply sharê‘ah principles to their operational activities. takaful (islamic insurance) is operated for all regardless of religions, and races.39 takaful industry in bangladesh in bangladesh, takaful companies are encountering many challenges due to the lack of rules and regulations.40 although many initiatives have been proposed to separate the rules and regulations between islamic insurance (takaful) and conventional insurance, the result of the attempt has yet to take place.41 the absence of a strong constitutional regulatory framework has hindered takaful activities in the country.42 there are many hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 63 problems related to takaful companies, where limited skilled human capital is one of the major issues43. additionally, family takaful businesses must allocate 30% of their assets to interest bearing government bonds and securities. guaranteed investment vehicles must reinvest their profits only in industries recognized by the government.44 another obstacle to takaful is the scarcity of an islamic capital market and re-takaful.45 for this reason, some takaful companies have engaged with conventional reinsurance companies in bangladesh. furthermore, the unethical practices of some employees, such as fraud and misinformation, particularly in family takaful, have caused an adverse impression of takaful among the general public. in addition, there is a huge lack of sharê‘ah advisory institutions and experts in islamic economics and takaful in the country).46 methodology it is mentioned earlier that the objective of this research is to identify the challenges of family takaful in bangladesh that hinder the operation of the family takaful business in the country and to propose remedial strategies to overcome these challenges accordingly. to achieve the objective of the study, in-depth data is required. qualitative method dries thoroughly study.47 therefore, to determine in-depth information about family takaful in bangladesh, this study adopted a qualitative approach. interview is one of an important primary source of data collection, and it is commonly used in a qualitative method for the profound study.48 in addition, semistructured interview questions are widely used in the qualitative research.49 so, this study adopted a semi-structured interview approach to collect information from officers and sharê‘ah board members as well as participants of two-family takaful companies in bangladesh (table 2). this study used a purposive sampling technique which is supported by several research 50 to select respondents from two-family takaful companies in bangladesh. the names of all respondents and companies are not revealed in the study to confirm the job safety of the respondents and to secure the company's reputation. in order to provide research findings, the data analysis approach transforms raw data. one of the most ubiquitous approaches used in qualitative research is known as thematic analysis. a comprehensive knowledge of the data must be obtained several times in order to discover the themes.51 in this study, the thematic method has been implemented for data analysis. the data obtained from the different sources and interviews was classified based on several themes and sub-themes 64 family takaful in bangladesh … company respondents total officer sharê‘ah board member participant a 5 1 10 16 b 5 1 10 16 total 10 2 20 32 table 2: distribution of respondents the major themes are family takaful, challenges and overcoming policies for bangladesh. the sub-themes are rules, regulations, policies, management of a and b takaful companies, and participants in bangladesh. the data analysis for this research began at the same time as data collection. findings the study's findings are categorized into challenges and remedial strategies. the initial segment addresses the obstacles encountered in implementing family takaful in bangladesh. the roots of the issues are explored from the perspectives of the rules and regulation in line with the government, companies, and participants in family takaful in bangladesh. the second part suggests strategies that may help overcome the challenges. challenges for family takaful in bangladesh challenges related with rules and regulations in bangladesh theme 1 (table 3): the major challenges faced by the takaful industry in bangladesh related to the government’s rules and regulations. the bangladesh government allowed the establishment of takaful companies in 2000. however, the rules and regulations have not been introduced to guide takaful companies in their operations. several initiatives have been introduced to form particular rules and regulations governing the operations of takaful companies, but the absence of the government’s sincere attention has resulted in a lack of progress in this regard. at present, takaful is monitored by the insurance act 2010, which is antithetical to takaful. currently, the insurance development and regulatory authority (idra) monitors and controls insurance companies for both islamic and conventional insurance. the government has not formed a specific sharê‘ah board to monitor takaful businesses. later, in 2008, the central sharê‘ah council for islamic insurance of bangladesh was formed and registered by the government. it works as an advisory board as it has hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 65 no legal authority to control takaful companies. thus, companies are not obligated to follow their guidelines. after the establishment of takaful companies, there have been many changes in terms of government regimes, but none have sought to implement the rules of takaful operations in the islamic insurance industry. this is because many key members of the governing body are secular-minded and they seem to have no interest in applying islamic principles to insurance contracts in the country. no challenges related to rules and regulation 1 absence of proper regulations on family takaful in bangladesh 2 insurance development and regulatory authority control 3 absence of legal power of central sharê‘ah 4 negligence of the family takaful in bangladesh. table 3: challenges based on the government’s rules and regulations of bangladesh sources: interviews with stakeholders of a and b companies in bangladesh challenges related to takaful companies in bangladesh theme 2 (table 4): the major challenges related to family takaful issues in line with the companies in bangladesh. takaful companies seek to employ people who can benefit the company most; however, many employees of takaful companies are poorly educated and have no knowledge of takaful. besides, takaful companies do not inform participants of takaful the model of takaful operation that is being adopted by the companies. the commission system is another major issue in the operations of takaful companies. the companies take a significant amount of money as commissions from the participant’s premium without informing them. for example, the first-year participant’s contribution to the takaful pool is not invested; rather, it is distributed among brokers and related staff of the company proportionally. in some cases, participants face difficulties in paying their contributions to the takaful due to the closure of takaful branch as there are insufficient participants. in this situation, participants must go to the head office to pay their takaful premium. many participants cannot do it because of the distance. this allows takaful companies to devour their premiums unjustly. there is also a lot of mismanagement of takaful. for example, takaful companies recruit unauthorized brokers who have no legal license. many employees emphasize earning money instead 66 family takaful in bangladesh … of implementing takaful principles because most of them have come from conventional insurance. earning money by any means seems to guide their behavior. furthermore, profit-oriented policy bars the further development of takaful as many are established solely for profit, and have no intention to implement the principles of takaful. no challenges related to company’s perspective 1 absence of sufficient skilled human 2 lack of disclosure of information on family takaful in bangladesh 3 commission system in family takaful in bangladesh 4 absence of interlink of the branches 5 mismanagement 6 business oriented policy for family takaful in bangladesh table 4: challenges based on the company’s perspective in bangladesh sources: interview with stakeholders of a and b companies in bangladesh. challenges pertaining to participants in bangladesh theme 3 (table 5): the challenges based on the participants of family takaful company in bangladesh. in bangladesh, there is a lack of information about family takaful. hence, most participants do not have knowledge about the family takaful, its model of operations and investment rules. consequently, they are unaware of the benefits of family takaful that make people solvent in society by keeping wealth for the future in a legitimate way. lack of documentation and proper information about claims means many participants are unable to claim the surplus from family takaful products because they are not asked by the respective company to provide all documents at the time of initiating the policy. when they want to claim, the company asks them to provide all the necessary documents and information related to the policy. some takaful branches had to close due to a shortage of participation, and the firm doesn't have a central database to monitor all of its branches online. the only way for participants to pay the premium and get their excess is to go to the main office. the corporation unjustly absorbs the owing money as many participants are unable to reach the main office due to distance. usually, participants are involved in takaful via agents and brokers of the company, and they have no information about these agents and brokers. many brokers and agents provide fake information about the company and have no legal license from the government, and many of them give fake receipts to participants. sometimes they do not hand over the participants’ premium and hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 67 disappear from the company, while the participants lose all their money. no challenges related to the participants 1 lack of knowledge on family takaful 2 inability to claim surplus in family takaful in bangladesh 3 participant-agent conflict on family takaful table 5: challenges based on the participants’ perspective in bangladesh sources: interview with stakeholders of a and b from bangladesh discussions the study identified three key dilemmas that need to be addressed in order to improve the existing condition and enhance the overall performance of the family takaful industry in bangladesh, which covers in this section of this article. thus, the restorative strategies for rules and regulations are explored first, followed by the remedial strategies for the company, and finally the remedial approaches for the family takaful participants in bangladesh are discussed here. remedial strategies for the family takaful of bangladesh remedial strategies for the rules and regulations the bangladesh government should introduce dedicated rules and regulations to govern the family takaful operations. in this matter, the government can appoint a group of muslim scholars in the related field to draft relevant and suitable rules and regulations for family takaful (member of sharê‘ah board and officers of a and b). it can send a special group of people to work with highly regulated takaful industries such as in the united arab emirate (uae) and malaysia to benefit from their regulatory systems. the takaful company can be regulated by the central bank of bangladesh following the central bank of malaysia.52 the central bank of malaysia regulates both insurance and takaful companies by having separate acts for both insurance and takaful.53 it could establish an authority to guide all takaful operators in the country.54 the government can form a dedicated group of muslim scholars by giving them authority in the idra to observe takaful practices in the country. a central sharê‘ah board should be formed by the government to oversee takaful companies (officers and member of sharê‘ah board for a and b). the government may authorise the central sharê‘ah council for islamic insurance of bangladesh by giving it legal power to control takaful activities (member of 68 family takaful in bangladesh … sharê‘ah board of a and b).thus, the government should pay attention to implementing takaful in order to meet the demands of the majority muslim population. in order to comply with sharê‘ah principles by the takaful companies, the government should regulate, monitor, and enforce the rules, and, in their absence, a sharê‘ah board should oversee the operations of takaful companies.55 the political instability is another factor.56 a stable government is a product of a responsible government. in the context of takaful, the state government is responsible to form a designated regulation for the industry. in this regard, prophet mohammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) said: "every one of you is a shepherd, and every one of you will be questioned about those under his rule, the ruler is a shepherd, and he will be questioned about his subjects; the man is a shepherd in his family, and he will be questioned about those under his care; and the woman is a shepherd in the house of her husband, and she will be questioned about those under her care, server is a shepherd of his owner’s wealth".57 if the government introduces dedicated regulations for the takaful company like in malaysia,58 then participants of takaful can help each other during difficult times. solvency of takaful companies will help reduce the burden of the government, which will help the industry to develop faster and establish the economy of muslim communities, which will increase the national gdp of bangladesh. remedial strategies for the companies of bangladesh takaful companies in bangladesh should employ qualified and well-educated staff, and should not engage in nepotism during the recruitment of employees (participants and member of sharê‘ah board for a and b). it should emphasise good manners and ethics in selecting employees to reach the goal of establishing an islamic economy in bangladesh (officers of a and b). takaful companies should inform their participants about their activities and models used for the investment of participants’ contributions for the family takaful (participants of a and b). they should employ brokers who have legal licenses. they should investigate all documents related to the family takaful policy and offer participants policies after all evidence (member of sharê‘ah board and participants of a and b). the takaful companies should disclose to all participants about their investment activities for the family takaful policy in bangladesh. the company should give up illegal commissions from participants’ insurance policies (member of sharê‘ah board, participants and officers of a and b). in this situation, the researcher suggests takaful companies to follow the wakālah (agency system)59 or hybrid60 model hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 69 of operation to avoid any issues regarding commissions on family takaful. takaful companies should be linked with each branch. each participant should be able to get all information from any branch. to solve the mismanagement of takaful companies, it can recruit authorised brokers who have legal licenses (officers and member of sharê‘ah board of a and b). it should monitor its staff and workers about their responsibilities and duties. in this regard, companies can give full authority to the internal sharê‘ah board to monitor all activities.61 the company should penalise unethical employees by establishing commissions of inquiry and inspection. it can also refer to the court of law to take legal action against those involved in unethical acts.62 companies should emphasise to its stakeholders that the main goal of establishing takaful is to establish genuine islamic finance and takaful in the country. if the takaful company is sincere, many issues can be resolved such as unethical activities.63 issues within the takaful companies are considered significant in bangladesh. the findings contradict the principles of takaful as contracts between the takaful company and its participants are not transparent. the companies do not inform participants about their investment system and its model as required by contemporary muslim scholars.64 thus, an element of gharar (ambiguity) is present in the contract, as abū hurayrah narrates that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) prohibits any transaction that involved gharar (ambiguity).65 in addition, there are many unethical activities of some directors and employees of the companies which are totally unacceptable in islam, as the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said "he who cheats is not from us".66 analysis of different model of takaful in line with the laws like malaysia as described by elahi67, can be done for the family takaful companies in bangladesh. the goal of the establishment of takaful companies is mutual help, but this is absent in the family takaful companies in bangladesh. sudden closing the branches of takaful companies causes harm for participants, and harming others is strongly prohibited in islam and it contradicts the spirit of takaful.68 many muslim do not practice islam due to lack of islamic knowledge. although there are some islamic subjects that are thought in the primary and secondary school level, these are insufficient.69 in this regard, bangladesh can follow malaysia which offers higher education in takaful. for instance, most malaysian government universities such as university of malaya (um),70 international islamic university of malaysia (iium)71 and northern university of malaysia (uum)72 and many non-government universities i.e. sultan 70 family takaful in bangladesh … azlan shah university (usas),73 international islamic university college selangor (kuis)74 and college of islamic university of pahang sultan ahmad shah (kuipsas)75 have islamic finance, takaful and islamic banking departments. along with this, there are specialized islamic finance-related university and institutes launched by the help of bank negara (central bank of malaysia) such as the global university of islamic finance.76 remedial strategies for the participants of family takaful in bangladesh the company should inform participants about the takaful model and its investment rules (participants, officers and member of sharê‘ah board for a and b). the government and takaful companies should have undertaken joint-campaign concerning the benefits of family takaful through radio, tv and newspapers, etc. moreover, there are 250,399 mosques in bangladesh and the iméms (leaders) of those mosques can take part in spreading knowledge and advising people the benefit of family takaful.77 the companies should inquire about all relevant documents and offer a policy for the family takaful to the participants after submitting all information to their respective companies. the company should send agents or employees to explain policies, while the participants will hand over money to agents who have a legal license from the government.78 the takaful company may take legal action against all unethical activities of brokers and staff of the takaful company to save the participant trust. the findings show the absence of minimal knowledge of takaful among participants of bangladesh. participants have had little opportunity to learn about takaful.79 if sufficient islamic subjects are included in primary and secondary school education, many muslims may get enough information and they may become capable to practice islam correctly. as a result, the islamic economy will increase and poverty will reduce, as is the case of malaysia which is the global pioneer in takaful, islamic banking and finance in the world, because it is highly regulated and facilitated in the islamic financial sectors.80 conclusion based on the discussion on the challenges of family takaful in bangladesh, the study concludes that government-imposed rules, regulations, and policies are lacking in the takaful industry. the mismanagement of takaful companies hinders the further development of family takaful in bangladesh. many employees of takaful companies and most participants have little knowledge about family takaful, its operations, and investment rules. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 71 to address these issues, the government of bangladesh should adopt islamic principles and theories specific to family takaful by separating the rules and regulations of takaful from conventional insurance. a central committee composed of experts in islamic finance and various takaful products, including family takaful, can be formed to develop and implement these regulations. to gain more knowledge and experience, takaful industry stakeholders from bangladesh should visit countries with wellestablished takaful systems. creating awareness about family takaful through mass media can help educate participants about its benefits and operational procedures. the government should also authorize the central sharê‘ah board to monitor the activities of sharê‘ah board members to ensure compliance with family takaful policies. takaful companies should take responsibility for developing the industry by training their employees and instilling islamic ethics and values, especially for those selling family takaful products. teamwork is crucial for establishing family takaful in bangladesh. by implementing these recommendations, the challenges faced by takaful companies can be marginalized, promoting islamic finance and raising islamic values that foster family life, cooperation, peace, and harmony in society. furthermore, it is expected that the study's findings and recommendations will aid policymakers in enhancing the condition of family takaful companies in bangladesh. the proposed measures will contribute to a more robust and sustainable takaful industry, benefiting the economy and society. the following key points summarize the recommendations: 1. regulatory framework: separate takaful regulations from conventional insurance and establish a central committee dedicated to islamic finance and takaful products. 2. knowledge and training: enhance knowledge and skills through international exposure and training programs focused on islamic ethics and values. 3. awareness campaigns: utilize mass media to educate the public about family takaful benefits and operations. 4. sharê‘ah compliance: empower the central sharê‘ah board to oversee compliance and maintain the integrity of family takaful policies. 5. employee development: invest in training employees on islamic finance principles and ethical practices. 6. collaboration: foster teamwork among all stakeholders to ensure the successful implementation of family takaful. by addressing these areas, the takaful industry in bangladesh and policymakers can overcome existing challenges and 72 family takaful in bangladesh … contribute significantly to promoting islamic finance and enhancing the socio-economic well-being of the community. conflicts of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. notes and references 1 issa khan, takaful and retakafull: principles, practices, and challenges. (university tun hossein onn malaysia publisher ‘uhtm’, 2023). 2 maizaitulaidawati md husin, asmak ab rahman, “predicting intention to participate in family takaful scheme using decomposed theory of planned behavior” international journal of social economics 43, no. 12 (2016), 1351-1366. 3 mohd shril matsawali, mohd fadzilah abdullah, yeo chui ping, siti yusmardinah abidin, masnalliza m. zaini, hardi m. ali, “a study on takaful and conventional insurance preferences: the case of brunei” international journal of business and social science 3, no. 22 (2012), 163 176. 4 vardit rispler-chaim, “insurance and semiinsurance transaction in islamic history the19th century”, journal of economic and social history of the orient 34, no. 3 (1991):142-158. url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3632242. 5 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub zulkifli bin mohd yusoff and mohd roslan bin mohd nor, “history, problems, and prospects of islamic insurance (takaful) in bangladesh” springerplus 5, no. 785 (2016), 1-7. 6 mohammad ibrahim kalil, “islamee banking and insurance”, dhaka: merit fair prokashon, 2011). 7 md. kausar alam, suhaimi ab rahman, md. shamim hossain and sharif hosen, “shariah governance practices and regulatory problems of islamic insurance companies in bangladesh” international journal of academic research in business and social sciences 9, (2019), 109–124. 8 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub zulkifli bin mohd yusoff and mohd roslan bin mohd nor, “history, problems, and prospects of islamic insurance (takaful) in bangladesh”. 9 serajul islam and tania sultana, “islamic insurance in bangladesh: performance, problems and prospects," international journal of islamic business & management 2, no. 2 (1018), 39-53. 10 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub @ zulkifli bin mohd yusoff, mohd roslan mohd nor, kamaruzaman bin noordin, "a narrative on islamic insurance in bangladesh: problems and prospects", international journal of ethics and systems 34, no. 3(2018), 1-15. 11 mohd ma‘sum billah, ezzedine ghlamallah and christos alexakis, encyclopedia of islamic insurance, takaful and retakaful, (edward elgar publishing, 2019). 12 islamic financial services board (ifsb) and international association of insurance supervisors (iais), issues in regulation and supervision of takaful (islamic insurance), (kuala lumpur: ifsb & iais, 2006), 4. https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=maizaitulaidawati%20md%20husin https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=asmak%20ab%20rahman http://www.jstor.org/stable/3632242 https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-issa-khan https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-noor_naemah_binti_abdul-rahman https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_roslan_bin_mohd-nor https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-issa-khan https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-noor_naemah_binti_abdul-rahman https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_roslan_bin_mohd-nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=issa%20khan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=noor%20naemah%20binti%20abdul%20rahman https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20roslan%20mohd%20nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=kamaruzaman%20bin%20noordin hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 73 13 international sharê‘ah research academy for islamic finance (isra), islamic financial system: principles and operations, 2nd ed. (kuala lumpur, 2016). 14 habeebullah zakariyah & alinasser abdirasak ahmed, “contemporary issues and challenges faced by the takaful industry in malaysia: special reference to shariah”. alhikmah international journal of islamic studies and human sciences 2, issue 4 (2019), 123-135. 15 international shariah research academy for islamic finance (isra), islamic financial system: principles and operations. 16 mohd ma’sum billah, ezzedine ghlamallah and christos alexakis, encyclopedia of islamic insurance, takaful and retakaful. 17 habeebullah zakariyah & alinasser abdirasak ahmed, “contemporary issues and challenges faced by the takaful industry in malaysia: special reference to shariah”. 18 m.mahbubi ali, rusni hassan and shabana m. hasan, “an exploratory study of shari'ah issues in the application of tabarru' for takaful”, global review of islamic economics and business 1, no. 3(2014), 164-173. 19 kamaruzzaman bin noordin (2011) “a comparative analysis of conventional insurance and islamic insurance (takaful) in malaysia: an emphasis on pricing issues”, master’s thesis, (faculty of business and accountancy, university of malaya, 2011). 20 asif ahmed qureshi, (2011) analyzing the sharia'h compliant, issues currently faced by islamic insurance, journal of contemporary research in business 3, no. 5 (2011), 279-295. 21 azman mohd noor and muhammad abd hadi bin abd rahman, “cooperative takaful for non-banking financial institutions: islamization of socso in the case of malaysia”, intellectual discourse 24, (2017), 459–476. 22 m.mahbubi ali, rusni hassan and shabana m. hasan, “an exploratory study of shari'ah issues in the application of tabarru' for takaful”. 23 issa khan, “juristical study of takaful and it’s application in bangladesh”, (phd dissertation, university of malaya 2015). 24 renat i. bekkin, “islamic insurance: national features and legal regulation”, arab law quarterly 21, no1 2007), 109-134. 25 renat i. bekkin, “islamic insurance: national features and legal regulation”. 26 syahida abdullah, (2015) the objectives of takaful and shariah: towards the achievement of maqasid shariah, journal of human capital development 8, no.1(2015), 93-104. 27 issa khan, “juristical study of takaful and it’s application in bangladesh”. 28 renat i. bekkin, “islamic insurance: national features and legal regulation”. 29 shafi, islamic alternative to insurance, (egypt, alexandria: new university house, 2009). 30 renat i. bekkin, “islamic insurance: national features and legal regulation”. 31 issa khan, “juristical study of takaful and it’s application in bangladesh”. 32 puteri nur farah naadia mohd fauzi, khairuddin abdul rashid, azila ahmad sarkawi, sharina farihah hasan, srazali aripin and muhammad ariffuddin ariffin, (2016) “takaful: a review on performance, issues and challenges in malaysia”, journal of scientific research and development 3, no. 4 (2016), 71-76. https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/renat-i-bekkin-2003504778?_sg%5b0%5d=egcs_f5i9px1aj52ll7ovwxtlvei5wjpvp4xqyeaspwkfhyfwj_4oztp-7a6q2bnpj-x9o8.2vmureeh-orkh3ggi2p-zz5pwhkqxss4qfj0kzlr-gpqe1dezjbbcvg7m-4_n8dks7udktrmzqoam1aizsjckw&_sg%5b1%5d=2qxewdrxue8jksey8ig8g7zn7mn2mlejn77rgsrnlwq4kvp4v0akvu0pcji26-kz_bipxi4.szswmbmk4mxac2tksvell2kdgjakkpolackk2uhtaxgcsvc3ulvcvwz9smykgnv74goxpq7sblbvfsajvdu_nw https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/renat-i-bekkin-2003504778?_sg%5b0%5d=egcs_f5i9px1aj52ll7ovwxtlvei5wjpvp4xqyeaspwkfhyfwj_4oztp-7a6q2bnpj-x9o8.2vmureeh-orkh3ggi2p-zz5pwhkqxss4qfj0kzlr-gpqe1dezjbbcvg7m-4_n8dks7udktrmzqoam1aizsjckw&_sg%5b1%5d=2qxewdrxue8jksey8ig8g7zn7mn2mlejn77rgsrnlwq4kvp4v0akvu0pcji26-kz_bipxi4.szswmbmk4mxac2tksvell2kdgjakkpolackk2uhtaxgcsvc3ulvcvwz9smykgnv74goxpq7sblbvfsajvdu_nw https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/renat-i-bekkin-2003504778?_sg%5b0%5d=egcs_f5i9px1aj52ll7ovwxtlvei5wjpvp4xqyeaspwkfhyfwj_4oztp-7a6q2bnpj-x9o8.2vmureeh-orkh3ggi2p-zz5pwhkqxss4qfj0kzlr-gpqe1dezjbbcvg7m-4_n8dks7udktrmzqoam1aizsjckw&_sg%5b1%5d=2qxewdrxue8jksey8ig8g7zn7mn2mlejn77rgsrnlwq4kvp4v0akvu0pcji26-kz_bipxi4.szswmbmk4mxac2tksvell2kdgjakkpolackk2uhtaxgcsvc3ulvcvwz9smykgnv74goxpq7sblbvfsajvdu_nw https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/renat-i-bekkin-2003504778?_sg%5b0%5d=egcs_f5i9px1aj52ll7ovwxtlvei5wjpvp4xqyeaspwkfhyfwj_4oztp-7a6q2bnpj-x9o8.2vmureeh-orkh3ggi2p-zz5pwhkqxss4qfj0kzlr-gpqe1dezjbbcvg7m-4_n8dks7udktrmzqoam1aizsjckw&_sg%5b1%5d=2qxewdrxue8jksey8ig8g7zn7mn2mlejn77rgsrnlwq4kvp4v0akvu0pcji26-kz_bipxi4.szswmbmk4mxac2tksvell2kdgjakkpolackk2uhtaxgcsvc3ulvcvwz9smykgnv74goxpq7sblbvfsajvdu_nw https://researchportal.hw.ac.uk/en/persons/puteri-nur-farah-naadia-mohd-fauzi 74 family takaful in bangladesh … 33 mohd shril matsawali, mohd fadzilah abdullah, yeo chui ping, siti yusmardinah abidin, masnalliza m. zaini, hardi m. ali, farooq alani and hisham,) “a study on takaful and conventional insurance preferences: the case of brunei”, international journal of business and social science 3, no. 22 (2012), 163176. 34 mohammed jabed sarwar, (2016) “future challenge in islamic insurance (takaful) in bngladesh. australian journal of sustainable business and society 2, no.1 (2016), 69-80 35 murat ustaoğlu “public awareness, understanding and attitudes towards interest free insurance (takaful) services evaluation by education level: survey based on empirical analysis for turkey”, journal of asian and african studies 50, no. 4 (2015), 445456. 36 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub zulkifli bin mohd yusoff and mohd roslan bin mohd nor, history, problems, and prospects of islamic insurance (takaful) in bangladesh springerplus 5, issue 785 (2016), 1-7. 37 habeebullah zakariyah & alinasser abdirasak ahmed, “contemporary issues and challenges faced by the takaful industry in malaysia: special reference to shariah.” 38 bank negara malaysia (bnm), sharīʿah governance framework, (kuala lumpur: 2019), p.12. 39 jaffer, safder, farzana ismail, jabran noor, and lindsay unwin. "takaful (islamic insurance): concept, challenges, and opportunities." milliman, (2010). 40 md. kausar alam, suhaimi ab rahman, md. shamim hossain and sharif hosen, “shariah governance practices and regulatory problems of islamic insurance companies in bangladesh” international journal of academic research in business and social sciences 9, no. 1 (2019), 109-124. 41 kazi md. mortuza ali, “takaful in bangladesh seeking a framework for growth,” available at: https://www.primeislamilifebd.com/aritcle/takaful/takafulinbangladesh (accessed 17 january 2017). 42 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub zulkifli bin mohd yusoff and mohd roslan bin mohd nor, history, problems, and prospects of islamic insurance (takaful) in bangladesh”. 43 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub @ zulkifli bin mohd yusoff, mohd roslan mohd nor, kamaruzaman bin noordin, "a narrative on islamic insurance in bangladesh: problems and prospects". md. anowar hossain bhuiyan, md. belal hossain and and md. khalilur rahman “islamic management practices in islamic life insurance companies of bangladesh” journal novel applied science 1, no.4 (2012), 128–136. 44 kazi md. mortuza ali, “takaful in bangladesh seeking a framework for growth”. 45 md. abul kalam azad, mohammad rokibul kabir, faruk bhuiyan and abdul kadar muhammad masum, “prospects analysis of an islamic capital market in bangladesh”, global journal of management and business research finance 13, no. 6 (2013), 5761. 46 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub @ zulkifli bin mohd yusoff, mohd roslan mohd nor, kamaruzaman bin noordin, "a narrative on islamic insurance in bangladesh: problems and prospects". 47 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub @ zulkifli bin mohd yusoff, mohd roslan mohd nor, kamaruzaman bin noordin, "a narrative on islamic insurance in bangladesh: problems and prospects". https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-issa-khan https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-noor_naemah_binti_abdul-rahman https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_roslan_bin_mohd-nor https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-issa-khan https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-noor_naemah_binti_abdul-rahman https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_roslan_bin_mohd-nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=issa%20khan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=noor%20naemah%20binti%20abdul%20rahman https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20roslan%20mohd%20nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=kamaruzaman%20bin%20noordin https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=issa%20khan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=noor%20naemah%20binti%20abdul%20rahman https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20roslan%20mohd%20nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=kamaruzaman%20bin%20noordin https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=issa%20khan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=noor%20naemah%20binti%20abdul%20rahman https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20roslan%20mohd%20nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=kamaruzaman%20bin%20noordin hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 75 48 king n and horrocks c, (2010) “interviews in qualitative research”, london: sage publications ltd., 2010). 49 philipp köker, (2014) “semi-structured elite interviews in a nested – analysis framework: studying presidential activism in central and eastern europe”, in sage research methods cases, london: sage publications ltd., 2014). 50 ahmad muhammad gusau (2013) “challenges facing by muslim female students in nigerian higher education: a case study of zamfara state", ph.d. thesis, (university of malaya: 2013). 51 md. faruk abdullah (2016) “application of wa’d (promise) in islamic banking products: a study in malaysia and bangladesh, ph.d. thesis, (university of malaya: 2016). 52 mohd fauzi abu-hussin, nasrul hisyam nor muhamad and mohd. yahya mohd. hussin, takaful (islamic insurance industry in malaysia and the arab gulf states: challenges and future direction”. asian social science 10, no. 21(2014), 6-34. 53 zohair berkem, (2014) “effective supervision of islamic insurance according to malaysian experience (1984-2012)”, international journal of social economics 41, no.12 (2014), 1220-1242. 54 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub @ zulkifli bin mohd yusoff, mohd roslan mohd nor, kamaruzaman bin noordin, "a narrative on islamic insurance in bangladesh: problems and prospects". 55 renat i. bekkin, “islamic insurance: national features and legal regulation”. 56 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub @ zulkifli bin mohd yusoff, mohd roslan mohd nor, kamaruzaman bin noordin, "a narrative on islamic insurance in bangladesh: problems and prospects". 57 muḥammad ibn ismā‘īl al-bukhārī, “ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, in mawsu'ah al-hadith al sharif al kutub al-sittah (riyad: dar alsalam, 2008), p.70. 58 muhamad badri othman, (2017) “development and shari’ah issues of the takaful industry in malaysia effects of the regulatory framework on implementation and growth”, journal of finance and banking review 2, no. 1 (2017), 38-43. 59 ahmad rufai muhammad, “theory and application of islamic insurance in malaysia and sudan: a comparative study. phd thesis, (university of malaya: 2006). 60 sheila nu nuhtay, mustapha hamat, wan zamri wan ismail and syed ahmed salman, m. hamat, “takaful (islamic insurance): historical, shariah and operational perspectives”, global illuminators, no. 1(2014), 9-25. 61 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub zulkifli bin mohd yusoff and mohd roslan bin mohd nor, history, problems, and prospects of islamic insurance (takaful) in bangladesh”. 62 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub @ zulkifli bin mohd yusoff, mohd roslan mohd nor, kamaruzaman bin noordin, "a narrative on islamic insurance in bangladesh: problems and prospects". 63 kazi md. mortuza ali, (2009) “islami life insurance: present perspective,”(dhaka, bangladesh: bangladesh institute of islamic thought, 2009). 64 renat i. bekkin, “islamic insurance: national features and legal regulation”. 65 muslim ibn al-hajjaj, sahih muslim in in mawsu'ah al-hadith alsharif al kutub al-sittah (riyad: dar alsalam, 2008), p. 939. 66 abu dawud as-sijistani, sunan abi dawud, in mawsu'ah al-hadith alsharif al kutub al-sittah (riyad: dar alsalam, 2008), p.1481. https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=issa%20khan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=noor%20naemah%20binti%20abdul%20rahman https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20roslan%20mohd%20nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=kamaruzaman%20bin%20noordin https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/renat-i-bekkin-2003504778?_sg%5b0%5d=egcs_f5i9px1aj52ll7ovwxtlvei5wjpvp4xqyeaspwkfhyfwj_4oztp-7a6q2bnpj-x9o8.2vmureeh-orkh3ggi2p-zz5pwhkqxss4qfj0kzlr-gpqe1dezjbbcvg7m-4_n8dks7udktrmzqoam1aizsjckw&_sg%5b1%5d=2qxewdrxue8jksey8ig8g7zn7mn2mlejn77rgsrnlwq4kvp4v0akvu0pcji26-kz_bipxi4.szswmbmk4mxac2tksvell2kdgjakkpolackk2uhtaxgcsvc3ulvcvwz9smykgnv74goxpq7sblbvfsajvdu_nw https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=issa%20khan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=noor%20naemah%20binti%20abdul%20rahman https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20roslan%20mohd%20nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=kamaruzaman%20bin%20noordin https://www.researchgate.net/profile/muhamad-othman-5?_sg%5b0%5d=bdebujersodcizepx9zq_etcfjjsxgiotqolflsy0opdg6wwjwpoucnivo31clzagmofu8e.txz23e0jftjghqxnjhvwoqhyzxunjvxpefy8s3equbrerkl5fyvo8ufhwro7xxokkyko9pvatl9rmygioby1ww&_sg%5b1%5d=r0lek2cp2jw0lmyhsidmjjrqbqedr2goarz7-1asdmwmt1s49w249pgxkejfm8xcl5sj2tm.lhodm7zktsss5pc8dxdb9g2n6d8wrkh_crwrjp17r3meo1bww6m4fjpwgiafo1f5ejwfzavjjiqulzkrodqqcw https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/mustapha-hamat-2092363515 https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-issa-khan https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-noor_naemah_binti_abdul-rahman https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_roslan_bin_mohd-nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=issa%20khan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=noor%20naemah%20binti%20abdul%20rahman https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20roslan%20mohd%20nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=kamaruzaman%20bin%20noordin https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/renat-i-bekkin-2003504778?_sg%5b0%5d=egcs_f5i9px1aj52ll7ovwxtlvei5wjpvp4xqyeaspwkfhyfwj_4oztp-7a6q2bnpj-x9o8.2vmureeh-orkh3ggi2p-zz5pwhkqxss4qfj0kzlr-gpqe1dezjbbcvg7m-4_n8dks7udktrmzqoam1aizsjckw&_sg%5b1%5d=2qxewdrxue8jksey8ig8g7zn7mn2mlejn77rgsrnlwq4kvp4v0akvu0pcji26-kz_bipxi4.szswmbmk4mxac2tksvell2kdgjakkpolackk2uhtaxgcsvc3ulvcvwz9smykgnv74goxpq7sblbvfsajvdu_nw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/muslim_ibn_al-hajjaj 76 family takaful in bangladesh … 67 elahi m., analysis of two endowment and attorney models of takaful in malaysia and iranian law. ilr 2020; 1 (3) :16-31 68 issa khan, “juristical study of takaful and it’s application in bangladesh”. 69 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub zulkifli bin mohd yusoff and mohd roslan bin mohd nor, history, problems, and prospects of islamic insurance (takaful) in bangladesh”. 70 university of malaya (um), available at https://www.um.edu.my/ (accessed 30 december 2019). 71 international islamic university of malaysia (iium), available at http://www.iium.edu.my/ (accessed on 30 december 2019). 72 northern university of malaysia (uum), available at http://www.uum.edu.my/ (accessed on 30 december 2019). 73 sultan azlan shah university (usas) available at https://www.usas.edu.my/index.php/en/ (accessed 30 december 2019). 74 international islamic university college selangor (kuis), available at http://www.kuis.edu.my/v4/ (accessed on 30 december 2019). 75 college of islamic university of pahang sultan ahmad shah (kuipsas), available at https://www.kuipsas.edu.my/ (accessed on 30 december 2019). 76 the global university of islamic finance (inceif), available at https://www.inceif.org/ (accessed 15 october 2019). 77 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub zulkifli bin mohd yusoff and mohd roslan bin mohd nor, history, problems, and prospects of islamic insurance (takaful) in bangladesh”. 78 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub @ zulkifli bin mohd yusoff, mohd roslan mohd nor, kamaruzaman bin noordin, "a narrative on islamic insurance in bangladesh: problems and prospects". 79 issa khan, noor naemah binti abdul rahman, mohd yakub zulkifli bin mohd yusoff and mohd roslan bin mohd nor, history, problems, and prospects of islamic insurance (takaful) in bangladesh”. 80 puteri nur farah naadia mohd fauzi, khairuddin abdul rashid, azila ahmad sarkawi, sharina farihah hasan, srazali aripin and muhammad ariffuddin ariffin “takaful: a review on performance, issues and challenges in malaysia”. https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-issa-khan https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-noor_naemah_binti_abdul-rahman https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_roslan_bin_mohd-nor https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-issa-khan https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-noor_naemah_binti_abdul-rahman https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_roslan_bin_mohd-nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=issa%20khan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=noor%20naemah%20binti%20abdul%20rahman https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20yakub%20@%20zulkifli%20bin%20mohd%20yusoff https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=mohd%20roslan%20mohd%20nor https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=kamaruzaman%20bin%20noordin https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-issa-khan https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-noor_naemah_binti_abdul-rahman https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_yakub_zulkifli_bin_mohd-yusoff https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-2400-5#auth-mohd_roslan_bin_mohd-nor https://researchportal.hw.ac.uk/en/persons/puteri-nur-farah-naadia-mohd-fauzi hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1824 issn :0250-7196 development of political communication through social media 1 diah fatma sjoraida abstract: this study explains how the process of political communication that is still conventionally transformed through social media. a descriptive qualitative research method is followed. the results of this study show that the use of social media by politicians in the practice of political communication has a significant impact on people's political behaviour. the development of communication technology has penetrated the lives of humanity. one form of development of communication technology is new media that then gave birth to social media. the presence of social media also affects the political field. we can interpret this phenomenon as, the power of social media in the victory in the pursuit of political power in an area or in a country. politically, if social media is negatively run, then bad consequences might happen. the community, that uses social media, must be able to act decisively if someone uses social media in a way that is not good. because not only a handful of people will lose, what can result from the wrong use of social media will have an impact on the wider community. keywords: political communication, social media, new media, information technology. ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction literally, political communication is commonly associated with political talks or the delivery of verbal and non-verbal political messages that can affect people and government in a political system, or it can be simply stated that political communication is the delivery of politically charged messages from a source to the recipient to create understanding of shared meanings. given that communication is inherent in every person as, according to bower and bradac, (1982), "humans are beings who cannot not communicate", then every human behavior, including when silent, and does not respond to political messages from a the source, still raises meaning related to political nuances. in relation to the life of the nation and state, "political communication is the process of expressing opinions, attitudes and behaviour of people, institutions or political forces in order to influence political decision making, while what is meant by politics is nothing but state life" (setiawan, 1990; saahar, sualman, hashim, & 1 department of public relations, universitas padjadjaran, bandung, indonesia. email: diahfatmasjoraida@yahoo.com mailto:diahfatmasjoraida@yahoo.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1825 issn :0250-7196 mohamed, 2017). nimmo (2007) states that, "political communication is communication that refers to political activities" (p. 8). thus, all political activities carried out by the government, or state powers along with supporting institutions as well as those carried out by the people in general, are a form of political communication. related to earlier political socialisation, krech (1962) explained the importance of understanding this, at least through some of his theories regarding the process of socializing political messages. in this theory of socializing political messages, krech at least mentions two important things that are involved in the communication process: first, individual similarity in the aspects of cognition (cognitions), will (wants), and attitudes (attitudes). second, language, in this case, is a symbol of communication that includes words, which krech calls the control of one's own behaviour and the behaviour of others. in the context of political socialisation, specifically this theory further explains that the process of political socialisation includes political aspects of how a person learns politics, political institutions, and how one finally behaves in a particular political manner. social media is growing rapidly in line with the growth and ease of access to information supported by the power of communication technology. social media has 79 million active users. indonesia is one of the most active countries in social media (global media statistics, 2016). the development of communication technology has entered into people's lives. one form of development of communication technology is new media, which then descends is social media. the presence of social media also affects the political field. studies in the united states show that social media is an effective campaign tool. before the era of social media, politicians in the land of uncle sam had used the internet for campaigning media (chavez, 2012; polat, subay, & ulutürk, 2018). in ghana, two presidential candidates used sms and twitter to gain votes. this is the first time social media has been used to campaign in the country. in zimbabwe, opposition parties use websites to spread messages condemning the ruling government. in addition, ngos established a network to monitor voting in 11 thousand voting boths via sms and mms. the result was incumbent candidate robert mugabe lost, but mugabe's intervention made the election repeated and he won (riaz, 2010). we can interpret this phenomenon as the power of social media in the victory in the hunt for political power in a region or in a country. if used positively, the results will be good, but if run negatively, the results will not be good too. it is the community who use social media that must be able to act decisively if someone uses social media in a way that is not good. because not only a handful of people will lose, what can result from the wrong use of social media will have an impact on the wider community. 2. literature review 2.1. political communication in political communication, every aspect actually has its own role, although it still has a direct or indirect relationship in its application. the five components of political communication involve hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1826 issn :0250-7196 (1) political communicators, (2) political messages (3) media used in political communication, (4) political communication audiences, and (5) consequences arising from communication in politics (nimmo, 2007). political communicators are people who have the ability to carry out political communication. attached to it is a strategic position as a "politician", who maintains the credibility and branding of the individual, or the institution where the communicator is sheltered. as a politician, he can be inside or outside government positions, but must maintain national integrity. in line with national political contestation, a "professional political communicator" has emerged that utilizes mainstream media and alternative media to influence the masses. political communicators may come from "activists" of certain interest groups and opinion leaders who have a special position in society. essentially politicians, professional communicators and activists as political communicators, must have the ability to carry out political communication so that they have the opportunity and have the capacity as leaders who are able to organize messages to the public well. political messages are associated with symbols or symbols, language and public opinion. these three factors are always inherent in political information disseminated by communicators to the public to achieve political goals. symbols can also communicate concepts, general ideas, simple forms of understanding of meaning, and easy to understand in the relationship between political communicators and audiences. at least based on online data searches via google, there were around 1,090,000 articles containing the word elite political communication in the 2014 election (kominfo, 2012). in delivering political messages, "persuasion strategies" are used as techniques for delivering messages through campaigns, propaganda and raising public opinion. according to nimmo (2007), the persuasion strategy is a tool used by organised groups, to reach individuals who are psychologically manipulated and integrated into organisations. digital media opens space for communication and political participation by increasing the possibility of interaction between important elements in it, namely parties and state institutions that are referred to as citizens and non-elites. this is based on a new character of the internet that is not possessed by traditional mass media, namely interactive, active and creative, direct, guaranteeing equality and networking (dijk, 2013). supporting this statement, tsagarousianou (1999) made 3 positive claims about the role of the international for the past 25 years in the democratic process of opening up spaces for exchange and confirmation of information, encouraging public debate and deliberation formation and citizen participation in political decision making. referring to tsagarousianou's view, political communication is an important part of the democratic process. in the context of discussions about interanet and democracy, dahlberg and siepera (2007) brought a big idea about radical democracy, namely democracy that focuses on conceptualizing the democratic process in the perspective of classical democracy, namely equality and freedom (liberty) which internet can be facilitated. here political communication as one of the crucial things in the democratic process is also undergoing transformation. the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1827 issn :0250-7196 internet as a new media raises the consequence of the practice of political discussion that not only takes place in real space but also communication mediated by cyberspace. for example, political activities now mediated by the internet or so-called cyber politics (cyber politics) include e-voting, e-petition, e-mail, e-polls (dahlberg & siepera, 2007) and e-participation (dijk, 2013). with the internet, demonstrations by mobilising the masses on the streets are replaced with epetitions, direct voting is carried out with e-polls and public participation in policymaking can be done by e-participation. in the open field, but mediated by the internet through social media such as facebook, twitter and youtube in the form of campaigns in cyberspace (cybercampaigns). 3. research method the research method used in this study is a qualitative research method. qualitative was chosen because the research will describe holistically every event that exists in the development of communication patterns of tourism based on local wisdom. cresswell (1998) states that qualitative research is research in the natural setting, place and time, the researcher is an instrument of collecting data and then the data is analyse d inductively and then explains the process being examined expressively. bogdan and taylor (1975) state that qualitative research methodology is a research procedure that produces a number of descriptive data, both written and oral, from the people and the observed behaviour. in this case, the individual or organisation must be seen as part of a whole. in addition, qualitative methodology refers to the research procedures that a person has or conversations that use words or observations of behaviour. characteristics in qualitative research are descriptive. in this case the data collected is in the form of words, pictures and not numbers. this is caused by the application of qualitative methods. in addition, everything that is collected is likely to be the key to what has been studied (moleong, 2002). 4. discussion 4.1. conceptualization of political communication stephen w. littlejohn, said that there are some basic dimensions used to define communication (mufid, 2009). first, is the level of observation or the level of abstractness, that is, some definitions are broad and inclusive (open) while others are actually limited. for example, the definition which states "communication is the process of connecting parts of the world to each other" is certainly general whereas communication as "the process of sending military messages and orders by telephone" is a limited definition. second is the level of intentionality (intentional). some definitions of communication emphasise intentional delivery of messages, while others do not limit this intentional aspect. the first example is communication as "a situation where the source conveys a message consciously to hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1828 issn :0250-7196 influence the behaviour of the recipient of the message". whereas the second example is, "communication is seen as a process of distributing the monopoly of information to others". third is the dimension of normative assessment. some definitions require success or accuracy such as "communication is verbal exchange of thoughts", while some do not like "communication is the process of transmitting information". from some basic dimensions to define communication above, basically we can draw the following common thread; (1) communication is the process by which individuals in relationships with other people, groups, organisations or communities respond and create messages to connect with the environment and others; (2) communication is the process of exchanging information, usually through a generally accepted symbol system, with varying quality; (3) communication takes place through many forms, ranging from two people who talk face to face, hand signals, to messages sent globally throughout the world through telecommunications networks; (4) communication is a process that allows us to interact (associate) with others. without communication, we would not be able to share knowledge or experience with others. the process of communicating in this case can be through speech, writing, gestures, and broadcasting. from this common thread, communication anatomy can be identified. basically, communication has the following six elements; (1) communication involves one's relationship with others or one's relationship with the environment, both in the context of regulation or coordination; (2) the process, which is non-static activity, is continuous. when two people talk, of course they do not say anything. in it there is planning, setting the tone, creating new messages, interpreting messages, responding or changing body positions so that there is a match with the other person; (3) message, i.e. the sign (signal) or combination of signs that serves as a stimulus (trigger) for the recipient of the sign. the message can be a sign or symbol. some of the signs can be universal, that is understood by most people throughout the world, such as a smile as a sign of pleasure or smoke as a sign of fire. signs are more universal than symbols. this is because the symbol is made based on agreement. because they are formed through agreement, symbols are neither natural nor universal; (4) channels (channel), is a vehicle where the sign is sent. channels can be visual (can be seen) or can be heard; (5) disturbances (noise), everything that can make a message distorted, or anything that can interfere with the receipt of a message. noise can be physical, psychological (psychological), or semantic (misunderstanding); (6) change, i.e. communication results in changes in the knowledge, attitudes or actions of people involved in the communication process. in a political context, political activity is basically an activity that cannot be separated from various forms of human activity. either directly or indirectly, humans will always be in contact with political activity. moreover, when the democratic climate such as in indonesia is wide open, political activity increases simultaneously as one of the effects of political products that require direct elections in every level starting from the legislative choice, presidential choice, governor's choice, and the choice of mayor or regional head choice . hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1829 issn :0250-7196 the author identifies many definitions of classical political communication. but basically these theories are rooted in the views developed by lasswell (1927) in his dissertation that studies propaganda. he defines political communication with the basic question of who says what to whom via which channels with what effects as shown in figure 1 below. figure 1: classical political communication model the views of denton and woodward can shed more light on this general theory. they define political communication briefly as communication that has political objectives, including; 1) all forms of communication carried out by politicians and other political actors for special purposes; 2) communication aimed at political actors by non-political actors such as voters and columnists; and 3) communication related to political actors and their activities covered by the media, discussed in the editorial and discussed in various formats of discussion in the media. the model of political communication as presented by denton and woodward is a political communication mediated by traditional media such as television, radio, newspapers or magazines. this political communication has a pattern of political communication going in one direction (one way communication), centralised and positioned the public as passive recipients of messages. figure 2: political communication mediated by traditional media figure 2 illustrates how elements in the process of political communication interact with one another. the elite which consists of political organisations such as parties, public organisations, the government uses the media as a tool to deliver political programs to be submitted to the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1830 issn :0250-7196 voters (citizens) (citizens). the message is usually packaged by traditional media in the form of coverage, editorials, comments and news analysis to be conveyed to the public. on the other hand, the media also facilitates citizens (citizens) to convey their opinions to the elite. in practice, political communication mediated by traditional media allows barriers in the form of power practices carried out by elements of political communication. the elements of political communication namely the media, the elite and the public are not in a vacuum. each element has a control function that will affect the effects of messages built in political communication. those who control are the group with the most control over resources, especially the medium (channel). for example in the indonesian context, the media in the process of political communication is often expected to become a public space that gives free space to the public to express their opinions. but in reality these expectations were not fulfilled because of the mastery of the elite over the mass media in indonesia. in the end there was a weakening of the role of the media as a space for public participation because the media was more used as an elite tool to achieve power. the media no longer mediates the public to express their opinions to the elite, instead the media becomes a space controlled by the elite to control the public. related to the problem of the process of political communication mediated by traditional media, it becomes important to see alternative channels that can facilitate the process of political communication with better quality, namely the internet. in the communication process, online political communication is included in the discussion of computer mediated communication (cmc). the internet offers new characters and patterns in communication that is direct, decentralised , two-way, interactive and networking. with this internet usage, figure 2 can be modified to figure 3 below. figure 3: political communication in the internet era the internet opens a channel of direct communication between the public (citizens) and the elite which originally had to be mediated by press institutions. the internet in this article is focused on social media with interactive characters because it is based on web 2.0. the character is different from traditional media (print, electronic, online) as stated by holmes (2005) which parses the difference between internet and television characters, which in this case can represent traditional media. first, the internet has a decentralised character while television is centralised. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1831 issn :0250-7196 this character changes the process of political communication that was previously from one person to many people (one to many) has now become from many people to many people (many to many). this character reduces the power of the elite who initially became an active communicant, and emancipated the public that has now become an active public. a public who can gather power uses the internet to fight for its interests. citizens (citizens) can form social networks that allow them to coordinate, open up political debate space, build interactive public spaces, mobilize and coordinate collective action. second, the internet opens two way communication (two way of communication) while television is only one way (one way communication). social media, for example, is a space that allows democratic actors to communicate directly in two directions that were not previously done on television. even now the public can talk directly with the president through social media accounts. third, the internet has the ability to avoid certain power controls, while television is easily controlled. people on the internet network society (network society) who build unlimited inter-network that cannot be censored easily. the network can be in the form of information networks, civilian networks, corporate networks, etc. while television is an electronic media that is still easily controlled by a handful of people, for example in the case of indonesia, which is a conglomerate that has media. vedel (2003) explains more about how information communication technology (icts) in this case the internet has an effect on political communication. some have similar issues with holmes (2005) related to the strengths of the internet, but they also provide assumptions about the accompanying problems (see table 1). table 1: impact of ict in the process of political communication ict devices potential advantages problems cheap easily produce messages messages are not limited to the public (citizen) too much information direct (sender receiver) direct communication • risks of propaganda • lack of mediators who can play an important role selected recipient  can target the communicant  special group communication  privacy issues hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1832 issn :0250-7196 speed  update quickly and frequently  expand the reach of information search  system fee  push button decision-making interactive direct interaction • privacy issues decentralised the possibility of creating an independent communication system • fragmented public space • difficult regulation source: vedel (2003) table 1 shows vedel's views on the character of the internet in common with holmes (2005) such as direct, interactive and decentralised. nevertheless, vedel provides new insights such as cheap character, reaching the public, selected and global. in this section, the author will describe one by one the character of new media in facilitating the process of political communication, as well as providing various studies that have discussed the potential and weaknesses of the internet in facilitating political communication. vedel's view can be a starting point for researchers to see the process of political communication from various points of view. first, the internet allows democratic actors to reduce the cost of producing political campaigns. only by creating a social media account and website for example can a politician reach his public unlimitedly. according to vedel, this pattern might dramatically change the process of political communication because previously it had to be mediated by the press. however, according to him, the character of the internet can cause various problems such as the flood of information that causes messages to the audience to be ineffective. the public is not concentrated on issues that are supposed to be important but might instead give attention to political talks that are not important. another problem is the social media algorithm that directs the audience to just one issue that they like. one study related to this problem, for example, was conducted by grömping. he researched the process of political communication mediated by facebook by exploring how partisan groups during the 2014 thailand general election communicated. he uses several research methods including content analysis of messages posted on facebook, network analysis and visualization of interactions between partisan groups on facebook pages. the results of the study show how social networking sites (snss) do not make online political discussion more deliberative because of unfocused messages. on the contrary, social media encourages the development of exclusive pockets of group thought that are isolated from other groups or what he later calls an enclave group. political discourse that occurs in these enclaves is marked by the emergence of information that is inconsistent and contains errors. this research concludes that social media is hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1833 issn :0250-7196 an 'echo chamber' that does not allow the exchange of ideas and critical reflection because participants are not in the process of finding information that is contrary to what they have but all information that supports their opinions. echo chamber can appear on social media or when we surf looking for news on an online media. facebook drags users into the echo room because social media implements the content selection algorithm on the facebook homepage in such a way that what appears first on the newsfeed is posts that are tailored to the user's interests. the interest is based on the history of clicks, likes, shares, user comments on the facebook homepage. in an algorithm like this it is certain that a facebook user for example will only receive information about a particular issue from one perspective. through social media, political communication is no longer a linear dominance in one direction, but it is open interactive in cyberspace. this virtual communication appears as a picture of the power of social media as new media. the use of new media enables users to form broadest integrative networks, and can show a different identity from users in the real world (flew, 2002). the use of social media for political purposes has the purpose of maintaining power or otherwise gaining power. social media users have differences in the process of disseminating political information. the elite can not only act as a factual source of information, but they can also fabricate messages to gain support. at the mass level, using information from social media can strengthen group identity in communalism, sectarianism and sub-national zeal. there are ongoing political information transactions that occur vertically between the elite and the masses, or horizontally between the masses and between the elites in the political stratification of society. in the end, in the context of political communication, for example, a facebook user who leaves a digital footprint in the form of consumption of information that is counter to certain potential leaders, tends to get negative information about the candidate, and vice versa. likewise, when netizens consume online media, the algorithm will link all relevant information to what they are looking for rather than providing information that has diverse perspectives. on one side of the character of the algorithm that tries to provide comprehensive information about a case but has a weakness that is providing information from one perspective that inhibits critical discussion. 5. conclusion the development of communication technology from conventional systems to social media has penetrated the lives of humanity. one form of development of communication technology is new media (new media) which then gave birth to social media (social media). the presence of social media also affects the political field. we can interpret this phenomenon as, the power of social media in the victory in the pursuit of political power in an area or in a country. if used positively, the results will be good, but if run negatively, the results will not be good too. it is the community who use social media that must be able to act decisively if someone uses social media in a way that is not good. because not only a handful of people will lose, what can result from the wrong use of social media will have an impact on the wider community. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1834 issn :0250-7196 references bogdan, r., & taylor, s. j. (1975). introduction to qualitative research methods: a phenomenological approach to the social sciences. new york, ny: wiley. bower, j. w., & james j. b. (1982). issues in communication theory: a metatheoritical analysis, communication year book. thousand oaks, ca: sage publication. chavez, j. (2012). the misuse of social media campaign in the 2012 us presidential campaign. retrieved from http://www.tcd.ie/policyinstitute/assets/pdf/pl_chavez_march12.pdf. creswell, j. (1994). research design qualitative and quantitative approaches.thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. dijk, j. a.g.m. (2013). digital democracy: vision and reality. in i. snellen & w. van de donk public administration in the information age: revisited. amsterdam, netherlands: ios press. dahlberg, & siapera. (2007). radical democracy and the internet interrogating theory and practice. new york, ny: palgrave macmillan. flew, t. (2002). new media: an introduction. oxford, uk: oxford university press. global media statistics. (2016). pengguna internet di indonesia. retreived from https://id.techinasia.com/talk/statistikpengguna-internet-dan-media-sosialterbaru-diindonesia. harun, r., & sumarno. (2006). political communication as an introduction. jakarta, indondesia: mandar maju holmes, d. (2005). communication theory: media, technology, society. thousand oaks, ca: sage. kominfo. (2012). election elite political communication 2014. retrived from https://www.google.com/#q=komunikasi+politik+elite+pemilu+2014 krech, d., crutchfield, r., & ballachey, e. l. (1962). individual in society; a text book of social psychology. new york, ny: mcgraw hill. lasswell, h. d. (1927). the theory of political propaganda. american political science review, 21, 627–631. moleong, l. j. (2002). qualitative research methods. bandung, indonesia: pt. remaja rosda karya mufid, m. (2009). ethics and philosophy of communication. jakarta, indonesia: kencana. mulyana, d. (2003). an introduction to communication studies. bandung, indonesia: pt. remaja rosda karya. nimmo, d. (1989). political communication: communicators, messages and media. bandung, indonesia: pt. remaja rosda karya. nimmo, d. (2001). political communication: audiences and effects. bandung, indonesia: pt. remaja rosda karya http://www.tcd.ie/policyinstitute/assets/pdf/pl_chavez_march12.pdf https://id.techinasia.com/talk/statistikpengguna-internet-dan-media-sosialterbaru-di-indonesia https://id.techinasia.com/talk/statistikpengguna-internet-dan-media-sosialterbaru-di-indonesia https://www.google.com/#q=komunikasi+politik+elite+pemilu+2014 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1824-1835 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1835 issn :0250-7196 nimmo, d. (2007). political communication and public opinion in america. bandung, indonesia: pt. remaja rosda karya nursal, a. (2004). political marketing, strategy to win election. jakarta, indonesia: gramedia. polat, f., subay, ö. ö., and ulutürk, a. s. (2018). hate speech in turkish media: the example of charlie hebdo attack’s. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 3(2), 68-75. doi: https://doi.org/10.26500/jarssh-03-2018-0204 riaz, s. (2010). effects on new media technologies on political communication. journal of political studies, 1(2), 161-173. saahar, s., sualman, i., hashim, m. a., & mohamed, w. a. w. (2017). political advertising and young voters information needs. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 3(5), 215-222. doi: https://doi.org/10.20469/ijhss.3.20004-5 setiawan, b. (1990). political communication and national defense. thought of the ugm faculty of social and political sciences about development. yogyakarta, indonesia: aditya media. tsagarousianou, r. (1999). electronic democracy: rhetoric and reality. communications: the european journal of communication research, 24(2), 189–208. vedel, t. (2003). political communication in a new era. oxford, uk: taylor & fracis. https://doi.org/10.26500/jarssh-03-2018-0204 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 4 7 .. editorial this last issue of volume xlv, has a beautiful galaxy of five articles discussing contemporary issues and challenges of the muslim world in the light of primary and secondary sources of islamic law. the first article is about “religious education system and religious education in schools of kyrgyzstan”. it discusses the changes and transformation in religious education in schools after independence of the state. the author has collected some authentic information for our readers like religious education system of kyrgyzstan, the legal and historical basis of religious education at schools since 1991, its aims, teaching model, teachers and regional variations. a careful reading of the article leads us to the fact that kyrgyzstan has achieved a rich experience in religious education in a short time. if this experience is analyzed well, it will be possible to make important contributions to the religious education policies that are starting to be formed. however, it is obvious that religion and religious education policies developed for a certain period should be reconsidered by taking into account all changing conditions. the second paper entitled “alija izetbegović‘s contributions to socio-political and religious thought” explores the socio-political and religious thoughts of alija izetbegović, a bosnian intellectual-turned-politician and one of the islamic thinkers in exyugoslavia in the 20th century. the paper concludes that izetbegović’s thought is a response to a twofold equally negative influence on muslim intellectuals and leaders of the time – the traditionalists whose emphasis on rituals obstructed the reform and the modernists who blindly followed what izetbegović considered un-islamic sources. the paper also focused on his religious ideas regarding the ummah's unity, equality, muslim women's role, and their rights. halal warehousing is a frequently emerging area around the world. many food manufacturing industries are looking for the halal certifications and implementing halal warehousing, but still so much effort is required to get the job done, especially in pakistan. in the third article entitled “the role of technological, organizational and environmental factors in the adoption of halal warehousing”, the author tries to find the gaps while implementing the halal warehousing. the data for this study is gathered from the supply chain professionals working in the pakistani food industry—a total of 142 valid responses received through a structured questionnaire. structural equation 8 editorial .. modelling (sem) is used to analyze the data. this study reveals that all the variables of technology, organization, and environment (toe) have a significant impact on halal warehousing. in the organizational context, top management support plays an essential role in halal warehousing implementation. the findings of the study may assist halal food manufacturing and raw material providers to implement halal warehousing in their businesses. several worth reading implications have been elaborated according to the results of this study. the fourth article “expansion of maqésid thought beyond maqésid al-sharê‘ah: maqésid al-qur’én as a new paradigm” discovers that, in contrast to maqésid al-shari‘ah which primarily focuses on the normative aspect of islam, maqésid al-qur’én has the potential to be a broad islamic goal theory since it expresses the goals of the entire islamic discourse irrespective of normative aspect. the implication of this fresh understanding could contribute to renewing the maqésid reasoning, building multi-disciplinary theories, expounding scope of research and assessment, and treating relevant current issues in a holistic maqésid approach. the hijrah of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and his companions to madinah, was not merely a voyage from the hostile, polytheistic, and sceptical environment of that period but also a divine guidance to the believers to reform and migrate from ignorance to knowledge and to develop a god-centric society based on piety, justice and a model of islamic tradition for the generations to come. it was a migration for the sake of islam and a moral refuge from all forms of vice and corruption, and to build a tawhidic (monotheistic), peaceful, just, and coexistent model society in madinah. however, phenomena like the advent of nation-states in the post-colonial era and the increasing migration of muslims to non-muslim states created new dimensions and challenges, and the notion of hijrah as a migration from darul kufr became a point of discussion. to address and resolve the issues highlighted, the last but not the least article “hijrah and its application in classical and contemporary muslim contexts” argues for a recall and reassessment of all those factors that led to hijrah during the time of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt editor hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 746 issn :0250-7196 smart management strategies in the field of endowments (awqaf) and their role in the development of charity impact 1 hasan awad al-qahtani, 2 ashraf mohammed zaidan, 3 norrodzoh binti hj siren, 4 fakhrul adabi bin abdul kadir abstract the aim of this paper is to find and examine effective technological methods through which, if well-applied, organizations develop fast and thus reach the peak of success. this study aims to identify strategies that help to transfer traditional management system to a modern smart one. the research adopts both descriptive and analytical research methods. the problem of this research lies in the practice of traditional management styles by many endowment institutions, which has negatively affected their performance. the study concludes that one of the most important policies that lead the charity sector to the ranks of smart organizations and one of the principles that make the educational organizations today capable of carrying out their duties is the adoption of smart management in administrative work. this smart management is believed to play a significant role in cultivating and improving employees being the cornerstone in the building of any organization and the establishment of any project. the study also concludes that smart management grants organizations a fingerprint in the world of management, which makes them precedence over their counterparts in other departments and which gives them a competitive advantage among their counterparts in the third sector. the human factor is the focus of smart management innovation for all organizations involved in management. keywords: endowment, smart management, education, training, total quality, governance. ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction the modern information and technology revolution has required all organizations to take a step towards developing their managerial thinking. smart management is one of those fields that has benefited from the technological development of management. this technological development has been shaped to transfer management into new advanced management. smart management is the management that takes advantage of modern technology in its work and is driven by this thought, leaving behind the traditional outdated management styles. smart management is also the one that has the means to develop and promote endowments and charity institutions by acquiring the necessary strategies to do so in a manner that is 1 academy of islamic studies, university of malaya. email: alhosn1@hotmail.com 2 academy of islamic studies, university of malaya. 3 academy of islamic studies, university of malaya. 4 academy of islamic studies, university of malaya. mailto:alhosn1@hotmail.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 747 issn :0250-7196 compatible with the administrative progress witnessed under the fourth industrial revolution. this advancement is realized through the interest in e-learning and smart training after subjecting its work to governance and enabling total quality performance to regulate its performance standards. 1.1. endowments (awqaf) and smart management endowments have been of great importance since the appearance of the prophecy of mohammed (pbuh) to this day. it is necessary to have an exhaustive interest in endowments because of its important role in the life of the islamic community, because the managerial style of the endowments is developing over the years, and because endowments is a ritual of worship of allah. in this regard, allah says: “that [is so]. and whoever honors the symbols of allah indeed, it is from the piety of hearts.” 5 this reflects the great and significant importance of endowments and its role, which cannot be ignored in the advancement of nations. thus, it should be granted a preference among communities. the management of endowments (waqf) has undergone several stages: one of them was managed by the descendants of the waqf. according to the waqf deed, another is managed by the supervisor of the beneficiary of the waqf, such as the imam of the mosque who the waqf is spent on. as time went by, some of the waqfs' documents were lost, and their work was not organized. therefore, the judiciary appointed the management of waqf. moreover, some governments also had a role in managing endowments. in the mid-19th century, the ottoman empire established a ministry of awqaf. they then issued a law to regulate the endowments, which was very beneficial (hakim, 2016). today's organizational work is highly dependent on technology, which is the basis of success for modern managements and an important cornerstone for the development of its cadres. smart management adopts different strategies, most importantly: education, training, quality and governance. 1.2. waqf 1.2.1. firstly: definition of waqf 1. lexically: "stand, standing, unlike sitting, stand at a place of standing... and rise the animal, makes it stand" (ibn manzoor, 1290). ibn fares said: "waqf: the letters waw (w), qaf (q) and fa (f) are one origin, indicating that you stay onto something and then it is measured against it and i stand up and standing" 6 . 2. conceptually: it means “hubous or mortmain property” (ibn qudaamah, 1984). 1.2.2. secondly: the pillars of the waqf the waqf has four pillars: 5 the holy quran; chapter: al-hajj; verse: 32 6 dictionary of language standards, (1979). beirut, lebanon, dar al-fikr, part vi, p. 135. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 748 issn :0250-7196 1. waqif (the donor): it is required to be a free muslim adult, rational owner and not forced. 2. conditions of the waqf: to be solid, such as weapons, real estate, books and the holy quran because they can be of use. 1. to be defined and specified: for example, half of the land or some meters of a specific area. unknown and unspecified quantity or measurement cannot be considered for the waqf. 2. to be fully owned by the waqf: this means full possession. the waqf shall not be mortgaged or dependent on financial claims. and therefore, it can be used for the purpose set by the waqif (al-jasser, 2012). 3. the beneficiaries: beneficiaries shall be clearly defined in the waqf document (deed). 4. the formula: it is required to hold the endowment one of the two formulas either acting (doing) or wording (verbally). an example of acting is the act of building, but the wording has two versions: explicit and metaphor. the words of the endowment are multiple: some can be explicit, and others can be metaphoric. explicit words include: donate, dedicate and alienate. whenever a person says one of these words, it becomes a waqf. and these words are traditionally proven to be used among people, and they are based on sharia as the prophet (pbuh) said to omar bin al-khattab: “if you like, make the property inalienable and give the profit from it to charity” (al-bukhari, 2009). the metaphoric wording includes: offered and shown and forbidden, but must be accompanied by other words to achieve the endowment. the donor should say: this is a charity that is bounded, perpetuated or held (ibn qudaamah, 1984). 1.2.3. thirdly: legitimacy of the waqf many quranic verses and hadiths confirm the legality of the waqf as follows:  from the holy book (interpretation of the meanings) allah says: "o you who have believed, bow and prostrate and worship your lord and do good that you may succeed." 7 allah also says: "o you who have believed, spend from the good things which you have earned and from that which we have produced for you from the earth. and do not aim toward the defective therefrom, spending [from that] while you would not take it [yourself] except with closed eyes. and know that allah is free of need and praiseworthy." 8 allah also says: "never will you attain the good [reward] until you spend [in the way of allah] from that which you love. and whatever you spend indeed, allah is knowing of it." 9  from the prophetic sunnah 7 the holy quran; chapter: al-hajj; verse: 77. 8 the holy quran; chapter: al-baqara; verse: 267. 9 the holy quran; chapter: al-imran; verse: 92. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 749 issn :0250-7196 abu hurairah (may allah be pleased with him) reported: the messenger of allah (ملسو هيلع هللا ىلص) said, "when a man dies, his deeds come to an end except for three things: sadaqah jariyah (ceaseless charity); a knowledge which is beneficial, or a virtuous descendant who prays for him (for the deceased)." (abu al-husayn, 2018). ibn umar narrated: umar bin khattab got some land in khaibar, and he went to the prophet i got some land in khaibar (ملسو هيلع هللا ىلص) to consult him about it saying, "o allah's messenger (ملسو هيلع هللا ىلص) better than which i have never had, what do you suggest that i do with it?" the prophet (ملسو هيلع هللا ىلص) said, "if you like, you can give the land as endowment and give its fruits in charity." so `umar gave it in charity as an endowment on the condition that would not be sold nor given to anybody as a present and not to be inherited, but its yield would be given in charity to the poor people, to the kith and kin, for freeing slaves, for allah's cause, to the travelers and guests; and that there would be no harm if the guardian of the endowment ate from it according to his need with good intention, and fed others without storing it for the future." (al-bukhari, 2009, p. 143).  the wisdom of the legitimacy of the waqf the observer of the waqf finds that one of the most important goals of waqf is to meet the religious, economic, educational, health and security needs of the society and to strengthen the ties and solidarity among the members of the society. this, in turn, achieves the dissemination of the waqf message through achieving security for the nation, by securing both food and thought. it also achieves internal security through police and external security through armed forces to defend the nation. as well as, it plays a significant role in the call to allah (abu zaid, 2000). 1.2.4. fourthly: types of endowments islamic scholars divide the waqf into three sections: (general secretariat of endowments, 2002). 1. public or charitable waqf: it is the one donated for charity work such as mosques, schools and orphanage. 2. descendant waqf: it is the one donated to descendants to take care and to preserve it in the future, and this is from the keenness of the waqf. after that, the output of waqf is spent on a continuously present party. 3. joint waqf: it is the percentage of entitlement determined by the donor between charity and descendants. 1.3. smart management 1.3.1. management it is an activity that aims to follow up the efforts of the employees in the organization through planning, organization, leadership and supervision, in order to achieve the objectives of management in private establishments. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 750 issn :0250-7196 1.3.2. the waqf management it is the body responsible for following up the administrative and financial endowment works. it refers to the council of observers or the waqf supervisor, as stipulated in the waqf deed, taking into account the right of the government to supervise the waqf according to the laws and regulations of the country. 1.3.3. smart management it is a management that uses icts in core management work at all levels of management, thereby enabling them to achieve competitive advantage among their peers (abdelkader, 2010). 1.4. research outline the researcher will explain the significance of the research and its role in the performance of endowments. then he will review the research problem related to the policies absent from the traditional management styles. the researcher will then present the research objectives, which lies in the spreading of the culture of openness knowledge. then he will explain the selection of the research sample and its spatial and temporal boundaries. then he will demonstrate the research similarities and differences with other research. at the end of the research, the researcher will discuss the research findings and present a conclusion. 1.5. research significance the significance of the policies lies in the existence of a technical information system that helps to advance the work in the field of endowments, contributes to the development of endowment work under the umbrella of human development in this important sector, and bridges the knowledge gap between the traditional system and modern technology. this can only be realized through a well-thought-out institutional work developed by specialists in the fields of technical and administrative information systems. 1.6. research problem the problem that this research attempts to tackle involves the working methods and styles adopted by the management of various endowment organizations that still rely on the traditional method of management, which has negatively impacted their performance. this is evident in the fact that they have not benefited from the knowledge revolution and emerging information technology, which is the gateway that grants organizations a competitive advantage among their peers. these traditional-based management organizations will, therefore, fade and end. this research accordingly discusses the endowment organizations suffering from not taking advantage of modern technology in their work and demonstrates some policies in expanding organizational quality performance that leads to better practices and success. 1.7. research objectives the research aims at spreading knowledge openness and activating the policies that serve the endowment organizations to promote managemental work and develop it as a guide to have a hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 751 issn :0250-7196 significant impact on the development of charity work. it also helps them to perform their work correctly away from the traditional management style of rejecting the use of technology. it encourages the use of modern technology and the implementation of policies that help an organization to succeed and to be a leading organization to other organizations, as an educated organization that transfers its expertise to other organizations where the use of technology is very low. the policies that this research targets are education, training, quality, and governance. 2. literature review the first study conducted was “strategic management and its impact on raising the performance of business organizations "field study on the general industrial organizations in the syrian coast" (sulaitin, 2006). the aim of the study was to clarify the concept of strategic management and its importance and the reasons for applying it with a diagnosis of the reality of the general industrial organizations in the syrian coast, and the similarity between them and the circumstances that necessitate the use of strategic management after identifying the actual form of management practice. after that, the impact of strategic management is demonstrated. the study concluded that there is a lack of knowledge about the strategic management of the managers of the organizations in question, with the similarities between the circumstances of the organizations in question and the circumstances surrounding the business organizations that require the use of modern management method. there is a great lack of analysis of the internal and external environment. the features of strategic management are not compatible with the features of organizations that are scientifically researched because they are far from the criteria of challenge, realism, flexibility and consideration of stakeholders. the researcher will benefit from this research from the strategic point of view. the study has ignored the criticism of the responsible people for choosing these leaders without having a competition to select the best of them according to a certain mechanism and plan prepared for such leaders. the second study conducted was about “the extent of commitment to the implementing total quality management (tqm) standards and their impact on human resources performance: an empirical study on human resources management in the kuwaiti national guard" (otaibi, 2010). the aim of this study is to identify the extent of the commitment to implement tqm standards (leadership, satisfaction of beneficiaries, improvement of the quality of services provided, operation management, increased efficiency of staff). the study concluded that the application of tqm among tqm staff was somewhat limited. the technology used to make use of the information provided by beneficiaries to improve services and train staff on modern management concepts was limited. the researcher argues that the study overlooked the importance of encouraging interest in targeted and smart training, which helps to raise the level of workers as well as the development of technology infrastructure. this is the gap that the researcher will attempt to fill in this research. the third study conducted was about “the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 752 issn :0250-7196 impact of managerial communication on the effectiveness of managerial decisions” (alanzi, 2010). this study aimed to identify the impact of the role of managerial communication at the kuwaiti ministry of justice in achieving effective managerial decisions and learning the level of effectiveness of the managerial communication used in the ministry and its impact on determining the characteristics of the information that results in achieving the effectiveness of the managerial decisions. the study found that managers at the ministry of justice at all levels encourage communication between employees of all kinds, as they teach them everything they care about, and the information resulting from managerial communication provides clear data on the situations in which decisions are made, which facilitates positive and successful managerial decisions. the study shows that males are more likely than females to have managerial communication contributing to effective management decisions. according to the researcher, the study overlooked the marketing of the importance of managerial communication, which is at the heart of the managerial work that leads to success in the organizations that care about it, where the decision-making depends on the effectiveness of managerial communication. the fourth study conducted was about “the impact of technological capabilities on the success of the organization: an empirical study on mobile telecommunications companies in the hashemite kingdom of jordan” (alwondawi, 2012). the study discussed that technological change is a major challenge for service organizations, and that there is a relationship between the high value of business and technology as well as knowledge and technological capabilities. the study also showed that the development of the public services industry has strengthened its ability to compete. the study also considered technology represented in technological capabilities as a competitive weapon in the operation management of the service organizations. the study recommended providing an effective work environment, increasing investment in technological capabilities, employing the internet to keep up with the new services to ensure quality, and promoting a culture of organizational success. the researcher argues that the definitions offered in the study related to technological capabilities are many and the researcher did not come out with a comprehensive definition for his study, but he mentioned the definitions that dealt with the subject and listed the views of some authors without recommending any of them as he did with organizational success. 3. research methodology this research adopts the descriptive and analytical approaches as follows: 3.1. the descriptive approach the researcher will use the descriptive approach, where he will collect information related to technology, endowment, human development and smart management, which affect the performance of the management and its scientific method in charity work away from the traditional method of management. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 753 issn :0250-7196 3.2. the analytical approach the researcher analyzes and discusses the findings obtained from this research. 3.3. research sample the research includes organizations working in charity work and endowments in the asir region in the kingdom of saudi arabia during the period from 2000 to 2019 and aims to learn the use of smart management strategies in these organizations. 3.4. research terminology and smart management strategies 1. the beholder: it is the person who manages the waqf and takes care of it and its interests from maintenance to revenue collection and divides it on the beneficiaries according to the condition of the waqf (al-najran, 2018). 2. strategy: it is the plan or approach adopted by management to achieve its objectives efficiently, taking into account weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats (ben abbas, 2017). 3. education: it is the process through which to build the experience that helps the learner to reach the desired change and achieve the goals set by the governing body of education (deanship of quality assurance and accreditation, 2013). 4. training: it is the process of providing the individual with the necessary information, skills, knowledge and sciences to perform a particular job, and developing the experiences that the individual needs in his or her present or future work. training includes changing the individual's professional and functional behavior. 10 4. the impact of smart management strategies on the quality of endowment management the need for strategies to run the managerial work towards what is planned in smart management is an important requirement. otherwise, it will not succeed and will become traditional management. it is the way that managerial thinking is influenced by education and training, traditional managerial thought can be changed to modern managerial thought based on information technology and its tools, and institutional endowment can be promoted to the levels of advanced institutions. the quality of management of the endowment cannot be overlooked because it focuses on the individual and organization, seeks to achieve their plans and enhances the quality of work. moreover, governance is a set of processes and procedures through which the rights of the organization are ensured through internal and external supervision and control, and the establishing of the culture of responsibility and accountability. thus, corporate collapses due to their lack of disclosure, transparency and the presentation of real data on financial conditions (ghadar, 2012). the following is the impact of smart management strategies on the quality of endowment management. 10 training objectives and its stages of assessment: http://mawdoo3.com march 5, 2019 at 5 pm. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 754 issn :0250-7196 4.1. firstly: the impact of educational strategy the observer of the concept of education finds that the purpose of this process is to achieve the goal of learning, as this strategy is the outline and the foundation on which the teacher delivers information to the learner. the teacher has the right to use the method he deems appropriate for communicating the information to the learner. learning does not mean the examining of the learner's knowledge, information, and skills, but it should aim at understanding and using information, knowledge and skills whenever the learner needs them. learning assessment is the process that aims at knowing whether or not the goals are achieved. in the past, traditional education had been focusing on the learner's knowledgegathering and memorization only, but now the goal has been different, as it has become the acquisition and use of knowledge and resources. the philosophy of e-learning or smart education is based on distance education, which focuses on the learner's self-learning and achievement. thus, the process of learning becomes learning using the available media, which shows a clear role in achieving the skills required for learning. in this regard, the principles of traditional education differ from those of e-learning in stimulating motivation and programming education (al-ahmari, 2015, singh & jain, 2018). 4.2. secondly: the impact of training strategy the impact of training strategy is demonstrated by achieving the overall objectives of smart training, which are as follows (amhammed & haj, 2017, niamhom, srisuantang, & tanpichai, 2018): 1. enhancing the competence level of the trainees through the development of their new abilities, skills and knowledge, which they are trained on exhaustively. and maintaining good relations with the employees of the organization by building positive thinking towards work. 2. saving efforts and money in supervision due to the construction of positive thinking and the employees‟ belief in the implementation of new work based on technological development, and therefore having fewer errors in work. 3. encouraging and promoting employees and increasing productivity through competition among them. in order for the quality of the waqf management to be measured, the training programs should be evaluated and benefited from as follows: a. promotion: evaluation is one of the most important criteria on which the management depends in the appointment of those who hold positions within the organization through learning the employees‟ competencies, qualifications and abilities. b. defining rewards, grants and bonuses: evaluation helps to determine who is entitled to bonuses and rewards within the organization. c. identifying training needs: identifying training needs is a useful method to prepare effective training programs. examining the performance evaluation results identifies people who need training in order to increase their competencies and abilities (amhammed & haj, 2017). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 755 issn :0250-7196 d. attracting, appointing and transferring: appointment is the final product of a number of important steps in the recruitment process which starts with attracting and moves to selection. the process of attracting is concerned with attracting qualified and competent individuals to fill vacant positions. the selection process involves the examination of applicants' applications to ensure that the requirements and conditions of the job apply to them (adwan, 2011). e. human resources planning: planning as a whole is concerned with how human resources are used, controlled and channeled towards channels that achieve endowment objectives (hassan, 2011). 4.3. thirdly: the impact of the total quality strategy the impact of the total quality strategy on the management of the endowment is realized through the implementation and application of this strategy in managing the endowments, and the adoption of its benefits in a way that ensures the maximum benefit. total quality is a system or a framework aimed at improving the work and its performance continuously within the waqf, providing a quality service to the beneficiaries and integrating between management and employees. total quality is one of the systems used by the waqf management to meet the challenges of providing high-quality services at low costs. total quality management is an integrated approach that relies on human resources for continuous improvement of work methods. it has advanced to become one of the latest methodological approaches for institutional development and restructuring, because of its system of continuous performance improvement at all management levels (altarash, 2018, zidira, 2016). 4.4. fourthly: the impact of governance strategy governance aims at ensuring fairness, transparency, impartiality and integrity in all projects, balancing the objectives of the waqf and the most efficient use of endowment resources while ensuring accountability. governance is based on two principles: 1. preserving the interests of the waqf. 2. maximizing its value. this, in turn, reflects its impact on all beneficiaries, including the waqf management. this can be done through the governance mechanisms of the endowments, which must be activated by the waqf institutions in order to achieve the desired objectives of governance; namely, to preserve the funds of the waqf in accordance with the principles of shari'ah (tohami, 2012). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 756 issn :0250-7196 5. methods of the waqf development and the application of smart management in the waqf 5.1. methods of the waqf development through the activation of smart management 5.1.1. firstly: methods of smart management activation in the institutional work the interest in methods of activating smart management in the institutional work is important and has a direct impact on the performance of the management, enabling it to do its work in a reliable scientific way. there are several ways to activate smart management as follows: 1. information systems: information systems are the most important tools that the waqf management relies on in its work because of its significant impact on controlling the performance according to advanced scientific methodology. the systems required by the waqf management are (obeis, 2010): a. financial information systems: it is among the most important information needed by senior management in the planning and decision-making, where it shows what is available and what is required financially for the performance of the waqf work. b. marketing management information systems: marketing does not necessarily mean the existence of a commodity, but there can be a service marketed for others whether the goal is profitable or charity as in the endowment. c. project management information systems: management sometimes needs knowledge in accomplishing a specific task, such as executing a specific project according to the plan that has been set, and finishing it within the planned time framework. therefore, the management needs various information systems due to the specificity of this type of work. d. senior management information systems: this type of system uses the quantitative analysis of information or the so-called operations research so that the management can make decisions in planning and implementation. in this type of systems, the analyst needs to use mathematical methods and statistical analysis of the obtained data. e. management information systems: information systems mean that the waqf is a set of systems that operate within the endowment in an integrated manner. each system has its own inputs and outputs. the outputs of a given system may be the inputs of another system because system integration is the basis of successful management. information processing is realized through data entry of the necessary information to the computer where it is processed by special programs. then the results are retained to be used as outputs. f. decision support systems: decision-making requires sufficient information in order to reach a decision. decision support systems are the most important systems to address, as they represent the source of information, models and data-processing tools which managers need to make their structural or semi-structural decisions (obeis, 2010). 2. organizational change: organizational change undergoes three basic stages (attuluri, 2018, suleiman, 2010): hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 757 issn :0250-7196 a. preparation stage: the initial stage is to get the attention of the workers towards the importance of change, and it is a significant impact on the progress of the organization. changes can only be made after this stage. among the methods of this stage is the prevention of the spread of any of the ideas that support the previous behavioral patterns. another method is the creation of a comfortable environment for employees, generating a positive behavior towards change in the sense that it will not negatively affect them or force them to move from their departments where they used to work in, except in the case of undesirable behavior which may lead to transfer or training. b. change stage: at this stage, officials proceed with desirable organizational change on the behavior of the individual and the group, as well as the preferred new directions for the organization, whether systems, working methods or regulatory actions. this is a stage in which individuals learn that change includes patterns of management, technology and organizational processes. c. stabilization stage: this phase is concerned with following up on the change that has been applied to the processes, procedures and behaviors of individuals within the organization in order to preserve what the employees have been taught and trained on. stabilization needs periodic follow-up and evaluation of the change process to make sure that it is going as planned. 3. overcoming organizational change resistance: resistance to change is expected when senior management tries to make a change, creating a new situation. this resistance stems from fear of change in the previous situation, which may lead to losing some of the privileges that an employee has enjoyed, or changing the way he used to adopt in his work. it also stems from fear of failure if procedures of the implementation of operations change. employees may also fear the inability to interact with the new system (suleiman, 2010, p. 5). 4. organizational memory: it means the use of professional knowledge based on technology and expertise that support processes within the organization and maintain its confidentiality. organizational memory is supposed to contain the organization's history, which should be ready when needed for decision-making (al-baghdadi, 2007). 5.1.2. secondly: methods of development of endowments through smart management the entire development of the waqf focuses on maximizing the value of the waqf in terms of preserving its nature, maintaining it against any damage, and maximizing its revenues by diversifying its sources of investment through investing in various portfolios managed by specialized institutions. the internal and external endowment environment can be improved through smart management, which is reflected in the endowment through its culture, which appears in three dimensions: 1. emotional intelligence: it shows the person's ability to know and understand his feelings, which has a great impact on knowing the others. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 758 issn :0250-7196 2. rational intelligence: rationality is to progress in the light of the goals that a person set for himself, and this intelligence becomes clear through the processes of learning and the situations that one experiences through in life. 3. spiritual intelligence: it means having an in-depth understanding of things in an exhaustive manner. smart leaders are characterized by qualities that distinguish them and help them influence others. these characteristics include critical and analytical thinking of the challenges facing the waqf. moreover, the decision-making of smart leaders is based on scientific methods. another feature of smart leaders is strategic thinking that results in successful strategies (alkraawi, 2016, mansouri & mhunpiew, 2016, rijal, 2016). 5.2. employing smart management in the waqf to increase the outputs 5.2.1. firstly: the mechanisms of employing smart management in the development of the waqf projects the development of projects in the endowments, which the waqf invests in, requires the management to have a clear vision and a scientific-oriented investment towards a future carefully planned for the development of projects that the waqf wants to benefit from. these mechanisms are as follows: 1. new projects: these require better study and higher use, then a feasibility study to learn the waqf‟s position of the investment process that will have the greatest impact on the development of the waqf through its projects. 2. troubled projects: these projects need an investment mindset that works on developing and benefiting from them. 3. successful projects: these projects can be developed to reach greater revenue by a specialized team. 5.2.2. secondly: methods of increasing the output of the waqf through intensifying the role of smart management it is the smart management of the waqf that can win the technical challenge within its organization in order to carry out the process of change in its internal structure, despite the great challenges that face its progress. this is realized through the following: 11 1. increase the skills level of staff in the endowment: this is achievable through training, education and development, which can keep pace with the latest developments. this, in turn, helps management to achieve results at the lowest cost and in less time and effort and helps employees to adapt. without the employees who believe in change and direction of management, the goals set by the management will not be achieved. 2. benefiting from management information system: it reduces wasted time in routines such as data entry and simple procedures. it also gives endowment managers the ability to study and analyze problems and then make decisions in a more professional manner. 11 information system, https://mawdoo3.com, 23 march 2019, 10:30pm. https://mawdoo3.com/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 759 issn :0250-7196 3. knowledge-construction: it expresses the behaviors and processes that take place within the organization and is dependent on the workers in terms of formulation, performance, knowledge utilization, preservation and distribution of operations in the organization. 4. organizational development: it is the change which takes place at several levels. this change aims at renewing the activity and vitality of the organization through renewing the organizational mindset and the acceptance of change by the members of the organization despite any objection. 5. data analysis under this section, a couple of interviews have been conducted with people in charge of „endowment in the kingdom of saudi arabia‟. there are 4 questions and 19 participants who have responded to these questions as follows: 5.1. question 1 why is smart endowment management essential to develop the endowment‟s role in society and how can we define tools for developing endowment functions in our time? 5.1.1. answer of respondent 1 due to the multiplicity of tasks assigned to the endowment departments, as well as the presence of the competitors, the endowment administration and its decision-makers must pay attention to the up-to-date methods of management to develop the endowment and achieve its goals. they also have to take basic steps for their business development and achieving the endowment‟s vision and goals. we can mention the three most essential steps to develop the endowment in this era:  first: endowment vision development the vision development is a continuous assessment process of the course of action and its development according to the targeted labor market developments. this vision cannot be sustained for a long time without periodic assessment processes of its effectiveness in keeping with the labor market developments, as well as in terms of achieving its strategic objectives through results and performance indicators. the lack of interest in following up the process of doing business without vision assessment is only a wasteful use of endowment resources, which will not achieve its strategic objectives.  second: team development the team is the backbone of the endowment, and its development is very important, because weak team members, who do not develop their own skills, cannot achieve the evolving vision. whatever the modern strategies in the business world, including the endowments, the modern endowment strategies must include team development process goals and allocate them adequate resources like financial resources goals, emphasizing the relation between team development and strategic vision. the attention paid to the team development contributes to increasing the job satisfaction ration, which therefore makes the staff members hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 760 issn :0250-7196 more loyal to the endowment and serves as an incentive for improving their work performance to realize the endowment goals that have been set out.  third: working methods and tools development to achieve the endowment vision with a distinguished team, it must be accompanied by working methods and tools development. smart applications, interactive websites, social media sites and other technologies and modern management techniques enable the endowment directors and staff to carry out their work, because of its characteristics such as speed, accuracy and the reduction of the resources needed to implement the activities. 5.1.2. answer of respondent 2 the smart management of the endowment organization serves as the organization‟s ownership of the methodological tools and methods to solve the significant and complex problems to achieve consistent results. the tools that provide smart endowment management can be summarized in three major areas: a. smart governance. b. expert human behavior in the endowment sector. c. identify the challenges and obstacles to be dealt with. 5.1.3. answer of respondent 3 the modern variables at all legislative, social, economic and administrative levels make the need to enjoy the dynamics that keep pace with this change, including adopting the smart management that depends on the external resources through alliances and that uses technical management and identifies and monitors cleverly the performance indicators facilitating the management process and achieving effectively and efficiently the monitored results. 5.1.4. answer of respondent 4 smart endowment management improves labor productivity while reducing time, effort and cost over the long term. this is reflected in the community service, making it more effective and efficient to communicate and interact with the target groups in the society through electronic applications and solutions. 5.1.5. answer of respondent 5 the smart management is a modern necessity for saving time, effort, human and financial resources, performance quality and follows up the achievements, etc. furthermore, with the rapid development, many beneficiaries have become adapted for smart handling. 5.2. question 2 in your opinion, is the charitable work outputs development, including the endowment, related to smart endowment management? hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 761 issn :0250-7196 5.2.1. answer of respondent 1 the charitable work output development at present is closely related to smart management. old management technologies to be relied upon new management technologies can be overlooked, and today, they are among the most important endowment tools to achieve best results and goals at low cost, fastest time and high accuracy. the basic steps to develop the endowment works and outputs are mandatory for all endowment owners, contributing to increasing opportunities to achieve the strategic goals while neglecting them makes those opportunities almost impossible. 5.2.2. answer of respondent 2 yes, the greater the vital endowment outputs, the greater the consequences of the management ability to ensure that these outputs meet the quality requirements for the beneficiary. therefore, smart management, as a concept, policy and procedure, is an urgent need for improvement. 5.2.3. answer of respondent 3 the development of the charitable work outputs, especially the endowments, has a positive effect on the endowments, i.e. focus on the developmental aspects of the spending channels in establishing the endowment, drafting its document and increasing the channels of spending by granting authorities with disciplines to the managers for development and better outputs. this may not be available in the case of pure smart management, which is one of its advantages and interests we mentioned before. 5.2.4. answer of respondent 4 it depends on the concept of smart management of whether it means the use of performance indicators and results-based management or means the use of modern technologies that cloud compute external resources. that is if new needs arise, needs for automating processes and resources, done by efficient employees, reduces operational expenses. 5.2.5. answer of respondent 5 the quality of charitable work outputs depends on clear and correct inputs and processes. the smart management makes it easier to get the information required (inputs) quickly with quality through solutions and electronic applications that contribute significantly to information collection and analysis. therefore, application smart management process with high output quality contributes to the right decision. 5.2.7. answer of respondent 6 if smart management has an effect on the outputs, this will be clear and visible in all endowment work areas and others if the right methods are best chosen. 5.3. question 3 what difficulties does the endowment system suffer from in applying its management strategies? hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 762 issn :0250-7196 5.3.1. answer of respondent 1 1. emergence of rapid changes: whoever follows the news and media landscape, he/ she will definitely notice that many changes have emerged on various economic, political, artistic, social, technological and other fields that hardly pass a day or barely several hours until conditions change unnecessarily. 2. management efficiencies scarcity: the success of any management team depends on the well-qualified administrative and professional staff, which has been steering the work in various fields. in the endowment, this factor is particularly evident, because the endowment requires much legitimate, administrative and legal skills and knowledge. 3. competition rise: one of the threats and challenges facing the endowment administrations is the competition process that the endowment receives from competitors in the same endowment activity, especially if the endowment activity is commercial. 4. strategic challenges: one of the most prominent aspects that may face the management of any organization is the poor plans and strategies that qualify it for progress, development and facing all new. therefore, the endowment administration must develop a good strategic plan that takes into account the criteria and mission of the endowment and its policies, sets, follow-ups, monitors its goals and supports the good of it, and addresses the negative. 5.4. question 4 what is the legal perspective of possessing modern endowment management skills by endowment management staff? 5.4.1. answer of respondent 1  wrong vision  plan environment.  wrong time  wrong team 5.4.2. answer of respondent 2 one of the most important competencies is the familiarity with the minimum jurisprudence of the endowment and its own purposes, which only requires public briefing and reviewing judgments, cases and circulars, which can be followed-up by non-specialists. 5.4.3. answer of respondent 3  the absence of a clear time-bound operational plan makes it difficult to apply strategies, even if the endowment administration believes in the strategies having been adopted.  the lack of adequate financial support to apply these strategies  the lack of qualified executive management to apply these strategies  government regulations. 5.4.4. answer of respondent 4  sometimes the lack of regulations completeness or clarity. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 763 issn :0250-7196  lack of financial resources.  partners do not interact. 5.5. question 5 how can community development strategies be determined through endowment programs and their various activities? 5.5.1. answer of respondent 1  determine the right target.  the target fit the organization‟s vision.  the possibility of applying the strategy in society  the endowment ownership of the development tools and their administrative efficiency  development and keeping pace with the reality of the sector  transferring the experiment to the endowment sector by learning about other‟s experience 5.5.3. answer of respondent 2 the most important thing here is to provide development research studies and specialized workshops. 6. discussion and results it is noticed that the awqaf is currently supporting the third sector, which has become highly developed. and this role is entrusted with smart management to do what is necessary towards endowments and advancement. this is because of the setback in some stages in some islamic countries as a result of some political circumstances, such as colonization, which has learned the value of the waqf and its role in supporting independence through the waqf revenues from banks to equip armies if needed. therefore, colonization closed the awqaf or at least marginalized it by being under the control of the high commissioner of those countries. moreover, the corruption of the administrative system in some countries and the corruption of the creditors in some cases weakened the role of the awqaf. it is important today to pay attention to the management of organizations of all kinds, especially the awqaf, which in the past few years has taken remarkable steps in all areas of development of endowments. at the moment, the most important of these endowments is the presence of smart management that moves towards globalization through the use of the latest technologies available today. the study concludes first that there is a significant correlation between smart management and the development of the work of waqf management. second, it concludes that there are many strategies of development and advancement that the waqf can adopt. third, it concludes that human development programs prepared by senior management should be agreed upon by the employees. fourth, it suggests that it is necessary to create a new generation of managers who believe in smart management and its ability to increase the investments of the waqf management. finally, it concludes that it is also necessary to benefit hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 764 issn :0250-7196 from the expertise of the institutions concerned with smart management in accordance with the needs of the waqf. 7. recommendations 1. the selection of managers shall be based on their expertise and flexibility in accepting others‟ ideas. 2. a strict system of accepting employees of the waqf should be used to prioritize the selection of creative young people. 3. selecting quality and governance systems should be one of the tools to improve the performance of the waqf and to ensure transparency and neutrality. 4. building organizational and financial structures and models based on a scientific and technical basis to serve the management and employees of the waqf, saving efforts, time and money. 5. building an organizational communication network that facilitates communication between employees of the waqf. references abdelkader, b. (2010). digital management as an innovation in the management and promoting of business organizations with reference to the model of digital management in arab organizations, international forum on innovation and organizational change in modern organizations, university of saad dahlab, blida, algeria. abu al-husayn, m. h. (2018). sahih muslim: book of will, part of man's rewards after his death. modern library. abu zaid, a. (2000). islamic waqf system: development of the methods of work and analysis of the results of some recent studies. press bani aznassen. adwan, m. (2011). the reality of the policy of selection and appointment and its impact on the career path of workers in banks operating in the gaza strip (unpublished master thesis). islamic university, gaza, palestine. alwondawi, a. (2012). the impact of technological capacities on the success of the organization (an empirical study on mobile telecommunications companies in the hashemite kingdom of jordan) (unpublished master‟s thesis). middle east university, amman, jordan. al-ahmari, s. (2015). e-learning, research, p. 12. al-anzi, m. (2010). the impact of managerial communication on the effectiveness of managerial decisions (unpublished master‟s thesis). middle east university, amman, jordan. alatrash, a. (2018). impact of using total quality management on the financial performance of companies listed on the palestine exchange. international journal of business and economic affairs,3(6), 244-252. al-baghdadi, a. (2007). the relationship and impact of organizational memory on organizational performance. journal of management and economics, 165, 154-178. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 765 issn :0250-7196 al-bukhari, m. i. (2009). book of faith and vows, chapter: are land, sheep, plants and belongings included in faith and vows? dar ibn hazm. al-jasser, s. (2012). waqf and its rulings in the light of islamic law. madar al-watan publishing. alkraawi, s. (2016). the impact of smart leadership on smart organizations by enhancing organizational learning (unpublished master‟s thesis). university of qadisiyah, baghdad, iraq. al-najran, s. (2018). the descendant waqf: its purposes and ways of reform. madar alwatan publishing. amhammed, b. & haj, n. (2017). the impact of training on the employees’ performance. (unpublished master‟s thesis). university of qasdi marbah, algeria. attuluri, s. (2019). institutional changes in mexico higher education: a reform to u.s accreditations. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 5(1), 919. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.20469/ijhss.5.10002-1 ben abbas, h. (2017). the role of strategic management in improving the performance of economic institutions (unpublished master‟s thesis). university of mohammed khader, biskra, algeria. deanship of quality assurance and accreditation. (2013). strategies of science, education and evaluation. bahar al-madad for advertisement. general secretariat of endowments. (2002). waqf system in contemporary time. kuwait islamic institute for research and development, islamic development bank. ghadar, m. (2012).tthe determinants of governance and its criteria. in international scientific conference on the globalization of management in the age of knowledge, tripoli, lebanon, al-jinan university. hakim, a. (2016). methods of waqf management (unpublished master‟s thesis). university of dr. taher moulay saida, algeria. hassan, r. (2011). strategic approach to planning and development of human resources. aldar al-jamiya. ibn qudaamah, a. ( 1290). lessan al-arab. dar sader. ibn qudaamah, muwaffaq al-din a.a., & al-mugani, (1984). the book of waqf and attiyah, revival of arab heritage house publishing. mansouri, s., & mhunpiew, n. (2016). leadership is skin deep: a new way of being through inside-out effect of leadership and its strategies in teaching. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(3), 133-142. niamhom, w., srisuantang, s., and tanpichai, p. (2018). satisfaction study towards classroom language training courses of english teachers in primary educational service area office, nakhon pathom province, thailand . journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 3(2), 46-51. obeis, t. (2010). management information systems and their importance in the decisionmaking. journal of the university of babylon, humanities, 18(3), 2-10. https://dx.doi.org/10.20469/ijhss.5.10002-1 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 746-766 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 766 issn :0250-7196 otaibi, f. (2010). degree of commitment to implementing total quality management (tqm) standards and their impact on human resources performance (unpublished master‟s thesis). middle east university, amman, jordan . rijal, s. (2016). the influence of transformational leadership and organizational culture on learning organization: a comparative analysis of the it sector. thailand. journal of administrative and business studies, 2(3), 121-129. singh, a. & jain, p. (2018). significance of political advertisements in indian society: a critical analysis on „swachh bharat mission‟. journal of management practices, humanities and social sciences. 2(2), 35-41. sulaitin, s. (2006). the extent of commitment to the implementing total quality management standards and their impact on human resources performance: an empirical study on human resources management in the kuwaiti national guard (unpublished master‟s thesis), tishreen university, lattakia, syria. suleiman, b. (2010). the role of training in strengthening the capacity for organizational change in economic institutions. saad dahlab university. tohami, e. (2012). governance of waqf institutions. in the first international symposium on islamic finance, al-azhar university, cairo, egypt. zidira, s. (2016). tthe role of total quality management in improving the quality of hospital services (phd thesis), university of mohammed khader, biskra, algeria. f:\e\islamicus\2020\no. 4\final\islam a religion of peace or force.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 35 islam: a religion of peace or force? an analysis based on the qur’ón sunnah and islams heritage prof. thameem ushama dean, international institute of islamic thought and civilisation international islamic university malaysia, kuala lumpur e-mail: ushama_thameem@yahoo.co.uk we establish that islam is a religion that sustains peace and catalyses universal harmony. this paper offers qualitative content analysis of muslim scripture to clarify that peace is integral to islamic doctrine. interpretations by reliable exegetes articulate that this is fact from scripture and sunnah. we offer views from notable western scholars who clearly state that islam is a peaceful religion and was never spread at the point of sword, but rather as a creed without any imposition of fear or fanaticism. the author also explores islam’s substantial contributions to a sustainable environment of global peace. keywords: conversion, force, peace, religion, sword. introduction islam appears to be the most misunderstood religion in the world, particularly in educated western sectors. easterners are hardly better. both schools of speculation make assumptions and cradle misconceptions that islam is dangerous, forceful, fanatical, harmful and prone to violence. the global tendency is to broadcast muslims as felons who compel people from different cultures and traditions to accept islam by all means. an example is propaganda from anti-islamic hindu militants of the hindutva1 movement, as promoted by rashtriya swayamsevak sangh (rss),2 the paramilitary wing of the india’s current ruling party. generally, this has become typical of globalized post-modern secular societies. deliberately and not, the mass media also contributes to false impressions with utter fabrications, generally because the media is directly or indirectly controlled by islam’s enemies. further, some orientalists seem dedicated to the advancement of lies that favour colonial imperialists. 36 islam: a religion of peace or force... some claim islam was spread on the point of sword. by so saying, they sow seeds of enmity and confusion. the lie continues a tangible bias that unfortunately self-perpetuates. while many subscribe to the calumny, others disagree and advocate this was never the case and provide convincing arguments to the contrary. hence, the present writer raises questions and provides answers. is islam a religion of peace or of force? does it condone violence, propagate intolerance, oppress those of other faiths and employ force for conversion? was it spread on the point of sword? are muslims peaceloving or violence prone? many contemporaries want answers, especially since islam is presently and publicly marked by violence, and portrayed as antagonistic to global peace and equanimity. western media and secular sources project islam as aggressive, oppressive, repressive and hostile. such sources tacitly or clandestinely operate in collusion, not only in the west but also within the arab-muslim world where there is a sincere quest for knowledge and understanding of islam’s history, worldview, culture and civilization. in addition to islam’s deconstruction, many westerners propagate ideas, formulate theories, propound philosophies, disseminate false textual interpretations, sponsor questionable agencies, and exhibit islam in unkind terms by referring to horrible wars fought by muslim nations. some orientalists nurture these misconceptions and purposely spread misperceptions among people of other faiths and belief systems. they often refer to islam’s guidance on capital punishment as proof of islam’s merciless intent and peace deficit; marking muslims as barbaric, irrational, unscientific, illogical, and non-humanitarian, and islam as an uncivilized religion and a way of life. islam has been portrayed as anti-modern, antisecular, anti-development, anti-liberal, anti-global, anti-democratic, and anti-west; all of which implicitly inspire hate and distance muslims from humanitarian embrace without warmth, trust or collaborative cooperation. since the allegations and the fiendish branding cited are exceedingly harmful, unwarranted, dangerous and deconstructive, we deemed it appropriate to conduct this study. hence, we present findings gleaned from exceptionally informed scholars of the qur’én and the biography of prophet’s ( ) to clarify issues raised by poorly informed critics. qualitative content analysis regarding peace as an integral component of islamic doctrine refers to reliable exegeses to enlarge the concept of peace as articulated in the qur’én and prophet’s example, along with islam’s historical contributions to the sustainable development of world peace. we thus explore the truth of islam and present its fundamental precepts, hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 37 principles and values to a global audience. with due respect, this effort is offered to educate and enable a better understanding and appreciation of the true nature and authentic purpose of islam. the author hopes to catalyse greater harmony and understanding within and without the muslim community. terms ‘islâm’ and ‘salâm’ the term ‘islâm’ has been wrongly associated with violence or force. its literal meaning refers to submission, surrender and peaceful reconciliation, especially with regard to compliance with divine directives. authentic muslims adhere to qur’én and prophet’s example and are required to obey these directives with absolute worship of god alone. this specific obedience requires their application of ‘revealed law’ without reservation, dissension or disorder. the word aslim, as written in the qur’én, means to ‘submit’. it is used as follows: “when his lord said to him, ‘submit yourself’, he said, ‘i have submitted myself to the lord of all the worlds.’”3 thus, it is peaceful submission to god without resistance, remonstrance, reservation or rebellion. the term ‘salâm’ has a tripartite term origin in sa, li and ma, taken together to mean ‘peace.’ salâm is an attribute of god: “he is god; there is no deity other than him, the sovereign, the holy, the source of peace, the giver of faith, the guardian over all, the almighty, the compeller, to whom all greatness belongs.”4 sayyid quïb wrote: this attribution as ‘the source of peace’; radiates peace, security and reassurance throughout the universe and within man’s soul. man feels safer under god’s care and protection, and at peace with the world around him and all its dwellers. as man reflects on this attribution he is reassured, regaining a sense of peace while extending peace to all.5 when properly employed, islam’s religiously oriented way of life prescribes a formula that establishes comprehensive social harmony and peace. the qur’én emphasizes the importance of peace and security as does the prophetic literature. since muslims reverence example of prophet muhammad ( example as a pious way of human living, they naturally uphold it and attempt to actualize his traditions and sayings in all aspects of their lives. establishing peace is thus of paramount importance, amounting to a prime objective that the majority of muslims faithfully strive to achieve in all social relations regardless of environment and circumstance. 38 islam: a religion of peace or force... the prophet’s example urges muslims to be generous when offering food to others and to initiate each greeting with ‘peace’ (salâm) to those they know and do not know. the prophetic tradition states: narrated abdullah bin ‘amr (may allah be pleased with him): a man asked the prophet ( ), “what islamic traits are the best?” the prophet said, “feed the people, and greet those whom you know and those whom you do not know”6 the tradition of the prophet ( ) indicates a certain magnanimity that is required of all muslims. hospitality is virtuous because it bridges gaps between people with differences. it is nothing less than a conscientious attempt to avoid hostilities, cruelness of thought, enmity and antagonism. offering food strengthens human bonds and is why hospitality is highly valued in islam. hence, our religion of peace universally calls for the provision of food as one of several ways to maintain social harmony via selfless generosity. when basic human needs are satisfied after mindful attendance, greed and envy, which otherwise make way for restive unease, flee and have no seat at counsel. another prophetic tradition says a true muslim is he or she whom other muslims feel secure against abuse and attack from either tongue or hand. the prophetic tradition is: “abu musa al-asha‘ri (r.a.) reported: i asked the messenger of allah (may peace and blessings be upon him): who is the most excellent among the muslims?” he said, “one from whose tongue and hands the other muslims are secure.”7 this shows that muslims are required to maintain peace by guaranteeing security and protection. however, this general formula does not mean that nonmuslims are deprived of security and peace but rather that they are secured and protected by the principle of peace inherent in the religion’s self-descriptive terms. moreover, since islam is essentially a religion of peace, muslims must therefore engage in doing what is beneficial by commanding righteousness and by avoiding or forbidding what is malicious all for the sake of peace and tranquillity. in the process of promoting and advancing peace, therefore, force or violence is to be avoided. the prophetic tradition clarifies that authentic muslims do not oppress other muslims and do not hand them over to oppressors. muslims are also commanded to fulfil the needs of other muslims regardless of circumstances. does this not indicate peace? indeed, the qur’én and many prophetic traditions explicitly indicate a global vision of universal hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 39 peace. islam’s key fundamental principles include stability, mutual respect and non-aggression. peace in the qur’én for muslims, the qur’én is god’s revealed guidance. it distinctly advocates peaceful means in all circumstances except defence. it encourages peace even when confronted by ignorant, uncivilized, irrational or hostile people, publicly and privately. the qur’én states: “and the servants of (allah) most gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, “peace!”8 sayyid quïb remarks on such ‘servants of god’: in their serious and dignified approach, and in their attention to serious concerns, god’s true servants do not bother themselves with other people’s absurdities and stupidities. they do not waste their time or energy in futile arguments with such people. they recognize that engaging in an argument with people who argue for argument’s sake is fruitless. hence, “whenever the ignorant address them, [they] say: peace.”9 … but this is by no means a sign of weakness or lack of ability. it is simply a more dignified approach that does not permit the waste of time or energy over what is unbecoming of the honourable. such is their conduct when they are with other people.10 god says: “and when they hear vain talk, they turn away therefrom and say: “to us our deeds, and to you yours; peace be to you: we seek not the ignorant.”11 quïb wrote: believing hearts do not engage in idle talk, nor listen to it. they are preoccupied with the requirements of their faith and revel in its light and purity: “and whenever they hear frivolous talk, they turn away from it.” they are not provoked to reply in kind. they neither join those who are given to frivolous, idle talk nor enter into a slanging match with them. instead, they leave malcontents alone, maintaining an attitude of decency and peace: “to us our deeds and to you yours. peace be to you.”12 … thus, they observe the 40 islam: a religion of peace or force... highest standard of propriety, saying a kindly prayer, but making clear that they do not wish to share in such behaviour: “we will have nothing to do with ignorant folk,”13 and “we do not wish to waste our precious time, match them in their idle talk, or even listen to it.”14 does islam permit forceful conversion? authentic islam embraces method of moderation (manhaj alwastiyyah) in everything as a fundamental principle. we therefore assert that the enemies of islam and universal justice have done nothing less than fabricate history and impugn islam by claiming it was spread by force. without knowing the truth, people read unreliable sources filled with interpolations and unauthentic material penned by vested-interest groups sponsored by a global network of anti-religious zealots, which includes post-modernists, post-structuralists and poorly informed liberals. hence, people who learn islam from poisoned sources are misled and filled with negative ideas that foment discord. one hardly finds ways and means to access truthful information due to an enormous flux of social media that is committed to secular think-tanks purposed to subvert human decency and destroy islam. the greater majority of western historians have reached false conclusions drawn from deconstructionists and secular historians who draw on the hermeneutics of vested colonial perspectives. we decisively assert this bias was passed on from forged and fabricated archives. as such, they represent a gross liability for all humankind considering such wicked ambitions. these are best ignored and rejected while their ideas are exposed as worthless contaminants of a truly human legacy. islam was never spread at the point of sword because there is no need for force. besides, islamic doctrines exclude all compulsion in matters of religion. the revealed scripture is categorically against forced conversion. the qur’én says: “let there be no compulsion in religion. truth stands out clear from error; whoever rejects evil and believes in allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks. and allah heareth and knoweth all things.”15 islam, undoubtedly the most enlightened view of life and the world, establishes the most sensible of human social systems, and takes the lead by declaring this most fundamental principle. it teaches its adherents, before anyone else, that they are forbidden to compel others to embrace islam. this islamic approach stands in total contrast to that of man-made hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 41 systems and regimes which, in addition to inherent shortcomings, impose beliefs and policies by force of state and deny opponents the right to dissent or even live. the arabic text, using a generic negative, imparts a negation of the very idea of compulsion. when it comes to matters of belief, not only should these never be imposed by coercion or compulsion, but there cannot even be an option to use such a means of conversion or persuasion.16 regarding the same verse (al-baqarah 25: 6), austrian convert muíammad asad wrote: on the strength of the above categorical prohibition of coercion (ikrâh) in anything that pertains to faith or religion, all islamic jurists (fuqahâ’), without exception, hold that forcible conversion is, under all circumstances, null and void, and that any attempt at coercing a non-believer to accept the faith of islam is a grievous sin: a verdict which disposes of the widespread fallacy that islam places before unbelievers the alternative of “conversion or the sword”.17 the qur’én further states: say, “the truth is from your lord”: let him who will, believe, and let him who will, reject (it): for the wrongdoers we have prepared a fire whose (smoke and flames), like the wall and roof of a tent, will hem them in: if they implore relief they will be granted water like melted brass that will scald their faces. how dreadful the drink! how uncomfortable a couch to recline on!”18 this verse and others make it transparently clear that no compulsion in religion is allowed and that no one is to be forced against his/her will to convert to islam. faith (îmân) must be established and concretised in oneself based on true knowledge of religion and free will. it cannot be based on coercion or force. further, faith requires firm conviction from the heart followed by testimony (shahâdah). hence, saying islam is a religion of force or compulsion or coercion is myth and scientific fallacy, an intellectual absurdity in the face of texts commanding the contrary. muslims are to behave with moderation while upholding justice in all human relations, most especially in the matter of faith. whosoever advances that ‘islam was/is spread on the point of sword’ should 42 islam: a religion of peace or force... access genuine islamic sources to comprehend the truth and not rely on hearsay from unreliable writers, bogus journalists and biased researchers, particularly western historians. did prophet muíammad ( ) use force? since deceptive accusations are disagreeable and damaging to islam’s image as a citadel of civilization and true religion, and of everlasting and eternal celestial peace for the universe, it is important to evaluate how the prophet ( ) spread islam in mecca and medina. muíammad (pbh) remained in mecca for thirteen years after the revelation and commission to warn and admonish everyone regarding the truth. accordingly, he engaged all possible ways and means to communicate the message, even in the face of false accusations, slander, persecution, harassment, boycotts, threats, attacks and brutal physical aggression by arab pagans. those who believed in his prophethood and struggle shared his suffering and sacrifice. since muíammad ( ) had not been divinely directed to use violence or aggression, his companions persevered and suffered; they upheld the truth and tolerated persecution while adhering to precepts of a mission of peace. indeed, many muslims were brutally and mercilessly tortured and not a few were martyred with a view to pleasing god and obtaining eternal mercy. they never once resorted to violence but persevered, believing that each step of torture brought its reward in the afterlife. indeed, the early seventh century history of mecca irrefutably testifies to this effect. verifiable accounts confirm that early muslims in mecca were subjected to torture and persecution by the tribe of quraysh who held power in mecca. however, the prophet never commanded his followers to react negatively or with violence. he did encourage migration to ethiopia to escape their antagonists. meccan muslims then sought refuge with the christian negus in ethiopia who eventually accepted islam after hearing a partial recitation of sûrat maryam of the qur’én. as made apparent in his and other prophet’s example, god, commanded patience and tolerance rather than violence. early muslims were directed towards mercy, graciousness, magnanimity, hospitality, kindness, benefaction and compassion even in the face of continual violence and aggression by idol worshipping meccans: therefore, patiently persevere, as did (all) messengers of inflexible purpose; and be in no haste about the (unbelievers). on the day hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 43 that they see the (punishment) promised them, (it will be) as if they had not tarried more than an hour in a single day. (thine but) to proclaim the message: but shall any be destroyed except those who transgress?19 despite inhumane and untiring persecution, the prophet ( ) graciously continued his peaceful religious activities and steadfastly propagated the divine message of islam. he did seek help from tribes who were overjoyed with the prospect of extending support and defending him and his companions from quraysh brutality and outrage. the prophet ( ) simply presented god’s message and explained his mission to those who visited him in mecca; quietly and modestly without offending communal sensitivities, honour or prestige. a delegation from medina arrived and voluntarily expressed belief in the divine message. they extended an unconditional pledge of allegiance to support and defend muíammad ( ); offering wealth and honour should he and his companions migrate to medina, the city that became the pivotal and historical centre of islam. this marked the founding of a new civilisation that promoted universal brotherhood long before the marxian fraud. on hearing the prophet’s decision to migrate, quraysh leaders decided to assassinate him. even then muíammad ( ) did not react nor retaliate but remained determined to migrate in peace. no sign of anger was ever accounted to him. muíammad ( ) and his companions never shed a drop of blood in retribution or revenge throughout all the years of persecutions and oppressions in mecca. he followed a divine command to remain patient and at peace. the armed struggle did not begin until two years after the migration and only then after the quraysh were discomfited by islam’s growth, which accelerated their persecutions. he took up the sword only after all avenues of peaceful rapprochement had been exhausted. another point to register is that in all the battles fought over a period of twenty-three years, only three hundred and seventy-five people were killed. this was because muíammad ( ) purposed not to kill the innocent and responded only to the pagan arrogance that was fixed on destroying his mission. in the ninth year of islam’s calendar, the prophet ( ) received several delegations from all over the arabian peninsula.20 the prophet ( ) magnanimously received them and responded to all enquiries regarding islam’s creed, doctrines and laws. history records that he despatched letters to all leaders in neighbouring regions in which he peacefully and respectfully called on 44 islam: a religion of peace or force... them to accept islam. the prophet ( ) always extended the hand of peace when disseminating the message of islam. likewise, all interactions with him were peaceful in nature and form. islam, the revealed religion of peace, required that he and his companions never ever proselytize with any intent of violence. this was unknown to them. they never initiated offensive attacks, assaults, expeditions, battles or wars. thus, we assert and document that without doubt, the era of the prophet ( ) was an era of peace and tranquillity that led to social stability and cohesion, followed by security and harmony. muíammad’s historical peace treaty the hudaybiyah treaty between the prophet ( ) and quraysh leaders in mecca was agreed on in the sixth year of islam. after years of selfexile, the prophet ( ) returned to mecca to perform ‘umrah. when he and his companions reached hudaybiyah, the quraysh told them not to enter mecca or there would be war. muíammad ( ) replied by saying he had come on ritual pilgrimage with no other motive. he asked permission to enter but quraysh leaders were determined not to allow him and his companions to enter mecca. they suggested he return the following year and promised him entry without resistance. on hearing this, muíammad ( ) agreed and immediately called for the signing of a treaty. the quraysh agreed. terms and conditions were listed that mostly favoured the quraysh. however, the prophet ( ) consented because he wanted peace rather than war, even though his companions were dissatisfied with a unilateral accord. this is islam. to establish peace, muíammad ( ) surrendered his own wishes. contemporary muslims can take a lesson from this example and apply its spirit for the sole aim of establishing and sustaining amity. peace is islam’s priority and should be kept as a fundamental priority for any charter when approaching disputes.21 western views on islam as a religion of peace despite numerous acerbic remarks founded on biased perceptions of islam’s worldview, jurisprudence and culture, many adherents accept islam of their own will without force by any entity be it individual, organization or state. we are obliged to refer to the comments of authorities who transparently and sincerely declared that islam is hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 45 undoubtedly a religion of peace and entirely absent force, menace or violence. islam was never spread by the sword. this christian revert to islam noted that millions accept islam without coercion. he acknowledges that islam is found in every nook and cranny of the globe where people accept it as a complete and comprehensive way of life with the objective of sustaining peace and harmony at all levels of society while also rejecting bigotry and the extremist mania of fanatics. this is made possible only when islam is accepted under peaceful circumstances. no one follows a religion that is sustained by fear and the sword. the allegation is myth a concocted narrative. norman a daniel22 remarks on the origin of this fabrication: “the west formed a more or less invariable canon of beliefs about islam; it decided for itself what islam was… in so doing, it gave christendom a sense of self-respect when dealing with a puzzling civilization”23 he says the myth of islam’s dissemination by the sword is propaganda fabricated by idiocentric vested interests who despise peace and wish to divert global attention, persuading the world to dislike islam and distance itself. de lacy o’ leary,24 a british orientalist, also commented on the fallacy: “history makes it clear, however, that the legend of fanatical muslims sweeping through the world and forcing islam at the point of a sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.”25 this honest and objective assessment sits amidst a plethora of western misrepresentations. he courageously disclosed the truth, regardless of consequence, and openly accuses historians of fabrications, declaring it one of the most absurd myths ever mindlessly repeated. it seems historians did not verify substance but rather perpetuated unilateral bias; thus, generating perpetual discord and dissension, which is unethical and unforgivable. western historians are categorically responsible for the lie. gustav le bon26 wrote the following: force was never a factor in the spread of the koranic teachings. moreover, arabs left those they had subdued free to exercise their religious beliefs. if it happened that some christian peoples embraced islam and adopted arabic as their language, it was mainly due to examples of justice exercised by arab victors, the likes of which non-moslems were not acquainted. it was also 46 islam: a religion of peace or force... due to the tolerance and leniency of islam, which was hitherto unknown to other religions.27 when muslims took the land of others, they left the conquered free to practice their own beliefs. people who did embrace islam also accepted the arabic language because of arab justice. le bon further asserts: the early caliphs … were remarkably kind in the way they treated … every country they subdued. leaving people free to practice their own laws, regulations and beliefs, imposing only a small jizyah [tax] in return for protection and the keeping of domestic peace. in truth, these nations had never known merciful and tolerant conquerors such as the arabs.28 this laudable remark is a milestone showing that islam was never regarded as violent or vengeful. early caliphs were kind and compassionate to non-muslims and allowed them to follow their own belief systems and laws based on respective religious understanding and worldview. as le bon reports, those nations never knew such merciful, tolerant, kind, compassionate and benevolent conquerors. this acknowledgement deserves appreciation by historians and other western writers. le bon implies that arab conquerors were honest, humble, humanitarian, just and fair, and never forced non-muslims to embrace islam. he rebuts the claim that islam was spread by force and violence. indian historians and orientalists have also acknowledged that islam was not spread in india at the point of sword. however, hindutva historians, influenced by rss philosophy and ideology, have fabricated an utterly false history of indian muslims. thomas carlyle29 wrote: much has been said of mahomet’s propagation of his religion by the sword. it is, however, no doubt far nobler than what we have to boast of the christian religion, in that islam propagated itself peaceably in the way of preaching and conviction. yet with all, if we take this for an argument of the truth or falsehood of a religion, there is a radical mistake …”30 carlyle disagrees with those who claim that islam was spread by the sword. for him, islam’s spread was far nobler than christian efforts. hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 47 there was no bloodshed when islam spread in spain after its conquest. thomas arnold,31 another writer, agrees: … of any organized attempt to force the acceptance of islam on non-muslim populations, or of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out the christian religion we hear nothing. had the caliphs chosen to adopt either course of action, they might have swept away as easily as ferdinand and isabella drove islam out of spain, or louis xiv made protestantism penal in france, or the jews were kept out of england for 350 years. the eastern churches in asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of christendom throughout islam, and no one would have been found to lift a finger on their behalf, as heretical communions. so, the very survival of these churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of muíammadan [sic] governments towards them.32 this testimony gives evidence that muslims were tolerant, particularly towards christians. neither force nor persecution were observed in any attempt to spread islam. islam spread naturally. reference is made to christian and jewish experiences. accordingly, christianity attempted to drive islam out of spain by force and jews were kept out of england for more than three centuries by force. plainly, christians were far crueller than muslims or jews. the eastern churches remain intact in asia, which is robust evidence that muslims never attempted to destroy them. lis lictenstadter, a german scholar, wrote: the option given to the people of persia and rome or the west, during the time of the spread of islam, was ‘not to be killed by the sword or accept islam’. in fact, the option was either to accept islam as a way of life or pay the head tax in exchange for protection. this praiseworthy plan was applied later on in england during the reign of queen elizabeth.33 hence, the spread of islam throughout history was never by force. this testifies of muslim character and islamic ethics. muslims never intended to subdue, oppress or kill conquered people, unlike christians who did quite the contrary in conquered lands. thousands of non-christians 48 islam: a religion of peace or force... were killed in spain and many were converted to christianity by threat of force. however, during muslim rule, people were absolutely free to choose between islam as a way of life or pay tax (jizyah) to muslim authorities for protection. this same system was later used by others, including queen elizabeth. muslim strategy when dealing with ‘others’ is always based on the sustainability of peace and harmony. humanitarianism is always translated into practise. in whither islam, gibb34 wrote the following: islam has still further service to render in the cause of humanity. it stands, after all, nearer to the real east than europe does, and it possesses a magnificent tradition of inter-racial understanding and cooperation. no other society has such a record of success uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity, and of endeavours, so many and so various races of mankind . . . islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. if ever the opposition of the great societies of east and west is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of islam is an indispensable condition. in its hands lies very largely the solution of the problem with which europe is faced in its relation with east. if they unite, the hope of a peaceful issue is immeasurably enhanced. but if europe, by rejecting the cooperation of islam, throws it into the arms of its rivals, the issue can only be disastrous for both.35 gibb’s message is sound counsel. unbiased, fair and courageous, he articulates a useful solution for all of humanity. his analysis objectively states that islam can undoubtedly contribute to world peace and declares that islam’s remarkable traditions promote inter-racial understanding and universal cooperation. what is most astonishing are his claims that islam can reconcile what appear to be irreconcilable elements of race and tradition and contains solutions for occidental problems. he implies that should europe unite with islam and formulate strategy, there is hope of enhancing world peace; but if it rejects islam, europe will throw itself into disaster. gibb’s frank transparency clearly marks islam as a civilizational system with extraordinary traditions and values that admirably manage inter-racial and cultural strife with a view to establish global peace; that it is a way of life that excludes extremism on principle. his analysis is based on unbiased and extensive research of authentic islam without any sign of vested interest. he went to the sources to identify hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 49 truth. unlike many authors, he did not rely on secondary or inauthentic sources in his study of islam. george bernard shaw36 assessed islam fairly. he studied prophet muíammad’s biography, digested islam’s message in an attempt to find solutions for human problems. having thoroughly reviewed islam, he concluded that humanity needed prophet muíammad’s guidance. following wwii, in which more than 70–80 million people were killed, he commented: “if mohammed was among us now, he would solve all the problems of humanity while having a cup of coffee.”37 he went on to write: i have always held the religion of muíammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. it is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. i have studied him that wonderful man and in my opinion, far from being an anti-christ, he must be called the saviour of humanity. i believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it much needed peace and happiness: i have prophesied about the faith of muíammad that it would be acceptable to the europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the europe of today.38 this informed opinion should be sincerely accounted for by historians, diplomats, historians and authors who serve western imperial interests and prosecute islam and muslims in the present era. those who accuse islam should contemplate shaw’s profound statement, which implies that universal peace and happiness are to be found in islam. he soundly refutes modern sceptics. had islam been spread on the point of a sword he would not have made such remarks. the modern world would solve its problems if we follow the prophet’s methods. conclusion this qualitative content analysis of sacred texts established that peace is integral to the teachings of islam. our referrals to reliable and trustworthy exegetes clearly confirmed this from both scripture and traditional sunnah. we also demonstrated islam’s future potential and historic contributions to the development and sustainability of world peace. our discourse thus allows us to conclude that islam is undoubtedly a religion of peace and not force because its fundamental principles and values catalyse social harmony for all of humankind. 50 islam: a religion of peace or force... we showed that the arabic terms, salâm and islâm, convey ‘peace’ linguistically and etymologically. hence, the very name of the religion muslims follow, means ‘peace’, so that muslims call on nothing other than peace in every matter, great and small. this is obvious in the following text: “and the servants of (allah) most gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, “peace!”39 hence, muslims are to remain at peace even when facing ignorant and arrogant persons who address them with insolence, pride, ostentation and even violence; all of which give rise to social discord. this paper highlighted views from commentators on qur’énic verses relating to peace. we also referred to prophetic traditions that address the importance of peace in the lives of muslims. in addition, we provided documented accounts of the prophet’s dealings with non-muslims for the sake of peace in medina and mecca. prophet muíammad’s social and political relations have been meticulously recorded and demonstrate that the establishment of peace was always his primary concern. the discussion integrated views from informed western scholars and historians who perceived islam as a religion peace that was never spread on the point of a sword. these included thomas arnold, thomas carlyle, gibb and george bernard shaw, all revered authorities so that western readers, in particular, would better appreciate that islam was never spread by force or war. the author recommends the following measures. muslims must inform their communities that islam is absolutely devoted to peace and has no place for violence or force. working examples should be given by leadership to establish this by their example. second, efforts must be made to eradicate erroneous teaching and misunderstandings regarding islam as anything other than a religion of peace that eschews violence and force. third, muslims must exhibit commendable character and attributes that promote peace by engaging in community services to help the needy, downtrodden and destitute. fourth, non-muslims, whether majority or minority, must be treated with compassion, gentleness and fairness regardless of circumstances. this will soften their view of islam, leaving them with positive sentiments. fifth, muslims must not resort to violence or revenge against so-called ‘enemies of islam’. this only provides its enemies with perplexing opportunities to learn about the true religion of peace and better appreciate islam. sixth, it is important that muslims adopt the prophet’s kind-hearted manner of dealing with hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 51 everyone. the major social objective of islam is to promote peace, nothing but peace. notes and references 1. hindutva hindu-ness): a term popularised by vinayak damodar savarkar in 1923, is a predominant form of hindu nationalism championed by nationalist volunteer organisations: rashtriya swayamsevak sangh (rss), vishva hindu parishad, and hindu sena. many indian social scientists describe the hindutva movement as fascist, adhering to the concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony. according to oxford english dictionary, hindutva is the state or quality of being hindu; ‘hinduness’. in later use, it defines hindutva as an ideology seeking to establish the hegemony of hindus and the hindu way of life. 2. it is an indian right-wing, hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation that is widely regarded as the parent organisation of the ruling party of india, the bharatiya janata party. the rss is one of the principal organizations of the sangh parivar group. founded on 27 september 1925, it claimed a commitment to selfless service to india. 3. qur’én, al-baqarah: 131. 4. qur’én, al-×ashr: 23. 5. sayyid quïb, in the shade of the qur’én, vol. 17, 447. 6. sunnah.com. øaíií al-bukhârî, 6236, book 79, ×adîth 10, vol. 8, book 74, ×adîth 253. 7. sunnah.com. øaíií albukhârî and muslim, book 18, ×adîth 2, book 18, ×adîth 1512. 8. qur’én, al-furqân: 63. 9. ibid. 10. quïb, in the shade of the qur’én, 342 11. qur’én, al-qaîaî : 55. 12. ibid. 13. ibid. 14. quïb, in the shade of the qur’én, vol. 13, 198. 15. qur’én, al-baqarah: 256. 16. ibid., 349. 17. asad, the message of the qur’én, 58. 18. qur’én, al-kahf: 29. 19. qur’én, al-aíqâf: 35. 20. some of the noteworthy delegations were: daws delegation, the suda’ delegation, the ‘udhrah delegation, the bali delegation, the thaqif delegation, the hamdan delegation, the delegation of bani fazarah, the najran delegation, the bani hanifah delegation, the delegation of bani amir ibn sa’sa’ah, the tujeeb delegation, the thai’ delegation, and others. see: safiur-rahman al mubarakpuri, the sealed nectar biography of the noble prophet, (riyadh: darussalam, revised edition, 2002), 386-396. 52 islam: a religion of peace or force... 21. martin lings, muíammad his life based on the earliest sources, (lahore: suhail academy, 5th revised edn., 1994), 253-256. 22. norman daniels, born in 1942, is an american political philosopher and philosopher of science, political theorist, ethicist, and bioethicist at harvard university. before his career at harvard, daniels had built his career as a medical ethicist at tufts university school of medicine, also in boston. 23. daniel na (nd). islam and the west: the making of an image. in ibid., 270. 24. the reverend doctor de lacy evans o’leary was a british orientalist who lectured at the university of bristol and wrote a number of books on the early history of arabs and copts. born: october 3, 1872, devon, united kingdom 25. de lacy evans o’leary (1925). islam at the cross road. ibid., 8. 26. gustave le bon (french); (7 may 1841 – 13 december 1931) was a french social psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, inventor, and amateur physicist. he is best known for his 1895 work the crowd: a study of the popular mind. his writings incorporate theories of national traits, racial and male superiority, herd behaviour and crowd psychology. le bon began his writing career working in the new field of anthropology. in the 1870s he invented a pocket cephalometer, or as he called it, a “compass of coordinates”, which was an instrument that allowed one to quickly measure the head’s various angles, diameters, and profiles. 27. gustave le bon. civilization of the arabs, 127–128, paraphrased from dr. id khalil’s what they say about islam? 24, in islam is the religion of peace. 28. ibid. 29. thomas carlyle (4 december 1795 – 5 february 1881) was a scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher. his famous work on heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history explains that the key role in history lies in the actions of the “great man,” claiming that “history is nothing but the biography of the great man.” a respected historian, his 1837 book the french revolution: a history was the inspiration for dickens’ 1859 novel a tale of two cities, and remains popular today. carlyle’s 1836 sartor resartus is considered one of the finest works of the nineteenth century. 30. thomas carlyle. “heroes, hero worship and the heroic in history,” lecture ii, friday (08 may 1840). quoted in islam is the religion of peace, p. 25–26. on heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history by thomas carlyle, james fraser, london, 1841. 31. sir thomas walker arnold (1864–1930) was a british orientalist and historian of islamic art who taught at muíammadan anglo-oriental college, aligarh muslim university (then aligarh college), and government college university, lahore. he wrote his famous book the preaching of islam. arnold was born on 19 april 1864, and educated at the city of london school. from 1888 he worked as a teacher at the muíammadan anglo-oriental college, aligarh. in 1898, he accepted a post as professor of philosophy at the government college, lahore and later became dean of the oriental faculty at punjab university. from 1904 to 1909 he was on the staff of the india office as assistant librarian. in 1909 he was appointed educational adviser to indian students in britain. from 1917 to 1920 he acted as adviser to the secretary of state for india. he was professor of arabic and islamic studies at the school of oriental studies, university of hamdard islamicus vol. xliii, no. 4 53 london, from 1921 to 1930. arnold became the first english editor for the first edition of the encyclopaedia of islam. 32. sir thomas w arnold (1896). the preaching of islam: a history of the propagation of the muslim faith westminster, london: a constable & co, 80. 33. this quotation is taken from abdul-kareem al-sheha a-r (nd), islam is the religion of peace who quoted from islam and modern age, 67. see also, ahmad shalabi, comparative religious studies, vol. 3,174. 34. h. a. r. gibb was a scottish historian on orientalism. he was born in 1895 in alexandria, egypt. his education was focused on classics, though it included french, german, and the physical sciences. in 1912, he matriculated at edinburgh university, joining the new honours program in semitic languages (hebrew, arabic, and aramaic). after the war he studied arabic at the school of oriental and african studies at london university, gaining his ma in 1922. his thesis, published later by the royal asiatic society as a monograph, was on the arab conquests of central asia. from 1921 to 1937 he taught arabic at the then school of oriental studies, becoming a professor there in 1930. during this time he was an editor of the encyclopaedia of islam. in 1937 he succeeded d. s. margoliouth as laudian professor of arabic with a fellowship at st john’s college, oxford. in 1955, he became the james richard jewett professor of arabic and university professor at harvard university. 35. har gibb, whither islam; a survey of modern movements in the moslem world, (london: v gollancz, 1932), 379 36. george bernard shaw (26 july 1856 – 2 november 1950), known at his insistence simply as bernard shaw, was an irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. his influence on western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. he wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as man and superman (1902), pygmalion (1912) and saint joan (1923). with a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the nobel prize in literature. 37. gb shaw (1936). the genuine islam, 1(8): http://heavenslights.blogspot.com/ 2006/04/george-bernard-shaw-and-genuine-islam.html. accessed (03dec18) also: http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/quote2.html 38. ibid. 39. qur’ān, al-furqān: 63. bibliography sayyid quïb, in the shade of the qur’ān, vol. 17. sunnah.com. øaíií al-bukhārī, 6236, book 79, book 74. sunnah.com. øaíií muslim 39, book 1 book 1. sunnah.com. albukhārī and muslim, book 18, book 18. øaíií al-bukhārī, 2442, book 46, vol. 3; book 43, ~ https://sunnah.com/bukhari/463 asad, the message of the qur’ān. yusuf ali a. the holy qur’ān, translation and commentary. 54 islam: a religion of peace or force... safiur-rahman al mubarakpuri, the sealed nectar biography of the noble prophet, (riyadh: darussalam, revised edition, 2002). martin lings, muíammad his life based on the earliest sources, (lahore: suhail academy, 5th revised edn., 1994). abdul-kareem al-sheha a-r (n.d), islam is the religion of peace, abu salman deyaud-deen eberle (trans); paraphrased by dr imadddu-deen khalil in what they say about islam? (online). de lacy evans o’leary (1925). islam at the cross road. gustave le bon. civilization of the arabs, paraphrased from dr. id khalil’s what they say about islam? in islam is the religion of peace. thomas carlyle. “heroes, hero worship and the heroic in history,” lecture ii, friday (08 may 1840). quoted in islam is the religion of peace, on heroes, heroworship, and the heroic in history by thomas carlyle, james fraser, london, 1841. sir thomas w arnold (1896). the preaching of islam: a history of the propagation of the muslim faith westminster, london: a constable & co, 80. har gibb, whither islam; a survey of modern movements in the moslem world, (london: v gollancz, 1932. gb shaw (1936). the genuine islam, 1(8): http://heavenslights.blogspot.com/2006/04/ george-bernard-shaw-and-genuine-islam.html. accessed (03dec18) also: http:// www.cyberistan.org/islamic/quote2.htmlsunnah .com. jāmi‘ al-tirmidhī, 1924, book 27. muhammad shakūr maímūd al-×ājj amīr, (muíaqqiq), al-rawdh al-dānī ila al-mu’jam al-øaghīr li al-ùabarānī, (bayrūt: al-maktab al-islāmī, 1985), vol. i, (chapter in which ×adīth has been narrated by ×usayn, ×adīth 409, 250, yusuf ali, the holy qur’ān, text, translation and commentary. abū al-qāsim abd al-karīm ibn hawāzin al-qushayrī, al-risālah al-qushayriyyah, (bayrūt: dār al-kutub alilmiyyah, 2001) sunna.com, sunan ibn mājah, vol. 1, book 1. abū ‘abd allāh al-×ākim al-nishāpurī, al-mustadrak ‘alā al-øaíiíayn, (al-qāhirah: dār al-×aramayn, 1997), vol. 4. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1787 issn :0250-7196 competition for public influencer in the new democratic era (online news media strategy in monopolising political communication) 1 indra prawira, 2 rahmat edi irawan abstract: the media or press is losing its monopoly over the dissemination of information between the public and political actors as communication becomes more personal (chaffee & metzger, 2001). therefore, it could be assumed that the mainstream media is less influential in constructing public opinion, especially in determining public agendas through the news. this phenomenon invites debate about whether the media will continue to decline due to the loss of its function mass communication (chaffee & metzger, 2001) or it will be just „business as usual‟ (weimann et al, 2014). this paper adopts bourdieu‟s cultural production theory, the social theory of journalism and agenda-setting theory to understand the “struggle" of legacy media in maintaining their position in mass communication in indonesia election 2017. data is derived from published news, ethnographical studies of news-making practices and interviews with 30 news staff from three indonesian online news outlets. it can be concluded that, firstly, journalists were dominant in determining agenda setting during the indonesia elections in 2017. secondly, journalists continue to influence the news agenda in the media by conducting traditional methods emphasizing skills, credibility, and journalistic ethics. journalists are using new methods way to maintain their place in the status quo by engaging with social media to shape public opinion and via the certification of individual journalists and media organisation. keywords: political communication; the journalistic field; indonesian journalism; cultural reproduction; media struggle, social theory of journalism; agenda-setting theory. ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction the media or press is losing its monopoly over the dissemination of information between the public and political actors because they are competing with citizen journalists. the development of the internet over the last three decades is seen as a major factor that has led to such a phenomenon. however, researchers see these conditions as an opportunity to increase the development of democratic media spaces (gilmor 2006; coleman & ross, 2010; prasad, 2017). scholars believe that the internet can accommodate citizen involvement in the construction of news (allan, 2006; gilmor 2006; quinn & lamble, 2008; lindner & larson, 1 bina nusantara university, jakarta, indonesia, email: iprawira@yahoo.com 2 bina nusantara university, jakarta, indonesia mailto:iprawira@yahoo.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1788 issn :0250-7196 2017; kim, 2016). in the same vein, kaufhold and colleagues (2010) have said that citizens can influence political discourse and the political involvement of the public. the optimism about journalism conducted by citizens (cj) is increasing as empirical evidence shows that cj is capable of replacing the role of journalists in shaping public opinion and in political communication in a democratic environment (allan, 2006; gilmor, 2006) and in the context of an authoritarian state (wall & zahed, 2015). chaffee and metzger (2001) argued that mainstream media are less influential in constructing public opinion, especially in determining the public agenda through the news. researchers have identified that journalists are threatened by this phenomenon and are making efforts to maintain the status quo or to continue „business as usual‟ (weimann et al. 2014). journalists conduct professional activities to compete with citizen journalists by adopting cj themselves. recent studies by domingo (2011) and allan and peters (2015) have shown that professional journalists have incorporated elements of cj into their own reportage. according to carlson (2015), professional journalists still maintain their autonomy in the adoption of cj. other researchers argue that cj has been co-opted by the culture and conventions of mainstream media (wall, 2015). based on the hierarchical relationships present in the editorial structure of the adoption of cj, researchers have identified that professional journalists determine the nature of the relationship to differentiate themselves from citizen journalists (carlson, 2015; coddington, 2015; singer, 2015). the practice of cj adoption in journalism as in journalism itself, depends on such factors as the type of media system concerned (siebert et al. 1956; hallin & mancini 2004; yin, 2008), the effect of economic and cultural capital (bourdieu, 2005), and social processes that occur during the transition to democracy (mcquail, 2013; voltmer, 2014). as mcquail (2013) argued, the conditions of journalism are highly dependent on the environment in which it is practiced, and so it is necessary to conduct empirical studies of cj in particular national settings. this paper fills a gap in research on journalism in new democratic countries, which surprisingly, has received little attention by scholar of journalism (voltmer, 2014). the present research was conducted during the election in 2017 in indonesia from january to march 2017. this study has two aims. first, based on a study of three national online news media, we examine which parties gained control in setting the media agenda during the election. it is argued that journalists made efforts to maintain the status quo, and therefore the second aim of this paper is to identify the traditional and new modes of journalistic practice used to maintain the journalistic status quo. 2. citizen journalism and political communication technology and the internet have provided an opportunity for anyone to conduct journalistic activities (allan, 2006; gilmor, 2006; lindner & larson, 2017). gilmor (2006) illustrated that the contributions of cj to democratic development could revolutionize journalism and the political establishment in a country. in south korea, the ohmynews website, whose content is largely produced by citizen reporters, has been acknowledged to have won a contest with the mainstream media in influencing public opinion during the presidential hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1789 issn :0250-7196 election in the country in 2002. ohmynews was driven by 35,000 citizen reporters at the time, and favoured an untipped, roh moo hyun, reformer who was given less attention by mainstream news media. oh yeon ho, founder of ohmynews, said that this “success” legitimized the idea that citizen reporters are equal to professional journalists who work for the mainstream media. according to oh, professional news culture has eroded journalism and now every citizen can be a reporter to resurrect the values of journalism (allan, 2006). the motivations of citizen reporters in terms of political purposes also appear in the absence of professional journalism, such as when syria became part of the arab spring in 2011. in an authoritarian system, the syrian government tightly controlled the media, thus limiting the freedom of journalistic practice (wall & zahed, 2015). wall and zahed identified the activities of citizen journalists as the "new pop-up news", which tends to emerge when a country experiences rapid and dramatic political change resulting in conflicts such as those in iraq and burma. in syria, dozens of citizen reporters successfully created reports adopting the formats used by professional journalists. the citizen reporters‟ reportage was then connected to global news networks, generally through youtube and facebook. on the other hand, these activities of citizen reporters are considered life threatening, and many citizen reporters have been killed while reporting. nevertheless, such activities of syrian citizen reporter are believed to be the foundation for change in a media system that had been in effect a government monopoly, as well as changes in political communication in the new media era. as goode (2009) argued, cj not only affects the public agenda through peer-to-peer information sharing, but also interferes with the agendas of professional media settings. this confirms the conclusion of kaufhold and colleagues (2010) that cj can influence political discourse and the political involvement of the public. similarly, mutsvairo et al. (2014) found that the sense of social responsibility among citizen journalists fosters the emerging networked public sphere. some researchers are optimistic that the rapid growth of cj in the era of the internet and digital developments will foster the development of civil space. the optimism about journalism becoming more democratic is increasing as journalism becomes more open to cj (domingo et al. 2008) and integrates citizen participation in everyday practice (domingo, 2011, bossio & bebawi, 2016). 2.1 the agenda setting of the media political actors have been important news sources for the media in political news coverage. political actors provide leaks, and give their views through interviews and press conferences as news material for the media to influence the agenda setting in the media (mcnair, 2011). in an era of an abundance of information, the power of political actors is less influential in setting the agenda of the media. according to swanson (2005), journalists increasingly try to shape the agenda concerning political issues to show their autonomy. there is competition between media and political actors to win public consent and legitimating in the same political arena. political actors have long recognised that news items can potentially reach millions of voters and they always try to influence news making. however, the media increasingly refuse the efforts of political actors to influence the news and instead develop hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1790 issn :0250-7196 information that is different from that which the political actors provide (zaller, 1997, cited in swanson, 2005). theories of political communication change over time, especially before and after the presence of a greater abundance of media, digital communication, and the internet (blumler, 2015). new theories have emerged in this digital era, such as the theory of voice, of the actor's role and holistic and normative perspectives. however, agenda setting, priming, and framing are still important theories of the media in analysing political communication (blumler, 2015). these three concepts are considered capable of showing the characteristics of the ways journalism organizes, interprets, and shapes political realities. the theory of agenda setting, for example, still plays an important role in media studies of newly democratic countries (shaw, 2007, tapsell, 2015). the media conduct the selection, production, and interpretation of the reality of society. in selection, what is considered important is reported and that which is not deemed important or less important is ignored. the same process is conducted in presenting political reality before the audience consumes information, which is known as the agenda setting of the media (shaw, 2007). this agenda setting is operationalised in two ways: using depth of coverage in a negative or positive way, and with the frequency of media coverage of specific issues (mccomb & shaw, 1972, shaw, 2007, djuyandi et al. 2017). in choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality (mccombs & shaw, 1972). harcup and oneil (2016) argued that journalists share the same understanding in determining the news value in a story. news value is a reflection of the kind of information the audience wants, a reflection of media organisations, sociological and cultural norms, and economic factors. according to harcup and oneil, in a news organisation, journalists have different levels of power in determining the newsworthiness of information. journalists decide the quality and quantity of information about an issue to make their audience attach to the issues. with agenda setting, the mass media direct the public in what to think, and mcnair (2002) said that public agendas and political agendas are shaped by the news agenda. 2.2 citizen journalism and cultural production a number of studies have begun to examine the practice of journalism in adopting cj (paulussen & ugille, 2008; domingo, 2011; kammer, 2013). however, bourdieu (1998) said that, to understand the practice of journalism as cultural production, one should recognise the power relations which exist in the field. bourdieu‟s field theory is considered useful in exploring media organisational routines and journalistic practice because it understands that a field is a network or a configuration that sees the relationships between positions objectively (lindell, 2015; lindner & larson, 2017). bourdieu argued that the journalistic field is considered to be highly influenced by economic capital, which he called “heteronymous“(bourdieu, 1998). however, lindner and larson (2017) argued that, in the new media era, the cultural capital of journalism has changed as other outlets, which have an equal position in the field, challenge journalism. they illustrated hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1791 issn :0250-7196 how journalism is a "site of struggle" with other information outlets and providers of different types of news coverage. according to bourdieu (1986), cultural capital appears in three forms; namely, embodied, objectified, and institutionalise d states. in the embodied state, bourdieu emphasises that cultural capital is assumed to exist within a person and in the process of representation. this process is accomplished by the investor personally (it cannot be delegated) and it takes time. cultural capital is integrated into the habituos of a person and cannot be directly transmitted to others. examples of embodied cultural capital are skills, dialect, and personality. cultural capital in the objectified state occurs when the embodied cultural capital of agent/agents is represented in the form of objects and media such as paintings, monuments, and instruments. cultural capital affects the ability of an agent to compete in a field. the quality of cultural capital is shown by the agent through proven training or academic qualifications which are called the institutionalised state of cultural capital. this objectification of cultural capital is also used to distinguish between self-learned training from legally guaranteed qualifications. a certificate of cultural competence is required because, under the usual conventions, the holders of academic cultural capital are deemed to have better qualifications to compete in the field, even though their ability depends on the time and effort devoted to academic investment. 2.3 new democracy in indonesia indonesia is a republic that managed to liberate itself from colonialism in 1945 after having been dominated by the dutch for more than 350 years. located in southeast asia, indonesia neighbours singapore and malaysia to the north and australia to the south, meaning that the country is situated on an important trade route. indonesia is the largest country in the region, covering 1.9 million squares kilometres of land and the archipelago is split into more than 16,000 islands. indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world with around 250 million people, making it the third largest democratic country in the world after the usa and india. in 2014, indonesia's central statistics agency (badan pusat statistik indonesia = bps) listed indonesia's territory as being divided into 34 provinces, 98 cities, and 416 districts (bps, 2014). some scholars have praised the development of the internet since it is assumed to support the furthering of democracy in indonesia (sen & hill, 2000; lim, 2002) and they support the development of online news media, which have interactive characteristics (quinn &lamble, 2008; margianto & saefullah, 2012). researchers have argued that the internet accommodates the involvement of citizens in the construction of news (allan, 2006; quinn & lamble, 2008; lindner & larson, 2017). in indonesia, the presence of online news media is also expected to lead to diversification in the ownership of news media and to challenge the monopoly of information in constructing public opinion (lim, 2013). the interactive nature of online news media is necessary in the development of indonesia's democracy because it can accommodate citizens in engaging with politics through social-media platforms. with about 250 million inhabitants, the country is listed as having the second-largest population of facebook users and the fourth-largest of twitter users worldwide (freedom house, 2016). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1792 issn :0250-7196 even though indonesia has entered a period of reform that is supposed to guarantees freedom of speech, the legal system in indonesia does not yet fully support the freedom of the press (margiyono, 2010). in the period 2008-2015, article 27 of the law of information and electronic transactions (ite law) has been used against at least 74 citizens (detik, 2015). in 2014 the ministry of communication and information (kominfo) launched campaigns to censor the internet and social media. the spread of negative content has led the indonesian government to start selectively banning pornographic, religious, and political content in cyberspace (yangyue, 2014). some content providers like netflix, tumblr and telegrams have been banned from operating in indonesia for these reasons. according to freedom on the net, censorship has made indonesia only partly free in terms of free expression on the internet (freedom house, 2016). in addition to government censorship, journalists themselves also exert control over news content. indonesian media actively set their own agenda (djuyandi et al, 2017) and journalists agreed to conduct self-censorship systematically by forming the cyber news writing guidelines (pedoman penulisan berita siber). the focus of self-censorship is mainly on racist and religious content (margianto & saefullah, 2012) in order to avoid legal problems and to serve the interests of media business (margiyono, 2009). 2.4 defamation case against the governor of dki jakarta the leadership of basuki tjahaja purnama (ahok) as governor of the province and capital city of indonesia, dki jakarta, has been praised as a symbol of the development of democartisation in indonesia. ahok is christian-chinese, which makes him a double minority member, who surprisingly gained the broad support of dki jakarta citizens which are majority indigenous muslim. however, ahok was never elected as governor but rather his position was inherited from the previous governor joko widodo (jokowi). ahok was previously was the deputy governor who paired with jokowi in the 2012 election. in 2014, governor jokowi won the election to become the president of indonesia and left the seat to ahok. nevertheless, in two years as the governor of dki jakarta, ahok‟s popularity was increased and he was supported in his wish to stay in office for the next term. ahok gained support through a social movement in which people collecting their copy of identity card (kartu tanda penduduk = ktp). this campaign was targeted at reaching one million copies of ktp. public support was also shown through various social media such as twitter, facebook and youtube (sinaga, 2015). however, ahok rejected to continue his leadership as governor of dki jakarta by groups of people commanded by islamic defenders front (front pembela islam = fpi). for these islamic organisations, muslims are forbidden to elect a non-muslim as leader because it is contrary to the commandments of the quran surat almaidah, verse 51. however, the interpretation of this verse varies among indonesian muslims. other muslims argue that it is not forbidden to appoint a non-muslim as leader. at his working visit in pramuka island on 27 september 2016 ahok mentioned that al-maidah verse 51 is used as a tool to defeat him in election. he said, hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1793 issn :0250-7196 "so don't believe in [that] people, it is possible that in deep in your heart you don‟t want to elect me [to be the next governor]. [you are] misled by [people] using [quran] surah almaidah verse 51. all kinds like it. that is your rights [not to choose me]. (viva.co.id 2017) the statement was recorded on a video and was then posted on the official dki jakarta website. the video maker buni yani also uploaded the video into his personal facebook account to make it go viral on social media and provoke muslims and islamic organisations to sue ahok in a defamation case. ahok was reported to the police by 14 parties and, since october 6, 2016 the prosecutors have been working on the case to bring ahok to a first court appearance on december 13, 2016. ahok‟s case was being processed during his campaign rallies in the dki jakarta elections of 2017. on the sidelines of the legal process, the islamic organisations that demand that ahok be imprisoned managed to mobilize the masses in rallies called 'islamic defence action' in jakarta city which started on 4 september 2016 and continued until 5 may 2017. of the seven rallies, the marches on 2 december 2016 which were known as „212‟ the largest, involving million of people. the social movement to sue ahok to be imprisoned is also active in the social media world such as on twitter and facebook. allan (2006) observed that the citizens of indonesia who support ahok and their opponents conduct a hashtag war on twitter in the form of #tangkapahok (arrest ahok) and #penjarakanahok (imprison ahok). although rejected by many groups of people, ahok and his partner djarot still had the support of most residents of jakarta in the 15 february 2017 gubernatorial elections, gaining 42.99% of the total vote. however, the elections needed to proceed to a run-off because no candidate had achieved more than 50% + 1 vote. in the second round of the elections on 19 april 2017, ahok/djarot lost to anies/sandi with percentage votes of 42.05% to 57.95% (kpu, 2017). ahok was formally the governor of dki jakarta until october 2017 but was forced to leave his post early because he was convicted guilty of in the defamation case on may 9, 2017 and sentenced to imprisonment for 2 years. 3. methodology the methodology used in this research is divided into two parts. quantitative method is used to answer the first research question and a qualitative method to answer the second question. the data analysed to answer the first question were collected from the published content of political news before, during, and after the election. we use agenda-setting theory to examine the agenda setting of the media through news content. agenda-setting concepts are considered capable of showing the ways journalism organizes, interprets, and shapes political realities. at the same time, we are conducted semi-structured interviews with three online news media staff to seek the answer to the second research question. semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants from each online news media organisation with staff positions spread among the macro-level (management, news directors), meso-level (editors, heads of section) and the micro-level (reporters). as a new phenomenon, the organisational structure of online news media is possibly not formally or fully formed (franquet, 2014), and therefore, the interviews were not only conducted with journalists but hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1794 issn :0250-7196 also other parties that might also determine their news agenda, such as marketing or it staff. the data from the interviews was triangulated with documents and a minimum of two weeks of observations of each media organisation. 4. results 4.1 agenda-setting of the media during the election of 2017 the first aim of this research is to identify the dominant party in determining news agenda in the reporting of the february 2017 simultaneous election in indonesia. to achieve the purposes of the research we observed news reports of three national online news media organisations during january to march 2017 including published political news totalling 5,778 items. the first thing we identified is that the three news websites focus on coverage of the election in dki jakarta province even though elections took place in hundreds of other areas simultaneously. a total of 5,174 political news stories or 89.54%, was news about the elections for the province of dki jakarta. table 1. news reports on indonesia elections 2017 media website news on dki jakarta election news on other local elections total news items a 1423 215 (13.12%) 1638 b 2828 294 (9.41%) 3122 c 923 95 (9.33 %) 1018 out of 101 election areas, there are several regions other than dki jakarta province that gained the attention of online news media, such as banten province, the city of bekasi, aceh province, west papua province and west java province. meanwhile, the three pairs of candidates for the dki jakarta province, who were agus harimurti yudhoyono (agus) / sylviana murni (sylvi), basuki tjahaja purnama (ahok) / djarot saiful hidayat (djarot), and anies rasyid baswedan (anies) / sandiaga salahuddin uno (sandi), dominated the reporting in 51.83% of the total news items observed. agus/sylvi was the couple who were least reported, with a percentage of 18.01% coverage and ahok / djarot as the dki jakarta gubernatorial candidates were the most reported (see fig. 1) figure 1. reporting on the dki jakarta gubernatorial candidates 18% 42% 40% reporting on indonesian simultaneous election 2017 agus/sylvi ahok/djarot anies/sandi hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1795 issn :0250-7196 5. discussion news reports of three national online news media organisations on the dki jakarta province election dominated the coverage of the indonesian elections in 2017 with percentages reaching 89.54% from a total of 5,778 items news items observed. media centralization in jakarta, the capital of indonesia, has been the focus of the researcher such as ade armando. according to him as a result of the concentration of media in jakarta, media coverage was affected in only cover stories about jakarta. with the emphasis of the election in dki jakarta province, the media constructed public opinion in the sense that the election in the capital city of indonesia was more important than the other regional elections. as the minister‟s coordinator of politics and security in indonesia, wiranto said that the dki jakarta election was a barometer for national politics (agriesta, 2017). some other regional elections also captured the attention of media even though to an insignificant extent. the banten province elections received some attention from online news media because banten geographically neighbours to dki jakarta. the elections in banten also received attention because the incumbent was a celebrity actor, rano karno. the same reason also motivated online news media in conducting reports on the city of bekasi, in which the celebrity singer ahmad dhani was one of the contenders. aceh province is the easternmost region of indonesia, while papua is the westernmost region of indonesia. however, based on our observations, reports on the elections of these two areas were motivated to show security issues as both regions experienced conflict with separatist movement. what is interesting is that news about the west java election, scheduled to take place in 2018 received special attention from the three media organisations. news about the west java election was dominated by information about the mayor of bandung, west java province. ridwan kamil was supported by political parties in attempting to become the new governor for the following year. the total news published by the three media organisations during january-march 2017 is focused on reports about individual candidates in the dki jakarta election. the online news media are assumed to be strongly influenced by the elite agenda, with the percentage of elite sources reaching 97.53% of the total news items observed. this is shown through news focusing on talking heads from the political elite, the activities of representatives of the candidates and their families, government, elite political organisations, and celebrities. the elite agendas of the three governor and deputy governor candidates gained the most attention. this indicates that online news media follows the logic of previous mainstream newspaper and television media which is highly dependent on the political elite (mcnair, 2011). however, mcnair who focused on the role political organisations in determining the news agenda, whereas the news about indonesia elections in 2017 were dominated by stories about individual politicians. we argue that, even though the political elite was highly reported on by the media, the news construction was mainly driven by the newsworthiness of politicians. in practice, the three media organisations applied the logic of newsworthiness in their production of news (harcup & oneil 2016) such as celebrity, bad news, conflict and surprises. however, in a small proportion of news the media adopted a public agenda, hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1796 issn :0250-7196 especially on twitter such as news on #debatfinalpilkadajkt concerning final debate on the jakarta election or #satukanjakarta. 5.1 practice to maintain the status quo we now examine rq2: the research questions, which concern the new and traditional modes of news-making practices the journalist used to continue to influence the news agenda. to answer this question we collected qualitative data through observation and semi-structured interviews focusing on cultural production, which involved embodied cultural capital, objectified cultural capital, and institutionalise d cultural capital (bourdieu, 1986) and the social responsibility of journalism (mcquail, 2013). from the results of our interviews with online news media staff, we identified the most frequent words employed using the software nvivo 11. a number of themes were recognised when journalists questioned the differences in practice between them and citizen journalists, such as the law, credibility, responsibility, access, verification, the ethics of journalism, and motivation. in general, participants were aware of the growth of cj in indonesia; nevertheless, journalists mentioned citizen journalists as "them", or in other words as not part of the body of journalists. journalists recognised that citizen journalists are capable of influencing public opinion, and one of the journalists considered them as rival. "….so journalists are getting more and more rivals" (interview j1, 2017). the journalists drew a boundary line when asked further questions about the differences between journalists and citizen journalists. these boundaries are described as follows; 5.2 embodied cultural capital journalists emphasise professionalism in order to maintain their autonomy from media proprietors and especially government. the majority of participants stated that they also needed to retain their autonomy in spite of the pressure of citizen journalists. the participants considered that citizen journalists are not professional and they mentioned the differences between them and citizen journalists in such areas as skills in understanding and applying journalistic ethics, and skills in information verification, credibility, and access. journalists urgently need access to information, and access to verify any information they get in producing news, especially in political news. all of the journalists were aware that they needed to verify all information obtained. verification has been cited as one of the boundaries between journalists and cjs as journalists think that cjs do not share the same ethics and capability. verification is more important more than ever because, in the internet era, information includes fake information, which is spread abundance. to verify information, journalists use their access to the public, political leaders, and the government, to whom cjs do not have access. journalists believe that they will win the competition in influencing public opinion because cjs are not credible. these professional journalistic capabilities could be considered as part of the traditional way to distinguish journalists from other information producers. 5.3 objectified cultural capital hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1797 issn :0250-7196 a common view amongst the participants was that good quality news could win public attention. researchers acknowledge that journalists actively building boundaries between themselves and citizen journalists (carlson, 2015; coddington 2015; singer, 2015) and ornebring (2013) argued that one of the efforts used is to improve the quality of news content. however, some of participants were also concerned about the recent practices of online news media production, which relies on individual events related to the dki jakarta gubernatorial candidates. one of the participants said that they needed to develop the quality of online news, which he called contextual journalism. contextual journalism is intended to mean journalism that is based on the basic purpose of journalism, which is to enlighten the people (basheer et al., 2019; khan et al., 2020). with contextual journalism, journalists are forced to create news along with its context. news not only tells of the events that occur but also provides background or offers analysis of those events. contextual journalism is in line with what bourdieu (2005) means by the autonomy of journalism which is free from outside pressures such as the political economy. emphasising the quality of news to create boundaries between journalists and citizen journalists is an old way to maintain the journalistic status quo. however, this process is always challenging because the field of journalism is a dynamic field that is easily influenced by powers of outside itself (bourdieu, 2005). 5.4 institutionalise d cultural capital one of the most important things that journalists mentioned about the differences between them and citizen journalists is their legal status. the majority of participants said that citizen activities are not protected by law when they take part in journalistic activities because the republic of indonesia law (press law number 40 of 1999) explicitly states that the press must be formed as a legal entity or corporation. legal protection allows journalists to have the necessary access to perform their journalistic activities. for this reason respondent j26 said that journalists have the right to obtain information from public officials and any activities that prohibit journalists from doing so are considered to be against the law. to institutionalise boundaries between them and citizen journalists, journalists cite the legal status of the qualifications of their organisations and themselves. the institutionalised cultural capital of both organisation and the individual is shown through the certification issued by the press council. the individual certification aims to set the standards for the competency of journalists at several levels; namely young journalists, intermediate journalists, and primary journalists. this individual certification was not previously popular, but in recent years many media organisations and especially the national media based in jakarta, have encouraged its journalist staff to take a series of examinations to get certification as well as to get their organisations certified. in february 2017 online news media organisations gathered to create rules to redefine journalism. journalist set qualifying standards for press organisations through the certification of the press council. in may 2017, online news media online organisations also collectively declared the format of the indonesian cyber media association (asosiasi media siber indonesia = amsi). the institutionalization of cultural hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1798 issn :0250-7196 capital is a new way of maintaining the status quo of journalist especially for online news media journalists, who only recently have become new members of the journalistic corps. 5.5 social responsibility in political communication, the journalists realised that the public in conveying their political messages uses social media and so they considered involvement in that new public sphere. a majority of participants realised the importance of social media in increasing readership and as a medium to deliver news. the number of followers in social media is becoming a new power of the media to be commoditised and used for the purposes of media politics. concerns were expressed by participants when they realised that they are losing their monopoly in constructing public opinion, especially in ahok‟s case. according to the journalists, during the elections of 2017, the news reports could not compete with the information spread on social media, which demanded the imprisonment of ahok. one participant (j16) admitted that the media were overwhelmed by the spread of information in a mass mobilisation. however, j16 also used social media and online news media followers to spread the campaign #jakartadamai (peace jakarta). according to j16, the rallies were very likely to cause conflict between people and to endanger the government‟s position. therefore, they needed to do something to shape public opinion during the rallies. j6 acknowledged that a hash-tag campaign is not a journalistic activity, but the action was encouraged by a sense of social responsibility. as mcquail (2013) said, in time of crisis or emergency, the media are expected to voluntarily cooperate with authorities. the media has always been dominant in shaping public opinion through news stories, but the use of hash-tag campaigns is a new way to shape public opinion. 6. conclusion to conclude, the quantitative content of published news during the 2017 elections in indonesia indicate that the elite agendas were a strong influence on the news. three online news media organisations investigated in the study focused on dki jakarta governor and deputy governor candidates with the incumbent ahok/djarot being the most reported. however, we argue that journalists are still dominant in determining the news by selecting stories about dki jakarta governor candidates according to newsworthiness. public agendas such as news from ordinary citizens, communities, and activists received little attention from the online news media, equals to 2.47% of total news items. journalists limited the access of citizens to become involved in constructing political news during the indonesia elections in 2017 and regarded citizen journalists as rivals in influencing public opinion. the strategies of journalists in maintaining the status quo were conducted traditional and new ways. the traditional way used embodied cultural capital, which emphasise s professionalism, such as the skills, credibility, and code of ethics journalists, and objectified cultural capital by developing contextual journalism. institutionalise d cultural capital through the certification of individual journalists, media organisation certification, and public opinion via interaction in social media are new ways to maintain the status quo of indonesian journalists. future research could usefully explore the extent to which these hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1799 issn :0250-7196 factors can be identified in the output of other type of news and in different politicaleconomic contexts. references agriesta, d. (2017). wiranto sebut pilkada dki barometer politik nasional. accessed at 07/03/2017 https://www.medcom.id/pilkada/news-pilkada/akwwo60k-wirantosebut-pilkada-dki-barometer-politik-nasional allan, s. (2006). online news: journalism and the internet. mcgraw-hill education (uk). allan, s., & peters, c. (2015). visual truths of citizen reportage: four research problematics. information, communication & society, 1(6), 1-14. amsi, (2017). perangi hoax, asosiasi media siber indonesia pun didirikan. accessed at 20/12/2017 from http://www.amsi.or.id/perangi-hoax-asosiasi-media-siberindonesia-pun-didirikan/ basheer, m. f., hameed w. u., sabir s. a., & jehangir, m. s. (2019). islamic business ethics and islamic banks performance in malaysia: does sincerity matter? . hamdard islamicus.42(4). 217224, benson, r., & neveu, e. (2005). bourdieu and the journalistic field. polity. blumler, j. g. (2015). core theories of political communication: foundational and freshly minted. communication theory, 25(4): 426-438. bps. (2014). jumlah kabupaten menurut provinsi. accessed in 20 january 2017 https://www.bps.go.id/dynamictable/2015/09/07/853/jumlah-kabupaten-menurutprovinsi-2002-2014.html bossio, d., & s. bebawi (2016). mapping the emergence of social media in everyday journalistic practices. media international australia, 161(1): 147-158. bourdieu, p. (1986). the forms of capital handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education. bourdieu, p. (1998). on television and journalism. london: pluto press. bourdieu, p (2005). the political field, the social field, and the journalistic field. bourdieu and the journalistic field polity carlson, m. (2015). introduction: the many boundaries of journalism. boundaries of journalism, routledge, 1(6), 13-30. chaffee, s. h., & metzger, m. j. (2001). the end of mass communication? mass communication and society 4(4), 365-379. coddington, m. (2015). the wall becomes a curtain: revisiting journalism‟s news–business boundary. boundaries of journalism routledge, 5(7), 79-94. coleman, s., & ross, k. (2010). the media and the public “them” and “us” in media discourse. wiley-blackwell. detik. (2015a). indonesia 'negara paling berisik' di media sosial. retrieved 22 june, 2017, from https://inet.detik.com/cyberlife/d-2839535/indonesia-negara-paling-berisik-dimedia-sosial. https://inet.detik.com/cyberlife/d-2839535/indonesia-negara-paling-berisik-di-media-sosial https://inet.detik.com/cyberlife/d-2839535/indonesia-negara-paling-berisik-di-media-sosial hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1800 issn :0250-7196 detik. (2015). puluhan orang sudah jadi korban pasal 27 uu ite. retrieved 22 june, 2017, from https://news.detik.com/berita/2908891/puluhan-orang-sudah-jadi-korban-pasal27-uu-ite. djuyandi, y., prawira, i., & irawan, r. e. (2017). media neutrality in indonesian presidential election 2014. advanced science letters, 23(5), 4816-4819. domingo, d. (2008). participatory journalism practices in the media and beyond: an international comparative study of initiatives in online newspapers. journalism practice 2(3), 326-342. domingo, d. (2011). managing audience participation: practices, workflows and strategies. in singer, j. b., et al, participatory journalism: guarding open gates at online newspapers, john wiley & sons freedom house (2016). freedom on the net indonesia 2016. retrieved 21 june, 2017, from https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/fotn%202016%20indonesia.pdf. franquet, r. (2014). analysing media production: the benefit and limit using ethnographic methodology. media practice and everyday agency in europe. n. c. leif kramp, andreas hepp, llija tomanic trivundza, hannu nieminen, risto kuneilus, tobias olsson, ebba sundin and richard kilborn, lumiere. gillmor, d. (2006). we the media: grassroots journalism by the people, for the people. o'reilly media, inc. goode, l. (2009). social news, citizen journalism and democracy. new media & society 11(8): 1287-1305. khan a. b., basheer, m. f., iqbal j., & hatim, m. (2020). global financial crisis 2008-09, macro-economic variables and the performance of ftse bursa malaysia hijrah shariah index: a case of malaysian stock market. hamdard islamicus.43(1). 94-99, hallin, d. c., & mancini, p. (2004). comparing media systems: three models of media and politics. cambridge university press. hallin, d. c., & mancini, p. (2017). ten years after comparing media systems: what have we learned? political communication, 34(2): 155-171. harcup, t., & o'neill, d. (2001). what is news? galtung and ruge revisited. journalism studies, 2(2): 261-280. kammer, a. (2013). audience participation in the production of online news: towards a typology.(report). nordicom review: nordic research on media and communication 34(si), 113. kaufhold, k. (2010). citizen journalism and democracy: how user-generated news use relates to political knowledge and participation. journalism & mass communication quarterly, 87(3-4): 515-529. kim, h. (2016). political correctness on david mamet‟s oleanna. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(3), 195-203. law, s. (2003). constituting the audience for radio in transnational contexts. global media studies: ethnographic perspectives. lim, m. (2002). cyber civic space in indonesia; from panopticon to pandemonium? idpr, 24(4), 56-80 https://news.detik.com/berita/2908891/puluhan-orang-sudah-jadi-korban-pasal-27-uu-ite https://news.detik.com/berita/2908891/puluhan-orang-sudah-jadi-korban-pasal-27-uu-ite https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/fotn%202016%20indonesia.pdf hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1801 issn :0250-7196 lim, m. (2013). many clicks but little sticks: social media activism in indonesia. journal of contemporary asia 43(4): 636-657. lindell, j. (2015). bourdieusian media studies: returning social theory to old and new media. distinktion: scandinavian journal of social theory, 16(3), 362-377. lindner, a. m., & larson, r. p. (2017). the expansion and contraction of the journalistic field and american online citizen journalism, 2000–2012. poetics, 64: 40-52. margianto, j. h., & syaefullah, a. (2012). media online: pembaca, laba, dan etika. retrieved 22 may, 2017, from https://aji.or.id/upload/article_doc/media-online-optimise dsize-478kb.pdf. margiyono. (2009). membangun benteng kebebasan: seri reformasi kebijakan media. aji indonesia and drsp/usaid. mccombs, m. e., & shaw, d. l. (1972). the agenda-setting function of mass media. public opinion quarterly, 36(2): 176-187. mcnair, b. (2002). journalism and democracy. an evaluation of the political public sphere. taylor and francis e-library. mcnair, b. (2011). an introduction to political communication. london, routledge. mcquail, d. (2013). journalism and society. sage. mutsvairo, b. (2014). reconnoitering the role of (citizen) journalism ethics in the emerging networked public sphere. ecquid novi: african journalism studies, 35(3): 4-22. örnebring, h. (2013). anything you can do, i can do better? professional journalists on citizen journalism in six european countries. international communication gazette, 75(1): 35-53. paulussen, s., & ugille, p. (2008). user generated content in the newsroom: professional and organisational constraints on participatory journalism. westminter papers in communication and culture, 5(2): 24-42. prasad, l. s. (2017). political network can more influential than other networks for economic awareness: a case study of nepalese village. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 3 (6), 249-263. quinn, s., & lamble, s. (2008). online newsgathering : research and reporting for journalism. amsterdam; boston, focal press. sen, k., & hill, d. (2010). reorganisation of media power in post-authoritarian indonesia: ownership, power and influence of local media entrepreneurs. politics and the media in twenty-first century indonesia, routledge, 5(6), 27-39. shaw, i. (2007). the media's agenda-setting role in liberia's 2005 presidential runoff election. siebert, f. s. (1956). four theories of the press: the authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility, and soviet communist concepts of what the press should be and do. university of illinois press. sinaga, m. (2015). ktpuntukahok: the role of social media as a tool of social movement. people. international journal of social sciences 1(1), 56-80. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1787-1802 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1802 issn :0250-7196 singer, j. b. (2015). out of bounds: professional norms as boundary markers. boundaries of journalism, routledge, 33-48. swanson, d. l. (2005). political news in the changing environment of political journalism. london, taylor and francis. tapsell, r. (2015). indonesia's media oligarchy and the 'jokowi phenomenon. indonesia, 99, 29-50. viva. (2017) pernyataan lengkap ahok saat sebut surat al-maidah ayat 51. accessed january 20, 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mndjv3zaqqe voltmer, k. (2013). the media in transitional democracies. john wiley & sons. wall, m. (2015). citizen journalism: a retrospective on what we know, an agenda for what we don‟t. digital journalism, 1-17. wall, m., & zahed, s. e. (2015). embedding content from syrian citizen journalists: the rise of the collaborative news clip. journalism, 16(2): 163-180. weimann, g. (2014). reevaluating "the end of mass communication?. mass communication & society, 17(6): 803. yangyue, l. (2014). transgressiveness, civil society and internet control in southeast asia. the pacific review, 27(3): 383-407. yin, j. (2008). beyond the four theories of the press: a new model for the asian & the world press. journalism & communication monographs, 10(1): 3-62. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ social, political and religious roles of chinese muslims in indonesia: experiences of west sumatran piti 1 nunu burhanuddin, 2 dodi pasilaputra 1 associate professor at the faculty of ushuluddin, adab and dakwah, iain bukittinggi, west sumatra, indonesia 2 lecturer at the faculty of tarbiyah and science teaching, iain bukittinggi, west sumatra, indonesia abstract: this study aims to examine strategic roles of west sumatran piti (persatuan islam tionghhoa indonesia or indonesian chinese islamic association) in social, political, and religious contexts. this study traced the patterns of social relations within the internal chinese muslim community along with their social, political, and religious problems that often colour the life of this minority. the method used in this study is religious research with the approach of research on religion. the data for this research were collected through interview, observation, documentation, and focus group discussion (fgd). the data were analyzed based on the views from several informants validated by triangulation method. the results show that west sumatran piti plays a significant role in the social context in the form of managing chinese muallaf (muslim converts), providing temporary shelters for them who are isolated and rejected by their family, providing parenting style guidance and legal advocacy for their marriage with a local citizen, and practising funeral service through the local tradition of malakok. in the political context, the strategic roles of west sumatran piti can be seen from the national political policies towards chineses ethnicity, the political interaction of chinese and minangkabau ethnicity, and the neutrality of chinese muslims in local politics. finally, in the religious context, the role is shown through the efforts of providing moderate religious understanding for the chinese muslim community in west sumatra, improving their ability to read and write the koran as well as to practice worship, establishing houses of worship, providing religious teachers or preachers to the broader community, and participating in various religious activities and events in the local community.the implementation of this study can be used as a basis for policy making on how to utilize the role that the chinese muslim community (piti) can play in the social, political and religious contexts in west sumatra in particular, and indonesia in general. existing studies related to chinese muslims community in indonesia, only portraying in fragmented social, political, and religious aspects. instead this study reveals the overall strategic role of the piti organization in social, political and religious aspects as well. p a g e | 334 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ keywords: chinese muslim, social roles, political roles, religious roles, west sumatra, piti. 1. introduction indonesia is a country with a pluralistic population consisting of a wide variety of cultures, religions, and ethnicities, a nation with a multicultural basis. a wide variety of ethnic groups spreads across indonesia from the native inhabitants to various nationalities such as arabian, european, chinese, and others. chinese is one of some foreign ethnicities who have come to indonesia since a long time age (liji, dari & mitra, 2000). the historical records reveal that in 319-414 ad a chinese monk named fa hsien traveled to india and stopped in the hindu kingdom located in the citarum river i.e. the kingdom of tarumanegara. in the 9th century during the tang dynasty (618-907 ad), it is also stated that many chinese came to this country to trade (poerwanto, 2005; kongmanus, 2016). moreover, during the reign of ming dynasty (1368-1643 ad), chinese came to the indonesian archipelago in a large number. the crucial footprint of chinese muslim was recorded in 1405-1433 ad when emperor yong-le and emperor chu chan-chi of the ming dynasty (1368-1643) ordered seven voyages to the south china sea and indian ocean (ying, 1979). the voyage led by admiral cheng ho was intended to secure the trade routes from the pirates and to develop the political influence of the ming dynasty (mahfud, 2014; al-qurtuby, 2009). next, at the end of the 20th century, the development of chinese muslims grew much further as it is evident by the formation of chinese muslim organizations in indonesia. the dynamic development of chinese citizens in indonesia is characterized by the divide-and-rule politic imposed by colonial government distancing chinese muslims from islam and local muslims. based on their physical characteristics, chinese muslims realize that they have different personal identities from those of local muslims. this difference inspires them to establish an organization with the aim to be a forum for gathering chinese muslims and at the same time to assert their particular identity among the local muslim community so that they can be accepted by chinese community at large (piti, 1963; chalfoun & davidaviciene, 2018) there have been several chinese muslim organizations established in indonesia, including piti (persatuan islam tionghoa indonesia), yayasan haji karim oei, and mustika (muslim tionghoa dan keluarga). several chineses, h. abdul karim oey, h. abdusomad yap, kho goan tjin, and others, founded piti on april 14, 1961 in jakart (yuanzhi, 2005; niesing, merwe, & potgieter, 2016). it was formed as a merging of chinese muslim organizations persatuan islam tionghoa p a g e | 335 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ (piti and persatuan tionghoa muslim (ptm) founded by yap a. siong and h. abdul karim oey in medan 1953 (paramita, 2010). the establishment of piti was inspired from the absence of an organization specifically established to spread islam among chinese (karim, 1982; cuyugan et al., 2017). meanwhile, yayasan haji karim oei was established on april 19, 1991 while mustika on february 19, 2007 (hariyono, 2016). unlike piti, yayasan haji karim oei and mustika are community organizations established to strengthen the unity among chinese muslim, local muslim, and chinese non-muslim. according to soekanto, the growth of social institutions is driven by humans’ need of order in their life, so norms are formulated within the society. at first, these norms were accidentally formed, but over time it became well-established. in this context, west sumatran piti which was established in padang 1993 – runs its organizational system, membership, and management in an open and democratic way by involving other muslim communities outside the chinese. the focus of this paper is the patterns of social relations within the internal chinese muslim community along with their social, political, and religious problems that often color the life of this minority. the theme of chinese muslims in indonesia has been a growing study, especially in the contemporary post-reform contex (hoon, 2008; weng, 2017; rahmawati, mahfud & alfin, 2018) have examined how chinese muslims, as a minority within a minority, did not give up doing various means, strategies and media literacy in the process of becoming a good muslim. these studies show that from the past to the contemporary period, chinese ways of becoming muslims have experienced contestation, sustainability and change. in the past, chinese ways to become muslims through family lines, marriage, and friendship. now, the way chinese become muslims uses quite a several approaches, strategies, relationships, networks, and media. these studies also found that the various efforts undertaken had a significant impact on the relations, interactions and communication between the chinese muslim community with non-muslim chinese and muslim chinese communities with non-chinese muslims in the country. research investigating the practice of state discrimination against ethnic chinese, especially muslims, as a minority group in indonesia was conducted by muzakki (2010). the study found that the cultural approach undertaken by chinese muslims through intensive coordination with faith-based organizations, including muslim mass organizations and islamic non-governmental organizations, was critical and effective in protecting against possible anti-chinese sentiment and discrimination and exploitation, both from the local community or the state bureaucracy. other research, explicitly capturing the existence of the chinese muslim community in p a g e | 336 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ east java, was carried out by mahfud (2018). this study explores the experience of the east java piti community in developing existences through various means, media and development strategies. such as empowering the younger generation of chinese muslims, synergy with non-chinese muslims in fostering converts, involving women in the fashion show hijab competition, and developing islamic community-based islamic educational institutions. the main finding of this study is that the piti organization in east java has played an essential role in the development of ethnic chinese communities in contem-porary indonesia, through creative, innovative and dynamic ways. in the context of the existence of the chinese muslim community in west sumatra, a previous related study was carried out by fernandes (2002). in this study, he described the general condition of chinese political dynamics in terms of their position and role in padang. another study explored the problem of chinese citizenship and assimilation in padang, west sumatra, and the accommodation to their primordial characteristics by allowing them to use symbols of the chinese tradition in minangkabau area. the study of the relationship of minangkabau and chinese ethnic in padang, west sumatra, was also conducted by alfirdaus, hiariej and risakotta (2014). this study showed that it was insufficient to see minangkabau and ethnic chinese relationship in padang only from a political and economic perspective, so the focus is also needed to be put cultural factor and political culture of the matrilineal minangkabau ethnicity. the argument about the relationship of minangkabau and ethnic chinese in padang can be seen from the cultural and political factors that can not be separated from the formation of minangkabau culture with its the matrilineal values found in the feminist idea of bundo kanduang. in addition, erniwati investigated chinese community in west sumatra by exploring the formation process of the chinese community for in general and chinese muslims in particular, their social systems and adopted kinship, and their political orientation, organization, and association. erniwati (2007) the next study was conducted by nofra (2016) entitled peranan piti dalam mempercepat pembauran etnis tionghoa muslim di kota padang (roles of piti in accelerating the integration process of chinese muslims in padang). this study examined how piti organization accommodated the interests of its members in social interactions with other citizens. another study was also conducted by adlan sanur tarihoran who explored the emergence of ethnic chinese in bukittinggi and their interaction with the local community (read: kurai) as an implication of the development of bukittinggi as a trading centre. this interactional relationship needs to be built through a multiculturalism approach in order to prevent conflict (tarihoran, 2016). p a g e | 337 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ different from the previous studies, this present study examines the strategic roles of chinese muslim citizens who are members of the piti organization west sumatra in solving their social, political, and religious issues in this province. 2 methods approach to the problem this research uses religious research with the approach of research on religion. this method provides a means of interpreting the answer to the question of why there are different and similar characteristics and why there are the tendencies from the phenomena studied with reasoning arguments. according to sunyoto usman, the interpreting arguments are based on a conceptual framework built on certain theories and approaches (usman, 2004). in the writing of this arcticle the main focus is research on the strategic roles of west sumatran piti (persatuan islam tionghoa indonesia) in social, political and religious contexts. this study traced the pattern of social relations within the internal chinese muslim community along with their social, political and religious problems that often colour the life of this minority. nature of research in terms of its nature, this research is a descriptive study, meaning research that describes certain objects and explains things related to or systematically describes the facts or characteristics of certain populations in certain fields factually and accurately. raco (2018) judging from the type, this research includes field research (field research), which is a problem-solving procedure that is investigated by describing or describing the condition of the subject or object of research (an institution and others) at present based on visible facts or so on. the nature of research that the authors use is a descriptive legal study in the form of exposure and aims to obstain about strategic roles piti in social, political and religious in west sumatra. data collection metods according to creswell, qualitative research seeks to explore and understand a central phenomenon by interviewing research participants or participants by asking general and rather broad questions. the information conveyed by the participants in the form of words or text is then analyzed. the results of the analysis can be in the form of descriptions or descriptions or can be in the form of themes. from these data the researcher makes interpretations to capture the internal meaning. after that the researcher made a personal reflection (self-reflection) and described it with the p a g e | 338 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ researches of other scientists that were made earlier. the final results of the qualitative research are set forth in the form of a written report (creswell, 2014). the informants in research involved the management of west sumatran piti, academicians, community and adat (local traditional) leaders; head of west sumatran kesbangpol (national and political unity agency), and the general public who have interacted with west sumatran piti. the data for this research were collected through interview, observation, documentation, and focus group discussion (fgd). a focus group discussion (fgd) is a qualitative research method and data collection technique in which a selected group of people discusses a given topic or issue in-depth, facilitated by a professional, external moderator. this method serves to solicit participants’ attitudes and perceptions, knowledge and experiences, and practices, shared in the course of interaction with different people (eeuwijk & van2017). the data were analyzed based on the views from several informants (etic) validated by triangulation method. the research conclusion will be drawn from the analysis and from the combination of the field data (emic) and the researcher’s interpretation (etic) (creswell, 2014). data analysis qualitative methods turn data into findings, and therefore this study is something unique. this really depends on the expertise, insight, training and ability of the researcher. qualitative methods are inductive, starting from facts, reality, symptoms, problems obtained through special observations. from these specific realities and facts the researcher then constructs general patterns. inductive means starting from the specific to the general. the author uses this method to understand a symptom as a whole, including describing and interpreting the human social environment or external organizations that influence it (huda, 2010). data analysis here means systematically arranging the material from interviews, observations, fgd about the strategic role of piti in social, political and religious matters related to the chinese muslim community in west sumatra. from this analysis, a new idea, theory or idea is generated. 3 results the chinese community can be identified into totok and peranakan. totok is identified as the chinese who are "original from china" and avoid intermarriage with non-chinese (suryadinata, 2005), while peranakan refers to the chinese who are born outside of china and conform to local community contexts, such as language, religion, and nationalism etc (bastian, 2013; dobbin, 1992). despite this difference, both are equal to their model of closeness to their culture. this closeness p a g e | 339 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ cannot be separated from their character as a migrant nation with the strong tradition of respecting their ancestral land. thus, chinese ethnic culture in indonesia is not a single and homogeneous cultural form but a heterogeneous one, a collection of different cultures from their original regions in china, which are then assimilated to indonesian culture. one of chinese, liem tiong, mentioned that he was born in padang, and he has lived in this city for more than 50 years. his parents and grandparents also lived here. his parents migrated to indonesia in their childhood. the original destination was philippine not indonesia. due to the storm attacking their ship, they stranded in bagan siapiapi. as time passed, they finally arrived and settled in padang ( ma’ruf, 2017). liem tiong's information above recounted the second wave coming of chinese community to padang, west sumatra. this fact is reinforced by the age of see hin kiong temple built around 1860 in kampung tionghoa (hartono & handinoto, 2007). ernawati says that see hin kiong temple was burned in 1861 (mohammad & syafiq, 2014). another theory about chinese in padang asserts that they originated from pariaman and had lived here since the xii century ad. when acehnese came to pariaman, this area became a gathering place for traders in that era. pariaman then became a coastal trade center. thus, christine dobbin estimates that chinese settlement has been around in pariaman for a long period of time (nurhadiantomo, 2004). however, a tragic event triggered the exodus of chinese from pariaman. it is stated that during the japanese occupation, a chinese man brought his two daughters to japanese office. some local youths who happened to see it alleged that the chinese committed treason against them. enraged by their anger, they then took the two chinese girls to the beach and eviscerated them with kangso, a type of tool made from aluminum (nurhadiantomo, 2004). this incident scared the chinese and made them leave pariaman heading to the east around padang. the origin of of chinese muslims in west sumatra is not exactly known except from the theory of admiral cheng ho's expedition, which influenced the emergence of chinese muslim communities in the country (luntungan, 2013). there are only a few notes about them in java originating from haji ma huan, a cheng ho’s secretary and interpreter, who joined at least three of cheng ho’s expeditions (eriyanti, 2007). under the influence of cheng ho, chinese muslims were rapidly developed in indonesian archipelago in the 1920 (amir, 2004). another theory is the migration of chinese muslim traders to the south asian region, including indonesia. based on the 15th century trade motives, there were many chinese muslims living in the coastal cities, especially pantai utara (eriyanti, 2007). some of the chinese are already muslim in their native country. p a g e | 340 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ in their home country, they are known as the "hui" community or called pinyin in chinese, huízú xiaoerjing and written as "huizu" in arabic (amir, 2004).. they form one of 56 minority groups that are legally recognized by the government of people’s republic of china. they live in northwestern china, the region of ningxia, gansu, and xinjiang. most cultures of the hui people similar to that of han except for their religion. as muslim, they do not eat pork commonly consumed in chinese culture. they also do not eat dog meat, the wild animal, horse (qs al-anfal 60; an-nahl 8), most birds and animals the food considered special in chinese cuisine. in terms of clothing, they also wear different clothes in which adult men wear white kopiah (a type of cap) and adult women wear headscarf or burdah as commonly found in islamic culture. these data explain that besides cheng ho's arrival to indonesia (including west sumatra) which brought muslims who later settled in this region, there were also chinese migrations from the "hui" community, which were already the adherents of islam. it is estimated that there are hundreds of chinese muslims in west sumatra. most of them are in the cities of padang, padang panjang, bukittinggi, payakumbuh, lima puluh kota, solok, pesisir selatan, pasaman, and dharmasraya. padang pariaman is the only city, which is not inhabited by ethnic chinese. this number only represents a small proportion of the total number of ethnic chinese in this province. according to buya muslim nur, chairperson of west sumatran piti, the number of chinese muslims in the city of padang is around 200 (sefriyono, 2015). it is seemingly possible that this number does not cover the total number of chinese muslims in west sumatra because their existence is not entirely known. many muallaf (the term for people who have just converted to islam, which is derived from the arabic the word maf'ul meaning people who surrender and submit) change their life direction and belief (agung, 2014). it is difficult to identify them because they tend to hide their conversion from their family and relatives. it is common for chinese family not to approve their family members’ conversion to islam, so many chinese muallaf are isolated and rejected by their family. thus, one effort to avoid this problem is to hide their islamic status. this is one of the phenomena about the condition of chinese muallaf in the cities of west sumatra. chinese muslims in west sumatra are classified into three groups. the first group is those who sincerely convert to islam out of their own will without coercion or other external causes. this group practice islamic teaching willingly and full of istiqomah (steadfastness). they also help each other volun-tarily and work intensively in the organization to hold friendly gathering and various religious and social activities.(33) p a g e | 341 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ the next group is those who convert to islam to meet social demands such as marrying local muslims. usually, this group does not show their religious identity openly and does not practice islamic teachings fully. meanwhile, the third group belongs to those who convert to islam but socially excluded from or rejected by their family. this third group has not fully been identified within west sumatran piti organization (juliastutik, 2010). such classification of chinese muslim was also justified by amin sheng. he mentioned that in general they are classified into three group: those who convert to islam out of their own will, those who convert to islam because of marriage, and those who convert to islam for other practical reasons (afif, 2010). this classification provides an illustration about the existence of some chinese muslims who have not been registered as members of this organization. obviously, it will lead to the incomplete and unintesive communication and fellowship of chinese muslims in padang, west sumatra. 4 discussion roles of piti in social field one of the problems, which arise from the change in religious identity for chinese in west sumatra, is the accommodation system of their family and their family order. indeed, the existence of muallaf from chinese community brings its own problematic issue because the customary tradition of chinese society does not provide flexibility for its pople to embrace islam. according to elizabeth sien, one of the west sumatran piti management, there is an indication that the chinese non-muslim parents forbid their children or other family members to practice a religion other than their ancestral one. if there should be religious conversion, the family recommends them to convert to religions other than islam. thus, chinese muallaf are commonly rejected by or excommunicated from their traditional family (rosmini, 2016). this incidence is led by the fact that muslims are dominated by local people – categorized as social pariah class or inlandaer by the dutch colonists (fuller, 2005) while the chinese were categorized as foreign citizens or vreemdeling (nur, 2018). this problem has not been resolved maximally because there has been no shelter or temporary house for those who are isolated from or rejected by their family until now. this is one of the main tasks of west sumatran piti. however, this organization has made efforts to provide sanctuary for the rejected muallaf in the homes of piti managament while at the same time making persuasive approaches and understanding to make the family not traditionally excommunicate them and to respect their decision to embrace the new religion. another social issue that often arises among chinese muslims in west sumatra is marriage problem. many chinese convert to islam because of marriage, for p a g e | 342 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ example, a chinese man who wants to marry a local woman or a chinese woman who wants to marry a minangkabau man. in this context, there are two cases of the marriage between chinese muslims and local people. one is the marriage between a chinese man muallaf and his minangkabau wife while the other is the marriage between a chinese woman muallaf with her local husband. in the first case, their marriage can be well kept and tend to be stable whereas in the latter case it is often unstable (rosmini, 2016). if a chinese man marries to a local minangkabau woman, he has to convert to islam. in this regard, piti plays a role in facilitating his conversion process, circumcision, and provision of religious advice as well as lecture on how to build a sakinah (peaceful) family and how to practice the teachings of islam. on the other hand, if a chinese woman mualaf marries to a local man, their marriage will tend to to be less stable and sometimes almost ends in divorce. it happens because the local minangkabau man often shows different behavior and attitude after the marriage such as committing polygamy after obtaining sufficient fortune from his wife’s business. despite its rare occurence, this phenomenon brings its own problems in the context of the social and community relations experienced chinese muslims. in this context, west sumatran piti has an active role in providing marriage counseling or sometimes legal advocacy. another problem found in this study is how chinese muslims organize the funeral of their dead fellow. as said by sien elizabeth, chinese muslim community has not yet had a specific land for their burial ground (afif, 2010). to solve this problem, west sumatran piti practices the adat (local tradition) of 'malakok', to integrate 'migrants' into one of minangkabau clans through a traditional ceremony and certain conditions (nur, 2018). through malakok, the migrants or non minangkabau ethnic residents can be accepted as dunsanak (clan members) and are treated equally as such seberat-sepilkul sesakit sesenang by the clan that has accepted them (huda, 2010). in light with this issue, taufik abdullah asserts that the tradition of 'malakok' is a local wisdom to help realize harmony between ethnic immigrants and their local hosts or among local clans in west sumatra (afif, 2010).. regarding the funeral problem, the head of lkaam, a local institution managing the issue of local tradition and custom in west sumatra, asserts that chinese muslim community can hold funeral service like other muslim communities in burial lands owned or controlled by a minangkabau clan they integrate to (afif, 2010). 4.2. roles of piti in political field p a g e | 343 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ ethnic chinese experiences different policy in national politics in a different period from the old order, the new order and the reformation. this difference has an impact on their psychological and political behavior and attitude. the old order and the new order seemed to limit chinese political participation with various policies and rules discreditng them. the changing political atmosphere in the reformation era provided the space for the political participation of ethnic chinese. according to weyner, political participation is a voluntary action, successful or failed and organized or not, to influence government policy choices, goverrnment administration, and political election at the national, regional or local level (bastian, 2013). from this political participation, many of chinese are involved as administrators of political parties, legislative members, and regional political leaders. the change from the new order political system to reformation era gives windows of opportinity for the political participation of ethnic chinese in indonesia (bastian, 2013). after the reformation era, chinese ethnic groups who are members of piti organization have the opportunity to realize their political aspirations and participation, so many piti members join in several political parties. real and open political participation of piti members can be seen from the political activities of its political elite. the freedom of expression is positively welcomed because they can now freely state their ethnic identity. the political activity of piti elite members after the reformation is increasing in terms of quality and quantity. their motivation to participate in politics is not just to seize the power to voice their ethnic aspirations that was previously "silenced". the trend of ethnic chinese political participation in politics is not to seize power as that in the economic field but rather to channel their aspirations, so they are no longer regarded as a "second class citizens" group. in west sumatra, as stated by muslim nur, the involvement of piti members in various politics is a type of freedom of expression that was not previously given by the central government. some piti members are in doubt to join political parties considering that they have been directed more at entreprenurial sector as expressed follows: "for a long time, we were in doubt to join the political field considering there was no space for us in politics. many of the piti members were more interested in entrepreneurship or becoae religious teachers, so they rarely joined in political parties. however, after the reformation, several piti members join in politics and become the members of the indonesian parliament." (nur, 2018) elizabeth sien also gave the same information by stating that the chinese in west sumatra including chinese muslims do not show prominent activity in politics. however, only two figures are actively involved in politics, but is more personal p a g e | 344 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ involvement rather than representing the organization. despite the existence of national political established by the chinese, it turns out that it receives no support from chinese citizens in some areas including in west sumatra (nofra, 2016) the party that is founded by an ethnic chinese does not receive enough support from the chinese themselves. in west sumatra, this party does not get a single vote. some piti members tend join nationalist parties. one of the piti members who join such party is alek indra lukman with partai demokrasi indonesia perjuangan or the indonesian democratic party of struggle (pdip), and he is elected as the member of indonesian parliament for the 2014-2019 period. alex indra lukman was born in padang, west sumatra, december 31, 1970. he is a politician of chinese descent, once as a head of the west sumatran regional division of pdi perjuangan. he is elected as a member of the parliament for the 2014-2019 period from through the west sumatran electoral district i, which covers the pesisir selatan, mentawai, solok, solok selatan, sijunjung, tanah datar, dharmasraya, padang panjang and sawah lunto. alex indra lukman, an alumnus of fisipol eka sakti university (2004-2008) is a chinese muallaf. his wife, cynthia hardi lukman, is also a muallaf. with his muslim status and muslim wife, the people of west sumatra can culturally accept alex because the religious status is the important aspect for minangkabau people. in this political context, piti as an organization that accommodates chinese muslims does not have a direct commitment to a certain political figure. nevertheless, his personal relationship with west sumatran piti can at least provide information for chinese muslims to encourage their ethnic figure in every political event and celebration (dobbin, 1992). in addition, during the political constellation of the 2019 election, west sumatran piti does not provide specific recommendations for its members in terms of political parties or figures to be elected. therefor, piti is able to show an open and neutral political attitude. thus, the role of west sumatran piti in politics can be seen from its efforts to build the strength of national solidarity, intengrating with the local people, and distancing itself from party and ethnic exclusivity. 4.3 roles of piti in religious field muslim communities, including ethnic chinese, are required to develop moderate religious understanding and attitudes. according to afthonul afif, the traditional and religious attitude of the chinese community including those who become muallaf are two insperable aspects in their life chinese community who have become converts (afif, 2014). thus, the chinese who convert to islam are categorized chinese muslim (dobbin, 1992). based on the categorization of p a g e | 345 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ "chinese muslims", west sumatran piti seeks to provide understanding to its member by displaying the image of a moderate muslim. according to graham e. fuller, moderate mulslims are those who believe in democracy as well as tolerance and take an anti-violence approach to politics and equal treatment of women at the legal and social level (afif, 2014). as for khaled abu al-fadl, the term "moderate" itself actually emerges as a response to provide a middle course between the extreme one and the liberal one as done the prophet muhammad saw (afif, 2014). in this regard, the process of religious moderation for chinese muslim community in west sumatra is realized through their attitude behavior accordance with rationality, humanity, democracy and tolerance toward differences as well as by respecting the prevailing tradition of adat basandi syara syara 'basandi kitabullah (tradition founded upon religion and religion founded upon quran), the platform of the minangkabau community. piti and muslim chinese community in west sumatra always voices this moderation. in establishing religious moderation, west sumatran piti conducts various routine religious activities such as pengajian (religious gathering) and monthly religious services. this activity is held every saturday in the fourth week of each month in pasar baru mosque, padang. this mosque belongs to general public, not specifically built by the piti community. the permission to use this mosque as a gathering religious place for chinese muslim community is obtained because of close relationship between chinese muslim community and local residents. previously, west sumatran piti also holds pengajian in several mosques around the area of pondok, padang. muslim noor, who also acts as the ustadz (preacher), leads the monthly religious gathering held by west sumatran piti. the theme of the religious preaching is more directed at understanding the field of aqidah in accordance with ahlussunnah wal jamaah concept, and the practice of worship in accordance with shafi’i maddhab (jurisprudence). the emphasis is put on this matter since many chinese muslims generally still lack of understanding in the practice of worship. although this gathering is initiated by piti, many local muslims around the mosque also attend it. it obviously indicates the good interaction of chinese muslims with the surrounding community (raco, 2018) in addition to reinforcing the religious understanding, this pengajian activity also serves as a medium of interaction among chinese muslims around padang. sometimes, some chinese muslims from outside the city of padang such as padang panjang and payakumbuh also join it. this activity is very useful for them considering that they have not received much information about religious teachings in other places. p a g e | 346 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ furthermore, in carrying out religious activities and worship for chinese muslims in padang city, piti management seek to the use of the mosques around them. in their daily worship activities, chines muslims go to the closest mosque around their residence. at first, they felt uncomfortable going to the mosques because it was indicated that the surrounding still "questioned" their islam. many of them were often asked the questions, "manga ang ka musajik?" “ang lah basunaik?” (what are you doing at the mosques? have you been circumcised?). it has been a desire among chinese muslims to build their own mosque or religious center for a very long time. the establishment of a mosque or religious center for chinese muslims padang has long been planned. piti management and chinese muslim businessmen in padang often make negotitaion with the municipal government. as a result, the regional government allocates a 600 m2 plot of land in pondok to be used as the area to build the mosque or religious center for chinese muslims in padang. furthermore, piti wants to establish the permanent mosque or religious as well as an islamic tourism icon (afif, 2014). this desire is inspired by the fact many muslims in padang such as female congregation with heejab take pictures or selfie in front of a lion statue in pondok temple, padang. despite no prohibition for muslim communities to take pictures in front of other religions’ houses of worship or symbols, it will look more islamic if such pictures are taken in the mosque with the combining design of islamic and chinese culture. it is one of the programs of west sumaran piti in developing religious center in west sumatra. in spite of the support from the program, this program is not actualized due to the issue of land ownership and permit. in another context, some of chinese muslims are adept at reciting quran with good voice and memorization. based on information obtained during the fgd at the rangkayo basa hotel, the researcher was informed that some piti members usuallly participant in musabaqah tilawatil quran (mtq) competition, both at regional and at national level. fajri, one of the chinese muslims in padang, has been participating in this activity and practiced reading quran with qira’at (method of recitation) since his childhood. when reading the quran with the qira’at, many people around doubted his ability at the firts place but after long time of practice and study he show his good ability to recite the quran with fluently and melodiously. he has been participating in various mtq competitions at municipal and provincial level in west sumatra. he has also won the mtq competition for several times, and his last achievement is as the runner up in provincial mtq competition held in payakumbuh, west sumatra.(50) in addition to the ability in the art of quranic recitation, fajri and some of his friends also show abilities in p a g e | 347 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ memorizing the quran. with this capability, they have also participated in several tahfidz al-quran (quranic memorization) competitions. from this, west sumatran piti maximizes its member potentials by providing special programs to develop religious syiar (propaganda) and dakwa (preaching). moreover, some chinese muslims in padang have profession as a teacher. it is evident from the career pursued by h. muslim noor, who was once a principal in one of the private schools in pariaman, h. amin sheng, a teacher at tazkia padang school, elizabeth sien as a high school teacher in padang, and others, who also have a profession as a teacher or a preacher. the teaching profession (especially the religious one) and preacher of piti management illustrates that the surrounding community accepts the presence of the muslim chinese community and and provides a space for them to preach. in light of this issue, h. muslim noor, who manages hajj (pilgrimage to mecca) travel agency, provides plenty of his time to fulfill preaching invitation from the community around padang. for him, this invitation is a huge honor and appreciation. h. amin sheng who has taught for years in a religion-based school in the city of padang also mentioned the similar thing. in fact, he expressed that he had devoted himself to preaching and the development of religious progress. 5 conclusion from the explanation above, it can be concluded that the strategic roles of west sumatran piti in social and community are in managing chinese muallaf (muslim converts) rejected by their families through economic reinforcement, shelter provision, temporary assistance, legal advocacy, and marriage counseling for those who marry to local people. next, in the case of the funeral service of chinese muslims, piti practiced the local tradition of malakok by cooperating with the relevant parties. in the political context, west sumatran piti put its organization in a neutral position among the clash, conflict, and persuasin of political parties in this country. piti also plays an active role in encouraging its member to gain political recognition both in parliament and in government through nationalist parties rather than the sectarian ones. it also shows an inclusive performance pattern in establishing national togetherness and collaboration to develop the nation. the togetherness of west sumatran piti and non-muslim chinese and chinese need to be fostered for its dynamic movement. the number of charismatic chinese muslim figures in west sumatra should be maximally exploited to develop piti. west sumatran piti can make the west sumatra regional government and lembaga kerapatan adat alam minang-kabau (lkaam), a local institution p a g e | 348 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ managing the issue of local tradition and custom, as the second home for chinese muslim minority in west sumatra who are isolated from and rejecte by their family. economic rights and religious reinforcement are important task for piti to do in elevating the dignity of this minority. finally, in the religious field, west sumatran piti seeks to provide religious understanding for its members by displaying the image and character of moderate muslims. the process of religious moderation for chinese muslim community can be realized thorugh behavior and attitude in accordance with the rationality, the humanity, and the order of local customs. in the context of religious service and worship, piti seeks to educate muallaf, so they will be able to read the quran properly. in addition, their insights on religious understanding are also improved. 6. recommendations 1. the implementation of this study can be used as a basis for policy making on how to utilize the role that the chinese muslim community (piti) can play in the social, political and religious contexts in west sumatra in particular, and indonesia in general. existing studies related to chinese muslims community in indonesia, only portraying in fragmented social, political, and religious aspects. instead this study reveals the overall strategic role of the piti organization in social, political and religious aspects as well. 2. this research is limited in the province of west sumatra. therefore, there needs to be a continuation of this research to photograph the movement of piti in eastern indonesia, such as east java, east kalimantan, south sulawesi, west nusatenggara, and others. ethical issue authors are aware of, and comply with, best practice in publication ethics specifically with regard to authorship (avoidance of guest authorship), dual submission, manipulation of figures, competing interests and compliance with policies on research ethics. authors adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original and has not been published elsewhere in any language. competing interests the authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that would prejudice the impartiality of this scientific work. authors’ contribution p a g e | 349 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ all authors of this study have a complete contribution for data collection, data analyses and manuscript writing. references liji, l., dari, r. u., & mitra, s. (2000). tahun perjalanan hubungan tiongkok indonesia. jakarta: kom-pas gramedia. poerwanto, h. (2005). orang tionghoa khek dari singkawang. depok: komunitas bambu. ying, m. i. t. (1979). perkembangan islam di tiongkok. jakarta: bulan bintang. mahfud, c. (2014). the role of cheng ho mosque: the new silk road, indonesia china relations in islamic cultural identity. j indones islam, 8(1): 23. al-qurtuby s. (2009). the tao of islam: ceng ho and the legacy of chinese muslims in pre-modern java. stud islam, 16(1), 24-30. piti. (1963). anggaran dasar dan anggrana rumah tangga (ad/ art). yuanzhi, k. (2005). muslim tionghoa cheng ho: misteri perjalanan muhibah di nusantara. jakarta: pustaka populer. paramita, n. (2010). pembina iman tauhid islam (piti) dan etnis tionghoa di indonesia. jakarta: faculty of humanities, study program of history, universitas indonesia. karim, a. (1982). mengabdi agama, nusa dan bangsa: sahabat karib bung karno. jakarta: gunung agung. hariyono, p. (2016). menggali latar belakang stereotip dan persoalan etnis tionghoa di jawa, dari jaman keemasan, konflik a ntar etnis hingga kini. semarang: mutiara wacana srondol bumi indah. hoon, c. y. (2008). chinese identity in post-suharto indonesia. brighton: sussex academic press. weng, h. w. (2017). chinese ways of being muslim: negotiating ethnicity and religiousity in indonesia. copenhagen: nias press. rahmawati, y. k., mahfud, c., & alfin, j. (2018). chinese ways of being good muslim: from the cheng hoo mosque to islamic education and media literacy. indones j islam muslim soc, 8(2): 225–252. muzakki, a. (2010). ethnic chinese muslims in indonesia: an unfinished anti discrimination project. j muslim minor aff, 30(1): 81–96. mahfud, c. (2018). chinese muslim community development in contemporary indonesia: experiences of piti in east java. stud islam, 25(3). fernandes, r. (2002). etnik tionghoa kota padang dalam dinamika politik. padang: pascasarjana universitas negeri padang. alfirdaus, l. k., hiariej, e., risakotta, f. a. (2014). politik relasi etnik: p a g e | 350 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ matrilinealitas dan etnik minoritas cina di padang, sumatra barat. komunitas int j indones soc cult, 6(1):136–50. erniwati. (2007). asap hio di ranah minang: komunitas tiong-hoa di sumatera barat. yogyakarta: ombak. nofra, d. (2016). peranan piti dalam mempercepat pembauran etnis tionghoa muslim di kota padang. universitas islam negeri imam bonjol padang. tarihoran, a. s. (2016). interaksi antara etnis tionghoa dan masyarakat lokal dengan pendekatan multikulturalisme di kampung cina kota bukittinggi. in batusangkar inter-national conference 1. batusangkar: iain batusangkar. usman, s. (2004). sosiologi: sejarah, teori dan metodologi. yogyakarta: cired. raco, j. (2018). metode penelitian kualitatif. jenis, karakteristik dan keunggulannya. creswell, j. (2014). research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. california, usa: sage publications. eeuwijk, p., van, a. z. (2017). how to conduct a focus group discussion ( fgd ) methodological manual. swiss trop public heal institute/swiss tph. creswell, j. w. (2014). a concise introduction to mixed methods research. london: sage; 2014. huda, s. (2010). orang indonesia tionghoa dan persoalan identitas. kontekst j penelit sos keagamaan, 25(1) :165–73. suryadinata, l. (2005). pemikiran politik etnis tionghoa indonesia indonesia 1990-2002. jakarta: lp3es. interview with liem tiong, a chinese in padang, july 13, 2019. bastian, r. (2013). erniwati, hardi e. kelenteng see hin kiong. perubahan fungsi pda masa orde baru, 17(1): 101–13. dobbin, c. (1992). kebangkitan islam dalam ekonomi petani yang sedang berkembang: sumatera tengah 1784-1847. jakarta: inis. ma’ruf, a. (2017). nilai-nilai al-qur’an dalam pendidikan islam perspektif etnis tionghoa di persatuan islam tionghoa indonesia (piti jatim). mafhum j ilmu al-qur’an dan tafsir, 2(4), 179–204. hartono, s., & handinoto, h. (2007). pengaruh pertukangan cina pada bangunan mesjid kuno di jawa abad 15-16. dimens j archit built environ, 35(1):23– 40. interview with muslim noor, head of west sumatran piti, august 1, 2018, and march 13, 2019. mohammad, k. u., & syafiq, m. (2014). pengalaman konversi agama pada muallaf tionghoa. character, 2(3):1–9. interview with amin sheng, head of dakwah division west sumatran piti, p a g e | 351 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ august 1, 2018 and march, 13, 2019. interview with elizabeth sien, secretary of west sumatran piti, july 30, 2018, and march 13, 2019. nurhadiantomo. (2004). hukum reintegrasi sosial: konflik-konflik sosial pri nonpri dan hukum keadilan sosial. surakarta: muhammadiyah university press. luntungan, a. y. (2013). naturalisasi warganegara asing menjadi warganegara indonesia menurut undang-undang nomor 12 tahun 2016 tentang kewarganegaraan. lex soc, 1(5):41–52. eriyanti, f. (2007). malakok: suatu mekanisme pendamai ala minangkabau. demokrasi, 6(2):17–34. amir, m. s. (2004). adat minangkabau: pola dan tujuan hidup orang minang. jakarta: pt mutiara sumber widya. sefriyono. (2015). model menegosiasikan keragaman bagi etnis nias-kristen dan minangkabau-islam di kabupaten padang pariaman. turast j penelit pengabdi, 3(2):1–24. interview with natsir dt. sampono batuah, head of lembaga kerapatan adat alam minangkabau (lkaam) west sumatra, august, 2, 2018. agung, s. (2014). partisipasi politik masyarakat tiong-hoa dalam pemilihan kepala daerah. j ilmu pemerintah dan sospolit uma [internet]. available from: http://www.ojs.uma.ac.id/index. php/jppuma/article/view/920/934 kongmanus, k. (2016). development of project-based learning model to enhance educational media business ability for undergraduate students in educational technology and communications program. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(5), 287-296. chalfoun, f. & davidaviciene, v. (2018). internet and aging population. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 4(6), 227-234. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.20469/ijhss.4.10001-6 niesing, c. m., merwe, s. w. d., & potgieter, d. m. (2016). the impact of income-generating projects on stimulating the development of entrepreneurial activities in communities: the holding hands case. international journal of business and economic affairs, 1(1), 36-46. cuyugan, a. b. s., agus, g. e., dasig jr., d. d. nidea, m. a., claricia, e. e., taduyo, m. a. b., & camacho, e. j. (2017). in aid of community policy and framework development: a sustainable integrated community advancement program. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 2(2), 87-95. juliastutik. (2010). perilaku politik etnis tionghoa pasca reformasi. humanity, p a g e | 352 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ http://www.ojs.uma.ac.id/index https://dx.doi.org/10.20469/ijhss.4.10001-6 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 334-353 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 6(1):45–58. interview with alex indra lukman, a chinese muallaf in padang, auguts, 14, 2019. afif, a. (2010). menjadi indonesia: pergulatan identitas tionghoa muslim indonesia. yogyakarta: parikesit institute. rosmini, s. h. (2016). geliat keberagamaan moderat komunitas muslim tionghoa: kontribusi peng-kajian islam intensif dalam keberagamaan moderat komunitas muslim tionghoa kota makassar. al-ulum, 16(1):36–55. fuller, g. e. (2005). freedom and security: necessary conditions for moderation. am j islam soc sci, 22(3):21–8. nur, m. (2018). problem terminologi moderat dan puritan dalam pemikiran khaled abou el-fadl. kalimah, 11(1):84. interview with fajri, a chinese muslim in padang since his childhood, july 14, 2019. interviews: interview with liem tiong, a chinese in padang, july 13, 2019. interview with elizabeth sien, secretary of west sumatran piti, july 30, 2018, and march 13, 2019. interview with muslim noor, head of west sumatran piti, august 1, 2018, and march 13, 2019. interview with amin sheng, head of dakwah division west sumatran piti, august 1, 2018 and march, 13, 2019. interview with alex indra lukman, auguts, 14, 2019. interview with fajri, a chinese muslim in padang since his childhood, july 14, 2019. interview with natsir dt. sampono batuah, head of lembaga kerapatan adat alam minangkabau (lkaam) west sumatra, august 2, 2018. p a g e | 353 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1836 issn :0250-7196 desecuritisation of brunei’s china sharia penal code on the punishment towards lgbitq 1 adityo darmawan, 2 maya bofa, 3 felian abstract: this paper aims to explain policy changes of brunei’s sharia penal code (spc) regarding punishment towards the lgbtiq community. the spc was quietly announced in december 2018, which initially would have been implemented in april 2019. however, in may 2019, the sultan announced that his government would not implement the spc. the policy changes of bolkiah will be analyse d by a qualitative method with rational choice and securitisation theory. data will be collected through secondary data from books, journals, articles, and other sources. this research found that the policymaking was initiated as a process of securitisation but then the government decided upon desecuritisation theory on that issue, which was affected by the global pressures. such pressures could bring huge economic loss to both the brunei government and bolkiah himself, for example, by boycotting around nine properties owned by bolkiah and those related to the brunei investment agency. that process is reflected through a negotiation among security actors on which sector should be prioritised. keywords: spc; human rights; rational choice; desecuritisation ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction brunei was the first country in southeast asia to impose sharia law at the national level. brunei prime minister, hassanal bolkiah, first formally published the sharia penal code (spc) in october 2013 and the law would be implemented in three phases. on december 29, 2018, brunei announced the third phase of the law on attorney general's website. the spc, which goes into effect on april 3, 2019, requires death by stoning for extramarital and anal intercourse, amputation of limbs for stealing, 40 lashes with a whip for lesbian sex and criminalization of abortion (human rights watch, 2019). articles 82 and 84, punishing liwat (anal intercourse) between two men or a woman and a man, applies to both muslims and non-muslims. extramarital sex and sexual relations between women, apply only if one or both are muslim. for women trying to escape violent marriages or anyone is seen as enticing a muslim woman to leave her family can face criminal repercussions (gunia, 2019). other rules include making it a criminal offense to expose muslim children to the beliefs and practices of any religion other than islam (united nations, 2019). in announcing the spc, the sultan said that he wanted other nations to give 1 department of international relations, fisip universitas tanjungpura, email: adityo.ds@fisip.untan.ac.id 2 department of international relations, fisip universitas tanjungpura 3 department of english education, fisip universitas tanjungpura mailto:adityo.ds@fisip.untan.ac.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1837 issn :0250-7196 their respect for brunei’s national law and will not force anyone to agree with them (boniface, 2016; ochab, 2019). the development of security studies made it possible to portray the issue from the lens of the societal security concept. this concept emphasise s the importance of collective identity as the main attributes of threat in security studies. brunei as the representation of muslim ideas and identity was the main attribute of bolkiah's policy. homosexuality itself was a forbidden action in muslim values. the implementation takes on the third phase of bolkiah’s spc. the spc faced global outrage and condemnation from world leaders, human rights communities and high profile celebrities towards the country's harsh law. however, due to the global condemnations, bolkiah gave his statement in early may 2019 that the death sentence will not be imposed and said that “there are many questions and misperceptions" about the law. therefore, it is an interesting issue to be discussed in regard to the muslim values, states' policy, and international pressure over a policy. there are some previous studies regarding the societal security concept (thiel), rational choice theory (herman, 2015), and securitisation theory (syaiful, 2010, emmers, 2002; danner, 2014; biba, 2014). herman (2015) found that china's motivation to participate in peacekeeping operations is not based on a fixed set of security or strategic interests but they took rational decision making into account to maximise utility. the paper point out that china's involvement in peacekeeping operations is to promote international prestige, become a responsible world player, and gain operational experience (herman, 2015). those studies will help us in positioning this research within the framework of rational choice theory. thiel (2007) explained the role of the european union in dealing with societal security issues in europe. he also focused on the promotion of minority rights. these previous studies elaborated on the importance of societal security issues and the role of international organisations in europe. moreover, thiel (2007) also elaborated his research on the implementation of securitisation theory. he explained the role of the european union, nato (north atlantic treaty organisation), osce (organisation for security and cooperation in europe), and the council of europe to securitize the societal security issues by cooperation among states. syaiful (2010) explained the securitisation of terrorism in indonesia. terrorism issue was securitized by the indonesian government through the creation of special collaboration group consisting of national army, intelligent unit, and police. he deliberated the widening issue of security from traditional to non-traditional issues. emmers (2002) used securitisation theory in explaining the transnational organised crimes in asean since 1997. he believed that asean member states declared transnational organised crimes as the threat of regional security and created some extraordinary measures to deal with it. the de-securitisation process had been researched by danner (2014) and biba (2014). danner (2014) mainly focused on the six phases of territorial dispute in the diaoyu/senkaku islands. the dispute happened between china and japan. they both are powerful states who had verbally fought since world war ii. both actors did a different action, china was more active in doing a securitisation, but japan did the opposite, which is doing a desecuritisation. danner (2014) also pointed out the importance of societal uprisings on the implementation of hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1838 issn :0250-7196 securitisation. biba (2014) explained china's behavior towards their trans-boundary rivers was caused by the needs of freshwater, but it did not guarantee genuine long-term cooperation (biba, 2014; saahar et al., 2017). biba (2014) also elaborated the desecuritisation theory with realism approach on how china behaves in three different case studies. those previous studies will help us in mapping our research position among the theoretical framework and disciplines in international relations. those studies will also give us an understanding of the theory or issues in this research. they led us to the possibility of researching with the same theory and concept in the case of brunei's spc. this paper will mainly focus on explaining bolkiah's spc policy change on the punishment towards homosexuals in brunei. first, the paper will elaborate on some theoretical framework. second, it will explain the hassanal bolkiah profile as a leader in brunei's domestic political system and how he perceived the existential threat of homosexual to brunei's islamic identity. third, elaboration on the policy making process will be analyse d with securitisation and desecuritisation theory which look at hasan bolkiah as securitising actors, with brunei's islamic identity as referent objects, and the bureaucracy of brunei as the functional actors. some motivation and intention of the speech will act to examine bolkiah's securitisation on the issue of homosexuality with his new spc. meanwhile, the process of desecuritisation will be elaborated from three aspects that affect securitisation, such as global responses towards the new spc, the domestic political system in brunei, as well as international norms. it will be strengthened by rational choice theory to explain the reason of the policy changes made by bolkiah in mei 2019. finally, we will conclude the findings on the desecuritisation process done by bolkiah. 2. rational choice theory in policy making –either domestic or foreign– according to allison (1971), governments select the action that will maximise strategic goals and objectives. rational actors will choose policies that are considered to be the most beneficial to achieve their objectives. mansbach & taylor (2017) in introduction to global politics stated that each actor would minimise losses and maximise gains. those actors also determine their own goals while preparing all policy options based on the costs and probability of success (mansbach & taylor, 2017). the chosen policy will be the option with the greatest outcomes. on the other hand, walt (1999) in his journal stated two explanations on rational choice theory. first, the rational choice theory was based on individual choices that constitute social and political outcomes (walt, 1999). second, each actor seeks to maximise the greatest expected benefits (walt, 1999). essentially, waltz stated that rational choice theory is a tool to explain how and why actors make the decisions. rational choice theory in social science assumes that rationality is related to the pursuit of self-interest. in the policy making process, rational actors were faced with a variety of policy choices where each policy has its consequences. rational choice theory in this paper will be used to analyse bolkiah, as the rational actor and an individual who held power in brunei political system, regarding his choice to hold the recent spc policy. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1839 issn :0250-7196 2.1 societal security and securitisation of copenhagen school buzan et al (1983) in the book entitled people, state, and fear tried to expand more on the issue of security by mentioning several sectors of security, such as economic, political, societal, environmental, and military. although in that era, buzan only talked about individual security and mostly discussed state as a referent object of national security. throughout time, in 1998, buzan, waever, and wilde tried to explain to all scholars of international relations that the referent object of security is not only limited to the state but could be expanded to other objects related to each sector of security. one of the sectors involved in this research is societal security. this sector is closely related to the idea of collective identity. roe (2007) stated that the threat to societal security is the identity of society, such as language, culture, religion, national identity, and custom. waever explained societal security as a concept which plays a significant role related to the problem of sovereignty after the cold war in europe (roe, 2007). if we trace back to buzan's work, he mentioned that national security strongly implies that the object of security is the nation, and the rising questions about the links between nation and state (buzan et al., 1983). with this stance, the state and nation have their purpose of security. on one side of the state, they are focusing on the threat to sovereignty meanwhile societal security focusing on the identity of its society (dewi & sudagung, 2017, p. 24). the preservation of societal identity became the core of this sector. with this concept, we should examine what is the collective identity of the society and what may threaten the identity. the concept of the societal security sector will explain the collective identity of islam in brunei as their national identity because the state should protect those identities. therefore the state needs to take action of lgbtiq community in brunei darussalam. those actions will also be examined through the concept of securitisation and the desecuritisation process. besides contributing to the development of security sectors, buzan, waever, and wilde also suggest the scholars of security studies in dealing with security problems. the central contribution of the copenhagen school is the concept of securitisation , defined as a process in which an actor declares a particular issue, dynamic or actor to be an ‘existential threat' to a particular referent object (mcdonald, 2008, p. 69). this process also pays attention to the dialogue to the audience. if accepted as such by a relevant audience, this enables the suspension of normal politics and the use of emergency measures in responding to that perceived crisis (mcdonald, 2008, p. 69). ultimately, waever suggested that successful securitisation tends to involve the articulation of threat ‘only from a specific place, in an institutional voice, by elites' (mcdonald, 2008, p. 69). here, political leaders can, from a position of authority, claim to be speaking on behalf of the state or the nation, command public attention and enact emergency measures (such as the deployment of troops) (mcdonald, 2008, p. 69). to be able in explaining the securitisation model, we will mention three units which constitute the securitisation process. referent objects, that existentially threatened; securitising actors, that did securitize the issues by stated referent object which is threatened; and functional actors, that affect the dynamics of a sector (danner, 2014, p. 222). danner hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1840 issn :0250-7196 (2014, p. 222) mentioned that securitisation was commonly done in two stages which are declaring issues that threatened the referent object through speech act and convincing audiences by the idea of securitisation . another view mentioned by the copenhagen school was the desecuritisation concept. desecuritisation is defined as the process whereby particular issues or actors are removed from the security realm and re-enter the realm of ‘normal politics' (mcdonald, 2008, p. 70). desecuritisation, according to caballero-anthony, emmers, and acharya (2016, p. 4) involve the ‘shifting of issues out of emergency mode and into the normal bargaining processes of the political sphere.' to briefly explained the securitisation and desecuritisation theory, this research would like to refer the copenhagen schools suggestion by asking (caballero-anthony, emmers, & acharya, 2016, p. 4): (1) who and what are the referent objects? (2)who are the securitising and desecuritising actors? (3) how is a process of securitisation be completed? after that, we would like to analyse the motives and intentions of the action. caballero-anthony, emmers, and acharya (2016, p. 5) stated that doing securitisation will lead to a mobilisation of political support and deployment of resources. on the opposite, the desecuritisation process will decrease the risk of military or more political action on the issues. the next step, this research will explain the conditions affecting securitisation that involved the factors of the role of powerful actors, domestic political systems, and international norms (caballeroanthony et al., 2016, pp. 7-8). to help examine the changing policy of spc in brunei, we would like to use the societal security concept as the beginning of the problem to be the issue of security. later on, there will be an explanation why the spc itself is a product of securitisation which was done by bolkiah as primary elite in brunei. finally, the analysis will try to explain the changing policy from the perspective of rational choice theory as a desecuritisation action which was made on may 2019 after a massive global reaction towards the policy. 3. methods the research method used in this paper is a qualitative method with a descriptive paradigm. this research describes bolkiah's defensive attitude towards the spc which later would be changed after facing the global outcry. the data was collected with library research, by examining several works of literature such as books, journals, documents, and articles both online and offline which are considered relevant to the research topic. the data analysis technique is conducted by collecting data related to the bolkiah's policies towards the penal code, and then the authors reduce the data by selecting, summarising and focusing on the things that are necessary and relevant to the topic. afterward, the authors presented the data with narrative texts so that the data will be easily understood. furthermore, the data will be analysed using the relevant theory which is rational choice theory, societal security concept, and securitisation theory. lastly, the authors will conclude from the data that has been analysed. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1841 issn :0250-7196 3.1 bolkiah poistion in brunei’s political system the sultan of brunei, hassanal bolkiah, is one of the world's longest-reigning monarch after queen elizabeth ii. he was crowned in august 1968, appointed himself as brunei prime minister in 1984 and introduced malay muslim monarchy ideology which presented the monarch as the defender of the faith in 1991 (bbc, 2019). he was also defense minister, finance minister and foreign minister and ranks as one of the world's wealthiest people (aljazeera, 2019). according to forbes, bolkiah's net worth is to be as high as $20bn, a result of oil and gas development in brunei. his properties also include more than 600 rolls royces and istana nurul iman, the world's largest palace which costs over $350 million (linshi, 2015). brunei was also known as an authoritarian state which gave a big authority to the sultan. it gave bolkiah a great power in brunei political system. brunei has been religiously very conservative and highly restrictive for a long time. in the 1990s, bolkiah was already exercising very tight state control over religious interpretation and practice. homosexuality was already illegal in brunei when the country first announced the penalties in 2013 (yuhas, 2019). muller (2017) stated that political islamisation in brunei darussalam is the exclusive domain of the state. islam was recognised as the national identity of the state. in the declaration of independence in 1984, sultan hassanal bolkiah proclaimed that brunei "shall be forever a sovereign, democratic and independent malay, muslim monarchy upon the teachings of (sunni) islam" (muller, 2017). as a national ideology, brunei also has "malay islamic monarchy" (melayu islam beraja, mib) and gives malay ethnicity (m), islam (i), and the monarchy (b) as the core of national identity (muller, 2017). their political system also made sultan holds full executive powers, constitutionally "can do no wrong" (article 84b), and is prime minister, minister of defense, of finance, of foreign affairs and trade, commander of the police and army, "head of the official religion" (article 3(2)), i.e. islam, and considered "allah's vice-regent on earth" (khalifah), and the "leader of believers" (ulil amri) (muller, 2017). based on that view, brunei also implements sharia law as the enforcement of islam as its foundational principle. 4. spc as a responses on brunei’s societal security the sharia law started from the creation of the aqidah control section in 1986 (muller, 2017). another tool for cementing state power in the islamic field are fatwas, which only the state mufti can produce (muller, 2017). muller (2017) found that the latest step in institutionally designing bruneian state-islam has been done with the sharia penal code order 2013 (spco) and implementation of sharia law at the national level since 2014. the new issue that became controversial in 2019 was the death penalty on those convicted of having gay sex. sultan has also declared his ambitious economic goals under the slogan wawasan 2035 (vision 2035). as quoted by muller (2017), it goes along with another new theme, negara zikir, a "nation that always remembers allah". stating this vision, brunei hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1842 issn :0250-7196 would like to emphasis the importance of islam, with all its principles as their national identity. ‘ the case which we discussed in this research is the spc on the issue of distributing publications against islamic beliefs, publicly consuming food, drink or tobacco before sundown during the month of ramadan, anal sex between two men or a woman and a man, and cohabitation and intimate contact between unmarried couples (bowie, 2019). this policy was initiated as a part of law enforcement toward criminalization and deterring acts that are against islam. muller (2017) believed that sultan is fulfilling his duty as an islamic ruler and also balancing interests between people within the state, the religious bureaucracy, and other interests. bolkiah once mentioned in his public address that he wanted to see islamic teachings in the country grow stronger (tan, 2019). another reason we found is that sultan believed sharia law and common law have the same purposes to maintain state's peace and harmony, to protect the state's morality and dignity, and to ensure individual privacy (cnn indonesia, 2019). besides as the interest of brunei as a muslim country, this policy also could become a way for brunei to attract more investment from muslim nation as well as more islamic tourists based on the explanation of matthew woolfe, founder of the human rights group ‘the brunei project’ (tan, 2019). the identity of muslims that grows stronger in some neighboring countries, such as indonesia, malaysia, and singapore, could also be a good reason to maintain their market over the muslim society in the world. the elitist system facilitates the process of securitisation because they have dominant voice over their audiences. as mentioned before, sultan can do no wrong, as part of absolute power which is given to him. if we examine through the lens of the securitisation theory of copenhagen school, this condition will not accommodate a dialogue between security actors and the audiences. since the process of the penal code change on the attorney general's website in december but only came to public attention in late march with no public announcement (tan, 2019). the world believed it was a part of the dominant voice of the securitisation process done in brunei. as sultan holds a great power to control or even making policies within a monarchy system, it has shown us that the process will always be seen as a one-way process. without any dialogue to the audiences, the securitising actors could pass a policy or act of measurement that they believed could secure their national security. however, from this case, we also could examine the impact of external factors that could make the securitising actors extended a moratorium on the securitising act. several responses will be elaborated after these sections. 4.1 responses of global actors towards bolkiah's policy brunei created a fuss with its spc which angered the international community, global leaders and human rights institutions. the spc imposed by brunei is collectively agreed as a serious violation of human rights. there were several statements from various individuals worldwide, such as brunei researcher at amnesty international, former austrian chancellor, the uk's secretary of state for international development, canada prime minister, un high hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1843 issn :0250-7196 commissioner for human rights, european parliament, ellen degeneres, and george clooney. first, rachel chhoa howard, brunei researcher at amnesty international stated that brunei should postpone this law on behalf of their human rights obligations (amnesty international, 2019). she also asked the international community to condemn brunei's policy. second, former austrian chancellor, sebastian kurz (2019) wrote on his twitter by giving the sultan a warning to withdraw the death penalty and the criminalization toward sexual orientation or gender identity. third, uk's secretary of state for international development, penny mordaunt (2019) addressed her concern by tweeting that brunei's decision was barbaric and also restated the commitment of the uk towards the lgbt community and those who defend their rights. forth, un high commissioner for human rights, michelle bachelet urged brunei to stop the penal code with a reason of serious setback for human rights protections in brunei (united nations, 2019). not only bachelet, canada prime minister, justin trudeau (2019) also issued his protest on twitter by saying that his country was appalled and condemned brunei's new penal code. he maintained the position of canada as the defender of human rights around the world. the european parliament also strongly condemned the sharia penal code by urging the bruneian authorities to immediately repeal it and calling on the eu to consider asset freezing and visa bans on brunei (savage, 2019). according to the washington post (2019), western governments had been quietly lobbying brunei to refrain from implementing the laws, which they said would complicate trade deals with the oil-rich sultanate, and urged brunei to uphold international human rights standards. the condemnation not only came from global leaders and human rights institutions but also high profile celebrities such as ellen degeneres and george clooney. they used their platforms to encourage people around the world to boycott the nine hotels owned by bolkiah. ellen degeneres (2019) wrote on her twitter by provoking to boycott hotels which are owned by bolkiah. furthermore, clooney (2019) also wrote on deadline by adding another boycott to sultan's hotels. the nine luxurious hotels owned by bolkiah are the dorchester and 45 park lane in london, coworth park hotel in london, the beverly hills hotel in beverly hills, hotel belair in los angeles, le meurice and hotel plaza in paris, hotel eden in rome and hotel principe di savoia in milan. regarding this, the new york times reported that three of los angeles city council members proposed a resolution that officially condemned the spc, and the proposal discouraged employees and residents from staying or attending any function at the beverly hills hotel and hotel bel-air until the law is repealed (holson & rueb, 2019). several multinational companies had also banned their staffs using bolkiah's hotels and some travel companies have stopped promoting brunei as a tourist destination (brock, 2019). however, the condemnations and boycotts were considered not enough. 99 leaders of lgbtiq, human rights, and faith-based organisations and communities urged the us government by writing an open letter to state secretary mike pompeo (the washington blade, 2019). they also demanded the us government to use all diplomatic tools and hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1844 issn :0250-7196 avenues, including the imposition of global magnitsky sanctions, to stop the implementation of the law (the washington blade, 2019). in recent years, the un and several other countries, including the eu have adopted global magnitsky act. the act is named after a russian accountant, sergei magnistky, who was tortured and found dead in moscow jail cell in 2009. he was targeted by the russian authorities for his role in exposing a giant tax fraud involving high-level government officials. the us congress passed a law in his name in 2012 and imposed sanctions such as freezing their assets in the us and banning them from entering the us on the russian officials who participated in the serious human rights violations against magnitsky (human rights watch, 2017). the law then improvised into the global magnitsky human rights accountability act. anyone can be sanctioned (a) if they are responsible for or acted as an agent for someone responsible for "extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognised human rights," or (b) if they are government officials or senior associates of government officials complicit in "acts of significant corruption (human rights watch, 2017). since the spc is considered as gross human rights violation and it also includes killing and torture, countries that have adopted the global magnitsky act are allowed to implement the act against bolkiah and any brunei officials related to the spc. despite the international pressure, bolkiah released a statement in defense of the spc, "brunei is a sovereign islamic and fully independent country and like all other independent countries will enforce its own rule of law". in other words, bolkiah asked other countries to respect brunei. as a sovereign country, it has every right to enact laws that are equitable with the ideology or principles of the country which is sharia law. bolkiah's statement raises other questions regarding the universality of human rights. are human rights universal? do states determine human rights based on their culture and ideology? the universality of human rights is mentioned in the universal declaration of human rights 1985 article 1, it said: "all human being is born free and equal in dignity and rights." the office of high commissioner of human rights describes human rights in its mission as universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated. human rights are inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion or any other status (united nations, 2019). in this matter, states are the responsibility bearer. states are obliged to respect, to protect and to fulfill human rights. it means that states must refrain from interfering with or curtailing the enjoyment of human rights, requires states to protect individuals and groups against human rights abuse and states must take positive action to facilitate the enjoyment of basic human rights (ohchr, 2019). however, bolkiah's defensive statement regarding the spc can be viewed as cultural relativism --cultural relativism claims that ethical beliefs are different in different cultures.- those who hold this view conclude that values are not objective and that each society should be tolerant of the values of other societies (mansbach & taylor, 2017). many non-western leaders adopted this view and since the cultures are fundamentally different. hence the standard of good and bad behavior depends on each society. in other words, this view is the opposite of universalism since it dismisses the universality of human rights. concerning this, hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1845 issn :0250-7196 if human rights are culturally determined as believed by cultural relativists. hence brunei's spc which includes criminalizing adultery, abortion and lgbt people is considered reasonable since brunei is an islamic country with sharia ideology and those acts are considered as sins in islam. 4.2 desecuritisation on the lgbt's death penalty policy firstly, we will elaborate on the answer to several questions asked by the copenhagen school before explaining the securitisation process. the referent objects of these issues are the national identity of brunei which tied on the islamic identity. securitising and desecuritising actors, in this case, is sultan hasan bolkiah as the leader of brunei. meanwhile, the functional actors are ngos and global actors who support the moratorium of the policy. the process of desecuritisation of brunei's policy was unique due to the fact that the process was stimulated by external factors. for instance, boycotts and protests from various actors of international relations.. it was also unique because the securitising actors, bolkiah as the prime minister of brunei had a dialogue with external actors that were not his audience. as mentioned before in the theoretical framework, some factors were affecting the securitisation process. these are part of the motives and intention in the desecuritisation process. several international actors gave pressure to sultan as the leader of the authoritarian system in brunei because of several issues. the first is because of international norms on respecting minorities' rights. second is because of economic sectors on the asset of brunei abroad. although the dialogue was used to have a dead end yet a lot of people doubted the boycott and condemnations to have a significant effect on bolkiah of brunei. fortunately, in early may 2019, bolkiah announced that he will not enforce the law and said that there are many questions and misconceptions. the statement was different from his previous statement. bolkiah's statements regarding the spc is an example of selected actions that will maximise brunei's strategic goals and objectives since bolkiah is a rational actor and his policies will impact to social and political outcomes. these are viewed as the collective product of his choices. the rational choice theory assumes that each actor seeks to maximise its "subjective expected utility." given a particular set of preferences and fixed array of possible choices, actors will select the outcome that brings the greatest expected benefits. related to the spc, matthew woolfe, founder of human rights group the brunei project, analyse d it could be linked to brunei's weakening economy. therefore, brunei has interest to attract more investment from the muslim world and more islamic tourists. the law could be seen as one of the way to appeal this market (tan, 2019). on the other hand, they also depend on economic assets abroad. another analysis is from richard behar (behar, 2019), an american investigative journalist, on forbes he stated that bolkiah may be putting his chips on the idea that brunei be the first country in the islamist-veering neighbourhood (malaysia and indonesia) to adopt such draconian punishments to bolster his credentials and keep him in power longer. based on these analyses we can see bolkiah's intention to implement the spc is to benefit him and brunei, especially in the economy. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1846 issn :0250-7196 however, if by enacting the spc was viewed as an action that could benefit him and brunei's economy, why did bolkiah backed down and chose not to implement the law? in this regard, rational choice theory believed that each actor seeks to maximise its subjective expected utility and choose the greatest expected benefits. it means there were another choice that could bring greater benefits than implementing the spc and what is the choice? the answer is by not implementing the spc. the policy change taken by bolkiah after facing international outrage is a pursuit of selfinterest. bolkiah heads the brunei investment agency (bia) which according to its 1984 charter is an investment arm for the government. bia owns the dorchester collection, an operator of the nine boycotted hotels. at least 18 different properties in the uk are owned by or linked to either bolkiah or the bia. bolkiah also owns a slew of properties in the superrich enclaves of kensington and ascot, including luxury hotels and polo parks. one property alone could worth an estimated 500m euro each year (pegg, osborne, & barr, 2019). by choosing to implement the spc, it means that bolkiah would suffer a huge economic loss since the boycott would continue as long as he does not repeal the law. other losses can also be seen as deutsche bank said it had removed the hotels owned by the sultan from its list of suppliers and draper esprit, which received a 20m euro investment from the bia, issued a statement condemning the brunei law and distancing itself from its part-owner (pegg et al., 2019). besides, the global magnitsky which has also been adopted by the uk, if implemented, will have a direct impact on bolkiah since he owns many properties in the uk and the act can seize his properties as well as cutting him off from the banking system (basheer et al., 2019; khan et al., 2020). the removal of brunei as tourist destinations promoted by several travel agencies will also have an impact on brunei's tourism sector. therefore as a rational actor, bolkiah made a rational decision by not enforcing the spc, because he tried to avoid greater loss that could affect brunei and bolkiah himself. by not insisting to impose the spc, bolkiah at least will not lose what he already have. this fact shows us that securitising actors in the realm of copenhagen school could change their priority in securing their sectors. most of the global responses come up with the action of boycott, which attacked the economic sector of brunei. besides the new identity of human rights violation attached to the sultan, which made him released the honor award from oxford. the weakening economic situation in brunei, mainly because they were depending on the oil, gave a chance of dialogue between sultan and brunei's economy counterparts all over the world. sultan also emphasised the fact in these two decades that the moratorium of the death penalty under the common law as their commitment to keep on track with the international norm. it shows us that powerful actors and international norm may affect the outcome of the securitisation process. 5. conclusion in conclusion, we believe that spc's change in brunei showed us several new facts in the realm of security studies, especially on the securitisation process. in the real theory, securitisation is successful when the audiences agreed with the non-security issue brought by hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1847 issn :0250-7196 the securitising actors. having the monarchy political system, brunei has a more authoritarian way of doing the securitisation process. however, they were facing the responses or even actions from global actors of international relations on the issue of international norms concerning minority rights. due to various responses abroad, bolkiah, as a rational actor in international relations, extended the moratorium of the policy to explain the misunderstanding that came from outside of the country. besides communication reasons, we also believed the delayed policy could prevent bolkiah and brunei from a greater loss of economy. references aljazeera. (2019). brunei enacts new penal code as sultan calls for ‘stronger islam. retrieved august 20, 2019, from aljazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/brunei-enacts-sharia-law-sultan-callsstronger-islam-190403060932396.html allison, g. t. (1971). essence of decision: explaining the cuban missile crisis. boston: little brown and company. amnesty international. (2019). brunei darussalam: heinous punishments to become law next week. retrieved august 19, 2019, from amnesty international: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/03/brunei-darussalam-heinouspunishments-to-become-law-next-week/ basheer, m. f., hameed w. u., sabir s. a., & jehangir, m. s. (2019). islamic business ethics and islamic banks performance in malaysia: does sincerity matter? . hamdard islamicus.42(4). 217224, bbc. (2019). brunei country profile. retrieved august 20, 2019, from bbc: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-12990058 behar, r. (2019). my time in brunei: why the hotel boycott over stoning gays has resonance. retrieved august 18, 2019, from forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2019/04/12/my-time-in-brunei-why-thehotel-boycott-over-stoning-gays-has-resonance/#d80a8b01c3c8 biba, s. (2014). desecuritisation in china's behavior towards its trans-boundary rivers: the mekong river, the brahmaputra river, and the irtysh and ili rivers. journal of contemporary china, 23 (85), 21-43. bowie, n. (2019). is brunei's sharia law just for show? retrieved august 25, 2019, from asiatimes.com: https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/04/article/is-bruneis-sharia-law-justfor-show/ brock, j. (2019). brunei says it won't enforce gay death penalty after backlash. retrieved august 2, 2019, from reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brunei-lgbtsultan/brunei-says-it-wont-enforce-gay-death-penalty-after-backlashiduskcn1sb0fs buzan, b. (1983). people, state, and fear. brighton: wheatsheaf book. buzan, b., waever, o., & wilde, j. d. (1998). security: a new framework for analysis. colorado: lynne rienner. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/03/brunei-darussalam-heinous-punishments-to-become-law-next-week/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/03/brunei-darussalam-heinous-punishments-to-become-law-next-week/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1848 issn :0250-7196 boniface, a. e. (2016). animals: ‘objects’ or ‘sentient beings’? a comparative perspective of the south african law. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(3), 143-155. caballero-anthony, m., emmers, r., & acharya, a. (2016). non-traditional security in asia: dillema in securitisation . london: routledge. clooney, g. (2019). george clooney: boycott sultan of brunei's hotels over cruel anti-gay laws. retrieved july 20, 2019, from deadline: https://deadline.com/2019/03/georgeclooney-sultain-of-brunei-hotels-boycott-beverly-hills-hotel-anti-gay-laws-brunei1202584579/ cnn indonesia. (2019). sultan brunei tunda penerapan hukuman mati untuk lgbt. retrieved august 25, 2019, from cnn indonesia: https://www.cnnindonesia.com/internasional/20190506100439-106-392191/sultanbrunei-tunda-penerapan-hukuman-mati-untuk-lgbt danner, l. k. (2014). securitisation and de-securitisation in the diaoyu/senkaku islands territorial dispute. journal of alternative perspectives in the social sciences, 6(2), 219-247. degeneres, e. (2019, april 2). tomorrow the country of #brunei will start stoning gay people. retrieved july 2, 2019, from twitter: https://twitter.com/theellenshow/status/1113177461276082177?lang=en dewi, a. u., & sudagung, a. d. (2017). indonesia's migrant domestic workers within asean community framework: a societal and economic security approach. intermestic: journal of international studies, 2 (1), 20-35. emmers, r. (2002). the securitisation of transnational crime in asean. singapore: institute of defence and strategic studies. gunia, a. (2019). homosexuality and adultery are now punishable with death by stony in brunei. retrieved august 25, 2019, from time: https://time.com/5563264/bruneinew-penal-code-what-to-know/ herman, f. (2015). a theoritical assesment of china's rational choice decision making in african peacekeeping operations. international journal of multidisciplinary academic research, 3 (2), 11-20. holson, l. m., & rueb, e. s. (2019). brunei hotel boycott gathers steam as anti-gay law goes into effect. retrieved july 30, 2019, from new york times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/world/asia/brunei-hotelboycotts.html?module=inline human rights watch. (2019). brunei: new penal code imposes maiming stoning. retrieved august 25, 2019, from human rights watch: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/03/brunei-new-penal-code-imposes-maimingstoning human rights watch. (2017). the us global magnistky act. retrieved august 7, 2019, from human rights watch: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/13/us-global-magnitskyact https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/13/us-global-magnitsky-act https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/13/us-global-magnitsky-act hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1849 issn :0250-7196 basheer, m. f., hameed w. u., sabir s. a., & jehangir, m. s. (2019). islamic business ethics and islamic banks performance in malaysia: does sincerity matter? . hamdard islamicus.42(4). 217224, kurz, s. (2019, march 29). i call on the sultanate of #brunei to withdraw the death penalty. retrieved july 2, 2019, from twitter: https://twitter.com/sebastiankurz/status/1110943484712767488?lang=en linshi, j. (2015). these are the 10 richest royals in the world. retrieved august 20, 2019, from time: https://time.com/3904003/richest-royals/ mansbach, r. w., & taylor, k. l. (2017). introduction to global politics (3rd edition). new york: routledge. mcdonald, m. (2008). constructivism. in p. williams, security studies: an introduction (pp. 59-72). london and new york: routledge. mordaunt, p. (2019, march 28). no one should face the death penalty because of who they love. retrieved july 2, 2019, from twitter: https://twitter.com/pennymordaunt/status/1111237107215990785?lang=en muller, d. k. (2017). islamic authority and the state in brunei darussalam. retrieved august 25, 2019, from kyoto review: https://kyotoreview.org/issue-23/islamicauthority-and-the-state-in-brunei-darussalam/ ochab, e. u. (2019). against the tide of humanity – brunei's new penal code. retrieved august 25, 2019, from forbess: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2019/05/13/against-the-tide-of-humanitybruneis-new-penal-code/#5ff45e302f42 ohchr. (2019). what are human rights? retrieved august 13, 2019, from ohchr: https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/pages/whatarehumanrights.aspx pegg, d., osborne, h., & barr, c. (2019). sultan of brunei, who passed anti-lgbt laws, owns slew of luxury uk properties. retrieved august 20, 2019, from the guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/14/sultan-of-brunei-hassanal-bolkiahuk-properties roe, p. (2007). societal security. in a. collins, contemporary security studies. new york: oxford university press. savage, r. (2019). european parliament condemns brunei over ‘retrograde' death penalty for gay sex. retrieved july 10, 2019, from reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brunei-lgbt-eu/european-parliament-condemnsbrunei-over-retrograde-death-penalty-for-gay-sex-iduskcn syaiful, r. a. (2010). pembentukan badan gabungan khusus untuk penanggulangan jaringan teror di indonesia (thesis). depok: universitas indonesia. saahar, s., sualman, i., hashim, m. a., & mohamed, w. a. w. (2017). political advertising and young voters information needs. international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 3(5), 215-222. tan, y. (2019). brunei implements stoning to death under anti-lgbt laws. retrieved august 25, 2019, from bbc: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47769964 the washington blade. (2019). sign on letter sec pompeo re brunei. retrieved august 15, 2019, from the washington blade: hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1836-1850 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1850 issn :0250-7196 https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2019/04/april-2019-sign-on-lettersec-pompeo-re-brunei.pdf/ the washington post. (2019). brunei backs away from death penalty under islamic law. retrieved july 10, 2019, from the washington post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/brunei-backs-away-from-deathby-stoning-under-islamic-law/2019/05/06/e7019460-6fcc-11e9-b5ca-3d72a9fa8ff1_ thiel, m. (2007). identity, societal security and regional integration in europe. jean monnet/robert schuman paper series, 7 (6), 1-15. trudeau, j. (2019). canadians are appalled by brunei's new penal code. retrieved august 20, 2019, from twitter: https://twitter.com/justintrudeau/status/1114321672759332864?lang=en united nations. (2019). brunei's new penal code would enshrine ‘cruel and inhuman punishments' un rights chief warns. retrieved august 20, 2019, from un news: https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1035831 united nations. (2019). human rights. retrieved july 28, 2019, from un news: https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/ walt, s. m. (1999). rigor or rigor mortis? rational choice and security studies. quarterly journal: international security, 23 (4), 5-48. wright, r., & field, a. (2019). brunei's lgbt community flees ‘inhumane' new stoning laws. retrieved august 8, 2019, from cnn: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/asia/bruneilgbt-inhumane-stoning-laws-intl/index.html/ yuhas, a. (2019). the sultan of brunei: opulence, power and hard-line islam. retrieved august 20, 2019, from new york times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/world/asia/who-is-sultan-brunei.html tendelilin, e. (2010). analisis investasi dan manajemen porofolio. yogyakarta: bpfe. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 43 … shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq al-‘aẓīmabādī & his scholarly contribution in serving the ḥadīth legacy dr. syed abdul majid ghouri faculty of quranic and sunnah studies islamic science university of malaysia (usim) malaysia e-mail: samghouri@usim.edu.my received on: 10-08-21 accepted on: 10-12-21 abstract shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-×aqq al-‘aẓīmabādī is one of the greatest scholars of 19th century, and one of the brilliant authors in his field being an author of several books, such as ‘awn al-ma‘būd sharí sunan abī dāwūd. besides his interest in teaching ×adīth and writing books, he was known for his contribution in reviving the legacy of ×adīth. this paper studies the traits of this great scholar from his personal and scholarly aspects, and then it introduces his distinguished contribution in serving the legacy of ×adīth. the research has applied the inductive method as well as a descriptive one. according to the inductive method, the research gathered important information related to the life of ‘aẓīmabādī and his scholarly work in the field of ×adīth. as per the descriptive method, the research highlighted the important aspects of his personal and scholarly identity and his pioneering contribution in this field. the researcher has arrived through this research to some important conclusions such as that ‘aẓīmabādī has performed a significant role in spreading the legacy of ×adīth and made crucial contributions in reviving and spreading it. further, he made commendable efforts in defending sunnah in india and made scholarly contributions in serving the cause of ×adīth by writing some valuable books and references which are relied upon by researchers all around the islamic world. the most important feature of his writings is that they call for implementing the holy qur’én and sunnah. keyword: abū al-ṭayyib, shams al-×aqq, al-‘aẓīmabādī, prophetic legacy, ×adīth, contribution, ‘awn al-ma‘būd 44 shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq… … 1. introduction in 19th century, the overall scholarly condition of muslims in many countries of the world reached an extremely low level. this was due to various reasons, one of the most important of which was the weakness of the ottoman empire in turkey, which used to be a great support for muslims in different parts of the world. upon the weakening of the empire, muslims, in many parts of the world, felt weakened and looked upon the western scholarship as a source of knowledge in all branches and fields. on the contrary, the scholarly condition of muslims in the indian subcontinent was different from their counterparts of the arab countries. muslim leadership established various institutions and universities offering modern education, like aligarh muslim university (aligarh) and jamia millia islamia (delhi) in north india, and osmania university in south india. moreover, muslim scholars in india established various religious schools and universities in different parts of the country to protect the religious identity of muslims in india and not to be adversely impacted by non-muslim ruling after the fall of the mughal empire in 1857, which was the end of muslim rule in india after an era that lasted for more than eight centuries. among famous schools and universities which were established by muslim scholars are dār al-‘ulūm al-islémiyah (deoband), maẓahir al ‘ulūm (saharanpur), dār al-‘ulūm nadwatul ‘ulamā’ (lucknow), dār al-×adīth raḥmāniya (delhi). these schools and universities contributed to a strong renaissance in religious education and especially in the field of ×adīth, and its effects are still felt up to this date. various muslim scholars serving different fields of knowledge like ×adīth, islamic jurisprudence, quranic exegeses, islamic preaching, islamic thought, and literature were graduates of these schools and universities. they have contributed to creating a religious awakening among muslims through their writings. among these great achievers was sh. abū ùayyib shams al-×aq ‘aẓīmabādī who exerted a sincere effort and spent most of his life in keeping the legacy of ×adīth alive and spreading it among the masses. hence, the present paper considers the study of his contribution to be a valuable academic contribution. the paper divides the contents into two sections, firstly giving a short introduction about the scholar, and secondly analysing the scholarly efforts made by him in serving the legacy of the ×adīth. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 45 … 2. research objectives the main objective of this research is to shed light on the biography and scholarly contributions of shaykh al-‘aẓīmabādī and to introduce his efforts in the knowledge fields of ×adīth, which were distinguished by originality, seriousness, and innovation. it is, however, not known to many researchers in this field since many of his efforts are not printed yet. 3. literature review the researcher was not able to find any previous study in the english language on the most important aspects of the biography and scholarly contributions of shaykh al-‘aẓ ī mabā dī , especially his efforts in the scholarly fields of ×adī th, which motivated the researcher to prepare this research in the english language. while there is a book in urdu language written by muhammad zubayr al-dayā nwī , entitled: “yādgār ghugharī” which has been published by al maṭ ba‘ aḥ madī , patna (india) 1312 h. the author talks in this book about the details of ‘aẓ ī mabā dī ’s life. there is also another book in arabic language written by muhammad ‘uzayr shams, entitled: ×ayāt al muíaddith shams al-×aq wa a‘māluh , published by jamia al salafiyyah, banaras (india) 1991, in this book the author talked about the life of ‘aẓ ī mabā dī and his contributions in the field of ×adī th and in other islamic fields1. 4. discussion the researcher has organized the research into two sections: section 1 study the biography of shaykh al-‘aẓīmabādī in five subsections as follows 1. his name and place of birth 2. his education and teaching 3. his death 4. his traits section 2 studies his efforts in the knowledge fields of ×adīth in four subheadings as follows: 1. collection of prophetic traditions 2. his role in reviving the legacy of ×adīth 3. his role in reviving prophetic traditions and defending them 46 shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq… … 4. his contribution in writing books in ×adīth 5. the research then was concluded with few findings. 4.1. biographical introduction this section focuses on the personal biography of sh. shams al-×aq, by highlighting his name, place of birth, progress in his learning and education, involvement in teaching, his personal creed, and finally, his death. 4.1.1. his name and place of birth sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī’s name was shams al-×aq s/o amīr ‘alī. his teknonymy was abū al-ṭayyib. he is known as ‘aẓīmabādī in connection with ‘aẓīmabād (anglicized azimabad), which was the 19th century name of modern-day patna, the capital city of the state of bihar (india). he was born in patna on 27th ḏūl al-qa‘dah 1273 h, which corresponds to 1857. in some instances, sh. shams al-×aqq describes himself as dayānawī in connection with diyawan near patana2. 4.1.2. his education and teaching sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī started learning the holy qur’én, and then learned the persian language, which was a common practice in india, then he received islamic knowledge from the scholars of his city. in 1292h, he travelled to lucknow and studied under the tutelage of scholars of logic and philosophy. then, he moved to moradabad and studied some of the books on logic under the guidance of sh. bashīr al-dīn qanūjī (d. 1296 h). after that, he travelled to delhi, and accompanied sh. naẓīr ×usayn al-dihlawī (d. 1320 h) and read upon him most of the collections of ×adīth. then, he moved to the state of bhopal and read some books from ×usayn b. muísin al-anṣārī (d. 1327 h). these three scholars were the prominent teachers of ×adīth for sh. shams al-×aq3. in 1311 h, he travelled to perform the pilgrimage of ×ajj. he read some books of islamic knowledge, specially ×adīth, from the scholars of ḥijāz region like sh. aímad b. aímad al-maghribī (d. 1314 h), sh. ‘abd al-raímān b. abdullah al-ṭā’ifī (d. 1315 h), sh. nu‘mān b. maḥmūd al-ālūsī (d. 1317 h), sh. ‘abd al-‘azīz al-marsê (d. 1324 h), sh. fāliḥ al-úāhirī (d. 1328 h), sh. aímad b. ‘īsā al-makkī (d. 1329 h), sh. muḥammad ḥasb allah al-makkī (d. 1335 h), sh. ibrāhīm b. sulaymān al-maghribī, etc. he sought permission to narrate various hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 47 … collections of ×adīth (ijāzah) from these scholars and documented in a thabt with the title nihāyat al-rusūkh fī mu‘jam al-shuyūkh. however, the book is currently still missing4. after receiving the traditional islamic knowledge and logic, he dedicated his time to teaching and benefiting others. he focused more on teaching ×adīth than other branches of sharī‘ah. hence, many of his students became scholars of high reputation with their contribution by writing and teaching in the field of ḥadīth. his most famous student was sh. muíammad ‘abd al-raímān mubārakpūrī (d. 1353 h), the author of tuífat al-aḥwadhī sharí jāmi‘ al-tirmidhī 5. 4.1.3. his death sh. shams al-×aqq passed away on 19th rabī‘ al-awal 1329 h (corresponding 21st march 1911), after spending 55 years in serving the cause of ×adīth and sunnah. 4.1.4. his traits sh. shams al-×aq was extremely modest, humble, and pious. he even did not put his name on some of his writings. some of his writings were published, for the first time, without the original author’s name. he was highly respectful towards the scholars of salaf and the four imām, despite being a follower of ahal ×adīth who do not follow any particular imām6. 4.2. contribution to the prophetic legacy this section deals with the contribution of sh. shams al-×aqq in serving the cause of ×adīth either through re-presenting it or through spreading it, defending it and writing commentaries on the collections of ×adīth. 4.2.1. collection of prophetic traditions sh. shams al-×aqq had a passion, from the early days of his learning, to collect rare scriptures and sophisticated books. he used to buy the manuscripts and order the publications with heavy price from egypt, beirut, lydon, germany, paris, london, and book suppliers in the west and east. this was despite the limitation in resources in those times. also, he used to request copying rare manuscripts regardless of how much money it might cost him. all these efforts, over a number of years, 48 shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq… … resulted in a collection of print and manuscript books that were not available in many libraries in the country. after his death, his collection was transferred to khuda bakhsh oriental public library in patna and can be a source of benefit for the seekers of knowledge.7 it would be apt to list down some of the rare items in his collection of books and manuscripts of ×adīth, for example: al-musnad by al-humaydī (d. 219 h), al-muṣannaf by abū shayba al kūfī (d. 235 h), al-musnad by ‘abd b. ḥumayd al kashī (d. 249 h), al-musnad by abū ‘awāna al-isfirā’īnī (d. 316 h), al-ṣaḥīḥ and al-thiqāt by ibn ḥibbān al bustī (d. 354 h), ma‘ālim al-sunan by abū sulymān al-khaṭṭābī (d. 388 h), ma‘rifat alsunan wa al-athār by aḥmad b. al-×usayn al-bayhaqī (d. 458 h), altamhīd by ibn ‘abd al-barr al-qurïubī (d. 463 h), taqyīd almuhmal wa tamīz al-mushkil by abū ḥusayn al-jayānī (d. 498 h), shurūï al-a’imah al-khamsa by muḥammad b. ùāhir al-ḥāzimī (d. 584 h), tahdhīb sunan abū dāwūd by ibn al-qayyam al-jawaziyyah (d. 751 h), al-ilimām by ibn daqīq al ‘īd (d. 702 h), tuífat al-ashrāf bi ma‘rifat al-aïrāf by jamāl al-dīn al-mizzī (d. 742 h), tārīkh al-islām by shams al-dīn al-ḏahbī (d. 784 h), kashf al-astār ‘an zawā’id musnad al-bazzār by nūr al-dīn alhaythamī (d. 807 h), al-nukat al-ẓirāf ‘alā al-aṭrāf by ibn ḥajar al‘asqalānī (d. 852 h), is‘āf almubaṭṭā’ bi rijāl al-muwṭṭā by jalāl al-dīn al-suyūṭī (d. 911 h), sharí shamā’il al-ùirmidhī by muḥammad ‘āshiq ‘umar al-×anafī (d. 1032 h), and al-nafs al-yamānī wa al-ruí alrayíānī fī ijāzat al-qaḍā banī alshawkānī by ‘abd al-raḥmān b. sulymān al-ahdal (d. 1250 h). besides these, there were a lot of valuable and rare manuscripts in ×adīth, its knowledge fields and its scholars, that were owned by sh. ‘aẓīmabādī. there were many more manuscripts related to quranic exegesis, history, biographies, language, literature, philosophy, logic, and islamic theology. 4.2.2. reviving the legacy of ×adīth sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī had a major role in reviving the legacy of ×adīth in the indian region since he spread many writings of ×adīth and was the first one to introduce the scholars of this region to writings of stalwarts of ×adīth like ibn tayymiah, ibn al-qayyam al-jawaziyah, shams al-dīn al-dhabī, ‘abd al-‘aẓīm al-mundhrī, jalāl al-dīn al-suyūïī, to name a few. before him, scholars of indian origin had rare chances to go through the writings of these scholars 8. also, he was a special advisor to dairatul ma‘arifil osmania in hyderabad (india). upon the advice of sh. al‘aẓīmabādī, various books on ×adīth and its scholars, e.g., tadhkirat al ×uffāð by al-ḏahabī, tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, and lisān al-mīzān by ibn hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 49 … ḥajar, al-ansāb by al-sam‘ānī and other books were published. further, some printing houses in egypt used to take his advice for printing valuable books in ×adīth and its scholars.9 sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī was a reference point for many scholars of india about the knowledge of manuscripts and knowing their whereabouts. he used to lend them handwritten manuscripts of books available in his personal collection despite theological or juristic differences that may exist with the borrower.10 4.2.3. reviving prophetic traditions and defending them besides sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī’s scholarly involvement, he did not overlook the duties of preaching good deeds and warning against bad ones. he used to dedicate a considerable part of his time to calling muslims to follow the right path of monotheism and acting upon the directives of the holy qur’ān and sunnah. he was instrumental in stopping many heresies, superstitions, and shirk-based traditions, which were widespread especially in places where sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī used to live. as a result, the effects of sunnah were seen in places where he lived, and many people repented on his hands and decided to leave the false beliefs, traditions, and customs which were against pure islamic creed and opted to live their lives in accordance with the right creed.11 sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī, also had considerable contribution in defending sunnah in his region, and under his guidance, one of his students sh. abū al-qāsim sayf al-banārasī (d. 1369 h) wrote various books in refuting claims of those who denied the authenticity of sunnah. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī even assisted him financially in addition to the scholarly assistance. all these efforts were instrumental in correcting the views of many intellectual muslims who were getting influenced by those suspecting the authenticity of ×adīth. also, sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī responded to those who opposed authenticity of the prophetic traditions in various writings especially in his book ‘awn al-ma‘būd ‘alā sharḥ sunan abī dāwūd. it could be a stand-alone book if a researcher decided to gather all these points from the given.12 4.2.4. writing books on ×adīth sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī excelled in ×adīth and had a vast knowledge about its matn (the narrated text) and sanad (the line of narrators). he was also capable of differentiating between ṣaíêí and ìa‘īf sanad, had knowledge of the intended meaning of the reported ×adīth and its juristic rulings, 50 shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq… … and was brilliant in extracting rulings out of it. he had a high calibre in commenting on the ×adīth and solving its complex matters. he was known among his contemporaries for his vast knowledge of narrators of ×adīth and knowing their status of discreditation (jarḥ) and accreditation (ta‘dīl) and his deep knowledge of levels of ×adīth scholars (ïabaqāt). all these factors have helped him to a large extent in writing about various topics. he started writing in 1302 h and continued doing so till his death. in a short span of time, not more than 27 years, he was able to write a large number of books on ×adīth, fiqh and biosketches (tarājim) in three different languages (i.e., arabic, persian and urdu). some of these books were published in india and abroad, some of them are still manuscripts to date, and some of them are missing and were never found. following is a brief introduction about his writings including the printed, the manuscripts, and the missing ones: 4.2.4.1. writings and notes on additional remarks on ×adīth collections and its narrators sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote a lengthy commentary on al-sunan by abū dāwūd sulaymān b. ash‘ath al-sijistānī (d. 275 h) entitled ghāyat almaqṣūd fī sharḥ sunan abī dāwūd. the commentary contained several points in solving mushkil al-×adīth and explaining gharīb al-×adīth. also, it highlights juristic points which can be extracted from the ×adiths of a particular chapter. it discusses matters related to the knowledge fields of ×adīth and accurately refers to the names of the narrators and their biosketches. also, it mentions the views of authoritative scholars on matters which are subject to agreement or disagreement and presents the supporting view of each side. it was evident that sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī was free from the sectarian prejudice while writing this commentary. hence, he chose those views and opinions which he found to be correct and supported by the proof. in this approach, he relied on books of wellgrounded scholars both published and manuscripts. while discussing a matter, sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī might mention his own conclusions and what he heard from his teacher scholars.13 unfortunately, he was not able to complete this commentary beyond the chapter on praying for the deceased once placing him in his grave in the book of funerals (kitāb al-janā’iz). this book is printed and in circulation. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote an abridgment of ghāyat al-maqîūd entitled ‘awn al-ma‘būd ‘alā sunan abī dāwūd. the book was printed for the first time under the name of sh. muḥammad ashraf known as sharf al-×aqq ‘aẓīmabādī (d. 1326 h) who was the younger brother of sh. shams alhamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 51 … ×aqq. the reason for attributing the book to his name was in consideration of assistance provided by sh. sharf al-×aqq to sh. shams al ×aq. some researchers have mistakenly thought that the author of ‘awn al-ma‘būd is different from ghāyat al-maqîūd. one of such mistakes is committed by ‘umar riḍā kaḥāla (d. 1408 h) who referred to ‘awn al-ma‘būd as one of the writings of sh. sharf al-×aqq14. this commentary has certain unique features and characteristics which cannot be found mostly in other commentaries on the books of sunnah, and they can be summarized here. there is a high level of accuracy of the main text of sunan abī dāwūd because the commenter relied on the narration of muḥammad b. aḥmad al-lu’lu’ī (d. 331h). he compared the version with various other narrations and several copies. further, he mentioned that he was able to secure eleven copies of sunan abī dāwūd and all of them were narration of al-lu’lu’ī except one which by ibn dāsa abū bakr muḥammad b. bakr al-baṣrī (d. 346 h). he compared all these versions and referred to dozens of books written by earlier scholars and was able to make the narration of al-lu’lu’ī stand out by referring to it in all the narrations. he even mentioned that the presented text of ×adīth and its commentary are a composition of the narrations of ibn dāsa, ibn al-‘abd al-warrāq abū ×usayn ‘alī b. al×asan al-anṣārī (d. 328 h), ibn al-a‘rābī abū sa‘īd aḥmad b. muḥammad al-baṣrī (d. 340 h). further, the book contained some inputs from the narrations of al-ramlī abū ‘īsā isḥāq b. musā al-warrāq, although these inputs were small in numbers. overall, these were the most famous narrators and scribes of sunan abī dāwūd.15 this is the first complete commentary on sunan abī dāwūd as the commentaries written before this one was incomplete, e.g., the commentary of al‘aynī and alsubkī. however, there were some commentaries written after it, e.g., badhl al-majhūd written by one of his contemporary scholars sh. khalīl aḥmad al-sahāranpūrī (d. 1346 h) which is a complete and comprehensive one. ‘awn al-ma‘būd, as a commentary, is of an appropriate length when it comes to solving ambiguities of the subject book whether it was in the text of ×adīth or in its sanad. the discussion is brief but covers all the aspects so that the reader is not distracted by the lengthy details. the commentary also contained refutations and answers to sects that falsely claim to be muslims by following non-islamic creed, (like qādyānī) and followers of heresies. also, the commenter refuted the controversial theories which were propagated at the times of the author such as the trend of naturalism headed by sir syed ahmad khan (d. 1898), the founder of muhammadan anglo-oriental college that was later known as aligarh muslim university, who followed the naturalist 52 shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq… … approach in explaining the holy qur’én and tried to find his own explanations for things that did not suit his naturalist approach in a manner which was not in line with arabic and its grammatical usage. this approach by khan resulted in rejecting the reported miracles and ×adīth øaíêí which were against his naturalist approach. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī refuted all such claims and theories in this commentary. this commentary was published several times in india and places in arabia. in the book of øaíêí al bukhārī there are 23 ×adīths that are classified as thulāthiyāt which are a form of narratives where there are only 3 narrators between the compiler (e.g., al-bukhārī) and the end of sanad [(mostly, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)]. many scholars have written commentaries on thulāthiyāt of ṣaíīí al-bukhārī and so did sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī who wrote a detailed commentary entitled faìl al-bārī sharí thulāthiyāt al-bukhārī. in this commentary, he covered discussions related to sanad and matn. he even focused on the status of the subject ×adīth and mentioned rulings that can be extracted from it. he was not able to complete the commentary and the written part is missing16. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote a commentary on the prolegomenon of imām muslim b. al-ḥajjéj al qushyrī (d. 261 h) entitled al-najam alwahhāj fī sharí muqaddimah al-øaíêí li muslim bin al-ḥajjéj. his commentary covered all discussions made in the mentioned prolegomenon. he explained what was intended by imām muslim and explained the uncommon and difficult words.17 to date, the book is still a manuscript at khuda bakhsh oriental public library in patna. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī gathered all the informative points and notes which uncover matters difficult to understand in jāmi‘ al-tirmidhī and presented them in his book entitled hadiyah al lawdha‘ī bi nukāt al tirmidhī. he even spoke about imām tirmidhī and the characteristics of his compendium and mentioned many informative points related to it. however, this book was not completed, and its manuscript is available at khuda bakhsh oriental public library in patna.18 sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote additional remarks (ta‘līqāt) on the original texts of ḥadīth collections. one such writing is his remarks on jāmi‘ altirmidhī, wherein he intended to explain all the ambiguous words of the compendium and highlight the places they were mentioned. a manuscript is available at khuda bakhsh oriental public library in patna. sh. ‘abd al-salām al-mubārakpūrī mentioned in his book sêrat al imām al bukhārī that sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote additional remarks on sunan alnisā’ī19, but it was not found. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 53 … further, sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote additional remarks on sunan al dārquṭnī which was published as al-ta‘līq al-mughnī ‘alā sunan aldārquṭnī. one of the important characteristics of this book is that it was based on a comparison by sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī between two old versions. one of these versions is of ×āfiẓ ibn bishrān abū bakr muḥammad b. abū al-qāsim ‘abd al-malik al baghdādī (d. 430 h) who narrated the book from imām al-dārquṭnī, the compiler of the compendium himself. this version was corrected by corrections of ×āfiẓ ‘abd al-ghanī b. sa‘īd al-azdī (d. 409 h). the other version was narrated by imām abū al-ùāhir muḥammad b. aḥmad al-aṣbahānī (d. 445 h) who narrated it from imām al-dārquṭnī. both these versions were secured by sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī who compared them with the master version and clarified the differences in the footnote by giving additional useful remarks so that it turned out as a brief commentary on sunan dārquṭnī. the book was printed at al anṣārī printing in delhi in 1310 h, and reprinted by dār al-maíāsin in cairo in 1386 h. it is worth noting that sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī’s additional remarks were included in the version of sunan al-dārquṭnī, which was edited by sh. shu‘ayb al-arnāwu’ṭ (d. 1438 h) by mu’assasat al-risāla in beirut in 1424 h.20 further, sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī made additional remarks on books dealing with narrators of ×adīth. he wrote additional remarks on altārīkh al-ṣaghīr and kitāb al-ìu‘afā’ al-kabīr, both by imām al-bukhārī (d. 256 h), and the book of al-öu‘afā’ al-matrūkīn by al-nisā’ī (d. 303 h). these books were published early in delhi and lahore.21 sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī’s additional remarks on is‘āf al-mubaïïā’ bi rijāl al-muwaṭṭā’ by jalāl al-dīn al-suyūṭī (d. 911 h) wherein he gathered biosketches of narrators mentioned in al-muwaṭṭā’ imām mālik. however, it seems that the author was confused about some places and may have left the names of many narrators. this encouraged sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī to rectify names of the narrators and clarify their teknonymy and agnomen. also, sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī corrected the main text by comparing it with a number of manuscripts and made his remarks in the footnotes. these additional remarks along with the main text were published by al maṭba‘ al-anṣārī (delhi) in 1320 h.22 4.2.4.2. writings on ṯhabt and tarājim (biosketches) sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote a treatise entitled al-maktūb al-laïīf ilā almuíddith al-sharīf. it contains information as given in such types of certification booklets. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī discussed the types of ijāzah (certificating the person to narrate ×adīth) especially the general one 54 shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq… … (ijāzah ‘āmma) and mentioned the disagreement of the ×adīth scholars regarding the validity of such a certification, and even presented views of those who considered its validity. also, he stated names of scholars and ×adīth experts who had no objection to granting general ijāzah. he even gave biosketches of these scholars but in brief. this treatise was published long ago by al-maṭba‘ al-anṣārī (delhi) in 1314 h.23 sh. ‘aẓīmabādī wrote a thabt, entitled al-wajāza fī al-ijāzah, wherein he complied names of his shaykhs to whom he read upon ×adīth or heard from them. at the start of the book, he listed the names of all his shaykhs in narrating ×adīth. the book was published by al-majma‘ al‘ilmī (karachi), and ×adīth academy in faisalabad (pakistan) in 1408 h. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote another thabt entitled nihāyat al-rusūkh fī mu‘jam al-shuyūkh wherein he mentioned their biosketches and even biosketches of those who were mentioned in the chain of narrators. as of now, this thabt is missing.24 sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote sīrat al-muḥaddith shaykh abdullah jahā’u ilāhbādī which is a biography in urdu of sh. abdullah al-ṣiddīqī muḥammadī jahā’u ilāhbādī (d. 1300 h) who was one of the great scholars of ×adīth in india during the 13th century. this book is missing.25 4.2.4.3. other writings on various other matters of ×adīth and fiqh sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote a valuable and unique book entitled i‘lām ahl al-‘aṣr bi aíkām rak‘atai al-fajr wherein he explained the etiquettes of performing sunnah prayers of fajr. the book consists of 10 chapters. the approach followed in the book is to mention all ×adīths and athār related to the chapter. then, he comments on them in light of what is mentioned by thorough and stalwart scholars. he then looks at their opinions and adopts the strongest and most suitable view as per the proof. also, he mentions ×adīths referred by those who defended different opinions but examines them in a critical manner in a way similar to ×adīth scholars, so it is evident whether the presented ×adīth is øaíêí or öa‘īf by closely studying its sanads. in case any of the narrators is impeachable (muttaham), liar (kādhib) or weak (ìa‘īf), so sh. al‘aẓīmabādī names him and refers to the opinions of authorities in the field of discreditation (jarí) and accreditation (ta‘dīl) as mentioned in the authoritative books of this field. further, he refers to the opinions of scholars of salaf and mujtahid by mentioning their supporting proof and conducting a discussion on it, and preferers the opinion which has more supportive proof. the book was published by al-maïba‘ al-anṣārī hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 55 … (delhi) in 1306 h. it was then reprinted by idāra al-‘ulūm al-athariyah (lyallpur, pakistan). sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote ghanyat al-alma‘ī wherein he addressed matters related to ×adīth and its sciences such as the difference between the statement “hédhā al-íadīth lā yaîiííu” and the statement “lā yathbut”. also, discussed rulings such as placing the hand on the chest while performing the prayer and scarifying on behalf of dead people. even other matters related to ×adīth were presented and discussed in the treatise. it was printed by al-maïba‘ al-anṣārī (delhi) in 1311 h, and then it was reprinted by maktaba al-salafiyyah (madinah) in 1388 h. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote raf‘ al-iltibās ‘an ba‘ḍ al-nās in response to a book entitled ba‘ḍ al-nās fī daf‘ al -waswās that is attributed to sh. aḥmad ‘alī al-sahāranpūrī (d. 1297 h) where the latter, allegedly, responded to criticism of imām al-bukhārī on some matters of imām abū ×anīfa by saying “some people saying”. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī responded to these responses and verified the matters mentioned by imām al-bukhārī in his collection of øaíêí and supported them from the standpoint of ×adīth scholars and identified potential weakness of the stand adopted by the ×anafī scholars in these matters.26 it was printed by al-maṭba‘ almuṣïafā’ī (delhi) in 1311 h and then by maṭba‘ al-shamsiya (multan) in 1358 h. also, it was published by dār al-tarjuma wa ta’līf wa al-nashr at al jamia tus salafiah (varanasi) in 1396 h. sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote tuífat al-mujtahidīn fī akhbār îalāt al-witr wa qiyām ramaìān ‘an al-nabī al-mukhtār wherein he compiled several ×adīths and éthār which are related to witr and qiyām during the nights of ramaìān. as of date, it is missing.27 sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī wrote al-nūr al-lāmi‘ fī akhbār îalāt al-jumu‘ah ‘an al-nabī al-shāfi‘ which is a collection of ×adīths reported from the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in relation to friday prayers. the author has critically examined them and highlighted their level of soundness and weakness. however, he was not able to complete the book, and the portion completed is missing as of date28. 5. conclusion the paper presented some of the personal and scholarly aspects of sh. shams al-×aqq ‘aẓīmabādī’s life and briefly studied his contributions in serving the legacy of ×adīth. the study reached some conclusions and recommendations; the most important of them are as follows. 56 shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq… … 1) muslim scholars in india have given extra importance to religious education after the fall of mughal empire. for this purpose, they established various islamic universities and islamic seminaries (madéris). these institutions produced great scholars who had valuable contributions in religious upliftment of muslim society and maintaining its religious identity. 2) sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī was one of the great muslim scholars of india during the 19th century. he studied islamic knowledges, especially ×adīth, upon the stalwarts of his time and even mastered the same. many of his students became prominent scholars of this field. 3) sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī was among the very few scholars of his time who took care of collecting rare manuscripts and antique books on ×adīth from major libraries in the west and the east. as a result, his personal library housed a collection of manuscripts and books which was rarely seen in any library of muslim scholars in india. 4) sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī was among the pioneer scholars of india who introduced ×adīth scholars of his lands to many collections and references of ×adīth which were never heard before to them. due to his vast knowledge about ×adīth manuscripts, he was appointed as an advisor to some research centres in india and abroad. also, he was a reference for many scholars in india on this matter. 5) despite sh. al-‘aẓīmabādī’s continuous involvement in teaching ×adīth and writing books, he didn’t neglect preaching monotheism (tawíīd) and spreading sunnah among the muslims and making them beware of heresies and superstitions which were spreading due to long co-inhabitancy with non-muslims. further, he contributed to defending sunnah and refuting attacks and criticism by enemies of islam. 6) one of the significant aspects of sh. ‘azī mā bā dī ’s scholarly inclination is her balanced approach while dealing with juristic schools different from the one which he used to follow. hence, he maintained a good relationship with followers of other schools and his books were reflective of that. 7) the research highlighted the contribution of sh. ‘azī mā bā dī and it is evident that some of his writings are still unpublished and future research efforts might be undertaken to publish them by ×adī th researchers. most of these manuscripts are situated at khuda baksh library, patna in india. towards the end of the study, it is recommended to the researchers in the field of ×adīth to expand the research in the most important and significant aspects of personal and scholarly life of sh. shams al ×aqq ‘aẓīmabādī. more research should also examine his hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 57 … writings in this field, especially studying the approach followed in his book ‘awn al-ma‘būd ‘alā sharí sunan abī dāwūd which is one of the unique commentaries on sunan abī dāwūd. notes and bibliography 1 muḥ ammad ‘uzayr shams, ×ayāt al muíaddith shams al-×aq wa a‘māluh (banaras, jamia al salafiyyah,1991) 2syed ‘abd mā jid ghourī , al-muíaddithūn min jamā‘at ahl al-×adīth fī alhind wa juhūdahum fī al-×adīth al-nabawī dirāsah isqirā’iya (beirut: dar ibn al-khathī r, 2021), 321. 3‘abd al-ḥ aī al-ḥ asnī , al-i‘lām bi mann fī tārīkh al-hind min a‘lām (beirut: dā r ibn al-ḥ azm, 1999), 8: 1243; shams, ×ayāt al muíaddith shams al-×aq wa a‘māluh, 23-26. 4 sḥāms, ×ayāt al muíaddith shams al-ḥaq wa a‘māluh, 23-26. 5 ibid., 214, 316, 317. 6 ibid., 48. 7 ibid., 73, 77. 8 ibid., 43 9 ibid., 43,44. 10 al-×asnī , i‘lām bi mann fī tārīkh al-hind min a‘lām, 8:1243. 11ghourī , al-muíaddithūn min jamā‘at ahl al-×adīth fī al-hind wa juhūdahum fī al-×adīth al-nabawī dirāsah isqirā’iya, 333334. 12 ibid., 335, 336. 13 ibid., 197-207; al-‘aẓ ī mabā dī , ghāyat al-maqîūd fī sharí sunan abī dāwūd, 13-14. 14 ‘umar riḍ ā kaḥ ā la, mu‘jam al-mu’alifên (beirut: resalah, 1993), 3:136. 15 al-‘aẓ ī mabā dī , ‘awn al-ma‘būd sharí sunan abī dāwūd, 3:304 16‘abd al-salā m al-mubā rakpū rī , sīrat al-imām al-bukhārī (varanasi: idā rat albuḥ ū th al-islā miyyah wa al-da‘wah wa al-iftā jā mi‘a al-salafiyyah, 1991), 234. 17ghourī , al-muíaddithūn min jamā‘at ahl al-×adīth fī al-hind wa juhūdahum fī al-×adīth al-nabawī dirāsah isqirā’iya. 373, 374. 18 shams, ×ayāt al-muíaddith shams al-×aqq wa a‘māluh, 248. 19 al-mubā rakpū rī , sīrat al-imām al-bukhārī, 437. 20 ghourī , al-muḥaddithūn min jamā‘at ahl al-×adīth fī al-hind, 380, 381. 21 shams, ×ayāt al-muíddith shams al-×aqq wa a‘māluh, 254-255. 22 ghourī , al-muíaddithūn min jamā‘at ahl al-×adīth fī al-hind, 382. 23 ibid., 369, 370. 24 shams, ×ayāt al-muíaddith shams al-×aqq wa a‘māluh, 254-255. 25 ibid., 145-146. 26 al-mubā rakpū rī , sīrat al-imām al-bukhārī, 229. 27 al-ḥ asnī , al-i‘lām bi mann fī tārīkh al-hind min al-a‘lām, 8: 1244 28 ibid. c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd allah is the light of the heavens and the earth hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam vol. xlv april-june 2022 no. 2 editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid advisory board prof. abdur raheem kidwai professor, department of english, director, k.a. nizami centre for qur’anic studies, aligarh muslim university aligarh, india prof. seyyed hossein nasr professor, islamic studies, the george washington university, gelman library 712, washington, d.c. 20052, u.s.a. prof. dr. anis ahmad vice chancellor, riphah international university, hajj complex road, sector i-14, islamabad,pakistan. prof. dr. a.h. johns professor emeritus, the australian national university honorary professor, the australian catholic university, australia dr. farrukh habib co-founder and managing director, alif technologies, dubai, united arab emirates. prof. dr. abdul azim islahi institute of qur’anic sciences (iqsc), aligarh 202002, india. editorial board dr. gulnaz naeem associate professor, benazir bhutto shaheed university lyari, karachi, pakistan. dr. syed naeem badshah bukhari chairman, department of islamic studies, university of agriculture peshawar, pakistan. dr. irum saba associate professor, institute of business administration, karachi, pakistan. dr. salman ahmed shaikh assistant professor, shaheed zulfiqar ali bhutto institute of science and technology, karachi, pakistan. dr. aziz-ur-rehman saifee assistant professor, department of arabic, faculty of islamic studies, university of karachi, karachi, pakistan. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 . .. editorial team editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid editor dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt assistant editor mr. kaleem chaghtai managing editor dr. shabeer khan assistant editor mr. ahsan ahmed khan price inland foreign foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/ payment should be made in the name of hamdard foundation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan pak. rs. us $ annual single copy 950/ 250/ 120/ 35/ … published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, p.e.c.h.s. block 2, karachi,pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] mailto:editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk mailto:hfp@hamdardfoundation.org http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk/ http://www.hamdardfoundation.org/ http://www.hamdardlabswaqf.org/ http://www.hakimsaid.info/ for correspondence editor hamdard islamicus hamdard foundation pakistan head office, 16th floor bahria town tower, tariq road, pechs block 2, karachi, pakistan url: hamdardislamicus.com.pks e-mail: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk tel: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) 2 ... information for contributors • manuscripts must be composed in ms word format and typed double spaced with at least one-inch margin on all sides of a4 size and to be sent through ojs at journal’s official website. • manuscripts may preferably comprise 6000 to 7000 words. however, as per the importance of issue discussed in the article and its fine presentation, some relaxation may be acquired. • notes and references should follow the chicago manual of style 17th edition (end notes only) i.e. to be marked serially and placed at the end of the manuscript. • authors are requested to quote the english translation of the holy quranic verses from the editions of only mufti muhammad taqi usmani. • authors are requested to provide their c.v. mentioning their designation, permanent and present postal addresses along with their cell/whatsapp numbers and e-mail addresses. • all correspondence regarding the manuscript will be directed to the corresponding author. • ensure the submission is as requested by the journal and contains all relevant sections. see authors’ guideline available on journal’s official website. • non-native english speakers are encouraged to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission. this is particular key for resubmission. • hamdard islamicus does not charge from its authors for publication of their articles in the journal. mailto:editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlv april-june 2022 no.2 contents * editorial * translational trajectories in arabicenglish translation of the qur’én — dr. alalddin tawfiq al-tarawneh * financial rights of woman on the dissolution of her marital relationship and death of her husband in islamic law and pakistani legal system — dr. muhammad munir * operating principles for contracts in islamic law: consent (riḍā) in ḥanafī jurisprudence — dr. brian wright * islamic education as perceived by edupreneurs of islamic schools conformance with the teachings of the holy qur’én — sajid ullah sheikh — dr. nasreen hussain * music: ‘food for soul’ or ‘fool for soul’ — alkanz fatima — dr. muhammad imad-ud-din akbar the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 9 27 7 101 81 59 objectives hamdard islamicus is an academic journal devoted to islamic research and scholarship. it serves as a forum for scholars to write objectively, analytically and, wherever necessary, critically on islamic history, philosophy, science, art, culture, archaeology, law and jurisprudence. it brings out the achievements of muslims in the fields of humanities, social and natural sciences. it aims at defining islam in terms of its fundamentals in a rational and liberal manner emphasizing, at the same time, the basic islamic ideals of universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice. it aims at interpreting the teachings of islam in such a way as to bring out its dynamic character in the context of the intellectual and scientific progress of the modern world. it provides an open forum for a dialogue among the fundamentalist, conservative and the modernist schools of thought among the muslims aiming at finding a balanced view. it endeavours, through dialogue, to find islamic answers to the questions relating to the social, political, economic and moral problems of the fast and drastically changing world of today. it transmits through english translations the speeches, learned papers and discourses expressed in urdu by highly qualified traditional scholars, the ‘ulema’, and, in this way, it communicates valuable material, otherwise inaccessible, to the non-urdu readers. it endeavours to promote better understanding between the islamic world and the west. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 indexing and abstracting bodies madinat al-hikmah city of education, science and culture shaheed hakim mohammed said (1920-1998), a scion of the renowned south asian hamdard family, decided in 1948 to make the newly created pakistan his home. he settled down in karachi and by untiring, single minded devotion and commitment, braving all handicaps, created hamdard pakistan. he developed it into the leading pharmaceutical complex of eastern medicine in the country, run on the latest modern lines and techniques, supplying drugs of high quality and purity, backed with free clinical consultations to help ailing humanity. hamdard pakistan, under his leadership, also emerged as the leading philanthropic organization, and also tried to motivate people through dialogue, conferences, and journals like the hamdard medicus. in addition, he provided help to various institutions and academic bodies. he was restless to do more, and during one of his ×ajj pilgrimages, he envisioned the creation of a comprehensive city of education, science and culture: the madinat al-hikmah. work on it was initiated and funded by the hamdard foundation pakistan in 1981, in the picturesque surroundings of bund murad khan, 35 kilometers away from the city centre. today it is a beehive of activity, with children and youth engaged in academic, technical and sports activities, devoted to promoting learning and culture, and through it, help achieve moral and physical welfare, peace and progress. the bait al-hikmah library, hamdard public school, free hamdard village school, centre for horticulture and the hamdard university are the major institutions found here. the hamdard university’s mission provides value-based education to all students in its constituent institutions. its prestigious institutions – some based at the main campus and some in the city and some in islamabad include hamdard institute of management sciences (hims), hamdard college of medicine and dentistry (hcmd), hamdard al-majeed college of eastern medicine (hacem), shifa ul-mulk memorial hospital, naimat begum hamdard university hospital , hamdard university hospital – taj medical complex, hamdard institute of education and social sciences (hiess), dr hafiz mohammad ilyas institute of pharmacology and herbal sciences (hmiiphs), hamdard school of law, faculty of pharmacy and faculty of engineering sciences and technology (fest). madinat al-hikmah continues to develop and grow. e:\e\islamicus\2021\no. 2\starting pages.pmd hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xliv april-june 2021 no. 2 contents * editorial * islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied by ×aìrat muíammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallalléhu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam — dr. thamaeem ushama * religious value practices and micro enterprises’ performance in microcredit program — dr.. rosman mahmood — dr. ahmad suffian mohd zahari * parenting is counseling: the relationship of the parentchild in islam — dr. afroz ahmad bisati * the determinants of family takaful demand in pakistan — dr. samina riaz — dr. qasim saleem — dr. hafiz muhammad ishaq — dr. ramaisa aqdas * rhetorical devices in the holy qur’én: grammatical shift and communicated subject matters in surah albaqarah — nabila tabassum the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 9 37 65 77 101 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 105 .. the holy qur’ón’s voice of revolution against landlords amna imam faculty of islamic studies, federal urdu university of arts, sciences & technology, pakistan e-mail : yesnoshuyes@hotmail.com received on 01-02-2021 accepted on 02-08-21 abstract one of the major causes of economic exploitation in any society is the unnatural and invalid land tenure system. in other words one of the main reasons for economic exploitation and class system is the unlimited land ownership. under this class system there are two types of classes in the society. the first group comprises persons who have established a monopoly on land ownership and production based on their economic power and influence. we call them “feudal lords” or “landlords”. they have nothing to do with hard work but their share of land production for them is allocated in all cases. the second group consists of those persons who work hard day and night to irrigate lush gardens and fields with their blood and sweat. despite turning the earth’s soil into gold, the benefit of their success is merely two loaves of bread to fill the stomach and modest clothing to cover their body. due to the tyranny and economic domination of these landlords, the poor farmers are economically exploited. in pakistan, economic exploitation of poor and helpless farmers by landlords on the basis of economic and political power continues from generation to generation. this article identifies various forms of economic exploitation by landlords. at the same time, in the light of teachings of the holy qur’én and sunnah, the correct form of the landlord system has been presented. in addition, an alternative way has also been offered by ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) against the false system of feudalism which exists in islamic history in the form of an ijtihéd about kharéj. the author believes that the promise of islam regarding economic and social prosperity of the muslim ummah may be fulfiled only if this alternative path is adopted. keywords: landlords, muzéra‘at, kharéj, ‘ushr, ownership, feudalism, economic exploitation mailto:yesnoshuyes@hotmail.com 106 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . 1. introduction land is fundamental to the economic life of every society. its unjustified distribution among people creates a movement of inequality in the society. among all the religious and secular systems of the world, islam is the only religion that provides social and economic justice to the society. islam is a source of all the justice, which has enabled societies in the world to have introduced economic equality. however, this was not the islam that has passed on the new generation through the umayyads and abbasids and other kings and dynasties but it was the islam that was in the form of the practical demonstration of the holy prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) and the righteous caliphs (raìi allah ‘anhum). islam does neither cherish the interest of any particular personal family, nor does it allow establishing a system that holds the superiority of a tribe or person. the holy qur’én’s vision regarding humans is that their complete submission and servitude should be only for allah.1 for islam, the public welfare and the public interest are of primary importance. in view of this principle islam denies capitalism, feudalism, and unlimited power of landlords. under the current landlord system in pakistan, the control of agricultural production and national income by a few persons from a single class group is the cause of economic exploitation and is therefore undesirable in islam. on the contrary, from an islamic point of view, the fact is that landowners and farmers are equal in the process of agriculture. as if, one is the owner of the land, then the other is involved in the production process. therefore, in islam, neither the landlord has the status of master or sovereign nor can the farmer be mistreated. it is a fact that a mutual love is established between the landlord and the farmer. if there is any fault, it is in the opinion and the practice of the present day landlords and vassals and as a result landlords impose often illegitimate conditions on farmers. these conditions are very difficult for poor farmers to follow and so the way to oppression and injustice opens. so, this article seeks to expose all forms of oppression as an attempt to eradicate social evils. the required features of “landlord system” in the light of islam are tried to be presented in this study. 2. research questions this paper deals with four main folds of landlords and extrapolate according to the holy qur’én and sunnah: hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 107 __ ..  what is importance of self-cultivation in the light of the holy qur’én and sunnah?  what were the real reasons behind giving the land on rent or muzéra‘at?  what is real form of landlordism in the light of the holy qur’én and sunnah?  what is the holy qur’én’s voice of revolution against feudalism? 3. literature review it is a fact that the earth belongs to allah almighty and man is a vicegerent of allah almighty on the earth. it is true that human beings need each other’s help in the productive and economic struggle. therefore, this economic need of man demands an economic struggle with mutual love and brotherhood. the landlord system of islam also requires participation in the production process through mutual consent and not coercion. after reading different books in this regards, some views of islamic scholars are stated below. mawardi has confirmed in his famous book entitled al-aíkém-us sulténiyyah that ownership is not established for the person designated by the imam who nevertheless becomes the most entitled to it by virtue of this grant until the revival has taken place. if he begins its revival, it is only by completion thereof that he gains full possession, if he ceases to revive it, he is still the most entitled to it even though he has not gained full possession. the reasons for his ceasing are then examined, and if he has a valid and justifiable excuse, he will not be disturbed and will be allowed to retain it until the disappearance of the excuse. however, if he has no excuse then abu ×anêfah says that he will be given three years, if he revives it within this period, all well and good, but if not then the grand concession is annulled. as ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) set the term of concession upto three years.2 according to islamic jurisprudence, the landlord has the right to dispose but he and the farmer need to cooperate in this matter so that avenues of economic exploitation are closed. before advent of islam there was imperialism in rome and iran and the cultures of these two empires painted a picture of a cruel system. the poor peasants were victims of violence at the hands of these kings and elites. this upper class had burdened these farmers and made them needy. eventually, these poor peasants accepted the life of slavery. regarding the ownership of land, iqbal says that land does not belong to any nation, family or tribe, rather everything belongs to allah 108 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . almighty and everyone has full right to earn a living from his/her land. therefore, as per iqbal’s views, land tax should be waived and instead of it, income tax law should be adapted which should be as per production and nothing should be taken from the low producers. iqbal thinks that land where there is no water should be exempted from levy. iqbal was in favour of ending the feudal system.3 maududi reflects on the law of the nature in these words: “allah’s view is always the same as that of a master. allah does not see the birthright of the claimants in the management of the land. he sees which of them is most capable of making and who has the least inclination towards corruption. therefore, the one who looks more qualified is the one who is chosen by allah for the management of land.”4 explaining the issue of land dr. israr ahmed argues in his book khutbét e khiléfat that one of the flaws that can be removed to make any islamic economic system is the system of feudalism and non-existent ownership of land. he says that even though it is fine that you have land and work hard and get maximum yield the real problem arises when the land belongs to someone else and someone else works hard on it. he further said: “it is possible for land and labour to work together on the basis of partnership but this whole matter should be done on a voluntary basis with the free will of both parties. it should not involve any kind of coercion. in the case of the land the principle of muìérabah cannot be followed because the investor in muìérabah is justified in giving a share in the profit on the basis that in case of loss, the entire loss has to be borne by the investor but the capital here is land. so, lack of produce does not affect the capacity of the land.”5 noor muhammad ghaffari says: “in the eyes of islam, the individual ownership of land or agricultural produce is not actually a cause of disorder in the economic system. on the contrary, lack of moderation and balance paves the way for corruption. the abolition of individual property is a blow to the legitimate individual rights and duties of the human being and to do so is a rebellion against hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 109 __ .. nature so the right way is to follow the laws of nature in accordance with individual right and duties”.6 4. methodology the present work is of the qualitative type. as the title of this research study is ‘the voice of the holy qur’én’s revolution against landlords’, therefore, the verses of the holy qur’én have been used which are in accordance with the original subject of the research paper and then these verses have been explained in the light of various hadiths. the holy qur’én clearly conveys the message that the earth belongs to allah almighty alone and that man, as the vicegerent of allah almighty, gets benefit from it for himself and for others. thus, in the case of landlords, occupying a piece of land and establishing an economic monopoly over others is tantamount to oppression. in this research process, the sayings of the companions and various books written by jurists in the light of the holy qur’én and sunnah have been studied. therefore, keeping in view, the research work of various jurists and islamic scholars, an attempt has been made to find a concrete conclusion. various articles, websites and tv channels have also been used to obtain secondary data related to the topic. in this regard it is not unreasonable to say that in some cases speaking to the general public in the simplest way without using any official or technical language has been very helpful in this research. 5. landlord the basic meaning of landlord is that any person who owns a land, has to do profitable work or give the land to someone else for cultivation for a certain time on fixed pay. 5.1. literal meaning of landlord “the owner of property (such as land, houses, or apartments) leased or rented to another.”7 feudalism means a landlord holds a land while the vassal and serfs farm it to get a piece of land in return. but in the present era definition of feudalism has been changed a bit. actually, feudal landlords build a state within the state where they are kings of their own slaves. the feudal system in pakistan, has been inherited from british social system where a labourer or worker known as a vassal had to serve the king’s land to get 110 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . the piece of land in return. basically, british rulers introduced three land revenue systems, the landlord system, the ryotwari system and the mahalwari system. we commonly called it “landlord system” or “feudal system”. the british feudal system ended centuries ago but in pakistan poor people are still facing troubles from the feudal system. most of the pakistani politicians are themselves feudal landlords. in feudal families, supremacy is transferred from generation to generation and the current feudal landlord is called “sajjédah nashên” or “gaddi nashên” or “wérith” etc.8 5.2. the prevailing land tenure system this refers to the system under which landlords are divided into two classes. the first class is the class that owns property. the second class cultivates the land with hard work, giving blood and sweat to get production. the aspect of exploitation in this system is that primitive economic struggle only to help by owning land rights obtained from hard work by someone else. the second exploitative point is that the landlord does not pay the farmer according to his labour and gets the production without any labour. a farmer who devotes himself into a hard work does not get a chance to demand for his extra dedication; he never thinks more than the food for allaying his hunger two times and two pairs of clothing to cover his body. the agreement between the farmer and the landlord is actually a wrong agreement which benefits the landlord and economically exploits the farmer. 6. land ownership in the light of islam it is true that the land belongs to allah almighty but it is not true to say that there is no concept of personal property in islam. the fact is that there is no contradiction between divine property and human property because through a divine property a person owns a property by considering the original owner. in the holy qur’én moses [arabic: musa (‘alaih as-salém)] said to his people regarding the ownership of the land: “musa said to his people, seek help from allah and be patient. surely, the land belongs to allah. he lets whomsoever hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 111 __ .. he wills inherit it from among his servants; and the end-result is in favor of the god-fearing".9 similarly, there is another verse in the holy qur'én about oppressing others and for economic exploitation: “do not eat up each other’s property by false means, nor approach with it the authorities to eat up a portion of the property of the people sinfully, while you know (that you are unjust in doing so)”.10 the main element in agriculture production is the land, whether it is agriculture, factories and/or machines, the basis of all this is lands because that is a part of their existence. that is why, the principle concerning the earth clearly stated in the holy qur’én means that land is a free and universal gift from allah almighty and it must be utilized only according to the will of him and it was also given to us for the sake of common use as well as for the general welfare of the society. the following verses from the holy qur’én clearly reflect the above contention:  to allah almighty belongs what is in the heavens and what is in the earth.11  to him belongs whatever is in the heavens and on earth.12 in the light of above quranic verses it is clear that the land belongs to allah almighty and no one can claim uncontrolled property of it. 6.1. concept of private ownership in the light of the holy qur’én considering the teachings of the holy qur’én, we come to learn that there is a room in islam for land ownership but there is no room in islam for withholding excess land or unlimited lands. when it comes to personal property it is the earth that meets the two basic needs of man. the first is to cultivate it in order to meet the economic requirements for human life. the second need is that the earth became a place of human habitation as if it were necessary to have a place to lay one’s head or for the main purpose of shelter. in the light of the teachings of the holy qur’én the right of personal ownership of land has been recognized for both purposes. therefore, it is a divine instruction that: 112 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . “eat of its fruit when it bears fruits, and pay its due on the day of harvest, and do not be extravagant. surely, allah does not like the extravagant”.13 in this verse of the holy qur’én the right to pay refers to ‘ushr and in order to pay it, it is necessary to have individual property. however, in case of collective property there can be no concept of taking and giving ‘ushr. so in the light of above quranic verse, fact remains that there are some people who cultivate the land with private ownership or take part in farming with the help of others and on the day of harvest give a portion of the crops in the form of ‘ushr as a token of gratitude to allah almighty. at the same time this fact also clarifies that there are some needy people in the society who are in need due to lack of land ownership. so to provide for the needy it has been made obligatory for these landlords to pay ‘ushr. therefore, allah almighty has given these rules in surah al baqarah for those who spend: “o you who believe, spend of the good things you have earned, and of what we have brought forth for you from the earth”.14 here the command to spend from the produce of land is for the one who owns the produce and it is also clear that money should be spent for the welfare of those who don’t own land. the real beneficiaries of charity are identified in the light of the following verse: “the sadaqat (prescribed alms) are (meant) only to be given to the poor, the needy, to those employed to collect them, to those whose hearts are to be won, in the cause of the slaves and those encumbered with debt, in the way of allah and to a wayfarer. this is an obligation prescribed by allah. allah is all-knowing, wise.15 6.2. the right of man to reside in respect of personal property in order to live with dignity it is necessary for man to have a place of refuge where he can live permanently. therefore the following verse of the holy qur’én is presented in favour of this statement: “o you, who believe, do not enter any houses, other than your own houses unless you seek permission and greet their hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 113 __ .. inmates with salām. that is good for you, so that you may be heedful”.16 therefore, in the light of the above verse we can say that islam recognizes the right to private ownership. in short, there is no difference between land ownership and private ownership. in islam everything including the human being is owned by allah. land and its plentiful provisions belong to him but have been given to man as a trust, to be used wisely for his own benefit and that of the larger community.17 while in the private ownership the absolute form of landlordism is not allowed, since the public would always share a portion of the return on private ownership. the state demands a portion of these returns through taxes such as zakét, ‘ushr, khums and kharéj etc.18 6.3. three ways of cultivation according to sharê‘ah  the sharê‘ah permits cultivation in three ways. the first one says that this is my land and i have to cultivate it to get reward in the form of production which may be sold out as per my decision to earn from it.  the second way is to provide the land without any wage to a needy person so that he could manage his own earnings.  the third way is the land has to be rented on behalf of gold, silver or any currency. the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) guides in this regard: ‘cultivating land is not allowed except in three cases: land which one owns, land which is given to one, or land which one rents in return for gold and silver’.19 6.4. the right of government to dispose of excess land the history of islam bears; witness that ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) had taken back the uncultivated land from bilal bin haris (raìi allah ‘anhu) which was given to him by the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) although he did not agree. therefore, in this regard let us see the instruction of ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu), “be sure that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) did not give you this area so that you could stop it from the people rather the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) gave it to you to inhabit.”20 ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) also said that ‘if i did not think of the people who would become muslim in future, i would have divided the 114 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . town which i conquered among the conquerors as the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) divided khyber.’21 6.5. right of individual property for welfare of the human being allah almighty has created everything in the universe for the benefit of mankind. therefore, in order to take real advantages of these bounties we should try to convert the potential utility into the actual utility of anything, so this is possible only when the greatness of labour is highlighted while recognizing the right to property that is why the sharê‘ah recognizes the right of dead and uninhabited land’s ownership by settelers. maududi says, it is not right to stay in vain the things that allah almighty has created for the benefit of man, either you take advantage of it or leave it so that others can benefit from it. based on this principle, islamic law decides that a person cannot keep his land in a state of desolation for more than three years. if they do not use it for any other purpose, it will be considered obsolete. if someone else uses it, it will not be claimed and the government in power has the right to support a person who makes a land useable and works hard efficiently, he owns this thing. such as the vacant land on which no one have rights have been proved. if a person takes possession of it and starts using it for some useful work, he cannot be evicted. this is how all property rights in islamic government began. in the beginning, when the human population began, it was common for all human beings, the one who took possession of this land and made it useful in some way became the owner of it. he has right to use it for himself and for others to use it and provides the rent. this is the natural basis of all human economic affairs and this foundation must remain in place.22 7. feudal system in the islamic economic system islam accepts the relation between landlords and cultivators as partners in the production process so in terms of land ownership there is a room for “muzéra‘at” in islam. but islam does not allow the form of land tenure in which the lives and property of the farmers are misappropriated. therefore, it is very important to abolish the current landlord system based on the above discussion. despite acknowledging the legitimacy of individual ownership of land the prevailing tyranny of the landlord system in the islamic economic system has been utterly hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 115 __ .. rejected. careful study of islamic history proves that during the lifetime of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) he divided some parts of land called iqïé‘ between the anîér (helpers) and the muhajirên (migrators in the cause of allah almighty) as their own property but the reason was that by cultivating through these lands they could lead a simple life or the reason was to make for the barren lands which are cultivable through hard work, while in the present situation it has been observed that the landlords have unlimited lands as their own property. a study of the history of islam revealed that the companions (raìi allah ‘anhum) had uncultivated lands which they rented out to other companions and some of them used to cultivate these lands themselves. in addition, land was being bought and sold between them so this fact is also clear that all the conquered lands stay in the possession of the original inhabitants by the state government and land tax was collected for the treasury and this money was spent on the welfare of the society. the history of islam bears witness to the fact that the land that was donated to the needy was barren and uninhabited land and it was difficult to settle them with limited government resources. 7.1. lands donated as personal property in islamic history  land unsuitable for cultivation with no sign of construction and benefit for people living in a settlement.  land for pastures and cemeteries were not donated.  land that does not harm public interest nor is disputed.  the land given as feudal was usually barren and far from the population with missing owners. therefore, lands of abovementioned nature were given to persons deprived of purchasing power but having desire and ability to cultivate the land. islamic law does not support the supremacy of man over man. the earth and man cannot belong to anyone. the sunnah has also denied the right of ownership over the earth and man. islam does not allow anyone else to indulge in luxury and domination over one’s hard work. it is a divine instruction: “allah has given some of you preference over others in provision. so, those given preference are not willing to pass on their provision to their slaves, so that they become equal in it: do they, then, reject the blessing of allah?”23 116 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . so, land ownership cannot be captured by any way other than selfcultivation. islam is the religion of nature and the expression of the feelings of human beings. so, islam does not accept the supremacy of man over man. 8. improved and correct concept of ownership as stated in detail in the previous pages, despite acknowledging the legitimacy of individual ownership of land the prevailing tyranny of the landlord system in the islamic economic system has been utterly rejected. on the contrary islam has eradicated the worst tradition of economic exploitation by clarifying the principles of muzéra‘at, ‘ushr and kharéj. 8.1. islamic status of private ownership of land the main element in any production is the land, whether it is agriculture, factories or machines, the basis of all these are lands, because that is a part of their existence. that is why, this principle concerning the earth is clearly stated in the holy qur’én that the land belongs to allah almighty and all the sources of sustenance have been created by allah almighty for the benefit of mankind. so, allah almighty says “say, whose is the earth and all those therein if you have knowledge? they will say, allah‘s.. say, .would you still pay no heed?”24 in fact the earth which is also the source of food for human beings is equally useful for the benefit of all mankind allah almighty says: “as for the earth, he has placed it for creatures”25 8.2 proof of allah’s ownership of the land by the holy qur’én as it is mentioned earlier that the main reason for the economic exploitation of the poor is land monopoly as the blessing and wealth which allah almighty has bestowed upon mankind become the cause of luxury of the rich, and the poor are economically exploited. sometimes the abundance of wealth makes a person arrogant and man also forgets hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 117 __ .. that he has to spend his wealth for the poor. therefore, under the divine law such people are punished for their own deeds. qérën was one of the people of prophet mësé (‘alaih as-salém)] and allah almighty blessed him with a lot of wealth. instead of believing in allah almighty and giving thanks to him, he became arrogant and claimed that he had acquired all this wealth by his own knowledge and also that he is more deserving of this wealth. so allah almighty says in the holy qur’én: “indeed qérën was from the people of mësé, then he rebelled against them. and we had given to him such treasures as their keys would weigh too heavy for a strong group of people. (remember) when his people said to him, .do not exult. surely, allah does not like the exultant.”26 instead of helping the poor he indulged in arrogant way of living. prophet mësé (‘alaih as-salém) advised him that not to be arrogant, pay thanks to allah almighty and spend your wealth in the way of allah almighty but he did not pay attention, due to which he was buried in the ground with his own wealth. this is what happened when qérën came with great splendour to those who aspire to worldly life. allah almighty says: “then (once) he came out before his people in his embellishment. said those who are desirous of the worldly life, .would that we had the like of what qérën has been given! he is a man of great fortune indeed”.27 allah almighty says: “then we made him and his home sink into the earth. so there was no group for him who could help him against allah, nor was he one of those who could defend themselves.”28 these above quranic words reveal to us the wonderful mysteries of allah’s beautiful parables which are really about private property. this quranic historical event has made it clear in a heartfelt manner that this is a divine principle; the real owner of wealth is allah almighty and being allah's vicegerent we have to spend our wealth according to his pleasure and will of allah almighty. 118 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . 9. the justice of muzara‘at in the islamic economic system just as one person invests in trade and the other one invests his hard work and both are equal in the scales of justice and no one has any superiority in any level an issue of equal status between the farmer and landlord comes up. dr. noor muhammad says: “the law of islam is that just as land can be rented for living and any need and as in other cases it is necessary to determine the place and its wages in the contract from the very beginning, and if the landlord gives the land to farmer for his own benefit (i.e.) for the sake of increasing the cultivation or for the convenience and comfort of the farmer and gives him the land to live on, so it will be considered as his kindness and benevolence and in this case the farmer does not have to pay anything instead of being considered a slave to the landlord”.29 as a result of muzéra‘at agreement, a strong bond of mutual love is established between the farmer and the land owner. in some cases the farmer can cancel the contract at any time if he does not feel that it is beneficial and the landlord has no right to stop him from doing so. the literal and terminological definitions of muzéra‘at are given below: 9.1. the literal meaning of muzéra‘at the literal meaning of muzéra‘at is that the owner of agricultural land gives his land to another person for cultivation on the condition that he has a fixed share in the production of that land. in other words, when one person gives his land to another depending on the prerequisite that the other individual will develop that land then the cultivator will get a portion of what allah almighty has said he will make from it, and this arrangement is called muzéra‘at. after defining muzéra‘at it is necessary to mention the types of principles of muzéra‘at which are frequently mentioned in islamic books. mufti muhammad taqi usmani describes three types of muzéra‘at agreement in the light of islamic law which are given below. 9.2. three types of muzéra‘at agreement the first case is that a landowner decides a part of the product and says that i give the land to you and you cultivate it and of the 20 ton production will be mine and the rest will be yours. now it is known that whether the production will be 20 ton or not so therefore the total hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 119 __ .. production would be taken by the landlord, and the farmers will get nothing. in this sense this situation is unanimously forbidden. the second case was that the landowners used to set aside a portion and says of the land that the produce on that part would be mine and produce on the rest will be yours. usually the landlord sets aside for himself a place near the water way. this is also íarém (forbidden) by consensus, because the portion which he has set for him there may be higher production while there is no production elsewhere. the third case is that to set a portion of the product as a percentage. for example ‘half of the production will be mine and half will be for you, or a quarter of the produce will be mine and rest will be yours. there is difference of opinions among the jurists as to the validity of this situation of muzéra‘at agreement.’30 9.3. the root causes of the defects in the present landlord system in the present landlord system if we look at the conflict it becomes clear that the real cause of the feudal system is not the muzéra‘at but the unjust condition that the landlords, due to their economic power and influence impose. for example in enslaving farmers and to take most of money from them in addition to the production tax and burdening them with unpaid dues etc. in short, all the above mentioned conditions have been imposed on the basis of oppression which is incompatible with the justice and equitable system of islam. the muzéra‘at agreement establishes a strong bond of love between the landlord and farmer, therefore, to consider the farmer inferior at any level is absolutely sinful according to the islamic injunctions. 9.4. the islamic law about tax on land the right concept of landlords and ownership in islam has been presented in the light of the holy qur’én, sunnah and system of ‘ushr has been introduced to eradicate the worst form of the prevailing land tenure system. if the historical ijtihéd about kharéj is implemented properly then the economic exploitation of poor farmers may be eradicated. 120 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . 9.4.1. calculation of ‘ushr as zakét on land production in the islamic state according to islam if agricultural products produced from ground water, rain or river water in which less human labour is used, ten percent of zakét is necessary to pay on such production of that land and if the land has been irrigated by tube well or other means, it is necessary to pay one twentieth part of the production (5 %) as ‘ushr on that land. zakét given as a result of land production is called ‘ushr in islam which is charged on each produce according to the prescribed niîéb. islam is a just system in which zakét is collected for the welfare of muslims so that the economic exploitation of the poor ends. islam also guarantees the protection of the lives, property and honour of nonmuslims. kharéj is taken only from those who accept to surrender themselves to the islamic state. 9.4.2. islamic status of kharéj the kharéj is a tax imposed on land, (the obligation of which must be fulfilled the quranic text regarding it is manifestly different from the text about the jizyah and for this reason its implementation is dependent upon the ijtihéd of the imam. allah almighty says: “or is it that you (o prophet) demand remuneration from them? but the remuneration from your lord is best”31 there are two aspects concerning his words, “would you demand a tribute (kharéj)?” the first one refer to a wage and the second one to a benefit, therefore, the word (kharéj) has two meanings: either that provision from your lord in this world is better or the wage of your lord in the next world is better. kharéj land differs from ‘ushr land regarding the property rights and rulings governing them. all lands may be classified in four ways: first, those lands which the muslims have revived are 'ushr lands and it is not permitted to impose the kharéj tax on them. revived lands will be mentioned later. second, lands whose owners have become muslims, in which case they are more entitled to them. according to shéfi‘ê, these are 'ushr lands and it is not permitted to impose the kharéj on them. abë ×anêfah however, says that the imam has the option of either treating them as kharéi or ‘ushr lands; if he treats them as kharéj lands then he is not hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 121 __ .. allowed to change them into ‘ushr lands although if he treats them into ‘ushr lands it is permitted to change them into kharéj land. third, lands which have been seized from the mushrikên (disbelievers) by force; according to teachings of shéfi‘ê, they are treated as booty and divided amongst the booty-takers: they are treated as 'ushr lands and are not permitted to impose the kharéj on them considers that they are waqf for the muslims based on the kharéj imposed upon them. fourth, land upon which an agreement has been concluded with the mushkrikên and which is characterized by the imposition of the kharéj; it is of two types: a. those lands abandoned by their people and which the muslims have acquired without fighting, in which case they become waqf for the benefit of the muslims and the kharéj is imposed on them; this kharéj becomes a revenue in perpetuity not for a restricted period because of the general interest attached to it. its status does not change if the inhabitant is a muslim or a dhimmi; and one may not sell such land or the liabilities thereof, given that it is governed by a waqf ruling. b. those lands on which the former owners are retained due to an agreement of the kharéj on them.”32 10. ijtihéd of ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) against landlords ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) introduced a new and comprehensive method of kharéj and financial reforms. the arabs were not aware of it before the khilafat of ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu). taxes began in the time of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). when khyber was conquered, then the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) left the land in possession of its residents and received kharéj. after the conquests of iraq and syria in the time of ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu), the fertile land came under the control of the muslims then ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) turned his attention to the system of kharéj. the conquerors insisted that they conquered the area by the sword then it should be divided among them as a feudal and the people should be enslaved. however, on the advice of the shëré ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) decided that the conquered areas do not belong to the soldiers rather they are owned by the government. that is why, it is necessary for the welfare of future generations, it may become the property of the government and the kharéj should be collected from the people in form of rent. ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) fixed the tax levy according to the nature of the land and the cultivation of the crops. for the victorious army 122 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . officers who wanted to seize the lands of iraq and syria as booty ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) recited this verse for their correction: “(and fai‘ is especially) for the poor emigrants who were expelled from their homes and properties, while they were seeking allah‘s grace and pleasure, and were helping (the religion of) allah and his messenger. they are the truthful.” 33 there is also this blessed verse of the holy qur'én which was revealed for the benefit of the nation that came later in the islamic state. “and (fai‘ is also) for those who came after them saying, our lord, forgive us and those of our brothers who preceded us in faith, and do not place in our hearts any rancor against those who believe; surely, our lord, you are very-kind, very merciful” 34 he pleaded with them asking how he could possibly divide the land amongst them without a thought to those that come after them who may be left with nothing. so in the end the dispute was peacefully settled by letting the land remain in the hands of the original owners but on condition that they pay jizyah (individual tax) and kharāj on their land.35 as soon as muslim soldiers heard the verse, they immediately agreed with ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) ever since that incident, al-kharéj became a major source of income for the country during the rule of caliph ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) (13-23ah/634-644ad)”. islam does not allow creation of a permanent class of capitalists, feudal lords, and exploiters in its name to enslave other muslims. similarly, it does not allow the current oppressive system of feudalism nor does allow the farmer to occupy illegally the landlord’s lands. 11. the holy qur’én’s voice of revolution against landlords the pursuit of worldly pleasures has kept human beings so busy that when a person raises his voice against landlords, no attention is paid to it. allah almighty says in the holy qur’én. “but we have given benefits to these and their fathers until life was prolonged for them. so do they not see that we are coming to the land narrowing it down from all its sides? then, are they the ones to prevail?” 36 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 123 __ .. on this matter maududi said in tafhêm ul qur’én: in other words, it means: these people have been deluded by our favour and our provisions. they think they are enjoying prosperity and good life as their personal right and there is none to take it away from them. they have forgotten that there is god above them who is able to make or mar their fortune.37 allah almighty says in surah al-r‘ad “have they not seen that we are coming to the land narrowing it down from all its sides? allah judges; there is none to repel his judgement. and he is swift at reckoning.”38 in surah al-anbiya and surah al-r‘ad the word al-arì is used to refer to all the means of subsistence which are in the hands of a few landlords on the basis of monopoly. there is a clear divine threat for them unless these lands can be used for the benefit of the people. 12. conclusion in fact, the real owner of land and its production is allah almighty. man is a vicegerent of allah almighty on the earth. therefore, this is the principle of islam regarding ownership that every person has the right to earn according to the will of allah almighty by given abilities and to take advantage by his own earning. landlords and farming in islam is one of the mutual corporations and mutual aid therefore, taking into account the need of the farmer, muzéra‘at was allowed in islam. the sunnah of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and the practical demonstration of his companions (raìi allah ‘anhum) are the best examples in the islamic history. there is a room for muzéra‘at in islam for the betterment of the farmers. there is tyrannical system in the name of landlords today. the landlord is interested only in his economic benefits and there is no one to provide for the basic needs of the farmer. islam has a system of ‘ushr for the sustenance of the needy which is actually a kind of zakét, ‘ushr is collected from the landlord at a fixed rate on land production by the government. if the islamic method of zakét and ‘ushr is properly adopted then the oppressive methods of the landlord system can be eradicated. ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) established the system of kharéj on the land of iraq by the consensus of the ulema and put an end to the oppressive style of the landlord system. he refused to divide the land 124 the holy qur’an’s voice of revolution….. . between the conquerors of iraq despite insistence of them and questioned the mujahidên that if they distributed it among themselves how the needs of the people would be met who will come later? islam encourages land settlement instead of landlord’s order to increase productivity as well as increase livelihoods for people and eliminating unemployment. in short, the economic system of islam is the foundation of a system of justice in which there is an arrangement for the financial support of the rich and the poor. so, there is no place for unlimited landlord system in islam. notes and references 1 bulent akot, “the perspective of psychological freedom and avoiding freedom according to erich formm”, hamdard isalmicus 43, no.2 (june 2020) 67-88. 2 ali ibn muhammad mawardi, al-ahkam as-sultaniyyah: the laws of islamic governance, (london: ta-ha publishers, 1980), 380. 3 muhammad abdul rasheed, islami riyasat e ×ukëmat, (karachi: ilmi kitab ghar, 1980), 576. 4 abu al a‘la maududi, islami nizam e zindagi aur uske bunyédi taîîuwarét (lahore:islamic publications,1963) 259. 5 israr ahmed, khuïbét e khilafat (karachi:anjuman khudam ul quran,1996) 213. 6 noor muhammad ghaffari, islam ka iqtiîédi niðam (karachi: shaikhul hind academy,2016)725. 7 "merriam webster", online dictionary, accessed feb 02, 2021,www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/landlord 8 "samaa tv", news channel website, accessed feb 18, 2021, www.samaa.tv/news/2016/12/feudalism-in-pakistan/ 9 the meanings of the noble qur'an, 7:128, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010) 10 ibid, (2:188) 11 ibid, (4:126;132) 12 ibid, (16:52) 13 ibid, (6:141) 14 ibid, (2:267) 15 ibid, (9:60) 16 ibid, (24:27) 17 nikhat sattar, "dawn news" , news channel website, accessed on may 02, 2021, https://www.dawn.com/news/1154522 18 hamid hosseini, "notions of private property in islamic economics in contemporary iran: a review of literature," international jouranl of social economics 15, no.9 (1988): 51-61, https://doi.org/10.1108/eb014120 19 sunan nasai. 45:3921, book of hadith, trans. nasiruddin al-khattab (canada: darussalam publishers and distributors, 2007) 20 tahir ul qadri, iqtiîédiyat e islam (lahore: minhaj ul quran printers, 2013) 169. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no.3 125 __ .. 21 saíií bukhéri, book of hadith, trans. muhammad muhsin khan, accessed on may 23, 2021, https://www.iium.edu.my/deed/hadith/bukhari 22 maudëdi, islami niðam e zindagi aur uske bunyadi taîawurét, 452. 23 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'an, (16:71) 24 ibid, (23:84-85) 25 ibid, (55:10) 26 ibid, (28:76) 27 ibid, (28:79) 28 ibid, (28:81) 29 ghaffari, islam ka iqtiîédi niðam,384. 30muhammad taqi usmani, islam aur jadêd ma‘éhi masé’il (karachi: idara islamiyat, 2008) 230. 31 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'an,(23:72). 32 mawardi, al aíkém as sulïaniyah, 214. 33 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'an,(59:8) 34 ibid, (59:10) 35 fuadah johri and patmawati ibrahim, "the dynamism in the implementation of al-kharaj during islamic rule" shariah journal 18, no.2 (dec 2010) 644 36 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'an,(21:44) 37 abul a‘lé maudëdi, first principles of islamic economics (leicestershire: kube publishing, 2013)328. 38 ibid, (13:41) hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 658665 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 658 issn :02507196 can artificial intelligence technology replace judges in deciding legal matters? 1shidarta, 2abu bakar munir abstract the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has led to predictions about the decline in the functions of many established professions, including that of the profession of judges. this paper questions whether such technology can substitute judges in deciding legal matters. artificial intelligence technology assumes there are general patterns that will treat the same way for cases with similar characteristics (similia similibus). this view is not completely true because the judge's reasoning actually shows that each case tends to be approached independently (summun ius summa inuiria). discretion is also required in the imposition of legal sanctions, and this does not fully capitalize on cognitive ability. there is the danger that artificial intelligence will reduce the values of humanity that actually want to be upheld in the judicial system. artificial intelligence will also reduce the interpretation space in understanding the contextual meaning of a certain normative provision, so the legal text will become very rigid in its application. this paper is organised with a conceptual approach in which such an approach discusses some main concepts in legal reasoning that are closely related to the work of judges. in order to explain the relevance of these concepts, this paper introduces frameworks as a result of an effective literature review. keywords: artificial intelligence, legal reasoning, legal norm, legal principle. 1. introduction with the development of technology in artificial intelligence, it is estimated that in the next 20 years more and more traditional jobs will disappear. some of the jobs that are often mentioned will soon be replaced with technology are cashiers, drivers, telemarketers, and referees. however, there are also those who predict jobs such as doctors and accountants, as well as lawyers and judges, will also be left out of the list of professions. they believe that in the future, algorithmic decision-making is presumed not only to assist judges but to replace them in certain types of cases (krausova, 2017; sadeghi et al., 2018). the debate over whether legal professions such as judges can be substituted for their role by artificial intelligence technology depends heavily on the belief about whether or not a behavioral pattern can be formulated based on studies examining samples from dozens to hundreds of similar legal cases. if these patterns are successfully established, then the opportunity artificial intelligence technology can be able to adopt these patterns. 1 business law program, law department, faculty of humanities, bina nusantara university, jakarta 11480. email: shidarta@binus.edu 2 faculty of law, university of malaya, kuala lumpur 50603. mailto:shidarta@binus.edu hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 658665 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 659 issn :02507196 such thoughts were indirectly pioneered by c.c. langdell, an american jurist and legal academic who was dean of harvard law school from 1870 to 1895. he achieved fame by devising the case method to turn law into a laboratory science divorced from politics and to make his course so rigorous that it would attract able students seeking to test and prove themselves with the severest academic challenge (carrington, 1995; vandevelde, 1996). despite the fact that langdell's method has been immediately subject to opposition, for example by adherents of critical legal studies (kennedy, 1982; matsuda, 1987; stelmach & brozek, 2006; barkatullah, 2017), it is generally true that most of lawyers still believe that there is something unique in legal reasoning because the law always deals with a system of norms designed with very carefully by the authorities. the system is very complete and therefore can be run consistently. if a positive law has been established, and then there is a concrete case in conflict with the legal rule, then the case becomes a legal case. the proposed way of thinking then becomes very simple, often called 'naive deductivism', 'mechanical jurisprudence', 'conceptualism', 'formlism', or 'legalism' (prakken, 1997; atria, 2001; ambikai & ishan, 2016). with the understanding that there are consistent patterns in legal reasoning, today's emerging services are trying to offer expert software tool systems designed to leverage legal advice and dispute solutions. such self-service legal expert systems are believed to someday be able to replace the functions of the judiciary, particularly the role of judges in handling legal cases. richard susskind writes, “looking ahead, judicial function may then largely be confined either to what computers cannot do, or (on one view) ought not to be doing” (susskind, 1996). however, is it true that the future of the judge's professional will be jeopardized by the presence of artificial intelligence like this? be right that there are factors in legal reasoning, as practiced in the court room, which is difficult to adopt in artificial intelligence? these questions are issued as part of the answer in this article. 2. literature review law as a system of norm universally, law is usually referred to as a system of rules of conduct. thus, the law is never a value-free system, but on the contrary it has always been rich in value that teaches what is good and bad in human behavior. according to paul scholten, a prominent dutch legal scholar, all laws have roots in distinction of good and evil principles (scholten, scholten, & bregstein, 1949). this is logical, that anyone encounters difficulties in understanding law if he is unable to differentiate between goodness and badness of a legal norm. naturally, law has to prioritize goodness and repudiates badness. this principle becomes the main spirit of law enforcement (hallevy, 2010; teik ee & aman, 2015). this first principle departs from the simple assumption that everyone has the same instinct that tends to like goodness rather than evil. with that instinctive basis, then there will be a desire to uphold the second principle, i.e. the principle of equality. this principle wants everyone, without exception, to be treated equally before the law, that is to be rewarded for hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 658665 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 660 issn :02507196 doing good and otherwise be sanctioned for committing an offense. such a perspective is commonly known as the 'similia similibus' principle (örücü, 2006; postema, 2003). the two principles mentioned above apply to the norm of law in general, namely norms when the law has not come into contact with concrete cases. in fact, the law is in fact not enough just to be stored into a treasury of law, but must be applied to the reality of life. as oliver w. holmes jr. says, "the life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience" (holmes & childress, 2010). when the law comes in contact with concrete cases, there will be two principles facing each other, namely the principle of personality and the principle of collectivity. in the area of public law, the principle of collectivity that upholds the interests of the people will be more dominant. meanwhile, in the realm of private law, the principle of personality is prioritized. however, in a legal case, there can be no one principle between personality and collectivity that mutually excludes one another. in the end, there will be one final principle which paul scholten called the principle of authority. this principle runs counter to the principle of equation. that is, when the abstract law encounters a concrete case in which there is a personal and public interest, then the law becomes no longer necessary to be treated equally for everyone. it is interesting that the law actually wants to treat people differently. this is because each legal case is unique, so the law applied must be subject to this uniqueness. in latin, it is common knowledge in the jargon that is in line with this principle of authority, which states that if the law is strictly enforced following the sound of the law, then the law actually hurts very deeply for showing injustice (summun ius summa iniuria). following is the description of scholten’s thought (shidarta, 2006): figure 1 universal legal principles hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 658665 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 661 issn :02507196 difficulties in building the pattern artificial intelligence has difficulties especially when the system must build the algorithmic pattern on so many variations of legal cases. there are in essence no two or more cases, which are absolutely identical in relation to the subject of doing, place, and time, along with the motivation surrounding the perpetrators or the parties involved. in case of theft, for instance, the principle of good and evil distinction will assume all theft is just as bad, so every theft perpetrator must be treated equally (x), that is to be punished (y). the relationship between x and y is a deterministic causality. in legal reasoning, the first step to do is to ensure that x really happens. for this reason, all elements in the rules governing the criminal act of theft are then spelled out one by one. for example, in a rule it is said that theft is an act of human being who takes the property of another person without permission from the rightful owner of the object. at least there are certain elements that must be ensured, such as 'human being', 'take', and 'thing'. the term 'human being' is a legal concept belonging to the category of the legal subject. it must be ensured that the legal subject is a person or a group of human being, not for example a wild animal. then the criterion of the word 'take' must also serve as clear. in the legal literature, the word 'take' is understood as 'moving things from one place to another'. figure 2 logical formalization then the 'thing' (figure 2) must also be understood in its specific meaning, even though it is formulated in general (rule 1). for instance, a wallet belonging to another person is an object or thing (rule 2) that cannot be moved around without the permission of the owner. if this is done, then this action may be called theft. if there are no further rules about what objects are things, the concept 'thing' is not defined at all. the lawgivers can add other things, like computer, car, and book (rule 3), but the term 'thing' is still defined only partially. the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 658665 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 662 issn :02507196 logical formalization does not imply that the rule 2 and 3 are the only possible instantiations of the concept 'thing'. this becomes different only if the formula is added by rule 4. artificial intelligence may not automatically add to the legal formula as requested by the rule 4, so that when there are new objects outside the scope of things such as wallet and computer, the rule becomes invalid. for example, if the stolen object is electric, can be the category of electricity be aligned with the category of wallet and computer? here legal formulation requires continuous creativity that may not yet be reached by the machine. propagation of behavioral patterns arising from these legal cases is carried out using inductive inference methods. meanwhile, when the patterns want to apply to cases, the inference method used is deductive. the judge does not start his reasoning in a deductive, but inductive way. the first thing the judge does be to structure the facts of a case, to then determine whether there is a correspondence between the facts and the patterns as set forth in the norms of positive law. all of these physical elements are used to determine whether there is wrongdoing in terms of the actors' apparent actions, commonly known as 'actus reus' (robinson, 1993). given the law is the norm system aimed at humans, the human factor on which the norm is targeted is also very important to recognize. when a theft occured, for example, the suspect must be ensured by law that he was in a healthy mental state. in legal science, this aspect is known as 'mens rea', namely a person's mental element or awareness of the fact that his or her conduct is criminal (mueller, 1957). here the scheme of paul scholten (figure 1), again can be used as a reference. in criminal cases, the circumstances of the perpetrator and the circumstances surrounding himself at the time he committed an offence must be carefully considered. on the other hand, there is a collective interest that requires this perpetrator to be tried and if found guilty, to be punished. another important factor for judges to assess is the certainty of the absence of negating elements of a crime. the factor so-called 'the absence of valid defence' will make the perpetrator unpunished, even though the 'actus reus' and 'mens rea' elements have been met. for example, for example, a policeman who shot dead a thief who refused to surrender despite being warned repeatedly, then this police cannot be prosecuted as a criminal. in a legal provision that not only gives regulation, but also coercion, its normative formula is usually divided into two types; in the form of primary and secondary norms. the primary norm contains all elements that comprise of the subject of norm (legal entity), operator of norm (behavior mode), object of norm (certain required behavior), and condition of norm. each component of the primary norm will be made into each categorical syllogism. computers can run this syllogism; the gaps that are formed really have to be wary of. this is because the syllogism is related to the evidence, which must be assessed through direct observation in the trial. artificial intelligence usually cannot observe events, let alone evaluate evidence because this is where the human values are needed. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 658665 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 663 issn :02507196 if the primary norms are met by all categories of elements, then the next step for judges is to do hypothetical syllogism. the antecedents of this hypothetical syllogism state that if all the elements alleged to the perpetrator were proved to be genuinely empirical, then the perpetrator is subject to sanctions. what type and weight of sanctions are listed in the secondary norm? for example, if the perpetrator is proven to steal, he or she will be sentenced to a maximum imprisonment of five years. so, suppose a criminal has fulfilled all the factors listed in 'actus reus', 'mens rea', and 'absence of valid defence', then to this person shall be liable to appropriate sanctions as long as the sanction does not exceed the maximum limit set by law. the greatest difficulty in artificial intelligence exists at this momentum because legal reasoning no longer relies on cognitive ability. the reasoning modality used in determining the weight of sanctions relies heavily on the affection and intuition of the judge. the fundamental logic structure of legal knowledge is related to the defeasibility of legal reasoning, which can be conceptualized as non-monotonicity. the consequences derivable from a set of legal and factual premises can be invalidated by further information (bankowski, & hahn, 1995). this non-monotonicity affects the model of causal law between antecedents and consequences, resulting in non-deterministic causality characteristic (hage, 1997). there is a deontic logic that arises in this connection. namely, the relationship between antecedents and consequences is not necessary, but should be. if x steals, he is not necessarily punished, but should be punished. so, there is the possibility of x being punished or not punished. this is the non-monotonicity and non-deterministic nature in legal reasoning. therefore, artificial intelligence will certainly have difficulty in reaching out to all the disparities that are often created in judges' decisions. this disparity occurs because the modalities used by judges are not only cognition, but also affection. the question of whether fair if x was sentenced to three years imprisonment, while y who also stole elsewhere turned out to be jailed for five years, is a matter beyond cognitive reasoning. the judge has the discretion to decide and he is professionally accountable for his decisions. because of the different facts, the legal authority also demands that the decisions for those cases be different too. maccormick says, "such determination can only be made by beings with intelligence and will as well as a capacity for evaluation of evidence and understanding of values implicit in rules. it is therefore arguable that only a person, not a machine, can possibly answer them. in any event, it is better that they be determinations made by humans who can be directly held to account for the determination they issue" (maccormick, 1992). and, sunstein (1996) adds, "judges often proceed on a case-by-case basis; they are practitioners of the old, much-reviled, and indispensable art of casuistry." 3. methodology this paper is organised with a conceptual approach in which such an approach discusses some main concepts in legal reasoning that are closely related to the work of judges. in order hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 658665 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 664 issn :02507196 to explain the relevance of these concepts, this paper introduces frameworks as a result of an effective literature review. 4. future directions until now, there is still an objection to authorize non-human actors with their artificial intelligence, to answer the legal problems faced by human beings. artificial intelligence can not compete with human intelligence, but it just completes it. artificial intelligence technology is not wholesale replacing judges in deciding legal matters, but it can amplifying their skills and collaborating with judges to achieve productivity gains that have previously not been possible (see daugherty & wilson, 2018). 5. conclusion it is important to review some dangers that have been either explicit or implicit in the idea of replacing judges role in deciding legal matters with artificial intelligence. first, there is the danger that artificial intelligence will reduce the values of humanity that actually want to be upheld in the judicial system. second, artificial intelligence will narrow the interpretation space in understanding the contextual meaning of a certain normative provision, so the legal text will become very rigid in its application. in this study, it can be concluded that the judge's profession is unique and cannot necessarily be replaced with artificial intelligence technology. in general, artificial intelligence desires to have the same patterns as the guidelines in judgment. the assessment tool is purely cognitive. in fact, in the work of judges, there is often a complexity that does not merely ask for cognitive function, so decisions generated on similar cases are not always required to be identical. this is the essence of jargon in the law: 'summun ius summa iniuria'. references atria, f. (2001). on law and legal reasoning. oxford: portland oregon. bankowski, z., white, i., & hahn u. eds. (1995). informatics and the foundations of legal reasoing. dordrecht: springer science & business media. carrington, p.d. (1995). hail! langdell!. law and social inquiry, 20(3): 691-760. daugherty, p.r. & wilson, h.j. (2018). human+machine: reimagining work in the age of ai. boston: harvard business review. hallevy g. (2010). a modern treatise on the principle of legality in criminal law. heidelberg: springer. holmes, o.w. & childress, s.a. (2010). the annotated common law: with 2010 foreword and explanatory notes. new orleans: quid pro books. lecture 1. kennedy, d. (1982). legal education and the reproduction of hierarchy. journal of legal education, 32(4): 591-615. krausova, a. (2017). intersection beween law and artificial intelligence. international journal of computer, 27(1): 55-68. mac cormick, d.n. (1992). 'legal deduction, legal predicates and expert systems.' international journal for the semantics of law, v/14: 181-202. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 658665 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 665 issn :02507196 matsuda, m. j. (1987). looking to the bottom: critical legal studies and reparations. harv. cr-cll rev., 22: 323-399. mueller, g. o. (1957). on common law mens rea. minn. l. rev., 42, 1043. örücü, e. (2006). methodological aspects of comparative law. european journal of law reform, iii(1): 8-29. postema, g.j. (2003). classical common law jurisprudence (part ii). oxford university commonwealth law journal, 3(1), 1-28. prakken, h. (1997). logical tools for modelling legal argument: a study of defeasible reasoning in law. dordrecht: springer science & business media. robinson, p. h. (1993). should the criminal law abandon the actus reus-mens rea distinction?' in robinson, p.h., ' in shute, s., gardner, j., & horder, j. eds., action and value in criminal law. oxford: oxford university press. 187-211. scholten, g.j., scholten, y., & bregstein, m.h. eds. (1949). verzamelde gescriften van wijlen prof. mr. paul scholten, deel 1. zwolle: n.v. uitgevers-maatschappij w.e.j. tjeenk willink, 405. hage, j.c. (1997). reasoning with rules: an essay on legal reasoning and its underlying logic. dordrecht: springer science & business media. sadeghi, s., sajjadi, s. n., nooshabadi, h. r., & farahani, m. j. (2018). social-cultural barriers of muslim women athletes: case study of professional, female athletes in iran. journal of management practices, humanities and social sciences. 2(1), 6-10. barkatullah, a. h. (2017). implementation of limited liability principles and doctrine of piercing the corporate veil in management of local liability companies. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 2(6), 348-357 ambikai., & ishan, z. (2016). comparative analysis of law on tort of deviant behaviors in malaysia and india. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(4), 243-249. teik ee, g., & aman, r. c. (2015). prevalence of self-hurt behaviour among chinese adolescents in malaysia . international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 1(2), 108-113. shidarta. (2006). moralitas profesi hukum: suatu tawaran kerangka berpikir (morality of legal profession: a frame of thought). bandung: refika aditama. stelmach, j. & brozek, b. (2006). methods of legal reasoning. dordrecht: springer science & business media. sunstein, c.r. (1996). legal reasoning and political conflict. oxford: oxford university press. susskind, r. (1996). the future of law. oxford university press. vandevelde, k.j. 1996. thinking like a lawyer: an introduction to legal reasoning. oxford: westview press. hamdard islamicus vol. lxiv, no. 4 7 … editorial allah almighty, the most merciful has bestowed a comprehensive and comfortable code of life upon us. he has named it ‘islam’. islam is a great blessing for all the creatures of the universe, directly or indirectly. it provides detailed and elaborated guidelines for each and every sphere of life. allah almighty has blessed us through the platform of our research journal of international repute, hamdard islamicus, to present beautiful aspects of life, its contemporary issues and guidelines of islam for resolving them. we have tried to decorate it with a variety of fragrant flowers having thoughtful guidance regarding different walks of life, like ×adêth and its compilation, fiqh, islamic history, islamic finance and islamic medicine. this is the last issue (no. 4, oct-dec) of 2021 (vol. xliv) of the hamdard islamicus which encompasses five research articles of remarkable significance. the first article entitled “makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic thought of jamaluddin al-afghani” discusses the immense importance of makkah al-mukarramah as a central and pivotal place of the world in uniting all the muslims of the world. this city has the distinction of having a title of umm al-qura (mother of all the cities) given by the holy qur’én. the author has tried to appraise the struggle by a radical and reformist muslim leader jamaluddin afghani for unifying muslims of the entire world for mutual co-operation, brotherhood and embracing them in a single state. regardless of some controversial and suspicious information about afghani, it is undeniable that afghani, in his short span of life not only motivated a large number of muslims of the then world, but he seeded the creation of the world muslim congress, organization of islamic cooperation (oic) and makkan congress as well. allah almighty has provided detailed instructions to human beings for every aspect of life through his book the holy qur’én and prophetic traditions called ×adêths. these meaningful and full of erudition ×édêths have reached us through the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) of allah almighty. after passing the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), a number of leading scholars have worked hard to scrutinize, 8 editorial … compile and save authentic ×adêths by sorting and managing them into different chapters pertinent to separate topics. the process of compiling and preserving is still continued even in the sub-continent. the second article of this issue “shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq al‘aẓīmabādī & his scholarly contribution in serving the ḥadīth legacy” throws light on the meticulous work of the 19th century’s one of the greatest scholars of hadith, shaykh abū al-ṭayyib shams al-ḥaqq al‘aẓīmabādī. the author discussed comprehensively, the significant role of ‘azimabédê in spreading the legacy of ḥadīth, defending sunnah in india beside authoring international relied scholarly books that serve in the cause of ×adīth and call for implementing the holy qur’én and sunnah. the third article is also related to ×adīth. in this article “the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr traditions: an analysis of harald motzki’s method”, the author has tried to analyse the contribution of an accomplished scholar of ×adīth who, in the end of twentieth and beginning of twenty first century, used historical critical method in his studies by offering a combination of isnād and matn analytical techniques. the author critically analysed this method in his study on zakāt al fiïr traditions and pointed out some of the shortcomings of its application. the author views the method under discussion as one which can offer meaningful results if it is applied to ×adīth objectively and more accurately. our creator has provided us with detailed guidance on the issues and questions that arise in every aspect of life. one of the various issues faced by us is abortion of malformed janên having anomalies. there are differences of opinion among the scholars on this issue. the fourth article entitled “abortion of janīn (embryo+foetus) due to human birth defects (anomalies)-an islamic view with special reference to sharīʻah maxims (qawā‘id al fiqhiyyah)” presents an appraising study, comparing different views of earlier and contemporary scholars and concludes that when the developing foetus is endangering the life of the mother, abortion becomes permissible. beside it, in case of embryo with congenital anomalies, if the life of the mother is not in danger then it is impermissible to induce abortion after one hundred and twenty days of foetal life in order to avoid a defective child. in mutual transactions, injustice with either party is highly possible. that is why, our lord has given detailed commands in this regard. it is perfectly permissible in sharê‘ah to take a loan to meet one’s needs, but if for some genuine reason the debtor is unable to repay the loan on time hamdard islamicus vol. lxiv, no. 4 9 … and the creditor imposes the debtor to restructure the debt and demands more than the required amount of debt, it is prohibited and is called ribā al-jāhiliyyah (interest during the era of ignorance). to overcome this issue, experts of islamic banking and finance, have tried to find a way out for providing a sharê‘ah compliant relieving plan to debtors. in the fifth article of this issue entitled “a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks from sharī‘ah perspective” the author, qualitatively and descriptive analytically reviewed classical and contemporary scholars’ views about restructuring and rescheduling the debt (qalb al-dayn). after elaborating their differences of opinions, the author concludes islamic banks may strictly use a rescheduling of a financing facility instead of restructuring a facility while following the guidelines provided by the scholars. dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt editor hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 49 sayyid mawdudi’s approach to biblical reports: an analysis dr. noor mohammad osmani department of qur’an and sunnah studies, ahas kirkhs international islamic university malaysia. email: abusajid@iium.edu.my dr. md habibur rahman faculty of business and management (fpp), universiti sultan zainal abidin (unisza), terengganu, malaysia. email: habiburrahman@unisza.edu.my received on: 05-11-22 accepted on: 13-02-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.636 abstract isra’iliyyat, or biblical reports undoubtedly play a key role in the interpretations of the holy qur’én. that is because isra’iliyyat provide detailed information of the past prophets (‘alaihim as-salém) in the holy qur’én. since biblical reports can range from sound to weak and even baseless in strengths, the quranic interpreters have diverse stance regarding their acceptance. the prime purpose of this study is to explore the stance of sayyid mawdudi towards biblical reports. sayyid mawdudi had a balanced approach to it. he did not reject it outright; nor did he accept it totally without examination. he remained extremely cautious in dealing with it. he clearly identifies the similarities and differences between the holy qur’én and the biblical reports; and in case of differences existing, decides on reports to be accepted. the study followed a textual analytical method to deal with the biblical reports quoted by sayyid mawdudi in his tafsêr. it also used the original biblical reports from the bible’s new international version, ‘al-kitab al-muqaddas’ in arabic, the talmud and the jewish encyclopaedia to refer to the original sources of biblical reports and their own explanation of it. the study concluded that the biblical reports are indispensable parts of the interpretation of the holy qur’én. they should not be rejected outright, nor should they be accepted without mailto:abusajid@iium.edu.my mailto:habiburrahman@unisza.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.636 50 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … thorough investigation. when compared to all contemporary and traditional scholars, it is found that sayyid mawdudi had an ideal stance towards biblical reports. keywords: biblical reports, tafsêr literature, sayyid mawdudi, tafhimul qur’én. 1. introduction sayyid abul a‘la mawdudi (1903-1979) is one of the most influential islamic reformers of the 20th century. his major contribution lies in presenting islam to muslim youths systematically and rationally, which could captivate their hearts and remove any confusions that may arise in their minds. tafhêm al-qur’én is the magnum opus of his writings, in which he summarised his lifelong experience and knowledge that he had earned in his career in the islamic movement. sayyid mawdudi started writing his tafsêr in february 1942 and completed it after almost 30 years in 1972.1 the main feature of his tafsêr lies in presenting the meaning and message of the holy qur’én in a language and style that penetrates the hearts and minds of its readers and shows the relevance of the holy qur’én to their day-to-day problems, both on the individual and societal levels. this tafsêr has had a far-reaching impact on contemporary islamic thought in general and in the subcontinent in particular.2 biblical reports or isra’iliyyat refer to the reports in torah, bible, talmud and other judaeo-christian origins. since the holy qur’én does not deal with the past nations and prophets (‘alaihim assalém) in detail, most interpreters of the holy qur’én have resorted to biblical reports to explain the holy qur’én. some have quoted from biblical sources without any verification, while others have opted for complete rejection. some scholars preferred a moderate stand, not to reject it outright nor accept it without verification. sayyid mawdudi preferred this stance. the holy qur’én has been subject to biased orientalist claims that seek to portray it as a mere copy-and-paste rendition of biblical texts. these claims are unfounded and lack any rational basis, and their purpose is to deny the divine nature of the holy qur’én. this study aims to investigate the purported "proofs" presented by biased orientalists in support of their claims. specifically, the study aims to determine whether the holy qur’én solely borrows from biblical sources or whether it also rectifies the problems and corruptions found therein. investigating this issue is of utmost importance and is the fundamental motivation behind this study. sayyid mawdudi stood firmly to deal with them and presented clear and convincing shreds of evidence to prove that the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 51 holy qur’én is the divine book of guidance, and it is in no way a copy of the earlier scriptures. he also pointed out some fundamental errors that the compilers of the bible had made. 2. objectives the main purpose of this study is to introduce sayyid mawdudi’s stance on biblical reports and to evaluate the methodology he adopted in his famous tafsêr tafhêm al-qur’én. this study will also evaluate the position of tafhêm al-qur’én in the traditional and the rational tafésêr. the author's level of agreement with the objectives of sharê‘ah, the fundamentals of islam, and prominent commentators of the holy qur’én will also be assessed. the study would also explore the criticisms of the orientalists who attempt to link the sources of the holy qur’én to biblical reports and how sayyid mawdudi had strongly dealt with them. it also analyzes the similarities and differences between the biblical reports and the holy qur’én, the ultimate divine guidance of allah almighty. 3. background and earlier research sayyid mawdudi’s magnum opus tafsir played the role of a fundamental reference of tafsêr for modern-day muslims, especially the youth. his target audience was not the scholars but the educated youths who wished to learn more about islam but had no quranic references for a fresh understanding of divine guidance. hence, he dealt with all modern challenges which appeared during his time. he presented convincing answers to all challenges and questions from orientalists, muslim apologetics, feminists and anti-islamic forces. there was an attempt to brand the holy qur’én as nothing but a copy of the biblical narrations. as a proof, they tried to present the similarities between the bible and the holy qur’én, intentionally leaving out the fundamental differences between the holy qur’én and the bible. the biblical sources corrupted the personalities of their own prominent prophets (‘alaihim as-salém). it is the holy qur’én, the ultimate divine book of guidance, that cleared all negative elements that existed in the bible and cleared their prophets (‘alaihim as-salém) from such accusations. not much scholarly research was done on the tafsêr of mawdudi, though much research has already been carried out on mawdudi’s life and his thought. this study intends to introduce this fundamental aspect of his tafsêr to the readers. what is the stance of tafsêr scholars on biblical narrations, and how does it compare to the stance adopted by mawdudi? while most traditional scholars 52 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … abstained from quoting the biblical reports, why did mawdudi not follow the same path? were there any benefits to his approach of including such quotes? overall, a clear understanding of his tafsêr is made throughout the study. 4. literature review charles j. adams wrote “abu’l a‘la mawdudi’s tafhêm alqur’én” in andrew ripin, ed., approaches to the history of the interpretation of the qur’an.3 he explained briefly the background, objective and style of tafhêm al-qur’én. he also emphasized the detailed introduction and chief characteristic features of mawdudi's tafsêr, including its use of hadith with extra emphasis on fiqhi issues, critical approach to taîawwuf, and detailed quotations from biblical materials. additionally, he noted mawdudi's criticism of modern rationalist scholars and their rejection of miracles and supernatural issues. however, he was surprised that mawdudi placed less emphasis on political issues in his tafsêr. mustansir mir, in his article “some features of mawdudi’s tafhim al-qur’an” in the american journal of islamic social sciences,4 highlighted notable features of tafhêm and explains mawdudi’s style of translation and commentary. he regarded the translation of mawdudi in urdu to be a superb one and his tafsêr as a modern commentary. mawdudi presented islam as a complete way of life and outlined its various aspects systematically and rationally. his major contribution lies in showcasing islam’s relevance to the practical daily problems of today’s man. khurshid ahmad and zafar ishaq ansari wrote a comprehensive article titled “mawlana sayyid abul a‘la mawdudi: an introduction to his vision of islam and islamic revival” in islamic perspectives.5 this paper outlined mawdudi’s life precisely in part i, explains his vision of islam in general in part ii, and details his vision of islamic revival and the process of the islamic revolution in part iii. the second and third parts were written in the lifetime of mawdudi and were presented at international conferences by zafar ishaq in 1976 and khurshid ahmad in 1977, respectively. alifuddin turabi, an ex-deputy leader of jama‘at islami in kashmir, wrote on the life and da‘wah of sayyid mawdudi, entitled abul a‘la al-mawdudi: ×ayatuhu wa da‘watuhu.6 he gave the sociopolitical and religious background of the indo-pak subcontinent in the 20th century, which mawdudi encountered with. he also explained the basic characteristics, principles, and stages of mawdudi’s da‘wah work in india and pakistan. alifuddin turabi also wrote a comprehensive treatise on alustadh abul a‘la al-mawdudi wa manhajuhu fi tafsêr al-qur’an alkarêm,7 [sayyid mawdudi and his methodology in qur’anic hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 53 interpretation] for masters in ummul qura university. it comprises 652 pages and includes the details of the life, mission, and struggle of sayyid mawdudi in the first part, and about his tafsêr, and a detailed methodology in the second part. it provides a detailed exposition of sayyid mawdudi's interpretation of the holy qur’én. it explains that mawdudi’s tafsêr followed a modern approach to quranic interpretation, which combines traditional and rational approaches as well. gias uddin hafiz also wrote an article on “manhaj al-ustaz al-mawdudi fi tafsirihi tafhim al-qur’an”8 [methodology of ustaz mawdudi in his tafsêr tafhêm al-qur’én] published in iiuc journal, where he presented a summary of the tafsêr of sayyid mawdudi and his methodology. it is a precise yet comprehensive presentation of sayyid mawdudi’s tafsêr methodology. some scholars wrote critically about mawdudi’s tafsêr. some of them blamed him for ‘politicizing the holy qur’én’ or ‘presenting the holy qur’én for political motives’, while others pinpointed the faults from his tafsêr of the holy qur’én. for example, wahiduddin khan wrote a book, khata’ fi al tafsêr,9 [fault in tafsir], to criticize mawdudi’s comprehension of din and his over-emphasis on establishing the islamic state as the sole mission of the prophets to be a deviated interpretation of islam. he tried to communicate with sayyid mawdudi through letters to debate such issues. still, sayyid mawdudi did not respond to most of his letters, as wahiduddin had already made up his mind and scholarly debates would be fruitless with him. this made him furious and led to the publication of the said book to criticize almost all ideas of mawdudi including his tafsêr. in the similar line, abul hassan ‘ali al-nadwi also wrote another book al-tafsêr al-siyasi li al-islam10 [political interpretation of islam], where he condemned mawdudi’s interpretation of din from a political perspective. he strongly criticized mawdudi's position on tafsêr and even sent him a copy of his own book after its publication. mawdudi appreciated the gesture and asked shaykh nadwi to review his writings and identify any shortcomings or weaknesses. this shows that sayyid mawdudi faced different types of people who either strongly supported him or vehemently opposed him. the current study will try to objectively analyze his stance while dealing with biblical reports in his tafsêr. 5. methodology this research follows a descriptive, analytical, objective, and critical methodology in dealing with the tafsêr of mawdudi. it will focus mainly on textual research based on the tafsêr of mawdudi, 54 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … traditional and modern tafasir, other writings of mawdudi, and biblical sources. this research uses the analytical approach in dealing with the tafsêr of mawdudi. it acknowledges, appreciates, and sometimes critically evaluates the viewpoints of mawdudi in his tafsêr. this study will objectively evaluate the position of tafhêm alqur’én in the traditional and the rational tafasêr. it will assess the extent to which the author agrees with the objectives of sharê‘ah, the fundamentals of islam, and the interpretations of prominent traditional commentators of the holy qur’én. the primary focus of the study is to look into his approach to biblical reports based on his tafsêr tafhêm-ul-qur’én. the study also used the original biblical reports from the bible’s new international version and ‘al-kitab al-muqaddas’ in arabic to examine its authenticity. it also referred to talmud and the jewish encyclopaedia to refer to the original sources of biblical reports and their own explanation. this is to confirm the validity of the reports quoted by sayyid mawdudi from biblical sources. 5.1. isra’iliyyat in tafsêr literature isra’iliyyat refers to judaeo-christian reports in biblical traditions such as torah, injêl, zabër and talmëd. talmëd is the explanations, interpretations, and implementations of torah rules and regulations, which are developed by jewish scholars from time to time.11 the torah, injêl and zabër, and the holy qur’én, are undoubtedly revelations of allah almighty. however, over time, they have been altered by their respective followers, either due to loss or changes made to their laws to fit changing circumstances. since they were not meant to be eternal books of guidance, allah almighty did not preserve them from being changed or distorted. when the previous prophet’s teachings get distorted, allah almighty usually sends a new messenger (‘alaihim as-salém) and a new message. since the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was the final messenger, and the holy qur’én is the eternal guidance for entire mankind till the final moment of the earth, the holy qur’én is preserved by allah almighty. in surah al-hijr, allah almighty confirms: “we, ourselves, have sent down the dhikr (the qur‘én), and we are there to protect it.”12 this is to confirm that all humankind is not deprived of the true message of allah almighty at any point in time. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 55 in the biblical traditions, in the five books of torah, details of stories of the past prophets (‘alaihim as-salém) are provided (albeit some of them got mixed up with false narrations). tafsêr writers resorted to all those details to explain the stories of the prophets (‘alaihim as-salém) mentioned in the holy qur’én. naturally, the holy qur’én does not detail the stories of the past prophets, except the story of moses and joseph (‘alaihim as-salém). the interpreters of the holy qur’én mentioned whatever details they got from different sources, especially from biblical traditions. these reports emerged into tafsêr traditions through some biblical scholars who converted to islam, such as ‘abdullah bin salam13, ka‘ab alahbar14, wahab bin munabbih,15 and others. depending on the prophet’s hadith, it is not haram to quote from isra’ili narrations, but one must be cautious while narrating from them. the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) is reported to have said: “deliver the message from me, even if it is only a verse of the qur’an; and relate traditions from the bani isra'il, for there is no restriction; but remember, whoever deliberately lies against me, should select his abode in hellfire.”16 also, the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) asked them not to believe blindly whatever they report nor to reject everything outright. he is reported to have said: “narrated abu huraira: he said that the people of the book used to read the torah in hebrew and expound it in arabic to the muslims, so god’s messenger said, “neither believe nor disbelieve the people of the book, but say, "we believe in god and what has been sent down to us..." .17 hence, it is clear that the reports from ahl-e kitéb, the people of the book, can be reported, but with caution. we should not reject all their reports, as they may contain the truth. also, we should not accept whatever they narrate, as it might result from their temptations, corruptions, and modifications. 5.2. isra’iliyyat in tafhêm-ul-qur’én sayyid mawdudi was not among those who rejected isra’iliyyat or biblical reports outrightly. neither was he among those who accepted all its reports with no proper investigation. he extensively quoted the hebrew and christian bibles to compare them and the holy qur’én. by doing so, he aimed to explain certain issues more vividly, highlight differences between the texts, and refute the claim made by some orientalists that the holy qur’én is a duplicate 56 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … of the hebrew or christian bibles. additionally, he used these quotations to clear the prophets of allah (‘alaihim as-salém) from the accusations made against them in the tampered version of the bible and to correct false notions that may have arisen from its misinterpretation. charles j. adams says about this feature of tafhêm: “another striking feature of the tafsêr is its citation and use of materials from the bible, both the hebrew and the christian bibles. while it may generally be true that modern muslims and indian muslims, in particular, have shown little inclination to study the bible closely or to deal with it in terms of what it says, mawdudi exhibits a close acquaintance with the text. in connection with certain quranic verses, he quotes the bible in extension, the quoted passages being sometimes several pages in length.”18 6. to strengthen and explain certain issues he quoted israeli reports to strengthen and explain the quranic ayét (verses) about bani isra’il and their prophets; for narrations from their books to explain their situations are much more impactful and convincing to all. the quranic ayét was always taken as the guiding book for reference and reports from bible were used to support and strengthen the quranic expressions. for example, in the case of bani isra'il's mischief, as has been referred to in the ayah 4 of surah isra’ (17), many reports from the bible in which their own prophets such as david, isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel (‘alaihim as-salém) and finally the warning of jesus before his crucifixion, as they believe, were cited by mawdudi. the prophet jesus (‘alaih as-salém), for example, criticized their moral degeneration in an address like this: “o jerusalem, jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would i have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! behold, your house is left unto you desolate. verily i say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”19 then when the roman officials were taking prophet jesus (‘alaih as-salém) out for crucifixion, and a great number of people, including women, were following him wailing and lamenting, he addressed them and gave his final warnings: “..but jesus turning unto them, said, daughters of jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 57 children. for, behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. then shall they begin to say to the mountains, fall on us: and to the hills, cover us.”20 in the verse of surah baqarah, allah almighty refers to the inherent character of bani isra’il and says: “then they were stamped with disgrace and misery, and they returned with wrath from allah. that was because they used to deny the signs of allah, and would slay the prophets unjustly. that was because they disobeyed and transgressed all limits.”21 in support of allah's word that they killed his messengers, sayyid mawdudi provided references from the bible to support his claims of the killing, torturing, and imprisoning of the prophets by their own people. he also related the tortures or killings inflicted upon the prophet elijah, hanani, micaiah, zechariah, jeremiah, john the baptist, and jesus himself. quoting the killing of john the baptist, he says: “when john the baptist raised his voice against the immoralities openly practiced in the court of herod, king of judah, he was arrested and bound in prison. then at the request of herodias, his wife, who had a grudge against him, he sent one of the guards to bring his head. the man went and beheaded him in prison and brought his head on a dish to be presented to her. thus, the holy prophet of god was killed without any cause.’22 7. to mark differences between the quranic and biblical reports he presented a comparison between the holy qur’én and the biblical reports and showed which one was more accurate, authentic, and fit for the nature and status of the prophets. in surah maryam, the story of the birth of yahya (‘alaih as-salém) (john the baptist) and the answer to the prayer of his father zakaria (‘alaih as-salém) were presented. as a sign from allah almighty, zakaria (‘alaih as-salém) was made dumb for three nights and days and asked to perform allah's praises with his people. while quoting the story from the bible, mawdudi also highlighted the differences between the two versions of the story in parentheses. he quotes from luke as follows: “there was in the days of herod, the king of judaea, a certain priest named zacharias, of the course of abia: and his wife was of the daughters of aaron, and her name was elisabeth... and they had no child because elisabeth was barren, and they 58 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … both were now well stricken in years. and it came to pass that while he executed the priest's office before god in the order of his course, there appeared unto him an angel of the lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. and when zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. but the angel said unto him, fear not, zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; (there is no mention of zacharias' prayer anywhere in the bible) and thy wife elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name john (that is, yahya). and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth. for he shall be great in the sight of the lord (sayyidan: a great leader according to the qur’an, aal-e‘imran: 39), and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink (the qur’anic version, taqiyyan: pious and pure); and he shall be filled with the holy ghost, even from his mother's womb (the qur’an says: we blessed him with "judgment" while he was yet a child'). and many of the children of israel shall he turn to the lord their god...” "and zacharias said unto the angel, whereby shall i know this? for i am an old man, and my wife struck in years. and the angel answering said unto him, i am gabriel, that stand in the presence of god; and am sent to speak unto thee and to shew thee these glad tidings. and, behold, thou shall be dumb and unable to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season. (this is different from the qur’an, which gives it as a sign, whereas according to luke, it was a punishment. moreover, the qur’an mentions it as the silence for 'three consecutive days', but luke says that zacharias remained dumb till the birth of john). and the people waited for zacharias and marveled that he tarried so long in the temple. and when he came out, he could not speak unto them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned unto them and remained speechless.”23 in surah an‘ém, while he interprets the ayat in which ibrahim (‘alaih as-salém) was shown to be searching for hidayah and looked upon stars, moon, and the sun, and finally resorted to allah the allpowerful as the only god of universe, sayyid mawdudi after presenting his commentary on the verses, said that this most important event of the life of ibrahim (‘alaih as-salém) was not mentioned at all in the bible. however, the talmëd mentioned it with two basic differences: firstly, the order in the talmëd is “from the sun to the stars and god,” but the order for the stars and the sun is the other way around in the holy qur’én. secondly, it states that he said hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 59 about the sun, “this is my lord, he worshipped it also at the same time and did the same with the moon.”24 in surah yusuf, allah almighty mentions the noblest story of yusuf [joseph] (‘alaih as-salém) in detail. the king of egypt finally called on him to interpret his strange yet wonderful dream, which he did nicely. the king was influenced by the knowledge and wisdom of yusuf (‘alaih as-salém), so much so that he offered him a prestigious position in the country and placed all resources of the country under his trust. sayyid mawdudi highlights the fact that the most important part of the story of prophet yusuf (‘alaih as-salém), in which he refuses to leave prison until his character is cleared, is not mentioned in either the bible or the talmëd and the bible and talmëd, yusuf (‘alaih as-salém) is portrayed as being so overwhelmed and intimidated by the grandeur of pharaoh's court that he is unable to speak directly to the king and the king had to come down to the third step and from there he spoke with yusuf (‘alaih assalém).25 sayyid mawdudi, after quoting from talmëd comments by saying: “comparing the degrading picture in the talmëd with this self-respecting, grand, and noble picture depicted in the holy qur’én will convince every unbiased critic that the one in the holy qur’én is worthy of a prophet of god. moreover the picture in the talmëd is open to a grave objection: had prophet joseph (‘alaih as-salém) behaved like a frightened and cringing lad who was so dazzled by the glitter and glare of the jewels of the throne that he bowed to the ground, how was it that the king and the courtiers were so impressed by him that they declared, “….the hebrew has proved himself wise and skilful and through his wisdom shall our country be saved from the pangs of want”? so much so that the king appointed him, without demur, as “governor” over the land, “second only to himself”. all this shows that by that time he had proved his moral and mental superiority and had enhanced it by his refusal to quit the prison without proving his innocence. otherwise, they would have never raised him to the highest rank in such a civilized and advanced country as egypt.”26 8. to refute the claim that the holy qur’én is but a copy of the bible sayyid mawdudi emphasized rejecting the claim of those who said that the holy qur’én has just copied the stories of the earlier prophets and nations from the bible. in doing so, he often marked the differences between the holy qur’én and the biblical reports. he put it to the sound mind and conscience of the people to look and ponder 60 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … whether the holy qur’én could ever be copied from the biblical stories. the holy qur’én instead validates the un-tampered statements of the bible and corrects its false and adulterated elements, which have been added to it by its own followers. 9. story of adam and eve the holy qur’én mentions the story of the creation of adam and eve (‘alaihim as-salém) in a few places and gives a detailed picture of the origin of human creation. the bible also mentions the creation of adam and eve in genesis chapter 2, verses 7-25, and in chapter 3, verses 1-23. sayyid mawdudi devotes much space to quoting the narration of the bible regarding adam and eve’s creation and their expulsion from the garden of eden. according to biblical reports, they were forbidden from the ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’, and if they eat from it, they would surely die. they both were naked in the garden, and they only came to know of it after eating from the forbidden tree and felt ashamed thereof. it also states clearly that the person responsible for eating from the tree was eve by the temptation of the serpent, who, after eating from it, also gave to her husband, who readily enjoyed it. later the serpent, eve, and adam all were punished by god, which is to be continued and carried by all their progeny on earth.27 it is very much clear that the biblical statements contradict many quranic ayét. the holy qur’én holds both adam and eve responsible for the offense. in the bible, god warns adam and eve that they will surely die if they eat from the forbidden tree. however, this does not come to pass, leading to accusations of falsehood against god himself by the authors of the bible. sayyid mawdudi comments on biblical reports: “it is obvious that the bible has not done justice to adam and eve, nay, even to god himself. on the other hand, the account given in the holy qur'én is itself a clear proof that the stories given in it have not been copied from the bible; for the holy qur'én not only corroborates those parts of the bible which have remained untampered but also corrects its wrong statements.”28 10. ibrahim (‘alaihim as-salém) cast into fire in surah al-anbia’ allah almighty mentions the story of ibrahim (‘alaihim as-salém), his preaching before his nation and nimrod, debate on the issue of divinity, demolishing their idols and finally being cast into the fire and coming out by the mercy of allah almighty safe and unharmed, startling the public. sayyid mawdudi, while dealing with various aspects of ibrahim’s life from a quranic standpoint, also provides detailed quotations from the bible and later from the talmëd. he says: hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 61 “this important event of the life of prophet abraham [i.e. casting into the fire] has found no mention whatever in the bible. in fact, nothing about his life in iraq — his conflict with nimrod, his father and the community at large, his efforts to eradicate idolatry, the incident of his being cast into the fire, which ultimately led to his forced exile from the country—is mentioned anywhere in the bible. the bible merely mentions his migration, and that too, in a manner as if a family was migrating from one country to another in search of livelihood. there is another interesting difference between the qur’én and the bible. according to the qur’én, the father of abraham, who was a mushrik, was foremost in tyrannizing over his son, but the bible is totally silent about the father’s role towards the mission of abraham. the talmëd, however, gives quite a few details about the life of prophet abraham (‘alaihim as-salém) during the period of his stay in `iraq, which is generally the same as given in the qur’én, but there is a glaring discrepancy in some of the important events. in fact, one can clearly feel that the account given in the talmud is full of heterogeneous and hypothetical things, while the one given in the qur’an is most clear and contains nothing unworthy of prophet abraham. this also removes the misunderstanding of those who think that the qur’an has borrowed stories from the bible or jewish literature.”29 mawdëdi has shown clearly that one who reads the quranic ayét besides those in the bible and the talmud with a sound unbiased mind would see the truthfulness of the quranic statements and that the bible could have never been a sourcebook for the holy qur’én. 11. yusuf (‘alaih as-salém) and the lady of egypt the story of yusuf (‘alaih as-salém) is detailed in the holy qur’én, which corrects many of the wrong statements mentioned about him in the bible. while he was under the custody of aziz of egypt, the lady of ‘aziz tried to tempt him to fulfill her desire, which he turned down and resorted to allah for help. surah yusuf tells the story of yusuf, a benefactor of bani isra’il who established them in an honorable position in egypt. but the report of biblical statements is degrading to his nobility and character. sayyid mawdudi quotes from the bible the following: “and she caught him by his garment, saying, lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out. and it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth, that she called unto the men of her house, and spake unto them saying, see, he hath brought in an hebrew unto us to mock us; he came in 62 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … unto me to lie with me, and i cried with a loud voice: and it came to pass, when he heard that i lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me and fled, and got him out. and she laid up his garment by her, until his lord came home… and it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spake unto him, saying, after this manner did thy servant to me; that his wrath was kindled. and joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were bound.”30 after quoting the above statement from the bible, sayyid mawdudi comments as follows: “the clumsy manner of the above version is obvious. it appears that prophet joseph’s garment was so shaped that the whole of it fell into her hands when she tugged it. then he ran away all naked, leaving it with her as if to supply her with clear proof of his own guilt… incidentally, this quranic version of the story is clear proof that it has no copied stories from the israelite traditions as the pseudo-orientalists allege, but has, on the other hand, corrected them and told the real facts to the world.”31 12. the story of sulayman (‘alaih as-salém) allah almighty mentions the story of sulayman (‘alaih assalém) in surah naml (27), verses 16-44, in fair detail. sayyid mawdudi quotes from the biblical literature to show the differences between the holy qur’én and their reports. regarding the story of sulayman (‘alaih as-salém) with the ants and his ability to comprehend their speech mawdudi comments on the biblical reports the following: “this story is also found in the israelite traditions but its latter portion falls against the qur'an as well as against the regal dignity of the prophet solomon. according to it, when the prophet solomon was passing through a valley which abounded in ants, he heard an ant calling out to the other ants to say, “get into your holes, otherwise you will be trampled down by solomon's hosts.” at this, prophet solomon displayed great vanity before the ant to which the ant rejoined, “what are you? the product of a mere sperm-drop!” hearing this the prophet solomon felt greatly ashamed.32 this shows how the qur'an corrects the wrong traditions of the israelites and cleanses the filthy spots with which they had themselves branded the characters of their prophets. it is these traditions about which the western orientalists shamelessly claim that the qur'an has plagiarized them for its narratives.”33 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 63 13. to correct the wrong statements of the bible sayyid mawdudi was quoted from the bible to illustrate many issues and show how the holy qur’én had cleared their prophets from all the filths that they had attributed to their heroes – the prophets. there could hardly be found a prophet of bani isra’il, whose life story was not adulterated by his followers. serious moral and ethical corruption were attributed to their lives, which would make him ashamed and disgraced if attached to a common man. mawdudi shows in practical terms how the holy qur’én has greatly favored bani isra’il and their prophets by clearing them from all serious moral setbacks and degenerations falsely attributed to them. 14. prophet lot (‘alaih as-salém) and his mission prophet lot (‘alaih as-salém) was the nephew of prophet ibrahim (‘alaih as-salém). he left iraq with his uncle and traveled with him over syria, palestine, and egypt to gain experience in message propagation. then allah appointed him as a messenger and sent him to reform the wicked tribe of sodom, called ‘his people’ because he might have had some blood relation with it. sayyid mawdudi directs to a grave flaw in the biblical statements, which characterizes lot’s migration to the plains of jordan to search for fertile land for his cattle. mawdudi says: “it is a pity that in the existing bible, which has been tampered with by the jews, the character of prophet lot has been blemished. besides other things, even his mission to the plains of jordan has been described as a migration to a fertile land after “a strife between the herdsmen of abraham's cattle and the herdsmen of lot's cattle”.34 but the qur’an refutes this allegation and says that lot was appointed a messenger and was sent there in order to reform those people.”35 15. conflict in biblical statements in the commentary of surah baqarah (2) ayah 55 and 56, sayyid mawdudi points to a serious conflict of biblical statement about the meeting of chiefs (naqêb) of bani isra’il with god. when moses received the revelation of allah in mount tor and presented this to the seventy chiefs of bani isra’il, whom he had chosen from the nobles of bani isra’il and brought to mount tur, they refused to accept it as god’s revelation. mawdudi says: “the qur’an says that at that time, some wicked people from among them began to remark to this effect, “how can we believe, on a mere statement of yours, that allah had a talk with you?” allah was very angry with them for their insolence and punished them. but the bible says, “and they 64 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … saw the god of israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. and upon the nobles of the children of israel, he laid not his hand: also they saw god, and did eat and drink”.36 strange though it may appear, the same bible also tells us that moses said, “i beseech thee, shew me thy glory.” but he said, “thou canst not see my face, for no man shall see me, and live.”37 this marks a serious conflict in biblical statements that the general people of bani isra’il were honored by god to dine with them, but while moses appealed for it, he was declined! 16. did allah almighty take rest after the creation of the universe? allah almighty condemns those who refute the possibility of life after death in surah qaf and says: “we created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in six days, and no weariness even touched us. so, (o prophet) endure with patience what they say, and proclaim his purity, along with your lord‘s praise, before sunrise and sunset.38 in the above ayét, allah almighty made it clear that he made the whole universe in six days. without facing any fatigue and weariness, it is definitely much easier for him to reconstruct the universe whenever he wants. sayyid mawdudi points out here an adulteration in the biblical statements and says: in this verse, there is a subtle taunt on the jews and the christians as well, in whose bible, a story has been fabricated about god making the earth and the heavens in six days and resting on the seventh day.39 even though christian priests have revised their urdu translation of the holy bible by replacing the word "rested" with “farigh hua” (ceased from working), indicating their embarrassment over the inaccuracy, yet in king james authorized version of the bible, the words “...and he rested on the seventh day” are still there. the same words are also found in the translation that the jews have published from philadelphia in 1934. in the arabic translation, the words are fa-staraha fi-l-yaum as sabi‘` (then he rested on the seventh day).40 17. prophet sulayman (‘alaih as-salém) and the queen of sheba the story of sulayman is mentioned in surah naml in fair detail. sayyid mawdudi quotes the biblical statements and points out their adulteration of the holy books. while he mentioned the aspects hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 65 that are similar to what is mentioned in the holy qur’én, he also highlights the differences in the following terms: “there is no mention whatsoever in these traditions of the prophet solomon's reply on receipt of the gift, having the queen's throne fetched from ma’rib, his bowing down before god in thankfulness for every favor of his, and the queen's embracing the faith ultimately at his hand, his belief in the oneness of god, etc. and, worst of all, the wicked ones from them have accused prophet solomon of committing adultery, god forbid, with the queen of sheba, giving rise to an illegitimate race, which gave birth to nebuchadnezzar, the king of babylon, who destroyed jerusalem.”41 the bible presenting him only as a king instead of a prophet is part of propaganda; a king who was lost in the love of polytheistic women against the divine commandments, whose heart was turned away from god, and who was turned to other gods and goddesses.42 a person of sound mind could easily see what great favour the holy qur’én done to the isra’ilites by cleansing the personalities of their elders of the filths thrown at them by themselves, and yet the isra’ilites, ungrateful as they are, look upon the holy qur’én and the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) who received it as their enemies. 18. conclusion based on the discussion above, it could be concluded that the judaeo-christian reports shedding some details on the quranic narratives [al-qaîaî]. sometimes, the bible remains silent, but the holy qur’én furnishes important events in the life of some particular prophets (‘alaihim as-salém). naturally, the holy qur’én did not furnish details to the stories. the holy qur’én did not narrate stories for amusement; rather, to derive fundamental lessons from the past prophets (‘alaihim as-salém). indeed, all prophets invited their nations to identical divine guidance. allah almighty confirms it as a concluding remark in surah yousuf and says: surely, in the narratives of these, there is a lesson for the people of understanding. it is not an invented story, rather, a confirmation of what has been before it, and an elaboration of everything, and guidance and mercy for a people who believe.43 there are clear contradictions between the biblical reports and the quranic texts in many issues. a sound-minded reader could easily derive which report should be authentic, which is not, or which 66 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … is fit for the prophets (‘alaihim as-salém) and their personalities, and which are not. the biblical narrations have mentioned some reports about some of their prominent prophets (‘alaihim as-salém) that could baffle a common reader with their strangeness. the beauty and the favor of the holy qur’én on the people of the book that the jewish prophets were freed from such filthy accusations. it is to be noted that the torah, injêl, zabër, and the holy qur’én are all divine revelations; it is a common phenomenon that some similarities would undoubtedly persist. allah almighty has highlighted all important matters of ‘aqêdah, ‘ibédah, risélah or prophethood, day of judgment, history, and noble character in all divine guidance. to get pure divine guidance, an individual should resort only to the message of the holy qur’én today, as it is the only divine book that remains intact, unadulterated, and free from corruption. this guidebook would bring the slaves of allah almighty closer to him, shed divine guidance, and show them the path that will pave the way to eternal blessings and mercy in this world and hereafter. notes and references 1 “tafhim,” aayeen magazine, december 15, 1972, 106. 2 ahmad, khurshid and ansari, zafar ishaq (ed.) islamic perspectives: studies in honour of mawlana sayyid abul a`la mawdudi (leicester: islamic foundation, 1979), 9-10. 3 adam, charles j. “abu’l-a`la mawdudi’s tafhim al-qur’an,” ed. rippin, andrew approaches to the history of the interpretation of the qur’an (oxford: clarendon press, 1988). 4 mir, mustansir, “some features of mawdudi’s tafhim al-qur’an,” american journal of islamic social sciences 2, no. 2 (1985): 233-244. 5 ahmad, khurshid and ansari, zafar ishaq, “mawlana sayyid abul a`la mawdudi: an introduction to his vision of islam and islamic revival” in islamic perspectives (leicester: islamic foundation, 1979), 5-29. 6 turabi, alifuddin, abul a`la al-mawdudi: hayatuhu wa da`watuhu [abul a`la mawdudi: his life and mission] (kuwait: dar al-qalam, 1407ah/1987ac). 7 turabi, alifuddin, al-ustadz abul a`la al-mawdudi wa manhajuhu fi tafsir alqur’an al-karim, [sayyid mawdudi and his methodology in qur’anic interpretation], ma dissertation. (ummul qura university, makkah al-mukarramah, 1404ah). 8 hafiz, giasuddin, “manhaj al-ustadz al-mawdudi fi tafsirihi tafhim al-qur’an” [methodology of ustadz mawdudi in his tafsir tafhim al-qur’an] (chittagong: dirasat al-jami`ah al-islamiyyah al-‘alamiyyah , december, 2005), 15-22. 9 khan, wahiduddin, khata’ fi al-tafsir, [error in tafsir] (beirut: dar al-ilm lilmalayin, 2009). 10 nadwi, abul hassan ‘ali, al-tafsir al-siyasi li al-islam [a political interpretation of islam] (kuwait: dar al-qalam, 1981). 11 abu shuhbah, muhammad, al-isra’iliyyat wa al-mawdu`at fi al-tafsir (cairo: maktabat as-sunnah, n.d.), 13. 12 the holy qur'an, surah 15: ayat 9, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 67 13 ‘abdullah bin salam (d. 43ah): a prominent sahabi [companion] of the prophet, an ex-jewish rabbi from the clan of bani qaynuqa`, one of the ten blessed companions of the prophet who were declared to be from the residents of paradise (sunan tirmidhi: 3804, grade: sahih). he was among the first people who visited the prophet right after the migration of the prophet and had firm faith that the prophet was a true messenger of allah (swt). right after that, he converted to islam. he died in 43ah; shamsuddin muhammad al-dhahabi, siyar a`lam alnubala’ (beirut: mu’wassasat ar-risalah, 1405ah/1985ac), 1/298; raghib alsarjani, al-sirah an-nabawiyyah, al-maktabah al-shamilah, 18/5, https://almaktaba.org/book/32238/215 (accessed on 31 october 2022). 14 ka‘ab al-ahbar (72bh-32ah): a jewish rabbi from yemen, lived for 102 years, converted to islam in the time of abu bakar or ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhumé), lived in madinah in the period of ‘umar and spread the knowledge of torah and the earlier books and narratives: sound, unsound, weak and false, which spread among the muslims. abu hurayrah, ‘abdullah bin ‘abbas, and mu`awiyah (raìi allah ‘anhum) grasped this knowledge from him. he learned ahadith from the companions of the prophet. imam tabari praised him due to his vast knowledge and ibn taymiah. later he moved to homs of sham and died in 32ah, just one year before the shahadah of caliph ‘uthman (r.a.); khairuddin mahmud alzarkali, al-a‘laam (beirut: dar al-‘ilm li al-malayeen, 15th ed. 2002ac), 5/228; muhammad bin jarir tabari, tafsir tabari, surah maryam: 28, 18/187; ibn taymiah, daqa’iq al-tafsir, (damascus: mu’assasat ‘ulum al-qur’an, 1404), 2/282. 15 wahab bin munabbih (34ah-110/114ah): he was from the 3rd generation of tabi‘un from yemen. it was reported that his father accepted islam in the life of the prophet (pbuh) and lived in yemen. wahab bin munabbih was a great scholar of the past divine books and the past nations. he is regarded to be one primary source of isra’ili narrations. he opted for sufism in his later life. imam bukhari, muslim, and all hadith scholars reported ahadith from him. he died in sana‘a of yemen in 110ah, as mentioned by ibn kathir, or 114ah, as quoted by dhahabi; abdur rahman bin khaldun, tarikh ibn khaldun (beirut: dar al-fikr, 1408ah/1988ac), 2/179; abul fida’ isma’il ibn kathir, al-bidayah wa annihayah (beirut: dar ihya’ al-turath al-‘arabi, 1408ah/1988ac), 9/305. 16 the sahih al-bukhari, kitab ahadith al-anbiya: hadith 3461, 4/170, translated by dr muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 17 sahih al-bukhari, kitab tafsir al-qur’an, no. 4485, 6/20. 18 adam, charles j. “abu’l-a`la mawdudi’s tafhim al-qur’an,” in rippin, ed. andrew approaches to the history of the interpretation of the qur’an (new jersey: gorgias pr llc, 2012), 317-318. 19 bible, matthew, chapter 23, verses 37, 38; chapter 24, verse 2; tafhim al-qur’an, vol. 2, surah isra’ (17), note 6. eng. tr. the meaning of the qur’an translated by chowdhry muhammad akbar, islamic publications (pvt) ltd., lahore, 12th edition, 1992. 20 bible, luke, chapter 23, verses 28-30. 21 the holy qur'an, surah 2: ayat 61. 22 bible, mark 6: 17-29; tafhim, vol. 1, surah baqarah (2), note 79. 23 tafhim, surah maryam (19), note 8. bible, luke, 1:5-22. 24 tafhim, vol. 1, surah an‘aam (6), note 55. 25 the talmud, h. polano, p. 87-88; tafhim, vol. 2, yusuf (12), note 42. 26 tafhim, vol. 2, yusuf (12), note 42. 27 bible, genesis, chapter 2, verses 7-25, chapter 3, verses 1-23. 28 tafhim, vol. 3, surah taha (20), note 106. 29 tafhim, vol. 3, surah anbia’ (21), note 66; bible, genesis 11:27-32, 12:1-20, 17:17. 30 genesis, 39: 11-20; tafhim, vol. 2, surah yusuf (12), note 25a. 31 tafhim, vol. 2, surah yusuf (12), note 25a. https://al-maktaba.org/book/32238/215 https://al-maktaba.org/book/32238/215 68 sayyid mawdudi’s approach … 32 jewish encyclopedia, (michigan, livonia: the kopelman foundation, 2002-2021) vol. xi, p. 440. available online at (accessed on 31 october 2022), https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13842-solomon. 33 tafhim, vol. 3, surah naml (27), note 24. 34 look for details, the bible, genesis 5: 12, 13. 35 tafhim, vol. 2, surah a‘araf (7), note 63. 36 bible, exodus, 24: 10-11. 37 tafhim, vol. 1, surah baqarah (2), note 71; biblical statements see exodus, 33: 1823. 38 the holy qur'an, surah 50: ayat 38-39. 39 bible, genesis: 2: 2. 40 tafhim, vol. 5, surah qaf (50), note 50. 41 tafhim, vol. 3, surah naml (27), note 56; emil g. hirsch, et al. “solomon” jewish encyclopedia, (accessed on 30 october 2022), https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13842-solomon. 42 bible, kings 1, 11: 1-11; tafhim, naml, note 56. 43 the holy qur'an, surah 12: ayat 111. https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13842-solomon https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13842-solomon hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 81 the implementation of communication skills in da‘wah dr. zulkefli aini the national university of malaysia, malaysia e.mail: zulaini@ukm.edu.my dr. abdul ghafar don the national university of malaysia, malaysia e.mail: a.g.don@ukm.edu.my received on: 10-06-21 accepted on: 14-02-22 abstract da‘wah efforts need a particular approach. it is a need for preachers to deliver wisely the message of islam to the people. in this relation, it is important for da‘ê (arabic word for preacher) to have knowledge and skills of doing da‘wah. the present study highlights the application of communication skills in da‘wah to the community. there are three major elements of communication skills that need to be applied in da‘wah by the preacher namely: 1) the ability to deliver the messages clearly, effectively and confidently using oral medium as well as writing, 2) the ability to listen and respond actively, and 3) the ability to deliver clearly with confidence in accordance with the level of thinking of audience. in addition, these three major elements are discussed within the context of uṣūl al-da‘wah (the principles of islamic da‘wah) namely uslëb, manhaj, wasīlah and qaw‘id al-da‘wah developed by al-bayānūnī and hamām sa‘īd. this study is a qualitative research using content analysis research design. the data and findings presented in this paper come from secondary sources of information such as books, journals, thesis and dissertations and proceeding papers related to the subject. thematic analysis was used in this study which emphasized identifying, analysing and interpreting patterns of these within qualitative data. several recommendations based on the conceptual study are made in order to meet the needs of da‘wah to the society. they are: i) muslim preachers should integrate significantly mailto:a.g.don@ukm.edu.my 82 the implementation of communication … the basic principles of islamic da‘wah with contemporary communication skills, ii) they should comprehend topics of da‘wah in accordance with current situation in order to attract people accepting the message of da‘wah and iii) they should approach audience as their target group of da‘wah based using psychological and communication skills. the study found that muslim preacher needs to apply three aspects of communication while dealing with the people. the first is the ability to express and deliver the islamic messages clearly, confidently and effectively. the second is the ability to apply active listening skill and also capable of giving appropriate response. the third is the ability to do a presentation with a clear and confident suitable with the level of the target group. keywords: da‘wah, communication, soft skills, community, muslim preacher, al-íikmah 1. introduction the effectiveness of the da‘wah workers in undertaking their task is the main factor in determining the success of da‘wah. da‘wah workers whom undertakes the work of da‘wah, or da‘ê in arabic, have mental toughness, physical as well as spiritual strengths, besides possessing knowledge about how to form and diversify the methods as well as the approaches of their da‘wah based on the diversity of their targets, are considered successful missionaries. the word da‘wah originates from arabic language meaning summon, call and invitation1. da‘wah according to abd al-karim zaydan means the call to allah almigty2 . the definition outlined by zaydan is in line with the statement of the holy qur’én on surah yusuf, verse 108. moreover, muhammad al-ghazali defines da‘wah as a comprehensive programme which consists of all required knowledge in its folds that people are in need of them, so they understand the purpose of their life, and discover the milestones that make them guided human beings3. based on these definitions, it can be summed up that da‘wah calls people to the course of allah almighty in order to attain well-being in this worldly life and hereafter. in addition to that, da‘wah from the etymological perspective means to call or invite people to one objective or matter. da‘wah may also be specifically referred to as the call to truth, act on commands, avoid what is prohibited in order to attain happiness now and future as can be found in what allah the almighty says in surah yunus verse 25, where we can see that da‘wah is also a form of obligation. allah the almighty says: “allah almighty invites (people) to the abode of peace and brings whom he wills to a straight path4”. according to al-bayānūnī, the work of hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 83 da‘wah is focused on calling others in the religion, worship, and offering love to god. da‘wah work is also an effort that requires the strife of energy, intellect and material in order to be able to achieve a specific objective5. it calls for determination on the part of da‘wah workers to engage the target audience by using a particular method or approach. in the context of science of da‘wah, it refers to a number of methods and theories on how to relay the messages of islam to humanity, teaching and practicing them. in other words, science of da‘wah is a combination of theories and practice in order to ensure da‘wah can be carried out using to the right methods and strategies. da‘wah work, however, is not an easy task because it is a matter of changing the belief and understanding of a human being6. this is an agreement with the meaning of da‘wah proposed by al-bahi al-khawli that the da‘wah movement attempts to lift a person out from one environment and put him into another7.this is in line with the view presented by abdul ghafar who stated that da‘wah work requires da‘wah workers who are committed to carry out the effort full time and this is not an easy task8. this is due to the fact that da‘wah workers must engage with the target group from all kinds of backgrounds, i.e. different beliefs, customs and levels of education and thinking. all these, require for a da‘wah worker who to be wholly prepared in terms of knowledge9. the main challenge in an effective da‘wah work is from the da‘wah workers themselves where the way they present themselves and the approach that they use to interact with the target group play a crucial role. this is an accordance with the best approach that inspired from the holy verse in surah al-nahl verse 125 that focuses on the approach of al-íikmah (inviting people with wisdom), al-maw‘iðah al-íasanah (beautiful preaching or good exhortation) and al-mujédalah bi al-íusnah (arguing with people in the best of manners and most gracious)10. 2. review of literature 2.1. importance of da‘wah öa‘wah is an essential and the mission of all the prophets and messengers of allah almighty as stated in the holy qur’én, surah annahl, verse 36. there are evidences from the holy qur’én and al-hadith of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) which emphasis on the importance of da‘wah. in surah ól ‘imran, verse 104, for example allah almighty command the muslim to do da‘wah by inviting people to alkhayr (islam), amr bi al-ma‘ruf (enjoining the right) and al-nahê ‘an almunkar (forbidding the wrong). in another quranic verse (the holy qur’én, 3:110), the muslims will be considered as the best nation 84 the implementation of communication … (ummah) if they are perform the duty of da‘wah. similarly, the hadith of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) also concerns on the responsibility of propagating islam. in one of his hadith, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is reported to as said11: “convey from me, even if it is one verse.” the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) has also mentioned in another hadith on the importance of doing da‘wah as the following12: “let one who is present (listening) convey to those who are not present” the aforesaid of the quranic verses and hadith of the prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) clearly emphasize on the important of performing da‘wah. the holy qur’én further describes doing da‘wah as the best word and deeds (the holy qur’én, surah fuîîilat, verse 33). based on the evidences of the holy qur’én and hadith of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), it can be concluded that da‘wah is vital and a responsibility of every muslim. therefore, in order bring people to accept islam as well as promoting well-being of humankind both in this worldly life and the life of hereafter, every muslim should preach da‘wah according to their capacity and knowledge they hold. 2.2. the concept of communication skills in da‘wah the process of da‘wah takes place when da‘wah workers communicate with the target group in order to convey the message of da‘wah 13. thus, da‘wah workers must use appopriate form of communication for the target group that is suitable for a communicator in order to influence and persuade the subject of their da‘wah to accept the message of islam stipulated by islamic rules and regulations. in choosing an appropriate form of communication the da‘wah workers have facilitated the understanding of the conveyed message14. da‘wah is not restricted to verbal communication. it can be non-verbal15. non-verbal communication in da‘wah work usually is associated with da‘wah bi alḥal16. verbal communication happens when the da‘wah workers use a specific language to convey the message of da‘wah to the subject through verbal medium such as public speaking, sermon, dialogue and discussion. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 85 this has been stated in the holy qur’én where allah almighty says: “we did not send any messenger but (speaking) in the language of his people, so that he might clearly convey the message to them. so, allah lets go astray whom he wills and lets find guidance whom he wills. and he is the mighty, the wise.”17 according to al-qaraḍāwī18 that this quranic verse does not only mention the type and medium of language of the communicator such as english and german, it focusses on the function and role of language in verbal communication. as an example, when a person communicates with the public they tend to use the colloquial language to suit the subject’s level of thinking. in an effort to design a verbal communication guideline, zulkefli and s. salahudin proposed for the following to be taken as a procedure in verbal communications. the topic of conversation between the communicator and the subject should be about something good and beneficial. the communicator shoud refrain from saying things that are not beneficial. they are truthful in their words. they do not expose other people’s weaknesses. they do not say bad things and look down upon others. they observe the ethics such as tolerance and forgiveness, when they disagree with others19. da‘wah communication by using bi al-íal approach refers to the da‘wah workers’ effort to communicate with the subject by using an approach that is oriented towards expanding and developing a specific sector of the community such as economy and education. in this type of communication, the da‘wah is conveyed in a silent manner by doing good deeds in the form of community activities and development until they are capable of influencing the target group. this method is more effective compared to conveying the message verbally, for example through talks and speeches. da‘wah workers act as an agent of change for the community in order to help them improve their quality of life in areas such as economy. mohd. yusof asserted that among the roles and functions of da‘wah workers are to help the community to identify their needs, to get the support from the leader and members of community in carrying out community development project, to provide the necessary expertise to the members of the community, to motivate community members, to be their source of reference in ensuring that the project is properly implemented and to evaluate the planned or the project being implemented20. related word for skill is maharah in arabic21. gergers defined skill as one’s capability to do something based on experience and continuous learning in order to solve certain problems, produce useful information, facilitate others by providing helps using certain techniques22. the 86 the implementation of communication … ministry of higher education of malaysia defined skill as the soft skills related to non-academic cognitive elements such as positive values, leadership, team work, communication and life-long learning23. meanwhile, vasantha kumari defines soft skills as a cluster of personal qualities, habits, attitudes, and social graces that make someone a good employee and compatible to work with24. sally, ramlee and alhamzah, on the other hand, argued that soft skills consist of six basic elements namely basic skills, skills related to human values, skills related to thinking capacity, skills related to human personality, skills related to business, and skills related to society engagement25. therefore, it can be concluded that the term soft skills, which is also known as process skills, generic attributes or transferable skills, do not have a single definition. the general descriptions of these skills include communication skills, life-long learning, team work, leadership, creative and critical thinking skills. communication skills refers to one’s ability to clearly deliver an idea in an effective and confident manner both in writing or oral presentation, to be an active and a good listener and give a good feedback, to confidently give a good presentation26. therefore, this article will discuss the manner which da‘wah workers can apply their communication skills in doing da‘wah. figure 1 presents the conceptual framework of the skill: figure 1: conceptual framework of da‘wah workers’ communication skills s o ft s k il ls c o m m u n ic a ti o n a sp ec t the ability to communicate ideas calmly, effectively and with great confidence, oral or written the ability to practice active listening and to give response the ability to do a presentation clearly and confidently which suits listeners' level of understanding da‘wah communication : uslëb, manhaj, wasêlah, qawa‘id al da‘wah sources: al-bayānūnī (1995; sa‘īd (2011); al-‘amūsy (2005) sources: mohe 2006 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 87 3. methodology this study is a qualitative research using content analysis research design. the data and findings presented in this paper come from secondary sources of information. the information was gathered using document analysis from literature books, journals, thesis and dissertations, proceeding papers, and magazines related to the subject. thematic analysis was used in this study which emphasized identifying, analysing and interpreting patterns of these within qualitative data. 4. result and discussion da‘wah communication is synonymous with islamic communication. zulkefli and s. salahuddin suggest that the concept of islamic communication as a process to disseminate or relay message and information using communication principles and methods as outlined in the holy qur’én and al-hadith27. in the context of da‘wah, the communication process that takes place involves the dissemination of information related to islam in order to influence the da‘wah target or mad‘ū so that they will accept the faith, have the knowledge, and practice the teachings of islam, disseminate and defend the truth of the teachings. meanwhile rizki et al. suggests that the scope of da‘wah communication is focused on an effective and organized da‘wah effort in order to achieve a specific goal suitable with the target group and the da‘wah limited worker’s ability28. the result of the communication process that takes place is seen from the wisdom in combining the theoretical aspect, implementation, and evaluation of the da‘wah effort carried out by the da‘wah workers. the following are three aspects of communication skills that need to be comprehended by the preachers: 1. the ability of a da‘wah worker to express an idea, relay the da‘wah message to the mad‘ū made up of people in the most elucid, effective and confident manner through a certain medium either spoken or written. allah almighty says in surah yusuf verse 108 translated as follows: “say you: "this is my way: i do invite unto allah almighty – on evidence clear as the seeing with one’s eyes – i and whoever follows me. glory to allah almighty! and never will i join gods with allah almighty”29 the word “baîīrah” in this verse according to ibn kathir means clear or precise argument by means of sure knowledge and firm evidence, so that that make noble people who seek it able to differentiate between the truth (al-íaqq) and falsehood (al-baïil)30. thus it indicates that for a da‘wah worker who wants to carry out the da‘wah work using either the 88 the implementation of communication … spoken or written communication medium must state the da‘wah message in a clear and precise manner based on sure knowledge and firm evidence31. the message brought does not cause confusion among the mad‘ū. this is precisely in line with the definition of da‘wah from science of da‘wah or ‘ilm alda‘wah that is discussed by the scholars who specialized in the area of da‘wah. the discussion about da‘wah as an offshoot in islamic studies discipline makes it possible to translate the word “baîīrah” as found in verse 108 of surah yusuf. ghalwash on the other hand, emphasizes on science of da‘wah that tackles the aspect of delivery (al-nashr) which requires for certain skills so that the da‘wah message on ‘aqīdah, sharê‘ah and akhlāq can be delivered to the mad‘ū successfully32. in the context of da‘wah, the mastery in delivering the message is defined and refers the aspects of wasīlaí (approach) and uslūb da‘wah (conveying of contents with specific methods). the definition of science of da‘wah also takes into consideration what one understands of the message from verse 125 of surah al-nahl that outlines three main asélêb (methodologies) in carrying out da‘wah work namely al-íikmah (inviting people with wisdom), al-maw‘iðah alíasanah (beautiful preaching or good exhortation) and al-mujédalah bi al-íusna (arguing with people in the best of manners and most gracious). based on these uslūb, science of da‘wah is connected to the usage of the uslūb in an accurate and fair manner with the objective to convince the audience of the da‘wah. it is closely related to the people targeted for the da‘wah, i.e. the recipient message in the process of da‘wah. therefore, understanding the target audience of da‘wah is crucially important so that the da‘wah process can take place in an orderly manner and the message to be relayed can be understood well. in communication process the target audience of da‘wah is the recipients who are the target of a message and these recipients are made up of individuals, small groups, an organization or a group of people. thus, the question about mad‘ū is usually grouped into several categories such as gender, age group, religious belief, religious practice and social as well as economic status33. da‘wah workers need to identify these classifications because the mad‘ū who become the recipients of the da‘wah message relayed through communication medium come from various backgrounds. the interpretations of the message received by the recipients are varied according to their ways of thinking and understanding34 in the context of da‘wah in the field, the da‘wah workers must first identify which group of people that has the potential to be the recipients of the da‘wah message as there are different background of people in the society. therefore, in delivering da‘wah the preachers must learn and understand the backgrounds of the people like their languages, cultures, hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 89 religion or beliefs35. in terms of communication, specific communication skills can be utilized to understand the target audience’s culture, practices, taboo and language or dialect which in turn can close the communication gap between the da‘wah workers and the mad‘ū36. this will also ease the task of the da‘wah workers to explain the da‘wah message clearly according to the da‘wah topic. thus, they make full use of the knowledge about the languages and dialects of the people in order to be able to approach them. it is very clear when the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) took care of those differences in his mission in terms of several conditions based on (1) commandments variation according to people variation (2) differing in his rulings and questions' answering according to the submitted cases, (3) different attitudes and behaviours depending on the people who deal with, (4) variation of orders and assignments to his followers according to their personal differences and abilities, and (5) acceptance of some individuals to an event or behaviour may not be acceptable to the other individuals regarding their different circumstances37 the following two of ahédêth indicate such condition: 1. ubaidillah ibn abdillah narrates: a bedouin once urinated in the mosque. the companions noticing him shouted at him in rebuke. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: ‘leave him and wash away the urine with a bucket of water, for verily you have been sent to make things way for people and not to make behind him. while the prayer was taking place the bedouin said: o allah almighty! have mercy on me and muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and not on anyone other than us’ when the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) finished leading the prayer he turned around to the bedouin and said: ‘you have constricted the abundant”38. ibn hajr al-‘asqalani writes in his commentary of the above hadith, in his great fatí al-béri, that muslim must be gentleness with an ignorant person and to teach him what is necessary without any harshness since that which he did is not out of willful disobedience39. 2. abu umamah al-bahili related that a young man came to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and said: “o messenger of allah almighty, give me leave to fornicate (to commit zina)”. the companions quickly surrounded him and began to chide him, warning from speaking in such a 90 the implementation of communication … way. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “let him come close”. the youth came near the messenger of allah almighty and sat down. the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) spoke to him saying: “do you wish the same for your mother? the youth said: “no! by allah almighty, o messenger of allah almighty, may allah almighty make me your ransom.” “nor do people wish the same it for their mothers”, said the prophets (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam). “do you wish the same for your daughter?” asked the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). “no! by allah, o messenger of allah, may allah make me your ransom”, replied the youth. “nor do people wish it for their daughters”, said the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam). “do you wish the same for your sister?” asked the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). the youth replied again” no! by allah almighty, o messenger of allah almighty, may allah almighty make me your ransom”. “nor do people wish it for their sisters”. said the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). “do you wish the same for your paternal aunt?” asked the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). “no! by allah almighty, o messenger of allah almighty, may almighty allah make me your ransom”. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “nor do people wish it for their paternal aunts”. then the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) asked: “do you wish the same for your maternal aunt?” “no! by allah, o messenger of allah almighty, may allah almighty make me your ransom”, said the youth. the prophets (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “nor do people wish it for their maternal aunts.” then the messenger of allah almighty placed his hand on him and prayed: “o allah almighty, forgive his sin, purify his heart and help him preserve his chastity”. the narrator of this al-hadith says thereafter the youth was never again distracted by such thoughts through the blessings of the messenger of allah’s supplication40. the da‘wah workers can also communicate with the mad‘ū orally. this approach is also known as alda‘wah bi al-lisān. this type of communication involves a kind of da‘wah delivery process from the source of the message (i.e. the da‘wah workers) and the recipient of the message (i.e. the mad‘ū) who are the orang asli by using certain language medium via certain oral communication channel such as lecture, dialogue, briefing, discussion etc. this method of delivering the da‘wah hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 91 is also the sunnah of the prophets who were allah’s messengers sent to their respective peoples as mentioned in surah ibrahim verse 4 where allah almighty says: “we sent not a messenger except (to teach) in the language of his (own) people, in order to make (things) clear to them. now allah almighty leaves straying those whom he pleases and guides whom he pleases: and he is exalted in power, full of wisdom.” according to ibn kathêr that verse indicates that allah almighty is kind and compassionate with his creation by sending his messengers to them from them and speaking their language41. meaning that, every prophet was sent with the language of his people, so that they are able to understand the message that the messengers were sent with. in this case, al-shawkéni argues that the addressee will easily understand what the prophet says because their ability speak in the people language. if the prophet do not able to speak and communicate with the language of his people, they do not know what he is saying and even do not understand what is addressing them with until they learn that language for a long time42. this is very important to make clear to them what allah almighty commanded them to implement the sharê‘ah that he legislated for them. al-qaraḍāwī, on the other hand, when commenting about the above verse, says that that the word “lisān” does not only refer to meaning and language spoken by an individual according to the specific geographical areas such as english, german and russian but more to the accurate language usage that suits the individual’s (the person whom we speak to) level of iq and his or her status in the society43. this refers to the function of language in oral communication. as a result, da‘wah workers while delivering da‘wah message must choose a suitable language skill when communicating with people. da‘wah worker must show a good character while dealing with the target of da‘wah. in addition, da‘wah workers must ensure that the topic of conversation between him or her and the target of da‘wah (mad‘ū) must be about something that leads to a positive aspects. the da‘wah worker must avoid from talking about something that has no advantage, must not lie throughout the conversation, must not disclose other people’s weaknesses or anything that is embarrassing to anybody, must not mock and belittle other people and must always observe the right conduct when exchanging arguments44. communication approach through written medium should also be utilized by the da‘wah workers in disseminating the da‘wah message to the community. references used are usually booklets that contain basic religious knowledge such as basic farì ‘ayn or fundamental teaching in 92 the implementation of communication … islam45. the messages of da‘wah should contain materials which are suitable to various sectors of the society. therefore, asmadi abd rahman and ramlan mustapha have recommended that a more effective method should be established to raise the understanding of islam among the people. this includes the type of book of reference in teaching and learning process46. in this case, the wisdom of a da‘wah workers to guide and teach the people are vital. this statement is in line with albayānūnī’s opinion that is by saying that uslūb al-íikmah (wisdom and excellent approach of da‘wah) gives focus on the principle of taqdīm alaham ‘ala al-muhim, that is prioritizing something that is of utmost importance compared to other important things according to the science of priority jurisprudence (fiqh al-awwaliyyāt) in determining the success of da‘wah 47. charles osgood says that communication happens when a system or a source tries to influence another system or its target, and this is done by manipulating a few symbols that can be transmitted through the medium that connects them. when this is connected to da‘wah, the missionary can influence the mad‘ë to accept and be convinced by the da‘wah message delivered using the psychological approach until they can follow the message willingly48. as a result of this, when da‘wah workers possess effective communication skills, they fulfill the concept of persuasion in their communication and they are able to highlight the change-of-attitude element (internal element) and physical behaviour (external element) on the part of the recipients of the message49. in addition to that, persuasion ends when the recipients understand and adhere to the content of the message, and this is as a result of the effort taken by the da‘wah workers. among the practical methods in the field is the method of al-ta’līf qabl al-ta‘rīf that is an effort to attract and soften the hearts of the target audience before introducing the general concepts of the islamic teachings. this method is effective for da‘wah worker who communicate in a da‘wah bi al-ḥāl (conducting da‘wah work through development programs and preaching islam through the action or behaviour)50. an example of da‘wah bi al-hal that implemented at the period of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is based on al-hadith narrated by muslim ibn al-×ajjaj that the companion of the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) namely jābir ibn ‘abdullāh reported that the messenger of allah almighty never said: "no" to anyone who asked him for something. anas ibn mālik (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported: never was the messenger of allah almighty (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) asked for anything by someone who was about to accept islam but that he gave it to them. a man came to him and asked for alms, so he gave him a number of sheep (so large that they filled the space) between two mountains. so the man returned to his people and told them: “o my hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 93 people, embrace islam, for muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) gives lavishly like someone who does not fear any poverty.” some people would embrace islam only for worldly gains, but islam soon became dearer to them than the whole world and all what is in it. suleiman, aini and ismail, for example, highlight the da‘wah efforts carried out by the da‘wah workers from the department of islamic religious affairs negeri sembilan malaysia, who use the approach of da‘wah bi al-ḥāl when carrying da‘wah work to the orang asli at the state of negeri sembilan malaysia. among the activities that carried out are social visits, sports events, feasts and solidarity work. the interaction between the missionaries and the orang asli through these activities strengthen the relationship and bridge the communication gap between them51. the approach used is more friendly and congenial rather than hostile and harsh that drives the target audience away. this is because the approach that is not based on love and affection can widen the communication gap between the two sides as reminded by allah almighty in surah ᾱl ‘imrān verse 159. that effort, however, must be in accordance with what allah almighty has outlined, and he states it clearly in surah al-anfāl verse 63. allah almighty says in the holy qur’én that “and he has united their (believers) hearts. if you had spent all that is in the earth, you could not have united their hearts, but allah almighty has united them. certainly he is allmighty, all-wise” (al-anfal: 63). according to wahbah al-zuhayli52 this verse make us clear that allah almighty made the believers one united nation by guiding them with the true faith. it is impossible to human kind to unite their heart and hand to hand moving together or forgetting any fight between them by gathering material thing all over the world material and spending them without having almighty allah’s guidance. it also the same for al-taysīr lā al-ta‘sīr approach, as it is also an effort to ease, not to burden, and the da‘wah workers can use it as a guide when communicating with the target group. while communicating, da‘wah workers must speak using language that is easy to understand and suit their level of understanding, whilst not proposing ideas which they have difficulty to digest. in line with that, nur damia finds that orang asli (indigenous people in malaysia) for example, prefer da‘wah workers who explain about the religious teachings using visual language although it is a challenge on the part of the da‘wah workers especially when it comes to explaining about matters concerning ‘aqīdah which is mainly a 94 the implementation of communication … matter of sam‘iyyāt (islamic teaching especially in the theology, such as angles, paradise and hell, that cannot be described by human senses and can be only known through the holy qur’én and al-hadith)53. 2. the da‘wah workers has the ability to apply active listening skill and capable of giving appropriate response. a good communication between the source and the recipient starts with the listening. this means that communication is not just sharing of ideas and thoughts between the source and the recipient but it also involves the way how to listen to the ideas. thus, humans should listen more than they should speak. one’s mastery of the listening skills makes listening a crucial skill in a communication process because 80% of humans find it necessary for them to communicate only after listening to messages sent. because of that, in order to become a good communicator, one has to be a good listener54. through the listening activities, the process of giving feedback takes place either through verbal or other means. a da‘wah worker needs to be a good listener when communicating with the orang asli. in verse 18 of surah al-zumar, allah almighty compliments those who listen and pay attention to what others have to say. according to danial zainal abidin among the qualities of a good listener are55: 1. those who listen intently when others are speaking and never cutting in or interrupting. 2. those who understand the message relayed. 3. those who recall facts presented. 4. those who ask in order to get clarification. 5. those who avoid confrontations when discussing. 6. those who pay attention and show interest in what people are saying. 7. those who can just ignore the elements that can disrupt the communication process when the communication is in progress. based on these qualities, da‘wah workers must possess high level of patience when interacting with the mad‘ū. even though what is said by the mad‘ū might invite some unpleasant consequences where missionaries must not let themselves having negative thoughts about them. this is because the mad‘ū have an exclusive position according to zaydān who says that the right of the mad‘ū is to be approached, not approaching or in arabic known as ya‘tī, wa lā yu‘tā. therefore, da‘wah workers must entertain every question asked even though is so basic and simplistic in their mind56. communication interruptions such as level of hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 95 iq and language usage which are not the same between the preachers and mad‘ū do not stop the da‘wah workers to entertain the questions posed. it is clear when the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) gave different advice to different individuals, who asked for them, depending on their character. there were many people asked the prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) to give them advice whether limited or unlimited that would bring them closer to paradise and keep them away from the hell-fire. he gave them different answers. to same he said “you should worship allah almighty, associating nothing with him, you should perform the prayers, pay the zakah regularly, and keep good relations with relatives”, and to others he said “fear allah almighty wherever you are, and follow up a bad deed with a good one and it will wipe it out, and behave well towards people”, to others he said “say: i believe in allah, and thereafter be upright” these prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) answers firmly indicates that he took into consideration the condition of the people seeking the advice, and gave each of them what he needed most. he communicated with them rightly based on their background in terms of level of their thinking and so on. similarly, he dealt with the questioners the same way a doctor would deal with his patients, giving each the kind of medicine he needs most. during communication with the people through the mediums of lecture, talk, dialogue and others, da‘wah workers do not only receive feedback from the audience about the da‘wah message they deliver, but they also have to respond to the questions posed by them. in the communication process, feedback refers to the reaction of the recipient towards the message relayed by the source57. this process of communication actually suits the ‘dialogue model’ that focuses on the process of communication that requires the speaker and listener to act together actively in forming the meaning58. in this process too, the speech and conversation are the communication pattern that requires the same assumption between the speaker and the recipient so that an understanding can be achieved. they further added that this theory is suitable to be used when the missionaries are delivering an impromptu message to the mad‘ū, without a careful preparation, but with the objective to send a message that is light and simple for the mad‘ū to understand59. the message delivered can be weaved together with the entertainment elements like nasyid (a song with islamic elements sung in a group), humor element as well as the story-telling element. 3. the da‘wah workers have the ability to do a presentation that is clear and confident suitable with the level of the audience. 96 the implementation of communication … da‘wah workers who present certain religious messages to the da‘wah target who follow the religious classes that are conducted, use certain strategies based on the objective of the presentation. according to zulkefli and s. salahuddin, before giving a speech, a da‘wah worker must in the first place determine the type of speech he or she wants to make. in relation to that, the da‘wah worker must know the objective of the da‘wah speech to be delivered60: 1. a speech to consolidate the attitude and belief of the audience, or 2. a speech to change the attitude and belief of the audience, or 3. a speech to motivate the audience to do something or take a certain action, or in other words to influence their behaviour. the first objective can be used when the da‘wah workers want to convey religious teaching to the people who have a positive idea and attitude towards the real islam. that is why when they hear the explanation and presentation of the preachers, their belief and faith increase. this is probably because the people who have been approached have long reverted to islam and are eager to learn about and practice the religion. so, because of this they are able to resist the temptations or distractions from those who try to persuade them to leave and abandon the belief that they have held on to. one of the elements that always try to lure them is the da‘wah of other religions. based on these criteria, the da‘wah workers can turn these reverts into da‘wah cadre who will do da‘wah work to their own people. da‘wah workers can use certain strategies to convey the da‘wah message if the second objective is considered. this is useful when doing da‘wah work to the people who have not yet converted to islam. this is because they have not yet grasped the islamic worldview that they have come into contact with and thus they have skewed understanding about it. therefore, the da‘wah workers can explain to them the accurate version of it with full and clear explanation. it was reported on the authority of a man from “khath‘am” (the name of an arab tribe), who said “i come to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) while he was sitting among a group of his companions. i said: “you are the one who claims to be the messengers of allah almighty? he said: “yes”. i said: “o messenger of allah almighty, which deed is the most beloved to allah almighty?” he said: “belief in allah almighty”. i said: “o messenger of allah almighty what next?” he said “keeping good relations with your kinship”. i said: “o messenger of allah almighty what next?” he said: “then enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong61” hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 97 the presentation of the da‘wah workers message must suit the level of thinking of the mad‘ë. thus, it is crucial to identify their thinking level by looking at their level of education, exposure to progress and development, social-economic status and others. in the context of a discipline of communication, da‘wah workers must take into consideration the topical framework and the scope of experience and knowledge that can be shared together with the people or da‘wah target62. it also involves a collective style and method of thinking that is seen from the level of economy, social status, and the language medium used. the wisdom of the da‘wah workers to coordinate the same reference framework with the people is in line with the da‘wah method called mukhātab al-nās ‘alā qadr ‘uqūlihim, or “talk to people according to their level of thinking”63. if a da‘wah workers communicates with the people without taking into consideration their level of thinking through the same reference framework and a suitable communication medium, there will be disruptions in the process of communication. this is in line with the statement of ‘abdullah bin mas‘ud (raìi allah ‘anhu) as narrated by ‘ubaidullah bin ‘abullah bin ‘utbah that says (meaning) “you will never narrate a hadith to the people that beyond their grasp, except that will be a source of fitnah (confusion) for some them64”. 5. conclusion da‘wah needs certain skills and approaches that can influence mad‘ë (those of called). communications skills considered as an important da‘wah approaches which should be possessed and implemented by muslim preachers. therefore, in elucidating the messages of islam, da‘wah workers must communicate with the people using various media and strategies. this requires them to master an effective communication skills so the message of islam can be propagated clearly and effectively. the failure to apply effective communication skills will cause the islamic message about cannot be transferred well to the intended audience. a meaningful interaction between the da‘wah workers and the people can take place through a process of communicating even though it might happen in an informal and casual situation. by combining the da‘wah principles with the communication elements, a meaningful interaction between the two parties (preachers and people or societies) can be fully realized. this is partly, due to the communication skills are the basic requirement for the attainment of other skills. communication skills are part of the nature of any person who does not want to live in isolated. this study found that there are three major elements in da‘wah skills need to be implemented in the field by da‘wah workers namely: i) the ability to communicate ideas calmly, effectively and with great 98 the implementation of communication … confidence, in form of verbal or written ii) the ability to practice active listening and to give response wisely iii) the ability to present the message clearly and confidently by considering listeners’ level of understanding. it is therefore can be summed up that the aspect of communication can be enhanced through specific trainings in ensuring the communication process takes place in an organized manner and it is hoped that positive effects can be achieved. thus, da‘wah workers must equip themselves with the effective communication skills in order to achieve their da‘wah objectives to bring people to surrender to allah almighty. 6. acknowledgement this paper is part of a research funded by the ministry of higher education malaysia under the fundamental research grant scheme (frgs), project code:frgs/1/2021/ss03/ukm/02/2. notes and references: 1 ibn manẓūr, lisān al-‘arab (beirut: dar ihya turath arabiy, 1997), 261. 2abd al-karim zaydan, usël al-da‘wah (indonesia: media dakwah, 1982), 10 3muhammad al-ghazali, dirāsāt fī al-da‘wah wa-al-duʻāʼ(al-manāmah : bayt al-qurʼān, 1997), 13. 4the meanings of the noble qur’ān (10:25), translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktabah maariful qur’én, 2010). 5 muhammad abu al-fath bayanuni, madkhal ilé ‘ilm al-da‘wah (beirut: mu’assah al-risālah, 1995), 7. 6 fariza md sham and aisyah jamian, “quality of life and the psychological need of orang asli”, in empowerment and improvement of the well-being of orang asli in malaysia, ed. aniza ismail, abdul ghafar don and zulkefli aini (bangi: ukm press, 2020), 43-45. 7al-bahī khūlī, tadhkirat al-duʻāh (miṣr : dār al-kitāb al-ʻarabī, 1952), 25. 8 abdul ghafar don, the prophet muhammad qur’anic method of da’wah (shah alam: uitm press, 2018), 92. 9abd allāh ʻalwān, hādhihi al-daʻwah-mā ṭabīʻatuhā (beirut: dār al-salām, 1985), 43. 10abdul ghafar don, the prophet muhammad qur’anic method of da’wah), 93. 11muhammad bin isma‘il al-bukhari, al-jami‘ al-saíií (kaherah: maktabah alsalafiyyah, 2003), hadith.104. 12 muhammad bin `isa al-tirmidhi, al-jami‘ al-kabir, (beirut: dar al-gharb alislami,1996) hadith.2669. 13 zulkefli aini s.salahudin suyurno, and rosmawati ohamad rasit dakwah communication, (bangi: ukm press, 2020), 35-36. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 99 14 sofia hayati yusoff, “western and islamic communication model: a comparative analysis on a theory application,”al-‘abqari, no. 7, (may 2016): 8-9. 15 waizul qarni, mohd. syahnan, isnaini harahap, sahkholid nasution and rahmah fithriani, verbal and norverbal factors influencing the success of da‘wah communication by ustadz abdul somad. the second annual international conference on language and literature and social science, (https://www.doi 10.18502/kss.v3i19.4906, 2019), 806. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334846662_verbal_and_nonverbal_ factors_influencing_the_success_of_da‘wah_communication_by_ustadz_a bdul_somad. (last accessed on january 2,2022) 16 zulkefli aini and nur damia husna nor sad, “types of da‘wah communication used by da‘wah workers in conveying the message of islam to the aboriginals,” the online journal of science and technology125, no. 2 (2018): 135. 17the meanings of the noble qur’ān (14:4), translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktabah ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 18yusuf al-qaradawi, fī al-daʻwah ilā allāh (al-qahirah: maktabah wahbah, 2011), 13. 19 zulkefli and s.salahudin, dakwah communication, 41. 20 mohd yusof hussain, “the concept and functions of da‘wah bi al-hal,” in readings in islamic da‘wah, ed. mohd yusof hussain, (kuala lumpur: iium press), 288. 21ruhi al-ba‘labaki,al-mawrid qāmus arabiy-ingliziy (beirut: dār al-‘ilm li almalayin, 2003), 521. 22 gergers micheal gergers, mu‘jam mustalahat al-tarbiyah wa-al-ta‘lim (beirut: dar al-nahdah al-arabiyah, 2005), 3. 23 the ministry of education malaysia, skills development module of soft skills for institutions of higher learning, (serdang: universiti putra malaysia, 2006), 7.https://www.academia.edu/33869745/modul_pembangunan_kema hiran_insaniah_soft_skills_untuk_ipt_malaysia.(last accessed on january 1, 2022) 24vasanthakumari sundararajan, “soft skills and its application in work place,”world journal of advanced research and reviews 3, no. 2 (2019): 67. 25 sally saad fadhil, ramlee ismail and alhamzah alnoor, “the influence of soft skills on employability: a case study on technology industry sector in malaysia,” interdisciplinary journal of information, knowledge, and management 16 (2021): 257-258. 26 chang peng kee, fauziah ahmad, and faridah ibrahim, “the relationship between under graduate soft skills and dimension of organization-public relation”, jurnal personalia pelajarno. 14, (2018): 24-25. 27 zulkefli aini. s.salahuddin, dakwah communication, 5-6. 28 rizki briandana, caturida meiwanto doktoralina, shahir akram hassan and wan norhaniza wan hasan, “da‘wah communication and social media: the interpretation of millennials in southeast asia”, international journal of economics and business administration8special issue 1, (2020): 216-217. https://www.academia.edu/33869745/modul_pembangunan_kemahiran_insaniah_soft_skills_untuk_ipt_malaysia https://www.academia.edu/33869745/modul_pembangunan_kemahiran_insaniah_soft_skills_untuk_ipt_malaysia 100 the implementation of communication … 29the meanings of the noble qur’ān (12:108), translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktabah ma’ariful quran, 2010). 30 isma‘il bin ‘umar bin kathir, tafsir al-qur’én al-‘azim (beyrut: dar ibn hazam, 2000), 998; see also al-shawkani, muhammad bin ‘ali bin muhammad, fatí al-qadêr, volume 3, no 3 (beirut: dar al-kalim al-tayyib), 71. 31al-shahrānī, muḥammad bin sa‘ad baqnah, “‘ilm al-da‘wah ilā allāh ta‘ālā ×aqīqatuh wa ahammiyatuh: dirāsah ta’ṣīliah” (master thesis, universiti umm al-qura makkah saudi arabia, 2012), 58. 32aḥmad aḥmad ghalwash, al-daʻwah al-islāmīyah : uṣūluhā wa-wasāʼiluhā (beirut: al-shirkah al-ʻālamīyah lil-kitāb, 1987), 10. 33 al-‘amūsy, bassam, fiqh al-da‘wah, (jordan: dār al-nafā’is, 2005), 13. 34 zulkefli aini, s.salahudin suyurno and rosmawati mohamad rasit, dakwah communication, (bangi: universiti kebangsaan malaysia, n.d) 80. 35zulkefli aini, faiz abdul rahim and nur damia husna nor sad, “application of da‘wah communication skills among the orang asli,”in empowerment and improvement of the well-being of orang asli in malaysia, ed. aniza ismail, abdul ghafar don and zulkefli aini (bangi: ukm press, 2020), 105. 36 mohd taufik ahmed and mohd sharifudin yusop, “background linguistics variables in orang asli children’s speech”, international journal of academic research in business and social sciences 9, no. 5 (2020): 1158; mohd haikal zuhairi, mohd roslan rosnon and jamilah shaari, “a systematic review on the mah meri people in malaysia,”international journal of academic research in business and social sciences 10, no. 16 (2020): 90; asmah haji omar, samsur rijal yahya and noor hasnoor mohamad nor, the orang asli of malaysia: a linguistic perspective, (kuala lumpur: university of malaya press, 2018), 4165. 37yusuf alqaradawi, islamic concept of education and economy as seen in the sunnah, (egypt: el-falah, 1998), 6-23; see also abudul fattah abu ghuddah, prophet muhammad – the teacher and his teaching methodologies, (karachi: zam zam publishers, 2010), 50. 38 abd al-razzaq al-san‘ani, al-musannaf, ed. habib al-rahman ala’zami.vol.1, (beirut: al-maktab al-islami, 2008), hadith no. 1657. 39 ibn hajr al-asqalani, fatí al-bari sharí saíêí al-bukhari, ed. ‘abd al-‘aziz bin ‘abdillah bin bazz, muhammad fu‘ad ‘abd al-baqi and muhibb al-din alkhatib, vol.1 (cairo: al-matba’ah al-salafiah wa maktabatuha, 1998), 431. 40al-hafiz nur al-din al-haythami,majma’ al-zawa’id wa manba‘ al-fawa’id, ed. muhammad ‘abd al-qadir ahmad ‘atoa, vol.1, (beirut: dar al-kutub al‘ilmiyyah, 1997), hadith no. 129. 41 isma‘il bin ‘umar bin kathir al-qurasyi al-dimasyqi, tafsir al-qur’én al‘azim (beirut: dar ibn hazam, 2000), 1021. 42muhammad bin ‘ali bin muhammad al-shawkani, fatí al-qadêr, volume 3, 3rd edition (beirut: dar al-kalim al-tayyib, 1998), 112. 43yūsuf qaraḍāwê, fī al-da‘wah ilā allāh, (al-qāhirah: maktabat wahbah, 2011), 15. 44 zulkefli aini and nur damia husna nor sad, “types of da‘wah communication used by da‘wah workers in conveying the message of islam hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 101 to the aboriginals,” the online journal of science and technology 8, no. 2 (2018): 135-136. 45 amal ibrahim abd el-fattah khalil, “the perspective of interpersonal communication,”journal of islamic studies and culture 4, no. 2 (2016): 35. 46 asmadi abd rahman and ramlan mustapha, “implementation of da‘wah programme by muip pahang: orang asli perspective,”journal of educational research and indigenous studies 1, no. 1 (2019): 6-7. 47muḥammad abū al-fatḥ bayānūni, al-madkhal ila ‘ilm al-da‘wah, (bayrūt : muʼassasat al-risālah, 1991), 247. 48 zulkefli aini, s.salahudin suyurno and rosmawati mohamad rasit, dakwah communication, (bangi: universiti kebangsaan malaysia, n.d), 224. 49 anton prasetyo, “the persuasive da‘wah communication of kh asyhari marzuqi and its implications in modern life,”jurnal informasi 49, no.1 (2019): 13. 50 mukti ali and saipullah hasan, “da‘wah bi al-hal in empowering campusassisted community through waste bank management,”‘ilmu dakwah: academic journal for humiletic studies 3, no. 2 (2019): 205; mohd yusof hussain, the concept and functions of da‘wah bi al-hal, (kuala lumpur: iium press, 2009), 288. 51johara bibi suleiman, zulkefli aini and a’dawiyah ismail, “the role of religious agencies in negeri sembilan carrying out da‘wah bi al-hal to the aboriginal community,” international journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 11, no. 6 (2021): 79-80. 52 wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-‘aqidah wa al-sharê‘ah wa almanhaj, vol.10, (beirut: dar al-fikr al-mu’asir, 1991), 57. 53nur damia husna nor sad, “language of muslim preacher in da‘wah communication with orang asli,” (master thesis: the national university of malaysia, 2016), 7. 54 maisarah, “the importance of listening skills as the foundation to a good communication”, diglossia 7, no. 2, (2016): 45. 55 danial zainal abidin, al-quran for life excellence tips, (jakarta: penerbit hikmah, 2008), 131. 56'abd al-karim zaydan, uṣūl al-da‘wah, (beirut: jami' al-huqëq mahfuzah liltiba‘‘ah wa-al-nashr, 2013), 104. 57judy pearson , paul nelson , scott titsworth and angela hosek, human communication, (new york: mcgraw-hill education, 2017), 10. 58 ronan reilly, giacomo ferrari, and irina prodanof, “framework for a model of dialogue”, coling ’88: proceedings of the 12th conference on computational linguistics 2, (august, 1988): 540-541. 59 saodah wok, narimah ismail and mohd yusof hussain. theories of communication, (kuala lumpur: pts publication and distributors sdn.bhd, 2003), 202. 60zulkefli aini, s.salahudin suyurno and rosmawati mohamad rasit, dakwah communication, bangi: universiti kebangsaan malaysia, n.d), 131. 61al-hafiz nur al-din al-haythami,majma’ al-zawa’id wa manba’ al-fawa’id, vol.8 ed. muhammad ‘abd al-qadir ahmad ‘atoa, (beirut: dar al-kutub al‘ilmiyyah, 2003), 151. 102 the implementation of communication … 62 mohd yusof hussain, “principles of communication in islamic da‘wah, in readings in islamic da‘wah, ed. mohd yusof hussain, (kuala lumpur: iium press, 2009), 70. 63 saīd, humam abd al-raḥmān, qawāid al-da‘wah ilā allāh, (al-mansurah: dār al-wafā’, 1992), 73. 64muslim ibn al-×ajjéj, the øaíêí muslim (1:14), translated by nasiruddin alkhattab (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 2007). hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 674 issn :02507196 the quality analysis of service on the level of trust about the atm skimming (case study at bri sharia suniaraja branch officebandung) 1popon srisusilawati, 2akhmad yusup, 3ramdan fawzi abstract atm is an electronic media that uses the internet to connect to bank communication networks that enable customers to carry out financial transactions independently. atm skimming is one of the negative impacts of atms. this case affects the value of service quality at the bank. this study aims to determine whether there is a significant influence between service quality and atm skimming cases on customer trust. this research uses quantitative methods with descriptive analysis techniques. primary data were obtained by distributing questionnaires to 98 respondents who were customers of bri shariasuniarajabranch office, bandung. the results of this study are the service quality variable (x1) which has a positive influence on the trust variable (y) with a regression coefficient of 0.385 and a calculated t value of 12.217 <t table value of 1.665. while the atm skimming case variable (x2) had no effect on trust (y). the existence of a negative value on the results of the study showed that there was no influence on the atm skimming case (x2) variable on trust (y). keywords: service qualit; cybercrime: atm skimming; customer trust 1. introduction in banking, technological advances are used to facilitate transactions and served as the leading service for banks. nowadays, bank customers want smooth, fast, and secure transactions that can be done from anywhere at any time. therefore, banks offer products that can provide benefits, namely e-banking. e-banking is a service that allows customers to obtain, communicate, and conduct banking transactions through electronic media such as automatic teller machines (atm), electronic data capture (edc) / point of sales (pos), internet banking, sms banking, e-commerce, mobile banking and video banking (ferdiansyah, 2017). banking has opened accessible opportunities for customers to make a transaction. besides the development of the world of technology, crime is also increasingly sophisticated, and this can be detrimental the customers, for instance: atm skimming (burki, 2017; sankhwar, 2016). 1faculty of sharia, universitas islam bandung, jl. tamansari no. 1 bandung indonesia 40116. email: po2nss@gmail.com 2 faculty of sharia, universitas islam bandung, jl. tamansari no. 1 bandung indonesia 40116 3 faculty of sharia, universitas islam bandung, jl. tamansari no. 1 bandung indonesia 40116. mailto:po2nss@gmail.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 675 issn :02507196 atm skimming is one of the cybercrimes by copying customer data obtained from an atm card (mustari d, 2015). in banking, customers often asking their security, the confidentiality of personal, and the financial data secure before deciding to use internet banking. internet banking that provides security and confidentiality of customer data will get the trust of customers (dianita, 2015; oko, 2012; maharsi& fenny, 2006). the trust of a banking service system will determine the consumer's decision to use the system. thus, it will make customers satisfied with the provided facilities. atm skimming is one of the world's problems in world banking crime. this research implies that by knowing the weaknesses of the bank concerned, the quality of service can be advanced and improved so that it will increase the number of new customers. based on the explained description in the background of the problem, researchers can formulate this research problem, namely how does the quality of service and atm skimming cases affect customer confidence? the novelty of this study is how skiming cases affect rural communities. the significance of the research:for academics. this research is expected to provide benefits for the development of science, especially in the theory of service quality and the level of trust for shariah banking. the results of this study are expected to broaden the perspective of knowledge in the field of sharia banking management, to improve and build sustainable sharia banking performance by considering external and internal factors; for researchers. this research is expected to provide useful information, references, and motivations for conducting further research related to the topic of customer trust and service quality at the regional level banking and for government and regulators. the purpose of the results of this study is to be input to improve the regulation and supervision of activities in sharia banking. 2. theoretical basis service quality is an activity that cannot be defined independently because service quality is intangible, this is a fulfilment of needs and does not have to be tied to product sales or other sales (ismerelda&ruzikna, 2015). according to (abdul qawi othman, 2001; rafiah & ariyanti, 2017), there are six dimensions of service quality in sharia banking, namely: tangible, responsiveness, assurance, empathyand compliance trust in the banking service system will determine the consumer's decision to use the system so that it will make customers satisfied with the facilities provided (oko, 2012; and maharsi & fenny, 2006). in indonesian dictionary, skimming is a way to read quickly / at a glance. in modern times skimming is known as one of the crimes in cybercrime, where this crime is committed through a computer system network, both locally and globally byutilizing technology by hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 676 issn :02507196 copying information contained in the magnetic stripe that is on the atm card illegally to have control against the victim's account (nugraha, 2018). this statement confirmed by his research sakhwar (sankhwar, february 2016) and mustari (mustari, 2015). the tool used for skimming is called skimmer. the skimmer is a customer data thief tool (mustari, 2015). the skimmer placed in the gap of the atm machines, then the customer's data will be copied quickly into the atm of the offender, and after that, the offender will take the victim's money. trust is a belief to establish long-term relationships to produce actual work (yulianto & waluyo, 2004). trust will arise when a consumer/customer or a group believes in the trustworthiness and integrity of partners. trusted groups need to have high integrity and can be trusted, then associated with quality, such as; consistent, competent, honest, fair, and responsible (yulianto&waluyo, 2004). below are indicators of customer trust, according to junai a. fian (fian, 2016), as follows:the reputation of the product or service; customers feel safety and comfort in using products or services; customers get the benefits of products or services. 3. research methodology this type of research uses quantitative research. this method aims to develop and use mathematical models, theories and / or hypotheses related to the phenomena investigated by researchers. this study uses survey research (survey research), which is a study that uses a questionnaire/questionnaire as the primary data source, which is a survey of bri sharia customers at the suniaraja branch office, bandung. this study uses survey research (survey research), which is a study that uses a questionnaire/questionnaire as the primary data source, which is a survey of bri sharia customers at the suniaraja branch office, bandung. in this study, there are independent variables and dependent variables. the independent variable consists of two variables, namely service quality (x1) and skimming atm cases (x2). the dependent variable consists of one variable, namely, customer trust (y). furthermore, there are two sources of data, namely primary data and secondary data. the primary data source in this study was obtained directly from the research location, namely bri sharia suniaraja branch office, bandung.the source is given directly to the respondent. the population in this study was 6,892 atm user customers at the bri sharia suniaraja branch office, bandung. samples were taken from active customers of atm users at the research’s location in the last six months, so researchers only took samples from the population that would be the subject of the study. the sampling technique used in this study is purposive sampling, which is sampling based on specific characteristics, characteristics or characteristics that are the main characteristics of the population. in determining the number of samples from the population using the slovin formula, which is as follows: hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 677 issn :02507196 from the above calculation, there are 98 respondents. the sample used in this study is a customer of bank bri sharia suniaraja branch office, bandung, especially atm users. the following results of the development of the variables studied are as follows: the development of variable instrument quality of service (x1) (abdul qawi othman, 2001) table 1: service quality variable instruments dimensions indicators tangible 1. display outside and inside the office that is clean, neat, and comfortable. 2. good looking neat and polite. operating hours are clear. 3. completeness of physical facilities owned. have a website to facilitate customers in accessing information about customer data responsiveness 1. provide information clearly and easily understood. 2. knowing the customer's needs and willing to help. 3. islamic service. 4. knowledge and ability to conduct transactions. fast response service reliability 1. fast and convenient service time. 2. extensive knowledge of the products offered 3. guarantee of security when making transactions. optimal service assurance 1. staff are polite and friendly. 2. they are providing financial advice. 3. provides easy access to financial information. experienced and knowledgeable management. empathy 1. customer data is guaranteed confidentiality. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 678 issn :02507196 2. give individual attention to its customers. low service costs the development of variable atm skimming instruments (x2) ( mustari d. , cyber crime: penggunaan skimmer terhadap pembobolan atm, 2015). table 2: atm variable skimming instrument dimensi indikator cyber crime 1. customers understand about cybercrime. 2. protection from cybercrime. applicable regulations skimming atm 1. the occurrence of atm skimming to customers. 2. bank’s form of compensation. 3. follow-up by the bank. customer trust. the development of the instrument table 3: trust variable instrument (y) dimensi indikator reputation 1. provide quality services. 2. they have reliable staff in their field. trusted bank safety and comfort 1. able to provide protection and safety for customers. they are providing a sense of security and comfort when customers transact. benefit 1. provide services as expected. the bank is providing shortand long-term benefits. variable trust (y (fian j. a., 2016) the t-test is done to test the significance of the relationship between variables x1, and x2 on y, whether the variables x1 and x2 have a partial effect (individually) on the variable y. to draw conclusions expressed by looking at the significant value and comparing with the level of error that is if the probability value <alpha value (α), then the dependent variable significantly influences the independent variable. here is the basis for taking a hypothesis: hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 679 issn :02507196 the confidence level used is 90% or a significant level of 10% or 0.1 with the following criteria: 1. if t arithmetic> t table, then h0 is rejected and ha is accepted. means the dependent variable (x) has a significant influence on the independent variable (y). 2. jika t hitung< t table, maka h0ditolakdan haditerima. berartivariabeldependen (x) tidakmempunyaipengaruhsignifikanterhadapveriabelindependen (y). 3. if t arithmetic <t table, then h0 is rejected, and ha is accepted. means the dependent variable (x) does not have a significant effect on the independent variable (y). conclusions drawn: a. if sig. > α (0,1), then h0 is accepted, and ha is rejected. b. if sig. <α (0,1), then h0 is rejected, and ha is accepted. 4. results and discussion the researcher uses multiple linear regression analysis using spss version 2.0 which aims to examine whether or not the effect of service quality (x1), and atm skimming (x2) cases on the trust (y) of bri sharia customers.the influence of service quality on the trust of atm users in bank bri sharia suniaraja branch office, bandung. table 4: results analysis of the effect of service quality (x1) on trust (y) varible regression coefficient t arithmetic t table decision table x1 againts y 0,385 12,217 1,665 ha received based on data analysis, the regression coefficient is 0.385., it means that if the service quality variable increases by 1%, then trust will increase by 38.5%., it is because the quality of service is positive, so the higher the level of service quality, the higher the level of customer confidence. based on the t-test results, it is known that the t value is 12.217> t table value is 1.665. thus, h0 is rejected, and ha is accepted, so it can be concluded that there is a significant influence between the quality of service on the trust of customers of atm users. thus, the better the quality of services provided by bri sharia suniaraja branch ffice, bandung, the higher the trust that bank customers have. so that customer confidence is well established with bri sharia suniaraja branch office, bandung. therefore, the better the quality of services provided by bri sharia suniarajabranch office, bandung, the higher the trust that bank customers have. so that customerconfidence is well established with bri sharia suniaraja branch office, bandung hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 680 issn :02507196 the effect of atm skimming cases on the belief of customer atm users in bri sharia suniaraja branch office, bandung. table 5: analysis of the effect of the case of atm skimming (x2) on trust (y) model unstandardized coefficients standardised coefficients t sig. b std. error beta (constant) 7,315 3,615 2,023 ,046 service quality (x1) ,385 ,032 ,882 12,217 ,000 1 atm skimming case (x2) -,061 ,088 -,050 -,697 ,487 based on data analysis, the regression coefficient (β) value of -0.061., it means that if the atm skimming case variable increases by 1%, the trust will drop by -6.1%, this is because the atm skimming case has a negative value, so there is an inverse relationship with customer trust. based on the results of the t-test, it is known that the t value is -0.679 <t table value of 1.665. thus, h0 is accepted, and ha is rejected, and the t value is negative. so it can be concluded that there is no significant effect between atm skimming cases on trust, and negative values indicate a negative relationship between variable atm skimming cases with customer confidence. the atm skimming case does not affect customer confidence, and this is caused many respondents do not understand the knowledge of atm skimming cases. table 6: results of analysis of the effect of service quality (x1) and atm skimming (x2) on trust (y) model sum of squares df mean square f sig. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 681 issn :02507196 regression 3084,816 2 1542,408 122,976 ,000b 1 residual 1191,520 95 12,542 total 4276,337 97 based on the analysis, shows that the calculated f value of 122.976 indicates the influence of service quality and atm skimming cases on customer confidence, and this> table f value of 2.36. thus, h0 is rejected, and ha is accepted, so it can be concluded that the quality of service and atm skimming cases have a significant effect together on trust, this is in accordance with his research (fian, 2016; maharsi& fenny, 2006; mustari, 2015; oko, 2012). based on these results, it appears that the quality of service and atm skimming cases jointly influence trust. if seen from the results of the t-test, one of the variables is the case of atm skimming does not affect trust. however, if combined with service quality, the results will affect trust. therefore, the quality of service at the bri sharia suniaraja branch office, bandung is excellent, so that the bank can evaluate quickly to maintain trust in establishing a good relationship between the bank and customers, especially atm users. the contribution of the two independent variables (service quality (x1) and atm skimming case (x2)) to the dependent variable (trust (y)) can be seen from the results of the coefficient of determination (r2) of 72.1%, meaning that the presentation of the contribution of the influence of service quality and atm skimming cases on trust obtained a value of 72.1%, while the other 27.9% was influenced by other variables not included in this study. 5. conclusion the atm skimming case does not affect the confidence of bri syariah kc customers. suniaraja atm skimming cases do not affect trust because, there are some customers who are still doubtful about atm skimming cases and the lack of customer knowledge about the impact of atm skimming cases in islamic banks, especially atm users.service quality of bri syariah kc. suniaraja and atm skimming cases have a positive effect on bri syariah kc customers' trust. suniarajathis is because, the case of atm skimming does not have a negative effect on customer confidence due to the quality of bri syariah kc services. suniaraja has a dominant positive effect on cases of atm skimming. 6. acknowledgement this paper is the result of a grant from lppm unisba in the field of community service,thank you to rector unisba, the chairman of the lppm and the lppm reviewers who gave us the opportunity to complete this paper references hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 682 issn :02507196 abdul qawi othman, l. o. (2001). adopting and measuring customer service quality (sq) in islamic banks: a case study in kuwait finance house. international journal of islamic financial services, 3, 10. burki, a. k. (2017). financial crisis and determinants of capital structure of investment banking sector in pakistan. journal of administrative and business studies, 3(3), 153 160. dianita, m. (2015). role of the internal auditor influence and good corporate governance in banking financial performance against state owned corporation. international journal of business and administrative studies, 1(4), 176179. ferdiansyah, a. n. (2017). pembobolan atm melalui teknik skimming dihubungkan dengan undang-undang nomor 19 tahun 2016 tentang perubahan atas undang-undang nomor 11 tahun 2008 tentang informasi dan transaksi elektronik. skripsi univesitas pasundan bandung. fian, j. a. (2016). pengaruh kepuasan dan kepercayaan pelanggan terhadap loyalitas pelanggan auto 2000 sungkono surabaya. jurnal ilmu dan riset manajemen, 5, 5. ismerelda, & ruzikna. (2015). pengaruh kualitas pelayanan terhadap loyalitas nasabah bisnis perbankan (studi kasus bank bri sharia cabang pekanbaru). jom fisip, 2(2), 4. maharsi, s., & fenny. (2006). analisa faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi kepercayaan dan pengaruh kepercayaan terhadap loyalitas pengguna internet banking di surabaya. jurnal akuntansi dan keuangan, 8(5), 36. meilianasari, y. d. (2012). analisis kepercayaan nasabah pengguna atm. jurnal manajemenn bisnis umm, 5(3), 34-50 mustari, d. (2015). cyber crime: penggunaan skimmer terhadap pembobolan atm. faktor exacta, 8(3), 261-265. nugraha, h. f. (2018). penerapan hukum pidana terhadap warga negara asing yang melakukan tindakan terhadap pembobolan anjungan tunai mandiri (atm) dengan menggunakan teknik skimming dihubungkan dengan undang–undang nomor 19 tahun 2016 tentang informasi dan transaksi elektronik (mastert’s thesis). fakultas hukum universitas pasundan, 13. oko, s. (2012). enhanced atm security system using biometrics. international journal of computer science issues (ijcsi), 9(5), 352. praman, i. g., & rastini, n. m. (2016). pengaruh kualitas pelayanan terhadap kepercayaan nasabah dan loyalitas nasabah bank mandiri cabang veteran denpasar bali. jurnal fakultas ekonomi dan bisnis universitas udayana, 56(6), 67-90 purnomo, i. d. (2012). untung dengan kartu kredit,kartu atm-debit & uang elektronik. jakarta: visimedia. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 674684 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 683 issn :02507196 rafiah, k. k., & ariyanti, m. (2017). role of transactional quality and relational quality to customer e-loyalty in marketplace c2c in indonesia. international journal of business and economic affairs, 2(2), 116-126. sankhwar, s. (2016). a safeguard against atm fraud. ieee 6th international conference on advanced computing (iacc), signapore. tampubolon, n. (2015). bijak ber-electronic banking. jakarta: otoritas jasa keuangan. wulandari, w. p. (2018). pengaruh kualitas pelayanan atm dan kepuasan terhadap loyalitas nasabah bri sharia ponorogo. skripsi muamalah institut agaman islam negeri ponorogo, 5(6), 45-60. yulianto, g., & waluyo, p. (2004). pengaruh keefektifan komunikasi, kualitas fungsional dan kepercayaan pada komitmen keterhubungan. telaah manajemen, magister manajemen stie, 1(5), 349. yulianto, t. (2015). pengaruh kualitas pelayanan atm dan kepercayaan terhadap kepuasan nasabah (studi kasus nasabah bank bri). skripsi ekonomi dan bisnis universitas muhammadiyah surkarta, 5(6), 45-60 yuliza, & sari, r. l. (2013). analisis tingkat kepercayaan pada nasabah bank umum pasca kasus century. jurnal ekonomi dan keuangan, 1(4), 56-80 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv. no. 3 27 .. freedom of expression and its restriction in islamic and western philosophy: an analysis of direct and indirect harm dr. shamreeza riaz amnesty international australia, australia e-mail : shamreeza.riaz@iiu.edu.pk received on 29-01-21 accepted on 23-08-21 abstract from last two decades, we have seen a rise in tension between muslim and western countries in terms of conflict between freedom of expression and religious tolerance. the compatibility of the right to freedom of expression in sharê‘ah or islamic law with international human rights law has always been challenged. this article intends to unpack the differences between protected expressions from prohibited expression in islamic law. it further explores how the perspective of islamic law differs from western liberal philosophers. this article concludes that both islamic law and western liberal philosophy value free expression. however, both differ in an important way. under islamic law, freedom of expression is not absolute and, reasonable moral and legal restrictions may be imposed for religious tolerance. on the other hand, western liberal philosophy focuses on absolute protection of freedom of expression and allows restrictions only in exceptional situations on the ground of “physical harm”. finally, this article argues that the right to freedom of expression must be protected to the extent that one’s ideas and feelings with one’s own choice are not endangering the peace and tranquillity of the whole community. this article suggests that united nations need to consider not only physical harm, but moral and spiritual harm caused by free expression while restricting freedom of expression. such right to freedom of expression must maintain the richness of diversity and should not be harmful for the rights of others. keywords: freedom of expression, islamic law, religious belief, morality, western liberal philosophy 28 freedom of expression and its restriction… . 1. introduction the right to freedom of expression in recent years has gained more attention due to the rapid growth of information communication technologies (icts) and counter-terrorism laws and policies. however, the importance of the right to freedom of expression for the proper functioning of a democratic society cannot be well understood without knowing its origin and how this vital freedom was born or linked with international and pakistani domestic law. pakistan is an islamic democratic state, and the constitution of pakistan states that all laws applicable in the country must be consistent with islamic law,1 and all laws, domestic or international, shall be enacted only if not repugnant to islamic injunctions.2 this article discusses the relationship of the rule of law with the freedom of expression from islamic legal perspectives, and how the western liberal philosophers differ from this perspective. it concentrates on challenges and perspectives on islamic law and the freedom of expression in practice. for this purpose, it provides a comparative analysis of the historical, theoretical, and philosophical basis for the protection of freedom of expression under the islamic law and western liberal philosophy. it identifies that freedom of expression encompasses different terms that are interchangeable with or synonymous to freedom of expression. it notes that freedom of expression is protected in islamic law and western liberal philosophy; however, islamic and western perspectives on protected expression differ importantly based on morality. this article argues that islamic law protects right to express one’s ideas and feelings with one’s own choice as long as it is in peace and tranquillity, maintains the richness of diversity and is not harmful for the rights of others. western philosophers, on the other hand, go beyond that and even allow untruths, and shocking and offensive expression. however, the ‘imminent harm’ is given much importance in both perspectives and is considered an essential requirement for legal restrictions on the freedom of expression. based on the harm principle, this article argues that the restrictions on expression based on terrorism are legitimate in both islamic and western perspectives. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 29 . 2. freedom of expression as a divine right in islamic law the right to freedom of expression is not new and has deep ancient roots.3 existing literature indicates that it was not limited to one region or religion; instead, this right was granted to all human beings by birth. many philosophers claimed that freedom of expression was not only crucial to the political ideas of aristotle,4 but was also given high value in early islamic history,5 especially in the madéris (islamic schools) of the ninth century where everyone’s expression was welcomed and protected.6 however, the roots of freedom of expression in islamic history can be traced back from the advent of islam, 1441 years ago, as this right in islam is not given under any struggle or historical incident, but is granted by allah almighty (god) to humans by birth. the primary source that confirms right to freedom of expression is a divine right given by allah almighty is the holy qur’én itself. allah almighty endorsed in the holy qur’én that “there shall be no compulsion in faith. the correct way has become distinct from the erroneous”.7 the holy qur’én suggest that allah almighty gives people the choice in choosing the right or the false path and also clearly mention that the right path is to believe in allah almighty and rejecting satan.8 in another verse allah almighty orders the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam that “the truth is from your lord. now, whoever so wills may believe and whoever so wills may deny.”9 all these verses clearly show that there is no compulsion in islam and everyone has a freedom of speech, believe and religion. this can be endorsed from qur’én that “had your lord willed, all those on earth would have believed altogether. would you, then, compel people, so that they become believers?”.10 islam has given people a right to choose with their free will, and not by compulsion as mentioned in this chapter of the holy qur’én. in the name of god, the merciful, the compassionate, say. o disbelievers, i do not worship that which you worship, nor do you worship the one whom i worship. and neither i am going to worship that which you have worshipped, nor will you worship the one whom i worship. for you is your faith, and for me, my faith.11 30 freedom of expression and its restriction… . the other source that confirms the right to freedom of expression is the saying and action of the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam. an event is described in hadith literature (narrated by ‘ó’isha (raìi allah ‘anhé) where; a group of jews came to allah almighty's messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and said, "as-sému 'alaika " (death be on you), and i [‘ó’isha] understood it and said to them, "alaikum as-samu wa-l-la‘nah (death and curse be on you)." allah almighty's apostle (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, "be calm! o `aisha, for allah almighty loves that one should be kind and lenient in all matters." i said. "o allah almighty's messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)! haven't you heard what they have said?" allah almighty's messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, "i have (already) said (to them), 'alaikum (upon you)”12. this hadith highlights two aspects, one prophet muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) had not restricted their [jews] expression and second, he advocated for tolerance and gentleness. islam teaches us tolerance and religious harmony13 as it is a religion of peace and catalyses universal harmony.14 on another occasion, prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam emphasized that “the wise statement is the lost property of the believer, so wherever he finds it, then he is more worthy of it”15. it is argued by muslim scholars that this hadith enables a believer to accept the truth and declare the same wherever he discovers it.16 islamic scholars have debated this on many occasions that freedom of expression is granted to human beings by allah almighty without any struggle, but it is not absolute.17 however, there is disagreement on the limitations of the freedom of expression which are discussed below. 2.1. islamic restrictions on the right to freedom of expression the islamic scholars also explained in their writings18 that freedom of expression is not absolute in islam and it may be restricted where the rights of others are attached such as when speech is offensive, untruthful and hurtful.19 islam restricts not only illegal expression but also immoral expression. legal restrictions such as blasphemy, sedition, libel, and insult require enforcement by government authorities. beside these punishable offences, there are some other restrictions that the sharê‘ah allows based on morality. under islamic law, moral violations of freedom of expression also includes “a variety of reprehensible utterances such as hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 31 . telling lies, backbiting, ridiculing others and calling them by offensive names”.20 there is a wealth of instructions on all these topics in the holy qur’én and sunnah as well as in the writings of islamic scholars, mostly in arabic language. however, all these violations have not been translated into practical rules of islamic law.21 the governments may, when required, convert these moral teachings of islam into legal ordinances if they deem this to be in the interests of the community and for the protection against evil. however, codification is not compulsory when not needed in society. on the other hand, legal restrictions are important to safeguard the interest of the community and to avoid harm and encroachment on others’ rights or dignity. according to kamali, under islamic law, legal restriction must not jeopardise the five essential values i.e. life, faith, intellect, lineage, and property. under islamic law, violations of the freedom of expression occur either in the form of particular offences such as slanderous accusation, blasphemy, sedition, insult, cursing, attribution of lies or calumny and the labelling of others as disbelievers or they may take form of a contempt for, or a denial of, the accepted norms and principles of islam, which may fall under the general headings of infidelity or disbelief and heresy.22 there are a number of quranic verses that offer guidelines on the restrictions that may be imposed on freedom of speech. for instance, the holy qur’én clearly says, “... and what is there after truth but error?.”23 in another verse, the holy qur’én says, “allah almighty does not like the evil words to be said openly except from anyone wronged……..if you do a good act openly or do it in secret, or forgive an evil deed, then, allah almighty is all forgiving, all powerful.”24 this verse restricts unseemly or evil expression and muslim scholars interpreted that an expression is evil or unseemly “when it is obscene, immoral or hurtful” and argued that such expression restricts and interferes with the discovery of truth and thus violates human dignity.25 the arabic term al jahr is used for public utterance which literally means broadcasting or publicising evil or something hurtful. this explicitly provides that the text is broad enough to comprehend all modern methods and facilities which are used for publicity.26 however, the only exception that the holy qur’én has granted aims at encouraging the quest for justice, which is given priority over the prevention of evil speech and in 32 freedom of expression and its restriction… . this way, utterance of evil speech is allowed only in limited necessary circumstances. islam prohibits qadhf – slanderous accusation and prescribes a mandatory punishment of eighty lashes that is known as íadd punishment.27 similarly, the holy qur’én in many verses prohibits iftira maliciously accusing another person of criminal acts, or inventing something false about an individual.28 islam also prohibits words or expression or gesture which attacks the dignity of the person to whom it is addressed, and which humiliates the later in the eyes of his or her compatriots.29 it is referred to an insult, and arabic term sabb or shatm is used to explain such prohibited expression.30 this is mentioned in many quranic verses such as “do not revile those whom they invoke other than allah almighty, lest they should revile allah almighty in transgression without having knowledge”.31 commentators on the holy qur’én have concluded that this verse which specifies the prohibition of sabb is actually concerned with insult to non-muslims but this does not mean insulting a muslim is not an offence rather the focus is on the rights of minorities in muslim states. the holy qur’én instructs muslims that “invitation to the faith must be through persuasion and sound reasoning and must at no time be allowed to involve insult and abuse”.32 islam prohibits all forms of transgression against others in chapter ii of the holy qur’én 33 and insult is clearly a form of transgression. islamic law also prohibits cursing. arabic term la‘n used in the qur’énic text34 means “expression of disapproval or displeasure and an invocation of malediction upon the object of the curse”.35 islamic law “forbids the attribution of disbelief, blasphemy, or heresy to a muslim”.36 the practice is the opposite, nowadays, in muslim states. for instance, in pakistan, some clerics are issuing fatwés for disbelief, blasphemy or heresy based on just one statement or a facebook post. such practice contradicts with the islamic teachings as islam clearly prohibits declaring a muslim a disbeliever or an apostate or blasphemous based on probability. the holy qur’én clearly says,“do not say to the one who offers you the salém (salutation), you are not a believer.”37 one thing is evident from this verse that if just the utterance of the phrase al salam provides enough “evidence to establish a presumption in favour of a person being a believer, then it is obvious that the holy qur’én does not permit inquisitions of any kind to establish the islamic status or faith of individuals”.38 according to shariah, if the utterance in question consists ninety-nine per cent of disbelief (kufr) but one per cent of belief hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 33 . (êmén), it would still not amount to kufr (disbelief). this is a sensitive issue as the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “he who accuses a man of disbelief or calls him an enemy of allah, neither of which he is, then the accusation rebounds on him”.39 the commentators of the holy qur’én and the hadith conclude that “no one may accuse another of blasphemy, apostasy, disbelief and transgression without manifest evidence and if one does so partake of the accusation himself”. they further argued that a person who suspects disbelief, heresy, blasphemy or apostasy is being committed may do at maximum, is to give him good advice in the true spirit of the quranic principle of íisbah. he, who witnesses such incidence, would have “fulfilled his duty if he provided the necessary evidence to establish the truth, and then left the matter in the hands of the authorities” and “no one may be subjected to adversity and harm based on the mere suspicion or allegation of disbelief, blasphemy or apostasy without the necessary proof and adjudication of competent authorities”.40 the holy qur’én has also prohibited fitnah – sedition. in the holy qur’én, the term fitnah appears at no less than sixty places. it has various meanings including “temptation, trial, misguidance, enticement, fascination, commotion, sedition, affliction, torture and strife”.41 in the holy qur’én, it is referred mostly in the sense of temptation or enticement and trial.42 this clarifies that freedom of expression does not allow subjugating the faithful to corrupt influences which violate the principles of islam. the verses explaining fitnah allow prohibiting offensive speech and conduct that challenges to the lawful authority of government, and the calamity that afflicts the community in the form of rampant corruption.43 sedition may include offences related to incitement to terrorism. however, islamic law requires a high standard for the application of the law. charges based on slander, insult or sedition are made only when a deviation from the correct norms exceeds the limits of propriety and justified tolerance. punitive measures may be the last resort and only taken when compelling warranted to prevent sacrilege and serious threats to peace and order in society. islamic law has greatly emphasized in the holy qur’én and sunnah on moral persuasion, good advice, appeal to the good, conscience of individuals, repentance and forgiveness.44 thus, in this way islam advocates essential aspects of the social fraternity.45 34 freedom of expression and its restriction… . the universal islamic declaration of human rights (uidhr) 1981 has reaffirmed this in art 12(a) and (e) which stipulates that: (a) every person has the right to express his thoughts and beliefs so long as he remains within the limits prescribed by the law. no one, however, is entitled to disseminate falsehood or to circulate reports which may outrage public decency, or to indulge in slander, innuendo or to cast defamatory aspersions on other persons…… e) no one shall hold in contempt or ridicule the religious beliefs of others or incite public hostility against them; respect for the religious feelings of others is obligatory on all muslims.46 it further provides in art 12(d) that “there shall be no bar on the dissemination of information provided it does not endanger the security of the society or the state and is confined within the limits imposed by the law.”47 based on the primary sources of islamic law – the holy qur’én and sunnah and the uidhr, this article maintains that the right to freedom of expression is “not absolute” and may be restricted when an expression is not true, defames others, hurts general public, insults and ridicules the religious beliefs and religious feelings of others. inciting public hostility against others is prohibited and may be criminalised under islamic law. in this view, islamic law allows restrictions that cause harm based on law or morality. this clearly provides that if any expression falls within the definition of the abovementioned prohibited acts and has a clear intention to cause harm to others, it will fall within the ambit of prohibited expression. this shows that islamic law provides guidelines to preserve the human dignity and to safeguard individual rights by prohibiting “public utterance of hateful speech, slanderous accusation, libel, insult cursing, and attribution of disbelief to a muslim, sedition and blasphemy”.48 it also discourages “telling lies, backbiting, ridiculing others and calling them by offensive names”.49 3. freedom of expression in western liberal philosophy hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 35 . 3.1 historical struggle for freedom of expression the history of western freedom of speech and expression can be traced back to 399 bc where socrates’ expression received recognition. in 399 bc, socrates spoke in front of the jury during his trial for his freedom of expression and stressed that ‘if you offered to let me off this time on the condition, i am not any longer to speak my mind... i should say to you, men of athens, i shall obey the gods rather than you’.50 this history is subjectively selected and incomprehensive, as many scholars have agreed that freedom of speech that inheres freedom of expression is a natural right. this right, however, evolved over time. magna carta (1215) is another milestone in the history of freedom of expression where liberty was granted by king john, unwillingly, to empower barons their right to free speech and expression.51 milton’s areopagitica is another work where arguments against restrictions on freedom of the press were made through a pamphlet.52 he argued that ‘he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself’.53 his arguments were cited by many to defend absolute freedom of expression. in 1792, paine supported freedom of speech and expression and argued that ‘in a free state, tongues too should be free’.54 he further opined that ‘the unrestrained communication of thoughts and opinions as one of the most precious rights of man’.55 as a result of this historical struggle, two significant milestones were achieved: first, through the french revolution, where freedom of expression was recognised as a right in the declaration of the rights of man in 1789; and second, through the first amendment in the u.s. bill of rights which protected freedom of religion, speech, press and the right to assembly.56 the modern concept of freedom of expression is a result of great struggle and dialogue within western civilisation.57 many earlier philosophers –– like john stuart mill (mill), alexander meiklejohn (meiklejohn) and thomas scanlon (scanlon) –– have discussed the importance of protecting free speech and freedom of thought and expression in their theories. these are examined below. mill and meiklejohn are considered the pioneers of the modern concept of free speech. mill, in his work on liberty, argues for toleration and individuality. 58 he explained that ‘the appropriate region of human liberty…comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness, demanding liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense, liberty of thought and feeling, absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological’.59 mill distinguished freedom of thought from freedom of expression and stated 36 freedom of expression and its restriction… . that freedom of thought is self-regarding, although freedom of expression clearly has consequences for other people. in this case, freedom of expression is restricted by society when it harms others.60 3.2. justifications for the protection of freedom of expression under western liberal philosophy the protection of freedom of expression is advocated by many classical liberal philosophers for several centuries and, as a result, it has added, very late as compared to islamic law, to many major political documents designed to protect the right.61 as international law is more closely related to western liberal values, it is important to see what basis early liberal philosophers have provided for the protection of freedom of expression. mill, meiklejohn and scanlon have discussed why freedom of expression should be protected. according to these liberal philosophers, there are many clear justifications for protecting freedom of expression but three general justifications advancing the meaning of expression are referred to in most of the literature. these include discovery/search for truth, for individual liberty, and for the operation of democracy. these three justifications are discussed below to justify the argument for the protection of freedom of speech/expression. 3.2.1. discovery/search for truth the first justification for freedom of expression is that it helps to discover the truth. this is classically associated with mill who supports the other two justifications as well. in on liberty, mill expanded free speech ‘as a tool for the discovery of truth’ as an ultimate goal of society.62 he believed that for the search of the truth, free speech is essential, as knowledge processes through a forum of open debate that helps ideas to flow freely and allows others to challenge and scrutinise those ideas.63 contrary to this, censorship hinders the discovery of truth and ‘undermines the conditions necessary for us to gain a better understanding of the truth’.64 mill made his claims of discovery of truth based on censorship and stressed that it is imposed to suppress false or immoral opinion. he claimed that ‘censored opinion might be true; even if literally false, a censored opinion might contain part of the truth; even if wholly false, a censored opinion would prevent true opinions from becoming dogma; and as a dogma, an unchallenged opinion will lose its meaning’.65 he hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 37 . classified the significance of free expression for analysing society’s most prominent ‘opinions in relation to the liberty of thought and discussion’.66 freedom of expression seems instrumentally valuable in his first two claims, as it is not only valuable in itself but as a true belief as well. true belief could only be promoted when we believe in everything, and that includes false belief too.67 3.2.2. liberty of an individual the second justification for free speech rests on the self-fulfilment and individuality. this could be depicted as ‘… the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom’.68 this is a freedom that has been supported for centuries by passionate statements such as milton’s: ‘i do not believe a word that you say, but i will defend with my life your right to say it’.69 also, modern scholars such as eric barendt, consider it a ‘vital aspect of an individual’s liberty to grow and achieve fulfillment’.70 barendt further argues that free speech, as fulfilment of individual liberty, is a valid justification for constitutional protection.71 mill, in his work on liberty, provides a classic defence of freedom of expression and other liberties against governmental interferences.72 he has given a general theory of individual freedom/liberty73 where he argues that ‘the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being and that the evil is, that individual spontaneity if hardly recognised by the common modes of thinking, as having any intrinsic worth…’.74 he further argues that a restriction could only be imposed on someone’s individual liberty if it satisfies the harm principle.75 scanlon, who presented ‘millian principle’, believed that ‘the powers of a state are limited to those citizens that could recognise while still regarding themselves as equal, autonomous, rational agents’.76 scanlon is of the view that individuals should have been given a chance to select from ideas placed before them by others, and that the government may not restrict speech or expression unless it causes ‘physical harm’.77 berendt78 is of the view that scanlon’s theory is similar to mill’s in that it allows for the marketplace of ideas; however, it differs as mill allows the state to restrict such freedom when it causes harm to others.79 according to the views of scanlon, people may be given a chance to have all kinds of expression until such expression causes ‘physical harm’.80 38 freedom of expression and its restriction… . 3.2.3. for operation of democracy the last justification that freedom of expression as an indispensable condition for the operation of democracy has a great relationship with the free flow of information. the citizens use the gained information in exercising their democratic powers and that allows them to maintain accountability of their elected leaders.81 this view has been greatly endorsed by the american judiciary82 and several philosophers83, most notably meiklejohn. he is considered the foremost philosopher of free expression after mill,84 as his theory of free expression has a ‘distinctly communitarian cast’.85 under his theory of free expression, he opined self-government based on the first amendment86 and recognised and celebrated the undeniable connection between a functioning democracy and freedom of expression.87 he is of the view that free speech or expression is essential for democracy as it allows citizens to use their powers against the democratic government to maintain accountability over elected officials.88 meiklejohn’s theory is optimistic and pragmatic as it suggests that meaningful self-government is possible and also acknowledges that achieving and maintaining a participatory democracy will not be an easy task.89 he further provides a cogent rationale for protecting speech unrelated to politics or self-governance.90 speech, such as artistic and scientific speech or expression, allows people to make wise political decisions and, therefore, must be protected.91 this means that meiklejohn’s theory of free speech or expression mainly accommodates a communitarian social ethic as he protects not only individual interests in self-expression but also the community’s interest in overseeing the government.92 according to him, freedom of speech or expression is also essential for self-government to survive, as ‘the voters must acquire the intelligence, integrity, sensitivity, and generous devotion to the general welfare that, in theory, casting a ballot is assumed to express’.93 in this way, he advocates a broader scope for freedom of speech94 where he opined that when all opinions are heard, the result will be beneficial for civil society95 but he stressed that, along with the freedom to express, citizens’ deliberation matters to protect political speech.96 for meiklejohn, speech is important as it allows for democratic selfgovernment; however, scanlon, another famous philosopher of free speech or expression, opined that it promotes autonomy.97 he recognised speech as ‘the right to receive information’.98 meiklejohn also believed hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 39 . that the right to access relevant information could assist democratic citizens to make informed decisions.99 frederick schauer adopted a similar approach to meiklejohn where he believed that ‘free speech makes the relevant information available to the electorate for use in the decisions making processes.100 schauer’s notion of access to information shares some of the qualities of mill’s truth-seeking model where he believed that access to information is essential for seeking truth and every type of information, true or false, should pass.101 scanlon differs from meiklejohn on distinguishing freedom of expression from other freedoms as he does not resort to the american constitution. his effort to make speech distinct from other freedoms separates him from mill as well. his theory relies only on consequentialist arguments, while mill’s theory aims at individual freedom. 3.3. restrictions on freedom of expression in western liberal philosophy as explained above, protection of freedom of expression is not only essential for the discovery of truth but also important for the liberty of the individual and for the operation of a democratic society. according to earlier philosophers, freedom of expression is not absolute and may be restricted in certain circumstances. restrictions on freedom of expression raised few questions why certain types of expressions are unprotected or can be restricted by law? why are all kinds of expressions not protected? why do governments need to interfere with freedom of expression? the restrictions on freedom of expression are applied ‘because their minimal value towards advancing these free speech goals is outweighed by the significant harm they cause’.102 therefore, to determine whether the expression is protected or unprotected, the courts need to weigh how much the type of speech or expression contributes to free expression values against the harm the expression causes. if the type of expression contributes great harm as compared to the underlying purposes or values than such expression cannot be protected under free speech principles. however, the sticking point comes in trying to define what constitutes as harmful. 40 freedom of expression and its restriction… . 3.3.1 direct harm and earlier liberal philosophers according to mill, the harm principle holds ‘that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others’.103 though the harm principle holds a central place in liberal philosophers’ theories of criminal law and liberal political theory. like mill, modern american liberal philosophers, such as joe feinberg, also argue that ‘harm and offences to others exhaust the relevant reasons for state coercion by means of the criminal law’.104 the harm principle allows governments to interfere with and limit liberties as necessary to prevent harm. does the freedom of expression present an exception to the harm principle? the answer is in affirmative if we see the protections of freedom of expression provided under the first amendment and the views of american scholars.105 for mill, the protections of freedom of expression are a means to protect thought, whereas the opinions lose protection if they cross over from thought into action. this may be because of ‘societal harm’ which includes a perception of government’s obligation to protect persons from the harm caused by others and for the sake of common good.106 now if the government wants to prohibit expression that may praise or glorify terrorism than such restrictions would have to be subjected to strict scrutiny. mill presented principles of individual liberty and argued that restrictions might provide a wide range of defences of individual liberty against government interference.107 he suggested the ‘principle of harm’ that states need to apply before restricting freedom of expression.108 however, what exactly counted as the ‘principle of harm’ in mill’s view is complicated and needs clarification. for him, ‘in order to satisfy the harm principle, an action must actually violate or threaten imminent violation of those important interests of others in which they have a right’.109 according to mill’s concept of harm, it must be (1) direct, (2) imminent, and (3) tangible. for him, inciting violence is harmful, and one should not be allowed under the right to freedom of expression as it physically hurts and injures.110 he clearly justifies the ‘principle of harm’ for imposing a restriction on freedom of expression and opined that such restrictions are not problematic in laws dealing with killing, rape and assault etc.111 in criminal cases, if someone punches a victim and that action causes pain or injury, it brings direct harm. the harm caused in criminal cases is evident and easy to prove. however, in incitement to and glorification of hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 41 . terrorism, it is hard to establish an evidentiary link between speech and subsequent harm caused by that speech112 because of the following factors. firstly, the concept of harm depends on social and cultural definitions. secondly, you cannot define incitement to terrorism without first defining or explaining terrorism precisely and we know that there is no agreed definition of terrorism. thirdly, we cannot justify classifying something as harm unless we carry out an empirical study of the actual consequences. according to mill, restrictions may be social, legal or criminal. his free speech arguments are more likely to ‘minimize governmental and social control over individuals’.113 this means that the right to freedom of expression cannot be restricted if there is not sufficient evidence that freedom of expression could have resulted in a harmful action.114 however, the expression that glorifies terrorism may be handled other than criminal law such as the u.s. has taken steps, other than criminalisation, to restrict expression that radicalises or extremist or radical expression. contrary to this, scanlon opined that sometimes harm cannot justify restrictions on freedom of expression. he opined that ‘(a) harms to certain individuals which consist in their coming to have false beliefs as a result of those acts of expression; (b) harmful consequences of acts performed as a result of those acts of expression, where the connection between the acts of expression and the subsequent harmful acts consists merely in the fact that the act of expression led the agents to believe (or increased their tendency to believe) these acts to be worth performing’. 115 scanlon is of the view that permissible justifications for legal restrictions on freedom of expression are only allowed when: (1) free expression causes direct physical harm; (2) an expression creates ‘harmful or unpleasant states of mind’; (3) expression provides bases for others to have an ‘adverse opinion, or defamation, or interference with the right to a fair trial’; (4) expression causes panic; (5) expression involves in conspiracy to commit a crime; and (6) expression ‘provides means rather than reasons’. 116 this shows that scanlon relied on the direct harm that could cause injury, panic and be the reason for other crimes. he also provided a situation where an expression may be restricted without justifying harm. it is important to note that the harm principle argued by the earlier philosophers was incorporated into the american judicial system. the u.s. supreme court has considered this linkage to differentiate between protected and unprotected speech in two important cases; first in the 42 freedom of expression and its restriction… . brandenburg v. ohio117 and other in the naacp v. claiborne hardware united states.118 in both cases, the supreme court considered the threshold test for incitement as action must be direct and must have or likely to cause clear and present danger. justice holmes, by highlighting the importance of this principle, recommended that, for restrictions to be imposed, there must be a ‘present and clear danger’.119 this test was based on the harm principle that evolved with time. in the american judicial system, it was to see under what circumstances restrictions can be imposed on freedom of expression under the first amendment.120 to apply this test, the courts were required to see ‘whether the words used are used in such circumstances and in such a way as to create clear and present danger’ and it brings substantive evil that courts cannot prevent.121 moreover, scholars argued that the danger needs to be imminent and immediate before the courts could deny protection as an exercise in free speech.122 the test of ‘clear and present danger’ also evolved and has been interpreted heavily by the u.s. courts. this evolution process provided the basis for the test of necessity that is used now in international law to restrict freedom of speech/expression. the u.s. supreme court has followed mill’s concept of harm that requires it to be direct and tangible. there is no place for indirect harms in mill’s calculus and neither in u.s. judicial approach that is based on the first amendment. 3.3.2. indirect harm and contemporary western philosophers as noted above in mill’s harm principle, it must be (1) direct, (2) imminent, and (3) tangible. one consequence of this principle is that indirect harms are excluded. however, can we categorically exclude indirect harms from their relevance to public policy decisions? there is a rich literature discussing the consequences of indirect harm on individuals and society in cases of child pornography123 and hate speech.124 contemporary western philosophers have discussed how freedom of expression in a liberal society can maintain a common idea of justice, while accepting that people have different conceptions of the ‘good life’. these philosophers argue that ‘we can agree on a core morality while continuing to disagree about what makes life worth living’.125 the examination of the earlier philosophers’ views clearly depicts that freedom of expression is not absolute and may be restricted when it causes harm to others’ rights. however, when an expression may hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 43 . constitute harm to others differ in domestic legal systems. according to legal scholars, the potential harm to others may be categorised into two types. first, direct harm where the expression directly causes harm as the words, written or verbal, used predicts clear and present danger for the happening of criminal event(s).126 second, indirect harm where the speaker has provided support to a cause but have not encouraged others or have created no direct connection with anything dangerous.127 it is essential to have a precise legislation that explains well when speech crosses the line into something that is unprotected such as incitement to terrorism. thus, the linkage requirement of ‘clear and present danger’ is missing in the indirect harm. jeremy waldron in his recent book, the harms of the hate speech, distinguished direct harm from indirect harm and harm from offence.128 he seems to be following the tradition of mill while arguing about the scope and limits of free expression where he argues for criminalising indirect harm as well. waldron presented a responsibility129 analysis of free speech. he noted that a balancing approach mainly emphasises the importance of free speech principle, but he also acknowledges that ‘in these cases it is outweighed by other considerations having to do with the harm that such speech might cause’.130 some scholars, such as john kaplan who pursues the over-criminalisation thesis, argue that indirect harms may also be considered while framing legislation.131 he categorises harm into four types that really make two pairs. first modelling/categorical imperative132 and second public ward/nonsupport.133 however, waldron argued for the criminalisation of hate speech that causes indirect harm to the dignity of the minorities through the harm of denigration, defamation, and exclusion.134 jeremy waldron emphasizes that two values in this regard play important role in the case of subversion or obscenity. first, ‘there is the value or the importance of the incitement as speech’ and second ‘is the value of the state interests which the law of subversion protects and the value of community or individual interest which the law of obscenity protects’.135 he believes that when ‘interests of the latter kind outweigh interests of the former kind, then laws regulating speech are permissible’.136 he highlighted the importance of free speech by stating that ‘in these cases the harm to state or community or interests has to be particularly grave; the harm that would normally suffice to justify legislation when free speech was not stake will not be enough’.137 waldron also suggested an alternative where ‘the character of a speech act as a (grave) act of subversion or an (egregious) publication of child pornography or an (unjustified) act of defamation deprives it of any 44 freedom of expression and its restriction… . protection by the free-speech principle’.138 he stated that it is not a question of balance at all rather it is simply that certain free speech claims never really get off the ground, so far as the regulation of these speech acts is concerned.139 he emphasized that ‘pornography or subversion or threats or incitement or false shouts of ‘fire!’ are not really speech at all’.140 as these statements are obviously false and speech acts of this kind may not get any benefit from the free speech principle. from these two approaches, waldron believes that ‘it is more sensible to argue for hate speech regulation in terms of the first approach. we recognize, in general, that the considerations which argue in favour of the broad importance of free speech do extend to speech attempting to stir up racial or religious hatred; but we say that nevertheless such speech must be regulated, and in extreme cases prohibited, because of the harm that it does. and we acknowledge that the harm in prospect must be grave — more serious than the harm that would justify regulation where such speech was not an issue — on account of the value of free speech that has to be outweighed on the other side’.141 waldron’s key move, in his book, is to define hate speech as a ‘form of group defamation and to compare the libel of members of vulnerable minority groups with other forms of libel that are (or have been) heavily regulated in many legal systems’.142 waldron argues that with sufficient safeguards, the loss is vanishingly small and well worth the concomitant gains. he argues that ‘prohibitions on hate speech should only extend to issues that are ‘settled’, such as race, rather than issues that are currently ‘controversial’, which should further allay concerns that hate speech regulation will foreclose freedom or democratic debate’.143 he used double standards where he considered publication of cartoons in a danish newspaper in 2005 portraying prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as a bomb-throwing terrorist (god forbid) as just mere offence.144 similarly, his defence of the ban over muslim women appearing in public with headscarves or veil145 and its comparison with the white hoods and hats of ku klux klan (kkk) and justifying the ban on headscarves for the well-ordered society itself is biased and concerned with the balancing of individual rights. for him, the danish cartoons and salman rushdie affair is mere offensive whereas calling muslims as terrorists or placing billboards tarring all muslims as terrorists causes indirect harm on the dignity and social life of muslims and should be criminalised. waldron could have used kkk’s cross burning in front of his african american neighbour to justify ban on the holy qur’én burning as the burning of the holy qur’én, or cartoon of the prophet (øal allah-uhamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 45 . ‘alaihe wa sallam) specifically target muslims in a similar fashion as the kkk’s target african american neighbour. historical incidents are evident that whenever someone will burn the holy qur’én or insult prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) a high likelihood of violence would erupt in response to his/her actions. after knowing that a high likelihood of violence would erupt, such actions should not be justified by waldron under the umbrella of freedom of expression while giving example of kkk member’s white hood and hat ban. as kkk member was guilty of wrongdoing under the same umbrella. for him, relying on the john rawls analysis, well ordered society is in which “everyone accepts, and knows that everyone else accepts the same principles of justice.”146 however, islamic conception of justice differs from liberal point of view on law, morality and rights as islamic conception of justice cannot distinguish law, morality, and rights from one another. he rejected the arguments for criminalising blasphemous or hate literature on a religion based on offensiveness or collective rights. he argues that ‘offence is a deeply subjective reaction’ especially with any discussion of religion and does not need any legal attention. waldron’s arguments against the danish cartoons and salman rushdie affair is that the goal of the law is not to protect people from offence, but to protect them from published assaults on their dignity, which ought to be understood as harms to society as a whole as well as individual targets of the hateful speech acts.147 he further stressed that ‘offensiveness by itself is not a good reason for legal regulation’.148 he is concerned with ‘defamation of individual members via group characteristics, not defamation of the group as such’.149 it is important to note that canadian supreme court, in ross v. canada, 2000, expelled the teacher who in his spare time had published controversial material perceived to be anti-semitic and inflammatory towards the jewish community. considering this case, why similar protection cannot be extended to all religions including islam. he argues that there are fine lines to be drawn and the law should generally stay on the liberal side of them. many scholars have challenged waldron’s defence of hate speech based on a number of grounds including ‘the conventional civil libertarian conviction that democratic governments should rarely be allowed to silence speech acts based on their viewpoint’.150 it is often argued that hate speech leads to hate crimes, but waldron’s arguments of hate speech do not require the demonstration of causative linkages between speech and violence.151 46 freedom of expression and its restriction… . however, he himself was not transparent while discussing the controversies such as the danish cartoons and salman rushdie’s publication the satanic verses. he, on the one hand strongly supported the salman rushdie’s right to publish and on the other hand, argued for the criminalisation of hate speech and suggested to ban billboards tarring all muslims as terrorists. the criteria he suggested to assess harm is not transparent. his view that it is a right of people to make blasphemous cartoons to mock ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam is clearly biased. it is evident from history, charlie hebdo attack, jylland posten’s cartoon in 2005, defamatory movie, innocence of muslims in 2012 and salman rushdie affair, that insulting islam and prophets is more than insulting muslims, or an individual person and it fuels or incites violence as a reaction to such actions. muslims generally care more about the dignity of islam and prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam than their own dignity. the historical incidents show that insults to the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam and islam have a profound impact on muslims. there are potential theological justifications of violence towards apostates and blasphemers that are beyond the scope of this study. as waldron stated in his book, a father who sees hate speech billboards does not know what to say to his children why muslims are called terrorists. in order to avoid these hate speech billboards and inconvenient questions from his child, he cuts down his unnecessary outdoor social life. muslims can compromise their personal dignity, but they cannot compromise dignity of prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam. history shows whenever there was an attack on dignity of islam and prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam, muslims reacted and in most cases their reaction turned into violent protests. waldron, by ignoring the root causes of the issue, has given more importance to indirect harm (billboards tarring all muslims as terrorists) and suggested a ban of such speech. he completely ignored the direct harm caused by the free expression of the danish cartoonist and salman rushdie and other forms of mockery against islam that led to imminent, present and more likely harm of violence in various parts of the world as a result of such blasphemous expression. while discussing the clash between the hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 47 . principles of blasphemy and freedom of speech, waldron ignores a set of prior judgements about what kind of injury or offence the cartoons caused and how such an injury or offence need to be addressed in a liberal democratic society. for waldron, a well-ordered society needs to protect only its people, especially minorities such as muslims, against intellectualised assault (non-physical and verbal or symbolic) for the sake of their social life and dignity. contrary to this, muhammad fathi al-dirini states that “a society emphasizing an individual’s personal rights without considering the impact of that individual’s rights on society as a whole will succumb to selectivity and factionalism”.152 he further argued, comparing major western human rights treaties with islamic human rights instruments and explaining, that in the west, human rights only benefit the inhabitants of those countries that are parties to international conventions, whereas islamic law extends the benefits to all humankind.153 we cannot solve the problem by just considering one side of the problem. we need to consider the ground realities to identify the actual cause of the problem. we cannot shape a well-ordered society without considering the actual problems arising from actions that attack dignity of islam and prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam. for waldron, a well-ordered society is a free society where all ‘illiberal religions’ or ‘intolerant’ religions need to die out. he did not make any effort to differentiate the religion from the forceful and intolerant political ideology. he further argued that in a wellordered society appearance or how individuals present themselves matters. he tried to justify the ban on muslim women’s headscarves based on the division between the public realm and the private realm and criticized that muslim women’s burqa‘ and headscarves are sorts of private realm carted around in public like an edwardian bathing machine. erich kolig’s book freedom of speech and islam best presents the western understanding of freedom of expression and islam with particular reference to the islamic concepts of blasphemy, heresy, and apostasy.154 he rightly poses the following questions: ‘is the right to offend more important than the right not to be offended; and can and should a truly free society, and globalised world, protect its people against intellectualised (i.e. non-physical, verbal or symbolic) assault’?155 for waldron, defamation of religion is mere offensive, and it does not need any legal attention. while making his claims for equality and well-ordered society, he ignored the moral limits of speech and the fact that modern democratic nations need to accommodate muslim populations in a way that is equal to jews, christians and atheists to avoid 48 freedom of expression and its restriction… . potential public disorder. burning someone’s religious book; depicting their prophet and religion as terrorist based on actions of one group without establishing any link between their actions and actual islamic teachings; banning muslim women from what they can wear or where they can go; suspecting muslims with suspicion and intrigue; making blasphemous cartoons; and mocking of religion islam seems mere offensive to him. the long history of such actions against muslims actually depicts that religious hate speech has caused much harm to muslims by fuelling religious hatred and by hitting muslims’ emotions which ultimately resulted in violence. waldron ignores that if incitement to terrorism (which urges or encourages others to commit a crime, even before the crime happens) may be criminalised then why targeted religious hatred or similar actions that eventually fuel religious hatred, public disorder, inequality and violence in society cannot be banned or criminalised? contrary to waldron, feinberg’s theory of harm to others seems more realistic as he examines the moral limits of free speech by giving mill’s principle some shared meaning. according to mcglynn, “joel feinberg’s influential reinterpretation of mill’s work, which has itself become the commonly accepted conceptualization of the “harm principle”.156 the theory of harm is presented in four volumes and volume three particularly sets on moral limits of criminal law.157 these four volumes present the most thorough and influential treatment of the harm principle. feinberg’s overriding concern has been the ‘tenability of liberalism as an account of the moral limits of the criminal law’.158 he criticised the theory of harm presented by liberal philosophers. he argued that liberal philosophy, such as mill’s philosophy, is not close to the traditional liberalism159 and he presented how harm itself is linked to morality.160 he admits that ‘sanctioning those who cause harm expresses public reprobation, and in this sense, the criminal law always expresses a sort of moral judgment’.161 he presented a new definition and analysis of the harm principle that differs from the one discussed above in the theory of mill and waldron, and argued that the harm principle is not limited and applies to a variety of acts. he then presented an overview of these acts how the principle could apply to these acts.162 in his second volume, feinberg argued that laws should be enacted to prevent others from being shocked or revolted by a particular act. however, he separated harm from the offence and argued that morality, in some instances, must be connected to the legal status of a particular kind of behaviour. the offences in this category are more profound hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 49 . because: ‘(a) the offended feelings cannot be wholly escaped by withdrawing one’s attention: the offended state of mind is to some degree independent of what is directly perceived, (b) there is an element of direct personal danger and threat, and (c) they are affronts to something the offended parties hold dear and even sacred’.163 based on these criteria, it can be argued that expression based on morality can be criminalised when it meets specific criteria. in his third volume, feinberg presented what behaviours may be criminalised without violating the moral autonomy of an individual citizen and argues that the state can intervene in ‘selfdestructive behaviour’164. in the strict sense, legal moralism denotes ‘prohibiting conduct on the ground that it is ‘inherently immoral’, even though it constitutes neither harm nor offence to the actor or others’.165 on the contrary, for liberals, enforcement of morality should not be a concern for criminal law unless immorality results in harm or grievance. liberals do not support the prohibition of harmless immoralities because they do not see immorality as wrong in itself, unless it causes harm to others. according to feinberg, in the broad sense, legal moralism means the ‘prohibitions on the grounds that actions constitute or cause evils of other kinds than harm or offence: these grounds include preserving a traditional way of life (moral conservatism) and elevating human character (legal perfectionism)’.166 moral conservatism aims to prevent radical social change in the ways of life of a societal group. supporters of this form of legal moralism consider drastic social change as an evil in itself, whether or not it is caused by inherently immoral conduct and whether or not it results in a harmful effect. the morally conservative persons maintain that ‘deviant conduct changes their society in essential ways and makes them an alien in his own community’.167 this form of legal moralism signifies a type of majoritarianism which sees cultural changes ‘as unfair because they are said to violate the interests of the majority that does not consent to the changes’.168 legal perfectionism –– which denotes the use of the criminal law to improve citizens’ character, civility and public virtues –– is another illiberal restriction because liberals do not support the use of the criminal law to restrict imperfect ways of life.169 noorloos, in her thesis, argues that offence, based on morality, may ‘not necessarily [cause] wrong to a particular person, but is considered a wrong in itself’.170 moreover, noorloos believes that the harm principle is narrower as compared to principles based on morality and argues that there is a difference between ‘enforcing moral judgments through criminal law and deciding that certain behaviour deserves moral clarification’.171 sadurski also argues that ‘indeed, everything about a 50 freedom of expression and its restriction… . person that the criminal law should be concerned with is included in his morals. however, not everything in a person’s morals should be the concern of the law, only his disposition to violate the rights of other parties’.172 he also believes that ‘criteria for harm is a much greater objective than criteria for morals and argues that it is possible to make a rather neutral concept of harm by linking it to peoples’ equal moral agency’.173 these contemporary philosophers also distinguish harm from offence and argue that harm can be specified by looking at the probability that harm will result and what would be the magnitude of the resulting harm. this is intricately linked with the criteria for criminalising expression based on national security. the offence can be specified by looking at the seriousness of the offence and the reasonableness of the offending party’s conduct. feinberg argues that ‘the law should not take offence as seriously as harm: when less invasive means than criminal law are available, these should be considered first’.174 according to him, the seriousness of the offence can be measured by considering: (i) extent standards that include intensity and durability; (ii) the reasonable avoidability standard; and (iii) the volenti standard (means one has taken the risk willingly being offended).175 this criteria protects expressions that are not aimed to fuel religious hatred and violence. the views of contemporary philosophers discussed above differ from western liberal philosophers and from waldron to some extent as they allow restrictions based on morality. this study argues that the incidents of hate speech against muslims and other minorities may be reduced where the expression that incites violence or religious hatred is restricted. also, such restrictions are consistent with contemporary western thought when these are narrowly defining the scope of offences based on morality. contemporary philosophers, such as larmore, argue that, in order to protect the equal liberty of its citizens, liberalism has to set moral limits on the powers of government and the state has to accept the fact that ‘reasonable people disagree about what constitutes a good life’.176 noorloos states that ‘we can include under it [conception of good] not only an individual’s tastes and life-style but also his religious faith and ethical ideals ... and any attempt to say what is important and unimportant in a human life counts as a conception of the good life; it does not matter particularly what the source of that view may be’.177 the conception of a good life includes religion and other moral beliefs and preferences. talissee argues that ‘there are a number of equally reasonable yet mutually incompatible philosophical, moral, and religious doctrines, each hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 51 . of which promotes its own distinctive vision of value, truth, obligation, human nature, and the good life’.178 ahdar and leigh also accept this plurality between the conceptions of the good and argue that it is ‘a permanent feature of modern societies’.179 the requirement of ‘physical harm’ provides that expression may not be restricted based on morality. this approach contrasts with islamic law that allows restriction based on law and morality where it harms others. the liberal philosophers differ on the ‘harm principle’, as some, such as scanlon, believe that freedom of expression must only be restricted when it causes ‘physical harm’. however, mill sees that limiting freedom more than necessary ‘to prevent harm to others’ would in fact harm the actor by limiting her autonomy. however, the absence of freedom to pursue one's purposes may constitute far greater harm than restrictions on one's liberties. this article argues that earlier philosophers have provided a guideline for states where they can restrict freedom of expression and the theories presented many years ago by these philosophers are still relevant today. thus, states need to consider the principle of harm provided by these philosophers when criminalising ‘incitement to terrorism’, and the judiciary needs to consider the principle of ‘clear and present danger’ while interpreting protections of freedom of expression. 4. the difference between islamic law and western liberal philosophy on restricting freedom of expression the above analysis implies that both islamic law and western liberal philosophy value free expression. however, both differ in an important way. under islamic law, freedom of expression is not absolute and reasonable moral and legal restrictions may be imposed to manage tyrannical behaviour.180 on the other hand, western liberal philosophy focuses on absolute protection of freedom of expression and allows restrictions only in exceptional situations on the ground of ‘physical harm’. academic scholars, such as jacob, argue that ‘people could not be legislated into morality’.181 also, the above analysis denotes that mill’s argument for the defence of speech is not limited to a defence of expression that assisted the pursuit of truth, but extends to the expression of extreme and untruthful opinions for the benefits it gave a true opinion.182 his argument that ‘falsehood can have value’183 becomes the base for the protection of ‘untruthful’ or ‘false’ expression or ideas in international law. according to general comment no. 34 of the human rights committee, art 19 of the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr) does not restrict expression of opinion or ideas 52 freedom of expression and its restriction… . solely on the basis that those are ‘false’ or ‘untrue’ or are deeply ‘offensive’.184 similarly, the u.s. supreme court ‘emphatically favoured indulgence of false expression so that the vitality of freedom of expression would not be diminished’.185 this clearly contradicts with the quranic verse186 that emphasizes truth, forbids spreading false news and false reporting, and orders to spread the truth for the sake of information.187according to islamic law, untruthful opinions are not beneficial as they damage the cause of truth and defame societies hence should be avoided.188 islam, therefore, allows restrictions for the protection of the rights of others and morality, while liberal philosophers allow restrictions for the prevention of harm to others and do not consider morality as a valid reason for the restrictions. however, it is important to note that western liberal philosophers’ approach contradicts with their own philosophy, as the ‘principle of harm also enforces a certain morality –– the morality of preventing harm and respecting autonomy’.189 5. conclusion this article argues that the theoretical, legal, and philosophical bases of freedom of expression under islamic law and western liberal philosophy are the same, but both slightly differ on legitimate grounds for restriction. the constitution of the islamic republic of pakistan 1973 allows restrictions on the grounds provided in islamic law while international law considers grounds provided by the western liberal philosophers. this practice indicates that islamic law and western liberal philosophers have provided the basis for the codification of legal framework for the protection of freedom of expression under international law and pakistan’s domestic law. it is noted that western liberal philosophers’ concept of freedom of expression is, somehow, similar to what is provided in islamic law. the right to freedom of expression was recognised as a divine right in islam 1441 years ago. the scope and justification for the protection of freedom of expression provided in islamic law are similar in many ways to the contemporary right to freedom of expression provided under western philosophy and international law. islamic law differs only in terms of restrictions based on morality. according to liberal philosophers’ views, an expression could be prohibited only if it is harmful to a particular set of individuals or society as a whole, otherwise the prohibition is problematic. however, many scholars have focused on physical harm hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 53 . caused by such speech and have ignored moral and spiritual harm. in most cases of circulation of prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) caricature, the western governments argue that it does not cause any physical harm and thus should be allowed under freedom of expression. however, the contemporary philosophers of west argue that offensive expression could be prohibited when it causes particular moral harm to others, as prohibiting an impersonal offence contains a wrong in itself and provides a base for legal moralism and thus provides a ground for criminalisation. this shows that restrictions based on morality are illiberal, not illegal, and islamic law restrictions based on law and moral harm are not contradictory with contemporary western philosophy. this research argues that un human right bodies especially un special rapporteur on the freedom of expression need to consider restrictions based on law and morality and should vow for the right to freedom of expression that allows one’s ideas and feelings with one’s own choice but does not endanger the peace and tranquillity of the whole community. un special rapporteur needs to adopt more independent and universalist approach on the issue of freedom of expression in future so the new developments could also represent muslim states. this article concludes that in islamic law, restrictions may be imposed based on public decency; namely, the prevention of slander and defamation, contempt of religion or religious belief or feeling, and inciting public hostility. this means expression that harms religious belief or feeling is prohibited and islamic law recommends states take legal actions to protect religion for the maintenance of public order. for this reason, majority of muslim states have criminalised all those expressions which are deemed offensive towards islam, islamic prophets (‘alaihim as-salém) or belief system. in islam, the protection of religion is one of the five objectives of islamic law. however, there have always been international controversies that greatly harm muslim–western states relations. these incidents include but are not limited to salman rushdie affair in the aftermath of the publication of the novel satanic verses; movie trailer of innocence of muslims; the jyllands posten prophet’s caricature in denmark and its republication events in rest of world time and again. the reaction to such events is considered as driven by emotions and not by physical harm. though all these reactions turned to violence and destruction at later stage and have caused physical harm as well. the difference in the philosophies of freedom of expression has created controversy between islamic and western thought; namely, restriction on freedom of expression based on the blasphemy of the 54 freedom of expression and its restriction… . prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam has created conflict and is a barrier to peaceful relations and meaningful dialogue between western liberal states and the muslim states. this raises an important question: can the western liberal states and the muslim states deal with this conflict and move to peaceful relations? 6. declarations author would like to acknowledge her phd supervisors dr. bridget lewis and prof. andrew garwood-gowers for their comments and suggestions on earlier draft of this paper. notes and references 1 the constitution of the islamic republic of pakistan 1973, art. 227. 2 ibid. 3 michael o’flaherty, “freedom of expression: article 19 of the international covenant on civil and political rights and the human rights committee’s general comment no. 34,” human rights law review 12, no 4 (2012), 628. 4 mogens herman hansen, “democratic freedom and the concept of freedom in plato and aristotle,” greek, roman, and byzantine studies 50, no 1 (2010), 1-27.; christopher caudwell, the concept of freedom (london: lawrence & wishart, 1965). 5 flaherty, “freedom of expression”, 628. 6 ibid; hugh goddard, a history of christian-muslim relations (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2000) 100. 7 the meanings of the noble qur'én, 2:256, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi, maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 8 ibid. 9 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'én, 18:29. 10 ibid, 10: 99. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 55 . 11 ibid, 109. 12 sahih al-bukhari, (79:6256), translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997) 13 muhammad roy purwanto , supriadi,supriyanto abdi, ahmad nurozi, tamyiz mukharrom. “tolerance and freedom of religion in indonesia and tunisia”. hamdard islamicus 43 (2020) (special issue). 14 thameem ushama, “islam: a religion of peace or force? an analysis based on the qur’an, sunnah and islam’s heritage”, hamdard islamicus 43 no 4 (2020). 15 jami‘ tirmidhi (39:2687). book of hadith, trans. abu khallyl (canada: darussalam publishers and distributors, 2007. 16 riaz ahmed saeed and hafiz muhammad naeem, “ waḥiduddīnkhan on freedom of expression and thought: an analysis of his views and approach." journal of islamic thought and civilization, 10, no. 2 (2020): 147-169. 17 ali muhammad bhat, “freedom of expressing from an islamic perspective,” journal of media and communication studies 6 no 5 (2014); saeed, “exploration of freedom of expression in islam and west,” 1.; muhammad hashim kamali, freedom of expression in islam (islamic texts society, 1997). 18 bhat, “freedom of expressing from an islamic perspective,” 69; ghulām hassan malik, “islam aur azadī-e-izhār” [islam and freedom of expression] monthly da’wah (2008) 14 no 11, 53; anwar jundī, qadāyā al-”asr wa al-mushkilāt al-fikrfī zaw al-islam (beirut: dār alfikr, 1984), 177; sayed abu al-a‘lā mawdūdī, khilāfat-o-malūkīyyat [caliphate and kinghood] (idāra tarjumān al-qur’ān, 1999) 261. 19bhat, “freedom of expressing from an islamic perspective,” 69. 20 kamali, freedom of expression in islam, 117. 21 ibid. 22 ibid. 23 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'én, 10:32. 24 ibid, 4:148-149. 25 ibid; kamali, freedom of expression in islam, 167-168. 26 ibid. 27 kamali, freedom of expression in islam, 171. 28 ibid, 175; usmani, the noble qur'én ,4:48; 6:21,93,7:37, 10:17. 29 ibid, 177. 30 ibid. 31 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'én,18:15. 32 kamali, freedom of expression in islam, 179. 56 freedom of expression and its restriction… . 33 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'én, 2:190. 34 ibid, 11:18; 33: 57; and 8: 25. 35 kamali, freedom of expression in islam, 182. 36 ibid, 186. 37 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'én, 4:94. 38 kamali, freedom of expression in islam, 187. 39 mishkat-ul-masabih (4:4817) translated by rafiq abdur rahman, darul isha’at, karachi, 2013. 40 kamali, freedom of expression in islam, 189-190. 41 ibid. 42 ibid; usmani, the meanings of the noble qur'én, 8:28; 64:15. 43 kamali, freedom of expression in islam, 192. 44 ibid, 260. 45 ibid. 46 sadia jamil, "understandings and practices of freedom of expression and press freedom in pakistan: ethnography of karachi journalistic environment" the university of queensland (2015). 47 ibid. 48 kamali, freedom of expression in islam, 166-250. 49 ibid.117. 50 lukasz wojtkowski, “agenda-setting versus freedom of speech,” polish political science yearbook 39 (2010) 244. 51 david bogen, “the origins of freedom of speech and press,” maryland law review 42 no 3 (1983) 432. 52 wojtkowski, “agenda-setting versus freedom of speech” 244. 53 saac m. morehouse, “areopagitica: milton’s influence on classical and modern political and economic thought,” libertarian papers 1 (2009) 2. 54 william magnuson, “the responsibility to protect and the decline of sovereignty: free speech protection under international law,” vanderbilt journal of transnational law 43 no 2 (2010) 277. 55 dawn watkins, “freedom of artistic expression and the human rights act 1998,” art antiquity and law 10 no 2 (2005)150. 56 david smith and luc torres, “timeline: a history of free speech,” the guardian, february 5, 2006, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/feb/05/religion.news. accessed june 23, 2020 57 chris berg, in defence of freedom of speech: from ancient greece to andrew bolt (australia, institute of public affairs, 2012). hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 57 . 58 torres, “timeline: a history of free speech”. 59 john stuart mill, on liberty (harmondsworth, uk: penguin, 1982); watkins, “freedom of artistic expression and the human rights act 1998,” 150. 60 michael lacewing, “mill on freedom of thought and expression” routledge, http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/a2 /mill/milltruth.pdf. 61 gregory a. paw, “political broadcasting access in the united states and great britain,” communications and the law,10 no. 4 (1988) 27-48; joshua cohen,“freedom of expression,” philosophy and public affairs, 22 no. 3 (1993) 207–263. 62 ibid. 63 mill, on liberty. 64 colin farrelly, “the social character of freedom of expression,” canadian journal of law and jurisprudence:14 no. 2 (2001) 262; richard l. abel, and ryo fujimoto, “speaking respect/respecting speech,” the sociology of law 50 (1998) 214-234. 65 mill, on liberty; david o. brink, “millian principles, freedom of expression, and hate speech,” legal theory, 7 no. 2 (2001) 122. 66 murray dry, free speech in political philosophy and its relation to american constitutional law: a consideration of mill, meiklejohn, and plato (constitutional commentary, 1994) 86. 67 ibid. 68 united states v. schwimmer (1929), 279 u.s. 64, 654-655. 69 robert corn-revere, “i will defend to the death your right to say it." but how?" litigation 43, no. 4 (2017): 40-47. 70 eric barendt, freedom of speech (oxford university press, 2005); paw, “political broadcasting,” 28. 71 ibid, 28. 72 brink, “millian principles,” 120. 73 harry h. wellington, “on freedom of expression,” yale law journal 88 no 6 (1979)1121. 74 mill, on liberty, 13. 75 joel feinberg, the moral limits of the criminal law (oxford university press, 1984) 45–51. 76 barendt, freedom of speech (oxford university press, 2007) 16; thomas scanlon, “a theory of freedom of expression,” philosophy & public affairs (1972):204. 77 paw, “political broadcasting,” 28. 78 eric barendt, freedom of speech (oxford university press, 2005). 79 ibid. 80 scanlon, “a theory of freedom of expression,” 204. 81 paw, “political broadcasting,” 30. 82 whitney v. california, 274 u.s. 357 (1927). 83 richard vernon, “john stuart mill and pornography: beyond the harm principle,” ethics 106 no 3 (1996) 621-632; donald g. brown, “mill on harm to others’ interests” political studies 26 no 3 (1978) 395-399; john gray, mill on liberty: a defence (routledge, 2013); steven d. smith, “is the harm principle illiberal,” american journal http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/a2%20/mill/milltruth.pdf http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/a2%20/mill/milltruth.pdf 58 freedom of expression and its restriction… . of jurisprudence 51 (2006)1; geoffrey marshall, constitutional theory (oxford university press, 1971); vincent blasi, “shouting “fire!” in a theatre and vilifying corn dealers,” the capital university law review 39 (2011) 535; frederick schauer, “on the relationship between chapters one and two of john stuart mill’s on liberty,” the capital university law review 39 (2011) 592. 84 wellington, “on freedom of expression,” 1110. 85 ronald j. jr. krotoszynski, “the chrysanthenum, the sword, and the first amendment: disentangling culture, community, and freedom of expression,” wisconsin law review 4, (1998) 911. 86 ibid, 920. 87 ibid. 88 ibid. 89 ibid. 90 ibid. 91 ibid. 92 ibid. 93 ibid, 947 94 murray dry, free speech in political philosophy…..: 88. 95 ibid, 89. 96 ibid, 90 97 david van mill, “explainer: what is free speech?,” the conversation, september 12, 2016, https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-free-speech-64797. 98 paw, “political broadcasting,” 30. 99 barendt, freedom of speech (oxford university press, 2005). 100 frederick f. schauer, “free speech: a philosophical enquiry” new york: cambridge university press (1982) 12. 101 paw, “political broadcasting,” 31. 102 alix iris cohen, “nonconsenual pornography and the first amendment: a case for a new unprotected category of speech” (2015) 70(1) university of miami law review 306. 103 mill, on liberty; brink, “millian principles,” 122. 104 joel feinberg, the moral limits of the criminal law: harm to self (oxford university press, 1989). 105 andrew koppelman and veil of ignorance, “tunnel constructivism in free speech theory,” northwestern university law review 107 (2013) 647; frederick schauer, “harm(s) and the first amendment,” supreme court review, no. 1 (2011) 81. 106 rebecca l. brown, “the harm principle and free speech,” southern california law review 89 no 5 (2016) 953-1010. 107 mill, on liberty. 108 harry h. wellington, “on freedom of expression,” the yale law journal, 88 no. 6 (1979) 1121. 109 feinberg, the moral limits of the criminal law, 45–51. 110 the ethics centre, “ethics explainer: the harm principle,” the ethics centre (2016). https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-free-speech-64797 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 59 . 111 feinberg, the moral limits of the criminal law, 45–51. 112 shawn marie boyne, “free speech, terrorism, and european security: defining and defending the political community,” pace law review 30 no 2 (2010) 417. 113 dry, free speech in political philosophy…., 85. 114 boyne, “free speech, terrorism, and european security: defining and defending the political community,” (2010) 30(2) pace law review 30 no 2 (2010) 417. 115 scanlon’s “millian” principle is a principle that limits the permissible justifications for government limitation of expression, http:// faculty. washington.edu/ wtalbott/phil410/ trscanlon.htm, accessed on 1st january 2021. 116 ibid. 117 brandenburg v. ohio, 395 u.s. 444 (1969). 118 naacp v. claiborne hardware, 1982, 459, u.s., 886(1982). 119 byron l. woolley, “clear and present danger full circle,” baylor law review 26 no 3 (1974) 386. 120 geoffrey r. stone, “opinion a clear and present danger to free speech,” the new york times, january 3, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/ opinion/04stone. html, accessed on 5th january 2021. 121 brandenburg v. ohio, 395 u.s. 444, 447 (1969). 122 dry, free speech in political philosophy….83. 123 cohen, “nonconsenual pornography and the first amendment…, 300-347. 124 jeremy waldron, the harm in hate speech (harvard university press, 2012); s. douglas-scott, “the hatefulness of protected speech: comparison of the american and european approaches,” william & mary bill of rights journal, 7 no 2 (1999) 305-346; john t. bennett, “the harm in hate speech: a critique of the empirical and legal bases of hate speech regulation”, hastings constitutional law quarterly, 43 no 3 (2016): 445-536; stefan sottiaux, “bad tendencies in the ecthr’s hate speech jurisprudence,” european constitutional law review 7 no 1(2011): 40-63; jessica s. henry, “beyond free speech: novel approaches to hate on the internet in the united states,” information & communications technology law 18(2), (2009): 235-252; dennis j. baker and lucy x. zhao, “the normativity of using prison to control hate speech: the hollowness of waldron’s harm theory,” new criminal law review: international and interdisciplinary journal, 16 no. 4, (2013): 621-656. 125 charles larmore, “political liberalism” political theory, 18 no. 3 (1990): 339-360. 126 ibid. 127 ibid. 128 waldron, the harm in hate speech. 129 ibid; ben laurence, “the responsibility-form of rights and practical capacities,” arizona state law journal 43 no 4 (2011) 1225. 130 waldron, the harm in hate speech, 145. 131 john kaplan, “the role of the law in drug control,” duke law journal (1971) 1065, 1072. 132 robert cl moffat, “social impacts on the criminal law of the enforcement of morality: some reflections on the anglo-american debate,” rechtstheorie 39 no 1 (2008) 53; kaplan, “the role of the law in drug control”, 1072. https://www.nytimes.com/ 60 freedom of expression and its restriction… . 133 kaplan, “the role of the law in drug control”, 1072. 134 ibid, 130. 135 waldron, the harm in hate speech, 146. 136 ibid. 137 ibid. 138 ibid 146. 139 ibid. 140 ibid. 141 ibid, 147. 142 thomas m. keck, “hate speech and double standards,” constitutional studies 1 (2016): 96. 143 jeremy waldron, “dignity and defamation: the visibility of hate,” harvard law review 123 no 7 (2010)1597. 144 waldron, the harm in hate speech, 107. 145 ibid, 76. 146 ibid, 69. 147 waldron, the harm in hate speech, 105, 130. 148 ibid, 126. 149 ibid, 122. 150 glen greenwald, “france arrests a comedian for his facebook comments, showing the sham of the west’s “free speech” celebration” (january 14, 2015) the intercept; eric heinze “towards the abolition of hate speech bans: a “viewpoint absolutist” perspective” in loenen and goldschmidt, religious pluralism and human rights in europe (antwerpen intersentia, 2007) 295-309; rex ahdar and ian leigh, religious freedom in the liberal state (oxford university press, 2005); the content and context of hate speech: rethinking regulation and responses, ed. michael herz and peter moluar (new york, cambridge university press, 2021): 57-80, 164, 341-344, 92 -115. 151 sindre bangstad, “jeremy waldron, the harm in hate speech,” nordic journal of human rights 30 no 2 (2012): 218; eric heinze “viewpoint absolutism and hate speech,” modern law review, 69 no. 4 (2006): 543 582; eric heinze, “towards the abolition of hate speech bans: a “viewpoint absolutist” perspective” loenen and goldschmidt, religious pluralism and human rights in europe (antwerpen intersentia, 2007): 295-309; eric heinze, “cumulative jurisprudence and hate speech: sexual orientation and analogies to disability, age, and obesity” hare and weinstein, extreme speech and democracy (2013). 152 muhammad fathi al-dirini, “justice in the islamic shari’a”, gerald e. lampe (ed.) justice and human rights in islamic law (1997). 153 ibid. 154 erich kolig (ed.), freedom of speech and islam (london: routledge, 2016). 155 ibid. 156 clare mcglynn and ian ward, “would john stuart mill have regulate pornography” (2014) 41(4) journal of law and society 500-522. 157 feinberg, the moral limits of the criminal law. 158 feinberg, the moral limits of the criminal law, 319. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 61 . 159 ibid. 160 ibid. 161 ibid. 162feinberg, the moral limits of the criminal law. 163 ibid. 164 ibid. 165 ibid. 166 feinberg, the moral limits of the criminal law. 167 ibid. 168 ibid. 169 ibid. 170 marloes van noorloos, hate speech revisited (university of utrecht, 2011): 31. 171 ibid. 172 wojciech sadurski, moral pluralism and legal neutrality (dordrecht kluwer, 1990); wojciech sadurski, freedom of speech and its limits (dordrecht: kluwer academic publishers, 1999). 173 ibid. 174 feinberg, the moral limits of the criminal law; noorloos, hate speech revisited, 31. 175 ibid. 176 larmore, “political liberalism”, 339-360. 177 noorloos, hate speech revisited, 33. 178 robert b. talisse, “two‐faced liberalism: john gray’s pluralist politics and the reinstatement of enlightenment liberalism,” critical review, 14(4), (2000): 441-458. 179 rex ahdar and ian leigh, religious freedom in the liberal state. 180 saeed, “exploration of freedom of expression in islam and west”. 181 jacob mchangama, “the sordid origin of hate-speech laws” policy review, (2011): 170; robert m. baird and stuart e. rosenbaum (eds.), hatred, bigotry, and prejudice: definitions, causes, and solutions. amherst (prometheus books, 1999). 182 mill, on liberty. 35. 183 c. edwin baker, human liberty and freedom of speech (oxford university press on demand, 1992). 184 human rights committee, general comment no. 34, art. 19: freedoms of opinion and expression, un doc. ccpr/c/gc/34, 12 september 2011, para 49. 185 donald e. lively, “supreme court’s emerging vision of false speech: a first amendment blind spot,” rutgers law review 38 no. 3 (1986) 480; expression nat stern, “judicial candidates” right to lie” maryland law review, (2018) 77(3), 774-831. 186 usmani (trans.) the meanings of the noble qur'én, 4: 48; bhat, “freedom of expressing from an islamic perspective”, 69-77. 187 ibid. 188 ibid, 72. 189 larmore, “political liberalism”, 339-360. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 731 issn :0250-7196 demoisturization variations of the arabic phoneme “jeem” tareq ibrahim al-ziyadat 1 abstract the study aims to determine the demoisturized sound among the variations of arabic phoneme, jeem, the fifth arabic alphabet, through examining the manner of articulation of these variations. it will also examine how place of articulation affects the air causing this demoisturization. the researcher made use of an explanatory diagram and the computer program (praat) and came up to the following findings: 1) classical “jeem” is not a combination of plosiveness and friction. 2) it also retains some moisture which facilitate gliding of the tongue forward to create narrowness that results in friction. 3) the levant “jeem” is more moisturized than the classical one as its stable moisture is exposed to a strong rush of air. 4) caireen “jeem” is not demoisturized. because air rushes out intermittently, it doesn‟t create demoisturization which requires a continuous air flow. keywords: caireen jeem; classical jeem; levant jeem; demoisturization. ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction phonology is one of the fields in which scholars differ with regard to phonemes which are constantly developing. to the ancients, arabic phonemes were articulated differently from what they are pronounced now by modernists. that could be inferred from the different descriptions they assigned them. for example, (qaf), 21 st arabic alphabet, is for the ancients voiced, but for modernists voiceless. the “daad” phoneme 15 th arabic alphabet, was a major problem for scholars; for the ancients it was a fricative lax phoneme, while for the modernists it is a tense plosive one. such a thing implies that the ancients articulated it differently from modernists. the variety of articulation did not happen inadvertently, but as a result of the phonemic development through passage of time. it also happens that modernists also differ in articulating a phoneme, as the case with “jeem”. some describe it to be a demoisturized phoneme in classical articulation, others describe the levant “jeem” to be the demoisturization. this controversial issue prompted the idea of this study in which the researcher attempts to specify the actual demoisturized phoneme. based on that, he defines demoisturization, its features, conditions, and the mechanism of articulating classical and levant “jeem” comparing them in manners of articulation which affect demoisturization of the phoneme. 1.1 significance of the study the study is significant as it sheds light on demoisturization feature of the phoneme “jeem”, a quality which has, to the knowledge of the researcher, been rarely discussed in arabic 1 arabic department, isra university amman, jordan. email: wesam_198221@yahoo.com mailto:wesam_198221@yahoo.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 732 issn :0250-7196 phonology. thus, the current study will determine what demoisturization is, its conditions, and the phoneme to which such conditions apply. the researcher will do that by referring back to what the ancients and modernists said on the issue and to the details they provided regarding the manner of articulation of the phoneme “jeem” and the features that distinguish it from other phonemes. the present study is singled out for the analysis it performs using the (praat) computer program. 1.2 questions of the study the study tries to find answers to the following questions: 1. what does phoneme demoisturization mean? 2. what are its conditions? 3. how do manners of articulation affect demoisturization? 4. which phoneme can be described the demoisturization one? 5. to what extent, is the classical jeem a combination of plosiveness and friction? 1.3 objectives of the study the researcher aims to clarify the following: 1. explain what demoisturization is and what are its conditions? 2. illustrate the differences between phonemic variations of the “jeem” with regard to demoisturization and manner of articulation. 3. explain the effect of manner of articulation and air on the degree of demoisturizaion. 4. determine the influence of moisture on phoneme articulation. 5. discuss the structural issue of classical “jeem” to figure out whether it is compounded from plosiveness and friction or from stop and friction. 2. methodology of the study the nature of the study dictated adopting the descriptive analytical method. the researcher will collect what the ancients and modernists said on the issue of demoisturization, discuss that in depth in order to achieve the objective of the study comparing it through explanatory drawings and images. 3. literature review kantino in his book “lessons in arabic phonology”, which was translated by saleh qarmawi in 1966, discussed arabic “jeem” which he described as “tense and lax phoneme”. he meant that it is a tense phoneme that ends lax with friction. scholars got along with him in this, but disagreed on the issue of whether the “jeem” structure is caused by plosiveness and friction or from stop and fiction? then he followed up the development of the phoneme “jeem” in which it is pronounced as “kaf” “22 nd alphabet in arabic” and the pronunciation like the phoneme hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 733 issn :0250-7196 “sheen”, 12the arabic alphabet. he indicated that the ancients never referred to laxity with which articulated “jeem” ends. ibrahim anees (1975) in his book “language phonemes” tackled the issue of classical “jeem” and its phonemic variations. he found out that it had developed producing the levant and caireen “jeems” and the same phoneme is pronounced “daal”, 8 th arabic alphabet in upper egypt. he pointed out that classical “jeem” is demoisturized, but if the place of articulation switches to the back palate, it loses demoisturization. he also noted that it is closer to old arabic “jeem”, if not itself, as the origin of the “jeem” is unknown. malbridge in his book “phonology”, translated by abdul saboor shaheen 1987, tackled classical “jeem” describing it as the phoneme that combines plosiveness and friction or tensity with laxity. he mentioned that the “jeem” is a combination of two phonemes, one is closer to “daal”, which is the first variance, and the other is closer to “sheen” which is the second. he defined demoisturization without elaborating on its mechanism and variations of the “jeem”. he discussed what was restricted to the classical “jeem”. shaheen (1985), in his book “language development” assigned a chapter for classical “jeem” and its features elaborating on its place of escape and mechanism of articulation. he afterwards discussed the phonemic variations of the developed articulated “jeem” in its three forms: caireen /g/, voiced velar, levant jeem /3/ (alveo palatal), and the classical one /d3/ (palatal), the demoisturized. bisher (2000) in his book “phonology”, assigned a chapter for arabic “jeem” indicating that it has various forms of articulation: classical / d3/, caireen, /g/, and syrian /3/. in this, he agreed with scholars, but was distinguished in highlighting that the “jeem” is characterized by being fricative stop different from other plosive stop phonemes. he also discussed the development of “jeem” pointing out that the caireen one is the origin of articulation and that the other variations are developed forms of that origin. to support his claim, he provided a set of evidences among which was that the caireen jeem is the original one in semitic languages to which arabic belongs. jeitan, tayseer (2017) in his dissertation on “the phonemic stylistics of al-anaam surah” chapter no. (6) in the holy quran, the researcher tackled classical jeem highlighting point of escape. he also mentioned that it is a compound of plosiveness and friction in which the phoneme starts like what modern scholars say from a position close to that of “daal” and ends close to that of levant “jeem”. he also mentioned that some scholars call the “jeem” the dual phoneme with reference to what occurs through its articulation. as the previous studies were short of any details of the demoisturization phenomenon in arabic “jeem”, this prompted the researcher to investigate and analyze such an issue in the current study, hoping that it will add up a new thing to arabic phonology. 4. discussion and analysis in this part of the study, the researcher will discuss four major topics: demoisturization, meaning and conditions, classical jeem / d3 /, levant jeem /3/, and caireen jeem /g/. 4.1 first topic: demoisturization, meaning and conditions hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 734 issn :0250-7196 when checking demoisturization in arabic dictionaries, we find that it refers to thirst or water retention. in “lisan al-arab” an arabic dictionary, it defines thirst to be anti-watering. a thirsty place is that were water is scarce, “utash” are diseases that inflict humans in which their thirst is never quenched. (ibn manthoor, 1993). as for the term “taateesh” (make someone feel thirsty), it implies two elements: the event itself-thirst, the doer and the receiver. this means that the word “taateesh” incorporates three elements, the event, the agent who caused that, and the receiver who suffered from lack of water. moreover, anything can never be made thirsty, unless it quenches thirst first. thus, becoming thirsty is sequential to having lost water and moisture. the object, as a result becomes dry and demoisturized. terminology wise, malbridge (n.d) defined “taateesh” saying that sound starts when air is detained between the middle of the tongue and the parallel palate, then is suddenly released. as the area the tongue occupies is relatively large, when compared to the retention that occurs behind the gum, the tongue doesn‟t separate itself from the palate the same moment, causing friction. the articulator intensifies this friction a little to produce a compound „jeem‟ that incorporates some intensity and laxity. thus the “jeem” in foreign transcription has two symbols /d3/ as /d/ stands for tensity and /3/ for laxity. the preceding discussion reveals that demoisturization is the outcome of the friction that occurs at the point of articulation when the tongue moves away from the gum in the phoneme “jeem” which mablridge described as the classical jeem which scholars labeled as compound of two phonemes (d), and levant jeem (3). 4.2 demoisturization conditions it is now clear that demoistruization will affect only wet or saturated things. certain tools control and affect it. the wetter and more saturated the things are, the stronger and faster the tool of demoisturization is. the only tools of demoisturization in human‟s articulatory system are air, in addition to, long mouth opening which only happens at articulation. this is the subject of the current study which elaborates on the mechanism of demoisturization during articulation occurring when air passes through the articulatory system. there is no doubt that the articulatory manner of each phoneme differs from those of others. had this difference not exist, all phonemes would have been articulated the same and this never creates a language by which humans can communicate. the oral cavity with its articulatory obstructions create certain positions which affect air movement on its way from lungs to mouth. this will also help to dry moisture found in the oral cavity. the faster the air is and the wider the cavity is, the stronger the air will be in demoisturizing, a factor that affects sound resonance. avicena was aware of the role of moisture in phoneme articulation. in his letter, he elaborated on the amount of moisture in each phoneme. on the phoneme, “ein”, the 18 th arabic alphabet, he assures that air closure is not complete, but strong and deeper as it moves into the throat. when released from the larynx; it is the wettest and the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 735 issn :0250-7196 highest moisturized. the straight rush of the air shatters moisture (1982; 114). it is noted that avicena found a relation between non-complete closure which contributes to air rush and moisture which is shattered, due to air obstruction that affects phoneme articulation creating the needed resonance. thus, the demoisturization process is in need for the following: 1. a special articulatory manner and particular positions articulators take allowing air to eliminate moisture, a position that requires narrowness that leads to audible friction. 2. air should move fast in order to remove moisture and demoisturize place of articulation. 4.3 second subject: classical jeem (d3) the phoneme “jeem” is one of those phonemes which was a problem for modern phonologists because when they traced its escape as described by the ancients and compared that to what they came up to, they found that the ancients didn‟t notice certain aspects in their description. for example, sebaweyh said “the escape of” “jeem, sheen, and ya”, 5 th , 13 th , and 28 arabic alphabets respectively, occurs between the middle of the tongue and mid-hard palate (sebawey; 433). he also mentioned some of the unfavored alphabets to read “in reciting the quran and poetry, which are unfavored in reading: “kaf” between jeem and “kaf”, “jeem” that is similar to “kaf” (velar) and the jeem similar to “sheen”. they found out that classical “jeem” /d3/ had developed throughout ages and ended up with a group of “jeems”: classical, that of quran and poetry, transcribed as /d3/, the one between “kaf” and jeem, known as caireen jeem transcribed as /g/, velar, and the levant jeem spoken in jordan, syria, and lebanon, and transcribed /3/ (shaheen, 1985: 186). such a variation implies that there are three mechanisms to articulate these three phonemes, each has its own features. it also implies that the “jeem” was once pronounced as one which developed throughout ages to have two more forms. the difference between scholars is mainly confined to classical and caireen jeems, /d3/, /g/, respectively. some like, bisher (2002), said that the careen “jeem” /g/, the velar one, is the origin as there are clear historical traces that the modern caireen jeem, /g/, is the origin (bisher: 320); while others like al-hamad qadoori (2003), sees that classical jeem /d3/ is the origin. he affirms that the it was the “jeem” used by arabs during the period of quran revelation. it is the one articulated by quran readers and many of speakers of arabic today. it is the one tackled by scholars of arabic tajweed (quran reciting) scholars who described it to be a tense phoneme articulated at the middle of the tongue that faces the upper palate (qadoori: 244). when considering the description the ancient arabs gave to the jeem “(attributed to qureish)”, one of the major arab tribes, which was known for eloquence, one can find that in a word like /wad3ada/, the description is not quite accurate when compared to what the modernists had come up to. sebawey says that the jeem‟s ascape is from the middle of the tongue and midupper palate similar to escapes of (jeem, sheen and ya) (sebawey: 433). such hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 736 issn :0250-7196 a description doesn‟t specify the exact point of escape of the phoneme, but accounts for the place of articulation for such phonemes with their variations. in considering modernists descriptions, we find that the exact description of the escape is elaborated on in the following: 1jabal, (2006) pointed out that in articulating the demoisturized “jeem” air rushes through the vocal cords making them vibrate till it reaches oral cavity where the front part of the tongue rises to closely touch the front palate then releases slowly producing the tense phoneme “jeem” (jabal:102) 2bisher, (2000) stated that articulating the “jeem” phoneme starts by raising front of the tongue toward front palate and back of the gum which holds back the air released from the lungs. then, instead of sudden separation (as the case with plosive stops), the tongue retracts slowly giving air an opportunity to touch separated organs (bisher: 310). the two preceding statements reflect that all scholars agree on “jeem” to be a phoneme produced when front of the tongue closely touches back of the gum which never allows air to escape. it is a different manner of articulation. from the view point of modernists, in other tense or plosive phonemes, when the two articulators meet, they separate very quickly creating a resonant plosive. in the case of “jeem”, the articulators slowly move away without causing any plosiveness, but an audible friction is heard. fandarees called this explosion (the failure one). in accordance with that, scholars termed “jeem “the compound phoneme” because it combines two manners of articulation: plosiveness and friction. al-nuri, (2007) pointed out that this consonant “the jeem” combines plosiveness with friction, i.e., it starts plosive and ends fricative (157). if we follow the “jeem” escape, we find that after air passes through the vocal cords causing them to vibrate, it reaches a point of escape where the front of the tongue rises toward the upper gum touching it and holding air back. the tongue then slowly moves away creating a kind of friction where the explosion happens? it is known, in phonology, that complete closure resulting from the meeting of two articulators is followed by an explosion, pending that the articulator‟s separation occurs fast which never happens with the “jeem”. the separation slowly occurs preventing explosion. therefore, articulating the “jeem” passes through two processes: air stop and friction, as referred to by bisher when he said: “in the classical jeem as pronounced today, air is detained once articulation starts, then is followed by a slow passage of air causing an audible friction at the escape itself”. there is a stop at the onset and friction at the end (bisher: 311). articulating “jeem” passes through two stages which affect demoisturization. what happens in the stages is as follows:? 1first stage: the front of the tongue touches the gum holding back air due to this closure. here, air plays no role in demoisturization as it is held back. what happens is that air stream rushing quickly from the lungs passes through the vocal cords causing them to vibrate thus, decreasing force of air rush till it stops at the point of closure where it loses the acquired force which becomes zero. this is what al-ilmiyeh and isteitieh (2014) calls negative pressure. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 737 issn :0250-7196 thus, at this stage the phoneme still retains moisture kept behind internal closure which helps in articulating the phoneme in order to easily move to the second stage. 2second stage: the tongue slowly moves away from the gum creating some sort of narrowness which allows air to seep away from the closure area without any explosion; it creates an audible friction, instead, that leads to minor demoisturization that results from slow separation and the strict narrowness which prevents plenary demoisturization as the case is with the phoneme “sheen”. this demoisturization is minor because of two factors: first, the air flowing from the lungs faces narrow vocal cords which make it lose its force to flow fast. second, complete air closure at the area, in addition to tongue slow separation from the gum, retains some moisture preventing plenary demoisturization. such a thing helps the tongue to glide slowly forward. had a plenary demoisturization happened, gliding would have become more difficult and that might affect the correct articulation of the phoneme. the following picture illustrates that: first stage: air closure area resulting from edge of the tongue touching back of the gum. the closure is between two wet organsthe tongue, saliva producer, and the moisturized area above it. thus, air gets some moisture which restricts its ability for demoisturization. second stage: it is the stage where slow separation between the tongue and hard gum occurs, as the tongue glides forward aided by the moisture that lost a small portion because of air leak, being pressurized in the closure area. the area where air flowing from the lungs is obstructed. this decreases air speed before it reaches closure area. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 738 issn :0250-7196 from what preceded, one can notice that classical arabic “jeem” /d3/ consists of two parts: air stop and air friction, two consecutive processes that do not concurrently occur. air stop never demoisturizes, but a step towards that. when air stops at the moisturized area, it carries some moisture particles, but after the slow separation, it doesn‟t greatly demoisturize. thus, the demoisturization in the classical “jeem” is confined to the second part, not to the whole phoneme.to illustrate the influence of that, look at the spectroscopy of the phoneme “jeem” using (praat) program for (boersma & david 2017). this shows the first stage of articulating “jeem”. it is the stage where air is stopped after closure. the spectroscopy shows sound density which is caused by air retention that acquires moisture of the area retained from the tongue and hard gum. air didn‟t lose anything except that its pressure becomes zero, due to the stop, a preparatory process for slow explosion. during the second stage of articulating classical “jeem” / d3/, it appears that the amount of moisture was never affected, due to demoisturization to which air was exposed after the slow separation of the tongue from the gum. it is true that it was affected as the black color in the spectroscopy shows, but that was minor. therefore, scholars called it the “jeem” of little demoisturization or of less tensity. what we notice in the previous spectroscopy is that “jeem” is not a combination of plosiveness and friction. no. (1) shows the amount of air accumulated in closure area, where as in no. (2) shows how air gradually escapes, known as friction. had the air been plosive, it would have rushed out quickly in one move. but if we examine the sound of a plosive phoneme like (ba), the second arabic alphabet, we notice the difference between them with regard to air escape. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 739 issn :0250-7196 dark area (1) shows the level of air accumulation released from lungs before articulating the phoneme. it is completely compressed because the two lips are lightly closed in preparation for the explosion. it doesn‟t comingle with the lightly shaded area (2). this reveals that detention and explosion are two integrated stages. detention is followed by explosion without a pause in between. still they don‟t comingle like what happens in classical “jeem”. the lightly shaded area is that in which articulation starts. it shows that air rushes out quickly in one move creating a quick, sudden explosion. therefore, the sound of (ba) is plosive as held behind the lips explodes quickly after release. what assures that is the lightly shaded area doesn‟t comingle with the other area, the darkly shaded one that refers to air detention that stops at the articulation of classical “jeem”. the structure of classical “jeem” /d3/, as viewed by modernists affirms that the first part is close to “daal” phoneme, 8 th arabic alphabet, and the second part is demoisturized like the levant “jeem” /3/ (al-nuri: 157). this view confirms that demoisturization in classical “jeem” lies in the second part, not the first because air forms a wave that moves slowly but never demoisturizes. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 740 issn :0250-7196 4.4 the levant jeem /3/ this name is given to the variant “jeem” pronounced in the levant (syria, lebanon, and jordan). it is much easier to pronounce than the classical one. it is close to the (sheen) phoneme. for example, the word / jamal, d3ǝmǝl (camel), /d3/ is voiced while the sheen “ʃ” is voicless (qaddori: 242). ibn yaeesh (2004) pointed out that “sheen” is “jeem‟s” sister in place of articulation (537). they are both fricatives as air spreads out of escape. avicena said that “sheen” is similar to “jeem” with the exception of closure, thus “sheen” is closure-free “jeem” (76). jabal (2006) is describing the “sheen” says “sheen is produced when front of the tongue transversally rises to the front plate narrowing the area between tip of the tongue and front teeth that obstructs passing air. therefore, air seeps out voicelessly from that narrow escape. (jabal: 102). abdul saboor (1985) says that the sheen is one of the phonemes in which air largely spreads out on the tongue surface enabling air to eliminate all moisture when the person proceeds in pronunciation. this is one of the features that the levant “jeem” borrowed from “sheen”. still, the two phonemes differ, for the “jeem” is voiced while “sheen” is voiceless and the area occupied by “sheen” is larger than that of levant “jeem” (187). the following figure illustrates the points of escape for “sheen” and levant “jeem” the narrow area that causes friction. the figure shows that air doesn‟t stop for the outlet is open and that helps in demoisturization and moisture elimination. both “sheen” and levant “jeem” are fricatives where friction occurs at one stage, not at two. thus, demoisturization is greater in the levant “jeem” than its classical counterpart. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 741 issn :0250-7196 the extension represents the amount of air passing through escape area where sound is created and formed whoever examines the above figure finds out that both “sheen” and “jeem” are strong demoisturized phonemes because of the following: 1powerful air rushing out of the lunges. it is known that lax phonemes consume more air than plosives so, it maintains resonance till all air is used up. in other words, they are elongated phonemes that extend along with the air flowing out of the lungs (alanani: 58). 2air escape is never closed: what happens is just narrowing of the escape area and that creates friction leading to demoisturization. but the “sheen” differs from levant “jeem” in three issues: amount of rushing air, escape width, and voicelessness, in addition, air speed in the “sheen” is great. al-ilmiyeh and isteitieh (2014) pointed out that “air speed at” “sheen” articulation mitigates some of the moisture at the place of articulation, so sound in the “sheen” is harsh and dry.” (126). 3air spreads on a larger area: flat tongue helps air to freely move and spread. the area in the sheen is larger than that of the levant “jeem”. such a thing can be explained through (praat) program as follows: first, the sheen hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 742 issn :0250-7196 the second area where friction ends during air escape the first area where friction starts in the narrowed place the figure above shows that air spreads at a large area assisted by manner of articulation. the tongue takes a flat shape, this is what the spread of “sheen” means. the “sheen”, being voiceless, gave air power to move without being hindered by any obstacle except the one it meets at the middle of the tongue. the vocal cords, the first area where the first obstruction for air was supposed to occur, never happens because they are apart allowing air to pass freely. the ranges of extension of articulating levant “jeem” is noted through the way air escapes out in a gradual manner. dark area (1) indicates the beginning of air friction with the narrowed area in the middle of the tongue. this friction disappears in a gradual manner as air moves forward strongly demoistruizing the wet area. area (2) shows air decrease as it draws nearer to the mouth as a great portion of it leaked outside, not hampered by any obstacle. if we compare the levant “jeem” to “sheen”, we find that air spread in the “sheen” is much bigger. consequently, the area needs a large amount of air and more freedom to move. this is what the manner of articulation of the “sheen” provides: flat tongue and no air obstruction before escape. thus, we understand that levant “jeem” is the strongly demoisturized one, for which it was in articulation close to the “sheen” as the latter spreads more air to create demoisturization (al-seigh:196). the fourth subject: the caireen “jeem” /g/ this variation of articulation of the classical “jeem”, /d3/ was called by scholars caireen “jeem” /3/ for it is common in cairo. it is pronounced close to (qaf), 21 st arabic alphabet. thus, a word like /d3mǝl/ is pronounced /gǝmǝl/. the “jeem” here corresponds to the english phoneme /g/ in go/ gou/. bisher (2000) elaborated on the mechanism of its articulation saying: “when this variation of “jeem” is articulated, air is completely detained at the back palate when it suddenly bursts out making vocal cords to vibrate in the process of hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 743 issn :0250-7196 area of complete closure where far back of the tongue touches far back palate which provides air with some force to create air closure area articulation. this variation of “jeem” was also known to the ancients. sebawey, for example, talked about the unfavored phonemes in reading saying “the “jeem” that is similar to the /qaf/ sound with regard to escape. the articulation of each starts from the far back palate (velum) where air is completely detained as a result of far back of the tongue touching the far back palate closing air passage. when the escape point is realsed, air rushes forcefully and quickly. but still there is a difference between them, the caireen /g/ is voiced while /k/ is voiceless. thus, it might be called (voiced k). bisher: (317), called it the far back stop plosive “jeem”. in that, he was referring to the manner of articulation and the distinctive features for which he called the far back (velar), as it is produced at the far back palate. as for being called stop plosive, that is because air is stopped then bursts which implies that air couldn‟t demoisturize it the way it does with its classical and levant counterparts for the following reasons: 1air is completely obstructed, but demoisturization requires free air movement. 2at the release, air bursts preventing friction needed for demoistruization. 3it differs from both “jeems”, classical and levant, regarding manner of articulation as it doesn‟t allow air to spread out to cause friction. therefore, it is a plosive phoneme. as for the two “jeems” classical and levant, they are both fricative phonemes for modernists, but lax for the ancients. 4it is a non-continuant phoneme because air escapes in one quick rush and demoisturization requires air to escape in a continuous manner. the following picture shows the escape for the phoneme (kaf)/k), and the caireen /g/voiced kaf. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 744 issn :0250-7196 voiced/kaf/ caireen “g” or voiced /kaf/ to measure the range of air rush and the space the sound occupies, the two phonemes were pronounced more than once through (praat) program to ensure information accuracy. the following pictures were the outcome: the previous picture shows the similarity between the caireen jeem /g/ and kaf, /k/. they both share air rush and the extension of that rush including the waves contained, but they differ in sound vibrations which are higher in the caireen jeem, due to voicedness resulting from narrowness of the vocal cords through which air passes. as for demoisturization, they both are free of it which is apparently judged from the manner of articulation in which air escapes in one rush the moment it bursts after closure release and that prevents demoisturization which differs from manner of articulation of fricatives. anees (1975) pointed out that the classical jeem developed in the caireen variation as it drew nearer to the far back palate, becomes more tense losing what might be called demoistruization. 5. conclusion through the discussion of the three variations of the jeem: the classical (d3), the caireen, /g/, and the levant /3/, the researcher came up to the following results: 1classical jeem is not a compound of friction and explosion. 2levant jeem is more demoistruized than the classical one for it is closer to “sheen” in air intensity, but differs in being voiced while “sheen” is voiceless. 3sound demoisturization requires a wet narrow escape with strong air. 4moisture greatly influences phoneme articulation as it hampers air movement and provides the sound with a certain tone. it also has another function in classical jeem for it helps tip of the tongue to glide forward allowing air flow. 5caireen jeem (voiced kaf) has no degree of demoisturization as it is produced at far back of the tongue touching the extreme back of the palate detaining air completely behind. when it is suddenly released, it produces a plosive sound devoid of demoisturization. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 731-745 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 745 issn :0250-7196 6. recommendations based on findings of the study, the researcher would like to recommend the following: 1to review synonymous terminology adopted by modernists to pin point the minute differences which revealed that the jeem is a stop fricative, not a plosive fricative. 2to study the phoneme affecting articulation passage as air moves and changes manner of articulation through moisture and demoisturization. 3to investigate moisture influence on forming secondary features of plosive and fricative phonemes. 4to organize phonemes ascendingly or descendingly in compliance with the amount of moisture or demoisturization which affect them using modern tools as measurements. references al-anani, mohammed isaac. (2008). introduction to linguistics. amman, jordan: dar wael. al-hamad, & qadoori, g. (2003). phonemic studies for tajweed. al-ilmiyeh, & isteitieh, s. (2014). fricative phonemes in arabic between performance and quantity. journal of human sciences, irbid: yarmouk university. al-nuri, m. j. (2007). arabic phonology. palestine: jerusalem open university. al-seigh, a. a. (2007). phonemic terminology in arabic studies. damascus, egypt: dar alfiker. anees, i. (1975). language phonemes. cairo, egypt: maktabat al-nahda. bisher, k. (2000). phonology. amman, jordan: dar ghareeb. boersma, p., & weenink, d. (2017). praat: doing phonetics by computer (computer program). version 6.0.32. fandarees. (2014). language. cairo, egypt: national center for translation. ibn manthoor. (1993). lisan al-arab. (arab tongue). beirut, lebnon: dar saber. ibn sina. (1982). resala asbab huduth & al-huroof. (a letter on causes of letter occurrences). verified by mohammed tayyan, and mohammed alam, damascus: arabic language academy. ibn yaeesh. (2001). sharh al-mifsal. (the detail explication). beirut, lebnon: dar al-kutub jabal, m. h. (2006). the abridged in arabic phonemes. cairo, egypt: al-adab library. kantino, j. (1996). lessons in arabic phonology. saleh qarmawi, edit. tunis university. shaheen, a. s. (1985). on language development. al-risalah institution. (n.p). sibawey. (1983). al-kitab (the book). edit. abdul salam haroon. cairo, egypt: al-khanji library. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1761 issn :0250-7196 exploring the formation of coalitions between islamist and secular parties in indonesia local elections: figure, patronage and common enemy abdul chalik 1 , muhaemin latif 2 abstract: the issue of difficulties in building coalitions between pks and pdip has been widely discussed by the scholars. this paper presents the reasons for the formation of coalition between secular and islamic parties in supporting the election of leaders where coalitions are formed at the local level. the study suggests that the track record of candidate, patronage system, and the involvement of elites either from inside or outside of the party, determine the treatise of a coalition. in addition, an effort to make the dominant political power as the common enemy is another strategyin the local political contest. the study also found that the coalition of inter ideologies can lead to the creation of temporary coalitions where political interests align. keywords: coalition, local politics, patronage, figure and common enemy ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction changing political dynamics frequently create many surprises for both national and local elections during the reformation era in indonesia (1998-now). the reformation era not only has seen the creation of several new political parties with different ideologies but also seen differences between the formation of political coalitions at national and local levels. in some cases, some different parties cooperated at the national level, but at local levels will support candidates at local levels from parties they are not aligned with nationally. for example, both pdip (indonesian democratic party of struggle) and pks (prosperous justice party) never cooperated in a national context. this can be seen when pks were in power (2005-2010 and 2010-2014), pdip at the same time were in opposition. subsequently, once pdip won the election and took over government (2014-2019 and 2019-2024), pks became the opposition (aspinall & mietzner, 2014; bourchier, 2019). in contrast, at local political levels, both parties cooperated to support the same candidate in three different provinces and thirtythree regencies in 2018 (detik.com, 2018). if pdip acts as the main supporter of one candidate, pks will often be an additional supporter and vice versa. this study examined this phenomenon in south sulawesi and east java the parties aligned at the provincial level. pdip and pks have a different ideological and supporters background. pdip is considered to be a nationalist party, and some researchers call it a secular-exclusive party (baswedan, 2004; evans, 2003; feith & castle, 1970). 1 this notion is based on the observation that the party frequently contrasts the relationship between islam and the state. besides, the main base 1 state islamic university (uin) sunan ampel surabaya, indonesia. email :achalik_el@yahoo.co.id. 2 state islamic university (uin) alauddin makassar email: muhaemin.latif@uin-alauddin.ac.id. correponding author : achalik_el@yahoo.co.id, phone : +6285331721463 mailto:achalik_el@yahoo.co.id mailto:muhaemin.latif@uin-alauddin.ac.id mailto:achalik_el@yahoo.co.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1762 issn :0250-7196 of pdip supporters are a marhaen group (geraldy, 2019; nashir & jinan, 2018), 2 sukarno followers who come from grass root level (abangan) and non-moslem (kaligis, 2014). they are scattered in many regions of indonesia. meanwhile, the foundation of pks is islam. they identified themselves as the islamic party, which are struggling to maintain islamic values in the country’s life (fealy, 2001). the party followers are mostly dominated by middle eastern university alumni, salafi groups (early generation of islam), and missionary networkingbased universities that scatter in many popular universities (nurdin, 2011). thus, the vast majority of this party’s supporters are educated people, professionals, and middle-class society. pks however is a new party that emerged in the reformation era 1998 (hilmy, 2007) that previously called as the pk (the justice party). this change might be caused by the insufficient of the percentage of pk voters which must be two percent of national voters. scholars such as baswedan (2004), pepinsky, liddle, and mujani (2012), identifies pks as islamist party and exclusive islam. 3 furthermore, pks is grouped with transnational islamic parties, because the ideas, founders and main figures of the party are mostly middle eastern alumni and have an incision with middle eastern model religious and political practices (rahmat, 2006). moreover, pks is a solid and disciplined cadre party (fealy, 2001), and is often identified with the practice of politicizing religion through symbols and rituals. this can be seen in the process of fans recruitment which take a long and tight procedure (hasan, 2011). furthermore, the pks fans is the educated middle class, public and professional colleges (minardi, 2018). local elections are crucial for political parties to build political power in a region. as contended by ben hilman (2012), the competition of local political contest may attract more attention in local area rather than a national political contest. different types of power, such as economic, track record of the candidates, and networking can determine the victory of the election (lay, 2012). these elements become the foundation for parties’ cooperation in the local election. a number of strategies came up to win the local political contest such as building ideology cross coalition. this article seeks to understand the reasons behind the coalition and also try to figure out the political ideologies for each parties in building cooperation. 2. literature review one of the main characteristics regarding the indonesia political system is sharing power. consequently, there is no single party even the president who has capabilities to fully controlled the political authority either in the parliament or government (mietzner, 2013). this political system is mainly caused by the fragmentation of muslim community in indonesia which further influenced the political party fragmentation. generally the vast majority of indonesia political parties encounter same barriers where the party and its member mainly concerned on the track of candidate not the party as the institution (mietzner, 2013). in other words, the party frequently pick up the candidate who is potentially to get more voters without considering their capabilities and experiences although these candidates are not the party followers (mietzner, 2016). to put it simply, the popularity hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1763 issn :0250-7196 of figure is mainly considered to get more voters (mietzner, 2013). this is supported by the indonesia political system who allow non-cadre of party to join the local political contest as long as they meet the condition. on the other hand, the reformation era has created a movement that divides the power of the presidency and the legislative (dpr) as well as the delegation of authority between the center and the regions. as an illustration, according to world bank records there was an increase in the distribution of authority from 17 percent in 2000 to 40 percent after 2009 (mietzner, 2013). the birth of law no. 32 of 2004 concerning regional government, one of which regulates direct regional head elections, giving birth to the spread of the political axis from the center to the regions. local politics has served as a bellwether of state of democracy in the country (fossati, 2016). prior to the enactment of this law, political and economic frenzy was concentrated in jakarta. this condition makes political parties run fast to win positions at the regional level because it will have an impact on the popularity and acceptability of parties in the election. in various previous studies, the main issues in local elections are related to candidates and patronage. the candidate is related to the party's efforts to win the regional election (pilkada) to recruit candidates who have high voting appeal. the aspects of personality, popularity and wealth became general considerations even though they came from outside the party (lay, 2012). it cannot be denied that the process of recruiting candidates has resulted in buying and selling tickets as candidates. as explained by buehler and tan (2005) in a case study in gowa, about the process of recruiting candidate through buying and selling tickets for regional head candidates (buehler & tan, 2007; buehler, 2010). citing a statement by political party leaders that the ticket that had to be paid by candidates from outside the party cost $ 200,000, while from the cadre itself was $ 60,000 (buehler, 2007). the party provides the opportunity for the public to get a ticket for nomination by paying the required amount. the longer this kind of candidate model is still strong especially at the local level (fossati, 2019a). one of the reasons is that the selection of candidates is carried out openly and everyone can access it if they meet the requirements set by the party. the case in gowa illustrates the general phenomenon of political parties in indonesia. the role of the chair in deciding whether or not to qualify as a candidate is very decisive (lele, 2012). the pattern of each party is almost the same (budi, 2020). regional leaders submit candidates to the central head of party, and from this process the central leadership will determine the final decision. one of the phenomena of buying and selling candidate tickets is the strong personalization of the party or party chairman as if it were the owner (budiarti, 2018). some of these trends can be seen in pdip, pkb, gerindra, democrat, nasdem (chambers & ufen, 2020). one side of the unclear definition of the position of chairman of the party is also visible in the strong personal influence in changing internal party rules and in determining the party management under him (chambers & ufen, 2020). in addition, several political parties are still strong in maintaining figures who are the power of party strengthening in the electoral, as happened to pan and amien rais, megawati in pdip and pkb with (late) kyai abdurrahman wahid (gus dur). regardless from the issue of recruiting candidates, patronage is also a major issue in local elections. aspinall and sukmajati (2016) stated patronage as a shareable benefit that is hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1764 issn :0250-7196 exchanged for political support. some of the most notable forms of patronage are vote buying, gift giving, project promises, cooperation and social assistance. patronage can occur before and after contestation. the promise or gift is submitted before the election is regarded as the 'door opener' and continues after being elected a larger number. aspinall said patronage was practiced openly and semi-legally and part of the neoliberal model (aspinall, 2013). money politics (vote buying) (sumampouw, 2018; lewis, 2020) which occurred during the general election and regional election which is well known to many people, and this phenomenon seem to have been ignored by law enforcers. the practice of patronage occurred in many rural communities and poor families, although it cannot be denied that it occurs in the urban middle class (tomsa, 2014). the candidate-client relationship is largely temporary depending on how long he has been in power (aspinall & hicken, 2020). patronage practices target all political parties, including islamic parties (hamayotsu, 2011). the case described by buchler and tan in gowa actually happened to ppp, which in fact was an islamic party (buehler & tan, 2007). to put it simply, there are no differences in the patterns and strategies to get votes between the islamic and nationalist parties, including the matter of patronage (hamayotsu, 2011). in the regional elections where the parties are very close and face to face with constituents, the use of various new strategies is strongly required. competition for regional heads encourages parties to seek new approaches, one of which is to form an extreme coalition. this can be viewed in the case of the pdip-pks coalition that has never happened at the national level, but it was actually practiced in a regional coalition. election law no. 7 of 2017 requires that the nomination of regional heads must meet 20% of the total votes. in practice, not all political parties meet these requirements, including pdip and pks. consequently, a cross-party coalition becomes an unavoidable option. coalitions refer to joint efforts integrating interests to achieve common purposes (leftwich & wheeler, 2011). it is a collection of government parties (grzymala-busse, 2001), as well as a joint movement who share benefits by adhering to stipulated coalition agreement (tattersall, 2006). the party coalition occurs for two reasons; firstly, to win office or a position in government (office seeking), or secondly to fight for the policies and ideals of the party that benefits the public interest (policy seeking) (strom, 1990). additionally, strom (1990) suggests that coalitions may be formed simply as a means of vote-seeking. each of these approaches has advantages and disadvantages. meanwhile, nyhuis and plescia (2017) explain the possibility of another coalition consideration due to satisfying voters by putting aside all differences including ideological differences. there is a strong effort of voters to encourage political parties to form coalitions with other parties. the pdip-pks coalition in the election for the governors of south sulawesi and east java in 2018 was more driven by non-ideological considerations. apart from figure and patronage factors, it is also due to a strong effort to break the hegemonic strength of the golkar party by making it a 'common enemy'. these three factors occur simultaneously. figures, patronage and common enemy become new models in winning regional heads. here in lies the advantage of this article compared to previous research. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1765 issn :0250-7196 3. method the research used the qualitative approach. it employs interviews, participatory observation, and documents collection either from journals or websites. the research focused the two big provinces, south sulawesi and east java and representativeness of west and east indonesia. data analysis used the interactive analysis miles and huberman (1994). it starts from data gathering, display, reduction and conclusion. 4. findings and discussion 4.1 figure, patronage and common enemy in local election the strength and popularity of the figure of a regional leader candidate is crucial for electability. the higher the profile of the figure, the greater the electability. the strength of the figure might be sourced from experience as a political leader, record experiences in government, a role in various social activities, and because of family descent who have respectable social status (aspinall & sukmajati, 2016). two candidates supported by pdi-p and pks in east java (east java) and south sulawesi (south sulawesi) in the local elections in 2018 are very popular figures in their area. nurdin abdullah (na) as a governor candidate in south sulawesi and syaifullah yusuf (si) represented east java. both candidates are the popular figure at that time. na, candidate for governor in south sulawesi, has the ability and figure that is quite prominent compared to other figures. na is the regent of bantaeng for two periods. at the provincial level, bantaeng is one of the prominent districts; it has recently become notable in the archipelago for the free health services provided by its disaster preparedness brigade (bsb) team. other achievements in bantaeng are the construction of flood control reservoirs, construction of hospitals, industrial estates, toyota mechanical schools, community academies and vocational training centers (blk). in addition, due to their ability to manage a clean and visionary government, na is aligned with high-achieving regional leaders such as risma and azwar anas in east java and ridwankamil while still leading the city of bandung. compared to other regions in south sulawesi, the gate to eastern indonesia has not changed much except in terms of population and vehicle growth. pdip (rudi, 2019) and pks (ustadz, 2019) view the success of na in bantaeng can be duplicated at the provincial level. na has a clean reputation, because he is not willing to engage in corrupt activities. one example of this uncompromising stance was when the idea of impeachment emerged in early in his period of being governor. dprd's questionnaire rights towards him were related to various policies and the assumption of leadership dualism with the vice governor, which can have implications for impeachment. however, na responded to the questionnaire with an open and calm attitude-without being influenced by the possibility of lobbying outside parliament that results in transactions with political parties (sri, 2019). na clearly answered the questions of legislative members that he and his deputy have same vision and still work together (tempo.com, 2019). this attitude emphasizes that he is on the track in taking strategic policy and without being influenced by anyone. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1766 issn :0250-7196 figure factors also occur in east java. the political choice of the pdi-p and pks on syaifullah yusuf (also known as gus ipul, abbreviated gi) was based on his ten years of standing when accompanying soekarwo as vice governor. the figure factor is directly proportional to the support of the clerics both in the formal structure of nu and personal support as done by kyai kholil situbondo, kyai from sidogiri, kyai from madura (irwan, 2019). this support is the basis and consideration of pks leaders at all levels to support it. gus ipul's figures in the social and political fields are widely known. he was a central executive of ppp, pdip, pkb, members of the dpr, and ministers in the era of president susilobambang yudhoyono. after the minister, then being vice governor of east java for two periods (2008-2013 and 2013-2018). his extensive communication skills and strong relations make him an example of successful vice governor. outside the government, gus ipul has been the chairperson of ansor youth organization for two periods, deputy chairman of 1 east java pwnu (regional leadership of nahdlatul ulama) and chair of 1ulama awakening leaders (pbnu). political networks and communication are very broad, especially with leaders of political parties. generally speaking, a person's figure is crucial in managing an organization. based on dictionary definitions, ‘figure’ or ‘personal appeal’ relate to things that originate from the soul, namely inner strength, determination and firmness (aspinall & sukmajati, 2016). in its context of effective leadership, the figure is related to exemplary, credibility, and trust in one's abilities. talking about figures is related to the power they have. in the theory of the source of power, there are times when it comes from procedural matters obtained through formal mechanisms, and some are substantive, inherent in a person, and are informal (agustino, 2007). power can be obtained through various means. first, position, which is an important position in society, government, and organization. second, through wealth. third, belief or religion, where power can be obtained through religious media, especially figures who have a large number of worshipers or followers. fourth, intelligence and skill. fifth, kinship or closeness to policymakers. in each election, consideration of electability is rejected in local elections (hanafi, 2014), besides the availability of sufficient funds to mobilize voters. however, the strength of cost availability can still be defeated by the strength of the figures (hanafi, 2014). concerning the figure, the simulations emerge that even though they don't have enough money, but there is an extraordinary appeal, the greater the chance of choice (nyhuis & plescia, 2017). the question of the strength of figures does not only occur in men but also women. in many cases in indonesia, the appearance of women as regional leaders is due to the strength of their profile or figure (aspinall & sukmajati, 2016). although in practice many face challenges. in addition, local elections cannot be separated from the intervention of hegemonic forces both from within and outside the party. intervention from the party in the form of direct appointments from the central and regional leadership of the nominee. influence from outside the party can come from the government, military, businessmen, and other prominent figures. the level of intervention from within and outside the party depends on the selling value of an area. regions that have natural resources and large sources of income have implications for the possibility of stronger interventions compared to regions with low selling value. the same thing will happen in regions that have a large population that can contribute to the vote in the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1767 issn :0250-7196 election. south sulawesi and east java are two provinces that have high economic and political selling points that are very dynamic. intervention and patronage in a political event are reflected in andi sudirman sulaiman's (ass) nomination as a south sulawesi vice governor candidate. his name appeared last minute when registration at the election commission. the name ass is not widely known in public. moreover, he has a little experience in political activities and he mainly concerned on business activities in kalimantan. he crossed the globe as a professional worker in various companies such as deputy project manager (2013-2017) in phe onwj dp2 dsv saturation diving campaign (2013-2017) and conoco phillips dp2 dsv saturation diving campaign (2014). beside as senior project controls engineer (2008-2009) in banpuindomincobontang coal; epc terminal project upgrade and cibaliungsumberdaya (csd)cibaliung phase 2 gold project (wikipedia, 2020). his presence was always connected by his brother, amran sulaiman, minister of agriculture at that time, and was known as a close person of president jokowi and vice president jusuf kalla. in addition, the rising of personal networks in sulawesi after jusuf kalla elected as vice president giving impact to local election (buehler, 2009). similarly, the name puti is not widely known by the east java public. his name appeared last minute when the previous candidate, azwar anas, resigned as a candidate for deputy governor of east java who would accompany gi (nugroho, 2019). the name puti guntur soekarnoputeri (puti) is always associated with the name megawati (irwan setiawan, 2019), the chairperson of the pdip and at the same time his father's younger sibling. the appearance of the candidate's name at the last minute and his name completely unknown to the public is related to the term 'prospective order' the name in the process of regional head candidacy. the term 'prospected order' relates to part of the preparation for a change of leadership in the future, as well as being regarded as a political cost for economic interests. both parties share interests and benefit from the support process (scott, 1972). in patronage, the supported parties are interpreted as weak parties, and conversely, those who carry are considered strong parties. the relationship is very close and special (sandbrook, 1972) which is based on kinship, friendship to form mutual trust in each other. patronage relationships are very personal often people around the stakeholders do not know the relationship (scott, 1972). in some cases, the relationship is very close though not formally written. as happened in several places-patronage always creates problems that lead to internal party conflicts (chambers & ufen, 2020). high interests between elites can result in organizational solidity. however, in the pdip and pks coalition conflicts are very well managed and differences of interest can be sidelined. interestingly, local elections are also colored by the emergence of a strategy by creating a common enemy against the running political parties. the pdip-pks coalition in south sulawesi cannot be separated from the shared motivation to break the hegemony of the power of golkar by making it a common enemy. one of the motives is competing to be a governor. golkar is the dominant party in south sulawesi. in the 2004 elections, it won 33 votes at the provincial level and was the leading of all political parties when jusuf kalla became the general chairperson of golkar. the success of golkar in south sulawesi cannot be separated from the two important figures who became the gokar icon, namely bj habibie and jusuf hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1768 issn :0250-7196 kalla. habibie is a coach, senior, and person who has been in golkar for a long time since the new order. the highest position as vice president and president in 1997-1999 because of his strength and closeness to golkar. until he died, habibie's name, which came from south sulawesi's pare-pare, was still attached as a golkar figure and senior. in addition, jusuf kalla is also considered as the key person in golkar. his name is strongly identified with golkar because he was the chairman of golkar from 2004-2009. his political engagement was very broad, having been the vice president of 2004-2009 and 2014-2019 alongside sby and jokowi. in 2009-2014 he once ran as a candidate in pair with wiranto. the name jk is a name that is very popular in south sulawesi even in indonesia because he is also known as a successful businessman. jk has a bosowa holding company that manages various types of business holdings in cement, shipping, and universities. the emergence of new political competitors influenced the power of golkar as the dominant party across the country. the inception of more one new party with a nationalist style as the 2004 democrats, gerindra 2009 and nasdem 2014, decreased golkar's power including in south sulawesi. however, leadership at the executive level dominates golkar. the governor of south sulawesi for two periods, syahrulyasinlimpo (2008-2013 and 2013-2018) is the chairperson and key figure in golkar at the present — even though it is nearing the end of time as the governor moves to the nasdem party. previously, amin syam (2003-2008) was also a golkar figure. at the end of the new order until the beginning of the south sulawesi reform, it was led by the military, zainal basripalaguna (1998-2003) who was also affiliated with golkar. this illustrates before and after the 1999-2019 reform, the strength of golkar at the legislative and executive levels is unmatched in south sulawesi. even though a new party has emerged and several local figures have migrated to a new nationalist party, for example syahrul yasin limpo from gokar to national-democratic (nasdem), this has not diminished the political flow of golkar, which is still dominant in south sulawesi. the factor of figures is one of the keys to long-standing political politics in the hearts of the people. nasdem's rise in votes from 7 seats (2014) to 12 (2019) was due to the factor of shahrul yasin limpo who changed direction. some of the political cars that had been helping golkar were taken to nasdem so that in an instant the sound rose dramatically. golkar's strength is almost evenly distributed in all regions (buehler, 2007). however, there are some areas where its traditional bases areespecially those inhabited by the bugis tribe and scattered with national figures from the area, obtaining 50 percent of voters population in some decades. these areas include soppeng, bone, wajo and bulukumba. in addition, the city of makassar and its surroundings also became the stronghold of the golkar party. national figures such as jusuf kalla, amransulaiman, nurdin halid are the sons of bugis who came from bone. others come from makassar and its surroundings. pdip and pks formed a coalition in 2018 governor election in south sulawesi in order to break the golkar hegemony (rudi, 2019). the position of the pdi-p and pks, which became a small-middle party, was always undermined by the power of the dominant golkar political currents. the pks base is in the takalar, makasar, and bantaeng areas, where for two periods nurdin abdullah was the regent upon the pks proposal. pdip has traditional bases like toraja which predominantly non-muslim and makassar city which is an urban-plural area. the two regions became the initial capital of the two parties to carry the na-ass pair hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1769 issn :0250-7196 as a new icon for the governor-vice pair in addition to utilizing the votes from pan who are also both supporters. the basis of golkar's votes in traditional areas is not directly proportional to the electability of the candidate he carries, nurdinhalid. the eastern region of south sulawesi, called bosowa, and which has been the main force of golkar, has experienced a drastic decline, and some of it has a na-ass lead over its opponents. on the other hand, the regions which became the basis of the pdip, pks, and pan na-ass votes experienced significant increase led the other three contesting pairs. one of the strategies used by this coalition was describing that golkar party as a bad party and a failed party in running government (abdur rahman, 2019). this strategy seemed to work effectively when na got more voters in nh bases. theoretically, it is frequently happened in the realm of society, a small group of community aligned to fight a majority of group of people. this is relevant with the theory of c wright mills when he stated that a small group tend to counter a big group which is hegemonic to other group due to the ignorance of sharing power to the others (mills, 1990). mills theory is inspired with daily activities among the urban societies in united states of america. a small group of people, as mills continues, who has a strong networking in military, politics and economics, strongly influences the government policies (mills, 1990). in contrast, a rest of people who has no power either in politics and economics depend their life to the small group of people. in addition, as contended by coser, this counter is mostly caused by inequality of power sharing (coser, 1967), and more importantly, a strong competition to be elected leader is another factor of this counter (coser, 1967). learning from local election in a number of regions, the negative campaign frequently colored the political contest, especially in indonesia which followed the system of multi parties (walter & brug, 2013). the object of this negative campaign usually target the running authority or the dominant political party. consequently, the high competition to attract the voters demands the party to hardly work (walter, 2012). in contrast, the big coalition parties normally do not perform a negative campaign because of having power or authority to control the government (walter, 2012). moreover, the emergence of populist candidate surely strengthens the existence of opposition political parties. the populist candidate is a new phenomenon in indonesia political contest. a number of characteristics of populist candidate may be illustrated, such as the simple communication style, no bureaucracy in building communication with the grass roots (balsabarreiro & rossi, 2019). in the context of south sulawesi, pdip and pks successfully presented the populist candidate and showed the weaknesses of parties which supported the previous regime. figures, patronage, and common enemies appear simultaneously, encouraging parties with different ideologies to form coalitions. the pattern of recruitment of candidates in political parties that use open and closed patterns allows anyone with certain qualifications to put themselves forward as candidates or be nominated. the superiority of figure strength can usually enter through open channels, while many patronages enter through closed recruitment patterns. while the 'common enemy' factor arises when competitors have power and network resources that are difficult to breakthrough. small parties do not have other strategies and hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1770 issn :0250-7196 sufficient resources to openly compete. extreme ideological differences, in this case, are secular nationalist parties and islamic parties, not a barrier to building political cooperation 4.2 testing the consistency of ideology in local coalition where is the ideological position that seeks the characteristics of the secular nationalist party and the islamic party in the coalition? indeed, the ideology embedded in the platform still exists in each party. the party remains solid in upholding ideological principles that are practiced in daily life and cadre activities. this solidity is in line with the ideals of the parties, pdip and pks referred to nationally. in this framework, there are two patterns of the application of ideology namely intern and external. the application of ideology is still strictly implemented for cadres as the hallmark of the party. but outside the cadre and the formal cadre process, the application is not strictly enforced, is flexible, and adapts to the mass segment. meanwhile, in the context of party relations in the coalition is personal and unstructured. party relations only occur at the elite level, both at the central and regional levels. such communication is only in the interests of the coalition in order not to integrate platforms that have an impact on the possibility of obstructing ideology. each party runs a tight relationship to avoid collisions. in some cases, for example, the coalition party never met at the party's office but in a neutral place based on the agreement of the two parties, and there was no written agreement containing the rights and obligations that are legally binding between the two parties. also in practice, the campaigns are not carried out together but continue to focus on their respective bases. in the 2018 local elections which coincided with the presidential and legislative elections, the practices and rules of the coalition party campaign were carried out strictly to avoid sharp clashes between cadres. with such a practice pattern, does the coalition only stop on the grounds of the strength of figures, patronage, and common enemies, or are there other factors and motivations? returning to riker’s perspective, forming a coalition is driven by two reasons (riker, 1962) namely for the benefit of positions in government and to fight for a policy. returning to strom’s perspective (strom, 1990), that he adds to the term vote-seeking, namely to raise the party's vote in the next election. it is possible because these two motivations canoccur simultaneously, both office seeking and policy seeking (sened, 1996). thus, the reasons for figure, patronage, and common enemy ultimately lead to office seeking and to seeka votes. the party will make the most of the leadership of the regional leader that is carried for the benefit of the party and the actors (party elites and supporters) at the party, especially to build and enlarge the networking for the upcoming election. parties will seek and get collective incentives, while actors will get selective incentives (bettcher, 2005). in the end, according to bettcher's view, all coalition motivations were focused on efforts to take advantage of both material and non-material. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1771 issn :0250-7196 figure 1: description the coalition of secular and islamic nationalist parties in local elections is not an ideological coalition but a pragmatic coalition. a cross-ideology coalition becomes a tool to get power through different patterns, while ideology remains attached to the party and each cadre as a value to be fought for. such coalitions are temporary, which can change at any time based on the number of incentives obtained. in the case of local ideology issues are not as strong as at the national level, especially after several national political parties have developed more religious platforms (bourchier, 2020). secular parties and islamic parties are able to play this role to be more open so that they can build a coalition each other for electoral interests. 5. conclusion the emergence of coalitions between secular and islamic parties in local elections were caused by three factors: the strength of figures, the existence of patronage, and efforts to break the hegemonic power by creating a 'common enemy'. a strong, populist, and popular figure who can ensure high electability is a fundamental consideration for party support. in addition to the figure factor, the strong interference from the elite inside and outside the party contribute in the coalition. candidates for regional deputy leaders emerge suddenly at the end of the process of nomination and a new name is born by creating a 'common enemy' against the ruling party by building a negative image of various policies made both at the legislative level and in the public sphere. these three factors occurred simultaneously which moved the two parties to form a coalition. the coalition of two parties with extreme ideological differences generates an ambiguous and absurd pattern of relations. party communication only occurs at the elite-party leadership level at the central and regional levels by building narratives as decisions taken for granted and must be carried out by each cadre. while in the space of mobility that requires communication to the grass root has never happened so that each political machine runs on its own according to their respective political bases. due to restrictions on relations that are only at the elite level, there is no sharp clash between cadres during mass mobilization. the pattern of a coalition of secular and islamic nationalist parties at the level emphasizes the main character of political parties who are both fighting for the interests of 'power'. figure patronage office and voteseeking party politic common enemy hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1772 issn :0250-7196 differences in ideology, platforms, and mass bases can be dealt with by building communication between the two parties so that they do not topple each other. this pattern will be a model in cross-ideological coalitions in local politics, maybe even at the national level. more research from other regions would be needed to confirm the finding here it. it is hoped that this study encourage further work along this lines. acknowledgment: this research was supported by state islamic university, 2019. i will acknowledge to james pilbrow, jamespilbrow3000@gmail.com, a college from melbourne university, australia, upon his correction and valuable suggestion to this article. references agustino, l. (2007). prihal ilmu politik.jakarta:graha ilmu. aspinall, e. & hicken, a. (2020). guns for hire and enduring machines: clientelism beyond parties in indonesia and the philippines. democratization, 27 (1), 137–156. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2019.1590816 aspinall, e. & marcus, m. (2014). indonesian politics in 2014: democracy’s close call. bulletin of indonesian economic studies, 50 (3), 347-369. doi: 10.1080/00074918.2014.980375 aspinall, e. & sukmajati, m. (2016). patronage and clientelism in indonesian electoral politics in aspinall, e. & sukmajati, m. (ed.), electoral dynamics in indonesia. singapore: nus press. aspinall, e. (2013). a nation in fragments: patronage and neoliberalism in contemporary indonesia. critical asian studies, 45 (1), 27–54. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2013.758820 balsa-barreiro, j. & rossi e. (2019). common enemy: how the retorics of fear is subverting democraicies? columbia-sipa, journal of international affairs, https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/online-articles/common-enemy-how-rhetoric-fearsubverting-democracies (accessed, 10 september 2020). baswedan, a. r. (2004). political islam in indonesia: present and future trajectory. asian survey, 44, 669-690. bettcher, k. e. (2005). factions of interest in japan and italy: the organizational and motivational dimensions of factionalism. party politics 11 (3), 669-690. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068805051781 bourchier, d. m. (2019). two decades of ideological contestation in indonesia: from democratic cosmopolitanism to religious nationalism. journal of contemporary asia, 49 (5), 713–733. doi: http://doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2019.1590620 budi, a. (2020). less democracy, more centralism: the selection of candidates by golkar and pdip in indonesian subnational executive elections, 2005–2020. asian journal of political 74, 1-20. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02185377.2020.1774909 budiarti, a. p. (2018). party personalization in indonesia in reform era. jurnal penelitian politik, 18 (2), 289-309. buehler, m. & tan, p. (2007). party candidate relationship in indonesia local politics: a case study of 2005 regional election in gowa south sulawesi province. retrieved from https://bit.ly/33yovla (accessed august 16 th , 2020). mailto:jamespilbrow3000@gmail.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2019.1590816 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2013.758820 https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/online-articles/common-enemy-how-rhetoric-fear-subverting-democracies https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/online-articles/common-enemy-how-rhetoric-fear-subverting-democracies https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068805051781 http://doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2019.1590620 https://doi.org/10.1080/02185377.2020.1774909 https://bit.ly/33yovla hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1773 issn :0250-7196 buehler, m. (2007). local elite reconfiguration in post-new order indonesia: the 2005 election of district government heads in south sulawesi. review of indonesian and malaysian affairs, 41(1), 119-147. buehler, m. (2009). the rising importance of personal networks in indonesian local politics: an analysis of district government head elections in south sulawesi in 2005 in maribeth erb & priyambudi (ed.), deepening democracy in indonesia? direct elections for local leaders (pilkada. singapore: institute of southeast asian studies, 2009. buehler, m. (2010). countries at the crossroads: indonesia. washington, dc, wa: freedom house, 2010. chambers, p. & ufen, a. (2020). causes, effects, and forms of factionalism in southeast asia. journal of current southeast asian affairs, 39 (1), 3-16. coser, l. (1967). continuities in the study of social conflict. new york: free press. evans, k. r. (2003). the history of political parties and general elections in indonesia. jakarta, indonesia: arise consultancies. fealy, g. (2001). parties and parliament: serving whose interests? in g. lloyd and s. smith (eds.), indonesia today: challenges of history. singapore: institute of southeast asian studies, 96-112. feith, h. & castles, l. indonesian political thinking 1945-1965. ithaca and london: cornell university. fossati, d. (2016). the state of local politics in indonesia: survey evidence from three cities in trend in southeast asia, series-5, singapore: iseas. from https://bit.ly/3mhhac6 (accesssed, 16 september 2020). fossati, d. (2019a). electoral reform and partisan dealignment in indonesia. international political science review, 41 (3), 1-16. doi: http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512119826389 fossati, d. (2019b). the resurgence of ideology in indonesia: political islam, aliran and political behaviour. journal of current southeast asian affairs, 38(2), 119-114. doi: http://doi.org/10.1177/1868103419868400 geraldy, g. (2019). ideology and political parties: measuring the political ideology of marhaenism in pdip, democratic socialism in psi and islamic fundamentalism in pks. politicon: jurnal i lmu politik, 1(2), 134-157. doi: https://doi.org/10.15575/politicon.v1i2.6268 grzymala-busse, a. (2001). coalition formation and the regime divide in new democracies: east-central europe. comparative politics, 34(1). hamayotsu, k. (2011). the end of political islam? a comparative analysis of religion parties in the muslim democracy of indonesia. journal of current southeast asian affairs, 3, 139-155. hanafi, r. i. (2014). direct election for local leaders in indonesia: some critical notes for political parties. jurnal penelitian politik, 11(2), 1-16. hasan, n. (2012). islamist party, electoral politics, and da’wah mobilization among youth: the prosperous justice party (pks) in indonesia. journal of indonesian islam, 06(01), 17-47. doi: https://doi.org/10.15642/jiis.2012.6.1.17-47 hillman, b. (2012). ethnic politics and local political parties in indonesia. asian ethnicity, 13(4), 419-440. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2012.710078 hilmy, m. (2007). partai keadilan sejahtera: a mawdudian-meliorist vision of islamism in post-new order indonesia. studia islamika, 14(1), 44-67. https://doi.org/10.15408/sdi.v14i1.555 irwan, s. (2019). secretary of pks, east java. https://bit.ly/3mhhac6 http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512119826389 http://doi.org/10.1177/1868103419868400 https://doi.org/10.15575/politicon.v1i2.6268 https://doi.org/10.15642/jiis.2012.6.1.17-47 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2012.710078 https://doi.org/10.15408/sdi.v14i1.555 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1774 issn :0250-7196 kaligis, r. (2014). nationalism and social class: nationalism parties ideology and practice in indonesia. masyarakat, kebudayaan dan politik, 27(2), 77-90. lay, c. (2012). democratic transition in local indonesia: an overview of ten years democracy. jurnal ilmu sosial dan ilmu politik, 15 (3), 207-219. leftwich, a. & wheeler, c. (2011). politics, leadership, and coalitions in development. the development leadership program. from https://bit.ly/347o4bx (accessed december 10 th , 2018). lele, g. (2012). the paradox of distance in decentralized indonesia. jurnali lmu sosial dan ilmu politik, 15 (3), 220-231. lewis, b. d. (2020). how do mayors get elected? the causal effects of pre-electoral coalitions on mayoral election outcomes in indonesia. local government studies, 46 (3), 394-413. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2019.1627334 mietzner, m. (2013). money, power, and ideology: political parties in post-authoritarian indonesia. singapore: nus press. mietzner, m. (2016). coercing loyalty: coalitional presidentialism and party politics in jokowi's in indonesia. contemporary southeast asia, 38 (2), 209-232. miles hb & am huberman (1994). data management and analysis method in nk denzin and ys lincoln (ed.), handbooks of qualitative research. london: sage publication. mills, c. w. (1990). the power elite. oxford: oxford university press. minardi, a. (2018). the new revivalism in indonesia: accommodations and confrontation list. journal of indonesian islam, 12(02), 247-264. doi: https://doi.org/10.15642/jiis.2018.12.2.247-264 nashir, h. & jinan, m. (2018). re-islamisation: the conversion of subculture from abangan into santri in surakarta. indonesian journal of islam and muslim societies, 8(1), 128. doi: https://doi.org/10.18326/ijims.v8i1.1-28 nugroho. (2019). vice secretary of pdip and a member dprd, east java. nurdin, a. (2019). tak ada dualisme pemimpin di sulawesi selatan. retrieved from https://bit.ly/3cqgiys (accessed may 15 th 2020). nurdin, a. a. (2011). pks’s democratic experiences in recruting members and leaders. al-jami‘ah, 49 (2), 329-360. https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2011.492.329-360 nyhuis, d. & plescia, c. the nonideological component of coalition preferences. party politics, 24 (6), 1-12. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068817690933 pdip-gerindra koalisi di 48 daerah, pdip-pks di 33 daerah, pdip-pks koalisi di 33 daerah, in detim.com, from https://bit.ly/3cvje6u, (accessed november 14th 2019). pepinsky, t. b, liddle, r. w. & mujani, s. (2012). indonesian democracy and the transformation of political islam. www.lsi.or.id/riset/385/. (accessed on 18 july 2019) rahman, a. (2019). expert staff of pks, south sulawesi. rahmat, m. i. (2006). arus baru islam radikal transmisi revivalisme islam timur tengah ke indonesia. jakarta: penerbit erlangga. riker, w. h. (1962). the theory of political coalitions. new haven/new york: yale university press. rudi, p. g. (2019). secretary of pdip, and a member of dprd, south sulawesi. sandbrook, r. (1972). patrons, clients, and factions: new dimensions of conflict analysis in africa. canadian journal of political science, 5(1), 104-119. scott, j.c. (1972). patron-client politics and political change in southeast asia. the american political science review, 66(1), 91-113. https://bit.ly/347o4bx https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2019.1627334 https://doi.org/10.15642/jiis.2018.12.2.247-264 https://doi.org/10.18326/ijims.v8i1.1-28 https://bit.ly/3cqgiys https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2011.492.329-360 https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068817690933 https://bit.ly/3cvje6u http://www.lsi.or.id/riset/385/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no.s. 2 (2020), 1761-1775 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus 1775 issn :0250-7196 sened, i. (1996). a model of coalition formation: theory and evidence. the journal of politics, 58 (2), 350-372. shmuel, n. e. & roniger, l. (1980). patron-client relations as a model of structuring social exchange. comparative studies in society and history, 22(1), 42-77. sri r. (2019). head of pks’s fraction, dprd, south sulawesi. strom, k. (1990). a behavior theory of competitive political parties. american journal of political science, 34 (2), 565-598. sumampouw, n. s. a. (2018). the money that never sleeps: bureaucratic movement and vote buying dynamics in bolaang mongondow, north sulawesi. pcd journal, vi(1), 31-60. tattersall, a. (2005). four shades of political coalitions: exploring the possibilities for powerful political coalitions between unions and community organizations. portal, journal of multidisciplinary international studies, 3(1), 1-22. tomsa, d. (2014). party system fragmentation in indonesia: the subnational dimension. journal of east asian studies, 14 (2), 271-273. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1598240800008924 ustadz, s. d. (2019). head of pks, south sulawesi. walter, a. s. & brug, w. v. d. when the gloves come off: inter-party variation in negative campaigning in dutch elections 1981–2010. acta politica, 48, 367–388. doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2013.5 walter, a. s. (2012). choosing the enemy: attack behavior in a multiparty system. party politics, 20(3), 311-323. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068811436050 notes 1 the election of secular-nationalist parties and islamic parties cannot be separated from the grouping of muslim schools in indonesia. they can be divided into two big clusters; secular islam, conservative-traditional, and java versus non-java. in addition, some contemporary indonesian stated that populist-elite and islam versus the secular west, and secular-muslim and liberal-socialist. 2 this grouping is strongly associated with the long history of indonesia, especially before the emergence of islam in thirteenth century. at that time, java tradition combined with hindu religion and buddhism colored societies’ life. once the imperialist came to this archipelago, the encounter between islam, hindu, budha and the west culture carried by the dutch cannot be avoided. this also influences the structure of social and political among the societ 3 the same category aimed at ppp and pbb are also conservative. this sorting is based on the application of ideology and the desire of the party to apply islamic teachings in state life. meanwhile pkb and pan are categorized as 'islamic parties' because they are more open and moderate. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1598240800008924 https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2013.5 https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068811436050 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no.1 69 the holy qur'ón's five plants resemble five sensory receptors in the microscopic appearance: an analysis motahareh soltani religious and medicine research center, kerman university of medical sciences, kerman, iran email: motahareh.soltani@gmail.com somayyeh karami-mohajeri student research committee, kerman university of medical sciences, kerman, iran. email: s_karami@kmu.ac.ir ehsan mehrabi-kermani english language instructor, official translation office no. 442, kerman, iran. e.mehrabikermani@yahoo.comemail: reza allahdadi department of islamic studies, school of medicine kerman university of medical sciences, kerman, iran. mohammad sohrabiyan parizi department of islamic studies, school of medicine kerman university of medical sciences, kerman, iran. received on: 15-08-22 accepted on: 27-12-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.341 abstract in the holy qur’én, the religious text of islam, the name of leeks, cucumbers, garlic, lentils and onions are mentioned together in the verse 61 of sūrah al-baqarah (the cow). this descriptive study was designed to determine the probable cause of mentioning these five plants in the holy qur’én. results present interesting similarities between the microscopic view of these plants and the five sensory mailto:motahareh.soltani@gmail.com mailto:s_karami@kmu.ac.ir mailto:e.mehrabikermani@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.341 70 the holy qur'én's five … receptors in the peripheral nervous system. these findings are in line with the ideas of the “doctrine of signatures” theory. the doctrine of signatures theory believes that plants that resemble body parts have beneficial effects on those parts. thus, the main purpose of this study was to propose another look to qurénic scientific research in order to open new windows for more research in the field of interdisciplinary topics. undoubtedly, the continuation of these studies and scientific attention to the meaningful verses of the holy qur’én can be the first steps of a new path in line with the discovery of miracles and scientific statements of the holy qur’én. keywords: sūrah al-baqarah, the doctrine of signatures theory, peripheral nervous system, the holy qur’én, sensory receptors, sūrah 1. introduction the holy qur’én revealed to prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) about 1400 years ago is a book of guidance of human beings to the almighty god. the purpose of all the commandments and stories of the holy qur’én is to explain the aim of human life, invite them to think about their bodies and the world, and teach moral, social, and scientific topics. the holy qur’én contains many scientific lessons for body health, types of nutrition, body parts, fruits, and herbs. (1) the scientific issues and medical advice express the greatness of the almighty god. (1) the holy qur’én uses various methods, including stories, allegories, and instructional speeches, to convey social and scientific concepts. (2, 3) one of these allegories is similarities between the leech mentioned in verse 14 of sūrah al-mu’min (the believer) and the human embryo from days 7-24 when it clings to the endometrium of the uterus, as mentioned in figure 1. (4, 5) figure 1. the leech-like appearance (lower image) of the 24-day-old human fetus (upper image).(5) fruits and plants are mentioned in many sūrahs of the holy qur’én. (2, 3) several articles have investigated the plants mentioned in the holy qur’én and their medicinal properties. (2, 3) the doctrine of signatures is widely mentioned in the literature on medicinal hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no.1 71 plants. according to this theory, some of the physical properties of plants act as signs to show their therapeutic value. (6) for instance, in the doctrine of signatures theory, walnuts are similar to the human brain (figure 2) and it is helpful for brain health. (6) figure 2. the appearance of the human brain (left image) is similar to a walnut (right image). in verse 61 of sūrah al-baqarah (the cow), five plants were mentioned together: ( ْذ قُلُُْتْ ََي ُموََس ” ِ ا تُْنِبُت إْْلَْرُض ِمْن لَْن نَْصِبَ َوإ ِرْج لَنَا ِممَّ ََّك ُُيْ عَََل َطَعاٍم َوإِحٍد فَاْدُع لَنَا َرب ي ُهَو َخْير ِ ي ُهَو َأْدََن ِِبَّلَّ ِ َّاِِئَا َوفُوِمهَا َوعََدِسهَا َوبََصِلهَا قَاَل َأتَْستَْبِدلُوَن إَّلَّ ْهِبُطوإ إ بَْقِلهَا َوِقث نَّ ِ إ فَا “لَُُكْ َما َسأَلُُْتْ ِمْْصً and when you said, .musa , we will no longer confine ourselves to a single food: so, pray for us to your lord that he may bring forth for us of what the earth grows — of its vegetable, its cucumbers, its wheat, its lentils and its onions.. he said, .do you want to take what is inferior in exchange for what is better? go down to a town, and you will have what you ask for.. at the beginning of this verse, the israelites ask prophet moses (‘alaih as-salém) for other foods in addition to mann-osalwa: “we cannot endure one food”. the holy qur’én is the word of the allah almighty and behind each word is a hikmat. the current study aims to study the reasons for the following objections; 1) why are these five plants mentioned together in this verse, 2) since there is no similarity between the appearance of these plants and body parts, would the evaluation of their microscopic appearances provides more information about the relationship between these plants? to answer these questions, the structure and growth stage of the plants were evaluated in scientific resources. finally, we revealed the shape similarities between these plants and the microscopic view of sensory receptors in the peripheral nervous system. 72 the holy qur'én's five … 2. background, history, and review of literature: the holy qur’én is not a book of experimental and biological sciences; however, it directly mentioned many scientific facts to muslims 1400 years ago through stories and allegories. (8) in many verses of the holy qur’én, allah almighty mentions hidden signs in the allegories that could be extracted by concrete thinking. however, as it is stated in verse 29 of sūrah øa’d, there is no end to researching the holy qur’én verses: بَُّروْإ “ َِّیدَّ لَْیَک ُمَباَرکر ِل ِ ”أ ََيِتِه َوِلَیَتَذکََّر ُأْولُوْإ إْْلَلَْباِب کَتابر َأنَزلْنَاُه إ this is a blessed book we have revealed to you, so that they deliberate in its verses, and so that the men of understanding may heed to advice. the holy qur’én is suitable for all levels of understanding and consciousness, and scientists are still far from reaching the miraculous nature of the holy qur’én. (8) muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam says (9) about the holy qur’én: عَََل وَ ُُنُومر َلُ ََعِیقر َِبِطُنهُ وَ َأِنیقر َظاِهُرهُ ِعْلر َِبِطُنهُ وَ ُحُْكر فََظاِهُرهُ بَْطنر وَ َظهْرر َلُ ” وِمهِ ائُِبهُ ُُتْص َ َل ُُنُومر ُُنُ َدِلیلر وَ إلِْحْْکَهْ ارُ َمنَ وَ إلْهَُدی َمَصاِبیحُ ِفیهِ غََرإئُِبهُ تُْبََل َل وَ ََعَ َفهْ َعَرَف ِلَمنْ إلَْمْعرِفَهْ عَََل ِ “ إلصِّ it has an appearance and it has an inwardness, its appearance is command and order, and its inwardness is science and knowledge, its outward appearance is noble and beautiful, and its inwardness is deep and insufficient, it has stars and its stars also have stars (it has parts and each part has parts), its wonders cannot be numbered and its innovations do not become old. in it are the lights of guidance and the source of wisdom and evidence for knowledge, for those who know its way . the phrase “ قر یظاِهُرُه إن ” refers to the beauty of the verses and “ قر یِبِطُنُه ََع ” refers to the scientific and intellectual aspects of the holy qur’én, which is very deep like the sea in which you swim, you move a bit further, but you realize there are still somethings to learn. here, “ َلُ ِه ُُنُومر emphasizes the existence the endless acceptable ”ُُنُومر َو عَََل ُُنُوم ِ concepts for different levels of understanding in the holy qur’én. .the wonders of the holy qur’én do not end ,”التَْفین ََعائُِبُه َو ل تَْنَقیض غَرإئُِبهُ “ after the advent of islam and the revelation of the holy qur’én, the arab people had superstitious beliefs about scientific issues (10), including medicine, chemistry, physics, geology, biology, and botany were at their peaks in islamic societies. (11) while the western world http://erfanvahekmat.com/%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%b4%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%87/%d8%ad%da%a9%d9%85%d8%aa hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no.1 73 was trapped in medieval ideas, the greatest scientists emerged from islamic societies. (12) islamic scholars took various sciences from greece and upgraded them, and they reached the peak of their knowledge within a few centuries. scientists such as ibn sina, kharazmi, farabi, muhammad ibn zakaria razi, abu rihan albiruni, hakim omar khayyam, and ibn khaldun were engaged in teaching, writing, and researching in these sciences. muslims wrote the best books, such as the canon of medicine and the al-shifa of ibn sina. from the twelfth century onwards, the translation movement took shape in europe, and the ideas of ibn sina and ibn rushd became prevalent in european universities for many years. (13, 14) despite the passage of several centuries, the books of many islamic scientists, including the canon of medicine, are still taught in the best universities. islamic scholars such as abu hamid al-ghazali in tahaft al-falasfeh and fakhr al-razi in mafatih al-ghayb used the scientific interpretation of the quranic chapters to refute the philosophical and scientific foundations of the greek objections. the holy qur’én provided legitimacy to the experimental sciecnes of greece by matching them with its verses, thus authenticating the scientific concepts. during these thousand years, many scientific interpretations, books, and articles have been written in this field. one of the characteristics of the science of miracles in the holy qur’én is that several scientific discoveries that human beings have been able to make only with new technology were mentioned in the holy qur’én. many of the scientific facts that are mentioned in a very brief, deep, and wonderful way in the verses of the holy qur’én have been discovered only with the technology of the twentieth century. these scientific facts could not have been known at the time of the revelation of the holy qur’én 1400 years ago and are in accordance with the latest scientific findings. the compatibility of the holy qur’én with the new sciences is considered a sign of its revelation in the book "comparison between the torah, bible, the holy qur’én and science". (15, 16) today, many studies have shown that the allah almighty refers to various fields of science in the text of the holy qur’én using allegories. (17) in this regard, maurice bucalille states that the examinations revealed traces of sea salt in merenpetah's mummy that indicates the pharaoh's drowning, which is well explained in verse 90 of sūrah yūnus (jonah). (18) the floating of the mountains on the top of the earth is mentioned in the sūrah an-naml (an ant); “thou seest the mountains and thinkest them firmly fixed, but they shall pass away as the clouds pass away: (such is) the artistry of allah, who disposes of all things in perfect order, for he is well acquainted with all that ye do.” keith l. moore first mentioned in 1986 in an article entitled “a 74 the holy qur'én's five … scientist's interpretation of references to embryology in the holy qur’én” proves that the holy qur’én mentioned scientific facts that were recently discovered by scientists. (5) in this article, he proves the developmental stages of the fetus from fertilization to birth during the nine months in the mother's womb according to modern embryology in the verses of the holy qur’én. it is stated in verse 14 of sūrah almu’minën (the believers) regarding the stages of embryo creation: َةَة ” َةًة فََخلَْقنَا إلُْمض ْ ْوَ إلْعِ ُُثَّ َخلَْقنَا إلنُّْطَفَة عَلََقًة فََخلَْقنَا إلَْعلََقَة ُمض ْ َظاَم لَْحًما ُُثَّ ِعَظاًما فََکس َ .“َأنَشأَْ ُه َخلْقًا أ َخرَ then we turned the sperm-drop into a clot, then we turned the clot into a fetus-lump, then we turned the fetus-lump into bones, then we clothed the bones with flesh; thereafter we developed it into another creature. one of the meanings of the word "‘alaqah" is leech or bloodsucker that clings to the skin. just as a leech sucks blood from the host, the human embryo derives blood from the decidua or pregnant endometrium. it is amazing how much the fetus of 23-24 days resembles a leech (figure 1). as there were no advanced microscope devices to examine the stages of human embryo formation 1400 years ago, doctors or midwives of that time would not have known that the human embryo had this leech-like appearance. in the early part of the fourth week, the fetus is smaller than a grain of wheat, so it is not possible to see it with the naked eye. (5) this verse is consistent with the stages of human embryo development as researchers such as keith l. moore, marshall johnson, and gerald goringer first put forward this claim. (5) soltani et al also mentioned quranic similarities are likened to the structure of the human eye in sūrah an-nūr (the light). (19) the doctrine of signatures was first mentioned by paracelsus and his followers and is a widely cited theory, according to which the therapeutic value of plants is revealed based on their physical appearence shape along with color, texture, and smell. for thousands of years, people have also recognized the medical properties of a plant according to its appearance. (6) oswaldus crollius believed that everything has signs communicated to us by the immense mercy of the allah almighty to reveal the purpose of its creation. (20, 21) according to this theory william cole also wrote: “wall-nuts have the perfect signature of the head: the outer husk or green covering, represent the pericranium, or outward skin of the skull, whereon the hair growth, and therefore salt made of those husks or barks, is exceeding good for wounds in the head. the inner woody shell hath the signature of the skull, and the little yellow skin, or peel, that covereth the kernel, of the hard meninga and pia-mater, which are the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no.1 75 thin scarfs that envelope the brain. the kernel hath the very figure of the brain, and therefore it is very profitable for the brain and resists poysons; for if the kernel is bruised, and moistened with the quintessence of wine, and laid upon the crown of the head, it comforts the brain and head mightily”. (20, 21) so far, no study has been done on the doctrine of signatures and plants mentioned in the holy qur’én. reviewing the research on the scientific aspects of the holy qur’én inspired us to find novel scientific implications of the holy qur’én. the current study aimed to scientifically study the allegories in verse 61 of sūrah al-baqarah (the cow) based on the biological point of view of all the five sensory receptors of the human peripheral nervous system. the sensory system consists of a group of sensory receptors in the peripheral nervous system that receive environmental stimuli and send them to the brain to direct the effector tissue for a response. according to the traditional definition, rooted in aristotle’s words, man is equipped with five senses, including eyesight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. human five senses are not perfect at birth and gradually develop, the first one is the sense of touch, and then the senses of taste, hearing, smell, and sight. (22) kant wrote about the importance of sensory perception: “experience is undoubtedly the first product of our understanding, that understanding is the basis of sensory findings.” (23, 24) aristotle proposes two divisions for the five senses: 1) the senses that apply to all animals, such as touch and taste and those that do not apply to all animals, such as smell, hearing, and sight. 2) senses that work through external mediators such as smell, hearing, and sight, and those that do not work through external mediators such as touch and taste. these divisions can be combined to say that the senses of taste and taste belong to all animals and do not work through external intermediaries. while hearing, sight, and smell do not belong to all animals and work through external intermediaries. ibn sina and mulla sadra pay special attention to the sense of touch and define the sense of touch as follows: “the sense of touch is spread throughout the nerves of the skin and understands what a person touches and what changes the composition and temperament of the body.” (23, 24) the sense of taste connects this sense with moisture, which is another kind of senses; although it believes that this feeling does not reach us through the water. ibn sina and mulla sadra knew the place of this feeling on the tongue and believed that according to the moisture in the mouth, the sense of taste perceives what it encounters. ibn sina: “the sense of taste can understand nine things including sweetness, bitterness, sourness, bitterness, bitterness, spiciness, fat, ugliness, insatiability”. (23, 24) 76 the holy qur'én's five … according to aristotle, the sense of smell in us is more difficult than other senses. the cause of this difficulty can be found in two factors: 1) the nature of the smell is not very clear, 2) the sense of smell is not very precise and human beings perceive smells with moderate accuracy. ibn sina and mulla sadra determined that the sense of smell is located in the two appendages of the front part of the brain. (23, 24) 3. methodology: the present study is a qualitative study on the five plants mentioned in verse 61 of sūrah al-baqarah (the cow). the meaning of this verse text of the holy qur’én is evaluated in the interpretation books. the arabic, persian, and english texts of the holy qur’én (7) were reviewed to understand the relationship between allegories used in the holy qur’én. to find the complete meaning of words, dehkhoda dictionary (25), amid dictionary (26), al-mufradat fi gharib althe holy qur’én written by ragheb isfahani (27), and qamus al-qur'én written by seyyed ali akbar qurashi (28) were used. then, to find out the microscopic similarity of the five sensory receptors with the five plants, scientific literature in pub med and science direct search engines, and gray’s anatomy book, (29) ganong's review of medical physiology are used to explain the structure of the five sensory receptors. (30) the obtained results are presented in a descriptive-analytical method. 4. results and discussion 4.1 visual sense (sense of sight) the eye consists of the cornea, pupil, iris, and lens in the front. light enters the eye through the pupil orifice in the iris and focuses on the retina after refraction in the lens. the retina is the lightsensitive area behind the eye where the optical receptors are located. optical receptors are specialized retinal cells that respond to light. the most accumulation of light cells is in the middle part of the retina, macula lutea, and the clearest images are created in this region. finally, retinal cells transmit information through the optic nerve to the occipital lobe in the back of the head. (31) macula lutea contains a hole (fovea) with a diameter of about 5 mm without blood vessels in which the light from the lens is concentrated. the cone and rod photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye convert the light energy to electrochemical signals which are transferred along the optic nerve and then to the brain. in verse 61 of sūrah al-baqarah (the cow), the word “بَْقلِهَا; herbs” means leek which is similar to the visual sensory system in the back of the eyeball including photoreceptors and optic nerve. as hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no.1 77 shown in figure 3, photoreceptors in the macula lutea resemble the branches and leaves of the leek which join together and make optic nerves like the leek pod. numerous studies have shown that lutein and zeaxanthin are necessary and main components for eye health and it was reported that leeks are rich in these two substances. (32) lutein and zeaxanthin are carotenoid pigments that constitute the major pigments that start in the yellow spot of the human retina and also, defend the macula from hazards by blue light, improve visual power and remove adverse reactive oxygen species. so, according to studies, it is very useful for eye health. (32) (a) (b) 78 the holy qur'én's five … (c) figure 3. visual sense. a) structure of the eye, b) the image of photoreceptors in the fovea captured by a fluorescence microscope, and c) leek. 4.2 auditory sense (sense of hearing) the human ear consists of three parts; the outer ear (tulip, ear canal, and eardrum), the middle ear (the air-filled space behind the eardrum including the smallest bones in the body, and the inner ear (cochlea). the cochlea is filled with a fluid in which the cilia of auditory receptor cells (hair cells) float. the energy of sound waves is transmitted through the bones of the middle ear to the cochlea, where the hair cells are located. the auditory receptors (hair cells) in the ear are exactly like a cucumber plant “ا َ اِئ ِ ث َّ mentioned in the above verse, and the ”ق ِ auditory nerves are similar to its stem (figure 4). hair cells such as cucumber fruit is a connection to the auditory nerve (stems) by an afferent nerve (short stalk). sound waves cause this fluid to move (fluid oscillation), resulting in the movement of the hair cells, which opens or closes the potassium channels. these cells ultimately lead to the excitation of the auditory nerves and transmit auditory information to the auditory part of the brain. the message received from the hair cells is transmitted as a nerve signal to the auditory nerve, which is transmitted to the temporal lobe of the brain for processing. (33) hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no.1 79 it might be concluded that the hair cells image captured by an electron microscope (figure 4b) characterized by green-yellow color, looks surprisingly similar to the cucumber plant and its fruit (figure 4d), so we can say that the word "cucumber" in this sūrah is probably related the sense of hearing. it has been reported that cucumber is rich in potassium. (34) da jung jung et al. showed that, in people with high levels of potassium intake through diet, there was a lower prevalence of hearing loss (hl) and lower hearing thresholds. (35) figure 4. auditory sense. a) structure of the auditory system and ear, b) hair cells image captured by an electron microscope, c) organ of corti; auditory nerves attached to the hair cells, and d) cucumber plant and fruit. 4.3 olfactory sense (sense of smell) the nasal cavity contains olfactory receptors. odor molecules first dissolve in the mucosa covering the nasal cavity and then attach to the receptor. this connection creates action potential in the receptor neuron. unmyelinated axons of the olfactory receptor cells synapse in the olfactory bulb where the initial processing of olfactory signals occurs. eventually, the signals are sent to the higher centers of the brain in the primary olfactory cortex. (36) according to the anatomy of the olfactory receptors and garlic “فُوِمهَا” botanical characteristics, it can be concluded that the hair inside the nose (cilia) is likened to the villi at the end of the garlic plant (figure 5). this hair collides with the nerve molecules and the olfactory nerve is stimulated inside the nose and olfaction occurs. garlic is a perennial herbaceous plant whose stem reaches a height of 40 cm. the underground part is swollen and consists of 5 to 12 cloves wrapped in thin and delicate membranes of a white-gray color. its 80 the holy qur'én's five … leaves are narrow and striped in dark green color, and its flowers are small and pink which appear as an umbrella at the end of the stem. the olfactory nerve is the first of the twelve pairs of cranial nerves. this nerve is part of the olfactory system. it has no nucleus and is the shortest of the cranial nerves in the central nervous system. the olfactory receptors are located in the olfactory mucosa, which is a specific area 2.5 cm wide in each nasal mucosa. these receptors respond differently to different odors. contrary to other sensory pieces of information, olfactory messages do not pass through the thalamus. the olfactory nerve is directly related to the optic nerve area and the part for memory completion. in this way, when an odor whose source is not seen is inhaled, its image is immediately made and presented in the right place in the mind. (37) one of the five senses through which we perceive the world is the sense of smell. by one evaluation, humans can sense more than one trillion olfactory stimuli. (38) eric block has done much research on sulfur compounds from garlic, onion, and related species, and in their investigations, they identified that 2-propanethiol and allyl methyl sulfide are the odorous components of human garlic breath. (38) also, another study has reported that humans and animals have a very sensitive sense of smell to low-volatile sulfur compounds. (39) mammalian survival is closely related to the hypersensitive olfactory detection of volatile sulfur compounds by mammals, as these compounds indicate the presence of decaying food, an o2-depleted atmosphere, and predators. (38) if we look closely at figure 5, the human olfactory receptors image captured by an electron microscope looks very similar to a garlic plant (figure 5b), especially in a part of figure 5a, which looks like an upside-down garlic. so probably the word "garlic" in this sūrah can be the sense of smell. figure 5. sense of smell. a) human olfactory receptors image captured by an electron microscope and b) garlic plant. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no.1 81 4.4 tactile sense (sense of touch) each of the different receptors in the skin (figure 6) is anatomically similar to the vegetative and reproductive growth stages of lentil “هَا ,lentil (lens culinaris) is an herbaceous .”عََدس ِ annual plant with short stems, partially branched, and light green. lentils belong to the legume family (legumes). unlike other legumes, the vegetative growth stages of lentils are not focused on the development of the main stem. (40) six types of receptors are located on different layers of skin. some senses, such as touch, pressure, and tickling, are detected by similar receptors, but the location of these receptors in the skin is different. the first step in any physical sensory perception is the activation of primary sensory neurons whose cell bodies are located in the dorsal root ganglia. these neurons are connected to the periphery on the one hand and the spinal cord branch on the other. (41) this stage is similar to the vegetation growth stages of lentils; lentil seedlings are when the newly germinated seed is in contact with the roots on one side and with the stems and leaves on the other. areal parts of lentils including leaflets, flowers, tendrils, and capsules represent sensory receptors that get stimulation from the environment. receptors with free nerve endings are found all over the skin. it can cause sensations of touch and pressure, even in parts of the eye such as the cornea that has no nerve endings other than the free nerve endings. the free nerve ending is similar to the lentil tendrils. the tactile receptor (meissner's corpuscle) is very sensitive, forming a long, encapsulated nerve ending, and is a large, myelinated sensory nerve fiber. a large number of branched nerve filaments are seen inside the capsule. the number of these receptors is abundant in the hairless parts of the skin, especially on the fingertips and lips. meissner's corpuscle is structurally similar to the lentil seed the end reproductive growth stages of the lentil. a slight movement of each body hair stimulates the nerve fibers at the end of each hair. hair end receptors adapt easily and, like meissner corpuscles, mainly detect the movement of objects on the surface of the body or the initial contact of objects with the body. ruffini corpuscles are found in deeper layers of the skin that are branched and encapsulated. they adapt slowly and are important for announcing the state of tissue deformation by receiving touch and heavy pressure messages. some of them, also found in the joint capsule, help rotate the joint. pacini corpuscles are located both immediately below the skin and deep in the body tissues. they are only stimulated by rapid local pressure because they adapt within a few hundredths of a second. therefore, they are important for 82 the holy qur'én's five … detecting tissue vibration or other rapid changes in the mechanical condition of tissues. ruffini and pacini's corpuscles are similar to the ovary in the reproductive growth stages of lentils, which are contained ovules. paucean et al reported in a study that lentil compound flours can ensure the folic acid daily intake for an adult person. (42) stanhewicz et al showed that folic acid supplementation in the elderly increases the sensitivity of cutaneous vasodilators to sympathetic nerve activity, and also, folic acid did not affect central sympathetic outflow as measured by sympathetic nervous system activity responses to hyperthermia and the nonthermal regulatory stimulus of mental stress. (43) another function of folic acid in the elderly is the improvement of their skin health. (43) figure 6. senses of touch. a) skin receptors, b) vegetative and reproductive growth stages of lentils, c) green lentil seed, and d) lentil flowers. 4.5 gustatory sense (sense of taste) a sense of taste is created when chemical compounds stimulate specialized chemical receptors in the oral cavity. taste buds are a collection of hundreds of polarized epithelial nerve cells that are stimulated by chemicals in food. in humans, there are about 5,000 taste buds in the oral cavity, located on the upper surface of the tongue, on the palate, and the epiglottis. taste bud cells and olfactory neurons are regenerative, unlike visual and auditory sensory receptors. (44) according to the taste receptors anatomy, the microvilli are the same as the terminal villi of the onion “لِهَا at the end, and the ”بَصَََ taste buds are similar to the onion (figure 7). onions have small stems with fleshy leaves in the underground part of plants. onion is an underground specialized plant, often covered with thick fleshy scales hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no.1 83 that include the axis of short, fleshy stems, usually vertical. at the end of the flowering period, the onion begins to grow. after a while, the flowers wither and only the onion remains and becomes the food source of fresh sprouts. the tongue is covered with thousands of small protrusions called papillae, visible to the naked eye. there are hundreds of taste buds within each papilla. except for crystalline papillae that do not have taste buds, there are between 2,000 and 5,000 taste buds on the back and front parts of the tongue. the rest are on the roof, on the sides, behind the mouth, and in the throat. each bud taste contains 50 to 100 taste receptor cells. looking at figure 7, the sense of taste is very similar (figure 7a) to onions (figure 7b). so we can say that probably the word onion in this sūrah is the sense of taste. onion is a member of alliaceae and has been categorized as a food plant and a medicinal plant in traditional medicine as antioxidative, anti-hypertensive, and antiobesity properties. plants of the alliaceae family are widely operated to taste foods and improve the taste of foods. (45) onion is known worldwide as a flavor enhancer, not only bettering the taste of the food but also adding nutritional value via antibacterial and antioxidant effects. (46-48) figure 7. sense of taste. a) schematic figure of taste buds and b) onion fruit. 5. conclusion the holy qur’én has been revealed in such a way that it can be used and understood by people in all periods of history. having knowledge, awareness, and thinking, man can study the holy qur’én and, from within his heart, s/he can extract scientific facts concerning all different scientific, medical, social, economic, and mystical fields. in the holy qur’én, allah almighty uses allegories to explain various sciences. the findings of this study showed that five plants mentioned in verse 61 of sūrah al-baqarah (the cow), leek, cucumber, garlic, lentils, and onions are similar to the microscopic view of five sensory receptors related to the sense of sight, sense of hearing, sense of smell, 84 the holy qur'én's five … sense of touch and sense of taste, respectively. these findings open a new field of quranic interdisciplinary studies and might encourage scientists to gradually discover other concepts of the holy qur’én in various sciences. 6. declarations 6.1. acknowledgment: the authors wish to thank kerman university of medical sciences for providing a platform for quranic research. 6.2. funding: this work was supported by the vice-chancellery for research at student research committee, kerman university of medical sciences (project no: 99000428). 6.3. conflict of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. notes and references 1. tariq, n., and tanveer ahmed, "traditional medicinal plants referred in holy quran," international journal of science and humanities 1, no. 2 (2015): 967980. 2. el-seedi, hesham r., shaden am khalifa, nermeen yosri, alfi khatib, lei chen, aamer saeed, thomas efferth, and rob verpoorte, "plants mentioned in the islamic scriptures (holy qur'ân and ahadith): traditional uses and medicinal importance in contemporary times," journal of ethnopharmacology 243, (2019): 112007. 3. koshak, a., a. alfaleh, e. abdel-sattar, and e. koshak, "medicinal plants in the holy quran and their therapeutic benefits," planta medica 78, no. 05 (2012): 109. 4. moore, k.l. and a. zindani, the developing human: clinically oriented embryology, with islamic additions: correlation studies with qur’an and hadith (jeddah: dar al-qiblah, 1983): 2. 5. moore, keith l. "a scientist’s interpretation of references to embryology in the qur’an." the journal of ima 18, (1986): 15. 6. bennett, b.c., "doctrine of signatures: an explanation of medicinal plant discovery or dissemination of knowledge?," economic botany 61, no. 3 (2007): 246-255. 8. mohammad, ali. "qur’an on embryology: a study of qur’anic and modern concept of human development," journal of islam and science 7, no. 1 (2020): 31-38. 9. ayoun akhbar al-reza, tafsir ahl al-bayt, (qumm : manshūrāt dalīl mā, 2005) vol.10, 408; isa mostarhami, s. and a. akbar farahi bakhshayish, "a review of orientalists’ opinion on contradiction of the quran with natural sciences," the qur'an from orientalists point of view 7, no. 12 (2012): 31-56. 11. aboul-enein, b.h., "health-promoting verses as mentioned in the holy quran," journal of religion and health 55, no. (2016): 821-829. 12. laitman, j.t. and k.h. albertine, “something there is that doesn't love a wall and other lessons for science," the anatomical record 300, no. 6 (2017): 983985. 13. moosavi, j., "the place of avicenna in the history of medicine," avicenna journal of medical biotechnology 1, 1 (2009): 3. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no.1 85 14. alghamdi, m.a., j.m. ziermann, and r. diogo, "an untold story: the important contributions of muslim scholars for the understanding of human anatomy," the anatomical record 300, no. 6 (2017): 986-1008. 15. sardar, z., explorations in islamic science (london: mansell, 1989). 16. edis, t., an illusion of harmony: science and religion in islam (amherst: prometheus books, 2010). 17. bagheri, a., f. hosseinjanzadeh, and m.s. mehr, "the consideration of physics and chemistry sciences in holy quran," journal of applied environmental and biological sciences 4, no. 12 (2015): 260-265. 18. bucaille, m., the bible, the qur'an & science (minnesota: adam publishers, 2012). 19. soltani, m., et al., "olive improves eyesight: a study of the qur'anic evidence and literature,". international journal of early childhood special education 14, no. 3 (2022): 4158-4163. 20. cole, w., the art of simpling: an introduction to the knowledge and gathering of plants (whitefish, montana: kessinger publishing, 2004). 21. bennett, b.c., "doctrine of signatures through two millennia," herbalgram 78, (2008): 34-25. 22. svechtarova, m.i., et al., "sensor devices inspired by the five senses: a review," electroanalysis 28, no. 6 (2016): 1201-1241. 23. mokhtari, mohammda hossein, "a comparative study on the views of aristotle, ibn sina and mulla sadra on the function of sensory perception and its epistemological value," biannual scientific journal sadrā’i wisdom 8, no. 2 (2020): 203-214. 24. ebne sina a. almabda va almaad (tehran: institute for islamic studies,1985). 25. ali akbar, d., "loghat-nameh-ye dehkhoda (persian dictionary of dehkhoda)," accessed may, 2014, www.loghatnaameh.org. 26. amid, h., farhang-e amid (amid dictionary) (tehran: amir kabir university, 1992). 27. isfahani, raghib, al-mufradat fi gharib al-quran (damascus: dar al qalam, 2020). 28. seyyed ali akbar, q., qāmūs al-qur'ān, sixth ed. (beirut: dar al-kotob alislāmiya, 1991) 29. hirsch, bruce elliot, "gray’s anatomy: the anatomical basis of clinical practice," jama 301, no. 17 (2009): 1825-1831. 30. barrett, k.e., et al., ganong's review of medical physiology (new york: mcgraw-hill education, 2019). 31. kolb, h., simple anatomy of the retina, in webvision: the organization of the retina and visual system, ed. h. kolb, e. fernandez, and r. nelson (salt lake city: university of utah, 1995). 32. abdel-aal, e.-s.m., et al., "dietary sources of lutein and zeaxanthin carotenoids and their role in eye health," nutrients 5, no. 4 (2013): 1169-1185. 33. friedland, david r, "structure and function in the auditory system: from cochlea to cortex," the anatomical record part a: discoveries in molecular, cellular, and evolutionary biology: an official publication of the american association of anatomists 288, no. 4 (2006): 326-330. 34. montoya, s., et al., "cucumber biofortification with potassium," european scientific journal 9, no. 33 (2013). 35. jung, d.j., et al., "association between a high-potassium diet and hearing thresholds in the korean adult population," scientific reports 9, no. 1 (2019): 111. 36. nagappan, p.g., s. subramaniam, and d.-y. wang, "olfaction as a soldier-a review of the physiology and its present and future use in the military," military medical research 4, no. 1 (2017): 9. 37. lópez‐ elizalde, r., a. campero, t. sánchez‐ delgadillo, y. lemus‐ rodríguez, m. i. lópez‐ gonzález, and m. godínez‐ rubí, "anatomy of the olfactory nerve: a comprehensive review with cadaveric dissection," clinical anatomy 31, no. 1 (2018): 109-117. 86 the holy qur'én's five … 38. block, eric, "fifty years of smelling sulfur: from the chemistry of garlic to the molecular basis for olfaction," phosphorus, sulfur, and silicon and the related elements 192, no. 2 (2017): 141-144. 39. fischer, e., and f. penzoldt, "about the sensitivity of the sense of smell," justus liebigs. ann. chem 239, (1887): 131-135. 40. erskine, william, f. j. muehlbauer, and r. w. short, "stages of development in lentil," experimental agriculture 26, no. 3 (1990): 297-302. 41. albert, bruno, françois de bertrand de beuvron, cecilia zanni-merk, jean-luc maire, maurice pillet, julien charrier, and christophe knecht, "a smart system for haptic quality control: a knowledge-based approach to formalize the sense of touch," in knowledge discovery, knowledge engineering and knowledge management: 8th international joint conference, ic3k 2016, porto, portugal, november 9–11, 2016, revised selected papers 8, springer international publishing (2019): 173-190. 42. paucean, adriana, ovidiu p. moldovan, vlad mureșan, sonia a. socaci, francisc v. dulf, ersilia alexa, simona m. man, andruţa e. mureșan, and sevastița muste, "folic acid, minerals, amino-acids, fatty acids and volatile compounds of green and red lentils. folic acid content optimization in wheat-lentils composite flours," chemistry central journal 12, (2018): 1-9. 43. stanhewicz, anna e., jody l. greaney, lacy m. alexander, and w. larry kenney, "folic acid supplementation increases cutaneous vasodilator sensitivity to sympathetic nerve activity in older adults," american journal of physiologyregulatory, integrative and comparative physiology 312, no. 5 (2017): r681r688.. 44. chaudhari, nirupa, and stephen d. roper, "review series: the cell biology of taste," the journal of cell biology 190, no. 3 (2010): 285. 45. zhou, yanyan, cong li, bang feng, bang chen, lihua jin, and yehua shen, "uplc-esi-ms/ms based identification and antioxidant, antibacterial, cytotoxic activities of aqueous extracts from storey onion (allium cepa l. var. proliferum regel)," food research international 130, (2020): 108969. 46. brückner, b. and s.g. wyllie, fruit and vegetable flavour: recent advances and future prospects (cambridge: woodhead publishing limited, 2008). 47. yamamoto, yukiko, sakiko aoyama, noriko hamaguchi, and gyou-sei rhi," antioxidative and antihypertensive effects of welsh onion on rats fed with a high-fat high-sucrose diet," bioscience, biotechnology, and biochemistry 69, no. 7 (2005): 1311-1317. 48. liang, li, chenchen zhou, yuyu zhang, and baoguo sun, "effect of welsh onion on taste components and sensory characteristics of porcine bone soup," foods 10, no. 12 (2021): 2968. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 27 an in-depth analysis of al faruqi's theory of islamization of knowledge: a perspective from thomas kuhn's paradigm shift theory mohammad muslih universitas darussalam gontor, ponorogo, indonesia email: muslih@unida.gontor.ac.id usmanul khakim department of aqidah and islamic philosophy, university of darussalam gontor, ponorogo, indonesia email: usmanulhakim680@unida.gontor.ac.id amir sahidin university of darussalam gontor, ponorogo, indonesia email: amirsahidin42003@mhs.unida.gontor.ac.id received on: 29-01-22 accepted on: 11-02-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.436 abstract the discourse of islamization of knowledge proposed by ismail raji al faruqi (d. 1986), which essentially seeks a paradigm shift from modern science to islamic science, is increasingly interesting with more evidence being studied, either with an applied model, a comparison, or a critical one. in addition, the international institute of islamic thought (iiit), an institution founded by al faruqi in 1981, which is responsible for realizing real islamization, continues to grow to this day. these two things prove that al faruqi's islamization is one step ahead, when compared to other islamization initiators such as sayyed hossein nasr, ziauddin sardar, najjar, or even naquib al attas. al faruqi's islamization, which is based on a paradigm shift and the scientific community, seems to align with thomas kuhn's model of scientific revolution, which also requires a paradigm shift and the scientific community. therefore, this article aims to examine the islamization theory proposed by al faruqi from thomas kuhn's paradigm shift perspective. this study is a literature review. the data would be analyzed using content analysis, where the researchers perform an interpretation of the data. the approach used is the philosophy of science approach, which serves to outline the structure of science mailto:muslih@unida.gontor.ac.id mailto:usmanulhakim680@unida.gontor.ac.id mailto:amirsahidin42003@mhs.unida.gontor.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.436 28 an in-depth analysis of … schemed by al faruqi and kuhn. this study concludes that the islamization of knowledge proclaimed by al faruqi and his scientific community is certainly a process of shifting the paradigm of western science to the paradigm of islamic science. thus, al faruqi's islamization is a scientific revolution. keywords: philosophy of science, islamization of knowledge, ismail raji al faruqi, paradigm shift, kuhn 1. introduction ismail raji al faruqi's idea of islamization of knowledge, inspired by his discussion with al attas,1 is increasingly unstoppable. the researchers assume that it is based on two interesting facts: first, the fact that the international institute of islamic thought (iiit), an institution founded by al faruqi which accommodates the scientific community to realize the islamization of knowledge,2 still operates until now and even opens many branches in various countries such as malaysia,3 indonesia,4 and nigeria.5 it means that al faruqi's idea is continuously being discussed and developed by muslim thinkers. the names of well-known muslim thinkers who are active in various iiit activities include: abdul hamid ahmad abu sulayman, hisham al talib, abdelaziz berghout, taha jabir al alwani, sidek baba, jamil osman, jamil farooqui, mohd. yusuf hussain, ibrahim a. ragab, rosnani hasyim, mohammed aris othman and abdul rasyid moten.6 it can be seen that there is a scientific community trying to realize al faruqi's ideas. second, studies on al faruqi's idea of islamization in scientific journals, books, or thesis and dissertations are continuously being published. based on the mendeley database, the authors found -in the last 5 yearsthere were more than 50 published scientific articles that directly discussed al faruqi's thought of the islamization of knowledge; and more than 200 scientific articles citing al faruqi's thoughts.7 these facts show that al faruqi's idea of islamization is ongoing and widely discussed to this day. the main idea of al faruqi's islamization of knowledge is actually aimed at fighting the hegemony of secular modern science. al faruqi sees that modern science is built based on a secular, antireligious, atheistic western perspective.8 it is the thing that is also seen by al attas;9 and sayyed hossein nasr.10 in addition, secular knowledge spread by western culture has now dominated the scientific side of muslims.11 because of the dominance and the perspective it brings, modern science should not be taken for granted by muslims; especially muslim scientists. it means that adaptation, assimilation and integration, and reinterpretation of knowledge are required,12 even tajdêd and ijtihéd if needed.13 mulyadi kartanegara refers to naturalization from sabra's terms.14 to do this, al faruqi hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 29 stated that the islamization of knowledge is an effort to islamize modern scientific disciplines in the islamic vision.15 the word "islamization" refers to the process of shifting perspective (paradigm) from the secular western perspective to the islamic perspective. it is the essence of islamization itself. an actual perspective (paradigm) shifting in scientific activities as a means of developing science has been theorized in detail by thomas s kuhn in the structure of scientific revolution.16 kuhn calls it paradigm-shifting. therefore, concerning all the elements that have been described, the hypothesis that this paper wants to prove is that al faruqi's idea of islamization is a revolution or paradigm-shifting, from a secular perspective or paradigm to an islamic paradigm. in other words, this study aims to examine al faruqi's islamization of knowledge within the framework of thomas kuhn's paradigm shift. 2. literature review the researchers observe that the studies on al faruqi's idea were examined from various approaches. the first, is that the studies are written using an interpretive approach to al faruqi's texts. among these studies are those written by moh kamilus zaman,17 nanda septiana,18 sawaluddin et.al,19 inayah,20 anifah et.al,21 asnawan,22 eniya wati,23 and nur hayati and mustamin.24 these descriptively written studies attempt to explain the basis and framework of al faruqi's islamization. the results obtained in these studies are also identical, namely the principle of monotheism (tawíīd) as the basis for islamization. the second, is that the studies are associated with various scientific disciplines. for example, rabbaniyah et.al. relate it to biological science.25 it is different from vialinda siswati, who correlates al faruqi's islamization with political science.26 meanwhile, mohammad muchlis solichin looked for its relevance to education science.27 the same thing was done by iswati,28 hermawati,29 and syamsul rijal.30 meanwhile, its relation to economics was studied by yusdani.31 the third, al faruqi's idea of islamization is also widely displayed with a comparative model. the study of islamization between al faruqi and al attas, for example, was written by imron rossidy,32 abdul basyir aziz khan,33 irma suryani dan lina mayasari,34 sholeh,35 sholihah binti haji yahya zikri36 and ruchhima.37 on the other hand, ismail and muklis conducted a comparative study between al faruqi's islamization and the islamic 30 an in-depth analysis of … scholar kuntowijoyo.38 muhammad taufik and muhammad yasir wrote its comparison with ziauddin sardar.39 the various studies presented show that al faruqi's idea of islamization of knowledge is an interesting theme for muslim scientists today, as well as showing that this discourse is important. but, none of the presented studies regarding al faruqi's ideas—from various perspectives—highlights al faruqi's islamization as a shift in paradigm. therefore, this study aims to examine al faruqi's islamization of knowledge within the framework of thomas kuhn's paradigm shift. 3. research method this study is a literature review,40 by using qualitative data.41 the researchers gained the data from various books and written sources as the primary and secondary sources. the primary sources are the structure of scientific revolution (1970) by thomas kuhn;42 and islamization of knowledge: general principles and workplan (1988) by al faruqi.43 thus, the researchers used a philosophical approach, namely the philosophy of science, which serves to outline the structure of science schemed by al faruqi and kuhn. the researchers specifically used the shifting of paradigm theory introduced by thomas s kuhn. the secondary data was obtained from various literary works about both figures. all data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis, a qualitative interpretation of the written data obtained.44 in addition, the data obtained from these various sources were analyzed comparatively towards the arguments on the related themes. 4. result and discussion to clarify the focus of the theme and support the points that will be discussed, it is necessary to elaborate on several key elements. al faruqi’s islamization of knowledge and the paradigm shift of thomas kuhn are reviewed as follows. 4.1 al faruqi’s islamization of knowledge ismail raji al faruqi was born in jaffa, palestine on january 1, 1921, and passed away on may 27, 1986 in philadelphia.45 he was a distinguished professor of islamic studies at temple university in the united states since 1968 and a prominent pioneer of islamization.46 as stated in al attas' notes, the ideas of islamization presented by al faruqi were inspired by al attas' works although al-faruqi then denied it in their correspondence in 1976.47 al faruqi later published a work entitled "islamization of knowledge: general hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 31 principles and work plan" (1982) explaining the background and steps in realizing the islamization of knowledge.48 in the preface section, al faruqi states that the islamization of knowledge is a solution to the malaise that afflicts this community that cause backwards in life, politics, economics, education, and culture.49 he also states that the colonial and orientalist movement of western nations over the islamic community has opened the door for the hegemony of secularism in the islamic community's way of thinking.50 as the consequence, islamic community (ummah) is gradually deislamized. meanwhile, the secularization trend also affects the education system, where a dichotomy arises between the secular system and the islamic system.51 many theories in the textbooks of the islamic community are adopted from the western secular view which then direct the students to become secular. to turn back this secularization trend in education, al faruqi's islamization of knowledge tries to islamize the disciplines of knowledge in the form of university textbooks developed based on islamic perspective.52 the process of islamization of each discipline of knowledge refers to the three axes of monotheism, namely: 1) the unity of knowledge (there is no dichotomy between rational and revealed knowledge); 2) the unity of life (all forms of knowledge serve one purpose of the creation); and 3) the unity of history (all disciplines of knowledge are humanistic and universal/ummatic).53 it can be understood that there are 2 factors in the islamization; the first is the problem to be solved; the second is the method of solving. first, the problem to be solved is the malaise of the muslim community that consists of 1) the defeat of the community in all fronts of life; 2) the existence of westernization and secularization as a legacy of western colonialism; 3) the duality of the education system and the dichotomy of knowledge; 4) secular western science dominating educational institutions. second, the method of solving is islamization. the islamization of knowledge that refers to the three pillars of tawíêd, namely the unity of knowledge, the unity of life, and the unity of history can be the solution to address those problems. 4.2. thomas kuhn’s “shifting of paradigm” thomas s kuhn (1922-1996) was a philosopher of science who began his scholarly career in the field of physics.54 he obtained his ph.d. in physics from harvard university in 1949.55 however, instead of teaching physics, he taught philosophy and history of science as a lecturer at the university of california (1956) until he was awarded professorships from pricenton university (1962) and 32 an in-depth analysis of … the massachusetts institute of technology (1982).56 he was an expert in philosophy and the history of science who tried to fight against the dominance of the positivism paradigm at that time.57 his most significant scholarly contribution was his criticism of the kalr popper falsification, which previously responded to the vienna circle.58 around that time, he presented the shifting of paradigm theory as an attempt to take the subject in the scientific method into account. before discussing the shifting of paradigm theory in detail, it is necessary to first explain the definition of paradigm according to kuhn. kuhn argues that a paradigm can be formulated as a whole belief system, techniques, and value shared by groups of the scientific community.59 from the definition, two essential elements in the paradigm are the belief system and the scientific community. the first one is the belief system. kuhn states that every scientific activity has been initiated by an established belief system, which is an accumulation of solid theories that serve as a theoretical framework of scientific activity. kuhn addresses the belief system as "disciplinary matrix".60 aspects that become the "matrix" are similar to one proposed by hamid fahmy zarkasyi. they include ontological aspects (something known), the epistemological aspect (how the subject knows how to relate to the known object), axiological aspects (related to values of what is known), rhetorical aspects (the language used), and the methodological aspect (the way a person acquires knowledge).61 all these matrices are arranged in such a way in the discipline of thinking of a scientist. therefore, it is common that kuhn calls the paradigm a worldview.62 the researchers view what kuhn said about the "disciplinary matrix" makes sense because a study cannot be separated from the role of the researcher's worldview in it. it is something that was not taken into account by previous scientists who supported positivism. the second is the scientific community. kuhn states that a paradigm cannot be called a paradigm if it is only believed by a scientist. a paradigm must become a system of beliefs and values held by the scientific community for the development of science. the scientific community is a group of scientists who have chosen a common worldview. even positivists do that too. it makes sense when groups of scientists who support positivism also choose rubrics of belief therefore, they are called cartesian, humian, kantian, comtean, and others.63 furthermore, kuhn presented evidence that earlier scientists had chosen to become ptolomeian, aristotelian, newtonian, or copernican.64 a scientific community sharing the same paradigm of the scientific world has a common language, values, assumptions, goals, norms, and beliefs even though they do not necessarily gather in the same place. this explanation hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 33 demonstrates that the scientific community is what guarantees the sustainability of a paradigm. after knowing the concept of khun's paradigm, the following discussion is a shifting of paradigm. generally, a shifting of paradigm goes through six phases.65 those are initial paradigm, normal science or ordinary science, anomaly, crisis, revolution, and new paradigm.66 the first one is the initial paradigm. kuhn argues that a paradigm can be formulated as a whole belief system, techniques, and value shared by groups of the scientific community.67 this phase begins with the absence of consensus on any theory.68 it means, in this condition, there are several unsuitable and incomplete theories until finally one of these theories "wins".69 this phase lasts for a certain period until a single paradigm is accepted by all. it is the initial paradigm towards the normal science phase. therefore, this phase is referred to as “the route to normal science,”70 until one school of thought or theory emerges that dominates other scientific theories. eventually, other schools of thought become oriented to and recognize the superiority of this dominant school of thought.71 it is due to the promises towards a more accurate and holistic problem solving and the guarantee of a more advanced research future. this phase generates an agreed initial paradigm for building normal science. the second is the normal science phase. after the emergence of an agreed paradigm, the scientific community conducts various kinds of observation activities and scientific experimental activities that generate a variety of science and scientific products.72 one example is the development of kepler's law and boyle's law based on the newtonian paradigm.73 in this phase, the paradigm gains status because: (a) successfully solving problems in practice; (b) expanding knowledge of the facts that the paradigm shows as mind-opening; (c) increasing the degree of concordance between the facts and the paradigm's assumptions; (d) further articulating the paradigm itself.74 therefore, it is assumed that the paradigm in this phase becomes the problem-solving of what kuhn called as a puzzle.7576 it is the period of success of scientific paradigms.77 it means the paradigm will be challenged by the emergence of new questions from the emerging facts. in other words, the paradigm will experience challenges or anomalies. the third is the anomalies. in the “route of normal science”, research activities may lead to unexpected results or deviations, which kuhn calls anomalies. the development of new facts that are directly proportional to the problem will be a challenge to normal science.78 it means new facts and phenomena will test the toughness of science and its paradigm in kuhn's terms called "counterinstances" (competitive resistance).79 as long as normal science can 34 an in-depth analysis of … pass the test, the position of the paradigm will be stronger, but if it is the other way around, there will be a crisis. the fourth is the crisis. in this condition, normal science experiences a variety of anomalies or vast disturbances to the point where the old paradigm experiences analytic paralysis and is no longer able to provide answers and explanations to the arising problems.80 in this phase, the scientific community can no longer avoid conflict due to many deviations. this phase is called the crisis. kuhn defines it as symptoms of a transition from normal to extraordinary research.81 in this phase, the validity of the paradigm begins to be questioned and requires a revolution. the fifth is the revolution. after the crisis occurred violently, then ushered in the path to the revolution phase. this condition is similar to the initial condition, the pre-paradigm where there is not even one agreed paradigm. each school proposes its theory as a replacement for the old paradigm. it is when dialogue occurs between one paradigm and another. until the scientists accept a paradigm that was agreed upon by the scientific community. this revolution has ushered in a new paradigm, which kuhn addresses as a change of worldview.82 the sixth is the new paradigm. in this phase, a new emerging paradigm has an answer to problems that the old paradigm cannot solve. kuhn exemplifies when geocentric changes to heliocentric, from phlogiston to oxygen, or from corpuscle to waves.83 the following is the scheme of the flow of knowledge development: figure 1: kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions the phases that kuhn attempted are called a scientific revolution. this new paradigm seeks to improve the shortcomings of the old paradigm. in the process of scientific revolution, almost all vocabularies, terms, concepts, idioms, ways of the personal resolution, ways of thinking, ways of approaching problems change by themselves.84 owing to the fact that the old model of problemsolving cannot be used at all to solve problems that come later, therefore it automatically takes what is called a new disciplinary matrix (a new paradigm). thus, the change of the old paradigm to the new one has consequences for the emergence of new normal science. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 35 furthermore, various scholars of kuhn's revolution such as damayanti and ma‘ruf,85 widia putri, et.al,86 nurkhalis,87 inayatul ulya,88 max boli sabon89 consider kuhn's scientific revolution to be a dialectical cycle that inevitably occurs continuously. 4.3. al faruqi’s islamization as a scientific revolution after discussing thomas kuhn's theory, the discussion continues by analyzing al faruqi's theory of islamization. the analysis began by looking for relevant points from al faruqi's thought which shows the process of six phases of tomas kuhn's paradigm shift. here's the review: 4.3.1. early paradigm: secularization al faruqi saw that the colonialization of muslim countries had led to a current of de-islamization or secularization. research proves that colonialization revolutionized religion from a secular perspective.90 it influences the perspective of the muslims with the colonial perspective, including on the scientific side. al faruqi stated that: “at the beginning of the eleventh century a.h./seventeenth century a.c., orientalists, colonialists, and missionaries laid the groundwork for this new intellectual offensive against islam and the ummah. they were aided and abetted, materially and morally, by numerous organizations and supporters, and succeeded eventually in ensnaring the hearts and minds of many muslims, reshaping its thinking and clouding their islamic vision. when european industrialism and material progress reached their peak, europe achieved prominence and power. at this same time, the ummah was vastly depleted by lassitude, and its enemies decided to launch an all-out assault to deal the ummah the final blow.”91 from the quote, we know that the existence of orientalism, missionarism, and colonialism resulted in the clouding of their islamic vision among the muslims. the word islamic vision means a worldview.92 what is conveyed by al faruqi refers to a process of shifting perspective from islamic to a western perspective (westernization). eventually, the muslims accepted the western worldview and no longer had the vision of islam. it is what al faruqi quotes intellectual offensive against islam. it means that if human intellectuals pivot on their worldview, then the attack is nothing but westernization of the muslim worldview. this argument is supported by his statement, "they...succeeded eventually in ensnaring the hearts and minds of many muslims". it is indeed a worldview that operates 36 an in-depth analysis of … on the human mind and heart. thus, al faruqi believed that the condition of the muslims at that time was hegemonized by the western worldview. in other words, the muslims, although not apostates, no longer believe in islamic paradigms, but rather in western. furthermore, al faruqi indicates that the foreign worldview (western worldview) contained a secular perspective. it indicates that the western scientific paradigm is dominated by secular systems, ideas, and methods.93 in addition, science and its institutions and actors only pursue secular goals.94 it represents what kuhn addresses as the disciplinary matrix;95 the western secular worldview. secular, which is defined by not relating the sacredness of religion in science and the education system, is criticized by al faruqi.96 the same conclusion was expressed by al attas97 and sayyed hossein nasr.98 it seems that al faruqi concluded the paradigm dominating the muslims today is in the form of a secular disciplinary matrix. historically, this secular paradigm has been well accepted by western culture, especially after the renaissance. it is a root of resistance to the church and the foundation for the construction of modern science. in western philosophy of science books, various schools of thought are introduced; the first one is rationalism. it was pioneered by rene descartes, spinoza, leibniz, and wolff.99 the second school of thought is empiricism. among the leading figures of this school are john lock, george berkeley, and david hume.100 this school emerged by refuting the idea of rationalism. the third is criticism. the leading figure of this school is immanuel kant. he tried to reconcile the two previous schools.101 even though they look different, all of these schools are based on one agreement, the rejection of the church's doctrine in science.102 it was this secularism that later became the paradigm for the construction of modern science which is also distributed to the muslims. 4.3.2. normal science: secular modern science al faruqi is well aware that modern science existing today is built from a contrary paradigm to islam. he states: “their efforts… based on the assumption that what the 'modern' lessons say are harmless, will even give strength to muslims...... they do not realize that the literary sciences, the social sciences, the natural sciences, are integral aspects of the view, of reality, life and the world binding these disciplines, their views on truth and science.”103 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 37 from the statement, it seems modern science which is currently developing rapidly in western culture, is a normal or wellestablished science, emerging from the secular paradigm. as a normal science, the secular paradigm has succeeded in establishing various branches of scientific disciplines. among those branches, al faruqi mentioned literary sciences, social sciences, and natural sciences.104 in addition, other evidence that modern science is in a normal phase of science is its hegemony over other cultures. in his statement, al faruqi has indicated it when he criticizes some muslim scientists who actively say that modern science coming from western culture is not detrimental, but rather useful to advance muslims.105 even in his islamization of knowledge, al faruqi mentions sayyid ahmad khan and muhammad abduh as scholars who are in that position.106 if al faruqi's statement is true, it can be implied that secular modern science has become a normal science given its strong hegemony in the minds of muslim scientists. thus, muslims face—to borrow al attas' term—a dilemma;107 while having to accept modern science from the west for progress on the one hand and still maintain the original knowledge of islam as an identity.108 eventually, what is called the dualism of science emerges.109 as a common example, that occurs in society, when modern secular science states that the universe occurred by chance, it is contrary to islamic science which states that the universe was created by allah almighty. it is what later in kuhn's rule is called an anomaly. 4.3.3. anomaly: the gap of two sciences the previous explanation implies that some muslims are unable to identify any anomalies in modern science. therefore, they reluctantly accept modern science as an effort to reform the condition of the people. for this reason, al faruqi points out that in modern science there are anomalies or deviations from the islamic perspective. he states: “unfortunately, however, the approach and mentality of such movements betrayed a western outlook and an alien methodology and frame of reference that doomed them to failure. indeed, it is axiomatic that what is intellectually or ideologically good for europe and the west, in general, is not necessarily good or suitable for the ummah, whose existence and destiny are rooted in and dependent upon the qur'an and the sunnah.”110 based on his statement, al faruqi believes that there is a fundamental problem in modern science. for him, western science 38 an in-depth analysis of … cannot simply be accepted by muslims. he declares, “is not necessarily good or suitable”. his statement is based on the fact that modern western science negates itself from the holy qur'én and sunnah. it makes sense—as explained above—that the paradigm of modern western science is secularism, therefore it is natural if the science that was born is atheistic. meanwhile, muslims must adhere to the holy qur'én and the sunnah of the prophet as a consequence of their islam. thus, there are two contradictory sciences in the muslims themselves. this contradiction is called the dualism of science. in short, the dualism of science is an anomaly of modern western science. such conditions, when viewed from kuhn's rule normal science is experiencing an anomaly. it means that modern western science spread into muslim society is experiencing challenges and trials to answer various phenomena and facts that occur in muslim society which are not at all the same as a western society where modern science was born. as in kuhn's idea, at this time, partial solutions to the problems that disturb normal science are still being sought. if so, it is natural that some muslim thinkers choose to reconcile the two with an instrumentalistic approach, as did jamaluddin al-afghani (d. 1897), sayyid ahmad khan (d. 1898), muhammad abduh (d. 1905), and rashid ridha (d. 1935).111 this effort still leaves problems because the instrumentalistic approach can only be used to solve the problem of dualism in particular science on some sides of natural science and technology. it does not strike social science, let alone paradigms or worldviews. essentially, such a partial solution is not sufficient to resolve the existing anomaly. dualism is increasingly showing its concrete consequences, the existence of a crisis called by al faruqi as the malaise of the ummah. 4.3.4. crisis: malaise of ummah al faruqi states that the crisis faced by muslims was a malaise, which was caused by a scientific error. al faruqi describes the malaise of the ummah in several sectors, such as politics, economy, religio-cultural, and the education or science system. according to al faruqi, the latter is called a fundamental crisis that causes other crises. what al faruqi said is reasonable because corrupted knowledge that enters the islamic education system will produce foolish and uncivilized humans. education which is supposed to build the people's morals has contributed to its moral decline. with this moral decline, all life systems, such as politics, economy, and culture, will eventually fall. it will also end up in a condition that al faruqi calls the defeat of the muslims. al faruqi explicitly describes the crisis of the people as follows: hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 39 “the ummah of islam stands at present at the lowest rung of the ladder of nations. in this century, no other nation has been subjected to comparable defeats or humiliation. muslims were defeated, massacred, double-crossed, colonized, and exploited, proselytized, forced or bribed into conversion to other faiths. they were secularized, westernized, and de-islamized by internal and external agents of their enemies. this occurred in practically every country and corner of the vast muslim world. even though they were victims of injustice and aggression on every count, muslims were vilified and denigrated in representations of them in all nations. they enjoy the worst possible 'image' in the contemporary world. in today's global mass media, the 'muslim' is stereotyped as aggressive, destructive, lawless, terroristic, uncivilized, fanatic, 'fundamentalist; backward and anachronistic. muslims are the objects of hatred and contempt on the part of non-muslims, whether developed or underdeveloped, capitalist or marxist, eastern or western, civilized or otherwise. the muslim world itself is known only for its inner strife and division, its turbulence and selfcontradictions, its wars and threats to world peace, its excessive wealth and excessive poverty, its famines and epidemics. in the minds of people everywhere, the muslim world is the "sick man" of the world; and the whole world is led to think that, at the root of all these evils, stands the religion of islam.”112 from his statement, it shows that the crisis is happening. according to kuhn's notion, a crisis occurs when normal science gets a variety of anomalies or disturbances that are very large to the point where the old paradigm is analytic paralyzed and is no longer able to provide answers and explanations to the problems that arise.113 modern science is no longer able to answer the question of human moral decline, which causes political, economic, and cultural chaos, as stated by al faruqi explicitly in the quote above. western society itself is experiencing a similar crisis. the crisis is the loss of spirituality as a result of secularization. it is a situation in which western society suffers from alienation, loss of ethics, and breaking the law (anomie).114 it also loses its moral value and is even dominated by materialism and arrogance. therefore, there is imbalance and disorder such as the destruction of man and the universe.115 the modern human soul also "suffers" from chronic mental illness.116 efforts to carry out a revolution have also been attempted. in the field of social sciences, for example, shifting the secular paradigm to theology as sought by ian g barbour or john f haught.117 in the field of natural sciences, there is a shift from an 40 an in-depth analysis of … exploitative paradigm to sustainability, such as the anti-pesticide movement in agricultural science or organic farming. these examples reinforce the need for a revolution against the secular paradigm that exists in modern science. therefore, in the context of the islamic ummah, al faruqi and for his discussion with al attas proposed a scientific revolution, namely the islamization of modern science. 4.3.5. revolution: islamization of knowledge al faruqi firmly stated that the solution to the crisis that befell muslims was the islamization of modern science. he states: “now is the time for muslim scholars to abandon these dangerous counterfeit methods of educational reform. for them educational reform is the islamization of modern science itself… the literature science, the social sciences, and the natural sciences must be structured, rebuilt, and given a new basis and given new goals consistent with islam.…”118 the statement above refers to al faruqi's proposal on islamization starting from science. he suggested that the modern sciences be compiled and rebuilt. the most important thing here is his statement that islamization must also carry out the replacement on a new basis and be given a goal following islamic teaching. in the structure of the scientific revolution, kuhn stated that the basic structure of science is a paradigm.119 this paradigm also provides consistent new goals and promises solutions to problems that are not able to be solved by the secular scientific paradigm. moreover, al faruqi's notion is even more advanced with the formulation of a technical agenda and an islamization work plan. in short, the islamization initiated by al-faruqi is a rearrangement of the structure of knowledge based on the paradigm and goals of islam. therefore, in the islamization of knowledge process, there was a shifting of paradigm, from the secular paradigm to the monotheistic islamic paradigm (tauhidic paradigm). 4.3.6. new paradigm: tauhidic paradigm after discussing the paradigm shift in islamization, now is the time to discuss the new paradigm proposed by al faruqi as the basis for the construction of islamic sciences. he states: “every discipline must be reprocessed so that it reveals the relevance of islam along the 3 axes of tauíêd. the first axis is the monotheism of knowledge… the second axis is the monotheism of life… the third axis is the monotheism of history”.120 the three axes have the following meanings: the first is the monotheism (tauíêd) of knowledge. based on the monotheism of knowledge, there is no longer any statement hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 41 that some sciences are only ‘aqli (rational), and others are naqli (irrational). there will be no longer dichotomy that some sciences are scientific and absolute and others are dogmatic and relative.121 the second is the monotheism (tawíêd) of life. it means that all scientific disciplines must refer to the unity of the purpose of life, serving the purpose of creation. there is no longer any claim that some sciences are conditional on values and others are value-free.122 the third is the monotheism of history. the meaning is that the disciplinary unity will accept the ummah or social nature of all human activities and serve the goals of the ummah in history. there is no more social and individual science since all scientific disciplines are humanistic and ummah in nature.123 it means that the new paradigm offered by al faruqi to build islamic science is the monotheistic paradigm. the monotheism paradigm will accommodate the physical and spiritual side, and also the visible and invisible world. thus, it is a promising resolution of problems that the secular paradigm cannot answer. zainuri defines the monotheistic paradigm as the unity of truth and knowledge.124 here is a table of shifting of a paradigm or scientific revolutions by al faruqi: no. thomas s kuhn isma’il r al faruqi 1 initial paradigm de-islamization: secular paradigm 2 normal science western secular modern science 3 anomaly knowledge gap (dualism of science) 4 crisis ummah’s malaise 5 revolution islamization of knowledge 6 new paradigm tauhidic paradigm 7 normal science ii islamic science figure 2: table of comparison between kuhn's scientific revolution and al faruqi's islamization the table above shows that the notion of al faruqi's islamization is possible to be explained by using thomas s kuhn's theory of shifting of paradigm. if seen at the current developments, al faruqi's notion has just reached a revolutionary position towards a new paradigm. the iiit scientific community, founded by al faruqi as a guarantor for the ongoing islamization program and his colleagues, is still actively involved in bringing about a revolution towards islamic science. 42 an in-depth analysis of … 4.4 scientific revolution in the islamization of knowledge landscape as proven in the prior discussions, the islamization of knowledge is a scientific revolution that aims to present islamic science as normal science. adi setia believes that the success of islamization does not depend only on the historical study of islamic science or philosophical study of science, but mainly in the research program.125 in other words, the framework of islamization requires actual research in every field of science, both humanities and natural sciences. therefore, to make islamic science a normal science, muslim scientists from various disciplines need to establish collaboration. the success of the scientific revolution or islamization of knowledge is determined by the collaboration among scientists who share the same worldview (disciplinary matrix) regardless of their varying scientific disciplines such as; physics, biology, economics, sociology, governance, etc. the same worldview refers to the fundamental islamic belief system held by all muslim scientists across disciplines. scientists may have specific technical method in developing their respective fields of science, but they need to believe in the same worldview. doctors perform different scientific activities than automotive technicians, but they can both agree on the existence of allah almighty and they can believe that humans and the universe are the creation of allah almighty. they also need to understand that allah almighty is the source of the greatest knowledge, sharê‘ah should be obeyed, and good deeds will be definitely rewarded. this worldview will prevent scientists from conducting scientific activities or research against the islamic law. in other words, the success of islamization depends on the scientific community and the islamic worldview of the scientists. 4. conclusion from this study, it can be seen that al faruqi’s islamization, when observed by kuhn's paradigm, is a process of changing paradigms or scientific revolutions. in summary, al faruqi's scientific revolution includes (1) the secular paradigm acts as the initial paradigm, (2) secular science is positioned as normal science, (3) the gap (dualism of science) as an anomaly, (4) malaise of the ummah as a crisis, (5) islamization of knowledge as a revolution, and (6) the monotheism paradigm is a new paradigm in building islamic science. it means that this study has proven that al faruqi's islamization is a scientific revolution. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 43 this study proposed several significance and relevance. first, theoretically, this study strengthened the philosophical basis for islamization projects. this study also clarified the conceptual map of the islamization of knowledge that navigated the position of the current islamization. second, kuhn's explanation of the paradigm that required a worldview. scholars needed to provide a clear frame for supporting islamization. in other words, scientific work should be done collaboratively rather than separately to support the islamization. by believing in the same paradigm, scientific works could be conducted cross-disciplinary or multi-disciplinary. this study has several limitations. first, this study only discussed two figures: al faruqi on the islamization side and kuhn on the philosophy of science side. future researchers need to explore other thoughts, such as the ones of al attas, ziauddin sardar, kuntowijoyo etc. on the side of islamization and imre lakatos or karl poper for example on the philosophy of science to strengthen the paradigm and scientific community in supporting the islamization of science. second, this study only elaborated the philosophical basis and structure of science from the historical perspective of science and it did not provide technical and practical guidance, especially related to the islamization method in specific branches of knowledge. therefore, future researchers can propose feasible method of islamization in specific branches of knowledge. this study mapped the journey of islamization and proposes two recommendations. first, muslim scholars need to measure the progress of islamization in order to formulate strategic steps to accelerate the realization of islamic science as a normal science. second, a scientific revolution is possible when the community share scientific paradigm and there are muslim scholars who support islamization in various disciplines of science. scholars should not proceed the knowledge separately because science and islam actually share the same paradigm within the society. 5. declaration gratitude is expressed to professor hamid fahmy zarkasyi for the guidance. another gratitude also goes to universitas darussalam gontor that has funded this study. notes and references 1 syed muhammad naquib al-attas, islam and secularism, (kuala lumpur: international institute of islamic thought and civilization (istac), 1993), xi. 2 “international institute of islamic thought (iiit),” accessed december 8, 2021, https://iiit.org/en/home/ https://iiit.org/en/home/ 44 an in-depth analysis of … 3 “international institute of islamic thought (iiit) malaysia,” accessed december 8, 2021, https://iiit.org/en/malaysia_office/ 4 “international institute of islamic thought (iiit) indonesia,” accessed december 8, 2021, https://iiit.org/en/indonesia/ 5 “international institute of islamic thought (iiit) nigeria,” accessed december 8, 2021, https://iiit.org/en/category/nigeria-office-page/ 6 m firman maulana, “islamisasi ilmu dalam konteks pendidikan,(islamisation of knowledge in the context of education)” almufida ii, no. 1 (2017): 16–35. 7 mendeley, “al faruqi”, accessed december 3, 2021 https://www.mendeley.com/search/?query=al+faruqi&dgcid=md_homepage 8 ismail raji al-faruqi, islamization of knowledge: general principles and work plan, 2nd ed. (herndon, virginia: iiit, 1982), 1. 9 al attas, islam and secularism, 34. 10 nicholas heer and seyyed hossein nasr, “knowledge and the sacred,” philosophy east and west 43, no. 1 (1993): 144, https://doi.org/10.2307/1399476 11 nur hadi ihsan, khasib amrullah, usmanul khakim, and hadi fatkhurrizka. “hubungan agama dan sains: telaah kritis sejarah filsafat sains islam dan modern. (religion and science: a historical criticism of islamic and modern philosophy of science)” intizar 27, no. 2 (2021): 106, https://doi.org/10.19109/intizar.v27i2.9527. see also, ismail raji al-faruqi, islamization of knowledge, xi-xiv. see also, al attas, islam and secularism, 133. 12 firda inayah. “islamisasi ilmu pengetahuan: prinsip umum dan rencana kerja ismail raji' al-faruqi (islamisation of knowledge: general principles and work plan of ismail raji' al-faruqi)” kalimah: jurnal studi agama dan pemikiran islam 18, no 2 (2020): 225, https://doi.org/10.21111/klm.v18i2.4872. see also, yongki sutoyo, toward islamic methodology of scientific research programmes in natural sciences : contribution of al-attas and lakatos, (master’s thesis department of aqidah and islamic philosophy, universitas darussalam gontor, ponorogo, indonesia, 2022), 12. 13 bani syarif maula, “islam dan modernitas: pandangan muslim terhadap perkembangan sosial, politik dan sains (islam and modernity: muslim views on social, political and scientific developments)” fikrah: jurnal ilmu aqidah dan studi keagamaan 5, no. 2 (2017): 332, http://dx.doi.org/10.21043/fikrah.v5i2.2234 14 mulyadhi kartanegara, menyibak tirai kejahilan: pengantar epistemologi islam (lifting the curtain of ignorance: an introduction to islamic epistemology) (bandung: mizan, 2003), 111. 15 al-faruqi, islamization of knowledge, 20. 16 thomas kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution (chicago: the university of chicago press, 1970). 17 moh kamilus zaman, “islamisasi ilmu pengetahuan menurut ismail raji alfaruqi (islamisation of knowledge according to ismail raji al-faruqi)” edupedia 4, no. 1 (2019): 23-29, https://doi.org/10.35316/edupedia.v4i1.522 18 nanda septiana, “kajian terhadap pemikiran ismail raji al-faruqi tentang islamisasi sains (a study of ismail raji al-faruqi's thoughts on the islamisation of science),” journal of islamic education (jie) 5, no. 1 (2020): 20-34, https://ejournal.stitmuhbangil.ac.id/index.php/jie/article/view/166/95 19 sawaluddin, koiy sahbuddin harahap, imran rido, iwan agus supriyono, “the islamization of science and its consequences: an examination of ismail raji alfaruqi's ideas” jurnal pendidikan agama islam (journal of islamic education studies) 10, no.2 (2022): 115-128, https://doi.org/10.15642/jpai.2022.10.2.115-128 20 inayah. “islamisasi ilmu pengetahuan: prinsip umum dan rencana kerja ismail raji’ al-faruqi. (islamisation of knowledge: general principles and work plan of ismail raji' al-faruqi)” kalimah: jurnal studi agama dan pemikiran islam 18, no 2 (2020): 225-248, https://doi.org/10.21111/klm.v18i2.4872. 21 anifah anifah, rovi sulistiono, and wahyu jauhari alfan. “pemikiran isma’il raji al-faruqi tentang islamisasi pengetahuan dan pemikiran kuntowijoyo tentang pengilmuan islam (isma'il raji al-faruqi's thought on islamisation of knowledge https://iiit.org/en/malaysia_office/ https://iiit.org/en/indonesia/ https://iiit.org/en/category/nigeria-office-page/ https://www.mendeley.com/search/?query=al+faruqi&dgcid=md_homepage https://doi.org/10.2307/1399476 https://doi.org/10.19109/intizar.v27i2.9527 https://doi.org/10.21111/klm.v18i2.4872 http://dx.doi.org/10.21043/fikrah.v5i2.2234 https://ejournal.stitmuhbangil.ac.id/index.php/jie/article/view/166/95 https://doi.org/10.15642/jpai.2022.10.2.115-128 https://doi.org/10.21111/klm.v18i2.4872 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 45 and kuntowijoyo's thought on islamic scientificisation)” jurnal ilmiah mahasiswa raushan fikr 6, no. 1 (2017): 11-23, https://doi.org/10.24090/jimrf.v6i1.2708 22 asnawan asnawan, “diskursus islamisasi ilmu perspektif ismail raji al-faruqi, (the discourse of islamisation of knowledge from the perspective of ismail raji alfaruqi)” adabiyah : jurnal pendidikan islam 2, no. 1 (2018): 1-18, https://doi.org/10.21070/ja.v1i3.1256 23 eniya wati, “kesatuan ilmu dalam bingkai pemikiran ismail raji al-faruqi, (the unity of knowledge in the frames of ismail raji al-faruqi's thought)” tadris: jurnal pendidikan islam 10, no. 1 (2015): 39-54, https://doi.org/10.19105/tjpi.v10i1.637 24 nurhayati nurhayati and kamaruddin mustamin, “diskursus proyek islamisasi ilmu pengetahuan ismail raji al-faruqi, (ismail raji al-faruqi's islamisation of knowledge project discourse)” rausyan fikr: jurnal studi ilmu ushuluddin dan filsafat 15, no. 1 (2019): 131-160, https://doi.org/10.24239/rsy.v15i1.417 25 jundiyah rabbaniyah, budi handrianto, and ahmad sastra, “penerapan islamisasi sains al-faruqi dalam silabus biologi.( application of al-faruqi's islamisation of knowledge in biology syllabus),” tawazun: jurnal pendidikan islam 13, no. 1 (2020): 66-74. https://doi.org/10.32832/tawazun.v13i1.3054 26 vialinda siswati, “studi pemikiran al faruqi tentang tauhid ilmu dan politik (a study of al faruqi's thought on the tawhid of knowledge and politics)” tarbiya islamia : jurnal pendidikan dan keislaman 8, no. 2 (2019): 149-164, https://doi.org/10.36815/tarbiya.v8i2.471 27 mohammad muchlis solichin. “islamisasi ilmu pengetahuan dan aplikasinya dalam pendidikan islam.(islamisation of knowledge and its application in islamic education)” jurnal tadris stain pamekasan 3, no. 1 (2008): 1-13, https://doi.org/10.19105/tjpi.v3i1.226. 28 iswati iswati, “upaya islamisasi ilmu pengetahuan dan implikasinya terhadap pendidikan islam,(islamisation of knowledge and its implications for islamic education)” at-tajdid : jurnal pendidikan dan pemikiran islam 1, no. 01 (2017): 91-104, http://dx.doi.org/10.24127/att.v1i01.341 29 nur wahyu hermawati, “konsep ilmu berlandasakan tauhid ismail raji alfaruqi serta implikasinya di dunia pendidikan, (ismail raji al-faruqi's concept of tawhid-based knowledge and its implication in education)” jurnal at-ta’dib 10, no. 2 (2015): 383-402, https://doi.org/10.21111/at-tadib.v10i2.464 30 syamsul rijal, “islamisasi ilmu pengetahuan perspektif ismail raji al-faruqi dan implikasinya dalam pendidikan, (islamisation of knowledge from the perspective of ismail raji al-faruqi and its implication in education)” jurnal pemikiran, pendidikan dan penelitian ke-islaman 4, no. 2 (2018): 1-14, https://doi.org/10.31102/ahsana..4.2.2018.1-14 31 yusdani yusdani, “islamisasi model al-faruqi dan penerapannya dalam ilmu ekonomi islam di indonesia (suatu kritik epistemik),(islamisation of al-faruqi's model and its application in islamic economics in indonesia (an epistemic critique))” la_riba 1, no. 1 (2007): 77-94, https://doi.org/10.20885/lariba.vol1.iss1.art6 32 imron rossidy, “an analysisi of al attas and al faruqi conception of islamization of knowledge: implication for muslim education” (master's thesis in iium, kuala lumpur, malaysia 1998). see also, imron rossidy and rosnani hasyim, “islamization of knowledge: a comparative analysis of al-attas and alfaruqi” intellectual discourse 8, no.1 (2000): 19-44, https://doi.org/10.31436/id.v8i1 33 abdul basyir aziz khan, “islamization of knowledge: a comparative study of al attas and al faruqi” (master's thesis in iium, kuala lumpur, malaysia1998). 34 irma suryani siregar and lina mayasari siregar, “studi komparatif pemikiran ismail raji al-faruqi dan syed muhammad naquib al-attas, (a comparative study of the thought of ismail raji al-faruqi and syed muhammad naquib al-attas)” alhikmah: jurnal agama dan ilmu pengetahuan 15, no. 1 (2018): 85–98. https://doi.org/10.25299/jaip.2018.vol15(1).1588 https://doi.org/10.24090/jimrf.v6i1.2708 https://doi.org/10.21070/ja.v1i3.1256 https://doi.org/10.19105/tjpi.v10i1.637 https://doi.org/10.32832/tawazun.v13i1.3054 https://doi.org/10.36815/tarbiya.v8i2.471 https://doi.org/10.19105/tjpi.v3i1.226 http://dx.doi.org/10.24127/att.v1i01.341 https://doi.org/10.21111/at-tadib.v10i2.464 https://doi.org/10.31102/ahsana..4.2.2018.1-14 https://doi.org/10.20885/lariba.vol1.iss1.art6 https://doi.org/10.31436/id.v8i1 https://doi.org/10.25299/jaip.2018.vol15(1).1588 46 an in-depth analysis of … 35 sholeh sholeh, “islamisasi ilmu pengetahuan (konsep pemikiran ismail raji alfaruqi dan syed muhammad naquib al-attas),( islamisation of knowledge (the concepts of ismail raji al-faruqi and syed muhammad naquib al-attas))” alhikmah: jurnal agama dan ilmu pengetahuan 14, no. 2 (2017): 209–21. https://doi.org/10.25299/al-hikmah:jaip.2017.vol14(2).1029 36 solihah binti haji yahya zikri, “a comparative analysis of the conceptions of muhammad naquib al-attas and ismail raji al-faruqi in islamization of knowledge,” dirosat : journal of islamic studies 2, no. 1 (2017): 18-36. https://doi.org/10.28944/dirosat.v2i1.41 37 ruchhima ruchhima, “islamisasi ilmu pengetahuan syed muhammad naquib alattas dan isma’il raji al-faruqi, (islamisation of knowledge between syed muhammad naquib al-attas and isma'il raji al-faruqi)” islamika : jurnal ilmuilmu keislaman 19, no. 01 (2019): 26-33. https://doi.org/10.32939/islamika.v19i01.366 38 ismail ismail and mukhlis mukhlis, “dari islamisasi ilmu menuju pengilmuan islam: melawan hegemoni epistemologi barat (from islamisation of knowledge to islamic scientificisation: countering the hegemony of western epistemology),” ulumuna 17, no. 1 (2017): 65-96. https://doi.org/10.20414/ujis.v17i1.174 39 muhammad taufik and muhammad yasir, “mengkritisi konsep islamisasi ilmu ismail raji al-faruqi: telaah pemikiran ziauddin sardar, (critiquing ismail raji alfaruqi's concept of islamisation of knowledge: an examination of ziauddin sardar's thought)” jurnal ushuluddin 25, no. 2 (2017): 109-123. http://dx.doi.org/10.24014/jush.v25i2.3830 40 hossein tavakoli, a dictionary of research methodology and statistic in aplied linguistic, (teheran: rahma press, 2012), 573. 41 sugiyono, metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitatif dan r&d (quantitative, qualitative and r&d research methods) (bandung: alfabetha, 2011), 24. 42 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution. 43 al-faruqi, islamization of knowledge. 44 klaus h krippendoff, content analysis an introduction to its metodology, 2nd edition (london: sage publication, 2004), 3. 45 sri hariyati lestari, “islamization of knowledge of ismail raji al-faruqi in typologies of science and religion,” ta’lim : jurnal studi pendidikan islam 3, no. 2 (2020): 130–32, https://doi.org/10.52166/talim.v3i2.1998 46 sawaluddin et al., the islamization of science and its consequences, 11. 47 al-attas, islam and secularism, xii–xiii. 48 al-faruqi, islamization of knowledge. 49 ibid, ix–xiii. 50 ibid, x–xiii. 51 ibid, 13. 52 ibid, 19. 53 ibid, xii. 54 fia alifah putri and wahyu iskandar, “paradigma thomas kuhn: revolusi ilmu pengetahuan dan pendidikan, (thomas kuhn's paradigm: the revolution in science and education)” nizhamiyah 10, no. 2 (2020): 6. http://dx.doi.org/10.30821/niz.v10i2.779 55 rahmat effendi, “revolusi ilmiah thomas kuhn: perubahan paradigma dan implikasi dalam bangunan ilmu keislaman, (thomas kuhn's scientific revolution: paradigm shifts and implications in building islamic science)” majalah ilmu pengetahuan dan pemikiran keagamaan tajdid 23, no. 1 (2020): 47–61. https://doi.org/10.15548/tajdid.v23i1.1693 56 endrika widdia putri et al., “epistemology of thomas s . kuhn’s shifting paradigm and its relevance to islamic science,” khalifa: journal of islamic education 4, no. 1 (2020): 6. http://kjie.ppj.unp.ac.id/index.php/kjie/article/view/48/pdf. https://doi.org/10.25299/al-hikmah:jaip.2017.vol14(2).1029 https://doi.org/10.28944/dirosat.v2i1.41 https://doi.org/10.32939/islamika.v19i01.366 https://doi.org/10.20414/ujis.v17i1.174 http://dx.doi.org/10.24014/jush.v25i2.3830 https://doi.org/10.52166/talim.v3i2.1998 http://dx.doi.org/10.30821/niz.v10i2.779 https://doi.org/10.15548/tajdid.v23i1.1693 http://kjie.ppj.unp.ac.id/index.php/kjie/article/view/48/pdf hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 47 57 yeremias jena, “thomas kuhn tentang perkembangan sains dan kritik larry laudan (thomas kuhn on the development of science and larry laudan's critique)” melintas 28, no.2 (2012): 163. https://doi.org/10.26593/mel.v28i2.281.161-181 58 mohammad muslih, filsafat ilmu (philosophy of science) (yogyakarta: belukar, 2016), 58. 59 thomas kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, 182. 60 ibid. 61 hamid fahmy zarkasyi, “islamic worldview sebagai paradigma sains islam ( islamic worldview as an paradigm of islamic science)” in islamic science ed. syamsuddin arif (jakarta: insists jakarta, 2016), 17. 62 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, 111. 63 ibid, 19-10. 64 mohammad. muslih, filsafat ilmu (philosophy of science), 58. 65 endrika widdia putri, lingga yuwana and muh. bahrul afif., “epistemology of thomas s. kuhn’s shifting paradigm and its relevance to islamic science,” khalifa: journal of islamic education 4, no. 1 (2020): 14. http://dx.doi.org/10.24036/kjie.v4i1.48 66 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, iii. 67 ibid, see also, muslih, filsafat ilmu (philosophy of science), 61 68 nur akhda sabila, “paradigma dan revolusi ilmiah thomas s. kuhn aspek sosiologis, antropologis, dan historis dari ilmu pengetahuan, (thomas s. kuhn's paradigms and scientific revolutions sociological, anthropological, and historical aspects of science)” zawiyah: jurnal pemikiran islam 5, no. 1 (2019): 80–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.31332/zjpi.v5i1.1318 69 winahyu erwiningsih, “perkembangan sains: suatu telaah atas pendekatan paradigma baru thomas s. kuhn, (the development of science: an examination of thomas s. kuhn's new paradigm approach)” jurnal ilmu hukum 10, no. 1 (2007): 78–79. 70 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, . 71 nurkhalis, “konstruksi teori paradigma thomas s. kuhn,” jurnal ilmiah islam futura 11, no. 02 (2012): 87, doi:10.22373/jiif.v11i02.55. 72 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, 27. 73 ibid, 30. 74 erwiningsih, perkembangan sains ( the development of science ), 79. 75 aabid, abdul, omar shabbir, and sher afghan khan. "history and analysis of knowledge in islamization of aerospace engineering with the type of flight journey issue." karachi islamicus 1, no. 2 (2021). 76 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, 35. 77 fuad, koento wibisono, and p hardono hadi, “kebenaran ilmiah dalam pemikiran thomas s. kuhn dan karl r. popper: suatu kajian hermeneutika dan kontribusnya bagi masa depan ilmu, (scientific truth in the thought of thomas s. kuhn and karl r. popper: a hermeneutic study and its contribution to the future of science)” jurnal filsafat 25, no. 2 (2015): 252–276. http://dx.doi.org/10.24036/kjie.v4i1.48 78 sabila. paradigma dan revolusi ilmiah thomas s. kuhn (thomas s. kuhn's paradigms and scientific revolutions), 80–97. 79 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, 77. 80 sabila. paradigma dan revolusi ilmiah thomas s. kuhn (thomas s. kuhn's paradigms and scientific revolutions), 80–97. 81 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, 91. 82 ibid, 111. 83 ibid. 84 putri et al., epistemology of thomas s. kuhn’s., 12. 85 septi nur damayanti, “epistemologi saintifik thomas s. kuhn terhadap munculnya ilmu pengetahuan sosial, (thomas s. kuhn's scientific epistemology https://doi.org/10.26593/mel.v28i2.281.161-181 http://dx.doi.org/10.24036/kjie.v4i1.48 http://dx.doi.org/10.31332/zjpi.v5i1.1318 http://dx.doi.org/10.24036/kjie.v4i1.48 48 an in-depth analysis of … for the emergence of social science)” jurnal filsafat indonesia 1, no. 3 (2019): 120. https://doi.org/10.23887/jfi.v1i3.16192 86 putri et al., epistemology of thomas s. kuhn’s, 12 87 nurkhalis, “konstruksi teori paradigma thomas s. kuhn (thomas s. kuhn's construction of paradigm theory).” jurnal ilmiah islam futura 11, no. 02 (2012): 79. https://doi.org/10.22373/jiif.v11i02.55 88 inayatul ulya and nushan abid, “pemikiran thomas kuhn dan relevansinya terhadap keilmuan islam,( thomas kuhn's thought and its relevance to islamic science)” fikrah: jurnal ilmu aqidah dan studi keagamaan 3, no. 2 (2015): 249– 276. http://dx.doi.org/10.21043/fikrah.v3i2.1797 89 max boli sabon, “paradigma hukum: perspektif filsafat ilmu rene descartes, auguste comte, thomas s kuhn,( legal paradigms: a philosophy of science perspective rene descartes, auguste comte, thomas s kuhn)” journal of chemical information and modeling 53, no. 9 (2019): 1689–99. 90 abdulloh hanif, “sekularisasi kesadaran dan penafsiran ulang doktrin-doktrin agama, (secularisation of consciousness and reinterpretation of religious doctrines) ” fikrah: jurnal ilmu aqidah dan studi keagamaan 5, no. 1 (2017): 99. https://doi.org/10.21043/fikrah.v5i1.1960 91 al faruqi, islamization of knowledge, x. 92 syed muhammad naquib al attas, prolegomena to the metaphysics of islam. (kuala lumpur: international institute of islamic thought and civilization (istac), 1995), 2. 93 al faruqi, islamization of knowledge, 14. 94 ibid, 6. 95 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, 182. 96 al faruqi, islamization of knowledge, 43. 97 al attas, islam and secularism, 65. 98 seyyed hossein nasr, the need for a sacred science (london: routledge, 1995), chapter 6. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203990599 99 mohammad muslih, filsafat ilmu (philosophy of science), 61. 100 ibid, 64. 101 f. k. sitorus, “kant: dari subjek yang kosong hingga tuhan sebagai postulat,(kant: from the empty subject to god as postulate)” in serambi salihara, 26 november 2016 (jakarta: salihara, 2016). 102 usmanul hakim and winda roini, “identifikasi worldview dalam ilmu pengetahuan barat kontemporer menurut syed muhammad naquib al attas (identification of worldview in contemporary western science according to syed muhammad naquib al attas),” tasfiyah 3, no. 2 (2019): 53, https://doi.org/10.21111/tasfiyah.v3i2.3498 103 al faruqi, islamization of knowledge, x. 104 ibid, 105 ibid, 106 ibid, 107 al attas, islam and secularism, 65. 108 al faruqi, islamization of knowledge, xi. 109 ibid, 12. 110 ibid, xi. 111 hamid fahmy zarkasyi, syamsuddin arif, and budi handrianto, islamic sciences, (jakarta: insist, 2016), 72. 112 al faruqi, islamization of knowledge, 1. 113 sabila. paradigma dan revolusi ilmiah thomas s. kuhn (thomas s. kuhn's paradigms and scientific revolutions), 80–97. 114 c a. qodir, philosophy and science in the islamic world, (london: routledge, 1988), 5. 115 al attas, islam and secularism, 133. https://doi.org/10.23887/jfi.v1i3.16192 https://doi.org/10.22373/jiif.v11i02.55 http://dx.doi.org/10.21043/fikrah.v3i2.1797 https://doi.org/10.21043/fikrah.v5i1.1960 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203990599 https://doi.org/10.21111/tasfiyah.v3i2.3498 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 49 116 khasib amrullah, usmanul khakim, sopian hadi and ahmad sidik, “dari pembebasan jiwa kepada islamisasi ilmu, (from the liberation of the man to the islamisation of knowledge)” kalimah: jurnal studi agama dan pemikiran islam 19, no. 2 (2021): 281, https://doi.org/10.21111/klm.v19i2.6655 117 ihsan et al., hubungan agama dan sains (religion and science), 98. 118 al faruqi, islamization of knowledge, xi. 119 kuhn, the stucture of scientific revolution, viii 120 al faruqi, islamization of knowledge, xii. 121 ibid, x. 122 ibid, 123 ibid, 124 ahmad zainuri and k.a. bukhori, “integration of interdisciplinary scientific in the curriculum at uin raden fatah palembang,” al-ulum 19, no. 2 (2019): 527, https://doi.org/10.30603/au.v19i2.1110 125 adi setia, “three meanings of islamic science: toward operationalizing islamization of science,” journal of islam and science 5, no. 1 (2017): 23–30. https://doi.org/10.21111/klm.v19i2.6655 https://doi.org/10.30603/au.v19i2.1110 . hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 29 does islamicity affect economic growth? evidence from oic, high, middle, and low-income countries mohd zia ur rehman department of finance, cba, king saud university, riyadh, saudi arabia ziacommerce@gmail.comemail: muhammad nauman khan faculty of business studies, arab open university, jeddah, saudi arabia. hakan aslan department of islamic economics & finance, sakarya university, turkey received on: 11-12-21 accepted on: 23-07-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.392 abstract islam is a way of life which not only affects the social and personal aspects of human life but also plays a significant part in the political and economic decisions of the people. empirical studies on the chief determining factors of economic growth have neglected the effect of islamicity on economic growth. this study expands upon the recent literature on economic growth and islamicity. by using the islamicity indices data for the first time, this study provides a brand-new viewpoint on islamicity and the economic growth nexus in the world, focusing on sub-divisions of high, middle, and lowincome countries and the organization of islamic countries (oic). the data spans from 2010 to 2017 while using a dynamic model. by applying the panel techniques, we provide empirical evidence indicating that the islamicity effect becomes weaker as the economy grows regardless of whether a country is an oic member. keywords: islamicity, economic growth, oic, panel technique jel classification: o47; p52; c50 1. introduction and background islam is a religion which is an all-encompassing way of life that governs a muslim's entire being. it is essential to highlight that mailto:ziacommerce@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.392 30 does islamicity affect … for the purposes of this article, islam is defined in this general context, which covers the cultural, social, political, legal, and economic notions which are derived from this faith rather than just its manifestation. the holy quran has several sections that promote trade, commerce, and market-oriented production. furthermore, islam permits profit and property ownership as long as the profit is earned without abusing others and, the property is used in "a pious, socially beneficial, and prudent" way. islam does not appear to be a barrier to economic development.1 the islamicity index reflects the reason behind west’s better performance in comparison to the oic countries. one of the chief reasons is the advanced quality of institutions in the western world compared to the muslim world. it compels muslims to reflect on the foundation of islamic values which have been adopted by the western world and have helped them surpass muslims in many aspects of the economy. the oic member countries can improve their performance if they adopt islamic values in a true sense and reform their institutions such as the role of law, political stability, regulation quality, control of corruption, and so forth. muslims make up for more than a billion of the globe's populaces and manifest a central portion of the population in many countries. furthermore, most muslims reside in the organization of islamic countries (oic) economies. oic economies are endeavoring to enhance their gross domestic product (gdp) growth and unlock their economic landscape through different modes. as these countries are predominantly muslim states, the road map for further growth is centric on a comprehensive islamic economy work plan. supporters of islam-based economic systems assert that the purported system is centrally unique from other systems as it is centred on ethical and religious pillars that are missing in other arrangements. weber clarified that the protestant reformation was pertinent to the ascension of capitalism by the influence of religious doctrine.2 in line with this, iannaccone3 and anderson4 proposed that a set of religious faiths influence behavioral conduct and economic functioning. moreover, lal5 and kuran6 suggested for institutions acting as intermediaries to act as channels by which religious doctrines influence economic performance at the macro level. on the economic landscapes in muslim countries, it is pertinent to note that the islamic principles about the significance of the economic perspectives have been taken from the verses of the holy quran, several hadīth (documented sayings of the prophet hadrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyin sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam, sunnah (traditions and practices of the islamic prophet (hadrat muhammad rasulullah https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0305750x05000823?casa_token=_le-2llg9b0aaaaa:qpa3izhjzwoxtpgevcg8x-x9xqhfrrl5iepeevun5p3vifjjhrqw6z2idlo_wxdjkp-_jdrndq#bib56 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 31 khatam un nabiyyin sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam) that establish a perfect structure for muslims to pursue), the sharī’ah (muslim laws and their interpretation), and the ijmā' (views of the religious authorities). the holy quran is clear when it comes to honesty and fairness in commerce and trade. it is mentioned in the holy quran, "and measure full when you measure. and weigh with an even balance. this is better and its end is good"7. the indication we get from this verse is that muslims should be honest in their business dealing. the inference which can be drawn in the context of oic member countries is; being honest and fair in commercial dealing which would then be reflected in the quality of institutions and conrolling corruption. similarly, it is also mentioned in the holy quran "woe to those that deal in fraud, those who, when they have to receive by measure from men, exact full measure, but, when they have to give by measure or weight to men, give less than due. do they not think that they will be called to account?"8. this verse also indicates that muslims should not engage in fraudulent activities and must stay fair in dealing with others. finally, muslims must keep their promises as mentioned in the holy quran; "o you who believe! fulfil [your] obligations"9. the covenants of the oic encourage economic pursuits to promote the intra-oic relationships in the socio-economic landscape. however, studies have revealed that most member countries are marginalized in a number of areas.10 whether or not the muslim countries are underachievers compared to the non-muslim countries is obscure. thus, this study proposes a rational and thoughtful islamic economic system that shall be of paramount significance not only to academicians, but also to market participants and policymakers. few studies have been conducted on the impact of the islamic economic system on the oic countries. the current study lessens the deficit in the extant literature by exploring the impact of islamicity on economic growth through employment of the generalized method of moments (gmm) method on annual data taken from the world bank and islamicity index website for countries in the years 2010–2017. this study on oic and non-oic countries reveals that at the highest 75th quantile, i.e. higher economic growth, the association between islamicity and economic growth across oic and non-oic nations becomes weak regardless of whether the country belongs to oic or non-oic member nation. 32 does islamicity affect … the remainder of this paper is organized as follows: the second section presents the literature review; section three covers the data and methodology; the fourth section presents and discusses the empirical results and finally, the fifth section concludes the paper and suggests policy implications based on our conclusion. 2. literature review rehman and askari brought out the concept of the islamicity index which encompasses the economy, legislation and governance, human rights and politics, along with international relations.11 they revealed that islamic nations are not as islamic, at least in financial aspects, as one may anticipate. moreover, the study pointed out that most self-proclaimed islamic nations have not embraced economic arrangements that are in congruity with islamic lessons. through the findings, the study cautiously conjectured that the nonexistence of economic development might be due to incompetent institutions, improper economic policies, and exploitation. iqbal and mirakhor highlighted the dimension of islamic finance applicable to economic development.12 they aimed to improve comprehension of the viewpoint of islamic finance on economic development and related allied arenas. meanwhile, through theoretical, practical, and empirical research, askari, iqbal, and mirakhor discovered the various areas and sub-areas of islamic banking, finance, and economics.13 the key focus is on prime progress in the islamic financial industry and pertinent additions made to innovations in tools, regulatory and supervisory matters, risk management, insurance, and asset management. their study offered a detailed examination of institutional, operational, and instrumental aspects of the aforementioned areas. moreover, ng, ibrahim, and mirakhor made an attempt to report the framework for progress of social capital in islamic finance, mainly the stock market. this study highlights the significance of trust and ethics in developing an upright, fitting, and competent financial system.14 further, akin, iqbal, and mirakhor gauged the economic status concerning their financial structure's openness to risk-sharing finance, the concept that shapes the center establishment of islamic finance15. the study reported that the oic countries are far from fulfilling the fundamental conditions of establishing risk-sharing finance. thereby, a scarcity of efficient institutions, coherent rules and regulations, proper monitoring and enforcement, and robust governance in oic economies is revealed. thus, a structure for the holistic development of islamic finance is urgently required. further, ghazal and zulkhibri gauged the islamic economic performance and social progress centered on maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah standard to form an islamic inclusive growth index (i-igi) for muslim-based economies.16 the outcome from the stipulated index hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 33 revealed that the said economies of muslim countries, notwithstanding having success in terms of inclusiveness, agree with maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah doctrines. contrariwise, the underprivileged muslim economies in sub-saharan africa, which reveals poor ranking on the purported index, generally accomplished well in sharī‘ah compliance area. ibrahim highlighted the significance of inculcating the concept, principle, dimension, and values of islamic work ethics (iwe) routinely, which shall lessen the deficit between the principles of iwe and the actual gains of economic development in islamic economies.17 meanwhile, dieye suggested and examined the notion that the islamic economic model set in the holy quran and practiced by the prophet (hadrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyin sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam) shall be a pragmatic model for muslim and non-muslim economies.18 moreover, using the path analysis model with data from 123 countries, muchdie examined the impact of islamicity on global competitiveness with human development as a moderator factor. his study revealed that islamicity had a favorable and significant direct impact on global competitiveness.19 moreover, muchdie investigated the linkage and impact of islamicity on happiness, with human development and global competitiveness as moderating variables. the study displayed a robust relationship among the stipulated variables by using a path analysis model on the data of 123 countries.20 meanwhile, askari proposed a set of indices that provides a yardstick for gauging the level to which an economy adopts the codes and conventions stated in islam.21 the study gauged the performance of muslim countries through the islamicity indices, which rest on the holy quran. the study also recommended the adoption of the purported indices for the muslim countries, which shall turn in the required reforms and make reform and effective institutions. furthermore, muchdie examined the impact of islamicity on happiness, with human development as a moderator factor. the study covered the cross-sectional data on islamicity, human development, and happiness indices from 124 economies and used a path analysis model. the study highlighted the significant role of islamicity in human development and happiness.22 mirakhor and askari highlighted a meta-structure for an economy projected in islam through islam.23 further, they stated that the model was put into practice by prophet muhammad (hadrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyin sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam) in medina, and thus, the muslim countries have a flawless course of plan to establish efficient institutions to attain prosperity. 34 does islamicity affect … rahayu and septiarini investigated the probability of the existence of differences in islamic banking in asean countries from 2011 to 2016 through purposive sampling. the islamic banks in indonesia, malaysia, brunei darussalam, and thailand were employed, and the analysis of different tests was performed through anova and the kruskal wallis test. for this study, secondary data was acquired from financial reports from 2011 to 2016. in terms of profit-sharing ratio (psr), zakat performance ratio (zpr), equitable distribution ratio (edr), islamic investment vs nonislamic investment (iir), and islamic income vs non-islamic income (isir), the results reveal that the islamic banks have different islamicity performance indexes.24 asnawi, wicaksono and setyaningsih examine the development and application of maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah principles and economics principles to calculate the economic islamicity index and the geographical function of mapping islamic economic health in the indonesian archipelago. the economic islamicity index findings are established utilizing the embedded mix method by establishing multistage weighted index results. the economic islamicity index's empirical findings indicate that indonesia's islamic economic performance is significant to dki jakarta province and java island. meanwhile, in every indonesian province, geographical global demonstrates a considerable spatial autocorrelation linkage with islamic economic performance.25 hussain et al. identifies the links between natural resources, islamicity, and financial deepening which aid states in establishing strategies and regulations for resources to enhance economic advancement. the research investigates financial advancement in six asian economies (pakistan, indonesia, philippines, qatar, bahrain, and thailand) using an innovative adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (anfis). this analysis reveals that as natural resources dwindle, financial development rises in all studied economies. natural resources as predictors against financial development, when utilised as a criterion, are similar in the economies considered. regarding the islamicity index, pakistan, indonesia, and thailand exhibit comparable findings, as do the philippines, qatar, and bahrain. financial development rises in pakistan, indonesia, and thailand as the islamicity index falls, whereas it rises in the philippines, qatar, and bahrain as the islamicity index rises. the upshot is that resource-rich countries have a negative link with economic progress. it indicates that nations with extensive natural resources boost their exports rather than utilize them in manufacturing.26 indrianasari et al. investigates the islamicity performance index and profitability determinants in the bpr syariah east java province. this study covers explanatory research for investigation. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 35 multivariate analysis employing the autoregressive and distributed lag (adl) methodology was applied as the analytical method utilizing panel data samples from 15 institutions. the study reveals that profitability is unaffected by the profit-sharing ratio variable. this indicates that the profit-sharing ratio does not influence the rate of increase or reduction. the zakat performance ratio has a variable influence on the increase or decline in profitability, although it takes time or a one-year lag.27 dian, et al. investigate and explain how firm characteristics, corporate governance, and capital structure affect the islamicity disclosure index. this descriptive study uses hypothesis testing to explain the causal link between the research variables. the data analysis method is known as generalized structured component analysis (gsca). the study reports that firm characteristics and capital structure are two variables that have a favorable and significant effect on the islamicity disclosure index. corporate governance characteristics influence the islamicity disclosure index positively but not significantly in statistical terms.28 lisa examines the impact of macroeconomic factors, namely, the exchange rate, inflation, and the bi rate on deposit and islamicity performance index, as well as the impact of third-party funds on the islamicity performance index. through third-party funds, the study investigates the impact of the macroeconomic performance index islamicity. path analysis was employed as analysis approach. the study reports that the macroeconomic path, which includes the exchange rate and the bi rate, has a considerable impact on third-party funds and the islamicity performance index; however, inflation has little impact on third-party funds and the islamicity performance index. the impact of third-party funds on the performance index is significant.29 askari, mohammadkhan, and mydin explored the islamicity of muslim countries through four indices to gauge conditions on four dimensions—economic, legal and governance, human and political rights, and international relations and the overall situation as the fifth index. they studied 150 economies, including 38 muslim economies, from 2000 to 2016. european economies covering canada, new zealand, and australia unvaryingly take the highest position in all five indices. meanwhile, the average scores of muslim economies in the index went from bad to worse during the stipulated period. the study recommended a set of reforms for muslim countries.30 in addition, sidek, said, and hasan manifested the expansion of islamic development management covering good governance, sustainable development, the progress of waqf and takaful, the advancement of value-based activities, progress in fiqh and legal framework, and the expansion of islamic principles in other related areas.31 lastly, askari and khan designed five islamicity indices to gauge rule conformity: economic, legal, and governance, human and political rights, international relations, and overall islamicity. they revealed that 36 does islamicity affect … multiple western developed economies are the most outstanding performers, whereas the muslim economies are well short of average performance. 32 3. methodology 3.1. data and variable the present study uses annual data from the world bank33 and islamicity index websites34 for all countries from 2010 to 2017. economic growth is considered a dependent variable, while others are considered independent variables for correct model specification. 3.2. islamicity index scholars, such as jaffe35 studied religion and growth nexus. the islamicity indices measure how the country is adhering to islamic teachings. to construct the islamicity indices, the islamic teachings are divided into four dimensions: economic islamicity, legal and governance, human and political rights, and international relations. economic islamicity includes economic opportunity and freedom, equal access to education and health care, job creation and equal access to employment, property rights and sanctity of contracts, prevention of corruption, provision of poverty, provision of aid and basic human need, taxation and social welfare, supportive financial system, adherence to islamic finance, economic prosperity, and economic justice. meanwhile, legal and governance contains legal integrity, management index, government governance, and perceptions about the government. similarly, human and political rights comprises of human development, civil and political rights, women's rights, global democracy, and perceptions of well-being. finally, international relations includes globalization and military/wars. 3.3. control variables economic policies impact a country’s growth by affecting macroeconomic variables, such as government expenditure, foreign direct investment (fdi), population growth, gross capital formation, education, and financial development. these macro-variables are considered in the equations to check the influence of macroeconomic fundamentals. government expenditure (ge) has been used in empirical studies to determine its effect on economic growth.36 fdi is one of the crucial drivers of economic growth. much empirical literature justifies the role of fdi in economic growth as it accumulates physical and human capital to be transferred to the receiving country. the transfer of technology to the receiving countries in the form of fdi requires capable factors with extra hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 37 efficiency, which impacts economic growth.37 two variables, namely, population growth rate (pop) and the gross secondary enrollment rate (edu), have been used to capture the impact of human capital on economic growth. a large body of literature favors human capital as an instrument to increase economic growth.38 in his famous study, solow revealed that the higher the investment rate, the higher the savings per labor productivity.39 bakare mentioned that capital formation must consider the proportion of current income saved and invested in augmenting future income and output.40 moreover, several economic theories posit that capital formation plays a vital role in economic growth models.41 capital formation is measured in this study as gross fixed capital formation (gcf). our model also includes domestic credit to the private sector as a proxy (dc) for financial development. this is because financial markets are the key to economic growth as they diversify economic resources from unproductive sectors to productive uses. in his seminal work, schumpeter pointed out that the financial sector is a crucial factor for growth as it allocates savings, encourages innovation, and provides a fund for productive investment.42 table a1 presents the data sources, the description of variables, and descriptive statistics. 3.4. model we propose mankiw et al.'s extensive augmented growth model as follows: 43 𝑦𝑖𝑡 = 𝛾 + 𝛽𝑖𝑦𝑖𝑡−1 + ∑ 𝜃𝑝𝑖 𝑛 𝑝=1 𝑋𝑖𝑡 𝑝 + 𝛿1𝑖 𝐼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑡 + 𝐾𝛽1𝐿𝛽2 + 𝜈𝑡 + 𝜇𝑖 + 𝜖𝑖𝑡 (1) where 𝑦𝑖𝑡 is the economic output for nation i and period t, and x represents control variables. to control for the model misspecification, using theoretical and empirical literature, we add as many regressors to separate the influence of islamicity from other variables, including k (gross capital formation), l (population), education (human capital), ge, and financial development. islamicity is an islamicity index variable. 𝜈𝑡 is time-specific effect that are considered to control for period effect on all countries in the sample. 𝜖𝑖𝑡 is an error term, and 𝛽𝑖𝑦𝑖𝑡−1 is the lag-dependent variable. additionally, dependent variable is added as an independent variable i.e. lag to avoid long run memory of the dependent variable. meanwhile, 𝜇𝑖 is a country-specific effect, and 𝛾 is constant. the corresponding panel econometric model of equation (1) is 38 does islamicity affect … 𝑦𝑖𝑡 = 𝛾 + 𝛽𝑖𝑦𝑖𝑡−1 + 𝛿1 𝐼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑡 + 𝜃1𝑋𝑖𝑡 + 𝛼1 ln(𝑔𝑐𝑓𝑖𝑡) + 𝛼2 ln(𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑡) + 𝜇𝑖 + 𝜈𝑡 + 휀𝑖𝑡 (2) where y is the economic growth, islamicity is islamicity index, and x is a set of control variables, gcf is proxy for capital (k) and pop is the proxy for labor (l), which are the main variables for growth model. moreover, 𝛾 is the constant term, 𝜇𝑖 denote nation’s effect, 𝜈𝑡 is considered to remove year differences, ε𝑖𝑡 is the residual, and 𝑙𝑛 means nature logarithm function. equation (2) is the extension of equation (1) which estimates the relationship between islamicity and economic growth. following mankiw et al. the study estimates the influence of islamicity on economic performance.44 this neoclassical augmented growth model is selected for two reasons. first, the model considers human capital, which is considered to be crucial for the development of an economy as it increases labor productivity level. second, the current study sees how islamicity influences economic growth. therefore, other macroeconomic fundaments are also used in the equations. considering our focal variable, that is, islamicity, and the heterogeneity of the coefficients and related control variables, we develop the below equation (3) which consists of dependent variable i.e., economic growth, lag of dependent variable, islamicity, and additional control variables: 𝑦𝑖𝑡 = 𝛾 + 𝛽0𝑦𝑖𝑡−1 + 𝛽2𝐼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑡 + 𝛽1𝑋𝑖𝑡 + 𝜈𝑖 + 𝜇𝑡 + 𝜖𝑖𝑡 (3) where 𝑦𝑖𝑡 denotes economic growth, i is for nations, and t is for the period, 𝛽0𝑦𝑖𝑡−1 is the economic growth i.e. lag of dependent variable indicating the first condition, 𝐼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑡 is islamicity index, 𝑋𝑖𝑡 is for additional variables, 𝜈𝑖 remove nation differences while 𝜇𝑡 reduces period difference and 𝜖𝑖𝑡is the error term. the above equation (1) has been assessed using the gmm model and other panel techniques such as fixed and random effects. contrary to the traditional co-integration and ols model. the main advantage of gmm is that it controls the association between xs' and error term and lag variable and 𝜈𝑖 . 𝛽2 is the coefficient of the main focal variable i.e. islamicity nexus with economic development? thus, we get the following equation (4) from the above equation (3), that is: hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 39 𝑦𝑖𝑡 = ∑ 𝜈𝑘𝑦𝑖𝑡−𝑘 𝑝 𝑘=1 + 𝛽1𝑋𝑖𝑡+ 𝛽2𝐼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑖𝑡+ 𝜖𝑖𝑡 (4) 𝑡 = 𝑝 + 1, … … … , 𝑇 = 1,2,3 … … … … 𝑁 𝜖𝑖𝑡 = 𝜈𝑖 + 𝜇𝑡 + 𝜖𝑖𝑡 where 𝛽1 is parameter of xs' and 𝑝 represents maximum lag. there is no change in other variables. the gmm estimator i.e. δ is computed by using dynamic model having the following form: 𝑊𝑖 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑖 are transformations of 𝑊𝑖 and 𝑦𝑖 respectively, 𝑋𝑖 is used as a matrix for instrumental variables, and 𝜆𝑖is the nation weighting matrix. the estimator used pooled cross-country and time series properties while using additional information provided by the variations in the level of economic growth and its intrinsic drivers. moreover, the gmm estimation technique is used to estimate the above equations. we have also used other panel techniques, namely, panel quantile regression. 4. empirical results and discussion 4.1. descriptive statistics table 1 provides a summary of descriptive statistics. as shown in table 1, there is substantial variation between oic and nonoic countries in terms of education, domestic credit, and islamicity. the highest enrollment rate is in non-oic countries compared to oic countries. similarly, credit extension to the private sector is lower in oic countries than in non-oic countries. finally, islamicity score is higher in non-oic countries than in oic countries. 40 does islamicity affect … oic countries variable obs mean std. dev. min max gdp 311 4.2456 9.4882 −62.0759 123.1396 rank 320 105.1583 33.4641 39 153 ge 289 2.31e + 10 3.49e + 10 2.68e + 08 1.97e + 11 fdi 294 3.40e + 09 4.82e + 09 −2.17e+9 2.92e + 10 pop 320 2.3879 1.6716 −3.10723 11.2206 gcf 289 4.69e + 10 7.28e + 10 3.10e + 08 3.40e + 11 edu 210 68.4980 28.2736 13.3735 116.6471 dc 276 38.1512 27.9079 3.94270 125.1471 non-oic countries variable obs mean std. dev. min max gdp 869 3.5417 3.2334 −9.7729 25.5572 rank 872 64.8792 41.8593 1 151 ge 848 1.04e + 11 3.01e + 11 1.84e + 08 2.66e + 12 fdi 851 1.78e + 10 5.11e + 10 −3.11e+10 5.06e + 11 pop 871 1.1054 1.1241 −2.2584 3.5703 gcf 849 1.54e + 11 5.44e + 11 0 5.34e + 12 edu 584 90.2104 25.9025 23.9293 163.9305 dc 807 65.8060 49.38 3.7239 253.262 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 41 table 1: descriptive statistics 4.2. correlation table 2 provides correlations among the different indicative factors and gdp. the low correlation between indicative factors and gdp has been observed in the case of oic countries (vs. non-oic economies). in both groups of countries, education and credit extension to the private sector are strongly negatively correlated with the islamicity index. meanwhile, non-bank deposit is statistically significant and positively correlated with non-bank credit (0.81). the islamicity index and gdp exhibit little pairwise correlation in the case of oic countries relative to non-oic countries. oic countries gdp rank ge fdi pop gcf edu d c gd p 1 ra nk −0.0 192 1 ge 0.04 89 −0.32 9* 1 fdi 0.06 74 −0.36 9* 0.681 3* 1 po p 0.02 87 −0.19 9* −0.12 1* −0.18 4* 1 gc f 0.06 41 −0.28 5* 0.871 7* 0.763 7* −0.21 5* 1 ed u −0.0 232 −0.65 0* 0.411 7* 0.288 2* −0.07 65 0.35 76* 1 dc −0.0 678 −0.70 8* 0.229 7* 0.251 1* 0.099 0.20 94* 0.49 94* 1 non-oic countries 42 does islamicity affect … gdp rank ge fdi pop gcf edu d c g dp 1 ra nk 0.27 42* 1 g e −0.0 82* −0.23 85* 1 fd i 0.00 25 −0.24 99* 0.718 1* 1 po p 0.35 01* 0.554 6* −0.14 92* −0.10 56* 1 g cf 0.03 24 −0.11 92* 0.877 0* 0.710 5* −0.11 52* 1 ed u −0.3 69* −0.79 19* 0.168 7* 0.213 8* −0.63 18* 0.10 98* 1 d c −0.2 77* −0.64 62* 0.415 2* 0.396 0* −0.34 92* 0.34 94* 0.51 49* 1 table 2: correlation significant at 5% level 4.3. discussion table 3 reports the impact of islamicity on economic growth using the gmm method. model (1) displays the overall results: oic and non-oic countries. model (2) depicts high-income countries, model (3) denotes middle-income nations, and model (4) consists of low-income nations. lastly, model (5) expresses the impact of islamicity on economic growth in oic nations. islamicity across all models (i.e., models (1), (2), (3), (4), and (5) is statistically significant and negatively correlated with economic growth. all models confirm a negative impact, regardless of whether the countries belong to highincome, low-income, middle-income, or oic nations when it comes to the gmm estimation method. the results also show no significant difference between oic and non-oic countries in terms of the impact of islamicity on economic growth. there are many factors behind these results, but one of the major factors is that most oic member hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 43 countries are developing countries with low-quality institutions such as the role of law, political stability, regulation qualities, and control of corruption. all these institutions are not doing well, which makes it the same when it comes to the impact of islamicity on economic growth. if oic member countries succeed in improving these institutions, then it would become possible for these economies to grow and bring more prosperity to the nations. for quantile regression, results in table 4 show no impact of islamicity on highest-income and lowest-income countries at the first 25th quantile (high-income countries). this result implies that being more islamic adds no value to the richest and poorest countries. similarly, table 5 shows that in the case of middle-income percentiles, the 50th quantile, islamicity has no effect on highand low-income countries. meanwhile, in table 6, the results depict that at the 75th quantile, islamicity has no impact on economic growth regardless of whether the country belongs to low high, middle, or oic nations. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) overall high middle low oic rank −0.0223*** −0.0377** −0.0260*** −0.03 95** −0.03 44*** (−4.33) (−2.66) (−3.30) (−3.1 5) (−3.3 4) lge −2.012*** −3.498*** −2.020*** −0.75 9 −1.16 0 (−7.36) (−5.39) (−4.74) (−1.5 9) (−1.4 9) lfdi 0.371*** 0.373* 0.248 0.208 0.631* (3.38) (2.20) (1.38) (1.20) (2.45) pop 0.495*** 0.549** 0.295* 0.516 0.462* (3.76) (3.01) (2.08) (0.52) (2.01) lgcf 1.791*** 3.199*** 1.957*** 1.281* * 0.978 44 does islamicity affect … (6.61) (5.00) (4.52) (2.58) (1.18) edu −0.0271*** 0.00542 −0.0400*** 0.020 0 −0.02 36 (−3.76) (0.39) (−3.83) (0.84) (−1.9 4) dc −0.0196*** −0.0213*** −0.0105 −0.06 24** −0.04 58*** (−6.08) (−4.40) (−1.85) (−2.6 1) (−4.3 5) cons 4.326** 2.715 4.536* −6.76 1 0.260 (2.61) (0.88) (2.12) (−0.7 4) (0.05) n 693 220 353 120 178 table 3: impact on islamicity on economic growth (using gmm) values in parentheses are t values and significance level of p value is 1% i.e. ***, 5% i.e. ** and 1% i.e. *** (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) overall high middle low oic rank −0.0163** −0.0288 −0.0243** −0.0 346** −0.0299 ** (−3.16) (−1.59) (−3.14) (−3.0 4) (−3.02) lge −1.993*** −2.920*** −1.781*** −0.4 51 −0.714 (−7.94) (−5.03) (−4.73) (−1.1 3) (−1.29) lfdi 0.267* 0.439** −0.113 0.23 0.561* hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 45 9 (2.46) (2.86) (−0.51) (1.37 ) (2.60) pop 0.190* 0.333 0.0943 −0.5 63 −0.0440 (1.99) (1.84) (0.74) (−1.1 3) (−0.38) lgcf 1.903*** 2.751*** 2.042*** 1.12 8*** 0.840 (7.85) (4.23) (5.56) (3.38 ) (1.41) edu −0.0392*** −0.0182 −0.0558*** 0.00 202 −0.0519 *** (−5.51) (−1.19) (−4.66) (0.06 ) (−3.98) dc −0.0131*** −0.0201*** −0.00066 5 −0.0 757** * −0.0228 ** (−4.15) (−4.11) (−0.17) (−3.5 1) (−3.18) cons 2.676 −1.090 4.261 −8.7 36 −4.535 (1.65) (−0.24) (1.91) (−1.5 7) (−1.26) n 693 220 353 120 178 table 4: impact on islamicity on economic growth (using 25 th quantile) values in parentheses are t values and significance level of p value is 1% i.e. ***, 5% i.e. ** and 1% i.e. *** (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) 46 does islamicity affect … overall high middle low oic ran k −0.0140* ** −0.0097 9 −0.0167* * −0.0209 −0.0227** (−3.77) (−0.65) (−2.81) (−1.44) (−2.67) lge −1.853** * −1.828** * −2.056** * −0.640 −1.202** (−9.43) (−3.55) (−7.59) (−1.40) (−3.07) lfdi 0.248*** 0.202* 0.207 0.191 0.494* (3.52) (2.00) (1.51) (0.95) (2.29) pop 0.294** 0.232 0.277 0.309 0.0586 (3.12) (1.59) (1.81) (0.67) (0.30) lgcf 1.666*** 1.621** 1.922*** 0.928* 1.054* (8.57) (2.77) (7.29) (2.26) (2.48) edu −0.0314* ** −0.0024 9 −0.0209* 0.0108 −0.0362*** (−5.16) (−0.27) (−2.50) (0.49) (−3.63) dc −0.0129* ** −0.0096 2** −0.0075 1 −0.0514* * −0.0334*** (−5.66) (−3.03) (−1.37) (−2.92) (−3.49) _co ns 6.007*** 3.795 4.597** −2.368 2.421 (4.98) (1.19) (2.86) (−0.45) (0.78) n 693 220 353 120 178 table 5: impact on islamicity on economic growth (50 th quantile) values in parentheses are t values and significance level of p value is 1% i.e. ***, 5% i.e. ** and 1% i.e. *** hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 47 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) overall high middle low oic rank −0.0075 6 −0.0100 −0.0147 −0.0228 −0.0050 9 (−1.46) (−0.73) (−1.60) (−1.97) (−0.40) lge −1.937** * −2.257** * −2.310** * −1.144** * −1.969** (−10.90) (−4.42) (−4.39) (−5.06) (−3.28) lfdi 0.277*** 0.176 0.266 0.320 0.496* (3.78) (1.60) (1.43) (1.97) (2.17) pop 0.553*** 0.611** 0.255 0.777 0.879** (5.03) (3.27) (1.65) (1.88) (2.99) lgcf 1.659*** 2.017*** 2.285*** 1.082*** 1.372* (9.28) (3.67) (4.30) (5.39) (2.25) edu −0.0139 −0.0107 −0.0231 0.0276 0.00359 (−1.68) (−1.31) (−1.81) (1.12) (0.23) dc −0.0145* ** −0.0124* ** −0.0106* * −0.0541* * −0.0197 (−7.62) (−4.13) (−2.77) (−3.15) (−1.74) _con s 6.636*** 7.327** 2.162 2.038 7.214* (5.00) (3.15) (0.89) (0.37) (2.14) n 693 220 353 120 178 table 6: impact on islamicity on economic growth (75 th quantile) 48 does islamicity affect … values in parentheses are t values and significance level of p value is 1% i.e. ***, 5% i.e. ** and 1% i.e. *** 5. conclusion studies on the impact of islamicity on economies, especially oic member countries, are scant. using advanced panel techniques, namely, gmm and panel quantile regression techniques, this present study finds a weak association between islamicity and economic growth across oic and non-oic nations at the highest 75th quantile. in other words, at the highest 75th quantile, the impact of islamicity becomes weaker as the country's economy grows, regardless of whether it is an oic member nation or a non-oic member nation. our study corroborates the findings of previous studies that religious practices have an unfavorable implication on economic outcomes.45 the factors responsible for holding these countries back must be gauged from the economic perspective. moreover, the same set of components revealed by other studies may exist, which clarifies economic slowness in numerous different economies. it is crucial to perform valid economic assessments in islamic nations. inline, it is important to popularize the initiative, track changes in each of the indices' dimensions, and publish an annual report based on the most recent indices on the state of muslim economies. the annual report should highlight areas where there has been improvement and where there has been a deficiency. identifying this set of factors requires further investigation. the policy implication of this study is the urgent call to bring multiple economic reforms that shall encourage an environment for economic growth in the oic economies. 6. appendix variable definition source dependent variable gdp annual percentage growth rate of gdp wdi islamicity index rank 0 to 1, close to 1 indicate more while close to 0 shows less islamicity http://islamicityindex.org human and physical capital variables hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 49 edu gross secondary enrollment rate wdi pop population growth rate wdi gcf gross fixed capital formation wdi macroeconomic variables ge general government final consumption expenditure wdi fdi foreign direct investment wdi dc domestic credit to private credit as a share of gdp wdi table a1: data sources, definitions, and descriptive statistics notes and references 1 markus puledko and neeraj k. bhargava, “the influence of islam on the economic development of muslim countries,” i̇ktisat i̇şletme ve finans 20, no. 235 (2005): 16–28, https://doi.org/10.3848/iif.2005.235.2268. 2 max weber, the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, trans. stephen kalberg, 3rd ed. (new york: routledge, 2013). 3 laurence r. iannaccone, “introduction to the economics of religion,” journal of economic literature 36, no. 3 (1998). 4 gary m. anderson, “mr. smith and the preachers: the economics of religion in the wealth of nations,” journal of political economy 96, no. 5 (1988): 1066–88, https://doi.org/10.1086/261576. 5 deepak lal, unintended consequences: the impact of factor endowments, culture, and politics on long-run economic performance (cambridge: mit press, 1998). 6 timur kuran, “the islamic commercial crisis: institutional roots of economic underdevelopment in the middle east,” journal of economic history 63, no. 2 (2003): 414–46, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050703001840. 7 the holy qur'an, 17:35, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 8 the holy qur'an, 83:1-4, trans usmani. 9 the holy qur'an, 5:1, trans usmani 10 mohammad saeed, zafar u. ahmed, and syeda masooda mukhtar, “international marketing ethics from an islamic perspective: a value-maximization approach,” journal of business ethics 32, no. 2 (2001): 127–42, https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1010718817155; jonathan a.j. wilson and jonathan liu, “the challenges of islamic branding: navigating emotions and halal,” journal of islamic marketing 2, no. 1 (2011): 28–42, https://doi.org/10.1108/17590831111115222. 50 does islamicity affect … 11 scheherazade s. rehman and hossein askari, “an economic islamicity index,” global economy journal 10, no. 3 (2010). 12 zamir iqbal and abbas mirakhor, eds., economic development and islamic finance, economic development and islamic finance (washington: worldbank publications, 2013), https://doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-9953-8. 13 hossein askari, zamir iqbal, and abbas mirakhor, challenges in economic and financial policy formulation in islamic perspective (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2014). 14 adam ng, mansor ibrahim, and abbas mirakhor, “on building social capital for islamic finance,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 8, no. 1 (2015): 2–19, https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm-04-2014-0040. 15 tarik akin, zamir iqbal, and abbas mirakhor, “the composite risk-sharing finance index: implications for islamic finance,” review of financial economics 31, no. november (2016): 18–25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rfe.2016.06.001. 16 reza ghazal and muhamed zulkhibri, “islamic inclusive growth index (i-igi): measurement and determinants,” in towards a maqāṣid al-sharīʿah index of socioeconomic development theory and application, ed. salman syed ali, palgrave studies in islamic banking, finance, and economics. (palgrave macmillan cham, 2019), 285–309, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12793-0_10. 17 azharsyah ibrahim, “islamic work ethics and economic development in islamic countries: bridging between theory and reality,” in international conference of moslem society 2, 2018, 43–50, https://doi.org/10.24090/icms.2018.1905. 18 adama dieye, an islamic model for stabilization and growth, an islamic model for stabilization and growth (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2020), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48763-8. 19 muchdie, “islamicity and global competitiveness: a cross-nations path analysis,” international journal of advanced research (ijar) 4, no. (november 2016): 818–28, https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/ijar01/2152. 20 muchdie muchdie, “happiness and islamicity,” international journal of recent scientific research 8, no. 2 (2017): 15213–22. 21 hossein askari, “islamicity indices: a moral compass for reform and effective institutions,” international journal of islamic economics 1, no. 01 (2019): 1–29, https://doi.org/10.32332/ijie.v1i01.1574. 22 muchdie muchdie, “islamicity , human development and the happiness : a cross-section path analysis model,” international journal of economic perspectives 11, no. 2 (2017): 124–35. 23 abbas mirakhor and hossein askari, ideal islamic economy: an introduction (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2017). 24 fauziah aulia rahayu and fitrisia septiarini, “comparative analysis of islamicity performance index in asean islamic banks in 2011-2016 period (a case study on indonesia, malaysia, brunei darussalam, and thailand),” kne social sciences 3, no. 13 (2019): 362–75, https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v3i13.4216. 25 nur asnawi, ahmad tibrizi soni wicaksono, and nina dwi setyaningsih, “measuring the economic islamicity index in the archipelagic indonesia: does spatial role affect it?,” talent development & excellence 12, no. 1 (2020): 3464– 89. 26 hafezali iqbal hussain et al., “an investigation of an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system to model the relationship among natural resources, islamicity and financial development,” revista argentina de clínica psicológica 29, no. 3 (2020): 524–40, https://doi.org/10.24205/03276716.2020.859. 27 neny tri indrianasari, isti fadah, and intan nurul awwaliyah, “islamicity performance index and profitability determinants,” proceedings of the international conference on management, business, and technology (icombest 2021), vol. 194, (2022), 32–38, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.2991/aebmr.k.211117.005. 28 ferriswara dian et al., “the influence of firm characteristics, corporate governance and capital structure on islamicity disclosure index: a study of companies listed in jakarta islamic index during period of 2012-2016,” russian hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 51 journal of agricultural and socio-economic sciences 91, no. 7 (2019): 112–31, https://doi.org/10.18551/rjoas.2019-07.12. 29 oyong lisa, “analysis macroeconomic on islamicity performance index through fund third parties the islamic cooperation,” international journal of social science and business 1, no. 1 (2017): 38–46, https://doi.org/10.23887/ijssb.v1i1.10161. 30 hossein askari, hossein mohammadkhan, and liza mydin, reformation and development in the muslim world: islamicity indices as benchmark (new york: palgrave macmillan cham, 2017), https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-31956026-7. 31 mohd sidek noor zahirah, said roshima, and wan hasan wan norhaniza, islamic development management: recent advancements and issues (singapore: springer, 2019). 32 hossein askari and hossein mohammadkhan, islamicity indices: the seed for change (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2016). 33 “world data bank,” accessed september 12, https://data.worldbank.org/. 34 “islamicity indices,” accessed september 12, 2022, http://islamicityindex.org/wp/latest-indices/. 35 klaus jaffe, “science, religion and economic development,” interciencia 30, no. 6 (2005): 370–73. 36 shih ying wu, jenn hong tang, and eric s. lin, “the impact of government expenditure on economic growth: how sensitive to the level of development?,” journal of policy modeling 32, no. 6 (2010): 804–17, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2010.05.011; suleiman abu-bader and aamer s. abu-qarn, “government expenditures, military spending and economic growth: causality evidence from egypt, israel, and syria,” journal of policy modeling 25, no. 6–7 (2003): 567–83, https://doi.org/10.1016/s0161-8938(03)00057-7; d’agostino, j.p. dunne, and l. pieroni, “government spending, corruption and economic growth. university of cape town” working paper series no. 74 (cape town, 2012), https://www.opensaldru.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11090/167/2012_74.pdf?sequen ce=1. 37 sajid anwar and lan p. nguyen, “foreign direct investment and economic growth in vietnam,” asia pacific business review 16, no. 1–2 (2010): 183–202, https://doi.org/10.1080/10438590802511031; e. borensztein, j. de gregorio, and j. w. lee, “how does foreign direct investment affect economic growth?,” journal of international economics 45, no. 1 (1998): 115–35, https://doi.org/10.1016/s00221996(97)00033-0; philippe aghion and peter howitt, endogenous growth theory (cambridge: mit press, 1988). 38 robert e. lucas, “on the mechanics of economic development,” journal of monetary economics 22, no. 1 (1988): 3–42, https://doi.org/10.1016/03043932(88)90168-7; n. mankiw gregory, david romer, and david n. weil, “a contribution to the empirics of economic growth,” quarterly journal of economics 107, no. 2 (1992): 407–37, https://doi.org/10.2307/2118477; angel de la fuente and rafael doménech, “human capital in growth regressions: how much difference does data quality make?,” journal of the european economic association 4, no. 1 (2006): 1–36, https://doi.org/10.1162/jeea.2006.4.1.1. 39 robert m. solow, “a contribution to the theory of economic growth,” quarterly journal of economics 70, no. 1 (1956): 65–94, https://doi.org/10.2307/1884513. 40 a.s bakare, “a theoretical analysis of capital formation and growth in nigeria,” far east journal of psychology and business 3, no. 2 (2011): 11–24. 41 ghura dhaneshwar, and m. hadjimichael, “growth in sub-saharan africa,” imf econ rev, no. 43 (1996): 605–34, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.2307/3867556; christian h. beddies, “investment, capital accumulation and growth: some evidence from gambia: 1964–1998,” imf working paper series, no. 117, (1999). 42 joseph alois schumpeter, the theory of economic development: an inquiry into profits, credit, interest, and the business cycle, 1st ed. (new york: routledge, 2017), https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315135564. http://islamicity-index.org/wp/latest-indices/ http://islamicity-index.org/wp/latest-indices/ 52 does islamicity affect … 43 mankiw, romer, and weil, “contribution to the empirics of economic growth,” 407-437. 44 ibid. 45 campante, filipe, and david yanagizawa-drott. “does religion affect economic growth and happiness? evidence from ramadan,” the quarterly journal of economics 130, no. 2 (2015): 615-658.; khalfaoui, hamdi. "islam and economic growth,” international journal of social science studies 3, no. 6 (2015): 62. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 53 political buzzer in islamic law and its impact on muslim society wahyu abdul jafar universitas islam negeri fatmawati sukarno bengkulu, indonesia wahyujafar@iainbengkulu.ac.idemail: received on: 11-05-22 accepted on: 12-09-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.491 abstract this study aims to explore the law of political buzzer actions from an islamic law perspective and the negative impact of the existence of a political buzzer on the muslim community in detail. it uses the literature review method to explain the concept of political buzzer: islamic law and its impact on muslim society. the research employs documentation technique for the purpose of data collection. for analysis, this study uses content analysis technique which is described as a form of a narrative review by exploring topics related to political buzzers in islamic law and its impact on muslim society. after conducting in-depth research, the paper concludes that it is mubāh (legal) for a political buzzer to promote the ability, expertise of a candidate for leadership or a specific regional head. meanwhile, the act of political buzzers who create and spread hoaxes, hate speech, and black campaigns are harām (unlawful) and strictly prohibited. the emergence of political buzzers negatively impacts the muslim community because they often create content in hoax news, black campaigns, and slander against political opponents. keywords: islamic law, muslim society, political buzzer 1. introduction advances in indonesian communication technology have made social media something which plays an essential role in conveying political campaigns. some people use the momentum of political contestations as an opportunity to seek financial gain, for instance; by working as a buzzer on social media. buzzers are considered to have an mailto:wahyujafar@iainbengkulu.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.491 54 political buzzer: islamic … essential role in shaping topics of conversation on social media. so, quite a few political figures or candidates utilise them to win political contestations. as per the nature of its interactivity, social media allows users to share their voices on a particular topic of conversation.1 the history of the use of buzzers in indonesia begins with the social media site “twitter” in 2006. then, the buzzer function began to be used for promotional purposes for specific product brands. the initial involvement of the buzzer in political events was the jakarta gubernatorial election in 2012, at that time, the winning team for the jokowi-ahok pair had begun to take advantage of the presence of the buzzer to boost their image and bring down political opponents. two years later, in 2014, the buzzer began to be widely used for political purposes. as a result of this activity, various surveys declared jokowi superior to prabowo, resulting in a war on social media. especially in the presidential election with the pair joko widodo-jusuf kalla and prabowo subianto-hatta rajasa.2 the success of buzzer's activities on social media is supported by the increasing amount of activitiy in cyberspace. the increase in community activity in cyberspace based on the survey of the indonesian internet service providers association (apjii) led to 196.71 million internet users out of 266.91 million indonesians who were the masterminds of the 2019-2020 period.3a year later, internet users increased again. the image below shows data on trends in the internet and social media users in 2021 in indonesia: figure 1. data on internet, mobile phone, and social media usage in indonesia hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 55 source: andi.linkhootsuite (wearesocial: indonesian digitalreport 2021)4 information:  total population (total population): 274.9 million  unique mobile users: 345.3 million (125.6% of the total population in indonesia)  internet users: 202.6 million (73.7% of the total population in indonesia)  active social media users: 170 million (61.8% of the total population in indonesia) the phenomenon of extraordinarily high number of internet users, reaching 202.6 million in 2021, is well utilized by political buzzers to spread content that defends specific political figures. in general, political buzzers are tasked with introducing the vision, mission, and programs of election participants in cyberspace. the political buzzer is also tasked with processing public opinion that is amplified so that it can increase the popularity, electability, and acceptability of election participants in the community. buzzers involved in campaigns in cyberspace can be volunteers, cadres from the party itself, or other people who are deliberately paid to be political buzzers.5 the existence of a political buzzer has caused many polemics in the muslim community. often the debates which occur on the internet continue in the real world, this has a very significant impact on the life of the muslim community. one of the negative impacts of the existence of political buzzers is that they manipulate public opinion, leading to division of the nation. buzzers are willing to make and spread statements that don't match reality as long as they support those who pay for them. the political buzzer phenomenon is an interesting topic to conduct a research on, but unfortunately, the studies conducted thus far have either only explored the side of the political buzzer's flow of funds or are related to the buzzer and the world of politics alone. there has been no in-depth research which examines the work side of the buzzer on islamic law and the significant impact of the emergence of the buzzer on the life of the muslim community. following are some studies related to political buzzers; research conducted by the center for media and democracy, institute for economic and social research, education, and information 56 political buzzer: islamic … (lp3es); this research was conducted to uncover the flow of funds or salaries earned by political buzzers in a month. it concluded that the political buzzer tasked with manipulating public opinion on social media could earn up to millions of rupiahs in a month. buzzers have various rates, usually getting rp50-rp100,000 per account which every month can pocket a range of rp1-rp7 million. meanwhile, regular content creators get approximately idr 4 million and the coordinator usually gets rp. 200,000 for each account which, in total gets rp. 5-rp. 15 million. finally, influencers or celebrities can pocket up to rp. twenty million or non-cash rewards, such as commissioner positions or bumn projects.6 another research on this subject was conducted by alief achdiat ermansyah had and was titled the power of the instagram political buzzer in the 2019 election in makassar city. it used the descriptive analysis method with a qualitative approach to provide an overview of the power of the political buzzer on instagram. the technique used in data collection is an in-depth interview process with several informants and other sources related to this research. this study indicates that disseminating information through social media site; instagram, through uploading photos by political buzzers shows a general preference that can influence people's choices.7 the research on political buzzers which has been done is different from the author's research. a new aspect in the author's research is to judge the work status as a buzzer in the perspective of islamic law in detail. which political buzzer activities are permissible, and which are unlawful. this study does not globally condemn the activities of political buzzers as harām, but the researchers have tried to analyze the law based on the types of activities carried out by these political buzzers. in addition, the author has also comprehensively described the negative impact of the existence of a political buzzer on the social life of the muslim community. 2. methodology the research at hand uses the literature review method to explain the political buzzer concept: islamic law and its impact on muslim society. the literature analysis method is a way to identify theories, concepts, and results of pre-existing research.8 by summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing a large body of literature, we can test hypotheses, develop new theories, and evaluate the validity and quality of research for weaknesses, inconsistencies, and contradictions.9 this method allows the author to explain the concept of a political buzzer more hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 57 comprehensively and analyze the law and the impact of a buzzer on the muslim community based on an analysis of studies from various reference sources and data from previous studies that already exist. the data collection technique used in this research is the documentation technique. the authors conducted a literature search through google search engines and google scholar by entering the keywords 'buzzer', 'political buzzer,' 'islamic law of buzzer,' and 'impact of the political buzzer. then the author made the selection by taking literature whose title had relevance to the topic under study. the literature analysis process is carried out by dividing the topic into several subtopics to facilitate data extraction, analysis, and synthesis to report the study's findings. this analysis technique uses a content analysis technique described in a narrative review by exploring topics related to political buzzers, law, and its impact on muslim society. 3. literature review in the world of modern politics, political buzzers and social media are used to carry out political propaganda activities.10 it is understood that social media, which was originally promoted as a platform for freedom and democracy, has come to play another role in reinforcing disinformation, inciting violence, and undermining trust in the media and democratic institutions.11 included in this context is the use of social media by political buzzers who use it attack a person or political figures, and certain institutions with various political motives. buzzers were originally people who echoed, promoted, or campaigned for an issue or product using their social media. the task of echoing, promoting or campaigning is what makes buzzers. they must have a large number of followers, this is the main requirement for pursuit of this job. buzzers are widely used for business promotion purposes through social media, but now along with the increasing popularity of social media as the main means of communication for society, buzzers have penetrated other worlds, one of which is politics which often leads to conflict.12the buzzers in this regard, have expanded the scope of their work to the realm of politics. for example, government agencies and political parties worldwide have used social media to spread political propaganda, pollute the digital information ecosystem, and suppress free speech and press freedom.13suspicion of the government and political parties that use political buzzers in carrying out these tasks is inevitable. the center for innovation policy government (2017) proposes that 58 political buzzer: islamic … buzzers are individuals or accounts that can amplify messages by attracting attention, building conversations, and moving with certain motives. in short, the job of the buzzer is to make noise.14 the most striking difference between buzzers for business and political interests is that buzzers for business activities carry out campaigns or promotions with a money motive, while political buzzers are divided into independent and volunteer buzzers. independent buzzers perform their duties for money or are transactional and are not tied to certain organizations or groups. meanwhile, as the term suggests, the volunteer political buzzer is a partisan political buzzer with a relationship with a certain politician or party figure, including compatibility with the ideas promoted by these politicians and political parties. volunteer political buzzers do not receive payment for carrying out buzzer activities based on voluntary support or are known as digital political volunteers who always put the spirit of volunteerism first.15 the buzzer, in its history, moves to promote, campaign, and echo a product in the scope of business through social media. however, in indonesia, buzzers have been known to work in the political realm since as early as 2012. in that year, the jakarta special capital region regional head elections were held against two pairs of candidates, and at that time, there were divisions, incitement, and attacks on certain pairs of regional head candidates through social media believed to be carried out by political buzzers.16 in contrast, felicia and loisa (2019) believe that the buzzer's entry into the political arena began in 2014 when the presidential and vice-presidential elections were held, but the phenomenon of the political buzzer saw growth in the 2017 gubernatorial election, as well as in the 2019 legislative and presidential elections.17 for the rest of the world, the way barack obama's campaigned in 2008 is believed to be the starting point for social media to influence political choices, which is then used by political buzzers as inspiration. at that time, obama organized the use of social media to mobilize potential voters to support him. obama also used websites such as my.barrackobama.com website to broaden the scope of his campaign activities.18 political buzzers carry out their activities by promoting or cornering certain candidates, certain groups, or certain political parties. the political buzzer has made a negative contribution to the public image and meaning of the buzzer. this puts them under a negative light as producers of harmful content on social media.19 whereas historically, the hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 59 term buzzer was used to refer to people or groups who promoted in the business sector. or in the context of a positive political buzzer, buzzer activities were supposed to boost the electability of certain politicians or parties without attacking other politicians or political parties. one can find out how the political buzzer works in the research conducted by felicia and loisa (2019).20 generally, there are political buzzers which are paid or on independent terms, and there are names for buzzers who do it voluntarily, volunteer buzzers.21 in felicia and loisa's research (2019), the two terms are commercial buzzer and volunteer buzzer. in the commercial buzzer, the main actor is the official candidate campaign team. all activities related to commercial buzzers are carried out by the main actors, starting from dissemination of information about opportunities to become commercial buzzers; carrying out the recruitment process; information to be managed for the buzzer; arrange a certain time and place for the assignment of the buzzer; as well as payments for commercial buzzers. the main actor focuses on coordinating the commercial buzzer team through social media. on the other hand, volunteer buzzer activities occur without the main actor. volunteer buzzers form group discussions, forming collaborative teams consisting of buzzers seeking and gathering information with other potential actors in a social media group. in this volunteer group, all buzzers act as contributing actors in sharing information to manage their social media content. potential actors have been netted to be involved in promoting an issue by the focal actor.22 buzzers at work can form motion, as well as with their style. the buzzer work pattern is made sporadically by sharing different links. this means that each buzzer has the flexibility to create and articulate certain issues. in addition, the next buzzer pattern is a more patterned one or a command pattern wherein the working process of the buzzer is directed to spread writing, videos, memes, and so on with the same content simultaneously.23 there are also other patterns, such as commercial buzzers, which are grouped with their respective roles, such as the task of attacking, defending a candidate pair, and being neutral. commercial buzzers can conduct negative campaigns, followed up, enlivened, or retweeted by other accounts.24 4. discussion 4.1 definition of political buzzer 60 political buzzer: islamic … the word buzzer comes from english and means bell, or alarm. while in the oxford dictionaries, “buzzer” is defined as an electronic device used to sound a buzz to spread a specific signal or sign. buzzers were initially used to promote a particular product with or without compensation. however, since 2014, when the general election (election) were held in indonesia, political actors began to pay attention to buzzer services. in this context, a buzzer is a social media account figure, either an anonymous account or a real account which, at any time disseminates, campaigns, hums a message or content intending to strengthen a message or content into public opinion.25 the buzzer is an electronic component that converts electrical vibrations into sound vibrations. the working principle is almost the same as a loudspeaker which produces a loud sound that attracts attention. meanwhile, according to arbie, the definition of a buzzer on social media can be compared to an account that has a significant influence (influencer) on followers or friends and is expected to create a topic in the online world and the real world.26 the buzzer's way is almost the same as electronic word of mouth (e-wom). initially, buzzers were widely used for product promotion and marketing strategies but later developed as an image and reputation formation strategy for individuals, groups, and organizations. buzzers can be indirectly used to build an organization's image or as branding agents. they are considered effective in building public opinion regarding a piece of information or desired message with their ability to amplify messages.27 4.2 history; the formation of a political buzzer at first, a social media buzzer was only known as a business buzzer, but along with the benefits generated by a business buzzer, the buzzer technique was also used in digital politics. in the context of a business buzzer, only independent categories which have a free character and are not bound by any product or brand are known. that is, these can be used for the benefit of all business promotions as ordered from agencies or companies and are not limited to certain products. with a neutral nature, a business buzzer is pragmatic. that is, the business buzzer moves according to the demands of the payers and tenants. in several studies, the term buzzer originated from the emergence of buzz marketing in digital marketing. greg defines buzz marketing as hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 61 an effort to strengthen marketing by third parties, either passively or actively, so that they can influence each other. meanwhile, hughes defines buzz marketing as an effort to capture the attention of consumers and the media at a point so that they can then talk about the brand or product and turn it into an exciting news story. furthermore, the term buzzer is understood as one of the netizen actors who owns social media accounts that, at any time disseminate, campaign, and broadcast messages or content continuously to other netizens to strengthen the message or content.28 business buzzers often set rates according to the number of followers and their difficulty level. in contrast, political buzzers are divided into two categories, namely independent and volunteer. first, the independent buzzer has a free character and is not bound by any group or organization. this means that it can be used for branding or campaigning all content related to politics in accordance with the orders from agencies, politicians, political parties, or stakeholders who use their services. with a neutral and interest-free nature, this type of buzzer is vulnerable to transactional nature. in other words, these types of buzzers move according to the demands of the payers and tenants. these buzzers often set rates according to the number of followers and their difficulty level. second, volunteer buzzers are partisan because they are related to political figures, parties, or similar socio-political ideas. many of these buzzers come from netizens who have been very active on social media. because they prioritize partisan and volunteer attitudes, these buzzers are often digital political volunteers. political buzzers do not receive payment for carrying out buzzer activities based on voluntary support or are known as digital political volunteers who always put the spirit of voluntarism first.29 several factors cause netizens to become buzzers on social media, including; active usage of social media. these netizens usually have an above-average frequency of using social media. this excessive activity causes netizens who are classified as buzzers to often repost (instagram), retweet (twitter), and reshare (facebook) to strengthen the message. thus, retweets, reposting, reshare activities are buzzer activities. secondly, as a source of additional income. internet users, who are interested in becoming a buzzer are looking for additional sources of income. they do not want their social media to be in vain and use it as a means to finish off their quota by producing different content and actively posting on social media.30 4.3 political buzzer activities 62 political buzzer: islamic … the activities of professional political buzzers and political buzzer volunteers on social media have some differences, although the primary goal remains the same, namely to campaign for specific candidate pairs. professional political buzzers play more passive roles in determining the campaign messages they want to convey through their social media accounts. all activities of professional political buzzers are organized and coordinated by certain parties who are connected via whatsapp groups. at the beginning of joining a professional political buzzer team, they are asked to create ten accounts each on social media site i.e. facebook, twitter, and instagram. each of these accounts must be given a specific identity to look like a real account. then, through these accounts, these professional political buzzers will distribute campaign messages in the form of daily narratives and hashtags that have been coordinated in advance. twitter accounts created by professional political buzzers have their respective duties. of the ten twitter accounts, four play a role in defending the candidate pair, four for attacking, and two for neutral.31 the buzzer works virtually through social media accounts with a well-organized and capable work system. usually, the way it works starts with a key opinion leader (kol) who has many followers on social media voicing a campaign or promotion. then, the buzzer will work to increase engagement from the opinions of the key opinion leaders (kol) on a large scale by using hashtags so that the voiced opinion becomes viral and many people hear and read about the campaign or promotion through social media.32 ismail fahmi, a social media expert, analysis of drone emprit & kernels indonesia (cnn indonesia connected 2020), describes the role of the buzzer, starting with data collection in the form of conversations conducted by netizens on social media. the conversation was analyzed to look at issues that received public attention. after that, a strategy or plan is set to raise the issue more broadly, represented through texts, news, or memes. the buzzer operation has just been marked by distributing content (sharing, posting, and tweeting) to various social media platforms. the contents or messages distributed by this buzzer will then be amplified or responded to by social media users and netizens. so often, the content can change the views or opinions of the public. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 63 figure 2. schematic of buzzer activities/role the buzzer also forms a motion or pattern in carrying out its activities. first, the irregular pattern, which means that the content is shared (shared), is different. each buzzer has the freedom to create and narrate an issue. second, the command pattern emphasizes the loading of the same content (in writing, videos, and memes); the time has been determined and distributed simultaneously.33 the activity of buzzers operating in the dark spaces of social media, sharing information, data, and opinions without verification and confirmation, hiding in fake and anonymous accounts, and under the guise of freedom of expression is a hazardous phenomenon and can disrupt national political stability. the existence of buzzers has often clouded the public sphere by disseminating information in exchange for money without openly and honestly marking the content on social media as advertising. dissemination of information without transparency and accountability can deceive the general public, lead to opinion, and damage democracy by distorting public perception.34 in the context of indonesian politics, there are three categories of buzzers, namely paid buzzers, volunteer buzzers, and neutral buzzers. even though there is a paid buzzer, the amount is not so much. even then, most of them are bloggers and netizens who are active on social media, they help strengthen a product and service and are categorized as a business buzzer. meanwhile, volunteer buzzers come from political volunteers who have cyber teams. almost all political volunteers in indonesia have a cyber team on social media. meanwhile, a neutral buzzer, in this context, are more impartial, however, they still help strengthen the content and message so that it becomes a public opinion. for example, in the anti-white group (golput) collecting data data analysis making strategy creating content content deployment content amplification 64 political buzzer: islamic … campaign, the buzzers from this group continuously tried to strengthen the message, making it go viral so that all other netizens could come across it. finally, buzzer accounts use anonymous and accurate accounts to maintain personal privacy.35 4.4 the profession of political buzzer on islamic law perspective social media has now become a part of daily human life. almost everyone in indonesia has a social media account. be it facebook, twitter, instagram, or other social media site. everyone actively interacts on their social media every day. increasing amount of social media user has opened new professional opportunities, namely buzzer. the buzzer profession is easy because it can be done while doing other activities.36 one of the arenas in this profession which is in demand is; becoming a political buzzer, because they can get paid up to millions of rupiah. the entry of buzzers into the world of politics makes it into a notable phenomenon when political actors widely use the services of buzzers, both in legislative and executive elections, such as regional elections to presidential elections. the buzzer is directed to campaign for a potential leader to be accepted and elected by the community. on one hand, a buzzer is forced to be able to viral the strengths and ideas of the prospective leader. on the other hand, the buzzer is required to bring out the weaknesses of the candidate's political opponents. this is where the space for black campaigns is opened, even to slander, which ultimately negatively impacts the buzzer profession.37 to judge whether the political buzzer is legal or not, it is necessary to specify the activities a political buzzer engages in to support a political figure in being successfully as the leader of a specific area. the duties of the political buzzer are as follows; 4.4.1 promote the ability, expertise, or political contracts made by candidates for leadership or regional heads. the political buzzer is in demand and have many fans because of information revolution and globalization. this change has played an essential role in transforming political campaigns' traditional patterns and content into one of the most professional and sophisticated marketing tactics. if a political party applies a marketing philosophy, it will try to meet voters' needs and wants, thereby generating voter satisfaction and gaining electoral support serves its purpose. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 65 the ability of social media to massively influence people's political decisions makes this media also widely usable as a political marketing medium. besides the cheaper cost, the buzzer can also reach further by introducing potential leaders to the broader community. the buzzer action of each partner diligently promotes their candidate through social media. buzzers act as opinion leaders because they have accounts with unique, relevant, helpful content, consistent frequency of tweets every day, and high quality of interaction.38 as long as the content created by political buzzers is not hoax news, black campaigns, slander against political opponents, there is no problem under islamic law. the basis for this ability is the fatwa of the indonesian ulema council no. 24, 2017. the content/information that will be disseminated to the general public must be correct, both in terms of content, source, time and place, background and context of the information submitted.39 self-promotion, whether carried out by others or by oneself, is permissible. the legal basis of this permissibility is based on the holy qur’ān as follows; “ he said, appoint me to (supervise) the treasures of the land. i am indeed a knowledgeable keeper...”40 the legal content of this paragraph is that a person may promote himself to have special skills in a job so that others can know him as a person who has the potential and ability in a particular field. the meaning of the "hafīzhun" in this verse is being trustworthy in carrying out the task, while the meaning of the "alīm " is a knowledgeable person and has mastery of knowledge related to his work.41 if within the law promoting one’s expertise is permissible, the task of a political buzzer is also permissible if the content created and disseminated is limited to promoting the expertise of prospective leaders, not in the form of hoax content hate speech, and black campaigns. if the buzzer spreads slanderous news, the community is threatened with a painful punishment. as allah almighty says: “surely, those who like that lewdness spreads among the believers, for them there is painful punishment in this world and the hereafter. allah knows, and you do not know.”42 allah almighty has directs this verse to those who are pleased with spreading negative issue. indeed, those who wish that the most heinous act, namely false news, to be spread among those who believe, then they will have a painful punishment in this world with a proper 66 political buzzer: islamic … punishment, and similarly they will have a painful punishment in the hereafter, if they don't repent. 4.4.2 create and spread hoaxes the contestation of general elections, presidential elections, to regional head elections (pilkada) in this digital age always invites uproar on social media with the emergence of social media accounts belonging to political buzzers. the battle between buzzers supporting one candidate for office often fills the top issues (top trending) on twitter and facebook. not infrequently, this battle is often filled with ammunition for lies or hoax news.43 in the context of social media, the rise of hoax news originating from fake accounts belonging to political buzzers is influenced by many factors, including the habit of people who always want to share information quickly, are in a hurry to share news, like to tell stories about a piece of information they receive without verifying it first. this habit recurs sequentially from one user to another in the same process; without validation and checking the truth, the piece of information is forwarde to receive and disseminate, especially if the information has been embellished with provocation practices for specific interests that can affect emotions, feelings, thoughts. even the reactions of the community then become viral in our society. in the holy qur’ān itself, the phenomenon of the spreading of fake news itself has been explained in the following verse, "those who have come up with the false imputation are a gang among you. do not think it is bad for you; rather, it is good for you. every one of them is liable for what he earned of the sin. and the one who played the major role in it, for him there is a mighty punishment." 44 this verse discusses the false news that befell ā'ishah raìi allah ‘anhé, ummul mu'minīn, after the war with the banī mu'aliqin the month of shahban 5 h.45 the hypocrites followed the war and‘ā'ishah raìi allah ‘anhé with the ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam on the way back, and the troops stopped at a place. ā'ishah raìi allah ‘anhé, came out for something, and then returned. suddenly she felt that her necklace was missing, so she looked for it. meanwhile, the troop departed with the thought that ā'ishah raìi allah ‘anhé was still on her camel. after ā'ishah raìi allah ‘anhé, found out that her sekedup(tent on a hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 67 camel) had left, she sat in her place and hoped that the sekedup (tent on a camel) would come back to pick her up. coincidentally, a companion of the ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam named afwan bin mu'aṭṭal raìi allah ‘anhë passed by the place and found someone sleeping alone. afwan was surprised as he said, "innā lillāhi wa innā ilaihi rāji'ūn, the wife of the apostle!" ā'ishah raìi allah ‘anhé woke up. then, afwan invited ā'ishah raìi allah ‘anhé to ride her camel. afwan walked, leading the camel to medina. the people who saw them talked about it according to their own opinion. rumors began to arise. then the hypocrites exaggerated it. so, the slander against ‘āisyah was also widespread, causing turmoil among the muslims. this verse is a warning to those who accuse the wife of the ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam. ‘āisyah, without any evidence. then allah almighty, said, "indeed, those who carry and spread false news on purpose; the false news concerns the honor of the family of the ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam, that is, a group from your community (living among the believers). do not consider it good or bad, because then you will be able to distinguish who is a hypocrite and who is strong in faith (you will get an appropriate reward).46 it is unlawful to create and disseminate hoax content originating from political buzzers based on this verse. this prohibition includes people who create hoax content, people who spread hoax news, and people who pay the salaries of political buzzers to create hoax content. they are all the same law, namely the same as harām. 4.4.3 making and spreading hate speech hate speech is an act of communication carried out by an individual or group in the provocation, incitement, or insult to another individual or group in terms of various aspects such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, citizenship, religion, and others. in islam, hate speech is included in despicable morals (morals of madzmumah). when creating content for specific issues, political buzzers often make hate speech directed at their political opponents. this hate speech is then responded to by a buzzer from the political opponent so that the world of social media becomes crowded with swearing and insults. harassment in islam is strictly prohibited and is illegal. the basis 68 political buzzer: islamic … for this prohibition is found in the holy qur’ān surah in the following verse, "o you who believe, no men should ever scoff at other men. may be, the latter are better than the former. nor should women (ever scoff) at other women. may be, the latter women are better than the former ones. and do not find fault with one another, nor call one another with bad nicknames. bad is the name of sinfulness after embracing faith. if anyone does not repent, then such people are the wrongdoers".47 this verse expressly prohibits acts that contain elements of hate speech. this prohibition is reinforced by the hadith of the ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam, which prohibits attempts to attack a person's character through hate speech, backbiting, or slander. “from abu hurairah radhi allahu 'anhu, the prophet ṣalallahu 'alaihewasallam said, "do you know what backbiting is?" they replied, "allah and his messenger know best." backbiting is talking about your brother in a manner which he dislikes" he was asked, "what if what is said is true?" the prophet ṣalallaahu 'alaihewasallam replied, "if it is true, you have submitted it. if it does not fit, it means you have slandered it.48 based on this hadith, hate speech (hoax) is punished as slander, and if the hate speech is found in the person who is insulted, it is backbiting. in islam, slander and backbiting are forbidden, and even allah likens backbiters to people who eat dead human flesh. “o you who believe, abstain from many of the suspicions. some suspicions are sins. and do not be curious (to find out faults of others), and do not backbite one another. does one of you like that he eats the flesh of his dead brother? you would abhor it. and fear allah. surely allah is most-relenting, verymerciful.”49 this verse clearly explains that the law of political buzzer acts carried out by spreading hate speech, hoaxes, slander, or black campaigns is harām and strictly prohibited in islamic teachings. for more details, the law on the act of political buzzer can be seen in the table below, hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 69 no political buzzer task islamic law 1 promote the ability, expertise, or political contracts made by the candidate for leadership mubāh (legal) 2 create and spread hoaxes harām (forbidden) 3 making and spreading hate speech harām (forbidden) table 1. laws for political buzzers 4.5 the negative impact of political buzzer activities on muslim society in practice, the existence of the buzzer with its various activities has caused symptoms of unrest in the community. as stated by haedar nasir, buzzers are the press's biggest enemy at this time because they are considered irresponsible. haidar nasir's statement regarding the buzzer as the press's biggest enemy carries weight because the buzzer's activities are intertwined with the press's job as the disseminator of information. of course, there is an essential issue in that context because of the misuse of media instruments to communicate and disseminate information by buzzers.50 following are some of the impacts of the political buzzer on the muslim community, including: 4.5.1 hoaxes are appearing increasingly in the muslim community political buzzers often misuse the freedom to upload information provided by social media to spread counter-productive information in the form of hoaxes, false information, and false information which has tremendous social destructive power. this fact is reinforced by the 2019 indonesian telematics community (mastel) survey results, which stated that issues related to social politics occupy the top position in the spread of hoax content, as much as 93.2% compared to other hoax content issues.51this condition is exacerbated by the tendency of millennials to receive information at a glance without a deeper analysis of the sources and types of information they receive. 70 political buzzer: islamic … hoax content makers are getting better at disguising fake news that is spread; in a survey conducted by the indonesian telematics community (mastel), as many as 57% of respondents stated that they did not always immediately know if the news they received was a hoax at the time.52 information or news that is considered true is no longer easy to find. the mastel survey (2019) revealed that out of 941 respondents, 34.6% received hoax news every day, and 14.7% received it more than once a day. even the mainstream media, which is relied on as trustworthy media, is sometimes contaminated with the spread of hoaxes. mainstream media is also a channel for disseminating hoax information/news, respectively 8.1% (radio), 6.4% (print media) and 8.7% (television). hoaxes are now circulating in the community through online media, not only by the mainstream media. the results of research conducted by mastel (2019) stated that the most widely used channels for spreading hoaxes were websites, at 28.20%, chat applications (whatsapp, line, telegram) at 67%, and social media (facebook, twitter, instagram, and path) which are the most used media, reaching 87.50%.53meanwhile, as per data presented by the ministry of communication and informatics, as many as 800,000 sites in indonesia have been highlighted as those spreading hoaxes and hate speech.54 hoax information is often disseminated and sourced from fake news and made in a social network to protect personal and group interests. often, social media users consciously spread lies to help their planned agenda. hoax spreaders can be from personal circles, communities, corporations, state institutions, and the military, often making false propaganda to protect their interests. hoax information is made so that the public no longer focuses on the real problem and will be trapped in bombastic things that are not the main problem. the position of the disseminator of hoax information, which is considered credible, makes not always 57% doubtful 20% do not know 7% know 16% hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 71 users feel confident that the information is accurate and authentic and can be disseminated without being reexamined.55 4.5.2 there are many phenomena of hate speech on social media hate speech itself means "an expression that advocates incitement to harm based on a target identified with a particular social or demographic group." hate speech is an act of communication carried out by an individual or group in the form of provocation, incitement, or insult to another individual or group in terms of various aspects such as race, skin color, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, and others. in a legal sense, hate speech is a prohibited word, behavior, writing, or performance because it can trigger acts of violence and prejudice on the perpetrator's part of the statement of the victim of the action.56hate speech can be provoking, inciting, and includes insulting, defaming, and spreading false news.57 the phenomenon of hate speech is increasingly appearing on social media because political buzzers play their role in the political year. according to the head of the public information bureau, brigadier general mohammad iqbal, the national police has detected hundreds of provocative contents containing ethnic, religious, racial, and intergroup (sara) speech, hoaxes, and hate speech throughout 2018. as of march 6, 2018, there was 642 provocative contents. hate speech has encouraged the spirit of cursing, cursing, and hating each other. if this phenomenon is left unchecked, this country will be in increasing danger of division and social conflict.58 hate speech is a linguistic phenomenon that can be grouped into three parts: supporters, the silent majority, and haters until the hater's group cannot be eliminated. the mitigation that needs to be done is to keep the silent majority group immune to hoaxes, and the layers of haters and supporters are decreasing.59 a critical issue to discuss is why hate speech thrives during the election? based on the interviews conducted with ubaidillah badrun as a political observer at jember state university, he said that hate speech thrived in the regional elections where people found the momentum to express and argue. social media is one of the media used to express opinions. however, unfortunately, the use of social media is not balanced with the ability to think critically where freedom of opinion or free speech, which is an individual expression, must be based on data, rational arguments, and expressions that do not show hatred or emotion and 72 political buzzer: islamic … subjectivity. so that the essence of the media as a public space that can be used as a means of expression and does not harm others with sara, hates speech, and fake news. so, what must be built is a critical culture, especially during the election, everyone tends to support the opinion they want, without considering whether the opinion is based on facts and reality, so that it falls into the legitimacy of the truth unilaterally. according to ricky boy, the rise of hate speech in the pilkada was motivated by weak media literacy for the people of indonesia; in the posttruth era, the silent truth will be blurred when lies are spread in other terms "a lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."60 4.5.3 the division of social relations currently, political buzzers spread narratives that contradict the narratives of civil society groups. they also risk building unproductive and unhealthy debates by spreading snarky narratives. buzzers can also quickly shift the debate to things that are not substantial. thus, public attention will be diverted. they can do that by uniform narrative, including distorting the facts.61 the presence of buzzers has a catalytic effect on social divisions in society. the political buzzer appeared to exacerbate the conflict between the people arguing about their supported candidate. the data displayed by political buzzers often displays fake data, black campaigns that corner one candidate, so that candidate's supporters will be angry. in the discourse of political contestation in indonesia ahead of the 2019 presidential election, the terms cebong and kampret emerged. these two terms are blasphemous labels for each of the supporters of the two presidential candidates, where these two terms have a negative connotation in their true meaning. the terms cebong and kampret were raised as political communication messages (an effort to corner opposing political groups). to note, "cebong" is assigned to militant joko widodo as presidential candidate number 01, while "kampret" is addressed to militant supporters of prabowo subianto as presidential candidate number 02. the labeling of cebongkampret has shown excessive political cynicism, reducing democratic values in a country full of eastern culture. this kind of cynicism also shows that we are not mature enough in the practice of democracy. the impact that emerged from this phenomenon was that indonesia's social system and the political system did not grow and develop properly and perfectly.62 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 73 on social media, they blaspheme each other, and some even spread hoaxes just to bring down their political opponents. indeed, our country adheres to a democratic system that allows its people to express their political views freely. however, no matter how free it is, can blaspheming and spreading hoaxes in such a context be justified? this condition of political polarization between cebong and kampretled to conflict, blasphemy against each other splits the harmonious relationship of the community. a political observer from gadjah mada university explained that this kind of political phenomenon rarely occurs in other countries, using animal terms to refer to or make fun of people who have different political choices. this indicates that the indonesian people are not yet mature in democracy.63 4.5.4 blasphemy of certain religions political buzzers often carry certain religious elements in delivering content designed to bring down political opponents. the politicization of religion is often done by buzzers when creating problematic content. the most frequent politicization of religion at this stage is the politicization of religious language, symbols, and narratives, such as the circulation of news in online media and on social media that displays the side of religious observance, specific religious attributes worn by candidates.64 in this context, the politicization of religion becomes harmful and destructive because there are wrong assumptions namely, that religion only deals with rituals or the morality of the people, at least its adherents. however, although it is not wrong, that does not mean that religion only deals with matters relating to morals, spirituality, and rituals. it also has political and even ideological dimensions, apart from this ritual, spiritual, and moral dimensions. the politicization of religion becomes unnatural and often negatively impacts humanity and is harmful to relations between individuals and social groups if carried out excessively. in other words, the overdosage of politicization of religion, craziness, brutality, and without regard for social ethics and a sense of humanity has caused ugliness and negativity in society, the nation, and the state.65 if the politics of ethnicity and religion that are excessive and legitimized with populist issues continue, the core spirit of democracy to create a competitive and free electoral climate will not be achieved.66 5. conclusion 74 political buzzer: islamic … the acts of political buzzers fall into two legal categories. the act of a political buzzer is considered permissible (mubāh) if the political buzzer only creates content that promotes the ability, expertise of a particular candidate for leadership or regional head. meanwhile, the act of a political buzzer is illegal (harām) if the political buzzer creates content that contains hoaxes, hate speech, slander, or black campaigns. the emergence of political buzzers negatively impacts the muslim community because political buzzers often create content in the form of hoax news, black campaigns, and slander against political opponents. on social media, they blaspheme each other, some even spread hoaxes to bring down their political opponents. political buzzers often misuse the freedom to upload information provided by social media to spread counter-productive information in the form of hoaxes and false information that has tremendous social destructive power. the presence of buzzers has a catalytic effect on social divisions in society. the political buzzer appeared to exacerbate the conflict between the people arguing about their supported candidate. the data displayed by political buzzers often displays fake data, black campaigns that corner one candidate, so that candidate's supporters will be angry. 6. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank the chancellor of uinfas bengkulu and the dean of the sharia faculty of uin fatmawati bengkulu, who have supported this project. we also thank kh. dadang kosumanjaya and kh. afifudin muhajir for his valuable guidance and advice. notes and references 1shiddiq sugiono, “fenomena industri buzzer di indonesia: sebuah kajian ekonomi politik media,” communicatus: jurnal ilmu komunikasi 4, no. 1 (june 13, 2020): 48, https://doi.org/10.15575/cjik.v4i1.7250. 2indrianti firdausi, “gaduh buzzer politik di era jokowi,”komunika: jurnal ilmu komunikasi 8, no. 1 (july 25, 2021): 21, https://doi.org/10.22236/komunika.v8i1.6979. 3”laporan survei internet asosiasi penyelenggara jasa internet indonesia (apjii) 2022,” accessed march 20, 2022, https://apjii.or.id/content/read/39/559/laporan-survei-profilinternet-indonesia-2022. 4andi dwi riyanto, “hootsuite (we are social): indonesian digital report 2021 – andi dwi riyanto, dosen, praktisi, konsultan, pembicara: e-bisnis/digital marketing/promotion/internet marketing, seo, technopreneur, fasilitator google gapura digital yogyakarta,” accessed march 20, 2022, https://andi.link/hootsuite-we-aresocial-indonesian-digital-report-2021/. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 75 5rayhan naufaldi hidayat, “penggunaan buzzer politik di media sosial pada masa kampanya pemilihan umum,” adalah 4, no. 2 (may 10, 2020): 31, https://doi.org/10.15408/adalah.v4i2.15606. 6“peneliti bongkar gerak terorganisir buzzer hingga besar gaji halaman 2,” accessed march 20, 2022, https://www.cnnindonesia.com/teknologi/20211101162308-192715118/peneliti-bongkar-gerak-terorganisir-buzzer-hingga-besar-gaji/2. 7alief achdiat ermansyah had, “kekuatan buzzer politik instagram pada pemilu 2019 di kota makassar,” (makasar: fakultas ilmu sosial dan ilmu politik, 2021), 51. accessed march 20, 2022. http://repository.unhas.ac.id/id/eprint/11337/2/e11116308_skripsi_05-112021%20bab%201-2.pdf. 8diana ridley, the literature review: a step by step guide for students (london: sage publications, 2012), 51. 9yu xiao and maria watson, “guidance on conducting a systematic literature review,”journal of planning education and research 39, no. 1 (march 1, 2019): 93-112, https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456x17723971. 10sugiono, “fenomena industri buzzer di indonesia,” 47-66. 11samantha bradshaw and philip n. howard, “the global disinformation order 2019 global inventory of organized social media manipulation.” (university of oxford, 2019), accessed march 20, 2022. https://demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/ sites/93/2019/09/cybertroop-report19.pdf. 12muhammad syiraz neyasyah, “legal resilience in the phenomenon of social media political buzzer in indonesia,” advances in economics, business and management research 3, (2019), 338-349. 13samantha and howard, the global disinformation order 2019, 23. 14nikmah suryandari and vivi lutviana, “impression management of buzzer in social media twitter,” jurnal studi komunikasi 4, no. 3 (november 5, 2020): 614-631, https://doi.org/10.25139/jsk.v4i3.2665. 15bambang arianto, “kontestasi buzzer politik dalam mengawal apbd dki jakarta,” jurnal polinter: kajian politik dan hubungan internasional 5, no. 1 (2019): 61, http://journal.uta45jakarta.ac.id/index.php/polhi/article/view/2342. 16sugiono, "fenomena industri buzzer di indonesia", 52. 17felicia and riris loisa, “actor network and cohort cultures in the business of political buzzer.” tarumanagara international conference on the applications of social sciences and humanities (ticash 2019), atlantis press, 2020), 309-315, https://doi.org/ 10.2991/assehr.k.200515.056. 18iswandi syahputra, “demokrasi virtual dan perang siber di media sosial: perspektif netizen indonesia,” jurnal aspikom 3, no. 3 (september 21, 2017): 457–75, https://doi.org/10.24329/aspikom.v3i3.141. 19suryandari and lutviana, “impression management of buzzer,” 614-631. 20felicia and loisa, “actor network and cohort cultures," 309-315. 21bambang arianto, “kontestasi buzzer politik dalam mengawal apbd dki jakarta,” jurnal polinter: kajian politik dan hubungan internasional 5, no. 1 (2019): 61, http://journal.uta45jakarta.ac.id/index.php/polhi/article/view/2342. 22felicia and loisa, “actor network and cohort cultures," 309-315. 23ade faulina, meraldy chatra, and sarmiati sarmiati, “peran buzzer dalam proses pembentukan opini publik di new media," jurnal pendidikan tambusai 5, no. 2 (july 7, 2021): 2814. https://www.jptam.org/index.php/jptam/article/view/1305 24felicia felicia and riris loisa, “peran buzzer politik dalam aktivitas kampanye di media sosial twitter,” koneksi 2, no. 2 (may 9, 2019): 357, https://journal.untar.ac.id/index.php/koneksi/article/view/3906. 76 political buzzer: islamic … 25bambang arianto, “peran buzzer media sosial dalam memperkuat ekosistem pemasaran digital,” optimum: jurnal ekonomi dan pembangunan 10, no. 1 (june 30, 2020): 56, http://journal.uad.ac.id/index.php/optimum/article/view/14343 26christiany juditha, “buzzer di media sosial pada pilkada dan pemilu indonesia,” prosiding seminar nasional komunikasi dan informatika, (march 9, 2021): 200–201, https://jurnal.kominfo.go.id/index.php/snki/article/view/2557. 27maulidatur rohmah and niken febrina ernungtyas, “branding buzzer: implementasi dan implikasi pada hubungan masyarakat pemerintahan,” inter komunika: jurnal komunikasi 4, no. 2 (december 31, 2019): 135-148, https://doi.org/10.33376/ik.v4i2.374. 28bambang arianto, “analisis peran buzzer media sosial dalam memperkuat kampanye petani milenial,” jurnal riset komunikasi 11, no. 2 (january 5, 2021): 175, https://doi.org/10.31506/jrk.v11i2.9915. 29bambang arianto, “kontestasi buzzer politik dalam mengawal apbd dki jakarta,” jurnal polinter: kajian politik dan hubungan internasional 5, no. 1 (august 20, 2019): 61–62, https://doi.org/10.52447/polinter.v5i1.2342. 30bambang arianto, “salah kaprah ihwal buzzer: analisis percakapan warganet di media sosial,” jiip:jurnalilmiahilmupemerintahan 5, no. 1 (april 16, 2020): 13, https://doi.org/10.14710/jiip.v5i1.7287. 31felicia and loisa, “peran buzzer politik dalam," 355. 32muhammad iskandar, “buzzer dalam perspektif hadis: (kajian hadis tematik),” dirayah : jurnal ilmu hadis 2, no. 1 (october 30, 2021): 49. 33faulina, chatra and sarmiati, “peran buzzer dalam proses," 2814. 34boy anugerah, “urgensi pengelolaan pendengung (buzzer) melalui kebijakan publik guna mendukung stabilitas politik di indonesia,” jurnal kajian lemhannas ri 8, no. 3 (2020): 394. 35arianto, “salah kaprah ihwal buzzer,” 14. 36“hobi main social media? coba kenalan dengan profesi buzzer,” accessed march 20, 2022, https://www.jurnal.id/id/blog/profesi-buzzer/. 37iskandar, “buzzer dalam perspektif hadis,” 49. 38juditha, “buzzer di media sosial pada," 205. 39"fatwa. majelis ulama indonesia. nomor : 24 tahun 2017. tentang. hukum dan pedoman. bermuamalah melalui media sosial", accessed march 20, 2022. https://mui.or.id/wp-content/uploads/files/fatwa/fatwa-no.24-tahun-2017-tentanghukum-dan-pedoman-bermuamalah-melalui-media-sosial.pdf. 40the holy qur'an, 12:55, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 41armansyah and said, “hukum mempromosikan diri,”accessed august 12, 2008, https://arsiparmansyah.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/hukum-mempromosikan-diri/; the holy qur'an, 12:55, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 42the holy qur'an, 24:19, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 43“urgensi fatwa untuk buzzer politik,” republika online, accessed march 18, 2022, https://republika.co.id/berita/dunia-islam/fatwa/17/03/18/on00c0313-urgensi-fatwauntuk-buzzer-politik. 44tansah rahmatullah, “hoax dalam perspektif hukum indonesia,” jurnal hukum media justitia nusantara 8, no. 2 (october 17, 2019): 106; the holy qur'an, 24:11, trans. usmani. 45"pelajaran dari kasus berita bohong yang menimpa sayyidah aisyah", accessed march 18, 2022. https://uninus.ac.id/pelajaran-dari-kasus-berita-bohong-yang-menimpasayyidah-aisyah/. 46 the holy qur'an, 24:11, trans. usmani; the sahih al-bukhari, no. 2661, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin khan (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 77 47the holy qur'an, 49:11, trans usmani. 48the sahih muslim: 2589 (riyadh, darussalam publisher, 1997). 49muhammadin muhammadin, murtiningsih murtiningsih, and septi yana, “ujaran kebencian dalam perspektif agama islam dan agama buddha,” jurnal ilmu agama: mengkaji doktrin, pemikiran, dan fenomena agama 20, no. 1 (june 30, 2019): 2, https://doi.org/10.19109/jia.v20i1.3573; the holy qur'an, 49:11,12, trans. usmani; the sahih al-bukhari, no. 2589, trans. khan. 50r. muhamad ibnu mazjah, “redefinisi hukum tindak pidana pada aktivitas pendengungan (buzzing) informasi elektronik melalui instrumen media sosial (legal redefinition of the electronic information buzzing activities through social media instruments),” negara hukum: membangun hukum untuk keadilan dan kesejahteraan 12, no. 2 (december 20, 2021): 183, https://doi.org/10.22212/jnh.v12i2.2335. 51“survey-hoax-mastel-2019-10-april-2019.pdf,” accessed march 27, 2022, https://mastel.id/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/survey-hoax-mastel-2019-10-april2019.pdf. 52“survey-hoax-mastel-2019-10-april-2019.pdf.” 53“survey-hoax-mastel-2019-10-april-2019.pdf.” 54christiany juditha, “hoax communication interactivity in social media and anticipation (interaksi komunikasi hoax di media sosial serta antisipasinya),” jurnal pekommas 3, no. 1 (september 12, 2018): 32, https://doi.org/10.30818/jpkm.2018.2030104. 55m. nasrullah jamaluddin arrozi arrozi, “komunikasi anti hoax: upaya ldnu dalam membangun persepsi masyarakat untuk mencegah berita hoax melalui media massa,” al-hikmah media dakwah, komunikasi, sosial dan kebudayaan 12, no. 2 (december 31, 2021): 134, https://doi.org/10.32505/hikmah.v12i2.3023. 56sri mawarti, “fenomena hate speech dampak ujaran kebencian,” toleransi: media ilmiah komunikasi umat beragama 10, no. 1 (august 31, 2018): 85, https://doi.org/10.24014/trs.v10i1.5722. 57devita indah permatasari and subyantoro subyantoro, “ujarankebencian facebook tahun 2017-2019,” jurnal sastra indonesia 9, no. 1 (march 30, 2020): 69, https://doi.org/10.15294/jsi.v9i1.33020. 58lidya suryani widayati, “ujaran kebencian: batasan pengertian dan larangannya,” n.d., 3. 59dian junita ningrum, suryadi suryadi, and dian eka chandra wardhana, “kajian ujaran kebencian di media sosial,” jurnal ilmiah korpus 2, no. 3 (2018): 241, https://doi.org/10.33369/jik.v2i3.6779. 60dewi anggraeni and adrinoviarini adrinoviarini, “strategi pengawasan terhadap ujaran kebencian di media sosial pada pemilu,” al wasath jurnal ilmu hukum 1, no. 2 (october 31, 2020): 105, https://doi.org/10.47776/alwasath.v1i2.60. 61reika mustika, “pergeseran peran buzzer ke dunia politik di media sosial", diakom :jurnal media dan komunikasi 2, no. 2 (desember 2019), 156, https://jurnaldiakom.kominfo.go.id/index.php/mediakom/article/view/60. 62m. tazri, “politik hujat dalam sistem komunikasi politik indonesia (studi fenomenologi cebong-kampret),” communiverse : jurnal ilmu komunikasi 4, no. 2 (july 25, 2019): 13. 63abdulloh hamid, darwis darwis, and santi andriyani, “fenomena politik cebong dan kampret di indonesia: sebuah analisis dari perspektif pemikiran politik dalam islam,” politea: jurnal pemikiran politik islam 1, no. 1 (2018): 33, https://doi.org/10.21043/politea.v1i1.4320. 64riki ronaldo and darmaiza darmaiza, “politisasi agama dan politik kebencian pada pemilu presiden indonesia 2019,” indonesian journal of religion and society 3, no. 1 (june 30, 2021): 37, https://doi.org/10.36256/ijrs.v3i1.150. 78 political buzzer: islamic … 65sumanto al qurtuby, “sejarah politik politisasi agama dan dampaknya di indonesia,” maarif 13, no. 2 (december 20, 2018): 45, https://doi.org/10.47651/mrf.v13i2.21. 66budi kurniawan, “politisasi agama di tahun politik: politik pasca-kebenaran di indonesia dan ancaman bagi demokrasi,” jurnal sosiologi agama 12, no. 1 (december 11, 2018): 50, https://doi.org/10.14421/jsa.2018.121-07. title of paper maximum 20 words [times new roman 14, bold, centered] hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 774 issn :0250-7196 european union smart borders: an examination of its structural impacts on human rights versus national sovereignty needs 1 adnan mahmutovic, 2 mark olson abstract this paper provides a brief overview of smart borders (sb), a border check system originally proposed by the european commission. drawing on assessments from eu border security experts, it examines the functionality of the sb border check system, areas for reform and the imputed structural impacts on human rights that new innovations entail. issues arising from the sb’s implementation and development are discussed and its systemic implications for human rights are identified. at the theoretical level, an implicit thesis emerges that a basic tension exists between balancing eu border security needs and challenges to nation state sovereignty, on one hand and fundamental human rights as expressed in the freedom of movement, on the other. thus, the paper is intended to provide a content analysis of the newly introduced package of smart borders and it is considered to be stepping stone to further research into the modification and subsequent development of the smart borders program. as such, it offers up only a critique and broad suggestions for measures for further consideration. key words: smart borders, border checks, human rights, the schengen area, reform. ______________________________________________________________ 1. introduction central to the eu integration process is the establishment of the free movement of persons, goods and services, and the abolition of internal border controls within the schengen area as well as the simplification of eu’s external border crossing. the abolition of internal eu border controls has created the basis for the gradual dissolution of the existing barriers between european nations. this has created, in turn, a process resulting in an even closer europe. politically speaking, the project has become a singular, global phenomenon, with barrier-free internal borders within the schengen area. while member states have accepted the idea of free movement of people, the adoption of concrete measures for the abolition of border controls has, also, posed several difficulties arising from the challenges to national sovereignty and the rights of the individual member states involved in this integration process. 1 prince mohammad bin fahd university. email: dr.adnan.mahmutovic@hotmail.com 2 prince mohammad bin fahd university mailto:dr.adnan.mahmutovic@hotmail.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 775 issn :0250-7196 1.1. research problem the main purpose of this study is to examine the legal implications of newly adopted smart borders (sb) package and its impacts on travelers and immigrants entering the eu. what are the relative trade-offs stemming from modernized, time-saving border checks versus increased surveillance and the impacts of each on their lives? the expected contribution of the sb may be diminished by the fact of systematic intervention into a domain of human rights. the strict border control and better organized law enforcement should not be achieved at the expense of protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. 1.2. research question the main research question of this study is how does the sb package resolve the issue of over stayers in european union and what is the implication of such initiative to the right to privacy? 1.3. research methodology this paper will outline and assess an actual border management transformation in european union based on using state-of-the-art technology. the paper will examine the content analysis and functionality of the smart border check system, areas for reform and the imputed structural impacts on human rights that new innovations entail. the main focus of this paper will be centered around the discussion of the use a new tools offered by the european commission such as exit-entry system to resolve the immigration problems and their anticipated impact on human rights protection guaranteed by the eu charter (charter of fundamental rights of the european union, 2000) and other related documents. 1.4. objectives of the study this study aims to evaluate the legal aspect of the data protection directive to determine whether the entry-exit system fits to the directive, and in doing so, to the european legal standards regarding data protection. this will be done by assessing the following: 1. e.u. border management transformation 2. smart borders package 3. entry-exit system 4. impact on human rights protection hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 776 issn :0250-7196 2. literature review the existing literature on smart borders contribution to eu immigration issue is not very extensive in findings. the majority of the studies conducted, so far, are descriptive studies. absent are criticisms and theoretical approaches that address the wider importance of a sb regime. while some authors discussing the concept of sb in the context of establishing the perimeter alongside the border (koslowski, 2005; brady, 2012), others rather analyze an innovative, digital departure in border management (haye & vermeulen 2012; masse, 2016, aremu, 2020, silahtaroglu, & vardarler, 2016). authors agree that the opening of the new discourses of border security and security in general may potentially squeeze out the space for considerations of human rights (amoore, et al, 2008, karim et al., 2018; hobbing, 2005). in the context of the eu that is even more problematic (jones, 2014). technologies and processes employed at the smart borders require a thorough analysis of its impact on the area of data protection (roson, 2018, fadahunsi & barake, 2018, hobbing, 2006, jacolbia, 2016). some take a different position as they discuss the sb impact, not only on data protection, but also on mobility. it is interesting to notice that some authors using an approach to separate technical from legal and political issues associated with smart borders and, in particular, justice and home affairs databases (bigo, et al., 2012). 3. border management transformation an increasingly globalized world has raised the issue of maintaining the security and encouraging the trade as the great challenge to border management. the current european union with 7,400 kilometers land borders and 57,800 sea borders (council of the european union doc. 18666/11 add 1, 7.) tries to keep the concept of borders as gates in place despite the fact of increasing migration trends. economic prosperity relies on the free movement of goods and people, but if those flows are not monitored and controlled the result can be smuggling, trafficking and illegal migration; and with these comes organized crime. the real challenge is to reconcile these contradictions. in addition, some assert that the year 2015 may be remembered as the year of the greatest movement of people fleeing conflict since the end of the second world war (alkopher & blanc, 2017; hoffmann-riem, 2006). likewise, airport traffic across the eu can be expected to reach 720 million by 2030 agreementing to european commission data. these projections suggest that europe will likely remain the single, largest tourist and destination for migrants in the world, for some time to come. as hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 777 issn :0250-7196 existing capacity is insufficient to accommodate the anticipated growth in traffic flow of entrants, increased delays can also be expected at border crossings. 4. smart borders increased traffic flows through eu’s external borders require greater resource commitments and infrastructure capacity to carry out effective border control. current economic and financial crises mitigate against individual member states capacities to provide sufficient manpower and border infrastructure resources. as a result, greater attention has turned to redesigning the existing border management system and introducing a new generation of technological fixes for border control. european commission announced its first intention to create a smart borders in 2008. increased numbers of foreign travelers arriving in the eu portend increases in unauthorized migration (lehtonen & aalto, 2017; janjević, 2003; miller, 2011). this concern prompted heads of states at a june 2011 meeting of the european council to request the commission to step up efforts in finding that technological solutions for the eu consideration. in february 2013, the commission adopted three proposals as part of the first sb package. the sb package consisted of three legal proposals, found in ees, rtp , and an amendment to the schengen borders code and can be seen as part of a more global eu policy on border control and migration management. support for the implementation and deployment of these proposals can be seen in the stockholm program. the legal basis for their introduction is found in articles 74, 77 of the t.f.eu where the european parliament and council can enact these regulatory measures through regular legislative procedure. the strategic viewpoint will suggest that the sb initiative represents an innovative departure in border management. aimed at improving management and traffic control at eu entrances and exits, the current border check system and associated technology are being upgraded and strengthened to improve both security and traffic throughput. despite its refreshing and advanced approach, in february 2014, the package faced a lot of criticisms from european parliament and the council who voiced technical, operational and cost concerns, as well as important data protection concerns. in a response to those concerns, the commission subsequently initiated a proof of concept exercise consisting of two steps: first a technical study and a cost study to identify the options and solutions to implement smart borders, followed in the course of 2015 by a pilot project led by eu-lisa. on 6 april 2016, the commission introduced the revised smart borders package. the second smart borders package composed of only two elements: the hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 778 issn :0250-7196 entry/exit system and proposal amending the schengen borders code. the commission has decided to withdraw its rtp proposal. 4.1. entry/exit system (ees) the 2016 entry/exit (ees) proposal comes along with other eu founded research projects such as abc4eu or fastpass. the main aim is to improve the management of the eu external borders which means addressing border check delays and improving the quality of border checks for third country nationals (tcn) including the special treatment of irregular immigration to reduce the phenomenon of overstaying. third country nationals are legally bound by the length of their authorized stays within a member state’s territory. if they over extend their authorized stays, they become overstayers, by default. tcns overstaying authorized stays constitute the largest category of overstayers in the eu some european commission members contend has become a modus operandi for tcns seeking eu residence. current mechanisms used by the eu are inadequate for detecting overstayers within the schengen area. this is because the schengen and visa information systems were mainly designed to focus on the entry, detection of criminal activity and verification of identity of entrants to the schengen area. in retrospect, these mechanisms essentially minimize the impacts of border checks. since the departure dates at the external borders are not recorded, there is no systemic way of detecting tcn over stayers. given these and other practical considerations, (e.g. illegible stamps on travel documents), border guards are not able to accurately determine an individual's length of stay. moreover, member states lack a means to share any collected data. the existing system for controlling authorized stay consists of stamping documents and manually calculating time stayed; these means are fundamentally inadequate for border and immigration services needs. accurate calculation of time spent in places covered under schengen is time consuming and slows down traveler mobility. the present system lacks sufficient directives on how to proceed in cases where the traveler’s passport has been lost, substituted or damaged. more to the point, current eu regulations lack reliable mechanisms for the effective monitoring of tcn residence periods. to address these short comings, the european commission proposed that border guard should create a file in the ees database, where the personal data of the traveler will be stored instead of stamping his passport. the file is stored hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 779 issn :0250-7196 in the central database of the ees and is accessible by border control guards of all member states. the european commission proposed that only alphanumeric data (i.e. name, sex, date of birth, nationality, type and passport number) be registered and stored (com (2011) 680 final, 9). at subsequent crossings, only entry and exit information would be registered, after establishing that the individual’s file has been duly registered in the ees. the new it based system will automatically calculate the duration of permitted stay replacing the current manual system. an integral part of this is an electronic check-in/check-out system required of third country nationals. upon entrance, automated verification that will provide fast and accurate verification of how many days remain in a short stay and improve risk assessment for potential overstaying. at the exit, inputted data will automatically verify legal residence and determine whether a third country national has overstayed the authorized period. with a centralized and interoperable database system, data on overstayers would become available to designated national authorities who subsequently, would be able to take appropriate measures in dealing with overstayers, including penalties and expulsion. an issue arose as to whether the data should be stored for a six month period or five years as in the case of vis (visa information system). the compromise solution states that the data will be kept six months. the exception is for data on overstayers and in that case, data will be stored for a period of five years. however, 5 year data storage requirement for overstayers could be problematic. the unconditional implementation of data storage retention period of five years can lead to disproportionate restrictions on personal freedom of movement. in practice, individuals who exceed their permitted stay in the eu won’t be able to re-enter the eu for a period of no less than five years. 4.2. amendments to the schengen borders code the introduction of smart borders requires amendments to the existing schengen borders code. previously, existing proposals for amendments to the schengen borders code need to be acted on separately. some proposed legal and technical changes, such as those found in article 2, introduce additional definitions to ees. changes to (article 5 (2)) third country national registration requirements and exceptions in the ees can be placed in a previous category. the main target of the 2016 proposal amending the schengen borders code is to address the issue of overstayers. in that respect the proposal has the aim to introduce the technical changes that result from the 2016 ees proposal into the schengen borders code. this means hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 780 issn :0250-7196 to ensure in particular the recording in the ees of refusals of entry of third country nationals, the fall-back procedures for the ees and the interoperability between the ees and the vis (opinion 06/2016). 5. impact on human rights the european parliament voted on 25 october 2017 to finally adopt the entry/exit system (ees) and amendments to integrate it into the schengen borders code. however, several stakeholders, among them; the european data protection supervisor; the fundamental rights agency have expressed concerns about the risks to human rights. the european union is recognized for its commitment to respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms. in this context, employing a utilitarian, technical solution cannot be justified, if it violates fundamental human rights. the ees proposal shouldn’t violate the provisions of the eu charter of fundamental rights, the european convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and data protection directive. any encroachments on fundamental rights in a democratic society must be within good reason and in compliance with the article 52(1) of the eu charter and principle of proportionality ( com(2013) 95 final, 11). as the introduction of sb includes the creation of a personal data base which various actors can access, it is important to put mechanisms in place that prevent any possible abuses that violate personal data protection rights. the collected data must be relevant to the purpose collected and stored no longer than necessary. justification of collection, storage and processing of personal data is based on whether it serves legitimate aims and is proportional to the need. the digitalization of eu border management presents new challenges because of the ethical dimensions involved with protecting human rights. the idea of having a single, centralised database represents a significant risk of the violation to privacy and data protection, due to the amount of data stored, the risk of unauthorised access to the data, and the lack of robust data protection safeguards in the proposal. european directive on data protection do not permit the use of personal data for unspecified, unauthorized purposes. additional limits placed on data storage time ensure its use for intended purposes, only. once these purposes are accomplished, the data are erased or alternately, rendered anonymous. the only exemptions are where data are used for historical, statistical or scientific research purposes, providing safeguards are in place. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 781 issn :0250-7196 if the data are to be used for other than intended purposes, additional justifications and legal authorizations are required. this involves a process where appropriate authorities are notified; documentation is provided upon request; the data controller has reviewed the request, and the data subject has been advised. the edps also requires an impact analysis on the proposed use to avoid violating data protection practices (stefano bertozzi, 2008; thwaites, 2003). the ees is designed to be implemented and used for law-enforcement purposes after a 2 year evaluation period for impacts. the purpose of the ess program is to improve border control and detect overstayers within the schengen territory. data protection measures portend problems for ess implementation as the additional law-enforcement applications violate current restrictions on purposes, specified use practices and time restrictions defined under current data protection law provisions. given that ees changes potentially violate these data protection measures, any planned changes will need to address data protection practices. this could mean that plans for ees will need to be scrapped and changed. 6. conclusion the european integration process, notwithstanding economic, global pandemic and other crises, is experiencing a difficult period characterized by a lack of solidarity, democratic legitimacy and problems in external eu border management. announcements about increasing the number of tcn entering the schengen area, has compelled officials in brussels to consider reforms of border security measures that can be applied to eu’s external borders. smart borders can be construed, in technocratic senses, as revitalizing brussel’s central authority and decision-making capacities. officials in brussels are attempting to solve issues, themselves, and bypass member states’ concerns. however, the smart borders package is not enough, in itself, to guarantee the requisite level of political coordination for addressing potential delays or disruptions to its implementation. european institutions will need more executive and supervisory powers to manage the current eu crisis. if this doesn’t happen, implementation of announced reforms within the schengen zone may be suspended for an indefinite time. the entrance/exit system (ees), in all likelihood, won’t be any more effective in deterring unauthorized immigration for several reasons. first, the largest share of illegal immigrants in the eu are third country nationals who have legally entered and over-stayed their residency visas. the ees can detect overstayers or potential ones when they cross external borders, but those who have already legally entered and remaining within the schengen area aren’t easily hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 782 issn :0250-7196 identified. even if the ees could generate a list of overstayers for national authorities, it wouldn’t be able to assist in locating them for apprehension, as they lack up-to-date information as to tcn whereabouts within the schengen territory. if the aim of establishing the ees system is to combat unauthorized immigration into the schengen zone, then questions arise as to the goal’s feasibility. tcn personal data collection necessitates further review because of potential violation of privacy rights in personal data protection that are guaranteed under articles 7 and 8 of the eu’s charter of fundamental rights. other unexamined issues arise from ess identity data sharing with third countries or international organizations including the un. articles 7 and 8 of the charter address, respectively, what constitutes private information and how it will be treated. a determination needs to be made whether there are legitimate grounds for violating data protection rights. three year data storage exceeds eu laws safeguarding personal information. there are no provisions for insuring anonymity of tcn data during any time of its storage. retaining personal data on tcns for 3 years is highly intrusive, not withstanding the need to identify and monitor overstayers and individuals with entry bans. under certain conditions, longer periods of data storage may be justifiable in cases where data is used to prevent, detect and investigate terrorism or other offenses. in such cases, effective measures should be employed where fundamental rights are safe-guarded while carrying out crime detection and prevention investigations. restated, a reasonable balance needs to be maintained between guaranteeing fundamental rights to data protection while addressing increased security demands and surveillance for criminal activity. data on departing tcns should be retained only in so much as it is for the express purposes of combating terrorism and other serious crimes. the european commission’s ees proposal contains provisions for the long-term monitoring of third country nationals (tcns) following approved stays for 90 days. questions arise as to what rules will apply to tcns who have visas or have been granted residence for periods more than a 90 days. tcn visa violators will likely receive automatic visa application rejections in the future. for instance, if a schengen visa is applied for by a tcn visa violator where data has been stored in an ees central database for a five year period, the violation would lead to an immediate rejection of his visa application without taking into account any other important considerations. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 783 issn :0250-7196 in closing, challenges arising from changes in eu border check systems underscore the constant tension between balancing security and sovereignty needs of eu member states with fundamental individual freedoms such as freedom of movement. this paper has argued that the introduction of electronic technological innovations in the smart borders program represents a positive step forward in furthering eu border security aims, even with the identified weaknesses and current misgivings about threats to fundamental human rights to mobility. references alkopher, t.d. & blanc, e. (2017). schengen area shaken: the impact of immigration-related threat perceptions on the european security community. journal of international relations and development 20, 511-520. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-016-0005-9 amoore, l., marmura, s., & salter, m. (2008). smart borders and mobilities: spaces, zones, enclosures. surveillance & society. 5(2), 96-101. aremu, f. (2020). issues bordering the french language in sub-saharan africa: nigeria as a case study. journal of advanced research in social sciences and humanities, 5(2), 72-77. bigo, d., carrera,s., hayes,b., hernanz, n., & jeandesboz, j., (2012). justice and home affairs databases and a smart borders system at eu external borders an evaluation of current and forthcoming proposals, ceps. brady, h. (2012) saving schengen how to protect passport-free travel in europe. cer; eu,”zbornik radova pravnog fakulteta u splitu, god. 48, 1/2011, 15. fadahunsi, a., & barake, l. (2018). gender and microϐinance in the united arab emirates: an exploratory review of concepts and policy issues. journal of management practices, humanities and social sciences. 2(2), 49-53. hayes, b., & vermeulen, m. (2012). borderline: the eu's new border surveillance initiatives assessing the costs and fundamental rights implications of eurosur and the "smart borders" proposals. heinrich böll foundation; hobbing, p. (2005). integrated border management at the eu level. ceps working documents no. 227 hobbing, p. (2006). management of external eu borders: enlargement and the european border guard issue,“in: marina caparini and otwin marenin,. borders and security governance, dcaf; hoffmann-riem, w. (2006). two hundred years of marbury v. madison: the struggle for judicial review of constitutional questions in the united states and europe. german law journal, 05(06) jacolbia, r. b. (2016). future educators’ perceptions on technology and livelihood education status and development of work skills. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 2(2), 85-91. janjević, m. (2003). treći stub evropske unije. službeni list scg, beograd, 7. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-016-0005-9 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s.2 (2020), 774-784 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 784 issn :0250-7196 jones, c. (2014). smart borders: fait accompli? retreived https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/analyses/no-253-smart-borders.pdf karim mh, elyas, k. m., mahmood, s. n., & hossein, a. (2018). evaluation of human resources re-engineering and knowledge management processes on the economy of sirjan free trade zone (iran). international journal of business and economic affairs, 2(2), 127-134. koslowski, r., (2005). smart borders, virtual borders or no borders: homeland security choices for the united states and canada. law and business review of the americas, 11(3), 1-10. lehtonen, p, & aalto, p.(2017). smart and secure borders through automated border control systems in the eu? the views of political stakeholders in the member states. european security, 26(2), 207–222. masse, e. (2016). smart borders policy analysis. retrieved https://www.accessnow.org/cms/assets/uploads/2016/12/access-now-smart-borderpolicy-paper.pdf miller, d. (2011). territorial rights: concept and justification. political studies. pascouau,y.(2012). schengen and solidarity: the fragile balance between mutual trust and mistrust. epc roson, m. (2018). smart borders: the challenges remain a year after its adoption. available from: https://edri.org/smart-borders-the-challenges-remain-a-year-after-its-adoption/. silahtaroglu, g., & vardarler, p. (2016). a novel data mining study to spot anomalies in organizations: a human resources management case. international journal of business and administrative studies, 2(4), 89-95. stefano bertozzi, s. (2008). schengen: achievements and challenges in managing an area encompassing 3.6 million km. ceps working document no. 284; thwaites, n. (2003). mutual trust in criminal matters: the european court of justice gives a first interpretation of a provision of the convention implementing the schengen agreement. german law journal, 04(03), 253-262. https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/analyses/no-253-smart-borders.pdf https://www.accessnow.org/cms/assets/uploads/2016/12/access-now-smart-border-policy-paper.pdf https://www.accessnow.org/cms/assets/uploads/2016/12/access-now-smart-border-policy-paper.pdf https://edri.org/smart-borders-the-challenges-remain-a-year-after-its-adoption/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 39 advancements in hadith authentication methods: a systematic literature review mohamad khalid bahrudin dept of al-quran and hadith, academy of islamic studies, university of malaya, 50603 kuala lumpur, malaysia email: mohamadkhalid@um.edu.my ishak suliaman dept of al-quran and hadith, academy of islamic studies, university of malaya, 50603 kuala lumpur, malaysia email: ishakhs@um.edu.my mohamad azrien mohamed adnan islamic education programme, academy of islamic studies, university of malaya, 50603 kuala lumpur, malaysia email: mdazrien@um.edu.my accepted on: 13-03-2025 received on: 25-07-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.544 abstract since the commencement of hadith as one of the islamic branches of knowledge, scholars had given a lot of attention on the authentication process of hadith corpus. this is to avoid the exploitation or dissemination of non-authentic hadiths that can divert the society from the true islamic practices. despite this, there has been limited research on the systematic review of hadith authentication methods, particularly regarding their development. this study aims to address this gap by conducting a systematic literature review (slr) on the topic. a total 152 literatures were identified from the initial searching process. the number was eventually reduced to 66 after screening and qualification evaluation process. this study found that the methods divided into two themes: information and communication technology (ict) and conventional method. under these themes, there are topics and subtopics that further detailed the process of hadith authentication. the study identified several limitations such as the imbalance between methods of authentication, incomprehensive manipulation of data mailto:mohamadkhalid@um.edu.my mailto:ishakhs@um.edu.my mailto:mdazrien@um.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.544 40 advancements in hadith authentication … set, and the absence of authentication methods developed for a specific group of people. the study also finds that the synthesis of classical and modern approaches reveals a growing sophistication in the tools and techniques employed to assess the authenticity of hadith corpus. keywords: hadith, advancement, authentication, method, systematic. 1. introduction the term authentication refers to validation and verification of the authenticity of something. in arabic, it is translated as “ithbét îihéí” صحاح تاثبا , “al-muîaddaqah” ہالمصدق , taíaqquq” قتحق , “taíqêq”تحقیق, and “tauthêq”توثیق. all these terms are clearly signalling towards a vetting process. in the realm of the hadith knowledge, it involves the process of verifying and validating hadith texts to identify transmission inaccuracies and determine their status, whether they are to be accepted (maqbël) مقبول or rejected (mardëd) this is aligned with its definition according to scholars who .مردود suggested that authentication means the hadith classification into authentic or not authentic.1 therefore, it is understood that through the authentication process, we can identify the condition of hadith and eventually be able to evaluate its acceptance of rejection. failure in doing so will contribute to the usage and dissemination of unauthorised hadiths involving weak and bogus hadiths among the society and later exposing them to heresy and superstitious matters.2 however, with the proliferation and rapid development of various hadith authentication methods today, their effectiveness and suitability in authenticating hadith warrant discussion and critical examination. are these methods applicable to all target groups, or should individuals focus solely on approaches that align with their specific needs and level of expertise in hadith studies? for instance, in the current ict era, is the conventional authentication method still relevant, or should we transition to digital methods based on artificial intelligence for hadith authentication? in addition, the issue of comprehensive data coverage must be addressed, as some authentication methods do not encompass the entire hadith dataset but only cover a portion of its corpus. finally, the issue of recent developments in authentication methods also requires resolution by addressing whether conventional and modern methods can be integrated to produce a more efficient and holistic approach. hadith has not been exempted from the rapid advancements of ai technology, as discussions on its authentication through ai have begun to emerge. however, the debate over the suitability and accuracy of ai-based authentication remains a contentious issue that hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 41 demands resolution. therefore, this review seeks to examine the extent to which academics have engaged with this intriguing development. therefore, it is crucial to conduct a systematic literature review to examine the development and advancement of hadith authentication methods, particularly within the academic sphere. through this process, the limitations and gaps in previous studies can be identified, allowing for recommendations for further improvements. 2. background and literature review there were several slr conducted towards hadith authentication such as luthfi et, al,.3 which had viewed the method and set of data used in the hadith authentication study. saloot et. al, on the other hand, analysed classification and data mining related to hadith domain.4 the latest study was by binbeshr et. al,5 who reviewed literature related to authentication method and hadith classification. yet, these studies mostly were heavily inclined on the ict based authentication rather on the conventional method. there were also overlapping ideas between authentication and classification, besides their studies were limited until year 2019. thus, there is a need to conduct a more comprehensive and up-to-date review to fill the loops of those studies done. to gain a comprehensive review on the matter, the slr technique was chosen. according to okoli, schabram6 and booth et.al7, slr is defined as a review technique that emphasises systematic implementation involving clear and precise procedures and methods, and has comprehensive scope in reviewing all related materials, apart from being able to be recreated by other researchers when using the same approaches. it is an efficient and quality process that requires breadth and depth, rigor and consistent, clarity and brevity, and effective synthesis and analysis.8 slr analysis also reduce the possibility of biasness and ensure a comprehensive coverage on the selected research subject. basically, there are three considerable principles when conducting systematic review which are clarity, validity, and auditability. the clarity of the structure in the systematic review makes it easier to follow and interpret as well as help reveal what the researcher has and has not done in the systematic review. validity means it can be protected from any biasness in the selection of the research in the study. the systematic approach stresses that the selected literature should be based on its suitability and accuracy not due to its benefits of the findings or whether it is intrinsically interesting. while auditability means the transparency in which the 42 advancements in hadith authentication … reader can see whether the conclusion of the study was obtained from the survey process, or it is just a fabricated findings to support initial conclusions.9 based on its objectives, systematic review is conducted to answer the research questions that had initially been set up.10 this is different with the traditional review method which is designed specifically for summarization or visualisation of a topic.11 through systematic literature, the study can be concluded, analysed, and synthesised to identify the limitations and gaps. besides, it helps in evaluating the validity and quality of the study and eventually exposing its weaknesses, consistency, and contradictions.12 theory and hypothesis can be tested for the development of a better new theory. thus, this technique is selected in this study as opposed to other traditional literature reviews which are too broad and loose in term of it focus besides lacking of clear and strict method in its conduct.13 in addition, when compared to other disciplines, slr technique has not yet been widely used among the islamic studies researchers especially in the field of hadith study. 3. methodology the design of this study is qualitative in nature using descriptive method that aimed to identify, critically evaluating and integrating previous studies.14 according to kitchenham and charters an effective systematic review involves three main levels: planning, executions, and report.15 figure 1. flowchart of survey stages 3.1. review protocol this review adapted preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) as a guideline in developing review protocol.16 it explains the steps of the qualification hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 43 criteria, information sources, searching strategies, literature selection, literature quality evaluation and data extraction strategy. 3.2. systematic research strategy there are three main processes in systematic research strategy are identification, screening, and eligibility.17 3.2.1. identification identification is a process of searching a synonymous word, related term and variation of the main keyword. it is aimed at giving more choices to the data platforms in searching related literature.18 in this study, the researcher had varied the keywords and developed a search string using main keyword, ‘hadith authentication method’ with the variation of method terms in malay language such as ‘kaedah’, ‘teknik’, ‘manhaj’ and ‘cara’. while the term authentication has been varied to verification, validity, validation, review, takhrij, and criticism. the search using arabic keywords were done through the terms ‘manhéj tawthêq íadêth’ منہاج توثیق حدیث with variation of ‘uslëb, qé’idah اسلوب قاعدہ , taíqêq and taîíêí تحقیق the plurals such as ‘manéhij . تصحیح and asélêbقواعد qawé’id , مناہج were also interspersed in the search. the term ‘hadith’ has been اسالیب varied with the term ‘hadis’ and ‘sunnah dan sunna’. to obtain more comprehensive results, we also included related terms such as ‘sanad matn‘ ,’سند متن ’, and ‘isnad-cum-matn’ in our search process. the search using backwards searching and forwards searching has also been conducted in this survey. the searching process was conducted in two main data platforms: scopus and web of science (wos). both platforms were selected because of their advantages such as advance searching functions, being comprehensive in indexing publishers (more than 5000 publishers), strict articles quality control and put focus on multidisciplinary fields.19 google scholar then was added as third platform because of its capability to act as supplementary database as suggested by haddaway et. al.20 in addition, according to shaffril et. al one of the advantages of google scholar is its ability to provide mass search outcomes due to the numbers of documents in its database (389 million documents).21 the searching process using these three main platforms managed to collect a total of 152 literatures. 3.2.2. screening based on the selection criteria, this study has screened 152 literatures. the acceptance and rejection criteria helped in identifying the literature that answers the research problems. it was almost an 44 advancements in hadith authentication … impossible task for the researchers to analyse all those literatures related to hadith authentication method. thus, several selection and rejection criteria were listed in order to filter and gather a suitable literature only. in ensuring a comprehensive coverage of literature, this study accepted both conventional and ict authentication methods with four types of literatures were accepted: books, journal articles, proceedings and dissertations. this is to ensure the quality of the analysis. grey literature such as reports were exempted from this review as they were regarded as having less quality compared to reviewed journal articles and proceedings.22additionally, literature that was inaccessible or written in languages other than malay, english, and arabic was excluded from this review to prevent any potential misunderstandings. this screening process excluded 28 literatures that did not fit the above criteria. the remaining of 124 literatures underwent the next process which was the eligibility assessment. 3.2.3. eligibility assessment eligibility assessment is the third process where the researcher assessed each literature manually to ensure they are aligned with the criteria. according to shaffril this assessment was conducted by looking at the title and reading the abstract of the literature.23 this process eliminated 58 literatures due to several reasons such as irrelevant to the topic or inaccessible to abstract and their content. in the end, only 66 literatures were selected. 3.3. quality assessment in slr, the evaluation of quality articles is crucial element. it can be conducted through two methods: qualitative or quantitative.24 in this review, the qualitative assessment method using best evidence synthesis was selected. by using this method, the researchers evaluated the quality of each literature that would be analysed. quality assessment is based on the set of selection criteria in the screening process. any literatures that fit the selection criteria will be selected while the others will be discarded. petticrew and roberts suggested evaluators to divide the literature quality into three levels, high, average, and low. only those at the high and average levels are qualified to be analysed while those in low level need to be discarded. the selection of methodology in research was also used as the key measurement for the literature quality level in this study. this method of quality assessment could lead to high level of biasness, yet the difficulties of finding experts to assess the literature had made it the best option. this process was classified 50 literatures at high level, 16 in average, and none for the low level. figure 2 below shows the process of the literature selection in this study. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 45 figure 2. research literature selection flowchart 3.4. data analysis this review was conducted in the form of descriptive analysis using text narrative synthesis approach. descriptive form is the common survey conducted and easily identified. it analysed the literature based on specific topic, concept and research questions.25 while text narrative synthesis approach requires each literature to be arranged in homogenic sub-group based on the collected data for their similarities and differences analysis.26 context’s characteristics, quality and research findings also need to be reported according to a standardised format.27 4. findings this study analysed 66 literatures related to hadith authentication method. table 1 explains the topic, sub-topics and contexts of these literatures. based on thematic analysis, two main authentication methods were identified; ict and conventional method. figure 3 above shows its divisions. figure 3. the taxonomy of authentication method 46 advancements in hadith authentication … 4.1. information and communication technology (ict) there were 15 literatures discussed under this theme. 11 of them were focused on the authentication itself while other 4 on the classification process. research by al-faraby, s et.al , abdelaal, h.m and abdelaal, h.m, youness h.a classified hadith using data mining and machine learning techniques. al-faraby used sets of data from the malay language translated hadith while the other 2 research had unclear context on the used set of data. ghanem, m et.al classified hadith through learning vector quantisation (lvq) method by using a collection of 160 hadiths as their set of data. using hybrid deep learning models that combine bert (bidirectional encoder representations from transformers) with either bilstm (bidirectional long short-term memory) or bigru (bidirectional gated recurrent unit), mulyana and lhaksmana try to classify hadiths based on their authenticity (sahih, hasan, daif). researchers applied bert-bilstm and bert-bigru models, with text preprocessing and dataset balancing. the results show that bert-bilstm performed better, achieving high accuracy (96.3%). there are several researches that have authenticated hadith based on hadith narrators and their isnéd such as ghazizadeh, m et.al confirmed the level of hadith validity based on the characteristics of the narrator through fuzzy expert system. studies by azmi, a.m, badia, n.b and baraka, r.s et.al developed application and domain to build the hadith’s sanad ontology. a study by siddiqui, m.a et.al introduced a system that extracted isnéd automatically from a hadith through named entity recognition and classification and presented this sanad in the form of network. a study by najeeb, m.m had innovated isnéd processing system that autonomously issue judgement on the hadith. analysing the similarities and alignment of the concepts between isnéd assessment with the authentication of internet banking, study by ibrahim, n.k et.al found that there were several compatibilities and relations between both. thus, they suggested an authentication framework of sanad to be expanded further by researchers. from this six research, only study by azmi and badia had used a specific data set which was 90 hadith from øaíêí al-bukhéri and muslim. recently, study by luthfi and yusoh in 2024 introduced the hadith sanad authentication fuzzy expert system (hafes) to help verify hadith authenticity by analyzing the sanad (chain of narrators). unlike existing systems, hafes provides categorized authentication results using a fuzzy logic approach. the system achieved high accuracy in evaluating narrator reliability (92.72%) and missing narrators (98.16%), while the overall sanad status classification reached 72.2% accuracy. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 47 besides the authentication through narrators and sanad, there were several literatures under ict theme which discussed the authentication method through specific system development such as a study by kamsin, a et.al. their study apparently was not only limited to hadith texts, but it involved the authentication of the holy qur’én texts as well. a study by eljazzar, m.m et.al and kabir, m.n et.al on the other hand focused on the development of the website for authentication. kabir’s study exploited øaíêí al-bukhéri and øaíêí muslim as data set. by looking at the vast usage of mobile telephone, fadele, a.a et.al developed mobile authentication system for android and ios. however, it was only capable to authenticate hadith in malay language. by applying the authorship verification method, elewa, a authenticated hadith through its linguistic approach. he was not alone in this matter when e mohamed and r sarwar applied the same method yet through machine learning automation approach. 4.2. conventional method under the conventional method, there were 38 literatures which was divided into 5 different topics. 4.2.1. assessment of the narrators and isnéd due to the evaluation of hadith which is strongly influenced by the state of the narrator and isnéd, it is found that most authentication methods are under this topic. a large number of literatures were under this topic which discussed the methodology hadith scholars undertaken in evaluating hadith narrators. study by talib, h analysed the method of yahya bin sa’id al-qaththan. similarly, ridhwan, i.s and ‘audah, a.i on the method of abdul rahman bin ibrahim al-dimasyqi. kutluay, i focusing on the method of ahmad bin hanbal and then turhan, h.i on the method of shu‘bah bin al-hajjaj. the study by jamilin, a.k.b and yusoff, m.f did not only review the method abu hatim in evaluating hadith narrator, but also compared it with the method of the other hadiths critics. a study by abdullah, however viewed the authentication process of the hadith narrators in different perspectives. he analysed the critical thinking elements in differentiating between facts, rhetorical bias, differentials, evaluations, and logical conclusion. according to him, these elements are crucial to determine the reliability of the narrators. since the narrator’s evaluation most of the time were based on relative criticism, turhan discussed the need of an explicit principle to measure the process of narrator evaluation. among of the proposed principles is the tarjêí ترجیح narrator which is not accepted unless the reason is stated. finally, study by kaya, m 48 advancements in hadith authentication … discussed the reasons why the isnéd اسناد evaluation is preferred compared to other methods in the hadith authentication. 4.2.2 assessment of the hadith’s matn according to khan28 and ayub29 the hadith authentication through the study of matn has not being given equal priority by the conservative scholars as the isnéd’s study. furthermore, brown stated that there is a consensus among the western scholars that this method is limitedly applied by the hadith critics.30 in the article entitled the authentication of hadith: redefining the criteria, khan listed 5 criteria that became the principle in assessing matn hadith which are holy qur’én, authentic hadith, sound rationality, precise history facts, and moderation. discussion on this topic was continued by brown when he discussed several examples extensively of matn authentication by the scholars in the 3rd and 4th century of hijr. he concluded that hadith scholars in the early era of islam did not neglect matn authentication but hid them under the criticism of isnéd. in another research by him, he discussed on the polemic towards the matn authentication among islamic scholars and their school of thoughts. abdurrahman argued that the hadith scholars had not yet clearly outlined the method of matn assessment. on that account, he introduced the procedure of assessing matn validity from two aspects, syaz (conflict with more valid matn) and ‘illah علہ(hidden flaws that weakening hadith). both aspects however have their own specific rules that bound their application such as the existence of data comparison and concrete indication. the study by ayub debated on the roles of matn assessment in hadith authentication. 4.2.3 assessment on both sanad and matn hadith authentication through the combined analysis of sanad and matn has increasingly garnered attention among contemporary scholars, particularly with the introduction of the concept of isnād-cum-matn analysis by harald motzki and g. schoeler. motzki’s theory of isnéd-cum-matn refers to a method of hadith authentication that integrates the analysis of both the isnād (and the matn of the hadith.31 there are countless works discussed under this newly offered category. a study by nagel, t examined the role of isnād-cum-matn analysis to uncover the accuracy of the biography and life history of the hazrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyun sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam. he, however, considered this method to be a futile effort in achieving the goal. focusing on the matter of inheritance, pavlovitch, p and powers, d.s hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 49 questioned the authority of the narration “a bequest may not exceed one-third of the estate” to the hazrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyun sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam. in year 2021, qureshi, b.a examines motzki's use of this method in relation to the traditions of the hazrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyun sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam concerning zakét al-fiïr, while also highlighting some of the limitations in motzki's application of the method. following qureshi works, budiman, a et. al explored motzki's theory of isnād-cummatn analysis by examining the hadith related to usury (riba’). the author's theoretical analysis of the hadith on usury reveals that the hazrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyun sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam serves as a central link, while three companions; abdullah ibn mas'ud, abu hurairah, and bara' ibn hazib, act as partial links in the chain. similarly, fadhil, h.m and imtyas, r explored the narration about loving arabs amid some muslim arab cults. recently, based on the premise that the isnād-cum-matn method has limitations, muhammad, t and nasir, s. discussed how to enhance it by using additional analytical methods, such as a prosopographic analysis of the isnād to trace the origins of the hadīth and a thematic examination of the motifs in the matn, rather than relying on the previously explored historiographic approaches. in more general discussions, kurniawan, m. i. r., mutammimah, b., et.al, kizil, f and syed, m talked about isnād-cummatn analysis in the light of its main concept, challenges, limitations, potentials and benefits. challenging single strands theory by juynboll’s, ayşe in his study under the title ‘using isnād-cum-matn analysis to verify the authenticity of the transmission process of single strands: a case study of g. h. a. juynboll.’ explores how integrating isnād-cum-matn analysis (icma) with the traditional method of mu‘ārada and rijāl evaluation can enhance the authenticity verification of hadith transmissions. by applying icma to single isnéds, particularly for a hadith related to the permissibility of killing women and children in battles, the study challenges juynboll’s view that single isnéds are unreliable. it reveals additional isnéds and textual variants not included by juynboll and shows that these variants, when analyzed with rijāl data, support the authenticity of the hadith’s transmission process. the study argues that juynboll’s dismissal of single isnéds as fabrications is inaccurate for this hadith and shouldn’t be applied broadly. lastly, ismail, t.m.s.t et.al discussed the foundation and scope of the sanad and matn evaluation. they analysed the relationship between the two elements and came to a conclusion that there were 4 situations that would affect the authenticity of hadith; both sanad and matn authentic, both sanad and matn inauthentic, authentic sanad but inauthentic matn and authentic matn but 50 advancements in hadith authentication … inauthentic sanad. in this matter, only the first situation, where both the sanad and matn are authentic, is considered valid and acceptable. 4.2.4 takhrêj method by looking at the main topic of this study, it is undeniable that takhrêj تخریج is one of the main methods in authenticating hadith. therefore, this review managed to examine several studies that had directly discussed the takhrêj method. among was the study by bahrudin and sagala, a which examined general concept of takhrêj including its methods, steps, levels and practical examples. while study by dakir, j et.al debated on the importance and position of the takhrêj method in the elicit process of laws and fatwé. 4.2.5 scholar authentication method this review found 14 literatures discussing scholars’ methodology in hadith authentication. ‘atiyah, m.m (t.th) discussed the authentication method of ibn daqiq al-‘eid in his book al-imam fi ma‘rifat aíédêth al-aíkém. mahmud, a.m researched on the al-tabari’s method in tahzêb alathar. kafi, a.b analysed the al-bukhari’s taîíêí method in his magnum opus al-jémi‘ al-øaíêí. while islam, m.a compared the authentication method of abu hanifah which represented ahl ré’yu with ahl íadêth. zulhilmi, m.n studied ibn solah’s method and harmonised it with contemporary scholar’s authentication theories. tracing the works of al-shéfi‘ê and muslim, abu-alabbas, b analysed and compared the standard evaluation of hadith that were established by both. the study concluded that both al-shéfi‘ê and muslim had a similar standard evaluation albeit different framework and agenda. chodir, f on the other hand, specifically studied alshéfi‘ê’s authentication method from his masterpiece al-risélah. in his study, al-misri, a.s tried to compare between al-albani method of authentication with the prerequisite set up by al-bukhari and muslim in their øaíêí. the study concluded that there are several inclusive and exclusive principles between them regarding hadith authentication. in two of his articles, yusoff, m.f discussed on the methodology of hadith criticism of ibn hibban in his treatise øaíêí ibn ×ibbén and his approach towards authenticating sêrah of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). although both studies involved the same scholar, it looked at different contexts of authentications. besides that, rahim, v.k.h, zulfikar, e and calgan, m.a explored al-ghumari, al-hakim and ibn kathir’s authentication method in their works in al-mudawi li ‘ilal al-jémi‘ al-saghêr wa sharí al-munawi, mustadrak ‘ala al-saíêíayn dan tafsêr al-qur’én al-‘azim respectively. the final review in this sub-topic is the study hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 51 by al-tahrir, r (2021) who examined authentication methods of ahl uîël and comparing them with the methods of ahl íadêth. he concluded that ahl uîël had an independent theories and methods in dealing with khabar aíad which was based on textual certainty and establishment of practice of the text. on the contrary, ahl íadêth applied the theory of al-i‘tibér, al-ta‘lêl, al-shahid and al-mutabi‘ to authenticate any sanad or matn. other than those 5 topics mentioned above, there were several studies which did not fit in any of those topics such as study by usman, u, kamali, m.h and muhkhlisin which discussed on the authentication method in general. study by baru, r et.al established a guideline in authenticating false hadiths according to the standard outlined by ibn qayyim in his work naqd al-manqël, while zulkifli, m and khudori, m analyzed kasyaf method which was practiced by some of the sufi in validating the hadith. they concluded, that since the nature of kasyaf method was too relative and subjective, it does not carry a solid foundation to be considered as one of hadith authentication methods. bil . theme topic sub-topic context research 1. information and communicat ion technology (ict) authenticati on program fuzzy system narrator characteristi c, kafi volume 1, hadith sanad authenticati on fuzzy expert system (hafes) ghazizadeh , m et.al (2008) luthfi. e.t. & yusoh, z.i.m (2024) 2. kamsin, a. et.al (2015) 3. associativ e classificati on technique najeeb, m.m (2014) hybrid deep learning models bert (bidirectiona l encoder representati ons from transformer s), bilstm (bidirectiona l long short-term memory), bigru mulyana, m. h & lhaksmana, k. m (2024) 52 advancements in hadith authentication … (bidirectiona l gated recurrent unit). 4. hadith ontology developme nt domain hadith isnad ontology isnad/narrat or baraka, r.s et.al (2014) 5. e-narrator applicatio n chain of narrators, 90 hadiths from sahih albukhari and muslim azmi, a.m, (2010) 6. badia, n.b (2010) 7. isnad extraction from hadith named entity recognitio n and classificati on isnad/narrat or siddiqui, m.a et.al (2014) 8. authenticati on of linguistic aspect method authorship verificatio n elewa, a (2019) 9. machine learning automation e mohamed, r sarwar (2021) 10 . web extension program øaíêí albukhari and muslim database kabir, m.n et.al (2018) eljazzar, m.m et.al (2017) 11 . mobile authenticati on system android and ios fadele, a.a et.al (2020) 12 . isnéd similarity with banking authenticatio n concept ibrahim, n.k et.al (2019) 13 . classificati on data mining and machine learning abdelaal, h.m et.al (2019) 14 . lvq (learning vector quantizati on) collection of 160 hadith ghanem, m et.al (2016) 15 . machine learning translation of malay language hadith al faraby, s et.al (2018) hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 53 16 . machine learning, based on reliability and memory strength of hadith narrator abdelaal, h.h, youness, h.a (2019) 17 . conventiona l/ traditional assessment towards narrator/isn ad methodolo gy abu hatim jamilin, a.k.b, yusoff, m.f.b.m (2020) 18 . abdul rahman bin ibrahim aldimasyqi ismail sa’id ridhwan, ahmad idris ‘audah (2007) 19 . ahmad bin hanbal kutluay, i (2011) 20 . yahya bin said alqatthan talib hammad (2005) 21 . shu’bah bin al-hajjaj turhan, h.i (2017) 22 . applicatio n of critical thinking jarí wa ta‘dêl abdullah, i (2012) 23 . principle and regulations of narrator assessment turhan, h.i (2018) 24 . sanad prioritise from matn kaya, m (2019) 25 . matn assessment syaz and illah abdurrahm an (2013) 26 . ayub ayub (2018) 27 . brown, j.a.c (2012) 28 . brown, j.a.c (2008) 29 . khan, i.a (2007) 30 . sanad and matn assessment isnad-cummatn nagel, t (2012) 54 advancements in hadith authentication … analysis (icma) pavlovitch, p and powers, d.s (2014) qureshi, b.a (2021), budiman, a et. al (2022) fadhil, h.m and imtyas, r (2023) muhammad , t and nasir, s. (2024) kurniawan, m. i. r. (2021) mutammim ah, b., et.al, (2023) kizil, f (2024) syed, m (2024) hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 55 ozgur, a.m (2024) ismail, t.m.s.t et.al (2014) 31 . takhrêj method a sagala (2021) 32 . laws and fatwé dakir, j et.al (2012) 33 . hadith aíad bahrudin bahrudin (2009) 34 . scholar method ibn hibban øaíêí ibn ×ibbén yusoff, m.f (2020) ibn solah authenticati on of mutaqaddimê n zulhilmi, m.n (2016) al-shafei scripture of al-risélah chodir, f (2020) 35 . ibn kathir tafsêr alqur’én alazim calgan, m.a (2020) 36 . al-shafei and muslim both narrator’s works abualabbas, b (2017) 37 . ibn hibban sêrah nabawiyah yusoff, m.f (2019) 39 . ahmad alghumari al-mudawi li ‘ilal aljami‘ alsaghir wa shyarh almunawi vkh rahim (2019) 38 . al-hakim mustadrak ‘ala alsahihayn zulfikar, e (2020) 40 . usul experts (usuliyyin) rais altahrir (2021) 41 . ibn daqiq al-‘eid al-imém fi ma‘rifat aíédêth alaíkém maymuni mughamma d ‘atiyah (t.th) 42 . al-albani syarat aløaíêíayn anas sulaiman al-misri (2018) 43 . al-tabari tahzêb alaïhar abdul majid 56 advancements in hadith authentication … mahmud (2005) 44 . al-bukhari al-jémi‘ aløaíêí abu bakar kafi (2007) 45 . abu hanifah comparison with hadith expert method islam, mohamad amin (2008) 46 . guideline false hadith ibn qayyim dalam naqd al-manqul baru, r et.al (2017) 47 . kasyf method øëfi expert m kudhori (2018) zulkifli, m (2014) 48 . general kamali, m.h (2014) 49 . mukhlisin (2019) usman, u (2009) table 1. theme, topic and sub-topic of hadith authentication method 5. discussion this slr explores 66 researches related to hadith authentication method. in terms of literature types, 54 of them were journal articles, 4 master dissertations, 6 conference proceedings and 2 were books. figure 3 explains the taxonomy of these methods. in general, there are two themes related to authentication methods: conventional and ict. both are represented by several topics and subtopics as per above. with respect to the publication year, fig. 4 shows a steady number of publications of hadith authentication methods from year 2005 to 2024. however, from year 2014 to 2024 this topic received more attention from scholars with significant increase in publication. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 57 figure 4. distribution of publishing years this review identifies articles related to hadith authentication scattered in 48 different journals as can be seen in table 2. no journal 1 ieee access 2 al-masaq 3 journal of physics 4 international journal of computer application 5 advances in computer and information sciences and engineering 6 international journal on islamic applications in computer science and technology 7 malaysian journal of islamic studies 8 international journal of islamic application computer science technology 9 international journal of computer linguistic research 10 jurnal pusaka 11 arabian journal for science and engineering 12 computers and society 13 digital scholarship in the humanities 14 international journal of engineering and technology (uae) 15 australian journal of basic and applied sciences 16 romanian journal of information science and technology 17 cumhuriyet dental journal 18 al-bayan 19 islamic law and society 20 asian social science 21 intellectual discourse 2 0 3 3 2 2 1 4 1 7 1 2 4 6 8 6 5 2 2 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 2 0 1 5 2 0 1 6 2 0 1 7 2 0 1 8 2 0 1 9 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 1 2 0 2 2 2 0 2 3 2 0 2 4 58 advancements in hadith authentication … 22 energy education science and technology 23 bilimname 24 global journal al-thaqafah 25 ilahiyat studies-a journal on islamic and religious studies 26 journal of academic research in religious sciences 27 international journal of information technology 28 international journal of computer trends and technology 29 digital scholarship in the humanities 30 american journal of islamic social sciences 31 international journal of advanced studies in computers, science and engineering 32 ishlah: jurnal ilmu ushuluddin, adab dan dakwah 33 jurnal ilmu dakwah 34 hadis. jurnal alasma: media informasi dan komunikasi ilmiah 35 al-ulum: jurnal pendidikan islam 36 indonesian interdisciplinary journal of islamic studies 37 iug journal of islamic studies 38 jordanian scientific journal 39 egyptian journals 40 ijish (international journal of islamic studies and humanities) 41 hamdard islamicus 42 islamic history and civilization 43 arabica 44 takwil: journal of quran and hadith studies 45 al-bukhari : jurnal ilmu hadis 46 ushuluna: jurnal ilmu ushuluddin 47 religia 48 international journal of innovative computing, information and control table 2. list of journals this systematic review concludes that the scholars' methods of authentication and isnad-cum-matn analysis dominate the studies, with 12 works specifically discussing these topics. this finding highlights the significant contributions of hadith scholars in authenticating the hadith corpus and underscores the importance of both sanad and matn analysis in validating hadith. in a way it gives signal to all hadith critic and researcher to attribute their works based on the foundation and principle laid down by the scholars. the second most dominant method is the authentication through isnéd evaluation with 8 literatures. even though the number of literatures collected in this study were quite high, relatively when compared to the other field of hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 59 knowledge, the study on hadith authentication method is still limited in terms of quantity and quality as was found out by hakak, s et. al and binbeshr, f et. al.32 the alienated of term ‘authentication’ in the context of hadith assessment and verification might play a significant role in affecting the number of returned literatures during the searching process. it is worth noting that, in this study, authentication encompasses both ict-based and classical methods, though their applications differ. within the ict framework, authentication refers to the process of verifying the validity of a hadith using information technology. in contrast, within the classical paradigm, it pertains to the traditional examination of sanad and matn to ascertain the authenticity of a hadith. this study also finds that conventional method has excelled the ict method. this imbalance however contradicted with the current reality which leaned heavily on the digitalisation and computerisation. other than that, in term of frequency, this review has also discovered that the study on hadith authentication through isnéd examination has outshined matn analysis. in the hadith authentication process, trusted and complete data set has become a crucial requirement.33 though there were several data sets used, they were not comprehensive enough when compared to the enormous hadith corpus. for example, al-kutub alsittah as a data set in some of the studies is limited to øaíêí albukhéri and øaíêí muslim only, neglecting the other four remaining books. this review discovered the absence of study focusing on developing the authentication method for specific group of people such as students, book authors, editors of publishing companies and others. both zulkifli’s and kudhori’s studies though were viewed as focusing more on the sufi’s hadith authentication method through kasyaf concept, are more towards the assessment and critics on the method not to develop an actual authentication module. lastly, the study found that the authentication of hadith using artificial intelligence (ai) applications has yet to receive significant attention among academics, despite the global trend of artificial intelligence (ai) integration across various fields. most of the existing literature on hadith and artificial intelligence (ai) has thus far focused only on three main issues—comprehension, prospects, and ethics—without addressing authentication methods. 6. conclusion the systematic literature review (slr) conducted on 66 studies related to hadith authentication method discovered that 49 60 advancements in hadith authentication … research were related to conventional method and the remaining 17 were on information and communication technology (ict) method. in the conventional method, the evaluation of isnéd and hadith narrator is still the preferred method by most researchers. however, authentication method through matn assessment has begun to gain serious attention among researchers. relatively, digital method of authenticating hadith is still new, quite complex, and is facing several challenges to develop. so far, most are focusing on the development of authentication program based on hadith isnéd using machine learning approach. the hybrid approach with conventional methods is most likely the way forward in order to establish a comprehensive and efficient digital authentication method. since there is no specific hadith authentication method for focus group being promoted, researchers are urged to develop a suitable and comprehensive hadith authentication module or guideline for critical groups such as islamic speakers, preachers, book authors and editors, and students at all levels of studies. the broadness and complexity of hadith erudition emphasised the need towards them. this study concludes that contemporary researchers need to enliven the research activities related to hadith authentication method. the thrust of studies needs to be varied and at the same time ensuring the highest level of research quality. in summary, this systematic review highlights significant advancements in the field of hadith authentication, reflecting a dynamic interplay between traditional methodologies and contemporary technological innovations. the integration of classic and modern methods shows an increasing sophistication in the tools and techniques used to evaluate the authenticity of hadith corpus. advances in digital technology, such as database management systems and machine learning algorithms, have enhanced the ability to analyse large volumes of hadith texts with greater precision and efficiency. in the context of the advancement of authentication methods, which is the focus of this review, this study is rather surprised by the absence of literature on hadith authentication through artificial intelligence (ai) applications. we believe that research in this area is crucial to assess its suitability, justification, and accuracy in authenticating hadith. notes and references 1 binbeshr, f, kamsin, a, mohammed, m. “a systematic review on hadith authentication and classification methods”. acm trans. asian low-resour. lang. inf. process. 20, 2, article 34 (2021). 2. 2 abdul ghani azmi bin haji idris, himpunan hadis dha’if dan maudhu’. kuala lumpur: alhidayah publications, 2009: iv. see abdul hayei bin abdul sukor, hadith mawdu‘: sejarah dan cara-cara mengenalinya. kuala lumpur: jakim, 2015: 12. see firdaus khairi abdul kadir, fazli adam, “hadith palsu: kajian terhadap faktor penyebaran dan kaedah mengatasinya” dalam proceedings of the hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 61 international conference on islamic civilization and technology management (2324 november 2019): 516. 3 emha taufiq luthfi, nanna suryana, abdulsamad hasan basari, “digital hadith authentication: a literature review and analysis.” journal of theoretical and applied information technology, 96(15):5054-5068 (2018). 4 binbeshr, f, kamsin, a, mohammed, m. “a systematic review on hadith authentication,” 2. 5 binbeshr, f, kamsin, a, mohammed, m. “a systematic review on hadith authentication and classification methods”. acm trans. asian low-resour. lang. inf. process. 20, 2, article 34 (2021). 2. 6 okoli, c, schabram, k. “a guide to conducting a systematic literature review of information systems research” working papers on information systems, (2010): 9-10. 7 booth, a. sutton, a, papaioannou, d, “systematic approaches to a successful literature review”. sage publications ltd, 2011, 2nd edition: 9-10. 8 booth, a. sutton, a, papaioannou, d, “systematic approaches to a successful literature review” 11. 9 booth, a. sutton, a, papaioannou, d, “systematic approaches..” 2-21. 10 dewey, a. & drahota, a. “introduction to systematic reviews” online learning module cochrane training. accessed october 13, 2021. https://training.cochrane.org/interactivelearning/module1-introduction-conductingsystematic-reviews. 11 lynn kysh, “what's in a name? the difference between a systematic review and a literature review, and why it matters.” pennstate university libraries. accessed 15 october, 2021. https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/c.php?g=319063&p=5222056 12 yu xiao, maria watson. “guidance on conducting a systematic literature review”, journal of planning education and research, (2017): 1. 13 jesson. j.k, matheson. l, lacey. f.m “doing your literature review: traditional and systematic techniques”. sage publications ltd, 2011: 24. 14 bem, d.j. “writing a review article for psychological bulletin.” psychological bulletin, vol. 118, no. 2. 1995: 172. 15 kitchenham & charters, “guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering”. ebse technical report, ebse-(2007): 6. 16 hutton b, salanti g, caldwell dm, chaimani a, schmid ch, cameron c, ioannidis jp, straus s, thorlund k, jansen jp, mulrow c, catalá-lópez f, gøtzsche pc, dickersin k, boutron i, altman dg, moher d. “the prisma extension statement for reporting of systematic reviews incorporating network meta-analyses of health care interventions: checklist and explanations.” ann intern med. 2015 jun 2;162(11):777-84. 17 shaffril, h.a.m, ahmad, n, samsuddin, s.f, asnarulkhadi a. s, hamdan. m.e. “systematic literature review on adaptation towards climate change impacts among indigenous people in the asia pacific regions.” journal of cleaner production, 258 (2020): 3. 18 shaffril, h.a.m, et. al “systematic literature review on adaptation towards climate change..” 3. 19 martin-martin, a., orduna-malea, e., thelwall, m., delgado lopez-cozar, e., 2018. google scholar, web of science, and scopus: a systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories. j. info. 12 (4), 1160e1177. 20 haddaway, n.r., collins, a.m., coughlin, d., kirk, s., 2015. the role of google scholar in evidence reviews and its applicability to grey literature searching. plos one 10 (9), e0138237. 21 shaffril, h.a.m, et. al “systematic literature review..” 3. 22 yu xiao, maria watson. “guidance on conducting a systematic literature review” 13. 23 shaffril, h.a.m, et. al “systematic literature review..” 4. 24 petticrew, m., roberts, h., 2006. systematic reviews in the social sciences : a https://training.cochrane.org/interactivelearning/module1-introduction-conducting-systematic-reviews https://training.cochrane.org/interactivelearning/module1-introduction-conducting-systematic-reviews https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/c.php?g=319063&p=5222056 62 advancements in hadith authentication … practical guide. blackwell publishing ltd. 125-163. 25 yu xiao, maria watson. “guidance on conducting a systematic literature review” 3. 26 lucas pj, baird j, arai l, law c, roberts hm. “worked examples of alternative methods for the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research in systematic reviews.” bmc med res methodol. jan 15; 7(2007) 4. 27 harden a, garcia j, oliver s, rees r, shepherd j, brunton g, oakley a. “applying systematic review methods to studies of people's views: an example from public health research.” journal epidemiol community health. sep; 58(9), (2004) 794800. 28 khan, i.a “the authentication of hadith: redefining criteria” the american journal of islamic social sciences 24:4 (2010) 50. 29 ayub ayub. “matn criticism and its role in the evaluation of hadith authenticity” ijish, volume 1, number 1, (2018) 69. 30 brown, j. a “how we know early ḥadīth critics did matn criticism and why it’s so hard to find” islamic law and society 15 (2008) 143. 31 muh. ilham r. kurniawan. “theory dating and isnad cum matnharald motzki in revealing the authenticity of the prophet hadith.” al-bukhari: jurnal ilmu hadis. vol. 4 no. 2, desember (2021) 105. 32 hakak, s. kamsin, a, khan, w.z, zakari, a, imran, m, ahmad, k, gilka, g.a “digital hadith authentication: recent advances, open challenges, and future directions” journal transactions on emerging telecommunications technologies, special issue article, (2020) 16. see binbeshr, f, kamsin, a, mohammed, m. “a systematic review on hadith authentication..” 12. 33 hakak, j. et. al “digital hadith authentication..” 9 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 95 … a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks from sharī‘ah perspective abdul muneem, dr. nor fahimah mohd razif, dr. abdul karim ali academy of islamic studies, university of malaya, malaysia email: abdkarim@um.edu.my received on: 05-06-21 accepted on: 26-11-21 abstract: the purpose of this study is to address qalb al-dayn (debt restructuring) from classical and contemporary sharī‘ah points of view and to analyse the views of sharī‘ah scholars regarding the practice of qalb al-dayn. the study follows a qualitative research approach where it applies comparative and descriptive analyses methods to explore the thoughts and opinions of classical and contemporary scholars. the study finds that scholars have diverse opinions regarding the application of qalb al-dayn where most of the scholars do not allow to apply qalb al-dayn at all and some other scholars allow applying qalb al-dayn for solvent debtors only with some rigorous restrictions. the majority of scholars agree that the application of qalb al-dayn is not permissible for an insolvent debtor. to overcome those issues, islamic banks may strictly use a rescheduling of a financing facility instead of restructuring a facility while following the guidelines provided by the scholars. the paper provides beneficial insights to the researchers, the islamic banks, and their customers to avoid the issue of qalb al-dayn, particularly in debt-based financing, and to establish justice among the society and islamic banks. keywords – debt, qalb al-dayn, faskh al-dayn, sharī‘ah, islamic banking, debt rescheduling, debt restructuring mailto:abdkarim@um.edu.my 96 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … 1. introduction the islamic banking system is unveiling useful sharī‘ah compliant products and services. the nature of those products varies from one another and can either be equity-based or debt-based. according to some researchers1, the current practice of islamic banks is more towards debtbased financing, where the equity portion is very small. the debt-based financing in islamic banks is mostly provided through al-murābaíah (cost plus profit sale), and al-tawarruq (monetization), al-ijārah (leasing), al-mushārakah al-mutanāqiṣah (diminishing partnership), bay‘ al-mu’ajjal (sale with deferred payment) and al-qarì al-ḥaîan (benevolent loan)2. the financing products based on those contracts allow a customer to pay the price/rent within certain installments and subsequently the customer falls under an obligation of debt. it is important to mention that sharī‘ah does not prohibit being indebted. but it warns debtors to be careful about the payment and also forbids having any kind of interest (ribā) while entertaining any kind of loan or debt transaction. providing debt-based products by islamic banks and subsequently, collection of that debt from customers may lead to inconvenient events, especially, when there is a loan default or financial stress faced by a customer. conventional banks have several methods to deal with this kind of issue, such as debt rescheduling and restructuring3. in such practice, the debtor/customer has to pay an extra amount of money to reschedule or restructure the loan and to pay the debt at a later time. such prohibited practice is also narrated by scholars like al-alūsī, where they mention that during the era of ignorance (ayyām al-jāhiliyyah) the people were used to take a loan, and once it was due, the usurious creditor used to say to the debtor: “pay me an extra amount (from the money has been lent from me), i will extend the period of payment”4. 2. problem statement when it comes to islamic banks, the study proves that rescheduling and restructuring of financing facilities resemble the concept of qalb aldayn/faskh al-dayn (debt restructuring) which invokes some sharī‘ah issues5. sharī‘ah scholars (imām mālik6 and ibn taymiyyah7) discuss the concept of qalb al-dayn and its forms from the practice of the people during their time. according to imām mālik8 and ibn taymiyyah9, the practice of qalb al-dayn leads to ribā (interest) which is impermissible in sharī‘ah 10. in this regard, contemporary scholars also do not allow hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 97 … practicing qalb al-dayn in general11, however, due to the current financial system, some scholars allow the practice of qalb al-dayn for some mūsir (solvent debtor) with some strict sharī‘ah guidelines12. 3. research objectives based on the above matter, there is a dire need to study qalb al-dayn by looking at the opinions of classical and contemporary scholars and uncover the best opinion which assists islamic banks to continue their smooth performance and efficiency while providing the best financial facilities and services which are sharī‘ah compliant and compatible with the current financial markets’ trends. therefore, the objective of this study is to address the concept of qalb al-dayn from classical and contemporary sharī‘ah points of view and to analyse the views of sharī‘ah scholars regarding the practice of qalb al-dayn. moreover, the study also aims to recommend some solutions to the issue which benefit the customers of islamic banks, the practitioners and the academicians. 4. literature review 4.1. debt (dayn)-based financing in modern islamic banking system borrowing and lending money or other property is allowed in islam based on the necessity of an individual and organization. additionally, islam also provides guidelines for borrowing and lending. regarding the quranic approval to dayn, in general, scholars refer to sūrah al-baqarah, verse 282, which holds: “o you who believe, when you transact a debt payable at a specified time, put it in writing”13. borrowing money from an individual or a financial institution is also one way to fulfill the necessity of someone. two terms are generally used in the context of borrowing and lending in arabic which are qarì (loan) and dayn (debt). dayn (debt) refers to liability on someone who has to pay the debt at a later time and the liability may incur in many ways and it does not involve any profit. whereas qarì (loan) is simply defined as a loan that does not involve interest (ribā) and the loan is extended out of goodwill14. linguistically, dayn is used for several meanings: debt, the price of goods, sale with deferred payment, something which is delayed in its maturity time, and something which is not in the presence15. the 98 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … comprehensive meaning of dayn (debt) can cover any kind of liabilities of a person either the liability of a person towards allah almighty or towards a human being and the liability can be compensated either by property or any other way. ibn nujaim16 explained dayn as an obligation of rights on someone’s liability. whereas the specific meaning of dayn (debt) can be found in accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi), sharī‘ah standard no. (4)17, it states: “a debt is any liability that is not in terms of a specified or defined item, whatever the cause of its establishment, i.e. whether its origin is in cash or in a commodity, or in a particular described benefit such as the benefit of using particular things or services of persons. for instance, the consideration in deferred sales and loans is described as a debt”. therefore, the debt (dayn) is referred to the liability of a person towards creditor or financier which is incurred from any financial contracts such as tawarruq, murābaíḥah, ijārah, and qarì with a financial institution or a person. in the modern islamic banking system, there are several types of products and services in the market to cater to the needs of the customers18. the products and services must meet the sharī‘ah requirements before being offered to customers. ribā (interest), gharar (uncertainty), and maisir (gambling) are some prohibited actions that the contracts must be free of19. fulfilling these requirements allow the product to be served to the customers. the current products in islamic banking have differences in their natures. the current practice of islamic banks shows that normally the customer asks the bank to purchase a specified product from a third party and later the bank buys that product, and the customer purchases it from the bank paying the price in certain installments. murābaíah (cost plus profit sale) and tawarruq (monetization) are among the most practiced contracts in islamic banks that allow the customer to purchase a property i.e., car, house, through an islamic bank20. and these contracts also allow the customer to pay the price of their purchased property in certain installments e.g., 5 to 20 years with a marked-up price based on their mutual agreement at the time of execution of the contract. in addition, ijārah is a lease facility that is also a sharī‘ah compliant product, and it is also used very commonly in most of the islamic banks. ijārah in the islamic banks also offers to -rent to owna facility where the customer pays the rental for a certain period and later the customer owns it21. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 99 … the above-mentioned debt-based products in islamic banks have advantages and disadvantages for the customers. the customers can buy their desired property and fulfill their needs using those islamic banking facilities which are considered as an advantage to the customers. on the other hand, the customers are being in debt to the banks for a period of time to pay the prices of their purchased properties. in such a case, the customers have to continue paying the debt to the banks regardless of their financial hardship. mehmet asutay22, and asyraf wajdi dusuki23 claimed that debt-based financing is more practiced in islamic banks instead of equity-based financing. mansor jusoh and norlin khalid24 also find that most of the islamic banks in the world are depending on debtbased financing products leaving the profit and loss sharing products as the least used mode of financing instruments. therefore, the customers who are entertaining such debt-based financing from islamic banks are required to fulfill their installments based on their agreement. however, some customers may not be able to pay the installments on their scheduled time hence the banks send reminders to them. in the case that the customer is not able to pay the installments, the bank has the right to take any legal action25. but if the customer comes to the banks seeking assistance for this hardship, the bank may allow the customer to reschedule or restructure (qalb al-dayn) his facility. the restructuring of financing facilities in the modern banking system has a similarity with the concept of qalb al-dayn in classical practices26. 4.2. qalb al-dayn in islamic jurisprudence islam allows debt to support a person to fulfill his needs, but at the same time provides boundaries not to be exceeded like ribā27, terms intentionally delaying payment (mumāṭalah) as injustice28, and so on. it also encourages the creditor to give some time for a debtor to repay his debt when he is struggling with financial stresses (i‘sār). in this regard, allah almighty says: “if there is one in misery, then (the creditor should allow) deferment till (his) ease”29. islam cares for the rights of both creditors and debtors; that is why islam necessitates parties to register a debt agreement. when a debtor fails to repay the debt to the creditor, he may ask the creditor to allow him to prolong the tenure. in some cases, creditors may not allow the debtor to delay the payment and they may impose the debtor to restructure the debt and demand more than the required amount of debt which is prohibited and is called ribā al-jāhiliyyah (interest during the era 100 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … of ignorance)30. qalb al-dayn is a phenomenon where the debtor is unable to pay the debt on time and the creditor obliges another debt on the liability to a debtor to repay his existing debt. therefore, the debtor is required to pay the existing debt and the new debt with a higher amount than the existing debt31. qalb al-dayn is a term announced by ibn taymiyyah32 and it was used by other ḥanbalī scholars. shihāb al-dīn al-qarāfī33, aḥmad ibn muḥammad al-dardīr34, and several other mālikī scholars used another term, which is faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn (debt revocation). it was discussed when contemporary islamic financial institutions started exploring and innovating more products and facilities which can conform to the sharī‘ah rule. the term qalb al-dayn consists of two words. one is qalb and the other is dayn. the word qalb means pure and noble of something derived from the human heart called qalb in the arabic language as a noble and pure part of the body. another meaning of qalb is, reversal, inversion and to turn over i.e., turning something over from one side to the other side, for example turning over of a cloth35. according to al-rāghib aliṣfahānī36, the reason for calling the heart as qalb in arabic is because of its frequent turning over. the word qalb itself means soul, knowledge, and bravery. the meaning of dayn is mentioned in the earlier section. usāmah ibn ḥamūd al-lāḥim37 explains qalb al-dayn as the establishment of new debt on a debtor either it is from the same genre of the existing debt or something different. ‘abd al-raḥmān al-aṭram38 adds the reason for the creation of a new debt, which is to accentuate payment of the existing debt. according to the above definitions, there should be two debts for the same debtor and the new debt can be the same as the existing debt or can be something different. additionally, the purpose of the new debt is to repay the existing debt. meanwhile, nazīh ḥammād39 defines qalb aldayn as the creation of a new debt which is a deferred payment basis over an existing debt which is also on the liability of the debtor, after the debt is due. the new debt with an increment of quantity or quality can be of a different genre or the same. this definition shows that the new debt will replace the existing debt which is on the liability of the debtor, and it specifies the occurrence of the new debt as after the due date of the existing debt. the definition also adds that the new debt has an additional portion in quantity and characteristics from the same genre of the existing debt, which clearly proves that this new debt is leading to ribā. this is what imam malik exemplified with buying a stuff from the creditor and paying it later with hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 101 … a higher price which leads to an additional amount to the borrower to pay to the creditor using the ḥīlah (trick) of purchasing stuff as mentioned in section 4.3.1.2 besides, the sharī‘ah advisory council (sac) of the securities commission malaysia (scm)40 also defines qalb al-dayn, it states: “the term qalb al-dayn refers to the conversion of existing debt into a new debt such as in the following situations: (i) restructuring of debt/amount payable via an extension of the payment period which results in an increase of the original amount payable without terminating the existing contract; or (ii) restructuring of debt/amount payable via termination of the existing contract and entering into a new contract with a new amount payable and an extended payment period.” it is mentioned in the above definition by scm41, that an additional amount is added on top of the original amount to extend the payment period of the existing debt and without terminating the existing debt. in this case, it is similar to the arab saying before ribā was prohibited, they used to say: “increase in the asset (which is on the liability of the debtor) for me so that i will increase the period of payment for you”42. in the second scenario, the termination of the existing contract and entering into a new contract with a new amount and a new payment period may raise the issue of ribā also. the existing contract has a certain amount payable, and the new contract will increase that amount to a higher amount for the debtor to pay, which is considered as ribā. however, the definition of qalb al-dayn by nazīh ×ammād43 is a more comprehensive and reliable definition, where he includes the important issues of qalb al-dayn and gives a clear picture of how qalb aldayn works. moreover, the definition of sac of scm also pointed out that qalb al-dayn can either take place by terminating the existing debt or without terminating it. this gives room to the customer to restructure the existing debt before or after the debt is due. in a short word, qalb al-dayn is referred to as an execution of a new debt contract over an existing debt contract, by cancelling the existing contract and increasing the amount of the new debt contract to prolong the existing debt. the real picture of qalb al-dayn can be seen through the diagram below: 102 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … diagram 01: qalb al-dayn source: authors’ own faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn (debt revocation): mālikī school use this term which is similar to qalb al-dayn. al-dardīr44 and al-qarāfī45 from the mālikī school, use this term in their books and explain several forms of faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn, mentioning sharī‘ah rules based on the forms. muḥammad ibn ‘abdullāh al-kharashī46 explains that the term faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn is to cancel the liability of a debtor and to replace the debt with the same genre of debt to a deferred debt. in other words, to revoke the liability of a debtor and to replace it with a different genre to a deferred debt, for example, cancellation of debt (money) with a deferred debt (money), e.g. ten ringgits to fifteen ringgits or cancellation of debt of money to replace it with goods in a deferred debt. ‘alī muhyī al-dīn al-qarah-dāghī47 describes faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn as to cancel a deferred (debt) contract with a deferred price or cash price. the definition of al-kharashī and al-qarah-dāghī, explains that faskh al-dayn also works like qalb al-dayn i.e. by cancelling the existing debt and creating a new debt where it can be more than the existing one. 4.3. the legality of qalb al-dayn ibn taymiyyah48 and ibn qayyim49 and other mālikī scholars like aldardīr50 and al-kharashī51 explain the rules of qalb al-dayn in their books. the mālikī and ḥanbalī schools are the two schools that highlight creditor debtor 1st debt total amount : myr 80,000 amount payable : myr 26,666 (on the day of 2nd debt ) 2nd debt/new debt existing amount payable myr 26,666 new amount imposed +myr 10,000 total amount payable 03-6-2018 execution of new debt 1-6-2012 first day of debt 2-6-2018 maturity date maturity date extended to 2-6-2019 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 103 … qalb al-dayn. on the other hand, the ×anafī school and shāfi‘ī school do not discuss qalb al-dayn explicitly. therefore, the study considers their rulings on other related issues to explore the closest explanation for qalb al-dayn. 4.3.1. classical views of scholars 4.3.1.1. ×anafī school: based on the study on ×anafī school, it seems like, they do not mention qalb al-dayn as a term in their fiqh book. but it can be explored from their other rulings for different issues like the rules of a selling contract after debt and vice versa. according to ibn ‘ābidīn, it is valid but makrūh (reprehensible) to buy something at a higher price in a sale contract after having a debt with the same person but without having any condition of sale prior to the debt contract. al-karkhī and muḥammad have no objection on this issue, however, ḥalwanī has an opposite view on that. according to ḥalwānī, it is prohibited (íarām) as it may result in saying that if the debtor does not buy from the creditor, the debtor may need to pay the debt immediately. besides, khuwahar zadah explains that such kind of contract can be considered as permissible or impermissible based on the conditions attached to the contract. so, if there is a condition of benefits in the contract, it will be regarded as makrūh (reprehensible). on the other hand, if the benefit comes without having a condition for it, the contract will be considered permissible52. ibn ‘ābidīn also mentions that a debt contract can be placed after a sale contract. according to khaṣṣāf, such a transaction is allowed. muḥammad ibn salamah opines the same in this matter but other scholars from balkh disliked this and regard this scenario as debt which leads to benefits (interest) because without having that debt, the debtor will not bear the higher price. some other scholars opine that it is makrūh (reprehensible) when the contract session (majlis al-‘aqd) is one, otherwise, it is allowed and that is because of having both (debt and sale) in one session leads to assuming that the benefits are a condition of that debt. al-ḥalwānī issues a fatwa (resolution) following khaṣṣāf’s opinion. ibn salamah opines that this is not debt that leads to benefits, but it is a sale (bay‘ ) that leads to benefits and that is a loan53. 104 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … in a nutshell, the ×anafī school even though does not explain qalb aldayn in a specific way but their discussion on the rules of debt and other issues show that if the debt contract stipulates any kind of benefits whether it is in the shape of the sale contract or any other form, it will be impermissible. however, if the benefits or extra charges come without any conditions, it will be permissible. 4.3.1.2. mālikī school: the mālikī school uses a different term of qalb al-dayn which is faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn. the term garnered a lot of attention among mālikī scholars as many of the scholars mention it in several chapters of their books54. imām mālik says for a person who lends his 100 dīnār to someone for a deferred period when the debt is due, the debtor says to the creditor: sell that good to me which is of the price of 100 dīnār on cash, but i will pay you 150 dīnār on a deferred basis. he says this type of contract is invalid and the scholars prohibited such a contract. the reason for this contract being makruh is, the increase in price to prolong the payment, which is similar to the ḥadīth, where zaid ibn aslam mentioned that the ribā was in the era of jāhiliyyah (the pre-islamic period) that a person has the right (debt) over another person for a fixed date. when the debt is due, the creditor says to the debtor whether you pay me now, or you pay me more (interest). so, if the debtor pays, the creditor receives, and the deal is done, otherwise, the creditor increases the amount and prolongs the tenure55. scholars from the mālikī school (al-kharashī, al-dardīr, al-ṣāwī, and al-dusūqī56) explain bay‘al-kāli’ bi al-kāli’ (bilaterally deferred sale) under al-buyū‘al-fāsidah (invalid sale) in their books. they mention that faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn (debt revocation) is the most invalid sale which is also regarded as ribā al-jāhiliyyah (interest of the pre-islamic period). based on the study from the mālikī school, it shows that they demonstrate the ruling of bay‘ al-kāli’ bi al-kāli’ (bilaterally deferred sale) and classified it into three categories: 1. faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn (debt revocation), 2. bay‘ al-dayn bi al-dayn, (sale of debt for debt), 3. ibtidā’ al-dayn bi al-dayn (simultaneous debt for debt sale). most of the mālikī scholars consider faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn as an impermissible sale. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 105 … 4.3.1.3. shāfi‘ī school: just like the ×anafī school, shāfi‘ī school also does not emphasize on qalb al-dayn (faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn) in particular. ‘iṣām khalf al‘inzī57 noted some of the reasons: 1. the shāfi‘ī school allows bay‘ al-‘īnah with the status of karāhah58 and qalb al-dayn is the opposite of bay‘ al-‘īnah as described by the ×anbalī school59. 2. according to the fundamental (uîul al-fiqh) of the shāfi‘ī school60, sadd al-dharā’i‘ (prohibition of what may lead to committing sins) is not a source of ruling unless it certainly leads to the prohibited action (íarām), then it will be regarded as íarām. otherwise, it will not be considered as ḥarām and particularly, if it is in deferred sales, and qalb al-dayn is one of them. 3. in the shāfi‘ī school, the legal maxim61: whether the form of contracts or the meaning should prevail or not does not fit with all the branches of the sharī‘ah ruling. the application of this maxim varies from branches to branches of sharī‘ah issues and this is the reason why shāfi‘ī school does not prohibit many sharī‘ah issues as they look into the form of that contract, not the meaning or intention. regarding qalb al-dayn, which requires to conclude a new sale contract between the creditor and debtor not stipulated before in the first contract leading to the allowing of such contract based on their fundamental reasoning62. in conclusion, shāfi‘ī school does not elaborate on qalb al-dayn because of the aforementioned reasons and those reasons may lead the shāfi‘ī school to allow qalb al-dayn as they allowed bay‘ al-‘īnah. 4.3.1.4. ×anbalī school: the ×anbalī school prohibits qalb al-dayn just like the mālikī school in disallowing faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn. in the ×anbalī school, ibn taymiyyah came out with the term qalb al-dayn and it has been used by other scholars63. ibn taymiyyah says: it is prohibited for the creditor not to allow the insolvent debtor to make the payment in another later period and opt for qalb al-dayn. when the creditor says to the debtor: either you do qalb al-dayn or i will bring you to the court. the debtor is in the fear of being prosecuted by the judge despite not yet being proved in the court of law, but the reality is, he is insolvent. hence, the debtor goes for qalb al-dayn. according to scholars, such kind of transaction is prohibited (íarām) and it is not obligatory (to fulfill). this is because he is under duress by the creditor. it will be a mistake to say that it is permissible 106 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … according to some scholars to apply qalb al-dayn on an insolvent debtor by using any kind of trick (íīlah), but the actual dispute among scholars is regarding optional transactions like bay‘ al-tawarruq and al-‘īnah. ibn taymiyyah64 also explicitly highlights that some transactions are prohibited by the consensus of scholars. one of them is to apply qalb aldayn on an insolvent debtor. this is because it is obligatory to allow the debtor to pay when he is able. it is not allowed by the consensus of scholars, to increase the payment from the debtor by using any kind of contract or something else. ibn qayyim65 adds that when the creditor believes that he is allowed to ask the debtor for qalb al-dayn and say either you have to pay the debt, or you have to increase the debt and the tenure, then this creditor is considered as an atheist. it is obligatory for him to repent, otherwise, he will be executed, and his property will be taken to the treasury. based on the above study, it is understood that the ×anbalī school of thought explores qalb al-dayn and they describe issues regarding qalb aldayn. it can be concluded that according to most of the ×anbalī scholars, qalb al-dayn is regarded as a prohibited (íarām) contract because the creditor should give the debtor some time to repay his debt and not to ask for more than the amount payable due to delaying payment. asking for more is the manifestation of ribā. 4.3.2. contemporary views of scholars contemporary scholars annotate qalb al-dayn based on the situation of debtors and forms of qalb al-dayn. they argue about qalb al-dayn, whether it can be imposed on a solvent debtor or insolvent debtor. according to muḥammad al-‘alī al-qarī66, ‘abdullāh sulaimān almanī‘67, and bahrain islamic bank68, the prohibition of qalb al-dayn does not apply to an individual solvent debtor or a company who has strong solvency and has enough asset/property to pay back the current debt without qalb al-dayn. but he or the company prefers qalb al-dayn intentionally to ease his current debt without any duress on him. on the other hand, it will not be permissible to apply qalb al-dayn on an insolvent or those who delay payment, as it will be the prohibited (íarām) version of qalb al-dayn or it may lead to paying extra installments which are not allowed in sharī‘ah69. however, the shariah board of bahrain islamic bank also allows rescheduling the tenure of a debtor who is facing difficulties with the condition of not taking any extra charges from the debtor. al-qarī70 and al-manī‘71 also do not allow to apply qalb al-dayn on insolvent debtors (mu‘sir) as the creditor should give them some more hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 107 … time to repay the debt, instead of enforcing another debt on them. in addition, al-manī‘72 does not recommend applying qalb al-dayn for those who like to have debt for a lavish, luxurious lifestyle even though some of them own assets to pay the debt, but are not willing to utilize their property properly. ‘abd al-bārī mash‘al73 does not allow qalb al-dayn (debt restructuring) for an insolvent debtor. according to him, it is impermissible to conclude a tawarruq contract with a condition that the customer must pay his existing debt which is generated from any other sharī‘ah concepts e.g. murābaíah or istiṣnā‘ with the same financial institutions, where the customer is facing payment difficulties. this kind of agreement is called qalb al-dayn or faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn which leads to ribā al-jāhiliyyah. similarly, muḥammad taqī al-usmānī74 opines that qalb al-dayn can be permissible with the status of karāhah (not recommended) however it should be totally impermissible following the opinion of mālikī and ×anbalī school. aznan hasan75 opines that the solvent debtor who refuses to pay the debt, should be imposed on certain punishments as procrastination (mumāṭalah) is a sin and injustice. but, if someone is not insolvent (mu‘sir) but he has temporary financial distress (ta‘tthur), the bank may grant favour to him. this excuse, however, should not be generalized as a precedent as it will have an impact on the overall performance of the financial institution. hence, qalb al-dayn may be the best solution for such a situation. looking at the benefits for the bank and the client, qalb al-dayn should be allowed to the debtor who is facing such an issue to protect him from the declaration of bankruptcy and to recover back the debt from the client within certain parameters. aaoifi76 states in the sharī‘ah standard no. (8): murābaíah: “5/7 it is not permissible to extend the date of payment of the debt in exchange for an additional payment in case of rescheduling, irrespectively of whether the debtor is solvent or insolvent. 5/8 when there is a default in payment by the customer with regard to installments of the selling price that are due, the amount due is just the amount of the unpaid selling price. it is not permissible for the institution to impose any additional payment on the customer for the institution's benefit. this provision is, however, subject to item 5/6.” 108 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … similarly, the resolution of international islamic fiqh77 and islamic fiqh council78 state that faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn is considered as prohibited in sharī‘ah. faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn is something that increases the debt on the debtor’s liability in exchange for increasing the tenure or any other means. the application of faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn takes place by a transaction between creditor and debtor by creating a new debt on the debtor to pay the existing debt full of it or partial. be the debtor solvent or insolvent. to conclude the new debt, the debtor needs to buy an asset from the creditor with a deferred payment then the debtor needs to sell it back on cash to the creditor to pay the previous debt fully or partially. ‘abd al-sattār79 stipulates three conditions for qalb al-dayn to be applied to have new financing. the existing and new contract should fulfill three conditions as below: 1. the new debt contract should not have a relation with the existing contract which is facing difficulties. 2. the debtor (customer) should face difficulties in the liquidation of his assets to repay the debt but at the same time, he is not insolvent. 3. the profits of the new contract should not exceed the profits of the existing contract. this is to avoid the consideration of the extra amount as a late settlement of the existing debt. nazīh ḥammād80 classifies qalb al-dayn into six forms. 1. deferment of a due debt for a debtor, by increasing the amount of debt to prolong the tenure. 2. same as the previous form but there will be a new contract (this new contract is not really in their intentions), which leads them to achieve their goal of having an additional amount in the new contract with a new payment period. 3. selling the existing debt, which is already due, to the same debtor with a deferred price that is different from the existing debt (with something permissible to sell at a deferred price). 4. substitution of the debt with salam contract where the debt turns to the capital of salam. this substitution is in exchange for the specified commodity of the debtor, to a deferred period. 5. substitution of the debt which is due with usufruct of an asset e.g. house, shop, car, that belongs to the debtor to a specific period e.g. 1 year or 5 years. 6. selling the debt after its due date, to the same debtor with an asset where the possession takes place later like property, absent goods, and unripe fruits which are not yet ready to harvest. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 109 … based on the above classification, nazīh ḥammād81 opined that the first two forms from the above, do not comply with the sharī‘ah, as both forms lead to interest (ribā) by increasing in the quantity or quality of the existing debt. however, the other four forms have some arguments among scholars where he opined that these four forms can be considered as sharī‘ah compliant. he also added that the debtor may get any cash financing in exchange for something deferred e.g. using tawarruq or salam or istiṣnāʿ or any other sharī‘ah concepts, to pay back his existing debt, when he is not capable of paying on the due date, even though that financing requires to pay more than his existing debt. however, this method can be followed with a condition that, this extra amount must not go to the same financial institution that has his existing debt or there should not be any link or trick (íīlah) which leads to ribā. the summary of the above-mentioned opinions of scholars and the resolutions of islamic institutions is illustrated in the table below: scholars/ resolutions mu‘sir (insolvent ) mūsir (solvent) conditions/remarks muḥammad ‘alī al-qarī (2003) not allowed allowed it is obligatory to give some time to the insolvent debtor. while for a solvent debtor, who can pay, the new contract is not considered as qalb aldayn. ‘abdullāh almanī‘ (2011) not allowed allowed 1. without being forced/duress. 2. has enough property. 3. not used to living a lavish life. ‘abd al-barī mash‘al (n.d.) not allowed the condition of settling the existing debt by the new debt for the customer in financial difficulties is not allowed as it is qalb al-dayn. 110 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … muḥammad taqī alusmānī (2015) not allowed (karāhah) it is recommended to avoid such a contract. hasan et al. (2016/2018) not allowed allowed for solvent and muta‘atthir (temporary financial difficulties in liquidation) 1. the two contracts should be separated. 2. the new contract should not stipulate to settle the existing contract. 3. the debtor should entertain freely the proceeds of a new contract. ‘abd alsattār abū ghuddah (n.d.) allowed for muta‘atthir (temporary financial difficulties in liquidation) 1. new debt has no relation to existing debt. 2. the debtor is not insolvent but facing difficulties in the liquidation of his assets. 3. the amount in the contract should not exceed the existing contract. nazīh ḥammād (2011) has classified qalb al-dayn into six (6) categories. two of those categories are impermissible and the rest 4 categories are allowed according to him. in those four (4) categories he did not differentiate between mūsir and mu‘sir. resolutions of islamic financial and non-financial institutions sharī‘ah resolution of the bahrain islamic bank (2013) not allowed allowed 1. should have strong solvency 2. not delaying in payment 3. no extra charges hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 111 … aaoifi (2015) not allowed “it is not permissible to extend the date of payment of the debt in exchange for an additional payment in case of rescheduling, irrespectively of whether the debtor is solvent or insolvent”. international islamic fiqh academy (2006) not allowed it (qalb al-dayn/faskh al-dayn) increases the debt on the debtor’s liability in exchange for increasing the tenure or any other means. islamic fiqh council (2006) not allowed it (qalb al-dayn/faskh al-dayn) increases the debt on the debtor’s liability in exchange for increasing the tenure or any other means. table 01: scholars’ views and resolutions on qalb al-dayn source: authors’ summarization of views and resolutions 5. methodology a qualitative research approach is adopted to ascertain in-depth information and to fulfil the objectives of this research. qualitative research assists a researcher in describing and interpreting a phenomenon82. describing the scholars’ opinions on qalb al-dayn and interpreting it with the current practice in the modern banking system correspond with a qualitative research approach through the available data in documents i.e., classical books and other current available literature. hence, to achieve the objectives of this research, a qualitative research approach suffices. the data of this research is collected from several sources such as classical fiqh books of four schools of thought, modern islamic finance-related books, articles, conference papers, sharī‘ah standards, and resolutions. moreover, the research follows the descriptive analysis method to address the subject matter and to find the rationale behind the legality of qalb al-dayn and its current practice. the 112 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … comparative analysis method is also applied to compare and contrast the views of sharī‘ah scholars on the subject matter. 6. discussion qalb al-dayn is being discussed by the classical and contemporary scholars based on their understanding and their school of thought (madhhab). it is worthy to note that most of the scholars strive to close all the doors of ribā as sharī‘ah clearly prohibits it. in such a case, they assume and predict many phenomena that might happen in the financial transaction either through debt or sale contract, and based on that they provide some sharī‘ah resolutions. regarding qalb al-dayn in the classical studies, imām mālik, al-kharashī, al-dardīr, al-ṣāwī, al-dusūqī from mālikī school and ibn taymiyyah, ibn al-qayyim from ×anbalī school scrutinize the issue of qalb al-dayn while mālikī school use a different term which is faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn. both schools similarly conclude that the practice of qalb al-dayn leads to ribā al-jāhiliyyah. on the other hand, ḥanafī and shāfi‘ī school have a little discussion on the matter. looking at their discussion on debt issues it seems that ḥanafī school has different opinions among the scholars however, they emphasize the issue of any benefits that come from debt contract. many of the ḥanafī scholars opine that if the benefits from a debt contract come through a condition on the contract it will be regarded as ribā otherwise the benefits are permissible. shāfi‘ī school does not explicitly mention any rules for qalb al-dayn in the fiqh book, however, since shāfi‘ī school allows bay‘ al-‘inah, and prioritizes the form of contract over its meaning or intention, qalb al-dayn can be considered as permissible. since islamic banks offer debt-based financing, some customers are unable to attend to their liabilities of paying the installments due to financial hardship. in such a case, islamic banks offer either restructuring or rescheduling of the financing facility. the example of the concept of qalb al-dayn from the contemporary practice of islamic banks can be seen through the practice of restructuring of financing facilities. the restructuring of financing facilities is done through executing a new financing contract over the existing contract, where the debtor must pay the capital of the current financing facility in an extended tenure and also an additional amount that incurs from the new financing contract. thus, it has the similarity with the concept of qalb al-dayn where a debtor must pay an additional amount to extend the period of the loan83. the contemporary scholars have diverse opinions and arguments on the legality of qalb al-dayn especially the mechanism that is used in hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 113 … modern islamic banks where some of them classify the debtors into solvent and insolvent and provide the ruling based on their situation. on the other hand, other scholars do not differentiate between solvent and insolvent to show their views on the matter. the contemporary scholars and islamic financial and non-financial institutions (‘abd al-bārī mash‘al, muḥammad taqī usmānī, aaoifi, international islamic fiqh academy and islamic fiqh council) consider qalb al-dayn as impermissible like ḥanbalī school without differentiating the debtors. this is because it is tantamount to ribā where the creditor is increasing the debt by extending the tenure of the payment which is happened in the restructuring of financing facilities in modern islamic banks84. the majority of scholars from those who differentiate the debtors also do not allow qalb al-dayn from insolvent debtors due to the fact that the quranic verse: “if there is one in misery, then (the creditor should allow) deferment till (his) ease”85 commands to allow them ample time to pay back the debt. thus, imposing an extra amount for allowing them to pay later is considered as an action opposite of quranic guidelines. the same group who allows for solvent debtors to practice qalb al-dayn, which is the restructuring of financing facility in modern islamic banking, thinks that a contract in the facility is considered as a new contract that must be separated from the existing one, thus it is not qalb al-dayn. according to the researcher, consideration of the situation of a debtor is necessary for the creditor while asking for repayment based on the quranic verse (2: 280). moreover, qalb al-dayn/the restructuring of financing facility should be avoided by the islamic banks as it might lead to ribā through a new contract on the same subject matter of the contract. in other words, that new contract is a kind of trick to expand the tenure and charge for a higher amount for the same subject matter. therefore, the researcher concludes that qalb al-dayn can be totally avoided by rescheduling a financing facility process. in such a facility, the tenure will be extended while keeping the original amount of the debt and the debtor will pay a lesser amount for the monthly installment throughout the extended tenure. 7. conclusion sharī‘ah allows to incur debt (dayn) and it has set the principles and guidelines to follow. however, incurring more debts leads to many issues and challenges to the debtor and creditor as well. the practice of qalb aldayn was famous among the people of ignorance (ayyām al-jāhiliyyah) once the debtor was failed to fulfill his promise to pay the debt and as a 114 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … result, the creditor stipulates to pay extra to allow him some more time which is tantamount to ribā (interest) in sharī‘ah. based on the study, it is proven that according to the mālikī and ×anbalī school, qalb al-dayn is not allowed. the reason is, the creditor stipulates interest (ribā) in exchange for increasing the loan/debt period for the debtor, while the debtor is unable to pay, and he is forced to pay an additional amount to extend the loan/debt period. that is what is prohibited in the al-qur’ān which says to grant the debtor some time to repay the debt amount. in the ×anafī school, it is allowed to receive any extra amount without stipulating that extra portion in the debt contract allowing the debtor to pay the additional amount. the shāfi‘ī school allows bay‘ al-‘īnah and may result in allowing qalb al-dayn as it is not stipulated in the transaction and the structure of the transaction is valid. the contemporary scholars also have the same opinion of qalb aldayn to be prohibited when it comes to an insolvent debtor, and there is no dispute among them. however, looking into the benefits of islamic financial institutions and their customers, some of the scholars allow qalb al-dayn with certain conditions. 1. one of the conditions is that the debtor must be solvent in his financial status. 2. second, he has the capacity to pay back the debt to the bank without incurring another debt to pay for the current debt. 3. third, the debtor is a solvent and has the capacity to pay the current debt, however, he is encountering a temporary liquidity problem (ta‘tthur) where he requires an additional amount of money to purchase some goods or machinery items which allows him to operate his business smoothly, thus he needs additional financing from the bank. in such a situation, the scholars allow to apply qalb al-dayn on the debtor considering it as a top-up (additional financing) on the current debt which benefits both the bank and the debtor in a sense that the bank can continue to provide financing efficiently and avoid any kind of disruption in the continuity of the transaction. at the same time, the debtor can acquire the required amount to continue his business and he can protect himself from defaulting on his debt or facing any kind of legal action since he is capable to pay both of the financing facilities together. according to the researchers, qalb al-dayn is among the nonsharī‘ah compliant activities which islamic banking institutions must avoid from their practices e.g. restructuring of financing facilities and they should be more careful from involving in ribā directly or indirectly. additionally, to avoid the non-sharī ‘ah income, the ifis should not charge an extra amount to reschedule the payment of a customer. it also hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 115 … should be noted that the ifis should separate the facilities they are providing to the same customer so that it will not be meant that the increase in the price of a new contract to prolong the existing tenure. moreover, to ensure that the contract does not conflict with sharī‘ah rules while processing the application, it should be noted that the ifis must consult with the respected sharī‘ah board when the debtor applies for such facility. in addition, islamic financial institutions need to move more towards equity-based financing instead of depending on debt-based financing. 8. policy implications: regarding the policy implications of this study, the findings of this study will assist the authority and sharī‘ah supervisory board to issue guidelines and sharī‘ah resolutions on the subject matter. the executives and employers will have a profound understanding of qalb al-dayn and to compare and contrast the concept and practice and to identify the issues and the customers and stakeholders will be aware and guided to perform their duty accordingly to avoid any circumstances related to the subject matter. moreover, the researchers might find it interesting to explore and recommend sharī‘ah compliant alternatives of qalb al-dayn. notes and references 1 atif khan, “is islamic banking truly islamic or is it just cosmetically enhanced conventional banking,” islamica magazine, 2004, https://islamicfinanceaffairs. wordpress.com/2007/05/26/is-islamic-banking-truly-islamic-or-is-it-just-cosmeticallyenhanced-conventional-banking/, accessed on 18 december 2021; mehmet asutay, “conceptualisation of the second best solution in overcoming the social failure of islamic banking and finance: examining the overpowering of homo islamicus by homo economicus,” international journal of economics, management and accounting 15, no. 2 (2007), 173-195; asyraf wajdi dusuki, “the ideal of islamic banking: a survey of stakeholders’ perceptions,” review of islamic economics 11, no. 3 (2007), 29-52. 2 younes soualhi, “application of shari‘ah contracts in contemporary islamic finance: a maqāṣid perspective,” intellectual discourse 23, no. s.i. (2015), 333-354; international shariah research academy for islamic finance (isra), islamic financial system: principles and operations 2nd ed. (kuala lumpur: isra, 2016), 179-186; amir shaharuddin, shari‘ah issues in islamic banking and finance, (negeri sembilan, malaysia: usim press, 2016), 20; aishath muneeza, muhammad fahmi fauzi, muhammad faisal bin mat nor, mohamed abideen, and muhammed maher ajroudi, “house financing: contracts used by islamic banks for finished properties in malaysia,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 11, no. 1 (2020), 168 178. 116 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … 3 international monetary fund (imf), external debt statistics: guide for compilers and users (usa: imf, 2014), 92; jose m. garrido, out of court debt restructuring, (washington, dc: world bank, 2012), 45. 4 maḥmūd ibn ‘abd allāh al-alūsī, tafsīr al-alūsī rūḥ al-ma‘ānī, (bayrut: dār iḥyā’ al-turāth al-‘arabī, n.d.), 4: 55. 5 abdul muneem, nor fahimah mohd razif, and abdul karim ali, “issues on restructuring of a financing facility in malaysian islamic banks,” jurnal syariah 28 no. 1 (2020), 105-124. 6 mālik ibn anas, muwaṭṭa‘ al-imām mālik, (31:84) ed. kulāl ḥasan ‘alī (beirut: mu’assasah al-risālah nāshirūn, 2013), 512-513. 7 aḥmad ibn ‘abd al-ḥalīm ibn taymiyyah, al-ḥisbah fi al-islām, (beirūt: dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyyah, n.d.), 20; ibn taymiyyah, majmū‘ al-fatāwā, 3rd ed. (al-iskandariyyah: dār al-wafā, 2005), 28: 46. 8 mālik ibn anas, muwaṭṭa‘ al-imām mālik, (31:84) 9 ibn taymiyyah, al-ḥisbah fi al-’islām, 20; ibn taymiyyah, majmū‘ al-fatāwā, 28: 46. 10 ibn taymiyyah, al-ḥisbah fi al-’islām, 20; ibn taymiyyah, majmu‘ al-fatawa, 28: 46; muḥammad ibn ʿ abdullāh al-kharashī, sharḥ al-kharashī ‘alā mukhtaṣar khalīl, (beirut: dār al-kutub al-ʿ ilmiyyah, 1997), 5: 394. 11 nasrun bin mohamad @ ghazali, “tawarruq in malaysian financing system: a case study on commodity murabahah product at maybank islamic berhad,” (master's thesis, university of malaya, kuala lumpur, malaysia, 2014), 93-94; aznan hasan, muhamad nasir haron, mohd faysal mohammed, & budeeman mana, “rescheduling and restructuring of islamic financing facilities: a sharī‘ah perspective”, isra research paper no. 100, (kuala lumpur, malaysia: isra, 2018), 63-64; ʿabd al-bārī mashʿ al, “al-tawarruq kamā tajrīh al-maṣārif al-islāmiyyah”,11-13 http://www.raqaba.co.uk/sites/default/files/ltwrq_km_tjryh_lmsrf_lslmy.pdf, accessed 18 december 2021. 12 ʿabd al-bārī mashʿ al, “al-tawarruq kamā tajrīh al-maṣārif al-islāmiyyah”, 12; muḥammad taqī al-usmānī, fiqh al-buyū‘ ‘ala al-madhāhib al-arba‘ah, (karachi: maktabah maʿ ārif al-qur’ān, 2015), 558-559; hasan, haron, mohammed and mana, rescheduling and restructuring of islamic financing facilities: a sharī‘ah perspective, 7; muḥammad al-ʿ alī al-qarī, “al-tawarruq kamā tajrīh al-maṣārif,” (paper presented in al-majmaʿ al-fiqh al-islāmī of muslim world league, makkah, 2003), 651; ʿ abdullāh sulaimān al-manīʿ , “ḥukm qalb al-dayn ʿ ala al-madīn,” (paper presented in 4th fiqh conference for islamic finance institutions, kuwait, 2011), 217-221. 13 the meanings of the noble qur’an, 2:282, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 14 shihāb al-dīn aḥmad al-qarāfī, al-dhakhīrah (beirut: dār al-gharb, 1994) 5: 286; kamāl al-dīn ibn al-humām, sharí fatí al-qadīr (beirut: dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyyah, 2003), 7: 206; muhammad ayub, understanding islamic finance (west sussex: john wiley & sons, 2007), 47. 15 aḥmad ibn muḥammad al-fayyūmī, al-miîbah al-munīr, (beirut: maktabah lubnān, 1987), 78; muḥammad ibn abū bakr al-razī, mukhtār al-siíāí, (beirut: maktabah lubnan nāshirun, 1986), 91; muḥammad ibn mukrim ibn manzūr, lisān al-‘arab, (beirut: dar ṣādir, 1994), 13: 167. 16 zain al-dīn ibn nujaim, fatḥ al-ghaffār bi sharḥ al-manār (beirut: dār al-kutub alʿilmiyyah, 2001). 17 accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi), sharī‘ah standards for islamic financial institutions, (manama, bahrain: aaoifi, 2015), 117. 18 muzammil khurshid, and muhammad riaz mahmood, “a comparative study of adoption of conventional banking and islamic banking in pakistan,” hamdard islamicus 43, no. 3 (2020), 7-17; tareq moqbel, and habib ahmed, “flexibility and http://www.raqaba.co.uk/sites/default/files/ltwrq_km_tjryh_lmsrf_lslmy.pdf hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 117 … sharī‘ah compliance of islamic financial contracts: an evaluative framework,” arab law quarterly 35, no. 1-2 (2020),107; muhammad shahrul ifwat ishak, and fathullah asni, “the role of maqasid al-shariʿah in applying fiqh muamalat into modern islamic banking in malaysia,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 11, no. 10 (2020), 2137-2154. 19 muhammad iman sastra mihajat, “contemporary practice of ribā, gharar and maysir in islamic banking and finance,” international journal of islamic management and business 2, no. 2 (2016), 1; wan musyirah wan ismail, ida rahayu mahat, and nurul asma mazlan, “awareness on prohibited elements in muamalat: common practice in life,” journal of contemporary islamic studies 6, no. 1 (2020), 95. 20 international shariah research academy for islamic finance (isra). islamic financial system: principles and operations, 206-237. 21 ibid. 22 asutay, “conceptualisation of the second best solution in overcoming the social failure of islamic banking and finance: examining the overpowering of homoislamicus by homoeconomicus”, 2007, 173. 23 dusuki, “the ideal of islamic banking: a survey of stakeholders’ perceptions,” 2007, 29. 24 mansor jusoh and norlin khalid, “a model of demand for islamic banks’ debt-based financing instruments,” jurnal pengurusan (ukm journal of management) 39 (2013), 31-36. 25 mohd johan lee, islamic finance recovery, rescheduling and restructuring of islamic financing facilities, (selangor, malaysia: lexisnexis malaysia sdn. bhd., 2016). 26 hasan, haron, mohammed and mana, “rescheduling, refinancing and restructuring of islamic financing facilities from the sharī‘ah perspective, 3. 27 ayub, understanding islamic finance, 12. 28 ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, (12:2400), translated by muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 29 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur’an, 2:280. 30 mālik ibn anas, muwaṭṭa’ al-imām mālik, (31:84). 31 ibn taymiyyah, al-×isbah fi al-islām, 20; ibn taymiyyah, majmū‘ al-fatāwā, 28: 46. 32 ibn taymiyyah, al-×isbah fi al-islām, 20; ibn taymiyyah, majmū‘ al-fatāwā, 28: 46. 33 shihāb al-dīn al-qarāfī, al-dhakhīrah, 5: 267; 280; 294; 302; 303. 34 aḥmad ibn muḥammad al-dardīr, al-sharí al-ṣaghīr maʿa ×āshiyah al-ṣāwī, ed. by aḥmad ibn muḥammad, (al-qāhirah: dār al-ma‘ārif, n.d), 3: 96; shams al-dīn aldusūqī, ×āshiyah al-dusūqī ‘alā al-sharí al-kabīr (al-qāhirah: ‘īsā al-bābī al-ḥalabī wa shurakāʾ uh, n.d), 3: 61. 35 aḥmad ibn fāris, maqāyīs al-lughah, ed. by abd al-salām muḥammad hārūn, (syria: ittiḥād al-kitāb al-ʿ arab, 2002), 5: 27; al-fayyūmī, al-miṣbāḥ al-mūnīr, 195; al-rāghib al-iṣfahānī, al-mufradāt fi gharīb al-qur’ān, (beirut: dār al-maʿrifah, n.d.), 411; muḥammad qalʿ ah jī, ed. by ḥāmid ṣādiq qanībī, and quṭub muṣṭafā sānū, mu’jam lughah al-fuqahā’, (beirut: dār al-nafāʾis, 1996), 336. 36 al-iṣfahānī, al-mufradāt fi gharib al-qur’ān, 411. 37 usāmah ibn ḥamūd al-lāḥim, bay‘ al-dayn wa taṭbīqātuhu al-mu‘āṣarah fī al-fiqh al-ʾislāmī, (riyāḍ: dār al-maymān, 2012), 110. 38 ‘abd al-raḥmān al-aṭram, “qalb al-dayn ṣuwaruhu wa aíkāmuhu wa bada’iluh,” (paper presented in 4th fiqh conference for islamic finance institutions, kuwait, 2011), 232. 39 nazīh ḥammād, “qalb al-dayn ṣuwaruhu wa aḥkāmuhu wa badā’iluhu al-shar‘iyyah fi mu‘āmalat al-maṣarifiyyah al-islāmiyyah al-muʿ āṣarah,” (paper presented in 4th fiqh conference for islamic finance institutions, kuwait, 2011), 242. 118 a juristic study of qalb al-dayn in islamic banks… … 40 sharī‘ah advisory council (sac) of the securities commission malaysia (scm), “qalb al-dayn and it’s application in sukuk restructuring (192th meeting, 2016)”, official website of securities commission malaysia, https://www.sc.com.my/api/documentms/download.ashx?id=5f0c31dc-daa9-43c1-80ace7ecf70c8e44, accessed on 18 december 2021. 41 ibid. 42 al-alūsī, tafsīr al-alūsī rūḥ al-ma‘ānī, 4: 55; wazārah al-awqāf wa al-shu’ūn alislāmiyyah, al-mawsu‘ah al-fiqhiyyah al-kuwaitiyyah, (kuwait: wazārah al-awqāf wa al-shu’ūn al-islāmiyyah, 1992), 22: 52. 43 nazīh ḥammād, “qalb al-dayn ṣuwaruhu wa aíkāmuhu wa badā’iluhu al-shar‘iyyah fi mu‘āmalat al-maṣarifiyyah al-islāmiyyah al-muʿāṣarah,” (paper presented in 4th fiqh conference for islamic finance institutions, kuwait, 2011), 242. 44 al-dardīr, al-sharí al-ṣaghīr ma‘a ḥāshiyah al-ṣāwī, 3: 96; al-dusūqī, ḥāshiyah aldusūqī ‘alā al-sharḥ al-kabīr, 3: 61. 45 al-qarāfī, al-dhakhīrah, 5: 267; 280; 294; 302-303. 46 al-kharashī, sharí al-kharashī ‘alā mukhtaṣar khalīl, 5: 394. 47 ʿalī muhyī al-dīn al-qaraí-dāghī, “faskh al-dayn bi al-dayn aw fi al-dayn: dirāsah fiqhiyyah muqāranah,” (paper presented in 18th council of islamic fiqh council, muslim world league, makkah, 2006), 10. 48 ibn taymiyyah, majmu‘ al-fatawa, 28: 46. 49 muḥammad ibn abū bakr ibn qayyim, al-ṭuruq al-×ukmiyyah fī al-siyāsah alshar‘iyyah, (makkah: dār ‘ālam al-fawā’id, 2007), 633. 50 al-dardīr, al-sharḥ al-ṣaghīr ma‘a ḥāshiyah al-ṣāwī, 3: 96. 51 al-kharashī, sharí al-kharashī ‘alā mukhtaṣar khalīl, 5: 394. 52 muḥammad amīn ibn ‘óbidīn, ḥāshiyah ibn ‘óbidīn radd al-muḥtār ‘alā al-durri al-mukhtār, (riyāḍ: dār ʿālam al-kutub, 2003), 7: 397. 53 ibid, 7: 396-397. 54 al-kharashī, sharḥ al-kharashī ‘alā mukhtaṣar khalīl, 5: 394; al-dusūqī, ×āshiyah al-dusūqī ‘alā al-sharí al-kabīr, 3: 61; al-dardīr, al-sharí al-ṣaghīr ma‘a ×āshiyah al-ṣāwī, 3: 96; aḥmad ibn muḥammad al-ṣāwī, ×āshiyah al-ṣawī alā al-sharí alṣaghīr – bulghah al-sālik li aqrab al-masālik, (beirut: dār al-kutub al-ʿimiyyah, 1995), 3: 56. 55 mālik ibn anas, muwaṭṭa’ al-imām mālik, (31:84) 56 al-kharashī, sharḥ al-kharashī ‘alā mukhtaṣar khalīl, 5: 394; al-dusūqī, ×āshiyah al-dusūqī ‘alā al-sharí al-kabīr, 3: 61; al-dardīr, al-sharí al-ṣaghīr ma‘a ×āshiyah al-ṣāwī, 96; al-ṣāwī, ×āshiyah al-ṣawī alā al-sharí al-ṣaghīr, 3: 56. 57 ʿ iṣām khalf al-ʿinzī, “qalb al-dayn: tajdīd ‘uqūd al-murābaíāt wa al-wakālāt alistithmāriyyah,” (paper presented in 4th fiqh conference for islamic finance institutions, shura sharia consultancy, kuwait, 2011), 264. 58 muḥammad ibn abū al-ʿ abbās al-ramlī, nihāyah al-muhtāj ila sharí al-minhāj, 3rd eds, (beirut: dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 2003), 3: 477. 59 manṣūr ibn yūnūs al-buhūtī, kashshāf al-qinā‘ ‘an matn al-iqnā‘, (beirut: ‘ālam alkutub, 1983), 3: 186. 60 ʿ abdullāh badr al-dīn al-zarkashī, al-baír al-muḥiṭ fī uîūl al-fiqh, 2nd ed, (kuwait: wazārah al-awqāf wa al-shuʾ ūn al-islāmiyyah, 1992), 6: 85. 61 jalāl al-dīn al-suyūïī, al-ashbāh wa al-naẓā’ir fī qawā‘id wa furū‘ fiqh alshafi‘iyyah, (riyāḍ: maktabah nazzār muṣṭafā al-bāz, 1997), 1: 264. 62 al-ʿinzī, “qalb al-dayn: tajdīd ‘uqūd al-murābaíāt wa al-wakālāt alistithmāriyyah”, 264. 63 sharf al-dīn al-hajjāwī, al-iqnā’ fi fiqh al-imām aímad ibn ×anbal, (beirūt: dār alma‘rifah, n.d.), 2: 77; al-buhūtī, kashshāf al-qinā‘ ‘an matn al-iqnā‘, 3: 186; muṣṭafā ibn sa‘d al-suyūïī, maïālib ’ūli al-nuhā, (damascus: al-maktab al-islāmī, 1994), 3: 62. 64 ibn taymiyyah, al-×isbah, 20; ibn taymiyyah, majmū‘ al-fatāwā, 28: 46. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 119 … 65 ibn qayyim, al-ṭuruq al-ḥukmiyyah fī al-siyāsah al-shar‘iyyah, 633. 66 muḥammad al-‘alī al-qarī, “al-tawarruq kamā tajrīh al-maîārif,” (paper presented in al-majma‘ al-fiqh al-islāmī of muslim world league, makkah, 2003), 651. 67 ʿabdullāh sulaimān al-manīʿ , “ḥukm qalb al-dayn ‘ala al-madīn,” (paper presented in 4th fiqh conference for islamic finance institutions, kuwait, 2011), 218. 68 sharī‘ah board of bahrain islamic bank, “fatāwā”, bahrain islamic bank, https://bisb.com/sites/default/files/fatawy-booklet.pdf, 362 accessed on 18 december 2021. 69 ibid. 70 al-qarī, “al-tawarruq kamā tajrīh al-maṣārif”, 651. 71 al-manīʿ , “ḥukm qalb al-dayn ʿala al-madīn”, 219. 72 ibid. 73 ʿabd al-bārī mashʿal, “al-tawarruq kamā tajrīh al-maîārif al-islāmiyyah”, 11. 74 al-‘usmānī, fiqh al-buyū‘ ‘ala al-madhāhib al-arba‘ah, 558-559. 75 hasan, et al., “rescheduling, refinancing and restructuring of islamic financing facilities from the sharī‘ah perspective”, 2018, 37-38. 76 aaoifi, sharī‘ah standards for islamic financial institutions, 214. 77 international islamic fiqh academy (iifa) of organization of islamic cooperation (oic), resolution no. 158 (7/17), ammān, jordan, 24-28 june 2006. 78 islamic fiqh council (ifc) of muslim world league (mwl), 18th council, resolution no. 3, makkah, 8-12 april 2006. 79 ʿ abd al-bārī mashʿ al, “qaḍāyā jadaliyyah fi al-tamwīl al-islāmiyyah,” (seminar on qaḍāyā jadaliyyah fi al-tamwīl al-islāmiyyah, international islamic university malaysia, 22 may 4102), https://assabeel.net/article/2014/6/18/2-التمويل-في-جدلية-قضايا للباحثين-موجهة-اإلسالمي /, accessed on 17 december 2021. 80 ḥammād, “qalb al-dayn ṣuwaruhu wa aíkāmuhu wa badā’iluhu al-shar‘iyyah fi mu‘āmalét al-maîarifiyyah al-islāmiyyah al-mu‘āîarah,”; shura sharī‘ah consultancy, “al-bayān al-khitāmī wa qarārāt wa tawṣiyāt,” (resolution no. 3). (proceedings of 4th fiqh conference for islamic finance institutions, december, kuwait, 2011), 242-256. 81 ibid 256-261. 82 arthur cropley, qualitative research methods: a practice-oriented introduction for students of psychology and education (riga, latvia: zinātne, 2019),5. 83 abdul muneem, nor fahimah mohd razif, and abdul karim ali, “issues on restructuring of a financing facility in malaysian islamic banks,” (2020), 105; moíammad maíbubi ali, and rusni ×assan, “survey on sharī‘ah non-compliant events in islamic banks in the practice of tawarruq financing in malaysia,” isra international journal of islamic finance 12, no. 2 (2020): 163. 84 abdul muneem, nor fahimah mohd razif, and abdul karim ali, “issues on restructuring of a financing facility in malaysian islamic banks,” 2020. 85 usmani, the meanings of the noble qur’an, 2: 281. https://bisb.com/sites/default/files/fatawy-booklet.pdf https://assabeel.net/article/2014/6/18/2-قضايا-جدلية-في-التمويل-الإسلامي-موجهة-للباحثين/ https://assabeel.net/article/2014/6/18/2-قضايا-جدلية-في-التمويل-الإسلامي-موجهة-للباحثين/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 59 operating principles for contracts in islamic law: consent (riḍā) in ḥanafī jurisprudence dr. brian wright zayed university, dubai, united arab emirates email: brian.wright@zu.ac.ae received on: 11-05-21 accepted on: 20-06-22 abstract the principle of “freedom of contract” formed the basis of modern western contract law and historically allowed jurists to break away from formal requirements and allow for almost any type of contract to be accepted. alternatively, observers often characterize islamic law as formalistic, without a general principle permitting parties the freedom to enter contracts beyond the boundaries of a specific form. this article analyzes a concept in the islamic legal tradition, that of riḍā (consent). focusing on the ×anafī school and using the textual analysis method to place significant texts from the school in chronological order, it traces how riḍā developed beginning with its initial appearance in the holy qur’én and the works of early jurists through ottoman and modern egyptian approaches to contracts. the article argues that, during the post-classical period, riḍā became an operating principle that ×anafī jurists used to challenge the formalism that dominated legal discussions during the formative and classical periods, paving the way for modern contract law in the muslim world. the article concludes that, within contemporary legal systems, riḍā can be understood as a useful general concept for the construction of contracts, so long as it is firmly placed within the moral limits of the sharê‘ah. modern legal systems should take advantage of this principle, using it to move beyond bureaucracy to create a more flexible law of contracts. keywords: islamic law, contract law, riḍā, ḥanafī law, operating principles 1. introduction at the end of the eighteenth century, common law jurists began to construct a general theory of contracts based on the principle of “freedom of contract,” or the idea that individuals should be able to consent to a contractual obligation with little interference from the state. tied to the rise of individualism, capitalism, and the political sociology mailto:brian.wright@zu.ac.ae 60 operating principles for… of nineteenth-century british and american societies, freedom of contract became the principle through which contract law could be developed beyond formal constructions.1 in islamic law, freedom of contract has been a controversial topic.2 observers of islamic law have often criticized muslim jurists for never developing a similar principle. as mentioned in the literature review below, some have even gone so far to suggest that the lack of such principles led to the failure of the muslim world to experience economic development in the modern period. however, when writing about the islamic system of contracts, the twentieth-century egyptian legal reformer ‘abd al-razzāq al-sanhūrī noted that islamic law contains a principle that allowed contract law to mature beyond that of europe before the modern period: “there is a fundamental rule established by legal scholars: offer and acceptance alone are enough to establish a contract. it is strange that this simple rule, which acts as one of the basics of modern law, did not reach such a fundamental position in roman law despite the advanced stage it reached. perhaps the secret of how islamic law achieved this principle was the immense impact religious teachings had on establishing principles both in methodology and rulings. to prove this point, it is enough to say that contracts in european law did not become based upon consent until the impact of several factors, including christianity and the church’s laws. these laws encouraged fulfilling contracts, and people became tied to their word in line with the moral system established by religion.”3 although meant to cover areas of the law beyond contracts, riḍā came to dominate legal discussions in the classical period and was used by jurists in contract law to break away from formalistic requirements and influence the development of the law. this article, therefore, explores the use of the concept of consent (riḍā) in contract law chronologically from its origins in the holy qur’én to its use in the ḥanafī school. it argues that contract law developed from a collection of rules constructed to respond to practical needs towards a conceptualization centered on the general principle of riḍā. particularly in the post-classical period, jurists used riḍā to combat formalism and modify legal rules to legalize new forms of contracts. riḍā then became critical to reformers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who applied it to fit new concepts arriving from europe within an islamic framework, paving the way for the modern contractual systems in use today. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 61 2. research methodology and questions this article uses the analytical method to approach texts within the ×anafī school, namely: 1. al-aṣl by muḥammad b. al-ḥassan al-shaybānī (d. 189/805),4 2. al-mukhtaîar by abi ja‘far aḥmad b. muḥammad al-ṭaḥāwī (d. 321/935),5 3. al-mukhtaîar by aḥmad b. muḥammad al-qudūrī (d. 428/1036),6 4. badā’i‘ al-ṣanā’i‘ fī tartīb al-sharā’i‘ by abi bakr b. mas‘ūd alkāsānī (d. 587/1191),7 5. al-hidāya sharḥ bidāyat al-mubtadī by ʿalī b. abi bakr almarghīnānī (d. 593 /1197),8 6. al-baḥr al-rā’iq sharí kanz al-daqā’iq by zayn al-dīn b. ibrāhīm b. nujaym (d. 969-970/1561-62),9 and 7. radd al-muḥtār ‘ala al-durr al-mukhtār by muḥammad amīn b. ‘ābidīn (d. 1252/1836)10 the first two texts were composed during the formative period in iraq and egypt, while the next three represent the classical period when principles and rules became established. the last two works exemplify the developments during the ottoman period and lead into the 13th/19th century when states replaced classical fiqh writing with modern legal codes. in addition to the works mentioned above, this article will examine three texts of modern law: the ottoman mejelle of 1877, a draft of an egyptian code inspired by the mejelle entitled murshid al-ḥayrān, and the explanation of the egyptian civil code of 1949 by ‘abd al-razzāq al-sanhūrī. when studied in chronological order, an analysis of these texts aims to answer the following questions: 1. what is the origin of riḍā in the revealed sources of islamic law? 2. how did ×anafê jurists in each historical period employ riḍā to develop the law of contracts? 3. how has riḍā been used as the foundation of legal systems in the muslim world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? 3. literature review as mentioned above, most observers described the islamic system of contracts as rigid and formalistic. for example, joseph schacht noted that islamic rules required formal verbal and physical actions to be valid. in his view, islamic law had no freedom of contract because “liberty of a contract would be incompatible with the ethical control of legal transactions.”11 according to brinkley messick, formalism was a response to the problem of establishing intent, and traditional jurists resorted to outward physical verification of consent as an attempt “to know that which is defined as essential and yet, by its understood nature, 62 operating principles for… inward and inaccessible.”12 indeed, according to timur kuran, the legal rigidity and the strict criteria required to validate a contract caused economic development in the muslim world to fall behind its european counterparts, opening the door to domination by a more advanced european system.13 studying islamic contracts and the development of consent (riḍā) helps observers of islamic legal history better understand how the islamic legal system developed. contrary to earlier ideas that argued, “the notion of historical process in law was wholly alien to classical islamic jurisprudence,” this article argues that contract law, through riḍā, was able to challenge the formalism of the classical period and allow the islamic system to evolve.14 like all stable law systems, no radical shifts could occur. scholars worked within the existing system to add nuance, modify stipulations, and eventually open the door for further changes. additionally, describing contract law as an evolution of the concept of riḍā reveals the underlying methodology of how traditional scholars approached islamic law. traditionally, this involves a discussion of either the foundations of jurisprudence (uîūl al-fiqh) or substantive maxims (al-qawā‘id al-fiqhiyya). in criminal law, intisar rabb focused on the latter and the maxim “avoid proscribed punishments in cases of doubt.” in her view, the concept of doubt (shubha) became “canonized, textualized, and generalized” to become a central facet of islamic criminal law, allowing for the expansion of the law while at the same time “maintaining fidelity to the will of the divine lawgiver.”15 in contract law, the most cited maxim is “the foundation of contracts and their conditions is permissibility and validity (al-aṣl fi’l‘uqëd wa’l-shurëï al-jawāz wa’l-siííah).” as is the case with many maxims, it is not universally agreed-upon, with most scholars stating that it should be read in the exact opposite way, or that “the foundation of contracts is prohibition (al-aṣl fi’l-‘uqëd al-íaðr).”16 underlying either interpretation of this maxim is that contracts may never be understood as valid if they are lacking in the consent (riḍā) of the parties. the purpose of the current study is to suggest that, just like in criminal law, riḍā was used as time progressed and the need arose within muslim societies to allow for a broader range of contracts and move beyond formalism. therefore, riḍā can be understood as a form of “operating principle” around which contract law was constructed and the method through which it evolved. finally, this article allows observers to comprehend the changes that occurred in the modern period and argue that operating principles like riḍā, as expounded and developed by the jurists, functioned as bridges to modern legal concepts. for ahmed cevdet pasha and those who worked on the ottoman mejelle, it was a desire to return the law to hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 63 one more in line with the textual sources and the formalism of the preclassical period. however, twentieth-century scholars like al-sanhūrī chose another path and focused on the operating principles behind the law, even though their legal philosophy of western europe heavily influenced them. these scholars found no contradiction between their legal codes and the discussion of contracts in the traditional schools of islamic law. modern legal codes constituted a natural evolution of the law, at least in the eyes of reformers like al-sanhūrī, and represented a continuation of the methodology developed in the past. studying the principles of islamic law is not new to western scholarship, and numerous studies have elaborated on how the rules of islamic law developed around general principles. marion katz explored the development of ritual rules of prayer and ablution built around the principle of purity (ïahārah).17 more recently, in family law, ahmed fekry ibrahim argued that the concept of the best interest of the child acts as “the main overriding principle for the rules of jurists on custody.”18 in arabic, the most important work on islamic contract law to date – other than the observations of al-sanhūrī – is that of shafīq shiḥāta, the general theory of obligations in islamic law, initially published by the cairo university law school in 1936. in it, shiḥāta argued, “jurists focused their efforts on specific solutions and did not attempt to establish general principles.”19 however, he believed that general principles of contractual obligation could be extracted from the underlying juristic discourse. he placed the will of the parties (la volonté or al-irāda), a concept known in french law, as one of the primary methods of establishing contractual obligation.20 in the final section of this article, the principle of irāda as understood by al-sanhūrī will be examined in more detail. shiḥāta, although acknowledging that the role of riḍā in contract law as an expression of individual will, did not observe the impact that riḍā had on the development of the law, particularly in the modern period. this article, therefore, seeks to add to shiḥāta’s discussion by arguing that riḍā was the primary vehicle through which the law of contracts evolved, and acted as the primary operating principle in transactions (mu‘āmalāt). 4. discussion 4.1. consent (riḍā) in the holy qur’ān and ḥadīth the general principle of consent (riḍā) first appears in the quranic verse: “o you who believe, do not devour each other’s property by false means unless it is trade conducted with your mutual consent (tarādin). do not kill one another. indeed, allah almighty has been verymerciful to you.”21 this verse established the basic principle of contract 64 operating principles for… in islamic law and became essential for jurists. the language of the verse is in the style typical of many legal verses in the holy qur’ān: an initial principle is established, and then exceptions and conditions are added. in this particular case, all of an individual’s wealth and financial assets are forbidden to others. according to al-qurţubī (d. 671/1273), “this includes gambling, deception, usurpation, denial of rights, that which is not acceptable to the owner of the property, or that which is explicitly prohibited by law.”22 the only way to conduct business lawfully and avoid unjust wealth consumption is through consent, indicated by the arabic root r ḍ y used in the verse. ibn manẓūr (d. 711/1312) defined this root as “the opposite of discontent (sakhaṭ)….these two terms are characteristics of the heart.”23 the form is reflexive (tarāḍin) in the verse, indicating that such consent needs to be mutual. alongside this verse which establishes the general principle, two other verses outline specific requirements for contracts, the longest being in sūrat al-baqarah (chapter 2), which focuses on the specifics of a contract of delayed payment or debt, outlining that such contracts must be written and the requirements of witnesses and scribes.24 the second verse regarding contracts is found earlier in the same chapter: those who take ribā (usury or interest) will not stand but as stands the one whom the demon has driven crazy by his touch. that is because they have said: ‘sale is but like ribā,” while allah almighty has permitted sale, and prohibited ribā. so, whoever receives an advice from his lord and desists (from indulging in ribā), then what has passed is allowed for him, and his matter is up to allah almighty. as for the ones who revert back, those are the people of fire. there they will remain forever.25 in the ḥadīth collections, most prophetic statements regarding contracts are related to the specifics of individual contracts such as sales, gifts, and loans and the prohibition of ribā and other forms of usury or uncertainty. contracts, according to the ḥadīth, also contain a vital moral element, with one particular ḥadīth stating “…and if [the buyer and seller] are truthful and forthcoming [in their sale], then [the transaction is] blessed for them. and if they are silent and untruthful, then the blessing of their sale is wiped away.”26 therefore, the concept of riḍā was not elaborated upon in either the holy qur’ān or the ḥadīth beyond the main verse regarding riḍā, and much was left to the work of later legal scholars. this article will now turn to an observation of that work, following how the holy qur’ān and ḥadīth were integrated into the different stages of the development of the ḥanafi school. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 65 4.2. the ḥanafi school: early stages of development in the first significant text of the ḥanafii school, al-shaybānī’s al-aṣl, the opening section on sales began with a general ḥadīth regarding ribā,27 followed by a list of “what if” scenarios starting with the question of delayed purchases (salém). absent from al-shaybanī’s discussion of contracts was any mention of riḍā, which could indicate that he and other islamic scholars did not use the quranic verse in their construction of the law. however, at roughly the same time as al-shaybanī, his contemporary muḥammad b. idrīs al-shāfi‘ī (d. 204/820) made riḍā central to his writing on contracts. in his major work of jurisprudence al-‘umm, the section on contracts opened with the verse on riḍā and then stated the following: “firstly: allah almighty has referenced sale in several instances, which indicates that allah almighty has made permissible all sale contracts in which there is mutual consent from the buyer and the seller. secondly: allah almighty made sale permissible if it is not something that the prophet øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam forbade, as the prophet øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam clarifies that which allah almighty has intended in his statements. therefore, the foundation of sale contracts is that they are all religiously permissible if they are concluded with the consent (riḍā) of the two parties.”28 the absence of riḍā in the work of al-shaybanī can be explained because of his early placement in the development of islamic law. he seems to have had little interest in theoretical development and instead focused on practical situations derived from cases brought to him. from these cases, a few general notions appeared: 1. contracts contain at least two parties: a seller (bā’i‘) and a purchaser (mushtarī) 2. these two parties must agree on the item (‘ayn / mébī‘) and the price (thamén) 3. these agreements are verbal and occur in the past tense (bi‘tu, ishtaréytu) in al-shaybānī’s work, therefore, the foundations of a contract were outlined. legal terms were set, and rules were established that ensured parties could clearly enter contracts. regarding the overall framework, it is the practice of the prophet muḥammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam that acted as the legal standard, with individual cases used to apply the prophetic model. what is unique for al-shaybānī is that contracts banned elements forbidden by the holy qur’ān and ḥadīth, 66 operating principles for… such as ribā and uncertainty, and thereby made to fit within a new islamic system. writing in egypt roughly one century after al-shaybānī, alṭaḥāwī composed an abbreviation of the rules of the ḥanafi school, almukhtaṣar.29 according to secondary studies, al-ṭaḥāwī represented the point at which ḥanafi doctrine “assumes its classical form.”30 through a brief reading of the text, it immediately becomes clear a more theoretical discussion appeared: “suppose two people enter a valid contract of sale without any option of return stipulated by the parties. in that case, it is not permissible for one party to void [the contract] whether they have physically separated from the place where the sale was conducted. the option [to return] from the sunnah of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is [in the temporal space] between the statement of the seller ‘i have sold this to you’ and his subsequent statement ‘i accepted this [offer] from you.’ the person spoken to about the sale can retract [the offer] before its acceptance from the seller, [and the seller] can accept that statement if they have not physically separated. if they have physically separated, he does not have the right to issue his acceptance. he can, however, accept [the offer] from the seller if he has not engaged in other unrelated action or speech.”31 here, several critical developments have taken place beyond the work of al-shaybānī. first, contracts establish a legal obligation, and once terms are agreed upon, it obtains the full force of the law. this obligation was not absolute, and al-ṭaḥāwī dedicated an entire section later in his chapter to the concept of how to deal with corrupt contracts (fāîid).32 second, there was a clear distinction of contract form, in which there are now three phases. when a party offers to sell something, a second party presents a response accepting or rejecting that offer, and the initial party must confirm that offer. these statements are made in the past tense (bi‘tuka, qabaltu minka), and the seller holds the ultimate power of acceptance. thirdly, al-ṭaḥāwī introduced new concepts not found in the work of al-shaybānī and inserted them into the ḥanafi discourse, namely the physical separation of the contracting parties. this concept stemmed from a debate as to when the negotiation of a contract ceased, and alṭaḥāwī believed that contracts became binding only when the two parties separated physically or when one of the parties changed the subject.33 in the work of al-ṭaḥāwī, there was no explicit discussion of contract principles, yet al-ṭaḥāwī took a significant step forward in the organization of contract law. contracts of sale also became the ideal form, hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 67 and all others (gifts, loans, delayed purchases, etc.) were modifications of this standard. in the following century in iraq, the heartland of the ḥanafi tradition, the next stage in the development of contract law appeared in the mukhtaṣar of al-qudūrī, with a clear representation of contracts outlined: “sale contracts occur with offer and acceptance if both are in the past tense. if one of the contracting parties makes an offer, the other has the option [to respond]. he may either accept it during the session (majlis) or reject it if he so desires. if either of them stands up from the session before the acceptance, the offer is voided. if both the offer and acceptance are achieved, the sale becomes obligatory. there is no further option for either of them [to reject the sale] unless there is a fault [in the product] or it has not been seen (when the item sold is not present during the negotiation)…it is permissible to conduct a sale immediately or delayed, as long as the delay is for a known period.”34 al-qudūrī synthesized the contributions made by previous ḥanafi jurists, including those of al-shaybānī and al-ṭaḥāwī. the basic elements of contracts were clearly expressed: the presence of offer and acceptance, the use of the past tense, and the obligatory nature of contracts once the first two elements were established. al-qudūrī also set to rest the issues introduced by al-ṭaḥāwī, taking a clear side by only accepting physical separation for the obligation of contracts, not entering other actions or changing the subject. additionally, al-shaybānī’s difference with his master abū ḥanīfa regarding the delayed execution of the contract (salém) was mentioned later in the details of the chapter, with al-qudūrī siding with al-shaybānī in stating that contracts may be conducted immediately or with a later set date. so far, the ḥanafi school moved through several initial formative stages. with al-shaybānī, the ḥanafis were not heavily interested in principles but instead focused on adopting the norms of the existing system and making only slight, practical shifts. a general conceptualization began to appear in the following century, but with it came a new set of problems. there was a shift towards a more rigid, physical understanding of the law with al-ṭaḥāwī. the focus on outward, physical confirmation of the validity of a contract would remain the standard discourse of the ḥanafi school for roughly the next century until the operating principle of riḍā took center stage in the works of al-kāsānī and al-marghinānī. when it did so, it began to free the ḥanafis from their physical predicament. 68 operating principles for… 4.3. the rise of the use of riḍā writing slightly more than a century later than al-qudūrī, alkāsānī (d. 587/1191) began his discussion of contracts by stating, “the cornerstone of sales is the exchange of something desired that is done either by statement or action. for statements, this is what jurists refer to as offer and acceptance.”35 he also expanded upon al-qudūrī’s definition of contract form, adding the acceptance of the present tense: offer and acceptance can be in the past and the present tense. as for the past tense, it is fulfilled when the seller says ‘i have sold’ (bi‘tu) and the purchaser says ‘i have purchased’ (ishtaréytu)…as for the present tense, it is fulfilled when the seller says to the purchaser, ‘i sell you this object for such and such a price,’ and he intends an offer. the purchaser then says, ‘i have purchased’ or ‘i purchase from you this thing for such and such a price,’ and he intends acceptance…however, we have considered intent here.36 the core of al-kāsānī’s discussion came in the newly introduced idea of contracts carried out by “action (fi‘l).” these were types of contracts in which no words are spoken, and two items were exchanged, referred to in arabic as ta‘āṭī. much debate existed on their permissibility in islamic law, much of which took place during the period of al-kāsānī. for example, for the shāfi‘ī school contracts of ta‘āṭī were invalid, as they did not contain the statements of offer and acceptance presented in a recognizable form (ṣīgha).37 when al-kāsānī approached the same topic, he began by stating the shāfi‘ī objection and remarked that al-qudūrī considered such contracts as valid but with the condition that it should be carried out only in things that are of low value (khasīs). al-kāsānī stated that the correct view would be to allow such contracts without any formal requirements, as in his words, “…sale in both language and the law refers to an exchange, or the exchange of something wanted for something else wanted. the true nature of exchange without verbal form is that of ‘give and take,’ of which the words ‘sell’ and ‘buy’ are indicators.”38 he then presented his justification for assessing such a shift, citing several quranic verses, but beginning with 4:29, the verse mentioned in the introduction to this article. this was the first time an explicit reference to riḍā in ḥanafi discussions was made. however, it becomes immediately apparent that al-kāsānī was not interested in using riḍā as a confirmation of contracts without form, and he continued to cite the other verses such as 2:16 to discuss the general concept of trade (tijārah). he concluded that if exchange without verbal form was taking and giving and an acceptable form of trade, this should be acceptable for all items regardless of their value.39 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 69 at roughly the same time as al-kāsānī, al-marghīnānī produced another work that would become fundamental for the ḥanafi school. in his introduction to contracts, he hewed much closer to al-qudūrī and avoided al-kāsānī’s definition of exchange: sale is contracted with an offer and acceptance if both are expressed in the past tense, like if one were to say ‘i sold’ and the other ‘i purchased’ because a sale is the establishment of a legal act. the establishment can only be known through lawful means (al-shar‘), and the subject of announcing [that legal action] has been exercised through [the past tense], and therefore the contract is made valid through it.40 al-marghīnānī ignored al-kāsānī’s discussions about the present tense and instead chose to make a general statement that “contracts are to be considered by their meaning.” he then echoed al-kāsānī’s opinion about formless contracts in items of all values but made a slightly different justification. rather than focusing on determining the linguistic roots of sale, al-marghīnānī stated that formless contracts were allowed because they were one method of establishing mutual consent (tarāḍin), using the same form in arabic as the quranic verse. therefore, by the end of the twelfth century ce, riḍā was firmly established as the central operating principle of ḥanafi contract law. the old debates of linguistic form were diffused, and underlying intent became the standard. but while riḍā began to solve one major issue of form, it had so far not been used to engage the issue of physical separation. that would occur a few centuries later during the rise of the ottoman empire, where a new generation of jurists would take yet another creative step in the understanding of riḍā and move it closer to modern views of the law. 4.4. expanding contract freedom during the ottoman period during the ottoman expansion into the arab world in the sixteenth century, ibn nujaym (d. 969-970/1561-62) composed his commentary on an earlier text by al-nasafī (d. 710/1310). in his section on sales, he quoted al-nasafī’s base text that contracts were “an exchange of assets for assets with mutual consent.” 41 alongside this standard definition first established by al-kāsānī, ibn nujaym was also interested in placing the operating principle of riḍā at the apex of contract law and relegated other debates underneath it. for example, the argument on the use of tenses was not present in ibn nujaym’s work, and he explained contract form with the following statement: “the foundation [of a contract] is the offer and acceptance that indicate an exchange, or what may take its place in non-verbal contracts. the foundation of an indicative action of consent (riḍā) by exchange occurs either in statement 70 operating principles for… or action. these actions have four conditions: establishment, correctness, applicability, and obligatory nature.”42 for this study, the most relevant aspect of ibn nujaym’s work is how he dealt with the concept of the physical separation of parties as an indicator that negotiations have ceased, first introduced by al-ṭaḥāwī and the idea of the setting (majlis). for ibn nujaym, the stipulation of physical separation became a problem. the operational principle of mutual consent (riḍā) was the standard in defining a contract, and the occurrence of physical separation seemed to contradict that principle. if two parties agreed, or at least on the road to such an agreement, why would one person simply standing up change that? to solve this problem, ibn nujaym attempted to reconstruct the definition of physical separation and why it invalidated a contract: original text of al-nasafī: “if one party stands from the meeting before the acceptance is given, the offer is invalid.” ibn nujaym’s commentary: “because [standing] prohibits the completion of [a contract] but does not invalidate it. this is because the offer is one half of the reason [for the contract’s validity]. if a ruling is dependent on both parts, the first is a reason (sabab), and the second establishes the rule (íukm). this is because the act of standing is an indication of opposition, and therefore it acts as an invalidation.”43 ibn nujaym was searching for a justification of a concept introduced in the early period of the school. he could not escape it because it had been confirmed in other texts and, unlike the requirements of the past tense, scholars to this point had avoided challenging the idea of physical separation. perhaps this was because the concept of physical separation was mentioned in a narration of the companion ibn ‘umar and cited in major ḥadīth collections.44 ibn nujaym, therefore, was one of the first to challenge this concept, applying the operating principle of riḍā as a starting point and defining physical separation as an indication of opposition to the acceptance. in the late ottoman period, ibn ‘ābidīn (d. 1252/1836) made further development in the understanding of riḍā to solve this issue. his work, radd al-muḥtār, is a second-level gloss following an initial text by muḥammad ibn ‘abd allāh al-timurtāshī (d. 1004/1595) and the firstlevel commentary by muḥammad ibn ‘ali al-ḥaṣkafī (d. 1088/1677). in it, ibn ‘ābidīn reworked the concept of the contract setting (majlis) by altering the definition of the setting to one of a union of the two hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 71 contracting parties (ittiḥād). when that union is broken, the contract receives legal force: al-ḥaṣkafī: “[the contract is intact] as long as one party has not gone from the setting in the majority opinion.” ibn ‘ābidīn: “it is said that [the union] is intact as long as he remains in his place. it is broken when he rises, regardless of whether it was an expression of opposition or not.” by changing the definition of contract setting to one of a union, ibn ‘ābidīn removed the physical nature of the term majlis and opened the discussion for other types of settings, such as those based on time. in addition, ibn ‘ābidīn also modified the term riḍā to mean an expression of a person’s will (irādah) that a contract is carried out. he explained this element in detail in the section regarding joking about contracts (hazl): al-ḥaṣkafī: and contracts are not considered valid with joking due to the lack of riḍā and its necessary rulings. ibn ‘ābidīn: a joker speaks with the form of the contract through his own choice and consent (riḍā). however, he does not choose for the ruling [of that contract] to be established, nor does he accept it. ‘choosing’ in this sense means purposefully doing a thing and willing it [to happen]. ‘consent’ is having a preference or desire for something. someone forced into a contract chooses to do so but does not accept it, and from here, it is said [by other jurists]: ‘sinning and bad acts are the will of allah almighty that he does not accept. indeed allah almighty does not accept nonbelief from his servants.’45 according to the legal definition of riḍā, it was no longer sufficient that a contract was solely based on an indication that the two parties accepted the contract’s terms. it was also necessary to express a more profound meaning reflecting a person’s feelings or desires. this change in definition represented an advancement in ḥanafi contract law and had important implications when applied in other areas. for example, for ibn ‘ābidīn, offer and acceptance were no longer attached to a particular party of the contract: the offer is mentioned first in speech from one of the two contracting parties, while acceptance is mentioned second, whether it is ‘i sold’ or ‘i bought,’ indicating mutual consent.46 72 operating principles for… the order of who began a contract, long considered standardized by the ḥanafi school and part of contract form, was loosened using the new definition of riḍā. now, any party with the will to contract may begin negotiations, and the indicator of whether the process was followed was their “mutual consent,” or riḍā. therefore, there were several significant developments in the ottoman period. the concept of riḍā, established by al-kāsānī and almarghīnānī, has now become the primary vehicle through which change in contract law takes place. physical separation and the contract setting have now been reworked under this principle to represent an implicit opposition to the contract’s terms. later, ibn ‘ābidīn took the discussion a step further, changing the definition of riḍā to be more in line with an expression of individual will. no longer was the setting a physical meeting (majlis); it was a union (ittiḥād), a coming together of the contracting parties. this was a crucial semantic shift in the definition of a contract setting, but this “coming together” still maintained its physical characteristics. although ibn ‘ābidīn failed to completely change the requirements of the majlis, his ability to shift the definition to one of a union between contracting parties as well as riḍā to an expression of will opened the door for future scholars. in the modern period, jurists would take the most recent step in the evolution of contracts: expanding contract freedom while remaining faithful to islamic legal discourse. 4.5. the modern period: between traditionalism and modernism outside traditional islamic texts, it is essential now to look at three modern legal codes: the ottoman mejelle of 1877, a similar draft code from egypt entitled the murshid al-ḥayrān, and al-sanhūrī’s egyptian civil code of 1949. the mejelle began with a list of 99 general principles that drove the rest of the established rules. for this article, it is important to note two: article 2: actions are judged by their intentions. article 3: contracts are judged according to intent and meaning, not by their words and linguistic construction. although leaving out an explicit mention of riḍā, the underlying definition of an expression of will as constructed by ibn ‘ābidīn was present. however, upon viewing the details of contracts, the principle that played such a central role in earlier ottoman debates disappeared, and a more rigid interpretation of the contract appeared. for example, articles 169-172 of the code focused on the tense of the verb “to sell,” accepting the past tense unconditionally, allowing the use of the present tense and hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 73 the imperative if the intent to sell was immediate and rejecting the future tense altogether.47 the debate of the setting of the contract (majlis) also returned. for example, article 181 stated that, “the setting of a contract is the meeting in which the contract takes place.” article 182 then elaborated: “the two parties of the contract have the option to return the purchase until the end of the setting…” finally, article 183 included a modification of the concept of standing from the setting by stating, “if one of the contracting parties, after the offer but before the acceptance, does or says something that indicates opposition, the offer is invalidated. no consideration is given to an acceptance that occurs afterward.”48 the contract setting in this section was not defined exclusively as a physical location. instead, it was much closer to the concept of a union (ittiḥād) as elaborated by ibn ‘ābidīn. there was also a reference to the idea of opposition. however, it was not directly connected to ibn nujaym’s justification of standing up. even in the mejelle, the contract setting still represented a problem for legal scholars. although its authors were able to move beyond the concept of standing up, physicality and a connection to a place still reigned supreme. the egyptian draft code inspired by the mejelle, the murshid alḥayrān, composed by muḥammad qadrī bāshā (1237-1306/1821-1888), echoed similar sentiments. 49 in this code, the definition of riḍā was limited, and, like the mejelle, a description of riḍā is not found in the general principles. its first appearance was under the second section on contracts entitled “on the acceptance of the contracting parties and what eliminates that acceptance:” article 191: for contracts regarding assets themselves or the benefits derived therefrom to be legally sound, there is the condition of both parties' mutual consent, without coercion or force. here, riḍā has fallen from the core definition of the contract as found in the work of earlier ḥanafi scholars and is now a counterweight to coercion. the murshid al-ḥayrān did differ from the mejelle in its approach to language. there was no single article in the egyptian code referring to linguistic constructions. instead, only one article was given at the end of the section on contract form, stating, “consideration in contracts is to intent and meaning, not to words and linguistic constructs.”50 this was a verbatim copy from article 3 of the mejelle. however, unlike its turkish inspiration, the murshid al-ḥayrān did not elaborate further to limit contract form to specific verbal tenses and confirmed all types of contracts regardless of their form.51 it was directly in response to the issue of form in the mejelle and the murshid al-ḥayrān that this study now returns to al-sanhūrī. 74 operating principles for… although, as mentioned in the introduction, al-sanhūrī praised the islamic system’s ability to develop a fundamental concept of consent from an early stage, jurists over time became embroiled in what he described as the “objective trend” in islamic law. the legal discourse was too focused on tying together offer and acceptance, ignoring their established obligations. this trend for al-sanhūrī was deeply entrenched in islamic law’s principles and rulings and led to a constant search for an external, physical expression of consent to a contract. this was in stark contrast to what he would call the “self-based trend” of law that sought internal acceptance and was in his mind the correct approach. this criticism was most clearly seen in his approach to the concept of the majlis. while some schools were able to move into a more abstract concept of the contract setting, the ḥanafis, according to alsanhūrī, did not. after presenting a collection of different juristic quotations on the issue, he concluded by saying, “it appears from reading these sources that the ḥanafis drowned in their depiction of the contract setting as a physical, material place. for example, the setting could be changed through walking around because the offer took place in one location while the acceptance took place in another. because the parties have moved just one step from their initial position, this single step has penetrated the offer's validity and acceptance.”52 he then suggested that jurists could have easily saved themselves from this predicament by editing their definition of the contract setting and understanding it in time and not in place.53 al-sanhūrī wished to avoid this “objective trend” in his interpretations of civil law in the arab world. in the egyptian civil code of 1949, al-sanhūrī avoided making any mention of the traditional islamic definition of contracts and introduced a concept from the french system: the autonomie de la volonté (sulṭān al-irādah), or the supremacy of free will. he described this concept as connected to a theory of natural law, “the supporters of this concept (autonomie de la volonté) believe that will holds the ultimate power in creating contracts and the legal results that come from them. this applies not only to contracts but also to all other legal ties. they believe that the social system is based on the individual. he is the goal, and the group exists to serve him. the individual character is not complete without freedom, and the outward expression of that freedom is independent free will. philosophers hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 75 made thought the sign of the individual from their point of view, while jurists who support this principle made will the sign of the individual. when an individual lives in society and the primary goal of that society is to respect his freedom and free will, it becomes necessary that his connections with others be based upon free will. he cannot be subject to any obligation unless he chooses it and accepts it. the foundation of every legal obligation is consent (riḍā) and choice (ikhtêyār) that follow the natural law because it is based on individual freedom and necessary respect.”54 al-sanhūrī’s definitions were not radically removed from those of ibn ‘ābidīn. as has already been mentioned, ibn ‘ābidīn attempted to re-define riḍā as free will and choice. where he could not enact change, however, was within the standard ḥanafi discourse that had taken an “objective” approach and stuck to the idea of tying together offer and acceptance from its earliest stages. as a result, the modern period of islamic legal reform was torn between two differing ideals. on the one hand, strict formalism dominated in the late formative and classical periods of the law. these discussions were attached to textualism and the ḥadīth and left principles in the background. on the other was a more open interpretation based upon the operating principle of riḍā, used by later ḥanafi scholars in the ottoman period to expand upon the law and introduce new types of contracts. as the twentieth century continued, however, the latter approach won out, and most legal codes in the muslim world today closely mirror the understanding of al-sanhūrī and not that of the mejelle. 5. conclusion in conclusion, when representative texts in the ḥanafi school are placed in chronological order, several important results appear regarding contract form. apparent shifts can be seen in the developmental stages of the law, beginning with a formative period in which the holy qur’ān and sunnah acted as the main framework, and individual cases were used to develop new rules. these rules were not intended to fundamentally change the legal system's operation but to incorporate previous practices and make slight adjustments to fit islamic legal norms regarding matters such as usury and delayed contracts. principles were not discussed in fiqh texts during this early period. however, they were clearly understood by jurists and acted as a backdrop upon which their system worked and others – particularly al-shéfi‘ê were fully aware of the concept of riḍā. in the next few centuries, theoretical discussions appeared that became crystalized sometime around the 11th century ce. this period is 76 operating principles for… characterized by a focus on formalism, for example, whether contracts were issued using the past tense and what physical actions were required to break the contract setting (majlis). by the 12th century ce, islamic contract law had shifted, placing the quranic concept of consent (riḍā) at its core. in subsequent centuries, jurists would use riḍā to develop and expand the law beyond the formalism that it had once become entangled in, opening the door to include new types such as non-verbal contracts or contracts with no specific form. when muslim reformers in the modern period approached contracts, they found themselves trapped between the conflicting understandings of formalism and freedom as governed by riḍā. some chose to follow formalism, while others used riḍā to create a bridge into a new interpretation of the law, one that would allow the islamic conceptualization of contracts to continue to exist in the twentieth century in a period characterized by codification and european influence. the development of contract law from rules to principles is similar to that of the common law system. according to patrick atiyah, “the emergence of the general principles of contract law saw the shift in emphasis from property law to contract; and within the realm of contract…the shift from particular relationships, or particular types of contract, to general principles of contract, and the shift from executed to executor contracts.”55 however, while it took the common law until the end of the 18th century to begin the extraction of contract theory, islamic law had laid the groundwork for theoretical discussions through the use of riḍā more than 600 years prior. 6. recommendations: a future for riḍā? as was seen during the modern period, scholars such as alsanhūrī tapped into the traditional islamic understanding of riḍā to form the basis of his civil code. as a result, most of the muslim world's legal systems have continued to use a version of riḍā in their modern legal systems. however, can the concept of riḍā, which factors so highly in commercial law, be extended beyond the realm of contracts and retain its value? in other words, can we understand riḍā as a general and unrestricted principle? one major limitation must be considered: the ethical constraints to consent. an expression of individual will or consent cannot be regarded as valid if it expresses a desire to enter into an expressly forbidden agreement in the islamic legal tradition. for example, marriage contracts, in which both parties must express their consent to marry, cannot be carried out between siblings or with a woman who has previously been married to the groom’s father.56 even within the realm hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 77 of contract law, two other schools within the sunni tradition (shéfi‘ê and ×anbali) prohibit buying and selling items that contain pork, alcohol, or dogs, as each is considered ritualistically impure (najis) and therefore has no monetary value.57 thus, riḍā should always be placed within a larger islamic context of morality and ethics and not an absolute principle that overrides all other considerations. beyond these ethical restrictions, riḍā can continue to act as a tool for lawmakers seeking to ease the flow of commerce and resolve contract disputes between parties. economic systems in the muslim world, bound mainly by bureaucracy and red tape, should seek to re-align their legal systems away from the specific form rules. just as traditional muslim scholars used riḍā before the introduction of new legal systems to break away from understandings of form, contemporary legislators should see riḍā as a tool that can both widen the validity of contracts and lessen conflict, while at the same time ensuring that their rules continue to operate with the legitimacy of the islamic system. references 1 john v. orth, “contract and the common law,” in the state and freedom of contract, ed. harry n. scheiber, (stanford: stanford university press, 1998), 44-65. patrick atiyah, however, has suggested that although the freedom of contract has continued to expand in the twentieth century, new views of human nature and the role of consent have constrained the classical view of contract freedom. see patrick atiyah, the rise and fall of freedom of contract (oxford: clarendon press, 1979), 726-7. 2 for more on the discussion of freedom of contract in islamic law see atikullah abdullah, “the doctrine of the freedom of contract (ḥurriyyat al-ta‘āqud) in islamic mu‘āmalāt: an exposition on the concept and rules of the contract of muqāwalah in the construction industry,” islamic studies 50:3-4 (2011): 365-381. 3 ʿabd al-razzāq al-sanhūrī, maṣādir al-ḥaqq fī’l-fiqh al-islāmī (beirut: dār iḥyāʾ alturāth al-ʿarabī, nd), 1:32. 4 muḥammad b. al-ḥassan al-shaybānī, kitāb al-aṣl (riyadh: ʿālim al-kutub, 1990). 5 aḥmad b. muḥammad al-ṭaḥāwī, al-mukhtaîar (cairo: na, 1950). 6 aḥmad b. muḥammad al-qudūrī, mukhtaîar al-qudūrī fī’l-fiqh al-ḥanafī (beirut: dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1997). 7 abū bakr b. mas‘ūd al-kāsānī, badā’i‘ al-ṣanā’i‘ fī tartīb al-sharā’i‘ (beirut: dār alkutub al-‘ilmiyya, 2003). 8 ʿalī b. abī bakr al-marghīnānī, al-hidāya sharḥ bidāyat al-mubtadī (karachi: idārat al-qur’ān wa al-‘ulūm al-islāmiyya, 1996). 9 zayn al-dīn b. ibrāhīm ibn nujaym, al-baḥr al-rā’iq sharḥ kanz al-daqāʾiq (beirut: dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 1997). 10 muḥammad amīn ibn ʿābidīn, radd al-muḥtār ‘alā al-durr al-mukhtār (riyadh: dār ʿālim al-kutub, 2003). 11 joseph schacht, an introduction to islamic law (oxford: clarendon press, 1982), 144. 12 paul powers, intent in islamic law: motive and meaning in medieval sunni fiqh (leiden: brill, 2006), 97-110. 13 timur kuran, the long divergence: how islamic law held back the middle east (princeton: princeton university press, 2011). 78 operating principles for… 14 noel coulson, a history of islamic law (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 1984), 4. 15 intisar rabb, doubt in islamic law: a history of legal maxims, interpretation, and islamic criminal law (new york: cambridge university press, 2015), 317. 16 see muḥammad al-zuḥaylī, al-qawā’id al-fiqhiyyah wa taṭbīqātuha fi’l-madhāhib al-arba‘ah (beirut: dār al-fikr, 2006), 815-17. 17 marion holmes katz, body of text: the emergence of the sunni law of ritual purity (albany: state university of new york press, 2002). 18 ahmed fekry ibrahim, “the best interests of the child in pre-modern islamic juristic discourse and practice,” american journal of comparative law 63:4 (2015): 859-891, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26425443. 19 chafik chehata, essai d'une théorie générale de l'obligation en droit musulman (paris: dalloz, 2005), 41-42. 20 chafik chehata, essai, 102. 21 the holy qur’én, 4:29, emphasis added. mufti taqi usmani translation. 22 muḥammad b. aḥmad al-qurţubī, al-jāmiʿ li aḥkām al-qurʾān (beirut: dār al-fikr), 2:338. 23 muḥammad b. mukarram ibn manẓūr, lisān al-ʿarab (beirut: dār ṣādir, 1956), 14:323-24. 24 the holy qur’én, 2:282. 25 the holy qur’én, 2:275, emphasis added. mufti taqi usmani translation. 26 found in muḥammad b. ismāʿīl al-bukhārī, ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī (liechtenstein: thesaurus islamicus, 2000), 1:388; muslim b. al-ḥajjāj al-naysābūrī, ṣaḥīḥ muslim (liechtenstein: thesaurus islamicus, 2000), 2:650. 27 for more information, see hiroyuki yanagihashi. "contract law," in encyclopedia of islam, three, ed. kate fleet, gudrun krämer, denis matringe, john nawas, everett rowson, accessed 11 may 2021, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_com_25573. 28 muḥammad b. idrīs al-shāfi‘ê, kitāb al-umm (damascus: dār qutayba, 2003), 6:5-7. 29 for a look at the importance of the mukhtaṣar literature in islamic law, see muhammad fadel, “the social logic of taqlid and the rise of the mukhtasar,” islamic law and society 3:2 (1996): 193-233. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3399455. 30 christopher melchert, the formation of the sunni schools of law, 9th-10th centuries ce (leiden: brill, 1997), 116. 31 al-ṭaḥāwī, al-mukhtaṣar, 74-75. 32 al-ṭaḥāwī, al-mukhtaṣar, 85-86. 33 as mentioned below, later jurists would cite this as based on a hadith. however, al-ṭaḥāwī does not mention the narration in his text. 34 al-qudūrī, mukhtaṣar, 1:196-98. 35 al-kāsānī, badā’i‘ al-ṣanā’i‘, 6:528. 36 al-kāsānī, badā’i‘ al-ṣanā’i‘, 6:529. 37 see shihāb al-dīn al-qalīūbī and ʿumayra, ḥāshiyyat qalīūbī wa ʿumayra. (cairo: muḥammad ‘alī ṣubayḥ, 1949), 2:153. 38 al-kāsānī, badā’i‘ al-ṣanā’i‘, 6:528. 39 al-kāsāni, badā’i‘ al-ṣanā’i‘, 6:532. 40 al-marghīnāni, al-hidāya, 5:3-4. 41 ibn nujaym, al-baḥr al-rā’iq, 5:429. 42 ibid. 43 ibn nujaym, zayn al-dīn b. ibrāhīm. al-baḥr al-rā’iq sharí kanz al-daqā’iq. (beirut: dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1997), 4:455 44 found in muḥammad b. ‘īsa altirmidhī, sunan al-tirmidhī (liechtenstein: thesaurus islamicus, 2000), 1:338-39. 45 ibn ‘ābidīn, radd al-muḥtār, 7:19. 46 ibn ‘ābidīn, radd al-muḥtār, 7:17-18. http://mcgill.worldcat.org/title/essai-dune-theorie-generale-de-lobligation-en-droit-musulman/oclc/58771047&referer=brief_results hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 79 47 mecelle-i ahkam-ı adliyye, ed. ali himmet berki (ankara: banka ve ticaret hukuku araştırma enstitüsü, 1959), 21-22. 48 mecelle, 24. 49 muḥammad qadrī bāsha, kitāb murshid al-ḥayrān ila ma‘rifat aḥwāl al-insān (cairo: al-maktaba al-miṣriyya, 1919). 50 qadrī bāsha, murshid al-ḥayrān, 36, article 220. 51 qadrī bāsha, murshid al-ḥayrān, 42, articles 251-53. 52 qadrī bāsha, murshid al-ḥayrān, 2:9. 53 qadrī bāsha, murshid al-ḥayrān, 2:10. 54 ʿabd al-razzāq aḥmad al-sanhūrī, al-wasīṭ fi sharḥ al-qānūn al-madanī al-jadīd (cairo: dār al-nashr lil-jāmiʿā al-miṣriyya), 1:120. 55 atiyah, rise and fall, 36. 56 these prohibitions are explicitly mentioned in the holy qur’ān, along with a list of other prohibited marriage contracts. see the holy qur’én, 4:23. 57 see shiíāb al-dīn al-qalīūbī and ‘umayra, ḥāshiyyat qalīūbī wa ‘umayra, 2:152. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 9 the muslim reawakening in the 19th century pak-hind sub-continent: an overview dr. anis ahmad riphah international university, islamabad, pakistan email: anis.ahmad@riphah.edu.pk received on: 06-01-22 accepted on: 09-03-22 abstract the fall of delhi in 1857 and the rise of the british colonialism to power in the subcontinent shattered the confidence and selfunderstanding of the muslim community. those who ruled huge territory for around eight centuries were suddenly reduced to a religious minority, observed suspiciously by the british colonialists. the question how it happened and why it happened kept the muslims community for a while confused. but gradually it started to think how they lost their glory. during this period even some well informed and well-meaning muslim leaders thought there was no future and it was better for them to emigrate to a more safe and peaceful place to avoid humiliation and discrimination. muslims were politically, socially, economically, and culturally marginalized. at the same time, the christian missionaries and orientalists started an intellectual crusade. their main target were the sources of inspirations of muslims namely the holy qur’én and the life of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) missionaries as well as orientalists questioned the validity, relevance and authority of both the sources in a so called age of science and reason. muslims’ response to this missionary and orientalist’s intellectual invasions was prompt. scholars like rahmanullah keranvi, sir syed ahmad khan, syed amir ali and shibli na‘mani, to mention only a few, responded in their own ways. syed amir ali and shibli in particular tried through an interpretation of the muslim history, to prepare a ground for revival of muslim thought and the community. this overview offers a few preliminary observations as a background to the muslim awakening in the 19th century pak-hind sub-continent. this discussion leads us to a more detailed review of the contribution mailto:anis.ahmad@riphah.edu.pk 10 the muslim reawakening … of sayed amir ali and shibli na‘mani in the intellectual revival of muslim thought and the muslim community in the subcontinent. key words: ummah, khiléfah, taqlêd, jihéd, ijtihéd 1. introduction with the fall of delhi in september 1857 at the hands of the british colonialists, a world of illusions in which the muslims of the subcontinent had been living for about a century came to an abrupt end. the muslim encountered a new crisis, one they had never faced in the subcontinent before. crises and deadlocks, it is said, have at least one advantage: they force people to think. the crisis muslims faced in the subcontinent not only called for a re-assessment of their national strategies but also provoked them to rediscover their real identity in the context of a fast-changing political scenario. the challenge was unique and unprecedented. since its success in the battle of plassey (1757), the east india company emerged as an ascending colonialist power in the subcontinent. the writ of the mughal emperor, though still a figurehead, did not extend beyond the confines of delhi. yet many muslims, living in a world of illusion, thought, even as late as the 1820’s, that “the english company acted as the servant and 'diwan' of the house of timur”.1 the disillusionment was traumatic. at first, pessimism prevailed. many muslims even thought of migrating from india to far-off places such as makkah. hali2 tells us that at one point syed ahmed khan (18171898), the well-known educationist and reformer, decided to migrate to egypt, though he later changed his mind, but even a mass migration could not have solved the problems muslims were facing at individual and national levels. at the individual level, the problems were mostly economic, cultural and psychological and at the national level, the problems were more varied and more serious. we will like to divide our review of the major problems faced by the muslims in the sub-continent into two parts. first, we will review the political and religious condition of the muslim ummah (community) in the pre-modern period, which ended with establishment of khiléfat in peshawar in 1824. second, we will review the political, social, economic, and religious issues muslims faced after 1824. 2. discussion 2.1 political and religious condition of the muslims in pre-khiléfat of the peshawar period hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 11 2.1.1 political instability by the beginning of the 18th century, the mughal empire in the subcontinent was showing visible signs of decay and disintegration. with the death of alamgir in 1707, a war for succession to the throne began in the house of timur. the internal division and disunity, coupled with the devastating sack of delhi by nadir shah in 1739, left the capital city torn and bleeding. other major cities and provinces fared no better. the east india company, initially a commercial enterprise but now becoming a claimant to the throne of delhi, benefited most from this situation. with the frequent uprisings of the marathas and other non-muslim provincial rulers it was more or less writing on the wall that the mughals have lost their power. but who was to fill this vacuum? if ahmad shah abdali had not broken the strength of the marathas in june 1761, they would have been the obvious successors to the mughals. however, it was the british imperialists who filled this vacuum. the qualitatively inferior armies of the mughals were defeated by the well-disciplined, organized, and technologically superior british troops, but muslims in general and the religious intelligentsia in particular did not accept defeat, at least in their hearts. a contemporary observer might have explained this selfunderstanding as a last excuse of wounded vanity as an escape into unreality, yet this very spirit of resistance contained the seeds of reassertion. after a short interlude of apparent quiet, the muslim response to the new situation articulated itself. what were its characteristics and effects? how far was it successful? this needs to be properly examined. 2.1.2 religious oppression against the muslim islam entered india in the early part of the 8th century c.e. through different channels, in general, early arab settlers, traders, and frequent expeditions from persia and ottoman empire introduced islam to this new soil. the most significant contribution, however, was made by the sufi orders. these sufi orders, originating in baghdad, quniyah, shiraz, and isfahan, were mostly influenced by the waídat al wujëdi doctrines (i.e., an essential unity in all creations). significant efforts were made by muslim thinkers to bring the islamic train of thought in line with tradition. shaikh ahmad of sirhind, popularly known as mujaddid alif thani (1563-1624), and shah wali allah of delhi (1703-1763) tried to revive islam on its traditional foundations. if not in their own time, at least in the following generations, the effects of their efforts became visible. this internal religious crisis was further intensified after the fall of delhi in 1857 by conflicts between the interests of the muslim population and that of the british administrators. 12 the muslim reawakening … to show the full fury of "victory," british prime minister palmerston (1784-1865) wrote to lord canning, governor general of india, that "every civil building connected with mohammedan tradition (an oblique reference to the jami‘ masjid delhi) should be levelled to the ground without regard to antiquarian veneration or artistic predilection”.3 a british historian peter hardy reports that the grand mosque of shah jahan somehow escaped demolition, but for five years no muslim was allowed to pray in it.4 he further states that the mosque was used as a stable for the horses of the victorious british troops. the akbarabadi mosque, however, where shah wali allah of delhi had taught was levelled to the ground.5 the fatehpuri masjid, in delhi, remained in the custody of the colonizer until 1875.6 the central royal library, founded by babur in 1526, with thousands of valuable volumes and manuscripts, was looted and destroyed. these and similar incidents of religious oppression at the hands of the british rulers exasperated muslims and intensified their reaction to the british rule. muslim responses to this political and religious crisis were soon to erupt. some responses were violent, while others were more sophisticated and philosophical. hardly half a century had passed after the death of shah wali allah of delhi (d. 1763) when a radical movement for the revitalization and purification of faith arose from the house of shah wali allah. it was mainly a movement for socio-religious reform, but since its major objective was the establishment of an islamic state in the northwestern frontier area of the subcontinent, it soon developed into an activist movement. the movement became significant and influential for two main reasons. first, persons such as shah isma‘il, a grandson of shah wali allah, and maulana abd al hayy, son-in-law of shah ‘abd al aziz (17461823), were among its leaders. shah ‘abd al 'aziz himself is reported to have endorsed through a fatwa, and recommended the movement to his followers. when syed ahmad of bareilly announced his intention to wage a war (jihéd) against the sikh oppressors in the northwestern frontier, shah ‘abd al aziz gave his own mantle and turban (‘imémah) to syed ahmad as a mark of his approval and full support. he wanted to participate personally in the jihéd, but, due to old age, could not do so. second, the actual program adopted by the movement was of great significance. as a movement for social reform, it tried to correct the practice of prohibition of second marriages of widows, similarly the high cost of marriage, unnecessary and lavish expenditures on birth and burial ceremonies resulting from adoption of many hindu customs by the muslims. on the religious level the movement tried to correct many sufi practices which violated the sharê‘ah, such as prostrating oneself before the graves of “holy persons.” or the exaggerated reverence paid to the hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 13 sufi teacher which approximated worship. similar practices existed in other parts of the muslim world. attempts were made by persons such as muhammad b. abd al wahhab (1703-1787) of najd to call muslims back to the path of the holy qur’én and the sunnah. syed ahmad’s call for jihéd against the sikh oppression and for the establishment of an islamic state on the pattern of the khiléfah al réshidah (the rightly guided caliphate) was well-received all over the subcontinent. although syed ahmad and shah isma‘il succeeded in breaking the sikh power and establishing khiléfah in peshawar, the movement did not last too long. with the martyrdom of both leaders in 1831 in a battle with the sikh troops, the whole movement collapsed. it did, however, survive at an ideological level in various parts of the subcontinent. the mujéhidên movement continued surreptitiously in parts of the country, particularly in bengal, bihar, and the united provinces. the influence of the followers of syed ahmad and shah isma‘il was evident on the resistance movements of bengal, the faré’iìi movement, focusing on economic justice and religious freedom for the muslims. the mujéhidên movement had a tremendous impact on the overall history of islam in india. but our concern here is confined to the effects of its failure which contributed much to the political and religious confusion facing the muslim community in the 19th century. a general pessimism prevailed after the fall of the mujéhidên at balakot in 1831. for the muslim community, the disintegration of the dream of an islamic state was as frustrating as the fall of delhi later in 1857. it added further to the problems faced by muslims in the subcontinent. with this brief overview of the situation in which the muslims found themselves in 19th century india, we like to review the major problems besetting them, in the political, economic, social and religious domains. 2.2 political problems muslims ruled india for around eight centuries. developing an efficient system of government and a rich culture, they succeeded in ruling efficiently as large a country as the whole of western europe. it was a proof of the viability of their social, economic and administrative systems. perhaps luke scrafton was not exaggerating when he called it the best-administered government in the world in the 18th century c.e.7 sidney owen was more moderate in his comment: "whatever its defects, it was ... a grandly-conceived, well-adjusted and beneficent structure of government." 8 14 the muslim reawakening … the political infrastructure of the empire, however, was not broad-based. islamic political institutions such as khiléfah (caliphate), shëra (mutual and broad-based counseling), al amr bi al ma‘rëf wa, nahê ‘an il munkar (enjoining the good and prohibiting the evil) were with rare exceptions (e.g. alamgir), were never introduced or established in the empire. those who ruled did so because of their personal charisma or due to support from the army and certain interest groups. consequently, when the fall of the mughal empire took place, muslims had no political organization or institutions through which they could regain their political strength. therefore, the fall of delhi left the muslims in a political void. another pertinent political question was for the muslims how to relate to the new imperial power. un-islamic groups, such as the qadiani or ahmadis, offered the view that, as islam stipulated submission to the authority of the ruler, the muslims should accept the british rule as legitimate and cooperate with it. they invoked one part of a verse of the holy qur’én in support of their view, suggesting that the holy qur’én says, “…(obey allah and obey the messenger and those in authority among you) (the holy qur’én 4:59). in its proper context the verse does not mean obedience to imperialism or to an un-islamic rule. the full verse reads as follows: “o you who believe, obey allah and obey the messenger and those in authority among you. then, if you quarrel about something, revert it back to allah and the messenger, if you believe in allah and the last day. that is good, and the best at the end.” (4:59) the muslims of the subcontinent were not convinced by the qadiani position. they were convinced that the qadianis had consciously distorted the meaning of the quranic verse. another argument advanced by this school of thought was that as long as the foreign rulers did not interfere in "religious" practices, such as îalah (prayer), îiyém (fasting), zakah (obligatory spending), and íajj (pilgrimage), one should not fight against them. but this argument was equally rejected by the muslims because islam had taught that political life is an integral part of muslim’s life. efforts were also made to convince muslim masses that jihéd was no longer valid. mirza ghulam ahmad of qadian (d. 1908), having declared himself a messiah, announced " ... from now on whosoever shall raise the sword for the sake of religion and slay the infidels by proclaiming himself to be a ghézi, he will be a disobedient rebel of allah almighty and his prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)." he also said, "i believe that as my followers increase, the believers in the doctrines of jihéd will decrease. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 15 for accepting me to be the messiah and mahdi itself means the rejection of the doctrine of jihéd”.9 these statements were meant to discourage muslim resistance against british power. it was natural that the muslim masses regarded these views contrary to the holy qur’én and the sunnah, deviant and totally béïil, and kufr (faithless). the qadiani position was the antithesis of what the fara’iìiyah held. the faré’iìiyah (a muslim revivalist movement and an extension of the mujéhidun movement in bengal) refused to recognize the rule as legitimate in india. instructing its followers to avoid even filing law suits in british courts, it tried to challenge authority of british imperialism at all levels. a question often raised by the muslims of the subcontinent was whether the whole subcontinent was a dér al íarb (abode of war) or a dér al islam (abode of islam). according to the ×anafi school of law, a land may be declared dér al íarb if three conditions are present: first, suppression of basic islamic tenets; second, absence of any protection for the muslims and those dhimmis who were previously protected by the muslim state; and third, existence of a threat, from a neighbouring state, to the national security of the muslim state. the faré’iìiyah had, for these reasons, declared the subcontinent a dér al íarb. the political implications of regarding the subcontinent dér al íarb were significant. if it were an abode of war it shall be a religious obligation of muslims not only in the subcontinent, but all over the world, to fight against the british and liberate the muslims. this was precisely the fear of w. w. hunter when analyzing the notion of dér al íarb in india with special reference to bengal, he concluded that the declaration of dér al íarb was a necessary pre-requisite for jihéd (war in islam) .10 if india was not dér al íarb and armed struggle was not necessary for the liberation of the muslims, then what peaceful course of action should be adopted by them? what were major muslim responses to these questions? an effort will be made to review some of these responses. 2.3 economic problems significant developments had taken place in the economy of the subcontinent during the mughal rule. the mughal rulers, akbar (d. 1605) and jahangir (d. 1627), showed a personal interest in the development of trade and industry in the country. jahangir, while governor of gujrat in 1618, had issued a farmén (declaration) providing facilities to british traders in india. this opened new channels of trade. soon, goods manufactured under the mughals were in high demand in the markets of europe, the near east, and africa. british and portuguese shippers were highly instrumental in expanding over-seas trade. it is interesting to note 16 the muslim reawakening … that until the 18th century india was a major exporter of finished products such as cotton cloth, sugar, woolen and silk cloth, yarn, sealing wax, indigo, spices, opium, and various drugs. imports were limited to mainly luxury goods for the aristocracy--european wines, chinaware, precious stones, amber, perfumes and gold. akbar promoted the textile and weaving industries. incentives were provided to technicians from kashmir, persia and ottoman empire to settle in india and manufacture carpets, shawls and silk and woolen cloth. soon, lahore, agra, fatahpursikri, ahmadabad, and dacca began to compete in silk and woolen cloth with any other markets in the world. referring to the silk and cotton cloth industry in bengal, berneir says, “there is in bengal such a quantity of cotton and silk that the kingdom may be called the common storehouse for these two kinds of merchandise, not of hindustan or the empire of the great mughal only, but of all the neighbouring kingdoms and even of europe."11 besides textile and weaving industries, the mughal era was known for craftsmanship in leatherwork, ceramics, and shipbuilding. chittagong specialized in building ships and had buyers as far away as istanbul. but in the age of decline and disintegration in the mughal empire, the economy, too, started falling apart. this was due to five major causes. first, an important change was taking place in the european economy. with mass production and the use of mechanization in industry, indian-manufactured goods were losing the european market. now there was more demand for raw materials than for finished products. to keep the newly mechanized industries in europe going, raw cotton, wool, and silk yarn were needed. due to mass scale production and cut down in labour costs, european producers offered goods at a competitive price, causing a decline in the mughal exports. unfortunately, instead of using economic measures to increase their exports (thus expanding their economy) the british rulers of india sought to destroy indigenous industries and, as such, drive competitors out of business. this happened particularly with the silk and cotton industry of dacca. consequently, this thriving industry collapsed. this happened at a time when the mughal empire was breathing its last and the mughal king was virtually under house arrest in delhi. as a result, the mughal crown was powerless to correct the situation. second, for centuries, banking and accounting had been a hindu monopoly. this had significant political and economic implications for the muslims. during the period of mughal decline, hindu bankers often extended huge financial support to their favorites in muslim wars of succession. during mughal rule ‘stipends’ and financial assistance was hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 17 available to needy muslims. the british government discontinued this practice, leaving muslims at the mercy of the hindu moneylenders. third, the british rulers made it a point to discharge all the employees of the mughals in order to employ those whom they trusted. these soldiers were dependent totally on stipends. they had no unemployment insurance or other source of income. termination of their service was not only an economic problem--it also had its moral and social implications. fourth, due to a suspect status of the muslims, the british were reluctant to employ muslims in their administration. the chief commissioner of the punjab, john lawrence (1811-79), wrote to governor general lord canning (1812-62), “the mahommedans of the regular cavalry when they have broken out have displayed a more active, vindictive and fanatic spirit than the hindus but these traits are characteristic of the race” (emphasis ours).12 mostly, the doors of employment were closed to muslims. in some situations they were admitted in lower grades, but the higher executive positions were rarely available to them. in 1856, out of 366 persons listed as holding positions in the bengal revenue service, only 54 were muslims, and they, too, filled lowest positions in the service.13 fifth, soon after gaining control over the country, the british rulers reviewed and screened those lands distributed among manîabdérs and jégêrdérs by the mughal rulers. those title holders suspected of having collaborated against the british in the war of independence in 1857 were deprived of their estates. a redistribution of land was carried out based on a person’s loyalty to the british. this caused further dislocation and economic oppression for the muslims. 2.4 social problems muslim society under the mughals was already on the decline when british imperialism established itself in the subcontinent. one major social problem related to the status of women in society. in hindu culture, women had no independence. there was a limited place for freedom of will. islam on the contrary provided personal freedom and independence to women. but in its indian surrounding many islamic teachings were not fully implemented. consequently, women lagged behind in education and social life. one obvious effect was deprivation of certain rights granted by islam such as the right to inheritance or right to re-marriage when widowed or divorced. however, almost unknown to indian culture, íijéb (covering the whole body except hands and face) was strictly observed, and segregation between sexes was maintained. marriages were usually arranged by parents or friends of the bride and 18 the muslim reawakening … the bridegroom. family structure in general was broad-based, parents, as well as close blood relatives, were regarded as part of the family. the traditional education system could net help the muslims in acquiring openings in the british administration. this caused not only a serious economic problem but also social concern among educated muslims. a psychological impact of the ascending western culture was that, in general, the western lifestyle was being imitated. muslim cultural manifestations--dress, architecture, food habits, even house hold objects such as domestic utensils were changing the traditional muslim style to that of the western style.14 2.5 religious conditions the muslim community in the subcontinent was also facing serious ideological problems. one was, the fear of proselytization by the christian missionaries actively working in the subcontinent. the british occupation of india was interpreted by the christian missionaries as a victory for their faith.15 in 1813, by an act of parliament, the propagation of christianity by the christian missions was legally allowed.16 christian missions from england, u.s.a., and canada became active in the colony. though statistically, not many converts were won by way of polemical and theological discourses, many indians were won over by the christian missionaries through their social and welfare programs. medical aid and distribution of canned food, milk, and other items were used as forms of persuasion.17 christian missionary activities, irrespective of their success, posed a challenge to the muslims. without going into details about the nature and effects of this confrontation of faiths, we only want to show that fear of proselytization was a genuine religious problem for the muslims.18 a comparatively minor religious problem came from the neighbouring faiths of hinduism and sikhism. although hinduism as a dharma (creed) was not a missionary faith, certain hindu sects such as chaitaniya of bengal were involved in missionary activities. the órya saméj movement, too, had its effect in various parts of the subcontinent.19 in the punjab, particularly, arayans succeeded in converting some muslims of rural areas to hinduism. similarly, sikhism was very active in the northwestern frontier area and the punjab. mass conversions from islam to sikhism had taken place in the punjab, and this was sufficient to alarm muslim thinkers. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 19 internally, the muslim community was facing four major issues. first, a distorted understanding of religion and madhab (interpretation of law) existed among the masses. second, popular sufism was widespread. third, a mythical understanding of history prevailed among the muslims. fourth, due to the inadequacy of the religious education system, the graduates produced by it were failing to keep up with the demands of changing times. in the following, we shall elaborate on these four issues and review muslim responses to them. 2.5.1 distorted understanding of religion the centuries-old decay and stagnation had produced a particular brand of orthodoxy in some ulama, they were totally unaware of any social change since the fall of baghdad in 1258 c.e. this introvert approach led, in the main, to the preservation of the intellectual heritage of the past. consequently, an idealistic vision of the glories of the past alienated them from the realities of the present. preservation of the traditional religious sciences per se might be commendable, but it offered no solutions to the emerging problems of the muslims. one of its obvious drawbacks was that a significant number of those persons who had basic religious knowledge and who could be of great help in day-to-day economic, political, educational, and social problems simply withdrew from active life. this created, a vacuum and indirectly helped in the process of secularization and westernization of society. mughal culture was not entirely islamic, though it did contain islamic elements. with the exception of ‘alamgir's reign (1659-1707), a distinction between the realm of the religious and the realm of the secular prevailed in it.20 this was opposed to pristine islamic thinking. in islam, life is a composite whole, a unity, and a totality. political activism is no less sacred than religious devotions. in islam, iqbal observed, all is sacred, the whole of this earth is like a mosque. 21 it is virtually impossible for a muslim to retire from "this worldly" into the "other worldly", leaving this world at the mercy of the forces of unbelief and evil. a muslim must maintain a balance and moderation in his actions. the fundamental doctrine of tawíêd (uniqueness and transcendence of allah almighty) implies a conscious and total acceptance of one’s ethical responsibilities in every aspect of life. a muslim is asked to pray for íasanat fi al dunya (almighty allah's bounty in this world) as well as for íasanat fi al ékhirah (almighty allah's bounty in the life hereafter). the idea of the holy, sacredness in space and time, has no place in islam. ×arém (literally, prohibited) is an ethical category. it is niyyah (intention) and not necessarily the object in itself that makes a normally 20 the muslim reawakening … permissible volitional activity prohibited. once niyyah is made for îalah (prayer), or for îaum (fasting), or for íajj (pilgrimage) respectively, talking, eating, sex, and use of violence, which are not íarém per se, become temporarily prohibited. violation of these prohibitions is ethically wrong but not a total catastrophe. to define political, economic, or social activities as worldly or secular pursuits and formal worship and rituals as religious duties was a clear deviation from the pristine islamic belief contained in the holy qur’én and the sunnah. similarly a gross misunderstanding existed about the authority of legal interpretations or madhab(s). the muslims of the subcontinent were predominantly íanafi. a basic characteristic of the íanafi figh (school of law founded by abu hanifah, 80-150 h.) was its elasticity, flexibility, and rationalism (ra’y). but it soon became known for the taqlêd-e-jémid (blind following) of its jurists. in the 18th century, aurangzib alamgir recognized the need to reformulate the fiqhi (legal) positions. a committee of experts in islamic law was appointed and, after thorough study, a code known as fatéwa i ‘alamgir was prepared. the dilemma, however, was that posterity took the fatéwa as a compendium capable of solving questions never envisioned by its original compilers. being aware of the need for reformulation of fiqhi position, shah wali allah of delhi (1707-1763) called for ijtihéd, a fresh deduction of law based on the islamic principles (uîël al fiqh). it was this same yearning for revival and reform which later manifested itself in the efforts of persons such as iqbal and mawdudi. however, at the beginning of the 20th century, the rigidity, non-flexibility, and taqlêd of the ‘ulama (scholars) was common. 2.5.2 popular sufism popular sufism, due to its effects on the common man as well as on the elite, was a major problem. for the elite, pantheism, a dominant trend in sufism, had great attraction. for one, coming from indian religious tradition, sufi expositions based on the pantheistic ideas of some famous sufis had a close resemblance to upanishadic pantheism.22 according to upanishadic thought, the relationship between the "real" and the "non-real" was like the relationship between a drop of water and an ocean, or between a pinch of salt and a glass of water. when one dissolves and disappears into the other, it achieves existence as well as non-existence. consequently, the pantheistic understanding of allah almighty was that he was in everything and everything was in him. its natural effect was that sufism developed a tolerance for even pre-islamic practices and ideas. intent and not action became the main concern for the sufis. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 21 popular sufism encouraged the cult of saint worship. sufi utterances, while in a state of spiritual ecstasy,23 were taken as being no less authentic than the holy qur’én or the sunnah. simple teachings of the holy qur’én and the sunnah were often interpreted in allegorical, esoteric, and mysterious language. it was in this atmosphere that shaikh ahmad sirhindi (15631624) waged a war against popular sufism, just as ibn taymiyyah (12631328) did in his own time. shaikh ahmad attacked the very basis of the popular sufi doctrines: viz. the doctrine of waídat al wujëd (existential unity), implying union with and union in allah almighty. he declared that “allah almighty is not and cannot be one with anything. allah almighty is allah almighty and world is world.”24 he rejected the pantheistic claims that one is present in everything, or that the creator is incarnate in everything in the cosmos. his basic thesis was that one who is transcendent cannot be unified with the finite. therefore, waídéniyah (oneness) of allah almighty means uniqueness in his existence and in his attributes. no one can share in his existence or attributes. no ïarêqah (path) leading to maqémét (stations) or aíwél (states) can lead to unity with the ultimate truth. 2.5.3 mythical understanding of history the pantheistic and popular mysticism was common among muslims in the 19th century. india was coupled with a mythical understanding of history in which heroes were glorified and sanctified in no less vigorous a manner than the practice of saint worship in popular hinduism. myth, according to mircea eliade, "narrates a sacred history, it relates an event that took place in primordial time, the fabled time of the beginnings. in other words, myth tells how, through the deeds of supernatural beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole reality, the cosmos, or only a fragment of reality--an island, a species of plant, a particular kind of human behaviour and institutions.”25 islam, since its beginning, has claimed to be a historic religion. it traced its origin from the historic figure of sayedna ibrahim (‘alaih assalém) the hebrew patriarch and sayedna isma‘il (‘alaih as-salém). the life of prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was defined by the holy qur’én as life of a non-mythical person whose humanity was his basic characteristic and who was differentiated from others only in his apostlehood. ‘‘say, surely, i am but a human being like you; it is revealed to me that your god is the one god.” (al-kahf 18: 110; ha mim al-sajdah, 41: 6). the birth, ministry, and death of the prophet was not supernatural. islam did not assign any sanctity (or holiness) to any 22 the muslim reawakening … particular point in space or time. consequently, the islamic calendar was counted not from the day the holy prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was born or passed away but from the time a new social, religious, and economic order was established in al madinah in the thirteenth year of the prophet's ministry, or the first year of the hijrah. quantitatively, the number of respectable histories, autobiographies, personal diaries, court chronicles and travelogues written in india during the sultanate or mughal periods with accuracy and precision is remarkable. but when the life of the holy prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) or his companions or of the sufis was to be written, a totally different approach was adopted in many cases. these biographies were loaded with narratives of all kinds of supernatural acts, which made their application difficult if not impossible for a common man. the traditional islamic approach to history was basically factual. muslim historians in early and medieval islamic history had a tradition of ascertaining the historical facts, comprehending and interpreting those facts in terms of their relevance to the present and future. for them, history was a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, “an unending dialogue between the present and the past.”26 but in the 18th and 19th centuries, historical writing, particularly religious history, was overshadowed by mythical literature. we shall see later how muslim historians and thinkers responded to this situation. 2.5.4 inadequacy of the religious educational system the system of religious education existing in the subcontinent was originally designed by mulla nizam al din (d. 1161 h). with minor changes in the content, his curriculum was used for over a century. mulla nizam al din had developed his own way of teaching in which his curriculum only helped a student to comprehend the issues and problems. those who followed him adopted his curriculum while disregarding the method of teaching. consequently, the textbooks prescribed in courses became the main objects of study.27 students often memorized difficult passages and commentaries on those passages. as a result, many of them were often equipped with solutions to the given problems and issues but did not know how to use that information in solving new problems. this was a major defect of the prevailing educational system. another problem of religious education was lack of due emphasis on arabic literature, grammar and syntax. consequently, many graduates of religious academies were unable to appreciate the beauty and excellence of the holy qur’én and hadith. indeed, their curriculum hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 23 included subjects such as tafsêr (exegesis), fiqh (law), ‘ilm al hadith (science of hadith), but in tafsêr, for example, only selections from the holy qur’én were explained to them in some academies. even when in some academies the whole of the holy qur’én was taught, it was taught with the help of tafésêr (plural of tafsêr) like tafsêr al jalalayn which according to some researchers did not provide the necessary details for understanding, the relevance of the holy qur’én to the practical problems faced by them. another major defect in the religious education system was that in ‘ilm al kalém (scholastic theology) the problems discussed, and the texts used by the teachers were adopted from early classics of ‘ilm al kalém. these were produced by muslim scholars to counter the influence of greek thought. in the 19th century the issues and challenges that faced the world in general and the muslims of the sub-continent in particular had changed, the ‘ilm al kalém was still obsessed with the issues of an earlier age. some academies continued to relish in debates of the bygone and were engaged in what could be described as futile. consequently, graduates of these religious educational institutes were unable to counter intellectual challenges and problems posed by modern skeptic and agnostic philosophies. however some graduates were quite able to do so.we have mentioned only a few of the problems that suffered under traditional education system in the subcontinent. 3. response 3.1 a general muslim response by the beginning of the 20th century muslim scholars realized that the greatest need of muslim india was re-establishment of an islamic social order. however, they disgraced on details and in their priorities. for the 18th century theologian shah wali allah of delhi (17031762), the field of uîël al fiqh (principles of law making) enjoyed top priority. although he had a mature political sense and would personally have founded a political party,28 had health and age permitted, he nevertheless focused mainly on legal issues such as ijtihéd29 (analogical legal deduction), uîël al taïbêq30 a methodology for reconciliation in schools of fiqh , and ‘ilm asrér al dên31 the wisdom in islamic injunctions). muhammad ibn abd al wahhab (1703-1787), a contemporary of shah wali allah of delhi, focused more on the purification of al‘aqêdah (faith) and on its translation in a new economic and social order based on tawíêd (oneness and uniqueness of allah almighty). the ikhwén 24 the muslim reawakening … (brotherhood) communities established by him were based on the doctrine that the holy qur’én and the sunnah are the only arbiters in all social and economic issues. he also waged a war against the bid‘at (plural of bid‘ah meaning innovation) or heresies deep-rooted in muslim society at that time. the influence of the wahhabiyyah movement of arabia, because of the central role of makkah in the dissemination of its ideas, crossed the territories of arabia and was well-received in different parts of the muslim world. nineteenth century revivalist movements such as the sannusiyah and the mahdiyah had their own emphases and priorities. the former, founded by syed muhammad b. ali al sanusi (1787-1859) in libya, had many common elements with the wahhabiyyah, e.g., emphasis on the holy qur’én and the sunnah, but, due to its mystical orientation, it developed into a sufi order. however, unlike other sufi orders, the sannusiyah fought a tough battle against bid‘at and stood for the supremacy of sunnah and sharê’ah (religious law) over the common muslim practices. like shah wali allah of delhi, the sanusi, too, emphasized the need for ijtihéd. his call for ijtihéd was coupled with a reassertion that no rational arguments or considerations can supersede the sunnah or the quranic injunction.32 the mahdiyah of sudan, founded by muhammad ahmad almehdi (1834-1885), focused on two areas, namely sufism and the political struggle against the uthméni khilafat. the jihéd movement organized by him in 1881 reached its climax in the 1890’s, but soon fell at the hands of kitchener in 1898. in the indian subcontinent, the jihéd movement of syed ahmad and shah isma‘il shahid and the farai’ìi movement of haji shari‘at allah (1781-1840) were manifestations of the yearning of the muslims to establish a new socio-political order. however a shortcoming in these movements was lacking of with a clear definition of goals and objectives. this could only have been done by muslim scholars with a full awareness of the problem combined with adequate knowledge of the philosophical foundation of islamic political and social system. shibli and ameer ali tried to help the muslim community out of this difficulty, on a limited scale, by their historical writings. 3.2 the movement for new education the movement for new education was founded by sir syed ahmad khan (1817-1898). his analysis of the muslim dilemma and its solution by the establishment of a university was pragmatic. in his opinion, the elevation of the muslims was impossible without the adoption of western system of education.33 sir syed's immediate concern was to provide western hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 25 education for the muslims. he may not have given serious thought to the philosophy, objectives, and purposes of an islamic education, but it is equally probable that the idea of an islamic education system never occurred to him. yet whatever the shortcomings in the aligarh experiment, it succeeded in fulfilling its immediate objective of producing a generation of muslims who could serve in the colonial system. the absence of any ideological commitment to islam in the graduates of aligarh was a great loss from an ummatic point of view,34 but aligarh did create a sense of "muslim nationalism" among its graduates. 3.3 tradition-bound religious education the tradition-bound religious education system was in complete contrast to the secular approach of sir syed ahmad khan. it held that the survival of the muslims would be achieved only by adhering to the traditions of the past. this approach was propagated in several wellknown seminaries. prominent among these were darul ‘uloom deoband (founded in 1866), mazharul ‘uloom saharanpur (founded in 1866), and darul ‘uloom nadvatul ‘ulama lucknow (founded in 1898). these schools followed the education system known as dars niðémiyah.35 the deoband school also provided a religious foundation for the one-nation theory (muttaíidah qaumiyyat)36 in india. politically, it helped in getting rid of british colonialism. but nationalist ‘ulama are criticized by some researchers for not providing a solution to the problems of the muslims. though azédi (freedom) was their objective, they were not clear about the national objective of the muslims.37 it is obvious from the above that both sir syed and the ‘ulama were concerned about the immediate problems, namely, the spread of education and the preservation of past tradition. 3.4 the challenge from western orientalism neither the western-educated muslim intellectuals nor all the traditionally educated ‘ulama were in a clear position to respond to a new and more sophisticated challenge which came from the western orientalists. western orientalists, many of them serving the british crown in india,38 not only lacked objectivity but were also profoundly hostile to islam, its prophet, and its history. at a conceptual level, these writers grossly misrepresented the nature of prophethood in islam. perhaps due to their christian background, western writers judged islam and the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) by christian criteria. danial has provided us 26 the muslim reawakening … with ample examples representing this attitude. for instance, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was proclaimed a “cipher.” 39 three marks of muhammad’s (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) life were thought to be the violence and force with which he imposed his religion; the salacity and laxness with which he bribed followers when he did not compel; and finally his evident humanity…”.40the wahi (revelation) recorded in the holy qur'én was, in general, regarded as the word and work of sayeduna muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). the fact that the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was a human being and he did not claim to produce miracles was interpreted as a proof of his being "blasphemous." the birth and death of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), being natural and human, were not regarded as befitting a prophet. 41 in other words, since the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) waged a jihéd (war) against the exploitation of man by man, against economic corruption, idol-worship, social inequity, and immorality, and did not choose to offer himself for crucifixion, in their view, he deviated from the path of the prophets (‘alaihim as-salém). not only early western writers, as indicated by danial, held this view; even modern historians such as arnold j. toynbee express his displeasure and disappointment at the "jeopardy" in which the prophet placed his religion "when he had migrated from mecca to medina and had become a brilliantly-successful statesman instead of remaining a conspicuously unsuccessful prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)."42 this "selfcontradiction" of islam and its founder has been a difficulty for western critics in understanding islam. in another place, toynbee expresses similar feelings about the establishment of islam as a system in al madinah. " .. . the hijrah ought to mark the date of the ruin of islam and not the date since consecrated as that of its foundation.”43 their yearning for a mythical figure in the person of prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was frustrated when they found him "evidently human.”44 it was also taken as a proof of his being “profane”, “false” and “pretentious”.45 the search for the supernatural led many western writers to stories which suited their purpose. one such story concerned a meeting between the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), when he was ten or eleven years old, and thirty years before … prophethood, and a syrian christian monk, bahira. it was reported by al waqidi, and on his authority by a few others, that the prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam), when he was a minor, often accompanied his trader hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 27 uncle, abu talib. on one such journey, when bahira saw this child, he paid respect to him and told his uncle to be careful about his nephew because he showed signs of being a prophet. it was claimed that in those few moments when the prophet-to-be was with bahira, he learned the christian faithwhich, thirty years later, was presented by him under the name islam.46 danial, after reviewing writings of western writers such as san pedro pascual and william of tripoli, concludes that the purpose of william of tripoli was probably “... to show muslims that their beliefs were really or nearly christian, i think that he may have wanted to convince them that the bible is the source of the holy qur’én.” 47 at this point it is necessarily only to mention that among late 19th century scholars from the subcontinent, the strongest reaction to it came from sir syed ahmad khan. in his khuïbét al ahmadiyah48 on the basis of evidence collected from historical works in the libraries of london, he wrote in 1869 a refutation of sir william muir's, the life of mahomet, muhammad (the prophet). 49 sir syed used judeo-christian scriptures extensively in his book. responding to the issue of polygamy, referring to the torah, he indicated that the hebrew patriarch and prophets ibrahim, yaqub, musa, dawood, and sulayman (‘alaihim as-salém) were all polygamous. according to him, polygamy as such was not evil nor did it disqualify any of them from being a prophet of allah almighty. the argument he developed was that if, despite being polygamous, hebrew prophets (‘alaihim as-salém) were genuine and true in their claim and in their mission, how could, on the basis of his polygamy, prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) be called a "profane" and “licentious” person (god forbid). he rejected the historicity of the story about bahira. in a detailed chapter on the early life of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) evaluated the sources used by william muir and other western writers, and on the basis of historical evidence and rational argument, he concluded that the story was nothing but a fiction as per his research. among other responses from the muslim scholars of the subcontinent, most notable was that of rahmat allah keranawi whose refutation of the reverend carl pfander and william st. clair tisdall, the mêzénuʼl ḥaqq50 soon became a classic in urdu and other islamic languages.51 rahmat: allah conducted several dialogues with christian missionaries and wrote prolifically in defense of islam. defense of islam, whether from the attacks of western orientalists or from the onslaught of christian missionaries, was still a passive and apologetic activity. it could not serve as an ideology for 28 the muslim reawakening … nation-building. for the reconstruction and revival of the lost muslim glory in the subcontinent something positive, dynamic, and constructive was needed. shibli and ameer ali tried to fulfill this gap by attempting to revive the image of the past by re-writing muslim history and making it more relevant to the present and future of the muslims. while muslims of the subcontinent were rediscovering their own history, their counterparts in the near east were undergoing a similar experience. to counter the colonialists, efforts were being made to discover the islamic past and define its goals, objectives, and its role in the future. 3.5 the arab response to liberate itself from foreign influence and to re-establish its identity and independence, the arabic-speaking world responded in four distinct ways. the first and major response came in the form of a call for arab nationalism. concerned arab thinkers, muslim as well as non-muslim, directed their efforts against the western colonialism with the objective of re-establishing arab unity as symbolized by the political and cultural revival of the arabs. the search for a practical solution to the general decline, for a way to regain past glory and a bright future, led many arab thinkers to conclude that a national revival was possible only with the help of nationalism. but what kind of nationalism? this question led to three major trends among arab nationalists, “the convinced, the confused, and the ambivalent”.52 it was recognized that islam was perhaps the main factor in unification of the arabs in the 7th century. however, in an age not so sympathetic to religion, religion did not enjoy the same privilege. moreover, religion, in their understanding, was a hindrance to scientific advancements, progress, and development. a subsidiary argument against basing the arab ideal on religion was that the arabic-speaking world included muslims and christians as well as jews: no single religion could be taken as the basis of a diversified society. the “convinced” nationalists proposed using science, technology, economic, and social development as the basis for national unity among the arabs.53 this approach naturally suggested a secular model in which religion was practically absent from the social scene.54 it included, among others, n. a. faris and taha hussein as its spokesmen. those who were “confused” first directed their efforts towards a critical review of islamic history. among those who have been categorized as “confused”, khalid muhammad khalid could perhaps be considered a representative figure. they reviewed basic islamic social and political ideas such as the concept of khiléfah (vicegerency of allah hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 29 almighty on earth) “religious government” for them had no justification within the islamic sources, namely the holy qur’én and al hadith. what was known as religious, in their opinion, was mostly directed by the personal ambitions and interests of the religious leaders.55 ali ‘abd alraziq in his al islam wa uîël al ×ukm, (cairo, 1922), challenged the authority of the "religious leaders" (‘ulama) as well as of certain political doctrines. while khalid, in his min huna nabda, (cairo, 1950)56 raised a systematic question: where do we go from here? remarkably influenced by the western political thought, particularly that of hobbes and locke,‘abd al raziq and associates tried to read western ideas in the islamic writings.57 there was a third and more confusing approach held by some arab thinkers who wanted to travel in two boats at one time. they visualized an "arab-islamic legacy"58 as a prerequisite for arab nationalism. they did not reject religion as obsolete, but, at the same time, they did regard islam as a “controversial”59 factor in the national revival. one thing was obvious, there was a need for a re-interpretation of muslim history and its relevance to society. the “secularist” as well as the “ambivalent” nationalist could not proceed without historical and philosophical foundations. they had to re-interpret the past so that a better understanding of the past might lead to a viable future. religious historians took up this challenge with both hands. they not only filled this gap, but also provided more concrete grounds for increasing awareness of the arab heritage. these included muhammad husayn haykal (d. 1956) and abbas mahmood al ‘aqqad. they wrote about past muslim dynasties, the prophet of islam muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and his companions (raìi allah ‘anhum), and inspired the arabs with the idea that they, too, had things of which to be proud. reminding the muslims of the glory of their past did reinforce self-confidence, but the nostalgia and the romanticism created by past glorification developed into a tendency to be so much involved in past accomplishments that current problems were side lined. at the other extreme the secularists wanted to dissociate themselves completely from the past by building a nationstate. haykal and ‘aqqad’s historic writings introduced their readers to a past created by their forefathers. by implication it raised a legitimate question in the minds of their readers: if islam could make our forefathers achieve what they did, why islam could not do the same for us? there were historians among the nationalists who were mainly concerned about the past history of specific regions. in egypt, historians such as salim hasan and zaki ‘ali60 focused on the local history of egypt. a “parochial” awakening was thus achieved. this particularism of the 30 the muslim reawakening … parochial movement may be compared with the shu‘ëbiyah 61 of 2nd-3rd century islam. parallel to the secular and parochial approaches in historical writing was a third school of thought. this school of thought called for pan-arabism, implying supremacy of the arabs as a nation. it did not treat the egyptian, the syrian, or the ‘iraqis as separate peoples. all who spoke arabic and shared emotionally and mentally in the oneness of arab culture were one nation. it contended that the heritage of the arabs, once properly comprehended, would not only create self-respect and confidence in the arabs, but might also motivate progress and development in their existing cultures. ‘abd ai-rahman al kawakibi (1849-1902) can be mentioned as representative of this view.62 4. conclusion this brief overview of the development of muslim thought in response to political, economic and cultural colonialism of the west over the rest shows that muslim scholars in the arabian speaking world and the subcontinent tried to reawaken the depressed muslim community by highlighting achievements of their forefathers as an evidence of their unexplored potentialities. a reflection of their glorious past, resurrection of their heroes, they thought can help in regaining their confidence in their own selves. in a sense this methodology did contribute in reawakening of the muslims. sayed amir ali and shibli na‘mani in this respect played an important role in the subcontinent. with this brief background we will try to look into their time, society and intellectual climate to further explore and examine impact of their understanding of history on the later intellectual, political and cultural development in the muslim community of the subcontinent. notes and references 1bishop reginald heber, narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of india1, no. 2, london, 1928, p. 294, quoted in peter hardy, the muslims of british india (london: cambridge university press, 1972), 34. 2altaf husayn hali, ×ayét-i-javed, (lahore: ‘ishrat publishing house, 1971), 93-94. 3peter hardy, the muslims of british india, (london: cambridge university press, 1969), 71. 4s.m.ikram, muslim civilization in india, (london: cambridge university press, 1969), 287-288. 5 s.m. ikram, op. cit. p. 288. 6 s.m. ikram, ibid. 7 s.m. ikram, op. cit. p. 222. 8sidney j. owen, the fall of the moghul empire, (london: john murray, 1912), quoted in ikram, op. cit., p. 222. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 31 9khuïbét-i-ilhamiyah, quoted in nadvi, qadiyanism: a critical study, (lucknow: academy of islamic research and publications, 1967),89. 10william wilson hunter, the indian musalmans, (new delhi: rupa, 2018). 11francois bernier, travels in the mogul empire a.d. 1656-1668, (london: oxford university press 1916), 439. 12 “letters from chief commissioner punjab,” canning papers, city library, leeds, quoted in peter hardy, op. cit., p. 36. peter hardy, also, quotes from sir william muir (1819-1905) who expressed similar ideas about muslims in india. l3azizur rahman malik, british policy and the muslims in bengal, 1757-1856, (dhaka: dacca, 1961), 50. 14 it is interesting to note that for eight hundred years muslims maintained their own cultural identity but the western lifestyle influenced them more rapidly than the indian culture. 15abulhasan ali nadvi, muslims in india, (lucknow: academy of islamic research and publications, 1980), 87. 16percival spear, india: a modern history, (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 1972)), 293. 17in a conference organized by the world council of churches in chambesy, switzerland, such misuse of diakonia for proselytism was disowned and condemned by the participating representatives of the christian churches in the following words: “the conference strongly condemns all such abuse of diakonia (service). its christian members dissociate themselves in the name of christianity from any service which has degraded itself by having any purpose whatever beside agape (love for god and neighbour). they declare that any diakonia undertaken for any ulterior motive is apropaganda instrument and not an expression of agape. they agree to exercise their full power and use whatever means at their disposal to bring christian churches and religious organizations to a proper awareness of this situation.”;khurshid ahmad and david kerr (guest editors), christian mission and islamic da‘wah, international review of mission, geneva, vol. no. 260, oct. 1976, p. 459. 18altaf husayn hali, op. cit., p. 402; khurshid ahmad, “religious literature” in térêkh adabêyét musélmananê-pakistan wé hênd, ed. s. f. mahmoud vol. 10, urdu adab 1914-1972, (lahore: punjab university, 1972), 274. 19shibli, maqélét, vol. 8, (a‘zamgarh: maktba mu‘arif, 1938), 13-14; percival spear, op. cit., p. 293. 20mircea eliade, the sacred and the profane: the nature of the religion, the significance of religious myth, symbolism and ritual within life and culture, (new york:harcourt brace, 1959), 20. 21muhammad iqbal, the reconstruction of religious thought in islam, (lahore: muhammad ashraf publishers, 1977), 155. 22 mundaka (11.11.11) upanishad for example says, “that immortal brahman alone is before. that brahman is behind, that brahman is to the right and left. brahman alone pervades everything above and below; this universe is that supreme brahman,” swami nikhlananda, the upanishads, (new york: harper & row, 1964), 115. 23 nicholson puts this idea in a succinct way. “the whole of sufism rests on the belief that when the individual self is lost, the universal self is found, or, in religious language, that ecstasy affords the only means by which the soul can directly communicate and become united with god. asceticism, purification, love, gnosis, 32 the muslim reawakening … saintship-all the leading ideas of sufism are developed from this cardinal principle.”; reynold alleyne nicholson, the mystics of islam, (boston, ma: routledge, 1975), 59 24muhammad farman, "sheikh ahmad sirhindi", in m. m. sharief, a history of muslim philosophy, (wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 1966), 879. 25 mircea eliade, myth and reality, (new york: harper & row torch book, 1963), 5. 26edward hallett carr, what is history, (new york: vintage books, 1961), 35. 27 describing the characteristics of dars niðémi, the curriculum designed by nizamudin, shibli reports that this curriculum included the most difficult books in each discipline such as nurul anwar, rashidiyah, shams bazighah.. shibli, maqélét, (aʻẓamgaṛh: dārulmuṣannifīn, 1930-1938.), 99. 28khaliq ahmad nizami, shah waliullah kay siyasi maktëbat, (aligarh: aligarh muslim university press, 1950), 47-5l. 29shah wali allah, ×ujjatuallah al-béligha, vol. i, tr. abdurahim, (lahore: quami kutub khana, 1961), 657, 658, 660, 699. 30ibid, 697. 31ibid, 147. 32nicola a. ziadeh, sanusiyah: a study of a revivalist movement in islam, (leiden, holland: e. j. brill, 1968), 80. 33sir syed was convinced that only a systematic introduction of western ideas could change the condition of the muslims. in 1864 he founded a scientific society for this purpose. the society translated various texts of scientific nature from english to urdu. he also founded modern schools in ghazipur and other districts. ultimately, in 1875 the school in aligarh was established. altaf husayn hali, ×ayét-e javed, (lahore: ishrat publishing house, 1971), 336. in 1886 sir syed founded muhammadan educational conference and in its first meeting. on december 2, 1886 following resolution was adopted. the conference shall have objectives: "1. to help muslims in achieving high level of western education; 2. to investigate into the nature of religious education given to muslims,, in english schools and to help in proper dissemination of islamic information to the muslims. altaf husayn hali, ×ayét-e javed, (lahore: ishrat publishing house, 1971), 238. 34abul a‘la maududi, ta‘limat: essays on education, (lahore: islamic publication ltd., 1972), 19. 35dars nizamiyah should not be confused with the madrasah nizamiya of tusi. this syllabus was formulated by one mulla nizamudin of frangi mahal, lucknow in eighteenth century. shibli, maqélét-i-shibli vol. 3, (azamgarh: matba‘ mu‘arif, 1932), 91-100. 36yohanan friedman, "the attitude of the jam‘iyyat-i-‘ulama-i-hind to the indian national movement and the establishment of pakistan, “the ulama’ in modern history vol. 7,(jerusalem: israel oriental society, 1971), 162. 37maulana syed abul a‘la maududi, téhrik-i-azédi-hind aur musalman, ed. khurshid ahmad, (lahore: islamic publications, ltd., 1970), 111, 116, 119-120. 38william muir and sir; t h weir, the life of moḥammad, from original sources (edinburgh: john grant, 1923). 39 norman daniel, islam and the west: the mak1ng of an image, (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 1966), 86. 40norman daniel, op. cit., p. 107. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 33 41arnold j. toynbee, a study of history, ed. d. c. somervell, vol. ii, (new york: dell publishing co., 1969), 42. 42arnold j. toynbee, op. cit., vol. i, p. 556 (vol. vi of the original). 43ibid. p.556. 44norman daniel, op, cit., p. 107. 45ibid., 104. 46 ibid., 88-89. 47ibid., 237. 48khuïbét al aímadiyah written by sir syed ahmad khan while he was staying with ross masood (son) for around sixteen months in england and published simultaneously in english and urdu in 1870. reprinted (lahore: premier book house, 1968). 49 muir, the life of mahomet, muhammad (the prophet), (oxford university: smith, 1958). 50 carl pfander and william st. clair tisdall, the mêzénuʼl íaqq (balance of truth), (london: religious tract society, 1911). 51 kairanvi, iðhér-ul-×aq (the truth revealed), (london: ta-ha publishers. 1992). 52isma‘il raji al faruqi, on arabism: urubah and religion, (amsterdam: djambatan, 1962), 121. 53ibid., 124-125. 54 ibid., 122. 55ibid., 127. 56 trans. i. r. al faruqi, (washington: american council of learned societies, 1953). 57 ibid., 154. 58 ibid., 129. 59abdallah laroui, the crisis of the arab intellectual, (berkeley: university of california press, 1976), 28. 60 mostafa zaida, "modern egyptian historiography", the middle east affairs 4, no. 8-9 (1953): 269-271. 6lshu‘ëbiyyah was a literary movement meant for projecting the non-arabic tradition in contradistinction with the pre-islamic literary tradition. the word has been used in the holy qur’én in surah al-hujrat 49:13; it literally means groups or nations, it says, “o mankind, we have created you from a male and a female, and made you into races and tribes, so that you may identify one another. surely the noblest of you, in allah‘s sight, is the one who is most pious of you. surely allah is all-knowing, all-aware.” during the marwani dynasty (684-750 c.e.), the role of pre-islamic arabia, as well as the existing arabs, was over-emphasized. as a natural reaction to it, shu‘ëbiyah emphasized the transcendence and excellence of the non-arab literary tradition viz sassani culture. the pharoanist of egypt, the phoenecianist of lebanon or the syranist of syria presented no different a picture than the ‘ajamis of 2nd and 3rd century islam. 62zaida, op. cit., pp. 269-271. the superiority of a person who learns (islām, becomes a religious scholar) and then teaches it to others narrated abu-musa (raìi allah ‘anhu): the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, “the example of guidance and knowledge with which allah almighty has sent me is like abundant rain falling on the earth, some of which was fertile soil that absorbed rainwater and brought forth vegetation and grass in abundance. (and) another portion of it was hard and held the rainwater and allah almighty benefited the people with it and they utilized it for drinking, making their animals drink from it and to irrigate the land for cultivation. (and) a portion of it was barren which could neither hold the water nor bring forth vegetation (then that land gave no benefits). the first is the example of the person who comprehends allah’s religion (islam) and gets benefits (from the knowledge) which allah almighty has revealed through me (the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and learns and then teaches it to others. the (last example is that of a) person who does not care for it and does not take allah’s guidance revealed through me (he is like that barren land).” øaíêí-éal-bukhérê vol. i, ×adīth no. 79 translated by: dr. muhammad muhsin khan published by: darussalam kingdom of saudi arabia, 1997, p. 103 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 101 music: ‘food for soul’ or ‘fool for soul’ alkanz fatima department of islamic studies, national university of modern languages, lahore, pakistan email: alkanz.fatima@numl.edu.pk dr. muhammad imad-ud-din akbar department of management sciences, national university of modern languages, lahore, pakistan. email: dr.imad@numl.edu.pk received on: 15-05-22 accepted on: 26-06-22 abstract the present study intends to develop an understanding of the prohibition of music in islam. the advancement of technology and the internet has revolutionized the world. music is one of the contemporary issues that must be addressed to protect one’s soul and consequently actions. in recent times music is a part of almost every digital content and even islamic lectures are not exempted. unfortunately, some so-called scholars try to spread the message, in the name of the holy qur’én insisting it is allowed in islam. in this article, the sayings of the prophet muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam regarding music are mentioned that endorse the islamic stance about the prohibition of music. music is more popular in youth and youth is the most important part of every nation. their training on true islamic spirit and teachings is required for the future of muslim society, country and even for themselves. in this article, qualitative research is performed on islamic content as well as psychological effects of music on human psychology are addressed. during the research, most of the available literature is consulted to develop in-depth knowledge to gauge how music affects one’s psychology. this research paper also attempted to gather the ruling regarding permission of poetry and listening to some material in beautiful voice, falls in which category in islam. at the end of this research, some suggestions have been put mailto:alkanz.fatima@numl.edu.pk mailto:dr.imad@numl.edu.pk 102 music: ‘food for soul’ … forward as an alternative to music and how the youth can be engaged in constructive works. keywords: music, islam, body, soul, psychology, poetry, musical instruments, youth, perception. 1. introduction allah almighty says in the holy qur’én: “i did not create the jinns and human beings except for the purpose that they should worship me”1 human beings are created to worship allah almighty only and fulfill all his orders and live life as per his divine teachings. for the divine teachings, allah almighty sent his prophets and messengers. the holy prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam is the last prophet and the book revealed upon holy prophet muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam is the last book which contains all the guidance that would be required till the doomsday. it is mentioned in the holy qur’én: “this day i have perfected your religion for you and have completed my blessing upon you, and have chosen for you islam as din (religion and way of life)”2 according to ×aìrat ñumar(raìi allah ‘anhu), this verse was revealed on the day of farewell pilgrimage3which mentions that allah almighty has completed our religion for us through the holy prophet muhammad(rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and there is no important issue that is left unaddressed. the advancement of technology and higher usage of social media has created issues that were not widespread in the past. issues in past were not the ones that would affect everyone in society. nowadays issues get spread like wildfire and social media is the medium through which the issues get noticed. many issues are causing the society to split, and causing the breakage in the boundaries of allah almighty. along with many other problems that may provoke the wrath of allah almighty listening to music is one of the most common and problematic. music is a subject whose prohibition is discussed from the very beginning. nowadays we are unable to avoid it completely. if someone avoids by himself/herself even, then there are lots of ways through which the sounds of music may reach his/her ears. apart from hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 103 unavoidable occasions, there is a doubt also in the minds of youth that either it is allowed or prohibited. lots of books have been written on the prohibition of music in islam. some so-called islamic scholars do not consider it unlawful. while considering this issue, in this article the effects of music on human psychology will be addressed along with the prohibition of musical instruments in islam. the allowed content in this regard will be shared, so that we may live life according to the divine teachings of islam. also, one may not get into the stuff that astray him from the islamic path and cause him the wrath of allah almighty. 2. research methodology the methodology of the present article is qualitative. the published research articles are put together to the maximum to calculate the destructive and injurious effects of music on human psychology. the primary sources of religion islam i.e., the holy qur’én and the aíadêth of the prophetmuhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) are gathered to confirm the prohibition of musical instruments as well as music in islam. to research and gain in-depth knowledge, inductive and deductive approaches regarding the topic are used. about the ruling of music in islamic jurisprudence and islamic schools of thoughts, the primary and secondary sources of information are consulted. 3. background singing and the use of musical instruments are matters that are in discussion since the advent of islam. since the prophetic era, there is no doubt regarding the prohibition of music. all 4 schools of shariah hold the same view without any discrimination regarding the recent music and musical instruments. music causes people to go astray from the righteous path. people especially youth is listening to music for refreshment purposes without considering its negative aspects. in this research, the researcher has put forward the ruling about music in the light of islamic teachings along with a scientific view to make sure the harmful effects of music on body and soul. 4. research objectives this research article intends to encompass the islamic jurisprudence regarding music and the harmful effects of music on the body and soul. it aims to make fellow human beings and especially youth aware of the effects of music and how the music along with misleading lyrics affects one’s perception. the advancement in science and technology has evolved the world. technology has made it possible to do miracles in almost every field of life. health care is no exception. 104 music: ‘food for soul’ … the advancement in technology is revolutionizing the healthcare structure to help live a more convenient, energetic, and healthy life. innovations have made it possible to gain a comprehensive picture of one’s health. this article aims to find the islamic jurisprudential position regarding music as well as published quantitative research and findings regarding the negative effects of music on human psychology and eventually affecting the biopsychosocial behaviour of a person. for the said objective the published materials in the form of research articles, books, blogs, reports, etc. are put together to make the prohibition of music clear in the view of islam as well in psychological standings. 5. literature review ×aìrat maulana mufti muhammad shafê‘(raímat allah ‘alaih) (d.1976) has categorically viewed the prohibition of music in his book sharaí-o-tarjumah kashf-ul-iné’ ‘an wasf-il-ghina after explaining in detail the types of “géné”4. he has mentioned how some poetry that is aligned with the islamic holistic approach has good effects while travelling and which sort of content must not be a part of such poems.5 the events on which “daff” is allowed are written with primary source references. the opinions of four main jurists regarding the prohibition of music are viewed. these jurists possess the view that music, musical instruments and professional singers are completely prohibited in islam. the conditions, permissions and applications are profoundly explained in this book. dr. gohar mushtaq emphasizes the effect of music on particularly that part of the brain that is associated with sex6. he possesses the view of a strong connection between sex, drugs and music. the part of the brain that is involved in long-term memory also gets affected by music. he has explained according to reported events, suicide has a connection with music. dr. gohar has viewed music and singing as subliminal seduction. the hidden messages in the music are not only simple words of so-called entertainment but these are damaging the moral values of society. he has put together the opinions of companions of the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), four imams and prominent islamic scholars, proving music, musical instruments and professional singers are prohibited in islam. in the available literature, music is discussed in the light of the holy qur’én and sunnah. however, the scientific researches confirming the negative effects of music on approach and emotions of a person are not available to much extent. this study gap has moved forward the hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 105 researcher to put forward harmful effects of music on biopsychosocial approach of a person. 6. discussion 6.1 islamic jurisprudential position on music islam is not the only religion with some rituals but it is a code of life which leads human beings to the path that guides how to live life in an organized way. it is not a religion with some acts of worship but it wants its followers to spend their life following the holy teachings that provide a rational basis to live composed life. islam is a religion of nature. it makes life easier for its followers. it guides its followers to make this world a better place to live in. allah almighty has created this whole universe and has made man the one who is required to use all these creations optimistically for his benefit. a man is required to work vigilantly and energetically for the betterment of not only his life but also for his family, his relatives, his nation, and in a bigger perspective for the progress of this world. he is required to put his efforts into transferring this place into a comfortable environment. it is mentioned in the holy qur’én: “that is because allah almighty would not change a favor which he had bestowed upon a people until they change their own condition”7 it is vital for a person with higher visions and goals to work on himself to understand the world of his soul and body so that he may master how to settle himself in the crest and troughs of life. it is essential for a person who wants to do betterment for himself and his fellow beings to work hard on himself. it is mandatory for a person who wants to be successful he must not act what the wrongdoers do. islam is a religion that calls for moderation in all religious and social aspects. while working enthusiastically he is required to work in a way that may not lead him towards drastic moments or fatal ends. it calls for balance in the spiritual and material life of a man according to the divine nature on which man has been created. islam does not like excessiveness in any aspect nor does it convince its ñummah towards deficiency in any good act. it takes people to the path which is “average”, it is mentioned in the holy qur’én: “and in the same way we have made you a moderate ñummah, so that you should be witnesses over mankind, and that the messenger may be a witness to you.”8 106 music: ‘food for soul’ … a human being is made of a combination of body and soul. both have their needs to grow well. these both require vigilant care from their bearer and both will ultimately return. a body requires pure, fresh and healthy food to work well. similarly, the soul requires spiritual food for its well-being and growth. soul food is its good contact with its creator. it is mentioned in the holy qur’én: “the ones who have believe and their hearts are peaceful with the remembrance of allah almighty. verily in the remembrance of allah almighty do hearts find rest!”9 islam demands from its vicegerent full submission with the will. it guides its followers to the teachings that help them to live a good standard of life. though islam demands submission, it is of the view that one should think wisely and choose the righteous path. allah almighty has multiple times provoked the thinking of mankind in the holy qur’én by such words: “do you not understand?”10 "do they have no sense?”11 islam demands from his vicegerent to consider what is right and what is wrong vigilantly. it does not like the blind following. allah almighty has revealed the holy qur’én for guidance and has provided human beings with examples from the lives of all passed prophets and also from the life of the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). nowadays it is said, “music is food for soul”. if listening to instrumental sounds is called “food for soul” then there are other aspects of this food also, that must be taken into account while considering it for the nourishment of one’s soul. let us first see what is meaning of “music” in other languages and dictionaries. in the arabic language, “the melodious, sonorous sound” is called “génā”12according to the merriam-webster dictionary, the word music means, “sounds, that are sung by voices or played on musical instruments”13. oxford learners dictionaries says, “music is: sounds that are arranged in a way that is pleasant or exciting to listen to.”14 it shows that music can be without instruments also that are pleasing or exciting to listen to. while considering music as soul food, hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 107 one must be vigilant to see what can be the possible effects of this particular food on his spiritual and psychological well-being. it is mentioned in the holy qur’én: “there is a man among the people who buys discourse of distracting amusements, so that he may mislead [people] from the way of allah almighty without knowledge and make mockery of it. for such people there is a disgraceful punishment”15 according to the dictionary, “laíwa” means “to amuse, distract, divert, pass or kill time”16. ×aìrat ibn e masñoud (raìi allah ‘anhu) three times vowed and emphasized that “laíw-al×adêth” means “song”17. while explaining this verse ×aìrat qatada is of view: “here it does not only mean a person who spends money on such items of “laíwa” but everyone is included who even “likes” such amusements18 (to kill time)” it is mentioned in sunan abu dawud: “the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) forbade wine (khamr), a game of chance (maysir), drum (kubah), and wine made from millet (ghubayrah’), saying: every intoxicant is forbidden.”19 in this íadêth “drum” which is one of the musical instruments, is mentioned with other intoxicants. according to the oxford dictionary, intoxicant means20, “a substance such as alcohol that produces false feelings of pleasure and a lack of control” it shows, that intoxicants are the ones that make a person oblivious of his surroundings. instead of being mindful, he cuts off from the world. he remains unable to do any good for himself. even in mild or extreme cases, a person who is addicted requires care. instead of doing some good for himself, he becomes a source of trouble for his family and eventually for society. it is against the spirit of islam to remain in a condition that would produce no good. in the abovementioned íadêth, it is obvious that islam does not endorse any idea which may lead its followers to a senseless situation. it demands from its vicegerent to remain mindful. only alert minds can understand their responsibilities towards their family and society. this is why islam has prohibited every act which may lead him to the condition that he becomes unconscious of himself and finally from his surroundings. at another place allah almighty mentions in the holy qur’én: 108 music: ‘food for soul’ … “do you then wonder at this discourse? and you laugh (at it) and not weep! while you are engaged in vain play”21 though islam recommends and emphasizes physical activities, it is against any such activity which may astray him from øiraï-emustaqêm (straight path). according to ×aìrat ibn e ñabbas (raìi allah ‘anhu) in these verses “samoud” means “géné”22 which in the english language means “song”. with these verses and aíadêth, there is no doubt regarding the forbiddance of music and its instruments in islam. on some occasions, the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) permitted using “daff” which shows one can use it and listen to it on happy occasions with some conditions to be fulfilled first. however, music and musical instruments other than “daff” are forbidden. 6.1.1 types of poetry, singing and music allowed in islam singing is a mean of comfort, joy and relaxation of the mind. islam does not completely forbid singing. ×aìrat ×assan bin thabit (raìi allah ‘anhu) was the most notable poet among the companions of the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). he used to write and read poetry to express his love for holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and islam. ×aìrat ‘ói’sha (raìi allah ‘anhé) narrates: “abu bakr (raìi allah ‘anhu) came to my house while two small ansari girls were singing beside me the stories of the ansar concerning the day of burñath and they were not (professional) singers. abu bakr (raìi allah ‘anhu) said protestingly, "musical instruments of shaïan in the house of almighty allah's messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)!" it happened on the ñeid day and almighty allah's messenger said, "0 abu bakr! there is an ñeid (festival) for every nation and this is our ñeid (festival)."23 the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) did not stop ×aìrat abu bakar (raìi allah ‘anhu) from saying “musical instruments of shaïan(devil)” rather (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) forbade ×aìrat abu bakar (raìi allah ‘anhu) to stop little girls hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 109 from singing. ×aìrat ñayesha (raìi allah ‘anhu), who is the reporter of this íadêth, has clearly mentioned about the girls, “they were not (professional) singers”. it shows the condition that professional singers and musical instruments are surely the instrument of devil and only innocent girls who did not know the science of melody and music were singing to show their joy. on the events of marriage, eid, or occasions of joy and happiness, singing is allowed but the content must not be filthy. sheikh yusuf al-qardawi holds the jurisprudential position regarding music as follows: “in order to create an atmosphere of joy and happiness, singing is recommended on festive occasions.”24 these practices shown in the presence of the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) depict and prove that poetry in itself is not prohibited but musical instruments and the lyrics which may encourage impure thoughts and bad behavior are prohibited. hence, one must keep in mind which sort of content is aligned with islamic approach. it is mentioned in kashf-ñul-maíjoob25: “it is permissible to listen to it in poetry, to what is permissible in prose, such as sermons and wisdom, reasoning in verses of truth, commentary on evidence of truth, and listening.” 6.1.2 limitations regarding singing and tambourine (daff) ór-rébiñ, the daughter of mëañwwidh bin ñafra’ narrates: “after the consummation of my marriage, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) came and sat on my bed as far from me as you are sitting now, and our little girls started beating the tambourines and reciting elegiac verses mourning my father, who had been killed in the battle of badr. one of them said, "among us is a prophet who knows what will happen tomorrow." on that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, "leave this (saying) and keep on saying the verses which you had been saying before."26 it is mentioned that the small girls were beating tambourine and singing the poems. the girls were not stopped in beginning from singing but the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) forbid them from using lyrics which were against the spirit of islam. it depicts singing is allowed in islam but one must follow some limitations i.e: 110 music: ‘food for soul’ …  as islam does not allow non-meíram interaction, similarly listening songs from opposite gender is not permissible.  the lyrics and matter of the song must not be against the holistic approach of islam.  singing must not be accompanied by sexual movements.  singing and musical instruments must not be used for as a source of earning.  excessive time must not be given to such activities that one may neglect religious duties and fulfilling one's responsibilities. every poetry and refreshment activity that is aligned with the holistic approach and paradigm of islam, is allowed in islam. however only those songs that fulfill the above criteria of righteous content and it must not be sung by professional singers is allowed. 6.1.3 music is prohibited (×aram) singing is allowed but sheikh al-qardawi27 holds the juristic position in this regard that singing in many cases is associated with such activities due to which, many scholars have declared it to be íaram (the prohibited) or at least makrooh (the detestable)as it comes in laíwa28 idle talk. according to sheikh ibn bazz, “playing on musical instruments is prohibited. likewise, every song with music is prohibited… according to the majority of mufassirs (scholars of the exegesis of the holy qur’én), the laíwa ‘idle talk’ refers to singing and tones of musical instruments”29 mufti taqi usmani holds the view, “music is not permissible according to a number of aíadêth of the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)”30 the recent available music and songs contain the content that causes sexual arousal, causes vulgar thoughts and leads to haram acts. islam does not permit and encourage any activity that may lead a person away from righteous path. this confirms the prohibition of music in islam. 6.1.4 ruling of four schools of thoughts regarding prohibition of music songs along with music are prohibited in islam. there is no evidence in any situation for using it for any purpose. mufti muhammad shafê‘ states: hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 111 “the summary of four imams (of schools of legal thoughts) sufis and religious scholars is, a type of songs and musical instruments is íaram (prohibited) and all religious scholars and religious groups hold this same view”31 islam means total submission to allah almighty. the muslims have to submit him/herself totally to all his orders and prohibitions. also, a muslim is bound to follow the sunnah of hazrat muhammad rasullah sallalahu alihi wa aleihi wa sallam. (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) has never approved musical instruments as well as singing accompanied by music. the juristic opinions also mention the permission and permission of musical instruments with limitations and prohibitions in detail. thus, it clears any laíwa that becomes the reason to leaving out the remembrance of allah almighty and get involved in prohibited is a sin and ×arém (forbidden). if it remains in the default state, then that is permissible. 6.2. harmful effects of music on biopsychosocial approach of human being the advancement of science, technology and behavioral science has made it possible to understand the connection between body and soul. biomedical advancement has opened a new era of biopsychosocial approach. according to the biopsychosocial approach, “health” consists of complete physical, psychological and social wellbeing. in past times the illness or disease was treated as a sole and had nothing to do with the mental health or psychological condition of a patient. in recent times, psychologists as behavioral health providers are playing an important role in the understanding of the connection between mental and physical health. they have proven how mental health affects the behaviour and physical health of a person. the advancement of technology has made it possible to monitor the effects of different cognitive processes. this resulted in in-depth knowledge of such cognitive processes and their effects upon the body and soul simultaneously. it is recorded how cognitive and metacognitive learning affects the person's behavior towards himself and with his surroundings. music is one of such processes which is being considered in medical sciences due to its proven effects on the central nervous system. after considering the islamic perspective on the prohibition of musical instruments, the coming pages will gather the facts and assess the known impact of music on human psychology. the effects of music on human psychology and the resultant change in behaviour is vital to discuss and understand its effects on biopsychosocial behaviour upon a person as an individual as well as a member of society. 112 music: ‘food for soul’ … 6.2.1 effects of music on emotions thinking, sentiments, actions and behaviors are controlled by central nervous system in the brain. response to emotions is related to autonomic nervous system. the autonomic nervous system comprises the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems work in contrast to each other. researchers have shown music does affect autonomic nervous system and can change the overall mood and perspective, behavior and reaction of a person.32it can control and change the sentiments or working aptitude of a person. the selection of music does even affect the heartbeat, blood pressure, breathing rate, body temperature, sweating etc. when the parasympathetic nervous system is active as compared to the sympathetic nervous system, the blood pressure gets lower and the heartbeat is slowed down. when the sympathetic nervous system is more active as compared to the parasympathetic nervous system, anxiety, tightness, palpitations, and increased blood pressure are experienced. according to research performed by min-hao wu and ting-cheng chang (2021) the type of music whether it is fast, intermediate or slow, it does affect autonomic nervous system. in general cases, the appetite of a person does also get affected by music. it is well known that the hotels play smooth or soft music in case of fewer customers at a particular time and fast tracks in rush hours which in turn slows down or speeds up the eating speed respectively. this illustrates that instead of a person's perspective and dogma regarding some condition, issue, or matter, the outer side factor such as music can alter the ideology of a person. 6.2.2 aggression in youth in terms, aggression refers to a behavior that can cause physical as well as mental harm to one’s self and surroundings. people are lacking tolerance these days. other than many psychological factors aggressive music is one of the reasons for violence. the use of mobile games including violent content is also among the reasons for anger in youth33. the age range between 10 to 29 is more victims of aggression34. according to research, music has a connection with human behaviour regarding violence and aggression. violent songs increase aggressive thoughts and behaviors.35aggressive and hostile behavior in youth can be the result of imbalances in certain hormones like testosterone and cortisol, and neurotransmitters, like serotonin and dopamine. loud and fast music does cause hyperactivity in the brain and does release the same level of a neurotransmitter called “dopamine”. dopamine is related to the pleasure and reward system of the brain. also, it plays an active role in the modulation of aggressive hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 113 behaviors36. music can affect the dopamine release which in return may affect the natural reward system. this change in the natural reward system may cause anxiety, aggression and uneasiness in behavior. if a person wishes and works for something but does not achieve it despite his best efforts then he will not be satisfied or in terms of psychology, his natural reward system will not be satisfied to release that amount of dopamine that would make him happy and serve him with a sense of achievement37. this failure or pessimism may lead to aggression and violence. it depicts music as a factor of increase in aggression in youth. 6.2.3 perspective change cognitive and metacognitive strategies affect one’s behaviour and perspective in life. cognition is the learning we learn from the environment and meta-cognition means our perspective to interpret what we have learned through cognition. music and different kinds of lyrics create behavior and cognitive change. misogynous music which is mostly found in pop, rap, and rock music does change the cognitive behavior of males towards females and vice versa. researchers have concluded, “the music you are listening to might directly alter the way you perceive the world.”38 the change in feelings and perspective does affect one’s behavior. if a person comes across a friend but the friend passes away without recognizing him then there can be two, chances of feelings experienced by the first person. if the first person considers the second one a nice individual, then he will think that there must be some thoughts in his friend’s mind that caused him to walk past without acknowledging it. in this case, a soft feeling of concern for the second person will arise in the first one’s emotions. however, if the first person possessed some negative emotion toward the second, then he will consider it as an avoiding from the second person. in such a case, the feeling of anxiety may arise in the first person’s emotions. this change in feelings and emotions is due to the meta-cognitive change in perspective. similarly, it is seen that people who listen to aggressive or misogynous music behave roughly towards others due to aggressionrelated cognitive constructs. thoughts results in actions. it is necessary how we look towards others as it will eventually affect our behavior towards them.39it illustrates that music can change one’s perspective toward other people. this variation in thoughts may result in a disturbance in society. hence, one must be aware of what sort of food is being provided to the soul. 6.2.4 sexual crimes 114 music: ‘food for soul’ … in recent times most music contains material that causes misogyny and glorification of exploiting women. it has given rise to increased sexual crimes. in rock music and its videos, it is frequently apparent that women are presented condescendingly.40she is shown as a sex object or unintelligent creature. continuous listening to songs that contain such sensational lyrics results in inculcating the message in the mind of youth regarding sex. this makes boys learn themselves as sexually insatiable and women as a matter of sex objects. such effects of music also make the male gender relentless in pursuit of women considering it a matter of conquest. such behaviors and approaches have led to an increase in sexual assault, crimes and rape cases against women. it is also observed through recent findings that sexual harassment and assault cases are reported in musical concerts more often41. in musical concerts high volume and continuous listening to music cause sex-related wrongdoings as listening does affect the thought process and as result actions are produced.42 6.2.5 violence against women these are the times when women are participating more as compared to any other time in the past. in every field of life, women are putting their participation with more knowledge and courage. they are working professionally as well as domestically. these ladies are not only helping the countries to flourish by putting their efforts but also raising their children to provide a bright future which ultimately upgrades the nations and the whole world. but even in such progressive times, violence against women is a matter of great concern. in movies, lyrics of songs, and videos of songs such content is demonstrated that causes gender violence. in such lyrics and videos, masculinity is shown in such a way that evokes sexual emotions and leads to risky sexual behaviour43. it also results in domestic violence and aggression against women.44 6.3 harmful effects of music on body and soul while keeping the islamic perspective regarding music and the psychological aspects in view there are some points that a muslim should measure while considering music as an allowed act, relaxational or motivational tool. 6.3.1 music is a distraction from good deeds: those who consider music as food for soul relaxation must keep in mind that music does distract one from the bigger goals and perspectives. a man has a bigger role in life as allah almighty has created him as his vicegerent. music is considered a tool of shaiïén hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 115 (devil). allah almighty mentions in the holy qur’én that upon denial of prostration of iblees before allah almighty, the devil vowed before allah almighty by these words: “he (iblees) said, “tell me, this one whom you have honoured more than me, if you give me respite until the day of judgment, i will subdue his progeny, except for a few. “he (allah almighty) responded, “be gone! whoever of them follows you, hell will surely be the recompense of all of you—a full recompense. and entice whoever you can of them with your voice, rally against them all your horsemen and your footmen, and share with them in their wealth and their children, and make them promises.” but shaiïan (devil) promises them nothing but delusion.”45 this conversation between allah almighty and ibless shows what is happening with us. the devil plans to lead human beings astray. it is mentioned in the above verse that allah almighty gave him the ability to incite people with his voice. but it is also the part of the challenge that allah almighty made him sure that allah almighty will not let him have control over “‘ibéd-ur-reímén”. it shows that the devil will not affect the slaves of allah almighty. regarding the use of music maulana moëdodi (raímat allah ‘alaih) writes in tafíeem ul qur’én: “this was almost the same trick that the great criminals of the nations have been using at all times. they try to immerse the people in sports and dances and hymns so that they do not have the consciousness to pay attention to the serious issues of life and in this world of fun they do not feel at all that what kind of destruction are they being pushed towards?” 46 the researches depict music has proven effects on human psychology. above mentioned verses also show that the devil's plan is to distract human beings from the righteous path and take them to ultimate loss on the day of judgment. 6.3.2 music: an act containing fewer benefits and great sins science is of view to use music for the benefit of people. the disadvantages of music and its effects on human psychology and life are researched from different angles in the above pages. the disadvantages of music are greater as compared to the advantages. regarding the merits and demerits of intoxicants, it is mentioned in the holy qur’én: 116 music: ‘food for soul’ … “they ask you about wine (i.e., intoxicants) and gambling. say: ‘major sin lies in both of them and some benefits for the people, and their sin is greater than their benefit”47 after sharing the merits and demerits, later allah almighty prohibited wine in these verses: “o believers! wine, gambling, altars and divining arrows (for seeking luck—all) are filthy works of shaiïan (devil). so, turn away from them (completely) so that you may prosper.”48 this shows the islamic holistic approach to matters that have merits and demerits. in case of a controversial issue, islam calls his vicegerent to consider both merits and demerits, if the demerits are in higher number as compared to merits, one must refrain from that particular stuff. therefore, to avoid the long-term disadvantages and also to work on one’s optimistic missions and goals, one must refrain from the use of music to have little time for false and unlawful pleasure. 6.3.3 health issues it is narrated: “the messenger of allah almighty (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said: 'the strong believer is better and more beloved to allah almighty than the weak believer”49 with the advancement of technology and science, researchers have provided results more authentically and on a scientific basis. it is recorded that loud and high-beat music can damage hearing ability and it does affect the long-term health as prolonged use of headphones or hands-free causes loss of hearing power50. islam endorses taking care of oneself as is mentioned in the above hadith. however, this listening to music not only affects psychology but also the human organs get affected which may cause loss of sense of hearing. this results in disability in a person that causes him to perform less in life. 6.3.4 aíadêth of daur-e-fiïan: it is mentioned in aíadêth that there will be times when people will do what is prohibited. the holy prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam said: hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 117 "most certainly, there will be in my ñummah people who will make lawful fornication, silk, liquorand musical instruments. and there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, 'return to us tomorrow.' allah almighty will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and he will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the day of resurrection."51 at another place holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) informed: “people among my nation will drink wine, calling it by another name, and musical instruments will be played for them and singing girls (will sing for them). allah almighty will cause the earth to swallow them up, and will turn them into monkeys and pigs.”52 this all is the situation of our society and world now a days. but as a poet described his concern in poetry, “so, you don't talk here and there, tell me why the caravan lay downi don't care about the robbers, it's a question of your leadership” the sorry is felt for the muslims, especially for youth who are used to listening to music. allah almighty has ordered the muslims to follow the footsteps of the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) for eternal success. it is compulsory for muslims especially youth to be vigilant to follow the guidance provided in the holy qur’én and study and follow the seerate-e-rasool(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). allah almighty says in the holy qur’én: “say: "obey allah almighty, and obey the messenger: but if you turn away, he is only responsible for the duty placed on him and you for that placed on you. if you obey him, you shall be on right guidance.”53 the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) is the person upon whom the whole paradigm of islam is based. allah almighty has sent him (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) as the 118 music: ‘food for soul’ … perfect exemplar for mankind. the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) has never been seen in his life span listening to or endorsing music and musical instruments. apart from psychological disadvantages, listening to music makes a person disobedient of allah almighty and a drifted away from the teachings of the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). these two elements if found in a single matter can never get any benefit for an individual. 7. conclusion it is written in the death of the west: “now our world has been turned upside down. what was the right and true yesterday is wrong and false today? what was immoral and shamefulpromiscuity, abortion, euthanasia, suicide has become progressive and praise-worthy. nietzsche called it the trans valuation of all values; the old virtues become sins, and the old sins become virtue”54 it is also the condition of muslim society nowadays. the issue of music is taken as normal as there is no or less harm in listening to it. the archetype of islam consists of the holy qur’én and sunnah. the life of the holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) is the perfect example of human behavior that is required by allah almighty. islam prohibits music and musical instruments. holy prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) neither listened to nor allowed music ever in his life. science endorses the negative effects of music on human psychology. it does not only affect emotions and perception but also the internal and external human organs are affected by its negative impacts. loud, pop, and rock music does affect hearing power, heartbeat and the chemicals within the body55.singing with music does create a situation in which a person instead of living in the real world and fulfilling his social and religious duties and responsibilities, indulges himself in an imaginary world leaving behind his call for duties. the lyrics and beats of songs along with music do change the perception of a person. it does affect the biopsychosocial approaches of a person also. instead of one’s ethical approach to living a life according to the paradigm of islam, unknowingly he acts like a different person due to a change in perception because of the effects of music. such behaviors affect the person’s character in long run proving him an irresponsible member of society. also, it is observed that every sinning place either these are hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 119 wine bars or brothels has one factor in common which is music. on the day of judgment, a question will be asked about how one has spent his life56. the muslims must be vigilant by keeping in view the effects of music on human psychology that the devil may not succeed by taking control of one’s optimism and energy through lyrics and music and leading him astray from the righteous paths. music is considered a refreshment tool that makes one feel good for some time. this happiness and contented feeling can be attained with activities that may include volunteer work or practicing hobbies. if someone needs freshness then there are lots of physical activities which are proven to soothe human psychology. along with physical activities, recitation of the holy qur’én is an activity that refreshes the soul57and consequently the body. then what is the point to involve in an activity which makes you indulge in the artificial world for moments. the happy hormones are released in times when you do some good to others, take some exercise, and get involved in some volunteer work. islam is a religion that demands from its vicegerent to remain mindful. it guides its followers to develop skills that are required to be a leader in true spirits. if someone would read the autobiography of successful people, they are the people who worked in real life and tough conditions. they were not the people who were sitting the whole day in a place during a trial or hardship while feeling pity for themselves. nor they were the people who were listening to music to soothe themselves and daydreaming. rather they got up for themselves. they used their pain of failure as a motivation to create history by their success. keeping in view the above-mentioned discussions some suggestions are made hereby to engage our youth in constructive works for the better future of our nation:  recitation of the holy qur’én in beautiful sounds should be listened for soothing and refreshing one’s soul.  the islamic teachings with a special focus on the sêrah of the ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam must be shared with students in institutes.  during recreational events, instead of playing sensational tracks, content must be selected before time to make our youth aware of their glorious past and the personalities of islamic history.  there should be game periods for physical activities like rowing, horse riding and archery in institutes to make youth strong, active and fresh. 120 music: ‘food for soul’ …  the trips to the places like orphan houses, hospitals, old houses, fountain houses, and sos villages must be arranged to make them feel their responsibility towards society.  there must be trips to historical places to make them aware of their splendid past.  there must be an honest effort to arrange recitation of the the holy qur’én, nashêd (lyric) or poems with content aligned with the islamic holistic approach, without musical instruments that may provide soothing effects to the ears. references 1the holy qur’én (51:56), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én,2010). 2the holy qur’én (5:3), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 3saíií al-bukhari (65:4606), trans. muhsin khan (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 4 muhammad shafi‘, sharah-o-tarjumah kashf-ul-inaai an wasf-il-ghina, trans. abdul moizz, (karachi: maktba dar-ul-uloom, 2002), 87. 5 muhammad shafi‘, sharah-o-tarjumah kashf-ul-inaai an wasf-il-ghina, 222. 6 gohar mushtaq, the music made me do it, (usa: international islamic publishing house, n.d.), 58. 7the holy qur’én (8:53), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én,2010). 8the holy qur’én (2:143), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 9the holy qur’én (13:28), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 10the holy qur’én (21:10), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 11the holy qur’én (36:68), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 12wehr hans and milton cowan, arabic-english dictionary. 3rd ed. (ithaca: spoken language services, 1976), 685. 13 merriam webster dictionary, s.v. “music”, accessed january 5, 2022, www.merriamwebster.com. 14 oxford learner’s dictionary, s.v. “music”, 9th ed. (oxford: oxford university press, 2015). 15the holy qur’én(31:6), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 16wehr hans and milton cowan, arabic-english dictionary, 881. 17 ibn e kathir, tafsir al-qur’én al-azim, 3 vol. (lahore: zia al-quran publications, 2019), 730. 18 ibn e kathir, tafsir al-qur’én al-azim, 3vol. 730. 19 sunan abu dawud (25:3685), trans. nasiruddin al khattab (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 2008). 20 oxford learner’s dictionary, s.v. “intoxicant”. 21the holy qur’én (53:59-61), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’an, 2010). 22 ibn e kathir, tafsir, alqur’én al-azim, 4 vol. 444. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 2 121 23saíií al-bukhari (13:952), trans. muhsin khan (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 24 yusuf al-qaradawi, the lawful and the prohibited in islam, (maryland: american trust publications, 1999), 296. 25 al-hajveri, kashf-ul-mahjoob, (lahore: zia-ulqur’én publishers, 2010), 520. 26sahih al-bukhari (49:5147), trans. muhsin khan (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 27 yusuf al-qaradawi, the lawful and the prohibited in islam, 298. 28the holy qur’én (31:6), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 29 sheikh abdul aziz ibn bazz, english translations of majmoo’al-fatawa of late scholar ibn bazz(r), 2nd ed. vol. 1 (portal of general presidency of scholarly research and ifta’), 439. 30 “playing music and songs to children”, taqi usmani, accessed june 22, 2022, https://muftitaqiusmani.com/en/playing-music-and-songs-to-children/. 31 muhammad shafi‘, islam or mousiqi, (karachi: maktaba dar-ul-aloom karachi, 1423 ah), 339. 32min-hao wu and ting-cheng chang “evaluation of effect of music on human nervous system by heart rate variability analysis using ecg sensor,” sensors and materials 3, no. 2 (2021): 739-753, https://myukk.org/sm2017/sm_pdf/sm2491.pdf. 33 “children and video games playing with violence”, american academy of child & adolescent psychiatry, accessed april 26, 2022, https://www.aacap.org/aacap/families_and_youth/facts_for_families/fffguide/children-and-video-games-playing-with-violence-91.aspx. 34 “youth violence”, world health organization, accessed may 8, 2022, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/youth-violence. 35palmer, a. “violent song lyrics may lead to violent behavior,” monitor on psychology 34, no.7 (july, 2003), http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug03/violent. 36seo, d., patrick, c. j., and kennealy, p. j. “role of serotonin and dopamine system interactions in the neurobiology of impulsive aggression and its comorbidity with other clinical disorders,” aggression and violent behavior 13, no. 5, (2008): 383–395. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2008.06.003. 37 hope cristol, “what is dopamine,” webmd, accessed january 3, 2022, https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-dopamine. 38jolij j, and meurs m, “music alters visual perception,” plos one 6, no. 4, (2011), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018861. 39fischer, peter; greitemeyer, “music and aggression: the impact of sexual-aggressive song lyrics on aggression-related thoughts, emotions, and behavior toward the same and the opposite sex,” personality and social psychology bulletin 32, no. 9 (2006): 1165-1176, https://epub.ub.unimuenchen.de/15635/1/music_and_aggression.pdf. 40 weitzer r, and kubrin ce, “misogyny in rap music: a content analysis of prevalence and meanings,” men and masculinities 12, no. 1(2009):3-29, doi:10.1177/1097184x08327696. 41 miliaikeala sj. heen, joel d. lieberman, “sexual harassment and violence at music concerts and festivals”, centre for crime and justice policy, https://www.unlv.edu/sites/default/files/page_files/27/ccjp-heen_stat_sheet.pdf. 42pavle marincovik, “can music have negative effects on people?”, accessed february,2022, https://medium.com/behavior-design/can-music-have-negative-effectson-people-fa1a4d59144f. 43wright, c.l., and craske, m. “music’s influence on risky sexual behaviors: examining the cultivation theory,” media psychology review 9, no.1 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2008.06.003 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018861 122 music: ‘food for soul’ … 44elizabeth a. ochola, “gender differences in the perception of the levels and potential effects of violence in popular music: a case of university of nairobi students,” international journal for innovation education and research 4, no. 10 (2016): 81-90. 45the holy qur’én (17:62-64), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 46moududi, tafheem ul quran, vol. 9 (lahore: idara tarjuman-ulqur’én, n.d), 9. 47the holy qur’én (2:219), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 48the holy qur’én (5:90), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 49 sunnan ibn majah (1:79), trans. nasiruddin al khattab (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 2007). 50 “how does loud noise cause hearing loss”, centers for disease control and prevention, accessed april 26, 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/hearing_loss/how_does_loud_noise_cause_hearing_loss.html . 51saíií al-bukhari (13:5590), trans. muhsin khan (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 52 sunan ibn majah (36:4020), trans. nasiruddin al khattab (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 2007). 53the holy qur’én (24:54), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010). 54 buchanan, patrick j., the death of the west, (new york: thomas dunes books, 2002), 5. 55hope cristol, “what is dopamine”, webmd, accessed january 3, 2022, https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-dopamine. 56 jami’ at-tirmidhi, (35:2417), trans. abu khaliyl (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 2007). 57the holy qur’én (13:28), trans. taqi usman (karachi: maktba ma’ariful qur’én,2010). hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 59 islamic finance mode impacts on economic development and financial sustainability in pakistan muhammad saeed iqbal islamic business school, universiti utara malaysia email: m_saeed_iqbal@cob.uum.edu.my dr. sofi mohd fikri school of islamic banking and finance – universiti utara malaysia (uum) , malaysia. email: mohdfikri@uum.edu.my received on: 13-01-24 accepted on: 02-12-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.901 abstract the research investigates the association between islamic bank (ib) operations and economic development in pakistan. specifically, it questions whether islamic banks are essential for economic development and how their operations contribute to financial sustainability. the study investigates the link between islamic banking practices and financial sustainability, focusing on gdp and z-score. it identifies the impact of islamic financing modes on economic development. cross-sectional data set research employing a quantitative methodology. data was collected from five islamic banks in pakistan, covering 2018 to 2022. pearson regression analysis was utilized to quantify the relationships between gdp and the z-score while focusing on different islamic financing structures. ijérah and murébaíah (مرابحہ) modes are negatively linked with gdp, indicating a significant correlation coefficient of 0.79 between financial methods and gdp. in addition, the assessment shows and negative and significant correlation between all forms of payment except murébaíah, which has a z-score of 0.94. but the correlation among z-score and murébaíah and muìérabah (المضاربة) is insignificant in all cases. regression tests provide two models. overall, the results suggest a strong relationship between the use of all forms of payment, except for murébaíah, which is independent of z-score. therefore, it can be concluded that muìérabah has no significant relationship with the z score. this research explores the link between islamic financial structures and economic development in pakistan. in addition to quantitative methods, islamic banking products are mailto:m_saeed_iqbal@cob.uum.edu.my mailto:mohdfikri@uum.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.901 60 islamic finance mode … used. it offers valuable information for policymakers and stakeholders. keywords: muìérabah; murébaíah; mushérakah; ijérah; istiîné‘; gdp and z-score. introduction islamic financing techniques can assist small and mediumsized firms in raising funds, boosting economic growth. moreover, islamic financing can contribute to poverty reduction and job creation and enhance financial sustainability and stability. 1’2 islamic banks and money aim to promote equality & improve monetary outcomes. economic development and human prosperity can be achieved through the islamic monetary system. focusing on risk reduction instead of support would be the best way to decrease poverty and inequality. this should be the primary focus of financial development strategy creators. islamic banks handle crisis reserves based on islamic banking principles. hence, the islamic banking system proves to be a valuable tool for economic progress and advancement. for example, the idb, a multilateral development bank, established the ibs fund for economic growth (ifeg) to offer liquidity to member countries during financial crises. therefore, the islamic banking system is considered valuable for fostering economic growth and development. 3’4’5 global recognition and adoption of islamic systems of financing has been observed. various conventional banking organizations have established islamic banking subsidiaries or windows to offer banking goods and services that adhere to shari'ah principles. improving pakistan's financial sustainability requires building a more robust and resilient banking system.6 islamic banking and finance aim to improve perceptions of value and contribute to economic development. it has the potential to promote economic development and social stability. increasing bet sharing instead of commitment financing reduces stress and asymmetrical behavior. these are the primary objectives of financial policymakers. islamic banks utilize islamic banking principles to facilitate asset transfers from individual customers to business supporters. islamic financing methods correspond with islamic sharê‘ah principles, including muìérabah, mushérakah ( مشاركة), ijérah ( إجارة), istiîné‘ (استصناع) similarly, banking services are a significant indicator of a country's advancement and transformation.7 this study examines the relationship between islamic finance practices and islamic banking intermediation. it also examines its impact on islamic institutions' sustainability. these characteristics highlight the key role islamic finance practices play in enhancing the efficiency and stability of islamic banking communications. moreover, these practices are critical to islamic financial institutions' hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 61 long-term viability. by adapting to ethical principles and social responsibility. when implementing islamic economics, it's critical to choose the most appropriate mode. a significant part of the islamic finance sector's performance post-financial crisis depends on market risks and constraints faced by islamic banks. 8 this is a way to prevent mistakes made by conventional financial institutions. islamic banks aim to improve equality in society and individual well-being among muslims through effective banking services, which can stimulate economic growth, reduce poverty, and promote national prosperity. 9 it is important to focus on the relationship between islamic investment and economic performance when evaluating all three aspects. after that, authorities and technology makers should determine which islamic finance strategies should be implemented in the islamic financial system. islamic finance has gained significant influence around the world. especially in a country like pakistan, the banking industry plays a prominent role in the banking system. despite the rapid growth, there is still a gap in understanding the short-term impact of islamic banks on economic growth and economic performance. this research examines the relationship between islamic banks (ibs) and economic performance in pakistan and asks questions about the extent to which these institutions are central to the country's growth and development. the study aims to analyze how various islamic financial terms such as (muìérabah , mushérakah, ijéarah, istiîné‘ affect market trend indicators such as gross domestic product (gdp) and z-score, which measures financial stability. this study aims to determine whether islamic banks' operations positively or negatively affect the economy. as the existing literature presents conflicting views, this research also addresses significant gaps. it focuses on the financial impact and holding power of these financial structures. these structures are critical to the economy's health. as decisionmakers and stakeholders in the banking sector strive to create a balanced and sustainable economic environment throughout the longterm economic cycle, understanding this dynamic will become increasingly significant. 10 research objectives the research objectives of the study are: 1. to analyze the relationship between islamic banking practices and economic growth in pakistan, focusing on gdp growth 2. to assess the impact of various islamic financial structures on economic development through the z-score. 3. to identify and measure the relationship between specific islamic financial requirements (muìérabah, mushérakah), 62 islamic finance mode … ijérah, istiîné‘ and their impact on economic indicators and provide insights for decision makers. this study provides a new fundamental model for demonstrating the relationship between islamic finance and real economic development in pakistan. this model can be used to understand better islamic finance's effects on pakistan's economic development. it is critical to emphasize that the review contributes to the discussion since no previous studies have explored the correlation between the islamic mode of finance & the sustainability of ibs in pakistan. in sum, this research provides significant insights for policymakers and stakeholders concerned about the sustainability of the islamic banking sector in pakistan. literature review literature classification can be divided into two categories. the first category focuses on the relationship between islamic mode of finance and original economic development.11 the second category highlights on the relationship between islamic mode of finance and financial sustainability. the banking framework plays a crucial role in the economic development of a nation since it facilitates the production of beneficial interests inside the country. islamic finance plays an important role in mitigating gaps and contributing to economic development of a nation, which promotes self-sufficiency through equitable compensation. the circulation suggests that islamic banking has a significant impact on economic results. islamic finance contributes to advancement by focusing on two methods of finance and development relationship. several experimental studies have been conducted to examine the effectiveness of the islamic financial system compared to the conventional financial system. these trials have examined its impact on inflation and business rates. 12 in islamic banking, banks' reliability and popularity are not necessarily indicative of their ability to generate revenue. in addition to boosting the economy, islamic finance also supports the population's ability to support their own economies through equal pay distributions. 13 financial institution has a significant effect on the economy's finances.14 islamic finance promotes development. muslims make up 24% of the world's population, the second largest religious group. islamic finance has played a crucial role in many economies' success and holds a high potential for further growth in the future. in their view, there is a strong case for a direct correlation between banking intermediaries and market fluctuations. it was argued that the advancement of the monetary framework could hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 63 potentially yield favorable outcomes for financial development. 15 that studied a similar relationship between islamic banking and financial development in malaysia. these studies support the hypothesis of a strong relationship, and research evidence is sometimes understated. the results highlight the significant role of islamic banks in enhancing the country's economic landscape. the subsequent findings indicate a significant and significant correlation between islamic bank financing and economic growth. 16 the study findings are based on research into malaysia's economic development and islamic banks' role in facilitating financial development. this research highlights the positive impact of islamic banks on the country's financial development by providing efficient and interestfree banking services. the findings highlight the importance of such banks in promoting sustainable economic growth. the findings indicate that islamic banking financing in pakistan is strongly and significantly associated with economic growth and capital accumulation in the long term. 17 it is also said that islamic financing, including credit types such as murébaíah and ijérah exchanges, which provide credit against usufruct or substantial assets, necessitate islamic banks to possess knowledge regarding the client's intention and utilization of the financing. 18 these modes also require the bank to assume responsibility for resource allocation, albeit for a shorter duration in the case of murébaíah. in contrast, they are longer duration in the case of ijérah finance. this enhances the likelihood (or ensures) that reserves are employed for their stated objectives. therefore, it ensures credit remains linked to authentic financial transactions throughout the agreement. in contrast to conventional methods of financing, islamic financing depends not only on the financial stability of the borrower, but also on the value and profitability of the endeavor being financed. moreover, islamic profit sharing contributes to economic development by promoting fair income distribution, leading to significant advantages for social fairness and social progress. 19 islamic banks have shown a higher level of credit development than traditional banks in nearly all regions during the recession. it has been suggested that islamic banks have made a greater commitment to macroeconomic and economic stability by increasing credit accessibility. islamic finance should serve as a contrasting force in the global capital market request, as the funds in islamic banks (which are not loans but instead open-ended investment accounts on a muìérabah basis go back to the real economy for goods and services with minimal created cash flow. 20 this paper examines the relationship between islamic financing and islamic banking, with a specific focus on finance and investment development. 21 we have demonstrated that islamic banking plays a significant role in financial progress. similarly, they proposed that future studies should 64 islamic finance mode … investigate the impact of islamic betting on economic growth using panel data analysis rather than time-series analysis. 22 the findings revealed that the islamic approach to finance encompasses various principles, including murébaíah, mushérakah, muìérabah, istiîné‘, and ijérah. the impact of financial mediation on monetary development is significant. thus, murébaíah and ijérah financing offer an effective and secure way for businesses to manage their assets. 23according to islamic financing places more emphasis on the value and productivity of the project than on the client's creditworthiness. furthermore, benefit sharing promotes financial advancement by allowing equal pay distribution. this benefits civil rights and practical advancement. emphasizing value and project productivity, islamic financing encourages a more just allocation of funds, benefiting both socioeconomic and civil rights. 24 islamic banks developed credit more steadily during the financial crisis than conventional banks in virtually all districts. it has been indicated that ibs showed a significant commitment to economic growth & financial sustainability by expanding recognized availability. 25according to islamic money should act as a settling force in the global financial market since islamic banks' stores (which are not credit lines but evident ventures on muìérabah premises) are invested in the genuine economy for goods/services without counterfeit cash. islamic banking can be an effective tool for macroeconomic and financial sustainability and should be encouraged. 26 assessed the literature on the relationship between financial sustainability and sustainable development, focusing on islamic banking as a crucial factor. they suggested using board information analysis instead of time-series analysis to investigate the impact of islamic numbers on business progress. islamic banking is an effective driver of economic progress, and its potential for even greater impact should be explored further. 27 discovered islamic financing modes like murébaíah, mushérakah, muìérabah, istiîné‘, and ijérah, impacting economic development and financial sustainability. these modes are effective and efficient forms of business finance. islamic finance is a crucial tool to foster economic development and financial sustainability. islamic institutions have demonstrated financial sustainability. several of them examined islamic banking security and how it compares to conventional banking, including. 28 additionally, they examined disappointment risk (credit risk, store withdrawal risk, and functional gambling), as well as islamic and conventional banks' responsiveness to disappointment risk. all in all, these researchers concluded that islamic banking can be an attractive alternative to traditional banking due to financial sustainability. in their analysis, they have demonstrated that islamic banks are highly hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 65 supported, have a high liquidity level, have a lower influence, and possess an enormous functional gamble. compared to traditional banks, islamic banks have a significantly lower risk of disappointment. research indicates that islamic banks reduce bankruptcies and credit defaults. they have also demonstrated that expansion in advanced portfolios isn't associated with a higher likelihood of disappointment. 29 believe that small islamic banks generally have better financial foundations than small business banks, large business banks typically have stronger financial foundations than significant islamic banks and islamic banks typically have stronger financial foundations than significant islamic banks, which may reflect difficulties with credit risk faced by large business bank executives. 30 this is in order to remain competitive. based on a comparison of the islamic financial framework (uncertainties) and its foundations with the conventional premium-based framework, have provided a fundamental overview of islamic financial aspects (ies) and money (if). from 2010 to 2020, they examined 34 tests over a thirty-year period. for standard commercial banks, the mean return on equity was 8.45%, but for islamic commercial banks, the mean return on equity was 10%. 31 this study points to the islamic financial framework as a feasible substitute for conventional financing. the relationship between islamic money systems and sound finance have not been addressed in modern literature. in this study, two key principles are highlighted that may contribute to islamic financial institutions' inherent sustainability. it is crucial that these principles are 'worked on'. 32 they support resource allocation and risk-sharing norms. this is in no way, shape, or form to be interpreted as a misrepresentation of or indifference to certain islamic financial principles, on the one hand. in addition, the international financial institutions' actions continue to adhere strictly and "sincerely" to these ideal models, on the whole. in sum, these principles must be upheld and continually worked on in a way to foster the success of global business organizations islamic banks' market structure impacted total bank risk. the findings showed that islamic banks are sustainable. 33 the z-record findings supported the npfs and demonstrated that islamic banks rose in sustainability and establishment value. additionally, they demonstrated how underinvestigation islamic banks may boost borrowing costs by using their market dominance to create credit risk inside addition, they could ensure contract value through the risk-sharing rule and high capitalization level. in 2019, islamic banks made up about 6% of global banking assets. therefore, islamic banks have significant potential to become a major player in the global banking sector. examined the impact of credit supply on financial sustainability by focusing on islamic banks' impact on credit supply. according to their 66 islamic finance mode … specific findings, islamic banks' share in the desert as a result of advances adversely affects their credit strength. this in turn results in conventional banks focusing on financial sustainability and increasing their share of credit available to their customers. overall, this study suggests that islamic banks' expansion into the desert has both positive and negative implications for financial sustainability. financial sustainability has been defined by the sbp of pakistan (the pakistan islamic meezan bank), for example, as a condition in which "monetary intermediaries, markets, and the market framework of the financial framework facilitate the smooth flow of assets among savers and monetary backers, thus advancing the development of monetary action". 34 as such, financial sustainability is essential for an economy's proper functioning. the z score approach was developed to evaluate financial sustainability and demonstrate foundation reliability. during the development of this methodology, the implementation of an evaluation that simultaneously considered a number of factors to determine financial sustainability was a significant advancement over preceding approaches. as an open framework, customers benefit from the advantages without incurring the additional costs associated with the customized black box framework. just a thorough economic investigation—no hidden enchantments. 35 altman's strategy offers customers a cost-effective and transparent approach to financial sustainability. after some time, with additional developments specifically for privately owned organizations, the z score has continued to grow. it received widespread acclaim from assessors, executives, accountants, judges, and database frameworks used for early evaluation. the instructions have been applied in many contexts and countries. its credibility has been tested publicly for forty years. it is, therefore, safe to say that the z result is a reliable instrument for risk assessment & decision-making. influence, profitability, reinvested profits, liquidity, and productivity are all considered to calculate the score. this includes influence, profitability, reinvested profits, liquidity, and productivity. due to the lack of external data sources, such as gdp or market prices, it is frequently used to determine past, present, or future information. z-index = 6.57 (x1) + 3.27 (x2) + 6.37 (x3) + 1.06 (x4). where: ▪ z = calculated as a risk factor for bankruptcy. ▪ x1 = operational capital/sum resources ▪ x2 = reserved earnings/sum resources ▪ x3 = incomes by benefit & burden / sum resources ▪ x4 = calculate manuscript equity/sum equity hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 67 a higher score indicates more financial sustainability, linked with a reduced probability of default and vice versa. the methodology combines financial indicators such as liquidity, profitability, invested profit, and impact into a single composite score. it can be used with historical, present, or task data as it does not necessitate external data sources, such as gdp or market costs. sectors of judgments ▪ z > 2.7 – “safe score” ▪ z < 2.7 – “grey score” ▪ z < 1.2 – “distress score” islamic finance has gained significant popularity globally and has become a significant part of the global finance landscape. 36 islamic finance prohibits interest riba (الربا). islamic finance considers interest exploitative and unjust, as it generates wealth without productive contribution. instead, islamic finance promotes profit-sharing and risk-sharing arrangements, where both parties share the risks and rewards of a business venture. this method promotes a fair sharing of wealth and helps instill a sense of responsibility and accountability among those involved. funds are clearly of limited intrinsic significance and essential to islamic finance. to use money effectively, we need resources like commerce and speculation to generate abundance. islamic money is mostly used through exchange. thus, the four main islamic modes techniques developed by islamic banks are muìérabah, mushérakah, ijérah, and murébaíah. a key component of islamic finance is the lack of value in cash. 37 as an expression of honesty, a muslim is prohibited from providing or receiving money from anyone for profit. he is convinced that the practice of paying a premium (referred to as riba in islam) is prohibited and it is unlawful to earn income through currency exchanges. cash efficiency requires abundance through genuine trade and interest in resources. islamic finance revolves around its exchange method. any further elements pertaining to the exchange are allocated between the party giving the capital and the party giving the interest in it. therefore, islamic banks have developed four primary ways of islamic financing, including muìérabah, mushérakah, ijérah, and murébaíah. muìérabah is a partnership consisting of a financing and an oversight partner. financing partners, or financiers, share their capital with oversight and performance. partner, who in turn contributes their expertise and creative abilities to the project. the financing partner is not involved in the organization's management. 38 trust financing has become the preferred association method for banks. profits are distributed in a predetermined ratio. however, if a catastrophe occurs, the financing partner will face the loss, while the overseeing partner 68 islamic finance mode … will lose their effort and time. this is unless this misfortune was caused by the monitoring partner's erratic behavior. islamic banks are muìérabah organizations in islamic fiqh (اإلسالمي this is 39 .(الفقه where the contributions are considered the financier and the bank's management (or investors) are considered the businessperson. 40 the financier is responsible for the management of the business, while the businessperson is responsible for the loss of investment. the bank is not liable for any losses incurred by the financier or the businessperson. the bank is only liable for losses caused by its own negligence or intentional misconduct. mushérakah indicates a cooperative effort in which profit, and loss are shared. we are not responsible for managing patches. an enterprise that is intended for commercial purposes is one that brings together the skills, resources, and efforts of at least two partners, each of whom contributes in an equal or different manner in terms of capital, managerial prowess, effort, and other key administrations. as a result of their respective contributions to capital and efforts, they also share in the risks and financial consequences. this sort of organization isn't typically used by islamic banks since they don't want to be actively involved in project management. 41 in the end, this type of organization benefits all involved. mushérakah refers to a partnership where profit and loss are shared. 42 the objective is to combine the contributions of two partners in a commercial enterprise. this is where each partner contributes capital, managerial expertise, efforts, and other essential services in equal or different amounts. in a similar way, people also bear the risks and financial consequences associated with their investments and efforts. due to most banks' inability to get involved in project management, islamic banks typically do not adopt this method of organization. the term ijérah refers only to a type of lease agreement that is islamic in nature. as defined by aaoifi, this concept is the 'return to the right to use resources as a tradeoff for thought'. a client chooses the equipment that the bank purchases and rents it back to the client for a specified rental period. both the duration and the basis for renting are predetermined and agreed upon. 43 sometimes the bank subleases clear resources to a client and rents them from a third party. 44 the average rental agreement lasts 12 months, but this doesn't work for everyone. as a result, the bank ensures that each client's needs and preferences are considered while developing a lease agreement. customers who make purchases can benefit from islamic banks' ijarah45, also known as "ijérah-wa-ikténa (اإلجارة واإلكتانا)" or " ijérah with decreasing mushérakah." the typical components include a rental payment and a commitment to expenditure, making ijarah an appealing solution for clients searching for a long-term agreement. 46 consequently, the client gains more ownership while the bank's hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 69 ownership diminishes. all assets are eventually owned by the customer. as a result, ijérah with diminishing mushérakah is an efficient way to acquire assets. as the selling price is factored into the rental installments, the liquidity risk in both forms of ijarah ( إجارة) leases will be constrained by. 47 ijérah leases provide an attractive option for customers interested in purchasing assets without incurring liquidity risk. based on islamic fiqh, murébaíah is defined as the offering of profits at no charge plus revenue enhancement. it is essential for the vendor to accurately disclose to the consumer the price at which the item was purchased. this is in such a type of islamic financing. additionally, he specifies a profit margin over the initial outlay. 48 murébaíah is, therefore, a form of exchange support. it is essentially an agreement that combines the price of particular goods or services with a predetermined rate rise (benefit). 49 overall, murébaíah is a vital sort of islamic financing that focuses primarily on the exact and evident presentation of the item's cost and a predetermined total revenue. the islamic bank is the lender in this strategy, along with a middleman (the islamic bank) and the final purchaser. in this situation, a client requests that the bank buy its selected products in line with particular conditions. before delving into the use of the istiîné‘ contract as a supporting document for contemporary groups, it is necessary to clarify a few provisions of the contract.50 these provisions govern the relationship between the agreement and meetings. these provisions are as follows: the parties to the agreement's rights: the istiîné‘ contract is divided into two parties: the producer is the first group, and the client, or person seeking industry, is the second group. this agreement has a significant or subjective consequence in that it confirms the client's remuneration for the resource made under their responsibility. it also confirms their responsibility for the first segment ("make") of the agreed-upon (cost). however, this arrangement reduces the likelihood that the next section will be met with resistance or, conversely, dissatisfaction with the previous one. god swt states, "o you who have accepted, keep [all] contracts," referring to this agreement's affirmation of the two parties' rights, the cost, the delivery date, and the specifics of the object produced (almā‟idah:1). the rights of the next in line (the client) shall be confirmed upon the completion of the aforementioned material made by the first segment. to maximize benefits, the industry group can handle multiple clients simultaneously while considering delivery time. a key component of an istiîné‘ contract is clearly stating the specifics of the object to be created. this includes its kind, value, quantity, delivery date, and price. the purpose of the completed and 70 islamic finance mode … unambiguous data in the agreement mentioned above is to resolve any potential disputes between the client and the company group. this review highlights the critical role of islamic finance in promoting economic growth and financial stability. it focuses on specific aspects of islamic finance strategies. ethical foundation and its potential to drive social equity and economic sustainability. future research should further examine the relationship between islamic finance and financial stability. in particular, a variety of statistical methods are used to increase understanding of their relationships. although the review provides a comprehensive overview of islamic finance strategies, providing novel insights or specific suggestions that add value to existing writing is not groundbreaking. to expand support, the profession can explore unexplored areas or develop novel models linking islamic finance to a wide range of economic outcomes. additionally, integrating case studies or data can offer useful and novel insights into impacts. methodology and research design this study uses quantitative methodology. it uses data to analyze islamic banks' performance in economic development in pakistan. this research approach involves collecting and analyzing data from a specific group of islamic banks to indicate relationships between financial variables. 51 this study collected data from five reputed islamic banks operating in pakistan. covers the period 2018 to 2022 based on economic indicators of financial status. the banks included in the study are meezan bank, al baraka bank, dubai islamic bank, faysal islamic bank and bank islami pakistan data collection collects secondary information from financial statements. annual reports and publications of the state bank of pakistan. the study focused on several key indicators. this includes gross domestic product (gdp) and z-score, which indicate the bank's financial stability. the main variables are gdp (economic growth indicator), z-score (financial stability indicator), and islamic financial conditions (muìérabah, mushérakah, ijérah, istiîné‘. cleaning was performed on the collected data to ensure accuracy and completeness. missing or inconsistent data points were corrected to ensure analysis integrity. the pearson correlation coefficient measures the strength and direction of the relationship between gdp and z-score, as well as between different aspects of islamic finance. two regression models were created to examine the causal relationship between the independent variables. (islamic finance terms) and relative variables (gdp). this procedure examines the impact of various islamic banking practices. in support of economic development and financial stability. the analyzed data provides hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 71 valuable insights into the relationship between islamic banking practices and economic development in pakistan. the findings show that islamic banking activities in specific financial sectors are significantly related to gdp and z-score. this supports the idea that islamic banking contributes to financial stability and economic development in the country. a systematic and structured approach to data collection and analysis makes findings reliable and can inform policymakers and financial managers. result and analysis the review analysis the correlation among z-score & gdp which are dependent variables & islamic mode of finance which independent variables. from this review, it can be seen that the islamic mode of finance has a significant effect on both z score and gdp. the study analyses the link between z-scores and the islamic financial system to see if they advance in the same direction. as a result, this study gives critically significant data into the future sustainability of islamic finance methods. table 1 shows a significantly negative relationship to the z score variable. this is except for mudarabah, which has a direct link to the z score variable. as a result, people with a higher z score profit most from islamic finance. although connection tests only provide the direction of the association, the researcher applies a causal connection test (regression) to assess if the islamic method of financing influences ibs' financial sustainability. as a result, the researcher's findings imply a beneficial association between islamic financing and islamic banks' financial sustainability. table 3 indicates that the islamic form of financing constitutes 95% of the difference in z scores, whereas other effects account for just 7%. in this significant challenge, islamic finance research should show how islamic banks may attain financial sustainability by utilizing islamic modes of financing. as a result, islamic financing plays a critical role in determining islamic institutions' financial sustainability. table 1, there is no significant relationship between the zscore and the two different financial models murébaíah and muìérabah. thus, it can be concluded that the z score is not a reliable indicator of financial performance. this further reinforces the importance of reliable indicators to measure financial performance. variables z -s co re ij a -f m u s -f m u r -f is t -f m u d -f z -s co re correlatio n pearson 1 0.5 86* 0.3 85 * 0.45 2* 0.2 72* 0.279 * 72 islamic finance mode … (1-tailed) sig. 0 0.0 01 0 0.0 17 0.015 ij a -f correlatio n pearson 0.586 * 1 00 32 1* 0.22 4* 0.1 38 0.207 (1-tailed) sig. 0 0.0 05 0.04 0.1 14 0.054 m u s -f correlatio n pearson -0.385 1 1 0.96 7* 0.3 33* 0.418 * (1-tailed) pearson 0.001 0.0 05 0 0.0 04 0 m u r -f correlatio n pearson 0.452 * -0.3 24* 0.9 67 * 1 0.2 32* 0.301 * (1-tailed) sig. 0 0.0 4 0 0.0 36 0.009 is t -f correlatio n pearson -0.272 0.1 38 0.3 33 * 0.23 2* 1 0.114 * (1-tailed) sig. 0.016 0.1 44 0.0 04 0.03 5 0.20 m u d -f correlatio n pearson 0.279 * 0.2 07 0.4 18 * 0.30 1* 0.1 14* 1 (1-tailed) sig. 0.014 0.0 54 0 0.00 8 0.2 0 table 1: importance of reliable indicators to measure financial performance *significance level for the correlation is 0.01 (1-tailed); *significance level for the correlation is 0.05 (1-tailed). table 2: the negative relationship among islamic modes of finance & z-score is shown from the maximum to the minimal negative relationship. therefore, islamic modes of finance are adversely related to the z score. due to this, the researcher conducted a second linear regression test, as shown in tables 4-6. this is to determine whether a significant mode exists. the results indicate that this significant mode is significantly affected by both the dependent and independent variables. based on table 6, we can determine that different variable account for just 8% of the z score variation. on the other hand, islamic finance (ijérah, mushérakah, and istiîné‘ accounts for 92% of the variation. therefore, islamic finance is responsible for the majority of z score variation. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 73 the score for z is 3.99 (0.0000003125) finance for mushérakah (0.000000396) (ijérah finance istiîné‘ finance (0.0000025). this score, calculated according to the criteria, indicates a successful financial decision. based on this model, we can conclude that the z-score and islamic finance have a negative correlation. thus, it can be safely said that the z score is negatively correlated with islamic finance. have shown that an increase in the share of the market islamic banks contribute in terms of advances has a negative impact on the sustainability of the financial system. this results in an increase in conventional banks' share of the credit market in terms of credit supply. 52 this highlights the importance of monitoring islamic banks' market share to ensure financial system sustainability. this outcome is also in line with z-file work, which showed that islamic banks could use their marketability to raise financing rates, which in turn raised their credit risk, while still preserving their allowed value through risk sharing and high capitalization levels. overall, this suggests that islamic banks can maximize profits while mitigating credit risk through marketability. in addition, the researcher investigates how islamic banks' financial sustainability relates to islamic modes of finance and economic development as well. tables 3–5 show the results. overall, the study suggests that islamic banking is a significant part of the islamic mode of finance and its sustainability is essential for economic development. we can determine from table 9 that the z score and islamic mode of finance contribute to 88% of the change in gross domestic product. in contrast, other factors contribute to just 12% of the variation. therefore, z score and islamic finance are significant drivers of gdp. imf correlation level (z-score) significance level ija-f -0.586 *significance level for the link is 0.01 (1-tailed). mur-f -0.452 *significance level of the link is 0.01 (1-tailed). mus-f -0.385 *significance level of the link is 0.01 (1-tailed). ist-f -0.272 *significance level of the link is 0.05 (1-tailed). mud-f 0.279 *significance level of the link is 0.05 (1-tailed). table 2: islamic mode of finance correlation *significance level for the correlation is 0.01 (1-tailed) 74 islamic finance mode … model square of sum d-f square mean f sig. 1 regression 140.61 2 6 128.23 80.89 6 0.00b residual 19.816 58 0.349 total 160.42 7 63 2 regression 138.56 5 4 46.189 1.24647 0.000b residual 21.865 60 0.372 total 160.42 7 63 3 regression 558.40 2 7 93.068 30.47 4 0.000b residual 171.02 8 57 3.055 total 729.43 0 63 1. total-score factor: dependent variable 2. z-score factor: dependent variable 3. gdp rate; dependent variable a. total: mur-f, ija-f, ist-f, mud-f, & mus-f are (1) predictors (constants). b. z: ist-f, ija-f, & mus-f are (2) predictors (constants). c. gdp: mur-f, ija-f, ist-f, mud-f, mus-f & z-score factor are (3) predictors (constants) table 3: overview of the islamic mode of finance method model coefficients under standardized coefficients standardized t sig b std. erro r beta 1 constan t 3.689 0.175 21.2 28 0.00 0 ist-f -2.75e07 0 -0.463 7.17 9 0.00 0 ija-f -4.20e08 0 -0.83 15.2 54 0.00 0 mud-f 9.07e09 0 0.017 0.24 3 0.81 0 mus-f -5.04e08 0 -1.242 4.13 0 0.00 0 mur-f 5.63e09 0 0.465 1.73 7 0.08 9 2 constan t 12.40 1.538 1.818 8.06 4 0.00 0 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 75 mus-f 1.58e07 0 1.818 3.81 0 0.00 0 ija-f -5.51e08 0 -0.506 0.99 0 0.00 3 ist-f 6.32e07 0 0.497 4.04 0 0.00 0 mur-f 5.25e08 0 --2.032 5.32 5 0.00 0 mudf 4.55e07 0 0.393 4.01 0 0.00 0 zscore factor -2.325 0.394 -1.091 5.92 1 0.00 0 3 constan t 3.992 0.124 32.4 94 0.00 0 mus-f 3.126e008 0.000 -.773 14.4 80 0.00 0 ija-f 3.961 e-008 0.000 -.776 15.2 62 0.00 0 ist-f 2.502 e-007 0.000 -.422 8.26 4 0.00 0 1. z-score factor: dependent variable 2. gdp rate: dependent variable 3. total islamic mode of finance table 4: anova– significance of the analysis note: the model shows that financial indicators such as mus-f, ija-f, ist-f, mur-f, mud-f, and z-score have a significant impact on gdp. mo del r square r square r adjusted estimate std. error 1 0.93 a 0.865 0.858 0.60874 2 0.876a 0.767 0.75 1.74750 a. ist-f, ija-f, & mus-f are (1) predictors (constants). b. mur-f, ija-f, ist-f, mud-f, & mus-f are (2) predictors (constants). table 5: z and gdp score and islamic mode of finances are correlated by their coefficients linear relationship between z score, gdp rate, and islamic modes of finance the gdp rate equals 12.40 plus 0.00000157 finance for mushérakah – (0.00000056) 0.0000064 finance for istiîné‘ – 76 islamic finance mode … (0.00000053) muìérabah finance – (2.33) plus 0.0000046 murabahah ( المضاربة) finance z rating. taking all of these into account, the gdp rate for the country is 12.40. according to table 2, with an instance of the z score and the constant, all variables have zero standard errors. 53 it is logical to understand the model’s significance in this manner. in addition, the test results suggest that with the exception of ijérah and murébaíah, all islamic modes of finance examined have a positive causal relationship with gdp. overall, these findings demonstrate the significance of the islamic finance sector in stimulating economic development. 54 this study’s results are similar to those who concluded that islamic modes of finance, including ijérah, istiîné‘, muìérabah), mushérakah and murébaíah are sustainable. financial sustainability is adversely affected, but islamic banking is positively affected in pakistan (economic development, but this finding contrasts with those in murébaíah and ijérah (إجارة)). overall, this research provides valuable insights into islamic banking’s influence on financial sustainability in pakistan. discussion islamic finance has emerged as a robust mechanism for promoting economic development and financial sustainability, as evidenced by both theoretical discussions and empirical studies. the literature underscores its unique focus on profit-sharing, risk-sharing, and interest-free mechanisms, distinguishing it from conventional banking. studies, including those on malaysia and pakistan, highlight significant positive correlations between islamic finance and economic growth. regression analysis in the current study further substantiates this relationship, showing that islamic financing modes contribute to 92% of the z-score variation and 88% of gdp changes, underlining their critical role in financial sustainability and economic progress. mushérakah (β = 0.00000157) and istiîné‘ (β = 0.0000064) have been particularly effective, contributing positively to gdp. this aligns with findings from previous research that emphasize the efficacy of these modes in supporting productive economic activities. however, the relatively weaker performance of ijérah (β = 0.00000056) and murabahah (β = -0.0000046) in gdp contribution suggests inefficiencies or contextual challenges, warranting strategic adjustments. these findings are corroborated by pearson correlation results, which show a significant negative relationship between ijarah and z-score (-0.586), indicating potential risks in liquidity management. the z-score analysis validates the financial stability of islamic banks, consistently maintaining scores above the distress threshold (z > 1.2). this supports the notion that islamic banks are hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 77 resilient to economic shocks, as highlighted in the literature. for instance, during global financial crises, islamic banks demonstrated higher credit growth compared to their conventional counterparts. the current findings reinforce these observations, with islamic banks leveraging asset-backed and risk-sharing financing to stabilize their financial structures. interestingly, the positive correlation of muìérabah (0.279) with the z-score reflects its alignment with longterm financial stability, echoing studies emphasizing its effectiveness in equitable wealth distribution. the anova results (f = 80.896, p < 0.001) further validate the statistical significance of these findings, solidifying the argument that islamic finance is a sustainable and impactful financial model. literature gaps identified in the current study suggest potential for exploring operational improvements in modes like muìérabah and ijérah. future research should employ panel data analysis to provide a nuanced understanding of the dynamics between islamic finance and economic outcomes across diverse contexts. integrating such insights with case studies can help policymakers and practitioners refine strategies, ultimately amplifying the role of islamic finance in fostering inclusive and sustainable growth. this evidence-based discussion firmly positions islamic finance as a transformative tool in global economic systems. conclusion this research explores the critical relationships between islamic modes of finance and key economic indicators, with notable findings on their implications for economic development and financial sustainability. a negative and statistically significant relationship between the z-score and mushérakah financing suggests its effectiveness as a development tool. similarly, the z-score and ijérah financing displayed a negative and significant correlation, reinforcing its role in predicting ijérah's financial performance. moreover, a negative relationship between the z-score and istiîné‘ financing highlights its use as a predictor of financial sustainability, where higher z-scores imply reduced reliance on this mode. a negative correlation between the z-score and gdp suggests that weak economic conditions drive higher z-scores. likewise, ijarah financing negatively impacted gdp, suggesting a potential hindrance to economic development. in contrast, mushérakah, istiîné‘, and muìérabah financing demonstrated significant positive relationships with gdp, showcasing their potential to bolster economic growth. murébaíah financing, however, presented a dual nature both negative and positive associations with gdp, emphasizing the need for careful implementation. 78 islamic finance mode … the study also revealed a negligible relationship between murébaíah financing and z-scores, limiting its reliability for longterm financial sustainability. similarly, while muìérabah financing correlated positively with z-scores, the relationship was not statistically significant, questioning its utility as a stability indicator. among the studied modes, istiîné‘ emerged as the most effective for enhancing gdp and ensuring sustainability. despite its promise, islamic finance in pakistan faces challenges, including limited expertise, legal hurdles, inadequate infrastructure, and regulatory gaps. it can enhance its impact by addressing these issues through improved education, legal reforms, and product diversification. policymakers should also consider islamic finance's unique characteristics to support its growth sustainably. future research should delve deeper into the relationships between islamic finance, market performance, and economic activities, offering insights for global comparisons and sustainable practices. ultimately, the study underscores the potential of islamic finance to drive ethical, inclusive, and sustainable economic development, contributing significantly to pakistan’s financial stability and global financial sustainability. notes and references 1 ahmed, jameel, safia bano, and lubaina dawood. "understanding islamic banking: the perception and thoughtfulness of customers about islamic banking in the context of balochistan." journal of islamic banking & finance 34, no. 3 (2017). 2 ibid. 3 al-roubaie, amer, and adel sarea. "building capacity for green economy: the role of islamic finance." tafhim: ikim journal of islam and the contemporary world 12, no. 2 (2019). 4 farooq, mohammad omar. "islamic finance and debt culture: treading the conventional path?". international journal of social economics 42, no. 12 (2015): 1168-95. 5 alqahtani, faisal abdulmohsen a. "islamic banking and the global financial crisis: evidence from the gulf cooperation council." researchspace@ auckland, 2016. 6 alqahtani, faisal, and david g mayes. "financial stability of islamic banking and the global financial crisis: evidence from the gulf cooperation council." economic systems 42, no. 2 (2018): 346-60. 7 ameer, muhammad haroon, and muhammad saud ansari. "islamic banking: ijarah and conventional leasing." developing country studies 4, no. 9 (2014): 12629. 8 ammar, rym, sonia rebai, and dhafer saidane. "toward the development of an islamic banking sustainability performance index." international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management, no. ahead-of-print (2022). 9 arefin, shamsul, and tareq muhammad. "why islamic finance is panacea for addressing crisis in financial markets." shamsul arefin, tm, nurullah, m., & senghore, s.(in press). why islamic finance is panacea for addressing crisis in financial markets. journal of islamic studies jagannath university (2021). hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 79 10 askari, hossein, zamir iqbal, and abbas mirakhor. "new issues in islamic finance and economics: progress and challenges." (2011). 11 aziz, muhammad ridhwan ab, and mohd asyraf yusof. "deposit and financing instruments through waqf bank for fostering real economy and social sustainability." ijibe (international journal of islamic business ethics) 4, no. 2 (2019): 611-26. 12 baba, bashir, shafie mohamed zabri, and ahmed kaseri ramin. "evaluating the customer satisfaction’s effect on murabahah and mudarabah financing in islamic banking." traektoriâ nauki= path of science 5, no. 1 (2019): 2001-22. 13 boukhatem, jamel, and fatma ben moussa. "the effect of islamic banks on gdp growth: some evidence from selected mena countries." borsa istanbul review 18, no. 3 (2018): 231-47. 14 cevik, serhan, and joshua charap. "the behavior of conventional and islamic bank deposit returns in malaysia and turkey." international journal of economics and financial issues 5, no. 1 (2015): 111-24. 15 dauda, bala abubakar, and aishatu a abdullah. "evaluation of islamic finance against the odds of credit crunch in nigeria." african journal of management and business research 6, no. 1 (2022): 110-19. 16 dieng, mouhamadou moctar. "the applicability of ijarah al-mawsufah fi aldhimmah in malaysia." international journal of management and applied research 6, no. 4 (2019): 196-207. 17 iqbal, muhammad saeed, and sofi mohd fikri. "the determinants of growth in banking sector: time series analysis of conventional and islamic banking in pakistan." islamic banking and finance review 10, no. 1 (2023): 51-67. 18 hassan, m kabir, sirajo aliyu, makeen huda, and mamunur rashid. "a survey on islamic finance and accounting standards." borsa istanbul review 19 (2019): s1-s13. 19 kabir, mohammad rokibul, and abdul hamid chowdhury. "a comparative analysis of profit rate on deposit in islamic banks in bangladesh." (2014). 20 rabbani, mustafa raza, mahmood asad mohd ali, habeeb ur rahiman, mohd atif, zehra zulfikar, and yusra naseem. "the response of islamic financial service to the covid-19 pandemic: the open social innovation of the financial system." journal of open innovation: technology, market, and complexity 7, no. 1 (2021): 85. 21 iqbal, muhammad saeed, sofi mohd fikri, and aidi ahmi. "relationship between musharakah, credit risk, and profitability in pakistan's islamic banks." journal of applied economics & business studies (jaebs) 7, no. 3 (2023). 22 laldin, mohamad akram, and fares djafri. "the role of islamic finance in achieving sustainable development goals (sdgs)." islamic finance and sustainable development: a sustainable economic framework for muslim and non-muslim countries (2021): 107-26. 23 hassan, salwana, rashidah abdul rahman, nordin abu bakar, rohani mohd, and aliyu dahiru muhammad. "designing islamic microfinance products for islamic banks in malaysia." middle-east journal of scientific research 17, no. 3 (2013): 359-66. 24 mohieldin, mahmoud, zamir iqbal, ahmed rostom, and xiaochen fu. "the role of islamic finance in enhancing financial inclusion in organization of islamic cooperation (oic) countries." islamic economic studies 20, no. 2 (2015). 25 olaide, kamoru mutiu, and ibraheem alani abdulkareem. "islamic financing as mechanism for socio-economic development: a conceptual approach." the journal of management theory and practice (jmtp) 2, no. 1 (2021): 94-98. 26 pericoli, altea. "islamic finance and charity in the muslim world. the role of the islamic development bank in financing aid." journal of economics and business aseanomics (jeba) 5, no. 2 (2020): 113-33. 27 iqbal, muhammad saeed, and mohd fikhri bin sofi. "analyzing the impact of oil prices on commodity future listed on pakistan mercantile exchange (pmex) in the era of covid-19." south asian review of business and administrative studies (sabas) 4, no. 2 (2022): 103-12. 80 islamic finance mode … 28 kakembo, ssemambo hussein, abu umar faruq ahmad, and aishath muneeza. "pioneering islamic microfinance in uganda: a sustainable poverty alleviation approach." in islamic finance in africa. 249-72: edward elgar publishing, 2022. 29 qamar, adash, and qurat ull ain. "examining the influence of organizational inequity and counterproductive work behavior on workplace misconduct within pakistan's power industry." journal of excellence in management sciences 2, no. 1 (2023): 34-48. 30 ibrahim, abdul-jalil, nasim s shirazi, and amin mohseni-cheraghlou. "the impact of islamic financial development on energy intensity: evidence from islamic banks." journal of islamic monetary economics and finance 7, no. 4 (2021): 709-32. 31 pratami, arifa, nur feriyanto, jaka sriyana, and ikbar pratama. "are shariah banking financing patterns pro-cyclical? an evidence from asean countries." cuadernos de economía 45, no. 127 (2022): 82-91. 32 lawal, ibrahim mohammed, and umar babagana imam. "islamic finance; a tool for realizing sustainable development goals (sdg) in nigeria." international journal of innovative research and advanced studies (ijiras) 3, no. 9 (2016): 1017. 33 ibrahim, abdul-jalil. "the role of islamic finance in the growth of the circular economy." hamad bin khalifa university (qatar), 2022. 34 khan, noman ali, and afifa imran. "islamic finance is the good alternative of conventional interest-based system." al meezan research journal of social sciences 1, no. 01 (2021): 01-16. 35 hassan, abul, and sabur mollah. "just and balanced: the importance of accounting in islamic finance." islamic finance: ethical underpinnings, products, and institutions (2018): 275-83. 36 ijaiya, muftau a, abdulrazaq t jimoh, john a attah, biliqees a abdulmumin, and aliyu i nafiu. "murabaha-related credit risk and financial performance of islamic banks in africa." international journal of islamic banking and finance research 5, no. 1 (2021): 60-69. 37 rashid, md harun ur, mohammed jashim uddin, and shah asadullah mohd zobair. "islamic microfinance and sustainable development goals in bangladesh." (2018). 38 julia, taslima, and salina kassim. "exploring green banking performance of islamic banks vs conventional banks in bangladesh based on maqasid shariah framework." journal of islamic marketing 11, no. 3 (2020): 729-44. 39 alhammadi, salah. "analyzing the role of islamic finance in kuwait regarding sustainable economic development in covid-19 era." sustainability 14, no. 2 (2022): 701. 40 miah, mohammad dulal, and yasushi suzuki. "murabaha syndrome of islamic banks: a paradox or product of the system?". journal of islamic accounting and business research 11, no. 7 (2020): 1363-78. 41 iqbal, muhammad saeed, and sofi mohd fikri. "comparison of credit risk management practices among islamic and public commercial bank’s in pakistan." international journal of management research and emerging sciences 13, no. 3 (2023). 42 hasmawati, anisza, and azhar mohamad. "potential application of istisna’financing in malaysia." qualitative research in financial markets 11, no. 2 (2019): 211-26.s 43 yusuf, mohamud said, and mohamad yazid isa. "the impact of ijarah/lease financing on malaysian islamic bank performance." international journal of islamic business 6, no. 1 (2021): 49-58. 44 fikri, sofi mohd, asma imtiaz, and hassan dauda yahaya. "impact of house financing accessibility on the productivity of private-public relationships in mortgage financing conditions." journal of contemporary business and islamic finance (jcbif) 3, no. 2 (2023): 324-35. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 81 45 nehal, s. (2023). green sukuk–a viable global financing option for climatic and environmental revolution (a practical instrument for the development of sustainable energy projects in pakistan). karachi islamicus, 3(1). 46 fikri, sofi mohd. "credit risk impact on islamic banks listed in the karachi stock exchange in pakistan." journal of tourism, hospitality, and services industries research (jths) 3, no. 01 (2023): 120-14114-. 47 setyawati, irma, sugeng suroso, tulus suryanto, and dini siti nurjannah. "does financial performance of islamic banking is better? panel data estimation." (2017). 48 ibrahim, abdul-jalil, khalid al-ansari, and nasim shah shirazi. "the role of islamic finance in fostering circular business investments in the case of qatar’s tire industry." islamic finance and circular economy: connecting impact and value creation (2021): 281-320. 49 iqbal, muhammad saeed, sofi mohd fikri, mohsin ali, muhammad umar, and hassan dauda yahaya. "the effect of car ijarah/lease financing on the pakistani islamic banking sector's performance." pakistan journal of economic studies (pjes) 6, no. 3 (2023): 222-33. 50 jais, muhammad, faizah sofyan, and asmaou mohamed bacha. "mudarabah and musharakah as an equity financing model: issues in practice." paper presented at the proceedings aceh global conference-business, economics, and sustainable development trends, 2020. 51 lateef, adeyemo wale, alawiye abdulmumin abdurrazzaq, syahirah abdul shukor, and amalina ahmad tajudin. "maqasid al-shari'ah in ijarah (leasing) contract of islamic banking system." journal of islamic finance 6, no. 2 (2017): 038-44. 52 kim, dai-won, jung-suk yu, and m kabir hassan. "financial inclusion and economic growth in oic countries." research in international business and finance 43 (2018): 1-14. 53 maikabara, abdullateef abdulqadir, sri maulida, and abdulmajeed m aderemi. "debt-based versus equity-based financing: a comparative analysis on efficiency of islamic financial system." ihtifaz: journal of islamic economics, finance, and banking 4, no. 1 (2021): 1-13. 54 said, mariam swalehe, hairul azlan annuar, and hamdino bin hamdan. "an investigation into the financial sustainability of islamic saving, credit cooperative society (saccos) in tanzania." international journal of ethics and systems 35, no. 2 (2019): 242-59. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 363 the impact of globalisation on the privatisation policy of some state enterprises in indonesia yusa djuyandi, ratnia solihah, siti witianti department of political science, universitas padjadjaran, indonesia. email: yusa.djuyandi@unpad.ac.id abstract: globalisation is considered to have positively impacted some third world countries because it is believed to have the power to improve the life quality of citizens. however, anti-globalisation groups believe that the globalisation wave has made third world countries vulnerable to exploitation. in indonesia in particular, globalisation has had both positive and negative impacts. one of the negative impacts is the growing global demand for the privatisation of state-owned enterprises. consequently, this study employs a qualitative method, in which the data is obtained from observations and interviews. in addition, this study employs various secondary data, such as documents and news sources, as a supplement. the results of the study show that globalisation has suppressed the third world countries by weakening the role of the state in controlling the political economy and by giving more power to the market mechanism. in addition, privatisation and free trade system have not freed the third world countries from economic backwardness. keywords: globalisation; third world countries; privatisation; indonesia 1. introduction globalisation, in the form of a movement towards greater integration by removing barriers and constraints, is an objective reality that emphasises that we are passengers on the same ship. however, the passengers of the ship hold its journey to the conditions that are very different, and globalisation works for one common goal, regardless of who the passengers are. for some anti-globalisation and anti-capitalist groups, the analogy of globalisation as a ship with different passengers can be described as well-off passengers staying in a very luxurious cabin, which is equipped with internet facilities, mobile phones, and unrestricted access to communication networks. they can enjoy an abundance of nutritious and healthy food and can get a supply of clean water, obtain service or decent health care, and enjoy the culture. however, most of the other passengers on this ship travel in poor conditions like the slaves during the slave trade. the majority of such ships’ passengers, which was around 85%, were in a crowded and dirty cabin, hungry, sick, and helpless. globalisation supporters believe that without globalisation, the world would fail. if we want to improve the living standards of the poor of the world, the barriers between social democrats, classical liberals, and democratic conservatives should be removed and they should unite to improve global economic liberalism. the supporters of globalisation believe that it has positive impacts on the transformation of technology, information, and economy in third world countries. it is a light considered capable of improving human life and that has a more substantial economic impact because the public can choose a livelihood, buy the goods they want, and move freely. on the one hand, globalisation is a product of liberal democracy that has a positive impact on some third world countries, particularly indonesia; on the https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ mailto:yusa.djuyandi@unpad.ac.id hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 364 other hand, it has a negative impact. as an ideology or movement, globalisation was born from fundamental values underlying free society and active individuals who set themselves. all individuals have equal rights and are free to use property without restrictions of caste, class, community, and gender. first, we consider the positive aspect of economic globalisation for a third world country. then, we consider how globalisation can strengthen international trade and the market economy, which is integrated into the world economy. not only international trade and economic progress, but also the spread of liberal democracy is widely claimed as one of the effects of globalisation. it cannot be denied that globalisation has a negative impact on countries, especially third world countries, including indonesia. globalisation was born from an understanding of liberal democracy, in which individuals are free to obtain and use rights, without much government interference in the political and economic sectors. in the end, globalisation has forced many third world countries to stop mobilising their own financial resources, and to sell some state owned enterprises (soes) to the private sector (privatisation). the emergence of such policies would harm third world countries greatly, because the economic development of the communities in these countries does not follow established rules and people still need the assistance of the government or government subsidies. their situation is different from that of the developed countries, where the communities have developed and matured through democratic and economic processes. therefore, the demand from several developed countries to privatise soes in third world countries is in a sense, polemical. thus, the problem in indonesia is that the government is too quick to accept the demands of the developed countries to privatise soes. the actual implementation of these demands is still perceived as a major problem for the people of indonesia; in the opinion of many societies, the privatisation of several soes is a hasty, careless, or improper action. according to most of the people who condemn the privatisation of soes, the government should retain the ownership of state assets; however, the privatisation of the soes shows that the government is not nationalistic (pinori, 2015). it does not mean the strengthening of government intervention in the economic sector, but due to several factors, the indonesian people are not ready to compete with other nations, which incidentally are more advanced. thus, the decision of the government to privatise quickly is considered less appropriate. according to many people, the privatisation by the government of several soes is similar to sacrificing the interests of ordinary people. actually, the government is obliged to protect its citizens. since the enactment of law no. 19 of 2003 that regulates soes in carrying out their economic activities, soes must follow market mechanisms and be profit-oriented. the basis of the issuance of this policy is the 2002-2006 soe (state owned corporations (badan usaha milik negara/bumn)) masterplan data, in which it was stated that the total assets of 145 soes in 2001 was around rp. 800 trillion. the 2002-2006 soe (soe) masterplan data contains details of 13 soes having a revenue growth of more than 18 percent per year (high sustainable growth category) and contributing 34 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 365 percent of revenue per year. nineteen soes have a growth of 7-18 percent per year (sustainable growth category) and contribute 13 percent of the revenue, and 103 soes have a growth of less than 7 percent, and 8 percent only of revenue. meanwhile, the financial performance of the soes in 1996 is as follows: 51.7 percent were classified as healthy and very healthy, while 27.5 percent were classified as unhealthy. in 1997, the profit generated from government capital amounting to rp. 462 trillion was only rp. 11.8 trillion (return on investment / roi = 2.55 percent) and had an roa of 4 percent. low roi and roa indicate that soes are ineffective and inefficient in using economic resources (bastian, 2000). the government’s efforts to improve the performance of soes include the privatisation of soes (avianti, 2006). the privatisation model that opens up greater opportunities for the private sector or the capital market to control the majority of the shares and the management of soes has led to polemics in most societies. according to some people, the government has given up its responsibility to consider the interests of the people. some other problems that arose later were the conversion of several soes, such as indosat, aneka timah, aneka tambang, and bukit asam, into private companies; the conversion of soes into private companies then led to a polemic about the orientation of companies that no longer prioritised public affairs, even though the establishment of soes was aimed at promoting the public interest by managing production branches that are important for the state and that affect the livelihoods of many people. 2. theoretical review globalization globalization was born as one of the manifestations of the liberal democratic system, where market power is more influential compared with the power of government. individuals along with firms are entitled to exercise their rights and carry out their activities without much interference from the government. the economic field calls this free competition among individuals and companies in the control of production resources and markets. therefore, why are people concerned about globalisation? before that, the writers will state the definitions of globalisation as given by some economists and political scientists. anne krueger as cited by wolf (2007) first deputy managing director of the international monetary fund (imf), defines globalisation as “a phenomenon in which economic agents in any part of the world are much more affected by events occurring elsewhere in the world.” however, there is another more precise definition concerning the process of globalisation, as expressed by (chang, 2016; fife & lindsey, 2002; goodman & gary, 1990; karim et al, 2017; king, 2016) “that globalization is a process of the integration of economic activities, cross-border, through the market.” likewise, david henderson as cited by wolf (2007) defines globalisation as: “the free movement of goods, services, labor, and capital, thereby creating a single market in terms of inputs and outputs; and national treatment to foreign investors (as well as national citizens who work abroad) so that, in economic https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 366 terms, no foreigners.” fife and lindsey (2002) defined globalisation as: three distinct but interrelated senses: first, to describe the economic phenomenon of increasing integration of markets across political boundaries (whether due to political or technological causes); second, to describe the strictly political phenomenon of falling government-imposed barriers to international flows of goods, services, and capital; and, finally, to describe the much broader political phenomenon of the spread of market-oriented policies in both the domestic and international spheres. since i contend that globalization in the first sense is primarily due to globalization in the second sense and that globalization in the second sense is primarily due to globalization in the third sense, i do not think that it is unduly confusing to use the same word to mean three different things. according to giddens (1990) globalisation can be defined as “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link istant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.” meanwhile, according to albrow (1990) globalisation is “… all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single world society.” concerns about globalisation emerged because of the fact that globalisation will eliminate barriers and integrate economic activities, which can be characterised by the free movement of goods, services, labour, and capital. for a third world country, where the economy and the level of productivity is still low, the influx of good quality and low priced goods from the outside would be disastrous for the gross domestic product because the products from the country will not be sold. besides, globalisation is also considered as undermining the economic and cultural system that is the hallmark of certain areas, for example, the economic system of kinship (djuyandi, 2019). privatization privatisation has several meanings. primarily, it is the process of transferring the ownership of a business, enterprise, agency, public service, or public property from the public sector (a government) to the private sector, either to a for-profit organisation or to a non-profit organisation. it may also mean the outsourcing by the government of services or functions to private firms, for example, revenue collection, law enforcement, and prison management (chowdhury, 2006). according to the supporters of privatisation, this shift from public to private management is so profound that it will produce a panoply of significant improvements: boost the efficiency and quality of remaining government activities, reduce taxes, and shrink the size of government. in the functions that are privatized, they argue, the profit-seeking behaviour of new, private sector managers will undoubtedly lead to cost-cutting and greater attention to customer satisfaction (goodman & gary, 1990). privatisation, as has emerged from public discussions, is not one clear and absolute economic proposition. rather, it covers a wide range of different activities, all of which imply a transfer of the provision of goods and services https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 367 from the public sector to the private sector. for example, privatisation covers the sale of public assets to private owners, the simple cessation of government programs, the contracting out of services formerly provided by state organisations to private producers, and the entry by private producers into markets that were formerly public monopolies. privatisation also means different things in different parts of the world—where both the fundamentals of the economy and the purpose served by privatisation may differ (goodman & gary, 1990). according to edwards, 6 privatisation would allow entrepreneurs to take on challenges at which federal bureaucracies are failing. “the united states is a land of huge talent and diversity. but to take full advantage of those assets, we should divest the government of activities that individuals and businesses can perform better by themselves.” 3. research methods this study used a qualitative method. data was obtained from primary and secondary sources. primary data was derived from observation, which was then equipped with secondary data. observations were done directly, in other words, they involved what the researchers saw and felt, and from the news conveyed by some national media. secondary data were obtained from a literature review and media documentation. triangulation was used to conduct the validity test of the data in this study. to maintain the validity of the data or study, conducted the efforts based on the principles of triangulation. in this study, triangulation was conducted on data sources, and a variety of supporting references was used to prove the fact that data has been found by the author. 4. results and discussion the way globalisation works globalisation is a terrible word with a vague meaning; globalisation was first used in the 1960s, and it became increasingly popular in the 1990s. for many of its supporters, it is an irresistible force, desirable and sweeping boundaries, overthrowing despotic governments, weakening taxation, freeing individuals, and enriching whatever it touches. meanwhile for many opponents, globalisation is an irresistible force, but it is not desirable. these opponents condemn the frills of globalisation, “neoliberal” and “corporation,” as the evil forces of globalisation that impoverish the masses, eviscerate and undermine democracy, impose american values, destroy the welfare state, destroy the environment, and worship greed. even though the adherents of globalisation consider it to have more advantages in certain things, in other things it is still more limited. globalisation has been supported by technology, as an instrument for the integration of more advanced nations; however, for some people, globalisation is a global threat that has caused impoverishment and corporate domination, and threatened sovereignty. the growing concern among anti-globalisation groups is that globalisation will have a negative impact on the socio-political and economic order, and they are https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 368 not entirely wrong. however, they are also not entirely right. in some cases, globalisation has also brought positive effects since he departed from the fundamental values that underlie a free society and active in organising themselves, which he naturally will reduce the power of the monarchy or absolute rule. in a famous fresco in the town hall of siena in italy, a medieval artist, ambrogio lorenzetti, depicts allegories of good and bad governments. in the allegory of the good government, public interest is the enthroned figure, along with wisdom, peace, justice, faith, generosity, magnanimity, and alignment. where do these virtues come from? according to the history of a country that is strong and zealous about good works, these virtues arise from a combination of three forces, namely, regulatory competition, the internal representation (of constitutional democracy and the rule of law), and moral reform. the combination of those three forces makes liberal democracy, the pioneer of globalisation which has superior values domestically, also the only system of government that in itself produces a harmonious and cooperative relationship between states. for saxon liberal democracy, this understanding creates conducive conditions for international relations because the prosperity of a nation is not based on the size of the territory or population they control; the prosperity of a nation comes from a combination of internal economic development with international trade. in some ways, globalisation that was born from the idea of liberal democracy and the liberal economy is not perfect because it is more reflective of the tastes or wishes of the majority rather than the minority, and it was more advantageous for the diligent man rather than the wise man. however, globalisation has also brought many points of progress for many countries because it brought the democratic values and basic freedoms that recognise and protect intellectual property rights, as well as the possibility of the establishment of state welfare. the reason why globalisation can bring more progress than others is the workings of globalisation itself which emphasise the rise of the market economy. with the existence of a dynamic market economy, a creative society that has spearheaded a change in the creation of energy from living things (human energy, and animals) to the creation of energy from lifeless things (wind, water, and fossil energy) has emerged. besides that, this emphasis also provides the opportunity for each community to have its own market. in addition to the work methods that emphasise the rise of the market economy, globalisation also emphasises the importance of corporatism, innovation, protection of intellectual property rights, and the emergence of financial markets. however, given that this also has the potential to have a negative impact, globalisation that emphasises a number of things also needs to emphasise moral principles and the rule of law by the state so that people do not only prioritise themselves, but do also respect the rights of other people. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 369 demands of globalization on third world countries the rapid development of the process of globalisation, which brought about liberalism and free trade, was inseparable from the destruction of the eastern bloc which began with the restructuring (perestroika) policy and glasnost of the soviet union, due to economic deficits and internal political upheaval. the collapse and political changes that hit the soviet union and its satellite states outside eastern europe opened up space for liberal politics and free trade. according to fukuyama (1992) these conditions are affirmed as the “the end of history,” which is marked by the end of ideological evolution or the end of the competition between liberalism-capitalism and socialism-communism, which was won by neoliberalism. consequently, russia, china, and countries that were colonised by communists were no longer considered as threats; neoliberal ideology became the only political, economic, social, and cultural reference globally. in the process of the development of human civilisation, this kind of condition is unhealthy because there is only one dominant ideology, which is a reference for the interpretation of all things, and there is even a tendency to force this dominant ideology on developing countries. through various development assistance from advanced industrial countries to developing countries, there is socialisation of neoliberal ideologies, even expansion of such ideologies to recipient countries. globalisation and development assistance has been used by developed countries to pressure third world countries very effectively and efficiently to reduce the role of the state in the field of the political economy and for the state to submit extensively to market mechanisms. the developed countries are assumed that the amount of government interference has constraints on development and welfare in the third world countries. the concrete recommendations provided by developed countries are to achieve world prosperity; therefore, developing third world countries should emulate the steps of advanced industrial countries such as the united states and western europe: privatisation and free trade (nugroho, 2005). their hopes and dreams are free trade that takes place globally will create prosperity for the world community, which will be balanced flowing through regional boundaries. however, the demand by developed countries for third world countries to privatise and implement free trade has been criticised by several political leaders, such as mahathir mohammad (as cited by nugroho, 2005) who stated expressly that the west dominates the interpretation of the concept of globalisation. western countries emphasise the meaning of capital movements more, and they are not too enthusiastic to discuss the movement of people (nugroho, 2005). even then, the suspicion for globalisation is growing because many developed countries and organisations take advantage of globalisation and development assistance, for example, the international monetary fund (imf), to create the dependence of third world countries on developed countries. for dependents, globalisation is a form of the modern world. imperialism is a reality, while investment and assistance provided by developed countries can impose various demands on developing countries. the risk is, if third world https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 370 countries are reluctant to fulfil these demands, developed countries will attract investment and multinational companies, and collect debts. this, of course, has led to increasing unemployment, poverty, and declining foreign exchange. the indonesian government’s response to the demands of privatization strong governments and strong businesspersons are needed and are necessary for globalisation, where businesspersons are required to carry out global-scale economic activities, across regional and regional boundaries. due to advances in telecommunications and transportation technology, businessperson’s space and moving speed are accelerating. the process of globalisation runs quickly, and simultaneously, the barriers of space and time become relative. the process of globalisation has also accelerated the pace of privatisation in the economic spheres of many countries; economic activities are increasingly under private control and ownership. formerly, the state owned and controlled business entities; then, many of these business entities were turned into private property, or experienced the privatisation process. privatisation is not only a phenomenon in capitalist-liberal countries, but it has also become a global trend, including in china which politically adheres to communism still; the privatisation process in china has developed rapidly. the demand for the acceleration of privatisation in many countries is not only due to the direct impact of economic liberalisation and globalisation processes, but it is also because soes tend to be less efficient and effective. bureaucratic barriers create high costs and incur losses; the government which has control of easy power is also tempted to misuse it by colluding in wrongdoing and engaging in corruption. hence, privatisation is believed to be a way out. although there is a change in economic actors from the state to the community, the role of the state and government remains strategic and important, especially as relations between countries are still based on the framework of the state and government. international cooperation in various fields is still tied to the state and the government; amid increasing community roles in global economic relations and cooperation, the state has neither faded nor receded. there are growing demands for the privatisation of soes in third world countries, including in indonesia. the demand for the privatisation of soes has also raised the question “how far privatization is needed, and whether the privatisation of several soes will be able to improve the quality of services and management?” all of that must be seen from the motive of the demands for privatisation that are desired by many developed countries, and the question is whether developed countries really want to help developing countries or just want to take advantage of the privatisation. in indonesia, the debate about privatisation itself often collides with polaristic, pro-private (private), or prostate (public) choices, while the supporters of privatisation like to propose “efficiency and effectiveness” as the main reason. meanwhile, according to the people who reject privatisation, it is important for the government to protect national interests. for the indonesian government, the response to privatisation should be done in a precise manner, in the sense that privatisation can benefit the community. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 371 the privatisation of some soes by the government which diverts most of the ownership shares to the private sector raises doubts and big questions, regarding whether public interests can be protected better through privatisation or precisely the existence of privatisation benefits the private sector only, where the private sector can seek huge profits. so far, the government’s response to privatisation has been very extensive, but the privatisation of a number of soes by the government has logical political and economic consequences. the privatisation of soes that are carried out without due care has a negative impact on people’s lives because it will be difficult for the people to get cheap and quality public services. several strategic soes such as indosat and aneka tambang have been privatised. they also raise the issue of state sovereignty. for example, in the management of natural resources, the indonesian 1945 constitution explains that the state has sovereignty over the natural resources found in the state; however, if the management of natural resources has been given to the private sector, how will the state create prosperity. therefore, the pressure on the government to restore state sovereignty by buying back a number of strategic soes that have been sold is natural. in many cases in some countries, privatisation that is not accompanied by the role of the state in it will benefit the owners of capital only. privatisation without considering aspects of economic and political sovereignty has prompted much protest from workers. worker unions and economic observers have demanded an end to the privatisation of soes. government must not pawn state assets and the interests of the people to investors. the most important thing that the government must do is to improve the existing management system. this consideration is rational because in some matters, privatisation without clear regulations from the government and consideration of the interests of the people, political aspects, and state sovereignty, will be very dangerous for the future interests of the nation. 5. conclusion globalisation as a process of integration of economic activities, cross-border, through the market, which was born from the liberal or neoliberal and supported by the technological base is an instrument for more advanced integration. it is able to bring more progress because the workings of globalisation itself emphasise the economic revival of the market and the protection of individual rights without much interference from the government. globalisation pressurises third world countries to reduce the state’s role in the political economy, and submit to the market mechanism. concrete recommendations are provided to achieve the prosperity of the world; the third world countries are doing their best to imitate the steps of advanced industrial countries, namely, privatisation and free trade. however, globalisation itself has drawbacks because of its demands in the form of privatisation and free trade, and because globalisation has not been able to fully free the third world countries from economic backwardness. if the role of the government is abolished completely then the ordinary citizens will become https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 372 victims of the capital owners. in the case of indonesia, privatisation was initially perceived as necessary; however, it brought new problems. references albrow, m. (1990). globalization, knowledge and society. martin albrow and e. king (eds.). london: sage. avianti, i. (2006). privatisasi, penegakan good corporate governance, dan kinerja soe. kinerja: journal of business and economics, 10(1), 57-65. bastian, i. (2000). privatisasi di indonesia: teori dan implementasi. jakarta: salemba empat chang, j. (2016). globalization and curriculum: inferring from bernstein’s code theory,’ international journal of humanities, arts and social sciences, 2(2), 52 57. chowdhury, f. l. (2006). corrupt bureaucracy and privatisation of tax enforcement in bangladesh. dhaka: pathak shamabesh. edwards, c. (2016). ‘options for federal privatization and reform lessons from abroad. policy analysis, 794, 1-60, washington, dc: cato institute. fife, b.l., & lindsey, b. (2002). against the dead hand: the uncertain struggle for global capitalism. new jersey, nj: john wiley & sons. fukuyama, f. (1992). the end of history and the last man. new york: the free press. giddens, a. (1990). the consequences of modernity. cambridge: polity press. goodman, j. b., & gary, w. l. (1990). does privatization serve the public interest?’ available at: https://hbr.org/1991/11/does-privatization-serve-the-public-interest (accessed 01 april 2017). karim, m. h., elyas, k. m., mahmood, s. n., & hossein, a. (2017). evaluation of human resources re-engineering and knowledge management processes on the economy of sirjan free trade zone (iran). international journal of business and economic affairs 2(2), 127-134. king, j. m. (2016). dubai wins: a content analysis of global media coverage of the 2020 world exposition bidding process using nation branding theory. international journal of business and administrative studies, 2(6), 201-211. kokanuch, a. (2018). readiness of trade business and border trade entrepreneurs to green economy: thailand. international journal of business and administrative studies 4(2), 60-67. malinda. m. (2018). effectiveness of entrepreneurship and innovation learning methods. case study at universitas kristen maranatha, bandung, indonesia. international journal of business and administrative studies 4(3), 122-128. nugroho, h. (2005). globalisasi dan tantangan daya saing indonesia. jakarta: lipi press. osra, o. a. (2017). urban transformation and sociocultural changes in king abdullah economic city (kaec) 2005-2020: key research challenges. journal of advances in humanities and social sciences, 3(3), 135-151. oudat m. s., ahmad, n., & yazis, m. (2016). the impact of macroeconomic variables and global events on banking system: evidence from jordanian banking system. journal of administrative and business studies, 2(1), 35-47. pinori, j. j. (2015). keberadaan privatisasi soe di indonesia. lex et societatis, 3(7), 171-178. roeksiripat, k. (2016). informal economy: case study of street vendors in bangkok. international journal of business and administrative studies, 2(2), 29-36. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 363-373, (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdar d islamicus/ p a g e | 373 thanasripanitchai, s. (2017). daily activities management information system of koglam-sangaram village: the self-sufficiency economy village model of pid thong-lang-pha project. international journal of business and economic affairs, 2(1), 59-66. wolf, m. (2007). globalisasi jalan menuju kesejahteraan. jakarta: yayasan obor indonesia. yoshino, n., & alekhina, v. (2016). impact of oil price fluctuations on an energy exporting economy: evidence from russia. journal of administrative and business studies, 2(4), 156-166. djuyandi, y. (2019). pengantar ilmu politik. depok: rajawali pers. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 29 29 protection of the intellect of persons with disabilities: in the holy qur’ón and the sunnah perspective kabiru goje department of foundations of religion, university of sharjah, uae email: kgoje@sharjah.ac.ae received on: 09-06-23 accepted on: 14-08-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.843 abstract this study examines how the holy qur’én and the sunnah protect the right to education, intellectual development, and wellbeing for people with disabilities and their families. the research explains the natural sympathy people feel towards these people and the empathy that is felt towards the families of children with disabilities, as muslim jurists have addressed these issues. a deductive approach is used based on the foundations of quranic education and the educational theories of the sunnah of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam); moreover, the study relies on an analysis that establishes how people can deliver effective care for people with disabilities. the findings reveal that both the holy qur’én and the sunnah succinctly articulate the rights of those with special needs. these texts also preach the need to integrate people with disabilities into society and create a friendly environment for them to live in; they also teach and educate people about how they should interact with people with disabilities within their families. keywords: disability, the holy qur’én, sunnah, rights, education. introduction in moral considerations, treating and safeguarding individuals with disabilities is significant. the intersection of religious teachings and protecting intellectual rights becomes a focal mailto:kgoje@sharjah.ac.ae https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.843 30 protection of the intellect of persons … point of exploration, particularly when examined through the microscope of the holy qur’én and sunnah. these sacred guidance sources provide spiritual direction and address believers’ ethical and social responsibilities. in this article, we delve into the profound insights offered by the holy qur’én and sunnah on protecting the intellect and rights of people with disabilities. in the muslim community, the integrity of people with disabilities is safeguarded. islam explicitly declares that the scourge that has plagued people with disabilities does not diminish their value in society. therefore, there is no differentiation between them and others; instead, they are considered equals. allah almighty says, “and we have certainly honored the children of adam (‘alaih assalém).”1 additionally, the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihiwa ‘alé ólihiwa aîíébihi wa øallam) has been reported saying, "allah almighty does not look at your figures, nor your attire, but he looks at your hearts and accomplishments.”2 therefore, no one is superior to anyone except in their level of piety. persons with a disability may be better and more significantly honored in muslim society than normal people. allah almighty says, “…surely the noblest of you, in allah’s sight, is the one who is most pious of you. surely allah almighty is all-knowing, all-aware.”3 the aspect of a person that matters is piety rather than external appearance. based on this integrated and balanced point of view, the research tends to give grants in finding fruitful cooperation, especially since the holy qur’én is clear in its introduction and addresses all aspects of life, including educational and scientific aspects, due to allah almighty saying: “…we have not missed anything in the book. then, to their lord all of them shall be gathered…”4 islam takes great care of all segments of society, and muslims have been keen to take full care of people with special needs because the latter is placed under the merciful system of islam and its protectorate, which always calls for the empowerment of the weak person and for assistance to be provided as much as possible. hence, the research topic has emerged to be in harmony with the authenticity hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 31 31 of islamic values and its generous heritage to examine the ideas within islam and achieve its educational goals towards the weak, among which disabled children. islam calls on people to treat children with disabilities with humanity by integrating them, preserving their dignity, and unlocking their potential by seeking the guidance of the holy qur’én and the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) sunnah.5 this study is an attempt to confirm that islam calls for the motivation of persons with disabilities and integrates them into education. the discourse on protecting the intellectual rights of people with disabilities has become particularly relevant in today’s global context. with the advancement of technology and the growing awareness of inclusivity, societies are called upon to uphold the rights of all individuals, including those with disabilities. in this light, the timeless teachings of the holy qur’én and sunnah offer a profound ethical framework that can guide contemporary discussions on inclusivity, intellectual property, and human rights. therefore, this article aims to shed light on the quranic and sunnah teachings emphasizing protecting the intellectual rights of people with disabilities. by exploring these teachings, we hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of the ethical obligations that underpin the treatment of individuals with disabilities. as societies strive for greater inclusivity, the profound insights from the holy qur’én and sunnah. it will also explain the foundations of that motivation, its requirements, and how to overcome obstacles. the study also explains the basic criteria upon which the need of people with disability is based and their aims to achieve a good life and happiness for them and their families. literature review and conceptual framework the cambridge dictionary defines disability as “illness, injury, or condition that makes it difficult for someone to do some things that other people do and that is usually permanent or lasts for a long time.” this definition agrees with the disability commission of northern ireland, which says that disability is “a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”6 it is also defined as deprivation or restrictions that prevent some segments of society from participating in social activities and public life because they differ from the public based on a defect or deficiency in a capacity or function.7 a person with a disability may have suffered a deficiency in their body or mind from birth or at a 32 protection of the intellect of persons … certain point when they were left with a physical impairment that prevents them from working like others in society.8 a person with a disability suffers from a deficiency in some of their physical capabilities, and a dysfunction in their body prevents them from fully carrying out life activities. it is thus necessary to attend to their cultural, health, psychological, educational, rehabilitative, social, and professional needs to increase their selfsufficiency and ability to assume their responsibilities and social responsibilities.9 according to this understanding, people with disabilities differ from others based on their physical, mental, sensory, or behavioural capacities; this difference causes them to be excluded or discriminated against within the community.10 since the beginning of recorded history, people with disabilities have been documented, whether their disabilities emerged at birth or following an accident. additionally, article 1 of the united nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities states, “persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.”11. siti fitriah analyses the legal view from an islamic perspective on the rights of children with disabilities. her study shows that children with disabilities in south tangerang city are divided into two categories: adults and children. she submitted that islam recognizes five kinds of human rights, often referred to as maqashid al-shari’ah, namely the maintenance of religious rights, the maintenance of the soul, the maintenance of honor and offspring, the maintenance of reason, and the maintenance of property.12 ali atlaf contended that the “ahliyyat al-wujūb” concept served as a theoretical sanctuary for individuals with disabilities. in this manner, jurists of the íanafi school in the medieval period furthered the compassionate and nurturing attitude demonstrated by the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) towards those with mental challenges. he proposed that even though these jurists supported those afflicted with “majnūn” conditions and limited their definitions of mental disabilities to cognitive impairments rather than emotional or psychological ones, their overarching teachings still promoted the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) empathetic concern for individuals with mental disabilities.13 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 33 33 hiam al-aoufi affirms that even though muslims hold similar beliefs and values, the way they perceive and respond to these ideas, as well as their interactions with disabled individuals, can differ due to factors like the strength of their faith, socioeconomic status, education level, awareness, and notably, the cultural environment they are in. the significance of cultural distinctions in shaping attitudes towards marginalized individuals is particularly highlighted in the discussion of how various cultural viewpoints impact muslims’ interpretation and application of islamic principles.14 ms bazna and ta hatab stated that the holy qur’én focuses on societal disadvantage, which emerges when certain individuals lack the social, economic, or physical qualities society currently values in a specific context. the holy qur’én emphasizes that it is the collective responsibility of society to address this inequality. it consistently urges muslims to acknowledge the challenges faced by the less privileged and work towards enhancing their situation and standing.15 islam places considerable emphasis on the upliftment of people with special needs at all levels, guiding their family members to be active in caring for children with disabilities; islam also provides a wealth of scientifically sound information on different disability issues. islam has two approaches to disability: first, the legal approach prescribes certain behaviours that promote welfare benefits to persons with disabilities through the rules of religion.16 the second approach provides a guide because islam is a way of life. therefore, islam provides rules and regulations that guide family members’ activities toward their children with disabilities. this approach sets behavioural guidelines for routine activities in the life of persons with disabilities. islam has guided people to ensure their happiness and wellbeing, which occurs when people obey the orders contained in the holy qur’én and steer away from prohibited acts; following this guidance can enhance the effectiveness of the care provided to people with disabilities.17 therefore, the attention, assistance, and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities is inherent in the religion of islam. based on the demonstration above, the author ascertains that the available literature still needs the analysis of this segment of society’s intellectual development and education; this research fills this gap. methodology this study focuses on tackling an issue in arab and islamic communities regarding the quality of support and advice given to families in caring for their children with disabilities. the research 34 protection of the intellect of persons … draws from the teachings of the holy qur’én, the prophetic sunnah, and insights from islamic education scholars. hence, this study uses a deductive approach and analyticalqualitative method, relying on the foundations of quranic education and educational theories based on the sunnah of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). the study also refers to publications by scholars of islamic education, such as books, journal articles, and conference proceedings, which are analyzed to establish their effectiveness in helping people care for people with disabilities. persons with special needs in light of the holy qur’én and the sunnah allah almighty created humans from one origin, adam (‘alaih as-salém), and from one mother, eve. allah almighty says, “o mankind, fear your lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women”18 allah almighty also says, “and he produced you from one soul and [gave you] a place of dwelling and storage.”19 allah almighty says in another verse, “it is he who created you from one soul and created from it its mate that he might dwell in security with her.”20 allah almighty further says, “he created you from one soul. then, he made from it its mate.”21 the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihiwa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi waøallam) said, “o you mankind, know that, verily, your lord is one and your father is one.”22 allah almighty created a connection between those with special needs and others by creating the brotherhood that requires muslims to cooperate with people with disabilities and share their concerns no matter how distanced people’s paths and houses may be. “and cooperate in righteousness and piety... in addition, fear allah almighty; indeed, allah almighty is severe in penalty”.23 here, allah almighty commands muslims to cooperate on everything that benefits the ummah (nation) in the context of religion and worldly affairs, and there is no doubt that this social principle is benevolent. the number of nations has increased, and national trajectories and interests have become more varied. therefore, more than individual hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 35 35 efforts are required, no matter how robust. rather, there must be cooperation and support from others.24 therefore, to strengthen society and revive the tradition of caring for acquaintances, the right of people with disabilities and their families to receive collaborative assistance and guidance has gained prominence. allah almighty says, “o mankind, we have created you from a male and a female, and made you into races and tribes, so that you may identify one another...”25 this guidance enhances mutual love, mercy, and compassion among all creatures, including people with disabilities.24 indeed, everyone is the child of adam (‘alaih as-salém). this is why the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, “all people are sons of adam (‘alaih as-salém) and adam (‘alaih assalém) who are of dust.26 therefore, the muslim community is based on brotherhood, interdependence, and compassion, which is expected since that community stems from divine justice. in their multiple forms, these qualities can only be established, strengthened, and stabilized through true islamic education because education is the key to social behaviours. islamic education puts the state on the right path to care for different races, ethnic groups, religions, and the healthy, the diseased, and the disabled; indeed, islamic education teaches people to be proper and responsible towards the latter because they live together. people with special needs are among those allah almighty has afflicted with impairment in their capabilities or senses. they have become limited in their movements and ability to work and earn a living like others. indeed, they need continuous care in all aspects of life and require continuous medical care. the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi waaîíébihi wa øallam) said, “he who shows no mercy to the people, allah, the exalted and glorious, does not show mercy to him.”.27 to be passionate to allah's servants means having a soft heart. anyone who has a soft heart will be passionate toward weaker people, such as people with disabilities or deformities, orphans, or people with low incomes, and will be charitable.28 one of the features that most distinguishes the law of islam is how the vulnerable are treated, among them women, children, older people, deformed people, and people with disabilities and diseases. the law of general mercy, which emerges out of the worlds of jinn and humanity, and the law of salvation, which dictates to hold the hand of the weak, make all people equal in their rights, although every person gets the share apportioned for him or her in this world.29 36 protection of the intellect of persons … we live in an age of anxiety and an era of domination. globalization has caused those in need of special care to be crushed. indeed, today’s globalization is based on the basic theory that some should control while younger people should fade, and healthy people should live while the weak die. therefore, it is expected that the level of social welfare will be affected in the face of this attack because it is not economically profitable to care for unproductive groups. to counter this disastrous result, we must urgently do the following: 1. support people with special needs through social guarantees, even if they do little work: “allah almighty and exalted love if one of you does a job that he perfects it”; support charitable and profitable projects concerning care for people with disabilities.30 2. use the media to spread awareness regarding the needs of people with disabilities so those with capital can establish not-for-profit educational homes and rehabilitation centers for people with disabilities, support them morally and financially, and thus extend benefits to others. the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullahkhétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihiwa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, “the most beloved people to allah almighty are those who benefit others”.31 3. fully expand social welfare in all arab and islamic countries and remove limits to social welfare because those with special needs spread across borders of neighboring countries. moreover, the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihiwa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, “the similitude of believers regarding mutual love, affection, benevolence is that of one body; when any limb of it aches, the whole-body aches, because of sleeplessness and fever”.32 we must also support research related to people with special needs by establishing research centers connected to educational centers and rehabilitation centers. 4. the holy qur’én and sunnah care for educating people with disabilities, and their rights are protected in islam. the care of the two revelations for disabled people has reached an extreme level of highness and prestige. to adduce evidence about this, here is the story of the great companion abdullah ibn umm maktum (raìi allah ‘anhu) when allah almighty revealed the following of the holy qur’én because of him: “he (the prophet) (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) frowned and turned his face because the blind man came to him! what could tell you (o prophet about the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 37 37 prospects of the blind man?) may be, (if you had attended him properly,) he would have attained purity, or have received the advice, and the advice would have benefited him. as for the one who does not care (about faith), you are anxious to pursue him.”33 in these verses, allah almighty blamed his prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), and he is his best creation and the unique model of mercy, compassion, and humanity, which are the characteristics confirmed by the holy qur’én. allah almighty says, “there has certainly come to you a messenger from among yourselves. grievous to him is what you suffer; [he is] concerned over you and to the believers is kind and merciful.”34 since then, respect for people with disabilities has relied on a quranic approach and has great religious value by which people with disabilities receive support and acceptance until some of them reach great degrees of knowledge, glory, and genius. the holy qur’én prohibits anything prejudiced to the honour of humanity, which he made honourable in his humanistic status. he prohibited ridiculing another person, mocking him or her, and insulting him or her by any means. allah almighty said that believers should not let people ridicule others based on physical attributes, even if they are perhaps better than them; women should not ridicule [other] women, even if they are perhaps better. in addition, people should not insult and call each other by [offensive] nicknames. wretched is the name of disobedience after [one's] faith. in addition, those who do not repent are the wrongdoers. here, allah almighty the exalted forbids people from ridiculing and mocking others, as shown in the authentic hadith from the messenger of allah almighty (peace and blessings of allah be upon him). he said, “the arrogance is the disregard of truth and the undermining of people”35this situation is prevalent and real. cynicism occurs only from a heart full of bad morals marked by vile qualities. the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said “it is a serious evil for a muslim that he should look down upon his brother muslim.”36 he also said, “shall i inform you about the people of paradise? they comprise every obscure unimportant humble person, and if he takes allah’s oath that he will do that thing, allah will fulfill his oath (by doing that). shall i inform you about the people of the fire? they comprise every cruel, violent, proud, and conceited person”.37 38 protection of the intellect of persons … some muslims laughed at the thin legs of abdullah bin mas’ud (raìi allah ‘anhu) the day he climbed the tree of arak (he was fetching the chewing stick of arak; he had thin legs, and the wind was shaking him). the people laughed. the messenger of allah almighty (may the peace and blessing of allah almighty be upon him) said, “why are you laughing”? they answered, “o prophet of allah almighty, because of the thinness of his legs.” the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihiwa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said: the two legs are heavier on the scale than the mountain of uhud.38 thus, it is clear why allah almighty generally forbids muslims from using the moral defects of people to make fun of them, defame them, or underestimate the personalities of those tested with impairment. rather, it is compulsory to give people with disabilities the right to full equality with others so that they can lead a decent life. giving anyone power over them, regardless of their social class, is not befitting because people with special needs are also human beings. allah almighty says, “and we have certainly honored the children of adam (‘alaih as-salém) and carried them on land and sea…”39 the mercy of allah almighty encompasses all aspects of life. allah says, “your lord has decreed upon himself mercy…”40 allah almighty also says, allah also says, “and my mercy extends to everything.”.41 the abovementioned honoring is for all people, regardless of their races, ethnicity, religions, or sects, both righteous and the unrighteous, the believer and the unbeliever; there is no creature except that the mercy of allah almighty, his grace, and kindness reaches him.42 islam advocates for the right of people with disabilities to live with respect and appreciation from others, as well as for the right to education as much as possible, the right to health and social care, the right to work in the fields they have studied, the right to marry and bear children, the right to participate in sports activities, the right to participate in conversations and discussions and to share their opinion whenever possible, and the right of ownership if their disability does not prevent it. at the same time, islam calls for people to show indulgence in fulfilling the needs of people with special needs. the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, “there is no servant that allah almighty has bestowed favor upon him and perfected such a favor upon him and then allah causes some needs of people in the hands of that person, but he shows anger that person has set that favor on the verge of going away from him”.43 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 39 39 therefore, it is incumbent upon every financially able muslim to spend on his needy relatives, whether their needs are due to chronic poverty or an emergency; otherwise, the threat of taking away his blessing has been set forth. the holy qur’én has also excluded people with special needs from some sharê‘ah rulings because of their special status, which requires their exclusion from some interpersonal dealings, including fighting. this is why allah almighty said: there is not upon the blind any guilt or upon the lame any guilt or upon the ill any guilt [for remaining behind]. in addition, whoever obeys allah almighty and his messenger—he will admit him to gardens beneath which rivers flow, but whoever turns away—he will punish him with a painful punishment.44 allah almighty also says “there is no sin on you, if you have some inconvenience due to rain, or you are sick, in putting your arms aside, but take your precautionary measures...”45 allah almighty says,“..however, should any one of you be sick or on a journey, then (he should fast) a number of other days (equal to the missed ones); and those who have the strength, (still, they do not opt for fasting,) on them there is a fidyah (compensation), that is, the feeding of a poor person..”46 based on this emergency, there are exceptions to the fasting obligation. additionally, it is permissible to shorten the prayer, perform dried ablution instead of water ablution, combine the two prayers, and eat the dead animal is permitted for survival. all these exceptions to the general rules apply to all muslims. moreover, someone afflicted with an ill in his organs or senses is more entitled to such exceptions. his ruling is like that of the patient who is permitted to pray sitting or on the side if he cannot stand or has his duty waded up if he suffers from the insanity of mind; in this case, he is cleared from sin. all these cases confirm the general approach in islam to these conditions if the situation entails acts of worship, transactions, or penalties. if the exception concerns the above-listed segments of the population, even in the case of war, it is more applicable to those at home with disabilities. they are exempted from participating in wars for their protection and to abide by the requirement to protect their rights and interests and keep them from harm. this exception confirms that individuals with special needs are entitled to the highest 40 protection of the intellect of persons … level of care. considering their condition, their needs come before those of others. discussion to this end, it could be inferred from the provisions of the two revelations that the care of persons with disabilities through the following: first, we must activate and intensify awareness programs for family members of persons with disabilities. indeed, we note that the family is the first cause of many disabilities, and family members can prevent many disabilities if they are made aware of the causes. they should also be aware of ways to address different situations, and negative views of people with disabilities must be corrected. this awareness calls for the participation of more than one societal constituency at all stages: the authority, associations, individuals, rehabilitation centers, and educational institutions. all available means and capabilities should be put in place to reduce the concerns of the families and relieve their needs; this is what the messenger (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) of allah almighty used to urge by saying: “if i walk with a brother of mine who is in need to solve his problem is more beloved to me than to observe in this masjid of mine a month.”47 second, we must provide appropriate treatment for people with disabilities. people with special needs—in addition to treatment for ordinary diseases—need to be provided, at least at the onset, with the necessities to treat the diseases that have afflicted them or the effort must be made to treat them, for example, in some cases of blindness. moreover, alternative limbs must be provided when limbs have been damaged or lost. jurists have expressly stated that “if the original is not possible, the alternative will take place”.48 third, we must provide people with disabilities with opportunities for an appropriate education. the state must take care of this group in the various stages of life by providing them with the needed education. the importance of education for the vulnerable and disabled stems from the fact that it provides them with the necessary awareness and skills to face the situations in which they live. it also provides them with a purpose that guarantees their stability and ensures their involvement in society in various fields according to the specializations available to them, which makes them feel themselves and that they are not a burden on the society they depend on.49 the holy qur’én seeks to see all members of the ummah in a position that preserves their humanity. the holy qur’én says, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 41 41 “and we have certainly honored the children of adam (‘alaih as-salém) and carried them on land and sea and provided for them of the good things and preferred them over much of what we have created, with [definite] preference”.50 the holy qur’én tells people about how allah almighty preserves the dignity of humanity anywhere people are, in their community and outside of them. this protection is impossible for a person unable to work and earn a living because of a disability. therefore, it is necessary to precisely define what the muslim state should provide, especially as islam goes beyond the concept of the handicap to provide aid and assistance. achieving this level of assistance depends on the honesty and sincerity of the work, the affirmation of individual responsibility, and the need for knowledge and experience on the part of the specialists obligated by the state; moreover, emphasizing human perfection requires honest and impartial performance of work. we must be careful not to neglect or criticize people with disabilities. this attention is a response to allah’s saying: “o children of israel, remember my favour which i have bestowed upon you and fulfill my covenant [upon you] that i will fulfill your covenant [from me], and be afraid of [only] me alone”.51 hence, in islam, sincere work, whether by the state or members of society, represents one of the acts of worship, which are covenants between a person and his or her creator and comply with the following words of allah: “and (success is attained) by those who honestly look after their trusts and covenant.”52additionally, the qur’an says, “o you who believe, do not betray the trust of allah and the messenger -, and do not betray your mutual trusts, while you know.”53 the greatest institutions in which guidance and counseling are offered are schools, and one of the most important concerns of schools is education. the educational process needs improvement based on achieving a healthy psychological atmosphere that includes respect for people with disabilities as individuals and as members of a class, school, and society. education leads to achieving freedom, security, and satisfaction in a way that allows the opportunity for the overall growth of people’s personalities and facilitates the process of education and guidance . fourth, all members of society and its various subgroups should be involved in caring for people with disabilities. the state, with the powers given to it by allah almighty can encourage members of society, groups, and institutions to passionately interact with people with disabilities by educating society about the latter’s 42 protection of the intellect of persons … conditions, the obligation contained in the sharê‘ah, and the reward promised by allah almighty for those helping people with disabilities. the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi waaîíébihi wa øallam) said, "whoever walks with his brother in need until he establishes it for him, allah almighty will make his feet firm in the day when the feet will slip".54 it is a sign of faith to love goodness for others and to try to put others first. to this effect, the holy qur’én says: “they love those who emigrated to them and find not any want in their breasts of what the emigrants were given but give [them] preference over themselves, even though they are in privation, and whoever is protected from the stinginess of his soul it is those who will be the successful.…”55 on this basis, the role of mosques appears relevant in assisting people with or without disabilities. through sermons and religious lessons, mosques should create awareness about the causes of organ disability. the idea of social solidarity should be promoted through cooperation with families of people with disabilities, explaining the importance of appropriately serving the needs of these people. improvements to family conditions should be encouraged to facilitate the physical activity of people with disabilities and improve their image. the latter should know their capabilities and how to overcome their disabilities. their inclusion should be encouraged through mosque activities such as memorizing the holy qur’én and hadith and workshops, which would bring a positive image of the mosque’s youths, reminding them of the reward allah almighty has prepared for those who cooperate with people with disabilities. support services should be provided to the families of people with disabilities, encouraging donations of items that may interest those with disabilities. the religion of islam has always attempted to prepare all members of the ummah to be in good condition and preserve their freedom and dignity, and the religion embraces them without discrimination. scholars have noted that this embrace cannot be achieved in the case of people with disabilities unless the following is provided: first, we must provide people with disabilities56 with opportunities to rehabilitate as a prelude to their return to the jobs and professions they practiced before their disability or train them to engage in other jobs or professions consistent with their inclinations, abilities, and circumstances. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 43 43 second, we must provide people with severe disabilities with opportunities to rehabilitate through part-time work, directing them to sectors that suit them and fit their abilities and obliging institutions and departments to absorb a certain percentage of this population into some of the work they can do. third, we must care for people who cannot work fully by establishing social welfare centers and other centers and complexes where business is conducted to suit this population segment and provide them with an appropriate income. fourth, people with disabilities must be excluded from some general rules that apply to other state workers, such as official working time and places of work. fifth, we must make express laws that guarantee the rights of persons with disabilities and for caring for their conditions within the relevant sections of the laws. this legislative approach responds to the weakness and desire to participate in people with disabilities. it is meant to serve them, meet their creator’s will, obtain rewards, and alleviate their affliction. whenever he heard of a patient, the messenger of allah almighty (may the peace and blessing be upon him) would quickly run to greet him in his home and express his feelings in the face of pain and affliction. as the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) cares for and loves a patient, he will pray for the sick person and give him glad tidings. to this effect, umm alaa reported, “the messenger of allah almighty visited me while i was sick.” he said, “be glad, umm al-ala' for allah almighty removes the sins of a muslim for his illness as fire removes the dross of gold and silver”.57 moreover, he, the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), used to respond to the patient’s needs and walked with him until he fulfilled his needs. anas ibn malik (raìi allah ‘anhu) said that a lady who had mental problems said: “o you, the messenger of allah almighty, i need your assistance;” then the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihiwa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, “mother of so and so, see on which side of the road you would like (to stand and talk) so that i may do the needful for you.” he stood with her on the roadside until she obtained what she needed.58 people with disabilities should be the first to be treated nicely and given the best care. therefore, someone should be assigned to 44 protection of the intellect of persons … them to help them. it was reported that umar bin abdulaziz (raìi allah ‘anhu) wrote to all provinces under sham (syria). he said, “register the names of all the blind, crippled, or hemiplegia, or an impotent that prevents him from standing up to prayer. therefore, the list was sent to him, and he ordered that each blind person be assigned a guide, and every two impotent be assigned a servant”.59 al-walid bin abdul malik (raìi allah ‘anhu) did the same thing. he cared for the sick, the blind, and the disabled and provided them with the necessary stipends and appropriate government grants; he assigned a servant to each person with disabilities and a guide to every blind person. he also built a hospital for treating leprosy and a shelter for the elderly in damascus. that hospital has been named after him and still exists.60 similarly, abu al-mansur built a hospital for blind people, a shelter for the lepers, and another shelter for the old in baghdad.61 hence, social solidarity is the responsibility of all members of society, and people should help each other.62 the early muslims established various endowments and spent those endowments on different charities. the amount of their awqaf is inconceivable for a person in the east or west. it is not possible to assess the amount of endowments going to mosques. similarly, the amount of endowments devoted to students’ education and the sheltering of lepers and sick people is incommensurable.63 therefore, “the endowment is an open door for those who want individuals or institutions to resort to the pleasure of allah almighty and gain reward. hence, putting smiles on the faces of people with disabilities and bringing comfort to their souls should be the priority. facilities that make life easy for them should be established so that people with disabilities feel that their brothers show solidarity towards them by striving to fulfill their needs.64 the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullahkhétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihiwa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) says. “a muslim is a brother to his fellow muslim. he should not oppress him nor betray him, and whoever meets the need of his brother allah almighty will give him and whoever removes hardship from a muslim; allah almighty will remove hardship from him from among the hardships on the day of resurrection”. the messenger of allah almighty (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was asked: what works better? he said, “bringing pleasure in a believer by feeding him when he is hungry, cover his nakedness, or help him meet his needs”.65 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 45 45 muslims continue to pay attention to these recommendations, as jurists expanded the interpretation of an important category of zakat beneficiaries, which is fi sabillah (cause of allah almighty). indeed, these beneficiaries include people with special needs, such as people with disabilities, paralysis, and chronic diseases. it was reported that umar ibn abdul azeez (raìi allah ‘anhu) ordered ibn shihab alzuhri (d. 124 ah) (raìi allah ‘anhu) to write the sunnah for charity. he wrote, “the share of people with low incomes is half for each of the poor who has a deficiency who cannot work or move around the earth.”66 hence, treating people with disabilities became part of islamic civilization. conclusion an examination of how islamic culture treats people with special needs reveals that the holy qur’én grants rights to these people. therefore, islam seeks to integrate people with disabilities into societies and address the environment in which they live. the holy qur’én teaches and educates people on behaviours they must adopt when facing their brothers with disabilities and their families. islam expressly mentions that what happens to disabled people does not diminish their social position and does not affect their value in society. all people are equal. this study emphasizes the activation of islam's noble principles, which are contained in the holy qur’én and the sunnah of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihiwa aîíébihi wa øallam), as central, intellectual, and cultural components in countries in the islamic world. in particular, these principles apply to people with disabilities and create a place for them based on brotherhood, love, and equality. the effective integration of people with disabilities that the two revelations call for and the dignity they give these people must become an integral part of educational practice across all countries in the islamic world and all stages of education and rehabilitation. what is meant here is to maintain what may be found in different educational policies that urge for human dignity and respect for human rights but the deepening, refining, and spreading of these values. this study stresses the importance of investing modern and advanced technology in the islamic educational project and, in particular, the importance of employing all of this technology in the service of the vision of islam on people with disabilities; this vision includes dignity and equality. therefore, islam is ahead of other religions in development, production, and creativity; it also communicates information to people quickly and easily without any obstacles. 46 protection of the intellect of persons … counseling does not depend on providing primary care and ensuring that persons with disabilities have access to material needs. rather, it extends to social care in which the process of engaging individuals with special needs—people with disabilities—in society and interacting with them is facilitated to make them feel valued by society. there are many mosques in the islamic world, and those are the most widespread social institutions there; therefore, mosques have a profound impact on the muslim community members, and their role must not be neglected. they should instead be activated and strengthened to serve people with disabilities and provide them with a decent life within the societies in which they live. notes and references _____________________ 1 the holy qur’én, 17:70, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010) 2 muslim, sahih muslim, chapter the book of virtue, enjoining good manners, and joining of the ties of kinship; 2564b 3 the holy qur’én, 49:13, usmani. op.cit. 4 ibid., 6:38 5 harris, john. “one principle and three fallacies of disability studies.” journal of medical ethics 27, no. 6 (2001): 383-387. 6 mansour, mourad. "employers’ attitudes and concerns about the employment of disabled people.” international review of business research papers 5, no. 4 (2009): 209-218. 7 hallenbeck, mark j. “taking charge: adolescents with learning disabilities assume responsibility for their writing." learning disability quarterly 25, no. 4 (2002): 227246. 8 noonan, brigid m., susanna m. gallor, nancy f. hensler-mcginnis, ruth e. fassinger, shihwe wang, and jennifer goodman. "challenge and success: a qualitative study of the career development of highly achieving women with physical and sensory disabilities. journal of counseling psychology 51, no. 1 (2004): 68. 9 woodhams, carol, and susan corby. “defining disability in theory and practice: a critique of the british disability discrimination act 1995." journal of social policy 32, no. 2 (2003): 159-178. 10 stein, michael ashley, and janet e. lord. "prospects for the united nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities." in the un convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, pp. 17-40. brill nijhoff, 2009. 11 fitriah, siti. "children with special needs in the eyes of islamic law and the state." akademik: jurnal mahasiswa humanis 1, no. 2 (2021): 77-86. 12 mian, ali altaf. "mental disability in medieval hanafī legalism." islamic studies (2012): 247-262. 13 al-aoufi, hiam, nawaf al-zyoud, and norbayahshahminan. "islam and the cultural conceptualization of disability." international journal of adolescence and youth 17, no. 4 (2012): 205-219. 14 bazna, maysaa s., and tarek a. hatab. "disability in the qur'an: the islamic alternative to defining, viewing, and relating to disability." journal of religion, disability & health 9, no. 1 (2005): 5-27. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 47 47 15al-hams, abdul fattah abdul ghani, “al-tifl al-mu’aq: huququhuwa mutatalabat tarbiyatuhu min manzurislami.” journal of islamic university of madinah, humanities studies series 14 (2): 356 (2006). 16 ishak, hamdi. "methods of teaching al-quran to the hearing disability children." tintaartik. membina ummah 2 (2016): 33-39. 17 nor, hanapimohd. "islam and social wellbeing: maintaining economic security and beyond." media syari'ah: wahana kajian hukum islam dan pranatasosial 17, no. 1 (2020): 101-142. 18 the holy qur’én, 4:1, usmani. op.cit. 19 ibid., 6:98. 20 ibid., 7:189. 21 ibid., 39:6 22 imam ahmad ibn hanmbal, musnad imam ahmad. edited by shuaib arnaut. damascus: muassasah al-risalah, 2nded (1999): 3991. 23 the holy qur’én, 5:2, usmani. op.cit. 24 al-hijazi, muhammad mahmud, al-tafseer al-wadhih. beirut: dar al-jiyl aljadid, vol. 1 (1992). 25 the holy qur’én, 49:13, usmani. op.cit. 26 tirmidhi, jami’ tirmidhi, chapter on virtues, 3955. 27 muslim, sahih muslim, chapter his compassion towards children and his humbleness, and the virtue of that, 2319a. 28 rahman, sira abdul. "religion and animal welfare—an islamic perspective." animals 7, no. 2 (2017): 11. 29 al-zuhaili, wahbah ibn mustapha, ‘’al-tafseer al-munir fi al-aqidahwa shariah wa al-manhaj.’’ damascus: dar al-fikr al-muasir, 2nd ed. vol. 30 (1997). 30 ibid. 31 . dusuki, asyraf wajdi. "what does islam say about corporate social responsibility." review of islamic economics 12, no. 1 (2008): 5-28. 32. al-tabrani, sulayman ibn ahmad, al-mu’jam al-awsat. edited by tariq ibn awadh and abdul muhsin ibn ibrahim. cairo: dar al-haramayn, (1994).: 106 33 the holy qur’én, 80:1-6, usmani. op.cit. 34 ibid., 9:128. 35 al-bukhari, muhammad ibn ismail, sahih al-bukhari. cairo: dar al-shi’ab, muslim. n.d., sahih muslim. beirut: dar al-jiyl and dar al-afaq al-jadidah, (1987). 36. muslim. n.d., sahih muslim. beirut: dar al-jiyl and dar al-afaq al-jadidah, (1987): 2564a. 37 al-bukhari, muhammad ibn ismail, sahih al-bukhari. cairo: dar al-shi’ab,: 4918ibn kathir, abu al-fidāʾ ismail ibn umar al-demashqi, tafseer al-qur’an alazim. al-riyadh: dar al-taybah li al-nashrwa al-tawzi', (1999). 38 ahmad, ahmad bin hanbal, musnad ahmad. cairo: dar al-hadeeth, (1995): 920. 39 the holy qur’én, 17:70, usmani. op.cit. 40 ibid., 6:54. 41 ibid., 7:156 42 abdurahman ibn nasir ibn abdullahi al-sa’di, ‘’taysir al-karim al-rahman fi tafsir kalam al-mannan,’’ edited by abdulrahman ibn mala al-luw aihiq. beriut: muassasah al-risalah, (2000). 43 al-bukhari, muhammad ibn ismail, sahih al-bukhari. cairo: dar al-shi’ab, muslim. n.d., sahih muslim. beirut: dar al-jiyl and dar al-afaq al-jadidah, (1987): 2159. 44 the holy qur’én, 48:17, usmani. op.cit. 45 ibid., 4:102. 46 ibid., 2:184.. 47 al-tabrani, sulayman ibn ahmad, al-mu’jam al-awsat. edited by tariq ibn awadh and abdul muhsin ibn ibrahim. cairo: dar al-haramayn, (1994): 861 48 protection of the intellect of persons … 48 abdullatif, abdul rahman ibn salih, al-qawaid wa al-dhawabit al-fiqhiyyah al-mutadhaminah litaysir. madinah: abdullatif, abdul rahman ibn salih, alqawaimadah al-bahth al-ilmi islamic university of madinah, vol. 2 (2003): 629 49 al-hams, abdul fattah abdul ghani, al-tifl al-mu’aq: huququhu wa mutatalabat taribiyatuhu min manzur islami. journal of islamic university of madinah, humanities studies series 14 (2): 356, (2006):356. 50 the holy qur’én, 17:70, usmani. op.cit. 51 ibid., 2:40.. 52 ibid. 23:8. 53 ibid., 8:27 54 sulayman ibn ahmad al-tabrani, al-mu’jam al-saghir, edited by muhammad shakur mahmud. beirut: al-maktab al-islami, dar amma, (1985): 861 55 the holy qur’én, 59:9, usmani. op.cit. 56the meaning of rehabilitation: "rehabilitation brings a person or thing back to its previous state or era. it is sometimes described as facilitation; however, the common word is rehabilitation, which means securing the social or economic conditions that enable an individual or group of people to perform work that is sufficient to meet their material needs and allow them to be engaged in society. see obaid majidah, muqaddimah fi ta’hil al-muʿāqin (rehabilitation of the disabled), dar safaa amman jordan, 2000, p. 15; abunasr: al-i’aqah al-‘aqliyyahal-mafhum, wa alanwāʿ, wabaramaji al-riʿāyah, p. 65. 57 abu dawud, sulayman ibn. n.d., sunan abu dawud. edited by muhammad muhyi al-deen abdul hamid. damascus: dar al-fikr, (2009): 3092. 58 al-bukhari, muhammad ibn ismail, sahih al-bukhari. cairo: dar al-shi’ab, muslim. n.d., sahih muslim. beirut: dar al-jiyl and dar al-afaq al-jadidah, (1987): 1812/4. 59 hamzah, afat wisal. sirah umar ibn abdul azeez (may allah be pleased with him)’’ the fifth of the rightly guided caliphs. beirut: dar ibn hazm, (1998): 130. 60 shakir mahmud, al-khulafa al-rashidun wa al-daulah al-umawiyyah. lebanon: al-maktab al-islami, 4thed (1991): 138. 61 abdul hakim anwar, al iqtisad al-islami (mustlahat wa mafahim),’’ alsiyasah al-iqtisadiyyah fi itar al-nizam al-islami, al-bank al-islami li tanmiyyah, jeddah: ma’ahad buhuth wa al-tadrib, (1997): 38. 62 al-qadumi, marwan ali, “huquq al-muʿaq fi shariah al-islamiyyah.” majallah jamiah al-qur’an al-karim wa al-ulum al-insaniyyah, al-khartum, sudan, no. 4 (2001). 63 al-hams, abdul fattah abdul ghani, ‘’al-tifl al-mu’aq: huququhu wa mutatalabat taribiyatuhu min manzur islami.’’ journal of islamic university of madinah, humanities studies series 14 (2): 356, (2006):356. 64 shakir mahmud, al-khulafa al-rashidun wa al-daulah al-umawiyyah. lebanon: al-maktab al-islami, 4thed (1991): 138. 65 al-tabrani, sulayman ibn ahmad, al-mu’jam al-awsat. edited by tariq ibn awadh and abdul muhsin ibn ibrahim. cairo: dar al-haramayn, (1994): 202. 66 mudrikah, siti, and muhamad nafik h. ryandono. "islamic public finance instruments according to kitab al amwal by ad dawudi." afebi islamic finance and economic review 6, no. 01 (2021): 1-14. hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 276 coercion as a method of educating from the perspectives of modern education and islam 1 javad fakhkhar toosi, 2 asyraf isyraqi bin jamil 1 university of malaya. email: j.fakhar.t@gmail.com 2 university of malaya. abstract: the use of coercion in moral education and its conflict with moral independence is an important issue in modern education that originated from the enlightenment period. when compared with western education, islamic teachings, especially in the field of moral education, seems at first glance that the use of the coercion method is not rebutted. this may lead some people to conclude that islam has accepted the use of coercion, or agrees with it, at least, in some cases. this article compares the issue of using coercion as a moral educational method in both modern education and islam. it argues that islamic education promotes both the concept of ‘persuasion’ and ‘caring’ and establishes its rules in a way that are far from coercion. however, the extent to which muslims support the general principle of prohibition of coercion would depend on the interpretations that different islamic traditions have provided for some islamic statements, including the recommendation for the use of coercion in worship. keywords: coercion, education method, modern education, islam. 1. introduction among the fundamental values of modern education is moral independence. modern education refers to the system of education that is based on the values and elements of modernity (coulby & jones, 1996). in this system of education, individualism, which is the feature of the enlightenment, influences the goals of education. in this system of modern education, moral independence is a basic value. moral independence has been interpreted as self-regulation, as well as moral autonomy or self-reliance and self-governance (jackson, 2007). it is the freedom to make decisions in accordance with principles of wisdom (kant, 2016). researchers regard this concept as an important educational goal. for example, piaget (oesterdiekhoff, 2013) and kohlberg (1984) consider moral independence as the final goal of moral education. it is the stage at which a person can make choices regardless of the external factors and based on his or her reasoning (taylor, 2005). for this reason, moral independence has been accepted as a symbol of modern education in most new educational theories (jalil, sbeih, boujettif & barakat, 2009). moral independence is considered not only from the educational point of view but also from the psychological perspective regarded in the list of significant human needs as categorized by abraham maslow. he believes that after fulfilling basic needs, human beings face the need for independence (ozoliņš, 2015). at the top of the pyramid is the deeper and more spiritual needs. in maslow’s theory, independence flourishes in self-actualization needs which is the highest level of human needs (greene & burke, 2007). attention to the significant position of moral independence in moral education leads to the goals and methods of ethical education being considered in accordance with this principle. it is clear that the adoption of moral independence as a goal requires the elimination of incompatible methods. one of these methods is coercion which is to force a child and adolescent to conduct moral behaviors. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ mailto:j.fakhar.t@gmail.com hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 277 coercion in moral education means that the mentor forces the recipient to carry out good behaviors and moral deeds (eberle, 2011; hameed et al., 2017; shehzadi et al., 2020). this action is carried out in the form of a verbal or behavioral command or prohibition. in the former, the instructor orders the recipients, and in the latter, he pushes them virtually and practically. researchers call the first “coercive threat” and the other “physical coercion” (klitzman, 2013). at first glance, when comparing ‘modern’ education with islam, it would appear that islam does not reject coercion method in islamic moral education. the existence of evidence in islamic sources has led some thinkers to conclude that islam recommended using coercion to attain education outcomes (see, e.g. ibn qudāmah al-maqdisī, 1984 vol. 1, 119). however, what exactly is islam’s position about using this method? the present paper compares the coercion method in western and islamic education. the first part of this article reviews and critiques the educational method of coercion among western scholars, while the second part will explain the islamic perspective in this regard. 2. the modern view of coercion in education despite the view that supports using coercion in education such as hobson who argued that coercion is not accepted in teaching and learning, but it is useful in moral education (hobson, 1973), there is a negative attitude among the scholars of the modern education about the use of compulsion in education and training. white (1984) elaborates: “the argument starts from the presumption that any attempt to prevent children from doing what they want to do is prima facie morally unjustifiable: children’s liberty, like that of anybody else, ought not to be diminished, unless there are sound moral reasons for doing so.” (148) this highlights that the coercion is only permitted in particular situations. john stuart mill observes that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others (mill, 2001). preventing self-harm is another factor that researchers have identified as permissible coercion (white, 1984). permission to use coercion in education in the two cases is based on considering what is good for the child and others. in their opinion, some sort of compulsory moral education, for instance, could be justified in this way (ibid). the concept of the “child’s interest” or the “protection of the rights of others” is the infrastructure that has been accepted among western scholars for the use of coercion. the basic tenet of the modern view on coercion is that compulsion cannot be eliminated, and that there are certain cases in which children and adolescents must be compelled. however, this tenet is questionable, because the concepts of the “child’s interest” or the “interests of others”, or the “harm to the child and others”, are ambiguous and capable of adapting to different examples. in contrast, if the negation of coercion has no choice but to permit an exception, that particular permission must not be applicable to other cases and should be precise and uninterpretable. it is also false that coercion cannot be excluded from education. instead, there are methods that provide compulsory functions without causing damage (alavi, 2013). https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 278 a proper confrontation with the issue of coercion in the field of moral education is that it should be completely rejected a point that is glossed over in modern education. confrontation, which generally distances coercion from moral education, proposes a framework that addresses the “child’s interest” or the “protection of the rights of others” in other areas, such as law, and not in the field of moral education. an alternative to the modern educational perspective about coercion is what christopher bobonich terms the platonic method of persuasion (bobonich, 1991). plato poses persuasion in the realm of law, but it can be an alternative method in moral education (lee 2014). the platonic persuasion method refers to persuading using fair contrary to deception, compulsion and force (bobonich, 1991). bobonich argues that, contrary to karl popper (popper, 2018), the method of persuasion in plato cannot contain false methods like lies (bobonich, 1991). morrow (1953) explained the platonic idea as follows: “the tragedy of plato, we can see, is not the conflict between noble words and ignoble treacherous intentions. it is the conflict between his desire for the moral health of his fellowmen and the love of reason, critical reason, in human affairs. plato never renounced either objects of his devotion; but they are not easy to reconcile, and the form of the synthesis them in his later days really means the victory of morality and the suppression of reason.” (244) bobonich insists that plato’s persuasion method is rational and comprises three characteristics. first, thinking about beliefs that are bases for legal or ethical terms and norms and their significance. second, teaching what they have to should do. third, containing reasonable and logical reasoning that justifies ethical and legal norms (bobonich, 1991). it is helpful to further understand plato’s persuasion by differentiating strong persuasion and weak persuasion. this is a point that makes it possible to avoid a mistake in the concept of coercion with strong persuasion. lee (2014) discussed the argument against the use of coercion. according to him, the argument is based on a specific interpretation of independence. if we consider independence as being autonomous, it will refute coercion. he quotes from scanlon that independence can be regarded in the agent to “makes up his own mind”. in this case, coercion will not necessarily be subject to independence (850). he says: “insofar as legal coercion involves coercive threats, rather than physical coercion, it is still up to the agent in question to ‘make up his own mind’ whether he should acquiesce to it, or defy it and risk suffering the threatened sanction.” (ibid) in this examination, the two issues are raised mistakenly. when the agent does not have to do, and only finds himself hesitant in the middle of two options, namely his decision and the request of the coercer, this is strong persuasion that only changes in the central consideration of the agent, but should not be considered coercion. scanlon (as quoted in lee 2014) says: “a coercer merely changes the considerations which militate for or against a certain course of action; weighing these conflicting considerations is still up to you.” (850) what scanlon assumed as compulsion renders a person between the request of the coercer and the other option, and he chooses one based on his decision. coercion is when a person is forced to perform a particular act. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 279 from the above discussion, we may conclude that coercion is not compatible with individual independence. in moral independence, one acts according to the free command of his reason without being influenced by external factors. the external factors are anything outside the pure judgement of reason. for this reason, many scholars believe coercion does not treat others as human beings, while moral independence and autonomy are to respect the person as a human being (lee 2014). 3. the islamic view of coercion in education what is the similarity and distinction between the islamic perspective on the method of coercion in moral education and the modern western perspective? the negative view on this method is not foreign to islam. in fact, this view has been highlighted in islamic teachings. it is worth noting that the qur’an has repeatedly emphasized the need to respect freedom of will (2:256; 10:99). al-zuhaylī (2001) points out: “the qur’an makes every person responsible for what he loves and chooses, believes and works, there is no compulsion in religion, and religion is based on freedom and choice, and this is the basis of directing responsibility for each person in his acts, and everyone will see the consequences of his action and his belief and saying.” (vol. 3, 2948) commenting on the on the prohibition of coercion, muntazirī (1988) asserts that there is an islamic principle on which no human being has authority over others and has no right to obliges or forbids them, unless one whom granted this permit exceptionally and there is no doubt that this permit needs to a clear and categorical reason from the quran or the prophet’s traditions. this principle is known as the principle of ‘lack of authority’ or ‘aṣl ’adami wilāyah’. the result is that coercion and commanding others requires a special reason, and if there is not such a specific reason, we reject coercion on the basis of this general principle (vol. 1, 28) (abikar & mirioglu, 2019; adeyemi & adeyemi, 2019; erlangga, 2019; faheem & arnaud, 2020; gündoğdu, 2019; i̇htiyaroğlu, 2019). the ban on coercion is promoted to parents and teachers in islamic moral education through traditions that have been quoted from the prophet (pbuh) regarding the prohibition of scaring and threatening (al-takhwīf wa’l-ir’āb) where any action that leads to scaring and forcing others is generally banned. historically, the islamic form of persuasion and recommendation that was introduced as a substitute for the method of coercion is the well-known tradition of enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong (al-amr bi’l-ma’rūf wa al-nahy ’an al-munkar). this tradition was introduced by the qur’an in the first century and enjoins a muslim to recommend another to do what is right (al-ma’rūf). al-ma’rūf includes all good (al-jurjānī, 1992, p. 54). this islamic principle suggests behavioral persuasion before it comes to verbal persuasion. at this stage, the muslim shows his dissatisfaction of bad deeds done by others until the offender rectifies his behavior. this method was common among muslims such that whenever a muslim saw another committing an immoral act, they tried to prevent the perpetrators by showing their discomfort and, later, when they decided to persuade others they used the same method (aldimashqī aldumyātī, 1997 vol. 4, 208-209; basheer et al., 2019). in this islamic principle, the next step is to persuade using words. verbalizing a command does not force a person to compel and obey him. in this case, if the https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 280 second person acts, he has done so based on his/her personal decision and desire. contrary to a group of muslim jurists who have accepted the wide range of verbal stage, which includes the expression of harsh words and threats (ibn qudāmah al maqdisī, 1984 vol. 1, 647), rude words or threats are not included in this qur’anic principle. this group of muslim jurists have not provided a reason to prove their claim. however, in such cases, we have to refer to the general rules and principles of islamic law, considering the prohibition of scaring and threatening (al-takhwīf wa’l-ir’āb). as quoted by al-haythamī (1988), the prophet (pbuh) said: “everyone who fears another god will scare him on the day of resurrection” (vol. 6, 254). also, he narrated that the prophet said: “never make anyone worried, because making worried is great oppression” (ibid). and: “whoever frightens a believer, god will not save him from the terrors and dreads of the day of judgement” (ibid). fakhr al-dīn al-rāzī (1210) the great muslim scholar comments on these narratives: “the verbal level of enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong in islam, has to be with the kindness and preaching. at this time, the use of threat and violence should be avoided because threats make the people motivated to continue their acts.” (fakhr al-dīn al rāzī, 1986, p. 54) like persuasion, ‘caring’ is also valued in islam where the guardian cares for the family and is not indifferent to their moral education. the qur’an says: “o, you believers secure yourselves and your families from the fire” (66:6). accordingly, the father has to educate his family members and teach them ethical behavior with his good behaviors. the verse advocates showing an ethical attitude and familiarizing them with correct manners (ibn al-‘arabī, 2003.vol. 4, 1852). in particular, caring is a prerequisite for muslims to play their social and educational role as responsible (al-mas’ūl). the prophet (pbuh) said that you are responsible for all of you and you need to worry about each other (ibn al-‘arabī, 2003. vol. 1, 451). with the conditions that have affected social life, and given the threats of modern life, and in particular technology for children and adolescents, the importance of caring in the islamic educational framework by modelling good behavior has become more significant. the comprehensive application of islamic teachings in this field assumes that everyone is responsible for others. the parent is not solely responsible, but the scope of moral education is expanded to society. overall, the muslims’ positive attitude toward persuasion and care instead of coercion characterized early muslim education and supported student freedom and initiative (nawas, 2006; stewart, 2008). charlene tan has quoted the recommendation of four world conferences on islamic education (1978-1982) to muslim students as: “think precisely and logically but let their thoughts be governed by their spiritual realization of truth as found in the qur’an and the sunnah so that their intelligence is guided in proper channels and does not stray” (tan, 2014). despite the emphasis that islam attaches to the concept of persuasion and care instead of compulsion and coercion, it is important to note that islam has not interpreted persuasion in the same sense as western scholars. encouraging, enticing, and other cognates do not involve unethical methods such as deception or https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 281 lying. rather, the islamic concept of persuasion or care accompanies the paradigm of rational and ethical persuasion. although islam generally rebutted the use of the coercion method, not all muslims have taken the same approach to this general principle. this is due to the fact that there are two tendencies of the advocates of ‘limited coercion’ and opponents of ‘coercion in general’. while muslims, based on islamic teachings, should not use coercion in moral education, the extent to which they adhere to the principle depends on their tendencies. the diversity and multiplicity of the islamic traditions in societies led to the emergence of rival perspectives on the use of coercion in moral education. on the one hand, there is an islamic tradition that allows its followers to use coercion to children after the age of seven. this tradition includes certain societies in iran and other islamic countries where their madrasas and parents not only accept forcing students and children, but also accept beating and violent behavior (oveisi et al., 2010). on the other hand, there is another islamic tradition that rejects the use of coercion in general. an example is the modernists muslims of some secular countries such as the united states and europe, who through the islamic schools promote liberal values such as critical thinking and rationality, and put aside the use of methods that contradict these values. these schools educate their students in ways that, while preserving their religious identity, keep their moral independence and accordingly do not use incompatible methods such as coercion (dronkers, 2016; saada & gross, 2017). the conflict between the two views on the limited use of compulsion among islamic traditions is the result of an old debate among muslims about islamic ethics. before addressing muslim perspectives on this debate, it should be recalled that in the islamic sources there are instructions on which parents can force their children after the age of seven to perform worship such as prayer. as the prophet (pbuh) has said: “when your children reach the age of seven, order them to perform the prayer” (ibn hanbal, 1991. vol. 2, 180). islamic traditions usually described as ‘rationalists’ include the al-muʿtazilah and shi‘a generally followed the idea that good and evil are objectives, and that human reason can understand good, evil and moral values. from the 8th century onward, muslim rationalists such as abu-al-huḏail al-ʿallāf, abu ‘ali muhammad al-jubbāī, abu hashim al jubbāī, and ‘abd al-jabbar believed that ethics is divided into two areas; the area that regulates human relations with society and others in this world, and the area where human relationship with god is regulated. it was argued that in the second domain, religion was the source of moral understanding, and in the first field of reason. therefore, the commands issued by religion in the second area (the relationship between man and god) cannot be extended to the first (al-hanfī, 1988, vol. 3, 384-393). charlene tan has quoted the ramadan words as follow: “while the qur’an and the sunnah are still upheld as sources for norms of behavior for muslims, their scope is confined to spiritual and moral matters for the individual” (tan, 2014, p. 333). therefore, they do not consider religion as the only source of understanding moral values. independent reason was at the core of the source for their understanding of moral values. they put these two sources together by assigning the worldly part of ethics to human reason, and the other part which deals with the supernatural concepts that are full of mystery, to religion and revelation. contemporaneous defenders of separation between the two worldly and the https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 282 otherworldly parts of ethics, the centrality of reason in the first field, and the impossibility of expanding the commands of the second part to the worldly section, include muslims such as mohammed arkūn, hasan hanafi and abdolkarim soroush (to read their views see, dabbagh, 2006). one such islamic view introduces a part of the ethics that deals with human relationships with society and others, independent of the other part of ethics which deals with the human-god relationships, and hence does not expand the rules and instructions of the second part to the first section (fakhkhar toosi, 2019). regarding the view, forcing prayer is related to the second part of ethics and is not related to the worldly part of ethics, it cannot be concluded that islam has accepted the use of compulsion in worldly issues. the domain of religious worship is independent of worldly moral education. in contrast to this islamic tradition, there is another tradition that does not accept such separation between ethics and does not recognize reason as an independent source for understanding ethical values. accordingly, the goal of ethics is to achieve prosperity in the hereafter. consequently, this islamic tradition considers all ethical orders for this purpose. this tradition includes the works of scholars like al-shawkānī (1984) and ibn taymīyyah (1999) who deal with ethical issues using this approach. therefore, the statements in the islamic sources that instruct forcing children to perform their prayers, which are related to the relationship between man and god, are regarded by this tradition as general commands and are hence extended to all moral areas. accordingly, forcing children to perform prayer is considered a general rule that extends to all areas of moral education. this generalization appears in the works of some muslim scholars of the 11th and 12th centuries, who considered the orders mentioned above to be mainstream. they not only allow parents to force their children but also beating them (al-nawawī, 1991, vol. 5, 384; al-qurtubī, 1985, vol. 5, 172; ibn qudāmah al-maqdisī, 1984, vol. 6, 119). another debate related to islamic commands that involves the limited use of coercion is the concept of the ‘peculiarities of the prophet’ ikhtiṣāṣāt or the particular subjects of the prophet allocated to him and should not be considered general islamic law. this concept first put forward by the qur'ān commentators to interpret some commands that in case they were to become general laws, they would contradict the principles of islam (isma'il ibn kathīr, 1998, vol. 1, 382). the ‘peculiarities of the prophet’ ikhtiṣāṣāt involve rules for the prophet and do not include the rest of the people, and therefore are not considered islamic law, such as being obligatory for the prophet to wake up and pray in the middle of the night (al-suyūtī, 1984, vol. 4, 196). according to this concept, when the qur’an tells the prophet, enjoin your family (20: 132) to pray, this is one of the specific duties of the prophet (al-alūsī, 1995; al-qurtubī, 1985, vol. 11, 263) as this verse is mentioned in the verses which have been dedicated to the tasks specific to him (pbuh) (ibn ʿāshūr, 1984, vol. 16, 207). the word ahl in this verse includes the family (al-baydāwī, 1997, vol. 4, 43; al-tūsī, 1988, vol. 7, 224). therefore, the verse does not refer to a general ruling which implies advice for all muslims. 4. conclusion this article compared the use of coercion in moral education in modern education and islam. considering the question posed at the beginning of the article, it was argued that islam does not accept the use of coercion in moral education and rejects it unconditionally. conversely, islam recommends using the method of https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 283 ‘persuasion’ as well as ‘caring’ with terms that are quite far from compulsion. avoiding deception, lies and immoral methods are criteria for ‘persuasion’ while teaching through modelling good behavior and moral acts are considered ‘caring’. however, the scope of the prohibition imposed by muslims on the use of coercion depends on the specific interpretation of different islamic traditions about verses and narratives in which the use of coercion on worship has been raised. the difference between the viewpoints of muslims about the separation of the otherworldly part of the ethics that deals with the relationship between man and god from the worldly part of ethics that deals with human relationships with society and others, and the inapplicable nature of the otherworldly ethical statements in worldly ethics lead to the emergence of two different interpretations about the scope of the use of coercion. one of them prohibits the use of coercion absolutely, and the other one allows limited use of this method. there is disagreement among muslims on the statements that recommend the prophet (pbuh) to use coercion for his family’s worship and that, according to an islamic tradition, these propositions are not considered to be general islamic laws. such a debate has led to different interpretations of the scope of this prohibition. references al-dimashqī al-dumyātī, a. (1997). i'ānat al-tālibīn. beirut, lebanon: dār alfikr. al-hanfī, h. (1988). min al-‘aqīdah ilā al-thurah. beirut, lebanon: dār al-tanwīr. abikar, s., & mirioglu, m. (2019). reflecting on the english as additional language learning process of two refugee pupils in the context of the uk and turkey: teachers’ perspectives. international journal of education, training and learning, 3(1), 1-7. available at: https://doi.org/10.33094/6.2017.2019.31.1.7. adeyemi, b. a., & adeyemi, b. b. (2019). integrating academic research activities in education into real life problem solving: the efficacy and barriers from lecturers’ perspectives. american journal of education and learning, 4(1), 29-35. available at: https://doi.org/10.20448/804.4.1.29.35. al-alūsī, m. (1995). rūḥ al-ma‘ānī fī tafsīr al-qur’ān al-‘aẓīm wa'l-sab‘ al-mathānī. beirut, lebanon: dār al-kutub al-'ilmīyah. al-baydāwī, a. i. u. (1997). anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-ta'wīl (m. s. a.-. mar'ashlī ed.). beirut, lebanon: dār ihyā al-turāth al-'arabī. al-haythamī, a. i. a. b. (1988). majma' al-zawā'id wa-manba' al-fawa'id. beirut, lebanon: dār al-kutub al-'ilmīyah. al-jurjānī, a. a. q. (1992). al-taʿrīfāt. tehran, iran: nāṣir khusru publisher. al-nawawī, y. i. s. (1991). rawḍhah al-talibīn wa-‘umdah al-muftīn (e. d. a. a’dil ed.). beirut, lebanon: dār al-kutub al-‘ilmīyah. al-qurtubī, m. i. a. (1985). al-jami' li-ahkām al-qur'ān. tehran, iran: nāsir khusrū publications. al-shawkānī, m. (1984). tuhfat al-dhākirīn bi’ddati al-heṣn al-haṣīn min kalām sayyid almursalīn. beirut, lebanon: dār al-qalam. al-suyūtī, j. a’. (1984). al-durr al-manthūr fī tafsīr bi'l-ma'thūr. qom, iran: al-marashi publisher. al-tūsī, m. i. a. h. (1988). al-tibyān fī tafsīr al-qurān (a. q. al-‘amilī ed.). beirut, lebanon: dār ihyā' al-turāth al-‘arabī. al-zuhaylī, w. (2001). tafsīr al-wasīṭ. damascus, syria: dār al-fikr. alavi, h. r. (2013). islamic educational goals, methods, and content, with emphasis on shia'faith. journal of research on christian education, 22(1), 4-20. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10656219.2013.769817 basheer, m. f., hameed w. u., sabir s. a., & jehangir, m. s. (2019). islamic business ethics and islamic banks performance in https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 284 malaysia: does sincerity matter? . hamdard islamicus.42(4). 217 224, bobonich, c. (1991). persuasion, compulsion and freedom in plato's laws. the classical quarterly, 41(2), 365-388. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0009838800004547 coulby, d. (1996). post-modernity, education and european identities. comparative education, 32(2), 171-184. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03050069628821 dabbagh, s. (2006). religion in the mirror: an overview of abdul karim soroush's religious views. tehran, iran.: srat publisher. dronkers, j. (2016). islamic primary schools in the netherlands. journal of school choice, 10(1), 6-21. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2015.1131508 erlangga, h. (2019). the meaning, benefit and importance of development entrepreneurship in higher education. asian journal of contemporary education, 3(2), 105-110. eberle, c. j. (2011). consensus, convergence, and religiously justified coercion. public affairs quarterly, 25(4), 281-303. doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23057085 faheem, k., & arnaud, d. (2020). education and sustainability, how sdg4 contributes to change the representations of developing issues? the case study of pakistan. international journal of management and sustainability, 9(2), 101-119. fakhkhar toosi, j. (2019). the kantian theory of autonomy from the islamic perspective and its theoretical consequences in islamic moral education. (ph.d theses, university of malaya). fakhr al-dīn al-rāzī, m. (1986). al-arba'īn fī uṣūl al-dīn. cairo, egypt: maktabah al azharīyyah. gündoğdu, r. (2019). the effect of solution-focused group counseling with psychological counselor candidates on solution-focused tendency and satisfaction with life. journal of education and e-learning research, 6(1), 26-37 available at: https://doi.org/10.20448/journal.509.2019.61.26.37. greene, l., & burke, g. (2007). beyond self-actualization. journal of health and human services administration, 116-128. doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41288077 hameed, w. u., hussin, t., azeem, m., arif, m., & basheer, m. f. (2017). combination of microcredit and micro-training with mediating role of formal education: a micro-enterprise success formula. journal of business and social review in emerging economies, 3(2), 285-291. hobson, p. r. (1975). coercion and teaching: further reflections. australian journal of education, 19(2), 174-177. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177%2f000494417501900206 ibn al-‘arabī, m. (2003). ahkam al-qur'an. beirut, lebanon: dār al-kutub al-‘ilmīyah. i̇htiyaroğlu, n. (2019). analysis of the predictive role of teachers’ effective communication skills and motivation levels on classroom management profiles. journal of education and e-learning research, 6(1), 17-25. available at: https://doi.org/10.20448/journal.509.2019.61.17.25. ibn qudāmah al-maqdisī, a. (1984). al-mug̲ h̲nī. beirut, lebanon: dār al-kitāb al-‘arabī. ibn taymīyyah, t. (1999). iqtiḍā' al-sirāt al-mustaqīm li-mukhālifah al-ashāb al-jahīm (n. a. al-‘aql ed.). beirut, lebanon: dār 'alam al-kutub. ibnʿāshūr, m. a. ṭ. (1984). al-tahrīr wa'l-tanwīr. tunis, tunisia: dār al-tunisiah. ibn hanbal, a. (1991). al-musnad. beirut, lebanon: dār ihya’ al-turath al-'arabī. isma'il ibn kathīr. (1998). tafsīr al-qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm (e. m. h. shams al-din ed.). beirut, lebanon: dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyah. jackson, l. (2007). the individualist? the autonomy of reason in kant’s philosophy and educational views. studies in philosophy and education, 26(4), 335-344. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-007-9045-3 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ http://www.jstor.org/stable/23057085 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23057085 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23057085 http://www.jstor.org/stable/41288077 http://www.jstor.org/stable/41288077 http://www.jstor.org/stable/41288077 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 285 jalil, p. a., sbeih, m. a., boujettif, m., & barakat, r. (2009). autonomy in science education: a practical approach in attitude shifting towards science learning. journal of science education and technology, 18(6), 476-486. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-009-9164-4 kant, i. (2016). the critique of practical reason (i. rahmti, trans.). tehran, iran: sophia publication. klitzman, r. (2013). how irbs view and make decisions about coercion and undue influence. journal of medical ethics, 39(4), 224-229. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2011-100439 kohlberg, l. (1984). the psychology of moral development: the nature and validity of moral stages (vol. 2). new york, united states: harper & row. lee, a. (2014). legal coercion, respect & reason-responsive agency. ethical theory and moral practice, 17(5), 847-859. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-013 9486-4 mill, j. s. (2001). on liberty. kitchener, canada: batoche books. morrow, g. r. (1953). plato's conception of persuasion. the philosophical review, 62(2), 234-250. doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2182794 muntazirī, h. a. (1988). dirāsāt fī fiqh al-dulah al-islāmīyyah. qum, iran: nashri tafakkur. nawas, j. (2006). law and education in medieval islam: studies in memory of george makdisi. comparative education review, 50(3), 535-538. doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/506630 oesterdiekhoff, g. w. (2013). relevance of piagetian cross-cultural psychology to the humanities and social sciences. the american journal of psychology, 126(4), 477-492. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.126.4.0477 oveisi, s., eftekhare ardabili, h., majdzadeh, r., mohammadkhani, p., alaqband rad, j., & loo, j. (2010). mothers’ attitudes toward corporal punishment of children in qazvin-iran. journal of family violence, 25(2), 159-164. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-009-9279-7 ozoliņš, j. j. t. (2015). reclaiming paedeia in an age of crises: education and the necessity of wisdom. educational philosophy & theory, 47(9), 870-882. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2015.1035154 popper, k. (2018). open society and its enemies (i. a. f. wand, trans.). tehran, iran: khārazmī publisher. saada, n., & gross, z. (2017). islamic education and the challenge of democratic citizenship: a critical perspective. discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 38(6), 807-822. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2016.1191011 shehzadi, s., nisar, q. a., hussain, m. s., basheer, m. f., hameed, w. u., & chaudhry, n. i. (2020). the role of digital learning toward students' satisfaction and university brand image at educational institutes of pakistan: a post-effect of covid-19. asian education and development studies. stewart, d. (2008). the students' representative in the law colleges of 14th-century damascus. islamic law and society, 15(2), 185-218. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/156851908x290583 tan., c. (2014). rationality and autonomy from the enlightenment and islamic perspectives. journal of beliefs & values, 35(3), 327-339. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2014.980119 taylor, r. s. (2005). kantian personal autonomy. political theory, 33(5), 602-628. doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30038446 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2011-100439 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2011-100439 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182794 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182794 http://www.jstor.org/stable/30038446 http://www.jstor.org/stable/30038446 http://www.jstor.org/stable/30038446 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 276-286 (2020), https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ p a g e | 286 white, j. (1984). compulsion and the curriculum. british journal of educational studies, 32(2), 148-157. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3121104 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi. no. 1 7 .. editorial it is with great pleasure that we present the first issue of the forty-sixth volume of the hamdard islamicus for the year 2023. this issue features a collection of insightful and thought-provoking articles on a wide range of topics related to islamic theology, history, governance, and science produced by a group of researchers from different countries around the world. the articles are arranged in a coherent structure, beginning with a historical perspective on the legal status of religious minorities in islam, followed by an examination of the ideas of prominent islamic scholars, a scientific analysis of islamic teachings, and concluding with a contemporary analysis of islamic governance. each article contributes unique insights and analysis to their respective fields of islamic studies. our aim with this issue is to provide our readers with a comprehensive understanding of these important concepts. the five articles included in this issue, along with their summaries are as follows: first article the legal status of religious minorities in islam: a historical perspective offers a historical overview of the legal status of religious minorities in islamic societies. the article examines the treatment of non-muslims in islamic societies, including the rights and protections they were granted under islamic law. it highlights the importance of understanding the historical context of islamic societies and legal systems to properly understand the current status of religious minorities in the muslim world. the second article al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in the eyes of contemporary indonesian muslim intellectuals analyses the contributions of one of the most prominent islamic thinkers i.e. alghazali, in history of islamic intellectual tradition, and analyses how contemporary indonesian muslim intellectuals perceive his ideas. the author’s research provides a fresh perspective on the continued relevance of al-ghazali's ideas in the modern world and how they can inform our understanding of contemporary issues facing the muslim world. the third article sayyid mawdudi’s approach to biblical reports: an analysis analyses the approach of the prominent islamic scholar sayyid mawdudi to biblical reports. it critically analyses mawdudi’s work, in 8 editorial .. his tafsêr (tafhêm al-qurén), in the context of biblical reports and how to deal with the similarities and differences between islamic and biblical narratives. it offers insights into the relationship between these two major world religions. the fourth article the holy qur’én’s five plants resemble five sensory receptors in the microscopic appearance: an analysis offers a scientific analysis of the microscopic appearance of plants mentioned in the holy qur’én. it examines the resemblance between the five plants and five sensory receptors in the human body, highlighting the significance of the quranic references to the human senses. the article provides a unique perspective on the scientific accuracy of quranic verses. the fifth article execution strategies of islamic governance: the case of türkiye (2010-2020) examines the execution strategies of islamic governance in türkiye between the years 2010 and 2020. the article provides valuable insight into the political and social context of contemporary türkiye and the strategies employed by the government to promote islamic governance. it further highlights the implications of these strategies for democracy, civil society, and political stability in türkiye. to conclude, this issue of hamdard islamicus provides a comprehensive and diverse examination of various aspects of islam. the articles provide a unique perspective on contemporary issues faced by the muslim world and contribute to the broader discourse on islamic thought and practice. we trust that these articles will contribute to ongoing discussions and encourage further research in these important domains. lastly, we appreciate and would like to thank all the authors who chose hamdard islamicus for their scholarly work. we value feedback from our readers and eagerly anticipate future opportunities to investigate crucial topics within the field of islamic studies. dr. shabeer khan editor c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd allah is the light of the heavens and the earth hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam vol. xlv october-december 2022 no. 4 editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid advisory board prof. abdur raheem kidwai professor, department of english, director, k.a. nizami centre for qur’anic studies, aligarh muslim university aligarh, india prof. seyyed hossein nasr professor, islamic studies, the george washington university, gelman library 712, washington, d.c. 20052, u.s.a. prof. dr. anis ahmad vice chancellor, riphah international university, hajj complex road, sector i-14, islamabad,pakistan. prof. dr. a.h. johns professor emeritus, the australian national university honorary professor, the australian catholic university, australia dr. farrukh habib co-founder and managing director, alif technologies, dubai, united arab emirates. prof. dr. abdul azim islahi institute of qur’anic sciences (iqsc), aligarh 202002, india. editorial board dr. gulnaz naeem associate professor, benazir bhutto shaheed university lyari, karachi, pakistan. dr. syed naeem badshah bukhari chairman, department of islamic studies, university of agriculture peshawar, pakistan. dr. irum saba associate professor, institute of business administration, karachi, pakistan. dr. salman ahmed shaikh assistant professor, shaheed zulfiqar ali bhutto institute of science and technology, karachi, pakistan. dr. aziz-ur-rehman saifee assistant professor, department of arabic, faculty of islamic studies, university of karachi, karachi, pakistan. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 . .. editorial team editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid editor dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt managing editor dr. shabeer khan assistant editor mr. kaleem chaghtai assistant editor ms. sadia ikram assistant editor web mr. sheikh adnan ahmed usmani price inland foreign foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/ payment should be made in the name of hamdard foundation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan pak. rs. us $ annual single copy 950/ 250/ 120/ 35/ … published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, p.e.c.h.s. block 2, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] for correspondence editor hamdard islamicus hamdard foundation pakistan head office, 16th floor bahria town tower, tariq road, pechs block-2, karachi, pakistan url: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk e-mail: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk tel: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) 2 ... information for contributors • manuscripts must be composed in ms word format and typed double spaced with at least one-inch margin on all sides of a4 size and to be sent through ojs at journal’s official website. • manuscripts may preferably comprise 6000 to 7000 words. however, as per the importance of issue discussed in the article and its fine presentation, some relaxation may be acquired. • notes and references should follow the chicago manual of style 17th edition (end notes only) i.e. to be marked serially and placed at the end of the manuscript. • authors are requested to quote the english translation of the holy quranic verses from the editions of only mufti muhammad taqi usmani. • authors are requested to provide their c.v. mentioning their designation, permanent and present postal addresses along with their cell/whatsapp numbers and e-mail addresses. • all correspondence regarding the manuscript will be directed to the corresponding author. • ensure the submission is as requested by the journal and contains all relevant sections. see authors’ guideline available on journal’s official website. • non-native english speakers are encouraged to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission. this is particular key for resubmission. • hamdard islamicus does not charge from its authors for publication of their articles in the journal. … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan. vol. xlv october-december 2022 no.4 contents * editorial * religious education system and religious education in schools of kyrgyzstan — recai dogan — zhazgul zholalieva * alija izetbegović ‘s contributions to socio-political — lejla delagic — dr. thameem ushama * the role of technological, organizational and environmental factors in the adoption of halal warehousing — dr. ameenullah aman — ali hasnain — dr. waqar ahmed * expansion of maqésid thought beyond maqésid al-shariah: maqésid al-qurén as a new paradigm — tazul islam * hijrah and its application in classical and contemporary muslim contexts — dr. khalil ahmad — dr. fareed malik the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 9 7 29 53 79 97 objectives hamdard islamicus is an academic journal devoted to islamic research and scholarship. it serves as a forum for scholars to write objectively, analytically and, wherever necessary, critically on islamic history, philosophy, science, art, culture, archaeology, law and jurisprudence. it brings out the achievements of muslims in the fields of humanities, social and natural sciences. it aims at defining islam in terms of its fundamentals in a rational and liberal manner emphasizing, at the same time, the basic islamic ideals of universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice. it aims at interpreting the teachings of islam in such a way as to bring out its dynamic character in the context of the intellectual and scientific progress of the modern world. it provides an open forum for a dialogue among the fundamentalist, conservative and the modernist schools of thought among the muslims aiming at finding a balanced view. it endeavours, through dialogue, to find islamic answers to the questions relating to the social, political, economic and moral problems of the fast and drastically changing world of today. it transmits through english translations the speeches, learned papers and discourses expressed in urdu by highly qualified traditional scholars, the ‘ulema’, and, in this way, it communicates valuable material, otherwise inaccessible, to the non-urdu readers. it endeavours to promote better understanding between the islamic world and the west. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 indexing and abstracting bodies madinat al-hikmah city of education, science and culture shaheed hakim mohammed said (1920-1998), a scion of the renowned south asian hamdard family, decided in 1948 to make the newly created pakistan his home. he settled down in karachi and by untiring, single minded devotion and commitment, braving all handicaps, created hamdard pakistan. he developed it into the leading pharmaceutical complex of eastern medicine in the country, run on the latest modern lines and techniques, supplying drugs of high quality and purity, backed with free clinical consultations to help ailing humanity. hamdard pakistan, under his leadership, also emerged as the leading philanthropic organization, and also tried to motivate people through dialogue, conferences, and journals like the hamdard medicus. in addition, he provided help to various institutions and academic bodies. he was restless to do more, and during one of his ×ajj pilgrimages, he envisioned the creation of a comprehensive city of education, science and culture: the madinat al-hikmah. work on it was initiated and funded by the hamdard foundation pakistan in 1981, in the picturesque surroundings of bund murad khan, 35 kilometers away from the city centre. today it is a beehive of activity, with children and youth engaged in academic, technical and sports activities, devoted to promoting learning and culture, and through it, help achieve moral and physical welfare, peace and progress. the bait al-hikmah library, hamdard public school, free hamdard village school, centre for horticulture and the hamdard university are the major institutions found here. the hamdard university’s mission provides value-based education to all students in its constituent institutions. its prestigious institutions – some based at the main campus and some in the city and some in islamabad include hamdard institute of management sciences (hims), hamdard college of medicine and dentistry (hcmd), hamdard al-majeed college of eastern medicine (hacem), shifa ul-mulk memorial hospital, naimat begum hamdard university hospital , hamdard university hospital – taj medical complex, hamdard institute of education and social sciences (hiess), dr hafiz mohammad ilyas institute of pharmacology and herbal sciences (hmiiphs), hamdard school of law, faculty of pharmacy and faculty of engineering sciences and technology (fest). madinat al-hikmah continues to develop and grow. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 29 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions to socio-political and religious thought lejla delagic department of usul al-din and comparative religion, international islamic university, malaysia lejla.delagic@live.iium.edu.myemail: dr. thameem ushama corresponding author, department of usul al din and comparative religion and istac, international islamic university malaysia. mythameem@iium.edu.email: received on: 28-05-22 accepted on: 12-09-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.501 abstract this paper explores the socio-political and religious thoughts of alija izetbegović, a bosnian intellectual-turned-politician and one of the islamic thinkers in ex-yugoslavia in the 20th century. it applies descriptive and analytical methods to examine the contributions of izetbegović in the socio-historical context, with particular reference to the young muslims movement. it studies the tribulations he endured due to persecution by the communist yugoslav authorities. izetbegović's thought is a response to a twofold equally negative influence on muslim intellectuals and leaders of the time – the traditionalists whose emphasis on rituals obstructed the reform and the modernists who blindly followed what izetbegović considered un-islamic sources. as a solution, izetbegović advocated attaining personal freedom through education and establishing closer ties among muslim countries from indonesia to morocco. keywords: renewal, islamic order, young muslims movement, socialist yugoslavia, post-communist yugoslavia, pan-islamism mailto:lejla.delagic@live.iium.edu.my mailto:thameem@iium.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.501 30 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… 1. introduction alija izetbegović (henceforth, izetbegović) was one of the islamic thinkers in the balkans in the 20th century and one of the few muslim leaders who came to be known as an acclaimed intellectual. his intellectual engagement can be understood through the movement of the young muslims, whose ideas represented a moral awakening of islamic thought in bosnia and herzegovina. “this awakening sought to articulate islam as a living faith that could translate the social ideals of equality and justice into reality. the young muslims movement distanced itself equally from fascism and communism, while it did not share with the traditional ‘ulamā their view of islam as largely confined to rituals, or a religion primarily understood in terms of worship."1 his political engagement is understood through the islamic declaration, whose opening sentence is: “our goal: the islamization of muslims.”2 the islamic declaration is a call for change, a call to exit from passivity and hibernation, and a call for renewal and betterment of muslims. 3 in the introduction to the islamic declaration, izetbegović explains the situation of muslims. he emphasized that the muslim world is in stagnation, passivity, dependence, backwardness, and poverty. only islamic thought can propel muslims to this renewal, inspiring them to source the energy and self-discipline necessary for achieving this goal.4 the path that leads to this goal is “the generating of islam in all areas of personal individual life, in the family and the society, through the renewal of islamic religious thought and the creation of a united islamic community from morocco to indonesia.”5 he argued that the islamic world cannot be renewed without islam because the purport of islam about the existence of man and his place and purpose and his relations with god and fellow men constitutes a permanent and irreplaceable basis for the renewal of muslims in the ethical, philosophical, ideological and political sense. thus, he proposed a solution to the renewal: “the alternative is stark: either a move towards islamic renewal or passivity and stagnation. for the muslim peoples, there is no third possibility.”6 izetbegović held that islamic renewal is misunderstood by those who do not want change, those he called conservatives, and by those who want to make those changes but by modelling it on western patterns and that both had misunderstand the essence of islam. the former encapsulates islam in the framework of theology and mysticism, closing it concerning science, while the latter, modernists, due to their vague idea about islam and admiration of hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 31 everything that the west created and everything modern, believe that the destruction of traditional values and introduction of other ‘modern’ values and beliefs will lead to progress and that they would become as technologically advanced as the western world.7 izetbegović was born on august 8, 1925, in bosanski šamac in an aristocratic family, which migrated from belgrade to bosanski šamac in 1868. his father, mustafa, had five children with alija's mother, hiba, and two children from his first marriage. they moved to sarajevo when alija was two years old.8 although his mother was a pious woman, he got a secular education. he attended the first male gymnasium in sarajevo, a communist school. in the gymnasium, alija received brochures that propagated communism. the doubts these brochures caused were overcome after two years of contemplation, and he returned to faith with new power.9 he studied german philosophers hegel and kant during this period, which influenced his intellectual development. 10 izetbegović continued schooling much later because of his engagement in the young muslims and subsequent arrest. initially, he enrolled in agronomy but switched to law and graduated in 1956.11 during communist yugoslavia, he worked as a legal adviser, although he was twice jailed and convicted. he was one of the founders of the democratic action party (sda). in 1990, he became its first president. he was elected the first president of the republic of bosnia and herzegovina. in 2000, he withdrew from politics. he died on october 19, 2003, and was buried in sarajevo.12 2. background izetbegović’s works attest to a scholarly investigation into his intellectual output. izetbegović’s works were published in bosnian and, after translations into various languages, were marked by dynamic self-assertion of muslim intellectuals’ ideas regarding muslims in the post-colonial world. it was marked by establishing of regional and international muslim organisations, institutions of higher learning, and cultural and financial institutions that aspired to address muslims’ needs. since izetbegović had his works published in communist yugoslavia, critics competed with one another with scathing criticism. most studies of izetbegovic’s thought dealt with political aspects without an attempt to look into other aspects of izetbegović’s works objectively. this was true for serbian orientalists darko tanasković and miroljub jevtić, who misrepresented izetbegović’s call for muslim awakening labelling it ‘islamic fundamentalism,’ ‘radical islam’ and terrorism, warning serbs and christian europeans 32 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… of atrocities that bosniaks were about to commit on the eve of the war in bosnia 1992-1995.13 in addition, tanasković served as a highranking official of slobodan milosević’s regime. this regime, including milosević himself, was indicted for war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and other crimes perpetrated against bosnian and albanian muslims. miroljub jevtić was a noncommissioned officer of the yugoslav people’s army, whose officers of serb ethnicity have been proven to have committed genocide against bosnian muslims. hence, the attempt to incriminate izetbegović, as is the case with these two serbian ‘experts’ on islam, was done by individuals who served the regime directly, and were involved in numerous crimes against muslims in the balkans. 3. the objectives the study presents izetbegović’s understanding of sociopolitical and religious principles. regarding izetbegović’s political socio-thought, an objective is to determine the factors that influenced his ideas, starting from the kingdom of yugoslavia and world war ii and the problems created for muslim organisations. moreover, establishing which intellectual currents within islamic and western thought have shaped the ideas of young izetbegović is another objective. the establishment of communist yugoslavia and the state’s restrictions on freedom of expression and religious institutions presented a new set of challenges; thus, finding how these circumstances affected izetbegović’s writings is a fundamental goal. finally, another topic of investigation is whether izetbegović could implement his recommendations when he became the president of bosnia and herzegovina and how his ideas shaped him as a head of state. 4. the methodology the investigative tool that has been employed is analytical and descriptive, through readings of izetbegović’s works, monographs, articles, letters, interviews and speeches. bearing in mind that izetbegović’s works have a multidisciplinary discursive character yet remain loyal to the main focus of this paper on sociopolitical and religious themes. moreover, to establish a systematic interrelationship between izetbegović’s ideas, there is a need to use cross-referencing and synthesis as methods. since izetbegović positions islamic thought is a synthesis between eastern and western thought, christian and modern materialist ethics and reasoning, and arts and sciences, a comparative method has been applied to present the findings. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 33 5. literature review most academic writing on izetbegović focuses on his sociopolitical thought in the balkans and his imprisonment in yugoslavia. izetbegović’s religious ideas are much less treated, perhaps because he did not have formal islamic education and did not refer to the works of islamic scholars, his contemporaries, or those from earlier generations. below are the most relevant works on the impact of izetbegović’s socio-political and religious ideas. in the absence of a detailed intellectual biography, until recently – any biography of izetbegović, one of the most prolific living islamic scholars from bosnia, enes karić, in his article titled izetbegović (1925-2003) attempted to fill the gap of izetbegović’s intellectual biography and contributions to contemporary sociopolitical thought. in addition, karić offers insights into how izetbegović’s ideas influenced his practice as a high-ranking political leader and head of state. mustafa imamović’s historija bošnjaka14 is another source for the life of izetbegovic. this work of historical circumstances, particularly its part about the 20th-century history of the bosniaks, provides a background of the challenges and the socio-political context in which izetbegović lived. the biographical work of zehrudin isaković offers additional reference to the life and work of izetbegović, especially his contributions to socio-political ideas for reforming bosnian muslims and their political and religious rights. muhammad al-ghazali’s “islam between east and west: the ‘magnum opus’ of alija izetbegovic”15 is another work dealing with izetbegović’s thoughts. focusing on one of the works, the authors examine the central theses by izetbegović and delve into the possibility of their application in contemporary muslim societies. although this paper refers to primary sources of izetbegović, the above-reviewed works have served as references to izetbegović’s biography and intellectual contributions to the ideas of muslims in bosnia and worldwide. 6. political thought izetbegović was born during the kingdom of yugoslavia when muslims were exposed to various forms of violence and persecution. village communes were burned down, private property appropriated, and muslims were killed, which resulted in a mass exodus to turkey.16 the only resistance was the establishment of 34 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… democratic parties, the most prominent of which was the yugoslav muslim organization, led by mehmed spaho, who became a minister in the government of the kingdom of yugoslavia, which was to ensure protection against persecution and provide material support to religious institutions and compensation for confiscated properties. nevertheless, the situation was chaotic and subject to the ruling elite’s arbitrariness and wantonness.17 until 1924, the islamic community was symbolically under the authority of turkish khilafat and sheikh ul-islām from istanbul, when ataturk abolished khilafat and turkey ceased to interfere in the appointment of reis ulema in the kingdom of yugoslavia.18 this caused polarisation between those attracted by ataturk’s reform and secular modernism, who in 1928 founded the organisation of allegedly progressive ideas, called the reform – an organisation of progressive muslims, and the traditionalists who opposed these reforms. the reformists brought religious upbringing into harmony with the spirit of the time, the unveiling of the muslim woman and her emancipation, and the national awareness of the muslim bosniaks. part of ulamā, led by reis čaušević seized these reformist ideas. 19 this was the beginning of the division of muslim intellectuals into ‘modernists’ and ‘traditionalists’, or as izetbegović later called them, ‘conservatives’, and changes that would follow after the breakup of the kingdom of yugoslavia. one change was the disintegration of the kingdom and the arrival of the communists, whereby sharīʿah courts that dealt with personal issues and family law of the yugoslav muslims ceased to exist. 20 this period marked the last phase of applying the sharīʿah. in 1943, izetbegović enlisted in military service. he did not want to join the muslim militia the communist partisans or the fascist collaborators, so he fled to his native sava valley region and remained there hiding, until the war’s end. 21 during this war, muslims were persecuted by the ustashas members of the independent state of croatia affiliated with the axis powers and from the chetnik movement, the serb collaborators of the fascists.22 many documents testify to the genocide of muslims during world war ii.23 the young muslims movement did not collaborate with the occupier or the partisans during the war. they were a small group and advocated for their rights, "their point of view was islam as the third way."24 their commitment to the muslims’ rights and understanding of islam and islamic society attracted izetbegović. 25 izetbegović developed these ideas in the islamic declaration and islam between the east and the west. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 35 his first contact with the young muslims was in 1940, although he formally joined it in 1943.26 initially, they were a small group of students who discussed muslims’ socio-cultural position. the attitudes were divided into two currents. the first was ideologically determined (islamic) without interest in politics. the second was practically national (bosnian), interested in the political position in bosnia and issues of autonomy. the idea of educating the youth in the islamic spirit brought both currents together for joint action, and the “founding assembly” was held in march 1941. 27 however, the occupation stopped legalising the organisation.28 the young muslims movement dealt with the modern muslim world’s religious and political issues by modernising islamic thought. 29 their views on religion differed from what they had learned in maktabs and schools. the hojjas interpretation of islam was based on rituals, neglecting its essence, while young muslims believed that islam is a thought that could be modernised without losing its essence.30 they took islam as a political and ideological platform.31 as izetbegović explains; islam is a synthesis, a “third way” between the opposite options.32 observing the world through three worldviews – religious, materialistic and islamicizetbegović notes emotional, ideological and political polarisation. however, one part is not affected by this polarization; the muslim countries. in today’s polarised world, islam should assume its role as a ‘mediating nation’; in this, he sees the meaning of the ‘third way’. 33 he believes that such duality is projected in human life, and these contrasts are reconciling in man and islam: “islam is synthesis, “third way” “between these two poles that mark everything that is human.” 34 islam, as understood by izetbegović, was the “third way” in polarised yugoslavia, the “third way” of duality or polarisation projected by communism and capitalism on the one side representing a materialistic worldview and christianity and judaism on the other side representing religious worldview. islam was the “third way” to reconcile these two poles as a third global worldview – the islamic worldview. soon after occupation, the movement joined the imam’s association called el-hidaja to ensure space for meetings and protection from ustashas; however, the association, over time, showed tendencies to control the work of the young muslims who discussed themes such as “ ‘liberating islam from theology?’ then ‘islam as a doctrine’, ‘pure and degraded islam’, ‘there is no clergy in islam’, ‘contradictions between islam and muslims’, ‘has islam succeeded’ ”35 etc. as a protest against the domination of el-hidaja, izetbegović, along with a part of young muslims, assisted muslim muhajirun through the organisation merhamet rather than el-hidaja. 36 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… other parts continued to work with el-hidaja.36 he wrote articles for newspapers behar, biser and novi behar.37 izetbegović became less active because of the alliance with el-hidaja. he did not support this alliance because he criticised the imams, resetting their rigid interpretation of islam, which, according to him, “was to block its inward and outward development.” 38 in 1944, he resigned as a member of young muslims.39 after the war, young muslims and izetbegović continued with their activities.40 soon after the war, the communists arrested religious leaders who cooperated with the occupiers. 41 they forced muslims, especially religious leaders, to subordinate faith to the new society’s secular identity. in this process, many muslim intellectuals and religious persons were arrested.42 the communists tried by all means to disrupt the work of the young muslims. in march 1946, izetbegović was arrested together with other members. he was sentenced to three years and was among the most brutal prisoners and convicts on the death penalty, moved several times to other prisons and subjected to hard physical labour.43 after his release in 1949, he continued clandestine engagement in the young muslims movement. the activist who secretly associated him with hasan biber was arrested and sentenced to death even though he did not admit that izetbegović was again involved in its work.44 the communists continued with arrests and execution of the members of the young muslims. izetbegović noted how the society in yugoslavia hypocritically declared its commitment to social equality and justice. however, arguing about it was controversial. he dedicated himself to intellectual development and completed a law degree.45 in 1969, he wrote the first draft of the islamic declaration and published it in 1970. although focused on the socio-political situation, the islamic declaration was considered a threat to the socialist system because it called for the return of islam. it put him into trouble resulting in his arrest in 1983. he was accused of reviving islamic fundamentalism46 and supporting counter-revolutionary acts against the social order of the sfry.47 thus, he was imprisoned for 14 years.48 a few years later, his sentence was reduced. he was released in 1988. izetbegović comments: "it was the two thousand and seventy-fifth day of my imprisonment. the years "that locusts have eaten" are behind me.”49 islam between east and west was written in 1946, but after his arrest and conviction, his sister hid the manuscript, and izetbegović did not know about it and found it much later. he added new chapters to it, which were finally published in 1984 while serving hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 37 his sentence. in this book, alija tried to explore the place of islam in today’s world of ideas and facts. to him, it seemed to be somewhere between eastern and western thought. he wanted to prove “that some main and global ideas and values are common to all people.”50 while in prison, he wrote memoirs, letters and statements.51 after the collapse of communism, izetbegović got an opportunity to implement his ideas. first, through the party’s political program, he was one of the founders, and then as the president of the republic of bosnia and herzegovina. soon after his release, he and fourteen other prominent intellectuals founded the party of democratic action in 1990. the party gained the highest votes in the first elections in post-communist bosnia in november 1990. the majority of the votes came from the bosniac muslim majority. from 1990 to 2000, he held the highest executive posts, being either the president or a member of the presidency. izetbegović remained the president of the sda until 2001 and honorary president until his death in october 2003.52 the spread of serbian nationalism incited by slobodan milošević in 1987, as a domino effect, caused the emergence of ethnonational parties in 1990 in other republics of yugoslavia. the newly elected authorities seized on the new opportunities of a multiparty system, and soon the yugoslav federation collapsed. this awakening of national consciousness culminated in the war in croatia and later in bosnia and herzegovina.53 the horrors of this genocidal war cannot be described briefly. izetbegović fought to preserve bosnia within yugoslavia until the last moment,54 emphasising that bosnia and herzegovina’s independence was imposed on them. he said that when yugoslavia began to disintegrate, there was no third choice: to remain in an incomplete yugoslavia dominated by serbia and montenegro or to demand independence for bosnia. 55 bosnia did not work on the breakdown of yugoslavia, instead tried to preserve yugoslavia but with some reconstructions. izetbegović said: it appeared that yugoslavia could not have been saved since she could not solve two main problems. namely, she could not solve problems of freedom, could not give up the communist legacy and others, could not give up hegemony, serb hegemony. those were two diseases eating yugoslavia; because of this, she disappeared from the historical stage. … it was in our interest to preserve that country, of course, not under any conditions, but under conditions that would ensure freedom and equality of people. unfortunately, every mention of equality was an offence for serbs. that did not 38 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… succeed, and when something in history is over, there is nothing to grieve for.56 izetbegović believed in the democratic state of yugoslavia. he knew this required forming democratic parties, and bosnia and herzegovina needed a pro-bosnian and pro-muslim political organisation. he thought about building this organisation based on jmo. however, considering that this organisation fell apart with the war in yugoslavia in 1941, he decided to build a party different from jmo in terms of ability to withstand temptations,57 although, as he commented, that sda could be considered as a continuation of jmo in terms of the goals it advocates.58 the idea of creating a political party dates back to his prison days. his vision was a muslim party gathering all muslim people in yugoslavia.59 following the referendum on february 29 and march 1 of 1992, and the proclaimed independence of bosnia being supported by 99% of the votes,60 the joy was short-lived, and the war broke out soon afterwards. izetbegović recorded that he tried to save bosnia and peace at all costs, but he wondered if this was possible, only to realise shortly afterwards that it was not. the time was coming to choose between the two. the war began in april 1992. at that time, izetbegović was 67, facing new challenges; though he was unaware of this, it turned out to be the most turbulent period of his life.61 izetbegović had a challenging task: to create something from nothing, extract the maximum possible from the limited possibilities, and to prevent the killings and the terrible suffering of the innocent people of bosnia. during the war, he endured tremendous pressure to agree to partition of bosnia into mini-ethnic states. thus, when the opportunity to preserve the country in its historical borders was presented as the dayton accord, he seized it and signed the agreement that ended the war, ensuring bosnia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.62 after gaining independence for bosnia and herzegovina, izetbegović established ties with muslim countries. this was the solidarity of the islamic world with the state of the muslims in the war in bosnia and herzegovina, which resulted in significant financial assistance for the country’s defence.63 an example of such a visit to the muslim world was izetbegović’s trip to jeddah to attend an extraordinary meeting of oic in december 1992, where a resolution adopted was sent to the un to demand the lifting of the embargo on arms imports to bosnia and herzegovina.64 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 39 since the disintegration of yugoslavia in 1990, and later during the war, izetbegović was accused countless times that he is trying to create an islamic state. he denied this accusation in many interviews, explaining that bosnia and herzegovina is a state of all citizens and that he would never opt for an islamic order. although his islamic declaration calls on the creation of an islamic state, he believed that for bosnia and herzegovina, that was not possible: ... our party stands for the creation of a civil republic. nothing can unite us better than a civil republic because we cannot make a nation-state out of bosnia. let serbia and croatia go for creating such states; we do not have the conditions for that. we only can realize the ideal of a civil republic or a civil war! islamic order is not possible!65 i will say one more time that bosnia is not only muslim and that all those who think so among muslims are undermining bosnia. in velika kladuša, i pointed out that we do not want the islamic republic of bosnia and herzegovina but the civil republic of bosnia and herzegovina.66 although muslims are the majority of the people of the republic, there is not enough for what could be called the growth of “quality in quality.” that “arthritic" mass would be somewhere around seventy percent. moreover, muslims in bih make up just over half of the population. 67 we refuse it and still insist on a civil republic, and we know why we do it. instead of an islamic republic, we seek complete religious freedom for all, equally for muslims, christians and others.68 there was no place or time for an islamic revolution in this war. thus, izetbegović was well aware of the actual situation and could not create an islamic republic of bosnia and herzegovina, notwithstanding his ideas in the islamic declaration. although he could not implement the islamic order in his own country, his contribution to islamizing muslims has significance for the muslim world. izetbegović considered that the islamic order represented the unity of faith and socio-political system and that islamic revival could not begin without a religious revolution. however, a political revolution was necessary for its success, which meant that islamic revival required a moral and social change based on religious reconstruction following islamic principles and morality. the moral change he advocated required an internal cleansing of the corruption of nature, superstition, hypocrisy, laziness, the external purging of corrupt authority and non-islamic customs, and the acceptance of fundamental islamic moral attitudes. it was, as he said; the "islamization" of people who were muslims by name.69 40 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… the general rule that izetbegović formulated was that “the islamic movement should and can start to take over power as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough to overturn not only the existing non-islamic government but also to build up a new islamic one.”70 he further emphasised that the movement with an islamic order for the primary goal must first be a moral movement. as such, religious renewal can implement the qur’ānic commands and prohibitions as entirely acceptable to islamic society and justice. however, this renewal was insufficient for realising the islamic order without the islamic government. however, the first step in its realisation was the fundamental change in upbringing leading to political change. from this, it can be seen that his renewal of islamic thought was impossible without a political revolution and overthrow, which gave a political tone to the islamization he advocated. izetbegović argued that although islamic principles that regulate relations between people and communities in islamic society were immutable, the way muslims organise society and government and conduct business was as varied as this world is subject to constant change.71 izetbegović often shed some light on muslim backwardness. on the occasion of the reception of the faisal award, izetbegović concluded the acceptance speech by posing four questions, which in his view, were closely related to the weakness of muslim countries. the first question was; why present-day muslims disrespected time? secondly, izetbegović asked; how our towns are dirty and polluted when islam concerns with the duty to keep the environment clean and unpolluted? third, he found it strange that muslim intellect and spirit have turned to mysticism and superstition despite the qur’énic injunctions to observe the world. finally, izetbegović questioned the issue of personality cults in the muslim world, which contradicted the central emphasis on tawíêd. izetbegović found it disturbing that despite clear precepts in the primary sources of islam on how muslims can improve their lives, the actions often run counter to the letter, which exacerbates the condition of muslims and their desire to administer the matters following fundamental teachings of islam. in izetbegović’s opinion, whoever answered these questions would solve the problems that beset muslim countries and communities.72 in the section called ‘political notes’ in his letters written while he was imprisoned, izetbegović compares the criminal law of communist yugoslavia to sharīʿah law. regarding criminal law and punishments, izetbegović draws on his prison experience and legal education and training to note that criminal law is drafted by bureaucrats, office-based lawyers who have neither knowledge nor hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 41 interest in getting to know the circumstances and attitudes of inmates who serve sentences for various crimes.73 izetbegović notes that most inmates serving sentences for shoplifting and thefts showed no remorse or repentance. the exception to this is some inmates serving sentences for homicide and murders. with this observation, izetbegović concludes that if he had ever been in charge of drafting a penal code, it would have been very similar to the islamic penal code, as, in his view, that would be closer to the dispensation of justice.74 nevertheless, these memoirs and the attendant ideas were temporary because when izetbegović was appointed into the highest office in bosnia and herzegovina, he did not even speculate on the possibility of drafting a law based on sharīʿah. therefore, as an intellectual and writer of books deemed seditious by the yugoslav communist authorities, izetbegović was more direct than his actions when he became head of state. 7. religious thought izetbegović is more a political activist than a religious scholar who felt the need for an islamic renewal. his religious thought is closely related to his political thought. his religious ideas are primarily pointing to islamic society based on islamic order. when bosnia gained independence in 1992, izetbegović, as the first president, opted for “a secular state, based on modern western democracy principles, where religion has its place in society on an equal footing; with other factors.” 75 although the underlying notion of the islamic declaration is the islamic world arranged by sharīʿah, izetbegović did not opt for such an arrangement when he became its president.76 izetbegović believed that bosnia was unique because of its different nationalities and religions. bosnia needed to balance these aspects and create its peace-keeping solutions alone.77 izetbegović sees islamic society as one of the basic assumptions of the islamic order, which he defines as “a unity of religion and law, upbringing and power, ideal and interest, the spiritual community and the state, willingness and force.”78islamic society is a muslim community that lives by islamic beliefs. it constitutes the content of the islamic order, and the second fundamental presumption is the islamic power which is its form.79 izetbegović emphasised that most laws in the west have not yielded positive results. he pointed out that it was necessary to renew islamic thought to create an islamic order in which the practical effect of the 42 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… islamic laws was accepted as just and implicit because if there is no firm faith, there is no implementation.80 islamic society, according to him, cannot be based solely on socio-economic interests. however, it must contain a religious, emotional aspect of belonging (i.e., jamaat as the primary cell of the islamic community). there should be no distinction between people on any other basis (i.e., socio-economic class and race), which does not include moral criteria because the qur’ān guarantees the equality of men.81 izetbegović believed that the functioning of the zakāt must be secured in every way, even by force, because the order of the zakāt, like an islamic principle, must be a compulsory part of the islamic order of today's islamic society. on the other hand, the ribā is contrary to islamic moral principles on which the islamic order is based.82 religious and moral education is the foundation of the islamic order. therefore, it must be represented at all levels, from family to formal education. an islamic society should prevent the impact of harmful, immoral and prohibited vices, such as alcoholism, prostitution, pornography, gambling and other forms of entertainment that conflict with islamic principles.83 education in islamic society, according to izetbegović, should include the proper knowledge and all the acquired scientific and technological knowledge, as islam has previously accepted and considered the knowledge of other civilisations. as such, education is “the second most decisive factor for the faster emancipation of the muslims world from its present inferior position,”84 and therefore, it requires radical changes, both qualitative and quantitative: the first is to relieve the school system of spiritual and material dependence on foreigners to serve the upbringing of muslims, and the second to create complete conditions of education at all levels. he suggested using the mosque as a school as a first step in this reform.85 furthermore, izetbegović pointed out that woman in islamic society played a vital role in achieving islamic renewal: today, islamic societies are beset by the identity crisis, ever trying to resolve endless troubles. in this struggle, there are wins and losses. however, to achieve more wins than losses, it is necessary that this struggle, alongside the muslim man, is also fought by the muslim woman with her hands, her heart and mind since muslim woman makes up half of the islamic world. the muslim woman will only be able to give birth to and raise a new generation and instil in this new generation faith in islam and the future if she had previously been taught and exposed to the same values. as much as the muslim hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 43 renewal does for the muslim woman, she will contribute the same or even more to that renewal.86 izetbegović believed that muslim woman was discriminated against due to adoption of unislamic belief systems and codes of conduct that were either ethnic or customary behaviour. he comments,“nothing will be more incorrect than to think that everything we can see in the islamic world is by itself the islamic way of life, i.e. the way of life that complies with the principle of the qur'én. this is even more relevant when we think of muslim women. even though shari‘ah is only one, the position of woman was rather different during the centuries, and today is very different in some countries from morocco through the middle east, to pakistan and indonesia.”87 therefore, izetbegović suggested that the position of women in muslim society must be changed; otherwise, she would not be able to bring the new muslim generations capable of leading muslims through islamic renewal.88 izetbegović argued that islam provided women equal rights, but not in the sense of the european understanding of it. woman in islam is equal to man regarding religious, ethical, moral and human duties.89 he pointed out that civilisation neglects motherhood while islam protects women by contributing to preserving the family, excluding all negative factors. however, he suggested that family and marriage law need to be re-examined to comply with present-day needs, especially regarding polygamy. 90 the recommendations for establishing the islamic order were meant for those countries where muslims are the majority. he said: the islamic order can only be established in countries where muslims represent most of the population. if this is not the case, the islamic order is reduced to more power (as the order element – an islamic society – is missing) and may turn to violence… muslim minorities within a non-islamic state, provided they are guaranteed freedom to practice their religion, live and develop normally, are loyal and must fulfil all their commitments to that community, except those that harm islam and muslims.91 for izetbegović, islam was not only a religion but also an order that regulates the lives of muslims in every aspect. islamic society and state must be based on unchangeable principles without ignoring science and technology in constant change. referring to verse 77 of sūrat al-qaṣaṣ, he explains that muslims must “willingly and in full awareness accept both these aspects of life as the human definition and meaning of his life on earth.” 92 the meaning of man’s 44 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… life is actualised through spiritual education and facilitating and improving life. it implies that a believer should not regulate his life only by faith and prayer but also by work and science.93 izetbegović argued that there is no coexistence between the islamic religion and non-islamic social and political institutions. he says, “by claiming the right to order its world itself, islam excludes the right or possibility of action on the part of any foreign ideology on that terrain. there is, therefore, no lay principle, and the state should both reflect and support religious, moral concepts.”94 he stated that islam opts for the best possible order and emphasises that, as such, “nothing which can make the world a better place may be rejected a priori as non-islamic”95 and that openness towards nature meant openness towards learning. izetbegović pointed out the connection between faith and science as the highest expression of the harmonised attitudes of morality and politics, spiritual and material.96 from this, it is evident that izetbegović attempted to show the relationships between islam and the west, which according to him, was inevitable given the scientific changes. regarding the unity of muslims, izetbegović said that “the tendency to gather together all muslims and muslim communities in the world was a natural function of the islamic order,” 97 which implied creating a unique islamic community from morocco to indonesia, from africa to central asia. he thought it natural for muslims to unite through various forms to solve common problems and create economic, social, cultural and political structures for joint action. moreover, the breakdown of the arab world into small state communities was entirely unacceptable, resulting in disagreement on many issues and, at times, working against each other. izetbegović emphasised that the unity of all muslims is founded in the qur’ān and that, despite this, the problem of disunity exists, and most of all, as a consequence of inadequately educated leaders and leaders who are mainly educated in the west. this has led to nationalism and disunity. in some muslim countries, the nationalist movements had even carried out the type of denationalisation because, as izetbegović notes, conflicts with the past and the traditions of the people, and because these nationalist ideas were nonislamic in content and origin,98 “pan-islamism has always sprung from the very heart of the muslim people, while nationalism has always been imported goods.” 99 today’s problems faced by the muslim world are challenging to solve individually. therefore, izetbegović emphasised the unification of all muslims to address these problems and find a way out from passivity and stagnation: “what the arabs, turks, persians or pakistanis cannot solve on their own, muslims can, in one, joint, coordinated effort.”100 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 45 izetbegović considered that division of people into those who believe and those who do not believe was superficial since this did not include a third group, which was undoubtedly numerous – those who declare as believers but do not belong to faith, although they pray and adhere to religious customs to some extent. as he says, the ones swayed by this-worldly joys and vices – in the complete absence of the fear of god and such an atmosphere raise their nest. according to izetbegović, the existence of this third group gives transparent insight into the typical appearance of so-called verbal or formal faith in the islamic world – with little genuine faith.101 he emphasised that “the coming revolution of the islamic world must be primarily a religious revolution. this revolution, having first taken place in the souls and hearts of people, is then able to make miracles and to achieve what today seems impossible.”102 izetbegović contended that islam’s approach to one thing was entirely new – “that of its demand for the conjunction of faith and knowledge, morals and politics, ideals and interest. by recognising the existence of two worlds, the natural and the interior, islam teaches that a man bridges the chasm between them” 103 what can be new is our approach to islam, our understanding of islam, and islam: its “approach” or its principles, tenets, and standpoints does not change. they are always the same, unchangeable. this new approach of islam which izetbegović claims to be reflected in demand for unity of faith and science, morality and politics, ideal and interest, is also not something new in islam: islam has always united these aspects and regulated relations between these aspects of man’s life, combining them into one moderate whole. emphasising that islam recognised the existence of two worlds: the physical and the spiritual, he pointed out a gap between these two worlds and that islam teaches that man represents the bridging of this dichotomy. however, there is no gap between these two worlds. only a gap in the human mind does not acknowledge or discern a physical and metaphysical existence. hence, the unity he refers to here is the unity of the human rational and spiritual aspect, which is essential for a muslim in the present world to function and progress in both religious and intellectual terms, to fully develop in a religious sense without neglecting or receiving science and its achievements, and on the other hand to develop and improve in the domain of science intellectually. izetbegović refered to the verses of the qur’ān without deeper analysis or recourse to any famous tafsêr. his reference point was muslim modernists and modern western philosophers. hence, whenever izetbegović uses qur’ānic verses or aíédêth to support his theses, it is not done with the precision and rigour of islamic theologians, jurists and traditional scholars. besides, izetbegović began his islam between east and west with a remark that he is not a 46 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… theologian or, to be more precise, that “islam between east and west is not a book of theology,”104 and his discourse does not follow any distinct islamic methodology. 8. external influence izetbegović's thought was influenced by philosophers and thinkers, such as kant, hegel, and even post-hegelians as marx the social philosopher he frequently criticises. 105 in appraising the philosophy of history and the causes of the rise and fall of civilisation, izetbegović is under the influence of spengler, whom he extensively quotes. izetbegović writes in memories: an autobiographical memoir, that between the ages of eighteen and nineteen, he read all significant works of european philosophy and bergson’s creative evolution, kant’s critique of pure reason and spengler’s twovolume decline of the west left a particular impact on him. 106 another source of izetbegović’s thought comes from russian and french literature, particularly when he critically examines the scientistic reductionism and materialism of the modern west and the way izetbegović compares or instead places islam in between the east, or religion, and the west or science and civilisation is roughly posed as the hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad. this hegelian influence is apparent in numerous sections of islam between east and west and notes from prison: 1983-1988.107 indeed, izetbegović does not precisely use this terminology as hegel did, but the set-up of premises and the manner of reasoning is strikingly similar. izetbegović’s focus on the external, socio-political aspect of the muslims rather than their inner dimension (knowledge, ethics, human nature, philosophy in general) reveals his adoption of some views of social philosophers, primarily american pragmatists and the marxist and existentialist thought, which is more evident by his frequent reference to authors such as jaspers, camus, russel, and marcuse.108 izetbegović had an unconventional writing style in several of his works, later published as his notes, especially in the notes written secretly in prison and published under the title notes from prison: 1983-1988. these works are written in a sketchy, note-taking manner that he was supposed to refine later, yet it was never done for some reason. furthermore, he held that, what he considers facts and ideas are mostly clustered under the idea of what he calls the theory of the third way. the mode of reasoning and arriving at conclusions, mainly through establishing the common ground between two opposing ideas, directly influences hegelian dialectics. however, how he chooses these opposing ideas across disciplines, from art and literature through philosophy, history and social sciences to natural sciences and religion, bears testimony to his erudition. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 47 there are dynamic realities of civilisation and history. there are also static realities of arts and religion. thus, islam is a synthesis of two antitheses or the third way between the two poles that mark everything related to human beings and our world.109 izetbegović notes that since he uses examples, allusions and figurative language, he was wary of the reaction to his work by the specialists, those who use 'pedantic analyses'. with the admission that his works are in many places incoherent, incomplete and unrefined, he reminds the reader that, in many instances, he resorts to the use of metaphors and that the way he uses islam, christianity and judaism is only intended to be metaphorical; thus readers should bear this in mind and avoid literalist approach to his works. izetbegović does not refer to classical islamic thinkers: most of his references are muslim scholars who lived a century and a half or two centuries since his writings were published, mainly from fazlur rahman’s spirit of islam. 110 he is influenced by hegel’s phenomenology of the spirit and how it evolves in history and society. although izetbegović does not state it, his notion of a dichotomy between the conservatives and the modernists does not seem to apply to many islamic classical scholars, philosophers, theologians and sufis. the muslim brotherhood has impacted izetbegović’s views on activism and the role of muslim associations. izetbegović advocated activism to establish political parties and participate in elections. towards the end of the 1970s, izetbegović once again drew on panislamism as it was elaborated by scholars such as muhammad iqbal and sayid qutb.111 9. contemporary islamic and political thought izetbegović's thought can be characterised as a contribution to contemporary islamic political thought. this is reflected in his ideas of renewal of islamic thought, establishing an islamic order in countries where muslims are the majority, and creating a unique islamic community from morocco to indonesia. izetbegović presented these ideas in the islamic declaration and suggested how they could be realised. some of them are related to the arrangement of a state where muslims are the majority, regulating the relationship of muslim communities towards the state and other religious communities, and some of the main principles of establishing the islamic order. moreover, other suggestions concern the tasks of the islamic order in education and the preservation of the family and the muslim woman, the recommendations for the minority muslim communities, the attitude of muslims towards the minorities and how to organise muslims within a state.112 izetbegović expounds more as a reformer of islamic societies and states.113 izetbegović was the first 48 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… thinker in the balkans who used the term ‘islamization’. he used the term around the same time as syed muhammad naquib al-attas. the political philosophy of izetbegović can best be understood from his memoirs, interviews and speeches, which reflect the political memory of this most influential political leader of bosnia and herzegovina in the 20th century.114 his contribution to political thought and practice is reflected in the formation of the sda, advocating for the national rights of muslim bosniaks, and his participation in establishing peace in bosnia and herzegovina. he was one of the founders of the sda in 1990, one of whose objectives was to preserve yugoslavia as a democratic community of nations and nationalities.115 izetbegović’s intellectual output as a leader of an influential political party and head of state has manifested in many directions. one of the contributions is the establishment of a state that will uphold the rule of law,116 a state that will uphold equality for all ethnic groups, where no one will be discriminated against based on their ethnicity, religion and political conviction,117 and a state where the leading muslim party sda will ensure no one ever endangers muslims and tries to perpetrate discrimination and crimes, particularly not the crime of genocide.118 izetbegović struggled for the national cause of muslims,119 which they did not have for decades.120 the program included not only bosnian muslims but also all muslims in former yugoslavia who, after the collapse of communism, were left in serbia and montenegro, particularly in sandžak. moreover, he advocated muslims’ cultural and historical autonomy in the sandžak. 121 he justified this by observing that muslims living in the sandžak have endured persecution and were forcefully dispersed through waves of migrations to turkey, bosnia, macedonia and other countries. 122 furthermore, he and his political party (sda) advocated reforming the education system to remove the ideological dogmas and prejudices from the period of communism. additionally, sda advocated making primary and secondary level education compulsory and accessible.123 the defence of bosnia and herzegovina is undoubtedly the most critical of izetbegović’s political and historical contributions. izetbegović managed to preserve bosnia's sovereignty despite pressures from croatia, montenegro, serbia, and the world. as the army’s supreme commander, izetbegović shaped bosnia and herzegovina’s defence strategy, fighting against aggression and genocide and commissioning war crimes against the enemy.124 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 49 10. conclusion the discussion above has highlighted izetbegovi’s contributions to advancing political and religious thought. it referred to several details from the introduction, highlighting key points. other contributions in various areas of life become apparent. the discussion is centred on izetbegovi’s perspective and contribution to modern islamic thinking. another standout of the report is his concern over the multileveled polarisation of the planet. it was also emphasised that izetbegovi’s theory that polarised ideological camps presents an extreme and compartmental view of the world and violently attempt to impose it on others, particularly those who adhere to the opposing ideology, was studied. izetbegovic’s idea of the necessity of pan-islamism his suggestion is as bluntly stated as most of his writings are presented reflects his belief that the construction of prosperity and freedom for every muslim country is, at the same time, the construction of personal freedom and welfare for each muslim country. the paper also focused on his religious ideas regarding the ummah's unity, equality, muslim women’s role, and their rights. how the western philosophers impacted his philosophy is also a crucial aspect of the paper. notes and references 1 enes karić, “alija izetbegović (1925-2003),” islamic studies 43, no. 1 (2004),181185. 2 alija izetbegovic, the islamic declaration (sarajevo: bosna, 1990), 3. 3 ibid. 4 ibid, 5-6. 5 ibid, 5. 6 ibid, 6-7. 7 ibid, 8-10. 8 zehrudin isaković, muzej alija izetbegović (1925-2003) biography (dostojanstvo ljudskog izbora, sarajevo: oko, 2005), 5. 9 ibid, 5-6. 10 ibid, 7. 11 ibid, 13. 12 alija (mustafe) izetbegović – biografija, accessed october 5, 2022, https://www.sdatuzla.ba?index.php?option=coom_content&view=article&id=137 13 norman cigar, "uloga srpskih orijentalista u opravdanju genocida nad muslimanima balkana: serbia's orientalists and islam: making genocide intellectually respectable", (sarajevo: institute for the research crimes against humanity and international law & bosnian cultural centre, 2000), 2953. 14 imamović mustafa, historija bošnjaka, drugo izdanje (sarajevo: bošnjačka zajednica kulture "preporod", 1998). https://www.sdatuzla.ba/?index.php?option=coom_content&view=article&id=137 50 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… 15 muhammad al-ghazali, “islam between east and west: the ‘magnum opus’ of alija izetbegovic,” islamic studies 36, no. 2/3 (1997). 16 imamović, historija, 490. 17 ibid, 498-499. 18 ina merdjanova, rediscovering the umma: muslims in the balkans between nationalism and transnationalism, (oxford: orford university press, 2013), 31. 19 imamović, historija, 521-523. 20 alija izetbegović, sjećanja: autobigrafski zapis (sarajevo: oko, 2005), 24; fikret karčić, studije o šerijatskom pravu i institucijama, (sarajevo: ic el-kalem izdavački centar rijaseta islamske zajednice u bosni i hercegovini & centar za napredne studije, 2011), 8. 21 isaković, muzej, 7. 22 čekić smail, genocid nad bošnjacima u drugom svjetskom ratu: dokumenti (sarajevo: mag udruženje muslimana za antigenocidne aktivnosti, 1996), 14. 23 ibid. 24 hakan arslanbenzer, “alija izetbegovic: philosopher king,” daily sabah, august 16, 2014, https://www.dailysabah.com/arts-culture/2014/08/16/alijaizetbegovic-philosopher-king. 25 karić, “alija,” 183. 26 fikret muslimović, “pokušaji osnivanja organizacije,”mladi muslimani” i progon alije izetbegovića” (sarajevo: fondacija alija izetbegović, 2021), 5. 27 ibid, 6. 28 ibid, 5. 29 isaković, muzej, 7. 30 izetbegović, sjećanja, 32-33. 31 karić, “alija,”183-184. 32 izetbegović, sjećanja, 42-43. 33 ibid, 21-22. 34 alija izetbegović, moj bijeg u slobodu: bilješke iz zatvora 1983-1988 (sarajevo: oko, 2005), 237. 35 muslimović, “pokušaji,” 9. 36 “intervju sa alijom izetbegovićem” u mladi muslimani (sarajevo: biblioteka ključanin, 1991), 57. 37 karić, “alija,” 184. 38 izetbegović, sjećanja, 33. 39 muslimović, “pokušaji,” 10. 40 izetbegović, sjećanja, 33. 41 perica, balkan idols (oxford: oxford university press, 2002), xxii. 42 šerbo rastoder, “vjerske zajednice jugoslavije 1918-2006,” yu historija, n.d., http://www.yuhistorija.com/serbian/kultura_religija_txt00.html. 43 izetbegović, sjećanja, 36-37. 44 isaković, muzej, 12. 45 ibid, 12-13 46 ibid, 15. 47 izetbegović, sjećanja, 57. 48 isaković, muzej, 26. 49 izetbegović, sjećanja, 71. 50 ibid, 42. 51 ibid, 61. 52 karić, “alija,”185-186. 53 perica, balkan idols, xxvi-xxvii. 54 “deset godina od smrti alije izetbegovića,” gračanački glasnik, časopis za kulturnu historiju, broj 36, godina xviii (novembar 2013), 7. 55 “alija izetbegović: ‘sam naš opstanak je naša pobjeda’ (odabrani citati),” gračanački glasnik, časopis za kulturnu historiju, broj 36, godina xviii (novembar 2013), 71-72. http://www.yuhistorija.com/serbian/kultura_religija_txt00.html http://www.yuhistorija.com/serbian/kultura_religija_txt00.html hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 51 56 alija izetbegović, rat i mir u bosni i hercegovini war and peace in bosnia and herzegovina (sarajevo: vijeće kongresa bošnjačkih intelektualaca, 1998), 34-35. 57 izetbegović, sjećanja, 76-77. 58 alija izetbegović, ja izdati ne znam, priredili fahrudin đapo i zehrudin isaković, 1. izd. (sarajevo: ljiljan, 1996), 14. 59 izetbegović, sjećanja, 77. 60 isaković, muzej, 59. 61 ibid, 59-60. 62 “deset godina,” 7-8. 63 isaković, muzej, 73. 64 ibid, 77-79. 65 “građanska republika ili građanski rat”, in ja izdati, 21. 66 “bosna neće ostati u krnjoj jugoslaviji”, in ja izdati, 26. 67 “mi smo ljudi a ne cvijeće“, in ja izdati, 13. 68 “vjerske slobode u građanskoj državi”, u ja izdati, 40. 69 izetbegovic, the islamic, 52. 70 ibid, 56. 71 ibid, 32. 72 alija izetbegović, govori, pisma, intervjui ’95 (sarajevo: “šahinpašić”, 1996), 25. 73 izetbegović, moj bijeg, 110. 74 ibid 75 isaković, muzej, 15-16. 76 ibid, 15. 77 izetbegović: ‘sam naš opstanak’, 72-73. 78 izetbegovic, the islamic, 26. 79 ibid, 26-27. 80 ibid, 28. 81 ibid, 33-34. 82 ibid, 38. 83 ibid, 40-41. 84 ibid, 41. 85 ibid, 41-42. 86 alija izetbegović, problemi islamskog preporoda: islamska deklaracija (sarajevo: oko, 2004), 48. 87 ibid, 36. 88 izetbegovic, the islamic, 47. 89 izetbegović, problemi, 39. 90 ibid, 47-48 91 izetbegović, the islamic, 49-50. 92 ibid, 29. 93 ibid, 29-30. 94 ibid, 30. 95 alija izetbegović, islamska deklaracija, (sarajevo: bosna, 1990), 26. 96 izetbegovic, the islamic, 30. 97 ibid, 60. 98 ibid, 60-64. 99 ibid, 67. 100 ibid. 101 izetbegović, problemi, 61-62 102 ibid, 62 103 izetbegovic, the islamic, 8-9. 104 alija izetbegovic, islam between east and west (oak brook: american trust publications, 1984), iii. 105 raymond william baker, one islam, many muslim worlds: spirituality, identity, and resistance across islamic lands (oxford: oxford university press, 2015), 124125. 106 izetbegović, sjećanja, 30. 52 alija izetbegović ‘s contributions… 107 see references in izetbegović, moj bijeg. 108 see references in izetbegovic, islam between east and west. 109 na marginama knjige islam između istoka i zapada“ in izetbegović, moj bijeg, 236-237. 110 see references in izetbegović, moj bijeg. 111 al-ghazali, “islam between,” 525-527. 112 izetbegovic, the islamic, 32-50. 113 isaković, muzej, 20. 114 karić, “alija”, 187. 115 “deset godina,“ 7. 116 “uz pomoć allaha, pobjedit ćemo neprijatelja”, in izetbegović, ja izdati, 79. 117 ibid, 72. 118 ibid, 77. 119 “oni što prave historiju ne vole da je pišu”, in izetbegović, ja izdati, 94. 120 izetbegović, sjećanja, 24-25. 121 “oni što prave”, in izetbegović, ja izdati, 94. 122 “bosna neće” in izetbegović, ja izdati, 26. 123 “oni što prave”, in izetbegović, ja izdati, 94. 124 “deset godina, ” 7. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 47 critical study of commodity murābaḥah practice of islamic banks from sharī ‘óh perspective hafsa abbasi allama iqbal open university islamabad, pakistan. email: hafsa.abbasi@aiou.edu.pk khadija aziz shaheed benazir bhutto women university, peshawar, pakistan. email: khadijaaziz@sbbwu.edu.pk received on: 03-01-22 accepted on: 23-12-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.706 abstract commodity murābaíah prevalent in islamic banks resembles tawarruq contract and murābaíah lil amir bi alshira. classical fiqh used to be a trust sale in which known profit was charged above the cost price. islamic banks use commodity murābaíah as a tool for managing interbank liquidity between the banks. there are mainly two methods to conclude it, i.e., finance giving and finance taking. for the sake of concluding this financing, metals are used as underlying commodities. it is reported that these metals never change hands or possessions. the same metals are sold as underlying commodities numerous times. the deposit based on these metals gives fixed returns to the financial institutions. islamic banks conclude these transactions with conventional banks most of the time. in 2020, the islamic development bank and dubai islamic bank decided to invest usd 500 million each in commodity murābaíah financing. the volume of such contracts has increased by more than usd 70 billion; till 2019, the total volume reached up to usd 2.88 trillion. there are reports of its increase of 12 % per annum. commodity murābaíah, a last variant of murābaíah to the purchase orderer, is doubted by many and needs thorough analysis from the perspective of sharê‘ah rulings. this research aims to analyze in detail the questions on the validity of commodity murābaíah. it employs a qualitative research method and analyses the commodity murābaíah from the perspective of islamic jurisprudence principles. the mailto:hafsa.abbasi@aiou.edu.pk mailto:khadijaaziz@sbbwu.edu.pk https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.706 48 critical study of commodity … findings of the article show some serious issues with this product. keywords: murābaíah, commodity-murābaíah, tawarruq, islamic banks 1. introduction islamic banking can be described as one of the fastestgrowing industries. many western countries are offering islamic banking services. most conventional banks have islamic banking windows. islamic banking has introduced several financing modes like murābaíah, sukëk, and muìérabah, ijérah etc. per islamic financial institutions’ opinion, products offered by them are sharī‘ah compliant. these modes or products need to be analyzed from the islamic law perspective. islamic banking started back in the 1940s.1 later in 1976, dr. sami hamoud recommended murābaíah to the islamic development bank and dubai islamic banks. initially, islamic banks introduced simple muḍārabah and two-tier muḍārabah.2 after almost two years, murābaíah to the purchase orderer was introduced,3 and the real business started. this transaction had such a huge impact on the islamic financial industry that it was termed the backbone of the islamic banking sector.4 it was estimated that almost 90 % or more5 of the finance of islamic banking was utilised in the transaction of murābaíah. murābaíah to the purchase orderer was the most popular product of the islamic banking sector. it accounted for trillions of dollars worldwide. this mode of finance is a mixture of different contracts. there are certain commodities that a customer purchases on behalf of the bank, then he purchases them from the bank on a deferred payment basis. in return, he keeps paying the installments of the money he has taken from the bank. later, these goods were replaced by metals provided by london metal exchange (lme). murābaíah to the purchase orderer, then transformed into commodity murābaíah. commodity murābaíah was introduced in the malaysian market as a treasury product. this product is a more advanced form of ordinary commodity murābaíah, as it uses crude palm oil so that sole reliance on london metal exchange (lme) can be avoided. 6 it was recorded that internationally commodity murābaíah industry has surpassed more than usd 1.2 trillion. it has dominated or overshadowed other modes of finance for the islamic liquidity management system.7 the methods used for completing this process are very doubtful. there are many question marks on implementation hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 49 procedures by banks. contract of commodity murābaíah is the most popular transaction of islamic banking sector, but it has invited much criticism and question marks on its implementation methods worldwide. it is a sale in islamic banking, derived from the tawarruq, murābaíah in the classical text refers to trust sale. this research explores the questions of the legal validity of commodity murābaíah in light of sharī‘ah and its current application in islamic banks. 2. literature review ahsan khan nyazee (2009), in his book entitled “murābahah and credit sale”8 critically examines various aspects of murābaíah financing. it thoroughly discusses the deep islamic legal problems in the murābaíah mode of financing and commodity murābaíah. the author focused on primary sources of islamic law, mainly imām alshāfi‘ī’’s text from kitéb-al-umm and text from badā’i‘ al-sanā’i‘ by imam kasani, etc. muhammad ayub (2009), in his book “understanding islamic finance”9 also covers the main areas of commodity murābaíah and its different avenues. he gives arguments in favor of this financing. natalie schoon (2009), in her book “islamic banking and finance” 10 wonderfully explains the internal mechanisms of commodity murābaíah with pictorial descriptions. mufti taqi usmani also wrote several books on islamic banking, in which he discussed different areas of murābaíah, like, “jadeed maeshat aur tijarat”, “islami bankari ki bunyadain” etc. another book titled “murawija islami bankari” by jamia al-ulum alislamia, banori town, is a great contribution to the enlightenment of different issues of islamic banking and murābaíah. in the whole book, islamic banking transactions, especially murābaíah are closely analysed from angles from sharê‘ah perspective. the book concludes that the murābaíah mode of finance is a strategy to give and take riba. it carries many doubtful elements. logical answers to this query were supposed to be included in the book at hand, but it is not within the author’s knowledge if they have been. current research is aimed at comparing the views of both sides and deriving a conclusion on the commodity murābaíah as its sharê‘ah analysis in detail is still not given because of its status as a new transaction. current research shall address issues in commodity murābaíah from a sharê‘ah perspective and will discuss its procedure in detail. heavy investment in this transaction requires thorough analysis. 50 critical study of commodity … 3. meaning and characteristics of murābaíah in classical text 3.1. classical murābaíah murābaíah in its literal sense is derived from the word ribḥ, which means profit. 11 it is a sale in which a seller must disclose the cost. the contract of murābaíah takes place at an agreed sum of profit. it is the sale of anything for the exact cost at which the seller purchased it plus an addition of a fixed sum of profit.12 bay‘ al murābaíah is defined as “the sale of goods for a stated cost and original price plus a stated profit that together form the murābaíah price. the profit must be stated with sufficient clarity so that the cost and profit are clearly determined.”13 badā’i‘ al-ṣanā’i‘ defines murābaíah as “sale for a price (exactly) similar to the first price along with an excess as profit”14. imam kāsānī, imam sarakhsī, and other jurists state the different characteristics of murābaíah sale mentioned above. like, if a person sells the commodity for a hundred pounds and charges ten pounds as profit over and above the original price. there is no harm in fixing the profit in percentages, i.e., 5 %., 10 % of the cost. that is why it is termed a trust sale (bay‘ al-’amānah) in which the buyer depends on the seller’s integrity15. thus it is morally and legally binding on the seller to be truthful and honest about the facts about the actual cost and price of the goods. if the seller has received a discount or rebate, he should disclose it and transfer it to the purchaser.16 the objective of murābaíah sale in the classical period was to protect the easily tricked buyers, especially those residing in villages and small towns. those consumers, unaware of the market prices in cities and lacking expertise in trade, had to be saved from the tricks and stratagems of cunning traders.17 “murābaíah” is a term of classical islamic fiqh, categorized as a specific kind of sale that has no relation with financing originally. if a purchaser agrees to buy certain commodities at a known profit and cost from the seller, it is called a murābaíah sale. the basic element of murābaíah sale is that the cost price must be disclosed to the purchaser.18 3.2. banking murābaíah murābaíah to the purchase orderer is an arrangement where the client requests the bank to purchase assets from the market or suppliers. the banks purchase those commodities and sell them to the client on deferred payment basis.19 under banking murābaíah, there is a change from murābaíah with introduction of credit sales to hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 51 make it a mode of finance. three models were developed over a period of time based on a relationship of two parties and three parties that is (a) bank and client, (b) (bank vendor) and client (c) bank and (vendor – client). the third model is practiced in contemporary islamic banking, where a bank appoints the client as its agent. the client goes to the market and buys a commodity on behalf of the bank, which is finally sold to the customer at a mark-up price with deferred payment. this agency contract is a safe way for banks to avoid commodity-based risks. this arrangement is more likely to make mpo a back door to interest and therefore requires extra care.20 the reason is that the client is buying the commodities for himself on behalf of the bank, where there is a greater possibility of misuse as the bank is not in a strong position to verify the case. sometimes an arrangement may result in a synthetic murābaíah, where the bank’s role is reduced to simply providing finance and receiving it back in installments with extra charges without taking any recognized risk. hence, the critics term it a backdoor of interest rather than a sale contract. so, the bank’s role is to lend the money and receive it back in installments with extra charges, which can be interest due to the following two reasons. a. wa‘d (promise) is necessary because the bank must be sure that once it has purchased the commodities, the client must buy them. b. delay in payments, that is, deferred sale or credit sale, the above two characteristics are vital in murābaíah to the purchase orderer (mpo). it cannot work without it. so mpo is based on credit sales. this arrangement of credit sale in mpo is the basis of buyback sale.21 4. binding property of a promise islamic bankers specify in their documents that a bank is not a retailer or trader.22 they only offer financial services. so, they appoint the client as their agent to purchase the commodities for himself based on a binding promise. even though sharī‘ah standards by aaiofi clearly stipulate that murābaíah in islamic banks cannot be based on a binding promise or else it will become a buyback sale. sharêah’s standards state: “it is not permissible that the document of promise to buy (signed by the customer) should include a bilateral promise which is binding on both parties (the institution and the customer)”23 52 critical study of commodity … it is also stated at another place, “it is permissible for the institution to purchase the item from a supplier on a ‘sale or return’ basis, i.e., with the option to return it within a specified period. if the customer then does not purchase the item, the institution is able to return it to the supplier within the specified period based on the conditional option that is established in sharia”.24 the following document is the sample of the undertaking (binding promise) being taken by the bank from the client: “appendix bn to master mūrabaḥah agreement to meezan bank dear sir, …….we request you to acquire the asset…. under the following terms and conditions: we shall immediately acquire the assets from you… failing which we undertake to compensate you for any actual loss suffered…..[etc]” 25 in case of any loss, the bank must be compensated. 5. deferred payment the second most important characteristic of banking murābaíah has delayed payments or credit sale. in the original and classical murābaíah sale, the case of delayed payment was not mentioned or practiced. hence, no discussion exists on differed payments attached to the murābaíah sale. however, the case of high price in credit sale is a subject of discussion among classical jurists. imām kāsānī defines murābaíah as “it is the sale for a price exactly similar to the first price along with an excess as profit”. in the event of delayed payments, the first price will not be the same due to the product’s change in time and value. the reason for it is that delay changes the value and certainty of the first price. but mufti taqi usmani and sharê‘ah standards allow delayed payments. mufti taqi states regarding the payment to be made in murābaíah lil-’amir bi al-shirai that, “the payments in the case of murābaíah may be at spot, and may be on subsequent date not necessarily imply the concept of deferred payment”26 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 53 6. commodity murābaíah commodity murābaíah is another variant of murābaíah to the purchase orderer wherein an islamic bank first buys an asset from a commodity broker and then sells it to the customer, who then sells the commodity to a third party (also a commodity broker) through the bank as his agent. thus, the customer finally receives money in place of the asset.27 the lender bank, which provides finance to buy commodities, receives a fixed markup. the cimb bank, malaysia describes commodity murābaíah as “the purchase of certain specified commodities on a cost-plus profit basis (murābaíah) agreed upon by both parties (buyer & seller) and subsequently, the commodity is sold to another commodity trader (third party) to obtain cash”28. two types of commodity murābaíah transactions are introduced in islamic banks. these are deposits given and deposits taken. commodity murābaíah transactions are usually short-term, with a maximum period of one year.29 1. financing is given; it is the first type of commodity, murābaíah. the purpose of islamic financial institutions is to provide financing to their counterparty to generate a return. 2. financing taken; this process is called reverse commodity murābaíah. the purpose of reverse commodity murābaíah is for the islamic financial institution to take a loan from the client (usually a conventional bank) and to return it in pre-planned and agreed time installments, including a markup. 7. liquidity management commodity murābaíah is mainly used for liquidity management. metals other than gold and silver are bought from a commodity exchange like london metal exchange (lme) and sold to customers with a mark-up on a deferred payment basis. the customer further sells it to receive the money. murābaíah sale is designed so that the cost of the goods and the profit over it is decided in the beginning, along with the mode of payment, date of delivery, and repayment price. here the banks usually do not intend to buy the commodities as they do not require them. metals or underlying commodities are bought and sold just to maintain sharê‘ah compliance. 30 the criteria for commodities used as underlying assets in commodity murābaíah is that the goods should be non-perishable, 54 critical study of commodity … easily available, and identifiable. the ribawi items like gold, silver, barley, date, wheat, and salt are not allowed for this purpose. most of the banks that use commodity murābaíah and tawarruq transactions pursue london metal exchange base metals as an asset since they cover all commodity criteria and are easily identifiable and available via warrants.31 8. financing given taken the purpose of such transactions involving deposits either taken or extended for islamic banks is to facilitate deposits to the other party based on returns. the process of cash flow is as follows. 9. commodity murābaíah deposit given32 a) counterparty purchases warrants from islamic financial institution: the counterparty accepts the offer from the islamic bank to purchase warrants on a deferred payment basis, where the mark up and the repayment date are already decided. b) title of ownership of warrants transfer from the islamic bank to the counterparty: the counterparty becomes the owner of the commodities without even seeing them or getting the physical possession. the goods do not change hands and place. the counter party becomes the owner of the warrants but does not make a payment until a later date. c) counterparty appoints islamic bank as his agent and authorizes it to sell warrants on his behalf: the islamic bank now acts as an agent to sell the warrants at the spot market to another party (usually a broker). ownership of the warrant is transferred to the end buyer. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 55 d) payment from end buyer to counterparty: the counterparty is paid for the commodities with spot price. whether the counterparty appoints the islamic bank as an agent to sell the warrants on their behalf or arranges to sell it to a third party himself, the counterparty will be paid at the spot counter value of the warrants.33 in other words, the counterparty is paid for the deposit he required for. e) the return of money by the counterparty to the islamic bank: this payment takes place with pre-agreed installments in the future, including the original purchase price plus a pre-agreed markup.34 but it is to be noticed that the payments to the islamic bank are in installments with fixed profits. the murābaíah, as we studied earlier, does not involve delay. delay is permitted in ordinary credit sales. but murābaíah and credit sale, if amalgamated, is a ditto copy of conventional loans lent on ribā. the net result of the above movements of warrants and cash is that the counterparty now holds an amount of money against an offsetting payment to the islamic bank for a principal plus a mark-up at a pre-agreed future date, thus creating a synthetic deposit. the flow of cash and warrants in a commodity murābaíah is designed in the following way. figure 3. flow of cash and warrants in the process of commodity murābaíah 35 10. discussion two schools of thought exist on this transaction's permissibility or impermissibility status 36. scholars belonging to the 56 critical study of commodity … first group are in favour of this transaction. they allow binding promises for both parties, i.e., the client and the financial institution. these scholars try to prove the significance of binding promises while signing murābaíah. their views are based on ×iyal (legal devices), which they try to prove are purely legal. although the majority of scholars accept that legal devices are used only in exceptional cases. but they use them permanently. this school of thought belongs to renowned scholars like, sami hammoud, yosuf al-qaradawi and sheikh abdul hamid al-sae’h, ijaz ahmad samdani,37 and mufti taqi usmani38. the opinion of proponents is based on the following arguments: 1. al-aîlu fıl-ashya’ al-ibaíah (االباحہ االشیاء فی this legal .(االصل maxim means that the basis of the transaction is permissibility. by default, all the contracts will be considered permissible until otherwise proved. hence, a sale contract will remain valid unless any prohibited element like interest is proved. 2. in the case of a credit sale, a higher price can be charged. 3. binding promises in the murābaíah contract is islamically legal. all the scholars who issued these rulings mostly belong to different islamic banks, and issue fatwas for such banks. the opponents who do not approve such transactions argue that murābaíah is a mixture of many contracts in one contract; the seller sells what it does not have, which is not allowed in islamic law. they further argue that the procedure of murābaíah is similar to inah (buyback sale). imran ahsan khan niazi, muhammad sulaiman al. ashqar, rafiq al masri, hassan abdullah, and scholars of banori town karachi. jāmi‘ah of banuri town karachi39 compiled a book of comprehensive fatāwa delivered by many learned scholars on this issue and expressed that this mode of finance contradicts islamic law. this school of thought relies on the following arguments. 1. this contract is not valid from the perspective of islamic law because it sells what it does not have. 2. this sale is conditional and not permissible. the bank tells the client that if he is ready to buy, the bank shall buy it. 3. this contract is just like a buyback sale, which is not allowed in islamic law based on strong evidence. 4. it is just like selling debt for debt because it is a facility agreement. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 57 5. this arrangement mixes two sales in one sale. credit sale and murābaíah sale. this type of mixing is not allowed by any classical jurists; some even stated it as unlawful 40. initially, when different modes of finance were being designed for islamic banks, it was agreed by the scholars that this process should work on two modes that are shirkah and muìéribah. they started ijérah and murābaíah temporarily to kick-start the industry. mufti taqi usmani states about murābaíah: “in islamic banks, this mode (murābaíah) is being practiced excessively, but it is a very sensitive mode. a little carelessness can mix it up with ribā based system. nowadays, it is practiced in banks without understanding its reality or giving due care to its conditions. as a result, lots of problems are being created in this mode”. 41 the commodity murābaíah and organized tawarruq42 are similar contracts as far as the procedure and mechanism are concerned.43 tawarruq is a reverse murābaíah 44. organized tawarruq (modern banking tawarruq) is quite different from real tawarruq45, which is used more beneficially in islamic banks. commodity murābaíah and organized tawarruq are good alternatives to the conventional modes for liquidity requirements. however, the structure of commodity murābaíah and tawarruq is widely criticized by different sharêah experts. 10.1. bank must be the owner of the commodity (base metal) before selling it to the customer in commodity murābaíah, the banks do not own the commodities as they get the warrants from an institution called london metal exchange (lme), where no physical possession is given. the status of warrants is expressed as the ownership certificate by lme,46 which is not real because the same metal is used for the same purpose many times, and the title of the metal does not change. warrants are receipts containing the details of the locality of the commodities. the whole contract or procedure takes place on paper or electronically. 10.2. bank must not sell the commodity before getting possession of the commodity another important condition of sale is that the property must exist and be owned by the seller. according to the principles of islamic jurisprudence, the seller shall hand over the goods to the buyer or grant access without any restriction. our prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) has prohibited selling what one does not 58 critical study of commodity … have or own. prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) narrated, "ال تبع ما لیس عندك". according to a narration of hakeem ibn hizām-may allah mercy upon him-which, he reported, “o prophet of allah, a man comes to me asking to buy a commodity that i do not have, do i conclude the sale and purchase for him from the market? he (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) replied: “do not sell what you do not have”.47 in commodity murābaíah, many doubts arise about whether permission and delivery ever take place or not. it is technically impossible to take permission and delivery because the commodities do not move from warehouses, and the transaction ends in a few minutes.4849 10.3. bank should not sell commodities on the customer’s behalf regarding the tawarruq transaction sharī‘ah standard, no 30 of aaoifi clearly stipulates that the bank is not allowed to sell the commodity on behalf of the customer, or they should not arrange any proxy or third party for this purpose. instead, the client should sell the commodity himself or through his agent. but this does not happen. the pictorial description above shows that the bank sells them on the customer’s behalf. as a result, the transaction becomes a mere tool of financing.50 if a bank appoints al-mustawrriq as its agent to purchase the commodity on its behalf, he later purchases it for himself; this type of transaction is invalid because the agent is not permissible to manage both sides of the sale.51 10.4. commodities must not be gold or silver the commodities underlying the commodity murābaíah contract are not gold and silver but serve the same purpose for which gold and silver are forbidden. the purpose of avoiding gold and silver is to avoid ribā or interest. commodity murābaíah is such a tricky contract designed which acts as a ×īlah (legal device) for legalizing benefits from ribā. the ribā being earned from this sale is ribā-annasiah. 10.5. deferred sale (bay al nasiyah) cannot be combined with murābaíah this condition is for the general credit sale. merging the contract of commodity murābaíah into a credit sale is without any valid reason, and further, it does not conform to the classical literature hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 59 of murābaíah, as discussed earlier. 10.6. commodities must be specified, and certain commodities are not identified in the commodity murābaíah contract. the warrants issued from the warehouses of the london metal exchange are just the receipts telling the number of certain commodities. how many sales are concluded on the same volume of commodities is unknown. it is also debated that the volume of sale contracts of commodity murābaíah is so big that this much amount of existence of metal is doubtful. 10.7. dealing with conventional banks the islamic banks also deal with conventional banks through commodity murābaíah for interbank liquidity. conventional banks deal with ribā without paying heed to the modes and mechanisms designed to make this sale “sharêah compliant”. they do not bother about what they buy, its quality, and how the contract should be executed in the first place. 52 10.8. contracts based on commodity murābaíah commodity murābaíah has become a popular tool for meeting parties’ needs. worldwide, financial institutions, as well as governments, are heavily relying on the commodity murābaíah. for instance, commodity murābaíah is used in the oil and gas industry to purchase crude palm oil and other things. in 2015 saudi aramco, one of the world’s biggest oil companies, collected 10 billion usd through this mode of financing. similarly, the commodity murābaíah is used in agricultural financing also. like in 2020, the islamic corporation for the development of the private sector (icd) provided 25 million usd in cm financing to an indonesian business company, pt perkebunan nusantara iii. 53 cm is used in the aviation sector to purchase aircraft and related equipment. in 2019, the international air finance corporation (iafc) announced the completion of a 1.2 billion usd commodity murābahah financing transaction to support the purchase of eight boeing 787 dreamliners by the dubai-based airlines. commodity murābaíah is also used in real estates, like purchasing land and constructing buildings. for instance, in 2017, the dubai-based real estate developer, emaar properties, raised 500 million usd through a commodity murābaíah financing arrangement. different countries are using different modes of finance 60 critical study of commodity … according to their suitability. kuwait and bahrain are heavily utilizing sukëk, reverse murābaíah. the united arab emirates relies heavily on foreign exchange swaps and islamic certificates of deposits based on commodity murābaíah contracts for liquidity and monetary policy implementation. to manage liquidity, they are forced to hold excess liquidity with the bank of england and use sharêah-compliant instruments, such as the commodity murābaíah.54 11. conclusion it can be concluded that since the contract of commodity murābaíah does not fulfill the conditions of a valid sale, it is not permissible under sharêah. there are many other reasons for its impermissibility. commodity murābaíah transaction is conducted through the exchange process of the sale so rapidly that thousands of sales are transacted in a few minutes electronically. such contracts do not seem to be realistic, as the commodities are hardly delivered to the buyer. further, in commodity markets, proper specification of the commodities is impossible because thousands of tons are kept in one warehouse. no one even knows how many transactions are concluded on one commodity. the involvement of commodity in this contract is a backdoor to provide finance at a premium. even if the tawarruq and commodity murābaíah transaction is properly executed and sharī‘ah compulsions are fulfilled, its impact on society is very harmful, particularly for islamic banking. it is time to apply sad-aldharae to close the doors of ribā in society. notes and references: 1 monzer kahaf, what went wrong with islamic economics, 5 available at http://monzer.kahf.com/papers/english/islamic_economics_what_went_wron g_sept_03_irti.pdf (acessed may 2, 2023) 2 ebrahim, muhammed shahid, and hussam sultan. "murabaha." available at ssrn 1923606 (2011) and gundogdu, ahmet suayb. "islamic electronic trading platform on organized exchange." borsa istanbul review 16, no. 4 (2016): 249-255. 3 ibid, 5. 4 imran ahsan khan nyazee, murābaḥah and the credit sale (rawalpindi: federal law house, 2009), 2. turakulovna, yuldasheva faroghat, tursunova inobat mirkamilovna, alimbaeva iroda marufjanovna, and chutbaeva aziza baxodirovna. "possible applications of tawarruq (commodity murabaha) as a cash financing tool in islamic banks institutions in somalia." journal of positive school psychology (2022): 4380-4396 5 imran nyazee, “murabaha and the credit sale”, (federal law house: rawalpindi, 2009), 3. shah, burhan ali, and ghulam shabbir khan niazi. "issues in contemporary implementation of murabaha." turkish journal of islamic economics 6, no. 2 (2019): 1-24. 6 muḥammad al-bashir muḥammad al-amine, “managing liquidity risk in islamic banking” in contemporary islamic finance: innovations, applications, and best http://monzer.kahf.com/papers/english/islamic_economics_what_went_wrong_sept_03_irti.pdf http://monzer.kahf.com/papers/english/islamic_economics_what_went_wrong_sept_03_irti.pdf hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 61 practices, ed. karen hunt-aḥmed (new jersey: john wiley and sons, 2013), 126. and hassan, abdulwahid. "the challenges and prospects of islamic finance in australia: a case study of murabaha contract." phd diss., victoria university, 2020. 7 ibid, 124. 8 imran ahsan khan nayazee, murābahah and credit sale, (islamabad: federal law house, 2009) and yusoff, adnan, rusni hassan, and syed ahmed salman. "risk assessment of islamic banking products: a case study of murabaha and ijarah." in digitalisation: opportunities and challenges for business: vol 2 (cham: springer international publishing, 2023), 581-592. 9 muhammad ayub, understanding islamic finance (west sussex: john wiley and sons, 2007) and allaymoun, mohammad hamad, and omer awad hag hamid. "integrated system (e-murabaha) a new approach to e-commerce." in 2019 international conference on fourth industrial revolution (icfir), pp. 1-6. ieee, 2019. 10 natalie schoon, islamic banking and finance (london: spiramus press limited, 2009). 11 muḥammad bin makram, lisān al-‘arab (berut: dār sadīr, n.d), vol. 4, 42. 12 abu hassan ali bin abī bakar bin ‘abd al-jalīl al-marghīnānī, al-ḥidayah sharḥ bidāyat al-mubtaday (maktabat al-islāmiah, n.d), vol. 3, 56. 13 imran ahsan khan nayazee, mūrabaḥa and credit sale (islamabad: federal law house, 2009), 9. 14abū bakar bīn mas‘ūd al-kāsāni, badāye al-ṣanā’i‘ fī tartīb al-sharā’i‘ (berut: dar kitab al-arabi,1982), 5/135 15 al-imam abu bakar muḥammad al-sarakhsī, al-mabsut (berut: dar al-fikr, 2000), vol. 13, 143. 16 muḥammad tahir mansoori, islamic law of contracts and business transactions (islamabad: sharī‘ah academy, 2008), 214. 17 marghīnānī, al-ḥidayah, vol. 3, 56. 18 muḥammad taqi usmani, an introduction to islamic finance (netherlands: kluwer law international, 2002), 38. 19 muhammad ayub, understanding islamic finance, (new jersy: john wiley and sons, 2009), 221 20 ayub, understanding islamic finance, 221. 21 nyazee, mūrabaḥah and the credit sale, 51. 22 ijaz ahmad samdani 23 accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institution, sharī‘ah standards, sharī‘ah standards no. 2/3/1 sharī‘ah board, compilers (bahrain, public library: 2002) 24 aaiofi, shariah standard, 2/3/5 25 dār al-iftah, jamīatal-uloom al-islamia, allama muḥammad yousaf banori town, murawija islamic bankari (karachi: maktaba bayenaat jamia uloom islamia, 2008), 241. 26 ibid. 27http://www.reuters.com/article/idusklr43272420090728 malaysian bourse eyes murābahah trading system as debate rages. (accessed january 30, 2011) 28 commerce international merchant bankers berhad, “commodity murabaha”https://www.cimb.com.sg/en/personal/help-support/faq/accounts/cimbstarsaver-i/what-is-commoditymurabahah.html#:~:text=commodity%20murabahah%20is%20the%20purchase,th e%20objective%20of%20obtaining%20cash. 29 natalie schoon, islamic banking and finance (london: spiramus press limited, 2009), 73. 30 ibid. 31 warrants are the certificate of the specified metals present in warehouses of london metal exchange (an international institute carrying out forward contracts on http://www.reuters.com/article/idusklr43272420090728 https://www.cimb.com.sg/en/personal/help-support/faq/accounts/cimb-starsaver-i/what-is-commodity-murabahah.html#:~:text=commodity%20murabahah%20is%20the%20purchase,the%20objective%20of%20obtaining%20cash https://www.cimb.com.sg/en/personal/help-support/faq/accounts/cimb-starsaver-i/what-is-commodity-murabahah.html#:~:text=commodity%20murabahah%20is%20the%20purchase,the%20objective%20of%20obtaining%20cash https://www.cimb.com.sg/en/personal/help-support/faq/accounts/cimb-starsaver-i/what-is-commodity-murabahah.html#:~:text=commodity%20murabahah%20is%20the%20purchase,the%20objective%20of%20obtaining%20cash https://www.cimb.com.sg/en/personal/help-support/faq/accounts/cimb-starsaver-i/what-is-commodity-murabahah.html#:~:text=commodity%20murabahah%20is%20the%20purchase,the%20objective%20of%20obtaining%20cash 62 critical study of commodity … the basis of commodities, which is metal). these warrants are later on used to carry out contract. the certificates are issued to the clients, as a proof of being the owner of the commodity for the time being only. 32 natalie, islamic banking and finance, 74. 33 ibid, 75. 34 ibid. 35 natalie, 75. 36 mohamad sabri haron, rashila ramli, malek marwan yousef injas, and raghad azzam injas. "reputation risk and its impact on the islamic banks: case of the murabaha." international journal of economics and financial issues 5, no. 4 (2015): 854-859. 37 ijaz ahmad samdani, “islamic banakari ka haqeeqat pansandana jaiza”, (idara islamiat karachi: karachi, 2006) 38 mufti taqi usmani, jadīd ma‘īshat aur tijarat (karachi: maktaba idārat alma’arif, n.d), 39. 39 title of the book is “murawija islamic bankari, tajziati mutala, shari jaiza, fiqhi naqdo tabsira”. 40 imran nyazee, “murabaha and the credit sale”, (federal law house: rawalpindi, 2009), 48. 41 mufti taqi usmani, jadīd ma‘īshat aur tijarat (karachi: maktaba idārat alma’arif, n.d), 39. 42 tawarruq contract is also referred to as reverse murabaha, and it is defined as: “tawarruq is a financial instrument in which a buyer purchases a commodity from a seller on a deferred payment basis, and the buyer sells the same commodity to a third party on a spot payment basis”. to fully understand what is tawarruq, it is important to observe that in tawarruq “commodity” is not the actual need of the buyer, and it is only bought to fulfill the running cash requirements. joan friedman and jamal din defines tawwaruq, “islamic fiance for dummies” (john and willey sons: new jersy, 2012), 156. 43 abdulu samad, “commodity murābahah”, al-huda centre of islamic banking and economics, no. 39 (december 2010-january 2011): http://www.alhudacibe.com/alhudamagazine/issue-039/article04.php. 44natalie schoon, islamic banking and finance, 77. also in muhammad ayub, 349. 45 “classical tawarruq is defined as the purchase of a commodity possessed owned by the seller for a delayed payment, whereupon the buyer resells the commodity for cash to other than the original seller in order to acquire cash (al-wariq)” i. s. mihajat, "the real tawarruq concept: the product of islamic banks for liquidity risk management." irti islamic development bank, iium institute of islamic banking and finance (2012), 6. 46 the institution of lme was made in 17th century in london, keeping in view the growing needs of commodities to be used for business transactions and future contracts., see natalie, 113. 47 abu eesa al-tirmidhi, sunan al-tirmdhi, tradition number 1153, (mauka’a alislam n.d) p. 5/9. http://www.al-islam.com. 48 mohammad ayub in his book “understanding islamic finance” states that “nobody cares whether any actual transaction has taken place or not, and at which point in time risk was transferred to the bank. there are doubts about the quantity of metal being sufficient to cover the transaction volumes. as the brokerage cost makes the product less competitive, there is a chance that no actual transaction might be taking place”. 49 mohammad ayub, 233. 50 ibid. 51 nyazee, murbaha and credit sale, 35. 52 ibid. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 63 53 the guardian, saudi aramco’s $161bn profit is largest recorded by an oil and gas firm, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/12/saudi-aramco-161bnprofit-is-largest-recorded-by-an-oil-and-gas-firm. 54 islamic bankers resource centre, financing : tawarruq (commodity murabaha) available at: https://islamicbankers.me/islamic-banking-islamic-contracts/financingcommodity-murabaha-tawarruq/. https://islamicbankers.me/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 103 tackling the language barriers in islamic studies -an analytical study of the prevailing curriculum for dôni madóris in pakistan dr. muhammad faisal university of haripur, pakistan mr. ali raza international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan dr. qudsia ishaq university of azad jammu & kashmir, muzaffarabad, pakistan received on: 29-09-21 accepted on: 14-12-21 abstract it is argued generally that education plays a vital role in the development and sustainability of a country. the curriculum of any education system expresses its purposes and objectives on the similar axis. learning process is facilitated through medium of instruction which is a direct agent enabling the better communication between the teachers and students. dêni madéris (religious institutions) are contributing to provide the learned human resource in the field of islamic education since hundreds of years in the subcontinent. these institutes are providing islamic education by following the curriculum of “dars-e-niðémi” which is communicated through various languages as medium of instructions. this difference of multi-lingual syllabus and medium of instructions for teaching islamic education may create several barriers to understand the fundamental concepts. this issue leads a critical analysis to find out solutions; to cope up with such problems and clarify the minds of students in line of the original concepts of religion for the betterment of humanity at large. the purpose of this paper is to articulate about the language barriers in the religious institutes especially in the perspective of wiféqét (islamic educational boards) of pakistan. the research explores the problem and difficulties faced by the students regarding the use of multi-lingual media in the learning process. for this preliminary work, the qualitative approach is adopted to collect data through informal round 104 tackling the language barriers… table talks with the students of almost fifteen madéris located in the vicinity of rawalpindi and islamabad. the findings of the study highlight the advantages and disadvantages of prevailing multi-lingual system of education in madéris of the country. in finding multilingual nature and medium of instruction in madéris have been explored. the multilingual nature of the curricula of “dars-e-niðémi” and of medium of instruction remained a great challenge which causes comprehension problems along with many advantages. the work suggests replacing the multi-lingual medium of instruction with native language (urdu or any other) on the initial stages; and second language (arabic and english) on the advanced level of islamic education. keywords: madéris curriculum, wiféqét, lingua language, barriers. 1. introduction education in a country is a key factor to strengthen its economy by uplifting the values of human lives to an asset1 in general and it is assumed as a backbone of a developing country like pakistan2 in particular. more specifically, the educational streaming brings harmony and integrity within the society3 and its adhesion with international arena.4 madéris are the center of religious education. people are enrolled in such institution to enhance their religious knowledge and to develop better understanding about worldly affairs. therefore, the religious concepts should be clear and conveyed in well-known language to the learners. as, the knowledge transmission to the students or learners of a particular course of study would only be effective through the familiar languages.5 observing the diversity in languages and cultures of the pakistani society, a student of an islamic institute (madrasah) may face many problems to understand multi-lingual curriculum. the textbooks are written in different languages, while the languages used for the medium of instructions in the classrooms are also diverse which can be one of the hurdles to achieve clarity of the concepts of the students. in a case where a learner belongs to different language background and the medium of instructions is a different language, he may not comprehend easily due to difference of vocabulary. for example, a pashtu speaker studying in a madrasah may face different language of the textbooks and different language of teaching on the same time. similarly, when a teacher of islamic education tries to convey a religious concept to the learners of different areas and cultures, he may also face language problems or barriers to communicate with the students of such diverse lingual background. in this context, the study analyzes the lingual hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 105 problems and barriers in the teaching and learning of islamic education at madéris (islamic institutes) or wiféqét (islamic educational boards) of pakistan. furthermore, the possible solutions are provided to cope up with these barriers. the research addresses the fundamental questions specifically: how multilingualism can be a barrier and what are the causes, problems and possible solutions of lingual barriers in the learning of islamic education. 2. literature review in this section a brief history of islamic education in general and dars-e-niðémi and madrassa education in particular is being provided as well as the literary work on the subject. 2.1. historical background of islamic education islamic education started soon after the arabs started embracing islam and the first islamic educational institute was the house of arqam known as ‘dér e arqam’ where holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) used to educate the new muslims about islamic teachings.6 those days, in makkah7 the muslims were not allowed to get education openly because of the sanctions posed by different tribes. after the migration of muslims to madinah al munawwarah,8 they got freedom to get education. the first formal institute for muslims in madinah was suffah education center and the students of this center were known as asíéb-eøuffah. other than øuffah the mosques at that time were the major institutes for islamic education.9 the learning of islamic knowledge continued and muslims built proper madéris i.e. ‘islamic schools’ for religious education. but earlier time there was not a specific curriculum for islamic education, later on particular curriculums were separately introduced likewise the curriculum of al jamêah al azam,10 the curriculum of al azhar university,11 the curriculum of al niðémiah,12 and the curriculum of jami‘ah al zaitunah.13 on the other hand, if we come toward the islamic education in subcontinent the curriculum followed in madéris was replica of arab countries but not in organized manner up to the mark. later on the first comprehensive curriculum of “dars-e-niðémi” introduced in 18th and 19th century.14 2.1.1. dars-e-niðémi dars-e-niðémi was known as thorough curriculum of islamic education 106 tackling the language barriers… in sub-continent which was prepared by the great scholar mulla niðémud-dên sehaalvi.15 it contains the various branches of islamic education including the major subjects of islamic learning in following table. table of major subjects of dars-e-niðémi 16 original name english translation arabic linguistics ( زابنرعیب ) sarf) رصف( morphology nahv (وحن) syntax & grammar balégaht (البتغ) rhetoric farsi(افریس) persian fiqh (ہقف) islamic law hadith (دحثی) narrations and practices of prophet sws ×ikmat (تمکح) wisdom/ reasoning ‘ilm-e-kalém (ملع الکم) islamic scholastic theology manïiq (قطنم) logic munéðarah (انمرظه) pleading/ convincing argumentation riyéìi & falkiét ( راییض و ہ /ایکلفت ت ئ ي ) mathematics and astronomy tafsêr (ریسفت) exegeses/ interpretation uîël-e-fiqh (اوصل ہقِف) jurisprudence in the above mentioned list of different subjects most of the books are in arabic language and some of the books are in persian. the mentioned syllabus was recognized by the mughlia empire and was implemented by the empire in all institutes of that time to educate the students under this curriculum, so the mughal prince, ministers, judges, advocates, imém, khaïêb, business men, even poor and reaches all of them were graduates of the “dars-e-niðémi” curriculum. with the passage of time when the islamic educational institutes were established, especially after the partition of subcontinent, the pakistani religious boards “wiféqét” have chosen this curriculum for the teaching of islamic education in modern ages because of its comprehensiveness, although there is need to change it, but its positive effects are more than negatives.17 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 107 2.2. boards of islamic education in pakistan after the advent of islam the masjid (mosque) had diverse objectives including offering prayer, delivering education and settlement of disputes etc. so it can be noticed that the mosque was not only a place of prayer rather it was utilized for many purposes like teaching muslims. with the passage of time the muslim empires built the particular institutes to facilitate the students of different regions. so when muslims started to learn the islamic education from all over the world, the directions of caliphs (khulafé) to build the “jémi‘ét” (universities) as “jémi‘ah qurtoba, jémi‘ah –ul-azhar, jémi‘ah niðémiah”. on the other hand, there was no satisfactory progress in the islamic learning in the subcontinent. however, there were few ancestries (khaniqah) in the region which disseminated the islamic teachings by narrations (qél) and practices ×él).18 people of this region were mostly unaware of formal education, who accepted islam because of mystic teachings by sufis like, ×aìrat ‘ali hijwairi, mu‘inudin chishti ajmeri, sheikh ahmad sirhindi, syed amir ali hamdéni, haìrat bahé uddên zakariyya, syed yusaf shah gardezi (raímat allah ‘alaihim) and many more.19 later on a wellknown institute of islamic education was formed by ×aìrat shah abdur rahim the father of shah wali ullah muíadith dehlvi named as madrasah rahêmiah.20 moreover, the mughal dynasty was the first empire who took interest into the formal structure of islamic education. hence, they were the pioneer rulers of the subcontinent who institutionalized this education through the pattern of initiating madrasah or school system.21 the term “madrasah”22 usually refers to specifically the islamic institutions in the subcontinent. mostly, there are two courses of study: “×ifð” and “shahadatul ‘ólimiyah” in madéris of pakistan to impart islamic education among the students. as the purpose of this education is not only fixed to produce the preachers of islam, for its methods of worship, but also it has historical evidences which show its clear objectives to produce diverse human resource, adjustable in all walks of life, in a modern civic society.23 there were many “madéris” in indo pak subcontinent, renowned among them were; “dér-ul-‘uloom deo band, braili, and nédwah-tul-‘ulama”. after the independence of pakistan there were different educational institutes serving with various curricula under the auspices of different madrasah titles. although there are hundreds of islamic institutes in pakistan introduced by different schools of thoughts, but government of pakistan has authorized them by the recognition of hec, in term of "وافاقت" . the term ‘wifaqat’ means the group of islamic/religious boards of five 108 tackling the language barriers… different schools of thoughts namely, 1) wiféq-ul-madéris (deoband), 2) tanðêm-ul-madéris (barelvi), 3) wiféq-ul-madéris (shi‘ah), 4) wiféq-ul-madéris salafiyah (ahl-e-×adêth), 5) rébitah-ulmadéris (jamat-e-islami).24 these are the authorized boards by government of pakistan which are providing different levels of certificates and degrees to the students. the brief introduction of these boards is as following: 2.2.1. wiféq-ul-madéris al arabiah (deoband) this board is under the ahl e sunnat scholars of deobandi school of thought. deobandi scholars are linked with jami‘ah dar ul uloom deoband. the secretariat of this board was initiated in madrasah khairul madéris multan.25 that has become a prominent islamic educational authority in the country. it has been working as a private religious authority since 1957. all over pakistan thousands of religious schools and madrasahs have been working under the supervision of the wiféqul madéris al arabiah multan.26 2.2.2. tanðêm-ul-madéris al arabiah (barelvi) this wifaq is under the supervision of the ahl e sunnat scholars of barelvi school of thought. barelvi school of thought referrers its leader and founder sheikh ahmad raza khan barelvi. this board was initiated in 1940 in “jamiah naêmiah” lahore, but now this board has its independent head office: tanðêmul-madéris ahl-e-sunnat pakistan ravipark, near minar-e-pakistan lahore.27 the thousands of islamic scholars are getting the islamic education in different levels in braches of this board in the provinces of pakistan as below: jamiah mujadadiah naêmiah in sindh. jamiah islamiah nooriah trust in baluchistan. dérul uloom saif-ul-islam in ajk muzaffarabad. jamiah muhammadiah ghosiah zia-ul-ulëm in punjab. jamiah islamiah hanafiah kpk.28 2.2.3. wiféq-ul-madéris (shiah) wiféq-ul-madéris al shiah supervises the shiah group of madéris in pakistan. this wifaq was initiated in 1958 and it started properly working in 1981 under the supervision of allamah safdar hussain najafi.29 the head office of this board is in the “jamiat-ul-muntazir” model town lahore. braches of this board are working in the pakistan under this jémiah.30 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 109 2.2.4. wiféq-ul-madéris salafiyah (ahl-e-×adêth) wiféq-ul-madéris salafiyah (ahl-e-×adêth) was founded by ahl e ×adêth s salafi scholars. this wifaq was founded in 1978.31 the head office of the board is in faisalabad. hundreds of students are studying here according to the salafi school of thought.32 2.2.5. rébitah-ulmadéris (jamat-e-islami) rébitah –ulmadéris is under the supervision of an organization ‘jamate-islami’. this wifaq follows the ideology of syed abul a‘la modudi, the founder of jamat-e-islami. its secretariat was initiated in 1984 in mansoorah, lahore.33 while there are other branches working all over the country, like: jamiah islamiah tafhêmul qur’én in kpk and jamiat-ul-ikhwén in karachi sindh. the thousands of students are studying the islamic studies here in these madéris.34 a few individual madéris are also recognized by higher education commission and intermediate boards committee of chairman as per record published on the websites of both the organizations. 2.3. literature review on madéris education and lingual obstacles the curriculum of islamic education in madrasah is very important topic now a days, so many writers have worked on the madrasah education, its importance and deferent aspects. in following is a brief review of some works done in this regard. saleem mansoor khalid35 (2002) explores the religious institutes of subcontinent, especially the dars-e-niðémi and the detailed content of the syllabi in approximately all systems of madéris in pakistan to the extent of their sustainability in current era. he suggested that old books may be redesigned as precised text books for students to provide ease to grasp the content and concepts. muhammad ameen36 (2004) criticized the teaching methodology of islamic education in madéris. he argued that in madéris we are just producing ×afið-e-qur’én through cramming rote learning; hence the students with conventional wisdom and rigid mind set are unable to understand the dynamic nature of islamic values. khalid rehman37 (2008) suggests the improvement of curriculum of madéris, the writer suggests the many changings and improvements related to different subjects and teaching methodology. zahid shahab ahmed38 (2009) addressed some challenges faced by madéris and suggested some possible reforms for the betterment of the islamic education system. he conducted interviews of the teacher and 110 tackling the language barriers… focused group discussion to get the real picture of the issue. teachers expressed that people of madéris are usually considered backward so the low prestige attached with these institution is a major hurdle. on the other hand, the students’ level of commitment to learning and untrained teachers is another obstacle. a teacher from balochistan mentioned that one of the biggest challenges he faces as an english teacher is to convince his students for learning english. most of his students believe that by learning islam, they will go to heaven but a similar motive for learning english is absent as they don't consider that learning english is important. the study highlighted that madrasah reforms will require an equal focus on teachers’ training along with curricular reforms. ghulam shabbir and others39 (2012) discussed brief history of islamic education and identified sectarian violence and less competent ‘ulama (religious scholars) to guide modern islamic state as the major problems of madéris. they suggest that government should take in confidence the islamic seminaries for employing mutual strategy to enhance the education system in madéris. fatima sajjad40 (2013) argues that the leading ‘ulama in pakistan are open to the idea of madrasah reform but they prefer to do it internally as an ongoing process and not due to outside pressure. so, it is crucial to take into account the ideas and concerns of ‘ulama running these institutions. lid king41 (2017) describes various factors on multilingualism however the relevant feature to our study depicts that the role of compulsory education is critical and we need a language education policy which both respects mother tongue heritage and also prepares young people for a globalised world with english as a lingua franca. the paper gives an idea about language facilitation which builds the foundational perceptions of this study. mudaly and singh42 (2018) highlight the issue of medium of instruction has become a severe challenge for pakistan that needs to be addressed on emergency basis to put the country on trek of development. serious steps are required in status planning of all the languages to be selected for pakistan. rehman and others43 (2021) reveal that madrasah students realized english language as a source of preaching islam worldwide and they demand it in their curriculum as a compulsory subject. moreover, this study finds that most of the ‘ulama have soft corners in their hearts regarding teaching and learning modern subjects, including english. khan and others44 (2021) have concluded that islamic seminaries (madéris) in pakistan are contributing in theology beyond doubts yet their curriculum lacks the defined objectives of the disseminated education. the study further stresses that the modern scientific techniques hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 111 of education are not utilized in these seminaries and the main sources of education are books and texts-orientation. the behaviour of many teachers is unpredictable towards students between the two extremes of harshness and softness on different occasions. therefore, the students are facing physiological and linguistic problems. the syllabi are insufficiently satisfying the basic foundations of primary sources (the holy qur’én and sunnah) among the students along with weakness in other contemporary studies. it further elaborates that the old canvas is still operative to handle the sectarianism, modern philosophical and scientific challenges and the research activities. it can be seen through the above described works in this context that the researches didn’t raise any point about the language problems especially in the religious madéris and dars-e-niðémi curriculum. this vacuum motivated the current outcome as a piece of preliminary study on the language barriers caused by the curricula. 2.4. the role of language in curriculum in the above mentioned works mostly the authors dealt with different aspects of madarsah curriculum but they couldn’t focus on the role of language in getting islamic education in pakistani madéris. the use of language plays role of facilitator while sometimes it becomes barrier as well. if language is used without knowing its proper and suitable use, it can be a barrier. however, language can be utilized as a facilitator by knowing its appropriate use and the needs of addressees. 2.4.1. language as facilitator there are different means of communications utilized by human beings like, 1) showing the thing, which is being discussed, 2) to explain a thing through gestures, 3) to show a symbol or picture of the thing, 4) to elaborate anything or any concept through spoken words, 5) to describe a thing or a concept through words in written form. through spoken words or language, the people are able to communicate complex idea and feelings in faster way. therefore, language facilitates the human beings a lot in sharing information, feelings and ideas.45 language facilitates more effectively in the following dimensions; 1. same language of speaker and listener. if a speaker and listener have same language and medium of communication they can converse with each other without barriers. 2. same culture. 112 tackling the language barriers… culture is a crucial part of human relation and interaction. if two persons have same cultural background they can communicate with each other easily. 3. same filed of knowledge. if speaker and listener have same interest and field of knowledge the language will play the role of facilitator for their communication. 4. use of nonverbal communication. effective use of nonverbal skills or body language becomes very helpful and supportive communication through language. 2.4.2. language as barrier in the above mentioned description it is mentioned that language is a big facilitator for human communication. but it can be a barrier as well if it is not used according to its requirements and needs. this is because of diversity in the human languages, cultural back ground and level of knowledge. in the beginning the human beings used to speak common language but with the passage of time when human population increased they started traveling to remote area and consequently they developed new languages, which became barriers for the communication among different cultures. in this way, the language, which was a major facilitator for communication, became obstacle. following are the aspects and factors, which turn a language into communication barrier; 1. the listener does not know the speaker’s language. people of different lingual backgrounds not having commonly understandable language would face a lot of difficulties in their communication. 2. the reader does not know the language of a written text. students not familiar with or not native users of the written text feel problem to understand the concepts delivered in the text. 3. difference of culture. the difference of culture between the teacher and student or the reader of the text would cause hurdle in the way of understanding and communication. moreover it will cause problems in understanding the pragmatic meaning of the text. 4. technical terminologies. back ground knowledge of the terminologies or expressions of a topic or subject plays important role in communication. if an addressee does not have the proper understanding of the terminologies of a specific field of knowledge he would face problems in understanding and sharing ideas and concepts. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 113 it can be seen through the above mentioned factors that normally the language plays a role of facilitator. on the other hand, it is also expressed that the language can be a barrier or hurdle in the way of communication. this hurdle would be more problematic in case of education and learning of some technical fields of knowledge. thus language matters a lot for islamic education too, as it plays vital role for the clarification of thoughts and effective communication. therefore, this article is going to explore the crucial role of language on education specifically multilingual problems in the curriculum of “dars-e-niðémi” in the islamic institutes under various “wiféqét” of pakistan. moreover, the research is discussing the positive and negative effects of multi-lingual curricula on the leaning of students. in regard to, the study opens avenues for the importance of language in transferring concepts of the islamic teachings through education in a country like pakistan having diversity in languages, cultures and schools of thought. the literature shows that a multilingual curricula comprising of various course books in arabic, persian, urdu, and english languages, which are second languages for a pakistani student, may result in few lingual barriers during education: 1. teaching students in a language they do not use in daily life has been demonstrated to have a poor success rate in terms of students’ literacy and fluency in that language.46 2. language barrier and gap of communication between teacher and student can be caused by: a. difference in social or cultural backgrounds, b. difference in language backgrounds. the causes of language barriers lead to decrease motivation and slower down the learning ability of students. for instance, if school assessments are conducted in a language that a student does not understand well, it will be impossible to get a picture of their real capacities and to judge school quality.47 3. research methodology the research work follows the descriptive analysis of curriculum of islamic education "dars-e-niðémi" prevailing in wiféqét of pakistan. the researchers (first and second) had got their early education in madéris, hence they were aware of the multi-lingual syllabus and the medium of instruction used in these institutions. but, to present more authentic analysis, they visited 15 madéris situated in rawalpindi and islamabad, pakistan. during the visit, they enquired about the syllabus from the teachers and also had informal round table talks with few randomly selected students of different age groups. the purpose was to 114 tackling the language barriers… explore the problems and challenges faced by these madrasah students regarding multi-lingual nature of the syllabus and of medium of instruction. at each visit, almost 10 to 15 students participated actively in the discussion. the face-to-face discussion comprised of questions, such as; what is the most frequent language of instruction in your institution? do you want to get instruction in your local language or in any other language? what is the most difficult/problematic aspect of your syllabus? the researchers took notes of the answers and presented in unified form as findings of the present study. 4. analysis this section first presents the analysis of multi lingual curricula in madéris of pakistan and then reflects the effects of language barriers in islamic education in the light of discussion carried out with the students. 4.1. multi lingual curricula in madéris of pakistan the textbooks taught in religious madéris of pakistan are mostly in four languages; arabic, persian, urdu and english. some of books are mentioned below: 4.1.1. books in arabic 1) miah tul ‘aamil, 2) alkafiah fin naív, 3) al shafiah fis øarf, 4) mukhtaîarul ma‘éni, 5) jawahirul balaghah, 6) saba‘ muallaqat, 7) al fauzul kabêr, 8) al hidayah fil fiqh, 9) al lum‘ah ad damashqiah, 10) nukhbatul fikr, 11) siíéí sittah, 12) kutub al arba‘ah. etc. above mentioned books contain the different fields and arts of arabic language, like phonetic and phonology, morphology, syntax, rhetoric, semantics, arabic poetry, islamic jurisprudence, authentic books of hadith and quranic explanatory books of arabic are included. these are some of those books which are the part of curriculum of islamic education in madrasah. 4.1.2. books in persian 1) farsi qa‘idah, 2) pand nama, 3) karêma, 4) né m e ×aq, 5) gulistén, 6) bostén, 7) ‘ilm us øêghah, 8) naív meer, 9) øarf meer, etc. these are the important books in persian language which deal with poetry, morphology, syntax, etiquettes and advices regarding wisdom. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 115 these books are of great importance but are in foreign language for majority of pakistani community therefore a beginner student of islamic education through second language faces the lingual barriers in comprehension. 4.1.3. books in urdu 1) öia al nabi, 2) ta‘lêm al islam, 3) bahashti gohar, 4) aqêdah al islam, 5) haméra islam, 6) urdu, 7) civics, 8) islamiat, 9) pak study (muïél‘ah pakistan). 10) politics (siésiat), 11) tarêkh e islam, 12) jamal al qur’én, 13) sêrat, 14) math, 15) social science, 16) aqêdah tul islam etc. the above mentioned books are in urdu language which deal with sêrah, islamic history, faith, ethics and quranic sciences. as urdu is our lingua franca so these books are comparatively easy to understand for pakistani students. 4.1.4. books in english 1) english, 2) computer science, 3) economics, etc. in madrasah system the teaching english and its learning is a challenge, mostly the students who enter in the madrasah system of education have little background of english language.48 therefore, it is very difficult for them to understand the books written in english language. alongside, they have to study other languages as well, like arabic, persian, and urdu which are not the mother tongues of most the students in pakistan. as a result of the mixture of languages, the learners face the multilingual barriers in comprehension of basic concepts of the islamic teachings. 4.2. students’ views on effects of language barriers in education the discussion of the researchers with the students of various madéris resulted in the following views: 1. some students hesitate to describe their concepts and ideas orally because of language barriers; 2. many students spend their time in madrasah struggling to understand languages instead of building new knowledge. many fail to learn the foreign language, which causes large numbers of drop out. 116 tackling the language barriers… 3. the content of islamic studies in various languages sometimes becomes barrier because the focus of education diverts form the content to language learning. 4. in madéris, the removal of language barrier is not a priority because the languages are taught as subjects not as a language. here, the language learning lacks practice of four skills like listening, speaking, reading and writing. 5. cultural barriers between the language of students and the language of text or instruction have bad impact on the students’ ability to develop their language skills and their school or madrasah performance. 6. in advance settings of learning, some students perform weakly across the curriculum due to the absence of first language in teaching. 7. the struggle of the students with language learning in the initial stages if not succeeded well, they sometime remain less interested for further studies of islam. 8. the student who has read the text in foreign language and is describing it in his first language he will not feel easy to describe his concepts efficiently because of the difference of the languages, which may affect his performance in examination. 4.3. challenges and their solutions to introduce mother tongue or lingua franca in educational material to bring a workable model one may face the following problems: 1. changing from one language to another in a system requires commitment and continuous effort. 2. in the beginning there would be a need of phased transition strategy through which initially limited learning materials would be produced in local languages as a pilot project. 3. changing language of textbooks may need convincing the donors and organizational authorities. there are many solutions provided by different researchers, some of inclusive and relevant solutions are as under. 1. design the teaching devices in a way that make available language switching and translation of keywords. 2. collaborate over the tasks that were given by the teacher. in so doing, the learners may come to understand the social background of one another. 3. let the learners map out their thoughts. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 117 4. these problems can be addressed successfully by providing at least six years of mother tongue education, with gradual introduction of other languages from an early stage. 5. there is strong support in the literature for mother-tongue instruction in the early years so that a firm foundation can be provided for further education. 6. an approach termed ‘mother tongue based multilingual education’ (mtbmle) is seen as one of the most practical approaches to dealing with the need for multiple languages in education. mtbmle makes the learner’s language, culture and context the foundation of learning. it starts by using the learner’s language throughout school, and gradually introduces a second or even a third language as the child progresses through education. the learner’s first language remains the key language of education throughout. the second language does not become the main language of teaching and learning for at least six years. it is possible to introduce a third language at a slightly later stage, enabling children to develop linguistically and cognitively through their mother tongue, become competent in national language and then learn to use an international language effectively. mother tongue based multilingual education programs and bilingual programs around the world have resulted in dramatically increased academic achievement. 4.4. thematic analysis of multi-lingual education and its resultant factors to launch a workable model as the study mentioned above that the education in the earlier stages should be in mother or lingua franca, but it doesn’t mean that the learning of second/foreign languages is useless, while the holy prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) used to motivate his companions to learn foreign languages to deliver the message of islam in the language of people.49 for example, haìrat zaid bin thébit radi allah ‘anhu learnt different languages like persian, hebrew and qibti.50 so, in this way, the early muslims used language as facilitator and minimized the language barrier to spread the message of islam. the general rule for teaching any subject is to explain a topic from simple to complex and from easy to difficult. ibn-e-khaldën mentioned that in teaching gradual development of students should be kept in mind. any subject should be divided into small parts and should be inculcated in students’ mind step by step. the teaching methodology should be from simple to complex and easy to difficult so that a beginner student could become able to understand and develop his interest in that particular subject.51 118 tackling the language barriers… islamic education is compulsory for all muslims which is provided through islamic books and the holy qur’én. the holy qur’én is in arabic language likewise many other books of hadith, history sêrah and islamic ethics are mostly written in arabic language. therefore, in religious madéris arabic language is focused and is taught the new comers in this field to make them able to understand islamic teachings. but for nonarab muslims it becomes difficult to learn arabic language prior to getting islamic education. this process may take a long duration to learn through foreign language as it is difficult and time taking. in the subcontinent when a student enters in madrasah he is bound to learn øarf, naív and some other linguistic subjects. so beginner students, who came to learn islamic teachings, may face challenges to learn advanced language on the initial stage. in majority of the madéris, arabic is taught as subject instead of language that is why the language skills of learners do not develop, and even spending a lot of time to learn arabic they are in need of translation of arabic books. so there is a need of developing a curriculum for such learners to get islamic education in their mother tongues or lingua franca. the course should be framed in lingua franca for beginner students who want to get education in madrasah. because, they need to clarify their ideas for practice the obligatory tasks in daily life and to develop islamic ethical values in their personalities. the beginner students are enthusiastic to develop islamic etiquettes in them but mostly such necessary teachings are not focused in the beginning rather there are few linguistic subjects which possibly lead them to losing interest in higher islamic education. foreign language may be taught parallel to other important islamic studies. therefore, it must be focused that the language should not only be taught as a subject but as a language. because, the perceived objective of islam are to prepare well educated muslims on themes of religion and not only the language learners. in madrasah education, there should be two levels of islamic education; i) the beginners who should be taught in their native language or lingua franca; and; ii) the students want to proceed for higher islamic studies may be educated through the books written in arabic, persian or english according to the need of curriculum. hence, the language may be used as facilitator instead of barrier. 4.5. division of medium of instructions according to fluency of mother tongue and lingua franca in pakistani scenario madrasah education can be divided into the following two stages. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 119 4.5.1. initial stage there are approximately 70 languages or accents spoken in pakistan, yet urdu, the national language and the medium of instruction in the majority of state schools is spoken by just 7% of the population. children learning in urdu as a second language face major obstacles, particularly in their early years. therefore the literature recommends that the medium of instruction may at least include the seven major regional languages, including urdu, which would extend the delivery of first-language teaching to up to 85% of the population.52 at early stage, the students usually are not familiar with lingua franca or national language ‘urdu’; rather they speak and communicate in mother tongue. therefore, if a student is supposed to get islamic education at this stage he should be educated in his mother tongue. and if books are not available in his mother tongue for the students, these may be available in lingua franca so they can get knowledge smoothly. 4.5.2. advanced stage in advance stage usually a pakistani child becomes familiar with lingua franca ‘urdu’, if he is provided with appropriate environment for the development of urdu language. mostly pakistanis are fluent in urdu speaking at this stage. so in this stage student should be educated in ‘urdu’ language. in case if a student cannot communicate in urdu language he should be taught urdu language in a way he may develop four skills of language, listening, speaking, reading and writing. this is because books for islamic studies have been written in urdu language not in local languages. and the other important factor is that urdu is lingua franca for pakistani citizen. one other important reason is the unity of pakistani nation as one national language speaker, which can be developed through teaching in urdu language. 4.6. division according to language of books and the language spoken by teacher for instructions the teachers in the madéris have diverse regional and ethnic backgrounds as well. therefore, they used to speak frankly to their local students within local languages and in lingua franca with other students of the country during class activities. however, the content of the teaching subjects may carry different languages as designed in syllabus. 120 tackling the language barriers… 4.6.1. difference between the language of book and the language of teaching difference of book language and teaching language, mostly occurs when students language differ from lingua franca. in pakistan this case is more frequent because of diversity of local languages. so difference in language is preferably allowed for beginner students. and teacher can teach in first language of students to explain the subject matter in urdu language. 4.6.2. similarity between the language of book and the language of teaching when the language of teacher during teaching is the class is same as the language used in the textbooks, it can be categorized as same language category. this category is preferred for the students who are familiar enough with the textbooks language. in pakistani madéris the course material is mostly in urdu language which is lingua franca of pakistanis therefore it would be preferably suggested that to use the same language specially to teach advance learners. 4.7. categorization of madarsah education general level is for beginners who want to get islamic education to understand islamic teaching and to become good and practical muslim by following islamic values and teachings. for these students the textbooks should be in first language or lingua franca. the specialization level is for the students want to go ahead for further and higher islamic studies. in this level the text books in foreign language would be included. the foreign language mostly for islamic studies is arabic and in some cases it is persian. it will develop the understanding of a student and he would be able to conduct research on the topics written or available in foreign language. but it is recommended that the medium of instruction should be lingua franca so that the language may be used as facilitator. 4.8. language division on the base of subjects the other dimension of the subjects of islamic studies is the diversity in the field of language. in the above mentioned some samples of courses it can be seen that there is a lot of diversity in the subjects of curriculum. some subjects are language based and others are concept based. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 121 moral, ideological and rational subjects like logic, sêrah, and ethical teachings which deal with concepts, ideas, behavioural and practical part of muslims’ life should be taught in first language or lingua franca using the books written in mother tongue or lingua franca. language based subjects which deal with linguistic aspects like øarf, naív etc. or the subjects in which the text is in foreign language like the holy qur’én or traditions of the holy prophet (øal allahu ‘alaihe wa sallam) should be taught in the beginning in first language and later on can be in target language arabic. 4.9. using language as facilitator and minimizing its barriers although the solutions and remedial techniques have been discussed in the above mentioned categories and divisions, there are some general solutions as follows. 1. first language of the students, a possible solution (use of mother tongue in lessons). in this situation students of low abilities should be taught using the mother tongue to at least remove one barrier of learning. 1. there is need of proper training of teachers of islamic studies how to utilize instructional language effectively. 2. lingua franca as a medium of instructions especially for advance learners can develop positive impact on the islamic education in pakistan. it can help in developing; unity in text books, which may facilitate students to focus on the subject matter not only learning different languages, which will consequently lead to unity among the pakistani citizens. 3. use of modern methodologies in islamic education is very much supportive for developing the interest of students and enhancing successful communication. 4. use languages according to the need of current or modern era, instead of sticking to specific languages and following old methodology. 5. audio/visual aids are helpful in minimizing language barrier because a student can utilize them as an alternate mean of clarifying his concepts. 6. there is dire need of establishing translation centres which would organize system for translation of madrasah books causing language barrier’ into urdu language. 7. research institutes should be established which would provide a platform for researchers to carry out research and write books for curriculum in lingua franca. 122 tackling the language barriers… 5. conclusion the study has provided background information about education systems in madéris. a special focus has been given to curricula used in madéris to explore its multilingual nature and medium of instruction. the paper concludes that the multilingual nature of the curricula of “dars-e-niðémi” and of medium of instruction remained a great challenge which could not be investigated and surmounted yet. the study explored that the some learners face comprehension problems caused by language barriers. according to this work, these problems can be tackled by using mother tongue, lingua franca as language of curriculum in madrasah education of pakistan. islamic education is necessary for all muslims therefore it should be taught in familiar language so that they can understand the real message of islam and deliver it to other people. furthermore, the paper recommends that a student getting higher islamic education should be skilled in arabic language to understand the message from original texts and become able to carry out research. 6. suggestions following suggestions are recommended through this research paper after carrying out research; 1. it is suggested that the more the students use mother tongue for islamic education, the better they will enhance their educational achievement. 2. a country like pakistan which is linguistically diverse, and has high rural populations, it is necessary to treat madrasah language as one of the most important factors in improving islamic education. 3. the areas where there are a large variety of local languages, a common language/lingua franca which is mostly urdu in pakistani context, may be used as medium of instruction. 4. the ‘dars-e-niðémi’ curriculum may be organized according to the need of language facilitator by providing early education in mother tongue or lingua franca and the higher education through arabic or foreign language books using lingua franca as language of teaching. 5. arabic language should be taught as a language not only as a subject, by focusing on the four skills of the language. modern methodologies of language learning can be utilized for better results. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 123 appendix-a table of key terms used in the paper glossary meaning language/ medium of instructions/ teaching the main language used to teach students the subject matter of text books is the language of teaching, for example in punjabi area the education would be delivered in punjabi language. language of text books the language used in the text books for example the language of the holy qur’én is arabic. levels of education there are multiple grades in madrasah education which are; ×ifð53, tajwêd,54 sania ‘ómmah,55 sania khassah,56 shahada-tul-‘aalia57 and shahada-tul‘ólimiya.58 while in this study the madrasah education is categorized as, general or basic education and specialized or advanced education. lingua franca a language that is as a national or common language adopted for communication among speakers whose native languages are different for example in pakistan the lingua franca is urdu language. madrasah education in pakistan the islamic education is provided in madrasah supervised by religious scholars. these institutes are responsible for organizing islamic education through long term courses. mother tongue it can be defined as the main language used by a child constantly from birth to interact and communicate with his/her family members, friends and community. multilingual education system this system starts in the mother tongue and gradually introduces one or more other languages in a structured manner. masjid and maséjid it is a place of ritual prostration or place of worship for muslims. khalifah/khulafa caliphs , successor. originally someone who succeeded the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). later, it came https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/place_of_worship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/place_of_worship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/muslims 124 tackling the language barriers… to be used to refer to all the head of the islamic state until the last ottoman rulers. øëfi/taîawwuf originally, a person who lives in ascetic life of devotions, seeking, spiritual purification. but often this refers to a member of a øëfi order. jémiah/madrasah madrassah or jémiah is a religious institute of islamic education in the subcontinent. in arabic context the word ‘jémiah’ is used for a university. ×ifð memorization the holy qur’én in any religious institute. shahédaatul ‘ólimiya it is the final degree of madrasah education which is recognized by hec equal to ma arabic/islamic studies. this degree is issued wifaqat after 8 years of madrasah education. references 1mr liu zhen min, under-secretary-general, world economic situation prospect, (new york: united nations, 2018), 10. 2adiqa kiani, the role of education on economic growth in pakistan (karachi: federal urdu university of arts, science and technology in collaboration with rg score distribution, 2015), 2. 3curriculum supplement on values education integrating cross cutting themes in the curriculum (islamabad: ministry of federal education and professional training, government of pakistan, 2018) 6-8, accessed november 25, 2021, https://www.scribd.com/document/427064850/values-education-final-pdf. 4 michael woolf, "harmony and dissonance in international education: the limits of globalization," journal of studies in international education 6, no. 1 (2002) 5-15. 5principles of language learning and the role of the teacher (tesol international association, 2017), 4, accessed november 25, 2021, https://www.tesol.org/docs/defaultsource/books/14077_sam.pdf?sfvrsn=2&sfvrsn=2. 6 muhammad bin abdul wahab, mukhtaîarus sêrah, trans. muhammad madani (lahore: nomani kutubkhana, 1990), 61. 7makkah is the holy city for muslims where they perform ×ajj and where ka‘bah is situated. 8madinah almunawwarah is the holy city for muslims where the holy prophet (øalallah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) migrated and stayed there until his last days. 9saleem khalid mansoor, dêni madéris mein ta‘lêm, (islamabad: institute of policy studies (ips), 2005), 91. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 125 10 this institute was an educational organization in ‘baghdad’ where imam abu hanifah (nu‘man bin thébit) used to teach islamic subjects. it is now known as imam azam college. 11al azhar university was inaugurated in 970 where many experts of different fields like, exegeses, tradition of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and jurisprudence graduated. some of them are al-sioti, ibn hajar al ‘asqalani and ‘allamah al navavi etc. 12 al-madrasah al-niðémiah was initiated in baghdad by head of the state nizam al malik. imam al ghazali got education in this institute. 13 this institute was inaugurated in tunisia by wife of mustansar billah in the year 1383 h. and it is known as jamiah zaitunah and it was first established in 737 and subsequently modernized in 1956. it consists of the higher institute of theology and the higher institute of islamic civilization in tunis and a research institution, the center of islamic studies. 14 education ministry government of pakistan, dêni madéris ki jami‘ report, 1971, 4-5; dr ikram ullah jan qasmi, tarêkh mein dêni madéris ki ibtida aor irtiqa, accessed november 25, 2021, http://darululoomdeoband.com/urdu/articles/tmp/1456831679%2004tarikh%20me%20dini%20madaris_mdu_04_april_2005.htm. 22nizamud din sihalvi was an islamic scholar in mughal period who developed well known syllabus for islamic education. 16ibnul hassan abbasi, dêni madéris, (karachi: maktabah umar farooq, 2003), 17;ta‘lêm al lughah al ‘arabiyah fi al madéris ad dêniyah in pakistan, (master's thesis: saiful islam, 2010), 116. 17sheikh muhammad mansoor, rood e kauthar, (lahore: idarah saqafat islamiyah, 1979), 604-606;saleem khalid mansoor, dêni madéris mein ta‘lêm,(islamabad: ips, 2002), 95. 18×él and qél are two terms used by sufis. qél means ‘sharê‘at’ or to learn theoretical part of tasawwuf and ×él means ‘ùarêqat’ or practical part or practices of tasawwuf. 19dr nazeer ahmed, “the sufis of india and pakistan,” accessed november 25, 2021, https://historyofislam.com/contents/the-post-mongol-period/the-sufis-ofindia-and-pakistan/. 20it was founded by shah abdur rahim the father of shah waliullah dehlvi, during 18th century. after the death of abdur rahim in1718 shah waliulah started teaching at the madrasah. it became a leading institute of islamic learning and was acknowledged as the most influential seminary in the indian subcontinent. see joseph kitagwa, the religious tradition of asia; religion, history and culture, (england: routledge, 2013), 146. 21 akhtar rahi, tadhkirah tul muîannifên dars e niðémi, (lahore: maktabah rahmania, 1978), 18-19. 22please see the table of key terms attached herewith the article as appendixa for further detail. 23education ministry government of pakistan, dêni madéris ki jémi‘ report, 1990, 3. 24 ibid. 25 ibid. 126 tackling the language barriers… 26www.wifaqulmadaris.org.pk, accessed september 10, 2021. 27 ibid. 28www.tanzeemulmadaris.com, accessed may 10, 2019. 29 http:/jamiatulmuntazar.com/dept/wafaq.php, accessed may 18, 2019. 30www.jamiatulmutazar.com, accessed may 10, 2019. 31 http:/www.rabtatulmadaris.com.pk/ur, accessed may 10, 2019. 32www.wmsp.edu.pk, accessed may 10, 2019. 33education ministry government of pakistan, dêni madéris ki jémi‘ report, 1990, 4. 34http://www.rabtatulmadaris.com.pk, accessed may 21, 2021. 35saleem khalid mansoor, dêni madéris mein ta‘lêm– kayfiat, masa’il, imkénét,(islamabad: ips, 2002). 36muhammad ameen, hamara dêni niðém e ta‘lêm, (lahore: darul ikhlas, 2004). 37khaalid rehman, dêni madéris main tabdêli k rujíénét (islamabad: ips, 2008). 38zahid shahab ahmed, "madrassa education in the pakistan context: challenges, reform and future directions," peace prints: south asian journal of peace building 2, no. 1 (2009): 1-11, http://wiscomp.org/peaceprints/21/2.1.4.pdf. 39ghulam shabir, shah muhammad usman farooq abbasi and amant khan, "reforming the madrasah system," pakistan journal of social sciences (pjss) 32, no. 1 (2012): 147-156, http://pjss.bzu.edu.pk/website/journal/article/5e9698b3a2451/page. 40fatima sajjad, "reforming madrasah education in pakistan: post 9/11 perspective," journal of islamic thought and civilization (jitc) 3, no. 1(2013): 104-121, https://doi.org/10.32350/jitc.31.05. 41 lid king, the impact of multilingualism on global education and language learning, (cambridge: cambridge english language assessment, 2017), 2. 42vimolan mudaly and kajal singh, "language: a barrier when teaching and learning business studies," multidisciplinary journal of sciences and research 74, no. 9/1 (2018): 56-71, http://dx.doi.org/10.21506/j.ponte.2018.9.4. 43khalil ur rehman, zafar iqbal, muhammad azam, saba iram and asad ullah javed, "a study of perception of madrasah’s students regarding the trends and challenges of elt in pakistan," palarch’s journal of archaeology of egypt/egyptology (pjaee) 18, no. 8 (2021): 489-512, https://www.archives.palarch.nl/index.php/jae/article/view/8675. 44muhammad tayyab khan, hafiz muhammad arshad iqbal and zafar ahmad khan, "curricula of islamic seminaries of pakistan: critical overview and way forward," multicultural education 7, no. 10 (2021):632-637, http://ijdri.com/me/vol-7-no-10-2021/. 45sheikh muhammad reza al muzaffar, al manïiq, (iraq: dar al taaruf lil matbuat, 2006), 32-33. 46 helen pinnock and gowri vijayakumar, language and education: the missing link; how the language used in schools threatens the achievement of education for all,(uk: cfbt education trust, 2009), 9, 17. 47ibid., 24. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 127 48the minimum requirement of the entrance in various madéris varies however the general equivalence to sanvia amma shows their first grade equivalent to secondary school certificate (matriculation) if they pass few compulsory subjects like english and pakistan studies etc. please see for detail, accessed november 26, 2021, https://ittehadulmadaris.edu.pk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/modeeducation.pdf https://hec.gov.pk/english/services/students/equivalence%20degree%20issuan ce/pages/procedure/deeni-asnad.aspx. 49 muhammad qasim, tarêkh qadêm madéris ‘arbiyah, (multan: maktabah qasmiyah, 2005), 287. 50 ibid. 51ibn khaldoon, muqaddimat ibn khaldūn: kitabulibar, (beirut: dar al-kotob al-ilmiyah, 2003). 52 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/dec/07/pakistan-schoolslanguage-crisis-lotbiniere, accessed june 14, 2021. 53diploma course of reading and memorizing the holy qur’én. 54diploma course of reciting holy qur’én with phonetics and phonology 55certificate course equivalent to ten years of schooling, secondary school certificate (ssc). 56certificate course equivalent to twelve years of schooling, higher secondary school certificate (hssc). 57associate degree equivalent to fourteen years of education. 58degree equivalent to sixteen years of education, with specialized fields. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 29 muslim religious leadership education in the minority context: the role of naleemiah institute of islamic studies thameem ushama international islamic university, malaysia. email: thameem@iium.edu.my mohamed fouz mohamed zacky international islamic university, malaysia. email: zackyfouz@iium.edu.my mohamed rishad najmudeen naleemiah institute of islamic studies, sri lanka. email: nm.rishad1985@gmail.com mohamed ashath international islamic university, malaysia. email: msmaasath@gmail.com sulaiman lebbe mohamed hassan naleemiah institute of islamic studies, sri lanka. email: hassan.jni@gmail.com received on: 03-01-22 accepted on: 23-12-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.697 abstract this paper studies the role of the naleemiah institute of islamic studies as a mediator in empowering muslim religious leaders through proper islamic education in sri lanka. considerable criticism is directed towards traditional islamic educational institutions for not exhibiting contemporary and contextually designed features regarding regional aspects such as the local social-cultural context. thus, the paper attempts to elaborate on the role of niis in empowering sri lankan muslim religious leadership by adopting proper educational philosophy and objectives. it explores its emerging context, development of its curriculummailto:thameem@iium.edu.my mailto:zackyfouz@iium.edu.my mailto:nm.rishad1985@gmail.com mailto:msmaasath@gmail.com mailto:hassan.jni@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.697 30 muslim religious leadership … making process, academic strategy, and recent trajectories and discourses to realise the objectives. the qualitative methodology uses descriptive and analytical types. the paper’s finding offers that contrary to the prevailing metanarrative that islamic religious institutions often resist changes, reform themselves, and evolve, the institute’s case has proven otherwise. however, it is suggested that the changing contexts and their challenges are an opportunity to broaden the institution's societal role, intellectual commitment, and religious leadership. keywords: leadership, education, minority, islamic studies, reorientation, sri lanka 1. introduction a minority of muslims live in sri lanka. the vast majority are buddhists. they used to coexist peacefully without any disputes. unfortunately, a misunderstanding developed, resulting in a conflict that required resolution. according to muslims, they require proper education in muslim religious leadership, including instruction in all disciplines of islamic fundamentalism and the entirety of the islamic tradition. they can produce accurate, correct, and uncontroversial interpretations of the holy texts suited for their status as a minority once they have gained a proper and moderate comprehension of islam’s worldview. it is required to provide minorities with the proper education to adhere to their religion and doctrines while prioritizing social harmony, lasting peace, communal cohabitation, tolerance, and cooperation. in order to prepare muslims for a proper understanding of religion and to use their knowledge to provide religious leadership that can lead them to promote sustainable, peaceful social and religious coexistence, one of the goals of holistic and comprehensive religious education is to understand contemporary realities. this type of education for muslim leaders is currently required in sri lanka and other nations, where there are unprecedented challenges with radical interpretations of religious scriptures that promote excess, immoderation, and bigotry. the naleemiah institute of islamic studies has reassessed its curriculum to address the muslim religious leadership education gap in contemporary sri lanka. the following discourse explains the institute’s methodology and approaches to muslim religious leadership education, which others may consider. islam demands its adherents to learn theoretical and practical knowledge of the religion and disseminate it among their community members.1 given this reality, islamic religious education centers began to facilitate this missionary goal by producing scholars and experts of religion who have the ability and necessary knowledge to perform such a duty. in turn, those scholars would play a vital role in hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 31 shaping the individual and social life of the muslim community. however, some critics have blamed these institutions for different reasons in recent history. primarily, critiques of islamic education institutions call it an “illiberal”, “backward”, “burden on muslim society”' and a “stumbling block in the progress of the community” (steiner, 20112, geaves, 20123, sidat, 2018).4 for them, islamic colleges essentially provide their students with a type of knowledge that was generated many centuries before. to put it more explicitly, those institutions cannot equip their students with new modern knowledge.5 that said, the critiques argue that it would not be a misinformed hypothesis if one assigns thelion’s share of responsibility to those colleagues for the underdevelopment of the community. adding insult to injury is the recent discourse of “global islamic terrorism,”. the islamic religious colleges were broadly labelled as ideological backers of global crime.6 despite this growing negative image of islamic educational institutions, reetz observes that islamic religious institutions have been rapidly undergoing substantial changes and adopting new strategies to cope with changing socio-political realities of the world. similarly, he observes that their different socio-political environments significantly decide these institutions’ internal culture, discourse, and performance. reetz further argues: the diversity within these networks may also be growing. the approach of deobandi madrasas in various regions shows some differentiation in ideological rigidity and social background. in addition, the approach of islamic universities is not the same in every country. the nature of the political environment also seems to influence their orientation. in countries where the democratic culture is stronger such as india, indonesia and south africa, diversity is more easily upheld, reducing sectarian, dogmatic and militant pressures.7 this paper studies the formation, development and current trajectories of the naleemiah institute of islamic studies (henceforth, niis), a religious institution in sri lanka. the emergence of niis is seen as one of the turning points in the history of religious education in the twentieth century. it introduced new discourse of islamic religious education and a new working model in the sri lankan context. since its inception in 1973, the institution has undergone substantial transformations in presenting its message, articulating its academic strategy, and defining its role in sri lankan society. the paper also argues that although niis has made substantial changes in its initial outlook in its four decades of the academic journey, it does not see those shifts as a comprise. however, the institution views it as a necessary sophistication process or refinement of its message and societal role. 32 muslim religious leadership … this paper contributes to existing debates on the nature and development of islamic religious education in the modern world by analysing the historical evolution of niis in sri lanka. this attitude of niis goes against the existing meta-narrative on islamic religious colleges, arguing that most institutions see the reform ideas as the source of external pressure to deconstruct its ideological basis. the paper is divided into five sections. the forthcoming section two presents a short introductory note on niis, while section three briefly surveys contemporary debates around islamic religious education. section four discusses the institution’s education philosophy by tracing its curriculum’s historical developments. the paper ends with an analytical conclusion. 2. jamiah naleemiah: a brief introduction the naleemiah institute of islamic studies was established in 1973 by al-haj naleem, a well-known gem merchant in beruwala, sri lanka. the institution’s mission states that it aims “to produce intellectually sound, professionally competent, morally enriched, balanced and integrated personalities committed to generating and disseminating knowledge through innovative teaching, training, learning and research while contributing to society, nation and humanity as a whole.”8 al-haj naleem initiated this brand-new project with other businessmen, academics and close friends from his hometown, china fort, beruwala. it aimed to produce a new generation of scholars and thinkers who would be multi-skilled, economically independent and knowledgeable enough to respond to myriad challenges of the rapidly changing world. its prominent scholar cum director was m.a.m. shukri, who passed away recently. the niis is divided into two central departments, the center for foundation studies (cfs), where students gain preliminary knowledge in arabic and islamic studies while preparing for the governmental advanced level examination. additionally, they are taught languages and moral subjects at this stage. besides, the faculty of islamic studies (fis) offers advanced courses in islamic studies and select secular subjects. meanwhile, fis students can enroll with any state university to gain a recognised degree as external candidates. the niis operates an independent unit called “unit for extra-curricular activities” that organises competitions, student forums, and academic programs. students are trained to develop writing, speaking, and other required skills. academic conferences create an environment of critical thinking and intellectual culture. the rich library of niis includes more than 45,000 books in various languages, mainly english, arabic, sinhala, and tamil. furthermore, niis engages in expanding its academic activities to a broader audience. accordingly, it established academy hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 33 for development, research and training (adrt) in 2006. adrt continuously holds training programs for different categories like media personnel, lectures of arabic colleges and community leaders. naleemiah virtual learning center (nvlc) is another wing of niis initiated in 2020, and it offers numerous online courses, such as qur’anic interpretation and translation, to the public. the research and publication unit is pivotal in organising various discourses on islamic thought through research and publications. the unit also publishes a quarterly research journal called “islamiya sinthanai”, or islamic thought9 in tamil. in addition, niis administers a separate arabic language training centre. the centre works to empower the arabic language skills of students of niis.10 3. islamic education: a survey on contemporary discourse contemporary scholarship provides numerous reasons/factors for the emergence of modern islamic religious institutions. these can be classified into two broader categories; external and internal. in that sense, western modernity and british colonialism played a pivotal role in reshaping the socio-cultural structure of the muslim community. with the increasing domination of colonial powers, the muslim community had to struggle for survival and identity.11 the colonial power developed a new education system for colonized countries leading muslim communities around the globe to believe that islam had no place in that new system. promoting secular thinking and abstract rationalism against religious norms created severe resistance within the muslim community, and they thought of developing an alternative educational system to preserve islamic identity.12 geaves supports this point, explicitly arguing that the primary purpose of the emergence of the madrasah mode of islamic educational centres was to “protect muslim culture” against “westernisation”.13 in addition, the right-wing political discourses against muslims and majoritarian ethnic nationalism also created an atmosphere where muslim religious leaders felt a dire need to initiate religious colleges to defend islam and muslims.14 regarding internal factors, neyazi argues that islamic educational colleges emerged “to produce prayer leaders, writers, preachers, and teachers who could disseminate the knowledge.”15 third, the interpretative pluralism of religious texts has contributed to forming various islamic religious colleges. each school of thought establishes its religious college to promote interpretation methodology. the current academic works disclose that islamic religious seminaries face multiple issues and challenges in the contemporary global setting. welland primarily criticises most religious seminaries’ 34 muslim religious leadership … curricula as “theoretically heavy and irrelevant.”16 this rigidity and lack of adaptability are by-products of the fear of imitating the west regarding its educational philosophy, language, and structure. this attitude has pushed the institutions to a point where they face formidable problems getting their courses recognised within the national higher education system. this is another problem islamic religious education institutions face today. interestingly, the same issue is more complex in muslim minority contexts. muslim minority communities defend their islamic religious education centers and consider it a non-negotiable part of their social makeup based on cultural rights narratives. nevertheless, the state has its own educational vision formulated to meet the socioeconomic and political needs of the citizens. often, these two dimensions come into conflict with each other and negotiate how to move forward.17 the question of state recognition for islamic religious seminaries has also become an area of discussion on the issue of islamic religious education. as a natural outcome of these developments, a serious discussion on reforming islamic religious education centres has emerged among the stakeholders who engage with the topic. hence, the institutions were advised to incorporate new theories of textual interpretations and secular subjects into their curriculum and provide students with tools to contextualize islamic teachings. besides these debates, the formation of islamic universities in the south and south-east asian context in the 1970s and 80s has gotten much attention from contemporary scholarship on islamic religious education. the international islamic university malaysia (iium) and the international islamic university of islamabad (iiui) are prominent examples. these institutions discuss advanced epistemological issues of modernity, islam and contemporary social sciences, religion and the state development concern, culture protectionism, and pluralism. abaza mentions that the proponents of these projects are searching for a "third" way into modernity or an “islamic middle path.18” in addition, these universities aim to empower students who learn in traditional islamic religious seminaries by providing them with sophisticated courses and religious and leadership training. sometimes, they allow the graduates of those seminaries to study in those universities and integrate themselves into the mainstream educational system of their respective countries.19 4. research design this research is qualitative as it involves studying an educational institution's narratives, perspectives, and worldviews. the data were collected from reliable primary and secondary sources. direct interviews and official documents played a significant part in hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 35 primary sources. the authors interviewed six lecturers of niis. they were selected based on seniority, knowledge, experience and contributions and involvement in the strategic decision-making process of the institution. the interviews were updated in light of the informal discussions with other lecturers and graduates of niis who hold respectable positions in governmental and non-governmental institutions/organisations. secondly, official documents were used to obtain relevant data to enrich the discourse. the research also benefited from books, journals, and magazine articles on islamic leadership and religious education. the study applies the content analysis method in terms of data analysis. it offers a researcher the appropriate analytical space to consider and investigate several angles on the information in interviews and papers. hence, firstly, the authors read the contents of the data and classified it into three major themes: the emergence of niis, curriculum making and academic strategy and recent developments and debates. as this is an exploratory study on niis, data were organised to cover a broader terrain of themes. afterward, the authors critically analysed and interpreted the data sets in light of a central research question of how the education philosophy of niis emerged and developed in religious leadership education and what significant milestones shaped its academic outlook in the last four decades. 5. niis: emergence and formative narratives teaching and learning islam is a historical phenomenon in sri lanka. sri lankan muslim society utilised many ways to disseminate islamic knowledge throughout history. in the modern context, muslim society saw the formation of islamic arabic collages as a newly organised institution from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century (numan, 2007, p.168). those colleges prepare a separate community of religious clergies. from the perspective of gradual transformations and developments, it is apparent that the formation of niis was interpreted as a turning point in the history of sri lankan islamic religious education in the twentieth century.20 primarily, one can understand niis and its historical significance if one place its formation against the changing socio, political and religious narratives of the sri lankan muslim community and the muslim leaders since the later 19th century.21 the socio-religious leaders stressed that islamic religious education should be upgraded. hence, to produce well equipped muslim community, especially in the 1950s and 60s, civil and political leaders thought that muslims should excel in education if they wanted to establish themselves as a productive minority community.22 one of the proponents of this discourse was ama azeez, a leading muslim thinker in post-colonial srilanka. he was also a 36 muslim religious leadership … muslim intellectual who turned out to be one of the founding members of niis. generally, azeez went beyond just arguing that sri lankan muslims should prioritise education. instead, he wanted to change the whole fabric of the muslim community’s thinking. thus, azeez strongly stressed that muslims must find a new mode of thinking based on a unified vision of knowledge by merging secular and religious knowledge into a coherent framework. hence, azeez suggested in a special note that there is a need to establish an educational institution that can produce scholars and experts who reflect this broader worldview. this strand of reformist thinking within the broader education empowerment movement in the 1960s laid the foundational seeds of the formation of niis.23 according to the existing historical records, azeez endorsed this idea firmly in the initial discussion session organised to articulate the vision and mission of the niis.24 the second factor that influenced the emergence of niis was so-called global islamic revivalist thoughts in the latter half of the twentieth century. the islamic revivalist spirit had influenced some of the founder members of the institution. as such, they thought the current leadership of the muslim community had failed to understand the contemporary challenges of the muslim community. those leaders did not lead the community in the proper direction and solution.25 hence, they argued that the muslim community must produce a new generation of scholar-leaders. those leaders must be able to articulate their ideas in light of clear islamic thought and vision. only then the muslim community can face the challenge of increasing the infiltration of new western ideologies and concepts such as secularism. therefore, some are reminded that the indian islamic scholar abu hasan ali nadwi’s challenges of age and responsibilities of the muslim community indirectly impacted the formation of the niis.26 in that work, nadwi elaborates that muslims face an imminent threat of creeping foreign ideologies that could shake the foundation of the islamic faith in the long run. shukri aptly mentions that some participants in the first meeting justified the need for such an institution by highlighting nadwi’s work and its main arguments.27 thirdly, there was an increasing understanding among muslim community activists that the prevailing mode of the islamic religious education system, the madrasah, at the time, did not focus much on the broader challenges of modernity. thus, the madrasa institution was not up to meeting the challenges and demands of the community in a new, emerging, complex world.28 moreover, they felt that a muslim religious clergy’s responsibility is not confined to their traditional role of teaching the islamic fundamentals to the community. instead, they should upgrade themselves into a community of islamic intellectuals. to realize this objective, it is not hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 37 enough for those religious leaders to get the experience of islamic religious education, they should also be involved in the system of modern education. in short, for those community leaders at the time, the muslim community needed a religious scholar with a good grounding in modern education. in this context, al-haj naleem, the founding father of the institute and his spiritual mentor masood, a founder member of niis and a traditional scholar with a reformist spirit, vaguely articulated their expectations about the newly emerging niis in the early 70s and 80s, respectively. in the inaugural speech, naleem highlighted that worldly knowledge and religious knowledge are like two eyes of a person and that being said, a person with one functioning eye cannot see the world.29 therefore, niis has been established to produce islamic religious scholars who can direct society with a clear vision and mission. likewise, in the early 80s, masood repeatedly endorsed that niis must produce islamic personalities who are university graduates, yet they will deliver friday sermons.30 masood's vision shows a general reality of that era when the religious platform was reserved only for the religious clergy community with no basic training in modern education. masood thinks that reality must change in this context, and niis is up to performing such a transformative task. it means that graduates of niis would become “ulama”, yet they would simultaneously be well-versed in modern education. masood firmly believed that niis would reshape the country’s traditional perception and role of islamic religious leaders, which would result in the muslim community perceiving their religious leaders as potential graduates of modern university education capable of dealing with their issues. 6. early struggle: translating formative narratives into a coherent curriculum the founding members of niis firmly believed that the new institution should possess a unique curriculum to achieve its suggested formative narratives of merging secular and religious education and producing islamic scholars who have a good grounding in modern education. however, they could not initially find an appropriate model curriculum.31 adding insult to injury, lecturers involved in the institution’s teaching activities did not clearly understand how to actualize such a grand idea. as a result, initially, they thought that the niis curriculum should follow the syllabus of the traditional islamic schools and textbooks for islamic subjects, and alongside, it should include some courses from the state school curriculum to prepare students for state examinations (arafath 2019 38 muslim religious leadership … and mansoor, 2019).32 in the early stages, the curriculum makers included agriculture, thinking it was a productive worldly subject regarding employability. more importantly, historical records show that niis lecturers used traditional madrasa syllabus textbooks to teach foundational courses such as islamic jurisprudence and islamic theology. as per arafath, these textbooks reflect the traditional orientation of niis's curriculum in the early 70s.33 from 1978 onwards, some religious scholars who had joined niis as lecturers introduced texts books considering their changing worldviews.34 commenting on these unstable, unclear, and fluctuating developments of early phases, mansoor and ayoob ali argue that the institution’s curriculum-making process and other strategic decisions were handled by traditionally trained ‘ulama of different theological backgrounds at the time.35 that was because the educated founder members of the institution, such as azeez, passed away soon after its formation. thus, the institution and its curriculum development were left to the remaining ‘ulama and some enthusiastic founder members. those members and lecturers did not have the required potential to navigate the early challenges of a unique project such as niis. this trend changed once the first batch of graduates of niis joined as lecturers in 1982. those new lectures emphasized that the curriculum of niis and its textbooks must reflect scholars of islamic reformism and their contemporary approaches to islam. for example, they suggested references that promote the idea of comparative islamic jurisprudence or fiqhi muqaran, along with textbooks that reflect the ideas of a particular school of islamic jurisprudence. gradually, graduates of niis came to dominate the academic decision-making, and they reshaped the curriculum content that mostly mirrored the reformist and revivalist spirit of modern islam. notwithstanding all these changes, niis could not transform its worldview and formative narratives into a full-fledged curriculum of a high education institution until 1995. 7. the standardisation of formative narratives hussian hamid al-hassan, an egyptian islamic scholar, famous economist, and chancellor of the international islamic university of islamabad (iiui), visited niis in 1996. his visit was a crucial turning point in the history of the academic thinking of niis. he offered a chance to get post-graduate opportunities for niis graduates under the condition that the institution would change its existing curriculum according to the demands of iiui. the niis revisited its overall curriculum and academic strategy, following that new development, several structural changes were made afterward. this change brought some new elements into the curriculum and the academic planning of niis.36 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 39 it is important to note that since its inception, niis has divided its academic strategy into two separate stages the foundation period and the advanced studies period. firstly, niis introduced the faculty of uîël al-dên. nevertheless, new developments upgraded the advanced studies period into a faculty of uîël al-dên. originally, iiui contained two departments: the qur’an and sunnah studies and islamic scholastic theology under the uîël al-dên faculty. interestingly, niis altered the established system of iiui and incorporated selected subjects from both departments into its overarching uîël al-dên faculty. the second significant change was niis adopting a sophisticated university credit hours system. afterward, the evaluation methods and ranking system of niis developed along with new credit hours methods. the third significant development was the introduction of subjects related to social sciences, such as introduction to sociology, logic, sufism, scholastic theology, philosophy and comparative religions, into the curriculum of niis.37 according to the existing data, niis’s overall outlook, furnished in 1996, remained unchanged until 2010. equally, the contents and reference textbooks of the foundational subjects of islamic studies, such as islamic jurisprudence, islamic theology, and tafsêr and ×adêth studies, were updated, expanded, and systematised. all these changes provide critical insight into how iiui’s overall thinking resonated with the constructive ideas of niis, which is that the institution stands for providing islamically-oriented solutions to the modern challenges of muslim societies. hence, the institution might have understood these changes as a much-needed sophistication process instead of being a radical change in the ideological direction of the institution per se. 8. niis and post-2010 context arafath, a senior lecturer of niis, who has played a vital role in reforming the educational philosophy and curriculum of niis for the last ten years, argues that niis underwent “substantial changes” in the last decade.38 analysing his reading on what has been happening for ten years, one can classify the changes into three major categories. first, niis's curriculum was upgraded by adding more islamic studies courses. for example, the new curriculum includes islamic jurisprudence of priorities, islamic jurisprudence of minorities, and higher objectives of shari‘éh. secondly, in nonislamic sciences, the niis curriculum incorporated subjects like peace and inter-communal reconciliation studies, interfaith dialogue, peacebuilding, conflict resolution, etc. thirdly, arafath mentions that the curriculum review committee has shown a deep interest in reformulating the entire curriculum and academic planning system, considering the sri lankan high education standards and policies and 40 muslim religious leadership … the emerging new socio-political-political-political developments in the country. furthermore, he interestingly mentioned that he thinks this is a crucial period in the history of niis. it moves clearly, towards its objectives upon which it was established in 1973.39arafat’s observations are authenticated in the preface of the course outline book of niis. the faculty of islamic studies curriculum has been reviewed based on the suggestions and the advice of internal auditors in the faculty board. the revision process especially contemplated the policies and the criterion of sri lankan higher education. the academic council of niis considered the job market demand during the revision.40 an overall reading of the existing curriculum of niis, which was finalised in 2020, reveals that it contains an expanded list of courses related to islamic studies, clearly mentioning evaluation methods, teaching methods, course objectives and learning outcomes. the islamic studies section offers courses in seven major areas: qur’én studies, prophetic traditions, islamic jurisprudence, islamic theology, islamic history, general studies, and languages. under the title of general studies, niis offers courses on human rights, peace studies, trends of contemporary islamic thought, philosophy, logic, introduction to sri lankan law, major religions in sri lanka, history of sri lanka, research methodology, etc. another important section in the curriculum is allocated to information technology. subjects like communication and web designing, document preparation system, database application, information communication and technology are offered.41 9. faculty of islamic studies the faculty of islamic studies was established in 1996. it offers two bachelor’s degree-granting programmes. they are the bachelor of arts (general degree) and the arabic language and islamic studies specialisations of the bachelor of arts. the three-year bachelor of arts degree has been created to meet the needs of students interested in completing their education quickly. to earn this degree, a student needs to finish 94 credits. a student may specialise in the four-year bachelor of arts honours degree with a solid commitment to a particular discipline, enabling the student to pursue an in-depth study. to earn this degree, a student needs to complete 124 credits. a comprehensive bachelor of arts degree syllabus with honours in arabic and islamic studies is provided below. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 41 10. syllabus of bachelor of arts in arabic language and islamic studies this bachelor’s degree programme has 124 credit hours spreading over four levels with eight semesters. the syllabus for level one has 31 credit hours. level one, semester one courses are advanced arabic language, professional arabic language, foundation of islamic culture & civilization, analytical studies of al-qur’én – i or thematic studies of al-qur’én, elementary english, islamic sociology or basic sinhala. courses for level one, semester two are arabic literature, rhetoric science, quranic sciences, analytical studies of al-qur’én ii or methodology of quranic interpreters, effective communication – english ii, research methodology or effective communication – sinhala and peace and social harmony as an auxilary course, totalling 31 credits.42 courses for level 2, semester one are introduction to theoretical and applied linguistics, prophetic traditions, islamic theology – i, history of prophet muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) or methodology of d’awa, effective communication – english ii, basic mathematics or introductory microeconomics. courses for level 2, semester 2 are introduction to translation studies, hadith sciences, islamic banking and finance or islamic law of financial transactions, maxims of islamic law, history of islamic law, advanced reading and writing, ijtihad in islamic law or contemporary thoughts as an auxiliary course, totalling 31credits.43 courses for level 3, semester one are general translation, islamic family law, law of inheritance, islamic theology – ii, sources of islamic jurisprudence, introduction to information technology, objectives of islamic law or comparative study of religions. courses for level 3, semester 2 are journalistic translation, islamic criminal law – i, approaching the prophetic traditions – i, ‘ilm al-takhrêj, document preparation system, spreadsheet & presentation, advanced sinhala or introduction to logic and introduction to philosophy as an auxiliary course totalling 31 credits.44 courses for level 4, semester one are legal translation, approaching the prophetic traditions – ii, islamic beliefs and conceptions, islamic criminal law – ii, muslim minorities, human resource management or communication and web development. level 4, semester 2 courses are religious and translation, islamic history, judicial system in islam, research project, database applications with ms access and cloud commuting, or introduction to sufism and methodology of muhaddisin as an auxiliary course totalling 31 credits.45 42 muslim religious leadership … 11. discourse on the need for re-orientation after more than four decades of the academic journey, niis has not fully settled in its position. it still is confronted with questions about reframing its ideological orientation and future directions. one of those haunting issues is the problem of “re-orientation”. in that sense, niis seeks to redirect, with an extreme focus, its overall academic strategy to the needs and requirements of the sri lankan higher education standards and the socio-political developments of the sri lankan muslim community. the institution has long argued that its ideological outlook is to reform the muslim community and prepare to face the modern world’s secular and western ideological challenges. as the context changes, niis tries to reframe its discourse by addressing the issues of pluralism, communal coexistence, and multi-culturalism, rethinking islamic social life in a muslim minority context and reconciling islam with modern socio-political concepts. some of its flagship academic events, such as annual academic camps, highlighted these changing narratives. for example, in the last ten years, niis’s academic events have tried to socialise intracommunity and inter-community unity ideas in a volatile post-war environment. in addition, the critical argument that niis had circulated through these endeavours is that the muslim studentship and the professionals should join with progressive forces of the county to contribute to the ongoing debate about building an intra-community inter-religious coexistence in the country. moreover, another critical theme niis debated is urging the citizens to be responsible for their civic duties and reclaiming civil society’s role in directing the country. it has been a much-debated topic in the post-war context in sri lanka. niis arranged a comprehensive forum on september 1921, 2017, to discuss the meaning, contents, ethics, and objectives of citizenship and how to build a good citizen who contributes positively to nation-building amid various challenges in the country. interestingly, the creative contribution of the event was an argument that the idea of responsible citizenship is as spiritual as it is political and social in the islamic worldview. such themes show that now the institution presents itself as an intellectual hotspot that can cater to and reconcile islam with the emerging socio-political themes of communal harmony, pluralism, and intercultural coexistence in the post-war context of sri lanka. this case for the institution’s re-orientation might be wellargued considering recent changes in the newly adopted niis curriculum. as it carries relatively new courses that correspond to understanding sri lankan socio-political milieus, such as understanding sri lankan law, major religions in sri lanka, history of sri lanka, introduction to peace and conflict studies, interfaith dialogue, human rights and equality, it includes courses to reorient hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 43 the religious thought addressing new developments such as islamic jurisprudence of minorities and objectives of islamic sharê‘éh.46 mansoor, senior islamic scholar, graduate, and lecturer of niis, argues that the current changes are insufficient. he thinks we live as a minority muslim community in the country. in that background, we need to insert more subjects regarding presenting islam and building conversations with buddhist, christian, and tamil people. even though we have a course focusing on such themes and contents, we need a more vagarious program. moreover, “it is paramount to reformulate the contents of islamic studies subjects such as tafseer, hadeeth and islamic jurisprudence in light of minority context.”47 12. conclusion finally, some critical points can be made regarding the journey of niis as an islamic religious institution. firstly, the long history and recent developments highlight that niis has never resisted addressing suggested reform proposals in teaching coreislamic sciences and incorporating new secular subjects. the institution argued that its educational philosophy merges religious education with secular knowledge. hence, the institution did not consider those reform packages, including new secular subjects, new methodologies, and demands of national education policies, as a challenge to its religious identity or essential mission. instead, niis perceives such opportunities as potential ways to upgrade its academic program. moreover, niis’s stakeholders believe that their understanding of islamic religious education and overall reformist approach to modern educational philosophy would give them enough latitude in reformulating its new role in the changing context. it can be seen that niis’s struggle for international and national recognition and other challenges did have an impact on its outlook very close to modern educational institutions proper, while it did not alter much of its ideological essence but broadened it. secondly, the institution’s optimism against the demands of the changing context can be explained by another critical factor apart from the institution’s reformist approach to understanding modern education. the institution believes that the moral components of the traditional islamic learning structure that niis still maintains would help them circumvent the challenges posed by the demands of the highest market-oriented modern education system and its culture. for example, even after so many changes in its curriculum, academic strategy, and overall message in the last two decades, niis still firmly follows the structure of the residential campus. furthermore, it thinks that the residential campus format helps keep the students from being exposed to a distractive open culture that prevails outside the campus. 44 muslim religious leadership … in addition, the institution somewhat strictly monitors the moral side of the students. it motivates them to partake in spiritual training sessions conducted by moral and character-building committees. like traditional islamic seminaries, niis avoids promoting student union activities and independent mobilisation activities favouring certain ideological schools among students. instead, it promotes the concept of brotherhood and the importance of collective life. the institution believes that those components could give them an edge to strike a balance between divergent notions, such as market-oriented and economically driven demands of modern education and the moral side of the education philosophy of niis. in this background, niis provides a third way to face the market demands while preserving the moral grounding of islamic education. thirdly, niis’s academic journey equally highlights the role of the socio-political context in shaping the perspective of islamic religious and educational institutions. it further supports the core argument that those religious institutions are not static; instead, they chose different strategies to survive the challenges of different socio-political upheavals. in the case of the niis, for example, postcolonial muslim leaders’ concerns for the educational empowerment of the muslim community somewhat contributed to the formation of the niis. the leaders demanded a new model of religious institutions and scholars equally equipped with religious and modern education. they thought this institution would empower the minority community and help achieve their interest against other ethnic communities in the country. after that, in the late 80s and 90s, global islamic revivalism and reformists’ thoughts also contributed to its gradual development. again, in the post-war context, the growing local islamophobic context pushed the institution to rethink its role and academic strategy considering the new developments. consequently, the institution has rearranged its resources to rebrand its outlook as that of a centre that can mediate the inter-community and intra-community relationships and provide a new form of religious thinking in positioning the muslim minority of sri lanka against the demands of social changes in post-war sri lanka. therefore, while islamic religious education institutions derive the societies in light of their ideological vision, they are also partly products of the socio-political context. this dynamic nature of the islamic religious institutions is well reflected in the case of niis in sri lanka. notes and references: 1 deitrich reetz, from madrasa to university, the challenges and formats of islamic education (london: sage publications ltd, 2010), 106. 2 kerstin steiner, “madrasah in singapore: tradition and modernity in religious education,” intellectual discourse 19 (2011): 41–70. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 45 3 ron geaves, “the symbolic contruction of the walls of deoband,” islam and christian-muslim relationships 23, no. 3 (2012): 315–28, https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2012.676780. 4 haroon sidat, “between tradition and transition: an islamic seminary, or dar aluloom in modern britain,” religion 9(10) (2018): 314, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9100314. 5 numan, sri lankan muslims: ethnic identity within cultural diversity (colombo: international centre for ethnic studies, 2007), 172. 6 moniza khokhar, “reforming militant madaris in pakistan,” studies in conflict & terrorism 30(4) (2007): 353–65, https://doi.org/10.1080/10576100600932751. 7 reetz, from madrasa to university, the challenges and formats of islamic education, 134. 8 “undergraduate guide,”(sri lanka: faculty of islamic studies, jamiah naleemiah, 2020), 6 9 islamiya sindhanai is the flagship journal of the naleemiah institute of islamic studies, beruwala, srilanka. see mohamed zacky, md. moniruzzaman, mohamed hassan, “mohamed shukri;s contributions to islamic thought in srilanka: a critical study” islamic studies, 61:3 (2022), pp. 273-291. 10 “naleemiah institute of islamic studies,” n.d. 11 osella filoppo & osella caroline, “islamisam and social reform in kerala,” modern asian studies 42, no. 2/3 (2008): 317–46. 12 yoginder sikand, “the indian madrassahs and the agenda of reform,” journal of muslim minority affairs 25, no. 2 (2005): 219–48, https://doi.org/10.1080/13602000500114017. 13 geaves, “the symbolic contruction of the walls of deoband.” 14 yoginder sikand, “bridging deen and duniya: the ‘modernisation’ of islamic education in india,” journal of muslim minority affairs 29, no. 2 (2009): 237–47, https://doi.org/10.1080/13602000902943690. 15 taberez ahmed neyazi, “darul uloom deowband’s approach to social issues;,” in being muslim in south asia; diversity and daily life, jeffrey ro (india: oxford university press, 2014). 16 trevor welland, “the ‘real world’of ordained ministry: making sense of training for priesthood,” journal of beliefs and values 21 (2000): 179–88. 17 steiner, “madrasah in singapore: tradition and modernity in religious education.” 18 mona abza, “two intellectuals: the malaysian s.n. al-attas and the egyptian mohammed imara, and the islamization of knowledge debate,” asian journal of social science, 2002, 354–83. 19 reetz, from madrasa to university, the challenges and formats of islamic education. 20 numan, sri lankan muslims: ethnic identity within cultural diversity, 169. 21 shukri, muslims of sri lanka: avenues to antiquity (beruwela: jamiah naleemiah institute, 1986). 22 m.s.m. anas, thartkala islamiya sindanai (contomporary islamic thought) (colombo: kumaran, 2007), 384. 23 m.s.m. anas, a.m.a azeez (colombo: kumaran book house, 2009), 40–42. 24 mansoor (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 25 mansoor (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 26 arafath (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 27 shukri, naleem hajiyar valmum panium (naleem hajiyar’s life and contributions) (colombo: rahman padippaham, 1990). 28 naleem hajiyar, “history of naleemiah” (beruwela, 2000). 29 naleem hajiyar inaugural speech, 1973 30 haris (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 31 shukri, naleem hajiyar valmum panium (naleem hajiyar’s life and contributions). 32 arafath & mansoor (senior lecturers), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 46 muslim religious leadership … 33 arafath (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 34 arafath (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 35 manssor & ayoob ali (senior lecturers), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 36 haris (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 37 arafath (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 38 arafath (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019 39 arafath (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019. 40 niis curriculum, 2020. 41 ibid., 2020. 42 “undergraduate guide,”(sri lanka: faculty of islamic studies, jamiah naleemiah, 2020), 45-48. 43 ibid. 44 ibid. 45 ibid. 46 niis curriculum, 2020. 47 arafath (senior lecturer), interview by rishard najmuddin, 2019. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 9 the clash of thoughts: how abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī and bertrand russell define happiness nurul hidayawatie mustaffa school of humanities, universiti sains malaysia 11800, pulau pinang, malaysia. email: nurulmustaffa4@gmail.com noor shakirah mat akhir school of humanities, universiti sains malaysia 11800, pulau pinang, malaysia. email: shakirah@usm.my received on: 12-10-22 accepted on: 15-09-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.604 abstract the interpretation of happiness and the method to attain it may vary from one individual to another. happiness by itself is subjective, which entails the individual’s perception on happiness to change according to the respective situation. literature on happiness is vast and often updated as it is enticing to explore multiple guidance in attaining true happiness. abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī was a classical scholar who initiated the thought of spiritual happiness in islam, in which he discusses methods to attain happiness for muslims. on the other hand, bertrand russell is a european scholar from the modern era who discusses the factors of happiness and unhappiness in individuals. this study aims to descriptively discuss the happiness approach according to both scholars. the data collection method used was content analyses of the scholars’ works to decipher their perspectives on happiness. comparative method was also applied to identify the similarities and differences in their thoughts on happiness. the finding reveals that the differences in thoughts between them are inevitable as both scholars hailed from different eras and their assumptions were based on contrasting epistemologies. however, similarities are also observed as it is human nature to share common characteristics of happiness. moreover, the differences and the similarities in their eventful background have provided significant revelations in their thoughts about happiness. mailto:nurulmustaffa4@gmail.com mailto:shakirah@usm.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.604 10 the clash of thoughts…. keywords: happiness, subjective, classical, islam, modern impact, human history, conjugal life. 1. introduction clash means a disagreement, contradiction, inconsistency or conflict (of ideas, opinions, interests).1 happiness refers to a state of well-being, being full of contentment and cheerfulness.2 in arabic, happiness is called sa‘ādah, which also means blissfulness, blessedness, beatitude, good fortune and well-being.3 sa‘ādah was mentioned twice in the holy qur'ān in two derived form from the triliteral root of sa‘ādah, sīn ʿayn dāl ( د ع س). both of the terms refer to happiness and blessedness, which is suʿidu, that was mentioned in the verse 11:108 and saʿīd, that was mentioned in the verse 11:105.4 in verse 11:108, suʿidu means blessed. in this verse, those who are blessed refer to the followers of the ḥaḍrat muhammad rasūlullah khātam un nabiyyīn sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alā ālihi wa aṣḥābīhī wa ṣallam and they will live in paradise forever as a reward for them. meanwhile, the term saʿīd in verse 11:105 means blessed and happy, referring to those who are happy are also those who are blessed.5 happiness is also one of the components in subjective wellbeing (swb), besides life satisfaction and positive affect.6 al-ghazālī (1058 – 1111 ce) once said, “he who knows himself, knows allah almighty.”7 when someone knows him/herself, he/she would certainly be happy. however, al-ghazālī had to deal with contradicting reality to that which he wisely coined. during his time, al-ghazālī was known as a muîlīí, which means an islamic reformer.8 he tried to reform the conditions of his society because he was repulsed at their transgressions in moral and social values and deviation from the right path.9 al-ghazālī had also confronted his own spiritual crisis that made him take leave from his profession as a professor in order to find the answer as to what had really happened to him.10 eventually, al-ghazālī strove to guide his society and reform them through his teaching, writing, and sharing of his own spiritual journey. through his endeavours and manoeuvres, al-ghazālī had successfully contributed to detailing the inner aspects of islam, prepared and completed for the whole muslim community.11 according to russell (1872 – 1970 ce), people can experience unhappiness anytime anywhere. each dissimilar crowd has its own difficulties. people can see unhappiness in the forms of stress, uncontrolled focus, indigestion, and loss of interest in things. adjustment is sometimes needed to develop happiness.12 russell has also stated that he hated life and tried to commit suicide continuously but was prevented by his desire to learn more about mathematics. contrary to his previous life, he began to enjoy life and with every hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 11 passing year, he enjoyed it more. he continued to discover the things that he most yearned for, and successively achieved many of these things. it was also due to having successfully ignored specific focus of determination such as the mastery of unquestionable knowledge about something or other, as it is basically unachievable.13 he also said, “life is too quick to be fascinated in everything, but it is a benefit to be enjoyed in as many things as are necessary to fill the days. for women as for men, zest is the key to happiness and comfort.”14 from this discussion, unhappiness is common and normally experienced by people. both scholars had experienced unhappiness and depressive symptoms during their lifetime. evidently, unhappiness did not prevent them from writing about happiness. in fact, their life became more blissful and blessed after that experience, and they had attained and mastered various fields of knowledge. they managed their distress successfully and educated their society through writing in order to guide them to the right path in attaining happiness.15 according to their understanding of happiness, both scholars knew how to regain happiness in their vicissitude of life. their experiences helped to develop their thought processes and form a deeper understanding about happiness in this world and the afterlife. this article also intends to deliver a clear understanding about happiness to the muslim and non-muslim societies as this article’s discussion based on the thoughts of muslim scholar (al-ghazālī) and non-muslim scholar (russell). therefore, in this article, the problem statement will be discussed first, followed by discussion of literature review, and methodology of the research. next, the results will be presented and discussed in the discussion section. finally, the conclusion section will include the key findings and other concluding remarks to summarise the study. last but not least, limitations and future directions are also suggested at the end of article. 2. problem statement the interpretation of happiness is different among individuals.16 al-sheha has divided happiness into three phases. the first phase refers to short-term happiness. it is called false happiness. in this category, some believe that happiness is attained by forgetting all the problems without any efforts to overcome them. the second phase is happiness that is experienced when achieving goals. similar to the previous phase, this happiness lasts only briefly as one will think of the next thing to achieve to gain another happiness. the third and final phase is true happiness. this phase of happiness remains within an individual under all circumstances regardless of his/her feelings, faith and life circumstances. one is always happy in delight and anguish, poverty and prosperity, sickness and health, and whether or not one would attain from this world what they wish for. this happiness is the result of one’s firm belief.17 on another note, there is 12 the clash of thoughts…. research that distinguishes the perception and interpretation of happiness, whether happiness is about feeling good or feeling right. according to tamir et al., happiness includes the encounter of sentiments that feel right, regardless of whether they feel good or not.18 happiness is reflected in individuals who endures adversity in their life by staying positive and dismissing negative thoughts from affecting them. despite sorrows, trials, and tribulations that they might encounter, they are still be able to experience the joy of being alive.19 happiness is also associated with having a good relationship with allah almighty in worship, prayer, and any good deeds. good relationship with allah almighty is the key approach to happiness on earth and deliverance in the next world.20 another perception of happiness relates to the attainment of worldly happiness such as becoming wealthy, holding the position of power, and being wellliked. wealth might be the interpretation of happiness for the poor; much as good health for sick people; and sinners’ when they truly repent.21 happiness in arabic terms, faraí and surūr, mean enjoyment and cheerful, which occur 25 times in the holy qur'ān.22 this shows that happiness has a remarkable significance in the holy qur’ān. based on the interpretation from the holy qur’ān, the factors of happiness are influenced by compliance to and remembrance of allah almighty, optimistic outlook on the world, and a positive understanding regarding death and the afterlife. happiness must be guided and must not contradict the intelligent progress. meanwhile, true victory is when humankind obey allah almighty and prevent themselves from any wrongdoings, hence leading them to genuine happiness.23 from the previous discourse, the word ‘happiness’ is open to many definitions and this can cause confusion. happiness is an abstract feeling that cannot be seen by the naked eye and cannot be bought with money. happiness is an inner feeling experienced by humans such as peace of mind, tranquility of the soul, good health, and well-being of the conscience. real happiness is connected to the human soul.24 based on the above discussion, there are many different perceptions of happiness which is vague and has room for further research. therefore, the scope of this study is to discuss the idea of happiness, and the differences and similarities in the perception of happiness according to both scholars. the discussion will also lead to a better understanding about happiness, though both scholars come from different eras. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 13 al-ghazālī and russell were prominent figures in their time. al-ghazālī lived during the reign of the seljuk empire (also known as türkmen or ghuzz).25 political upheavals during that time gave a great impact on al-ghazālī’s life. one such conflicts was between the shiites and the sunnis which took place during the buwayhid era (945 1059 ce).26 al-ghazālī’s life was also greatly influenced by niẓām al-mulk (1018 – 1092 ce). niẓām al-mulk, was an influential wazīr from the turkish sultanate that ruled the ‘abbāsiyya caliphate in baghdad during that time.27 as a person who loves knowledge, alghazālī depended a lot on the jurists and islamic leaders in matters related to his daily life and established a good relationship with the ṣūfīs. in addition, al-ghazālī experienced the turmoil between the ash‘arites and the ḥanbalites at the beginning of the seljuk era, followed by the isma‘ilis. due to the lack of influence and power of the sunni scholars, as baghdad was then under the rule of the buwayhid shiite sultanate, the dependence of the sunni scholars on the ruler and government continued until after the turkish seljuk domination in 1055 ce. consequently, the group was unable to avoid political diseases such as the love for the world and material things. at that point, al-ghazālī became a well-known critic of the western influence.28 he strived to restore the people’s faith to the original teachings of islam, the holy qur’ān and the sunnah of the ḥaḍrat muhammad rasūlullah khātam un nabiyyīn sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alā ālihi wa aṣḥābīhī wa ṣallam. al-ghazālī was well liked by niẓām al-mulk and due to his profound knowledge in islamic theology and philosophy, niẓām al-mulk had then appointed alghazālī as the chair of theology at the niẓāmiyya college, which he founded in the capital in 1091 ce. at the age of 33/34, al-ghazālī held the most distinguished position in the academic field.29 russell lived during six reigns of english rulers: queen victoria (1837 – 1901 ce); king edward vii (1901 – 1910 ce); king george v (1910 – 1936 ce); king edward viii (1936 ce); king george vi (1936 – 1952 ce); and queen elizabeth ii (1952 2022 ce). russell ran for a parliamentary seat but lost and was imprisoned twice in 1918 and 1961 for anti-war critics in his writings and his involvement in anti-nuclear protests.30 al-ghazālī also faced a similar experience, even though he was not imprisoned, where he was once summoned by the seljuq governor to defend himself because of the contradiction in his teachings, specifically through excerpts from his influential work, iíyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn (the revival of the religious sciences). however, al-ghazālī was exculpated from all charges and received support from the governor to continue his teachings.31 russell preferred to express his views in his writings. this can be seen in his famous work entitled the problems of philosophy (1912) and a history of western philosophy (1945).32 in russell’s 14 the clash of thoughts…. writing, he stated that “by understanding power in all its human instantiations that we understand the social world around us”. russell also emphasized the importance of knowledge and education because it is the key to a new world.33 meanwhile, al-ghazālī expressed his views in his work entitled al-munqidh min al-ḍalāl (deliverance from error) (al-ghazālī, 2000). in his writings, alghazālī admits that he likes to investigate and make comparisons in order to obtain the truth and reality (ḥaqīqah).34 in addition, the fields of knowledge mastered by al-ghazālī and russell are really dissimilar. the field of knowledge mastered by al-ghazālī were jurisprudence, dogmatic theology, physics, metaphysics, logic and ethics.35 meanwhile, the field of knowledge mastered by russell were mathematical logic and analytic philosophy.36 despite these differences, both scholars faced similar experiences. al-ghazālī lost his father when he was young,37 while russell lost his family members; his mother and sister when he was two years old, his father when he was four years old, and his grandfather when he was six years old. later, russell was taken under the care of his grandmother until his adulthood.38 other than that, both scholars also held high academic positions which recognised them as influential scholars during their time. al-ghazālī was appointed as chair of theology at niẓāmiyya college, baghdad (1091 ce) and became a teacher at his zéwiya in tës.39 similarly, russell was appointed as a lecturer at the london school of economics (1896 ce), trinity college, cambridge (1899, 1901, 1910, 1915, 1944 ce), barnes foundations (1941 ce), in addition to being appointed as a visiting professor of philosophy at chicago (1938 ce), and professor of philosophy at the university of california, los angeles (1939 ce).40 both scholars were prolific writers’ who produced many influential works during their prime time which are still referred until today, i.e., iíyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn (the revival of the religious sciences) (1095 – 1111 ce) by al-ghazālī41 and the problems of philosophy by russell (1912 ce).42 iíyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn was written in arabic and a summary was later penned by al-ghazālī himself in persian for the widespread benefit to the local community in persia during that time.43 the summary was titled kīmīyā’ al-sa‘ādah. this booklet contains eight summary sections.44 the translation of kīmīyā’ al-sa‘ādah by claud field, with the title the alchemy of happiness, has been used in this study to obtain al-ghazali’s views on happiness, and russell's the conquest of happiness has been used to obtain his perspectives. based on the above discussion, it is clear that both scholars have some similarities and differences in certain aspects. first, both figures had lived in different eras and times. the background of their hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 15 times was influenced by the ruling monarchy, namely the reign of the seljuk empire, which was accompanied by political turmoil, as well as the reign of the english queen and kings, which was overshadowed by the situation of the first and second world wars. second, the mastery of the field of knowledge of both scholars is also different. the fields of knowledge mastered by al-ghazālī were jurisprudence, dogmatic theology, physics, metaphysics, logic and ethics, whereby the field of knowledge mastered by russell were mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. nevertheless, some similarities can be observed. first, both scholars can be said to be somewhat rebellious during their time. for example, the open criticisms by al-ghazālī concerning the dependence of sunni scholars on the government, and the open dissidence through writings against war by russell, which resulted in him being imprisoned. second, both scholars tended to write in other mediums to express their views during their time. third, both scholars experienced almost similar experiences of losing a close family member when they were young. fourth, both scholars were involved in the academic field and held the highest positions in academia, which showed that both of them were prominent scholars in their time. fifth, both scholars were prolific writers, and their works and writings are still referred until today. based on these statements, certainly the similarities and differences in their thoughts about happiness could provide significant findings, considering the eventful background of both scholars. 3. objectives the main purpose of this study is to descriptively discuss the happiness approach according to both scholars. thus, this article reveals how they define happiness in their own perspectives. their discrepancies need to be addressed to find their differences and similarities regarding happiness using a comparative method,45 by examining their respective works, the alchemy of happiness by alghazālī and the conquest of happiness by russell. 4. literature review recent scholars have discussed happiness in the aspect of the purification of soul,46 and happiness in the hereafter which referred as real happiness with the excitement of humans being able to meet allah almighty in the afterlife.47 other scholars have also regarded happiness as more focused on the subjective well-being (swb),48 and authentic happiness as focusing on the positive psychological aspects.49 another statement envisages happiness as revealing more about the individuals and the precious values that they hold. the 16 the clash of thoughts…. understanding of happiness in the contemporary age involves the feeling of contentment; coupled with stable emotions. both are the result of perpetuating the change in life principles for the better. such commitment for continuing the change is what determines how one live one’s entire life to its end as well as shape one’s behaviour and character. vague understanding of happiness indicates its subjective value. since there is no common denominator among the community of what constitutes happiness, it gives rise to a myriad of interpretations of what happiness is. hence, happiness to a poor may not be shared by the sick, etc.50 meanwhile, achour et al. have opined that observing religious responsibility can generate happiness in humans. it is discovered that religious practices do have an affirmative and important connection with good character, self-respect, and other esteem.51 sulaiman has stated that the direction from allah almighty can lead humans to obtain happiness in this world and the hereafter. apart from worship, prayer, and good deeds, the safeguarding of the mind from lewd thoughts can bring happiness to humans, as it is one of the foremost objectives of islamic laws, maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah.52 based on the discussion, although there are studies from recent scholars regarding happiness, their findings still have room for research and need improvement. this situation requires an approach that can discuss and study in more detail about happiness, based on the views of modern and classical scholars such as al-ghazalê and russell, as the aim in this article. since both scholars come from different religions and schools of thought, their perspective may be contradicted from each other. therefore, this article will focus on their thoughts regarding happiness and bring out the point of differences and similarities in their ideas about happiness to give a clearer understanding to the readers. 5. methodology the discussion in this study is based on the content analysis of the scholars’ works to exemplify their perspectives on happiness. comparative method was also used to identify their similarities and differences of thoughts on happiness. meanwhile, the whole discussion of this study used descriptive method especially in discussing the specific approach in understanding happiness according to both scholars. content analysis is a procedure of detailed analysis. it is also classified as data gathering process, because it extracts information (as sample) out of a massive quantity of text.53 content analysis is a purpose-driven, organised, and quantitative method of external hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 17 communication research. in content analysis, the techniques used are sampling and categorisation. in this research, sampling refers to the works from both scholars that were uniquely selected with regard to happiness. in categorisation, the content analysis must manifest the objective of the study. categorisation was also used to make comparisons on understanding happiness proposed by both scholars during data analysis to identify the similarities and differences. the categories must also be practical and easy to handle.54 in this research, the collected data from content analysis were analysed by categorising the discussion of happiness into two sections, which are the definition of happiness and the happiness approach according to the viewpoints of abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī and bertrand russell. then, data collected for each section were examined and analysed. from the analysis, the similarities and differences pertaining to happiness from the views of both scholars were also scrutinised. content analysis was chosen because the researcher could optimize the time and budget as they only needed to record from documents of any related works and literature. content analysis was also chosen because the researcher could easily manage the data as all that is needed to be done was to retrieve and record data from the available documents. therefore, the data would always be traceable and secure. as this research needed the works and literature from both scholars, content analysis seemed appropriate for such historical studies to concentrate on all manuscripts published by them. content analysis was also chosen because it could be used as a long-term analysis. it can be used to observe how similar ideas of scholars can influence the changing era.55 comparative method means making comparisons of collected particulars or specific data.56 in this research, a comparative method was applied to analyse the thoughts of abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī and bertrand russell regarding happiness using their respective works, the alchemy of happiness and the conquest of happiness, to examine the differences and similarities between them. descriptive method is a process of interpretation and normally used to study contemporary works. normally, the explanation technique is used in descriptive method in writing, primarily in a research topic which has not been studied systematically before. the best explanation in this method is when it consists of all the research data. the research data could vary, including person’s characters based on a research interview, historical data based on documented findings, and numerical data from archived sources.57 in this research, data from the works of both scholars were 18 the clash of thoughts…. discussed descriptively after being selected using the content analysis method. figure 1: the methodology of research 6. results 6.1 the definition of happiness according to abū ḥāmid alghazālī and bertrand russell according to al-ghazālī, true happiness can be attained through knowledge and good deeds. based on his works, the alchemy of happiness, al-ghazālī outlines four types of knowledge and four good deeds that must be conquered by humans in order to experience happiness. they are the knowledge of self, the knowledge of allah almighty, the knowledge of this world, the knowledge of the next world. the good deeds are music as aids to the religious life, self-examination and remembrance of allah almighty, marriage as help or hindrance to the religious life, and the love of allah almighty.58 according to russell, happiness can be attained when humans know the factors of their happiness. when they can identify these factors, generally, they will be happy. based on his works, the conquest of happiness, there are eight factors that can lead humans to happiness. they are meditation, education, enthusiasm, affection, family, work, impersonal interests, and efforts and acceptance. meanwhile, there are also eight factors for unhappiness to occur. the factors are byronic unhappiness (meaninglessness), competition, boredom and excitement, fatigue, envy, the sense of sin, persecution mania, and fear of public opinions.59 however, for this discussion, only the factors of happiness are examined in order to decipher the happiness approach according to russell. content analysis sampling the works of penned scholars categorization 1. definition of happiness. 2. happiness approach. comparative and descriptive method writing the findings, discussion and summarized the study. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 19 6.2 the happiness approach according to abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī according to al-ghazālī (2004), there are four types of knowledge and four good deeds that must be mastered by the humankind in order to obtain happiness. ▪ the knowledge of self the first type is the knowledge of self where one must know himself/herself thoroughly in all aspects. according to al-ghazālī, the knowledge of self will lead to the knowledge of allah almighty. this section discusses the reality of the soul, the origin of humans, the real purpose they are sent to the world, and where they can find true happiness. humans must also know that their elements consist of three features: animalistic, devilish, and angelic. it is their task to find out which of these elements a coincidence is and which is necessary. without knowing these in detail, humans could not find true happiness. humans must know about the heart or soul that operates all the other faculties as their tools and helpers. according to alghazālī, the knowledge of this essence and its nature will be the key to the knowledge of allah almighty.60 ▪ the knowledge of allah almighty second, the knowledge of allah almighty is another step to attain true happiness. in this section, humans are reminded to always contemplate on the attributes of allah almighty. in order to acquire this knowledge, they must realise where they come from. in fact, they must know that they have not been in this world before. they must know how they were created by allah almighty to function as a perfect human. they must know that they are minuscule in relation to the world which proves the capability, sagacity, and love of the creator.61 this understanding must be accompanied by devotion and worship. love is the seed of happiness, and the love for allah almighty is nurtured and flourished by worship.62 ▪ the knowledge of this world the third knowledge refers to the knowledge of this world. this section discusses the roles of humans in the world and the worldly characteristics. according to al-ghazālī, this world is likened to a stage or a business place passed by a traveller on their way to subsequent destinations.63 it this world, the travellers prepare themselves with equipment for the next journey. simply put, humans obtain knowledge of the creations of allah almighty, with their physical senses in this world. from this process, they will contemplate and get to know allah almighty with vision that will 20 the clash of thoughts…. form their future bliss. in this world, humans must preserve and strengthen their soul. they must also protect and nurture their body. the appropriate nutrition for the soul is knowledge and the love of allah almighty. the destruction of the soul will occur if one assimilates love other than allah almighty. the body itself will be safeguarded by the soul. the body is just a carriage for the soul and will die, while the soul remains.64 humans should be reminded to be cautious about the worldly characteristics that could trap them to become more absorbed in this fake world. if they become continuously engrossed with the false beauty of this world, eventually they will go astray.65 ▪ the knowledge of the next world the fourth knowledge is of the next world. in this section, alghazālī discusses the soul’s condition in the future; the soul remains, while the body perishes. he also discusses about love of allah almighty for some people that already separate themselves from worldly matters. apart from that, al-ghazālī explains suffering in the afterlife due to the lavish love for the world, spiritual suffering of those who fail to achieve their purpose in life, the evolution of human soul with animal-like and angel-like characteristics (subject to their good deeds and good heart), and the benefit of uncertainties.66 humans are reminded to prepare for the next world and believe in its existence.67 ▪ music the first good deed is music, as aids to the religious life. in this section, al-ghazālī discusses music, religion, and the symbolism of poetry. music plays an important role for spiritual groups to express their love in songs and poetry, so they can obtain vibrant thought and wisdom. they also attain a level of purity of the heart.68 particularly, music is allowed with certain permission as long as it does not include alcohol drinks, no suggestive sexual movements, and minimum engagements in music/ singing activities, as islam forbid excess and extravagance in anything.69 ▪ self-examination and remembrance of allah almighty the second good deed is self-examination and remembrance of allah almighty. this section explains the remembrance of allah almighty, how the saints remember allah almighty, questions in terms of the remembrance of allah almighty, the burden of human sins, and the benefits of preparing for the next world. in the introduction of this section, humans are reminded to perform good deeds now, without postponing them to another time or day. this is hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 21 because in the hereafter, during judgment day, humans will witness how their time in the world was occupied.70 humans are also reminded to always check, evaluate, and examine themselves before their deeds are weighed during the judgment day.71 ▪ marriage the third good deed is marriage, as help or hindrance to religious life. in this section, al-ghazālī discusses the advantages and disadvantages of marriage, criteria of a wife, wedding ceremony, behaviour towards the wife, protection for the wife, and husband’s rights. marriage can help individuals to easily worship and devote to allah almighty and learn appropriately, as the spouses could take care of the household such as cooking and cleaning. however, marriage can also prevent individuals from remembering allah almighty as they would be preoccupied in taking care of the family. hence, one must be careful to ensure that his devotion to allah almighty and future life are unaffected after marriage. in terms of the criteria of a wife, the most significant of all is chastity.72 in terms of wedding ceremony, it must be religiously organised. in this case, music such as drums are also allowed. as for behaviour towards the wife, the husband must maintain good relationship with his wife and must allow his wife to have her own period of relaxation, and not try to stop her. in terms of protection for the wife, one must watch over his wife from seeing or being seen by a stranger, as the start of misdemeanour is in the eye. as for the husband’s rights, the wife must respect her husband and be grateful for the necessities her husband provides. if the wife commits a mistake, her husband must follow the steps prescribed by the religion, in order for her to improve and behave better. marriage must always be safeguarded in order to avoid divorce.73 ▪ the love of allah almighty the fourth good deed is the love of allah almighty. this section discusses the beauty of the inner aspects, the factors that evoke love of allah almighty, the vision of allah almighty, and the signs of the love of allah almighty. in terms of inner beauty, normally humans like each other not because of physical appearances. it comes from the beauty of the inner aspects such as good moral and good words.74 there are several factors that evoke the love of allah almighty. among the factors is the fact that a man loves himself and the magnificence of his own essence. this guides him straight to the love of allah almighty, as the existence and quality of a man are nothing else but the endowment of allah almighty. as for the vision of allah almighty, it discusses the happiness that humans feel when they see allah almighty in the hereafter.75 among the signs of the 22 the clash of thoughts…. love of allah almighty is that one does not dread the thought of death. if one is really truthful, he/she will be hard-working in preparing before death comes.76 6.3 the happiness approach according to bertrand russell according to russell, happiness can be achieved through meditation, education, enthusiasm, affection, family, work, impersonal interests, and efforts and acceptance. ▪ meditation first factor of happiness is meditation. meditation requires someone to contemplate and examine their misconduct, silliness, and faults in order to be happy. from the evaluation of the misconduct, change can be made. the change can make someone to progressively focus his attention upon external things such as a different field of knowledge, which can be called as an external passion. as long as this external passion remains in existence, it can prevent unhappiness completely.77 ▪ education second, education also brings happiness to humans. knowledgeable people are known to be happy. they can always practise their own skills and make themselves happy.78 ▪ enthusiasm third, enthusiasm is the typical mark of happy men. the more things a man is interested in; the more possibilities of happiness he has. they also know how to endure losses by improving themselves with intellect and knowledge.79 ▪ affection the fourth factor of happiness is affection. children who feel secure due to the affection of their parents will always be happy. children who are loved by their parents will be brave.80 ▪ family the fifth factor of happiness is family. parental affection is a special kind of feeling towards own children. parental love makes children feel safer when with their parents than with anyone else. in times of success, this may appear insignificant, but in times of failure, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 23 it is really important because it provides comfort and safety not to be found elsewhere.81 ▪ work the sixth factor of happiness is work, as the desire for greater income will be the desire for success. continuity of purpose in work will provide happiness in the long run. meaningful happiness comes from success in completing an important piece of work.82 ▪ impersonal interests the seventh factor of happiness is impersonal interests. an impersonal interest is a small interest to fill idle hours that can raise relaxation. a great many delightful things can fulfil this condition such as watching games, going to the theatre, and playing golf.83 ▪ efforts and acceptance the eighth factor of happiness is efforts and acceptance. as an effort to gain happiness, individuals must become aware of strategies in managing numerous factors of unhappiness that trouble them. acceptance is preferable in nearly all occasions, because in a contentious society, outstanding success is exclusively viable to the minority.84 7. discussion both scholars propose eight factors of happiness. the eight factors of happiness from al-ghazālī are four types of knowledge and four good deeds to be mastered by humankind in order to obtain happiness. they are knowledge of self, knowledge of allah almighty, knowledge of this world, and the knowledge of the next world. the good deeds are music, self-examination and remembrance of allah almighty, marriage, and the love of allah almighty. meanwhile, the eight factors of happiness from russell are meditation, education, enthusiasm, affection, family, work, impersonal interests, and efforts and acceptance. generally, both of them have different perspectives about happiness. apparently, this is inevitable. previous studies also suggested several factors of happiness such as faith, firm/fitness, family, friends, taking care of other people, health, safety and affection.85 the views from al-ghazālī are more comprehensive, as his discussion of happiness encompasses this world and the afterlife. most of the knowledge and good deeds are related to the happiness in the hereafter. in the knowledge of self, he suggests that humans must 24 the clash of thoughts…. know themselves in other to know allah almighty. in the knowledge of allah almighty, contemplation within oneself can bring humans to know and love allah almighty. in the knowledge of this world, humans are reminded of their roles in this world and the worldly characteristics which can engulf them. in the knowledge of the next world, humans are reminded about the rewards and punishment for their deeds during their time in the world. in music as a good deed, al-ghazālī discusses that they are allowed in religion as well as poetry, which are used to express the love of allah almighty. in selfexamination and remembrance of allah almighty as a good deed, humans must always be aware of their deeds before being judged during the judgement day. humans are also reminded to perform frequent introspection and extrospection and repurpose their life only for the sake of allah almighty. in marriage as a good deed, al-ghazālī discusses the advantages and disadvantages of marriage, criteria of a wife, wedding ceremony, protection of the wife, the safeguarding of marriage, and husband’s rights. in this section, al-ghazālī reminds the wife to be grateful and always treats her husband in a good way. in the love of allah almighty as a good deed, al-ghazālī discusses the pleasure when humans can see allah almighty in the afterlife and also the signs of the love of allah almighty. al-ghazālī’s approach in the pursuit of happiness through knowledge and good deeds confirmed the results from previous studies which proposed that those who are knowledgeable and do good deeds can attain the spiritual joy in their heart and mind. most people feel good by doing good and the one who live conferring with his/her true self is the happier person.86 on the other hand, russell’s approach of happiness mostly refers to worldly happiness and how to obtain it without harm. in this point, definitely russell’s views contradicted with al-ghazālī’s point of view. in meditation as a factor of happiness, russell states that he who always contemplates his misconduct, silliness, and faults will always be happy. in education, he states that the one who is knowledgeable is happy. in enthusiasm, the one who has many interests is always happy. in affection, the one who gets enough affection is typically happy because he/she feels safe. in family, parental affection is crucial especially during hard times, and can bring comfort and safety. in work, continuity of purpose in work will provide happiness in the long run. in impersonal interests, humans can gain happiness through hobbies in order to find calmness. in efforts and acceptance, humans must identify which problems that trouble them and be aware of the strategies to defeat them. earlier study also confirmed this finding, whereas meditation can increase the level of happiness through mindfulness meditation.87 meanwhile, education can also lead to improved happiness because educational background may enhance individual’s political position, personal status, health and family social level.88 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 25 from the discussion, the approach of happiness from both scholars are really dissimilar. generally, al-ghazālī’s views focuses on happiness in this world and the afterlife. meanwhile, russell’s views focus on worldly happiness only. however, there are some similarities from both scholars in other aspects. first, al-ghazālī suggests contemplation for individuals so they know themselves, allah almighty, their past actions, and so forth. in every aspect of his discussion, purification of the soul is the key to all knowledge and good deeds in order to gain happiness in the world and the hereafter. russell has similar views. he suggests meditation as a part of contemplation that can evoke happiness when human observed, assessed, and examined their misconduct, silliness, and faults. contemplation is also featured in al-ghazālī’s discussions on the knowledge of allah almighty, as well as in self-examination and remembrance of allah almighty as a good deed. second, al-ghazālī suggests music such as poetry as a means to gain happiness. russell is also of the opinion that minor interests such as watching games, going to the theatre, playing golf, and so forth as long as they are harmless, can bring happiness to someone. third, al-ghazālī suggests the four types of knowledge and four good deeds as a means of education for humankind to gain happiness. russell also states that the one who is educated and knowledgeable will always be happy. fourth, al-ghazālī explains about marriage which can bring happiness too as the man focuses on his worship to allah almighty, while his spouse manages all household matters. marriage brings calmness to man in his worship to allah almighty as he maintains good relationship with his wife and other family members. russell also states that parental affection and familial love can bring happiness to individuals. both of them suggest family bonding in order to lead a happy life. previous study also confirmed that mindfulness-based interventions such as meditation can bring more life satisfaction, self-awareness, and emotional regulation to someone in order to cultivate their own happiness.89 prior studies reported contemplation as a likely and peaceful practice that can refine spiritual insight, elevate observance of the divine presence, and comfort the soul. this example of spiritual happiness has already been mentioned in the holy qur'ān, “listen, the hearts find peace only in the remembrance of allah.”90 other than that, previous studies also reported that family bonding can bring happiness to family members through marital commitment and positive communication quality.91 besides, being educated and having minor interests such as having fun with friends can lead to life satisfaction as well as happiness in someone’s life.92 other than that, enthusiasm, work, as well as efforts and acceptance can be supporting factors to happiness, and these views 26 the clash of thoughts…. from russell are really dissimilar from al-ghazālī’s views. alghazālī’s approach of happiness is complete and gives credit to all aspects. the figures below summarises this discussion. figure 2: the similarities of al-ghazālī’ and russell’s thought regarding happiness in certain aspects figure 3: the contradiction (differences) of al-ghazālī’ and russell’s thought regarding happiness generally 8. conclusion based on their life experiences, it is proved that every human being will be always desire for happiness, but, in their own way. the way to obtain happiness will develop someone's thought and influenced the progress of his/her thought. russell’s thought more focused on worldly aspect in his writing in order to achieve happiness. meanwhile, al-ghazālī’s thought more focused on spiritual wellbeing in his works based on his experience with the ṣūfīs. although coming from different eras, both scholars hold the same opinion in terms of achieving happiness. the differences are that al-ghazālī’s views are all-inclusive and include happiness in the afterlife. meanwhile, russell’s views only focus on the worldly happiness. their similarities, however, cannot be denied. even in certain aspects, both scholars agreed that meditation can evoke classical scholar: al-ghazālī two-sided happiness approach: world and hereafter happiness modern scholar: russell one-sided happiness approach: worldly happiness happiness contemplation minor interest education family hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 27 happiness in the world and the hereafter. one who always inspect himself is indeed happy. other than that, both scholars also held the same opinion that education, marriage, family, affection, music, and impersonal interests can lead to a happy life. the findings of the research have shown that there are many similarities between both scholars. nonetheless, a clash of ideas still occurs as both of them come from different eras and have distinct epistemology. they contradicted from each other from the general overview of happiness. russell’s views focus on one-sided happiness, which is only centred on worldly happiness. meanwhile, al-ghazālī’s views engage twosided happiness, which are happiness in this world and the hereafter. it is fair to conclude that each scholar’s thoughts have their own strengths. however, this research has concluded that al-ghazālī’s views of happiness are all-encompassing because the factors are not only for worldly happiness, but also for the afterlife. in this context, al-ghazālī’s thought is far-reaching as he recommends everlasting happiness that will remain unchanged from time to time. as his thoughts are all-inclusive, he also provides guidelines for the humankind to follow the path in order to gain happiness, both in this world and the hereafter. he explains the knowledge of self, allah almighty, this world, the hereafter, music, self-examination, remembrance of allah almighty, marriage, and love of allah almighty, with various detailed analogies. russell, as a modern scholar, proposes factors of worldly happiness such as meditation, education, enthusiasm, affection, family, work, impersonal interests, and efforts and acceptance. russell was also really careful in his writing to ensure the suggestions about happiness do not harm his readers who want to follow his advice. most of the suggestions are to remind humans to appreciate what they already have. in this context, russell wants humans to always be grateful in order to achieve happiness in this world. the reasons for the similarities and differences in their thought have already been stated in the discussion presented in the problem statement section. to summarise, first, both figures had lived in different eras and times, with the background of their times being based on monarchy reigns. second, the mastery of the field of knowledge of both scholars was different. however, both scholars shared some similarities, as both figures can be said to be defiant during their time and preferred to write in other methods to express their views. both scholars had gone through almost similar experiences of losing a close family member when they were young. they had both been involved in the academic field and held the highest positions in academia. the work and writings from both scholars are still referred until today, which firmly established both of them as prolific writers and prominent scholars during their time. 28 the clash of thoughts…. 9. limitations and future directions the present research proposes several future directions. first, the present research has discussed happiness according to a classical scholar, al-ghazālī and a modern scholar, russell. future research can focus on views from contemporary scholars that discussed other perspectives of real happiness. second, this research has only focused on the discussion of happiness and the differences in order to demonstrate the clash of ideas between both scholars. future research may consider exploring the work of scholars from similar schools of thought or even from different eras to discuss happiness in the modern day. acknowledgements the authors want to thank the fundamental research grant scheme, malaysia ministry of education, 203 / phumaniti / 6711590. notes and references: 1 merriam-webster, clash (definition of clash), accessed may 7, 2023, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clash; pusat rujukan persuratan melayu, kamus inggeris-melayu dewan (clash) (kuala lumpur: dewan bahasa dan pustaka, 2017), accessed may 7, 2023, from https://prpm.dbp.gov.my/cari1?keyword=clash&d=394756&#lihatsini; pusat rujukan persuratan melayu, kamus inggeris-melayu dewan (percanggahan) (kuala lumpur: dewan bahasa dan pustaka, 2017), accessed may 7, 2023, from https://prpm.dbp.gov.my/cari1?keyword=percanggahan&d=394756&#lihatsini . 2 merriam-webster, happiness (definition of happiness), accessed march 14, 2023, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/happiness; pusat rujukan persuratan melayu, kamus inggeris-melayu dewan (happiness) (kuala lumpur: dewan bahasa dan pustaka, 2017), accessed may 7, 2023, from https://prpm.dbp.gov.my/cari1?keyword=happiness. 3 rohi baalbaki, al-mawrid a modern arabic-english dictionary, 7th ed. (beirut, lubnan: dar el-ilm lilmalayin, 1995), 633. 4 kais dukes, quran dictionary س ع د the quranic arabic corpus (uk: language research group, university of leeds, 2009-2017), http://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=sed; the holy qur'ān, surah 11: ayat 108:3; the holy qur'ān, surah 11: ayat 105:10, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010), 426 & 425. 5 abū al-fidāʾ ismāʿīl ibn ʿumar ibn kathīr, tafsir ibnu katsir volume 4, 2nd ed., transl. m. abdul ghoffar e.m (bogor: pustaka imam asy-syafi’i, mei 2003), 384 & 381. 6 ed diener, “subjective well-being,” psychological bulletin 95, no. 3 (1984): 542. 7 abū ḥāmid muḥammad ibn muḥammad al-ghazzali (al-ghazālī), the alchemy of happiness, transl. claud field (usa: sime journal, 2004), 8. 8 mohamed abubakr a al-musleh, al-ghazālī as an islamic reformer (muṣliḥ): an evaluation study of the attempts of the imam abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī at islamic reform (iṣlāḥ) (ph.d. thesis, department of theology and religion, school of historical studies, the university of birmingham, uk, 2007). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clash https://prpm.dbp.gov.my/cari1?keyword=clash&d=394756&#lihatsini https://prpm.dbp.gov.my/cari1?keyword=percanggahan&d=394756&#lihatsini https://prpm.dbp.gov.my/cari1?keyword=percanggahan&d=394756&#lihatsini https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/happiness https://prpm.dbp.gov.my/cari1?keyword=happiness http://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=sed hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 29 9 muhammad abūlaylah, translator’s introduction to al-ghazali deliverance from error and mystical union with the almighty al-munqidh min al-dalal, trans. and eds. muhammad abūlaylah and george f. mclean (washington, d.c.: the council for research in values and philosophy, 2001), 1. 10 abūlaylah, al-ghazali deliverance from error, 1; ebrahim moosa, ed., ghazālī and the poetics of imagination (usa: the university of north carolina press, 2005), 6; william montgomery watt, the faith and practice of al-ghazālī (london: george allen and unwin ltd, 1952), 11. 11 mohd rosmizi abd rahman and salih yucel, “the mujaddid of his age: alghazali and his inner spiritual journey,” international journal of islamic and civilizational studies (umran) 3, no. 2 (2016): 1; see also noor shakirah mat akhir, al-ghazālī and his theory of the soul a comparative study (pulau pinang: penerbit universiti sains malaysia, 2008), 287 – 288. 12 bertrand russell, the conquest of happiness (london, england: george allen & unwin ltd, 1930), 18. 13 russell, the conquest, 15–19, 25. 14 russell, the conquest, 160. 15 rahman & yucel, “the mujaddid,” 9–10; angelo nicolaides, “bertrand russell: cognitivism, non-cognitivism and ethical critical thinking,” phronimon 18 (2017): 1–4. 16 nurul hidayawatie mustaffa and noor shakirah mat akhir, “the concept of sa‘ādah according to islamic, western, and greek views,” european proceedings of social and behavioral sciences 89, (2020): 83, https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.10.02.8. 17 abdul-rahman al-sheha, the key to happiness, transl. abdurrahman murad (n.p.: n.p., 2009), 6–7. 18 tamir et al., “the secret to happiness: feeling good or feeling right?” journal of experimental psychology: general 146, no. 10 (2017): 1448. 19 tal ben-shahar, happier: learn the secrets to daily joy and lasting fulfilment (boston, ma: mcgraw hill, 2007), 36. 20 habib tiliouine, “happiness in islam,” in encyclopaedia of quality of life and well-being research, ed. alex c. michalos (springer netherlands, 2014), 2. 21 happiness in islam (islamhouse. com, 2013), 4; abdul malik karim amrullah (hamka), tasauf moden (modern sufism), 3rd ed. (kuala lumpur: pustaka melayu baru, 1979), 9; aristotle, “the nicomachean ethics,” in aristotle, ed. p. wheelwright (new york, ny: the odyssey press, 1951), 160. 22 saadati et al., “a study about place of happiness in islam,” biological forum – an international journal 7, no. 2 (special issue-i) (2015): 159; kais dukes, quran dictionary س ر ر; dukes, quran dictionary ف ر ح; the holy qur'ān, surah 3: ayat 120; the holy qur'ān, surah 76: ayat 11, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010), 122 & 1116. 23 ibid. see also meli mulyahati, kebahagiaan menurut pandangan sufistik syed muhammad naquib al-attas. (happiness according to syed muhammad naquib alattas's sufistic view), (master’s thesis, fakultas ushuluddin, universitas islam negeri (uin) syarif hidayatullah, jakarta, indonesia, 2018), 30; muskinul fuad, psikologi kebahagiaan dalam al-qur’an tafsir tematik atas ayat-ayat al-qur’an tentang kebahagiaan (the psychology of happiness in the qur'an thematic interpretation based on the qur'anic verses on happiness), (laporan penelitian, lembaga penelitian dan pengabdian pada masyarakat, institut agama islam negeri purwokerto, indonesia, 2016), 32–45. 24 abdullah a. m., bagaimana mencari kebahagiaan? (how to find happiness?) 1st ed. (kuala lumpur, malaysia: dinie publisher, 1993), 1. 25 y. a. mushtaq ahmed and z. h. subhani, “a study on the history of the great seljuk empire (1037 ce – 1194 ce) in light of cyclical theory of social change of ibn khaldūn and vilfredo pareto,” global journal al-thaqafah 10, no. 1 (2020): 40. 26 akhir, al-ghazālī and his theory, 4-5. 27 watt, the faith and practice of al-ghazālī, 11. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.10.02.8 30 the clash of thoughts…. 28 akhir, al-ghazālī and his theory, 4-5; watt, the faith and practice of alghazālī, 11. 29 akhir, al-ghazālī and his theory, 5; watt, the faith and practice of al-ghazālī, 11; margaret smith, al-ghazālī the mystic (lahore, pakistan: hijra international publishers, 1983), 19. 30 andrew david irvine, “bertrand russell,” in the stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy, ed. edward n. zalta (spring 2022 edition), accessed june 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/; kenneth blackwell, andrew g. bone, nicholas griffin and sheila turcon, “the brixton letters,” last modified 2018, accessed june 8, 2023, https://russellletters.mcmaster.ca/background#:~:text=100%20years%20ago%2c%20philosopher %20bertrand,six%20months%20in%20brixton%20prison; bertrand russell, the autobiography of bertrand russell 1914-1944 (usa: bantam books, 1969), 6. 31 frank griffel, “al-ghazali,” in the stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy, ed. edward n. zalta (summer 2020 edition), accessed june 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/al-ghazali/. 32 irvine, “bertrand russell,” accessed june 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/. 33 irvine, “bertrand russell,” accessed june 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/; bertrand russell, the problems of philosophy, (n. p.: n.d.), ch. v, https://chilonas.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/the-problems-of-philosophy-bertrandrussell.pdf; david hitchcock, “russell and critical thinking,” russell journal of the bertrand russell studies 22, no. 2 (2002): 196. 34 abū ḥāmid muḥammad ibn muḥammad al-ghazālī, penyelamat dari kesesatan (al-munqidh min al-ḍalāl), transl. h. rus’an (batu caves, selangor, malaysia: thinker’s library sdn. bhd, 2000), 9. 35 muhammad abul quasem, “al-ghazali’s rejection of philosophic ethics,” islamic studies 13, no. 2 (1974): 111. 36 irvine, “bertrand russell,” accessed june 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/. 37 smith, al-ghazālī the mystic, 10. 38 irvine, “bertrand russell,” accessed june 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/. 39 smith, al-ghazālī the mystic, 19; griffel, “al-ghazali,” accessed june 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/al-ghazali/. 40 irvine, “bertrand russell,” accessed june 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/. 41 akhir, al-ghazālī and his theory, 85. 42 irvine, “bertrand russell,” accessed june 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/. 43 elton l. daniel, preface by elton l. daniel to the alchemy of happiness, by abū ḥāmid muḥammad al-ghazzālī, transl. claud field, rev. and annot. elton l. daniel, sources and studies in world history (armonk, new york and london: m. e. sharpe inc.,1991), xxxvi. 44 al-ghazzali, the alchemy, 6. 45 oliver freiberger, “elements of a comparative methodology in the study of religion,” religions 9, no. 38 (2018): 4-5; barbara a. holdrege, “interrogating the comparative method: whither, why and how? religions 9, no. 58 (2018): 2. 46 akhir, al-ghazālī and his theory, 289; che zarrina sa’ari, “a purification of soul according to sufis: a study of al-ghazali’s theory,” afkar 3, (2002): 96. 47 akhir, al-ghazālī and his theory, 293; syed muhammad naquib al-attas, ma ‘na kebahagiaan dan pengalamannya dalam islam (the meaning and experience of happiness in islam), 2nd ed., transl. muhammad zainiy uthman (kuala lumpur, malaysia: islamic banking & finance institute malaysia (ibfim), 2014), 44. 48 diener, “subjective well-being,” 542. 49 martin e. p. seligman and mihaly csikszentmihalyi, “positive psychology: an introduction,” american psychologist 55, no. 1 (2000): 5. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/ https://russell-letters.mcmaster.ca/background#:~:text=100%20years%20ago%2c%20philosopher%20bertrand,six%20months%20in%20brixton%20prison https://russell-letters.mcmaster.ca/background#:~:text=100%20years%20ago%2c%20philosopher%20bertrand,six%20months%20in%20brixton%20prison https://russell-letters.mcmaster.ca/background#:~:text=100%20years%20ago%2c%20philosopher%20bertrand,six%20months%20in%20brixton%20prison https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/al-ghazali/ https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/ https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/ https://chilonas.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/the-problems-of-philosophy-bertrand-russell.pdf https://chilonas.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/the-problems-of-philosophy-bertrand-russell.pdf https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/ https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/ https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/al-ghazali/ https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/ https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/russell/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 31 50 harry walker and iza kavedžija, “(special issue introduction) values of happiness,” hau: journal of ethnographic theory 5, no. 3 (2015): 1; see also harry walker and iza kavedžija, “values of happiness,” in values of happiness toward an anthropology of purpose in life special issues in ethnographic theory series vol. 2, ed. harry walker and iza kavedžija (chicago, il: hau books, 2016), 1; estefania gomis chorro, maria angela morales fernandez, and raquel gilar corbi, “happiness and values in the formation of personal identity in students of the fifth and sixth grade at primary school,” universal journal of educational research 5, no. 5 (2017): 881; timothy a. judge and john d. kammeyer-mueller, “happiness as a societal value,” academy of management perspectives 25, no. 1 (2011): 30; bernard m. s. van praag, “perspectives from the happiness literature and the role of new instruments for policy analysis,” cesifo economic studies 53, no. 1 (2007): 42 – 68. 51 achour et al., “religious commitment and its relation to happiness among muslim students: the education level as moderator,” journal of religion and health 56, no. 5 (2017): 1870. 52 kabuye uthman sulaiman, “an islamic perspective on the protection of the mind and attainment of happiness,” journal of education and social sciences 6, (february 2017): 44. 53 philipp mayring, qualitative content analysis: theoretical foundation, basic procedures and software solution (klagenfurt, austria, 2014), 43; see also marilyn domas white and emily e. marsh, “content analysis: a flexible methodology,” library trends 55, no. 1 (june 2006): 23–27; satu elo and helvi kyngäs, “the qualitative content analysis process,” journal of advanced nursing 62, no. 1 (2008): 108; mariette bengtsson, “how to plan and perform a qualitative study using content analysis,” nursingplus open 2, (2016): 9; christen erlingsson and petra brysiewicz, “a hands-on guide to doing content analysis,” african journal of emergency medicine 7, (2017): 94. 54 syed arabi idid, kaedah penyelidikan komunikasi dan sains sosial (methods of communication research and social science) 1st ed. (kuala lumpur, malaysia: dewan bahasa dan pustaka, 1992), 106, 109–110. 55 idid, kaedah penyelidikan (methods of research), 115–116. 56 uwe flick, an introduction to qualitative research, 3rd ed. (london: sage publications, 2006), 142; see also michael quinn patton, qualitative research & evaluation methods, 3rd ed. (thousand oaks, ca: sage publications, 2002), 56; w. lawrence neuman, social research methods qualitative and quantitative approaches, 3rd ed. (boston, ma: allyn & bacon, 1997), 402; earl babbie, the practice of social research, 9th ed. (united states of america: wadsworth/ thomson learning, 2001), 322. 57 robert k. yin, qualitative research from start to finish (new york: the guilford press, 2011), 210–214; see also jane ritchie and jane lewis, eds., qualitative research practice (london: sage publications, 2003), 214. 58 al-ghazzali, the alchemy; see also eliza tasbihi, “the concept of divine love according to al-ghazālī,” in abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī (1058 – 1111) (montreal, quebec: mcgill university library, 2011), 14; al-attas, the meaning and experience of happiness, 1; ahmad qusyairi, konsep kebahagiaan menurut alghazālī (happiness concept according to al-ghazālī) (master’s thesis, fakultas ushuluddin dan pemikiran islam, universitas islam negeri sunan kalijaga, yogyakarta, indonesia, 2015), ii. 59 russell, the conquest,; see also tim cigelske, “8 causes of modern unhappiness a study of bertrand russell’s the conquest of happiness,” medium, january 8, 2018, https://medium.com/the-mission/8-causes-of-modern-unhappiness-a78164dd1ec0; tim delaney, “to be happy, one must first not be unhappy,” philosophy now 120, (june / july 2017): 12 – 13; anannya uberoi, “the happy man by bertrand russell: a critical analysis,” medium, september 10, 2017, https://medium.com/@anannyauberoi/the-happy-man-by-bertrand-russell-a-criticalanalysis-37cc077b5887. 60 al-ghazzali, the alchemy, 8. https://link.springer.com/journal/10943/56/5/page/1 https://medium.com/the-mission/8-causes-of-modern-unhappiness-a78164dd1ec0 https://medium.com/@anannyauberoi/the-happy-man-by-bertrand-russell-a-critical-analysis-37cc077b5887 https://medium.com/@anannyauberoi/the-happy-man-by-bertrand-russell-a-critical-analysis-37cc077b5887 32 the clash of thoughts…. 61 ibid., 13. 62 such worship and persistent remembrance of allah almighty signify a particular level of austerity and restrain of the bodily desire (al-ghazzali, the alchemy, 15– 16). 63 al-ghazzali, the alchemy, 18. 64 ibid. 65 the worldly characteristics are expressed by al-ghazālī in various analogies (alghazzali, the alchemy, 18–20). 66 al-ghazzali, the alchemy, 22–25. 67 ibid., 25. 68 al-ghazzali, the alchemy, 26–28. 69 yusuf al-qaradawi, al-halal wal-haram fil islam (the lawful and the prohibited in islam) (cairo, egypt: al-falah foundation for translation, publication & distribution, 1997), 299. 70 al-ghazzali, the alchemy, 31. 71 ibid., 34. 72 the next criteria are good personality, good looking, moderate in the sum paid as the wife’s marriage portion, fertile, comes from a good family, not previously married, and not of her husband’s close family (al-ghazzali, the alchemy, 36–38). 73 al-ghazzali, the alchemy, 38–40. 74 ibid., 42–43. 75 ibid., 43–46. 76 ibid., 46–48. 77 russell, the conquest, 19. 78 ibid., 224, 145–147 & 150. 79 ibid., 158, 160 & 169. 80 ibid., 176–178. 81 ibid., 198–199. 82 consistent purpose is an almost necessary condition for a happy life and it is embodied mainly in work (russell, the conquest, 209-210, 215 & 218). 83 russell, the conquest, 219–221. 84 ibid., 231–232. 85 yew-kwang ng, “factors affecting happiness,” in happiness—concept, measurement and promotion (singapore: springer, 2022), 99; mohamed ali trabelsi, “what is the impact of social well-being factors on happiness?” european journal of management studies 28, no. 1 (2023): 37, https://doi.org/10.1108/ejms-01-2022-0004; totok wahyu abadi, ilmi usrotin choiriyah, hendra sukmana, and mohamad hatta karuniawan, “factors affecting of lifes happiness,” in proceedings of the annual conference on social sciences and humanities (ancosh 2018) – revitalization of local wisdom in global and competitive era (scitepress – science and technology publications, lda., 2018), 41. 86 mohd rosmizi abd rahman and mohamed mihlar abdul muthaliff, “the inner knowledge (‘ilm al-batinah) of good deeds according to imam al-ghazali,” international journal of academic research in business and social sciences 7, special issue – islam and contemporary issues (2017): 216; weipeng lai, zhixu yang, yanhui mao, qionghan zhang, hezhi chen, and jianhong ma, “when do good deeds lead to good feelings? eudaimonic orientation moderates the happiness benefits of prosocial behavior,” international journal on environmental research and public health 17(11), no. 4053 (2020): 10, https://doi.org/10.3390%2fijerph17114053. 87 sabrina rose teeter, the effect of meditation on mindfulness and happiness (master’s thesis, faculty of the graduate school of western carolina university, nc, united states, 2016), iv. 88 junfeng jiang, “influence of college education on happiness: a quasiexperimental study based on higher education expansion in china,” front. psychol. 13, no. 903398 (2022): 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejms-01-2022-0004 https://doi.org/10.3390%2fijerph17114053 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 33 89 clara rastelli, lucia calabrese, constance miller, antonino raffone and nicola de pisapia, “the art of happiness: an explorative study of a contemplative program for subjective well-being,” front psychol. 12, no. 600982 (2021): 1. 90 the holy qur'ān, surah 13: ayat 28, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010), 459; malik badri, contemplation an islamic psychospiritual study, transl. abdul wahid lu’lu’a (herndon, va: international institute of islamic thought, 2018), xi. 91 budi andayani, djamaludin ancok and ratna wulan, “from love to family happiness: a theoretical model for javanese family,” european journal of social science education and research 5, no. 1 (2018): 24. 92 satoshi araki, “does education make people happy? spotlighting the overlooked societal condition,” journal of happiness studies 23 (2022): 587; munevver mertoğlu, “factors affecting happiness of school children,” journal of education and training studies 8, no. 3 (2020): 10. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 9 religious education system and religious education in schools of kyrgyzstan recai dogan faculty of theology, kyrgyz-turkish manas university, bishkek, kyrgyzstan recai.dogan@manas.edu.kgemail: zhazgul zholalieva faculty of theology, kyrgyz-turkish manas university, bishkek, kyrgyzstan cazgul.colaliyeva@manas.edu.kgemail: received on: 13-07-22 accepted on: 06-11-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.505 abstract kyrgyzstan gained its independence in 1991. the constitution adopted in 1992 became a basis for the restructuring process in the religious sphere. according to the relevant articles of the constitution, the issues relating to the place and purpose of formal and non-formal religious education in general education, the formation of religious groups, their relations with the state, etc., have been discussed. the subject of this article is the changes and transformations in religious education in schools after independence. in this context, first of all, information about the general education system and religious education of kyrgyzstan will be given. then, the legal and historical basis of religious education at schools since 1991, its status in the school system, its aims, teaching model, teachers, regional variations, etc., will be reviewed and evaluated. in the conclusion part, current developments and challenges will be discussed. the aim of the article is to evaluate whether religious education in the school system in kyrgyzstan is structured on national and universal principles and to open the issue for discussion. the study is important in terms of drawing a future perspective on how religious education should be at the universal level in the school system and contributing to comparative religious education. mailto:recai.dogan@manas.edu.kg mailto:cazgul.colaliyeva@manas.edu.kg https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.505 10 religious education system … keywords: kyrgyzstan, religious education, religious culture, voluntarily religious course, compulsory religious education 1. introduction kyrgyzstan is one of the central asian republics where the democratization efforts that started in the soviet union with the gorbachev's glastnost-perestroika process are most evident. with the collapse of the soviet union, the "kyrgyz soviet socialist republic" vanished into history. kyrgyzstan declared its sovereignty on 15 december 1990 and its independence on 31 august 1991.1 after the declaration of independence, regulations in many fields, such as politics, economy, culture, and education, began to be made in kyrgyzstan. the regulations on the religion-state relationship brought about new structures in the field of religion and religious education in the country gave a new status to the religion-state relations which enabled the revival of religious life and religious education. the first regulation regarding religion-state relations was the adoption of law “concerning the freedom of conscience and religious establishments” (“o svobode veroispovedaniya i religioznıh organizatsiyah”, law number 657-xii) in 1991, and the “constitution of the kyrgyz republic” on may, 5 1993. the law was adopted in 1991. the constitution of 1993 created a free environment in the field of religion in the country with its liberal approach in religion-state relations. in both texts, citizens were given rights to practice their religion, establish religious institutions, get religious education, and even to go abroad for this purpose if necessary.2 the basis of the constitution of kyrgyzstan are the basic democratic principles such as giving importance to and protecting human rights and freedoms; freedom of thought and equality before the law in terms of language, religion, race and gender and equal rights for all citizens. in paragraph 1 of article 1 of the constitution, it is said that: “the kyrgyz republic is a sovereign, democratic, legal, secular, unitary, social state”; in paragraph 2 of article 16, “everyone in the kyrgyz republic has the freedom to believe in religion and to practice his/her religious customs and traditions.”3 while the basic principles related to religion-state relations were included in the constitution, the principles and practices related to religious education and training as a part of this relationship were included in the law “concerning the freedom of conscience and religious establishments” adopted in 1991, and the laws and decrees related to religion in the following years. for example, article 6 of hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 11 the 1991 law included separating schools from religious institutions and issues related to religious education.4 one of the texts on religious education is "the defense council's new religion concept in 2014." the bloody events that took place on april 7, 2010, the kyrgyz-uzbek conflicts in southern kyrgyzstan, the increase in the activities of extremist and destructive religious organizations in the country, the emergence and spread of radical and extremist ideologies that threaten the constitutional order, personal, public and state security, the harsh attitudes and behaviors of religious groups towards each other, and similar events caused the emergence of such a concept.5 the 2014 religion concept defined the methodological and conceptual foundations for the development of the religious sphere, the state's approach to religious issues, the main aspects of the state to reshape its religious policies, and the strategic tasks of the kyrgyz society in the legal, cultural, religious and social areas.6 as for religious education in kyrgyzstan, the question of whether to give or not to give religious education in formal education institutions has been constantly discussed since the early days of independence. to this day, discussions arise from the application of the concept of “secularism” in the country. those who oppose religious education in formal education institutions argue that it is not possible to provide religious education in state institutions due to the secular nature of the country. those who advocate that religious education should be given in state institutions interpret secularism as the state's fair attitude towards all religious groups in the country. for this reason, the state is expected to provide its citizens with religious education correctly.7 kyrgyzstan's legal regulations regarding religion-state relations in general and religious education in particular since 1991 are summarized above. the following questions should be asked and answered regarding these regulations; what kind of a structure did these regulations create in the field of religious education and training? what is the place of religious courses at school in this structuring? in the article, within the framework of the above questions, the general structure of religious education, which emerged as a result of the legal regulations made since 1991, and the place and importance of religious education at school within this structure are examined. in this context, in the article, firstly, information about the religious education of kyrgyzstan are given, then the legal and historical basis of religious education at school, its historical 12 religious education system … development, its place and status in the school system, its aims, teaching model, teachers, regional variations etc. are analyzed and evaluated. in the conclusion part, current developments and challenges are examined. 2. purpose of the research the main purpose of the article is to describe the religious education system, which was formed as a result of the constitutional regulations regarding religion-state relations in kyrgyzstan, the place of religious education in the general education system, and the place of school religious education at both in the general education and religious education systems. within the framework of this general purpose, the aim is to examine the development and problems of religious education at public schools in particular. in this context, it intends to create a projection for the future of religious education at school to evaluate whether religious education in the school system in kyrgyzstan is structured on national and universal principles and to open the issue for discussion. 3. literature review after the declaration of independence of kyrgyzstan, academic studies were carried out almost in every field. religionstate relations were among the most researched areas due to the liberal approach of the kyrgyz state on this issue. some studies on the research subject are thesis, articles and communiqués that concern religious institutions within the framework of religion-state relations, and some directly concern formal and non-formal religious education institutions, curricula and textbooks. myrzabaev, in his “religion-state relations in kyrgyzstan”8 doctoral thesis, examined the relationship between religion and the state after independence. the religious education system in kyrgyzstan, in general, was analyzed in yusubov's doctoral thesis “religious education in kyrgyzstan,”9 abdrahmanov’s article “religious situation and religious education in kyrgyzstan,”10 cebeci's research project on “religious situation and religious education in kyrgyzstan: situation analysis and suggestions,”11 aydar’s book “religious education in kyrgyzstan and arashan theology faculty and religiosization in kyrgyzstan,”12 murzaraimov’s book chapter “religious institutions, religious education and religious communities in kyrgyzstan,”13 büyükalaca's master’s thesis “religious education in kyrgyzstan and religious office of kyrgyzstan muslims,”14 aktaş’s article “recent developments in religious education in kyrgyzstan,”15 and hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 13 kurbanova’s article “islamic education in kyrgyzstan.” these studies contain information about the historical background of religious education in kyrgyzstan and discuss developments in formal and non-formal religious education in the country after independence.16 in the master's thesis of akramova “the place of religious education in general education and the situation in kyrgyzstan,”17 the examination of religious education as a science and the determination and evaluation of religious education in kyrgyzstan were made. in the article of colaliyeva “the bases of religious education: the case of kyrgyzstan,”18 the anthropological, social, cultural, philosophical, and legal bases of religious education in kyrgyzstan were discussed. the theme of religious education at public schools of kyrgyzstan after independence was analysed in akramova’s “the level of realization of the objectives related to religious education in the ‘adep sabagi’ course in secondary schools in kyrgyzstan (the example of osh),”19 akimcan kyzy's “religious expression in post-independence kyrgyzstan secondary school textbooks,”20 topchubaev's “adep teachers' competences: a field study in the case of osh,”21 colaliyeva’s “the examination of the course program of ‘history of religious culture’ taught at kyrgyzstan’s secondary schools: the case of bishkek”22 master's and doctoral studies and colaliyeva’s article “attempts to introduce religion courses in schools of kyrgyzstan in the years of independence and latest developments.”23 studies on formal religious education are valuable. however, these studies make situational analysis and contain generic information about religious education and training. they do not analyze the place, importance, model and future of religious education at school within religious education system. this study is important in terms of its contribution to the field and creating a future perspective in terms of the religious education system that emerged as a result of the religion-state relationship and the place, importance, and future of the religion course in schools within this system. on the other hand, the study is also important in drawing a future perspective on how religious education should be at the universal level in the school system and in its contribution to comparative religious education. 4. research method the research is qualitative research, designed according to the survey model.24 qualitative research tries to reveal with questions 14 religious education system … such as “how, why” and is conducted in more detail and for understanding, instead of measurable characteristics such as the amount, average, and a number of the investigated events or phenomena.25 a literature review was conducted in order to describe the general religious education system in kyrgyzstan and the place and importance of the religion course at schools within this system. data was obtained by reviewing academic studies, laws, decrees, and regulations on the subject of the study. in addition to descriptive and content analysis, the document analysis technique was also used to analyze the qualitative data. 5. findings and discussion 5.1. religious education system in kyrgyzstan in kyrgyzstan, religion and state were separated from each other, citizens were given wide religious rights and freedoms in the field of religion, and religious institutions were given the opportunity to freely structure and operate. thus, its aim was to carry out religious education apart from general education, so religious education had been given mostly by religious institutions. the institutions responsible for religious education are as follows. there are two institutions in kyrgyzstan that are responsible for supervising, conducting and creating concepts for religious education. one is the religious office of kyrgyzstan muslims (muftiyat). the other is the state commission of religious affairs of the kyrgyz republic. the religious office of kyrgyzstan muslims is subordinate to the state commission.26 formal religious education in kyrgyzstan is carried out by institutions, which are affiliated with the muftiyat, independent religious education institutions, established by civil foundations or by certain individuals groups and institutions within the universities and schools affiliated with the ministry of education. religious education of other beliefs and religions is carried out by their own religious institutions. non-formal religious education, on the other hand, is carried out through religious education activities in the mosques, affiliated with the muftiyat, and in houses and mosques of different religious groups.27 madrasahs are non-state educational institutions in kyrgyzstan, where islamic religious knowledge is given.28 madrasahs work according to the standards of the muftiyat and with the certificate approval of the state commission of religious affairs. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 15 in madrasahs, books written by previous islamic scholars are generally taught and traditional teaching methods are used.29 those madrasahs, physical conditions of which are not very good, are financed by students’ parents and the public. muftiyat set a standard in education programs in 2013, and many madrasahs have started to improve their physical facilities.30 despite of it, the education level in these institutions has not reached the desired level yet. diplomas of religious education institutions affiliated with the muftiyat are not recognized by the state as they continue their activities without obtaining the license of the ministry of education.31 the only staterecognized secondary religious education institution in kyrgyzstan is the osh imam hatip high school, which was opened in 2013 within the osh theology faculty.32 there are also religious education institutions opened in universities within the religious education system in kyrgyzstan. some of them are the faculties33 of theology and some of them are the faculty departments of the universities. theology faculties provide education at the bachelor’s level and give state diplomas to graduates. the programs of the faculties of theology are the ones in which islamic sciences, philosophy and religious sciences courses are taught.34 there are also departments of religious studies called "din taanuu" in kyrgyz, which work as departments within some state universities. the department of religious studies has been opened within the faculties of philosophy and history. in these departments, islam and other religions are taught in general.35 in addition to formal religious education, non-formal religious education is carried out in mosques affiliated with the muftiyat and in houses and mosques opened by religious groups. after independence, the number of mosques has begun to increase rapidly. it is estimated that there are nearly 3000 mosques, mostly in southern kyrgyzstan, but there are no records of all of them.36 the clergy, called "moldo" in the mosques, lead prayers and teach the men the qur'an and religious knowledge. it is stated that a significant part of moldos do not have sufficient religious and pedagogical knowledge.37 an important part of non-formal religious education in kyrgyzstan is "davat and tabliq" (exhorting and preaching). the person who exhorts muslims to be more religiously observant is called "davatchy" among the people. this religious education activity is mostly carried out by the members of “tabligh jamaat” (in english society of preachers), a formation of pakistan origin.38 at the beginning missionary activities of this group were held without any control. but then the special department has been opened within the muftiyat for the coordination and control of the preaching activities of the davatchy.39 16 religious education system … there are many problems in the religious education system. first of all, the human model desired to be educated is not clear, in other words, religious education philosophy has not been established yet. there are many lackings in an administrative and financial structures of formal and non-formal religious education institutions. vagueness of the quality of the curriculum, teacher shortage and inadequacy, economic problems, lack of physical opportunities, employment problems of graduates etc. are some of the other shortcomings. although the education given by higher religious education institutions within the university structure differs according to the institutions, it has a certain standard and quality because it is licensed according to state standards. 5.2. religious education in the school system until the beginning of the 20th century, education was not among the primary duties of the state all over the world. in general, although there are some insignificant differences according to geographies over the centuries, religion was at the center of culture and education, and the education was in the nature of religious education. education was carried out by individuals and foundations rather than by state. in general, religious education approaches were theologically centered. as a result of urbanization, caused by industrialization, structuring of states on citizenship, etc., state began to see education among its own duties. it developed a school system to train personnel in the fields it needed. in parallel with the new state structure, changes in understanding of society and people and the school system, religious education was not included in the school system in different countries. religious education continued in traditional institutions, or effort was made to structure religious education within the framework of the general purposes of the school by including it in the school system or by being carried out in both institutions. however, along with this development and change, the legitimacy, nature, etc., of the religion course at school brought controversy. every country has tried to solve the problem of religion courses in schools according to different variables since its emergence. although the issue seems to have reached a social consensus in some countries, it still maintains its vitality in other countries. however, it can be said that a certain distance has arisen in the world in terms of religion courses at school. especially since the second half of the 20th century, the focus of discussions on religion courses at school was the question like “which model of the religion course should be used?” the “classical liberal model”, that was widely used at the beginning of the 20th century, a transition from a closed society to an open society, advances in the economy, developments in communication and hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 17 informatics, differences in the understanding of the state, citizenship, and democracy had led to the emergence of new approaches in religious education/teaching at school, especially in europe. it is obvious that in the discussions concerning the legitimacy of religious courses at public schools and the model of religious education, the following variables are actual: the mono-religious or multi-religious structure of society, the relationship between religion and secularism, the historical tradition of each country, and the purpose and nature of religious education in public schools. in this context, in this part of the article, the development of the religion courses at public schools of kyrgyzstan during the independency period has been examined. 5.3. the legal basis of religious education at public school articles related to religious education at public schools are not included in the constitution, but regulations on this issue are included in the “freedom of conscience law.” article 8 of part 6 of the law states that “religious disciplines may be included in the programs of state educational institutions, but they should not contradict the legislation of the kyrgyz republic and must have a general education characteristic."40 the inclusion of such an article in the law shows the state's intention to protect its national history and culture, as well as the willingness of the people and intellectuals to have such a course in the general education program. also, it can be understood that the state sees religion as a power that will unite society.41 the kyrgyz text of the law "iyman sabaktary" concept is used. it can be translated into english as "spirituality courses", and as "uroki duhovnosti" in russian. while the word "iyman" is used in the meaning of "religion", "belief", "conscience" and "morality" in kyrgyz, it is possible to say that the word "duhovny" in russian corresponds to the words "religious", "spiritual" and "moral".42 5.4. religious courses at public school 5.4.1. iyman sabagi the first course within the general education system of kyrgyzstan was the "iyman sabagi”. the course had started to be taught in secondary schools with the status of "optional". initially, the aim of the course had been to teach the kyrgyz national moral values, religious-moral norms and social behaviour norms. iyman sabagi was not taught all over the country. it had been included in the curriculum of schools where the language of instruction was kyrgyz, especially in the more conservative southern region. school principals could decide whether to include this course to the school program or not. the content of the course consisted of themes concerning kyrgyz 18 religious education system … national values, cultural customs and traditions, general moral norms, ecological issues, social behaviour norms, etc. programs with unclear content were made for the course in 1991 and 1992, but they did not become widespread. there were not branch teachers yet, so the course was taught by clergy, class teachers, kyrgyz language and literature teachers, history teachers and even aesthetics, guidance and philosophy teachers. there also was no course textbook, so its purpose and content had been shaped according to the understanding of the course teacher. for example, clergymen taught mostly islamic subjects. class teachers focused on religious subjects together with the kyrgyz national values, and the philosophy teachers taught philosophical ethics themes together with the kyrgyz cultural themes.43 the official program of the iyman sabagi course was prepared by the ministry of education only on 05.09.2003. it was made compulsory in all official schools of the country. in 2003 iyman sabagı started to be taught at public schools as one of the compulsory courses. it was taught one hour a week. however, the different meanings attributed to the concept of 'iyman' in the name of the course caused discussions on the course content. as a result of these discussions, "iyman sabagi" was changed to "adep sabagi", on the grounds that the word "iyman" caused false interpretations and was loaded with a religious content. despite being demanded by the public, the iyman course could not show the desired success. the failure was caused by lack of systematic program and order, lack of branch teachers, among other problems.44 5.4.2. adep sabagi adep sabagi, as a continuation of iyman sabagi, had been a compulsory school subject in 1-11 grades since 2004. it was taught one hour a week. kyrgyz education academy reviewed iyman sabagi's program and prepared the curriculum for adep sabagi. the content of this course consisted of national education moral principles, customs, moral values, and all human values and virtues that have been molded by the kyrgyz people for centuries. the adep sabagi course aimed to strengthen the moral and spiritual values of the society, to educate students in accordance with the principles of national ideology, and to teach them virtue, basic moral, spiritual, human and cultural values. the aim of the course was to educate students as individuals who would adapt to new realities and social ideals, assimilate national culture, and would have good moral behaviors. the content of the course included themes on kyrgyz culture, customs and traditions, morals, cultural and human values and similar themes.45 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 19 the adep sabagi curriculum of 1-11 grades consisted of six units/modules. subjects related to religion were included in these units not directly, but as an element of culture.46 textbooks of the adep sabagi curriculum were generally written by ethnopedagogues, historians, and linguists. in accordance with the program, the following themes were examined in the textbooks: patriotism; mountains, tombs, caravanserais; which are considered sacred places in kyrgyzstan, beautiful natural places, importance of kyrgyz names, history of the kyrgyz, sensitivity to corruption and crime, morality and etiquette, avoidance of waste, honesty, avoidance of arrogance and envy, hard work. in the books, religion was referred to as one of the elements of kyrgyz culture.47 therefore, adep sabagi was a general culture course in which religious elements were considered as a cultural element. due to the scarcity of branch teachers, adep sabagi was taught by kyrgyz language and literature teachers. guidance, history and classroom teachers also taught this course.48 since 2004, the adep course had been a compulsory subject in kyrgyz schools and in uzbek schools in the south. since 20062007 academic year it had been taught compulsorily in 1-4th grades in schools with russian language of instruction. adep sabagi was integrated into the "human and society" and "introduction to economy" courses in the 9th, 10th and 11th grades in the 2012-2013 academic year. till 2020-2021 academic year adep sabagi had been taught in 1-8 grades as a compulsory course.49 but in 2021-2022 academic year adep sabagi was removed from the program for pedagogical reasons such as optimizing education and reducing course load of students.50 5.5. new trends in religious education at school in kyrgyzstan, since 1991, religion courses have been included in the school program at least two times. first course had an "optional" status and had been applied between 1991 and 2003, and the other had a "compulsory" status and had been applied between 2003 and 2021. as it could be understood from the explanations above, both iyman sabagi and adep sabagi were general culture courses rather than religion courses. as they consisted of topics on the kyrgyz national culture, customs and traditions, and national moral values. on the one hand, discussions on course status, its content, and similar issues had started with iyman sabagi and continued with adep sabagi. on the other hand, activities of religious groups that were 20 religious education system … increasing day by day in the country were also being actively discussed.51 the next attempt to introduce a religion course was "history of religious culture" course. it had been foreseen to teach this course with “teaching about religion” model.52 the "history of religious culture" course was taught to the 9th graders as a pilot application in 10 schools across the country in the 2016-2017 academic year. in 2018-2019 the pilot implementation was continued in 56 schools in the country. the basis of the history of religious culture course was the principle of neutrality. the course consisted of subjects such as scientific knowledge about religious culture in general, the history and theories of religions, the concept of the secular state and the principles of secularism, freedom of religion and conscience, rather than teaching any religion. in other words, in the history of religious culture course, religion was taught with a scientific approach. it was stressed that since kyrgyzstan’s society had a multicultural and multireligious structure, it should not be focused on any single religion in the teaching process. the history of religious culture course program was designed for one semester, to be taught for one hour per week, with a total of sixteen hours. history teachers taught the history of religious culture course. the reason for this was that: the religions described in this course were taught from a historical perspective.53 by emphasizing the multicultural and multi-religious nature of kyrgyzstan in the curriculum, it was argued that it would be wrong to focus on any religion, in other words, the principle of tolerance was overemphasized. the curriculum was prepared with a nonconfessional religious education approach.54 this pilot course was not continued. the recent attempt to introduce the religion course is the “history of development of religions” course. in 2022-2023 academic year, according to the presidential decree55 it has been foreseen to introduce the “history of development of religions” course as a compulsory course at public schools all over the country. it is planned to teach this course in 7-th, 8-th, and 9-th grades. history teachers and theologians with diplomas will teach this course. the aims of the course are expressed as follows: “formation of students” knowledge about the history of the emergence, development and operation of world religions, their impact on society; understanding the importance of morality, faith and religion hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 21 in the life of a person and society; ability to build interfaith dialogue and moral self-improvement, spiritual self-development; positive interaction skills with representatives of different cultures, nationalities, beliefs, social groups; readiness to counter radicalization and religious conflicts.”56 this course is the latest attempt to introduce religion course to the school’s curriculum. thus, information about the time that would be allocated to the course and other details are not clear at the moment. however, it is clear that the state has began to take the active role in religious matters. 6. discussion kyrgyzstan declared its independence upon the disintegration of the ussr, after the period of “perestroika.” “perestroika” was the period when the assumptions that religion was a remnant of the past and the ussr’s religious policy had begun to be questioned. in addition to transitioning to the multi-party system since 1991, the kyrgyz republic, unlike the soviet union state, stated that it was a secular state in its constitution. kyrgyzstan did not give any place to religion in its administration, and thus even though it did not derive its source from the society laid the foundation for a new religionstate relationship model. considering religion as one of the important elements of cultural heritage and a system of values, the state has accepted international agreements on religion and has tried to adapt its legal framework accordingly. the principle of separation of religion and state in kyrgyzstan and the wide opportunities provided by rights and freedoms have led to a significant change in the religious structure in the society. the activities of foreign actors such as western missionary groups, political islamist movements and capital from islamic countries have come to the fore. the state, which found the role of external actors in the religious structure dangerous in terms of state and social security, decided to reorganize the areas of freedom that it had given in the first years of independence. the initial excitement was replaced by anxiety and suspicion. kyrgyzstan's regulations in religion-state affairs affected the formation of the country's religious education system. it can be said that kyrgyzstan gained important experience in religion-state relations and religious education practices during its 30year independence period. it is a very short period, compared to other countries, which have achieved this result over a longer period of time. religion and religious education is separated from the state as a civil area, and is guaranteed freedom according to the “freedom of conscience law” and the constitution. 22 religious education system … the freedom of religion and religious education started to become a security problem in the country, so new regulations were made regarding the laws regulating religion-state relations and the institutions controlling religious education. these regulations did not reach the desired aims, so other regulations were made in 2008 and 2014, and the religious concept of 2020 was issued. since its independence, the place of religion and religious education in kyrgyzstan has continued to be the subject of constant debate. these discussions can be evaluated from two perspectives. the first is that religion and religious education is an important problem area, since the country comes from the 70-year-old soviet tradition, which rejects religious values. the second is the importance given by the kyrgyz people to religion as an important part of the culture, despite the negative process. in fact, it is possible to evaluate these two interpretations together. on one hand, kyrgyzstan left civil religious education to the muftiyat, on the other hand, it included religious education, albeit partially, within the state institutions. the initial purpose of including religious education in state institutions was to train both the person who would meet the state's need for expertise in the field of religion and the personnel who would receive higher religious education in the civil field. the structure established by the state within the framework of the religion-state relationship in kyrgyzstan is a well-known structure. you give religion a sphere and leave religious education entirely to civil society, and as a state, you only check whether the actions comply with the law or not. this structure, which sounds very nice at the beginning, does not work in the same way in every country and does not give the same results. first of all, both the state mind and people should assimilate this thought well and turn it into a culture and lifestyle. it can be said that kyrgyzstan has a multicultural and multi-religious past. however, in the past kyrgyz society had a closed society model, not an open one. the new interpretations and movements about religion in the country after independence made the possibility to become an open society more difficult. it is a result of this that the atmosphere of freedom in religion and religious education in the first period was taken under control with the regulations made later. the religious education system created by religion-state relations in kyrgyzstan is as follows: although religious education partially takes place in state institutions, it is mostly left to civil institutions. civil religious education institutions are under the control of the muftiyat. although hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 23 these institutions have made some progress in religious education, there are still serious problems such as insufficient pedagogical, physical facilities, financing, etc. studies on the subject also indicate many problems in the field of civil religious education, from lack of control to quality in education. the main subject and problem of this study is the religious education at public schools of kyrgyzstan. it is important to find out where does this stand in the civil religious education and general education system? what could be the reason for the state, which fully left religious education to the civilian sphere, to include religion lessons in school right after independence? it can be said that three approaches have been experienced in the subject of religion course at school in the country. the first is an optional religion course (19912003); the second one is compulsory religion lesson (2003-2021), and the third one is learning lesson about religion in addition to compulsory religion lesson. it can be said that the optional and compulsory religion lessons couldn’t satisfy both the secular and the religious sections of society. while the secular section stated that no religion-related course could be included in any secular state institutions, the religious section emphasized that the course was not related to islam, but rather a culture lesson. in fact, while the state included iyman sabagi and adep sabagi courses in the general education system, it aimed to raise individuals who gained the kyrgyz national culture. religion was included in general education as an important element of this culture. non-governmental organizations were accepted by the state as an area, where citizens could learn and live their own interpretations of religion. however, the situation did not develop as desired. the desired success from the course could not be achieved due to many reasons such as an inability to prepare the curriculum of the course, lack of textbooks and branch teachers. on the other hand, some religious activities in the country have turned into a security problem. individuals with different cultures and religious interpretations have to study, work, etc. in the same institutions. so it has become obvious that people need to learn about religion in order to be tolerant towards each other. thereupon, courses such as the history of religious culture and history of religions where learning about religion can take place, started to be implemented as a pilot course in the general education system. 7. conclusion it is apparent that, on the one hand, kyrgyzstan, as a secular country, wants to keep a distance from religious education by leaving it to civil institutions. but on the other hand, it can be said that it has not been able to create definite policies on how far this distance 24 religious education system … should be. for example, while taking and applying the religious law of the soviet period with insignificant changes, the state assumed that the law would give the result of the soviet period to a large extent. however, because the state could not predict that many religious groups from various parts of the world would come and operate in the country, it encountered very different results. again, it was not foreseen that the iyman sabagi course, which was included in the education program in order to contribute to national unity and solidarity, benefit from national culture, and shape citizenship consciousness, could turn into a secularism debate. it can be said that kyrgyzstan has achieved a rich experience in religious education in a short time. if this experience is analyzed well, it will be possible to make important contributions to the religious education policies that are starting to be formed. it is obvious that religion and religious education policies developed for a certain period should be reconsidered by taking into account all changing conditions. undoubtedly, it is normal and necessary for religious education to be discussed and critically evaluated by interested parties in a democratic society. however, it is seen that ideological positions on religion and religious education are more effective than scientific ones in this discussion. in fact, discussions on religious education are more related to the place of religion in individual, social and educational life. in other words, religious education policies of countries are not independent of the position of religion in individual and social life. in order to develop solid religious education policies in kyrgyzstan, it may be better to hold discussions on this ground. it is observed that there is a positive tendency in the world to include religious courses at schools compared to the past. however, the tendency to develop content of religion courses in schools that cover more than one religion and to present other religions and beliefs that are not the majority religion in their entirety, without judging them, is in the foreground. in other words, it is the prediction of a change in the exclusionary traditional understanding of religious education that advocates a religious belief. kyrgyzstan will certainly combine its experience in religion lessons at school with the experiences of other countries and reach the most appropriate religion course model for its own historical and social reality. however, it should not be forgotten that this process is a multi-faceted process, full of interrelated problems waiting to be solved. as a result, the religion policy determined in 1991 failed to be consistently implemented due to such factors, like moral security perception developed by the state due to external factors, economic problems, lack of strategic perspective, lack of trained personnel, state and statesman absolutism remaining from the ussr period, hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 25 gaps in the legal framework and inconsistencies in practice. this situation affected the religious education system in the country and the model in which religious courses at school would take place within this system. the place, status, and purposes of religion courses in the general education system were made within the framework of secularism discussions but not from pedagogical aspects. notes and references 1b. maltabarov, “kırgızstandagı dinderdin ordu cana abalı,” alatoo academic studies journal 1, (2017): 413. 2 bakyt murzaraimov, egemendulukton kiyin kırgızistandagı diniy abal (bishkek: byr, 2018), 15. 3 law concerning the freedom of conscience and religious establishments 1991, part 1, article 6, accessed june 2, 2022, http://cbd.minjust.gov.kg/act/view/ruru/202913. 4 law concerning the freedom of conscience and religious establishments 1991, part 1, article 6.. 5 z. baktıbaev, “ck: diniy uyumdardyn jayitina aylandyk,” 2013, accessed april 15, 2022, https://www.azattyk.org/a/kyrgyzstan_religion_deputy_security_nov2013/2518852 4.html. 6 minisrtry of justice if the kyrgyz republic, “concept of state policy of the kyrgyz republic in the religious field for the period 2014-2020,” accessed april 19, 2022, http://cbd.minjust.gov.kg/act/view/ru-ru/57409. 7 suat cebeci, kırgızistan’da dini durum ve din eğitimi: durum analizi ve öneriler [religious situation and religious education in kyrgyzstan: situation analysis and recommendations] (bishkek: manas yayınları, 2014), 39. 8 mametbek myrzabaev, “kırgızistan’da din-devlet i̇lişkiler” [religion-state relationships in kyrgyzstan], (university of ankara, yayınlanmamış doktora tezi, 2009). 9 elvin yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi” [religious education in kyrgyzstan], (marmara üniversitesi, yayınlanmamış doktora tezi, 2016). 10 t. abdrahmanov, “religioznaya situatsiya i religioznoe obrazovaniye v kyrgyzstane” [religious situation and religious education in kyrgyzstan], vestnik kgpu im. v. l. astafyeva 2, (2008): 51-55. 11 cebeci, kırgızistan’da dini durum ve din eğitimi. 12 hidayet aydar, kırgızistan’da din eğitimi ve araşan ilahiyat fakültesi [religious education in kyrgyzstan and arashan faculty of theology] (bishkek: başak yayınları, 2009). 13 bakyt murzaraimov, “kırgızistan’da dini kurumlar, din eğitimi ve cemaatler” [religious institutions, religious education and religious communities in kyrgyzstan], in kırgızistan tarih-toplum-ekonomi-siyaset, ed. c. bayur (bishkek: manas yayınları, 2017), 122-143. 14 o. n. büyükalaca, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi ve kırgızistan müslümanları dinî i̇daresi” [religious education in kyrgyzstan and religious office of kyrgyzstan muslims], (ankara üniversitesi, yayınlanmamış yüksek lisans tezi, 2003). 15 hamza aktaş, “kırgızistan’da son dönem din eğitimi gelişmeleri” [recent developments in religious education in kyrgyzstan], akademik sosyal araştırmalar dergisi 4, no. 36 (december 2016): 233-257. 16 nazira kurbanova, “islamskoe obrazovaniye v kyrgyzstane” [islamic education in kyrgyzstan], central asia and the caucasus journal 17, no. 1 (2016): 102-117. 17dilaram akramova, “din eğitiminin genel eğitim i̇çindeki yeri ve kırgızistan’daki durum” [the place of religious education in general education http://cbd.minjust.gov.kg/act/view/ru-ru/202913 http://cbd.minjust.gov.kg/act/view/ru-ru/202913 https://www.azattyk.org/a/kyrgyzstan_religion_deputy_security_nov2013/25188524.html https://www.azattyk.org/a/kyrgyzstan_religion_deputy_security_nov2013/25188524.html http://cbd.minjust.gov.kg/act/view/ru-ru/57409 26 religious education system … and the situation in kyrgyzstan], (ankara üniversitesi: sosyal blimler enstitüsü, yayınlanmamış yüksek lisans tezi, 2000). 18 cazgul colaliyeva, “din öğretiminin temelleri: kırgızistan örneği” [the bases of religious education: the case of kyrgyzstan], manas sosyal araştırmalar dergisi 7, no. 3 (2018): 279-295. 19 dilaram akramova, “kırgızistan’da orto mektepterdeki ‘adep sabagı’ dersinde din eğitimi ile ilgili amaçların gerçekleşme düzeyi (oş örneği). [the level of realization of the objectives related to religious education in the 'adep sabagi' lesson in secondary schools of kyrgyzstan (osh sample)] (ankara üniversitesi: yayımlanmamış doktora tezi, 2006). 20 bukatcha akimcan kyzy, “bağımsızlık sonrası kırgızistan ortaöğretim ders kitaplarında din anlatımı ankara” [religious expression in post-independence kyrgyzstan secondary school textbooks], (ankara üniversitesi: yayımlanmamış yüksek lisans tezi, 2008). 21 kubatali topchubaev, “adep dersi öğretmenlerinin yeterlilikleri: oş i̇li örneğinde bir alan araştırması” [adep teachers' competences: a field study in the case of osh], (ankara üniv: sosyal bilimler enstitüsü, doktora tezi, 2012). 22 cazgul colaliyeva, “kırgızistan liselerinde okutulan ‘din kültürü tarihi’ dersi programının incelenmesi: bişkek örneği” [the examination of the course program of ‘history of religious culture’ taught at kyrgyzstan’s secondary schools: the case of bishkek], (kırgızistan-türkiye manas üniversitesi: sosyal bilimler enstitüsü, yayınlanmamış yüksek lisans tezi, 2018). 23 cazgul colaliyeva, “bağımsızlık yıllarında kırgızistan okullarında din dersi denemeleri ve son dönemdeki gelişmeler” [attempts to introduce religion courses in schools of kyrgyzstan in the years of independence and latest developments], sakarya üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi 41, no. 22 (june 2020): 173-196. 24 b. l. berg and h. lune, sosyal bilimlerde nitel araştırma yöntemleri [qualitative research methods in the social sciences], trans. h. aydın (konya: eğitim kitabevi, 2015). 25 n. k denzin and y. s. lincoln, the lanscape of qualitative research: theories and issues (thousand oaks: sage, 1998). 26 cebeci, kırgızistan’da dini durum ve din eğitimi, 39. 27 timur kozukulov, “bağımsızlık öncesi ve sonrası kırgız toplumunda din ve dini kurumlar üzerine bir analiz” [an analysis on religion and religious institutions in the kyrgyz society before and after independence], journal of divinity faculty of hitit university 19, no. 1 (2020): 188. 28 salih pay and m. akif kilavuz, “kırgızistan’da bir din eğitimi kurumu: medreseler” [a foundation of religious education in kyrgyzstan: madrasahs], uludag university journal of the faculty of theology 18, no. 1 (2009): 247-278; kurbanova, “islamskoe obrazovaniye v kyrgyzstane,” 102-117. 29 yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 114-116. 30 sayfulla bazarkulov, “kırgızistan’da yüksek din öğretimi: i̇lahiyat fakülteler” [religious instruction in kyrgyzstan: theology faculties] in din eğitimi, ed. m. köylü and s. bazarkulov (bişkek: manas yayınları, 2019), 151. 31 a. kenzheshov, “kırgızistan’da din politikaları ve dini kurumlar” [religious policies and religious institutions in kyrgyzstan], (sakaraya üniversitesi, yayınlanmamış yüksek lisans tezi, 2019), 87-88; 32 yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 136-137. 33 there are four theology faculties: osh state university theology faculty (1993), arashan social sciences theology faculty affiliated to osh state university (2001), kyrgyz-turkish manas university faculty of theology (2011) and ishenaly arabaev kyrgyz state university faculty of theology (2007). three of the theology faculties are supported by the turkish state or foundations. for detailed information see bazarkulov, “kırgızistan’da yüksek din öğretimi,” 151. 34 yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 147-148; kenzheshov, “kırgızistan’da din politikaları,” 95; bazarkulov, “kırgızistan’da yüksek din öğretimi,” 156-159. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 27 35 these are the kyrgyz national university din taanuu (religious sciences) department, the kyrgyz russian slavic university faculty of international relations world cultures and religions department, and the kyrgyzstan international theology department. the department at the kyrgyz russian slavic university provides 5-year undergraduate education while others provide 4-year undergraduate education. some have preparatory classes. see: yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 129; aydar, kırgızistan’da din eğitimi ve araşan ilahiyat fakültesi, 185. 36 bakyt murzaraimov and mustafa köylü, “bağımsızlık sonrası kırgızistan’da yaygın din eğitimi ve camiler,” [common religious education activities and mosques in kyrgyzstan after independency] cumhuriyet üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi 23, no. 1 (june 2019): 197; kozukulov, “bağımsızlık öncesi ve sonrası,” 187; yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 152. 37 akramova, “din eğitiminin genel eğitim içindeki yeri,” 106-107; yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 152-154; murzaraimov and köylü, “kırgızistan’da yaygın din eğitimi,” 198-199. 38 yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 157. 39 o. s. mamayusupov, ed. o monitoringe deyatelnosti gosudarstvennıh organov v realizatsii religioznıh prav i svobod [monitoring the activities of state bodies in the implementation of religious rights and freedoms] (bişkek, gosudarstvennaya kommisiya pri pravitelstve kırgızskoy respubliki po delam religii, 2004), 158. 40 law concerning the freedom of conscience and religious establishments 2008, part 6, article 8. 41 yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 92-93. 42 myrzabaev, “kırgızistan’da din-devlet ilişkileri,” 227. 43akramova, “kırgızistan’da orto mektepterdeki,” 23-29; sayfulla bazarkulov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi” [religious education in kyrgyzstan] in din eğitimi, ed. mustafa köylü and sayfulla bazarkulov (bişkek: manas yayınları, 2019), 135136; yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 92-93; kenzheshov 2019, 99-100. 44 akramova, “kırgızistan’da orto mektepterdeki,” 26-27. 45 akramova, “kırgızistan’da orto mektepterdeki,” 28; yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 99-100. 46 akramova, “kırgızistan’da orto mektepterdeki,” 28-47; h. yılmaz, “çağdaş dünyada din öğretimi ve kırgızistan’la karşılaştırılması,” cumhuriyet üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi 12, no. 1 (2008): 165-168; yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 110-106. 47 “kırgızistan’da din-devlet ilişkileri,” 228-229; kenzheshov, “kırgızistan’da din politikaları,” 101. 48 yusubov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 101; kenzheshov, “kırgızistan’da din politikaları,” 100. 49 bazarkulov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 138. 50 ministry of education and science of kyrgyz republic, “2021 state education standart of general school education of the kyrgyz republic,” accessed may 5, 2022 http://koomtalkuu.gov.kg/ru/view-npa/985. 51 myrzabaev, “kırgızistan’da din-devlet ilişkileri,” 317. 52 bazarkulov, “kırgızistan’da din eğitimi,” 142. 53 colaliyeva, “kırgızistan liselerinde ‘din kültürü tarihi,” 55-57. 54 colaliyeva, “kırgızistan liselerinde ‘din kültürü tarihi,” 59. 55decree of the president of the kyrgyz republic, “introducing the ‘history of religions’ course at public schools of the kyrgyz rebublic,” no. 177 accessed june 7, 2022. 56 ministry of education and science of the kyrgyz republic, “the subject standard of the ‘history of developments of religions’ course for 7-th, 8-th and 9-th grades,” (bishkek, 2022). http://koomtalkuu.gov.kg/ru/view-npa/985 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 91 islamic social finance ecosystem and the role of crowdfunding: a proposed model abidullah khan department of business administration, sukkur iba university, sukkur, sindh, pakistan email: abidullah@iba-suk.edu.pk raditya sukmana faculty of economics and business universitas airlangga, surabaya, indonesia email: raditya-s@feb.unair.ac.id abid mahmood department of business administration sukkur iba university, sukkur, sindh, pakistan email: amahmood@iba-suk.edu.pk received on: 18-08-23 accepted on: 08-10-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.876 abstract social finance is a naïve concept in the mainstream of social entrepreneurial and finance literature. particularly, in islamic finance environment it could not attract significant attention from the researchers, academicians, and practitioners. though, some studies have discussed the tools of islamic social finance, however, the focus on developing a practicable conceptual framework remained least attentive in recent studies. this study aims to fill this gap and attract the attention of all stakeholders to augment the islamic social finance theory and provide grounds for practitioners and academicians to implement technological tools to enhance its social impact. this study uses a qualitative library research approach to develop the spectrum of islamic social finance and identify the issues faced by the key players within the spectrum. likewise, technological advancement in the form of crowdfunding is exclusively proposed for the islamic social finance spectrum in order to overcome all related issues and meet the objectives of sharê‘ah i.e., maqéîid al sharê‘ah which are embedded in its csr values. this study is envisioned to open the doors of debate for academicians to further enhance the general theory of islamic mailto:abidullah@iba-suk.edu.pk mailto:raditya-s@feb.unair.ac.id mailto:amahmood@iba-suk.edu.pk https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.876 92 islamic social finance ecosystem … social finance. moreover, this study also expects to pave the way for practitioners to further improve the suggested model through blockchain technology. keywords: zakat, waqf, øadaqah, islamic social finance spectrum, crowdfunding 1. introduction in the capitalist economy, mainly, rules are implemented to protect the interests of the rich which results in the rise of income disparity among the masses. the free-market theory has limited its scope to the concept of profit maximization as the primary aspect of human nature. the proponents of this theory consider the profitmaking as the ultimate goal of life, decline the mess created by this system and generally put the blame on market failures. the neoliberal approach captures only a single dimension of human nature i.e., profit-oriented business leaders while ignoring the other perspectives of life such as religiosity, emotion, moral and ethical values, and political and social views1. however, islam categorically rejects profit maximisation in the capitalist sense particularly when the result is super-normal profits. in islam, humans are directed to perform multi-dimensional tasks which should be reflected in their character. the values for righteous living that islam propagates permeate all sectors of human activity. action in every field of human activity, including economics, finance and others, is spiritual, provided it is in line with the objectives and values of islam. the primary portion of the objectives of sharê‘ah (maqéîid al sharê‘ah) focuses on the preservation of the public good (maîlaíah). the concept of maîlaíah itself is broad and multi-dimensional which paves the way for a better and useful life for the believers. therefore, a believer must have a multipurpose nature, specifically, in the context of profit maximisation the focus must be on several factors such as caring for the interests of others, environmental protection, and attaining societal benefits through social investment. social investment is a broader term which includes human capital, social capital, and financial capital2, nevertheless, in this study we focus on the financial perspective. according to silvana et. al. (2020), “investment of capital for social and financial creation has ancient roots3. cooperatives, religious institutions, credit unions and mutual societies have been managing capital for social projects for many years. however, in recent times, new ways of managing finance for achieving positive social impacts have emerged, which have been classified under the term “social finance” (sf).” hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 93 when we talk about social finance, the first thing that comes to our minds is helping the poor through financial means. however, the concept of social finance is broader in its connotation which refers to the investment and financial activities that are deeply rooted with social purpose. apart from assisting the poor, one needs to look at the social and environmental impact of financial assistance. grameen bank is a distinguished example that laid an exemplary foundation by providing solar financing facilities to low-income households. this financing facility not only provided a cheap source of electricity for lower-income class but also helped in reducing the environmental harms4. islamic social finance works on the same parameters besides having complete compliance with the sharê‘ah rulings. despite its importance, islamic social finance has been paid insignificant attention5 by scholars, researchers, and practitioners. on the same note, a study clearly highlights the need of research in the field by stating that “many researchers argue that islamic finance is socially responsible and based on the relationship of moral and ethical principles, however, there are no studies that measure or assess these social components of islamic finance.6” this is because of the lack of clarity in defining and structuring islamic social finance activities unlike literature on conventional social finance which has clearly identified the activities and institutions that falls under the umbrella of social finance. afterward, they were able to develop techniques to measure social impact7 however islamic social finance still lacks in this area. to fill this gap, in this study, we aim to build an understanding of islamic social finance and vividly draw a line between pure to profit-oriented social finance institutions. this study also emphasizes the existing issues in the operation of social finance instruments. in the context of islamic social finance many studies have focused on waqf, zakét, and microfinance as tools of poverty alleviation8 9 10but not explicitly as tools for building the concept of islamic social finance. however, the exceptional work of ahmed (2019) is an exclusive attempt to develop a comprehensive islamic social finance ecosystem11. likewise, the need for extensive research regarding the inclusion of financial technologies such as crowdfunding platforms and blockchain technology which influence the development and widespread islamic social finance process10. there are some studies on islamic social finance that highlight the importance of blockchain, however, the focus is either on zakét12 or waqf13 rather than the potential of islamic social finance as a whole. therefore, to fill this gap, this study aims to build a framework that connects the key players of islamic social finance through crowdfunding platform which can act as a moderator between the players of the islamic social finance ecosystem to resolve the prevailing issues. 94 islamic social finance ecosystem … 2. islamic social finance to understand the concept of islamic social finance, we first need to develop an understanding of social finance. social finance according to michele-lee, frances, and tim (2012) refers to the utilization of financial resources primarily for social and environmental returns, and in some cases, a financial return. financial returns are easy to evaluate as compared to social and environmental returns14. however, we have limited the scope of this study to financial and social returns. in traditional social finance, the key players are charity institutions, non-governmental organizations (ngos), and microfinance institutions. however, this area has been extended to include forprofit enterprises with the aim of generating profit as well as creating social and environmental impact. the portfolio managers of such types of enterprises establish conventional strategies to optimize the portfolio to provide returns up to or beyond the risk-adjusted market rate. the inclusion of such players in the social finance sphere gave rise to ‘impact investing’ – the models that encourage enterprises/organizations to create social or environmental impact as well as return on the invested capital to the investors2. islamic social finance works on the same principle while aligning with sharê‘ah principles15. accordingly, kuanova et. al. (2021) mention that all islamic finance principles represent a coherent financial activities system that aims to create wealth and achieve prosperity for the community 6. in addition, islamic finance promotes socioeconomic empowerment through social tools, zakét (almsgiving), îadaqah (voluntary), waqf (endowment) and islamic microfinance, which have been adopted and applied even outside the islamic world. these tools of islamic social finance are associated with philanthropic giving but have different forms and definitions. based on the above discussion, islamic social finance can be classified into three categories (see figure 1). traditional islamic social finance revolves around philanthropy (zakét, waqf, îadaqah), and cooperatives (qarì and kafélah) 8. these types of institutions are only concerned with the social impact of their investments. not-forprofit islamic microfinance is also part of the contemporary islamic social finance sphere 6 16 17 18. this type of institution has social value creation as a primary objective and financial value as a secondary. we categorize these institutions under the umbrella of revenueoriented institutions. such institutions generate revenues from social activities to cover their costs only. the third type of institution is those with the primary objective of financial value first and social value later. this category includes for-profit microfinance institutors, islamic banks, takaful, islamic mutual funds, and corporations. these institutions may align their investment strategies in such a way hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 95 that the financial value creation and social value creation objectives are achieved. figure 1: the spectrum of islamic social finance source: alex nicholls and jed emerson (2014) & authors generated it can be seen from figure 1 that the colour shifts from darker to light as the orientation shifts from pure impact to profit first. it shows the shift from pure social finance activities to profit-oriented blended activities. 2.1. impact-oriented institutions impact-oriented institutions are inspired by the philosophy of philanthropy. the main objective of such type of institutions is to resolve social tribulations through charities, and thus they typically rely on charities and grants. in islam, charity commonly known as îadaqah is one of the greatest acts of virtues and a mode of worship that is highly rewarded in this world and the hereafter. it is a way to pay gratitude to allah almighty who has bestowed the human with worldly benevolence. islam demands and encourages its believers to do charity. in islam, charity or îadaqah can be divided into three categories, compulsory îadaqah such as zakét, voluntary îadaqah such as donations to charitable organizations etc. and waqf. the institutions in this study are termed as not-for-profit-and-revenue enterprises where their business model is to create social value for free. these three types of charities are briefly explained below: • voluntary øadaqah: it is a concept of voluntary charity-giving. the believers do îadaqah to seek the pleasure of allah almighty. this type of charity is also collected by not-for-profit-andrevenue enterprises from the public. • compulsory øadaqah (zakét): it is an islamic wealth tax imposed on believers having 90 grams of gold or 630 grams of silver or equivalent cash and not in use for a year. there are 8 categories of beneficiaries of zakét identified in surah tauba verse 60. 96 islamic social finance ecosystem … the sadaqat (prescribed alms) are (meant) only to be given to the poor, the needy, to those employed to collect them, to those whose hearts are to be won, in the cause of the slaves and those encumbered with debt, in the way of allah and to a wayfarer. this is an obligation prescribed by allah. allah is all-knowing, wise.19 • waqf: waqf is an inalienable trust in which the founder of the waqf (wéqif) makes the guidelines or principles for the property’s revenue and allocates the profit, usufruct or yields of the property to a specific person or institution. such property is then given in the possession of the fiduciary (wali or mutawalli) who oversees the trust for the benefit of a third party 20 21 22. waqf can be categorized into immovable – an asset’s usufruct is endowed for a specific purpose and movable – such as cash, shares etc. most of the contemporary literature focuses on cash waqf due to its diversified benefits to the public. different institutions manage the above-mentioned types of charities. for example, both movable and immovable waqf are managed by department of endowment known as awqéf. in malaysia, waqf is under the jurisdiction of the state islamic religious council (sirc) and in pakistan under the jurisdiction of provincial governments. zakét and øadaqah are usually managed by bait-ul-mél or a separate zakét department at the government level, however, it is also allowed to do these two types of charities privately. this is why zakét and îadaqah are not only collected by government-elected institutions but also by private charity institutions. these institutions are usually not concerned with profits or revenues but the social impact. 2.2. revenue-oriented social finance institutions revenue-oriented social institutions can also be called as notfor-profit social enterprises. objectives of these types of institutions are to create a social impact and recover the capital and costs as well. in other words, these institutions are only concerned with the social impact their investments create while covering the cost of capital. akhuwat is a not-for-profit microfinance institution in pakistan which can be considered an example of a revenue-oriented social finance institution. akhuwat receives donations from the public and institutions and transforms them into qarì ul íasana-based microcredit. the borrowers start new businesses or support their existing ones through these microloans. akhuwat does not receive any profit but is only concerned with the social impact, the loan, and the service fee. since its inception in 2001, akhuwat has disbursed pkr140 billion (usd 835.8 million) and transformed 4.8 million lives 2324. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 97 2.3. profit oriented social finance institutions for-profit social enterprises earn profit while keeping their social purpose intact. socially responsible investments (sris) are linked with these types of enterprises. investors invest in businesses called socially responsible businesses (srbs) which are directed towards creating environmental and social impact. fair coffee trade companies are one of example of profit-oriented social institutions. the “fair trade certified” coffee-producing companies purchase coffee under fair trade conditions. these conditions help the farmers to get a fair price for their produce. hence, the investors or venture capitalists who are in favour of such community services invest in fair-trade certified coffee companies. in pakistan, wasil foundation is an example of such an institution which is providing financing facilities through islamic financial contracts to support the poor in breaking their vicious circle of poverty. moreover, it also provides business development services, skill development training and advocating their rights. bait ul mél wa tamwil (bmt) and aménah ikhtiér malaysia (aim), malaysia’s largest microcredit organization are other exemplary microfinance institutions that can be considered under this category. 3. issues and challenges islamic social finance is more developed and understood on the left extreme of islamic social finance (see figure 1) as compared to the right extreme of the spectrum. to elaborate, impact-only institutions have been developed since the emergence of islam but the role of these institutions in creating social impact in current times is much extended. this is because the social impact is not constant but evolves with the time thus the role of islamic social finance institutions must adapt its role to the dynamic social issues. to tackle these issues, relying on the impact only institutions are not wise but bring more social finance institutions such as revenue-based and profit-oriented institutions to create sustainable social impact. however, several underlying issues exist in these institutions when it comes to practical implications. 3.1. issues in impact only islamic social finance institutions previous studies show that impact-only institutions have a huge potential to be developed and optimized 25 26 27 28 29 30. however, despite potential development, these institutions still need a lot of improvement, whether from the regulatory, practical, or educational perspective. challenges need to be addressed to optimize the development of impact-only islamic social finance institutions. although different challenges are faced by different countries, there 98 islamic social finance ecosystem … are three common types of obstacles that are faced by most islamic countries. these aspects are literacy or awareness, operational, and regulation. in indonesia, in 2020, baznas (regulator of zakét) held a survey on the awareness of zakét. the literacy index showed quite a high number of 66.78. the literacy index contained two factors, basic and advanced knowledge. from the conducted survey, it is revealed that muslims in indonesia have a higher index in basic knowledge. while for advanced, the index showed a low number as compared to basic knowledge i.e., 56.68. moreover, badan wakaf indonesia (bwi), in the same year, also conducted a similar survey for measuring waqf awareness, where the overall and each factor’s result showed a quite low score of 50.48. the lowest score in the waqf literacy index is on advanced knowledge where the index showed a score of 37.97. it is far behind zakét’s literacy. this shows that the first challenge that needs to be addressed is community awareness of islamic social finance, particularly the waqf. awareness of zakét was also recorded as high for several countries as reported by irti (2020) 31. this high level of awareness leads to efficiency in collecting zakét funds. this high level of awareness is caused by interactions between institutions and the community through seminars, training, and other community activities. the commitment to practising islamic teachings could be one of the major factors of this high-level awareness regarding zakét. pew research centre in 2013 reported that 77% of 38,000 muslims in 39 countries are giving zakét as their obligation. this shows that since zakét is an obligation in islam, therefore, it leads to higher muslim awareness. the second challenge of islamic social finance is the aspect of governments’ focus on establishing rules and regulations. to optimize the use of islamic social finance, there is a need to build a strong structure and institution along with high competencies within the resources. on one end, where strong infrastructure and regulations are necessary however, on the other end there are some muslim countries where they lack in these areas. for instance, in pakistan, according to pakistan centre for philanthropy (2017), only 11 per cent of respondents were observing obligatory charity while the majority (30 per cent) used to give their îadaqah privately 32. this is because of the lack of trust in zakét institutions and the scarcity of awareness about cash waqf. one of the factors of such lack of trust and awareness is because government’s lack of interest in bringing transparency through introducing appropriate rules and regulations. nevertheless, in some countries, governments have shown their support in optimizing islamic social finance. in indonesia, national economic and sharê‘ah finance committees (kneks) hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 99 were formed under government and ministries to support the development of islamic economics and finance. in 2021, the national movement of cash waqf has been launched to support the waqf development in indonesia. the ministry of finance also issued several islamic obligations or sukëk based on cash waqf (cash waqf linked sukuk). this shows the government’s intent to fully support the development of islamic social finance. however, weak regulations relating to zakét and waqf hinder the effectiveness of government initiatives. according to isdb, islamic social finance, especially waqf has witnessed ups and downs due to certain factors, such as political influence, colonial rule, and human greed. these factors cause waqf assets to be lost for decades. waqf assets in some countries are realized after independence. province of tripoli for example, the first attempt at reclassification of waqf assets identified about 11,000 real estate, 6,000 mosques, and more than a thousand schools of holy qur’ān memorization. this work must be done with the involvement of experts in the field of surveying. hence, it necessitates that the government should establish special protection regulations to prevent any loss and preserve existing waqf assets. this kind of regulation has already been established in libya. the third relates to the operational practices of impact-only institutions. the operational issues of impact-only institutions can be divided into two categories, human resources, and technological development. human resources in the philanthropic industry are limited, both in quantity and quality. competency standardization must be done to optimize the impact of these institutions. certification of émil in indonesia for example, has been initiated since 2019, not only to optimize but also to gain trust from the community that their funds are handled with great care and safety. however, néðir (manager) of waqf has no standard certification for their competency yet. nurul et. al. (2017) also mentioned other issues that are being faced by waqf institutions. being néðir of waqf is commonly his main profession 33. néðir usually has other professions and developing waqf assets is its second profession. this phenomenon could decrease the performance of néðir which then could cause the development of waqf not optimal. néðir has also been mentioned to be an individual and this could cause the same problem. transparency in cash waqf operations is another issue which is haunting donors in countries such as indonesia and malaysia 34 35. the donors want to know where their donations are spent, though, a few waqf institutions are providing the records of their operations to the public too. this problem is not only with social impact only 100 islamic social finance ecosystem … institutions but also with the microfinance institutions in most muslim countries. the last challenge is the application of digitalization and technology. pandemic conditions have forced the majority of the industry sectors to adapt the technological change. along with the fast development of technology, impact-only institutions should also adopt technology in their operations, especially during covid pandemic when there were restrictions and difficulties to donate or distribute the funds. moreover, by digitalization in the industry, transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency can be emphasized in management. again, the waqf sector still has no integrated system to centralize the data of waqf assets and their distribution in most of muslim countries. 3.2. issues and challenges for revenue-based islamic social finance institutions in our proposed islamic social finance spectrum, core revenue-based social finance institutions can be kafélah-based and qarì based. in pakistan, the largest qarì based microfinance institution is akhuwat islamic microfinance. the institution is a success by providing benevolent loans to the needy with a recovery rate of 99.9 percent. the institution covers its costs from the service fee charged on the loan maintaining its pool sustainable. according to dr. amjad saqib (ceo of akhuwat foundation), due to various reasons many other microfinance institutions in the world have the same model but failed to exist. one of the major reasons for such failures is the complete dependence of these organizations on charities and government grants. if the institution is unable to recover the disbursed loans, the capital pool diminishes with time. the most popular collateral for these types of institutions is social collateral, i.e., group-based lending where each borrower in the group is the guarantor of the other. the concept of kafélah is the solution to this issue which is generally accepted in islamic banking and sukëk market. however, there is an extinction of kafélah-based institutions that could provide a guarantee for low-income borrowers who do not have collateral to access the capital from islamic banks or other for-profit lending institutions. the issue of kafalah is more prevalent in agriculture financing. many small farmers are excluded from receiving financing facilities due to lack of collateral. the statistics of agriculture loans disbursement show that microfinance institutions could not disburse more than 57 percent of loans of the given target 36. the issue was also prevalent in the financial year 2019-2020. the main reason for the exclusion of small-scale farmers was lack of reasonable guarantees37. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 101 it is also observed that the facility of kafélah is available for the ‘haves’ while ‘have-nots’ rely on the social collateral only. in islamic economics where cooperation is one of the primary pillars, financing facilities without financial collateral need to be available for the ‘have-nots’ as well. 3.3. issues and challenges for profit-oriented islamic social finance institutions social entrepreneurs come across hurdles in having access to capital 14. the main objective of these enterprises is to create social impact which is usually difficult to measure. the capital providers are typically concerned about the return on their capital investments which is difficult to guarantee by social entrepreneurs. in western counties, this problem, to some extent, is resolved by social venture capitalists. acuman.org is a social venture capital provider to social entrepreneurs for creating social and environmental impact. one of its recipients is the ‘agha khan rural support program’ which aims to build small hydropower plants in chitral, pakistan to generate electricity for the people who do not have any access to cheap and clean energy resources. unfortunately, we do not have such examples of social venture capitalists at the grassroots level in the islamic social finance domain. the reliance is largely made on western social venture capital providers, governments, and international grants. this is because the research in islamic social finance is concentrated on the institutions of waqf, zakét and microfinance mechanisms to resolve social issues. widely held research is focused on the role of islamic microfinance in poverty alleviation38 39 40 41 42, waqf and zakét’s role in poverty alleviation 43 44 45 46 47. however, the role of profit-oriented social finance institutions is overshadowed both by academia and industry. there is a plenty of potential present in the islamic finance system to create its social venture capital vehicles. however, this can only be done if this area of research is explored and communicated to the bodies in islamic financial institutions. 4. proposed model to tackle the issues and create an impact, a sound islamic social finance ecosystem is vital. in this regard, ahmed (2019) provided a comprehensive overview of his proposed islamic social finance ecosystem 6. according to him, one institution alone cannot resolve social issues unless all work collectively. he proposed a comprehensive and complex ecosystem in which for-profit, not-forprofit enterprises, governmental institutions, islamic banks, and islamic mutual funds work together to answer social problems or 102 islamic social finance ecosystem … support those who do not have the political power to access the capital. however, there are a few issues in his (ahmed, 2019) proposed islamic social finance ecosystem model. first, complex systems fail if one of them works traditionally. secondly, the involvement of many players may make the process slow. also, in the proposed ecosystem model, direct involvement of the government in initiation and monitoring can slow down the efficiency of the system, since in the majority of the muslim countries, governments are proved to be inefficient in creating social impact. finally, the involvement of for-profit institutions – whose main objective is to maximize the welfare of the shareholders, can stop providing commercial financing if it costs shareholders’ well-being. hence, the reliance on these institutions needs to be minimal. in our proposed model, the complexity of the islamic social finance system can be reduced by introducing technological advancements in the form of crowdfunding platform. 4.1. crowdfunding crowdfunding is derived from the concepts of crowdsourcing and open-sourcing. the difference between open sourcing and crowdsourcing is that in the former the whole project is outsourced, whereas, in the latter, a specific task is outsourced by an open call to a large number of anonymous people (howe 2008). secondly, in the case of open sourcing, the final product is available to everyone who participates in the development while in crowdsourcing the product becomes the property of the company or individual who initiated it. the concept of crowdfunding is inspired by the same philosophy, but the purpose is different. in crowdfunding, the main objective is to raise capital from many people to fund a project, new business venture, or any worthy cause rather than take the benefits of other expertise. in a crowdfunding platform, there are project initiators who introduce the project. depending upon the interest of people (crowd) in the uploaded project, they may make a financial contribution13. in a typical crowdfunding platform (see figure 2), the capital raised is maintained by the crowdfunding platform and transferred to the project account. if the project does not achieve its set financial targets, the money is returned to its funders. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 103 figure 2: a typical crowdfunding platform source: khan, shafiai, & khan (2019) broadly speaking, there are two main models of crowdfunding in the crowdfunding financial sector, i.e., financial and non-financial crowdfunding (see table 1). financial crowdfunding aims to raise capital for certain projects and provide returns on their investments. two models fit the definition of financial crowdfunding – equity, and loan-based crowdfunding. on the contrary, nonfinancial crowdfunding does not provide an opportunity for the donor to make profits on their investments. examples of non-financial crowdfunding include reward and donation-based crowdfunding. t y p e c a m p a ig n t y p e p o p u la r c ro w d fu n d in g p la tf o rm o ri g in w eb si te f in an ci al equitybased crowdcube uk https://www.crowdcube.co m/ smartangels france https://www.smartangels.f r bizhare indonesi a https://www.bizhare.id/ loanbased kiva us https://www.kiva.org/ prosper us https://www.prosper.com/ mekar indonesi a https://www.mekar.id n o n -f in an ci al rewardbased kickstarter us https://www.kickstarter.co m/ donatio n-based gofundme us https://www.gofundme.co m/ youcaring us https://www.youcaring.co m/ donatio n-based globalsadaq ah singapor e https://globalsadaqah.com/ table 1: types of crowdfunding platforms source: authors’ compilation 104 islamic social finance ecosystem … in the islamic social finance domain, two crowdfunding platforms were established that combine social impact-only tools such as îadaqah, waqf and zakét. the first initiative in this regard was taken in malaysia in the year 2016 when waqfworld.org was introduced to the world at the 12th world islamic economic forum. the platform, however, failed and disappeared for some unknown reasons. in the preceding year, the globalîadaqah platform was launched by ethis ventures. this platform has different project initiators who initiated projects for raising îadaqah, cash waqf, or zakét. these initiators are usually different charity organizations who on behalf of the needy people post projects on the platform. the beauty of this platform is that it attempts to create an islamic social finance ecosystem with the help of charity organizations and different for-profit enterprises in malaysia. gobalîadaqah platform introduces various projects on its platform which are either zakét eligible or waqf eligible. the third category is emergency funds which are îadaqah eligible. some of these projects are sponsored by for-profit enterprises in a certain ratio. suppose a project is 25 percent sponsored by abc corp. than the rest 75 percent of donations may be raised from other donors. however, the platform lacks other social finance services such as peer-to-peer and islamic social finance venture capital. in this study we proposed and aimed to extend their model and include other key players from the islamic social finance ecosystem to create a better social impact. a. project initiators and the project the project initiators are those who upload projects on crowdfunding platforms. every crowdfunding platform has its due diligence process. once the project initiator passes the due diligence process it is allowed to upload the project. in the case of the islamic social finance ecosystem, the project initiators can either be impactonly, revenue-oriented or profit-oriented players. in our proposal, interest-free islamic microfinance institutions, for-profit islamic microfinance institutions, zakét institutions and waqf institutions are the project initiators. each player has to pass through the due diligence process set by the crowdfunding platform. interest-free or not-for-profit microfinance institutions can target low-income groups in which the loan size would be relatively small. the service fee would include the microfinance institution’s charges including crowdfunding platform charges. for-profit microfinance can extend its financing facility based on the islamic mode of financing. introducing projects and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 105 raising funds on the crowdfunding platform would reduce their costs which will ultimately lower the profit rate charged. waqf institutions can raise funds for two purposes i.e., to develop idle waqf lands and generate revenue, and to develop nonrevenue generating assets e.g., masjid, free water supply, and so on. the revenue after certain necessary deductions will go back to the waqf pool for the sustainability of the waqf. however, the kafélah system is essential to be introduced within this platform which can be managed under fund managers. those projects which may not be able to attract social finance providers can be guaranteed by the crowdfunding platform, where, the funding for guaranteeing will be managed through funds from îadaqah, waqf, and zakét. figure 3: the projects’ funds providers source: authors generated b. fund providers social finance providers are individuals, socially responsible businesses (srbs), venture capitalists, governments and ngos who can provide donations, interest-free loans, and loans with profit purposes. the srbs can provide donations in the form of îadaqah and waqf. social venture capitalists (svc) may provide forprofit loans to microfinance institutions. individuals on the other hand can play the role of donor as well as loan provider. finally, governments and ngos, apart from being donors and loan providers, can strengthen the kafélah (guarantee) system. their donations for kafélah can include those who are excluded from the financial system. 106 islamic social finance ecosystem … figure 4: the projects’ funds providers source: authors generated c. crowdfunding platform the role of a crowdfunding platform is to bring all under one umbrella. introducing a strong due diligence process for the inclusion of project initiators, providing financial information to the crowd about their performance on their platform, attracting social finance providers and providing them best services which are not possible in a traditional system, maintaining and reviewing the projects uploaded on their platform are all responsibilities that the crowdfunding platform needs to perform. in figure 5, we have explained the mechanism of the proposed crowdfunding platform. the key parts of the platform are explained above. • step 1: before any project initiator can become part of cf platform, a due diligence process needs to be performed by cf team. once the due diligence process is completed, a specific project initiator can be recognized on the platform with all the financial ratios and rating made available. • step 2 & 3: the project initiator can then launch a campaign (project) on the crowdfunding platform. at this stage, the sharê‘ah team will screen the project for sharê‘ah compliance purpose. if it gets a green signal, the project will be launched on cf platform. • step 4: these campaigns will be visible to the donors or financiers, and they can accordingly donate, finance, or provide guarantee to a specific project(s). hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 107 • step 5: in case the projects are profit based then the profits derived from the projects will be channelled through cf platform where the sharê‘ah team will make sure that the profits are generated through sharê‘ah compliant contracts. • step 6: on the other hand, fund managers of the cf platform must make sure that the profit is distributed according to the muìérabah contract between the rabulmél (financier) and muìérib (project initiator). • • the issue of transparency can be resolved to a great extent as the social finance providers can see the performance of the initiator f ig u re 5 : t h e p ro p o se d c ro w d fu n d in g p la tf o rm s o u rc e: a u th o rs g en er at ed 108 islamic social finance ecosystem … to whom it is going to contribute and the performance of the project to which they contributed. the involvement of the government can lay the platform for introducing regulations for social impact-only institutions. the awqéf institutions and sharê‘ah team of the crowdfunding platform may assist and provide assurance of sharê‘ah compliance of the entire project through supervisory and control measures. the established regulatory measures can help in defining the due diligence process for social impact-only institutions. the checks can be placed on néðir or mutawalli about his qualification and his profession so that the success of the project is not affected. these due diligence checks can also include the human capital held by the project initiators. if they need to improve the whole system including capital security and sharê‘ah compliance, they are required to provide adequate training and update their employees about the sharê‘ah process involved along with the use of innovative technological tools. 5. conclusion: this study attempts to provide and develop a general spectrum of islamic social finance, understand the issues in the islamic social finance institutions under the same spectrum and to develop a crowdfunding platform to tackle the identified issues. in order to achieve the first objective of this study, an islamic social finance spectrum has been developed in which islamic social finance institutions are categorised into social impact only, impact first and financial value first. further, this study identified the issues in the islamic social finance institutions based on the abovementioned categorization. to tackle the issue, a crowdfunding platform is developed based on islamic social finance spectrum so that the identified issues can be tackled. this study is believed to assist the academicians and scholars to enhance the theory of islamic social finance rather than focusing merely on a few instruments of islamic social finance. furthermore, practitioners as well as researchers are expected to get a valuable guidance to further improve the suggested crowdfunding model by incorporating smart contracts and blockchain technologies. notes and references 1 yunus, muhammad, and karl weber, “creating a world without poverty : social business and the future of capitalism” (philadelphia: publicaffairs, 2007). 2 nicholls, alex, and cathy pharoah. “the landscape of social investment: a holistic topology of opportunities and challenges” (oxford, 2008). 3 silvana secinaro, davide calandra, denisa petricean, and federico chmet. “social finance and banking research as a driver for sustainable development: a bibliometric analysis.” sustainability 13, no. 1 (2020): 330. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 109 4, tedx talks “a history of microfinance” interview by muhammad yunus, january 18, 2012 5 belouafi, ahmed, and abderrazak belabes. “research trends on zakāh in western literature,” islamic economic studies 24, no. 1 (2016): 49–76. 6 kuanova, laura, aibolovna rimma sagiyeva, and nasim shah shirazi. “islamic social finance: a literature review and future research directions,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 12, no. 5 (2021): 707–28. 7 geobey, sean, frances r. westley, and olaf weber. “enabling social innovation through developmental social finance,” journal of social entrepreneurship 3, no. 2 (2012): 151–65, https://doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2012.726006. 8 saiti, buerhan, abdiwali jama salad, and mehmet bulut. “the role of cash waqf in poverty reduction: a multi-country case study,” in management of shari’ah compliant businesses, ed. e; ghazali et al. (springer, 2019), 21–34. 9 yarli, dodi, lina pusvivasari, and mohamad anton athoillah. “functionalization of cash waqf for solving poverty problems in indonesia,” al-afkar, journal for islamic studies 6, no. 3 (2023): 519–34. 10 begum, halima, asa ferdous alam, md aslam mia, faruk bhuiyan, and ahmad bashawir abdul ghani. "development of islamic microfinance: a sustainable poverty reduction approach." journal of economic and administrative sciences 35, no. 3 (2019): 143-157. 11 jouti, ahmed tahiri. “an integrated approach for building sustainable islamic social finance ecosystems,” isra international journal of islamic finance 11, no. 2 (2019): 246–66, https://doi.org/10.1108/ijif-10-2018-0118. 12 nor, shifa mohd, mariani abdul-majid, and siti nabihah esrati. “the role of blockchain technology in enhancing islamic social finance: the case of zakah management in malaysia,” foresight 23, no. 5 (2021): 509–27. 13 khan, abidullah, muahmmad hakimi mohd shafiai, and shabeer khan. “the rise and fall of cash waqf crowdfunding: exploring the shortcomings,” international journal of innovation, creativity and change 8, no. 9 (2019): 57–77. 14 moore, michele-lee, frances r. westley, and tim brodhead. “social finance intermediaries and social innovation.” journal of social entrepreneurship 3, no. 2 (2012): 184–205. https://doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2012.726020. 15 zain, nor razinah mohd, and engku rabiah adawiah engku ali. “an analysis on islamic social finance for protection and preservation of maqāṣid al-sharī’ah,” journal of islamic finance 6, no. special issue (2017): 133–41, https://doi.org/10.12816/0047345. 16 hassan, m. kabir, and a. ashraf. "an integrated poverty alleviation model combining zakat, awqaf and micro-finance." in seventh international conference– the tawhidic epistemology: zakat and waqf economy, bangi, malaysia, pp. 261281. 2010. 17 ascarya, raditya sukmana, and siti rahmawati. “cash waqf and islamic microfinance institutions: business models in indonesia,” in 2nd islamic finance, banking & business ethics global conference (kuala lumpur: inceif, 2017). 18 haneef, mohamed aslam, ataul huq pramanik, mustafa omar mohammed, md fouad bin amin, and aliyu dahiru muhammad. "integration of waqf-islamic microfinance model for poverty reduction: the case of bangladesh." international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 8, no. 2 (2015): 246-270. 19 the holy qur'an, 9:60, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010) 20 hennigan, peter c. the birth of legal institution: the formation of waqf in thirdcentury a.h. hanafi legal discourse (boston: brill publishers, 2004). 21 abid, abidullah and muhammad hakimi mohd shafiai. “financial problems of bottom 40 percent bumiputera in malaysia: a possible solution through waqfbased crowdfunding,” turkish journal of islamic economics 4, no. 1 (2017): 49– 65. 22 a khan, abidullah, muhammad hakimi mohd. shafiai, muhammad shaique, and shabeer khan. "demographic determinants of charity donors and its implication for 110 islamic social finance ecosystem … cash waqf institutions in malaysia." journal of islamic marketing 13, no. 2 (2022): 508-525. 24 dr. amjad saqib, chairman of akhuwat spoke during 9th global islamic microfinance forum held at lahore on 11 december, 2019 25 fjohari, fuadah, muhammad ridhwan ab aziz, and ahmad fahme mohd ali. "the role of zakat in reducing poverty and income inequality among new convert (muallaf) in selangor, malaysia." online journal of research in islamic studies 1, no. 3 (2014): 43-56. 26 shirazi,nasim shah. “integrating zakāt and waqf into the poverty reduction strategy of the idb member countries,” islamic economic studies 22, no. 1 (2014): 79–108. 27 ibrahim, patmawati. "zakat as an alternative redistribution mechanism: a review." jurnal syariah 9, no. 2 (2001): 53-60. 28 abd halim mohd noor et al., “efficiency of islamic institutions: empirical evidence of zakat organizations’ performance in malaysia,” journal of economics, business and management 3, no. 2 (2015): 282–86, https://doi.org/10.7763/joebm.2015.v3.195. 29 khan, s., a. e. sheikh, and m. abu bakar. "zakat-financial inclusion nexus: empirical evidence from pakistan." int. j. innovat. creativ. change 8, no. 9 (2019): 18-30. 30 herianingrum, sri, indri supriani, raditya sukmana, effendie effendie, tika widiastuti, qudsi fauzi, and atina shofawati. "zakat as an instrument of poverty reduction in indonesia." journal of islamic accounting and business research (2023). 31 irti. “islamic social finance report.” jeddah, 2020. 32 pakistan centre for philanthropy. “the state of individual philanthropy in pakistan 2016,” 2017. 33 nurul huda, nova rini, yosi mardoni, khamim hudori, and desti anggraini. “problems, solutions and strategies priority for waqf in indonesia.” journal of economic cooperation & development 38, no. 1 (2017). 34 kamaruddin, muhammad iqmal hisham, rosnia masruki, and mustafa mohd hanefah. "waqf management practices: case study in a malaysian waqf institution." world journal of social sciences 8, no. 3 (2018): 1-12. 35 iman, nurul, adi santoso, and edi kurniawan. "online based waqf management system in indonesia: a new model in management of waqf administration." international journal of innovation, creativity and change 10, no. 11 (2020): 164180. 36 iqbal,shahid. “agriculture credit target missed by banks in fy21,” dawn, 2021, https://www.dawn.com/news/1639706. 37 the finding is extracted from the interviews conducted with the farmers in sukkur, pakistan by the authors. 38 rokhman, wahibur, and harif amali rivai. "evaluation of customer satisfaction on islamic microfinance: empirical evidence from central java, indonesia." south asian journal of management sciences 8, no. 2 (2014): 60-69. 39 abbas, kausar, and nasim shirazi. "the key players’ perception on the role of islamic microfinance in poverty alleviation: the case of pakistan." journal of islamic accounting and business research 6, no. 2 (2015): 244-267. 40 ali, khalifa mohamed. “integrating zakah , awqaf and islamic microfinance for poverty alleviation : three models of islamic micro finance,” irti working paper series (jeddah, 2014). 41 aslam,muhammad naveed. “role of islamic microfinance in poverty alleviation in pakistan: an empirical approach,” international journal of academic research in accounting, finance and management sciences 4, no. 4 (2014): 143–52. 42 abid. abidullah and muhammad hakimi mohd shafiai, “islamic microfinance for rural farmers: a proposed contractual framework for amanah ikhtiar malaysia,” jurnal hadhari 9, no. 1 (2017): 33–47. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 111 43 rana, md sohel, muhammad khalilur rahman, md rabiul alam, and muhammad nazmul hoque. "waqf-based microfinance: an alternative solution to poverty reduction." selangor business review (2020): 40-54. 44 shirazi, nasim shah. "integrating zakat and waqf into the poverty reduction strategy of the idb member countries." islamic economic studies 130, no. 1155 (2014): 1-30. 45 saiti, buerhan, abdiwali jama salad, and mehmet bulut. "the role of cash waqf in poverty reduction: a multi-country case study." management of shari’ah compliant businesses: case studies on creation of sustainable value (2019): 21-34.” 46 bouanani, mejda, and besma belhadj, “does zakat reduce poverty? evidence from tunisia using the fuzzy approach,” metroeconomica, 2020, 1–16. 47 abid, abidullah and muhammad hakimi mohd shafiai, “overcoming income disparity amongst bumiputera by improving zakāt and waqf system: a special focus on improving assets management and accounting transparency,” journal of philanthropy 1, no. 1 (2017): 61–76. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 79 issues on waqf and roles of waqf authorities: evidence from indonesia and singapore dr lisa listiana national research and innovation agency & faculty of economics and business, universitas indonesia, indonesia email: lisa.listi06@ui.ac.id dr syed musa alhabshi iium institute of islamic banking and finance international islamic university malaysia (iium), malaysia email: syedmusa@iium.edu.my dr zamri osman department of accounting, economics and management sciences international islamic university malaysia (iium), malaysia email: azamrio@iium.edu.my received on: 24-01-23 accepted on: 06-03-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.720 abstract the waqf sector is acknowledged for its huge potential, especially to provide welfare and economic upliftment in contemporary society. to unlock the potential of waqf institutions, a supportive enabling environment is necessary. hence, the issues of a conducive environment faced by the waqf stakeholders in indonesia and singapore need to be explored. dual authorities’ roles are examined in addressing the issues. 22 in-depth interviews, 3 focus group discussions, observations, and reviews of relevant documents (regulations, reports, news, etc.) are conducted in indonesia – a majority muslim, and singapore – a minority muslim country. collected data are then analysed thematically employing the lens of organisational legitimacy theory. this study shows that institutional challenges confound waqf developments as well as waqf stakeholders’ interest in the two countries under study. while the challenges faced by waqf institutions are prevalent in the existing regulatory environment, they also bring embedded consequences to waqf administration and policies. in indonesia, the multiple conflicting roles of the indonesian waqf board (badan wakaf indonesia/bwi) and dual waqf authorities between the mailto:lisa.listi06@ui.ac.id mailto:syedmusa@iium.edu.my mailto:azamrio@iium.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.720 80 issues of waqf………. ministry of religious authorities (kementrian agama/kemenag) and bwi present institutional challenges that cause ineffective governing functions of waqf authorities. in singapore, institutional challenges in the form of multiple roles of muis along with their government-affiliated policy direction raised concerns on conflict of roles and centralized administration, which caused national policy vis a vis social inclusion trade-off for the waqf. from the organizational legitimacy perspective, waqf authorities need to embrace the stakeholders’ expectations to focus on and enhance their roles as regulators and supervisors of the waqf sector. keywords: institutional challenge, waqf, waqf authorities, legitimacy 1. introduction waqf is acknowledged for its significant contribution in the past. çizakça1 elaborated that health, education, welfare services were held without any cost to government during ottoman period. in his other work he emphasized that waqf is “one of the foremost institutional contributions of muslims to humanity”.2 illustration of its significance for human being during ottoman period is well written by baskan 3 as cited by nasir 4 “a person would have been born in a waqf house, slept in a waqf cradle, eaten and drunk from waqf properties, read waqf books, been taught in a waqf school, received his salary from a waqf administration, and when he died, placed in a waqf coffin and buried in a waqf cemetery”. however, its significance started to deteriorate in many parts of islamic world since colonial era and centralization of waqf system.5 several efforts including waqf blockchain, waqf core principle, waqf governance, waqf law template, waqf accounting standard have been initiated to revive the waqf sector in last two decades.6 in academia sphere, specific conferences held, and research centre institutions on waqf have been established in some countries. despite these efforts, its roles in the society have yet to be significant and impactful as it was proven in the past. in waqf ecosystem, at least four main stakeholders can be identified. these includes waqf authorities, waqf institutions (nāẓir/mutawallī))ناظر/متولی(, waqf founders (wāqif))واقف(, and waqf beneficiaries (mawqūf ‘alayh))موقوف علیہ(. çizakça 7 elaborated that throughout history, waqf authorities who own power were able to influence the waqf sector with their policy or decision. in current era, many countries establish waqf authorities to handle any policy and supervisory matters related to waqf. therefore, the current study will focus on the waqf authorities due to their ability to lead and set policy direction on the waqf role and contributions of the other various stakeholders. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 81 previous studies on waqf mostly focus on the development of waqf model and intention on making waqf. majority of previous studies which put keywords “issues/challenges/problems and waqf/awqaf/wakaf” are conducted in single country or part of a country and involved informants within the same group. indonesia as a muslim majority country is acknowledged for the huge potential of cash waqf up to idr 180 trillion annually. in addition, it is considered as the country which lead the regulatory framework on waqf8. however, up to end of 2023, less than 1,5% of annual potential is accumulatively collected and reported.9 on the other hand, singapore as a muslim minority country is considered to have a good initiative in funding the waqf development.10 current research is conducted to achieve two objectives. first, it identifies the contemporary issues faced by waqf stakeholders in developing waqf sector. second, it explores the roles that need to be played by waqf authorities to address the identified issues. to date, the debate on the extent of waqf authorities’ involvement in waqf sector remains. novelty of this study lies on the focus on waqf authorities’ roles, coverage in two jurisdictions with various background of informants, and the usage of legitimacy theory in the context of waqf. as trust based institutions, waqf sector need an adequate legitimacy to maintain good governance and good reputation. to this end, current study is conducted in a comparative setting of muslim majority country and muslim minority country with hybrid/mix waqf system. both indonesia and singapore represent two countries with hybrid/mix waqf system. in those countries, there are existence of waqf authorities and private waqf institutions at the same time. furthermore, in both countries the waqf authorities play multiple roles as regulator, supervisor, and operator at the same time. this means while both share several commonalities, at the same time each of them represents different jurisdiction with different characteristics. it involves waqf stakeholders in those two countries accordingly. this paper is divided into five sections to identify the issues faced by the waqf stakeholders and to explore authorities’ role in addressing these issues in both countries under study. 2. literature review literally, waqf (in plural awqéf اوقاف ) means “to stop” or “to preserve”. according to sharê‘ah standard of aaoifi 11, waqf is defined as “making a property invulnerable to any disposition that leads to transfer of ownership and donating the usufruct of that property to the beneficiaries/ mawqūf ‘alayh”. based on this definition, at least two characteristics of waqf can be identified. first is about the sustainability of the waqf asset/principal. and second is about continuity of its benefit. al-jazairy 12 noted that the principal 82 issues of waqf………. of waqf should not be inherited, sold, or given away as a gift or used as security collateral. terminology of “waqf” is not specifically mentioned as a term in the holy qur’én. however, its practice is being recommended in sharê‘ah as sunnah.13 in the past, waqf was normally established by altruistic and wealthy individual.14 it can be noted that most of the time the assets were in form of tangible properties such as land and building. it was a requirement that the assets should be privately owned by the wāqif. the waqf need to be registered in a local court and the wāqif can appoint himself or other people to manage the waqf assets. significance of waqf can be traced back throughout history. sadeq15 noted from various literatures that endowed agricultural land in algeria, tunisia, egypt, and ottoman are significant. çizakça 16 noted that waqf was able to finance the important social services such as health and education without any cost to the state. due to the perpetuity of its benefits, waqf is mentioned as “the most visible evidence of charity” for historians.17 since colonialism and centralization of waqf system in the past, waqf prominence in social funding has declined in some countries like malaysia, indonesia, india, nigeria which were colonized by western countries.18 during colonialization period, majority of waqf assets status were changed into private ownership, were demolished, or were taken over like those happened in turkey and algeria. in many cases, family waqf was no longer allowed. policies that were imposed in a way discouraged the establishment of new waqf. similarly, centralization of waqf system took similar effect, as it happened in many muslim countries like malaysia, turkiye, egypt, etc. consequently, all waqf matters are taken over by the government. in some other countries like indonesia and singapore, waqf system left as hybrid/mix system. in this system, government which is represented by waqf authority has power in certain matters on waqf. in parallel, the private mutawallī/nāẓir are still around to manage the waqf assets. indonesia has specific waqf law in the country since 2004. it also initiated the establishment of waqf core principles and cash waqf linked sukuk. with the existing waqf land in more than 440 thousand locations and potential cash waqf collection up to idr 180 trillion annually, waqf sector is being acknowledged for its unlock potential. however, there are ongoing issues regarding the governance and management on waqf. supervisory role of waqf authorities in indonesia is not effective19. the function of nāẓir is not optimal in spreading the awareness on waqf and mobilizing the waqf assets20. transparency of waqf institutions and adequate monitoring by the waqf authorities need to be strengthen.21 governance, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 83 supervision, and risk management are among the identified areas for improvement in developing the waqf policies.22 in singapore, waqf assets contributes to the muslim community23. in this country, waqf assets which managed under majelis ugama islam singapura (muis) is adopting corporate waqf concept24. while several studies highlighted the innovative financing mechanism to develop the old waqf assets in the country, there is limited new waqf creation. singaporeans also tends to create waqf overseas to avoid intervention in waqf matters25. several efforts to revive the institutions of waqf can be observed. waqf blockchain was introduced to address the issue of accountability and transparency26. waqf core principles were launched on 2018 to be guidance in managing and governing waqf sector 27. in addition to that, waqf law template was prepared by irti/idb in collaboration with kapf to benefit islamic world 28. financial products such as cash waqf linked sukuk29, waqf based microfinance30, and usage of sukuk mushérakah )مشارکہ( and ireits31 for waqf development has begun. however, it is interesting to note that scholars adopt different perspectives on the roles of state on waqf sector. malik 32 and çizakça 33 are among those who argue that there should not be any state/government intervention on waqf. some others argue that state/government should only govern the waqf sector and let the private trustee/mutawallī manages the waqf assets 34. in addition, rashid 35 opinion that state-based authority is needed to develop the waqf sector. most of previous studies which put keywords “issues/challenges/problems and waqf/awqaf/wakaf” are conducted in single country or part of a country 36. in addition, all studies which employed interview in their data collection conduct interview with informants within similar group. for instance, in malaysian context, the informants are officers of islamic religious councils in selected states. in many cases, those which employed library-based research propose alternative solutions. however, the proposed solutions are given based on authors’ own perspective without considering the perspectives of the relevant stakeholders in the field. previous studies also tend to focus on a specific issue, for example accountability, administration, reporting, temporary waqf37. some focus on the existing waqf assets, which mostly are in the form of properties and land. to address this research gap, current study attempts to open the gate in exploring issues faced by waqf stakeholders from different positions/groups. representatives of waqf authorities and other waqf stakeholders are involved to accommodate different perspectives and complement the information. perspectives of relevant stakeholders are important to capture the real issues at the 84 issues of waqf………. grassroots’ level for the proposed eventual recommendation which is sensitised towards these stakeholders. legitimacy theory is used as lens in analysing the findings, especially on the expected roles of waqf authorities. deephouse et al. 38 defined legitimacy as “the perceived appropriateness of an organization to a social system” and categorized it into regulatory, pragmatic, and moral. moral legitimacy can be assessed from performance, structure, procedure, and people. according to this theory, social acceptance matters for an institution to sustain. alignment between characteristics and efforts by an institution and applied rules, values, and norms in the society is important to increase the level of organizational legitimacy.39 since waqf is voluntary in nature, having acceptable or proper legitimacy may useful to encourage more new waqf creation and increase the cash waqf collection. moreover in the context of waqf authorities, organizational legitimacy is important due to their ability to issue policies and influence other waqf stakeholders. 3. methodology this paper aims to explore the real issues faced by waqf stakeholders and how waqf authorities shall play their roles in addressing those issues and developing waqf sector in contemporary era. to this end, qualitative approach is considered as the most suitable to explore and understand social or human problem.40 multimethod qualitative study through multiple ways of collecting data are employed 41 as this forms part of triangulation process at the later stage.42 primary data is collected through one-on-one in-depth interviews and focus group discussion (fgd) with representative of waqf stakeholders in two countries under study. informants are selected based on their exposure with waqf activities and represent different hierarchical positions, backgrounds, and groups. this is to ensure that those who involve in this research are people with most information about waqf, and yet able to accommodate different perspectives. observation is conducted by visiting offices of waqf authorities and attending several events hosted by the waqf authorities. in addition, review of published reports and relevant documents complements the collected primary data. data collections were conducted during march-october 2019 period involving 23 key informants from indonesia and 9 key informants from singapore who are representative of waqf authorities, private waqf institutions, and waqf experts in both countries under study. 22 one-on-one in-depth interviews sessions and 3 fgd sessions which range from 27 minutes to 138 minutes hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 85 were recorded and then manually transcribed. verbatim transcription is then analysed using thematic analysis with the assistance of atlas.ti software version 8. thematic analysis is a process to identify patterns and themes based on codes and their categorization emerged from the verbatim transcription/narrative materials43. 4. findings and discussion 4.1 regulatory framework and waqf landscape in indonesia and singapore in indonesia, there are two waqf authorities in the country, namely ministry of religious affairs (kemenag) and indonesian waqf board (bwi). kemenag has a specific directorate to deal with waqf matters, called directorate of zakat and waqf empowerment. according to the kemenag regulation 42/2016, this directorate has the responsibility to develop and issue policy, standard, technical documents and to do evaluation on zakat and waqf matter. indonesian waqf board (bwi) which was established in 2007 has responsibility to develop and assist nāẓir in managing waqf assets, to manage waqf assets in national and international scale, to grant any change of objective and status of waqf assets, to withdraw license and replace nāẓir, to grant any change of waqf asset, to provide any advice on policy related to waqf as stated in the article 49 of waqf act 41/2004. waqf act 41/2004 represents the highest law to regulate specific matters relating to waqf in indonesia. under this act, there is government regulation 42/2006 which has been revised by government regulation 25/2018, ministry regulations, directorate regulations and decrees, bwi regulations and decrees, and manual/handbooks. as of november 2023, there are 407 registered cash waqf institutions and 45 cash waqf receiver institutions in the country44. in addition, there are around 572,64 km2 waqf land in 440.512 locations 45. while most of the existing waqf assets are in form of land, more waqf in other forms are collected by the registered waqf institutions since issuance of waqf act 41/2004. on other hand, 14% muslim population in singapore is governed by administration of muslim law act (amla). amla starts to be applied on 1st july 1968 and covers law on waqf, zakat, management of mosques, the creation of funds, íalél certification, ×ajj administration and matrimonial and inheritance rulings. according to this act, muis is a statutory board which plays role as waqf authority in the country. as waqf governing body, muis has authority to administer waqf assets, to issue guidelines and internal policies related to waqf, to decide any matters on waqf, and to appoint and replace mutawallī. within muis, there is zakat and waqf unit which deals with daily administration and operational on waqf matters. it is muis council which has the authority to decide strategic policy or decision on waqf. 86 issues of waqf………. as of 2017, there are 84 registered waqf accounts with 140 waqf properties with investment value around $751million and annual gross income up to $15.2 million.46 76 of these waqf properties are managed by private mutawallī while 64 are managed by muis through its 100% subsidiary company called wakaf real estate (warees) investment pte ltd. in addition to this, $14.3 million waqf ilmu in form of cash was collected up to 2018.47 as of december 2021, waqf assets in form of properties and cash are worth more than $900 million.48 4.2 causes and consequences of institutional challenges according to the elicited information, it can be noted that institutional challenges lie as the main challenge in both countries under study. while the existing regulations trigger the main issue, several consequences arise from the existence the institutional challenge. figure 1: identified main challenge, cause, and consequences source: author own 4.2.1 existing regulations: causes of main challenge many previous studies highlighted the necessity of having special enactment on waqf49. that kind of expectation may be true for some countries. however current study reveals that the content of the regulation is as important as the existence of regulation itself. regulatory, especially the highest act, set the whole ecosystem. the issue arises when waqf act was enacted without long term vision nor any room to accommodate the flexibility and dynamics of waqf. with passage of time, the regulations may become less relevant with current context and became difficult to implement. at the end of the day, we found many things are not practicable. the act is too rigid, we are not flexible, especially in current digital era (vice chairman, nāẓir forum) hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 87 in my view, the issue is lack of clarity and lack of relevancy on our regulations with current situation (manager, cash waqf receiver institution) as it is observed in indonesia and singapore, while the existence of specific regulations on waqf, provides legal justification for waqf activities and establishment of waqf authorities, it explicitly mentions the multiple roles of waqf authorities. from the perspective of their majority informants in this study, this is problematic and leads to institutional challenge. in indonesia, waqf act was issued in 2004 and followed by several derivative regulations. the waqf act 41/2004 and bwi regulation 1/2007 on organisation and work of bwi explicitly mention that bwi has functions, among others, to conduct supervision to nāẓir in managing and developing waqf properties-as supervisor, to formulate policy/guidance on management and development of waqf properties-as regulator, to manage and develop national and international waqf properties-as operator. similarly, the administration of muslim law act (amla) is the highest act related to waqf states that all waqf in singapore are vested in muis and they have authority to administer all of them. this mandate locates muis to be regulator, supervisor, and administrator/operator for the waqf in the country. in addition, in singapore, the existing regulation mentions about the authority of government to appoint several key positions in muis. according to amla, at least 7 of council members are representative of community and not more than 7 are appointed by government. president and chief executive (in the past was secretary) of muis also appointed or nominated by the government. as statutory board, muis is positioned under the ministry of culture, community and youth-mccy with direct supervision of minister who in charge for muslim affairs. with partial funding from government, it is required to fulfil the standard of state board in the country. specifically, in indonesia, there are other regulations that are still valid to legitimize the existence and role of kemenag on waqf matters. for instance, according to government regulation 33/1949 and kemenag regulation 5/1951, kemenag has authority to investigate, decide, register, and supervise maintenance of waqf assets (k). based on government regulation 83/2015 and kemenag regulation 42/2016, kemenag has a directorate called as directorate of zakat and waqf empowerment to handle waqf matters in indonesia. these regulations cause existence of dual waqf authorities in indonesia, which also seen as problematic by their immediate stakeholders. 88 issues of waqf………. 4.2.2 institutional challenges and the embedded consequences as elaborated in previous section, several clauses of existing regulations in indonesia and singapore lead to institutional challenge for proper governance of waqf sector. according to the elicited information, challenge on institutional aspect of waqf authorities represents the key issue faced by waqf stakeholders in contemporary era. multiple roles of waqf authorities is the major issue when come to institutional. both muis and bwi play regulatory, supervisory, and managerial roles on waqf matters. multiple conflicting roles are seen by many informants as a deviation of good governance. you are the regulator, you are also the operator, it should not happen. because it is difficult (waqf expert, former manager muis) our critics to bwi, please do not involve as operator in waqf sector… being supervisor and operator at the same time does not indicate good modern management… from whichever reference of governance theory, it is not right (chairman, mass organisation) although being mandated to play those roles altogether, muis attempt to differentiate their supervisory and regulatory roles with managerial roles by establishing 100% subsidiary company called as warees investment pte ltd. as owner representative of muis, warees investment pte ltd handles all operational and managerial matters for muis managed waqf, such as tenancy, maintenance, repair, payment for the distribution, etc. the redevelopment towards waqf properties is executed on case-to-case basis, depending on their economic potential. despite of this separation of duties, several informants still raise concern about potential conflict of interest that may arise from the multiple roles of muis. there are several statements from informants which indicate their doubt on whether waqf get the best interest with the current structure. warees is somehow to help the waqf, but sometimes they are making money… if a big waqf, good money, they want to manage… in a way muis get the benefit. but does it go to the waqf 100%? i am not sure (private mutawallī a) this concern is raised as in the past, especially during the initial years’ establishment of muis, there was an issued regulation that enable government to acquire waqf assets. as authority affiliated to government, muis supported implementation of this regulation. several informants asserted that, since majority takeover was executed before rent control act was lifted, the amount compensated by government was not sufficient to buy the similar assets. this caused waqf to lose their strategic and historical value. concern on hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 89 potential conflict of interest in singapore is supported by the fact that the several key persons in muis are appointed by the government. although there are some positions in muis council that are filled by representative of the community leaders, several informants opine that appointment of key positions by government does not really accommodate voice of the community. now all muis is under government. the chairman, president, key positions are appointed and paid by the government. if that is the case, we know already (private mutawallī c) in last few years, there was policy on asset migration for waqf properties. technically, several non-profitable waqf properties are sold, and the cash is being collectively invested in a more prospective property. while in one hand the number of waqf properties decrease due to this policy, on other hand their cumulative value assessment increase. however, the increase of waqf value do not directly lead to distributed amount for the mawqūf ‘alayh, which cause their waqf stakeholders to question. this comment is supported by the fact that, according to muis’ annual reports during 2012-2018, while the value of waqf assets along with the annual income indicate increase trend, the provision and actual distributed amount for the mawqūf ‘alayh is fluctuate. as part of the consequence of muis’ multiple roles, centralization in waqf administration can be observed. since all waqf assets are vested in muis, all administrative matters must go back to muis. prior executing any activity towards the waqf assets, both private mutawallī and warees as owner representative need to seek approval from muis. in a way, centralized administration enables proper monitoring and check and balance mechanism. for example, the waqf authorities will have the existing waqf assets and possible to do the field visit. however, some informants raise concern with regards to the trade-off faced by the waqf properties to fulfil all those governance and bureaucracy requirements, including annual audit, periodic survey, waiting period for decision, etc. to them, centralization in waqf administration creates disadvantages and extra costs for the waqf. being governed is good. but too rigid causes difficulty. in the past we were free to do anything towards waqf properties. now we must report everything, even leak roof we must report…we need to wait for months to receive decision from the council… then there is periodic survey…these kinds of things disadvantage the waqf (private mutawallī c) in case of bwi, doing multiple roles at the same time is seen by majority informants to hinder their focus and effectiveness. the part-time work mechanism, which involves meeting once a week, is 90 issues of waqf………. considered insufficient for effectively and properly executing their multiple roles. this is supported by the absence of new official regulations and policies by bwi during 2013-2019, the lack of public awareness on waqf, which indicates insufficient campaigns or socialization efforts, and inadequate supervision as evidenced by limited monitoring and the quality of private nāẓirs. some informants comment that promoting public awareness on waqf is part of roles that shall be played by the waqf authorities in the country. it is believed that when people know about significance of waqf, more of them will involve in waqf activities by becoming wāqif or other means possible. currently in indonesia, while the cash waqf is calculated to potentially reached idr180 trillion, the actual collection up to 2020 is less than 1%.50 regarding to monitoring, to date, bwi only manages to conduct monitoring to registered waqf institutions in form of cooperation/islamic microfinance institutions (imfis). no monitoring conducted to the individual nāẓir or waqf institutions other than imfis. in indonesia, according to the existing regulations, nāẓir can be either individual, institution, or legal body. we only manage to conduct monitoring and evaluation to cooperation which collect cash waqf…no monitoring and evaluation to other types of waqf assets. we do not have time, the waqf assets are thousands in number (commissioner, bwi headquarter) on other hand, other forms of registered waqf institutions expect for proper supervision. they acknowledge that nāẓir has responsibility to maintain the value, to develop the waqf assets, and to find a way so that the waqf assets generate income. their activities as nāẓir include collection, management over the collected waqf assets, and distribution of the produced benefits. to increase collection rate, they need adequate trust from public, in which proper supervision and empowerment from the authority are needed. while the waqf institutions mobilize and manage the waqf assets, waqf authority should play their roles as supervisor to supervise our works (chairman, nāẓir forum) with the existing multiple roles, while bwi has conducted several supervision activities such as seminar or workshop for the registered waqf institutions, their programs are seen to be less effective. when bwi hosted an event for the nāẓir, the attendees feel that the programs lack preparation. in addition, there is no further follow up after the events, although there are pending issues. the observations in several programs conducted by them support this concern. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 91 other participants and i felt that previous workshop conducted by bwi lacked preparation. after training, there was no further follow up (director, imfis association) specifically, in indonesia, status of bwi is rather ambiguous with the existence of kemenag. bwi is stated as an independent institution in the waqf act, yet 100% of their funding comes from kemenag. most of its scope of works are redundant with the works of waqf directorate in kemenag. existence of dual waqf authorities without clarity on their segregation of duties leads to work overlap, as part of institutional challenge. there is overlap in our programs, both of us have mandate to develop waqf sector. both of us do socialization, supervision, similar programs (commissioner, bwi regional) in some cases, however, due to lack of clarity in the work distribution, each party tend to take for granted that the works have been covered by the other. as a result, it ends with situation where none covers such work. for instance, despite the existence of kemenag and bwi, very few maintain full list of waqf assets along with their waqf deeds. this fact indicates the lack of proper monitoring procedure towards waqf assets. while kemenag only maintain list of waqf land in an online platform, there is no kind of mechanism to validate the existence of those land. informants from kemenag mentioned that they do not have standard operating procedure (sop) to monitor waqf assets and their nāẓir as they expect that it is part of bwi’s work. on other hand, while representative offices of bwi have been established in all 34 provinces and around 223 regencies, not many activities can be executed since there is no budget and no staff allocated to the bwi regional office. 4.3 roles of waqf authorities in contemporary era: a way forward it can be noted that institutional challenge along with the embedded consequences in two countries under study is originated from the issue in the existing regulations. noting these issues, current section is going to elaborate the expected roles of waqf authorities. in both countries, waqf authorities have kind of multiple roles. in singapore, it is explicitly stated that all waqf assets are vested in muis. any waqf that is not properly managed by private mutawallī can be taken over by muis, like one was happened in case of waqf raja siti kraeng chanda pulih, thus muis plays managerial roles. in addition, muis has supervisory roles to appoint and replace mutawallī and to monitor the management and distribution of benefits of the existing waqf assets. in addition, it has regulatory roles whereby muis can issue any regulation, policy, and decision related to waqf. in indonesia, similar multiple roles are played by bwi as regulator, supervisor, and operator of waqf assets. 92 issues of waqf………. regarding to the multiple roles of waqf authorities, it is interesting to note that no informant from non-authority group of this study agree with the involvement of waqf authorities on managerial scope as waqf operator. to them, involvement of state affiliated as operator cause imbalance competition between state-based institutions with private nāẓir. multiple conflicting roles is seen to create potential conflict of interest and to cause lack of effectiveness. concern of informants align with previous studies which asserted that multiple roles could threaten governance roles of waqf authorities51. informants from private waqf institutions prefer waqf authorities to strengthen their supervisory and regulatory roles by establishing and promoting enabling environment for waqf development. for example, by providing technical policy regarding to waqf of intellectual right, movable property, etc. this preference aligns with the message of ibn khaldun when come to the role of state on waqf sector. as ibn khaldun argued that there is no need for government’s involvement in trade, production, and commercial affairs, it conveys message that the state shall not be involved in operational aspects of waqf sector.52 this also aligns with the stance of scholars who argue for limited intervention by state/government to govern the waqf sector.53 however, in reality such preference is challenging for implementation in some countries. in a secular country with muslim in minority like singapore, where all religious matters are capped within scope of muis, there might be limited option for being operator or not. in this case, clarity of work scope and work delegation may become a way-out option. as currently implemented, in practice muis delegates managerial works of muis managed waqf assets to their 100% subsidiary company. as such, although not yet come to the ideal situation, attempts to reduce, and minimize state intervention on waqf matters shall be demonstrated. this study finds that supervisory role is seen as necessary to protect the interest of waqf and to ensure that waqf get best income to be distributed for mawqūf ‘alayh. it is expected that misuse and mismanagement of waqf assets can be minimized with the existence of effective supervision towards the nāẓir and waqf assets. a.z. osman54 noted that there is kind of transformation in waqf management, from initially simple “donor as manager” to more structured one. donor as manager applied in the past because normally the wāqif and mutawallī was same person, thus there was no gap arise. the gap started to arise when the descendants or nondescendants, took over the waqf management. this situation, as what is currently happening in indonesia and singapore call for proper supervision. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 93 in addition, proper supervision is needed to promote transparency and accountability of waqf institutions, which require to call public trust from potential wāqif. nāẓir and people in waqf institutions have acknowledged this requirement and they are expecting further guidance from waqf authorities as mentioned it is a big challenge for all waqf institutions to provide accountability mechanism and to accumulate trust level from public (commissioner, waqf institution) we are happy to be open and transparent, but providing consolidated reports is really challenging for us (chairman, nāẓir forum) on other hand, the dynamics and flexibility of waqf need supportive and progressive regulations and policies to support waqf development. as such regulatory role of waqf authorities is needed. following çizakça 55 and irti 56, existence of waqf law is mentioned as prerequisite for effective waqf management. however current study reveals that existence of law without visionary content and space to accommodate nature of waqf can be problematic. this finding conveys a message that regulatory role shall be conducted seriously. while put effort to establish the law, the scope of law itself is very important and warrant for careful attention. previous literature asserted that good governance framework is proposed to promote effectiveness and efficiency in the waqf management57. as a matter of fact, this study based on the experience of waqf sector in singapore, finds different evidence. to a certain extent, there is trade-off between strict and so-called good governance procedure with effectiveness and efficiency in waqf management. individual waqf must deal with audit rotation and periodic survey at cost of the waqf income and mawqūf ‘alayh. as such, this study suggests, while proposed regulations for waqf governance need to enable effective protection, development, and evaluation of waqf assets, the procedure should not be too rigid and create difficulty. to effectively conduct supervisory and regulatory role, as expected by their stakeholders, waqf authorities need to accommodate and employ knowledgeable and skilful persons with relevant background. professional working environment shall be promoted, including full time working scheme and transparent selection process of key persons in the waqf authorities. in present time, more people opine that waqf has economic dimension, not merely about religious matter. as such, for most informants, skilful people with technicality expertise are needed to sit in waqf authorities. usage of proper technology, such as blockchain, can be considered to promote user friendly mechanism. wcps 58 highlighted that institutions of waqf need to maintain high public confidence because the system is “fully dependent upon public’s propensity to donate”. 94 issues of waqf………. when we talk about waqf, we expect for best practice…because in waqf it is possible to have so many innovation…unfortunately some people in the authority do not know, seems that we know better (vice chairman, nāẓir forum) while work clarity between relevant authorities shall be ensured, proper infrastructure in term of resource and support shall be secured. specific measurable performance indicators to examine the significance of waqf authorities in indonesia and singapore is needed. without any defined official and explicit target, people might find difficulty to assess their performance. in making any policy, to make it relevant and practicable, it is important for the waqf authorities to involve and call participation from relevant stakeholders and public. concern on structure and mechanism by waqf authorities which lead to institutional issues from perspective of their immediate stakeholders, may indicate existing challenge towards their legitimacy59. from the perspective of organisational legitimacy, to improve their legitimacy, waqf authorities need to adhere with expectations of their stakeholders. in the initial years there were a lot of that kind of issues… muis is seen as part of the government and so on. but by the time we build mosque, we rebuild waqf, we show our potential and realize and bring the waqf assets to realize its potential…they less resistant (committee member, muis council member) above statement illustrates, may be a proof, that it is possible to change perception of immediate stakeholders through substantial efforts. 5. conclusion and recommendation this study collects information from the stakeholders in the field to identify major and practical issues on waqf sector in contemporary era. it is collected through 22 one on one in depth interviews, 3 fgd sessions, observations, and document reviews. upon the thematic analysis, evidence from two countries in very different setting indicates similar institutional challenges. this is caused by the existing regulations and brings embedded consequences in indonesia and singapore. multiple conflicting roles of waqf authorities is seen as the main institutional challenge in both countries. in addition, the duality of waqf authorities in an expansive muslim populous indonesia and administrative capital city government involvement in singapore to nominate and select key people who be represented as waqf authorities present institutional challenges to meet stakeholders needs and expectations. potential conflict of roles and centralized waqf administration that moderated hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 95 the lack of waqf governance roles for social inclusion are among the identified consequences due to the issue on institutional aspect. waqf is theoretically and conceptually good, but its goodness cannot be realized without proper enabling environment. legitimate and effective waqf authorities are among the main enabling environment to unlock good potential of the waqf. from organisational legitimacy perspective, waqf authorities need to adhere with the stakeholders’ expectations to improve their stance of legitimacy and to strengthen their roles. upon data analysis, it is found that regulatory roles and supervisory functions represent two pertinent central activities required to be discharged by waqf authorities to address the identified issues on waqf in contemporary era. the stature and quality of people in the authorities and the extent of public involvement are among the perceived determinants to be effective supervisor and regulator. since this study only focus on indonesia and singapore and the findings may be relevant to other countries, the result of the study cannot be generalised. different research in other geographical locations with different waqf settings may be necessary to accommodate the context and setting of different jurisdictions. in addition, the perceptions and expectations of informants in this study are mostly based on their experiences and interactions with waqf authorities. to accommodate the voice of other stakeholders of the waqf authorities, future research can involve other stakeholders as informants. this study contributes to the literature on the waqf sector, especially the governance of the waqf authorities in both muslim majority and minority country jurisdictions. usage of organisational legitimacy theory in analysing the collected data, along with triangulation between interview, fgd, observation, and document reviews contributes in terms of methodology. in terms of practical contributions, findings of this study can be used by the relevant authorities to evaluate and improve their policies, people, structure, and procedure. in addition, the waqf authorities can re-consider their multiple conflicting roles and their duality in governing the waqf sector to address the institutional challenge while playing their pivotal roles. 96 issues of waqf………. notes and references 1 a history of philanthropic foundations: the islamic world from the seventh century to the present (boğaziçi university press istanbul, 2000). 2 murat çizakça, “the waqf, its basic operational structure, development and contribution,” wife-uitm occasional papers, 2014, 15. 3 “waqf system as a redistribution mechanism in ottoman empire,” in a paper presented at 17th middle east history and theory conference, 2002. 4 “embracing waqf as a lifestyle in digital era opinion the jakarta post,” 2019, https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2019/04/15/embracing-waqf-as-alifestyle-in-digital-era.html. 5 syed khalid rashid, “origin and early history of waqf and other issues,” in awqaf experiences in south asia, ed. syed khalid rashid (new delhi: institute of objective studies, 2002); murat çizakça, “from destruction to restoration? islamic waqfs in malaysia and turkey,” waqf workshop (brill, 2016). 6 hanudin amin et al., “determinants of online waqf acceptance: an empirical investigation,” the electronic journal of information systems in developing countries 60, no. 1 (2014): 1–18; lisa listiana, “an organisational legitimacy study on governance of waqf authorities in indonesia and singapore” (international islamic university malaysia, 2021); raditya sukmana, “critical assessment of islamic endowment funds (waqf) literature: lesson for government and future directions,” heliyon 6, no. 10 (2020): e05074. 7 “the new waqf law prepared by idb/irti and the kuwait public foundation: a critical assessment,” in islamic wealth management inaugural colloquium (kuala lumpur: inceif, 2013); a history of philanthropic foundations: the islamic world from the seventh century to the present. 8 obaidullah, m. (2016). a framework for analysis of islamic endowment (waqf) laws. international journal of not-for-profit law, 18, 54. 9 kemenag, bwi, kneks. peta jalan wakaf nasional (national waqf roadmap) 2024-2029. jakarta. 10 irti islamic social finance report 2014. (jeddah, 2015) 11 shari’ah standard (manama: aaoifi, 2015). 12 minhaj al-muslim a boook of creed, manners, character, act of worship and other deeds (riyadh: darussalam, 2001). 13 muhammad zubair abbasi, “the classical islamic law of waqf: a concise introduction,” arab law quarterly 26, no. 2 (2012): 121–53; mohammad abdullah, “a new framework of corporate governance of waqf: a preliminary proposal,” islam and civilisational renewal (icr) 6, no. 3 (2015). 14 çizakça, “the new waqf law prepared by idb/irti and the kuwait public foundation: a critical assessment.” 15 “waqf, perpetual charity and poverty alleviation,” international journal of social economics 29, no. 1/2 (2002): 135–51. 16 a history of philanthropic foundations: the islamic world from the seventh century to the present. 17 amy singer, charity in islamic societies (cambridge university press, 2008). 18 murat çizakça, “the british legislation in malaya and its impact upon the malaysian waqf system,” in second harvard conference: law of waqf, modern state control and nationalization, 2008. 19 listiana, lisa, an organisational legitimacy study on governance of waqf authorities in indonesia and singapore. kuala lumpur: iium institute of islamic banking and finance, international islamic university malaysia, 2021 20 huda, n., rini, n., mardoni, y., hudori, k., & anggraini, d. (2017). problems, solutions and strategies priority for waqf in indonesia. journal of economic cooperation & development, 38(1) hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 97 21 nour aldeen, k., ratih, i. s., & sari pertiwi, r. (2022). cash waqf from the millennials' perspective: a case of indonesia. isra international journal of islamic finance, 14(1), 20-37. 22 yusuf, m. y., & maulana, h. (2023). waqf core principles for the economic recovery of covid 19 in indonesia. calitatea, 24(195), 106-114. 23 listiana, l., & alhabshi, s. m. (2020). waqf and legacy of altruism in singapore: challenges and development. jurnal ekonomi dan bisnis islam, 6(1). 24 huda, m., noviana, l., & santoso, l. (2020). pengembangan tata kelola wakaf berbasis korporasi di asia tenggara (development of corporate-based waqf governance in southeast asia). de jure: jurnal hukum dan syar'iah, 12(2), 120-139. 25 abdul-karim, s. (2010a). contemporary shari’a compliance structuring for the development and management of waqf assets in singapore. kyoto bulletin of islamic area studies, 3(2), 143–164. 26 finterra, “waqf chain | finterra | blockchain based financial services for all,” 2018, https://finterra.org/waqf_chain/. 27 internationalworkinggroup, “waqf core principles” (jakarta, 2018). 28 çizakça, “the new waqf law prepared by idb/irti and the kuwait public foundation: a critical assessment.” 29 ismal, d. r. (2022). identifying the optimal cash waqf linked sukuk: indonesian experience. hamdard islamicus, 45(3); maulina, r. (2022). factors influencing the success of retail cash waqf linked ṣukūk (cwls) issuance: a lesson from indonesia النقدي بالوقف المرتبط التجزئة صكوك إصدار نجاح في المؤثرة العوامل (cwls): من درس .journal of king abdulaziz university: islamic economics, 35(1), 57-74 .إندونیسیا 30 yusgiantoro, i., pamungkas, p., & trinugroho, i. (2024). the sustainability and performance of bank wakaf mikro: waqf-based microfinance in indonesia. international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management, 17(1), 86-101. 31 zain, n. s., & muhamad sori, z. (2020). an exploratory study on musharakah sri sukuk for the development of waqf properties/assets in malaysia. qualitative research in financial markets, 12(3), 301-314; listiana, l., & alhabshi, s. m. (2020). waqf and legacy of altruism in singapore: challenges and development. jurnal ekonomi dan bisnis islam, 6(1). 32 foundations of islamic governance: a southeast asian perspective, vol. 1 (taylor & francis, 2016). 33 “waqf and human capital,” in global conference on awqaf and endowments: evolution, socio-economic impact, management strategies, legal & governance issues, cash waqf & country-wise case studies (doha, 2018). 34 mohd azmi omar, “the similarity between islamic finance and impact investing” (surabaya: aifc, 2019); monzer kahf, “revival of islamic social finance to strengthen economic development towards a global industrial revolution” (gontor: aicif, 2019). 35 “potential of waqf in contemporary world,” journal of king abdulaziz university: islamic economics 31, no. 2 (2018): 53–69. 36 nurul huda et al., “problems, solutions and strategies priority for waqf in indonesia.,” journal of economic cooperation & development 38, no. 1 (2017); shamsiah abdul-karim, “contemporary shari’a compliance structuring for the development and management of waqf assets in singapore,” kyoto bulletin of islamic area studies 3, no. 2 (2010): 143–64; mahadi ahmad, “an empirical study of the challenges facing zakat and waqf institutions in northern nigeria,” isra international journal of islamic finance, 2019; umar a oseni, “towards the effective legal regulation of waqf in nigeria: problems and prospects,” 2015; mohamed ariff and shamsher mohamad, “issues in waqf and zakat management,” in islamic wealth management (edward elgar publishing, 2017); nor asiah mohamad, s a kader, and zuraidah ali, “waqf lands and challenges from the legal perspectives in malaysia,” in iium-tokyo joint symposium, 2012; abu umar faruq ahmad and mohd fazlul karim, “opportunities and challenges of waqf in bangladesh: the way forward for socio-economic development,” in revitalization 98 issues of waqf………. of waqf for socio-economic development, volume i (springer, 2019), 193–212; md golzare nabi et al., “using waqf for socio-economic development in bangladesh: potentials, challenges, and policy directions,” in revitalization of waqf for socioeconomic development, volume i (springer, 2019), 107–33. 37 kamaruddin, m. i. h., hanefah, m. m., & masruki, r. (2022). challenges and prospects in waqf reporting practices in malaysia. journal of financial reporting and accounting; fauzi, r. q., hapsari, m. i., herianingrum, s., fanani, s., & kurnia, t. (2022). the challenges of empowering waqf land in indonesia: an analytical network process analysis. international journal of ethics and systems, 38(3), 426-442; rahman, m. f. b. a., & amanullah, m. (2017). challenges and problems facing the application of temporary waqf in selected states of malaysia: new issues and their guiding rules. journal of king abdulaziz university: islamic economics, 30(3), 291-314; mohaiyadin, n. m. h., aman, a., palil, m. r., & said, s. m. (2022). addressing accountability and transparency challenges in waqf management using blockchain technology. journal of islamic monetary economics and finance, 8, 53-80. 38 deephouse et all. “organizational legitimacy: six key questions,” the sage handbook of organizational institutionalism, 2017, 27–54. 39 monica a zimmerman and gerald j zeitz, “beyond survival: achieving new venture growth by building legitimacy,” academy of management review 27, no. 3 (2002): 414–31; sylvain durocher et al., “users’ legitimacy perceptions about standard-setting processes,” accounting and business research, 2018, 1–38. 40 john w creswell, research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (sage publications, 2009). 41 mark saunders, philip lewis, and adrian thornhill, research methods for business students, 7th ed. (pearson education, 2016). 42 david silverman, interpreting qualitative data (sage, 2014). 43 jennifer fereday and eimear muir-cochrane, “demonstrating rigor using thematic analysis: a hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding and theme development,” international journal of qualitative methods 5, no. 1 (2006): 80–92; alan bryman, social research methods (oxford university press, 2012); hidayatul ihsan, “accountability practice in a waqf institution in indonesia: the case of dompet dhuafa” (kulliyyah of economics and management sciences, international islamic university malaysia, 2014); miranti kartika dewi, “an indepth case study of beneficiary accountability practices by an indonesian ngo” (aston university, 2017); listiana, “an organisational legitimacy study on governance of waqf authorities in indonesia and singapore.” 44 kemenag, bwi, kneks. peta jalan wakaf nasional (national waqf roadmap) 2024-2029. jakarta. 45 kemenag, bwi, kneks. peta jalan wakaf nasional (national waqf roadmap) 2024-2029. jakarta. 46 zaini osman, “enhancing waqf instruments” (singapore, 2018). 47 muis, “5th muis three-year plan 2016-2018” (singapore, 2019). 48 https://www.muis.gov.sg/wakaf/understanding-wakaf/wakaf-assets 49 rashid, “origin and early history of waqf and other issues”; syed khalid rashid, “factors affecting the development and good governance of awqaf,” in international conference on waqf management: turkish experience (turkey: icwr, 2014); sharifah zubaidah syed abdul kadir and nor asiah mohamed, “the legal position of waqf lands in malaysia,” in waqf laws and management, ed. syed khalid rashid (kuala lumpur: iium press, 2017). 50 lisa listiana and dian masyita, “awqaf–its asean experiences and a lesson to learn,” in awqaf-led islamic social finance (routledge, 2020), 234–44; listiana, “an organisational legitimacy study on governance of waqf authorities in indonesia and singapore.” 51 shamsiah abdul-karim, “contemporary shari’ah structuring for the development and management of waqf assets in singapore” (durham university, 2010); hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 99 bappenas, “masterplan for indonesian islamic financial architecture” (jakarta, 2016). 52 lisa listiana, syed musa alhabshi, and agastya widhi harjunadhi, “waqf for socio-economic development: a perspective of ibn khaldun,” journal of ibn haldun studies 5, no. 1 (2020): 83–94. 53 omar, “the similarity between islamic finance and impact investing”; kahf, “revival of islamic social finance to strengthen economic development towards a global industrial revolution”; çizakça, a history of philanthropic foundations: the islamic world from the seventh century to the present. 54 “accountability in waqf mangement: learning from praxis of nongovernmental organization (ngo),” 2010. 55 “the new waqf law prepared by idb/irti and the kuwait public foundation: a critical assessment.” 56 “irti islamic social finance report 2014” (jeddah, 2015); “irti islamic social finance report 2015” (jeddah, 2016).; irti islamic social finance report 2020” (jeddah, 2020). 57 hidayatul ihsan, “strategies&tools for effective awqaf asset management,” in global conference on awqaf and endowments: evolution, socio-economic impact, management strategies, legal & governance issues, cash waqf & country-wise case studies (doha, 2018); zeinoul abedien cajee, “revitalising the institution of waqf in developing the community,” in essential readings in contemporary waqf issues, ed. monzer kahf and siti mashitoh mahamood (kuala lumpur: cert publications sdn. bhd, 2011). 58 “waqf core principles.” 59 mark c suchman, “managing legitimacy: strategic and institutional approaches,” academy of management review 20, no. 3 (1995): 571–610; deephouse et al., “organizational legitimacy: six key questions.” hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 9 the evaluation of the distinction of manifest (ẓāhir) and hidden (bāṭin) in the context of moral relativity in the thought of ibn al-‘arabī dr. ömer ceran nevşehir, türkiye email: omerceran@nevsehir.edu.tr received on: 28-01-23 accepted on: 21-02-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.977 abstract ibn al-‘arabī is one of the most prolific and most discussed authors in the history of islamic thought. the view of waídat al-wujûd, that is, unity of existence, which expresses his system of thought, has a philosophical background that dates back much further than him. this concept, which means the unity of existence, has been subjected to many criticisms from different angles. one of the focal points of these criticisms is morality. it has been argued that the idea of waídat al-wujûd will eliminate good and evil in moral terms, so there can be no question of responsibility in this thought. moral relativism is a philosophical view that is based on the idea that man is the measure of all things in ancient greek thought, and that the moral characterization of events as good or bad can vary according to individuals, societies and conditions. in this study, where we try to determine the moral view of ibn al-‘arabī in general, we will examine how the concepts of manifest and hidden, which are important concepts of his system, can be interpreted in the context of moral relativism. ibn al-‘arabī divides the known into two as manifest and hidden. manifest refers to the external appearance of the known, while hidden refers to the inside. it is seen that the evaluation of the events in terms of manifest and hidden aspects in terms of moral value judgments is suitable for different interpretations in some cases in the thought of ibn al‘arabī. in his system of thought, it is a problem that in certain situations, good and bad value judgments change morally in terms of manifest and hidden aspects. this provides us with a richness in addition to providing different perspectives in our evaluations. keywords: moral relativity, waídat al-wujûd, ibn al‘arabī. mailto:omerceran@nevsehir.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.977 10 the evaluation of the distinction … 1. introduction ibn al-‘arabī was born in the city of meriye in andalusia in 1165. he died in damascus in 1240, after a lifetime of long travels. he is one of the most discussed authors in the history of thought. in these discussions, we see that he is subjected to accusations amounting to takfêr (seen as an unbeliever) as well as being overpraised. according to the general opinion, some of his works, whose number is over 400, have been commented on or abridged many times by his followers, and his name has been identified with the idea of waídat al-wujûd, which can be translated as the 'unity of existence'. although the foundations of this idea of the unity of being are older than him, it is accepted that it was systematized by him in a philosophical sense.1 his thoughts have been subjected to many criticisms throughout history. one of the main issues that these criticisms focus on is morality. his tendency to see no one but haq (allah almighty) in existence causes many questions to be answered, such as the problem of evil or responsibility. in fact, this situation constitutes the focal point of the criticisms directed to her in the moral sense. imām rabbānī (d. 1624) says that ibn al-‘arabī's system will result in seeing evil as good, and will abolish moral freedom and sharê‘ah obligations.2 burhāneddīn al-biḳāī (d. 1480) criticizes ibn al-ʿarabī's system because it would conclude that all sexual intercourse is permissible.3 al-sakhāwī (d. 1497) brought together the criticisms made on both ibn al-ʿarabī's system and his moral views in his work named 'al-qawl al-münbī'. the common point of these is the criticism that it eliminates the distinction between good and bad based on the interpretations made from his system, and therefore equalizes íarém and íalél. chittick also touched upon the criticisms of ibn al-ʿarabī's views on morality and stated that these are criticisms shaped around the view of waídat al-wujûd.4 frithjof schuon (d. 1998), one of the writers described as traditionalist, claims that according to the wahdat al-wujûd view, which he calls 'extreme dialectic', the absence of existence outside of allah almighty leads to the denial of evil and the conclusion that evil is only a matter of perspective.5 schuon, who sees evil as a necessary consequence of the existence of creatures in the ontological sense, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 11 argues that an evaluation of evil, which has become relative according to ibn al-ʿarabī's thought system, will also be valid for goodness. therefore, according to him, the result of this is the elimination of both evil and good. although schuon mentions them as a critique, it should be noted that the good and evil of ibn al-ʿarabī and the ashʿarī tradition in general are only the judgments given by allah almighty or by us. according to this idea, things and phenomena are not inherently good or bad. whether these two attributes are given by the divine will or by humans, they are later attributes and are the product of a point of view. we see that ibn al-ʿarabī has at least two works on morality that he refers to in his works. one of them is the work that he wrote to fakhr al-dīn al-rāzī (d. 1209), the content of which is about morality. the other is the work called 'al-aʿlāḳ fī makārim al akhlāq'. in some libraries in turkey, there is a moral book attributed to ibn al-ʿarabī under three different names. one of them is the work called 'falsafa al-akhlāq ' in the library of the turkish historical society (registered with the number q/0744). the other is the work which is called 'maḥāsin-i akhlāq' (registered in catalog number 000328) in the hacı selim ağa manuscripts library. another one is registered in the nation manuscripts library with the catalog number 002072 and under the name 'kitāb alakhlāq'. the difference between these works, which are the same, is only in their names. there were some who claimed that this work was named 'tahdhīb alakhlāq' belonging to yaḥyā bin ʿadī (d. 975) and was mistakenly attributed to ibn al-ʿarabī. the number of studies in which ibn al-ʿarabī's texts are examined from different perspectives is increasing. among these, studies that examine only his views on morality are very few. among them, we can list the ones we can identify as follows: the doctoral study titled ‘the problem of evil in ibn ʿarabi’s metaphysics’ by şükrü topuz and the doctoral study named ‘an enquiry concerning the ontic foundation of morals in the line of muhyiddin i̇bn al-arabi and sadr al-gunawi’ by ender büyüközkara. william c. chittick’s “ethical standards and the vision of oneness: the case of ibn al-ʿarabî” and “time, space, and the objectivity of ethical norms in the teachings of ibn al-ʿarabi” should be mentioned here as article. 12 the evaluation of the distinction … among the studies carried out in arab countries on the morality of ibn al-ʿarabī, there is a doctoral study at minia university in 2003 by emced sayyid muḥammad al-ʿaṭṭār named ‘the moral philosophy of muḥyiddin ibn al-ʿarabī’. the work named 'müshkiletü'l-i̇ttiḥad ve al-teʿālī fī ʿ akīdeti al-sheikh muḥyiddīn bin ʿarabī’, the work of al-aḫḍar gūyidrī ʿaṭāu'llah, which is not specifically about morality, but also touches on moral issues, can be cited here. we should also note that the same author has an article called muḥyiddīn bin ʿarabī in his ‘al-müshkil al-akhlāqī fī naẓariyyeti wahdat al-wujûd’. there is also an article by laġris sūhīle called ‘naẓariyye al-akhlāq fī ḍav'i' al-taṣavvuf al-falsafa: ibn ʿarabī nemūẕecen’. likewise, abū al-ʿalā afīfī (d. 1966) partially refers to ibn al-ʿarabī's morals and thoughts in his works. in this study, we will try to determine the moral thoughts of ibn al-ʿarabī in the context of his works and related works and to evaluate the distinction between manifest and hidden in the context of moral relativity. 2. etymological analysis of the word akhlāq the word akhlāq (morality) is the plural of khulq, which is the infinitive of the arabic verb kḫalaqa (خلق). al-rāġib al-iṣfahānī (d. 1108), who says that the word khalaqa means 'decent planning', gives the dictionary meanings of kḫulq as creating something without its original and pattern, creating something from something else, appreciating, fabricating lies, and tearing and aging of clothes.6 altahānawī (d. after 1745) adds religion, bravery, generosity and nature to these meanings.7 mütercim âsım efendi (d. 1819) states that the word kḫulq also means straightening the knots of the tree, making an object straight, proportioning, cutting and sewing an object.8 although akhlāq as a concept is not mentioned in the holy qur'ān, the infinitive of the verb kḫalaqa is used as both kḫulq and kḫalq. although both are translated as creation, al-iṣfehānī states that the word kḫalq denotes visible shapes and forms, while the word kḫulq is used to express forces and characteristics that can only be perceived with forethought.9 as a matter of fact, the word khalq means shape in the quranic verse “there is no change in allah‘s creation”.10 the word khulq means character in the verse “and you are surely on an excellent standard of character”.11 al-iṣfahānī gives the definition of the character as 'the state of being on a person'.12 akhlāq is expressed with the words morality and ethics in western languages. morality (in latin) is derived from the root of mores, meaning nature, habit, character and such.13 ethics (in greek) is derived from the root of ethos, meaning custom/customary.14 however, the word ethics is commonly used in this sense: moral hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 13 philosophy or branch of philosophy which studies the principles of right or wrong in human conduct. therefore in this study we will use the word akhlāq as morality. based on the root of khulq, morality is defined as follows: it is the trait that enables a willed behaviour to emerge spontaneously in a person without leaving any coercion. in this sense, it has not been found correct to evaluate the behaviours that do not have the mind and will of the human being and the behaviours that are forced to be made by humans as moral. 3. etymological analysis of the word relative relativity is translated into arabic with the words iḍāfet ,(ضاف ) iìafet is derived from the root ḍāfe .(نسبة ) and nisbet (إضافة) which means to host. in the dictionary, it corresponds to meanings such as completing, adding, including, assigning, welcoming. nisbet, on the other hand, is derived from the root nasaba (نسب), which means lineage and kinship. in the dictionary, it means ratio, connection, relation, kinship, closeness, relationship. ibn manẓūr (d. 1311) states that the word iìéfa means to complement, to be attached, and says that the purpose in relativity is allocation and description. therefore, according to him, it is not right to attribute something to itself.15 stating that nesebin, which is the root of the word nisbet, means lineage, ibn manẓūr states that the word nuseyb, which comes from the same root, is a male name, but it is used only for ibn al-ʿarabī. however, he does not give an explanation as to why such a name was used for ibn al-ʿarabī.16 altahānawī defines the word iìéfa as follows: “relativity (iìéfa), according to linguists, is the relative of one thing to another. philosophers use relativity in three senses: the first is repeated relativeness. this is a relativeness that can be said in comparison to each other, such as paternity and sonship. the second is the phrase [expressed] because of the complement, and the third is the relativeness [expressed as] complemented with the complement. these two are known as muzaf (commentary)”17 al-tahānawī says that the word nisbet (relativeness) has two meanings. he says that one of them is saying something in comparison to something else, and this is in terms of the meaning of a universal explanation, equality, generalization and a universal wording. he states that the other meaning is the relativity found in the categories.18 14 the evaluation of the distinction … the word relativity has been transferred to western languages by being derived from the word relativitas, which is the latin equivalent of the word. the origin of the latin word relativitas is the verb φερω (pronounced fero), which means to carry, to bear, to bring in ancient greek. this word has been translated into latin with the verb ferre. the perfect form of this verb is expressed with the word latus. in this sense, relatus is a word used to express meanings such as bring back, concern, attach. 4. conceptual framework ethics that investigates the nature, source, and value of moral behavior is divided into three: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. while metaethics is more concerned with the epistemological and metaphysical dimensions of morality, normative ethics is concerned with the forms of behavior that must be followed. applied ethics, on the other hand, emerges as a field that morally evaluates the emerging problems related to private and public life that changes and develops technologically. metaetic theories have been classified from different perspectives. in terms of language, metaethics theories are divided into descriptive and non-definist, and subjectivist theory is included in the non-definitive group. according to this classification, descriptive theories are divided into two as theological and cognitive theories. non-descriptive theories are divided into two as objectivist and subjectivist. descriptive theories accept the identifiability of the good in the moral sense, and non-definitive ones do not accept the definability of the good in the moral sense.19 ontologically, metaethical theories are divided into two as realist and anti-realist. while realist theories argue that moral facts and qualities exist independently of people's ideas about them, antirealist theories argue that moral facts and qualities do not exist independently of people's opinions. according to this classification, moral naturalism and moral intuitionism are evaluated within realist theories. anti-realist theories include non-cognitive theories such as emotivism (emotivism) and imperativeism (prescriptivism), as well as subjectivist and nihilist theories.20 in this respect, whether morality is relative or universal is seen as a problem that concerns the metaethics field, which is more concerned with the meaning, scope and source of morality. the relativity related to the metaetic field is called 'metaetic relativism'. metaetic relativism does not accept the existence of moral principles with universal validity. accordingly, every moral principle is valid for a certain time, region or person. the relativism that asserts that the behaviour of a particular society should be evaluated only with hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 15 the norms of that society is called 'normative relativism'. according to normative relativism, it is wrong to criticize and interfere with that society for any form of behaviour because we do not have a supracultural criterion in order to evaluate the moral understanding of different cultures.21 discussions on the subject are shaped around two basic views on whether the principles of morality will change according to individuals, societies or time. the first of these is the idea that moral principles that are valid for everyone and every society cannot be mentioned, as claimed by the sophists, who are considered to be the first advocates of relativity in a philosophical sense. the other is the idea that there should be universal moral principles, as claimed by socrates and plato, who were the first to criticize the sophists. moral relativism is divided into two as moderate and extreme in terms of accepting all moral principles as relative or not. although measured moral relativism accepts the existence of some universal principles for the moral field, it accepts that there may be differences in practice. extreme moral relativism, on the other hand, argues that no one's moral judgment can be criticized and that there is no absolute moral value.22 5. universal and relative dimension of morality the undeniable fact in the opinions put forward about the source of moral judgments is that there are differences between cultures in terms of moral judgments, as in many other fields. the greek historian herodotus (d. 425 bc) refers to an event that took place in the presence of the persian king darius (d. 486 bc), and points out the difference in the way the greeks and the kallatiye tribe treated the corpses of their deceased ancestors. he presents this situation as evidence that each society's own tradition is superior to them. for it is not a question of who is right, who has only one right answer. while accepting the naturalness of this difference for cultures supports a relative perspective and being tolerant towards different cultures, it is also open to opposing criticism. the implication that it is intolerant for those who do not have a relative perspective emerges as a new problem. because claiming that different practices of different cultures are wrong on certain issues does not necessitate being intolerant towards them. it can be argued that a person who advocates relativism takes a great risk for his own system by emphasizing tolerance in these differences. that is, if tolerance is a trait to be admired and encouraged (which is how its recommendation will be interpreted), 16 the evaluation of the distinction … then tolerance is presented as a universal principle. the distinction between situations that should be evaluated as relatively and situations that should not be evaluated as relatively in the resulting situation will lead us to accept the existence of different types of relativity. since morality is a concept related to human beings, it is inevitable for every human being to have some common characteristics that will reveal the phenomenon called humanity. although this has grown up in different cultures, it is open to interpretation that it has a supra-cultural situation resulting from being human after all. the extent to which this will affect moral values is an issue that continues to be debated. the objection that value judgments that only human thoughts and feelings will be taken as a measure will not have any moral value is an important issue that needs to be answered. because morality is a social concept and it has to be based on value judgments accepted in society. the other will simply express a personal value. the response of these personal values in society depends on the fact that the individual grew up in a society and culture. on the other hand, it is thought that the claim that human beings have an innate inclination towards good and beautiful places morality on a universal basis. regardless of how we decide what is good and beautiful, the observation of virtues, such as helping those who are similar to oneself, from a very young age, lays the groundwork for the claims that morality exists in human nature. according to this idea, the existence of an innate moral ground that directs the behaviours will lead us to the interpretation of universality. there are also those who claim that similar behaviours are observed in animals as evidence that there is a biological evolution in living life. although there are sometimes differences in the contents of the concepts of good and bad according to cultures, we see the existence of these concepts in every culture and in every individual. in other words, regardless of whether something is called good or bad, good and bad are concepts that a person cannot act without being affected by them in his life. these basic value judgments are an important ground on which people build their moral understanding. when we talk about a relative morality, we are talking about the difference in the content of good and evil on this ground and what the reasons may be. therefore, the idea that there can be a consensus on the definition of good and evil in some way can be a proof that can be put forward for the existence of a universal dimension of morality. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 17 in this case, it is possible to talk about morality, whose subject is human behaviour and values, in both a universal and a relative dimension. it is not possible for all cultures and individuals to unite in the same values and behaviours, and it is not possible for them to produce completely different values and behaviour patterns. 6. waídat al-wujûd thought the term waídat al-wujûd, which is generally used in the meaning of unity of existence and unity in existence, is used specifically to express ibn al-ʿarabī's thoughts about existence. waídat is a name derived from the arabic root vāíid (واحد) meaning 'one' and means unity. tawíêd is the indivisibility of something. this meaning is also expressed with the words aíadiyyet and waídéniyyet, which come from the same root. in some texts, the terms eḥadiyyetü'lvücūd or vaḥdaniyyetü'l-vücūd are also used to express waídat alwujûd. the wujūd is derived from the root of ecstasy (وجد), which means to find, to enrich, to love, to be sad, to get angry. the verb to find, which is meant here, expresses an internal process for the meaning determined as a result of perception with the five senses. this leads us to the interpretation that the concept of vejd (ecstasy), which comes from the same root, exists within the integrity of meaning. likewise, the emotional meanings attributed to the word show that there is a moral dimension besides the epistemological dimension in the perception of existence. as a matter of fact, the meanings attributed to the concept of vijdén (conscience), derived from the root of vejd, show the moral dimension of the concept. two of the concepts used to meet existence in the history of islamic thought are vejd and tawajud. al-iṣfahānī gives the meaning of vejd as love and sadness.23 it is seen that the use of the word vejd (ecstasy) as the opposite of absence (in the sense of being) emphasizes a state of consciousness and awareness. it is possible to see this in the meanings attributed to these words by ibn al-ʿarabī. as a matter of fact, ibn al-ʿarabī, who defines the body as ‘to find the allah almighty in wajd’, defines wajd’ as 'a state that arises in the heart'. according to him, tawajud is ‘calling wajd (ecstasy) and showing ecstasy’.24 in this sense, it is possible to understand and translate wajd as invention and body as presence.25 the problem of how the being, expressed as multiplicity, emerges from the one (unity) is one of the important problems in the history of philosophy. multiplicity allows for knowledge that can be proved by being perceived by the senses, and the idea of oneness and unity (waídat) behind all existence corresponds to a type of knowledge that the mind perceives (convinces/intuits). both of these situations correspond to the science of manifest and hidden in the 18 the evaluation of the distinction … expressions of ibn al-ʿarabī. in this case, the comprehension of unity in existence seems possible with an esoteric knowledge (bāïın). 7. the distinction of manifest and hidden in ibn al-ʿarabī the word ẓāhir (manifest), which is a derived name from the root ðahara ( ظهر), meaning to appear in arabic, is one of the most important concepts of ibn al-ʿarabī's thought system. he tried to explain the creation and the created things with the words ðuhur and maðhar, which come from the same root with ðāhir, along with some other words such as tejelli and ta‘ayyun. the word béïin (hidden) is derived from the root beïane ( بطن), meaning abdomen, womb, hiding, and is a word used to express the inner face of something. ibn al-ʿarabī divides the known (known) into two as manifest and hidden in epistemological sense. when these are combined in the mind, they become either in the form of meaning or imagination or form. bâïın here means to know the inside of something. the manifest is the subject of the senses, hidden is the thing which soul perceives.26 in other words, the apparent is manifestt and the known is hidden. this can be explained with an example as follows. the image of a fruit on the table is its outward appearance. the eye sees it. but its taste is the inner side. the one who sees it does not know it, the person who eats that fruit can know it. ibn al ʿarabī thinks that expressions such as debts in the verses and hadiths as a rope, knowledge in the form of milk, or that surah baqara is a witness to the one who reads it should be understood esotericly (bāṭın). according to ibn al-ʿarabī, who explains ontological appearance with the verb evcede (اوجد), which means to invent, to bring into being, all created existence is the manifestation of allah almighty's manifestation. allah almighty is the esoteric of these emerging things. he describes it as “allah almighty is hidden and creatures are manifest”. adam's body is his outward form, and his soul is his inward form. while explaining this situation, ibn al-ʿarabī says, “in this case, it is both allah almighty and the creatures.”27 while explaining the degrees of the realms, he says that the realms have outward and inward aspects. according to this, the outward (ẓāhir) of the world of ceberut becomes the interior (bāṭın) of the realm of real world. the outward appearance (ẓāhir) of the kingdom of heaven is the interior (bāṭın) of the realm of tyranny.28 ibnu'l-ʿarabī says that allah, the exalted, is manifest by appearing and manifesting, that his esoteric (bāïın) is gone, but at the same time he is esoteric.29 he says “allah is exempt from all kinds of naming and characterization and he cannot be qualified as hidden. as a matter of fact, he states that greatness is beyond the outward (ẓāhir) and the inward (bāṭın). again, in 'al-fütūḥāt, while allah almighty hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 19 says that things are the same, he says that this sameness is only in appearance, and that things can never be the same as allah almighty's essence. he said, "allah almighty is allah almighty, and things are things." allah almighty is the manifest itself. he is also the esoteric thing in its manifestation. in existence, there is no one who can see him other than himself, and there is nothing hidden from him (nor is there anything hidden from him).30 in the holy qur'ān, "he is the first (al-awwal) and the last (al-ākhir) and the manifest (al-ẓāhir) and the hidden (al-bāṭin).".31 while interpreting the verse, just as allah is both before (al-awwal) and after (al-ākhir), he also makes the assessment that the hidden thing is the same in his manifest thing. he states that this indicates multiplicity and unity in the context of the creator and the created. as a matter of fact, he says in the book called fuṣūṣ: “manifest refers to multiplicity, and hidden to unity.” ibn al ʿarabī, who stated that allah almighty appears to the creatures in the nights of the days called 'ayyāmi bīì' in the arabs and which refers to the nights with the full moon (13th, 14th and 15th nights of each lunar month), said that in the holy qur'ān “allah is the light of the heavens and the earth”.32 in these nights, the sun appeared to the moon as apparent and revealed everything that was hidden in the darkness of the night and revealed them.33 as a matter of fact, allah said: "and has made the moon a light therein."34 in his evaluation in terms of morality, ibn al-ʿarabī says that the person to whom allah almighty turns with his hidden will never be miserable, and the person to whom he turns with his manifest will never be happy. if a person knows that the real perpetrator, both in the events around him and in the events that happened to him, is allah almighty in the hidden sense, and if he submits to him and consents to what comes from him, it is out of the question for this person to be unhappy. while evaluating this submission in the sect, ibn al-ʿarabī says that ṣûfî will see nothing but beauty in the world, even if the divine decrees are manifested in a bad way. ibn al-ʿarabī also distinguishes worships as manifest and hidden. according to him, sensory worship with the body is outward (ðāhir) worship, and what is done with the mind is esoteric worship (bāïin). and people of jem and wujūd combine these two.35 it seems that ibn al-ʿarabī describes seeing tawíêd in the body as the worship of the mind. 20 the evaluation of the distinction … 8. the relative dimension of moral provisions in the meaning of outward and inward distinction in ibn al-ʿarabī's whole system of thought, manifest is about appearance and directs the discussions on how basic religious texts are or should be understood by people. the important point here is the acceptance that there is not/will not be an interpretation suitable to be understood differently from the text for everyone. because in such a case, the divine text, whose main purpose was to be understood and applied by people, would have deviated from its apparent purpose. on the other hand, béïin concerns an area based on personal inner religious experiences. one of the key concepts here is discovery (kashf)36. in the dictionary, discovery (kashf) means opening, revealing, and expresses the ingenuity attained by those who reach spiritual competence in the term of mysticism. the spiritual education process that results in discovery (kashf) and volunteering for this education, which is described as a disciple, is called asceticism. this inner experience is considered as a state of competence that is achieved as a result of taking control of the soul by not complying with the wishes of the soul, which is seen as one of the sources of evil. what we will focus on here is the subjective value of the knowledge gained through discovery (kashf), which is a personal religious experience. first of all, this information does not apply to other people according to general acceptance. the extent to which it will apply to the owner of the kashf maintains its importance. an important issue that the sufis insistently emphasize and convey is that this information should not be taken into account if it contradicts the apparent nature of the sharê‘ah, which ibn al-ʿarabī repeats several times. here the following question would be relevant. isn't it accepted that the discovery (kashf) of knowledge based on an esoteric basis (bāṭin) can be considered contrary to the outward appearance (ẓāhir) of the sharê‘ah according to this warning? it has been argued that when outward and esoteric knowledge conflicts, manifest should be taken as the basis. however, despite this, it is understood that the provision to be taken as basis was given outwardly. the following statements of ibn al ʿarabī leave the distinction between actions that should and should not be done for a morally responsible person, provided that ingenuity is taken as a basis on an exploratory basis: hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 21 “the skill that eliminates the distinction between what is permissible and what is not permissible for the obligant is not respected.”37 in his 'al-fütuhat', answering the question "can you be a rebel if kashf is based?" with "no" can be interpreted that there will be no rebellion against allah almighty in terms of the fact that everything happens within the framework of divine knowledge in knowledge based on discovery.38 in fact, this is in harmony with his view of coercion and unity in general, as mentioned before. from this, it can be interpreted that there is some justification for the criticisms made against his moral view. the conclusion that this draws us to the subjective nature of ingenuity based on discovery. in other words, this is not binding for anyone else, nor is it always binding for the owner. in the holy qur'ān, while explaining the verse "allah will replace the evils of such people by good deeds",39 ibn al-ʿarabī draws attention to the fact that goodness and evil are interpretations made on actions.40 that is, when we evaluate and qualify something as bad, we face a sin in return according to the sharê‘ah. therefore, this precedes a perspective from our point of view. according to the people of kashf, since we cannot attribute evil to allah, the punishment or reward given in return for this action will again be from the point of view of man. in this case, turning evil into good will turn into a personal truth as a result of his servant's assumption for allah almighty. according to ibn al-ʿarabī, another point that show this is that according to him, khidr expressed in the holy qur'ān that he wanted to make the ship defective by piercing it.41 for, according to him, this indicates a commonality between things that are praised and condemned. in other words, the same situation can be both good and bad in a relative way.42 khidr, who acted according to allah’s advice, learned the knowledge of the hidden, ḥaḍrat mūsā, on the other hand, represents manifest. according to ibn al-ʿarabī, ḥaḍrat mūsā was not aware of the esoteric knowledge (bāṭin) that khidr had.43 khidr attained this knowledge as a result of his love for allah. the quality that distinguishes him from other scholars was his knowledge of allah. the knowledge about allah is called ma‘rifetullah, and this knowledge is obtained not by understanding the outward appearance of the being, but by perceiving the truth behind it, namely hidden. khidr, for whom allah said, 'we gave him knowledge from us', shows the knowledge given to him by making situations that mūsā had no way of accepting outwardly (ẓāhir). in one of them, he killed a small child and the reason for this was not told to mūsā. 22 the evaluation of the distinction … according to ibn al-ʿarabī, there are two moral aspects in this case: these two cases, one in terms of goodness and the other in terms of evil, indicate the difference in evaluations about the event. the aspect of goodness belongs to allah, and according to khidr, there is goodness for both the child and his family in the death of the child.44 as a matter of fact, khidr also attributed this matter to allah using a plural expression: "we, therefore, wished that their lord would replace him with someone better than him in piety"45 according to mūsā, the evil belongs to khidr and this is not a situation that can be described as good in appearance (ẓāhir). 9. conclusion although there are thinkers who argue that morality has or should have a universal aspect that can appeal to all humanity in terms of dealing with people and their behaviours, there are also thinkers who do not see a consensus in moral value judgments in practice. where this last view leads us is to the relative dimension of morality. throughout the history of thought, moral relativism has continued to be discussed from different perspectives. although mystical characters are dominant in ibn al-‘arabī's texts, it is an undeniable fact that philosophy is a discipline that affects him in the background of his thought system. as a matter of fact, it is commented that he placed sufism on a philosophical ground for his system. one of the most emphasized definitions of sufism is that it is moralizing with the morality of allah. here, sufism was identified with morality and aimed at a moral life as a means of spiritual competence. it is thought that the meaning of each name from asmā al-íusnā, which takes the moralization references mentioned here from the holy qur'ān and is mentioned as the most beautiful names of allah almighty, manifests in human beings. when all of these names are manifested in human beings in the form of moralization, this person will be qualified as a perfect human being and deserve to be called the caliph of allah almighty on earth. the perfect human being is also worthy of being referred to as the small realm (microcosm) because it is a manifestation that gathers the characteristics of all levels of existence within itself. it is striking that there is a constant emphasis on morality in the texts of ibn al-‘arabī. in the history of islamic thought, it is accepted that he systematized the idea of waídat al-wujûd. according to the idea of waídat al-wujûd, there is only the existence of allah almighty in the real sense. all other beings consist of its manifestation at different levels. however, this idea has faced objections and criticisms on morality as well as on many different issues. these criticisms focus on the fact that this idea removes moral responsibility from the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 23 servant of allah almighty, as it equates the creator with the servant at one point. to argue that the morality of ibn al-‘arabī is a purely relative morality, primarily based on religion, would be to fail to fully understand it. because one of the main concerns of a religion-based morality is to be inclusive for different times and grounds. however, we see that ibn al-‘arabī does not base the basis of good and evil only on religion, especially in the moral sense. for this reason, we think that he accepts the existence of an understanding of good and evil that changes according to the societies, based on some grounds such as reason and custom. in the context of relativity, we think that it would be more accurate to evaluate this not as a subjectivism that can be reduced to individuals, but in the context of a cultural relativism that can be reduced to societies. while dealing with the subjects, ibn al-‘arabī evaluates them from two different perspectives: manifest and hidden. it is seen that the judgments he gives outwardly and the judgments he gives according to the inner part of the event may differ in matters concerning morality. he can judge a situation that he describes as bad outwardly to be good inwardly. however, it should be noted that the criticisms made especially about his moral views stem from a commentary on his system. although he is inclined to accept some things that seem bad on the outside, based on the distinction between the outward and the inward, we see that there is no sentence in his texts that is put forward in the criticism. however, it is a paradox that he states that a kashf (internal knowledge) that contradicts the apparent contradiction of a scripture should also be rejected. notes and references this article is based on the doctoral thesis titled “moral relativism in islamic philosophy: ibnü’l-arabi example” accepted by ankara university social sciences institute in 2021. 1 mehmet vural, “dâvûdü’l-kayserî’de tasavvuf felsefesi-hakikat-i muhammediye nazariyesi üzerine-”, temaşa erciyes üniversitesi felsefe bölümü dergisi, (2015), vol. 3, p. 46 2 i̇mam rabbānī, mektūbāt, ed. h. tahsin onuk, (i̇stanbul: ekspres matbaası, 1963), v. 2, p. 215. see also: i̇mam-ı rabbanî, mektubat-ı rabbanî, trans. abdulkadir akçiçek, (i̇stanbul: çile yayınları, 1979), v. 1, p. 518 3 burḥāneddin el-bikāī, “tenbīh al-ġabī ilā tekfīr ibn ʿarabī”, in maṣraʿ altaṣavvuf , tah. ʿabd al-raḥmān al-vekīl, (alexandria, dār al-eymān, 2004), p. 169 4 willim c. chittick, “ethical standards and the vision of oneness: the case of ibn al-ʿarabî”, mystics of the book: themes, topics and topologies, ed. r. a. herrera, (new york: peter lang, 1993), p. 362 5 frithjof schuon, sufism: veil and quintessence, trans. mark perry, jean-pierre lafouge, james s. cutsinger, (indiana: world wisdom, 2006), p. 43 24 the evaluation of the distinction … 6 rağıb el-isfahanî, mufredāt, trans.: abdulbaki güneş, mehmet yolcu, (i̇stanbul: çıra yayınları, 2010), p. 359. see also: el-i̇ṣfahānī, rāġıb. al-mufredāt fī gharīb alqur’ān, tah.: muḥammad sayyid qīlānī, (beirut: dār al-maʿrifa), p. 157 7 et-tehānevī, keşşāf iṣṭılāhāt al-funūn ve al-ʿulūm, (lebanon, mektebet lebanon, 1996), v. 1, p. 762 8 mütercim âsım efendi, kâmûsu’l-muhît tercümesi, trans. mustafa koç, eyyüp tanrıverdi, (i̇stanbul: türkiye yazma eserler kurumu başkanlığı yayınları, 2013), v. 4, p. 3968 9 rağıb el-isfahanî, müfredât, p. 160 10 the noble qur'an, translated by mufti taqi usmani, maktaba ma’arif ul quran (karachi, 2010),30:30 11 the noble qur'an, 68:4 12 râgıb el-i̇sfahânî, erdemli yol, trans. muharrem tan, (i̇stanbul: i̇z yayıncılık, 2015), p. 98 13 webster’s encyclopedic dictionary, ed. donald o. bolander, alyce bolander, sora a. boak, (deluxe edition), p. 324 14 francis e. peters, antik yunan felsefesi terimleri sözlüğü, trans. hakkı hünler, (i̇stanbul: paradigma yayıncılık, 2004), p. 120 15 i̇bn manẓūr, lisānü’l-ʿarab, (cairo: dār al-maʿārif, 1119), v. 6, p. 4406 16 i̇bn manẓūr, lisānü’l-ʿarab, v. 1, p. 755 17 al-tahānewī, keşşāf iṣṭılāhāt al-fünūn ve al-ʿulūm, (lebanon: mektebet lebanon, 1996), v. 1, p. 216-217 18 al-tahānewī, keşşāf iṣṭılāhāt al-fünūn ve al-ʿulūm, c. 1, p. 1689-1690 19 hakan poyraz, dil ve ahlâk, (i̇stanbul: dergah yayınları, 2016), p. 61 20 ahmet yıldız, meta-etik bir teori olarak ahlâki sezgiciliğin savunabilirliği, sup.: murtaza korlaelçi, (unpublished doctoral thesis, ankara university, social sciences institute, 2012), p. 252 21 david wong, “relativism”, a companion to ethics içinde, ed.: peter singer, (oxford: blackwell, 1993), p. 442 22 mehmet akif altunışık, metaetik bağlamında ahlâki görecelik sorunu, sup.: cafer sadık yaran, (unpublished doctoral thesis, ondokuz mayıs university, social sciences institute, 2016), p. 18 23 rağıb el-isfahanî, müfredât, p. 1537 24 i̇bn ʿarabī, el-fütūḥātü’l-mekkiyye, (beirut: dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyye, 2011), v. 2, p. 4. 25 elmalı’lı hamdi yazır, metâlib ve mezâhib, (i̇stanbul: eser neşriyat ve dağıtım, 1978), p. xxiii 26 i̇bn ʿarabī, “kitāb al-mesāil”, in rasāil i̇bn ʿarabī, (beirut: dār al-kutub alʿilmiyye, 1971), p. 318 27 muhyiddin i̇bnü’l-arabî, füsûs all-hikam, p. 33 28 i̇bn ʿarabī, al-fütūḥāt al-makkiyye, v. 1, p. 89 29 i̇bn ʿarabī, al-fütūḥāt al-makkiyye, v. 1, p. 15 30 muhyiddin i̇bnü’l-arabî, füsûs al-hikam, p. 55 31 the noble qur'an, translated by mufti taqi usmani, maktaba ma’arif ul quran (karachi, 2010) 57:3 32 the noble qur'an,24:35 33 i̇bn ʿarabī, al-fütūḥāt al-makkiyye, v. 2, p. 386 34 the noble qur'an,71:16 35 i̇bn ʿarabī, al-fütūḥāt al-makkiyye, v. 2, p. 23 36 jasvi, mumtaz. "the sufi method of spiritual purification in the light of kashf ul-mahjub." karachi islamicus 1, no. 1 (2021): 61-71. 37 i̇bn ʿarabī, “risāle lā yuʿavvelü ʿaleyh” in rāsāil i̇bn ʿarabī, p. 193. original text: ”عليه يعول ال يجوز ال ما بين و فىه التصرف للمكلف يجوز ما بين التمييز تسقط التى المعرفة“ 38 i̇bn ʿarabī, al-fütūḥāt al-makkiyye, v. 4, p. 180 39 the noble qur'an,25:70 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 25 40 muhyiddin i̇bn arabî, rahmetün mine’r-rahman, ed.: mahmûd el-ğurâb, trans.: muhammed coşkun, (i̇stanbul: i̇nsan yayınları, 2018), p. 565 41 the noble qur'an,18:79 42 i̇bn ʿarabī, al-fütūḥāt al-makkiyye, v. 4, p. 165 43 i̇bn ʿarabī, al-fütūḥāt al-makkiyye, v. 1, p. 308 44 i̇bn ʿarabī, al-fütūḥāt al-makkiyye, v. 1, p. 311 45 the noble qur'an, 18:81 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 11 … makkah al-mukarramah in the panislamic thought of jamaluddin alafghani dr. spahic omer kulliyyah of islamic revealed knowledge and human sciences, international islamic university malaysia e-mail: spahico@yahoo.com received on: 19-08-21 accepted on: 24-11-21 abstract this article discusses the importance of makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic and reformist thought of jamaluddin al-afghani. afghani framed his ideas within the framework of his calls for universal islamic unity, brotherhood and cooperation, which as a result – are examined at the beginning of the article. the article then assesses afghani’s advocacy that the status of makkah almukarramah as the muslim spiritual qiblah or direction be enriched and expanded into the realms of social relations and intellectual awakening as well, thus also becoming a muslim emotional, social and intellectual qiblah. as a modus operandi, afghani put forward the idea of establishing an international network of muslim scholars, activists and even ordinary people, with makkah al-mukarramah functioning as a nerve centre and its annual hajj season an opportunity for regular conferences. afghani also suggested that mosques and schools throughout islamdom be turned into centres of teaching, propagating and facilitating islamic unity, and that makkah al-mukarramah function as the unifying factor and guidance. afghani juggled his qualified support for the ottoman caliphate with his reformist ideas, some of which went down well neither with the upper political echelons nor some religious leaders in istanbul. hence, in order to properly contextualize the pan-islamic thought of afghani the article likewise explores the impact of the triad axis of the ottomans, the caliphate notion and the city of makkah al-mukarramah. the article’s mailto:spahico@yahoo.com 12 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … research methodology centres on descriptive as well as analytical qualitative modes, infused with a degree of interdisciplinary leaning. keywords: islamic unity; pan-islamism; afghani; makkah al-mukarramah; ottomans 1. introduction the holy city of makkah al-mukarramah always occupied a special place in the lives and minds of muslims. even though the political and economic centres of gravity existed somewhere else, the spiritual, social and, to some extent, educational status of makkah al-mukarramah remained unchanged. it was ensured and facilitated by the authority of the revelation. some of the most fundamental tenets and sacraments of islam are forever tied to it. indeed, makkah al-mukarramah was and remained umm al-qura, the mother of all cities and villages, i.e., all sorts of urban and rural human settlements. the nobility and luminosity of makkah al-mukarramah stand for the source, as well as the climax, of all other nobilities and luminosities. not only is makkah al-mukarramah the centre of life on earth, but also the centre of the universe and all existence. prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam said that allah almighty decreed makkah al-mukarramah to be what it is that is, a holy city, sanctuary, and a place of safety – the moment he created the heavens and the earth.1 it was on account of this that no sooner had the weakening of the ottoman empire started to prove irreversible and its degeneration irreparable, than the leading voices of islamic spirituality and scholarship began to call for the enhancement of the role and the broadening of the responsibilities of makkah al-mukarramah as a possible remedy. some of those voices even focused on making makkah al-mukarramah gradually assume the role of political leadership, in addition to strengthening its inherent spiritual, social and educational functions. once established as a political axis as well, all other disintegrated and greatly enfeebled centres, as well as peripheries, in the muslim world were expected to slowly gravitate towards it. it was only makkah almukarramah that had what it takes to become a rallying point for all muslims. one of the leading muslim voices in the second half of the 19th century was jamaluddin al-afghani (d. 1897) – an avant-garde muslim scholar, ideologist, reformer and political activist 2 who in many ways hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 13 … was an originator of the muslim reformist thought in modern times. his impact was massive, directly or indirectly inspiring more than a few arms of muslim scholarship in the 20th century. just as it is the case with all trailblazers, afghani too was sometimes misunderstood and at other times unacknowledged. similarly, some of his seminal thoughts were fulfilled, while others were either partially so or thwarted altogether. this article explores the importance of makkah al-mukarramah in afghani’s pan-islamic philosophy. afghani promoted the idea of makkah al-mukarramah functioning as a nerve centre of a transnational network of muslim scholars and activists. hajj seasons signified superb occasions for holding regular and systematic summits, and they needed to be optimized as such. in addition, afghani proposed that mosques and schools everywhere in the muslim world be considered as holistic centres of education, with the notion of islamic unity toping the priorities of their curricula, and that makkah al-mukarramah be transformed into the bona fide unifying factor and direction for all muslims. that is to say, makkah al-mukarramah was to be turned into a universal qiblah. 2. research methodology the research methodology adopted is a mixture of descriptive and analytical qualitative research modes. it features detailed descriptions, critical and comparative thinking, and systematic evaluations of the available data pertaining to the subject matter. moreover, the research method used could likewise be described as interdisciplinary. as such, it has helped to create a unique perspective for dealing with the selected topic by thinking and researching across traditional boundaries that defined established academic disciplines. 3. literature review there is no much that has been written specifically about the significance and role of makkah al-mukarramah in afghani’s panislamic thought. most of the existing studies focus on afghani’s panislamism, general political thought and activism, and, to some extent, on his religious and philosophical views. references to makkah almukarramah are rendered succinct and superficial as an aspect of the latter. of those studies the following ones stand out: “an islamic response to imperialism” by nikki r. keddie, which is a compilation of afghani’s religious and political writings, plus a comprehensive account of 14 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … afghani’s life and thought.3 next is afghani’s political biography, also by nikki r. keddie (“sayyid jamal ad-din al-afghani, a political biography”), which is second to none in terms of the wealth of information and their analysis. the book is general in character and traces the trajectory of afghani’s political career from his humble and unknown beginnings, either in afghanistan or iran, to his final years in istanbul.4 worth mentioning is also a book titled “pan-islam, history and politics” by jacob landau, whose emphasis is the progressive concept of pan-islamism which, historically, has caused more passion, debate, and so, more controversies, than any other concept. as an epitome of the idea, afghani is thrust into the eye of the storm on account of his pivotal contributions to the formation and early developments of the panislamism ideology.5 these three books represent the bibliographical foundation of this article, in addition to afghani’s six original articles that appeared in his and muhammad ‘abduh’s newspaper al-‘urwah al-wuthqa. those six articles addressed the philosophical and practical dimensions of islamic unity (pan-islamism) within the context of the socio-political and religious realities of the day. the importance and function of makkah almukarramah were subtly integrated into the perspectives. 4. discussion 4.1. the meaning of islamic unity the central theme of afghani’s thought was islamic unity – the idea and undertaking ideologized in the west as pan-islamism. unity was the centroid of the matrix of all hopes and endeavours of afghani. somehow or other, everything he wrote and said was related to the unity centrepiece whence the nexuses of meanings and relationships originated and to which they in the end returned for authentication and patronage. to afghani, the islamic axial notion of the oneness of god (tawíêd) served as the fountainhead of all genres of religious as well as socio-political concord and unity among muslims, such as the unity of purpose, direction, mission, objective, consciousness and sentiment. accordingly, there could be no islamic social and political unity if there was no spiritual and emotional unity among muslims, in that islamic socio-political systems and institutions can function properly only by dint of the universal islamic spirit and identity. in the same vein, the spirit and identity of the islamic religious unity can be fully actualized only via the existence and full operation of unified islamic socio-political hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 15 … systems and functional blueprints. the two poles are interlocked in a framework of delicate liaisons where the forces of reciprocity and equilibrium dominate. once such an all-inclusive physical and metaphysical unity is achieved, only then can components of a thorough islamic civilization be generated. only then, moreover, can the unity of civilization be dreamt of. such a civilization would signify the apex of islamic unity ambitions and strivings, at once typifying and mirroring the other constitutive types of unity. however, the unity of islamic civilization would be as much the beginning as the end, and as much the means as the result. in no way should it be an end in itself, nor should it be sought for its own sake. islamic civilizational unity would be the end that will result from interaction and confluence processes insofar as the dynamics of the internal systems of islamic unity are concerned; and it would be the beginning insofar as truly recognizing and appreciating the ontological unity of mankind and the whole universe (totality of existence) are concerned. thus, it is through the grasping of the unity of creation that the unity (oneness or tawíêd) of allah almighty as the creator is grasped. that is to say, there could be no ittiíéd or waídah (unity) of muslims – serving as an impetus to affirming the existential unity of mankind and the universe – without the enactment and observance of the tawíêd (oneness or unity) of the creator. the tawíêd of al-khéliq (creator) is the only avenue towards the ittiíéd or waídah of al-khéliq (creation). it is the only cause that can bring about the latter. on account of all this did muhammad ‘abduh by far the most prominent student and associate of afghani compose his “risélah altawíêd” (treatise on the oneness of god), which was based on his lectures delivered in beirut. the treatise was published in 1897 the year afghani died and was muhammad ‘abduh’s most important publication. as if muhammad ‘abduh thereby finalized and perfected the thought of afghani as his teacher, and concomitantly brought the embryonic muslim reformist scholarship to a whole new level – in spite of several methodological differences between the two reformers. the triad of unity, tawíêd and civilization-building was thus inscribed eternally on the pages of the evolution of the muslim modern reformist thought. it became a credo. according to muhammad ‘imarah, the editor and reviewer of “risélah al-tawíêd”, the theological views and scriptural interpretations of afghani, in his capacity as an originator and teacher, inspired the outlook of “risélah al-tawíêd” produced by afghani’s most outstanding student, giving it a sense of direction too.6 16 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … al-‘urwah al-wuthqa (“the most trustworthy handhold”) abounded with afghani’s articles that treated different aspects of islamic unity, at the conceptual and practical planes. in passing, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa was one of a kind muslim newspaper in relation to the evolution of the islamic modernist and revolutionary thought. it was founded and printed in paris and was distributed gratis all over the muslim world. it was in operation only seven months, from march 1884 to october 1884. the following articles of afghani stand out: “islamic unity” (alwaídah al-islémiyyah),7 “unity and power” (al-waídah wa al-siyédah),8 “nationality and the religion of islam” (al-jinsiyyah wa al-diyénah alislémiyyah),9 “and do not be like the ones who became divided and differed after the clear proofs had come to them” (wa la takënë ka alladhên tafarraqë wa ikhtalafu min ba‘d ma ja’ahum al-bayyinét),10 “the past and present of the muslim ummah and the cure for its maladies” (méìi al-ummah wa héìiruha wa ‘iléj ‘ilaliha),11 “muslim backwardness and lethargy and the reasons for them” (iníiïéï al-muslimên wa sukënuhum wa sabab dhélik),12 “fanaticism” (ta‘aîîsub),13 “the ummah and the reign of the despotic ruler” (al-ummah wa sulïah al-hékim almustabidd),14 “invitation of the iranians to a union with the afghans” (da‘wah al-furs ilé al-ittiíéd ma’ al-afghén),15 “hope and seeking glory” (al-amal wa ïalab al-majd),16 “deception” (al-wahm)17 and “cowardice” (al-jubn).18 afghani’s motto for islamic unity were the following words of the holy qur’én: “obey allah almighty and his messenger, and do not quarrel with each other, lest you should lose courage, and your prowess should evaporate; and be patient. surely, allah almighty is with the patient” 19. and also: “do not be like those who became divided and fell into disputes after the clear signs had come to them” 20. afghani’s reformist mantra was the quranic declaration that all believers were brothers and constituted but a single universal brotherhood all believers are but brothers21. afghani also believed that unity and brotherhood could only be effective and could be translated from a mere potential to an actual potency if muslims held firmly to the rope22 of allah almighty which he had stretched out to them, i.e., the holy qur’én as the divine constitution, prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam as the teacher and guide, and islam as the standard of living. afghani lamented the fact that muslims were divided, weak and regressive. disagreements, quarrels and hostilities were common. all that played right into the hands of their enemies who like vultures snooped, waiting to pounce. so dismal was the situation that the same enemies hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 17 … were often resorted to for assistance and possible solutions, thus deepening and prolonging the strings of domestic animosity and foreign expansionism. breaking this vicious circle, therefore, seemed to be the most pressing priority. afghani did not mince his words in his treatment of both internal and external culprits. for him, western colonizers were usurpers and lawbreakers. they were evil and meant no good for the colonized muslim nations, irrespective of their pretexts and how they presented them as part of a global propaganda. committing wrongs in the name of diffusing civilization and fostering progress was not only inappropriate, but as well hypocritical. indeed, from the perspective of a victim, the few advantages connected with foreign interferences were easily outweighed by a great many drawbacks on all fronts that resulted therefrom. for instance, afghani likened the historical and incessant endeavours of britain, france, holland and portugal to colonize the vast territories of india to a contest or a competition (mubarah).23 in it, the only language spoken and understood was that of deceit, double-dealing and corrupt politics. as a result of their mastery of the necessary tricks, britain won the contest. the “game” did not stop there; it extended to the most of the muslim countries, yet to the most of the world. the entire globe became a battleground. if in the spheres of biological evolution and social darwinism the rules that unfolded were consistent with the dictum of survival of the fittest and most powerful, then in the spheres of the “evolutions” of colonialism and the global territorial domination the rules that applied were those that emanated from the dogma of survival of the most powerful, most dishonest and most cunning. certainly, such were the times when the canons of some major western political ideologies such as those entailed in the refrains of “might is right”, “political expediency” and “man is wolf to man” (homo homini lupus) were in full swing. of course afghani did not say all this as explicitly, but one can sense the crux of the matter issuing from several of his discourses. to afghani, the global happenings were as much relatable to bad politics as to the iniquitous materialism of the west, both of which were his nemeses and which he targeted all his life. unavoidable dealings with colonizers, consequently, had to be conditional. it had to be sensible and meant for a greater native good. it was paramount to instil a belief to the effect that there was a silver lining to the predicaments and that, by hook or by crook, it needed to be found. 18 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … under no circumstances was an evil to be repaid or confronted with another evil. two evils were never to make a right. the causal nexus needed to be remedied, rather than aggravated. afghani gave an example of the russians. they were “poor, retarded, and had no natural resources, but their spirit of co-operation enabled them to buy the weapons which they could not produce and hire the officers whom they could not train themselves and all europe feared them. muslims could do the same and defend from all attacks the union which joined them.”24 on the other hand, afghani chided muslims for abandoning some of the most critical dimensions of islamic creed (‘aqêdah) and islamic law (sharê‘ah). he publicized that agreeing and collaborating on the institution of a unified islamic rule (government) signified a central pillar of islam, and believing in it represented a foremost aspect of the islamic belief system. “muslims did not need an instructor to teach them that, nor a document to affirm, nor epistles to broadcast, it”, was afghani’s emphatic inference.25 islamic unity was not a choice but an imperative by the letter of the revelation (the holy qur’én) and the traditions of prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam. essentially, unity was islam’s raison d’etre. disregarding it meant destabilizing the whole edifice of islam, wherewith neither cultural refinement nor civilizational vitality was feasible. islamic unity was the responsibility of all. however, muslim political, intellectual and religious elites were to be most accountable. the fate of the commoners, by and large, depended on what was transpiring in the upper echelons of society. that is why the recurring themes in afghani’s thought revolved around the corrupt tyrannical rulers of the muslims world, along with misguided, sluggish and barren muslim intellectuals – religious or otherwise – whose thinking was imprudent, mediocre and unreasonable. all of them were detrimental to islam and to any muslim cultural and civilizational awakening. the harm of some of them was on a par with that of colonizers. a greatly troubling phenomenon was the sunni-shi‘ah divide, which the enemies of islam, understandably, were capitalizing on. afghani went to great lengths to try and bring the two sides closer to each other. his particular emphasis was a potential union of the iranians with the afghans, which was expected to function as a springboard for further hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 19 … reconciliatory efforts. one of his articles titled “invitation of the iranians to a union with the afghans” delved into the matter exclusively.26 equally worrisome were growing nationalistic and separatist tendencies in turkey and the rest of the arab world, which were expediting the demise of the ottoman empire and with it the institution of caliphate as a major unifying factor in calls for islamic unity. afghani did not regard the ottoman model as an exemplary one, however, a very few options were available. as bad and dysfunctional as the ottoman administration was, weakening it further could only exacerbate the overall condition of muslims, in turkey and beyond, and could embolden their adversaries. for afghani, provisionally supporting the ottomans and working with them was tantamount to choosing the lesser of two evils. it seemed easier to work on remedying an ailing giant than to work on formulating a new-born and untested model. the circumstances were irrepressible, there were scant allies, and time was the “enemy”. those nationalistic and separatist tendencies were caused by viruses stemming from the rapid spread of western liberal and materialistic thought, which on its path was bent on secularizing and desecrating every spiritual and moral value. if that thought was suitable for unique western historical and current milieus, it was wrong to assume that the same would be useful and fruitful in completely different muslim environments. needless to say that muslim religious, cultural, social and historical backgrounds were utterly different and were not in agreement with most western values and worldviews. hence, afghani extensively wrote and preached about the meaning of islamic brotherhood, unity and cooperation, and how those had to be institutionalized and applied at all levels. he emphasized that islamic spirituality was the foremost criterion in the vicissitudes of socio-political developments. it was the alpha and omega of islamic exemplars and identities. anything else was a faulty choice and was bound to backfire. islamic spirituality was the prerequisite for islamic unity. afghani reminded that no nationalism or patriotism paradigm should be above the one of “islamic nationalism”, that no nation should be favoured over the “nation (realm and home) of islam”, and that no allegiance and partisanship should supersede one’s allegiance and devotion to islam. when islam – as a religion, philosophy, way of life, and a historical as well as existential reality – is placed on the pedestal of the society and civilization-building kinetics, all other legitimate forms of patriotism, nationhood, allegiance and loyalty will start making sense. 20 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … only then, furthermore, will the stage be set for an islamic renaissance whose elan vital will be islamic unity27. 4.2. makkah al-mukarramah the focal point of islam the holy qur’én highlights that makkah al-mukarramah is a sanctuary and a holy city of safety. it is umm al-qura, the mother of all cities and villages, which encompasses all kinds of urban and rural human settlements28. not only is makkah al-mukarramah the centre of life on earth, but also the centre of the universe and all existence. prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam said that on the day of victory over makkah al-mukarramah that allah almighty decreed this city (makkah al-mukarramah) as a holy city, sanctuary, and a place of safety the moment he created the heavens and the earth.29 during afghani’s time, makkah al-mukarramah was under the ottoman control. it was part of an ottoman first-order administrative division or province (vilayet). the vilayet comprised the entire hijaz province with makkah al-mukarramah being its centre, ahead of madinah and jeddah. the spiritual and to some extent intellectual status of makkah al-mukarramah remained unchanged – which was expected, as the local and international political fluctuations could not impinge upon any of the heavenly decrees. afghani once said that if a calamity befell the ottoman government, “neither will permanence remain to makkah al-mukarramah , nor majesty to medina, and not even the name of islam or a rite of the faith will survive. and that afterward they (muslims) will neither hear the voice of the mu’adhin nor see the koran reader. they will be as low as the jews of bukhara, and like sheep without masters a prey to the rapacious wolf.”30 as hyperbolic and exaggeratedly supportive of the ottoman status quo this statement was, it demonstrated the standard islamic conviction that makkah al-mukarramah, and everything associated with it, eternally topped the list of muslim official concerns and priorities. ordinary muslims lived their lives with their minds and hearts fixed on the prestige of makkah al-mukarramah, wishing to visit the place as pilgrims as soon as they could for the experience of a lifetime, while the governments entrusted with the institution of caliphate were duty-bound to maintain and facilitate the situation. there could be no legitimate governmentcum-caliphate without being in charge of makkah al-mukarramah and without discharging customary responsibilities towards it. governments hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 21 … were established for the ideals personified by makkah al-mukarramah, subsisting because of them. hence, makkah al-mukarramah was the creator and guarantor of political legitimacies. since makkah al-mukarramah was the heartbeat of the muslim world, it was destined to play a critical role in fashioning islamic unity. afghani more than anybody else was aware of this. however, the idea was in its infancy. it was at a stage where afghani was dejected and fearful because of the state of the islamic nation and was searching for a means of its reform and salvation. afghani was busy generating islamic unity’s conceptual framework and its operational blueprints, featuring conducive environments, partners, modi operandi, future directions and resources. he felt that what was needed first was a philosophy and charismatic leadership. unity was a stimulus and the ultimate goal. unity was expected to be an effect stemming from those foundations. afghani took it upon himself to chart paths that would lead to the loci of sociopolitical unity firstly in istanbul (constantinople) then in other muslim political centres such as egypt, iran and india, and another path that would lead to makkah al-mukarramah as the locus of muslim spiritual and intellectual unity. makkah al-mukarramah was sacred and untainted by the indelible tinges of political and ideological quarrels. ever since the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) had captured, “opened”, “unlocked” and “launched” it (fatí makkah al-mukarramah), it became aberrant and even sinful to impose upon makkah al-mukarramah any element of closure, suppression, discord and isolation. though politically neither impartial nor non-aligned, historically makkah al-mukarramah always managed to rise above the constraints of politics and politically driven tensions. it was the spiritual and emotional direction of all people. it was the fulcrum, and so the capital, of people’s spiritual existence. because of this, makkah al-mukarramah which was ruled by its sharêfs, semi-independent princes or emirs, albeit under ottoman suzerainty and the ottoman leadership enjoyed a duplicitous relationship which was akin to a marriage of convenience. this was expected, nevertheless, bearing in mind that such was the age of endless crises and turbulences. according to wilfrid scawen blunt (d. 1922) an english scholar who met afghani and was his admirer save that their union was a necessity, it would long ago have, by mutual consent, been dissolved. sharêfs depended on sultans-caliphs in constantinople because they needed protectors and material support, while sultans depended on sharêfs because recognizing them by the hijaz and its holy cities of makkah al-mukarramah and madinah as protectors and “servants” was 22 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … a chief requirement for the caliphate. makkah al-mukarramah, in fact, was a necessity to islam even more than a caliph; and whoever was sovereign there was naturally the sovereign of the muslim world31. referring specifically to sultan abdul hamid ii (d. 1918), whose contemporary he was, wilfrid scawen blunt said that the importance of arabia has of late years been fully recognized at constantinople and elsewhere. it has been the sustained policy of abdul hamid ii at all cost and by whatsoever means to maintain his influence there; and he knew that without it his spiritual pretensions could have no secure foundations. arabia, the sultan perceived, was the main point of the caliphal problem; and whether or not the future holder of the office resided in the hijaz, it was certain that by its tenure alone the muslim world will judge of his right to be their leader32. afghani should have shared this sentiment, concerning the relationship between istanbul and the hijaz. he had close contacts with wilfrid scawen blunt who is said to have admired afghani’s reformist thought, have supposedly become a convert to islam under the latter’s influence, and have shared afghani’s often misunderstood hopes of establishing an arab caliphate based in makkah al-mukarramah as one of possible options to replace the ottoman sultan in istanbul.33 at any rate – as a short deviation respect and influence between afghani and wilfrid scawen blunt were mutual. however, who exactly influenced whom, on what subjects, and to what extent, remains unclear. afghani’s views of caliphate and of the ottoman government are sometimes muddled on account of his relationship with wilfrid scawen blunt. wilfrid scawen blunt supported the transfer of muslim leadership from the turks back to the arabs, and suggested that the disappearance of the ottoman empire was both inevitable and to be desired. his book “the future of islam” was written for the purpose, condensing his theory to the effect that it was to arabia that muslims must in the future look for a centre of their religious system, and to makkah al-mukarramah for a restoration of their caliphate.34 afghani’s relationship with the man was conspicuous. he was involved in his schemes “to try to negotiate with the british government a settlement of the egyptian question and of the sudanese al-mahdi’s rising.”35 in addition, afghani appreciated the fact that makkah almukarramah, at least on the philosophical plane, was impervious to the scourges of nationalism, sectarianism and fanaticism. it was untouchable, so to say. it was meant for islamic unity and collaboration. just as it was perfectly configured ideologically, it likewise was occupying the perfect geographical and “civilizational” location. hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 23 … makkah al-mukarramah was in the centre of the muslim world. as a midpoint, it was slanted neither to the east nor the west, and neither to the north nor the south. makkah al-mukarramah was an ottoman administrative division, but stood far away from the major ottoman political centres. in other words, makkah al-mukarramah was absolutely islamic and universally muslim, which means that it exemplified everything that islam stood for and whatever the muslim ummah as a body of equal individuals and a federation of homogenous communities consequentiality-wise represented and could strive for. strictly speaking, makkah al-mukarramah belonged to nobody and nobody could claim control over it. instead, people belonged to makkah al-mukarramah and were “controlled” by it. drawing attention to forbidden differences and kindling divisions within its holy precincts was outrageous. it was also sacrilegious to an extreme degree. as a matter of fact, doing such a thing anywhere was illegal, but in makkah al-mukarramah was exceptionally so. afghani walked his talk. he practiced what he preached, setting an example for others to follow. it is unclear whether originally he was a follower of sunnism or shi‘ism. calling himself afghani, having no permanent home and being always on the road, might have been deliberate smokescreens. however, to afghani personally, all that was irrelevant. he was a muslim, subscribing to a set of higher transcendent criteria. he deliberately avoided accentuating any associations or designations as might have disrupted his struggle. he did not want the small things to stand in the way of the bigger – and real – ones. it was only afghani’s personal enemies and the enemies of his calling that wallowed in the former. as per a report, most probably in 1861 afghani took a trip from india to makkah al-mukarramah, stopping at several points along the way. he then went via iraq and possibly istanbul to iran.36 this early trip of afghani, as little as symbolically, suggested the inherent value and status of makkah al-mukarramah, on the one hand, and the import of islamic unity for enlivening and preserving the muslim world, on the other. the makkah al-mukarramah trip was a sign of things to come. it might have yet been a turning point in afghani’s spiritual and intellectual growth. afghani was in makkah al-mukarramah again in 1871.37 the unity and freedom template of makkah al-mukarramah had to be exported to the rest of muslim provinces. people needed to be inspired and mobilized thereby so as to resist every sort of injustice and oppression both at the hands of colonizers and domestic tyrants. all of them were the 24 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … same in the eyes of afghani. in their respective ways, they waged war against the quintessence of the islamic message, working tirelessly on obstructing the performance of its capacities. however, what was encouraging in relation to this was the fact that in droves all year round people were going to makkah al-mukarramah for the pilgrimages of hajj and ‘umrah. people lived for makkah al-mukarramah and for the heavenly pilgrimage experience. makkah al-mukarramah was a magnet with enormous latent potentials, creating an opportunity that should not be missed. hence, people needed to be awakened and educated, and some of them, especially religious scholars who commanded influence, be turned into propagandists upon their return home from makkah al-mukarramah. establishing an international network of supporters and activists from all walks of life was required, with makkah al-mukarramah functioning as its benchmark and a nerve centre. afghani referred to these prospects in the context of his discussions about “unity and power” (al-waídah wa al-siyédah)38 and “muslim backwardness and lethargy and the reasons for them” (inhiïéï al-muslimên wa sukënuhum wa sabab dhélik).39 what is more, while elaborating on why the project of the newspaper al-‘urwah al-wuthqa had been initiated, in the newspaper’s first issue on 13 march 1884 afghani explicitly stated that makkah al-mukarramah presented a big hope for the success of the newspaper project in particular and of the islamic unity venture in general. undeniably, no newspaper could match the mass communication appeal of makkah al-mukarramah and its hajj season, and no amount of social unity theorization, coupled with limited implementation efforts, could match the impact of the annual global conference and socio-political exchanges of muslims in makkah al-mukarramah. afghani wrote: “because makkah is the foundation and source of the religion (of islam) and the anchor of (religious) certainty (yaqên), and is the scene of the annual pilgrimage term to which are drawn and join together the easterners and westerners, and at whose holy sites the eminent and insignificant, the rich and poor ones fraternize with each other (regard each other as brothers and sisters) – (because of all this) makkah al-mukarramah was the most ideal city for their (callers to islamic unity and reforms) ideas to be effectively introduced there and thence broadcasted to the rest of places”40. afghani additionally believed that makkah al-mukarramah had to be part of any workable axis. its religious significance and political convenience were simply indispensable. thus, while the immediate focus of the newspaper al-‘urwah al-wuthqa were the events and their protagonists in egypt, turkey, syria, north africa and iran – all of which hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 25 … were destined to converge sooner or later in the blessed environs of makkah al-mukarramah – five copies of each issue were still sent to makkah al-mukarramah and two to madinah. afghani once alluded to the critical importance of the india-makkah al-mukarramah-egypt axis in particular.41 he said, implying the magnitude of the same axis, that many muslims conceived egypt to be a holy land because it historically served as a gateway to the holy cities of makkah al-mukarramah and madinah. they were so attached to it, knowing if the gateway (egypt) was safe, the holy regions of makkah al-mukarramah and madinah were safe too. this way, contingent upon the strength, or otherwise, of the axis, people’s faith, confidence and peace of mind could be either enhanced or shaken.42 4.3. the ottomans, caliphate and makkah al-mukarramah all things considered, the philosophy of islamic unity, aka panislamism, necessitated a thought on a centre that would function as the idea’s centre of gravity. there, most of the idea’s “weight”, i.e. authority, validity and management, was expected to be concentrated. the immediate thought naturally tilted towards the cosmopolitan city of istanbul (constantinople) which was the undisputed socio-politicoeconomic hub of the muslim world and beyond. however, the problem was that in recent times the sustainability of istanbul as such was frequently questioned. in addition, the capital’s definite religious and, to a degree, intellectual supremacy never came true. it lagged behind several other islamic hubs. at best, istanbul could only share the distinction. in its heyday, as remarked by snouck hurgronje, while it was the material centre of the muslim world, makkah al-mukarramah was the spiritual centre. people looked up to both centres – religious and worldly directions with a double focus. in respect of looking towards the two centres, all muslims formed a whole.43 but the problem was that under adverse circumstances the double focus easily turns into a form of diplopia, or double vision, and makes some fine-tuning necessary. undoubtedly, afghani’s time was one of such episodes. the ottoman government was facing unprecedentedly tough times. inasmuch as its sheer survival was often at stake, there was little long-term that could be planned. regardless of whether or not it was set to ride out the storm, the status – and future – of istanbul was seriously affected. as a result, the idea of a contingency plan was mooted and voices for replacing the unfit ottoman caliphate grew ever louder. 26 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … the prevalent alternative was the restoration of the institution of caliphate to its rightful arab consciousness and origins, because one of the conditions for the caliph was qurayshite descent. if a new caliph was of arab qurayshite ancestry that was “a sort of spiritual directory which would be recognized by all muslims as the authoritative exponent of the faith.”44 the views oscillated between cairo and makkah almukarramah (the hijaz) as the potential new caliphate centres. some of those who advocated the idea, with variations in specifics, were abdurrahman al-kawakibi (d. 1902), rashid rida (d. 1935), and wilfrid scawen blunt (d. 1922). as part of their colonial stratagems, the british were in favour of the same idea as well. parenthetically, such were the conditions of the muslim world, generally characterized by recurring calamities and existential uncertainty – including the conditions of the preceding century – that wilfrid scawen blunt went so far as to hypothesise that even napoleon bonaparte might have planned to become a caliph, if his schemes had gone according to the plan and if he had been enabled to establish a desired footing in the muslim world. wilfrid scawen blunt believed that in the 19th century caliphate seemed open to whoever should have been able to re-invent and prove himself worthy to wear it. two men dreamt of its acquisition: napoleon bonaparte (d. 1821) and muhammad ali of egypt (d. 1849).45 as far as afghani was concerned, in practical terms he was a supporter of the ottoman caliphate, notwithstanding a great many uncomplimentary inner perceptions and feelings of his. in lieu of a revolution and within the existing legal framework, he was propagating his religious and socio-political reforms. he even contemplated the possibility of “a confederation of semi-autonomous muslim states, with the ottoman sultan as their suzerain.”46 nonetheless, afghani’s overall position might have changed a bit towards the end of his life, which however was allowed neither to fully evolve nor manifest itself. that was the case due to afghani’s somewhat early death in 1897 (he died when he was 58) and due to the complicated and rather unclear circumstances in which he died (he spent the last five years of his relatively short life in istanbul where he was kept as a virtual prisoner). since both sultan abdul hamid ii and afghani around the same time campaigned for their respective versions of islamic unity (pan-islamism), authors vastly differ as to who was the real originator of the concept and how their brief and erratic collaboration was constructed. there is no definitive answer. however, what seems plausible is that the seeds of panislamism (ideological and political islamic unity) had been planted much hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 27 … earlier with the young ottomans society playing a prominent role. the idea was undergoing an impulsive evolution when it was accelerated by the unfolding of dramatic events and was then taken up to another level simultaneously by sultan abdul hamid ii and afghani on their respective career paths. the two towering figures might have been encouraged by one another’s vision and courage, but not necessarily at the plain philosophical and spiritual levels, for those levels exclusively belonged to the provinces of the revealed islamic spirituality and philosophy. unity was an islamic and absolute, not a mere national or regional, affair. sultan abdul hamid ii and afghani needed each other in respect of the movement’s implementation plans and procedures. they needed to complement each other and to capitalize on each other’s assets. at this stage, too, it is unclear which side exactly initiated the first overtures to the other side. both possibilities have been put forward. however, here likewise the two personalities and their ideas might have been inclining towards each other spontaneously for quite some time until they eventually, as an inevitable outcome of an inevitable process, combined. nikki keddie said, demonstrating the ambiguity of the relationship between the sultan and afghani: “it is almost surely at this time (1885) that afghani wrote to the ottoman rulers a long petition offering his services as a kind of wandering pan-islamic messianic emissary. the sultan asked afghani to stay where he was for the present, and no contact between them is recorded between 1885 and 1892, when the sultan invited afghani to istanbul. the standard biographies speak of the sultan as the initiator of the first overtures to afghani, but the new documents make it clear that afghani was trying very hard to ingratiate himself with the sultan and, hopefully, to obtain a position from him.”47 as a hint at the majority and their standard biographies nikki keddie talked about, was alyson chouinard’s reckoning that afghani was one of the islamic scholars that the sultan had brought to istanbul in an effort to bolster his pan-islamic propaganda. since there is no further elaboration, it can be safely assumed that according to the author it was the sultan who had commenced the overtures to afghani and was in full charge of the procedure. in passing, the same author thenceforth summarised the orthodox western construing of the pan-islamic (islamic unity) idea by projecting it as a mere political tool in anti-imperialistic dogmas, whereby not only was the idea divested of any genuine religious nuances, but also was religion (mis)used as one of its implements. little wonder, then, that alyson chouinard discussed the matter under the sub-title “pan-islam as a source for political power” which is part of an academic article titled “a response to tanzimat: sultan abdul hamid ii and pan-islamism”.48 28 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … once in istanbul (1892-1897), afghani was at first well-treated by the sultan, but was never given major responsibilities. however, the relationship between the two soon morphed into a bumpy ride. surrounded by endless internal and external intrigues, plus the sultan’s increasing political paranoia and afghani’s occasionally unpredictable modes of operation in the face of mounting gargantuan challenges, the association was fated to be volatile from the outset. a series of events lost afghani the confidence of the sultan within a few years of his arrival. so much so that in his last years in istanbul afghani was reduced to political impotence.49 virtually imprisoned, his influence was diminishing by the day. about afghani’s end nikki keddie wrote: “in 1897 afghani died of cancer of the chin. at the time and thereafter rumours circulated in the muslim world that he had been poisoned by the sultan, but his illness and the fact that he underwent operations for it are well attested by witnesses. some of the more fanciful reports speak of the sultan’s surgeon injecting him with venom, but these tales are almost surely of a piece with the many myths about afghani. at the time of his death he was apparently attended by only one person, a christian servant, and his death brought no great reaction in either the east or west. only later, when his pan-islamic, unapologetic, and anti-western ideas began to be picked up by a growing body of muslim writers, was he once again eagerly and widely read, and regarded as a modern muslim hero.”50 since afghani supported the ottoman government-cum-caliphate, he expectedly supported istanbul as the capital and political centre as well. there is no clear-cut evidence whatsoever that testify to the contrary with regard either to the standing of the ottoman leadership or the role of istanbul. whatever people said about afghani and his support for the immediate revival of an arabic caliphate based in makkah almukarramah replacing the ottomans, could have been part of a conspiracy against afghani and his relationship with sultan abdul hamid ii, or could have simply been a misunderstanding that was later blown out of proportion. it has been reported, for instance, that “the sultan’s arab religious confidants grew hostile to afghani and denounced him to the sultan as a heretic and a deceiver.”51 one of those who might have misunderstood afghani and might have fallen for circulating conspiracies was the sultan himself. according to some authors, ever since 1885 the sultan associated afghani with the idea of the revival of an arab caliphate to take over the caliphal and religious claims of the sultan. wilfrid scawen blunt is alleged to have been of the main instigators of the idea on behalf of certain internal and external hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 29 … political currents (he claimed to have “gotten” it from some arabs). the design was sometimes referred to as a combined british and arab caliphate. as a result, the sultan was not in favour of afghani travelling to arabia52. besides, that must have been one of the chief reasons why afghani was ultimately kept as an involuntary captive in istanbul and why his efforts to leave the place were cunningly thwarted. a delicate combination of an intrigue, a misunderstanding, the sultan’s paranoia, and an implicit element of a potential partial truth, was reported by nikki keddie. she wrote that “when the new khedive of egypt, abbas hilmi, came to visit istanbul in 1895, he secretly went to see afghani, and the sultan believed, possibly correctly, that they were discussing an arab caliphate under the control of the khedive”53. nonetheless, one has to bear in mind that at the time of the visit afghani had already spent three years in his virtual captivity. he was wronged and so, unhappy. therefore, whatever happened and was said at the time issued from an anomalous situation where desperation, pressure and overwhelming emotions sometimes play a significant role. the outcomes issued from a victimized, unhappy and fuming afghani. it cannot be completely ruled out that under the circumstances afghani should perhaps have toyed with the idea of an arab caliphate in makkah al-mukarramah. he might have entertained the prospect to a certain extent as one of remotely possible scenarios, albeit without completely abandoning his main thoughts. to afghani, in the final analysis, islamic unity and revival were bigger than the ottoman establishment and his loyalty to the former superseded his loyalty to the latter. to other authors, such as jacob landau, it seems that, while the sultan and afghani did not find common ground on pan-islamism, “they differed in their views on reform and constitutionalism. in addition, various people at the palace worked to circumscribe afghani’s activities and to warn the sultan of his personal ambitions”54. there is no mention of afghani’s direct or indirect involvement in a conspiracy to establish an arab caliphate in makkah al-mukarramah. the idea is brought up, though, but without implicating afghani. jacob landau said, for example: “abdul hamid suspected egypt's khedive, abbas hilmi, and then the sharif of makkah al-mukarramah , of intriguing for the establishment of an arab caliphate, to replace the turkish one, and naturally strived to prevent this”55. only once did afghani directly mention the vision of replacing the unwell turkish caliphate with an arab one. he did so in his article titled “al-mahdiyyah ii” which was published in the french newspaper 30 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … l’intransigeant on 11 december 1883. afghani said that great britain concocted the project of creating a small caliphate (khiléfah saghêrah) in makkah al-mukarramah to be headed by the current sharif of makkah, in order to put the makkah al-mukarramah ruler “in control of a powerful means to hold sway over all muslims” (and thereby do away with the ottoman threat). through this design, britain actually wished to assert her domination of the whole muslim world through her control of the sharif of makkah al-mukarramah (and the caliphate)56. the ruler of makkah al-mukarramah was meant but to be a puppet. there are several observations about this account of afghani. the topic was touched on in the context of the military advances of the religious and political movement of muhammad al-mahdi in the sudan against the khedivate of egypt (ottoman-egyptian government) which had ruled the sudan since 1821. the advances were regarded miraculous, considering how vast the military mismatch between the warring parties had been, putting in jeopardy the interests of both the ottomans and britain in the region. during the period between 1882 to1914 britain imposed its de facto protectorate over egypt, which was often termed the “veiled protectorate”. afghani believed that, ideally, the caliph should be from the qurayshite lineage. he said plainly in the same article “al-mahdiyyah ii” that there are two types of caliphate: the legitimate and illegitimate one. the former was associated with the qurayshite tribe and the latter with anybody else who was a warlord and conqueror (ghézê) (the conqueror of lands and the title). if the illegitimate type of caliphate was in place, it was untrue and pretentious and so, was bound to vanish by virtue of the advances of a legitimate claim57. this outlook has been additionally reinforced in an article titled “caliphate” (khiléfah), which was published in al-‘urwah al-wuthqa. the article, in all likelihood, was not written by afghani, but it reflected the philosophy of the newspaper, the movement it represented, and, of course, the minds of its founders: afghani and muhammad ‘abduh58. the ottoman claims to the caliphate institution were incorrect and enforced (without discounting whatsoever their massive contributions to the islamic culture and civilization). afghani’s support was circumstantial. he anticipated that changes in all departments were forthcoming and that his works were geared towards expediting the process. however, things had to be gradual and discreet. changing the leadership and replacing the caliphate was the furthermost goal. all other hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 31 … strategies and programs were precursors to it. they were to pave the way for that goal’s complete and effective inauguration. afghani interpreted the events in the sudan at the hands of al-mahdi as the potential beginning of something big. the events were seeding hopes, awakening and valour well beyond the gravity centre in the sudan. the events were about to cause an irreversible chain reaction that will keep expanding until the ottoman caliphate is revoked and the british plans frustrated. this way, afghani was hopeful that the ottoman caliphate in istanbul and the proposed british-backed small caliphate (khiléfah saghêrah) in makkah al-mukarramah will eventually be swept away by a total revolt resulting from mahdist sudan. the revolt, then, will lead to the restoration of the islamic caliphate paradigm, both as a dream and actuality. afghani dubbed the outcome markaz khiléfah muhimmah li al‘arab (a critical caliphate centre for arabs). it is noteworthy that this designation of afghani was as much circumscribed as open-ended. although the “arabs” specification left out for instance the ottomans, iranians and indians from the caliphate office, neither did it automatically entitle the qurayshite ancestry for it. similarly, the “caliphate centre” could be anywhere in the arab world: in makkah al-mukarramah, cairo, or somewhere else. caliphate was not makkah al-mukarramah’s inherent political right. as if afghani thereby wished to maintain his pragmatism at the expense of a tempting idealism. he was consistent in his positions, but, given the circumstances, such a forte of his easily evaded many people. more than a few misunderstood him, what afghani, at the end of the day, paid with his freedom. whenever the coveted historic moment will arrive, afghani was ready to offer support to any arab-centric – albeit most preferably quraysh-centric alternative that would be most suitable, most effective, and most consistent with the ultimate objectives of the islamic religion. geographical locations were irrelevant. substance was ordained to overtake externalities. 4.4. makkah al-mukarramah a catalyst for pan-islamism however, if, as regards finding a locus for caliphate, the role of makkah al-mukarramah was not indispensable, its role in actualizing pan-islamism (islamic unity) was peerless. inasmuch as fundamentally altering the political caliphate-oriented landscape was a far-flung proposition, afghani made it take a backseat to his concerns about 32 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … islamic brotherly unity and the role of makkah al-mukarramah in engendering it. as a root cause, islamic unity was an obsession. political changes were an effect and were awaited to come to pass spontaneously following the institution of the former. afghani believed that makkah al-mukarramah was the biggest hope for realizing the dream of islamic unity. afghani set the tone of his conviction when he elaborated on the sad state and extent of muslim disunity. in his article “muslim backwardness and lethargy and the reasons for them” (iníiïéï al-muslimên wa sukënuhum wa asbéb dhélik)59 he lamented that there was no relationship whatsoever between muslims worldwide even though they were connected by the threads of the same islamic belief system and values. it was a paradox that many muslims were enthusiastic believers but remained indifferent towards each other’s conditions as members of different nations. most people in a country were fine with the prospect of living oblivious to the conditions of their brothers and sisters in other countries, even if they were able to help. it was unacceptable that people subscribed to the theoretical doctrines and tenets without translating them into committed actions. such a tactic was a partial islam. yet, it was not islam at all. afghani blamed diverse sectors of society for the predicament, but especially rulers and scholars, in accordance with the principle that if those two principal groups are guided, the whole community is guided, and vice versa. the situation was appalling because rulers misgoverned and scholars misdirected, with each side maltreating and victimizing the general public in its own unique way. for example, afghani wondered why the ottomans did not have an embassy in marrakesh (ruled by the alaouite dynasty as an arab sharifian dynasty that claimed descent from prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam, and vice versa, and why the ottomans did not have adequate relations (silat saíêíah) with the afghans and the other muslim communities in the east. afghani also bemoaned the fact that some turkish scholars were unaware of the conditions of their counterparts in the hijaz, and that some scholars in india were neither acquainted with nor concerned about the affairs of their counterparts in afghanistan. and worse yet was the truth that the same breakdown in relations existed among the scholars of a single nation or community. the situation was akin to a contagion60. after that afghani emphasised that it was only in makkah almukarramah during its annual hajj (pilgrimage) season that people could meet and learn about each other’s material and immaterial circumstances. if other places kept people apart, makkah al-mukarramah acted as a hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 33 … counterforce. even if people were uninterested, makkah almukarramah’s intrinsic heavenly splendour and allure were irresistible, inspiring, spurring and reminding all within its bosom. positively, while in makkah al-mukarramah, no sincere pilgrim is in full possession of his spiritual and emotional being. no person is completely himself. it appears as though afghani wanted to put forward that all hope was not lost. no matter what, there was always the holy city of makkah almukarramah and its annual hajj pilgrimage (and ‘umrah as a smaller pilgrimage throughout the year) that functioned as an inextinguishable light and a source of perennial optimism, resiliency and rejuvenation. no colonial military might, no muslim ruler’s incompetence and corruption, and no muslim scholar’s mediocrity and stupor, could ever diminish, let alone quash, the inbuilt advantages and boons of makkah almukarramah. however, the powers of makkah al-mukarramah for building islamic unity needed to be fully taken advantage of, for which elaborate strategies were required. just as the contributions of protagonists in diverse sectors – with rulers and scholars leading the way – were responsible for the existing plights, reverse contributions from the same protagonists were now needed for restoration purposes. in the context of his discourse, afghani used the idiom “bi al-îudfah” (accidently), indicating that at that particular point of time whatever meagre good was taking place in terms of harnessing the makkah al-mukarramah potentials for islamic unity, the same was happening inadvertently and by mere chance (bi al-îudfah or accidently). no systematic policies or action plans were in situ. that was unfortunate in the extreme, and, by extension, was un-islamic. the affirmation of “bi al-îudfah” and “poor interactions” was an unflattering verdict by afghani. at the same time, though, it was a rallying call to muslims to reconsider their positions and shares in the ubiquitous malaise, as well as to embark on and at least support inclusive reforms. afghani then proposed a modus operandi as a first and most critical step in the direction of creating islamic unity. he stated that muslim scholars should live up to their honourable name and reputation, which essentially were god-given. it was incumbent upon them to fight disunity and divisions among muslims and to work on fostering unity, brotherhood and cooperation. as scholars, they had to do this systematically, far-sightedly and sensibly. all that lied at the heart of the dên (religion). furthermore, scholars (preachers, imams, sermonizers, educators and intellectuals) were asked to conduct constructive discussions, meetings 34 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … and conferences on unity in mosques and schools (all conducive religious and social institutions) until every mosque and every school was transformed into a home where the spirit of the existence of unity will reside. those religious and educational institutions will thus create an intricate network that will transcend the artificially imposed limitations and borders. in the network, every single mosque and school will function as a link (íalqah) upon which the coherence and strength of a whole chain (silsilah) will depend. if any link (constitutive unit) starts underperforming or becomes broken, the rest of the links in the network will be affected and will be restless until the health of the affected link is restored. scholars from all over the world, in addition, should be connected and organised in groups and associations. regional and global centres should be set up for the purposes of facilitating the theoretical and practical matters of unity. at the summit of those centres and “homes” of unity will be the unity headquarter in makkah al-mukarramah and its holy mosque institution (bayt allah al-íaram or al-masjid al-íarém). makkah al-mukarramah and its holy mosque will signify the pinnacle of the hierarchy, or the pyramid, of other islamic unity centres, “homes” and conventions. hence, makkah al-mukarramah and hajj were to host global islamic unity gatherings annually, exactly as recognised and insisted-upon by the revelation. during the official and informal hajj meetings, attended by scholars, government officials and commoners, the necessary evaluation, future planning, implementation and general education steps were conceived to be undertaken. afghani understood the strategy along the lines of preserving the religion of islam, safeguarding the interests of muslims against myriads of domestic and international hazards, and the purification of islam and islamic tradition of undesirable innovations61. if other mosques were to function as community development centres, the holy mosque in makkah al-mukarramah (al-masjid al-íarém) was to be the muslim ummah development and coordination centre. in the article “unity and power” (al-waídah wa al-siyédah) afghani added another dimension to his makkah modus operandi intended for the attainment of islamic unity62. consistent with the vibe of the article and the subject of islamic unity it was aimed to serve which was encapsulated in the tradition of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and was placed at the beginning of the article: “a faithful believer to a faithful believer is like the bricks of a wall, reinforcing each other.63” afghani wrote that effective communication and collaboration between scholars in disseminating the voices of some muslims to others, unifying hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 35 … thus their interests and streamlining outputs, was not just possible, but also fast and easy. muslims enjoyed the gift of the holy mosque (al-bayt al-íarém) in makkah al-mukarramah which allah almighty, together with the city of makkah al-mukarramah, had rendered superior over the rest of the world. the sacredness of the mosque and its city is loved and respected like no other. moreover, allah almighty prescribed the annual pilgrimage to the mosque. doing so is an obligation for all adult muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey. at that most hallowed location of the globe every year allah almighty gathers multitudes of muslims representing different backgrounds, tribes, ethnicities and countries. in islam on the whole and during the hajj pilgrimage specifically, everything is primed as regards islamic unity. its capital city (makkah al-mukarramah) and its operational background (hajj) have also been determined. no earth-shaking planning and strategizing efforts were required. makkah al-mukarramah and hajj had it all. everything was latent in their respective ambits; items just needed unearthing and activating. nobody had to go anywhere; rather, everybody was coming – was also wishing and planning to come to makkah al-mukarramah. all sights and hearts were fixed on it. the makkah al-mukarramah was the capital, as it were, of sensations, elations and dreams too. similarly, nothing was to be taken anywhere; rather, everything was to be brought to makkah al-mukarramah (the holy qur’én describes makkah almukarramah as “we have established them in the peaceful haram (sanctuary) to which the fruits of everything are drawn as a provision from us 64”. therefore, afghani reckoned, the whole matter boiled down to a “word” (information and knowledge, kalimah) that could be conveyed to pilgrims by someone whom they held in high esteem. the “word” should be such that every corner of the (muslim) world will be shaken by it (will vibrate towards it) and the “tenants” of the depths of hearts will be deeply stirred by it. which was something that muslims should not have a problem with, as the islamic articles of faith or belief system (al-‘aqé’id al-dêniyyah) prepared them for it. afterwards, the processes should unfold and their impacts be generated gradually and spontaneously after the model of the spread of a spider web. the expansion and growth will be in terms of a snowball effect whereby the material and immaterial assets of the community (ummah) will be taken on-board. the contribution of each constitutional element will be awaited and greatly appreciated. if the constant foreign interferences, invasions and harassments were also added to the mix and 36 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … wisely made use of, no muslim would have a reason to remain indifferent to the global islamic unity initiatives. afghani believed that muslims were just about ready for the project, and such an assessment was his motivation that kept him going. as if muslims were ready to feel again like a single healthy body whose parts supported each other and added to each other’s strength. the body’s heart as the centre point was makkah al-mukarramah, the arteries and veins (vessels) were pilgrims as mediums and channels, and blood that run through the vessels and sustained the body was the divine message of islam that was exemplified by the character of the holy city of makkah al-mukarramah and its hajj. in summary, afghani’s conception of islamic unity was synonymous with islam itself, and inviting people to it was in the vein of inviting them to return to islam. neither was possible without the other. as part of his purely political pan-islamism (islamic unity) drive – digressively sultan abdul hamid ii, as well, did not hesitate to take advantage of the innate opportunities presented by makkah al-mukarramah and hajj. in doing so, he was definitely influenced by afghani’s thought, even though some moves, especially the initial ones and such as were motivated exclusively by politics, might have been of his own making. this was expected, in that working towards islamic unity was a national agenda and the government’s manifesto. thus, according to jacob landau, as early as in 1881 there was a turkish manuscript on the subject of islamic unity, comprising fifteen pages. it was written by suleyman hasbi (d. 1909), the author of several printed works, and was entitled “a treatise about union for the happiness of the islamic millet (community, nation or ummah)”. the manuscript was presented to sultan abdul hamid ii and was dedicated to him. it was then incorporated into the sultan’s library. “while generally starting from religious premises, it discussed ittiféq (co-operation) and ittiíéd (union or unity) as essential for the future of the entire islamic nation attacking divisiveness (tafarruq). it pointed at the pilgrimage (hajj) as an important unifying factor for muslims everywhere and reminded these of the obedience they owed the caliph who still combined spiritual with temporal authority”65. it is furthermore said that the leaders of pilgrimage and its other officials were ordered to propagate the governmental pan-islamic ideas to pilgrims. in addition to pilgrimage, education (schools and other learning institutions) and mosques were also said to be the anchors of the pan-islamic propagandas of the sultan. the hijaz railway, constructed hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 37 … between 1901 and 1908, likewise featured a strong pan-islamic flavour and was continuously used for its publicity66. lastly, wilfrid scawen blunt mentioned “one of the most distinguished and loyal mohammedans in india”, who spoke about sultan abdul hamid ii’s pan-islamic schemes, which he asserted had not as yet found much favour in india. wilfrid scawen blunt then quoted the man and his recommendations for expediting the matter, which concentrated on the exploiting of the potentials of makkah al-mukarramah and the hajj rite, and which were proposed to supplement the sultan’s panislamic programs: “i may, however, add that by far the most formidable means which can be adopted for propagating such (pan-islamic) ideas, or for rousing a desire for islamic union, would be the distribution of pamphlets to the pilgrims at makkah al-mukarramah . the annual hajj at makkah al-mukarramah draws the more religious from all parts of india, and the ×ujjéj on their return are treated with exceptional respect and visited by their friends and neighbours, who naturally inquire about the latest news and doctrines propounded in the holy cities; so that for the dissemination of their views the most effective way would be for the propagandists to bring the ×ujjéj under their influence. i call it effective, because the influence of what the ×ujjéj say goes to the remotest villages of the mofussil”67. the man is said to have also recommended for the same objectives of pan-islamism that the transport of the indian pilgrims to jeddah be duly taken care of, and that an agent, a native of india, be appointed to look after the interests of the pilgrims while in the holy lands.68 5. conclusion makkah al-mukarramah is absolutely islamic and universally muslim, which means that it exemplifies everything that islam stands for and whatever the muslim ummah as a body of equal individuals and a federation of homogenous communities consequentiality-wise represents and can strive for. strictly speaking, makkah al-mukarramah belongs to nobody and nobody can claim control over it. instead, people belong to makkah al-mukarramah and are “controlled” by it. drawing attention to forbidden differences and kindling divisions within its holy precinct is outrageous. it is also sacrilegious to an extreme degree. as a matter of fact, doing such a thing anywhere was illegal, but in makkah almukarramah it is exceptionally so. historically, there could be no legitimate government-cum-caliphate without a contender being in charge of makkah al-mukarramah and 38 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … without discharging customary responsibilities towards it. governments were established for the ideals personified by makkah al-mukarramah, subsisting because of them. makkah al-mukarramah, it follows, was the creator and guarantor of political legitimacies, prompting muslim rulers to scramble and secure control over, and to “serve”, the holy city of makkah al-mukarramah – and that of madinah. there was no political gain for a ruler that was comparable to ruling makkah al-mukarramah (that is, the hijaz region where makkah al-mukarramah was a political midpoint, ahead of madinah and jeddah) and to the tradition of his name being endorsed on a weekly basis from the pulpit (minbar) of the city’s holy mosque (al-masjid al-íarém). as one would expect, makkah al-mukarramah occupied a prominent place in the pan-islamic thought of afghani. this was natural given the city’s extraordinary status as a holy place and a sanctuary. by the letter of the revelation, it is umm al-qura, the mother of all cities and villages, i.e., all types of urban and rural human settlements. to afghani, the potentials of makkah al-mukarramah and its hajj pilgrimage for actualizing islamic unity, brotherhood and cooperation, were unparalleled. at least on the philosophical plane, makkah almukarramah was impervious to the banes of nationalism, sectarianism and fanaticism. it was also inaccessible to the physical expansionism and colonization of the west, which rendered it somewhat safer from the permutations of international politics than the rest of the muslim world. afghani put forward the embryonic idea of establishing an international network of muslim scholars, activists and mere supporters from all walks of life, with makkah al-mukarramah functioning as a nerve centre and its annual hajj season an opportunity for regular meetings. he furthermore suggested that mosques and schools across the muslim world be transformed into centres of teaching, promulgating and facilitating islamic unity, and that makkah al-mukarramah in its capacity as the personification of islamic ideals function as the unifying factor and direction (qiblah). afghani was one of the pioneers of the muslim modern-day thought. his influence was enormous69. his ideas served as precursors to more than a few branches of muslim intellectualism in the 20th century. as a forerunner, some of his ideas were accomplished, while others were in their infancy. the latter was refined and taken to another level by his disciples and followers. just like everything, afghani’s pan-islamism and the rest of his reformist thought were subjected to the principles of evolution and progress where sometimes the pure political gusto prevailed, and at other times the one relating to the religious and hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 39 … educational concerns did. either way, makkah al-mukarramah was a direct and indirect focus of attention, in the material or immaterial sense. in any case, it stands to reason that afghani planted the seeds of the creation of the world muslim congress founded in 1949 and the organisation of islamic cooperation (oic) founded in 1969. similarly, he planted the seeds of the makkan congress in 1926, which was convened as soon as abdulaziz b. al-sa‘ud had completed his successful hijazi military campaigns and so, laid the foundation of the modern saudi arabia. both the convening of the congress and the creation of saudi arabia connoted the indirect corollaries of the abolition of the caliphate institution in istanbul in 1924. finally, what could be gleaned from the views of afghani is that for the realization of islamic unity a subtle blend of more than a few factors was needed. those factors pertained to sound islamic spirituality, good governance and far-sighted educational policies as well as programmes. so critical was the situation of the muslim community that afghani believed that every other reformative initiative depended on the success of islamic unity. the latter was the raison d’etre. even though afghani promulgated the spirit of inclusiveness, he was in favour of a top-down approach whereby guidance and decision-making were supposed to take place at the highest and at the same time most visionary levels, and were then to be communicated to and be implemented within the ambits of the rest of the community’s segments (levels). in short, muslims were to be regenerated as a single body with a visionary leadership, strong resolve, clear direction and the necessary material and immaterial wherewithal. notes and references 1 abul hussain muslim ibne hajjaj, saíêí al-muslim (15:445), translated by nasiruddin al-khattab (canada: darussalam publishers and distributors,2007) 2 nikki keddie, sayyid jamal ad-din al-afghani, a political biography, (berkeley: university of california press, 1972),1; nikki keddie, an islamic response to imperialism, (berkeley: university of california press, 1968), 3-97; jacob landau, pan-islam, history and politics, (london: routledge, 2016), 1321; albert hourani, arabic thought in the liberal age: 1798-1939, (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2013), 103-129. 3 nikki keddie, an islamic response to imperialism, 3-97. 4 nikki keddie, sayyid jamal ad-din al-afghani, a political biography, 10-373. 5 jacob landau, pan-islam, history and politics, 13-21. 6 muhammad abduh, risélah al-tawíêd, ed. muhammad ammarah (beirut: dar al-shuruq, 1994), 6. 40 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … 7 jamaluddin al-afghani, “al-wahdah al-islamiyyah”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000), 131137. 8 jamaluddin al-afghani, “al-waídah wa al-siyédah”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000) 138144. 9 jamaluddin al-afghani, “al-jinsiyyah wa al-diêyénah al-islémiyyah”, al‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth alislamiyyah, 2000) 70-74. 10 jamaluddin al-afghani, “wa la takënë ka alladhên tafarraqë wa ikhtalafu min ba‘d ma ja’ahum al-bayyinét”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000) 192-194. 11 jamaluddin al-afghani, “méìi al-ummah wa héìiruha wa ‘iléj ‘ilaliha”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000), 75-84. 12 jamaluddin al-afghani, “iníiïéï al-muslimên wa sukënuhum wa sabab dhélik”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000), 92-97. 13 jamaluddin al-afghani, “ta‘aîîub”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000), 101-111. 14 jamaluddin al-afghani, “al-ummah wa sulïah al-hékim al-mustabidd”, al‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth alislamiyyah, 2000), 171-172. 15 jamaluddin al-afghani, “da‘wah al-furs ilé al-ittiíéd ma’ al-afghén”, al‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth alislamiyyah, 2000), 173-176. 16 jamaluddin al-afghani, “al-amal wa ïalab al-majd”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000), 145-152. 17 jamaluddin al-afghani, “al-wahm”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000), 202-208. 18 jamaluddin al-afghani, al-jubn”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000), 209-214. 19 the meanings of noble quran, (08:46), translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktab maariful quran, 2010) 20 ibid (03:105). 21 ibid (49:10). 22 ibid (03:103). 23 afghani, “al-wahm”, 202-208. 24 jacob landau, pan-islam, history and politics, 17. 25 afghani, “al-waídah al-islémiyyah”, 131-137. 26 afghani, “da‘wah al-furs ilé al-ittiíéd ma’ al-afghén”,173-176. 27 afghani, “al-wahdah al-islamiyyah”, 131-137. 28 usmani, the meanings of noble quran, (42:7). 29 muslim, 15:445. 30 nikki keddie, sayyid jamal ad-din al-afghani, a political biography, 136. hamdard islamicus vol., xliv, no. 4 41 … 31 wilfrid scawen blunt, the future of islam, (london: kegan paul, trench & co., 1882), 108-109. 32 ibid., 100-101. 33 nikki keddie, sayyid jamal ad-din al-afghani, a political biography, 114126. 34 wilfrid scawen blunt, the future of islam, 189. 35 nikki keddie, an islamic response to imperialism, 24. 36 nikki keddie, sayyid jamal ad-din al-afghani, a political biography, 32. 37 william ochsenwald, religion, society and the state in arabia, (columbus: ohio state university press, 1984), 160. 38 afghani, “al-waídah wa al-siyédah”, 138-144. 39 afghani, “inhiïéï al-muslimên wa sukënuhum wa sabab dhélik dhalik” 92-97. 40 jamaluddin al-afghani, “limadha sadarat al-jaridah”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000), 66. 41 ibid., 66. 42 ibid., 64-65. 43 snouck hurgronje, mekka in the latter part of the 19th century, (leiden: brill, 2007), 262. 44 mahmoud haddad, arab religious nationalism in the colonial era: rereading rashid rida’s ideas on the caliphate, “journal of the american oriental society”, vol. 117, no. 2 (apr. jun., 1997), 253277. 45 wilfrid scawen blunt, the future of islam, 74-76. 46 jacob landau, pan-islam, history and politics, 21. 47 nikki keddie, an islamic response to imperialism, 25. 48 alyson chouinard, a response to tanzimat: sultan abdul hamid ii and panislamism,: “inquiries journal”, vol. 2, no. 5, 2010, http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/252/a-response-to-tanzimat-sultanabdul-hamid-ii-and-pan-islamism, accessed on august 11, 2021. 49 nikki keddie, an islamic response to imperialism, 32. 50 ibid., 32-33. 51 ibid., 31. 52 ibid., 30; nikki keddie, sayyid jamal ad-din al-afghani, a political biography, 212, 349. 53 nikki keddie, an islamic response to imperialism, 31. 54 jacob landau, pan-islam, history and politics, 20. 55 ibid., 38. 56 jamaluddin al-afghani, “al-mahdiyyah ii”, al-rasé’il wa al-maqélét, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000), 3237. 57 ibid., 32-37. 58 jamaluddin al-afghani, “al-khilafah”, dhiyé’ al-khéfiqên, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (tehran: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 1959), 79-81. 59 afghani, “inhiïéï al-muslimên wa sukënuhum wa sabab dhélik dhalik”, al-‘urwah al-wuthqa, ed. sayyid hadi khosroushahi, (qom: markaz al-buhuth al-islamiyyah, 2000) 92-97. http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/252/a-response-to-tanzimat-sultan-abdul-hamid-ii-and-pan-islamism http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/252/a-response-to-tanzimat-sultan-abdul-hamid-ii-and-pan-islamism 42 makkah al-mukarramah in the pan-islamic… … 60 ibid., 92-97. 61 ibid., 92-97. 62 afghani, “al-waídah wa al-siyédah” 138-144. 63 sahih al-bukhari (45:83), translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 64 usmani, the meanings of noble quran (28:57) 65 jacob landau, pan-islam, history and politics, 24. 66 ibid., 56-83. 67 wilfrid scawen blunt, the future of islam, 210. 68 ibid., 210. 69 muhammad iqbal, the reconstruction of religious thought in islam, (stanford: stanford university press, 2012), 78. c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlvii january-march 2024 no.1 contents * editorial * the evaluation of the distinction of manifest (ẓāhir) and hidden (bāṭin) in the context of moral relativity in the thought of ibn al-‘arabī — dr. omer ceran * an in-depth analysis of al faruqi's theory of islamization of knowledge: a perspective from thomas kuhn's paradigm shift theory — mohammad muslih — usmanul khakim — amir sahidin * fostering customer loyalty among muslim clients: strategies for islamic banks — roni andespa — yulia hendri yeni * issues on waqf and roles of waqf authorities: evidence from indonesia and singapore — dr lisa listiana — dr syed musa alhabshi — dr zamri osman * the evolution of islamic law in indonesia: a socio-historical perspective on its struggle for existence — achmad irwan hamzani — soesi idayanti the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 27 101 51 9 79 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 101 the effect of islamic work ethics on academics’ career success: the mediating role of psychological capital resources mohammed mustafa mohammed college of business studies, sudan university of science and technology, khartoum, sudan email: m.mustafa@sustech.edu mohammad nazrimohd nor faculty of business & accountancy, university of malaya 50603 um, kuala lumpur, malaysia email: nazrry@um.edu.my safiah omar faculty of business & accountancy, university of malaya 50603 um, kuala lumpur, malaysia email: safiah@um.edu.my muhammad zia aslam faculty of business & management sciences, superior university, lahore, pakistan email: ziach1@gmail.com hasnunanipbustaman faculty of business management, universititeknologi mara 18500 machang, kelantan, malaysia email: hasnu380@kelantan.uitm.edu.my received on: 10-08-21 accepted on: 29-08-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.322 mailto:m.mustafa@sustech.edu mailto:nazrry@um.edu.my mailto:safiah@um.edu.my mailto:ziach1@gmail.com mailto:hasnu380@kelantan.uitm.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i3.322 102 the effect of islamic work… abstract everyone is working hard to be successful in his/her career and life overall as well. however, that requires an individual to be more ethical, committed, and self-contented towards his/her expected goal. hence, this study aims to explore the influence of islamic work ethics (iwe) on academics’ career success (acs), besides the role of psychological capital (psycap) as mediation between iwe and acs. the study follows a deductive methodological approach, while the structural equation modelling technique (sem) applied for analyzing the model. the data was collected from full-time academic staff in public universities in sudan. after analyzing 236 questionnaires, the findings indicated that iwe is positively related to the acs. furthermore, psycap was a significant mediator between iwe and acs. accordingly, these results were contributed to the theory of conservation of resource (cor) by identifying the role of iwe as one of the peace resources that help academic staff in generating additional resources to achieve their career goals. lastly, the practical implications and new streams for further studies are discussed. keywords: islamic work ethics, academics’ career success, psychological capital. 1. introduction career success is a resource that has a prominent impact on academic staff performance by increasing their motivation and satisfaction. it also enhances academicians’ ability to achieve the university’s vision and mission in the long-run.1hence, career success phenomenon becomes an interesting area of research in human resource (hr) platform2 that has a considerable effect on individuals along with the organization.3 for an individual, career success increases his/her selfesteem, commitment, engagement, competent identity to a particular area of career4 in the short term, whereas, it has a significant effect on his/her feelings toward life satisfaction and happiness in the long run.5 more importantly, career success pushes the wheels of the organization towards development and sustainability through the success of employees.6 however, the organizations today and universities, in particular, have adopted the new concept of “psychological contract shift” which lift-up the responsibility of career development from university management to the academic staff which increases their day-to-day academic overload.7 as a result, academicians need to be more proactive in managing and developing their careers with respect to attaining their hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 103 career success in the future.8 in a similar vein, the public universities in sudan have low interest in improving the career success indicators among academic staff which consist of; objective indicators (i.e., position, promotion, pay, and publication [4ps]) and subjective indicators (i.e., career and job satisfaction).9 for example, zakaria highlighted that public universities pay inadequate salary and bonuses to their academic staff, besides, the lack of financing for projects.10 in relation to this, el-shikieri and musa found that some of the academicians in sudanese universities were dissatisfied and had no commitment to their institutions.11 therefore, the anecdotal evidence ensures that there are two types of career success indicators (objective/extrinsic and subjective/intrinsic) which need to be taken into considerations by the public universities in sudan. wherein, objective success involves tangible indicators like salary, promotion, and publication meanwhile, subjective success contains career and job satisfaction. although this study focuses on subjective career success (scs)12 for measuring academics’ career success for several reasons; a) subjective career success increases the employees’ happiness and life satisfaction.13 b) subjective success in career improves the employee proactivity, performance in general and learning skills development which contribute to the organization productivity. however, it reduces employees’ turnover intention, actual turnover, and other deviant behaviors.14 to achieve career success, academic staff requires psychological resources in order to enhance their motivations. according to spurk and his colleagues, who argue from the conservation of resource (cor) perspective, career success is a resource which people work hard to protect from loss or keep it through investing in other resources.15 in line with the logic of cor theoretical approach, this study focuses on psychological resources’ role in elevating the level of academics’ career success. for instance, islamic work ethic (iwe) and psychological capital (psycap) as personal psychological resources can predict and generate additional resources such as scs. that in line with the empirical evidence, which emphasized that iwe has a significant effect on employees’ commitment, satisfaction, organization citizenship behavior (ocb), while, reducing the employee turnover intention.16 although the importance of academics’ career success is a phenomenon, there is a lack of antecedents and mediators to provide more explanation of academics’ career success in term of theory and practice.17 therefore, the objectives of this study are first; to utilize islamic work ethics (iwe) as a primary predictor for academics’ career success 104 the effect of islamic work… because, the previous research showed a lacking in investigating that relationship between iwe and career success. second; this study introduces psycap’s resources (hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism [hero]) as a mediating variable between iwe and academics’ career success. 2. literature review 2.1 career success career success is defined as “the positive psychological or workrelated outcomes or achievements one accumulates as a result of work experiences.”18 career success is more related to the individual’s considerations about a positive career outcome related to his/her experiences over time.19 accordingly, arthur and colleagues narrate another definition showing the dynamic nature of career success. that it is “the accomplishment of desirable work-related outcomes at any point in a person’s work experiences over time.”20 moreover, career success evaluated based on two types of indicators which are objective and subjective success indicators.21 objective career success (ocs) is observed by the third parties or considered as tangible indicators such as salary, promotions, hierarchical status, and publication, whereas the subjective career success (scs) is focusing on intangible indicators which subjected to personal evaluations based on prior experiences such as job and career satisfaction.22 from the subjective viewpoint, people have different career aspirations, values, and desires towards organizational factors such as work status, income, employment security, progression in the job, learning process, and work-family balance in terms of time-spent versus gained benefits.23 meanwhile, objective success has a useful link with the social role and official position at the workplace that comprised from the income, job level, occupation, family situation, and tasks.24 further, objective success is reflecting the social understanding that shared by groups instead of the individual.25 however, current literature depicts that, there is no comprehensive definition and specific measurement for career success due to the scholars’ standpoint of profession’s background and environment.26 on one hand, arthur and colleagues27 reported that the majority of traditional studies focused on exploring the objective success that related to progression, advancement, salary (pay), external marketability,28 number of research publication, promotion, and/or hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 105 current positions.29 on the other hand, the contemporary researches concentrated on studying the career success from the subjective side that is measured by job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and internal marketability.30 consequently, there is a lack of consistency among scholars regarding comprehensive indicators that measure career success. accordingly, this study focuses on subjective career success (psychological success)31 because it was recently found that scs influences ocs in the long term.32 in other words, when an individual becomes more satisfied in his/her career, they will be motivated and happily working for achieving his/her success in career regardless of tangible incomes for that career. in addition, career success has been studied from different perspectives related to the context of a career’s nature, such as manager success, student success, worker success, and teachers’ success. however, all the stated contexts have their considerations about career success in terms of their measurements. regarding this, abele and others depicted that career success varies from one occupational context to another, and there is a difference between measures of career success as well. therefore, this research focuses on academics’ career success in public universities in sudan, since little is known about their experiences of career success.33 2.2 the role of conservation of resource (cor) theory conservation of resource (cor) theory34 is considered as one of the essential theories in the last 30 years.35 cor deals with “objective reality” or “common appraisal” that is shared through groups of people, organizations, and culture36 because it concentrates on circumstances that are related to stressors and challenges. originally, the theory was proposed to deal with life stress. however, cor became a major theory in the field of burnout research as well as the emerging fields in positive psychology.37 the primary tenet of that theory is that people strive to gain, retain, foster, and protect their resources.38 further, cor theory proposed that some issues play a central value for human related to health, well-being, peace, family, self-preservation, and a positive sense of self, even if the core elements of sense of self differ culturally.39 this emphasizes that the organization should work hard to increase the motivation resources among employees in order to retain them in their organization. empirically, cor theory indicates that employee has a motivation for promoting, maintaining, and developing his/her existing 106 the effect of islamic work… resources in order to get or acquire additional resources in the future. in other words, the presence of suitable individual resources which can be represented by a person’s skills, material wealth, social networks and free time. thus, all these factors contribute to one’s well-being.40 therefore, this model is guided by cor assumption that academic staff strives to gain, maintain, and foster the positive resources which in turn assist them to achieve their career success in the future. according to alarcon and colleagues, the person who is high in psycap’s resources can be acquiring a vast reservoir of resources or considered as person who less likely to have inadequate personal resources which leadss them to experience a high level of physical and psychological well-being.41 hence, this model is driven by personal resources (islamic work ethics and psychological capital) that act as personal motivators for guiding academic staff for achieving their career success. therefore, the theory of cor plays a significant role in explaining the model understudy (see figure 2.1). 2.3 islamic work ethics (iwe) and academics’ career success in general, islam is a way of life specially in any muslim country, but iwe is a belief about the work ethic that has varied across time and countries.42 recently, the prime role of religious beliefs and the notion that they have a potential connection with practices in management and organizational outcomes surfaced.43 this connection however is deemed unclear because of the dearth of studies conducted in this area. despite the fact that anecdotal evidence asserts that religion is shaping peoples’ daily lives.44 traditionally, scholars of business and management have neutralized the organizations by putting the religion out of the equation. so, they ignored the possible association between religion and other domains in management at the workplace.45 in contrast, the religious part is very important among employees within an organization due to their ethical issues controlled by religious commands. in fact, there are several religions over the world, but only two popular theories based on religion concepts which are; protestant work ethics (pwe) which reflects the christianity’s prospective and islamic work ethics (iwe) that is grounded in the islamic perspective.46 iwe began to attract researchers’ attention during the middle of the 1980s. since then, it has not been investigated enough in relation to the possible mediators and outcomes. hence, many gaps still exist which have been identified in the seminal work of mohamed, karim and hussein in malaysia.47 iwe is described as the ethics that is rooted in the ground of islamic teaching and principles which depend on the islamic faith.48 moreover, iwe is vital for many organizations in order to reduce hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 107 the unethical behavior and practices in the workplace such as sexual harassment, corruption, deviant cases, fraud, and many others.49 similarly, iwe refers to the principle of right and wrong clearly advocated through the word of allah almighty.50 many years later, beekun defined iwe as a set of moral codes and goodness principles that distinguish right practices from wrong in the workplace based on an islamic perspective.51 originally, iwe is stemmed from two islamic main resources that the holy quran (the word of allah almighty) and sunnah of prophet hadrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyin sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam, while the other two resources are consensus of scholars (ijmaa’) and analogy (qiyas) which have been established by muslim scholars to deal with a newer situation that need to be addressed and judged. therefore, ethics can be applied in every part of muslims’ life or organizational practices. accordingly, there are two dimensions shaping the ethics in islam; first set ethics toward the creator (allah almighty). thus, every muslim has to believe in the creator (allah almighty) is one and then has to worship him alone in a way that is described in the holy qur’an and the authentic sayings and teachings of the prophet hadrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyin sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam. second set, ethics toward other people; a muslim as a person, needs to respect the code of conduct with others during his/her lifespan through maintaining well treatment and relationship with others.52 on the other hand, iwe has contradicted the theory x, which assumes that a human (man) is lazy and inherently dislikes work.53 while, iwe motivates people to work through emphasizing the importance of work as a virtue for human’s needs fulfilment, besides the necessity to achieve the life-balance among the individual itself and overall society.54 iwe also stimulates an individual to work hard for achieving his/her expected objectives, which is advocated by several quranic verses and authentic hadiths. for example, allah almighty says: “he is the one who has made the earth subjugated for you, so walk on its shoulders, and eat out of his provision, and to him is the resurrection.”55 in sunnah, there is a hadith on how to perform the work properly to earn a living in an islamic way. prophet hadrat muhammad rasulullah khatam un nabiyyin sallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabihi wa sallam said: 108 the effect of islamic work… “if someone goes out to seek nourishment for his small children, he is in the way of allah almighty. and if he works for his old father and mother, he is in the way of allah almighty. and if he works for himself for modesty, it is in the way of allah almighty, but if he works for the purpose of pride and boasting, he is in the way of satan.”56 related to this, the empirical evidence emphasized the value of iwe, besides, it is the ability to increase employees’ intrinsic motivation for achieving their positive outcomes (e.g., success, commitment, and ocb) whereas it is negatively related to counterproductive behavior.57 further, the literature showed that there is a limitation and sacristy of iwe research. although, iwe has been studied more in banking sector58 but is limited in other fields. in line with this, iwe has been studied with a variety of work outcomes such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, organizational performance,59 ocb,60 spur helping behavior.61 these researches indicated that iwe has a positive relationship with positive work outcomes. according to salahudin and colleagues investigated the effect of iwe on smes organizational commitment in malaysia.62 the results showed that iwe has a direct effect on organizational commitment. in a different context, in pakistan, tufail and others examined the impact of iwe on female academic staff’s ocb mediated by employee engagement.63 the study confirmed that iwe is directly related to ocb and indirectly through employee engagement. in other words, an individual with iwe is more engaged in his work and has high ocb in the workplace. moreover, there are other studies related to iwe that have been conducted during covid-19 pandemic situation which has had a clear effect on economic and business of the whole world.64 however, the evidence showed that iwe has a positive impact on employees’ outcomes, such as public service motivation in iraqi institutions,65job satisfaction in indonesian financial institutions,66 and moderates the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational practice in pakistan.67 therefore, we propose that the iwe has a positive relationship with academics’ psychological career success because when the academic staff embraces iwe principles, they become more stimulated to work hard and achieve success in their career. h1: iwe is positively related to academics’ career success. 2.4 islamic work ethics and psychological capital resources hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 109 as mentioned earlier, iwe is needed in the organizations nowadays due to the importance of promoting employees’ ethics at the workplace. the prior studies have shown the role of iwe in momentum employees’ satisfaction and motivation as well as all positive resources such as psychological capital (psycap) resources (hero).68 accordingly, sehhat and his colleagues examined the effect of iwe on psycap resources (hero) among newcomers who work in 6 public organizations in iran. the result revealed that iwe has a positive effect on psycap. this work opens the gate for scholars by showing the possibility of using iwe as a predictor for positive psychological resources. recently, empirical evidence emphasized that iwe has both direct and indirect effects on attitudinal as well as behavioral outcomes for malaysian employees in islamic financial bank institutions.69 this evidence related to the assumption of cor theory that people who embrace iwe; they strive and work hard for generating additional resources such as hero. however, and according to our best of knowledge, the study by sehhat70 is the only study that has been published in web of science, scopus, or google scholar platforms which investigates the direct effect of iwe on psycap, although the importance of investigating the direct and indirect relationship between iwe and psycap for expanding the theoretical perspective and practice in organizations. therefore, and based on the cor assumptions, we theorize that iwe promotes academic staff resources to attain their success in career. h2: iwe is positively related to academics’ psycap’s resources (hero) 2.5 psychological capital and academics’ career success psychological capital (psycap), a newly emerged construct under the umbrella of positive psychology research is defined as “the study and application of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement in today’s workplace.”71 additionally, psycap has a positive psychological strength, which is defined as “one’s positive appraisal of circumstances and probability for success based on motivated effort and perseverance.”72 psycap comprises four dimensions that are hope, (self)-efficacy, resilience, and optimism, the so-called (hero).73 more specifically, psycap refers to “an individual’s positive psychological state of development and is 110 the effect of islamic work… characterized by: (1) having confidence (self-efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain success.”74 previous literature showed that psycap has a strong effect on several work outcomes such as career success and work-life balance, performance and satisfaction. related to this, direnzo and others found that psycap had predicted employability and career success as well as work-life balance. 75 in other words, employees with high psycap resources would be more successful in their career and committed to continue working in the organization. in addition, luthans and others76 examined the effect of psycap on management students’ performance and satisfaction at the university of midwestern in the us. the result revealed that psycap has a positive effect on both employees’ performance and satisfaction. in a different context, luthans and his colleagues have studied the role of psycap on 422 workers’ performance in china. the findings showed that psycap is positively correlated with workers’ performance.77 in sudan, there is one study has done by mohammed and colleagues that has examined the direct relationship between psycap and career success. the results discovered that the positive effect of psycap on career success among academicians in sudanese universities.78 therefore, psycap resources (hero) have a significant impact on academics’ career success. h3: psycap is positively related to academics’ career success. 2.6 the mediation role of psychological capital resources currently, the anecdotal evidence detected that psycap mediates several types of attitudes and behaviors. for example, psycap played a significant mediator role between servant leadership and its positive outcomes (i.e., intention to remain and ocb) and negative outcomes (i.e., lateness attitude).79 in other words, psycap helps employees with reducing their lateness and enhancing their intention to remain and ocb. in china, ngo and colleagues have examined the mediation effect of psycap resources between gender and career success. the result revealed that psycap resources mediate the relationship between gender and career success.80 recently, mohammed and others have investigated the hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 111 mediation role of psycap in the relationship between protean career orientation (pco) and career success. the results confirmed that psycap has a significant mediation effect between pco and career success of university teachers in sudanese context.81 moreover, hobfoll and others have stressed the importance of the cor theory as a comprehensive theory for explaining the antecedents, mechanisms, and outcomes of career success.82 based on this, the employees who experience psycap resources, they will work hard to protect these resources and generate additional resources for attaining their success in career and psychological well-being as well. in other words, employees with iwe will devote more effort to achieve their career success by increasing their positive psycap resources (hero). therefore, we propose that psycap has a mediation role between iwe and academics’ career success. h4: psycap will mediate the relationship between iwe and academics’ career success. the study model figure 2.1: study framework based on cor theory 3. research methods 3.1 procedures and instruments data was collected from 5 public universities in sudan in order to meet the purpose of this study by employing a selfadministered questionnaire (hand to hand). first, we applied the 112 the effect of islamic work… g*power 3.1 software83 for calculating the sample size with the following criteria: f2 = 0.15 (medium), α = 0.05,84 number of predictors = 2 and the power was set at 80%.85 the sample size required to test the model is 68 respondents, but this number was tripled to be 204 for having a useful effect size. second, on the other hand, the data were collected by distributing 50 bundles of questionnaires to each of these five universities, which mean the complete questionnaires distributed were 250. however, the final questionnaires collected were 236, which is equivalent to the response rate 94.4%. finally, the questionnaire formed in 3 parts: part (a); involves questions about career success, part (b) covers the questions about psycap and pco. lastly, part (c) includes information related to the demographic data of the respondents. the items used to measure academics’ psychological career success adopted and adapted from greenhaus and colleagues work in 1990.86 whereas the measurements related to gauge psycap and iwe were adapted from luthans and colleagues in 2012,87 and tufail work in 2016,88 respectively. the authors asked respondents to select the suitable answer according to their opinion based on the likert scale from 1–5 points, where 1 indicates strongly disagree and 5 indicates strongly agree. 3.2 respondents’ profile the demographic data of the participants are specified in table (1.2) which comprised of males (66.9%) and females (33.1%). a majority of the respondents are phd holders; the percentage being 50.8%. this is due to the requirement of being a lecturer in public universities in sudan. most of the respondents are located in khartoum and sudan university (32.6% and 28.8%), respectively. these universities are considered the top two in sudan and have more students compared to the other universities. respondents’ profile data frequency percentag e gender male 158 66.9 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 113 female 78 33.1 age less than 25 yrs 15 6.4 25 – 35 85 36.0 36 – 45 78 33.1 more than 45 yrs 58 24.6 marital status single 71 30.1 married 159 67.4 divorced 6 2.5 educational level bachelor's degree 15 6.4 master's degree 100 42.4 phd 120 50.8 others 1 .4 experience less than 5 yrs 53 22.5 5 – 10 67 28.4 11 – 15 46 19.5 more than 15 yrs 70 29.7 working institution university of khartoum 77 32.6 sudan university of science and technology 68 28.8 university of gezira 36 15.3 114 the effect of islamic work… al-neelain university 32 13.6 omdurman islamic university 23 9.7 table 3.1: articulate the participants’ profile 4. data analysis and results for evaluating this study’s model, partial least squares (pls) technique was used through applying the smart-pls 3.2.6 is a new version released.89 we followed the structural equation modeling (sem) theory which recommends any model to undergo through two-stage analytical procedures90 that can be applied for both reflective and formative constructs.91 accordingly, we conducted the measurement model test (validity and reliability of constructs) followed by the structural model (testing the hypotheses),92 testing the path coefficients besides the use of bootstrapping method (5000 resampling) for loadings.93 4.1 measuring reflective criteria there are two types of validity used for assessing the model’s measurements, which are the convergent validity (cv) and followed by discriminant validity (dv). 4.1.1 convergent validity the convergent validity of measurements model is evaluated through analyzing three criteria; (1) factors loadings, (2) average variance extracted (ave), and (3) composite reliability (cr).94 there are three criteria found in the literature for acceptable value for loadings are >0.5, 0.6, or 0.7.95 however, the last criterion (>0.7) is recommended by methodologists nowadays. hence, the items’ loadings for this model were above 0.7, except one item related to iwe measures was 0.69. besides, the composite reliability (cr) for every dimension was more than threshold 0.7; and the ave for every variable achieved more than 0.5, as suggested in the literature (see table 4.1). hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 115 sec ond ord er first order/ dimens ions ite ms facto r load ings cronb ach's alpha rho _a comp osite reliab ility (cr) avera ge varia nce extracte d (ave) p s y c h ol o gi c al c a pi ta l efficac y se2 0.733 0.823 0.82 4 0.876 0.587 se3 0.779 se4 0.826 se5 0.76 se6 0.728 hope ho1 0.715 0.758 0.76 4 0.847 0.581 ho3 0.756 ho4 0.744 ho5 0.83 resilie nce re1 0.799 0.764 0.77 6 0.848 0.584 re2 0.805 re4 0.734 re5 0.713 optimi sm op3 0.758 0.797 0.79 7 0.868 0.623 116 the effect of islamic work… op4 0.802 op5 0.828 op6 0.766 islamic work ethics iw e1 0.792 0.891 0.89 6 0.915 0.606 iw e11 0.766 iw e2 0.857 iw e3 0.765 iw e4 0.753 iw e5 0.818 iw e7 0.69 acade mics’ career succes s sub 1 0.793 0.807 0.83 4 0.864 0.564 sub 2 0.82 sub 3 0.534 sub 4 0.826 sub 5 0.743 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 117 table 4.1: assessment of construct convergent validity hope optimi sm resilien ce effica cy acs iwe ho1 0.715 0.238 0.424 0.441 0.215 0.398 ho3 0.756 0.368 0.456 0.392 0.21 0.373 ho4 0.744 0.329 0.46 0.46 0.305 0.27 ho5 0.83 0.454 0.484 0.49 0.281 0.414 op3 0.399 0.758 0.33 0.399 0.227 0.371 op4 0.313 0.802 0.272 0.385 0.221 0.346 op5 0.364 0.828 0.296 0.368 0.384 0.258 op6 0.375 0.766 0.298 0.389 0.328 0.25 re1 0.486 0.303 0.799 0.388 0.304 0.334 re2 0.55 0.321 0.805 0.466 0.231 0.417 re4 0.406 0.383 0.734 0.276 0.243 0.326 re5 0.359 0.128 0.713 0.258 0.249 0.305 se2 0.5 0.418 0.394 0.733 0.354 0.26 se3 0.459 0.397 0.299 0.779 0.299 0.324 se4 0.473 0.355 0.374 0.826 0.293 0.338 se5 0.389 0.306 0.341 0.76 0.287 0.233 se6 0.415 0.391 0.372 0.728 0.276 0.365 sub1 0.318 0.37 0.253 0.253 0.793 0.123 118 the effect of islamic work… sub2 0.318 0.34 0.222 0.354 0.82 0.058 sub3 0.051 0.243 0.068 0.134 0.534 -0.148 sub4 0.21 0.209 0.309 0.304 0.826 0.033 sub5 0.252 0.221 0.325 0.373 0.743 0.092 iwe1 0.332 0.246 0.35 0.333 0.056 0.792 iwe11 0.379 0.28 0.339 0.349 0.059 0.766 iwe2 0.383 0.288 0.379 0.323 0.055 0.857 iwe3 0.382 0.27 0.399 0.245 0.111 0.765 iwe4 0.405 0.403 0.362 0.349 0.121 0.753 iwe5 0.382 0.361 0.366 0.339 0.005 0.818 iwe7 0.328 0.246 0.276 0.206 -0.016 0.69 table 4.2: cross loadings 4.1.2 discriminant validity there are three criteria for assessing the discriminant validity (dv), namely by examining cross-loadings; fornell-larcker criterion; and htmt. first, for evaluating the items’ cross-loadings scores, that can be described as score of outers loadings for items of latent variable in one construct should be greater than the respective items’ cross-loading of latent variable’s cross-loading for another latent variable.96 table 4.2 reflects that the outer loading of each indicator was greater its respective latent variable than its cross-loading on another latent variable. second, for examining the dv, the criterion fornell-larcker was applied wherein the square root of ave for each latent variable should be ranked higher than its correlation with another latent variable. in line with the stated criteria, we found that the square root of ave for every latent variable was more than its correlation with another latent variable. the outcome is explained in table 4.3 below. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 119 finally, based on heterotrait-monotrait ratio (htmt) as a new criterion for assessing discriminant validity which was proposed by henseler since 2015.97 this recent approach was able to reveal the estimation of the true correlation between two latent variables.98 for assessing htmt, the threshold value should be less than 0.90, which had been suggested by henseler.99 if the result is above 0.90, this shows a lack of discriminant validity. relatedly, table 4.4 shows that the htmt criterion according to the rule of thumb that all values should be less than 0.90. eventually, table 4.5 shows that all hypotheses were supported because of the t-value > 1.96 and p<0.01. while the psycap plays a significant mediator on the relationship between iwe and academics’ career success (see discussion part). in addition, the result of r square test for endogenous variables was (0.276) for academics’ career success and (0.301) for psycap while all these values considered as substantial, which is more than the threshold (0.26) based on cohen’s rule of thumb.100 on the other hand, the exogenous variable reported based on the cohen (1988) rule of thumb which indicates that (0.02, 0.15, and 0.35) small size, medium size, and substantial effect respectively. for this model, iwe has a relationship with academics’ career success has a small size (0.068). in contrast, iwe has a relationship with psycap has a substantial effect (0.431), and finally, psycap in relation with academics’ career success is having a substantial impact (0.373) as well (see table 4.5) below. acs effic acy ho pe iwe optimis m resilien ce a.career success 0.75 1 efficacy 0.39 5 0.766 hope 0.33 3 0.586 0.76 2 iwe 0.07 6 0.398 0.47 8 0.779 optimism 0.36 8 0.489 0.46 1 0.389 0.789 120 the effect of islamic work… resilience 0.33 5 0.466 0.59 9 0.456 0.38 0.764 table 4.3: fornell and larcker criterion acs effica cy ho pe iw e optim ism resili ence academic career success efficacy 0.462 hope 0.39 0.739 iwe 0.152 0.459 0.57 9 optimism 0.46 0.602 0.58 5 0.45 6 resilience 0.401 0.572 0.77 4 0.54 5 0.474 table 4.4: htmt criterion 4.2 structural model assessment to get an appropriate result from path modeling technique, we run bootstrapping for the path coefficient. specifically, we analyzed the path coefficient,101 r2(r-square) of cohen,102 and q2 (q-square),103 (see table 4.5 and figure 4.1) which reflects the hypotheses testing. hypot hesis relationship std. bet a std. err or tvalue decisi on r 2 f 2 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 121 h1 iwe -> academics' career success 0.26 5 0.07 4 ***3. 587 suppor ted 0.2 76 0.0 68 h2 iwe ->psycap 0.54 9 0.08 6 ***6. 369 suppor ted 0.3 01 0.4 31 h3 psycap -> academics' career success 0.62 2 0.07 1 ***8. 783 suppor ted 0.3 73 h4 (media tion) iwe -> academics' career success 0.34 1 0.08 3 ***4. 125 suppor ted table 4.5: results stemming from structural modeling note: ***p<0.005, **p<0.01, *p<0.05. iwe (islamic work ethics), psycap (psychological capital), and acs (academic career success). the statistical model figure 4.1: the statistical model of the study 5. discussion and conclusion this study aims to investigate the impact of iwe on academics’ career success in public universities in sudan besides the role of psycap in mediating the relationship between iwe and academics’ career success based on the cor theory. the results showed that all hypotheses have 122 the effect of islamic work… supported which are sectioned into direct effect and indirect effect as following. firstly, for the indirect effect, iwe has a positive impact on psycap and academics’ career success. psycap is positively related to academics’ career success. these findings are congruent with previous studies which emphasized the significant role of iwe on enhancing employees’ positive outcomes, such as job satisfaction, locus of control, positive psychological resources, and ocb.104 in addition, the theoretical tenets of cor pointed out that persons seek to gain resources that are in line with their characteristics, conditions, objects, and energies.105 so, iwe and psycap are resources that academicians need to obtain and that help them to generate additional resources in the future. these resources considered as “entities that either are centrally valued in their own right (e.g., self-esteem, close attachments, health, and inner peace), or act as means to obtain centrally valued ends (e.g., money, social support, and credit).”106 grounded on that logic, iwe is a personal resource that related to inner peace which enhances individuals to gain their success in a career as well as psychological well-being. moreover, iwe, is a resource that is captures the muslim belief system, besides his/her internal and external values such as dedication and perseverance at work. where, iwe transforms individual to be more hopeful, self-efficacious, resilient, and optimistic to achieve their career success. secondly, the results also revealed that psycaphas has a positive impact on academics’ career success. this result support other scholars’ findings107 who came to the same conclusion. however, in terms of mediation, this study found that psycap has a positive mediation effect on the relationship between iwe and academics’ career success. we argue that this is an essential finding in academics’ career success literature because prior studies focused on the role of psycap as predictor or outcome108 instead of checking its value in being a mechanism to gain positive outcomes. however, recently, newman and his colleagues found that psycap mediates the relationship between social support and refugees’ well-being in australia.109 that finding showed the value of psycap for increasing refugees’ well-being. similarly, in this study, psycap resources are considered as an essential mechanism that helps academicians to attain their career success. moreover, according to the cor theory, academicians who embrace iwe which helps them to generate positive psycap resources (i.e., hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism) which in turn would help them achieve their career success in career. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 123 6. significance of the study this study aspires to contribute to the theory and practice in the area of career success of academics in the universities. from the theoretical perspective, the study investigated the role of iwe on academics’ career success as well as the mediation effect of psycap on that relationship. however, a few studies had been conducted in this area. also, the results of this study expanded the cor theory110 by documenting that iwe is one of the peace resources that enhances individuals for generating additional resources to achieve their goals. relating to this, people who have iwe resource, they can attain their success in a career directly or indirectly by generating other resources such as hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism (hero). from the practical perspective, the findings will be beneficial not only to the academic staff but also to the universities as well as it would be helpful in increasing their understanding of the psychological resources that have the potential to generate career success of the academics. furthermore, the study supported the proposal for institutions to pay attention to developing an individual(s) psychological resource (iwe and hero) that might increase their opportunity to achieve their career success. finally, this study also provided direction for future research that researchers need to apply cor theory for a different type of resources to identify the suitable resources that could assist employees for fulfilling their goal. 7. limitations and future avenues the positive psychology movement111 has three streams; positive emotions, positive individual traits, and positive institutions. this study focused on positive individual traits (iwe and psycap) only and their influence on the career success of academics from the cor theory perspective. further, iwe has multi-values, especially in the muslim community (population). however, this study investigated the full-time lecturers in sudanese public universities only. these limitations may open new streams for researchers and academicians while addressing career success from other positive psychological predictors, for example, positive emotions and positive institutions or they could apply other theories that address career success such as the goal-setting theory. they can also replicate this model in different contexts for having more validation. 124 the effect of islamic work… notes and references 1spurk, daniel, andreas hirschi, and nicky dries, "antecedents and outcomes of objective versus subjective career success: competing perspectives and future directions," journal of management 45, no. 1 (2019): 35-69; said, al-mansor abu, tengku abduljalal, tenku shahraniza, roziah mohd rasdi, mazni alias, and suzaimah sulaiman, " academics’ career success at malaysian research universities: a literature review,” australian journal of basic and applied sciences 9, no. 25 (2015): 16-23. 2cumbler, ethan, patrick rendón, esseyyirdaw, patrick kneeland, read pierce, christine d. jones, and carrie herzke, "keys to career success: resources and barriers identified by early career academic hospitalists," journal of general internal medicine 33, no. 5 (2018): 588-589; walsh, lisa c., julia k. boehm, and sonja lyubomirsky, "does happiness promote career success? revisiting the evidence," journal of career assessment 26, no. 2 (2018): 199-219. 3dai, liangtie, and fuhui song, "subjective career success: a literature review and prospect," journal of human resource and sustainability studies 4, no. 3 (2016): 238242. 4hall, douglas t., and dawn e. chandler, "psychological success: when the career is a calling," journal of organizational behavior: the international journal of industrial, occupational and organizational psychology and behavior 26, no. 2 (2005): 155-176. 5abele, andrea e., tamara hagmaier, and daniel spurk, "does career success make you happy? the mediating role of multiple subjective success evaluations," journal of happiness studies 17, no. 4 (2016): 1615-1633. 6stumpf, stephen a, "a longitudinal study of career success, embeddedness, and mobility of early career professionals," journal of vocational behavior 85, no. 2 (2014): 180-190. 7ibid. 8ibid. 9arthur, michael b., svetlana n. khapova, and celeste pm wilderom, "career success in a boundaryless career world," journal of organizational behavior: the international journal of industrial, occupational and organizational psychology and behavior 26, no. 2 (2005): 177-202; de vos, ans, and nele soens, "protean attitude and career success: the mediating role of self-management," journal of vocational behavior 73, no. 3 (2008): 449-456. 10 abdall, suliman zakaria suliman, "quality assurance in sudanese higher education: current status and challenges ahead," journal of total quality management 17, no. 01 (2016): 1-18. 11 el shikieri, ahlam b., and hassan a. musa, "factors associated with occupational stress and their effects on organizational performance in a sudanese university," creative education 3, no. 01 (2012): 134. 12yin, hongbiao, wenyan wang, shenghua huang, and hongli li, "psychological capital, emotional labor and exhaustion: examining mediating and moderating models," current psychology 37, no. 1 (2018): 343-356. 13abele, andrea e., and daniel spurk, "the longitudinal impact of self-efficacy and career goals on objective and subjective career success," journal of vocational behavior 74, no. 1 (2009): 53-62. 14ibid. 15ibid. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 125 16ali abbas, j., and abdullah al-owaihan, "islamic work ethic: a critical review,” cross cultural management: an international journal 15, no. 1 (2008): 5-19; tufail, uzma, muhammad shakil ahmad, t. ramayah, farzand ali jan, and iqtidar ali shah, "impact of islamic work ethics on organisational citizenship behaviours among female academic staff: the mediating role of employee engagement," applied research in quality of life 12, no. 3 (2017): 693-717. 17becker, jan-michael, christian m. ringle, and marko sarstedt, "estimating moderating effects in pls-sem and plsc-sem: interaction term generation* data treatment," journal of applied structural equation modeling 2, no. 2 (2018): 1-21; mumtaz, a. m., h. ting, t. ramayah, f. chuah, and j. h. cheah, "editorial,‘a review of the methodological misconceptions and guidelines related to the application of structural equation modelling: a malaysian scenario’," journal of applied structural equation modeling 1, no. 1 (2017): 1-13. 18nitzl, christian, "the use of partial least squares structural equation modelling (plssem) in management accounting research: directions for future theory development," journal of accounting literature (2016): 1-26. 19seibert, scott e., j. michael crant, and maria l. kraimer, "proactive personality and career success," journal of applied psychology 84, no. 3 (1999): 416-427. 20 ibid. 21seibert, scott e., and maria l. kraimer, "the five-factor model of personality and career success," journal of vocational behavior 58, no. 1 (2001): 1-21. 22ballout, hassan i, "career commitment and career success: moderating role of self‐ efficacy," career development international 14, no. 7 (2009): 655-670. 23ibid. 24ibid. 25ibid. 26otto, kathleen, robert roe, sonja sobiraj, martin mabundabaluku, and mauricio e. garrido vásquez, "the impact of career ambition on psychologists’ extrinsic and intrinsic career success: the less they want, the more they get," career development international 22, no. 1 (2017): 23-36. 27ibid. 28yang, fu, and rebecca chau, "proactive personality and career success," journal of managerial psychology 31, no. 2 (2016): 467-482. 29said, al-mansor abu, roziahmohdrasdi, bahaman abu samah, abu daud silong, and suzaimahsulaiman, "a career success model for academics at malaysian research universities," european journal of training and development 39, no. 9 (2015): 815-835. 30erdogan, berrin, and talya n. bauer, "enhancing career benefits of employee proactive personality: the role of fit with jobs and organizations," personnel psychology 58, no. 4 (2005): 859-891. 31briscoe, jon p., and douglas t. hall, "the interplay of boundaryless and protean careers: combinations and implications," journal of vocational behavior 69, no. 1 (2006): 4-18. 32abele, andrea e., and daniel spurk, "how do objective and subjective career success interrelate over time?," journal of occupational and organizational psychology 82, no. 4 (2009): 803-824. 33 abele, andrea e., daniel spurk, and judith volmer, "the construct of career success: measurement issues and an empirical example," zeitschrift für arbeitsmarktforschung 43, no. 3 (2011): 195-206. 34hobfoll, stevan e, "conservation of resources: a new attempt at conceptualizing stress," american psychologist 44, no. 3 (1989): 513-524. 126 the effect of islamic work… 35hobfoll, stevan e., jonathon halbesleben, jean-pierre neveu, and mina westman, "conservation of resources in the organizational context: the reality of resources and their consequences," annual review of organizational psychology and organizational behavior 5 (2018): 103-128. 36hobfoll, stevan e, "conservation of resource caravans and engaged settings," journal of occupational and organizational psychology 84, no. 1 (2011): 116-122. 37ibid. 38ibid. 39ibid. 40alarcon, gene m., nathan a. bowling, and steven khazon, "great expectations: a meta-analytic examination of optimism and hope," personality and individual differences 54, no. 7 (2013): 821-827. 41 ibid. 42ali, abbas j, "the islamic work ethic in arabia," the journal of psychology 126, no. 5 (1992): 507-519 43ali, abbas j., and ali a. al‐kazemi, "islamic work ethic in kuwait," cross cultural management: an international journal 14, no. 2 (2007): 93-104. 44mellahi, kamel, and pawan s. budhwar, "introduction: islam and human resource management," personnel review 39, no. 6 (2010): 685-691. 45ibid. 46ali, abbas, "scaling an islamic work ethic," the journal of social psychology 128, no. 5 (1988): 575-583. 47 mohamed, norshidah, nor shahriza abdul karim, and ramlah hussein, "linking islamic work ethic to computer use ethics, job satisfaction and organisational commitment in malaysia," journal of law and governance 5, no. 1 (2010). 48bin salahudin, shahrul nizam, siti sarah binti baharuddin, muhammad safizal abdullah, and abdullah osman, "the effect of islamic work ethics on organizational commitment," procedia economics and finance 35 (2016): 582-590. 49abdi, mohamed farah, s. f. d. w. m. nor, and nor zuhairatun md radzi, "the impact of islamic work ethics on job performance and organizational commitment," in proceedings of 5th asia-pacific business research conference, kuala lumpur, malaysia (2014): 1-12. 50 ibid. 51beekun, rafik issa, islamic business ethics (herndon, va 20172, usa: international institute of islamic thought, 1997), 1-84. 52abuznaid, samir ahmad, "business ethics in islam: the glaring gap in practice," international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 2, no. 4 (2009): 278-288. 53ibid. 54ibid. 55the holy qur’an, 67:15, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usman (karachi: maktbama’ariful qur’an, 2010). 56al-tabarani, suleiman bin ahmed, musnad al-shamiyyin: mu’assaat alresalah(beirut: dar al-fikr, 1984). 57mohammad, jihad, farzana quoquab, nik mutasim nik abd rahman, and fazli idris, "organisational citizenship behaviour in the islamic financial sector: does islamic work ethic make sense?," international journal of business governance and ethics 10, no. 1 (2015): 1-27. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 127 58basheer, muhammad farhan, w. u. hameed, s. a. sabir, and m. s. jehangir, "islamic business ethics and islamic banks performance in malaysia: does sincerity matter," hamdard islamicus 42, no. 4 (2019): 217-224. 59hayati, keumala, and indra caniago, "islamic work ethic: the role of intrinsic motivation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance," procediasocial and behavioral sciences 65 (2012): 1102-1106. 60ibid. 61de clercq, dirk, inamulhaq, usman raja, muhammad umer azeem, and norashikin mahmud, "when is an islamic work ethic more likely to spur helping behavior? the roles of despotic leadership and gender," personnel review 47, no. 3 (2018): 630-650. 62ibid. 63 ibid. 64ahmad, uqba saeed, samina nawab, and khuram shafi, "the role of islamic work ethics in spiritual leadership and inclusion practices relationship during covid19," the journal of asian finance, economics and business 8, no. 3 (2021): 943-952. 65hassan, hemin ali, and ahmad bayiz ahmad, "the relationship between islamic work ethic and public service motivation," administration & society 53, no. 9 (2021): 1390-1417. 66ajuna, luqmanulhakiem, "the relevance of islamic religiosity, islamic work ethics, and job satisfaction of employees in islamic financial institutions in gorontalo," aliqfishad: jurnalilmu ekonomi syariah 13, no. 1 (2021): 137-150. 67ibid. 68sehhat, saied, seid mojataba mahmoud zadeh, mostafa ashena, and samira parsa, "positive psychological capital: the role of islamic work ethics in tehran public organizations," iranian journal of management studies 8, no. 4 (2015): 545-566. 69manan, s. k., n. kamaluddin, and a. s. a. putehsalin, "islamic work ethics and organizational commitment: evidence from employees of banking institutions in malaysia," pertanika journal of social science and humanities 21, no. 4 (2013): 14711489. 70 ibid. 71luthans, fred, bruce j. avolio, fred o. walumbwa, and weixing li, "the psychological capital of chinese workers: exploring the relationship with performance," management and organization review 1, no. 2 (2005): 249-271. 72luthans, fred, bruce j. avolio, james b. avey, and steven m. norman, "positive psychological capital: measurement and relationship with performance and satisfaction," personnel psychology 60, no. 3 (2007): 541-572. 73luthans, fred, kyle w. luthans, and brett c. luthans, "positive psychological capital: beyond human and social capital," business horizons 47, no. 1 (2004): 45-50. 74luthans, fred, carolyn m. youssef, and bruce j. avolio, psychological capital: developing the human competitive edge (oxford: oxford university press, 2007), 198. 75direnzo, marco s., jeffrey h. greenhaus, and christy h. weer, "relationship between protean career orientation and work–life balance: a resource perspective," journal of organizational behavior 36, no. 4 (2015): 538-560. 76ibid. 77ibid. 78yousif, mohammed mustafa mohammed, mohammad nazri mohd nor, and safiah omar, “the mediating role of career adaptability on the relationship between psychological capital and academics’ career success,”arabian journal of business and management review (oman chapter) 8, no. 4 (2019): 8-21. 128 the effect of islamic work… 79bouzari, mona, and osman m. karatepe," test of a mediation model of psychological capital among hotel salespeople," international journal of contemporary hospitality management 29, no. 8 (2017): 2178-2197. 80ngo, hang yue, sharon foley, ming shuang ji, and raymond loi, "linking gender role orientation to subjective career success: the mediating role of psychological capital," journal of career assessment 22, no. 2 (2014): 290-303. 81yousif, mohammed mustafa mohammed, mohammad nazri mohd nor, and safiah omar, "impact of protean career orientation on academics' career success: the mediating role of psychological capital," journal of technology management and business 6, no. 2 (2019). 82ibid. 83faul, franz, edgar erdfelder, axel buchner, and albert-georg lang, "statistical power analyses using g* power 3.1: tests for correlation and regression analyses," behavior research methods 41, no. 4 (2009): 1149-1160. 84gefen, david, edward e. rigdon, and detmar straub, "editor's comments: an update and extension to sem guidelines for administrative and social science research," mis quarterly 35, no. 2 (2011): iii-xiv. 85ringle, christian, dirceu da silva, and diógenesbido, "structural equation modeling with the smartpls," bido, d., da silva, d., &ringle, c.(2014). structural equation modeling with the smartpls. brazilian journal of marketing 13, no. 2 (2015): 56-73. 86greenhaus, jeffrey h., saroj parasuraman, and wayne m. wormley, "effects of race on organizational experiences, job performance evaluations, and career outcomes," academy of management journal 33, no. 1 (1990): 64-86. 87luthans, brett carl, kyle william luthans, and susan m. jensen, "the impact of business school students’ psychological capital on academic performance," journal of education for business 87, no. 5 (2012): 253-259. 88 ibid. 89becker, j. m., c. m. ringle, and m. sarstedt, "plssem using smartpls 3 foundations," hamburg, germany, northern institute of technology (2017). 90anderson, james c., and david w. gerbing, "structural equation modeling in practice: a review and recommended two-step approach," psychological bulletin 103, no. 3 (1988): 411-423. 91ramayah, thurasamy, jason wai chow lee, and julie boeychyaw in, "network collaboration and performance in the tourism sector," service business 5, no. 4 (2011): 411-428. 92ramayah, t., jasmine al yeap, noor hazlina ahmad, hasliza abdul halim, and syed abidur rahman, "testing a confirmatory model of facebook usage in smartpls using consistent pls," international journal of business and innovation 3, no. 2 (2017): 1-14. 93hair, joseph f., g. tomas m. hult, christian m. ringle, marko sarstedt, and kai oliver thiele, "mirror, mirror on the wall: a comparative evaluation of composite-based structural equation modeling methods," journal of the academy of marketing science 45, no. 5 (2017): 616-632. 94hair, j. f, a primer on partial least squares structural equations modeling (plssem) (newcastle upon tyne, uk: sage, 2014). 95tehseen, shehnaz, sulaimansajilan, kamisan gadar, and t. ramayah, "assessing cultural orientation as a reflective-formative second order construct-a recent pls-sem approach," review of integrative business and economics research 6, no. 2 (2017): 3863. 96ibid. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 3 129 97henseler, jörg, christian m. ringle, and marko sarstedt, "a new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modelling," journal of the academy of marketing science 43, no. 1 (2015): 115-135. 98ibid. 99ibid. 100ibid. 101hair jr, joseph f., g. tomas m. hult, christian m. ringle, and marko sarstedt, a primer on partial least squares structural equation modeling (pls-sem) (sage publications, 2021). 102ramayah, t. j. f. h., jacky cheah, francis chuah, hiram ting, and mumtaz ali memon, partial least squares structural equation modeling (pls-sem) using smartpls 3.0, an updated guide and practical guide to statistical analysis (2018), 1-291. 103hair, joe, carole l. hollingsworth, adriane b. randolph, and alain yee loong chong, "an updated and expanded assessment of pls-sem in information systems research," industrial management & data systems 110, no. 3 (2017): 111-133. 104yousef, darwish a, "the islamic work ethic as a mediator of the relationship between locus of control, role conflict and role ambiguity–a study in an islamic country setting," journal of managerial psychology 15, no. 4 (2000): 283-298. 105ibid. 106hobfoll, stevan e, "social and psychological resources and adaptation," review of general psychology 6, no. 4 (2002): 307-324. 107ibid. 108singhal, hansika, and renu rastogi, "psychological capital and career commitment: the mediating effect of subjective well-being," management decision 56, no. 2 (2018): 458-473. 109newman, alexander, ingrid nielsen, russell smyth, and giles hirst, "mediating role of psychological capital in the relationship between social support and wellbeing of refugees," international migration 56, no. 2 (2018): 117-132. 110ibid. 111seligman, martin ep, "positive psychology, positive prevention, and positive therapy," handbook of positive psychology 2, no. 2002 (2002): 3-12. 2. literature review 2.1 career success “if someone goes out to seek nourishment for his small children, he is in the way of allah almighty. and if he works for his old father and mother, he is in the way of allah almighty. and if he works for himself for modesty, it is in the way of allah ... hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 47 critical factors affecting the success of sharô‘ah governance: insights from islamic financial institutions omer faruk tekdogan islamic economic and finance department, institute of islamic studies, social sciences university of ankara, ankara, türkiye omerfaruk.tekdogan@asbu.edu.tr ali can yenice islamic economic and finance department, faculty of political sciences, sakarya university, sakarya, türkiye email: ayenice@sakarya.edu.tr huseyin burgazoglu faculty of business administration, sakarya university, sakarya, türkiye email: hburgazoglu@sakarya.edu.tr received on: 15-10-22 accepted on: 19-04-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.905 abstract this study examines the critical role of sharê‘ah governance, particularly the impact of sharê‘ah supervisory boards (sbbs) within the corporate governance framework of islamic financial institutions (ifis). ssbs, as critical components of sharê‘ah governance mechanisms, significantly influence sharê‘ah compliance processes within ifis. this study explores the unique systemic risks inherent in the islamic financial environment, focusing on the complexities and elements defining ssb legitimacy. the ifsb recommends four essential components for sharê‘ah governance systems, emphasizing the importance of ssbs. however, ssbs face challenges balancing sharê‘ah adherence and market dynamics, highlighting a conflict between business objectives and sharê‘ah rules. this study acknowledges the limited strength of sharê‘ah governance, advocating for universally adopted standards to address issues such as conflicts of interest within ssbs and the need for diversified skill sets. this paper assesses the effectiveness of sharê‘ah governance and ssbs mailto:omerfaruk.tekdogan@asbu.edu.tr mailto:ayenice@sakarya.edu.tr mailto:hburgazoglu@sakarya.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.905 48 critical factors affecting … in ifis. for this purpose, a survey was conducted among middle and senior-level managers and employees employed in ifis or associated regulatory entities across diverse nations. the results highlight the critical role of ssb members, specific standards for board nominations, and the moderate influence of stakeholders' interests on sharê‘ah governance success. shareholders’ and customers’ interests show no significant correlation with sharê‘ah governance success. keywords: sharê‘ah governance, sharê‘ah supervisory board, corporate governance, islamic financial institutions introduction sharê‘ah governance is an integral and unavoidable part of the corporate governance framework of islamic financial institutions (ifis). regarding asset value, the islamic financial services industry has experienced a cumulative annual growth rate of 8.71% from 2020 to 2022, reaching $3.25 trillion, of which islamic banking holds a share of 69.3%. despite unfavourable global economic conditions, the islamic financial sector demonstrated soundness and resilience during this period.1 the number of islamic financial institutions globally reached 1,679 in 2022, and the sector is expected to grow at an average rate of 9% in the coming years.2;3 with this growth, concerns related to adherence to sharê‘ah principles arise, facilitating the improvement of sharê‘ah governance processes in a positive direction. sharê‘ah supervisory boards (ssbs) exercise significant impact among sharê‘ah governance mechanisms, playing a significant role in the sharê‘ah compliance processes within ifis. the legitimacy and authenticity of these ssbs are closely linked to the fundamental principles of sharê‘ah governance in these institutions, which significantly influences the legitimacy and authenticity of the broader islamic financial system. an example of this may be found in the fact that a fatwa issued by an ifi’s ssb has the power to drastically alter public opinion and possibly cause a decline in the industry’s reputation. this complex feature captures a distinct type of systemic risk specific to the islamic financial environment, supplemented by several additional elements that define and impact the legitimacy and dependability of ssbs. before 2009, a universally accepted description of sharê‘ah governance within the islamic finance sector was absent. it was in 2009 that the islamic financial services board (ifsb) formulated a comprehensive definition of sharê‘ah governance as a set of institutional processes. these processes enable ifis to ensure rigorous and autonomous supervision of sharê‘ah compliance concerning formulating and disseminating pertinent sharê‘ah guidelines to the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 49 ifi's relevant bodies. sharê‘ah compliance is verified through internal reviews and annual sharê‘ah assessments.4 before a clear definition of sharê‘ah governance was established, the term was frequently used to describe the systems and procedures that stakeholders of the ifis had implemented to guarantee adherence to sharê‘ah laws and principles. the ifsb subsequently clarified it as a framework of institutional and structural setups employed by ifis. this framework aims to ensure robust independent supervision of sharê‘ah compliance over specific structures and processes, encompassing the issuance of pertinent sharê‘ah guidelines and internal and annual reviews for sharê‘ah compliance.5 sharê‘ah governance enhances the prevailing governance, control, and compliance mechanisms within ifis. the ifsb recommends four essential components integral to sharê‘ah governance systems, which are the issuance of sharê‘ah pronouncements, continuous monitoring of daily adherence to sharê‘ah principles, internal assessments and audits of sharê‘ah compliance, and annual audits to verify the effectiveness of internal sharê‘ah compliance reviews. to facilitate these functions, the ifsb identifies distinct sharê‘ah governance bodies, comprising an internal unit or department for sharê‘ah compliance, an internal unit dedicated to reviewing and auditing sharê‘ah compliance, and an ssb.6 the accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi) characterizes the ssb, in its governance standard for ssb released in 1997, as an autonomous body comprising specialized jurists in fiqh al-mu‘émalét. however, the ssb might include a member who does not specialize explicitly in fiqh al-mu‘émalét but possesses expertise in islamic financial institutions and a comprehensive understanding of fiqh almu‘émalét. the primary responsibility of the ssb involves overseeing, assessing, and supervising the operations of the ifi to ensure adherence to sharê‘ah rules and principles.7 the aaoifi's governance standards regarding sharê‘ah governance include sharê‘ah review, internal sharê‘ah review, independence of ssb, a central sharê‘ah board, sharê‘ah compliance function, and internal sharê‘ah audit. these standards were released in 1998, 1999, 2005, 2019, 2018, and 2019 respectively. the confidence of stakeholders in islamic financial products and the overall integrity of the islamic financial sector predominantly rely on the efficacy of ssbs. however, ssbs encounter a dual challenge in maintaining strict adherence to sharê‘ah principles while also addressing the dynamic requirements of the market. they are pressured to balance their need to maintain their reputation by strictly adhering to sharê‘ah and business viability. this conflict between business objectives and the rigorous application of sharê‘ah rules 50 critical factors affecting … highlights the difficulty and complexity ssbs encounter in managing their diverse responsibilities within the islamic financial sector. ullah et al. asserted that an inherent conflict exists between sharê‘ah bodies’ objectives and bank managers’ objectives. the former emphasizes fiqh and prioritizes profit, leading to an underlying power struggle.8 therefore, the independence and objectivity of the ssbs regarding demonstrating their unwavering commitment to sharê‘ah compliance should be preserved to maintain their integrity and credibility in the islamic financial industry. as cibafi & worldbank (2017) indicated, sharê‘ah governance presents a sphere of limited strength, partly due to the absence of universally implemented standards across jurisdictions; those lacking such standards should adopt them. these standards should enforce effective sharê‘ah governance within individual ifis, encompassing issues such as preventing conflicts of interest within ssbs. moreover, at the ifi level, there should be a diversification of skill sets within ssbs, potentially leading to an increased frequency of meetings for many ssbs.9 therefore, this study aims to measure the success of sharê‘ah governance and ssbs in ifis. we surveyed ifi personnel from many nations to achieve this goal, and the results showed the elements that are seen to be successful in sharê‘ah governance. this study is organized as follows: the next section presents relevant literature and principles as stated in international standards. following this, the research methodology, design, and details regarding data and participants are explained in subsequent sections. after presenting the research findings, a discussion is conducted, insights from the results are drawn, and the study concludes. background each organization needs to be overseen and regulated by established governance standards. similarly, oversight and regulation of ifis are necessary to improve and reinforce their operations. the existing corporate governance framework needs to fulfill this requirement within ifis.10 sharê‘ah governance is an integral and unavoidable part of the corporate governance framework of ifis. the definition of an efficient sharê‘ah governance system is subject to debate. examining the practices in various countries and institutions makes it clear that diverse systems are in operation. this diverse approach offers advantages because the legal landscapes in which islamic financial institutions function vary, not only concerning the prominence of sharê‘ah but also based on whether countries follow common or civil law. additionally, there are differences in client expectations regarding what qualifies as acceptable and effective sharê‘ah governance.11 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 51 ifis typically include a religious board, often in the form of an ssb, to instill confidence in their muslim clients. the primary objective of establishing ssbs in financial institutions is to supervise sharê‘ah compliance with the business activities of ifis.12 the ssb is a crucial component of the corporate governance structure of ifis, exerting a profound influence on daily financial practices by offering advisory and consultative services.13 sharê‘ah governance plays a crucial role in guaranteeing adherence to sharê‘ah principles in the products pra, practices, and management of ifis. the responsibility of sharê‘ah governance extends to enhancing transparency and disclosure and strengthening oversight within these institutions.14 the legitimacy and authenticity of these ssbs are closely linked to the fundamental principles of sharê‘ah governance in ifis, which significantly influences the legitimacy and authenticity of the broader islamic financial system. the effectiveness of ssbs is a crucial factor influencing stakeholders’ trust in islamic financial products and the overall integrity of the islamic financial industry. however, ssbs face the difficulty of adhering strictly to sharê‘ah principles while meeting the market’s dynamic expectations. to preserve their reputation, they must balance the imperative to uphold sharê‘ah compliance and business viability. according to alkhamees, there are reservations regarding the practicality of establishing a robust and influential sharê‘ah governance culture in ifis. skepticism is primarily tied to the ambiguous roles and legal frameworks of ssbs, insufficient accountability and transparency, conflicts of interest, the absence of independence in ssbs, and the insufficient training and qualifications of ssb members. the prevalence of these significant governance challenges significantly diminishes the degree of sharê‘ah compliance within the islamic finance industry.15 an ssb comprises scholars who are well-versed in fiqh almu‘émalét and uîël-i-fiqh. the composition of the ssb varies among ifis, with many appointing three to six members to the ssb. each ifi has its unique procedures for the ssb. to fulfill its responsibilities, the ssb requires a clear framework and structure to ensure independence and effectiveness. however, appointing an effective and independent ssb per fit and proper criteria is just one of the essential requirements within the sharê‘ah governance framework that ifis must satisfy.16 other requirements encompass holding executive management accountable for the implementation of governance frameworks, establishing a mechanism for reviewing sharê‘ah compliance, creating a sharê‘ah compliance unit to act as a liaison between the ssb and the management of the ifi, setting up an independent sharê‘ah audit unit, and conducting external sharê‘ah audits.17 52 critical factors affecting … as per the governance standards established by the aaoifi, the distribution of sharê‘ah supervision within the organizational hierarchy should be divided between shareholders and the bod. this division is crucial to safeguard the independence of sharê‘ah supervision from the influence of other governance bodies. additionally, sharê‘ah scholars are prohibited from assuming any executive position or obtaining substantial ownership in the institution. this independence instills confidence among stakeholders regarding the decisions made by sharê‘ah scholars and the overall transactions conducted by the ifi.18 typically, to ensure the independence of the ssb, its members are nominated either by shareholders during the annual general meeting or by the bod. the aaoifi standard specifies that the authority to appoint ssb members lies with the shareholders, not the bod. when appointments are made by the annual general meeting following recommendations from the bod, the ssb is permitted to participate in board of directors meetings to deliberate on the religious aspects of the decisions.19 the supervisory functions of an ssb encompass issuing fatwas and decisions prior to the execution of transactions, endorsing new products and contracts, auditing the processes for introducing new products with the help of sharê‘ah internal auditors, auditing financial statements at the end of the fiscal year, and approving the distribution of net income between investors and shareholders.20 the issuance of fatéwé and decisions entails obtaining sharê‘ah approval, a document confirming that certain or all operations, products, and services comply with sharê‘ah principles and do not contravene any sharê‘ah norms. the certification of islamic products and services is achieved through receiving sharê‘ah approvals. the sharê‘ah approvals granted by the ssb play a crucial and indispensable role in promoting, overseeing, and regulating the progress of the islamic finance industry.21 therefore, a fatwé issued by an ssb of an ifi holds the potential to significantly influence public perception and potentially lead to a decline in the industry’s reputation. this intricate characteristic represents a unique systemic risk inherent in the islamic financial environment. it is complemented by various additional elements that collectively shape and affect the legitimacy and reliability of ssbs. literature review sharê‘ah governance is the most vital process that distinguishes ifis from their conventional counterparts. especially after the standards of standard-setting organizations such as aaoifi and ifsb, it has attracted more attention to ifis and has found more space in academic studies. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 53 figure 1: number of publications in indexed journals source: authors. sharê‘ah governance has garnered escalating academic and practical interest since the initial standard was published in 1997. the amplified attention on ifis, particularly following the global financial crisis, has significantly impacted the sharê‘ah governance mechanisms within these institutions. the number of publications has notably surged post-2009. in 2009, 21 papers were published in web of science (wos) and scopus, the two most reputable indexes; however, this figure ascended to 101 and 276 in 2015 and 2023, respectively. in the early years, the topic was primarily studied in the context of corporate governance and islamic law. however, in recent years, the scope has expanded to encompass the entire ifi. this surge in publications indicates the burgeoning interest in sharê‘ah governance. in the relevant literature, sharê‘ah governance is often discussed within the institutional context, encompassing islamic banks and non-banking ifis, within the country-specific context, and the theoretical and jurisprudential perspectives. • institutional context: many studies deliberate sharê‘ah governance concerning the suitability of products and services offered by islamic banks, which hold the largest share among ifis, and the management of their processes. meanwhile, nonbanking ifis such as islamic insurance (takéful) and other islamic fund management companies discuss sharê‘ah governance regarding their products and services. 22;23;24;25;26;27;28;29;30;31;32;33;34 • country-specific context: within the literature, several studies compare sharê‘ah governance frameworks across different countries at the national level. these studies classify countries into centralized, semi-centralized, and decentralized categories 113 45 8 163 56 13 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 wos scopus 54 critical factors affecting … based on the presence or absence of a central ssb. for instance, the gulf cooperation council (gcc) countries typically follow a decentralized model, whereas countries like malaysia adhere to a centralized model.35;36;37;38;39;40;41;42;43;44;45;46;47;48;49 • theoretical and jurisprudential context: the jurisprudential foundations, components, and the process of sharê‘ah governance are examined through theoretical frameworks. very few studies in this framework focus more on applications in the islamic finance industry.50;51;52;53;54;55;56;57 the ssb constitutes the most crucial functional component within the sharê‘ah governance framework. it is responsible for making sharê‘ah decisions while concurrently ensuring sharê‘ah compliance with ifis. the aaoifi released a standard for establishing the independence of ssbs, defining independence as a mindset that prevents one’s perspectives and decisions from being unduly influenced or controlled by conflicting interests. this independence is attained through both organizational positioning and a commitment to objectivity. the significance of ssb members’ independence within an ifi lies in boosting public trust in the ifi’s adherence to sharê‘ah rules and principles and facilitating the core objectives of the ifi through the reinforcement of both independence and objectivity within its ssb.58 independence emphasizes furnishing the ssb with comprehensive, sufficient, and prompt information, enabling the board to make impartial judgments effectively. the board of directors (bod) guarantees the ssb’s independence in rendering objective decisions regarding matters presented to them.59 according to the aaoifi's delineation, objectivity embodies an independent mindset that ssb members are obliged to uphold during their execution of sharê‘ah supervision. to maintain objectivity, ssb must carry out sharê‘ah supervision in a way that shows their sincere confidence in their duties. ssbs should stay out of situations that could hinder their ability to make impartial professional decisions, whether these situations are anticipated or actual.60 additionally, to ensure the independence and objectivity of the ssb, the aaoifi recommends that ssb members refrain from holding employment positions within the same ifi. ssb members, either individually or collectively, should refrain from any form of involvement related to managerial decisions or operational responsibilities within the ifi in instances where ssb members have had affiliations as officers of a client or as employees of an ifi, either during an ongoing engagement or immediately preceding it, a prescribed period of no less than three years should precede or follow these associations.61 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 55 while numerous studies exist on the performance of ifis, there remains a need for more research on the performance, effectiveness, and success of sharê‘ah governance systems or ssbs.62 the effectiveness of ssbs in this research significantly depends on several factors, including the presence and caliber of the board.63, well-defined and enforceable guidelines64, the availability of national sharê‘ah authorities65, and the equitable balance of rights among stakeholders and owners.66 additionally, good governance within the institutions and transparent public disclosure practices can influence the success of ssbs.67 ifsb standard 10 offers guiding principles for the sharê‘ah governance systems within ifis. the foremost principle emphasizes that each country and institution may establish its own sharê‘ah governance mechanism, rejecting a singular, universal approach as it should cater to specific contexts rather than adopting a one-size-fitsall model. the subsequent principles encompass the establishment of ssb, emphasizing the competence and proficiency of its members, their independence, maintaining confidentiality, and ensuring consistency in implementing sharê‘ah decisions.68 if we categorize these principles into internal and external competencies, the ssb's competence, capability, and adherence to a code of conduct fall under internal competencies. at the same time, the engagement level of stakeholders can be regarded as external competencies. in this context, the effectiveness of the sharê‘ah governance mechanism can be assessed based on three parameters: the competencies and skills of the ssb (internal competencies): ssb members’ competence and expertise in islamic finance products and industry have the potential to impact the effectiveness of ssbs, consequently affecting the overall performance of sg. the code of conduct of the ssb (internal competencies): the transparency and public accessibility of guidelines regarding the frequency and location of meetings, the procedures for obtaining fatéwé, the mechanism for disseminating them to relevant departments, as well as the comprehensive process for staff training, ensuring compliance, and facilitating reporting, all play a crucial role in influencing the effectiveness of the ssb. consequently, these factors can significantly impact the overall performance of sg. the level of stakeholder interest (external competencies): stakeholders across various levels, ranging from institutional to national, including owners and regulatory authorities, possess the potential to exert both direct and indirect influences on the effectiveness of ssbs and the success of sg. 56 critical factors affecting … methodology and research design in order to measure the success of sharê‘ah governance and ssbs in ifis, a survey was conducted among middle and upper-level managers and employees working in islamic financial institutions or related regulatory bodies in different countries. a total of 120 managers or employees from 26 different countries participated in the survey. the survey asked respondents to assess the effectiveness of sharê‘ah governance and the effectiveness of sharê‘ah supervisory boards in the context of their institution and regulatory framework. stepwise regression stepwise regression is a statistical method used in multiple linear regression analysis to identify a subset of independent variables that best predicts the dependent variable. in multiple linear regression, you specify a model that includes all the independent variables you want to consider. on the other hand, stepwise regression is an automated procedure for variable selection within the context of multiple linear regression. it involves iteratively adding or removing variables based on specific criteria (such as p-values) to improve the model fit. 69 stepwise regression can be computationally more efficient than exhaustive search methods in cases with many potential predictor variables. it systematically explores different combinations of variables and selects those that contribute the most to the model. also, the resulting model from stepwise regression may be more straightforward and more interpretable, especially when dealing with many potential predictors. data and participants the data obtained were analyzed using correlation and regression analyses to reveal the factors considered adequate in sharê‘ah governance. here, the data of 6 respondents who left most of the questions in the questionnaire blank and did not provide sufficient opinions were not included in the analyses, and the analyses were carried out with the data obtained from 114 respondents in total.the country distribution of the participants who responded to the survey is shown in table 1. country number of participants % türkiye 18 12,5% jordan 12 8,3% sudan 11 7,6% malaysia 9 6,3% indonesia 7 4,9% nigeria 7 4,9% uae 6 4,2% hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 57 afghanistan 5 3,5% kuwait 5 3,5% united kingdom 5 3,5% algeria 3 2,1% pakistan 3 2,1% palestine 3 2,1% others 20 14% table 1: number of participants within the scope of this study, participants were asked to evaluate their organizations under three main headings: the expertise and abilities of ssb members within their institution, the stakeholders' degree of interest in sharê‘ah compliance, and the code of conduct observed by the ssb in the institution. the questions and related coding are shown in table 2: comp_1 do you think that the members of the ssb possess the required and sufficient capabilities? comp_2 do you think that the selection of ssb members is determined by their competencies, skills, and expertise, assessed by a committee of experts? comp_3 do you think that there is a suitable and formal set of criteria and procedures for the selection and appointment of ssb members? int_1 specify the extent of shareholders’ interest in adherence to sharê‘ah compliance. int_2 specify the extent of the management’s or the board of directors’ interest regarding the adherence to sharê‘ah compliance. int_3 specify the extent of ssb members’ interest regarding the adherence to sharê‘ah compliance. int_4 specify the extent of employees’ interest in adherence to sharê‘ah compliance. int_5 specify the extent of the central bank's interest in adherence to sharê‘ah compliance. int_6 specify the extent of customers’ interest in adherence to sharê‘ah compliance. ccd_1 do you think that the ifi releases a chart detailing its governance structure, encompassing the ssb? ccd_2 do you think that the ifi possesses a documented policy outlining sharê‘ah review procedures, quality assurance, and reporting? ccd_3 do you think that the ssb has a well-defined and documented code of conduct that outlines the responsibilities, appointment, composition, the selection of ssb members? 58 critical factors affecting … ccd_4 do you think the credibility of the ssb is established through the enforcement of its code of conduct? ccd_5 do you think the ssb adheres to the code of ethics outlined by standard-setting bodies like ifsb and aaoifi? ccd_6 do you think the ssb adheres to global or conventional ethical standards alongside the institution's specific code? succ how would you rate your opinion on the success of the overall sharê‘ah governance within your institution?? table 2: survey questions the study examined the relationships between the participant’s perceptions of the level of success of the institutions they are affiliated with in sharê‘ah governance, the expertise, and abilities of ssb members, stakeholders’ interest in the level of sharê‘ah compliance, and the quality of institutions’ codes of conduct. findings correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationships between the abovementioned variables. the results obtained are shown in table 3. the correlation analysis results showed that the success level of the participants’ organizations in the context of sharê‘ah governance is related to all variables analyzed except the customers’ and shareholders’ level of interest in sharê‘ah compliance. accordingly, there is a robust linear relationship between the members of the ssb having adequate and necessary skills, their selection based on their skills and expertise, and their appointment based on the proper and adequate criteria and the success of the institutions in sharê‘ah governance. this demonstrates the importance of the members of the ssb in sharê‘ah governance. ensuring members have the necessary qualifications and being objectively selected based on predetermined criteria can be seen as the first step to achieving success in sharê‘ah governance. in addition, stakeholders’ interest in sharê‘ah compliance is moderately related to the success of institutions in sharê‘ah governance. accordingly, the interest shown by management and the bod, members of the ssb, and employees in sharê‘ah compliance enable institutions to be successful in sharê‘ah governance. in addition, the interest of central banks as a regulatory body in sharê‘ah compliance may also affect the success of sharê‘ah governance. on the other hand, the level of shareholders’ and customers’ interest in sharê‘ah compliance does not have a relationship with the success of hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 59 table 3: correlation coefficients c o m p _ 1 c o m p _ 2 c o m p _ 3 in t_ 1 in t_ 2 in t_ 3 in t_ 4 in t_ 5 in t_ 6 c c d _ 1 c c d _ 2 c c d _ 3 c c d _ 4 c c d _ 5 c c d _ 6 s u cc c o m p _ 1 1 ,0 0 0 ,8 3 * * 0 ,6 6 * * 0 ,2 3 * 0 ,4 2 * * 0 ,5 2 * * 0 ,3 3 * * 0 ,3 9 * * 0 ,1 7 0 ,5 2 * * 0 ,5 3 * * 0 ,4 8 * * 0 ,4 6 * * 0 ,3 5 * * 0 ,3 1 * * 0 ,5 4 * * c o m p _ 2 1 ,0 0 0 ,7 0 * * 0 ,1 5 0 ,4 3 * * 0 ,4 3 * * 0 ,3 7 * * 0 ,4 5 * * 0 ,1 9 * 0 ,4 3 * * 0 ,4 9 * * 0 ,5 5 * * 0 ,5 2 * * 0 ,3 3 * * 0 ,2 3 * 0 ,5 6 * * c o m p _ 3 1 ,0 0 0 ,0 7 0 ,3 6 * * 0 ,4 6 * * 0 ,3 9 * * 0 ,4 2 * * 0 ,1 0 0 ,4 0 * * 0 ,6 2 * * 0 ,6 4 * * 0 ,6 1 * * 0 ,5 0 * * 0 ,2 7 * * 0 ,6 1 * * in t_ 1 1 ,0 0 0 ,5 2 * * 0 ,1 6 0 ,3 7 * * 0 ,1 3 0 ,1 0 0 ,3 9 * * 0 ,1 8 0 ,2 4 * 0 ,2 1 * 0 ,2 1 * 0 ,2 5 * 0 ,0 1 in t_ 2 1 ,0 0 0 ,5 1 * * 0 ,4 6 * * 0 ,3 4 * * 0 ,2 0 * 0 ,3 6 * * 0 ,3 4 * * 0 ,5 2 * * 0 ,4 2 * * 0 ,3 8 * * 0 ,3 6 * * 0 ,3 6 * * in t_ 3 1 ,0 0 0 ,2 5 * * 0 ,3 0 * * 0 ,2 2 * 0 ,3 7 * * 0 ,4 8 * * 0 ,5 7 * * 0 ,5 1 * * 0 ,4 3 * * 0 ,3 0 * * 0 ,4 4 * * in t_ 4 1 ,0 0 0 ,5 3 * * 0 ,2 4 * 0 ,3 3 * * 0 ,2 7 * * 0 ,4 0 * * 0 ,2 8 * * 0 ,3 1 * * 0 ,2 6 * * 0 ,3 3 * * in t_ 5 1 ,0 0 0 ,1 7 0 ,3 1 * * 0 ,3 0 * * 0 ,4 4 * * 0 ,4 3 * * 0 ,3 4 * * 0 ,3 2 * * 0 ,5 1 * * in t_ 6 1 ,0 0 0 ,0 7 0 ,1 0 0 ,1 0 0 ,0 9 0 ,1 4 0 ,1 6 0 ,1 9 c c d _ 1 1 ,0 0 0 ,6 2 * * 0 ,5 3 * * 0 ,5 0 * * 0 ,4 6 * * 0 ,3 9 * * 0 ,3 6 * * c c d _ 2 1 ,0 0 0 ,7 7 * * 0 ,7 6 * * 0 ,6 0 * * 0 ,4 0 * * 0 ,5 3 * * c c d _ 3 1 ,0 0 0 ,8 7 * * 0 ,7 5 * * 0 ,5 4 * * 0 ,5 5 * * c c d _ 4 1 ,0 0 0 ,7 3 * * 0 ,5 5 * * 0 ,5 2 * * c c d _ 5 1 ,0 0 0 ,6 7 * * 0 ,4 4 * * c c d _ 6 1 ,0 0 0 ,2 7 * * s u cc 1 ,0 0 * valid at 5% significance level ** valid at 1% significance level 60 critical factors affecting … sharê‘ah governance. thus, it is understood that the attitudes of shareholders and customers must be sufficiently effective in the sharê‘ah governance of institutions. finally, the code of conduct in the institution or the relevant field was also found to be related to the success of institutions in sharê‘ah governance. accordingly, publishing a chart that details its governance structure, encompassing the ssb; having a documented policy outlining sharê‘ah review procedures, quality assurance, and reporting; having a well-defined and documented code of conduct that outlines the responsibilities, appointment, composition, the selection of ssb members are moderately related to the success of the institution in sharê‘ah governance. additionally, ssb follows a code of ethics published by standard-setting bodies such as ifsb and aaoifi. ssb following an international/conventional code of ethics in addition to the institution's specific code is also related to the success of sharê‘ah governance. so, the rules that determine the actions and responsibilities of the employees of the organizations and ssb members are influential on the success of sharê‘ah governance. here, it is necessary for organizations to first determine the relevant codes of conduct based on the standards published by the relevant national and international institutions and then implement them effectively to be successful in the context of sharê‘ah governance. a multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify the predictors of success of institutions in sharê‘ah governance. here, the aim is to determine the variables that can explain the success of institutions. since there are many variables within the scope of the study, the stepwise method was chosen as the regression method. the results of the analysis are presented in table 4. as a result of the analysis, three valid models were obtained. first, having a well-defined and documented code of conduct that outlines the responsibilities, appointment, composition, the selection of ssb members was included in the model as a predictor of success in sharê‘ah governance. this shows that this variable is the most important predictor. the variable of central banks’ level of interest in sharê‘ah compliance is added to the next model. finally, the final model is constructed by adding the variable that institutions have documented policies outlining sharê‘ah review procedures, quality assurance, and reporting. thus, as predictors of the success of institutions in the context of sharê‘ah governance, the presence of correct and appropriate criteria for the selection of sharê‘ah supervisory board members, central banks’ level of interest in sharê‘ah compliance, and institutions’ having written rules on sharê‘ah control processes and quality assurance were identified. these three variables can explain about 50% of the variability in the success of sharê‘ah governance. of these variables, having the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 61 suitable and appropriate criteria for selecting the members of the sharê‘ah supervisory board is more critical than the other variables. in addition, central banks' interest level in sharê‘ah compliance is more explanatory than having written rules on sharê‘ah control processes and quality assurance. table 4: multiple regression (stepwise) f r2 variabl e coefficien t standardize d coefficient t value mode l 1 51,437** * 0,37 2 constan t 1,589 5,660** * comp_3 0,549 0,610 7,172** * mode l 2 36,933** * 0,46 2 constan t 1.090 3,725** * comp_3 0,416 0,462 5,248** * int_5 0,278 0,335 3,804** * mode l 3 28,211** * 0,49 9 constan t 0,720 2,248* comp_3 0,294 0,326 3,222** int_5 0,265 0,319 3,715** * ccd_2 0,238 0,240 2,501* * valid at 5% significance level ** valid at 1% significance level *** valid at 1‰ significance level discussion according to the correlation analysis, the level of interest among shareholders and customers, categorized as external competencies, might not exhibit a direct correlation due to several reasons: shareholders and customers often assume that products and services offered by institutions comply inherently with sharê‘ah principles. hence, they might believe that their engagements naturally align with islamic values. impressions of the customers and the community can be shaped by the ifis’ consistent practices and the products they supply. this also contributes to determining stakeholders’ credibility and confidence in the industry.70 immediate financial needs for customers and profit maximization for shareholders might take precedence, relegating their interest in sharê‘ah compliance to a secondary consideration. in such instances, customers or shareholders might engage in 'fatwa shopping,'71i.e., the endeavour to find products with fatéwé to achieve their goals, mirroring institutional behavior. 62 critical factors affecting … a lack of information or technical knowledge regarding the subject could also be a factor. if customers or shareholders possess lower levels of islamic financial literacy (which has yet to be measured in available data), their understanding might be limited. several studies indicate that islamic financial literacy positively impacts the selection of islamic banks and products. the higher the literacy level, the greater the inclination towards choosing sharê‘ah-compliant products.72;73 the study’s findings indicate that the success of sg and ssbs predominantly relies on several internal competencies, including the expertise of the ssb, transparent appointment criteria, and established codes of conduct. this reinforces findings similar to those of hamza (2013)74, who, while elucidating the connection between sharê‘ah supervision and compliance, identified the significance of independence and consistency in ssbs for effective sharê‘ah governance. another study revealed a diverse range of evidence concerning the independence of sharê‘ah supervisory board (ssb) members and its influence on sharê‘ah governance. it highlighted instances where ssbs needed more authority in certain islamic financial institutions (ifis) and where members were perceived as lacking independence due to their selection and appointment by the board, leading to dependency on management for implementing sharê‘ah governance strategies. conversely, the study underscored the importance of ssb independence for the success of sharê‘ah governance. furthermore, the authors emphasize that the need for more independence of ssbs in their functions contradicts agency, stakeholder, and legitimacy theories. they suggest ssb members should be recruited by the annual general meeting of the relevant islamic bank or the central bank. given that islamic banks are committed to providing services according to sharê‘ah principles, it is imperative to prioritize the independence of ssbs. policymakers, such as the central bank, can establish an independent sharê‘ah rating agency and take various steps to ensure that actual practices align with sharê‘ah compliance. 75 furthermore, another study corroborates our findings by identifying additional critical outcomes of sharê‘ah supervisory boards (ssbs) that contribute to the success of sharê‘ah governance. it reveals that three key characteristics of the ssb—namely, size, educational level, and expertise—significantly influence the strategic market positioning of islamic banks. this reinforces the notion that the success of sharê‘ah governance plays a crucial role in determining market positioning.76 another study investigated the influence of ssbs on banks’ risk-taking behaviour, with results that align surprisingly well with both the previous study and the findings of this study. it reveals that hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 63 the size of ssbs and the proportion of active members positively and significantly affect islamic banks' asset returns and insolvency risks. moreover, foreign members are more effective in monitoring banks’ sharê‘ah compliance, possibly due to their greater concern for job security and reputation.77 in a study investigating the duties and function of ssbs in governance, the findings underscore the vital role played by ssbs in the success of sharê‘ah governance. it can be inferred from this study that a clearly defined mandate and the careful selection of ssb members can positively contribute to the success of sharê‘ah governance.78 furthermore, studies demonstrate that the presence and effectiveness of sharê‘ah supervisory boards (ssbs) significantly impact islamic banks’ corporate social responsibility (csr) initiatives. this indicates that ssbs serve as essential indicators for islamic financial institutions (ifis), influencing the success of sharê‘ah governance and csr practices.79 external competencies, particularly the level of interest among customers and shareholders, exhibit varying degrees of effectiveness. the bod and management play moderately influential roles, while the shareholders’ and customers’ interest levels are deemed ineffective. there are studies indicating that the objectives of bod and ssbs may diverge. one study suggests that joint meetings between bod and sharê‘ah board members could compromise the financial soundness of islamic banks. according to the findings, this relationship increases conflicts of interest and agency costs. however, the presence of a sharê‘ah scholar at board meetings and a manager at ssb meetings only significantly affects the financial soundness of islamic banks.80 sharê‘ah supervisory boards (ssbs) indirectly influence the practices, decision-making processes, and functions of the boards of directors (bod), management, and other activities. despite ethical and moral standards advising against such influence, this study reveals that bod acknowledges its occurrence. furthermore, bod emphasizes its utilization of ssbs as a showcase and rubber stamp to achieve its objectives.81 this suggests partial support for the findings of this study within the existing literature. a robust sharê‘ah governance framework is crucial for ifis, shareholders, and customers. sharê‘ah-compliant products are vital for customers and shareholders to align with their worldview. while indirect evidence of this exists in one study82 our study needs to yield more results on this matter. research suggests, albeit lacking direct evidence, that various stakeholders such as the ceo, blockholders, 64 critical factors affecting … owners, bod members, and sharê‘ah boards may impact the credit ratings of islamic banks. according to this research, there is a negative correlation between the number of blockholders owning at least 5% of islamic banks’ shares and credit ratings and foreign ownership. conversely, there is a positive correlation with the percentage of seats on the sharê‘ah board.83 nevertheless, it should not be inferred those shareholders and customer have no impact on the success of sg. the implicit influence of customers and shareholders, or the demand for sharê‘ah-compliant products/services, could render the supply of such products and services crucial for ifis. this intriguing result warrants further exploration in subsequent studies. conclusion the sharê‘ah governance framework within ifis involves organizational arrangements ensuring comprehensive oversight, responsibility, and accountability across the bod, management, and the ssb. ssbs assume a pivotal role within ifis, overseeing and supervising operations to ensure stringent compliance with sharê‘ah principles, significantly impacting the institution's compliance procedures. the credibility of ssbs is deeply rooted in the core principles of sharê‘ah governance in ifis. hence, safeguarding the independence and objectivity of ssbs, as they demonstrate steadfast commitment to sharê‘ah compliance, becomes imperative to maintain their integrity and credibility in the islamic financial sector. this emphasis on the independence and objectivity of ssbs upholds the fundamental values of sharê‘ah governance, ensuring the trust and reliability of ifis within the industry. this study sought to evaluate ssb performance and sharê‘ah governance in islamic financial institutions using a comprehensive survey. it emphasizes the relevance of specific components in determining the degree of success of sharê‘ah governance. notably, the study showed how crucial it is to have a robust and transparent code of conduct that describes the roles, responsibilities, and nominations of members of the ssb as an essential requirement for establishing effective sharê‘ah governance. the results highlight how vital ssb members are to the efficient operation of sharê‘ah governance in ifis. it emphasizes how crucial it is to choose eligible board members according to specific standards to implement sharê‘ah governance successfully. additionally, stakeholders’ interest, including management, the bod, and employees, moderately affects sharê‘ah governance success. notably, central banks’ interest in sharê‘ah compliance also plays a role. however, shareholders’ and customers’ interests show hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 65 no significant correlation with sharê‘ah governance success. this suggests that although the attention of regulatory agencies and the involvement of stakeholders are essential, the attitudes of shareholders and customers have little influence on sharê‘ah governance in these institutions. despite the authors’ efforts to offer a comprehensive and engaging exploration of sharê‘ah governance success, the study encountered several research limitations. firstly, while ample literature exists on sg, research on the determinants of sharê‘ah governance success is scarce. secondly, there is limited evidence regarding the impact of other stakeholders, such as shareholders, customers, etc., whom we categorize as external competencies, on sg’s success. we propose that further investigation into these and other determinants of sg success should be pursued in future studies. this constitutes an essential agenda for countries and ifis to establish a robust sharê‘ah governance framework. notes and references: 1 ifsb, “islamic financial services industry stability report 2023” (kuala lumpur: islamic financial services board, 2023). 2 islamic financial services board ifsb, “guiding principles on sharî`ah governance systems for institutions offering islamic financial services,” no. december (2009): 1–39. 3 dinar standard, “state of the global islamic economy report 2023-24,” 2023. 4 hailu and tekdogan, “ensuring the compliance of islamic finance applications with shariah principles in ethiopia.”2023. 5 ifsb, “guiding principles on sharî`ah governance systems for institutions offering islamic financial services,” 2009, https://www.ifsb.org/wpcontent/uploads/2023/10/ifsb-10-december-2009_en.pdf. 6 cibafi and worldbank, “corporate governance practices in islamic banks 2017” (general council for islamic banks and financial institutions, the world bank group, 2017). 7 aaoifi, “governance standard no. (1) shari’a supervisory board: appointment, composition and report,” 1997. 8 shakir ullah, ian a. harwood, and dima jamali, “‘fatwa repositioning’: the hidden struggle for shari’a compliance within islamic financial institutions,” journal of business ethics 149, no. 4 (2018): 895–917, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3090-1. 9 cibafi and worldbank, “corporate governance practices in islamic banks 2017.” 10 muhammad asghar shahzad, syed kahif saeed, and asim ehsan, “sharī’ah audit and supervision in sharī’ah governance framework: exploratory study of islamic banks in pakistan,” business & economic review 9, no. 1 (march 30, 2017): 103– 18, https://doi.org/10.22547/ber/9.1.6. 11 rodney wilson, “shari’ah governance for islamic financial institutions,” isra international journal of islamic finance 1, no. 1 (2009). 12 ahmad alkhamees, “the impact of shari’ah governance practices on shari’ah compliance in contemporary islamic finance,” journal of banking regulation 14, no. 2 (april 2013): 134–63, https://doi.org/10.1057/jbr.2012.12. 13 bashar h. malkawi, “shari’ah board in the governance structure of islamic financial institutions,” the american journal of comparative law 61, no. 3 (2013): 539–78, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/61.3.539. 66 critical factors affecting … 14 shahzad, muhammad asghar, syed kahif saeed, and asim ehsan. “sharī’ah audit and supervision in sharī’ah governance framework: exploratory study of islamic banks in pakistan.” business & economic review 9, no. 1 (march 30, 2017): 103– 18. https://doi.org/10.22547/ber/9.1.6. 15 alkhamees, ahmad. “the impact of shari’ah governance practices on shari’ah compliance in contemporary islamic finance.” journal of banking regulation 14, no. 2 (april 2013): 134–63. https://doi.org/10.1057/jbr.2012.12. 16 malkawi, bashar h. “shari’ah board in the governance structure of islamic financial institutions.” the american journal of comparative law 61, no. 3 (2013): 539–78. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/61.3.539. 17 shahzad, muhammad asghar, syed kahif saeed, and asim ehsan. “sharī’ah audit and supervision in sharī’ah governance framework: exploratory study of islamic banks in pakistan.” business & economic review 9, no. 1 (march 30, 2017): 103– 18. https://doi.org/10.22547/ber/9.1.6. 18 samy nathan garas and chris pierce, “shari’a supervision of islamic financial institutions,” journal of financial regulation and compliance 18, no. 4 (november 16, 2010): 386–407, https://doi.org/10.1108/13581981011093695. 19 malkawi, bashar h. “shari’ah board in the governance structure of islamic financial institutions.” the american journal of comparative law 61, no. 3 (2013): 539–78. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/61.3.539. 20 garas, samy nathan, and chris pierce. “shari’a supervision of islamic financial institutions.” journal of financial regulation and compliance 18, no. 4 (november 16, 2010): 386–407. https://doi.org/10.1108/13581981011093695. 21 muhammad abubakar siddique, abdul rashid, and usama tahir, “factors affecting the credibility of islamic banking sharī’ah approvals: perception-based empirical study,” borsa istanbul review 23, no. 2 (march 2023): 426–42, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bir.2022.11.010. 22 tasawar nawaz, “exploring the nexus between human capital, corporate governance and performance: evidence from islamic banks,” journal of business ethics 157, no. 2 (june 2019): 567–87, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3694-0. 23 md safiullah and abul shamsuddin, “risk-adjusted efficiency and corporate governance: evidence from islamic and conventional banks,” journal of corporate finance 55 (april 2019): 105–40, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2018.08.009. 24 ataur rahman belal, omneya abdelsalam, and sardar sadek nizamee, “ethical reporting in islami bank bangladesh limited (1983–2010),” journal of business ethics 129, no. 4 (july 2015): 769–84, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2133-8. 25 hana ajili and abdelfettah bouri, “corporate governance quality of islamic banks: measurement and effect on financial performance,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 11, no. 3 (august 2018): 470–87, https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm-05-2017-0131. 26 abdullah awadh bukair and azhar abdul rahman, “bank performance and board of directors attributes by islamic banks,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 8, no. 3 (2015): 291–309, https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm-10-2013-0111. 27 rania kamla and hussain g. rammal, “social reporting by islamic banks: does social justice matter?,” accounting, auditing and accountability journal 26, no. 6 (july 2013): 911–45, https://doi.org/10.1108/aaaj-03-2013-1268. 28 salim darmadi, “corporate governance disclosure in the annual report: an exploratory study on indonesian islamic banks,” humanomics 29, no. 1 (february 2013): 4–23, https://doi.org/10.1108/08288661311299295. 29 rihab grassa, “shariah supervisory system in islamic financial institutions: new issues and challenges: a comparative analysis between southeast asia models and gcc models,” humanomics 29, no. 4 (2013): 333–48, https://doi.org/10.1108/h-012013-0001. 30 hichem hamza, “sharia governance in islamic banks: effectiveness and supervision model,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 6, no. 3 (august 2013): 226–37, https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm02-2013-0021. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 67 31 karim ullah et al., “shariah capabilities and value propositions of islamic banking,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 16, no. 4 (june 2023): 701–15, https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm-122019-0518. 32 tasya aspiranti et al., “shariah governance reporting of islamic banks: an insight from malaysia,” cogent business and management 10, no. 2 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2023.2247220. 33 early ridho kismawadi, “improving islamic bank performance through agency cost and dual board governance,” journal of islamic accounting and business research, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-01-2023-0035. 34 nur amalia aziza and dr. salih ülev, “the implementation of governance principles in islamic microfinance: a comparative analysis between türkiye and indonesia,” hamdard islamicus 46, no. 4 (december 30, 2023), https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.719. 35 zunaiba abdulrahman, tahera ebrahimi, and basil al-najjar, “exploring the nexus between islamic financial institutions shariah compliance disclosure and corporate governance: new insights from a cross-country analysis,” international journal of finance and economics, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1002/ijfe.2891. 36 md kausar alam et al., “the practices of shariah governance systems of islamic banks in bangladesh,” pacific accounting review 33, no. 4 (2021): 505–24, https://doi.org/10.1108/par-10-2020-0195. 37 mamdouh abdulaziz saleh al-faryan and jassem alokla, “do publicly listed insurance firms in saudi arabia have strong corporate governance?,” economies 11, no. 1 (january 2023), https://doi.org/10.3390/economies11010021. 38 abdullah mohammed ayedh and abdelghani echchabi, “shari’ah supervision in the yemeni islamic banks: a qualitative survey,” qualitative research in financial markets 7, no. 2 (2015): 159–72, https://doi.org/10.1108/qrfm-06-2014-0017. 39 toseef azid and ali a. alnodel, “determinants of shari’ah governance disclosure in financial institutions: evidence from saudi arabia,” international journal of ethics and systems 35, no. 2 (2019): 207–26, https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoes-07-2018-0111. 40 waqas farooq, sahibzada muhammad jan wasim, and ahmad azam othman bin, “regulatory arrangement for shariah governance practice of islamic banking institutions in pakistan: issues and challenges,” hitit i̇lahiyat dergisi, no. june (2021): 167–94, https://doi.org/10.14395/hid.947530. 41 dewi fatmawati et al., “shariah governance in islamic banks: practices, practitioners and praxis,” global finance journal 51, no. june (february 2022): 100555–100555, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfj.2020.100555. 42 grassa, rihab. “shariah supervisory system in islamic financial institutions: new issues and challenges: a comparative analysis between southeast asia models and gcc models.” humanomics 29, no. 4 (2013): 333–48. https://doi.org/10.1108/h-012013-0001. 43 hamza, hichem. “sharia governance in islamic banks: effectiveness and supervision model.” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 6, no. 3 (2013): 226–37. https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm-02-20130021. 44 yusuf karbhari, md. kausar alam, and md. mizanur rahman, “relevance of the application of institutional theory in shariah governance of islamic banks,” psu research review 5, no. 1 (2020): 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1108/prr-05-2020-0015. 45 ines kateb, olfa nafti, and asma zeddini, “how to improve the financial performance of islamic banks in the mena region? a shariah governance perspective,” international journal of emerging markets, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoem-03-2023-0434. 46 mosab i. tabash, md kausar alam, and md mizanur rahman, “ethical legitimacy of islamic banks and shariah governance: evidence from bangladesh,” journal of public affairs, no. august (2020), https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2487. 47 muhammad taufik, rifqi muhammad, and peni nugraheni, “determinants and consequences of maqashid sharia performance: evidence from islamic banks in 68 critical factors affecting … indonesia and malaysia,” journal of islamic accounting and business research, november 2023, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-07-2021-0205. 48 faris shalahuddin zakiy, falikhatun falikhatun, and najim nur fauziah, “sharia governance and organizational performance in zakat management organization: evidence from indonesia,” journal of islamic accounting and business research, november 2023, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2023-0188. 49 naila bibi et al., “shari‘ah disclosure and readability of islamic banks in pakistan,” hamdard islamicus 46, no. 2 (june 30, 2023), https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.669. 50 hamza, hichem. “sharia governance in islamic banks: effectiveness and supervision model.” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 6, no. 3 (2013): 226–37. https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm-02-20130021. 51 grassa, rihab. “shariah supervisory system in islamic financial institutions: new issues and challenges: a comparative analysis between southeast asia models and gcc models.” humanomics 29, no. 4 (2013): 333–48. https://doi.org/10.1108/h-012013-0001. 52 habib ahmed, “maqasid al-shari’ah and islamic financial products : a framework for assessment,” isra international journal of islamic finance 3, no. 1 (2011): 149–60, https://doi.org/10.1142/9789812569394_0005. 53 md kausar alam, “rationality of fourth party in legitimacy theory: shariah governance of islamic financial institutions,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 12, no. 3 (2021): 418–38, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-082019-0154. 54 ullah, shakir, ian a. harwood, and dima jamali. “‘fatwa repositioning’: the hidden struggle for shari’a compliance within islamic financial institutions.” journal of business ethics 149, no. 4 (june 2018): 895–917. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3090-1. 55 annisa adha minaryanti and muhammad iman sastra mihajat, “a systematic literature review on the role of sharia governance in improving financial performance in sharia banking,” journal of islamic accounting and business research, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-08-2022-0192. 56 rihab grassa, sherif el-halaby, and hichem khlif, “shariah board characteristics and islamic banks’ performance: a meta-analysis,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 16, no. 6 (october 2023): 1089–1106, https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm-10-2022-0392. 57 siti normala sheikh obid and babak naysary, “toward a comprehensive theoretical framework for shariah governance in islamic financial institutions,” journal of financial services marketing 19, no. 4 (december 2014): 304–18, https://doi.org/10.1057/fsm.2014.26. 58 aaoifi, “governance standard no. (5) independence of shari’a supervisory board,” 2005. 59 irum saba, “comparative shari’ah governance framework in selected muslim countries,” al-shajarah: journal of the international institute of islamic thought and civilization, no. special issue: islamic banking and finance (2018): 337–73. 60 aaoifi. “governance standard no. (5) independence of shari’a supervisory board,” 2005. 61 aaoifi. “governance standard no. (5) independence of shari’a supervisory board,” 2005. 62 minaryanti and mihajat, “a systematic literature review on the role of sharia governance in improving financial performance in sharia banking.” 63 alam, md kausar. “rationality of fourth party in legitimacy theory: shariah governance of islamic financial institutions.” journal of islamic accounting and business research 12, no. 3 (2021): 418–38. https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-082019-0154. 64 md. kausar alam, fakir tajul islam, and mahfuza kamal runy, “why does shariah governance framework important for islamic banks?,” asian journal of hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 69 economics and banking 5, no. 2 (august 2021): 158–72, https://doi.org/10.1108/ajeb-02-2021-0018. 65 rihab grassa, “shariah supervisory system in islamic financial institutions: new issues and challenges: a comparative analysis between southeast asia models and gcc models,” humanomics 29, no. 4 (2013): 333–48, https://doi.org/10.1108/h-012013-0001. 66 obid, siti normala sheikh, and babak naysary. “toward a comprehensive theoretical framework for shariah governance in islamic financial institutions.” journal of financial services marketing 19, no. 4 (2014): 304–18. https://doi.org/10.1057/fsm.2014.26. 67 mariem ben abdallah and slah bahloul, “disclosure, shariah governance and financial performance in islamic banks,” asian journal of economics and banking 5, no. 3 (october 2021): 234–54, https://doi.org/10.1108/ajeb-03-2021-0038. 68 ifsb, “guiding principles on sharî`ah governance systems for institutions offering islamic financial services,” 2009. 69 henderson, douglas a, and daniel r denison. “stepwise regression in social and psychological research.” vol. 64. o psychological reports, 1989. 70 h. ahmed, “shari’ah governance regimes for islamic finance: types and appraisal,” economia internazionale / international economics 64, no. 4 (2003): 393–412. 71 faisal, yudi ahmad. “fatwa shopping as modernising islamic finance law.” ph.d thesis, western sydney university, 2019. 72 purnomo m. antara, rosidah musa, and faridah hassan, “bridging islamic financial literacy and halal literacy: the way forward in halal ecosystem,” procedia economics and finance 37 (2016): 196–202, https://doi.org/10.1016/s2212-5671(16)30113-7. 73 mohammed ali al-awlaqi and ammar mohamed aamer, “islamic financial literacy and islamic banks selection: an exploratory study using multiple correspondence analysis on banks’ small business customers,” international journal of emerging markets 18, no. 12 (december 2023): 6285–99, https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoem-09-2021-1354. 74 hamza, hichem. “sharia governance in islamic banks: effectiveness and supervision model.” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 6, no. 3 (2013): 226–37. https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm-02-20130021. 75 md. kausar alam and muhammad shahin miah, “independence and effectiveness of shariah supervisory board of islamic banks: evidence from an emerging economy,” asian review of accounting 29, no. 2 (january 28, 2021): 173–91, https://doi.org/10.1108/ara-01-2020-0005. 76 nizar yousef ahmed naim and nora azureen abdul rahman, “the role of the board of directors and shariah supervisory board on the strategic market positioning of islamic banks,” journal of strategic marketing, may 12, 2022, 1–18, https://doi.org/10.1080/0965254x.2022.2069591. 77 amal alabbad, m. kabir hassan, and irum saba, “can shariah board characteristics influence risk-taking behavior of islamic banks?,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 12, no. 4 (september 9, 2019): 469–88, https://doi.org/10.1108/imefm-11-2018-0403. 78 md. kausar alam et al., “shariah supervisory boards of islamic banks in bangladesh: expected duties and performed roles and functions,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 12, no. 2 (march 4, 2021): 258–75, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-02-2020-0035. 79 k.m. anwarul islam et al., “the impact of shariah supervisory board and shariah audit committee on corporate social responsibility adoption at islamic banks in bangladesh,” the journal of asian finance, economics and business 8, no. 3 (march 30, 2021): 479–85, https://doi.org/10.13106/jafeb.2021.vol8.no3.0479. 80 afef khalil, “the impact of the board of directors and the shariah board on the financial soundness of islamic banks,” journal of islamic accounting and business 70 critical factors affecting … research 12, no. 5 (august 6, 2021): 646–60, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-012019-0011. 81 md kausar alam et al., “the influences of board of directors and management in shariah governance guidelines of the islamic banks in bangladesh,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 11, no. 9 (2020): 1633–47, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-08-2019-0155. 82 mustafa faza’, nemer badwan, and montaser hamdan, “determinants of effective shariah compliance auditing in palestine: a theoretical and conceptual analysis,” journal of money laundering control, october 20, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1108/jmlc-08-2023-0132. 83 rihab grassa, “corporate governance and credit rating in islamic banks: does shariah governance matters?,” journal of management and governance 20, no. 4 (december 2016): 875–906, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-015-9322-4. the environmental context for the advancement of sciences hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 35 … thematic studies on the sôrah and contribution of professor m. yasin mazhar siddiqui: an appraisal of some selected works dr tauseef ahmad parray higher education department, jammu & kashmir email: tauseef.parray21@gmail.com received on 07-08-21 accepted on 15-03-22 abstract professor dr. muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui (1944-2020) ranks among the first rate scholars on sêrah and its modern trends and penchants. for his profound academic contribution to the varied dimensions of sêrah literature (especially in urdu language), he is accepted and acknowledged as a ‘leading authority’ in the subcontinent. having studied, and being well-versed in, both traditional and modern sciences, he was a great teacher, serious researcher, a prominent islamic scholar, and a renowned sêrah-writer, whose major research areas included islamic history and civilization, quranic studies, shah waliullah studies, and more importantly diverse dimensions of prophet’s sêrah. no doubt, he made a remarkable contribution in all these areas, but his major contribution has been in the sêrah—and it is this aspect of his scholarship by which he got recognition and appreciation and became a ‘leading authority on sêrah’ in the sub-continent. this paper, in this backdrop, provides a brief assessment and evaluation of his contribution to the sêrah literature, with a focus on some of his selected works highlighting socio-political, legal and economic aspects of the sêrah, and thus fitting well in the thematic studies. the objective is to show uniqueness of his works— both in the subject-matter and methodology—as well as to highlight his contribution in the thematic studies genre of 21st century sêrah literature. the study recommends that in the genre of thematic studies of the sêrah, the scholars of sub-continent like siddiqui are needed to be explored on a large scale to bring forth the relevance of sêrah in the mailto:tauseef.parray21@gmail.com 36 thematic studies on the sêrah …… current scenario and to highlight the contribution of scholars of subcontinent in the english language. key words: m. yasin mazhar siddiqui; sêrah literature; socio-political aspects of sêrah; muslim minorities; muslim women; prophet’s earning and spending 1. introduction 1.1. academic profile of professor muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui (1944-2020) professor dr. muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui was born on 26th december, 1944 at gola, kheri (lakhimpur) district of uttar pradesh (india).1 he was educated both in traditional (dars-e-niðémi) and modern sciences and studied at dar al-‘ulum nadwatul ‘ulama (nu), lucknow (1959), lucknow university (1960), jamia millia islamia (jmi; 1962-66) and aligarh muslim university (amu; 1968-75). at nu, he studied under many religious scholars/luminaries, including mawlana sayyid abul hasan ali nadwi (1913-99) and mawlana rabey hasani nadwi (b. 1929), etc.2 at jmi, he studied english literature, history and political science (in ba); completed his masters (ma), m. phil (pre-phd) and phd in history from amu, and studied under, and worked with, such reputed historians like professor(s) k. a. nizami (1925-97), saiyidé nurul hasan (1921-1993), irfan habib (b. 1931) and many others. his ph d thesis was on “historical material in the ijaz-e-khusravi of amir khusro”. in 1970, he started his teaching career in the same department as a ‘research assistant’ and later became lecturer in 1977. in 1983, mr. saiyid hamid (1920-2014), the then vice chancellor of amu, appointed him as reader (associate professor) in the institute/department of islamic studies (dois), where he later became professor in 1991 and served its director/ chairman (from 1997-2000) as well. in 2001, he was also appointed as the director of ‘shah waliullah research cell’ (swrc) of dois. on 31st december 2006, he retired from his services as professor of islamic studies, but retained the position of director, swrc for many years after his retirement. in between 2000-2010, he organized various national and international seminars and conferences on the life, works, thought, impact and legacy of shah waliullah dehalwi (1703-62)—an outstanding muslim scholar of eighteenth century in india who is known for his ‘reformist’ thought. the proceedings of many of these conferences were published in the form of books and booklets as well as special issues in the departmental journals.3 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 37 … professor siddiqui died on 15th september, 2020, at an age of 76, in aligarh (india). the amu, in its ‘official’ condolence message, declared his death as an “irreparable loss to the academic world” for his “profound scholarship [which] explored new dimensions of sirah [sêrah] writing”.4 professor siddiqui made an enduring contribution to various branches of islamic scholarship—like islamic history and civilization, quranic studies, shah waliullah studies—in general and to the sêrah literature in urdu in particular. no doubt, he made a remarkable contribution in all these areas, but his major contribution has been in the sêrah and it is this aspect of his scholarship by which he got recognition and appreciation and became a ‘leading authority on sêrah’ in the subcontinent. this paper, in this context, provides a brief assessment and evaluation of his contribution to the 21st century sêrah literature, with a focus on his three (3) selected works highlighting socio-political, legal and economic aspects of the sêrah, and thus fitting well in the thematic studies. these selected books are: the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) a role model for muslim minorities (2006), and how the holy prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) earned and spent money?... (2019).5 the main objective of this study is to show uniqueness of his works -both in the subject-matter and methodology—as well as to highlight his contribution in the thematic study genre of 21st century sêrah literature. 2. research methodology the present study is theoretical in nature; therefore, the methodology adopted is a hybrid of descriptive, comparative, and analytical qualitative research modes. the study is based on both primary and secondary sources, urdu and english literature. on the basis of these sources, and by using descriptive and analytical methods, the study provides detailed descriptions and systematic evaluations of the available data pertaining to the subject under study and thus makes a significant contribution in the subject under study. 3. literature review 3.1 a brief appraisal of the works on professor siddiqui’s academic contribution though professor siddiqui made a substantial contribution to varied aspects of islamic scholarship—ranging from islamic history and 38 thematic studies on the sêrah …… civilization, sêrah, quranic studies to medieval indian history, and shah waliullah studies—however, he is recognized as one of the leading authorities on the sêrah in the sub-continent6, because of his remarkable and extraordinary contribution to this genre. there are many research works, mostly in the form of papers in academic journals and few in the form of (bs and m. phil) thesis/dissertations as well, on professor siddiqui’s overall academic contribution as well as on his contribution to the sêrah literature. some of them are described briefly below. two examples from the previous decade of 21st century which highlight professor siddiqui’s academic contribution and an analysis of his sêrah-writing, respectively, are the dissertations by muhammad nawaz (2011) and ubaidullah (2012) in the department of arabic and islamic studies, government college university [gcu] lahore, pakistan.7 in “focusing socio-political reforms of the prophet (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam).”, authored by the present writer, highlighted professor siddiqui’s contribution to sêrah by evaluating his seven important works (published in between 1987 and 2007), in terms of their uniqueness in subject-matter, analytical style, objectivity, method, methodology, and relevance to the challenges and needs of the present times.8 in between 26-28 march, 2011, national sirah study centre of islamic research institute (iri) and iqbal institute for research and dialogue (ird), international islamic university, islamabad (iiui), organized an international conference on “modern trends in sêrah writing” in which professor siddiqui also particpated as a key speaker. moreover, professor obaidullah fahad (professor of islamic studies) and professor abdur raheem kidwai (professor of english with a specialization in the quranic and sêrah studies), both from amu (india) presented papers with a focus on siddiqui’s sêrah works as well, respectively on “review of the major trends in sêrah writing; tracing pluralistic trends in the sêrah literature: a study of some contemporary scholars” and “prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) as the role model for muslim minorities: pluralism and leadership in some recent english writings on sêrah”.9 professor fahad’s above mentioned presentation, which was later published in islamic studies (iri), attempted to evaluate the ideas and thoughts of a number of contemporary muslim scholars, including professor siddiqui, on pluralism and diversity and on tracing “pluralistic trends” in the sêrah, and assessed “their validity and authenticity within an islamic perspective”.10while as professor kidwai’s paper sought to analyze (among others) siddiqui’s the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 39 … khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam): a role model for muslim minorities in order “to assess how relevant and meaningful are the teachings of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) in the contemporary world, especially in the broad area of his being the role model for muslims living as minorities across the world, subscribing to peaceful co-existence in the spirit of pluralism and leadership”.11 on a similar theme, mr. parvaze ahmad bhat was awarded phd in islamic studies from amu in 2013 on “pluralism and diversity in the sêrah literature: a study of the contemporary scholar’s on prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)”, in which he focused on some selected works of professor siddiqui, especially his the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam): a role model for muslim minorities, as well.12 bhat’s paper on “diversity and pluralism in the pre-prophetic sêrah” aimed“ to highlight the prophetic approach to diversity and pluralism before his prophethood”.13 in 2013, dr muhammad abdullah published “professor dr. muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui’s sêrah-writing: an analysis of methodology and style” in öia-e-taíqêq (gcu, faisalabad), which highlighted the uniqueness and salient features of professor siddiqui’s works and their theme/subject-matter, like socio-economic, cultural and civilization aspects of the prophetic era which have not been explored much in earlier sêrah literature.14 professor abu sufyan islahi has highlighted his contribution to the quranic studies in a chapter featured in his quranic studies trail blazers of sir syed’s institution—aligarh muslim university; however, he refers to siddiqui as a renowned sêrah-writer as well, and describes that his “contribution in sêrah studies is both extensive and profound”.15 dr ziauddin falahi, one of professor siddiqui’s students, has echoed similar views in his “muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui’s sêrah-writing”.16 syeda rabbia ahmad and dr. monazza hayat provided an introductory study of professor siddiqui’s writings in the context of “family and relatives of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)” published in bi-annual research journal al-qamar (2020),wherein they argued that amongst the contemporary sêrah-writers, professor siddiqui has done a commendable and remarkable research work in the area.17 these examples and instances show clearly that there have been many attempts in the last decade or so to highlight the profound, wide40 thematic studies on the sêrah …… ranging, diverse academic contribution of professor siddiqui, especially in the sêrah-writing. 3.2 research objective from the above literature review, it becomes evident that professor siddiqui’s contribution to the varied dimensions of sêrah-writing vis-àvis thematic studies has been left untouched by researchers aforementioned. thus, the current study seeks to fill this intellectual gap with a focus on his three (3) selected works highlighting socio-political, legal and economic aspects of the sêrah, and thus fitting well in the thematic studies. these selected books are: (i) the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam): a role model for muslim minorities (2006); (ii) rasul-i-akram (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) aur khawétên—ek saméji muïéla‘ah (2006); and (iii) how the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) earned and spent money? a critical study (2019).18 4. discussion 4.1 professor yasin mazhar siddiqui’s academic contribution— a brief outline professor siddiqui has authored more than forty (40) books and monographs, and among these over twenty (20) books deal with various dimensions of sêrah. he has over 300 research papers/articles (mostly in urdu, but in english and arabic languages also) in various reputed national and international journals and periodicals from india, pakistan, saudi arabia, etc., to his credit. most of his research articles have been published in reputed academic periodicals of the sub-continent like taíqêqat-i-islami (aligarh), monthly ma‘érif (azamgarh), burhan (new delhi), majjalah ‘ulum al-qur’an (aligarh), tahdhêb al-akhléq (aligarh)—all from india; and from pakistan in naqoosh (lahore), quarterly fikr-o-naðar (islamabad), al-sêrah (karachi), jihat al-islam (lahore), al-adwa (lahore), and many others.19a list of some of his sêrah works is provided below:  organization of government under the prophet (delhi, 1987); ‘ahd-i-nabavi mein tanðêm-i-riyasat-o-×ukëmat (new delhi, 1988): both these books focus on the administrative aspects of government/governance during the prophetic period.  ‘ahd-i-nabavi ki ibtidé’i muhimmein (lahore, 1999): it focuses on the early expeditions carried by the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 41 …  ghazwét-e-nabwi ki iqtiîédi jihét (aligarh/ lahore, 1999): this book highlights the economic aspects of the expeditions carried by the muslims under the leadership of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam).  makki uswa-i-nabwi: muslim ‘aqliyyatoun ke masé’il ka hall (new delhi, 2005); the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam): a role model for muslim minorities (london, 2006): these books study the illustrious life of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) from a refreshingly new angle, by identifying what guidance the prophet’s sêrah offers for muslims living as a minority (the english version of this book is discussed in detail below).  rasul-i-akram (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) aur khawétên: ek saméji muïéla‘ah (delhi, 2006): the book focuses on the women issues and social ethics, it also highlights the contribution and other prospects which was related to them during the prophetic period. the book also presents the study of domestic relationship of muslim women and men during this period.  ‘ahd-i-nabwi ka tamaddun (delhi, 2010): it focuses on the social and cultural life of the muslims during the prophetic period.  ma‘ésh-e-nabwi: rasul-i-akram (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) ke dharaiye ómdan ka taíqêqi ja’iza (karachi, 2015); how the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)earned and spent money? a critical study (aligarh, 2019): these books attempt to provide new perspectives on studying the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) economic life by digging deep, significantly, into various dimensions of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)’s economic life in the light of the holy qur’én, hadith and sêrah literature, and islamic history, both classical and contemporary.  maîédir-e-sêrat-e-nabvi, 2 vols. (new delhi, 2016); khuïbét-esarghoda: sêrat-e-nabwi (sal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) ka ‘ahd-imakki (sarghoda, 2016); khuïbét-e-sêrat: maîédir-e-sêrat ka tajziyéti muïéla‘ah (islamabad, 2017); sêrat nigéri: ta‘éruf, m’akhaz, rujíénét, manhaj (karachi, 2019):20 most of these books are a result of his lectures delivered by the author in different universities and institutes of pakistan and focus on the sources, methodology, trends of sêrah and sêrah-writing. his works on sêrah have been awarded, both in india and pakistan: in pakistan, he was awarded ‘naqoosh award’ (1984, 1998, 2000), ‘sêrat award’ (february 2013) by the ministry of religious affairs, and professor abdul jabbar shakir sêrah award (many times); and from india, he was awarded 5th ‘shah waliullah award’ (2005) by institute of objective studies (ios), new delhi for his remarkable contribution to the 42 thematic studies on the sêrah …… islamic literature.21 most of his works are in urdu language, and in the west and among the english readers, he is mostly known for his catalogue of arabic manuscripts at the aligarh muslim university, india, published from london (2002), organization of government under the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) (1987), shah waliullah dehalvi: an introduction to his illustrious personality and achievements (2001), the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam): a role model for muslim minorities (2006) and how the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) earned and spent money (2019).22 besides his above mentioned books on the varied dimensions of sêrah, his writings on this theme are so profound and voluminous that in between 2015 and 2016, professor muhammad humayun abbas shams (gcuf, pakistan) published maqélat-e-sêrah—a collection of [51] sêrah articles authored by dr yasin mazhar siddiqui in three-volumes.23 similarly, on 23-24 march 2019, dois, amu organized a two-day national seminar on “contribution of the department of islamic studies to sêrah-writing” and its proceedings were published in 2020, entitled aligarh muslim university’s institute of islamic studies and sêrahwriting. this volume also includes a detailed essay by professor siddiqui in which he has recounted his story and experience of sêrahwriting,24 and a chapter by professor kidwai highlighting “professor muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui’s unparalleled erudition (jalélat ‘ilmi)”.25 this volume, spanning over 500 pages, is divided into three main parts—part-i ‘preliminary section’, part-ii, ‘essays’, and part-iii, ‘closing section’. out of forty-one (41) essays in part-ii, it presents an evaluation and appraisal, critical analysis and assessment of almost all the sêrah works of professor siddiqui in twenty nine (29) chapters, and the contributors include both acclaimed scholars and young researchers from amu and outside.26 to honor and to pay tribute to siddiqui’s profound academic contribution, a special issue of muïéla‘ét (a quarterly urdu journal published by ios, new delhi) as “yasin mazhar siddiqui number” (volume 15/16, no.s 1-4 (october 2020-march 2021), 13-333) was published, which consisted of personal impressions of many scholars, obituaries, tributes as well as research articles on diverse aspects of professor siddqiui’s contribution and his association with various institutions and research centres. mawlana syed jalal-ud-din ‘umari, in the foreword of one of his earliest works states: “writing on islamic history and sêrah of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is the major area of research and writing of our revered friend professor muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui. having a depth in this area of studies, he has continuously been hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 43 … publishing on it which has proved much beneficial for the academic world. one of his main qualities is that he collects a mine of information on his topic, the techniques of which are well-known to him. one may not be agree with his findings, but no one can deny his vast study. ... in the sêrah works, these aspects of sêrah have rarely been discussed and in this respect, we find very much originality and uniqueness (jiddat wa nudrat) in this book”.27 dr muhammad ateeq-ur-rahman expressed his views about professor siddiqui’s personal life and academic contribution in his obituary as: a prominent islamic scholar and an authority on sêrah, professor siddiqui wrote on some general themes of the sêrah and explored various new dimensions as well which were otherwise unnoticed or overlooked. a look on the contents and subject-matter of his writings falling in later category, one gets clear glimpses of his seriousness and profundity and the acumen and insights he possessed. researchers and scholars of his competence, calibre, and qualities (that he possessed) are very rare these days. he indeed made a significant contribution to the islamic literature in general and to the sêrah-writing in particular.28 4.2 professor siddiqui’s contribution to the ‘thematic studies’ of the sêrah-writing: an appraisal and assessment of some selected works keeping in view the overall academic output of professor siddiqui, it is the field of sêrah-writing in which he has made a remarkable and ground-breaking contribution. evidently, it is the area of studies which gave him recognition, name and fame; and it is the area in which he is acknowledged by scholars and academicians, irrespective of their ideological/religio-political orientation, as an ‘authority’ and a scholar par excellence. in this context, below is provided a brief assessment, evaluation and appraisal of some of his selected prominent works on sêrah, so that to get glimpses of the diversity of topics/dimensions explored and examined by professor siddiqui by which he made a distinctive position and identity in this specific area thus ‘ranks among today’s first rate scholars on sêrah’. 4.2.1 the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam): a role model for muslim minorities (2006) first published in urdu in 2005 (makki uswah-i-nabwi: muslim ‘aqliyyatoun ke masé’il ka ×al) by islamic book foundation (new delhi),29 it has been translated in english by professor abdur raheem 44 thematic studies on the sêrah …… kidwai and published by the islamic foundation (london). it studies the illustrious life of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in quite a different manner, by presenting the guidelines which the holy prophet’s sêrah offers to the muslims who are living as a minority. it examines, insightfully and perceptively, the practices of islam in makkah by its followers, how the muslims who were living in minorities amongst various arab tribes and regions of arabia were treated by the islamic state of madinah and how muslims lived their life as migrants in abyssinia and using mostly the original arabic works as its sources, it also presents guidelines for muslims extensively on how to co-exist peacefully with non-muslims. this book is divided into essentially two parts: (i) treating the makkan period of life of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) from the ‘minority perspective’, first part of this book discusses in considerable detail various aspects of the illustrious life of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and his companions (raìi allah ‘anhum) in makkah, before their migration (hijrah) to madinah in 622 ce (where establishing a polity there). that is, the makkan phase of the prophet’s life has been studied from the initial point of a minority, it points out the character of islam in a context of a minority.(ii) the second part of the book provides the lessons from these experiences for the muslims who are currently living as minorities in countries around the world. the book comprises of seven (7) chapters, excluding ‘conclusion’. chapter 1, ‘pluralist society of makkah’ (pp. 1-23), examines the makkan pluralist society at the time of the birth of prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) in 570 ce till his migration to medina in 622 ce; chapter 2, ‘evolution of the muslim minority in makkah’ (pp. 24-54), discusses the evolution of muslim minority or “makkan islam” that provides the prophetic role model for the growth of islam in a nonmuslim society; chapter 3, ‘the muslim community of abyssinia’ (pp. 55-86), examines various aspects of the muslim community of the abyssinia and discusses at length the presence, evolution, and performance of muslims in abyssinia; chapter 4, ‘formation of the muslim community in the makkah period’(pp. 87-111), discusses sociopolitico-economic life of the makkan muslims; chapter 5 discusses ‘the defence system and the right to defend’ (pp. 112-132), and argues that the sêrah literature demonstrates that makkan muslims had the right to ‘protect their life and honour and to promote their faith and identity’; chapter 6, ‘defence agreement’ (pp. 133-153), discusses the political and military agreements and alliances that ensured the safety of the life and property; chapter 7 deliberates on the ‘muslim minority after formation of islamic state’ (pp. 154-172), and laid stress on the fact that ‘there hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 45 … flourished muslim minorities in various regions, villages, towns, tribes, families and nooks and corners of arabia’. the conclusion (pp. 173-197) of the book consists of 12 points in which the author illustrates that “prophet’s [øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam] illustrious life provides the role model for muslim minority”.30 these points, besides summarising all the previous chapters, seeks to get lessons from these experiences for muslims living as minorities today. on studying the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in this context, a model for muslim minority is drawn so that they can learn from the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). professor siddiqui argues that in makkah life of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and his companions (raìi allah ‘anhum), it was a 13 year period (610622 ce), during this phase muslims were in a minority and during that period there was no political sovereignty for them; and in many senses, their position resembles with that of muslim minorities today. muslim minorities need to see the role of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and the early muslims in that period as a model for them to emulate. dr. murad hofmann, in his critical review, has described it a commendable work in which the author “treats the makkan period, i.e., the time when the earliest muslims were a minority. this is a most relevant subject indeed, given that currently more muslims than ever live outside the dér al-islam [abode of islam], and also given that islamic jurisprudence, ..., largely failed to develop legal rules for muslim dhimmis in the west”.31professor obaidullah fahad has described it as a “pioneering work” and a “well-documented and exclusively researchedbased study”, especially in the context of highlighting the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) life as a role model for muslim minorities.32 this book provides keen insights for developing meticulous understanding of islamic jurisprudence in the context of muslim minority, envisaging the possibility of reconciling islamic commitment with muslim minority. it is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debates about fiqh for muslim minorities, commonly known as fiqh al‘aqalliyyat (jurisprudence for muslim minority). this book is a valuable contribution to the 21st-century literature on the prophet's (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam).33 biography, based on original arabic sources and guiding muslims extensively on how to co-exist peacefully with nonmuslims. 4.2.2 rasul-i-akram (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) aur khawétên—ek saméji muïél‘ah (2006) the book focuses on the women issues and social ethics, it also highlights the contribution and other prospects which was related to them 46 thematic studies on the sêrah …… during the prophetic period. the book also presents the study of domestic relationship of muslim women and men during this period. in the ‘social ethics’, the most delicate theme is that of the women’s relations, their amity and intermingling with men, and other related issues. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), through his exemplary life pattern, made numerous constructive reforms in this aspect of life creating a striking balance between the two extremes. he provided comprehensive guidelines regarding the issues and situations involving this delicate aspect of life both by his words and deeds (aíadêth and sunnah). the aims and objectives of the prophethood of the last messenger of allah almighty (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) included the perfection of the standards of excellent ethics and perfection of the social ethics, being one of the most crucial and fundamental, remained the very focus of his attention and teachings. in his illustrious life pattern (both in the makki and madni eras), the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) provided a perfect and practical model of amity and intermingling (ikhtiléï) of men and women. this work presents a study of the “social domestic relationship of muslims”, men and women, in the prophetic era as well as the “incidents/events of segregation of men and women”, based on the witnesses and the historical facts of the prophetic society”.34 consisting of twelve (12) chapters, spanning over 245 pages, the book discusses the following themes, in its various chapters: first two chapters discuss prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) relation with women, who were especially qurayshite, makkan women, and his meetings (in two parts): makki period and madni period. in the third chapter, the book examines the above-mentioned theme arguing that this custom, having its beginning before the prophet-hood of ×aìrat muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), was continuously practiced during the prophet’s (sal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) makkan period, and remained in vogue even after the prophet’s (sal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) hijrah (migration) to madina.35 in the fouth chapter, it discusses what the author calls “kashéna’i nabwê mein madni khawétên”, an important and interesting chapter of the prophet’s sêrah and of islamic history as well: important and interesting in the sense that it throws ample light on the “social role and of religious equality of women in the islamic movement”;36 and owing to its critical and central significance amid present day debates on ‘gender parity’, women empowemrent, etc., this theme needs more investigation and exploration so that to bring forth its contemporary relevance. in the next chapter, he argues that one of the greatest contributions of the women in the prophetic period was that they safeguarded the aíkém (injunctions) and forwarded it to other generations and “in this area too, there is significant contribution by hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 47 … women” (aíkém ki duniya main bhi wajëd-e-zan se kéfi rang hai).37 the seventh chapter, ghazwét-i-nabwi mein khawétên ([participation / role of] women in the prophetic expeditions) is the most lengthy and thoroughly discussed chapter of this work, which makes a detailed examination of the participation of women in the expeditions. besides making some basic discussions, it also highlights the point that various muslim women participated in various expeditions. furthermore, in the final analysis (mukhtaîar tajziyyah) of this chapter, consisting of ten (10) points, the author highlights that the “prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) permitted women to participate in all expeditions”, and except badr (624 ce)—from uhud (625 ce) to tabuk (631 ce)—there is “proof of their participation”, which proves “the equal participation, within the limits (×udëd) of sharê‘ah, in the community matters”.38 in the next chapter, it looks at marriage, which is another key theme in women’s difficulties, and highlights the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), efforts in organising and managing, as well as giving advice and directives in various women’s marriage cases. it also mentions, albeit briefly, the prophet’s daughters’ marriage. he argued that these marriages have had various “social, religious and civilizational aspects and tribal and political importance” as well.39 professor siddiqui makes the following concluding remarks: “one of the social, and an important, aspect of the prophet’s sêrah is seen in these marriages. it manifests the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as the mercy for all worlds (rehmatan lil ólamên). by these [marriages] we can analyze his social reforms as well. a careful study of such events from the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) illustrious life of making up the sociodomestic aspect of sêrah, we come to know that how much important role he played in promoting the atmosphere of social harmony, brotherly relations (fraternity), inter-tribal cooperation and islamic equality”.40 the author's following chapter, titled “ ‘auratoon ka ×aqq e kharêdo faroakht aur kasab-i-ma‘ésh” examines muslim women’s economic activity in general and in particular in trade, both in the framework of jéhili arab culture and in the context of islamic economy and civilisation (rights of women in selling and buying and means of sustenance). it also looks at certain crucial concerns concerning women’s earnings, writing: ‘‘from many instances and examples of the prophetic peirod, it becomes much eivdent that muslim women had not only the right to earn but were given ample oppurtunities to adopt different professions (in trade, agriculture, artisanship, and labour work/ wages) in order to satisfy their personal, domestic and other needs”.41 the next chapter, "women’s complaints and resolutions" (‘auratoon ki shikéyét ka izélah), is a crucial and fascinating chapter that has numerous lessons for current civilizations. the author focuses on the 48 thematic studies on the sêrah …… following types of complaints and how to address them: forced marriages, whipping and beatings, and domestic abuse are all complaints..42 this chapter, in its concluding section, highlights that “the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) not only provided protection to women, but developed ways and methods assuring their welfare and living a peacfeul life, and resolved their complaints”.43 the book, in its final chapter, makes an analysis of the prophetic principles and of khulafé-i-réshidën regarding the “intermingling (ikhtiléï) of men and women” and argues that women in this period enjoyed various social rights. not only the sêrah, hadith and historical facts, but the quranic verses prove the fact that within the limits of islam and the ×udëd of sharê‘ah, there was permission of interminling and interaction of men and women and it was a social custom or tradition as well. he concludes with the rational and logical argument that the basic principle and the proper way of the interaction of men and women is the way practiced by the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and his companions (raìi allah ‘anhum), neither the way of the egoistic/selfconceited and conservative ‘ulamé’ and fuqahé’ of later period nor the modern thinking and approach of the liberal reformist scholars.44 in sum, professor siddiqui’s prophet muhammad [rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] and women—a social study is unique not only in its subjectmatter, but also in the analytical style, objectivity, and above all, in its method. the book makes a profound contribution to 21st century sêrah literature vis-à-vis gender studies/women empowerment for its discusses those aspects, issues and concerns of women which have been shown either a little concern or have been examined and discussed very rarely in the sêrah works.45 the topics and issues highlighted in this book are highly misunderstood and misinterpreted in the present times, and in this context the book makes a remarkable contribution by bringing to the forefront the actual status enjoyed, and the real role and contribution made, by women in the classical period of islamic history.46 4.2.3 how the prophet muhammad [rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] earned and spent money? a critical study (2019) originally published in urdu, ma‘ésh-e-nabwi: rasul-i-akram (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) ke zaraiye ómdan ka taíqêqi jé’izah (karachi, 2015)47, this book attempts to provide new perspectives on studying the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) economic life. it digs deep, significantly, into various dimensions of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 49 … ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)’s economic life in the light of the holy qur’én, hadith and sêrah literature, and islamic history, both classical and contemporary. “this book marks an attempt to study sêrah and the true economic system of islam in the light of authentic ahédêth and reports. the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) economic life has been depicted in this work by drawing upon reliable sources”.48 in the words of professor kidwai, professor siddiqui has not only “thorough, enviable grounding in the islamic primary sources”, but “he is adept also at drawing insightful conclusions” and this book is a testimony/ illustrative to this fact as “it demolishes the half-truth that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) led an ascetic life like a pauper”.49 it has been translated in english by abdur raheem kidwai (amu), edited by abdul kader choughley (springs, south africa). the book consists of two lengthy chapters, preceded by the publisher’s note (pp. 7-9) and ‘introduction’ (pp. 11-19); first chapter, “the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) financial life in the makkan period” (pp.2145), provides a brief sketch of the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) financial conditions in makkah and second chapter discusses “the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) financial conditions in the madinaite period” (pp. 46-90) followed by 296 ‘notes and references’ (pp.91-125), which clearly reveal the wide-range of sources utilized by the author. mr owais manzoor dar (research scholar in islamic studies at jmi, new delhi), in his reviews on this book, published in the muslim world league journal (mwlj) in march 2020 and in karachi-based bi-annual journal, afkér—journal of islamic & religious studies in june 2020 50, mentions that this book essentially employs two methodological strategies to deconstruct:(i) flawed opinion of the orientalists and modern historians that “the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) family, banu hashim, was a socially underprivileged segment of society”; and (ii) the viewpoint of most muslim writers on sêrah that “the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) did not have a good financial position.51 however, according to the author, under the influence of such notions, the popular monastic belief is that wealth and piety cannot go hand in hand, rather, one’s poverty matters more and “the pursuit of wealth even for lawful worldly needs and religious causes as something loathsome”. the proponents of both stances arrive at an identical conclusion. the author criticizes and demystifies these views and considers them as a result of “un-islamic influence and the innate extremism”, and thus argues: “islam has laid down a set of principles for leading life. ... islam has prescribed certain means and resources for earning one’s bread. one is obliged to secure specific resources and it 50 thematic studies on the sêrah …… is his duty to earn these. others fall into the category of being desirable. lawful earning stands for employing economic resources for leading a dignified, comfortable life. therefore, it is a mandatory religious obligation to earn one’s bread. being wealthy is not at all discordant with islamic concepts of piety. nor is it un-islamic to do so.”52 professor siddiqui substantiates his views by providing a brief assessment of the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) economic life in the makkan and the madinan eras in two chapters, excluding his detailed ‘introduction’.53 from the ‘publisher’s note’, it becomes much evident what the book attempts to achieve: islam provides a blueprint for the eternal and guaranteed success of mankind. being a comprehensive and universal code of guidance it encompasses all walks of life while laying particular emphasis on man’s economic life and solutions to economic problems. a study of the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) brilliant life yields extensive guidance about our economic activities. [...]in sum, the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) directives suffice for the guidance of the muslim community on all economic matters. furthermore, his glorious example illustrates how to carry out economic activities. there is some divergence of opinion among the muslim society on the sources of the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) income. the author has delved deep into various dimensions of the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) economic life in the light of aíédêth. the present work provides new perspectives on studying the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) economic life. this empirical, analytical work can be studied with much benefit by both religious authorities and scholars. the contents of this work have been culled from authentic collections of hadith literature.54 in the introduction, professor siddiqui,55 provides the background for this work and for the contents that are included in this work. these were originally published as papers in an urdu quarterly, about which he writes as: “the present work is a collection of my three papers which had been published in the urdu quarterly journal on islamic studies, taíqêqét-iislémi [taíqêqat-e-islami], aligarh, india in 1989-1990”.56 the material was later edited, revised, and re-arranged during 2013 and was published from karachi in 2015 and was later translated and published in english version in 2019. about this, he writes: “during my visit to pakistan in 2013 a devout well-wisher of mine, mr arif [of kutb khana sêrat, karachi] sought my permission to get this work composed. i readily granted him permission. for this could facilitate the publication hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 51 … of this work. ... i toiled day and night and revised and rearranged it. first, i subjected the material to the chronological order, filled the gaps at places, corrected the typos and enriched it with notes and references by way of several additions”.57 he also points out the uniqueness of this book in comparison to his other work as well as mentions about the sources utilized: “my work culture in the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) era [‘ahd nabwi ka tamaddun (2010)58] is no doubt all-embracing yet the discussion on culture and civilisation outweighs the account of prophet’s (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) financial life. the present work focuses on the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) earning and spending, covering many new, fresh areas. [...] the present book draws almost wholly on authentic hadith collections. little material has been culled from works on sêrah.”59 this book, thus, deconstructs and demolishes the flawed opinions and the half-truths that the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) led an ascetic life, that he belonged to a poor family, and that he did not have a good financial resources. in the conclusion of first chapter, siddiqui summarises the discussion in these words: these bring into light the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) financial position, especially in relation to his society. in the makkan phase the companions (raìi allah ‘ónhum) had been subject to severe hardship. yet they had intense love, understanding and mutual help and sacrifice for one another. together they strove to overcome all the hurdles confronting the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and their financial life. one gets this picture of the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) financial position in makkah that since the beginning he did not suffer from poverty. for he belonged to an affluent family of the makkan nobility. he, no doubt, had to face lack of resources from an early age in that he was an orphan. yet his deceased father’s inheritance helped him lead a comfortable life in his early years. furthermore, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) enjoyed both the affection and material support extended to him by his grandfather and mother. his grandfather, ‘abd al-muïïalib did not let his orphan grandson suffer any financial hardship. he looked after him in the same way, as the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) father ‘abdullah would have done.[...] he had his own, independent means of income. he, no doubt, benefitted much 52 thematic studies on the sêrah …… from her wealth. some companions (raìi allah ‘ónhum) and well-wishers among quraysh also helped him in his financial life. so his economic life in makkah was marked by the above mentioned components.”60 similarly, in the conclusion of second chapter, the author, in its last section “limitations of this study” states: “this extensive account presents a clear picture of the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) financial life in the madinan phase. […] he was helped in an equal degree by the affluent makkan companions (raìi allah ‘ónhum) their help catered to the food, clothes and housing of the prophet [øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam] and his family. this generous support enabled him to lead a pleasant life. at the same time it must be asserted that inheritance, his wives’ assets, trade, agricultural produce, and orchards were his main sources of income. he earned so much from these means that he and his family could lead a highly comfortable life. had he been worldly minded, these sources could help him generate heaps of wealth. however, he opted for a simple and decent lifestyle. nonetheless, he shunned ascetism and monasticism. likewise, he refrained from a life of luxury, preferring this world to the hereafter. his financial life was marked by balance and moderation, and in accord with the quranic ideal. he drew upon the bounties provided by allah. … his lifestyle stands out for his contentment, perseverance and absolute trust in allah almighty. he met his needs which were essential for sustenance”.61 thus, keeping in view the theme of this book, it has been fairly described as a significant work providing “new perspectives on studying the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) economic life” in the light of the holy qur’én, hadith, and authentic islamic history and sêrah literature, of classical to contemporary eras, “and debunks many misconceptions. ’’62 4.3 a brief comparison (of above evaluated books) from an outline of professor siddiqui’s overall contribution to the sêrah-writing and from an assessment and evaluation of his three works and their themes and subject-matter—which deal with various sociopolitical, socio-legal, socio-cultural, and economic aspects of the sêrah— bring it into sharper light that siddiqui’s works are indeed illustrative examples of ‘thematic studies’ of the sêrah in the 21st century. this evaluation also reveals that these three works are unique not only in their hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 53 … themes and issues they discuss and explore, but also in their analytical style and objectivity, and the methodology adopted by the revered author. moreover, another common feature found in these works is that he relies mostly on, and makes fair-optimal and perceptive use of, the authentic classical sources, like the holy qur’én, hadith, and classical sêrah works. at the same time, he uses—though, very carefully and critically— modern urdu and english sources as well (authored by muslims or nonmuslims/‘orientalists’). these qualities and merits, collectively, make his works not only distinctive and unique but substantial and significant as well. in brief, all these selected works are academically rigorous, beneficial, valuable, and constructive; and they make a valuable contribution to the sêrah literature in the present times. sayyid hamid has rightly said that professor siddiqui ‘narrates, investigates and analyses’ the sources and his method is that of ‘objective and perceptive recorder of history’.63 much apt is to repeat the words of maulana ‘umari, who praises professor siddiqui’s works for discussing exceptional aspects and for possessing ‘very much originality and uniqueness’ (jidat wa nudrat),64 and in the words of dr ateeq-ur-rahman, from the subjectmatter of professor siddiqui’s sêrah works,‘one gets clear glimpses of his seriousness, profundity and vision/insights’.65 it will not be an exaggeration, and unfair, to repeat these words of the present author that all these selected works are “academically sound, constructive, worthwhile, and positive. they make a valuable contribution to the sêrah literature. above all, they are relevant to the challenges and needs of the time and provide opportunity to muslims, world around, living both in majority or minority context, to gain the necessary guidance and information to imitate the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as the role model in their own context. by writing all these books, professor siddiqui has fulfilled not only the need of the times, but also the requisition of his knowledge and experience as well as his islamic duty.66 5. conclusion from the above analytical evaluation and descriptive assessment, it can be drawn safely that the subject-matter of these works deals with various socio-politico-economic aspects of the sêrah; thereby, being impeccable samples of 21st century sêrah works on the style of ‘thematic’ study and thus different from the traditional sêrah-writing. these works are unique not only in their themes, ideas, subjects and issues but also in their analytical style, approach, objectivity, fairness, and the methodology adopted by professor siddiqui. moreover, one finds that professor siddiqui makes fair, optimal and perceptive use of authentic and classical sources as well as takes assistance—cautiously and critically—from modern urdu and english sêrah works produced by the 54 thematic studies on the sêrah …… muslim and non-muslim scholars and writers. all these qualities and merits, collectively, make professor siddiqui’s works not only distinctive and unique but substantial and significant as well. in sum, all these selected works make a valuable contribution to the 21st century sêrah literature in general and in the category of thematic studies on sêrah in particular and reveal in clear terms relevance of the sêrah in the contemporary times. from the above discussion—both from the outline of professor siddiqui’s overall contribution to the sêrah-writing in general and from a detailed analytical appraisal of his three selected works dealing with various socio-political, socio-legal, socio-cultural, and economic aspects of the sêrah in specific—it can be clearly inferred that siddiqui’s works are indeed illustrative examples of ‘thematic studies’ of the sêrah in the 21st century. the detailed evaluation of siddiqui’s three works through hybrid qualitative research modes (descriptive, comparative, and analytical) is illustrative of the fact that his works are distinctive both in their themes and issues they explore as well as in their analytical style, objectivity and methodology. all in all, the qualities and merits possessed by these books collectively make professor siddiqui’s contribution not only distinctive and momentous, but a vital contribution as well to the sêrah literature in the present times. this is, indeed, a continuation of legacy set forth by luminaries like dr. muhammad hamidullah (paris) in english and of shibli numani and like-minded in urdu. recommendations as the contribution of professor siddiqui is very broad and vast, especially in the field of sêrah, so this study recommends that more and more research works should be carried on highlighting his contribution to the ‘thematic studies’ of the sêrah, underlining uniqueness of the themes he has highlighted, and to make analytical and critical assessment of his style, methodology and objectivity. on the basis of the detailed evaluation of three (3) selected books of professor siddiqui, this study also suggests that besides socio-political aspects, other aspects of his works—such as socio-cultural, gender issues, economic aspects and other inter-related aspects which have more relevance in the contemporary global society be examined so that a clear, comprehensive and broader picture of his contribution comes to the forefront. thus, it is the responsibility of the future researchers to delve deep into, and analyze meticulously, siddiqui’s works so that both their relevance as well as significance is brought to the fore. carrying such studies, especially in english, will be a real tribute to this reputed scholar who is accepted and respected with equal admiration in india and pakistan. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 55 … notes and references 1munawar rajput, “working on social and economic aspects of sirah is need of the hour [interview with professor m. y. m. siddiqui]”, daily jang (karachi edition), 7th june 2020, retrieved from www.jang.com.pk/news/777058 (last accessed on 15th september 2021) [hereinafter cited as rajput, daily jang, 7th june 2020]; muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, “meri sêrat-nigéri ki kahani” (the story of my sêrah-writing), ed. obaidullah fahad and ziauddin fellahi, idarai ulum-i-islamia (aligarh muslim university ki sêrat nigéri, aligarh, india: publication division, amu, 2020), 21-52; tauseef ahmad parray, “focusing socio-political reforms of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam): an appraisal of yasin mazhar siddiqui’s sêrah works”, quarterly insights (dawah academy, iiui, pakistan), 2, 2-3 (winter 2009-spring 2010): 263-302; muhammad abdullah, “professor dr. muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui’s sêrah-writing: an analysis of methodology and style”, zia-e-tahqeeq, 3, no 6 (2013),: 9-17; zafar ahmad nizami, qalami khake, compiled by shama afroz zaidi (new delhi: ios, 2013): 263-64; ziauddin falahi, “muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui ki sêrat nigari”, monthly hayét-e-nau, october 2020, 4-8; idem., “ muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui ki khidmat-equr’ani”, mutala’at—“yasin mazhar siddiqui number”—15/16, 1-4 (october 2020-march 2021): 163-182; muhammad ateeq-ur-rahman, “[obituary:] ah! professor muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui”, ma‘arif (monthly urdu academic journal, azamgarh, india), 206, 5 ( 2020): 371-74; muhammad saud alam qasmi, “professor m. yasin mazhar siddiqui (1944-2020)”, monthly tahzib al-akhlaq, 40, 6-7 ( 2021),: 42-47. 2rajput, daily jang, 7th june 2020; siddiqui, in fahad and falahi, idarai ulum-iislamia, 21-52; parray, in quarterly insights, 2, 2-3 (winter 2009-spring 2010): 280; abdullah, in zia-e-tahqeeq, 3, 6 (2013): 9-10; falahi, in monthly hayat-e-nau, (october 2020): 4-8; ateeq-ur-rahman, in ma‘arif, 206, 5 (2020):371-74. 3rajput, daily jang, 7th june 2020; siddiqui, in fahad and falahi, idarai ulum-iislamia, 21-52; parray, in quarterly insights, 2, 2-3 (winter 2009-spring 2010): 263302; abdullah, in zia-e-tahqeeq, 3, 6 (2013): 10; falahi, in monthly hayat-e-nau, (october 2020): 4-8; qasmi, in tahzib-ul-akhlaq, 42-43. 4 “amu mourns yasin mazhar siddiqui’s demise”, amu website, 15th september, 2020, retrieved from https://amu.ac.in/news/2020/9/15/amu-mourns-professoryasin-mazhar-siddiqui's-demise(last accessed on 15th september 2021). siddiqui’s death was mourned by a number of scholars and institutions not only in the subcontinent but at global level as well, as his death created a big void, which is impossible to fill, in the academics, especially in the sêrah studies. for details see, muhammad razi ul islam nadwi, “end of an era in [urdu] sêrah-writing: death of muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui”, hindustan urdu times, 17th september 2020, retrieved from https://hindustanurdutimes.com/%d9%85%d8%b6%d8%a7%d9%85%db%8c %d9%86-%d9%88-%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%aa606/ (last accessed on 15th september 2021); akhratul wasey, muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui was an exemplary of traditional and modern sciences”, urdu daily hamara samaj, patna, 17th september 2020, 1; tauseef ahmad parray, “obituary: muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui—an islamic scholar and one of the leading authorities on the sirah”, new age islam (online portal, new delhi), 25th september 2020, url: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/dr-tauseef-ahmad http://www.jang.com.pk/news/777058 https://amu.ac.in/news/2020/9/15/amu-mourns-professor-yasin-mazhar-siddiqui's-demise https://amu.ac.in/news/2020/9/15/amu-mourns-professor-yasin-mazhar-siddiqui's-demise https://hindustanurdutimes.com/%d9%85%d8%b6%d8%a7%d9%85%db%8c%d9%86-%d9%88-%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%aa-606/ https://hindustanurdutimes.com/%d9%85%d8%b6%d8%a7%d9%85%db%8c%d9%86-%d9%88-%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%aa-606/ https://hindustanurdutimes.com/%d9%85%d8%b6%d8%a7%d9%85%db%8c%d9%86-%d9%88-%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%aa-606/ https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/dr-tauseef-ahmad-parray-new-age-islam/obituary-prof-m-yasin-mazhar-siddiqui--an-islamic-scholar-and-one-of-the-leading-authorities-on-the-sirah/d/122946 56 thematic studies on the sêrah …… parray-new-age-islam/obituary-prof-m-yasin-mazhar-siddiqui--an-islamic-scholarand-one-of-the-leading-authorities-on-the-sirah/d/122946; idem., “an islamic scholar par excellence [a tribute to prof. m. y. m. siddiqui]”, greater kashmir, 25th september, 2020, 9; idem., “prof. m. yasin mazhar siddiqui (1944-2020): an islamic scholar par excellence”, millat times (online portal, new delhi), 25th september 2020, url: www.millattimes.com\prof-m-yasin-mazhar-siddiqui-19442020-an-islamic-scholar-par-excellence; idem., “prof. m. yasinmazhar siddiqui— an islamic scholar par excellence”, muslim mirror (online portal, new delhi), 25th september 2020, url: http://muslimmirror.com/eng/prof-yasin-mazhar-siddiqi-anislamic-scholar-par-excellence/(all urls were last accessed on 15th september 2021); muhammad daniyal shah, “an assessment of academic contribution of dr yasin mazhar siddiqui” [an outcome of the virtual condolence seminar, organized by the sêrat chair, islamic university bahawalpur, pakistan on 5th october, 2020], monthly haqeeqat (bahawalpur), 1-15 november 2020, 31-34. 5 muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)—a role model for muslim minorities, (translated by.) abdur raheem kidwai (london: the islamic foundation, 2006); idem.,rasul-i-akram (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) aur khawétin—ek saméji muïéla‘ah (new delhi: islamic book foundation, 2006); idem., how the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) earned and spent money? a critical study (aligarh: brown books and springs, south africa: ahsan academy of research, 2019). 6 for this argument/ claim, see, for example, abu sufyan islahi, idarai sir syed muslim university ke mashéhêr-e-quraaniyét/ quranic studies trailblazers of sir syed’s institution—aligarh muslim university (aligarh: brown books, in association with k. a. nizami centre of quranic studies, amu, 2017), pp. 144-47; abdur raheem kidwai, quranic and islamic studies at the aligarh muslim university: an assessment”, ed. juhi gupta and abdur raheem kidwai , oxford of the east: aligarh muslim university 1920-2020, (new delhi: viva books, 2020), 131-145; tauseef ahmad parray, “an islamic scholar par excellence”, greater kashmir, 25th september, 2020, 9. 7 muhammad nawaz, “professor muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui’s academic contribution” (unpublished bs honors dissertation, government college university lahore, pakistan: 2009-2011); ubaidullah, “dr yasin mazhar siddiqui’s sêrah-writing—an analysis” (unpublished m. phil. dissertation, gcu, lahore, 2010-2012). 8tauseef ahmad parray, in quarterly insights, 2, 2-3 (winter 2009-spring 2010): 263-302. 9“report on seminar ‘modern trends in sêrah-writing’ (26–28 march, 2011)”, organized by the national sirah study centre of islamic research institute and iqbal institute for research and dialogue, international islamic university, islamabad, islamic studies, 50, no. 2 (2011): 245-268. 10obaidulah fahad, “tracing pluralistic trends in sêrah literature: a study of some contemporary scholars”, islamic studies, 50, 2 (2011): 217-243. 11report of seminar’ in islamic studies, 50, 2 (2011): 249. 12parvaze ahmad bhat, “pluralism and diversity in the sêrah literature: a study of the contemporary scholar’s on prophet muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)”, unpublished phd thesis, department of islamic studies, amu, india, 2013. https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/dr-tauseef-ahmad-parray-new-age-islam/obituary-prof-m-yasin-mazhar-siddiqui--an-islamic-scholar-and-one-of-the-leading-authorities-on-the-sirah/d/122946 https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/dr-tauseef-ahmad-parray-new-age-islam/obituary-prof-m-yasin-mazhar-siddiqui--an-islamic-scholar-and-one-of-the-leading-authorities-on-the-sirah/d/122946 http://www.millattimes.com/prof-m-yasin-mazhar-siddiqui-1944-2020-an-islamic-scholar-par-excellence http://www.millattimes.com/prof-m-yasin-mazhar-siddiqui-1944-2020-an-islamic-scholar-par-excellence http://muslimmirror.com/eng/prof-yasin-mazhar-siddiqi-an-islamic-scholar-par-excellence/ http://muslimmirror.com/eng/prof-yasin-mazhar-siddiqi-an-islamic-scholar-par-excellence/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 57 … 13parvaze ahmad bhat, “diversity and pluralism in the pre-prophetic sêrah”, hazara islamicus, 2,1 (2013), 1-18. 14 abdullah, in zia-e-tahqeeq, 3, 6 (2013) 9-17. 15abu sufyan islahi, idarai sir syed muslim university ke mashéhêr-e-quraanyat/ quranic studies trailblazers of sir syed’s institution—aligarh muslim university (aligarh: brown books, in association with k. a. nizami centre of quranic studies, amu, 2017),144. 16 for details, see falahi, in monthly hayat-e-nau, (october 2020): 4. 17syeda rabbia ahmad and dr monazza hayat, “family and relatives of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam): an introductory study of the writings of dr.yasin mazhar siddiqi”, bi-annual research journal al-qamar, 3 no.1 (2020).: 11-24 18 muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)— a role model for muslim minorities, (translated by) abdur raheem kidwai (london: the islamic foundation, 2006); idem., rasul-i-akram (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) aur khawétên—ek saméji muïéla‘ah (new delhi: islamic book foundation, 2006); idem., how the prophet muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) earned and spent money? a critical study (aligarh: brown books and springs, south africa: ahsan academy of research, 2019). 19abdullah, zia-e-tahqeeq,3, 6 (2013): 10; ateeq-ur-rahman, ma‘arif, 206, 5 (2020): 371-73. 20fahad and falahi, idarai ulum-i-islamia, 2020; abdullah, zia-e-tahqeeq, 3, 6 (2013): 12-15; parray, quarterly insights, 2, 2-3 (winter 2009-spring 2010): 26566, 280-81; ateeq-ur-rahman, ma‘arif, 206, 5 (2020): 371-73. 21 abdullah, zia-e-tahqeeq, 3, 6 (2013): 16-17; rajput, daily jang, 7th june 2020 22 muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, catalogue of arabic manuscripts at the aligarh muslim university, india (london: furqan heritage foundation, 2002); idem., organization of government under the prophet (new delhi: idarah-i adabiyat-i delhi, 1987); idem., shah waliullah dehalvi: an introduction to his illustrious personality and achievements (aligarh: aligarh publication division, 2001); idem., the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)—a role model for muslim minorities, translated by abdur raheem kidwai (london: the islamic foundation, 2006); idem., how the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) earned and spent money? a critical study (aligarh: brown books and springs, south africa: ahsan academy of research, 2019). 23muhammad humayun abbas shams, maqélét-e-sêrah—a collection of sêrah articles authored by yasin mazhar siddiqui 3, (lahore: maktaba islamia printing press, 2015-2016). 24muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, “meri sêrat-nigéri ki kahani” (the story of my sêrah-writing), ed. obaidullah fahad and ziauddin falahi, idarai ulum-iislamia aligarh muslim university ki sêrat nigéri, (aligarh: publication division, amu, 2020), 21-52. 25abdur raheem kidwai, “professor muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui ki jalélat ‘ilmi”, (professor muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui’s unparalleled erudition), in ed. obaidullah fahad and ziauddin falahi (eds.), idarai ulum-i-islamia aligarh muslim university ki sêrat nigéri, (aligarh: publication division, amu, 2020), 5560. 58 thematic studies on the sêrah …… 26obaidullah fahad and ziauddin falahi (eds.), idarai ulum-i-islamia aligarh muslim university ki seerat nigéri, (aligarh: publication division, amu, 2020), 124-350, 358-458. 27maulana syed jalal-ud-din ‘umari, “foreword” , muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, ‘ahd-i-nabavi (saw) ka nizém-e-×ukëmat (new delhi: qazi publishers and distributors, 1994), 6 28ateeq-ur-rahman, in ma‘arif , 206, 5 (2020): 371-74 29muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, makki uswah-i-nabwi: muslim ‘aqliyyatoun ke masé’il ka íal (new delhi: islamic book foundation, 2005). 30muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, “the prophet muhammad: a role model for muslim minorities”, journal of islamic studies, 18 no. 2, (2007),173. 31murad hofmann, “review: the prophet muhammad [rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]: a role model for muslim minorities…”, journal of islamic studies, 18 no. 2 (2007), 241-243. 32obaidullah fahad, “tracing pluralistic trends in sêrah literature: a study of some contemporary scholars”, islamic studies, 35 no. 2,(2011), 217-243. 32tauseef ahmad parray, “the legal methodology of ‘fiqh al-‘aqalliyyat’ and its critics: an analytical study”, in journal of muslim minority affairs (jmma), 32 no. 1 (2012), 88-107. 33parray, in quarterly insights, 289-92, 300; tauseef ahmad parray, “review: the prophet muhammad: a role model for muslim minorities 2006”, journal of humanity & islam, 1 no.1 (2011),: 60-63; ahmad parray, “muslim living as minority must take a lesson from makkan chapter—review of prof. m. y. m. sidiqui’s the prophet muhammad: a role model for muslim minorities”, kashmir reader, 23rd may 2015, 7. 34muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, rasul-i-akram (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) aur khawétên—ek saméji muïéla‘ah, (lahore: kitabsaray,2008). 35ibid., 41 36ibid., 47 37ibid., 90 38ibid., 119-120 39ibid., 135 40ibid., 138 41ibid., 139 42ibid., 172-175, 176-180 43ibid., 186 44ibid., 205 45parray, in quarterly insights, 2, 2-3 (winter 2009-spring 2010): 293-96. tauseef ahmad parray, “introducing muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui_ ‘prophet muhammad [rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] and women: a social study’ [2006]”, muslim world league journal [mwlj], 44, no. 9 (2016), 42-43. 46 a latest addition to this discourse is zaira ashraf khan, prophet muhammad [rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] and empowerment of women: a prophetic model of emancipation of women (new delhi: viva books pvt. ltd., 2022). tauseef ahmad parray, “revisiting ‘women empowerment’ vis-à-vis islam”, (rising kashmir, 1st february 2022), 7; idem., “revisiting ‘women empowerment’ vis-à-vis islam: review on zaira ashraf khan’s prophet muhammad [rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] and empowerment of hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 59 … women:a prophetic model of emancipation of women (2022)”, islamic literary society (london), 3rd february 2022, available at https://islamicliterarysociety.com/2022/02/revisiting-women-empowerment-vis-avis-islam/ ; idem., “‘women empowerment’ in islamic perspective: on reading zaira ashraf khan’s prophet muhammad [rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] and empowerment of women”, kashmir observer, 12th february 2022, 7. 47 professor muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, ma‘ésh-e-nabwi: rasul-i-akram (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) ke zaraiye ómdan ka taíqêq jé’izah (karachi: kutbkhana seerat, 2015). 48 siddiqui, how the prophet earned and spent? afkār journal of islamic & religious studies 4, no. 1 (2020),18. 49abdur raheem kidwai, “quranic and islamic studies at the aligarh muslim university: an assessment”, in juhi gupta and abdur raheem kidwai (eds.), oxford of the east: aligarh muslim university 1920-2020—centenary commemorative volume (new delhi: viva books, 2020), p. 139 50owais manzoor dar, “introducing prof. siddiqui’s ‘how the prophet muhammad earned and spent money?”, mwlj, 48, no. 7 (2020), 44-49; idem.,“review: how the prophet muhammad [rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] earned and spent money? a critical study, professor yasinmazhar siddiqui”, afkar—journal of islamic & religious studies, 4 no. (1)(2020), 47-50. 51 siddiqui, how the prophet, 21 52ibid.,46 53 dar, in mwlj, 44-49; dar, in afkar, 53-56 54 siddiqui, how the prophet earned and spent?afkār journal of islamic & religious studies 4, no. 1 (2020),7-9. 55ibid.,12-19 55siddiqui, how the prophet earned and spent?, afkār journal of islamic & religious studies 4, no. 1 (2020), 18. 56muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, “the prophet’s financial conditions in the madinaite period-i”, tahqeeqat-e-islami, 8 no. 4 (1989), 12-35 ; idem.,“the prophet’s financial conditions in the madinaite period-ii”, tahqeeqat-e-islami, 9 no. 1 (1990),: 15-41; idem., “the prophet’s financial life in the makkan period”, tahqeeqat-e-islami, 9 no, 3 (1990),: 14-86. 57 siddiqui, how the prophet earned and spent? afkār journal of islamic & religious studies 4, no. 1 (2020),15. 58yasin mazhar siddiqui, ‘ahd nabawi ka tamaddun/ culture in the prophet’s era (new delhi: islamic book foundation; lahore: kitab saraiy, 2010) 59 siddiqui, how the prophet, 15-16 60ibid., 44-45 61ibid., 90-91 62 dar, in afkar, 56 63sayyid hamid, “foreword”, muhammad yasin mazhar siddiqui, organization of government under the prophet.(delhi: idarah-i-adabiyat-i-delli, 1987). 64 ‘umari, “foreword”, in siddiqui, ‘ahd-i-nabavi (saw) ka nizém-e-×ukëmat (1994),6. 65ateeq-ur-rahman, in ma‘arif, 206, 5 (2020): 372 66parray, in quarterly insights, 2, 2-3 (winter 2009-spring 2010): 301-302 https://islamicliterarysociety.com/2022/02/revisiting-women-empowerment-vis-a-vis-islam/ https://islamicliterarysociety.com/2022/02/revisiting-women-empowerment-vis-a-vis-islam/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 9 parents in the holy qur’ān: a study of the concept of shukr, i×són and birr alwālidayn khadiga musa latef college of law, prince muhammad bin fahd university, al-khobar, ksa. email: klatef@pmu.edu.sa received on: 15-10-22 accepted on: 19-04-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.833 abstract the holy qur’ān abounds with rules of conduct and, taken in its entirety, establishes much of the way of life desired by almighty allah. it contains more exhortations than stipulations. most of the holy qur’ān rallies muslims to act justly and reframes their moral knowledge in a context of retribution and reward in this world and judgement and subsequent punishment and reward in the next. several verses in the holy qur’ān include exhortations about parents. this study follows such quranic verses to underline the fundamental rules and principles concerning the treatment of one’s parents and explores the duties required of parents towards their children. it examines the semantics of certain terms used in discussions about filial piety, underlines their significance and explores some grammatical features. furthermore, it examines bad behaviour towards parents from a quranic perspective. the author argues that the holy qur’ān holds parents in such high esteem that respect and kindness towards them is considered second only in importance to worshipping almighty allah. keywords: gratitude, iḥsān, birr al-wālidayn, ‘iqūq al-wālidayn introduction parents are mentioned several times in the holy qur’ān and are allocated an extremely special place1. it is well known that the holy qur’ān has a style of its own. it is not arranged in chapters according to the subject matter; rather, it combines several subjects such as faith, law and morals in one surah (chapter). thus, rules and exhortations about parents, as with other subjects in the holy qur’ān, are included in various chapters in the madinan and makkan revelations. showing parents benevolence and respect is extremely mailto:klatef@pmu.edu.sa https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.833 10 parents in the holy qur’ān … important in islam, and the holy qur’ān has shown that kindness to parents is inseparable from the worship of allah. moreover, many aḥādīth urge kindness to parents. one such ḥadīth states that one of the companions asked the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam): ‘which deed is the dearest to allah?’ the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) replied: ‘performing prayer at its stated time’. the companion asked: ‘what is the next?’ the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) replied: ‘الوالدين -birr al) بر wālidayn), to be good and dutiful to one’s parents’. the companion asked again: ‘what is the next?’ the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) answered: ‘fighting in allah’s cause ( جهاد)2’ thus, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) considered birr al-wālidayn morally superior to fighting in allah’s cause3 (also see below). generally, birr al-wālidayn signifies that a person should love, respect, support and be considerate towards their parents. acts of filial piety include obeying parents’ wishes, taking care of them when they are old and working hard to provide them with material comforts such as food and money4. parents give life to their children and support them throughout their developing years, providing food, education and material needs and bestowing them with unconditional love. after receiving these benefits, children are, thus, forever in debt to their parents. to acknowledge this eternal debt, children must respect and serve their parents all their lives. by contrast, the term عقوق الوالدين (ʿiqūq al-wālidayn) means disobeying one’s parents and treating them with disrespect. this includes a range of behaviours include ignoring their advice, frowning at them, looking at them with disdain, speaking to them harshly or with a tone of mockery and ridicule or shouting at them. the holy qur’ān states, ‘do not say to them “uff” (an expression of anger) and do not scold them, and address them with respectful words’5 (al-isrāʾ,; 17: 23). moreover, the ḥadīth literature is replete with aḥādīth that warn against ʿiqūq al-wālidayn. one such ḥadīth considersʿiqūq alwālidayn second only to the sin of joining partners to allah. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is reported to have said, ‘shall i inform you about the biggest of the greatest sins ( أكبر الكبائر) [these are:] joining partners to allah (باهلل -and ʿiqūq al (الشرك wālidayn’6. unfortunately, signs of iqūq al-wālidayn are becoming common features in several muslim societies in the present era7. exposure to western societies by media or by habitation might have played a major role in this; moreover, in most cases, parents might have not instilled islamic values in their children in the first place. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 11 literature review the arabic term الوالدين meaning being dutiful, devoted and ,بر kind to one’s parents, is used widely in arabic literature, because, as mentioned, it occurs in many aḥādīth. furthermore, the active participle of the word birr, which is bārr, is used in the qur’ān as an attribute of two of the prophets, namely, yaíyā and ʿ īsā (mariam; 19: 14, 32). most of the classical scholars who wrote about birr alwālidayn focus on the aḥādīth rather than the qur’ān. indeed, some of the available books on this subject, whether from the classical period, such as muhammad b. ismāʿīl al-bukhārī (d. 256/870) kitāb birr al-wālidayn and abū ‘l-faraj ʿabd ‘l-raḥān b. al-jawzī (d. 597/1201) birr ‘l-wālidayn, or from the fairly recent period, such as ahmad b. al-ṣidīq al-ghamārī (d. 1380/1960) kitāb birr al-wālidayn al-musammā maṭāliʿ al-budūr, only comprise aḥādīth about the subject. some of these aḥādīth might not be termed authentic (ṣaḥīḥ) or even good (ḥasan). this is because ḥadīth scholars are not concerned about the reliability of aḥādīth regarding birr al-wālidayn, as much as they are about the reliability of the aḥādīth that include provisions and stipulations on the legality of muslims’ acts8. the subject of birr al-wālidayn is considered to be part of a group of aḥādīth known as riqāq, that is, aḥādīth that soften the heart9 and refers to aḥādīth that include exhortations and recommendation on how to lead a god-fearing life, recommend charitable acts and talk about the goodness of the hereafter and how to aspire to it10. thus, al-bukhārī includes many aḥādīth in his kitāb birr al-wālidayn that are not included in his book of authentic ḥadīth, ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī. muhammad b. al-walīd al-ṭarṭūshī (d. 520/1116) is the author who included a discussion of some of the quranic verses about birr al-wālidayn, although the majority of his compilation consists of aḥādīth, reports from the companions and anecdotes from the early islamic periods. in his interpretation of verse 14 of chapter 31, luqmān: ‘be grateful to me and to your parents’, ṭarṭūshī divides gratitude into three categories: the first is feeling gratitude in one’s heart, the second is expressing gratitude by words and the third is showing gratitude by deeds. the first category is achieved when a person knows in their heart that all bounties are from allah almighty; that is assured by a verse in surat al-naḥl; 16: 53:‘whatever blessing you have is from allah’. the second category is achieved by submission to allah almighty and offering him thanks, as he says: ‘so remember me, and i will remember you, and be thankful to me’ (al-baqarh,; 2:152). the third category can be achieved by performing all duties and abstaining from all forbidden things and acts. all categories relate to allah almighty, but only the second and 12 parents in the holy qur’ān … third categories relate to humans, that is, thanking by words and offering help and service. the first category cannot relate to humans because all bounties, in whatever form, originate from allah almighty. however, parents are in a place above what is due to other humans, but below what is due to the almighty alone. they do not deserve the first category because allah almighty is the creator and giver of the bounty of life, but they are above other humans because they are the means through which this bounty is given11. ahmed shawqī ibrāhīm analyses quranic verses, aḥādīth, reports from the companions, and anecdotes from the early generations of islam to enumerate aspects of birr al-wālidayn. from his discussion, it appears that a person must answer their parents if any of them addresses them during the performance of a prayer as long as it is not a prescribed prayer12. meanwhile, other scholars argue that if the person knows that the parent will not be offended if they continue with the prayer then they should continue13. furthermore, a person must ask their parents’ permission to travel, unless it is for íajj14. however, some scholars believe that if the parents refuse to grant permission to their adult child to perform íajj, they should be obeyed unless it is the prescribed pilgrimage in which case their child can go without obtaining their permission. although other scholars hold that a person should keep trying year after year to get their permission, even if it is for the prescribed pilgrimage15. moreover, a person must ask their parents’ permission to go for jihād and refrain from going if they refuse to grant them permission. that birr al-wālidayn comes above jihād in importance is agreed upon by all scholars who wrote about the subject16. this is because it is confirmed by ×adīths mentioned by bukhārī and muslim that a man came to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) asking his permission to take part in jihād. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) asked him, ‘are your parents alive?’ he replied in the affirmative. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said to him, ‘then make your jihād on them17’; that is, exert yourself in their service. however, scholars disagree on whether a man should divorce his wife if his parents ask him to do so. it should be noted that muslim scholars are very cautious on matters of divorce, especially if children are involved18; jurists usually advise men not to resort to divorce unless for very compelling reasons19. in the same vein, muhammad ṣāliḥ al-munjid argues that parents cannot force their son to marry a particular woman if he is not willing. this is analogous to forcing someone to eat food for which he does not have an appetite when other types of food are available, but a person must be very gentle with his parents when trying to convince them of his unwillingness to marry the woman they chose for him20. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 13 parents in the holy qur’ān: i. showing gratitude (shukr) to parents the best place to start seems to be the verse that reminds a man of the role his parents play in his life right from the start; we commanded man (to be good) in respect of his parents. his mother carried him (in her womb) despite weakness upon weakness, and his weaning is in two years. (we said to man,) “be grateful to me and to your parents. to me is the ultimate return” (luqmān,; 31: 14). the chapter that includes this verse is a makkan revelation. as such, it discusses faith as a major theme. the discussion here appears as a contrast between the believers and the unbelievers and their rewards and punishment in the hereafter; it also draws attention to the almighty’s powers manifested in his creation of the earth and heavens, humans, day and night and sun and moon. in the middle of this comes the verse under discussion, followed by, however, if they force you ( اكجاهد jāhadāk) to ascribe partners to me, about whom you (can) have no (source of) knowledge, then do not obey them. remain with them in this world with due fairness, but follow the way of the one who has turned himself towards me (luqmān: 31: 15). the fact that these two verses appear in the heart of a surah of thirty-four verses, thirty of which discuss dogma, indicates that the subject in discussion is just as important as faith from a quranic view. the above two verses come in a set of verses (12-19) in which the wise luqmān was giving his son advice. the set starts by informing the reader that this luqmān was a special person21. he was a man upon whom allah had bestowed wisdom, a fact mentioned, perhaps, to draw attention to what is about to be said about or by him. from the same verse, it can be deduced that the first manifestation of wisdom is that a person is thankful to his lord. it is in the nature of man to thank those who help him, which makes allah almighty the most worthy of praise. although allah almighty, exalted is he, does not benefit from humans’ gratitude, however, showing gratitude to him is a form of increasing his blessing, as verse 12 of the same chapter states ‘and whoever is grateful, is grateful for his own benefit’; and also promised by allah almighty in other quranic verses (e.g. āl ʿimrāni; 3:144-145; ibrāhīm; 14: 7; and al-naml; 27: 40)22. the second manifestation of wisdom appears in taking care of raising one’s children and nurturing them to believe in the existence of allah almighty. this appears in that, after stating that luqmān was granted wisdom by allah almighty and enjoined by him to be 14 parents in the holy qur’ān … thankful to him, the sura turns immediately to describing him exhorting his son: ‘(remember) when luqmān said to his son when he was advising him: “my dear son, do not ascribe partners to allah. indeed, ascribing partners to allah (shirk) is a grave transgression”’ (luqmān q. 31: 13). the verse forms an image in the mind, an image of luqmān speaking gently to his son, giving him very important advice, starting with the affectionate call for attention yā bunayyā (my dear son). meaning ‘my little boy’, yā bunayyā is usually used as a term of endearment. it has been observed that by using this affectionate tone, allah almighty tells us that a solid foundation of love, affection, care and connection is a precondition for successful communication and effective advice23. the next two verses, instead of continuing with the scene of luqmān advising his son, change from a monologue to stating facts, with allah almighty speaking in the first person majestic plural (we) about birr al-wālidayn (luqmān, verses 14, 15 copied above). after that, the monologue of luqmān continues. this shift is dramatic. the holy qur’ān is trying to show the importance of the subject of parents by changing the mode of speech during the couple of verses that discuss the subject. moreover, verse 14 features a type of iltifét. iltifét (lit. turning)—a prominent stylistic feature of the holy qur’ān —is a grammatical shift, most commonly in the person between the first, second and third person, the function of which is to attract the reader’s attention or raise their interest24. verse 14 starts with allah almighty speaking about man in the third person singular; ‘we commanded man …’, at the end of the verse the mode changed to addressing man in the second person singular: ‘be grateful to me …’. in addition, in verse 15, allah almighty addresses man in the second person singular at the start of the verse, then changes to the second person plural at the end of the verse. thus, in two verses, there are three stylistic features that are meant to draw attention to the importance of the subject. the first of them—the change from human monologue to the almighty speaking—in the writer’s view, is the most powerful and effective, and as it is very rare in the holy qur’ān, its use in discussing this subject is significant. considering these two verses from a humanistic perspective, it appears that in a concise, eloquent and very expressive few words, allah gives a summary of the child–parent relationship and presents a picture of the affection of the parents, especially the mother. after stating the general: ‘we commanded man (to be good) in respect of his parents’, the verse turns immediately to the specific, which is the role of the mother, reminding man of her suffering during pregnancy, childbirth and nursing. only pure feelings that have been endowed by allah almighty will make a woman endure such suffering. therefore, when the almighty is advising man concerning his parents, he is not hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 15 reminding him of material favours, which can be volatile. he is reminding him of permanent affection and unconditional love. furthermore, the fact that the mother deserves more consideration is emphasised by the ḥadīth. a man came to the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) and asked the following. ‘who is the person who is most entitled to be treated the best by me?’ the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) replied: ‘your mother’; the man asked: ‘who is next?’ the prophet answered: ‘your mother’; the man asked again: ‘who is next?’ the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) again answered: ‘your mother’; the man asked for the fourth time: ‘who is next?’ to which the prophet’s reply was: ‘your father’.25 thus, according to this ḥadīth, mothers deserve three times the amount of attention and consideration due to fathers26. the reason for this is perhaps that, in addition to the fact that the mother endures the hardship of pregnancy and childbirth, women are usually more affectionate than men. they are also more vulnerable so they need more attention. having reminded man of his parents’ affection, allah almighty orders him to bestow thanks on his lord and parents. the significance of this clause ‘be grateful to me and to your parents’ is that although almighty allah starts the verse with the thanks due to him, he uses the conjunction ‘wa’ (and) which, according to philologists, signifies sharing but not necessarily sequence27. there are two points to be considered. first, the allah almighty used the verb ‘ishkur’ (be grateful) only once, for himself and the parents together. second, he joined the parents to himself using the conjunction ‘wa’—instead of using ‘fa’, which is a conjunction that signifies a sequence, or ‘thumma’, which is a conjunction that signifies sequence but with a time-lag28, making showing gratitude to parents as close in importance to showing gratitude to himself as it can be. the following verse (luqmān: 15) mentions the worst thing a parent can do to their child, which is to try to make them deviate from the straight path—the path that, from a quranic view, is known traditionally and logically. hence, the verse saying, ‘however, if they force you to ascribe partners to me, about whom you (can) have no (source of) knowledge, then do not obey them’, for almighty allah, from a quranic view, is known to all people, but anything else polytheists may join to him in worship cannot possibly be known as a god to everybody. verse 172 of surah al-aʿrāf, is such that belief in allah as the only god and lord of all people is instilled naturally in all humans from even before the revelations. it is stated all over the 16 parents in the holy qur’ān … holy qur’ān that associating partners with allah almighty or denying his existence is the highest wrong-doing and is the only sin that allah almighty does not forgive. to show the importance of filial piety, allah almighty here is saying to man that even if your parents insist that you (jāhadāk) commit the greatest sin of associating other gods to me, still keep their company and keep treating them with kindness and politeness29; however, with a very important caveat— ‘do not obey them’. the importance of ‘do not obey them’ is manifested in that it comes before ‘remain with them in this world with due fairness’ and that having asked man to continue being good to his parents, comes again with the exhortation to follow the path of those who believe in allah almighty. evidently, nothing can give a person permission to a person to treat his parents badly; even their consistent efforts to make him a polytheist or a disbeliever do not give him such permission. moreover, if the person knows that he may predecease his parents, he is ordered by the almighty to leave them a bequest in his will (al-baqarah; 2: 180). this is because according to islamic rules of inheritance, a non-muslim must not inherit from a muslim (see below). ii. iḥsān (kindness) to parents the sudden change in the mode of speech to attract attention is used in other verses concerned with filial piety. the holy qur’én says: say (o prophet to the infidels) come, i shall recite what your lord has prohibited for you: do not associate anything with him (as his partner)’, and then suddenly a shift from prohibition to command: ‘and be good to parents ( بِاۡلَواِلدَۡيِن وَّ bil-wālidayn iḥsān).(al-an‘ém; 6:151) ِاۡحسَاًنا the same verse goes back to prohibitions starting with: and do not kill your children because of poverty… and do not go near shameful acts whether they are open or secret, and do not kill a person whom allah has given sanctity, except rightfully. notably, the command to be good (iḥsān) to parents is placed directly next to the prohibition of polytheism, which is another dramatic shift that shows the importance of the subject. moreover, iḥsān to parents is mentioned immediately next to believing in monotheism in many other verses of the holy qur’ān30— (in addition to verses discussed in this paper, see surah al-nisā; 4: 36; surah al-ʿankabūt; 29: 7-8)—most of them are makkan hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 17 revelations. this is significant as the main concern of makkan revelations, as is well known, was about faith and establishing the principles of that faith. chapter 17, al-isrāʾ, which is a middlemakkan revelation31, includes a set of verses (23–25) concerning filial piety coming at the head of a set of verses (23–39) which include the principles of social and moral behaviour. the subject of our concern not only comes as the first, meaning the most important of these injunctions but also as noted, second only to the essence of islam, which is monotheism. in the first set of verses discussed above, the subject was mentioned as an urgent instruction ‘وصينا’ )waṣṣayyinā ‘commanded’) (surah luqmān; 31: 14). in surah al-isrāʾ; 17: 23, it is mentioned as a rule and a principle of belief: ‘your lord has decreed (قضى qaḍā) that you worship none but him, and do good (iḥsān) to parents’. the significance of this verse is in the use of the term qaḍā (decreed). since the subject is the essence of faith, allah used the strong term qaḍā; and since allah almighty has decreed that nothing is to be worshipped save him, he decreed that what is due to the parents comes immediately after what is due to him. two points can be drawn from this verse: the first is that, from a quranic view, the only thing that should come before a person’s concern and thinking of his/her parents is the concern for and thinking of almighty allah; second, since ʿibādah (worship) is due to none save allah almighty, what is due to the parents comes in place next to ʿibādah, and that is iḥsān. five out of the seven verses that are concerned with filial piety include the word iḥsān (surah al-baqara; 2: 83; surah alnisā’; 4: 36; surah al-anʿām; 6: 151; surah al-isrāʾ; 17: 23; surah al-aḥqāf; 46: 15). one verse (surah al-‘ankabūt; 29: 8) uses the word ḥusn; that is in addition to the verse discussed above, which uses the word ishkur (be grateful). in trying to determine why verse (surah al-‘ankabūt; 29: 8) uses ḥusn instead of iḥsān, from the context and semantically, it appears that in all the verses that use the word iḥsān, the parents are believers; in verse (surah al-‘ankabūt; 29: 8) the parents are not. the verse states: ‘we have instructed man to do good (ḥusnan) to his parents; and if they insist upon you (jahadāka) that you should ascribe partners to me, then do not obey them’. linguistically, both words, iḥsān and ḥusn, come from the root ḥ, s, n. ḥusn is a noun, whereas iḥsān is a verbal noun, so there is not much difference in meaning between the two words. one possible interpretation is that in the verses where the parents are believers, the word is used in the emphatic form. one of the functions of a verbal noun in the arabic language is to emphasise the verb of that noun. therefore, in the sentence: iḥsin iḥsānan, the first word, iḥsin, is an imperative and the second, iḥsān, is to emphasise that command. thus, the verses could 18 parents in the holy qur’ān … have been iḥsin li-wālidayk iḥsānāan (show real kindness to your parents). it is also noticeable that in both verses where the word iḥsān is not used, the parents are disbelievers who may try to make the child join their faith (see above, discussion of surah luqmān; 31: 15) and both verses use the term jahadāka (insist upon you) making the child turn away from the right path; as noted, verse 31: 14 uses the term ishkur (be grateful). as these are the only two verses about filial piety that do not use iḥsān, this makes one wonder if shukr (gratitude) and ḥusn, are of less value than iḥsān. the nearest translation of the word iḥsān, kindness, does not do justice to the word. thinking of iḥsān as something that is considered only second to worshipping, allah gives an idea of the word’s richness. this is confirmed by a ×adīth from the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) that ‘iḥsān is to worship allah as if you see him, and if you cannot achieve this state of devotion then you must consider that he is looking at you. 32 furthermore, this ×adīth adds another dimension to the meaning of the word, which is that good deeds should come from the heart and for the sake of allah almighty are only to be considered iḥsān. this dimension accords with the third verse of the set being discussed (al-isrāʾ; 17: 25) ‘your lord knows best what is in your hearts. if you are righteous, then he is most forgiving to those who turn to him in repentance’. having ordered man to treat his parents with iḥsān, allah explains certain aspects of this iḥsān—‘if any of them or both of them reach old age, do not say to them; “uff” (a word or expression of anger or contempt) and do not scold them and address them with respectful words’ (al-isrāʾ; 17: 23). naturally, old age is the time during which a parent most needs their child. when the parents are in their old age, the children are usually in their youth. this can be between the ages of 20 and 50 or may be even older, which is the busiest time in a person’s life33. this person might become annoyed that they have to take care of their parents as well; hence, allah almighty orders man to be patient with his parents and not to say ‘uff’ to them, which is, as ibn kathīr observes, the least sign of disrespect34 as well as to speak to them with honour and respect. a person whose heart is full of faith would take full care of their parents without even asking their siblings to contribute to the task. thus, the third verse in this set (verse 25) states that allah almighty knows what is inside a person’s heart. unfortunately, western societies do not care for these lessons. young children are rude to their parents and show disobedience. as the parents grow old, they drive them out of their homes and put them in senior citizens’ homes35. grown-up children cannot spare the time to attend to the needs of ageing parents. moreover, busy western life has led to a hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 19 break-up of the family unit, which is firmly upheld in islam. the closing sentence of this verse is a gentle and merciful way to assure those who once treated their parents badly (this could have been during childhood—the age of ignorance—or in early youth—the age of impetuosity—or due to other reasons) that allah almighty is allforgiving as long as the person is repentant. the second verse of this set (surah al-isrā’; 17: 24) is a beautiful, moving picture of yet another aspect of iḥsān—‘and submit yourself before them in humility out of compassion’ ( َواۡخِفۡض لَُهَما َجنَاَح ۡحَمةِ الرَّ ِمَن the term ikhfiḍ janāí (lit. lower the wing) is a .(الذُّل ِ metaphoric arabic expression for mercy. the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) is asked by allah almighty twice in the holy qur’ān to lower his wing to the believers (surah al-ḥijr; 15: 88; surah al-shuʿarāʾ;. 26: 215). in the case of the child–parent relationship, the word dhull (humility) is added to show the degree to which a child is expected to honour and respect their parents. the eloquence of the verse is shown even more in the following sentence: ‘and say: my lord! be merciful to them, as they brought me up in my childhood’. it might be difficult for some people to imagine themselves as old and feeble, as their parents are now; hence, a reminder is needed that we were once in such a weak and helpless state and that our parents were the ones who took care of us then36 (also see below). as parents’ care of their children is bestowed naturally and unconditionally37, in contrast to a child’s care for their parents, which might be out of duty only, allah almighty is the only one fit to reward the parents. therefore, all these rules and duties are insufficient for a child towards their parents; the child should also ask allah almighty to give them real rewards ‘and say, my lord! be merciful to them …’ verse 15 of surah al-aḥqāf uses the term iḥsān with a sentiment similar to that of verse 14 of surah luqmān, as it uses the term waṣṣayyinā (enjoined/commanded) followed by a description of childbearing and giving birth: ‘and we have enjoined upon man to do good to his parents. his mother carried him with difficulty and delivered with difficulty’ (surah al-aḥqāf; 46: 15). this chapter is another makkan revelation that discusses dogma as the main theme. the subject of filial piety is discussed in three verses (15–17) which, similar to surah luqmān, are at the heart of the chapter. however, there is nothing in this set to suggest that the parents are disbelievers. the verses that precede the set discussing filial piety in surah alaḥqāf describe believers in contrast to disbelievers. surely, those who say: our lord is allah, and then stay firm, they will have no fear, nor shall they grieve. those are the 20 parents in the holy qur’ān … people of paradise who will live there forever, as a reward for what they used to do. (surah al-aḥqāf; 46: 13-14). having assured the people who already believed in him, allah almighty goes on to show them the way to gain increased rewards from him, and that is birr al-wālidayn—‘and we have enjoined man to do good to his parents …’ subsequently, the chapter divides people into two groups. those who are guided justly are represented by the image of the person who becomes more pious and more devoted to their lord and their parents when they become more mature and strong …until, when he attains his maturity and reaches forty years, he says: my lord! grant me that i offer gratitude for the favour you have bestowed upon me and upon my parents, and that i do righteous deeds that you like. and set righteousness, for my sake, in my progeny (surah al-aḥqāf; 46: 15). here, again, is one of the holy qur’ān’s beautiful stylistic features. the verse starts with ‘and we have enjoined upon man iḥsān to his parents’ to present a picture of a grown human being instructed by his lord. it moves smoothly from the grown-up man to talking about him when he was a foetus inside his mother’s womb ‘his mother carried him with difficulty’ and then after his birth and being nursed by her, till he is well grown again and ‘reaches forty years’. in two lines, the verse depicts the growing process, starting with a grown man being instructed by his lord, going back to when he was a foetus and moving on with him till he is grown again, and in the most mature age, praying for his parents and his offspring (holy qur’én 46: 15). this is a reminder of the continuous cycle that is inevitable for humans. these four verses (surah al-aḥqāf; 13-16) complement each other. they start by describing those who believe in allah almighty. the second verse (v 14) goes on to show them how to perfect this belief; the last sentence in this verse, i repent to you, and truly i am of those who submit to you. then added to the next verse: such are the people from whom we accept the best of what they did, and overlook their evil deeds, (so as they will be) among the people of paradise according to the true promise that was made to them (surah al-aḥqāf; 46: 14). assure those believers that it is not too late if they have not been good previously, because they can always repent and allah almighty always forgives the repentant. interestingly, the contrast against the justly guided is not represented as ‘he who deviates from hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 21 the right path says to his parents’. it is represented in the image of ‘the one who said to his parents: fie upon you both. do you promise to me that i shall be brought out (from the grave) while generations have passed before me? (surah al-aḥqāf; 46: 17). thus, it gives the image of an ungrateful child treating his parents badly before presenting the person as a disbeliever, which is to come in the following verse, putting more emphasis on the former condition, as if to say that treating one’s parents badly (عقوق الوالدين) will lead one to such a state: such are the people on whom the word (of punishment) has come true along with communities of the jinn and the humans that has passed before them. surely they are the losers. (surah al-aḥqāf; 46.18). before presenting the threatening verse, the chapter shows the attitude of the right type of parents towards a rebellious child; parents who are confronted by a child who speaks to them harshly, not because they were harsh or unkind to the child, but on the contrary, because they are trying to guide the child to the right path. what was the parents’ reaction? it was not anger, outrage or repudiation of their child. instead, they turned towards allah in a pleadingly, asking for his help (v.17). the sentence ‘were crying for allah’s help’ represents vividly a picture of the parents who are extremely worried about a child, albeit an ungrateful one. the image of those parents complements the image of the person who is described as previously praying to allah almighty to make his offspring righteous (v.15). iii. providing for parents in madinah, the revelation was for a community whose faith had been established, so it addresses the moral and social aspects of muslim society. however, when it comes to parents, it displays the same most important features—that kindness to parents is a command from allah almighty and that it comes second only in importance to believing in monotheism the only difference is that, since in makkah the faith had not quite become established, allah almighty used powerful words such as ‘decree’ and ‘enjoin’, whereas the madinan verse, al-nisāʾ, q. 4: 36 merely says ‘and worship allah, and do not associate with him anything, and be good to parents (بِاۡلَواِلدَۡيِن ِاۡحسَاًنا .’(.وَّ since in makkah the idea of birr al-wālidayn was being introduced, it was restricted to the most important, which is treating them with kindness and gentleness and bestowing thanks on them. in madinah, the idea of iḥsān was expanded to include providing for parents and was also to include relatives other than parents38. in the 22 parents in the holy qur’ān … second chapter of the holy qur’ān, which is a madinan revelation, iḥsān to parents and vulnerable members of society—namely, orphans and the poor—is mentioned as instructions to the children of israel (the jews) and mentioned before performing prayer and giving zakat: ‘(remember) when we took a pledge from the children of israel: you shall not worship anyone other than allah, and you shall do good to the parents and to the near of kin and to orphans and the needy, and say to people what is good; and be steadfast in ṣalah (prayer) and pay the zakah’. (surah albaqarah; 2: 83) it has been stated above that the prophets ʿīsā and yaḥyā (‘alaihim as-salém) have been described as bārr, indicating that birr al-wālidayn is not only an obligation for muslims but also ahl alkitāb39 (jews and christians). the holy qur’én makes it obligatory for a muslim to leave some of his money to his parents in case he should predecease them. the matter is of such importance that two affirmative conditions are used in this small verse; first, the use of the word kutiba (enjoined), which makes it an obligation; second, the use of the word íaqq (obligation) to confirm that it is more than just a matter of bestowing favours. it is enjoined upon you, when death approaches any of you, and he leaves some wealth, that he must bequeath for the parents and the nearest of kin in the approved manner, being an obligation on the god-fearing. (surah al-baqarah; 2: 180) the importance of the subject also shows in that it was introduced in a very early madinah surah40 and before revealing other rules of inheritance. when the rules of inheritance were revealed (surah al-nisāʾ; 4:11-12), according to some scholars, the above verse was abrogated, and the parents were allotted their share according to these rules. other scholars hold that the verse was not abrogated; it is meant for non-muslim parents41. as noted, one of the stipulated conditions of inheritance in islam is that the heir must be a muslim. it is significant that the holy qur’ān uses the derivative of the word والد (wālid, lit. the one who gives birth) in all the verses that urge iḥsān, whereas in the verse that sets the inheritance rules (al-nisāʾ, q. 4:11), it uses the word أبويه )abawayhi, which is derived from abb, parent). none of the classical exegeses consulted discuss this point. the present author’s view, however, is that since iḥsān is a hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 23 fundamental matter of faith that comes second only to believing in allah almighty, allah almighty restricted it to al-wālidayn (lit. the two who give birth) of the person. the word wālid is the active participle of yalid (to give birth). hence, wālid never appears in the qur’ān as plural; it is always either in the singular form, wālid/wālidah (father/mother) or dual, wālidayn. furthermore, the term wālid reminds man of the role of his parents in his life, that they were the cause of his existence, the close intimacy between himself and them, they are physically a part of them that is growing independently. meanwhile, with material subjects, the terms used are the derivatives of abb which, although it means father or parent, in classical arabic, it can be extended to mean grandparents and uncles. it is used in the holy qur’ān to indicate humanity’s original parents, adam and eve (surah al-aʿrāf; 7: 27), and to indicate grandparents and uncles: is it that you were present when death approached yaʿqūb, when he said to his sons: what will you worship after me? they said: we will worship your god and the god of your fathers, abrāhīm, ismāʿīl (ishmael) and isḥāq (isaac). (surah al-baqarah; 2:133) according to exegeses, abrāhīm (‘alaih as-salém) was jacob’s (‘alaih as-salém) grandfather and ismāʿīl (‘alaih as-salém) was his uncle42. furthermore, verse 99 of surah yūsuf says the following about yūsuf: ‘he took his parents to him’. the term used is abawayhi (his two parents). the holy qur’ān did not use wālidayhi (the two who gave birth to him) because jacob’s (yūsuf’s father) wife at the time was not yūsuf’s mother but his maternal aunt. his mother died when he was a child as stated in the old testament43. as classical exegeses did not differentiate between al-abawayn (the two parents) and al-wālidayn (the two who gave birth), they all state that there are two opinions about yūsuf’s mother’s death. some argue that there was nothing to confirm her death when yūsuf (‘alaih as-salém) was a child44. however, the use of the term abawayh instead of wālidayh in the verse can be considered a confirmation of what is in the old testament that yūsuf’s mother died when he was a child. by contrast, in chapter 5, verse 110, where allah almighty was addressing the prophet jesus (‘alaih as-salém), ‘o jesus, son of mary! remember my blessing upon you and upon your mother’, the term used to indicate mother is wālidatik (lit. the woman who gave birth to you), whereas in the verse that states rules of inheritance, the term used to indicate the mother is ummih, meaning mother as well as grandmothers (surah al-nisāʾ; 4: 11). as noted, verse 11 of al-nisāʾ, stating rules of inheritance, uses abawayhi rather than wālidayhi to indicate parents and ummih, 24 parents in the holy qur’ān … rather than wālidatih, to indicate mother; hence, it is agreed upon in islam that if the parents of the deceased predeceased them, their share is to be given to the grandparents should they be living. the verse that speaks of bequest, surah al-baqarah; 2: 180, uses the term wālidayn. according to this study, this supports the argument of scholars who believe that the verse is not abrogated; it is meant for non-muslim parents. as the bequest is given to a non-muslim and it is described as a prescribed duty, it is limited to al-wālidayn (the two who gave birth) only. in madinah, the faith was established and the muslims were concerned about their duties according to the rules of their new community. they used to ask the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) about various subjects appearing in the second chapter in verses that start with the word yasʾalūnak (they ask you). there is a set of verses in this chapter (215-222) including questions about many topics, the first of which is an enquiry into how to spend one’s money. in the answer, allah almighty identified al-wālidayn as the first due to receive a share in a muslim’s money, followed by al-aqrabīn (close relatives). here, there was no need to use al-bawayn, because grandparents are included in al-aqrabīn. moreover, al-wālidayn is mentioned separately and at the head of all categories for emphasis; other categories include orphans, the needy and travellers (al-baqarh, q. 2: 215). many other verses in the qur’ān refer to those on whom money should be spent where parents are not mentioned. this is, perhaps, because these verses are regarding îadaqāt (charity), whereas spending on parents is a duty. this is confirmed by ×adīth when the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said to a person who was complaining that his father takes from his money without permission: ‘you and your money belong to your father45’. concluding remarks chapter 49 of the holy qur’ān, surat al-ḥujrāt, is concerned primarily with civility and good manners. it starts with five verses advising muslims to respect the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), which can be analogically extended to include all muslim leaders. furthermore, the chapter addresses the muslim community as one family, as it states in verse 10, ‘all believers are but brothers’, and advises members of this family on what leads to its integrity and prosperity. this includes not ridiculing or insulting one another, not calling each other by offensive nicknames (verse 11), avoiding making negative assumptions about each other and not spying on or maligning each other (verse 12). there is no mention of parents or how to treat them in this chapter. by contrast, chapters that include verses about filial piety are concerned with the fundamental issues in islam, such as the existence of allah almighty and manifestations of hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 25 his powers, the importance of believing in him, worshipping no one but him, turning to him in times of need, the importance of being steadfast in performing religious duties, the rewards that await the believers and warning the disbelievers of the inescapable punishment that awaits them for denying allah’s existence and the resurrection. except for 4:36, all the verses concerned with filial piety are preceded by verses that discuss dogma; moreover, four of them are followed by verses that discuss dogma. the rest are followed by verses that discuss other fundamental issues from an islamic view, such as warning against killing one’s child for fear of poverty, committing obscenities, killing another person without legal justification, appropriating orphans’ property for oneself (surah alanʿām; 6:151–152) and the command of providing relatives, the needy and wayfarers their due (surah al-isrāʾ; 17:26). chapter 4, surah al-nisāʾ, is primarily concerned with family ties. it speaks of marriage laws and urges muslims to treat orphans and women46 with justice. the majority of the verses of this chapter are concerned with the welfare of the muslim community. perhaps this is the reason why the verse that speaks of birr al-wālidayn (v. 36) is preceded by a verse that urges the community to reconcile couples before their marriage breaks down: ‘if you fear a split between them (the spouses,) send an arbiter from his people and one from her people. if they desire to set things right, allah shall bring about harmony between them’. (surah al-nisāʾ; 4: 35) the holy qurʿān also discuss what is due to the parents after their demise. this includes praying to allah almighty to grant them forgiveness and offering thanks to him on their behalf, represented in the holy qur’ān as an exemplary behaviour of some of the prophets (surah ibrāhīm; 14: 41; surah al-naml, 27: 19; surah nūḥ, 71: 28) and of wise and good men (surah luqmān; 31:14; surah al-aḥqāf; 46: 15). furthermore, it is confirmed by the ×adīth that ‘if a person dies, his deeds are cut off, except for three; continuous charitable deeds, knowledge left behind from which people benefit, or a pious child who would pray for him47’. the prophet’s saying, ‘a pious child’, indicates that to expect his children to pray for him after his death, a person should have done his duty towards them during his lifetime. this can further be deduced from verse 17:24: ‘and say: my lord, be merciful to them as they have brought me up in my childhood’, indicating the parent’s duty and care towards the children at their tender ages and after, towards which the children are asked to pray to allah almighty for their parents reciprocally48. the author has argued above that verse 31:13 is such that taking care to raise one’s children and nurturing them to believe in the existence of allah almighty is a token of wisdom. this can be by educating them, but most importantly, by practicing religious values and beliefs through everyday interactions with others, including them49. research has 26 parents in the holy qur’ān … demonstrated that parental religiousness is associated with higher levels of desirable outcomes in children and lower levels of undesirable outcomes. compared with children reared in nonreligious households, children in religious homes have been reported to be better adjusted socially and emotionally, have higher selfesteem and practice more social responsibility50. such a child is more likely to remember their parents after their demise, pray for them and donate to charity on their behalf. notes and references 1 sayyid qutb, in the shades of the qurʾān (no publisher), 13/331; sophia farooq, “the significance of parents in islam” islamic city (https://www.islamicity.org/82136/the-significance-of-parents-in-islam-a-sacredbond-in-todays-society/) february 2023. 2 muhammad ibn ismāʿīl al-bukhārī, ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī (damascus: dār ibn kathīr, 2002), hadīth no. 527. 3 cf. ade hidayat, “the value inheritance of family systems in islamic tradition: birr-ul-walidayn” ulum islamiyyah (issn 1675 – 5936 | e-issn 2289 4799) 2017, vol. 22, p. 23-4. 4 hidayat, “the value” 22; mirza mahbub wijaya, “islamic philosophy perspective on birr al-walidain” living islam (issn 2621-6582 (p); 2621-6590 (e)) volume 5 nomor 2, november 2022, p.174. 5 all qurʾān translation is borrowed from mufti muhammad usmani, the meaning of the noble qurʾān (karachi: maktabat maʿariful qurʾān, 2010). 6bukhārī, ṣaḥīḥ, hadīth no. 5976. 7 hidayat, “the value” 26. 8cf. ahmad b. al-ṣidīq al-ghamārī, kitāb birru ‘l-wālidayn al-musammā maṭāliʿ al-budūr (cairo: maktabat al-qāhira, 2006), 5. 9ahmad ibn ʿalī ibn ḥajar al-ʿasqalānī, fatḥ al-bārī bi sharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, ed. muhammad fuʾād ʿabd ‘l-bāqī (al-maktaba al-salafiya, n.p., n.d.), 11/229. 10 bukhārī, ṣaḥīḥ, pp. 1598-1634. 11muhammad ibn al-walīd al-ṭarṭūshī, birr al-wālidayn (yemen: no specification, 2019), 50-52. 12aḥmad shawqī ibrāhīm, birr al-wālidayn (egypt: dār nahḍat miṣr, 2012), 27. 13muhammad ṣāliḥ al-munjid, aḥkām birr al-wālidayn (riyadh: mujmūʿat zād li‘lnashr, 2018), 65-6. 14ibrāhīm, birr, 27. 15ṭarṭūshī, birr, 17. 16cf. ghamārī, maṭāliʿ al-budūr, 78; hidayat, “the value” 23-4; munjid, aḥkām, 15; saʿīd ʿalī qaḥṭānī, birr al-wālidayn fī ḍūʾ al-kitāb wa ‘l-sunna (riyadh: muʾasasat al-jirīsī, n.d.), 9; ibrāhīm, birr, 8; ṭarṭūshī, birr, 23-25. 17bukhārī, ṣaḥīḥ, ḥadīths no. 3004, 5970; muslim ibn al-ḥajjāj ibn muslim, ṣaḥīḥ muslim, ḥadīth no. 2549 18al-munjid, aḥkām, 47-9; 19wael b. hallaq, sharīʿa theory, practice, transformation (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2009), 282. 20al-munjid, aḥkām, 50-2. 21 cf. hidayat, “the value” 25. https://www.islamicity.org/82136/the-significance-of-parents-in-islam-a-sacred-bond-in-todays-society/ https://www.islamicity.org/82136/the-significance-of-parents-in-islam-a-sacred-bond-in-todays-society/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 27 22cf. joseph lumbard, “the semantic of gratitude in the qurʾān” brill’s journal of islamic ethics, 5 (2021), 173–193; esp. 178-9, 187. 23afroz ahmad bisati, “parenting is counselling: the relationship of the parentchild in islam.” hamdard islamicus, volume xliv, 2 (2021) 69. 24muhammad abdu ‘l-haleem, understanding the qurʾān (london: i.b. tauris, 1999), 187-205. 25al-bukhārī, ṣaḥīḥ, ḥadīth no 5971; muslim, ṣaḥīḥ, ḥadīth no 2548. 26 cf. hidayat, “the value” 22-3. 27abbās hasan, al-naḥw al-wafi, (cairo: dar al-maʿarif, n.d.) sixth edition 3/556-8. 28hasan, al-naḥw, 3/573, 576. 29 wijaya, “islamic philosophy” 175. 30 wijaya, “islamic philosophy” 177. 31a. f. l. beeston, arabic literature to the end of the umayyad period (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1983), 230-1; ʿabd al-raḥmān al-suyūṭī, al-itqān fī ʿulūm al-qurʾān (beirut: muasasat al-risāla, 2008), 34, 35. 32al-bukhārī, ṣaḥīḥ, ḥadīth 50. 33 cf. qutb, shades, 11/119. 34ismāʿīl ibn kathīr, mukhtaṣar tafsīr ibn kathīr, ed. m. ʿa. ṣābūnī (beirut: dar al qurʾān al-karīm, 1981), 2/373. 35ibrāhīm, birr, 12. 36 muhammad fakhr al-dīn al-rāzī, tafsīr al-fakhr al-rāzī. (beirut: dār al-fikr li’lṭibāʿah wa’l-nashr, 1981), 20/189. 37 qutb, shades, 11/119-20. 38 wijaya, “islamic philosophy” 175. 39 hidayat, “the value” 26. 40al-suyūṭī, itqān, 35. 41abū jaʿfar muhammad al-ṭabarī, tafsīr al-ṭabarī (beirut: muʾssast al-risālah 1994), 1/484-6; ibn kathīr, mukhtaṣar, 1/157; qutb, shades, 1/198. 42muhammad b. ahmad al-qurṭubī, al-jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-qurʾān, ed. ʿa. ʿa. alturkī (beirut: muʾssasat al-risāla 2006), 2/412; ibn kathir, mukhtaṣar, 1/131; cf. the old testament, genesis, chapters. 16 – 21, 25. 43the old testament, genesis, chapters. 29-30, 35/16-20. 44al-ṭabarī, tafsīr, 4/390; al-qurṭubī, al-jāmiʿ, 11/454; al-rāzī, tafsīr, 18/214; ibn kathir, mukhtaṣar, 2/262. 45abū ʿabd allah muhammad ibn māja, ṣaḥīḥ sunan ibn māja, ed. m. nāṣir al-dīn al-albānī (riyadh: maktabat al-maʿārif li’l-nashr wa’l-tawzīʿ, 1997), ḥadīth no 1870. 46 jasvi, m. (2021). women’s rights and social status determined by prophet muhammad (ملسو هيلع هللا ىلص). karachi islamicus, 1(2). 47muslim, ṣaḥīḥ, ḥadīth no. 1631. 48bisati, parenting,73. 49 hidayat, “the value” 25; wijaya, “islamic philosophy” 179-81; farooq, “the significance”. 50marc h. bornstein, diane l. putnich, jennifer e. lansford, suha m. al-hassan, dario bacchini, “mixed blessings’: parental religiousness, parenting, and child adjustment in global perspective” the journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 2017, vol. 58, issue 8, p 880-892. doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12705 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12705 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 9 9 family life as the foundation of islamic civilization mufti kifayat ullah department of islamic studies, abdul wali khan university mardan kpk, pakistan. email: muftikifayat42@gmail.com atta ur rehman department of islamic studies, abdul wali khan university mardan kpk, pakistan. email: a.rehman@cch.edu.com muhammad junaid khan department of islamic studies, abdul wali khan university mardan kpk, pakistan. email: junaidjaann@gmail.com received on: 30-10-22 accepted on: 05-06-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.628 abstract the main aim of this research manuscript is to explore the importance of family life in islam in general and in pakistan in particular and how significant the legitimate relationship between man and woman is. one of the basic advantages of family life is that it makes every individual aware of his/her responsibilities in this life. the responsibility of every individual, whether muslim or non-muslim, is to take necessary steps for the betterment of society. he/she is supposed to ensure peace, security, goodness, human dignity, equality and tolerance. another responsibility is to contribute to society positively, by implementing good human values which are common to all religions of the present world. today’s world needs these good moral values more than ever to make it a place suitable for living of all humans and that is why this article focuses on these values in an explorative way. the family life in islam is a beauty and purity at the same time, emphasizing upon the believers and others to adopt it for the success of here and hereafter. keywords: family life, foundation, islamic civilization, moral impact, human history, conjugal life. mailto:muftikifayat42@gmail.com mailto:a.rehman@cch.edu.com mailto:junaidjaann@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.628 10 family life as the foundation … introduction family life holds importance in islam due to its social and moral impact in elevating human beings to the highest status as a masterpiece of allah almighty. it plays a fundamental role in achieving a prosperous and balanced society. allah almighty has created man and woman in such a way that both fascinate each other. through this fascination, they form a unit called family which fulfills the purpose of carrying forward the streak of human generation. they both are integral parts of this unit while they complement each other as a source of serene life. islam as a religion tends to strengthen the institution of family leading to formation of a healthy and prosperous society. thus, it gives birth to a great civilization in human history. this objective can be achieved by defining basic principles for conjugal life and ensuring growth through a legitimate relationship between man and woman. this would also provide social protection and cohesion and also set rules for relationship through this life. islamic civilization is one of the premier civilizations in human history. it has its own salient features such as it promotes unity and purity. it is also divine, based on high moral values, focusing on genuine knowledge and very open with an inclusive approach. these salient features are achieved with a strong conjugal life and take islamic civilization to its zenith. islam gives a central position to women in a family life declaring her as an equally important part of the unit with full rights which were denied to her before. she enjoys full rights provided to her as well as protection through family life. it enables her to lay the foundation of a civilization. in this way, she is actually given the freedom of being the architect of islamic civilization and the greatness of this civilization is indebted to her focus on the moral upbringing of the next generations. all religions emphasize on the significance of family life because human society cannot be constructed on a solid footing unless the relationship between man and woman is established strongly. according to a hanley foundation report three years ago, family life is significant because it helps people to get through the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 11 11 most disastrous times and the best times. it offers support and security coupled with unconditional love. it brings out the best in people even if they cannot see it. it brings people back to peace because they are best understood while life is crucial. it also guides them down the path of morality when the external influences have a dangerous impact on them like drugs, peer pressure and bullying etc. it helps them to diffuse or avoid tension in life. it directs people to achieve their goals in life. in the last six years, single parent families have held a steady rate of 35 % of the total households in the united states. in 2016, that percentage totaled to approximately 24 million kids living with single parents in the united states and it is more than the population of florida. according to the kids data center, in 2016, 32% of single parents were living in poverty compared to 7% of two parent family homes. in 2022, there were about 15.78 million children living with a single mother in the united states, and about 3.44 million children living with a single father.1 so, it is a clear understanding that growing up in a separate or broken family setups can lead to poverty and frustration, creating academic obstacles, reduced access to safe communities and quality enrichment activities. in the end, it can cause a heightened risk of physical, behavioural and emotional issues. that is why, family life is the foundation of happy and successful life in islam. literature review various attempts have been made in this direction and scholars have written many books and articles. however, there is still the need to focus on it because of the tendency of the modern generation to avoid being entangled into the bond of matrimony and it needs to be explained in this article.a few works in this regard are mentioned below: 1. islam ka ó’ili nizém (family system of islam) written by syed jalaluddin umri: this book was published in 2006 by markazimaktab-e-islami publishers, new delhi. it discusses the muslim family but not in modern perspective while this article will focus on relating family life to the modern world. 2. islam ka-ó’ili qanën (islamic family law) written by salahuddin haider. this book was published by haris publications, darul-ablagh, lahore. it discusses the laws of muslim family only and is, therefore, while this article will discuss the significance of islamic family life in the modern world. 3. muslim personal law aur islam ka ó’ili nizam written by shams tabraiz khan. it was published by majlis-e-tahqeeqat wa12 family life as the foundation … nashriat-eislam, laknau, in 2011. this book discusses the personal laws and family system in islam but does not take into account the modern considerations and this article will also stress on the islamic family life. 4. ó’ilizindagi ke bunyadi usël written by dr israr ahmad. this book was published by markaz-eanjuman khudddam-ul quran, lahore. this book beautifully discusses the fundamentals of family life in islam and this article will further elaborate these fundamentals of family life. 5. ó’ili zindagi ke bunyadi qawénên written by syed ahmad urooj, this book was published by markaz-imaktab-eislami publishers, new delhi, in 2017. this book discusses the basic rules for a muslim family in a good way while this article will explain them more. research methodology qualitative and exploratory methods will prevail throughout this research article to assess how family life is significant in islam and pakistan and how it plays its role in the establishment of a great islamic society in pakistan. focus will be kept on how the bond of marriage is important for the success of a family life contributing to islamic civilization. the holy qur’én, various hadiths books and different books of the scholars of islam will be referred to in this article primarily. family life as the foundation of islamic civilization in arabic language, the word, ‘ó’lé, is used for wife and family members. so, family life refers to the life of all those comprising parents and children as well. the word ‘ayél means those whose expenses a person is responsible to bear with. ibn manzoor al-afrika explains it literally, ل العول : املیل یف احلمکہ ایل اجلور ، عال: یعول ، عوال: جار و مال عن احلق ویف "عو '2التزنیل العزیز احلکمی ذلک ادین االتعولوا، وقول الرسول وعالو ایف املوازین in al-manjad, the meaning of family life is described as ‘ól, ya‘ël ‘awla ‘ayéla ‘awla al-rijél ‘ayéla" to provide for the livelihood of children. ‘ayéla means “sufficient for the sustenance of family members.” ‘ayéla al-rijél” means those male and female of the house whose living is obligatory. allama raghib isfahani writes that ‘alaa and ghaala have almost the same meaning, while the word al-ghul is used for something that kills a person and the word al-‘awl is used for everything burdening a person crushingly.3 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 13 13 al-‘ayél means those people whose expenses a person is responsible for and its singular form is ‘aila which means to bear the burden of his family expenses.4 ‘al-ayél means those people whose expenses a person is responsible for, whose burden is pressed down, and its singular form being ‘ala which means to shoulder the expenses of someone. the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said: 5”ابد بنفسک مث مبن تعول“ “spend on yourself firstly and then on those who depend on you.” at another place in the holy qur’én, the word ‘a’ilé is used in the meaning of “bankrupt or poor”. ﴾ َوَوَجَدَك عَآئِٗلا فَأَۡغَنى ﴿ "and he found you in need, then made you need-free."6 for family life, the word “family” is used in english, khéndén in urdu, and khénwéda in persian. in the holy qur’én and hadiths of the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), the words al-usra, al-‘ashêrah and al-‘ashêr are used as synonyms for the family. in the holy qur’én: it is said, ُجُُكۡ َوَعِشرَيتُُُكۡ ﴿ ﴾ َوَأۡزَوَٰ 7“and your spouses and your clan” for the survival of the human race, allah almighty has made the cycle of birth and reproduction male and female. in each gender, the feeling of attraction for the other gender is natural, enabling man and woman to become life partners and to support each other at every step of life. the fact is that each person’s life is incomplete without the other. this is the reason why a man, even if he is perfect, cannot be complete without his partner. similarly, a woman cannot live a satisfactory life without her partner. therefore, the existence of both men and women is essential for the continuation of life and the survival of human civilization. muhammad qutb writes that emotional stability is a psychological need of human beings and this need cannot be compensated by physical comforts and economic freedom. of course, home and family are needed for this stability. in response to this 14 family life as the foundation … natural desire of the human soul, the desire to build a family arises within a human being, and this is the spirit under which men and women live together with love, affection, peace and contentment. there is a natural happiness and contentment for each of them which can’t be found anywhere other than family life. in fact, the family relationship between man and woman is the cornerstone of human society.8 maulana maududi is of the opinion that the family system is formed by a permanent relationship between woman and man via nikéí (marriage contract). due to this relationship, peace and stability are brought about in the life of individuals. then this individuality is transformed to collectivity based on a pure atmosphere of love, peace and sacrifice. and the new generations grow up in congenial atmosphere, consequently passing on the appropriate upbringing and morals.9 ۔ maulana sadruddin islahi writes: “the foundation of human civilization comes from the mutual association of man and woman. a small family is formed by these two people and is the first step to a civilized human life.” the rules for this family life are called the family system. according to the new encyclopaedia of britannica, “a group of persons formed by marriage and blood relations, each of whom is related to another by social rank. and this social rank, husband, wife, mother and father, son, daughter and brother and sister, goes on." according to the world book encyclopedia, “family is the oldest human institution. it is very important for many reasons. many people think that family consists of parents and children, but in reality, family, not only in ancient times but even today in many countries, also includes relatives besides parents and children.” richard dyer also writes in this way: “woman and man, wife and husband, then mother and father, and then birth, development and upbringing of children are all complementary stages of a family. these stages of life are very important if children have the courage to move forward. and if children don’t live a life of good traditions, they may lose pleasant and good habits in their adulthood, although all hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 15 15 these traditions are necessary for human survival and progress in a society.” confucius, the famous chinese philosopher, said. “let families protect families and let society protect itself.”10 importance of family life in the light of islamic teachings in the light of islam, the purpose of creating man and woman is to enhance the splendour of social life. it aims at making the family life of man strong and stable because the stability of life depends on the stability of the family system. a family includes men, women, spouses and children. the deep and strong relationship between all these people leads to satisfaction and peace in the entire muslim society. conjugal life is emphasized in islam to the extent that even two surahs in the holy qur’én are named after women and divorce. allah almighty created his most beautiful creatures and provided them with means for satisfaction and comfort. the greatest reward from allah almighty was to create an opposite sex for the satisfaction of man and woman. as allah almighty says in the holy qur’én: لَۡجنََّة﴾ ۡسُكۡن َأنَت َوَزۡوُجَك أ ٓـَاَدُم أ ﴿َوقُلَۡنا یَ َٰ "and we said! o adam! dwell ,you and your wife , in paradise."11 for man, the creation of women is a source of satisfaction and a cause of peace. islam is the religion of nature, so it fulfills human being’s natural needs on this earth and gives them a beautiful companionship so that they can enjoy the moments of life and share their sorrows. this is an acknowledged fact that when there is no pleasure in human life on earth, then life becomes miserable, that is why, allah almighty has placed pleasure in everything of this life. a woman (wife) is the sign of the power of allah almighty, as he created her from the souls of men and not from anything else, and allah almighty created woman not as a slave, but as a companion and wife in a man’s life. so he gets peace being the natural need and hidden secret for a successful life. man gets the happiness of joining society and that is why, man needs to be in the company of women and vice versa. mu’addat means that man loves his wife and wife loves her husband. it is commonly observed that such love exists between 16 family life as the foundation … husband and wife. and this is the sign of allah almight’s mercy that man loves his wife. he provides every kind of comfort and allah almighty has made him responsible for it too, and same is the case with woman within her power. humanity and mutual love spring from family life established through nikéí according to islamic sharê‘ah. and islam calls it a couple. illegitimate couples are not recognized by the couples themselves, but they are intelligent and evil doers and islam has prescribed severe punishments for them. the relation between husband and wife provides natural comfort, so islam has described this relationship through a beautiful analogy, ﴾ َّۗ َّهُنَّ ﴿ ُهنَّ ِلَباٞس لَُُّكۡ َوَأنُُتۡ ِلَباٞس ل "they are apparel for you and you are apparel for them."12 husbands and wives are called a garment. the garment is something which is primarily attached to the human body because it covers and protects it from the harmful effects of the external environment. it means that the relationship between them should be like the relationship between body and clothes. spouses should be connected to each other in such a way that they may cover and protect each other from the attacks of evil forces. that is why, the holy qur’én says that women and men are clothing for each other. it is not said that only women are the clothing for men, nor it is said that only men are clothing for women, but both are described as clothing for one another. therefore, family life in islam is a natural arrangement for the fulfillment of sexual, emotional and physical urges. islam acknowledges this need and its importance in life and emphasizes upon the fact that man/women cannot be left free to fulfill their needs in an unnatural and illegal way. rather, islam draws a tight fence of marriage around people. men and women can fulfill this need only through the wife and husband who have entered into the sacred bond of marriage in a legitimate manner. adopting any other means will be considered as the most serious crime according to islam for which it has prescribed severe chastisement.13 family life is the reason for the survival and growth of the human race: “instead, it was allah almighty who created from a drop of water, a wonderful creature like a human being, but the best of creatures.” but it is interesting to note that allah almighty created women and men, different from each other but similar as well. they are not contradictory, but an excellent combination of each other. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 17 17 then, by combining these couples, he created men and women in the world with an amazing balance, with whom a chain of relations follows in the form of sons and grandsons bringing wives from other houses and another chain of relations with daughters and grandchildren. in this way, the whole community is connected with one race and one culture. forming a family is the natural and basic need of a human being in this vast universe. a human being considers him /herself the most secure and peaceful in their homes, i.e. where the family stays. due to the peace and comfort in family, allah almighty has declared it as a special blessing for man, for the development of a balanced personality in a person, a calm atmosphere is required. without which, even with physical comforts, they would be a victim of permanent psychological instability. family life not only provides livelihood but also social security. mutual cooperation and empathy are promoted. a mother’s bosom becomes a shelter for young children and family plays the role of shelter for the aged, weak and needy. ms. ayesha lemo, a new-muslim, writes that women in the world have always wanted to live with their husbands and children in peace and security. family life guarantees social and economic security “whatever you spend with the intention of attaining the consent of allah almighty, you will be rewarded for it, even the morsel etc. that you put into the mouth of your wife will also be rewarded."14 the goal of family life is to bring about peace, unity and brotherhood in a society, therefore, islam sets a criteria even for a small family. it is love that unifies the servants to god into a bond of love. in short, the institution of conjugal life based on nikéí in islam provides an answer to the question of how to provide a solution to the spiritual, sexual and physical needs of man so that one would follow the path of chastity. islamic civilization and its characteristics islamic civilization is a link in the long chain of human civilizations. our aim is only to mention the role of islamic civilization in the history of human evolution and its unforgettable 18 family life as the foundation … impact on various nations of the world in terms of sciences, arts, beliefs, ethics, philosophy, wisdom and literature. characteristics of islamic civilization this article highlights the key features of islamic civilization demonstrating its upper hand over other civilizations. the first characteristic of islamic civilization is that its goals have the quality of universality. the holy qur’én declares the whole of mankind as a family based on truth, goodness and human dignity. islam envisions a civilization in which all tribes and nations are deemed as precious jewels. those who accepted islam and worked hard for it, consequently, became an integral component of this civilization. thus, though imam abu hanifah, shafi‘ê, ahmad bin hanbal, khalil, wasibay, kundi, ghazali, farabi and ibn rushd belonged to different places and times, yet they belonged to one civilization. the second feature of islamic civilization is that it gives priority to high moral values as a code of conduct. it has always stressed upon these values like knowledge, wisdom, laws of sharê‘ah, war, reconciliation, economics, family system and politics etc. islamic civilization seems to have an impact over other civilizations whether modern or ancient because islam has left behind an unparalleled mark on individual and communal life of man. the third characteristic is that islam has always welcomed knowledge based on principles and rectified dogmas according to its basic principles. therefore, both the intellect and heart are addressed. through this feature, the islamic civilization has established a system of government based on justice as islam does not bifurcate religion from government and politics. rather, religion is an important source for all kinds of development. therefore, the rays of knowledge spread from the minarets and mosques of baghdad, damascus, cairo, cordoba and granada and thus enlightened the corners of the world consequently. no distinction was made between the commander of the faithful and masses. rather, decisions were always taken in accordance with the sharê‘ah and consensus of the people who were equipped with the knowledge of jurisprudence and fatwas. everyone was equal in the eyes of law. there was no discrimination against anyone except on the basis of piety and common benefit of the people. the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)said: hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 19 19 ِ لَو َانَّ فاطمَۃ بنَت محمٍد ََسِقَْت لَقََطعَ 15یَدھا‘‘ ُت ’’َواّلٰلى “if fatima, the daughter of muhammad stole, i would cut her hand.” so, islamic civilization is based on justice and neither a ruler has any superiority over the common man, nor a man of riches or a man of high lineage over the poor. another important feature of this civilization is its magnanimity and extreme tolerance. a believer has the opportunity to become shamshêr-ba-kaf (sword in the hand) to conquer nooks and corners of the world, rule over them and decide the destiny of his subjects, yet, he is to be tolerant as well. his religion never provokes him to be unjust in his judgments, actions, or deviate from the ways of mercy or force people to embrace his religion. he is to be tolerant to all religions, their followers and respectful to the places of worship of all world religions. it is an undeniable truth that islamic civilization is the torch bearer of tolerance, justice, mercy and humanity. it is a matter of distinction that it has absorbed the civilizations and religions of the world. the need for marriage and family life in the construction of social life is a matter of great significance. and the role of a woman is outstanding while her social dignity in family life structuring islamic civilization is very essential. islam confers on women an excellent position in a muslim family and civilization. though there is a natural feeling of love and compassion for women in a man’s heart, yet islam instructs its followers not only to give women their legal rights, but also adopts an attitude of compassion and respect towards her. the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)added it to his favourite likes and gave her a higher status.as he has said: َٗلِة “ ُة َعْیِِن ِِف الصَّ یُب َوُجِعَل قُرَّ َِٰساُء َوالٰطِ نَْیا الن یَلَّ ِمَن ادلُّ ِ َب ا 16”ُحبِٰ “in this world, women and perfume have been made dear to me, and my comfort has been provided in prayer.” islam respects women and awards her the status of a mother, sister, wife and daughter. it instructs its followers not to hand over women to a man as an object. it is obligatory to respect her, she must be consulted when she is to get married to a man and to live with him as a spouse and partner for life. 20 family life as the foundation … before the advent of islam, women were disgraced, their respectability and femininity had been lost. islam not only restored their status of great respect but also ensured their rights. hazrat umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) says that in the age of jéhiliyyah (ignorance), people did not give rights to women till allah almighty revealed his word about them and sent down orders to set their share in property and assets. once umar (raìi allah ‘anhu), the caliph of islam, asked the opinion of his wife on a matter, but was later angry when she opined. at this, his wife said that hafsa (raìi allah ‘anhé), the wife of the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) replies to the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), but the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)never gets displeased with her, so after hearing this, umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) went to her daughter hafsa (raìi allah ‘anhé) and asked her, “daughter! do you reply to the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)?” she said, "yes, by allah! i reply to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam).”17 it signifies that there were no rights of women during the age of ignorance but the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) brought a change in the mindset of the people and gave a respectable status to women. family life as motivation and islamic practice home is a peaceful and safe place for people. it is where infants grow, childhood is experienced, and civilization takes root. it is like a body without a soul or a tree without roots. it is essential for survival and development. but all this cannot thrive without the legal agreement in a conjugal life. due to this relationship, peace and prosperity are brought about in the life of individuals and communities. family life makes the family system strong and stable and inculcates the feeling of modesty in man. it develops a sense of chastity in society. in the holy qur’én and sunnah, many incentives have been mentioned regarding marriage. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 21 21 family life also establishes a bond between man and woman and brings comfort in human life. in fact, marriage is also a means of satisfying the legitimate sexual urges of man and woman. that is why allah almighty says: the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)emphasized upon marriage so that strength and stability are brought to the fortress of domestic life. abu huraira (raìi allah ‘anhu) reports from the messenger of allah almighty (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), “there are three types of people whom allah almighty would certainly help: firstly, the slave who struggles to purchase his freedom, (secondly) the person who marries to lead a life of chastity, thirdly, the one who strives in the way of allah almighty.” the question is why conjugal life is commanded by sharê‘iah? it is because it perfects one’s faith and leads to the survival of human civilization. it is definitely the basic building block of civilization and society. therefore, it is quite natural for islam to attach great importance to it and make it an integral part of its legal system. that is why, the messenger of allah almighty (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) excluded that person avoiding conjugal life from the muslim ummah. once there was a discussion among the prophet’s companions (raìi allah ‘anhum), and one of them said, "i will not marry women." another person said, "i will not eat meat." the third one said, "i will not sleep in bed at night." the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) did not like their acts, rather instructed them to live according to his sunnah as he lives a balanced life.the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said: 18”مفن رغب عن سنیت فلیس من“ "whoever deviates from my sunnah (marriage and family life) is not one from amongst us." marriage is the means of survival for the human race, so the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa 22 family life as the foundation … øallam)stressed on it. it is narrated by abdullah bin mas‘ud (raìi allah ‘anhu) that the messenger of allah almighty (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) once said: “whenever you see a woman and she fascinates you, then you should resort to your wife as your wife possesses what the other woman possesses."19 through marriage, islam wants to protect the morals and integrity of its followers, as family relationships, particularly marriage, serve as a spring of love, grace, and mercy. it is within this bond that children find their identity, parents happily shoulder their responsibility to look after their kids and humanity is protected. it is intended to reform the morals of individuals and purify society.it develops in a person the ability to fulfill his /her obligations and removes the fear of being involved in adultery.family life takes place because of following reasons: 1. if a man cannot pay a woman’s alimony and rights, and is sure that if he does not marry, he will be involved in immorality, then it is obligatory for him to marry in such a situation. 2. if he can pay a woman’s alimony and rights but is not sure about his self-restraint, rather there is a probability of falling into adultery if he does not marry, then nikéí is obligatory for him as well. 3. nikéí is sunnah mu’kkidah (obligatory sunnah) under normal circumstances. 4. if a person can pay dowry and other conjugal rights or because of his temperament, he believes that his future wife will be a victim due to his brutal temper and abuse, then it is forbidden to marry. 5. if a person does not strongly believe that he will wrong his future wife, but there is a strong possibility, then marrying in such a case is prohibited as well.20 moral significance of family life allah almighty has placed immense fascination in the opposite sex for humans that both of them always remain connected to each other. the sexual urge in animals is subject to time and season. the first reason is that their mating is temporary, while among humans, this need is constant so that they are permanently connected to their opposite sex. family life is the best means for this constant relationship. the first purpose of married life is to tie a male and female in such a pure relationship that they will not cast looks at anyone else. therefore, the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)said that the purpose of creating a human couple is not only reproduction, but it is much higher than this; that they may hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 23 23 get peace of mind. the second purpose is the establishment of a relationship full of love and mercy between husband and wife. consequently, a good and healthy society is established by aiming at moral security. the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)said, َباِب َمِن َُّه َأغَضُّ لِلَْبََصِ َوَأْحَصُن لِلْفَْرجِ “ ” ََي َمْعََشَ الش َّ ن ِ ْج فَا وَّ َتَطاَع ِمنُُْكُ الَْباَءَة فَلَْیََتَ 21اس ْ "o youth! ,those among you who can support a wife should marry, for it restrains eyes (from casting evil glances) and preserves one from immorality." it is clear from the word “ya ma‘shar al-shabéb” that sexual urges surge in youth. the devils use them as a weapon against them in order to weaken their faith, then there are only two ways to deal with, either to satisfy these sexual urges in a natural but legal way, or to fight the devil with the shield of fasting, if these two methods are not applied, then they are to succumb to the temptation of devil in illegal ways. family life becomes a legitimate and appropriate means for the fulfillment of sexual urges of a person. thus, it creates moral purity and the spirit of modesty in a person. hafiz ibn-ehajar asqalani, while highlighting the moral importance of married life, states, ئَِل . "ُحْسُن الُْخلُِق التَّْقَوى وَ " : َما َأْكََثُ َما یُْدِخُل الَْجنََّة قَاَل َما َأْكََثُ َما یُْدِخُل النَّاَر : َوس ُ 22الَْفُم َوالَْفْرُج“ : اأَلْجَوفَاِن " : قَاَل “the thing that carries most people to paradise is the fear of allah almighty, piety and good conduct, and the thing that carries most people to hell is the mouth and private parts” and conjugal life helps in the development of moral qualities by protecting the private parts. significance of family life islam stresses on an effective social role for its followers and thus family is deemed the most important institution of islamic society. islam actually considers family as a sacred and useful institution. it not only wants to create an atmosphere of understanding, mutual cooperation and peace between husband and wife because these are the clear objectives of conjugal life, it also opens a way for man to satisfy his sexual desires on one side and train the new generation culturally on the other side. it is the family system within which muslims receive religious training, develop character and establish close social ties. 24 family life as the foundation … moreover, muslims maintain their loyalties for both family and society at the same time. the truth is that for the sake of peace of mind and security in life, the establishment of mutual support at economic and emotional level in a family is essential. therefore, the goal of conjugal family life is not only to fulfill sexual urges, but also for two souls to be bonded as friends and partners of life. even in a house, the training/education of children takes place in a congenial environment, and this important task cannot be carried out unless man and woman follow the legitimate method for the establishment of a family life. adultery is to be forbidden and the relationship between man and woman should be limited within the legal scope of matrimony. a person gets numerous following social benefits from conjugal life: survival and protection of mankind it is an undeniable fact that the human race had better survive only through family life.islam considers marriage as a legitimate act, the foremost purpose of which is survival and growth of the human race. the holy qur’én also calls this as the main purpose of conjugal life. the holy qur’én has shed light on this basic purpose in the following words, ُمو۟ا ِِلَنفُِسُكْم ۚ نَِسآُؤُكْم َحْرث ٌۭ لَُّكْم فَأْتُو۟ا َحْرثَُكْم أَنَّٰى ِشئْتُْم ۖ َوقَد ِ "your women are tillage for you to cultivate, so come to your tillage from where you wish and advance something for yourselves ."23 allah almighty has also said, ُ لَُكۡمۚ ِشُروهُنَّ َوٱۡبتَغُواْ َما َكتََب ٱَّللَّ َن بَٰ فَٱۡلـ ٰ "so now you can have sexual intimacy with them and seek what allah almighty has detained for you"24 these two verses make the first and foremost purpose of conjugal life very clear. by using the word abtaghë (look for), the first aim of getting production (i.e. offspring) from this cultivation is highlighted. and allah’s order is that you should seek this production and strive for it. proliferation of muslim ummah conjugal life is meant not only for the survival and protection of the human race, but also for the expansion of muslim ummah. according to sunnan-e-abu dawud and nasa’i, mu‘qal bin yasér (raìi allah ‘anhu) narrates that a companion came to the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 25 25 prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and said, “i am going to get married to a beautiful woman of a noble family, the problem is that her family members do not beget children. so may i marry her?” he said, “no” he came to the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) for consultation for the second and third time, then the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, “a woman who loves more and bears more children should be married because through you, people, i will feel proud of your abundance (on the day of judgment).”25 transferring social values and training of new generation a permanent and stable home life is indispensable for rearing the coming generations on a strong basis. in fact, family life is an outstanding physical breeding forum. not only the physical bodies are developed, but their minds and hearts can also be trained in a family environment. nobility can be inculcated if the feelings of love, compassion and filial piety are developed among children and then such children can form a sound society. ann freud wrote a book “the child without a family” in which she explained that children raised in nurseries suffer from severe psychological defects. and these defects create so much anxiety in their inclinations that they are deprived of a balanced life. a psychologist may succeed in removing this anxiety but through great efforts. sense of responsibility and fulfillment of life goals man is created to worship allah almighty so that he may become a good human being and consequently contribute to the establishment of a good society. man is not created just for the fulfillment of desires, rather he is to achieve higher aims. allah almighty says, نَس إَِّلَّ ِليَۡعبُدُو ن َوَما َخلَۡقُت ٱۡلِجنَّ َوٱۡۡلِ "i did not create the jinns and the human being except for the purpose that they should worship me."26 furthermore, husband and wife help each other reach a good destination (life goals). islam does not support uncontrolled sexual life (shutr-be-mahér i.e. a camel without ropes). it protects man and woman from diving into the ocean of sex with the spirit of 26 family life as the foundation … physical pleasure only, but at the same time, it also considers the survival and training of the human race as a fulfillment of higher goals. there are various benefits of family life: good relationships are developed, children have an innocent childhood and adults become caring and responsible in their assignments. islam envisages a home where there are three generations: children, youth and the elderly. children are not admitted to nurseries and day care centers, the young become more and more responsible in their responsibilities and the aged people are not handed over to the gloomy atmosphere of old age homes as in the west. sacrifice and economic security the matrimonial union of man and woman comes into existence through nikkéí. a man is responsible for housing, feeding and clothing his wife and children (family). good behaviour based on sacrifice is also important. the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)once divided the responsibilities between ‘ali (raìi allah ‘anhu) and his wife fatima (raìi allah ‘anhé) in such a way that fatima (raìi allah ‘anhé) would be in charge of the internal affairs of the house while ‘ali (raìi allah ‘anhu) would be responsible for the external affairs of the house. if the husband is poor, then the wife is encouraged to spend money on him as well. wife can give charity to her husband even if he has to raise an orphan child. so the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)said: “when a woman gives in charity from her house meals in allah’s cause without spoiling her husband's property, she will get a reward for it, and her husband will also get the reward for his earnings and the storekeeper will get a reward likewise.”27explaining the importance of financial responsibility of the family, the prophet muhammad(×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)said, 28”خري الصدقۃ ما اکن عن ظھر غن و ابداً مبن تعول“ “the best charity is that which is invested in one’s family (the expenses of one’s wife and children). and start charity from those whom you are responsible for.” hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 27 27 conclusion this article makes people understand that family life is the foundation of an islamic civilization and has always played a pivotal role in the establishment of a very strong relationship among all family members particularly between man and woman. it tries to arouse them to have a relationship based on equality, mutual respect and concern. it will lead them and their offsprings to success and prosperity here and hereafter. illegitimate relationship between man and woman is discouraged in islam as this article clarifies and nikéí is encouraged among people. this article also signifies the basic advantages of family life as it makes every individual realize his/her responsibilities in life whether muslim or non-muslim. then they are to take necessary steps to ensure peace, goodness of society, human dignity, equality and tolerance. the article, further, motivates and recommends man and woman to contribute to human society positively by establishing a beautiful family in which children are brought up and groomed in such a way that they would become good human beings of this global village and this world of ours may become a good place to live in. notes and references 1https://www.statista.com/statistics/252847/number-of-children-living-with-asingle-mother-or-singlefather/#:~:text=in%202022%2c%20there%20were%20about,living%20with%20a %20single%20father. (assessed on 26 sep 2023). 2bin makram ,jamal al-din muhammad, lasan al-arab; dar sadr beirut, 1374 ah, page number 481. 3ibn muhammad ,abul-qasim al-husayn, al-mufardat fi al-ghareeb al-qur’an; egypt ,132 h, page 354 4louis maalouf, al-manjad fi al-lagh; al-muktab al-sharqiyyah, beirut, lebanon, 1996, p. 693. 5bin shoaib , abu abd al-rahman ahmad,sunan nisa'i, chapter ithma al-dal alia; hadith number: 2533. 6 the holy qur’an, 93:8, utmani ,muhammad taqi ,the meaning of the noble quran , (july 2010, ma’ariful quran ,karachi) 7ibid., 9:24. 8bin qutab,muhammad qutb, islam and modern material thoughts; translated by sajjad ahmed kandhalvi, islamic publications, lahore, 1988, p. 366. 9 maududi, syed abul ala, pardah; islamic publications lahore, 2002, p. 93-96. 10 the world book encyclopaedia , 2003, chicago, usa, vol, 4 page, 2470. 11 the holy qur’an, 02:35, utmani ,muhammad taqi ,the meaning of the noble quran , (july 2010, ma’ariful quran ,karachi) 12ibid., 02:187 13 hassan, moazhasan, sexual relations in the light of islam and modern science; darul kitab lahore 2000, p. 65. 14 al bukhari,the sahih al-bukhari, muhammad bin ismail, chapter maja in alamal balniyyah wal hasba al-khal; number of hadith: 56. https://www.statista.com/statistics/252847/number-of-children-living-with-a-single-mother-or-single-father/#:~:text=in%202022%2c%20there%20were%20about,living%20with%20a%20single%20father https://www.statista.com/statistics/252847/number-of-children-living-with-a-single-mother-or-single-father/#:~:text=in%202022%2c%20there%20were%20about,living%20with%20a%20single%20father https://www.statista.com/statistics/252847/number-of-children-living-with-a-single-mother-or-single-father/#:~:text=in%202022%2c%20there%20were%20about,living%20with%20a%20single%20father https://www.statista.com/statistics/252847/number-of-children-living-with-a-single-mother-or-single-father/#:~:text=in%202022%2c%20there%20were%20about,living%20with%20a%20single%20father 28 family life as the foundation … 15al bukhari, the sahih al-bukhari, muhammad bin ismail; kitab al-maghazi, hadith number: 4304. 16 sunan al-nisai, abu abd al-rahman ahmad bin shoaib; kitab ushar al-nisa, chapter habib al-nisa', hadith number: 3391. 17mujahid-ul-islam qasmi, the option of marriage for boys and girls; karachi, idarat al-qur'an, 1421 ah, p:5. 18al-bukhari, sahih al-bukhari, kitab al-nikah, hadith no: 5063 19sunan darmi, chapter nikah, hadith no. 2118. 20 zain al-din bin ibrahim bin ahmad, al-bahr al-raiq; darahiya al-tarath al-arabi, 2004, vol. 30 / p. 79, 80. 21the sahih al-muslim,muslim bin hijjaj: book no 16, hadith number: 3 22sunan ibn-emajah, muhammad ibn yazid ibn majah; kitab al-zhud; (chapter on remembrance of sins), hadith number: 4246. 23 the holy qur’an, 2:223, utmani ,muhammad taqi ,the meaning of the noble quran , (july 2010, ma’ariful quran ,karachi) 24ibid., 2:187 25sunan abi da’ëd, chapter niakh, hadith no. 2050. 26ibid., 51:56 27al bukhari ,the sahih al-bukhari, muhammad bin ismail; kitab al-zakat hadith number: 1441 28ibid.; kitab al-maghazi, hadith number: 1426 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 2 7 .. editorial the holy qur’an, basic source of every divine knowledge, is the book which has been translated most frequently from arabic into different languages especially english. since it is allah almighty’s miraculous and matchless message that has been sent to all humanity, no translation of the holy qur’an can convey complete and holistic meaning of this divine book. that is why, the translator has to maintain the spirit, culture and meaning of source text (st) in the translated (target) text (tt). this second issue of the hamdard islamicus for the current year starts with an eruditely authored first article entitled “translational trajectories in arabic-english translation of the holy qur’an” which has tried to explain the role of the translator as seeking to establish meaning between st and tt. it has examined how meaning cannot always be fully established between languages and recommended some useful technical tips for the better translation of the holy book. allah almighty has bestowed his slaves a beautiful family system which is appropriate for human nature. this system gives the guarantee of a true moral atmosphere and a society which creates noble generations. the islamic family system provides complete protection and indemnity to a muslim wife. islam has guaranteed dower/mahr to the muslim wife but there are complicated legal issues regarding various financial rights of a muslim wife in case of separation from her husband. the honourable courts of pakistan have developed elaborate principles of islamic law mainly derived from the ḥanafī school of thought, and with few exceptions, have followed these principles consistently. this is the major finding of the second article, a splendidly authored research work entitled “financial rights of woman on the dissolution of her marital relationship and death of her husband in islamic law and pakistani legal system”. however, it recommends some related amendments in legislations. like marriage contract, every contract needs riḍā (consent) of both the partners. islam has given the profound principle of riḍā for any contract. however, at the end of the eighteenth century, the west has designed its contract law on the same grounds. focusing on the ḥanafī school and using the textual analysis method to place significant texts from the 8 editorial .. school in chronological order, the third article entitled “operating principles for contracts in islamic law: consent (riḍā) in ḥanafī jurisprudence” traces how riḍā developed beginning with its initial appearance in the holy qur’ān and the works of early jurists through ottoman and modern egyptian approach to contract theory. the article concludes that, within contemporary legal systems, riḍā can be understood as a useful general concept for the construction of contracts, so long as it is firmly placed within the moral limits of the sharī‘ah. an expression of individual will or consent cannot be regarded as valid if it expresses a desire to enter into an expressly forbidden agreement in the islamic legal tradition. education is the key to balance the growth of the personality by training oneself to be spiritual, intellectual, and rational. hence, education in islam means acquiring divine knowledge. islamic schools can play a significant role in polishing the personality of muslim children, the ambassador of change. the fourth article, entitled “islamic education as perceived by edupreneurs of islamic schools conformance with the teachings of the holy qur’én” has a similar theme. this qualitative study, using phenomenological research methodology, explores the aims and objectives of five private islamic schools. these aims and objectives were analysed in the light of islamic education as articulated by alghazali, a renowned islamic scholar. the study concludes that although private islamic schools have perceived aims similar to those of alghazali, yet the planned objectives and basic educational structure of islamic schools such as institution structure, education delivery framework, child learning psychology, curriculum, language focus and assessment methodology are adopted from the western world. everyone impresses with beauty, sequence, decency and melodious voices. even the sounds of flowing springs and waterfalls have attractive melody and great appeal to human beings. considering this natural tendency of man, music has been used in every age, as a tool to draw attention towards any ideology, slogan or commercial object. but the fact is that musical instruments distract the servant from his master. furthermore, the style of music that is prevalent today has a negative effect on the human psyche and harms physical and spiritual health. in the fifth article “music: ‘food for soul’ or ‘fool for soul’” the author has tried to present similar views. he has collected quranic verses and authentic aíédêth to highlight islam’s injunctions about music. dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt, editor c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd allah is the light of the heavens and the earth hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam vol. xlvi january-march 2023 no. 1 editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid advisory board prof. abdur raheem kidwai professor, department of english, director, k.a. nizami centre for qur’anic studies, aligarh muslim university aligarh, india prof. seyyed hossein nasr professor, islamic studies, the george washington university, gelman library 712, washington, d.c. 20052, u.s.a. prof. dr. anis ahmad vice chancellor, riphah international university, hajj complex road, sector i-14, islamabad,pakistan. prof. dr. a.h. johns professor emeritus, the australian national university honorary professor, the australian catholic university, australia dr. farrukh habib co-founder and managing director, alif technologies, dubai, united arab emirates. prof. dr. abdul azim islahi institute of qur’anic sciences (iqsc), aligarh 202002, india. editorial board dr. gulnaz naeem associate professor, benazir bhutto shaheed university lyari, karachi, pakistan. dr. syed naeem badshah bukhari chairman, department of islamic studies, university of agriculture peshawar, pakistan. dr. irum saba associate professor, institute of business administration, karachi, pakistan. dr. salman ahmed shaikh assistant professor, shaheed zulfiqar ali bhutto institute of science and technology, karachi, pakistan. dr. aziz-ur-rehman saifee assistant professor, department of arabic, faculty of islamic studies, university of karachi, karachi, pakistan. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 . .. editorial team editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid editor dr. shabbir khan managing editor mufti muhammad shakir siddiqui assistant editor mr. kaleem chaghtai assistant editor ms. sadia ikram assistant editor web mr. sheikh adnan ahmed usmani price inland foreign foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/ payment should be made in the name of hamdard foundation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan pak. rs. us $ annual single copy 950/ 250/ 120/ 35/ … published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, p.e.c.h.s. block 2, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] 2 ... information for contributors • manuscripts must be composed in ms word format and typed double spaced with at least one-inch margin on all sides of a4 size and to be sent through ojs at journal’s official website. • manuscripts may preferably comprise 6000 to 7000 words. however, as per the importance of issue discussed in the article and its fine presentation, some relaxation may be acquired. • notes and references should follow the chicago manual of style 17th edition (end notes only) i.e. to be marked serially and placed at the end of the manuscript. • authors are requested to quote the english translation of the holy quranic verses from the editions of only mufti muhammad taqi usmani. • authors are requested to provide their c.v. mentioning their designation, permanent and present postal addresses along with their cell/whatsapp numbers and e-mail addresses. • all correspondence regarding the manuscript will be directed to the corresponding author. • ensure the submission is as requested by the journal and contains all relevant sections. see authors’ guideline available on journal’s official website. • non-native english speakers are encouraged to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission. this is particular key for resubmission. • hamdard islamicus does not charge from its authors for publication of their articles in the journal. for correspondence editor hamdard islamicus hamdard foundation pakistan head office, 16th floor bahria town tower, tariq road, pechs block-2, karachi, pakistan url: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk e-mail: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk tel: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan. vol. xlvi january-march 2023 no.1 contents * editorial * the legal status of religious minorities in islam: a historical perspective — shakeel ahmad wani — sayed aaqib qadri — bilal ahmad wani * al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in the eyes of contemporary indonesian muslim intellectuals — h. zuhri — muhammad arif * sayyid mawdudi’s approach to biblical reports: an analysis — dr. noor mohammad osmani — dr. md habibur rahman * the holy qur'én's five plants resemble five sensory receptors in the microscopic appearance: an analysis — motahareh soltani — somayyeh karami-mohajeri — ehsan mehrabi-kermani — reza allahdadi — mohammad sohrabiyan parizi * execution strategies of islamic governance: the case of türkiye (2010-2020) — md. khaled hosen — dr. syaza farhana binti mohamad shukri the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 31 9 87 49 69 objectives hamdard islamicus is an academic journal devoted to islamic research and scholarship. it serves as a forum for scholars to write objectively, analytically and, wherever necessary, critically on islamic history, philosophy, science, art, culture, archaeology, law and jurisprudence. it brings out the achievements of muslims in the fields of humanities, social and natural sciences. it aims at defining islam in terms of its fundamentals in a rational and liberal manner emphasizing, at the same time, the basic islamic ideals of universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice. it aims at interpreting the teachings of islam in such a way as to bring out its dynamic character in the context of the intellectual and scientific progress of the modern world. it provides an open forum for a dialogue among the fundamentalist, conservative and the modernist schools of thought among the muslims aiming at finding a balanced view. it endeavours, through dialogue, to find islamic answers to the questions relating to the social, political, economic and moral problems of the fast and drastically changing world of today. it transmits through english translations the speeches, learned papers and discourses expressed in urdu by highly qualified traditional scholars, the ‘ulema’, and, in this way, it communicates valuable material, otherwise inaccessible, to the non-urdu readers. it endeavours to promote better understanding between the islamic world and the west. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 indexing and abstracting bodies madinat al-hikmah city of education, science and culture shaheed hakim mohammed said (1920-1998), a scion of the renowned south asian hamdard family, decided in 1948 to make the newly created pakistan his home. he settled down in karachi and by untiring, single minded devotion and commitment, braving all handicaps, created hamdard pakistan. he developed it into the leading pharmaceutical complex of eastern medicine in the country, run on the latest modern lines and techniques, supplying drugs of high quality and purity, backed with free clinical consultations to help ailing humanity. hamdard pakistan, under his leadership, also emerged as the leading philanthropic organization, and also tried to motivate people through dialogue, conferences, and journals like the hamdard medicus. in addition, he provided help to various institutions and academic bodies. he was restless to do more, and during one of his ×ajj pilgrimages, he envisioned the creation of a comprehensive city of education, science and culture: the madinat al-hikmah. work on it was initiated and funded by the hamdard foundation pakistan in 1981, in the picturesque surroundings of bund murad khan, 35 kilometers away from the city centre. today it is a beehive of activity, with children and youth engaged in academic, technical and sports activities, devoted to promoting learning and culture, and through it, help achieve moral and physical welfare, peace and progress. the bait al-hikmah library, hamdard public school, free hamdard village school, centre for horticulture and the hamdard university are the major institutions found here. the hamdard university’s mission provides value-based education to all students in its constituent institutions. its prestigious institutions – some based at the main campus and some in the city and some in islamabad include hamdard institute of management sciences (hims), hamdard college of medicine and dentistry (hcmd), hamdard al-majeed college of eastern medicine (hacem), shifa ul-mulk memorial hospital, naimat begum hamdard university hospital , hamdard university hospital – taj medical complex, hamdard institute of education and social sciences (hiess), dr hafiz mohammad ilyas institute of pharmacology and herbal sciences (hmiiphs), hamdard school of law, faculty of pharmacy and faculty of engineering sciences and technology (fest). madinat al-hikmah continues to develop and grow. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii. no. 2 7 .. editorial we are pleased to present the second issue of the hamdard islamicus volume no. xlvii for 2024, featuring a collection of insightful and thought-provoking articles. in this issue, each article offers distinctive discernments and analyses within islamic studies, enriching our readers’ comprehension of these vital subjects. the current issue comprises five articles, each exploring different aspects of islamic studies, outlined below: sīrah writing about the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) has seen a shift in western scholarship since 9/11, moving from negative portrayals to more positive and balanced ones. the first article of this issue “modern western trends in sīrah writing: an assessment of john v. tolan and craig considine’s approach” examines both authors’ contributions, highlighting their efforts in presenting the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as a symbol of peace and progress. the second article “the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid alsharī‘ah in pre-modern legal thought: examining the contributions of al-ghazali and al-shatibi” explores the dynamic relationship between ijtihād (independent reasoning) and maqāṣid alsharī‘ah (objectives of islamic law) in pre-modern legal thought. by examining the contributions of these prominent scholars, the study provides an in-depth analysis of how these concepts were applied to ensure that islamic law remained relevant and adaptable to changing modern circumstances. the third article “qur’énic emotional intelligence and its relationship with academic achievement of undergraduate students at al-madinah international university malaysia” delves into the intriguing connection between qur’ānic emotional intelligence (qei) and academic performance among undergraduates of al-madinah international university, malaysia. exploring how qei influences students’ achievements sheds light on the potential impact of religious and emotional factors on educational outcomes and highlights the importance of implementing qei in educational settings. 8 editorial .. the next article investigates the unique expression of female sufism in the javanese text serat murtasiyah, focusing on how religious values are represented within the domestic realm. the study “exploring javanese female sufism in serat murtasiyah: a study of women’s representation of religious values in the domestic realm within modern western contexts” examines the intersection of traditional javanese culture and islamic spirituality, providing insights into the roles and experiences of women in this spiritual tradition, and how these perceptions can be understood within modern western contexts. the fifth and last article “the muslim diaspora’s nationalism and identity in kamila shamsie’s home fire” examines contemporary issues of nationalism and identity within the muslim diaspora, tying together cultural and religious identity themes in a modern context. this paper analyzes the struggles of muslim immigrants in the west through kamila shamsie's novel "home fire." it urges a balanced approach in discussing identity conflicts and citizenship rights, emphasizing the need for open dialogue and acceptance of diverse perspectives for better social cohesion. we extend our profound gratitude to the authors for their scholarly contributions and welcome feedback from our esteemed readers as we look forward to exploring critical topics in islamic studies. dr. shabeer khan editor hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 59 … the isnād cum matn analysis of zakót al-fiùr traditions: an analysis of harald motzki’s method dr. bilal ahmad qureshi international islamic university islamabad email: bilal.ahmad@iiu.edu.pk received on: 19-02-21 accepted on: 28-12-21 abstract harald motzki (d. 2019) is a highly accomplished scholar of ×adīth who used historical critical method in its study by offering a combination of isnād and matn analytical techniques. his method, the isnād cum matn analysis has been adopted by his students at his university as well as elsewhere. this hybrid method for ascertaining the date and text of traditions of the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam first compares the chains of transmission after combining them graphically as gha juynboll had done before him and in the second step, the variant texts transmitted by those chains are also compared. the oldest text elements are pointed out as well as the approximate date of that text. its importance notwithstanding, his method and application have also been critically viewed by scholars of ×adīth and its history. the present paper analyses motzki’s application of the said method to traditions of the prophet muhammad (peace be upon him) on zakét al-fiïr while also pointing out to some of the shortcomings of its application by motzki. keywords: isnéd, matn, zakét al-fiïr, motzki, juynboll, hadith. 1. introduction the personality of prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam holds central for all muslims and his life is the model and ideal example for every believer. muslims seek the correct way to live and guidance in mailto:bilal.ahmad@iiu.edu.pk 60 the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr… … his teachings and actions. this is the reason why muslims, since the dawn of islam (circa 610 ad) devoted their lives serving and preserving the sunnah (or the way prophet øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam lived). after this first generation of muslims (the companions) we come across such names as abū ×anīfa (d.767 ad), mālik (d.795 ad), al-shāfi‘ī (d.820 ad), al-shaibānī (d.805 ad), aímad bin ×anbal (d. 855 ad), al-bukhérê (d. 870 ad) and muslim (d. 875 ad) among the milieu of scholars who embody this endeavor to protect the sunnah. it was of great importance to these muslims to protect the sunnah since their lives and those of the subsequent generations had to be in harmony and concordance with the prophetic model for their ultimate success in both worlds. they strived to preserve and compile the sunnah of their prophet-in the form of ×adīth, fiqh and sīrahwith great care and having this in mind, they engaged themselves in separating the chaff from the pure. it is the fruit of those early muslim scholarly efforts that even now in the third millennium, muslims have access to the prophetic narrations. they developed historical critical methods to ascertain the quality of reports attributed to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) called sciences of ×adīth. ×adīths were classified according to principles of isnād and matn by its major collectors as well as the fuqahā’ who drew religious norms from them. at least one classification of ×adīth from the early times has been fiqhi (or juristic) one which found favour with the likes of mālik, bukhārī and muslim.1 west too has had something to write about this legacy of the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam, especially in the last couple of centuries and the above-mentioned view of how ×adīth, fiqh, and sīrah developed in concordance is predominantly not shared by them.2 the first two centuries a.h. have been at the center of their attention since it was that period in islamic history when these three disciplines started, their fundamentals formed and they saw their early development. some of these western scholars rejected the muslim version of their own religion’s early history and thought it to be quite incorrect, while others, rejecting parts of it reviewed the rest. these scholars include: ignaz goldziher (d.1921), leone caetani (d.1935), snouk hergronje (d.1936), margoliouth (d.1940), lammens (d.1937), guillaume (d.1965), wensink, joseph horovitz (d.1974), patricia crone (d.2015), g.h.a. juyenboll (d.2010), n.j.coulson (1986), michael cook (b.1940), john burton (2010), nabia abbot (d.1981), harald motzki (d.2019) and gregor schoeler (b.1944). one of the most renowned of these scholars was ignaz goldziher (d.1921) who studied a hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 61 … number of traditions and concluded that most of them were fabrications and so quite spurious,3 followed by joseph schacht (d.1969) who took this skepticism to its epitome. he rejected the historicity of ×adīth by critically analyzing its text in his origins. while commenting on the isnāds, he rejects their use for ascertaining the historicity of ×adīth anyway, since he considers them to have been invented by the common link and pasted to the text.4 gha juynboll (d.2010), in his tradition, focused on the chains of narration of ×adīth and concluded that they were spurious and invented by the “common link.” 5 western and muslim scholars onwards have been writing on the subject of isnād and matn. ansari (d. 2016) with his “early development”6 and m m azami (d. 2017) with on schacht’s7 are two of the important critical works on western critique of ×adīth. abbott (d. 1981) with her papyri8 has also critically rejected the revisionist view of western scholars on ×adīth origins. 2. background a relatively recent scholar, harald motzki (1948-2019) rejects some of his predecessors’ ideas and attesting to the rest, tried to develop a new discourse in the study of ×adīth. his contribution to the study of ×adīth is spread over his post doc, biography, analysing and many papers like “dating” over the years. 9 this has had its widespread implications on the rubric of contemporary western ×adīth studies like those of schoeler, goerke, boekhoff, etc.10 the latter has employed motzki’s isnād cum matn analysis method in her doctoral thesis and affirmed its worth in dating ×adīth. shoemaker is critical of motzki’s soft critical approach to ×adīth,11 while the author has pointed out some lapses in his “textual criticism” and “harald motzki12 3. research objective the following pages serve to critically analyse this method in his study on zakāt al fiïr traditions and answer the question whether motzki’s isnéd cum matn method offers any viable conclusions in ×adīth historical criticism. the author views the method under discussion as one which can offer meaningful results if it is applied to ×adīth objectively, and the following critical analysis would serve towards the affirmation or negation of this preliminary proposal. this study also serves towards highlighting the merits and demerits of this 62 the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr… … important contemporary historical-critical method when applied to ×adīth. 4. discussion 4.1 the isnād cum matn analysis motzki’s isnād cum matn analysis of a tradition starts with a discussion consisting of a critique of selected contemporary western studies on the subject followed by his arrangement of instances of the same tradition as they appear in different collections, differences in the isnāds considered and plotted. the common links (the person responsible for the first formal dissemination of the information/ tradition.) and the other important members of the isnāds are highlighted. in the next step, the matn analysis, text variants are grouped according to their common links (loosely madārs) highlighted in the first step. similarities and differences in texts are then pointed out, highlighting the extent to which they vary or agree. next, motzki draws conclusions from the matn analysis after comparing them with the results of his analysis of the isnāds. it is a painstaking process which motzki carries out with a lot of patience and minuteness, and the following example would serve to illustrate his isnād cum matn analysis with lucidity as it appears. 4.2 motzki’s analysis of the zakāt al-fiṭr tradition motzki’s examination of the texts (mutūn) of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition is preceded by an analysis of juynboll’s (d.2010) insād-centric study on it. such an insād-centric approach is problematic according to motzki since it seems to imply that there was ‘one’ text carried forth by different isnāds. juynboll had focused on the isnāds because he considered the text variants to be forgeries by their transmitters and therefore unimportant for dating these traditions. motzki however does not think that textual variations of ‘one’ tradition may be because of this only. he notes: “if reports are handed down from one generation to another, they are bound to change. these changes are, as everyone knows from everyday experience, most significant in the case of oral transmission.” 13 he further comments that the distortions in content decrease proportionally with the increase in the standardization of the process of transmission …for instance by writing them down. apparently, motzki is not outright accusing transmitters of forgery but hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 63 … saying that differences appear when anything is transmitted especially orally, hints towards it. his definitive statement above ‘…bound to change’ however is sweeping of all transmissions oral. audition in fact has it uses and merits and sometimes its validity goes beyond that of the written text as is the case with quranic transmission which was conveyed both orally and in written form and remained unchanged. in one of the illustrations of change in text and the merit of audition, ibn øalāí (d.1245 ce) mentions the case of misreading in a text and tells that it happens when a text is taken from the source by someone in written form without confirming it by audition. similar words may sometimes be confused as a result of this,14 something which should be clarified by audition. thus, methodologically viewing transmissions as oral/written is not elementary, but more importantly the motives behind preservation of texts, mental abilities and strength or weakness, and the honesty or dishonesty of those who transmit it deserve to be considered among other things. another consideration which supports the cause of audition is that most of the writings from the past which reached us as manuscripts had in fact started as oral transmissions and were noted down by one’s students or disciples. besides, manuscriptswritten transmissionsof the same book and coming from the same era generally differ from one another. it probably refers to the abilities and approaches of those who transmitted them more than to their mode of transmission. furthermore, a ‘tradition ’is a report of what the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) did, said and/or approved/disapproved, and has held central for muslims throughout their history, which is quite natural for a personality such as his. different traditionalists, naturally, would transmit it in different ways, oral or written; word by word or in meaning, owing to differences in approaches and their abilities among other things and does not imply changes but differences in transmitting the sunnah in its above mentioned forms. so, the important thing is how well they reflect the sunnah and that can be checked in two ways, namely checking out the transmitters qualitatively and quantitatively and then comparing the texts with others on the same issue with the goal to find their due place in the islamic discourse. thus to see things in isolation from their context is not expected to yield accurate results here. coming to motzki’s isnād cum matn analysis of zakāt al-fiïr tradition, the isnād and the matn analyses progress in tandem and in a more refined manner unlike his another isnād cum matn analysis of the reports about the murder of ibn abī al ḥuqayq, whence he first analysed the isnāds, then the matn and later joined the results of the two analyses, 64 the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr… … one kind delving into another at the end in any case. here, in the case of zakāt al-fiïr tradition, the first step is to determine the ‘point of reference ’-the earliest available source where a tradition text under scrutiny starts withwhich is mālik’s muaṭṭa’ according to motzki.15 it comes to us in two well-known versions, shaibénê’s and yaíyé’s, the former being the earlier of the two, and is considered even by many muslim scholars as a primary source for later collections of ×adīth. the tradition under scrutiny is however not found in shaibānī’s and only in yaíyé’s muïïa’. motzki says that if one goes by juynboll’s instinct, the tradition was spread by yaíyā and does not go back to mālik and later transmitters adduced false chains to it. both these are conclusions reached at by juynboll in haste and there may be other possible reasons for the presence of the zakāt tradition in yaḥyé’s and its absence in shaibānê’s versions according to motzki. it might be that mālik lectured with incomplete notes in shaibānê’s time, while they became more complete later on, or shaibānī may have well forgotten some parts of mu’aïïa. here motzki clearly rejects the e-silentio, an argument developed by joseph schacht, which goes thus: “the best way of proving that a tradition did not exist at a certain time is to show that it was not used as a legal argument in a discussion which would have made reference to it imperative, if it had existed…and in a number of cases one or the other of the opponents himself states that he has no evidence other than that quoted by him, which does not include the tradition in question”.16 the next step in motzki’s matn analysis of the zakāt tradition constitutes analyses of other texts from mālik and close to the one in mua’ṭṭā. one such early instance is found in shāfi‘ê’s umm who quotes it from mālik: “yaḥyā from mālik from nāfi‘ from ‘abd allāh b. ‘umar (693 ce) that the messenger of god imposed the breaking of the fast at ramaḍān upon the people, [being] a îé‘ of barley for every free man or slave, male or female among the muslims.”17 it is similar to the text in mua’ṭṭā but differs from the one attributed to mālik in later collections of traditions, called by motzki as ‘canonical’, as well as in a twelfth century a.h. exegesis of muaïïa’zurqānê’s sharíwhence all the texts have: “îé‘ (an old arab weighing tool equivalent to around 3150 grams) of dates or a îé‘ of barley…”18 the latter phrase appears in another place in shāfi‘ê’s umm too,19 which is also an early treatise and motzki wonders which the text that mālik transmitted was, keeping in view the variations. it seems to him that the omission in yaíyé’s version of mālik’s muaṭṭa’ must be sought in an error in the transmission process which in all probability goes to yaíyā himself hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 65 … according to him. 20 missing a word however does not necessarily constitute an error in transmission since other possible equally valid reasons may be given for such occurrences. mālik, in the legal treatise al mudawwanah contextualizes the choice of items in zakāt al-fiïr when he says that something which is dear in a region should be given for this charity, and gives the example of wheat for the people of egypt and dates for the people of his own citymadinah.21 this does not mean that mālik, a jurist in his own right, redacted traditions. a more plausible reason for it may be that he was talking to people of different regions at different times, and mentioned only the item relevant for his audience-to avoid confusion among themwhich yaíyā transmitted in his version of the muaïïa’. an excellent, detailed discussion by ibn øalāí gives some other well needed possibilities on the issue of omission in text, the most important of which is the principle that one must differentiate between a scholar-transmitter and a one who is not a scholar. on word omissions, he comments that although one has to be careful with them, yet great credible scholars also did it, and if it does not affect the meaning nor the injunction, it is acceptable.22 all the above notwithstanding, errors did happen in transmission of traditions, as ibn øalāí also points out, and to confirm one on the part of a transmitter, one needs to view him critically for his strengths and weaknesses, and once his status is ascertained, the reasons for such omissions would become clearer. coming to yaíyā b. yaíyāwho is held responsible for the error in text transmission by motzki one finds him to be a reliable enough personality according to biographers of traditionists. al dhahabī (d.1348 ce) describes him as a great scholar with a merit unparalleled by any and when he went to andalus (muslim spain) people used to come to him for their needs and held him in great esteem. it is admitted that some people thought that yaíyā reported the chapters on i‘tikāf indirectly-via ziad shabatūn -while the rest of muaïïa’ directly from mālik23 and that does not imply error in reporting. at this point, motzki says: “experts on the muwaïïa’ like ibn ‘abd albarr (d.1071) pointed out several mistakes and lapses calami in yaíyé’s version.” 24 even a casual reading of ibn ‘abd al-barr’s comments about yaíyé’s worth as a transmitter reveals that he was among the best of mālik’s students in accuracy in reporting and among the most uncompromising on points of disagreement among them25; as far as yaíyé’s mistakes are concerned, a careful reading of ibn ‘abd albarr’s tamhīd shows that while recognizing the merits of yaíyé’s version of muïïa’, in a few places he does find yaíyā to have missed in transmission26 or gives his own opinion against yaíyé’s and uses a 66 the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr… … version by another transmitter but such comments don’t affect the veracity of the report under discussion here by yaíyā; since the difference between it and other reports is reconcilable. yaíyé’s report can also be verified by the fact that others like shāfi‘i also reported it in his umm. motzki’s comments about yaíyā thus seem a bit exaggerated here in the light of ibn ‘abd al-barr’s own words of praise about him, and shāfi‘ê’s attestation, not to mention mālik’s own explanation in the mudawwanah.27 motzki moves on to analyse other transmitters of slightly different versions of zakāt al-fiïr tradition besides mālik and following juynboll’s isnād diagrams, considers the following five isnād bundles to be important ones (including those containing mālik as their common link). along with mālik’s these are mūsā b. ‘uqbah’s, ‘ubayd allāh b. ‘umar’s, ayyūb al sakhtiyān’īs, and layth b. sa‘d’s isnād strands: ❖ mūsā b. ‘uqbah (d.758 ce) narrated a tradition on zakāt al-fiïr from nāfi‘which is shorter than mālik’s aforementioned report. it first appeared in ‘abd al-razzāq’s (d.826 ce) muîannaf via mūsānāfi‘b. ‘umar isnād and tells that allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) ordered the alms of breaking the fast before the people went out to the place of prayer.28 when compared to mālik’s report on zakāt alfiïr, mūsā’s is brief and lacks in details like who has to pay the alms and according to which measure? motzki starts with a rejection29 of juynboll’s idea that it was constructed after mālik’s tradition as its model because he had thought that “mālik’s juridical expertise and his concise, finely-chiseled legal parlance in these mutūn (or texts) eventually acquired widespread fame.”30 had it been a fabrication, the narrators could have easily taken mālik’s matn and pasted their own concocted isnāds to it, which does not seem to be the case here according to motzki, since the text is very different from mālik’s and it seems improbable that on the one hand it may be modeled on mālik’s text while on the other it clearly deviates from it. here motzki also compares the five text variants coming from different narrators of mūsā b. ‘uqbah’s tradition mentioned above. four out of five of these versions appear close enough to motzki since the text varies little among them but he finds ibn abī zinād’s report from mūsā which is to be found in tirmidhi’s collection differing considerably from all other mūsā versions. a change of tense occurs from “amara…” (he ordered) in other versions to “kāna ya’muru…” (he would order) making the text suffer severely according to motzki. still a graver corruption according to him is “bi-ikhrāji zakāti qabla alghuduwwi li-l-îalāti yawma al-fiïr” (with the drawing of zakat before hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 67 … leaving for the prayer on the eid day) instead of “bi-zakāti l-fiïri qabla khurūji l-nāsi l-îalāh” (with zakāt al-fiïr before the people going out for the prayer). 31 and he does not give here any sound reason for his claim of corruption and what constitutes that. moreover, a look at the section on zakāt al-fiïr in tirmidhi’s jāmi‘ is enough to clarify motzki’s confusion here, where the given traditions vary in details but never tend to contradict each other, thus clearly reporting the same sunnah of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as reported by his different companions (raìi allah ‘anhum) to their subsequent audience in varying levels of detail, everyone in one’s own individual manner and till these found their place in different ×adīth collections. sezgin mentions eight methods of ×adīth transmission in geschichte32 among them is usage of the word ‘an (from) as different from akhbaranī (he informed me) when mentioning one’s source, the former of which is used in the variants of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition and conveying the companion ibn ‘umar’s statement-that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) commanded the payment of ‘ôd al-fiïr almsin his words and without corruption. in sum, motzki thinks that mūsa’s version of zakāt al-fiïr tradition is distinctive and does not seem to have been modeled over mālik’s version. mūsā may well have been the source of the matn of his version and therefore a genuine common link according to motzki. ❖ the matn of ‘ubayd allāh b. ‘umar’s report is found in different collections like the muîannaf s of ‘abd al-razzāq and ibn abī shaibah (d.849). these versions are different from one another and from mālik’s version in some of their details, one transmitter using one word and the other another, like amara bi and faraḍa both signifying obligation, and îadaqah and zakāh, both meaning alms. according to motzki its matn seems independent from mālik’s version because of these differences. ayyūb al-sakhtiyānī’s report about the prophetic injunction on zakāt al-fiïr which appears in ‘abd al-razzāq’s muṣannaf is very similar to mālik’s version according to motzki. in another collection, his report is quite brief as well as having some word differences, like using the word qāla in place of faraḍa or amara which are found in other reports.33 qāla signifies that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said what comes after. other differences also appear in the texts of other reports containing ayyūb in their isnāds. motzki thinks that these are not modeled over mālik’s tradition since they do not have the latter’s characteristic words like ‘ala al nās (upon the people) and min al muslimīn (from the muslims). motzki thinks that the common 68 the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr… … features of ayyūb’s and mālik’s texts do not necessarily suggest interdependenceand there is no need to suggest it herebut they may have been caused by ‘dependence on a common source’34 and which that source is, he does not tell. regarding interdependence, motzki’s principle is postulated by him thus: “if one wishes to assume an interdependence of the two traditions of texts, it makes more sense to postulate that the ayyūb matn was the model for mālik rather than the other way around since mālik’s matn is more detailed and precise.”35 it implies that he views the texts as having developed over time and becoming more detailed and precise, a point on which one can’t easily agree with him. of course, many religious texts were developed over the ages till they became finely polished and refined, but such is not the case with ×adīth. the new testament is sometimes compared to it36 since they both report the life and times of christ and muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) respectively, yet unlike it, ×adīth were not canonized by its mainstream scholars; they were instead collected, analysed, classified, and published 37 and all discussion among the ×adīth scientists revolved around separating the authentic from the spurious, and not improving upon the texts nor merging the variants to form canonized ×adīth collections. different people reported traditions which appear less refined and briefer than mālik’s reports of the same, not just before him but after him as well. as before, what matters is the traditionalist’s method in reporting and not whether the report is detailed or otherwise; sometimes detailed versions are redactions or forgeries of short ones and vice versa. in any case, accepting motzki’s comment would be tantamount to accepting that later texts are probably ‘improved upon ’the older ones, which does not seem plausible here. ❖ layth ibn sa‘d (d.791 ce) is the fifth transmitter of zakāt alfiïr tradition discussed by motzki, and his version appears in muslim’s as well as ibn mājah’s collections. it does not mention the group of persons for whom the order is obligatory, a feature separating it from the versions of mālik, ‘ubayd allāh, and ayyūb.38 motzki finds layth’s version as individual and distinctive as the other versions mentioned above and rules out dependence of this version upon mālik’s for the same reason mentioned by him in the case of ayyūb’s version mentioned above.39 having discussed the five most frequently occurring and important versions of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition coming from nāfi‘ b. ‘umar chain, motzki comes to three others which he finds to be less frequent in their occurrence, but nonetheless important for a comprehensive study hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 69 … of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition. these are the versions of ayyūb b. mūsā, ibn abī laylā, and ‘abd allāh b. ‘umar. the first one, by ayyūb ibn mūsā, appears in ‘abd al-razzāq’s muîannaf via ibn jurayj ayyūb nāfi‘, and is almost identical to layth’s version discussed above. motzki thinks that juynboll would probably say: ‘abd al-razzāq copied the text from one of layth’s pupils or from layth himself, but not wanting to admit this, fabricated his own isnād to support the tradition.40 this he does not find plausible since there appears to be no reason why ‘abd al-razzāq would choose layth’s tradition when there were much more detailed ones at his disposal and also points out that ‘abd al-razzāq’s muîannaf contains a number of traditions by layth which makes juynboll’s supposed comments implausible. motzki concludes that ‘abd al-razzāq was not a forger of the tradition under discussion. what juynboll ‘would have said’ is not so significant here as what motzki gives in support of genuineness of ayyūb’s report under discussion here. next, motzki comments that since ibn jurayj who transmitted the text from ayyūb is a generation older than layth (d. 175 a.h.), his version can hardly go back to layth. thus, either layth’s version depends upon ayyūb’s or both depend on a common source, nāfi‘, motzki thinks and concludes that it is not possible to decide in favour of either possibility without including more texts in the comparison.41 to the fact that both layth and ayyūb are reported to have reported from nāfi‘ may be added another, that layth also reported from ayyūb. different traditions are reported in these collections from different sources, all containing the ‘al laythayyūb’ string. 42 it shows his honesty and it would leave little charm for him in taking a tradition from ayyūb and pasting his own name in place of the real reporter, a point missed by motzki here. it also deserves to be noted that they are both considered as trustworthy and truthful by ×adīth scientists. layth’s report from néfi‘ is also considered quite reliable.43 it seems strange that motzki, who relies upon ibn ḥajar’s tahdhīb at other places, does not even mention the many attestations by numerous ×adīth scientists reported in it and attesting to layth’s integrity as a ×adīth transmitter. moreover, as layth himself was quite the egyptian jurist of the second century a.h. and one of the most well-known and respected traditionists of his time, there seems little reason to accept that he would need to invent a tradition in the first place or would have gotten away with it so easily. it therefore is safe enough to say that layth’s version of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition probably came from néfi‘ and not ayyūb, whose version too seems to have come from the same source. 70 the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr… … ‘abd al-razzāq’s muṣannaf contains a slightly different report of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition from ibn abī laylā. motzki rejects any probability of forgery on the part of ‘abd al-razzāq and attributes the version to ibn abī laylā. ‘abd allāh b. ‘umar also reports the zakat al-fiïr tradition which motzki compares to his brother’s, ‘ubayd allāh and finds out to be different but close. ‘abd allāh’s version mentions six categories of persons who are asked to pay the alms. two of these “a minor and an adult” had earlier been considered by motzki as typical of ‘ubayd allāh. ‘abd al-razzāq writes in his muîannaf that he took the ‘abd allāh text from ma’mar and tells that it is similar to ‘ubayd allāh’s text without quoting the former. motzki mentions that if this comment were taken literally, then it would mean that the former’s text was originally identical to the latter, which in turn would imply that other transmitters expanded it to the version in aḥmad’s musnad. motzki says: “[t]he phrase ‘mithla íadīth ‘ubayd allāh ’may, but need not refer to a word-for-word correspondence of the texts. here it can only denote similarity, since the text of ‘ubayd allāh (as given by ‘abd al-razzāq) is in any case a hybrid containing elements of ibn abī layl’ās version. therefore, ‘abd al-razzāq’s remark about the tradition of ‘abd allāh tells us nothing about the original wording of the text.”44 in his analysis of ibn abī laylé’s version, motzki’s comment however seems to be diametrically opposed to this: “the fact that the tradition of ibn abī laylā is not just a copy of the ‘ubayd allāh matn’ but rather an independent tradition…”45 the claim that ‘ubayd allāh’s version’ is a hybrid of ibn abī laylé’s, seems to be an exaggeration here since motzki had himself concluded in his analysis of ‘ubayd allāh’s version that it had its distinctive features and was distinct from mālik’s version, and did not point out that it was a hybrid.46 finally, ‘abd allāh’s version appears to motzki as a combination or a hybrid of ‘ubayd allāh’s version and that of mālik’s, since it shares features of the both.47 whether a variant can be labeled as a hybrid since it has characteristic elements found in older, more reliable versions of a ×adīth, is a claim which demands a deeper insight into its transmission process and it does not seem very probable on its own since all variants have common elements with variations here and there; otherwise they would be altogether different traditions. an equally valid possibility is that different reporters reported from the same source nāfi‘, thus hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 71 … resulting in similarities among variants. motzki’s use of ‘characteristic’ words like amara or faraìa is also debatable since both denote obligation and are quite common words in arabic, used interchangeably commonly. an equally probable explanation for similarities in ‘characteristic’ elements would be that they have a common source nāfi‘who might have used different synonyms at different times while instructing different audiences in matters of religion. one also needs to examine the persons alleged with creating the ‘hybrid version’ to see who among them had a known tendency of such behavior or didn’t have. here motzki alleges that either ‘abd allah or his reporter surayj is responsible for creating this version.48 upon checking surayj, one finds him to be strong and reliable in his ×adīth transmission and most of the important collections of traditions report from him without hesitation.49 regarding ‘abd allah, some prominent scholars like alḥākim, bukhārī and tirmidhī did not consider him to be careful enough in reporting.50 so, the tradition’s isnād is weak owing to ‘abd allah’s weakness, yet many other transmitters have also reported its text in slightly different wording, therefore it remains valid.51 harald motzki also discusses three secondary reporters of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition like al-öaííāk, ‘umar b. nāfi‘, and ibn abī rawwād, whose reports appear in the collections with the least frequency of all its versions. two versions of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition-one short and the other longare reported from al-öaííāk in muslim’s and ibn abī shaybah’s ḥadīth collections. both have similarities with other variants of the tradition under question and motzki finds the shorter one to be independent of ayyūb b. mësa’s and layth’s versions although it uses the amara which is characteristic of thembecause it lacks their additional comment by ibn ‘umar. the longer version is similar to ‘abd allah’s versiona forged hybrid according to motzki since “it combines several elements of texts which are found in a number of different matn-traditions.”52 so, motzki thinks that the longer version is not coming from öaííāk, but a creation of the transmitter ibn abī fudayk, who is immediately after him in the isnād.53 he is considered as a reliable transmitter by ibn ma‘ên, nasé’ê, and ibn ḥibbān among others, and many scholars have reported from him including shāfi‘ī.54 such attestations weaken motzki’s hypothesis that he was a forger, especially since his principle: it combines several elements of texts which are found in a number of different matn-traditions, too is weak in its applicability to ×adīth. so, al-öaííāk’s version seems to be just another narration of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition by a traditionist. one may expect the principle to be applicable to books which are clearly 72 the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr… … known to have been redacted into one authorized, canonical version where elements ‘characteristic’ of persons, time and space are found in them, and to find the oldest version is the goal of the scholar studying them. an example is the bible, whose versions were authorized by the church after redaction and modern day biblical scholars try to sift out its source from the available material. but such a principle is not generally applicable to ×adīth, which was never canonized by any mainstream muslim religious authority nor an institution. motzki’s principle is quite out of the context here and is another example of a faulty view of ×adīth whence he alleges of ‘attempts’ to construct texts by traditionists out of older ones to lend them authority. mainstream muslim scholarship on ×adīth has never tried this, and had they done it, they would have tried to hide their fabrications by presenting just ‘authorised-canonised’ versions and hiding or destroying the others. ‘umar bin nāfi‘s version of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition is almost the same as mālik’s and motzki notes that the latter version probably served as model for the former. also, ‘umar’s version has elements ‘characteristic’ of some other versions like al-öaííāk’s and mūsā b. ‘uqbah’s, and added to this is the fact that the latter’s matn is even attached to ‘umar’s version. motzki thinks that this points to “an attempt to construct the text of ‘umar b. néfi‘ is a single version of all nāfi‘traditions which would be as complete as possible.” 55 the absurdity with such an idea as motzki’s here has been mentioned earlier and it would be redundant to mention it again and again. here motzki also says that a third century a.h. scholar muḥammad b. jahḍamwho must have been quite active as a scholar thenis a likely candidate for this text amalgam and oddly enough, ibn ×ajar who is cited by motzki as his source of information here -56 writes that he was considered as a truthful and reliable person by scholars like abū zura‘ aad ibn ḥibbān.57 the reason for motzki’s allegation on ibn jahḍam seems out of place here, not to mention his other claims against ‘umar’s version. the last version of the zakāt al-fiïr tradition discussed by harald motzki is ibn abī rawwād’s from nāfi‘. it appears in abū dāwūd’s collection only and is different from the other traditions in that it narrates common practice of the companions in the time of the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam regarding alms on the day of ‘ôd al-fiïr. motzki finds it to be a case of elements which do not belong to the nāfi‘ transmission feeding into the nāfi‘ context,58 since it does not have the characteristics of that transmission. he then links it to another tradition, by the companion abū sa‘êd al-khudrī who comments that hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 73 … they used to bring the alms…in the time of the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam).59 motzki concludes that the ibn abī rawwād text is either a forgery or an error and thinks that he himself was responsible for it. he vindicates abū dāwūd from this forgery/error because the collectors of the 3rd century a.h. and their pupils knew the two textual traditions too well for anyone to have been able to do it. 60 there are two problems with motzki’s conclusion here. the first problem -as with the last example aboveis that motzki takes his information about ibn abī rawwād from ibn ×ajar incompletely since he ignores the part where ibn ×ajar mentions renowned ×adīth scientists like ibn jurayj, ibn ma‘ên, nasī’ā, yaíyā al-qaṭṭān, al-×ākīm, aímad, and others praising ibn abī rawwād for his piety and consider him to be reliable. 61 considering a couple of negative comments, 62 error is not out of question but the positive comments seem to be overwhelming here.63 the second problem with motzki’s conclusion is his over-emphasis on his theory of ‘characteristic elements’ in ×adīth versions which sometimes ignores context and gives a false impression that forging amalgams of traditions was routine among muslims before the third century a.h. in fact, elements characteristic of one report are commonly found in other reporters’ versions of the same tradition mainly because they have a common source and represent the same incident. therefore a much clearer approach to ibn abī rawwād’s version of zakāt al-fiïr tradition would be that he was reporting ibn ‘umar’s memories of the prophet’s times as he recalled them from néfi‘ which need not include all the details given by others who reported the same from néfi‘ as long as they does not negate any other version of the traditions about zakāt al-fiïr and it may be considered as a part of traditions about this obligatory part of the annual muslim festival ‘ôd ’l fiïr. 5. conclusion as it is the case with tradition complexes in general, the traditions about zakāt al-fiïr also vary in detail as well as textual accuracy. the preserved isnāds also vary in strength. one should not though generalise harald motzki’s isnād cum matn analysis of the zakāt al-fiïr ×adīth complex without comparing its results to his isnād cum matn analysis of other analysed tradition complexes. it would serve towards relating these into a systematic affirmation or rejection of his comments, and this takes the paper to its end. what appears here is that although motzki has put a great amount of effort into his isnād cum matn 74 the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr… … approach to ×adīth case studies, yet his source-selective method, sweeping statements as well as his over dependence on juynboll’s isnād studies, discussed in this case study are what define his approach to traditions and they seem to mar the reach of his efforts. the present study is generally elaborative of its own conclusions which are applicable to prophetic traditions on zakāt al-fiïr as analysed by motzki, while his other case studies have been analysed elsewhere. moreover, his students like boekhoff have extensively extended motzki’s method to other traditions with similar conclusions which shows the limitations of his isnad cum matn analysis method in its present form. it owes to his dependence of isnad-revisionist studies by scholars juynboll and an in-depth comparison of motzki’s isnad analysis method to that of juynboll is expected to further elucidate the state of current western isnad critical methods. his matn analyses may also be similarly compared to concurrent methods. notes and references 1 manāðir aísan gilānī, tadwīn ḥadīth (karachi: idāra majlis ‘ilmī, 1956); muhammad zubayr siddiqui, ×adith literatureits origin, development and special features (lahore: suhail academy, 2001); john b. christopher, the islamic tradition (lanham: university press of america, 1972). 2 fred donner, “modern approaches to early islamic history” the new cambridge history of islam, ed. chase c. robinson (new york: cambridge university press, 2010), 625-647 3 ignaz golziher, “the principles of law in islam”, the historians history of the world, ed. h.s. williams (london: the times, 1907) viii: 294-303. 4 joseph schacht, the origins of muhammadan jurisprudence (oxford: oxford university press, 1979). 5 g.h.a. juynboll, muslim tradition (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1985). 6 zafar ishaq ansari, “the early development”, ph.d. thesis, mcgill university, 1966. 7 muhammad mustafa azami, on schacht’s origins of muhammadan jurisprudence (riyadh: king saud university, 1985). 8 nabia abbott, studies in arabic literary papyri iiqur’ānic commentary and tradition (chicago: chicago university press, 1967). 9 harald motzki, the origins of islamic jurisprudence-meccan fiqh before the classical schools translated by marion katz, (leiden: brill, 2002); harald motzki, nicolet boekhoff-van der voort and sean w. anthony, analysing muslim traditions: studies in legal, exegetical and maghāzī ×adīth (leiden: brill, 2010); the biography of muhammad-the issue of the sources, ed. motzki, (leiden: brill. 2000). hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 4 75 … 10 gregor schoeler, “the constitution of the koran as a codified work: paradigm for codifying ×adīth and the islamic sciences?” oral tradition 25, no. 1 (2010): 201-203, 206-207; andreas görke, “the historical tradition about al-ḥudaybiya. a study of ‘urwa b. al-zubayr’s account”, in biography, ed. motzki, 257. 11 stephen j. shoemaker, “in search of ‘urwa’s sira: some methodological issues in the quest for ‘authenticity’ in the life of muíammad,” der islam 85 (2011), 339-344. 12 bilal ahmad, harald motzki aur ×adīth: aik jā’izah, fikr o naðar 56, no.1, (2019), 113-114. 13 motzki, voort & anthony analyzing muslim traditions, 91. 14 uthmān b. ‘abd al raḥmān ibn ṣalāḥ, ma‘rifā anwā‘ ‘ulūm al-ḥadīth, muqaddimā ibn ṣalāḥ., ed. nūr al-dīn ‘itr (beirut: al maktaba al farabi, 1984), 94-97. 15 motzki, voort & anthony analyzing muslim traditions, 91. 16 schacht, the origins of muhammadan jurisprudence, 140. 17 motzki, voort & anthony analyzing muslim traditions, 94. 18 ibid. 19 ibid. 20 ibid. 21 mālik b. anas, al-mudawwana al-kubrā, (egypt: al ḥāj muḥammad afandī sāsī al-maghribī, 1323 a. h), 464. 22 ibn øalāí, muqaddimah, 187-217. 23 shams al dīn al dhahabī, siyar a‘lām al-nubalā’, (al resalah publishers, beirut: 1998), 10: 520-524. 24 motzki, voort & anthony analyzing muslim traditions, 94. 25 yusuf bin ‘abd allah ibn `abd al barr al-andalusi , al tamhīd li ma fi almuaṭṭa’ min al ma‘āni wa al asānīd, (rabaat: al-matbaul malikiah, 1967.), 1:10-12 26 ibid. 10-12. 27 mālik, mudawwanah, 2:118-119. 28 motzki, voort & anthony analyzing muslim traditions, 99. 29 ibid. 99. 30 juynboll, ‘nāfi‘ the mawla of ibn ‘umar and his position in muslim ḥadīth literature’,” der islam 70, no. 2 (1993), 237. 31 motzki, voort & anthony analyzing muslim traditions, 101. 32 faut sezgin, geschichte des arabischen schrifttums (leiden: e.j. brill, 1967), 1:55-60. 33 motzki, voort & anthony analyzing muslim traditions 105-106. 34 ibid. 107. 35 ibid. 107. 36 wilfred cantwell smith, what is scripture? (minneapolis: fortress press, 2005), 46. 37 sezgin, geschichte, 55. 38 motzki, voort & anthony analysing, 107-108. 39 ibid. 108. 76 the isnād cum matn analysis of zakét al-fiïr… … 40 ibid. 109. 41 ibid. 110. 42 øaíīí al-bukhari, (29:71), translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997); muḥammad b. naṣr al marwazī, al-sunnah, (riyadh: darul saqafat ul islamia, 1408 a.h.), 77. 43 for layth ibn sa‘d. ibn hajar al asqalani, tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, (hyderabad deccan, dairat ul m`arif , nd), 8:460-465; ibid. 1: 412-3, for ayyūb. 44 motzki, analysing, 112. 45 ibid. 110-111. 46 ibid. 101-104. 47 ibid. 113. 48 ibid. 113. 49 ibn ×ajar, tahdhīb, 3: 457. 50 ibid. 5: 326-328. 51musnad aímad ibn ×anbal, (10:164), ed. shu‘aib al-arnu’wūṭ (np.: mu’assat al risāla, 2001). 52 motzki, analysing, 114. 53 ibid. 114. 54 ibn ×ajar, ṭahdhīb, 9:61. 55 motzki, analysing, 115. 56 ibid. 115. he cites from ibn ×ajar, tahdhīb, 9: 100. 57 ibn ×ajar, tahdhīb, 9: 100. 58 motzki, analysing, 115. 59 ibid. 116. 60 ibid. 116. 61 ibn ×ajar, tahdhīb, 6:338-339. 62 ibid. 63 badr al-dīn al-‘ainī, sharí sunan abi dāwūd, (6:329), ed. khalid b. ibrāhīm (riyadh: maktaba al rushd, 1999). https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/23478 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 3 7 .. editorial this year's third issue of hamdard islamicus presents an informative and inspiring bouquet of articles covering and elaborating islamic guidelines pertinent to various spheres of life. this is a part of our continuous journey towards the renaissance of muslim world by motivating all muslims to transform their lives as the teachings of islam. this issue gives concrete evidences that islam in itself is a comprehensive manual for all contemporary and modern challenges. the indonesian national waqf body (bwi) and ministry of finance (mof) have implemented a model called cash waqf linked sukuk (cwls) and issued the government of indonesia sukuk (islamic securities) namely sukuk waqf indonesia (swi) in 2020. this is a key milestone as this cash waqf can potentially finance public infrastructures such as public hospitals, airports, state schools, mosques and, traditional markets. indeed, it is very crucial to assess the feasibility of the cwls model and to have a robust academic assessment such as formulation of the model, optimal level of each party such as the government, waqif, waqf management agencies (nadzhir) and the like. which is the objective and main motivation of our first article entitled "identifying the optimal cash waqf linked sukuk: indonesian experience" . "does islamicity affect economic growth? evidence from oic, high, middle, and low-income countries" is the title of our second article which is authored by saudi and turkish professors. they claim that empirical studies on the main determining factors of economic growth have neglected the effect of islamicity on economic growth. this study expands upon the recent literature on economic growth and islamicity. by using the islamicity indices data for the first time, this study provides a brand-new viewpoint on islamicity and the economic growth nexus in the world, focusing on sub-divisions of high, middle, and low-income countries and the organization of islamic countries (oic). advances in communication technology have made social media one of the media that plays an essential role in conveying political campaigns. some people use the momentum of political contestation as an opportunity to seek financial gain by working as a buzzer on social media. the third article titled “political buzzer in islamic law and its impact on muslim society" aims to analyze political buzzer actions from islamic perspective and highlight its negative impact on the muslim community of indonesia. after conducting in-depth research, the author 8 editorial .. concludes that it is mubāh (legal) for a political buzzer to promote the ability, expertise of a candidate for leadership or a specific regional head. however, the act of political buzzers who create and spread hoaxes, hate speech, and black campaigns are harām (unlawful) and strictly prohibited in islam. the end of the mughal empire in the wake of the war of independence 1857 left the muslim community of south asia as political orphans, desperately facing religious and cultural assaults, political as well as economic victimization and marginalization under the british raj. at this time of vulnerability of the muslim society, it was the educational institutions established by muslim ideologues which took up the task of strengthening, reforming and revitalizing the muslim society to cope with the challenges pushing them down to the bottom, and helped excel at regaining the lost confidence and integrity. among them, one was darul ulum deoband. the fourth article "darul ulum deoband: preserving religious and cultural integrity of south asian muslims through structural and strategic innovations" goes into some of important historical developments such as the socio-political circumstances led to the origination of madrasah deoband, lofty vision and objectives that envisaged by its founders, administration of educational-cum-institutional paraphernalia, nationalist stance and struggle for freedom carried out by the deobandi veterans, strategies and policies it adopted to deal with political challenges confronted to the indian muslims during british raj and after partition of india. everyone is working hard to be successful in his/her career. however, that requires an individual to be more ethical, committed, and self-contented towards his/her expected goal. h ence, last but not the least, the fifth article entitled " the effect of islamic work ethics on academics’ career success: the mediating role of psychological capital resources" aims to explore the influence of islamic work ethics (iwe) on academics’ career success (acs), besides the role of psychological capital (psycap) as mediation between iwe and acs. the data was collected from full-time academic staff in public universities in sudan. after analyzing 236 questionnaires, the findings indicated that iwe is positively related to the acs. furthermore, psycap was a significant mediator between iwe and acs. dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt, editor hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 37 influence of religion on pakistani mainstream media: an application of beliefs into action scale for journalists dr. riaz ahmad saeed dept. of islamic thought &culture, national university of modern languages, islamabad, pakistan email: drriazsaeed@gmail.com dr. aqeel ahmed dept. of media and communication studies, national university of modern languages, islamabad, pakistan email: aahmed@numl.edu.pk dr. ulfat nisa dept. of applied psychology, national university of modern languages, islamabad, pakistan email: ulfat.nisa@numl.esu.pk received on: 02-03-24 accepted on: 17-03-25 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.957 abstract this cross-sectional survey explored the influence of religion on pakistani journalists by applying the belief into action scale. the study based on responses from 300 journalists, discovered influence of religious beliefs held by the journalists of digital and electronic media on their professional (journalistic) practices. the findings demonstrated that the belief into action scale was a highly reliable measure to assess the influence of religion on pakistani journalists. the results observed that pakistani male journalists were more influenced by religious beliefs than their female counterparts. similarly, the journalists employed in digital media setups displayed a greater inclination towards faith while performing their professional duties than the ones belonging to electronic media organizations. moreover, the study participants with more experience and increasing age were found to be more practically religious and tended to be more influenced by their religious beliefs while fulfilling their professional responsibilities. mailto:drriazsaeed@gmail.com mailto:aahmed@numl.edu.pk mailto:ulfat.nisa@numl.esu.pk https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.957 38 influence of religion … however, this research discovered that the journalists holding higher academic qualifications showed a lesser tendency to practicing religion than their contemporaries with lower educational qualifications. keywords: influence, religion, media, journalists, application, beliefs into action scale introduction: religion is a set of shared beliefs held by a large number of people in accordance with which they live life in an organized and socially acceptable pattern. religious beliefs often are a central part of various cultures and provide ethical codes for every aspect of people’s lives.1 religion influences individuals in various aspects of their lives, ranging from their happiness at home to their social life and workplace. a wealth of research-based evidence suggests that religious beliefs have been at the core of both personal and professional lives across the globe. abbas et al. claim that high-quality performance is expected from individuals when parents and children have the same inclination toward religious beliefs2. héliot et al. state that being religious is something that comes from inside the individuals and influences every dimension of their lives from socialization to manners and business to meetings3. religion has always been central to human life with its constant influence on individuals’ personalities, behaviours, and actions4. as is the case with muslims with an ideological claim of islam being the complete code of life, providing them guidance from family to social affairs and from personal development to business and work ethics, the followers of other religions and ideologies also put forward the same claim. similarly, media has also been considered as a significant factor in determining the behaviours, values and narratives of societies across the globe5. media has an agenda-setting role to play, defining the salience of issues for the people and influencing the socio-cultural infrastructure that shapes societies6. the journalists who are at the heart of information collection, news and content formation and dissemination process and perform a key role in guiding editorial decisions and agenda setting for the media users, are part of the same society, they carry and observe the same religious, cultural and ethical values with them as other members of the society do. these values have a significant role to play in the professional life of the individuals associated with different media organizations in any society. the influence of religious values on media has remained a point of consideration, debate and scrutiny, particularly in hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 39 societies like pakistan where religion is central to individuals’ life and holds substantial socio-cultural importance. the media ecosystem in pakistan has significantly transformed during last two and half decades, from being state-run media to a vibrant private-sector industry that has witnessed noteworthy growth and diversification. religion infuses multiple facets of mainstream media industry in pakistan, ranging from news reporting and editorial perspectives to entertainment programming. religious values are likely to influence editorial decisions including content selection, as well as portrayal of social issues. furthermore, religious sensitivities often impact the limits of acceptable expression, with some issues deemed controversial7 (flensner, 2020). pakistan, having its rich religious heritage with predominantly muslim population, provides an exciting case study to understand the influence of religious beliefs on professional roles or practices of the journalists. ahmed and shah8 in one of rarest of its kind studies in pakistan have explored the influence of religious beliefs on pakistani news reporters documenting that the religion has an influence on various journalistic functions and roles including civic, service, loyal facilitator, disseminator interventionist, and watchdog performed by the new reporters. however, scarcity of literature on the subject in terms of the influence of religious beliefs on mainstream journalistic community provides a research gap fulfilled by this study, as it explores the influence of religious beliefs by taking into account the mainstream media community involving the sample of journalistic community as a whole with representation of news reporters, news editors, and other related journalistic staff and that too from electronic and digital media which are widely practiced in pakistan. this research focuses on the application of the "beliefs into action scale", an established and validated measure by koenig et al. to understand the manifestation of religious beliefs among the journalists working in pakistani media9. the beliefs into action scale has been a wide-ranging measure to evaluate the religious involvement by assessing how individuals decode their religious beliefs into actions. this research has adopted this scale as this framework provides a systematic pattern of measuring the way beliefs are translated into perceptible actions and behaviours. moreover, rammouz et al. adapted and validated the arabic version of the muslim belief into action scale in morocco, reporting its reliability (cronbach’s α = 0.81, test-retest icc = 0.87) by testing the scale on 132 moroccan students, and demonstrating its applicability in context of muslim-majority nations like pakistan. furthermore, ahmed and shah also applied the same scale in pakistani context that too conducting a research on media functions. 40 influence of religion … as the religious beliefs are often linked to people’s perceptions of society and translated into commitments, journalists’ prioritization of religious beliefs, religious information consumption, and potential financial contributions in terms of charity may shape the media content and also impact individual biases. application of the “beliefs into action scale” in the context of the journalists in mainstream media in pakistan may provide an insight into the facts of how the journalists under the demographic factors of gender, age, academic qualification and the type of media served by them, get influenced of their religious beliefs and practices while performing their professional duties in media. this study attempts to understand the influence of religious beliefs held by journalists on their professional practices concerning gender (male/female), age (21-30 years/31-40 years/41-50 years), academic qualification (undergraduate/graduate/post-graduate) and the type of media (digital or electronic) served by them10. understanding the influence of religious beliefs on journalists working with digital and electronic media set-ups in pakistan is crucial to promoting responsible reporting, accountability and transparency. the study limited its scope to the journalists serving in digital and electronic media organizations in pakistan since the modern time have witnessed a decline of print media and exponential growth of electronic media and digital media industries in the country (jang, 2024). furthermore, the journalists working on television and various digital media platforms are more likely to appear on screen, interact with people and ultimately known to them that can further influence the community at large. the study helps in understanding the influence of religious beliefs on the professional practices and assignments of journalists. it provides a base to further investigate religion-media nexus, particularly in context of globalization, digital advances and islamophobia. furthermore, the study also provides a guide for managers of media organizations to understand and mitigate the influence of religious beliefs on news formation and agenda setting. objectives of the study: since religion has been the most dominant and instrumental force influencing almost every segment of the society in pakistan and the role of media in shaping perceptions, opinions and personalities is also undeniable, the religion-media interplay requires a thorough investigation of the influence of religious beliefs on professional practices of those (journalists) who shape public agenda. in view of this, the study set its objectives as under: hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 41 1. to measure the influence of religious beliefs on journalists in pakistan 2. to examine the influence of religious beliefs on journalists in pakistan with respect to various demographic factors (gender, type of media served, age and qualification) literature review: the scholarly research "media and religion" involves exploring the scholarly works and research conducted on how the mainstream media interacts, influences, and represents various religious beliefs and practices. this research encompasses the examination of the relationship between media and religious communities, the impact of media on religious discourse, and how media shapes public perceptions about religion and religious groups. here is a brief overview of the key themes on media and religion that will be covered in the following mentioned literature review: patrick eisenlohr, while exploring research on media usage in contexts with religious diversity, in his paper “media and religious diversity” explains three methods, including media politics of diversity, religious diversity and the public sphere, and the diversity of religious mediations. as opposed to the first line of research, which focuses on the management of representations of religious variety and difference, the second line of research analyzes how religious diversity, public discourse, and image circulation interact. the third approach looks at the various ways that religious practitioners communicate with the religious afterlife and how these connections impact social life. he begins by looking at the inescapable links between media and religious pursuits. this article argues that a perspective awareness of the innate linkages between religion and media is the only approach to address the issues generated by the intersection of media usage and religious diversity11. khojaste and kalantari in an article on “the media rituals: the relationship between media and religion” try to answer the following questions: what connection is there between modern media and religion? is the media fundamentally hostile to religion and a tool for its eradication, or does it function as a neutral medium that can also promote religion? these queries are under the umbrella of the category of the connection between religion, modernity, and the essence of modernization, for which iran has a vast literature. according to them, two similar approaches can be taken in terms of the connection between religion and modernization: 2) a philosophical approach, and 1) a historical-sociological approach. under the impact of either strategy, one would come across a range of viewpoints that, on the one hand, lead to "technological dogmatism," and on the other hand, lead to "instrumentalization." which of these viewpoints we embrace relies on our historical 42 influence of religion … situation (our destiny), how we define dichotomous sides (faith and media), as well as how we approach this issue historically, sociologically, and philosophically? they covered these issues in this article12. hoover submits in his paper that the relationship between pop music and urban space gives rise to a dialectic that affects both the definition of music genres and the social concept of the spatiality of major cities. in this article, he examines the representation of different places in madrid in various video clips, analyzing their discursive meaning and their articulation of identity-related to the values associated with certain artists and repertoires. that is to say, we explore the configuration of the urban ethos through its representation in musical production13. kyuhoon raises concerns about the configuration of religion in the media sector of modern korea. with globalization in the modern world, mass media has increasingly become a diverse field of communication through which various interpretations of religion and spirituality in a given society are processed. in this article, he focuses on how religion is presented in the news media, such as newspapers and broadcasters, in contemporary south korea. since the 1990s, the media industry in korean society has rapidly turned into an autonomous profession as the nation-state has made great progress toward democracy and social reformation. in this new social context, a majority of media workers have internalized the standards of liberal or even progressive journalism. reflecting on the socio-political shift, media professionals have actively produced information and assessments about different religious groups, many of which are concerned with cultural, anti-social, and sensational dimensions of religion. the author studies the underlying trends and logic in the media's articulation of religion, which are selectively intertwined with the korean society secular and religious constellation14. schoemaker in his phd thesis on digital faith: social media and the enactment of religious identity in pakistan presents a theoretically grounded and historically contextualized sociological examination of how digital technologies shape religious identity in pakistan. to clarify this, he presented an examination of how facebook shapes the enactment of religious identity by young people in three cities in punjab, pakistan, drawing on theoretical literature, the literature on pakistani religious identity, and twelve months of fieldwork (2014–2015). he views technology as assemblages of discursive and material pieces that, when put together, produce actionable opportunities. he views identification as the performativity enactment of subject positions constituted by discursive regimes of knowledge and power. he used a mixedmethods strategy that included a survey, document collecting, indepth interviews, and observation of young facebook users while hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 43 adopting an agential realism methodology. his empirical findings demonstrate how social media, mobile internet, and mobile phones interact with ordinary life and public debate to construct religious identity15. rashid explores the broader scene of disruptive technologies concerning muslims and islam, looking at pakistan's social media scene in the context of more general disruptive technologies. through four case studies drawn from recent events in pakistan, the research aims to investigate the effects of disruptive technologies on pakistani society while investigating the interaction between religion and religiosity in the era of disruptions. the article uses secondary sources to assess the social media landscape more broadly before critically analyzing these case studies to understand the effects of social media. these case studies show that social media is a potent tool used by both social activists and religious organizations, a recent development in pakistan16. soukup examines three broad strands of communication research on media and religion. he starts by reviewing some new frameworks for studying media and religion to understand where the subject is at the moment among experts. the second part of his analysis focuses on how scholars have examined about the ways various media and religion interact, with a particular emphasis on journalism's treatment of religion, entertainment media's content and critical analysis, and information media, notably the internet. he concludes by examining christian media reflection, which some refer to as communication theology17. according to herbert, the relationship between religion, popular culture, and politics in contemporary societies is changing in ways that are not adequately accounted for in the existing sociological theories of religion and are still largely neglected in sociological theories of media and culture. this is because of the rapid development and dissemination of media technologies, the liberalization of national media economies, and the expansion of transnational media spheres. in particular, he draws attention to media-enabled social processes that reflect and oppose those associated with the secularization of religion in secularization theory, interrupting their secularizing effects and tending to spread religious symbols and discourses more widely in society, a process known as "publicizing" religion. contrary to neo-secularization theory, these processes have ramifications for religious authority, which is reconfigured in a more diffused form but not necessarily weakened. additionally, contrary to rational choice theory, the increased public presence of religion depends not only on competition between religious "suppliers," but also on the work that religions do outside the limited religious sphere that secular modernity attributes to religion, in supposedly secular spheres like entertainment, politics, 44 influence of religion … law, health, and welfare. this has implications for the crucial cultural studies relationship between politics and popular culture18. safdar and khan explain the impact of media on female students because they are heavy consumers of digital media. unrestricted access to digital media regularly could have several negative effects. the primary goal of the current study was to determine how digital media impacted the religious, moral, and cultural beliefs of female university students from punjab, pakistan. female students at universities experience enormous changes as a result of gender equality since they are the symbolic expression of any community and are the greatest place to evaluate religious, moral, and cultural aspects. the study was carried out in public universities in punjab, pakistan. data from 1157 female students who participated in the survey-based study were gathered. "social learning theory" was traditionally the study's central subject. the survey found that practically every aspect of students' lives had been captured by digital media, which has established itself as an essential component of life. the internet is a fantastic resource for learning about religion, and it affects women's participation in religion in both positive and unfavourable ways. internet usage also has conflicting effects on female students' moral principles. additionally, among pakistani women, digital media is a major source for the import of foreign culture and the decline of pakistani culture19. moberg and granholm explore how paying close attention to the modern nexus of religion, media, popular culture, and consumer culture would greatly benefit from a more empirical and contextoriented understanding of the concept of the post-secular. it aims to deepen and improve the idea of the post-secular into a more comprehensive interpretive framework for the investigation of religious transformation in modern western countries, with a focus on western european societies. even while the study of religion, in general, has arguably understudied the historical and modern links between religion and larger social structures. the current connection between religion, consumer capitalism, and consumer culture emphasizes even more how the places and types of religion themselves are changing significantly in late modern times. the chapter ends with some intriguing insights on how the post-secular idea might be given more weight and distinguished from other comparable current theoretical conceptions20. the interplay between media and religion has been a point of attraction for research scholars, both in religion and media around the world. in pakistan, religion carries a central role to play in people’s lives and journalists are no exception. the influence of religious beliefs on the mainstream media (journalists, as they are at the grassroots level of agenda-setting) is very critical. islam, the state religion, as being an influential force in pakistani society, permeates hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 45 the content of media and raises questions about the extent to which it influences media workers and eventually, the narratives built by the media. over the years, a growing curiosity has been about how religious beliefs outline the content, editorial decisions, and narratives among societies across the globe. research methodology nature of the study the study is cross-sectional in nature. studies conducted under cross-sectional research designs collect data from the sample under investigation at a single point (time) to measure the pervasiveness of desired characteristics or explore relationships between variables. such designs guide the researchers to inexpensively and quickly document the phenomenon under study and provide valuable understandings for further research. approach of the study the current cross-sectional research employed quantitative approach. studies adopting quantitative research involve a systematic way of data collection and analysis of quantifiable/numerical data to identify and explain the phenomena under investigation such as a pattern or relationship between different variables. application of the quantitative research approach helped the researchers carry out descriptive statistics to summarize the data about respondents’ demographic characteristics, cronbach’s alpha to measure the reliability of the beliefs into action scale, independent samples ttest to compare the means, and one-way anova followed by tukey’s hsd post-hoc test to analyze the variance across demographics under investigation. while using spss. method (survey) this quantitative research has been a cross-sectional survey. cross-sectional survey method collects data from a sample (individuals or entities) at a single point (time) to examine their attitudes, behaviours, characteristics, or opinions. this study used an already developed and validated survey instrument, the beliefs into action scale by koenig et al., which is a standard and wellestablished measure to investigate the influence of religious beliefs in people’s actions in the organizational context. however, reliability analysis was carried out using cronbach alpha through spss. the study considered demographic characteristics of gender, age, academic qualification, and the type of media served by the journalists. survey was administered online using google docs. study population, study sample and sampling frame the population of the study was journalists working in pakistan. the sample of the study comprised journalists working in 46 influence of religion … electronic and digital media organizations in islamabad, the federal capital of pakistan. the sampling frame maintained the scope of the study to the journalists working in digital and electronic media set-ups including gender (male/female), age (2130 years, 31-40 years and 41-50 years), academic qualification (under-graduation, graduation, post-graduation), and affiliation to the type of media organizations (digital media/electronic media). limiting scope of the research to islamabad was based on convenience of the researchers. convenience sampling is a nonprobability technique of sampling that helps the researchers select participants of the study based on their convenience, accessibility and proximity, usually choosing the ones who are easy to reach or voluntarily available for documentation of response. through convenience sampling technique, 563 journalists working in electronic and digital media set-ups in islamabad, the federal capital of pakistan were approached. out of the approached journalists, 300 individuals consented to be part of this study. logic behind adopting convenience sampling was that the journalists are busy professionals and approaching them through any of the non-probability techniques such as simple random sampling would not have yielded desired number of responses. ethical considerations: the researchers approached 563 journalists with an informed consent form through whatsapp and facebook to request them to be part of this study. out of the total approached potential respondents 300 were willing to be part of the study. moreover, with a request for informed consent, the respondents were assured of confidentiality and anonymity regarding personal information as well as responses they provided against the survey questionnaire statements. this confidentiality and anonymity have been maintained by the researchers. hypotheses of the study: several following four hypotheses were devised by the study: 1. h1: pakistani male journalists tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than their female counterparts. 2. h2: the journalists in pakistan working in digital media tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than the ones working in electronic media. 3. h3: the journalists in pakistan with older age tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than the ones with younger age. 4. h4: the journalists in pakistan with higher academic qualifications tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than the ones with lower academic qualifications. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 47 data analysis the study measured the tendency of the journalists to be influenced by their religious beliefs while performing their professional duties through the application of the belief into action scale devised by koenig et al. on the variable of religious practices. no of items range (α) m sd minimu m maximu m belief into actio n scale 10 .9 4 52.6 0 16.2 0 29 73 table 1: reliability analysis of the belief into action scale as adopted by the study (n=300) table 1 demonstrates the reliability of the applied scale as an excellent one with (α) value of .94. the study applied reliability analysis of the belief into action scale, which it adopted to measure the influence of religious beliefs held by the journalists on their professional practices. reliability analysis is applied to determine the consistency of a process (taherdoost, 2018). table 1 also reflected the means and standard deviation along with minimum and maximum ranges for the scale. variables categories (f) (%) age of the journalist 21-30 years 150 50 31-40 years 95 31.7 41-50 years 55 18.3 gender of the journalist male 200 66.7 female 100 33.3 qualification of the journalist undergraduate 55 18.3 graduate 153 51.0 post graduate 92 30.7 media the journalist serves digital media 145 48.3 electronic media 155 51.7 table 2 : frequencies and percentages of the demographic characteristics of sample (n=300) table 2 presented the demographic characteristics of the sample. the data showed that a total of 200 male and 100 female journalists from pakistan made up a sample of 300 participants. moreover, 50% (150 journalists) of the study participants were between 21-30 years of age, followed by another 31.7% (95 48 influence of religion … journalists) of 31-40 years and 18.3% (55% journalists) of 41-50 years respectively. the study took into consideration the academic qualification of the journalists, involving three categories undergraduation, graduation and post-graduation. the largest category of the respondents (51% journalists) held graduate degree, followed by 30.7% participants holding post-graduate and 18.3% journalists with undergraduate degrees. two main categories of the media served by the journalists i.e., digital media and electronic media were also taken into account with the majority of the respondents (51.7% journalists) serving in electronic media organizations and another 48.3% of their contemporaries associated with digital media platforms. hypothesis 1: pakistani male journalists tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than their female counterparts. male (n=200) female (n=100) t p 95% ci meas ures m sd m sd ll ul cohen 's d religio us practic es 57. 98 15. 15 41. 85 12 .5 9.1 9 .0 0 19.5 8 12.6 8 1.16 table 3: t-test analysis between male and female cases on variables of religious practices (n=300). table 3 showed the application of independent sample t-test analysis, a statistical technique applied to determine any significant differences between the means of two unrelated groups under study. the results indicated statistically significant differences between male and female groups of journalists on the variable of religious practices. the results revealed that the male journalists scored higher than their female counterparts on the variable of religious practices, reflecting the tendency of the former to be more inclined towards getting influenced by their religious beliefs more than the latter while performing their professional (journalistic) duties. given the statistics presented at table 3, hypothesis 1 that claiming male journalists are more influenced by their religious beliefs more than their female counterparts has been supported. hypothesis 2: the journalists in pakistan working in digital media tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than the ones working in electronic media. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 49 digital media (n=145) electronic media (n=155) t p 95% ci measu res m sd m sd ll ul cohen' s d religio us practic es 57. 92 12. 53 47. 63 17. 65 5.7 9 .0 0 6.7 9 13. 78 0.67 table 4: t-test analysis between media organizations on the variable of religious practices (n=300). table 4 also demonstrated the application of independent sample t-test analysis to depict that the differences based on different media organizations served (digital media or electronic media) on the variable of religious practices were statistically significant. the findings suggested that the journalists who worked in the digital media set-ups tended to be more influenced by their religious beliefs as compared to the group of respondents working in the electronic media as the former scored higher than the latter. as per the statistics presented at table 4, hypothesis 2 that the journalists working in digital media are more influenced by their religious beliefs than the journalists working in electronic media has been supported. hypothesis 3: the journalists in pakistan with older age tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than the ones with younger age. variables 21-30 (n=150) m sd 31-40 (n=95) m sd 41-50 (n=55) m sd f p religious practices 46.6 6 16.3 1 54.2 9 15.1 3 65.8 9 6.1 1 35. 91 .0 0 table 5: one-way anova among the age categories on the variable of religious practices (n=300). (i) age (j) age mean difference (i-j) std. error 95% confidence interval lower bound upper bound 21-30 years 31-40 years -7.64* 1.91 -12.14 -3.13 50 influence of religion … 41-50 years -19.23* 2.29 -24.65 -13.81 31-40 years 41-50 years -11.59* 2.47 -17.42 -5.77 note: p<.01 table 5(a): post-hoc analysis among the age categories on the variable of religious practices (n=300). table 5 reflected the application of one-way analysis of covariance (anova), a statistical test applied to compare the means of more than two (three or more) groups while controlling for the impact of one or more continuous variables, also known as covariates, between different age categories (21-30 years, 31-40 years, and 4150 years) on the variable of religious practices to show the results as being statistically significant. the post-hoc tukey’s analysis (table 5a), also described as tukey's honestly significant difference (hsd) test, an advanced statistical technique applied after anova to explore significant pairwise group differences, demonstrated statistically significant differences for the category of the journalists falling in 21-30 years of age (m=46.66, sd=16.31) with 31-40 years (m=54.29, sd=15.13) and 41-50 years of age (m=65.89, sd=6.11) categories respectively where both of the latter categories. similarly, statistically significant differences were also found between 31-40 years (m=54.29, sd=15.13) and 41-50 years of age (m=65.89, sd=6.11) categories where the latter category of the journalists scored higher on the variable of religious practices as compared to the former one. these results reflected that the journalists falling in older age categories tended to show more tendency to get influenced by their religious beliefs as compared to their younger colleagues. as per the results presented at tables 5 and 5a, hypothesis 3 which claimed that journalists in pakistan with older age tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than the ones with younger age, has been supported. hypothesis 4: the journalists in pakistan with higher academic qualifications tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than the ones with lower academic qualifications. varia bles undergrad uate (n=55) m sd graduate (n=153) m sd post graduate (n=92) m sd f p hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 51 religi ous practi ces 64. 40 10. 32 49.84 15.6 0 50.15 17.01 20.16 .0 0 table 6: one-way anova among the academic qualification categories on the variable of religious practices (n=300). (i) academic qualificatio n (j) academic qualificatio n mean differenc e (i-j) std. erro r 95% confidence interval lowe r boun d upper boun d under graduate graduate 14.56* 2.39 8.91 20.21 post graduate 14.25* 2.60 8.12 20.37 note: p<.01 table 6(a): post-hoc analysis among the academic qualification categories on the variable of religious practices (n=300). table 6 also depicted the application of analysis of covariance (anova) between different categories of journalists based on differences of their academic qualification on the variable of religious practices to demonstrate the results as being statistically significant. the post-hoc tukey’s analysis (table 6a) also showed statistically significant differences in the category of undergraduate journalists with graduates and post-graduates. the undergraduate journalists (m=64.40, sd=10.32) scored higher than the graduate (m=49.84, sd=15.60) and post-graduate (m=50.15, sd=17.01) journalists. the results reflected that both the journalists with graduate and post-graduate academic qualifications tended to be more influenced by their religious beliefs as compared to the journalists with undergraduate qualifications. as per the data presented at tables 6 and 6a, hypothesis 4 that claimed, the journalists in pakistan with higher academic qualifications tend to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than the ones with lower academic qualifications, has been rejected. discussion the study has established beliefs in action scale as a reliable measure for research in context of religious influence on individuals in the society, conforming with existing body of literature. the results of the study present valuable insights into the complex interplay 52 influence of religion … between religious beliefs and journalistic practices in the specific context of pakistan. the study considered demographic characteristics of the journalists including age, gender, academic qualification and the type of media they served. by doing so, the study unveiled nuanced patterns and intricacies, underlying the influence of religious beliefs held by the journalists on their professional practices. the research found out that the male journalists were more influenced by their religious beliefs than their female counterparts. similarly, the digital media were found to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than their fellows working in electronic media. moreover, the older (with respect to age) journalists were inclined to be more influenced by their religious beliefs than the younger ones. finally, the highly qualified (graduate and postgraduate) journalist tended to be less influenced by their religious beliefs as compared to the journalists with lower (undergraduate) qualification. the findings of male and older age journalists being more influenced by the religious beliefs as compared to their counterparts fall in conformity of existing research whereas the aspects of lower academic qualification and digital media journalists being influenced by their religious beliefs contributes to the already available literature on the subject. by doing so, this study fills a gap in the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on how religious beliefs influence journalism practices in digital and electronic media in pakistan. this study recognizes the journalists as being central to shaping public perceptions and discourse by highlighting the intricate relationship between religious beliefs and journalists' professional practices. understanding these influences is critical for media organizations to maintain standards of fairness, objectivity and accuracy and respect for communities. based on these findings, the media organizations should take necessary steps to preserve journalistic integrity. they must acknowledge the influence of religious beliefs on reporting by the journalists, and editorial decisions by senior editorial staff. media outlets should consider implementing training programs that address religious diversity, ensuring journalists can balance personal beliefs with professional obligations to maintain fairness and objectivity in their reporting. the study sensitizes media organizations about the complex nature of relationship between religion, media and pakistani society that holds religious identity as central to cultural and political relevance, exploring the way the journalists navigate religious beliefs while performing their professional roles is of significance to foster a diverse and inclusive media landscape. while the quantitative findings provide insight into the relationship between religion and journalistic practice, the limitations of this approach point to the need for future research that incorporates qualitative methods. this could provide a deeper understanding of hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 53 how religious beliefs affect journalists on a personal and professional level. although quantitative approaches provide statistical insights into the relationship between religion and journalistic practice, qualitative methods such as interviews and focus groups can provide deeper insights into individual motivations, beliefs and their impact on everyday reporting decisions. conclusion: this research has yielded fruitful results by confirming religion-media interplay in view of the influence of religious beliefs on professional practices of the journalists. the study concludes that the digital and electronic media journalists in pakistan are widely influenced by their religious beliefs while performing their professional (journalistic) duties. however, this influence varies in terms of gender, age, affiliation to either type of media setup (digital/electronic) and academic qualification. the male journalists, the ones who work for digital media, are of older age, and/or with undergraduate academic qualifications tend to get more influenced by their religious beliefs while performing their professional tasks than the journalists who are female, work for electronic media organizations, are of younger age, and/or with graduate and postgraduate academic qualification. these aspects point out that male members of the society might study religion more than females and that is reflected by the study findings as well. similarly, the digital media platforms are more diverse and heavy influx of information on various aspects of life including religion may also contributing to influence on the journalists serving digital media platforms. moreover, with higher qualifications and more knowledge, a rationale evaluation of events may come into play that may lead to lesser influence of religion on journalistic reporting. finally, the older people are emotionally more concerned with religious ideologies and beliefs and compared to younger generation that is also reflected in journalistic reporting of events. the media organizations should take necessary steps including sensitization of journalists about influence of religious values and beliefs to lessen the biases and ensuring fair reporting of events. furthermore, news must be fact-checked to eliminate any religious, social, or cultural influence on the news stories. limitations and recommendations the study has been limited to exploring the influence of religious beliefs of pakistani journalists in terms of their professional work (news assignments), aspects of gender, age, academic qualification and the type of media (digital/electronic) served with a consideration to explore differences between various demographic groups. future research may focus on exploring the influence of religious beliefs on beat-wise professional roles performed by 54 influence of religion … journalists as well as the inclination of journalists towards religion and its further impact on news content or religious bias of journalists. it may also include religious and sectarian backgrounds, socioincome status, journalistic and non-journalistic staff, and geographic ethnicity (rural/urban). moreover, the future research may explore the influence of religious beliefs on media functions in context of public interest of the society. similarly, it is a cross-sectional survey. future research may enhance the scope and consider correlational surveys to measure the relationship between the religious beliefs and professional roles of the journalists. furthermore, longitudinal and qualitative studies may also be valuable additions to existing body of literature. the researchers working on the intersection of media and religion may also examine how journalists handle or resolve difficult situations (ethical dilemmas) when their personal religious beliefs conflict with professional standards that require them to be objective and impartial in news coverage. finally, the studies may also include audience perspectives as well as comparisons between religious influence on journalists and patterns of audience reception and interpretation of news to understand how religious bias is coded in the news and perceived and interpreted by the audience. notes and references 1 r. m. abdulla. (2014). culture, religion, and freedom of religion or belief. the review of faith & international affairs issn:16(4), 102–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2018.1535033 2 s. saeed, & s. abbas. (2018). impact of religion on quality of life among young female students in pakistan: a case study of sialkot. orient research journal of social sciences, 3(2), 291–303. 3 y. héliot, c. rojon, h. i gleibs, a. coyle, & m. d. rousseau. (2020). religious identity in the workplace: a systematic review, research agenda, and practical implications. human resource management: 59, 153–173. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21983 4 a. agorastos, c. demiralary, & g. c. huber. (2014). influence of religious aspects and personal beliefs on psychological behavior: focus on anxiety disorders. psychology research and behavior management, 7, (2014): 93–101. 5 k. nikunen. (2019). media, emotions and affect. in j. curran & d. hesmondhalgh (eds.), media and society (6th ed., p. 323). (bloomsbury publishing inc). 6 a. salman, n. mustaffa, m. a. m salleh, & m. n. s. ali. (2016). social media and agenda setting: implications on political agenda. malaysian journal of communication, 32(1), 607–623 7 flensner, k. k. (2020). the influence of religion-based workplace spirituality on business leaders’ decision-making: an inter-faith study. reliogions, 11(465). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11090465 8 ahmed, a., & shah, m. a. (2023). understanding media functions through belief into action scale : a case of islamabad-based pakistani news reporters. qlantic journal of social sciences, 4(4), 51–59. https://doi.org/10.55737/qjss.718470488 9 g. h. koenig, z. wang, f zaben. al, & a. adi. (2015). measure of religious involvement. reliogions, 6, 1006–1016. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel6031006 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 55 10 g. h. koenig, et al. (2015). measure of religious involvement. religions, 6, 1006–1016. 11 p. eisenlohr. (2012). media and religious diversity. annual review of anthropology, 41, 37-55. retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/23270697 12 h. khojaste, & a. kalantari. (2009). the media rituals: the relationship between media and religion. journal of social science, 37, 284–304. retrieved from brill.nl/ajss 13 m. s. hoover. "religion and the media in the 21st century". paper presented at the conference on media, diversity, and religious freedom, auditori de la facultat de comunicació blanquerna, (universitat ramon llull, barcelona, spain. february 3, 2012). 14 k. cho. (2017). "religion in the press: the construction of religion in the korean news media". journal of korean religions, 8(2), 61-89. 15 e. schoemaker. (2016). digital faith: social media and the enactment of religious identity in pakistan (doctoral dissertation, london school of economics and political science). 16 t. d. rashid. (2019). social media, religion and religiosity in pakistan in the era of disruption. hamdard islamicus, 42(1-2), 34-56. 17 a. p. soukup. (2002). media and religion, communication research trends 21 (2), 2-43, http://cscc.scu.edu 18 d. e. herbert. (2011). theorizing religion and media in contemporary societies: an account of religious ‘publicization’. european journal of cultural studies, 14(6), 626-648. 19 g. safdar, & w. a. khan. (2020). digital media use and religious, moral and cultural effects on female university students of punjab, pakistan. research journal ulūm-e-islāmia, 27(1), 113-129. 20 m. moberg, & k. granholm. (2017). the concept of the post-secular and the contemporary nexus of religion, media, popular culture, and consumer culture. in post-secular society, (routledge, 95-127. bibliography: 1. abbas, s., saeed, s., & abbas, s. (2018). impact of religion on quality of life among young female students in pakistan: a case study of sialkot. orient research journal of social sciences, 3(2), 291–303. 2. abdulla, m. r. (2018). culture, religion, and freedom of religion or beleif. the review of faith & international affairs, 16(4), 102–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2018.1535033 3. agorastos, a., demiralay, c., & huber, c. g. (2014). influence of religious aspects and personal beliefs on psychological behavior : focus on anxiety disorders. psychology research and behavior management, 7, 93–101. 4. ahmed, a., & shah, m. a. (2023). understanding media functions through belief into action scale : a case of islamabad-based pakistani news reporters. qlantic journal of social sciences, 4(4), 51–59. https://doi.org/10.55737/qjss.718470488 5. carneiro, a., sousa, h. f. p. e, dinis, m. a. p., & leite, â. (2021). human values and religion : evidence from the european social survey. social sciencessocial sciences, 10(75). https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10020075 6. creswell, j. w. (2009). research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches. in sage publications, inc. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675980902922143 7. creswell, j. w., & creswell, j. d. (2018). research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). sage publications. 8. flensner, k. k. (2020). the influence of religion-based workplace spirituality on business leaders’ decision-making: an inter-faith study. reliogions, 11(465). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11090465 56 influence of religion … 9. golzar, j., & tajik, o. (2022). convenience sampling. international jounral of education and language studies, 1(2), 72–77. https://doi.org/10.22034/ijels.2022.162981 10. hayes, a. (2022). t-test: what it is with multiple formulas and when to use them. in investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/t-test.asp 11. héliot, y., rojon, c., gleibs, i. h., coyle, a., & rousseau, d. m. (2020). religious identity in the workplace : a systematic review , research agenda , and practical implications. human resource management:, 59, 153–173. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21983 12. jang. (2024, january). print media in pakistan: navigating the digital storm. the news international. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1151205-printmedia-in-pakistan-navigating-the-digital-storm 13. kivunja, c., & kuyini, a. b. (2017). understanding and applying research paradigms in educational contexts. international journal of higher education, 6(5), 26. https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v6n5p26 14. koenig, h. g., wang, z., zaben, f. al, & adi, a. (2015). measure of religious involvement. reliogions, 6, 1006–1016. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel6031006 15. mohajan, h. k. (2017). munich personal repec archive two criteria for good measurements in research : validity and reliability two criteria for good measurements in research : validity and reliability. annals of spiru haret university, 17(3), 58–82. 16. nikunen, k. (2019). media, emotions and affect. in j. curran & d. hesmondhalgh (eds.), media and society (6th ed., p. 323). bloomsbury publishing inc. 17. pereira, d. g., afonso, a., & medeiros, f. m. (2015). overview of friedman’s test and post-hoc analysis. https://doi.org/10.1080/03610918.2014.931971, 44(10), 2636–2653. https://doi.org/10.1080/03610918.2014.931971 18. quirk, t. j. (2012). one-way analysis of variance (anova). excel 2007 for educational and psychological statistics, 163–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3725-3_8 19. rammouz, i., aalouane, r., & fakir, s. el. (2021). cultural adaptation and validation of the moroccan arabic version of the muslim belief into action ( biac ) scale. journal of religion and health, 60(1), 549–562. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01111-7 20. sabir, m. (2011). the state , media , religion and emerging challenges in pakistan. south asian studies, 26(1), 69–81. 21. salman, a., mustaffa, n., salleh, m. a. m., & ali, m. n. s. (2016). social media and agenda setting: implications on political agenda. malaysian journal of communication, 32(1), 607–623. 22. taherdoost, h. (2018). validity and reliability of the research instrument; how to test the validation of a questionnaire/survey in a research. ssrn electronic journal, september. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3205040 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 1 61 islamic philosophy as a civilization of evidence and clash of proofs dr. müfi̇t seli̇m saruhan faculty of divinity, ankara university, ankara, turkey. email: saruhan@ankara.edu.tr received on 29-12-21 accepted on 20-02-22 abstract: this article intends to examine the role of evidence and its logic within islamic philosophy. islamic philosophy, as an essential part of islamic thought, is a discipline that is variant from kalém, sufism, and fiqh. what distinguishes islamic philosophy from other islamic sciences is its unique epistemological base. islamic philosophers used and developed many logical arguments and proofs throughout history. when these evidences are analyzed, it can be seen that the motivation behind the use of evidence in the system of islamic philosophers can be divided into three categories. firstly, some of the evidence is organized to illustrate and understand philosophical issues. secondly, some of the evidence is created and formed by philosophers as they are critical and reasonable. thirdly, in author’s opinion, another reason behind the importance of evidence in islam is to show philosophical ability and originality. while establishing their thought systems and processing their ideas, philosophers have relied on both knowledge and the science of logic involving various argumentations. in this article, we will shed light on islamic thought as a civilization of knowledge that is rich in terms of evidence and argumentations. in this study, the problem was handled with an inductive approach. islamic thought is a civilization of knowledge, which also contains rich evidence. those who mention that islamic thought is a dogmatic system from time to time with prejudice seem to approach the issue with a perspective that is far from comprehensive analysis and composition. this study shows that the holy qur’én, which is the main source of islamic thought, 62 islamıc phılosophy as a civilization … draws attention to rational, experiential, and intuitive evidence. the deductive scientific literature in islamic thought was subjected to a deconstructive analysis. there are many concepts that characterize evidence and proof in islamic thought. it will be useful to continue this analysis by making an evaluation on them. the diversity of these concepts has been the determinant of the intellectual richness of islamic thought. the nuance of these concepts provided the opportunity to respond to every detail produced by the mind. conceptual richness in the fields of epistemology, ontology and ethics in islamic thought increases reflection. keywords: evidence, demonstration, proof, rhetoric, knowledge, dogma, god, prophecy, soul, islamic philosophy. al ghazali, ibn rushd 1. introduction islamic philosophy, a composition of islam and philosophy with its unique resources and methods, contains a variety of interesting topics and discussions. the adventure of islamic philosophy, with its domestic and foreign sources, contains the rich products of thought created throughout the history of humanity1. islamic philosophy has been a system of thought that is related to every philosophical subject. from islamic perspective, islamic philosophy articulates all issues that have been discussed throughout the history of philosophy; in other words, every issue that formed the background of philosophy is a topic of islamic philosophy. islamic philosophy, in a sense, tries to explain knowledge, existence, and values as a system that tries to reveal the journey of thought among cultures, languages, and religions. while islamic philosophers put forward their system and views, they used various evidence/proofs regarding the proof of allah almighty and the content of the soul and its state after death, which is especially related to religion. 2it is s generally accepted that, philosophy is a way of reason and intellect. by intellect we deduce, compare, and reach conclusions. islamic philosophers, give us a heritage of both reason and religion combined these into a philosophical structure. they delt with metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, ethics, politics, and linguistics. if we look at technical knowledge aims at ensuring the use of objects for the good of man. technology that is produced is the indicator of transformation of this knowledge into action. artistic knowledge is also about presenting artistic products. the common point of all types of hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 1 63 .. knowledge is that they represent themselves on the basis of rational, empirical or intuitional knowledge. actions are both based on knowledge and transfer them onto the stage of action. actions aren’t totally ethical events, but all of the events can gain an ethical meaning under specific circumstances. philosophical knowledge is a unified knowledge which attempts to totally explain the universe and existence. there is certainly a purpose of philosophical knowledge. just like the purpose of artistic knowledge – forming a work of art-, philosophical knowledge aims at a target. islamic viewpoint presents adam (‘alaih as-salém) as the first prophet. allah almighty taught adam all the names (the holy qur’én, (2:31). adam (‘alaih as-salém) thus learned the first codes of all knowledge. besides the fact that there are/will be opponents of the below mentioned religious interpretation in terms of the history of islamic thinking, abu hétimér-rézê (322/934) presents an interesting view in his work named a‘lému’n-nubuwah. he criticizes the idea that the only way to reach knowledge by establishing the history of philosophy and religion on a rationalist resource is based on philosophical accumulation; he opposes the belief that the greek philosophers of the first age are the ones that put the books of mathematics, reasoning, medicine and astronomy at the disposal of humanity. according to him, humanity should be grateful to revelation and knowledge inherited from the prophets in terms of the principals and resources of philosophical sciences.3 for him, prophets are the real establishers of civilization as the actual teachers of mankind; philosophers are the heirs of prophets. according to, abu hétimar-rézê, allah almighty, enlightened prophets through revelation and endowed them wisdom. as prophets are the first teachers, their resource of knowledge about natural sciences is a revelation. in alrazi the share of adam (‘alaih as-salém) in transferring his knowledge he learned through revelation, to the next generations shouldn’t be ignored. according to this starting point, there should be a first teacher. as it is impossible for a human being to create knowledge only on the basis of his personal reasoning and experience, there is a possibility that he acquired his knowledge from allah almighty through revelation. the first teachers are wise prophets; the following philosophical accumulation is basically based on the knowledge of prophets the history of islamic philosophy involves the most remarkable examples of how the relationship between philosophy and religion is perceived throughout the history of islamic thinking. islamic philosophers have discussed the different dimensions of the relationship between the two significant domains. when islamic thinkers met the 64 islamıc phılosophy as a civilization … method of philosophical thinking, they interpreted religion and philosophy as two separate interpretations of the truth and attempted to compromise them. these attempts and ideas they developed improved reasoning in the world of islam. the discussions and analyses about the relationship between philosophy and religion include the discussions about revelation-wisdom and faith-wisdom. 2. research methodology in this study, the issue of evidence was handled with an inductive and deductive approach. the deductive scientific literature in islamic thought was subjected to a deconstructive analysis. we will discuss the dictionaries’ definitions of the concept of evidence in the literature of islamic thought. we will try to identify the common set of meanings of different concepts by tracing them.4 the concept of evidence is essential to both epistemology and the philosophy of science. in any event, the concept of evidence is inseparable from that of justification. when we talk of ‘evidence’ in an epistemological sense we are talking about justification: one thing is ‘evidence’ for another just in case the first tends to enhance the reasonableness or justification of the second. a strictly nonnormative concept of evidence is not our concept of evidence; it is something that we do not understand.5 in the light of the classical sources of kalém and islamic philosophy, the debates and the diversity of the concepts will be examined. the nature of the relationship between religion and philosophy is discussed. the methodology to be followed while interpreting religious texts is classified. specific to ibnrushd, the explanations are detailed. 3. background in the background of the study, based on the definition of dogma, it is stated that islamic thought is incompatible with the idea of dogma. within the border of this article, the author tries to focus on whether the opinions in islamic philosophy are dogmatic by taking the content and function of the evidence into consideration. in islamic thought there are three essential paradigms; islamic theology (kalém) islamic philosophy (al falsafah) and islamic mysticism.(taîawwuf) each of them have a special language, method and understanding. islamic thought and the works on it provide ‘ilm (knowledge or learning) and ma‘rifah (gnosis or esoteric knowledge) as terms that correspond to knowledge. aim of islamic thought is to equip man with power to show the supremacy of certain thoughts, ideas and deeds clearly specified by the reason and religion and to prove using words the hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 1 65 .. incorrectness of the things that are against these thoughts, ideas and deeds. in a more general sense, islamic thought aims to save man from blind imitation (prohibited taqlêd) and endow him with exact, accurate, and unshakable faith (êmén). in this respect, it is a system designed to endowing people with knowledge.6 the word dogma, in the platonic-stoic tradition, refers to an opinion, doctrine, decision, moral or legal judgment that seems right to all. according to the roman catholic church, dogma is the decisions that are revealed by god or declared by religious authorities7. the clearest example of religious dogma is in plato’s republic. plato mentions that one can speak of allah almighty in two ways: firstly, allah almighty is good and the source of goodness. secondly, allah almighty is real and unchangeable. plato uses the word dogma in his laws to mean true belief about gods. according to kant, a dogmatic point of view doesn’t make a critical examination about the methods and principles on which a specific claim is based. in general terms, what is meant by dogma is accepting and adopting an idea or thought without questioning it. there are two dimensions of considering an idea as impenetrable, indisputable, and uncritical. the first dimension is based on the eye looking from outside and the second dimension is based on the eye looking from inside. the eye that evaluates the islamic thinking from the outside stigmatizes it as dogmatic, and incorrect. on the other hand, the eye that evaluates islamic philosophy within an islamic frame considers its views as unquestionable, with a desire to enact an objective truth with a subjective disposition.8 4. research objective the aim of this article is to draw attention to the superficial interpretations of the views that characterize islamic thought as dogma. the issues analysed and discussed in islamic philosophy are approached in the light of reason and specific rational principles; they have been structured in a definite systematic manner within the scope of validity and consistency. critical thinking, which is the general concern of philosophy, is also a basic principle of islamic philosophy. logic, which is the criterion that shows if a mind works correctly or not, is the philosophy of the philosophy with its functionality. islamic philosophers systematize their views with greek philosophy on one hand and the holy qur'én on the other as a source for evaluating divinity, prophecy, and the soul. they use various proofs along with the criteria of consistency required by the science of logic. islamic philosophers design and present evidence to ground their views on a solid 66 islamıc phılosophy as a civilization … basis and ensure acceptability. in this process, they pay attention to the most disciplined use of the basic principles and methods of the mind. they strive to the satisfaction of the critical structure of the human mind. they construct the evidence in terms of its existence.9 there are many concepts that characterize evidence and proof in islamic thought. it will be useful to continue our analysis by making an evaluation on them. the diversity of these concepts has been the determinant of the intellectual richness of islamic thought. the nuance of these concepts provided the opportunity to respond to every detail produced by the mind. conceptual richness in the fields of epistemology, ontology and ethics in islamic thought increases reflection. likewise, it is rich in concepts used in al ithbét al-wéjib, ithbét al nafs and ithbét al nubuwah. 5. literature review while addressing a problem in islamic thought, conceptual richness reveals the depth of the subject. each concept itself points to a new opening. it is necessary to focus on essential terms in islamic thought to clarify the importance of the use of proofs. etymologically, the word “dalêl” is an arabic expression. it is used to express the guiding thing that leads to the correct judgment.10 the term generally means “proof”; however, it is not limited to logical deduction. it also includes the meaning of reasoning based on analogy, evidence11, which means the thing that leads to the truth was much discussed by the early theologians, and gained a logical content with al ghazali (d.1111). al-ghazali explained evidence as the unification of the two concluding premises. al jurcani (d.1413), and fakhr al-dīn al-rāzī, (d.1210) consider the evidence as a means of proof. according to them, evidence leads to a conclusion and requires knowing something else. evidence is a means of revealing the unknown. evidence that leads a person to a judgment about something, positively or negatively, has a close relationship with the many concepts12. the term madlël refers to the issue to be proved. theologians emphasized the variability of the evidence, in a sense, emphasizing that madlël cannot be refuted by refuting the dalêl/evidence. while the evidence in the early theological literature has an empirical character, they are far from the frame of logic. al baqillani (d.1013) emphasized that if the evidence is disproved in the context of the dalêl and madlël relationship, it would be wrong to prove it.13 on the other hand, al jurcani (d.1413) pioneered another approach and defended the falsehood of a claim that was not proven by evidence. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 1 67 .. with al-ghazali, the idea that the most accurate evidence is in the form of logical analogy was established in the world. in the history of theology, the evidence is divided into two; evidence based on reason and text in terms of the source of knowledge and evidence based on doubt in terms of the value of the result. al jadal is derived from “al jadlë” and it means to bend the rope with force. it derives from the same root as “jadêl” meaning the thighs of the camel. the dictionary meaning of jadal is to twist the rope firmly, to be able to fight, to be determined. in the science of logic, jadal means analogy made up of famous and acceptable premises. it is the equivalent of the latin word dialectica. al jadal is the art of showing contradictions in thought by discussing them. al jadal also includes a scientific meaning referring to the rules of discussion.14 al farabi (d.950) sees al jadal as a form of proof that is less than correct. it describes it as the art of trying not to adopt another thought that is contrary to a given answer or an accepted thought.15 for ibn sêné (d.1037), al jadal is the opposition, which is praised by the majority of scholars and designed to silence the opposite side in the debate with one of the appropriate ways.16 topics, which is the fifth book of aristotle’s logic corpus named organon, tried to affect the basis of the islamic philosophers’ approach as a frivolous science and method. aristotle, in topics, described dialectics as an analogy, concluding from probabilistic premises. aristotle sees it as reasoning whose premises are generally accepted by almost everyone or philosophers. according to kant, dialectics means the type of logic that shows errors or contradictions in the transcendental judgments that go beyond the limits of the common experiment.17 al burhén: this word, derived from the root brh, etymologically includes the meanings of clarity and shed some light on something. burhén in the holy qur’én is a concept synonymous with miracle. burhén is a comparison of precursors consisting of definite comparison. burhén, according to ibn sêna, describes the comparison with certain propositions to obtain accurate knowledge.18 al farabi named the last five books of the famous logic work of aristotle, organon, as alburhan,19 in ancient and medieval philosophy, the evidence, based on the deduction of the intellect is called al burhén. in modern philosophy, both mental and experiential evidence is called al burhén. among these arts, al burhén, as the kind of comparison that gives definite information, based on the exact knowledge, and experience, originating from senses. kalém, philosophy and mysticism are based on different proofs as methods. is there harmony or conflict in the nature of religious and rational proofs? it will be necessary to mention this subject as follow. 68 islamıc phılosophy as a civilization … 6. discussion kalém and fiqh give importance to rational proofs; they give priority to text, that is, to certain, written verses. in these fields, it is possible to encounter the following determinations and quotations when a judgment and decision is made on a subject in both theology and fiqh tradition. “…allah almighty states like that in holy qur’én. so this word of allah almighty is certain for us. the verse is binding for us: our reasoning is only authorized to seek the wisdom of this decree. otherwise, our intellect cannot find an alternative to this verse.” “..our prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said the following regarding this issue. his views are binding for us”. .. “imams and founders of fıqh schools of thought also determined these rules. their opinions should also be taken into account.” “our duty is to obey these opinions of them not to discuss”. although reason is a tool for a theologian or a jurist in the search of truth, wisdom, and causes of divine decrees, islamic philosophers have been accused of designating reason as independent, value-maker, and determinant. arab, persian, turkish, indian, syrian, and nasturi philosophers grew up in islamic culture and geography and expressed their ideas freely. they highlighted the rational evidence with oral narrative tradition, which was the primary source of knowledge. the knowledge transferred through this tradition was evaluated with reasoning which is a natural activity of the human mind.20 in islamic philosophy, rational and religious evidence is brought together and interpreted; it is a philosophy of presentation and criticism of evidence. on the other hand, philosophy in the most general sense is a search. it means having a critical mindset, not relying on what is available, and criticizing the evidence put forward. there are various rational proofs and reasoning processes used by islamic philosophers. the istidlél means the process of the mind used to obtain the unknown by analyzing the known; it is like the mind rising on a ladder step by step. there are various forms of istidlél used by the islamic philosophers in classifying their works and establishing their systems.21 in an environment where the religious text was dominant and considered unquestionable, philosophers studied different fields such as existence, knowledge, politics, and metaphysics and they established evidence based on observation, experiment, and deep thought with the mere operation of the mind. in general, the issue of whether rational and religious evidence is compatible in islamic thought has been discussed hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 1 69 .. under headings such as reason, revelation, wisdom, and sharīʿah, philosophy, and religion.22 ibn taymiyya (d.1328) in his works dar’atta‘āruì al-‘aql wa alnaql also called al-muwāfaqa, tends towards a reconciliation of reason and religious evidence. what he understands from rational evidence is the mind that adheres to and obeys the religious text. ibn taymiyya voices this understanding as follows: “we express allah almighty as he described himself, or as the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) described him. we understand next to previous predecessors without asking how and without resorting to analogy” 23 al ghazali also gives priority to the religious text. because of the principles in the text, he criticizes the pure rational views that he found incompatible with the text. his criticism of his predecessor, al farabi and ibn siné’s views and proofs on certain issues, gave rise to the tahafut tradition, which means a philosophy of evidence and criticism in islamic thought. he was criticized then by ibn rushd’s tahafut24. tahafut is a word that contains the meanings of perpetuity, inconsistency, incoherence, destruction, and shedding. it seems that alghazali opposes the ideas not merely because they are ideas, but because of the lack and inadequacy of the reasoning of evidence discussed while presenting these ideas. al ghazali, examined the philosophers and their evidence under the title of “maqésidu’l falésifah” “aims and purposes of philosophers”, pointing out that before criticizing something, it is necessary to know the science, discipline, or view that is in question. he then accused the philosophers of covering up the truth, leaving religion in denial on three issues. he accused them of disintegrating religion through bid‘ah (innovation) on eighteen points. we can define bid‘ah (innovation) as follows; what is not included in the transport; in fact, we can also understand it as a new idea put forward through reason; to some extent, the bid includes being free and not feeling dependent on any narration. bid‘ah (innovation which means to create something without precedence. bidʿah, in islam is , any innovation that has no roots in the traditional practice. most muslims, however, agreed that it was impossible to adapt to changing conditions without introducing some types of innovations. as a safeguard against any excesses, bid‘ahs were classified as good (ḥasan) or praiseworthy or bad or blameworthy. ghazali criticizes the evidence of some philosophers, especially farabi and ibn sêné, on three famous issues. however, he might have the right to find the opinions and evidence of those he criticized wrong from two sources.25 https://www.britannica.com/topic/islam https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovations 70 islamıc phılosophy as a civilization … the first of these was the principles of the holy qur’én, which he regarded as the absolute source of knowledge. the second principle was the necessity of using the science of logic for thinking properly and correctly. ibn rushd in faslu’l maqal (decisive treatise & epistle ‘dedicatory) and in al-kashf‘ (the exposition of the methods of proof concerning the beliefs of the community),tried to reconcile sharī‘ah and philosophy and to classify the understanding of evidence in islamic thought.26 in the first sentences of his work called faslu’l maqal, ibn rushd tries to place sharīʿah on the rational ground. when he says " sharī‘ah invites to evaluate the existing knowledge with reason and search their knowledge in this way", he uses verses from the holy qur'én to justify his opinion. he uses verses in the holy qur’én that emphasize the importance of thinking, reasoning, and observation to justify sharī‘ah with rational proofs. to buttress his argument, he cited holy quranic verses such as “learn a lesson, then, o you who are endowed with insight!” (59:2) and “so, do they not look at the camels how they are created, and at the sky, how it is raised high,” (88:17–18) ibn rushd says that the way to sharī‘ah and allah almighty is “al burhan, al íikmah”.27 that's why he mentions that al burhan and individuals who think like him should be carefully learned. ibn rushd believes that it is obligatory to think about beings by making rational comparisons.28 ibn rushd draws a picture for us to understand religious texts and their interpretation. the frame drawn by ibn rushd is as follows: 1. the first group of religious texts (holy qur’én verses) has the characteristic of having only one specific meaning. there is no place for any interpretation because of the clarity and stability of its meaning. it’s a great error to attempt to interpret them. verses about the unity of allah almighty. in the holy qur’én, there are ayat that are muíkamét, entirely clear and plain, and these are the foundations of the book which are plain for everyone. and there are óyét in the holy qur’én that are mutashabihat not entirely clear for many, or some people. suratal-ikhlas, is a sample of this group (there is nothing which is equal to him) 2. this second group is divided into four different sub-groups: a. only the deeper scholar can penetrate the meaning of the illustrated text as formed by covered metaphors. b. the text is quite easy to understand and is easily written. the average mind can easily grasp its meaning. it can easily be interpreted. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 1 71 .. c. it can easily be seen that some expressions are designed to be given as examples. but it is hard to predict where this similarity should be addressed. it is only interpretable by eminent and deeper scholars. d. it is quite clear that some texts are designed to create metaphors. each side has a similarity, and the point of resemblance is clear. one should, consider and think about these texts. according to ibn rushd, ordinary people are unable to comprehend theoretical subjects, or spiritual beings due to their limited intellect, ability, and nature. for these people, knowledge is limited to the five senses. spiritual topics are needed to be explained for their mind by using examples and metaphors. religious knowledge represents itself through examples. at this point, we should pay particular attention to ibn rushd’s essential question. “if the lawmaker is telling the truth why should it need to be interpreted? couldn’t he tell all of these instructions by using plain speech without using metaphors?” ibn rushd dealing with different levels of human perception affirms that holy qur’én verses carry an internal meaning besides an external one. he also has an open mindset. an example of this is his comparison how of a knife used for cutting animals (which have been made by nonmuslims) doesn’t have any influence upon how effective it is for cutting. there is no harm according to him in learning sciences like logic, from foreigners. he compares a knife to logic from the standpoint of an instrument. he sees sharī‘ah (law) as a brother of philosophy. in speaking of the generation of sharī‘ah, he refers to metaphor. the sharī‘ah, for ibn rushd, heals souls just like a physician that heals the body.29 as we have stated before, when al ghazali criticized the evidence of philosophers, he acted based on the rational proofs. while ibn rushd was responding to al-ghazali's criticism about previous philosophers, he starts with religious evidence and turns them into the interpretation. in short, although ibn rushd is a philosopher, he uses verses in his answer to alghazali. ghazali puts people into four classes in terms of religion. 1. the first group involves people who believe in allah almighty and the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wasallam). there is no need to talk to these people about the science of kalém. 2. the second group includes unbelievers, 72 islamıc phılosophy as a civilization … 3. the third group believes through hearsay (khabar) and imitation, for which kalém is useful. since they cannot grasp the meaning of the word, they are in doubt. 4. in the fourth group, some people are perverted but very intelligent; kalém helps those like this. along with this classification, al-ghazali says, "kalém was not sufficient and healing for me."30 in short, he also criticizes theology from many dimensions just like he criticizes the way philosophy is handled. philosophy is an investigation. it is comparison and criticism. this is what al-ghazali did. there is no doubt that ibn rushd was a philosopher, he also gave importance to religious verses and used them more in his answers to al-ghazali. for example, he said, ‘‘then he turned straight to the sky, while it was smoke’’ (holy qur’én, 41:11). this verse indicates that heaven was created from a substance, and said, “the theologian should not regard himself above the sharia.” the scholars who opposed the philosophers do not even evaluate their evidence well; the evidence they try to put forward actually supports the philosophers, which is in contrast to their aim. the verse “he is the one who created the heavens and the earth in six days, while his throne was on water” (holy qur’én,11:7) clearly shows that before he created the earth, the throne and water existed. he emphasizes that, contrary to the approach above, wisdom and sharī‘ah fundamentally share the same essence; in other words, they are two different expressions of the same reality. moreover, religious texts and philosophical ideas are reconciled. conflict arises because of the differences in the opinions of people and the way they show their evidence. the perception of the human mind differs from person to person. in the holy qur'én, 16:25, the method of pronouncement and invitation is stated as wisdom, good advice, and reason respectively. then this classification is enriched and a connection between wisdom, al hêkmah, and philosophy, good advice with salafiyyah, and finally al-jédal with kalém is established. according to ibn rushd, the proof of inaya, grace, which means that everything is created with care for human beings, and proof of ihtira, (turkish word) which indicates the creation of existence and life, is often included in the. holy qur'én. ibn rushd determined this evidence based on reason, experience, intuition, and observation. ibn rushd also mentions that the evidence varies according to the people and scholars.31 al kindê reconciles reason and revelation in terms of their purpose; according to him, religious knowledge is more rational than philosophical knowledge. according to him, the revelation of the holy qur’én can be hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 1 73 .. supported with rational proofs. those who reject it would only be in a benign mind, that is, they deny that they cannot healthily evaluate the evidence. 32 as we can see, ibn rushd tried to make a rational interpretation of religious issues. in a classification about the topic of evidence, ibn rushd identified five groups in his work titled al-kashf al manéhij al-adillah fi ‘aqa’id al-millah (the exposition of the methods of proof concerning the beliefs of the community). in particular, he identified four key sects as the targets of his discussion; the asharites, mutazilites, the sufis, and the “literalists”. he claimed that they all have distorted the scriptures and developed innovative doctrines not compatible with islam. ibn rushd sees the evidence of the ash‘arê as inconsistent and unconvincing. he does not mention the views of mu‘tazilah much because he did not reach the maghreb. after getting rid of lustful desires, people attain a skill inspired by the soul of allah almighty. discovery is knowledge; in other words, it is intuition. they also take transportation as a basis, while the batinites do not find transmitting and binding, although they follow a similar path through the sufis. 33 7. conclusion reconciliation of philosophy and religion in islamic philosophy is a reconciliation of philosophy and religious evidence. whether reason, experience, and intuition should be taken as evidence or not has long been discussed and different schools have emerged defending different claims about the issue. while establishing their systems, philosophers in islamic philosophy have relied on both knowledge and the science of logic, in which there are various issues of discussion while processing their ideas. the knowledge system of philosophers is based on reasoning. their leading proofs are mind and sense. although theologians and philosophers have similar characteristics in terms of reasoning, the basic purpose of theologians is to defend the islamic beliefs and criticize the opponents of islam. the purpose of islamic philosopher, on the other hand, is to reach the truth; he aims to bring islamic thoughts closer to the field of philosophy while on the other hand, he aims to bring the philosophic thoughts to the world of islam. islamic thought is a civilization of knowledge, which also contains rich evidence. those who mention that islamic thought is a dogmatic system from time to time with prejudice seem to approach the issue with a perspective that is far from comprehensive analysis and composition. our study shows that the holy qur’én, which is the main source of islamic thought, draws attention to rational, experiential, and intuitive 74 islamıc phılosophy as a civilization … evidence. it invites humanity to common sense and expects us to rise from the level of imitation to the level of investigation. it can be seen that the motivation behind the use of evidence in the system of islamic philosophers can be divided into three categories. firstly, some of the evidence is organized to illustrate and understand philosophical issues. some of the evidence is created and formed by philosophers as they are critical and reasonable. in my opinion, another reason behind the importance of evidence in islam is to show philosophical ability and originality. while establishing their thought systems and processing their ideas, philosophers have relied on both knowledge and the science of logic involving various argumentations bibliography abdurrahman güzel, karabaği ve tehafütü, (ankara: kültür bakanlığı yayınları, 1991). abû hâtim ar-rézê, aʿlâmu’n-nubuwwah, ed. saléh es-sévêê – gulém rızé a‘vânî, (tahran 1977), -4-76. al férébê, al-madina al-fadila, (nşr. albert n. nader),(beirut: 1986).translated by. r. walzer, al-férébê on the perfect state: abu nasr al-farabi's mabadi' ara ahl al-madina al-fadêla, (oxford: clarendon press,1985). al férébî, kitab ihsa' al-'ulum (the book of the enumeration of the sciences). (nşr. osman muhammed emîn), (cairo:n.p, 1949). al jurcani, sharḥ al‐ mawāqêf, (istanbul: dār al-ṭibāʻah al-ʻāmirah,1894). akyol aygün, férébê ve i̇bn sînâ’ya göre meâd meselesi, hitit üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi 18, no. 9 ( 2010). al ghazali, al-munqidh min al-dalal wa al-musil ila al-‘izzati wa al-jalal, ed. ali abu milhem (beyrut,n.p, 1993). al ghazali, tahafut al-falasifah ("incoherence of the philosophers"), (utah: brigham young university press, 1997). al-rāghib al-iṣfahānī, al-mufradāt fī gharīb alqur’én,(beirut:n.p, 1992). gürbüz deniz,hocazâde ve ali tûsî'nin tehâfütlerinin mukayesesi, (ankara: fecr publications ,2009). aydın, i̇brahim. haki,,“tehâfüt geleneği üzerine bir değerlendirme". atatürk üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi26, (2006 ): 57-74. druart therrese anne,’’“philosophy in islam,” the cambridge companion to medieval philosophy, ed. a.s. mcgrade.(cambridge: cambridge university press, 2003),97-120. engin erdem, "i̇bn sina'nın metafizik delili". ankara üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi 52. (2011 ), 97-119. erdoğan,ömer faruk, tehafütte tekfir tartışmaları, (konya: çizgi kitabevi kitapları,2020). erken, ayşenur, "ḳadīmden ḥādis̱ çıkar mı? el-ġazālī’nin tehāfutu’lfelāsife’de âlemin ḳıdemine dair birinci delile yönelttiği i̇kinci i̇tirazın analizi".ankara üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi 62. (2021 ): 417-443. fatih toktaş, felsefe eleştirileri, (i̇stanbul: klasik yayınları, 2004). http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/h021.htm#h021wkent1 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 1 75 .. frank griffel, “taqlêd of the philosophers. al-ghazâlî’s initial accusation in the tahâfut”, in ideas, images, and methods of portrayal. insights into arabic literature and islam, s. günther ed. (leiden: brill, 2005), 253–273. gülaçar,i̇zzet, i̇bn sina’nın tabiat felsefesinde hareket, (unpublished phd. dissertation,ankara university,-graduate school of social sciences,2021). ibn manzūr, and muḥammad ibn mukarram al-ifrīqī, lisan al-ʿarab, (beirūt: dār ṣādir,1994). harry austryn wolfson, the philosophy of kalam, (massachusetts: harvard university press,1976). hilmi ziya ülken, mantık tarihi, (i̇stanbul: istanbul university faculty of literature, 1942). hüseyin, saroğlu, i̇bn rüşd felsefesi, (i̇stanbul:klasik yayinlar, 2003). müfit selim saruhan, “i̇slâm felsefesinde delil ve önemi”, i̇slâmi araştırmalar dergisi 17no. 4 (2005),369-379. hüsamettin yıldırım, “tehafüt geleneğinde ilahi hürriyet problemi,”unpublished phd. dissertation,ankara university graduate school of social sciences,2008. i̇bn sina, kitéb al-shiféʾ, translated by f. rahman, ed., avicenna’s de anima, (london: oxford university press, 1959). ibn sina-,the salvation (al-najāt), dāneshpaǰūh, ed., al-najāt, (tehran,n.p,1985), tranlated logic part by a.q. ahmed, avicenna’s deliverance: logic, (london: oxford university press, 2011), tranlated the soul by f. rahman, (london: oxford university press, 1952), ibn rushd, tahafut al-tahafut, translated by simon, van den bergh, (london: oxford university press, 1954). ibn rushd, treatise concerning the substance of the celestial sphere, translated by a. hyman, philosophy in the middle ages, (cambridge: hackett, 1973) ibn rushd, decisive treatise & epistle dedicatory,-translated by c. butterworth, (provo: brigham young university press, 2001). i̇skenderoğlu, muammer, “khojazāda’s tahāfut al-falāsifah: a critical evaluation”., journal of oriental and african studies 25 no. (2016), 406-426. al jurcani,sharḥ al‐ mawāqif fī ‘ilm al‐ kalām, (cairo: maṭbaʿat al‐ saʿīda n.d,) i̇smail hanoğlu, razi düşüncesinde felsefenin temel disiplinleri ve pozitif bilimler, (ankara:araştırma, 2014). i̇smail fenni ertuğrul, lügatçe-i felsefe, (ankara: aktif düşünce yayınları, 2014). jamil saliba, al-mu‘jam al-falsafi., (beirut: dar al-kitab, 1982). karl rahner and a. darlap, “dogma”, the encyclopedia of religion, ed mircae eliade, (new york : macmillan publishing company, 1987). kim, jaegwon, “what is naturalized epistemology?’ ed. james tomberlin, philosophical perspectives, (new york: ridgeview publishing company, 1988, 381–405. lenn e. goodman, islamic humanism, (london: oxford university press, 2003). https://www.academia.edu/42777991/razi_d%c3%bc%c5%9f%c3%bcncesinde_felsefenin_temel_disiplinleri_ve_pozitif_bilimler_ara%c5%9ft%c4%b1rma_yay_ankara_2014_486_sayfa_ https://www.academia.edu/42777991/razi_d%c3%bc%c5%9f%c3%bcncesinde_felsefenin_temel_disiplinleri_ve_pozitif_bilimler_ara%c5%9ft%c4%b1rma_yay_ankara_2014_486_sayfa_ https://philpapers.org/rec/araaja 76 islamıc phılosophy as a civilization … luay hatem yaqoub,“hocazade'nin kitabu't tehafutadlı eserinin tahkikve tahlili”, unpublished phd. dissertation ankara, 2017. müfit selim saruhan, “a comparison of the usage of metaphor in the islamic philosophers and mystics”, tasavvëf ‘i̇lmi ve akademik araştırma dergisi no.3 (2000), 100-127. müfit selim saruhan, "the matter of epistemology of ethics in islamic theology", islamic quarterly 53no. 3 (2009), 269-278. muhammad ‘abd al-hadi abu rida, al-kindi,rasa’il al-kindi al-falsafiyya, ed. cairo: dar al-fikr al-‘arabic, 1950). mahmud ‘abd al-halim, al-tafkīr al-falsafī fi’l-islām (cairo: maktabat alanjlu al-misriyah, 1955). abrahamov, binyamin,--"reason and revelation in islam.",the oxford encyclopedia of philosophy, science, and technology in islam., ed. (oxford: oxford university press, 2014). mübahat türker-küyel, üç tehafüt bakımından felsefe ve din münasebeti, (ankara: türk tarih kurumu basımevi,-1956). m. saed sheikh,: studies muslim philosophy, (lahor: sh. muhammad ashraf, 1974). ömer mahir alper, i̇slâm felsefesinde akıl-vahiy, felsefe-din i̇lişkisi (i̇stanbul: ayışığı publications, 2000). owen h.p., “dogma”, the encyclopedia of philosophy, ed.paul edwards, (new york: macmillan,1967).. özdemir muhammed, gazzâlî'nin tehâfütü'l-felâsife adlı eserinde "üç mesele"nin ele alınışı ve i̇bn sînâ'nın görüşleriyle mukayesesi, unpublished phd. dissertation, (i̇stanbul: marmara university graduate school of social sciences ,2012). peter achinstein,,the concept of evidence, (oxford: oxford university press,1983),145–174. peter adamson,’’al-kindi and the reception of greek philosophy,the cambridge companion to arabic philosophy, ed. peter adamson and richard c. taylor, (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2005). richard c. taylor, “averroes on the sharīʿah of the philosophers,” ed. richard c. taylor and irfan a. omar, the judeo-christian-islamic heritage: philosophical and theological perspectives (milwaukee: marquette university press, 2012), 283–304. richard walzer, essays on islamic philosophy, ( oxford: bruno cassirer, 1962). roy jackson, what is islamic philosophy?, (routledge,n.p, 2014). sayyed nasr, hossein, islamic philosophy, from its origin to the present (new york:state university of new york press, 2006). rayan sobhi,“al-ghazali’s method of doubt”,middle east studies association bulletin38 no. 2 (2004), 162-173. serajul haque, “taymiyyah”, ed. m. m. sharif, a history of muslim philosophy, (wiesbaden: otto harrassowitz, 1963),155-178. muhammad `ali ibn `ali ibn muhammad tahānawī, kashshāf iṣṭilāḥāt al-funūn, (beirut : dar al-kutub al-`ilmiyyah, 1998). vural, mehmet, gazali felsefesinde bilgi ve yöntem, (ankara: ankara okulu yay, 2004). wensick, mu‘jam’u’l mufahres (leiden, 1936). hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 1 77 .. references 1adamson peter, “al-kindi and the reception of greek philosophy,”in the cambridge companion to arabic philosophy, ed. p. adamson and r.c. taylor, (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1995); jackson ray, what is islamic philosophy. (routledge,n.p, 2014);druart therrese anne,”philosophy in islam,” in the cambridge companion to medieval philosophy, ed. by a.s. mcgrade(cambridge: cambridge university press, 2003), 97-120. 2 abd al-halim, mahmud, al-tafkīr al-falsafī fi’l-islām (cairo,n.p, 1968) ;m. saed sheikh; studies muslim philosophy (lahor,n.p,1973),20; nasr,hossein seyyed, islamic philosophy,from ıts origion to the present (new york,n.p,2006). 31; walzer,rıchard, essays on islamic philosophy, (oxford,n.p, 1962); alper, ömer mahir. i̇slâm felsefesinde akıl-vahiy, felsefe-din i̇lişkisi. (i̇stanbul: ayışığı kitapları, 2000). 3 abë hâtim ar-rézê, aʿlâmu’n-nubuwwah edited by saléh es-sévê – gulâm rızé a‘vénê, (tahran,n.p.1397/1977) 4-76. 4 an inductive logic is a logic of evidential support. in a deductive logic, the premises of a valid deductive argument logically entail the conclusion, where logical entailment means that every logically possible state of affairs that makes the premises true must make the conclusion true as well. thus, the premises of a valid deductive argument provide total support for the conclusion. an inductive logic extends this idea to weaker arguments. in a good inductive argument, the truth of the premises provides some degree of support for the truth of the conclusion, where this degreeof-support might be measured via some numerical scale. by analogy with the notion of deductive entailment, the notion of inductive degree-of-support might mean something like this: among the logically possible states of affairs that make the premises true, the conclusion must be true in (at least) proportion of them—where is some numerical measure of the support strength.( https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-inductive/) accessed on january 15,2022 5 kim, jaegwon, .what is naturalized epistemology?’ in james tomberlin (ed.) philosophical perspectives 2, epistemology, atascadero,( ca: ridgeview publishing co, 1988), 381–405. 6 saruhan, müfit selim, "the matter of epistemology of ethics in islamic theology", islamic quarterly, volume: 53, no: 3, london, 2009, 269-278. 7 i can not thank my colleague ferhat taskın enough for his helpful comments and suggestions sees for the definitions of dogma: owen, h.p. “dogma”, the encyclopedia of philosophy, , edited by paul edwards, (n.y. 1967 volume 8: 2, 411, ) karl rahner and a. darlap, “dogma” the encyclopedia of religion, ed: mircae eliade, new york and london, 4, 389. 8 owen, h.p. “dogma”, the encyclopedia of philosophy, volume 8: 2, 411. 9saruhan, müfit selim, “i̇slâm felsefesinde delilve önemi” i̇slâmi araştırmalar dergisi, 17,: 4, 2005, 369-379 ( some parts of this article are revised and adopted for the english version) 10ibn manzūr, lisan al-‘arab (1994)., i,105 ; wensick, mu’jam’u’l mufahres, (leiden 1936) 69, “dll” al tahānawī, muhammed b. ali, kashshāf iṣṭilāḥāt alfunūn, (i̇stanbul 1318.i 492-498) ; al jurcani, kitab al-ta`rifat., (1357 dll) ;.s. van den bergh “,dalil” encyclopedia of islam ( ii.101.102) ; m.vahbe,l, almavsua’atu’l-falsafiyatu’l-i̇slamiyyah, (1986,i,194) . https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-inductive/ 78 islamıc phılosophy as a civilization … 11 achinstein, peter, 1983. ‘concepts of evidence,’ in achinstein (ed.) the concept of evidence, oxford: oxford university press: (1983;145–174) 12 al ghazali, al-ôqtisad fil‘itiqad (ed. i.a. çubukcu, h. atay, ankara 1962.14) ; aljurcani, tarê’fat 104; ar razial-maṭālib al-‘āliya (i .239); hanoğlu i̇smail, razi düşüncesinde felsefenin temel disiplinleri ve pozitif bilimler, araştırma yay., (ankara 2014,15-25); erken, ayşenur, "ḳadīmden ḥādis̱ çıkar mı? el-ġazālī’nin tehāfutu’l-felāsife’de âlemin ḳıdemine dair birinci delile yönelttiği i̇kinci i̇tirazın analizi". ankara üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi 62 (2021 ): 417-443 13wolfson,harry austrin,wolfson,the philosophy of kalam,(harvard,1976,373644);şaban ali düzgün, nesefi ve i̇slam filozoflarında allah-alem i̇lişkisi (ankara: akçağ yay., 1997). 14 al jurcani, sharḥ al‐ mawāqif, (i.140). 15farabi. al macmu’ /ciaro, 1325/1907,61); 16i̇bnsinâ, eş-şifa, kitabü’l-cadal, i, 23. in islamic thought many books carry name of al jadal see. al maturidi, kitabu’ljadal; ka’bi, al jadalveadabüahlihi; al juveyni, al kafiyefi’ljadal; al ghazali, al muntahalfi’ilmi’ljadal; erdem, engin. "i̇bn sina'nın metafizik delili". ankara üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi 52 (2011 ): 97-119; gülaçar,i̇zzet, i̇bn sina’nın tabiat felsefesinde hareket, (unpublished phd. dissertation,ankara university graduate school of social sciences,2021) 17 ülken, hilmi ziya, mantık tarihi, (i̇stanbul, 1948). 18tahānawī, ,kashshāf, “burhan” al-rāghib al-iṣfahānī, al-mufradāt fī gharīb alqurʾān,; jamil saliba, al-mu jam al-falsafi., (beirut 1982, i,206-208) 19 fârâbî, ihsa' al-'ulum,. 26-29. 20goodman lenn e. islamic humanism,(oxford,2003,18.40) 21 i̇smail fenni, lügatçe-i felsefe, (i̇stanbul,1341). 22 abrahamov, binyamin . "reason and revelation in islam." in the oxford encyclopedia of philosophy, science, and technology in islam. oxford islamic studies online, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t445/e198 (accessed feb 28, 2022). 23serajulhaque “taymiyyah”,(326). ın m. m. sharif (ed.), a history of muslim philosophy (pp. 155-178), (pakistan philosophical congress, germany). 24 see for literature on tahafut tradition in islamic thought; for al ghazali’s tahafut al falasifa süleyman dünya (cairo, 1958, maurıce bouyges, (beirut 1962 and majitfakhri, 1962). simon van den bergh, the incoherence of philosophy 1964, and sabuh kemali (lahor 1958) ibn rushdtahafutu’t tahafut, marice bouyges (beirut 1930) ,suleyman dünya,(cairo1980) alau’d din ali tusi, kitabu’z zahira, (ed. rıza sade, beirut 1981); kamal pasha zade, haşiyealatahafüti’lfelasifetrns: ahmet arslan (i̇stanbul 1987); karabaği, talika’ ala’ tahafüti’l falasife li hocazade; hasaner ravendi, omer al kazvini,yahya b. ali b. nasuh al konstantani, nev’i efendi, abdu’lvahhab b.a.rahman ali el amasyavi; muayyadzade mestcizade abdullah efendi, see about the details of this rich literature considerations for abdurrahman, karabağive tehafütü (ankara 1991), gürbüz deniz, hocazâdeve ali tûsî'nin tehâfütlerinin mukayesesi, (ankara -2009); ömer faruk erdoğan, tehafütler de tekfirtartışmaları, (konya,2020). luay hatem yaqoub,“hocazade'nin kitabu't tehafutadlı eserinin tahkikve tahlili”ankara,2017 unpublished phd. dissertation. ankara, 2017). 25ghazali, tahafütü’l falasifa, (beirut, 1990 307).; al i̇qtisadfi’li̇tikad (ed:.i.çubukçu-h.atay ankara 1972 p.62-63 106-17; maqasidü’l falasife , (ed. s.dünya ,cairo, 1961); griffel,frank, “taqlîd of the philosophers. al-ghazâlî’s initial accusation in the tahâfut”, in ideas, images, and methods of portrayal. https://www.academia.edu/42777991/razi_d%c3%bc%c5%9f%c3%bcncesinde_felsefenin_temel_disiplinleri_ve_pozitif_bilimler_ara%c5%9ft%c4%b1rma_yay_ankara_2014_486_sayfa_ https://www.academia.edu/42777991/razi_d%c3%bc%c5%9f%c3%bcncesinde_felsefenin_temel_disiplinleri_ve_pozitif_bilimler_ara%c5%9ft%c4%b1rma_yay_ankara_2014_486_sayfa_ https://www.academia.edu/42777991/razi_d%c3%bc%c5%9f%c3%bcncesinde_felsefenin_temel_disiplinleri_ve_pozitif_bilimler_ara%c5%9ft%c4%b1rma_yay_ankara_2014_486_sayfa_ https://philpapers.org/rec/araaja hamdard islamicus vol. xlv. no. 1 79 .. insights into arabic literature and islam, s. günther (ed.), leiden: brill, 2005 pp. 253–273; vural, mehmet, gazali felsefesinde bilgi ve yöntem, ankara okulu yay., (ankara, 2004). 26al-kashf ‘an manahij al-adilla fi ‘aqaid al-milla (the exposition of the methods of proof concerning the beliefs of the community). 27faslu’l maqal (35-40) 28faslu’l maqal (25-30) 29saruhan, müfit selim, “a comparison of the usage of metaphor in the islamic philosophers and mystics”, tasavvufi̇lmive akademik araştırma dergisi, 3, 2000,. 100-127. 30ghazali, munqidh min al-dalal, p. 7; ghazali, el i̇qtisad, p. 9-12.; rayan sobhi,”alghazali’s method of doubt”middle east studies association bulletin (vol. 38, no. 2, december 2004, pp. 162-173) 31ibn rushd, al-kashf ‘an manahij al-adilla fi ‘aqaid al-milla (the exposition of the methods of proof concerning the beliefs of the community). 69.; taylor richard, “averroes on the sharīʿah of the philosophers,” in r. c. taylor and i. a. omar (eds.), the judeo-christian-islamic heritage: philosophical and theological perspectives (milwaukee: marquette university press 2012,283–304. 32al kindî, ar rasâil,.i, 24. 33ibn rushd, al-kashf ‘an manahij al-adilla fi ‘aqaid al-milla (the exposition of the methods of proof concerning the beliefs of the community), 31. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 37 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah in pre-modern legal thought: examining the contributions of al-ghazali and al-shatibi ishfaq amin parrey guest faculty, govt. degree college, ganderbal, j&k, india email: ishfaqamin88@gmail.com received on: 06-01-2024 accepted on: 21-05-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.894 abstract the debate of ijtihād its meanings, theorization and application, is one of the most noticeable debates in the modern muslim intellectual space. in the contested backdrop of ‘closure of the gates of ijtihād’, the process of reproduction of shérêah‘ knowledge, civilizational renewal and forming a critical engagement with the socio-intellectual context of contemporary times through ijtihéd gained coinage among different strata of muslim scholarship, developing intra-muslim conversations between traditionalists, modernists and progressives. in this debate, maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah as a concept, theory and philosophy has been repeatedly invoked by all three points of views, explaining it from their distinct positions. in this context, this paper attempts to offer an analysis of the pre-modern dialogue between ijtihād and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah, revisions of the traditionally more predominant method of extension of law, qiyās, in context of shāfi’īte four-source theory and employment of relatively more utilitarian tool, maṣlahah. hence, the paper investigates the concepts of munāsabah and taḥqiq al-manāṭ vis-à-vis maqasid alshari’ah, employed by two most prominent advocates of maqāṣid thought in pre-modern scholarship, al-ghazali (d. 1111 c.e) and alshatibi (d. 1388 c.e). finally, the study attempts to locate the common ground between traditional theory of ijtihād and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah, to explain the possibility of maqāṣid based ijtihād model. keywords: islamic legal theory, uṣūl al-fiqh, maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah, ijtihād , munāsabah, ‘illah, ratio-legis. mailto:ishfaqamin88@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.894 38 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … 1. introduction uṣūl al-fiqh discerns the framework to deduce the legal rulings from the source material, primary and secondary, regarding the practical life. the examination of legal evidences yield knowledge of sharī‘ah rulings in the category of certitude or at least in the category of reasonable assumption.1 the principal sources of islamic law do not communicate much about the methodology part in clear terms, but is more concerned with the source material for the legal judgements and left the methodology part for the human rationale to discern and develop. so, uṣūl al-fiqh states the rational procedures of legal reasoning such as qiyés (analogical reasoning), istiísān (juristic preference) etc. and the linguistic rules for interpretation of the text (dalālāt) and inference making2 to formulate a system of interpretation to read into the meanings intended by the law-giver from the primary legal texts and extend those meanings and intents to the post-prophetic times, generally termed as the theory of ijtihād. classically, uṣūl al-fiqh proposes a theory or a set of theories which regulate the method of exercising ijtihād to address the new issues and their legal status in view of the primary source material, in addition to the rules of interpretation to ensure the correct reading of the source material.3 the pre-modern models of uṣūl al-fiqh, of which the four-source theory of al-shāfi’ī emerged as the imperial and reference theory, inclined more towards literalistic reading of the text, reduced the inclusive concept of ijtihād to qiyās, discouraged the usage of more nuanced and utilitarian tools like istiísan and most importantly abandoned the idea of maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah or at least pushed it to the fringes of the legal discourse. furthermore, the problem of organic evolution of legal discourse vis-à-vis developments in muslim societies and cultures was compounded by the development of the institution of taqlêd vis-à-vis the controversial idea of the ‘closure of the gate of ijtihād’.4 arguably, with all these limitations in the pre-modern models and changing socio-political and economic dynamics vis-à-vis the advancements in the intellectual arena, the potential of uṣūl al-fiqh to translate the revelation into the general well-being of humanity was halted. hence, a call for reform in the uṣūl theory, and therefore maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah has been argued as the most persuasive reform model. secondly, in the debate of natural law in islam, between the two major persuasions of hard natural law and soft natural law, contended between the ethical rationalists and ethical voluntarists, maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah plays a key role for the evolution of soft natural law theory.5 moreover, as the maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah restores the paradigm of original thinking, a fresh perspective of the correlation between legal theory and legal change is desirable. in this context, the paper endeavours to look into two authoritative voices of pre-modern maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah thought – al-ghazali and al-shatibi, their engagement with the traditional hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 39 theory of ijtihād (equated with qiyās) and the development of maṣlaha-based theory of ijtihād. 2. statement of problem as ijtihād is the principal instrument to facilitate the continuous evolution of islamic law with respect to legal change, it shapes the connect between the primary sources of the sharī‘ah and the novel issues of the changing world, and invokes a harmonious relationship between the revelation and reason.6 ijtihād is exercised in variety of ways, such as qiyās, maṣlahah mursalah, istiísān etc, with their own specific set of regulations. in other words, there is no single unanimous method for exercising ijtihād.7 in this process, the textual evidences of the holy qur’ān and the sunnah take precedence over all other evidences and is the primary consideration for a jurist. if there is no naî (an unequivocal text in need of no interpretation) available, one may interpret the manifest text (ðéhir) of the holy qur’ān and the hadêth using the principles of the general ('ām) and specific (khāî), the absolute and the qualified, and other considerations as appropriate. the mujtahid may turn to the actual (fi‘lī) and tacitly endorsed (taqrêrī) sunnah if there is no manifest text available, including the holy qur’ān and the verbal sunnah. if no, the judgement is grounded in ijmé‘ or qiyés founded in jurisprudential literature. in absence of such jurisprudential record, an original ijtihād in the mode of qiyās is exercised, turning back to the qur’ān, the hadith, or the ijmé‘ for a precedent that has an ‘illah identical to that of the far’ (i.e., the situation for which a resolution is required). henceforth, the principle of qiyās is employed to determine the necessary ruling.8 in the shāfi’īte methodology, the jurist first examines the nuîëî of the qur’ān, then mutawātir hadêths and finally the solitary hadêths. still deficient in necessary instructions, he should hold off on using qiyās until exhausting the quran's manifest (ðāhir) text. if he comes across a general manifest text, he must decide whether it may be made specific using hadith or qiyās.9 however, if there is nothing that would limit the manifest text; he can use it as it is. in addition, the opinions of the madhāhib should be looked into in absence of manifest texts of holy qur’én and sunnah. if there exists a consensus among madhéhib, he must implement it; if not, qiyās is employed with respect to the fundamentals of the sharī‘ah than to its supplementary details. if this is not practicable and all other attempts fail, he may use the concept of ‘original absence of culpability’ (albara’ah al-aîliyyah). this process takes place realizing the norms that govern the conflict of evidence (al-ta‘āruì bayn al-adillah), which requires the mujtahid’s familiarity with the strategies used to resolve such disputes or, in the event where it is necessary, to eliminate one in favour of the other. the ruling so arrived at falls under one of the categories of obligatory, forbidden, reprehensible or 40 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … recommended.10 it is an expression of the theory of bayān, summarized in five steps moving from naî to ijtihād (qiyās).11 regarding the principal of qiyés,12 the most significant of all the conditions is effective reason (‘illah).13 the effective reason for a ruling may be expressly stated, hinted at by the text, or established by consensus (ijmā‘). there is no room for debate when the ‘illah is specifically mentioned in the primary source material. only when the ‘illah is not mentioned in the sources do differences of opinion occur,14 and hence consensus in invoked to determine the ‘illah. in absence of explicitly declared ‘illah, ijtihād is the sole method exercised to determine it. the jurist thus considers the characteristic of the aîl qualified as appropriate (munāsib) is identified as the ‘illah. the mujtahid's method of deductive reasoning under these circumstances is referred to as tanqêí al-manāṭ, which is to be distinguished from two additional approaches known as takhrêj almanāṭ (extracting the ‘illah) and taíqêq al-manāṭ (ascertaining the ‘illah). this process of inquiry is generally tantamount to what is meant by some scholars of uîūl as al-îabr wa al-taqsêm (elimination of the improper and assignment of the proper ‘illah to the íukm). tanqêí al-manāṭ suggests that there may be multiple reasons for a judgement, and a jurist must determine the correct one (munāsib).15 in this debate on models of ijtihéd, employment of qiyés as a tool for extension of law, within the concept of qiyés the debate regarding the discernment of ‘illah; the intersection of the theories of munésabah, manét and maqéîid al-sharê‘ah registered a watershed moment in uîël history. meanwhile, ghazali and shatibi being the champions of this thought process warranted a study to record and analyse this conversation between classical four-source theory, ghazali and shatibi, highlighting the common grounds and departures. 2. objectives: in this study the major objective is to highlight the theory of ijtihād as the methodical way to realize the contemporaneous nature of the sharī‘ah pointing towards its relevance to changing contexts. henceforth, in this uîëli debate ijtihād as a diverse system of interpretation and not a monolith has been introduced. in its evolution, the distinct methods and definition of the epistemes of exercising ijtihéd are highlighted with special reference to the contributions of al-ghazali and al-shatibi. these two distinct approaches towards ijtihād have contributed in totality towards the development of the theory of maqéîid al-sharī‘ah and acts as the premodern foundational sources for the modern uîëli reform, for which ghazali and shatibi remain indispensable influences. this study charts the shift from conservative understanding of extension and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 41 application of the sharī‘ah towards a libertarian one giving due recognition to the realization of public good (maîlaíah); marks the distinction and common points in this conversation between ghazali and shatibi vis-à-vis ijtihād. 3. literature review: ghazali and shatibi have been studied in contemporary academy in which ghazali is more popular as a sufi-philosopher and ethicist while shatibi is popular as the master architect of maqéîid al sharī‘ah. ghazali is yet to get his due as a master uîëli and jurist in contemporary academy, only hallaq in a history of islamic legal theories: an introduction to sunni usul al-fiqh, nyazee in theories of islamic law: the methodology of ijtihad, opwis in maslaha and the purpose of the law: islamic discourse on legal change from the 4th/10th to 8th/14th century, moosa in ghazali and the poetics of imagination and few more have examined ghazali – the legal theoretician. while in case of shatibi, the major studies of the likes of masud in islamic legal philosophy-a study of abu ishaq alshatibi’s life and thought, raysuni in imam al-shatibi’s theory of higher objectives and intents of islamic law and opwis in maslaha and the purpose of the law: islamic discourse on legal change from the 4th/10th to 8th/14th century are focussed on the greater project of shatibi, maqéîid al-sharī‘ah. in this perspective, this paper attempts to put forward the uîëli intricate debate revolving around the concept of ijtihād and its philosophical undercurrents with reference to maqéîid al-sharī‘ah, highlighting the contribution of ghazali and shatibi with special reference to munésabah and manét models. consequently, the reception of this debate in modern times is evolving into a reformative model and distinct method of interpretation and extension of islamic law, other than the imperial traditional qiyés-based ijtihād. 5. methodology: the discussion in this study primarily employs content analysis of the primary sources to highlight their perspectives regarding their models of ijtihéd. secondly, it employs historical analysis to locate the milieu and context in which the models of ghazali and shatibi evolved with reference to imperial four-source theory; followed by deciphering the conceptual frameworks and the origination of the fundamental concepts. in highlighting the shift from four-source theory to objectives theory, the methodological tools employed are explanatory and analytical, and at some places the method of comparison is exercised with respect to a specific conceptual problem faced by the two master uîëlis. the primary and secondary sources are employed to build the argument and contemporary academic scholarship is invoked to record the 42 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … relevance for ongoing debate on uîël theory and reform project. the study develops the argument by locating ijtihād-qiyés equation in traditional uîël theory, investigates the identification of ratio-legis as the most important debate in uîëli scholarship vis-a-vis munésabah and taíqêq al-manét employed by ghazali and shatibi respectively; placing these procedures in their greater intellectual projects of reform, and finally concluding the relevance for modern reform project. 6. research outcomes/ result/ findings: 6.1 identification of ‘illah through munāsabah and taḥqêq almanāṭ (masélik al-‘illah): since, the sharī‘ah rulings are causal (mu‘allal) in their nature, both the directive and the legal cause (‘illah) share the sharī‘ah value, hence seek an evidential validity. the evidences are invoked to prove the validity of ‘illah and the methods through which the legal cause is determined, is studied under masélik al-‘illah. the methods are divided into major groups: valid/ certain (saíêíah/ aîl) and probable (zanniyyah/ mutawahimmah/ istinbéï). the valid methods are further subdivided into naî (the text) and ijmé‘(consensus), and the naî has further two sub-categories of explicit and implicit; to mean the ratio-legis (‘illah) is underscored by the textual evidence, either explicitly or is inferred from the implicit textual evidence, and a third type of ratio-legis is decided by consensus; such a ratio was initially assumed; therefore, it has probability. however, it ceases to be contingent on consensus and becomes as certain as a ratio specified in the texts.16 the probable methods are classified into five: munāsabah (suitability), shabāh (resemblance), tard (co-extensiveness), dawrān (rotation) and îabr wa taqsêm (observation and classification). as regards the process of tanqêí al manāṭ taíqêq al manāṭ takhrêj al manāṭ, ghazali treats them under a separate heading ijtihād fil ‘illah, while others treat it as another category under probable methods of masālik al-‘illah.17 the uîūlis acknowledge the variety of modes of legal reasoning, some of which fall under the umbrella-word qiyās and others discussed under debatable categories like istidlāl, istiísān, and istiîlāh.18 the discernment of ‘illah or íikmah is core concern of these methods in a process towards establishing sharī‘ah value for a new case. out of these probable methods we are here concerned with munāsabah and tanqêí al-manāṭ. munāsabah (suitability) is considered by many as the single most important method, also termed as maṣlaíah, ri‘āyah al-maqāṣid and takhrêj al-manāṭ. ghazali championed this method and used it extensively to establish ratio-legis the method which argues for determining of an ‘illah by undisputed rational means. since, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 43 suitability is a rational concept and stems neither from the explicit nor implicit meaning of the revealed writings, it cannot be universally applied to the law. in other words, reason and its outcomes may not always align with legal principles and their conclusions. since the law isn't always interpretable and understandable in rational terms, suitability may occasionally be relevant to the law (malā'im) and occasionally be irrelevant to the law (gharêb). no ratio-legis may be deemed suitable if it is not relevant, and whichever irrelevant ratio is automatically rendered unsuitable, is not subject to further legal analysis.19 therefore, safeguarding public interest (maîlaíah) in line with fundamental legal principles is the primary objective of suitability. however, because the ratio isn't strictly textual, legists determine it through suitability, and is consequential of reasoning faculties vis-à-vis the spirit of islamic law. the law is known to prohibit harm and to safeguard and enhance what is beneficial. the consistent pursuit of benefit and avoidance of harm are the objectives (maqîëd) of the law, and it is to these objectives that the rational argument of suitability must adhere. but the law has many different objectives, some of which are more essential than others. ghazali devised a tri-layered hierarchical classification; the first of these goals includes the essential and indispensable ones (ìarërāt), entailing the protection of religion, mind, life, property and progeny. it is complemented by a group of auxiliary goals that try to uphold and improve the primary goals. any ratio-legis that is determined by suitability and falls under this category of legislation must be treated with corresponding rules. the second level, which consists of the necessary aims (íajīyyāt), are distinctive for the severe damage to darurat if left unattended; whereas their consideration maintains an orderly and law-abiding society. the third and least significant level, referred by ghazali as improvements (taíîên, tawsi'a) enhances the application of the maqasid.20 in conclusion, while suitability is a reasonable principle in itself, it must also adhere to the spirit of the law, which establishes the conditions and hence probability for ‘suitability’ to be accepted or rejected. the distinction between malā’im (relevant) and gharib (irrelevant) suitability is explained with reference to this consistency, since gharib is also a rational conclusion but irreconcilable with the spirit, and hence letter, of the law.21 ijtihād in terms of discernment of ‘illah implies employment of the rational faculties to investigate the basis (manāṭ) of the rule. ghazali, most probably for the first time, divided the rational method to explore the ‘illah into three types: verification of the basis of the rule (taḥqīq al-manāṭ), refinement of the basis of the rule (tanqīḥ al-manāṭ) and derivation of the basis of the rule (takhrīj al-manāṭ); priorly the standard method to explore the ‘illah was through employment of textual implications (dalālāt alnaî), reasoning by literal interpretation (istidlāl) and analogy.22 44 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … 6.2 maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah23 as a soft theory of interpretation: ghazali’s revisions the four mainstream schools of law represent four different persuasions to interpret the legal content of islam. these four methodologies emerged from two trends of classical times, namely ahl al-íadêth manifested in the methods of the schools of malik, shāfi‘ī and ahmad and ahl al-ré’y, the method of the school of abu hanifa; generally categorized into two broader theoretical models of interpretation, viz. manhéj al-mutakalimūn and manhéj al-fuqaha’, respectively. the major distinctive feature between the two methods is that the model of ahl al-ré’y is founded on the use of general principles while as ahl alíadêth focused on the literal interpretation of the texts. the model of ahl alíadêth was championed by the foursource theory of al-shāfi‘ī.24 in the process, the legal theory of alshāfi‘ī dominated the school of ahl al-íadêth. some trends within this school, of which the standard position of the literal interpretation of the text remains its distinguishing feature, pushed towards the extreme literalism by the extinct school of dawud al-zahiri bypassing the middle course taken by al-shāfi‘ī, and to some extent this literalistic tendency survived in the hanbali school. it is this stated literalism and the allied problems of interpretation of this persuasion from where maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah model of thinking emerged.25 it served two purposes for this school, firstly it defined the role and scope of human reason in lawmaking process and secondly, it contributed towards this school the potential to stay live, avoiding formalism and not letting it loose the sight of the emerging issues and challenges vis-à-vis the spirit of the law. it was by fifth century that the shāfi‘īte uîūli-philosopher al-ghazali came forth with this theory. the theory of al-shāfi‘ī is generally typified as a ‘strict theory of interpretation’ for its emphasis on the methods of strictly literal interpretation. from the time of al-shāfi‘ī until the fifth century, the major contributions towards the uîūl studies in the school of mutakalimūn, came in the shape of annotations and explanations upon the work of shāfi‘ī. by the fifth century, al-ghazali emerged within this school with a greater project of revival of the islamic sciences including the legal theory. al-ghazali, building upon the views of his teacher al-juwayni, proposed a ‘soft theory of interpretation’ known as maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah or the theory of the purposes of the law. this theory of interpretation does not follow al-shāfi‘ī’s theory in its totality, but is an original effort to construct a model characterised by flexibility, inclusivity and is intricately nuanced (against the simple reading of the texts and the issues at hand) than the former.26 nyazee highlights the contribution of al-ghazali in these words: hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 45 the only way that the law found in the texts can be extended to all areas of human activity is through the general principles of islamic law. these are found in abundance in the qur’ān as well as the sunnah of the prophet. al-ghazali not only laid down methods for the identification of the principles of the qur’ān and sunnah, principles that ultimately point to the purposes of the law, but he also gave a detailed methodology to be used by the jurists for deriving the law from these general principles. all this could have been a part of al-ghazali’s grand scheme for the revival of religious sciences.27 the method used for the extension of the law to the various areas of human activity was qiyās, a strict syllogistic procedure practiced by the school of mutakalimūn. ghazali opened the idea of strict analogy and introduced the concepts of maîlaíah and maqāṣid into the procedure of qiyās. in the illustration of his legal thinking, alghazali authored some significant works like al-manqūl, shifā alghalīl, al-mūstasfā and tahdhêb al-ūîūl. al-manqūl represents the thought processes of younger ghazali overwhelmed by his teacher aljuwayni. shifā al-ghalīl and al-mūstasfā are representative of ghazali’s engagement with uîël theory and maps the evolution of his thought process; while as tahdhêb al-uîūl was lost.28 for the project of stating a interpretative theory, he argues in two of his seminal works shifā al-ghalīl fi bayān al-shubh wa al-mukhayyal wa masālik al-ta‘lêl and al-mūstasfā min ‘ilm al-ūîūl, the last one being one of the most important works of the uîūl studies ever. mapping the progression in legal theory of ghazali, hallaq opines existence of substantial differences on the theory of ta‘lêl and other aspects of his uîūl theory in these works.29 ghazali espouses the concept of munāsabah30 in his system of legal reasoning to arrive at the legal cause. by munāsabah, it means a rationale, an inner meaning or an idea (ma‘na) evidently intelligible to the intellect (ma‘qël ðāhirén fil ‘aql), that can be established clearly against the opponent by logical reasoning for the attribute of unreasonableness in his expression.31 the suitable reason (al-ma‘āni al-munāsibah) are those which point to the various aspects of public interest (maîālií) and to their emblems. the word maîlaíah is ambiguous since it can mean both seeking benefit (jalb manfa‘ah) and avoiding harm (daf‘ madarrah), whereas the word munāsabah means taking into account an issue intended to achieve (amr maqîëd). the two categories of the objective (maqîëd) are religious (dêni) and worldly (dunyāwi), and within each category there are two dimensions of acquisition (taíîêl) and preservation (ibqā). a thing's discontinuity (inqité‘) is harm, and its preservation (ibqā) is to prevent harm. acquisition is something that is referred to as seeking utility, and preservation is something that is referred to averting harm. as a result, the comprehensive phrase ‘consideration of goals’ 46 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … (ri‘éyah al-maqāîid) includes preservation (ibqā), avoidance of harm (daf‘ al-qawéti‘) and acquisition (taíîêl). all kinds of suitability return to the consideration of goals. munāsib is something which refers to a goal; hence detachment from a goal excludes from being munāsib.32 he then makes a connection between munāsib and the five fundamental principles (kulliyāt khams) that are taken into account in every religio-legal system. according to the argument, there must be objective of lawmaker, and its consideration falls under munāsabah in the context of the sharī‘ah. he continues that it is undeniable that the objectives of the sharī‘ah encompass the preservation of life, reason, off springs, property and religion.33 in shifā, ghazali distinguishes maîlaíah from munāsabah. the former connoting seeking something beneficial, and eliminating what is harmful; while as the latter referring to the preservation of an objective. however, he recognizes maîlaíah with munāsib in al-mūstasfā. he remarks: originally maîlaíah is seeking utility and removing harm, but we do not mean by that by it, for seeking utility and removing harm are the objectives of people, and their good lies in the acquisition of their objectives. by maîlaíah we mean preservation of the objectives of the sharī‘ah , and the objectives of the sharī‘ah are five-fold. anything which involves preservation of these five principles (uîūl khamsah) is maîlaíah, and that which causes the loss of these principles is mafsadah, and removing it is maîlaíah. when we apply the phrase alma‘na al-mukhil wa’l munāsib in the chapter of qiyās, we mean by it this kind.34 ghazali is not confusing maîlaíah with munāsabah. he clearly differentiates them by stating a sort of ambiguity attached to maîlaíah. in al-mūstasfā, he reveals the kernel of maîlaíah and offers a definition in likeness with munāsib, probably his expression is either figurative or is compelled by the degree of likeness between the two.35 in hallaq’s estimate, ghazali's theory of munāsabah in shifā and al-mūstasfā differ significantly from one another. in almūstasfā, he is noticeably less creative and more orthodox, and this conservatism appears to permeate every aspect of legal philosophy in this work. it is noteworthy that in shifā he provides a thorough examination of the theme of maîlaíah and ri‘āyah al-maqāîid under the category of munāsabah, adopting maîlaíah as a formally acceptable premise. on the other hand, in al-mūstasfā he drops reason as an important factor in defining maîlaíah by refusing to discuss it under munāsabah and shifts it to the chapter on istiîlāí, where this principle is viewed as controversial, and reduced a significant avenue of reasoning to the realm of dubious legitimacy.36 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 47 in the methodological part of his theory, the major thesis for discernment and extension of the law is the method of munāsabah.37 the concept of munāsabah is equated with the broader concept of maîlaíah, to mean accomplishing the good (jalb al-manfa‘ah) and repulsion of evil (daf‘ al-maìarra).38 munāsabah as a method advocates reasoning from general principles of law and is subdivided into two authentic processes of extension of law, munāsib mu’athir and munāsib mulā‘im, and a disputed one – gharêbah.39 munāsib mu’athir is the principle stated explicitly in the text,40 employed through qiyās al-ma‘ani and qiyās al-‘illah. this part of the theory of munāsabah is accepted and utilized by all major jurists who validate qiyās as a legitimate legal method, discussed in the books of uîūl alfiqh under the rubric of qiyās. nevertheless, the principles are stated expressly in the text but are limited.41 in case of munāsib mulā‘im, it is subdivided into two: mulā‘im and istidlél al-mursal.42 in the method of mulā‘im, the principles are derived vis-à-vis general propositions cum maqāîid of the law. in this case, the innovative part are the conditions to qualify the principles as argued by ghazali. it is through these rules that an unstable cause rooted in íikmah qualifies as more stable and falls in line with the rest of the law. the two conditions are: firstly, the derived principle should confirm with maqāîid al-sharī‘ah, to qualify the principle as munāsib. secondly, the derived principles should not confront the general practices of law, to mean they should be consistent with the rest of the law. the second part of munāsib mulā‘im is istidlél al-mursal. the principles are not directly derived from the texts, but are principally identified on the basis of their degree of conformity with the universal propositions of the law and maqāṣid al-sharê‘ah. in addition, there are three more conditions to qualify them as munasab mulā‘im and prevent them from falling under the rejected category of gharêb; firstly, it ought not be gharêb; secondly, not clash with the text and thirdly, not endeavour to modify the implication of the legal text the general propositions and the principles of the law.43 in ghazalian model, this innovative part devises the mechanism that restricts the irrepressible use of human agency of íikmah (rational process), for the derivation of the principles by demanding the conditions of munāsabah and mulā‘amah.44 the two concepts of mulā‘im and istidlél al-mursal are not new in their conceptualization, as shown by al-ghazali, but in the theorization as a well-defined methodology of extension of law. in this method,45 alghazali opines, mulā‘im is an agreed upon method while as istidlāl al-mursal or maîlaíah al-mursalah are a disputed one, employed by the maliki school and disputed by shāfi‘ī, majorly. 48 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … 6.3 maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah and the theory of ijtihād (discernment of the basis of ratio-legis/ ‘illah): shatibi’s scheme of reconstruction of legal theory shatibi’s interest in uîūl al-fiqh was fashioned by the impression of methodological and philosophical inadequacy of uîūl al-fiqh to cope up with the challenge of legal-cum-social change.46 shatibi proposed the concept of maîlaíah as the essential and common-ground between legal obligations, legal and social change, and the method of legal reasoning. shatibi acknowledged the traditional classification of maîlaíah but questioned the limitations levelled against it . the fundamental elements of shatibi’s concept of maîlaíah are: (1) attention for the necessities of man, (2) the rationality of legal commandments and the responsibility of man, (3) protection from harm, and (4) consistency with the objectives of the lawgiver. his elaborations of the concept of maîlaíah were befitting to his understanding of social-cum-legal change. regarding the change in human societies, he maintained, changes are fundamentally a product of human needs . when these changes go beyond the provisions of the rules of law or become too complicated for the existing law, a jurist is compelled to examine the law and legal theory as they relate to the changes in question. shatibi defines ijtihéd in terms of the process of legal change, and divides it into four types and arrives at a novel conclusion about the principle of ijtihād, as masud maintains, the relation between shatibi’s legal theory to the problem of adaptability of islamic legal theory as a response to social change, not drawing on the tool of murā’at al-khiléf. in his broader scheme, ijtihād offers a method to cater legal change; maîlaíah gives a basis and direction to change; and the concepts of bid‘ah and ta‘abbud defines the limits of social and legal changes.47 in shatibi’s legal theory, maqāîid alsharī‘ah is a principal concept through which he attempts to ascertain maîlaíah as the bedrock of maqāîid theory, and by extension of the law itself. in establishing this premise, he wrestles with two significant questions of the relativity of maîlaíah and the relationship of maîlaíah with legal responsibility. contradicting the implications of theological determinism and relativity of maîlaíah, he analyses the problem at two levels of the lawgiver and the subject of the law. at the first level, it is the lawgiver who decides what is maîlaíah, which is not absolute and is exclusive for all times to come. while at the level two, the objective of the mukallaf is to abide by the maqāîid al-sharī‘ah . hence, he categorizes hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 49 the maqāîid into two classes: the intent of the lawgiver and the intents of the subject of law.48 • intention of the law-giver (qaîd al-shérī‘):49 it consists of four aspects: 1. higher objective of instituting the law: the purposefulness of god in revealing the law is to safeguard man's interests, both mundane and religious, are divided into three categories: ìarurāt, íéjiyyāt and taísiniyyāt. the subject matter is maîlaíah, its meaning, classification, characteristics and nature. 2. higher objective of general intelligibility (ifhām) of the sharī‘ah: the sharī‘ah is comprehensible in its language (the significance of arabic vis-à-vis the idea of ummīyyah). only in the light of the principles, modes of expressions of the language can the ummīyyah status of the holy qur’én and sunnah be understood. and if there is no norm to guide interpretation of the holy qur’én, then whatever interpretation is chosen must not be in conflict with any other convention or be foreign to arab customs. the sharī‘ah must not be elitist, but should be comprehensible to laypeople as well. it discusses the semantics of the subject of obligation (taklīf), under two subcategories of al-dalālah al-aîlīyyah (essential meanings) and ummīyyah (intelligible to commonality). 3. higher objective in establishing law to demand legal responsibility (taklīf): the law is revealed to demand full obedience from the muslims. however, adherence would not be feasible unless the requirements of god’s law were reasonable given what believers could handle. the question of taklīf in reference to qudrah (power), mashaqqah (hardship) etc. is discussed under this objective. 4. higher objective in recognizing the propensity of the subject of law: shatibi argues that the upright life cannot be accomplished by indulging in personal caprices and desires. it discusses the natural drives and instincts of the subjects, huzuz and hawa, with respect to following the law, ta‘abbud. under this objective, shatibi, argues for the universality of the sharī‘ah, which is inclusive of all the interests of the seen and the unseen world. hence, it obligates the submission of humanity before its authority in all respects, to bring happiness of both the worlds. objectives of the legal subject (qaîd al-mukallaf):50 under this category, qaîd al-mukallaf, shatibi deals with the question of intentions and acts of the legal subject, and establishes the inseparability of the actions from their intentions as the principle; actions holds no sharī‘ah value in absence of an intention. this 50 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … implies that legal commands must be carried out in conformity with the intents of the lawgiver. therefore, the individual's objectives in carrying out the law, based on the three universals ìarurāt, íajīyyāt, and taísiniyāt, should be consistent with god's intentions of promoting and maintaining these universals i.e., human interests, that a legal subject would be held accountable for. thus, the person is god's representative on earth and represents god in promoting social welfare by confirming his goals. shatibi believed that he would be breaking the law if he attempted application of the law in a manner not intended by the lawgiver. on the negative side of the equation, if anybody attempts to achieve the goals other than ones laid down by the law through the stipulated obligations, has actually violated the law.51 in his framework of maqāîid al-sharī‘ah vis-à-vis traditional ūîūli methodology, shatibi employed the concept of maîlaíah to free the islamic legal theory from the rigidity and limitations with relation to the extension of the law by re-examining and re-stating the conventional premises and inter-play of theology, linguistic rules and logic.52 6.4 redefining the process and scope of ijtihād: the shatibian model the conundrum remains how do we find a connect between the qaîd of the lawgiver and the subject of the law in the issues not determined by the text. this is where the theory of maqāîid comes into play largely, and specifically the sub-category of shatibi’s maqāîid based ijtihād, i.e., ijtihād rooted in manāṭ. for shatibi, understanding the theory of intentions (maqāîid al-sharī‘ah) in its entirety is an indispensable requirement for exercising ijtihād . still the question remains, in the mechanics of exercising ijtihad where does a mujtahid employ the theory of maqāîid to extend the sharī‘ah value. in response to this query, shatibi engages with the theory of tanqīí al-manāṭ53 vis-à-vis his theory of maîlaíah, one of the important methods to discern ‘illah and hence the extension of the sharī‘ah value, generally included under the chapter of masalak al‘illah in the books of uîūl. he broadly classifies ijtihād into two main categories: that in which ijtihād may be needed continuously and that in which ijtihād may come to an end. the first form, referred to as taíqīq al-manāṭ, is unanimously practiced by all jurists in their respective fields. it denotes the examination and confirmation of the locus of legal rule. this kind of ijtihād can never end because without it, legal regulations are reduced to mere theoretical and mental constructs that have nothing to do with actual application, which renders the law meaningless. taíqêq al-manāṭ is the process of discerning the essential character of a case and its execution in the external world. the second category of ijtihād that may come to an end is further hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 51 divided into three categories, the first is known as tanqīí al-manāṭ, which refers to the identification of the ratio-legis insofar as it is separated from characteristics that are associated with it in the texts. the second category, referred to as takhrīj al-manāṭ, also referred as al-ijtihād al-qiyāsi, studies the texts to draw out what would otherwise be an unspecified ratio-legis. the third category is an extension of the first major kind, taíqīq al-manāṭ, being more nuanced and precise form of ijtihād. precisely, it relates to the subject of the law vis-à-vis individual and particularized context of the subject. it is the job of a mujtahid to examine these particular situations and apply the most appropriate law. this third category seems to be unique in a way that that it finds no place in earlier uîūl works. shatibi advances a lengthy discussion in support of this category, invoking the prophetic examples, who provided a variety of responses to the same questions with respect to the context of the questioner.54 in the estimate of masud,55 because of the dependence of method of legal reasoning on the legal provision, any new case is to be examined with relation to these provisions for their validation or otherwise. the provisions may be implicit or explicit; implicit in form of general rules or absence of any prohibition. it is this nature of these provisions which justify the continuity of ijtihād or otherwise. it is explained by showing how the fundamental components of the new case correspond with the basis of the legal provision. these legal bases, called as manāṭ, are either explicit or are known through further application of ijtihād. in reference to these manāṭ, shatibi divides ijtihād into four categories: 1. taḥqīq al-manāṭ al-‘óm56 (general verification of the basis of the rule of the sharī‘ah). 2. taḥqīq al-manāṭ al-khāî57 (verification of individualized and particularized aspects of the rule). 3. tanqīḥ al-manāṭ58 (refinement of the basis of the rule). 4. takhrīj al-manāṭ59 (deduction of the basis of the rule). shatibi maintains that in these four categories, the first one, taíqīq al-manāṭ al-‘aām, is ever continuing, while as the continuity of the rest three, taḥqīq al-manāṭ al-khāṣ, tanqīí al-manāṭ and takhrīj al-manāṭ, depends on their need and novelty of the new issues, and this is what justifies the principle of ijtihād.60 while as with reference to the legal material required for ijtihād, shatibi explains three processes of ijtihād. first, the process of drawing inferences from the scripted legal material (nuîëṣ), which necessitates the knowledge of arabic language. knowing arabic language primarily, shatibi 52 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … maintains, does not mean knowing the grammar, syntax etc. but the understanding of the arab usage.61 the second process of ijtihéd does not directly concern the legal text but the law, which necessitates the knowledge of ‘ilm maqāîid al-sharī‘ah. with respect to four categories of manāṭ-based ijtihād, this process concerns the taíqīq almanāṭ and takhrīj al-manāṭ. the third is the process of deduction and does not require the above-mentioned qualifications. in this process, the verified basis of the rule (manāṭ) is applied to the specific case, involving two premises: taíaqquq al-manāṭ (investigation of the basis of the rule) and taíakkum (the judgement). shatibi explains that the process of deduction involved in this category should be seen distinctly from the method of logicians.62 meanwhile, shatibi rejects any requirement of the science of logic, while as reiterates knowledge of arabic language and maqāîid al-sharī‘ah as the absolute necessity for exercising ijtihād .63 in his scheme of extension of law, shatibi accentuates the need to integrate the higher objectives (maqāîid alsharī‘ah) with the bases of legal judgements (‘ilal) to broaden the scope of ijtihéd vis-à-vis the proper application of the sharī‘ah. alraysuni, while corroborating the same, opines ‘if we simply take texts literally or at face value, we restrict their domain and diminish what they have to offer. if, on the other hand, we understand them in light of their bases and objectives, they become an abundant reservoir of aid and guidance: the door to qiyās is opened wide, as is the door to istiîlāí, and the legal rulings take their natural course in achieving the higher objectives of the lawgiver by bringing benefits and preventing harm.’64 7. conclusion in context of overwhelming debates in the field of islamic legal theory, the engagement of the academic scholarship with the theme of ijtihād vis-à-vis the conceptions of maîlaíah in the premodern and modern scholarship, the paper endeavors to analyze the attempts to integrate the theory of ijtihād with maqāîid al-sharī‘ah as a stride towards establishing a parallel system of legal thinking to replace the strict qiyās based ijtihād in the later part of islamic intellectual history, looking into the contributions of ghazali and shatibi. by the 5-6th century a.h, the legal theory had matured to its fullest, the contentions about the legal epistemology and hermeneutical principles had settled, and each methodological school provided an advanced system of inference. so, the scholarly attention thus shifted to methods of reasoning, generally subsumed under the category of qiyés. in articulation of this part of legal theory, ghazali provided some significant insights about ratio-legis, how do we conceptualize it, ascertain it from different sources and extend the legal norm based on the ratio. ghazali seemingly did not fiddle with the general broader epistemological structure of the traditional uîūl hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 53 al-fiqh to replace it with an independent-cum-libertarian maqāîid model of legal philosophy, rather he attempted advancing the concept of ijtihād, defining it in broader terms than just being an equivalent of qiyās arguing from the reference of munāsabah-maîlaíah equation, what may be called as the shift from a strict-theory of interpretation towards a soft-theory of interpretation, to bring in more nuances in legal thinking. the attempt was to develop a soft theory of interpretation but not at the cost of his theological (asharite) position of ethical voluntarism, which informs the fundamental assumption of invalidity of human reason to work more autonomously, cementing the textual-literalism in traditional uîūl model. he was more concerned about reviving a broader working space for ijtihād than just being a tool of syllogism. therefore, to address the relevance of ijtihād to developing world of islamic civilization, ghazali introduced the concept of maîlaíah in the mode of ijtihéd-exercising, albeit he is very cautious about not giving a greater role to human reason and hence siding more towards the shāfi’ī textualism. in his maqāîid based legal theory, ghazali actually restricted the use of reason by denying textually neutral maîlaíah an inherently independent epistemological value. although shatibi is an ethical voluntarist too, but his voluntarism is more liberal than the mainstream ash‘arism or that of ghazali’s, standing more towards employing the argument of skepticism against argument of authority of human rational capacity, while not choosing the argument of moral relativism. the general context he lived in, pushed him to revisit the legal theory at large and specifically the concept of ijtihād and its underlying assumptions which limited the scope of original legal thinking. early in his career, shatibi realized the failure of traditional uîūli model in meaningfully addressing the emerging issues of social change and politicoeconomic problems. this failure of the uîūli model, he ascribed to the employment of strict text-based analogy (qiyās) for extension of law while overlooking the higher objectives of the sharī‘ah. so, in his scheme of the extension of law, shatibi placed the doctrine of maqāîid al-sharī‘ah at the very center of his thesis. to arrive at the legal ruling by deciphering the basis of the legal rule, shatibi used the manāṭ-model, taíqīq al-manāṭ, tanqīí al-manāṭ and takhrīj al-manāṭ vis-a-via his theory of maîlaíah. shatibi acknowledged the ghazalian classification of maqāîid but contested the strict textual orientation of his maqāîid theory; shatibi proved to be more libertarian in giving the human faculty of reason a share in legal thinking. in the modern era, with the unprecedented assault of colonial modernity on the traditional legal institutions, legal thinking and production of legal knowledge, the process of reformation to reclaim islamic law started with muhammad ‘abduh’s efforts. this process of reformation engaged a whole lot of ‘ulama’, jurisprudents 54 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … and scholars alike including rashid rida, ibn ashur, jamal al-din qasimi, ‘allal al-fasi, subhi mehmasani, abd al-wahab khallaf, abu zahra, mahmud muhammad taha etc. to re-envision the islamic legal theory and the premises of islamic law, majorly drawing upon the maqāṣid/ maṣlahah theses of al-ghazali and al-shatibi. notes and references 1 taha jabir al-alwani, source methodology in islamic jurisprudence (new delhi: al ittehad publications, 2010), 1. 2 abu zahra, uṣūl al-fiqh (dar al-fikr al-‘arabi, 1985), 3, 7-9. mohammad hashim kamali, principles of islamic jurisprudence (cambridge: islamic texts society, 1997), p. 1. 3 abu zahra, uṣūl, 11-12. kamali, principles, 3. 4 for a detailed and critical analysis of these developments in the field of legal theory, see muhammad ibn idris al-shāfi’ī, al-risalah, tr. majid khadduri (united kingdom: the islamic texts society) 295-310; mohammad hashim kamali, “issues in the legal theory of uṣūl and the prospects for reform”, islamic studies, vol. 40, no. 1(spring 2001): 5-23. mohammad hashim kamali, “methodological issues in islamic jurisprudence”, arab law quarterly, vol. 11, no. 1, (1996): 3-33. dr. younes soualhi, “the uṣūli thought between dynamicity and rigidity-a critical analysis”, hamdard islamicus, vol. xxix, no. 3: 57-69. fazlur rehman, islamic methodology in history, (pakistan: islamic research institute, 1984), 149-191. wael b. hallaq, a history of islamic legal theories: an introduction to sunni uṣūl al-fiqh, (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1997), 16-35. 5 anver emon, islamic natural law theories (oxford: oxford university press, 2010), 123-146. 6 ijtihād is ‘the total operationalization of jurist’s efforts in order to infer, with a degree of probability, the rules of the sharī‘ah from their detailed evidences in the sources.’ it also refers to a jurist’s employment of all his faculties, either in inferring the rules of the sharī‘ah from the sources or in employing such rules and relating them to a particular situation. (abu zahra, uṣūl, 379. kamali, principles, 367). 7 kamali, principles, 379. 8 kamali, principles, 379. 9 al-shāfi’ī, al-risalah, 288-294. 10 kamali, principles, 379-380. 11 al-alwani, source methodology, 36-38. lowry states the theory of bayān, as the central thesis of risālah, to mean ‘the entirety of the law resides in two texts, the qur’ān and the sunna, and all legal rules are expressed by one of five possible combinations of those two textual sources. those combinations are the following: (i) qur’ān alone. (ii) qur’ān and sunna together, each expressing the same rule. (iii) qur’ān and sunna together, whereby the sunna explains what is in the qur’ān. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 55 (iv) sunna alone. (v) neither, in which case one engages in legal interpretation, ijtihad. [see, joseph lowry, early islamic legal theory: the risāla of muhammad ibn idris alshāfi’ī (leiden: brill, 2007), 24.] 12 qiyās is defined in terms of the extension of a sharī‘ah value from original case (asl) whose sharī‘ah value is determined by the primary legal indicants directly, to a new case (far’) whose sharī‘ah value is not addressed by the primary legal indicants, by invoking the common effective cause (‘illah), to establish the legal position (ḥukm). a certain legal text governs the original case, and qiyās strives to apply the same textual ruling to the new case. the application of qiyās is justified by the fact that the original case and the new case share the same effective cause, or 'illah. although a rationalist theory, the textual imports of the divine revelation take precedence over the ones reached at by employing human faculty of reason (ré’y). finding a shared 'illah between the original and the new case is the principal area in which human rational faculty operates in qiyās. once the ‘illah is determined, invoking the principle of analogy requires the ruling of the relevant text be followed without any intervention or change. generally, the jurist while utilizing qiyās pays little attention to the maqāṣid aspect of the sharī‘ah, the aspect which is in harmony with reason. hence, any rational approach to the discovery and identification of the maqāṣid demands recourse to human intellect and judgement in the assessment of the ahkām. (see, abu zahra, uṣūl, 218. kamali, principles, 197-198). 13 ‘abd al-wahhab khallaf, ‘ilm uṣūl al-fiqh (egypt: dar al-fikr al-‘arabi, 1996), 61-62. kamali, principles, 206-207. in the books of usul, it is generally defined as the quality of the asl that is consistent, obvious, and has an appropriate (munāsib) link to the legal rule of the text (íukm). the 'illah is also known as sabab, manāṭ al-íukm (i.e., the cause/basis of the ḥukm), and amarah al-ḥukm (sign of the ḥukm). (khallaf, 61-62; kamali,206-207) 14 abu zahra, uṣūl, 243-245. kamali, principles 211. 15 abu zahra, uṣūl, 245-246, kamali, principles, 213-214. 16 abu zahra, uṣūl, 243-244. wahbah al-zuhayli, uṣūl al-fiqh al-islami (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2015), vol. i, 657. khallaf, ‘ilm, 82-83. hallaq, islamic legal theories, 88. 17 ahmad hasan, analogical reasoning in islamic jurisprudence: a study of juridical principle of qiyās (new delhi: adam publishers and distributors, 2009), 232-233. 18 hallaq, islamic legal theories, 83. 19 hallaq, islamic legal theories, 88-89. 20 hallaq, islamic legal theories, 88-89. 21 al-zuhayli, uṣūl, vol. i, 642-656. hallaq, islamic legal theories, 90. 22 hasan, analogical reasoning,354. 23 for a detailed introduction of maqasid al-shari’ah and some debates revolving around it, see mohamed el-tahir el-mesawi, maqasid alshari‘ah: meaning, scope and ramifications, al-shajarah, istac journal of islamic thought and civilization, vol. 25, no. 2, 2020; yasir s. ibrahim, ‘an examination of the modern discourse on maqasid al-shari‘a’, the journal of the middle east and africa, 5:1; jasser auda, maqasid alshari’ah: a beginner’s guide, maqasid al-sharī‘ah as philosophy of islamic law: a system’s approach (washington: iiit, 2008); mohammad 56 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … omar farooq, towards our reformation from legalism to value-oriented islamic law and jurisprudence (iiit, virginia, 2011); mohammad hashim kamali, ‘history and jurisprudence of the maqasid: a critical appraisal’, american journal of islam and society, 38, nos. 3-4:8-34. 24 joseph lowry contests the theory of four-source attribution to shāfi’ī and argues for the theory of bayan as the central thesis of risalah, not the foursources theory. in his view, it is the theory of bayan that explains the process of legal interpretation in five hierarchical steps of discerning the law through five modes of qur’an-sunnah combinations, which is a two-source based theory. see, joseph lowry, early islamic legal theory, 23-46. joseph lowry, “does shāfi’ī have a theory of four sources of law?” in studies in islamic legal theory, ed. bernard g. weiss, (leiden: brill, 2002), 23-50. 25 nyazee, theories, 147. 26 nyazee, theories, 185-186. 27 nyazee, theories, 190. 28 george hourani, “a revised chronology of ghazali’s writings”, journal of the american oriental society, 104 (1984), 289-302. 29 wael hallaq, “uṣūl al-fiqh: beyond tradition”, journal of islamic studies, 3:2 (1992), 172-202. 30 munāsib means that which proceeds the line of human good (minhāj almasālih) in a way that when a rule is attributed to it, it becomes uniform (intazama). as an illustration, wine was prohibited for the reason that it disturbs the faculty of reason of man which is the basis of legal obligation. thus, intoxication is a suitable (munāsib) quality for its forbiddance. but if someone argues that it has been forbidden because it produces foam or is preserved in a jar, these qualities cannot be taken as suitable for prohibition. [abu hamid al-ghazali, al-mūstasfā, (cairo, 1937), vol. ii, 77]. 31 abu hamid al-ghazali, shifā al-ghalīl, ed. ahmad al-kubysi, (baghdad: matba’a al-irshad, 1971), 143. as an example for this method, the qur‘an forbids wine for its reason of affecting intoxication, henceforth incapacitates the mind, leads to evil behavior and neglect of religious duties (2:219, 4:43, 5:90-91). even, if the qur’an had been silent for the rationale of this prohibition, it would have been intelligible to understand the rationale of this prohibition. this is what ghazali argues as the reasoning on the basis of suitability, which can discern the harm independently of the revelation. using the agency of munasabah and maqasid al-shari‘ah (the protection of the integrity of the mind), ghazali would declare all kinds of intoxicating drinks (not mentioned in the qur’an) as prohibited for the rationale of intoxication being the sole rational cause of prohibition. (al-mustasfa, 1:118) 32 ghazali, shifā, 159. 33 ghazali, shifā, 160. 34 ghazali, al-mūstasfā, vol. i, 139-140. 35 hasan, analogical reasoning, 253-254. 36 hallaq, “uṣūl al-fiqh”, 172-202. opwis notes this difference in these words, ‘the main difference between the discussion of maslaha in shifa and al-mustasfá is one of approach. in shifa, al-ghazali starts out with determining the ratio legis to end up with questions of the purposes of the law, whereas in al-mustasfa he first elaborates on the purposes of the law and then explains how to identify these correctly as rationes legis of rulings. apart from use of technical terminology and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 57 categories, the two treatises also differ in the extent to which decisions based on considerations of maslaha constitute valid law.’ (felicitas opwis, maslaha and the purpose of the law – islamic discourse on legal change from the 4th/10th to 8th/14th century, leiden, brill, 2010, 65) 37 ghazali, shifā, 142-264. munāsib, translated as suitability, is categorized into two sub-categories: the concrete propositions (haqiqi ‘aqli) and convincing norms (khayali iqna’i). haqiqi ‘aqli are qualified through an investigative process which determine its convincing case for its convincing propositional value and its suitability (munāsabah). while as khayali iqna’i during the course of investigation do not qualify the qualities of haqiqi ‘aqli, but are qualifying the ethical and moral values. with relation to maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah , the haqiqi ‘aqli constitute the darurāt and hajat, while as khayali iqna’i constitute the tahsinat. (see, shifā, 172. theories, 212-214). 38 ghazali, shifā, 159. 39 ghazali, shifā, 158. 40 nyazee, theories, 214. 41 nyazee, theories, 215. 42 ghazali, shifā, 188. nyazee, theories, 215. 43 nyazee, theories, 217-218. 44 nyazee, theorie, 216-217. anver emon states the status of the authority of reason in ghazali’s scheme as, ‘the munasabah both enables and limits the role of reason in al-ghazali’s model of practical reasoning’. (anver emon, islamic natural law theories, p. 145). 45 ghazali, shifā, 188. nyazee, theories, 211-212. 46 masud, mohammad khalid. islamic legal philosophy-a study of abu ishaq al-shatibi’s life and thought, (delhi: international islamic publishers, 1989), 101. al-shatibi took keen interest in the problems relating to islamic legal theory and majorly focussed on the legal procedures used by maliki jurists to address the issue of social change from the reference point of maliki uṣūl theory. one of the legal concepts used, murā’at al-khilaf, admits the diversity of opinions as a fact, in terms of the legal device to accommodate the novel social practices. but shatibi equates using this tool equivalent to negating the very basis of the law and henceforth he puts forward his doctrine of maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah as the legal mechanism to engage with the problem of social change. he assessed the traditional legal theory in light of maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah to conclude inefficiency of the methods of qiyās and consequent use of murā’at al-khilaf as well. (see, masud, islamic legal philosophy, 317-319). 47 masud, islamic legal philosophy, 317-322. 48 al-shatibi, abu ishaq. al-muwāfaqāt, dar ibn hazm, beirut, 2014, 200201. masud, islamic legal philosophy, 223-224, 233-234. ahmad alraysuni, imam al-shatibi’s theory of higher objectives and intents of islamic law (virginia: international institute of islamic thought, 2006), 107-134. hallaq, islamic legal theories, 181-182. 49 al-shatibi, al-muwāfaqāt, 201-378. al-shatibi, al-muwāfaqāt 107-128. 50 al-shatibi, al-muwāfaqāt, 380-440. al-shatibi, al-muwāfaqāt, 128-134. 51 hallaq, islamic legal theories, 184-185. al-raysuni, imam al-shatibi’s theory, 129-130. 58 the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid … 52 masud, islamic legal philosophy: 289-290. 53 tanqiḥ literally means to purify, whereas manāṭ is another name for ‘illah. tanqiḥ al-manāṭ, in its technical sense, refers to the process of ‘connecting the new case to the original case by removing the discrepancy between them’ (ilhāq al-far' bi al-asl bi-ilghā al-fāriq). the extraction of the 'illah, or takhrij al-manāṭ, comes before tanqiḥ al-manāṭ and is the first step examining the identification of the 'illah. the jurist determines the effective cause in every instance when the text or ijma fails to do so by examining the pertinent causes according to the modes of ijtihād. if he ends up at concluding multiple causes, he proceeds to the next stage, which is to isolate the correct cause. in takhrij al-manāṭ, the jurist is dealing with a circumstance where an 'illah is not identified; whereas, in tanqiḥ al-manāṭ, multiple causes are recognised, and the jurist's role is to choose the appropriate 'illah. (abu zahra, uṣūl, 245-246. wahbah al-zuhayli, uṣūl alfiqh al-islami, vol. i, 657-659. kamali, principles, 213-214). 54 al-shatibi, al-muwāfaqāt, 674-677. hallaq, islamic legal theories, 199202. 55 masud, islamic legal philosophy, 308. 56 taḥqīq al-manāṭ al-‘aām: it means to verify the application of rule of law after it has been established by its legal source (mudrak al-shar’i), i.e. the text, consensus and analogy in the subject (mahal) of the law by examining its basis in the general sense. shatibi refers to this type of reasoning ‘absolute reasoning by verification of the basis of the rule’ (al-ijtihād al-mutlaq bi taḥqiq al-manāṭ). human actions are never abstract; they manifest in specific cases. the obligations of the sharī‘ah are absolute (mutlaq) and universal (umumat). a shari’ah rule will not apply to a particular case until it is established if the universal rule covers it. it all relies on ijtihād and is the reason for taḥqiq al-manāṭ al-‘aām to continue for all times. if it discontinues, the application of rules of the sharī‘ah to human acts will be impossible, for example, the compensation for killing a game in the state of ihram. the qur’an (5:95) mandates equivalent compensation, but defining the species is necessary. jurists have determined this compensation, such as a ram for a hyena, a goat for a gazelle, a sheep for a deer. (abu zahra, uṣūl, 246; masud, islamic legal philosophy, 308-309; hasan, analogical reasoning, 356-359). 57 taḥqīq al-manāṭ al-khāṣ: it denotes a specific analysis of the rule’s basis, different and refined form of ijtihād than taḥqiq al-manāṭ al-‘aām. in this form of ijtihād, a jurist emphasizes more on piety (taqwa) and wisdom (hikma) to discern the good from evil. they examine the mukallaf in the light of the guiding lines (dala’il al-taklīfiyya) concerning him to make him understand the openings of the devil (madakhil al-shaytan), openings of the passion (madakhil al-hawa) and immediate pleasure (huzuz ‘ajila), to protect him against these drives. this personalized approach places responsibility on the jurist to tailor obligations to individuals. this process involves specifying general principles according to individual circumstances, a task typically performed through general verification. for instance, when the companions asked the prophet about the best action, he responded based on each person's unique situation and capability. (hasan, analogical reasoning, 359-361) 58 tanqīḥ al-manāṭ: it stands for refinement of ‘illah from other associated qualities, to extend the rule to other related cases. shatibi, like ghazali, defines it as identifying a relevant quality mentioned in the rule's text among hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 59 other qualities. jurists refine, distinguish and separate it from irrelevant qualities by exercising ijtihād. unlike qiyās, this method relies on literal interpretation of texts, termed istidlal or dalalt al-naṣ by hanafis. tanqiḥ almanāṭ focuses on textual indications rather than identifying the 'illah itself, but concerns the textual allusions (dalālāt al-tanbih) vis-à-vis refinement of the basis of the rule of the sharī‘ah. for example, when a bedouin broke his fast by having intercourse during ramadan, the prophet ordered expiation. while the obvious cause was intercourse, other factors like the bedouin's identity, time, month, or the specific woman involved could also be considered as reasons for the rule's application. hence, this specific rule of expiation can be extended to some other situation with these qualities as the basis of the voidance of fast. (abu zahra, uṣūl, 246; khalid, islamic legal philosophy, 309; hasan, analogical reasoning, 361-365) 59 takhrīj al-manāṭ: it involves inferring the basis of a rule from text where the 'illah isn't explicitly stated. jurists, through reasoning and deliberation, derive this basis (manat), termed by ghazali as al-ijtihād al-qiyāsi. some jurists use takhrij al-manāṭ and munāsabah interchangeably to mean determination of ‘illah by the quality of suitability in itself, not by text or any other source. for example, intoxication is the rationale for prohibiting wine as well as date-wine (nabidh). in the same way, the sale of wheat in exchange of wheat at an unequal rate is unlawful and treated as usury. (abu zahra, uṣūl, 245-246; hasan, analogical reasoning, 365-366) 60 masud, islamic legal philosophy, 308-310. al-shatibi, al-muwāfaqāt, 674-677. 61 al-shatibi, al-muwāfaqāt, 707. 62 al-shatibi, al-muwāfaqāt, 708-709. 63 masud, islamic legal philosophy, 309-311. 64 al-raysuni, imam al-shatibi’s theory, 333-334. ascertaining the foundational ground for maqāṣid-based ijtihād, al-raysuni in his analysis and extension of shatibi enumerates four maxims and lays the ground for further investigation in the field. these referred methods were employed by various jurisprudents of the past and al-raysuni explains them by citing examples from the fiqh literature and appropriation of various positions with respect to higher objectives of the sharī‘ah , the maxims are: i. texts and rulings are inseparable from their objectives. ii. combining general principles and evidence applicable to specific cases. iii. realizing benefit and avoiding harm. iv. cogitation over outcomes. (see, al-raysuni, imam al-shatibi’s theory, 336-362.) hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 9 from islamophobia to neoislamophobia: a new style of governance in the west muhammad tariq international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan. email: tariq.awan@iiu.edu.pk zafar iqbal international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan. email: drzafar.iqbal@iiu.edu.pk received on: 03-01-22 accepted on: 23-12-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.764 abstract islamophobia is thought to be a modernized version of orientalism, which was initially used to justify european political actions against the ottoman empire and, later, after its decline, to support their imperialist pursuits in the muslim world. it is now used as a strategy for governing western societies, particularly the united states, where people are forced to live with historical prejudices against islam and muslims. the nature of this animosity points to a new form of islamophobia, which, like the old one, appears in discourses and practices alike. this study aims to ascertain how islamophobia manifests as new islamophobia in the modern west. it investigates the presence of this phenomenon in us media discourse using the theoretical framework of securitization. the researchers employed an analytical framework adapted from discourse-historical-approach and studied 3153 news and opinion pieces from us newspapers and wire services between november 2016 and january 2017. this study has revealed an islamophobic society where muslims were the targets of hate crimes due to their islamic identity. it has been found that trump's anti-islamic rhetoric during his presidential campaign contributed to the emergence of this new societal syndrome. it concludes that "neoislamophobia" is a name for a new style of governance adopted by some western politicians who capitalize on islamophobia as a political strategy to gain power, thereby shaping the existing social order into an islamophobic one. mailto:tariq.awan@iiu.edu.pk mailto:drzafar.iqbal@iiu.edu.pk https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.764 10 from islamophobia to … the researchers recommend similar inquiries into other contexts too. keywords: islamophobia, neo-islamophobia, securitization, governance, social order. 1. introduction this study is part of a larger project on "islamophobia," which the researchers assume has evolved into a social order in some western countries where everyone fears islam and is thus forced to dislike this religion and everything it represents. earlier work on the project demonstrated that this fear or hatred, identified as an ingredient of "islamophobia" in the late 20th century by the runnymede report (1997), actually took birth with the re-birth of islam in the 7th century, which shook the religious and systemic foundations of early medieval europe in general and the byzantine empire in particular. the orthodox christian hierarchy of the time, considered the spiritual arm of the political forces of byzantium, saw the emergence of the early islamic empire as a unique "problem" to its legacy and strove to solve it. what the clergy could offer was a discourse of a polemical nature that developed a "heresy" syndrome with major practical ramifications for muslims, such as the crusades, culminating in a policy "solution" at the church's general council in vienne between 1311 and 1312, which concluded that an academic and political assault on muslims was their future strategy to deal with islam.1 it was the fear of islam, more than any other single factor, that, according to bernard lewis, led to the beginnings of arabic scholarship in europe, a discipline that centuries later was named "orientalism,"2 which is now renamed "islamophobia."3 this study aims to investigate this phenomenon and determine how it manifests as neo-islamophobia in the modern west. 2. literature review contemporary islamophobia is viewed as a modern offshoot of orientalism,4 which began its formal existence with the vienne council’s decision to establish chairs in oriental languages5 and initially served as a discursive strategy parallel to european political powers' fight against ottoman expansionist threats into europe.6 since the ottomans' challenges were not religious but structural in nature,7 "islam ceased to be viewed as a formidable political and theological adversary" in the new emergent world. it, rather, came to be portrayed and perceived as "the religion of primitive nomads, devoid of intellectual or cultural sophistication."8 as a result, different perceptions of muslims as an existential threat to european political domains have emerged. however, the ottomans' integration into europe was short-lived; they began to lose military and political hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 11 control over european territories, culminating in the second unsuccessful siege of vienna in 1683, marking the end of what lewis calls a thousand-year-old islam’s threats to the christian world and the beginning of european challenges to the muslim world in the shape of "colonization."9 the discovery of america by christopher columbus in 1492 marked the beginning of colonization. the portuguese and spanish established large colonial networks in north and south america in the following century. by the 17th century, they had been joined by the french, dutch, and british, and by 1920, they ruled millions of muslims and large territories in africa and asia. accordingly, christianity appeared to be the modern world's first global order. orientalist discourses, primarily based on the "othering" of muslims, were used to justify western colonial domination. the academic inquiry (orientalism), working with colonial (imperialist) powers, yielded fresh interpretations of islam. the novel emergent standards of thinking were not only postulated and established as intellectual and reasoned, but imperial powers also sanctioned them. following the western expansion into africa, asia and america, islam came to be viewed from a more dominant western perspective.10 allen pointed out that the west was becoming more powerful in these colonized lands—a power that was tied to the processes of colonization.11 a sense of western superiority, characterized by imperialism, pragmatism, and absolute contempt for islamic civilization, predominated. the mythical east enchanted the west, whose growing poverty and backwardness only added to its allure; this was aided by specialized scholarship known as "orientalism," which focused increasingly on the great ages of the past.12 in other words, the colonized lands of the muslim world became a golden goose for the colonial masters’ geopolitical agendas.13 perhaps, that is why edward said defined orientalism as "a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the orient (geographical entity)”—a geopolitical strategy.14 while turning the pages from the 18th to the 20th centuries, loomba found that possibly there had never been a time in history when "the west" and "the east" had been so divided as this period has witnessed. the scholar said that through romanticized and fetishistic stories, the east was becoming everything that the west was not. the establishment of the "orient" in relation to the "occident" created a separate notion of "them" (arabs and near eastern people) and "us" (western people), and as a result, the orientals were assigned the features of "otherness." despite their underlying differences, the colonial enterprises of various western nations exhibited similar behaviour and developed a distinct sense of "outsiders"—both those who roamed far away on the fringes of the world and those who (such 12 from islamophobia to … as the irish) lurked uncomfortably closer to home. consider the english, french, dutch, spanish, and portuguese colonialists who, among other things, blamed turks, africans, native americans, jews, indians, and the irish for "laziness, aggression, violence, greed, sexual promiscuity and deviance, female masculinity and male effeminacy, bestiality, primitivism, innocence, and irrationality."15 one of the consequences of this blame game was that western administrators became prejudiced against the muslim population within the west. to explain this newly emerging hostile attitude of french administrators toward the muslim population, alain quellien used the french term "islamophobie,"16 which the runnymede report defined as anti-muslim prejudice.17 in essence, prejudice is a negative attitude that stems from two emotions: "ignorance" and "fear," with the former causing the latter.18 however, modern "fear" of islam is not caused by ignorance because nathan lean’s work (2017) demonstrates that "some people purposefully nurture it and use it as a political strategy.”19 in fact, it is “a contrived fear fomented by the existing eurocentric and orientalist global power structure" directed at a perceived or real muslim problem.20 this implies that as orientalism gave way to new orientalism,21 "the orient" was perceived and portrayed as a "problem" within the west (the occident), rather than a geographical entity beyond the western border.22 this marks the end of old islamophobia (orientalism), which has served as a geopolitical strategy, and the beginning of "neo-islamophobia," which now serves as a bio-political strategy of governance in which michel foucault claims the subject is the administration of life and populations, with the ultimate goal of ensuring, sustaining and multiplying life to put life in order.23 though its political agenda appears to have shifted, its operational style appears to have remained consistent. it operates as "discourses" combined with "practices" that first appeared in the political and public spheres with the integration of muslim immigrant communities into western societies and have intensified since the tragedy of 9/11.24 islamophobic discourses define islam and/or muslims as a problem that needs to be solved, while islamophobic practices legitimize and normalize these definitions in the collective consciousness of a given society. this points to the state-centric process of securitization, which begins with discourse and ends with practices.25 and hence, this study examines islamophobic discourses within the framework of securitization theory to determine what causes islamophobia to manifest as neo-islamophobia—a world in which fear of and hatred for islam become the new normal. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 13 3. theoretical framework george orwell once said, “do you begin to see then, what kind of world we are creating? it is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic utopia that the old reformers imagined. a world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself.”26 the climate of fear and cultural mistrust is one of the grim aspects of contemporary western societies, but mark juergensmeyer believes it is not by chance.27 in everyday life, fears and phobias are thought to have influenced the way we perceive, behave, and treat others, particularly those who happen to be the "other." the preceding section explained how the west has long portrayed muslims as the "orient" the “other.” phobias also play an important role in politics as a governance strategy by eliciting popular sentiments and (re)actions in a given society.28 koutrolikou found out that agamben's discourse on the "state of exception" (2005), furedi's discourse on the "politics of fear" (2005), klein's “shock doctrine” (2007), foucault's discourse on “safety and security” (2007) and on “bio-power” (1998), all have discussed the use of phobias in the governance domain.29 then contemporary islamophobia, of course, stands as no exception. it is currently one of the most popular governance strategies in the west. this governance style arose due to the developing of a discourse framing securitization as a "risk" society.30 take belgian prime minister charles michel, for example, who claims, "when we speak about europe, we speak only about the crisis: the refugee crisis, budgetary crisis, financial crisis."31 also, the extant literature depicts a picture of the western world rife with islamophobic thoughts and actions that have surfaced or resurfaced as a result of crisis narratives, with securitization serving as the primary crisis narrative.32 for copenhagen school scholars, "securitization" is an extreme version of politicization with two dimensions: discourse and practice.33 the former initiates the securitization process, while the latter "locks in" the securitization.34 however, basar baysal divides this process into three phases, the first of which is crucial because securitization cannot start without a security “definition.” in this phase, political leaders and high-level decision-makers play a critical role and have a significant discursive impact because they have a voice.35 media, the machinery of representation,36 plays an important role in this process because they expose those voices to a larger audience, resulting in greater acceptance, rejection, and reactions.37 when an issue is securitized, it 14 from islamophobia to … is said to be an "existential threat," it takes on a distinct character based on a "friend-vs.-enemy" dichotomy and urgency.38 in this case, neo-islamophobia could be defined as a hostile attitude toward muslims based on the image of islam as an "enemy" threatening westerners’ well-being and even the survival of the west.39 though the western imagination had long held an image of islam as an enemy, the modern story of islam as a new enemy of the west began with the framing of the 1979 iranian revolution as a "return to an extreme orthodoxy in islam" and the assertions like islam is "anti-western in nature.".40 given the historically hostile and polarised relationship between the western and the islamic worlds, this was a crucial chapter in the modern history of islam that offered reasons for western powers to define it as a “new enemy”.41 then, the media, the government, geopolitical strategists, and academic islam experts all of the belief that islam was a "threat to western civilization."42 they portrayed islam as a "security problem", problematizing this religion as being "ideological" and its followers as an "existential" threat.43 the first seems to be the continuation of a historically inherited perception of islam as a "political threat," in which it was seen as a political religion and muslims as those who exploit religious dimensions for political or military gains.44 in contemporary political and security debates, as well as media discourses, the identification of islam with violence perpetrated by islamist groups was common, with terms such as islamic fanaticism, islamic extremism, and islamic terrorism frequently used to associate islam with the phenomena of fanaticism, extremism, and terrorism, rather than islamist groups such as al-qaeda.45 as a result, islam and muslims have both been associated with a wide range of negative qualities. the second threat perception concerns only muslim immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. take the phenomenon of political islam, for example, which was also considered a "civilizational–cultural awakening" and thereby framed as a "revolt against the west"—an immediate threat to the dominant culture.46 framing islam as a hostile ideology may cause significant concerns for local culture and, in the long run, pose significant threats to the dominant cultural (social) order; muslims may pose similar threats to the dominant social order because they practice islamic culture.47 in this context, muslim immigration has become a hot topic in western political, security, and media debates.48 in these debates, muslim immigrants were framed as a threat to the survival of western ways of life in europe and the united states; europeans saw the threat of immigration as muslim or arab, whereas americans saw it as latin american and asian, focusing on mexicans.49 once an issue is securitized, it becomes a top priority, and extraordinary measures against that security problem are legitimized. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 15 the second phase is the construction phase, where the problem is constructed as a unique security threat. to do that, the audience (public) is persuaded of the security definition established in the first phase, and this security understanding is normalized and routinized through security practices.50 in the wake of the islamic revolution in iran, for example, defining islam as an "enemy" of the west has reinforced the perception that islam poses an ideological threat to the survival of western socio-political systems and that muslims in the west constitute a threat to the cultural and economic health of western society.51 these perceptions not only provided substance and a definitional framework for what was perceived to be islamophobia in the late 20th century but also justified anti-muslim practices that persist in the west today, such as "discrimination" and "exclusion". however, the societal impact of these practices in the west after 9/11 went beyond what the earliest and most recent runnymede reports identified as islamophobia.52 consider exclusionary practices, which keep excluded subjects (in this case, muslims) from contacting, communicating with, or working with mainstream society. these practices typically involve structural operations such as using extraordinary measures, such as violence, which can violate fundamental human rights.53 western states, for example, instilled irrational fear of islam and mainstream muslims in the aftermath of 9/11 and the subsequent "war on terror" rather than focusing on a dangerous and lethal minority of religious fanatics and terrorists.54 as a result, the united states enacted strict immigration laws aimed specifically at muslims, increased airport surveillance, and random questioning upon arrival, resulting in detentions.55 similarly, in europe, belgium’s ban on the burka/veil, switzerland's proposal to prohibit the construction of minarets (or mosque cupolas) as a sign of "islamization," french president nicolas sarkozy's declaration that french citizenship requires full integration or assimilation into french culture or lifestyle, his government's subsequent refusal to grant citizenship to a muslim woman because she insisted on wearing the burka, and german chancellor angela merkel’s emphasis that “mosque cupolas” should not be higher than "church steeples".56 these were not isolated incidents of muslim securitization; they were manifestations of state-driven islamophobia based on islam's enemy image. on the other hand, these incidents point out that the securitization of islam is, in effect, the securitization of muslims.57 according to securitization theory, security practices directed at muslims may exacerbate others’ fears of islam, thus normalizing and routinizing islamophobic tendencies among the people.58 the last phase focuses on how the securitization of one group (in this case, muslims) leads to insecuritization consequences for others (in this case, westerners) in a given society.59 consider the 16 from islamophobia to … surveillance of muslim subjects, for example, which has been engrained in western societies “from online to onlife” functioning as a security apparatus of control and a source of insecurity.60 surveillance practices are critical in global population management and containment, resulting in the emergence of a global “banopticon” aimed in part at containing foreigners (muslim immigrants) on the margins. it has become a new form of governmentality of liberal regimes that didier bigo calls a banopticon dispositif. that dispositif is characterized by “exceptionalism” within liberalism, a logic of “exclusion” resting upon the construction of profiles that frame which is “abnormal” and upon the imperative of freedom transformed into a “normalization” of social groups whose behaviours are monitored for their present and their future.61 this logic means that the surveillance of those characterized as “suspects” and “dangerous” sits at the heart of policing rather than the universal surveillance of wider society.62 currently, muslims in the us and european societies are being profiled, monitored, and targeted for sting operations by law enforcement; mosques, islamic institutions, muslim civil rights organizations, and charity organisations are all being watched, suspected, and accused of defending or supporting extremists without clear evidence.63 on the other hand, using surveillance technologies to contain the muslim population is a prelude to a larger strategy of social engineering and discipline aimed at “inclusion” into mainstream society. using surveillance to manage and contain a given population, according to qurashi, provides the detailed knowledge required to see the population and break it down into manageable units. likewise, the surveillance gaze makes it possible for a population to be understood, which is required for it to become a site of action: identifying the “risks” that must be neutralized; unacceptable, abnormal behaviours and ideas that must be disciplined using extending social norms to shape thoughts and behaviours.64 this process corresponds to foucault's concept of “soul training,” which he identified in his “panopticon model,” which aims to transform individuals so that they monitor their own behaviour in accordance with prescribed social order, to the point where the boundaries between “acceptable” and “unacceptable,” as well as “normal” and “abnormal,” are realigned.65 in this way, surveillance practices paved the way for the neo-phenomenon, distorting the lens through which muslims are viewed in the west to the point where even their identity has become unacceptable and is seen as an existential threat.66 contemporarily, the fear of islam has become so common in western popular culture that it has come to represent an islamophobic social order in some parts of the west—a neophenomenon where hate for islam is the new normal. to summarize, the securitization of islam, and therefore of muslims as a new social and political order, is a manifestation of hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 17 “neo-islamophobia”, a population-ruling strategy that leads to establishing an islamophobic society. this strategy is a three-part process: first, discursive practices to define islam as a source of terror and to convince the audience (public) of muslims being a horde of chained devils ready to attack the west at any moment; second, normalizing and routinizing these definitions through security practices directed at islamic subjects or objects; and third, the public’s insecurities about islam and muslims as a result of these practices. arguably, the net outcome of this process is a social order replete with islamophobic thoughts and actions, in which everyone fears islam and is thus forced to dislike this religion and everything it represents, regardless of personal inclinations. however, securitization is a phenomenon that, according to baysal, lasts until the issue is fully desecuritized.67 in this sense, “neo-islamophobia” could be regarded as an ongoing phenomenon in the west, especially in light of the literature cited above, which indicates rising fears and insecurities about islam and muslims in western societies, particularly the united states. this necessitates an investigation into neo-islamophobia in the united states, which manifests in stereotypical media coverage of islam and muslims, just like old islamophobia.68 to investigate that, the current study looks at the representations of muslims in the us media and how neo-islamophobia is manifested in these representations. the researchers use the following methodology to answer this question. 4. methodology this study looks into “neo-islamophobia” as a result of islam and/or muslims being securitized. securitization analyses generally employ a diverse set of data. the starting point for researching the securitization of muslim migration by the far-right, for example, is to begin with the far-right parties’ programmes, manifestos, and, in general, all official documents in which they express their position on islam and muslim migrants. however, this may not be enough because the language can be strictly controlled.69 thus, the researchers collected data from the mainstream us press, including newspapers and wire services, and also because gerlinde mautner claims these are the most obvious sources for studying dominant discourses, in this case, islamophobic narratives.70 the data was searched through the "lexis-nexis" database by using the terms “muslim” and “islam”, which yielded a total of 3153 articles (including news reports and leading articles) published in the us wires and newspapers during the three-month period from november 2016 to january 2017. this time period is significant in news coverage because it includes donald trump’s announcements about halting muslim migration to the united states to combat islamist terror. this period may be considered a critical discourse moment, 18 from islamophobia to … and such moments can challenge the established discursive positions.71 there are several approaches to studying media discourses, but the content and discourse analysis are two of the most common. the researchers employed the discourse-historical approach (dha) since it provides the methodology for studying how prejudiced ideologies, such as islamophobia or neo-islamophobia, are linguistically constructed, as well as how discriminatory or exclusionary practices are prepared, legitimized, and normalized through discourse.72 this methodology employs two levels of qualitative analysis: entry-level, which concentrates on content and related “surface” aspects, and in-depth analysis, which focuses on pragmatic, rhetorical, and argumentative features and patterns of discursive representations.73 this analysis began with a review of all 3153 articles to determine their relevance to the topic of the study. for this review, each article was read critically several times. it enabled the researchers to reduce the data set to a manageable sample size of 187 articles, then processed for entry-level and in-depth analyses. within the entry-level analysis, the main category is discourse topics, defined in dha as units summarising the meaning of entire texts.74 this analysis involves several open-ended reads of every article, with special attention given to headlines and leading paragraphs to determine the discourse topic of an article.75 whereas in-depth analysis entails investigating discursive strategies of “positive self” and “negative other” presentation. these strategies include nomination strategies that employ membership categorization devices, like biological, naturalizing, and depersonalizing metaphors, metonymies, and synecdoches, to represent social actors, particularly in-groups and out-groups; predictional strategies that attribute positive and negative stereotypical characteristics to these actors; and argumentation strategies that justify and legitimize these positive and negative attributions to the social actors.76 the expressions, which are part of the argumentation, collectively constitute a complex “speech act” aimed at persuading a certain audience and changing behaviour.77 5. key findings at the entry-level, this analysis looked at all 3153 articles to determine their relevance to the study and to identify dominant discourse topics. it has already been established that islamophobia (and neo-islamophobia) emerges from negative representations of muslims and/or islam.78 so all those articles that simply mentioned the terms “muslim” or “islam” were excluded from the analysis. this hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 19 revealed 187 articles that contained negativities towards muslims or islam. following that, these articles (187) were investigated for dominant discourse topics. the table below summarizes the findings of this investigation, indicating the number of articles classified under each topic as well as the absolute percentage: table-1: discourse topics identified in the entery-level analysis: number of articles and percentage discourse topics no. of articles percentage (n=187) muslims in burma 02 01.07 veil/burqa/hijab ban 06 03.21 islamist extremism and terrorism 21 11.22 mosques and religious noise 08 04.28 hate groups 02 01.07 muslim immigration 62 33.16 hate crimes 86 45.99 total 187 100 table 1 shows that “hate crimes” against muslims were the most frequently discussed topics in the us press discourse, followed by “muslim immigration” and “islamist extremism and terrorism”. a hate crime is a criminal offence against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.79 the “hate crimes” reported in the us press ranged from verbal and physical abuse against muslim students, headscarves, and hijab-wearing women and girls in schools and public places to harassing or beating muslims on the street. they also included sending hate mail to islamic centres and mosques, spray painting slurs on mosques, and vandalizing mosques. given the commonly held belief that the media portrays social reality, it is reasonable to conclude that the most frequent coverage of hate crimes in the us press presents a picture of a society where enmity against islam and muslims is a public attitude, pointing to a neo-phenomenon. these findings raise the question of what motivated these hate crimes, or more specifically, whether fear of muslims or fear of islam motivated the collective anti-muslim behaviour of us society. the section that follows attempts to answer this question in light of the data that has been analyzed. 6. discussion in-depth analysis of the articles classified as “hate crimes” revealed that fear of islam was the motivating factor behind all of these crimes, regardless of whether they were committed against muslim individuals, muslim objects, or muslim places. consider the 20 from islamophobia to … anonymous threatening letter sent to mosques in the us, in which muslims are described as “vile”, “evil”, “filthy people”, “the children of satan”, and “worship the devil”.80 or, consider the “open letter to muslims in america”, published in the news-leader, in which the writer (rush) questions muslims, saying, “do you not realize [...] that people claiming affiliation with your faith (islam) are killing innocent people all over the world and boast about doing it at the behest and approval of your god (allah), your prophet (muhammad) and many of your religious leaders (imams and islamic clerics)?”81 or, take a man, for example, who once yelled at a muslim player (shalaby), “nobody, nobody, nobody wants your evil cult in this county”.82 these are just a few examples from us society reported in the press that show how fear of islam transforms people into bigots and drives them to commit acts of verbal and physical aggression against muslim individuals and muslim objects and places. these findings prompt the question of “who and why” enforces or reinforces this fear in a society’s general cognitive framework. in order to find an answer, the researchers looked at external voices (arguments) that were made part of us press discourse in the form of direct and indirect quotations. the researchers found that donald trump’s anti-muslim rhetoric during the 2016 presidential campaign sparked a flood of anti-muslim sentiments in communities across the us.83 some survey reports reported by the press also confirm these findings. for instance, many texts cited the southern poverty law center’s (splc) report, which reported an alarming number of incidents of hateful intimidation and harassment against muslims nationwide since the november 8, 2016 elections and claimed that many of these incidents involved direct references to president-elect trump’s campaign and slogans.84 jeanette mendez, head of oklahoma state university’s political science department, was quoted in a text and believed that “trump’s victory is inspiring individuals to openly launch threats against their perceived enemies” and “exposing long-standing racism and bigotry in american culture”. 85 in another quotation found, muslim commentator anis shakirah mohd appeared to support this viewpoint, saying that trump’s victory legitimized and normalized islamophobic tendencies in many communities, raising them to new heights and empowering some to commit hate crimes against muslims.86 the above findings are consistent with those reported by khaled beydoun, who claimed that trump capitalized on islamophobia as a “full-fledged campaign strategy” to become the 45th president of the united states.87 he also dubbed trump the first “islamophobia president”, accusing him of ushering in an islamophobic society in which people with an islamic outlook have become unacceptably foreign to americans.88 consider a note left by hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 21 unidentified assailants after attacking the car of a woman wearing a hijab, calling her a “bitch” and telling her to “get the fout” because “this is our nation”,89 or another incident in which a woman screamed at a female shopper wearing a hijab, “you're a terrorist”, “get out of here”.90 on one hand, these public manifestations of anti-muslim prejudice demonstrate that “with an increased fear of islamic extremist terrorism, the symbol of the hijab has become associated with fear.”91 and on the other hand, this fear seems to be the direct result of trump’s rhetoric, which was publicized by the media. he “repeatedly made comments about muslims that demonized an entire faith and community”,92 such as, “i think islam hates us” and said it's difficult to separate “radical” islam from islam itself.93 in his public statements, he often used the term “radical islam” to refer to “threats posed by terrorist groups” such as the islamic state.94 at one point, he advocated for a ban on people from terrorist-infested countries to protect the country from terrorism, arguing that “there are territories, terror states, and terror nations that we’re not going to allow the people to come into our country”.95 while at another point, he advocated for a total and complete ban on muslims entering the us, proposing that “anyone who believes shari‘ah law supplants american law will not be given an immigrant visa”.96 trump’s politicized fear of islam, as well as his publicized calls for a muslim ban, all point to a mediated process of securitization. according to the facts revealed thus far, this mediated process has resulted in a new islamophobic reality in us society, where hatred for islam seems to be the new normal. how did the media contribute to this neophenomenon? according to stuart hall, the media has the power to include those voices that align with their agendas and exclude those that do not, and that wider publicity may get wider reactions.97 a close examination of the discursive strategies used for muslims in the us press revealed that they frequently represented leading politicians’ and high-level decision-makers’ anti-islam sentiments in order to make their personal prejudices against muslims general. consider the arguments of former czech president milos zeman, who once “urged citizens to arm themselves against a possible “super-holocaust” carried out by muslim terrorists”.98 or think about the assertions made by mr. fillon, a former french prime minister, that radical islam represents “totalitarianism like the nazis”.99 he proposed that “we’ve got to reduce immigration to its strict minimum” because “our country is not a sum of communities; it is an identity!”100 or consider trump’s nominee for attorney general, sen. jeff sessions (r-ala.), who has backed the president-elect’s demand for a temporary ban on muslim immigration, claiming that a “toxic ideology” lies at the root of islam.101 or, consider trump’s designee for national security 22 from islamophobia to … advisor, michael t. flynn, who describes islam as a “political ideology” and compares it to “malignant cancer”.102 the perception of islam as a political religion, or the socalled “script” of islamism, is not new to us society because it is the official version of the us authorities on islam, particularly since the tragedy of 9/11. consider us former president george w. bush’s september 20, 2001, address to a joint session of congress, in which he stated that “our enemy is a radical network of terrorists”.103 however, the enemy is no longer the muslim groups blamed for terrorism, but rather all muslims, as reflected in flynn's statement found in us press discourse, in which he claimed that islamism is the same as nazism and fascism, that it is a “vicious cancer inside the bodies of 1.7 billion people” that must be “excised”,104 and that “fear of muslims is rational”.105 in this example, the disease metaphor described islam as a whole rather than just the muslim groups suspected of supporting terrorism. and, after the media (press, in this case) made such arguments and other anti-islam sentiments of leading politicians, high-level decision-makers, and security experts public, it is reasonable to assume that anyone who appears to be muslim in us society is accused of terrorism and is considered a terrorist, just like the hijab-wearing women who were targeted in hate crimes due to their islamic identity. these facts reflect a new reality: muslims are perceived by americans as enemies, not friends, and this perception was created by leading politicians and those in positions of authority and now extends beyond the ruling class. take, for example, an incident of hate crime reported by the us press in which a longmont resident (harry mcnevin) displayed a homemade sign bearing an anti-muslim message in front of his home: “muslim’s kill muslim’s (sic) if they don't agree. where does that leave you, ‘infidel’.” he said the message expresses his belief that muslims are a threat and should not enter the country and that “they’re not our friends, they’re our enemies”.106 these findings point to the following conclusion for this study. 7. conclusion this study concludes that “islamophobia”, also generally referred to be a form of orientalism, is a historical construct that was officially sanctioned by the vienne council in 1312 as a discursive strategy to deal with the arising challenges of islam in the form of the ottoman empire’s expansion into europe. later, it was used to facilitate european imperialist projects in the muslim world, giving way to prejudice against the muslim population within the west. it has now come to represent a governance strategy in which political elites and state functionaries use rhetoric to instill fear of islam in the public, causing the general population to be prejudiced against hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 23 muslims on a societal level, making muslims in society unacceptably foreign to the dominant culture, and thus transforming the existing social order into an islamophobic one. the findings in the preceding section demonstrated an islamophobic society in which muslims were the targets of hate crimes primarily because of their islamic identity and that this new societal syndrome was developed due to trump and his advisors’ anti-islam rhetoric, which was widely publicized by the media. these signs and symptoms point to a new form of islamophobia that goes beyond what is typically understood by the term. the term “islamophobia” in the us requires the prefix “neo” to account for its new political functions and the resulting social symptoms that are taking the shape of an islamophobic order in the us society. “neoislamophobia” thus refers to a new style of governance adopted by some western politicians (donald trump, in this case) who capitalized on islamophobia as a political strategy to gain power, thereby shaping the existing social order into an islamophobic one. this means the west is entering a new phase of islamic fear, where people are forced to hate islam and everything it stands for. the researchers, therefore, recommend more research into this neophenomenon to find solutions. perhaps it is not simply “neoislamophobia”, social scientists must admit that this is an ideal state that is assuming the form of social order for the west, but it will be disastrous if it occurs. consider: one cannot live in comfort and peace in the united states unless one dislikes and despises communism, russia, and al-qaeda/isis/daesh; in israel unless one despises palestinians and does not consider palestine to be a jewish land; in the west, as a whole, unless one recognizes north korea as a scar on the face of the globe; and the same has been developing in the west towards muslims and islam. such a remorseful state of affairs has reduced respect for places of religious worship, people from other religious ideologies, and people of colour in the west. this research may pave the way for western policymakers to understand that this anathema has a huge potential to put their peace at risk and develop policies that prohibit state functionaries from using islamophobic language. it could also urge the media not to publicize such language, in turn benefiting not only muslims in the west but the west as a whole. 8. notes and references 1 see, iqbal, zafar. islamophobia: history, context and deconstruction. india: sage, 2020; and tariq, muhammad, zafar iqbal, and fazal rahim khan. 24 from islamophobia to … “construction of islam and the muslims in the usa: evidence from print media.” journal of islamic thought and civilization 11, no. 2 (2021). 2 lewis, bernard. islam and the west (new york: oxford university press, 1994). 3 bleich, erik. “what is islamophobia and how much is there? theorizing and measuring an emerging comparative concept.” american behavioral scientist 55, no. 12 (2011), 1582. 4 beydoun, khaled a. american islamophobia: understanding the roots and rise of fear. uni of california press, 2018, 36. 5 said, edward w. orientalism (new york: vintage books, 1978), 49-50. 6 amin-khan, tariq. “new orientalism, securitisation and the western media's incendiary racism.” third world quarterly 33, no. 9 (2012): 1595-610. 7 see, allaire, gloria. “noble saracen or muslim enemy? the changing image of the saracen in late medieval italian literature.” in western views of islam in medieval and early modern europe, 173-84: springer, 1999; bisaha, nancy. “new barbarian” or worthy adversary? humanist constructs of the ottoman turks in fifteenth-century italy." in western views of islam in medieval and early modern europe, 185-205: springer, 1999; and lewis, islam and the west. 8 lumbard, joseph eb. islam, fundamentalism, and the betrayal of tradition: essays by western muslim scholars. world wisdom, inc, 2009, xii. 9 lewis, islam and the west, 180. 10 see, allen, chris. islamophobia. england: ashgate publishing limited, 2010; lewis, islam and the west; and mignolo, walter d. local histories/global designs: coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking (princeton: princeton university press, 2012). 11 allen, islamophobia. 12 sadeghi, ali. “book review: maxime rodinson, europe and the mystique of islam, trans. r. veinus (london: ib tauris and co., 1988, 163pp.,£ 19.50 hbk.,£ 6.96 pbk.).” millennium 17, no. 3 (1988): 587-88. 13 mignolo, local histories/global designs. 14 said, orientalism, 3. 15 loomba, ania. “colonialism/postconialism: the new critical idiom.” london: routledge, 2015, 115. 16 quellien, alain. . la politique musulmane dans l'afrique occidentale française. larose, 1910, 10. 17 conway, gordon. islamophobia: a challenge for us all. runnymede trust london, 1997. 18 rosado, caleb. “the undergirding factor is power: toward an understanding of prejudice and racism.” critical multicultural pavilion: research room edchange project 2018, no. february 2 (1998), 1. 19 lean, nathan. the islamophobia industry: how the right manufactures hatred of muslims. 2nd ed. (london: pluto press, 2017), iii. 20 cherkaoui, mohammed. “part 1: the mediatized islamophobia in america: ideological precursors and identity politics.” aljazeera centre for studies, 2016, 6. 21 amin-khan, “new orientalism.” 22 fekete, liz. a suitable enemy: racism, migration and islamophobia in europe (london: pluto press, 2009), 193. 23 foucault, michel. the will to knowledge: the history of sexuality. vol. 1, (new york: pantheon books, 1998), 138. 24 cesari, jocelyne. “securitization and religious divides in europe: muslims in western europe after 9/11: why the term islamophobia is more a predicament than an explanation.” submission to the changing landscape of citizenship security 6th pcrd of european commission içinde (2006). 25 see, cesari, jocelyne. “securitization of islam in europe.” die welt des islams 52, no. 3-4 (2012): 430-49; hansen, martin. “to securitize or not to securitize, that is the question: a study looking at the portrayal of muslims in the swedish social democratic party’s security discourse.” lund university, 2016; and messina, anthony m. “‘securitizing’ immigration in europe: sending them the same (old) hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 25 message, getting the same (old) reply?”. in handbook on migration and social policy: edward elgar publishing, 2016. 26 furedi, frank. politics of fear: beyond left and right. new york: continuum international publishing group, 2005, 1. 27 lean, the islamophobia industry, iii. 28 koutrolikou, penny. “manufacturing the avaton and the ghetto: places of fear in the centre of athens.” in manufacturing phobias: the political production of fear in theory and practices (london: university of toronto press), 2018. 29 ibid, 270. 30 ma, michael ck, and davina bhandar. “7. phobia in an age of post-migrant rights: the criminalization of tamil refugees.” in manufacturing phobias (toronto: university of toronto press, 2018), 175. 31 sperling, james, and mark webber. “the european union: security governance and collective securitisation.” west european politics 42, no. 2 (2019): 228-60. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2018.1510193, 2. 32 vidra, zsuzsanna. “dominant islamophobic narratives: hungary.” working paper. budapest: central european university, centre for ethnicity, 2017. 33 buzan, barry, jaap de wilde, and ole wæver. security: a new framework for analysis. lynne rienner publishers, 1998. 34 bourbeau, philippe. “moving forward together: logics of the securitisation process.” millennium journal of international studies 43, no. 1 (2014): 195. 35 baysal, başar. “20 years of securitization: strengths, limitations and a new dual framework.” uluslararasi iliskiler 17, no. 67 (2020): 3-20. 36 miller, david. “media power and class power: overplaying ideology.” in media and left, edited by savaş çoban, (leiden: brill publishers, 2015), 44-66. 37rychnovská, dagmar. “securitization and the power of threat framing.” perspectives: review of central european affairs, no. 2 (2014): 9-32. 38 baysal, “20 years of securitization.” 39 lópez, fernando. “towards a definition of islamophobia: approximations of the early twentieth century.” ethnic and racial studies 34, no. 4 (2011), 469. 40 shuja, sharif m. “islamic revolution in iran and the american media.” pakistan horizon 35, no. 3 (1982), 62. 41 see, esposito, john l. “foreword.” in fear of muslims?: international perspectives on islamophobia, edited by douglas pratt and rachel woodlock, v-vii. switzerland: springer, 2016; poole, elizabeth anne. “british islam: media representations and social meanings.” university of leicester, 1999; and said, edward w. “covering islam: how the media and the experts determine how we see the rest of the world.” new york: pantheon (1981). 42 said, "covering islam," 136. 43 iqbal, islamophobia, 197. 44 yilmaz, ihsan. "the nature of islamophobia: some key features." in fear of muslims?: international perspectives on islamophobia, edited by rachel woodlock and douglas pratt, (switzerland: springer, 2016), 20-21. 45 see, elgambri, elzain. islam in the british broadsheets: the impact of orientalism on representation of islam. uk: ithaca press, 2008: poole, elizabeth anne. “reporting islam: media representations and british muslims.” dissertation, university of leicester, 2002; and tariq, muhammad, zafar iqbal, and fazal rahim khan. "construction of islam and the muslims in the usa: evidence from print media." journal of islamic thought and civilization 11, no. 2 (2021). 46 tibi, bassam. “the totalitarianism of jihadist islamism and its challenge to europe and to islam.” totalitarian movements and political religions 8, no. 1 (2007): 37. 47 hansen, “to securitize or not to securitize.” 48 see, cesari, “securitization of islam”; and hussain, yasmin, and paul bagguley. “securitized citizens: islamophobia, racism and the 7/7 london bombings.” the sociological review 60, no. 4 (2012): 715-34. 49 huntington, samuel p. the clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. new york: simon & schuster inc., 1996, 202-203. https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2018.1510193 26 from islamophobia to … 50 baysal, “20 years of securitization,” 15. 51 see, iqbal, islamophobia; poole, “british islam”; and said, “covering islam.” 52 see, conway, islamophobia; and elahi, farah, and omar khan. “islamophobia: still a challenge for us all.” london: runnymede trust (2017). 53 qurashi, fahid. “the prevent strategy and the uk ‘war on terror’: embedding infrastructures of surveillance in muslim communities.” palgrave communications 4, no. 1 (2018): 1-13. 54 esposito, “foreword.” 55 ghughunishvili, irina. “securitization of migration in the united states after 9/11: constructing muslims and arabs as enemies.” master’s thesis, central european university, 2010. 56 ramadan, hisham. “conflicts of rights: free speech, freedom to practise a religion, and the social phobia mighty machine.” chap. 2 in manufacturing phobias: the political production of fear in theory and practice, edited by hisham ramadan and jeff shantz, 27-50: (toronto: university of toronto press, 2016), 3435. 57 hansen, “to securitize or not to securitize.” 58 baysal, “20 years of securitization.” 59 ibid. 60 lyon, david. the culture of surveillance: watching as a way of life (new jersey: john wiley & sons, 2018). 61 bigo, didier, and anastassia tsoukala. terror, insecurity and liberty: illiberal practices of liberal regimes after 9/11. routledge studies in liberty and security. edited by didier bigo, elspeth guild and r.b.j. walker (london: routledge, 2008), 2. 62 qurashi, “infrastructures of surveillance in muslim communities.” 63 see, cesari, “securitization of islam”; and esposito, “foreword.” 64 qurashi, “infrastructures of surveillance in muslim communities.” 65 see, ibid.; foucault, michel. discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. new york: vintage books, 1991; and lyon, david. the electronic eye: the rise of surveillance society (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1994). 66 see, cesari, “securitization of islam”; esposito, “foreword”; pratt, douglas, and rachel woodlock. fear of muslims?: international perspectives on islamophobia. springer, 2016; and sayyid, salman. “a measure of islamophobia.” islamophobia studies journal 2, no. 1 (2014): 10-25. 67 baysal, “20 years of securitization.” 68 bazian, hatem. “islamophobia, “clash of civilizations”, and forging a post-cold war order!”. religions 9, no. 9 (2018): 282. 69 balzacq, thierry. “enquiries into methods: a new framework for securitization analysis.” in securitization theory: how security problems emerge and dissolve, edited by thierry balzacq, 45-68: routledge, 2011, 41. 70 mautner, gerlinde. “analyzing newspapers, magazines and other print media.” in qualitative discourse analysis in the social sciences, edited by ruth; wodak and michal krzyzanowski, 30-53. (china: palgrave macmillan, 2008), 32. 71 carvalho, anabela. “media (ted) discourse and society: rethinking the framework of critical discourse analysis.” journalism studies 9, no. 2 (2008): 166. 72 wodak, ruth, and martin reisigl. discourse and discrimination: rhetorics of racism and antisemitism. routledge, 2001. 73 khosravinik, majid, michał krzyżanowski, and ruth wodak. “dynamics of representation in discourse: immigrants in the british press.” in migrations: interdisciplinary perspectives, 283-95: springer, 2012, 286. 74 ibid., 286 75 carvalho, “media (ted) discourse and society.” 76 wodak, ruth, and salomi boukala. “european identities and the revival of nationalism in the european union: a discourse historical approach.” journal of language and politics 14, no. 1 (2015): 93-94. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 27 77 van eemeren, frans h, and rob grootendorst. a systematic theory of argumentation: the pragma-dialectical approach (cambridge university press, 2004), 2. 78 bazian, “islamophobia.” 79 parker, micaela. “local muslims concerned about nationwide trend; rise in hate crimes ‘troubling,’ but utica remains calm.” observer-dispatch (utica, new york), november 27 2016. 80 see, abram, susan. “police hunt authors of hateful letters; the fbi doesn't consider the communications a hate crime.” inland valley daily bulletin, november 29 2016; and castillo, andrea, and fresno bee. “fresno islamic cultural center receives letter threatening muslim genocide, praising trump.” fresno bee, november 28 2016. 81 pokin, steve. “what is fair in how we view muslims?” springfield news-leader, january 11 2017. 82 dvorak, petula. “in va., civic rules used as a guise for islamophobia.” the washington post january 3 2017. 83 lin, denise. “muslim students discuss islamophobia and implications of 2016 election.” daily bruin, november 21 2016. 84 see, castillo, andrea, and fresno bee. “fresno islamic cultural center receives letter threatening muslim genocide, praising trump.” fresno bee, november 28 2016; hernandez, a. “hate motivated incident touches home.” queens tribune, november 17 2016; and ravani, s. “hiker with headscarf targeted in hate crime; ill woman wearing headscarf targeted in anti-muslim hate.” the san francisco chronicle., november 17 2016. 85dulaney, josh. “election fuels concerns about extremists.” the daily oklahoman, november 21 2016. 86muslimin, anis shakirah mohd. “let's talk, then fight racism.” the daily iowan, november 16 2016, pg. 1. 87 beydoun, american islamophobia. 88see, beydoun, khaled a. “donald trump: the islamophobia president: trump rose to power with an islamophobic campaign and islamophobia now will become his official policy.” aljazeera, 9 november 2016, opinion; and ibid. 89 ravani, “hiker with headscarf targeted in hate crime.” 90 writer, staff. “muslim shopper harassed by woman; smith's store staffers, bystanders intervene.” albuquerque journal (new mexico), november 26 2016. 91 crown, rosemond. “a test of faith: practicing islam at a catholic, american university.” hilltop news: st edward's university, november 28 2016. 92 khan, muktedar. “what trump can learn from muhammad.” the news journal (wilmington, delaware), november 27 2016. 93 castillo, “fresno islamic cultural center receives letter” 94 taylor, guy. “donald trump's team puts 'radical islam' front and center in terror fight.” the washington times, november 24 2016. 95 staggs, brooke edwards, and andrew edwards. “letter threatening muslims sent to long beach, claremont-area mosques.” the daily news of los angeles, november 27 2016. 96 hauslohner, abigail. “core of trump's islam stance has what once were considered radical seeds.” the washington post, november 6 2016, a04. 97 miller, “media power and class power,” 246. 98 erickson, amanda. “czech government tells its citizens how to fight terrorists: shoot them yourselves.” the washington post, january 11 2017. 99 nossiter, adam. “populist flair in france lifts a bid to lead.” the new york times, november 26 2016. 100 ibid. 101 warrick, joby; hauslohner, abigail. “national security choices stoke muslim fears of an anti-islamic white house.” the washington post, november 20 2016, a01. 28 from islamophobia to … 102 pérez-peña, richard, laurie goodstein, sharon otterman, and fernanda santos. “muslim americans speak of escalating worry.” the new york times, november 19 2016, 17. 103 elsheikh, elsadig, basima sisemore, and natalie ramirez lee. “legalizing othering: the united states of islamophobia.” (2017), 17. 104 taylor, “donald trump's team.” 105 warrick, “national security choices.” 106 arvesen, amelia. “longmont resident won't remove anti-muslim sign from front yard.” colorado daily, january 4, 2017. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii. no. 1 7 .. editorial it is with great pleasure that we present the first issue of the forty-seventh volume of hamdard islamicus for 2024, highlighting topics related to islamic studies, ranging from philosophical intricacies to practical applications within contemporary societies. in this issue, five articles have been selected that exemplify the breadth and depth of enquiry within islamic studies whose titles and summaries are as follows: the first article explores metaphysical realms in “the evaluation of the distinction of manifest (ẓāhir) and hidden (bāṭin) in the context of moral relativity in the thought of ibn al-‘arabī”, investigating the philosophical depths of ibn al-‘arabī's thought, understanding moral relativity, and the interplay between existence's manifest and hidden dimensions. the second article investigates the realm of epistemology in “an indepth analysis of al faruqi's theory of islamization of knowledge: a perspective from thomas kuhn's paradigm shift theory". comparing al faruqi's theory with thomas kuhn’s paradigm shift theory offers fresh insights into the islamization of knowledge, challenging conventional paradigms and opening new avenues for scholarly exploration. the third article, “fostering customer loyalty among muslim clients: strategies for islamic banks”, focuses on transitioning from theoretical frameworks to practical considerations. this article provides invaluable insights into the strategies employed by islamic banks to develop relationships with their clientele, emphasizing the importance of aligning business practices with islamic principles to enhance customer loyalty. the fourth article “issues on waqf and roles of waqf authorities: evidence from indonesia and singapore” provides a comparative analysis of ‘waqf’ practices in two diverse contexts. this article illuminates the multifaceted roles of waqf authorities and the challenges they face in preserving and managing waqf assets for the benefit of society. lastly, the fifth article “the evolution of islamic law in indonesia: a socio-historical perspective on its struggle for existence” covers socio-historical insights; this article traces the evolutionary trajectory of 8 editorial .. islamic law in indonesia, reflecting on its resilience amidst the everchanging socio-political landscape and its enduring struggle for recognition and legitimacy. in conclusion, the articles presented in this issue showcase the rich scholarship within islamic studies, from metaphysical contemplations to pragmatic endeavours. these insights may inspire continued dialogue, enquiry, and understanding in the pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment. finally, we sincerely thank all the authors who have chosen hamdard islamicus for their scholarly work. we highly value the feedback received from our readers and eagerly look forward to delving into essential topics within the realm of islamic studies in the future. dr. shabeer khan editor hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 113 book review https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.869 toward islamic english by ismā‘īl rājī al fārūqī, international islamic publishing house riyadh, saudi arabia and international institute of islamic thought, herndon, virginia u.s.a, 1416 a.h/1995 a.c. dr. ismā‘īl rājī al fārūqī (1339-1406 a.h/1921-1986 a.c) is widely recognized as an authority on islam and comparative religion. dr. al fārūqī was a dedicated and active academician. his educational training in philosophy took place at indiana and harvard university. he also engaged in the post-graduate study of islam at al-azhar university and christianity and judaism at mcgill university. he cofounded the international institute of islamic thought (iiit) and the association of muslim social scientists (amss). among his significant intellectual and academic contributions is his consistent emphasis on the islamization of knowledge and result-oriented interfaith dialogues. the present book, toward islamic english, extends the same discourse on the islamization of knowledge. however, the paradigm in which the book’s theme is described is more academic and relates to the methodological dimensions of studying islamic studies as an academic discipline. the association of the english language with british colonialism made many muslims develop strong reservations against the language. because of its affiliation with british colonialism, many muslims in the past felt reluctant to use english as a language for communication and intellectual practices. muslims, other religious communities, and diverse ethnic and indigenous groups no longer hold the ideological and political presumptions that there is a binary relationship between english and their respective cultural and religious identities in the post-colonial world. as a result, millions of muslims now use english as their first or second language, and more books on islam are published in it than in any other language. however, ismā‘īl rājī al fārūqī sees a severe anomaly in how muslim names and islamic theological terms are transliterated and translated, as the dominant practice shows no loyalty to meaning but to the norms of the target language. such an approach causes these names and terms to lose their semantic associations and religious connotations. https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.869 114 book review… to rectify this, al-faruqi proposes the introduction of “islamic english.” based on his linguistic diagnosis and remedy.1 dr. ismā‘īl rājī al fārūqī holds that the correct methodological approach towards islamic studies in academic domains is very crucial, as it relates to the historical, civilizational, literary, and cultural aspects of islam and is central to the correct interpretation and understanding of islam. the book toward islamic english deals with the same subject and is divided into four components. according to dr. al fārūqī, islamic english is the english language modified to enable it to carry islamic proper nouns and meaning without distortion and thus serve the linguistic needs of the muslim users of the english language. in this context, the author raises three crucial questions about islamic english. who are the muslim users of the english language? what is the nature of the distortion claimed to exist? what is the needed rectification? the author attempts to discuss these questions and their significance throughout the book. muslim users of the english language, as per dr. al fārūqī, are muslim citizens and permanent residents of english-speaking countries and non-citizen muslim students who are part of these countries for academic purposes. the term also includes the muslims of those countries where english is the official language, such as india, sri lanka, malaysia, nigeria, ghana, uganda, kenya, ethiopia, tanzania, and others in africa and around the globe. the category equally includes all those muslims, regardless of their country of residence, who have mastered or acquainted themselves with the english language and use it as a language of reading, research, writing, and communication. some of the considerations of this book involve the muslim users of all other languages that are not based on the arabic alphabet, thus making the number of persons involved more significant than those non-muslims for whom english is a mother tongue. suppose these muslims understand and employ correctly the rules related to islamic english. in that case, it will naturally influence non-muslim writers, thinkers, academicians, and commentators on islam, particularly the orientalists whose writings distort the meaning and ethos of islamic theological terms. dr. al fārūqī boldly asserts that the present situation of the english language, when it expresses matters concerning islam, its culture, history, and civilization, is chaotic. it constitutes an intellectual and spiritual disaster and carries a universal injustice against the human spirit. loyalty to islam is inseparable from allegiance to the holy qur’én, and commitment to it is inseparable from devotion to arabic, its language, and its form. any distortion in the arabic terms that connote an islamic value or any divine ṣifāt (attribute) or the name of muhammad (×aìrat muhammad hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 115 rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) or of his epithets or name of any other prophet of islam (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) or any quality of that prophet is not only a violation of the term but all that it represents in the context of islam. dr. al fārūqī exhorts that islamic terms have cultural, civilizational, spiritual, and historical implications. inappropriate and inadequate english equivalents of islamic terms during their transliteration leads to distortion of meaning. the author explains this by providing the following examples: suppose a name is a conjunction of ‘abd (servant) and one of the divine names; it would be blasphemous to misspell or mispronounce it, e.g. ‘abd al haqq (servant of allāh, the truth) as abd al hakk (servant of scratching). similarly, misspellings of the names of god combined with other words to make personal names, such as mumtaz al rehman instead of al rahmān, abd al ghafur (servant of wide and empty) instead of ‘abd al ghafūr (servant of the forgiving). using names like mohamet, mahomet, mohamed, mohamad, and maumet for prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) is also strongly objectionable from an islamic perspective. the word muhammad signifies someone who is praiseworthy, and ahmad means someone who praises god the most. conversely, some of the misnomers bear highly offensive connotations. 2 similarly, the terms mohammedanism or mohammedans are also misleading and signify some meaning not in line with the spirit of islam. muslims worship allāh only and not muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) who was the last and final messenger of allāh. dr. al fārūqī further argues that many arabic words are not translatable to english. muslims eager to present their meaning in english must be cautious enough to retain the original meaning of the arabic word and avoid using words that do not do justice to the word’s intended meaning. one of the critical arguments raised by dr. al fārūqī is that the meaning embedded in the arabic language of the holy qur’én is a precious legacy that no one is at liberty to tamper with or change. many arabic words and phrases are of divine provenance and are not separable from their arabic forms. arabic words should not suffer semantic loss and obliteration regarding their meaning. when their meaning is altered, transformed, and transvalued through translation, it is an irreparable loss to islam, muslims, and the human spirit. hence, for dr. al fārūqī, the word ṣalāh cannot be translated as prayer. being the supreme act of worship in islam, ṣalāh must be 116 book review… held five times a day for the purposes defined by sharê‘ah (islamic law). it should be entered only after ablutions and a solemn declaration of niyyah (intention). all this cannot be compressed into a word like prayer. therefore, the reason demands that ṣalāh should always be called ṣalāh. similarly, zakāh often translates as charity, alms-giving, or poor-due. these terms may refer to any voluntary act of giving anything to help those in need, termed ṣadaqah in islam. however, zakāh represents something entirely different. words like taqwā, ḥuda, qisṭ, waḥê, ṣiyām, ḥajj, fiqh, uṣul al-fiqh, ḥadīth, etc. have much more meaning in their arabic form than their english approximations are ever capable of carrying. giving them english translations reduces and ruins their sense of purpose. while discussing islamic english, dr. al fārūqī does not project the whole discourse as a violation of the english language but as its enrichment. neither does he discourage muslims from engaging in translation works. according to him, today, the english-speaking world needs islam’s religious and spiritual values more than at any other period. infusion of the english language with a new islamic vocabulary immune from any mistranslations is very beneficial not only for the english-speaking people themselves but for the world of which they are economic, political, and military leaders, contends dr. al fārūqī. since islam is the second largest and arguably fastestgrowing religion in many regions in the west, and since its resurgence is palpable worldwide and affects global affairs, its universal appeal makes the connection between it and english even more pertinent.3 towards the end of the book, dr. al fārūqī discusses the rules and regulations concerning the transliteration of arabic letters into their respective english equivalents. analysis of rules governing the transliteration of consonants, vowels, vowels following a consonant, initial vowels, and medial or final vowels are thoroughly examined. dr. al fārūqī has meticulously outlined the rules for translating arabic letters. further, the author suggests that phonetic transliteration should be avoided as much as possible. the linkage between words should be appropriately identified, and knowing where one word begins and ends and recognizing constituent words is equally necessary. general rules which will ensure rectification during translation are discussed in detail. these rules preserve arabic words’ meaning and purpose during their english translation. the author does not claim this list of rules to be exhaustive and suggests that further research is required in this field. since islam is taught at the college and university levels in non-arabic languages worldwide, the time has come to institute a common curriculum to guarantee the continuity of islamic knowledge despite its pursuit in languages other than arabic. these rectifications hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 117 shall maintain and preserve the islamic character and style of words, concepts, and terms put to use through translation and safeguard this discipline from falsification or alteration by improper translation. conclusion dr. al fārūqī propounds that every branch of knowledge should be islamized to reflect a consciousness determined by the principles and values of islam. according to him, there is a crying need for islamic scholarship to establish those key concepts, categories, and technical vocabularies expressing islam. hence, the author suggests creating a new language called islamic english for english-speaking people or those who study or write about islam in english. the proposition of islamic english has the potential to spark a great deal of intellectual curiosity. alfārūqī’s hypothesis that muslim names and islamic theological terms can enter english without semantic alteration and continue to enrich this global language is supported by post-colonial tendency. there are challenges and complexities in creating a new form of english given the purported contradiction between islam and english, which may appear to make the name islamic english oxymoronic. moreover, the crucial, complex, and hidden epistemological principles involved in the academic applicability of this islamic english have been inadequately explored, thus leaving enough scope for future deliberations on this conceptual framework. nonetheless, the book creates a consciousness toward a post-colonial approach to studying islam as an academic discipline from its methodological standpoint. it presents a very relevant discourse for students and researchers in islamic studies. zeeshan ahmad sheikh department of religious studies, central university of kashmir zeeshanahmadsheikh3@gmail.com 1 hasan mahmudul md. (2014). islam’s encounter with english and ismail alfaruqi’s concept of islamic english: a postcolonial reading, american journal of islamic social sciences, vol 32, page 1. 2 hasan mahmudul md. (2014). islam’s encounter with english and ismail alfaruqi’s concept of islamic english: a postcolonial reading, american journal of islamic social sciences, vol 32, page 10. 3 ibid. page no. 5 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi. no. 4 7 .. editorial we are delighted to present the fourth issue of hamdard islamicus for volume 46 (2023). in this issue, the scholars investigate diverse scholarly inquiries, revealing the richness of intellectual exploration across various areas related to islamic studies. each article embarks on a distinct journey, shedding light on unique perspectives and bridging gaps between different areas related to islamic studies, cultures, and governance. this issue comprises five academic articles thoughtfully organized as follows: the first article “the clash of thoughts: how abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī and bertrand russell define happiness” critically examines the clash between classical and modern ideologies on happiness. through the lenses of abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī and bertrand russell, it provides an interesting exploration of cultural and temporal disparities. the pursuit of happiness is dissected, revealing differences and the shared human essence underlying these diverse philosophical traditions. the second article “the culture of deliberation in muslim society and the challenge of mutual respect among cultures: social and political perspectives” explores the evolution of societal deliberation in muslim cultures, examining historical practices and their adaptation to contemporary contexts. this nuanced understanding considers the interplay between democratic and undemocratic deliberation models, inviting readers to reflect on the foundations of societal decision-making across different times. the third article “the implementation of governance principles in islamic microfinance: a comparative analysis between türkiye and indonesia” explores the comparative analysis of governance principles in islamic microfinance institutions in türkiye and indonesia. offering valuable insights into applying ethical principles for societal well-being, the study discusses practices and hints at the potential for technological advancements to enhance transparency and impact in less established institutions. moving into the economic realm, the fourth article “does tourism and foreign direct investment matter for the profitability of islamic banks: empirical evidence from türkiye” examines the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye regarding tourism and foreign direct 8 editorial .. investment. findings advocate for strategic approaches to optimize external funding sources, emphasizing the delicate balance between attracting foreign investment and managing the impact of tourism. the final article “religion and the state: the functional purposes and the issue of legitimacy” explores political theory, investigating the symbiotic relationship between religion and the state. drawing on historical analysis and content examination, the paper asserts that the state, from the islamic perspective, is a dynamic entity shaped by religious metaphysics and necessitates subordination to the ummah. to summarise, all articles share a common goal: exploring different aspects of being human from an islamic perspective. this volume shows the depth of different fields of islamic studies working together, encouraging readers to explore cultural, historical, and subject boundaries for a complete view of these interesting topics. finally, we thank the authors for choosing hamdard islamicus as a platform for their scholarly work, enhancing the academic landscape of islamic studies. we trust that their significant contributions have had a meaningful impact. we appreciate readers’ feedback, which helps us improve our publication. looking ahead, we anticipate more high-quality scholarly work delving into crucial topics within the realm of islamic studies. dr. shabeer khan editor hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 77 does tourism and foreign direct investment matter for the profitability of islamic banks: empirical evidence from türkiye rayan ci̇van department of islamic economics and finance, sakaray univeristy, türkiye. email: rian.albadri@gmail.com received on: 28-04-23 accepted on: 03-05-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.809 abstract this study uses panel technique analysis to investigate tourism and foreign direct investment (fdi) on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. the findings suggest that while both external funding sources matter for the profitability of islamic banks, the impact of tourism is negative, and foreign direct investment positively contributes to islamic banks’ profitability. according to the research findings, external sources of funding matter for the profitability of islamic banks, but in the case of tourism, the impact is negative. at the same time, foreign direct investment positively contributes to the profitability of islamic banks. the findings suggest that the turkish government should create an enabling environment for foreign investors by instituting incentives, tax holidays, and reliefs which would augment foreign direct investment and bolster the funds available to islamic banks. to mitigate the adverse effects of tourism and secure the long-term profitability of islamic banks, it is imperative for the banks to devise an effective market penetration strategy, identify suitable customer segments, and attract conventional businesses to their offerings. based on these findings, this study advocates for a strategic approach to developing the islamic banking sector in türkiye, one that recognises the importance of external funding sources and promotes their optimal utilization for sustainable growth. keywords: fdi, tourism, islamic banks profitability, gmm. mailto:rian.albadri@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.809 78 does tourism and foreign … 1. introduction background information on islamic banking in türkiye considering the importance of the efficient conversion of savings into investments for growth, banks are crucial to economic growth in general and financial sector development in particular. as a secure conduit between savers and borrowers, banks are essential. the banking industry must link savers and borrowers and manage every facet of the safe and successful movement of money1. islamic banks play a very important role in türkiye where the banking sector is highly important, as seen by their rapid expansion in recent years. to ascertain if there is an effect on the economy of these sectors, this study relies on the fact that islamic banks are present in the country's economy. foreign direct investment and tourism substantially impact the economy of a country like türkiye. islamic banking first began 60 years ago. interest-free banking was first used in egypt in 1963 when dr. ahmad el-najjar, an economist, created the mit ghamr savings program. founed by dr. el-najjar and community volunteers, this interest-free bank was the first of its type when the bank was first created, it was based on the rural banking model of a german cooperative savings bank. on the other side of the world, the tabung haji institution was established in 1963 at the same time as the mit ghamr experiment in egypt. this institution intended to manage its funds over time in a sharê‘ah compliant manner to pay for the expenditures of the hajj pilgrims. the foundation laid by the tabung haji institution allowed malaysia to become a global leader in islamic banking and finance. the first full-fledged commercial islamic bank in malaysia called bank islam malaysia2 was not established until 1983. islamic financial companies conduct their business by quranic principles. because of this, they stand out from traditional institutions, which are uninterested in religious issues. islamic banks provide financial services to their clients in conformity with islamic law. interest is not charged to clients of islamic financial organizations (the arabic term for which is ribé). the payment or receipt of interest in any transaction is banned. since it bans this behaviour, the islamic financial system differs from the traditional banking system3. in türkiye, where they originally established in the early 1980s, they were formerly called “private financial institutions”. under banking law no. 5411, “participation banks”, the new term for “special financial institutions”, has been in practice since the beginning of 2006. islam strictly forbids interest; thus, participation banks work to meet their members’ financial and social requirements by allowing them to share in the institution’s gains and losses. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 79 according to a decree-law (khk) approved by ministers in 1983, “private finance institution” was the concept that introduced profitand-loss participation-based banking into the turkish financial system. the phrase “special finance house”, which represents profit-loss participation within interest-free principles, is explained due to worries about the need to do so and to allay addressees’ concerns about working with a “bank participation”. it describes the industry and field of endeavour in which they are engaged and addresses any concerns regarding the need to do so. they began referring to themselves as “participation banks” in compliance with the banking law numbered 54114. six islamic financial institutions, three private and three government-owned, are included in the above mentioned category in türkiye. participating private islamic banks include türkiye finans participation bank, kuveyt participation bank, and albaraka participation bank. emlak and ziraat, as well as the vakif and ziraat participation banks are turkish government-owned banks5. moreover, based on the idea that islamic banks function similarly to other banks by accepting deposits and sharing any profits or losses, banks get a margin in addition to their revenues from this financing. due to türkiye’s reliance on foreign investment and tourism, if these two industries partially financed deposits and transactions at islamic banks. as a result of these deposits, there will be a profit margin. the case study seeks to determine if fdi and tourism affect the profitability of these institutions. türkiye’s tourism earnings increased by 103% in 2021 compared to the previous year. in 2021, türkiye’s tourism industry generated 24,482,332,000 dollars in income, with 29,357,463 travelers leaving the country6. the money they make, both directly and indirectly, enables this growth. overview of the research problem the country’s economy can thrive and improve by increasing government income from investment and tourism receipts. a country’s economy will see more demand for various goods and services, improved business attitudes, and upbeat public expectations due to increased fdi and tourist arrivals6. new governmental and private investments in production capacity are stimulated by rising fdi and tourism revenues to meet the expanding demand in the economy. theoretically, growth in foreign direct investment (fdi) and tourism indicates a rise in the financial system’s liquidity and, therefore, a high capacity for financing and profit. these studies thus get their inspiration from various topics. this could include questions such as whether direct foreign investment impact the profitability of 80 does tourism and foreign … islamic banks? does tourism have an impact on the profitability of the same banks? is there a direct link between turkish islamic banks’ profits and foreign direct investment and tourism? the literature on fdi and tourism has several significant new contributions thanks to this study. first and foremost, this is the first study of its kind to examine how fdi and tourism affect the overall profitability of islamic banks. this may be the first time that islamic banks in türkiye have been examined in-depth. moreover, it looks at the two primary sources of liquidity in the turkish financial system and illustrates how they impact the earnings of islamic banks so that they may modify their strategies appropriately. this study, as opposed to earlier research, concentrates on islamic and conventional banks. objectives of the study the main objective of this research is to determine the significance of tourism and foreign direct investment (fdi) on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. to achieve this, the study examines how tourism and fdi impact the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. the research will analyze tourism’s impact on islamic banks’ profitability in türkiye and investigate how fdi affects their profitability.additionally, it will compare and contrast the effects of these two external funding sources on their profitability. by addressing these objectives, this study aims to provide valuable insights into how external funding sources can impact the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. the findings will be useful for policymakers and practitioners in developing strategies for sustainable growth in this sector. significance of the study this study is significant for several reasons. first, it will contribute to the knowledge of islamic banking in türkiye by providing empirical evidence on how external funding sources affect bank profitability. second, it will help policymakers and practitioners understand how to optimize external funding sources for sustainable growth in islamic banking. finally, it will provide insights into how other countries with similar economic conditions can develop their islamic banking sectors. hypothesis the hypothesis for this study includes both a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis. the null hypothesis is that “foreign direct investment (fdi) and tourism have no significant impact on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye.” the alternative hypothesis is that “foreign direct investment (fdi) and tourism have a significant impact on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye.” hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 81 based on previous studies, it is expected that fdi will positively impact the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye, while tourism will have a negative impact. however, this study aims to test these hypotheses using empirical evidence to determine whether they hold for islamic banks operating in türkiye. research questions to achieve the objectives of this study and test the hypothesis, several research questions will be addressed. the first research question aims to determine türkiye’s current state of islamic banking. the second research question focuses on how tourism affects the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. this will involve analyzing the impact of tourism on the net income of selected data sets and determining whether there is a significant negative impact. the third research question aims to investigate how fdi affects the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. this will involve analyzing the impact of fdi on net income and determining whether there is a significant positive impact. finally, the fourth research question seeks to compare and contrast the impact of tourism and fdi on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye, which will involve analyzing both external funding sources’ effects on net income and determining which has a more significant impact on profitability. by addressing these research questions, this study aims to provide empirical evidence on how external funding sources affect bank profitability in türkiye’s islamic banking sector. 2. literature review this literature review aims to investigate how tourism and foreign direct investment (fdi) impact the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. it does so by examining existing research on the factors influencing bank profitability. this examination includes studies focusing on islamic banks. furthermore, the review explores the connection between fdi, tourism, and bank profitability. islamic banking in türkiye: islamic banking has been growing rapidly in türkiye over the past decade, with several new institutions entering the market. the growth can be attributed to several factors, including increasing demand for sharê‘ah -compliant financial products and services. more people have become aware of islamic finance and its principles, and there has been a corresponding increase in demand for islamic banking products. the trend will continue as more people seek ethical and socially responsible investment options. 82 does tourism and foreign … another factor driving the growth of islamic banking in türkiye is government support for islamic finance. the turkish government has taken several steps to promote the development of islamic finance, including passing legislation that allows for establishment of islamic banks and other financial institutions. in addition, the government has provided tax incentives and other forms of support to encourage investment in islamic finance. according to data from the participation banks association of türkiye, 6 islamic banks were operating in türkiye as of 2020, with total assets reaching tl 200 billion (approximately usd 24 billion), which represents a significant increase from just a few years ago when there were only a handful of islamic banks operating in the country7. these institutions’ growth has helped expand access to sharê‘ah -compliant financial products and services for individuals and businesses across türkiye. therefore, the growth of islamic banking in türkiye is expected to continue as more people become aware of its benefits and demand for sharê‘ah -compliant financial products increases. with continued government support and investment, we will likely see even more growth in this sector in the coming years. factors affecting bank profitability: a large body of literature examines the factors that contribute to a bank’s profitability. the factors can be broadly categorized into internal and external factors. internal factors refer to a firm’s characteristics and management practices, which include capital adequacy, asset quality, management efficiency, and liquidity. capital adequacy refers to the amount of capital a bank holds relative to its risk-weighted assets7. banks with higher capital levels are generally considered more stable and less likely to experience financial distress. asset quality describes the quality of a bank’s loan portfolio, with higher-quality loans being less likely to have defaulted or become non-performing loans (npls). management efficiency refers to how effectively a bank is managed, including its ability to control costs and generate revenue. at the same time, liquidity is the ability of a bank to meet its short-term obligations. on the other hand, external factors refer to broader economic conditions that can impact a firm’s profitability, these include macroeconomic conditions such as gdp growth, inflation rates, exchange rates; interest rates; and competition from other firms in the market. in addition to these internal and external factors, several studies have also examined the impact of ownership structure on bank profitability8. some studies have found that banks with more concentrated ownership structures are more profitable than those with more dispersed ownership structures9. other studies have found that state-owned banks may be less profitable than privately owned ones hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 83 due to political interference or other factors10. by identifying these factors and their relative importance in different contexts, researchers can help form strategies for improving bank performance and promoting financial stability. islamic bank profitability: islamic banking has grown rapidly in many countries, including egypt and the united arab emirates (uae). as a result, there has been a growing interest in understanding the factors contributing to islamic banks’ profitability. several studies have focused specifically on this topic with varying results. altamimi and al-mazrooei10 examined the determinants of islamic bank profitability in the uae, and the study found that asset quality, management efficiency, and liquidity were significant determinants of islamic bank profitability. the research found that higher asset quality and management efficiency were associated with higher profitability, while lower liquidity had the opposite effect. the findings suggest that effective management practices and maintaining adequate levels of liquidity are important factors for ensuring the profitability of islamic banks in the uae. while there may be some variation across countries and regions, maintaining adequate levels of capital, managing credit risk effectively, maintaining high asset quality and management efficiency, and ensuring adequate levels of liquidity are all important factors for ensuring islamic banks’ longterm sustainability and profitability. impact of fdi on bank profitability: foreign direct investment (fdi) has been identified as an important economic growth and development driver. several studies have examined the impact of fdi on banks’ profitability, with mixed results. some studies have found a positive relationship between fdi and bank profitability, while others have concluded that there is no significant or negative relationship. in the context of türkiye, several studies have examined the impact of fdi on banks’ profitability. erdal11 found that fdi positively impacted the profitability of turkish banks, particularly in terms of increasing their net interest margins. impact of tourism on bank profitability: tourism is an important sector contributing to economic growth and development. however, its impact on banks’ profitability needs to be clarified. some studies have found a positive relationship between tourism and bank profitability, while others have found no significant or negative relationship. in the context of türkiye, several studies have examined the impact of tourism on banks’ profitability. although many studies indicate that tourism has a positive impact on the turkish economy, saif al-yousifi12 indicated that tourism has a negative impact on the profits of banks in various countries, including türkiye. in conclusion, the relationship between tourism and banks’ profitability is complex and context-dependent, with studies in türkiye showing 84 does tourism and foreign … mixed results, highlighting the need for further research and analysis. impact of fdi and tourism on islamic bank profitability in türkiye. despite the growing importance of islamic banking in türkiye, limited research examines the impact of fdi and tourism specifically on islamic bank profitability. this gap in the literature is important, as fdi and tourism are both important sources of external funding for banks and can significantly impact their profitability. the present study aims to fill this gap by investigating how fdi and tourism affect the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. the study will use a sample of islamic banks operating in türkiye and examine their financial performance over several years. this study will also account for other factors affecting bank profitability, such as capital adequacy, asset quality, management efficiency, and liquidity. this study is expected to provide valuable insights into the factors contributing to islamic banks' profitability in türkiye. specifically, it will help to shed light on how external funding sources, such as fdi and tourism, can impact bank profitability. this information can be useful for policymakers, investors, and other stakeholders interested in promoting the growth and development of islamic banking in türkiye. it is worth noting that some challenges are associated with studying the impact of fdi and tourism on bank profitability. for example, it may be difficult to disentangle the effects of these external funding sources from other factors affecting bank performance. additionally, there may be differences in how fdi and tourism affect conventional versus islamic banks. despite these challenges, the present study represents an important step forward in understanding how external funding sources impact the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. providing valuable insights into this topic can help inform strategies for promoting sustainable growth and development within this important sector. 3. methodology this chapter outlines the methodology for achieving the research objectives and answers of the research questions. the methodology covers the research design, data collection, diagnostic tests, definition of variables, and data analysis. the research design for this study is quantitative research. this design is appropriate because it allows the collection of numerical data that can be analyzed statistically to test the hypotheses and answer the research questions. the study will use secondary data collected from financial statements of islamic banks operating in türkiye. the data will be collected from the financial statements of islamic banks operating in türkiye. the sample size will be determined using the purposive sampling technique, which involves selecting a sample based on specific hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 85 criteria such as size or location. the sample size will consist of 3 islamic banks operating in türkiye. before conducting any statistical analysis, diagnostic tests will be conducted to ensure that the data meets the assumptions required for statistical analysis. these tests include normality, multicollinearity, and heteroscedasticity tests. the dependent variable is profitability, measured by net income (nil). the independent variables are tourism measured by number of tourists (not) and foreign direct investment (fdi). the data collected will be analyzed using multiple regression analysis to determine the relationship between tourism, fdi, and profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. the regression model will be estimated using ordinary least squares (ols) method. the study will use panel techniques, i.e., fixed effect, random effect, and gmm models. 𝐵𝑃𝑖𝑡 = 𝛽0 + 𝛽1𝐵𝑃𝑖𝑡−1 + 𝛽2𝑇𝑖𝑡 + 𝛽2𝐹𝐷𝐼𝑖𝑡 + 𝛽3𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑠𝑖𝑡 + 𝜖𝑖𝑡 (1) in this equation, bp represents bank profitability, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐵𝑃𝑡−1 shows the lag-dependent variable of bank profitability. t signifies tourism, fdi denotes foreign direct investment, and controls represent control variables. similarly, i and t denote banks and periods, respectively. є denotes error term13. 4. data analysis and results chapter 4 of the paper aims to measure the impact of foreign direct investment (fdi) and tourism on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye by testing the null hypothesis that fdi and tourism have no significant impact on bank profitability and providing empirical evidence to support or reject this assumption. to achieve this goal, the chapter begins by stating the null hypothesis (h0), which assumes that fdi and tourism have no significant impact on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. the alternative hypothesis (h1) is that fdi and tourism significantly impact the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. by testing these hypotheses using multiple regression analysis, the study aims to provide empirical evidence to support or reject these assumptions. the results of this analysis will help determine whether fdi and tourism are important factors that affect the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. generally, this chapter plays a crucial role in achieving the study's main objective, which is to determine the significance of tourism and foreign direct investment (fdi) on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. by measuring their impact on bank profitability, this chapter provides valuable insights into how these factors affect bank performance, which can be useful for policymakers, investors, and other stakeholders interested in this field. 86 does tourism and foreign … hypotheses for fdi (both) null hypothesis (h0): foreign direct investment (fdi) and tourism have no significant impact on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. hypothesis (h1): foreign direct investment (fdi) and tourism have a significant impact on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye nil coef. st.err. tvalu e pvalu e [95% conf interval ] si g fdi 0.454 0.558 0.81 0.41 9 -0.666 1.574 not -0.279 0.156 1.79 0.08 -0.591 0.034 * gp 58.791 71.881 0.82 0.41 7 -85.585 203.167 inf 465708. 91 104409 9 0.45 0.65 7 1631426 .2 256284 4 pet 651.612 972.21 7 0.67 0.50 6 1301.14 3 2604.36 7 lr 26650.5 49 201782 .6 0.13 0.89 5 431942. 83 378641. 74 une 2191559 .4 224806 0 0.97 0.33 4 2323801 .8 670692 0.5 gdp 1206002 .9 559602 5 0.22 0.83 1003394 4 124459 49 bc 489848. 03 101598 7 0.48 0.63 2 2530518 155082 1.9 roe 1192384 .9 350731 .2 3.4 0.00 1 487920. 46 189684 9.3 ** * consta nt 198752. 98 116646 .2 -1.7 0.09 5 433043. 71 35537.7 51 * mean dependent 179184.333 sd dependent 264564.031 overall rsquared 0.097 number of obs 66 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 87 f-test 3.561 prob > f 0 akaike crit. (aic) 1643.132 bayesian crit. (bic) 1667.219 *** p<.01, ** p<.05, * p<.1 4.1. random effects output the random effects output in the analysis shows that the random effect model has successfully identified and estimated shrunken residuals and demonstrated effectiveness in identifying the relationship between randomly selected variables. the hypothesis and variables used in the random effect model are similar to those used in the fixed effect model section of the analysis. the command "xtreg nil fdi not une inf gp gdp lr roe pet, re" has been used to identify the random relation between fdi and net income of the selected data set. this command has allowed for the identification of the random effect of fdi on the net income of the dataset, which may have been previously unnoticed or unaccounted for. using the random effect model has provided a more accurate and complete analysis of the data set, as it accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in the data. the random effect model has allowed for the estimation of the variance of the random effects, which can be used to assess the significance of the random effect of fdi on net income. this information can be valuable for policymakers and investors interested in understanding the relationship between fdi and net income in the selected dataset. therefore, the random effect model has provided valuable insights into the relationship between fdi and net income in the selected dataset and has allowed for a more comprehensive and accurate data analysis. the analysis results can be used to inform policy decisions and investment strategies. they can contribute to a better understanding of the factors that influence net income in the selected dataset. nil coef. st.err. t-value p-value 95% conf interval sig fdi 777 447 1.74 .083 .1 1.654 * not 336 14 -2.39 .017 .611 -.061 * gp 15.28 8 1.516 1.87 .061 5.281 235.857 * inf 60113 2.5 03692. 47 3.18 .001 13913 .4 258835 1.6 *** pet 309.5 29 7 76.756 -0.40 .69 1831. 942 1212.88 5 lr 10729 67760. -0.64 .522 43610 221504. 88 does tourism and foreign … table 2: random effects results the h1 is accepted, and the h0 is rejected based on the fixed effect test results, which show significant results with a 0.083 p-value and 0.777 coefficients regarding the favorable impact of foreign investment on banks. related to tourism, a 0.017 p-value and a -0.336 coefficient indicates that it has a strong, significant negative influence on bank profits, meaning that h1 is accepted and h0 is rejected. here “h1 hypothesis” has been rejected, and the “h0 hypothesis” has been satisfied as there exists a "positive relationship" between the variables. 4.2. gmm output the autocorrelation of the selected constant or “dependent variable” with the “other independent variable” has been identified by the effective conduction of the “gmm model test” 14. gmm model has generalized the effective "methods of moments" of time series data. 9.91 29 4.03 21 une 75918 3.2 65389 1.2 2.27 .023 17616 .12 700075 0.3 ** gdp 46655 3.8 09851 7.7 2.09 .037 93570 .6 125395 37 ** bc 17572 04.5 02029 1.8 -1.72 .085 37569 39.6 242530. 61 * roe 14570 6.7 79704. 66 3.02 .003 01499 .18 188991 4.1 ** cons tant 96029 7.07 95767. 53 -1.61 .107 21279 80 207385. 84 mean dependent var 791 84. 333 sd dependent var 264564.031 overall rsquared .21 4 number of obs 72 chi-square 9.9 17 prob > chi2 0.000 r-squared within .54 2 r-squared between 0.003 *** p<.01, ** p<.05, * p<.1 nil coef. st.err. tvalu e pvalu e 95% conf interva l sig l 1.1 .085 2.99 0 .934 1.267 *** hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 89 table 3: fdi gmm test output the h1 is accepted, and the h0 is rejected because the gmm test findings show significant positive impact of foreign investment on banks with a 0.095 p-value and 0.441 coefficients. nil coef. st.err. tvalu e pvalue [95% conf interval ] si g l 1.107 .079 13.9 9 0. .952 1.262 ** * not -0.221 .11 2.00 .045 -.437 -.005 ** inf 382486. 03 250604. 83 1.53 .127 108690. 41 873662. 46 une 76801.9 12 656475. 62 0.12 .907 120986 6.7 136347 0.5 bc 496345. .011 ** fdi .441 .264 1.67 .095 .959 .077 * roe 542093 .25 31987 2.69 1.69 .09 84845. 705 11690 32.2 * inf 12741 2.38 10966 3.6 1.16 .245 342349 .09 87524. 339 une 77843 4.11 78954 7.34 0.99 .324 232591 8.5 76905 0.24 lr 90249. 813 42225 .121 2.14 .033 7490.0 97 17300 9.53 ** bc 20069 17.6 99449 4.53 2.02 .044 395609 1.1 57744. 154 ** gdp 31967 51.4 16269 50.4 1.96 .049 638551 5.6 7987.2 82 ** cons tant 515055 .1 32501 8.76 1.58 .113 121969 .96 11520 80.2 mean dependent var 1 89219.530 sd dependent var 273483.930 number of obs 6 6 chi-square 142772084 147.511 *** p<.01, ** p<.05, * p<.1 90 does tourism and foreign … 125604 2.7 78 2.53 222886 2.6 283222. 85 roe 694203. 18 305351. 96 2.27 .023 95724.3 23 129268 2 ** lr 87772.1 5 44939.0 26 1.95 .051 306.722 175851. 02 * pet 251.513 218.357 1.15 .249 176.459 679.486 const ant 3197.51 9 110944. 56 0.03 .977 214249. 83 220644. 86 mean dependent var 189219.530 sd dependent var 273483.930 number of obs 66 chi-square 147.950 *** p<.01, ** p<.05, * p<.1 table 4: tourism gmm test output with a 0.045 p-value and -0.221 coefficients, tourism appears to have a very significant negative impact on bank profits; therefore, h1 is accepted, and h0 is rejected. 4.3. impact of fdi and tourism on islamic bank profitability tourism and fdi are both the most important influences on the turkish economy, and the banking sector, including islamic banks, is a powerful component in the economy, so understanding the nature of the relationship between fdi, tourism, and islamic bank profits is critical, as shown by the results of the tests in the following tables. nil coef. st.err. tvalu e pvalu e [95% conf interva l] sig fdi .972 .95 1.0 2 .319 -1.01 2.954 not -.005 .002 1.9 5 .065 -.01 0 * gp 35.288 105.77 6 0.3 3 .742 185.35 7 255.93 3 inf 14850 16795 0.8 .387 49884 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 91 table 5. fixed effect the coefficients of the independent variable not “number of tourism arrived” is significant with a p-value less than 0.065. this demonstrates that a rise in visiting tourists negatively affects bank revenues, particularly islamic banks, which means h0 is accepted and h1 is rejected. about fdi, it appears that it has a non-significant impact on islamic banks' profits because a 0.319 p-value is bigger than 0.10, which means h1 is rejected, and h0 is accepted. nil coef. st.err. tval ue pvalu e [95% conf interv al] sig fdi 1.97 .888 2.2 .027 .23 3.71 ** 41.6 02.3 8 20183 38.8 22 pet 721.10 5 1529.3 63 0.4 7 .642 2469.0 9 3911.2 99 bc 38781 02.9 17874 14.9 2.1 7 .042 76065 85 14962 0.86 ** une 57694 33 37200 61.8 1.5 5 .137 19904 79.9 13529 346 roa 36450 716 97806 35.2 3.7 3 .001 16048 668 56852 763 *** roe 101.92 3 76.953 1.3 2 .2 58.599 262.44 5 gdp 52748 48.4 93236 40.9 0.5 7 .578 14173 926 24723 622 constant 70482 1.01 20434 2.39 3.4 5 .003 11310 71.8 27857 0.24 *** mean dependent var 353479.30 6 sd dependent var 281939.756 overall rsquared 0.609 number of obs 33 f-test 5.567 prob > f 0.000 akaike crit. (aic) 830.378 bayesian crit. (bic) 846.840 *** p<.01, ** p<.05, * p<.1 92 does tourism and foreign … 2 not -.006 .003 2.3 6 .018 -.011 -.001 ** gp 128.35 6 97.322 1.3 2 .187 62.392 319.10 4 inf 36386 49.7 98482 5.07 3.6 9 0 17084 28 55688 71.4 *** pet 725.12 4 1259.3 09 0.5 8 .565 3193.3 23 1743.0 75 bc 51328 87.4 18642 74.8 2.7 5 .006 87867 98.9 14789 75.9 *** une 98358 07.6 34273 82.3 2.8 7 .004 31182 61.8 16553 353 *** roa 40196 567 11140 724 3.6 1 0 18361 150 62031 985 *** roe 160.96 9 83.094 1.9 4 .053 -1.891 323.83 * gdp 16905 179 64946 93.3 2.6 0 .009 41758 14.2 29634 544 *** constant 26912 67.5 12028 63.7 2.2 4 .025 50488 37 33369 8.04 ** mean dependent var 353479.306 sd dependent var 281939.756 overall r-squared 0.703 number of obs 36 chi-square 64.186 prob > chi2 0.000 r-squared within 0.804 r-squared between 0.877 *** p<.01, ** p<.05, * p<.1 table 6. random effects output with a p-value of 0.018 and coefficients of -0.006, the independent variable not "number of tourists arrived" has significant coefficients. this shows that an increase in visitors visiting a country has a detrimental impact on bank profits, especially those of islamic banks, showing that h0 is accepted and h1 is denied. due to a 0.027 p-value and 1.97, which indicates that h1 is rejected and h0 is accepted, it implies that fdi has a positive substantial influence hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 93 on the earnings of islamic banks. table 7. gmm results from tourism 4.4. gmm output the independent variable not "number of tourists arriving" exhibits significant coefficients with a p-value of 0.049 and nil coef. st.err. tvalu e pvalu e [95% conf interva l] sig l .943 .033 28.1 6 .001 .877 1.008 *** fdi .466 .187 2.50 .012 .832 .1 ** not -.001 .001 1.97 .049 -.003 0 ** pet 200.47 8 559.95 9 0.36 .72 1297.9 79 897.02 2 gp -3.515 52.485 0.07 .947 106.38 4 99.354 bc 39498 86.3 71603 8.15 5.52 0 53532 95.2 25464 77.3 *** lr 60338 3.79 25541 4.2 2.36 .018 11039 86.4 10278 1.16 ** une 22117 3.21 16046 05.9 0.14 .89 33661 43 29237 96.5 roa 20720 139 31601 19.9 6.56 0 14526 417 26913 860 *** gdp 25664 94.7 71599 1.28 3.58 0 39698 11.8 11631 77.6 *** constant 96904 7.91 31422 6.64 3.08 .002 35317 5.02 15849 20.8 *** mean dependent var 373377.424 sd dependent var 286306.859 number of obs 33 chi-square 66.524 *** p<.01, ** p<.05, * p<.1 94 does tourism and foreign … coefficients of -0.001. this demonstrates that a rise in tourists has a negative effect on bank profits, particularly those of islamic banks, demonstrating that h0 is accepted and h1 is rejected. given that h1 is rejected and a 0.012 p-value and 0.466 coefficients accept h0, it is implied that fdi positively and significantly affects the profits of islamic banks. the gmm output provides important insights into the relationship between the independent variables and bank profitability. the significant coefficient for the variable not, which represents the number of tourists arriving, suggests a negative relationship exists between tourism and bank profits, particularly for islamic banks. this finding is consistent with previous studies showing a negative relationship between tourism and bank profitability. the negative coefficient indicates that increased tourism is associated with decreased bank profits, which can be attributed to increased competition and higher operational costs. on the other hand, the significant and positive coefficient for the variable fdi suggests a positive relationship between foreign direct investment and bank profitability for islamic banks. this finding indicates that fdi can significantly impact the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. the positive coefficient suggests that an increase in fdi is associated with increased bank profits, which can be attributed to the injection of capital and the potential for growth and expansion. by adopting such measures, policymakers can create an enabling environment for islamic banks to thrive and contribute to türkiye's economic growth and development. 5. summary and conclusion the value of this research was demonstrated by reviewing a significant number of previous studies, in that many studies touched on the impact of foreign direct investment and the impact of tourists on the profits of banks in general. however, in this study, a sample of islamic banks operating in türkiye was entered into tests. the results of this research offered some insight on how to make the most of these two types of funding. the primary purpose of this research is to investigate how tourism and foreign direct investment impact the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. for 2009-2020, the data of three out of six islamic banks active in the turkish banking market are analyzed utilizing static and dynamic panel generalized methods of moments (gmm) estimation methodologies. the paper aimed to investigate the impact of foreign direct investment (fdi) and tourism on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. the study used multiple regression analysis to test the null hypothesis that fdi and tourism have no significant impact on bank hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 95 profitability and provided empirical evidence to support or reject this assumption. the results showed that fdi has a positive impact on profitability, while tourism has a negative impact on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. this finding is consistent with previous studies showing a positive relationship between fdi and bank profitability and a negative impact between tourism and bank profitability. the implications of these findings are significant for policymakers, investors, and other stakeholders interested in this field. for policymakers, the results suggest that promoting fdi will positively impact islamic bank profitability, and promoting tourism can negatively impact the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. the findings suggest for the relevant government agencies, particularly the banking supervision department and the association of participating banks, how to overcome the challenges that banks and tourists face by directly involving them in the banking sector and changing the impact from negative to positive. it also makes recommendations on how to develop the islamic banking sector so that it can offer services to the tourism industry. increasing interest in the foreign direct investment industry, which has a definite favorable effect on the profitability of islamic banks, is another way to expand the turkish islamic banking market. to support recruiting tourists to the banking system and take advantage of the cash flow offered by this sector, the research suggests constructing a banking system with sophisticated services and a location in airports, such as the so-called tourist bank. this banking system makes it quick and simple for tourists to open accounts because it offers a special exchange rate for foreign currencies and a mobile app that lets them use their money in turkish lira while inside türkiye, in addition to offering shopping cards and money withdrawal options. this is a development that might have a favourable effect on how tourism affects the financial system. in general, the study provides valuable insights into how fdi and tourism affect the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. moreover, the findings suggest that these factors play an important role in determining bank performance, which has economic growth and development implications. policymakers should create an enabling environment for businesses in the country to thrive, which can lead to job creation and increased economic activity. moreover, chapter 4 of the paper provides empirical evidence to support the positive impact of fdi on islamic bank profitability and the negative impact of tourism on the profitability of islamic banks in türkiye. this finding is consistent with previous studies showing the increasing popularity of islamic finance worldwide. the implications of these findings are significant for policymakers, investors, and other stakeholders interested in this 96 does tourism and foreign … field. promoting fdi can be achieved by creating an enabling environment for foreign investors and tourists by providing tax incentives, improving infrastructure, and enhancing security measures. therefore, the results suggest that these factors play an important role in determining bank performance, which has economic growth and development implications. by promoting fdi and tourism, policymakers can create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive, leading to job creation and increased economic activity. the findings of this analysis are similar to those of the saifalyousfi12 study, which found that tourism has a detrimental effect on bank profitability. a study by (acaravci and şentürk15, mensi et al.16, and musah et al.17) found that foreign direct investment has a positive impact on bank profitability is related to the current study as well as the effect of foreign direct investment on profitability. notes and references:1 1 saif-alyousfi, abdulazeez y.h. “impact of fdi inflows on bank loans in gulf cooperation council economies: an empirical insight.” international journal of emerging markets 18, no. 2 (2021): 505–24. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoem-06-20190465. 2 habib, syeda fahmida. fundamentals of islamic finance and banking, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119371076. 3 kettell, brian. "introduction to islamic banking and finance ." wiley online books, august 15, 2011. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118467299. 4 eskici, mustafa mürsel. türkiyede katılım bankacılığı uygulaması ve katılım bankalarının müşteri özellikleri, 2007. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277155981_ turkiye%27de_katilim_bankaciligi_uygulamasi_ve_katilim_bankalari%27nin_mu steri_ozellikleri. 5anadolu ajansı. april 4, 2022 (2021). https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/ekonomi/turkiyenin-turizm-geliri-2021de-bir-onceki-yilagore-yuzde-103-artti/2489702. 6 muhammad, faqeer, anwar khan, naveed razzaq, and rehmat karim. “influence of tourism, governance, and foreign direct investment on energy consumption and co2 emissions: a panel analysis of muslim countries.” environmental science and pollution research 28, no. 1 (august 18, 2020): 416–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10502-y. 7 ashraf, sania, jithin p, and zaghum umar. "the asymmetric relationship between foreign direct investment, oil prices, and carbon emissions: evidence from gulf cooperative council economies." cogent economics &amp; finance 10, no. 1 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2022.2080316. 8 meivitawanli, bryna. "effect of foreign direct investment in tourism on economic growth ." in tourism and foreign direct investment: issues, challenges and prospects, 1st ed., 194–214. indonesia, 2022. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003155. 9 nyeadi, joseph dery. “the impact of financial development and foreign direct investment on environmental sustainability in sub-saharan africa: using pmgardl approach.” economic research-ekonomska istraživanja 36, no. 2 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677x.2022.2106270. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277155981_ https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/ekonomi/turkiyenin-turizm-geliri-2021de-bir-onceki-yila-gore-yuzde-103-artti/2489702 https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/ekonomi/turkiyenin-turizm-geliri-2021de-bir-onceki-yila-gore-yuzde-103-artti/2489702 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10502-y https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677x.2022.2106270 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 97 10 hassan al‐tamimi, hussein a., and faris mohammed al‐mazrooei. “banks’ risk management: a comparison study of uae national and foreign banks.” edited by michael r. powers. the journal of risk finance 8, no. 4 (august 21, 2007): 394– 409. https://doi.org/10.1108/15265940710777333. 11 erdal, bahar. “türkiẏe’ye gelen yabanci doğrudan yatirimlari uzun dönemde ve kisa dönemde etkil̇eyen makroekonomik̇ değiş̇kenler.” sosyal ve beşeri bilimler dergisi, july 1, 2019. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/sobiadsbd/issue/47103/591545. 12 saif-alyousfi, abdulazeez y.h., and asish saha. “do tourism receipts affect bank profitability? analytical evidence from 85 tourism economies.” research in international business and finance 58 (2021): 101437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ribaf.2021.101437. 13 mcneish, daniel, and ken kelley. “fixed effects models versus mixed effects models for clustered data: reviewing the approaches, disentangling the differences, and making recommendations.” psychological methods 24, no. 1 (february 2019): 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000182. 14 mroua, mourad, and lotfi trabelsi. "causality and dynamic relationships between exchange rate and stock market indices in brics countries." journal of economics, finance, and administrative science 25, no. 50 (april 9, 2020): 395– 412. https://doi.org/10.1108/jefas-04-2019-0054. 15 kaki̇lli̇ acaravci, songül, and yavuz şentürk. “doğrudan yabancı yatırımların seçilmiş bankaların karlılığı üzerine etkileri.” uluslararası ekonomi ve yenilik dergisi 7, no. 1 (2021): 91–111. https://doi.org/10.20979/ueyd.868296. 16 mensi, walid, shawkat hammoudeh, aviral kumar tiwari, and khamis hamed al-yahyaee. “impact of islamic banking development and major macroeconomic variables on economic growth for islamic countries: evidence from panel smooth transition models.” economic systems 44, no. 1 (march 2020): 100739. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecosys.2019.100739. 17 musah, alhassan, erasmus dodzi gakpetor, solomon nana kwaku kyei, and evans akomeah. “foreign direct investment (fdi), economic growth and bank performance in ghana.” international journal of finance and accounting 7(4) (2018): 97–107. https://doi.org/10.5923/j.ijfa.20180704.02. https://doi.org/10.1108/15265940710777333 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 93 the historical bedrock of holy qur’ón’s manuscript in malaysia: a study on its style of calligraphy and illumination achmad yafik mursyid department of islamic history and civilization, academy of islamic studies, universiti malaya, kuala lumpur, malaysia. email: 22060791@siswa.um.edu.my aizan binti ali@ mat zin, phd associate professor, department of islamic history and civilization, academy of islamic studies, universiti malaya, kuala lumpur, malaysia. email: aizan@um.edu.my received on: 15-10-22 accepted on: 19-04-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.965 abstract the focus of this article is to examine the historical foundation of the holy qur’én’s manuscript in malaysia, with specific attention to its calligraphic style and illumination. islamic calligraphy and manuscript traditions hold significant importance within the malaysian muslim heritage. these traditions have been inherited and evolved over generations, with the earliest examples of arabic calligraphy being found in the holy qur'an, commonly inscribed in a script known as kufic. the historical roots of islam are deeply intertwined with the holy qur’én’s manuscript, making it a primary source for understanding the advent of islam. in this research, an extensive array of resources from the islamic art museum malaysia (iamm) and the national library of malaysia (nlm) were utilised, alongside personal collections and secondary sources. data analysis involved employing philological, comparative, deductive, and inductive methodologies. through this approach, it was revealed that the production of malay holy qur’én’s manuscripts has been significantly influenced by local creative input and intellectual contributions from regions such as turkey, china, and persia. the study particularly accentuates the diverse calligraphic and illumination techniques across different nations. notably, manuscripts from the west coast of peninsular malaysia, specifically from malacca and johor, exhibit distinct mailto:22060791@siswa.um.edu.my mailto:aizan@um.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.965 94 the historical bedrock … artistic qualities that set them apart from those originating from the east coast, including kelantan and terengganu. this underscores the prevalence of varied artistic expressions resulting from a broad spectrum of cultural interactions. the development of calligraphy and illumination methods in malaysian holy qur’én’s manuscripts mirrors a wide range of artistic expressions, which are shaped by both local innovation and broader islamic intellectual traditions. keywords: islamic history, islamic art, islamic manuscript, holy quranic manuscript, malaysia introduction the prominence of islam and its associated art in southeast asia, particularly in malaysia (see map 1), despite its geographical distance from the arabian origin of islam, is a significant area of study.1 malaysian islamic art has been shaped by influences from various earlier islamic art traditions, including those from the ottoman, indian, persian, and african cultures. however, the specific impact of these traditions on the unique malay identity in islamic art remains a subject of limited research, particularly in the context of holy qur’én’s manuscripts in southeast asia and malaysia.2 this study aims to analyse and investigate holy qur'én’s manuscripts preserved in the islamic art museum malaysia (iamm) and national library of malaysia (nlm) to discern the extent of malay cultural influence on islamic art traditions.3 the goal is to uncover the intricate relationships between malay identity and previous holy qur'an writing traditions by examining how malaysian muslims engaged with the holy qur'an through calligraphy, illumination, and material characteristics of these manuscripts. comparing the distinct styles of holy qur’én’s manuscripts from different malaysian regions, including the east coast areas of kelantan, terengganu, and borneo, to the west coast peninsular regions of malacca, johor, and penang, allows for the identification of artistic expressions that reflect the fusion of islamic values with local culture. by investigating alternative perspectives beyond colonial views and highlighting malaysia’s significant role in shaping the diverse holy quranic textual styles across southeast asia, this study seeks to enhance understanding of malaysia’s historical contribution to the production of the holy qur’én. preserved holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia shed light on the nuances of the local character and their connections to historical traditions. varied calligraphy4 and illuminations highlight the interplay and cultural exchanges among diverse civilisations.5 different calligraphy and illuminations draw attention to the intimate hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 95 relationships and great mobility among many cultures. while holy qur’én’s manuscripts from the west coast peninsular malaysia show stylistic differences from those on the east coast, they collectively reflect a unique malay identity that sets them apart from the holy qur’én’s writing traditions in other regions. malay identity represents the amalgamation of islamic philosophy, language, indigenous culture, missionary activity, and the historical legacies of the archipelago’s kingdoms.6 the holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia bear a unique malay cultural legacy, setting them apart from the scriptural traditions of morocco, persia, africa, and turkey. the malay identity is a confluence of islamic philosophy, language, native culture, missionary endeavours, and the historical responsibilities of the archipelago’s kingdoms. recent scholarly insights, valuing non-colonial narratives, have shed light on the hitherto lesser-known history of quranic manuscript production in malaysia.7 the article presents a unique approach to gaining insights into the preservation of holy qur’én’s manuscripts in the nlm and iamm. analysing the calligraphy, illumination, and material composition of these manuscripts enhances understanding of malaysian muslims' interaction with the holy qur’én’s and their intended use of its reproduction. overall, these manuscripts form the basis for showcasing the malay heritage and its connections to historical traditions of holy quranic production. they also underscore malaysia’s role in the development of various holy quranic textual styles and highlight its position within the extensive literary network of the holy qur’én, spanning from arabia to southeast asia. the following text provides a new methodology for gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the quranic manuscripts housed at the iamm and nlm. subsequent sections will evaluate previous research on holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia, focusing on the calligraphy, illumination, and material aspects of the manuscripts to achieve a deeper insight into the intentions and interactions of malaysian muslims in reproducing the holy qur’én. by concentrating on malaysia's unique malay heritage and its connection to earlier traditions of holy quranic manuscript production, this article seeks to shed light on the country’s participation in the extensive network of holy quranic manuscript production, spanning from arabia to southeast asia. this examination aims to highlight malaysia’s distinctive position within the historical context of islamic art, as well as to present rebuttals that challenge perspectives of colonial influence. 96 the historical bedrock … map 1. malaysia in southeast asian map literature review islamic art in malaysia in the study of islam in southeast asia, a comprehensive examination of the historical and contemporary influence of islam in the region reveals diverse dynamics. southeast asia has long served as a crucial crossroads for numerous global civilisations over a span exceeding two millennia, facilitating meaningful intercultural and interreligious exchanges.8 according to hooker’s research, the religious practices of indigenous cultures in this region have evolved based on the specific characteristics of the local population.9 muhammad and duderija underscore the variation in the interaction between culture and religion across different areas of southeast asia.10 this region has evolved into a diverse and well-established islamic community. countries such as brunei, indonesia, and malaysia have a predominantly muslim population, while other nations like the philippines, cambodia, thailand, myanmar, and singapore have a muslim minority that holds sway.11 furthermore, andaya observes that the diverse ethnic composition in the region reflects the propagation of islam in southeast asia facilitated by the involvement of merchants, sufi mystics, scholars, rulers, and even non-muslims.12 in his analysis, azra underscores islam’s notable assimilation with indigenous customs in southeast asia. he underscores that this harmonious integration has been made possible by islam’s peaceful and non-coercive introduction to the region, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 97 allowing its presence to evolve over centuries through cultural assimilation and acculturation.13 the prominence of aljunied serves to emphasise the profound influence of sufi merchants and scholars on the spread of islam in southeast asia, a significance that even surpasses familial connections.14 the current muslim population in southeast asia is estimated to exceed two hundred and forty million, positioning the region as home to one of the largest muslim communities globally. with the ongoing trend of globalisation, it is anticipated that islam will continue its trajectory of growth and maintain its status as the fastest-growing religion well into the 21st century.15 the examination of the intricate relationship between islam and southeast asia showcases its historical foundations, contemporary relevance, and future prospects. this region has served as a significant backdrop for pivotal events, underscoring its global importance within the context of islam. it is imperative to acknowledge that the study of islam in southeast asia presents considerable unexplored potential for delving into realms beyond religious and legal dimensions, notably encompassing its diverse artistic heritage and educational aspects. the portrayal of islam in southeast asia accentuates the multifaceted nature of islamic art within the region,16 with particular emphasis on malaysia. islamic art in malaysia draws its historical underpinnings from the era of european colonisation that significantly impacted various southeast asian countries including malaysia, as evidenced by stockwell’s research.17 the insights of hamidon indicate that external influences have contributed to the development of a distinctive tradition in islamic art within the region, particularly in malaysia. this tradition is characterised by the amalgamation of three diverse cultural and artistic traditions: islamic, malay, and western.18 the exploration of islamic art’s spiritual dimensions by sulaiman esa underscores its significance as a conduit for internal spiritual yearnings and as a representation of divine symbols within tangible forms. consequently, it becomes apparent that the evolution and dynamism of malaysian islamic art are intrinsically linked to historical, ethnic, cultural, and religious influences. the strong correlation between malay muslims and islamic art has been evident since the establishment of the sultanate of malacca (1390-1511). this era witnessed a prolific production of manuscripts, with authors creating several seminal works such as hikayat, sullalatus salatin, and the holy qur’én.19 it continued, resulting in modern pieces such as taj øalatên.20 in spite of the huge number of studies made regarding ×ikéyét and sulalatus øalétin manuscripts, few works dealing with holy qur’én’s manuscripts have been 98 the historical bedrock … published. somewhat unfortunately, only a small number of scholars who looked into malaysian holy qur’én’s manuscripts are annabel t gallop21 and riswadi azmi.22 unfortunately, gaining access to malay holy qur’én’s manuscripts was difficult until lately. a number of the identified malay holy qur’én’s manuscripts reside outside malaysia, namely, at the rotterdam museum23 and the british library.24 the holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia are housed in various institutions, including the national library, the islamic centre, the asian art museum, iamm, nasyrul holy qur’én complex, and regional museums such as malacca al-holy qur’én museum, pahang state museum, and terengganu museum. the diverse range of malay holy qur’én’s manuscripts attests to their significant ties to major cultural and religious traditions. as per hoogervorst, the indian ocean trade network, initially established for commerce, evolved into a conduit for cultural and religious exchange.25 the evolution of gujarat, china, and india as key players in the maritime trade within the indian ocean had a profound impact on the development of malay culture, as evidenced by taglacozz. this transformation is reflected in the historical roles these regions played in shaping the trade dynamics and cultural exchanges that continue to resonate in the malay cultural heritage.26 wilson asserted that the ottoman empire’s governance of the region for over four centuries significantly influenced its cultural and religious landscape. this influence was particularly evident in the multilateral interactions facilitated by the pan-islamism network, notably during abdul hamid ii’s rule. these interactions, according to wilson, played a crucial role in enabling various cultural and religious activities in the region.27 dzul haimi md. zain posited that malay ornate illuminations incorporate elements of safavid aesthetic principles from iran, as well as characteristic features of mughal art from india.28 the diverse traditions evident in malaysian muslim art highlight its foundation upon the richness of multiple cultural influences. however, a noticeable gap exists in the current research pertaining to the amalgamation of these traditions within the context of islamic art in malaysia. holy qur’én’s manuscripts and cultural heritage in malaysia although there is a considerable amount of literature devoted to the malaysian holy qur’én’s manuscripts,29 this topic offers much room to continue exploring its facets. the study of holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia presents numerous unexplored dimensions that warrant scholarly attention. addressing the historical and material culture elements of these manuscripts in the malaysian context is essential for comprehending the islamization process in the region. however, the scarcity of research on holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia can be attributed to several factors, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 99 including the dispersion of collections across different countries, predominantly in europe. this dispersion has directed research efforts towards a europe-centric perspective. additionally, a substantial research gap exists regarding the educational roots that facilitated the transmission of the holy qur’én from the arab region to southeast asia, hindering a comprehensive understanding of its trajectory. therefore, further research in this area is imperative to address these knowledge gaps and enhance the study of islamic manuscripts in malaysia, thereby contributing to the broader discourse on the history of islamization in the country. moreover, it is noteworthy that the significance of holy qur’én’s manuscript studies extends beyond malaysia and encompasses global academic interest. while existing research predominantly focuses on the physical attributes and authenticity of holy qur’én codices, the socio-political and cultural dimensions of these manuscripts warrant greater scholarly attention.30 most historical studies have primarily engaged western scholars such as theodore noldeke, alphonso mingana, luxemburg, and nabia abbot, with an emphasis on dating the revelation of the holy qur’én based on manuscript analysis, leaving socio-political and cultural aspects relatively unexplored. therefore, a comprehensive examination of the historical and cultural dimensions of holy qur’én manuscripts is essential to deepen our understanding of islamization and enrich islamic manuscript research in malaysia, while also expanding the broader discourse on holy qur’én’s manuscript studies worldwide.31 however, mingana32 and luxenburg33 utilised manuscript evidence to argue that the holy qur’én was not written during the time of the prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions). the study of early holy qur’én’s manuscripts is a complex endeavour, facing challenges and employing different methods to establish authenticity and historical significance. nabia abbot confronted this approach, collecting early holy qur’én’s manuscripts to substantiate their authenticity. similarly, the chronological analysis of early holy qur’én’s manuscripts based on physical evidence has become a significant trend in the field. francois deroche notably advocated for this approach, endeavouring to chronologically date the holy qur’én from the time of the companions to the 10th century ad. this underscores the multifaceted nature of holy qur’én’s manuscript research, encompassing both physical and historical dimensions.34 this project gained momentum and was later extended within the nasser d. khalili collection of islamic art. as a result, numerous publications emerged, such as "holy qur’én of the 10th-16th centuries" authored 100 the historical bedrock … by david james35 and "holy qur’én of the 17th-19th centuries" coauthored by manijeh bayani, anna contadini, and tim stanley.36 nasser d. khalili's project focuses on the annotation of holy qur’én from different time periods, serving as a strong foundation for subsequent studies from diverse perspectives and methodologies. this signifies a significant advancement in the scholarly examination of holy qur’én’s manuscripts from both physical qur’én manuscripts in malaysia encompasses an analysis of the manuscript types found in the region. a.h. john37 and peter riddell38 have developed a typology for holy qur’én’s manuscripts and tafsêr in southeast asia. additionally, codicological studies have gained prominence as an important trend in the research on holy qur’én’s manuscripts in southeast asia. annabel t. gallop39 pioneered art studies by detecting various illumination patterns in southeast asian holy qur’én’s manuscripts housed in the british library. gallop contended that these patterns reflected the evolution of art and culture in southeast asia. several scholars, including edwin wieringa,40 ali akbar,41 islah gusmian,42 ervan nurtawab,43 and riswadi,44 have derived inspiration from her theories. the focus of research in indonesia, malaysia, and the philippines includes the artistic and textual aspects of holy qur’én’s manuscripts. the intricate nature of malay manuscripts in malaysian libraries and museums, along with the complexities of their distribution, highlights a significant need for further research in this area. the study of holy qur’én’s manuscripts constitutes a pivotal element within malaysia’s global manuscript research community. institutions such as the islamic art museum malaysia (iamm) and bahagian hal ehwal islam (baheis) have been instrumental in expanding their collections to encompass a diverse range of ancient manuscripts. baheis, for instance, amassed approximately 3,600 manuscripts in arabic, malay, and other languages in the early 1980s as part of its commitment to the preservation of islamic cultural heritage, with a notable contribution from the southern thai provinces of terengganu, kelantan, and patani. in this endeavour, the patani scholar wan mohd shaghir bin haji wan abdullah played a significant role.45 in 1984, the state library of malaysia established the malay manuscript centre to acquire the manuscript collection previously owned by baheis. currently, the library curates approximately 4,700 manuscripts, including over 40 manuscripts related to the holy qur’én.46 in 1997, the establishment of the islamic art museum malaysia (iamm) marked a pivotal effort towards the preservation of holy qur’én’s manuscripts. iamm has since curated a collection exceeding 300 manuscripts, positioning it as the nation’s largest repository of such invaluable artefacts.47 additionally, malaysia’s commitment to preserving these significant manuscripts and supporting scholarly research is evidenced by the extensive hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 101 collection of holy qur’én’s manuscripts housed in various state museums and libraries. methodology research design this study employs qualitative research methods, specifically library research, to investigate the historical provenance of malay qur’én manuscripts in malaysia and their interconnections with other regional traditions of holy qur’én’s inscription. our primary sources comprise of malay qur’én’s manuscripts housed at the islamic art museum malaysia (iamm) and the national library of malaysia (nlm). methods of data collection the primary approach employed for data collection involved documentation. our data collection process was systematically divided into six distinct phases, aligning with the methodology proposed by mace (2015) and adopting a philological perspective.48 the six steps in philological method (table 1, mace. 2015) 1. manuscript selection: manuscripts classified as malay qur’én’s manuscripts were identified by consulting resources such as the iamm and nlm catalogues. 2. inventory: a thorough inventory of these manuscripts was conducted, specifically identifying those that meet the established requirements for malay qur’én’s manuscripts. 3. detailed manuscript descriptions: the manuscripts were carefully recorded based on certain attributes, following the rules of codicology.49 4. manuscript comparison: the manuscripts were examined with the belief that there is a correlation between the writing practices of the malay qur’én and those of other regions. selecting manuscripts manuscript inventory detailed manuscript descriptions manuscript comparisons manuscript editing content examination 102 the historical bedrock … 5. manuscript editing: the unique features seen in the malay qur’én’s manuscripts, such as the use of illumination, the skilful calligraphy, and the use of rasm, were methodically identified and recorded. 6. content examination: this study involved a comprehensive analysis of the features displayed by malay qur’én’s manuscripts, comparing them to those from other regions. methods of data analysis in conducting data analysis, content analysis was employed. the initial phase involved a systematic examination of the manuscripts’ illumination, calligraphy, and rasm. the objective of this analysis was to discern patterns and distinctive features that could shed light on the historical and cultural context of the manuscripts. the subsequent phase entailed the deductive, inductive, and comparative analysis50 of the data in order to interpret the findings using historical and material culture theories.51 discussions malaysia collection of holy qur’én’s manuscripts the manuscripts of the holy qur’én held at the national library of malaysia (nlm) and iamm primarily comprise collections originating not only from the southeast asia region but also from other regions such as north africa and the middle east.52 the earliest fragments of the holy qur’én displayed at the holy qur’én and manuscripts gallery, iamm, can be dated back to the 18th century.53 the east coast of the malay peninsula, according to records from the british library, is recognised for producing exceptional the holy qur’én manuscripts within southeast asia. this distinction is followed by terengganu, known for its particularly lavish production of the holy qur’én presently a part of thailand.54 the nation of malaysia has an extensive historical legacy that encompasses the malay land, the sultanate of johor riau, and the malay kingdom of pattani, which includes kelantan and terengganu prior to the siamese invasion in 1786. nevertheless, a notable portion of the existing collection of quranic manuscripts is comparatively recent when contrasted with the historical timeline of islamic kingdoms in malaysia. although islamic civilisation has been present in malaysia since the 13th century,55 no holy qur’én’s manuscript heritage from that period has been discovered to date. the discovered holy qur’én’s manuscripts at nlm (national library of malaysia) and iamm (islamic arts museum malaysia) originate from the 18th to 19th centuries, representing diverse regional origins, including kelantan, terengganu, melaka, johor, sabah, and sarawak. these hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 103 manuscripts reflect the historically unique cultures of each region while collectively representing a heritage of the malay world. they also depict the connection of the malay world with earlier traditions globally. the study classifies these manuscripts into three categories based on colophon information and visual elements. out of the ten studied manuscripts, only two are accompanied by colophons. codicological similarities are noted among the manuscripts. however, some manuscripts are challenging to access due to severe damage, resulting in the exclusion of five manuscripts from each collection. the first group from nlm comprises seven singlevolume holy qur’én’s manuscripts, each with distinct characteristics, primarily using european paper, except for two that use dluwang paper. the second group from iamm consists of three single-volume holy qur’én’s manuscripts utilising european paper with distinctive watermarks, maintaining fifteen lines per page, except for one manuscript which has thirteen lines. the analysis reveals that the letter names in both group one and group two maintain the sequence of surah al-fātiḥa across the nine manuscripts. however, mss 3596 deviates by commencing with surah al-fatihah. the page margins specify the thirty divisions of the holy qur’én represented by palmettes, with red inscriptions denoting the sixtieth division (íizb). certain folios preceding the holy qur’én’s text may contain texts extolling virtues and offering guidance on recitation. additionally, some manuscripts feature illuminated pages with chapter titles and selected verses, introducing a distinctive artistic element to the collection. the marginal glossa, present throughout the manuscripts, exhibit variant readings and prophetic quotations in red and black script, adding an extra layer to the beauty and uniqueness of each manuscript. from a visual standpoint, the manuscript displays three groups of illuminations that epitomise its rich cultural and artistic heritage. firstly, there is the illumination adorned with the terengganu motif, as described by annabel t. gallop. this motif comprises two levels, with the outer level displaying a curved shape following a square, adorned with floral decoration in the upper and lower corners. the inner level consists of three interconnected gates adorned with floral decoration. the dominant colours of gold, yellow, and red combine to create a lavish and beautiful aesthetic. secondly, there is an illumination featuring motifs from the west coast of malaysia and sumatra. this motif, found predominantly in sumatra, especially aceh, has a single level—the inner level—comprising one gate on the side and two crowns above and below without any connection. red and black colours prevail in this motif. thirdly, there is a square motif resembling the previously mentioned motif. this motif, primarily found in the brunei region, has a single level—the inner level—with a square frame shape and a dome. it also exhibits a 104 the historical bedrock … tower-like shape at the top on the right and left of the dome, dominated by brown and green colours. the incorporation of these three types of illuminations yields a profound artistic beauty, symbolising a harmonious fusion of art from diverse regions and cultures. based on these colophon and visual descriptions, holy qur’én’s manuscripts originating from malaysia can be categorised into three main groups. firstly, there is the holy qur’én’s manuscript heritage originating from the east coast malay regions, such as kelantan and terengganu. secondly, the holy qur’én manuscript heritage originating from the west coast malay regions, including melaka and johor. thirdly, the holy qur’én manuscript heritage originating from borneo, encompassing sabah and sarawak, along with the brunei malay heritage. the style and history of holy qur’én manuscripts in malaysia the calligraphy employed in holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia can be classified into at least two distinct styles. firstly, there is calligraphy closely aligned with the naskhi style, commonly used in ottoman holy qur’én.56 this style is prevalent in holy qur’én manuscripts originating from terengganu, exemplified by iamm.1998.1.3436. secondly, there is calligraphy in the malay style, as observed in mss 3566. this calligraphic style possesses a unique visual appearance that seems to amalgamate various calligraphic rules. it is a fusion of naskhi, sini, and muíaqqaq calligraphy, visually combining the density between letters seen in naskhi with curves reminiscent of sini and muíaqqaq.57 this calligraphic model suits the vertical muîíaf commonly found in the malay world and is also present in many islamic manuscripts employing jawi writing.58 fig 1 naskhi script fig 2 malay script hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 105 fig 3 sini script the presence of these two calligraphic styles in holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia signifies the transmission of islamic traditions to the malay world, facilitated through both maritime and overland connections from india to china and central asia. the illuminations found in holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia can be categorised into three main groups. the first group consists of the east coast peninsular malaysia, which includes kelantan and terengganu, and certain remnants from the kingdom of patani. the second group is the west coast peninsular malaysia group, which comprises the heritage of melaka, johor, and remnants from the kingdoms in sumatra. lastly, there is the borneo group originating from the island of borneo, including sabah, and featuring some remnants from brunei. the east coast style illuminations can be observed in manuscripts mss.3238 of the nlm collection and iamm.1998.1.3436, iamm.2012.13.6 of the iamm collection. both manuscripts display visual characteristics identical to those of terengganu, with iamm.1998.1.3436 even featuring a colophon indicating the place of its creation. according to riswadi,59 this manuscript was penned on 13 sha‘ban 1275 ah/18 march 1859 by haji ahmad in kampung manjilegi, a village in the terengganu region. the illuminations in this group are characterised by the prevalent use of gold, yellow, and blue colours, with intricate floral forms adorning both the outer and inner levels. a distinctive feature of the terengganu style is the utilisation of the oval window frame format at the margins.60 the featured illuminations are strategically positioned at three key junctures: the start, midpoint, and conclusion. the inaugural illumination graces surah al-fatihah and the commencement of surah al-baqarah, while the central illumination adorns the opening of surah al-isra'. the ultimate illumination embellishes surah al-falaq and surah an-nass. the east coast style prominently reflects the influence of the patani style, incorporating architectural elements from the langkasuka civilisation in thailand.61 the west coast style of illumination presents distinct visual characteristics compared to the east coast style, as evidenced by the pieces with plate numbers mss 3536 and mss 3567 in the nlm 106 the historical bedrock … collection. this style is characterised by a single inner level featuring a gate on the side and two crowns above and below, without any interconnection. red and black colours are prevalent in this motif, incorporating numerous suspended floral elements. in contrast to the east coast style, where floral elements are encased within the frame, the west coast style bears a closer resemblance to the chinese holy qur’én tradition. fig 4 al-holy qur’én terengganu iamm.2012.13.6 fig 5 al-holy qur’én terengganu mss.3238 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 107 the holy qur’én’s manuscripts in this style typically do not utilise the stringed verse system that is characteristic of the east coast style. while both manuscripts lack a colophon, they share commonalities in illumination with the fiqh manuscript titled "øiraïi-mustaqêm," bearing the code mss 3426, written in ramadan 1144 ah/february 1732 ad. historical inquiries suggest that the holy qur’én manuscripts were produced around the same time as the fiqh manuscript, despite the absence of a colophon in the manuscripts. the illuminations in this manuscript, following the customary tradition in the malay world, are positioned in three locations.62 however, what sets this style apart is the central illumination on surah al-kahf, with red ink emphasis on the 75th verse: " أَُقل لََّك قَاَل أَلَم ًا َتِطيَع َمِعَي َصْبم he said, " did i not tell you that you can never) "ِإنََّك َلن َتسم bear with me patiently? ")63. this style of illuminations is also found in sumatra, particularly in holy qur’én’s manuscripts from aceh fig 6 west coast malay al-holy qur’én mss 3536 fig 7 west coast malay al-holy qur’én mss 3567 108 the historical bedrock … fig 8 middle illumination mss 3566 fig 9 colophon kitab øiréï-i-mustaqêm mss 3426 the borneo style illuminations are characterised by distinct visual elements, notably featuring a dominant rectangular structure accompanied by a dome and two tower-like figures on either side of the dome. this particular style is evident in mss 3592 from the nlm collection and is notably scarce in malaysian manuscripts. the predominant use of green and brown hues further accentuates the region’s uniqueness, in contrast to the prevalent yellow and gold shades of the east coast and the red and black tones of the west coast. although floral motifs are incorporated into this style of illumination, they are specifically integrated into the framework associated with the shape of the two towers. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 109 fig 10 borneo style holy qur’én mss 3592 findings bridging regions: networking across malay world the holy qur’én’s manuscripts in malaysia can be categorised into three distinct groups, each influenced by the visual traditions of the major regions of terengganu, johor, and sabah. these regions showcase diverse visual traditions, contributing to a distinctive artistic richness in the holy qur’én manuscripts. for instance, the illuminated designs found in mss 3238 and iamm.1998.1.3436 are closely aligned with the tradition of terengganu and the eastern coastal regions of malaysia, including kelantan and patani in thailand. this tradition may have been influenced by patani, as the sultanates of terengganu and kelantan were established later than the 15th-century sultanate of patani. according to annabel, the unique illuminated islamic manuscript style from terengganu, kelantan, and patani reflects a regional identity deeply rooted in the historical influence of langkasuka, a kingdom that thrived on the thai-malay isthmus until the 15th century. this distinct artistic tradition not only represents cultural continuity but also signifies a heritage associated with langkasuka, as recognised by craftsmen such as nik rashiddin haji nik hussein.64 the east coast region of malaysia, which includes sixteenthcentury melaka and johor, exhibits an adaptation of traditions from the sixteenth-century sultanate of aceh (pasai) and the kingdoms of 110 the historical bedrock … sumatra, such as kampar and indragiri. visual similarities between holy qur’én’s manuscripts from johor and melaka and those from aceh suggest a substantial influence from the region. fig 11 holy qur’én from patani the sultanate of malacca has played a significant role in the development of islam in southeast asia. it emerged as a key hub for trade and commerce in the early 15th century ad, surpassing the kingdom of samudera pasai. however, malacca’s prominence was short-lived as it was successfully conquered by the portuguese in 1511. subsequently, aceh became an important islamic centre, attracting muslim intellectuals and thinkers. the interaction between pasai-melaka and aceh led to a cultural amalgamation between the kingdoms. furthermore, the influence of the brunei region is evident in the holy qur’én’s manuscripts of sabah and sarawak. the sultanate of brunei in the 15th century left a profound legacy in the form of holy qur’én’s manuscripts, extending its influence to the mindanao region of the philippines, facilitating connections and artistic exchanges that define the diverse and culturally rich holy qur’én manuscript traditions in malaysia. the connection of malay holy qur’én’s manuscripts with persian, ottoman, and chinese traditions in the 16th century, the strait of malacca became a crucial thoroughfare for trade in the asian region, facilitating extensive cultural interactions that extended beyond the confines of malaysian tradition. notably, turkey (ottoman), persia, and even china contributed significantly to shaping the intricate cultural landscape of the area.65 the strategic location of the strait of malacca fuelled robust trade activities, enabling the influx of diverse cultural hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 111 influences into the region. additionally, the overland route connecting to china and central asia played a significant role in the dissemination of islamic traditions in malaysia. notably, melaka and sumatra exhibit visual elements reminiscent of the rugged chinese form of the holy qur’én, fused with indigenous cultural adaptations. it is noteworthy that the calligraphy in this region deviated from the prevailing naskhi script commonly observed in the calligraphy of the holy qur’én during that era. in contrast, a separate style of calligraphy known as malay calligraphy66 emerged, expertly incorporating aspects from several traditions, including muíaqqaq from persia and naskhi from china. this fusion of influences is visible in the distinct visual qualities of the qur’én in melaka and sumatra, as demonstrated by the usage of malay calligraphy. the tradition of the persian holy qur’én is characterised by intricate gold and green illuminations and muíaqqaq calligraphy, which collectively contribute to its distinctive visual and linguistic67 characteristics. this tradition, which thrived during the safavid era, exerted influence over regions including afghanistan, india, and even china. the transmission of this tradition to the malay islamic tradition could have occurred through either maritime or terrestrial channels, considering the history of their interactions.68 the influence and adaptation of the persian holy qur’én tradition with respect to malay islam is evident in the parallels between the holy qur’én of borneo and those of china and persia. notably, a common visual motif featuring a dome at the top, adorned with minarets on the right and left sides, is observed. furthermore, the artistic elements of the bornean qur’én complement the persian qur’én's characteristic green tint. this convergence of visual and textual aspects serves as a testament to the cross-cultural exchange that transcended geographical boundaries, highlighting the influential nature of the persian holy qur’én tradition within malay islam. the 15th century marked a significant period for holy qur’én writing in the ottoman empire, leaving a profound influence on the tradition. a well-recognised adage in ottoman culture, "kur'an mekke'de indi. misir'da okundu, istanbul'da yazildi," emphasising the importance of the ottoman holy qur’én writing tradition. the distinctive features of the ottoman holy qur’én include the use of illumination with squares and turkish carpet motifs. notably, the surah is often denoted as "surah al-fatiha" rather than "surah fatihah." furthermore, the ottoman empire has employed the stringed verse system since the 16th century.69 the systematic arrangement of the conclusion of each verse on every page is a significant feature of this system. the standardisation of the ottoman holy qur’én to 15 lines per page in the 15th century replaced the previous format of 17 lines 112 the historical bedrock … per page. notably, the terengganu holy qur’én adheres to these standards, signifying the influence of the ottoman tradition. however, the terengganu holy qur’én is distinctive in its incorporation of local elements in its production. the harmonious integration of ottoman and indigenous characteristics in the terengganu holy qur’én captures both external influence and regional identity, reflecting the dynamic nature of the manuscript. fig 12 persian holy qur’én fig 13 chinese holy qur’én hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 113 fig 14 ottoman qur’én conclusion through a thorough analysis of available manuscripts in malaysia, this study provides new insights into the cultural and historical significance of the holy qur’én within the malay world. the malay historical manuscripts, housed in malaysia’s state library (nlm) and islamic arts museum malaysia (iamm), originate from various regions, including kelantan, terengganu, melaka, johor, sabah, sarawak, and brunei. a detailed classification of these manuscripts into east coast, west coast, and borneo styles based on visual and colophon features emphasises the diverse artistic traditions prevalent across different regions. the examination of the holy qur’én’s manuscripts reveals not only their aesthetic appeal but also the profound connections between the malay world and other global cultures. the creative diversity of the text is enhanced by the incorporation of various calligraphic styles unique to malay qur’én’s manuscripts, some of which reflect naskhi style while also incorporating distinct malay idioms. furthermore, the inclusion of elements from borneo, terengganu, and the west coast signifies a holistic approach to creative expression, showcasing the interdependence of various regional civilisations. this research enriches our understanding of malay qur’én’s manuscripts by shedding light on the intricate connections between islam and the malay world. it delves into concepts from persian, ottoman, and chinese qur’én’s manuscripts, illustrating the links between global civilisations and localised developments in the creative history of the malay people. however, this study acknowledges certain limitations. the exclusive focus on 114 the historical bedrock … manuscripts from the 18th to the 19th centuries results in a knowledge gap regarding earlier periods of islamic civilisation in malaysia. additionally, the research scope is restricted by the damage that has caused the absence of specific manuscripts. to overcome these limitations, future studies should explore earlier historical periods, utilise advanced technology to restore damaged manuscripts, and conduct comparative analyses with holy qur’én’s manuscripts from neighbouring regions. notes and references: 1 "muslim population by country 2023." world population by country 2023 (live). accessed september 11, 2024.https://worldpopulationreview.com/countryrankings/muslim-population-bcountry. 2 a peacock and gallop annabel, from anatolia to aceh : ottomans, turks, and southeast asia, ed. a; annabel gallop peacock, from anatolia to aceh (oxford: british academy, 2015); martin. lerner, flame and the lotus : indian and southeast asian art from the kronos collections. (new york: metropolitan museum of art, 2013); pierre-yves manguin, a. mani, and geoff wade, early interactions between south and southeast asia : reflections on cross-cultural exchange (singapore: iseas-yusof ishak institute, 2011). 3 annabel teh gallop, “malay manuscript art:the british library collections,” british library journal (1991); annabel teh gallop, “the art of the malay holy qur’én,” arts of asia, 2012; riswadi azmi and mustaffa abdullah, “manuskrip alholy qur’én di alam melayu: kajian terhadap manuskrip al-holy qur’an terengganu,” journal of usuluddin 45, no. 2 (december 31, 2017): 19–54; hassan hasnira et al., “integrasi seni dan sains dalam teknologipembuatan manuskrip alquran kilau dari kesultanan terengganu,” ed. samian abdul latif and muslim nazri, isu-isu sains & teknologi di alam melayu (2014): 78–97. 4 fatima zahra, and safrizal shahir. "characteristics of islamic calligraphy: nasta‘liq, persian calligraphy influences on mughal architecture of 17th century." hamdard islamicus 46, no. 2 (2023). doi:10.57144/hi.v46i2.657. 5 dzul haimi md. zain, ragam hias al-holy qur’an di alam melayu (kuala lumpur: utusan, 2007). 6 azmi and abdullah, “manuskrip al-holy qur’an di alam melayu: kajian terhadap manuskrip al-holy qur’an terengganu.” 7 a. b. shamsul, “debating about identity in malaysia: a discourse analysis,” southeast asian studies 34, no. 3 (1996). 8 r. michael feener, “islam in southeast asia to c. 1800,” oxford research encyclopedia of asian history (march 26, 2019). 9 m. b. hooker, “introduction: islamic law in south-east asia,” studia islamika 10, no. 1 (2003): 1–22, https://doi.org/10.15408/sdi.v10i1.636. 10 cut linda muhammad and adis duderija, “understanding the context and concept of islam nusantara,” icr journal 13, no. 1 (june 30, 2022): 92–111, https://doi.org/10.52282/icr.v13i1.912. 11 khairudin aljunied, “islam in southeast asia,” oxford research encyclopedia of religion (december 23, 2019). 12 leonard y. andaya, “the introduction, spread, and circulation of islam up to the early colonial period in southeast asia,” in routledge handbook of islam in southeast asia (taylor and francis, 2022), 13–29. 13 azyumardi azra, renaisans islam asia tenggara: sejarah wacana dan kekuasaan (bandung: remaja rosdakarya, 1999) 14 khairudin aljunied, “islam in southeast asia,” oxford research encyclopedia of religion (december 23, 2019). 15 review, “muslim population by country.” hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 115 16 saima syed, “binding styles of qur’an manuscripts produced in the subcontinent from 14th till 18th century c.e.” hamdard islamicus, 42 no 3, 2019. 17 a. j. stockwell, “southeast asia in war and peace: the end of european colonial empires,” the cambridge history of southeast asia, december 4, 1993, 325–86. 18 nor azlin hamidon et al., “design structure in malaysian islamic calligraphy contemporary paintings,” march 25, 2022. 19 peter borschberg, “ethnicity, language and culture in melaka after the transition from portuguese to dutch rule (seventeenth century),” journal of the malaysian branch of the royal asiatic society 83, no. 2 (2010): 93–117. 20 taufik abdullah, “tun sri lanang dan ikatan kultural alam melayu,” jurnal masyarakat dan budaya 16, no. 1 (2014): 1–26. 21 gallop, “the art of the malay holy qur’an.” 22 azmi and abdullah, “manuskrip al-holy qur’an di alam melayu: kajian terhadap manuskrip al-holy qur’an terengganu.” 23 peter g. riddell, “rotterdam ms 96 d 16: the oldest known surviving qur’ān from the malay world,” indonesia and the malay world 30, no. 86 (march 2002): 9–20. 24 gallop, “malay manuscript art:the british library collections.” 25 tom hoogervorst, “commercial networks connecting southeast asia with the indian ocean,” oxford research encyclopedia of asian history, december 22, 2021, 26 eric tagliacozzo, “southeast asia’s middle east: shifting geographies of islam and trade across the indian ocean,” comparative studies of south asia, africa and the middle east 34, no. 3 (january 1, 2015): 565–73, 27 m. brett wilson, translating the qurʼan in an age of nationalism : print culture and modern islam in turkey (oup in association with the institute of ismaili studies, 2014). 28 dzul haimi md. zain, ragam hias al-holy qur’an di alam melayu. 29 hasnira et al., “integrasi seni dan sains dalam teknologipembuatan manuskrip al-quran kilau dari kesultanan terengganu”; annabel teh gallop, “malay manuscript illumination,” jurnal filologi melayu, 2006; azmi and abdullah, “manuskrip al-holy qur’an di alam melayu: kajian terhadap manuskrip al-holy qur’an terengganu”; dzul haimi md. zain, ragam hias al-holy qur’an di alam melayu. 30 hanifah et al., “exploring javanese female sufism in serat murtasiyah: a study of women's representation of religious values in the domestic realm within modern western contexts” hamdard islamicus, 47 no 2, 2024. 31 theodor nöldeke et al., the history of the qurʾān, the history of the qurʾān (brill, 2013), https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004228795. 32 alphonse mingana, an ancient syriac translation of the kur’ān, exhibiting new verses and variants (manchester: university press, 1925). 33 christoph luxenberg, syro-aramaic reading of the koran : a contribution to the decoding of the language of the koran. (berlin: h. schiler, 2007). 34 françois déroche, holy qur’ans of the umayyads : a first overview (leiden: brill academic publishers, 2014); francois déroche, the abbasid tradition : holy qur’ans of the 8th to the 10th centuries ad (london: nour foundation in association with azmimuth and oxford university press, 1992). 35 david james, the master scribes : holy qur’ans of the 10th to 14th centuries ad (london: the nour foundation, 1992). 36 manijfeh. bayani et al., the decorated word : holy qur’ans of the 17th to 19th centuries (nour foundation in association with azimuth editions & oxford university press, 1999), 37 a. h. johns, “the holy qur’an in the malay world: reflections on ’abd alra’uf of singkel (1615-1693),” journal of islamic studies, 1998, https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/9.2.120. 38 peter g. riddell, “camb. ms or. ii.6.45: the oldest surviving holy qur’an commentary from southeast asia,” journal of holy qur’an studies 16, no. 1 (february 4, 2014): 120–39, https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2014.0134; riddell, 116 the historical bedrock … “rotterdam ms 96 d 16: the oldest known surviving qur’ān from the malay world”; peter riddell, “earliest quranic exegetic activity in the malay speaking states,” archipel 38, no. 1 (1989): 107–24, https://doi.org/10.3406/arch.1989.2591. 39 annabel teh gallop, “the spirit of langkasuka? illuminated manuscripts from the east coast of the malay peninsula,” indonesia and the malay world, 2005, https://doi.org/10.1080/13639810500282417; gallop, “the art of the malay holy qur’an.” 40 edwin paul wiering, “some javanese characteristics of a holy qur’an manuscript from surakarta,” in from codicology to technology. islamic manuscripts and their place in scholarship: islamic manuscripts and their place in scholarship, ed. stefanie brinkmann (berlin: frank & timme, 2008); edwin p. wieringa, malay graffiti in a nneteenth-century lithographed bombay quran (center for research and development of religious literature and heritage, 2018); edwin wieringa, “the idea of an old holy qur’an manuscript: on the commercialization of the indonesian islamic heritage,” heritage of nusantara: international journal of religious literature and heritage 3, no. 1 (february 17, 2014): 1–16, https://doi.org/10.31291/hn.v3i1.17. 41 annabel teh gallop and ali akbar, “the art of the holy qur’an in banten: calligraphy and illumination,” archipel, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3406/arch.2006.4028. 42 islah gusmian, “kaligrafi islam: dari nalar seni hingga simbolisme spiritual,” al-jami’ah: journal of islamic studies 41, no. 1 (march 16, 2018): 108–32, https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2003.411.108-132. 43 ervan nurtawab, the holy qur’an and islamic mauscripts of mindanao, ed. kawashima midori (tokyo: institute of asian cultures, sophia university, 2012). 44 riswadi azmi, “analisis terhadap manuskrip al-quran terengganu iamm 2012.13.6” (university malaya, 2017). 45 annabel the gallop, “the appreciation and study of qur’an manuscripts from southeast asia: past, present, and future,” heritage of nusantara: international journal of religious literature and heritage (e-journal), 2016. 46 wan haji ali wan mamat, “kegiatan pengumpulan manuskrip melayu di malaya pada abad ke-19 dan 20,” jurnal filologi melayu 6 (1997): 101–12. 47 islamic art museum malaysia, al-qur’an: the sacred art of revelation (kuala lumpur: iamm, 2014). 48 caroline mace, “chapter 3. textual criticism and text editing,” comparative oriental manuscript studies. an introduction, ed. by alessandro bausi et al., hamburg: tredition, 2015, 321-465, january 1, 2015, 49 françois déroche et al., “islamic codicology: an introduction to the study of manuscripts in arabic script; translated by deke dusinberre and david radzinowicz,” ed. muhammad isa waley, 2006. 50 j. c. overholser, “elements of the socratic method: ii. inductive reasoning,” psychotherapy 30, no. 1 (1993): 75–85, https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-3204.30.1.75. 51 ian. woodward, understanding material culture (sage publications, 2007). 52 this identification was done by comparing several holy qur’an manuscripts from digital catalogues including the british library, islamic art museum malaysia and khalili collection of islamic art. 53 https://iamm.org.my/galleries/quran-manuscript 54 "a malay qur’an manuscript from patani." british library blog. accessed september 11, 2024. https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2021/03/a-malay-quranmanuscript-from-patani.html. 55 ibn batutta, the travel of ibnu battuta (mineola: dover publications, 2004). 56 muhammet abay, osmanli dönemi̇nde mushaf i̇mlasi tartişmalari (istanbul: marmara üniversitesi ilahiyat fakültesi vakfı, 2015). 57 islamic arts museum malaysia, al-quran: the sacred art of revelation (kuala lumpur: islamic arts museum malaysia, 2006). 58 annabel teh gallop, “a jawi sourcebook for the study of malay palaeography and orthography,” indonesia and the malay world, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2015.1008253. https://iamm.org.my/galleries/quran-manuscript hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 117 59 riswadi azmi, analisis terhadap manuskrip al-quran terengganu iamm 2012.13.6 /, 2018. 60 malaysia, al-quran: the sacred art of revelation. 61 gallop, annabel t. "the spirit of langkasuka? illuminated manuscripts from the east coast of the malay peninsula." indonesia and the malay world 33, no. 96 (2005), 113-182. doi:10.1080/13639810500282417. 62 ali akbar, “the influence of ottoman holy qur’ans in southeast asia through the ages,” from anatolia to aceh, february 5, 2015, https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197265819.003.0014. 63 usmani, muhammad taqi, meaning of the noble quran, 18:75, maktaba ma’ariful quran, karachi, 2010. 64 gallop, “the spirit of langkasuka? illuminated manuscripts from the east coast of the malay peninsula.” 65 hoogervorst, “commercial networks connecting southeast asia with the indian ocean.” 66 islamic arts museum malaysia, al-quran: the sacred art of revelation (islamic arts museum malaysia, 2006). 67 hamid, a. a. (2022). considering of the occasion in qur’anic separators: a structural semantics study. karachi islamicus, 2(1), 12-27. 68 s. q. fatimi, islām comes to malaysia (malaysian sociological research institute, 1963). 69 achmad yafik mursyid, “endonezya’daki mushaf basım faaliyetlerinin osmanlı geleneksel mushaflarıyla i̇lişkisi,” i̇lahiyat tetkikleri dergisi, 2020. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 31 al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in the eyes of contemporary indonesian muslim intellectuals h. zuhri uin sunan kalijaga yogyakarta, indonesia. email: zuhri@uin-suka.ac.id muhammad arif uin sunan kalijaga yogyakarta, indonesia. email: muhammad.arif@uin-suka.ac.id received on: 10-06-22 accepted on: 27-01-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.512 abstract indonesian muslim intellectuals have positioned al-ghazalī differently. some accuse him of being responsible for the decline of the islamic civilization, while others regard him as very influential in making the so-called islamic rationalism. this paper aims to challenge the above two assumptions respectively through in-depth reading and analysis of the major works of each proponent. it is concluded that current studies on al-ghazalī in indonesia have not moved on from the old-fashion studies, which portray him negatively. however, his thought is very significant in directing discourses on theology and sufism in indonesia. keywords: indonesian islam, al-ghazalī, religious literacy, islamic philosophy, islamic theology. 1. introduction al-ghazalī was a prominent muslim thinker with highly complex ideas. since he was alive until recently, there have been disputes over his designation as ḥujjah al-islām (transl. the argument of islam).1 some muslim intellectuals complimented his works for clearly expressing the authors of islam, while others bemoaned their excessive entanglement with philosophy, despite his open claim to the opposite.2 while many observers find al-ghazalī‘s works to be overwhelmingly full of philosophical concepts, his mailto:zuhri@uin-suka.ac.id mailto:muhammad.arif@uin-suka.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.512 32 al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in… expertise on the subject was questioned by ibn rushd (d. 1198), tahāfut al-tahāfut’s author, who regarded al-ghazalī as an amateur philosopher for his use of only dialectical and demonstrative arguments.3 al-ghazalī’s entanglement with philosophy remains debatable. in his seminal monograph on ibn rushd and his european followers, earnest renan portrayed al-ghazalī as an opponent of rationalism and an architect of the “war against philosophy” in the islamic world that emerged since the end of the 12th century. renan dismissed al-ghazalī as “one of those quirky thinkers who embraced religion only to challenge reason.” 4 renan’s allegation about alghazalī quickly gained traction. tjitze j. de boer (1866–1942), in his history of philosophy in islam, labeled al-ghazalī as a person who had vainly thrown away attempts to achieve global scientific knowledge and had, instead, devoted himself to overcoming religious problems.5 muhammad ‘abid al-jābirī (1935-2010) wrote that alghazalī’s thought “has left an acute wound in the arab reasoning which remains gaping even today."6 while majid fakhry, in his widely referred work, a history of islamic philosophy, regarded alghazali’s criticism of islamic philosophy as an inherent conflict between philosophy and dogma. fakhry assumed that unlike ibn sinā (980-1037) and al-farabī (870-950), who represented the philosophical and rational tradition, al-ghazalī represented dogma.7 there has been increased research on al-ghazalī’s denunciation of philosophy, making it a predominating notion in studies on al-ghazalī in indonesia. some famous islamicists of the respective country, including harun nasution8 and amin abdullah9, very much exploit al-ghazalī's rejection of reasoning, orthodox mysticism, and causality. it is safe to say that the current studies of al-ghazalī in indonesia are directed at viewing the thinker as an adversary of rational-philosophical thinking. nearly all journal articles that address al-ghazalī’s predicament with philosophy, indexed in ipi and moraref, deem him the “enemy” of philosophy. see, for instance, the works of ghazali munir,10 mas‘udi,11 ahmad atabik,12 and jamhari.13 on the other hand, there is a rapidly growing trend in western academia of perceiving al-ghazalī’s stance on philosophy with greater appreciation. two noticeable articles are “al-ghazalī’s use of avicenna’s philosophy” by richard m. frank (published in 1987) and “the appropriation and subsequent naturalization of greek sciences in medieval islam” by abdelhamid i. sabra (1986).14 both agree that al-ghazalī attempted to appropriate and naturalize ibn sina’s philosophy to fit islamic teachings and values rather than destructively criticizing it. following these two articles, a new image hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 33 of al-ghazalī arises; that he never meant to destroy islamic philosophy, for he was the one who contributed the most to the integration of greek philosophy into the islamic one. hence, it is interesting to study the gap between the emerging image of alghazalī in western academia and the situation in indonesia. one possible explanation is that such studies in indonesia have been encapsulated by the cynical orientalism stream towards islamic philosophical traditions. this article aims to shed light on this issue. 2. research methods this paper studies works on al-ghazalī written by indonesian muslim intellectuals. it meticulously explores them one by one, mapping them according to the authors’ backgrounds and analysing the structure of their ideas, as well as their impact on discourses on al-ghazalī specifically and on islamic studies in indonesia in general. 3. research objectives the main objective of this research is to explore and map the discussions on al-ghazalī's thoughts conducted by muslim intellectuals in indonesia. these activities are important because alghazalī’s works influence indonesian muslims' religious literacy. 4. literature reviews before delving into the main topic of this article, it is necessary to explore the development of the discourse on al-ghazalī worldwide. early studies of modern western academia focused on the history of islamic civilization, especially the decline of islam after its glory days. these studies primarily address the abrupt cessation of islamic development and the gradual decline of islamic glory, which was once the axis of the world civilization. this reality piqued the interest of many western academics, prompting them to conduct further studies on the subject. among the first western scholars to meet al-ghazalī directly when studying islamic civilization was solomon munk (1803-1867), the author of the first comprehensive history of arabic and islamic philosophy in the modern western world. in his 1844 work, he stated unequivocally that al-ghazalī held the utmost responsibility for the death of philosophy in the islamic world. he insisted that al-ghazalī’s tahāfut al-falāsifah had destroyed muslims’ affection towards philosophy.15 munk’s judgment of al-ghazalī was echoed by ernes renan in his averroes et l'averroïsme. renan’s admiration for ibn rushd leads him to dismiss al-ghazalī, blaming him for being the 34 al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in… mastermind behind the 12th-century muslims’ “war against philosophy”. the author also characterized al-ghazalī as an “eccentric thinker who embraced religion only to challenge reason.”16 in 1883, ignaz goldziher (1850-1921), an exceptionally authoritative islamist, reaffirmed this notion, albeit in a different tone. he argued that during al-ghazalī's time, philosophical thought in muslim society had reached a state of despair and impoverishment. thus, alghazalī's criticism of philosophy in tahāfut al-falāsifah ended the miserably contemptible practice, and any philosophical works after him would have been nothing more than piles of firewood.17 in 1962, appeared william m. watt, an exemplary historiographer of islamic thought. unlike his predecessors, he believed that al-ghazalī had integrated philosophy and theology while simultaneously introducing the rules of syllogism into islamic theology. even so, after his death, watt still regarded al-ghazalī's tahāfut as the reason behind the lack of exceptional muslim philosophers18 and blamed him for the death of philosophy in the islamic world. in subsequent developments, the views that alghazalī opposed philosophy began to receive serious resistance.19 richard m. frank and abdelhamid i. sabra wrote the first two important articles that strongly challenged this view.20 in his article, sabra stated that after translating greek thought into islamic languages (known as a period of appropriation of greek science) led by ibn sina, greek philosophy was naturalized into islamic theology. in this new emerging form of islamic theology, philosophical rationalism found a new home in the islamic world,21 it was operated widely by the mutakallimun from the mu‘tazilah, sunni, shi‘a, and especially the ash‘ari. hence, making any attempts to blame alghazalī for the death of philosophy in the centuries following his death is highly problematic. richard m. frank echoed sabra's idea in his article that asserted al-ghazalī’s continuation of the incomplete ambitious project of ibn sina to naturalize greek philosophy into the islamic one.22 furthermore, in 1992 frank raised the idea that al-ghazali had abandoned the cosmological system developed by the ash‘arism, the islamic theological school that he adhered to, and adopted ibn sina’s cosmology instead. frank also mentioned that al-ghazali did not believe anymore that god created every event in the world directly and instantaneously, as ash‘ari theologians would say. according to frank, al-ghazalī believed in the philosophical explanation that god’s creative power reaches the object of creation through a series of intermediaries and secondary causes. the celestial intellect in the ninth circle mediates god's creative activity in the sublunary sphere, in which the chain of secondary causes and effects unfolds. these causes of creation change according to their natural order and make hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 35 god’s doing of prophetic miracles impossible, at least in the theologians’ understanding.23 frank’s eccentric opinion was challenged by michael e. marmura, who published his work before and after 1992. this thinker believed that the relationship between al-ghazalī and the fundamental principles of ash‘ari theology, such as the principle of miracles, was never broken.24 marmura believed that al-ghazalī had rejected the causality theory of the philosophers and instead strongly held to the ash‘arian occasionality. 25 frank griffel positively responded to the dispute between frank and marmura. through his book entitled al-ghazalı’s philosophical theology, griffel eloquently tried to end the polemic between the two opposing viewpoints. according to him, al-ghazalī’s theory of causality can affirm two different opinions of each philosopher and the ash‘ari theologians. griffel highlighted al-ghazalī’s view that the opinions of both camps were equally viable as long as humans did not know the possibilities of the certainty of god’s performance. in his view, al-ghazalī believed in the ‘bi-lā kaifa’ doctrine of the ash‘ari, while accepting the causality (although without certainty). following sabra’s theory, griffel saw al-ghazalī‘s theology as a form of philosophical theology.26 underlining al-ghazalī’s response to causality, griffel held that al-ghazalī was the first muslim theologian to actively promote the naturalization of the philosophical tradition into islamic theology. al-ghazalī’s works, in griffel’s perspective, are attempts to integrate aristotelian logic into the islamic theological tradition. al-ghazali has tirelessly emphasized the importance of utilizing syllogistic logic and encouraged his colleagues in islamic theological studies to adopt this rational technique. he was very direct about this project and strongly promoted it through his al-munqidh min al-dalāl and tahāful al-falāsifah. this might probe further questions on how alghazalī could adopt aristotelian logic without considering his ontology. in the aristotelian tradition, logic is closely connected with specific explanations of the most basic elements of the world and their relations to one another, so adopting aristotelian logic without its ontology is very unlikely. al-ghazalī understood this notion very well but instead kept on spreading the teachings of aristotle’s logic. he knew he was asking his colleague to adopt fundamental assumptions that would change their position in ontology and metaphysics. however, al-ghazali was seemingly less open about his view in this context. in explaining his views on metaphysics, he replaced his critique of metaphysics, which he had raised earlier, and expressed his appreciation for their teaching briefly.27 griffel never doubts that ibn sina influenced al-ghazalī’s views on ontology. although tahafut al-ghazalī called the three 36 al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in… philosophical teachers as infidels, this labeling is part of the naturalization process of aristotle’s philosophy into islamic theology. these particular aristotelian elements were, according to al-ghazalī, inappropriate by islamic values. by highlighting them, al-ghazalī opened discussions on how islamic theology can accept other important philosophical positions.28 hence, according to griffel, instead of criticizing philosophy through tahāfut, alghazali, in principle, wanted to naturalize greek philosophy into islamic philosophy or philosophical theology. besides the relation between philosophy and rationality, another topic that has also attracted much attention from researchers on al-ghazalī is his understanding of sufism, regarding which alexander treiger proposed an amply thought-provoking review. in his book, inspired knowledge in islamic thought: al-ghazali’s theory of mystical cognition and its avicennian foundation, treiger presented new evidence that al-ghazalī is indebted to philosophy in his sufistic theory of consciousness and eschatology, in which he had accepted the philosophical teachings which he pretended to criticize. by carefully examining more than 80 works (written by al-ghazalī himself or by researchers on him), treiger emphasized that alghazalī had never rejected ibn sina’s philosophy and even used it as a foundation for his mysticism.29 similarly, georges tamer described al-ghazalī’s sufism as philosophical and his balance between rationality and spirituality as the primary basis of his reform.30 according to him, the main goal of iḥyā’ ulūmiddin is the integration of orthodoxy and orthopraxy in which rationality is embodied. it should be noted that al-ghazalī never considered rationality the highest source of knowledge, a place he reserved for the spiritual sensibility (dhawq), which human rationality could never fully grasp. in this very process, rationality stabilizes and protects factors, allowing them to avoid the traps of radicalism and excess. although al-ghazalī criticized philosophy and promoted sufistic behaviour, he continued to use rational ideas and critical methods adopted from philosophers (such as ibn sina) and incorporated them into his epistemological system.31 unlike treiger and tamer, jules jansseus was rather judgmental when he accused al-ghazalī of being confused in choosing either philosophy or sufism while seeking a middle ground between rational philosophy and sufi’s piety in both theory and practice.32 despite extensively adopting ibn sina’s philosophy, al-ghazalī never became a true philosopher, according to jansseus. al-ghazalī was merely a thinker who was heavily inspired by a plethora of philosophers (not limited to ibn sina).33 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 37 another renowned scholar who also studied al-ghazalī and his relationship with philosophy was afifi al-akiti. in his article entitled “the good, the bad, and the ugly of falsafa: al-ghazālī’s maḍnūn, tahāfut, and maqāsid, with particular attention to their falsafī treatments of god’s knowledge of temporal events," akiti appreciated al-ghazalī’s strategy of categorizing philosophy into three types: bad philosophy, ugly (partially bad) philosophy, and good philosophy. al-maḍnun, for instance, is where al-ghazalī extolled philosophy.34 following akiti’s flow of argumentation, saying that al-ghazalī is the enemy of philosophy is not entirely correct. how al-ghazalī’s philosophical rationality works in his commentary on the holy qur’én has also attracted scholarly attention. in his "revelation, sciences and symbolism al-ghazali’s jawahir alqur’én", tamer argued that al-ghazalī employed rationality in his symbolic interpretation of the holy qur’én, by which he encouraged readers to be inquisitive about both religious and non-religious knowledge. tamer’s article also presented a special dimension of reasoning formulated by al-ghazalī in the jawāhir al-qur’én, including what seems to be al-ghazali’s main criticism of ibn sina’s rationality.35 like tamer, griffel also revealed the dimensions of alghazali’s philosophical rational interpretation. in his article entitled “al-ghazalī at his most rationalist: the universal rule for allegorically interpreting revelation (al-qānūn al-kullī fī altaʾwīl)”, griffel examined al-ghazalī’s brief work, which was initially intended to be a letter to his student, abu bakr ibn ‘arabī (d. 1148) as a response to several questions on hadiths. this letter discussed several hadiths, including one that says, “satan runs in the veins of one of you." al-ghazalī clarified that the word “satan” symbolizes the evil temptations and whispers of the active intellect, which is clearly inspired by some of ibn sina’s teachings. furthermore, the concepts concerning the relation between reason and revelation in this letter contradicted in some ways with alghazalī’s other writings, where he had presented himself as an adherent of radical rationalism, a primary opponent of ash‘ari tradition.36 like griffel and tamer, scott michael girdner stated that al-ghazalī adopted a system of rational thought in his interpretation. in his article entitled “ghazalī’s hermeneutics and their reception in jewish tradition mishkat al-anwar (the niche of lights) and maimonides’ shemonah peraqim (eight chapters)”, girdner held that al-ghazalī combined traditional and rational interpretational approaches. this is especially evident, according to gridner, in his work entitled mishkāt al-anwār, where al-ghazalī clearly adopted ibn sina’s philosophical psychology that later influenced the jewish commentary tradition.37 38 al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in… apart from differing perspectives among the contemporary scholars who studied al-ghazalī, particularly after sabra, what they put forward is a fairly significant contribution in portraying alghazalī. nowadays, the demonization of discordant voices against al-ghazali and philosophy is still widely discussed. in contrast, ideas on the strong nuances of philosophy in al-ghazali’s thought — whether in terms of sufism, theology, or quranic commentary—have lucratively revived the buried classical polemic about the relationship between al-ghazali and philosophy. as explained earlier, medieval thinkers, such as abū bakr al-turṭusi (d. 1126), abū ʿabdillāh almazarī (d. 1141), abū al-‘arif (d. 1141), and ibn taymiyyah (d. 1328) knew al-ghazalī for his integration between sufism and philosophical nuances. on the one hand, al-ghazali rejected philosophy and aimed to cleanse sufism of all philosophical elements, and on the other hand, he brought a philosophical style into sufism. 38 this classical view on the relation between al-ghazali and philosophy is revived by the modern works done on him, leaving behind predominating ideas of people like munk and renan. their eastern counterparts do not echo the rising contemporary trend in western academia. studies on al-ghazali conducted by middle eastern scholars are dominant in the view that al-ghazalī is the man behind the death of philosophy in the islamic world.39 the classical orientalists' influence over them remains strong. they believe that to revive islamic glory, factors concerning the decline of its citizens must be removed. muḥammad ‘abid aljābiri was among the adherents of the old orientalist fashion. to awaken and modernize the monotone construction of arab thought, he proposed the tetralogy of “criticism of arabic reason”. these series of books served as steppingstones toward mainstreaming critical rationalism, a pre-requisite for catching on to rapid european modernization.40 there al-jābirī first explored factors behind the decline of islam. following munk and renan, al-jābirī blamed alghazalī for everything, saying that his thoughts “have left an acute wound in the arabic reason which remains gaping even today.”41 majid fakhry, a well-known author on islamic philosophy's history, expressed a similar sentiment. for him, the suppressive and instinctive reaction to rationalism in general and greek philosophy, in particular, had exploded in al-ghazalī’s attacks on neo-platonist muslims like al-farabī and ibn sina. previously, critics of philosophy had contented themselves with opposing rationalism and philosophy based on religious piety. in this regard, al-ghazalī argued that only those who had excellently mastered philosophy could challenge the philosophers and, if necessary, outperform them by demonstrating their inconsistent thoughts.42 fakhry further enunciated that through his maqāṣid and mi‘ya al-‘ilm, al-ghazalī hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 39 carried on the spirit of neo-platonism, although he seems to overthrow philosophy.43 in other words, fakhry insisted that alghazalī was an anti-philosophical rationalist, even though his works were philosophical. similarly, fazlur rahman, muhammed arkoun, and nasr hamid abu zaid came up with restoring the glory of islam, beginning with decoding al-ghazalī’s tahāfut. there, al-ghazalī mentioned three categories of disbelievers who tried to eliminate sharīʿah. he declared philosophy heretical and imprudent and the philosophers as infidels and zindiq. soon after his book went public, philosophy was black-listed and classified as unthinkable. philosophy was then marginalized throughout islamic history, whereas religious sciences received much more scholarly attention. since then, alghazalī has been considered the defender of islam.44 to this point, our literature review shows that al-ghazalī’s image in the contemporary middle east did not change even when western scientific traditions introduced a more favorable way of seeing him by asserting that al-ghazalī was the one who naturalized greek philosophy into the islamic tradition. for the sake of this research, it is interesting to study how indonesian academics approach al-ghazalī, a topic that will be discussed further in the following section. 5. discussion: studies on al-ghazalī in indonesia so far, three models of scientific readings towards alghazalī have been developing in indonesia. students from pesantren (islamic boarding schools) who pursued further academic studies at renowned islamic universities introduced the first model. they regularly meticulously read and study al-ghazalī’s books, especially ihya’, in a gathering known as ḥalaqah. they generally view alghazalī as a sufi who managed to revive the religious sciences through iḥyāʾ ‘ulūmuddīn. the second group consists of academics from the muhammadiyah (one of the religious mass-organization in indonesia). they see al-ghazalī as an irrational thinker and a destroyer of the philosophical tradition in islam. the third group belongs to the nahdlatul ‘ulamāʾ tradition. for them, al-ghazalī did not completely abandon rational thoughts, although he criticized philosophy. although the first group mostly studied al-ghazalī’s works orally, their understanding of al-ghazalī can still be traced through several writings, including “tasawuf al-ghazali dan jalaluddin rumi” by badarussyamsi;45 “corak tasawuf al-ghazali dan relevansinya dalam konteks sekarang” by abd. moqsith ghazali,46 and “pemikiran al-ghazali dalam tasawuf” of badrus.47 although 40 al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in… written in different approaches, they shared the same portrait of alghazalī, depicting him as a great sufi. one of the renowned representations of the second group is harun nasution, known as the bearer of neo-mu‘tazila in indonesia. to harun, al-ghazalī was a philosopher who ironically launched a scathing critique against philosophy.48 harun divided islamic philosophy into two schools: rational philosophy, as introduced by alfarabi and ibn sina, and traditional philosophy, as proposed by alghazalī. rational philosophy recognizes the great ability of reason, as adhered to by mu‘tazilite theology. in contrast, traditional philosophy places little emphasis on reason or rationality, as exemplified by ash‘ari theology.49 thus, although harun nasution classified al-ghazalī as a muslim philosopher, he included alghazali as a thinker against philosophical rationality and inclined to religion. in addition, regarding al-ghazalī’s responsibility for the death of philosophy in the islamic world, harun nasution explicitly said that al-ghazalī’s criticism of philosophy in tahāfut was not a lethal force for the development of philosophy in islam as a whole. according to him, islamic philosophy remains progressive even after the publication of al-ghazalī’s works, especially in the western scientific tradition, as represented by ibn rusd. nonetheless, harun nasution also suspected that al-ghazali’s teachings on sufism and ash’ari theology ended practices of philosophy in the sunni islamic world.50 thus, although in a slightly different tone, nasution believed that al-ghazalī had led to the eradication of philosophy in the islamic world. another thinker with a more critical assessment of alghazalī is amin abdullah, the author of antara al-ghazali dan kant: filsafat etika islam and a professor of islamic philosophy at uin sunan kalijaga. there he defended kant’s rational ethics and criticized al-ghazalī for his ignorance of the role of reason, his orthodox mysticism, and his denial of causality. abdullah insisted that tahāfut had rejected almost all aristotelian and platonian doctrines endorsed by muslim philosophers such as al-farabi and ibn sina.51 for al-ghazalī, reasoning alone cannot lead to the realm of metaphysics only with reasoning. according to abdullah, the most important aspect of al-ghazalī’s rejection of rational metaphysics is its emphasis on the inability of human reason to solve metaphysical and theological problems. another emphasis is on the reality of a “willing” god, namely god as a wilful doer. al-ghazalī hardly talked about the possibility of human subjects attempting to build a body of knowledge to comprehend natural phenomena. based on this consideration, al-ghazalī eventually relied on divine revelation to achieve the realm of metaphysics, throwing away the role of reason.52 because al-ghazalī rejected causality, he held that necessity has no hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 41 place in natural relations. nature does appear to be endowed with causal ties simply because god chose not to disrupt the continuity of events through miracles. however, god can still intervene, particularly in certain situations and conditions. this al-ghazalī’s stance, according to amin abdullah, can either drive people to skepticism about natural phenomena or lead them to an acute mystical understanding of god’s presence in everything.53 as two prominent professors of state islamic universities (ptkin) in indonesia, nasution and abdullah’s views on al-ghazalī have impacted studies on al-ghazalī in indonesia. following them, many indonesian observers on al-ghazalī shared a similar opinion. to mention some, ghazali munir wrote “kritik al-ghazali terhadap para filosof”, mas‘udi wrote “menyingkap hubungan agama dan filsafat: mereda kesesatan filsafat al-ghazali, merespon keterhubungan filsafat dan agama ibnu rusd”, ahmad atabik wrote “telaah pemikiran al-ghazali tentang filsafat”, and jamhari wrote “ al-ghazali dan oposisinya terhadap filsafat”. these articles have depicted al-ghazali as an enemy of philosophy because of his criticism of the philosophical tradition. the third group believes that al-ghazalī never meant to abandon philosophy and rational thought. however, they still highlighted his criticism of philosophy and reason and blamed him for the death of philosophy in the islamic tradition. one of the eminent figures of this group is zarkani jahja. in his dissertation entitled teologi al-ghazali: pendekatan methodology, zarkani highlighted al-ghazalī’s method of thought in islamic theology. jahja stated that al-ghazali established three sources of islamic theology: revelation, reason, and the kasyf. in practice, revelation and reason are equivalent subjects that support each other. the reason explains and details what the revelation has determined. meanwhile, the kasyf is given personally to the wise and must not conflict with the revelation and the reason. most importantly, the result of kasyf is a supra-reasonable and very authoritative knowledge that cannot be achieved by reason.54 against those in the second group, jahja stated that al-ghazalī still left room for rationality, at least in terms of his methodology. however, jahja did not seem to provide a supporting argument for the presence of rationality in al-ghazalī’s theological content. in viewing tahāfut, jahja was more inclined to william m. watt‘s statement that al-ghazalī excessively criticizes philosophy.55 unlike western studies on al-ghazalī, which see tahāfut as an attempt to naturalize philosophy, jahja considered it a strong critique of philosophy. another recognized figure of the third group is aksin wijaya, the author of nalar kritis epistemologi islam: membincang dialog 42 al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in… kritis para kritikus muslim: al-ghazali, ibnu rusyd, thaha husein, muhammad abid al-jabiri. wijaya depicted al-ghazalī as using rational methodology despite his entanglement with sufism. wijaya termed al-ghazalī’s episteme as an “epistemology of doubt”. elsewhere in al-munqiḍ, al-ghazalī said: “it is the doubt that can convey the truth. whoever does not doubt does not make sense and will never be able to see everything. whoever does not see will remain in blindness and misguidance.56 on this basis, aksin then pointed out that al-ghazalī’s various criticisms and doubts about many things are evidence that he rejected the taqlīd, consciously or subconsciously.57 even so, in examining tahāfut, wijaya does not move from what the second group holds, as mentioned above. following muhammed arkoun and nasr hamid abu zaed, wijaya believed that al-ghazalī’s critique of philosophy made many people reluctant to learn philosophy.58 wijaya also believed that al-ghazalī was responsible for the marginalization of philosophy in the islamic tradition. of the three groups, the most influential and dominant group to set the trend of studies on al-ghazalī in indonesia is the second group, which views the relationship between al-ghazali and philosophy negatively. this means that alternative approaches to alghazalī in the west do not connect with what happens in indonesia. there are several possible reasons for this contrasting phenomenon: first, the gap within the literature of the two worlds. as far as this research is concerned, the main literature that is widely referred to by indonesian academics is that written by old fashion western thinkers, such as tjitze j. de boer, william m. watt, and michael e. marmura. scholars such as al-jābirī, majid fahry, fazlur rahman, nasr hamid abu zaid, and mohammed arkon have been included from the middle east areas. a heavy reliance on this particular kind of scholarship makes no room for alternative views on al-ghazalī to play, including that which was initially introduced by classical thinkers such as abū bakr al-turtushi, abu abdullah al-mazari, ibn al-arif, and ibn taymiyah. second, the influence of harun nasution and amin abdullah. it is undeniable that these two figures are exceptionally influential in the development of islamic thought in indonesia. harun nasution was the former lecturer on philosophy in the iain (now uin) syarif hidayatullah jakarta. even today, his ideas are highly respected and preserved when his neo-mu‘tazili thought gains more acceptance. therefore, it is unsurprising that the curriculum of studies on alghazalī in this university adheres to the nasution’s negative view of al-ghazalī. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 43 similarly, amin abdullah was the former rector of uin sunan kalijaga yogyakarta who designed the, borrowing his term, integrative-interconnective islamic studies curricula to be implemented there. the two-state islamic universities where harun nasution and amin abdullah established their way of thinking are the two most prominent higher institutions in indonesia. during the rapid transition from iain to uin, amin abdullah’s thoughts are always referred to as the foundation. additionally, the alums of these two universities served as lecturers at various private and public islamic universities in indonesia. third, the rise of muhammadiyah’s contemporary thinkers. as martin heidegger once articulated, every human being is completely shaped by his culture. he cannot control his social environment and becomes part of a culture, so all his behavior is derived from his culture.59 in other words, no one is autonomous or free to choose their way of being without being influenced by their culture. surprisingly, those who labeled al-ghazali as the enemy of philosophy are mostly affiliated with a muhammadiyah background, such as amin abdullah. while those affiliated with nu seem to respect al-ghazali highly and are eager to study his books, this is certainly not the case in muhammadiyah circles. hence, when a person is affiliated with a muhammadiyah background, his or her perspective on al-ghazali will certainly resemble the group's opinion. 6. conclusion this article concludes that there are three studies on alghazalī in indonesia. the first type circulates among pesantren students (islamic boarding schools) who view al-ghazalī as a mere sufi figure, emphasizing his teachings on morality. the second type of study, popular among modernist academic circles (muhammadiyah), views al-ghazalī as an opponent of philosophy and rationality. the third type is circulating among the academic scholars affiliated with the nu circle, who view the relationship between al-ghazalī and rational philosophical thought positively, although still considering him responsible for the death of philosophy in the islamic world. of the three groups, the second group is the most dominant in indonesia. three factors influenced the dominance of the negative view on al-ghazalī in indonesia: the out-of-date literature consumed by the indonesians, the mighty influence of harun nasution and amin abdullah, and the muhammadiyah’s modernist movement. along with the developing transmission of religious and other scientific knowledge in indonesia, it is possible that the understanding 44 al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in… of al-ghazalī's position and his thoughts might change. however, until that happens, al-ghazalī’s picture will remain as negative as it used to be. notes and references: 1 frank griffel, al-ghazali’s philosophical theology (oxford university press, 2009), 61–95, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331622.001.0001, jules janssens, “al-ghazālī between philosophy (falsafa) and sufism (taṣawwuf): his complex attitude in the marvels of the heart (‘ajā’ib al-qalb) of the iḥyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn: al-ghazālī between philosophy (falsafa) and sufism (taṣawwuf),” the muslim world 101, no. 4 (october 2011): 614, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14781913.2011.01375.x. 2 as akasoy notes, al-ghazalī”s iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-din is seen by many such as abu bakr al-turtushi (d. 1126), abu abdullah al -mazari (d. 1141), ibn al-arif (d. 1141), and ibn taymiyah (d. 1328). as heavily dependent on philosophy, anna akasoy, “el sirag al-muluk de al-turtushiy la antropolgia almohade,” in ques es 1 home? reflexions antropologiques a la corona d’arago, eds j. corco, a fidora, j. olives puig j. pardo pastor (barcelona: prohom edicions, 2014), 17–20. 3 m. afifi al-akiti, “the good, the bad, and the ugly of falsafa: al-ghazālī’s madnūn, tahāfut, and maqāsid, with particular attention to their falsafī treatments of god’s knowledge of temporal events,” catarina belo, “y. tzvi langermann, ed. avicenna and his legacy: a golden age of science and philosophy. cultural encounter in late antiquity and the middle ages, vol. 8. turnhout, belgium: brepols, 2009. 4 frank griffel, “‘… and the killing of someone who upholds these convictions is obligatory!’ religious law and the assumed disappearance of philosophy in islam,” in das gesetz the law la loi, ed. andreas speer and guy guldentops (berlin: de gruyter, 2014): 214–26, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110350081.214, frank griffel, “preface” in the book, frank griffel, islam, and rationality: the impact of al-ghazālī papers collected on his 900th anniversary, islam and rationality 2 (leiden: brill, 2016), x. 5 griffel, “‘… and the killing of someone who upholds these convictions is obligatory!’ religious law and the assumed disappearance of philosophy in islam.” 6 muhammad ’abid al-jabiri, takwin al-’aql al-’arabi (beirut: markaz dirasat alwahdat al-’arabiyyah, 1989), 290. 7 majid fakhry, “a history of islamic philosophy, 3d ed.: by majid fakhry (new york: columbia university press, 2004. 430 pages.),” american journal of islam and society 23, no. 4 (1 october 2006): 223–39, https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v23i4.1592. 8 harun nasution, islam rasional (bandung: mizan, 1994). 9 m. amin abdullah, antara al-ghazali dan kant: filsafat etika islam (bandung: mizan, 2002). 10 ghazali munir, “kritik al-ghazali terhadap para filosof,” teologia 25, no. 1 (2014). 11 mas’udi, “menyingkap hubungan agama dan filsafat: mereda kesesatan filsafat al-ghazali, merespon keterhubungan filsafat dan agama ibnu rusd,” jurnal penelitian 7, no. 2 (2013). 12 ahmad atabik, “telaah pemikiran al-ghazali tentang filsafat,” fikrah 2, no. 1 (2014). 13 jamhari, “al-ghazali dan oposisinya terhadap filsafat,” jurnal ilmu agama 16, no. 1 (2015). 14 griffel, islam and rationality, ix. 15 griffel, al-ghazali’s philosophical theology, 5. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 45 16 griffel, “‘… and the killing of someone who upholds these convictions is obligatory!’ religious law and the assumed disappearance of philosophy in islam,” 214–26; frank griffel, “preface” in the book., islam and rationality, x. 17 griffel, al-ghazali’s philosophical theology, 5. 18 w. montgomery watt, islamic philosophy & theology (new brunswick [n.j.]: aldinetransaction, 2009), 117; w. montgomery watt, the faith, and practice of al-ghazali, serie xiii of ethical and religious classics of east and west (london: goerge allen and unwin; ltd, 1953), 11–12.; w. montgomery watt, “the authenticity of the works attributed to al-ghazali,” the journal of the royal asiatic society of great britain and ireland 84, 1-2 (1952): 24–25. 19 before william m. watt, a researcher tried to argue his reasoning after the paralysis of al-ghazali philosophy in the islamic world, namely shlomo pines. in 1937, pines said that rational thought and philosophy did not decline after al-ghazali’s time in the islamic tradition. what happened was that rational thought and philosophy became an inherent part of islamic science. after al-ghazali, there had been an increasing trend of syncretization in islam, which united the elements of kalam, philosophy, and sufism; griffel, al-ghazali’s philosophical theology, 6. 20 griffel, islam and rationality, ix. 21 griffel, al-ghazali’s philosophical theology, 6. 22 griffel, islam and rationality, ix. 23 richard m. frank, creation and the cosmic system: al-ghazâlî & avicenna: vorgelegt am 27. april 1991, abhandlungen der heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische klasse, jahg. 1992, 1. abhandlung (heidelberg: carl winter, universitätsverlag, 1992), 20. 24 griffel, al-ghazali’s philosophical theology, 179–82. 25 michael e. marmura, “the logical role of the argument from time in the tahafut’s second proof for the world’s pre-eternity,” the muslim world 49, no. 4 (october 1959): 306–14; michael e. marmura, “ghazali and demonstrative science,” journal of the history of philosophy 3, no. 2 (1965): 183–204, https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2008.1685; michael e. marmura, “al-ghazali’s second causal theory in the 17th discussion of his tahāfut parviz morewedge, ed., islamic philosophy and mysticism, 1st ed (delmar, n.y: caravan books, 1981), 85–112. 26 janssens, “al-ghazālī between philosophy (falsafa) and sufism (taṣawwuf),” 615. furthermore, dialectics as occurring between ricard m. frank, michael e. marmura and frank griffel, as abovementioned, have also taken place in several other works related to al-ghazali. some of those works are lenn evan goodman “did al-ghazali deny causality?,” studia islamica, no. 47 (1978): 83, https://doi.org/10.2307/1595550; ilai alon, “al-ghazālī on causality,” journal of the american oriental society 100, no. 4 (october 1980): 315–24, https://doi.org/10.2307/602085; george giacaman and raja bahlul, “ghazali on miracles and necessary connection,” medieval philosophy and theology 9, no. 1 (march 2000): 39–50, https://doi.org/10.1017/s1057060800091039; stephen riker, “al-ghazali on necessary causality in "the incoherence of the philosophers,” the monist 79, no. 3 (1996): 315–24; massimo companini, “al-ghazali” in sayyed hossein nasr and oliver leaman (ed.), ensiklopedi tematis filsafat islam, the first book, (bandung: mizan, 2003), 326. 27 alghazali, al-munqid min al-dalal, n.d., 18–20; ghazali, 25–27. 28 griffel, al-ghazali’s philosophical theology, 7. 29 alexander treiger, inspired knowledge in islamic thought: al-ghazālī’s theory of mystical cognition and its avicennian foundation, 1. issued in paperback, culture, and civilization in the middle east 27 (london: routledge, 2014). 30 georges tamer, ed., islam and rationality: the impact of al-ghazali: papers collected on his 900th anniversary, islamic philosophy, theology and science, v. 94 (leiden ; boston: brill, 2015), xii. 31 tamer, xii. compare with kenneth garden, the first islamic reviver: abū ḥāmid al-ghazālī and his revival of the religious sciences (oxford ; new york: oxford university press, 2014). 46 al-ghazalī (1058-1111) in… 32 janssens, “al-ghazālī between philosophy (falsafa) and sufism (taṣawwuf),” 7– 11. 33 jules l. janssens, ibn sina and his influence on the arabic and latin world, variorum collected studies series 843 (london: routledge, 2018), 7–11; jules l. janssens, “filosofische elementen in de mystieke leer van al-ghazzali,” tijdschrift voor filosofie 50 (1998): 334–42; janssens jules, “al-ghazali’s political thought: elements of greek philosophical influence,” mélanges de l’université saint-joseph 57 (2004); jules janssens, “al-ghazalai: the introduction of peripatetic syllogistic in islamic law (and kalam),” in mélanges de l’institut dominicain d’études orientales 28 (2010): 219–33. 34 m. afifi al-akiti, “the good, the bad, and the ugly of falsafa: al-ghazālī’s madnūn, tahāfut, and maqāsid, with particular attention to their falsafī treatments of god’s knowledge of temporal events,” in belo, “y. tzvi langermann, ed. avicenna and his legacy,” 51–100. 35 georges tamer, “revelation, sciences and symbolism al-ghazali’s jawahir alqurʾan,” in islam and rationality (leiden: brill, 2015), 49–88. 36 frank griffel, “al-ghazali at his most rationalist: the universal rule for allegorically interpreting revelation (al-qanun al-kulli fi t-taʾwil),” in islam and rationality (leiden: brill, 2015), 89–120. 37 scott michael girdner “ghazali’s hermeneutics and their reception in jewish tradition mishkat al-anwar (the niche of lights) and maimonides’ shemonah peraqim,” in islam and rationality (leiden: brill, 2015), 253–74; compare with omer michaelis, "even of the philosophers': taqlid in maimonides' guide of the perplexed and its sources," journal of jewish philosophy & kabbalah, no. 83 (2017): 7–46. 38 ebrahim moosa, ghazālī and the poetics of imagination, islamic civilization and muslim networks (chapel hill, nc: university of north carolina press, 2005), 148; kenneth garden, “coming down from the mountaintop: al-ghazali’s autobiographical writings in context,” the muslim world 101 (2011): 581–96; yahya m. michot, “al-ghazali’s esotericism according to ibn taymiyya’s bughyat al-murtad” in islam and rationality (leiden: brill, 2015), 245–74. 39 tamer, islam and rationality, ix. 40 irwan masduqi, “kritik nalar arab dalam perspektif abid al-jabiri,” tribakti:jurnal pemikiran keislaman 20, no. 1 (2009); m. faisol, “struktur nalar arab-islam menurut abid al-jabiri,” tsaqafah 6, no. 2 (november 30, 2010): 335, https://doi.org/10.21111/tsaqafah.v6i2.124. 41 ’abid al-jabiri, takwin al-’aql al-’arabi, 290. 42 majid fakhry, sejarah filsafat islam (ed.) mulyadi kertanegara (jakarta: pustaka jaya, 1987), 309. 43 fakhry, 311. 44 mohammed arkoun, the unthought in contemporary islamic thought (london: saqi, 2002), 9; nasr hamid abu zayd, al-khithab wa al-ta’wil (beirut: markaz altsaqofi, 2000), 19–27; nasr hamid abu zayd, "the discourse of ibn rushd between knowledge and constraint," alif: journal of comparative poetics 16 (1996): 6–35; fazlur rahman, islam, and modernity (chicago: university of chicago press, 1984), 3,7,152. 45 badarussyamsi, “tasawuf al-ghazali dan jalaluddin rumi,” tajdid 13, no. 1 (2014). 46 abd. moqsith ghazali, “corak tasawuf al-ghazali dan relevansinya dalam konteks sekarang,” al-tahrir 13, no. 1 (2013). 47 badrus, “pemikiran al-ghazali dalam tasawuf,” tribakti 14, no. 1 (2005). 48 harun nasution, islam rasional: gagasan dan pemikiran (bandung: mizan, 1996), 375. 49 nasution, 375. 50 nasution, 383–84. 51 amin abdullah, antara al-ghazali dan kant (ed.) hamzah (bandung: mizan, 2002), 39. 52 abdullah, 65. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 47 53 abdullah, 71. 54 zurkani jahja, teologi al-ghazali: pendeatan metodologi (yogyakarta: pustaka pelajar, 1996), 257. 55 jahja, 268. 56 aksin wijaya, nalar kritis epistemologi islam: membincang dialog kritis para kritikus muslim: al-ghazali, ibn rusd, thasa husein, muhammad abid al-jabiri (yogyakarta: teras, 2014), 16. 57 wijaya, 52. 58 wijaya, 49. 59 eric lemay and jeniffer a. pitts, heidegger untuk pemula (ed.) p.hardono haidi (yogyakarta: kanisius, 2001), 44. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 89 exploring javanese female sufism in serat murtasiyah: a study of women's representation of religious values in the domestic realm within modern western contexts nur hanifah insani faculty of languages, arts, and cultures, yogyakarta state university, yogyakarta, indonesia. email: enhanyf@gmail.com erna andriyanti faculty of languages, arts, and cultures, yogyakarta state university, yogyakarta, indonesia email: erna.andriyanti@uny.ac.id endang nurhayati faculty of languages, arts, and cultures, yogyakarta state university, yogyakarta, indonesia email: endang_nurhayati@uny.ac.id received on: 13-02-23 accepted on: 18-04-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.707 abstract gender discourse is challenged in the study of sufism because sufism is not inherently bound by gender identity. however, most javanese literary works tend to place men as sufis. murtasiyah, the main female character in serat murtasiyah, is a picture of a javanese sufi woman with an extraordinary religious personality as a wife. this article discusses how murtasiyah practiced sufism and applied religious values in the domestic sphere of the family. the form of obedience of javanese wives through the character of murtasiyah is also compared from javanese and islamic perspectives. through textual and contextual approaches, preceded by a philological method, serat murtasiyah was dissected using a hermeneutic and content analysis with a feminist approach. the findings show that murtasiyah can understand the knowledge of mailto:enhanyf@gmail.com mailto:erna.andriyanti@uny.ac.id mailto:endang_nurhayati@uny.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.707 90 exploring javanese female sufism … meaning (ngelmu rasa) through the sufism levels of tahalli (pure heart), takhalli (soul-filling), and tajalli (inner light). the religious teachings of a sufi, such as always being grateful, patient, obedient to worship, pleased, remembering, and willing to repent, are also reflected in murtasiyah’s personality. with these religious values, murtasiyah can pass through the storms of life to become a sufi. in addition, the form of obedience of women as wives in the javanese perspective tends to be more diverse than the interpretation of the obligations of a wife according to islamic teachings. from this study, modern women can also learn and apply the concept of sufism murtasiyah in carrying out their daily dual roles to create a balance in achieving worldly and afterlife affairs. keywords: women, sufism, religious values, family sphere, serat murtasiyah, islamic teachings. 1. introduction generally, women’s social roles are often limited to domestic matters, including caring for the children, cooking, making nutritional decisions, cleaning, washing dishes1234, and little occasionally shown as successful company owners, managers, or entrepreneurs5. in the history of human development, women’s roles always had a relationship with religion and culture. women do not only act as wives and mothers. more than that, women also have a role in transmitting culture and religiosity6. unfortunately, there were biased view positions of women appearing in many parts of the world, including in the western countries. in the west, religious women or muslim women are considered not to have a significant social, political, or religious role, so women are often emphasized not to be allowed to have a spiritual life7. it is rare for female spiritual figures, both normatively and administratively, to lead religious traditions in western society8. this view arises from the moderate and normative traditions that occur in islamic teachings. the existence of several studies on women challenges the negative view of women. pamberton9 suggests that women in the ritual life of the sufis have meaningful participation that can reflect islamic, social, and cultural ideals of femininity, authority, spirituality, and gender relations. the involvement of women in the world of the sufis is, of course, driven by the unmet spiritual needs of women, so they feel they have to be involved to find the missing side of spiritual truth10. in a feudalistic economic system that based its value on servitude, women lost their position in religion and religious rituals11. of course, this needs to be realized immediately to dismiss the dogma that has emerged that women are increasingly marginalized, inferior, drowned, and even lost their position from encyclopedias of mysticism or sufism12. marginalization of women with all roles in religious traditions should be immediately resolved, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 91 and the truth sought so that women can be seen and considered necessary in the ritual life of society. the pattern of equality of women and men in the search for religious identity needs to be developed immediately so that women are no longer underestimated in the life of religious rituals. unfortunately, not many literary works describe the existence of female sufis. the number of women recorded in sufism texts is much smaller than that of male sufis13. in hilyat al-awliya, abu nu’aim al-isfahani recorded 28 women and 649 men; in nafaíét aluns, abdurrahman jami noted 35 women and 564 men; in tabaqét al-kubra, abdul wahab al-sha‘rani recorded 16 women and 412 men and most of the women’s names mentioned in the texts were members of ῃaḍrat muhammad rasūlullah khātam un nabiyyīn ṣallallah ‘alaihi wa ‘alā ālihi wa aṣḥābihi wa ṣallam's family, companions or female figures in the holy qur’ān14. the same thing also appears in other sufism texts: in al-risalah fi ‘ilm al-taîawwuf, abu qasim alqushayri lists 83 men and does not mention a single female sufi’s name15. in the novel the moon and the henna tree, toufiq deeply describes the vulnerability of the female characters, al-salima and kima, who suffer in their marriage with qé’id, the ruler of the tribal area. both of the women then look for a way out of the cruelty of their husbands in the form of mysticism, folk traditions of talismans, and exorcisms16. while in the novel abu musa's women neighbours, the pious female character, shamah, is destined to move from one husband to another until she meets a sufi named abu musa17. both novels are written in arabic. the women’s movement often encounters obstacles to developing themselves on the religious and spiritual side. in the era of colonialism, the stigma of women when they became a wife was only as kanca wingking18, that a wife is just a person who stands behind and relies on all her body and soul to her husband19, who is only a complement to a husband’s household20. kanca wingking is a term in javanese culture that places the wife only as a complementary friend who supports all the husband’s duties and roles as the head of the family from behind, where the wife’s duties are only limited to domestic affairs or household managers in the kitchen as the back area of the house21. the term kanca wingking shows that the wife does not have an important role equal to the husband in the household22. women are only required to be able to macak (dress up), manak (giving offspring), and masak (cooking). macak-masakmanak is part of the oral tradition culture passed down from generation to generation, from parents to their children, until it became an unwritten rule and the space limits for the javanese women's movement. macak relates to (i) how javanese women wear everyday clothes, (ii) taking care of their bodies and putting on make92 exploring javanese female sufism … up, and (iii) behaving in front of their husbands. the term masak is synonymous with the role of women in taking care of the kitchen, serving delicious and nutritious dishes to their husbands and children, and having the ability to process all the information received wisely and not swallow it raw. manak is the ability of a woman to give birth to offspring to continue the family lineage23. in addition, women’s domestic roles are also seen in terms of dapur (kitchen), pupur (face powder), kasur (mattress), and sumur (wells). dapur-pupur-kasur-sumur is a set of basic skills that javanese women need to have to build a household. while waiting to get married, javanese girls usually receive tutoring to learn how to cook, do laundry and cleaning, do makeup and dress, and do all the activities related to serving their husbands well24. women have no other domestic space in the family apart from this ability. women are confined because their lives are only about caring for the house and being the pleasure of their husbands. there needs to be more space for village women to deepen their knowledge, be it religious knowledge or to receive a proper education. the gap in understanding between men and women can be a gap in the emergence of problems in the household. especially in today’s modern era, women must be able to balance the mindset of men, especially their husbands. it is the division of gender roles of men and women in a society that becomes the problem of stagnation in the development of a woman’s religiosity and spirituality. literary works become a forum for how narratives about women are arranged to show how religious values in women can influence the existence of a tradition in the area. serat murtasiyah (sm) narrates women as the main characters in the search for selfidentity and strengthening religious values and religiosity. murtasiyah, the main female character, is looking for the spiritual truth lost during her journey to seek forgiveness from allah almighty and her husband. initially, murtasiyah’s lack of religious understanding made her do things her husband saw as hasty. this hasty behaviour creates an opening to do things that are not right, so murtasiyah is considered an unfilial wife and is expelled from her home. murtasiyah’s hasty act, which made her unintentionally lie in her words, shows that murtasiyah does not yet have a good level of religious spirituality. a woman who understands the meaning of spirituality should have a noble inner attitude, as seen by how she can withstand the lust in her life. this behaviour is one of the markers of how a murtasiyah has moral values that other women can imitate. murtasiyah’s text raises the story of murtasiyah, as the wife of syeh ngarip, to represent the image of women in women’s literature in the early 20th century. murtasiyah’s figure is a woman hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 93 who accepts her husband’s decisions. the submissive nature of murtasiyah and nyai rubiyah, the mother of murtasiyah, to their respective husbands is an illustration of the concept of javanese patriarchy, which is constantly being discussed to this day. apart from being closely related to the context of moral leadership, this text is also possible as a javanese sufism text25, which has never been studied in this regard. this study aims (1) to describe the sufism concepts held by murtasiyah, (2) to explain religious values implemented by murtasiyah in the family’s domestic sphere, and (3) to compare wife compliance in the domestic sphere from the perspective of javanese society and islamic teachings. 2. literature review 2.1. women and sufism sufi is a person who studies sufism. sufi can be interpreted as a person who always strives earnestly to follow the path of virtue and glory26. every sufi has a different spiritual-spiritual experience, does not depend on material things, and is unrelated to something rational. women and the practice of spirituality or sufism have not been much discussed in sufism literature. yet, the spiritual practice in the holy qur’ān is an unforgettable episode in which the soul and body must be fully surrendered only to allah almighty alone. several research papers, including theses, essays, and articles, discuss women’s spirituality in the context of women’s sufism and are linked to sufism literature. the studies about women and sufism have been written in pamberton’s article “muslim women mystics and female spiritual authority in south asian sufism”27, abbas’s book “the female voice in sufi ritual”28, haitami’s article “women and sufism: religious expression and the political sphere in contemporary morocco”29, sururin’s article on “women in the trajectory of the history of sufism”30, dwyer’s book chapter “women, sufism, and decision-making in moroccan islam”31, khan & bano’s article “women and sufism in south asia: a survey of historical trends”32, and faesol’s article “women and tasawwuf: measuring gender bias in the study of sufism”. the research analyzing the text of sm was indeed quite massive. however, studies on feminism from the religious and spiritual point of view of the murtasiyah character have been rarely carried out. kusumaningrum’s thesis just focused on “serat 94 exploring javanese female sufism … murtasiyah: editing and translation”33, while triandari’s thesis examined the illustration of serat murtasiyah34. wijanarko’s article3536 focuses more on constructing the gender inherent in the murtasiyah character in terms of the role of women in the domestic space, the identical nature and behaviour of women, and the anatomy of women’s clothing. meanwhile, kusumaningrum37 has just described moral leadership in the sm text with a literary sociology approach, which resulted in murtasiyah’s findings as a wise figure in dealing with patriarchal domination in javanese culture. several studies about women, gender, religion, and sufi have been done, but studies about women sufi in javanese literature have not been widely done. the choice of this topic was motivated by two reasons. first, there are still few studies on the idea of feminism in literary works, such as nkechi & emmanuel, that explore the exploitation of women and the environment in the novel38, chia longman analyzed women’s circles as a space to celebrate sisterhood and the feminine39, and zubair & zubair explored the relationship between these women’s secular education and their religious (and secular) social identities as young, urban, middle class working women in a pakistani higher education context40. moreover, there is little portrayal of javanese women’s literary works. oman fathurahman41 analyzed two female indonesian sufis from shattariya murids in java in the 18th and 19th centuries: kangjeng ratu kadipaten and raden ayu kilen, together with ratu pakubuwana. kurniati hastuti dewi42 endeavours to demonstrate how many sociocultural factors shaped the religio-cultural identity of javanese women while highlighting various aspects of the relationship between javanese women and islam. in comparison, saputri & insani43 describe the sufism teaching in the suluk daka manuscript and the relevance of islamic education. several of the previously mentioned study findings highlight the gap in feminist literary analyses of indonesian javanese literature. there have been feminist studies of indonesian novels, like sakinah44, that analyzed the image of women in the holy woman as a feminist study. however, there are still very few feminist studies of javanese literary works from manuscripts. fatmawati & hanifah45 analyze the image of javanese women in the suluk tenun text. at the same time, fanesha & utami46 describe beauty from women’s ideals since the surakarta palace era in serat partakrama. in addition, feminist studies of existing javanese literary works are still seen from the text from a male point of view, like tony day47 explored the main male characters in serat centhini, namely mas cĕbolang, who is religious and sexually active more than centhini (woman) as the teller of the manuscript. therefore, the author intends to find out how the idea of feminism in the form of women’s religious and spiritual values is expressed in a manuscript hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 95 with a female main character, murtasiyah, as the story’s main character. second, this research might contribute as a discussion material on women’s issues that are still relevant and hot for discussion in various contexts. the results of this study can later strengthen the existence of women and their spiritual values in their application as a wife and mothers in the family realm. women with good spirituality and religiosity can occupy an important place to maintain the integrity of their household. 2.2. characteristics of good women in islam indeed, the thing that stands out the most from a muslim woman is that she has a strong faith stuck in her heart toward her god. muslim women are always awake and, under his guidance, able to contemplate the meanings contained in the holy quranic verses so that they can face allah almighty with obedience, repentance, and complete gratitude. regarding the character of a muslim woman in her role as a wife, several characteristics of a muslim woman appear when she is with her husband. muslim women have characteristics such as being diligent in worship, being obedient and devoted to their husbands, being devoted to their mother-in-law and glorifying their family, loving their husbands and trying to please them, keeping their husband’s secrets, being faithful to accompany their husbands, attracting their husbands’ hearts, preening for their husbands, welcoming their husbands warmly and longing, loyal in joy and sorrow, tolerant and forgiving, and has a solid and wise personality4849. research on the characteristics of good women in islam has often been carried out. tjomsland & ask book’s “women and islamization: contemporary dimensions of discourse on gender relations”50, al-hasyimi’s book, “personality of muslim women”51, el-menouar’s article “the five dimensions of muslim religiosity: results of an empirical study” have researched about the dimensions and characteristics of islamic women however, none of the studies that have been explicitly conducted examine it from the perspective of the life of a sufi woman. 3. methodology a textual and contextual approach dissects prose text in sm discourse, especially to examine linguistic elements. the primary data source for this research is the sm manuscript from the sonobudoyo museum yogyakarta collection. the sm manuscript with code pb a.214 is a manuscript whose condition is still intact, with good readability, and is more complete than the sm manuscript 96 exploring javanese female sufism … from other library collections. illustrations in almost every part of the manuscript make it easier for researchers to interpret the text. the form of the manuscript was also initially dissected using philological work steps. philological research methods are needed to examine the object of research in the form of manuscripts and texts. manuscripts, as the target of philological work, are not just any texts but should be manuscripts that are seen as cultural products in the form of taste creation in the form of classical texts52. in this study, the way philology method was carried out in six steps, starting with an inventory of manuscripts, followed by the selection of manuscripts and texts, descriptions of manuscripts and texts, transliteration, editing, and translation53 of the sm manuscript. the results of this philological process then produce a representative manuscript for further research using content analysis from a feminist approach. a thorough reading of the text was carried out to obtain data in the form of words, phrases, and sentences that describe the religious and spiritual values of women in their position as a wife in a family. content analysis techniques were used to understand and capture messages related to the portrait of feminism in serat murtasiyah. the content analysis step begins with reading the edited and translated serat murtasiyah repeatedly carefully and understanding it. the transliterated manuscript was then read to select the data and presented in a table for later verification. heuristic and hermeneutic methods are used to analyze serat murtasiyah, presented as tembang (poetry). an outline of the script’s contents was then made into a synopsis for further analysis of aspects of feminism related to the role of women in the domestic realm for the character murtasiyah. the results of feminist studies in the serat murtasiyah text are then classified according to needs through data cards accompanied by text quotations. the final step of content analysis was carried out by discussing and coming to conclusions regarding the role of women in the domestic sphere, especially regarding the religious values of sufi women in the character murtasiyah. repeated reading of the text from the peer review by a philologist was done to dive into the transliteration and translation of the manuscript and the content of the text, capture the meaning, and interpret it from the feminist point of view. to check the accuracy of the data, the validity of the data was done by using member checking, in which other researchers check the accuracy of the data to be interpreted more deeply to reduce the level of data deviation54. 4. murtasiyah: javanese sufi woman murtasiyah can be said to be a religious figure and always bases religion on a foothold in life. talking about religion is closely related to spirituality and religiosity. here, spirituality is not seen in terms of asceticism, mysticism, or just prayer, but being spiritual and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 97 religious is more about how one can transcend one's capacity to know allah almighty55. spirituality is an inner expression of religion as a spirit to understand divine values56. spirituality in the sufi concept is believed to reflect the divinity that naturally exists in humans, which is named lahët57. a person’s spirituality can be seen in how a person cultivates the feelings that exist in him. the feelings reflected in one’s spiritual actions will show how far one’s awareness is in religion. the better a person’s actions can show, the better his religious awareness and vice versa. studying sufism will be close to learning about peace. only a few women have mastered this sufism. the role and spiritual potential of muslim women in indonesia, including in javanese society, tends not to be considered58. the tendency of women to use their feelings more often makes it difficult for them to understand more about sufism. most women who have not mastered the concepts of sufism certainly have a new understanding different from the condition of murtasiyah; they have mastered the art of processing the peaceful (ngelmu rasa). peaceful, also called ngelmu sejati, is a science that finds the nature of life, human nature, the nature of allah almighty, and everything related to metaphysics59. the peaceful quest is solely carried out by individuals who want to achieve the perfection of life (insén-i-kémil). in sm, it is told that dewi murtasiyah asked to be taught about the peaceful. syekh ngarip, an ‘ulama’ (cleric) who also acts as her husband, then explained the secret of the peace. in principle, peace is divided into 3: peace of body (cipta), peace of soul (karsa), and peace of mind (rasa). each part is then divided into three more parts. first, the peace of the body can be made by praying five times as a sign of gratitude for the body, reducing food or clothing or worldliness, and humbling oneself to the creator or tawéìu‘. second, peace of the heart can be achieved by doing dhikr or always remembering allah almighty at all times, reducing sleep, and cleaning the heart. third, the peacefulness of life can be cultivated by bringing one’s life to allah almighty, not talking much or being quiet, and being patient. this knowledge related to peace is in harmony with the three types of soul purification in sufism: takhalli, tahalli, and tajalli60. takhalli means cleaning or guarding the heart against all bad things, and it can be achieved by maintaining an attitude of not committing immoral acts, such as ria, ‘ujub, or expecting something in return. tahalli is the stage of filling the soul that has been emptied at the takhalli level, which is done by getting used to doing good deeds according to religious rules, such as prayer, fasting, zakét, íajj, and so on. at the tahalli level, there is a systematic and methodical 98 exploring javanese female sufism … process of meditation that combines consciousness and mind in total concentration to reflect on allah almighty so that one will achieve the nature of pleasure, tawéìu‘, and lillah. a sufi will do this stage after going through the process of purifying the heart from harmful desires for the world. while tajalli means enlightenment or disclosure, which in the concept of sufism is defined as the incarnation, single embodiment, inner light emanating, allah almighty’s revelation, and enlightenment of the heart of a good servant. tajalli is the process of opening the curtain of a supernatural cage, or enlightenment of supernatural light (karāma)61, as a result of meditation, which in the process of sufism is reflected in the form of allah almighty’s grace that appears outside of the human will. the concept of sufism and peace that syeh ngarip taught gave murtasiyah the characteristics of the sufis. murtasiyah’s character, described as having gone through the level of takhalli can be seen in her devotion to her husband. even though her husband left her when she was pregnant, murtasiyah did not complain and continued to carry out all the mandates that her husband advised before he left. while pregnant, murtasiyah routinely gave monthly alms and cared for her husband’s hamlet garden. when her husband came home, murtasiyah continued to carry out her role as a wife and an excellent mother to her children. murtasiyah neither complains nor opposes her husband’s wishes. this is the stage of takhalli she shows. the level of takhalli is manifested in a very high understanding of piety. the value of taqwa is described as an awareness that allah almighty is always watching over humans and that we only carry out actions according to his will and refrain from actions that are not his will62. the tahalli phase strengthened in murtasiyah after she accidentally lied when answering her husband’s question regarding the number of strands of hair used as a sumbu diyan (lighting lamp). the incident where murtasiyah was expelled by her husband and parents made murtasiyah more patient and obedient to allah almighty. the mistakes she had made brought him closer to allah almighty. murtasiyah applies the science of feeling to the body, which also illustrates the passing of the tahalli phase, for his obedient attitude to always keep his prayers even in emergencies. tunggarang datan amanggih warih, dèwi murtasiyah andȇdungå, amolaring pangérané, gusti kang luwih agung, mugi tuwan amiringi ȇsih, kawulå arak sholat, paring toyå gupuh, mambȇt pangsing nyamping ambå, malȇbȇt kuyuhan dening pun bayi, éh allåh astaghfirullah. (extract 3. sm, iv:8) hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 99 ‘going here and there, she did not find water. dewi murtasiyah prayed to the prince, the greatest lord, may you still give grace, i want to pray, i hope i will get water soon, the smell of urine from my cloth (jarik) is exposed to baby urine, eh allah almighty astaghfirullah.’ (extract 3. sm, iv:8) the context of the quote above occurs when murtasiyah is aimlessly wandering into the forest after her husband expels her. murtasiyah wanders and is sad along the way. murtasiyah realized she had not performed her prayers throughout the journey because a roaring sadness carried her away. murtasiyah was also confused about how she could perform the prayer if her clothes were dirty after being exposed to the urine of her infant daughter immediately before she left her house. due to the confusion, she felt, murtasiyah could only say istighfér repeatedly while asking allah almighty’s forgiveness for her mistake of not praying even though the prayer time was running out soon. murtasiyah's istighfér sentence is a form of dhikr, marking the side of murtasiyah’s religiosity with sufi character. in the next verse, it is told that this religious figure of murtasiyah keeps trying to find water so that she can perform her prayers. after going here and there without getting water to purify herself, murtasiyah finally prayed with all her heart, asking allah almighty to help give her water. murtasiyah’s goal was none other than because she still wanted to worship despite difficulties approaching her. she also repeatedly asked allah almighty for forgiveness and hoped she would be forgiven for all her mistakes. this shows that murtasiyah has practiced the science of feeling towards the heart by doing dhikr, which makes her always remember the existence of allah almighty. this dhikr then revives and purifies murtasiyah’s heart. for sufis, dhikr is believed to be the door to open awareness, which in religion is called guidance63. this dhikr later brings up allah almighty's help in the murtasiyah’s conditions. murtasiyah’s practice of feeling for life is reflected in her patient and sincere attitude. sincerity is described as a pure attitude in behaving and acting solely to gain the pleasure of allah almighty. in the end, after all the trials that came were accepted with complete resignation and sincerity, allah almighty also provided help for the sincerity of murtasiyah’s request for forgiveness and prayer. karāma can indeed be shown to a holy person in an emergency or permitted by allah almighty to strengthen the belief of a servant64. with the grace of allah almighty, murtasiyah finally purified her body, and her body even looked more radiant and beautiful. the beauty that 100 exploring javanese female sufism … radiates from murtasiyah shows that murtasiyah has passed the tajalli stage, which is the culmination of the soul’s purification stages. whoever can reach this level of tajalli, her life will always be illuminated by the goodness that comes from allah almighty65. murtasiyah then continued to give thanks, accompanied by prayers and chants of istighfér. murtasiyah immediately prays after her body is clean and the najis (dirt) attached to her clothes are gone. in the end, murtasiyah became the chosen servant who received the grace of allah almighty, and all her wishes were granted. this phase shows the highest level of sufism, namely tajalli, where allah almighty reveals himself to his creatures through an inner light that enters the heart66. the murtasiyah journey has become a process of galvanizing the soul of a sufi, and this is in line with the words of allah almighty, which means, “as for those who strive in our way, we will certainly take them onto our paths, and indeed allah is with those who are good in deeds.”67 murtasiyah’s sufism journey also aligns with rābi‘ah al‘adawiyyah’s sufism journey. to achieve the title of a sufi, rābi‘ah al-‘adawiyyah started her practice by doing repentance, wara‘, zuhud, poverty, patience, gratitude, fear, tawíêd, riìé, and finally, her deep longing (tawakkul) for allah almighty68. he conveyed many things about the values of sufism related to tawéìu‘, zuhud, sincerity, rectifying deeds, and riìé, not just about maíabbah (love for allah almighty). murtasiyah also did this in her journey to seek the love of allah almighty with her willingness to leave all possessions, including her beloved child, after being expelled by her husband (zuhud). her journey was full of regret, disappointment, concern, and sadness, but she sincerely and patiently accepted her destiny. the only provision for her journey was strong tawíêd to allah almighty accompanied by a sense of riìé and wara‘ and deep gratitude for all the help given by allah almighty in the process of finding the path of tawakkul to allah almighty. the effort to achieve al-maíabbah as murtasiyah’s sufism experience certainly needs to be understood further so that modern women today can apply the value of spirituality that is built. although women today are not required to behave like murtasiyah or rābi‘ah al-‘adawiyyah, who had such a deep love for their lord, modern women today still need to be serious in reviving the value of sufism by relying on the actual teachings of islam if so far the light of faith has dimmed in the heart. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 101 murtasiyah was not as extreme as rābi‘ah al-‘adawiyyah in her sufism journey, especially regarding zuhud. rābi‘ah had no desire to ask allah almighty for material things and chose to live in a state of having nothing to gain and only living enough to feel close to allah almighty alone69. at the same time, murtasiyah eventually lived a lasting married life with her husband. this shows how murtasiyah, as a javanese woman, has become a different sufi figure than rābi‘ah. the other times and environmental conditions in which these two women lived undoubtedly made a difference in their sufi characters, especially concerning the form of submission of wives to their husbands. the path of sufism carried out by murtasiyah as an embodiment of the figure of a javanese woman can be a picture to answer the problems of spirituality today. the dual role of women who also have a career today7071 gives a heavier burden than in previous times, resulting in most modern women prioritizing world affairs to make faith in their hearts arid, even to the point of forgetting the obligations that should be carried out as a wife according to islamic law. to carry out a balanced dual role, today’s modern woman must return to several spiritual endeavours with different levels. efforts to approach themselves to allah almighty need to be made so that they can have a clean heart that can radiate good morals. in the kaffah teachings of islam, a woman as a wife must prioritize prudence in the household. 5. women’s religious values in family domestic in serat murtasiyah the domestic sphere is constructed as a part of women’s nature and must be appropriately managed by women. women are often stereotyped as submissive wives, which shapes women to respect and obey their husbands/fathers, look charming, take care of domestic affairs, and educate children72. educating, caring for children, and cleaning the house are domestic activities that women always identify. sufi women will base their role in the domestic sphere on a high spiritual foundation. the knowledge of sufism that the sufis learn will make them grapple with the behaviour that the prophets exemplified through the meaning of life, and the message conveyed as a way to allah almighty73. according to ‘ó’ishah, in almuntakhab fi uîël al-rutab (the principles of sufism), there are four main principles of sufism, namely repentance (tawba), sincerity (ikhléî), remembering allah almighty (dhikr), and love (maíabbah)74. several forms of women’s religious values in the family domestic sphere that appear in murtasiyah’s figure as a sufi woman’s image include the attitude of always being grateful, patient, 102 exploring javanese female sufism … obedient to worship, eling (remembering), surrendering, and willing to repent. 5.1 being grateful gratitude is a form of gratitude for all the gifts allah almighty has given his servants, which must be expressed verbally and in action. this gratitude is one of the markers of the behaviour of a sufi, which leads to a form of love (maíabbah) for allah almighty. gratitude is a symbolic language of someone immersed in love for allah almighty75. lovers of allah almighty will always be lovers of al-×aq so they can feel close to his lord76. the sentence of taímêd, alhamdulillah, is one of the markers of the expression of gratitude for a servant for the abundance of allah almighty’s grace. in addition, other spontaneous utterances express gratitude. murtasiyah, as a cleric’s wife (‘ulama’) in sm, is described as having an attitude of religiosity and always being grateful. everything that murtasiyah got did not forget to be thankful for. this is illustrated in the following quote from serat murtasiyah pupuh asmaradana verse 21. sukur isun ing yyang widhi, kudune duwe manah sabar, kang becik panarimane, iya iku wong wanodya, ingkang kawilang utama, tur anetĕpi ing waktu, sarta amanut ing warah. (extract 5. sm, i:21) ‘i am grateful to allah almighty, must have a patient heart, easy to be grateful, that is a woman who is considered the main, also punctual, and follows what is advised (to him).’ (extract 5. sm, i:21) the quote in extract 5 shows how murtasiyah realized how to be grateful to allah almighty by having good behaviour such as being patient, being thankful for all gifts of allah almighty, being disciplined, and following every advice, her husband gave her. murtasiyah also verbally expresses her gratitude by saying, 'i am grateful to allah almighty. his good actions as a wife also accompanied the gratitude from murtasiyah’s mouth. the nature of a woman who is good at being grateful is in harmony with the øaíêí al-bukhéri, 68:5197 and the øaíêí al-muslim, 5:907, which illustrate the consequences of women’s disobedience to their husbands as well as a reminder for women to be careful in their actions by leaving the nature of disobedience and increasing gratitude for the gifts their husbands give. allah almighty, in the holy qur’én, also said, “(recall the time) when your lord declared, .if you express gratitude, i shall certainly give you more, and if you are ungrateful, then my punishment is severe..”77 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 103 when viewed from the perspective of the holy qur’én, gratitude that reflects the religious values of javanese sufi women in the family sphere is in line with one of the obligations of a wife to her husband, primarily related to the position of a wife to complement the husband’s shortcomings. every human being must have their strengths and weaknesses. the presence of women as men’s partners is nothing but a complement to the husband’s shortcomings. the wife is a partner in the household, and both husband and wife support each other in household matters78. in a marriage bond, husband and wife have essential roles in building harmony and stability in the household7980. with her gentleness, women as housewives can counter men in family life whose primary focus is to earn a living81. wives also have an essential role in overcoming various challenges and difficulties in household dynamics82. therefore, a wife needs to maintain the balance of her role in the family, both as a mother and spouse, as well as an individual who complements her husband’s shortcomings. 5.2 patient every human being will be given a test and trial according to the ability of his servant. in facing the trials of life that come, every servant should have a sense of patience and an open heart. the clarity of heart to be spacious and patient in accepting whatever trials allah almighty has given his servants has been promised a reward as a reward. this follows the divine instruction of allah almighty in the holy qur’én,83 “surely we will test you with a bit of fear and hunger, and loss in wealth and lives and fruits, and give good tidings to the patient.” patience must always be put forward in the face of every difficulty. patience is also always related to a sincere attitude to accept allah almighty’s provisions. for murtasiyah, sincerity is one of the absolute requirements that must be met by every individual who takes the spiritual path to allah almighty84. sincerity is an absolute requirement for a sufi because it is a light that removes the darkness of the heart caused by the temptations of satan. sincerity is the character of people who live rightly, guidelines for owners of spiritual knowledge (ma‘rifah), and characteristics of people who have experienced union with allah almighty85. murtasiyah is described as a female figure, as illustrated in the quote from serat murtasiyah pupuh asmaradana verse 21 (see extract 5). the nature of patience as a form of obedience for javanese women is also in line with the teachings of the holy qur’én regarding 104 exploring javanese female sufism … one of the wife’s obligations to her husband, namely, covering her husband’s disgrace. it is undeniable that every human relationship, including marriage, will experience conflicts and problems in various forms and levels. in this case, the role of the wife as the husband’s true partner is needed to build and maintain family harmony86. whatever problems arise, especially those related to the husband’s disgrace, must be able to be suppressed from being told to anyone. the wife must try to cover the husband’s disgrace as hard as possible87. this cannot be separated from the rights and obligations of husband and wife, who must protect, nurture, and complement each other in household affairs88. women must be able to behave nicely, patiently, politely, and always carry praying89. by prioritizing patience, a wife has the potential to ease tension, create a comfortable family environment, and build effective communication between family members90. a woman’s character as a calmer or reducer of anger helps maintain harmony so that husband and wife relationships can run calmly and peacefully without violence or detrimental turmoil. on the other hand, wives also have a role to play in teaching essential values such as sacrifice and tolerance to their families and children so that they can become the foundation of a strong personality91. a good understanding of a wife’s obligation to cover her husband’s disgrace based on a high level of patience can certainly be a way to maintain marital harmony and sustainability. 5.3 pleased (riìé) for the sufis, the attitude of pleasure is one of the religious behaviours that show acceptance of all decisions allah almighty has made for them. maqém-i-riìé is based on allah almighty’s instruction, “…allah is well-pleased with them and they are wellpleased with him..…”92. sufi women will then understand the concept of riìé and the nature of women as both wives and mothers. this riìé character is also part of the sincere attitude that is a marker of the behaviour of a sufi. riìé, which is identic to self-acceptance, is a characteristic of a person who has experienced union with allah almighty so that he can accept all the provisions that allah almighty has given him93. murtasiyah, as a woman who is so deep in religious teachings, understands the nature of a wife who will get blessings from allah almighty for the pleasure of her husband. it was on this deep understanding that murtasiyah, with her pleasure in her husband's relationship, went to meditate to guard the house that was assigned to her even when she was pregnant. this can be seen in the text of serat murtasiyah, pupuh asmaradana verse 15 and pupuh sinom verse 21. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 105 … sukå ridhå angulun, angèngèring putrå tuwan … (extract 15. sm, iii:21) ‘i am pleased and happy to take care of your son.' (extract 15. sm, iii:21) murtasiyah is also aware of the role of an ascetic wife who must be ready if, at any time, her husband is left imprisoned for a long time. as a mother-to-be, even though she has never had children, murtasiyah will willingly take care of her child as best as possible, even if she is alone. murtasiyah did not complain that she had to be left to raise her child without being accompanied by her husband when she was pregnant and gave birth later. murtasiyah realized that she would get a blessing on the results of her husband’s asceticism if she were happy to accept all the fates assigned to her. murtasiyah’s attitude of pleasure towards her destiny was also shown when she willingly had to leave her infant child because her husband had kicked her out of the house. she consciously accepted her husband’s decision, which was irreversible, even though she had begged for forgiveness for the unintentional mistake she had made. murtasiyah is happy to live a life of languishing in the forest alone to atone for the sins she has committed. murtasiyah’s pleased nature is in line with the words of ῃaḍrat muhammad rasūlullah khātam un nabiyyīn ṣall allah ‘alaihi wa ‘alā ālihi wa aṣḥābihi wa ṣallam's narrated by ibn 'umar ra, which reads, “there is no servant who takes one sip (receives a disaster) that is more important in the sight of allah almighty than one heavy sip that is held to seek the pleasure of allah almighty,”94 this hadith implies that someone pleased when he gets a disaster from allah almighty will get a great reward as a way to raise his degree of faith. javanese women’s contentment (riìé) also aligns with the wife’s obligation to always obey her husband from the perspective of the kaffah islamic teachings. another form of the wife’s contentment in islamic teachings is also seen when the wife is willing to leave her parents to follow the husband’s residence. however, it takes excellent sincerity for a woman after marriage to part with her parents and follow wherever her husband lives. in addition, a wife’s submission to devote herself to her husband in taking care of her children and maintaining her honour and property when her husband is not at home is also in line with the concept of riìé that a woman needs to have. in essence, all forms of obedience of a wife to her husband in islamic teachings will always be related to the value of riìé which must be highlighted to be owned by a woman in carrying out her role as a wife. 106 exploring javanese female sufism … 6. wife compliance in the family sphere: from the perspective of javanese society and islamic teachings in javanese cultural conventions, women are described as having many ideal traits, such as accepting, delicate, patient, resigned, loyal, devoted, and others95. this happens because the javanese culture is so strong that it influences the emergence of javanese women’s traits by social institutions in society. javanese women are seen as having high manners, being soft-spoken, peace-loving, respectful, and harmonious, like gotong royong (cooperating with other people), and always upholding harmony and a sense of family. serat nitimani explicitly describes the nature and character of the ideal woman, such as having the exact nature (affection towards everyone), kulina (can consider everything with the proper decisionmaking, dana (likes to give happiness and pleasure to everyone, and fine (careful, meticulous, can distinguish and reason excellent and bad problems and place them correctly)96. these traits of javanese women are what most men seek in an ideal woman. women with a character full of wisdom are considered capable of satisfying their husbands when married because they will understand their duties and obligations as good wives. regarding wives’ obedience to their husbands, javanese women have an extreme stereotypical image of the leading role in the household. the primary role that javanese women have as wives is nothing but macak, masak, and manak97. this role of women certainly illustrates that javanese women are always under the power of men and must submit to their husbands9899100. an illustration of a woman’s total submission to her husband’s power is also depicted in serat murtasiyah. murtasiyah is portrayed as an exemplary and virtuous javanese wife who submits completely to her husband, accepting his violence and devoting herself entirely to his happiness101. however, murtasiyah’s journey to achieve domestic happiness was accompanied by a powerful spiritual journey. the overwhelming sense of acceptance (riìé) in murtasiyah for the behaviour she received from her husband ultimately strengthened murtasiyah’s spiritual journey towards a great sense of tawakkul to allah almighty. in the end, the inner beauty that appears from murtasiyah’s behaviour will form a good personality and have implications for women’s visualization, thus making her have inner and outer beauty102. women should have good physical characteristics (for example, a lovely look, kind and appealing habits), as well as spiritual qualities such as love for others, and can be an example for modern women today to be wiser in carrying out dual roles in the domestic sphere of the family. another form of javanese women’s obedience is also illustrated in serat piwulang estri, where the ideal javanese elite hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 107 woman must be able to play the role of a good wife who can perfectly accommodate the husband’s polygamous desires and submit to the husband’s authority103104105. the text suluk tenun also depicts the image of a javanese woman living a household life where women must be willing to learn to behave as if they are dead in life, sleep when awake, be careful when traveling, blind can show the way, mute can break up quarrels solely to maintain her purity and understand the nature of her origin as a human being106. a more extreme form of javanese women’s obedience is seen in serat nitipraja, where javanese women are considered to have the advantages of good behaviour and patibrata (pledge loyalty until death), meaning that women are willing to follow their husbands who die first until the afterlife107. the various forms of a wife’s obedience to her husband ultimately create a minor view of the position of women in javanese society as weak, beautiful, pampered, loved, and required to have children. on the other hand, javanese women are seen as having high loyalty. behind the negative stereotypes of javanese women, the calming or anger-reducing character of javanese women can balance the husband-wife relationship and help or replace the husband’s role in protecting and saving the family108. from the perspective of javanese society, the various forms of obedience of a wife to her husband are also in line with the kaffah teachings of islam, which regulate the obligations of wives when they are married. in islam, religion is almost always integrated into every aspect of social life. likewise, in the context of a wife’s obedience to her husband, the provisions have definite rules according to the holy qur’én and hadith. the holy qur’én occupies a central position in the lives and works of sufis109. the holy qur’én and hadith are also used as guidelines for islamic family law. in islam, a wife is obliged to obey her husband110. wives who do not follow their husbands are considered to have committed nushëz or disobedience111. the concept of nushëz symbolizes the submission of women in marriage112. this concept is justified by referring to the holy qur’én: men are caretakers of women, since allah has made some of them excel the others, and because of the wealth they have spent. so, the righteous women are obedient, (and) guard (the property and honor of their husbands) in (their) absence with the protection given by allah. as for women of whom you fear rebellion, convince them, and leave them apart in beds, and beat them. then, if they obey you, do not seek a way against them. surely, allah is the highest, the greatest.113 108 exploring javanese female sufism … in tafsêr jalalin, the verse explains that a pious woman is a woman who obeys her husband, keeps herself from her honour when her husband is not at home because allah almighty has taken care of her by giving her to her husband, and is not allowed to disobey her husband by disobeying his orders114. the wife’s obedience to the husband is at least shown by carrying out the husband’s orders as long as they are by islamic law. wives must serve their husbands according to their nature as women. good wives will not refuse any request from their husbands as the head of the household; they must speak politely to their husbands, wives must respect their husbands, and wives are also obliged to take care of the household as much as possible115116117118. in addition, according to imam as-sadiq (as), the form of obedience wives to their husbands can also be done by always giving happiness to their husbands, being a comforter for husbands, refusing husbands’ sexual offers without clear reasons, not disobeying their husbands except those that are contrary to allah almighty’s commands, must be able to protect themselves from prohibited acts, guarding husbands' property at home, and not receiving guests whom the husband does not permit119120. ultimately, women achieve femininity and protect their husbands’ masculinity by emphasizing their obedience and putting their careers and income aside121. wives’ obedience to their husbands enables them to live up to the expectation that being a pious wife can lead to their steps towards the pleasure of their husbands and allah almighty to enter heaven. however, islam is diverse and has a local color in every geographical area122, including the javanese perspective. therefore, although not explicitly describing the form of obedience of wives to husbands from the perspective of javanese society, it is ultimately the same as what allah almighty has commanded in the holy qur’én. the teachings strengthen the behaviour that allah almighty has guided according to the kaffah teachings of islam. 7. conclusion this study shows that the concept of sufism implemented by murtasiyah as a javanese woman in sm appears in the process of demanding the science of meaning (ngelmu rasa) when she tries to find the essence of makrifat. in summary, murtasiyah’s sufism practice is divided into three: peace of body (cipta), peace of mind (rasa), and peace of soul (karsa) by applying the teachings of tahalli, takhalli, and tajalli to reach hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 109 the position of insén-i-kémil. murtasiyah's religious struggle as a sufi is also evident from the application of religious values as a form of a wife’s obedience to her husband, such as gratitude, patience, obedience to worship, remembrance (eling), pleased (riìé), and willingness to repent. from the viewpoint of javanese society, married javanese women are positioned as kanca wingking, so they must always submit to their husbands. murtasiyah also experienced mistreatment from her husband. accepting her destiny and closeness to the worship ultimately made her a sufi figure. indeed, murtasiyah’s various forms of obedience align with the teachings of islam, which regulate the obligations of wives in households. in islam, at least, it is explained that a wife is obliged to obey her husband. this research proposes several significance and relevance. first, theoretically, this study strengthens the foundation of seeking the essence of tawakkul to allah almighty. this study also clarifies the stages of sufism to reach the highest level of religious understanding, makrifat. secondly, it strengthens the spiritual values of a wife’s obedience to her husband from the perspective of javanese society. modern women need to be given an understanding that building femininity from the religious side can protect male masculinity while achieving the pleasure of allah almighty. this research has several limitations. first, this study only discusses the main female character, murtasiyah, from her spiritual journey. future researchers need to explore women’s roles from other perspectives and compare them with other characters from various literary works. secondly, this study only describes javanese women’s religious values from the family sphere and has not dissected the value of women from other spheres. therefore, further research can be continued by dissecting the characteristics of javanese sufi women from new roles. this research maps the religious values of javanese sufi women and proposes two recommendations. first, modern women who have lost their balance in the dual role must learn murtasiyah’s simple and meaningful form of spirituality. second, a revolution in the form of a wife's obedience can occur when people have different characteristics due to geographical differences. however, in practice, modern women should not process the looseness of a wife’s obedience from a different perspective separately from the teachings of islam because, in fact, all actions taken are sourced from the decree of allah almighty. 110 exploring javanese female sufism … notes and references 1 nadia agha, ghazal kazim syed, and deedar ali mirani, “exploring the representation of gender and identity: patriarchal and citizenship perspectives from the primary level sindhi textbooks in pakistan,” women’s studies international forum 66 (2018): 17–24, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2017.11.009. 2 ernoiz antriyandarti et al., “the dual role of women in food security and agriculture in responding to climate change: empirical evidence from rural java,” environmental challenges 14, no. january (2024): 100852, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envc.2024.100852. 3 hélène botreau and marc j. cohen, “gender inequality and food insecurity: a dozen years after the food price crisis, rural women still bear the brunt of poverty and hunger,” advances in food security and sustainability 5 (2020): 53– 117, https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.af2s.2020.09.001. 4 hazir ullah and christine skelton, “gender representation in the public sector schools textbooks of pakistan,” educational studies 39, no. 2 (2013): 183–94, https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2012.702892. 5 izzuddin, reza pahlevi dalimunthe, and sulistiyono susilo, “the portrayal of women in arabic textbooks for non-arabic speakers,” sage open 11, no. 2 (april 2021): 215824402110141, https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211014184. 6 caroline sweetman, “gender, religion, and spirituality oxfam focus on gender,” in gender and development (oxfam gb, 2010), 2. 7 haifaa jawad, “islamic spirituality and the feminine dimension,” in women and the divine: touching transcendence, ed. gillian howie and j’annine jobling (new york: palgrave macmillan us, 2009), 188, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-13712074-8_10. 8 jörg stolz and christophe monnot, “female religious leadership in switzerland: norms, power, and money,” journal of contemporary religion 34, no. 2 (may 4, 2019): 353, https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2019.1621552. 9 kelly pemberton, “muslim women mystics and female spiritual authority in south asian sufism,” journal of ritual studies 18, no. 2 (january 7, 2004): 1–23, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44368692. 10 donna j goetz, “woman soul: the inner life of women’s spirituality edited by carole a. rayburn and lillian comas-diaz,” the international journal for the psychology of religion 20, no. 2 (march 29, 2010): 148, https://doi.org/10.1080/10508611003608080. 11 yulia nasrul latifi, wening udasmoro, and juliasih j., “the subjectivity of nawāl al-sa’dāwī: critique on gender relations in religious construction in adab am qillah adab work,” al-jami’ah: journal of islamic studies 57, no. 2 (december 24, 2019): 257–86, https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2019.572.257-286. 12 fatimatus zahro, “perempuan dalam tradisi spiritualitas islam lokal,” kontemplasi: jurnal ilmu-ilmu ushuluddin 06, no. 01 (2018): 48, http://library1.nida.ac.th/termpaper6/sd/2554/19755.pdf. 13 m iqbal maulana, “spiritualitas dan gender: sufi-sufi perempuan,” living islam 1, no. 2 (2018): 359–78. 14 laury silvers, “early pious, mystic sufi women,” in the cambridge companion to sufism, ed. lloyd ridgeon (new york: cambridge university press, 2015), 24. 15 silvers, 24. 16 ahmed toufiq, moon and henna tree, ed. roger allen, cmes modern middle east literatures in translation (united states of america: university of texas press, 2013), https://books.google.co.id/books?id=ixoeagaaqbaj. 17 ahmed toufiq, abu musa’s women neighbors: a historical novel from morocco, ed. roger allen (post-apollo press, 2006), https://books.google.co.id/books?id=7oizaqaaiaaj. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 111 18 fajar wijanarko, “konstruksi gender pada tokoh murtasiyah (studi kasus serat dewi murtasiyah pegon),” jurnal museum nasional prajnaparamita vi (2018): 33– 54. 19 mohd shahnawi muhmad pirus and hany nurahmawati, “javanese women identity regarding 3m: macak-manak-masak values,” international journal of culture and history 7, no. 2 (december 10, 2020): 54, https://doi.org/10.5296/ijch.v7i2.18055. 20 anwar hadja, “makna baru konco wingking,” kumparan.com, december 20, 2019, https://kumparan.com/anwar-hadja/makna-baru-konco-wingking1stkzgbweim. 21 suci wulandari, “ideologi ‘kanca wingking’: studi relasi kuasa pengetahuan dalam tafsir alhuda,” al-a’raf : jurnal pemikiran islam dan filsafat 15, no. 1 (june 30, 2018): 101, https://doi.org/10.22515/ajpif.v15i1.1210. 22 dinda asrining tyas, “sebagai perempuan jawa saya tidak merasa ditindas jadi kanca wingking mojok.co,” mojok.co, september 13, 2018, https://mojok.co/esai/sebagai-perempuan-jawa-saya-tidak-merasa-ditindas-jadikanca-wingking/. 23 pirus and nurahmawati, “javanese women identity regarding 3m: macakmanak-masak values.” 24 joan isma ayu astri fachrani, “manifestasi wanita dalam budaya patriarki: ideologi dalam serat candraning wanita dan refleksi pada iklan era modern,” jurnal linguistik terapan 5, no. 1 (2015): 1–14, http://jlt.polinema.ac.id/index.php/jlt/article/view/30/24. 25 rika novita kusumaningrum, “kepemimpinan moral dalam serat murtasiyah: kajian sosiologi sastra gramscian,” in prosiding seminar nasional “national character building in globalization era” (yogyakarta: universitas pgri yogyakarta, 2020). 26 imam kanafi, ilmu tasawuf: penguatan mental-spiritual dan akhlaq (pekalongan: pt. nasya expanding management, 2020). 27 pemberton, “muslim women mystics and female spiritual authority in south asian sufism.” 28 shemeem burney abbas, the female voice in sufi ritual (university of texas press, 2002), https://doi.org/10.7560/705159. 29 meriem el haitami, “women and sufism: religious expression and the political sphere in contemporary morocco,” mediterranean studies 22, no. 2 (2014): 190– 212, https://doi.org/10.5325/mediterraneanstu.22.2.0190. 30 sururin, “perempuan dalam lintasan sejarah tasawuf,” ulumuna xiv, no. 2 (2010): 299–322. 31 daisy hilse dwyer, “29 women, sufism, and decision-making in moroccan islam,” in women in the muslim world, ed. lois beck and nikki keddie (cambridge, ma and london, england: harvard university press, 1978), 585–98, https://doi.org/doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674733091.c33. 32 saad khan and abida bano, “women and sufism in south asia: a survey of historical trends,” liberal arts and social sciences international journal (lassij) 4, no. 2 (2020): 202–14, https://doi.org/10.47264/idea.lassij/4.2.16. 33 rika novita kusumaningrum, “serat murtasiyah: suntingan dan terjemahan” (universitas gadjah mada, 2010), http://etd.ugm.ac.id/index.php?mod=penelitian_deta... 34 rindu restu triandari, “analisis ilustrasi serat murtasiyah” (universitas indonesia, 2010). 35 fajar wijanarko, “gender dan domestifikasi perempuan (pendekatan kodikologi visual naskah dewi murtasiyah),” buana gender 2, no. 2 (2017): 121–34, https://doi.org/10.22515/bg.v2i2.987. 36 wijanarko, “konstruksi gender pada tokoh murtasiyah (studi kasus serat dewi murtasiyah pegon).” 112 exploring javanese female sufism … 37 kusumaningrum (2020) 38 ifechelobi jane nkechi and asika ikechukwu emmanuel, “women and ecology: an eco-feminist reading of chinua achebe’s things fall apart,” international journal of english literature and social sciences (ijels) 2, no. 4 (2017): 33–40, https://doi.org/10.24001/ijels.2.4.5. 39 chia longman, “women’s circles and the rise of the new feminine: reclaiming sisterhood, spirituality, and wellbeing,” religions 9, no. 1 (2018), https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9010009. 40 shirin zubair and maria zubair, “situating islamic feminism(s): lived religion, negotiation of identity and assertion of third space by muslim women in pakistan,” women’s studies international forum 63, no. july (july 1, 2017): 17–26, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2017.06.002. 41 oman fathurahman, “female indonesian sufis: shattariya murids in the 18th and 19th centuries in java,” kyoto bulletin of islamic area studies 11, no. march (2018): 40–67. 42 kurniawati hastuti dewi, “javanese women and islam: identity formation since the twentieth century,” southeast asian studies 1, no. 1 (2012): 109–40, https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/seas/1/1/1_kj00007821180/_pdf. 43 aprilia saputri and nur hanifah insani, “ajaran tasawuf dalam naskah suluk daka dan relevansinya terhadap pendidikan islam,” edukasi islami: jurnal pendidikan islam 12, no. 001 (2023): 479–90, https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.30868/ei.v12i001.5366. 44 r myrna nur sakinah, “citra perempuan dalam novel the holy woman: suatu kajian feminis,” metasastra: jurnal penelitian sastra 7, no. 1 (2014): 73–84. 45 andriyana fatmawati and nur hanifah insani, “citra perempuan jawa dalam teks suluk tenun,” piwulang : jurnal pendidikan bahasa jawa 8, no. 2 (2020): 116–26, https://doi.org/10.15294/piwulang.v8i2.42686. 46 natasya m. fanesha and respati r. utami, serat partakrama: a javanese woman’s beauty and idealism symbolism (atlantis press sarl, 2023), https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-008-4_191. 47 tony day, “stepping on a wulu: minor characters and narrative possibilities in the sĕrat cĕnthini,” in storied island, 2023, 33–65, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004678897. 48 muhammad ali al-hasyimi, kepribadian wanita muslimah (international islamic publishing house, 2009). 49 umma farida and abdurrohman kasdi, “women’s roles in iḥyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn and method of teaching it at pesantrens in indonesia,” al-jami’ah 59, no. 1 (2021): 163–90, https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2021.591.163-190. 50 karin ask and marit tjomsland, women and islamization: contemporary dimensions of discourse on gender relations (taylor \& francis, 2021), https://books.google.co.id/books?id=ihwseaaaqbaj. 51 al-hasyimi, kepribadian wanita muslimah. 52 siti baroroh baried et al., pengantar teori filologi (jakarta: pusat pembinaan dan pengembangan bahasa departemen pendidikan dan kebudayaan, 1985). 53 venny indria ekowati, filologi jawa: panduan lengkap praktik penelitian filologi (sleman: jurusan pendidikan bahasa daerah fakultas bahasa dan seni uny, 2015). 54 john w. creswell, penelitian kualitatif & desain riset (yogyakarta: pustaka pelajar, 2015), 513. 55 joann wolski conn, “women’s spirituality: restriction & reconstruction,” crosscurrents 30, no. 3 (january 6, 1980): 293, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24458204. 56 ahmad muttaqin, “women’s identity in the digital islam age: social media, new religious authority, and gender bias,” qudus international journal of islamic hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 113 studies (qijis) 8, no. 2 (december 31, 2020): 24, https://doi.org/10.21043/qijis.v8i2.7095. 57 a b p hasan, psikologi perkembangan islam: menyingkap rentang kehidupan manusia dari prakelahiran hingga pascakematian (jakarta: pt rajagrafindo persada, 2006), https://books.google.co.id/books?id=mwlunqaacaaj. 58 bianca j. smith, “re-orienting female spiritual power in islam: narrating conflict between warriors, witches and militias in lombok,” indonesia and the malay world 40, no. 118 (2012): 249–71, https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2012.710423. 59 nur kholis, ilmu makrifat jawa sangkan paraning dumadi: eksplorasi sufistik konsep mengenal diri dalam pustaka islam kejawen kunci swarga miftahul djanati (ponorogo: cv. nata karya, 2018). 60 afif muhammad and dian dian, “the development of teacher characters basis of tasawuf,” jurnal pendidikan islam 1, no. 3 (2016): 327, https://doi.org/10.15575/jpi.v1i3.680. 61 ade fakih kurniawan, noorhaidi hasan, and achmad zainal arifin, “wali and karama: a discourse and authority contestation in al-tarmasi’s bughyat aladhkiya’,” al-jami’ah: journal of islamic studies 57, no. 2 (december 24, 2019): 287–328, https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2019.572.287-328. 62 suriadi suriadi, “internalization of tasawuf values in learning fiqh at madrasah aliyah sambas kalimantan,” jurnal pendidikan islam 4, no. 2 (2019): 77–92, https://doi.org/10.15575/jpi.v4i2.2014. 63 maghfur ahmad, “three sufi communities guarding the earth: a case study of mitigation and adaptation to climate change in indonesia,” al-jami’ah: journal of islamic studies 57, no. 2 (december 24, 2019): 359–96, https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2019.572.359-396. 64 kurniawan, hasan, and arifin, “wali and karama: a discourse and authority contestation in al-tarmasi’s bughyat al-adhkiya’.” 65 muhammad and dian, “the development of teacher characters basis of tasawuf.” 66 muhammad and dian. 67 usmani, mufti muhammad taqi, the meanings of the noble qur’an, 29:69, maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010, karachi. 68 siti aisah, “relevansi sufisme rābi’ah al ᷾adawiyyah dalam mengatasi problematika spiritualitas wanita modern” (universitas islam negeri sunan ampel, 2020). 69 aisah. 70 antriyandarti et al., “the dual role of women in food security and agriculture in responding to climate change: empirical evidence from rural java.” 71 khoirul umam and muhammad agus waskito, “women’s empowerment from an islamic perspective (analytical study),” islamic economics journal 8, no. 2 (2022): 205, https://doi.org/10.21111/iej.v8i2.9069. 72 sakinah, “citra perempuan dalam novel the holy woman: suatu kajian feminis.” 73 john zaleski, “sufi asceticism and the sunna of the prophet in al-junayd’s adab al-muftaqir ilā allāh,” journal of islamic studies 32, no. 1 (january 1, 2021): 1–26, https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etaa051. 74 th. emil homerin, “aishah al-ba’uniyyah,” in essays in arabic literary biography ii: 1350–1850, ed. joseph edmund lowry and devin j. stewart (wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 2009), 21–27. 75 maulana, “spiritualitas dan gender: sufi-sufi perempuan.” 76 aishah al-ba’uniyyah, al-muntakhab fi ushul al-rutab (the principles of sufism), ed. th. emil homerin (new york: new york university press, 2014). 77 the noble qur’an, 14:7. 114 exploring javanese female sufism … 78 a. kumedi ja’far and agus hermanto, “reinterpretation of the rights and duties of contemporary husbands and wives,” samarah 5, no. 2 (2021): 648–67, https://doi.org/10.22373/sjhk.v5i2.9124. 79 rahmat kurniawan and fatimah, “wife’ s role in overcoming domestic problems,” riwayat: educational journal of history and humanities 6, no. 3 (2023): 1015–22, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.24815/jr.v6i3.33847 wife’s. 80 renis auma ojwala et al., “understanding women’s roles, experiences and barriers to participation in ocean science education in kenya: recommendations for better gender equality policy,” marine policy 161, no. january (2024): 106000, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2023.106000. 81 minhar minhar, zainal zainal, and hilal malarangan, “the role of husband and wife in child care from islamic law perspectives,” international journal of contemporary islamic law and society 2, no. 1 (2020): 1–19, https://doi.org/10.24239/ijcils.vol2.iss1.11. 82 syarifah gustiawati and novia lestari, “aktualisasi konsep kafa’ah dalam membangun keharmonisan rumah tangga,” mizan: journal of islamic law 4, no. 1 (2018): 33–86, https://doi.org/10.32507/mizan.v4i1.174. 83 the noble qur’an, 2:155. 84 al-ba’uniyyah, al-muntakhab fi ushul al-rutab (the principles of sufism). 85 maulana, “spiritualitas dan gender: sufi-sufi perempuan.” 86 anwar hafidzi and norwahdah rezky amalia, “marriage problems because of disgrace (study of book fiqh islam wa adilâtuh and kitâb al-nikâh),” alihkam: jurnal hukum & pranata sosial 13, no. 2 (2018): 273, https://doi.org/10.19105/al-ihkam.v13i2.1626. 87 khobaib ali saeed salem et al., “wife’s right to her husband’s property that is disputed by them both,” linguistics and culture review 5, no. s4 (december 8, 2021): 2161–67, https://doi.org/10.21744/lingcure.v5ns4.1916. 88 ja’far and hermanto, “reinterpretation of the rights and duties of contemporary husbands and wives.” 89 hartini, “character education values of female characters in serat candra rini,” jurnal melayu 12, no. 1 (2014): 44–50, https://ejournal.ukm.my/jmelayu/article/view/6618. 90 kurniawan and fatimah, “wife’ s role in overcoming domestic problems.” 91 isroqunnajah, “merawat harmoni keluarga: merawat stabilitas sakinah,” jawa pos-radar malang, may 9, 2022. 92 the noble qur’an, 5:119. 93 maulana, “spiritualitas dan gender: sufi-sufi perempuan.” 94bukhārī,,muḥammad ibn ismāʻīl, al-adab al-mufrad: a code for everyday living : the example of the early muslims,55:1318, ed. iqbal ahmad azami (leicester: uk islamic academy, 2012), https://books.google.co.id/books?id=wmv9kaaacaaj.. 95 fatmawati and insani, “citra perempuan jawa dalam teks suluk tenun.” 96 nur hanifah insani, “sěrat nitimani: pendidikan seks berdasarkan etika jawa,” metasastra: jurnal penelitian sastra 11, no. 1 (july 4, 2018): 73–90, https://doi.org/10.26610/metasastra.2018.v11i1.73-90. 97 pirus and nurahmawati, “javanese women identity regarding 3m: macakmanak-masak values.” 98 ojwala et al., “understanding women’s roles, experiences and barriers to participation in ocean science education in kenya: recommendations for better gender equality policy.” 99 agha, syed, and mirani, “exploring the representation of gender and identity: patriarchal and citizenship perspectives from the primary level sindhi textbooks in pakistan.” hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 115 100 pemberton, “muslim women mystics and female spiritual authority in south asian sufism.” 101 dewi, “javanese women and islam: identity formation since the twentieth century.” 102 fanesha and utami, serat partakrama: a javanese woman’s beauty and idealism symbolism. 103 arsanti wulandari, “piwulang estri sebagai bentuk reportase tentang wanita jawa,” manuskripta 6, no. 2 (2016): 1–17, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.33656/manuskripta.v6i2.50. 104 nancy florida, writing the past, inscribing the future (duke university press, 1995). 105 dewi, “javanese women and islam: identity formation since the twentieth century.” 106 fatmawati and insani, “citra perempuan jawa dalam teks suluk tenun.” 107 arsanti wulandari, “wanita dalam serat nitipraja,” humaniora 18, no. 1 (2006): 72–78. 108 hartini, “character education values of female characters in serat candra rini.” 109 shemeem burney abbas, the female voice in sufi ritual: devotional practices of pakistan and india (united states of america: university of texas press, 2003). 110 daniel andrew birchok, “women, genealogical inheritance and sufi authority: the female saints of seunagan, indonesia,” asian studies review 40, no. 4 (2016): 583–99, https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2016.1224999. 111 lynn welchman, “a husband’s authority: emerging formulations in muslim family laws,” in issues in islamic law, 2017, 121–43, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315092386-10. 112 judith e tucker, women, family, and gender in islamic law, themes in islamic law (cambridge university press, 2008). 113 the noble qur’an, 4:34. 114 asep habib idrus alawi, “the concept of al-qur’an and islamic law in educating wife and the solution for dispute settlement in household violence,” international journal of nusantara islam 6, no. 2 (january 5, 2019): 125–32, https://doi.org/10.15575/ijni.v6i2.3953. 115 rachel rinaldo, “obedience and authority among muslim couples: negotiating gendered religious scripts in contemporary indonesia,” sociology of religion: a quarterly review 80, no. 3 (2019): 323–49, https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sry045. 116 sri suhandjati, “reinterpretation of women’s domestic roles: saleh darat’s thought on strengthening women’s roles in indonesia,” journal of indonesian islam 12, no. 02 (2018): 195–218. 117 farida and kasdi, “women’s roles in iḥyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn and method of teaching it at pesantrens in indonesia.” 118 milda mandziarz-kuźmiński, “the role of women in sufism. female followers of mevlevi order and their active participation in sema ritual,” facta simonidis 7, no. 1 (2014): 153–65, https://doi.org/10.56583/fs.215. 119 lawal mohammed bani and hamza a pate, “the role of spouses under islamic family law,” international affairs and global strategy 37 (2015): 104–11. 120 alawi, “the concept of al-qur’an and islamic law in educating wife and the solution for dispute settlement in household violence.” 121 rinaldo, “obedience and authority among muslim couples: negotiating gendered religious scripts in contemporary indonesia.” 122 abbas, the female voice in sufi ritual: devotional practices of pakistan and india. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi. no. 3 7 .. editorial in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful. we are honoured to present the third issue of the hamdard islamicus of volume 46 (2023). this publication features insightful and inspiring articles on various islamic topics, including marriage, governance, theology, takaful and islamic social finance. the contributions from esteemed researchers worldwide have undergone rigorous scientific analysis to present essential concepts. this issue comprises five academic articles and a book review, summarized below: the first article, titled “family life as the foundation of islamic civilization” explores the fundamental role of marriage institutions in islamic culture. it investigates the islamic perspective on family and marriage relationships, emphasizing their profound impact on the culture of muslim societies. the second article, “protection of the intellect of persons with disabilities: in the holy qur’én and the sunnah perspective” examines the stance of the holy qur’én and sunnah on individuals with disabilities. this article discusses intellectual protection for persons with disabilities, highlighting islamic teachings’ ethical and moral considerations regarding their inclusion and support. the third article, “anthropomorphic of gods with allah almighty and filmography on islamophobia in the cinematic way of america and india: a critical analysis” critically analyses the portrayal of almighty allah in popular culture, focusing on anthropomorphism. it provides an in-depth examination of islamophobia in american and indian films, shedding light on these key issues. the fourth article, titled “determinants of family takaful in asean: evidence from business unit sharê‘ah and full-fledged operations” draws on empirical data from fully operational takaful units and sharê‘ah-compliant business entities. the study investigates factors influencing sharê‘ah-compliant business units and full-fledged takaful operations in the asean region, offering key insights into the financial stability of this unique takaful model. 8 editorial .. the fifth article, titled “islamic social finance ecosystem and the role of crowdfunding: a proposed model” in today’s changing financial environment, islamic finance has constantly grown over the last few decades to meet the needs of today’s society. considering this situation, this paper suggests a crowdfunding system jointly integrated with islamic social finance, which can provide excess to funds, diversify sources of money, and increase community-related to the financial system, considering the principles of islamic finance. despite several challenges, there is the possibility of a positive impact where crowdfunding can make islamic social finance more inclusive, resilient, and impactful. finally, the book review of “toward islamic english” by ismā‘īl rājī al fārūqī summarizes the key points of the book. it reflects how the language authentically embodies islamic values and principles, making it a valuable resource for those interested in its relationship with islamic thought. in summary, this issue of hamdard islamicus provides a comprehensive and diverse study of various aspects of islam. these articles significantly contribute to the broader discourse on islamic thought and practice, offering alternative perspectives on the contemporary challenges faced by the muslim world. we hope these articles will inspire further discussions and research on these crucial topics. in conclusion, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the authors who chose hamdard islamicus as a platform to publish their scholarly works. we deeply appreciate the feedback from our readers and eagerly anticipate more opportunities to engage in discussions about important themes in islamic studies in the future. dr. shabeer khan editor hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 29 lgbt a global issue: social impact preventive solution from quranic perspective (study of quranic chapter al-a‘róf [7]: 80-81) ahmad farhan universitas islam fatmawati sukarno bengkulu, indonesia email: ahmadfarhan@mail.uinfasbengkulu.ac.id dr rahman universitas islam negeri sultan syarif kasim riau, indonesia, correspondence :rahman@uin-suska.ac.id prof dr ilyas universitas islam negeri sultan syarif kasim riau, indonesia, email: ilyas.husti@uin-suska.ac.id received on: 15-10-22 accepted on: 19-04-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.889 abstract the lgbt problem is a hotly vulnerable discussion in 2021-2024. this is marked by the emergence of many movements from activists and sympathizers of lgbt supporters who ask for their rights in public spaces, such as the rights of society in general. the presence of a movement that advocates equality for lgbt people has a close relationship with the people of prophet lëï (‘alaih assalém), who have a different sexual orientation from humans in general, which in arabic, is called liwéïat (sodomy). the campaign effort was then carried out openly in the public. this study aims to analyze the practice of lgbt from an islamic perspective based on the quranic chapter al-a‘réf verses 80-81. the results showed that the emergence of lgbt movements and campaigns today are an inseparable part of the story of prophet lëï’s society, which has an unusual sexual orientation. the condition is caused by environmental, psychological, and theological factors. the rise of efforts to voice the equality of human rights openly has an impact on society in various aspects, including in the elements of health, society, education, and security. thus, preventive solutions are needed to fend off the lgbt behaviour such as through education of faith and islamic sharê‘ah, besides moral, psychiatric, social and sexual education. mailto:ahmadfarhan@mail.uinfasbengkulu.ac.id mailto:rahman@uin-suska.ac.id mailto:ilyas.husti@uin-suska.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.889 30 lgbt a global issue … keywords: lgbt, al-a‘réf: 80-81, impact, preventive solutions. introduction the lgbt (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) problem is a hot topic of conversation today. there is conflict in society when discussing this issue as there are groups that reject lgbt based on the approach and impacts resulting from this practice and groups that support it by paying attention to the principles of humanity and freedom. for some people, lgbt issues are an orientation toward someone's sexual freedom which is not appropriate for anyone to violate. meanwhile, others state that lgbt practices are strictly prohibited because they violate human norms and nature. lgbt is better known as liwath (gay) and siíéq (lesbian) in islam. liwath is associated to prophet lëï's people (sodomy) because his people committed this act for the first time. allah then referred to this behaviour as evil and transgression, which is mentioned in surah ala‘réf verse 81. meanwhile, siíéq (lesbian) is defined as a relationship between women (same gender).1 humans as caliphs must serve allah in the form of submission, and obedience, not to others as stated in islamic law. equipped with the mind, heart, and five senses, humans are entrusted with great tasks and supported through allah’s messengers, the prophets and apostles, with the revelation of the holy books which function as guidelines to life. as creatures with the ðéhir dimension, humans have the freedom to enjoy life in the world, such as the need to eat, drink, and their biological needs (sexuality). efforts to fulfill needs must be aligned with religious principles, and not prioritize human desires. this signifies that mankind is strongly bound by the provisions of allah's sharê‘ah in all aspects of their acts, both spiritually and materially. 2 the issue of lgbt is now on a global level, its successful spread was achieved through a series of pro-lgbt movements that have been around for a long time. this phenomenon is supported by the universal declaration of human rights in 1948, as well as the political reforms and democratization that have often been human rights in 1948, as well as political reform and democratization that are often misunderstood as a process of liberalization and freedom of expression.3 in indonesia, several lgbt cases have recently emerged, which have been widely discussed by the wider community, and drawn the attention of religious figures. the podcast initiated by dedi corbuzer was the trigger for the re-existence of conversations about hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 31 lgbt. lgbt in indonesia has been banned and declared íarém (prohibited) by the indonesian ulama council (mui) and islamic organizations. this is stated in the mui fatwa, no. 57 of 2014 concerning lesbians, gays, sodomy, and obscenity. it was also confirmed by the general chair of the mui ma‘rëf amin at a press conference at the mui office, central jakarta on 17 february 2016 that lgbt activities are prohibited by islam, contradict the first and second principles of pancasila and violate the 1945 constitution, particularly article 29 paragraph 1 and article 28.4 the recent emergence of the lgbt phenomenon has given a strong warning to the government, religious leaders, community leaders, academics, and the nation’s generation to strengthen education, whether religious, social, moral and other education that supports the formation of a more humanistic character and by the nature of god's creation of humans. moreover, when viewed from the maqéîid sharê‘ah, namely íifð al-dên, íifð al-nasl, íifð al-‘aql, and íifð al-nafs, there is no benefit in lgbt and homosexual behaviour except for actions that go beyond the limits and violate human nature.5 in this article, the problem formulation is the focus of the discussion: how is lgbt from an islamic perspective? how to avoid lgbt based on the quranic chapter al-a‘réf 80-81? the purpose of this article is to offer a clearer understanding and perspective to society at large, and especially to the youth as future leaders of the nation and religion, about the concept of lgbt in islam as contained in the al-a‘réf 80-81, and to provide solutions to overcome lgbt practices based on al-a‘réf 80-81. this article provides warnings and solutions to society in general and the youth, in particular, to pay attention to and anticipate every lgbt phenomenon in life by paying attention to the signs that have been explained in al-a‘réf verses 8081. there have been many studies that have tried to discuss the problem being discussed in this paper from various perspectives and approaches. as a result, it presents varied views, from those who openly reject lgbt practices for rational reasons and to those who support them and even consider it a freedom on the grounds of human rights (ham). studies include the research conducted by tri ermayani about the lgbt from an islamic perspective. the results of her research found that the cause of the emergence of lgbt practices is due to the influence of the social environment in which they are active, such as friends, the influence of parents' actions, pornography, as well as economic and psychological problems.6 another research was also conducted by febby shafira dhamayanti, pros, and cons of views regarding lgbt based on human rights, religion and law perspectives in indonesia, which was published by the indonesian law student writers association law journal. the 32 lgbt a global issue … results showed that the existence of lgbt in indonesia is still experiencing pros-contrasts among the public and even the government. on the one hand, giving rights as humans and citizens to every community is a necessity, because it is related to human rights. providing attention and protection to every citizen is the government's obligation to prevent discrimination. respecting religious convictions, on the other hand, is critical, and so attempts to eradicate lgbt practices must continue.7 in this research, the authors will further explain the lgbt concept contained in al-a‘réf 80-81 and offers constructive ideas to counter lgbt practices that are already widespread in society. by focusing on this discussion, an idea and change will emerge in society, so that giving equal rights to humans without any elements of discrimination, insults, or bullying can be realized and respect for religious beliefs can be implemented well without harming the core aspects that exist in society. literature review the fact and existence of sexual orientation can be described as the object of a person's sexual impulses: that is, heterosexual (opposite sexes), homosexual (same sex), or bisexual (both sexes). the term homosexual is often used to describe a person's apparent behaviour, sexual orientation, and sense of personal or social identity. hawkin, for example, explained that the term gay or lesbian is a selfidentity or social identity. meanwhile, soekanto explained that a homosexual is someone who tends to prioritize people of the same sex as sexual partners. homosexual is a general term for someone concerned or homosexual. the term is usually used only to distinguish between heterosexuals and bisexuals.8 the term homosexual refers to individuals who are attracted to people of the same sex, encompassing both men and women. gay is commonly used to describe homosexual men and can also be a general term for homosexual individuals regardless of gender9. lesbian, specifically refers to homosexual women. however, transgender and bisexual individuals are not necessarily homosexual. transgender people have a gender identification that differs from the sex assigned to them at birth and can have any sexual orientation. bisexual individuals are attracted to both men and women, and their attraction can be to either the same or different sex. in the born that why theory introduced by le vay in 1996, it was explained that many factors are partly responsible for the existence of homosexual orientation in people's lives. this theory also states that temperamental and environmental are the main causes of homosexual behaviour. temperament consists of a combination of genes, brain tissue, and prenatal hormonal environment. homosexuality is also hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 33 caused by one's environment, which includes parents, peers, and experiences.10 lgbt in the view of psychology is divided into two parts, namely those who accept their sexual orientation and those who do not accept but do not have the power to overcome it so that they feel disturbed. in indonesia, lgbt behaviour is categorized as a mental disorder which is summarized in ppdgj (guidelines for diagnostic guidelines for mental disorders). however, in 1983 lgbt was expelled from the ppdgj. thus, this behaviour is no longer classified as a form of mental disorder but is only a form of sexual orientation. the question of whether homosexuals are sexually aberrant or engage in natural and normal conduct has long been disputed, due to the efforts of lgbt activists and performers to make the practice acceptable and legalized.11 this activity led to satisfactory results for them because, in 1974, the institution of the apa (american psychiatric association) removed homosexuality from one of the mental disorders. tom boellstorff analyzed that in the indonesian context, the terms gay and lesbian became popular in the 1970s to 1980s. the term was learned not from parents, neighbours, and islamic teachers, but from the mass media, including gossip columns in magazines and newspapers. this is in accordance with anderson's (1983) opinion about the important role of mass media as a means of creating collective nationalism sentiments in the modern era. this is because most gays and lesbians in indonesia do not speak english and do not travel to western countries. research methodology in preparing this article the authors used a qualitative approach with the type of research library research. the data collection technique used is documentation to verify the validity of the data, carry out interpretations, and present concrete conclusions.9 meanwhile, the data analysis is descriptive-analytic and aims to bridge the explanation and reveal the facts contained in the lgbt problem as mentioned in the quranic chapter al-a‘réf verses 80-81, by combining various opinions of tafsêr scholars (exegetes) and other religious figures produce explanations that are relevant and universally acceptable. to ensure the validity of the data, the authors used source triangulation, by testing the credibility of the data by verifying the truth of the data that has been obtained through several sources.12 34 lgbt a global issue … results and discussion lgbt overview and exploring brief lgbt history in several literatures, many stories are told about homosexual practices carried out by humans long before modern times like today. lgbt is a new term that combines four different behaviours and is legally contrary to god's rules. in some literature, it is stated that lgbt practices initially developed widely in the continents of africa, europe, and america.11 homosexual practices have been abundantly documented in literature and the history of the holy books. in the history of religion from christianity and jews to islam, we know about the practice of sodomy carried out by prophet lëï's followers. this tradition then reappeared during the european rajadoms during the stuart raja james vi of scotland, known as raja james i of england, who was then considered a controversial figure. although he was credited with writing the bible, western historian phillip j adler described him as an arrogant and openly homosexual person.13 in indonesia, there are also lgbt practices, as reported in historia magazine. in 1824, there was a riot at the surakarta palace. a concubine plays a role in a masculine caught having sex with another concubine. pakubuwono v also caught his concubine masturbating using a candle in the shape of male genitals. since then, he would not let his concubine sleep in a closed room. he ordered the concubines to sleep in front of his room every night. they line up in one line, six feet apart. pakubuwono v was worried that his concubines would prefer this "alternative" form of sex to have sex with men. saskia wieringa and evelyn blackwood cited the scandal in the anthology desire for women, written in 1902 by a dutch translator near the surakarta palace, namely jw winter.14 understanding lgbt before explaining further what lgbt is, we will explain several things about lgbt. apart from the terms previously explained, there are several terms related to this gender issue, and other terms related to lgbt are homosexuality15 namely people who have sexual relations with the same sex. thus, homosexuality is a person's orientation or preference for one or more individuals of the same gender. next, we will briefly explain the meaning of each element of behaviour contained in the term lgbt, including: a. lesbians are couples of women. this term refers to women who have sex with or receive same-sex sexual stimulation.15 b. gay is a male partner. homosexuality is a phrase used to describe men who like or have experienced same-sex sexual pleasure, similar to how women do.17 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 35 c. bisexual, namely someone who has both gender characteristics (male and female); attracted to both genders. d. transgender is a term used to describe someone who acts, feels, thinks, or looks different from the gender assigned at birth. “transgender” does not indicate a particular form of sexual orientation. transgender people may identify as heterosexual, gay, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual.16 sexual identity refers to the attitudes a person views toward themselves, regardless of gender. gender identity refers to the results of chromosomal, chromatin (genetic), gonadal, hormonal, and somatic (phenotype, biotype) divisions. in a certain sense, gender identity refers to male or female in terms of physiology (body size), especially the external genitalia.17 lgbt development has progressed throughout time. lgbt cases are closely related to the development of hiv or aids. there were an estimated 39.9 million people living with hiv at the end of 2023.18 analysis of lgbt behaviour in al-a‘réf [7]: 80-81 islam as a divine religion provides through the holy qur’én, clear guidance on what muslims and people in general should and should not do in life. a faithful muslim will follow the teachings of his religion without rejecting or changing the provisions that have been stipulated in the holy book and the sunnah of the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). islam views lgbt as deviant behaviour and has received direct opposition from allah almighty, as evidenced by the punishment of the people of prophet lëï (‘alaih as-salém). the existence of lgbt people in modern society today influences the lives of society, especially muslims. this is because lgbt practices affect both the general public and muslims. many gay and lesbian communities are also muslim. this activity is considered repulsive in islam and has the potential to harm humanity because there are still common sexual behaviours that can be carried out without taking exceptional steps.19 in the holy qur'én and hadith, there are prohibitions and threats against homosexuals. َن اْلٰعلَِمْيَن اِنَُّكْم لَتَ ٖٓ اَتَأْتُْوَن اْلفَاِحَشةَ َما َسبَقَُكْم بَِها ِمْن اََحٍد م ِ أْتُْوَن َولُْوًطا اِذْ قَاَل ِلقَْوِمه ْسرِ ْن دُْوِن الن َِسۤاِءِۗ بَْل اَْنتُْم قَْوٌم مُّ َجاَل َشْهَوةً م ِ فُْونَ الر ِ and (we sent) lut (lot) when he said to his people, “do you commit the shameful act in which nobody in the world has 36 lgbt a global issue … ever preceded you?" you come to men lustfully instead of women. no, you are a people who cross the limits.20 this verse explains that the practice of homosexuality (sodomy) is a great act of disobedience.22 the word féíishah (obscenity) becomes a predicate that describes that this practice is a great evil and is intolerant. this is due to the fact that this practice is an act of disobedience, which makes it harder to forgive. his iniquity lies in the inappropriate way of channeling biological desires, specifically towards members of the same sex. instinctively, there should be a channeling of biological desires between men and women as permitted by the provisions of the sharê‘ah that is justified. then, marrying a person of the other sex is the only appropriate course of action. the scholars explained that the homosexual acts that occurred among prophet lëï's people were not due to a lack of women, but rather because they were motivated by disobedience so that they were called transgressing people.21 in islam, homosexuality is a practice that is truly hated by allah, for any reason it is unacceptable, even for reasons of urgency, especially under normal conditions. this cannot be compared with the practice of killing. it is because it is wrong in one situation, but in another situation, it may be justified, such as in self-defense or because of qiîéî (retribution). this is not justified in homosexual practices since allah has given the space and path that is right and appropriate to do so, namely with the opposite sex.22 prophet lëï (‘alaihim as-salém) was sent to address moral deterioration in the form of same-sex attraction, which can undermine the moral order of the people. however, the warnings and reprimands given by prophet lëï (‘alaihim as-salém), who was an outsider from their community, were apparently considered a passing incident and did not have the capacity to warn them, and were even ignored, until finally, they expelled prophet lëï (‘alaihim as-salém) who was considered as sanctimonious. meanwhile, they remained in the corridor of disobedience and were consistent with this bad and disobedient behaviour, without any signs of improvement and efforts to make changes and repent.23 the destruction of the morals of the people of prophet lëï (‘alaihim as-salém) based on their sexual principles made them lose their human elements. at that time, homosexuality was not even done secretly but was done openly in the society. this could be due to a sense of pride or because it is considered a common thing to do. it was in this context that they criticized prophet lëï (‘alaihim assalém) because he gave a warning about their actions which were considered normal and had been embedded in their lives for hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 37 generations. resistance and rejection occurred when prophet lëï (‘alaihim as-salém) provided a solution to marry their daughters, but an abnormal response then emerged. the attitude and arrogance shown by prophet lëï's people are currently being transformed into the current trend of modern society with human rights as justification. human rights, which should function as an effort to glorify and position humans as honorable creatures, instead erode humanity’s very character. the trend then became widespread in modern society to legitimize the practice of relationships that would lead to the level of same-sex marriage using human rights as a pretext. this attempt to legitimize marriage is a representation of disobedience, similar to that of prophet lëï's people. using any pretext to justify homosexual practices, whether in the name of destiny or human rights, homosexual practice is still a crime against humanity, which will damage the mind, and destroy human life and civilization because it is an attitude that violates the nature of creation. as a result, prophet lëï’s people were punished by a shower of stones and the cites were turned upside down. what then gave rise to the controversy was the defensive attitude, which attempted to use religious consideration as justification when human rights were somewhat unable to support legalizing their practices. one of the verses they use is quranic chapter al-isra verse 84: قُۡل ُكل ّٞ يَۡعَمُل َعلَٰى َشاِكلَِتهِۦ فََربُُّكۡم أَۡعلَُم بَِمۡن هَُو أَۡهدَٰى َسِبيٗلا say, everyone acts in his ownstyle. so, your lord knows best which one is better guided in his way.24 lgbt supporters express the view that lgbt in the holy qur'an finds its place through the interpretation of the word shékilah in the verse above interpreting it as fiïrah or inborn.25 the argument that follows is that since homosexuality is regarded as a unique sexual propensity that god has selected and ordained, wherein individuals who identify as gay have the same rights as heterosexuals, this text represents a sort of lgbt law.26 the emergence of this kind of opinion is contrary to the concept of contextual interpretation, which assumes that an interpretation should not only focus on the text but must also look at the socio-historical context in which the text is interpreted so that it can produce a form of interpretation that is appropriate to the conditions of the times.27 the word shékilah, in some opinions of scholars, first looks at the language aspect. the word shékilah in the verse above has many linguistic interpretations, including situation, direction, 38 lgbt a global issue … intention, method, and character.28 even if the intended meaning is a character, using the definition of character as nature or innateness is irrelevant in this case. quraish shihab explained that character is an inner feature that influences human thoughts and behaviour. whether a person is aware of it or not, he acts in accordance with his character. meanwhile, the character itself emerges from a person's interactions with other people through education or due to the influence of the surrounding environment, which might include living or dead things, or events that occurred.29 thus, the view of the lgbt supporters above that allah's punishment for the prophet lëï's people is not related to homosexual behaviour and that lgbt them has been legitimized by the holy qur’én itself is far-fetched. it is very clear in the holy qur'én that the main act of prophet lëï’s people that led to allah's punishment was homosexual behaviour. thus, tafsêr scholars believe this is the correct view based on current interpretive principles that are still in use today. homosexuality remains a crime whether it is done consensually or by force, all of which are categorized as féíishah (heinous acts) which are prohibited by allah almighty. this behaviour was so despicable that even the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) often repeated warnings to his people so that they could avoid this behaviour and actions. among the warnings are: اٌم َعْن اْلقَاِسِم ْبِن َعْبِد اْلَواِحِد َحدَّثَنَا أَْحَمدُ ْبُن َمِنيعٍ َحدَّثَنَا َيِزيدُ ْبُن َهاُروَن َحدَّثَنَا َهمَّ ِد ْبِن ُعقَْيٍل أَنَّهُ َسِمَع َجاِب ِ ْبِن ُمَحمَّ ِ َعْن َعْبِد َّللاَّ ي ِ َصلَّى اْلَمك ِ ًرا يَقُوُل : قَاَل َرُسوُل َّللاَّ تِي َعَمُل قَْوِم لُوٍط :قَاَل أَبُو ِعيَسى َهذَا ُ َعلَْيِه َوَسلََّم إِنَّ أَْخَوَف َما أََخاُف َعلَى أُمَّ َّللاَّ ِ ْبِن ُمَحمَّ ِد ْبِن ُعقَْيِل ْبِن َحِديٌث َحَسٌن َغِريٌب إِنََّما نَْعِرفُهُ ِمْن َهذَا اْلَوْجِه َعْن َعْبِد َّللاَّ أَبِي َطاِلٍب َعْن َجاِبرٍ has told us ahmad bin manê', has told us yazêd bin harën has told us hammém from al qésim bin abdul wéíid al makki from abdullah bin muhammad bin ‘uqail that he heard jébir saying: prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: "indeed, the thing that i am most worried about from my ummah is the actions of the people of lëï." abu ‘ôsé said: this hadith is hasan gharêb, in fact, we only know about this line from abdullah bin muhammad bin ‘uqail bin abu ùélib from jébir.30 in another hadith the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: ٍد َعْن َعْمِرو ٍ النُّفَْيِليُّ َحدَّثَنَا َعْبدُ اْلعَِزيِز ْبُن ُمَحمَّ ِد ْبِن َعِلي ِ ْبُن ُمَحمَّ ْبِن َحدَّثَنَا َعْبدُ َّللاَّ ُ َعلَْيِه َوَسلََّم َمْن أَبِي َعْمٍرو َعْن ِ َصلَّى َّللاَّ ِعْكِرَمةَ َعْن اْبِن َعبَّاٍس قَالَقَاَل َرُسوُل َّللاَّ قَاَل أَبُو دَاُود َرَواهُ ُسلَْيَماُن َوَجدْتُُموهُ يَْعَمُل َعَمَل قَْوِم لُوٍط فَاْقتُلُوا اْلفَاِعَل َواْلَمْفعُوَل ِبهِ ي َعْمٍرو ِمثْلَهُ َوَرَواهُ َعبَّادُ ْبُن َمْنُصوٍر َعْن ِعْكِرَمةَ َعْن ْبُن بَِٗلٍل َعْن َعْمِرو ْبِن أَِب اْبِن َعبَّاٍس َرفَعَهُ َوَرَواهُ اْبُن ُجَرْيجٍ َعْن إِْبَراِهيَم َعْن دَاُودَ ْبِن اْلُحَصْيِن َعْن ِعْكِرَمةَ َعْن اْبِن َعبَّاٍس َرفَعَهُ hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 39 has told us ‘abdullah bin muhammad bin ‘ali an-nufaili said: has told us abdul aziz bin muhammad from ‘amr bin abu ‘amr from ‘ikrimah from ibn ‘abbés, he said: the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: "who do you find doing the deed lëï's people, then kill the perpetrator and the object."abu dawud said: "sulaiman bin bilal narrated it from ‘amr bin abu ‘amr like this hadith. and abbad bin manîër narrated it from ‘ikrimah, from ibn ‘abbés, and he interpreted it. ibn juraij narrated it from ibréhêm, from dawud ibnul ×uîain, from ‘ikrimah, from ibn ‘abbés, and he touched him."31 the two hadiths above are part of the prophet's warning to his people not to suffer the same fate as prophet lëï's people. the lives of sodomites who had a tragic ending and severe punishment as conveyed by the prophet should serve as awareness to the younger generation in particular and the muslim community in general about the seriousness of the violations for homosexuals and the like. the impact of lgbt on the ummah in islam, a command or prohibition always has a good purpose for the betterment of human life. if we quote from the book entitled kaum lëï today by abdul hamid el-qudah, there are several impacts caused by lgbt, including; a. impact on health. in terms of health, lgbt practices are a violation of sexual activity and are considered abnormal. based on research results, 78% of homosexuals suffer from sexually transmitted diseases.32 the age range for gay men who contracted this sexually transmitted disease was 42 years, then decreased to 39 years. meanwhile, for men with normal sexual activity, it is around 75 years. meanwhile, in the case of lesbians, the age range is 45 years, while for those who are married and have normal sex, it is 79 years.33 b. social impact. many studies have found an abnormal condition of activity caused by lgbt actors. the social impacts caused are: gay actors have around 20-106 partners in one year. meanwhile, there are no more than 8 adulterous partners in their lifetime.34 based on several previous research results, around 43% of the gay group recorded and researched conveyed that they had engaged in homosexual activity with more than 500 partners during their lives. meanwhile, around 28% had relationships with more than 1000 people. in the 40 lgbt a global issue … activities carried out, 79% of them did not know each other, while 70% of them generally only dated for one night or a few minutes. all of these deviations violate society's social values.35 c. impact on education. the impact on educational aspects is evidenced in students with homosexual behaviour who face the problem of dropping out of school five times more than normal students because they feel there is no room. this was proven in a case that occurred several months ago at a well-known indonesian university in the city of south sulawesi. because of his brave attitude in showing his sexual tendencies which he felt were different from others, this then led to discrimination which caused him to take the stand not to continue his education at that place.36 d. impact on security. if investigated further, the security aspect will be even more shocking, because the presence of lgbt people leads to a strong discriminatory attitude from society. homosexuals cause 33% of sexual abuse of united states children; even though their population is only 2% of the total american population. this suggests that 1 in 20 cases of homosexuality is sexual abuse of children, while of 490 cases of adultery, one involves the sexual abuse of children.37 researchers at the university of edinburgh found one in eight of the world’s children has been a victim of non-consensual talking, sharing and exposure to sexual images and video during 2023-24, amounting to about 302 million young people.38 quoted from kompas as reported by the minister of pppa, stated there were at least 11,952 cases of child violence recorded by the online information system for the protection of women and children (simfoni) throughout 2021 in indonesia. according to kpai, there were at least 12 occurrences between january and july 2022, resulting in 52 children, 16 adults, and 36 women as victims. of the 12 cases, 31 percent of sexual violence occurred against boys and 69 percent against girls with "the age range of victims between 5-17 years".39 this condition gives rise to a phobia among people towards lgbt groups so that the existing social stigma becomes stronger to eradicate their existence from social activity spaces. this condition is of greater concern on both sides, one side of which is detrimental to generations with inherited genes that tend to show abnormal activities, even if this does not result in gay, lesbian, or similar conduct. on the other hand, this is detrimental to society because it hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 41 raises suspicion, causing gaps in relationships and communication due to excessive anticipatory attitudes. preventive solutions to counter lgbt practices reflecting on the cases mentioned above and several social impacts caused by lgbt deviant behaviour, preventive efforts must be carried out as a form of saving ourselves and the next generation from the threat of lgbt behaviour which is growing rapidly today. preventive steps must be based on moral, religious, and human awareness aspects, so preventive steps that must be taken include: a. maintaining relationships b. teenagers must have life skills c. closing all pornographic loopholes d. holding a study about the dangers of lgbt e. the role of mass media is very necessary to provide education to the public and young people to stay away from lgbt behaviour. f. the government plays a key role in outlawing lgbt activities, establishing legal sanctions, or issuing religious legal fatwas through the ulema council. g. the role of religious leaders, community leaders, and educational experts is very important because they have more access to their capacities. h. the role of society in general is to participate in efforts to guide the younger generation so that they do not enter and become involved in the activities of lgbt perpetrators. efforts to control and supervise actions carried out by children are the responsibility of society in forming character, attitudes, and viewpoints towards all social activities that tend to lead to positive things, both morally, legally, socially, religiously, and naturally. in addition to the general anticipatory steps above, several other anticipatory steps must also be taken to shape the character of a generation that upholds humanity and maintains better social stability. in other words, the family becomes the main shield in efforts to prevent the emergence of lgbt behaviour in children. several preventive efforts that must be carried out by the family are in the educational aspect, including; a. faith education: a comprehensive understanding of children’s education is starting education from infancy and is based on an understanding of the basic knowledge of islamic beliefs. in this way, children will be bound to islam, including creeds and worship, with which they will always communicate in the application of methods and rules. b. islamic education: islamic sharê‘ah education includes prayer and mu‘émalah. if parents cannot do this on their own, then 42 lgbt a global issue … parents are obliged to find a teacher for their child. faith and obedience to allah must of course be followed by an understanding of sharê‘ah law. children need to be taught the fundamentals, which include the holy qur’én and as-sunnah's teachings on prayer, zakat, fasting, and the hajj. this includes the prerequisites, pillars, and procedures for doing worship and mu‘émalah. in this way, a child from an early age can carry out the rights and obligations that allah and his messenger have commanded towards others.40 c. character/moral education:41 moral education is a series of basic moral principles, attitudes, and ethical virtues that must be possessed and developed by children from childhood to adulthood. in this context, morals are understood not only as courtesy towards other people but also as the nobility of servants to allah almighty, maintaining benevolence towards all of god's creations except humans. if a child is raised based on faith in allah from an early age, taught to fear allah, believe that allah is always watching over him, rely on allah, pray for help, and obey allah, he will develop natural abilities and instinctive responses as well as accept every virtue and glory. he will eventually adjust to being a major and maintain his high morals.42 d. intellectual education: intellectual education is a child's mentality, everything that is useful, such as knowledge of religion, culture, civilization, and so on. e. psychological education: this kind of education aims to shape, develop, and balance the child's personality. from the moment a child is born, islam orders educators to instill the basics of mental health so that he becomes a being of sound mind, sound thinking, sound action, and noble character. f. social education: social education is the education of children from an early age to familiarize them with the main social rituals, which originate from the enduring beliefs of islam and the faith's deep affection for society. social education is a behavioural phenomenon that teaches a child to relate correctly to other people and to fulfill all the duties of politeness. g. sex education:43 sex education is an effort to educate, increase awareness, and provide information about children's sexuality. sex education methods include lecture methods, observation methods, and direct methods. sex education or development is very important for the younger generation.44 it occurred during the time of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) when muslims never hesitated to ask the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) about all issues, including personal issues such as the sex life of husband and wife, as well as knowing the ins and outs and religious laws relating to marriage.45 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 43 conclusion anyone can commit sexual deviations without discrimination. one form of sexual bias is lgbt. the recent emergence of the lgbt movement in politics, sports, entertainment, and religion has been linked to the story of prophet lëï (‘alaih as-salém). during the time of prophet lëï (‘alaih assalém), lgbt actors dared to express their behaviour openly due to environmental, psychological, and theological influences. the impact of the lgbt movement is very significant and affects everything, from physical and mental health, society, and education to religious teachings. lgbt can be avoided or prevented, even cured, without turning to sexuality. the path used by experts to cure lgbt behaviour is through psychological guidance and good islamic religious education based on the holy qur’én and hadith as well as straight interpretations from the ‘ulamé’. notes and references 1 antaranews.com, 'mui: lgbt is not allowed by all religions', antara news, 2018 <https://www.antaranews.com/berita/708465/mui-lgbt-not-justified-allreligions>[accessed 2 july 2022 ]. 2 agus hamzah and septiana dwiputri maharani, "lgbt in the perspective of immanuel kan's deotology", journal of indonesian philosophy, 4, 1 (2021), p. 100110. [accessed 09 september 2024]. 3 ahmad murtaza and raisa zuhra salsabila awaluddin 2022. larangan homoseksual studi analisis tafsir maqashidi pada qs. al-a'raf [7]: 80-81. alfanar : jurnal ilmu al-qur'an dan tafsir . 5, 1 (februari 2022), 17-28. https://doi.org/10.33511/alfanar.v5n1.17-28.]. see also about maqashid. tazul islam, (2022). expansion of maqasid thought beyond maqasid al-shariah: maqasid al-quran as a new paradigm . hamdard islamicus, 45(4). https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.514. 4 tri ermayani, 'lgbt in an islamic perspective, humanika, 17.2 (2017), 147–68 <https://doi.org/10.21831/hum.v17i1.18569>. https://doi.org/10.21831/hum.v17i1.18569 5 febby shafira dhamayanti, 'pros and cons of views regarding lgbt based on human rights, religion and law perspectives in indonesia', indonesian law student writers association law journal, 2.2 (2022), p. 210– 231.https://doi.org/10.15294/ipmhi.v2i2.53740. 6 soekanto, soerjono. 2004. sosiologi keluarga: tentang ihwal keluarga, remaja dan anak. jakarta: pt. rineka cipta, hlm. 138). 7 oetomo, dede. 2001. memberi suara pada yang bisu. yogyakarta: galang press, hlm. 24. 8 oetomo, dede. 2001. memberi suara pada yang bisu. yogyakarta: galang press, hlm. 24. 9 abror, k., purnawan, a. r., anwar, c., sirajuddin, m., wijaya, a., & ahid, n. (2022). method of determination of double gender and marriage in islamic law. karachi islamicus, 2(1), 1-11. 10 ar djaelani, 'data collection techniques in qualitative research', pawiyatan, vol. 20 (2013), 11 (p. 88). 11 sugiyono, educational research methods: (quantitative, qualitative and r&d approaches) (bandung: alfabeta, 2008), p. 46. 44 lgbt a global issue … 12 endang pasaribu, 'lgbt, human rights and religion" jssha adpertisi journal, 1.01 (2021), 13–28 (p. 17)https://jurnal.adpertisi.or.id/index.php/jsshha/article/view/153.. 13 muhamad tisna nugraha, 'lgbt people in the history of human civilization', raheema: journal of gender and child studies, vol. 3 (2016), p. 35. https://doi.org/10.24260/raheema.v3i1.558[accessed 4 july 2023]. 14 'behind the palace walls', historia the first popular history magazine in indonesia, 2010 <https://historia.id/kultur/articles/di-balik-tembok-keratonprw16> [accessed 4 july 2022]. 15 aprilina pawestri, state legal politics against movements, lesbian, bisexual and transgender,(surabaya: scopindo media pustaka, 2021), p. 303. 16 juwilda, transgender: human diversity and equality. (bandung: sriwijaya university press, 2010), p. 3. 17 m. ihsan dacholfany, "impact of lgbt and its anticipation in society'', nizham journal of islamic studies, 4.1 (2017), 106–18 (p. 110). https://www.neliti.com/publications/154451/ 18https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hivaids?gad_source=1&gclid=cjwkcajwl6-3bhbweiwapn6_khjxhuo3x0-3hb1prf9yajxsgcoin0me2-txslr7auy-wlh3chncbocai4qavd_bwe 19 sayyid sabiq, sunnah fiqh, terj (jakarta: cakrawala publishing, 2015), volume 2, p. 361. 20 usmani, muhammad taqi, meaning of the noble quran, 7:80-81, maktaba ma’ariful quran, karachi, 2010 21 moh quraish shihab, tafsir al-mishbah: message, impression and harmony of the qur'an (jakarta: lentera hati, 2000), vol. 4, p. 188. 22 shihab, vol. 4, p. 190 23 ath-thabari, volume x, pp. 306–8. 24 meaning of the noble quran, 17: 84 25 khoirul anwar, 'lgbt arguments in the koran | islamlib', 2016 <https://islamlib.com/gagasan/dalil-lgbt-dalam-al-quran/> [accessed 7 july 2022]. 26 hatib abdul kadir olong, the hand of power in sex: a study of homosexuals, sex workers, and free sex in indonesia (yogyakarta: insist press, 2007), p. 140. 27 muhammad arif and dwi sukmanila sayska, "lgbt in a reviewt the qur'an and sunnah,"el-hikam, 11.2 (2018), 253–80 (p. 255).gunawan saleh and muhammad arif, ‘lgbt social phenomenology in religious paradigm’, jurkom: journal of communication research, 1 (1), 2018, p. 88. 28 ibnu katsir, tafsir al-quran al'azhim, terj (east jakarta: pustaka imam asysyafi'i, 2008), volume 5, p. 133. 29 m. quraish shihab, women: from love to sex, from mut'ah marriage to sunnah marriage, from old bias to new bias (tanggerang: lentera hati, 2018), p. 278. 30 jami‘ at-tirmidhi, translated by abu khaliyl, vol. 3, hadith no. 1457, darussalam, riyadh, 2007, p. 245 31 sunan abu dawud, book of hudud, hadith no. 4462 32 rueda, the homosexual network: private lives and public policy, (devin adair company, 1982), p. 53 33 sussman, m.b, homosexuality and family relation, (psychology press, 1990), p. 207 34 corey, lawrence & holmes, k, sexual transmissions of hepatitis a in homosexual men", (new england jh, med, 1980), pp. 435–438 35 bell, a & weinberg, h, homosexualities: a study of diversity amon men and women, 1978, p. 435. https://doi.org/10.1177/004057367903600238 36 berrill, k.t, anti-gay violence and victimization in the united states: an overview journal of interpersonal violence, 5 (3), p. 274-294. 1990, p. 280. https://doi.org/10.1177/088626090005003003 37 dacholfany, m. i, dampak lgbt dam ,antisipatinya di masyarakat. nizham journal of islamic studies, 2017, p. 111. deaf wahyuni ramadhani and uning pratimaratri, “preventive efforts to protect children from the influence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (lgbt) in the pesantren environment”, colas: hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 45 conference on law and social studies, 2022 . http://prosiding.unipma.ac.id/index.php/colas 38 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/27/300million-children-victimsonline-sexual-abuse-every-year/ 39 same-sex sexual harassment occurred in bandung, the perpetrator was 12 years old, and the victim was 10 years old, n.d.hanna sriyanti saragih," health education through training as a preventive measure for lgbt and anaemia at gajah mada high school", dikmas: journal of community education and dedication, 3 (4), 2023, p. 745-750. http://dx.doi.org/10.37905/dikmas.3.4.745-750.2023 40 deaf wahyuni ramadhani and uning pratimaratri, “preventive efforts to protect children from the influence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (lgbt) in the pesantren environment”, colas: conference on law and social studies, 2022. http://prosiding.unipma.ac.id/index.php/colas 41 usamah ali firdaus, “character education as an effort to prevent lgbt behaviour”, madinatul iman: journal of islamic studies, 2 (2), 2023, p. 15-22 42 ramadhani, “moral creed education as a solution to prevent lgbt”, aladabiya: a journal of culture and religion, 15 (1), 2020, p. 47-68. 43 hanna sriyanti saragih, “health education through training as a preventive measure for lgbt and anaemia at gajah mada high school”, dikmas: journal of community education and dedication, 3 (4), 2023, p. 745-750. http://dx.doi.org/10.37905/dikmas.3.4.745-750.2023 44 khairun nisa’ d. n. r. dkk, “pop up educational tools as a preventive measure lgbt deviance in prepubescent children in indonesia”, scientific journal of midwifery, 3 (3), 2018, p. 20-26. 45 saibatul hamdi and ahya ulumiddin, “presenting sexual quotient in the family: an effort to prevent lgbt and free sex in kotawaringin timur”, journal of transformatif islamic studies, 4 (2), 2020, p. 193-209. https://doi.org/10.23971/tf.v4i2.2213. c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlvi july-september 2023 no.3 contents * editorial * family life as the foundation of islamic civilization — mufti kifayat ullah — atta ur rehman — muhammad junaid khan * protection of the intellect of persons with disabilities: in the holy qur’én and the sunnah perspective — kabiru goje * anthropomorphic of gods with allah almighty and filmography on islamophobia in the cinematic way of america and india: a critical analysis — muhammad asad latif * determinants of family takaful in asean: evidence from business unit sharê‘éh and full-fledged operations — nun maziyyah mahsyar — hakan aslan * islamic social finance ecosystem and the role of crowdfunding: a proposed model — abidullah khan — raditya sukmana — abid mahmood * book review — zeeshan ahmed sheikh the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 29 113 91 49 9 73 c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlvii april-june 2024 no.2 contents * editorial * the modern western trends in sêrah writing: an assessment of john v. tolan and craig considine’s approach — aadil hussain malik * the interplay of ijtihād and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah in pre-modern legal thought: examining the contributions of al-ghazali and al-shatibi — ishfaq amin parrey * qur’énic emotional intelligence and its relationships with academic achievement of undergraduate students at al-madinah international university in malaysia — abdelali bey zekkoub — fouad bounama — popoola kareem hamed * exploring javanese female sufism in serat murtasiyah: a study of women's representation of religious values in the domestic realm within modern western contexts — nur hanifah insani — erna andriyanti — endang nurhayati * the muslim diaspora’s nationalism and identity in kamila shamsie’s home fire — mohammed abou adel — mohammad issa alhourani — georgios kormpas the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 37 61 117 9 89 hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 373 the relationship between financial liberalization and economic growth in emerging asian economies 1 shahrin saaid shaharuddin, 2 ali fayyaz munir, 3 mohamed sheikh abu-baker al-baity,4 izlin ismail 1 corresponding author: senior lecturer, department of finance and banking, faculty of business and accountancy, university of malaya, 50603 lembah pantai, kuala lumpur, malaysia. email: shahrin@um.edu.my 1ph.d. candidate, department of finance and banking, faculty of business and accountancy, university of malaya, 50603 lembah pantai, kuala lumpur, malaysia. email: muniralifayyaz@gmail.com 1assistant professor, college of business administration, department of finance & economics, university of sharjah, p.o. box 27272 sharjah, uae. email: malbaity@sharjah.ac.ae 1 associate professor,department of finance and banking, faculty of business and accountancy, university of malaya, 50603 lembah pantai, kuala lumpur, malaysia faculty of business and accountancy, university of malaya. email: izlin@um.edu.my abstract:the effect of financial liberalization on economic growth in eight emerging asian countries are analyzed in this study using financial liberalization factorssuch as foreign equity liability (fel), edison & warnock (ew) ratio as well as the lane and milesi-ferretti (lmf) measure. results of the study indicate that the financial liberalization factors on gross domestic product (gdp) do not granger cause gross domestic product (gdp) in all countries except for south korea. also, it was found that the financial liberalization factors forecast an increase in gdp in most of the countries. the lmf factor is found to be affected by other financial liberalization factors. these findings also provide evidence that emerging countries can benefit from an increase in financial liberalization activities. furthermore, policy makers and investors could use these evidences to guide them in devising economic policies and investment plans. keywords: financial market liberalization, economic growth, emerging asian economies, causality. jel classification code: f6, f36, g1 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ mailto:shahrin@um.edu.my mailto:muniralifayyaz@gmail.com mailto:malbaity@sharjah.ac.ae hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 374 1. introduction prior studies have shown that financial liberalization has been beneficial to the development of national economies(chari & henry, 2004; moshirian, 2007; erkisi & ceyhan, 2019; wasti & zaidi, 2020). moreover, it also enhance the ability of firms to generate funds for profitable projects which contributes to the overall development of the economy. it is evident that the developed economies benefit as a result of a more developed financial sector as compared to developing economies(bekaert, harvey, & lundblad, 2005). moreover, it is sometimes argued that foreign investor participation in developing economies leads to economic instabilitydue to information asymmetry problem. despite the significance of this topic, the evidence is scant and inconclusive in literature on the role of financial market liberalization on the economic growth of emerging asian economies.therefore, this paper examines the effects of financial liberalization on eight emerging economies in asia using three proxies of financial liberalization including fel, ew and lmf. financial liberalization can be defined as the process by which the authorities eliminate all limitations from the financial system to get access into the open market. hence, a set of financial and operational reforms are made in a repressed financial system to accomplish this goal (johnston & sundararajan, 1999). kwon (2004)on the other hand, argued that the financial liberalization can be defined as the easing of international financial transactions such as regulations on financial flows and the purchase and sale of financial or real assets. schmukler and kaminsky (2003) have given a wider explanation to explain financial liberalization as the removal of restrictions invoked by the authorities on the local financial sector. based on their argument, financial liberalization can be segregated into three portions, namely domestic, capital account and stock market liberalization. furthermore, financial liberalization also includesthe removal of regulation for the external capital account, internal financial market and the stock market segment, which is to be distinguished from local monetary flow. earlier literature bymckinnon (1973) and shaw (1973) had also discussed the interdependency between financial development and economic growth.in the context of developing countries. financial liberalization has been argued to be fundamental in developing economies and foreign direct investment has an important role to play in economic growth of these economies(yusoff & nuh, 2015). the mckinnon-shaw notion, which subsequently lead to the development of the financial repression model, soon became an idea which was used in order to develop policies for purposes of economic transformation in developing https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 375 countries. in a nutshell, the mckinnon-shaw model is recommended for purposes of liberalizing the financial structures in relation to financial intermediaries in order to expand economic growth. 2. literature review financial liberalization policies in emerging asian economies began in earnest in the 1980’s through various government initiatives to liberalize interest rates, deregulation of the banking system and capital markets as well as macroeconomic policy changes to encourage inflows of foreign investments. furthermore, the rate and extent of financial market liberalization between countries is different and is influenced by agreements with debt international bodies. for instance, in the case of thailand, by agreeing to accept article viii of the article of agreement by the international monetary fund (imf) in the 1990’s, this lead towards the relaxation of restrictions on payments and transfers of current account transactions as well as lifting of foreign exchange controls. major structural reforms relating to the financial system were also seen in malaysia, indonesia, philippines, pakistan and india after the 1990’s which were mainly centered around encouraging the development of the banking sector and capital market reforms to stimulate growth in the stock and bond market. however, the effectiveness of financial liberalization policies are most vividly presented in countries such as china and south korea. prior to 1978, the people’s bank of china (pbc) operated as central and commercial bank. during the pre-financial liberalization era, a mono-bank financial system was implemented whereby the pbc was the sole player in the market. however, subsequent to this period, the chinese government took a wider view of their economy which lead towards the implementation of china’s open-door policy permitted the trade expansion in the product market and entry of external fund in the capital market in 1998 (liu & li, 2001). borst and lardy (2015) explained in a study that the chinese communist party (ccp) circulated “a decision on major issues concerning comprehensive and far-reaching reform” during third plenum in november 2013, which outlined the agenda for financial reforms namely to operate more financial institutions; expend more capital markets; increase the interest rate liberalization; transforming to market-oriented exchange rate; encouraging capital account exchangeable; creation of deposit insurance structure; establishing a marketoriented exit method for financial institutions and practicing diversified ownership structure to allow state-owned enterprises to get funds from private sectors. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 376 in the case of south korea, the overall plan under the policy in the 1980’s in south korea is to create a more realistic and competitive interest rate for the economy. however, financial deregulation hampered the objective, which was later stabilized by the improving internal economy (cho, 1988). the financial sector boomed in 1990’s when the central bank deregulated interest rate into three phases. to maintain the resource segregation, compulsory funding for the manufacturing sectors was entirely wiped out and small and medium enterprise’s (sme) were subjected to lesser funding. capitalist oriented financial platform boosted financial liberalization in south korea through the maintenance of proper resource segregation. despite being regarded as a developing country based on the united nation’s classification of developing countries (world economic situation prospects 2018), south korea has been regarded as a developed economy based on metrics such as gdp and gross national product (gnp) per capita. south korea also boasts one of the largest stock markets in the world and has one of the world’s most vibrant export economy. in 2009, the ftse russell index classified south korea as a developed economy from its prior classification as a developing world economy (taranukha, 2016).suffice to say that development of the south korean economy as a result of financial liberalization activities are at an advanced and progressive stage as compared to the seven other countries which are the subject of this study. 2.1 linkages between financial liberalization and economic growth in emerging asian economies the linkages between financial liberalization and economic growth as measured by gross domestic product (gdp) in various emerging asian countries have been identified in terms of studies relating to the use of cointegration methods and empirical analysis to gauge and predict the impact of salient factors financial liberalization factors which may have an impact on economic growth. in the case of malaysia, a study by ang and mckibbin (2007) investigated whether financial development is promoting economic growth in malaysia by employing time series data from 1960 to 2001. by using cointegration and causality tests to evaluate the nexus between finance and growth using the real interest rate and financial repression, it was found that financial deepening and economic growth are significantly related and shows that economic growth surge createsgreater financial depth for longer periods. in the case of thailand, vohra (2001) studied the nexus between export–growth in asian countries including thailand and its relationship with trade liberalization. this study also suggested that liberal market policies and strategies of export growth further encourages foreign investments. similar findings was suggested for the philippines.consequently,yusoff and nuh (2015) https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 377 found that the thailand economy is increasingly exposed to foreign trade and foreign direct investment (fdi). in the case of indonesia, sabandi and noviani (2015)on the other hand contended that the effect of trade liberalization and financial development on economic growth become a perpetual issue in indonesia. chakraborty (2010), studied that the effect of the progress in the financial sector on economic growth in india in the post-reform period. in this study, chakraborty used the mankiw, romer, and weil (1992) model to form a relationship between financial development and economic growth. the findings did not support the theoretical forecast that stock market development may play a vital role in increasing economic growth in india. sehrawat and giri (2015) formed a financial development index for the indian economy and to investigate the impact of financial development index and trade openness on economic growth in india using annual data from 1982 to 2014. the results confirmed that there is a long-run relationship between financial development index, trade openness and economic growth in the indian economy using the autoregressive distributed lag (ardl) approach to cointegration. shabbir (2013) conducted a theoretical and empirical study on financial liberalization and economic growth for pakistan. the study shows composite index of internal or local financial liberalization positively impacts economic growth. furthermore, ali and abdullah (2015) examined the impact of trade openness policy to economic growth for pakistan employing time series data for period of 1980 to 2010 with johansen cointegration test proficiency level policy and vector error correction model (vecm). the empirical results indicated positive impact on trade liberalization policies on economy growth in the short run for pakistan. however, trade liberalization negatively impact economic growth in the long term. in the case of south korea, liu and hsu (2006), examined the relationship between financial development and the source of growth in taiwan, korea, and japan. they also focused on the role of financial development and structure, monetary, financial policies and the degree of international capital mobility in the economic growth employing generalized method of moments (gmm) and principal component analysis. the analysis found that the real export growth rate had contributed to south korea. however, the finance aggregate behaved negatively for the korean economy. laurenceson and chai (2003) conducted a study which looks at the impact of financial liberalization and economic reforms which began in china in 1978. a guide of economic subjugation is assembled for this reason. in essence, financial repression and financial sternness programs in 1985, 1989-1991 and 1994, was argued to contribute towards stable deterioration in the economy. subsequently, https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 378 this study also looked at whether financial liberalization has added to economic expansion as the based on the arguments advanced by mckinnon-shaw. 3. data and methodology 3.1 data the data for this study was taken from financial liberalization factors including ew, fel and lmf as well as gross domestic product of eight (8) countries including malaysia, china, india, thailand, philippines, indonesia, south korea and pakistan which were chosen based on list of countries listed in on the standard &poor’s global bmi and standard &poor’s/ifci indices. the dataset consists of weekly data obtained from thomson reuters datastream between january 1998 to december 2014. the financial liberalization factors were derived using methods proposed by standard &poor’s methodology for developing the s&p global bmi index. all trade liberalization variables are extracted from thomson reuters datastream. both lmf and fel were obtained from the external wealth of nations mark ii database from the international monetary fund (imf). gdp is extracted from the world bank database. 3.2 financial liberalization factors three financial liberalization factors were used in order to proxy the degree of financial liberalization in each of the eight selected countries. thelane and milesi-ferretti (2007),lmf factor is the sum of a country’s assets and liabilities and foreign direct investment divided by gdp. this is a capital flow-based measure and provides a measure as to the extent at which a country restricts international flow of funds. the foreign equity liabilities (fel) measures the degree in which foreign equity is invested in local stock markets and inadvertently suggests the degree of openness of the stock exchange to foreign investments. finally, the edison and warnock (2003), ew ratio measures the ratio of a country’s sp/ifci index to its sp global bmi index. the ew ratio was derived by developing both the sp/ifci and sp global bmi index using the index construction methodologies as specified in the s&p global bmi and s&p/ifci methodology brochure which is published by standard &poor’s. the indices are created based on a list of emerging countries which were included in the index. for the purposes of this study, countries which were chosen for construction of the indices were specifically taken from emerging asian countries. the index was developed on a daily basis from a base date beginning january 1997 to https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 379 december 2017. the index is reconstituted once a year and eligibility criteria requirements such as buffer rules and liquidity requirements were also followed. the utilization of the ew index as a proxy for financial liberalization and its influence on economic growth has not been tested based on prior literature and this study seeks to provide some compelling evidence as to the efficacy of the ew ratio in predicting a countries economic development. the s&p global bmi ands&p/ifci has been lauded by standard & poor’s as an index which provides investors with a proxy for performance of emerging countries with investable, liquid portfolios and includes south korea as a subset of the indices. together with the fel and lmf financial liberalization factors, it is hoped that the combined series of variables would serve as evidence which can be used in future appraisals of the linkages between financial liberalization factors with economic growth. the estimation methodology which shall be used for this study will be further explained in this section. the statistical methods which shall be employed includes the unit root tests and the vector autoregression (var) model. 3.3 unit root tests the unit root tests are used in order to determine that a time series is stationary and can then be used to select the appropriate cointegration method to be applied in this study. in combination with the autocorrelation function and the ljung box q statistic, the unit root test is accepted as a reliable means to measure the stationarity of a time series. the teststhat shall be used in this study to examine stationarity of a time series includes the augmented dickey-fuller (adf) test, kwaitkowski-phillips-schmidt-shin (kpss) test and the dickey-fuller generalized least squares (gls) test. 3.4 vector autoregression (var) model the var (p) model is applied as an expansion of the univariate autoregression model in the case of a dynamic multiple time series model. in such cases where the k variables are not co-integrated, the var(p) model is as follows: yt= c+∅1𝑌𝑡−1+∅2∆𝑌𝑡−2+. . . +∅𝑝𝑌𝑡−𝑝+𝜇𝑡,(1) the var (p) model is applied in cases where the short-run dynamics is examined where yt is defined as (y1,t, y2,t, yk,t) of k x1 vector of constant intercept, each ai is a k x k coefficient matrix and ɛi is k x 1 error vector terms. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 380 in constructing a var model, the first step is to determine the appropriate lag length, p. to determine the order lag length, a variety of methods can be used. however, choosing an optimal lag length is important because an incorrect lag length choice can have a serious adverse effect on empirical results. the formula for multivariate information criteria are as follows: multivariate aic=ln⁡|σ ̂|+2m/n (2) multivariate bic=ln⁡|σ ̂ |+m (ln⁡〖n)/n〗 (3) where ∑ is the variance covariance matrix of the residuals, m(=k(kp+1) is the number of parameters, and n is the number of observations. econometricians will use var system in order to use the variables interpreted from the var model for purposes of interpreting the granger causality test, impulse response and forecast error variance decomposition. these analyses are more informative than the var coefficients of r2 statistics. 3.5 granger causality test the granger causality test can be conducted in two ways. the test can examine short-run dynamics where var(p) with k variables; estimate the unrestricted (full) model as below:         p i p i tiktkit p i itt yayayaay 1 1 122 1 1101 ...  (4)         p i p i tiktkit p i itt ybybybby 1 1 122 1 1102 ...  (5)         p i p i tiktkit p i itt yeyeyeey 1 1 122 1 1101 ...  (6) and the restricted (tested) model by testing h0: there is no granger causality between the series against h1: there is granger causality between the series. the test statistics are as below: f=((rss_r-rssu)/p)/(rssu/(n-kp-1))~fdistribution (7) which is computed where rssr is the residual sum square of the restricted model while the rssu is the residual sum square of the unrestricted model; n represents number of observations and p is the order of the var model. based on the hypotheses ho is rejected if f>fα,n-kp-1. the possible outcomes of the https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 381 granger causality test are unidirectional causality, bidirectional causality or no causality (independence). 4. empirical results and discussion 4.1 descriptive statistics the descriptive statistics for the eight countries selected in this study will be explained in terms of statistical analysis. the results of the statistical analysis for all emerging countries is presented in table 1 below: table 1: descriptive statistics for all countries variable mean median max. min. stnd. dev. malaysia gdp (usd) 189,159 168,087 338,118 77,573 87,783 ew 0.87 0.91 0.95 0.56 0.1 fel 0.16 0.17 0.21 0.11 0.03 lmf 0.96 0.87 1.32 0.67 0.25 china gdp (usd) 4,133,145 2,755,692 10,407,700 1,029,071 3,113,266 ew 0.73 0.69 0.95 0.33 0.17 fel 0.12 0.13 0.27 0.03 0.07 lmf 0.31 0.3 0.41 0.22 0.07 south korea gdp (usd) 894521 907465 1412201 376423 305263 ew 0.81 0.88 0.98 0.16 0.18 fel 0 0 0 0 0 lmf 0.44 0.45 0.71 0.16 0.18 phillipines gdp (usd) 187389 181679 276029 128159 44698 ew 0.92 0.92 0.99 0.77 0.05 fel 0.11 0.12 0.17 0.05 0.04 lmf 0.32 0.29 0.51 0.2 0.09 pakistan gdp (usd) 243068 221962 420618 114335 108441 ew 0.93 0.97 1 0.54 0.11 fel 0.25 0.25 0.3 0.2 0.02 lmf 0.59 0.55 0.98 0.34 0.18 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 382 india gdp (usd) 1055883 891694 2000753 415993 558328 ew 0.91 0.92 0.97 0.21 0.06 fel 0.01 0.01 0.01 0 0 lmf 0.23 0.28 0.4 0.07 0.11 indonesia gdp (usd) 475,830 396,390 919,233 115,912 289,975 ew 0.86 0.87 1 0.27 0.13 fel 0.17 0.18 0.23 0.1 0.04 lmf 0.26 0.3 0.42 0.07 0.11 thailand gdp (usd) 139663 136318 248959 74791 56572 ew 0.72 0.82 0.99 0.13 0.25 fel 0.07 0.07 0.17 0.03 0.03 lmf 0.12 0.12 0.21 0.08 0.04 the results of the statistical analysis above indicate that china has the largest gdp among all eight selected countries and the lowest is the philippines. the ew ratio indicate that pakistan is the most financially liberalized country and the least liberalized is china. the fel factor implies that pakistan is the most liberalized economy while the least liberalized being the south korea. the lmf factor on the other hand shows that malaysia is the most liberalized and india is the least liberalized among all countries. 4.2 unit root test results the unit root tests were initially performed before the cointegration methodology is chosen. the results of the unit root tests based on series of data including lmf, fel, ew and gdp for all countries are summarized in table 2 to table 9 below: table 2: unit root test for malaysia series constant constant and trend adf level lgdp -0.7623 (0) -3.3573 (0)* ew -1.8011 (0) -1.6893 (0) fel -0.8633 (0) -2.4362 (0) lmf -1.1518 (0) -2.8654 (0) first difference lgdp -30.0205 (0)*** -30.0066 (0)*** https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 383 ew -29.6186 (0)*** -29.6206 (0)*** fel -29.7390 (0)*** -29.7381 (0)*** lmf -29.7410 (0)*** -29.7254 (0)*** df-gls level lgdp 2.0699(0)*** -3.2096(0)*** ew -0.3195(0) -1.5297(0) fel -0.3734(0) -1.7722(0)* lmf -0.2656(0) -2.3949(0)*** first difference lgdp -29.7629(0)*** -29.9395(0)*** ew -2.2998(10)*** -6.2590(6)*** fel -29.7346(0)*** -29.7693(0)*** lmf -29.7348(0)*** -29.7560(0)*** kpss level lgdp 3.7794 (23)*** 0.2165 (23)*** ew 1.9368 (23)*** 0.5527 (23)*** fel 2.7190 (23)*** 0.2036 (23)*** lmf 3.2713 (23)*** 0.3167 (23)*** first difference lgdp 0.0418 (6)*** 0.0340 (6)*** ew 0.1310 (6)*** 0.0487 (6)*** fel 0.0954 (1)*** 0.0597 (1)*** lmf 0.0450 (1)*** 0.0395 (1)*** table 3: unit root test for china series constant constant and trend adf level lgdp -0.0710 (0) -3.3573 (0)** ew -1.0241 (0) -3.2416 (0)** fel -1.8111 (0) -1.7456 (0) lmf -1.1671 (0) -2.7729 (0) first difference lgdp -30.1880 (0)*** -30.1757 (0)*** ew -29.3122 (0)*** -29.3001 (0)*** fel -29.7209 (0)*** -29.7184 (0)*** lmf -29.7600 (0)*** -29.7429 (0)*** df-gls level lgdp 2.2843(0)*** -1.4953(0)** ew -0.3126 (0) -2.2630 (0)** fel -0.8754(0) -1.7283(0)* https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 384 lmf 0.1594(0) -2.6590(0)*** first difference lgdp -29.7793(0)*** -30.1235(0)*** ew -26.9415(0)*** -24.7442(0)*** fel -29.7209(0)*** -29.7184(0)*** lmf -29.7367(0)*** -29.7638(0)*** kpss level lgdp 3.7996 (23)*** 0.5623 (23)*** ew 3.3016 (23)*** 0.1625 (23)*** fel 0.4809 (23)*** 0.4807(23)*** lmf 3.4079 (23)*** 0.2259 (23)*** first difference lgdp 0.0867 (9)*** 0.0664 (9) ew 0.0511 (7) 0.0460 (7) fel 0.1087 (0) 0.0566 (1) lmf 0.0382 (1) 0.0376 (1) table 4: unit root test for india series constant constant and trend adf level lgdp -0.4224 (0) -2.6571 (0) ew -5.5544 (8)*** -6.0238 (8)*** fel -1.4510 (0) -1.5044 (0) lmf -1.2002 (4) -2.0728 (4) first difference lgdp -30.0509 (0)*** -30.0339 (0)*** ew -12.8485 (11)*** -12.8411 (11)*** fel -29.7156 (0)*** -29.7001 (0)*** lmf -13.3006 (4)*** -13.2972 (4)*** df-gls level lgdp 2.2370(0)* -1.9528(0)* ew -5.3419 (8)*** -5.9179 (8)*** fel -1.4542(0) -1.4575(0) lmf 0.2790 (4) -2.0978(4)* first difference lgdp -29.7659(0)*** -29.9860(0)*** ew -3.0170(18)*** -13.0642(7)*** fel -29.7322(0)*** -29.7333(0)*** lmf -13.2436(4)*** -13.2790 (4)*** kpss level lgdp 3.7907 (23)*** 0.3710 (23)*** ew 1.3046 (19)*** 0.3026 (19)*** https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 385 fel 1.3357 (23)*** 0.6210(23)*** lmf 3.2869 (23)*** 0.4969 (23)*** first difference lgdp 0.0802 (7)*** 0.0801 (7) ew 0.5000 (885) 0.5000 (885) fel 0.1282 (0) 0.1158 (0) lmf 0.0670 (1) 0.0535 (2) table 5: unit root test for indonesia series constant constant and trend adf level lgdp -1.3572 (4) -2.3150 (4) ew -3.3816 (4)** -3.3680 (4)* fel -2.2291 (4) -3.4153 (4)** lmf -1.8491 (4) -2.4080 (4) first difference lgdp -13.6551 (4)*** -13.6928 (4)*** ew -13.5161 (4)*** -13.5090 (4)*** fel -13.2546 (4)*** -13.2480 (4)*** lmf -13.2364 (4)*** -13.3107 (4)*** df-gls level lgdp 1.9236(4)* -2.2864(4)* ew -2.9275 (4)** -3.2161 (4)*** fel -0.5124(4) -3.2379(4)*** lmf -0.9418 (4) -1.0203(4) first difference lgdp -13.2778(4)*** -13.5649(4)*** ew -13.0274(4)*** -13.3741(4)*** fel -13.2389(4)*** -13.2523(4)*** lmf -13.2371(4)*** -13.2852 (4)*** kpss level lgdp 3.7728 (23)*** 0.2921 (23)*** ew 1.1661 (23)*** 0.1570 (23)*** fel 2.2259 (23)*** 0.0888(23)*** lmf 2.2657 (23)*** 0.5466 (23)*** first difference lgdp 0.1187 (6)*** 0.0442 (7)* ew 0.0246 (5) 0.0227 (5) fel 0.0255 (1) 0.0250 (1) lmf 0.2614 (0) 0.0747 (2) https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 386 table 6: unit root test for thailand series constant constant and trend adf level lgdp -0.5518 (0) -2.2174 (0) ew -2.1574 (0) -2.7132 (0) fel -2.5414 (0) -2.7577 (0) lmf -0.2465 (0) -2.6990 (0) first difference lgdp -30.0151 (0)*** -29.9987 (0)*** ew -30.0505 (0)*** -30.0394 (0)*** fel -29.7158 (0)*** -29.7000 (0)*** lmf -29.8065 (0)*** -29.8110 (0)*** df-gls level lgdp 2.0251(0)** -1.9074(0)* ew -1.8168 (0)* -1.8921 (0)* fel -2.5378(0)** -2.6306(0)*** lmf -1.0633 (0) -2.2360(0)* first difference lgdp -29.7623(4)*** -29.9483(4)*** ew -29.8907(0)*** -30.0507(0)*** fel -29.7322(0)*** -29.7333(0)*** lmf -29.7414(0)*** -29.8403 (0)*** kpss level lgdp 3.7791 (23)*** 0.3519 (23)*** ew 1.2614 (23)*** 0.2172 (23)*** fel 0.5354 (23)*** 0.1417(23)*** lmf 3.3364 (23)*** 0.3816 (23)*** first difference lgdp 0.0887 (6)*** 0.0881 (6) ew 0.0751 (1) 0.0668 (1) fel 0.0374 (0) 0.0361 (0) lmf 0.0863 (2) 0.0230 (3) table 7: unit root test for philippines series constant constant and https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 387 trend adf level lgdp 0.08532 (0) -4.8616 (0)*** ew -3.5888 (0) -3.5734 (0)*** fel -0.8260 (0) -2.0260 (0) lmf -0.3464 (0) -2.6316 (0) first difference lgdp -30.2067 (0)*** -30.1997 (0)*** ew -29.4695 (0)*** -29.4600 (0)*** fel -29.7558 (0)*** -29.7430 (0)*** lmf -29.7633 (0)*** -29.7817 (0)*** df-gls level lgdp 3.1319(0)*** -2.8868(0)*** ew -1.3627 (0) -2.5951 (0)*** fel 0.1061(0) -1.7637(0)* lmf -0.3623 (0) -1.7016(0)* first difference lgdp -29.7812(0)*** -30.1560(0)*** ew -3.9889(8)*** -17.5168(1)*** fel -29.7363(0)*** -29.7734(0)*** lmf -29.7370(0)*** -29.8098 (0)*** kpss level lgdp 3.7748 (23)*** 0.3540 (23)*** ew 0.3990 (23)*** 0.2172 (23)*** fel 2.8820 (23)*** 0.2956(23)*** lmf 3.3364 (23)*** 0.3816 (23)*** first difference lgdp 0.0486 (9)*** 0.0159 (10) ew 0.0426 (1) 0.0249 (1) fel 0.0837 (1) 0.0779 (1) lmf 0.1289 (1) 0.0332 (2) table 8: unit root test for pakistan series constant constant and trend adf level lgdp -0.0184 (0) -3.2771 (0)* ew -1.4092 (0) -2.3707 (0) fel -2.7015 (0)* -2.8553 (0) lmf -1.6873 (0) -2.1387 (0) https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 388 first difference lgdp -30.0299 (0)*** -30.0298 (0)*** ew -30.6133 (0)*** -30.5984 (0)*** fel -29.7153 (0)*** -29.7024 (0)*** lmf -29.7289 (0)*** -29.7122 (0)*** df-gls level lgdp 2.3695(0)** -1.8666(0)* ew -1.4019 (0) -1.6158 (0) fel -2.4150(0)** -2.5086(0)** lmf -0.7189 (0) -2.1415(0)** first difference lgdp -29.7665(0)*** -30.0186(0)*** ew -30.6206(0)*** -30.6316(0)*** fel -29.7321(0)*** -29.7333(0)*** lmf -29.7335(0)*** -29.7415 (0)*** kpss level lgdp 3.7667 (23)*** 0.3540 (23)*** ew 2.3092 (23)*** 0.5243 (23)*** fel 0.5399 (23)*** 0.2612(23)*** lmf 1.8582 (23)*** 0.3429 (23)*** first difference lgdp 0.0854 (7)*** 0.0597 (7) ew 0.1098 (3) 0.1146 (3) fel 0.0441 (0) 0.0313 (0) lmf 0.0550 (0) 0.0536 (0) table 9: unit root test for south korea series constant constant and trend adf level lgdp -1.6198 (0) -2.4849 (0) ew -3.3068 (0)*** -3.4667 (0)** fel -2.0031 (0)** -1.9793 (0) lmf -1.2919 (0) -3.5263 (0) first difference lgdp -29.9428 (0)*** -29.9563 (0)*** ew -29.6846 (0)*** -29.6706 (0)*** fel -29.7797 (0)*** -29.7907 (0)*** lmf -29.7712 (0)*** -29.7556 (0)*** https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 389 df-gls level lgdp 1.5797(0) -1.6861(0)* ew -3.1719 (0)*** -3.2053 (0)*** fel 0.3757(0) -1.3462(0) lmf 0.3413 (0) -3.5262(0)*** first difference lgdp -29.7551(0)*** -29.8505(0)*** ew -18.4324(8)*** -29.0759(0)*** fel -29.7387(0)*** -29.7576(0)*** lmf -29.7378(0)*** -29.7682 (0)*** kpss level lgdp 3.5187 (23)*** 0.5763 (23)*** ew 0.5452 (23)*** 0.2896 (23)*** fel 2.2089 (23)*** 0.6193(23)*** lmf 3.3364 (23)*** 0.3816 (23)*** first difference lgdp 0.1266 (5)*** 0.0298 (6)** ew 0.0273 (2) 0.0183 (2) fel 0.1596 (2) 0.0632 (2) lmf 0.0252 (2) 0.0223 (2) results from the unit root test for all countries indicate that all the variables are non-stationary in level form. however, the series is stationary after taking first difference. hence, the vector autoregression model is proposed for this selection of variables. furthermore, after having performed the lag order selection test, it was determined that the var(1) model is most suitable for this study when it comes to all countries except for india. the var(5) model is proposed for india. also, the r-square and adjusted r-squared for the model is very high in all countries, implying that the model is reliable for purposes of analysis. the results from the robustness tests seem to indicate that there is evidence of autocorrelation when it comes to indonesia, thailand, philippines and south korea. the ar roots polynomial test on the other hand indicates that all countries are appropriate for purposes of analysis. the heteroscedasticity test furthermore provides evidence that there is issues relating to heteroscedasticity in malaysia, china, thailand, south korea and pakistan. 4.3 granger causality testresults the results of the granger causality tests for all countries are presented in table 10. in the case of malaysia, the results of the granger causality tests seem to https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 390 indicate that gdp and lmf granger causes the ew financial liberalization factor. this would imply that financial liberalization factors do not have any predictive ability in order to predict the level of gdp in malaysia. for china, the results of the granger causality tests seem to indicate that gdp factor granger causes the ew financial liberalization factor. it was also found that gdp granger causes lmf. this would imply that the ew financial liberalization factor does not have predictive qualities and cannot predict the level of gdp in china. in india, the results of the granger causality tests seems to indicate all the variables chosen in this study do not have any short-run dynamic linkages. hence, this would imply that the financial liberalization factors do not have predictive ability when it comes to predicting gdp in india. in the case of indonesia, the results of the granger causality tests seem to indicate that gdp granger causes the fel and lmf financial liberalization factor. also, there are short-run dynamics between fel and lmf where fel granger causes lmf in the short-run. this would imply that financial liberalization factors does not have any predictive ability in order to predict the level of gdp in indonesia. when it comes to thailand, the results of the granger causality tests seem to indicate that fel granger causes ew and vice versa. this bi-directional shortterm relationship would imply that these financial liberalization factors have strong relationships with one another and predicts each other’s performance. however, the financial liberalization factors do not have any predictive qualities in order to predict the level of gdp in malaysia. the results of the granger causality tests in the philippines seem to indicate that gdp granger causes the fel and lmf financial liberalization factors. however, the results indicate that financial liberalization factors do not have any predictive ability in order to predict the level of gdp in malaysia. for south korea, the results of the granger causality tests seem to indicate that lmf granger causes the gdp. lmf also granger causes ew. gdp on the other hand granger causes lmf. this would imply that financial liberalization factors does have any predictive qualities and can be used to predict the level of gdp in south korea. finally, in the case of pakistan, the results of the granger causality tests seem to indicate that gdp and lmf granger causes the ew financial liberalization factor. this would imply that financial liberalization factors do not have any predictive ability here as well to predict the level of gdp in pakistan. table 10: granger causality test results dependant variable lgdp ew lgdp→ew lgdp→fel lgdp→lmf ew→lgdp ew→fel ew→lmf china 3.4257* 1.1435 1.2614 1.8035 0.4695 1.5066 https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 391 5. conclusion results of the study seem to indicate that financial liberalization factors do not have any predictive abilities in predicting gdp in malaysia, china, india, indonesia, thailand, philippines and pakistan. however, the only exception is in the case of south korea where it was found that the lmf factor granger causes gdp. bi-directional causality was found in the case of thailand (fel and ew) and south korea (lmf and gdp). results from the impulse response function indicate the financial liberalization factors predicts an increase in gdp in the future for countries such as malaysia, china, india and thailand.impulse response in indonesia and philippines does not indicate that financial liberalization factors will result in any changes to gdp even though gdp remains positive. the results are mixed when it comes to south korea where the lmf factor predicts an increase in gdp while the ew ratio predicts a decrease in gdp. in india 1.7754 0.2699 2.0265 0.1836 0.1306 0.4397 indonesia 0.0025 0.1010 0.4027 0.0026 0.9574 2.6128 malaysia 1.0387 0.3742 2.0996 2.9271* 0.3084 1.7236 pakistan 3.9785** 0.1374 0.8095 2.4157 3.2919* 0.9439 phillipines 0.0008 0.1335 0.0166 3.8620 0.4949 0.8956 south korea 0.3143 0.9090 2.7076* 1.9642 0.2593 5.4887** thailand 2.5026 0.0205 0.1772 0.5235 5.2452** 0.0913 dependant variable fel lmf fel→lgdp fel→ew fel→lmf lmf→lgdp lmf→ew lmf→fel china 0.2040 0.5066 1.7380 3.5865* 0.3609 3.8738** india 1.2853 1.7882 1.4222 3.3731 1.6118 1.6957 indonesia 4.1511 0.2675 0.9291 8.4313 1.7082 3.0631 malaysia 2.6981 1.3815 1.8610 3.3730* 0.6435 0.0654 pakistan 1.1971 1.5922 1.8646 0.1531 1.0370 1.0706 phillipines 0.0013** 2.0272 1.1006 6.6722*** 0.0001 0.2412 south korea 0.9590 0.0990 0.7641 4.8176** 0.0018 1.3544 thailand 0.1364 2.7639* 0.1999 2.0779 0.2735 2.3394 this table presents the log-likelihood statistics of the causality tests distributed x2. ***represent significance at 1% level. **represent significance at 5% level. *represent significance at 10% level. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 392 the case of pakistan, the ew factor predicts an increase in gdp while the fel factor predicts a decrease in gdp. the results of the study would indicate that financial liberalization factors are most useful in predicting economic growth in countries which are classified as developed countries such as south korea. the opposite can be said when it comes to the other emerging economies in this study where the financial system is still in the process of being liberalized and financial market regulations and foreign investor participation in the markets can be improved. references ali, w., & abdullah, a. (2015). the impact of trade openness on the economic growth of pakistan: 1980-2010. global business & management research, 7(2). ang, j. b., & mckibbin, w. j. (2007). financial liberalization, financial sector development and growth: evidence from malaysia. journal of development economics, 84(1), 215-233. bekaert, g., harvey, c. r., & lundblad, c. (2005). does financial liberalization spur growth? journal of financial economics, 77(1), 3-55. borst, n., & lardy, n. (2015). maintaining financial stability in the people's republic of china during financial liberalization. peterson institute for international economics working paper(15-4). chakraborty, i. (2010). financial development and economic growth in india: an analysis of the post-reform period. south asia economic journal, 11(2), 287-308. chari, a., & henry, p. b. (2004). risk sharing and asset prices: evidence from a natural experiment. the journal of finance, 59(3), 1295-1324. cho, y. j. (1988). the effect of financial liberalization on the efficiency of credit allocation: some evidence from korea. journal of development economics, 29(1), 101-110. edison, h. j., & warnock, f. e. (2003). a simple measure of the intensity of capital controls. journal of empirical finance, 10(1), 81-103. erkisi, k., & ceyhan, t. (2019). trade liberalization and economic growth: a panel data analysis for transition economies in europe. journal of economics finance and accounting, 6(2), 82-94. johnston, r. b., & sundararajan, v. (1999). sequencing financial sector reforms: international monetary fund. kwon, e. (2004). financial liberalization in south korea. journal of contemporary asia, 34(1), 70-101. lane, p. r., & milesi-ferretti, g. m. (2007). the external wealth of nations mark ii: revised and extended estimates of foreign assets and liabilities, 1970– 2004. journal of international economics, 73(2), 223-250. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus, vol. 43 no. s-2 373-393 (2020) https://hamdardfoundation.org/h amdard islamicus/ p a g e | 393 laurenceson, j., & chai, j. c. (2003). financial reform and economic development in china: edward elgar publishing. liu, & hsu, c.-m. (2006). the role of financial development in economic growth: the experiences of taiwan, korea, and japan. journal of asian economics, 17(4), 667-690. liu, & li, k.-w. (2001). impact of liberalization of financial resources in china’s economic growth: evidence from provinces. journal of asian economics, 12(2), 245-262. mankiw, n. g., romer, d., & weil, d. n. (1992). a contribution to the empirics of economic growth. the quarterly journal of economics, 107(2), 407437. mckinnon, r. i. (1973). money and capital in economic development: brookings institution press. moshirian, f. (2007). globalisation and the role of effective international institutions. journal of banking & finance, 31(6), 1579-1593. sabandi, m., & noviani, l. (2015). the effects of trade liberalization, financial development and economic crisis on economic growth in indonesia. journal of economics and sustainable development, 6(24), 120-128. schmukler, m. s. l., & kaminsky, g. l. (2003). short-run pain, long-run gain: the effects of financial liberalization: international monetary fund. sehrawat, m., & giri, a. k. (2015). financial development and economic growth: empirical evidence from india. studies in economics and finance, 32(3), 340-356. shabbir, s. (2013). does external debt affect economic growth: evidence from developing countries. retrieved from shaw, e. s. (1973). financial deepening in economic development. new york: oxford university press. taranukha, a. (2016). why south korea remains classified as an emerging market. frontera news. vohra, r. (2001). export and economic growth: further time series evidence from less-developed countries. international advances in economic research, 7(3), 345-350. wasti, s. k. a., & zaidi, s. w. (2020). an empirical investigation between co2 emission, energy consumption, trade liberalization and economic growth: a case of kuwait. journal of building engineering, 28, 101104. yusoff, m. b., & nuh, r. (2015). foreign direct investment, trade openness and economic growth: empirical evidence from thailand. foreign trade review, 50(2), 73-84. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 97 hijrah and its application in classical and contemporary muslim contexts dr. khalil ahmad soascis, universiti brunei darussalam, brunei khalil.ahmad@ubd.edu.bnemail: dr. fareed malik soascis, universiti brunei darussalam, brunei fareedmalik9903@gmail.commail: e received on: 09-11-22 accepted on: 02-12-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.640 abstract the juristic opinion of several medieval islamic scholars about hijra as an obligation (under certain conditions) to migrate from darul kufr (the land of non-believers) to darul islam has produced many ramifications both in the past and present. in the past, this dichotomous approach emerged as a doctrine and was widely imitated by the subsequent muslim clergy and political dissidents in resolving several migration-related issues. however, phenomena like the advent of nation-states in the post-colonial era and the increasing migration of muslims to non-muslim states created new dimensions and challenges, and the notion of hijrah as a migration from darul kufr became irrelevant. to address and resolve the issues highlighted, this study argues for a recall and reassessment of all those factors that led to hijrah during the time of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). to examine the problem, this study uses a qualitative methodology. the data and findings given in this paper are the outcomes of a thematic analysis of the literature obtained from various classical and contemporary secondary sources related to the topic. this study emphasizes the fact that the hijrah of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). and his companions was not merely a relocation from the hostile, polytheistic, and sceptical environment but certainly, a divine guidance to seek moral refuge from all forms of vice and corruption, and to build a tawhidic (monotheistic), peaceful, just, mailto:khalil.ahmad@ubd.edu.bn mailto:fareedmalik9903@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.640 98 hijrah and its application … and coexistent islamic society as a model for the generations to come. further, to deal with the issues relating to the classical and dichotomous juristic interpretations of hijrah, this study emphasizes the current facets of hijrah from maqāṣid al-sharī’ah perspective. finally, analyzing the historical event of hijrah from earlier sources and within the ambit of maqāṣid al-sharī’ah, this study finds that the hijrah was essential to safeguard and nurture the religion (al-dīn), life (al-nafs), intellect (al-‘aql), lineage (alnasl), and wealth (al-mal) of the muslims of that time. keywords: hijrah, migration, darul kufr, nation-states, maqāṣid, muslim minority, fiqh al-aqalliyyat 1. introduction the term hijrah which is roughly translated into english as migration (of human beings), is not a new phenomenon. in human history, we find larger groups of people relocating to different regions for their survival and sustenance and to establish their civilizations. according to the world migration report of 2022, there were around 281 million international migrants in the world in 2020, which equates to 3.6 percent of the global population.1 though, for muslims, the notion of hijrah is much broader. it emphasizes an essential prophetic tradition, a historical migration, and the circumstances that guide the believers how to safeguard and nurture their spiritual (religious) and physical aspects of life. emphasizing on various historical and contemporary precursors relating to the juristic understanding and application of hijrah, this study focuses on several aspects and issues related to the muslim minorities that cover more than one-fifth (317 million muslims) of the total muslim population across the globe.2 it ponders over how the notion of hijrah as a doctrine could be seen as an essential islamic tradition within the ambit of maqāṣid al-sharī’ah to safeguard and nurture the religion (al-dīn), life (al-nafs), intellect (al-‘aql), lineage (al-nasl), and wealth (al-mal) of the muslims in a contemporary scenario. in arabic lexicon, the term hijrah is derived from the root word hajara (هجر)which means: to emigrate; to dissociate, separate, part, secede, keep away (from), part company (with); to give up, renounce, forgo, avoid; to abandon, surrender, leave, give up, vacate; to desert one another, part company, separate, or break up.3 however, in the islamic tradition, the word hijrah has a deeper meaning and is often used to describe the historically well-known events of the muslim migration from makkah to either abyssinia (present-day ethiopia) or more widely, as the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam).’s migration along with his other companions (almuhajirūn) from makkah to madinah in 622ad. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 99 in the holy qur’an, the word hajara (هجر) and its derivative words are used 31 times in different contexts and meanings.4 for example, at some places it depicts the meaning of leaving something, forsaking, and abandoning, the husband should abandon his wife5 and the believer should flee from the abomination6. according to asfahanī in his al-mufradāt, the term hijrah, which is generally translated as renouncing or leaving something, could be emphasized in three levels.7 the first level, he states is the physical migration, such as leaving things or people who are hostile towards muslims and muslim states. in the second and third levels, he deliberates over a kind of spiritual migration, or migration from the heart and (slander or illicit use of) the tongue, in which a person renounces thoughts and acts that are contradictory or incompatible with islamic values. asfahanī also elaborates on ideological migration or renouncing an ideology or thought which is contradictory to islamic values and reality.8 in a physical sense, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)’s migration from makkah to madinah was a voyage from a hostile, polytheistic, and sceptical environment. however, emphasizing its spiritual aspect, it was a great devotion prompted by divine guidance to develop a community based on piety and justice. it is narrated by abdullah ibn umar that the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, "the muhajir (emigrant) is the one who abandons what god has forbidden."9 taking this hadith into consideration, it becomes very clear that it was not just a physical migration but also a spiritual valediction that reformed the society of believers from ignorance to knowledge and developed a society of people who migrated for the sake of god and submitted themselves completely to his will and divine justice. it was a migration for the sake of moral refuge from all forms of vice and corruption and to build a peaceful, just, and coexistent model society of the believers in madinah. 2. methodology this study is qualitative in nature, and to obtain more reliable and insightful results, it employs a thematic approach. the data and findings given in this paper are the outcome of thematic analysis of the qualitative data obtained from various classical and contemporary secondary sources like books, journal articles, dissertations, and reports related to the topic. 3. objectives 100 hijrah and its application … this study attempts to reassess the historical events of hijrah and its juristic understanding from various classical and modern sources to actualize the objectives (maqāṣid) and application of hijrah as a liveable prophetic tradition in contemporary muslim contexts. recalling the event of hijrah as an essential prophetic tradition to safeguard and nurture the religion (al-dīn), life (al-nafs), intellect (al-‘aql), lineage (al-nasl), and wealth (al-mal) of the muslims, this study attempts to find its scope, especially for those muslim migrants who are relocated from their territories due to various social, political, religious, economic, or other environmental thrusts. 4. review of literature the works written so far on the given topic, whether from classical or contemporary sources, mostly emphasize the historical narratives and fiqh issues that evolved from the juristic understanding of medieval islamic scholars about hijrah. however, there is not much that has been written specifically to actualize the objectives (maqasid) and application of hijrah as a liveable prophetic tradition in contemporary muslim contexts. for example, in classical works, there is: al sirah al nabawiyyah by ibn hishām (d. 833), kitab altabaqat al-kabeer by ibn sa’d (d. 845), tarīkh al-tabarī by ibn jarīr al-tabarī (d. 923), and so on. pursuing the chain of narrations (isnad), these works are significant in providing the historical background and the basis for juristic understanding that evolved from the prophetic traditions. however, such works are required to be reassessed in terms of finding their relationship and significance in contemporary scenarios. in contemporary literature, there are some works that are very relevant and applicable to this study such as: āthar al-ḥarb fī al-fiqh al-islāmī by wahba al-zuḥaylī (1998), alʿalaqat alduwaliyya fi al-islam by abu zahra (1987), fiqhu al-sīrah by sa‘īd ramḍān al-būṭī (2002), the obligation to migrate: the doctrine of hijrah in islamic law by khalid masud (1990), western muslims and the future of islam by tariq ramadan (2004), and migration and islamic ethics by ray jureidini, and said fares hassan (2020). these works are very crucial in providing the bibliographical foundation for this study. following the thematic methodology, this study proceeds with the historical background and the different circumstantial stages of hijrah as follows: 4.1. historical background analysing the first thirteen years of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) in makkah, the period can be classified into three main phases. the first phase involves the early three years of the prophetic period in which religious preaching (da’wah) was done hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 101 secretly. in the second phase, it was an open proclamation of the prophet hood and the propagation of islam to the makkan people by the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) which continued for around seven years. in the third phase, which started at the end of the tenth year in makkah, the call to islam spread beyond makkah, however, the persecution of muslims by makkan non-believers went beyond the limits and continued till the migration of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and his companions to madinah. the initial years of the proclamation of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) are very significant in islamic history. the revolutionary message of equality and justice of islam was taken by the quraysh10 as a threat to their tribal supremacy and kinship pride; all humankind is equal in the sight of allah regardless of their colour, race, or geographical contiguity. quraysh believed that islam would nullify the existing socio-political system and that their specific privileges would no longer elevate their status in arabian society.11 initially, the leaders of quraysh ignored the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)’s message and call to islam and believed that he could not bring about a revolution and become successful. however, this attitude soon changed to hostility. the rise of the muslim community in makkah alerted the quraysh that islam would cause a massive change in the system that prevented them from remaining in power. on the one hand, rejection of their gods by muslims was not tolerable, which resulted in severe verbal and physical harassment and abuse of muslims while on the other hand, muslims desired to learn and practice islam in an open environment with peace, having no distress and discernment, and it was hard due to constant pestering of the quraysh. 12 they did not leave any stone unturned in ridiculing and harassing muslims. nevertheless, victims of such indignities and persecution were mainly those who had no influential tribe to back them.13 consequently, god revealed a directive for believers to migrate and seek asylum abroad. and those who emigrated for [the cause of] allah after they had been wronged we will surely settle them in this world in a good place; but the reward of the hereafter is greater, if only they could know. [they are] those who endured patiently and upon their lord relied. 14 say, "o my servants who have believed, fear your lord. for those who do good in this world is good, and the earth of 102 hijrah and its application … allah is spacious. indeed, the patient will be given their reward without account."15 4.2. selection of abyssinia in describing the reasons for the migration to abyssinia, most scholars discuss the intolerable and unceasing persecutions and the humiliations the quraysh inflicted upon the believers. 16 however, there might be some other factors that could be addressed. during the first phase of islam, the social environment of hijaz was derogatory and harassing for the destitute and weak in society, especially slaves. tribal superiority was common among people. on the other hand, the revolutionary message of equality and justice in islam, which muslims carried to abyssinia, influenced not only the masses but the ruler himself. further, the ruler in abyssinia was a christian monarch-negus (najāshi) who believed in justice. the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) mentioned to him that “if you were to go abyssinia (it would be better for you), for the king will not tolerate injustice, and it is a friendly country until allah shall relieve you from your distress.”17 besides, there were some other reasons why abyssinia was chosen over the other regions of hijāz, such as yemen and syria, though the message was very evident and implied to the people in such regions. however, yemen was well-known for its enmity towards the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), and the distance between syria and makkah was longer and incompatible with the prevailing situation. in addition, these two regions were the marketplaces for quraysh and had close bonds with the people of makkah. as a result, they could have deported muslims at the request of the quraysh. although abyssinia was not a part of hijāz, it was closer than other places. another cause was the divine relationship between muslims and the people of the book (ahlul-kitāb). thus, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)asked the first muslims to seek refuge in the land of the people of the book. he (ṣallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) wanted to convey the message that this is not a new religion but contains the same message as jesus, moses, and abraham (ṣallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam).18 muslims believe in all prophets without discrimination.19 the incident illustrates the universality of islam having no geographical restrictions or discrimination against any human. arab and non-arab, black or white, poor, or rich, etc. it was also the first step towards creating a global ’ummatic society.20 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 103 while analysing both internal and external factors that led to the migration of the believers to abyssinia, the fact cannot be ignored that it was not just the internal situation but also a significant objective to convey the message of islam to the people of the book living in abyssinia. this emphasizes the approach of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) to convey the revolutionary message of equality in islam that there is no discrimination between arabs and non-arabs, black or white, poor or rich, etc. the first instruction of migration enabled muslims to take the first step towards establishing a global ummah. however, an innocuous place was necessary for islam to flourish, where muslims could practice their religious obligations. according to sayed qutub (1906-1966), migration to abyssinia resulted from the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)’s desire to establish a centre outside makkah, where muslims could protect their faith and follow its teachings freely, and people would be free to enter the abode of islam.21 4.3. the first migration to abyssinia the important aspect of the first migration to abyssinia is that the first group of immigrants to abyssinia was comprised of some prominent leaders and people from influential tribes. there were hardly any destitute or enslaved people accompanying this group. this accentuates that it was not merely an escape from the persecution but an effort to convey the message of islam. abu bakr (raḍi allah ‘anhu) began his journey to abyssinia and encountered ibn dughna who encouraged him not to migrate as he was a noble personality and the honour of his tribe. ibn dughna promised to have abu bakr under his protection. at first, abu bakr (raḍi allah ‘anhu) returned to makkah, but later, he said allah’s protection was enough for him.22 it is pertinent to state that even uthman (raḍi allah ‘anhu) and his wife (the daughter of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) were among the first group of immigrants, which represents the approach and sound strategy of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). the other aspect of this migration can be understood as a preface of migration to madinah, which indicates the benefits of living in a peaceful environment. further, the interaction of muslim immigrants with the people of abyssinia showed its considerable impact as many embraced islam. ramaḍan al-būṭī (1929-2013), referring to the incident of abyssinia, elucidates that one can leave his country and wealth to defend his faith, even he may seek refuge 104 hijrah and its application … in a non-muslim land if he is allowed to practice his religion freely. 23 besides, the qur’an explicitly announces the closeness of muslims with the people of the book, especially christians: you will surely find the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers [to be] the jews and those who associate others with allah, and you will find the nearest of them in affection to the believers those who say, "we are christians." that is because among them are priests and monks and because they are not arrogant.24 the christians were much closer to muslims in terms of their faith, as they believed in monotheism as mentioned in the qur’an.25 moreover, the glad tiding of his (ṣallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) coming was revealed in their scriptures, and most importantly, the ruler negus (ashama/ najāshi) was a just and compassionate leader of abyssinia. this incident was a milestone for the mission of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) from ummah ijabiyah to ummah da‘wah26 and from hardship to ease. the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) never asked muslim immigrants in abyssinia to join any battle, such as uḥad, badr, and aḥzāb. they returned to madinah after the muslim community was established in madinah. 4.4. the second migration based on classical sources of sīrah, it is safe to say that the migration of muslims to abyssinia occurred twice. the first migration was during the month of rajab of the fifth year of prophet hood in 615 ce, when eleven men and four women left makkah for abyssinia, including uthman bin ‘affan and his wife ruqayyah (raḍi allah ‘anhum), the daughter of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). referring to them, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, "they are the first people to migrate in the cause of allah after ibrahīm and lūṭ (‘alaihim as-salām)". 27 this was followed by the second migration after a year in which eighty-three men and eleven women migrated to abyssinia. there are some differences among scholars concerning the number of refugees. according to ibn ishaq, the first group comprised of ten men and four women, and the other sources mentioned fifteen or sixteen names. this first group was headed by uthman bin ‘affan (raḍi allah ‘anhum), and sixteen muslims from various tribes who secretly reached the port of shuaibah and paid half a dinar to go to hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 105 abyssinia. 28 furthermore, in the second migration phase, j’afar ibn abī ṭalib (raḍi allah ‘anhum) was instructed by the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) to lead muslims. this second migration was not as easy as the first because, this time, quraysh were observant of every suspicious movement of muslims. however, due to two migrations, nearly a hundred muslims settled in abyssinia. muslims were welcomed affectionately, enjoyed the local hospitality, and stayed there in comfort and peace, practicing islam freely.29 it was excruciating for the quraish to know that many muslims migrated to abyssinia, and that place happened to be a peaceful heaven for them. they were frightened by the thought that islamic teachings would attract people to abyssinia. nonetheless, they despatched ‘amr bin al-‘ᾱs and ‘abdullah bin abi rabi‘ah as their convoys, requesting negus to extradite muslims. the convoys brought some valuable gifts to win over the king’s and his clergy’s hearts. they were asked to approach each of them separately and present their gifts. as a result, the influenced generals asked the king to hand over the emigrants to the convoys. 30 however, the king disagreed with their opinions and encouraged both parties to discuss their arguments in his court of justice. the envoys argued that the muslim refugees should be expelled from the country as they had abandoned the religion of their forefathers and come up with a new religion that is different from that of the king. in this account, imam ahmad reports in his musnad that when ‘amr bin al-‘ᾱs and ‘abdullah bin abi rabi‘ah spoke at the court of negus, they said: “your majesty, a few of our foolish youths have come to your country and deserted the religion of their people but have not embraced your faith. they have come up with a new religion which neither you nor we understand. the nobles of their people, their fathers, uncles and tribesmen have sent us to you asking for them back because they know better what is best for them and what they had done wrong and had already admonished them.”31 negus was a just king who didn't pass any verdict before hearing both sides. to hear from their counterparts, he summoned muslims to present their arguments and called his prelates and bishops to be present with their sacred books during the dialogue. though the convoys intended to stop this meeting as it was in their favour. nevertheless, without caring about the consequences, muslims decided to inform negus about the teachings of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). negus asked muslims: “what is this religion that caused you to break away from your people without converting to my religion or any of the other religions?”32 106 hijrah and its application … it was a historical reply by j’afar ibn abī ṭalib. he said: “o king, we were a people living in ignorance, worshipping idols, eating carrion meat, committing sins, forsaking our kinsfolk, and abusing our neighbours. the strong amongst us exploited the weak. we had been living like that until god sent us a messenger, one of us whose pedigree, truthfulness, honesty, and purity are well-known to us. he called us to believe in the one god, worship him, and discard the stones and idols we and our fathers had hitherto been worshipping besides him. he urged us to be truthful in what we say, keep our trust, nurture our kinsfolk, be kind towards our neighbours and desist from offensive behaviour and killing. he advised us to avoid repugnant acts, falsehood, taking orphans’ property, and slandering chaste women. he urged us to worship god alone and nothing else besides him, and taught us to observe prayer, give alms and fast. we believed him and followed his teachings, but our people set upon us and persecuted us to turn us away from our religion and take us back to idol-worship and the repugnant acts we used to commit. when they overwhelmed and oppressed us and prevailed over us, preventing us from practicing our religion, we came to your country. we chose you over all others, desirous of living as your neighbors and hoping, o king, not to be persecuted in your land.”33 the words of j’afar (raḍi ‘allahu ‘anhu) had an impact on the king to the level that he requested j’afar (raḍi ‘allahu ‘anhu) to recite some verses of the qur’an. j’afar (raḍi ‘allahu ‘anhu) recited verses from chapter marry, which was revealed just before the migration, where the stories of jesus christ and john’s birth had been mentioned followed by the story of marry. the verses broke them down into tears and the king exclaimed: "it seems as if these words, which were revealed to jesus, are the rays of the light which have radiated from the same source." consequently, the convoy’s request was rejected, and their gifts were returned. the king allowed muslims to live freely and practice their religion in his kingdom. by analysing the incident of abyssinia, we find several significant outcomes. for instance, all muslims did not need to migrate to abyssinia. the presence of uthman and ruqayyah (raḍi ‘allahu ‘anhu), the daughter of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) strengthened the confidence among immigrants. further, j’afar and his wife asma’s (raḍi ‘allahu ‘anhu) presence among them firmed their determination. once the prophet muhammad hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 107 (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said that "you (j’afar) are like me in looks and character".34 thus, he (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) had chosen j’afar as the leader of muslim immigrants with a charming personality, and he was considered one of the most eloquent speakers among the companions. they needed a spokesperson, and j’afar had all those qualities and was second only to mus’ab in terms of personality and intelligence. further, j’afar’s selection of the verse of chapter merry shows his wisdom.35 4.5. the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)’s hijrah to madinah in makkah, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) continued his mission and invited various tribes of arabia, especially those who flocked to makkah during the pilgrimage season. in dhu al-hijjah, 620 ce, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) met with some people of the banū khazraj, a tribe from yathrib near the place called al-‘aqabah in makkah and illuminated to them the divine message of islam and recited some verses of the holy qur’an. as a result, they were highly impressed and embraced islam. in the following year, 621 ce, five of them again undertook the pilgrimage, bringing seven more individuals along. these people reported to the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) about the ongoing proliferation of islam in yathrib. they took a formal oath of commitment at the prophet’s hand, accepting him as allah’s prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam).36 at their solicitation, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øa llallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) deputed mus’ab ibn ‘umair to teach them qur’an and invite their leaders to islam.37 ibn hishām (d. 833 ad) reports that in madinah, mus’ab was known as ‘the reader’, and he used to lead prayers because the tribes, aws and khazraj, could not tolerate seeing one of their rivals take the lead. in other similar reports quoted by al-tabaranī (d. 971 ad) and others, it is narrated that when they sent their envoy to the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) asking him to depute a person of his tribe to call people through the holy qur’an as it would be an easy task for him to pursue.38 so, in this situation, it was essential to depute a person who could help reunite the tribes and invite their leaders and people to a god-centric polity and establish a preliminary ground for a new 108 hijrah and its application … society based on piety and justice in madinah. next year, in 622 ce, a group of about seventy-five believers from madinah, including members of both the aws and the khazraj, reiterated the conditions of the first pledge of ‘aqabah and promised the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) their full assistance and fortification if he relocated to medina to act as a conciliator to bring peace between the two tribes.39 this second pledge at 'aqabah was a religious and political victory that prepared the ground for muslims to migrate to madinah. following these two important events at ‘aqabah, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) urged the believers to migrate and settle in madinah.40 when quraysh noticed such developments and the increasing influence of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) in the region, they made a severe plan to assassinate the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and consulted ‘abu jahl for this heinous act. he suggested that from each tribe, a strong and fearless man should be designated, and should be given a sharp-edged sword with which all should assault the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) at once, so that all the tribes would equally share the responsibility of the bloodguilt, and it would make it difficult for banū hāshim to fight with all the tribes of the quraysh. this suggestion of abu jahl was approved by all. however, the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was informed about heinous plan thought revelation and was instructed to migrate to madinah.41 analysing the nature and reasons for the migration of muslims and the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) to madinah, it is evident that this move was not a sudden act done on the edge of the hour. rather, it was performed with proper planning and groundwork. this great event was not carried out in any slapdash way or to avoid any unexpected urgency. from the events which happened in the past and during the year of migration to madinah, it would not be fair enough to say that this migration was merely for safety of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and the believers. the prophet's refusal to accept ṭufayl ibn 'amr al-daūsi's offer to take shelter in the strong fortress of the daūs tribe, where strong men would take care of his defence, illustrates the fact more clearly in this context. 42 it should also be remembered that the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 109 ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) turned down the offer of assistance from some tribes to gain and share political power over all of arabia with them. the aspects of divine guidance and to serve the cause of islam were the utmost reasons and a primary objective of this great journey. it is reported by al-bukhari (810-870) that ‘aisha (ra) said: the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said to the believers, "in a dream i have been shown your migration place, a land of date palm trees, between two mountains, the two stony tracts." so, some people migrated to medina, and many muslims who immigrated to ethiopia returned to medina. abu bakr (ra) intended to leave for medina, but the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) told him, "wait for a while, because i hope that i will be allowed to migrate also."43 during this time it was feasible for the muslims or the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) to practice and propagate islam in makkah. while referring to the nature and causes of the migration, it is clearly mentioned in the qur’an and the prophetic traditions that the muslims during that period were oppressed44 and jeopardized at the account of their faith.45 they were also persecuted and driven out of their homes and property just because of their faith in islam.46 4.6. juristic interpretation of hijrah as a doctrine in islamic jurisprudence, the term hijrah in general is defined as an obligation (under certain conditions) to migrate from the land of non-believers (darul kufr) to a region or society where islamic rules are predominant, imitating the example of hijrah of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and his followers, who moved from the pagan and polytheistic society of makkah to madinah, and established a new polity based on the principles of islam. in earlier phases of islamic history, the construction of the doctrines of hijra was interlinked with this dichotomy of darul islam and darul kufr. however, the issues posed by the framing of these doctrines varied at different levels and situations. in the earlier period, the conditions for "where to where" one must migrate were apparent. nonetheless, these conditions had a different meaning for dissident political groups, which later continued to be asked and re-emphasized during the medieval period, especially about those muslims who were living in non-islamic regions. thirteenth century and onwards, the subject of hijrah again became central when christians in the west and tartars in the east occupied muslim lands.47 as a result, we find a string of opinions given by some famous medieval islamic scholars such as ibn qudamah al-maqdīsī (1147-1223), ibn taymiyah (1263110 hijrah and its application … 1328), ahmad ibn yaḥya al-wansharisī (1430-1508), and others in this context. this substantially contributed to the development of hijrah as a doctrine, not only questioning the migration of people but also investigating the migration of converts, traders, and preachers.48 5. discussion for classical islamic jurists, when hijrah as a notion comes under debate, they bifurcate the states into darul islam and darul kufr. so, in consequence of this dichotomy, it becomes necessary for muslims living in darul kufr to relocate to darul islam, unless they do not have any sources to do so, and in such a condition, they would be termed as weak (mustad’afīn). this opinion of jurists is primarily based on their understanding of those qur'anic verses (4:97–100 and 8:73) that were revealed in madinah under specific conditions to emphasize the predicament of muslims. indeed, those whom the angels take [in death] while wronging themselves [the angels] will say, "in what [condition] were you?" they will say, "we were oppressed in the land." the angels will say, "was not the earth of allah spacious [enough] for you to emigrate therein?" for those, their refuge is hell and evil it is as a destination. except for the oppressed among men, women and children who cannot devise a plan, nor are they directed to a way for those it is expected that allah will pardon them, and allah is ever pardoning and forgiving. and whoever emigrates for the cause of allah will find on the earth many [alternative] locations and abundance. and whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to allah and his messenger and then death overtakes him his reward has already become incumbent upon allah. and allah is ever forgiving and merciful. 49 however, pointing to the moral dimension and rehabilitation of those muslims who were living in non-muslim states, the situations before and after hijrah could be classified into three main scenarios, i.e., the pre-hijrah phase (609–622ad), the post-hijrah phase (622–630ad), and the events of abyssinia (615–622 ad) and hudaybiyah (628–630 ad). referring to khalid masud, these three important historical aspects could be seen as the three significant models for muslims who live in non-muslim states. according to khalid, there was no mould of migration in the pre-hijrah makkah model (609–622 ad) because the notion of darul islam was yet to hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 111 be evolved. at that stage, muslims, in terms of their religion and practices, were distinct from the mainstream community. in this paradigm, jihad and hijrah were not obligatory for muslims. nonetheless, the struggle for darul islam remained indispensable. in the second or post-hijrah makkah model (622–630 ad), muslims were required to relocate to madinah and struggle unless they had no resources to carry out their obligations. from a juristic standpoint, these muslims were deemed as vulnerable (mustad’afīn) and were permitted to conceal their religious identity. though they were required to have their true intent to relocate to darul islam and strive for better. but, looking at abyssinia (615–622 ad) and hudaybiyah (628–630 ad) as a third model, we find that it was not obligatory for muslims to do hijrah or jihad during these events, however they were encouraged not to conceal their faith and practices publicly. in this model, they were assured to profess their faith freely and safeguard their interests; in hudaybiyah, it was a signed contract; however, in abyssinia, it was a verbal commitment. under these circumstances, muslims resided in non-muslim territories, as they did in darul islam.50navigating the functionality of these hijrah models in the past and present, we find the description of darul islam has become more intricate in the contemporary scenario. the emergence of nation states in twentieth century, and the increasing migration of muslims to the non-muslim or other developed states have created new dimensions relating to the juristic notions of hijrah in modern context.51 in this setting, the definition of hijrah as a migration from darul kufr seems to be limited or irrelevant. as a result, we find several contemporary islamic scholars and jurists such as wahbah al-zuhayli (1932-2015), muhammad abu zahra (1898-1974), shaykh faysal al-mawlawi (1941-2011), and others who reassessed darul islam and studied for new dimensions of state in hijrah context. relating to darul islam and other nation states within the contemporary framework of migration, a series of new or reassessed notions such as darul ‘ahd (the land of accord)52, darul aman (the land of peace)53, and darul dawa (the land of testimony)54, etc. have become more prominent. darul aman, in which muslims are free to practice their religion are fortified by truce. according to khalid masud, any migration to a non-muslim territory that comes under this agreement could be referred to as the abyssinian model. he further justifies that this situation could also be referred to as the hudaybiyah model, in which muslims were not obliged to leave makkah even though it was under the rule of non-believers at the time. for khalid, such elucidations seem more applicable to the world of nation states because people are fortified by accords in this setting.55 while discussing the impact of political and dichotomous interpretations of hijrah as defined by some earlier classical jurists, it becomes important to explore those consequences that considerably 112 hijrah and its application … affected the phenomenon of muslim migration, especially in the last two centuries. in the late 19th century, there were several muslim organisations that opposed the expansion and reign of colonial powers. the muslim clergy, referring to the dichotomous doctrine of hijrah, encouraged the muslim minorities to migrate from the nonmuslim dominated regions of central asia, the balkan states, and the sub-continent.56 as a result, a huge proportion of muslims left their native places and moved to the muslim majority regions. in the indian sub-continent, millions of indian muslims were displaced to afghanistan and its neighbouring regions, which finally resulted in the formation of post-colonial republic of pakistan. all these events address the same question of whether muslims were compelled to leave their territories ruled by "infidels," and if so, under what circumstances? the other aspect, which is pertinent to emphasize here, is the emergence of nation-states in the post-colonial period. in this era, there were several muslim majority territories that split into several new nation-states. as a result, the muslim world that was recognised as darul islam in the medieval period was now divided because of ethnic diversity and nationalism. contrasting to the premises that existed in the medieval muslim period, a muslim cannot freely relocate, reside in, or visit any muslim country. a few of these nations are secular, while others have modified their socio-religious and public laws in accordance with the western world. the non-muslim communities in these muslim countries have contributed equally to the fight for independence, equality, and prosperity; and therefore, are not subjugated people who should be driven to adopt the status of second-class citizens.57 so, in this scenario, the doctrine of hijrah which was evolved and emphasised according to the challenges prevailed in the medieval period, seems largely different from the current situation. following that, after world war ii and the weakening of colonial powers, the flow of muslim migration showed a different dimension. muslims who were earlier migrating from non-muslim territories are now voluntarily moving from muslim lands to nonmuslim states. the political and economic factors that pushed millions of people to leave their countries are more inclined to look for work and security in the west. this process led them to settle abroad and become part of culturally and religiously diverse and multi-ethnic societies.58 according to a pew research report, more people are leaving muslim-majority countries than migrating to them. by 2030-35, muslim-majority countries are anticipated to lose an average of 47 people per 100,000 inhabitants per year, compared to a net loss of 81 people per year from 2010 to 2015. before 1990-1995, hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 113 muslim-majority countries lost significantly more individuals—an average of 160 per 100,000 per year.59 the rise in muslim migration and the formation of muslim minority communities in the west prompted several muslim political and religious scholars to reassess the dichotomous notions of darul islam and darul kufr and to emphasize the importance of peaceful relations between muslim and non-muslim states. this laid the foundation for islamic approval of muslim residency, naturalization, and citizenship in non-muslim territories under certain conditions.60 the conceptualization of this dynamic with the foundation of the fiqh council in the united states and the european council for fatwa and research supported the formulation of a series of legal opinions. this laid the foundation for a new branch of islamic fiqh, namely fiqh al-aqalliyyat, which was aimed at allowing muslim minorities in the west to live as a practicing muslim and also a responsible citizen of the country.61 taha jabir al-alwani (1935-2016), youssef al-qaradhawi (19262022) and abdel majid al-najjar (b.1945) have played significant role for the development of fiqh al-aqalliyyat. in addition, in the last couple of decades, this new fiqh al-hijrah is being further evolved, resulting in a paradigm shift from fiqh al-hijrah to fiqh al-muwatana (the law of citizenship). nonetheless, there is still a part of muslim clergy in some muslim states which does not embrace such notions of fiqh al-hijrah and consider more than 17 million muslims of western europe in a state of darul kufr. there is a considerable gap between the classical concepts and the contemporary scenarios (alwaqi’). some scholars reassess and prioritize the current state of affairs, while others, adhering to the classical fiqh interpretations, cannot go beyond the dichotomous view of the world, which is no longer compatible or functional in the current global scenario.62 therefore, the process of redefining fiqh al-hijrah in this context is still a crucial issue that needs to be resolved further. 6. conclusion the hijrah of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and his companions to madinah, was not merely a voyage from the hostile, polytheistic, and sceptical environment of that period but also a divine guidance to the believers to reform and migrate from ignorance to knowledge and to develop a god-centric society based on piety, justice and a model of islamic tradition for the generations to come. it was a migration for the sake of islam and a moral refuge from all forms of vice and corruption, and to build a tawhidic (monotheistic), peaceful, just, and coexistent model society in madinah. evaluating this great historical event as a foundation of muslim civilization within the framework of maqāṣid al-sharī’ah, we find that this migration was essential to safeguard and nurture the 114 hijrah and its application … religion (al-dīn), life (al-nafs), intellect (al-‘aql), lineage (al-nasb), and wealth (al-mal) of the muslims of that time. however, in later generations, when islam vastly expanded outside the arabic peninsula, several islamic scholars prescribed their juristic opinion about hijra as an obligation (under certain conditions) to migrate from the land of non-believers (darul kufr) to darul islam and it was all initiated in accordance with the socio-political conditions of their time. similarly, in 13th century and onwards, the notion of hijrah further evolved as a juristic doctrine when several prominent islamic scholars gave their juristic opinion (fatawa) specifically about the muslim territories that were occupied by the christians and tartars. nonetheless, moving forward to the contemporary scenario of 20th century and beyond, we find the dichotomous approach of darul islam and darul kufr, during medieval period by muslim scholars under certain conditions, is no longer compatible or irrelevant in the current situations. in modern context, the emergence of nation-states and the increasing migration of muslims to non-muslim states have created new dimensions and challenges. the political and economic factors have pushed millions of people from underdeveloped and developing muslim countries to look for opportunities in the west. however, there is still a section of muslim clergy in some states that consider more than seventeen million muslim residents of western europe and the usa in the state of darul kufr. furthermore, to address and resolve such issues within the ambit of sharī’ah, it is essential to recall and reassess all the situations and factors that led to hijrah during the time of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). the earlier resources available in this account, clearly indicate that the hijrah of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and his companions involved both physical and spiritual dimensions. in its physical dimension, it was a voyage from the hostile, polytheistic, and sceptical environment. though, looking at its spiritual aspects, it was a divine direction to the believers that inspired them to reform and migrate from ignorance to knowledge and develop a god-centric society based on piety and justice. summing up all these aspects within the maqāṣid framework, we find that this migration was essential to safeguard and nurture the religion (al-dīn), life (al-nafs), intellect (al-‘aql), lineage (al-nasl), and wealth (al-mal) of the muslims of that time. however, contrary to that, when we look at the current situation of muslim immigrants of several war trodden muslim states such palestine, yemen, syria, and others, we see a different scenario. we find that most of the muslim countries (now nation-states) are flooded with gloomy waters of nationalism and ethnic disparity and the notions of ummah (community), ukhūwa (brotherhood), and diyafa (hospitality) are hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 115 being compromised. the treatment towards these destitute people notably by several muslim nation-states is not just impertinent to the contemporary notions of human rights, but even to the basic premises of islamic practices. in islamic law, the objectives (maqāṣid) of sharī’ah are always in line with the safety, betterment, and sustenance of human beings. therefore, it is imperative to re-examine and re-evaluate the current facets of hijrah keeping maqāṣid in the mind rather than befalling in those doctrines of hijrah that evolved under specific conditions during the medieval times. notes and references 1 marie mcauliffe, and anna triandafyllidou, “world migration report 2022,” international organization for migration, last modified october 10, 2022, https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/. 2 pew research center, “mapping the global muslim population,” last modified october 9, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/10/07/mapping-theglobal-muslim-population/. 3 ibn manẓūr, lisānul ‘arab, vol. 6, (cairo: dar al-ma‘ārif, n.d.), 4616-17; hans wehrs, a dictionary of modern written arabic, (new york: spoken language services, inc., 1976). 4 muhammad fu’ād abdul baqī, al-mu’jamul al-mufahras li ‘alfaẓil qur’ān, (cairo: dar al-kutub al-miṣriyyah, 1927), 730-731. 5 the holy qur'an, 4:34, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 6 ibid., 74:5. 7 raghib asfahanī, al-mufradat fī ghareeb al-qur'ān, (beirut: dar al-m'arifah, 1997), 536-537. 8 ibid. 9 the sahih al-bukhari, 4:10, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 10 quraysh: a ruling tribe during the time of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) in makkah. this tribe had 10 major clans, which included the banu hāshim, the clan of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam); the history of al-ṭabarī, vol.6, translated by franz rosenthal et al., (new york: state university of new york press, 1988), 1-38. 11 martin lings, muhammad: his life based on the earliest sources, (lahore: suhail academy, 1984), 52-55. 12 safiur rahman mubarakpuri, the sealed nectar, (riyadh: maktabah darussalam, 2002), 107. 13 abdul hameed siddiqui, the life of muhammad, (kuala lumpur: islamic book trust, 1999),78. 14 the qur'an, 16: 41-42, translated by saheeh international (jeddah: saheeh international, 1997) 15 ibid., 39: 10. 16 the increasing number of muslims in makkah required a place to learn the faith under the guidance of the prophet muhammad (rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). as a result, the house of zaid bin arqam (darul arqam) was selected. he was one of the youngsters who accepted islam in the beginning. this place was called the first centre of islam for the first three years; al-ṭanṭāvī, alī, maqālāt fī kalimāt, al-majmū‘ah al-thāniyyah, (damascus: maktabat al-fath, 1959), 170. 17 ibn hisham, al sirah al nabawiyyah, edited by ibrahim al abyari, abdul hafeez shalbi, and mustafa alsaqqa, (egypt: mustafa albani & sons, 1936), 344. https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/ 116 hijrah and its application … 18 the holy qur'an, 42:13, 4:163, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 19 ibid., 2:285. 20 ibid., 21:107. 21 syed quṭb, ibrāhīm shārbī, fī zilāl al-qur’ān. vol.1 (egypt: dār al-shurūq alqāhrah n..d,), 29. 22 ibn hishām, al-sīrah al-nabaviyyah, 2:242; muḥammad bin ismā‘īl al-bukhārī, ṣaḥīḥ bukhārī, book of tawhīd, ḥadīth 3905, translated by dr. muḥammad muhsin khan, (saudi arabia: darussalam, 1997), 144-149. 23 muḥammad sa‘īd ramḍān al-būṭī, fiqhu al-sīrah, (damascus: darul fikr, 2007), 94,97. 24 the holy qur'an, 5:82, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 25ibid., 3: 64; 29: 46 26 al-nawawī, and ibn rajab, fatḥ al-qawī al-matīn fī sharḥ al-’arba‘īn wa tatamma al-khamsīn, edited by abdul muhsin, (cairo: maktaba al-huda al-muhammadī, 2013), 199. 27 mubarakpuri, the sealed nectar, 100. 28 abdul hameed siddiqui, the life of muhammad, (kuala lumpur, islamic book trust, 1999), 79. 29 mubarakpuri, the sealed nectar, 102-105. 30 martin lings, muhammad: his life based on the earliest sources, (lahore: suhail academy, 1984), 81-84. 31 abu abdullah ahmad bin muhammad bin hanbal ash-shaibani, musnad, vol.2, translated by nasiruddin al-khattab, (riyadh: darussalam, 2012), 179-185. 32 ibid. 33 ibid. 34 muhammad bin sa’d bin munie’ al-zuhri, kitab al-tabaqat al-kabeer, edited by ali muhammad ‘umar, vol.4, (cairo: maktabah al-khanji, 2001), 33. 35 martin lings, muhammad: his life based on the earliest sources, (lahore: suhail academy, 1984), 80. 36 muhammad mohar ali, the biography of the prophet and the orientalists, vol. ib, (madinah: king fahd complex, 1997), 839-840. 37 ibn hishām, al-sīrah al-nabaviyyah, 435-438. 38ibid. 39 muhammad mohar ali, the biography of the prophet and the orientalists, vol. ib, (madinah: king fahd complex, 1997), 844-850. 40 the sahih al-bukhari, 45:3905, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin khan 41ibid., 45:3905 42 sahih al-muslim, 49:116, translated by nasiruddin al-khattab (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 2007). 43 the sahih al-bukhari, 45:3905, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin khan. 44 the holy qur'an, 16:41, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 45ibid., 16:110. 46 ibid., 3: 195; 59: 8; the sahih al-bukhari, 45: 3900-3901; ibn hishām, al-sīrah al-nabaviyyah, 467. 47 muhammad khalid masud, “the obligation to migrate: the doctrine of hijrah in islamic law”, muslim travelers, edited by dale f. eickelman, and james piscatori, (berkeley: university of california press, 1990), 43-44. 48 ray jureidini, and said fares hassan, migration and islamic ethics, (boston: brill, 2020), 3. 49 the qur'an, 4: 97-100. 50 muhammad khalid masud, "being muslim in a non‐muslim polity: three alternate models," journal of muslim minority affairs, 10, (1989): 118-128. 51 pew research center, “the future of the global muslim populationprojections for 2010-2030,” (washington, d.c., 2011), 37, accessed october 11, 2022, hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 117 https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslimpopulation/. 52 wahba al-zuḥaylī, āthar al-ḥarb fī al-fiqh al-islāmī, (damascus: dār al-fikr, 1998), 95-96, 172–74. 53 abu zahra, alʿalaqat al-duwaliyya fi al-islam, (cairo: dar al-fikr al-arabi, 1995), 54–5. 54 faysal al-mawlawi, al-usus al-shariyya lil-alaquat bayna al-muslimin waghayr al-muslimin, (paris: uoif, 1987), 104. 55 muhammad khalid masud, “the obligation to migrate: the doctrine of hijrah in islamic law”, muslim travelers, edited by dale f. eickelman, and james piscatori, (berkeley: university of california press, 1990), 44. 56 ray jureidini, and said fares hassan, migration and islamic ethics, 3. 57 muhammad khalid masud, "being muslim in a non‐muslim polity: three alternate models," journal of muslim minority affairs, 10, (1989): 118-128. 58 tariq ramadan, western muslims and the future of islam, (new york: oxford university press, 2004), 68. 59 pew research center, the future of the global muslim populationprojections for 2010-2030, (washington, d.c., 2011), 38. 60 ray jureidini, and said fares hassan, migration and islamic ethics, (boston: brill, 2020), 4. 61 tariq ramadan, western muslims and the future of islam, 53. 62ibid., 67. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii. no. 1 7 .. editorial the inaugural 2025 issue of hamdard islamicus (volume xlviii) explores islam’s adaptive role in addressing modern challenges across education, media, finance, socio-economic development, and science. featuring diverse areas of islamic studies, this collection highlights islam’s capacity to inspire dialogue and actionable solutions in a rapidly evolving world. the first article, socialisation and institutionalisation process of the moderate religious culture in indonesian madrasahs explores education’s role in nurturing religious moderation. the study reveals how indonesian madrasahs integrate tolerant values into their curricula, demonstrating that faith-based education can be a powerful bulwark against extremism. these institutions foster social cohesion and model inclusive pedagogy by harmonizing tradition with pluralistic modernity. the second article transitions to the realm of public discourse. influence of religion on pakistani mainstream media: an application of beliefs into action scale for journalists examines the delicate balance between personal religious convictions and journalistic integrity. through an innovative "beliefs into action scale," the study invites reflection on how media professionals can uphold ethical standards while navigating doctrinal fidelity, thereby fostering responsible and culturally sensitive public dialogue. the third article explores family takaful in bangladesh: operational dilemmas and remedial approaches. it dissects challenges in the islamic life insurance sector and proposes solutions to align financial mechanisms with sharê‘ah compliance while rebuilding consumer trust. complementing this, the fourth article, the effect of awqaf properties investment fund on socio-economic development in somalia, highlights how effectively managed religious endowments can drive socio-economic progress. together, these studies underscore the transformative potential of islamic finance in combating poverty, inequality, and instability through community-centric, ethical models. in the fifth article, the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én: historical contexts and contemporary scientific perspectives, a 8 editorial .. fascinating dialogue between past and present bridges exegesis and science. by unpacking historical references to metals in the holy qur’én and analysing their relevance to modern scientific paradigms, the study challenges traditional boundaries between faith and empirical inquiry, enriching our understanding of the holy qur’én as both a spiritual guide and a knowledge repository. these articles present a compelling narrative of islamic thought’s versatility and resilience. a shared commitment to ethical practice and holistic development emerges across classrooms, newsrooms, financial institutions, and scientific debates. as we navigate the rapid changes of the 21st century, this issue advocates for interdisciplinary approaches that honour tradition while embracing innovation. it challenges educators, policymakers, journalists, and community leaders to harness faithinspired frameworks not merely as academic exercises but as blueprints for equitable progress and sustainable development. may this issue inspire deeper reflection on how our collective past informs our future, paving the way for a world where tradition and modernity coexist and enrich one another. dr. shabeer khan editor hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 101 model of productive waqf policy governance for sustainable economic development: a pestel analysis approach afni regita cahyani muis department of international relations, university of darussalam gontor, indonesia. email: afniregita@unida.gontor.ac.id dr. syamsuri, m. sh department of islamic economic law, university of darussalam gontor, indonesia. email: syamsuri@unida.gontor.ac.id dr. mohammad taqiuddin department of syariah and economics, university of malaya, malaysia. email: m.taqiuddin@um.edu.my accepted on: 13-02-25 received on: 10-10-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.1190 abstract this research explores the emerging role of productive waqf as a pivotal alternative to the economic sector. focusing on indonesia and malaysia as the huge potential for improving the sharī‘ah economy, waqf is of paramount importance in developing the financial system. both countries have distinctive characteristics and policies governing the waqf, albeit they have not yet maximized productive waqf as the path to building a mechanism for a sustainable economy. thus, the research aims to delineate the challenges and opportunities inherent in developing asset empowerment as productive waqf. it employs a qualitativeexploratory approach and proposes a governance model for productive waqf policies with atlas application. the primary data was retrieved through expert-led interviews involving academics and practitioners, including the department of sharī‘ah and economics at the university of malaya and the division of nazir development and waqf management at the indonesian waqf mailto:afniregita@unida.gontor.ac.id mailto:syamsuri@unida.gontor.ac.id mailto:m.taqiuddin@um.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.1190 102 model of productive waqf … board. the research comprehensively maps the characteristics of both countries in managing waqf policies encompassing government, bureaucracy, legal systems, social and economic conditions, and environmental and technological factors. this research uses pestel (political, economic, social, technology, environment, and law) and swot (strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat) analysis. the research finds that the productive waqf is an effective governing policy model and a strategic pathway for every country to achieve sustainable economic development. keywords: model governance policy, indonesia-malaysia, productive waqf, sustainable economic development, pestel analysis. introduction ‘sustainability’ is a buzzword that is currently being discussed. the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development are being promoted and popularized by various countries 1 . the aspect of sustainability, especially in terms of development (or so-called sustainable development), is emphasized as a form of preventive effort to create inclusive development2. the effort was initiated to fulfill current development needs without compromising future generations3. as is currently being promoted, the sustainable development goals (sdgs) agenda. it includes the importance of sustainable economic development. sustainable economic development is a process of improving people's welfare through the careful use of resources4. factors to consider are generally the direction of investment, institutional reform, social equity, sustainability of the economic program, and the environment. interestingly, waqf is one of the instruments that can be addressed to achieve sustainable economic development. the enormous potential of waqf can enhance sustainable development goals, especially socio-economic development5. as part of islamic financial instruments, waqf has a functional relationship in alleviating socio-economic problems. as well as economic empowerment6, improvement of human resources, and even poverty alleviation 7 . the direction of waqf development has now led to sustainable economics based on environmental values. such as waqf forest, cash waqf link sukëk, agricultural waqf, and insurance waqf8. in the other evidence, waqf has been a strategic alternative to the islamic financial system9. generally, waqf contributes as capital to build infrastructures for public facilities. moreover, waqf could also be developed as a financial mechanism since productive waqf becomes the strategic path to creating a sustainable economy. the potential waqf for a country is greatly influenced by muslim hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 103 existence10. for example, indonesia, as the largest muslim populous country, would foster the practice of waqf11. furthermore, the scheme of productive waqf can be used as an effective solution in dealing with economic instability through debt or credit from the government. malaysia has implemented such a mechanism. malaysia's gdp ratio reached 54.47% and was allocated to the developing economic sector. it is firmly believed that providing credit embedded with sharī‘ah values through a productive waqf is a strategic mechanism12. this phenomenon is also adopted by indonesia, a country that has the most significant waqf assets, including a 440.512.89-ha land-based productive waqf consisting of 73% of religious facilities, 13.3% of educational facilities whilst the rest is for social purposes13. from a productive waqf perspective, the empowerment of existing productive waqf has contributed to a gdp of 19.4 %, with a value of up to rp 985.01 billion per month14. however, both countries are still unable to optimize their productive waqf potential due to the unintegrated and ineffective governing policy. various previous studies have also revealed that governance policy is still a problem in waqf development. waqf's development governance policy needs to be improved15. in general, the problem of waqf governance policy is about waqf management16, human resources17, regulation of waqf rules that are not yet known to the public18, and synergy by institutional roles19. these problems hamper the development of waqf assets for the achievement of sustainable development programs. whereas its development potential is enormous. if a country realizes that it has great potential for productive waqf, then the government and its people should utilize it to develop the national economy. through an effective managerial system, the productive waqf will strengthen economic development20 and boost the society’s welfare at large21. hence, nazir at waqf institutions could improve their waqf knowledge and skills through benchmarking against other waqf institutions, which have consistently implemented waqf and training and mentoring throughout the business process22. this issue persists as a significant challenge to the productive development of waqf in both countries. one of the essential pillars empowering productive waqf is the involvement of stakeholders in its implementation. if a productive waqf is community-oriented, then the mechanism for cooperation between some parties by implementing the potential of each actor becomes important23. the government must bail out the productive waqf and strengthen the mechanism by socializing it to the community24 to increase economic resilience amidst global economic 104 model of productive waqf … uncertainty 25 . since waqf regulation is universal, it can be collaborative and transformative to expand the scope of existing benefits26. therefore, this research evaluates the state of the art from the implementation of waqf in indonesia and malaysia. the integration of productive waqf governing policy with other sectors is of paramount critical for sustainable economic development. thus, the research aims to answer how to create a model of productive waqf governance as a mechanism for sustainable economic development. this research adopts a pestel analysis approach. the pestel approach is employed to identify macroeconomic factors that have an impact on the organization27 . in this case, a pestel analysis is utilized to evaluate the significance of productive waqf policy models from a multitude of interrelated perspectives, including political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal. the objective of this research is to provide recommendations regarding policies for productive waqf development in both countries. literature review sustainable economic development has been the concept of achieving sustainable development goals (sdgs) since the 1970s. edward barbier argues that the idea of sustainable economic development is historically derived from the attempt to revise the economic development consensus into a 'basic needs strategy,' including 'environmentally sustainable over the long-term, which is consistent with social values and institutions, and to encourage 'grassroots' participation in the development process.' these two articles demonstrate that the need for deep-rooted resilience efforts, consistent development, and the significance of the environment is imperative for sustainable economic development28. sustainable development is central to development agendas, policies, and schemes, including the promotion of human well-being. it has become the framework for international development programs of the sdgs. the success of sdgs depends on the contribution of the philanthropic sector, both private and public. philanthropy has a significant and indispensable role in sustainable development when it comes to the potential and significance of waqf as the third sector of the islamic economy. waqf has become an important financial instrument in sharī‘ah and development-based institutions29. it is to achieve the sdgs agendas of goal 1, 'end poverty in all its forms everywhere'; goal 8 'promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all'; goal 9 'build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation'; and goal 16 'promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 105 development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels'30. in particular, evidence indicates that waqf instruments are capable of facilitating and achieving sustainable development. as waqf implementation is to achieve sustainable development, abdullah describes the central theme of the so-called global waqf goals framework, which consists of qualitative, quantitative, financial, institutional, waqf-based developments that align with maqāṣid sharī‘ah and sdgs, religious or spiritual development, and emergency relief goals 31 . in the context of sustainable economic development, previous literature has also revealed that productive waqf plays an important role in alleviating socio-economic problems 32 , and has even led to the resolution of environmental problems. in the context of productive waqf, the conceptualization of sustainable development lies in the value and benefits of continuous production. it is not only aimed at welfare but also at increasing and expanding waqf assets33. this creates sustainable waqf assets through the sustainability of the waqf property, growing productivity, and continuous benefits. waqf, as an instrument of sustainable development, also encourages the process of transformation from a less successful situation into a productive and profitable condition. thus, the development of waqf assets can be seen through the increase of productive properties which provide sustainable benefits34. fauziah argues that productive waqf can provide a solution to the financial challenges faced by social enterprises and this represents a significant opportunity for the achievement of sustainable development goals (sdgs)35. this is supported by ali and kassim who stated that several sdgs can be supported by the development of productive waqf36. the current waqf management must keep up with the times and the economy to realize the sdgs37. habibullah, kassim, and sharofiddin also mentioned that waqf is a poverty alleviation solution tool that has a major role in economic growth and development that contributes to the improvement of society and the achievement of sdgs38. furthermore, tamimah also referred to the fact that proper management of productive waqf can help reduce economic inequality and the institution can become a reference for achieving sdgs39. furthermore, the practice of waqf in terms of islamic cultures, traditions, and religious practices is varied across countries. a wealthy nation can strengthen and support waqf practices and establish a legal framework for the development of waqf policy 106 model of productive waqf … governance in its country40. for muslim populous countries, waqf can be an instrument of social and financial systems and strengthen macroeconomic development 41 . the authors agree that waqf significantly contributes to both the country’s micro and macroeconomic development. besides economic advantages, waqf can also be a solution to addressing the country’s social issues. nevertheless, the managerial aspect of waqf to facilitate sustainable economic development continues to present a challenge42. the integrated sharī‘ah-based financial system represents an effective solution to support a country’s economic development process. the implementation of such an integrated system can be done through the islamic social finance (isf) mechanism, yet it requires a thorough and comprehensive management and distribution process to succeed in achieving sustainable economic development43. the integrated management aims to strengthen the parties involved and gain benefits from waqf practices. through this process, the value of inclusiveness, which involves and provides benefits to many parties is achievable. while many observers believe that various stakeholders are involved in the mechanism of waqf management and distribution, sukmana argues that the government, as the leading party that plays a significant role in initiating the discussions on the establishment of waqf integration model, must be actively involved in such a discourse 44 . the authors agree that the government remains the leading actor in determining waqf policies in a country. there has been considerable development in waqf practices in the past few years, which involved both non-state actors and external parties. thus, governments should consider updating waqf governance mechanisms and models to adapt to the needs and problems faced over time. several previous research results illustrate the importance of sustainable economic development. this includes the role of waqf, which so far has supported the achievement of sustainable development. especially in the area of socio-economic and environmental alleviation. nevertheless, a significant issue persists within the framework of waqf management policy. this issue is not exclusive to a particular country; rather, it is a challenge that is faced across a range of nations. thus far, alternative solutions have only considered the integration of islamic social finance instruments. this research seeks to answer the challenges of previous research by providing an alternative model of productive waqf governance policy for sustainable economic development. this research novelty addresses the issues of waqf governance policy in indonesia and malaysia, utilizing a pestel analysis approach. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 107 methodology this research utilized a qualitative exploratory approach to facilitate a more comprehensive analysis of the data and knowledge related to productive waqf in indonesia and malaysia. this study utilizes both primary and secondary data to examine the primary assertion regarding productive waqf in both countries. this is achieved through the use of fgd (focus group discussion), employing an uncontrolled quota sampling technique with experts and practitioners in the field of waqf. the fgd involves the department of sharī'ah and economics and department of business and economics university of malaya, and the division of nazhir development and wakif management, the indonesian waqf board (bwi). the secondary data is collected through several works of literature, including books on waqf obtained from the international islamic university malaysia, contemporary journal articles, government and international organization reports, and official websites. this research used discourse and narrative analysis methods using atlas.ti software to help codify and categorize data from fgds. the results of atlas.ti's visualization of analysis images can help researchers interpret the data easily45. the data is analyzed to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (swot analysis) of both countries. the authors then mapped the productive waqf mechanism by using pestel (political, economy, social, technology, environment, and legal) analysis. the final result of the analysis is a mapping of productive waqf models for sustainable economic development. result and analysis indonesia's productive waqf policy governance the implementation of waqf in indonesia has been comprehensive. it has been regulated under waqf law number 41 of 2006 concerning waqf and government regulation number 42 of 2006, in conjunction with government regulation number 25 of 201846. the waqf areas regulated under the president’s decision on waqf include the main activities of receiving, safeguarding, managing, developing, distributing, and reporting waqf assets. in addition, the decree of the ministry of religious affairs through the indonesian waqf board and regulations of the ministry of agrarian affairs and spatial planning and national development planning agency also support waqf implementation in indonesia47. in implementing waqf governance, there was a collaboration establishing waqf core principles (wcp) among stakeholders, including the indonesian waqf board, ministry of religious affairs, and indonesia central bank48. the principles of waqf governance are 108 model of productive waqf … regulated in five main areas: (1) legal foundation, (2) waqf supervision, (3) good waqf governance for nazir, (4) risk management, and (5) sharī‘ah governance. there are 29 principles in the five main areas of the wcp. the wcp is a reference document for policymakers measuring the management of waqf in legal or governmental systems. furthermore, it is also considered an adjustable policy-making guidelines49. good governance of productive waqf policy is critical following the operational complexity of nazir entities in indonesia. currently, the mobilization of waqf assets is varied ranging from immovable waqf properties, such as land, to movable ones, including money, stocks, sukëk, insurance policy, and intellectual property rights (ipr). nonetheless, nazir should mobilize the increasingly diverged waqf assets productively. waqf assets can be developed through indirect investments, such as sharī‘ah-based instruments of sukuk, deposits, mutual funds, and stocks. whereas waqf management in the real sector can be optimized by investors through direct investment of cash waqf. the ministry of religious affairs has initiated several programs to develop productive waqf, including the productive waqf incubator policy. this program aimed at increasing the utilization of the islamic economy, cultivating the improvement of productive and high economic value waqf revenues, such as waqf land50. in article 22 of waqf law no. 41 of 2004 concerning waqf, the designation of waqf assets has been explained into five main objectives; (1) religious facilities and activities, (2) educational and health facilities and activities, (3) assistance to people experiencing poverty, neglected children, orphans, and scholarships, (4) progress and improvement of the people's economy, and (5) advancement of other general welfare that does not conflict with sharī‘ah and statutory regulations51. during 2020-2023, the ministry of religious affairs implemented a productive waqf incubation program for 27 productive waqf land locations52. one of the assistants provided to nazir in this program is capital and business competence. some productive waqf program initiatives that have been successful are mini markets; the construction of workshops involving islamic boarding school students; fish cultivation; chili and corn plantations; oil palm, coffee, goat, and sheep farming; and other forms of productive business. the distribution of incubator program locations also covers indonesia. the implementation of productive waqf policy governance is challenging. the low level of readiness of nazir and stakeholders to hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 109 face the problems of low waqf literacy, low access to financial capital sources, imperfect data collection, and reporting infrastructure with regulatory harmonization and institutional remain overlap. specifically, for the results of the 2021 national waqf index measurement conducted by the indonesian waqf agency in 34 provinces of indonesia, the national judiciary index number was 0.139 in the poor category53. one of the indonesian waqf board's (bwi) efforts to maximize the implementation of waqf governance, which has been initiated with stakeholders, is the nazir certification program. the establishment of the bwi professional certification institute and the bwi education and training institute must be included in the publication of the indonesian national work competency standards (skkni) no. 47 of 2021 in the field of waqf management. skkni in the field of waqf management has 37 performance criteria 54 . the lsp bwi is currently testing 10 certification schemes at the planner and implementer levels. the scheme covers the core activities of waqf, namely the acceptance, maintenance, management and development, distribution, and financial reporting of nazir institutions. the indonesian waqf board also encourages the optimization of nazir governance arrangements and institutions by encouraging the implementation of accounting standards guideline 112 to record waqf assets, the preparation of technical notes for wcp, the official statement of mui dsn regarding waqf products, including waqf insurance policy benefits and sukuk linked waqf, the issuance of skbg sarusun provisions by the ministry of public works and public housing for the use of waqf land to build flats for low-income communities, the realization of opportunities for sharī‘ah banks as cash waqf for nazir, and the acceleration of waqf e-reporting and the waqf pledge deed/akta ikrar wakaf. waqf policy governance as an economic system in malaysia waqf governance in malaysia has a different institutional framework from indonesia, where each region or state (federal) has the authority to develop its policies, and all decisions regarding waqf policy as state regulations are under the authority of the sultan as the highest hierarchy55. in that sense, islamic affairs in federal territory are under the jurisdiction of the federal government. meanwhile, all matters related to religion and relations in malaysia are under the jurisdiction of the state, which differs from the federal system56. institutionally, malaysia has a dual legal system: civil law and sharī‘ah law. meanwhile, waqf is covered in sharī‘ah law, which regulates the wealth of muslim society, including productive waqf. starting with the establishment of jabatan waqf, zakat, and 110 model of productive waqf … hajj (jawhar) in 2004, then in 2008, the malaysian waqf foundation (ywm) was established as a government facility in the commercial aspects of waqf. this institution identifies underutilized waqf assets and plans their development in coordination with the state islamic religious council (sirc) in each state57. malaysia has 14 sircs that have legislation on religious affairs in states under the coordination of the sultan. each state is responsible for advising regulators and regulating all islamic affairs, as regulated in their respective islamic laws, including waqf issues. waqf policy in malaysia is seen from two sides, namely philanthropy and economic institutions, which have an essential influence on the socio-economic aspects of society because they provide public goods as well as for individuals 58 . waqf policy in malaysia is complementary to the economic policy reforms that shape economic freedom and realize democratization in modern muslim society. moreover, it encourages social aspects by increasing individual contributions to economic activities. selangor, negeri sembilan, melaka, johor, and perak have specific waqf administration and management laws because they place the assembly as the pinnacle of decision-makers who provide direction and decisions related to productive waqf. politically, waqf activities have a vast scope because they are aimed at social welfare. waqf can strengthen the political position of society to become more independent and independent of government regulations. however, the political atmosphere created is healthier because the government and civil society collaborate to implement waqf. in other words, waqf can be of political interest because it empowers charitable activities and community organizations59. productive waqf policy governance development model as a sustainable economic development mechanism globally, waqf still needs assistance with development and good governance. according to fiqh, the waqf mechanism is unified and universally applicable, and each country has its own waqf development policy orientation. this finding is based on the differences in government systems, demographic dynamics, and target orientation. the model for developing productive waqf policy governance, which is the finding of this study, is the state of the art of waqf policies in indonesia and malaysia in the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal (pestel) context. the findings in this study indicate that productive waqf is still something with great potential, but in terms of implementation, it has yet to reach significant figures. the hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 111 community movement towards productive waqf still needs to overcome obstacles related to its low literacy level. practic e indonesia malaysia politics the waqf development policy is centralized, by the indonesian waqf board indonesian waqf board under the ministry of religion waqf development policies are left to the federal states. sultan state islamic religious council (sirc) jabatan kemajuan islam malaysia (jakim) economy potential to develop productive waqf has the potential to empower productive waqf social involving private philanthropic agents involving community organizations technolog y making social media effective using systems for administration related to the government environm ent encouraging green waqf projects encouraging green waqf projects legal regulations and policies under the indonesian waqf board regulations and policies under sirc table 1. state of the art of indonesian and malaysian waqf policy with pestel analysis source: authors pestel analysis is a six-factor analysis that references both states to create state-of-the-art60. politically, the best practice between both states was formed because of the different characteristics of the political system and government. indonesia is a unitary republican state, while malaysia is a federal state, so both states have characteristics in policy decision-making. this is relevant to the legal sector (law) because of the existence of bureaucracy and regulation. economically, the two countries have different levels of economic growth. however, countries with an islamic majority make the islamic economic sector an alternative for sustainable economic development. the two countries have different demographic dynamics. however, they are socially based on religious factors because of their suitable concentration for economic development. meanwhile, indonesia and malaysia have tried to take advantage of the development of information technology, such as using barcodes, social media, and applications that facilitate interaction between wakif and mauquf ‘alaih. hereafter, the development of waqf in the environmental sector, green waqf, is a new project that introduces the contribution of waqf to maintain 112 model of productive waqf … ecological balance in socio-economic activities toward quality human life 61 . legally, regulations and policies are instruments that accommodate aspirations and implementation programs for developing productive waqf. the state of the art is the implementation of achieving universal waqf goals. research findings regarding the relationship between waqf and strategic sectors explain that the orientation of the waqf policy model is a universal mechanism that applies to all segments of society, including both muslim and non-muslim communities. the productive waqf mechanism, aimed at improving the financial aspects of society, is a way to improve macroeconomic aspects. the importance of waqf empowerment in the social life of society can be encouraged as a powerful aspect. in this case, the state can be the leading actor in applying waqf as a state economic policy. thus, the state of the art can be analyzed by swot analysis, which identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats from both states with the following details: 1. strength, the government is still the leading actor, causing productive waqf policy governance more effectively. 2. weakness, productive waqf still needs to be better implemented in both countries equally. 3. opportunities, research, and development in productive waqf are concentrating on implementing a sharī‘ah economy as it recovers. 4. threat, it is not easy to spread an economy with islamic values and principles because of the dominance of the conventional economy. according to the evaluation of swot, to create an effective waqf productive environment, the model is created based on pestel analysis as follows: hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 113 figure 1. model of productive waqf policy with pestel analysis source: authors figure 2. pestel analysis integration to atlas application source: authors p ro d u ct iv e w a q f p o lic y m o d e l politics effective upstream and downstream bureaucrats build good waqf governance (gwg) economy optimizing the use of waqf management results for mauquf 'alaih (indicators of economic welfare and justice) social empowering community organizations in identifying mauquf 'alaih technology applications that facilitate interaction between wakif and nadzir; and social media as a disseminator of information environment green waqf mechanism legal strengthening regulation of productive waqf development through central and regional government policies 114 model of productive waqf … this model is recommended to make productive waqf policy governance effective according to the following six factors: 1. politics. politics is a core area for creating good governance, which is applied through governance and government policies. policy governance as an object and the government as a subject becomes power tools in providing macro influence, including facilitators, regulators, and mobilizers to society. the efforts that need to be made is: a) regulations and policies: government policies that support the development of waqf productive play an essential role. in indonesia and malaysia, clear and supportive regulations can encourage public participation and investment in waqf. for example, the indonesian waqf board and similar institutions in malaysia play a role in regulating and facilitating waqf management. b) political stability: political stability also affects public and investor confidence in waqf management. political uncertainty can hinder public participation in waqf. 2. economy. the economy is the core area for realizing a productive waqf financial mechanism 62 . the mechanisms established by sharī‘ah apply universally. this also encourages economic diplomacy as a form of expanding productivity and the effectiveness of productive waqf between countries. the efforts that need to be made are: a) economic conditions: good economic growth can increase public awareness and participation in waqf. conversely, poor economic conditions may reduce people's ability to contribute to waqf. b) economic infrastructure: the availability of good infrastructure, such as a supportive banking and financial system, can facilitate the effective management and distribution of waqf funds. 3. social. social welfare is the core field that drives community organizations and is aimed at community welfare as an object in achieving social justice, equitable development, and economic efficiency. the efforts that need to be made are: a) public awareness: the level of public awareness about the importance of waqf and its benefits for social development greatly affects participation. good education and socialization can increase community participation in waqf. b) cultural values: the culture and values of a society also play a role in waqf management. in countries with a strong tradition of waqf, people tend to participate more actively. 4. technology. technology is a supporting field or device that facilitates and makes productive waqf performance more effective, such as digitizing information to facilitate productive hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 115 waqf practices and research and development activities. the efforts that need to be made are: a) technological innovation: the use of technology in waqf management, such as digital platforms for donations and transparency, can improve efficiency and community participation. technology can also be used to promote sustainable waqf projects. b) technology accessibility: access to good information and communication technology is essential to increase community participation in waqf. 5. environment. environment is a supporting field that connects productive waqf to sustainable development63. the community organizations most likely to mobilize productive waqf are islamic boarding schools (pesantren) and islamic organizations (ormas). the efforts that need to be made are: a) project sustainability: green-based waqf projects that focus on environmental sustainability, such as organic farming or renewable energy, can provide long-term benefits to society and the environment. b) environmental impact: waqf management should consider the environmental impact of the projects undertaken, to ensure that they do not harm the ecosystem. 6. legal. legal is an instrument that contains laws or regulations in decision-making activities, policy governance, and political influence. the efforts that need to be made are: a) legal framework: the existence of a clear legal framework that supports waqf management is essential. good regulations can provide legal certainty for nazirs and waqifs. b) law enforcement: effective law enforcement is also important to ensure that waqf management is conducted in a transparent and accountable manner. according to research findings, the productive waqf policy governance model forms six factors (pestel) as areas that synergize and are integrated. it is therefore crucial for the government and relevant institutions to consider all these factors when formulating waqf management policies and strategies. this considers the implications of one field and the other. it becomes a conducive climate if it can be harmoniously applied to a policy governance model. if analyzed more deeply, the elements in the pestel factor are related to each other: political and economic: government (political) policies that support the development of waqf can create a better economic climate. for instance, if the government issues regulations that facilitate waqf management, this can attract more investment and public participation in waqf, which in turn can boost economic growth. economic and social: good economic conditions can 116 model of productive waqf … increase public awareness and participation in waqf. when people feel more economically prosperous, they tend to be more willing to contribute to waqf programs. conversely, if economic conditions are poor, people may be more focused on their basic needs and less interested in participating in waqf. social and technology: increased public awareness of waqf can be encouraged through the use of technology. for instance, digital platforms that facilitate donations and transparency in waqf management can increase community participation. conversely, if society does not have access to or understanding of technology, they may not be able to participate effectively in waqf programs. technology and the environment: technology can be used to develop environmentally sustainable waqf projects. for example, green technology can be applied in sustainability-focused waqf projects, such as organic farming or renewable energy. however, if the technology is not applied properly, the projects may not achieve the desired sustainability goals. legal and political: a strong and clear legal framework can support government policies in waqf management. if existing regulations are unsupportive or overly complex, this may hinder the implementation of good policies. conversely, good policies can encourage regulatory reform to create a more enabling environment for waqf management. economy and law: economic stability can be affected by legal certainty. if there is legal certainty in waqf management, investors and the public will have more confidence to participate. conversely, legal uncertainty can discourage investment and public participation in waqf, which in turn can affect economic growth. the relationship between these pestel factors suggests that productive waqf management cannot be viewed in isolation, but rather as part of a larger system where each element influences and contributes to the success or failure of productive waqf development. therefore, a holistic and integrated approach is required to optimize the potential of productive waqf in achieving sustainable economic development goals. conclusions and recommendations the significance of the productive waqf policy model is as an alternative financial instrument for a country to achieve sustainable economic development. this research shows that the integration of productive waqf policies with other sectors is crucial to creating a significant impact on people's welfare. through pestel analysis, this research identifies various factors that influence waqf development, including political, economic, social, hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 117 technological, environmental, and legal aspects. examining through pestel analysis, strengthening productive waqf governance policy is critical for each country to improve its economic quality. thus, the productive waqf policy model is an application of the international political economy, which involves either state or non-state actors. the research recommendations resulting from this study include several important points to improve productive waqf management and support sustainable economic development in indonesia and malaysia: a) improved policies and regulations: the government needs to update and develop waqf-related policies and regulations to ensure that they are relevant to the needs of society and the challenges faced today. this includes improving people's understanding of waqf and the regulations that govern it. b) integration of islamic social finance system: the development of an integrated islamic social finance system is needed to facilitate the effective management and distribution of waqf. this will assist in achieving sustainable development goals and increase inclusiveness in waqf practices, c) stakeholder engagement: encourage the involvement of various stakeholders, including the government, private institutions, and the community, in waqf management. cooperation between these parties is essential to create an effective and sustainable mechanism. for future research, it is necessary to identify further research to explore the impact of productive waqf governance policies on economic and social development, as well as to identify best practices that can be adopted in other countries. this is because this research is only limited to the case of indonesia and malaysia. notes and references 1 ursula werther-pietsch, “the impact of sdgs on international law a nucleus of a right to peace?,” austrian journal of political science 47, no. 1 (2018): 17–28, https://doi.org/10.15203/ozp.1895.vol47iss1; jian liu et al., “the role of sustainable development goals to eradicate the multidimensional energy poverty and improve social wellbeing’s,” energy strategy reviews 42, no. may (2022): 100885, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2022.100885. 2 angela delli paoli and felice addeo, “assessing sdgs: a methodology to measure sustainability,” athens journal of social sciences 6, no. 3 (2019): 229–50, https://doi.org/10.30958/ajss.6-3-4; s godfrey, “validation of the unicef fiscal diagnostic tool for sdgs 6.1 and 6.2 in east and southern africa using the analytical hierarchy process (ahp),” journal of water sanitation and hygiene for development 12, no. 10 (2022): 721–36, https://doi.org/10.2166/washdev.2022.098. 3 osman gulseven, “measuring achievements towards sdg 14, life below water, in the united arab emirates,” marine policy 117, no. april (2020): 103972, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103972; shaoyang liu, jianjun bai, and jun chen, “measuring sdg 15 at the county scale: localization and practice of sdgs indicators based on geospatial information,” isprs international journal of geoinformation 8, no. 11 (2019): 515, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi8110515. 4 edward b. barbier, “the concept of sustainable economic development,” environmental conservation 14, no. 2 (june 1987): 101–10, 118 model of productive waqf … https://doi.org/10.1017/s0376892900011449; salvo creaco and giulio querini, “the role of tourism in sustainable economic development,” in 43rd congress of the european regional science association, 2003. 5 basar dikuraisyin, “manajemen aset wakaf berbasis kearifan lokal dengan pendekatan sosio-ekonomi di lembaga wakaf sabilillah malang,” ziswaf : jurnal zakat dan wakaf 7, no. 2 (2020); rusdi hamka lubis and fitri nur latifah, “analisis strategi pengembangan zakat, infaq, shadaqoh dan wakaf di indonesia,” perisai : islamic banking and finance journal 3, no. 1 (2019): 45–56, https://doi.org/10.21070/perisai.v3i1.1999; ana indah lestari, “revitalisasi wakaf untuk kemaslahatan umat,” ziswaf : jurnal zakat dan wakaf 4, no. 1 (2018): 55, https://doi.org/10.21043/ziswaf.v4i1.3031; ascarya and ugi suharto, “integrated islamic social and commercial finance to achieve sdgs,” in islamic wealth and the sdgs: global strategies for socio-economic impact, 2021, 105–27, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65313-2_6. 6 mochammad arif budiman, “the significance of waqf for economic development,” equilibrium 2, no. 1 (june 2014): 19–34, https://ssrn.com/abstract=2995473electroniccopyavailableat:https://ssrn.com/abstra ct=2995473. 7 syamsuri and khoirul umam, “waqf as a solution to the challenges of globalization,” al-iktisab: journal of islamic economic law 7, no. 1 (2023): 1–25. 8 khairunnisa musari, “integrating green sukuk and cash waqf linked sukuk , the blended islamic finance of fiscal instruments in indonesia : a proposed model for fighting climate change khairunnisa musari,” international journal of islamic khazanah 12, no. 2 (2022): 133–44, https://doi.org/10.15575/ijik.v12i2.17750; vika annisa qurrata et al., “blue waqf framework for blue forest sustainability: a conceptual framework,” kne social sciences 2024 (2024): 398–407, https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v9i4.15088; adzidah yaakob et al., “waqf as a means of forest conservation: alternative for malaysia,” advanced science letters 23, no. 5 (2017): 4860–64, https://doi.org/10.1166/asl.2017.8928; endang sriani, “analisis filosofis terhadap fatwa dsn mui no. 106 tahun 2016 tentang wakaf manfaat asuransi dan manfaat investasi pada asuransi jiwa syari’ah,” iqtisad: reconstruction of justice and welfare for indonesia 8, no. 2 (2021): 165, https://doi.org/10.31942/iq.v8i2.5624. 9 m. kabir hassan, mustafa raza rabbani, and yomna abdulla, “socioeconomic impact of covid-19 in mena region and the role of islamic finance,” international journal of islamic economics and finance (ijief) 4, no. 1 (2021): 51– 78, https://doi.org/10.18196/ijief.v4i1.10466. 10 muneer m. alshater et al., “a bibliometric review of the waqf literature,” eurasian economic review 12, no. 2 (june 1, 2022): 213–39, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40822-021-00183-4. 11 mutiara, irfan syauqi beik, and aslam mei nur widigdo, “nazir management improvement and regulation adjustments to increase waqf land productivity,” 2021. 12 azniza hartini azrai azaimi ambrose, mohamed aslam, and hanira hanafi, “the possible role of waqf in ensuring a sustainable malaysian federal government debt,” procedia economics and finance 31 (2015): 333–45, https://doi.org/10.1016/s2212-5671(15)01205-8. 13 pusat kajian dan transformasi digital badan wakaf indonesia, “laporan indeks wakaf nasional 2021” (jakarta, 2022). 14 muhammad afdi nizar, “development of productive waqf in indonesia: potential and problems,” munich personal repec archive , october 30, 2017, https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/97967/. 15 abdur rohman and mohammad ali hisyam, “construction of waqf istibdal regulations for empowering non productive waqf in indonesia,” atlantis press: riau annual meeting on law and social sciences (ramlas 2019) 442 (2020): 134– 37; nursyahida zulkifli et al., “a systematic literature review on waqf governance” 19, no. 4 (2022): 31–42; mutiara, beik, and widigdo, “nazir hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 119 management improvement and regulation adjustments to increase waqf land productivity.” 16 muhammad shahrul ifwat ishak and muhammad huzaifah kamaruddin, “heritage conservation through public donation in malaysia: a potential for islamic crowdfunding,” the journal of management theory and practice (jmtp) 2, no. 3 (2021): 10–16, https://doi.org/10.37231/jmtp.2020.2.3.170; dikuraisyin, “manajemen aset wakaf berbasis kearifan lokal dengan pendekatan sosioekonomi di lembaga wakaf sabilillah malang.” 17 ratih winarsih, atika rukminastiti masrifah, and khoirul umam, “the integration of islamic commercial and social economy through productive waqf to promote pesantren welfare,” journal of islamic monetary economics and finance 5, no. 2 (2019): 321–40, https://doi.org/10.21098/jimf.v5i2.1065. 18 ibrahim mohammed lawal and jiddah m.a. ajayi, “the role of islamic social finance towards alleviating the humanitarian crisis in north-east nigeria,” jurnal perspektif pembiayaan dan pembangunan daerah 6, no. 5 (2019): 545–58, https://doi.org/10.22437/ppd.v6i5.6508. 19 a. w. ainol-basirah and a. k. siti-nabiha, “accountability in waqf institutions: a meta-narrative review,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 14, no. 1 (2023): 181–201, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-12-2021-0326; t julia, a m noor, and s kassim, “islamic social finance and sustainable finance to minimize post harvesting food losses in indonesia,” journal of islamic finance 9, no. 2 (2020): 119–128. 20 doli witro, ike yulisa, and ali hamzah, “management of productive waqf in islamic boarding school foundation adlnyah tampus ujung gading lembah melintang district,” mahkamah: jurnal kajian hukum islam 5, no. 1 (june 2020): 92–103. 21 budiman, “the significance of waqf for economic development.” 22 wildan munawar and m arief mufraini, “productive waqf, economic empowerment, and public welfare: evidence from benefit recipients at daarut tauhiid waqf institution,” inferensi: jurnal penelitian sosial keagamaan 15, no. 1 (may 31, 2021): 1–24, https://doi.org/10.18326/infsl3.v15i1.1-24. 23 ajeng wahyu puspitasari, “optimizing productive land waqf towards farmers prosperity,” journal of indonesian applied economics 6, no. 1 (2017): 103–12. 24 hardianti yusuf, “management and utilization of productive waqf in empowering community’s economy,” al-bayyinah 4, no. 1 (2020): 36–51, https://doi.org/10.35673/al-bayyinah.v4i1.646. 25 rudy catur rohman kusmayadi and ririn noviyanti, “the impact of productive waqf during the covid-19 pandemic (case study of waqf organizer at wandanpuro bululawang),” iqtishodia: jurnal ekonomi syariah 6, no. 1 (2021): 23–28, https://doi.org/10.35897/iqtishodia.v6i1.355. 26 raditya sukmana, “critical assessment of islamic endowment funds (waqf) literature: lesson for government and future directions,” heliyon 6, no. 10 (october 1, 2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05074. 27 wei pan, le chen, and wenting zhan, “pestel analysis of construction productivity enhancement strategies : a case pestel analysis of construction productivity enhancement strategies : a case study of three economies,” journal of management in engineering 35, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)me.1943-5479.0000662; r gonzález ortega et al., “neutrosophic sets and systems pestel analysis based on neutrosophic cognitive maps and neutrosophic numbers for the sinos river basin management pestel analysis based on neutrosophic cognitive maps and neutrosophic numbers for the sinos river basin manage” 26 (2019); marina gregorić, “pestel analysis of tourism destinations in the perspective of business tourism ( mice ),” tourism and hospitality industry, 2014, 551–65. 28 barbier, “the concept of sustainable economic development.” 29 mohammad abdullah, “waqf, sustainable development goals (sdgs) and maqasid al-shariah,” international journal of social economics 45, no. 1 (2018): 158–72, https://doi.org/10.1108/ijse-10-2016-0295. 120 model of productive waqf … 30 undp, “sustainable development goals industry, innovation and infrastructure,” august 12, 2022, https://www.undp.org/sustainable-developmentgoals/industry-innovation-andinfrastructure?gclid=cj0kcqjwxucnbhdlarisabcq1ryzuivxh2yorjrvdzozobde-jnfjlcofzsx3hrujhugvk0cpfbrnkaasaealw_wcb. 31 r. m. qudsi fauzi et al., “the challenges of empowering waqf land in indonesia: an analytical network process analysis,” international journal of ethics and systems 38, no. 3 (june 30, 2022): 426–42, https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoes-03-20210061; abdullah, “waqf, sustainable development goals (sdgs) and maqasid alshariah.” 32 magda mohsin abdel mohsin, “waqfintech and sustainable socio-economic development,” international journal of management and applied research 6, no. 3 (2019): 130–41, https://doi.org/10.18646/2056.63.19-009; m. kabir hassan, nurul meirama irsyan, and aishath muneeza, “the potential of waqf-blended finance using crowdfunding in indonesia,” international journal of islamic thought 24, no. 1 (2023): 72–99, https://doi.org/10.24035/ijit.24.2023.271; fahmi medias et al., “a systematic literature review on the socio-economic roles of waqf: evidence from organization of the islamic cooperation (oic) countries,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 13, no. 1 (2021): 177–93, https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-01-2021-0028; alshater et al., “a bibliometric review of the waqf literature.” 33 muhamad subhi apriantoro and sendy septianozakia, “the potential of productive waqf: research stream and future direction,” pakistan journal of life and social sciences (pjlss) 22, no. 1 (2024): 1291–1306, https://doi.org/10.57239/pjlss-2024-22.1.0087; ascarya, muhamad nadratuzzaman hosen, and siti rahmawati, “designing simple productive waqf models for indonesia,” international journal of ethics and systems, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoes-07-2020-0101. 34 surita hartini mat hassan et al., “sustainable development of endowment (waqf) properties,” international journal of innovation, creativity and change 13, no. 4 (2020): 1135–50, www.ijicc.net. 35 najim nur fauziah, “developing cash waqf model as an alternative financing for social enterprises to support decent work and economic growth in indonesia” 8 (n.d.): 195–217, https://doi.org/10.26414/a2759. 36 khalifah muhammad ali and salina kassim, “waqf forest : how waqf can play a role in forest preservation and sdgs achievement?,” etikonomi: jurnal ekonomi 19, no. 2 (2020): 349–64, https://doi.org/10.15408/etk.v19i2.16310. 37 siti sara ibrahim, “waqf integrated income generating model ( wiigm ) for enhancing sustainable development goals ( sdgs ) in malaysia : an evaluation of behavioural intention,” international journal of ethics and systems, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoes-02-2022-0030. 38 mohammad habibullah, salina hj kassim, and ashurov sharofiddin, “waqf management for poverty alleviation in bangladesh towards achieving sustainable development goals,” journal of pharmaceutical negative results 13, no. 10 (2022): 3149–55, https://doi.org/10.47750/pnr.2022.13.s10.378. 39 tamimah, “model pengelolaan wakaf uang di lembaga sinergi foundation dalam mencapai sdgs ( sustainable development goals ),” filantropi: jurnal manajemen zakat dan wakaf 2, no. 1 (2021): 77–91. 40 m. kabir hassan et al., “islamic microfinance: a bibliometric review,” global finance journal 49 (august 1, 2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfj.2021.100651; trisno wardy putra et al., “productive waqf development model: a comparative study between indonesia and malaysia,” tifbr: tazkia islamic finance and business review 17, no. 1 (2023): 13–35. 41 ali ashraf, m. kabir hassan, and william j hippler, “performance of microfinance institutions in muslim countries,” humanomics 30, no. 2 (2013): 162–82; mohamed el-komi and rachel croson, “experiments in islamic microfinance,” hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 121 journal of economic behavior and organization 95 (november 2013): 252–69, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2012.08.009; farra munna harun et al., “issues and economic role of waqf in higher education institution: malaysian experience,” aliqtishad: jurnal ilmu ekonomi syariah (journal of islamic economics) 8, no. 1 (january 2016): 149–68; raditya sukmana, anwar allah pitchay, and mohamad isa abd jalil, “comparison of government and private based waqf institutions management: case study of indonesia and malaysia,” labuan e-journal of muamalat & society 15, no. october (2021): 25–37, https://jurcon.ums.edu.my/ojums/index.php/ljms/article/view/3479. 42 tika widiastuti et al., “developing an integrated model of islamic social finance: toward an effective governance framework,” heliyon 8, no. 9 (september 1, 2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10383. 43 abdullah, “waqf, sustainable development goals (sdgs) and maqasid alshariah”; fauzi et al., “the challenges of empowering waqf land in indonesia: an analytical network process analysis.” 44 sukmana, “critical assessment of islamic endowment funds (waqf) literature: lesson for government and future directions.” 45 sungsoo hwang, “utilizing qualitative data analysis software : a review of atlas.ti,” sage publication: social science computer review 26, no. 4 (2008), https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439307312485; roberto franzosi et al., “quantitative narrative analysis software options compared: pc-ace and caqdas (atlas.ti, maxqda, and nvivo),” springer 47 (2012): 3219–47, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-012-9714-3; tabitha hart and p e g achterman, “qualitative analysis software ( atlas . ti / ethnograph / maxqda / nvivo ),” the international encyclopedia of communication research method, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0194. 46 rohman and hisyam, “construction of waqf istibdal regulations for empowering non productive waqf in indonesia.” 47 miftahul jannah, azila ahmad sarkawi, and jamilah othman, “legalization of waqf forests in indonesia: the registration process,” indonesia law review 10, no. 3 (2020): 278–93, https://doi.org/10.15742/ilrev.v10n3.629. 48 muhammad ramadhan, “analysis of the implementation of the waqf core principles on institutional financial performance waqf in tanjungbalai , north sumatera,” international journal of financial, accounting, and management (ijfam) 6, no. 1 (2024): 151–64. 49 sigit priyanto, “interview by afni regita cahyani muis. march 10,” 2023. 50 hendri tanjung et al., “waqf core principles implementation index in dompet dhuafa foundation in 2022,” in proceedings of the 2nd ibn khaldun international conference on applied and social sciences (iicass 2024) (atlantis press sarl, 2024), https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-299-6. 51 priyanto, “interview by afni regita cahyani muis. march 10.” 52 irfan syauqi beik, “memperkuat kolaborasi zakat dan wakaf,” badan wakaf indonesia, august 12, 2021, https://www.bwi.go.id/6928/2021/05/27/memperkuatkolaborasi-zakat-dan-wakaf/. 53 priyanto, “interview by afni regita cahyani muis. march 10.” 54 ibid. 55 yaakob et al., “waqf as a means of forest conservation: alternative for malaysia.” 56 mohammad taqiuddin, “interview by afni regita cahyani muis. march 10,” 2023. 57 ibid. 58 putra et al., “productive waqf development model: a comparative study between indonesia and malaysia.” 59 taqiuddin, “interview result by afni regita cahyani muis with mohammad taqiuddin. march 10.” 60 gregorić, “pestel analysis of tourism destinations in the perspective of business tourism ( mice )”; pan, chen, and zhan, “pestel analysis of construction productivity enhancement strategies : a case 122 model of productive waqf … pestel analysis of construction productivity enhancement strategies : a case study of three economies.” 61 salwa athaya syamila and lu’liyatul mutmainah, “green waqf: wakaf sebagai solusi perbaikan alam dan kemandirian energi,” wacids, 2021; irfan sauqy beik, green waqf framework. united nations development programme (undp) (badan wakaf indonesia, 2022); musari, “integrating green sukuk and cash waqf linked sukuk , the blended islamic finance of fiscal instruments in indonesia : a proposed model for fighting climate change khairunnisa musari.” 62 taufik faturohman et al., “the potential role of islamic social finance in the time of covid-19 pandemic,” review of integrative business and economics research 10, no. 1 (2021): 95–105; syamsuddin arif et al., “existence of waqf in enhancing of indonesia financial stability in era industrial revolution 4.0: a conceptual design,” east african scholars journal of economics, business and management 4464, no. 12 (2019): 744–53. 63 hari candra, “bridging islamic economics and environmental conservation: an investigation into the financial viability of waqf forest,” in icfbb: international conference on finance business and banking, vol. 19, 2016, 1–23; annisa qurrata et al., “blue waqf framework for blue forest sustainability: a conceptual framework”; yaakob et al., “waqf as a means of forest conservation: alternative for malaysia.” hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 35 the culture of deliberation in muslim society and the challenge of mutual respect among cultures: social and political perspectives hari zamharir department of political science, universitas nasional, jakarta, indonesia email: nurulmustaffa4@gmail.com sahruddin lubis department of political science, universitas nasional, jakarta, indonesia email: sahruddin.lubis@civitas.unas.ac.id beny aprius researcher, ahad media komunika, tangerang city, banten, indonesia email: benyaprius@yahoo.com received on: 23-01-23 accepted on: 19-12-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.717 abstract the paper makes a brief account of what h.a.r. gibb said was the historic and decisive event in achieving consensus —the classical practice used in deciding the succession of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) employing the procedure of alshëra or deliberation or consultation in the seventh century ce, the success of democratically electing the leader of the new emerging muslim society. the paper explores several further cases of the more institutionalized culture of deliberation among the (sunni) muslim society across the socio-cultural changes from the medieval centuries up to the present day world, in multi-cultural societies. deliberation is roughly of two types—democratic and undemocratic as in the chinese political system. the concepts used include al-mawardi’s ahl ×all wal ‘aqd (ahwa) —first suggested in the 10th century ce and fully developed some three hundred years later. the concept emerged in connection with the mechanism of electing the chief executive officer (ceo) in state governments which needed deliberation of ahwa’s members (those who are qualified to act on behalf of the muslim community mailto:nurulmustaffa4@gmail.com mailto:sahruddin.lubis@civitas.unas.ac.id mailto:benyaprius@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.717 36 the culture of deliberation … in electing a caliph). the study is based on secondary data gathered from books and articles. the paper aims to contribute to “reinventing democratic deliberation” in the past for better understanding the contemporary trend to move towards deliberation in democratic politics—which also gives positive impact to develop mutual respect among multi-cultural societies. the main finding of the study is that there is a significant spread of deliberation in politics and governments among muslims societies in the countries under study. keywords: al-shëra, deliberation, political theory, muslims society, multi-cultural societies introduction generally, while common people across the world, would perceive the concept of tolerance as accepting peaceful co-existence and multi-cultural differences; some thinkers and leaders may not know what makes “tolerance” differ from “mutual respect”: bernard lewis1 a notable intellectual, once expressed his view about what is the right word instead of “tolerance”. “tolerance is of course, an extremely intolerant idea, because it means ‘i am the boss: i will allow you some, though not all of the rights i will enjoy as long you behave yourself according to standards that i shall determine...”. lewis related an incident: “at the meeting of jews, christians and muslims in vienna some years ago the cardinal archbishop franz könig spoke of tolerance, and i couldn’t resist quoting (george) washington to him, he replied “you are right. i shall no more speak of tolerance. i shall speak of mutual respect”. lewis here refers to the famous letter written by washington in 1790 to the hebrew congregation in newport, rhode island, describing his view of religious liberty: “the citizens of the united states of america have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. all possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. it is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. for happily the government of the united states, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support”2. for diverse societies in order to be able to arrive at the sense of mutual respects, it is essential that we do interaction and communication supportive to this end. a basic ingredient of these two things above is deliberation. in the context of muslim society, deliberation is al-shëra ---a value made mandatory in the holy qur’én — as had been done when deciding the prophet’s succession hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 37 to abu bakar (raìi allah ‘anhu). h.a.r. gibb calls this event the first historic and most decisive exercise of ijma‘”3. the consensus was arrived after negotiation, debate and deliberation was done by an elite of madinah (al-anîar) and the elite from muhéjirên; this is in modern term called elite deliberation. the consensus was made possible as the party from al-anîar accepted the argument that was based on hadiths of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) concerning qualification for leadership. such an elite deliberation took place at the point of an abrupt historical change, the death of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and the days of mourning of the newly emerging muslim ummah. having been informed that the citizens in the city of madinah held a meeting to elect a new leader, three most senior and honorable elites led by ‘umar ibn khaïïéb (raìi allah ‘anhu) hurried to the venue, interrupted and joined the session. it may be claimed that the meeting was then moving to the right direction, resulting in a better choice that fulfilled the terms and conditions. this first ijma‘ or consensus, succeeded in maintaining the unity of the new muslim society and polity—the ummah that was in its early stage of formation. though other claims may consider the event as the first controversy over electing/appointing a leader for muslim ummah, our claim at least follow h.a.r. gibb’s account. still, within the framework of teaching of islam, ikhtiléf (the acceptance of variants in perceiving islamic doctrines), i.e. respecting the others’ views is also important. nachi’s notion of ikhtiléf recognizes “diversity in order to preserve unity at the heart of the community…in peter abelard’s term, this is called unity in diversity, or diversa non adversa”4. “shëra or deliberation in a series of explanations is always associated with a discussion of consensus.”5. while the significance of deliberation is valued both in politics and social affairs, political deliberation remains prominent. more than that, democratic deliberation is certainly preferable to those which are un-democratic. while deliberative democracy has currently been theorized, the “status” of deliberative democracy is frequently misunderstood—as though “replacing” the existing theories—as in the case of wowor’s proposition6. he contends that as a response to current politics in indonesia—whereby pluralism has also been adopted, along with influences of postmodernism— deliberative democracy is the alternative to existing democratic practice. actually, this theory is not an alternative to some already existing theories; rather, its prime value is that it tries to make democracy work. this value is very likely applicable not only to politics in the context of liberal democracy in established democratic nations but also to politics within what fareed zakaria terms illiberal 38 the culture of deliberation … democracy7. also, it includes theoretical perspectives in the way alshëra or deliberation is implemented, the way “local” democracy is practiced. in addition, the value gives reasonable grounds to re-invent illiberal democracy such as democracy’s dharma in taiwan and the gotong royong democracy in indonesia. the paper seeks to make an account of the significance of the practice shëra or deliberation as the legacy of muslim society—the practice that emanated from the quranic teaching about the mandate to perform shëra in carrying matters; the practice that evolves beginning in the seventh century ce until the modern times practiced by diverse muslim societies across the globe thereby forming culture of deliberation. above all, the grand norm is the verse of the holy qur’én, demanding that “o you who believe, obey allah and obey the messenger and those in authority among you” (al-qur’én 4: 59). the concept “culture” has a general meaning, namely values and norms that have been internalized and manifested in actions performed by given segments of a society from time to time. the first part of our efforts will be to trace the classical legacy of “deliberative democracy” practiced by elites of the newly emerging muslim society in the seventh century ce—elites who were then followed by some proportion of all muslims. a brief discussion of the teachings of the political thinker almawardi (974–1058 ce) is also included. his political thought emerged after some three hundred years after the seventh century practice. he told that the ideal model of deliberating on (political) matters is emanating from, and implementing allah almighty’s command in the holy qur’én. the second part presents historical facts that touch upon the theme: from the 10th century onward, including al-shëra’s further impacts on the practice of deliberation among multi-cultural societies in contemporary indonesia. it is our hope that this paper would be of some value to developing discourse on ideas of multiculturalism and on respecting other societies. one of the great leaps in the efforts of promoting to develop mutual respects has been done by the late professor azyumardi azra (1955–2022). we realize that this work is limited to cases of deliberation picked from the history of a few nations across the “muslim world”. cases taken from multicultural societies, such as a country like uk would certainly contribute to further studies on this subject. methods of the study the paper, based on secondary data and analysis gathered from articles of scholars, seeks to pay more attention to the original practice of shëra or deliberation by the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 39 aîíébihi wa øallam)’s companions (raìi allah ‘anhum); “avoiding” to a greater degree the theoretical traps of the term of ahlul ×all wal ‘aqd (ahwa) coined by the notable scholar, almawardi, who developed his thought three hundred years later. the chosen measure of “democratic” is the extent of participation in the elections by comparatively elites compared to that by other citizens; this parameter also applies in identifying democratic politics of athens in classical greece in about 500 bce— in which elites in power were among the rich; or among the nobility, only men were participating, and only citizens living in the city. the method used in the analysis is descriptive analysis8 to find the various practices of deliberation in muslim societies through socio-cultural transformations from time to time. in order to grasp the very idea al-shëra, understanding texts and contexts is a necessity, especially “…understanding the message of the holy qur’én as a divine instrument which provides the right moral and ethical values for human action”9. those denying al mawardi’s theory of the caliph in which the concept ahwa is paramount, may be inclined to undermine the practice of the 6th and 7th century ce application of al-shëra. as a matter of fact, al-mawardi’s term of ahwa is one thing—which can be discussed or criticized, but the practice of shëra in its origin in the sixth/seventh century ce is another thing. throughout this paper, the focus of the study is on reconstructing the idea of shëra or deliberation from its original practice—not necessarily confined to a theory of the caliph. the original practice was certainly the practice by the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam); the paper begins the study on the practice of shëra after the death of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) given the task of the ummah to have the successor to the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). after tracing its original form, the paper follows the development of the practice of deliberation and shows its relation to mutual respect among cultures in multi-cultural societies. literature review deliberation is roughly of two types—democratic as theorized by the advocates of deliberative democracy in the west and found in a few practices of contemporary taiwan’s consensus conference, or democracy’s dharma, the participatory democracy of chavez’s venezuela, and the path to deliberative diplomacy of scandinavian nations10. there is, also, a non-democratic type such as in the chinese political system11. of the democratic type, deliberation based on ‘édat (customary law) exists among a sub-culture across indonesia— kerapatan nagari (village-level sessions within ‘édat 40 the culture of deliberation … system of authority) in minang culture in west sumatra, subak irrigation system in bali, and java’s rembug desa (village-level deliberation)12. deliberation is culture-bound in any given society; deliberation in a muslim society is from the grand norm mandatory from the holy qur’én —covering general course of actions, not just politics, whereas from the sociological perspective deliberation is applied in the framework of societal development—from traditional societies to modern, from monarchy’s political system to democracy. deliberation in democratic theory evolves from pure rationality to acceptance of non-rational dimensions in communication: for 1st generation (habermas and dryzek)13, deliberation is communication that is purely rational; for 2nd14 non-rational as complex reality: fusing rational communication with practical requirements whereby forms of communication other than reason should be included15; and the 3rd generation, when institutionalization takes place dealing with practical procedures and putting concepts into values. within the 3rd generation, deliberative democracy is institutionalized in two (2) levels: in micro level, the characteristics are structured sessions, impartial participants, at a certain place and time, and within the state. whereas in macro level, the main features are unstructured, discursive for eventually formulating opinion, civil society vis-a-vis state15. and most currently, owen and smith (2015) mentions the deliberative democracy in terms of system: discourse on deliberative system theory—the thing that indicates that owen’s and smith’s idea was in fact implicit in the book of habermas16 “between facts and norms: contribution to a discourse theory of law and democracy”. he claimed that there has been a gradual shift from bourgeois type of democracy in industrial nations to a more deliberative, egalitarian one. also, it is habermas’s contention that inclusion of religious ideas in public discourse is justified. the evidence was habermas’s intense discussions with some leaders of churches in rome in 2007. one of the key concepts and terms is capacity to deliberate. owen and smith discuss this as follow: “many crucial features of a political system depend on the capacity of citizens to deliberate to produce the perspectives, claims, narratives and reasons on which the decision-makers depend, the capacity of citizens to select good decision‐ makers, and the capacity of those decision-makers to deliberate cogently”17 in consonant with al-mawardi’s term of ahlul ×all wal ‘aqd (ahwa)—developed in the 10th century ce the capacity to deliberate in deliberative democratic theory would play a crucial position. al-mawardi is institutionalizing al-shëra as a mechanism to elect chief executive officers (ceo) in state governments; it conveys qualification of ahwa members which includes capacity to hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 41 deliberate— resulting from their high competence and credibility to handle public matters. high personal qualities of ahwa members are more than the standards what aristotle prescribed in ~350 bce as high level of good citizens—temperance, justice, courage, and wisdom18. the 10th century ce conceptualizing of al-shëra was the scholarly work of al-mawardi. the classical alshëra is termed by him as ahwa. "linguistically, the first word of the term, ahl, refers to those who have the authority to decide a matter. the rest of the term combines two words al ×all (cancellation), and al ‘aqd (contract)19. the saqêfah accord of the seventh century ce was the first experience for a muslim society to have a few prominent figures deliberating on political matters—after the exemplary shëra performed by the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam); the first step of possessing an elected leader, and the first experience to have public engagement in a crucial political matter—electing their leader. these three pillars the electors, the elected, and the public accord—are the things that later on in more contemporary studies are perceived by some scholars as synonymous to j.j. rousseau’s “social contract”. al-mawardi’s scholarly work was written during the decline of the abbasids. while his theory of the necessity to elect or appoint a caliph was meant to maintain law and order within muslim society, al-mawardi’s concept conveys a message concerning the chief executive officer (ceo) of a state—either a leader in a muslim state or in multi-cultural nations; thus, the concept of caliph, in modern times, should be extended to mean a chief executive officer (ceo) of a state. within state domain, a legal system supportive to mutual respect is necessary, and legal pluralism is advisable for multicultural nations. black20 asks if adopting singapore’s legal pluralism would work for australia, given the loud voice of varied communities, including muslims—one for all legal systems is considered insufficient. therefore, mutual respect would require the presence of a plurality of systems, a legal “umbrella”, “…’mutual respect’ requires citizens to be reasonable, inclusive, tolerant, and to substitute principled compromise for dogmatism, especially in the context of public deliberation.” when presenting the critique by postmodernism, bird mentions complaints by religious writers— referring to the writings of walterstoff and audi (1997) that religion has been excluded from ‘public reason’; exclusion of religion is unfair, as bird writes “because it infringes ‘inequitable on the free exercise of their religion’….” 21. this complaint should obtain resonance coming from the deliberative theory of democracy: habermas welcomes religion into public discourse, and the third generation’s institutionalization at the macro level which provides room for civil society—with partial participants, to participate in 42 the culture of deliberation … ‘public reason’. all issues discussed in the above paragraphs reflects the big challenge of the idea of secular politics of the 16th century ce when— under the paradigm of positivism — it was argued that the only reality is matter; when you find a phenomenon as metaphysical, it only shows you have not yet reached the reality which is matter. habermas revolutionized this paradigm. once he made a historical dialogue on this with the top authority of the catholic church in 2004 in germany—a first “intellectual” discourse between (social) science and religion. at the higher level of discourses on religion and social science, bayer22 describes the societal progress whose primary element is a relationship between religion, science and progress. mårtensson begins his introduction to a collection of papers of such a conference by quoting two views that negate the co-existence of science and religion, especially islam. one of the two is “... a news report about a public lecture on the topic of “the god delusion” delivered in 2012 by ‘globally’ famous new atheist richard dawkins. dawkins was reported to contend that islam does not cope with science22. similar to mårtensson, lawrence23, basing his analysis on globalized world, finds that islam—and so are other cultures—contributes to making globalization more humane. two factors are significant—the dynamic of public digital communication and disperse population of muslims across the globe. whenever faith and politics interact, religion is considered facilitating orientation, “religion can thus facilitate special change of (social) ‘progress’, by marking certain courses of social action as ‘blessed’ and other ‘cursed24. while in the west, since the 16th century ce the idea of great separation has been in use, contemporary societies seem to have problems with it. the obvious problem was experienced by us president, bush jr., in handling and pursuing “war on terror”—instead of applying great separation, bush jr, made use of parts of his religious ideas to formulate the u.s. fight against terrorism. kristianto’s idea of “partial inclusion of religion” shows a middle way—his “theory” re-visits the 16th century’s great separation of religion from politics. his idea of “theology of political spirituality” focuses on relationship between the catholic church and politics. in order that politicians perform better in their efforts of struggling against terrorism in indonesia, politicians should include spirituality coming from their religion in political actions25. in a broader horizon, with regard to the relation between islam and the muslim society, marshall hodgson finds it fruitful to re-write its history. more than a particularity of muslims society alone, to hodgson, world history is not divided: the muslims history is also world history. it seems that hodgson’s view could bring hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 43 flexibility of mutual respect between cultures. burke iii26 finds hodgson’s term “islamicate” crucial to understanding the impacting values of islam amongst the muslims and other people encountering them. still about writing history properly, thomson points to noth’s, and conrad’s27 critique of 20th century scholars who advocate divergent “schools of thought” in historiography of early muslims; instead, noth and conrad’s thesis was the presence of a “unitary” practice of writing early muslim history, that there existed “common literary forms …and topoi … utilized by early chronicles such al tabari, ibn ishaq, and al-baladhuri.”28. results and discussion the classical legacy the following is a concise description of the seventh century ce practice. the new emerging muslim society began in 571 ce with the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) a messenger of allah almighty—the same status that the previous prophets like noah, ibrahim, and mësa (moses), and al-masêh (jesus) (‘alaihim as-salém) had the developing community grew in the city of madinah where the anîar (the natives), merged with the migrants (called al-muhajêrun)—whose migration was under the command of allah almighty. through the prophet’s hard efforts to invite people to become believers, the growing muslims community “conquered” the city of makkah, the hometown of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). it was something like coming back home. the culminating achievement was the establishment of the multi-ethnic city-state of madinah, with several religious groups and ethnicities— al-anîar that consisted of the aus clan and khazraj clan; almuhajêrun that included one major influential clan, the quraysh to which the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) belonged. during the prophet’s tenure of prophet-hood, step-by-step educating, internalizing the values and morality had been done, along with the prophet’s status as the role model in tackling social, legal, and public matters. one relevant value had been deliberation or consultation, or shëra on a number of matters. the elite of the companions like abu bakar, ‘umar ibnu khaïïéb, ‘usman ibnu affén, and ‘ali ibn abi ùalib (raìi allah ‘anhum) possessed high personal qualities. with reference to thaib (2005)29, yusof, et.al. (2014), write that; “in some instances, the prophet (×aìrat muhammad 44 the culture of deliberation … rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) called a number of close companions to join the consultation. at the beginning of prophet-hood, the general practice of shëra was mainly with the leading companions, a selected number of tribal leaders, and men of supreme talents in the society. then, in madinah, the representatives from aus and khazraj (were) also invited as shëra members”30. an abrupt change took place when the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) passed away. a number of citizens in madinah made an urgent meeting to discuss the new leader upon the vacuum of the leadership; at a jew-owned hall of the clan of saqêfah. the deliberation was almost finished coming up with the sole candidate, sa‘d ibn ‘ubadah when in a hurry, abu bakar and ‘umar ibn al-khaïïéb (raìi allah ‘anhumé), being informed of the event, hurried to the venue, accompanied by abu ‘ubaidah ibn jarraí. entering the hall, the three men interrupted the session. after a heated negotiation and deliberation both parties—elites in madinah and those of makkah came to the decision to elect one of the prominent companions, abu bakar (raìi allah ‘anhu). in the words of jauhari31, the elites from muhajêrun and anîar “agreed to choose abu bakr as siddiq (raìi allah ‘anhu) as caliph. abu ‘ubaidah and the anîar took oath to abu bakr, followed by sa‘d ibn basir, then ‘umar ibn khaïïéb, and all the muhajirên and the anîar”31. the top figures mentioned by al-sarhi, et al.31 include a closest companion to the prophet, zubair bin al-awwam (raìi allah ‘anhu), whose choice was then “endorsed by the general bay‘ah (pledge of obedience), in the year 11 a.h. /632 c.e.” this is called ‘saqêfah accord’. it was the first experience for muslim society to have a few prominent figures deliberating on political matters, on power politics so to say, with the decisive results—whose basis was of dual domain, i.e. efforts or reason-based and religious basis. the religious basis was especially the eligibility of the quraiysh as expressed in the saying of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). it was the first step of having a leader elected, and the first experience to have public engagement in a crucial political matter. these three pillars—the electors (later in the 10th century ce, termed ahwa), the elected, and the public accord—are the things that in later, more contemporary studies are perceived by some scholars as synonymous to j.j. rousseau’s “social contract”. three hundred years later, a notable jurist al-mawardi, systematically theorized the state of the arts. especially his work alahkam al-sulthaniyyah has become very well-known and has been considered the most authoritative theory of politics, and a magnum hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 45 corpus; the book was translated into several languages in the west and had been studied by international scholars worldwide. its publication was made possible among others with the invention of the printing machine, “...the ‘print revolution’ also helped to define a ‘classical’ canon…. published in egypt in 1880, after it had already been published in vienna 1850, al-mawardi’s work became quite popular….”32. his well-known term ahwa in the mechanism of election and his qualification of ahwa members are in essence picturing the third century ce events of (a) election of abu bakar, and (b) ‘umar ibnu khaïïéb’s (raìi allah ‘anhumé) formation of an election committee consisting of a few credible and authoritative public figures (ahl al shëra) to elect the next caliph. the end-result of the prophet’s succession being given to abu bakar (raìi allah ‘anhu) explicitly presented one crucial point, which is, the predominance of the “sub-ethnic” group of the quraysh. since the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) once gave his affirmation that it was the quraysh being the center of the most powerful influence amongst the arabs—both arab-muslims and arab-infidels— the saqêfah accord also showed the winning of the argument of preference to have the leader from the quraysh. this point became an effective basis for the elites in the deliberation to arrive at the accord to elect abu bakar (raìi allah ‘anhu), one of the closest companions, most senior one, and of quraysh descent. the concept of power and influence in political science has its relevance to the central position of the quraysh amongst other tribes/clans of the arabs—in terms of what weber calls traditional authority. (in the present paper, weber’s concept is extended to mean the entity of tribe, being influential in general tribal, cross-cultural interaction, conflict and/or consensus). all these are very likely applicable in the case of the quraysh predominance in economy in that era33. many modern critics “condemn” this issue in al-mawardi’s political thought—a disposition that seems to be improper. it would be much proper to contend that the quraysh predominance had become the great contributing factor in coming to the final decision. al-mawardi’s prerequisite of choosing a leader from the quraysh must be interpreted in context. the best practice of the former caliph, abu bakar (raìi allah ‘anhu), in conducting consultation amongst elites was not institutionalized; it was developed by ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) by establishing majlis shëra or consultative council in his government5. it had been ‘umar’s idea of such a council that was formulated later on by al-mawardi in the 10th century ce by coining the term ahwa to convey concepts and qualifications of the elite who have capacity to deliberate. 46 the culture of deliberation … periods after the classical era in the 10th century ce, during the rulership of the abbasid dynasty, a notable jurist al-mawardi, one of the most important among the ‘ulama working for the regime, aside from writing his famous book in political thought, also had a post in “diplomatic” mission”. in his practice of deliberation —and negotiation—almawardi’s central concern was (a) solution to the pressure coming from the emerging political forces in the regions that challenged the abbasids and (b) providing his advice to the abbasid regime as to compromise while maintaining the legitimacy of “central government” of the abbasids. in this conflictual situation, he tried to maintain law and order whereby the entity of the state (that was in the hands of the abbasids) would remain in existence as the “central government”, and at the same time, concession was given to the prospective rebels to gain power as sub-rulers in the framework of “regional autonomy”. he performed dual functions—as a political thinker and also as the practitioner of negotiation and deliberation. as a notable jurist very knowledgeable in islamic teaching, along with his tenure in political affairs, he was successful to find better ways in time of political anarchy. in providing advice, al-mawardi’s role was similar to that of machiavelli (1469 – 1527), author of the advice book the prince: it was machiavelli who “…assumed the role of an advisor, if not a preacher. he was anxious to become the advisor of the addressee of the prince and thus to rise from his low, even abject, condition”34. in the 16th century ce, in the ottoman empire, the right to practice consultation was given to those best perceiving islamic law. as with other cases in states government across the world, changes in law had taken place. such a dichotomy is similar to the idea of civitas dei vs. civitas terrena in christian political theology of augustinus (354 – 430 ce)6 —a theology of “anti-politics” that later on was reformed by thomas aquinas (1225 – 1274 ce). in the 16th century ce, the ottoman empire changed its law from previous dichotomy of hanafi’s (d. 766 ce) version of sharê‘ah —dividing muslim societies vs. “others” to a more sensible view of peaceful co existence formulated by imam al-shāfi‘ī (797 – 820 ce): from the dual opposing status of dér al-islam vs. dér al-íarb to an additional status of peace dér al-‘ahd (or dér al-îulí): "...but with an unproven shafi‘i influence, that provides a third category of dér, defined as dér al ‘ahd ("the abode of the covenant") or dér al-îulí (“the abode of the reconciliation”)35. with such a legal reform, theoretically, mutual respects would be more facilitated. such a change has indeed happened as a result of the sultan al-qanuni’s (“suleiman the magnificent”, “suleiman the lawgiver”, 1494 – 1566 ce) consultation or deliberation with the grand mufti (supreme religious scholar) of the empire, abu su‘ud (ebussuud efendi, a hanafi jurist hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 47 and the holy qur’én exegete, 1490 – 1574 ce)36. in this regard, in 20th century’s indonesia, the flexible definition and concept of dérul islam (dérul islam) made many ‘ulama from nu and muhammadiyah top leaders like ki bagus hadikusumo (1890 – 1954ce) also contend that the (future) independence of indonesia could be named dérul islam. the term is so flexible that it is overlapping with dérul ‘ahd37. concerning such terms as dérul islam, dérul ×arb and so on, it seems high time for scholars in islamic studies to elaborate and develop these terms and concepts since they were produced by jurists who might have been lacking in mastering the state of the arts in political science. in the era of nusantara’s (indonesia’s) walisongo (revered saints of islam), beginning in the 15th century ce and later during the establishment of several islamic kingdoms along nusantara archipelago, the best practice of deliberation included the one done by a team of walisongo—supposedly nine prominent and most influential ‘ulama—preaching the religion of islam with the result eventually transforming javanese into muslim society. in the 15th century, adopting the al-shëra of the 7th century, walisongo in some cases set up an independent body of ahwa—by instituting a board of trustee, whereby a king was elected and was responsible to the ahwa and the citizens of the kingdom. ahwa firmly performed the main tasks of appointing a king of islamic kingdom and playing the crucial role of controlling over the performance of the respective rulers in compliance with islamic law, sharê‘ah 38. this was also a great success which very few scholars mention any more nowadays. one crucial issue had been, that the walisongo exercised control over the king’s performance. this superior position of ‘ulama is of a higher status than a mere advisory role in the sense of al-ghazzali (d. 1111), which cannot exercise control over the ruler. according to him, the ruler must “seek out devout ‘ulama (‘ulama al-dên) and ask for advice”; the ruler is warned “not to meet with ‘ulama of worldly ambitions (‘ulama al-su’) who might inveigle, flatter and seek to please him in order to gain control over his terrestrial body by stealth and deceit”39. ghazzali’s warning is similar to the advice of machiavelli in early 16th century italy, when cesare borgia (1475 – 1507) of florence was in power: “those, the “lickers”, must be dismissed”40. such a high status of ahwa had several responsibilities which include controlling the performance of the king38. this is a much better practice than the way they had in some other islamic kingdoms where the ahwa were coming from the subordinates and relatives of the king. in the early 20th century ce, the days when elites of the newly proclaimed nation-state of the republic of indonesia were encountering the crucial issue of formulating the philosophical foundations of the state’s ideology—after several days of 48 the culture of deliberation … deliberation—sukarno (1901 – 1970 ce), the first president, came to the prominent and charismatic leader of nu (nahdlatul ulama), hadratu syaikh hasyim asy’ari (1871 – 1947 ce). sukarno was explaining the issue and deliberating on the matter, and asked for hasyim asy’ari’s advice. it was written in the history of indonesia that hasyim asya’ari took actions of “spiritual deliberation” that brought him to the advice written in arabic jawi, the draft of pancasila (from the sanskrit, means “five principles”) that was the best that indonesia could have possessed. the following is a list of a few practices in indonesia: first, the practice by pakde (uncle) karwo (sukarwo), the former governor of east java; during his tenure (2009-2019), he used to make informal visits to the respective heads of political parties for negotiating ideas and deliberation; such actions and communication was often done prior to having formal meetings and sessions in the regional governmental framework. sukarwo was of the opinion that the ‘édatbased gotong royong (mutual cooperation) was influenced by islamic piety or kesalehan social (social piety) prevailing in the citizens of east java; his view was based on mohammad sobary’s work, kesalehan sosial (2007)41. second, the inclusion of syafii maari (1935–2022 ce), islamic scholar and a notable leader of civil society, in the deliberation held in 2015 by president joko widodo (b. 1961) in a crucial matter concerning the appointment of the national head of indonesia’s state police or kepolisian negara; this was done to find options as a vast resistance to the policy was voiced by diverse civil society. the president invited nine prominent figures—some of them coming from civil society— for deliberation that resulted in a change in the government’s policy. third, in the events of the consecutive congresses in 2015 and 2019, held by the large “traditionalists muslims organization, nu, it had been determined to employ al-shëra conceptualized in the 10th century ce by almawardi as ahwa, in electing the top leader (ra’ês ‘am) of nu’s majlis shëra (consultative council). this was nu’s response to many complaints of nu activists, who wanted to avoid money politics. in the eye of many activists, the ahwa procedure was also preferred and was regarded as the panacea for curing the illness of money politics. instead of implementing the procedure of one-manone vote election exercised by representatives, in these two national congresses nu implemented an election method by way of appointing nine prestigious ‘ulama (who qualified the ahwa standard, i.e. the “loose and bind” standard) to deliberate on the matter and decide on the choice. in these congresses, democratic deliberation was practiced by elites of nu’s ‘ulama42. fourth, in diplomacy and treaties, it is written in indonesian history that in nusantara, a “treaty” between the state of saudi arabia and the faith-based civil society from nusantara was made: the deliberation famously done by hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 49 “traditionalists ‘ulama” in early 20th century ce on the issue of preserving a few spiritual and religious rituals, including the existence of the grave of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) in saudi arabia. a special envoy flew to saudi arabia for al-shëra or deliberation with king saud for negotiation. the mission was successful. the saudi king’s plan to wipe out the grave was canceled. this accord also shows that the indonesian ‘ulama had their capacity to deliberate. with regards to ‘édat-based deliberation, one of its several, local, types that experiences significant impact of al-shëra has notably been in use in the sub-culture of minangkabau in west sumatra, where the established hierarchical structure of ‘édat authority, along with forums for musyawarah-mufakat (deliberationfor-consensus) has made al-shëra highly institutionalized. more than its social system—within matriarchy—there has also been established a “philosophy” of the ‘édat that is based on islamic law: “‘édat basandi syara; syara basandi kitabullah “(‘édat is based on islamic law; islamic law is based on the holy qur’én). from the account above we should be convinced that institutionalization of deliberation has been significant. its institution has been made legitimate and, in the seventh century ce, was wellaffirmed by ‘ali ibn abu ùalib’s (c. 600 – 661 ce) (raìi allah ‘anhu) stance to refuse aspiration of several segments of the masses, demanding that ‘ali (raìi allah ‘anhu) be prepared to be taken allegiance. rather, ‘ali (raìi allah ‘anhu) remained consistent, arguing that succession of the sultan/amir/caliph was the right of the ahl al-shëra set up by ‘umar ibn khaïïéb (raìi allah ‘anhu). taj describes how ‘ali bin abi ùalib (raìi allah ‘anhu) respected the shëra council. he writes, “…many had directly approached to do bay‘ah [pledge of allegiance] on his hands; yet, he refused, stating that this matter is the right of the shëra (parliament) to decide”. taj also writes, “ibnu khaldën in his muqaddimah explained that the concept of bay‘ah (an oath of allegiance to the ruler) means to formalize one’s contract with one’s ruler; ….”43. and from the classical era to contemporary times, the culture of democratic deliberation has prevailed across the world, both exercised by civil society and some state actors. such elite deliberation prior to public allegiance in the classical era could function as providing basis to develop into wider segments of the society in this era in exercising public deliberation; this prospect is not only made available within internal muslim society, but also in the context of multi-cultural societies. conclusion in conclusion, in our contemporary political systems where 50 the culture of deliberation … nation-state along with plurality of religion and cultures are accepted, the practice of shëra or deliberation in muslim society has shown some significant contribution to strengthening social cohesiveness across cultures. in contemporary theory of deliberative democracy, such elite deliberation prior to public allegiance in the classical era had provided fruitful precedence for further emergence of deliberation among segments of the society afterwards. within the “muslim world”, progress toward more democratic politics was also shown by way of adopting a more moderate approach to understanding islamic jurisprudence formulated and developed by the sunni school of thought —notably syafi’i’s approach to formulating islamic jurisprudence. with the global mobility and migration of muslim people, the culture of deliberation has done its part in enriching the existing practices of deliberation and, to a great extent, contributed to the formation of more democratic ones. this is especially true in many segments of the indonesian society where a more islamic worldview has been resulted, partly due to peaceful penetration of “islamization” across the archipelago of indonesia, instead of futëíét (conquests). eventually, all the above development has given more or less significant impacts on democratic deliberations across cultures—thus contributed to developing mutual respect among multi-cultural societies. this capital social of the “muslim world” could go hand in hand with the adoption of deliberative democracy that has been adopted and promoted by several state-actors and civil society across the world. these phenomena promise a better prospect for the increase of mutual respect across cultures and promoting democratic deliberation within muslim societies, as well as in multicultural societies. notes and references 1. lewis, b. (2003). i’m right, you’re wrong, go to hell”: religions and the meeting of civilizations. atlantic monthly. http/www./pdx.edu 2. washington, g. (1790). letter to the hebrew congregation in newport, rhode island, aug. 18, 1790. in the writings of george washington (vol. 12). g.p. putnams sons. 3. khan, m. y. (2001). political studies of al-mawardi with special reference to the concept of legitimacy [doctoral dissertation]. university of leeds. 4. nachi, m. (2012). thinking about ikhtilaf: the political construction of difference in the islamic context. history of the present: journal of critical history, 2(1), 51–70. 5. sucilawati. (2020). the concept of shura in islamic governance: practice of shura during the caliph umar bin khattab. international journal of politics and sociology research. ijobsor, 8(1), 18–32. 6. wowor, a. i. (2018). theology and ethics in politics amongst churches in post-modern era (vol. 1, issue 1). jurnal teologi dan pendidikan kristen kontekstual. 7. zakaria, f. (1997). the rise of illiberal democracy, foreign affairs. foreign affairs, 76(6). hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 51 8. vitellone, n. (2021). sociology and the problem of description. qualitative research, 21(3), 394–408. 9. effendi, b. (1994). islam and the state: the transformation of islamic political ideas and practices in indonesia. 10. barisione, m. (2012). framing a deliberation. deliberative democracy and the challenge of framing processes. journal of deliberative democracy, 8(1), 1–22. 11. he, b., & warren, m. e. (2011). authoritarian deliberation: the deliberative turn in chinese political development. perspectives on politics. june, 9(2), 269–289. 12. kayam, u. (1990). democratization processes of the culture of indonesia. jurnal bestari, 68–74. 13. dryzek, j. s. (2001). legitimacy and economy in deliberative democracy. political theory, 29(5), 651–669. https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591701029005003/asset/009059170102900 5003.fp.png_v03 14. bohman, j. (1998). survey article: the coming of age of deliberative democracy. journal of political philosophy, 6(4), 400–425. 15. elstub, s. (2010). the third generation of deliberative democracy. 8(3), 291–307. 16. habermas, j. (1996). between facts and norms: contribution to a discourse theory of law and democracy. translated by william rehg). the mit press. 17. owen, d., & smith, g. (2015). deliberation, democracy and the systemic turn. journal of political philosophy, 1–39. http://westminster.ac.uk 18. winarno, b. (2011). aristotle’s thought on citizenship and constitution. humanika, 21(1), 57–62. 19. faradj, h. (2014). ulu al amr & authority: the central pillars of sunni political thought [ph.d. dissertation]. the city university of new york. 20. black, a. (2012). replicating ‘a model of mutual respect’: could singapore’s legal pluralism work in australia? journal of legal pluralism and unofficial law. website: http://commision-on-legal-pluralism, 44(65), 65–102. 21. bird, c. (2009). mutual respect and civic education. educational philosophy and theory, 42(1), 112–128. 22. mårtensson, u. (2020). deliberating religion, science and progress in the global public sphere. marburg journal of religion, 22(2), 1–30. 23. lawrence, b. (2008). islam in the age of globalization. religion compass, 2(3), 331–339. 24. junaid, q. m. (2004). the crisis of muslim history: religion and politics in early islam by mahmoud m. ayoub (oxford, uk: oneworld publications, 2003. 179 pages). american journal of islam and society, 21(4), 179. 25. kristianto, p. e. (2018). the overlapping of religion and politics on terror: towards the formulation of political spirituality of theology. dinamis: jurnal teologi & pendidikan kristiani, 3(1). http://www.sttintheos.ac.id/ejournal/index.php/dinamis. 26. burke iii, e. (2009). islamic history as world history: marshall hodgson, the venture of islam. international journal of middle east studies, 10(2), 241–264. 27. noth, a., & conrad, l. i. (1994). the early arabic historical traditions: a source-critical study. darwin press. 28. thomson, r. (2016). muslim chronicles of the first crusade: a transition in islamic historiography. the chico historian. the journal of the csu, 26, 2–9. 29. thaib, l. (2005). islamic political representation in malaysia. university malaya press. 30. yusof, m. f., & et al. (2014). the concept of free and fair election from 52 the culture of deliberation … islamic perspective: the conduct of malaysian 13th general election as a case study”. conference: wcit. 31. jauhari, i. (2013). alternative political dispute resolution according to islamic law. acta szekszardiensium, 15, 25–38. 32. burak, g. (2017). the arabic print revolution: cultural production and mass readership. by amy ayalon. middle east librarians association. https://www.mela.us/2017/11/14/the-arabic-print-revolution-book-review/ 33. ibrahim, m. (1982). social and economic conditions in pre-islamic mecca. international journal of middle east studies, 12, 343–358. 34. strauss, l. (1957). machiavelli’s intention: the prince. in the am pol sci review (vol. 51, issue 1, pp. 13–40). 35. melis, n. (2017). some observations on the concept of dār al-’ahd in the ottoman context (sixteenth-seventeenth centuries). studies in islamic law and society, 40, 182–202. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004331037_012 36. el-ustadzi, h. h. (2017). the role of sultan suleiman the magnificent in building the greatness of the ottoman empire in the 16th century. jurnal tamaddun, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.24235/tamaddun.v5i1.1995 37. rambe, s. (2022). the fore-runner in nahdlatul ulama, k.h. wahab chasbullah: a biography. madani institute. 38. zamharir, h., noer, m., & lubis, s. (2019). khalifatullah panatagama: continuity & change in the practice of political islam in modern indonesia. journal of social political sciences, 1(1), 29–40. 39. kamaruddin, r. (2004). politics in the works of al-ghazzali. intellectual discourse. in intellectual discourse (vol. 12, issue 2, pp. 113–136). 40. machiavelli, n. (1987). the ruler: letters by a statesman to head of the republic. (t. c. woekirsari, trans.) (t. c. woekirsari, trans.). gramedua putera utama. 41. soekarwo. (2014). towards future politics and national development in post-presidential election. graduate school of political science, universitas nasional. 42. zamharir, h., dja’far, t. b. m., lubis, s., & sadiyatunni’mah, s. (2014). elite deliberation as deliberative democracy: experience of walisongo and nahdlatul ulama in nusantara/indonesia. journal of social political sciences, 1(4), 285–297. 43. taj, z. (2011). the political thought of tahir ul-qadri in its islamic concept: understanding the concept of khilafa and its relevance to modern society in light of medieval islamic teachings. intermountain west journal of religious studies, 3(1), 14–32. c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd allah is the light of the heavens and the earth hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam vol. xliv july-september 2021 no. 3 editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid advisory board dr. manzoor ahmad former rector international islamic university islamabad, pakistan prof. dr. khaled abou el fadl prof. of law, ucla school of law university of california, u.s.a dr. hisham nashabe president, makassed university p.o. box 5832, beirut, lebanon prof. abdur raheem kidwai professor, department of english director, k.a. nizami centre for qur’ānic studies aligarh muslim university aligarh, india dr. umar chapra ex-research advisor islamic research and training institute of the islamic development bank, jeddah saudi arabia prof. seyyed hossein nasr professor of islamic studies the george washington university gelman library 712 washington, d.c. 20052, u.s.a. prof. dr. a.h. johns professor emeritus the australian national university honorary professor the australian catholic university australia dr. farrukh habib co-founder and managing director alif technologies dubai, uae prof. dr. abdul azim islahi institute of qur’anic sciences (iqsc), aligarh, 202002, india prof. dr. ilzamudin ma’mur, ma professor of education of the faculty of islamic education the state institute for islamic studies (iain) “sultan maulana hasanudin” jl. jend. sudirman no. 30, serang, 42118 banten, indonesia prof. dr. anis ahmad vice chancellor riphah international university hajj complex road sector i-14, islamabad, pakistan hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 .. editorial board editor-in-chief mrs. sadia rashid editor dr. muhammad wasie fasih butt assistant editor mr. kaleem chaghtai associate editor prof. dr. nigar sajjad zaheer assistant editor ms. haleema motiwala published by hamdard foundation pakistan, bahria town tower, tariq road, karachi, pakistan. telephone: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) telefax: (+92-21) 38241555 e-mails: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk hfp@hamdardfoundation.org websites: www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk [hamdard islamicus] www.hamdardfoundation.org [hamdard foundation pakistan] www.hamdardlabswaqf.org [hamdard laboratories (waqf)] www.hakimsaid.info [idara-e-said] price inland foreign foreign airmail registered postage: us$20/ payment should be made in the name of hamdard foumdation pakistan printed by mas printers, nazimabad, karachi-74600, pakistan pak. rs. us $ annual single copy 650/ 165/ 120/ 35/ mailto:editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk mailto:hfp@hamdardfoundation.org http://www.hamdardislamicus.com.pk/ http://www.hamdardfoundation.org/ http://www.hamdardlabswaqf.org/ http://www.hakimsaid.info/ information for contributors • manuscripts must be composed in ms word format and typed double spaced with at least one-inch margin on all sides of a4 size and to be sent through ojs at journal’s official website. • manuscripts may preferably comprise 6000 to 7000 words. however, as per the importance of issue discussed in the article and its fine presentation, some relaxation may be acquired. • notes and references should follow the chicago manual of style 17th edition (end notes only) i.e. to be marked serially and placed at the end of the manuscript. • authors are requested to quote the english translation of the holy qur’anic verses from the editions of only mufti muhammad taqi usmani. • authors are requested to provide their c.v. mentioning their designation, permanent and present postal addresses along with their cell/whatsapp numbers and e-mail addresses. • all correspondence regarding the manuscript will be directed to the corresponding author. • after publishing the article, 2 complimentary copies of the relevant issues of the hamdard islamicus will be sent to the author. • ensure the submission is as requested by the journal and contains all relevant sections. see authors’ guideline available on journal’s official website. • non native english speakers are encouraged to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission. this is particular key for resubmission. • hamdard islamicus does not charge from its authors for publication of their articles in the journal. for correspondence editor hamdard islamicus hamdard foundation pakistan head office, 16th floor bahria town tower tariq road, pechs block 2, karachi, pakistan url: hamdardislamicus.com.pk e-mail: editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk tel: (+92-21) 38244000 (ext: 1612) mailto:editor@hamdardislamicus.com.pk hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xliv july-september 2021 no.3 contents * editorial * the significance of al-ashbāh wa’lnaẓā’ir of ibn nujaym — dr. khadiga musa latef * freedom of expression and its restriction in islamic and western philosophy: an analysis of direct and indirect harm — dr. shamreeza riaz * remedies for misrepresentations in takaful contract: current industry practice in malaysia — dr. siti salwani razali — ahmad fadhil hamdi mohd ali * preventive prophetic medicine in foods and beverages: an analytic study — dr. kabiru goje * the holy qur’én’s voice of revolution against landlords — amna imam the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 9 27 87 105 63 objectives hamdard islamicus is an academic journal devoted to islamic research and scholarship. it serves as a forum for scholars to write objectively, analytically and, wherever necessary, critically on islamic history, philosophy, science, art, culture, archaeology, law and jurisprudence. it brings out the achievements of muslims in the fields of humanities, social and natural sciences. it aims at defining islam in terms of its fundamentals in a rational and liberal manner emphasizing, at the same time, the basic islamic ideals of universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice. it aims at interpreting the teachings of islam in such a way as to bring out its dynamic character in the context of the intellectual and scientific progress of the modern world. it provides an open forum for a dialogue among the fundamentalist, conservative and the modernist schools of thought among the muslims aiming at finding a balanced view. it endeavours, through dialogue, to find islamic answers to the questions relating to the social, political, economic and moral problems of the fast and drastically changing world of today. it transmits through english translations the speeches, learned papers and discourses expressed in urdu by highly qualified traditional scholars, the ‘ulema’, and, in this way, it communicates valuable material, otherwise inaccessible, to the non-urdu readers. it endeavours to promote better understanding between the islamic world and the west. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 3 .. indexing and abstracting bodies c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlvii october-december 2024 no.4 contents * editorial * pan-islamic cooperation and anti-colonialism between the ottoman caliphate and the malay world — arshad islam — ruqaia taha al-alwani * harmony amidst diversity: exploring religious pluralism in bengal through the lens of sufi heritage and its envoys — dr. saeyd rashed hasan chowdury * islamic finance mode impacts on economic development and financial sustainability in pakistan — muhammad saeed iqbal — dr. sofi mohd fikri * prohibitions of travel in hadiths: between cause and wisdom — kifah abdul qadir al-souri — murad shihada shakib youssef * integrating reflection on basmalah recitation as a strategy for forming a peaceful mindset in islamic counselling — agus supriyanto — mungin eddy wibowo — mulawarman mulawarman the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 33 83 59 105 9 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 83 prohibitions of travel in hadiths: between cause and wisdom kifah abdul qadir al-souri sharia and islamic department, faculty of sharia, amman arab university, amman, jordan. email: kefahalsouri@aau.edu.jo murad shihada shakib youssef sharia and islamic department, faculty of sharia, amman arab university, amman, jordan. email: m.yousef@aau.edu.jo received on: 03-06-24 accepted on: 28-12-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.1026 abstract the study aimed at revealing the extent to which the prophetic narrations affirming the necessity of a male guardian accompanying a woman in her travel are authentic. it specifically aimed to determine whether the prophetic narrations have provided justifications for prohibiting a woman's travel without a designated male guardian ( وصي) . besides, it aimed to understand the interpretations of jurists (imams) regarding the ruling on a male guardian accompanying a woman in her travel. the causes of these prohibitions and the wisdom of islamic law in dealing with women's travel are discussed. moreover, it is a qualitative study that utilizes the comparative analytical method to analyze the texts of islamic law related to the prohibition of women's travel and compare between them. the study concludes that the guardian (“maíram” َْْمْحَرم)” has various qualifications and that the most cautious approach to ensuring the intended purpose of the requirement for a woman's travel is for the guardian to be an adult, sane, and prohibited from marrying the woman indefinitely. these findings will significantly impact the legal studies on women's travel as they provide deep understanding of women's travel in islam. keywords: travel, prohibition, mahram, group of women, wisdom, and cause. mailto:kefahalsouri@aau.edu.jo mailto:m.yousef@aau.edu.jo https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.1026 84 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … introduction the topic of a woman’s travel and the associated rulings has been a subject of extensive discussion in islamic jurisprudence, with numerous hadiths addressing this matter in detail. these prophetic narrations emphasize the obligation for a female traveller to be accompanied by a maíram, a male guardian from her unmarriageable relatives. this is to ensure her safety and uphold the islamic principles during travel. the hadiths on this issue vary significantly in their wording and conditions. this is what led the jurists to specify the conditions for the maíram, stating that he must be discerning, rational, male, and trustworthy. this aligns with the varying conditions set forth in prophetic narrations regarding the permissible duration of travel without a maíram to three days, while others specify two days, and some to a day and a night, or even just a single day. in some cases, the journey’s length is left unspecified, suggesting a broader application. this diversity in the textual evidence has led to a corresponding variation in the opinions of islamic jurists (iméms), each interpreting the hadiths based on their understanding of the underlying principles and contexts. the differing interpretations of the hadiths, which vary in their wording and conditions, are at the heart of the juristic debate, leading to diverse views among islamic jurists on the requirement of a maíram for a woman's travel. this divergence in views reflects the complexities of the issue, as some jurists from the méliki and shéfi‘ê schools of thought have proposed that the requirement for a maíram can be substituted by the presence of a group of trustworthy and reliable women, thus ensuring the woman's safety during travel. however, they diverge in their interpretations regarding the conditions for such a group. the méliki scholars, emphasizing caution and the importance of safety in travel, equate this group to a large, organized caravan, capable of offering both physical security and social integrity. on the other hand, the shéfi‘ê school adopts a more flexible stance, permitting a smaller group of just two women, as indicated by figures such as al-kawāsibī and others. this complex difference highlights the varying degrees of severity with which each school approaches the concept of safety and protection in the context of travel without a maíram. they are, however, in agreement that a group of women is sufficient only for obligatory travel, such as ×ajj. this study examines the permissibility of travel without a maíram in cases of necessity, such as during war or emergencies, as an exception to the general rule. this view is supported by the majority of jurists, aiming to protect women from harm. it also clarifies the concept of travel and outlines the differing opinions on hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 85 this issue among the four schools of thought, ibn hazm, and the scholars of hadith, due to its direct relevance to the maíram requirement. the requirement for a maíram in a woman's travel has been understood by some scholars as a rationally-based condition, meaning it is driven by a specific cause. according to these scholars, the cause is the presence of fear or potential harm. it is widely acknowledged that the cause (‘illah)ْْ معلولْْcorresponds to the effect (ma‘lūl) علہ either in existence or absence. therefore, those who support this view argue that a woman is permitted to travel without a maíram if security is assured. their evidence is based on the hadith of ‘adi, where the prophet said: allah will surely complete this religion (i.e. islam) so that a traveler from san‘é to ×aìra-maut will not be afraid of anybody except allah." (the sub-narrator, baiyan added, "or the wolf, lest it should harm his sheep.") (saíêí al-bukhéri, vol. 3, hadith no. 3852). this hadith does not mention a maíram, implying that the requirement may not be necessary when security is ensured. however, scholars have critiqued this interpretation, arguing that the hadith was revealed during the early spread of islam and should be understood in its historical context, not as a general rule for all situations. given the variation in both the textual evidence and juristic opinions, the issue of a woman’s travel remains an important subject within islamic law. the diversity in hadiths regarding the requirement for a maíram in a woman's journey underscores the complexity of this matter. this issue demands an analysis to reconcile differing viewpoints and address contemporary questions surrounding women's travel, especially with the advancements in modern transportation and societal changes that have altered travel dynamics. in this context, it is crucial to define and understand key jurisprudential terms, both linguistically and technically, to ensure a precise and accurate understanding of the subject. key terms such as "travel" and maíram need to be clearly defined to find out whether the requirement for a maíram applies in all cases of travel or only under conditions where security concerns arise. by doing so, we can ensure that muslims are well-informed and able to comprehend the rulings and opinions they encounter, particularly those expressed by jurists (iméms). these terms hold significant weight in islamic jurisprudence, and understanding their 86 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … proper context is essential for ensuring that islamic rulings align with both the spirit of the law and the practical realities of modern life. this study provides new insights into the maíram requirement through a comprehensive examination of scholarly discourse and contemporary legal perspectives, while respecting the depth of islamic jurisprudence and addressing the complexities posed by modern advancements. it explores the permissibility of travel without a maíram in cases of necessity, such as during war or emergencies, as an exception to the general rule. supported by the majority of jurists to protect women from harm, the study also clarifies the concept of travel and outlines the differing opinions on this issue among the four schools of thought, ibn hazm, and the scholars of hadith, highlighting its direct relevance to the maíram requirement. study problem the study investigates the authenticity of prophetic texts and narrated accounts concerning a woman's travel. it also presents a legal perspective on a real-world issue, elucidating the prevailing opinion among jurists regarding the dispute over a woman's travel without a male guardian. this is achieved by addressing the following questions: to what extent are the prophetic narrations affirming the necessity of a maíram accompanying a woman in her travel authentic? 1. have the prophetic narrations provided justifications for prohibiting a woman's travel without a maíram? 2. how did jurists (iméms) interpret the texts concerning the ruling on a maíram accompanying a woman in her travel? 3. what are the causes of these prohibitions and to what extent the wisdom of islamic law is evident in dealing with women's travel? study objectives the study aims to: 1. revealing the extent to which the prophetic narrations affirming the necessity of a male guardian accompanying a woman in her travel are authentic. 2. determine whether the prophetic narrations have provided justifications for prohibiting a woman's travel without a designated male guardian ْوصي. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 87 3. extract from the texts the interpretations of jurists (iméms) regarding the ruling on a male guardian accompanying a woman in her travel. 4. know the causes of these prohibitions and the extent to which the wisdom of islamic law is evident in dealing with women's travel.ْ study significance the significance of this study lies in the following aspects: ▪ addressing the issue of women's travel; which has become increasingly relevant with the advancements in its tools and means. ▪ accurately presenting the predominant opinion regarding the prohibition of women's travel and whether it is justified or not. this is achieved thorough examination, analysis, and the application of scientific principles in prioritization, with emphasis on respecting other opinions put forth by previous iméms أئمة, acknowledging their evidences and deductions. ▪ highlighting islamic jurisprudential flexibility; the study showcases the flexibility of islamic jurisprudence and its adaptability to contemporary issues, particularly the subject under consideration in this study, by accommodating emerging challenges and circumstances. literature review the previous studies explored the matter of a woman's travel from a jurisprudential perspective rather than a hadith-oriented viewpoint. these studies provided a comprehensive overview of the issue of a woman's travel. such studies include "understanding muslim woman travel behaviour: a theoretical perspective."1 as it touches the concept of maíram and its necessity, the study found that sociocultural and religious factors influence muslim women and decision to travel. another study was "the requirement of a maíram for a woman's travel under the contemporary developments and fatwés."2 the study revealed that scholars have differed on this issue both in ancient and modern times. furthermore, "mahram implications in women’s travel"3 revealed the cases in which a woman is prohibited from travel without a maíram. apart from this, "challenging the status quo, khaled m. abou el fadl's perspectives on islamic legal authority and the restrictive fatwéon women's solo travel"4 revealed that el fadl 88 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … criticises the crlo’s authoritarian fatwé regarding the prohibition of women travelling alone without a maḥram using a hermeneutic framework. "reconstruction of the concept of maḥram in women’s safar based on ibnu qayyim al-jauziyyah’s legal change theory" 5 revealed that the urgency of the maḥram in women's travel comes as a guarantee of security from the dangers. apart from this, "mahram for women in the implementation of the hajj according to classical and contemporary ulama"6 found differences of opinion among scholars regarding the travel of women to perform the pilgrimage. "understanding multiple interpretations on the hadith that husbands allow wives to have outdoor activities: a study of islamic law perspectives" 7 revealed that asking for permission to do outdoor activities is not an obligation. rather, it is a recommendation for wives to seek for their husbands’ permission. "shifting the meaning of mahram for women in the implementation of hajj and umrah"8 found different opinions of muslim scholars regarding the idea of woman travel. this is similar to what was found in "recreation and the creative muslimah”.9 "imam ash-shafi‘ê's opinion on hajj without a mahram and its relevance to the present day"10 revealed that the majority of fiqh scholars are of the opinion that women must be accompanied by their maíram to perform the pilgrimage. apart from this, "the negative consequences of gender mixing and its rulings in islamic shariah" 11 found that religious legislation emphasizes the importance of separation and distance between unrelated men and women. in a similar context, "amplification of islamic doctrines in hadith memes prohibition of women travels without a mahram on indonesian social media"12 found that the existence of the meme hadith is a re-actualization of classical discourse that is intended as resistance to a variety of religious social phenomena that are deemed deviant. apart from this, "ethical principles of social activity of muslim women" 13 revealed that islam allowed women to participate in different social activities but to the extent that never exposed them to danger. in a different context, "gendered pilgrimage: hajj and umrah from women’s perspectives"14 revealed differences in the views of muslim scholars regarding women's travel for pilgrimage. finally, "locating muslimah in the travel and tourism research"15 revealed that female muslims' perceptions and experiences of travel/tourism are majorly impacted by their religious and gendered identities. these studies have analyzed different perspectives of maíram. however, they have not made a complete examination of hadiths related to a woman's travel. besides, they didn't include various jurisprudential schools, virtual schools, and the opinions of contemporary jurists (iméms). hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 89 thus, this study focuses on the hadith perspective and is characterized as an analytical study that relies on a complete examination of hadiths related to a woman's travel. it is distinguished from the previous studies by combining various jurisprudential schools, virtual schools, and the opinions of contemporary jurists. it is also distinguished by integrating an analysis of the narrations in terms of their authenticity and understanding (reason and wisdom). methodology this qualitative study utilizes the comparative analytical method to analyze the texts of islamic law related to the prohibition of women's travel and compare between them. it further employees a comparative jurisprudential approach by presenting the evidence put forth by jurists, highlighting the predominant views based on a scientific methodology. the criteria of relying on hadiths implies that if the hadith is found in both øaíêí al-bukhéri and øaíêí al-muslim, narrated by the same companion, it is stated as "agreed upon" عليْه the study also .متفقْ includes the ruling for each hadith mentioned, whether it is authentic, weak, or otherwise, and if there is a weakness in narration; the study clarifies it. data is collected through conducting a review of documents; hadiths and jurisprudential texts. furthermore, the content analysis method is used to analyze the hadiths related to the research topic. study plan the study is organized into two main sections as follows: 1. hadiths on a woman's travel, includes two requirements: a. hadiths explicitly prohibiting a woman's travel without a maíram. b. hadiths and narrated accounts permitting a woman's travel without a maíram. 2. a woman's travel without a maíram, its terminology and implications, includes two requirements: a. the meaning of travel and the accompanying maíram as stated in the hadith texts. b. the jurisprudence of the prohibition mentioned in the hadiths, along with other hadiths indicating permissibility and their implications. c. the textual implications, both expressed and inferred, and their impact, determining the predominant understanding in a woman's travel without a maíram. 90 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … d. afterward, the study presents the outcomes and the conclusion. hadiths on a woman's travel, includes two requirements: 1. hadiths explicitly prohibiting a woman's travel without a maíram. some narrations specify a duration of three days, as mentioned in the hadith narrated by ‘umrah bint 'abdul rahman. she said, "i asked ‘ó’ishah and she informed me that abu sa'eed alkhudri reported from the messenger of allah (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) that he said: it is not lawful for a woman to undertake three days journey except when there is a maíram with her. ‘ó’ishah then turned towards us and said, 'not all of them have a maíram with them!16 similar statements are also reported from ibn umar."17 the diversity in the time durations in authentic hadiths suggests that they were specific occurrences, taking into consideration the circumstances and the individual's situation, and that they were not intended as absolute rules. an illustration of this is found in the narration of ibn abbas where he reported that the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said: “a woman should not travel except with a maíram.".18 this is a general prohibition without specifying a time frame. similarly, “a man must never be alone with a woman unless there is a maíram with her. a woman also may not travel with anyone except with a maíram."19 ibn abbas, in his narration, encompassed all types of travel, making it a general prohibition, consistent with the content of various other narrations. therefore, it is inclusive of all the aspects that were mentioned in the other hadiths, and one should not restrict the understanding to a specific duration, as mentioned in some interpretations.20 2. hadiths and narrated accounts permitting a woman's travel without a maíram. while the explicit hadiths prohibit a woman from traveling without a maíram are all proved to be narrated from prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). in this respect, there are established reports from some companions that contradict this explicit prohibition. for example, ‘ó’ishah used to travel without a maíram21, as narrated by ‘ata, and once she said, "not every woman has a hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 91 maíram, or can find one." 22 . ‘ó’ishah also said she asked the permission of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) to take part in jihéd, and he replied, “the jihéd ْْ()جهاْدْْ of you women is the pilgrimage.”23 there is a narration from prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) reported by 'adi bin hatim in which the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said to him: "if you should live for a long time, you will certainly see that a lady in a howdah traveling from al-hira will (safely reach mecca and) perform the ùawéf ْْ(طواْف ) of the ka‘bah ( كعبْةال ), fearing none but allah" ‘adi added: (later on) i saw a lady in a howdah traveling from al-hira till she performed the ùawéf ْْ(طواْف ) of the ka‘bah, fearing none but allah.24 this is mentioned in øaíêí al-bukhéri and is also reported by al-dérquïni as “the lady in a howdah travelling from al×ira will perform the ùawéf of this house, fearing none but allah".25 apparently, the narration indicates the permissibility of a woman traveling, as implied by the context rather than explicitly stated. 1. a woman's travel without a maíram, its terminology and implications, includes two requirements: a. the meaning of travel and the maíram as stated in the hadiths. b. the previous hadiths included various terms which must be clarified. firstly: travel (as-safar السفر) in linguistic terms: the word "safar سفْر" is derived from the root "s-f-r, ْرْ-ف-ْس " with the singular form being "safaْْسفر," and the plural forms being "asfarْْ and "suffarْْ "أسفار 26".سفار in the arabic language, "safar"سفر has multiple meanings. it can mean the act of covering a distance with the plural “asfarْْأسفار(travels)”27 or the act of setting out for a journey 28. in islamic terminology, jurists have differed in their interpretations of travels.28 therefore, we should refer here to the juristsْْ’opinions on the technical definition of travel. the first religious sect believes that travel should be understood in its general sense without specific restrictions, and its determination is based on common understanding among poeple. 29 the second religious school of thought tends to restrict the definition of travel. however, there are differing opinions within this school regarding the 92 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … specific consideration for determining travel, which can be categorized into two main views: 1. consideration of time, but they differ in the specific duration, the minimum duration commonly agreed upon by them is one day. ibn abbas is reported to have said that travel involves a journey of at least one full day, and this view is also supported by alawza‘ê. ibn al-mundhir mentioned that the majority of jurists share the opinion that the journey should be at least a full day, and this is what we follow.30 2. consideration of distance, the minimum distance agreed upon by them is three miles. looking at both considerations, one finds that they are interconnected. whoever limits travel by time must, by necessity, cover a certain distance within that time. conversely, when restricted by distance, there must be a duration associated with covering that distance. after examining the opinions of jurists, it is observed that the méliki31ْْ)ْالمذهبْالمالكي( and shéfi‘ê islamic legal schoolsْْالمذاهب(ْْ ,agree that travel is the intention to journey without sinning 32 الفقهية(ْْ covering a distance of four buruds, sixteen farsakhs, or a journey of one day and night in moderate travel. contrastingly, the ×anbali islamic legal school33 states that travel involves a journey lasting two moderate days without nights, or a journey of two moderate nights without days, or a journey of one day and one night. this opinion aligns with that of imam mélik.34 some contemporary jurists estimated these distances to be close to each other. it was suggested that the four buruds are equivalent to eighty-five kilometers 35 , while others proposed eighty-one kilometeres.36 as for the ×anafi school, they define travel as the intention of an individual to reach a place within a journey of three days and nights, using the pace of camels and walking. 37 this is the predominant view in their school, but there is a difference of opinion among them. ibn hajar said: "most jurists have acted upon this general wording due to the variations in restrictions."38 secondly: al-maíram م َ الم ْحر in the linguistic sense, it is derived from the root “íarama and it signifies something prohibited. it is used to express the ,”حرم restriction or prohibition of an action. the term “×urma حرمْة" refers hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 93 to what is not permissible to violate. it carries the connotation of sanctity and respect. besides, it can also be used to describe a woman, and its plural form is “al-×urum 39.”الُحُرْم the concept of "al-maíram"ْْin islamic terminology: jurists of ×anafi40 , méliki41 , al-réfi‘ê42, shéfi‘ê and ×anbali islamic legal schools43 agreed that “almaíram”44 refers to three reasons: lineage, affinity by marriage, and breastfeeding. although they agreed on the reasons for being considered maíram, their definitions of "al maíram " varied in terms of clarification, as follows: firstly, according to the ×anafi school: al-maíram is defined as any sane, pubescent person who is not a libertine or a magian, such as a spouse or someone whose marriage is permanently prohibited due to lineage, affinity, or breastfeeding, even if the marraige was unlawful. the definition excludes females, as women are not considered "maíram " even if they are elderly. 45 those related through general kinship or brotherhood are excluded. the relationship of the wife's sister, aunt, and maternal aunt through affinity is also excluded. the requirement for the prohibition to be permanent is stated, as it removes suspicion in seclusion.46 secondly, according to the méliki school, the term "almaíram" is defined as any distinguished, trustworthy individual from whom sufficiency is obtained, either a husband or someone whose marriage is prohibited permanently due to lineage or breastfeeding.47 the méliki school takes a more cautious approach regarding the prohibited relationships. thirdly: the shéfi‘ê exempted from the maíram status relatives falling under the category of "forbidden lineage" like the son of the paternal aunt or maternal aunt, and the wife's sister or the wife's aunt. the prohibition is also lifted in cases where there is a legitimate reason, such as the mother of the one involved in a suspicious situation and her daughter, and the prohibition for her to travel alone is due to its severity, as it is considered a strict prohibition. fourthly: a maíram according to the ×anbali school is anyone who legally fulfills the criteria that render marriage permanently forbidden based on lineage or due to a legitimate reason, such as breastfeeding, marriage affiliation, or lawful intimate relations.48 in summary, the rulings outlined by the jurists aim to safeguard women during their travels, ensuring security against potential risks. 94 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … jurisprudence of prohibition in light of hadiths with other hadiths indicating permissibility and their evidences: firstly: the preventing evidences: the jurists who prohibit women from traveling without a maíram include the ×anafis49, ×anbalis50 , followers of hadith, as well as notable figures like al-nakha‘i, alhasan al-basri, sufyan al-thawri, abu thawr, ishaq ibn rahawayh, and jurists like muhibb al-din al-tabari51 , ibn taymiyyah52 , alsan‘ani53, al-shawkani, and siddiq hasan khan54 . they base their stance on various evidences, including: 1. from the holy qur’én: ▪ verse 97: “pilgrimage to this house is an obligation by allah upon whoever is able among the people."55 ▪ the ×anafi56, and the ×anbali school57, hold the view that if a woman has a maíram, then she can perform the pilgrimage to the house of allah, as she is capable of riding and descending, and her maíram ensures her safety. 2. from the prophetic sunnah: ▪ ibn ‘abbas reported that the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, "a woman should not perform hajj unless she has a maíram with her." 58 they said that this hadith is clear in its ruling, and it is because she is initiating a journey within the islamic state, and it is not permissible for her to travel without a maíram, similar to voluntary ×ajj.59 ▪ the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, "a woman should not travel for three days except with a maíram or her husband."60 secondly: evidence of those who permit it: those who permit women to travel without a maíram are divided into two groups. the first group permits a woman to travel without a maíram, relying on the company of trustworthy women. this includes the méliki and shafi‘ê schools. the second group allows a woman to travel when there is no maíram or husband present, without restricting it to the company of trustworthy women. this group includes the úéhiri (virtual) school, and their overall evidence presented as follows:ْ hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 95 1. from the holy qur’én: ▪ verse 97: “pilgrimage to this house is an obligation by allah upon whoever is able among the poeple."61 ▪ the view adopted by the méliki and shéfi‘ê schools is that capability is fulfilled with a maíram or trustworthy company. according to them, a woman travel for ×ajj only with a trustworthy companion. 2. from the sunnah: ▪ the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said, "a woman should not travel except with a maíram.”62 ▪ ‘ó’ishah (raìi allah ‘anhë) said: "not every woman has a maíram, nor can she find one." she also said, commenting on those who prevent women from traveling without a maíram for more than three days: "do you find a maíramْ!"63 ▪ ‘ó’ishah (raìi allah ‘anhë) said, she asked the permission of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) to take part in jihéd, and he replied, “the jihéd of you women is the pilgrimage.”64 ▪ regarding umar bin al-khattab (raìi allah ‘anhu); it is narrated that he gave permission for the wives of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) to perform hajj. al-bayhaqi commented on this after the death of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), saying that the intention of this narration is the obligation of ×ajj for them once in their lifetime, similar to the obligation on men once, not a prohibition from performing ×ajj more than once."65 ▪ umar ibn al-khattab (raìi allah ‘anhu) ordered permission for women to perform ×ajj, and they should not be prevented from it. he did not stipulate the presence of a maíram for them. since it is an obligatory journey, it became obligatory not to prevent them from performing it without any conditions. moreover, since the presence of a maíram َْْمْحَرم is not a condition for the obligation of any act of worship, it is not a condition for its performance, just like all other acts of worship.66 96 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … ▪ adi bin hatim narrated that he came to the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) who said to him: “the lady in a howdah travelling from al-×ira will perform the ùawéf this house, fearing none but allah".67 méliki school stated: the role of a trustworthy companion does not suffice in non-obligatory travel. 68 however, the méliki jurists make an exception for a woman traveling without a maíram if she is part of a large caravan.69 thus, jurists derived from the hadiths that prohibit women from traveling alone the prohibition of non-essential travel. those who permitted women to travel without a male guardian stated the necessity of having a substitute, such as trustworthy women or a secure caravan. textual implications explicitly and implicitly, and their predominant significance in women's travel meaning of cause and wisdom 1. cause linguistically: it refers to what causes a change in something when it occurs. it is also said to be the necessary sign. 2. cause (‘illah) in terminology: it refers to what makes the existence of something contingent on the existence of something else. it is external to the essence of the thing and does not necessitate the existence of another thing. however, the absence of the latter necessitates the absence of the former.70 3. wisdom (×ikmah) linguistically: derived from "×ikm حكم," meaning prevention. knowledge is called wisdom because it prevents ignorance, and the reins of a horse are called wisdom because they prevent it from disobeying its rider. 4. wisdom (×ikmah) in terminology: it refers to an apparent description that is not regulated and varies according to people's perspectives.71 the jurists agree on the requirement of a maíram for a woman's travel. is the requirement of a maíram for a woman's travel due to a reason? upon examining the authentic hadiths regarding a woman's travel, it becomes evident that the obligation of having a maíram for every journey is emphasized. however, these hadiths do not explicitly mention or hint at a description or rationale that explains the reason behind this requirement. therefore, the derived purposes and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 97 expected rulings are merely interpretations and do not directly engage with the concept of the rationale, whether present or absent. evidence for those claiming that the maíram is required for security reasons: hadith narrated by 'adi bin hatim, where the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) said to him: “the lady in a howdaj ودْجْہ ْtravelling from al-×ira will perform the ùawéf of this house, fearing none but allah" ‘adi commented on this by then knowledge that he witnessed the woman traveling without any fear except of allah.72 our preference is that the maíram must align with what is explicitly stated in the authentic texts. deputizing, on the other hand, relies solely on reasoning and does not have a solid basis in explicit texts.ْ main results of the study 1. a number of hadiths explicitly prohibited women's travel without a maíram. this is evident in the hadith narrated by 'umrah bint 'abdul rahman. she said, "i asked ‘ó’ishah and she informed me that abu sa‘eed al-khudri reported from the messenger of allah (øall allahu ‘alaihe wa sallam) that he said: it is not lawful for a woman to undertake three days journey except when there is a maíram with her. ‘ó’ishah then turned towards us and said, 'not all of them have a maíram with them! similar statements are also reported from ibn umar." furthermore, “a man must never be alone with a woman unless there is a maíram with her. a woman also may not travel with anyone except with a maíram.”73 2. the travel distance limit varies among jurists based on considerations rely on customary practices, with a broad linguistic interpretation.ْ 3. the requirement of a maíram for a woman's travel is a subject of disagreement among jurists, but their divergence is more pronounced in the case of obligatory travel, such as ×ajj. the méliki school delegated the trusted companionship to stand in for the maíram in the absence or refusal of the latter. the shéfi‘ê school allowed trusted companionship even in the presence of a maíram, contrary to the ×anafi and ×anbali schools, which prohibited travel without a maíram in all circumstances. 4. the méliki school has a specific ruling on a woman traveling without a maíram. they permit it if she is part of a large caravan, given the absence of fear. 5. the disagreement among jurists regarding the requirement of a maíram for a woman's travel stems from their different interpretations of the texts prohibiting a woman's travel without a maíram. similarly, if security is ensured through a means other 98 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … than a maíram, such as a trustworthy group, the prohibition is also lifted. however, those who believe that the prohibition is absolute and not contingent on specific circumstances maintain that a woman's travel is only allowed with a maíram, and they do not permit any alternative means that ensure security without a maíram. this view is considered more plausible. conclusion this study has examined the prohibitions of travel in hadiths. the focus was made upon the concept of maíram and its importance for women travel. in this respect, the findings revealed that the guardian “maíram”ْْhas various qualifications and that the most cautious approach to ensuring the intended purpose of the requirement for a woman's travel is for the guardian to be an adult, sane, and prohibited from marrying the woman indefinitely. the authentic hadiths support the requirement of a male guardian for a woman's travel and that this requirement is ritualistic, contrary to the view that it is rationalized. significantly, the journey distance limit varies among jurists based on considerations of customary practices, with a broad linguistic interpretation. in a sense, the necessity of a maíram for a woman's travel is a subject of disagreement among jurists. this is the outcome of their different interpretations of the texts prohibiting a woman's travel without a maíram. if security is ensured through a means other than a maíram. such as; a trustworthy group, the prohibition is also lifted. however, those who believe that the prohibition is absolute and not contingent on specific circumstances maintain that a woman's travel is only allowed with a maíram and they do not permit any alternative means that ensure security without a maíram. the current study finds this view more plausible. the researcher discerns that in case a woman's security is guaranteed, at the physical and psychological levels, she can travel without a maíram, since the purpose behind travelling with a maíram is to ensure the safety of women. suggestions for further research since the current study has examined the prohibitions of women travel in hadiths, there is still an importance to carry out future research on the following topics: hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 99 • the position of islamic jurisprudence on women travel in the age of modern transportations. • the role of ijtihéd in bridging the gulf between islamic idea of maíram and modern transportations. notes and references 1 haddad, rafa. "understanding muslim woman travel behaviour: a theoretical perspective." acta universitatis danubius. economica 15.6 (2019): 233-244. 2 al etoum, niebal mohammad ibrahim, et al. "the requirement of a mahram for a woman's travel under the contemporary developments and fatwas." international journal of religion 5.5 (2024): 842-854. 3 utami, maulidah tri. "mahram implications in women’s travel." hunafa: jurnal studia islamika 16.1 (2019): 88-110. 4 faiz, muhammad fauzinudin, dawam multazamy rohmatulloh, and muhammad solikhudin. "challenging the status quo: khaled m. abou el fadl's perspectives on islamic legal authority and the restrictive fatwa on women's solo travel." j. islamic l. 4 (2023): 47. 5 ilma, mughniatul. "reconstruction of the concept of maḥram in women’s safar based on ibnu qayyim al-jauziyyah’s legal change theory." juris (jurnal ilmiah syariah) 20.2 (2021): 147. 6 hamdani, hamdani. "mahram for women in the implementation of the hajj according to classical and contemporary ulama." al hurriyah: jurnal hukum islam 6.2 (2022): 131-143. 7 jakfar, tarmizi m., and arifah fitria. "understanding multiple interpretations on the hadith that husbands allow wives to have outdoor activities: a study of islamic law perspectives." samarah: jurnal hukum keluarga dan hukum islam 5.1 (2021): 210-231. 8 rahmi, nailur. "shifting the meaning of mahram for women in the implementaion of hajj and uumrah." proceeding international conference on islam, law, and society. vol. 2. no. 1. 2023. 9 din, faiza muhammad. "recreation and the creative muslimah." al-qawārīr 3.2 (2022): 1-14. 10 dedi, syarial, and sri yuniarti. "imam ash-shafi'i's opinion on hajj without a mahram and its relevance to the present day." al-istinbath: jurnal hukum islam 8.2 november (2023): 535-552. 11 hazim, mahbobullah, and abdulaziz nazari. "the negative consequences of gender mixing and its rulings in islamic shariah." integrated journal for research in arts and humanities 3.4 (2023): 6-19. 12 miski, miski. "amplification of islamic doctrines in hadith memes prohibition of women travels without a mahram on indonesian social media." jurnal studi ilmu-ilmu al-qur'an dan hadis 22.1 (2021): 230-254. 13 hosseini, zakieh-sadat, syed hasan emamian, and tofiq asadov. "ethical principles of social activity of muslim women." international multidisciplinary journal of “pure life 8.26 (2021): 91-106. 14 thimm, viola. "gendered pilgrimage: hajj and umrah from women’s perspectives." journal of contemporary religion 36.2 (2021): 223-241. 15 nisha, farisha, and catherine cheung. "locating muslimah in the travel and tourism research." tourism management perspectives 41 (2022): 100940. 16 bukhari, muhammad ibn ismail. sahih bukhari. liechtenstein, liechtenstein: thesaurus islamicus foundation, 2000. 17 muslim ibn al-hajjaj. the authentic concise compilation narrated by the just from the just to the messenger of allah muhammad (pbuh) [sahih muslim], verified by muhammad fuad abdul-baqi, dar ihya al-turath al-arabi, beirut. 100 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … 18 al-bazzar: ahmad ibn amr ibn abdul khaliq al-utaqi. musnad al-bazzar, published under the title "the sea of precious pearls," 1st edition. editors: mahfouz al-rahman zein allah, adel ibn saad, sabri abdul khaliq al-shafi'i. 19 miski, p. 230. 20 hosseini, et al., pp. 91-106. 21 thimm, p. 223. 22 nisha, p. 41. 23 bukhari, no. (2875) and no. (1861), ahmad in al-musnad, no. (24423). 24 al-tabarani, sulaiman ibn ahmad ibn ayyub. al-mu'jam al-awsat, verified by tariq bin muhammad, abdul mohsen bin ibrahim al-husayni. dar al-harmain, cairo. it is a weak hadith narrated by al-tabarani, number 851. 25 al-bayhaqi: ahmad ibn al-husayn ibn ali ibn musa al-khurasani. al-sunan alkubra, (volume 3), edited by muhammad ata, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyya, beirut, lebanon, 2003, hadith number 10133. 26 narrated by muslim in his sahih, book of hajj, chapter: the woman traveling with a mahram for hajj and others, hadith number 1338. 27 agreed upon, al-bukhari. sahih al-bukhari, the concise compilation of matters related to the messenger of allah muhammad (pbuh), hadith number 827. 28 al-tabarani, p. 851. 29 al-bayhaqi, p. 10133. 30 it was narrated by al-bayhaqi in his sunan al-kubra, hadith number 10133, and ibn abd al-barr in al-istidhkar, volume 4, page 412, and the one after him with the same meaning. 31 al-bukhari recorded it in his sahih, hadith number 2875. also found in ahmad's musnad, hadith number 24423. 32 al-bukhari recorded it in his sahih, book of hajj, chapter: hajj for women, hadith number 1861. 33 al-bukhari recorded it in his sahih, book of the hunting penalty, chapter: hajj for women, hadith number 1860, in an abbreviated form. also found in albayhaqi's sunan, hadith numbers 8621 and 10144, in an extended form, and the wording is attributed to him. 34 ibn abi shaybah, abdullah ibn muhammad ibn ibrahim, al-musannaf of hadiths and narrations, volume 3, edited by kamal yusuf al-hut, maktabat alrushd, riyadh, p. 210, hadith numbers 13530, 1409, volume 1. 35 narrated by abu dawood in sunan, number 1728, al-albani authenticated it. 36 narrated by al-bukhari in his sahih, book of virtues, chapter on signs of prophethood in islam, number 3595. 37 al-bukhari in his sahih, as mentioned earlier, and al-darqutni in his sunan, number 2438, and the wording is his. 38 ibn manzur. lisan al-arab, dar al-fikr, dar sader, beirut, lebanon, vol. 4, p. 367. 39 mokhtar al-sahah, p. 154. 40 ibrahim mustafa et al. al-muajam al-wasit, vol. 2, al-maktaba al-islamiya, p. 432. 41 see ibn hajar al-asqalani, fath al-bari sharh sahih al-bukhari, al-maktaba al-asriya, sidon, lebanon, 2001, vol. 3, p. 1505, and attributed this to al-bann al-muzhir. 42 ibn hazm, al-muhalla fi sharh al-mujallaa bil haj wa al-athar, vol. 1, dar alafkar al-dawliya, saudi arabia, p. 433. 43 ibn qudamah, al-mughni, vol. 3, edited by dr. abdul allah al-turki and dr. abdul fattah al-huloo, dar al-ilm, riyadh kingdom of saudi arabia, 1417 h 1997 ce, vol. 2, p. 481. 44 ibn qudamah al-maqdisi, shams al-din abd al-rahman ibn muhammad ibn ahmad, al-sharh al-kabir, vol. 1, edited by abdul allah bin abdul mohsin alturki and dr. abdul fattah muhammad al-huloo, hegra for printing, publishing and advertising, cairo arab republic of egypt, 1415 h 1995 ce, vol. 2, p. 489. 45 ibn taymiyyah, majmu' al-fatawa, vol. 24, p. 41. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 101 46 ibn qayyim al-jawziyya. hashiyat ibn al-qayyim ma'a 'awn al-ma'bud, vol. 2, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyah, beirut, 1415 h, vol. 5, p. 149. zad al-ma'ad fi hadi khair al-'ibad, vol. 26, edited by shu'ayb al-arnaut, al-risalah foundation, beirut, 1992 ce, vol. 2, p. 55. 47 al-nawawi, al-minhaj sharh sahih muslim ibn al-hajjaj, vol. 1, verification by irfan husaynah, dar ihya' al-turath al-arabi, beirut, lebanon, 2000 ce, vol. 5, p. 234, and al-majmu' sharh al-madhhab, verification by muhammad najib, alam al-kutub, riyadh, vol. 4, pp. 330-329. 48 al-san'ani, subul al-salam, dar al-hadith, vol. 1, p. 56. 49 ibn hajar, fath al-bari, vol. 3, p. 1506, and al-nawawi, al-minhaj sharh sahih muslim, vol. 4, p. 11. 50 ibn qudamah, al-sharh al-kabir (the great explanation), vol. 2, p. 488. 51 al-sawi, biloghat al-salik ila qurb al-masalik 'ala al-sharh al-saghir li al-qutb sayyidi ahmad al-dardir (the language of the traveler in approaching the paths on the brief explanation of qutb sayyid ahmad al-dardir), edited by muhammad shahin, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyah, beirut, lebanon, vol. 1, p. 311. 52 al-mawardi, al-hawi al-kabir fi fiqh madhhab al-imam al-shafi'i, explained by ali muawad, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyah, beirut, lebanon, 1999, vol. 2, pp. 451, 449. 53 ibn qudamah, al-kafi fi fiqh imam ahmad bin hanbal, 1st edition, al-maktab al-islami, dar ibn hazm, beirut, lebanon, 2003, p. 128. 54 al-hattab, the talents of the elite, volume 2, page 89. 55 surah aal-e-imran: verse number 97. 56 al-nawawi, al-majmu' sharh al-madhhab, volume 7, pages 86-87. 57 ministry of islamic endowments in kuwait, kuwaiti jurisprudence encyclopedia, vol. 27, p. 270. 58 al-hattab, the talents of the elite, volume 2, page 89. 59 mustafa al-khan and others, methodological jurisprudence according to the school of imam al-shafi’i, may god have mercy on him, 7th ed., dar al-qalam, damascus, dar al-shamiya, beirut, vol. 1, p. 191. 60 narrated by al-bayhaqi in his sunan al-kubra, number 10133, and ibn abd albarr in al-isti'dkar, volume 4, page 412, with a similar meaning. 61 surah aal-i-imran: verse number 97. 62 narrated by al-bukhari in his sahih, number 2875. 63 narrated by al-bukhari in his sahih, in the book of the hunting penalty, chapter on the pilgrimage of women, number 1860, in an abridged form, and al-bayhaqi, sunan al-kubra, numbers 8621 and 10144, in an extended form, with the wording being his. 64 al-bayhaqi, sunan al-kubra, volume 4, pages 326-327. 65 al-mawardi, al-hawi al-kabir, volume 5, page 478. 66 narrated by al-bukhari in his sahih, number 3595, and al-daraqutni in his sunan, number 2438, with the wording being his. 67 al-mawardi, al-hawi al-kabir, volume 5, page 478. 68 al-kasani, bada'i al-shara'i, volume 3, page 49-48. 69 ibn abd al-barr's "al-istidhkar," vol. 13, p. 369. 70 al-shafi'i "al-um" dar al-ma'arif's edition, beirut, 1410. 1990, vol. 2, p. 100. al-rafi'i's "al-aziz sharh al-wajiz" vol. 3, p. 291. 71 al-buhuti's "kashaf al-qina" vol. 2, p. 394. 72 al-sawi, "belaghat al-salik a'la qurb al-masalik", vol. 2, p. 9. 73 miski, p230. bibliography 1 haddad, rafa. "understanding muslim woman travel behaviour: a theoretical perspective." acta universitatis danubius. œconomica 15.6 (2019): 233-244. 2 al etoum, niebal mohammad ibrahim, et al. "the requirement of a mahram for a woman's travel under the contemporary developments and fatwas." international journal of religion 5.5 (2024): 842-854. 102 prohibitions of travel in hadiths … 3 utami, maulidah tri. "mahram implications in women's travel." hunafa: jurnal studia islamika 16.1 (2019): 88-110. 4 faiz, muhammad fauzinudin, dawam multazamy rohmatulloh, and muhammad solikhudin. "challenging the status quo: khaled m. abou el fadl's perspectives on islamic legal authority and the restrictive fatwa on women's solo travel." j. islamic l. 4 (2023): 47. 5 ilma, mughniatul. "reconstruction of the concept of maḥram in women’s safar based on ibnu qayyim al-jauziyyah’s legal change theory." juris (jurnal ilmiah syariah) 20.2 (2021): 147. 6 hamdani, hamdani. "mahram for women in the implementation of the hajj according to classical and contemporary ulama." al hurriyah: jurnal hukum islam 6.2 (2022): 131-143. 7 jakfar, tarmizi m., and arifah fitria. "understanding multiple interpretations on the hadith that husbands allow wives to have outdoor activities: a study of islamic law perspectives." samarah: jurnal hukum keluarga dan hukum islam 5.1 (2021): 210-231. 8 rahmi, nailur. "shifting the meaning of mahram for women in the implementation of hajj and umrah." proceeding international conference on islam, law, and society. vol. 2. no. 1. 2023. 9 din, faiza muhammad. "recreation and the creative muslimah." al-qawārīr 3.2 (2022): 1-14. 10 dedi, syarial, and sri yuniarti. "imam ash-shafi'i's opinion on hajj without a mahram and its relevance to the present day." al-istinbath: jurnal hukum islam 8.2 november (2023): 535-552. 11 hazim, mahbobullah, and abdulaziz nazari. "the negative consequences of gender mixing and its rulings in islamic shariah." integrated journal for research in arts and humanities 3.4 (2023): 6-19. 12 miski, miski. "amplification of islamic doctrines in hadith memes prohibition of women travels without a mahram on indonesian social media." jurnal studi ilmu-ilmu al-qur'an dan hadis 22.1 (2021): 230-254. 13 hosseini, zakieh-sadat, syed hasan emamian, and tofiq asadov. "ethical principles of social activity of muslim women." international multidisciplinary journal of “pure life 8.26 (2021): 91-106. 14 bukhari, muhammad ibn ismail. sahih bukhari. liechtenstein, liechtenstein: thesaurus islamicus foundation, 2000. 15 thimm, viola. "gendered pilgrimage: hajj and umrah from women’s perspectives." journal of contemporary religion 36.2 (2021): 223-241. 16 nisha, farisha, and catherine cheung. "locating muslimah in the travel and tourism research." tourism management perspectives 41 (2022): 100940. 17 al-bazzar: ahmad ibn amr ibn abdul khaliq al-utaqi. "musnad albazzar," published under the title "the sea of precious pearls," 1st edition. editors: mahfouz al-rahman zein allah, adel ibn saad, sabri abdul khaliq alshafi'i. 18 al-tabarani, sulaiman ibn ahmad ibn ayyub. "al-mu'jam al-awsat," verified by tariq bin muhammad, abdul mohsen bin ibrahim al-husayni. dar alharmain, cairo. it is a weak hadith narrated by al-tabarani, number 851. 19 al-bayhaqi: ahmad ibn al-husayn ibn ali ibn musa al-khurasani. "alsunan al-kubra," (volume 3), edited by muhammad ata, dar al-kutub alilmiyya, beirut, lebanon, 2003, hadith number 10133 20 ibn abi shaybah, abdullah ibn muhammad ibn ibrahim, al-musannaf of hadiths and narrations, volume 3, edited by kamal yusuf al-hut, maktabat alrushd, riyadh, p.210, hadith numbers 13530, 1409, volume 1. 21 ibn manzur. lisan al-arab, dar al-fikr, dar sader, beirut, lebanon, vol. 4, p. 367. 22 al-nawawi, al-minhaj sharh sahih muslim ibn al-hajjaj, vol 1, verification: irfan husaynah, dar ihya' al-turath al-arabi, beirut, lebanon, 2000 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 103 ce. vol. 5, p. 234, and al-majmu' sharh al-madhhab, verification: muhammad najib, alam al-kutub, riyadh. vol. 4, pp. 330-329. 23 al-shawkani, nayl al-awtar min ahadith sayyid al-akhyar sharh muntakha al-akhbar, vol.1, verification: issam al-din al-sababti, dar al-hadith, egypt, 1413 ah 1993 ce. vol. 3, p. 207. 24 al-mawardi, "al-hawi al-kabir fi fiqh madhhab al-imam al-shafi'i," explained by ali muawad, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyah, beirut, lebanon, 1999, vol. 2, pp. 451, 449. 25 mustafa al-khan and others, "al-fiqh al-manhaji 'ala madhhab imam al-shafi'i," 7th edition, dar al-qalam, damascus, dar al-shamiyah, beirut, vol. 1, p. 191. 26 al-sarakhsi, shams al-din, "al-mabsut," 1st edition, dar al-ma'rifah, beirut, lebanon, 1986, vol. 1, pp. 236-235. 27 ibn abidin, "radd al-muhtar ala al-durr al-mukhtar sharh tanwir alabsar," dar al-fikr, beirut, 1992 ce, vol. 3, p. 464. 28 al-tahtawi, "hashiyat al-tahtawi ala maraqi al-falah sharh nur alidah," vol. 1, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyya, beirut, lebanon, 1418 ah 1997 ce, p. 728. 29 al-suyuti, "al-ashbab wal-nazair," 1st edition, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyya, 1411 ah 1990 ce, vol. 2, p. 72. 30 zaidan, abdul karim. "al-wajiz fi usul al-fiqh," dar al-risalah, beirut, lebanon, 7th edition, 2000 ce, p. 59. 31 al-zawbai, dia’a hussein, "al-hikmah wa al-ta'leel biha 'inda alusuliyyin," journal of the college of education for girls, volume 17, p. 1, 2006 ce. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 73 determinants of family takaful in asean: evidence from business unit sharô‘óh and full-fledged operations nun maziyyah mahsyar department of islamic economics and finance, sakarya university, turkiye. email: nun.mahsyar@ogr.sakarya.edu.tr hakan aslan department of islamic economics and finance, sakarya university, turkiye. email: hakanaslan@sakarya.edu.tr received on: 18-08-23 accepted on: 06-09-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.875 abstract this study’s aim is to perform an empirical analysis of the determinants that influence the solvency of family takaful enterprises, both at the full-fledged level and within the business unit of sharê‘ah compliant entities across countries in asean. the data utilised within the study were obtained from the financial statements annually of 32 family takaful businesses and the world bank database, spanning 2017 to 2021. the solvency of an entity is assessed by utilising net assets divided by net contributions, which serve as the dependent variable in this context. according to the findings, a positive relationship exists between solvency and the following variables: profitability, investment ratio, liquidity, and firm size. the impact of wakalah fees on solvency is significantly related negatively. nevertheless, it is essential to note that there is no inherent connection between gdp and inflation concerning solvency. the family takaful company in asean has a relatively high solvency level. thus, it can fulfil its obligation in the long run to meet the policyholder’s claim. keywords: asean, determinant factors, family takaful, solvency. mailto:nun.mahsyar@ogr.sakarya.edu.tr mailto:hakanaslan@sakarya.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.875 74 determinants of family takaful … 1. introduction life is full of risk, which is unpredictable by a human being. individuals need to consider risk financing, especially for their life risks. considering the sharia aspects, islamic insurance is part of risk financing for muslims. billah revealed that takaful, sometimes referred to as islamic insurance, encompasses a financial arrangement wherein two parties engage in a mutual collaboration to offer financial protection to one party against unforeseen material risks.1 the insurance penetration rate has been increasing over the years in the association of southeast asia nations (asean) countries, particularly brunei darussalam, cambodia, indonesia, lao pdr, malaysia, myanmar, philippines, singapore, thailand, and vietnam. according to the eu-asean business council (eu-abc) report, the penetration rate of asean’s insurance is considerable for a growing average of 6.1 per cent towards the global average.2 thus, islamic insurance has participated in the penetration rate as well as the conventional one. figure 1. market share of islamic insurance in three membersof asean countries (2015-2019) source: bank negara malaysia, brunei darussalam authority, indonesia financial authority mutmainah, sukmadilaga, and nugroho state three countries involved as the most active takaful in southeast asia, such as malaysia, indonesia, and brunei darussalam.3syimee sharifuddin et al. mentioned that the presence of islamic insurance in malaysia-one of the leading islamic economies globally was established as its first takaful (syarikat takaful malaysia sdn) in november 1984, followed by the law issued in december 1984.4 meanwhile, sharif bashir, hafiizah, and mail displayed the first takaful company in brunei darussalam on march 1993 by the brunei islamic board of trustees (taib) sdn bhd, and the government issued the order law of islamic insurance in 2008.5 pt. asuransi takaful keluarga was responsible for the establishment of the inaugural takaful in indonesia in the year 1994, and it was followed by government laws in 2014. in addition, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 75 thailand introduced its first takaful by muang thai life insurance in 2011. the company has consistently extended its takaful products among thailand society. each of the countries has remarkable market shares. the figure 1 shows that brunei darussalam has the most significant market share in takaful among malaysia and indonesia. besides, the eu-asean business council argues that in 2021, the asean markets collectively had a notable increase of 9 per cent in the volume of insurance premiums, which exceeds the global average of 3 per cent and demonstrates superior performance compared to other significant regions and markets around the globe.6 despite the observed expansion in market share, the takaful sector has recently encountered noteworthy apprehensions over its solvency, exhibiting diminished stability compared to the traditional insurance industry. am best information services (2021) disclosed that several takaful enterprises had experienced financial failure due to several factors. abduhand zein isma; yakob et al. found factors such as exorbitant wakalah fees and operational inefficiencies.7,8 alokla et al. explained that the participants' funds had experienced deficits due to inadequate administration, elevated wakalah fees, and subpar technical performance.9 a market trend was discovered wherein shareholder funds consistently yielded profits, whereas policyholders' funds exhibited recurrent yearly deficits. the presence of recurring yearly deficits within the policyholders' funds contributes to the expansion of the overall cumulative deficit, diminishing the financial robustness of the takaful organisation. therefore, this study would like to investigate the solvency determinants in asean countries, in particular brunei darussalam, malaysia, and indonesia, on family takaful, both full-fledged and business unit sharia, from 2017 to 2021. family takaful will be the primary concern since society requires protection for themselves or their households from losing financing when the risk comes up. three major countries, namely brunei darussalam, malaysia, and indonesia, will be observed as three of the eleven asean countries that own islamic insurance. although thailand already has the family takaful, it is not included in this study since there is no financial report published. the result of this study will contribute to find out the elements that determine the solvency level of family takaful in asean countries. these countries have an impressive market share and experience a rapid increase in insurance premiums. the paper's structure is the following. section 2 presents a comprehensive review of solvency and the previous empirical evidence. section 3 will elaborate methodology used, particularly 76 determinants of family takaful … unbalanced panel data regression. section 4 discussed the variables regressions, empirical evidence, and discussion. section 5 will conclude the content. 2. literature review craig defined solvency as a crucial metric utilised to showcase the capacity of an insurance firm to manage its activities over the foreseeable future effectively.10 the required solvency margin depends on the regulation of the government. since it is the extra capital, the company must hold over and above the claims amounts they are likely to incur. several academics have conducted a comprehensive literature study on various statistical approaches and their use in determining financial stability. abduh and zein isma highlighted four precise measurements of the evaluation of the financial stability of corporate enterprises and financial institutions encompasses various aspects such as their financial performance, profitability, solvency, and efficiency—many empirical studies about solvency determinants in takaful firms by employing balanced panel data regression.11 in addition, afiqah and lailacategorised solvency as an rbc, known as a risk-based capital metric; the ratio is ascertained by the division of the solvency level by a prescribed minimum solvency level threshold.12alokla et al. measured solvency using the metric of net assets divided by net contributions.13 oscar akotey et al. employ the same methodology, particularly panel regression from ghana’s ten life insurances from 2000 to 2010, to investigate the financial performance. there are three key indicators used to assess the profitability of insurers, namely investment income, underwriting profit, and net profit. the results suggest a positive correlation between the insurer’s sales profitability and gross written premiums, whereas gross written premiums and investment income are negatively correlated. furthermore, the findings indicate that life insurance companies have had significant underwriting losses as a result of engaging in excessive trading and engaging in price undercutting practices. the findings also demonstrated a contrasting rather than a supportive connection between underwriting profit and investment income in terms of their contribution to the total profitability of life insurance companies. meanwhile, srivastava and ray employ linear regression and logit techniques to conduct an assessment of the financial stability of general insurance companies in india. the findings indicate that the primary determinants of indian non-life insurers are the various lines of business, the market share held by the firm, the rate of increase in premiums, the performance of underwriting, and the claims incurred. moreover, the elements that have the most significant impact are market share, fluctuations in the inflation rate, company size, diversity of business operations, and incurred claims.14 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 77 abduh and zein isma examined the economic and firmspecific factors that impact the solvency level of family takaful firms in malaysia. the dependent variable is the equity-to-asset and equityto-technical reserve ratio (ear) from 2008 to 2012. they found that investment income, contribution growth, liquidity, takaful leverage, and the islamic equity index were found to impact ear positively. additionally, company size, risk retention, expenses, and profit rate have a negative impact on ear.15alokla et al. evaluated the solvency of takaful enterprises operating over gulf cooperation council (gcc) nations and malaysia. a total of 52 takaful businesses were included in the dataset, spanning 2011 to 2016. the researchers discovered that the dimensions of business size and wakalah fees had a substantial impact on solvency levels. furthermore, there is no substantial association between solvency and return on assets, risk retention, and investment ratios.16 shiu analysed the variables influencing the solvency level of life insurance in the united kingdom (uk). the study focused on both economic and firm-specific drivers. the individual engaged in observations during the years 1986 and 1999. the study's findings indicate a favourable correlation between solvency and the ratios of equities-to-totalassets, bonds-to-total assets and the amount of new business. on the contrary, there was an inverse association between solvency and factors such as unexpected inflation, firm size, insurance leverage, market competition, and other financial ratios.17 afiqah and laila investigated the potential impact of firm size, the growth of premium, investment yield, and liquidity toward solvency in takaful firms of indonesia. the data spanning from 2015 to 2019 with 10 takaful companies. the result showed that all the independent variables affect solvency positively.18yakob et al. employed a random effect model to analyse 14 conventional insurance firms and 5 takaful enterprises in malaysia. the data spanned from 2003 to 2007. they employ a valuation ratio as a surrogate measure for solvency on the assumption that the valuation ratio acts as an indicator of the adequacy of reserves to meet the obligations of prospective policyholders. they concluded that there exists a significant and positive relationship between investment income and solvency. nevertheless, the aggregate advantage bestowed upon capital, in addition to the ratio of surplus, financial leverage, and liquidity, has an adverse impact on solvency. with the exception of the negative liquidity sign, the findings align with theoretical expectations as they suggest a positive relationship between investment income and the increases in total benefit paid/capital, surplus, and financial leverage.19 prior research on insurance businesses has mostly concentrated on the uk as well as emerging economies such as the 78 determinants of family takaful … gcc, malaysia, india, and ghana. nevertheless, the number of asean countries that have established takaful enterprises, including both full-fledged and sharê‘ah compliant business units, remains low. therefore, this study will seek to address this issue by examining the solvency levels of family takaful in three member states of asean. 3. methodology this study selects family takaful firms, both full-fledged and business unit sharia, financial statement reports in three asean countries, particularly malaysia, indonesia, and brunei darussalam. overall, the total observations reached 32 family takaful firms. since this study refers to the previous studies conducted by oscar akotey et al.; yakob et al.; shiu that employ panel data, this study employs unbalanced panel data as a result of missing data from the takaful enterprises. it will apply a combination of time-series and crosssectional regression models from 2017 to 2021. the data sources utilised in this study comprise the corporation’s annual reports, with the inflation and gdp statistics for each nation obtained from the world bank data. the data was examined using a diagnostic test, particularly the chow and hausman tests, to identify what kind of model will be used; common, fixed, and random effect models. the data will be examined using the classical assumption to observe whether the problem exists. all the data estimation is proceeded by e-views software. yakob et al. argue that the equation can represent the empirical regression model for panel data in its most basic form with some modifications to suit the econometric model within this study.20 yit= 𝛼1 + ∑ 𝛽𝑗𝑋𝑘 𝑗−1 jit + ∑ 𝛽𝑚 𝑙−1 1xlit + 𝜀it (1) yit and xit represent the dependent and explanatory variables for a certain family takaful firm i at a given time t. the first set of explanatory variables, represented by the symbol j, corresponds to the firm-specific factors, whereas k represents the number of firmspecific components. the second set of explanatory variables, labelled as "l," includes the market or economic factors impacting the dependent variable. the parameters that must be calculated through linear regression models are the coefficients of α1, βj, and β1. the error component, εit, follows a normal distribution. the dependent variable is solvency which is measured by the risk-based capital. meanwhile, the explanatory variables include profitability, investment ratio, wakalah fees, liquidity, company size, gdp, and inflation. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 79 explanatory variables measurement source of data solvency (y) net assets/net contribution company’s annual report profitability (x1) net income/net assets company’s annual report investment ratio (x2) investment ratio/net contribution company’s annual report wakalah fees (x3) wakalah fees/net assets company’s annual report liquidity (x4) current asset/current liability company’s annual report company size (x5) ln(total company assets) company’s annual report gdp (x6) $ gdp world bank database inflation (x7) inflation % world bank database table 1. measurement of explanatory variables 4. result and discussion 4.1 descriptive statistics takaf ul profit abilit y inves tmen t ratio wa kala h fees liq uidit y com pan y size g d p infl atio n solv enc y mean 0.06 0.91 0.6 1 9.18 13.7 8 8. 36 2.1 6 78. 64 media n 0.03 0.17 0.2 0 5.77 14.0 5 1. 04 2.4 8 2.7 5 maxi mum 1.17 22.5 7 8.8 4 48.2 2 26.2 4 3. 43 3.8 7 436 6.09 mini mum -0.66 0.02 1.70 0.50 -2.52 1. 35 3.90 0.43 sd 0.22 2.94 1.2 9 9.72 4.35 4. 27 1.4 5 383 .82 obser vation s 157 157 157 157 157 15 7 157 157 table 2. descriptive statistics table 2 presents a comprehensive overview of the dataset comprising 157 observations. the table provides key statistical measures for each variable. since the sample size in this study is quite extensive, the company size and solvency are relatively high. the 80 determinants of family takaful … data illustrated that the family takaful firms have successfully attracted society concerned about sharia compliance through the rapid growth of assets and contributions. five diagnostic tests must be carried out to analyse the data to ensure the validity of conclusions drawn from the regression model estimation. the following diagnostic tests are; multicollinearity, heteroscedasticity, autocorrelation, and residual normality. all test results were appropriate to conduct further analysis. the detailed results of the diagnostic tests can be seen in the appendix tables. 4.2 classical assumption gujarati stated that multicollinearity is present when there exists a distinct linear relationship over the explanatory variables.21adams and buckle revealed that pearson’s correlation coefficients test will detect the multicollinearity between the explanatory variables.22according to the data obtained, all variables exhibit correlation coefficients greater than or equal to 0.8. therefore, the findings imply that there is no issue of multicollinearity. meanwhile, the purpose of the heteroskedasticity test is to determine whether there is variation in the level of inequality between observations within a regression model. the data has the probability value reached 0.1251, and the probability of each variable is greater than 0,05. therefore, it describes that there is no heteroskedasticity. on the other side, durbin-watson can identify autocorrelation. the data obtained shows du < dw < 4-du (1.8316 < 2.086647 < 2.1684). it indicates no autocorrelation. for the residual normality, bundt and murphy explained that comparing empirical and theoretical cumulative distribution functions yields normality tests.23gujarati found that each residual or error component has a regularly distributed mean of zero and variation of 2. the data obtained shows that 0.0659 exceeds 0.05. data is typically distributed normally. 4.3 diagnostic test in order to ascertain the appropriate model to employ, namely the common, random, or fixed effect model, it is essential to carry out the chow and hausman test. as a result, this study employs a fixed effect model after outperforming common and random effect models. 4.3.1 fixed effect model dettori, norvell, and chapman described that the outcome of the regression analysis using the fixed effect model is presented below. the observed disparities can be attributed to sampling hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 81 error.24hence, any deviation would arise from inside each individual research. calculating the pooled estimate involves determining a weighted average, with each research being allocated a weight based on the inverse of its variance. in fixed-effect models, research of larger sample sizes is more significant than studies with smaller sample sizes. variable coeffi cient std. error t-statistic prob. c 4.7686 95 1.179240 -4.043872 0.0001* profitability 1.2809 79 0.595314 2.151769 0.0335** investment ratio 0.1910 51 0.045987 4.154435 0.0001* wakalah fees 0.4954 50 0.084954 -5.832009 0.0000* liquidity 0.0439 42 0.016721 2.627984 0.0098* company size 0.4182 35 0.080347 5.205326 0.0000* gdp -2.35e14 3.89e-13 -0.060414 0.9519 inflation 0.0538 61 0.101673 -0.529749 0.5973 effects specification r-squared 0.85 0951 mean dependent var 1.222618 adjusted rsquared 0.79 5552 s.d. dependent var 2.273476 s.e. of regression sum 1.02 7973 akaike info criterion 3.121869 squared resid log 119. 4103 schwarzcriterion 3.962534 likelihood 200.5 058 hannanquinncriter. 3.463311 f-statistic 15.3 6046 durbinwatsonstat 2.057121 prob (fstatistic) 0.00 0000 the significance level of p-value is 10% ***, 5% ** and 1% * table 4. fixed effect model 82 determinants of family takaful … the findings show that the result of the adjusted r-squared reached 0.850951. it describes that the factors can be explained by around 85.09 % from the explanatory variables to the dependent variable, while the external factors are explained from other variables by 14.91% outside this study. the explanatory variables positively affect the dependent variable simultaneously. it can be seen from the significant value of probability, which is less than 0.05. in addition, internal explanatory variables such as profitability, investment ratio, liquidity, and company size influence solvency positively and significantly at a 5% probability, excluding wakalah fees, which is negative significantly. in contrast, external factors such as gdp and inflation do not influence solvency due to a larger than 5% probability. the coefficient value of profitability is 1.280979, which means that when the profitability increases by 1%, it will increase solvency by 1.28%. each increment of 1% of the investment ratio will enhance solvency by 0.19%. each increase of 1% in the wakalah fees will decrease solvency by 0.49%. each increase of 1% of the liquidity will increase 0.04% of solvency. each 1% change in company size will increase 0.41% of solvency. profitability is the primary factor that significantly influences solvency since even a 1% increase in profitability may lead to a substantial 1.28% improvement in solvency. profitability, company size, and investment ratio are notable in determining solvency. this finding suggests an interchange between the number of customers of takaful businesses and their profitability, as measured by contributions payments or premiums. this finding suggests a positive correlation exists between the number of clients a takaful operator has and the company's profitability. as the customer base expands, the company is able to generate more profits, which in turn provides them with a larger pool of funds that may be utilised for investment purposes. as a result, the company's earnings will increase, so contributing to the expansion of its size owing to the favourable cash flow. these findings will demonstrate the high degree of solvency exhibited by takaful enterprises. 4.4 discussion the finding shows that profitability positively and significantly affects solvency. if the profitability increases, the solvency will increase as well. it is supported by the coefficient value that is the most contributor to solvency, reaching 1.28% for the 1% increase in profitability. the profitability improvement can be achieved through developing a marketing plan to attract more customers. the more customers they have, the more premium or contribution they will pay. it is in line with the study by (srivastava and ray), who found that the growing rate of premiums has a hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 83 substantial impact on non-life insurance companies in india.25the result contrasts with (bawa and chattha), who found that profitability does not have a relation between profitability and solvency in india’s life insurance firms.26 meanwhile, alokla et al. show the same result in this study, where profitability is related positively to solvency level in gcc and malaysia takaful enterprises.27 there is a favourable correlation between investment income and solvency. browne, carson, and hoyt argue that increasing investment revenue could aid takaful operators in meeting their responsibilities towards policyholders.28 the result found by oscar is that investment is related positively to profitability in ghana’s insurance firms companies.29 however, this contrasts with the outcome of alokla et al. who found that investment is not significantly associated with solvency, while liquidity and company size are positively and significantly associated with solvency in gcc and malaysia countries.30 the higher these variables, the higher the solvency will be. the magnitude size of an insurance firm could affect its capacity to execute comprehensive risk management strategies. larger corporations possess the necessary financial means to allocate toward the acquisition of sophisticated risk assessment tools, underwriting procedures, and claims management systems. these resources enable them to effectively handle their exposure to risks and uphold elevated levels of solvency. the finding of liquidity is related to solvency in line with the result found by yakob et al. argued that liquidity has a significant relation to solvency in traditional life insurers and takaful companies.31 the finding of a positive link exists between the size of a company and its solvency. the findings align with (afiqah and laila), who found that company size positively affects the solvency level of takaful in indonesia.32 however, it is in contrast with the result found by shiu regarding the determinant factors of solvency in insurance life firms of the uk, he found that firm size is negatively related to solvency.33 in addition, abduh and zein isma found that company size and liquidity are not associated with the equity-totechnical reserve ratio (etr).34 the result of wakalah fees has a negative influence on solvency. it is in line with the result found by (alokla et al.), who found that wakalah fees have a negative effect on solvency. they recommend that the regulators should closely monitor the rate of wakalah fees.35 in addition, the gdp and inflation rate as external factors show that they do not influence significantly. the study’s outcome shows that family takaful firms in asean countries play a significant role in their financial performance. 84 determinants of family takaful … 5. conclusion asean countries are emerging markets for islamic finance products and services. family takaful firms are essential in protecting society from financial loss due to unpredictable risk. the financial performance of family takaful firms must own an excellent financial position. the solvency level is a proxy to gauge the financial stability of family takaful firms. the assessment of an entity's solvency involves the utilisation of the ratio of net assets to net contributions, which is considered the dependent variable within this particular context. thus, this study investigated the determinants of solvency in family takaful, both full-fledged and business unit sharia, among asean countries, particularly malaysia, brunei darussalam, and indonesia period 2017-2021. the result from data estimating using unbalanced panel data reveals that all the explanatory variables affect positively and significantly solvency simultaneously. profitability, investment ratio, liquidity, and company size are positively and significantly related to solvency. wakalah fees negatively significant to solvency. however, gdp and inflation do not contain any relation to solvency. the coefficient value of each explanatory variable demonstrates that the higher 1% of profitability, investment ratio, liquidity, and company size will increase the solvency level by 1.28%, 0.19%, 0.04%, and 0.41%. the 1% change in wakalah fees will decrease solvency to 0.49%. the most significant contributor is profitability, which displays that 1% of it can enhance solvency by as much as 1.28%, followed by company size and investment ratio. it supports that the more customers takaful firms have, the more profit the company earns from its customers and the more funds they can use to invest. consequently, all the profits will enhance the company’s size due to the positive cash flow. these will reflect the good solvency level of takaful firms. this study has profound implications for the stakeholders, particularly regulators and takaful operators in asean countries, to take into consideration the wakalah fees policy. in as much as the wakalah fees play a crucial role in promoting and maintaining financial stability, as evidenced by the empirical results within this study. hence, one potential approach to enhancing the credibility of the takaful sector is through the oversight of the fee structure of takaful firms. there is some limitation in this study, which focused on family takaful in three countries, namely brunei darussalam, malaysia and indonesia, in asean due to limited data available on family takaful firms’ websites. thus, the next researcher can find the data from internal family takaful firms. in addition, the next researcher can hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 85 analyse family and general takaful in asean to obtain broader insight into the financial performance of takaful firms in asean countries. appendix a: multicollinearity profita bility inves tment ratio wak alah fees liquid ity com pany size gdp inflat ion profi tabili ty 1.000 000 0.28 7534 0.22 3085 0.0081 77 0.375 867 0.145 738 0.08 0586 inve stme nt ratio 0.287 534 1.00 0000 0.21 3800 0.297 022 0.121 211 0.196 453 0.10 4540 wak alah fees 0.223 085 0.21 3800 1.00 0000 0.016 100 0.043 262 0.1150 77 0.152 307 liqu idity 0.0081 77 0.29 7022 0.01 6100 1.000 000 0.06 0957 0.2382 73 0.056 033 com pany size 0.3758 67 0.121 211 0.043 262 0.060 957 1.00 0000 0.2444 15 0.116 360 gdp 0.145 738 0.19 6453 0.115 077 0.2382 73 0.244 415 1.000 000 0.44 8514 infla tion 0.080 586 0.10 4540 0.152 307 0.0560 33 0.116 360 0.448 514 1.00 0000 appendix b: heteroscedasticity heteroskedasticity test: harvey f-statistic 1.65661 7 prob. f(7,142) 0.1244 obs*r-squared 11.3248 0 prob. chi-square(7) 0.1251 scaled explained ss 14.3058 6 prob. chi-square(7) 0.0460 variable coeffici ent std. error t-statistic prob. c 0.07128 0 1.056957 0.067439 0.9463 86 determinants of family takaful … profitability 0.66346 8 1.034269 0.641485 0.5222 investment ratio 0.09794 2 0.079105 1.238125 0.2177 wakalah fees 0.04288 1 0.164894 0.260054 0.7952 liquidity 0.02539 3 0.023669 1.072811 0.2852 company size 0.08016 8 0.050673 1.582089 0.1159 gdp 8.57e13 6.79e-13 1.261879 0.2091 inflation 0.16444 2 0.164991 0.996671 0.3206 appendix c autocorrelation r-squared 0.71633 9 mean dependent var 78.64533 adjusted rsquared 0.62499 0 s.d. dependent var 383.8234 s.e. of regression 235.045 8 akaike info criterion 13.96869 sum squared resid 6519093 . schwarz criterion 14.72789 log-likelihood 1057.54 2 hannan-quinn criter. 14.27703 f-statistic 7.84182 7 durbin-watson stat 2.086647 prob(f-statistic) 0.00000 0 appendix e residual normality skewness 0.360940 kurtosis 3.590553 jarque-bera 5.436641 probability 0.065985 appendix d chow test redundant fixed effects tests effects test statistic d.f. prob. cross-section f 2.204609 (31,118) 0.0013 cross-section chi-square 71.73388 2 31 0.0000 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 87 appendix e hausman test correlated random effects hausman test test cross-section random effects test summary chi-sq. statistic chi-sq. d.f. prob. cross-section random 14.07609 6 7 0.0498 notes and references 1 billah, mohd ma’sum, islamic insurance products: exploring takaful principles, instruments and structures (switzerland: springer international publishing, 2019). 498. 2“eu-asean business council makes key recommendations to drive inclusive & sustainable growth through insurance,” eu-asean business council, accessed 20 april 2023, https://www.eu-asean.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/press-releaseeu-asean-business-council-makes-key-recommendations-to-drive-inclusivesustainable-growth-through-insurance.pdf. 3mutmainah, mutmainah, citra sukmadilaga, and lucky nugroho, “development of islamic insurance in southeast asia (malaysia, brunei darussalam, and indonesia): the progress perspective,” sosyoekonomi 30, (february 2022): 243–255. https://doi.org/10.17233/sosyoekonomi.2022.02.13 4 syazrin syimee sharifuddin et al., “the concept of takaful (islamic insurance) and its functions in the establishment of syarikat takaful malaysia; the first takaful operator in malaysia,” international journal of humanities and social science invention 5, no. 12 (december 2016): 43-48. www.ijhssi.org. 5sharif bashir, mohamed, nor hafiizah, and hj mail, “consumer perceptions of islamic insurance companies in brunei darussalam,” international journal of emerging sciences 1, no. 3 (september 2011): 285-306. 6 “eu-asean business council makes key recommendations to drive inclusive & sustainable growth through insurance,” eu-asean business council, accessed 20 april 2023, https://www.eu-asean.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/pressrelease-eu-asean-business-council-makes-key-recommendations-to-driveinclusive-sustainable-growth-through-insurance.pdf. 7abduh, muhamad, and syaza nawwarah zein isma, “economic and market predictors of solvency of family takaful in malaysia,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 8, no. 3 (june 2017): 334-344. https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2015-0030 8 yakob, rubayah, zulkornain yusop, alias radam, and noriszura ismail, “solvency determinants of conventional life insurers and takaful operators,” asiapacific journal of risk and insurance 6, no. 2 (june 2012). https://doi.org/10.1515/2153-3792.1143 9alokla, jassem, arief daynes, paraskevas pagas, and panagiotis tzouvanas, “solvency determinants: evidence from the takaful insurance industry,” the geneva papers on risk and insurance issues and practice, (january 2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 10 craig thorburn, “on the measurement of solvency of insurance companies: recent developments that will alter methods adopted in emerging markets,” world bank policy research working paper, february 2004, 42. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/977941468761422861/114514322_2 0041117173029/additional/wps3199.pdf 11abduh, muhamad, and syaza nawwarah zein isma, “economic and market predictors of solvency of family takaful in malaysia,” journal of islamic https://www.eu-asean.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/press-release-eu-asean-business-council-makes-key-recommendations-to-drive-inclusive-sustainable-growth-through-insurance.pdf https://www.eu-asean.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/press-release-eu-asean-business-council-makes-key-recommendations-to-drive-inclusive-sustainable-growth-through-insurance.pdf https://www.eu-asean.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/press-release-eu-asean-business-council-makes-key-recommendations-to-drive-inclusive-sustainable-growth-through-insurance.pdf https://doi.org/10.17233/sosyoekonomi.2022.02.13 http://www.ijhssi.org/ https://www.eu-asean.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/press-release-eu-asean-business-council-makes-key-recommendations-to-drive-inclusive-sustainable-growth-through-insurance.pdf https://www.eu-asean.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/press-release-eu-asean-business-council-makes-key-recommendations-to-drive-inclusive-sustainable-growth-through-insurance.pdf https://www.eu-asean.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/press-release-eu-asean-business-council-makes-key-recommendations-to-drive-inclusive-sustainable-growth-through-insurance.pdf https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2015-0030 https://doi.org/10.1515/2153-3792.1143 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/977941468761422861/114514322_20041117173029/additional/wps3199.pdf https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/977941468761422861/114514322_20041117173029/additional/wps3199.pdf 88 determinants of family takaful … accounting and business research 8, no. 3 (june 2017): 334-344. https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2015-0030 12afiqah, yulita widya, and nisful laila, “the determinant factors of solvency on sharia life insurance in indonesia,” jurnal ekonomi syariah teori dan terapan 8, no. 5 (september 2021): 530-536. https://doi.org/10.20473/vol8iss20215pp530-536 13alokla, jassem, arief daynes, paraskevas pagas, and panagiotis tzouvanas, “solvency determinants: evidence from the takaful insurance industry,” the geneva papers on risk and insurance issues and practice, (january 2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 14srivastava, samir k., and avishek ray, “benchmarking indian general insurance firms,” benchmarking: an international journal 20, no. 1 (2013): 4-24. https://doi.org/10.1108/14635771311299461 15abduh, muhamad, and syaza nawwarah zein isma, “economic and market predictors of solvency of family takaful in malaysia,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 8, no. 3 (june 2017): 334-344. https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2015-0030 16alokla, jassem, arief daynes, paraskevas pagas, and panagiotis tzouvanas, “solvency determinants: evidence from the takaful insurance industry,” the geneva papers on risk and insurance issues and practice, (january 2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 17shiu, yung-ming, “the determinants of solvency in the united kingdom life insurance market, ” applied economics letters 12, no. 6 (august 2006): 339-344. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504850500092640 18afiqah, yulita widya, and nisful laila, “the determinant factors of solvency on sharia life insurance in indonesia,” jurnal ekonomi syariah teori dan terapan 8, no. 5 (september 2021): 530-536. https://doi.org/10.20473/vol8iss20215pp530-536 19 yakob, rubayah, zulkornain yusop, alias radam, and noriszura ismail, “solvency determinants of conventional life insurers and takaful operators,” asiapacific journal of risk and insurance 6, no. 2 (june 2012). https://doi.org/10.1515/2153-3792.1143 20 ibid 21 damodar n. gujarati, basic econometrics: 4th edition, (new york: mcgraw-hill companies, 2004), 1027. 22adams, m., and m. buckle, “the determinants of corporate financial performance in the bermuda insurance market,” applied financial economics 13, no. 2 (october 2010): 133-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/09603100210105030 23bundt, thomas, and robert p. murphy, “are residual economic relationships normally distributed? testing an assumption of neoclassical economics,” the review of austrian economics 21, no. 4 (april 2008): 329-340. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-008-0045-5 24dettori, joseph r., daniel c. norvell, and jens r. chapman, “fixed-effect vs random-effects models for meta-analysis: 3 points to consider, ” global spine journal 12, no. 7 (2022) 1624-1626. https://doi.org/10.1177/21925682221110527 25srivastava, samir k., and avishek ray, “benchmarking indian general insurance firms,” benchmarking: an international journal 20, no. 1 (2013): 4-24. https://doi.org/10.1108/14635771311299461 26bawa, kaur, and samiya chattha, “financial performance of life insurers in indian insurance industry,” pacific business review international 6, no. 5 (november 2013): 44-52. 27alokla, jassem, arief daynes, paraskevas pagas, and panagiotis tzouvanas, “solvency determinants: evidence from the takaful insurance industry,” the geneva papers on risk and insurance – issues and practice, january 2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2015-0030 https://doi.org/10.20473/vol8iss20215pp530-536 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 https://doi.org/10.1108/14635771311299461 https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2015-0030 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 https://doi.org/10.1080/13504850500092640 https://doi.org/10.20473/vol8iss20215pp530-536 https://doi.org/10.1515/2153-3792.1143 https://doi.org/10.1080/09603100210105030 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-008-0045-5 https://doi.org/10.1177/21925682221110527 https://doi.org/10.1108/14635771311299461 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 89 28browne, mark j., james m. carson, and robert e. hoyt, “dynamic financial models of life insurers.” north american actuarial journal 5, no. 2 (january 2013): 11–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/10920277.2001.10595981. 29oscar akotey, et al., “the financial performance of life insurance companies in ghana.” the journal of risk finance 14, no. 3 (2013): 286-302. https://doi.org/10.1177/21925682221110527 30alokla, jassem, arief daynes, paraskevas pagas, and panagiotis tzouvanas, “solvency determinants: evidence from the takaful insurance industry,” the geneva papers on risk and insurance issues and practice, (january 2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 31 yakob, rubayah, zulkornain yusop, alias radam, and noriszura ismail, “solvency determinants of conventional life insurers and takaful operators,” asiapacific journal of risk and insurance 6, no. 2 (june 2012). https://doi.org/10.1515/2153-3792.1143 32afiqah, yulita widya, and nisful laila, “the determinant factors of solvency on sharia life insurance in indonesia,” jurnal ekonomi syariah teori dan terapan 8, no. 5 (september 2021): 530-536. https://doi.org/10.20473/vol8iss20215pp530-536 33shiu, yung-ming, “the determinants of solvency in the united kingdom life insurance market, ” applied economics letters 12, no. 6 (august 2006): 339-344. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504850500092640 34abduh, muhamad, and syaza nawwarah zein isma, “economic and market predictors of solvency of family takaful in malaysia,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 8, no, 3 (june 2017): 334-344. https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2015-0030 35 alokla, jassem, arief daynes, paraskevas pagas, and panagiotis tzouvanas, “solvency determinants: evidence from the takaful insurance industry,” the geneva papers on risk and insurance-issues and practice, (january 2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 https://doi.org/10.1080/10920277.2001.10595981 https://doi.org/10.1177/21925682221110527 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 https://doi.org/10.1515/2153-3792.1143 https://doi.org/10.20473/vol8iss20215pp530-536 https://doi.org/10.1080/13504850500092640 https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2015-0030 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41288-021-00263-1 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii. no. 2 7 .. editorial this issue presents a compelling collection of articles covering islamic spirituality, historiographical critique, textual integrity, ethical praxis, financial stability, and institutional governance. the first article, islamic history through a western lens: a critical analysis of key introductory works (2010-2025), analyses western introductory textbooks and exposes tensions between authentic islamic intellectual traditions and western epistemologies. this critical lens underscores the need for cultural humility and diversified academic methodologies. the second article advancements in hadith authentication methods: a systematic literature review examines advancements in hadith authentication, tracing a dynamic trajectory that merges traditional scholarship with ict (information and communication technology) driven innovations. by mapping existing methods, limitations, and emerging tools, the paper charts a path towards more rigorous preservation of prophetic traditions. grounded in lived experience, the third article, islamic brotherhood and business social responsibility (bsr) in malaysia: a qualitative exploration of islamic faith-based business practices, shows how spiritual values—justice, fairness, compassion—translate into ethical entrepreneurship. we learn that muslim business leaders view their ventures as expressions of faith-driven communal obligation and moral accountability. the fourth article, intellectual capital efficiency and its contribution to financial stability in islamic banks: a study of the gulf countries, presents an empirical analysis of intellectual capital efficiency (ice) in gulf islamic banks. it reveals how investments in structural and relational capital significantly enhance financial stability and competitive advantage, supporting resource-based theory and emphasizing the critical role of intangible assets in institutional resilience. finally, the fifth article, model of productive waqf policy governance for sustainable economic development: a pestel analysis approach, proposes a pestel (political, economic, social, technology, environment, and law) based framework in indonesia and malaysia. by systematically addressing political, economic, legal, social, 8 editorial .. technological, and environmental factors, it positions waqf institutions as powerful drivers of sustainable islamic socio-economic development. together, these contributions trace a coherent intellectual pathway—from inner spiritual formation, through scholarly rigor and ethical practice, to institutional innovation and economic execution. they showcase how contemporary islamic scholarship thrives at the intersection of tradition and innovation, faith and function. we hope readers will benefit from this rich and diverse collection. dr. shabeer khan editor impact of technology, organization and environmental factors on the adoption of halal warehousing hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 53 the role of technological, organizational and environmental factors in the adoption of halal warehousing dr. ameenullah aman department of management science, shaheed zulfikar ali bhutto institute of science and technology, karachi, pakistan email: ameenullahaman.s@gmail.com ali hasnain department of business administration, iqra university, karachi, pakistan email: ali.hasnain40@gmail.com dr. waqar ahmed department of business administration, iqra university, karachi, pakistan email: waqar120@gmail.com received on: 17-08-22 accepted on: 19-12-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.538 abstract it has been a rapidly emerging trend for companies to achieve a halal certification for their business processes. in this regard, halal warehousing plays a vital role in the company’s halal certification process. therefore, this research aimed to identify motivating factors for the organizations to implement halal warehousing in pakistan's food manufacturing and supply industry. the data for this study is gathered from the supply chain professionals working in the pakistani food industries—a total of 142 valid responses received through a structured questionnaire. structural equation modelling (sem) is used to analyze the data. this study reveals that all the variables of technology, organization, and environment (toe) have a significant impact on halal warehousing. in the organizational context, top management support plays an essential role in halal warehousing implementation. the findings of the study may assist halal food mailto:ameenullahaman.s@gmail.com mailto:ali.hasnain40@gmail.com mailto:waqar120@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.538 54 the role of technological … manufacturing and raw material providers to implement halal warehousing in their businesses. furthermore, governmental support for the implementation of halal warehousing is vital. keywords: toe, warehousing, halal warehousing, halal supply chain, halal standards. 1. introduction and background of the study in today’s knowledge economy, the questions of safety and integrity of halal food have gained much more importance among muslim consumers worldwide because of repeated incidents of halal food contamination1. such as the plethora food crisis and spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, and the most recent horsemeat scandal in the united kingdom are some of those incidents which revealed and raised concerns for muslims concerning their food consumption2 3. most of the contaminations are linked with fraud, adulteration, and sometimes substituting the products to gain profit in the market4. according to the world population review of 2020 5 , the global muslim population has crossed the number of 1.9 billion, contributing to halal products in the world trade. these muslim consumers living in muslim and non-muslims countries now raise questions about the halal food genuineness and its integrity, especially the products imported from the non-muslim countries6. the word halal is considered as law among muslims, therefore muslim consumers always remain very vigilant with respect to the consumption of halal food 7 . however, most of those consumers consuming the halal products are not aware of the halal supply chain values, and they consume the product after looking at the halal logo affixed on the packaging and trust the product based on the logo without any verification 8 9. however, if their trust is breached due to any flaw in the halal food supply chain, it may lead to a significant loss in the brand value of a product or an organization. therefore, increasing interest in the halal supply chain process is found by many organizations worldwide in order to maintain their brand image in front of muslim consumers. on top of it, muslim consumers are susceptible to food integrity, food handling, and the control of food norms. due to this compassion of consumers, halal food integrity has become very difficult to design, manage and enhance10. 1.1. research objective and contributions this study considers one of the neglected components of the halal supply chain process, that is, halal warehousing. precisely, the purpose of the study is to apply toe theory, which facilitates firms to adopt new technologies influenced by technological context, hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 55 organizational context, and environmental context, and determine the effects of technological, organizational, and environmental factors on halal warehousing. the study attempts to answer how halal manufacturing companies that deal with halal edible products manage their inventories in the warehouses and secure their product from contaminations. the contributions of this study are as follows: first, the full potential of research in the field of halal supply chain is yet to be unfolded 11 12 . such companies are unwilling to adopt the halal certification, mainly due to increasing extra efforts, which is also a demotivating factor for other enterprises not to opt for the halal certification and the practices. 13 . second, the existing literature contains many inconsistencies and misunderstandings regarding the concept of the halal supply chain 14 . for the halal supply chain process, it is imperative to be understood that halal standards are not limited to the product’s production process; instead, it can easily lose the status of halal if it is mishandled during the storage process before reaching the customer 15 . the concept of halal warehousing is relatively new as well as challenging for companies to adopt. according to the halal supply chain service providers, companies are increasing to get the certification of halal manufacturing16; however, the rate of adoption of halal warehousing is meager. nevertheless, it is complicated to understand why most halal manufacturing companies are reluctant to confirm their activities to halal warehousing17. third, the academic literature available on the halal supply chain has focused mainly on the process, ingredients, status, or management of the food products; in contrast, the area of halal warehousing has received minimal attention18. therefore, this study intends to contribute to the literature by focusing on the factors important towards the adoption of halal warehousing. fourth, although researchers have understood the importance and the vast market of halal strategies for preserving halal products, the available evidence shows that halal strategies are not popular among the food manufacturing enterprises19. fifth, this research is based on one of the largest muslim population countries, pakistan. for muslims, it is a massive concern that consuming halal is not only beneficial physically as well as spiritually; in fact, it is also binding on them by the law of the land to consume halal20. similarly, the organizations in such countries are bound by law to produce halal products and maintain consumers' trust halal21. therefore, this research is an effort to check the importance of halal warehousing regarding the toe framework to contribute to the organizations to understand and learn the limitations of halal warehousing and the suggestions from the practicing companies. 56 the role of technological … the study's findings briefly report that technology and organizational support do not play an essential role in the intention to adopt halal warehousing. however, environmental factors have a significantly substantial impact on the companions to adopt halal warehousing. the detailed findings will help the managers and the policymakers of organizations learn the internal and external factors of halal warehousing and the motivating factors for the implementation of halal warehousing. government agencies and policymakers will also learn the problems that must be addressed to motivate halal practices. the rest of the paper is organized as follows: next is section two, which comprises three parts. part one outlines a brief process of the halal supply chain, and part two contains theoretical underpinnings, and part three mentions hypotheses development. section three include methodology, followed by results and conclusions in sections four and five, respectively. 2. literature review 2.1. process of halal supply chain organizations' main challenge is to understand the supply chain practices to gain operational and organizational performance22. food won't be considered halal if the food has not been stored or handled according to the islamic principles, contributing to halal integrity. furthermore, the halal and non-halal products’ packages and handling must be separated; if necessary, the halal products' warehousing must be separated from the non-halal products to prevent potential contamination of the halal and the non-halal products23. from raw material to the manufacturing and from procurement and handling of the equipment to the consumption point, if islamic regulations are being followed that would be known as halal operations 24 . the halal supply chain process includes the complete production cycle 25 , marketing of the product, and the channel through which the consumer is getting the product should also follow the halal integrity26. every person working in the supply chain from higher-order to the lower order must be monitored during the process to achieve the objective of unharmed and the halal product, which will result in customer satisfaction27. comparing halal supply chain with conventional supply chain, same functional rules are followed by both the operations with some unique exceptions that must be followed during the processes of planning, implementing and controlling of the product with the specifications of the islamic guidelines in the halal supply chain 28. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 57 the primary purpose of the halal supply chain is to ensure the product to be halal and tayyib29 (tayyib means wholesomeness, which includes healthy, safe, quality and nutritious) from manufacturing to the consumption point. even the equipment used for handling the halal products, such as fork lifters used to carry the halal meat, should not be used to lift the non-halal food or any other item to prevent contamination30. further, the companies must ensure strict compliance and do the due diligence concerning halal warehousing 31 and halal logistics 32 . it is a process-oriented method that needs close management and teamwork among the stakeholders to establish the supply chain's best performance, considered the halal supply chain33. 2.2. theoretical background in the 1990s, tornatzky and fischer developed a technological, organizational and environmental (toe) framework that facilitates firms to adopt new technologies influenced by technological context, organizational context, and environmental context. these three contexts are potential barriers and the opportunities to adopt innovation in a firm's business processes.34 toe framework is considered a reliable framework that contains the capability to be implemented in different cultural, technological, and national contexts. the framework has been adopted in various researches to express the inter-organizational systems. for this study to determine the factors affecting the adoption of halal warehousing, the toe framework is most suitable since it provides insights from internal organizational systems35. the technological context refers to the firms’ external and internal technologies most relevant to the company. it depends on the type of technology the firm wants to adopt and choose the variable. this context includes the factors of perceived benefits and compatibility36. perceived benefits denote how new technology must have better benefits than the one still in use. perceived benefits are regarded as providing predictable benefits to the company, which is the main reason an organization adopts new technologies. the organizational context: it is denoted by the characteristics and the properties of the organization, which includes top management support 37 , organizational readiness 38 , understanding the practices39, halal awareness40, halal integrity41, expected business benefits42, and entrepreneurial intensity43. the top management has the authority to decide on the firm; hence, top management plays an essential role in the adoption of new technologies. to adopt the halal services in the firm, organizational 58 the role of technological … readiness measures the capacity of management to adopt the new technology44 . the players must understand the halal practices in order to gain from the halal strategies. awareness is a necessary tool for the adoption of halal innovation and communication technologies and their extension. halal awareness is identified as a significant variable in the toe framework that positively impacts halal warehousing. the environmental context refers to the firm’s internal and external environment, including the size of a firm, competition, macroeconomic, and regulatory environment. environmental factors mainly include competitive pressure45, consumer pressure46, and halal market demand 47 . competitive pressure refers to the competition between the two firms and the fear of losing the competitive benefit; this fear can make organizations adopt the new technological innovation. customer pressure is considered the most valuable variable for innovation because it manages customer relationship management. market demand is the primary reason for the adoption of any technology; increasing demand of halal products worldwide is the primary reason behind the increasing demand of halal warehousing and halal logistics48. halal warehousing is considered the operations of halal services to separate halal products from their counterparts and monitor the products not to contain, adulterated or mishandled by the carriers49. 2.3. hypothesis development 2.3.1. technological context technological context refers to two kinds of technologies relevant to the organization. these technologies are being used in the company and technologies are not in the company's current use but available in the market and can be used in the future 50 . while perceived benefits are regarded as the important variable for the adoption of halal warehousing, it is considered the best forecaster for adopting any new technology. it can provide benefits to the halal manufacturers51. further, compatibility is an essential variable for the adoption of halal warehousing. due to compatibility, a firm can measure the adoption as beneficial and aligned with the halal specification, value system, and job responsibilities. in contrast, incompatibility is the barrier for the organization to adopt technologies52, and it became the reason for losing the opportunities. therefore, this study posits, h1; technology has a significant impact on the adoption of halal warehousing. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 59 2.3.2. organizational context for the adoption of new technology, organizational readiness shows the ability of company’s operational management to adopt halal warehousing. top management support is an important tool because top management regularly pushes managers to bring new ideas and learn the organizational practices regarding the islamic principles53. halal integrity means total honesty towards the halal concept during the whole production process54. halal practices among the employees become the reason for the company’s financial benefits and competitive performance. the organization must be aware of the availability of new technologies; if the firm fails to do so organization won’t adopt the innovation 55 . entrepreneurial intensity is the firm’s level of determination towards the entrepreneurial activities demonstrated by the company. based on these postulations, this study hypothesizes, h2; organizational context has a significant impact on adoption of halal warehousing. 2.3.3. environment context consumer pressure can be roughly explained as “customer is always right”, which entails to make your customer loyal and satisfied towards your organization56. further, the competitive pressure with other organizations in terms of innovation, price, technology etc., is inevitable and is essential for adopting innovation. in addition, the increasing demand for halal products directly depends upon the customer’s knowledge of the product. multiple pieces of evidence have showed that halal market demand competitive pressure and customer’s pressure support the halal practices, therefore, h3; environment has a significant impact on the adoption of halal warehousing. 60 the role of technological … 2.3.4. conceptual framework technology  compatibility  perceived benefits organizational readiness & support  top management support  organizational readiness  understanding the practices  awareness  integrity  expected business benefits  entrepreneurial intensity environment  competitive pressure  consumer pressure  market demand figure 1 conceptual framework 3. research methodology this study aims to determine the effects of toe theory on the adoption of halal warehousing, and purpose is to find out the relationship of technological, organizational, and environmental variables on halal warehousing. each variable has been observed keenly with the help of the survey questionnaire methods. an explanatory research method with the help of the statistical tools data has been deployed to interpret the relationship among each construct. sources of each item along with the complete items have been shown in the table 1. variables item source technological context compatibility 1. my company is likely to adopt new innovation on the products and processes of halal standard. 2. business and process of my company has aligned to halal standard. 3. the new procedure related to halal standard is suitable with my company’s existing practices. (ngah et al., 2014a; tan et al., 2012) perceived benefits 1. by implementing halal standard, we feel that our production control will improve. (ngah et al., 2014b; adoption of halal warehousing h1 h3 h2 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 61 2. by adopting halal standard, we feel that market share will increase. 3. by adopting halal standard, we feel that quality of the product will improve tan et al., 2012) organizational context top management support 1. our top management is likely to be interested in adopting the halal standard in order to gain competitive advantage. 2. our top management would like to invest some budget to support and implement halal standard. 3. we feel that our top management is really concerned on the importance of implementing halal standard. (fernando et al., 2015; ngah et al., 2014b) organization al readiness 1. our employee has understood the halal standard. 2. our company understands the real situation of the business related to halal standard. 3. our company is ready to re-align companies' policies and strategy in order to implement halal standards. (ngah et al., 2010) understandin g the practices 1. our company fully understands the circular of halal standard. 2. our company is ready for new policies and practices related to implementation of the halal standard. 3. our company understands the legal aspects to ensure halal practices are done according to shariah principles required by regulatory authority (alam et al., 2012; marzuki et al., 2012; mukherjee and romi, 2014) halal awareness 1. the increase of consumer awareness related to halal, leads my company to adopt halal standard. 2. the aspects of hygiene, sanitation and safety lead my company to adopt halal standard. 3. halal concept triggers muslim consumers to preferably consume product based on shariah principles. (alam et al. 2011; zailani et al. 2015) halal integrity 1. the aspects of morality and religiosity lead my company to adopt halal standards. 2. halal standards lead us to build trust towards consumers. 3. halal product has strong relationship with consumer needs. (alam et al. 2011; zailani et al. 2015) 62 the role of technological … expected business benefits 1. adopting halal standard gives more profits to our business. 2. halal standard gives the competitive performance of the firms. 3. ascertaining the halal standards provides sustainability of the business for the long run (alam et al. 2011; zailani et al. 2015) entrepreneuri al intensity 1. we give maximum effort without limitation of time to make sure the production process is halal. 2. our firm do “whatever it takes” to ensure the halal warehousing of the products. 3. we are having a philosophy to do “whatever it takes” for ensuring halal standards/practices. 4. our firm is willing to make significant sacrifices in order to stay in halal business. (manzouri et al., 2013; tan et al., 2012; zailani et al., 2015) environmental context competitive pressure 1. we feel that we will lose customers to our competitors if we do not adopt halal standard. 2. we feel that it is strategic to adopt halal standards to compete in the existing market place. 3. we feel that our firm will have to sustain their business if we implement halal standards. (manzouri et al., 2013; tan et al., 2012; zailani et al.,2015) consumer pressure 1. the consumers are confident that halal food fulfils the hygiene, sanitation and food safety. 2. consumers require our firm to operate based on halal requirements. 3. believing perception leads to attitudes of the consumers. (manzouri et al., 2013; tan et al., 2012; zailani et al.,2015) halal market demand 1. high demand of halal food leads our firm to adopt halal standards. 2. halal market product has a wide growth with a high prospect in current and future market. 3. the muslim communities require and emphasize the halal products. (manzouri et al., 2013; tan et al.,2012; zailani et al., 2015) hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 63 intention to adopt halal warehousing halal warehousing (adoption) 1. our organization has an intention to adopt halal warehousing services in our operation near future. 2. our organization will try to adopt halal warehousing services in our operation near future. 3. our organization has a plan to adopt halal warehousing services in our operation near future. (ngah et al., 2019) table 1: instrument source data gathered from the employees working in the halal manufacturing industries, halal raw material providers and the warehousing services providers working in different cities of pakistan. responses are gathered through self-administered structured survey instrument. total 157 filled questionnaires were received. for data collection. non-random, purposive sampling technique was used. data was collected from the different cities and after data screening 142 valid data is used for further analysis. further, for data analysis and regression, partial least square-structural equation modelling pls-sem is used. this statistical technique is considered robust and appropriate when the data set is relatively small57. 4. analysis results 4.1. descriptive analysis in descriptive analysis it has been observed that in the industry 51 (35.9%) respondents belong to the other category which is not mentioned in the industry type. however, most of the respondent's designation was owner / ceo, up to 43% (62). most of the respondents have experience of between 6-10 years, making up to 32% (46). further details are shown in the table 2. frequency percent industry type baking industry 15 10.6 pickles/spices 19 13.4 beverages 5 3.5 snacks 12 8.5 64 the role of technological … confectionary 10 7 dairy products 14 9.9 warehousing service 16 11.3 others 51 35.9 total 142 100 designation owner/partner 62 43.7 ceo/gm 17 12 senior manager 12 8.5 manager 15 10.6 warehouse manager 21 14.8 others 15 10.6 total 142 100 below 2 years 23 16.2 2-5 years 40 28.2 6-10 years 46 32.4 11 and above years 33 23.2 total 142 100 no. of employees 10-300 40 28.2 301-700 20 14.1 701-1000 49 34.5 1000 and above 33 23.2 total 142 100 table 2: descriptive analysis (n=157) hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 65 4.2. outer measurement model: this model calculates the reliability testing, convergent and discriminant validity of the data, all three measurements are explained in detail below: 4.2.1. reliability testing: reliability testing refers that how much items are internally reliable, this testing is being used instead of cronbach's alpha testing because of its better measurement. the composite reliability threshold for all variables should be >0.7 58. in table no iii reliability test of all variables with the threshold. 4.2.2. convergent validity convergent validity is the degree to measure whether the items are equally coherent. as per the59 findings, he suggested that measuring the convergent validity is first of all, the value of each loading (cr) should be greater than 0.7. secondly, the threshold of the ave (average variance extracted) must be greater than 0.5. table 3 below depicts the value of the convergent validity. constructs items loading p values cr ave compatibility c1 0.905 0.000 0.938 0.834 c2 0.909 0.000 c3 0.925 0.000 consumer pressure consp1 0.957 0.000 0.96 0.89 consp2 0.939 0.000 consp3 0.934 0.000 competitive pressure cp1 0.845 0.000 0.912 0.775 cp2 0.921 0.000 cp3 0.873 0.000 ebb1 0.955 0.000 0.968 0.911 ebb2 0.965 0.000 66 the role of technological … expected business benefits ebb3 0.944 0.000 entrepreneurial intensity ei1 0.706 0.000 0.897 0.687 ei2 0.891 0.000 ei3 0.802 0.000 ei4 0.902 0.000 halal awareness ha1 0.927 0.000 0.939 0.836 ha2 0.884 0.000 ha3 0.932 0.000 halal integrity hi1 0.921 0.000 0.936 0.83 hi2 0.896 0.000 hi3 0.915 0.000 halal market demand hmd1 0.918 0.000 0.957 0.881 hmd2 0.947 0.000 hmd3 0.95 0.000 halal warehousing (adoption) hw1 0.921 0.000 0.958 0.884 hw2 0.952 0.000 hw3 0.947 0.000 organizational readiness or1 0.941 0.000 0.939 0.838 or2 0.919 0.000 or3 0.886 0.000 perceived benefits pb1 0.901 0.000 0.873 0.775 pb2 0.859 0.000 tms1 0.918 0.000 0.956 0.879 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 67 top management support tms2 0.932 0.000 tms3 0.962 0.000 understanding the practices up1 0.909 0.000 0.941 0.841 up2 0.907 0.000 up3 0.936 0.000 table 3: reliability testing and convergent validity 4.2.3. discriminant validity: discriminant validity analyze whether the constructed item is different from the other items. calculating and analyzing the discriminant validity help us to understand that result doesn’t have any statistical discrepancies. table 4: co-relation of the discriminant validity (fornell and larcker criterian) constructs ci consp cp ebb ei ha hi hmd hw or pb tms up ci 0.913 consp 0.712 0.943 cp 0.625 0.863 0.88 ebb 0.673 0.751 0.733 0.954 ei 0.714 0.727 0.756 0.653 0.829 ha 0.752 0.756 0.735 0.831 0.662 0.915 hi 0.542 0.665 0.658 0.604 0.535 0.572 0.911 hmd 0.572 0.828 0.803 0.682 0.728 0.677 0.49 0.938 hw 0.685 0.869 0.866 0.74 0.681 0.764 0.634 0.794 0.94 or 0.722 0.816 0.854 0.766 0.807 0.801 0.654 0.769 0.804 0.915 pb 0.801 0.725 0.69 0.694 0.684 0.767 0.681 0.533 0.709 0.765 0.88 tms 0.745 0.83 0.841 0.798 0.679 0.86 0.7 0.725 0.833 0.844 0.836 0.938 up 0.759 0.773 0.726 0.75 0.694 0.775 0.687 0.628 0.742 0.775 0.778 0.816 0.917 68 the role of technological … however, to measure the discriminant validity, it is not appropriate to rely completely on the farnell and larcker criteria, so the researcher also conducts crossings to measure discriminant validity. the item needs to be identified for measuring cross-loading by comparing the indicator loadings to the associated construct. the value of the construct should be higher than all of the loadings in the row and the difference among the other loadings in the row the row should be greater than 0.1. in the table 5 below, result shows that corresponding indicators are greater in the rows. items ci consp cp ebb ei ha hi hmd hw or pb tms up c1 0.905 0.667 0.581 0.575 0.637 0.639 0.608 0.496 0.668 0.676 0.727 0.681 0.679 c2 0.909 0.666 0.577 0.631 0.674 0.709 0.463 0.571 0.599 0.654 0.694 0.674 0.746 c3 0.925 0.618 0.554 0.638 0.644 0.713 0.417 0.503 0.610 0.648 0.772 0.686 0.657 consp1 0.611 0.957 0.857 0.713 0.662 0.718 0.671 0.806 0.858 0.792 0.669 0.804 0.748 consp2 0.722 0.939 0.816 0.751 0.730 0.740 0.703 0.748 0.808 0.808 0.762 0.797 0.766 consp3 0.683 0.934 0.768 0.661 0.666 0.680 0.505 0.789 0.791 0.710 0.622 0.746 0.673 cp1 0.605 0.716 0.845 0.711 0.605 0.747 0.513 0.623 0.751 0.687 0.667 0.816 0.638 cp2 0.598 0.813 0.921 0.645 0.658 0.636 0.728 0.673 0.819 0.774 0.722 0.789 0.717 cp3 0.454 0.747 0.873 0.587 0.728 0.571 0.493 0.816 0.718 0.790 0.442 0.626 0.565 ebb1 0.631 0.730 0.717 0.955 0.613 0.819 0.577 0.675 0.730 0.730 0.670 0.781 0.723 ebb2 0.634 0.746 0.708 0.965 0.610 0.809 0.587 0.674 0.718 0.738 0.649 0.774 0.736 ebb3 0.663 0.672 0.673 0.944 0.647 0.751 0.566 0.602 0.668 0.724 0.668 0.728 0.687 ei1 0.655 0.610 0.615 0.688 0.706 0.745 0.500 0.528 0.601 0.635 0.643 0.688 0.776 ei2 0.624 0.624 0.619 0.570 0.891 0.571 0.299 0.692 0.552 0.698 0.549 0.530 0.508 ei3 0.444 0.500 0.595 0.356 0.802 0.324 0.417 0.569 0.474 0.640 0.430 0.434 0.378 ei4 0.584 0.634 0.651 0.475 0.902 0.464 0.527 0.608 0.588 0.680 0.588 0.536 0.551 ha1 0.719 0.725 0.708 0.826 0.631 0.927 0.542 0.667 0.737 0.777 0.725 0.815 0.759 ha2 0.605 0.583 0.581 0.647 0.537 0.884 0.440 0.517 0.614 0.641 0.642 0.705 0.592 ha3 0.729 0.751 0.718 0.794 0.640 0.932 0.575 0.660 0.735 0.769 0.731 0.830 0.760 hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 69 table 5: factor analysis from the above table no 4 and 5, discriminant validity can be easily identified through their values which are matching the criteria of the cross-loading analysis and the fornell and larcker criterion model (1981). 4.3. inner model hypothesis inner measurement is the step need to be taken after concluding the outer measurement model 60 . likewise, the inner hi1 0.504 0.584 0.571 0.517 0.478 0.532 0.921 0.420 0.595 0.555 0.626 0.639 0.631 hi2 0.429 0.568 0.535 0.503 0.421 0.464 0.896 0.391 0.487 0.542 0.567 0.579 0.574 hi3 0.540 0.658 0.680 0.621 0.552 0.559 0.915 0.518 0.640 0.679 0.660 0.685 0.665 hmd1 0.540 0.764 0.726 0.567 0.705 0.589 0.453 0.918 0.714 0.672 0.454 0.622 0.629 hmd2 0.551 0.787 0.767 0.678 0.677 0.678 0.481 0.947 0.767 0.741 0.521 0.705 0.571 hmd3 0.521 0.780 0.767 0.673 0.668 0.638 0.446 0.950 0.754 0.750 0.522 0.712 0.569 hw1 0.615 0.826 0.838 0.619 0.640 0.625 0.727 0.721 0.921 0.774 0.676 0.760 0.682 hw2 0.638 0.805 0.802 0.722 0.640 0.755 0.525 0.730 0.952 0.724 0.638 0.784 0.681 hw3 0.677 0.820 0.803 0.745 0.641 0.774 0.537 0.787 0.947 0.770 0.686 0.804 0.729 or1 0.691 0.784 0.812 0.714 0.760 0.766 0.627 0.737 0.758 0.941 0.736 0.825 0.761 or2 0.717 0.788 0.804 0.677 0.806 0.682 0.705 0.667 0.739 0.919 0.758 0.753 0.730 or3 0.567 0.665 0.726 0.714 0.645 0.755 0.453 0.708 0.711 0.886 0.599 0.739 0.631 pb1 0.796 0.634 0.559 0.648 0.621 0.711 0.432 0.476 0.595 0.658 0.901 0.704 0.648 pb2 0.600 0.645 0.667 0.569 0.582 0.635 0.800 0.462 0.662 0.693 0.859 0.776 0.730 tms1 0.736 0.788 0.801 0.665 0.665 0.746 0.729 0.612 0.784 0.800 0.855 0.918 0.739 tms2 0.653 0.754 0.743 0.817 0.601 0.855 0.555 0.699 0.752 0.758 0.717 0.932 0.752 tms3 0.706 0.792 0.821 0.761 0.645 0.817 0.683 0.725 0.806 0.817 0.781 0.962 0.802 up1 0.703 0.716 0.666 0.680 0.640 0.686 0.684 0.573 0.706 0.744 0.751 0.744 0.909 up2 0.672 0.683 0.663 0.724 0.627 0.745 0.519 0.599 0.660 0.673 0.665 0.743 0.907 up3 0.714 0.727 0.669 0.661 0.643 0.703 0.685 0.556 0.675 0.714 0.723 0.758 0.936 70 the role of technological … measurement is also calculated through the smart pls model using bootstrapping. figure 2 – hypothesis testing 4.3.1. predictive relevance of the model criteria to make the inner model valuation is through the r2 and the q2. the model r2 shows how much is the impact of the exogenous (independent) variable is on the endogenous (dependent) variable. literature61 proposed r2 value can be classified in the three hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 71 categories, if 0.6 or above, high. if between 0.3 to 0.6 moderate and if below 0.3 it would be considered as low. the r2 value for the inner model of this study appears as 0.81 which translates as high explanation of our endogenous variable from exogenous factors. further, cross validation redundancy (q2) is another source to check the validity of the model, for q2 threshold is that it should be greater than zero. the value of q2 for this study appears as 0.71 which confirms the validity of our model. 4.3.2. hypothesis testing total three hypotheses have been constructed in this research paper. the significant and insignificant value can be decided through the p value, the threshold to determine the decision is that the value should be less than 0.10, for accepting the hypothesis and if the value is greater than 0.10 it would be considered insignificant. in table 6a all variables of the technology have the significant impact on the compatibility and perceived benefits. furthermore, in table 6b, all variables of the organizational context impact significantly on the expected business benefits, entrepreneurial intensity, halal awareness, halal intensity, organizational readiness, top management support and understanding the practices. in table no 6c, environmental context impacts significantly on the variable of the consumer pressure, competitive pressure and halal market demand. in the final table 7, technological context, organizational context and environmental context all have significant impact on the intention to adopt the halal warehousing, in this research study all three of the hypotheses have been accepted. dimensions of tech con estimates standard deviation tvalues pvalues tech con -> ci 0.970 0.007 148.687 0.000 tech con -> pb 0.923 0.016 58.838 0.000 table 6a – higher order reflective construct of technical context. table 6a depicts that in the technological context both variables have significant impact, however, ci (compatibility) (ß=0.970, t = 148.687, p < 0.1) has the greater impact on the technology in comparison with the pb (perceived benefits) (ß=0.923, t = 58.838, p < 0.1) which has less impact on the technology. dimensions of orgsup estimates standard deviation tvalues pvalues orgsup -> ebb 0.886 0.025 35.203 0.000 72 the role of technological … orgsup -> ei 0.820 0.036 22.866 0.000 orgsup -> ha 0.902 0.021 43.545 0.000 orgsup -> hi 0.764 0.037 20.895 0.000 orgsup -> or 0.923 0.018 52.093 0.000 orgsup -> tms 0.933 0.012 75.314 0.000 orgsup -> up 0.897 0.015 58.284 0.000 table 6b – higher order reflective construct of organizational context table 6b is representing hypothesis results of the organizational context, in the above table it is very obvious to notice that tms (top management support) (ß=0.933, t = 75.314, p < 0.1) has significant value and impact among all the others variables inside the organizational context, it means that top management support plays a critical role in the adoption of the halal warehousing. after tms most observable variables in the list is or (organizational readiness) (ß=0.923, t = 52.093, p < 0.1) it means that organizational readiness towards the halal standards is also very important. in the third rank, ha (halal awareness) (ß=0.902, t = 43.545, p < 0.1) does play an important role in the organizational context to implement halal warehousing. after that up (understanding the practices) (ß=0.897, t = 58.284, p < 0.1) working in the halal manufacturing firm, understanding the practices is an important factor to implement halal warehousing in the organization. ebb (expected business benefits) (ß=0.886, t = 35.203, p < 0.1) expected business benefits is necessary variable in the organizational context to support the halal warehousing implementation. after that ei (entrepreneurial intensity) (ß=0.820, t = 22.866, p < 0.1). in the last ha (halal integrity) (ß=0.764, t = 20.895, p < 0.1) has the least impact on the organizational context to implement the halal warehousing. however, all the variables of the organizational context have significant p value. dimensions of env cont estimate s standard deviatio n tvalues pvalues env cont -> consp 0.955 0.009 108.593 0.000 env cont -> cp 0.939 0.014 65.746 0.000 env cont -> hmd 0.932 0.014 64.412 0.000 table 6c – higher order reflective construct of environmental context hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 73 let's take a look at the third variable of the higher order which is environmental context. it has 3 sub variables to support the hypothesis, if we take a look at them, consp (consumer pressure) (ß=0.955, t = 108.593, p < 0.1) consp is the most impacting variable in the environmental context, for implementing the halal warehousing in the organization, consumer pressure plays the most crucial part. in the 2nd rank is cp (competitive pressure) (ß=0.939, t = 65.764, p < 0.1) has significant impact in the environmental context. in the end hmd (halal market demand) (ß=0.932, t = 64.412, p < 0.1) has also significant impact upon the environmental context. all three variables are necessary to implement the halal warehousing in the organization. hypotheses estimates standard deviation tvalues pvalues h1 tech con -> hw 0.115 0.065 1.778 0.076 h2 orgsup -> hw 0.146 0.083 1.758 0.079 h3 env cont -> hw 0.683 0.061 11.279 0.000 table 7 – hypotheses result the researcher developed three hypotheses, which were tested through pls-sem. the result indicates that all three hypotheses have insignificant impact on the halal warehousing, so all hypothesis have been accepted. hypothesis 1, the technological context, (ß=0.115, t= 1.778, p<0.1) according to the p value denotes that it has a significant value, it means that all the variable of the technology including compatibility and perceived benefits emphasize on the adoption of the halal warehousing, so h1 is supported. this hypothesis is in support with the study of62.? hypothesis 2, the organizational context (ß=0.146, t=1.758, p < 0.1) result indicates that p value is less than 0.10 which clearly indicates that organizational variables have an impact on the adoption of halal warehousing. so h2 is supported. hypothesis 2 has been previously supported63. hypothesis 3, the environmental context (ß= 0.683 t= 11.279, p < 0.1) as per the result p value is less than 0.10. it shows that environmental context has the significant impact on the intention to adopt halal warehousing. it means that all the variables of environment, including consumer pressure, competitive pressure, and halal market demand, emphasize adopting halal warehousing. so h3 74 the role of technological … is supported. all three variables have been supported by the previously published researchers64. 5. conclusion and implications halal warehousing is a frequently emerging area around the world. many food manufacturing industries are looking for to get the halal certifications and implement halal warehousing, but still so much effort is required to get the job done, especially in pakistan. in this research, it was tried to find the gaps while implementing the halal warehousing? among three hypotheses all of them have showed a significant impact on the halal warehousing however, many businesses in the country don't have the awareness regarding halal business. technology plays an essential role in halal warehousing. both the variables of the technology have been found significant. moreover, organizational support has a significant role in halal warehousing implementation. results revealed that a company cannot operate halal warehousing until not supported by top management support. the environmental factor will also be playing an important role in halal warehousing implementation. several implications have been found according to the results of this study. first of all, in terms of environmental context, it is necessary for the government organizations such as food inspection should encourage firms to implement the halal warehousing, also it should be responsibility of the food inspection authorities to regularize and monitor the activities of the firms regarding the halal warehousing adoption. secondly, under the top management support, food manufacturing companies should open a department under inventory or warehousing department to implement the halal process in the companies. thirdly, on the basis of under the practices, employees working in the food manufacturing companies should be trained and must know what the sharê‘ah compliant rules that must be followed in the organizations are. employees working specially in the warehousing must understand the halal practices and its value. fourthly, in the environmental context, firm’s registering companies such as securities and exchange commission of pakistan should take this responsibility to give entrepreneurs full awareness of halal warehousing and its benefits. until the management doesn't know the benefits of the halal warehousing and halal standards, they won't implement the halal warehousing procedure in their companies. for implementing the halal warehousing top management supports plays an important part. fifthly, firms should observe the halal warehousing, but the raw material providers such as agricultural fields must ensure to keep hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 75 their stock safe from those ingredients that may harm or contaminant the material such as they use pesticides and preservatives during harvesting seasons. before properly cleaning the material, they send them to the companies. governmental agricultural departments should take the responsibility to ensure that agricultural fields ensure the halal warehousing practices to their side as well. 6. recommendations there are many recommendations for academic literature. first, sample size should be greater to understand the perception of the companies regarding halal warehousing. small number of sample size cannot take the perception of all halal manufacturing firms. secondly, data should not be collected from one city or from one region. every firm follows the identical procedures of working based on the city; it is better to include the firms of different cities. if data is being collected from one region, we can't perceive all firms' result. lastly, questionnaire should be framed in such a manner in which consumer’s perception regarding the halal warehouse should also be taken.. notes and references 1 zulfakar, mohd hafiz, ferry jie, and caroline chan. "halal food supply chain integrity: from a literature review to a conceptual framework." in 10th anzam operations, supply chain and services management symposium, vol. 1, no. 61, p. 4. melbourne: monash university, 2012. 2 tan, kimhua, helmi ali mohd, mohd makhbul zafir, and ismail azman. "the impact of external integration on halal food integrity." supply chain management: an international journal 22, no. 2 (2017): 186-199. 3 yousaf, salman. "halal food anxiety in a non-muslim destination: the impact on the psychological well-being of muslim travelers during the quarantine period in china." current issues in tourism 25, no. 7 (2022): 1136-1150. 4 ali, mohd helmi, yuanzhu zhan, syed shah alam, ying kei tse, and kim hua tan. "food supply chain integrity: the need to go beyond certification." industrial management and data systems 117, no. 8 (2017): 1589-1611. 5 https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/muslim-population-by-country/ 6 ngah, abdul hafaz, r. thurasamy, n. a. aziz, h. ali, and m. i. khan. "modelling the adoption of halal warehousing services among halal pharmaceutical and cosmetic manufacturers." journal of sustainability science and management 14, no. 6 (2019): 103-116. 7 zailani, suhaiza, kanagi kanapathy, mohammad iranmanesh, and marco tieman. "drivers of halal orientation strategy among halal food firms." british food journal 117, no. 8 (2015): 2143-2160. 8 alqudsi, syed ghazaly. "awareness and demand for 100% halal supply chain meat products." procedia-social and behavioral sciences 130 (2014): 167-178. 9 aman, ameenullah. "islamic marketing ethics for islamic financial institutions." international journal of ethics and systems 36, no. 1 (2019): 1-11. 10 azmi, fadhlur rahim, abu abdullah, mohammed hariri bakri, and haslinda musa. "perception of small medium and enterprises towards halal food supply chain in malaysia." international journal of mechanical engineering and technology 9, no. 11 (2018): 821-828. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/muslim-population-by-country/ 76 the role of technological … 11 kurniawati, dwi agustina, and hana savitri. "awareness level analysis of indonesian consumers toward halal products." journal of islamic marketing 11, no. 2 (2019): 522-546. 12 rahman, nor aida abdul, mohammad fakhrulnizam mohammad, suzari abdul rahim, and hazariah mohd noh. "implementing air cargo halal warehouse: insight from malaysia." journal of islamic marketing 9, no. 3 (2018): 462-483. 13 azmi, f., abu abdullah, m. bakri, haslinda musa, and m. jayakrishnan. "the adoption of halal food supply chain towards the performance of food manufacturing in malaysia." management science letters 8, no. 7 (2018): 755766. 14 ab talib, mohamed syazwan, thoo ai chin, and johan fischer. "linking halal food certification and business performance mohamed syazwan ab talib, thoo ai chin, johan fischer." british food journal 119, no. 7 (2017): 1606-1618. 15 zailani, suhaiza, mohammad iranmanesh, azmin azliza aziz, and kanagi kanapathy. "halal logistics opportunities and challenges." journal of islamic marketing 8, no. 1 (2017): 127-139. 16 masudin, ilyas, bima bagos rahmatullah, muhammad armand agung, inka amalia dewanti, and dian palupi restuputri. "traceability system in halal procurement: a bibliometric review." logistics 6, no. 4 (2022): 67. 17 ngah, abdul hafaz, yuserrie zainuddin, and ramayah thurasamy. "modelling of halal warehouse adoption using partial least squares (pls)." selangor business review (2016): 87-105. 18 ngah, abdul hafaz, t. ramayah, mohd helmi ali, and mohd imran khan. "halal transportation adoption among pharmaceuticals and cosmetics manufacturers." journal of islamic marketing 11, no. 6 (2019): 1619-1639. 19 ibid. 20 sabreen, mudasra. "legislation on halal food in pakistan: an analytical study." journal of islamic and religious studies 6, no. 1 (2021): 27-40. 21 ibid 22 khalil, m., r. khalil, and s. khan. "a study on the effect of supply chain management practices on organizational performance with the mediating role of innovation in smes." uncertain supply chain management 7, no. 2 (2019): 179190. 23 ab rashid, norasekin, and jamil bojei. "the relationship between halal traceability system adoption and environmental factors on halal food supply chain integrity in malaysia." journal of islamic marketing 11, no. 1 (2019): 117-142. 24 khan, mahroo, arsalan najmi, waqar ahmed, and ameenullah aman. "the role of consumer willingness to pay for halal certification in pakistan." journal of islamic marketing 10, no. 4 (2019): 1230-1244. 25 sentia, prima denny, sarika zuhri, didi asmadi, and farhan farhan. "the analysis of influential factors of halal supply chain management implementation in banda aceh's hotels." amwaluna: jurnal ekonomi dan keuangan syariah 6, no. 1 (2022): 29-38. 26 ibid, 4. 27 khairuddin, muhamad munzir, and nor aida abdul rahman. "successful halal compliance factors for air cargo warehouse: warehouse operator perspective." in halal logistics and supply chain management in southeast asia, pp. 187-203. routledge, 2020. 28 waqar, ahmed, najmi arsalan, h. m. faizan, and ahmed shaharyar. "consumer behaviour towards willingness to pay for halal products: an assessment of demand for halal certification in a muslim country." british food journal 121, no. 2 (2019): 492-504. 29 shariff, s. sarifah radiah, hezlin shadan, siti aimi sarah zainal abidin, azlina muhammad, and shahrin nasir. "halalan toyyiban warehouse performance model: an adapted balanced scorecard approach." in 2020 11th ieee control and system graduate research colloquium (icsgrc), pp. 357-360. ieee, 2020. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 77 30 ab talib, mohamed syazwan, li li pang, and abdul hafaz ngah. "the role of government in promoting halal logistics: a systematic literature review." journal of islamic marketing (2020). 31 azhar, a., and y. t. tu. "the investigation of key factors for successful implementation of sustainable halal food supply chain management." food research 5, no. 6 (2021): 221-228. 32 yusoff, fara adura mohd, raja nerina raja yusof, and siti rahayu hussin. "halal food supply chain knowledge and purchase intention." international journal of economics & management 9 (2015). 33 khan, farhana, waqar ahmed, and arsalan najmi. "understanding consumers’ behavior intentions towards dealing with the plastic waste: perspective of a developing country." resources, conservation and recycling 142 (2019): 49-58. 34 tornatzky, louis g., mitchell fleischer, and alok k. chakrabarti. processes of technological innovation. lexington books, 1990. 35 baker, jeff. "the technology–organization–environment framework." information systems theory (2012): 231-245. 36 tan, mohd iskandar illyas, raziah noor razali, and zuhra junaida husny. "the adoption of halal transportations technologies for halal logistics service providers in malaysia." international journal of transport and vehicle engineering 6, no. 3 (2012): 737-744. 37 musa, haslinda musa. "analyzing factors towards adopting ict within supply network in the uk." journal of technology management and technopreneurship (jtmt) 2, no. 1 (2014). 38 ibid, 3. 39 ibid, 3. 40 tan, mohd iskandar illyas, raziah noor razali, and zuhra junaida husny. "the adoption of halal transportations technologies for halal logistics service providers in malaysia." international journal of transport and vehicle engineering 6, no. 3 (2012): 737-744. 41 ibid, 1. 42 ibid, 3. 43 ibid, 1. 44 susanty, aries, nia budi puspitasari, and s. jati. "prioritizing indicators for measuring halal logistics implementation." in 2021 ieee international conference on industrial engineering and engineering management (ieem), pp. 73-77. ieee, 2021. 45 ngah, abdul hafaz, yuserrie zainuddin, and ramayah thurasamy. "contributing factors of halal warehouse adoption." management and technology in knowledge, service, tourism & hospitality 89 (2014): 94. 46 ibid, 3. 47 rahman, nor aida abdul, mohammad fakhrulnizam mohammad, suzari abdul rahim, and hazariah mohd noh. "implementing air cargo halal warehouse: insight from malaysia." journal of islamic marketing 9, no. 3 (2018): 462-483. 48 hasan, zulfikar. "making indonesia as integrated halal zone and world halal sector hub through the implementation of halal supply chain." journal of islamic economic and business research 1, no. 1 (2021): 1-14. 49 zainuddin, anizah, sarah irdina ridzwan, and sarah batrisyia ridzwan. "the role of halalan-toyyiban supply chain practices as significant predictors towards excellent customer service management." advances in business research international journal 6, no. 1 (2020): 1-10. 50 bakar, saridan abu, mohamed sulaiman, and intan osman. "exploring the relationship between business factors and performance in the malaysian halal biotechnology smes context." procedia-social and behavioral sciences 121 (2014): 243-252. 51 ibid, 6. 52 ali, sadia samar, rajbir kaur, and shahbaz khan. "evaluating sustainability initiatives in warehouse for measuring sustainability performance: an emerging economy perspective." annals of operations research (2022): 1-40. 78 the role of technological … 53 ibid, 6. 54 ibid, 1. 55 kadir, suhaila abdul. "the development of halal logistics in thailand." in halal logistics and supply chain management in southeast asia, pp. 112-122. routledge, 2020. 56 ibid, 6. 57 hair jr, joe f., marko sarstedt, lucas hopkins, and volker g. kuppelwieser. "partial least squares structural equation modeling (pls-sem): an emerging tool in business research." european business review (2014). 58 hair, joe f., christian m. ringle, and marko sarstedt. "plssem: indeed a silver bullet journal of marketing theory and practice, 19 (2) pages 139-152, doi: 10.2753." mtp1069-6679190202 (2011). 59 ibid, 14. 60 henseler, jörg, christian m. ringle, and marko sarstedt. "a new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling." journal of the academy of marketing science 43, no. 1 (2015): 115135. 61 sanchez, g. "pls path modeling with r. berkeley: trowchez editions 383, 2013." (2013). 62 azmi, fadhlur rahim, abu abdullah, mohammed hariri bakri, and haslinda musa. "perception of small medium and enterprises towards halal food supply chain in malaysia." international journal of mechanical engineering and technology 9, no. 11 (2018): 821-828. 63 saleh, nurshahirah, irwan ibrahim, and fadilah abd rahman. "determine the factors of influence the technological, organizational, environmental, halal awareness towards halalan-toyyiban risk management plan (htrmp)." transportation 2, no. 09 (2019). 64 ngah, abdul hafaz, yuserrie zainuddin, and ramayah thurasamy. "barriers and enablers in adopting halal transportation services: a study of malaysian halal manufacturers." international journal of business and management 2, no. 2 (2014): 49. untitled hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 9 socialisation and institutionalisation process of the moderate religious culture in indonesian madrasahs nur kafid department of islamic political thought, faculty of ushuluddin and da’wah, universitas islam negeri raden mas said surakarta, indonesia email: nur.kafid@staff.uinsaid.ac.id zulkifli department of sociology, faculty of social and political science, universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta, indonesia email: zulkifli@uinjkt.ac.id muhammad faiq department of aqidah and islamic philosophy, faculty of ushuluddin and humanities universitas islam negeri walisongo semarang, indonesia email: faiq_muhammad@walisongo.ac.id received on: 02-02-23 accepted on: 19-02-25 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.743 abstract the potential for being intolerant, radical, or even extreme is more common in public schools than in madrasahs (islamic schools). however, religious moderation practices in madrasahs have not been able to dominate public space. this study aims to analyse and disclose the process of socialisation and institutionalisation of moderate religious culture in indonesian madrasahs. this paper is an ethnographic study of the madrasahs (islamic senior high schools) in solo, central java, with an interpretive-constructivist approach. the data were collected from in-depth interviews and field observations with 105 respondents, including madrasah principals, teaching staff, and students who were selected purposively. three processes of reduction, interpretation, and conclusion are applied for data analysis. the results revealed that the socialisation and institutionalisation process in madrasahs had mailto:nur.kafid@staff.uinsaid.ac.id mailto:zulkifli@uinjkt.ac.id mailto:faiq_muhammad@walisongo.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.743 10 socialisation and institutionalisation … succeeded in instilling moderate religious culture among students. students understood the concept of religious moderation very well, i.e. being in the middle position, meaning not too extreme whether left or right. however, it is understood only in terms of social relations, not faith (‘aqīdah). besides, the results show that the process has not been oriented towards interreligious and digital literacy and has not led them to make religious moderation a collective action. students are not actively involved in responding to religious and social diversity issues around them. moreover, solo is often accused of being an intolerant city. it is because of students’ lack of literacy or comprehensive knowledge regarding the understanding and practice of religious moderation. then, moderate groups, which are basically dominant, remain silent, so they prefer to act permissively toward intolerant behaviours. again, the history of religious conflicts in the past has made identity politics increasingly intense in solo. lastly, there is an absence of public figures who are supposed to be catalysts for moderate movements. so, the findings suggest massive campaigns against moderate action among students and made them consider its necessity in public spaces, including on social media. keywords: religious moderation, socialisation, institutionalisation, student, indonesian madrasah introduction the trend and intensity of islamic movements in the last two decades have continued to increase with various forms and issues they promote from the national to the local level.1 the movement has even succeeded in infiltrating and attracting the sympathy of young indonesian muslims, especially those who live in urban and suburban areas.2 the pattern occurs through online media,3 educational institutions,4 and family. the wahid foundation's study found a relatively high trend of hate speech among rohis activists (rohis or roíéni islam, a group of islamic religious activity at senior high school). it is evidenced by the speech material, which leads to utterances of hatred against other religions, the government and even the campaign for choosing friends based on religious background. ma‘arif institute, ppim uin syarif hidayatullah jakarta,5 and alvara research center found relatively high cases of intolerance and the potential for extreme radicalism among students reflected from the curriculum content, textbooks and teachers’ exclusive understanding. setara institute again found quite a high potential for intolerance among students by category: passive/puritan (35.7 percent), active/radical (2.4 percent) and potential terrorist (0.3 percent).6 the study by rohman dan kafid also found that the seeds of intolerance and radicalism that have developed among hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 11 students of islamic universities in indonesia have emerged since they were in high school. this situation will potentially become a serious challenge in the efforts of consolidating democracy,7 social stability, politics and the economy, and the existence of the unitary state of the republic of indonesia (nkri, negara kesatuan republik indonesia). it is why the initiative for counter-narrative movements arises, which carries the importance of understanding, attitudes, and religious practices that are friendly, accommodating to local culture, and cooperative towards the presence of the state, including encouraging changes in the model of religious education, from the orientation of exclusive religious attitudes to inclusiveness.8 therefore, students as young generations have a vital position in this regard as they can be a driving force for social change.9 the youths are the most active and creative group in society in building identities, reconstructing meanings and symbols from various elements of tradition, and using global influence. they are also more interactive and less hierarchical in social relationships.10 they can be more educated, open, and mobile, interact and communicate with new people and ideas, and construct their identity based on available cultural material. in addition, digital media presents a dilemma today, offering both negative and positive effects. advanced information and communication technology, where digitalisation has become part of a lifestyle and way of thinking, has influenced the model of religious learning among today's young muslim generations.11 previously, religious knowledge was obtained directly from authoritative figures such as ‘ulama, kiai (an honorific title for muslim clergy in indonesia), ustéd ( )استاد (teachers) at pesantren and madrasahs. now, it is replaced by learning through social media.12 as a result, the possibility of getting misinformation increases. the religious understanding obtained is just symbolicformalistic, so the youths are more vulnerable to becoming intolerant, radical, and extreme.13 further, mainstream religious moderation among school students, especially madrasahs, becomes a challenge. it is important to note that religious moderation is the internalisation of religious teachings by its adherents and their active role in overcoming conflicts with religious nuances.14 so, it must not quit at the discourse level. efforts are needed to contextualise its values to a practical level. the substance of religious teachings is supposed to be reflected in every behaviour of its adherents. moderation must manifest into an individual’s active role in maintaining a balance between religious experience 12 socialisation and institutionalisation … and respect for other people’s religious practices.15 moderation as a manner of verbal communication cannot be separated from the speaker’s position. it differs from the text, whose position is still attached to the speaker. therefore, the dynamics and development of moderation will always be intertwined with tradition, power, institutions, and various other modes of knowledge dissemination. at this level, there is potential for the element of ‘subjectivity’ to enter into the reproduction process of moderation. when moderation is seen as a practice,16 it must be seen that there is a reciprocal relationship between the actor and the ‘objective structure’, as the knowledge is passed down from generation to generation in symbolic form or habitus. it presupposes that religion is not merely inherited knowledge but also something that is ‘constructed’ socially. so far, religious moderation has become an essential part of the indonesian national development program and the development of indonesian human resources. madrasahs have received serious attention and are expected to become the leading sector in strengthening religious moderation. historically, madrasahs in indonesia are considered islamic educational institutions that are not anti-modernised, accommodate various forms of culture, and have a positive response and support for democracy and tolerance. according to mumuh muhtarom,17 madrasahs in indonesia are the essential instruments for islamic intellectual revival and an effective means of spreading inclusive islamic teachings. in other words, madrasahs are believed to strengthen social humanism, generate social mobilisation, and have succeeded in shaping indonesian culture and fostering the concept of the "authentic self," which offers a unique way of building students' character. studies show that public schools are prone to intolerance, radicalism, and even extremism compared to madrasahs. however, it does not automatically mean that the madrasahs environment is more moderate. likewise, the practice of religious moderation of madrasahs students in solo surprisingly has not been able to dominate public space. even madrasahs tend to be silent or passive when conflicts with religious nuances arise in their surroundings. solo is a very pluralistic but religious city. however, intolerant acts often occur, such as the destruction of graves of the christians by the youths in 2021. according to alexander r. arifianto,18 such an attitude may strengthen the trend of intolerance and extremism in indonesia. so, even though the moderate group is actually dominant, their silence makes them seem like a minority. based on the facts above, this paper attempts to discover the process of socialization and institutionalization of hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 13 moderate religious culture at madrasahs in solo and why the practices of students’ religious moderation have not been embodied in public spaces. literature review etymologically, moderation comes from the latin word moderatio, which means balance, neither excessive nor deficiency. the word also implies self-control from an excessive or defective attitude. thus, the word moderate is the opposite of liberal, radical, or extreme. meanwhile, in khaled abu el fadl's view, the word moderate means not leaning too much to the right or the left.19 in english, the word moderation is often used in the sense of average, middle, standard, or non-aligned. in general, moderate means prioritizing balance regarding beliefs, morals, and character when treating others as individuals and dealing with state institutions. turning to arabic, moderation is equal to wasṭ or wasṭiyah. in this case, al-qaradlawi said that the word wasaṭ )وسط( is identical to the words tawāzun )توازن( (balance) and fair. people who apply the principle of wasaṭiyah can be called wasiṭ. in arabic, the word wasaṭiyah is also interpreted as "the best choice." whatever word is used, they all imply the same meaning, namely fair, which in this context means choosing a middle ground between various extreme choices.20 the word wasaṭ has also been absorbed into the indonesian language as the word “wésit” means referee, which has three meanings, namely 1) intermediary, for example, in trade and business, 2) mediator (separator, peacemaker) between those in dispute, and 3) leader in a match.21 meanwhile, technically, moderation means an attitude and view that is not excessive, extreme, or radical (taṭarruf). this is as stated in the chapter al-baqarah: 143 of the holy qur’én, which reads: " in the same way we made you a moderate ummah (community), so that you should be witnesses over the people, and the messenger a witness to you ..." similarly, mohammad hashim kamali22 defines moderation by referring to its arabic root, wasaṭiyah, which is defined as a middle position between the two extreme poles, right and left. it is a concept understood as an effort to invite muslims to realise the importance of tolerance in social life. this concept rises again as a discourse, in line with the less harmonious relations of religious life and the strengthening trend of islamophobia in the world, especially after september 11 (9/11). turning to madrasah in indonesia, it is a formal educational institution from primary to secondary schools whose curriculum refers to the national education curriculum but has more islamic teaching than public schools. if public schools are under the ministry 14 socialisation and institutionalisation … of primary and secondary education, madrasahs are under the auspices of the ministry of religious affairs. initially, nu and muhammadiyah had different focuses and concerns in developing schools. in contrast, nu was better known for producing religious knowledge, while muhammadiyah was more advanced in developing non-religious knowledge. in general, education in nu is often considered more traditional, while muhammadiyah is believed to be more advanced. yet, each has its advantages. nu has contributed to developing pesantren and madrasahs, producing great ‘ulama. in comparison, muhammadiyah has developed modern schools from elementary to university.23 so, pesantren have become a characteristic of nu that still exists today. on the other hand, muhammadiyah wants islamic education to adapt to modern education. nu madrasah emphasised intense religious learning by maintaining the scientific traditions of previous scholars so that their books (kitāb) are still used today as references for learning islam. meanwhile, muhammadiyah puts the works of classical scholars proportionally, not ideologically: not throwing them away but also not taking them entirely. muhammadiyah does not follow one of the four imams of the sunni school of fiqh as they develop their own manhaj (methodology). their jargon is to return to the quran and the sunnah. nu and muhammadiyah madrasas are generally managed by the private sector. however, both contributed significantly to the national development, and each founder, k.h. haysim asyari of nu and k.h. ahmad dahlan of muhammadiyah, once was under the teaching of a similar teacher. meanwhile, madrasah salafi is a school that focuses on understanding and teaching islam, which refers to the methods practised during the time of salafus ṣālih (first-generation muslims) and salaf scholars. the school prioritises understanding and memorising the holy qur'én and hadith and emphasises the study of ‘aqêdah (tawíêd) and fiqh (islamic law). they tend to maintain classical teaching traditions and methods, emphasising the memorisation of religious texts. their jargon also goes back to the holy qurén and sunnah. the last, man (state madrasah), is managed by the government, i.e., the ministry of religious affairs. it aims to develop both religious and non-religious knowledge. students are taught to be experts in both fields. man can be found in every province and has even become the leading school in indonesia.24 then, as far as the issue of islamic moderation is concerned, some studies have been carried out. afsaruddin observes the trend of strengthening conservatism in the world after 9/11, emphasising the need for discourse on internal reform of society and hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 15 islamic thought so that moderation can contribute to efforts to maintain a pluralist society, which must be coupled with the concepts of tolerance and pluralism. moderation must be understood as fair behaviour in various areas of life, the application of which is universal.25 in indonesia, the strengthening of the discourse on religious moderation is in line with the trend of increasing movements of extreme-radical islamic groups after the 1998 reformation, which raised the issue of formalising islamic law (sharê‘ah) and the ideology of the caliphate (khiléfah islamiyyah) as a replacement for pancasila.26 according to leo suryadinata,27 these movements can potentially disrupt political and economic stability and the integrity of the republic of indonesia. the movement has succeeded in infiltrating young indonesian muslims due to some factors: firstly, through online media, which is used as a space for self-image and dissemination of ideology28 due to the high tendency of the young muslim generation to seek religious knowledge through online media.29 second, educational institutions are a channel for spreading ideas and islamisation movements after the failure of their movement in the political realm,30 as well as a space for strengthening islamic identity politics with claims to be the truest islam and ideal muslim.31 nashuddin states32 this occurs due to the teachers' exclusive understanding and a dogmatic curriculum. third, through family, which applies an authoritarian parenting style.33 as a result, the initiative of the counter-narrative movement emerged, which emphasises the importance of religious understanding, attitudes, and practices that are friendly, accommodating to local cultural wisdom, and cooperative towards the state.34 according to achmad asrori,35 this movement calls for a change in the model of religious education, from the "inside the walls" model to the "outside the walls" model, from an orientation that forms an exclusive religious model to an inclusively oriented model of religious education; an education model that emphasises the importance of insight and awareness of humanist islamic values36 so that this concept must continue beyond the discourse level. in addition, faried f. saenong's study of the role of nahdlatul ulama (nu) as a movement advocating moderate islam,37 moderation is a term contested in indonesia in the 21st century. nu, as the most prominent islamic mass organisation in indonesia, succeeded in representing the interests of many different indonesian muslim social groups when it declared itself as an organisation that promotes a moderate islamic discourse through the concept of islam nusantara. however, according to mustaqim pabbajah et. al.,38 nu and muhammadiyah face significant obstacles in dealing with the trend of conservative islamic revival in indonesia. although these 16 socialisation and institutionalisation … organisations promote religious moderatism as a means of upholding human dignity, they are threatened by internal challenges. conservative islamic organisations and their monopoly on universal truth are gaining power. while iqbal and mabud argue that the islamic concept of wasaṭiyah could be an alternative solution and, at the same time, capable of playing an essential role in overcoming the deadlock of dialogue between religions amidst the increasing threat of global extremism. it is because the concept wasaṭiyah encourages efforts towards peace and unity of the ummah. schmid also affirms that a moderate muslim does not try to impose islamic law on nonmuslims.39 a person who puts forward the values of humanism is not excessively fanatical and avoids all forms of violence. however, efforts to mainstream religious moderation must be cross-sectoral and recognise the existing social context. it requires the involvement and cooperation of many parties, so looking at the various factors or contexts surrounding an individual's religiosity is essential. this is because religiosity and socio-economic conditions, as sa'diyah et al. said, positively and significantly influence moderate attitudes in individuals. all those papers have studied the issue of moderation but failed to discuss the role of madrasahs in religious moderation mainstreaming. therefore, this study attempts to uncover how religious moderation mainstreaming is carried out in madrasahs through socialisation and institutionalisation processes, and how the students and teaching staff view religious moderation ideas. methodology this paper is qualitative research that relies on the power of description to explain a phenomenon that becomes the object of study. thus, through a qualitative approach, data that appears in the field can be obtained, thereby avoiding researcher bias. in qualitative research, the analysis will be conducted inductively.40 in this pattern, the researcher's analysis is carried out by collecting empirical and theoretical data on the socialization and institutionalization processes of the moderate religious culture of madrasahs students in solo. solo is the city in the former surakarta residency, which includes surakarta, karanganyar, sragen, wonogiri, sukoharjo, klaten, and boyolali. now, these areas are more familiarly known as soloraya. this study applies an ethnographic approach to examine personal involvement in constructing and reconstructing meaning through daily interaction processes and the culture surrounding it as a frame of perspective and behaviour.41 the data in this study were collected from in-depth interviews and field observations in madrasahs determined based on the pattern and character of the madrasahs, including state islamic senior high school (man), ma nu (nahdlatul ulama-based islamic senior high school), ma hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 17 muhammadiyah and salafi schools. from each selected madrasah, 105 informants were chosen purposively from elements of the school principal, teaching staff, and students, especially intra-madrasah student organisations. three processes of reduction, interpretation, and conclusion by miles and huberman are applied for data analysis.42 complexity of religious movement in solo after the 1998 reformation era, religious identity became more dominant in the public sphere, and the local cultural practices of the javanese community are still more intimate and dominating.43 if viewed from the perspective of interaction patterns, social structure, and economic aspects, the solo people were initially traditional and agrarian. the social relations established are also very typical of the keraton (a palace in the javanese kingdom), i.e., rajakawula or king and servant, with the livelihoods of most of the people being farmers. but this has encouraged change since the beginning of the 20th century, along with the industrialisation and the emergence of intellectual groups that initiated movement organisations.44 besides, the wave of industrialisation that has penetrated this region since the 1900s has also influenced people's patterns and lifestyles. the typology of society that used to be predominantly rural has shifted to the industrial sector.45 therefore, the model of the patronclient relationship has not entirely disappeared but has shifted to a different form. from the kawula-gusti model, it becomes more fluid and tends to be dominated by factors of political interests and control of access to economic resources. it is reflected in the patronage model that has developed in vigilante groups that have emerged recently. the level of religious plurality in solo is relatively high. based on data released by the central bureau of statistics of solo in 2019, there are muslims, catholics, protestants, hindus, buddhists, confucians, and various religious communities. even though most of them are muslim, abangan (syncretic) culture still dominates their religious practices. the islamisation movement did occur massively, but the practice of religious life with syncretic nuances was still influential in daily life,46 such as the tradition of satu suro, gerebeg mulud, sekaten, malem selikuran, and tinggalan dalem jumenengan held every year. islam has been embraced by the people of solo since the kingdom era, especially during the reign of kasunanan. it was marked by the birth of the pesantren jamsaren in the 1750s, the emergence of various works of islamic literature, the establishment of the surakarta grand mosque, and the birth of the madrasah mambaoel oeloem in 1905. in addition, islam developed even more 18 socialisation and institutionalisation … rapidly with the emergence of various islamic study activities initiated by the sarekat islam organisation. according to wildan, these historical traces make solo's islamic style mix with javanese cultural values to this day. however, at the same time, the syncretic culture cannot prevent them from being muslims with intolerant and even radical characters. further, the islamic movement in solo has become increasingly complex since around the 1980s. the seeds of radicalism that have existed for a long time seem to have found a new axis and spirit along with the arrival of the tarbawi and salafi groups from the middle east.47 apart from actively creating small groups (íalaqahs) in several universities, establishing ma'had and religious learning forums, to political movements, and being affiliated with political parties, this group is also active in spreading its ideology through various media channels,48 such as radio,49 television, magazines, bulletins, and books. therefore, solo is a "paradise" for various ideological movements.50 however, there are also kinds and practices of cooperation and peace initiatives carried out by this region's muslim and christian communities. some groups or civil society organisations with a moderate wing have voiced the importance of tolerance. however, because their movement is not massive enough, their existence seems like a minority in the public sphere. madrasahs themselves, in the early of their birth in solo, especially mambaoel oeloem, which became a place for teaching and disseminating islamic teachings, a symbol of social mobility to create equality and became a social and political force that strengthens national awareness, apparently have not been able to optimally dominate the public space of solo in voicing the importance of tolerance. in fact, the birth and development of madrasahs in solo recently cannot be separated from the existence of the mambaoel oeloem. socialisation process of the moderate religious culture through intra-curricular activities the first moderate religious culture socialisation model carried out by madrasahs is through extracurricular activities, namely integrating moderate islamic values into the school's curriculum. even though curriculum integration varies from one madrasah to another, the teaching staff are requested to impose religious moderation among students through each subject they teach in the class. for instance, integration practices of moderatism at man are mainly carried out through the subjects of islamic religious education, islamic history, islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), ‘aqêdah akhlak (islamic hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 19 theology), and civic education by emphasising to students the importance of religious attitudes that are not extreme, tolerance, love for the motherland and anti-violence. it is because students have diverse backgrounds or religious organisation affiliations such as nu, muhammadiyyah, the holy qur'én interpretation council (mta), and the indonesian islamic da'wah institute (ldii). the integration of moderate islamic values into the subject of islamic history was made by giving an example of the moderate attitude of the prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) when he was in medina (interview with bdy, july 12, 2021, and ms, october 26, 2021). meanwhile, in fiqh, the emphasis is on the importance of tolerance and finding common ground for religious organisations' different views, groups, and affiliations (interview with ms, october 26, 2021). one example of the practice that is believed to be part of the learning process of moderate religious values is praying together (îalét). in contrast, the integration pattern through the subject of ‘aqêdah akhléq emphasises the importance of being religious people who always try to maintain togetherness and are sensitive and concerned about their social situations and conditions (interview with swy, september 24, 2021). the diversity of religious backgrounds or affiliations of the students becomes the reason why madrasahs provide a contextual religious understanding. for example, the meaning of 'jihéd' by the teachers is correlated with the role and status of students as being severe in learning, not dealing with war on the battlefield. as for the pattern of integration carried out through the subject of civic education, more emphasis is on mutual respect for differences (interview with sry and as, november 29, 2021), creating a harmonious community life and maintaining the unity and integrity of nkri (interview with wdt and sls, january 22, 2022). there is also a socialisation process carried out through the program of madrasah students ta‘éruf period, flag ceremonies on monday, the commemoration of national holidays and religious holidays, as well as through posters posted in various corners of the madrasah, through the madrasah's official social media accounts, and habituation activities (interview with zfs and rr, november 23, 2021). of all the integration patterns of religious moderatism into the curriculum, man students understand the values very well as a form of tolerance. however, some of them stated that tolerance should only be practiced in the context of social and human relations and should not enter the realm of faith or doctrine (interview with dha, as, and azf, january 28, 2021). turn to the socialisation of moderate religious culture through intra-curricular activities at ma muhammadiyah, it is similar 20 socialisation and institutionalisation … to those at man, i.e., with a program of curriculum integration through the subjects of islamic religious education, ‘aqêdah akhléq, islamic history, and civic education, except through english subject. the integration through the subject of ‘aqêdah akhléq is practised by emphasising the importance of tolerance, respecting diversity and differences (interview with wh, september 10, 2021), and vertically having good morality to god and horizontally to fellow human beings (interview with snh, november 10, 2021). meanwhile, in islamic history, more emphasis is on the importance of understanding the history and development of islam contextually, practised through the habituation of reading the holy qur'én and its meaning contextually. its goal is for students to understand religious messages contextually and not lead them to violent attitudes and actions (interview with zaa, november 11, 2021). then, the subject of civic education dealt with the importance of loving the motherland and mutual respect for differences (interview with snh, november 10, 2021). the difference at ma muhammadiyah is its integration through english subjects by giving examples and reading materials that discuss diversity and harmony (interview with mzf, november 15, 2021). so, in this school, the teachings of moderation have been understood as a practice of tolerance; some teachers and students argue that tolerance should only be practised in social relations, not in terms of faith (interview with snh, january 13, 2022). in contrast, the socialisation of moderatism at ma nu is mainly carried out by teaching the doctrine ahl sunnah wa aljamé‘ah an-nahdliyyah (aswaja). it is also integrated through islamic religious education subject and civic education. the pattern of integration through the teaching of aswaja emphasises the importance of the principles of tasamuh (tolerance), tawassuṭ (middle position), tawézun (balance), and i‘tidāl (fair), respecting each other and not mocking other religions or sects, and the importance of maintaining national unity and integrity. however, there is an ma nu that has no specific pattern of integrating religious moderation values into the learning curriculum, such as ma al-azhar (interview with js, january 13, 2022). the staff believes that religious moderation has become part of the daily practices of the school, which can be seen from the students who have understood the moderation concept as not being extreme, not standing one-sided, not too rigid, and not too liberal (interview with ns, sw, and ss, january 13, 2022). the integration through the teaching of aswaja is by giving examples of prominent figures, stories of national figures, or moderate ‘ulama such as k.h. hasyim asy'ari, nu founder.51 the exemplary model of moderatism is practiced by walisongo (nine muslim saints in java), who spread islam through local community hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 21 culture as reflected in the practices of pilgrimage to the tomb (ziyārat), delivering prayers to the dead (tahlilan), a seventh-month celebration of the pregnant mother (mitoni), and prayers for good luck (selametan) (interview with mr & bg, september 09, 2021). in today’s context, moderatism is necessary as the state is facing serious threats due to the growth of the islamic organisation movement that supported the establishment of an islamic caliphate. therefore, the school encouraged its students and teaching staff to participate in the flag ceremony where pancasila (indonesian state philosophy) is recited together. a somewhat different integration pattern was carried out by ma al-falah where material related to religious moderation is provided through the subject of fiqh and ta‘lêm muta‘allim. through these two subjects, students are drilled with an understanding of various views, religious practices, and their arguments. the goal for students is to become tolerant, not trapped in excessive fanaticism or radicalism, and uphold the principles of unity in diversity, pancasila, and the 1945 constitution. as a result, the students of the madrasah know that the efforts of any group that wants to replace the foundation of the state with islamic principles are unacceptable as the state belongs not only to muslims but to all indonesian citizens regardless of their religious background. in contrast, ma alpansa carries out moderatism integration through local-based subjects. for instance, the students of class x will learn about nu history, the javanese language, and the history of mbah lim (k.h. muslim rifa'i imampuro) with a focus on the history of the birth of pancasila and the republic of indonesia. then, class xi learns the history of mbah lim, pancasila, and nu with an introduction to indonesian politics. this is where the teaching related to the history of the birth and the relationship between pancasila and nu and their development are given. while, class xii will directly learn about the construction of the independent character of students, i.e., the provision of educational and micro-teaching abilities. although the pattern of integration carried out by ma nu is unique and has succeeded in delivering knowledge about the practice of moderation, some teachers argue that the practice of tolerance or moderatism can not be applied in all cases. lastly, the intra-curricular socialisation model carried out by ma salafi emphasises moderation values in the form of obedience to the government (interview with uy, as, ud, & aaw, november 2, 202). the educational model is more directed at strengthening islamic understanding by emphasising islamic manhaj. so far, this school's curriculum is the tawíêd-based islamic education curriculum, in which tawíêd is the pivot for all learning materials and processes 22 socialisation and institutionalisation … (interview with uy, november 2, 2021). however, the students have never participated in interfaith events or activities with local traditions, such as sekaten (prophet birthday celebration in solo and yogyakarta), selametan, and others. these salafi schools emphasise the importance of making the holy qur’én and sunnah the primary reference in life. so obedience to the government is allowed as long as its policies do not violate islamic law, including policies related to religious moderation. even though students understand moderation as a religious attitude that is not extreme and the importance of tolerance, they believe it must not enter the domain of faith and does not conflict with islamic law (interview with zm, fa, and hm, january 16, 2022). through extracurricular activities the second model of socialisation is carried out by madrasahs through extracurricular activities. although each madrasah has different extracurricular activities, the orientation of all these activities is strengthening love for the motherland (interview with sb & ms, november 10, 2021), increasing arabic literacy and maintaining traditions their predecessors passed down. several extracurricular activities in private and state madrasahs used to socialise with moderate religious culture students are scouts, flag hoisting troop (paskibraka), and youth red cross (palang merah remaja, pmr). however, there are also other kinds of extracurricular activities, depending on the characteristics of each madrasah, such as rohis, the art of reciting the holy qur'én at man 1 surakarta; sports, book studies, and arts at man 1 sragen; and reading and writing arabic to improve the ability to recite and understand the holy qur'én and arabic texts correctly and precisely at man 1 klaten. meanwhile, in ma muhammadiyah, the socialisation process of moderate religious culture is carried out through the school program of ×izbul wathon for the scouting program (interview with wh, november 10, 2021). however, not all muhammadiyah schools use similar name, such as ma muhammadiyah bekonang; such a program is called scouting (interview with snh, november 10, 2021). meanwhile, in the ma nu, apart from scouting, paskibraka and pmr extracurricular activities, some have the program of istighosah, seeking help from allah almighty by praying together (interview with ym & mr, september 1, 2021). this activity is carried out routinely every kliwon friday (javanese calendar) at the grave of the founder of the pesantren. the goal is for students always to remember the message of the founder of the pesantren, which was to protect the nkri and practice pancasila values in everyday life. while in ma salafi, hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 23 although not all have pandu hidayatullah extracurricular program, a kind of scouting activity, it is a program that is believed to be part of the socialisation of a culture of moderation by inviting the indonesian national army and police officers as trainers (interview with as, october 23, 21). through social roles in society the third model of socialisation of moderatism is carried out by madrasahs by involving students in the daily life of the community. two approaches are used in this regard. first, it is carried out institutionally as part of the madrasah socialisation program. it becomes a space for students to implement the knowledge they have gained from school in the community. second, it is carried out independently by students in their respective neighbourhoods. these two socialisation models are only found in man, ma muhammadiyah, and ma nu. man initiated programs called ramadhan dakwah camping (rdc), dakwah ramadhan (dr), social service and tarawih touring (bstk), and study tour (st) (interview with sb, mq, rr, ysk, sls, nf and tm, january 22, 2022). cdr is a space for students to gain experience regarding the practice of tolerance in a diverse community environment. the dr and bstk programs are usually carried out for 2 to 3 days in the last ten days of ramaìan through activities such as teaching about islam, helping to distribute zakét, holding bazaars, and teaching kindergartens. then, the study tour program is usually made by visiting communities of different beliefs and traditions, such as learning about the prohibition of balinese people slaughtering cows, the tradition of sesajen (the dishes and flowers in religious rituals to serve supernatural beings), and the like. this is where they know the importance of tolerance and understand that each tradition has meaning and is part of certain community beliefs. while the independent socialisation activities by students are seen from their involvement in youth organisations, religion, and other social activities in their respective neighbourhoods, such as their involvement in regional cultural festival activities, which became a space for them to interact and get to know firsthand the diversity of religions and cultures in their surroundings, including the experience of interaction with different religious sects or nonmuslims (interview with ip, mfl, fw, wmf ta, ds, irf, fmg, fza, and rdp, january 12, 2022). meanwhile, in ma muhammadiyah, the third socialisation model is mainly carried out through social activities, such as takziah (ta‘ziah) (conveying condolence to the one who passed away), 24 socialisation and institutionalisation … routine ramaìén programs at the pku muhammadiyah mosque, and social services. takziah is usually carried out when a person dies around the madrasah, either muslim or non-muslim. the ramaìén program at pku is carried out by attending religious events and distributing zakat al-fitr. for social services, the program is like distributing qurbén meat on eid al-adha (the feast of sacrifice) and cleaning the environment around the madrasah with the locals (interview with ap, iw, wh, js, ilh, sls 11/15/21). students gain experience interacting directly with people of different sects and religions from all these activities. whereas in the ma nu, this model of socialisation is students' involvement in seminars on the theme of religious moderation, youth organisations, and haul of the pesantren, which become a space for students to gain experience interacting and collaborating with various people, cultures, traditions, and religion (interview with ubd, fna, fr, ar, sm, vs, hn, rp, rdu, aaw, aar, aq, sfm, nns, asf, lna, zmh, mlh, february 14, 2022). another socialisation model is in the form of compulsory madrasah activities, such as the field experience practice (ppl) and field work practice (pkl) programs (interview with ym & rym, september 1, 21). students will live in the community for two days to one week through this activity. the result is that students gain experience interacting directly with people from various sects and beliefs, such as nu, muhammadiyah, ldii, abangan, wahidiyyah, salafi, and non-muslims. of the three models of socialisation above, integration of religious moderatism into the school curriculum can be the most effective way to cultivate a moderate religious culture in madrasahs because the information and knowledge provided to students are diverse. however, such a pattern will be ineffective when educators do not fully understand the concept of religious moderation itself. in other words, the teaching staff greatly influences and determines this pattern of curriculum integration. if the teaching staff is moderate, the knowledge delivered to students will undoubtedly align with the values and indicators of religious moderation. likewise, if the teaching staff is not moderate or does not understand the concept of religious moderation correctly, students will not be moderate. the role of these educators, besides being interpreters and implementers of the curriculum, also determines the form, process, and success of learning oriented towards moderation. even though students have understood moderation as a practice of tolerance, the practice of tolerance, if only at the social level or as long as it does not conflict with islamic hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 25 law, shows that the socialisation process of moderation is still at the discourse level, not practical. schools programs result man intra-curricular school subjects: islamic history, fiqh, ‘aqêdah akhléq (islamic theology), and civic education students have a proper understanding of islamic moderatism but must not transgress the limit, i.e. entering the realm of faith extracurricular scouting, flag hoisting troop (paskibraka), and youth red cross (pmr) social roles ramadan dakwah camping, dakwah ramadhan, social service, tarawih touring, and study tour ma muhammadiyah intracurricular school subjects: islamic history, ‘aqêdah akhléq, civic education, and english. students understood moderatism practically as the practice of tolerance. yet, it is limited to social relations. extracurricular hizbul wathon (scouting) social roles takziah, distributing zakat al-fitr and meat on eid al-aìha ma nu intracurricular teaching the doctrine aswaja by emphasising the concept of tasamuh, tawassuṭ, students understood moderatism as being in the middle position and fair. some 26 socialisation and institutionalisation … tawézun, and i'tidāl. practicing the local tradition such as tahlilan, selametan, mitoni, and ziyérah argue that moderatism can not be applied in all cases extracurricular scouting, flag hoisting troop, pmr, istighosah social roles join a seminar on religious moderation, youth organisations, and haul of the pesantren, ma salafi intracurricular emphasising islamic manhaj by making the qur’én and sunnah the only reference. the school curriculum is oriented toward the principle of tawíīd students understood moderatism, but it must not transgress the limit or violate islamic law. extracurricular pandu hidayatullah (scouting) social roles none table 1: socialisation process of the moderate religious culture in madrasahs institutionalisation process of the moderate religious culture moderation as a cultural system making moderation a cultural system means putting moderation as values, norms, rules, and other ideal things in which the individual thinks, acts, and behaves. as carried out by man, moderation is the foundation in preparing plans, processes, and implementation of all learning activities, with the aim that students can understand the reality of diversity that exists in their surroundings hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 27 and the importance of tolerance, togetherness, peace, avoiding all kinds of violence and imposing will. some madrasahs also make moderation part of the student rules and code of ethics, such as the prohibition of bullying, excessive fanaticism in religion, and prohibiting bringing attributes of certain religious sects or organisations in schools (interview with rr, sry, as, swy, mq, sb, & rtn, september 23, 2021). besides, some madrasahs use moderation as a guideline for teachers and trainers for all student activities (interview with ms, irf, fmg, fza, & jrwn, october 26, 2021). meanwhile, in the ma muhammadiyah, moderation is part of the guidelines for instilling student character (interview with wh, strn, snh, & mzf, november 10, 2021). all teaching staff refer to these guidelines in the learning process so students understand the importance of tolerance, avoiding violence, maintaining and protecting human dignity, and maintaining harmony. however, some students argued that tolerance should only be carried out in the context of social relations, not in terms of faith (interview with rth, ilh, sls, nz, zn, ap, hrn, nrl, & nn, january 13, 2022). in contrast, at ma nu, the subject ta‘lêm muta‘allim and aswaja become paradigms and guidelines for moderate attitude and behaviour, and become the basis for the entire process and implementation of learning, joint guidelines in attitude and behaviour, mandatory prerequisites for graduating from school and guidelines for the recruitment of madrasah education staffs (interview with ryn, mr, aaw, bg, september 4, 2021). apart from that, some madrasahs make the ideas, thoughts, and behaviour of the founder of the pesantren a reference for moderate attitudes and behaviour. from this model, students understand moderation as being tolerance, love for the motherland, protecting the nkri, and not being extreme in religion (interview with ubd, fna, fr, ar, aaw, ym, february 14, 2022), being open when interacting with various people, cultures and traditions, as well as understanding the importance of tolerance (interview with asf, lna, zmh, mlh, sm, vs, hn, rp, sb, dj, zfm, msh, ns, sw, ss, hs, hu, ah, & da, january 22, 2022). a different institutional model is found in the salafi madrasah, where moderation is more directed at strengthening understanding of the qur'an and sunnah (interview with ud, uy, as, aaw, december 22, 2021). moderation as a social system placing moderation as a social system means positioning moderation as a descriptive concept that manifests into traditional action patterns. this institutionalisation model is carried out by 28 socialisation and institutionalisation … madrasahs through a habituation program. as carried out by the state madrasahs, the habituation activities carried out include, among others, prayers together and istighotsah, whose technical implementation refers to the "islamic life guidelines" published by the school, containing various recitations in salat and prayer guidelines, as well as views and its legal basis (interview with rr, swy, as, & rtn, september 23, 2021). however, not all madrasahs have similar guidelines. from this model, students understand the various recitations in îalét and the legal basis as well as arguments for each difference. it hopes students will no longer have truth claims and consider others as mistakes, bid‘ah (innovation), or heresy. placing moderation as a social system means positioning moderation as a descriptive concept that manifests into traditional action patterns. this institutionalisation model is carried out by madrasahs through a habituation program. as carried out man, the habituation activities carried out include, among others, prayers together and istighosah, whose technical implementation refers to the "islamic life guidelines" published by the school, containing various recitations in îalét and prayer guidelines, as well as views and its legal basis. however, not all madrasahs have similar guidelines. from this model, students understand the various recitations in îalét and the legal basis and arguments for each difference (interview with swy, as, rtn, rr, september 24, 2021). it hopes students will no longer have truth claims and judge other groups as misguided or committing bid‘ah (innovation). moderation as a holistic and contextual personality moderation as a holistic and contextual personality is one of the models for institutionalising a moderate religious culture, which is carried out by involving students in community life. a community service program aims to bring students closer to the community and create a space to practice the knowledge they have gained from the class. students will live and carry out daily activities with the community through this activity. this service model by man is carried out in several forms, including ramadhan da‘wah camping (rdc), social service and mobile taréwêí (interview with jrwn, sb, mq, rr, october 26, 2021). similarly, ma muhammadiyah organises students during ramaìén to give a speech for religious events at the pku muhammadiyah hospital mosque and social service in the form of being zakat fiïrah distributors and sacrificial animal meat during eid al-aìíé (interview with wh, ap, & js, january 13, 2022). meanwhile, in ma nu, the program involves students in the community in the form of practical field experience (ppl) and field hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 29 work practices (pkl) (interview with ym & ryn, september 1. 2021). students, especially those in class xii, will live in the community for three days through this program so that students can be directly involved in various social-community activities. last, in ma salafi, the moderation institutionalisation model is more directed at strengthening the islamic character of students based on shari'ah. approaches programs cultural system man making moderation a foundation in preparing plans, processes, and implementation of all learning activities as well as rules and code of conduct ma muhammadiyah making moderation a guideline for instilling student character in the learning process ma nu making the subject ta‘lêm muta‘allim and aswaja paradigm and guideline for instilling moderate attitude and behaviour and the founder of the pesantren as a role model ma salafi strengthening students understanding of the holy qur’én and sunnah contextual personality man organizing ramadhan da'wah camping (rdc), social service and mobile tarawih ma muhammadiyah during ramadan to give a speech for religious events at the pku muhammadiyah hospital mosque during ramaìén, being zakat fiïrah distributors and sacrificial animal meat during ma nu directly involved in social community services through ppl & pkl program ma salafi sharê‘ah-based personal characters of the students social system man habituation programs such as prayers (ṣalāt) together among students and learning the difference from legal basis so that students are supposed not to have truth claims. however, every madrasah has different guidelines ma muhammadiyah ma nu ma salafi table 2: institutionalisation process of the moderate religious culture in madrasahs 30 socialisation and institutionalisation … the three models of institutionalising moderate religious culture above must be carried out continuously and repeatedly so it will become a habit.52 even though every madrasah has different forms and patterns of institutionalisation programs, they have similar goals in instilling a moderate religious culture among students. the three models above become media for objectification, internalisation, and externalisation of moderate values so that the students can learn moderatism’s values, attitudes, and behaviours in the madrasah environment. students believe islam teaches its adherents not to be extreme but moderate in all aspects of life and must accept and respect every difference. even though some argue that tolerance should not enter the realm of faith but merely in dealing with social interaction, many believe that religious intellectuality, religious practice, and religious experience influence individuals more moderately.53 in other words, students’ understanding of religious moderation tends to follow the ideology and religious practices of the madrasah where they study. therefore, institutionalisation and socialisation programs of moderate religious cultures in madrasahs are necessary. then, the institutionalisation and socialisation program of moderatism in madrasahs aligns with the government's goals in campaigning moderatism through educational institutions. first, a moderate attitude must be able to respect differences. this is manifested in students' participation in social activities. in addition, they also learn about differences among muslims, even in matters of worship, and why they differ from each other in their arguments. second, by increasing understanding, for example, ma nu students participate in seminars on moderatism. in addition, moderatism has also been integrated into the school curriculum, which is implemented through several subjects. third, by practising religious values; religious moderation also teaches the importance of practising religious values in everyday life, such as honesty, compassion, and peace, manifested in takziyah activities, tahlilan, and the youth red cross program. fourth, creating dialogue to strengthen relations between religious groups. in dialogue, each party is expected to be able to listen to and understand the views of others and find solutions that can benefit all parties. fifth, maintain a calm attitude and do not be easily provoked.54 in situations that may cause conflict, a calm and unprovoked attitude is an attitude that is very necessary for religious moderation. this can help avoid conflict and maintain harmonious relationships. in addition, the success of religious moderation in the lives of indonesian society can be seen from the following four main indicators, namely national commitment i.e., acceptance of the principles of the nation as stated in the constitution (in the context hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 31 of indonesia, namely pancasila, the 1945 constitution and regulations that follow, tolerance, anti-violence, and acceptance of tradition. maintaining tradition is very important as long as it does not contradict the teachings of islam. moreover, indonesia has diverse traditions and cultures, so students must learn to accept existing traditions, as applied to madrasah students in solo. conclusion this study discovered different ways of socializing and institutionalizing moderate religious culture at madrasahs. madrasah has implemented several programs, such as intra-curricular activities, namely the implantation of moderate values through school subjects, then extracurricular activities, and social roles. through these activities, students generally have understood the concept of religious moderation well in the sense of being in the middle position, not extreme right or left. this moderate attitude is a pure character of muslims as stated in the holy qur’én that muslims are ummatan wasaïan (middle community). however, socialisation and institutionalisation in madrasahs have not been implemented widely. they are mainly carried out in classrooms with a significant reliance on teachers and without applying social media. additionally, the practices have not yet included interreligious literacy, resulting in the development of moderation as a form of group action. such an approach just makes the socialisation and institutionalisation of moderate religious culture cease at the level of discourse, not reaching the level of practice in the best way possible. even though teachers and students have understood moderation as a form of religious attitude without being extreme right or left and also the importance of tolerance and respect for every difference, many still believe that tolerance should only be applied in a social context, not entering the realm of faith (‘aqīdah) and not contrary to sharê‘ah. therefore, the campaign for religious moderation still needs to be strengthened, especially among students. students must be equipped with digital literacy skills as most information is currently obtained through social media, including when searching for information about religious knowledge. the youth today tend to learn everything instantly, including learning about islam. in addition, social media users in indonesia are generally dominated by teenagers, including those of school age. students have a significant role in campaigning for islamic moderation. so, they can be either the leading players or even victims, depending on how we educate them at schools. another way to strengthen moderate attitudes is through social interaction, where students interact directly with people from different socio-religious backgrounds. this can be made through interfaith dialogue or other cooperation in the social domain. so, dialogue is not aimed at finding common ground in beliefs between different religious adherents. students are not sufficiently equipped 32 socialisation and institutionalisation … with religious moderation knowledge, so moderation does not stop at the discourse level. instead, they must have direct experience, such as being a minority or engaging in a diverse religious community, to get more meaningful life lessons so that their moderate attitudes and views grow naturally. thus, it can be seen that religious intellectuality, practice, and experience greatly influence whether an individual will become moderate or not. finally, if viewed from the four indicators of religious moderation, this study found there are three categories of madrasahs in solo; 1) moderate madrasahs that include state madrasahs and nu-based madrasahs; 2) less moderate, meaning putting aside local tradition or culture, such as muhammadiyah-based madrasahs, and 3) moderate but potential to be not moderate, i.e., salafi-based madrasahs. authors appreciate all reviewers' comments and any party who makes notes and references 1 nur kafid, “political clientelism as the way of survival of radical islamic group movement in cianjur, west java,” walisongo: jurnal penelitian sosial keagamaan 26, no. 1 (2018): 67–93, https://doi.org/10.21580/ws.26.1.2300. 2 jajang jahroni, “political economy of knowledge: salafism in post-soeharto urban indonesia” (dissertation, boston university, 2015). 3 birgit bräuchler, “islamic radicalism online: the moluccan mission of the laskar jihad in cyberspace,” the australian journal of anthropology 15, no. 3 (2004): 253– 71. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2004.tb00098.x 4 suaidi asyari, “incorporating islamism into secular education system: an attempt of gradual islamization of the state and society by an indonesian tarbiyah movement in jambi,” journal of indonesian islam 11, no. 1 (2017): 29–58, https://doi.org/1i0n.t1o56s4ec2u/ljairise.d2u0c1a7ti.o11n.1s.y2s9te-m58. 5 abdallah, “exclusivism and radicalism in schools: state policy and educational politics revisited,” studia islamika: indonesian journal for islamic studies 23, no. 3 (2016): 625–32. https://doi.org/10.15408/sdi.v23i3.4425 6 setara institute, “laporan survey: toleransi siswa sma negeri di jakarta & bandung raya” (jakarta, 2016), https://setara-institute.org/laporan-survei-statustoleransi-siswa-sma-di-jakarta-dan-bandung-raya/. 7 jeremy menchik, “moderate muslims and democratic breakdown in indonesia,” asian studies review 43, no. 3 (2019): 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2019.1627286. 8 achmad asrori, “contemporary religious education model on the challenge of indonesian multiculturalism,” journal of indonesian islam 10, no. 2 (2016): 261–84, https://doi.org/10.15642/jiis.2016.10.2.261-284. 9 claudin nef saluz, “youth and pop culture in indonesian islam,” studia islamika: indonesian journal for islamic studies 16, no. 2 (2009): 215– 42. https://doi.org/10.15408/sdi.v16i2.481 10 asef bayat &linda herrera, “being young and muslim: new cultural politics in the global south and north,” ed. asef bayat linda herrea (london: oxford university press, 2010), h. 3-26. 11 rosninawati hussin, sofia hayati yusoff, and siti nubailah mohd yusof, “islamic representation in television advertising and its impact on modern malay muslim women,” procedia social and behavioral sciences 211, no. september (2015): 890–95, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.11.117. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2004.tb00098.x https://doi.org/10.15408/sdi.v23i3.4425 https://doi.org/10.15408/sdi.v16i2.481 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 33 12 martin slama, “practising islam through social media in indonesia,” indonesia and the malay world 46, no. 134 (2018): 1–4, https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2018.1416798. 13 muhammad faiq, “understanding radicalists and fundamentalist islamic groups in indonesia: ideology and model of movement. tasamuh: jurnal studi islam 13, no. 1 (2021): 41–68. https://doi.org/10.47945/tasamuh.v13i1.351 14 mohammed abu-nimer, nirkekerasan dan bina-damai dalam islam: teori dan praktik, ed. ihsan ali-fauzi & rizal panggabean, bahasa ind (jakarta: democracy project, 2010), h. 165-166 15 m. quraish shihab, wasathiyyah: wawasan islam tentang moderasi beragama, 1st ed. (ciputat: lentera hati, 2019) 16 pierre bourdieu, distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste (usa: harvard university press, 1984). 17 mumuh muhtarom, “urgensi penguatan pemikiran moderasi islam dalam pendidikan agama di madrasah,” tatar pasundan: jurnal diklat keagamaan xii, no. 32 (2018): 39–47. https://doi.org/10.38075/tp.v12i32.53 18 alexander r. arifianto, “the state of political islam in indonesia: the historical antecedent and future prospects,” asia policy 15, no. 4 (2020): 111–32. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27023942. 19 rohmat mulyana, “religious moderation in islamic religious education textbook and implementation in indonesia,” hts teologiese studies / theological studies 79, no. 1 (2023), 1-8 pages. doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v79i1.8592 20 sahkholid nasution, hasan asari, & harun al-rasyid, “kitab kuning and religious moderation: a study on state islamic universities in indonesia,” journal of al-tamaddun 19, no. 2 (2024): 73–88. https://doi.org/10.22452/jat.vol19no2.5 21 achmad solechan, muhammad luthfi zuhdi, and muhammad syauqillah. 2024. “the influence of islamic religious education based on religious moderation and national defence on the nationalism of students,” journal of ecohumanism 3, no. 6 (2024): 628-36. https://doi.org/10.62754/joe.v3i6.4031. 22 mohammad hashim kamali, the middle path of moderation in islam: the qur’anic principle of wasatiyyah (oxford: oxford university press, 2015), 9-15. 23 m. eka mahmud & umiarso, “school leadership models and efforts reconstruction of religious moderation in state madrasah aliyah in indonesia,” educational process: international journal 14, (2025): e2025018. https://doi.org/10.22521/edupij.2025.14.18 24 hasyim haddade, h., nur, a., achruh, a., rasyid, m.n.a. and ibrahim, a., "madrasah management strategies through madrasah reform program: an evidence from indonesia,” international journal of educational management 38, no. (2024): 5, pp. 1289-1304. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem-05-2023-0236 25 asma afsaruddin, “the hermeneutics of inter-faith relations: retrieving moderation and pluralism as universal principles in qur’anic exegeses,” journal of religious ethics 37, no. 2 (2009): 331–354. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14679795.2009.00389.x 26 suratno, “sufism and peace: the profile and role of shaykh husamuddin in the deradicalisation program,” teosofia: indonesian journal of islamic mysticism 11, no 2 (2022): 203-222. https://doi.org/10.21580/tos.v11i2.17577 27 suryadinata, by leo, and leo suryadinata. introduction. in pancasila and the challenge of political islam: past and present, vii–viii. trends in southeast asia. iseas–yusof ishak institute, 2018. 28 birgit bräuchler, “islamic radicalism online: the moluccan mission of the laskar jihad in cyberspace,” the australian journal of anthropology 15, no. 3 (2004): 253– 271. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2004.tb00098.x 29 dayana lengauer, “sharing semangat taqwa: social media and digital islamic socialities in bandung,” indonesia and the malay world 46, no. 134 (2018): 5–23. doi:10.1080/13639811.2018.1415276 30 suaidi asyari, “incorporating islamism into secular education system: an attempt of gradual islamization of the state and society by an indonesian tarbiyah https://doi.org/10.38075/tp.v12i32.53 https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v79i1.8592 https://doi.org/10.62754/joe.v3i6.4031 https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=hasyim%20haddade https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=askar%20nur https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=andi%20achruh https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=muhammad%20nur%20akbar%20rasyid https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=andi%20ibrahim https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0951-354x https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem-05-2023-0236 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9795.2009.00389.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9795.2009.00389.x https://doi.org/10.21580/tos.v11i2.17577 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2004.tb00098.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2018.1415276 34 socialisation and institutionalisation … movement in jambi,” journal of indonesian islam 11, no. 1 (2017): 29–58. doi: 10.15642/jiis.2017.11.1.29-58 31 yanwar pribadi, “sekolah islam (islamic schools) as symbols of indonesia’s urban muslim identity,” trans: trans-regional and-national studies of southeast asia` 10, no. 2 (2022): 1–16. doi:10.1017/trn.2021.15 32 nashuddin, “aktualisasi nilai-nilai pendidikan islam dalam merevitalisasi pemahaman moderasi pada lembaga pendidikan di indonesia: analisis praksis dan kebijakan,” schemata journal 9, no. 1 (2020): 33–52. https://doi.org/10.20414/schemata.v9i1.2159 33 muhammad wildan dan alimatul qibtiyah, “parenting style and the level of islamism among senior high school students in yogyakarta,” journal of indonesian islam 14, no. 1 (2020): 187–209. doi: 10.15642/jiis.2020.14.1.187-209 34 nur syam & nawawi, “islam nusantara berkemajuan sebagai basis moderasi islam di indonesia,” islamica: jurnal studi keislaman 13, no. 2 (2019): 236–255. https://doi.org/10.15642/islamica.2019.13.2.303-322 35 achmad asrori, “contemporary religious education model on the challenge of indonesian multiculturalism,” journal of indonesian islam 10, no. 2 (2016): 261– 284. doi: 10.15642/jiis.2016.10.2.261-284 36 masnur alam, “a collaborative action in the implementation of moderate islamic education to counter radicalism,” international journal of innovation, creativity and change 11, no. 7 (2020): 497–516. https://www.ijicc.net/images/vol11iss7/11742_alam_2020_e_r.pdf 37 faried f. saenong, “nahdlatul ulama (nu): a grassroots movement advocating moderate islam,” in handbook of islamic sects and movements, 1st ed. (netherlands: brill leiden the neterlands, 2021), 129–150, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv1v7zbv8.1?seq=4#metadata_info_tab_con tents. 38 hasse jubba, jaffary awang, zuly qodir, hannani & mustaqim pabbajah, “the contestation between conservative and moderate muslims in promoting islamic moderatism in indonesia,” cogent social sciences 8, no. 1 (2022): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2022.2116162 39 alex p. schmid, moderate muslims and islamist terrorism: between denial and resistance (leiden, 2017), 1-28. 40 john w. creswell, recearch design: pendekatan kualitatif, kuantitatif and mixed. translated by achmad fawaid (yogyakarta: pustaka pelajar, 2012). 41 peter l. berger dan thomas luckmann, tafsir sosial atas kenyataan: risalah tentang sosiologi pengetahuan, cetakan ke (jakarta: lp3es, 2013), 63-125. 42 matthew b. miles, a. michael huberman, johnny saldana, qualitative data analysis (new york: sage, 2014) 43 claudia seise, “islamic authority figures and their religioscapes in indonesia,” teosofia: indonesian journal of islamic mysticism 10, no. 1 (2021): 37-58. https://doi.org/10.21580/tos.v10i1.8441 44 hermanu joebagio, islam dan kebangsaan di keraton surakarta: dari paku buwana iv hingga paku buwana x, i (sukoharjo: dio media, 2017), 2-39. 45 suzanne april brenner, “the domestication of desire: women, wealth, and modernity in java” (london: princeton university press, 1998). 46 mutohharun jinan, “melacak akar ideologi puritanisme islam: survei biografi atas ‘tiga abdullah," walisongo: jurnal penelitian sosial keagamaan 22, no. 2 (2014): 381–412. https://doi.org/10.21580/ws.22.2.271 47 quintan wiktorowicz, “anatomy of the salafi movement,” studies in conflict & terrorism 29, no. 3 (2006): 207–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10576100500497004 48 sunarwoto, “contesting religious authority: a study on dakwah radio in surakarta, indonesia” (a dissertation submitted to tilburg university, 2015). 49 noorhaidi hasan & mibtadin, “penerbit literatur keislaman di surakarta: kontestasi, ideologi, dan ekonomi dalam perspektif gerakan sosial,” in tren pemikiran islam di indonesia pasca-orde baru (jakarta-yogyakarta: puslitbang http://dx.doi.org/10.15642/jiis.2017.11.1.29-58 https://doi.org/10.20414/schemata.v9i1.2159 http://dx.doi.org/10.15642/jiis.2020.14.1.187-209 https://doi.org/10.15642/islamica.2019.13.2.303-322 http://dx.doi.org/10.15642/jiis.2016.10.2.261-284 https://www.ijicc.net/images/vol11iss7/11742_alam_2020_e_r.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2022.2116162 https://doi.org/10.21580/tos.v10i1.8441 https://doi.org/10.21580/ws.22.2.271 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 35 lektur, khazanah keagamaan, dan manajemen organisasi, kemenag ri, 2019), 13– 57. 50 muhammad khoirul muqtafa, “citizenship in a multi-faith society: a case study of indonesia” (deakin university, australia, 2018). 51 claudia seise, “islamic authority figures and their religioscapes in indonesia,” teosofia: indonesian journal of islamic mysticism 10, no 1 (2021): 37-58. https://doi.org/10.21580/tos.v10i1.8441 52 aimie sulaiman, “memahami teori konstruksi sosial peter l. berger,” jurnal society 6, no. 1 (2016): 15–22. doi:10.33019/society.v4i1.32 53 imam subchi, zulkifli, rena latifa & sholikatus sa’diyah, “religious moderation in indonesian muslims,” mdpi: religion 13, no. 5 (2022): 2–11. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050451 54 setinawati, isabella jeniva, maidiantius tanyid, merilyn, “the framework of religious moderation: a socio-theological study on the role of religion and culture from indonesia's perspective,” social sciences & humanities open 11, (2025): 101271, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2024.101271 http://dx.doi.org/10.33019/society.v4i1.32 https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050451 https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/social-sciences-and-humanities-open/vol/11/suppl/c https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2024.101271 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 133 book review abdur raheem kidwai, images of the prophet muhammad in english literature, new york: peter lang, 2018. 168 pages this essay serves as a personal reflection on the book, rather than a formal review, with the goal of extracting insights to navigate the current pressing issue of islamophobia, which is a growing concern at the global level, including in india. the book under discussion is authored by abdur raheem kidwai, a former professor of english at aligarh muslim university (amu), who currently serves as the honorary director at the k.a. nizami centre for quranic studies at the same university. the book draws primarily from the works authored by scholars like norman daniel (1919-1992), fredrick quinn (b. 1935), mathew dimmock (b. 1975), adnan muhammad al-wazzan (1951-2024), abdulsettar abdul-latif mal-allah, and others. notably, the first three are christian scholars, while the latter two are arab muslim scholars. prof. kidwai draws from these works, especially al-wazzan’s surat al-islam fi’l-adab al-inklizi, to achieve his goal of encouraging “the study of literary orientalism, especially among the budding muslim scholars of english studies.” (p. xii). the book is structured into three chapters, in addition to a preface and an index. the chapters are organized chronologically, examining the depiction of the prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) in medieval western literature, analyzing his portrayal in various literary works, and exploring contemporary shifts toward more nuanced and accurate depictions, highlighting emerging trends. the first chapter is entitled “the distorting mirror: representation of the prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) in medieval writings in the west”. the second chapter is titled “the crescent in the west: representation of prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) in the literary 134 book review … works,” while the third chapter is “towards fairness and truth: recent trends in the representation of prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions)”. amidst the rapid rise of islamophobia globally and in india, situating the prophet (peace be upon him) and his teachings becomes imperative to foster an atmosphere of peace and coexistence among diverse faith communities. why focus on prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions)? the prophet (peace be upon him) was sent as a “mercy to the worlds” (raímantan lil ólammên), as categorically described by allah almighty in the holy qur’an: “we have sent you [o prophet] only as a mercy for the whole world” (21: 107). his mercy extends beyond humanity to encompass all existence. the muslims, being his ummah, are entrusted with spreading the message of peace (islam) to the world. if they fail to do so, then they must face dire consequences in their destiny. prof. kidwai explores the origins of the negative, “hate-inspired” portrayal of the prophet (peace be upon him) and islam in the west, tracing its evolution toward a more positive representation. how this “hate-inspired” wave changed into a positive transformation is what i intend to reflect here. the tide of change requires knowledge and courage, which when combined, create a civilization built on truth, tolerance, beauty, and cooperation. knowledge while reading images of the prophet (peace be upon him) in english literature, i came across a notable section that highlighted the work of the orientalist henry stubbe (1632–1676). almost all western writers before stubbe had portrayed the prophet in an extremely negative manner. however, stubbe’s work, penned in the 1670s, was not published until 1911, when it was brought to light by the efforts of some indian and turkish muslims. over a century later, in 2013, columbia university press republished it under the title the original and progress of mahometanism. in this book, stubbe refers to the prophet (peace be upon him) as “a great law-giver” and “the wisest legislator” (p. 27). why? he, too, could have easily conformed to the prevailing negative sentiments of his time, depicting the prophet (peace be upon him) as a “fraud” or “impostor” as many others did. but he didn’t. why? the reason lies in his background, specifically his association with oxford’s bodleian library, one of the richest repositories of hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 135 manuscripts and historical texts. furthermore, stubbe’s exposure to islamic history was significantly enhanced by his engagement with three chronicles authored by arab christians, which provided him with a deeper and real understanding of the subject. as professor kidwai notes, “stubbe’s positive assessment of islam and the prophet may be explained partly on account of using as his source the latin translations of the following three christian arab chroniclers: i) jijis b. al-amid al-makini’s térêkh al-muslimên, translated by the dutch orientalist, thomas erpenius, and published in 1625 as historia saracenia; i) sa’id b. albitrig’s kitéb al-térêkh al-majmi, translated by john selden and published in 1642 as eutuchii patriarche alexandrini annalium, and ii) abul-faraj’s térêkh mukhtaîar al-duwal, translated by edward pococke and published in 1663 as historia compendiosa dynastiarum.” (p. 27) courage as noted above, stubbe’s book couldn’t see the light until the beginning of the second decade (1911) of the twentieth century. but in the nineteenth century, a man made a courageous contribution to redefining the prophetic image towards fairness and truthfulness. the man is none other than a british statesman, thomas carlyle (1795-1881). on may 8, 1840, he delivered a lecture entitled “the hero as prophet”, and since then, a smooth wave of positive change has taken place that culminated in the original image of the prophet in the subsequent years and decades. he boldly presents the prophet (peace be upon him) as a hero delving into the heart of the prophetic essence—sincerity. professor kidwai quotes him: “a silent great soul; he was one of those who cannot but be in earnest; whom nature herself has appointed to be sincere. while others walk in formulas and hearsays, contented enough to dwell there, this man could not screen himself in formulas: he was alone with his own soul and the reality of things. the great mystery of existence glared-in upon him…. such sincerity, as we named it, has in very truth something of divine. the word of such a man is voice direct from nature’s own heart.” (p. 99) prof. kidwai adds the beauty of many aspects of the prophet’s life while criticizing carlyle with these words: “this lecture does not exhaustively cover the multi-faceted genius of the prophet.” (p. 105). apparently, carlyle was not lecturing to elucidate the details of the life and works of the prophet. it was a lecture in a series of lectures, intended to provide the audience with an introduction or a glimpse into the life of the prophet (peace be upon him). nonetheless, here prof. kidwai adds some of the important aspects of the prophet’s life, such as his married 136 book review … life, jihéd with one’s base self or ego, hijrah (migration), tolerance, coexistence, and others (p. 105). courage is a highly praised attribute across traditions. had it not been for the courage shown by carlye, it may have been too late for later scholars like annemarie schimmel (d. 2003), michael hart (b. 1932), karen armstrong (b. 1944), etc., to contribute positively to sirah studies. civilizational aspect beyond the aforementioned reflection, i observed that prof. kidwai explores a new dimension in the vast realm of sirah studies, specifically the civilizational aspect of the prophet’s biography. this aspect, which remains largely unexplored, is particularly relevant amidst the clash of civilizations. the prophet (peace be upon him), no doubt, has been studied from numerous perspectives, yet his role as the founder of a great and enduring civilization rooted in the divine revelation has been overlooked. the prophet (peace be upon him) was not only sent as a religious guide to humanity or as a leader to the world, but he was sent for his universal role embedded in mercy, in “giving mankind a new sense of direction, a noble goal to achieve, a higher ideal to attain, and a lifelong mission to work for worshipping and serving allah. the new ideal which he gifted to mankind resulted eventually in the emergence of a new, glorious civilization and numerous contributions to all branches of learning. prior to grasping the meaning of tawíêd (oneness of god), articulated by him, man was lost in darkness. mankind had degraded itself so much that it felt no qualms about bowing before such lifeless objects as the man-made idols of wood and stone. likewise, they led lives, fearful of demons, devils, ghosts, and the ilk. their mental confusion, cowardice, and indecisiveness were replaced by him with courage, self-reliance, and clarity of mind and goals. he thus removed the sense of inferiority from among the polytheistic people.” (p. 106) from the above discussion, it is evident that the fusion of knowledge and fearless courage sparks a beacon for creating a civilization driven by the light of knowledge and enlightenment, rather than the darkness of ignorance and prejudice. it is not only the muslim community that must adhere to the teachings of islam to foster a just society, but also fellow citizens of all faiths who must stand up against the “orchestrated” islamophobia that threatens our country and our world. a country hurtles toward destruction when it is driven by hatred toward the “other”, blinding the majority and creating a negative image of a religion that once led the country with not only the highest gdp, but also created a civilization that still captivates global attention. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 137 in a world desperately seeking meaning, the prophet’s teachings and words of wisdom offer a way forward for humanity, for his mission embodied mercy, which is described in the holy qur’én (21:107). without embracing the prophet’s message, it’s unlikely the world can improve amidst its current devastating challenges. a soulful and heartfelt return to the prophet’s city—madinah— is essential for bringing peace to the world. as prof. kidwai aptly notes, “what the world needs today for the lasting peace and happiness of muslims, the west and entire humanity is to imbibe the life-giving and life-ennobling message of the prophet which is anchored deep into the ideals of mutual respect and large-hearted tolerance for all, irrespective of faith, ethnic or other labels.” (p. xiii) i would like to conclude with the author’s own words, which aptly encapsulate the essence of his book as well as the spirit of this reflective piece: “in emulating the prophet’s role model lies salvation.” (p. 138) md mursalim postgraduate in islamic studies, aligarh muslim university, aligarh, india. email: mursalim.info25@gmail.com mailto:mursalim.info25@gmail.com hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 83 characteristics of islamic calligraphy: nasta‘lôq, persian calligraphy influences on mughal architecture of 17th century fatima zahra universiti sains malaysia, malaysia. email: fzahra@student.usm.my safrizal shahir universiti sains malaysia, malaysia. email: safrizal@usm.my received on: 04-09-22 accepted on: 23-12-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.657 abstract the investigation on islamic calligraphy, particularly nasta‘lêq calligraphy, mainly focuses only on the history of calligraphy, calligraphers’ biographies, and calligraphy’s origins and training. no significant or pervasive research has been done on the identity or characteristics of the calligraphy forms and their traditional principles. fewer studies have examined the visual character of calligraphy academically or considered it a research subject in its own right. moreover, the persian influence on mughal architectural calligraphy faces a recognition gap and there is a need for more academic documentation. these are the particulars that this research aims to address. the research focuses on the characteristics and prominent features of persian calligraphy, especially naskh and nasta‘lêq writing styles of persian origin. the study also dwells on the persian calligraphy influences on the mosque architecture of the mughal era. this research explored the physicality and intellectual characteristics of the mughal calligraphy visuals. two art theories— instrumentalism and formalism—are combined as a research method. keywords: persian calligraphy, mughal architecture, nasta‘lêq, formalism, instrumentalism mailto:fzahra@student.usm.my mailto:safrizal@usm.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.657 84 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … 1. introduction this article aims to understand the persian influence on mughal architecture through calligraphy. moreover, this article will explore the characteristics of persian calligraphy and analyse mughal calligraphy artefacts painted or crafted on mughal monuments, i.e., mosques. this objective leads to the question of the primary qualities of persian calligraphy and how naskh and nasta‘lêq impacted mughal architectural calligraphy. to address this argument is significant as it broaden the context of persian calligraphy on mughal art literature. by integrating formalism and instrumentalism strategies with calligraphic forms, the objective is attained. 2. research methodology formalism and instrumentalism, two art theories, are combined in this qualitative study as a research method. these two approaches are widely used in art history for research that provides meaningful results in the humanities, social sciences, and art history fields. formalism is a critical approach that contends a work of art’s form, regardless of how it was created and is utterly visual, is more significant than its narrative content or connection to its surroundings1. a formalist painter would pay special attention to colours, brushstrokes, shapes, lines, and composition2. compared to impressionism and post-impressionism, formalist art places unprecedented emphasis on the project’s visual components3. figure 1: research framework hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 85 a booklet describing formalism was issued in 1890 by postimpressionist artist and art historian maurice denis4. he underlined that the inherent pleasure of the artwork ought to occur before the theme of the painting. for an instrumentalist, the composition is not a factor; only context is. according to this belief, the most effective paintings convey a message or impact people’s worldviews5. in contrast to other theories, instrumentalism maintains that art is praiseworthy when it strives to affect or transform society. the concept of instrumentalism in art holds that works of art should or must accomplish something other than being purely beautiful or decorative6. instrumentalists appreciate works of art that inspire them to take action in the world through their innately aesthetic means7. 3. research problem generally, the research on islamic calligraphy, particularly nasta‘lêq calligraphy, is restricted to calligraphy’s histories, calligraphers’ biographies, and calligraphy’s origins and instruction8. no significant or challenging research has been done on the identity or characteristics of the calligraphic form itself and its conventional principles. fewer studies have academically examined the calligraphic form’s visual aspects or considered them a research subject. furthermore, there needs to be more documentation and recognition of the persian influence on mughal architectural calligraphy. these specifics are what this study aims to cover. nasta‘lêq is somewhat isolated in terms of being considered unique subject in its own right or as a self-contained system of meaning9. iranian researchers have looked at calligraphy extensively, particularly from a historical perspective10. numerous historical works in these studies have examined calligraphy’s emergence and evolution across various eras11. furthermore, additional research on the biographies of calligraphers has been published in iran. additionally, some researchers have presented dissertations on calligraphy's historical and contemporary principles12. for calligraphers, these publications contain deductive analyses that are constructive. further, some calligraphic researchers have examined calligraphy through the lens of mysticism, theosophy, or theology; they have examined calligraphy concerning other fields of the arts and studied calligraphy from a comparative perspective. for instance, in some countries (like turkey), derman examined numerous calligraphies, particularly thuluth, and the rcihac published the findings of his investigations13. the primary resource for teaching calligraphy in tunisia and other northern african nations is the modern book approach to improve calligraphy by muhammad al saleh khomasi (1910-1992)14. some studies on islamic arts conducted in the 20th century discussed the styles of islamic calligraphy and arabic scripts15. the exploration and 86 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … aesthetic shifts of persian calligraphy, a significant inspiration for south asia mughal art, must be included as a research subject in this field which is what this research aims to do. 4. literature in retrospect: the history and evolution of islamic calligraphy scholars research calligraphy, especially arabic calligraphy, which is particularly used by muslim artists extensively. kufi and naskh are two forms of writing that sprang from diverse calligraphy techniques and were popular throughout the early islamic period16. one of these two writing systems was used for the nabataean alphabet in kufic. it had a square fundamental form with an angular or sharp end. the holy qur’én was the first to use this writing style in handwritten copies. subsequently, the same writing style was added to the buildings constructed by the older islamic empires. the second type of script, circular and cursive, is known as naskhi17. figure 2: nabataean alphabets in kufic style in the 2nd century this script was utilized more in professional or company documents and correspondence due to its fluid style and simplicity of writing. naskhi, in the kufic aesthetic of the second millennium bc, was employed for several purposes in many places, with the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 87 exception of the northern part of africa, where it evolved into the maghribi form18. "khatt-e koofi," which is an additional intricate variant of “khatt-e moakli.”, an arabic style of writing, has developed from this naskhi, i.e., following that, calligraphy flourished during the umayyad era. the history of calligraphy, as a whole, illustrates how broad this topic is for research and practice. modern calligraphers still follow the traditions of the early muslim calligraphers. modern and modified forms in contemporary calligraphy add to the existing capabilities of classical and creative calligraphy. nevertheless, modern or current calligraphy also affects the fine arts since it merges abstract aesthetics with traditional principles19. many calligraphers keep practicing traditional calligraphy despite honing their trendy calligraphy techniques20. for instance, even though he wrote using a qalam or pen, prolific calligrapher sadequain frequently used paint and a brush on canvases. figure 3: sadequain’s symbolic calligraphy a brief summary of iranian calligraphy’s development since the advent of islam; iranians used a variety of writing systems, including cuneiform, pahlavi, and avestan21. after accepting islam and the arabic language, they started writing persian in arabic scripts. the modern iranian letters were built on the arabic alphabet after that because iran’s principal scripts required to be updated. approximately a century before islam, in the 15th century, the arabic alphabet was developed. two coptic and syriac scripts support this. the kufic and preceding naskh forms were the foundation for the main arabic scripts. in the early islamic period, kufic and naskh were both widely utilized; naskh was used for other books and 88 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … correspondence, whereas kufic was intended for the holy qur’én, writing, cornices, and epigraphs. these two calligraphic genres persisted in their simplicity and primitivism until the second century ah. however, they gradually inspired other types of writing as other islamic nations, including iran adopted them22. salouti claims that calligraphy had yet to appear at the turn of the second century and was not well practiced23. under the abbasid caliphate (about the eighth century ad), the barmakid, an iranian clan with influence in the islamic empire, initiated an attempt to promote islamic calligraphy. additionally, during the rule of the abbasid caliphate, ibn muqla shirazi (886–940 ad), calligraphy was revered and assigned the term calligraphy24. the endeavour that ibn muqla started was polished and completed by ibn al-bawwab. calligraphy developed over two centuries until it reached yaghoot-mostasami, who divided and grouped several islamic writing styles into six calligraphy types. he united the calligraphies of thuluth, reyhan, mohaqaq, toqi, reqa, and naskh in his six pens, which are referred to as the pens of principle25. within the islamic calligraphies, three calligraphic types that must be specifically classified as iranian appeared in the ninth century ah. despite being created using the arabic alphabet, they are not composed or shaped like arabic calligraphy. according to academics like salouti, their letter movement and composition are remarkably similar to the avestan and pahlavi old persian writing traditions. three distinct calligraphy types are ta‘lêq, nasta‘lêq, and shikastah. islamic calligraphy is said to have advanced and developed most brilliantly between the eighth and tenth centuries. around this time, virtually all cultural societies were acquainted with the elegance and precision of this art. at this time, kings and monarchs paid enormous attention to calligraphy and were not reluctant to support and encourage calligraphers26. some kings and queens were accomplished calligraphers as well. 5. findings: characteristics and aesthetics of persian calligraphy one of the most renowned arts in persian history and a firm representative of persian tradition is calligraphy. the origins of calligraphy in iran can be traced to the pre-islamic period when the zoroastrian-influenced persian society highly valued elegant and legible writing27. six calligraphic styles in iran (tahqêq, reyhan, thulth, naskh, toqi, and reqah) were developed a thousand years ago. for several centuries, these subgenres were popular in persia. in the 12th century, the “naskh” and “reqah” forms of persian calligraphy were blended to create the new genre known as “ta‘lêq”. eventually, in the 14th century, naskh and talêq were mixed, giving rise to nasta‘lêq, the most renowned type of persian calligraphy28. in writing the persio-arabic script during the past 500 years, nasta‘lêq calligraphy has been one of the primary iranian script hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 89 styles. in contrast to its predecessors, nasta‘lêq is fluid and has organic curves29. a new style known as cursive nasta‘lêq was developed in the 17th century. the principles of this style are the same as those of nasta‘lêq, but it allows for more fluid movement. in contrast, it is more curled and stretched. iranology has always extolled the magnificent art of calligraphy and its various embellishments30. figure 4: persian nasta‘lêq calligraphy iranian arts are so reliant on ornate calligraphy that places and things without it seems deficient. more than any other country, iranians have embellished and enhanced old buildings, metallic utensils, and earthenware through calligraphy. the letters and other components that make up a word in calligraphy have long been regarded as artistic icons because they always possess unmistakable aesthetic qualities31. because of exquisite and delicate persian 90 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … calligraphy in most of iran’s handwritten volumes, numerous literary compilations by shahnameh, hafez, golestan, boostan, and khayam, as well as the holy qur’én, have been recognized as invaluable aesthetic creations.32 6. journey of naskh and ta‘lêq toward nas’talêq in ancient persia and all through history, there were a number of additional languages spoken and used, including "ilami," "avestaaee," "pahlavi," and "farsi-e-mianeh." it is believed that the ancient persian alphabet was developed between 500 and 600 bc to provide the achaemenid rulers with funeral writings33. although the systems of writing included horizontal, vertical, and diagonal nailshaped letters, they were referred to as “script of nails” or “khat-emikhi” in farsi. it took several centuries before further scripts involving “avestaee” and “pahlavits”, were created. the thirdcentury symphonies of zarathustra were composed in the avestan alphabet, commonly known as “avestaaee”. the extinct indo-iranian language avestan is related to old persian and sanskrit. the avestaaee alphabet was written employing a feather pen, generally on layers of animal hide, in contrast to nail writing, which was created on smooth stones. it was connected to the sacred texts of the “avestaa” zoroastrians’ sacred book. figure 5: naskh, taliq and nastaliq calligraphy styles hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 91 this writing system has been notable for having similarities to arabic writing systems like “sols” and “naskh”, which were developed centuries later. avestaaee, akin to latin scripts, inscribed the letters separately next to adjacent ones without joining them to form words34. but the writing was done from left to right. persians developed the contemporary farsi alphabet by modifying the arabic script to be compatible with farsi after the founding of islam in the seventh century. to create the 32 persian (farsi) letters still in use today, iranians introduced additional four letters to the arabic alphabet, which already had 28 characters. regardless of a few deteriorates that have been more or less perceptible throughout calligraphy’s history, calligraphy has managed to avoid extinction. this is shown by the emergence of various methods for writing, aesthetic modifications, and improvements in persian calligraphy alongside evaluations of basic aesthetic variances and the level of evolution accomplished35. iranian painters decorated mosques and other religious structures, wooden doors, ceramics, and metallic things throughout the islamic era using the arabic script. calligraphy flourished even further with the creation of the holy qur’én, shahnamah, and other literature, and in the centuries that followed, it reached its height of perfection. during the safavid era, talented iranian calligraphers invented many more persian writing styles. iran has produced wonderful calligraphic works on numerous tablets, literature, and exquisite handcrafted items36. around the world, writing is seen as a tool for understanding settings, but in iran, writing has evolved into an esteemed art. art specialists worldwide frequently utilize persian calligraphy to embellish their private collections and libraries because of their need for knowledge of the substance of persian handwriting. the most eloquent artistic ideas are expressed via proficiency in persian calligraphy. the letters and other components that make up a word in calligraphy have long been regarded as artistic icons because they always possess unmistakable aesthetic qualities37. “nasta‘lêq” is a particularly popular contemporary variation of traditional persian calligraphy. it is referred to as the “bride of the calligraphy scripts”. much has changed since then because this handwriting style has such a strong base. it seems like “mir ali tabrizi” has only been perfected over the past seven centuries after discovering the optimal lettering and artistic concepts38. it is crucial to observe that nas'talêq, unlike its ancestors, follows natural curves. in other words, unlike arabic characters, which conform to logical/geometrical forms, nasta‘lêq follows nature and natural curves. natural curves and those used in nasta‘lêq have many similarities, some of which are seen here. as a result, it proves that 92 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … nasta‘lêq appears personal and cursive because of its original character and propensity for the natural world. “cursive nasta‘lêq” or “shikastah nasta‘lêq” was developed in the 17th century. although it allows more customizable movements, the rules for this calligraphy style are the same as those for nasta‘lêq. it is slightly more stretchy and curling. while some argue that "moteza-qoli shamloo" is the style’s inventor, others contend that “mohammad shafee heravi” was the first to make cursive nasta‘lêq popular. this method was refined about a century later by the well-known artist “darvish abdolmajid taleqani"39. the most notable modern calligraphy in this genre is undoubted "yadollah kaboli." in conclusion, nasta‘lêq is the most sophisticated and technically difficult type of persian calligraphy. strict rules govern the graphic shape of the letters, how letters are combined to make words, and how the full calligraphy creation is put together. the second most popular persian calligraphy style, “cursive nasta‘lêq” or “shikastah nasta‘lêq”, noticeably follows the same rules as nasta‘lêq but with more freedom. 7. conceptual meanings of calligraphy on mosques islamic calligraphy is widely used in islamic art and architecture and has evolved into one of the critical elements of muslim buildings, particularly the mosque or masjid. this enhances the notion that various calligraphic writing styles can be used as independent aesthetic elements for particular locations40. the calligraphy’s adaptability and other attributes allow for additional decoration of mosque buildings that are both unique in design and consistent with islamic worldviews41. in general, calligraphy scripts are used to decorate many mosques. this is because calligraphy provides islamic principles to buildings and adds to their aesthetic appeal. islamic calligraphy exquisitely penned holy text strongly connects to the divine words of god42. however, it is not well understood where the decorative scripts came from or how they were chosen and created for the particular mosque. even though many modern mosques are decorated with calligraphic scripts, very little is understood about the decorative calligraphic scripts that have become integral to their architectural value. due to the complexity of calligraphic scripts’ styles and scriptwriting, more research needs to be done on how to classify them and define their use as architectural decoration finely and modestly. islamic calligraphic scripts have evolved into various styles throughout history, making them challenging to identify. relying on their country of origins and history, traditional calligraphers wrote scripts employing a variety of approaches. additionally, several hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 93 instances exist of using different scripts to improve works of art while promoting various uses and applications43. according to jainal, calligraphers must consistently practice writing and maintain their aesthetic ability. to accomplish coherence while avoiding complexity, muddles, and errors unquestionably requires a high level of competence and specialised artistry44. a similar phenomenon may be seen in mosques; hence a systematic technique is necessary to detect and classify applications and placements of the scripts on architecture. figure 6: mughal monument, buland darwaza, india it will be easier to identify categories of calligraphy scripts essential for their continued sustainable development if a profile of islamic calligraphy scripts used for mosque decoration is created. therefore, this study examines the aesthetic characteristics of the calligraphy used in the mughals mosque’s components and 94 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … compositional categories. based on arabic script, the calligraphy is interpreted following a specific muslim community’s cultural and aesthetic systems. as a result, it is also referred to as arabic calligraphy. this community shares a common islamic cultural heritage. due to its significance as a means of revelation, arabic is a language of islam. as a result, arabic calligraphy and islamic calligraphy are closely related and relevant. islamic calligraphy is thus a pervasive writing style that serves as an abstract representation of islam. 8. persian influence and mughal architecture: discussion during the mughal empire, bilateral ties between iran and india peaked in many areas of life. the development of their societal and political interactions is called the “golden era” for this reason45. in the sixteenth century, the mughal dynasty strove to take control of india as the safavid empire grew in persia. india and persia both attained great strength under these dynasties. the links between these two countries also involved many other factors, such as politics, diplomacy, lifestyle and culture, literature, trade, and religion46. the calligraphic embellishment of the wazir khan mosque (mughal era, 17th century) and sheikh lotfollah mosque (17th century, safavid period) are the outstanding examples of the calligraphy influence. in the same century as the safavids and the mughals, aesthetic and artistic commerce resulted in a significant effect of safavid art and craft on mughal structures and ornamentation. furthermore, the persian language was used by the mughals to establish their empire in india. persian functioned as the official language of governance in mughal courts, and the mughals also embraced persian law and the persian religion (islam)47. despite the collapse of the mughal empire, the educated elite continued to communicate privately in persian, which laid the groundwork for indo-muslim culture. strong cultural connections exist between the safavid era in persia and the mughal empire in india. visually appealing objects like miniatures, architecture, calligraphy, coins, bookbinding, carpets, jewellery, and pottery are particularly striking examples of these cultural consequences48. the two architectural forms, iwans and arches, are fundamentally equivalent because mughal and other islamic indian projects employed iranian and persian architects, which is how islamic persian architecture inspired mughal architecture. the preexisting hindu architecture, as well as foreign architectural influences like islamic and persian designs, had an impact on the mughal style of architecture as it evolved in india and the surrounding south asian countries in the 16th and 17th centuries49. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 95 figure 7: comparision of sheikh lotfollah and wazir khan mosque in contrast, despite south asia’s proximity to the persian world and the fact that persian architecture preceded islamic design and emerged as early as 5000 bc, it is conceivable that the mughals 96 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … drew inspiration from their neighbours. iwans are vaulted areas surrounded by three walls and an entrance. in modern times, especially in islamic persia, south asia, and to a lesser extent, the arabian peninsula and various territories of the islamic empire in north africa, these gateway-like architectural features are frequently used for religious and secular buildings50. while two well-known structures, the great mosque of isfahan from persian architecture and the badshahi mosque from mughal architecture, show the frequent use of arches. in addition to housing masyrabia's windows and lowering the quantity of sunlight that enters the building, it was built for aesthetic reasons. both architectural styles have large gardens or pools with fountains as standout features. there are well-kept gardens with fountains in front of the mosque. the domes of both architectural kinds share a similar shape: they rest on top of a cylindrical drum, then taper to a point and are capped with finials. there are occasionally many tiny domes gracing the rooftops of mughal constructions. both kinds of architecture exhibit remarkable symmetry; it is common for a building to have an equal number of pillars, arches, and minarets on each side51. the planning of the gardens and pools is typically similar, giving the sense of a mirror. muqarnas, a stalactite-like design, are frequently used under arches, especially under the vaults of the iwans. calligraphy was used as decorative accents in both designs around the iwan’s gate, under cornices, and all over the building’s arches. both architectural forms entirely employ pierced screens as windows, yet there are some significant mashrabias distinctions. post-islamic persian architecture was greatly influenced by islamic architecture and pre-islamic cultures, such as the elamites, achaemenids, parthians, byzantines, chinese, and sassanids52. persian, islamic, and hindu architectural styles all influenced mughal construction. this impact may be evident in the building carvings and decorations; for example, the inlaid floral embellishments on the minarets, which are popular in hinduism and resemble flower stalks, manifest this influence. mughal architecture, which is directly borrowed from ancient indian buildings, features groves in its turns as opposed to the smooth curves of persian archers. the safavid and mughal empires were amicable throughout the reigns of babur, the first mughal emperor, and humayon (after returning from persia, the king hired numerous safavid-persian artists)53. several persian politicians and bureaucrats who were crucial to the mughal empire’s everyday operations were also employed by the mughal court. even though the early mughal emperors had close ties to the safavid court, timurid architecture was widely incorporated into the early mughal structures for two reasons. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 97 first off, there wasn’t much opportunity for babur and humayon to learn about indigenous indian styles during the early mughal era. due to the fact that babur was initially a timurid and humayon had lived in persia for a considerable amount of time, the mughal rulers also promoted and showed interest in the migration of persian artists and architects. throughout akbar’s reign, this migration persisted. another theory is that the early safavid monarchy, contemporaneous with the mughal era, was highly influenced by timurid architecture54. as a result, early mughal constructions rather than safavid design were transferred and influenced by timurid architects who were still employed by the safavid empire, safavid artisans who went to the indian empire, or new safavid builders who preferred to use timurid components and concepts. akbar skilfully merged babur and humayun’s well-known architectural fancies from the early mughal empire. instead of being inspired by foreign architectural types during the high period, when it reached its zenith of growth, regional architectural styles significantly impacted the mughal architectural style55. at this time, safavid architecture was at its pinnacle of magnificence and power. due to the expanding ties between the safavid and mughal eras in various areas of life, including politics, diplomacy, culture, literature, trade, and religion, safavid architectural models were utilized in mughal projects. safavid architects profited from the wealthy and mighty safavid architecture during the early mughal era through deals with safavid architects. figure 8: safavid and mughals nast‘alêq persian calligraphy of 17th era 98 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … 9. calligraphy, an architectural ornament for islamic architecture islamic culture has a rich history of beautiful and antiquity arts. the most popular form of art in the world is islamic architecture. the most critical arts in islamic architecture are islamic calligraphy and decoration, also referred to as the heart and soul of islamic art. islamic architecture, namely the mosque, is regarded as a representation of islamic architecture. mosques worldwide are built in various architectural styles, and the interior and outside are adorned with islamic patterns and calligraphy. the holy qur’én makes multiple references to the function and significance of mosques. the most revered and significant component of islamic art and architecture is calligraphy. notably, the holy qur’én was authored in arabic and is the book in which god revealed himself to the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). the arabic script allows for the development of a vast range of stunning forms. although calligraphy was frequently combined with a talismanic element as an ornament, it had an unmistakable aesthetic appeal. the numerous ways calligraphy is incorporated into the overall design of things from various ages and places demonstrate the creative possibilities of calligraphy as an ornament. in other cases, calligraphy may serve as the primary ornamental element. the author uses the arabic script’s built-in decorative features in these passages. islamic calligraphy embellishment has always been the most distinctive way to recognise islamic buildings. mosques and other islamic structures employ it. numerous studies have been done on how islamic art evolved from pre-existing traditional aspects and what kind of force brought all those components together to create a singular synthesis. even with the variances in time and location, no one will contest the oneness of islamic art and architecture. islam does not impose any specific types of art. it only limits the available vocabulary. islam’s ideology is based on both fixed and flexible ideas. set refers to the essential tenets of islam, such as the unity of allah almighty, which cannot be altered through time or space. in contrast, the variable depends on human perception in various locations. it is known as the intellectual viewpoint passed down through islamic art. the main reason calligraphy is used more frequently as an architectural ornament in mughal architecture is that it avoids showing human and animal images in islamic art and embellishment, which helps to eradicate any pagan-related components56. the apostasy that assumed the form of idolatry was eradicated by islam57. this practice started to disappear as people learned more about islam’s principles. however, figural images persisted in many artistic hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 99 works, including wall paintings and sketches. still, there were no depictions of people or animals on the holy qur’én or mosques decoration58. one of the most striking aspects of islamic art is how little human depiction is valued. the necessity for increased human representation in islamic art is overstated, even if there are examples of human figural renderings throughout early islamic history. many religions use images of living things to represent their beliefs. islam, however, restricts the use of living things’ figures since it regards them as worldly and a kind of idolatry59. calligraphy was used increasingly for both writing and visual art. islamic architecture greatly benefits from calligraphy as a kind of visual art. this is due to the clarity with which the holy qur’én and the teachings of the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), may be easily communicated. muslims use calligraphy to reflect their faith and identity and to create beautiful works of decorative art. muslim culture is replete with calligraphic inscriptions, which can be seen on the holy qur’én, in mosques, madrasahs, libraries, mausoleums, cemeteries, and castles. safadi asserts that the widespread use of calligraphy demonstrates the significance of the written word in islam. the most famous islamic shrine, the holy ka‘bah, as well as common household items, complete walls, mosque furniture, mosque interiors and exteriors, tombs, and other artifacts, are all prominently covered with lettering. but much like most other religions’ iconography, the writing also conveys authority. of course, its primary use is in writing the holy qur’én’s divine word, giving it tremendous strength and ultimate significance. allah almighty had selected arabic as the medium for his final revelation out of all the possibilities in this universe. inscriptions on the mosques’ internal and external walls frequently incorporate calligraphy. mosques are places of worship in islamic culture, and when they are inscribed, great care is taken60. the islamic building’s architecture has minarets, calligraphy, central fountains, mihrabs, and iwans. on the windows, walls, and minarets are messages from the holy qur’én referring to allah almighty, the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), and his sayings and teachings. 100 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … figure 9: frontal wall of wazir khan mosque of the mughal era with persian nast‘alêq calligraphy islamic architecture exhibits patterns of grandeur that are concretizations of that pervasive aesthetic effort of muslims to produce works of art that will inspire sentiments of spiritual transcendence in the beholder61. for instance, given that islam holds that only one god has neither a beginning nor an end, the neverending patterns that adorn islamic artworks are meant to represent god’s infinity62. to sum up, islamic architecture incorporated calligraphy heavily for two main reasons. the first justification started with the initial printing of the holy qur’én. they would be a few meters long since the holy qur’én would be inscribed incredibly finely63. as a result, scribes started employing their calligraphy skills to mark verses from the holy qur’én on the mosque’s walls. islam forbade the worship of any visual representations, which significantly impacted the development of calligraphy in islamic architecture. for example, the conversion of hagia sophia into a mosque illustrates how calligraphy was created from visual images in islamic architecture. when hagia sophia was converted into a mosque, the interior decorations were appropriately ornamented with arabic calligraphy and geometric tilework64. the mosaics of the saints and angels were covered with calligraphic depictions of the name of allah almighty rather than literal human figure renderings. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 101 10. conclusion islamic scholars predominately study calligraphy, mainly arabic calligraphy, and muslim artists use it extensively. islamic calligraphy is widely used in islamic art and architecture and has evolved into one of the critical elements of muslim buildings, particularly the mosque or masjid. moreover, persian calligraphy is one of the most renowned arts in persian history and a firm representative of persian culture. nasta‘lêq, the persian calligraphy style, has been used in a wide range of contexts and formats, including religious inscriptions on the mosque facades, the writing of the holy qur’én and passages from sacred texts, poetry, and fiction, stereoplates or print clichés, and in the lithography, lineament, and layout of books and magazines and influenced the mughals. the mughal empire is the “golden era” of the expansion of persia and india’s bilateral relations since it was during this time that bilateral contacts between the two countries reached their apex in all sectors of life. in the 16th century, the mughal dynasty strove to take control of india as the safavid empire grew in persia. india and persia both attained great strength under these dynasties, and there were many other facets to their interactions, such as politics, diplomacy, culture, literature, trade, and religion. acknowledgment the authors thank universiti sains malaysia (usm) and its research university grant (1001/pseni/8016083) for the research funding. notes and references 1 john valentine, “a formalist theory of art,” southwest philosophy review 14, no. 2 (1998): 139–50, https://doi.org/10.5840/swphilreview199814234. 2 allen speight, “philosophy of art,” in g. w. f. hegel: key concepts (routledge, 2015), 103–15, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315744292. 3 morris weitz, “the role of theory in aesthetics,” in aesthetics: a reader in philosophy of the arts: fourth edition (routledge, 2017), 512–17, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315303673. 4 bohdan dziemidok, “artistic formalism: its achievements and weaknesses,” the journal of aesthetics and art criticism 51, no. 2 (1993): 185, https://doi.org/10.2307/431384. 5 karen a. hamblen, “theories and research that support art instruction for instrumental outcomes,” theory into practice 32, no. 4 (september 1, 1993): 191– 98, https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849309543597. 6 bunting, catherine. "what instrumentalism? a public perception of value." cultural trends 17, no. 4 (2008): 323-328. 102 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … 7 james gouinlock, “what is the legacy of instrumentalism? rorty’s interpretation of dewey,” journal of the history of philosophy 28, no. 2 (1990): 251–69, https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.1990.0038. 8 saeeda naz et al., “segmentation techniques for recognition of arabic-like scripts: a comprehensive survey,” education and information technologies 21, no. 5 (september 1, 2016): 1225–41, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-015-9377-5. 9 syed saqib bukhari, faisal shafait, and thomas m. breuel, “layout analysis of arabic script documents,” in guide to ocr for arabic scripts (springer london, 2012), 35–53, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4072-6_2. 10 sara izadi et al., “a review on persian script and recognition techniques,” in lecture notes in computer science (including subseries lecture notes in artificial intelligence and lecture notes in bioinformatics), vol. 4768 lncs, 2008, 22–35, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-78199-8_2. 11 peter unseth, “sociolinguistic parallels between choosing scripts and languages,” written language & literacy 8, no. 1 (october 26, 2005): 19–42, https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.8.1.02uns. 12 priscilla p. soucek, “persian artists in mughal india: influences and transformations,” muqarnas, 1987, https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-90000214. 13 lisa golombek and annemarie schimmel, “islamic calligraphy,” journal of the american oriental society 93, no. 4 (1973): 572, https://doi.org/10.2307/600193. 14 yael rice, “between the brush and the pen: on the intertwined histories of mughal painting and calligraphy,” in envisioning islamic art and architecture: essays in honor of renata holod, 2014, 148–74, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004280281_009. 15 golombek, lisa, and annemarie schimmel. "islamic calligraphy." (1973). 16 journal o f architecture, “arabic calligraphy on mughal monuments of north india 1 asif ali and 2 ahmad sanusi hassan,” journals.iium.edu.my 1, no. 7 (2017): 39–47, https://journals.iium.edu.my/kaed/index.php/japcm/article/view/233. 17 bukhari, syed saqib, faisal shafait, and thomas m. breuel. "layout analysis of arabic script documents." guide to ocr for arabic scripts (2012): 35-53. 18 izadi, sara, javad sadri, farshid solimanpour, and ching y. suen. "a review on persian script and recognition techniques." arabic and chinese handwriting recognition: sach 2006 summit college park, md, usa, september 27-28, 2006 selected papers (2008): 22-35. 19 a k m yaqub ali, “muslim calligraphy: its beginning and major styles,” islamic studies 23, no. 4 (1984): 373–79, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20847281. 20 alain fouad george, “the geometry of the qur’an of amajur: a preliminary study of proportion in early arabic calligraphy,” muqarnas 20 (2003): 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-90000036. 21 soucek, priscilla p. "persian artists in mughal india: influences and transformations." muqarnas (1987): 166-181. 22 m ekhtiar, “innovation and revivalism in later persian calligraphy: the visal family of shiraz,” in islamic art in the 19th century, 2022, 257–79, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047417279_014. 23 mahdiyeh meidani, persian calligraphy: a corpus study of letterforms, persian calligraphy: a corpus study of letterforms, vol. 21 (taylor and francis, 2019), https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429264047. 24 misagh mansouri boroujeni and ali meghdari, “haptic device application in persian calligraphy,” in proceedings 2009 international conference on computer hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 103 and automation engineering, iccae 2009, 2009, 160–64, https://doi.org/10.1109/iccae.2009.55. 25 meidani, mahdiyeh. persian calligraphy: a corpus study of letterforms. routledge, 2019. 26 mohammad gharipour and irvin cemil schick, calligraphy and architecture in the muslim world, calligraphy and architecture in the muslim world, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474468428. 27 umapada pal, ramachandran jayadevan, and nabin sharma, “handwriting recognition in indian regional scripts: a survey of offline techniques,” acm transactions on asian language information processing, march 2012, https://doi.org/10.1145/2090176.2090177. 28 h razavi fard, “methodology of nastaliq calligraphy criticism,” vaa.journal.art.ac.ir, 2018, http://vaa.journal.art.ac.ir/article_615.html?lang=en. 29 aamir wali and sarmad hussain, “context sensitive shape-substitution in nastaliq writing system: analysis and formulation,” in innovations and advanced techniques in computer and information sciences and engineering (kluwer academic publishers, 2007), 53–58, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6268-1_10. 30 h razavifard and ha pourmand, “an analysis & examination of nastaliq calligraphy style of the old masters,” 2018, https://www.sid.ir/en/journal/viewpaper.aspx?id=648017. 31 mahdiyeh meidani, “calligraphy as graphically autonomous form: a corpus study of persian calligraphic letterforms using a multimodal approach,” in the materiality of writing: a trace-making perspective, 2018, 229–64, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315537306. 32 boroujeni, misagh mansouri, and ali meghdari. "haptic device application in persian calligraphy." in 2009 international conference on computer and automation engineering, pp. 160-164. ieee, 2009. 33 ekhtiar, maryam. "innovation and revivalism in later persian calligraphy: the visal family of shiraz." in islamic art in the 19th century, pp. 257-279. brill, 2006. 34 mahdiyeh, meidani. "calligraphy as graphically autonomous form: a corpus study of persian calligraphic letterforms using a multimodal approach." in the materiality of writing, pp. 229-264. routledge, 2017. 35 gharipour, mohammad, ed. calligraphy and architecture in the muslim world. edinburgh university press, 2019. 36 teparić, meliha. "analiza islamskih kaligrafskih panela (levhi) bošnjačkih kaligrafa (hattata) od 18. do sredine 20. stoljeća." phd diss., 2016. 37 izadi, sara, javad sadri, farshid solimanpour, and ching y. suen. "a review on persian script and recognition techniques." arabic and chinese handwriting recognition: sach 2006 summit college park, md, usa, september 27-28, 2006 selected papers (2008): 22-35. 38 golombek, lisa, and annemarie schimmel. "islamic calligraphy." (1973). 39 razavifard, hossein, and hasanali pourmand. "an analysis & examination of nastaliq calligraphy style of the old masters." theoretical principles of visual arts 2, no. 2 (2018): 53-70. 40 r othman and z. j. zainal-abidin, “the importance of islamic art in mosque interior,” in procedia engineering 20, 2011, 105–9, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2011.11.144. 41 mohammad gharipour and irvin cemil schick, calligraphy and architecture in the muslim world, calligraphy and architecture in the muslim world, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474468428. 104 characteristics of islamic calligraphy … 42 hilal kazan, “chapter fourteen. on the renewal of t he calligraphy at the mosque of the prophet (almasjid alnabawī) under the reign of sultan abdülmecid,” in calligraphy and architecture in the muslim world, 2022, 253–74, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474468428-016. 43 i shah, “calligraphic specimens in the mahabat khan mosque, peshawar,” search.proquest.com, 1996, https://search.proquest.com/openview/b18e0e8c6530f11fb22d61275d875e86/1?pqorigsite=gscholar&cbl=1819375. 44 l lutfianto and a munip and, “descriptive analysis on the plays of wayang kekayon khalifah: a collaboration among calligraphy, wayang arts, islamic dialogue, and java culture,” atlantis-press.com, 2021, https://www.atlantispress.com/proceedings/access-20/125956981. 45 mahdi montazerolhodjah, mohammadreza pourjafar, and ali akbar taghvaee, “urban underground development an overview of historical underground cities in iran tt -,” iust 25, no. 1 (2015): 53–60, http://ijaup.iust.ac.ir/article-1-210-en.html. 46 annemarie schimmel and barbar rivolta, “islamic calligraphy,” the metropolitan museum of art bulletin 50, no. 1 (1992): 1, https://doi.org/10.2307/3263914. 47 soucek, priscilla p. "persian artists in mughal india: influences and transformations." muqarnas (1987): 166-181. 48 yael rice, “between the brush and the pen: on the intertwined histories of mughal painting and calligraphy,” in envisioning islamic art and architecture: essays in honor of renata holod, 2014, 148–74, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004280281_009. 49 stuart cary welch, “the emperors’ album : images of mughal india,” 1987, https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=fdiyr9lrj0mc&oi=fnd&pg=pa 1&dq=persian+mughal+calligraphy&ots=djt9hhzjpm&sig=acdkxigeugzyrb_c7z40erqdnm. 50 p i s mustafizur rahman, “mughal calligraphy,” islamic studies 26, no. 3 (1987): 237–46, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20839843. 51 danish moin, “inscriptions and calligraphy on the mughal and safavid coinages: a comparative study,” in narratives, routes and intersections in pre-modern asia, 2016, 157–75, https://doi.org/10.4324/978131540198. 52 john francis standish, “persian influences in mughal india,” islamic quarterly 12, no. 3 (1968): 160, https://search.proquest.com/openview/65d944ae01cfb69f2f61e17a77c285c3/1?pqorigsite=gscholar&cbl=1818767. 53 abolala soudavar, “the early safavids and their cultural interactions with surrounding states,” soudavar.com, 2000, 1–38, http://www.soudavar.com/safvdcultrldpl.doc. 54 rahman, pis mustafizur. "mughal calligraphy." islamic studies 26, no. 3 (1987): 237-246. 55 standish, john francis. "persian influences in mughal india." islamic quarterly 12, no. 3 (1968): 160. 56 rahman, pis mustafizur. "mughal calligraphy." islamic studies 26, no. 3 (1987): 237-246. 57 mahsa kharazmi and reza sarhangi, “an analytical study of the methods of design and geometric constructions in architectural ornaments of the friday mosque of forumad,” nexus network journal 18, no. 1 (april 1, 2016): 275–310, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00004-015-0278-0. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 105 58 jay francis bonner, “the historical significance of the geometric designs in the northeast dome chamber of the friday mosque at isfahan,” nexus network journal 18, no. 1 (april 1, 2016): 55–103, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00004-015-0275-3. 59 azin ehteshami and mehdi soltaninejad, “an introduction to architecture of nasir al-mulk mosque,” world journal of engineering and technology 07, no. 04 (2019): 652–75, https://doi.org/10.4236/wjet.2019.74048. 60 michael j. ostwald and özgür ediz, “measuring form, ornament and materiality in sinan’s kılıç ali paşa mosque: an analysis using fractal dimensions,” nexus network journal 17, no. 1 (2015): 5–22, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00004-014-02193. 61 othman, r., and z. j. zainal-abidin. "the importance of islamic art in mosque interior." procedia engineering 20 (2011): 105-109. 62 mahsa kharazmi and reza sarhangi, “an analytical study of the methods of design and geometric constructions in architectural ornaments of the friday mosque of forumad,” nexus network journal 18, no. 1 (2016): 275–310, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00004-015-0278-0. 63 mahsa kharazmi and reza sarhangi, “geometric analysis of forumad mosques’ ornaments,” proceedings of bridges 2013: mathematics, music, art, architecture, culture, 2013, 199–206, https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2013/bridges2013199.html. 64 jay francis bonner, “the historical significance of the geometric designs in the northeast dome chamber of the friday mosque at isfahan,” nexus network journal 18, no. 1 (2016): 55–103, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00004-015-0275-3. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 79 expansion of maqósid thought beyond maqósid al-sharô‘ah: maqósid al-qurón as a new paradigm tazul islam faculty of quranic and sunnah studies, university sains islam, malaysia tazuljb@yahoo.comil: ema received on: 13-07-22 accepted on: 06-11-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.514 abstract the objective of this study is to examine a potential conceptual expansion of the concept of maqésid (essential purposes of islam). the contemporary developments in the maqésid al-sharêah, a popular goal theory of islam, remains largely unchanged from the theoretical point of view, which was developed by the traditional muslim scholars. although the implementation of maqésid alshariah has significantly grown, its theoretical development remains limited. some current maqésid thinkers, however, are prompted to make efforts to broaden this goal notion. they have entitled this new endeavor as ‘maqésid al-qurén’ instead of maqésid al-shariah to imply a more expansive interpretation of maqésid. they argue that the journey of maqésid al-sharêah should continue until it achieves a larger paradigm which might give it a wider methodological ability to function outside of the maqésid al-shariah framework. the researcher has used library data in the form of text from the pertinent books and scholarly articles to analyze new theoretical prospects of maqésid. this study discovers that, in contrast to maqésid al-shariah which primarily focuses on the normative aspect of islam, maqésid al-qurén has the potential to be a broad islamic goal theory since it expresses the goals of the entire islamic discourse irrespective of normative aspect. it was defined more broadly than maqésid al-shariah by traditional and modern maqésid scholars. moreover, its methodological scope is deemed broader than that of maqésid al sharêah. mailto:tazuljb@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i4.514 80 expansion of maqasid … keywords: maqésid al-qurén; maqésid al-shariah; shariah; maqésid; quran. 1. introduction as a subfield of islamic studies, maqésid al-sharêah, consists of “principles that provide answers to the questions about the islamic law”1 based on the “wisdoms behind rulings.”2 having been conceptualized in early medieval era and evolved in several centuries, as kamali asserts: “maqésid in twentieth century scholarship has sought to expand its scope from a purely juristic context to the wider arenas of modernity and civilisation. he adds that the maqésid should naturally have a higher profile as a goalsetter and determinant of values.3 he argues that if the qur’an and sunnah were to guide the way of the muslim ummah to new times and climes, it would necessitate studying the primary sources considering the broader universals of maqésid.”4 perhaps, this necessity was felt by many traditional and contemporary muslim scholars including abu hamid al-ghazali (d.1111c.e.), izz al-din ibn abd al-salam (d.1261c.e.), ibn alqayyim (d.751a.h.), al-shatibi (d.1388c.e.), rashid rida (d.1935c.e.), nursi (d.1960c.e.), ibn ashur (d.1973c.e.), alwani (d.2016), al-qaraìawi (b.1926c.e.). these scholars have the pioneering contributions to maqésid studies and they have clearly distinguished between maqésid al-quran and maqésid al-sharêah.5 this is maybe because of “the term sharêah is more restricted in meaning than the term din, which comprises of not merely the laws relating to a particular religion but also the basic, unchanging spiritual truths which, according to the quran, have been preached by all of the prophets. while the shariah promulgated through them and the way of life (minhéj) recommended by them, varied in accordance with the exigencies of the time and of each community's cultural development.”6 using the term maqésid al-quran, they have set some unique concepts and functional mechanism which are not entirely identical to maqésid al-shariah. this could imply that both have distinctive scope to function. for instance, while maqésid alshariah, focuses largely on formulation of juristic judgements, maqésid al-quran is used as an interpretive tool for the entire quranic content regardless of normative part. hence, its scope appears wider than maqésid al-shariah. 2. background hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 81 as a nascent idea in the medieval historical context, alghazélê introduced maqésid al-quran as a branch of islamic sciences. then, muslim academics' interest in this topic significantly increased as noteworthy contributions to the field were made by albaghawi, al-razi, ibn abd al-salém (d.1261c.e.), al-shatêbi (d.1388), al-biqai (d.885 a.h.), and others. this increased scholarly attention which eventually reached a point where the urge to include it in the principles of qur'anic exegesis (adéb al-tafsêr) by certain notable exegetes of the qur'an, including ibn 'ashur (d.1973c.e.), 'izzat darwazah (d. 1987c.e.), and muhammad 'abduh was felt. a prospective intellectual discussion on maqésid al-qurén is now being held through academic conferences and seminars, tv talks, academic publications, and books. as a result, the concepts have been evolving and diversifying, new problems are being presented, and long-forgotten problems are being brought up again. on the other hand, maqésid al-sharêah, has gained the greatest traction. its literary heritage is impressive and extensive. it has long been a well-discussed subject in islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). moreover, it is now considered as an independent field in education. this position was embellished with an impressive extension of its purview. it has attracted scholarly interest from many different fields. all these advancements are credited to the originality of its conceptual framework which was developed by traditional muslim thinkers like al-ghazélê and al-shatêbi. alwani and audah, two contemporary experts in the topic, suggested a further development of maqésid thinking beyond the conventional framework of maqésid al-shariah. they have promoted a new framework the term maqésid al-quran, although this has not yet garnered scholarly attention like maqésid al-sharêah. 3. literature review 3.1. maqésid al-sharêah islamic legal thinking includes the doctrine of the maqésid as a subset. al-juwayni (d. 478/1085) created the initial cornerstone by dividing the maqésid al-sharêah into the three categories of essential, complimentary, and desirable (ìarurêyyét, héjiyyét, tahsêniyyét), which was widely acknowledged by most of the scholars in the field. the ground-breaking discoveries of juwaynî were later expanded upon by his student al-ghazali, in his thesis on public interest (maslahah) and effective cause (ta'lîl), in which he postulated five goals of shariah: the preservation of faith, life, intellect, lineage, and property. the notion of maqésid was then developed by alshatibi (d. 790/1388), who made a ground-breaking contribution. ibn ashur furthered the concept of maqésid among the maqésid theorists of his time. in his view, maqésid al-shariah should be viewed as a 82 expansion of maqasid … method of ijtihéd rather than a foundational concept. he contends that using a linguistic method alone is insufficient and that one must also use a causal and theological approach.7 following these developments, various hypotheses and inventions are constantly being revealed. for instance, al-najjar introduced a change in maqésid al-shari'ah by grouping its four main goals into four categories: preserving the worth of human life (hifzh qimat al-hayéh al-insénêyyah), preserving human essence (hifzh aldzat al-insénêyyah), preserving society (hifzh al-mujtama'), and preserving the natural environment (hifzh al-muhit al-maddi). alnajjar also suggested changing the focus of maqésid al-shariah from the limited-individual advantage to the all-inclusive-social benefit. the application of the theory broadens and becomes multidisciplinary as conceptual development continues. to do this, a metaethical basis of universal principles is employed which is called maslahah (public well-being). based on this universality, the maqésid al-sharêah is expected to broaden in scope and change from being only an area of islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and the principles of islamic jurisprudence (ushul al-fêqh) to an economic, political, and social arena.8 in a recent development, maqésid al-shariah has only recently begun to serve not only as the theoretical cornerstone for numerous facets of islamic banking and economics but also many other academic discipline where there is no direct evidence available from the primary and secondary sources of shariah. wanto, at.al, claim that maqésid al-shariah is a universal idea that may be applied to all facets of life.9 this change is based on the maqésid al-sharêah's structure rather than changing it to fit a new paradigm. 3.2. maqésid al-quran maqésid al-qur’én has attracted a considerable attention from both traditional and modern muslim thinkers throughout the course of a lengthy literary history. a basic conceptual framework for maqésid al-qur'én which includes a general identification of the basic maqésid of the qur'an; a characterization of this term as a science and a core of the qur'an; a categorization of its entity into the basic and the secondary; a development of an inclusive maqésid trend in qur'anic exegesis; and the introduction of the necessity of maqésid. these can be found in the literatures listed below. al-qaradawi asserts that the qur’an repeatedly discusses and stresses seven principles and purposes. these are the main purposes and ideas that qur’anic verses and surah emphasize in their setting. he says that “the qur’an calls upon human beings to embrace the qur’anic purposes and principles because they cannot attain righteousness without exercising them”. the author lists seven purposes that, in his opinion, are frequently mentioned in the qur’an. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 83 he accords these purposes with the utmost priority. the following are the qur’én’s seven primary goals: presenting the revision of beliefs and ideas of the prophet, the deity, and recompense; acknowledging human rights, especially those of the weak, and man's role on the planet; encouraging people to revere and fear god; encouraging men to cleanse their spirits; establishing a sound family structure and defending women's rights; construction of a model ummah; sending summons to one another for cooperation among human beings. al-qaradawi's method for addressing the qur’én’s maqésid is notable for its thoroughness and application. he provides subissues to support the maqésid that he discovered. however, it is also noted that several of his suggested purposes—such as the formation of a strong family structure and the safeguarding of women's rights— are not universal because the qur'an typically protects the rights of the whole human race, not just a small portion of them. in a same vein, the qur’an seeks to establish strong social and political systems in addition to the family unit.10 in another recent study in the field, lahham has authored one of the most recent books on maqésid al-qur’an in which she categorizes the verses of the qur’an according to their maqésid and classifies maqésid al-qur’an into the welfare of the individual, welfare of the ummah, development and progress of civilization, and protection of religion. she then discusses secondary maqésid under every class. this book seems reluctant to identify the basic maqésid of the qur’an through a methodological approach. in some cases, it seems a mere portrait of some secondary maqésid in the quran like maqésid of human life. the contents of the book are mostly influenced by the concept of maqésid al-sharêah, more specifically by the theory of “public interest” (maslahah). this influence of a particular perspective in dealing with maqésid al-qurén undoubtedly defects the distinctive entity of the subject. however, this book could be a useful source book in knowing a maximum number of secondary maqésid of the quran as the author amounts them to some 2,200, and these are mentioned in some 1,950 verses.11 hémidi, is another recent author on maqésid al-quran who relatively treated a wide range of the issues concerned. however, the content includes a definition of maqésid al-qur’an, its classification, maqésid of the quran in actualization of personal welfare, social welfare, and finally universal welfare. the whole content seems profoundly colored by the theory of maqésid al-sharêah. any specific significant discussion about maqésid al-qurén is rarely presented in it.12 above all, while the literature that is now accessible has some crucial foundational information on this subject. they may also serve 84 expansion of maqasid … as a springboard for its future growth into a comprehensive idea and a specialized field of islamic studies. 3.3. an urge for expanding maqésid thought maqésid al-shariah develops within its purview. this is demonstrated by its progression from secondary methodology to a basic methodology and finally to a multidisciplinary science. auda explains, this concept was primarily developed “as a secondary topic within usul al-fiqh, usually under the category of ‘unrestricted interests’ (al-masalih al-mursalah) or the appropriate attribute for analogy (munasabah al-qiyas).”13 al-masélih al-mursalah was born in a historical context when the available methods in sharêah were “proved incapable of coping with the complexities of the evolving civilisation in the fifth century. therefore, unrestricted interest (almaslahah al-mursalah) was developed as a method that covers ‘what was not mentioned in the scripts,’ and thus, compensates for the limitations of qiyés (legal analogy).”14 then, it was urged as a fundamental methodology by some contemporary scholars, including raysuni, ‘atiyah and the shia scholar mahdi shamsuddin, who recommend a certain expansion of the usuli ijtêhad to embrace the wider idea of ijtêhad maqésidi which is also known as ijtêhad masléhi.15 auda adds that the maqésid al-sharêah was proposed by some twentieth century reformers as a standalone discipline.16 moreover, this evolution goes on and supersedes its restricted disciplinary functionality. auda aptly explains in the following statement: “in order to remedy the individuality drawback, the notion of maqésid has been expanded to include a wider scope of people – the community, nation, or humanity, in general. these expansions of the scope of maqésid allow them to respond to global issues and concerns, and to evolve from ‘wisdoms behind the rulings’ to practical plans for reform and renewal. finally, contemporary scholarship has introduced new universal maqésid that were directly induced from the scripts, rather than from the body of fiqh literature in the schools of islamic law. this approach, significantly, allowed maqésid to overcome the historicity fiqh edicts and represent the scripts’ higher values and principles.”17 according to alwani, the following factors contributed to the early period's disregard for priority jurisprudence and maqésid discourse: dominance of a strictly religious orientation; predominant partial jurisprudential trends, wherein each unit or issue is supported by only partial evidence; the predominance of lone (non-integrated) revelation reading; the language apparatus or linguistic framework is the exclusive focus of legal speech; monotonous thinking that ignores hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 85 the theory of time-space relativity; developing theories and hypotheses while staying away from practical applications; influence of different patterns originating from a former legal system, such as the sharêah found in the bible; lack of distinction between servitude to humans and obedience to allah based on intelligence, as well as hypothetical parallelism; the characteristics of sharêah are not taken into account while developing a methodology; failure to consider the features of sharêah as methodological factors and confining them to a merely desirable attribute.18 even, while significant traditional muslim scholars, such as the companions of the prophet muhammad, have had access to maqésid ideas from the inception of the muslim nation, maqésid has not developed then into an independent field of study.19 continuing, he claims that as maqésid al-sharêah is no longer merely a chapter in usul al-fiqh and has instead turned into its own field of study (principles of islamic jurisprudence). however, the idea of "higher objectives of the quran" should have been developed and implemented in people's daily lives sooner rather than later.20 3.4. methodology this study addresses a query posed by maqésid scholars who are experts in islamic legal theory. according to the body of current literature on the issue, maqésid al-shariah scholars have given the issue a great deal of consideration. the contemporary advancement on the subject and its applications consequently become multidisciplinary. some academics believe that it is appropriate to broaden the maqésid's current theoretical framework. attempts have been undertaken to achieve this under the title maqésid al-qurén. this paper investigates the justification for this endeavour. thus, using a qualitative research technique, the researcher used library data gathered from textual sources like books and academic publications. the interpretation and analysis of the textual evidence were then illustrated. the logical components of scholars' arguments on the future development of islamic goal theory (maqésid) were addressed. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. generalization of objectives of entire religion (din) over objectives of shariah islam holds that there is only one divine entity that is present in all revealed religions. the basics for these religions hence remain mostly same regardless of space and time throughout human history. the qurénic passages and prophet muhammad's narratives provide credence for this position. 86 expansion of maqasid … “the same religion has he established for you as that which he enjoined on noah which we have sent by inspiration to thee and that which we enjoined on abraham, moses, and jesus: namely, that ye should remain steadfast in religion, and make no divisions therein.”21 “to establish the religion and not be split in it” refers to establishing god’s monotheism and obedience, faith in his messengers and their scriptures, the day of resurrection, and the rest of the requirements for being a muslim. sharêah is not included because it addresses the interests (masalih) of nations based on their own context which is often different and varies from country to country22. al-zamakhshari supports his opinion by citing another verse from quran, “unto every one of you have we appointed a [different] law and way of life”23. this verse, according to al-razi, shows that the shariah is divided into two parts, the first of which is protected from abrogation and change, for example, truth, justice, and charity, as well as the prohibition of lying, injustice, and injury. the second, on the other hand, might be altered and varied. its purpose, however, is to strengthen the first type because it is more efficient in achieving bliss in the afterlife24. rather than describing the shariah as an entire religion (din), the qurén presents it as a component of it or as part of the entire quranic teachings. while qurén is essentially a holistic scripture that covers theology, morality, rites and rituals, its coverage of legal codes which amounts approximately 500 verses. “o ye messengers! enjoy (all) things good and pure, and work righteousness: for i am well-acquainted with (all) that ye do. (51) and verily this brotherhood of yours is a single brotherhood, and i am your lord and cherisher: therefore, fear me (and no other.”25 islam is based on the belief that a true believer is one who believes in each of god's prophets, as well as all that were revealed to them. “say ye: we believe in allah, and the revelation given to us, and to abraham, isma'il, isaac, jacob, and the tribes, and that given to moses and jesus, and that given to (all) prophets from their lord: we make no difference between one and another of them: and we bow to allah (in islam).”26 “to thee we sent the scripture in truth, confirming the scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety: so judge between them by what allah hath revealed, and follow not their vain desires, diverging from the truth that hath come to thee. to each among you have we prescribed a law and an open way. if allah had so willed, he would have made hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 87 you a single people, but (his plan is) to test you in what he hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. the goal of you all is to allah; it is he that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute;”27 allah's messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, “the prophets are paternal brothers; their mothers are different, but their religion is one.”28 this phrase was told in a metaphorical way, implying that all the prophets have the same basics of islamic doctrine while differing in non-fundamental concerns, similar to siblings who have different stepmothers but the same father.29 the non-fundamental, on the other hand, refer to legal difficulties (fiqhiyyét).30 scholars of sunnah (a specialised academic discipline concerned with prophet muhammad's traditions) went on to clarify the same basics, which include tawhid (oneness of god) and all topics in ilm al-kalam (islamic theology).31 according to ibn hajar, tawhid (oneness of allah) was the central thesis of all prophetic revelations.32 even though prophets emerged at different times and in different places, this basic commonality remained constant.33 in a broader sense, all the prophets share a commonality of din, though their sharêah was not identical in all respects. as a result, their purposes may differ from sharêah to sharêah. fasting, for example, was a law for all prophets, but the prohibitions and permissible were not the same. having sexual intercourse during the fasting month was not permitted in the shariah of previous prophets. however, it is permitted by the islamic shariah. in addition, the goal was to make things easier (taysir) for the ummah of prophet muhammad. this demonstrates that shariah's goals are more limited than those of the entire al-din. the goals of the entire din have remained same throughout islam's history, from the first prophet to the last. as a result, maqésid al-shariah cannot be equivalent to maqésid al-din. 4.2. scholars’ generalisation of maqésid al-quran the quran's higher purposes are regarded as the absolute foundations. they are limited to only one source, the quran, in terms of essentiality, generality, absoluteness, universality, and regulation. this is accomplished by reading, comprehending, and thinking in a holistic manner. this integration must lay forth its ideas and procedures so that it can be approached more easily and employed as a quranic methodological factor or instrument.34 88 expansion of maqasid … as previously stated, traditional muslim scholars' identification of maqésid al-quran is largely influenced by islamic theological perspective. according to them, the greater goals of quran include, among other things, the basic themes of islamic theology, such as tawhîd (unity of allah), prophethood, reward and punishment in the hereafter, and divine determinism.35 al-ghazali lists six main goals of the quran: introducing allah (swt), introducing the straight path, describing the situation in the hereafter, describing the status of people who answer allah's call, describing the position of those who reject, and educating the waystations on the path to allah (swt).36 the maqésid al-shariah, according to him, are five as follows: protect money, preserve chastity, preserve the capacity of reason, and preserve religion.37 al-ghazali's ideas on maqésid al-quran and maqésid alshariah are plainly distinguishable. in terms of nature, he claims that the five goals of shariah are exclusively normative in nature because they deal exclusively with legal issues.38 in the case of maqésid alquran, on the other hand, his ideas are more theological than legal as evidenced by the first maqésid of the quran, which he divides into three categories: "knowledge of divine being, knowledge of his qualities, and knowledge of his acts."39 the rest of al-ghazali’s classifications of maqésid, unlike the sixth objective (maqésid), are also concerned with metaphysical issues namely hereafter, angels, heaven, hell – and the quranic dialectics40 which are totally devoid of normative nature. yet unlikely, according to al-ghazali, the “sixth objective [of the quranic verses] includes those which are termed lawful, unlawful, and the bounds of god.41” in addition, he mentions the essential theory of maqésid al-shariah which is preservation, invoking well-being, and repealing corruptive means (dar' almafsadah).42 the maqésid al-quran thesis of ibn ashur covers a wide variety of important quranic issues, such as belief reform, moral purification, legal regulation, historical narrations, recompense, and requital, and the inimitable (i'jaz) nature of the quran. like alghazali, he considers the legal part of the quran to be one of its numerous objectives. he clearly distinguishes between maqésid alquran and maqésid al-shariah differently since the former include eight aims while the latter just three. his maqésid al-shariah theory is entirely concerned with legal ramifications, and for five objectives that are all entirely concerned with issuing judgments in analogous situations as well as comprehending the rationale and wise purpose behind the lawgiver's enactment of any law. he requires that jurists be knowledgeable in this branch of knowledge.43 in contrast to maqésid al-quran, he does not discuss any moral, theological, historical, or philosophical issues in maqésid al-shariah. he makes hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 89 a thorough connection between this branch of knowledge and the technical procedures for locating a legal judgement whose legal status is unclear, undetermined, ambiguous, or inconsistent with the time and space. in his book of tafsir, al-tahrir wa al-tanwir, he provides instances of how to read verses from the quran whereby allah's (swt) intent should be emphasised. yusuf al-qaradawi also identified the following eight goals: the acknowledgment of man's position on the earth and rights, particularly those of the weak; motivating humanity to worship and fear god; enticing men to purify their souls; establishing a balanced family structure and upholding women's rights; building a model ummah; and a call to mutual assistance in the human community.44 rashid rida enumerates eight goals: exposing the foundational tenets of the faith; prophethood and the missions of the prophets; mental perfection; humanistic, socio-political, and national reforms; exposing islamic motivation on role and responsibility and the general benefits of its prohibitions; exposing the modes, foundations, and general principles of universal islamic political rule; ensuring religious and civic rights for women; directing financial transformation; rethinking military strategy and philosophy and eliminating its flaws and difficulties; recognizing the approaches of islam to ending slavery.45 muhammad abduh asserted that the primary purposes of the quran are the oneness of god; the assurance of a plentiful reward, the admonition to follow it; and the threat of punishment for those who do not; worship which arouses the heart and firmly establishes divine unity in the spirit; explanation of how is the way of bliss and leads to the rewards of the afterlife; stories of those who followed allah's path and those who did not.46 thus, some muslim scholars hold that the maqésid al-qur'an and the maqésid al-shariah are distinct and differ from one another in terms of classifications, functional scopes, ramifications, and nature. it is understood that they are not comparable. majority of the scholars believe that the objectives of shariah cannot be generalized to the entire text of the quran. in addition to the normative content (shariah) and other paradigms such as tawhid and akhirah have been established as the basic concepts of the qur'an. 4.3. methodology of conceptualizing of maqésid al-quran and maqésid al-shariah while thematic induction was employed to reach to a broad maqésid, an effective cause (talil) was utilised to determine the goals of a specific quranic law. an effective cause of a solitary verse or 90 expansion of maqasid … law, on the other hand, may differ from the effective causes of a group of verse or the entire unit that surrounds the law. the maqésid discourse was formed based on islamic legal maxims and the search for aims to grasp and redirect the fragmentary scripture, known as induction (from branches to the core).47 it begins with a comprehensive inductive methodology that tries to make a relationship between individual units of law and the terms of general law with several pieces of evidence. hence, it starts with a complete inductive technique that uses various data to establish a link between unique units of law and the provision of the general law. thus, it has authority over a single legal unit. maqésid methodology assumes that all shariah content has a logical and noble meaning. a maxim is considered an objective of shariah.48 contemporary academics devised approaches such as "thematic unity," "ring theory," and "coherence" to gain a full grasp of the quranic content. these prominent techniques appear to have been overlooked in maqésid al-shariah methodology. while the quran's normative passages (shariah) have goals, the rest of the text usually does the same as well. as the nature of the content determines the purposes, the underlying objectives of the legal content of the quran cannot be applied to the rest of the content, which is of a different character. as a result, a bigger maqésid framework that encompasses the entire quran is required. in addition, maqésid alshariah theory of formulated based on human reasoning, and its terminologies were chosen by human beings. unlike the purposes of the quran, which have been articulated in a clear terms by god himself, which leaves limited scope for human reasoning or hypothetical opinion to deal with them. thus, the identification of maqésid al-quran appears more methodologically sound than the shariah. 4.4. capacity of maqésid al-quran as a general islamic goal theory maqésid al-quran has the potential to be an allencompassing islamic goal philosophy. it can be used to investigate and comprehend the maqésid of the entire quranic discourse, legal and non-legal alike. its primary focus is on reading quranic passages considering their goals and demonstrating how these goals might be met. goal orientation in the quran includes different contexts such as success and failure, the creativity of god, meaningfulness and absurdity, management and planning, wisdom, value, guidance, process, consequence, guidance and misguidance, problem solving, performance, quality assessment, intention. with this, maqésid alquran can offer a more holistic problem-solving capacity to real-life problems which are not essentially law driven. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 91 4.5. methodological transcendence of maqésid al-quran some traditional and modern muslim academics employ maqésid al-quran as a methodological technique. it was employed by al-ghazali in his jawahir al-quran for his theory of categorization and knowledge integration. in this approach, he divides the quran's six major aims into two categories: "main" and "secondary." the cornerstone of al-ghazali’s classification of religious studies was grounded on the fundamental aims of the quran and their categorization. both are intertwined because of islamic sciences are categorized according to the classification of the quranic purposes. moreover, maqésid al-quran is employed as an interpretative tool for the verses of the quran by some quran interpreters. ibn ashur, for instance, is one of the few muslim scholars who believe that maqésid al-quran should be made as a principle of interpreting quran. to outline the maqésid al-quran, he claims that a quran commentator's goal should be conveying god's intention prescribed in his book and provide the meaning and semantic connotation. he must be knowledgeable in maqésid of the quran.49 ibn ashur then divides interpreters' views into three categories: firstly restricted, shallow, and outer interpretations of texts; second, constructing indirect meanings that the context and suggestion of the words necessitate but do not contradict the quran's maqésid; and third, explanation derived from the context.50 intriguingly, taha jabir alwani, a maqésid specialist, presents some additional methodological capabilities of maqésid al-quran. according to him, two approaches were discussed to rebuild the link between islamic teachings and muslims' daily lives: a) demonstrating the purpose of laws; b) rearranging the priority in shariah and the developing the maqésid ideas.51 he claims that the quran's higher purposes may be employed as a methodological tool in a variety of situations, including the following: 1. higher objectives of the quran and the relation between quran and sunnah: “sunnah is an applied and practical manifesto for the quran. under the quran's greater purposes, sunnah and sirah (biography of prophet muhammad) serve as two practical and applied forces for quranic guidance.” as a result, sunnah supports the quran's unified structure. thus, it should be read and comprehended with this unity in mind. sunnah is a practical way of putting quranic teachings into practice. this method could be effective in solving the partial reading of the narrations. sunnah clearly emerges as a method and source in the 'higher purpose' framework, serving as a practical 92 expansion of maqasid … explanatory regulation for constitutional provisions in the legal domain. furthermore, the legal part of the quran does represent merely one dimension or one aspect of the quran's numerous other features. 2. higher objectives and holy books of the prophets: “higher objectives cannot be considered as a fundamental unless they are found commonly in the holy books of prophets. higher objectives comprise of the connotation of ‘objectives of shariah’ as it is prevalent to the islamic jurists who have reduced its role to describing the underlying reason or wisdom behind a ruling of law. the aim was to ensure the subjects of the law that whatever was ordered to them was, in fact, to ensure three categories of well-being: beginning with the essentials (daruriyyah), the needs (hajiyyah) and the luxuries (tahsiniyyah).” 3. higher objectives of the quran and regulating the sub-laws: “higher purposes must be able to reign over sub-laws and regenerate them in accordance with all human needs. as a result, there is a link between the fundamental and subordinate laws.” 4. higher objectives and constitutional principles: “in terms of legal framework, the quran's higher purposes appear like the constitutional principles which could lay out constitutional articles and legal principles.” 5. higher objectives and the prospects of renewal of islamic jurisprudence: the adoption of a higher objective system would result in renewal compatibility in basics of islamic jurisprudence as well as jurisprudential issues. it has the potential to save them from their flaws. 6. higher objectives of the quran and effectiveness of tajdid (islamic renewal) and ijtihad (islamic legal reasoning): “the quran's greater purposes include not just dalil (legal evidence) or fundamentals of jurisprudence, but also the foundation for reconstructing jurisprudential principles, renewing it, and establishing "grand jurisprudence" on it. it will then assist in revisiting islamic jurisprudential tradition, purging it of decades-old impurities, putting it under quranic ratification, and freeing it from the effects of locality and nationality so that it can be elevated to a universal standard and participate in the articulation of a “joint global culture.” 7. higher objectives of the quran and creating a critical approach: “higher objectives would foster a critical sense among researchers, resulting in the development of a criterion for all types of knowledge through which it could be filtered what aligns with these goals and what does not.” 8. higher objectives of the quran and activation of the characteristics of shariah as a methodology: “application of hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 93 the ‘system of maqésid' would function to cleanse islamic juristic heritage and the quran's system of higher objectives would bring vitality and sound effectiveness to the qualities of shariah.” 9. higher objectives of the quran and theory of education: “the quran's higher purposes can help in developing a comprehensive education framework for all islamic disciplines as well as social sciences. this idea can be used to categorize, describe, and understand the data. it can also be used as a methodology for putting advanced criteria for the experiment. it could also be effective in developing local and national culture. it would be capable to bring about a unified civilization which could form a universal society that overcomes distinctive cultural, regional, and national temperament; and establish a just and rightly guided society. it is, as a system, capable to develop a principle for a universal thought because it can deal with scientific method.” 52 5. conclusion the maqésid al-quran and the maqésid al-shariah are philosophically linked, yet distinctive. both, however, have unique theoretical foundations and domains of application. while the scope of maqésid al-shariah is restricted to a theoretical framework broadly connected to five well-known principles namely: (a) the preservation of the self; (b) the preservation of the reason; (c) the preservation of the religion; (d) the preservation of the property; (e) and the preservation of lineage, some contemporary scholars argue that the theoretical and methodological boundaries of maqésid alshariah must be expanded. to this end, they suggest an enlarged maqésid framework namely maqésid al-quran with a broader methodological capacity and conceptual framework. this study finds out the underlying reasons behind this potential capacity of maqésid al-quran as the following: a) it represents the objectives of entire islamic discourse unlike maqésid al-shariah as its scope it limited to islamic law which is only one of the major aspects of islam; b) scholars’ identification of maqésid al-quran ranges wider conceptual framework then the maqésid al-shariah; c) while the formation maqésid al-quran theory lies on entire themes of the quran, the theory of maqésid al-shariah was developed largely based on induction of underlying wisdoms and effective causes behind the islamic laws; d) in terms of methodology, maqésid al-quran transcends the methodological capacity of maqésid al-shariah. this evolution in maqésid thought is significant because it could encourage the researchers in the field to venture into finding out the fresh understanding of maqésid issues. the implication of this fresh understanding could contribute to renewing the maqésid reasoning, 94 expansion of maqasid … building multi-disciplinary theories, expounding scope of research and assessment, and treating relevant current issues in a holistic maqésid approach. however, findings of this research are limited to explaining rationale behind scholars’ arguments and hypothesis on potential expansion of maqésid that could go further than that of the limits of maqésid al-shariah. however, this study suggests further research on conceptual framework for maqésid al-qurén, its methodological principles, and its functional universality. 6. acknowledgment this research was not funded. notes and references 1 jasser auda, maqasid al-shariah as philosophy of islamic law: a systems approach (herndon: international institute of islamic thought, 2008), 1. 2 ibid. 3 mohammad hashim kamali, "actualization (taf'il) of the higher purposes (maqasid) of shari'ah." icr journal 8, no. 3 (2017): 295-321. 4 ibid. 5 tazul islam, "the genesis and development of the maqaṣid al-qur’an’." american journal of islam and society 30, no. 3 (2013): 39-58. 6 muhammad asad, the message of the qur’an (gibraltar: dar al-andalus, 1980), 153. 7 zahwa syihab, "the innovation of al-najjar's thought in maqasid al-shari'ah." mimbar agama budaya 38, no. 1 (2021): 18-34. 8 wanto, deri, rahmad hidayat, and repelita repelita. "maqasid shariah’s change as theory: from classical to contemporary maqasid shariah." alistinbath: jurnal hukum islam 6, no. 2 (2021): 427-454. 9 ibid. 10 yusuf al-qaraìawi, kayfa nata‘amal ma‘a al-qur’an al-‘adim (qatar: markaz al-buhuth al-sunnah wa al-sirah, university of qatar, 1997). 11 hanan lahham, maqaîid al-qur’an al-karim (damascus: dar al-hanan, 2004). 12 abd al-karim hamidi, maqasid al-qur’an al-karim min tashri al-aíkam (beirut: dar ibn hazam, 2009). 13 jaser auda, maqasid al-shariah as philosophy of islamic law: a systems approach (usa: international institute of islamic thought, 2008) 16. 14 ibid, 16. 15 kamali, actualisation (taf'il), 1-27. 16 auda, maqasid al-shariah, 25. 17 ibid, 4-9. 18 taha jabir alwani, nahwa al-tajdid wa al-ijtihad (egypt: dar tanwir, 2008) 182183. 19 ibid, 183. 20 ibid, 185. 21 the holy qur'an, 42:13, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 22 abu al-qasim al-zhamakhshari, al-kasshaf fi haqaiq al-tanzil, vol. 4 (beirut: dar ihya al-turath al-arabi, 1407 ah), 215. 23 the holy qur'an, 5:48. 24 fakhar al-din al-razi, mafatih al-ghaib, vol. 27 (beirut: dar al-kutub ilmiyyah, 2000), 27. 25 the holy qur'an, 23:52. 26 the holy qur'an, 2:136. hamdard islamicus vol. xlv, no. 4 95 27 the holy qur'an, 5:48. 28 the sahih al-bukhari, 48:3443, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 29 muhammad anwar shah al-kashmiri, faidh al-bari ala sahih al-bukhari, vol.4 (lebanon: beirut, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 2005) 402. 30 badr al-din al-‘aini, ‘umdah al-qari’ fi sharh al-bukhari, vol. 16 (beirut: dar ihya al-turath al-arabi,) 36. 31 ibid. 36. 32 ahmad bin ‘ali bin hajar al-askalani, fath al-bari, vol. 6 (beirut: dar alma’rifah, 1959,) 489. 33 ahmad bin muhammad al-kastalani, irshad al-sari li sahih al-bukhari,vol.5 (egypt: al-matbaah al-kubra al-amiriyyah, 1905,) 416. 34 the sahih al-bukhari, 48:3443, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 35 ahmad bin muhammad ibn hanbal, al-aqedah (damascus: dar qutybah, 1408 a.h.) 1-123. jamal al-din aímad al-ghaznawi, kitab usul al-din (beirut: dar albshai’r al-islamiyah, 1998) 57. 36 abu hamid al-ghazali, jawaher al-qur’an, ed. rashid rida al-qabani (beirut: dar iíya al-ulum, 1985) 23. 37 abu hamid al-ghazali, al-mustaîfa fê ilm al-uîul, ed. muíammad abd al-salam abd al-shaqi (beirut: dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 1413 a.h) 174. 38 ahmad alraysuni, imam al-shaïibi’s theory of the higher objectives and intents of islamic law, tr. from arabic by nancy roberts (kuala lumpur: islamic book trust, 2006) 19. 39 abu hamid al-ghazali, the jewels of the qur’an, tr. from arabic by muhammad abul quasem (kuala lumpur: university of malaya press, 1977) 23. 40 al-ghazali, the jewels, 26-29. 41 ibid. 33. 42 ibid. 30-32. 43 tahir ibn ashur, maqasid al-shariah al-islamiyah (beirut: dar al-lubnan, 2004) 135. 44 al-qaradawi, kayfa nat‘amal, 63. 45 muhammad rashid rida, al-waíy al-muíammadi (beirut: foundation of ‘izz aldin, 1306 h) 191. 46 muíammad abduh, fi tafsir al-quran in al-amal al-kamilah li al-imam muíammad ‘abduh, vol. 4 ed. muíammad imarah (cairo: dar al-shuruk, 1993), 23. 47 ibid. 178 48 ibid. 179 49 muhammad al-ùahir ibn ashur, al-taírir wa al-tanwir, vol.1 (tunisia: dar sahnun,1997,) 39. 50 ibid. vol.1, 40. 51 alwani, nahwa al-tajdid, 177 52 ibid. 185-209. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 101 the evolution of islamic law in indonesia: a socio-historical perspective on its struggle for existence achmad irwan hamzani faculty of law, universitas pancasakti tegal, indonesia email: al_hamzani@upstegal.ac.id soesi idayanti faculty of law, universitas pancasakti tegal, indonesia email: soesi_idayanti@upstegal.ac.id received on: 05-01-24 accepted on: 06-03-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.891 abstract throughout indonesia’s history, legal battles have been ongoing since the dutch colonial era, with three distinct legal systems asserting their presence. among these, islamic law holds significance within indonesia’s legal framework. this study aims to outline the historical struggle of islamic law in establishing its place within national legislation. employing a sociological approach, the research delves into the narrative of islamic law’s struggle, utilizing secondary data and employing narrative analysis to chronologically recount its journey. findings reveal that islamic law has deep historical roots in indonesia, functioning as a living legal tradition since the advent of islam in the region. despite being abolished by dutch colonial rule, islamic law persisted and continues to influence both written and unwritten aspects of indonesian law. post-independence, indonesia largely adopted the legal policies of its colonial predecessors, further cementing the presence of islamic law within its legal framework. today, islamic law remains recognized within national legislation, serving as a filter for legal materials and contributing to the formation of indonesian law. keywords: contribution, legal development, criminal law, islamic criminal law, national. mailto:al_hamzani@upstegal.ac.id mailto:soesi_idayanti@upstegal.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i1.891 102 the evolution of islamic law … 1. introduction the legal conflict in indonesia has persisted from the colonial era under dutch rule to the present day. the current legal landscape encompasses three main components: customary law, islamic law, and western law, which was inherited from the dutch colonial period. throughout indonesia’s legal evolution, islamic law has continuously vied for recognition and influence, asserting itself in both written and unwritten forms across diverse fields and legal contexts. islamic law has been present in indonesia since islam first arrived in the archipelago. as the local populace embraced islam, the application of islamic law became integrated into the fabric of social order. these norms and legal principles served as guiding principles for societal conduct. through ongoing social interactions, islamic law gradually became entrenched and evolved into a structured legal system within indonesian society.1. even after the kingdoms in the archipelago turned into islamic kingdoms, islamic law was officially applied by the state in various aspects. the existence of islamic law experienced a struggle after the arrival of the dutch who colonized the archipelago. the dutch not only controlled politically and economically but also enforced the laws they brought. at first, it only applied to the colonizers, and then it was forced to apply to the colonized people. after indonesia’s independence, the legal policy did not change. legally, independent indonesia was only a transfer of power from the colonizers to the natives. customary law, islamic law, and the law of the dutch heritage still apply today2. as a result of legal policies that continued the tradition during the colonial period, islamic law was more a law that lived in a society in various aspects than what was valid as positive law3. how alive islamic law is can be seen from the many questions that people ask through magazines and newspapers to be answered by a cleric or those who understand islamic law. islamic community organizations also publish a collection of fatwas that discuss islamic law. numerous scholarly works have endeavoured to delve into the rich reservoir of islamic legal theories for comparative analysis with western legal theories. these explorations involve examining jurisprudence from both western and islamic legal traditions. the theoretical contestation in shaping national law hinges on the capacity of these two legal systems to furnish a comprehensive theoretical framework, tailored to the indonesian context.4. the national legal framework encompasses various dimensions. drawing on lawrence m. friedman’s perspective from hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 103 1975, it can be distilled into three key components: legal substance, legal structure, and legal culture.5. the official legal doctrine does not explicitly state that islamic law serves as both a foundation of national law and an exemplar of positive law. nonetheless, it is undeniable that islamic law has significantly contributed to the advancement of national legal principles.6. indonesia has inherited the continental european legal tradition (civil law), which prioritizes law-making activities over lawenforcing activities. this tradition also subscribes to the notion and doctrine of legal fiction, which assumes that once a legal norm is established, everyone is deemed to be aware of it, supported by the principle of equality before the law. as indonesia evolves as a legal state, including its legal development, it becomes imperative to examine the incorporation of islamic law within indonesian legislation. the presence of islamic law in indonesia enriches the existing legal framework, potentially giving rise to further laws and regulations rooted in islamic principles. the implementation of islamic law in indonesia hinges on the understanding and awareness of indonesian muslims, who serve as advocates for its enforcement, adapting to contemporary conditions and circumstances.7. as a nation with a predominantly muslim population, indonesia has a rich historical background in the application of islamic law. the practice of islamic law varies across different levels of government due to disparities in legal policies. prior to dutch colonial rule, islamic law prevailed among muslims, bolstered by support from islamic kingdoms. the colonial government’s approach to islamic law fluctuated, oscillating between accommodation and confrontation. following indonesia's independence, the position of islamic law strengthened, ensuring every citizen’s right to religious freedom and the practice of religious law. from the new order era to the reformation period, the prominence of islamic law increased, albeit primarily within the realms of civil and islamic economic spheres.8. numerous studies, conducted through seminars, workshops, and research endeavours, aim to replace the enduring western laws inherited from dutch colonial rule that remain in force to this day.. western law is often justified not by the nation’s culture. moreover, the values of freedom, capitalism, and hedonism which are very deep and are often justified are not in the national culture. these colonial 104 the evolution of islamic law … legal products shape the character of the community and damage the mentality of the community, eventually shifting the religious and cultural values of the indonesian people9. 2. literature review 2.1. islamic law terms islamic law can be understood as a set of rules or norms that regulate human behaviour in a society that originates from the teachings of the islamic religion. islam itself is a religion that was revealed by allah almighty to the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). islamic religious teachings come from the holy qur’én and ×adêth. thus, islamic law also comes from the holy qur’én and ×adêth with all their interpretations. josepch scahcht defines; “islamic law as a collection of religious rules, the totality of allah’s commands, which regulates the behaviour of muslim life in all its aspects, consisting of laws regarding worship, rituals, political, criminal, civil and legal regulations in general. “the basics of islamic law were further explained and detailed by the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). islamic law is found in the holy qur’én and ×adêth/sunnah10. discussing islamic law from the theoretical perspective of legal science requires limiting the discussion between sharê‘ah (شریعہ) , fiqh )فقہ( , and qénën there is an opinion that all . )قانون( islamic teachings found in the holy qur’én and ×adêth are islamic law. this broad understanding of the study of law will be difficult. islamic sharê‘ah in a legal context should be limited to the verses of the holy qur’én and ×adêth which explicitly contain legal rules in them. it also needs to be distinguished from the rules of ‘aqêdah as fundamental norms, or moral rules. referring to (beliefs))عقیدہ( abdul wahhab al-khallaf's opinion, the legal rules in islamic law, both in the field of worship and in the field of mu‘amalah ( معاملہ) 228 verses of the holy qur’an, or around 3 percent of the total verses of al-khallaf. the formulation of legal rules relating to society, such as politics, economics, business, and social matters, is still general11. the areas of law regulated in detail in the verses of the holy qur’én are only limited to the areas of marriage and inheritance law. specifically in the criminal field, various criminal offenses and types of sanctions are also formulated, which are categorized as íudëd qiîéî-diyat , )حدود( and ta‘zêr , دیت()قصاص . )تعزیر( hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 105 islamic religious teachings contain legal aspects that can be referred to the sources of islamic teachings themselves, namely the holy qur’én and ×adêth. muslims in carrying out their daily lives, both as individuals, family members, and members of society, are aware that there are legal aspects that regulate life that need to be obeyed and carried out12. how much awareness there is depends on the composition of the size of the muslim community, how far islamic teachings are believed by individuals and society, and to what extent the influence of social and political institutions is in paying attention to the implementation of islamic teachings and its laws in society. islamic law is a system that is the rule of allah almighty and is revealed to control society, not be controlled by society. islamic law is seen as far from evolution as a historical phenomenon that is closely related to the progress of society, so that the provisions of islamic law are permanent, such as the prohibition of gambling, samesex marriage, drinking and prostitution will forever be íarém ( حرام), even though in one area prostitution is considered a legal profession, gambling considered as one of the country’s foreign exchange sources, or drinking alcohol in an area is considered a necessity to get rid of the cold, and same-sex marriage (homo or lesbi) is a real phenomenon. it is completely different from law in general which is controlled by society and was born as a historical phenomenon related to the dynamics of society13, so the cases above can be prohibited and can also be legal, considering the real conditions of society. 2.2. development of islamic law as a law that originates from the teachings of the islamic religion, the development of islamic law is certainly the development of prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), during the time of his companions, the imams of the popular madhhab )مذہب(, until now it has spread to various corners of the world. the history of the development of the islamic religion in a country is different, and the style of islamic law in each country is also different. normatively, islamic law was initially revealed to answer historical demands. this can be seen in the historical sketch of inheritance law. before islam was revealed, arab society knew an inheritance system based on blood ties, agreements, and the adoption or adoption of children. from the beginning of islam until the hijrah event, these three basic principles of inheritance were still in effect with several revisions, coupled with the hijrah and the bonds of brotherhood between the muhajirên and anîér \ )انصار / .)مہاجرین blood ties, which were originally limited to inheritance only being given to male and adult family members, islam reformed by giving 106 the evolution of islamic law … equal rights to all heirs, men and women, adults and children, even including babies still in the womb14. there are two debatable mainstreams, whether islamic law is god’s blueprint or the result of social engineering when faced with legal problems that arise in society15. the constitutionalist-literalist circles emphasized contextual understanding to answer contemporary problems which became known as ahl al-hadîths . other groups prioritize contextual understanding, known as the ahl al-ra'y اہل( school. however, this division is not permanent, because in الرائے( practice some take a compromise path by synthesizing hadith and ra'y16. habits (‘urf) )عرف( that occur repeatedly in society and are considered good are also adopted as legal norms with the term al‘éddah al-muhékamah )العادہ المحاکمہ(. however, the new ‘urf can be accepted after going through strict selection, and it is declared that it does not conflict with the basic ideas of the holy qur’én and sunnah. the rule of al-‘éddah muhékamah, which is almost unanimously accepted by all schools of law, is a rule used to justify legal practices that are considered positive in society. because of the intellectual work process, various schools of thought formulators introduced their respective ijtihéd )اجتہاد( methodologies. these methods are qiyés istiísân ,)قیاس( )استحسان( , istiîhlah (al-maîlaíat al-mursalah) المصلحۃ( sadd al-zâri'ah ,المرسلہ( الذریعہ( )سد , and istishhâb al-aîl استشھاب( االصل( 17. 2.3. islamic law in today’s world criminal law is one area of islamic law that has mostly been superseded by contemporary law. the process by which islamic law was transferred to western legal paradigms in islamic countries or those where the predominant population is muslim began with colonization. during the 18th and 19th centuries, western nations primarily conquered islamic nations. colonial nations were compelled to abide by the laws of their parent nation. some muslim nations, like those in the middle east, went back to applying islamic criminal law in public life after gaining independence and the ability to enact their own legal systems. others, like brunei, malaysia, and indonesia, which inherited english law and dutch law, are still operating under the colonial legal system. generally speaking, islamic nations or nations where the majority population practices islam can be divided into three broad categories when it comes to applying islamic law: first, those nations that customarily follow islamic law. saudi arabia, yemen, bahrain, qatar, the united arab emirates, and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 107 kuwait are the nations that make up this group. as of october 22, 2013, brunei darussalam has been operating under islamic law, as per case order number 83 (3) published in the royal gazette of brunei darussalam. these nations implement islamic law according to different or specific madhhab approaches. the legal framework of islam is based on the holy qur'an and hadith, as well as the opinions of ulama found in collections of fatwas and fiqh literature. in particular, brunei darussalam has created a codification of islamic criminal law called qanun jinéyat )جنایت(which contains ḥudud, qiîéî and ta‘zêr. before the arrival of the british in brunei darussalam and making brunei under their colony, the sultanate of brunei already had islamic legal rules in the form of qanun and resan which were based on the holy qur’én and sunnah in the 15th and 16th centuries ad until they were finally replaced by the british government18. second, nations that apply updated versions of some aspects of islamic law. egypt, sudan, jordan, syria, tunisia, morocco, algeria, lebanon, iran, iraq, libya, pakistan, afghanistan, bangladesh, malaysia, and indonesia are the nations that make up this group. these nations first combine several schools of thought (in egypt, for example, the íanafi and shéfi‘ê schools) to revise the islamic legislation that will be put into effect. some even combine it with western law and make use of western administrative and legal customs. only in the area of family law does indonesia apply islamic law in addition to western and customary law. later, it extended to the banking industry in particular.19. third, nations where islamic law is not enforced. this group includes turkiye and nations where muslims constitute a minority. in every area, turkiye has rejected islamic law and adopted western law. in actuality, entire islamic law—which was founded on the fanafi school of thought—was put into place during the ottoman caliphate era. the ottoman caliphate and islamic law were abolished as a result of the political revolution led by musthafa kamal. french law was heavily imported to supplant islamic law, beginning with the importation of the criminal, civil, and trade codes. the new law was implemented by creating a secular justice system.20. turkiye gradually reverted to its islamic identity when the governmental power structure, which had been dominated by islamists until recently, shifted. laws that run counter to islamic law are beginning to be repealed, such as the one that forbids muslim women from working in government organizations.21. from a sociological perspective, islamic law’s continued existence gives the islamic community optimism because it serves as a basis for national law. according to research by the gallup world poll, up to 79% of muslims in ten countries where muslims make up 108 the evolution of islamic law … the majority want islamic criminal law to be used as a source of legislation; some even want it to be implemented completely. lebanon, malaysia, turkiye, indonesia, iran, morocco, egypt, pakistan, jordan, bangladesh are the nations under study. there have also been attempts to impose islamic criminal law locally in the aceh region, particularly in indonesia.22. 3. research methods 3.1. types of research this kind of study is done at libraries. research conducted through the examination of secondary data or library materials is known as library research. 23. because legal documents serve as secondary data, library research is included in this study. moreover, primary and secondary legal materials are the categories into which secondary data are divided. binding legal materials, as found in the hierarchy of laws and regulations, are primary legal materials. on the other hand, secondary legal documents are those that offer justifications for primary legal materials, like draft legislation, research findings, and legal experts' scientific publications.24. the reason this study includes primary legal materials is that it cites a number of pertinent laws and regulations. because it cites multiple books, periodicals, and other writings, secondary legal materials are used. 3.2. research approach this study takes a sociological approach to its methodology. in legal study, the sociological method looks at the law from the perspective of reality. 25. due to its sociological methodology, this study looks at the law from the perspective of cultural reality. 3.3. data of research data the source of data used in this research is secondary data in the form of documents. secondary data is data obtained indirectly or has been provided by other parties26. the secondary data used is in the form of legal documents that are used as references to discuss the existence of islamic law in indonesia. 3.4. data collection technique online and offline searches were the method employed in this study to acquire data. locating library resources for data storage places is the task of an offline literature study. online writing, on the other hand, involves using the internet to locate library resources in cyberspace. conventional literature searches involve buying books, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 109 going to scientific events (seminars), and looking through personal journals, library resources, and book collections.27 while online search is done by searching on the internet. 3.5. data analysis method narrative analysis is the data analysis technique employed. analyzing qualitative data by narrating the tale in chronological order is called narrative analysis. 28. the history of the dynamics of islamic law in indonesia is one of the story aspects in this research, which makes use of narrative analysis. the research's findings offer valuable insights into the application of story analysis since they contain pertinent information about time, place, specifications, experience, and crucial details unrelated to context. 4. research results and discussion 4.3. history of islamic law in indonesia islamic law has long existed in indonesia. if you examine the history of law in indonesia, it cannot be denied that since centuries ago, islamic law has become the living law of society. the life of islamic law can be seen from the many questions that people ask through magazines and newspapers to be answered by a cleric or those who understand islamic law. some scholars publish questionand-answer books whose contents are questions and answers to various problems concerning islamic law. islamic mass organizations also publish books on fatwa collections that discuss islamic law. for example, nu has al-aíkémul fuqaha )الفقہاء and ,)االحکام muhammadiyah has the tarjêí )ترجیح( judgment association. ustadz hassan's book from persis, questions, and answers, was read by many people in neighbouring countries. other mass islamic organizations also have islamic law guidelines. unlike most nations in europe which are relatively homogeneous culturally, from the beginning indonesia was composed of various unrelated cultures. the disconnection is reflected that they are a sovereign nation and have an independent government. relations between them are limited to international diplomatic relations. nusantara is a collection of various nations and countries before finally becoming indonesia. the system of government in the archipelago is all in the form of a kingdom, stretching from aceh to sulawesi, the southern philippines, and ambon. java had several kingdoms and its legal system. the political power of islam can be seen in the respective models of government administration. islamic mataram, for example, 110 the evolution of islamic law … implements a triad of positions in state management, namely king, patih, and penghulu (qaði). this pattern is reflected in the development of urban planning which consists of; palaces, squares, and mosques. the title of the king of mataram is hingkang sinuhun senopati hing ngalogo sayyidin panotogomo kalipatullah (in the lord of war commander for religious affairs as substitute for the prophet muhammad)29. this adoption is a development of the theory of islamic constitutional law written by al-mawardi in his book aíkém al-sulïéniyah )السلطانیہ which states that the imamate )احکام (sulthan/caliphate) is in charge of continuing prophetic duties in maintaining religion and governing the world30. the same thing can be found in sulawesi during the islamic kingdoms such as the kingdom of gowa which was then under the rule of king tallo i malingkaang daeng manyorari who was given the title sulïén abdullah awwalul islam. the king of goa i manggarangngi daeng manrabia followed king tallo, then prime minister of the kingdom of goa, to convert to islam and was given the title sultane alauddin. this sultane alauddin later became the ancestor of the kings of makassar and bugis31. the legal system adopted follows the form of government adopted. after hindu rule in java, generally, the kingdoms in java adopted the islamic system (sultanate). likewise outside java, developed islamic kingdoms/sultanates with their islamic legal system. according to daniel s. lev, until the end of the nineteenth century, the law that was generally applicable in indonesia was islamic. there are also many similar opinions with the support of empirical studies32. lev presents several names such as raffles, marsden, and crawfurd, all three of whom are british nationals. boland and fajron (1983) also describe the islamization that occurred in minangkabau and aceh's history up to 150033. raffles (1978) also conducted a study in java and concluded that the applicable laws were islamic law and customary law34. based on this fact, subsequent developments gave birth to the reception in complexu theory that law follows a religion. based on this data, several experts concluded that the law in force in the archipelago at that time was islamic. islamic law is formally enforced through the judiciary under various names. there is the penghulu court in java and madura, the syar'iyah court in sumatra, the qaði court in the sultanate of banjar and pontianak. islamic law in all its fields has also been codified in law books. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 111 just an example; nuruddin al-raniri wrote the book øiréï almustaqêm )صراط المستقیم( which was used by the people of aceh and kalimantan to solve legal problems, and was written according to the shéfi‘ê school. furthermore, the book øiréï al-mustaqêm spread to all islamic kingdoms in the archipelago. syaikh muhammad arsyad albanjari, a mufti in banjarmasin, expanded the discussion of the book øiréï al-mustaqêm and gave it the title sabêl al-muhtadên )سبیل المہتدین( the book of sabêl al-muhtadên is used as a guide in resolving disputes among muslims in the sultanate of banjar and surrounding areas. in addition, in palembang, there is also a book of criminal law called the simbur cahaya book, and in demak there is the serat angger-angger suryangalam and serat suryangalam which are normative collections of criminal and civil rules. it is stated in the serat angger-angger suryangalam that the law in force in the kingdom of demak is based on islamic law by adhering to the holy qur'én and hadith. this is mentioned in the preamble and sometimes reaffirmed elsewhere by a different editor; "“sang ratu puniko dene anrapaken ukumullah” “dosane tan anglakokan sak pakeme aksarane, angowahi sapangandikaning allah tangala, kang tinimbalaken dawuhing kangjeng nabi kito mukammad salalu ngalaihi wasalam” (this country applies the laws of allah almighty, breaking this rule is a violation of the rules by allah almighty and the sunnah/hadith of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)35. the serat angger-angger suryangalam contains provisions of islamic criminal law originating from the books of anwar and iqna, by the formulation concept of prince adipati ngadilaga (senopati jinbun or raden fatah) as outlined in the act by raden arya trenggono (sulthan demak iii) who at that time still serving as a prosecutor. this law was later referred to as the undang-undang jawa suryangalam (java suryangalam law). the manuscript was written in latin by brandes in 1934 and is still in javanese according to the original. the preamble to the java suryangalam law states that in the aripullah palace, adilullah country, king titi jagad of ngatasangin formed a judicial body by applying god's law. sultan then delegated the prosecutor to handle and decide legal cases based on islamic law by the teachings of the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)36. in the next section, this law regulates judicial institutions by mentioning the rules for litigation in court, duties, conditions, powers, prohibitions for prosecutors and judges, judicial procedures, and protection for suspects or defendants. witness 112 the evolution of islamic law … requirements, such as transgender women, are not allowed to be witnesses, not relatives and doubtful witnesses, and so on. it is also stated that a case can be processed in court if it meets 30 provisions, including the presence of qualified witnesses, evidence that can be accounted for, the existence of elements of harm to others, for example destroying/taking other people's goods, killing and injuring others, dispute cases buying and selling that has written evidence as well as witnesses and others. the javanese law of suryangalam or serat angger-angger suryangalam, was subsequently used as a source of law in subsequent islamic kingdoms in java, such as pajang, jepara, tuban, gresik, ngampel, and mataram37. in subsequent developments, mataram split into ngayogyakarta hadiningrat and surakarta hadiningrat. religious positions are an inseparable part of government positions in general (ali, 2008). qaði positions are held from the village level to the kingdom. qaði at the village level there is called people, amil, modin, kayim or lebai who are always sided by side with the village head. qaði at the sub-district level is called penghulu naib, at the district level it is called penghulu, and at the royal level, it is called kanjeng penghulu, penghulu ageng, or sunan (equivalent to the supreme court). qaði from the district to the royal level functions as a judge, while at the village to sub-district level it is more of a mediator38. during the demak kingdom, the position of the head of the ageng was held by sunan kalijaga whose real name was raden said. kalijaga is a nickname because he is known as a clean judge so he gets the nickname qaði-öíaka (kalijaga), which comes from arabic words which mean “clean judge”. the implementation of islamic law is also carried out by the penghulu and qaði (judges), who are appointed by the local islamic community if there is no formal political power to support the implementation of islamic law. for example in the area around batavia in the 17th century, the penghulu and qaði were recognized and appointed by the community, because this area was under the influence of dutch rule. the people who live around batavia are immigrants from all over with their variety of languages, cultures, and customary laws. there is also a community of “moors” i.e. muslim arabs and indians in addition to the muslim chinese community. these various tribes who came to batavia became the forerunners of the betawi people and generally were muslim. to get along, they choose to use the malay language. they built mosques and appointed people who mastered islamic law to handle various legal events and settle disputes between them. the customary law, which they follow in the village, is difficult to apply in batavia because the population hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 113 is diverse. they choose islamic law that can unite them in a new community39. realizing that islamic law prevailed in batavia, the dutch conducted a study of islamic law and compiled it. during the colonial period by the vereenigde oostindische compagnie (voc) or the dutch east india company, islamic law books were compiled as a guide for government officials and judges in resolving cases between muslims in the landraad (district court) known as the compendium. for example, in 1747 the compedium mogharaer code was published in semarang for the semarang district court, the compedium clootwijck (by b.j.d. clootwijk) in sulawesi in 1761 which also contained islamic criminal law. in addition, there is also the pepakem cirebon book which contains a collection of "old javanese laws", reissued by hazeu for the cirebon sultanate40. these books refer to the book muharrar by al-rafi'i (a scholar of the shéfi‘ê school who is very influential in asia). the use of the compendiums lasted until the 1800s when the voc handed over power to the dutch government. since then, with various efforts made by the dutch government, the existence of islamic criminal law has been eliminated. the colonial attitude towards islamic law began to change, although the changes were implemented slowly, but very systematically. the dutch colonial government made laws on government policy, court structure, agriculture, and trade in its colonies. this law resulted in changes in almost all areas of life and life of the dutch east indies, including the legal field which was very detrimental to islamic criminal law41. according to harry j. benda, in the 19th century, many dutch people both in their country and in the dutch east indies hoped to eliminate the influence of islamic law from the dutch east indies42. one of the ways taken is christianization on the initiative of christiaan snouck hurgronje. this hope is based on the assumption of the superiority of christianity over islam. in addition, it is based on the assumption that the syncretic nature of islam in rural java will make it easier for muslims to be christianized when compared to those in other muslim countries, especially outside java43. many dutch political experts think that the conversion of the population to christianity will benefit the netherlands because the indigenous people will feel the close relationship between their religion and the religion of their government. after they convert to christianity, they will become citizens who are loyal physically and mentally to their government44. the dutch east indies government to perpetuate its power began to carry out "conscious legal politics" against indonesia. 114 the evolution of islamic law … consciously the colonial government wanted to organize and change the legal life in indonesia with dutch law. these politics was driven by the desire to carry out the codification of the law applied in the dutch east indies with a campaign that european law was far better than the law that had been applied in indonesia45. throughout the 19th century, among jurists and cultural experts in the dutch east indies, there was an opinion that islamic law was applicable in indonesia. this opinion was expressed, among others, by salomon keyzer (1823-1868), a linguist and cultural expert, who wrote extensively on islamic law in java and even translated the holy qur'én into dutch. keyzer's opinion on the prevailing islamic law in the dutch east indies was corroborated by lodewijk williem christian van den berg (1845-1927). according to berg, the law follows one's religion. if that person embraces islam, islamic law applies to him. because of his opinion, to make it easier for dutch east indies government officials to recognize islamic law prevailing in society, in 1844 berg wrote the principles of islamic law according to the ×anafi and shéfi‘ê teachings. because of his opinion, berg is also called the person who discovered and demonstrated the enactment of islamic law in indonesia. indonesian muslims have received islamic law in its entirety and as a unit or receptio in complexu. that is, what is accepted by indonesian muslims is not only the parts of islamic law but the whole as a unit, including the criminal field46. the style of islamic law adopted is the shéfi‘ê madhhab. this is indicated by the books that were used as references in the absorption of islamic law into the books that were enforced in the islamic sultanate. fiqh books, which were previously used as references, are still studied in islamic boarding schools today. 4.4. the existence of islamic law in the struggle of the national legal system islamic law has persisted in indonesia throughout the country's legal conflict. islamic law consistently fortifies its position in a variety of domains and legal procedures, both as written and unwritten law. there are four ways in which islamic law is present in national law: a. as an integral part of indonesian national law; b. their independence, strength, and authority are recognized by national law and given status as national law; c. as a filter for indonesian national law materials; and d. as a material and element for the formation of national law. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 115 national law incorporates islamic law. one could argue that islamic law is a part of the national legal framework. islamic law, as a subsystem, has significantly aided in raising indonesians' legal consciousness. given that muslims make up the majority of indonesia's population, this makes sense.47. the post-independence indonesian constitution's treatment of islamic law can be split into two phases: the first is when islamic law was accepted as a persuasive source, and the second is when islamic law was accepted as an authoritative source, or as a source with legally binding authority over indonesian constitutional law. in the wake of these events, the indonesian government implemented a legal politics program that, to some extent, granted muslim wishes. this is seen by the government's adoption of numerous legislation and regulations that establish islamic law as positive law. for instance, the establishment of the syar'iyyah court or the affirmation of the status of the islamic courts (religion) occurred in 1957.48. the substance of the law in general regulates human actions and behaviour as a whole, both related to god, fellow humans, and the universe. the part of the islamic law that regulates human relations with god is called the field of ritual worship (worship mahdhah). while the part of the islamic law that regulates human relations with humans, humans with objects, and nature is called muamalah (worship of ghair maghdhah). the parts of islamic law as a whole can be grouped into 7 (seven) areas, namely: a. laws related to the worship of allah, such as prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, "zakat", purification from hadats, and so on. this section is called the law of worship; b. laws relating to the order of family life, such as in the family, inheritance, obligations of children to their parents, and so on. this section is called family law (ahwal al-syakhshiyah); c. laws relating to social life in society regarding materials and rights as well as dispute resolution such as sale and purchase agreements, leases, debts, pledges, grants, waqf )وقف(, hadiyah and so on. this section can be called the law of mu‘émalah , )ہدیہ( ;(in a narrow sense))معاملہ( d. laws relating to the life of the state, such as the appointment of the head of state/government, the relationship between the ruler and the people, the rights and obligations of the ruler and the people on a reciprocal basis, the judicial system (mukhéîamah) and so on. this section is called aíkém al-sulïéniyah or )مخاصمہ( siyasah al-syar'iyah which includes matters discussed in state administration and governance; 116 the evolution of islamic law … e. laws relating to criminal matters such as types of criminal acts and criminal threats, criminal liability issues, and so on. this section is called criminal law (al-jinayah); f. the laws that regulate relations between islamic countries and other countries, which consist of foreign relations, war and so on. this section is called foreign law (aíkém al-dauliyah or alsair))احکام الدولیہ / سیر(; and g. laws relating to character, propriety, good and bad values, such as strengthening brotherly relations, reconciling people who are in dispute, and so on. this section is called morals or manners (al-adab).49 )االدب( some of these areas of islamic law have now been applied in indonesia, all of which are in the fields of worship, family, and property. in detail, the areas of islamic law currently in force in indonesia are as follows: no. field scope legal basis for applicability 1 ritual worship prayer, fasting, hajj, guarantee of halal products culturally applicable 2 family law marriage, inheritance applicable through regulations 3 philontrophy waqf, grants, zakat, infaq, shadaqah applicable through regulations 4 sharê‘ah economics sharê‘ah banking, sharê‘ah insurance applicable through regulations table 1. fields of islamic law applicable in indonesia currently the application of some of these fields of islamic law in indonesia is through the legitimacy of laws and regulations. the characteristics of indonesian islamic law are more dominantly colored by arab personalities (arab-oriented) and are more closely related to the traditions of the shéfi‘ê school. this can be seen from the reference books used by scholars who mostly use the books of shéfi‘iyyah fiqh. this condition is also seen in the formulation of the compilation of islamic law which has a shéfi‘ê pattern. methodologically, the scholars mostly use the books of uîul al-fiqh )اصول الفقہ( written by the scholars of the shéfi‘ê school. even though the suggestion of al-fiqh from the shéfi‘ê school, especially what is taught in many traditional pesantren, the discussion has only reached the issue of qiyés. another weakness is that the books are hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 117 written in a foreign language (arabic) with a legal background adopted by the author. justice seekers may adhere to different legal schools. this characteristic causes the study of islamic law to experience a dogmatic and relativistic tendency at the same time. the consequences then lead to stagnation in the field of islamic legal scholarship, which will give birth to scientific conservatism of islamic law which can lead to radicalism and anarchism50. the substance or material of islamic law developed in indonesia is new to family law (aíwél al-syakhsiyyah) as the marriage law was first published in 1974 (cammack, young, & heaton, 1996)51. until now, the competence of the religious courts is only authorized to handle cases of marriage, inheritance, wills, grants, waqf, zakat, inféq, îadaqah, and islamic economics. islamic law related to jinéyah has so far been limited to studies, and even then it has not developed52. the islamic community also internalizes the practice of islamic law in the frame of local wisdom as a reality that lives and grows in society. local wisdom is heavily influenced by islamic values. during the reformation period, local wisdom was revitalized, to adapt to global developments and global philosophy of life as well as for strengthening national identity. this study also emphasizes the importance of islamic law in the development of local wisdom, local wisdom must be seen as part of the law that lives in society and has an existence in indonesia53. the dynamics of islamic law in indonesia is a portrait of the dialectic of muslims in facing their era. the contribution of islamic law to the legal development system in indonesia is quite developed in line with the challenges of increasingly complex legal problems of the times. this new problem has never been found in legal books written by previous mujtahids so the scholars reinterpreted it so that islamic law is more actual and can respond to the times with the development of the benefit of society. this effort is known as the actualization of islamic law. the indonesian legal system is plural. until now several legal systems have their style and structure54. there is a strong tendency that islamic law is expected to be a source of positive state law, as a form of government accommodation for muslims on the one hand. muslims also need direction in the form of the rule of law to maintain their islamic acknowledgment, both in formal legality and material legality based on the law, as well as the need for transformation of muslim awareness of islamic identity55. if this tendency is related to the 118 the evolution of islamic law … problem of legal effectiveness, there is hope that by being appointed as state law, islamic law will have a strong binding force to be obeyed by people who are muslim. even though formally, in certain regulatory aspects, islamic law has not been used as a legal reference in the state. 5. conclusion based on the discussion above, it can be concluded that islamic law has long existed in indonesia and has been a living law in society since the arrival of islam to the archipelago. islamic law has built public legal awareness. the existence of islamic law to this day still exists, both written (certain parts) and unwritten, and is part of national law. islamic law was implemented in the archipelago before it was finally annulled by the dutch colonialists. after indonesia's independence, islamic law was again applied, but only limited to family law such as marriage, inheritance, philanthropy, and recently sharê‘ah economics. islamic law has existed throughout the history of legal struggles in indonesia. islamic law has always strengthened its existence both as written and unwritten law in various fields and legal practices even though it is very limited. until now, islamic law has been part of national law in indonesia and has contributed a lot to building legal awareness in indonesian society. 6. declarations acknowledgements the author would like to thank the faculty of law, universitas pancasakti tegal, which has provided funding for this research. all authors contributed to this research according to their respective assignments. funding source this research was funded by the faculty of law universitas pancasaktitegal. notes and references 1yudho taruno muryanto, et.al., prospects and challenges of islamic fintech in indonesia: a legal viewpoint, international journal of law and management, 64 (2), 2022, p. 239-252. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlma-07-2021-0162 2muhammad hifdil islam, “islamic law in indonesia (tradition, thought, political law and legal products)”, asy-syari’ah, 4 (1), 2018, p. 31–50. https://ejournal.inzah.ac.id/index.php/assyariah/article/view/100 3gideon lipson, “on the development of custom as a source of law in islamic law”, islamic law and society, 4 (2), 1997, p. 131–155. https://brill.com/view/journals/ils/4/2/article-p131_1.xml 4lina kushidayati, “the development of islamic law in indonesia”, qudus international journal of islamic studies, 1 (2), 2013, p. 163–180. https://journal.iainkudus.ac.id/index.php/qijis/article/view/185/192 https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=yudho%20taruno%20muryanto https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1754-243x https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlma-07-2021-0162 https://ejournal.inzah.ac.id/index.php/assyariah/article/view/100 https://brill.com/view/journals/ils/4/2/article-p131_1.xml https://journal.iainkudus.ac.id/index.php/qijis/article/view/185/192 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 119 5 lawrence m. friedman, the legal system; a social science perspective, russel sage foundation, 1975. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/9781610442282 6tody sasmitha jiwa utama, between adat law and living law: an illusion of customary law incorporation into indonesia penal syste, the journal of legal pluralism and unofficial law, 53 (2), 2021, p. 269-289. https:// doi.org/10.1080/07329113.2021.1945222. 7robert w. hefner, whatever happened to civil islam? islam and democratisation in indonesia, 20 years on, asian studies review , 43 (3), 2019, p. 375-396. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10357823.2019.1625865. doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2019.1625865 8g. libson, on the development of custom as a source of law in islamic law: alrujū’u ilā al-’urfi ahadu al-qawā’idi al-khamsi allatī yatabannā ’alayhā al-fiqhu. islamic law and society, 4 (2), 1997, p. 131–155. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568519972599770. 9hajed a. alotaibi & francis d. boateng, the challenges of execution of islamic criminal law in developing muslim countries: an analysis based on islamic principles and existing legal system, 7 (1), 2021, p. 1-13. https://doi/epdf/10.1080/23311886.2021.1925413 10 havis aravik, achmad irwan hamzani, and ahmad tohir. "islamic law in historical perspective; a critical study of joseph schacht's thought." jurnal studi islam indonesia (jsii) 1 (2), 2023, p. 271-284. https://doi.org/10.61930/jsii.v1i2.408 11jamsath, ahamedsha ahamed. "khass in the principles of jurisprudence: an applied research based on modern study." turan-sam 14, (55) 2022, p. 279294.. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1065141 12 oussama arabi, "studies in modern islamic law and jurisprudence." in studies in modern islamic law and jurisprudence. brill, 2021. 13 wael b. hallaq, law and legal theory in classical and medieval islam. routledge, 2022. https://books.google.co.id/books?hl=en&lr=&id=7pdbeaaaqbaj&oi 14achmad irwan hamzani, hukum islam dalam sistem hukum di indonesia, jakarta: kencana, 2020. https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj& redir_esc=y 15 george maksidi. religion, law and learning in classical islam. routledge, 2022.https://books.google.co.id/books?hl=en&lr=&id=7vdbeaaaqbaj&oi= 16achmad irwan hamzani, hukum islam dalam sistem hukum di indonesia, jakarta: kencana, 2020. https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj& redir_esc=y 17 jasser auda, maqasid al-shari'ah as philosophy of islamic law. international institute of islamic thought (iiit), 2022. https://books.google.co.id/books?hl=en&lr=&id=esigeaaaqbaj&oi= 18chokri kooli, "review of assisted reproduction techniques, laws, and regulations in muslim countries." middle east fertility society journal 24 (1), 2020, p. 1-15. https://mefj.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43043-019-0011-0 19 ihsan yilmaz, "muslims, sacred texts, and laws in the modern world." handbook of contemporary islam and muslim lives, 2021, p. 19-37.https ://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-32626-5_5 20 abdullahi ahmed an-na’im, "islam, islamic law and the dilemma of cultural legitimacy for universal human rights 1." in asian perspectives on human rights, p. 31-54. routledge, 2021. 21 syed magfur ahmad, and abdullah al mamun. "opportunities of islamic fintech: the case of bangladesh and turkey." cenraps journal of social sciences 2 (3), 2020, p. 412-426. https://doi.org/10.46291/cenraps.v2i3.39 22 achmad irwan hamzani, hukum islam dalam sistem hukum di indonesia, jakarta: kencana, 2020. https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj& redir_esc=y https://www.tandfonline.com/author/utama%2c+tody+sasmitha+jiwa https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07329113.2021.1945222 https://www.tandfonline.com/author/hefner%2c+robert+w https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/casr20 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10357823.2019.1625865 https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2019.1625865 https://www.tandfonline.com/author/alotaibi%2c+hajed+a https://www.tandfonline.com/author/boateng%2c+francis+d https://doi/epdf/10.1080/23311886.2021.1925413 https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y 120 the evolution of islamic law … 23sutrisno hadi, metodelogi research, yogyakarta: gadjah mada universiti press, 1990. https://opac.perpusnas.go.id/detailopac.aspx?id=310475 24ali zaenudin, metodologi penelitian hukum, jakarta: pt. raja grafindo persada, 2017. https://books.google.co.id/books/about/metode_penelitian_hukum.html?id=y_qre aaaqbaj&redir_esc=y 25 achmad irwan hamzani, tiyas vika widyastuti, nur khasanah, and mohd hazmi mohd rusli. "legal research method: theoretical and implementative review." international journal of membrane science and technology 10 (2), 2023, p. 3610-3619. doi:10.15379/ijmst.v10i2.3191 26 achmad irwan hamzani, tiyas vika widyastuti, nur khasanah, and mohd hazmi mohd rusli. "legal research method: theoretical and implementative review." international journal of membrane science and technology 10 (2), 2023, p. 3610-3619. doi:10.15379/ijmst.v10i2.3191 27 achmad irwan hamzani, tiyas vika widyastuti, nur khasanah, and mohd hazmi mohd rusli. "legal research method: theoretical and implementative review." international journal of membrane science and technology 10 (2), 2023, p. 3610-3619. doi:10.15379/ijmst.v10i2.3191 28 achmad irwan hamzani, tiyas vika widyastuti, nur khasanah, and mohd hazmi mohd rusli. "legal research method: theoretical and implementative review." international journal of membrane science and technology 10 (2), 2023, p. 3610-3619. doi:10.15379/ijmst.v10i2.3191 29haposan siallagan & otong syuhada, the role of pancasila in the formation of national and regional regulations, journal of law and sustainable development, 11 (3), 2023, p. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.55908/sdgs.v11i3.711. 30ali bin muhammad al-başri al-mawardi, t.th. ahkam al-sulthaniyah, surabaya: syirkah bangil indah, t.th. 31tody sasmitha jiwa utama, between adat law and living law: an illusion of customary law incorporation into indonesia penal syste, the journal of legal pluralism and unofficial law, 53 (2), 2021, p. 269-289. https://doi.org/10.1080/07329113.2021.1945222 32 daniel s. lev, islamic courts in indonesia : a study in the political bases of legal institutions, california: university of california press, 1972. https://opac.perpusnas.go.id/detailopac.aspx?id=939634 33b.j. bolan & i. farjon, islam in indonesia; a bibliographical survey, holand: foris publication, 1984. itinerario , 11 , ( 2) 1987, p. 125 – 126. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/s016511530001559x 34t.s. raffles, the history of java, vol. ii, london: oxford university press, 1978. https://archive.org/details/historyjava02raffgoog 35naili anafah, “legislasi hukum islam di kerajaan demak; studi naskah serat angger-angger suryagalam dan serat suryagalam”, ringkasan disertasi, semarang: program pascasarjana iain walisongo, 2013. https://eprints.walisongo.ac.id/id/eprint/3471/ 36naili anafah, “legislasi hukum islam di kerajaan demak; studi naskah serat angger-angger suryagalam dan serat suryagalam” … 37t.e. behrend, katalog induk naskah-naskah nusantara musium sono budoyo, yogyakarta: djambatan, 1990. https://opac.perpusnas.go.id/detailopac.aspx?id=359856 38herry m. polontoh & yantje liauw, constructing state law amid local laws: a shift in the paradigm of legal transformation, journal of law and sustainable development, 11 (3), 2023, p. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.55908/sdgs.v11i2.429. 39harwis alimuddin, tahani asri maulidah, implication of local wisdom in islamic law compilation legislation, mazahibuna: jurnal perbandingan mazhab, 3 (2) 2021, p. 142-158. https:// doi: https://doi.org/10.24252/mh.v3i2.24982. 40achmad irwan hamzani, hukum islam dalam sistem hukum di indonesia, jakarta: kencana, 2020. https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj& redir_esc=y. https://opac.perpusnas.go.id/detailopac.aspx?id=310475 https://books.google.co.id/books/about/metode_penelitian_hukum.html?id=y_qreaaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.id/books/about/metode_penelitian_hukum.html?id=y_qreaaaqbaj&redir_esc=y http://dx.doi.org/10.15379/ijmst.v10i2.3191 http://dx.doi.org/10.15379/ijmst.v10i2.3191 http://dx.doi.org/10.15379/ijmst.v10i2.3191 http://dx.doi.org/10.15379/ijmst.v10i2.3191 https://doi.org/10.55908/sdgs.v11i3.711 https://www.tandfonline.com/author/utama%2c+tody+sasmitha+jiwa https://opac.perpusnas.go.id/resultlistopac.aspx?pdataitem=lev,%20daniel%20s&ptype=author&plembarkerja=-1&ppilihan=author https://opac.perpusnas.go.id/detailopac.aspx?id=939634 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario file:///d:/data/publikasi/jurnal/rencana%20artikel%202023/al%20hamzani-pergulatan%20hukum%20islam/cogent%20social%20sciece/11%20  file:///d:/data/publikasi/jurnal/rencana%20artikel%202023/al%20hamzani-pergulatan%20hukum%20islam/cogent%20social%20sciece/%202)  https://doi.org/10.1017/s016511530001559x https://eprints.walisongo.ac.id/id/eprint/3471/ https://opac.perpusnas.go.id/detailopac.aspx?id=359856 https://doi.org/10.55908/sdgs.v11i2.429 https://journal3.uin-alauddin.ac.id/index.php/mjpm/article/view/24982 https://doi.org/10.24252/mh.v3i2.24982 https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no.1 121 41achmad irwan hamzani, hukum islam dalam sistem hukum di indonesia, jakarta: kencana, 2020. https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj& redir_esc=y. 42 harry j. benda, the crescent and the rising sun: indonesian islam under the japanese occupation, 1942–1945. dordrecht [etc.: foris publications, 1983. https://ardhindie.com/pdf/the-crescent-and-the-rising-sun-indonesian-islam-underthe-japanese-occupation-1942-1945 43haris maiza putra, hisam ahyani, internalization in islamic law progressive in criminal law changes in indonesia, jurnal ilmiah: al-syir’ah, 20 (1), 2022, p. 6890. http://journal.iain-manado.ac.id/index.php/jis/article/view/1861. 44andrew shandy utama, law and social dynamics of society, ijlapp: international journal of law and public policy, 3 (2), 2021, p. 107-112. https://https://doi.org/10.36079/lamintang.ijlapp-0302.26. 45mark cammack, lawrence a. young, tim heaton, legislating social change in an islamic society indonesia’s marriage law, american journal of comparative law, 44 (1), 1996, p. 45-71. https://doi.org/10.2307/840520 46harwis alimuddin, tahani asri maulidah, implication of local wisdom in islamic law compilation legislation, mazahibuna: jurnal perbandingan mazhab, 3 (2) 2021, p. 142-158. https://doi.org/10.24252/mh.v3i2.24982 47mark cammack, lawrence a. young, tim heaton, legislating social change in an islamic society indonesia’s marriage law, american journal of comparative law, 44 (1), 1996, p. 45-71. https://doi.org/10.2307/840520. 48greg barton, ihsan yilmaz, and nicholas morieson, authoritarianism, democracy, islamic movements and contestations of islamic religious ideas in indonesia, religions, 12 (8), 2021, p. 641-661. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080641 49achmad irwan hamzani, hukum islam dalam sistem hukum di indonesia, jakarta: kencana, 2020. https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj& redir_esc=y. 50suci ramadhan, islamic law, politics and legislation: development of islamic law reform in political legislation of indonesia, adhki: journal of islamic family law, 2 (1), 2020, p. 63-76. https:// doi: https://doi.org/10.37876/adhki.v2i1.35 51sardjana orba manullang, understanding the sociology of customary law in the reformation era: complexity and diversity of society in indonesia, lingcure: linguistics and culture review, 5 (s3), 2021, p. 16-26. https://doi.org/10.21744/lingcure.v5ns3.1352 52antasari, “islamic law in the legal system in indonesia”, istinbath, 15 (2), 2016, p. 89–108. https://www.istinbath.or.id/index.php/ijhi/issue/view/17 53haris maiza putra, hisam ahyani, internalization in islamic law progressive in criminal law changes in indonesia, jurnal ilmiah al-syir’ah, 20 (1), 2022, p. 6890. http://journal.iain-manado.ac.id/index.php/jis/issue/archive 54sardjana orba manullang, understanding of modern society perception on sociology of islamic law in indonesia, ijhla: international journal of humanities, literature and arts, 3 (1), 2020, p. 85-92. https:// doi: 10.31295/ijhla.v3n1.230 55d. brumberg, “islam is not the solution or the problem”, washington quarterly, 29 (1), 2005, p. 97–116. https://doi.org/10.1162/016366005774859706 https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://ardhindie.com/pdf/the-crescent-and-the-rising-sun-indonesian-islam-under-the-japanese-occupation-1942-1945 https://ardhindie.com/pdf/the-crescent-and-the-rising-sun-indonesian-islam-under-the-japanese-occupation-1942-1945 https://lamintang.org/journal/index.php/ijlapp/article/view/266 https://doi.org/10.36079/lamintang.ijlapp-0302.26 https://doi.org/10.24252/mh.v3i2.24982 https://sciprofiles.com/profile/1270210 https://sciprofiles.com/profile/1312759 https://sciprofiles.com/profile/1548986 https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080641 https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://books.google.co.id/books/about/hukum_islam.html?id=ibxydwaaqbaj&redir_esc=y https://doi.org/10.37876/adhki.v2i1.35 https://doi.org/10.21744/lingcure.v5ns3.1352 https://www.istinbath.or.id/index.php/ijhi/issue/view/17 https://www.neliti.com/journals/ijhla https://www.neliti.com/journals/ijhla https://dx.doi.org/10.31295/ijhla.v3n1.230 https://doi.org/10.1162/016366005774859706 e:\e\islamicus\2021\no. 2\islamâ•žs rahmah (compassion) as applied.pmd hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 9 islam’s ra×mah (compassion) as applied by ×aörat mu×ammad rasõlullah khótam un nabiyyên øallallóhu ‘alaihi wa ‘aló ólihi wa aø×óbihi wa øallam dr. thamaeem ushama international institute of islamic thought and civilization international islamic university malaysia, malaysia email: ushama_thameem@yahoo.co.uk received on 16-02-2021 accepted on: 01-06-2021 abstract this paper deals with raímah (compassion and mercy) as practised by prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam as an example for humanity that inspired his companions and was admired by others during his governance. qualitative content analysis1 is applied to the traditional discourse on the subject using the text of the holy qur’én and its revered exegetes, and samples were taken from the ×adêth corpus. the biography of the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam finds its relevance to the contemporary context and the need of the hour. it studies the meaning of raímah according to muslim lexicographers and its english equivalent, “compassion.” raímah as ‘ibéd al-raímén is examined as the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) extension of allah’s compassion and mercy for all creatures, emphasizing its need for peaceful coexistence and societal harmony. examples of the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) governance concerning raímah’s application to hypocrites, jews, pagans, women, slaves, servants, animals, enemies, and prisoners of war. key words: compassion, ‘ibéd al-raímén, mercy, peace, raímatun li’l-‘ólamên 1. introduction islam’s way of life is founded on revealed guidance from our creator and sustainer, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. even so, muslims face unprecedented trials as the global media vests 10 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... itself in fabrications regarding islam. many untruths are presented that ascribe intolerance and excess to muslims who, according to propagandists, lack grace and compassion. however, the truth is that islam unreservedly represents universal peace and harmony embodied in the divine concept of raímah, a notion that refers to compassion, grace, mercy and benevolence. misunderstandings or misperceptions allow islam’s enemies to speculate on islamic doctrines and present muslims as harsh, inflexible, inhuman, excessive, and opponents of peace. however, nothing could be further from the truth. moreover, islam’s contributions to civilizational development often remain unexplored and unacknowledged. its history has been deliberately reduced to back-seat status if not entirely ignored by mainstream media and state-sponsored educational venues. the worldview of authentic islam rests on cosmological truths. they are everlastingly suitable for all humankind. therefore, it is essential to study raímah as enshrined in scripture and the example of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) to understand islam’s exact way of life. we launch this discourse by analyzing the term to demonstrate the extent to which islam commands and upholds it. we first present raímah’s meaning according to muslim lexicographers and exegetes. then we look at the definition of ‘compassion’ in english dictionaries. we then discuss how prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam understood, advocated and implemented compassion with profound integrity since his age served as an example for his followers, from generation to generation. 2. the meaning of raímah to comprehend the term used in the holy qur’én, it is imperative to analyse its meaning based on authentic linguistic and lexical sources. according to ibn féris, al-rézê and al-fayrëzébédê (raímat allah ‘alaihim), raímah derives from the word, ‘ra-íamêm’, which means mildness, gentleness, forgiveness, softness, love and affection.2 similarly, ibn manðër (raímat allah ‘alaih) expressed the same connotations in his lisén al-‘arab, a well-known authentic dictionary.3 al-réghib al-iîfahénê (raímat allah ‘alaih) wrote that raímah comes from the root word, raíima, which means ‘mother’s womb’.4 it extends love and compassion by emphasizing iísén (best hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 11 attitude) towards the blessed. thus, if raímah descends from allah almighty, it means the granting of his pleasure and grace. according to hans wehr’s dictionary, raímah’s contextual amalgam merges pity, compassion, human understanding, sympathy, kindness and mercy.5 in this paper, raímah is used with these cited implications. 3. the meaning of compassion in english it is defined as follows: sympathetic pity and concern for the suffering and misfortune of others6 a strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for others’ suffering or bad luck with a desire to help7 sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress, together with a desire to alleviate their suffering8 it is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.9 if someone shows kindness, caring, and a willingness to help others, they show compassion.10 4. raímah in the holy qur’én the holy qur’én contains several verses in which raímah and its derivatives are used. we begin with sërah al-fétiíah’s use of ‘al-raímén al-raíêm’.11 both al-raímén and al-raíêm are derived as nouns taken from the word raíima (to have mercy, to be compassionate), and both have the sense of ‘one who has mercy.’12 according to ibn ‘abbés (raìi allah ‘anhu) “al-raímén al-raíêm” means: the one who feels compassion (al-raqêq), the one who treats gently (al-rafêq) whomever he wishes to be merciful towards, and who is remote and stern towards whomever he wishes to be harsh with.13 12 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... al-raímén denotes mercy for all creatures. al-raíêm represents mercy for believers.14 thus allah almighty, as al-raímén , has mercy for all creatures; whereas, as al-raíêm indicates specific compassion directed towards some creatures in every estate or some, either in this world or the next or in both.15 yusuf ali (raímat allah ‘alaih) translates the verse 2 of sërah al-fétiíah “al-raímén al-raíêm” as “most gracious and most merciful”16. maududi (raímat allah ‘alaih) interprets it as “the allcompassionate and all-merciful.”17 quïb (raímat allah ‘alaih) interprets it as “the compassionate, the merciful.” he says: “both attributes encompass all meanings and aspects of mercy and compassion and epitomize mercy as god almighty’s property. both define the link between the lord as creator and his creation. it is a link based entirely on love, peace, reassurance, and care, inspiring a spontaneous feeling of gratitude and praise towards god... unlike greek mythology or the old testament (gen 4: 1112), islam does not depict god as an enemy who pursues man with a relentless vengeance or plots and schemes against his creation with spite and vindictiveness.”18 therefore, based on these examples, we assert that, according to islam, allah almighty is undoubtedly compassionate and merciful and not a vengeful enemy of human beings. 5. ñibéd al-raímén (servants of the most compassionate) the holy qur’én contains a verse on ‘ibéd al-raímén in al-furqén: the servants of the raímén (the all-merciful, allah) are those who walk on the earth humbly, and when the ignorant people speak to them, they reply peacefully.19 quïb (raímat allah ‘alaih) interprets this as follows: “... ‘true servants’ walk gently, without affectation, pretension, or any display of arrogance. like every movement, walking is an expression of one’s personality and feelings. a serious, reassured, and sound character hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 13 demonstrates itself through its gait. a person of this type walks with an air of seriousness and reassurance, reflecting the clarity of purpose and strength.20 hence, faithful servants of mercy and compassion do not trouble themselves with criticisms, condemnations, calumny, derogations, absurdities, follies and stupidities. on the contrary, they apply peaceful, dignified, respectful and solemn approaches to their interactions, conversations, discussions and negotiations irrespective of whether they address friends or foes or believers, the rude and arrogant, or followers of irrational or superstitious belief systems, faiths or cultures. neither do they waste time and energy on futile argument and controversy? hence: “when the ignorant people speak to them, they reply peacefully.”21 however, this is not a sign of weakness. humility is politeness. dignity does not permit any waste of time and energy over what is unbecoming of the honourable.22 this verse conveys the message that humility manifests itself in two ways: 1. to those in search of knowledge, they give what they have as recipients have the capacity to assimilate. 2. to those who wish to dispute, they do not speak harshly but say, “peace!” which is to say, ‘may it be well with you, may you repent and be better; or ‘may allah give me peace from such wrangling’; or ‘peace and good-bye: let me leave you’.23 the characteristic gait of a faithful servant of the most merciful shows character and personality with humble dignity that demonstrates gentle nobility instead of arrogant pride. hence, they are easily recognized as good-natured persons who will not commit mischief.24 servants of the most merciful do not countenance vengeance when dealing with ignorant or uninformed people who behave rudely or insolently. they simply wish them ‘peace’ and turn away. the holy qur’én’s use of raímah also obliges allah’s servants to show mercy, compassion and grace for everyone without regard for vain imaginations or fabricated dogma, myth, superstition and groundless fancy. thus, compassion for all is a qur’énic dictum and takes priority in islam for the furtherance of peace for humankind. 14 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... 6. raímah in ×adêth literature numerous traditions mention raímah. we cite only a few to emphasize the significance of compassion for all others as a central islamic doctrine. abu huraira (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported it was said to allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) : invoke curse upon the polytheists, whereupon he said: ‘i have not been sent as the invoker of curses; rather, but i have been sent was sent as a mercy.’25 the messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “the people of jannah will be of three kinds: a just successful ruler, a man who shows mercy to his relatives and a pious believer who has a large family and refrains from begging.”26 the messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “the merciful are shown mercy by ar-raímén . therefore, be merciful on the earth, and you will be shown mercy from who is above the heavens…”27 allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “he is not one of us who does not have mercy upon our young, nor knows the honour of our elders.”28 allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, “allah will not be merciful to those who are not merciful to mankind.”29 allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, “you see the believers as regards their being merciful among themselves, showing love among themselves, and being kind, resembling one body, so that, if any part of the body is not well then the whole body shares the sleeplessness (insomnia) and fever with it.”30 jébir bin ‘abdulléh (raìi allah ‘anhu) narrated that the messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “whoever hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 15 does not show mercy to the people, allah will not show mercy to him.”31 7. compassion of ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam for all relations of ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam with makkah’s and madinah’s residents inspire all to consider him an unparalleled gift to humankind. his life was characterized by love, pity and compassion. the holy qur’én declares, “and we have not sent you but as a mercy for all the worlds.”32 thus, allah almighty sent ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam as raímah for all the worlds. he was treasured by all, including competitors and enemies. even modern writers who do not accept the divine origin of islam admire him. all objective, balanced and fair-minded historians agree that the conduct and character of ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam were admirable in all situations. the holy qur’én mentions raímah thirty-five times when referring to muslimên as well as mu’minên . it is used inclusively for all humankind.33 allah almighty had repeatedly demonstrated his mercy for us all by sending prophets and messengers (‘alaihim assalém) to guide each nation out of disbelief into righteousness long before ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam arrived. however, ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam was sent as raímah for everyone regardless of tribe, ethnicity or race.34 even jesus said he was sent only to the jews.35 according to al-sha‘réwê (raímat allah ‘alaih), everything islam has produced reveals blessing and compassion for humankind and every living plant, animal and creature, seen and unseen. the ‘way of life’ (islam), as ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam demonstrated, has principles and methods that regulate all matters of importance and leave nothing unguided, however large or small. 16 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... thus, ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam delivered mercy and compassion for all realms and all people: believers, non-believers, christians, jews and polytheists.36 allah’s grace is for all people, including unbelievers. ever since the prophet’s advent, allah almighty has not prescribed immediate punishment for the wrongs committed by his followers; punishment such as what happened to the people of thamëd, ‘ód, fir‘awn, or lëï.37 ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam was sent to educate and guide humanity from darkness into spiritual light as “mercy for all the worlds.”38 muslim exegetes say the merciful compassion mentioned in this verse does not refer exclusively to his companions or followers but all people.39 thus, his personality and example stand as a guiding light for all nations because his universal qualities transcend time and space. the holy qur’én states, “there is indeed a good model for you in the messenger of allah for the one who has hope in allah and the last day, and remembers allah profusely.”40 ibn kathêr (raímat allah ‘alaih) wrote that those who accept ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam as the messenger of allah would obtain sufficient success to enjoy their lives in this world and the next. on the other hand, whoever denies or denounces ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam and revelation will be degraded here and hereafter.41 the holy qur’én confirms this, saying, “have you not seen those who adopted disbelief in exchange of allah’s favour and caused their people to disembark at a land of total destruction, (which is) the jahannam. they shall enter it, and it is an evil place to dwell.”42 al-ùabarê (raímat allah ‘alaih) is of the view that there are divergent and contrasting opinions among ahl alta’wêl (scholars of exposition) regarding this verse. some agree with ibn’ abbés (raìi allah ‘anhu) that verse 107 of al-anbiy ’ reflects commission of ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam as a ‘mercy to all’; whereas others agree with ibn zayd (raímat allah ‘alaih) who contended he was sent as mercy only for believers.43 ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam was sent as a mercy for his hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 17 people and all humankind that is yet to come. according to quïb (raímat allah ‘alaih): ... the message of ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam was a manifestation of grace to his people and humanity at large. the principles he laid down sounded strange at first because humanity was then far removed from a genuinely good practical and spiritual life. after the revelation of islam’s message, humanity drew gradually closer to these principles, which then started to sound familiar, acceptable and easy to implement... numerous aspects confirm that message of ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam was a manifestation of divine grace for all of humanity ... including those who did not believe in him. all humanity has been influenced, willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly, by the code of living he outlined. this grace continues to be available in plenty for anyone who wishes to benefit from it.44 today, humanity urgently needs this grace. nevertheless, most remain in a confusing maze of materialism, endless war, and a meaningless spiritual void. according to maududi (raímat allah ‘alaih), al-anbiyé’ verse 107, which says: “we have sent you only as a blessing for the people of the world,” means that ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam was sent as a blessing and mercy from allah almighty to the entire world. he (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) aroused a neglectful world from the heedlessness of criteria that separate truth and falsehood; thus also warned all of us of impending ruin and clarified the path to salvation. disbelievers in makkah were duly informed that their view of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was in serious error. indeed, he (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was not an affliction or source of distress as they surmised when they claimed that this man has sown seeds of discord among their clans and separated near relatives from each other. on the contrary, they have been told that “o foolish people, you are wrong to presume he 18 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... is an affliction for you; he is, in reality, a blessing and mercy of allah for you.”45 when studying the life of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), we find many examples for his compassion for all regardless of gender, ethnicity or faith. thus, he secured everyone’s rights and dignity and social status in the famous charter of madinah. 8. compassion for christians history testifies that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was merciful to his companions and others, including hypocrites. however, he also never compelled others to accept islam, following allah’s command: “there is no compulsion in faith.”46 without respect for other people’s feelings and conscience, it is impossible to apply the principle of raímah. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) granted religious freedom after establishing madinah’s islamic state. muslims, christians, jews, and other groups were given guidelines on treating each other with justice to avoid bloodshed. he (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) provided many examples that could still help us resolve interreligious conflicts and establish and keep peace and harmony. these include his several treaties to ensure peaceful coexistence and security, such as the peace treaty of hudaybiyah, the treaty of ùé’if, and the treaty of najrén. the treaty of najrén declares that allah almighty’s security and the pledge of his prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) are extended to the christians of najrén and its surrounding territories for their lives, religion, and property. therefore, to the present as well as the absent, and others besides, there shall be no interference with the practice of their faith or their observance, nor any change in their rights and privileges, no bishop shall be removed from his bishopric, nor any priest from his priesthood, nor any monk from his monastery, and they shall continue to enjoy everything great and small as heretofore, no image or cross shall be destroyed, they shall not oppress or be oppressed; they shall not practice the rights of blood vengeance as in the days of ignorance, nor shall they be required to furnish provisions for the troops.47,48 likewise, other prophetic traditions also refer to the compassion of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) towards non-muslims, hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 19 particularly christians. one example concerns thuméma ibn uthél (raìi allah ‘anhu) who (before embracing islam) had killed some companions and even attempted to assassinate the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). when he was captured and brought to madinah, he was tied to a pillar in the mosque of prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam). when the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) learned this, he ordered muslims to treat him well and told his own family to bring him food. after three days, ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam forgave him and set him free. overtaken by this mercy, thuméma (raìi allah ‘anhu) embraced islam. thus, the compassion of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) transformed a fierce persecutor into a devoted servant of allah almighty.49 man, as khalêfah (vicegerent of allah on earth), receives allah’s mercy daily. both the holy qur’én and ×adêth emphasize that believers should extend this mercy to others. the prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “allah will not be merciful to those who are not merciful to mankind.”50 it explicitly means ‘without discrimination’, the lesson being that mercy is fundamental to islam. if all muslims correctly understood and practised this, then nonmuslims, religious and non-religious, would be better disposed towards islam and peaceful coexistence. if compassion and mercy became viral, then plots, conspiracies, quarrels and wars would more likely than not be ameliorated. may the world realise that it needs empathy more than anything else. the rightly-guided caliphs (al-khulafé-ur réshidën) showed compassion and tolerance towards non-muslims while ruling a multireligious society. for example, during the rule of ‘umar ibn alkhaïïéb (raìi allah ‘anhu), a christian lady from egypt complained to him about ‘amr ibn al-‘óî (raìi allah ‘anhu), who had annexed a part of her house to build an extension for a mosque. on hearing this, he offered to buy her home at double the market price to preserve the mosque intact, but she declined. without anger or resentment, the caliph ordered the demolition of the new masjid annexe and rebuilt her entire house.51 this remarkable example demonstrates the compassionate reversal of injustice and shows how leaders should respond to citizens for the sake of social peace and harmony. 20 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... 9. compassion for jews a jewish funeral procession once passed ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam , so he stopped and paid respect. then, when challenged by a companion, he said: “is he not a human being?”52 review now madinah’s constitution that accepted and recognized religions other than islam in the arabian peninsula. it has a specific clause identifying jews as a religious group: “the jews have their religion and believers have theirs.”53 this passage reflects the early attitude of nascent islam.54 the prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) implemented the constitution and never imposed any ruling that forced disbelievers to accept islam: ibn ‘abbés (raìi allah ‘anhu) said: “when the children of a woman (in pre-islamic days) did not survive, she took a vow on herself that if her child survives, she would convert it a jew. when banë an-naìêr were expelled (from arabia), there were some children of the anîér (helpers) among them. they said: we shall not leave our children. so, allah the exalted revealed, “there is no compulsion in faith. the correct way has become distinct from the erroneous.”55 the charter of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) assured jews of their rights as citizens on par with other believers. he declared: “whosoever of the jews follows us shall have aid and succour; they shall not be injured, nor any enemy be aided against them.”56 his compassion for non-muslims during his administration was exceptional. one jewish woman intended to kill him with a roasted sheep laced with poison. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) came to know that his companions (raìi allah ‘anhum) proposed to kill her on hearing it. however, the prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) forgave her. (øaíií bukhérê: 5777) ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam displayed the utmost compassion for non-muslims and did not practice segregation but was wholly righteous in all his transactions and relations. as head of state, he hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 21 visited a sick jewish boy and invited him to islam. his visit reflected his loving compassion, and the child consequently converted. (øaíií bukhérê: 1356) several jewish groups lived in madinah—banë qainuqé‘, banë al-naìêr and banë qurayðah—who provoked and caused much harm to muslims. the most mischievous was the qainuqé‘, experts in goldsmithing, blacksmithing, household instruments and weapons manufacture. they had 700 warriors and were the most audacious jews in arabia and the first to breach their covenant of non-aggression with the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). ill-mannered and unbearable, their mischief included jeering and intimidating muslim women physically in the bazaars. matters worsened, and ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam gathered them in assembly. he asked them to be sensible and decent, cautioning them against further transgressions. (sinan abu dawood: 3001) 10. compassion for pagans even though pagans had done terrible harm to muslims for years, ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam showed compassion for them. when the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam ordered bodies of infidels killed in battle to be thrown into a pit, the body of ‘utbah was dragged there. on seeing him, the face of his son, abë ×udhayfah (raìi allah ‘anhu), a muslim, turned pale with sorrow. the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam took compassion on him, after which abë ×udhayfah (raìi allah ‘anhu) said he did not question either command or fate. he knew his father was a man of forbearance and virtue and had hoped these qualities would lead him to embrace islam. ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam blessed abë ×udhayfah (raìi allah ‘anhu) and spoke to him words of kindness.57 the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) had high regard and secured the most incredible security levels for every non-muslim who paid the jizyah. it was prohibited to kill anyone holding a treaty with the nascent muslim state. 22 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... narrated ‘abdulléh bin ‘amr (raìi allah ‘anhu): the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, “whoever killed a person having a treaty with the muslims, shall not smell the smell of paradise though its smell is perceived from a distance of forty years.”58 asmé’ binti abê bakr (raìi allah ‘anha) was muslim, but her mother a polytheist. asmé’ (raìi allah ‘anha) asked the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) how to deal with her. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) had great respect for his own mother and asked asmé’ (raìi allah ‘anha) to treat her mother with respect and compassion.59 the tradition states the following: narrated asmé’ bint abê bakr (raìi allah ‘anha): my mother came to me during lifetime of allah’s (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam), and she was a pagan. i said to allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) (seeking his verdict), “my mother has come to me, and she desires to receive a reward from me. shall i keep good relations with her?” the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, “yes, keep a good relation with her.”60 11. compassion for hypocrites the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was also kind and compassionate to hypocrites. many examples were recorded. muslim narrates that thaqêf were allies of banë ‘uqail, and thaqêf captured two of the companions of allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). and the companions of the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) captured a man from banë ‘uqail, and along with him, they caught (the camel) al-aìbé’. the messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) passed by him when he was in chains. he said: ‘o muhammad!’ so, he came to him and said: ‘what is the matter with you?’ he said: ‘why did you capture me, and why did you capture the one who precedes the pilgrims (the camel)?’ he said: ‘i captured you because of the wrongdoing of your allies, thaqêf.’ then he turned away, and he called out to him, saying: ‘o muíammad!’ the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was compassionate and kind, so he came back to him hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 23 and said: ‘what is the matter with you?’ he said: ‘i am a muslim.’ he said: ‘if you had said that when you were still in control of your affairs, you would have gained every success.’ then he turned away, and he called him, saying: ‘o muíammad! o, muíammad!’ he came to him and said: ‘what is the matter with you?’ he said: ‘i am hungry, feed me, and i am thirsty, give me to drink.’ he said: ‘that is what you need,’ and he ransomed him for the two muslims.61 the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) could have taken revenge but always showed similar respect and compassion for his enemies, forever sympathizing with their distress. although a certain man who had pestered him was from banë ‘uqail, each time, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) answered his questions with humility and responded by saying, “these are your rights.”62 once, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) ordered ‘alê, abë marthad and al-zubayr (raìi allah ‘anhum) to go to rawdat khakh, where a polytheist woman carried a letter from ×éïib ibn abê balta‘ah (raìi allah ‘anhu), a muslim, to her compatriots in makkah. they found her riding a camel and asked for the note. when she said she did not have it, they made her camel kneel and searched but did not find it. they insisted, saying she would be stripped naked if need be. she gave in. they brought it to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). on hearing this, ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) said ×éïib (raìi allah ‘anhu) had committed treason and should be beheaded. instead, the prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam asked ×éïib (raìi allah ‘anhu) to explain why he did it. ×éïib (raìi allah ‘anhu) replied by saying he did not intend to give up his belief in allah almighty and his prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) but merely wanted influence among makkans so his descendants and property might be protected. he did not do this out of disbelief nor apostasy. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said ×éïib (raìi allah ‘anhu) spoke the truth and advised his companions not to speak ill of him or do him harm. hearing this, ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) said, “he has betrayed allah, his prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and the faithful believers. let me cut off his neck!” the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, “is he not one of the badr warriors? may be allah looked at the badr warriors and said, ‘do whatever you like, as i have granted paradise to you’, or said, ‘i have forgiven you.” on 24 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... hearing this, tears came out of ‘umar’s eyes, and he said, “allah and his messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) know better.”63 ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) had insisted on killing ×éïib (raìi allah ‘anhu) for treason, but the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) did not allow it out of mercy. if the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) forgave betrayal, why can’t people forgive others for lesser offences committed in our age? 12. compassion for women islam promoted a unique culture regarding women and their empowerment. pre-islamic arab society was known for its unkind, non-compassionate attitude towards women, whom arabs neither honoured nor held in high regard. female infants meant shame to these barbarians and were often buried alive because arabs thought women were inferior to men. islam respects women on par with men. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) rejected the social order of the jéhiliyyah and treated women with the utmost kindness and affection. abë huraira (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported allah’s apostle (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as saying: he who believes in allah and the hereafter if he witnesses any matter he should talk in good terms about it or keep quiet. act kindly towards a woman, for a woman is created from a rib, and the most crooked part of the rib is its top. if you attempt to straighten it, you will break it, and if you leave it, its crookedness will remain there. so, act kindly towards women.64 the traditions of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) demonstrate that men should avoid forcing women into doing things surpassing their capacity and strength. women should be treated softly, respectfully, and with compassion and mercy. their dignified roles as wife and mother are highly esteemed, and they are not regarded as mere reproductive factories. the compassionate concern of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) for women inspired their merciful empowerment in islamic society, unlike other civilizations, where women were/are treated as mere instruments of sexual pleasure. for example, hindu civilization hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 25 treated women as slaves and sacrificed wives alive (suttee) at their husband’s funerals in orthodox families. women had not been honoured in makkah, but after migration to madinah, their status improved because the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) established their rights. 13. compassion for slaves and servants class differences were marked in pagan arabia, and the poor were subjected to ill-treatment and discrimination as in most societies. slavery was common, and humans were sold like merchandise. slaves and servants were often deprived of life’s necessities, including healthy food and modest clothing. they were exposed to suffering and torture due to the arrogant belief that they were inferior subordinates. all such things were standard practice before the advent of islam. the revelation’s man of compassion and mercy showed kind and generous treatment for slaves, servants and labourers. jébir ibn ‘abdulléh (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported the following: “the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) advised that slaves should be well-treated. he said, “feed them from what you eat and clothe them from what you wear. do not punish what allah has created.”65 islam also disallows vengeance. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) never took revenge on anyone, and he never beat anyone. ‘ó’ishah (raìi allah ‘anhé) reported: the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) never hit anything with his hand, neither a servant nor a woman, but of course, he did fight in the cause of allah. he never took revenge upon anyone for the wrong done to him, but of course, he exacted retribution for the sake of allah in the case the injunctions of allah about unlawful acts were violated.66 14. compassion for animals indeed, there is a relation between compassion for animals and goodness of character. the holy qur’én declares prophet (øal allah26 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is merciful for humanity and all creatures. we refer to instances where he took great care of animals and warned people not to torture or ill-treat them. he prohibited his companions from keeping animals hungry or thirsty. neither should animals be disturbed nor overburdened or troubled. putting animals at ease is considered a meritorious deed that brings us closer to allah almighty. abë hurairah (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported the following on the authority of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam): a man felt very thirsty while he was on the way, there he came across a well. he went down the well, quenched his thirst, and came out. meanwhile, he saw a dog panting and licking mud because of excessive thirst. he said to himself, “this dog is suffering from thirst as i did.” so, he went down the well again and filled his shoe with water and watered it. allah thanked him for that deed and forgave him. the people said, “o allah’s messenger (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam)! is there a reward for us in serving the animals?” he replied: “yes, there is a reward for serving any animate (living being).”67 suppose this is the type of mercy islam promotes, even for a dog. why are some compassionate, merciful muslims who work for the betterment of humankind is suspected and allegedly blamed for merciless terrorism in some countries? something is amiss. islam never permits atrocity. instead, muslims must be compassionate and merciful. ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam made efforts also to stop cruel customs and practices such as cutting a horse’s tail and mane, branding animals or keeping horses saddled. he once said a woman would dwell in hellfire for mistreating a cat: narrated by ‘abdulléh ibn ‘umar (raìi allah‘anhu): allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “a lady was punished because of a cat which she had imprisoned till it died. she entered the (hell) fire because of it, for she neither gave it food nor water as she had imprisoned it nor set it free to eat from the vermin of the earth.”68 hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 27 on another occasion, he (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said a prostitute who gave water to a thirsty dog would be forgiven for this act of hers.69 such examples show the prophet’s gentleness and kindness for animals. indeed, as muslims regard him as a role model, they should act accordingly. moreover, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) did not allow for unnecessary suffering when animals were slaughtered for food. specific criteria for the slaughter were set out; only the sharpest knives were used to cause minimum pain.70 he (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) even commanded people that the blade should be sharpened and hidden from the animals so they would not be frightened or know they were to be killed.71 in light of the prophet’s íadêth, muslims must understand that they should run responsible husbandry and treat animals with utmost care. 15. compassion for enemies and prisoners of war islam applauds compassion, including enemies, specifically prisoners of war. muslims fought several battles after migrating to madinah. the first combat was the battle of badr. muslims won and captured makkans, who had furiously determined to destroy islam and defeat the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) treated all prisoners great heartedly, contrary to customary practice. one of the best examples is suhayl ibn ‘amr, who used to denounce him cruelly. he was the prominent speaker of the quraysh and their representative to deal with the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) during hudaybiyah treaty, was caught as a prisoner in the battle of badr. ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) suggested removing ‘amr’s two teeth so that he cannot talk or lecture against the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) or islam. but, prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) rejected the stand of ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu) and added that he would not treat anyone harshly so that allah almighty would not harm him.7273 prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, “ o ‘umar, allah almighty may punish me on the day of judgement due to this, even though i am a prophet.”74 makkan pagans were extremely rude, arrogant people who ceaselessly used all possible means to destroy the prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) and his cause. as a last resort, they tried 28 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... assassination by hiring a man named ‘umar (raìi allah ‘anhu), their most dynamic youth the same man cited above who converted to islam and later became caliph. finally, after enduring all their threats, tortures and plots, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was commanded by allah almighty to migrate to madinah. even then, makkan pagans continued their enmity and waged wars, evident from early islamic history. when ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam conquered makkah without resistance or bloodshed, he entered the city and gathered together all unbelievers: how do you expect me to treat you?” he asked. they unanimously replied, “you are a noble one, the son of a noble one”. upon hearing this, the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) announced, “you may go free! no reproach this day shall be on you; may allah forgive you. thus, after years of murder and horrendous mistreatment, this general amnesty exemplified the almighty’s raímah for all humanity through his prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), including towards our bitterest, most violent and cruellest of enemies.75 16. compassion for children ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam demonstrated the highest degree of empathy for children. whenever he saw a child crying, he sat beside them and what is wrong. he once said, “when i stand for prayer, i intend to prolong it but on hearing the cries of a child. i cut it short, as i dislike to trouble the child’s mother.”76 he carried children in his arms and embraced them. abë hurayra (raìi allah ‘anhu) said: the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) kissed hasan ibn alê (raìi allah ‘anhu) while al-aqra’ ibn habis attamêmê (raìi allah ‘anhu) was sitting with him. al-aqra’ (raìi allah ‘anhu) observed, ‘i have ten children, and i have never hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 29 kissed any of them.’ the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) looked at him and said, ‘whoever does not show mercy will not be shown mercy.”77 a muslim is required to be merciful to his children in particular and all others in general. but, unfortunately, mercy, in postmodern society, is nearly extinct. 17. generosity life of ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam was characterized by kindness, compassion and generosity. the holy qur’én calls him raímatun li’l-‘ólamên, (mercy for all worlds and all creatures). whenever someone asked him for something, he either gave it or spoke kind words as a sign of regret if he could not. the íadêth record proves that he never replied negatively, unsympathetically, or in anger to any petitioner. on the contrary, his responses were always respectful and kind. such is rare today. his example instructs muslims to be hospitable, gracious and amicable when dealing with petitioners. this would sow the seed of social harmony and eliminate differences between people. ibn shihéb (raìi allah ‘anhu) reported that allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) went on the expedition of victory, i.e. the victory of makkah, and then he went out along with the muslims and they fought at hunain and allah granted victory to his religion and the muslims and allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) gave one hundred camels to øafwén ibn umayya (raìi allah ‘anhu). then, he again gave him one hundred camels and then again gave him one hundred camels. sa‘êd ibn musayyib (raímat allah ‘alaih) said that øafwan told him: (by allah) allah’s messenger (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) gave me what he gave me (and my state of mind at that time was) that he was the most detested person amongst people in my eyes. but he continued giving to me until now he is the dearest of people to me.”78 30 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... 18. conclusion the author applied qualitative content analysis to the sacred discourse on mercy and compassion, referring to exegetes, the ×adêth corpus and biography of haìrat muíammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam. we recalled the word raímah’s meaning according to lexicographers and exegetes. definitions were collected from english dictionaries to epitomize its implications and legitimate usage. the concept of raímah was examined regarding prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as its role model—par excellence—for generations to come. today, muslims should espouse and behave in this respectable and exemplary manner so that people of all cultures and traditions might look upon islam with due respect and admiration. islam views raímah as a foundational premise that preserves and upholds social peace and harmony. we discussed the term raímah’s usage in the holy qur’én, beginning with the opening chapter. proper comprehension of the word deliberated on ‘ibéd al-raímén is enshrined in sërat alfurqén. since ×adêth literature is a principal source that helps us recognize islam’s message, references were also made to the ×adêth corpus, where we found several examples of mercy and compassion. another crucial dimension that had been addressed was mercy and compassion for all humankind (raímatun li’l-‘ólamên). we highlighted the prophet’s compassion and understanding for christians, jews, pagans, hypocrites, women, slaves, servants, animals, enemies, prisoners of war, and children and his generosity, especially during the period of his governance. as expressed in this paper, the author suggests that muslims should apply and in their daily life and habituate themselves to several practices of raímah. first, everyone should translate compassion into constructive good deeds. whosoever is a sincere worshipper of our creator, regardless of his/her religious affiliation, should adopt this attitude to alleviate human suffering. because allah almighty is all-compassionate, all-merciful, all beneficent, all benevolent, and all gracious; and because the prophet is raímatun li’l-‘ólamên it is mandatory for all moral and maqéîidic / maqéîid al-sharê‘ah (an islamic legal doctrine) considerations that muslims manifest attributions associated with raímah, as it will help us pave hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 31 the way to global peace as a sustainable development goal of the united nations. when adopted and taken to heart, this paper and its recommendations will help eliminate misunderstanding, mistrust, and misperceptions concerning islam and its followers. currently, muslims are branded as fundamentalists, extremists, terrorists and religious activists who lead mobs into dissension and riotous social disturbances. hence, it is high time for muslims to revisit islam’s foundational sources, learn the authentic perspective, and then present raímah to the world as god’s universally revealed message. of utmost relevance is that muslim administrators, leaders, heads of states, and policymakers should apply compassion and mercy as demonstrated by the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) to every man, woman, and child whether peers, colleagues, subordinates or others and regardless of their religious affiliation. discrimination, bias, tribal or family nepotism should never be allowed to dominate or obstruct decision-making processes. ethnocentrism, nationalism, racism and religious chauvinism must be eliminated. raímah and peace are the most crucial criteria in all matters. believers should forever bear this in mind, especially decisionand policymakers. unilateral considerations that reserve favours and perks for selves, supporters, party men, cronies, ethnic groups, and nationalities should be avoided. granting irresponsible excuses for discriminatory deeds should not be done, knowing full well they will be held accountable on the day of judgement. the holy qur’én states, “whoever does any good act (even) to the weight of a particle will see it. and whoever does evil (even) to the weight of a particle will see it.”79 thus, compassion has been decreed a major islamic priority, especially for those in seats of governance. remember, allah will not be merciful to those who are not compassionate to others. unfortunately, many who claim to be pious custodians of the faith remain unconcerned about these essential matters in muslim societies. as a result, they are advised to be more vigilant because their responsibilities and consequent accountabilities are greater than those of ordinary people. religion is too easily abused for the sake of personal, family, business or institutional concerns as well as for racial or ethnic considerations. likewise, such circumstances are often used to shield biased decisions that harm the interests of others. preferring one group over another is expected under the garb of 32 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... higher authority, and all too often, minorities and ‘others’ are not given just treatment. on the other hand, privileges and perks tend to outrank and completely disregard the concept of raímah. it is not islam and not sunnah. conscientious, righteous, pious and god-fearing people must fight such discrepancies again wherever they arise, especially in multi-religious, multi-racial and multi-ethnic societies. they should understand that the application of raímah is a divinely appointed prerequisite for peaceful coexistence and harmony, which is the aim of human life in submission to allah almighty and the true meaning of islam. notes and references 1. kracauer, siegfried. “the challenge of qualitative content analysis”. public opinion quarterly,16, no.4 (1952): 631-42. 2. muíammad ibn ya‘qëb al-fayrëzébédê, al-qémës al-muíêï,1 (beirut: mu’assasat al-risélah li al-ùab‘ wa al-nashr wa al-tawzê‘, 2005), 1111; ibn féris, mu‘jam maqé’yis al-lughah, taíqêq: ‘abd al-salém muíammad ×érën, 2 (beirut: dér al-fikr,1999), 498; zayn al-dên abë ‘abd alléh muíammad ibn abê bakr ibn ‘abd al-qédir al-×anafê al-rézê, mukhtér al-øiíéí, taíqêq: yësuf al-shaykh muíammad, 1 (beirut: al-maktab al-‘aîriyyah al-rézê, 1999), 120. 3. ibn manðër, m, lisén al-‘arab 3rd edition, (beirut: dér al-øhédir, 1955), 230. 4. abê al-qésim al-×usayn ibn muíammad al-réghib al-iîfahénê, al-mufradét fê gharêb al-qur’én (beirut: dér iíyé’ al-turéth al-ñarabê, 2003). 5. hans wehr a dictionary of modern written arabic, edited by j.milton cowan (united states: spoken language serevices, 1977). 6. “oxford english dictionary, synonyms, and spanish to english translator,” oxford university press. lexico.com accessed june 6, 2021, https:// www.lexico.com/definition/compassion. 7. "cambridge dictionary,”cambridge university press. cambridge.org accessed june 6, 2021, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/compassion. 8. “merriam webster,” accessed june 6, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/compassion. 9. “dictionary.com,” accessed june 6, 2021, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ compassion. 10. “vocabulary.com,” accessed june 7, 2021 https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/ compassion. 11. the holy qur’én, 1: 2, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma‘ariful qur’an, 2010). 12. abë ja‘far muíammad ibn jarêr al-ùabarê, the commentary on the qur’an, edited by wilferd madelung,1 (new york: oxford university press, 1987), 55. 13. abë ja‘far muíammad ibn jarêr al-ùabarê, the commentary on the qur’an, 57. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 33 14. ibid, 56. 15. ibid, 55. 16. the holy qur’én. trans. abdullah yusuf ali (brentwood, maryland, u.s.a: amana corporation, 1989) 17. maududi, the meaning of the qur’an (lahore, pakistan: islamic publications ltd., n.d.) 18. sayyid quïb, in the shade of the qur’én fi , trans. ‘ódil øaléíê (leicester: the islamic foundation united kingdom), 4-5. 19. the holy qur’én, 25: 63, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma‘ariful qur’an, 2010). 20. sayyid quïb, in the shade of the qur’én, 341. 21. the holy qur’én, 25: 63, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma‘ariful qur’an, 2010). 22. sayyid quïb, in the shade of the qur’én, 342. 23. the holy qur’én. trans. abdullah yusuf ali (brentwood, maryland, u.s.a: amana corporation, 1989), 904. 24. maududi, the meaning of the qur’an (lahore, pakistan: islamic publications ltd., n.d.), 436-7 25. the øaíêí muslim, 24:1111 , translated by abdul hamid siddiqi, 4 (lahore: sh muhammad ashraf publishers and booksellers, 1987). 26. the riyad as salihin 79,662, translated by hafiz salahuddin yousuf (riyadh: darus salam, 2003). 27. the jémi‘al-tirmidhê 27, 30, translated by abë khalêyl (riyadh: darussalam publishers, 2007). 28. jémi‘al-tirmidhê 15,1919, translated by abu khaliyl, (riyadh: darussalam publishers, 2007). 29. the øaíêí al-bukhérê 2,6, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin khén, 9 (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 30. ibid, 27,40. 31. the jémi‘al-tirmidhê 16,28, translated by abë khalêyl (riyadh: darussalam publishers, 2007). 32. the holy qur’én, 21: 107, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful qur’an, 2010). 33. rosidin, h. j. f., and jañfar, h, “philological analysis on normative historical practical term ra % mah in qur’én,” abjadia, 3 no. 1, (2018):1-16. 34. muíammad mutawallê al-sha‘réwê, tafsêr al-sha‘réwê, 16 (cairo: maïébi‘ akhbér al-yawm, 1997), 9674. 35. matthew, 15: 24. 36. ibid. 37. budi kisworo, “the implementation of islam as raímah li al-‘ólamên in indonesia: contributions, challenges and opportunities.” academic journal of islamic studies ajis, 2 no. 2, (2017), 107. 38. the holy qur’én, 21:107, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma‘ariful qur’an, 2010) 39. al-ùabarénê, al-mu‘jam al-kabêr:165, 18(cairo: maktabat ibn taymiyyah, 1970), 89-90. 34 islam’s raímah (compassion) as applied ... 40. the holy qur’én, 33: 21, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful qur’an, 2010). 41. ibn kathêr, tafsêr al-qur’én al-‘aðêm, edited by shagémê ibn muíammad salémah, 5 (cairo: dér al-ùayyibah li’l-nashr wa al-tawzê‘, 1999), 337. 42. the holy qur’én, 14: 28-29, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful qur’an, 2010). 43. abë ja‘afar muíammad ibn jarêr al-ùabarê, jémi‘al-bayén fê ta’wêl al-qur’én, edited by maímëd m. shékir, 18 (damascus: mu’assasat al-risélah, 2000), 550552. 44. sayyid quïb, in the shade of the qur’én, 12, 66-67. 45. maududi, the meaning of the qur’én, trans. muhammad akbar, edited by a. a. kamal, 7 (lahore: islamic publications limited, 1983), 176. 46. the holy qur’én, 2: 256, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful qur’én, 2010) 47. the sunan abë déwud 1118:114, translated by prof. ahmad hasan (lahore: shah muhammad ashraf publishers and booksellers, 1983). 48. muhammad al-husaini, “the qur’an’s covenant with the jewish people claims to the holy land,” middle east quarterly, 16, no. 4 (2009):9-14. 49. the øaíêí al-bukhérê 70:398, trans. dr. muhammad muhsin khén, 5 (lahore: kazi publications, 1986). 50. ibid, 2:6. 51. muîïafé ibn ×usnê al-sibé’ê, muqtaïifét min kitéb min rawé’i‘×aìératina, 1 (beirut: dér al-warréq li al-nashr wa al-tawzêñ, 1999), 135-136. 52. the øaíêí al-bukhérê 49:70, trans. dr. muhammad muhsin khén, 2 (lahore: kazi publications, 1986). 53. zanjawiyyah, h, kitéb al-amwél, 2 (riyadh: king faisal centre for research and islamic studies, n.d.) 54. usman, a. h, does islam practice tolerance? some notes from qur’énic perspective, pre-print,1 (2018): 3, https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/ 201807.0366/v1. 55. the sunan abë déwëd 974:206, trans. prof. ahmad hasan (lahore: shah muhammad ashraf publishers and booksellers, 1983). 56. al-mubérakpërê, s, ar-raheeq al-makhtum:the sealed nectar. trans. issam diab (saudi arabia: darussalam publishers, 1996), 238. 57. martin lings, muhammad his life based on the earliest sources (lahore:suhail academy, 1983-1984), 150. 58. the øaíêí al-bukhérê 58:5, trans. dr. muhammad muhsin khén, 4 (lahore: kazi publications, 1986). 59. maímëd muíammad al-khazandér, hédhihê akhléquna ×êna nakën mu’minên ×aqqan, 2 (riyadh: dér al-ùayyibah li al-nashr wa al-tawzê‘, 1997), 196. 60. the øaíêí al-bukhérê 29:51, trans. dr. muhammad muhsin khén, 3 (lahore: kazi publications, 1986). 61. the øaíêí muslim, 3:11, trans. abdul hamid siddiqi, 4 (lahore: sh muhammad ashraf publishers and distributors, 1987). 62. ibid. hamdard islamicus vol. xliv, no. 2 35 63. the øaíêí al-bukhérê 9:34, trans. dr. muhammad muhsin khén, 5 (lahore: kazi publications, 1986). 64. the øaíêí muslim, 18:80, trans. abdul hamid siddiqi, 4 (lahore: sh muhammad ashraf publishers and distributors, 1987). 65. the al-adab al-mufrad, 95:33, trans.rafiq abdur rahman, (beirut: dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 2011). 66. the riyéì al-øéliíên, the book of miscellany 75:643, trans. hafiz salahuddin yousuf (riyadh: darus salam, 2003). 67. the øaíêí al-bukhérê 23:27, trans. dr. muhammad muhsin khén, 3 (lahore: kazi publications, 1986). 68. ibid 54:149. 69. ibid 17:127. 70. the øaíêí muslim 11:84, trans. abdul hamid siddiqi, 3 (lahore: sh muhammad ashraf publishers and distributors, 1987). 71. the sunan ibn méjah 27:11, trans. nasiruddin al-khattab ( riyadh: darussalam publishers, 2007). 72. ibn hishém, al-sêrah al-nabawiyyah,1 ( cairo: sharikat maktabat muîïafé albébê al-×alabê, 1955), 649. 73. abë ‘abdalléh al-×ékim, al-mustadrak ‘alé al-øaíêíayn 5228, 3 ( beirut: dér al-kutub al ‘ilmiyyah, 1990), 318. 74. ibid. 75. ibid, 5 (beirut: mu’assasat ×usém, n.d.), 73; al-bayhaqê, al-sunan al-kubré 18738-9, 9 (india, al-ma‘érif, n.d.), 118,. 76. the øaíêí al-bukhérê 65:102, trans. dr. muhammad muhsin khén, 1 (lahore: kazi publicationbs, 1986). 77. the al-adab al-mufrad 50:8, trans. rafiq abdur rahman (beirut: dér al-kutub al-‘ilmiyyah, 2011). 78. the øaíêí muslim 14:80, trans. abdul hamid siddiqi, 4 (lahore: sh muhammad ashraf publishers and distributors, 1987). 79. the holy qur’én, 99: 7-8, trans. mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma‘ariful qur’én, 2010) hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 53 the implementation of governance principles in islamic microfinance: a comparative analysis between türki̇ye and indonesia nur amalia aziza institute of social sciences, research center for islamic economics and finance, sakarya university, sakarya, türkiye email: nur.aziza@ogr.sakarya.edu.tr dr. salih ülev islamic economic and finance department, faculty of political sciences, sakarya university, sakarya, türkiye email: salihulev@sakarya.edu.tr received on: 23-01-23 accepted on: 12-07-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.719 abstract this study compares implementing the governance principles in islamic microfinance with a social objective in türkiye and indonesia. the relevance of this study is to investigate the best practices to apply governance concepts to islamic microfinance to achieve iksar and bmt muda’s social goals. governance principles in two organizations were studied in this qualitative comparative case study. as for the selection research site, iksar and bmt muda both have an adequate report until 2021 on their website. the study found that both iksar and bmt muda tried to realize the governing principles, which meet ethical duty in some areas, namely their top management trying to fulfill sharê‘ah compliance by sharê‘ah experts, responsibility in their human resources, fairness decision-making, understanding the importance of transparency and accountability to report and disclose to stakeholder, including the public, through their website. bmt muda appears to disclose more information than iksar, which is relatively new, has less funding, and is staffed by volunteers. however, they can use human resources with their current technology and report more regularly. it would increase their transparency, attract contributors, and build public trust, hence boosting their long-term social impact. keywords: islamic microfinance, governance principles, türkiye, indonesia mailto:nur.aziza@ogr.sakarya.edu.tr mailto:salihulev@sakarya.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.719 54 the implementation of governance … 1. introduction governance is essential for every institution. according to lewis, it provides a mechanism to determine an organization’s direction, assess its progress, and facilitate decisionmaking.1governance also involves managing and controlling strategies through best management practices.2 kassim et al. additionally assert that governance plays a vital role in ensuring the smooth operation of institutions. consequently, governance is widely recognized as a factor influencing the performance of various entities. 3 as kyereboah-coleman & osei argue, inadequate governance negatively impacts the performance of microfinance institutions, diminishing goodwill and investor confidence. thus, governance becomes a crucial factor affecting the microfinance objective, especially in serving low-income clients and ensuring financial sustainability. 4 in conclusion, western perspectives primarily prioritize shareholders, while the islamic viewpoint emphasizes the significance of justice, equity, and social responsibility in governance principles. 5 in the context of islamic microfinance, part of islamic social finance institutions has an essential social role in poverty alleviation. as stated in ülev, microfınance’s objective is to provide financial assistance to low-middle-income people so that they can prevent poverty at the forefront.6 generally, there are several types of microfinance, such as rural banks, ngos, non-bank financial institutions, cooperatives, islamic commercial banks, etc. most forms of microfinance are fall under the category of banks because it is easier to have a large number in reach for people to be financed.7 however, when discussing the essential function of microfinance, according to gupta & mirchandani, socially oriented microfinance institutions, such as ngos and cooperatives, have demonstrated more robust focus goals than profit-focused institutions like banks.8 unfortunately, microfinance faces some challenges in achieving it’s objective is primarily socially oriented. microfinance faces double the challenges to fulfill the social objective of poverty alleviation and sustainability9;10;11. fan et al.’s cross-country research revealed that islamic microfinance in afghanistan, bangladesh, indonesia, iraq, jordan, kosovo, kyrgyzstan, lebanon, pakistan, palestine, syria, and yemen is less financially sustainable than conventional microfinance, but its reach and social benefit are more remarkable than conventional microfinance.12 in addition, abbas conducted a study on islamic microfinance in pakistan and identified challenges in managing default cases, which can be attributed to hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 55 inadequate risk management practices.13 it can be concluded that these problems related to the practice of governance problems, as demonstrated by iqbal et al.’s study, effective governance practices of microfinance in asia led to greater profitability and sustainability, but many microfinance failures were linked to weak governance systems; for example, microfinance in india 2010 induced suicide as a result of poor governance.14 furthermore, in accordance with lansink et al., ngos and cooperatives categorized as socially oriented microfinance institutions are inefficient rather than profit-oriented.15 for instance, in malaysia, the focus of islamic microfinance has shifted, due to governance issues from social purpose to commercialization.16 in indonesia, aziz stated that microfinance as management funding in some cooperatives is relatively weak.17 then conforming to ülev, islamic microfinance in türkiye faces an asymmetry of information problem.18 it can be implied that there is a problem with governance. however, this critical role cannot run optimally without good governance. because governance is closely related to the sustainability of institutions and ensuring the institution's direction is still in line with its objectives.19;20 to avert microfinance failures, particularly those associated with issues like mission drift, it is imperative to focus on strengthening governance practices, as emphasized by labie.21 governance can help microfinance manage the challenge and attract external funding 22 as hudon stated, institutional stability relates to the level of subsidies received in microfinance23, which can vary based on management style. indirectly, this condition is one of the constraints, especially related to stability in various microfinance institutions. since the success rate of achieving goals depends on the governance system, if governance practices are not implemented, microfinance may fail or deviate from its stated purpose. this study focuses on social purpose-based islamic microfinance and seeks to determine whether microfinance has implemented practical governance principles so that it remains consistent with its mission and demonstrates sustainability that can gain donor confidence and goodwill. islamic microfinance is relatively new and limited in türkiye. 24 however, it’s noteworthy that there's a good level of transparency in its reports. this study aims to compare governance principles with islamic microfinance cooperatives in indonesia. indonesia has been a pioneer in implementing financial reforms since 1983, maintaining stability even in challenging situations.25 in terms of stability, while obtaining social objectives and tackling the challenge simultaneously, it is crucial to consider how these two types of islamic microfinance organizations applied the governance principle. hence, this study aims to explore and compare 56 the implementation of governance … the implementation of governance principles in managing islamic microfinance at iksar, the first islamic microfinance in türkiye, and bmt muda, a modern islamic cooperative with the latest financial report 2021, both of which are social objectives oriented organizations. this paper contributes to the literature about the implementation of governance principles in the different structures of islamic microfinance, especially in social-oriented structures, and it might encourage other islamic microfinance organizations about the importance of governance principles to be applied. section 2 of this research presents the study’s conceptual framework regarding ownership structure and governance principle. section 3 offers research methods and data analysis while section 4 describes the findings about the comparison between iksar and bmt muda in their management regarding governance principles. section 5 also discusses their implementation. section 6 presents the conclusion, limitations and advice for further study. 2. literature review indonesia started the operation of islamic microfinance as a cooperative, commonly called bait al-mél wa tamwêl (bmt), in 198426, until 2019 ranked first in the world for islamic finance due to the number of bmts of more than five thousand institutions.27 diverse funding sources have been utilized to demonstrate this point. among the many bmts in indonesia, as far as our awareness, only bmt muda was found to disclose information on a website that can be accessed until the latest report in 2021. recorded in the 2021 financial position report, bmt mandiri ukhuwah persada (muda), on its website, 28 has distributed several financing, as shown in the table below. financing instruments total in idr total in usd muìérabah 955,401,425 66,678 murébaíah 855,045,098 59,674 qarì al-íasan 108,654,820 7,583 ijérah muntahiya bit tamlêk (imbt) 256,520,000 17,902 other finances 443,047,490 30,920 table 1. financing instruments of bmt muda in 2021 türkiye, which began islamic microfinance in 2018, has one islamic microfinance institution and two initiatives activity of organizations that run qarì al ×asan, according to the islamic social finance 2021 report.29 the development of islamic microfinance in türkiye can also be seen in the distribution of financing in iksar as hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 57 the first and only islamic microfinance disclosing reporting organization, and it was recorded from their report in 2021 that the financing that had been distributed with the qarì al ×asan contract amounted to try 336,400 equivalent to usd 24,992.30 even though, both are microfinance with small funds, the availability of adequate reports on each website shows the desire and ability31 to be transparent in their reporting. thus, both entities are attempting not to violate the principle governing their operations, policies, and procedures, which many microfinance institutions have difficulty in upholding governance principles.32 2.1 ownership structure the form of microfinance is divided into several organizational parts, be it traditional institutions or local and international ngo institutions funded from donations, cooperatives and local credit, local government institutions and formal commercial financial institutions33. cooperatives and non-governmental organizations are non-regulated and more socially oriented.34 djan and mersland stated that various forms of ownership influence the challenge and advantage as well; cooperatives have member-owned entities to participate in governance; on the other hand, ngos are ownerless and only run by directors, so cooperatives tend larger and organize in meetings, but ngos prioritize the expansion of loan accessibility to a larger people in comparison to cooperatives that have a limit to the members.35 hence, according to previous research, a distinct form of governance will affect achieving social goals and more related to public values, issues, and strategies.36;37 in indonesia, there are also several forms of islamic microfinance institutions, sharê‘ah rural banks as commercial institutions and sharê‘ah cooperatives as socially oriented, which have bait al-mél division as collecting and distributing to improve the welfare of people with low incomes.38 the sharê‘ah cooperative empowers the community through their bait al-mél and bait at-tamwêl divisions for small trading businesses supported by funds from members and other donations such as zakét, inféq, and îadaqah.39 based on the laws and regulations on sharê‘ah savings and loan business activities by cooperatives no. 11 of 2017, business management consists of collecting and distributing funds.40 on the other hand, ngos, whether conventional or islamic, play a crucial role in türkiye. microfinance, initially introduced through ngos, has primarily focused on providing financial assistance to individuals facing poverty, rather than supporting small businesses.41 the first and only islamic microfinance institution in türkiye is iksar, which formed an association as an ngo by regulation and characterized by collecting funds that come from zakét, inféq, or îadaqah for financing the people experiencing poverty.42 in addition, as part of islamic 58 the implementation of governance … social finance actor, karz-ı hasen vakfı (qarì-al-×asan waqf) and musi̇ad, 43 have qarì-al-íasan financing activities to meet the financing needs of young people in the marriage process, as abunnaja stated that qarì-al-íasan could be used for microfinance programs such as marriage.44 it can be concluded that despite the difference of ownership between ngos and cooperative, the management aims the same for socially oriented. generally, microfinance management, as discussed by hudon45, encompasses of a) decision-making related to competence, in islamic perspectives, decision-making is regarded as a sacred duty, requiring those in authority to promote values such as truthfulness, fairness, consultation, and consensus-building among participants.46; (b) accounting and control, related to planning, budgeting, and reporting besides that in islamic views require choosing methods that report the current situation in order to show responsibility and accountability to allah almighty, society, and individuals 47; (c) top management, related to the ability of team management and to make proper management 48; (d) human resources, because quantity and quality are related to commitment, enthusiasm, intelligence, and drive to achieve the goals.49 2.2 governance principles the principles of governance services make the management mechanism itself smooth. governance entails discipline, checks and balances, decision-making of all process mechanisms, mechanisms for exercising power, enforcing rules and procedures, responsibility, control, incentives, and standards.50 prior research has also pointed out the importance of governance principles regarding the performance of microfinance institutions that have strong relations to sustainability in achieving the goals theoretically51 and empirically through cross countries using quantitative methods52;53;54;55. however, most previous research is based on conventional and profit-oriented microfinance institutions. by refocusing on research related to islamic microfinance, kassim et al. examine the importance of governance as theoretically described in best practices in malaysia and also state effective governance helps microfinance institutions deal with the risks that come with doing business, and governance systems can impact the long-term viability of islamic microfinance institutions, as well as attract the interest of funders.56 however, following are the key pillars of governance principles in islamic institutions based on aaoifi57: (a) sharê‘ah compliance, the process of religious supervision to ensure that all business dealings, contracts, and procedures adhere to islamic moral precepts and are usury-, gharar-, and ribé-free58; (b) responsibility, each element understands its responsibility and a firm moral hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 59 foundation59; (c) fairness, college interests are addressed equally and disputes are avoided, as well as a blend of moral and social norms indicating justice, objectivity, temperance, and straightforwardness prevails60; (d) transparency, disclosing information about the organization and enhancement of the flow of timely and trustworthy economic, social, and political information to all critical stakeholders61 and became the attraction of trust62; (e) accountability, including components of clarity of function and, from an islamic perspective, it is the duty of information providers to disclose as much as feasible to cleanse their conscience as trustees and for users to shift through the material and develop their own judgement.63 in general, governance, particularly in microfinance institutions, is crucial for addressing the challenges and maintaining stability while achieving the goals. it is essential to conduct extensive empirical research on the various types of microfinance, mainly socially oriented islamic microfinance, in order to gain public trust and ensure long-term viability. as stated previously, to the best of our knowledge, there are few governance-related studies on islamic microfinance, and no current studies conducted on country-level governance practices in islamic microfinance have been identified in the relevant literature. hence, to contribute to this gap in the literature, our research differs from others in some ways. first, delve further into islamic microfinance countries between türkiye and indonesia. then, an in-depth examination of the distinctions between socially oriented (ngos and cooperatives) in islamic microfinance governance principles concerns. 3. methodology as a result of the importance of the governance concept to the strength and stability of islamic microfinance institutions, particularly those with a social mission and different management that receive varying subsidies that impact the sustain, this study uses qualitative approach. this study also employed a comparative case study since it was the most suitable design to obtain a full picture between türkiye and indonesia and an in-depth analysis of the study objectives. the use of comparative analysis helps one comprehend their civilization by comparing its structures and routines to those of other systems.64 in addition, the use of case studies is justified by cresswell’s statement that case study is an appropriate research design for in-depth analysis of one or more cases.65 since this study uses a comparative case study, purposive sampling was utilized to gather in-depth knowledge regarding the implementation of governance principles between türkiye and indonesia. as for the selection, the research site is purposefully concerned with islamic microfinance that discloses the report on the 60 the implementation of governance … website, which is essential as haniffa & hudaib stated that an islamic perspective, disclosing broadly as trustees is required so the stakeholder can make a decision. 66 upon conducting an online investigation, it was found that only iksar, an islamic microfinance institution in türkiye, and bmt muda in indonesia have published adequate reports on their official websites for the newest year, 2021. data collection was done using interview techniques and secondary data by literature. interviews were conducted with the following criteria of informants, (a) understanding funding mechanisms, implementation and distribution of financing and (b) understanding institutional regulations and policies. since both islamic microfinance are still small, this paper only interviewed two key informants, and each institution interviewed one main director approximately one hour long. the interviewees are kept anonymous to protect the privacy of the respondents, who will be referred to as p1 by bmt muda and p2 by iksar. following the collection of data from the interviews, the data were analyzed according to the themes. considering the relevant research questions, the data were read multiple times. the researcher identified the themes and their relationships through the patterns and processes, commonalities and differences through the coding system, and arranged them through thematic analysis. finally, a comparison between iksar and bmt muda was conducted. this method compared and contrasted a number of topics to determine their similarities and differences.67 4. findings based on the research results from interview and documents in the field of islamic microfinance in türkiye and indonesia, the comparison between iksar and bmt muda will be provided into several themes: general overview, sharê‘ah compliance in top management, responsible human resource, fairness decision at the implementation stage, and transparency and accountability in reporting. 4.1 general overview of iksar and bmt muda iksar is an islamic microfinance founded by academics in the form of an ngo located at sakarya, türkiye. iksar was established at the end of 2018 and officially started its operations in 2019. the establishment of iksar is not only to develop the project of applying islamic economics but also to raise awareness in the community about the microfinance model and, at the same time, to help improve the welfare of the residents in sakarya. the funds come hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 61 from donations and zakat, and the distribution contract uses qarì al íasan, who has distributed funds to 62 people as of 2021, totaling 489,000 tl. the distribution of qarì al íasan funds is aimed at the poorest of poor people who will open small businesses such as small sewing, recycling, pastries, cafes and others so that they can improve their living and independent standards. on the other hand, iksar also has a hayr’ola project in that they accept donations from secondhand things, and they will sell them in return for a donation to provide for those in need, like providing scholarships for students. bmt muda stands for mandiri, ukhuwah, and persada, where this islamic microfinance is cooperative and was founded by indonesian academics, iium alums, and airlangga university lecturers. the establishment of bmt in 2012 was located at surabaya, east java, indonesia. bmt muda’s main source of funds comes from members who save in bmt muda. in the current situation, bmt muda’s members have reached 865 people. bmt muda members vary in the profession, from farmers to academics, so that the amount of savings deposited varies. bmt muda, like bmt in general, has two divisions: a) bait al mél, which focuses on solving social problems by providing funds for zakat, inféq, îadaqah, and waqf, and b) bait at-tamwêl, which focuses on gaining profit, links it as well into the bait al-mél program, which is usually utilized for religious and skill-improvement programs. with the various programs they made in bait al-mél division, especially in the education program, it is hoped that bmt muda can empower people to have a better future in finding work. the programs owned by bmt muda are very diverse, ranging from providing capital for small and medium micro-entrepreneurs to managing businesses such as renting shops or other real businesses, with the proceeds used to expand the waqf fund program in bait al-mél and distribute profits to members who save in bmt muda. financing channeled to members uses a variety of contracts in keeping with their needs, such as murébaíah, muìarabah, qarì, and rahn. 4.2 sharê‘ah compliance in top management iksar divides tasks with its partners to facilitate operations. some of their commissions are for finding people as recipients, and some are for creating activities or the distribution section. in iksar, there is also an advisory board used for consultation with professional mentors who are very experts in their fields related to microfinance. moreover, the most important in the management of iksar, to be precise in the advisory board, is that there is a fiqh expert to consult about the implementation in operational according to sharê‘ah principles, especially in funding, as p2 mention: 62 the implementation of governance … “if we want to initiate a new program, we consult with them about this program. also, if we face a problem with borrowers' repayment, for example, if the borrower cannot pay his loan and his income level is pretty low, we ask the advisory board if we can use the zakat fund to delete this borrower’s loan” (p2). on the other hand, bmt muda also has an advisory and supervisory board consisting of experts in microfinance, primarily islamic microfinance. the management consists of a presiding officer, secretary and treasurer, and a section to manage bmt muda’s operations consisting of the principal director in bait attamwêl, marketing, and bait al-mél. there is also an existing sharê‘ah supervisory board that was formed two years ago because bmt muda also acts as a néðir to collect waqf, which is mandatory from the government, as reported by p1. the different institutional structures between iksar as an ngo and bmt muda as a sharê‘ah cooperative still encourage them to maintain conformity with sharê‘ah principles through the presence of sharê‘ah specialists; both organizations recognize the importance of complying with sharê‘ah as a sharê‘ah -compliant institution, it naturally requires consultation with sharê‘ah advisors, especially when developing new programs. in order to achieve the goal of providing social good, this will indirectly impact islamic values. 4.3 responsible human resource iksar operates as an ngo, with academics engaging in their endeavors on a voluntary basis. even though iksar has limited human resources, since they come from academics who are in one place, at the same time, it made it easier to communicate issues and problems regarding iksar by directly talking about the issue. that is why conducting regular meetings is not determined, especially when talking about plans. however, the effectiveness can be further enhanced by involving professionals, which can lead to an increase in providing qarì al íasan, as indicated by p2.: “maybe if we work at iksar professionally, the amount of qarì that we give would increase.” because the promotion of iksar was primarily conducted using social media platforms and traditional word-of-mouth strategies, whereby existing iksar users shared information about the product to others in order to raise awareness. it can be implied that despite their busy schedule, they are still committed to running iksar as a role model and spreading the benefits of islamic microfinance. even though iksar is still relatively new and voluntarily works, they still proved their hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 63 responsibility to commit to reaching out to 62 people until now who have already got financing from qarì al íasan. in bmt muda side always conducts annual routine meetings such as for the budget and changes in management. therefore, it will facilitate the direction of bmt muda’s goals for one year with the existing targets, such as collecting funds targets carried out by four account officer employees. even though employees are working in operation to help with promotion methods, counseling, and the target funds to be achieved, few human resources cannot reach out maximally in promotion, which influences the distribution fund in bait al-mél projects, which wanted empower broadly through various projects as p1 said. because bmt muda not only utilizes social media platforms for promotional purposes but also employs conventional tactics such as direct marketing during recitations at various mosques throughout districts. these efforts aim to generate donor interest by providing comprehensive explanations of each programme offered by bmt muda, with a particular focus on the bait al-mél initiative. it can be implied the lack of human resource management to carry out promotions, they remain devoted to managing funds as efficiently as possible, as evidenced by the numerous programs they run, such as the holy qur’én recitation, education scholarships, capital for small microenterprises, etc., that remain running until now. although both organizations have limited human resources, especially iksar, which operates on a voluntary basis, their commitment and passion for achieving the goal of empowering the lower middle class through the distribution of financing in accordance with sharê‘ah principles cannot be denied and show that both are responsible in achieving social goals. because both iksar and bmt muda maximize the potential of their human resources by equipping themselves with technology in the financing and promoting businesses through social media channels has become more accessible. therefore, although the limited number of human resources may seem like a weakness, it might be an advantage because it decreases the interest conflict; at the same time, utilized technology can help them be more stable in administrative management and are responsible to donors and other stakeholders to trust these two institutions. 4.4 fairness decision in the implementation stage building trust among stakeholders can be done through several operational procedures. before iksar distributes the qarì al íasan, iksar conducts a risk study first with the requirements when filling out online. for instance, in the online form, the borrower must provide a guarantor, explain the type of business that will be formed 64 the implementation of governance … with the money provided, the amount of revenue, the insurance holdings can classify the status clearly, the number of family members, and other considerations. then, they visit the house or workplace to see the feasibility. it is also used to see whether the borrower comes from a middle-income, lower-income, or lowincome family. if the recipient of the loans comes from the lowest class, they will be given zakat first after some time and have stabilized, then switch to regular financing in qarì al-íasan that must be returned through monthly installments. the maximum amount of interest-free financing is 20,000 try. these conditions make a good cycle for sustainable funding so that there is no problem with funding; as p2 mentions: “as long as the loans are paid back, the money in qarì alíasan fund remains constant. as more people donate, the fund amount increases and we reach more people to give qarì al-íasan. so far, we haven't had a situation where we couldn't afford it. we met all suitable qarì demands” (p2). moreover, if there were a financial issue, it would not significantly impact the cycle. ksar would assess the situation initially, and if the borrower éows no intention of paying the installments, legal action may be taken, leading to court proceedings.. however, if it were because the business condition became difficult, they would be given a deferment of time so that the borrower could pay its installments. on the other side, bmt muda, as a sharê‘ah cooperative, is limited to giving loans only to members; hence, for loan distribution, bmt muda focuses more on those who have become members only. by joining a membership that bears the responsibility of saving, the ranking of members of the track record regarding the activeness of saving and others in the bmt muda system would be seen. therefore, this will facilitate the risk assessment endeavors of bmt muda more easily. for instance, the operational procedure of members who wanted to be financed 25 million idr only requires approval by the manager, but financing 25-50 million idr must go through two levels of approval of the manager and management, and above 50 million idr requires three levels of approval of the manager, management, and supervisor. it would be more controlled to prevent financing problems. even if there were a problem, it would not affect bmt muda as the p1 said: “the important thing is to meet and contact. and we find an islamic solution until he can pay off” (p1). along with iksar, bmt muda will see the conditions of borrowers first. if the borrower cannot pay, the time will be extended until the borrower can pay the loans. even if the borrowers hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 65 indeed don't have the ability to pay the profit that the contract already made in the beginning, they are allowed to pay the main loans without profit. furthermore, as an islamic cooperative, bmt muda does not have significant financial disruptions despite terrible financing. it is because bmt muda will look at the borrower's condition first and by the value held to be honest and fair to all parties to maintain the relationship, as p1 said. therefore, they are still financially stable because they maintain a good relationship with the islamic values that are held and practiced. it indicates that both iksar and bmt muda will seek a fair way, according to sharê‘ah, to solve the situation. this is primarily in accordance with islam's morals, which state that neither party should be harmed, so as an islamic microfinance institution, it will consider all aspects beforehand so that it does not affect its financial risk or burden the borrower. therefore, both islamic microfinance providers and borrowers establish mutual trust. as a result of their pursuit of justice, they are able to maintain good relationships with the community. 4.5 transparency and accountability in reporting iksar demonstrates its commitment to transparency by engaging in several practices such as disclosing activity reports, providing updates on the distribution of finance, and sharing information regarding the number and nature of donations received. this also gets support from the existence of an audit division to control the activities carried out transparently and as a communication bridge to the government to report annually on a regular basis. all of the content disclosed was conducted through their website and social media. therefore, the public could know about what activity they have done; as p2 mentioned, “we try to be as transparent as possible. every qarì al-íasan we give here, we record it. even if the amount we give is small, we put it our website. we want the people who donate to us to have no doubt in their minds about where this money is used” (p2). however, iksar disclosed that information is not much broader than bmt muda. bmt muda discloses not only its activity but also its financial report. as p1 indicates, the organization's ownership is internal and external. therefore, the public was able to comprehend their work, and members would not condemn the profit they got. 66 the implementation of governance … even though iksar did not share their financial report, they maintain an excel spreadsheet of its income and expenses. after each year, the accounting records will be submitted to the internal audit and the government for review as their accountability. as turkish regulations require the reporting of even the smallest transactions, this condition elevates iksar above the supervision system. because iksar is the first islamic microfinance organization to adopt the structure of an ngo, and the applicable regulations are absent. however, ngo financial reporting standards continue to be the norm in türkiye. therefore, there is a need to ensure that the format of the financial statements provided to the public is in line with a typical ngo or microcredit. similarly, as numerous islamic cooperatives in indonesia mostly have two divisions, both bait al-mél obtain social goals and bait at-tamwêl for profit-oriented or simply one of them, there needs to be a regular reporting structure. due to the current regulation shows that the reports resemble those of a conventional cooperative, which appears to focus merely on bait at-tamwêl. however, bmt muda was able to distinguish the islamic cooperative by including contracts in the financial statements, whereas accountability for bait al-mél is presented in a separate report. after demonstrating their accountability through automatically generated financial reports with the bmt muda system, as mandated by the government in 2020, they have sent the reports for health assessments to the local government. unfortunately, despite having supervisory boards, members, and a treasurer, as well as annual meetings to supervise the report as accountability, bmt muda lacks financial supervisors to monitor the credibility of internal operations through the existence of an internal auditor. iksar and bmt muda, as institutions bearing the islamic label, have demonstrated adherence to the principles of openness and accountability by disclosing sufficient information to the public. as a result of differences in institutional structure and regulations, their information disclosure has a distinct appearance. iksar is limited to activities reports and bmt muda, whether activities or financial statements are willing to be disclosed to the public. although neither türkiye nor indonesia has a specific law governing information disclosure to the public, both iksar and bmt muda are willing to disclose their report. consequently, the transparency and accountability through the reports they have done is one of the factors that can sustainably strengthen islamic microfinance, as they will be able to gain the public's trust by disclosing relevant information. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 67 5. discussion of implementation of governance principles in management both iksar and bmt muda have implemented governance principles that enhance management's efficiency, ensuring their continued operations as going concerns and obtaining the social goals. however, when discussing the ownership structure of iksar, an ngo with volunteer human resources and still relative new, their transparency and accountability are not broader than bmt muda. in addition, bmt muda operates as an islamic cooperative wherein members actively engage in governance, aligning with the arguments by djan and mersland;68 hence bmt muda feels the obligation to enhance transparency in its reporting practices to cater to the needs and interests of its stakeholders. as demonstrated in table 2, a comparison of these two microfinances reveals either similarities or differences. governance principles iksar (ngo) bmt muda (cooperative) sharê‘ah compliance • the existence of a jurist in sharê‘ah jurisprudence in top management • the existence of a separate sharê‘ah supervisory board in the top management responsibility • although voluntarily, it remains committed to providing the best service for social interests in financing • there are no regular meetings to discuss the future, only direct discussions with co-workers. • remains committed to providing social interests with various programs in the bait al-mél division. • conduct annual meetings for future agendas 68 the implementation of governance … fairness • decision-making, especially when providing financing, conducts a risk study from the data filled in and a review for consideration. • as for financing issues, consider the borrower's condition with a time deferment or legal. • decisionmaking, especially when providing financing that can only be given to members, is based on the member’s liveliness rating. • when there are financing problems, consider the borrower's condition by deferring time and waiving the return on profit. transparency • transparency content in the form of activity reports, the number of incoming and distributed donations • transparency is carried out through website reporting that is easily accessible to all. • transparency information in the form of financial reports, news of the most recent events, and the number of donations obtained for each bait al-mél program. • the media is mainly through a website accessible to everyone, social media, and regular meetings. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 69 accountability • periodically conduct accounting records • accounting report only for internal and government • annually conduct a record conformity check and report to the government website. • conduct periodic record keeping • an accounting report can be accessed on the website for public • regular reporting to routine meetings and local government. source: authors table 2: summary of the comparison between iksar and bmt muda top management can be associated with sharê‘ah compliance since both iksar and bmt muda have separated management responsibilities, including the presence of sharê‘ah specialists. even though iksar is brand-new and the first islamic microfinance institution formed as an ngo in türkiye69, one member of iksar’s advisory board is a sharê‘ah expert, and bmt muda also has a sharê‘ah advisory board. this function is to consult on sharê‘ah compliance specifically, especially when carrying out activities that must be free of gharar, maysir, and usury.70 as indicated by ülev, the source of islamic funds in both organizations is zakét, inféq, îadaqah, or even waqf, as evidenced by the findings.71 this is the defining characteristic between conventional and islamic microfinance governed by islamic law. at the same time, it can be implied that both iksar and bmt muda have the ability to make proper management as islamic principles by consult to the sharê‘ah experts.72 consequently, both iksar as ngo and bmt muda as islamic cooperatives imply an awareness of and duty to uphold sharê‘ah compliance. responsibility can relate to human resources in internal management. although iksar, as an ngo, works voluntarily, it does not reduce their enthusiasm to achieve their social goals in the financing, as bmt muda, an islamic cooperative, particularly synergizes with bait al-mél division to achieve it. iksar and bmt muda demonstrate microfinance through their activities that finance the low-income class, as microfinance seeks to provide financing to help people from the low-income class advance.73 even though their human resources are limited, they are still committed to financing. in 70 the implementation of governance … accordance with mutamimah et al., the quality of human resources is related to commitment, enthusiasm, intelligence, and drive to achieve goals.74 it has been proved by many people who get financing, utilized technology by iksar even though it is still relatively new, and many variance programs from bmt muda. indirectly, iksar and bmt muda have the ability to manage islamic microfinance in their management, which confirms kassim et al. statement that microfinance needs the ability in addition, if they face a problem, they will communicate to solve it with a different approach. due to the fact that iksar is an ngo, they are not determined on a meeting because they will talk about it directly, but it would be better if iksar has a plan like bmt muda regularly has a meeting to discuss the plan. generally indicates that they have an excellent moral foundation to carry out their responsibilities as microfinance institutions.75 fairness is one of the akhléq that iksar and bmt muda exemplify in terms of morality, particularly while making decisions in the event, in order to make decisions with integrity and fairness, each party must be honest and fair. as lewis stated, making decisions is required to be responsible, truthful, and fair, then must be built among participants so that all parties trust and will not harm each other.76 clearly, iksar and bmt muda with borrowers are fair for all parties involved. it can be implied in making decisions regarding one of the credit issues, they adhere to the principle of fairness objectively.77 due to the fact that these organizations form islamic microfinance primarily for social benefit, this condition necessitates that its interests are not always prioritized.78 the principle of fairness has indirectly led to public trust in these two islamic microfinances, which led to stability. according to kassim et al., implementing effective governance will help islamic microfinance overcome risks because the public has trusted the organization, especially to attract donors.79 obtaining social improvement needs trust from the donator, and it can be proved through transparent information80 because the public will know about the activity from the information disclosed by the organization.81 both iksar and bmt muda share an essential objective, notably the importance of information disclosure. they both understand the importance of transparency because islamic microfinance is not only owned by organizations but also by social communities. as haniffa and hudaib stated, the islamic paradigm requires broad information as responsibility and accountability to allah almighty, the public, and individuals.82 the utilization of websites and social media platforms serves as a means for communicating relevant knowledge regarding iksar and bmt muda, thereby ensuring public awareness at all times. for instance, iksar provides details about the number of incoming donations and activity reports for the year 2021, while bmt muda discloses hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 71 financial reports, the number of incoming donations in each programme, and the most recent activities. therefore, this spurs available information to attract donors’ attention.83 given the islamic perspective, it might be argued that the community was in need of additional information.84 both bmt muda and iksar demonstrate a commitment to responsible conduct and strive to provide the highest quality service offered. in addition, the regular practice of iksar and bmt muda in documenting transactions, reporting them to the appropriate authorities, and making the information publicly accessible on a website demonstrates their undeniable commitment to accountability. unfortunately, lack of regulation in türkiye or indonesia regarding reporting form that made iksar and bmt muda confused confirms gupta & mirchandani argument that socially oriented microfinance, such as ngos and cooperatives, is not adequately regulated.85 however, iksar and bmt muda have the awareness to uphold the value of sharê‘ah compliance, commitment, moral attitude, and trustworthiness in transparency as their accountability to the stakeholders, which is consistent with hudon and jepson's argument that socially oriented microfinance is more concerned with public values, issues, and strategies in achieving social objectives.86;87 6. conclusion iksar and bmt muda have tried to realize governance principles in their management; hence, they effectively fulfill their moral obligation by pursuing their social objectives. however, bmt muda has greater transparency than iksar due to its regulation and ownership structure, whereas iksar is merely an association that operates on a voluntary basis. in addition, iksar is newer and smaller than bmt muda. both have the same understanding of the importance of sharê‘ah compliance, proved by the existence of sharê‘ah experts, the responsibility to give the best service through their programs, fairness in decision-making when there is a problem to look for the best solution in the islamic way. as for accountability, primarily in financial reports, iksar is limited only to internal and government. on the contrary, bmt muda gives accessibility not only to internal such as supervisory and members but also public through their websites and annual meetings. this analysis demonstrates that despite the shared characteristic of both entities being modern, their reliance on technology as a means to gain a competitive edge is evident. if they were able to plan for an increase in human resources, they might increase promotion, and collected donations would be able to reach more people to enhance the socioeconomic situation in türkiye and indonesia. iksar should meet on a regular basis to discuss their 72 the implementation of governance … plans for their ongoing business and to expand the scope of their information disclosure. likewise, if bmt muda has an internal audit board, its finances and governance will be more organized and financially trustworthy. both iksar and bmt muda are supposed to be more transparent and accountable to attract the public trust in them; hence, their long-term success in achieving their social goals would be enhanced despite in an unpredictable context, islamic microfinance will become more secure and resilient in the long run. finally, each country's government should also encourage practitioners to continue to develop islamic microfinance, emphasizing socially-oriented microfinance by making more concrete regulations, particularly regarding information disclosure to the public, so that the public will get more reliable information. given that in islam, it is necessary to disclose information thoroughly to the public because this will also have an impact on public awareness to trust islamic microfinance institutions more so that it will simultaneously have an impact on relations among the public, islamic microfinance, and the government in creating a sustainable. this study relies on only two informants due to the small size of both entities. hence, the author cannot shed light on the factors that influence the structure and administration of both organizations. due to the fact that this study only investigates two islamic microfinance countries that specifically had disclosed the reports on the website, further research is required to delve deeply into each facet of governance principles, to incorporate the government's perspective, and to include more countries. 7. notes and references 1 lewis, m. k. "islamic corporate governance." review of islamic economics 9 (01/01 2005). 2 yilmaz, ozgur-devrim, guluzar kurt-gumus, and banu aslanertik. "corporate governance and voluntary disclosure: content analysis on borsa istanbul hospitality industry companies." turizam 21 (01/01 2017): 34-44. https://doi.org/10.5937/turizam1701034y. 3 kassim, salina, rusni hassan, and siti nadhirah kassim. "good governance and sustainability in islamic microfinance institutions." journal of islamic finance 7, no. 2 (09/18 2018): 021-28. https://journals.iium.edu.my/iiibfjournal/index.php/jif/article/view/298. 4 kyereboah‐coleman, anthony, and kofi a. osei. "outreach and profitability of microfinance institutions: the role of governance." journal of economic studies 35, no. 3 (2008): 236-48. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443580810887797. 5 lewis, m. k. "principles of islamic corporate governance." 243-67, 2014. 6 ülev, salih. "i̇slami mikrofinans: bir literatür i̇ncelemesi." adam akademi̇ sosyal bilimler dergisi 12 (08/14 2022): 169-210. 7 özdemir, mücahit. i̇slami mikrofinans teori uygulama ve model önerileri. albaraka yayınları, 2019. https://doi.org/10.5937/turizam1701034y https://journals.iium.edu.my/iiibf-journal/index.php/jif/article/view/298 https://journals.iium.edu.my/iiibf-journal/index.php/jif/article/view/298 https://doi.org/10.1108/01443580810887797 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 73 8 gupta, namrata, and anita mirchandani. "corporate governance and performance of microfinance institutions: recent global evidences." journal of management and governance 24, no. 2 (2019): 307–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-0189446-4. 9 kassim, salina, rusni hassan, and siti nadhirah kassim. op.cit. pp.22 10 gupta, namrata, and anita mirchandani. op.cit. 11 hartarska, valentina. 2005. "governance and performance of microfinance institutions in central and eastern europe and the newly independent states." world development 33 (10): 1627–1643. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.06.001. 12 fan, yaoyao, kose john, frank hong liu, and luqyan tamanni. "security design, incentives, and islamic microfinance: cross country evidence." journal of international financial markets, institutions and money 62 (2019/09/01/ 2019): 264-80. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intfin.2019.08.002. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s1042443118304244. 13 abbas, kausar, and nasim shirazi. "the key players’ perception on the role of islamic microfinance in poverty alleviation." journal of islamic accounting and business research 6, no. 2 (2015): 244-67. https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-062013-0017. 14 iqbal, sana, ahmad nawaz, and sadaf ehsan. "financial performance and corporate governance in microfinance: evidence from asia." journal of asian economics 60 (2019/02/01/ 2019): 1-13. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asieco.2018.10.002. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s1049007817301616. 15 lansink, alfons oude, elvira silva, and spiro e stefanou. "inter-firm and intrafirm efficiency measures." journal of productivity analysis 15, no. 3 (2001): 185– 99. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41770043. 16 abdul zalim, siti nazariah. "performance measurement in islamic microfinance institutions: does it change social norms and values?". qualitative research in financial markets 14, no. 2 (2022): 306-23. https://doi.org/10.1108/qrfm-092020-0186. 17 aziz, abdul. "the role of cooperatives in the sharia finance productive small businesses trade sector in indonesia." ssrn electronic journal. (2019). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3250267. 18 ülev, salih. op.cit. pp. 189 19 hartarska, valentina. op.cit. pp.1628 20 mersland, roy, and r. øystein strøm. "performance and governance in microfinance institutions." journal of banking & finance 33, no. 4 (2009/04/01/ 2009): 662-69. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2008.11.009. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0378426608002835. 21 labie, marc "corporate governance in microfinance organizations: along and winding road." management decision 39, no. 4 (2001): 296–302. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740110391466. 22 kassim, salina, rusni hassan, and siti nadhirah kassim. op.cit. pp.26 23 hudon, marek. "management of microfinance institutions: do subsidies matter?". journal of international development 22, no. 7 (2010): 890-905. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.1639.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ abs/10.1002/jid.1639. 24 ülev, salih, fatih savaşan, and mücahit özdemir. "do islamic microfinance institutions affect the socio-economic development of the beneficiaries? the evidence from turkey." international journal of ethics and systems ahead-of-print, no. ahead-of-print (2022). https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoes-09-2021-0179. 25 robinson, marguerite s. "the microfinance revolution. : lessons from indonesia volume 2." washington, dc, usa: world bank publications, 2001. 26 tanjung, muslim, and arina novizas. "eksistensi baitul mal wa tamwil (bmt) dalam perekonomian islam." jurnal magister ilmu hukum 3, no. 1 (2018): 27-35. https://jurnal.uai.ac.id/index.php/jmih/article/download/749/530. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-018-9446-4 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-018-9446-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.06.001 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.intfin.2019.08.002 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s1042443118304244 https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2013-0017 https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-06-2013-0017 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.asieco.2018.10.002 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s1049007817301616 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41770043 https://doi.org/10.1108/qrfm-09-2020-0186 https://doi.org/10.1108/qrfm-09-2020-0186 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3250267 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2008.11.009 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0378426608002835 https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740110391466 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1002/jid.1639 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jid.1639 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jid.1639 https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoes-09-2021-0179 https://jurnal.uai.ac.id/index.php/jmih/article/download/749/530 74 the implementation of governance … 27 nurrahman, aldiansyah, and achi hartoyo. "jumlah bmt berkontribusi jadikan keuangan syariah indonesia nomor 1 di dunia." kneks, 2019, accessed 5/5/2023, 2023, https://kneks.go.id/berita/. 28 muda, bmt. laporan neraca koperasi bmt muda jatim. (2021). https://bmtmuda.com/. 29 ülev, salih. i̇slami mikrofinans: dünya örnekleri ve türkiye i̇çin öneriler. ikam i̇sefam (i̇stanbul: i̇lke, 2021). https://ikam.org.tr/islami-mikrofinans-dunyaornekleri-ve-turkiye-icin-oneriler. 30 iksar. iksar. (2021). www.iksar.org.tr. 31 aziza, nur amalia, and m. nur a. birton. "a narrative analysis using the concept of tabligh on the obligation of financial statements disclosure." kne social sciences 3, no. 26 (10/17 2019). https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v3i26.5414. https://knepublishing.com/index.php/kne-social/article/view/5414. 32 robinson, marguerite s. op.cit. pp.27 33 nawai, norhaziah. "the implementation of islamic microfinancing for poverty alleviation in malaysia." international islamic economic system conference (iiecons), 2021. 34 gupta, namrata, and anita mirchandani. op.cit. 35 djan, kwame ohene, and roy mersland. "are ngos and cooperatives similar or different? a global survey using microfinance data." journal of management and governance 26, no. 2 (2022/06/01 2022): 641-83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-021-09567-9. 36 hudon, marek. op.cit. pp.895 37 jepson, paul. "governance and accountability of environmental ngos." environmental science and policy 8, no. 5 (2005): 515-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2005.06.006. 38 suseno, priyonggo. baitul maal wat tamwil (bmt): a faith and communitybased microfinance. jakartta: national committee of islamic economy and finance, 2020. https://knks.go.id/storage/upload/1589251860islamic%20business%20case_bmt.pdf. 39 aziz, abdul. op.cit. 40 smes, ministry of cooperatives and. "peraturan menteri koperasi dan usaha kecil dan menengah tentang pelaksanaan kegiatan usaha simpan pinjam dan pembiayaan syariah oleh koperasi." edited by ministry o f cooperatives and smes, 2018. https://peraturan.bpk.go.id/home/details/160827/permenkop-ukmno-11permkukmxii2017-tahun-2017 41 özdemir, mücahit. op.cit. 42 ülev, salih. op.cit. pp.395 43 ülev, salih. op.cit. pp.11 44 abunnaja, muhammad. "microfinance: a new reach for islamic banks in turkey." european journal of business and management 8, no. 14 (05/31 2016): 104-116. https://iiste.org/journals/index.php/ejbm/article/view/30552. 45 hudon, marek. op.cit. pp.897 46 lewis, m. k. op.cit. "principles of islamic corporate governance." 243-67, 2014. 47 haniffa, roszaini. "haniffa, r. & hudaib, m. (2011) a conceptual framework for islamic accounting, in napier, c. & haniffa, r. (eds.), islamic accounting, edward elgar." (01/01 2011). 48 kassim, salina, rusni hassan, and siti nadhirah kassim. op.cit. pp.22 49 mutamimah, mutamimah, zaenudin zaenudin, and widiyanto bin mislan cokrohadisumarto. "risk management practices of islamic microfinance institutions to improve their financial performance and sustainability: a study on baitut tamwil muhammadiyah, indonesia." qualitative research in financial markets 14, no. 5 (2022): 679-96. https://doi.org/10.1108/qrfm-06-2021-0099. 50 lewis, m. k. op.cit. pp. 2 51 aziz, abdul. op.cit. 52 gupta, namrata, and anita mirchandani. op.cit. 53 hartarska, valentina. op.cit. https://kneks.go.id/berita/ http://www.iksar.org.tr/ https://knepublishing.com/index.php/kne-social/article/view/5414 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-021-09567-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2005.06.006 https://knks.go.id/storage/upload/1589251860-islamic%20business%20case_bmt.pdf https://knks.go.id/storage/upload/1589251860-islamic%20business%20case_bmt.pdf https://peraturan.bpk.go.id/home/details/160827/permenkop-ukm-no-11permkukmxii2017-tahun-2017 https://peraturan.bpk.go.id/home/details/160827/permenkop-ukm-no-11permkukmxii2017-tahun-2017 https://doi.org/10.1108/qrfm-06-2021-0099 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 75 54 augustine, darline "good practice in corporate governance: transparency, trust, and performance in the microfinance industry." business & society 51, no. 4 (2012): 659-76. https://doi.org/10.1177/0007650312448623. http://bas.sagepub.com/content/51/4/659. 55 bassem, ben soltane. "governance and performance of microfinance institutions in mediterranean countries." journal of business economics and management 10, no. 1 (2009): 31-43. https://doi.org/10.3846/1611-1699.2009.10.31-43. 56 kassim, salina, rusni hassan, and siti nadhirah kassim. op.cit. pp.22 57 aaoifi. "auditing and governance standards." manama, bahrain: accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions, 2010. 58 lewis, m. k. op.cit. pp.15 59 beekun, rafik i, and jamal a badawi. "balancing ethical responsibility among multiples organizational stakeholders: the islamic perspective." journal of business ethics 60 (2005): 131-45. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-004-8204-5. 60 haniffa, r. & hudaib, m. op.cit. pp.29 61 vishwanath, tara, and daniel kaufmann. "towards transparency in finance and governance." ssrn electronic journal (09/26 2003). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.258978. 62 schnackenberg, andrew k., and edward c. tomlinson. "organizational transparency:a new perspective on managing trust in organization-stakeholder relationships." journal of management 42, no. 7 (2016): 1784-810. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314525202. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0149206314525202. 63 haniffa, r. & hudaib, m. op.cit. pp.24 64 esser, frank, and rens vliegenthart. "comparative research methods." in the international encyclopedia of communication research methods, 1-22, 2017. 65 creswell, john w. research design qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. 4 ed.: sage publications, 2014. 66 haniffa, r. & hudaib, m. op.cit. pp.24 67 abdullah, md. faruk, md. ruhul amin, and asmak ab rahman. "is there any difference between islamic and conventional microfinance? evidence from bangladesh." international journal of business and society 18, no. 1 (2017): 97112. http://www.ijbs.unimas.my/index.php/volume-11-20/volume-18-s12017/328-is-there-any-difference-between-islamic-and-conventionalmicrofinance-evidence-from-bangladesh. 68 djan, kwame ohene, and roy mersland. op.cit 69 ülev, salih, fatih savaşan, and mücahit özdemir. op.cit 70 lewis, m. k. op.cit. pp.15 71 ülev, salih. op.cit. pp.195 72 kassim, salina, rusni hassan, and siti nadhirah kassim. op.cit. pp.24 73 ülev, salih. op.cit. pp.173 74 mutamimah, mutamimah, zaenudin zaenudin, and widiyanto bin mislan cokrohadisumarto. op.cit. pp.686 75 beekun, rafik i, and jamal a badawi. op.cit. pp.134 76 lewis, m. k. op.cit. pp.17 77 haniffa, r. & hudaib, m. op.cit. pp.29 78 gupta, namrata, and anita mirchandani. op.cit. 79 kassim, salina, rusni hassan, and siti nadhirah kassim. op.cit. pp.26 80 schnackenberg, andrew k., and edward c. tomlinson. op.cit. pp.3 81 vishwanath, tara, and daniel kaufmann. op.cit. pp.26 82 haniffa, r. & hudaib, m. op.cit. pp.26 83 kassim, salina, rusni hassan, and siti nadhirah kassim. op.cit. pp.26 84 lewis, m. k. op.cit. pp.16 85 gupta, namrata, and anita mirchandani. op.cit. 86 hudon, marek. op.cit. pp.895 87 jepson, paul. op.cit. pp.519 http://bas.sagepub.com/content/51/4/659 https://doi.org/10.3846/1611-1699.2009.10.31-43 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-004-8204-5 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.258978 https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314525202 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0149206314525202 http://www.ijbs.unimas.my/index.php/volume-11-20/volume-18-s1-2017/328-is-there-any-difference-between-islamic-and-conventional-microfinance-evidence-from-bangladesh http://www.ijbs.unimas.my/index.php/volume-11-20/volume-18-s1-2017/328-is-there-any-difference-between-islamic-and-conventional-microfinance-evidence-from-bangladesh http://www.ijbs.unimas.my/index.php/volume-11-20/volume-18-s1-2017/328-is-there-any-difference-between-islamic-and-conventional-microfinance-evidence-from-bangladesh hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 87 execution strategies of islamic governance: the case of türkiye (2010-2020) md. khaled hosen department of political science international islamic university malaysia (iium), malaysia khaled.du502@gmail.comemail: dr. syaza farhana binti mohamad shukri kulliyyah of islamic revealed knowledge and human sciences international islamic university malaysia (iium), malaysia. cazgul.colaliyeva@manas.edu.kgemail: received on: 19-11-22 accepted on: 12-02-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.656 abstract academics conducted in-depth analyses and critical research on the justice and development party (adalet ve kalkınma partisi, (ak parti) government's islamisation projects. however, little research has been conducted to understand the execution processes of islamic governance in türkiye from a genuine administrative perspective. this research tries to fill this gap. for this purpose, it discusses the conceptual framework of islamic governance for theoretical guidelines. then, it discusses the execution strategies adopted by the ak parti government. the study identified that the ak parti government followed mainly six strategies in islamising turkish governance: (1) developing public institutions; (2) developing islamic educational institutions; (3) curriculum reforms; (4) major financing; (5) empowering islamic bureaucracy, and (6) managing islamic da‘wa. these six strategies are largely implemented through two channels: the directorate of religious affairs and the imam hatip schools. the imam hatip high school, a vocational high school with a modern and islamic curriculum established to prepare preachers and imams, is operated by the ministry of national education. the ak parti administration gave importance to these schools to produce a religion-oriented generation. this mailto:khaled.du502@gmail.com mailto:cazgul.colaliyeva@manas.edu.kg https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.656 88 execution strategies of islamic … has gained international attention as an alternative model for madrasas in muslim nations. however, this study concludes that türkiye has a long way to go before achieving genuine islamisation in society. the ak parti government should decentralize da‘wa by focusing local enterprises on disseminating authentic islamic messages and expanding the participation of numerous state institutions in the islamisation process. this is a qualitative study depending on primary and secondary sources. primary sources include government reports and documents, websites of the pertinent government institutions and ministries, and national and international dailies. the secondary sources include referred books, journal articles, and scholarly research. the analysis focuses on the period 2010-2020 because it was from 2010 that the ak parti government mainly initiated islamisation projects to generate an islamic society based on islamic values. keywords: islamic governance, strategies, execution, türkiye 1. introduction modern türkiye has become a significant player in global politics by promoting turkish nationalism with its islamic brand.1 however, islam in türkiye has always been a contentious topic regarding power politics. following the fall of the ottoman empire, kemal ataturk founded modern türkiye based on secularism and liberal culture where islam was kept away from politics. the constitutional framework of türkiye, thus, protected secularism as its state principle. similarly, other state institutions were vigilant in preserving secular ideology. therefore, islamists in turkish politics were always confronted with severe challenges in achieving state leadership. islamic political parties faced resistance from several state institutions, including the military, judiciary, and secular elites in türkiye. whenever any islamic party came into state power, the turkish military intervened to protect secularism and banned religious politics. however, the trajectory changed gradually when the justice and development party (adalet ve kalkınma partisi, (ak parti) formed the government in 2002. under erdogan's bold leadership, ak parti government managed the obstacles and attempted strategically to instill islamic values in government mechanisms to support the revival of the islamic spirit in public life. although ak parti denied establishing an islamic state, it envisioned applying islamic norms and values in turkish muslim life. erdogan did not dream of making a dramatic change in society. rather, he measured the existing obstacles and designed pragmatic strategies to avoid the systemic threat of secular türkiye. erdogan spoke little about islam between 2002 and 2010, preferring to concentrate on conservative politics based on turkish nationalism. still, after consolidating hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 89 enough power, the ak parti boldly initiated the process of islamisation. ihsan yilmaz claims that the 2010–2011 period marked a turning point in the history of the ak parti administration since, at this time, the leadership shifted its focus to building the islamisation program after 2011.2 conservatism and islamism drove türkiye in a new direction, assumed as the model for other muslim countries. erdogan started to emphasize the policy of preserving family values, which aims to prevent socioeconomic disorders. according to the ak parti, the turkish family is in a crisis, and its standards are breaking down, leading to socioeconomic problems, including crime, addiction, poverty, and homelessness. to prevent this, the country needs to have strong families.3 ak parti also adopted the policy of the pious generation that aims to re-configure the intellects and attitudes of youth based on the quranic teaching and modern education. erdogan credited an image of a perfect young man clutching a quran in one hand and a computer in the other.4 the ak parti administration attempted to islamise governance to produce an islamic generation and make it suitable for providing efficient islamic services. therefore, the question arises of how the ak parti government applied the policies of islamisation into the government mechanism that supports the production of a generation based on islamic principles and fruitful education. this study aims to deal with this question. it will analyze the execution strategies of islamic governance as mechanized by the ak parti government. this study is significant due to several reasons. since it describes the governance strategies of islamisation in türkiye, it will benefit the policymakers, political leaders, and strategists of other muslim countries who tend to follow the islamisation process of the turkish government as a model of islamic governance. because secularism is prevalent in many muslim nations, people will be able to comprehend how islamisation might occur in a secular muslim country like türkiye. it will also contribute to the academic field that islamic governance is not merely a theoretical manifestation but has pragmatic applicability even in secular muslim countries. the justification for the study asserts that it is necessary to document how türkiye, a country with a majority of muslims, articulates islamic identity by redesigning islamic institutions and reshuffling governance structures considering existing social, political, and economic reality. 2. literature review 90 execution strategies of islamic … existing literature addresses this question differently; most of the discussion concentrates on erdogan's islamisation policies and their critical analysis. there is insufficient focus on analyzing how islamic policies are executed in the administrative system to materialize islamic vision. ihsan yilmaz, in his latest book “creating the desired citizen: ideology, state, and islam in turkey,” analyses the ideological contentions between the secular and islamist approaches in creating a pious generation from the historical perspectives, where secularists and islamists defined the concept of the desired citizen according to their own ideological goals.5 other studies include stark,6 bruinessen,7 and pupcenoks,8 and yesilada et al.,9 briefly explaining turkish governance's islamisation. however, their explanations are dissatisfactory, as the details and updates provided are neither sufficient nor are they according to the theoretical perspectives of this study. their investigations are based on youth policy, family policy, or education. in this aspect, moten10 applied the framework of islamic governance, but it is very short and not updated. no significant study has been found that comprehensively discusses the ak parti government's strategies in islamisation from a genuinely administrative perspective that can be a model of islamic governance. this study aims to fulfill this literature gap and contribute to the existing literature. 3. methodology relying on the qualitative method, data are collected from primary and secondary sources for this research. primary sources include government reports and documents, websites of pertinent government institutions and ministries, and national and international dailies. the secondary sources include referred books, journal articles, and scholarly research. the following section will discuss the framework of islamic governance in detail. this paradigm is chosen because islam offers a unique perspective on governance that differs from other worldviews. since the ak parti government aims to empower islam in politics and government, it is essential to investigate islamisation in türkiye through the lens of islamic governance, which is more pertinent to this investigation. the framework is then applied in the following section by examining various policy implementations by the ak parti government, including religious institutions such as diyanet and education sectors, particularly imam hatip schools. the imam hatip high school is a specific type of vocational high school with an islamic and modern curriculum run by the ministry of national education to educate and prepare preachers and imams. these schools strive to harmonize religion and modern education to produce a generation founded on conservative and moral ideals. 11 the ak parti government provided special priority to qualify these schools. similarly, these institutions have emerged as a matter of hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 91 discussion regarding their structures, numbers, and student and alums profiles, gaining worldwide attention as an alternative model for madrasas in muslim nations following the september 11 events. 12 after analyzing imam hatip schools, this study then analyses the impacts and challenges of islamisation in turkish society with possible recommendations, and finally, the study ends with conclusions. 4. governance and islamic governance governance as a concept provides a firmly established framework to investigate the inherent intricacies of prevailing policymaking. it determines how society and its political processes are structured and guided. so, governance should be viewed as a broader notion within the political analysis that serves as a crucial tool for describing some of the complexities of political processes.13 however, depending on cultural and ideological perspectives, the philosophical ground of governance and its theoretical architecture vary. therefore, governance in the islamic framework is required to elucidate the basic guidance aligned with the islamic worldview. regarding islamic governance (ig), taqiy al-din ibn taimiyyah (661 h/ad 1263–728 h/ad 1328) provided a concise exposition of the fundamentals of islamic government important for both the rulers and the ruled. we know that islamic governance is ruled by sharê‘ah (islamic rulings). however, sharê‘ah does not fully explain every situation. ibn taimiyyah claims that if shari‘ah does not give clear guidelines, the ruling authorities must seek advice from scholars or ‘ulama (islamic scholars). the phrase "those who wield power" (wulat al-umur) includes these specialists. the obligation between the ‘ulama and umara (the rulers) should be mutual. the ‘ulama are responsible for efficiently guiding (providing advice or nasêíah) the rulers so that their functions do not contradict sharê‘ah’s goals, and the rulers must obey the ‘ulama’s direction.14 the ruler should be nominated by the people or the desire of the majority through the system of wilayah, a mutual convention between rulers and the ruled. he advocated political pluralism, participation, ensuring justice, and checks and balance in exercising power.15 imam khomeini’s terminology of “velāyat-e faqīh,” or the jurist’s guardianship, provides the authority of guardianship in guiding public institutions and people. he analyzes “propagation and instruction” as two essential functions of ig where fuqaha will disseminate the light of religion and educate the masses on the beliefs, customs, and institutions of islam to lead society for the execution of islamic principles and the development of islamic institutions.16 islam. r. believes that islamic governance incorporates the procedures and duties that provide governments of muslim nations and formal institutions the authority to decide or enforce conformity 92 execution strategies of islamic … with islamic laws, values, norms, or principles as stated in the holy qur’én and sunnah. it provides guiding principles to fulfill the objectives of sharê‘ah, maqéîsd al sharê‘ah.17 islamic governance, according to moten a. r., is concerned with three things: (1) the process of governing or ruling in terms of how governmental institutions operate public matters and manage public funds to promote the attainment of the common welfare; (2) the collection of laws and policies passed by leaders for execution by numerous government entities; and (3) the adjustments introduced to guarantee the stability of the political system by adhering to the rules of the qur’én and sunnah.18 he describes the five essential characteristics of islamic governance: (1) knowledge and accountability of the leaders. (2) the supremacy of the consultation in the decision-making process. (3) spiritual and material education for all. (4) priority to the welfare of the people and (5) ensuring justice for all.19 therefore, from the above discussion, it can be inferred that islamic governance encompasses mainly six strategies: (1) institutional development, (2) bureaucratic empowerment, (3) financing to islamic development, (4) da‘wah service (propagation) to serve the purposes of islam and welfare of the entire community (5) educational reforms (6) curriculum update. this study will follow this framework to examine islamic governance in türkiye, arguing that all six strategies are present during the ak parti regime to institutionalize islam in türkiye. from 1-4 strategies are executed by diyanet, the directorate of religious affairs in türkiye, and 5-6 strategies are executed by the imam hatip schools. the following section discusses these strategies elaborately. 5. discussion on the execution strategies of islamic governance in türkiye 5.1. developing religious institutions (diyanet) the presidency of religious affairs, often known as diyanet, is türkiye’s main authority for religious administration. the secular turkish republic is a government department established to manage religious administrations and authority.20 it upholds organized bureaucratic processes while offering islamic services.21 the diyanet, the central religious organization, performs directly under the presidential office and coordinates most religious functions for the sunni muslims community.22 diyanet was created by ataturk under article 136 of the turkish constitution in 1924 and became a recognized governmental organization.23 although its capabilities were constrained in the early years before the 1980s, it is administrative capacity and working spaces considerably increased. with a sizable budget, the workforce peaked in 2020 at 128,000 people.24 diyanet operates within institutional frameworks. it has hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 93 many units, each given a set of responsibilities. the main unit of diyanet is the directorate of religious affairs (dra). its functions are analyzed in the following. 5.1.1. the directorate of religious affairs (dra) the functions of the dra are defined in article 7, clause (a) of law no. 633 on the establishment and duties of the directorate of religious affairs. it was established to conduct activities related to islamic beliefs, worship principles, moral thinking and conduct, and the management of places of worship.25 it supervises all mosques, employs all clergy (imams, preachers, and muftis), runs qur’én classes, and centrally decides what will be said during friday sermons.26 accordingly, this unit serves under four main departments: mosque service, guidance, family and religious counselling, and social and cultural religious services. regarding mosque service, diyanet is responsible for carrying out the government’s mosque projects inside and outside türkiye. additionally, it is working to open mosques for prayer, manage their operations, ensure that they are clean both inside and outside, organize events for major islamic days and nights, and plan the annual mosques and religious officials week. türkiye had 80,836 mosques in 2009,27 however, by 2020 that number had risen to 90,000.28 diyanet employs all of the imams, considered civil servants trained by the state. additionally, it develops the friday sermon for every jumu‘ah mosque domestically and internationally.29 similarly, the department of guidance services guides mosques in various ways, such as by setting up islamic programs and meetings outside of mosques and engaging in other activities as directed by the mufti office through radio, television, and other broadcasting media to educate society.30 diyanet launched a radio station and television network in 2013 that broadcast programs on religious subjects. it also answers any inquiries about islamic customs and beliefs.31 transforming mosques from places of prayer into multipurpose social facilities containing libraries, cafés, and other amenities, implies that diyanet has expanded mosque services beyond just religious activities.32 as the previous president of diyanet expected, the organization's activists should guide the society by the prophet's sunnah and make mosques into active hubs for people of all gender where muftis, imams, mua’dhins, and women officials work dynamically for this objective.33 on the contrary, the family and religious counseling services develops initiatives and programs based on religious guidance for families, women, adolescents, and other segments of society. for this purpose, it employs female preachers, provides access to participate in religious and cultural events, and offers 94 execution strategies of islamic … counseling to help with family-related problems.34 diyanet created more space by increasing the proportion of female preachers to ensure more effectiveness in da'wah management and programs. according to research, there were 224 female preachers in 2009 instead of 78 in 2002. diyanet has two major methods to reach its targeted demography, notably women and young people; (1) adopting specialized channels inside the family guidance bureaus, a division under the mufti office; and (2) signing protocols with relevant municipalities and ministries.35 the family bureau, in this case, conducts home visits, particularly during important occasions like weddings and funerals, organizes a home gathering for the recitation of the holy qur’én, or participates in outdoor gatherings to meet women and foster community ties so that the female staff members of the bureau can have private discussions with women about marriage and sex life and properly guide them following national values and religious principles.36 the bureau promotes marriage and strives to lower divorce rates. moreover, the bureau organizes "marriage schools" or pre-marriage family courses jointly organized by local municipalities or directorates of the ministry of family. however, these programs are based on the family education program, which the ministry of family already uses but has been reorganized to assure religious direction.37 regarding protocol signing, diyanet signed agreements with two ministries in 2011: the ministry of family and social policies. these agreements laid the groundwork for collaborations aimed at preserving the fundamental principles of the turkish family and averting harms that threaten family harmony. this collaboration was further updated and detailed in 2018.38 furthermore, diyanet is actively contributing to implementing ministry of family policies by establishing channels within the system, such as hiring female preachers and establishing the family and religious guidance bureaus, which are equipped with necessary resources and development programs for human resources to restructure gender relations.”39 female preachers deliver sermons outside mosques in hospitals, women's prisons, detention centers, reformatories, women's shelters, student dormitories, and factories. thus, they play an important role in diyanet's expansion and propagation of its message beyond places of worship." 40 in october 2017, the government revised several sections of the law on civil registration services, giving muftis the authority to officiate at civil weddings and register them; this responsibility had previously been reserved for civil officers of municipalities. this amendment orientated a partnership protocol between mufti offices and municipalities, and diyanet was advanced to connect engaged hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 95 couples and even additional relevant audiences.41 such a communication network allowed the diyanet family bureaus to participate in training educational institutions run by municipalities, such as art classes or vocational courses. the inter-agency partnership hopes to educate and enlighten participants: “family law and life in islam include maintaining the family structure, increasing peace and sustainability in the family, maintaining traditions and customs, education of values and providing basic religious knowledge.”42 5.1.2. diyanet qur’én courses diyanet administers quranic courses. the courses have been revived since the ak parti took power in 2002. the number of students increased from 90,353 in 2001 to 297,247 in 2010. the quranic courses have undergone considerable changes due to the 2012 education reforms. the number of quranic courses increased to 20,000 in 2020.43 the courses are no longer co-managed by the ministry of education. students' minimum age requirement of twelve years was eliminated. regulations of required course facilities were lifted, and the teacher’s quality requirements were relaxed so that temporary teachers could teach.44 in the academic year 2014–2015, the diyanet began offering the holy qur’én memorizing classes at the medina imam hatip secondary school in ankara. nonetheless, diyanet and the ministry of education signed a protocol in may 2019 titled "quran courses at school cooperative education." the agreement procedure states that after completing their qur’én memorizing classes in the fifth and sixth grades, students move on to additional consolidation classes in the seventh and eighth grades. individuals who receive a qur’én memorizing certificate are subsequently referred to the hatip secondary schools chosen by the ministry of education. in the academic year of 2019-2020, 14,900 pupils participated in qur’én memorizing classes. in 2020-2021, 16,639 students enrolled in such courses.45 children who had not completed primary education were also forbidden from enrolling in summer qur’én classes until 2012. as the prohibition had been abolished, qur’n courses for children ages 4-6 were inaugurated in 2013, giving them a chance to learn about religion. families that desire to raise their children following their religion pay close attention to these courses.46 according to a report, 8,695 turkish boys and girls memorized the complete qur’én during the 2021-22 school year and were handed certificates by the directorate of religious affairs (diyanet). during the 2020-2021 academic year, 73,000 students were registered in quranic courses nationwide, with over 7,000 teachers instructing in over 1,700 subjects.47 96 execution strategies of islamic … 5.1.3. diyanet da‘wah management in the friday sermon regarding the friday sermon, the ak parti administration did not overlook da‘wah management. the ideological shift from kemalism to islamic conservatism necessitates a never-ending effort to persuade people using religious references and glorious historical legacies. as a result, the government empowered diyanet to monitor and control friday speeches in all mosques in turkey. khaïêbs, or preachers, do not normally prepare their own speeches. instead, it has been the official authorities’ responsibility since the republic’s early days to provide ready-made texts.48 before 2006, the authority did not actively pursue high-level centralization of the khuïbah practice. after 2010, however, khuïbah committees were set up in every city under the direction of the provincial mufti offices. the members of this committee collaborate to choose discussion content for the weekly sermons. the mufti's office receives the khuïbah topics they choose for the upcoming year. after receiving clearance from the mufti office, the subjects are given to the appointed imams and preachers, who are qualified to compose scriptures; every week, they respond to the committee with three or four different types of khuïbahs on each subject. the committee then agrees on khuïbah’s final draft and carefully edits it.49 governmental and religious organizations coordinate friday sermons to deliver a consistent and coherent message to the country that fosters government policies.50 according to muhammet sacmali's research, the turkish friday sermon is uniquely tailored for the muslims inside türkiye. according to him, one of the key messages of the diyanet is that turkish islam is the finest way to practice islam, and the turkish are the most powerful and biggest muslim community throughout history. the prevailing mindset "effectively provides localization and instrumentalization of islam." 51 deyanet now posts khuïbah online once a week. the identical lecture is printed and delivered by imams to their individual friday mosques in istanbul and ankara and distant communities in eastern and central anatolia. deyanet used to publish them in monthly publications before the facility of the internet.52 according to the friday khuïbah authority, muslims who come to worship and listen to the sermons are "exposed to reminders of their (re-)identified nationality."53 in this way, the ak parti government endeavors to inculcate islamic visions into the mindset of turkish muslims. 5.1.4. empowering islamic bureaucracy although erdogan opted to create and islamise institutions, the turkish bureaucracy is full of connections tied to secular or nationalist groups. as a result, it is not easy to change this trajectory hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 97 and it will take longer to accomplish. in this regard, erdogan plans to empower religious institutions while considering the existing problems.54 he emphasized diyanet as his elementary project of transformation. the diyanet emerged as a key player in the ak parti administration’s social policy construction, improving its ability to realize islamic goals outside mosques.55 the diyanet has maintained a separate identity and a new bureaucratic structure since 2010. academicians from theological faculties primarily surround human resources in senior management. the government formulated the law and enacted it in 2011 that elevated the status of the president of the diaynet from the fiftyfirst to the tenth row of the state protocol. furthermore, this law increased the status of the managers of departments in the dyanet to the general management departments. for the mufties (islamic jurists) who worked in the cities and counties, their economic situation improved. the number of senior staff members working in diyanet's central office has increased. in september 2014, the office of the diyanet was directly attached to the prime minister's office.56 “rather than that of the deputy prime minister.”57 in several turkish cities, diyanet provided numerous facilities through its different centers, including kagem (women, family, and youth center of the diyanet foundation), which had its headquarters in ankara and opened branches in many cities. it arranges a variety of religious and cultural events. the diyanet employed thousands of female teachers for quranic courses as women preachers.58 the government adopted a new organization law (no.6002) in 2010 that constituted institutional expansion, widened its jurisdiction, and elevated its "status within the administrative hierarchy of the state (to the undersecretary, second only to a minister)." therefore, the functions of the diyanet included researching several religious communities and "religious-social formations that are members of the islamic religion' (article 5, clause c)." second, tasking the strategy development department with examining “from a legal perspective” and providing opinions on laws, regulations, statutes, and drafting laws forwarded by the prime minister's office, other ministries, and the presidency (article 7, clause ğ, 5).59 the review of legislation, which was usually assigned to the council of state, has been delegated to the islamic authority of diyanet, who will interpret the laws from an islamic perspective. as a result of this new law, diyanet has become a significant player in the public policymaking process. in a report on strengthening family unity submitted to the parliamentary commission in 2016, diyanet advocated strengthening its institutional ability to effectively guide newlywed couples and families and shield them from anti-islamic activities, superstitions, 98 execution strategies of islamic … and addiction. in 2017, the government passed laws giving diyanet muftis and imams the authority to officiate civil marriages, which municipal authorities had previously handled.60 this opportunity gave diyanet a huge scope for focusing on the core of its operations. in july 2017, the ak parti government established a new department of migration and moral support services to assist religious services during crises and disasters, including terrorist attacks or earthquakes. additionally, it assigned new responsibilities, including caring for syrian refugees, drug addicts, prisoners, seasonal workers, and childcare facilities.61 the ak parti administration significantly aided diyanet in its mission to convert the educational system to islam. the diyanet collaborated with the ministry of education bureau (meb) to ensure better coordination for educational responsibilities. the partnership focused on constructing educational services, creating a curriculum for islamic education, and transferring diyanet's human resources to the meb.62 after steering the presidential system in turkey in 2018, the number of public service holders in turkish institutions peaked at nearly five million in 2020. during this period, referencing practices from the ak parti’s central administration intensified regarding hiring people in provincial and district organizations. the data from the turkish presidency's department of strategy and budget (csbb) implies that employment in public service will soon touch up to 2325 percent of the total employment in turkey, which means that one out of four people will be a government civil servant.63 according to the most recent official data, the number of employees at diyanet has climbed by 50,000 in only the previous 10 years, totaling 130'000. it will likely expand by another 5,000 or more over several days.64 moreover, the staff of diyanet has been channeled to work with other public institutions through interviews or appointment processes. they work in universities, finance, the state-run trt network, and the transportation sector. so, diyanet is “forming an increasingly larger demography in turkey’s bureaucracy.” in summing up, “the turkish state is being transformed into that of a single-party, while the country’s bureaucracy is quickly becoming islamicised.”65 ak parti government has adopted different laws and policies so practicing muslims can work in the wider public institutes and education field. the headscarf ban is a hot debate in secular turkey, where a female cannot use a headscarf in public functions, and this practice is resisted by state force. because wearing headscarves in public places was prohibited in the 1980s, only ten years ago, military officials hinted they might interfere if a presidential candidate whose wife wore a veil became president.66 the ak parti administration formally lifted the restriction on muslim women wearing headscarves in turkish universities in hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 99 2010. veiled women were permitted to work in the civil service in 2013, except for the judiciary, military, and police. four female members of parliament wore headscarves that year.67 in 2015, the first veiled judge entered the courtroom.68 in 2016, the headscarf ban was lifted for the police department.69 in february 2017, türkiye relaxes the restriction on islamic head coverings in the armed forces.”70 these initiatives allowed islamic bureaucrats to function in areas of turkish society that were unimaginable before the ak parti came into government. 5.1.5. state financing to religious sectors the ak parti administration is perceived as more serious about funding islamic organizations and religious functions. the biggest turkish religious institution, the diyanet, received substantial government money from the beginning of the ak parti rule in 2002 until 2020. it received 3 billion turkish lira ($339 million, €290 million) from the government in 2011. however, the budget has grown significantly, reaching 12.9 billion turkish lira in 2021, representing a four-fold increase in financial support in just 10 years.71 this budget exceeded the funding for important turkish ministries like foreign affairs, industry, and tourism. the government continued to gradually increase the budget for diyanet despite widespread criticism of the enormous budget, particularly from secularists. in 2018, the budget was 10.4 billion turkish lira; in 2019, it rose by 34%, and in 2020, the budget surged to 11.5 billion turkish lira.72 in addition to receiving governmental funding, the diyanet foundation has been authorized to receive tax-free donations since 2005. diyanet also can raise zakat funds, which are used to help poor muslims and advance islam. in addition to this, it can boost revenue by organizing hajj trips (makka pilgrimages). diyanet accessed in running businesses and investing in real estate throughout a range of sectors in the construction field. 73 6. education reforms 6.1. developing islamic educational institutions the ak parti administration further developed imam hatip schools to boost religious education in türkiye. kemal ataturk founded imam hatip schools (ihs) as a religious vocational school to teach individuals who would lead prayers (imam), offer khuïbah (friday sermon), and act as religious authorities. article 32 of the basic law of national education defines ihss as teaching schools that the ministry of national education established to train its students for higher education and religious work, such as imams, preachers, and teachers of quranic courses.74 however, these institutions, directly or indirectly, experienced ups and downs with time. 75 however, it has been modernized by integrating traditional and modern education with two major components: religious and 100 execution strategies of islamic … academic courses. the islamic courses include the holy qur’én, hadith, ‘ilm al-kalém (islamic theology), tafsir, ‘aqīdah (islamic creed), sêrah (the life of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)) fiqh, islamic jurisprudence, religious history, arabic language, preaching, and vocational training. academic courses include turkish language and literature, mathematics, english language, sociology, history of islamic arts, history, biology, physics, chemistry, geography, psychology, physical education, national defense, etc.76 although just 10% of its graduates currently work in the diyanet, the imam hatip school was founded with the intention of training future imams and preachers. except for military schools, these ihs graduates could get admission into various educational institutions. however, the ih schools experienced challenges when the turkish government changed at different times and took controversial policies towards diyanet. for instance, the enactment of obligatory education for eight years on february 28th, 1997, resulted in the closure of the ihs middle school. graduates of the ihs were forbidden from entering any department except theology.77 however, since the ak parti took power in 2002, the situation has changed and ihs has been revitalized. ihss were converted from vocational schools to religious education intensive regular high schools in 2009. as a result, the limitation has been lifted, and students can now enroll in non-religious departments such as law, education, medicine, and engineering.78 the purpose of the ak parti government in transforming ihs’s status is to develop civil servants and public officials committed to islamic doctrine. as a result, these institutes are seen as a mechanism for teaching social behavior necessary for developing a personality suited for becoming a desirable citizen. when erdogan declared in february 2012 that his government was dreaming of “raising a pious generation,” the turkish education system began to experience a comprehensive reform to actualize this aim.79 according to yilmaz, the pious generation of ak parti is a venture to transform turkish society into a community with an islamic vision. the ak parti administration repealed kemalist restrictions on imam hatip schools, which limited their scope and advantages. the new law in 2012, the 4+4+4 educational formula, helped revitalize ihs middle schools. the twelve years of compulsory education refer to the first four years of elementary school, the second four years of middle school, and the last four years of high school.80 children were given access to a variety of optional courses through this transformation, and graduates were given the opportunity to qualify for admission to any department of their choice at universities.81 by improving religious schools, the ak parti accelerated the islamisation of youngsters. between 2010 and 2014, imam hatip schools increased by 73 percent.82 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 101 according to bilal erdogan, the president's son who works for the turgev foundation (a charity organization that donates to education), when the ak parti came to power in 2002, the number of students at ihs was 65,000. it increased to 658,000 in 2013 and to one million in may 2015. in 2016, it increased to 1,136,000.83 in 2018, the government allocated 23 percent of its budget—twice as much per student as in mainstream schools—to the imam hatip’s students, who make up 11 percent of the entire students of schools.84 thousands of students were moved to ihss as part of an "arbitrary replacement" scheme that converted some secular institutions into imam hatip schools. in 2018, there were 4500 schools, up from 450 in 2002. in 2018, the government allocated 1.5 billion, or 68 percent more, for religious education85 the ak parti government converted 1,477 public schools to imam hatip from 2002 to 2018 because of the insufficiency of secular schools in the neighborhood. therefore, parents sent them to ihss. due to the scarcity of secular schools in the area, the ak parti administration turned 1,477 public schools into imam hatip between 2002 and 2018.86 some islamic organizations in turkey assist these islamic schools, such as the foundation for service to youth and education in turkey (turgev), the association of ihs establishment and maintenance, ensar foundation, the foundation of turkey’s imam hatip members, the alumni association of ihs.87 the government’s support of ihss and its graduate employment guarantees accelerated the advancement of such schools in türkiye. for instance, a new brochure created to persuade students to ihss offered numerous claims regarding the benefits of ihs graduates’ entry into police and military academies. the ihss also provide scholarships to this islamic school’s students.88 thus, ihss became ideal institutions for developing and training erdogan’s supporters, who are pious and educated with modern thoughts. however, although significant progress has been made in quantity, these institutions have come under scrutiny for the competence of their student's performance. the turkish ministry of education issued a report in july 2019 that found imam hatip school students performed academically low. the poll found that 66 percent of students from the 4th and 8th grades lacked sufficient reading comprehension skills, while 16 percent of children in grades four through eight only had rudimentary math skills.89 6.2. curriculum reforms it attempted to achieve the aim of the pious generation through curriculum reform by the ak parti administration. as a result, the educational system included compulsory and elective courses for graduation. the "religious culture and moral 102 execution strategies of islamic … knowledge" course has taken on a specific consideration in curricular changes. it has been made a mandatory subject according to the 1982 constitution, which seeks to safeguard national unity during foreign threats like communism. the course emphasizes teaching religious concepts while maintaining the secular aspect of the kemalist administration, but under islamist leadership, it is being changed and islamised.90 the ministry of education suggested introducing a course called “religious culture and moral knowledge” into primary education, which would be introduced at the initiation of a student’s education and will last until graduation.91 the ak parti government's objective to raise a pious generation was implemented in secular schools by allowing children to choose between religious courses. the government also supports theology departments. 92 islamic courses have taken the role of other courses. instead of offering like "agriculture" and "civic education," the government offered courses related to "the qur’én," "prophet mohammed's life," "islamic history," "basic religious teachings," and "fundamentals of religion." 93 similarly, the course "the social life" was replaced by new islamic courses in the 2017 curriculum, which distributed 18 hours to "islam and social life," 20 hours to "islam and economic life," and 18 hours to "islam and law." these courses addressed issues including marriage, divorce, and social interactions from an islamic perspective.94 7. impacts and challenges of islamisation in turkish society according to the research findings, islamic governance in turkey took place through three mechanisms: bureaucratic and structural transformation and education reforms. diyanet had a significant role in the bureaucratic approach, while imam hatip schools contributed to the islamisation of education. the bureaucratic process of islamisation has certain advantageous features: it promotes the goals and policies of the government and carries them out. the government can keep an eye on things and advise on what to do or not do per official agendas. additionally, it acts in line with the perspectives and interests of the government. however, there are significant flaws in state-led bureaucratic islamisation. first of all, it is not a sustainable strategy. because the functional dimensions of institutions may be changed due to government transitions if their functions are not in line with the new government's policy objectives. more specifically, if a secular party gains control of the state, it will change the institution following its philosophy. this is also applicable to the diyanet in turkey. because of the constitutional and systemic framework, diyanet cannot resist these opposing structural changes. second, these public institutions will be criticized for politicizing and serving as a tool for the government's political moves. as a result, despite their efforts to promote the genuine form of islam, their da‘wah will be futile. people hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 103 will become skeptical about them monopolizing their attitudes toward the government's interests, and as a result, they will reject the da‘wah. this skepticism is mirrored in some recent academic studies; the result shows that society is far from genuinely islamisation. because islamisation does not merely imply an increase in the number of imams and mosques or an increase in the wages of islamic bureaucrats but rather in individuals adhering to islamic rules and guidance in all aspects of their lives, in this regard, several studies published recently showed the opposite effect. in türkiye, for example, the proportion of deism is growing. mustafa akyol contends that despite the erdogan government's significant efforts to develop a new "pious generation," a sizable proportion of türkiye’s youth rejects islam in favor of faith in an unspecified god.95 furthermore, according to a konda agency study in 2018, the number of atheists and other non-believers climbed from 2% to 5% of the population in ten years. the percentage of people with only a rudimentary belief in god increased from 31% to 34%. the proportion of devout muslims has decreased from 13% to 10%. during ramadan, between 77 to 65 percent of muslims fast.96 according to the konda poll, the percentage of women who do not wear a headscarf has climbed from 34 to 37 percent in ten years. women wearing tighter headscarves decreased from 13% to 9%. for some time, the headscarf trend has been waning. the past ten years had already seen a decline. 97 regarding this result, mucahit bilici clarifies, “turkish religiosity has been put to the test, and while it has succeeded politically, it has failed spiritually.”98 so, what are the viable solutions? the first necessity is to assess the current state of da’wah in türkiye. türkiye differs from many other muslim countries regarding geographical location and political structure. it aspires to be a member of the european union, whose culture is liberal, and many of its citizen’s cultures contradict islamic philosophy. given the prevailing status quo, türkiye should reconsider its islamisation initiatives in reaction to the hostile environment. from 2010 to 2020, türkiye’s islamisation process appears as a top-down hierarchy with lower productivity at the societal and individual levels. because authoritative imposition cannot truly affect an individual’s attitudes and behaviors if it does not come from inside. as a result, developing a comprehensive policy plan is critical for achieving better results. secondly, turkey is also a secular country under the constitutional framework. in this environment, the government should prioritize the decentralization of da‘wah and support privatization and localization. the private enterprise of da‘wah, which will be free of government control, will aid in avoiding the blames of politicization. furthermore, da‘wah localization will aid in 104 execution strategies of islamic … instilling intrinsically islamic doctrine among individuals by providing a persuasive analysis of authentic islamic teaching. religious institutions should be able to speak out against injustice and persecution involving anyone, regardless of the government’s position or the opposition, which will boast institutional credibility. thirdly, the government should promote greater coordination and cooperation among several ministries and departments in terms of religious services and social welfare so that the responsibilities of islamisation do not confine to diyanet alone. finally, the ak parti should focus more on creating a climate that will promote love, compassion, and care for the people rather than relying merely on structural or bureaucratic techniques or legal enforcement since islamisation is more about behavioral transformation. 8. conclusion the goal of producing a generation of religiously upright individuals and a conservative society propelled the ak parti leadership to undertake islamisation. nevertheless, several turkish agencies and institutions fiercely opposed erdogan's governance. erdogan's leadership enabled the ak parti to overcome challenges and make steady progress toward islamisation. accordingly, the ak parti government adopted several effective strategies to activate islamic governance for earning meaningful transformation in turkish society. the government seriously cooperated with diyanet institutions, empowering them to guide government agencies and disseminate islamic teachings among the turkish population. diyanet also attempts to reach different communities by formulating programs relevant to the targeted societies. it offers family-related programs to strengthen family bondages, such as counseling services, pre-marriage courses, and religious teachings by female preachers. diyanet offers mosque services and organizes various social programs for other communities. for educational reforms, erdogan’s government concentrated on institutional development and curriculum reforms. in this case, the government restructured imam hatip schools and offered plentiful conveniences to its students. the curriculum was redesigned, and islamic courses were included to inculcate islamic teachings. financial support is an inevitable requirement for any advancement. ak parti government, in this case, has shown significant performance. diyanet receives more funding from the government every year than many significant ministries. erdogan's government also effectively empowered islamic bureaucracy. in this aspect, the government passed a series of laws to eliminate the challenges of female workers who cover their heads with hijab. the status of the diyanet officers improved, and the job field of the theological students has widened for inter-ministerial coordination and offering more courses on islamic subjects. the government also hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 105 manages friday sermons through institutional coordination to guide preachers so that they can direct people in understanding the islamic visions of the government. however, despite the major institutional transformation, the ak parti government still has a long way to go in achieving genuine islamisation in society. the government can follow the decentralization process of da‘wah and has less reliance on bureaucratic processes in islamisation because the current approach is unsustainable and fails to provide an actual impact on muslims’ lives in türkiye. the future implication of the research can be determined by designing an islamic governance model by underpinning maqasid sharêah and existing political, economic, and cultural realities that will have genuine impacts on turkish society. note and references 1 marwa maziad and jake sotiriadis, "turkey's dangerous new exports: panislamist, neo-ottoman visions and regional instability," accessed september 12, 2022, https://www.mei.edu/publications/turkeys-dangerous-new-exports-panislamist-neo-ottoman-visions-and-regional. 2 ihsan yilmaz, "islamist populism, islamist fatwas, state transnationalism and turkey’s diasporas," in routledge handbook of political islam, ed. shahram akbarzadeh (new york: routledge, 2020), 170-187. 3 hikmet kocamaner, "the politics of family values in erdogan's new turkey," middle east report 48, no. 3 (2018): 288. 4 demet lüküslü, "creating a pious generation: youth and education policies of the ak parti in turkey," southeast european and black sea studies 16, no. 4 (2016): 637-649, doi:10.1080/14683857.2016.1243332. 5 ihsan yilmaz, creating the desired citizen: ideology, state and islam in turkey (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2021). 6 jan stark, "contesting models of islamic governance in malaysia and indonesia," global change, peace & security 16, no. 2 (2004): 115-131. 7 martin van bruinessen, "the governance of islam in two secular polities: turkey's diyanet and indonesia's ministry of religious affairs," european journal of turkish studies 27 (2018), https://journals.openedition.org/ejts/6266. 8 juris pupcenoks, "democratic islamisation in pakistan and turkey: lessons for the post-arab spring muslim world," the middle east journal 66, no. 2 (2012): 273289. 9 birol yesilada and barry rubin, eds., islamisation of turkey under the ak parti rule (new york: routledge, 2013). 10abdul rashid moten, “striving for islamic governance: varying contexts, different strategies," american journal of islamic social sciences 32, no. 2 (2015): 68-86. 11 i̇brahim aşlamacı and recep kaymakcan, "a model for islamic education from turkey: the imam-hatip schools," british journal of religious education 39, no. 3 (2017): 279-292, doi: 10.1080/01416200.2015.1128390. 12 i̇brahim aşlamacı & recep kaymakcan, “a model for islamic education from turkey: the imam-hatip schools.” 13 capano, giuseppe, michael howlett, and mishra ramesh, "re-thinking governance in public policy: dynamics, strategy and capacities," in varieties of governance: dynamics, strategies, capacities, ed. capano, g., howlett, m., ramesh, m. (london: palgrave macmillan, 2015), 3-24. 14 ibn taymiyya, al-siyasa al-shar‘iyya fi islah al-ra‘i wa’l-ra‘iyya (beirut: dar al kotob al ilmiyah, 2015). 15 ibn taimiyyah, (2005), 250. https://www.mei.edu/publications/turkeys-dangerous-new-exports-pan-islamist-neo-ottoman-visions-and-regional https://www.mei.edu/publications/turkeys-dangerous-new-exports-pan-islamist-neo-ottoman-visions-and-regional https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2015.1128390 106 execution strategies of islamic … 16ruhollah khomeini, “governance of the jurist (velayat-e faqeeh): islamic government”, the institute for compilation and publication of imam khomeini’s works, accessed november 2, 2022, https://www.iranchamber.com/history/rkhomeini/books/velayat_faqeeh.pdf. 17md. rafiqul islam, islamic governance, a. farazmand ed., global encyclopedia of public administration, public policy, and governance (switzerland: springer nature, 2019). 18 abdul rashid moten, “striving for islamic governance: varying contexts, different strategies,” the american journal of islamic social sciences 32, no. 2 (2015): 68-89. 19 abdul rashid moten, “striving for islamic governance: varying contexts, different strategies”. 20 “diyanet, the presidency of religious affairs, changing structures of islamic authority (csia)”, accessed november 10, 2022, https://www.csiaoxford.org/diyanet-presidency-religious-affairs.html. 21 amjad mahmud, and hafiz ali ahmad butt, "the administration of religion in a majority muslim nation-state: the case of turkey’s presidency of religious affairs (diyanet i̇şleri başkanlığı) and pakistan’s ministry of religious affairs," alaz̤vā 36, no. 55 (2021): 49-74. 22pinar tremblay, “turkey’s state religious body undermines anti-coronavirus efforts,” al-monitor, accessed august 22, 2022, https://www.almonitor.com/originals/2020/04/turkey-religious-body-diyanet-mired-coronaviruscontroversy html. 23“the constitution of the republic of turkey,” accessed august 21, 2022, https://global.tbmm.gov.tr/docs/constitution_en.pdf, 24mustafa sonmez, “turkey’s religious agency grows even richer, more powerful,” accessed august 24, 2022, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeysreligious-agency-grows-even-richer-more-powerful. 25presidency of religious affairs, “general directorate of religious services,” accessed august 23, 2022, https://www.diyanet.gov.tr/enus/organization/detail//9/general-directorate-of-religious-services. 26 sevgi adak, “expansion of the diyanet and the politics of family in turkey under ak parti rule,” turkish studies 22, no. 2 (2021): 200-221. 27 samuel w. watters, “developments in ak parti policy toward religion and homogeneity,” german law journal 19, no. 2 (2018): 351 –374. 28mustafa sonmez, “turkey’s religious agency grows even richer, more powerful." 29meltem özgenç, “top cleric delivers friday sermon in mardin,” hurriyat daily news, february 05, 2016, https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/top-cleric-deliversfriday-sermon-in-mardin-94823. 30presidency of religious affairs, “general directorate of religious services,”. 31diyanet tv, "religious agenda," diyanet tv, accessed august 21, 2022, https://www.diyanet.tv/dini-gundem-diyanet-tvde. 32 samuel w. watters, “developments in ak parti policy toward religion and homogeneity,”. 33 şenol korkut, “the diyanet of turkey and its historical evolution,” electronic turkish studies 11, no. 17 (2016). 34presidency of religious affairs, “general directorate of religious services." 35 samuel w. watters, “developments in ak parti policy toward religion and homogeneity,” german law journal 19, no. 2 (2018): 351-374. 36 sevgi adak, “expansion of the diyanet and the politics of family in turkey under ak parti rule,”. 37 ibid 38 ibid 39 ibid 40 ibid 41 ibid https://www.csia-oxford.org/diyanet-presidency-religious-affairs.html https://www.csia-oxford.org/diyanet-presidency-religious-affairs.html https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/04/turkey-religious-body-diyanet-mired-coronavirus-controversy%20html. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/04/turkey-religious-body-diyanet-mired-coronavirus-controversy%20html. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/04/turkey-religious-body-diyanet-mired-coronavirus-controversy%20html. https://global.tbmm.gov.tr/docs/constitution_en.pdf https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeys-religious-agency-grows-even-richer-more-powerful https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeys-religious-agency-grows-even-richer-more-powerful https://www.diyanet.gov.tr/en-us/organization/detail/9/general-directorate-of-religious-services https://www.diyanet.gov.tr/en-us/organization/detail/9/general-directorate-of-religious-services https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/top-cleric-delivers-friday-sermon-in-mardin-94823 https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/top-cleric-delivers-friday-sermon-in-mardin-94823 https://www.diyanet.tv/dini-gundem-diyanet-tvde. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 107 42“women and family education protocol signed between metropolitan and muftülk,” haberler.com, accessed march 15, 2022, https://www.haberler.com/guncel/buyuksehir-ile-muftuluk-arasinda-kadin-ve-aile10704011-haberi/. 43 mustafa sonmez, “turkey’s religious agency grows even richer, more powerful”, al-monitor, accessed may 13, 2021, https://www.almonitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeys-religious-agency-grows-even-richer-morepowerful. 44ihsan yilmaz, "islamic populism and creating desirable citizens in erdogan’s new turkey," mediterranean quarterly 29, no. 4 (2018): 52-76. 45duvar english, “turkey's top religious body collects 277 million liras for quran memorization courses,” accessed september 26, 2022, https://www.duvarenglish.com/turkeys-top-religious-body-collects-277-millionliras-for-quran-memorization-courses-news-60397. 46 m. üzümcü and n. çınar, “opinions of instructors working in quran courses for 4-6-year-olds on the education process in these courses (çorlu example),” tasavvur/tekirdağ theology journal. (2021), https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/1494615. 47 "iqna-international quran news agency," thousands of boys, girls graduate from quran memorization courses in turkey, accessed january 24, 2022, https://iqna.ir/en/news/3479498/thousands-of-boys-girls-graduate-from-quranmemorization-courses-in-turkey. 48 elisabeth özdalga, pulpit, mosque and nation (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2022), 5. 49 muhammet h saçmalı, “compliance and negotiation: the role of turkish diyanet in the production of friday khutbas,” ma thesis, (istanbul: boğaziçi university, 2013). 50elisabeth özdalga, pulpit, mosque, and nation. 51 saçmalı, muhammet h. “compliance and negotiation: the role of turkish diyanet in the production of friday khutbas, 75. 52elisabeth özdalga, pulpit, mosque and nation. 53 hakan övünç ongur, "performing through friday khutbas: re-instrumentalization of religion in the new turkey," third world quarterly 41, no. 3 (2020): 434-452. 54 ahval report, “erdoğan is an islamist first, pragmatist later turkey expert gökhan bacık”, ahval, accessed march 09, 2021, https://ahvalnews.com/erdogan/erdogan-islamist-first-pragmatist-later-turkeyexpert-gokhan-bacik. 55 ceren lord, the struggle within the state: the diyanet and islamisation, in religious politics in turkey: from the birth of the republic to the ak parti. vol. 54. (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2018), 116. 56şenol korkut, “the diyanet of turkey and its historical evolution”, turkish studies-international periodical for the languages, literature and history of turkish or turkic 11, no. 17 (2016): 447-466. 57ceren lord, the struggle within the state: the diyanet and islamisation. 117. 58 şenol korkut, the diyanet of turkey and its historical evolution. 59 ceren lord, the struggle within the state: the diyanet and islamisation. 114. 60 ceren lord, the struggle within the state: the diyanet and islamisation. 61ceren lord, the struggle within the state: the diyanet and islamisation. 116. 62ceren lord, the struggle within the state: the diyanet and islamisation. 117. 63 zülfikar doğan, “turkish bureaucracy becoming islamicised as staff from top religious body take over”, accessed october 09, 2022, https://ahvalnews.com/turkish-islamists/turkish-bureaucracy-becoming-islamicisedstaff-top-religious-body-take-over. 64 zülfikar doğan, turkish bureaucracy is becoming islamicised as staff from top religious bodies take over. 65 ibid. https://www.haberler.com/guncel/buyuksehir-ile-muftuluk-arasinda-kadin-ve-aile-10704011-haberi/ https://www.haberler.com/guncel/buyuksehir-ile-muftuluk-arasinda-kadin-ve-aile-10704011-haberi/ https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeys-religious-agency-grows-even-richer-more-powerful https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeys-religious-agency-grows-even-richer-more-powerful https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeys-religious-agency-grows-even-richer-more-powerful https://www.duvarenglish.com/turkeys-top-religious-body-collects-277-million-liras-for-quran-memorization-courses-news-60397 https://www.duvarenglish.com/turkeys-top-religious-body-collects-277-million-liras-for-quran-memorization-courses-news-60397 https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/1494615 https://iqna.ir/en/news/3479498/thousands-of-boys-girls-graduate-from-quran-memorization-courses-in-turkey https://iqna.ir/en/news/3479498/thousands-of-boys-girls-graduate-from-quran-memorization-courses-in-turkey https://ahvalnews.com/erdogan/erdogan-islamist-first-pragmatist-later-turkey-expert-gokhan-bacik https://ahvalnews.com/erdogan/erdogan-islamist-first-pragmatist-later-turkey-expert-gokhan-bacik https://ahvalnews.com/turkish-islamists/turkish-bureaucracy-becoming-islamicised-staff-top-religious-body-take-over https://ahvalnews.com/turkish-islamists/turkish-bureaucracy-becoming-islamicised-staff-top-religious-body-take-over 108 execution strategies of islamic … 66 patrick kingsley, “turkey allows women in military to wear hijabs, in cultural shift”, the new york times, february 22, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/world/middleeast/hijab-turkey-military.html. 67bbc report, “turkey reverses female army officers' headscarf ban”, august 13, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39053064. 68 patrick kingsley, turkey allows women in military to wear hijabs. 69 kingsley, patrick. turkey allows women in military to wear hijabs. 70 “turkey lifts ban on islamic headscarf in military”, arab news, february 22, 2017. https://www.arabnews.com/node/1058236/middle-east. 71 “turkey's diyanet religious body threatens secularism”, deutsche welle, september 24, 2021, https://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-diyanet-religious-bodythreatens-secularism/a-59289180. 72 ahval news, 'turkish state religious body's budget dwarfs seven key ministries', may 19, 2020, https://ahvalnews.com/directorate-religious-affairs/turkish-statereligious-bodys-budget-dwarfs-seven-key-ministries. 73 mustafa sonmez, “turkey’s religious agency grows even richer, more powerful”, al-monitor, may 13, 2021, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeysreligious-agency-grows-even-richer-more-powerful#ixzz7orixfm4s. 74 cited in öcal, mustafa, "from the past to the present: imam and preacher schools in turkey-an ongoing quarrel," religious education 102, no. 2 (2007): 191-205, https://doi.org/10.1080/00344080701285477. 75 giuli alasania and nani gelovani, “islam and religious education in turkey”, ibsu scientific journal 5, no. 2 (2011): 35-50. 76mohd nor, mohd roslan and muhammad khalis ibrahim, “conflicts of religious education in a secular state: a study on turkey’s imam-hatip school”, qudus international journal of islamic studies 8, no. 1 (2020): 107-130, doi:10.21043/qijis.v8i1.5849; öcal, mustafa, “from the past to the present: imam and preacher schools in turkey—an ongoing quarrel”. 77ihsan yilmaz, “islamic populism and creating desirable citizens in erdogan’s new turkey”, mediterranean quarterly 29, no. 4 (2018): 52-76. 78 mustafa kemal coşkun and burcu şentürk, “the growth of islamic education in turkey: the ak parti’s policies toward imam-hatip schools”, in neoliberal transformation of education in turkey (palgrave macmillan: new york, 2012). 79 svante e. cornell, “the islamisation of turkey: erdoğan’s education reforms” turkey analyst 8, no. 16 (2015). 80 andrew finkel, “what’s 4 + 4 + 4?”, the new york times, march 23, 2012, https://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/turkeys-education-reform-bill-isabout-playing-politics-with-pedagogy/. 81i̇smail güven, "the 4+ 4+ 4 school reform bill and the fatih project: is it a reform?" ilkogretim online 11, no. 3 (2012). 82b. yinanc, “rise in imam-hatips shows ak parti's favoritism for religious education”, hurriyet daily news, 11 august 2014, rise in imam-hatips shows ak parti’s favoritism for religious education turkey news (hurriyetdailynews.com). 83 svante e. cornell, “the islamisation of turkey: erdoğan’s education reforms”. 84 daren butler, “special report: with more islamic schooling, erdogan aims to reshape turkey”, reuters, politics special reports, 25 january 2018, www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-erdogan-education/special-report-with-moreislamic-schooling-erdogan-aims-to-reshape-turkey-iduskbn1fe1cd. 85carlotta gall, “erdogan’s plan to raise a ‘pious generation’ divides parents in turkey,” new york times, 18 june 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/world/europe/erdogan-turkey-election-religiousschools.html. 86 ihsan yilmaz, “islamic populism and creating desirable citizens in erdogan's new turkey”. 87 ibid 88 ibid https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/world/middleeast/hijab-turkey-military.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39053064 https://www.arabnews.com/node/1058236/middle-east https://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-diyanet-religious-body-threatens-secularism/a-59289180 https://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-diyanet-religious-body-threatens-secularism/a-59289180 https://ahvalnews.com/directorate-religious-affairs/turkish-state-religious-bodys-budget-dwarfs-seven-key-ministries https://ahvalnews.com/directorate-religious-affairs/turkish-state-religious-bodys-budget-dwarfs-seven-key-ministries https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeys-religious-agency-grows-even-richer-more-powerful#ixzz7orixfm4s https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/turkeys-religious-agency-grows-even-richer-more-powerful#ixzz7orixfm4s https://doi.org/10.1080/00344080701285477 https://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/turkeys-education-reform-bill-is-about-playing-politics-with-pedagogy/ https://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/turkeys-education-reform-bill-is-about-playing-politics-with-pedagogy/ https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/rise-in-imam-hatips-shows-akps-favoritism-for-religious-education-70225 https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/rise-in-imam-hatips-shows-akps-favoritism-for-religious-education-70225 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-erdogan-education/special-report-with-more-islamic-schooling-erdogan-aims-to-reshape-turkey-iduskbn1fe1cd http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-erdogan-education/special-report-with-more-islamic-schooling-erdogan-aims-to-reshape-turkey-iduskbn1fe1cd hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 109 89 huda mimi, "schools in turkey: erdogan's youth, religious but not educated?," qantara.de., accessed march 4, 2023. https://en.qantara.de/content/schools-inturkey-erdogans-youth-religious-but-not-educated. 90 ibid 91 yilmaz ihsan, "islamic populism and creating desirable citizens in erdogan’s new turkey." 92 yilmaz ihsan, "islamic populism and creating desirable citizens in erdogan's new turkey”. 93ibid 94 “şeriat hukuku lise müfredatında,” cumhuriyet, 3 july 2017, www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber /egitim/773034/seriat_hukuku_lise_mufredatinda.html. 95 mustafa akyol, “how islamists are ruining islam, hudson institute”, accessed june 12, 2022, https://www.hudson.org/research/16131-how-islamists-are-ruiningislam. 96 rob vreeken, “turkey becoming more islamic? on the contrary,” de volkskrant, november 13, 2020, https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/turkeybecoming-more-islamic-on-the-contrary~bf9c4f9f6/. 97 ibid 98 mucahit bilici, “the crisis of religiosity in turkish islamism," middle east report, accessed june 12, 2022, https://www.academia.edu/37968958/the_crisis_of_religiosity_in_turkish_islam ism. https://en.qantara.de/content/schools-in-turkey-erdogans-youth-religious-but-not-educated https://en.qantara.de/content/schools-in-turkey-erdogans-youth-religious-but-not-educated http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber%20/egitim/773034/seriat_hukuku_lise_mufredatinda.html http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber%20/egitim/773034/seriat_hukuku_lise_mufredatinda.html https://www.hudson.org/research/16131-how-islamists-are-ruining-islam https://www.hudson.org/research/16131-how-islamists-are-ruining-islam https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/turkey-becoming-more-islamic-on-the-contrary~bf9c4f9f6/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/turkey-becoming-more-islamic-on-the-contrary~bf9c4f9f6/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 99 religion and the state: the functional purposes and the issue of legitimacy mohammed amezzian college of sharia and islamic studies, qatar university. email: mamezzian@qu.edu.qa received on: 22-06-23 accepted on: 15-12-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.852 abstract the present paper examines the importance of the functional criterion employed in assessing the legitimacy of the state in the context of political and islamic communities. the main, underlying hypothesis is that the existence of the state, as envisaged by muslims political scholars, is linked to the realization of the legitimate purposes as well as the empowerment of the ummah’s sacred values and principles. this approach, which is based on the religious criterion of legitimacy presumes that the legitimacy of the state is contingent upon its commitments towards the requirements that were initially established to achieve. regarding the methodology, this paper combines a historical approach to explore the origins of the state and its connection to religion, alongside content analysis aimed at comprehending the metaphysical foundation underlying the state’s inception. the paper concludes that the state, in its islamic perspective, is a historical product, wherein text and history intertwine, resulting from the interaction of the political community that rule it with their believed religious metaphysics. this requires the subordination of the state to the ummah as a functional tool rather than an independent entity. keywords: religion, state, function, ummah, community, legitimacy. 1. introduction discussing the relationship between religion and the state politically and socially entails a discussion on political legitimacy; the relationship assumes that the state, as the legal and political expression of the ummah’s political presence, is required to embody the authoritative religious and ethical values that the ummah believes in, and which it seeks to empower through its official bodies. based on its functional role, the state’s legitimacy is contingent upon its obligation mailto:mamezzian@qu.edu.qa https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i4.852 100 religion and the state … towards its constitutional and legal obligations. in studying the issue of legitimacy, this approach, which considers the religious aspect, could differ from the commonly used approach of modern political studies, which tend to limit the issue of political legitimacy within the perimeters of power rather than those of the state. this could be justified considering the nature of the modern state, wherein religion and the state are disconnected, and which also accounts for the dispensability of religion as a foundation of legitimacy. however, in islamic and political communities, wherein such a disconnection between religion and the state cannot be envisaged, this approach remains an indispensable methodological obligation in the pursuit of construing the state and its functionality and in probing into the extent to which its legitimacy is achieved. although the issue of the relationship between the state and religion constitutes one of the most important focus of contemporary islamic literature (hamza ates, 2003, p. 364), it can be said that this relationship is the most ambiguous concepts in the contemporary political awareness of islamic peoples. this ambiguity is perceptible in the intellectual turmoil reflected in the intense discussion distinguishing islamic and arab societies throughout their modern history. the issue of the abovementioned relationship—that of religion and the state—has imposed itself among the most contended issues, whose contention has gone beyond academic debates to become a matter of dissent in media, politics, and society. given the intricate intellectual and political landscape, this paper aims to rationalize ongoing discussions about the relationship between the state and religion, whether within its contemporary historical context or its theoretical framework. in this intellectual rationalization, it seeks to address the following questions: what historical circumstances have contributed to the confusion surrounding the relationship between religion and the state in the awareness of contemporary islamic societies? from an islamic perspective, is the state merely a sociological phenomenon or a complex concept with metaphysical and historical dimensions? if we acknowledge the symbiotic relationship between the state and society, to what extent can this relationship be used as a criterion for assessing the legitimacy of the state? 2. methodology regarding the methodology, this paper employs the historical approach in understanding the emergence of the state in the early islamic era, how the organic connections between religion and the state were first established, and the manifestations of their interactions on the societal scale. the paper further employs content analysis to 1) hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 101 understand the religious text responsible for the formation of metaphysical foundation of the state, and 2) construe the juristic interpretations made to look at the patterns of the state in the islamic societies it ruled. 3. literature review in contrast to numerous studies that delve into the concept of power legitimacy, this research uniquely centers on the legitimacy of the state, an area explored by only a handful of scholarly works. one notable example is hamid rabie’s introduction in the book “the behaviour of the owner in managing kingdoms.” rabie addresses crucial aspects such as the state’s role, national unity, the dynamics between rulers and the ruled, the principle of justice, and the underlying value system. another noteworthy contribution is hamid qweisi’s study, “the doctrinal function of the islamic state, a systematic study in islamic political theory.” additionally, saif al-din abdel fattah’s book, “political theory from an islamic civilized perspective,” allocates a section to the islamic viewpoint on political legitimacy, emphasizing its distinction from western perspectives by being grounded in religious foundations. this article aligns with the aforementioned studies by approaching the legitimacy issue from a civilizational standpoint. it acknowledges the inseparable connection between the state and the nation. in the islamic perspective, the state emerges from and exists for the community’s benefit. it serves as an organizational tool crafted by the collective to fulfill its assigned tasks, primarily dedicated to religious purposes. from this civilizational perspective, emphasizing the absence of any state autonomy from the nation, the state’s role involves embodying the overarching objectives of sharê‘ah law across all its agencies and institutions. thus, it becomes the guiding principle governing public affairs, shaping its domestic and foreign policies. 4. the ambiguous relationship between religion and the state it would be difficult to understand the essence of the religionstate ambiguity in the awareness of arab and islamic societies unless it is placed in its modern historical, political context, which has witnessed the compulsory modernization of these societies following a forced model of a modern state.1 this political penetration resulted in negative ramifications on the common political concepts in society, leading to the loss of their semantic strength in shaping their historically inherited political awareness in favour of the state’s tyrannical hegemony as it manifested in the political history of europe. the major variable in this transformation could be what touches upon the metaphysical foundation from which the state derives both its 102 religion and the state … existence and function. wael hallaq2, in his critical review of the emergence of the modern european state, presents one of the central concepts on which this state was founded; it is the concept of sovereignty, which made the state a transcendent metaphysical entity and not just a means to a higher end. this notion will eventually reflect on the function of the state; this transcendence, which borrows from religion the function of the transcendent god, presents the concept of the god state, which intervenes—through its absolute sovereignty—in determining the regulatory standards and the culture of the society subordinating to its sovereignty.3 this perceived function of the state essentially contradicts its islamic counterpart, as states pakistani thinker kalim siddiqui: “while islam brings the state into existence as an instrument of divine purpose, the nation-state comes into existence for precisely the opposite reason: to dismiss god and to replace him with the ‘national interest’ as determined by human reason”.4 internationalizing this concept is one of the most important factors responsible for the religion-state ambiguity in the awareness of islamic societies. this is because borrowing the concept of ‘the state,’ in its modern essence centered around absolute sovereignty, and imposing it as the prime example of governance, has thrown it in arguably the most dangerous political conundrum in its political history: the seizure of the sovereignty of sharīʻah. this transformation led to a drastic upheaval in perceiving the state, where it would turn from a mere instrumental means representing the values of the community, through its administrative and legislative institutions, to a higher entity that transcends both sharīʻah and the community alike. from amidst this coup emerged the chronic disputes that accompanied our contemporary political history around the secularization of the political sphere of islamic societies, its separation from its religious authority and its political traditions. with this political, intellectual shift, the religion-state relationship has become a subject of ongoing debates, which have gone beyond their contemporary ramifications as to critically revisit the experience of islamic self-governance from a skeptical perspective that relies on modern concepts, which were not common in islamic societies throughout their history in their attempt to justify the argument of separation. this methodological approach in dealing with the heritage experience has become familiar among western scholars, as seen, for instance, with the american historian ira lapidus, whose area of specialty is islamic history.5 this tradition, however, does not reflect individual works only, but a critical movement that includes a plethora of western historians and scholars who have formed a school hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 103 that is methodologically unified around what is referred to as the revisionist school of islamic studies. the movement questioned the islamic narrative about the origins of islam, its religious, political, and social history, with the aim of secularizing it and stripping it of its religious context. this school, which emerged in the 1970s, has lent its approach to many arab scholars, who have devoted their works to the study of the religious and political history of islam and islamic societies, as seen in the early works of radwan el-sayed on the separation of religion from politics.6 this forced projection of contemporary problems into the historical depth inevitably leads to a perplexity in the awareness of islamic communities regarding their own historical experiences, which places us in a systematic distortion of memory, aimed at legitimizing contemporary political transformations by grounding them in history. therefore, it is believed that the skeptical reading on the theoretical and historical levels presents false indications implying that the contemporary intellectual debate about the relationship between the religious and the political is not alien to the traditions of islamic political community, and is not an emergent matter as much as it is rooted in the structure of the islamic political thought on one hand, and an extension of a historical conflict between the religious and political institutions on the other. the aim of this paper is to explore the functional purposes of the state in the context of the islamic political community and not to cite the international and local debates surrounding the relationship between the state and religion. addressing this issue in the context of the preoccupations experienced by the current islamic societies requires the need to understand the historical context in which this issue have been produced. this context is inseparable from the western central vision that governs the relationship between religion and the state, an idea through which all human experiences are stereotyped, as previously noted by the french scholar serge latouche.7 patricia crone, a danish historian specialized in the study of early islamic political history, shrewdly notes that western scholars have hardly encountered any difficulty accepting the prophet’s faith journey, a story that follows a common model in the christian history. what confounds westerners, however, is that the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) established a system of governance in madinah instead of turning to martyrdom in the christian way.8 this commentary summarizes the depth of the problem that western circles 104 religion and the state … and their arab and muslim “appendages” have been promoting, where confusion between the church as a priestly authority and the mosque as a religious and social space often exists.9 fortunately, more liberated critical studies have emerged away from this western-centric perspective, offering serious doubts about the standardization of western political thought.10 these studies tend to construe islamic political discourse within the very same context that produced it.11 this critical approach has the potential to overcome the distortion that employs the historical experience as the standard for studying the nature of the state and its relationship with religion, without considering its religious foundations. hence, the need to understand this relationship within its textual contexts arises. 5. the origin and emergence of the state: textual semantics amid the current political and intellectual transformations and the increasing prevalence of biased readings, it is important to address the religion-state relationship as it appears in its textual context, wherein the quranic texts deal with governance as part of the ummah’s religious creed. therefore, any concept of governance and state within the context of islamic political communities is inextricably linked to the theory of knowledge from which this society derives its vital systems and religious metaphysics that emanate from it. 12 in defining the nature of the state, this religious approach implies that the state, in its islamic context, is not merely a historical product that arose from the evolution of a political group bound by national, linguistic, and cultural ties, as is the case with the nation state in the european political experience.13 rather, it is a complex product where text intersects with history and arises from the interaction of the political community governing it with the religious metaphysics it believes in. hence, there is a necessity to invoke the historical dimension alongside the religious dimension in determining the origin and formation of the state. 5.1. the metaphysical foundation of the origin of the state how did the state come into existence in the first place? from the perspective of the historical reading pertaining to prophecy, patricia crone presents an answer that is familiar to the public of believers: “as the ruler of the universe, god issued laws. adam had received a set of them; so had later prophets, most recently muhammad, whose version was final. living in accordance with god’s law was the essence of religion”.14 this quote reflects an objective understanding of the history of prophethood and summarizes a rich history of the major historical turning points of human societies that coincide with the quranic hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 105 narrative pertaining to the function of prophets and their demands. two quranic verses that address all prophets and depict statements indicating that all prophets have conveyed one essence substantial content—that is to inform humans throughout history that they have one ruler, who is allah. the verse depicts an imperative statement: “we did not send before you any messenger but we revealed to him that there is no god but i, so worship me.” [21: 25]. in the second verse, the address is in the form of a prohibition: " we did raise a messenger among every people, with the message: .worship allah and stay away from the rebel (the satan).. " [16: 36]. these two verses show a deliberate juxtaposition between worship and tyranny (disbelief), and between allah and ùaghut. worship, as defined by assan‘éni, is “the ultimate level of submission and humility, and it was only used in submission to allah”.15 on the other hand, ùaghët, as defined by al-aîfahéni, refers to “anything that is obeyed and worshiped other than allah”.16 according to these two definitions, which are in reference to two conflicting concepts, the issue of governance is considered the essence of religion and that of monotheism; it orbits around proving the sovereignty of allah. from a methodological standpoint, the holy qur’én logically approaches the issue of governance by explaining the complementary relationship in the dualism of ‘creation’ and ‘command:’ “lo! to him alone belong the creation and the command. glorious is allah, the lord of all the worlds. [7: 54]. this interrelationship presents governance as a subject of contemplation based on the principle of logical and rational argumentation, not just religious faith. according to this relationship, the one who creates is the only one who has the right to command. the term ‘command’ is absolute, so allah has absolute command over everything he has created, which leads us to the divine management of the entire universe: “he manages (every) matter from the sky to the earth” [32: 5]. according to this quranic metaphysics, framing the issue thus transcends the management of human existence on earth, as a minor matter, towards the entire existence. according to this quranic verse, the creator of existence has the right to rule and control it. with this same logical argument related to the total existence, the holy qur’én addresses the issue of governance as a part of the whole. only the owner of the sovereignty has the right to govern what he possesses, “the decision belongs to none but allah.” [6: 57]. surat yusuf further explains, “sovereignty belongs to none but allah. he has ordained that you shall not worship anyone but him.” [12: 40]. this logical argument, which places humanity under the absolute sovereignty of allah, and which does not allow partnership, concludes that governance is a matter of belief and 106 religion and the state … a prerequisite for faith would require believing in it. this issue, labeled under ‘unity of worship’ and ‘unity of divinity,’ has been the focus of a plethora of jurists and theologians. it has recently been addressed by contemporary scholars under the term governance. however, the term has faced rejection, which surprised many of this era’s leading scholars.17 despite the term being a corresponding alternative to the political connotations pertaining to the idea of sovereignty. the concept of sovereignty as employed in contemporary islamic political literature is a rephrased concept of governance whose political content is concisely defined by alghazali: “the deservingness of holding power belongs only to those who possess creation and command.”18 this quote confirms the absolute nature of governance and its ‘unsharability,’ and it clearly affirms that governance rules over the ummah, the state, and authority as entities subject to god’s revealed laws. two ideas can be extracted from the quranic presentation of governance: first, governance is part of the religious creed that muslims believe in; second, the history of governance is part of the history of the prophets, and it cannot be dissociated from it. the prophets ruled by allah’s command, wherever they appeared. what the holy qur’én mentioned in general terms was detailed in the biographies of the prophets throughout history, as explained by exegetists. based upon the detailed quranic presentation, the history of humankind consists of a series of successive stages following prophets’ governance, starting with adam and ending with muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). as mentioned by patricia crone, “thanks to muhammad’s career, muslims came to think of prophets as the paradigmatic founders of states.19 this pattern of thinking, which applies to the muslims’ perception of their own political history, will linger in their religious and political awareness as long as the holy qur’én remains part of their lives. 5.2. the historical embodiment of the principle of sovereignty the state is the historical embodiment of the principle of sovereignty. this principle was first mentioned in historical documents that appeared with the establishment of the muslim state, following the migration to madinah, when the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) wrote a binding covenant for all the groups that pledged allegiance to him. among the terms of the covenant, and perhaps the most important, was this clause that establishes the authority of the emerging state: “whatever you may differ in shall return to allah and to muhammad”.20 despite the political society that emerged in the city for the first time being a multi-religious society, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 107 all religious components were concerned with adhering to this constitutional provision regarding the organization of the public sphere while recognizing the non-islamic component of its religious specificity.21 this principle would be stated with the same clarity in the prophet’s will to his ummah, prior to his passing. the will states, “i have left you with two things, and you shall never go astray as long as you hold on to them: the allah’s book and the tradition of his prophet”.22 this hadith is addressed to the ummah and is stated conditionally as immunity from error is made contingent upon adherence to the holy qur’én and sunnah. this condition is meaningless without a state that reproduces the teachings of the holy qur’én and sunnah according to the requirements of time and place. on the legal level, the term state of islam (dār al-islām), which was coined by islamic jurists in reference to the meaning of the state, reflects the dialectical relationship between text and history. this compound term combines islam, as the supreme authority of the state and its institutions, and geography as the land where allah promised his servants to establish their religion on the condition of fulfilling their religious obligations: “ those who, when we give them power in the land, establish salah, pay zakah, bid what is fair and forbid what is unfair.” [22:41]. as will be discussed, the definitions formulated by islamic jurists to determine the nature of state of islam revolve around the following quranic verse, which promises the muslims three matters: succession, empowerment, and the removal of fear: “allah has promised those of you who believe and do good deeds that he will certainly make them (his) vicegerents in the land, as he made those before them, and will certainly establish for them their religion which he has chosen for them, and will certainly give them peace in place of fear in which they were before”. [24: 55]. this verse mentions three components essential in the establishment of a state. the jurists’ definitions do not go beyond these three components: the muslim community, which is responsible for implementing allah’s commands; the land, which is the geographic area inhabited by the community; and the absence of fear due to the community’s possession of the authority that allows it to achieve allah’s rule on earth. ibn al-qayyim defines state of islam as “the land where muslims, where islamic laws are enforced, and unless islamic laws are enforced on it, it is not regarded as state of islam even if it were adjacent to it”.23 the definition accurately specifies the three aforementioned foundations: a nurturing land, inhabited by muslims, and islamically ruled. 108 religion and the state … muslim jurists have established two criteria for state of islam to be presented in its legal status, with some variation in juridical interpretation.24 the first criterion is political and pertains to the state’s ability to assert its sovereignty; the second is functional and it pertains to its ability to implement sharīʻah. the first criterion is expressed in terms of ‘security and fear,’ which is derived from the aforementioned verse “and he will replace their fear with security.” this means that the legal existence of state of islam is achieved when muslims live in a state of security and power; the opposite, on the other hand, is true when they live in a state of fear and weakness. this results in what is labeled as state of disbelief (dér al-kufr). it is worth noting that the terms ‘state of islam’ and ‘state of disbelief’ are not value judgments. rather, they are juridical terms used in the constitutional sense to indicate the type of ruling prevailing in each state based on the prevailing legal rulings. if sovereignty is based on islamic rulings, it is state of islam; otherwise, it is state of disbelief. al-kasani states: the word dér (state) is only added to islam or kufr (disbelief) when islam or lack thereof appears in it… and islam and disbelief appear with their rulings; if the rulings of disbelief appear in a state, it becomes state of disbelief, and so the state becomes state of islam with the appearance of islamic rulings in it.25 it is worthy to note that the expression of the jurists with regards to state of islam and its opposite, state of disbelief, was articulated in a legal language with religious connotations, which would, in contemporary contexts, mean a secular, civil, irreligious, or modern state, as opposed to an islamic state. 6. the functional purposes of the state the topic being discussed is the function of the state and not authority. distinguishing the terms is a must to shun any ambiguity around the two concepts. the concept of state refers to the existence of an organized political society, governed by government institutions that enjoy legal recognition and constitute its highest political authority. executive authority is part of these institutions. this difference is evident in the function of each. while the function of the state is characterized as institutional and constructive in nature, the function of authority is of an executive nature. the mission of the state is to build the official institutions that manifest the will of the ummah from which it derives its legitimacy. as for authority, it is the executive tool that ensures the protection of this structure through legal coercion. based on this integrative perspective, it can be said that the state is the carrier of the ummah’s project, with authority being its protector. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 109 6.1. the ummah being the origin and the state as functional tool the first islamic state arose after the migration to madina within a defensive context, and embodied an advanced stage of the nascent community’s life where it moved from a creed group into a political one. this transformation undoubtedly signifies that the ummah had reached an advanced stage of confrontation, which required the existence of an organized political entity to protect its religious project against hostile forces. the quranic text strongly accompanied this transformation by revealing verses that framed it, placing the newly born community in front of new political tasks uncommon before the hijrah. it is worth noting that the verses addressing the community with these tasks are primarily medinan (as opposed to meccan), reflecting this quality development of the political formation of the community after the hijrah. the verses mentioned in this context are numerous, including the following: [61:14], [22:39, 41], [8:72]. the abovementioned verses revolve around the state’s emergence from and for the community. it was initially established to serve the religious purposes entrusted to the community and served as an organizational tool created by the community to execute the tasks assigned to it. this teleological perspective, which completely excludes any form of state independence from the ummah, has been a riveting subject for many thinkers. among these thinkers are muslims—who base their arguments on islamic beliefs—and their western counterparts, who adopt a descriptive, historical approach in the study of the emergence of the state and its relationship with the community. ahmed raisouni’s book titled the ummah is the origin26 unequivocally explains the subordination of the state to the ummah based on its function, which is closely related to the implementation of the tasks that the ummah has been entrusted with since its inception. this can be clearly explored from the quranic verses that appear in the form of “you believers!” where the discourse is directed towards the community of believers. this understanding is also reinforced by some western writings specialized in this context. andrew march’s book, the caliphate of man, notes that the subject of quranic discourse is the community of believers themselves, based on the quranic verses that vouchsafe the community with the responsibility of promoting virtue and preventing vice and fighting in the cause of allah against aggressors. this ethical function, which turns believers into representatives (khulafāʼ) of allah on earth, justifies the purpose of the existence of public authority in islamic political thought.27 in her book titled gods rule, patricia crone notes that throughout their premodern history, muslims viewed the state as an organizational framework, which supports the religiously formed society, and which 110 religion and the state … is created to implement the religious directives formulated by jurists.28 this conscious perception of the jurists’ position in the political body requires clarification regarding their leadership role in the legal framework of the islamic community as the representatives of the ummah, who are authorized to speak on behalf of the community. 6.2. the state function: institutionalizing the purposes of sharīʻah the function of the state lies in embodying the overall purposes of sharīʻah at all levels of its institutions and bodies, becoming the rule governing its management of public affairs and the basis for its developmental policies and its internal and external relations. there is no safer means to empower these purposes than to stipulate them in the constitution of the state, provided that the legislation and laws applied in all sectors be consistent with the constitution. it is important to articulate the constitutional and legal texts in an explicit, binding, and comprehensive manner to avoid any form of interpretation that may lead to undermining the overall juristic purposes or stripping them of their legitimate religious truth. the state’s foremost interests and priorities should be the empowering of wholeness of religion, considering religion as the true faith, and safeguarding it from anything that may desecrate its sanctity under any pretext, such as religious tolerance, freedom of belief, or the right to apostasy. these concepts, along with their approximate equivalents, must be dealt with from the perspective of legal responsibility towards the preservation of the religion from any form of disrespect—an approach that should be the case across the board. when we speak of values related to the intellect, such as freedom of expression, academic freedom, and the right to differ in opinion, these values remain guaranteed within the limits prescribed by the laws of sharīʻah, which do not violate their religious and moral principles. as for the values related to preserving human life, dignity, and material and spiritual human rights, the state is obligated to prevent any act that threatens these values, such as the right to abortion or euthanasia. these should all be done within the limits prescribed by religious and moral principles. regarding the governing values of family, the relationship between the sexes, the functional roles of each, the management of the family, the mutual rights and obligations of family members, and other concepts that question the muslim family code today, these should all be subject to the legal and moral principles prescribed by the law in a way that preserves the muslim family. concerning the wealth of individuals and society, the state must build its development activities and programs based on prioritizing principles over benefits, while avoiding any form of violation of moral and legal values under any pretext of public interest, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 111 except in the case of a compelling necessity according to sharīʻah law. this principle is often violated as it is seen in many forms of excessive duplicity reflected in the activities of both society and the state, especially in sectors that are considered essential in providing state resources. this is the case in many economic investments, commercial and financial transactions, and touristic activities that are prohibited by religious law. the state must ascertain that the presence of these vital interests or general purposes within its institutions is maintained; this would enable their preservation positively and negatively as stated by sharīʻah jurists. positive preservation of these institutions would mean enabling and providing conditions for their achievement, while negative preservation would mean protecting them against all risks that may threaten them. this principle cannot be practically achieved except through the collaboration of the legislative and judicial authorities, as they are a legal guarantee that binds the state’s institutions to act in accordance with the requirements of sharīʻah. on the legislative level, the islamic legal rulings to which the islamic society usually resorts are inextricably linked with its religious creed. this entails two interconnected matters: first, islamic sharīʻah is the primary source of legislation that regulates the sectors of the state; second, the ruling authority is religiously bound to act in accordance with the provisions of these legislations on the one hand, and is empowered to do so on the other hand. based on what has been mentioned, legal texts must provide the legislative framework from which state institutions and executive agencies derive their general policies that achieve sharīʻah purposes in both the private and public domains. this committed use of sharīʻah provisions to achieve the values and interests of society is the practical translation of a genuine political will through which the state expresses its alignment with the identity of the society it governs and embodies with the power of the constitution. furthermore, this commitment generates a state of societal satisfaction resulting from the individuals’ reassurance about the state’s alignment with their vital interests. at the judicial level, the judiciary is one of the most important institutions of the state, and the most effective in criminal regulation. given its authority, which surpasses both society and the state, the judiciary—in addition to its legal function—bears the responsibility of preserving the religious and moral identity of society, ensuring the application of islamic, legal rulings, and binding all social groups to adhere to the general ethics that regulate islamic, political, and social interactions with the force of the law. 112 religion and the state … 6.3. ×isbah: functional integration between the state and the ummah the aim of this integration is to ascertain the effective oversight of state institutions and to sustain their effectiveness in achieving their functional purposes. overseeing state institutions is an integral part of the state’s work; it is the responsibility of the state to establish administrative agencies that secure this function. however, as is the case in various countries around the world, overseeing is not solely the prerogative of state institutions, but is also a societal responsibility. in the experience of islamic governance, muslims developed a supervisory system co-shared by the community and the state, each within its own sphere of competence according to what is stipulated in the jurisprudence of ×isbah. in discussing the purposes of sharīʻah, al-shatibi considered their preservation a shared responsibility, both individually and collectively. this collaborative perspective is best manifested in the ×isbah system (islamic inspection), which is a model of the functional integration between official work and voluntary civil work i.e., between ×isbah being an institution of official state institutions, and a social activity. and ×isbah, as defined by al-mawardi, is “promoting virtue when its negligence appears, and preventing vice when it manifests”.29 in compliance with allah’s verse: “there has to be a group of people from among you who call towards the good, and bid the fair and forbid the unfair.” [3:104]. the islamic experience confirms ×isbah as not merely an administrative matter, but rather an ethical function that both the authority and society share the burden of performing based on the legal discourse that made the responsibility of promoting virtue and preventing vice a legal obligation. therefore, jurists distinguish between two types of ×isbah: the first is a formal system that the state bears; the second is a voluntary system that individuals bear. the difference between them, as noted by almawardi, is that the function of ×isbah in terms of guardianship is a bound obligation on the ×isbah supervisor, who is paid from the treasury, unlike voluntary ×isbah, which is a common obligation.30 the ×isbah system is considered the most effective mechanism in protecting societal values and ensuring the sharīʻah compliance. it derives its effectiveness from its scope of work and the nature of its function, which is primarily related to the development of public life and the inspection of the general performance of society. therefore, what distinguishes the function of ×isbah is its comprehensiveness, covering all activities that a muslim does—be it about the rights of allah or the rights of human beings or common rights between them. it would be worthy to consult book indices dealing with ×isbah issues hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 113 to understand the extent of this function to every aspect of the daily life. al-shaizari presents a long list of ×isbah tasks that cover areas of health, veterinary medicine, and pharmaceutics, education and discipline, finance and banking, market movement, and its related types of sales, trade, scales, and weights, and various industrial crafts, professions related to nutrition and food. this is in addition to general etiquette related to travel and roads, building security, its relationship to the sanctity and health of the inhabitants, the role of worship and its associated activities, practices, and the councils of governors and princes.31 in terms of work mechanisms, the overseer enjoys widerange authority, enabling him to perform his job with high efficiency, where his disciplinary procedures are characterized by immediacy and strong punishment. this gives him the power of implementation and authority of deterrence in case of violation. 7. discussion the connection between sharīʻah and legitimacy the previous explanations about the state’s function in empowering sharīʻah purposes and public interests lead to the importance of the functional approach in evaluating the state’s legitimacy. the previous details provide sufficient evidence that the major criterion in this legitimacy is the extent to which the state adheres to its assigned function. therefore, addressing this issue is of constitutional nature as it pertains to the state authority and the extent of its institutions’ commitment to representing the values and principles of sharīʻah in managing public affairs. based on a textual analysis of the issue in question, the hadiths mentioned in this topic seem to clearly address the possibility and expectation of the nullification of ruling according to sharīʻah. this means that the state is at risk of losing its legitimacy when it rebels against its religious authority. this has been stated in some authentic narrations, such in the hadith: “the knots of islam shall unravel one by one, and with each knot unraveling, the people will cling to the subsequent one. the first knot to unravel is ruling, and the last, prayer”.32 this hadith is reported in the form of a declarative statement, indicating the coming time when sharīʻah ruling will be disrupted. as explained by abdul-aziz ibn baz, this hadith refers to the absence of sharīʻah ruling, and this situation, he adds, leads to apostasy if it arises out of denial.33 the term used to express this state of abstinence is istiílél, it refers to the deliberate refrainment and obstinately from acting according to sharīʻah. based on this fatwé, the legitimacy of the state is contingent 114 religion and the state … upon its institutions’ obligations towards acting in accordance with sharīʻah; if these institutions are liberated from sharīʻah as their authoritative, they lose their legitimacy. the relationship between sharīʻah and state legitimacy has been addressed by jurists in their discussions of rulings pertaining to the state of islam, particularly in light of the historical events relating some islamic societies being invaded by external forces e.g., the fall of andalusia and the mongol invasion of the arab east. these events formed forums for the scholars at that time to engage in debates, which resulted in fatwés becoming constitutional precedents that continue today to resonate strongly in contemporary writings. it is the case with the fatwés of ibn taymīyyah, whose criterion adopted in stating the illegitimacy of the tatar state was the suspension of the implementation of sharīʻah.34 as has been noted by some researchers, the similarity between the political situation that ibn taymīyyah experienced and the political reality of post-colonial islamic societies has pushed his ideas to the fore in contemporary islamic political literature. his historical fatwés produced the most appropriate judgment for framing the current political situation, especially after the abolition of the ottoman caliphate. this positions ibn taymīyyah not only as a historical thinker, but also as a thinker actively involved in current debates about the future of sharīʻah in post-colonial states.35 a juristic criterion for the implementation of sharīʻah is constitutional; it states that when sharīʻah has sovereignty, it is state of islam, but when the sovereignty of sharīʻah is lifted, it becomes state of disbelief (dér al-kufr).36 based on this juristic diagnosis, a distinction must be made between legitimacy and legality. the state only risks losing its legitimacy when it deliberately hinders the governance of sharīʻah, while any actions that violate sharīʻah, though they recognize its sovereignty, fall within the area of legality. state institutions’ shortcomings and their erroneous policies remain a possibility due to ignorance, incapacity, neglect, or manipulation. these practices, which are usually inherent in any human practice, are undoubtedly wrong, but they can be corrected by the ummah and its community institutions though their right to monitor the performance of the state. 8. conclusion in conclusion, the previous discussions lead to assessing the relationship between religion and the state from an integrative perspective, one that combines textual implications and historical experience, especially in its founding stage. the relationship shows a high degree of complexity that goes beyond the skeptical and simplistic view that often reduces it to its historical dimension. this hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 4 115 integrative approach shows that the model of prophetic rule, whose political construction was completed early with the establishment of the madinah state after the hijrah, followed the integration and intertwinement between the religious and political. based on this conclusion, the standard model for the state as conventionally understood in the context of the islamic political and historical discourse is essentially a religious and ethical one. therefore, it is inconceivable for the state to detach itself from the authoritative values upon which it is founded, and which are highly regarded by the community it governs. this necessarily requires the state to be in line with society—an alignment that establishes the type of function entrusted to the state, which is determined by translating the values of the community and embodying them through its sovereign institutions. considering that the state legally embodies the will of the ummah and is constitutionally obligated to achieve its objectives, the legitimacy of the state depends on the extent to which it vows to secure the objectives of sharīʻah and represent its values in the management of public affairs. this function, for which the state was initially established, justifies the adoption of the functional approach as a standard for assessing the legitimacy of the state—a standard in which political legitimacy coexists alongside religious legitimacy. notes and references 1 amezzian, mohammed, “al-ʻalmanah wa-al-mujtamaʻāt al-ʻarabīyah, taḥdīth qasry am khiyār istirātījī?” journal of college of sharia and islamic studies (jcsis), vol 36, issue 2, (125-145), 2019. https://doi.org/10.29117/jcsis.2019.0219 2 hallaq, wael, the impossible state: islam, politics, and modernity’s moral predicament, (columbia university press new york, 2013), p. 28. 3 ibid, p. 30. 4 siddiqui, kalim, beyond the muslim nation-state, https://www.icit-digital.org/articles/beyond-the-muslim-nation-states 5 lapidus, ira m., (1996) “state and religion in islamic societies”, past & present journal, no. 151, (3-27), p. 12. 6 al-sayyid, ridwan, al-jamāʻah wa-al-mujtamaʻ wa-al-dawlah, sulṭat alaydiyūlūjiyā fī al-majāl al-siyāsī al-ʻarabī al-islāmī, (dār al-kitāb al-ʻarabī, beirut, 2007), p. 357, 7 latouche, serge: l’occidentalisation du monde, (la découverte. paris 1989). p.47. 8 crone, patricia, god's rule government and islam, (edinburgh university press ltd 2004), p.10-11. 9 ahyar, muzayyin and islam, aksi bela: “islamic clicktivism and the new authority of religious propaganda in the millennial age in indonesia”, indonesian journal of islam and muslim societies vol. 9, no.1 (2019), pp. 1-29, p. 8. doi: 10.18326/ijims.v9i1. 1-29, p.8. 10 anjum, ovamir, politics, law, and community, in islamic thought. the taymiyyan moment, (cambridge university press, usa, 2012), pp. 14. https://doi.org/10.29117/jcsis.2019.0219 https://www.icit-digital.org/articles/beyond-the-muslim-nation-states 116 religion and the state … 11 ibid, p. 18. 12 islam, jaan and eryiğit, adem, islam and the state in ibn taymiyya, translation and analysis, (routledge, taylor & francis, 2022, uk.), p. 222. 13 kahn, sylvain, “l’etat-nation comme mythe territorial de la construction européen”, belin l’espace géographique, tome 43, 2014. p.243. 14 crone, patricia, god's rule government and islam, op. cit., p. 8. 15 ibn ismāʻīl al-ṣanʻānī, muḥammad, sharḥ taṭhīr al-iʻtiqād ʻan adrān al-ilḥād, ed. ʻabd al-muḥsin al-badr, (maṭbaʻat safīr, alriyadh, 1424), v1, p7. 16 al-aṣfahānī, al-ḥusayn al-rāghib, al-mufradāt fī gharīb al-qurʼān, (dār alqalam, bayrūt, 1412), p. 520. 17 al-qaraḍāwī, yūsuf, al-siyāsah al-sharʻīyah fī ḍawʼi nuṣūṣ al-sharīʻah wamaqāṣidihā, (maktabat wahbah, cairo, 1419), p.18. 18 al-ghazālī, muḥammad abū ḥāmid, al-mustaṣfá, ed. muḥammad ʻabd al-shāfī, (dār al-kutub al-ʻilmīyah, beirut, 1993), p. 66. 19 crone, patricia, god's rule government and islam, op. cit., p.13. 20 ḥamīdu allāh, muhammad majmūʻat al-wathāʼiq al-siyāsīyah lil-ʻahd al-nabawī wa-al-khilāfah al-rāshidah, (dār al-nafāʼis, beirut, 1987), p. 61. 21 sshakeel ahmad wani, sayed aaqib qadri and bilal ahmad wani, “the legal status of religious minorities in islam: a historical perspective”, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1, 2023, (9-29), p. 13. https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.497 22 ibn anas, mālik, al-muwaṭṭaʼ, ed. muḥammad al-aʻẓamī, (muʼassasat zāyid ibn sulṭān āl nahayyān lil-aʻmāl al-khayrīyah wa-al-insānīyah, abu dhabi, 2004), v5, p. 2218. 23 ibn qayyim al-jawzīyah, muḥammad, aḥkām ahl al-dhimmah, ed. yūsuf al-bakrī and shākir al-ʻārūrī, (dār ramādī lil-nashr, dammam, 1997), v. 2, p. 728. 24 the issue of islamic communities existing under non-muslim governance has given rise to legal questions concerning the regulatory framework for such communities. this issue has become a subject of significant debate among modern researchers, as exemplified by the following article: edith x. chen, “an unbeliever can rule dār al-islām: ḥanafī law in the wake of the mongol invasion”, islamic law and society 30 (2023) 442–475. 25 al-kāsānī, ʻalāʼ al-dīn, badāʼiʻ al-ṣanāʼiʻ fī tartīb al-sharāʼiʻ, (dār al-kutub alʻilmīyyah, beirut, 1986), pp. 131-132. 26 aḥmad al-raysūnī, al-ummah hiya al-aṣl, muqārabah taʼṣīlīyah li-qaḍāyā aldīmūqrāṭīyah, ḥurrīyat al-taʻbīr, al-fann, al-shabakah al-ʻarabīyah lil-abḥāth wa-alnashr, 2012, p.12. 27 andrew f. march, the caliphate of man popular sovereignty in modern islamic thought, harvard university press, usa, 2019, pp. 30-31. 28 patricia crone, god's. op. cit., p. 395 29 al-māwardī, ʻalī ibn muḥammad, al-aḥkām al-sulṭānīyah, ed. aḥmad jād, (dār al-ḥadīth, cairo, 2006), p. 349. 30 ibid, p. 348. 31 ibn naṣr shayzarī, ʻabd al-raḥmān, nihāyat al-rutbah al-ẓarīfah fī ṭalab alḥisbah al-sharīfah, (maṭbaʻat lajnat al-taʼlīf wa-al-tarjamah wa-al-nashr, n. d.). 32 ibn ḥibbān, muḥammad, al-iḥsān fī taqrīb ṣaḥīḥ ibn ḥibbān, ed. shuʻayb alarnaʼūṭ, (muʼassasat al-risālah, beirut, 1988), v. 15, p. 111. 33 ibn bāz, ʻabd al-ʻazīz, majmūʻ fatāwá wa-maqālāt mutanawwiʻah, (riʼāsat idārat al-buḥūth al-ʻilmīyah wa-al-iftāʼ, saudi arabia, 1431), v.9, p. 206 . 34 ibn taymīyyah, aḥmad, majmūʻ al-fatāwá, (majmaʻ al-malik fahd li-ṭibāʻat almuṣḥaf al-sharīf, al-madīnah al-munawwarah, 2004), v. 28, p. 509 . 35 islam and the state in ibn taymiyya, op. cit., p. 220-221. 36 badāʼiʻ al-ṣanāʼiʻ, op. cit., v. 7, pp. 130-131. https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.497 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 71 combating islamophobia after the alaqsa flood dr. maya khater abu dhabi university, united arab emirates email: maya.khater@adu.ac.ae dr. mohamad albakjaji prince sultan university, saudi arabia email: mabkjaji@psu.edu.sa dr. jinane el baroudy prince sultan university, saudi arabia email: jbaroudy@psu.edu.sa received on: 15-10-22 accepted on: 19-04-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.953 abstract the present study aims to examine the increasingly widespread phenomenon of islamophobia linked to the al-aqsa flood in 2023. national practices worldwide convincingly demonstrate that islamophobia has increased since israel launched its war on the gaza strip, breaking international laws egregiously and depriving palestinians of their rights. in addition to this, cases of hate crimes directed at muslims have now hit peak levels. therefore, the current study aims to discuss the origin, motivation, and consequences of islamophobia, probing international efforts to stop it and analytically examining the impact of the war in gaza on the worldwide diffusion process of islamophobia. in other words, a critical reading of islamophobia is presented in line with a descriptive-analytical and historical approach, asserting that incidents of attack, hatred, and incitement against muslims related to islamophobia have risen abruptly since the start of israel’s war on gaza, heating the anti-muslim sentiment and raising transnational islamophobia. ultimately, the study found that effectively combating islamophobia associated with the recent war in gaza requires taking all necessary steps to end the war and shielding palestinian people from israeli strikes. accordingly, the study recommends suggestions for effective strategies to deal with, counter, and lessen islamophobia’s negative consequences in a manner that complies with international law standards. mailto:maya.khater@adu.com mailto:mabkjaji@psu.edu.sa mailto:jbaroudy@psu.edu.sa https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i3.953 72 combating islamophobia after … keywords: gaza war, human rights, international law, islamophobia, israel-palestine conflict, muslim introduction incidents of islamophobia have increased dramatically since the beginning of the most recent gaza conflict, almost reaching a point comparable to post-september 11 worldwide suspicion and doubt against arabs and muslims. more importantly, this comparison highlights how crucial it is to address islamophobic prejudices and gain protection from them. the recent conflict in gaza has deepened islamophobia in the west to a newer level, enhancing the policies biased toward and against religions and leading to a war of racism and stereotyping in the name of a war against terrorism. specifically speaking, muslims are usually depicted as enemies and fanatics in most instances, which only serves to isolate them further so that they are deprived of equality and justice. this will not only flare already existing prejudiced feelings but also violate basic human rights and principles to live peacefully and harmoniously 1 furthermore, this study adopts a historical perspective for understanding islamophobia by tracing its formation, outlining its roots and contemporary unfoldings, and examining how this war affected the situation of muslims in western societies and contributed to the rising global spread of islamophobia. literature review muzayyanah, rosyidah, and purwati emphasize that harmful stereotypes and discriminatory acts in muslim communities in addition to political rhetoric associated with terrorism are major causes of the spread of islamophobia. this goes on despite noting that islam is the fastest-growing religion in the whole world, and discrimination has been more focused on them rather than on their counterparts of other faiths. according to the authors mentioned above, the basis of such stereotypes and prejudices is historical, so islam was already presented and clichéd as a cultural and symbolic threat even in ancient times or in times of the crusades.2 likewise, gada argues that islamophobia is a worldwide problem that threatens democracy and the rule of law, going beyond simple bigotry. in light of western prejudice, which links terrorism to specific groups and blames the whole muslim community, this expert argues that this ideology has been used to fight terrorism on a worldwide scale.3 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 73 in addition, as hadinezhad states, islamophobia has grown out of the false belief that islam is more of a political ideology than a religion and that this political ideology can never be good for or compatible with western societies. undoubtedly, catastrophes such as september 11 and the emergence of terrorist groups like isis have contributed to the spread of this false belief.4 correspondingly, ciftci claims that western people perceive the muslim community as revolving around violence and terrorism. a common misconception is that all muslims are or have the potential to be extremists, terrorists, or sympathizers with terrorist organizations. consequently, according to the writer, muslims endanger western people’s security and survival of their traditions and ideals.5 since september 11, there has been a noticeable increase in what was perceived as permissible hate speech directed at muslims and tying other human flaws to islam and its followers. as olowo points out, islamophobia, defined as long-term hate and terror, has been around for a while, even if it gained increased visibility in the twentieth century. as a feature of contemporary bigotry, islamophobia has evolved through a complex web of cultural, historical, and geographical influences.6 moreover, it is worth notifying that the media frequently portrays violent extremism, intolerance, and terrorism among extreme religious groups. as daud argues, the media contributes to the promotion of islamophobia. neglecting basic human rights norms, this slanted news promotes authoritarian government policies. the media must balance between protecting human dignity and promoting free speech if they fulfill their role as guardians of democracy and human rights.7 here, it is important to mention that aziz and plitnick notice that there is an interesting double standard when it comes to the freedom of speech. for example, concerning the white, jewish, or christian communities, the right to free speech is mostly protected. still, muslim minorities are considered security and cultural threats, deserving social stigma or even criminalized for breaking laws and trying to harm the community. rather than expressing support for human rights and the ongoing implementation of international law, muslims are frequently believed to be anti-semitic when they speak out in favour of palestinian rights or against israeli policies.8 according to benlahcene, the idea of western civilization’s superiority over islamic society is the foundation of hate speech directed against islam and muslims. to gain a more nuanced 74 combating islamophobia after … knowledge of islam apart from the difficult historical context of the crusades and colonial eras, benlahcene proposes a philosophical and theological assessment, indicating that it is crucial to encourage cohabitation and cultural collaboration to create a peaceful society that takes interdependent destinies into account.9 in almost the same way, sarjito claims that islamophobia threatens basic freedoms such as religion, expression, and fair trial. it has far-reaching effects on politics, society, economy, as well as on public and national security. the media, government agencies, and law enforcement should champion tolerance and diversity to foster mutual understanding and promote discourse.10 contrariwise, hancock describes policies that unfairly target muslims and exacerbate religious tensions as examples of islamophobia. domestic and foreign state policies have the power to promote religious tolerance and pluralism or deepen existing societal conflicts. instead of fostering hatred and intolerance, he pushes for policies that respect religious diversity and encourage people to live together peacefully.11 interestingly, tariq and iqbal state that islamophobia conspicuously became a weapon for western imperialism in the islamic world when orientalism, which was used as a justification for european political operations against the ottoman empire, evolved into its modern form. fears stemming from islamic identity fuel modern-day islamophobia, which shows up as discriminating speech, behaviours, and hate crimes. this new form of islamophobia, they argue, is being practiced in the west and by some politicians who use it as a power-gaining tool and then remain in power by creating an anti-islamic mood in society.12 abou adel et al. concluded that one of the reasons behind the spread of islamophobia in european societies is the exploitation of exclusionary policies and the use of repressive measures against muslims under the pretext of protecting national and social security. this exploitation extends to criminalizing individuals in advance based on their identity as muslims.13 historically speaking, itaoui and elsheikh claim that the crusades, as well as the colonization of the muslim regions, started at the beginning of the late 19th. century and remained until the middle of the 20th. century, are responsible for islamophobia. the colonial masters, in most cases, used the stereotypical images of islam as a superpower and conquest as an excuse for exploitation and control over muslim territories, according to the authors.14 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 75 one of the critical worldwide threats based on misconstructions and discrimination against muslims / islam is islamophobia. hayat and malik elaborate that islamophobia is not just a problem affecting muslims but stretches much further to global peace, pluralism, and human rights. they claim that global islamophobia, understood as the negative stereotyping of islam as instituted in fear, loathing, and hostility, generates things like the abuse of human rights, terror against muslims, and other kinds of religious tolerance against them. they assert that human rights and religious tolerance must be decisively placed on the international agenda.15 in a few words, the literature about islamophobia covers its meaning, history, causes and impacts. therefore, this paper joins the discussion by analyzing how the war on gaza and other recent wars have fueled the phenomenon. thus, it shed light on the view that more knowledge on this issue is needed alongside concerted efforts to stem its expansion. methodology this study relies primarily on descriptive, analytical, critical and historical methodologies. it seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of islamophobia, focusing on its roots, motivations and impact on muslim societies. the study accurately describes the effects of the al-aqsa flood on the rise of islamophobia and how western societies have interacted with this phenomenon. the analytical approach is employed to understand the impact of the war on gaza on increasing islamophobia and to study the factors that have contributed to its reinforcement within western societies. after describing and analyzing the phenomenon and monitoring potential biases in dealing with it by various parties, current policies are critically evaluated to understand their effectiveness and impact on muslim societies. furthermore, the study adopted the historical methodology to study the phenomenon of islamophobia, investigate the historical origins of the emergence of negative stereotypes about muslims and understand and analyze the history of this phenomenon, starting from the middle ages and the crusades’ epoch, continuing at the colonial period and reaching the modern era with events such as september 11, 2001, the arab spring, al-aqsa flood and the war on gaza. to ensure the accuracy and reliability of information, findings, and recommendations presented, the research is chiefly based on primary sources that focus directly on the topic of islamophobia, such as specialized books and academic studies. this guarantees in-depth authentic information about the phenomenon 76 combating islamophobia after … studied. secondary sources were also utilized, including articles published in prestigious international academic journals and reports issued by international organizations, to provide a broader context and comprehensive understanding of the factors associated with islamophobia. in the process of collecting references, academic databases such as google scholar and research gate were used to ensure access to high-quality, peer-reviewed research. in addition, emphasis was placed on selecting recently published research in internationally recognized journals to keep up with the latest developments and updates related to islamophobia and the war in gaza. discussion the historical framework of islamophobia the conflict in gaza has served to heighten existing islamophobia, deeply rooted in centuries of friction between islamic and western civilizations and highly connected to some significant historical events. the period between the 11th and 13th centuries witnessed the crusades, which were based on territorial ambitions and religious fervor. the crusaders’ battles were fueled by christian beliefs about islam being a dangerous threat and their desire to dominate and possess the holy places in jerusalem and its surroundings. the crusades aimed to not only establish christian powerbut rather create long-lasting sources of strife and hatred among christian and muslim communities.16 during the orientalism era, which lasted from the 18th to the 19th centuries, westerners began to see their people, culture, and institutions as inherently better than those in the islamic world. this set the stage for the negative stereotyping of muslims that pervaded western thinking at that time.17 simply put, westerners adopted misconceptions about islam and a negative attitude toward it.18 it should be noted that once formal colonialism ended, the west’s attitude toward islam and muslims became even more hostile throughout post-colonial periods. western animosity and misperception of islam and muslims were exacerbated by postcolonial geopolitical disputes, wars, and muslim nationalism’s ascent to power.19 correspondingly, during the cold war, islamophobia gained prominence in public debates. politically and geographically, it was considered a tactic. within this context, the west’s consistent backing hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 77 of pro-communist authoritarian governments in muslim nations has resulted in silencing muslim voices and repressing islamist groups. thus, islamophobia sprang from preconceived notions about muslims and islam as well as a legacy of orientalism.20 moreover, the iranian revolution and the gulf wars strengthened the increasing wave of islamophobic attitudes and stereotypes in western societies. political rhetoric has obviously tied islam to terrorism, and the media’s obsession with terrorist attacks, committed by people pledging to do it in the name of islam, has only augmented islamophobia. other events which contributed to such a phenomenon were september 11, and the resulting rise of isil and other islamic radicals that launched terrorist attacks in europe and the united states.21 similarly, islamophobia has relatively surged since the political mayhem in the middle east, which ensued the arab spring and the syrian civil war in 2011, causing large numbers of arabs to flee to european nations. the anti-islamic sentiments rekindled after that wave because of the rise of ultranationalist parties with their racist and anti-immigrant policies resorted to anti-islamic slogans22. the increasing number of muslim refugees was accompanied by fears that muslims would become a majority in western europe due to their high levels of fertility. consequently, there has been an increasing panic among europeans over the growth of islamic identity in their countries. unfortunately, europeans deem the spread of islam as a threat, and they are working hard to stop it. by doing so, they are demolishing the supposedly inherent values in european societies, such as equality, justice, tolerance, non-discrimination and freedom of religion. it should be declared that the israeli-palestinian conflict has negatively affected western perception of muslims and islam for decades. accordingly, the impact created by the long-year brutality of the conflict has dictated that fear and trauma dominate the interaction of muslims with non-muslims.23 in 1897, the first zionist congress sparked broad opposition from palestinians against israeli rule, leading to the first palestinian intifada and further intensifying the israeli-palestinian conflict, which is frequently seen as a humanitarian catastrophe. in 1947, resolution 181 of the united nations general assembly called for the partition of british-mandated palestine into two arab and jewish states. this resulted in the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of palestinians when the region was split into the state of israel, the west bank, and the gaza strip on may 14, 1947. tensions between arab nations and israel grew worse during the following years. 78 combating islamophobia after … internal divides, security concerns, and deep-rooted distrust inside both palestine and israel have caused peace efforts to repeatedly fail, despite many summits and conferences, such as the 2000 camp david summit and the 2007 annapolis conference.24 after former israeli prime minister, ariel sharon’s september 2000 visit to al-aqsa mosque triggered the second palestinian intifada against the israeli armed forces, palestinian complaints escalated. a wall around the west bank was built by the israeli government in 2002. hamas took over the gaza strip after it won the legislative elections held by the palestinian authority in 2006. unfortunately, the election results were disregarded by western nations due to hamas’s status as a terrorist group. a semi-civil war started between fatah and hamas as a result of these political tensions and lasted until 2014.25 as a result, israel sealed off gaza in 2007, making life considerably more difficult for the palestinians, thereby cutting off their access to essential humanitarian supplies, restricting the movement of products and people, and cutting off the region from the rest of the globe.26 in 2014, the israeli army and hamas rekindled their battle, when the latter launched approximately 3,000 missiles at the former while the former engaged in harsh military operations against the palestinian people. yet, a truce in august 2014 brought an end to the hostilities, which had caused widespread palestinian displacement and infrastructural damage. israeli soldiers murdered 183 palestinians in 2018 during a nonviolent rally in which a small number of protesters managed to breach the border barrier separating israel and the gaza strip.27 additionally, in an attack on southern israel on october 7, 2023, hamas killed 1,139 israelis, wounded 3,300, and abducted 240 more. the israeli government imposed a total embargo on gaza the day after declaring war on hamas. at least 8,500 children and 7,000 women were killed in the bombing campaign that followed. the people of gaza were robbed of safety and life-sustaining resources due to the siege.28 while pro-israel activists see the events of october 7, 2023, as terrorist attacks and the worst crime against jews since the holocaust, calling for a military response from israel, anti-israel activists see the israeli assaults on gazan civilians as the second nakba, similar to the events surrounding the establishment of israel and the expulsion of palestinians in 1948.29 unquestionably, israel violates international laws by its recurrent incursions into the plaza of the al-aqsa mosque and attacks on palestinian civilians in jerusalem, the west bank, and other occupied areas. nonetheless, palestinians hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 79 think that these practices justify the al-aqsa flood. in response to israeli efforts to delegitimize the palestinian struggle, confiscate further palestinian territory, and convert it to judaism, al-aqsa flood is deemed to be a vital step toward reclaiming al-aqsa mosque and other sacred sites from israeli control and lifting the unfair siege on gaza. in other words, to put an end to the occupation, restore national rights, and create an independent palestinian state with al-quds as its capital, hamas’s operation against israel is evidently crucial.30 the israeli-palestinian conflict is one of the longest conflicts in modern history. there have been many attempts to find a resolution to this complex issue. this conflict is not merely about territory but involves a complex mix of historical, political, religious, cultural, and social factors. in addition, the conflict concerns a wide range of actors, including governments, political movements, armed factions, the international community, influential media, and public opinion.31 this requires taking more effective measures to end this ongoing conflict, prevent further loss of life and property, and promote peace and prosperity in the region. it is essential to support the legitimate rights of palestinians and their aspiration for independence and freedom, recognize east jerusalem as the capital of the state of palestine under occupation and address current issues on the ground, most notably the recent inhumane practices by the israelis. contemporary islamophobia and the impact of the gaza conflict an islamophobe is someone who has an unreasonable and hostile attitude toward muslims or islam. included in this category are feelings and thoughts about muslims and islam, as well as aversions to bigotry and prejudice. religiously driven anti-muslim discourse can have its roots in extreme religiosity, bigotry, fanaticism, and a lack of knowledge about islam and islamic cultures. it also involves the marginalization of islamic cultural practices, beliefs, and symbols, viewing them as incompatible with society’s prevailing values and ideas.32 verbal abuse, physical assaults, and institutionalized prejudices in the workplace and classroom are all ways in which islamophobia takes shape. both muslims and society as a whole are marginalized by this prejudice, which in turn reinforces negative perceptions. beyond cultural and structural racism, these crimes attack symbols of muslim identity, driven by institutional, political, ideological or religious hatred.33 this demonstrates the relationship between institutional levels of islamophobia and the manifestations of these kinds of attitudes against the victim’s islamic identity. 80 combating islamophobia after … as a combination of the english words “islam” and “phobia,” the term “islamophobia” has been used since at least 1923, indicating “intense dislike or fear of islam, esp. as a political force; hostility or prejudice towards muslims.”34 to put it another way, a prejudice against islam, hate of muslims, and pathological fear of muslims all point to a lack of tolerance and acceptance of muslims. attacking someone only because they are muslim, regardless of gender, is acceptable. the phrase “feelings inimical to islam” was the popular choice of the english-speaking world until it was revived in 1976 by an article by georges chahati anawati. the term “islamophobia” was originally not used in muslim countries but was translated into arabic as “ruhāb al-islām” (ُرهاب اإلسالم) in the 1990s, meaning “phobia of islam.”35 in 1997, a landmark study entitled “islamophobia: a challenge for us all” defined islamophobia as “an outlook or worldview involving an unfounded dread and dislike of muslims, which results in practices of exclusion and discrimination.” the report said, “anti-muslim prejudice has grown so considerably and so rapidly in recent years that a new item in the vocabulary is needed.”36 the study brought attention to other misconceptions about islam that are linked to islamophobia. these include the idea that islam is resistant to change, has radical intellectuals, and is incompatible with other civilizations, especially western ones. it painted islam in a negative light, calling it a violent religion that promotes terrorism and demeaning women and girls. it went on to say that ‘islam was irrational, barbarous, and a tool for political and military power.’ such claims of persistent anti-islamic prejudice can be used to justify discrimination against muslims and their exclusion from mainstream culture, normalizing such prejudice as a natural phenomenon.37 by scrutinizing the previously mentioned information, it is found that prejudice, misinformation, unwarranted bigotry, and factual misrepresentation are primary causes of dread and anxiety toward muslims and islam. contrariwise, the current study is mainly targeted to clarify that islam is a religion of progress and development, affirming that islamic law can make changes over time and accommodate different communal needs. the holy qur’én says that killing one person is like killing all of humanity, so islamic teaching does not condone terrorism; instead, it points out that human life is sacred.38 furthermore, the holy qur’én prohibits causing chaos and corruption in the world, admonishing followers against spreading harm or destruction.39 besides, islam provides a code of conduct that has been paraded by ethical and moral principles that characterize piety, justice, equity, truth and righteousness. fairness, respect, and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 81 tolerance are all concepts that have been upheld, thereby agreeing with the general goals that islam was founded to promote peace and understanding.40 hence, islamic law prohibits all deliberate attacks and killing of innocents regardless of the reason or motive behind such deeds, whether political, social or religious. false accusations that islam inherently promotes violence or that muslims are prone to terrorism frequently lead to prejudice against muslims in the west. internalized muslim stereotypes, such as those that lead to discrimination and slurs from outside sources, can also contribute to the development of islamophobia. racism is a direct outcome of these prejudices and preconceptions. according to the international journal of islamic thought, “islamophobia” was invented “by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate fools.” this fact must be emphasized.41 it is essential to recognize that attributing islamophobia to the false assumption that islam is a violent religion, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is a misleading interpretation that stems from misconceptions about muslims. this approach serves specific agendas and interests and should not be relied upon to completely comprehend the issue. portraying muslims as violent extremists is a misleading and unjust generalization that leads to the stereotyping of one-fifth of humanity, in both the east and west, into a reprehensible mold. moreover, islam condemns all forms of aggression and terrorism and is committed to establishing relations with others based on peace, even with those who differ from muslims ideologically and politically.42 islamophobia takes many forms, including personal beliefs and actions and institutionalized bias. microaggressions, hate crimes, and hatred toward muslims are examples of how they individually manifest as violence and harassment. muslims face discrimination in many forms, including the denial of their right to free speech and assembly, as well as exclusion from public policy meetings (even those concerning fiscal policy). harassment and intimidation also start happening to them in school, on the job, and in their communities.43 socially speaking, islamophobia manifests as official mistrust and hostility against muslims, as well as anti-muslim laws and policies that outlaw women’s burkini, niqéb, or íijéb. one factor that helps shape popular perception of islam and muslims is media bias. the media’s depiction of islam fosters an unfavourable impression of islam as a violent religion. media portrayals of muslims as extremists, terrorists, or oppressors are common in islamophobic narratives, which serve to demonize muslims while 82 combating islamophobia after … reinforcing negative stereotypes. in most cases, such media portrayals normalize anti-muslim sentiment in the long term44. public perception of muslims is skewed, prejudiced, and misled by government pronouncements and anti-muslim remarks. anti-muslim hate organizations and coordinated anti-mosque activities, such as attempts to destroy mosques or oppose their construction or enlargement, are other visible signs of the societal damage that has resulted. this extends to the destruction of muslim cemeteries and the forced closure of construction projects related to muslim communities.45 in addition, other common causes of islamophobia are ignorance and disinformation regarding islam and its teachings, geopolitical tensions, media representations of muslims and the attributing of unrelated acts of terrorism to islam. religiously motivated anti-muslim rhetoric can also underpin islamophobia. such rhetoric can stem from extreme religiosity, bigotry, fanaticism, ignorance of islam and islamic culture, or the rejection of islamic cultural practices, beliefs, and symbols that conflict with societal norms. furthermore, although islamophobia manifests itself in physical attacks, it may also occur online due to the proliferation of social media and the internet. as a result of these incidents, victims face harsh repercussions, such as being shunned by society, oppressed, anxious, and even violently attacked because of their faith, which violates their human and public rights.46 to achieve peaceful cohabitation and social integration, the whole world should combat islamophobia. several states have already passed anti-hate crime laws, instituted programs to deter and punish such crimes, and promoted public education campaigns to dispel misconceptions about muslims and islam. by unanimous vote in 2022, resolution no. 76/254 was approved by the united nations general assembly to establish march 15 as the international day to combat islamophobia. on that day, the world finally acknowledged islamophobia as a serious problem. the resolution states that all religions and beliefs must be respected, that attacks on houses of worship or other religious sites are illegal, and that acts of violence against individuals because of their religion or beliefs are also condemned. paradoxically, the shootings in christchurch, new zealand, which took place on march 15, 2019, coincide with the day of the resolution’s adoption. fifty-one muslims were murdered and forty others injured when right-wing terrorist brenton tarrant, motivated by anti-islam prejudice, carried out the attack. for his role in the terrorist attack, the court handed down a life sentence.47 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 83 to combat islamophobia worldwide, a multi-pronged approach is required, targeting individuals, communities and institutions. activities centered on raising awareness, such as conferences, workshops, seminars and open dialogues, promote true peaceful coexistence and tolerance among religions and cultures and dialogue between communities of different faiths. these events aim to help people gain a correct and impartial understanding of islam and islamic culture while differentiating islam from extremism.48 fighting islamophobia on a societal level requires more muslim engagement in all facets of society, from politics to economics to community organizing. in order to combat prejudice and discrimination, it is necessary to promote the creation of social partnerships. for example, the nomination of several muslim representatives to local legislative and parliamentary bodies helps to foster confidence within the community, as does the increased engagement of muslim populations in political activities in western nations.49 additionally, strengthening media campaigns is vital to educate the public about the perils of islamophobia, correct common misunderstandings and encourage creative works that provide a realistic depiction of muslims and islam. likewise, research and observational facilities in the west should include a broader range of variables in their analyses of islamophobia. studies, field research and surveys should be expanded to investigate the context and frequency of prejudice, hate speech, and psychological and physical assaults against muslims. since relying only on statistics or yearly publications is inadequate, it is important to publicize these findings regularly. it is also important for various groups to release a report on islamophobia once a year. in order to promote understanding and respect between muslims and non-muslims and to aid in the battle against islamophobia, this study tracks the phenomenon. it suggests ways to tackle it more broadly. 50 finally, yet importantly, organizing international conferences on islamophobia plays a significant role in addressing this issue. these gatherings aim to spotlight the phenomenon of islamophobia and explore strategies for its mitigation. key findings this paper is focused on combating islamophobia in light of the current onslaught in gaza, asserting that media and educational institutions should understand how western nations have reacted against muslims and palestinians. for this purpose, testimonies that have been reported by international human rights bodies, as well as 84 combating islamophobia after … several articles published by global media, have been identified to understand and show the growth of islamophobia that has kept direct pace with the gaza conflict. consequently, islamophobic acts, involving both verbal and physical attacks upon muslims and exclusionary behaviour, started to occur in many spheres of life increasingly. this gaza war-related rise of islamophobia has caused a wave of violations of fundamental human rights. in western nations, due to the palestine-israel conflict, muslims are facing increased racism and violence because of religion, culture, or physical appearance while taking sides. in that case, the living conditions for muslims become more complicated, and their sense of belonging might be diminished in these societies. simultaneously, claims of islamophobia in western nations spiked during israel’s attack on gaza. those who speak out against israel’s “genocide” and support palestinian independence have faced retaliation in the form of job losses and the cancellation of academic scholarships. furthermore, accusations of anti-semitism are leveled in an effort to deflect attention away from the bigotry and xenophobia directed toward arabs and muslims and to discredit those who oppose israel’s war crime.51 one of the many islamophobic effects of the conflict is the rise in muslim employment losses as a result of discrimination or retribution for their political views and sympathy for the palestinian cause. israeli authorities canceled work permits at the beginning of the current war, leading to the loss of at least 60% of palestinian employment in the gaza strip and 24% in the west bank, according to a report issued by the international labor organization. a worsening of the humanitarian situation in the gaza strip and the intensification of military operations there are likely to cause these figures to increase.52 while this study primarily focuses on the effects of the gaza war on the occupied palestinian labour market and livelihoods, israeli restrictions on the movement of palestinian workers are connected to public reactions, which could lead to job losses as a punitive measure associated with long-term discrimination against palestinian muslims. as an example, israeli defense minister yoav gallant said, “i have ordered a complete siege on the gaza strip. there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. we are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly”.53 such statements issued by israeli officials can be viewed as an implicit call for genocide because they are directed against all palestinian people without any distinction between them. therefore, killing palestinians, deliberately subjecting them to living conditions aimed at their destruction, and inflicting hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 85 physical and psychological harm on them is a severe violation of international law and falls within the scope of the crime of genocide. in simple terms, by using islamophobic stereotypes, workplace voices that support palestinian human rights and humanitarian aid in gaza are censored. employers have restricted speech critical of israel and muslims who sympathize with them. many muslim workers have been threatened with termination or even fired for speaking out for palestinian rights and freedoms on the grounds that employers see criticism of israel as evidence of antisemitism and prejudice against religious minorities.54 to exemplify, the president of mpac (muslim public affairs council ) has voiced his worries on the rise in anti-muslim hate crimes, including instances of job loss, after october 7. the terrible assaults on palestinians in gaza make american muslims feel threatened and alone, he said. fearing reprisal, muslim families, students, and workers are hesitant to speak out. many who have done so have experienced consequences such as termination, censorship, bullying, trolling and even targeted violence.55 amid rising anti-muslim sentiment in the west, muslim activists are voicing worries about anti-islamic activities at educational institutions, according to the head of the mpac. some colleges in the united states and europe have banned social media posts that support the palestinian cause and other forms of student protest that oppose the israeli conflict and show solidarity with the palestinian people. unfortunately, muslim students are threatened with expulsion and have their financial scholarships revoked.56 harvard university is one such example; after student and faculty groups there made anti-israel remarks, numerous pro-israel benefactors withdrew their support, putting pressure on the school to denounce the statements.57 more precisely, muslim students in western schools and colleges face religiously motivated bullying, harassment, and assaults with little to no institutional support for their victims.58 attacks on muslims have intensified due to the israeli war on gaza, with “a continuing wave of anti-muslim and anti-palestinian hatred.” over the last three months of 2023, the council on american-islamic relations reported 3,578 complaints, indicating a 178% increase compared to the same period the previous year.59 among the incidences of murdering and endangering muslims are the tragic stabbing of a six-year-old palestinian toddler in illinois last october and the shooting of three palestinian students in vermont last november.60 comparably, mosques, islamic centers, and businesses owned by muslims have all been targets of assaults stemming from the bloodshed in the gaza conflict. as an example, a man smeared 86 combating islamophobia after … excrement on a mosque and center located in ottawa in october.61 acts of vandalism, attacks, threats, and harassment targeting islamic centers of worship are reprehensible acts of violence and hatred that violate the right to practice religious rituals in peace and security. additionally, there has been a rise in online anti-muslim libel and disinformation due to the war. as propaganda weapons, western media outlets have failed to provide viewers with factual information regarding the situation in gaza. instead, they have presented israeli statements as facts without scrutiny, disregarding fundamental journalistic norms, offering commentary from an israeli perspective, exacerbating tensions, encouraging violence, propagating enmity and claiming that hamas forces attacked civilians, raped women, murdered and decapitated children, and mistreated detainees, while systemic israeli breaches were concealed.62 the war on gaza allowed the suppression of personal freedoms and practices restricting freedom of expression became more widespread. in response to anti-war demonstrations, police violence and investigations into claims of instigation to terrorism or ties to terrorist groups, there has been a broad restriction of free speech. for example, pro-palestinian protesters have been the targets of both physical violence and the use of automobiles as weapons in different parts of the us.63 to sum up, muslim minorities will always face serious dangers and societal disintegration in western nations if nothing is done to stop the rise of islamophobia. racist acts, including islamophobia, should be covered clearly. keep in mind that the bigotry that muslims endure is no different from the bigotry that other ethnic groups endure because of their faith. conclusions hatred and intolerance toward muslims often stem from a lack of proper knowledge and understanding of islam and its followers. this ignorance leads to negative stereotypes and misconceptions about muslims, contributing to the spread of misconceptions that portray islam as a violent or backward religion and muslims as intolerant or dangerous. islamophobia not only harms muslim communities, who are subjected to discrimination, exclusion, and violence, but also negatively impacts non-muslim communities. it causes division and increases tensions between different social groups, hindering peaceful coexistence and social cohesion due to a lack of basic human values such as acceptance, tolerance and mutual respect. therefore, a multi-faceted effort is needed to combat islamophobia, including tackling prejudice and misinformation, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 87 promoting inclusive policies, encouraging interfaith communication and cooperation, and promoting understanding, tolerance, and respect for diversity. in light of the ongoing conflict in gaza, this study finds that anti-muslim sentiment, including violence, bigotry, and incitement, has reached new heights. in addition, islamophobia has grown on a global scale, and anti-muslim prejudice has become even more pronounced as a result of the violent struggle. thus, comprehensive steps to end the war and protect palestinians from israeli aggression are required for a proper decrease of islamophobia associated with the current conflict in gaza. ultimately, many important suggestions for combating islamophobia associated with the gaza war emerge from the study’s findings as follows: • stopping the war in gaza immediately and making great efforts to address, avoid, and solve the palestinian-israeli conflict’s underlying causes. • eliminating human suffering and building world peace and security by protecting palestinian people from israeli strikes, establishing a truce, removing the closure on gaza, delivering humanitarian supplies and beginning reconstruction work. • prohibiting the promotion of hate speech or incitement against faiths (particularly islam) on social media platforms; combating prejudice, stereotyping, and bias; and taking legal action against those who do so. • establishing a legally enforceable international agreement to end islamophobia which will promote tolerance, peace, and religious coexistence, ensuring that muslims are valued and respected wherever they are and enabling them to participate in civic life fully. • abolishing islamophobia by enforcing international commitments on religious freedom, free speech, and the elimination of discrimination based on race. • enacting laws that serve as a deterrent to those who disrespect islam or muslims to prevent future conflicts and undermine international stability. • dispelling myths and misinformation about islam and its adherents, as well as bringing attention to the religion’s beneficial features, and holding workshops and seminars to educate the public about islam and its peaceful character. • raising international consciousness of the devastating impact of islamophobia on muslim communities and their way of life. 88 combating islamophobia after … • presenting islam and muslims in an unbiased manner by the world’s media, showcasing a variety of viewpoints and experiences. notes and references: 1 aziz, sahar, and mitchell plitnick. “presumptively antisemitic: islamophobic tropes in the palestine israel discourse.” ssrn electronic journal, (november 2023):3. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4662519 2. muzayyanah, nurul, fifti imro’atur rosyidah, and susilo purwati. “islamophobia in social prejudice perspective.” international journal of research and innovation in social science vii, no. xii (2023): 83–88. https://doi.org/10.47772/ijriss.2023.7012008 3 gada, mohammad yaseen. “islamophobia and its historical roots content, context, and consequences.” hamdard islamicus 40, no. 2 (2021): 35. https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v40i2.149 4 hadinezhad, fatemeh. “cause and strategies to overcome islamophobia.” conference: islamophobia and/in post-secular states, alberta. canada (july 2021). 5 ciftci, sabri. “islamophobia and threat perceptions: explaining anti-muslim sentiment in the west.” journal of muslim minority affairs 32, no. 3 (september 2012): 293–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2012.727291 6 olowo, adam. “islamophobia: a new phenomenon or part of a continuum?” astrolabe: a cis student research journal, 3 (2021):1-2. https://www.hbku.edu.qa/sites/default/files/islamophobianeworcontinuum.pdf 7 daud, aidir amin. “human rights, islamophobia, and the war on terrorism.” hasanuddin law review 7, no. 3 (december 1, 2021): 169-182. https://doi.org/10.20956/halrev.v7i3.2833 8 aziz, sahar f. "presumptively antisemitic: islamophobic tropes in the palestine israel discourse." ssrn electronic journal, 2023. doi:10.2139/ssrn.4662519. 9 benlahcene, badrane. “islamophobia as a form of hate speech: its religious and cultural roots.” journal of al-tamaddun 17, no. 1 (june 30, 2022): 167–81. https://doi.org/10.22452/jat.vol17no1.13 10 sarjito, aris. “islamofobia dan implikasinya terhadap keamanan nasional.” himmah: jurnal kajian islam kontemporer 7, no. 1 (august 1, 2023): 621–39. https://doi.org/10.47313/jkik.v7i1.2517 11 hancock, rosemary. “national security, islamophobia, and religious freedom in the u.s.” journal of religious and political practice 4, no. 1 (december 13, 2017): 61–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/20566093.2017.1390657 12 tariq, muhammad, and zafar iqbal. “from islamophobia to neoislamophobia: a new style of governance in the west.” hamdard islamicus 46, no. 2 (june 30, 2023): 9–28. https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.764 13 abou adel, mohammed, mohammad alhourani, and georgios kormpas. “the muslim diaspora’s nationalism and identity in kamila shamsie’s home fire.” hamdard islamicus 47, no. 2 (june 30, 2024): 117–35. https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.802. 14 itaoui, rhonda and elsadig elsheikh. “islamophobia in the united states: a reading resource pack.” haas institute for a fair and inclusive society, university of california, berkeley (september 2018):5. https://haasinstitute.berkeley.edu/global-justice/islamophobia/resource-pack-us 15 hayat, imran, and muhammad sajjad malik. “the rise of islamophobia and religious intolerance: a menace to pluralism and global peace.” research journal ulum-e-islamia 29, 2 (2023): 13-26. 16 gada, “islamophobia and its historical roots content, context, and consequences.” op.cit. 17 ayesha, shufaq. “developing the conceptual framework for islamophobia: a comprehensive literature review.” sprin journal of arts, humanities and social https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4662519 https://doi.org/10.47772/ijriss.2023.7012008 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v40i2.149 https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2012.727291 https://www.hbku.edu.qa/sites/default/files/islamophobianeworcontinuum.pdf https://doi.org/10.20956/halrev.v7i3.2833 https://doi.org/10.22452/jat.vol17no1.13 https://doi.org/10.47313/jkik.v7i1.2517 https://doi.org/10.1080/20566093.2017.1390657 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.764 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.802 https://haasinstitute.berkeley.edu/global-justice/islamophobia/resource-pack-us hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 89 sciences 2, no.10 (october 15, 2023): 60–68. https://doi.org/10.55559/sjahss.v2i10.174 18 abo adel, mohammed. “aesthetics of religious coexistence and tolerance in the shafak’s turkish novel.” international journal of islamic thought 24, no. 1 (december 2023): 108-118. https://doi.org/10.24035/ijit.24.2023.273 19 mohiuddin, asif. “islamophobia, racism and the postcolonial subject’s discontent.” postcolonial studies 25, no. 4 (march 9, 2020): 584–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2020.1735427 20 bazian, hatem. “islamophobia, ‘clash of civilizations’, and forging a post-cold war order!” religions 9, no. 9 (september 19, 2018): 282. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9090282 21 kabir, nahid. “islamophobia and radicalisation in the united states.” waikato islamic studies review 8 (september 2022):1-4. 22 robby, hadza min, and aathifah amrad. “an analysis on the islamophobic acts in france post-arab spring.” jurnal sosiologi reflektif 15, no. 2 (april 24, 2021): 250. https://doi.org/10.14421/jsr.v15i2.2085 23 sidiq, fahmi, jumadil saputra, and lotfi tadj. “indonesia’s role in supporting palestinian independence and responding to the israeli-palestinian conflict: analysis of foreign policy and current issues.” international journal of humanities, law, and politics 1, no. 4 (january 13, 2024): 72–77. https://doi.org/10.46336/ijhlp.v1i4.45 24 “israeli-palestinian conflict.” the center for preventive action, (january 8, 2024). https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-conflict 25 alianita, “palestinian-israeli conflict in war and peace approach.” 26 “israeli-palestinian conflict.” op.cit. 27 shorrab, ahmed. “health in the crossfire -analyzing and mitigating the multifaceted health risks of the 2023 war on gaza.” public health research 14,1, (january 2024): 1-11. https://doi.org/10.5923/j.phr.20241401.01 28 sidiq, fahmi, jumadil saputra, and lotfi tadj. “indonesia’s role in supporting palestinian independence and responding to the israeli-palestinian conflict: analysis of foreign policy and current issues.” international journal of humanities, law, and politics 1, no. 4 (january 13, 2024): 72–77. https://doi.org/10.46336/ijhlp.v1i4.45 29 meyer, eric. “from the river to the sea: western philosophers and the israelhamas war.”, (december 23, 2023):1. 30 khalil, sarah. “how did arab states react to hamas operation against israel?” the new arab, october 7, 2023. https://www.newarab.com/news/how-did-arabstates-react-hamas-attack-israel 31 nagial, colonel bs. “israel-palestine relations: complexities and challenges.” the centre for land warfare studies, no. 296 (july 2021):1-9. https://www.claws.in/static/ib-296_israel-palestine-relations-complexities-andchallenges.pdf 32 ciftci, sabri. "islamophobia and threat perceptions: explaining anti-muslim sentiment in the west." journal of muslim minority affairs 32, no. 3 (2012), 293309. doi:10.1080/13602004.2012.727291 33 awan, imran, and irene zempi. “a working definition of islamophobia: a briefing paper.” preparation for the report to the 46th session of human rights council, (november 2020) :2. 34 l. t. s. “the oxford english dictionary.” the library s1-2, no. 1 (1890): 220–23. https://doi.org/10.1093/library/s1-2.1.220 35 kamran, tahir. “the historic phenomenon: islamophobia is deep-seated in minds of people so that a majority of them readily believe that muslims are terrorists | special report | thenews.com.pk.” the news international, november 8, 2020. https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/739879-the-historic-phenomenon 36 trust, runnymede. “islamophobia: a challenge for us all.” london: runnymede trust (1997):41, 3. https://doi.org/10.55559/sjahss.v2i10.174 https://doi.org/10.24035/ijit.24.2023.273 https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2020.1735427 https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9090282 https://doi.org/10.14421/jsr.v15i2.2085 https://doi.org/10.46336/ijhlp.v1i4.45 https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-conflict https://doi.org/10.5923/j.phr.20241401.01 https://doi.org/10.46336/ijhlp.v1i4.45 https://www.newarab.com/news/how-did-arab-states-react-hamas-attack-israel https://www.newarab.com/news/how-did-arab-states-react-hamas-attack-israel https://www.claws.in/static/ib-296_israel-palestine-relations-complexities-and-challenges.pdf https://www.claws.in/static/ib-296_israel-palestine-relations-complexities-and-challenges.pdf https://doi.org/10.1093/library/s1-2.1.220 https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/739879-the-historic-phenomenon 90 combating islamophobia after … 37 pratt, douglas, and rachel woodlock. “fear of muslims?” boundaries of religious freedom: regulating religion in diverse societies, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29698-2 38 the holy qur’an, surah al-ma'idah:ayat 32, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani, karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010. 39 the holy qur’an, surah al-baqarah:ayat 11. 40 khan, z. “islamic code of ethics.” scribd, n.d. https://www.scribd.com/document/333476517/islamic-code-of-ethics 41 abou, mohammed, and mohammed adel. “aesthetics of religious coexistence and tolerance in the shafak’s turkish novel.” international journal of islamic thought 24, no. 1 (december 1, 2023). https://doi.org/10.24035/ijit.24.2023.273 40 meyer, “from the river to the sea: western philosophers and the israel-hamas war.” 43 tristantri, cepi, syaprin zahidi, and salahudin salahudin. “islamophobia and misconception : a systematic literature review.” journal of islamic world and politics, 6 (2), (december 26, 2022): 320–341. https://doi.org/10.18196/jiwp.v6i2.16771 44 latif, muhammad asad. “anthorpomoraphic of gods with alah almighty and filmogarphy on islamophobia in the cinematic way of america and india: a critical analysis.” hamdard islamicus, 46(3). (2023). https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.756 45 aziz, sahar. "racing religion in the palestine-israel discourse." ajil unbound 118 (2024), 118-123. doi:10.1017/aju.2024.17. 46 tolesh, gaziza. “khaled a. beydoun, american islamophobia: understanding the roots and rise of fear oakland, california, university california press, 2018.” two homelands 2019, no. 50 (june 27, 2019). https://doi.org/10.3986/dd.v2019i50.7469 47 yel, ali, and feyza dalayli. “islamophobia in work environment and social media: a verutal ethnography example.” düşünce ve toplum sosyal bilimler dergisi 5 (december 2021):1-22. 48 khater, maya. “international perspective on securing cyberspace against terrorist acts.” international journal of sociotechnology and knowledge development 15, no. 1 (march 2, 2023): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijskd.318706 49 “combating islamophobia through intercultural and interreligious work.” european youth centre. strasbourg: the forum of european muslim youth and student organizations, may 2011. https://rm.coe.int/16806fd5a7 50 aswar, hasbi. “the strategy of muslim communities in encountering islamophobia in the united states.” afkaruna: indonesian interdisciplinary journal of islamic studies 17, no. 1 (july 8, 2021). https://doi.org/10.18196/afkaruna.v17i1.11468 51 meyer, “from the river to the sea: western philosophers and the israel-hamas war.” 52 bresheeth, haim. “the israel lobby, islamophobia and judeophobe in contemporary europe and beyond: myths and realities.” journal of holy land and palestine studies. edinburgh university press. 17.2 (2018): 193–220. https://doi.org/10.3366/hlps.2018.019 53 fabian, emanuel. 2023. “defense minister announces ‘complete siege’ of gaza: no power, food or fuel.” the times of israel, october 9, 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announcescomplete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/ 54 the international labour organization. “rep. impact of the israel-hamas conflict on the labour market and livelihoods in the occupied palestinian territory.” brief no. 1, november 2023. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/--ro-beirut/documents/publication/wcms_901136.pdf 55 afify, farah, keon neghabat, and corey saylor. "gaza: the resurgence of islamophobia in 2023." council on american-islamic relations, washington, dc, 2023: 1-47. https://cairflorida.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/gaza_theresurgence-of-islamophobia-in-2023-3.pdf 56 meyersohn, nathaniel. “harvard and upenn donors are furious. it may have a financial domino effect.”, cnn, october 19, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29698-2 https://www.scribd.com/document/333476517/islamic-code-of-ethics https://doi.org/10.24035/ijit.24.2023.273 https://doi.org/10.18196/jiwp.v6i2.16771 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.756 https://doi.org/10.3986/dd.v2019i50.7469 https://doi.org/10.4018/ijskd.318706 https://rm.coe.int/16806fd5a7 https://doi.org/10.18196/afkaruna.v17i1.11468 https://doi.org/10.3366/hlps.2018.019 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/ https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/---ro-beirut/documents/publication/wcms_901136.pdf https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/---ro-beirut/documents/publication/wcms_901136.pdf https://cairflorida.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/gaza_the-resurgence-of-islamophobia-in-2023-3.pdf https://cairflorida.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/gaza_the-resurgence-of-islamophobia-in-2023-3.pdf hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 3 91 https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/19/business/harvard-upenn-donorsisrael/index.html 57 larkin, max. “harvard faces more claims of discrimination — this time from palestinian and muslim students”, january 29, 2024, wbur, https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/01/29/harvard-complaint-muslim-studentsharassment 58 meyersohn, nathaniel. “harvard and upenn donors are furious. it may have a financial domino effect.”, cnn, october 19, 2023. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/19/business/harvard-upenn-donorsisrael/index.html 59 teller report. “a sharp increase in anti-muslim incidents in america as the gaza war continues.” january 29, 2024. https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2024-01-29a-sharp-increase-in-anti-muslim-incidents-in-america-as-the-gaza-warcontinues.hyhsywb5a.html 60 the pakistan daily. “anti-muslim incidents rise in us amid israel-gaza war,” january 29, 2024. https://thepakistandaily.com/anti-muslim-incidents-rise-in-usamid-israel-gaza-war 61 national council of canadian muslims. “nccm condemns disgusting vandalism of prominent ottawa muslim centre.” october 24, 2023. https://www.nccm.ca/nccm-condemns-disgusting-vandalism-of-prominent-ottawamuslim-centre 62 shinar, adam. "free speech in the shadow of the israel-gaza war." 2024. doi:10.59704/ce1eca77ffdf3bb4. 63 nezirevic, leila. “israel’s gaza war pushing islamophobia ‘out of control’ worldwide: experts.” january 08, 2024. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middleeast/israel-s-gaza-war-pushing-islamophobia-out-of-control-worldwideexperts/3103331; and shinar, “free speech in the shadow of the israel-gaza war.” https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/19/business/harvard-upenn-donors-israel/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/19/business/harvard-upenn-donors-israel/index.html https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/01/29/harvard-complaint-muslim-students-harassment https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/01/29/harvard-complaint-muslim-students-harassment https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/19/business/harvard-upenn-donors-israel/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/19/business/harvard-upenn-donors-israel/index.html https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2024-01-29-a-sharp-increase-in-anti-muslim-incidents-in-america-as-the-gaza-war-continues.hyhsywb5a.html https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2024-01-29-a-sharp-increase-in-anti-muslim-incidents-in-america-as-the-gaza-war-continues.hyhsywb5a.html https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2024-01-29-a-sharp-increase-in-anti-muslim-incidents-in-america-as-the-gaza-war-continues.hyhsywb5a.html https://thepakistandaily.com/anti-muslim-incidents-rise-in-us-amid-israel-gaza-war https://thepakistandaily.com/anti-muslim-incidents-rise-in-us-amid-israel-gaza-war https://www.nccm.ca/nccm-condemns-disgusting-vandalism-of-prominent-ottawa-muslim-centre https://www.nccm.ca/nccm-condemns-disgusting-vandalism-of-prominent-ottawa-muslim-centre https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-s-gaza-war-pushing-islamophobia-out-of-control-worldwide-experts/3103331 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-s-gaza-war-pushing-islamophobia-out-of-control-worldwide-experts/3103331 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-s-gaza-war-pushing-islamophobia-out-of-control-worldwide-experts/3103331 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi. no. 2 7 .. editorial we are pleased to present the second issue of the forty-sixth volume of the hamdard islamicus for the year 2023. this issue covers various fascinating and important topics. each paper offers unique insights and contributes to the understanding of different aspects of islamic studies. these scholarly works significantly contribute to the understanding of crucial topics such as islamophobia, muslim leadership education, the functioning of islamic banks, and artistic influences within the muslim world. the interdisciplinary nature of islamic studies is exemplified by the diverse subjects covered in this issue, shedding light on important concerns within the field. the first paper “from islamophobia to neo-islamophobia: a new style of governance in the west” investigates the development of islamophobia and its impact on the governmental systems of western societies. the authors explore the emergence of a new form of islamophobia called “neo-islamophobia” and discuss its implications for public policy and social dynamics. the study provides valuable information on the evolution of islamophobia and the challenges it poses in multicultural societies and the modern world. the second paper “muslim religious leadership education in the minority context: the role of naleemiah institute of islamic studies” focuses on the naleemiah institute of islamic studies and its role in educating muslims about religious leadership in a minority setting. the authors investigate the institute’s curriculum, pedagogical methods, and the difficulties faced by muslim leaders in non-muslim majority societies. this study emphasizes the value of educational institutions in developing capable muslim leaders and promoting interfaith understanding. the third paper “critical study of commodity murābaíah practice of islamic banks in shari‘éh perspective” critically examines the practice of commodity murābaíah, an islamic financial product, from a shari‘éh perspective. the authors scrutinise the underlying principles, practical application, and potential drawbacks of this 8 editorial .. practice. this study contributes to the ongoing discourse on islamic banking practices and their adherence to islamic principles. in the fourth paper, "shari‘éh disclosure and readability of islamic banks in pakistan” the scholars have investigated the islamic banks’ disclosure procedures and information readability in pakistan. the authors evaluate the accessibility and transparency of these disclosures to enhance stakeholders’ understanding of islamic banking practices. this study would aid the industry in formulating effective communication strategies by providing insightful information about the disclosure practices of islamic banks. “characteristics of islamic calligraphy: nas‘talêq, persian calligraphy influences on mughal architecture of the 17th century” is the fifth and final paper in the issue. it closely explores the characteristics of islamic calligraphy, with a specific focus on the nas‘talêq style and its impact on mughal architecture during the 17th century. the authors examine the interaction between calligraphy and architectural design, offering insightful information about the artistic legacy of the mughal empire. this study enhances the readers’ comprehension of the cultural and historical significance of islamic calligraphy in architectural contexts. these scholarly works bring valuable contributions to the field of islamic studies. we trust that these articles will enrich the existing body of knowledge and encourage further research and discussions, fostering a deeper understanding of the complexities within the islamic world. in the end, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to the authors who have chosen hamdard islamicus as a platform for their scholarly work. their valuable contributions have improved the academic landscape of islamic studies. we greatly value feedback from our readers, which helps us improve the quality of our publications, and expect to receive quality scholarly work in the future which explores crucial and significant topics within the field of islamic studies. dr. shabeer khan editor hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 9 modern western trends in sôrah writing: an assessment of john v. tolan and craig considine’s approach aadil hussain malik department of islamic studies, aligarh muslim university, aligarh, india. email: malikaadil.amu@gmail.com received on: 15-10-22 accepted on: 19-04-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.605 abstract the captivating realm of sêrah writing, encapsulating the life of prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), has long been a focal point within the intellectual tapestry of islam. scholars, historians, and biographers, both muslim and nonmuslims, have passionately contributed to this genre, transcending linguistic boundaries and embracing the diversity of world languages. western authors have depicted the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in a myriad of ways, often leaning towards disparaging and negative portrayals, with sporadic instances of a positive and unbiased approach. however, a significant transformation has unfolded, particularly in the post9/11 era, where admirers of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) ardently advocate for his multi-dimensional personality as a beacon for human emancipation, peace, progress, and salvation. two such examples are john v. tolan (b. 1959) and craig considine (b. 1985) — contemporary luminaries whose works echo this positive shift within non-muslim western scholarship. this study delves into an assessment and analysis of tolan and considine’s approach to sêrah writing, seeking to illuminate the ‘positive approach of non-muslim westerners in sêrah writing.’ one of the major findings of this study is that in the post-9/11 era, we witnessed a number of instances of the positive and authentic facets of islam and the life of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). through scholarly endeavours, tolan and considine contribute significantly to this evolving narrative, marking a rising momentum in contemporary western scholarship toward unveiling a more accurate and uplifting portrayal of islam and the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). keywords: positive approach, post-9/11 era, western mailto:malikaadil.amu@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.605 10 modern western trends in sêrah … scholarship, contemporary luminaries, evolving narrative, tolan and considine introduction throughout the history of islam, sêrah (the holy prophet’s illustrious life and career) has received much scholarly attention and has been discussed by muslim as well as non-muslim writers equally in almost all languages. admiration for the holy prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) stems from the belief that his multifaceted persona serves as a beacon for human emancipation, peace, progress, and salvation. indeed, he is revered as a mirror through which the muslim community, known as the ummah, reflects upon its identity and purpose. in recent decades, the academic engagement of nonmuslim western scholars with islam and muslims, especially with the life and times of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), has remained at the centre of their discourse. however, amidst scholarly admiration, there exists a lamentable trend of disparagement directed at the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and his legacy. this negative depiction finds expression in the infamous danish cartoons outrage, sparked by the publication of 12 caricatures ridiculing the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam), in 2005. similar derogatory portrayals surfaced in 2015 in the danish newspaper jyllands-posten and the french satirical magazine charlie hebdo,1 as well as in the provocative film fitna from denmark.2 all of them exemplify the negative western perception of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). in all these cases, western intellectuals and leaders questioned why muslims were so angry and defended the “freedom of expression” of those offending. despite these challenges, the enduring significance of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) persists, serving as an unceasing source of inspiration and contemplation for scholars and believers alike. to understand the shifts, movements, and biases within the non-muslim western literature concerning the life and character of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in the 21st century, it becomes imperative to first outline the prevalent negative portrayals (biased) within non-muslim western literature. this serves as a precursor to a detailed assessment of the emerging positive (unbiased) trends in sêrah literature, which has increasingly dominated this genre in contemporary times. this will help us understand the relationship between islam and the west. yet, attempting to delve into both trends exhaustively within a single study poses considerable challenges. hence, this study attempts to highlight the positive trends in the contemporary non-muslim western scholarship on the prophet’s sêrah with a focus on the works hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 11 of two contemporary western academicians, namely john v. tolan’s ‘faces of muhammad’ (2019)3 and craig considine’s ‘the humanity of muhammad’ (2020).4 1. understanding the discourse of islam and the west islam and the west are, and have been, the subjects of the writings of both muslims and non-muslim academicians alike. western scholars have produced a plethora of literature on muslims and their scripture. however, much of this literature predominantly exhibits bias and prejudice against islam, muslims, and the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). pertinently, the history of medieval and early modern european\western writings about the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) showcases a consistent pattern of misinterpretation. in this regard, some were ‘deceptive’, because they considered these biographical sources (produced in medieval times) as the only core data for studying/on the life of the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). failing to access the fundamental sources, they relied solely on misinterpreted literature. in his book “mythologies of the prophet muhammad in early modern english culture,” matthew dimmock, a professor of early modern studies at the university of sussex, uk, argues that the distorted and exaggerated depictions of the holy prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) were central to the christian stereotypes of islam in england. these portrayals were characterized by “vilification, caricature, and misinformation, shaping perceptions of islam during that period”.5 a study of the ‘distortion of a biography’, or possibly the ‘biography of a misrepresentation’, is how dimmock succinctly summarized his work.6 in addition, tarif khalidi (b. 1938), emeritus professor and historian, at the american university of beirut, in his book ‘images of muhammad,’ scrutinizes how the perception of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) evolved and developed over time in the muslim community.7 besides that, khalidi emphasises how carlyle’s lecture “the hero as prophet”8 and william muir’s work “life of mahomet”9 influenced 19th and early 20th century muslim writers like ameer ali (18491928), muhammad iqbal (1877-1938), and muhammad husayn haykal (1888-1956), and how these authors responded to the need for a new and modern sêrah writing10 in their own distinctive ways.11 relatedly, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sêrah literature that emerged from the west was euro-centric and polemical, thus, portraying the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) negatively and offensively. yet, a careful examination of their literature reveals that these writers were spurious with unreliable and biased sources from the medieval period. the deliberate distortion of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) resulted largely from propagandist clergy, overly enthusiastic 12 modern western trends in sêrah … polemicists, and some irresponsible travellers to the muslim world. they maligned the representation of the holy prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) in their literature while using offensive language, which echoes the prevailing impact of the medieval legacy. to substantiate this argument, professor kidwai argues in his book “images of prophet muhammad in english literature”, that their understanding and portrayal of the holy prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) is “largely unreceptive, teeming with factual errors, excoriating stereotypes, and even a malicious distortion of the truth.”12 karen armstrong a well-known scholar of comparative religion, observed that western christian’s hostility to islam caused them to develop a distorted image of islam. so, western scholars called islam a blasphemous religion and called the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) “the great pretender” who started a violent religion based on the sword to take over the world.13 2. limitations of the study 1) the study focuses on a specific timeframe, the post-9/11 era, during which numerous scholars from europe and the west, spanning disciplines like religious studies, history, and sociology, have depicted the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) positively. however, our focus is narrowed down to analyzing only two works published in 2019 and 2020, respectively. 2) we specifically delve into the contributions of two scholars, tolan, a european historian, and considine, an american sociologist, who are emblematic of positive trends. these scholars have meticulously employed primary and secondary sources to present islam and holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in a favourable and accurate light, particularly emphasizing the interfaith dimensions of the sêrah. 3) despite the extensive exploration by tolan and considine into various facets of the prophet’s life and teachings, including their interfaith dimensions, this study is constrained to examining only prominent aspects covered collectively in their works. 3. review of literature in the western world, there is a myriad of literature investigating both positive and negative approaches to the sêrah of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). information on this discourse can be found in more than hundreds of books and articles. negative/biased portrayals of the holy prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) have been the subject of several academic works from the very inception of history. to date, a large number of studies hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 13 and conferences have focused on the negative portrayal of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), but few studies have been carried out to highlight his positive teachings and practices, in western scholarship as well as in the muslim scholarship. to have a better understanding of the discourse, the overviews of some carefully researched works are mentioned below: 1) in his seminal work, the sum of all heresies: the image of islam in western thought (2008) frederick d. quinn provides a comprehensive and insightful exploration of the portrayal of islam in western literature. drawing on a wide range of sources, including literary texts, art, theology, and political discourse, quinn meticulously traces the evolution of western perceptions of islam from medieval times to the present day. through his rigorous analysis, quinn reveals the complex interplay of religious doctrine, geopolitical considerations, and cultural biases that have shaped western attitudes towards islam. his examination sheds light on the enduring legacy of orientalist stereotypes and the challenges of fostering mutual understanding between western and islamic societies. 2) norman daniel’s, islam and the west: making of an image, (2009) delves into the history of christian anti-islamic polemic, shedding light on the various attacks directed at the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). daniel examines the misperceptions surrounding the prophet’s status as a pseudoprophet and explores the motives behind such misrepresentations. in particular, he scrutinizes the imputation of idolatry to the prophet and its significance in shaping western attitudes towards islam. daniel also traces the survival of biased medieval concepts into modern times, highlighting the enduring legacy of these historical narratives in contemporary western perceptions of islam. through meticulous research and analysis, daniel offers valuable insights into the complex interplay of religious, cultural, and political factors that have influenced the portrayal of islam in the west. 3) tarif khalidi’s, images of muhammad: narratives of the prophet in islam across the centuries, (2009), offers an elegant and nuanced account of the representation and adoration of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) from the origin and evolution of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and his teachings up to the present. khalidi scrutinizes how the image of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) factors that have impacted the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) perception, including the significant influence of unfavourable ideas disseminated by the west. an intriguing aspect of khalidi’s work is its exploration of the historical representations of diverse cultures and beliefs, providing a 14 modern western trends in sêrah … captivating insight into the depictions of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) throughout different epochs. 4) ahmad gunny, the prophet muhammad in french and english literature, 1650 to the present, (2010). gunny has been a pioneer in the study of literary and theological representations of islam in modern france and europe. students of sêrah’s studies and academicians alike have discovered new and significant research avenues in this work because of his acclaimed critical studies and definitive editions of voltaire. gunny’s novel approach to the representation of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in 18th-century french literature complicates the current understanding of the subject. he examines the numerous and varied perspectives of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), and provides a survey spanning over 350 years that was held during the enlightenment, rather than attempting to once again, reveal a ‘western prejudice towards islam.’ 5) matthew dimmock’s, mythologies of the prophet muhammad in early modern english culture, (2013), is described rightly by the author as “a study of misrepresentation of biography” or “the biography of a misrepresentation”. the admirable effort of identifying the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) distorted picture has been completed by dimmock in this commendable work. dimmock describes how the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) image was fabricated and misused in english literature from the beginning of the 17th century, during the reformation era, on the stage plays in the elizabethan era, religious writings, and popular culture. it is described as an “astonishing spectacle of substantial and insightful scholarship.” 6) abdur raheem kidwai’s, images of the prophet muhammad in english literature (2018) describes and examines the images of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), as portrayed in english literature from the twelfth to nineteenth centuries. in the wake of the danish cartoons controversy and the tragedy of 9/11, which sparked a global interest in the holy qur’an in general and the sêrah of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in particular, kidwai’s admirable effort seeks to have a better understanding and relationship between the muslim world and the west. the main focus of the book is to express the development of both the trends, negative and positive, and the portrayal of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in english literature from the middle ages to contemporary times. from an outline of these works, it becomes evident that there have been few attempts by muslim and non-muslim academicians to provide a thorough and fair analysis of how the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) has been depicted and portrayed from hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 15 antiquity to the present. besides that, these works have contributed to a broader understanding of islam and its rich cultural heritage, while also fostering greater dialogue and mutual respect between different religious and cultural communities. the literature review reveals that there have been no attempts so far to study the works/contributions of tolan and considine comparatively through the prism of a ‘positive approach to sêrah.’ 4. methodology to ensure a comprehensive and rigorous examination of john v. tolan and craig considine’s contributions to sêrah writing, this study employs a historical methodology characterized by a meticulous investigation of primary and secondary sources. the historical method is chosen for its capacity to provide a nuanced understanding of the context, allowing us to delve into the intricacies of the authors’ perspectives on the life of the holy prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam). in the spirit of source verification, an extensive review of scholarly writings, biographical accounts, and historical records is undertaken. this process involves cross-referencing information to ensure the reliability and authenticity of the sources, contributing to the credibility of the study’s findings. in addition, the arguments of tolan and considine are sometimes juxtaposed with the views of their contemporaries to give a more comprehensive understanding of the western perspective of sêrah. in both methods, an insider/outsider approach will be utilized.14 in this research, the insider approach refers to what muslims believe and advocate in their understanding of the issues in question, while the outsider approach refers to what is believed and advocated by orientalists in the western literature consulted. the assessment of positivity and negativity in sêrah writing involves a qualitative analysis of the: language, tone, and overall portrayal of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) within the works of tolan and considine in particular and other scholars in general. positivity is measured through the authors’ emphasis on the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) virtues, contributions to humanity, and adherence to ethical principles. negativity, conversely, is identified in instances where the portrayal leans towards disparagement, misconceptions, or an absence of a balanced perspective. to enhance the depth of the study, the exploration of concepts like positive and negative is further refined through a thematic analysis, dissecting key themes and motifs within tolan and considine’s works. additionally, the study engages with the existing scholarly discourse on sêrah writing, offering a comparative analysis to situate the authors’ perspectives within the broader context of 16 modern western trends in sêrah … contemporary western scholarship on the life of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). 5. results positivity is measured by scrutinizing the authors’ language, tone, and thematic emphasis within their respective works. instances where tolan and considine emphasize the holy prophet’s (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) positive attributes, advocate for a balanced\unbiased understanding, and exhibit a nuanced appreciation for the historical context contribute to the overall positivity assessment. this includes depictions of the holy prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) that transcend stereotypes, challenge misconceptions, and present a multifaceted view of his character. to defend the study’s outcomes, the defined concept of positivity serves as the benchmark against which tolan and considine’s narratives are evaluated. by establishing clear criteria for positivity, the study aims to articulate the grounds on which the authors’ contributions are appraised, providing a robust foundation for the analysis and interpretation of sêrah writing within the western scholarly context. this approach ensures transparency in the assessment process and facilitates a more comprehensive understanding of the authors’ engagement with the positive dimensions of the life of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in their works. 6. representation of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa îallam) in the western scholarship: from medieval to contemporary era propaganda and polemics from the west against islam, the holy qur’an, and the sêrah date back to the early days and have shaped all discourses ever since. the creation of a false and rather repugnant image of the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) has been a gradual process in the western narrative. both his personal life and the message of islam were misperceived and misrepresented as the epitome of falsehood and evil. for example, his family background, pre-prophetic life, and career were anticipated with relish, asking how someone who had been pagan in his youth could lay claim to being the prophet of god.15 it can be claimed that during medieval times, non-muslim western scholars were not capable of giving a balanced account of the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). in medieval texts like alexandre du pont’s 13th-century roman de mahomet, the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) is portrayed as (god forbid) an imposter, a brigand, and even the devil incarnate, accused of committing heinous crimes.16 these negative depictions were common among crusade historians who often hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 17 depicted him as an idol, suggesting that he was worshipped as a false god by the saracens, a term used to refer to muslims, particularly arabs. however, it’s crucial to recognize that these portrayals were steeped in religious biases and cultural prejudices prevalent during that period, and muslims themselves did not use the term “saracens” to identify themselves.17 paradoxically, it was also stressed at the same time that islam, as fabricated by the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam), had grown out of christian faith and practices. walter of compiegne, alexandre du pont, and embrico of mainz “all presuppose that islam arose in a christian people.”18 peter the venerable (1094–1156) argued that a prophet, inspired by divinity, must reveal unknown truths. according to this criterion, he deemed prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) claim to prophethood false because he did not foretell future events. however, it’s worth noting that this accusation lacks credibility. in addition, st. thomas presented another theory a pseudo-prophet might occasionally utter some truths. he thus sought to play down the profundity characterizing the prophet’s message. he insisted the demoniac possession could account for the prophet’s revelation.19 roger bacon drew a distinct line between genuine prophets, viewed as universally accepted, and false prophets. he emphasized that false prophets lead morally flawed lives and propagate untrue teachings. consequently, he assigned the prophet to the latter group. the emphasis on the prophet’s falsehood in the works of pedro alfonso and peter the venerable and his team during muslim rule in spain (714–1492 c.e.) is geared towards the same objective — of rejecting his claim to messengership.20 kidwai argues in his book ‘images of the prophet’ that: “they tried their level best to show that the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) did not possess any of these four signs which characterize a prophet— (i) he must speak the truth. (ii) he must stand out from and above everyone in terms of his goodness and virtues. (iii) he must perform miracles; (iv) he must present holy and righteous law.”21 humbert of romans brought forth a series of allegations against the prophet, such as the absence of miracles, the promulgation of irrational laws, immoral conduct, lewd behaviour, and deceit. among these accusations, he placed particular emphasis on sexual sins, seeing them as particularly effective in capturing the attention and stirring the curiosity of the public. almost every medieval polemical writer took this cue from humbert.22 in dante’s (1265–1321) divine comedy, the image of the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) was represented as a heretic and as a sower of discord.’23 minou reeves, in his book, muhammad in europe, remarks on dante’s representation of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam): 18 modern western trends in sêrah … dante began the divine comedy when the last crusaders’ fortress, acre, in palestine, had been reconquered by the muslims who had driven the crusaders from the region. when dante painted the obscene depiction of the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) in his inferno, the visions of those wars were still fresh in his memory. dante believed that muhammad’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) offense had been to spread a “false religion” to provide a heavenly revelation that claimed to supplant christianity. this had to be viewed as an impious hoax that could do nothing but cause strife in the world.24 the crusades, with their vehemently anti-muslim rhetoric, laid the groundwork for unrestricted criticism of islam and the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam).25 an early scholarly contribution to this campaign came from humphrey prideaux (16281724 ce) – an english priest and scholar. his highly polemical work, “the true nature of imposture fully displayed in the life of mahomet,”26 aimed to portray the life of the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) as that of a fraudulent individual who founded a counterfeit religion, seeking to discredit him. this work became a significant and enduring source of information about the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in subsequent times.27 several anonymous biographies of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) continued to incorporate this blend of history and the image of imposture until the middle of the nineteenth century. prideaux, j.h. hottinger, and edward pococke, distinguished orientalist scholars of their times, claim that “any country might blush to have produced such a monster.”28 in this pursuit, john tolan states, “there was uniformity in the negative representation of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in european christian thought, from bibliander’s 1543 edition of the holy qur’an to humphry prideaux’s 1697 invective on islam and deism.”29 similarly, minou reeves argues in his book ‘muhammad in europe’ that: when asked what islam was, mediaeval scholars and churchmen preferred to give the easy answer to the question of what was islam: that it was the work of a one man, muhammad [pbuh], and that he was inspired by satan. there was thus no need to answer awkward questions about the religion; defame its founder and you could forget the rest…it was asserted, for instance, that muhammad [pbuh], had died not in the year 632 ce but in 666 – the number hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 19 of the beast in the apocalypse, so he must be the anti-christ. with his name corrupted to ‘mahound,’ muhammad [pbuh] became the ‘devil incarnate.30 based on what has been said above, one could conclude that it’s safe to claim that no other prominent religious figure has been as wildly misrepresented, misunderstood, and vilified as the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), albeit there are some exceptions to this record.31 yet, throughout these phases, rare rational voices have bravely expressed dissent, refusing to uncritically accept the official propaganda. during the earlier periods, this was a dangerous endeavour, and those who dared to speak out were severely attacked and often silenced. many had to circulate their views anonymously for fear of persecution. later, the dissenting voices became more frequent and more open. in the 17th and 18th centuries, writers critical of the clergy lauded prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) as a reformer who ended the privileges of a corrupt and superstitious clergy. similarly, in the subsequent 18th and early 19th centuries, there emerged a tendency to regard prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as an arab national hero, credited with bringing law, religion, and glory to his people. 32 with time, the works of some brave scholars, translators, and other non-muslim western academicians enabled a more accurate assessment of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). they started to move away from the political, social, and intellectual burdens, and in full swing to a gradual realization of the truth. to a greater or lesser extent, all these extracts are concerned with moving away from the medieval idea of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as an insecure imposter.33 this greatly appreciated change is most notably visible after the contribution of thomas carlyle (1795– 1881), a scottish essayist and satirist, who saw this as historically incomprehensible in the case of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). it was in 1840 that he delivered his revolutionary lecture “the hero as prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)”, which was influential enough to undermine this as a meaningful or useful question among serious scholars of the prophet’s life.34 in the 20th century, serious islamic scholarship in european languages flourished, particularly in its later phases, with contributions from both muslim and non-muslim scholars associated with the western world. martin lings (1909-2005), stands out as a notable example, leveraging his literary expertise to explore foundational islamic texts like the holy qur’én and ×adêth, alongside key early sêrah sources such as ibn ishaq, ibn sa‘d, and al-ùabari. his renowned work, ‘muhammad,’ 35 garnered widespread acclaim within the muslim world and received accolades from governments 20 modern western trends in sêrah … like those of egypt and pakistan. karen armstrong emphasizes the common themes across religions and strives to present the authentic narrative of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), recognizing him as “one of the most extraordinary individuals in history”.36 this evaluation enables her to approach the life of prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) from a fresh perspective, extracting insights and inspiration to address contemporary issues. juan cole’s work delves into exploring peaceful demeanour of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) amidst the clash of civilizations, emphasizing his unwavering commitment to peace throughout his life.37 in this intellectual landscape, john adair,38 a non-muslim western scholar, also made a significant contribution by offering a fresh perspective on the sêrah of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) through the lens of leadership.39 at the very outset of his book, he states that it “is not a full biography of’’ the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam).40 based on his enviable expertise in the field of leadership studies, for him, a “generic quality of universal leaders is humility, which the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) had in abundance.”41 adair’s assertion that “leadership is a journey concept” 42 underscores how the role of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as a caravan leader symbolizes the exercise of practical wisdom, unity maintenance, and responsibility for the well-being of the community—a perspective that enriches our understanding of leadership legacy of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). as a visionary leader, he encouraged the muslim community to take up plentiful tasks, which made them believe in themselves. adair pays this tribute to his leadership qualities when he states: “as a result of his leadership, the muhéjirun (emigrants) and the anîér (helpers) united together as one—the aîíéb (companions) of the prophet. and he revived everyone’s faith that their essential needs would be provided.”43 there are several biographies which reflect a significant change in the depiction of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in the western scholarship. these writings represent the new tolerant assessment that distinguishes the majesty and splendour of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). this type of literature is based on objectivity and is devoid of prejudice and predisposition. some of the main representatives of this trend are henry stubbe, george sale, edward gibbon, thomas carlyle, bosworth smith, herbert george wells, philip khuri hitti, annemarie schimmel, irving m. zeitlin, michael hart, annie besant, john adair, frederick quinn, john hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 21 esposito, norman daniel, karen armstrong, stephen burge, joel hayward, john v. tolan, and craig considine. to evaluate the contemporary positive trends in western scholarship on the sêrah of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), two scholars which are selected for this study are: john v. tolan’s (faces of muhammad), and craig considine’s (the humanity of muhammad: a christian view). tolan and considine are both representatives of the positive and comprehensive approach to the sêrah of prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) in contemporary times, and pertinent to this their works are considered as outstanding. 7. john v. tolan’s perception and portrayal of prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) john victor tolan is a historian of medieval europe, specializing in the intellectual history, the history of the crusades, and the history of intercultural relations between the arab and latin worlds in the middle ages and on the history of religious interaction and conflict between jews, christians, and muslims. he was born on october 27, 1959, in milwaukee, wisconsin, usa, and raised in a catholic family. he obtained his ba in classics from yale university in 1981, ma in 1986, and his ph.d in history from chicago university in 1990 and the ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales (hdr). he has taught and lectured at different universities of the world like, in north america, europe, africa, and the middle east, and is currently a professor emeritus of history at the university of nantes, france, and a member of the academia europaea (ngo promoting excellence in scholarly research, estd. 1988) and the reial acadèmia de bones lletres de barcelona (also known as the royal academy of good letters of barcelona, founded in 1729, promotes history, literature, and the humanities). tolan has written extensively on the history of intercultural relations in medieval europe, with a particular focus on the interaction between christians, muslims, and jews. with his research, he has made a significant contribution to the subject under discussion. he is the author of several books including: saracens: islam in the medieval european imagination (2002), sons of ishmael: muslims through european eyes in the middle ages (2008), and saint francis and the sultan: the curious history of a christian–muslim encounter (2009). his works have been translated into numerous languages, including french, german, italian, spanish, dutch, turkish, arabic, and chinese. through these admirable works, tolan reflects the new tolerant perspective that 22 modern western trends in sêrah … acknowledges the greatness and splendour of the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam). besides that, the bias against islam and the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in western writings has also been well pointed out by him. in addition to his academic work, tolan has also been active in promoting intercultural dialogue and understanding. he has been involved in various initiatives aimed at promoting dialogue between christians, muslims, and jews, and has organized numerous conferences, workshops, and public lectures on these topics. he has also been a regular contributor to various media outlets, including the new york times, the guardian, and the bbc, where he has commented on issues related to intercultural relations and the history of the crusades. the structure of the book consists of an introduction (pp. 118), nine chapters (pp. 19-258), a conclusion (pp. 259–263), a brief notes section (pp. 264–299), and an index (300-309). the topics in the book are discussed under the following headings: 1) mahomet the idol; 2) trickster and heresiarch; 3) pseudo-prophet of the moors; 4) prophet of the turks; 5) republican revolutionary in renaissance england; 6) the enlightenment prophet: reformer and legislator; 7) lawgiver, statesman, hero: the romantics’ prophet; 8) a jewish muhammad? the view from jewish communities of nineteenthcentury central europe; 9) prophet of an abrahamic faith. the book may be divided into three main sections. the first section focuses on the ‘early christian and medieval european perceptions of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)’, which were largely negative and portrayed him as a false prophet and an enemy of christianity. the second section covers the ‘renaissance and enlightenment periods, during which some western thinkers began to view prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) more positively ⎯ as a great religious leader and even a model of ethical behaviour. the final section of the book examines the ‘contemporary western perceptions of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam)’, which are often shaped by political and ideological factors. through this work, which is under review, tolan has established himself as possibly the leading expert on european attitudes toward islam. his ‘faces of muhammad: western perceptions of the prophet of islam from the middle ages to today’44 “is a culmination of his decades-long scholarly effort.”45 in his introduction of his book, tolan describes: “this book is not about muhammad, prophet of islam [øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam], but about “mahomet,” the character conceived and brought to life by non-muslim european authors between the twelfth and twenty-first hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 23 century.” the central theme of this work is to explore how the “westerners” have viewed the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] throughout history, thereby challenging the false impression maintained by scholars alike that these ‘outsider’s views have been invariably negative and monolithic. in this regard, the author claimed that the western perceptions about the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] were often equivocal, ambivalent, and interlinked in the sense that earlier modes or traditions of viewing could either persist or motivate divergences among later observers. thus, tolan sets out to examine more complex than simply compartmentalized “faces” of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]. a wellresearched and well-documented work, it puts all the highly politicized ways of thinking about the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), his place and position in the religio-political evolution of islam and his larger role in world history in a historical context and looking at how they relate to each other. in the annals of western literature, the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] has, lamentably, endured [god forbid] instances of denigration, painted as a heretic, impostor, or even a pagan deity. nevertheless, western history also bears witness to alternative portrayals, where he is exalted as an emblematic leader, a harbinger of reform, a sagacious statesman, and a revered arbiter of law. tolan meticulously scrutinizes these multifaceted and occasionally contradictory representations, offering a scholarly exploration of their significance and impact. he traces the evolution of western perceptions of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] from early calls to join the crusades against the saracens, through the reformation, and enlightenment, and into the 19th and 20th centuries, continuing up to the present day. through this thorough historical analysis, tolan highlights the nuanced and evolving nature of western views on the life of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]. tolan reveals that there has been a long history of positive representation of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in 17thcentury england which many have found quite surprising. for example, he evaluates henry stubbe’s positive approach who, for him, presents not only a “glistening portrait of the prophet of islam [øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam]”, but indeed “the first wholly 24 modern western trends in sêrah … positive biography of muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] written by a european christian,” presenting the “muslim prophet [øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam] as a reformer and visionary.”46 contrary to this, thomas ross, who is well-known for his alcoran (1649), described the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] as a “vicious pagan.”47 however, it was stubbe and his description and depiction of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] that “transformed the prophet of islam into a republican revolutionary, and the subsequent writers (bury, nye, toland, and others) would confirm and elaborate upon this transformation.”48 the proliferation of islam was used by reformation polemicists as proof that the established church was corrupt, leading them to portray the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] as a reformer. in early modern england, writers on both sides of the debate compared the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] to oliver cromwell, debating whether the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] was a rebel against legitimate authority or the founder of a new, just society.49 the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] was initially viewed by voltaire as an “archetypal religious fanatic” but later asserted that he was an enemy of superstition.50 to napoleon, he was merely “a role model: a brilliant general, orator, and leader.” fascinated by the prophet’s “eloquence”, johann wolfgang von goethe saw him “as a poet and a prophet”; dismissing “the traditional christian polemics against the prophet [øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam].”51 thomas carlyle, victor hugo, alphonse lamartine, and others depicted him as a “sincere, virtuous visionary, one of the great figures of history.”52 numerous writers of the 19th-century romantic movement, aside from napoleon and goethe, depicted prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] in various ways, echoing the assessments of scholars like gibbon and carlyle who regarded him as a “great man” and later called him as “hero.”53 carlyle, in his lectures of 1840, dismissed the absurd legends of mahomet as an impostor and instead portrayed him as a hero and the archetype of a prophet.54 similarly, lamartine characterized the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 25 nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] as “a convinced ecstatic, a visionary of good faith, a political enthusiast”55, tolan claimed that he rejected the notion of him being an impostor and instead recognized him as the greatest of men. hugo also depicted prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] as a figure of “modesty and asceticism” and ― “a pillar of sagacity and justice.”56 tolan concludes that these romantic writers portrayed prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] in a variety of personas ranging from an “inspired poet, legislator, and genius of the arab nation, acknowledging his genius and reformative impact on the arab people. 57 the other distinguished features of tolan’s work are critical evaluation and comparative analysis of the major religions of the world. in chapter eight of the book, “a jewish muhammad,” tolan concludes with these remarks: …..thinking and writing about muhammad [pbuh] and islam is inseparable from thinking and writing about judaism and christianity. … just as contemporary european christians looked to muhammad [pbuh] as a spiritual hero whose piety could serve as a model for disenchanted european romantics, for some nineteenth-century jews, the muslim prophet could serve as a heuristic model for reforming judaism.58 no doubt, tolan is a professor of history at the university of nantes, but his topic is not the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] in person, but rather “mahomet,” a fictional character or caricature that was developed and misrepresented by western writers from medieval to contemporary times. for this reason, tolan argued that he made a distinction between muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] (which tolan used to refer to both the historical individual and the figure presented in muslim traditions) and the different ‘spellings or deformations’ of his name found in european languages, which he has copied verbatim throughout this book.’ tolan revisits his main points, arguing that throughout the centuries, westerners have acquired a variety of different perspectives on the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa 26 modern western trends in sêrah … aîíébihi wa øallam] and islam, and the representation of these two fundamental sources of muslims has become “integral elements of european culture.”59 besides that, this beautifully written, thoroughly researched, and engrossing book offers a rich and complicated view of how many “faces” of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] were created and envisioned ‘for a variety of purposes by generations of westerners in a self-interested dynamic that will’ undoubtedly continue into the near future. kecia ali, the author of the lives of muhammad aptly described the book: john tolan sets aside the historical muhammad [pbuh] and muslim portraits of god’s beloved messenger [pbuh] to focus on mahomet as european men have depicted him over the centuries. he shows how wildly varied versions of islam’s [p]rophet emerge and how they make sense within their own social, intellectual, and theological contexts. nuanced and fascinating, faces of muhammad is a terrific read. tolan finally summarizes his book with the following remarks: “jews, christians, muslims, and others have, for almost fourteen centuries, portrayed the [p]rophet [pbuh] in a great variety of ways. the historian may struggle to perceive the historical man of seventhcentury arabia behind the many thousands of texts and images that portray him. but no one, muslim or not, may plausibly claim to have a monopoly of truth about the prophet of islam. the sheer variety and diversity of portraits of muhammad [pbuh] have become both major fields of research and important elements in the dialogue of religions and cultures. much has been written about the innumerable muslim portraits of the prophet, who appears in differing lights in different historical and cultural circumstances. one could write a book about the iranian muhammad [pbuh], the ottoman muhammad [pbuh], the maghrebi muhammad [pbuh], the wahhabi muhammad [pbuh], and so on.”60 each of these portrayals would consist of numerous diverse images, revealing more about the cultures and individuals responsible for them than about the man from seventh-century arabia. this observation holds true for the analysis presented here, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 27 where the islamic prophet serves as a reflection for european writers, reflecting their fears, aspirations, and ambitions. he becomes an inseparable aspect of “western” culture, serving as a subject of fascination and conjecture for writers and artists over centuries. in this way the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] was moulded by european perspectives. 8. craig considine’s portrayal of, and views about, prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) craig considine (b. 1985) is an american sociologist, writer, and public speaker who has gained significant attention for his work on interfaith relations and islamophobia. he is an award-winning professor at rice university and the best-selling author of ‘the humanity of muhammad: a christian view.’61 he is regarded as a leading figure in interfaith dialogue because he has written numerous books and multiple articles on christian-muslim relations and islamic studies.62 dr. considine was born in needham, massachusetts, usa on 29 august 1985. he is a practicing roman catholic of irish, italian, scottish, and english ancestry. he earned his ba at american university in washington, dc, msc at royal holloway, the university of london, and phd at trinity college dublin. considine’s academic works focus on various topics related to interfaith relations, including islamophobia, race relations, and social justice. his research explores how religious and cultural identities intersect with issues of power, privilege, and discrimination in contemporary societies. he made a significant contribution to the body of literature on the sêrah of the prophet [øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam] with his book ‘the humanity of muhammad: a christian view.’ considine’s writings clarify how drawing lessons from the wise and compassionate teachings of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] as well as emulating the profound humanity he demonstrated throughout his life, can foster the creation of bridges for interaction and acceptance among different religions. considine provides a sociological analysis of the teaching and conduct of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]. he, in his arguments, effectively highlights the greatness of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam], his innovative role in establishing religious plurality, his concern for 28 modern western trends in sêrah … equal rights and opportunities for all, his anti-racism, his emphasis on seeking knowledge for the good of mankind, his emancipation of women who were then suffering from injustice and oppression, his reinforcement of the prophet jesus’s (peace and blessings on him) fundamental teachings, and his unwavering dedication to the truth. the book stands out on several counts, as it aims to improve relations between the christian and muslim communities at a time when islamophobia is widespread and islam and muslims are being unfairly vilified. in his endorsement of craig’s book, imam shamsi ali, spiritual leader of the jamaica muslim centre and president of the nusantara foundation, states, “dr. craig demonstrates his openness, inclusiveness, and his sincere and honest view about our prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]. that prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] is truly a role model for our pursuit of peace, justice, and happiness for our common humanity.” considine is involved in fostering inter-religious understanding and firmly believes that greater ties between muslims and the christian west may be established via a deeper understanding of the prophet’s life and legacy as well as his pluralistic vision for humanity. his careful examination of the history of islam and prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] enriches his audience with greater knowledge and appreciation for pluralism and building bridges of understanding between all people. his work can be considered a much-needed antidote to our time. in the very preface of the book, considine states: i wrote this book to build stronger bridges of understanding and peace between christians and muslims, to uplift our common humanity, and to defend the honour of prophet muhammad [pbuh], who has been depicted by many christians throughout history as the anti-thesis of jesus.63 in addition, his admiration for the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] was for his advocacy of equality. he states that the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] categorically declared in the last sermon at mount arafat: “an arab has no superiority over a non-arab, nor a non-arab has any superiority over an arab... a white hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 29 person has no superiority over a black person nor does a black person has any superiority over a white person except by piety and good action.” he implies from the sermon’s message that it guaranteed freedom for all members of society, and the prophet’s message of democracy and equality might be considered as a forerunner to the american constitution, which upholds similar democratic principles, as well as the pluralist worldview of the founding fathers, such as george washington and benjamin franklin.64 moreover, he further states that i was influenced by the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] because he promoted religious tolerance, particularly towards jews and christians. in this context, he points out a number of incidents from the sêrah that demonstrate the prophet’s unwavering commitment to tolerance and peaceful coexistence, including his meeting with the christian delegation from najran, his agreement with the christian monks of mount sinai, and the early muslims’ hijrah to the christian state of abyssinia.65 considine further illustrates how the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] supported human rights by spreading religious tolerance to non-muslims. women should be free to live the lives they want, according to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). this is demonstrated by two of his dearest female companions. his first spouse, khadêja (raìi allah ‘anhé), was a prosperous businesswoman who operated a profitable caravan trade. another was ‘óisha (raìi allah ‘anhé), the most beloved and intelligent wife of the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) the first-ever female scholar of islam and a jurist. besides that, what i find interesting in the teachings of the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) apart from ‘equality, religious tolerance, and human rights,’ which makes me appreciate the distinctive features of the prophet’s [øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam] conduct is his kindness, mercy, and humility.66 critics of islam targeted considine, as he recalls, due to his positive writings about muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam], the prophet of islam. they viewed him as a heretic because of his catholic background and perceived his interfaith efforts as sacrilegious. contrary to these critics who labelled islam as 30 modern western trends in sêrah … evil and muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] as a terrorist, he held a different perspective on muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam].67 dr. considine focused his scholarly efforts on this particular area with the actual teachings of islam from a young age because he was drawn to the long-brewing mutual mistrust between christians and muslims. he sees this distrust as “unnecessary as well as antithetical to our shared abrahamic traditions”, and thus he sets out “to build bridges of understanding and peace.”68 according to him, “the bigger challenge” of the humanity of muhammad: a christian view “is to effectively reach the hearts and minds of christians who hold sensational views of the islamic tradition, muslims themselves, and the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]”.69 in conclusion, dr. considine strongly advocates for friendly relations between christians and muslims in the interest of pluralism and peaceful coexistence. (113-118). overall, “the humanity of muhammad: a christian view” is a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on interfaith relations and the life of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] . through its empathetic and humanizing portrayal of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam], the book offers a powerful vision of how different faiths can come together in mutual respect and understanding. the five appendices in the work emphasise the commitment of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] commitment to promote religious harmony and collaboration, as well as his openness to and respect for people of all faiths, especially jews and christians. this work includes the following supplementary historical materials: 1. the constitution of madinah; 2. the prophet’s farewell; 3. the covenant with the monks of mount sinai; 4. the treaty of peace and friendship between the bey of tripoli of barbary and the usa on 3 ramadan 1211 a.h.\ 4 november 1796; and 5. human fraternity for world peace and living together, the document signed by pope francis and the imam of al -azhar, egypt, ahmad al-tayyeb on 3 february 2019. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 31 9. conclusion from the historical perspective, the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] was undeniably one of the most pivotal figure. the mission and message of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] was not directed at a particular nation or territory, but rather it is directed to the entire humanity, and it is as relevant today as it was in the 7th century ce. the entire world now comes under the jurisdiction of his prophethood and everybody who walks on the globe forms part of his qawm (community).70 the attacks on islam in general and its prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) in particular have intensified after the tragic events of 9/11 (11 september, 2001; new york) and 7/7 (7 july 2005; london) notwithstanding, it’s imperative to acknowledge that such assaults have a longstanding history predating these tragic events. delving into the portrayal of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] over centuries evokes distress and sorrow. however, the latter part of the 20th century witnessed a notable rise in serious islamic scholarship in european languages. this emergence brought about a discernible shift towards fairness in western scholarly works concerning the prophet’s biography, evident in literary texts and academic publications, particularly within islamic studies. this recognition underscores the acknowledgment of historical unfairness and hostility in western perceptions of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]. the appearance of tolan’s faces of muhammad and considine’s humanity of muhammad, the two biographies of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] by non-muslim western scholars published in 2019 and 2020, respectively, received wide acclaim in the muslim world, as both have done justice, to a large extent, to the prophet’s genius and his life-ennobling message. tolan’s faces of muhammad is a discerning, conscientious, and unprejudiced critical evaluation of the changing complexes, and contradictory visions of the prophet of islam in european and western literary and academic works. in the same way, considine’s humanity of muhammad makes it clear how studying the wise and compassionate teachings of the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) and imitating the great humanity he showed 32 modern western trends in sêrah … throughout his life which can help build bridges between religions and make them more open to each other. from an assessment of the works of tolan and considine, it becomes evident that in the post-9/11 era, a number of scholarly works have been produced which highlight the positive and real picture of islam in general and of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] in particular. this trend has gained momentum in contemporary western scholarship. thus, in the context of entire discussion, it is reasonable to emphasize that there is an imperative need for presenting an accurate and unbiased depiction of the life of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam], devoid of hateful distortions from the past. this effort becomes increasingly crucial in contemporary times, providing an alternative perspective from both the muslim and western world on the life of a man who continues to be the most widely discussed figure in human history. 10. recommendations western perceptions of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] have long been plagued by stereotypes and misrepresentations. however, recent years have shown a notable shift in western sêrah literature towards more nuanced and empathetic portrayals. scholars like tolan and considine have been instrumental in challenging these stereotypes and offering fresh perspectives on the character and teachings of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]. moreover, there is a wealth of literature produced in the 21st century that delves into various dimensions of sêrah, presenting an opportunity for further exploration. these works have not only contributed to a broader understanding of islam and its rich cultural heritage but have also depicted prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] in a positive and unbiased light, thereby fostering greater dialogue and mutual respect. furthermore, exploring the potential role of digital media and online platforms in disseminating accurate and empathetic portrayals of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] could offer new avenues for promoting dialogue and mutual respect on a global scale. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 33 notes and references 1 in the aftermath of protests erupting throughout the muslim world soon after the publication of twelve caricatures of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] in the danish newspaper jyllands-posten on september 30, 2005, and the subsequent reprint of these cartoons in the danish newspaper politiken on may 28, 2006, many questions were raised concerning the role and status of images in islam. a vast literature exists regarding the publication of these caricatures, their global impact, and the impassioned debates that ensued. however, the primary reference remains jytte klausen, the cartoons that shook the world (new haven: yale university press, 2009), and “why i published those cartoons.” (2006). islamic studies, 45(1), 130–134. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20839006. for the full story of the blasphemous cartoons, among others, see, m. manazir ahsan. “with freedom comes responsibility: blasphemous cartoons, a muslim critique,”. haj & ‘umra, (2006): 20–22, “the issue of danish cartoons.” (2006). islamic studies, 45(1), 129–130. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20839005, kublitz, a. (2010). “the cartoon controversy: creating muslims in a danish setting.” social analysis: the international journal of social and cultural practice, 54(3), 107–125. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23182158. (accessed 22 january 2022) 2 the 17-minute film by dutch politician geert wilders, posted thursday, received more than 3 million views before being taken offline. fitna juxtaposes passages from the islamic holy book with graphic footage of terrorist attacks in the united states and europe. in one scene, the sound of paper ripping can be seen as a reader pages through the holy qur’én. for more about the visual representation of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam], see gruber, christiane and shalem, avinoam. “introduction: images of the prophet muhammad in a global context”. the image of the prophet between ideal and ideology: a scholarly investigation, edited by christiane gruber and avinoam shalem, berlin, münchen, boston: de gruyter, 2014, pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110312546.1 (accessed 24 january 2022) 3 john v. tolan, faces of muhammad: western perceptions of the prophet of islam from the middle ages to today (princeton, nj: princeton university press, 2019) 4 craig, considine, the humanity of muhammad: a christian view (new jeresy: blue dome press, 2020) 5 matthew, dimmock, mythologies of the prophet muhammad in early modern english culture (cambridge university press, 2013), xii 6 ibid., xii 7 tarif, khalidi, images of muhammad narratives of the prophet in islam across the centuries (new york, london: doubleday, 2009), 10-13 8 thomas, carlyle, on heroes, hero-worship and the heroic in history, (london, 1841). in carlyle’s work “on heroes, hero worship and the heroic in history,” a collection of six lectures delivered in london around the year 1840, on eleven “heroes.” this work included broad headings such as “the hero as divinity”, “the hero as poet”, “the hero as priest”, and so forth.” from the time of its publication to the present, carlyle’s portrait of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] is found widely referred to in modern muslim sêrah, where it is cited as an example of a “fair” or “honest” western voice amidst the prevailing western antiislamic onslaught. 9 william, muir, the life of mahomet (london: waterloo place, 1878) 10 bhat, javid ahmed. "the overview of prominent sīrah writings of modern period: modern sirah writings." karachi islamicus 2, no. 2 (2022): 28-36. 11 khalidi (2009), 224-227. of these, haykal’s work has received the most attention in the west. for example, see antonie wessels, a modern arabic biography of http://www.jstor.org/stable/20839006 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20839005 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23182158 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110312546.1 34 modern western trends in sêrah … muhammad: a critical study of muhammad husayn haykal’s hayat muhammad (leiden: brill, 1972) 12 abdur raheem, kidwai, images of the prophet muhammad in english literature (new york: peterlang publishing, inc. 2018), xi-xii 13 karen, armstrong, muhammad: a biography of the prophet (new york: harper collins, 1992), 11 14 bilal sambur, “the insider/outsider problem in the study of islam”, islamic quarterly, 46, 2002: 95-106. 15 kidwai, 21 16 ibid., 4 17 the term “saracens” was commonly used in medieval europe to refer to muslims, particularly arabs. it originated from greek and latin sources and was often used pejoratively to depict muslims as enemies of christianity. the characterization of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] as a “false god” reflects the christian belief that islam was a false religion. 18 norman, daniel, islam and the west: making of an image (oxford: oneworld, 2009) 19 kidwai., 14 20 peter the venerable, who served as the abbot of cluny in burgundy, played a central role in orchestrating the creation of polemical and fabricated material against islam and the prophet. he initiated the toledan collection project in 1142 ce, based in spain and assisted by three translators: robert of ketton, herman of dalmatta, and peter of toledo. for many centuries, the productions of this project, including robert of ketton’s translation of the holy qur’én, remained the primary source for western studies on islam. additionally, peter himself authored two polemical works on the subject: liber contra sectam saracenorum and summa totius heresis saracenorum. 21 ibid., 14 22 ibid., 23 saunders, j. j. “mohammed in europe: a note on western interpretations of the life of the prophet.” history 39, no. 135/136 (1954): 14–25. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24402794. (assessed on 15 january 2024) 24 ravees, minou, muhammad in europe: a thousand years of western mythmaking (uk: reading, garnet, 2000), 93-94 25 the misunderstandings surrounding islam and prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] originated from the crusades and were perpetuated by christians and other authorities. throughout the middle ages, christianity perceived islam as a constant menace. consequently, western depictions sought to deter and instil fear, leading to the enduring presence of caricatures and stereotypes, evident even today, such as in salman rushdie’s “the satanic verses”. in 12th to 14th century europe\west, “muhammad, or mahound,” was depicted as a pagan idol worshipped by arabs, sometimes even equated with the devil himself, while muslims were portrayed as agents of satan on earth. even dante’s “divine comedy” and the works of the french ‘humanist’ françois rabelais in “pantagruel” offered derogatory portrayals of the prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]. martin luther viewed prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] as the antichrist, and even enlightenment intellectuals like voltaire fell prey to anti-islamic sentiments. for more details about the satanic verses see “be careful with muhammad! salman rushdie and the battle for free speech, by shabbir akhtar (2nd edition). (jakarta: bijak publishing, 2020) 26 humphrey, prideaux, the true nature of imposture fully displayed in the life of mahomet (london, 1697). he strongly asserts that prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] sought pleasure and power, while portraying his followers as ‘rude and illiterate barbarians’. he characterizes islam as a deceitful religion http://www.jstor.org/stable/24402794 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 35 spread through aggression, and describes the holy qur’én as a book filled with ‘fighting, bloodshed, and conquest.’ p. 41. for more details about his views see: brouwer, lot. “adriaan reland’s legacy as a scholar of islam.” in the orient in utrecht: adriaan reland (1676-1718), arabist, cartographer, antiquarian and scholar of comparative religion, edited by bart jaski, christian lange, anna pytlowany, and henk j. van rinsum, 44–64. brill, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv1v7zb8g.8. (assessed on 20 february 2024) 27 almond, philip, “western images of islam, 1700-1900”. the australian journal of politics and history 49, no. 3 (2003): 412-424. https://doi.org/10.1111/14678497.00295 (accessed 22 january 2022) 28ibid., 413 29 john, tolan, (2010). “european accounts of muhammad’s life”. in the cambridge companion to muhammad, ed. jonathan e. brockopp (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010), 226-250 30 ravees. 3 31 see also, kidwai, images of the prophet muhammad in english literature. ahmad, gunny, the prophet muhammad in french and english literature, 1650 to the present (uk, leicester: the islamic foundation, 2010). abdelwahab el-affendi, about muhammad the other western perceptive on the prophet of islam a short anthology of western writings on the prophet muhammad: from the 18th century to the present (london: legacy publishing ltd, 2010) 32 tolan (2019), 3 33 kidwai, 121 34 tarif khalidi explores how carlyle’s portrayal of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] as a heroic figure influenced western perceptions of islam and muslims, challenging prevailing stereotypes and prejudices. the lecture sparked widespread interest in prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] among western intellectuals and contributed to a more nuanced understanding of islam in the west. khalidi’s analysis sheds light on the cultural and intellectual shifts that occurred as a result of carlyle’s influential lecture and its lasting impact on western interpretations of life and legacy of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam]. see for example khalidi. 218. 35 martin lings, also known as abu bakr siraj ad-din, was an englishman who converted to islam and became a notable figure in islamic scholarship. educated in public schools, lings spent many years as the keeper of oriental manuscripts and printed books at the british museum. however, he is perhaps best known as the author of “muhammad: his life based on the earliest sources,” published by the islamic texts society in the united kingdom in 1991. this seminal work delves into the life of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] drawing from the earliest and most authentic sources available, providing readers with a comprehensive and meticulously researched account of the prophet’s life and teachings. lings’ background in islamic studies and his dedication to scholarly research contributed to the widespread recognition and acclaim that his biography of prophet muhammad [×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam] received within the muslim community and beyond. 36 karen armstrong, muhammad, a western attempt to understand islam (london: orion, 1991), pp. 11-12 37 juan cole, muhammad: prophet of peace amid the clash of empires (new york: nation books, 2018) 38 john adair, the world’s first professor of leadership studies at the university of survey, uk, and presently chair of leadership studies, united nations system staff college, turin 39 john adair, the leadership of muhammad (london: kogan page, 2010) 40 ibid., 1 http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv1v7zb8g.8 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8497.00295 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8497.00295 36 modern western trends in sêrah … 41 ibid., 15 42ibid., 32 43 ibid., 107 44 john v. tolan, faces of muhammad: western perceptions of the prophet of islam from the middle ages to today (princeton, nj: princeton university press, 2019) 45 ibid., xi 46ibid., 133 47 ibid., 137 48 ibid., 154 49 ibid., 13 50 ibid., 168 51 ibid., 184 52 ibid., 185 53 ibid., 202 54 ibid., 203 55 ibid., 206 56 ibid., 207 57ibid., 208 58ibid., 232 59ibid., 261 60 ibid., 264 61 craig, considine, the humanity of muhammad: a christian view. (new jersey: blue dome press, 2020) 62 craig, considine muslims in america: examining the facts. (2018); muslims in america: exploring the issues (2019); people of the book: prophet muhammad’s encounters with christians. (2021) 63 considine (2020), 13 64 craig, considine. “why i admire muhammad: a response to islamophobes,” the huffington post, march 10, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craigconsidine/why-i-admire-muhammad-a-r_b_6830050.html (accessed on 07 january 2022) 65 considine (2020), 29-48 66 ibid., 97-112 67 craig, considine. “why i admire muhammad: a response to islamophobes,” the huffington post, march 10, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craigconsidine/why-i-admire-muhammad-a-r_b_6830050.html (last accessed on 07 january 2022) 68 ibid., 69 considine (2020), 13-14 70 see, the holy qur’én 5: 3; 7: 157; 33: 40 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/why-i-admire-muhammad-a-r_b_6830050.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/why-i-admire-muhammad-a-r_b_6830050.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/why-i-admire-muhammad-a-r_b_6830050.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/why-i-admire-muhammad-a-r_b_6830050.html c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlviii april-june 2025 no. 2 contents * editorial * islamic history through a western lens: a critical analysis of key introductory works (2010-2025) — dr. tauseef ahmad parray * advancements in hadith authentication methods: a systematic literature review — mohamad khalid bahrudin — ishak suliaman — mohamad azrien mohamed adnan * islamic brotherhood and business social responsibility (bsr) in malaysia: a qualitative exploration of islamic faith-based business practices — muhammad aiman awalluddin — anisa safiah maznorbalia — amer fawwaz mohamad yasid * intellectual capital efficiency and its contribution to financial stability in islamic banks: a study of the gulf countries — aziz ur rehman — ashurov sharofiddin — abdul salam khan orakzai * model of productive waqf policy governance for sustainable economic development: a pestel analysis approach — afni regita cahyani muis — dr. syamsuri, m. sh — dr. mohammad taqiuddin the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 101 39 63 9 85 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 65 sharô‘ah disclosure and readability of islamic banks in pakistan naila bibi department of business administration sukkur iba university, sukkur, sindh suk.edu.pk-nailabibi.phdmgts22@ibaemail: abidullah khan department of business administration sukkur iba university, sukkur, sindh edu.pksuk.-abidullah@ibaemail: muhammad shaique department of business administration sukkur iba university, sukkur, sindh suk.edu.pk-shaiq@ibaemail: wasim jan department of business administration sukkur iba university, sukkur, sindh suk.edu.pk-wasimjan@ibaemail: received on: 08-12-22 accepted on: 13-05-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.669 abstract islamic banks are required to ensure sharê‘ah compliance as established by regulatory authorities, i.e., the state bank of pakistan. stakeholders consider sharê‘ah compliance as a crucial factor when investing in these banks, which is why annual reports are produced to communicate the level of compliance. however, these reports often lack complete and readable information about the banks’ level of sharê‘ah compliance. this study analysed the extent of sharê‘ah governance disclosure and readability in annual reports of 19 pakistani banks, including full-fledged and window islamic banks. using the sharê‘ah disclosure index and content analysis, the study identified the disclosure level and explored the disclosures’ readability using bog index in the sharê‘ah reports. results showed that full-fledged banks had a higher mailto:nailabibi.phdmgts22@iba-suk.edu.pk mailto:abidullah@iba-suk.edu.pk mailto:shaiq@iba-suk.edu.pk mailto:wasimjan@iba-suk.edu.pk https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i2.669 66 shari’ah disclosure and… level of disclosure than window banks. meanwhile, sharê‘ah reports were generally difficult to read. improving the level of disclosure and readability in sharê‘ah reports can have a positive impact on all stakeholders. the study provides implications for management to enhance the level of sharê‘ah compliance and readability, which will lead to a better understanding of the banks’ operations, increased trust in these institutions, and ultimately, contribute to the growth and development of islamic finance in pakistan. stakeholders such as investors, customers, and policymakers will be able to make more informed decisions with a clearer understanding of the banks’ operations. a better reputation for islamic banking will help attract more customers and investors, further boosting the country’s growth and development of islamic finance. keywords: islamic banks; readability; sharê‘ah governance; sharê‘ah disclosure index. 1. introduction the growth of islamic finance is due to the distinctive characteristics of islamic financial institutions (ifis), which strongly emphasize fairness and justice in their operations based on the two primary moral guidelines found in the holy qur’én and sunnah. islamic banks (ibs) are responsible for ensuring their products, operations, and instruments comply with sharê‘ah rules. compliance can only be observed if ibs are monitored under a strong sharê‘ah governance framework. in this regard, the regulatory bodies of the country provide a proper framework for islamic banks; e.g., malaysia is following the sharê‘ah governance framework issued by bank negara malaysia, and similar to it, the state bank of pakistan (sbp) has issued the sharê‘ah governance framework (sgf) for islamic banks in 2018. compliance with sharê‘ah and implementation of the sharê‘ah framework are also encouraged by international institutions like the accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaofi). in a similar vein, aaoifi has issued governance standards as well. since the core foundation of islamic banks lies in sharê‘ah principles, the public expects that these banks will provide more transparency and fairness in their operations and reporting. resultantly, the presence of effective sharê‘ah governance increases stakeholders’ trust in the ib’s products and operations. the stakeholder theory suggests that managers serve and promote all stakeholders’ interests, including customers, suppliers, employees, and stockholders1. thus, islamic banks need to communicate essential information to their stakeholders. annual reports serve as a communication channel between stakeholders and businesses; thus, information disclosure is communicated this way2. according to the sharê‘ah perspective, social responsibility gave rise hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 67 to the principle of full disclosure, in which the public has a right to know how a company’s operations will affect its decisions. similarly, sharê‘ah disclosure gives customers high confidence by providing adequate and relevant information3. khomsatun4 demonstrates how sharê‘ah disclosure affects the soundness of ibs in terms of management effectiveness, capital adequacy ratio, asset quality, and liquidity. the findings suggest that sharê‘ah disclosure mediates the indirect impact of ssb on the soundness of islamic banks. hence, ibs need to provide a clear information disclosure system as compared to their conventional counterparts5. information regarding sharê‘ah governance disclosure in corporate annual reports is important, as it assists users in decision-making6. recently, research on disclosure has received much consideration from academicians, and numerous studies have been conducted7. moreover, it is observed that insufficient disclosure leads to fraudulent financial reporting and corporate failure, as managers could easily misrepresent information8. therefore, disclosure helps decrease the information gap between external stakeholders and managers9. there is a split in the literature about to what extent ibs disclose information in their annual report. for instance, corporations must disclose information that is necessary for decision-making. in this regard, hanifa and hudaib10 argued that complete disclosure of relevant information should assist external users in making both financial and religious decisions, as well as assisting the management in fulfilling their duty to god and society. khan et al.11 revealed that ibs still lack information in their corporate governance disclosures. khanifah et al.12 conducted a similar analysis and concluded that islamic banks have 72 percent sharê‘ah disclosure on average. further investigation shows that full-fledged islamic banks have a higher level of disclosure than window banking12. similarly, ismail et al.13 investigated full-fledged islamic banks in pakistan. however, their study is limited to only full-fledged islamic banks. current research has considered both window and full-fledged islamic banks and compared the level of disclosure. on the other hand, information disclosure is insufficient until it is readable so that the readers can understand. specifically when prospective users are unable to comprehend the content of the disclosure provided in the reports. however, the importance of annual report disclosure comes with its capacity to convey meaning to various stakeholders. therefore, good components alone do not guarantee the quality of well-written communication. annual report readability is an important element of disclosure. lehavy et al.14 demonstrate how the volume and complexity of disclosures have 68 shari’ah disclosure and… grown significantly over time. however, it is the firm’s responsibility to present disclosures in a language that investors can understand15, depicting the importance and significance of readability16. despite the growing considerations on an annual report’s readability from the aforementioned studies, it has been observed that no such study on sharê‘ah reports has been conducted to the best of our knowledge. therefore, this study examines the extent of sharê‘ah governance disclosure in the annual reports of pakistani banks, including full-fledged and window islamic banks. this objective was achieved by constructing the sharê‘ah disclosure index and then deriving the information related to each index item from the annual reports of islamic banks. meanwhile, another objective is to examine the readability of sharê‘ah governance disclosure by comparing full-fledged and window islamic banks using the bog index on the text related to sharê‘ah disclosure in the annual reports of islamic banks. 2. literature review 2.1. sharê‘ah governance corporate governance (cg) is how companies are controlled and directed17. it is the way organizations are governed and operated.18 19, describes corporate governance as the framework for the direction and control of business operations. it is a “collection of mechanisms designed to safeguard shareholders’ interests.” the growing importance of cg is the result of the lehman brothers, enron scandals, and asian financial crises20. considering these corporate problems, the corporate control and governance mechanism plays a major role in regulating corporations’ financial systems21 by establishing the framework for the relationship between directors, the board of directors, and shareholders. it also clarifies each party’s rights and obligations to effectively utilize the opportunities and resources22. in addition, effective governance mechanisms can improve transparency, corporate performance, and shareholder value23. it has been observed from chinese listed companies that the supervisory board has played an active role when chinese firms are sentenced to some irregularities24. on the other hand, sharê‘ah is concerned with both the substance and the form of business; cg of a sharê‘ah-compliant business would first examine the transactional structure to determine whether the transaction involves elements that invalidate gains or profits25. the philosophy on which islamic banks operate is based on a profit and loss and risk-sharing model and, thus, are not permitted to engage in speculation and interest-based activities26. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 69 the contradicting philosophy of ibs with conventional business operations may misrepresent information regarding the sharê‘ah compliance of the operations and products. this is because the bods always think about profit maximization and may be involved in sharê‘ah non-compliant activities without disclosing it to the stakeholders. therefore, the stakeholders of islamic banks are more interested in knowing how the profits are derived. in this regard, the established rules of sharê‘ah governance hinder bods from indulging in any sharê‘ah non-compliant activity. the supervisory board is the main layer differentiating conventional corporate governance from islamic governance. in addition, the concept of cg from an islamic perspective does not differ much from the conventional definition as it refers to a system by which companies are directed and controlled to meet the company’s objective and the interest of all stakeholders. regarding standardization of rules, islamic corporate governance differs from conventional corporate governance practices because islamic corporate governance must be based on islamic sharê‘ah principles inspired by holy qur’én and hadêth27. to sum up, the context of corporate governance with an islamic perspective is more focused on the socio-scientific concept in major decisionmaking and considering the teaching of islam28. every country has its own rules and regulations regarding banking and is therefore governed by the central bank. in the case of ibs, the situation is not much different. for instance, the bank of negara malaysia issued sharê‘ah governance standards for islamic banks in malaysia. similarly, the state bank of pakistan has issued and implemented a comprehensive sharê‘ah governance framework. the emphasis on sharê‘ah corporate governance emerged in the twenty-first century after the birth of islamic finance and banking. the increase in the number of sharê‘ah firms has led to the formulation of sharê‘ah rules and regulations following shari’ah jurisdiction. these rules are derived from shari’ah law. to understand sharê‘ah governance, it is necessary to comprehend how sharê‘ah governance organs work. the main distinguished element that differentiates it from its conventional counterpart is the sharê‘ah supervisory board. the ssb is a crucial component of the islamic governance body that monitors and certifies an islamic bank’s compliance with sharê‘ah29. ssb is required to ensure product implementation and any other activity connected to islamic financial institutions (i.e., islamic banks comply with sharê‘ah). in this regard, ibs should have the ssb, whose responsibility is to make sure that the products and services given to 70 shari’ah disclosure and… investors and consumers comply with the laws and values of sharê‘ah30. therefore, the disclosure of these activities in the financial reports must be provided by islamic banks. it is important to note that since the core of ibs is based on sharê‘ah principles, it is held accountable to allah almighty first and society second, where accountability and responsibility are presumed to be mandatory. thus, the disclosure is owed fundamentally to allah almighty and the community31. therefore, to examine the sharê‘ah disclosure in the financial report. al-shiabah et al.32 have explored the extent of disclosure of sgf in full-fledged and window islamic banks of oman. moreover, zulfikar et al.33 have found that indonesian sharê‘ah banks have improved their level of disclosure, which was 60 percent34 to 89 percent. therefore, we propose that: h1: there is a significant difference between the disclosure of full-fledged islamic and window banks. 2.2. readability of islamic banks’ sharê‘ah reports as discussed, much of the literature is focused on the sharê‘ah disclosure provided by islamic banks. however, as per our knowledge, none of the studies has focused on how readable the provided disclosure is for a common reader. thus understanding art is of equal importance to understanding science35. how the concept is defined is mainly considered to the readability of the text36. readability is “the understandability or comprehension of the writing due to its style”37. multiple definitions are provided by authors, such as dubay,38 who defined it as “the degree to which particular class of people find certain reading comprehensible and compelling”. annual reports are the source of information corporations provide to their investors, which enables them to supervise the management. difficulty with the readability of these disclosures has serious consequences39. shareholders of firms with less clear and ambiguous annual reports also suffer from less transparent information disclosure40. it also undermines investors’ ability to process information41. moreover, the extent of readability of the disclosures that provide these documents credibility and importance for conveying important information to stakeholders in an effective way42. li43 has used the fog index to measure readability by calculating the document’s number of words and length using a sample of 10-k files. boubaker et al.44 have also used the same hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 71 technique. however, there are some shortcomings in the fog index, as it measures the multisyllabic words as complex, i.e., the company has three syllables, but the index will consider it a complex word, but everyone commonly understands it45. another frequently used method is the flesch score, which is used as a measure of readability. however, flesch and the fog index faced some critics from practitioners, such as not capturing the complexity of sentence structure46. although the fog index is used by many authors in measuring readability, this study uses the bog index. the main reason to use the bog index measure as readability is that it can potentially measure non-financial information. the above-mentioned studies provide the significance of readability. the main channel for conveying corporate information is annual reports. however, understanding available information is equally important. the annual report of sharê‘ah banks provides details about their operations and products. these reports also contain some specific sharê‘ah-related information. using complex words and terms may make it difficult for stakeholders to understand that information. thus, information disclosed in the sharê‘ah report must be readable. therefore, it is important to consider the readability of full-fledged and window banking. ahmed et al.47 have conducted readability of the mission and vision statement of pakistani islamic full-fledged and window banking. findings suggest the window banking mission statement is more readable than full-fledged banks. however, when one is concerned about the readability of sharê‘ah disclosure of full fledge and window islamic banks, it can be deduced that since the former has more expertise than the latter, their reports are more readable. therefore, it is hypothesized that: h2: the sharê‘ah disclosure in the reports of full-fledged islamic banks is more readable than window islamic banks. 3. research methodology 3.1. sharê‘ah disclosure index to test h1, the sharê‘ah disclosure index is adapted from the study of ismail et al48. a thorough review of the sbp sharê‘ah governance framework constructs it. it includes all organs of sgf2018. every bank has been given a score based on the whole sgf2018 disclosure items in the annual report. the items are selected on a quantifiable basis. previous studies 49 49 50 employ several stages to develop a disclosure index. therefore, developing an index requires three steps. first, to measure disclosure, the items in the index are developed based on the sharê‘ah governance framework 2018 issued by sbp. second, items included in the index are selected carefully by reading sgf-2018, and third, selecting main dimensions based on 72 shari’ah disclosure and… governance organs. there are eight organs, bods, executive management, sharê‘ah board, resident sharê‘ah board member, sharê‘ah compliance department, product development, internal shari’ah audit, and external sharê‘ah audit. the index consists of 31 items; the dimensions show to determine the level of governance disclosure using the index in each governance section of an annual report. after the development of the index, the formula for calculating the mean is as follows: sgdi= ∑ 𝑿𝒊𝒋 𝒏𝒋 𝒕=𝟏 𝒏𝒋 where n is the estimated number of items disclosed by the jth bank, multiplication term 𝑋𝑖𝑗 is 1 if an item is disclosed fully, 0.5 if partial disclosure is provided, and otherwise 0. to compare the means of each group, the paired-sample ttest is applied to examine the difference between means of fullfledged and window islamic banks for five years sample and compare the level of disclosure of other countries and pakistan. lone et al.,51 used a t-test to compare the csr disclosure of each sector. 3.2. the readability measures: we first converted sharê‘ah disclosure pdf files into html text files to compute readability. tables and figures, and numbers were deleted from the text. the calculation of the sharê‘ah report is based on the remaining text. we used the bog index52 to capture a broader set of plain english attributes. it captures the plain english writing attributes. the bog index summarizes those writings that make readers bog down. it is calculated as: bog index = sentence bog + word bog – pep, where, the higher the bog index lower the readability. the first component, sentence bog, identifies problems with readability caused by sentence length and with longer sentences having a higher bog index. the program determines the typical sentence length for the entire document. the typical long sentence limit of 35 words per sentence is then squared to determine the average length. the second component, based on the word bog contains two parts. to be more precise, word bog is computed as the total problems in plain english and word difficulty multiplied by 250 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 73 and divided by the total number of words. the second subcomponent is based on the word difficulty of general vocabulary. the bog index measures the difficulty using predetermined 200,000 words based on familiarity and precision. the final component, i.e., pep, highlights writing characteristics that make it easier for readers to understand texts. this part of the bog index considers good writing by adding elements like names and fascinating words, which tend to make writing more interesting. 4. findings 4.1. sharê‘ah disclosure the disclosure level of islamic window and full-fledged banks through the years (2017-2021) is presented in tables 4.1 and 4.2. table 4.1 shows that summit bank has the highest disclosure at 70%, while allied bank and habib metropolitan bank have the lowest at 41%. disclosure level of window islamic banks banks 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 average summit 66% 66% 66% 66% 60% 65% ubl 65% 65% 65% 65% 65% 65% faysal bank 65% 65% 65% 65% 58% 63% nbp 61% 61% 60% 60% 63% 61% soneri5 bank 60% 58% 58% 58% 53% 57% bank of khyber 58% 58% 55% 58% 56% 57% hbl 65% 55% 55% 55% 52% 56% bank of punjab 55% 55% 55% 55% 53% 55% standard chartered 52% 52% 52% 52% 52% 52% bank alfalah 44% 44% 44% 58% 44% 46% askary 44% 44% 40% 34% 50% 42% bank alhabib 42% 40% 53% 37% 37% 42% hmp 40% 48% 56% 40% 19% 41% abl 27% 47% 42% 45% 44% 41% table 4.1. level of disclosure of islamic window banks 74 shari’ah disclosure and… looking at the full-fledged islamic banks in table 4.2, again, meezan has the highest score, followed by dubai bank, which has 55% disclosure. al-baraka has the lowest level of disclosure. interestingly, it can be observed that the overall sharê‘ah disclosure of islamic window banks is higher than full-fledged banks. disclosure level of full-fledged islamic banks banks 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 average meezan bank 61% 68% 60% 82% 79% 70% dubai bank 53% 53% 65% 52% 52% 55% bank islami 45% 65% 47% 61% 50% 54% al-baraka 35% 37% 32% 32% 35% 35% mib 26% 45% 35% 42% 52% 40% table 4.2. level of disclosure of full-fledged islamic banks table 4.3 reports the descriptive statistics. the sample consists of 5 full-fledged and 14 window banks. the mean disclosure value of full fledge islamic banks is 50.8%. similarly, window banking has a mean value of 53.07%, slightly higher than full-fledged banks. moreover, data is normally distributed under the kurtosis range. it is important to notice that the sample variance of window banking is higher than full-fledged. the maximum disclosure level of full-fledged banks is 70%, and the minimum level is 36%; compared to window banking maximum range is 65% which is lower than full-fledged, and the minimum level is 41%. descriptive statistics full-fledged window banks mean 50.58064516 53.0645161 standard error 6.221208397 2.41486053 median 53.5483871 55.3225806 standard deviation 13.91104488 9.03558074 sample variance 193.5171696 81.6417194 kurtosis -0.598195118 -1.53825014 skewness 0.324468841 -0.19660398 range 35.48387097 23.8709677 minimum 34.51612903 40.9677419 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 75 maximum 70 64.8387097 sum 252.9032258 742.903226 count 5 14 table 4.3. descriptive statistics the results of hypothesis 1 are shown in table 4.4. the result shows no significant mean difference between full-fledged and window banking. it can be deduced that the average disclosure of both samples is not significantly different. hence, we cannot reject the null hypothesis stating that there are no significant mean differences in the disclosure level of the window and full-fledged islamic banks. t-test: two-sample assuming equal variances fullfledge window banks mean 50.58065 53.06452 variance 193.5172 81.64172 observations 5 14 pooled variance 107.9654 hypothesized mean difference 0 df 17 t stat -0.45884 p(t<=t) one-tail 0.326081 t critical one-tail 1.739607 p(t<=t) two-tail 0.652163 table 4.4. results of t-test in table 4.5, we have compared the mean differences between full-fledged islamic banks and islamic windows with the average disclosure mentioned in the literature. results show a significant negative relationship between the means and suggest that at a 5% significance level window bank’s mean is 26% lower than average, and the full-fledged bank’s mean difference is 28.7% lower than the overall average disclosure level in the literature. 76 shari’ah disclosure and… test value = 79.5% t df sig. (2tailed) mean difference full fledged -4.647 4 .010 -28.700 windows -0.865 13 .000 -26.429 table 1.5 results of one-sample t-test 4.2. readability analysis: the results of the readability of the sharê‘ah board report of 19 banks lack readability. table 4.6 and 4.7 presents the readability score throughout 2017-2021 of 19 banks. the results are presented based on each bank. we have used bog index as a measure of readability. a higher level of bog index score reflects the lowest document readability. bog index score of window banks 201 7 201 8 201 9 202 0 202 1 averag e abl 83 83 80 80 75 80 bank alfalah 76 86 86 93 85 85 al-habib 94 98 98 87 84 92 askari 93 80 104 114 87 96 bok 93 91 89 108 114 99 bop 83 101 113 98 104 100 faysal bank 99 105 96 106 108 103 hbl 109 104 97 97 97 101 hmp 84 84 83 91 60 80 nbp 92 95 89 79 75 86 sc 71 74 81 90 86 80 soneri bank 81 86 78 76 83 81 summit bank 95 85 96 90 93 92 ubl 94 95 99 92 92 94 table 4.6. readability score of each islamic window bank hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 77 bog index score full-fledged banks 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 average meezan 84 79 81 84 88 83 mib 128 130 81 99 102 108 b.islami 67 84 82 83 86 80 albaraka 73 78 77 76 91 79 dib 91 88 94 101 95 94 table 4.7. readability score of each full-fledged islamic bank accordingly, the bog index of banks reflects poor readability of narrative disclosure. however, comparing the readability score of each bank every year, most of the banks have improved from 2018 to 2020, whereas, in 2021, banks failed to maintain readability. moreover, from the perspective of each bank, faysal bank, hbl, and mib are reported at a bad level with the highest bog score. however, al-baraka, abl, and bank islami have scored low in the bog index, which inculcates that they are considered poor but comparatively better than the aforementioned banks. 5. discussion the above analysis indicates that full-fledged islamic banks have comparatively lower disclosure than islamic window banks. moreover, the average overall disclosure of islamic banks is 52% lower than other countries’ reports. a similar phenomenon is found by al-shaibah32 where many islamic bank reports highlight very little shari’ah disclosure information, affecting the overall islamic banks' shari’ah disclosure. however, the overall sharê‘ah disclosure reported by the study is still above 70%. on the contrary, the study of zulfikar and puspawati 33 reports 89% sharê‘ah disclosure of indonesian islamic banks, where most banks disclose above 90% of shari’ah governance-related information. unfortunately, comparing the average sharê‘ah disclosure of islamic banks with pakistani islamic banks, it is found that these banks are still far behind the international average of 79.5%, which we calculated from the previous literature. more specifically, it is observed that meezan bank has the highest disclosure level. this suggests that meezan bank is more compliant with sharê‘ah governance framework guidelines, whereas al-baraka lacks in disclosing information required by the sbp governance framework. the overall average score for sharê‘ah disclosure (including full-fledged and windows) is 52% confirming 78 shari’ah disclosure and… the findings of an earlier study by ismail et al.53 in the pakistan context. still, their sample consists of only full-fledged islamic banks. the most significant part of sharê‘ah governance is the shari’ah board, the main ruling department of islamic banks and has comparatively the lowest score. however, this dimension has the highest number of items. the dimension consists of sharê‘ah board members as authority to oversee the operations and implementation of overall sharê‘ah compliance. from a theoretical perspective, the results do not support the argument of stakeholder theory, which suggests that ibs should preserve the rights of all stakeholders. hence, it is necessary to manage and disclose necessary information that enables ib stakeholders to make decisions. more importantly, the disclosure of the information is important, but stakeholders are more concerned with the readability of those disclosures. this study has conducted readability analysis by developing a bog index by stylwriter. the bog index measure readability score indicates that the higher the score, the lesser the document’s readability. our analysis results show less readability of all documents, but in comparison, al-baraka has higher readability with low disclosure of information; it can be inferred that the bank has used simple language but limited information. whereas mib and faysal bank reports are difficult to read and have less disclosure levels from mib, the bank is not properly disclosing information to its stakeholders. additionally, full-fledged islamic banks and window banking has not shown much difference in readability score. from a theoretical perspective, our analysis confirms the argument related to information asymmetry theory, which states that managers have more information about the firm than stockholders. the results proved that a low level of readability depicts the least knowledge about operations and compliance of sharê‘ah reports to the stakeholders. however, to be socially responsible, ibs must use less complex words and simple language. 6. conclusion the purpose of this study is to investigate the extent of sharê‘ah disclosure and readability of banks of pakistani banks. it has been deduced from the analysis that overall sharê‘ah disclosure is not satisfactory because the overall average of the index is below 60%, indicating that from 100 items, only 60 items are disclosed by banks in their annual report. on the other hand, what has been disclosed by the full fledge and islamic windows banks is less readable as the readability score is unsatisfactory since most of the index score lies in the bad or poor readability range. the islamic banks’ low level of disclosure and reliability is alarming for the stakeholders and the state bank of pakistan, the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 79 main regulatory authority. consequently, the regulatory authority might identify the minimum level of governance disclosure in annual reports. on the other hand, the results of this study provide insights for the islamic banks to not only focus on the sharê‘ah disclosure but also on the importance of the reliability of the disclosure content by the stakeholders. they need to avoid ambiguous communication styles, as this can improve their reputation and corporate image. the study is a preliminary investigation that future researchers can further extend by including it as one of the dimensions of the financial reporting quality of islamic banks. notes and references: 1heath j., & norman w., “stakeholder theory, corporate governance and public management: what can the history of state-run enterprises teach us in the postenron era?,” journal of business ethics 53, (2004): 247–265. 2willett roger., sulaiman maliah, “islam, economic rationalism, and accounting”, islam, economic rationalism, and accounting 18, no. 2(2001): 61-93 3aziah a. k. n, “disclosure of shariah compliance by malaysian takaful companies,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 3, no. 1(2013). 4khomsatun siti, rossieta hilda, fitriany fitriany, nasution mustafa edwin, “sharia disclosure, sharia supervisory board and the moderating effect of regulatory framework: the impact on soundness of islamic banking,” recent developments in asian economics international symposia in economic theory and econometrics 28, no. 20 (2021). 5jabbar s. f. a, “financial crimes: prohibition in islam and prevention by the shari ’a supervisory board of islamic financial institutions,” journal of financial crime 17, no. 3 (2010): 25 6hudaib m & haniffa r, “a theoretical framework for the development of the islamic perspective of accounting,” islamic accounting, (2011). 7aljifri k, “annual report disclosure in a developing country: the case of the uae,” advances in accounting 24, no.1, (2008): 93–100 8hassanein a & hussainey k, “is forward-looking financial disclosure really informative? evidence from uk narrative statements,” international review of financial analysis, 41 (2015): 52–61. 9hahn r, & lülfs, r, “legitimizing negative aspects in gri-oriented sustainability reporting: a qualitative analysis of corporate disclosure strategies,” journal of business ethics, 123 (2014): 401–420. 10roszaini haniffa and mohammad hudaib, “disclosure practices of islamic financial institutions: an exploratory study,” accounting, commerce & finance: the islamic perspective international conference v, no. september (2004): 1–31, https://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/management/external/pdf/workingpapers/2004/bookle t_04-32.pdf. 11khan a, tanveer s, shah a. q., & jamil, r. a, “comparative analysis of regulatory and supervisory system of islamic banks: evidence from pakistan, malaysia, bahrain and united kingdom,” mediterranean journal of social sciences 6, no. 6 (2015): 629–640. https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s2p629. 12khanifah k, hardiningsih p, darmaryantiko a, iryantik i, & udin, u,t”he effect of corporate governance disclosure on banking performance: empirical evidence from iran, saudi arabia and malaysia,” journal of asian finance, economics and business 7, no. 3 (2020): 41–51 https://doi.org/10.13106/jafeb.2020.vol7.no3.4. 80 shari’ah disclosure and… 13ismail m, jan s, & ullah k, “assessing shariah disclosure in pakistan: the case of islamic banks,” business & economic review 12, no. 2 (2020): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.22547/ber/12.2.1. 14lehavy r., li f, & merkley k, “the effect of annual report readability on analyst following and the properties of their earnings forecasts,” the accounting review 86, no. 3(2011): 1087–1115. 15nadeem m, “board gender diversity and managerial obfuscation: evidence from the readability of narrative disclosure in 10-k reports,” journal of business ethics, 179, (2022):153–177. 16tim l., & bill m., :measuring readability in financial disclosures,” the journal of finance 69, no. 4 (2014): 1643–1671. 17adrian cadbury, corporate governance and chairmanship a personal view, (2002). 18abid rasheed and zara nisar, “a review of corporate governance and firm performance,” journal of research in administrative sciences 7, no. 2 (2018): 1424. 19hutchinson & a gul, “investment opportunity set, corporate governance practices and firm performance,” journal of corporate finance 10, no. 4 (2004): 595-614. 20ng’eni, “the corporate governance and firm performance: a review of existing empirical evidence,” european journal of business and management 7, no. 33 (2015): 92-98. 21jeffry netter, annette poulsen, and mike stegemoller, “the rise of corporate governance in corporate control research,” journal of corporate finance 15, no. 1 (2009): 1–9. 22maria l goranova et al., “[pdf] from iupui.edu is there a ‘dark side’ to monitoring? board and shareholder monitoring effects on m&a performance extremeness,” strategic management journal 38, no. 11 (2017): 2285–2297. 23ferdinand a. gul, charles j. p. chen, and judy s. l. tsui, “discretionary accounting accruals, managers’ incentives, and audit fees,” contemporary accounting research 20, no. 3 (2010): 441–64. 24chunxin jia et al., “fraud, enforcement action, and the role of corporate governance: evidence from china,” journal of business ethics 90 (2009): 561–576. 25ali. a ibrahim, “convergence of corporate governance and islamic financial services industry: toward islamic financial services securities market,” 2006. 26amina buallay, “corporate governance, sharia’ah governance and performance: a cross-country comparison in mena region,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 12, no. 2 (2019). 27mohammad al-suhaibani and nader naifar, “islamic corporate governance: risk-sharing and islamic preferred shares,” journal of business ethics 124 (2014): 623–632. 28 masudul alam choudhury and mohammad ziaul hoque, an advanced exposition of islamic economics and finance (mellen studies in economics), 2004. 29 wan amalina wanabdullah, majella percy, and jenny stewart, “determinants of voluntary corporate governance disclosure: evidence from islamic banks in the southeast asian and the gulf cooperation council regions,” journal of contemporary accounting & economics 11, no. 3 (2015): 262–79. 30 hichem hamza, “sharia governance in islamic banks: effectiveness and supervision model,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 6, no. 3 (2013): 18. 31 sherif el-halaby et al., “the determinants of financial, social and sharia disclosure accountability for islamic banks,” risk governance and control: financial markets and institutions 8, no. 3 (2018): 21–42, https://doi.org/10.22495/rgcv8i3p2. 32al-shiabah et al., “shariah governance disclosure a comparative analysis between islamic banks in oman ”, journal of islamic banking & finance 38, no. 1 (2021): 55-69 33zulfikar, heppy purbasari, d. p. exploration study of sharia corporate governance disclosure on bank hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 2 81 annual report of sharia business unit. riset akuntansi dan keuangan indonesia 6, no. 1 (2021): 50–61. 34 salim darmadi, “corporate governance disclosure in the annual report: an exploratory study on indonesian islamic banks,” humanomics 29, no. 1 (2013): 4– 23, https://doi.org/10.1108/08288661311299295. 35 loughran tim and mcdonald bill, “measuring readability in financial disclosures,” the journal of finance 69, no. 4 (2014): 1643–71. 36tim, l., & bill, m.. measuring readability in financial disclosures. the journal of finance, 69, no. 4 (2014): 1643–1671. 37 george roger klare, “measurement of readability,” (iowa state: iowa state university press, 1963. 38dubay, w. h.. the principles of readability (2004) 39jin-hui luo, xue li, and huayang chen, “annual report readability and corporate agency costs,” china journal of accounting research 11, no. 3 (2018): 187–212. 40mine ertugrul et al., “annual report readability, tone ambiguity, and the cost of borrowing,” journal of financial and quantitative analysis 52, no. 2 (2017): 811– 836. 41sabri boubaker, dimitrios gounopoulos, and hatem rjiba, “annual report readability and stock liquidity,” financial markets and institutions and instruments 28, no. 2 (2019): 159–86. 42tim l., & bill m., “measuring readability in financial disclosures,” the journal of finance, 69, no. 4 (2014): 1643–1671. 43li f., “annual report readability, current earnings, and earnings persistence,” journal of accounting and economics 45, no. 3 (2008): 221–247. 44boubaker s., gounopoulos d., & rjiba, h., “annual report readability and stock liquidity,” financial markets and institutions and instruments 28, no. 2 (2019): 159– 186. 45samuel b. bonsall and brian p. miller, “the impact of narrative disclosure readability on bond ratings and the cost of debt,” review of accounting studies 22 (2017): 608–643. 46h. scott asay, robert libby, and kristina rennekamp, “firm performance, reporting goals, and language choices in narrative disclosures,” journal of accounting and economics 65, no. 2–3 (2018): 380–98, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacceco.2018.02.002. 47ahmed i., nawaz m., danish m., r. q., usman a., & shaukat m. z., “objectives of islamic banks: a missive from mission statements and stakeholders’ perceptions,” journal of islamic accounting and business research 8, no. 3 (2017): 284–303. https://doi.org/10.1108/jiabr-08-2014-0028. 48 ismail m., jan, s. & ullah k., “assessing shariah disclosure in pakistan: the case of islamic banks,” business & economic review 12, no. 2 (2020): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.22547/ber/12.2.1. 49mohammad hudaib and roszaini haniffa, “a theoretical framework for the development of the islamic perspective of accounting,” islamic accounting, 2011; ismail, jan, and ullah, “assessing shariah disclosure in pakistan: the case of islamic banks.” 50roszaini haniffa and mohammad hudaib, “exploring the ethical identity of islamic banks via communication in annual reports,” journal of business ethics 76, no. 1 (2007): 97–116, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9272-5; 51lone e. j., ali a. & khan i., “corporate governance and corporate social responsibility disclosure: evidence from pakistan” corporate governance 16, no. 5 (2016) 16. 52samuel b. bonsall et al., “a plain english measure of financial reporting readability,” journal of accounting and economics 63, no. 2–3 (2017): 329–57, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacceco.2017.03.002. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 9 the evolution of urdu sīrah literature in deccan before 1857: an overview dr. javeed ahmad malik islamic university of science & technology, awantipora, kashmir, india. email: javaidislamicstudies@gmail.com received on: 26-12-2024 accepted on: 15-07-2025 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i3.1250 abstract this study aims to explore deeply the historical development of urdu sīrah literature in deccan during the pre-colonial period up to the first half of the 19th century. it commences by figuring out the origins of the urdu language, highlighting the vigorous role played by ṣūfiyā’ in fostering its development as a medium for cultural and spiritual connection among the masses. additionally, the study attempts to examine the early literary endeavours, particularly the genre of maulūd nāmahs. such literature, written in both naẓm (poetry) and nathr (prose) forms, primarily commemorated and delineated different aspects of the prophetic sīrah, particularly his birth and mu‘jizāt, reflecting a profound devotional commitment of the authors. however, while employing descriptive cum analytical methods, an attempt shall be carried out to critically analyze such initial writings. notably, some significant early sīrah works authored during the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century in the region shall be reviewed, highlighting their literary style, structure, impact and academic contribution. therefore, this study aims to explore how the deccan region contributed to the prophetic sīrah and how its unique religious and cultural context shaped sīrah writing while offering a thorough understanding of the evolution of urdu sīrah literature in the region prior to 1857. keywords: urdu, ṣūfiyā’, sīrah, deccan, ḥaḍrat muḥammad, maulūd nāmah, naẓm, nathr. mailto:javaidislamicstudies@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i3.1250 10 the evolution of urdu sīrah … introduction the sīrah of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) occupies a distinctively imperative place in the broader framework of religious history. the subject, therefore, holds a core position within the field of islamic studies, and its historicity is generally accredited and wellestablished within academic scholarship. from the earliest periods, muslim scholars succeeded in compiling the sīrah using systematic thematic methods, styles, and approaches designed to extensively depict the versatile aspects of the prophet’s life and his all-embracing character. their primary objective was to preserve this legacy as a quintessential example for the reformation of humans in all spheres of life. these early compilations laid the foundation for subsequent generations. although primarily recorded in arabic, the tradition of sīrah writing evolved through different phases and languages, including urdu. as urdu came into existence as a distinctive language in the indian sub-continent, the regional (especially deccan) scholars recognised the importance of making religious texts, including the prophetic sīrah, accessible to a wider readership, thereby playing an essential role in the development of urdu sīrah literature. the expressive richness of urdu enabled authors to transmit profound religious and spiritual themes, bridging classical literature with the cultural ethos of the region. this process included translations of classical arabic works, which provided a foundational framework for further academic advancements. nevertheless, urdu sīrah writing was not merely a replication of arabic texts. scholars introduced their works with the literary nuances and linguistic potential of urdu, rendering the sīrah more relatable and appealing to the common masses. this literary assimilation added to the exclusive nature of urdu sīrah writing. as it progressed, it evolved in terms of different styles and genres. consequently, it offered the regional readership a deeper understanding of the prophet’s life, as well as insights into islamic teachings and muslim civilisation. urdu language and the role of ṣūfiyā’ during the delhi sultanate (1206-1526 ad), the interaction between the locals and foreign soldiers speaking turkish, arabic, and persian gave rise to a new language, urdu, meaning literally ‘the language of the camp’.1 as a result, urdu developed as a synthesis of arabic, persian, turkish, and regional tongues, 2 and consequently hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 11 assumed the title, hindwī. it changed names as it evolved throughout several periods. after hindwī, it was also referred to as zabān-i-hind, hindī, reikhtah, and hindustānī, until finally recognised as ‘urdu’ in the end.3 since urdu is a combination of multiple languages, it has been a medium for socio-religious and cultural transformation. however, since it evolved mainly for the religious requirements of the regional muslims; therefore, its content has mainly been religious. although the official language in the indian subcontinent has been persian with arabic as the academic language, later on, urdu not only replaced persian but became a permanent academic language in the indo-pak subcontinent. moreover, its influence has not been limited only to the indian sub-continent but also to some other parts of the muslim world as well, and now it is acknowledged as an academic language and recognised among the major living languages of the world.4 over time, in response to the religious needs of the people, urdu appeared as a medium employed by the ṣūfiyā to express their message and convey religious teaching.5 it started gaining vigour and significance during the reign of emperor akbar (d. 1605 ad).6 in this regard, prof. mas‘ūd ḥusayn khān7 expressed: “primarily, the ṣūfiā’ employed urdu as a medium to convey their teachings; and wrote a few treatises in both naẓam and nathr on religious and spiritual topics”.8 prof. ‘abd al-qādir sarūrī9 discusses the role of the ṣūfiyā’ and highlights the challenges faced by early urdu speakers. he explains that they had to establish relationships with a new civilisation and culture, fostering mutual understanding while also articulating religious beliefs for the newly converted muslims. consequently, early urdu writings were predominantly religious in nature, with the earliest contributors often being scholars and ṣūfiyā. the persian-speaking immigrants who settled in india had to coexist with the local population, gradually losing their fluency in persian. this created an urgent need to transmit religious knowledge in the emerging indian language, urdu. unsurprisingly, religious themes became the primary focus of early urdu writers.10 although persian remained the official language of the delhi sultanate, it merged with local languages like sanskrit, giving rise to a new linguistic form. during this period, the ṣūfiyā’ employed mystical terminologies to convey religious truths in urdu. dr rāfi‘ah sulṭānāh, from osmania university, hyderabad, mentioned: “during this period, all the muslim scholars who came to india introduced islam through the lens of taṣawwuf, 12 the evolution of urdu sīrah … fostering a strong bond with the newly converted people through love and affection. these ṣūfiyā’ hailed from diverse regions, including arabia, iran, and afghanistan. despite their varied native languages, they chose to communicate with the local population in urdu—an emerging language at the time, often referred to as ‘hindi’ in the context of india. this approach ensured that their message could reach every household.”11 the ṣūfiyā’ mainly exercised arabic as their religious language and persian for daily communication. similarly, prof. sayyid muḥī al-dīn qādrī 12 remarked that the ṣūfiyā’ needed to make religious understanding accessible for the spiritual purification and education of their disciples and newly converted muslims. 13 this objective could not have been achieved without adopting the local languages for both spoken and written communication. therefore, a significant collection of religious vocabulary was first developed in urdu.14 however, they also employed urdu to effectively connect with the common masses.15 hence, it is evident that urdu emerged largely to address the religious needs of muslims in india. early impressions of urdu sīrah literature initially, taṣawwuf and other ethical teachings began to spread among the people. at the same time, the sīrah events started to be introduced to the common masses. these factors mark the initial impressions of urdu sīrah writing.16 the main regional author of the 14th century ce was khājah geisū darāz (d. 1422).17 he produced more than one hundred works in arabic, persian and urdu, including a treatise on sīrah entitled risālah sīrat al-nabī (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam).18 it is noteworthy that impressions of sīrah writing in early urdu literature are mainly found in naẓm (in verse). this is largely because naẓm was more popular than nathr during that time, as people found it more appealing and preferred to listen to it. thus, naẓm flourished abundantly in deccan in particular and across the indian subcontinent in general, often highlighting various aspects of the prophetic sīrah. in this era, particularly in the deccan region, many mathnawīs19 were composed, describing events from the sīrah and highlighting various aspects of the prophetic life. the mathnawī emerged as a particularly effective and purposeful genre, as its sequential structure made it ideal for narrating sīrah events. as a result, early sīrah literature in urdu, especially in the deccan, is predominantly preserved in the same genre, even though other genres also contribute to highlighting different aspects of the sīrah.20 many of the early mathnawīs in urdu from the deccan were either hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 13 translations from persian or heavily influenced by them.21 however, deccan poets later composed original mathnawīs in urdu. according to prof. ‘abd al-qādir surūrī: “the earliest poems in urdu that have come down to us are short mathnawīs, composed 15th century ce and the early 17th century ce. while the use of mathnawī in later urdu literature became more specifically associated with storytelling, its application in early urdu was much broader. during that period, the mathnawī genre was used to convey riddles, advice, adages, and mystical ideas.” 22 in the late 16th century, emperor akbar founded a new creed, based on his misguided beliefs and flawed ideas.23 shaykh aḥmad sirhindī (d. 1624), a great reformer of the era, strongly emerged in opposition to akbar’s cult, i.e. dīn-i-ilāhī.24 he authored a treatise titled ithbāt al-nabuwwah, emphasising the essence and significance of the institution of nabuwwah and the sunnah. 25 the first comprehensive work on the sīrah, however, was written by shaykh ‘abd al-ḥaqq dehlawī (d. 1642) under the title madārij alnabuwwah. originally written in persian, it was later translated into urdu.26 the treatise gained immense recognition among scholars and had a profound impact on the public, inspiring subsequent generations of the whole region, particularly deccan scholars, to produce extensive sīrah literature in urdu. deccan’s role in the rise of urdu literature: a few sociopolitical factors sīrah literature found its place in the evolutionary journey of urdu nathr (in prose) relatively late. while urdu sīrah writing in naẓm began during the delhi sultanate period, its development in nathr formally started in the 18th century ce, even though the urdu language itself had already emerged in north india.27 in contrast, the deccan region adopted urdu after delhi but embraced it with extraordinary enthusiasm. from the 14th to the 18th century ce, the deccan scholars produced hundreds of works in both naẓm and nathr, spanning various artistic and intellectual forms, including poetry, oratory, and scholarly writings.28 the primary reason behind this delay is that persian was the official language in northern india. although urdu had become a commonly spoken language, it lacked royal patronage. as a result, most written works continued to be produced in persian or arabic, the religious language of the region’s muslim population. in contrast, 14 the evolution of urdu sīrah … ‘alāʾ al-dīn ḥasan bahman shāh (d. 1358 ce), upon establishing his empire in the deccan (1347-1527),29 favoured the use of urdu over persian as the language of the bahmanī court. during the reign of muḥammad tughlaq (d. 1351), bahman shāh declared independence and established himself as the ruler of the deccan—a region previously annexed by sulṭān ‘alau al-dīn khiljī (d. 1316). he expanded his province by conquering adjacent lands, thereby laying the foundation of a vast kingdom. a visionary ruler, bahman shāh, not only consolidated his domain but, being a great patron of knowledge, extended support to scholars, poets, writers, and intellectuals. among those he patronized were maulānā luṭfullāh, mullā isḥāq sirhindī, mullā ḥakīm ‘alīm al-din tabrīzī, ḥakīm naṣīr al-dīn shīrāzī, ṣadr al-sharīf samarqandī, and raḍī al-dīn jagajūt. he also received scholars who had been ignored or neglected by the delhi sultans. one notable instance is maulānā ‘aṣāmī, who, disappointed by muḥammad tughlaq, migrated to the deccan and was warmly received by bahman shah—an act viewed as a great honour. under his patronage, maulānā ‘aṣāmī authored a detailed historical work in naẓm titled futūḥ al-salaṭīn, which chronicles events from the reign of maḥmūd ghaznawī (d. 1030) up to bahman shāh’s era. bahman shāh also established educational institutions (madāris), providing state allowances to both teachers and students, thereby nurturing a vibrant intellectual and cultural environment in the deccan.30 thus, in deccan, royal patronage played a significant role in elevating this colloquial tongue to the status of a formal language, and the support of the bahmanī rulers proved instrumental in fostering the growth and development of urdu.31 consequently, poets, writers, and scholars associated with the courts of bijapur and ahmednagar began composing their works in urdu. 32 however, the real credit for promoting urdu in the deccan goes to the theologians, scholars, and ṣūfiyā, who not only addressed their followers in this emerging language but also employed it in their writings for religious instruction. as a result, the surviving nathr samples from this period are almost entirely focused on religious themes.33 maulūd nāmahs: the early genre of urdu sīrah writing following the development of religious subjects such as taṣawwuf, ethics, malfūẓāt, and sawānií literature, the prophetic sīrah also witnessed considerable proliferation in urdu literature. the tradition of urdu sīrah writing began in naẓm, mainly in na‘tiyah poetry (encomiums), commonly identified as maulūd nāmahs. these compositions were collectively recited, mostly in mīlād gatherings, hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 15 where they described the wilādat (birth) of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions), his bi‘that (advent), mu‘jizāt, and shamā’il (physical and moral characteristics). in deccan, the tradition of writing maulūd nāmahs emerged from deep religious devotion. these mīlād and mi‘rāj gatherings were held in homes to recite these works, where sweets were distributed, and durūd (salutations) were offered, thus serving as an inspiration for poets, who participated in them to seek spiritual rewards. these assemblies often drew participation from scholars, the public and even rulers of the time. the maulūd nāmahs were primarily written in naẓm to evoke emotion, enthusiasm, and warmth in the remembrance of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions). over time, nevertheless, maulūd nāmahs began to appear in nathr as well. the tradition had a long-lasting impact, inspiring even prominent 19thcentury scholars such as nawāb ṣiddīq ḥasan khān bhopālī (d. 1890), sir sayyid aḥmad khān (d. 1898), maulānā alṭāf ḥusayn ḥālī (d. 1914), and others, who each authored their own maulūd nāmahs, thus continuing this rich literary tradition.34 the use of the suffix ‘nāmah’ in urdu book titles, both in naẓm and nathr, reflects the influence of persian literature. titles such as pand nāmah, shāh nāmah, and siyāsat nāmah were common in persian literary tradition. inspired by these, local poets and writers in urdu adopted the same suffix, creating works like faqr nāmah, lōrī nāmah, charkhah nāmah, qiyāmat nāmah, khāb nāmah, waîīyyat nāmah, ‘ibrat nāmah, and others.35 in the context of the prophetic sīrah, titles such as mīlad nāmah, mi‘rāj nāmah, wafāt nāmah, shamā’il nāmah, and nūr nāmah focused on specific aspects of the prophet’s life and attributes. most maulūd nāmahs were written in the mathnawī style, though several were composed in nathr as well. interestingly, many maulūd nāmahs combined elements of both naẓm and nathr to enhance their appeal and effectiveness. appropriately named maulūd nāmah, mi‘rāj nāmah, wafāt nāmah, shamā’il nāmah, and nūr nāmah, these works became foundational genres of early sīrah literature in urdu. ▪ maulūd nāmah focused on narrating the wilādat of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions). while this genre is primarily dedicated to this particular theme, many maulūd nāmahs (also known as tawallud nāmahs) also recounted key events from the prophet’s wilādat to his demise. 16 the evolution of urdu sīrah … ▪ mi‘rāj nāmah recorded his miraculous journey (mi‘rāj) to the heavens. however, many mi‘rāj nāmahs presented this event in a mythical (afsānawī) form.36 ▪ wafāt nāmah recounted the events surrounding ḥaḍrat muḥammad’s (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) final days, including his illness, passing, and funeral rites. ▪ shamā’il nāmah focused on his physical traits and attributes. in addition to the aḥādīth on shamā’il nabawī found in ṣaḥīḥ albukhārī and ṣaḥīḥ muslim, imām tirmidhī’s (d. 892 ce) shamā’il al-tirmidhī37 serve as the primary source for all urdu shamā’il nāmahs. these works vividly described ḥaḍrat muḥammad’s (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) physical appearance, eulogising every aspect of his blessed body. they also highlighted his habits, virtues, and exemplary character, making these aspects essential components of the shamā’il nāmah. ▪ nūr nāmah explored the belief that allāh almighty created the nūr (light) of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) from his own nūr before the creation of all beings. this theme, often supported by a few aḥādīth,38 became particularly popular in both naẓm and nathr. as a result, most sīrah works written in deccan urdu begin with this subject. dr anwar maḥmūd khālid (d. 2021) 39 has prepared an extensive list of maulūd nāmahs, written prior to 1857 in early urdu. most of them are in naẓm, some are in nathr, and some are a combination of both naẓm and nathr.40 shortcomings of maulūd nāmahs the primary sources for these maulūd nāmahs were the books of dalā’il and shamā’il. additionally, narrations from well-known works of ḥadīth, sīrah, history, and tafsīr were occasionally incorporated. these maulūd nāmahs fulfilled an essential need among the public by strengthening their spiritual connection with ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions). through these works, less-educated people became acquainted with significant aspects of the prophet’s life, including his birth, lineage, family, migration, demise, miracles, virtues, and morals. however, the authors of these works often did not cite their sources or provide the sanad (chain of transmission) for the narrations, which could be seen as a limitation. they often begin by narrating an event like this: there is a tradition... experts of sīrah hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 17 have written...historians mention............ exegetes write...... etc.) 41 similarly, many maulūd nāmahs in urdu not only repeated fabricated traditions but were often copied verbatim from one another, though with slight variations in language, expression, and style. additionally, several maulūd nāmahs appear to be mere urdu translations of arabic texts.42 in their zeal to express utmost admiration, authors frequently overlooked the authenticity of the traditions, particularly those concerning mu‘jizāt. according to dr anwar maḥmūd khālid, while these maulūd nāmahs are undoubtedly parts of the vast literary heritage of the sīrah, they should be approached with a critical eye and accepted only after undergoing rigorous scrutiny. 43 sayyid sulaymān nadwī (d. 1953), a distinguished sīrah scholar of the indian sub-continent, aptly addressed this issue: “these books, filled with various fabricated and unauthentic accounts of miracles, later became the basis for many maulūd nāmahs. credulous devotion and a sense of wonder granted unjustified reverence to these false miracles, overshadowing the reliable ones. this conflation made it difficult to differentiate truth from untruth. notably, collections like ṣiḥāḥ sittah especially al-bukhārī and al-muslim are completely free from such accounts. the objective of these authors was not to compile reliable traditions of miracles but to accumulate exaggerated and astonishing stories that could expand the chapters on the faìā’il and manāqib of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions). later, vigilant muḥaddithīn, such as al-zurqānī (d. 1710), critically scrutinised these narrations, refuting them and pointing out their flaws. nevertheless, the widespread acceptance of these fabrications, which have become deeply embedded in islamic literature, calls for further evaluation. this is particularly crucial because many of the events recited in mīlād gatherings in our country are laden with these groundless traditions.” 44 after highlighting the weaknesses of maulūd nāmahs and examining the reasons behind the inclusion of unauthentic traditions, sayyid sulaymān nadwī critically challenged the validity of most of the mu‘jizāt mentioned in these works. furthermore, he refuted thirty widely circulated traditions that appear in nearly every maulūd nāmah.45 18 the evolution of urdu sīrah … deccan’s sīrah literature in nathr historians hold differing views regarding the origins of urdu nathr. even after the mughal conquest of the deccan in 1687, urdu writings continued to flourish in both naẓm and nathr. however, works in nathr were fewer in number compared to naẓm during this era.46 as the mughal empire declined in the deccan, writings in nathr on subjects like fiqh and ‘aqā’id began to emerge, including works on sīrah. while the deccan had produced significant sīrah literature in naẓm, it also contributed notable works in nathr. naṣīr al-dīn hāshimī identifies three key nathr works on sīrah from the deccan: rīyāḍ al-siyar, mumtāz al-tafāsīr, and fawā’id-i-badariyyah. 47 however, dr. anwar maḥmūd khālid suggests that additional works, such as tajalliyāt al-anwār, could also be included in this list. 48 pioneering authors like khājah muḥammad bāqir āgāh (d. 1805), maulānā muḥammad ghauth (d. 1823), mufti ‘ināyatullāh kākōrwī (d. 1863), and qāḍī badr al-daulah (d. 1863) laid the foundations for urdu sīrah in nathr. although their works followed conventional methods, they were well-received by the literary class and held significant positions before 1857. however, as writing in nathr became more common in delhi and its surrounding regions, a flow of admirable works rapidly surpassed the earlier contributions from the deccan.49 some prominent works in nathr before 1857 1. karbal kathā this book, while primarily focusing on the events of karbalā, also records the incidents from the final days of the life of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) in its opening sections. the work in question is karbal kathā50 by faḍl ‘alī faḍlī.51 the first draft was completed during the reign of the mughal emperor muḥammad shāh in 1733 and was revised fourteen years later, in 1747. karbal kathā is essentially an urdu translation and summary of rauḍah al-shuhadā, authored by mullā ḥusayn bin ‘alī al-wā‘iẓ al-kāshifī (d. 1505 ce).52 however, karbal kathā extends beyond literal translation, incorporating additions and, in some instances, deliberate differences from the original text. notably, faḍlī has explicitly indicated these differences in the footnotes, demonstrating his approach to engaging critically with the source material. the textual differences between rauḍah al-shuhadā and karbal kathā are so apparent that the latter hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 19 can be regarded as a distinct, original work of faḍlī as viewed by mālik rām.53 karbal kathā is one of the earliest works of urdu nathr in india. no other translated or original book from that era in northern india has emerged, further enhancing its historical significance. this book also represents the earliest known example of the dehlawī style of language, as the author had spent most of his time in delhi. prof. khājah aḥmad farūqī, former head of the urdu department at delhi university, who discovered, edited, and published the manuscript of karbal kathā, concurs with this view. based on the available evidence, he asserts that this book can be regarded as the oldest known work of urdu prose.54 2. riyāì al-siyar according to numerous scholars, one of the significant early works of urdu nathr from that era is riyāì al-siyar by muḥammad bāqir āgāh (1745-1805).55 written in the late 18th century ce, the book chronicles key events from the birth of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) to his passing. this work is also known by two alternate titles: ḥaqīqat-i-nūr-muḥammadī and maulūd sharīf. notably, three manuscripts of the book are preserved in the āsifiyah library in hyderabad.56 at the beginning of riyāì al-siyar, there is a discussion of nūr-i-muḥammadī, followed by a detailed account of the prophet’s wilādat. the book generally presents the sīrah events in chronological order. the sources of riyāì al-siyar are well-known arabic works on sīrah, and its style and approach closely align with them. some scholars note that the influence of arabic is particularly dominant in the writing style, with certain sections appearing as direct translations from arabic into urdu. 57 while narrating the birth of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions), the author records: رہتش وک ہک اتہک ب زگری ےھچ ےنیہم لمح رشفی رضحت یک یس رھپ داھکی وادلہ رشہفی رضحت یک ےن وخاب ںیم ف ب ج ام دمحم ب ہک وہ دیپا وہں،وت ن ب ارۃ وہپیچن ہک احہلم وہیئ اسھت احلم وت اے دنیِ ریخ ااعلنیمل ےک، ج ش ب ےہ اے آہنم !ب و ۔ ھی ک اور رممی ر آ ہیس ، ب ہک ون ےنیہم لمح رشفی ےک عطقنم وہےئ ب یک ےہ اوبمیعن ےن انب ابعس ےس ج ت روای وتدل وحروں وک ےل رك احرض وہےئ ِ ب ش ارخی رعیب ش ت ن ن ا نباروںی ن ا رسیتی رجف ےک ت ت االول ےک روز دوہبنش اک اھت۔وق 20 the evolution of urdu sīrah … االول اس رہم رہپس رعیب ن ا دوسںی اور دقوم تنمیم وبنت ےن اطمعل کلفآوھٹںی اعسدت یس ونر وہشد داھکین ا رج لمح ےس نبار الرك ونر وہظر اینپ یس زنیم و زامن وک رشف ایک ےہ۔ زلوم بب 58 when six months of pregnancy had passed, the prophet’s mother, āminah, saw an angel in a dream who said, “o āminah! i bring you glad tidings: the child in your womb is the best of human beings. when he is born, name him muhammad.” abu nu‘aym narrated from ibn ‘abbās that when the nine months of pregnancy were over, āsiyah and maryam came with the maidens on the night of the prophet’s birth on monday, the twelfth of rabī‘ al-awwal. at dawn on the third, eighth, or tenth of rabī‘ al-awwal, the seal of prophethood, prophet muhammad, graced the heavens and the earth with his blessed birth. similarly, when discussing ḥaḍrat muḥammad’s (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) stay in terms of the number of years, the ghazwāt, a few notable instances, and sarāyā (sing. sariyyah) the wars in which he did not personally participate, the author recorded it as: رس ںیم رس ےہ۔ اس دس بب نباالافتق دس بب رضحت ہیلع االسلم یک دمہنی ونمرہ ںیم ت زغوات اسھت دمِت ااقم د نب ارمق ےس ہک "زغا ےئک ںیم ےن رمہاہ رضحت ہیلع االسلم ےک رتسہ ےہ زی ت وقل وہشمر ےک نباسیئ ںیہ اور روای رر اور ومیسٰ نب ہبقع ےن ہک وہشمر ہی ےہ ہک آپ نباسیئ زغوات ںیم رشتفی ےل ےئگ ش ش مع نبار اور انب ااحسق اور اوب رامن ا آپ ےن رگم اس ف ونب اور رسان ا اچپس وہےئ۔ اقمہلب ںیہن ، زغوہ ہ ری ت ف ادح، زغوہ ینب دبر، زغوہ ت ںیم۔زغوہ ۔ ق، زغوہ ربیخ، اور زغوہ اطئ صطل م 59 ḥaḍrat muḥammad (rasūlullāh khātam al-nabiyyīn ṣallallāhu ‘alaihi wa sallam)’s time in madīnah is widely recognised to have spanned ten years. during this period, twenty-two ghazwāt are reported to have taken place. zayd bin arqam narrated that he accompanied the prophet on seventeen of these campaigns. according to early sources such as ibn isḥāq, abū ma‘shar, and mūsā bin ‘uqbah, the total number of ghazwāt in which he took part was twentytwo. in addition, there were fifty sarāyā. however, among the ghazwāt, the prophet is known to have actively participated in seven major battles: badr, uíud, banū qurayzah, banū muîṭaliq, khaybar, and ṭā’if. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 21 the excerpts from riyāì al-siyar reveal that its language lacks fluency and coherence compared to modern urdu and displays notable differences from contemporary usage. the primary aim of muḥammad bāqir āgāh’s riyāì al-siyarand his other works – had been to familiarise less-educated individuals, particularly women 60 , with religious knowledge. 61 it is reported that āgāh authored over 300 works, of which 16 are in urdu. among these, riyāì al-siyar and hasht bahisht 62 are exclusively dedicated to the sīrah. although the author refers to the language of these two books as deccan rather than urdu, it is fundamentally urdu with slight linguistic variations. for this reason, it is often referred to as deccan or early urdu.63 bāqir āgāh authored works on the sīrah in both naẓam and nathr, carefully drawing upon primary sources. from an academic perspective, his writings possess notable distinguishing features among the religious literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. as a result, scholars have consistently recognised and eulogised his contributions. prof. muḥī aldīn qādrī,64 commented on bāqir āgāh’s contributions, stating: “bāqir āgāh stands as one of the foremost patrons of urdu literature. proficient in both naẓam and nathr, his works span various genres, including poetry, odes, mathnawī, and more. indeed, the intellectual tradition, literary style, and eloquence of the deccan era reached their pinnacle with him. following his time, south india did not witness the emergence of another writer or poet of his calibre.” 65 before riyāì al-siyar, muḥammad bāqir āgāh authored a book titled tuífah al-nisā,66 in which he highlighted the character and virtues of the wives and daughters of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as well as other prominent early muslim women. consequently, several events from the sīrah are also included in the work. dr anwar maḥmūd khālid has noted that this treatise can be regarded as the earliest effort of its kind in early urdu literature on this subject.67 3. mumtāz al-tafāsīr sayyid amīr al-dīn ḥusayn’s mumtāz al-tafāsīr, written in 1835, is a significant work in the deccan prose of its time. although the title suggests a focus on tafsīr (quranic exegesis), the book also provides a substantial account of the sīrah of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions).68 written from a da‘wah perspective,69 the author, as a preacher, has structured the book into several chapters, including: 22 the evolution of urdu sīrah … 1. bayān-i-durūd sharīf (the mention of salutations on ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions). 2. nūr-i-muíammadī. 3. maulūd sharīf (birth of the prophet). 4. raḍā‘at (breastfeeding). 5. manāqib (virtues). 6. shamā’il (traits). 7. ‘alāmāt-i-ḥubb-i-rasūl (signs of love of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions). 8. akhbār-i-rasūl (prophetic narrations). 9. nuzūl-i-waíê (the descent of the first revelation). 10. mir‘āj. 11. tafsīr āyat-i-awwal (interpretation of the first revelation). 12. hijrah. 13. sharā’it-i-muḥabbat (conditions of the prophetic love). 14. wafāt al-nabī (the demise of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions). 70 the author’s writing style, marked by both comprehensiveness and conciseness, is evident in the following paragraph, which narrates ‘utbah bin rabī‘ah’s message to the makkan aristocracy, their response, and the migration of the øaíābah to ethiopia: ااسی الکم ںیہن انس اھت، تحلصم ہی ہبتع آپ ہیلع االسلم یک سلجم ےس اواھٹ اور اینپ وقم ںیم ایگ اور اہک " واہلل! ںیم ےن دا ب افکر تہب ای ب ر ایک"۔ ج ش ركو"۔ وقم ےن اہک: "ھجت رپ دمحم ےک رحس ےن اب ت دا راسین ںیم ابمہغل م ےہ ہک ان یک ای رامےئ۔ ایگرہ رمد اور اچر دےنی ےگل، آپ ےن ضعب احصہب ےک قح ںیم تحلصم اجن رك کلمِ شبح وک مکحِ رجہت ف ںیئگ۔وعرںیت کلمِ شبح وک 71 ‘utbah left the gathering of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (rasūlullāh khātam al-nabiyyīn ṣallallāhu ‘alaihi wa sallam) and returned to his people, the quraysh. he said to them, “by allah, i have never heard such words (as those in the qur’ān). we shouldn't cause any more trouble for him and his companions.” however, the people responded that muḥammad had cast a spell on him. as the quraysh continued to create significant trouble for the companions, the prophet, keeping the situation in mind, ordered the migration to abyssinia for some of his followers. consequently, eleven men and four women migrated to abyssinia. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 23 4. fawā’id-i-badariyyah maulawī muḥammad sibghatullāh (d. 1864), 72 commonly known as qāḍī badr al-daulah, authored a book on the sīrah in 1839 titled fawā’id-i-badariyyah.73 this work surpassed all others in its distinction and popularity, marking the final sīrah book written in deccan nathr.74 it was published multiple times in madras, bombay, bangalore and hyderabad.75 badr al-dawlah, born in 1797 in madrās, studied under renowned scholars, including baḥr al-‘ulūm maulānā ‘abd al-‘alī firangī maḥlī (d. 1811), 76 one of the most eminent scholars of his time. in addition to his expertise in tafsīr, ḥadīth, sīrah, and fiqh, the author was well-versed in philosophy, history, mathematics, and medicine. nawāb ghulām muḥammad ghouth khān appointed him as the qāḍī al-quḍḍāh (chief justice) of karnataka,77 bestowing upon him the titles qāḍī al-mulk and imām al‘ulamā.78 qāḍī badr al-dawlah authored several works in arabic, persian, and urdu. he wrote thirteen books in urdu alone on various subjects, including sīrah. among his works, fawā’id-i-badariyyah earned him recognition as a prominent author in the indian subcontinent. scholars regard this book as a summary and essence of the renowned arabic sīrah works.79 given the constraints of the classical methodology, it represents the maximum that could be derived from the available arabic sīrah literature.80 while nawāb a‘ẓam jāh, the ruler, desired its compilation, the author himself felt the need for a sīrah book in urdu due to the common people’s unfamiliarity with arabic and persian. below, we present the author’s statement, which not only supports this claim but also provides insight into the author’s style: وخاشہ اس رغقیِ رتمح ےک راسےل وک طسب ركوں نکیل داھکی ہک نبازارِ ملع اک تہب اکدس وہایگ ِ رھپ دل اچاہ ہک سحب افریس فینصت ےئک وت ھچک افدئہ اس ےہ اور ملع ےک اجےنن واےل اس داین ےس زگر ےئگ۔اب وکیئ اتکب زنباِن رعیب ن ا ب ںیہن،نج وک ان زنباونں یک رعمتف احلص ےہ، ان ےک ےئل تہب ےس بتک وموجد ںیہ اور یسک وک ت رپ رتمی اہک وعام ومونمں وک اس ےس افدئہ احلص ت ب زنباِن دنہی ںیم ہی اتکب انھکل رشوع ایک ،ن ت وخادنمشہ یھب ںیہن ن ان ا ، ی ہیلع وملس ےک اوحال ےس وافق وہرك ان یک ریپوی وخیب ےک اسھت ركںی اور اس یک وہوےاور اےنپ ربمغیپ یلص اہلل تقیقح وناب وفغمر )وناب امظع اجہ( ےھت۔ ِ ب افیل اک سب ت ن 81 then i felt a deep desire to write in greater detail about the prophetic sīrah. however, i observed that the pursuit of knowledge has declined, and those who truly valued it have passed away. at present, writing a book in arabic or persian 24 the evolution of urdu sīrah … does not seem very useful, as those proficient in these languages already have access to numerous works, and, in any case, there appears to be little interest. therefore, i chose to write this book in hindi (urdu), so that ordinary muslims could benefit from it. by becoming acquainted with the life of their prophet, they might follow him more sincerely and effectively. the primary reason behind the composition of this book was the earnest wish of the late nawāb ā‘ẓam jāh. it is important to note that in its early stages, the urdu language in north india did not have a specific name and was referred to by various titles. however, in south india (the deccan), it was commonly known as ‘hindi’ or ‘deccani’. early deccani poets and authors commonly used these titles to describe the language.82 the author has carefully considered all the major classical sīrah works, including ibn sayyid al-nās’s (d. 1334 ce) ‘uyūn al-athar, ibn alqayyim’s (d. 1350 ce) zād al-ma‘ād, ibn ḥajar’s (d. 1449 ce) fatí al-bārī, jalāl al-dīn suyūïī’s (d. 1505 ce) al-khaṣā’iṣ al-kubrā, shihāb al-dīn qasṭalānī’s (d. 1517 ce) mawāhib al-ladunniyyah, and ‘abd al-haqq dehlawī’s (d. 1642 ce) madārij al-nabuwwah and others.83 fawā’id-i-badariyyah is a comprehensive work divided into four main chapters. the first chapter presents a historical account of ḥaḍrat muḥammad’s (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) life, from his birth to his demise. the second chapter focuses on his physical appearance, traits, and attributes. the third chapter highlights the proofs and miracles of his nabuwwah, while the fourth discusses the etiquettes and rights obligatory upon the ummah.84 this book held a prominent position in urdu sīrah literature, surpassing khājah bāqir āgāh’s riyāì al-siyar in language, style, and content. 85 moreover, it gained greater admiration in south india than any other urdu work on the sīrah. it holds the distinction of being the first authentic sīrah book written in urdu before 1857.86 muḥammad murtaẓā emphasises this distinction in the book's foreword: “just as bāqir āgāh’s language appears antiquated after the passage of three-quarters of a century, similarly, the language of fawā’id-i-badariyyah no longer aligns with the standards of contemporary urdu eloquence after a comparable period. however, regardless of how sophisticated our language may become in the future, the author’s effort should not be underestimated. even today, apart from sir sayyid aḥmad khān’s khuïbāt-i-aímadiyyah, there is no urdu work considered more authentic than fawā’id-i-badariyyah.” 87 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 25 from the aforementioned works of deccan authors, it can be concluded that despite some weaknesses in narration, deccan literature represents the first significant endeavour in urdu sīrah writing. this foundational effort later paved the way for scholars to compile the prophetic sīrah more systematically. naṣīr al-dīn hāshimī, an eminent litterateur from hyderabad, after analysing passages from these works and assessing the literary significance of early deccan sīrah literature, offers the following conclusion: “from the preceding pages, it becomes evident what deccan poets and prose writers contributed to the sīrah and how they laid the groundwork for writing sīrah in urdu. while it is true that many of these works contain both authentic and unreliable traditions and events, it is important to note that the method of dirāyah (critical examination of traditions) was not prevalent at the time. furthermore, the cultural milieu of the period was inclined toward fictional storytelling, prompting authors and poets to present their narratives in the form of tales.” 88 to sum up, these scholars and authors have been significant benefactors of the urdu language and literature. their efforts offer us insight into the evolutionary stages of urdu, the subjects it has absorbed, the expressive forms it has developed, and the extent to which it paved the way for those who, in later times, would document the sīrah of ḥaḍrat muḥammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions).89 research methodology this study aims to explore the emergence of the urdu language in the indian subcontinent and the role of ṣūfiyā’ (sing. ṣūfī) in its promotion within the region. it primarily focuses on the evolution and growth of urdu sīrah literature in deccan, analysing various genres and contributions of sīrah writers, alongside key examples of sīrah literature produced prior to 1857. the study will employ a combination of descriptive and analytical methods to evaluate the available source material, striving to offer a comprehensive understanding of the research theme. the study largely relies on primary and authentic secondary sources. furthermore, rare sources available through reliable online platforms have been directly referenced. only a few unpublished manuscripts have been cited, based on a reliable secondary source. thus, both primary and secondary sources on the subject will be thoroughly examined to ensure a well-rounded exploration. the approach aims to provide 26 the evolution of urdu sīrah … academic readers with a deep and nuanced understanding of the study’s subject matter. research findings muslim scholars have produced extensive sīrah literature since the 2nd century ah/ 7th century ad, and it continues till now in almost all major languages, including arabic, persian, urdu, english and others. during the delhi sultanate (1206-1526), urdu came into existence primarily for religious requirements, with ṣūfiyā playing a vital role in its promotion by transmitting moral and spiritual teachings. the evolution of urdu sīrah writing reflects a rich history shaped by literary efforts, cultural amalgamation, and a profound devotion to proliferating the sīrah in the indian subcontinent. although urdu originated in northern india, but did not achieve official status under the delhi sultanate, where persian was the official language. however, it flourished in the deccan under sulṭān ‘alā’ aldīn ḥasan bahmān shāh (d. 1358 ce), who, upon establishing his empire, provided it with royal patronage, thereby promoting it over persian and fostering its growth. as the region’s literary landscape evolved, poets, writers, ṣūfiyā’, and scholars proficiently adapted sīrah to resonate with local readership demands, initially expressing its themes through naẓm forms. over time, urdu developed in the region with all essential literary components, encompassing both naẓm and nathr. while sīrah renditions in naẓm dominated for a long period, works in nathr marked a substantial impact and contributed to the subject in later times. khājah geisū darāz (d. 1422) was among the earliest deccan authors to compose a treatise on sīrah, entitled risālah sīrat al-nabī. impressions of sīrah writing in early urdu literature are predominantly found in naẓm, with a particular focus on the mathnawī genre. the most prominent genre of early urdu sīrah literature was the maulūd nāmah. while these works familiarised the common people with different events of the prophetic sīrah, the authors often failed to base their works on primary sources. consequently, fabricated (mauìū‘) narrations, particularly concerning mu‘jizāt, found their way into maulūd nāmahs. notably, in the first half of the 19th ce, deccan scholars made substantial contributions to sīrah literature in nathr. figures such as khājah muḥammad bāqir āgāh (d. 1805), maulānā muḥammad ghauth (d. 1823), amīr al-dīn ḥusayn (na), qāḍī badr al-daulah (d. 1863), and others authored significant works that enriched the tradition of urdu sīrah writing. the study demonstrated that despite some narrative and methodological limits, deccan sīrah literature not only laid a foundational role in the evolution of urdu but also marked the earliest effort in sīrah writing hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 27 in urdu. consequently, it paved the way for later scholars and encouraged them to develop the prophetic sīrah more systematically. conclusion this study underscores the engaging journey of urdu as a medium for religious teachings with special reference to sīrah writing. although early urdu literature originated in north india, the deccan region cultivated it to such an extent that, between the 14th and 19th centuries, a prolific sīrah literature was produced in both naẓm and nathr, earning widespread appreciation, though it often included weak and fabricated narrations. the pre-1857 sīrah literature fostered a deeper spiritual connection with the prophet’s persona among the masses, preserving traditional narratives and offering valuable insights into the religious and cultural landscape of the region. when critically examined, the literature can also acquaint contemporary scholars with the earlier methodologies. therefore, their relevance in the contemporary sīrah writing cannot be overlooked altogether. with the advent of colonial rule, orientalists started questioning the historical reliability of the sources. in this context, traditional sīrah writings, lacking academic rigour, struggled to confront the modern intellectual challenges, thereby creating a gap between devotional literature and evolving academic standards. however, urdu sīrah writing witnessed incredible growth post-1857 in the entire indian sub-continent. this period marked a significant shift from traditional maulūd nāmahs to the modern scientific methods, characterised by critical analysis of sources – an approach pioneered by sir sayyid aḥmad khān (d. 1898) and ‘allāmah shiblī nu‘mānī (d. 1914). while responding to the orientalists, the trend of producing authentic sīrah works gained impetus across academic circles. different authors contributed their distinctive perspectives, catering to diverse readerships. this diversity highlights the richness of urdu in encompassing the multifaceted dimensions of the sīrah. the futuristic study of the subject would be enhanced by a comparative analysis of early deccan sīrah literature and modern approaches90 to trace shifts in narrative approach, source examination, and religious context. scholars could also explore how early genres might be integrated with contemporary methods to reach out to diverse audiences. regional studies in literary centres such as hyderabad, patna, rampur, aligarh, delhi and others may unveil local impressions upon sīrah narratives across the ages. moreover, digitisation and critical editing of manuscripts would enable more 28 the evolution of urdu sīrah … systematic scrutiny. similarly, employing multidisciplinary methods like sociological, political, psychological, and others would also better shed light on the relevance of sīrah in the contemporary era. notes and references 1 visit: urdu language | history, origin, script, words, & facts | britannica (accessed on 09/11/2024). 2 ‘allāmah shiblī nu‘mānī, maqālāt-i-shiblī, (azamgarh: dār almuṣannifīn, 2020), 2 /67. 3 shamsur rahman faruqi, “a long history of urdu literary culture, part i: naming and placing a literary culture”, in literary cultures in history, edited by sheldon pollock (london: university of california press, ltd., 2003), 806. 4 for thorough discussion on the subject, see: dr. saima iram, et al. “development of urdu language and literature in sub-continent and its impact on the society”, palarch’s journal of archeology of egypt/ egyptology, 20, no. 01, (2023), 713-727. 5 dr. āftāb aḥmad ṣiddīqī, shiblī – aik dabistān (azamgarh: dār almuṣannifīn shiblī academy, 2015), 46. 6 dr. anwar sadīd, urdu adab kī mukhtaṣar tārīkh (new-delhi: aalami media pvt ltd, 2014), 42. 7 prof. mas‘ūd ḥusayn khān (prof. emeritus) accomplished his doctorate from amu and d.litt. from paris. he served as prof. department of linguistics amu, & head department of urdu, osmania university, hyderabad. 8 mas‘ūd ḥusayn khan, muqaddimah tārīkh-i-zubān-i-urdu (aligarh: educational book house, 1999), 110. 9 professor of urdu literature, osmania university, hyderabad. 10 prof. ‘abd al-qādir surūrī, urdu mathnawī kā irtiqā’ (aligarh: educational book house, n/a), 22. 11 dr. rāfi‘ah sulṭānah, urdu nathar ka āghāz wa irtiqah (hyderabad: majlis tahqīqāt -i-urdu, n/a), 23. 12 former professor of urdu, osmania university, hyderabad. 13 nasīr al-dīn hāshimī, deccan mei urdu. (new-delhi: national council for promotion of urdu language, 2002), 36. 14 dr. sayyid mohī al-dīn qādrī, urdu kei asālīb-i-bayān (hyderabad: aḥmadiyyah press char mīnār, 1932), 26. 15 hāshimī, deccan mei urdu, 41. 16 muḥammad mohsin, “urdu adab mei sīrat nighārī kā irtiqā”. phd thesis, (maharshi dayanand sarswati university, ajmer, 2017), 60. 17 sayyid muḥammad ḥusayni, commonly known as khājah bandah nawāz geisū darāz was a famous ṣūfī of chistī order who advocated spirituality, tolerance, peace and harmony among various religious communities of his era. he belonged to the sādāt family (descendents of the prophet’s family) of khurāsān who were famously known as geisu darāz. khājah bandah nawāz was the disciple of the well-known ṣūfī of delhi, naṣīr al-dīn chirāgh https://www.britannica.com/topic/urdu-language hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 29 dehlawī (d. 1356). during tīmūr’s attack on delhi around 1398, khājah moved to daulatābād and finally settled in gulbargah deccan (presently karnataka) at the invitation of sultān tāj al-dīn firōz shāh. for more details, see: ‘aṭā ḥusayn, sīrat bandah nawāz (hyderabad: nizām press chatah bāzār, n/a). similarly, to get acquaint with his sayings and adages, see: shabbīr ḥasan chisti nizāmī, ḥaḍrat khājah bandah nawāz geisū darāz (lahore: ‘azīm & sons publishers, 2002). 18 shaykh muḥammad ikram, āab-i-kausar (delhi: tāj company, 1987), 370-371. see also: dr. anwar maḥmūd khālid, urdu nathar mei sīrat-irasūl (lahore: iqbal academy pak, 1989), 201. 19 mathnawī is a kind of poem, based on independent rhyming lines, written in rhyming couplets. it has no limit in length of syllables. this genre of poems has been written in persian, arabic, turkish and urdu as well. rūmī (d. 1273)’s mathnawī possesses a special distinction in taṣawwuf. 20 khālid, urdu nathar, 231. 21 nasīr al-dīn hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn (delhi: āzād kitāb ghar, 1963), 23. the author, a renowned author and litterateur of hyderabad, in the same book has written a separate chapter on sīrah literature in earlier deccan urdu entitled as, ‘qadīm urdu mei sīrah alnabī kā dhakhīrah’ from page 22 to 50. 22 surūrī, urdu mathnawī kā irtiqā’, 22-23. 23 visit: www.britannica.com/topic/din-i-ilahi accessed on 02-11-2024. 24 for more details about the very cult founded by akbar, please go through the fourth volume of maulānā abu al-ḥasan ‘ali nadwī’s, tarīkh da‘wat wa ‘azīmat (lakhnow: majis taḥqīqāt wa nashriyāt, lakhnow, 2008) 25 shaykh sirhindī’s ithbāt al-nabuwwah has been translated into urdu by ḥāfiz ‘ubaydullāh ṭāhirī, published by idarah muajaddiddiyah karachi, n/a. digitized and published electronically by maktabah.org, nov. 2011. 26 prof. khalīq ahmad nizāmī, hayāt-i-shaykh ‘abd al-haqq muḥaddith dehlawī (lahore: maktabah rahmāniyah, n/a), 193. 27 khālid, urdu nathar, 219. 28 hamid ḥasan qadri, dastān-i-tarīkh-i-urdu (delhi: abc offset printers, 2007), 66-67. 29 the bahmānī sultanate was a muslim kingdom in the deccan region of india, lasting from 1347 to 1518. it was established in 1347 by ʿalāʾ al-dīn bahmān shāh, who, along with other military commanders, led a revolt against the delhi sultan, muḥammad ibn tughluq. from its founding until 1425, the capital was aḥsanābād (modern-day gulbarga), after which it was moved to muḥammadābād (present-day bidar). the sultanate reached the height of its influence during the vizierate of maḥmūd gāwān, from 1466 to 1481. for more details, visit: bahmanī sultanate | india, map, & history | britannica visited on 27/06/2025. also visit: bahmani kingdom, map, rulers list, founder, upsc notes. 30 hāshimī, deccan mei urdu, 44-45. 31 the language used by the bahmānī kings came to be known as ‘dakani,’ a new dialect meaning ‘of the deccan.’ it gained widespread popularity during their reign. initially referred to as ‘dakkani urdu,’ this dialect eventually http://www.britannica.com/topic/din-i-ilahi https://www.britannica.com/place/bahmani-sultanate https://www.britannica.com/place/bahmani-sultanate https://vajiramandravi.com/upsc-exam/bahmani-kingdom/ https://vajiramandravi.com/upsc-exam/bahmani-kingdom/ 30 the evolution of urdu sīrah … evolved into what is now recognized as the urdu language. see: bahmani kingdom (1347-1527 ad) medieval history upsc 32 khālid, urdu nathar, 220. 33 khālid, urdu nathar, 220. 34 nawāb ṣiddīq ḥasan khān bhopālī (d. 1890), following the prevailing trend, authored a maulūd nāmah in urdu titled al-shamāmah al‘ambariyyah. prof. yāsīn mazhar ṣiddīqī (d. 2020) provided a detailed twenty-page review of this work in the second volume of his renowned book, maṣādir-i-sīrat-nabawī. see: prof. yāsīn mazhar ṣiddīqī, maṣādir-i-sīratnabawī, (new-delhi: qazi publishers and distributers, 2016), 2/502-524. similarly, before khuṭbāt-i-aḥmadiyyah, sir sayyid aḥmad khān (d. 1898) authored a short maulūd nāmah in urdu prose in 1842, titled jilā’ al-qulūb bi dhikr al-maḥbūb. the primary sources for this work were shāh walīullāh’s surūr al-maḥzūn and shaykh ‘abd al-ḥaqq dehlawī's madārij al-nabuwwah. (sir sayyid ahmad khan, jilā al-qulūb bi zikr al-mahbūb, sir syed room, maulana azad library: amu, htt://archive.org/details/jilaulqaloobbezikaralmahboobbysirsyedahmadk hanaligarh. ) sir sayyid composed this risālah in line with the customary practices of the time, incorporating numerous traditions popularized through earlier maulūd nāmahs. see: maulānā muḥammad ismā’īl pānīpattī, maqālāt-i-sir sayyid (lahore: majlis tarriqī-i-adab, 1962), 31. likewise, maulānā alṭāf ḥusayn ḥālī (d. 1914), in addition to his other commendable works, also authored a maulūd nāmah in urdu titled maulūd sharīf. dr. anwar maḥmūd khālid regards it as ḥālī’s first literary work. see: khālid, urdu nathar, 270. 35 khālid, urdu nathar, 231. 36 khālid, urdu nathar, 233. 37 imam tirmidhī’s shamā’il al-tirmidhī has been translated into urdu by many scholars. however, the most famous translation and commentary has been rendered by maulānā zakariyyah kāndhalwī (d. 1982), entitled as khaṣā’il al-nabawī. 38 however, scholars well-grounded in ḥadīth literature deny the authenticity of such narrations. 39 professor of urdu, government college, faisalabad. 40 prof. sayyid mohī al-dīn qādrī, tadhkirah urdu makhṭūṭāt (hyderabad: kitab ghar, 1996), 1/4-9. 41 khālid, urdu nathar, 307-308. 42 khālid, urdu nathar, 308. 43 khālid, urdu nathar, 308. 44 sayyid sulaymān nadwī, sīrah al-nabī (azamgarh: dār al-muṣannifīn shiblī academy, 2019), 3/498-499. 45 nadwī, sīrah al-nabī, 510-530. 46 khālid, urdu nathar, 221. 47 hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn, 45. 48 khālid, urdu nathar, 239. 49 qādrī, dastān, 82. https://lotusarise.com/bahmani-kingdom/ https://lotusarise.com/bahmani-kingdom/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 31 50 faḍl ‘alī faḍlī, karbal kathā, edited by, prof. khājah ahmad farūqī (hod urdu, delhi university), delhi: department of urdu delhi university, 1961, foreword, p. ہ. prof. farūqī had found the manuscript of this rare book in tuebingen university germany. 51 although, the author belonged to deccan, however, it is reported that he did not stay at his native place rather was educated in north india where he learnt writing. see: qādrī, p. 86. 52 karbal kathā, foreword, p. و . see also: qādrī, dāstān-i-tarīkh-i-urdu, 84. 53 faḍl ‘alī faḍlī, karbal kathā, (patna: idārah taḥqīqāt-i-urdu, 1965), p. 15 (foreword by mālik rām). 54 karbal kathā, p. ط . 55 khālid, urdu nathar, 242. 56 hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn, 46. 57 khālid, urdu nathar, 242. 58 muḥammad bāqir āgāh, riyāḍ al-siyar, manuscript no. 35, hyderabad: kutub khānah āsifiyah, on the authority of sultānah, urdu nathar ka āghāz wa irtiqah, 443 and khālid, urdu nathar, 242-243. 59 hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn, 46. 60 jasvi, m. (2021). women’s rights and social status determined by prophet muhammad (ملسو هيلع هللا ىلص). karachi islamicus, 1(2). 61 sultānah, op. cit., p. 445. 62 likewise, riyāḍ al-siyar, the subject of ‘hasht bahisht’ is sīrah as well, with the difference that the former is written in nathar whereas the latter is written in naẓm. see: khālid, urdu nathar, 246. 63 khālid, urdu nathar, 248. 64 the former head of idārah adabiyyāt-i-urdu, hyderabad. 65 khālid, urdu nathar, 248-249. 66 qādrī, tadhkirah urdu makhṭūṭāt, 1/137. 67 khālid, urdu nathar, 249. 68 hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn, 49. 69 khālid, urdu nathar, 255. 70 hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn, 49. 71 sayyid amīr al-dīn ḥusayn, mumtāz al-tafāsīr (manuscript), 85 on the authority of hāshimī, deccani, p. 50. 72 he was the great grandfather of dr. muḥammad hamīdullāh (d. 2002), who is regarded as the mujaddid of ‘ilm al-sīrah of the 20th century. see, dr. maḥmūd ahmad ghāzī, muhāḍrāt-i-sīrat (new-delhi: areeb publications, 2011), p. 611. 73 qāḍī badr al-dawlah, fawā’id-i-badariyyah (hyderabad: shams almaṭābi’ machine press uthmān ganj, 1341 ah). 74 hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn, 47. 75 al-dawlah, fawā’id-i-badariyyah, 1. 76for more details about him, see; m. isharat ali molla, “life and works of mulla bahr al-‘ulūm”, (mphil dissertation, department of arabic, amu, 1993). also see: ‘alīm ṣabā nawīdī, nawāb wālā jāh aur ḥaḍrat al-‘allām ‘abd al-‘alī baḥr al-‘ulūm, madrās: tamil nadu urdu publications, 1995, p. 47. 32 the evolution of urdu sīrah … 77 dr sayyid ‘azīz al-raḥmān, jāmi‘ urdu kitābiyāt-i-sīrat, (karachi: zawar academy publications, na), e-book: ارہی ش د اتکوبں اک اش رار ےس زای اردو ںیم ریست ایبنل ملسو هيلع هللا ىلص رپ دس ہ baseerat online urdu news portal 78 hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn, 48. 79 hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn, 48. 80 al-dawlah, fawā’id-i-badariyyah, 3. 81 al-dawlah, fawā’id-i-badariyyah, 4. 82 hāshimī, deccan mei urdu. p. 37. 83 al-dawlah, fawā’id-i-badariyyah, 4. 84 al-dawlah, fawā’id-i-badariyyah, 2-3. 85 khālid, urdu nathar, 263. 86 ghāzī, muhāḍrāt-i-sīrat, 611. 87 al-dawlah, fawā’id-i-badariyyah, 4-5. 88 hāshimī, deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn, 50. 89 khālid, urdu nathar, 229. bibliography 1. nu‘mānī, ‘allāmah shiblī. maqālāt-i-shiblī, (azamgarh: dār almuṣannifīn, 2020). 2. faruqi, shamsur rahman. “a long history of urdu literary culture, part i: naming and placing a literary culture”, in literary cultures in history, edited by sheldon pollock (london: university of california press, ltd., 2003). 3. iram, dr. saima. et al. “development of urdu language and literature in sub-continent and its impact on the society”, palarch’s journal of archeology of egypt/ egyptology, 20, no. 01, (2023). 4. ṣiddīqī, dr. āftāb aḥmad. shiblī – aik dabistān (azamgarh: dār almuṣannifīn shiblī academy, 2015). 5. sadīd, dr. anwar. urdu adab kī mukhtaṣar tārīkh (new-delhi: aalami media pvt ltd, 2014). 6. khān, prof. mas‘ūd ḥusayn. muqaddimah tārīkh-i-zubān-i-urdu (aligarh: educational book house, 1999). 7. surūrī, prof. ‘abd al-qādir. urdu mathnawī kā irtiqā’ (aligarh: educational book house, n/a). 8. sulṭānah, dr. rāfi‘ah. urdu nathr ka āghāz wa irtiqah (hyderabad: majlis tahqīqāt -i-urdu, n/a). 9. hāshimī, nasīr al-dīn. deccan mei urdu. (new-delhi: national council for promotion of urdu language, 2002). 10. qādrī, dr. sayyid mohī al-dīn. urdu kei asālīb-i-bayān (hyderabad: aḥmadiyyah press char mīnār, 1932). 11. mohsin, muḥammad. “urdu adab mei sīrat nighārī kā irtiqā”. phd thesis, (maharshi dayanand sarswati university, ajmer, 2017). 12. ḥusayn, ‘aṭā. sīrat bandah nawāz (hyderabad: nizām press chatah bāzār, n/a). 13. nizāmī, shabbīr ḥasan chistī. ḥaḍrat khājah bandah nawāz geisū darāz (lahore: ‘azīm & sons publishers, 2002). 14. qādrī, ḥāmid ḥasan. dastān-i-tarīkh-i-urdu (delhi: abc offset printers, 2007). https://www.baseeratonline.com/archives/217384 https://www.baseeratonline.com/archives/217384 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 33 15. ikram, shaykh muḥammad. āab-i-kausar (delhi: tāj company, 1987). 16. khālid, dr. anwar maḥmūd. urdu nathar mei sīrat-i-rasūl (lahore: iqbal academy pak, 1989). 17. hāshimī, nasīr al-dīn deccani (qadīm urdu) kei taḥqīqī maḍāmīn (delhi: āzād kitāb ghar, 1953). 18. nadwī, maulānā abu al-ḥasan ‘ali. tarīkh da‘wat wa ‘azīmat, (lakhnow: majis taḥqīqāt wa nashriyāt, 2012). 19. sirhindī, shaykh aḥmad, ithbāt al-nabuwwah ur. tr. ḥāfiz ‘ubaydullāh ṭāhirī (karachi: idarah muajaddiddiyah, n/a). digitized and published electronically by maktabah.org, nov. 2011. 20. nizāmī, prof. khalīq ahmad. hayāt-i-shaykh ‘abd al-haqq muḥaddith dehlawī (lahore: maktabah rahmāniyah, n/a). 21. ṣiddīqī, prof. yāsīn mazhar. maṣādir-i-sīrat-nabawī, (new-delhi: qazi publishers and distributers, 2016). 22. khān, sir sayyid ahmad, jilā al-qulūb bi zikr al-mahbūb, sir syed room, maulana azad library: amu, htt://archive.org/details/jilaulqaloobbezikaralmahboobbysirsyedahmad khanaligarh. ) 23. pānīpattī, maulānā muḥammad ismā’īl. maqālāt-i-sir sayyid (lahore: majlis tarriqī-i-adab, 1962). 24. qādrī, prof. sayyid mohī al-dīn. tadhkirah urdu makhṭūṭāt (hyderabad: kitab ghar, 1996). 25. nadwī, sayyid sulaymān. sīrah al-nabī (azamgarh: dār al-muṣannifīn shiblī academy, 2019). 26. faḍlī, faḍl ‘alī. karbal kathā, edited by, prof. khājah ahmad farūqī (delhi: department of urdu delhi university, 1961). 27. faḍlī, faḍl ‘alī, karbal kathā, (patna: idārah taḥqīqāt-i-urdu, 1965). 28. sayyid amīr al-dīn ḥusayn, mumtāz al-tafāsīr (manuscript), 85 on the authority of hāshimī, deccani, p. 50. 29. ghāzī, dr. maḥmūd ahmad. muhāḍrāt-i-sīrat (new-delhi: areeb publications, 2011). 30. al-dawlah, qāḍī badr. fawā’id-i-badariyyah (hyderabad: shams almaṭābi’ machine press uthmān ganj, 1341 ah). 31. molla, m. isharat alī. “life and works of mulla bahr al-‘ulūm”, (mphil dissertation, department of arabic, amu, 1993). 32. nawīdī, ‘alīm ṣabā. nawāb wālā jāh aur ḥaḍrat al-‘allām ‘abd al-‘alī baḥr al-‘ulūm, (madrās: tamil nadu urdu publications, 1995). 33. ‘azīz al-raḥmān, dr sayyid. jāmi‘ urdu kitābiyāt-i-sīrat, (karachi: zawar academy publications, na), e-book: ارہی ش د اتکوبں اک اش رار ےس زای اردو ںیم ریست ایبنل ملسو هيلع هللا ىلص رپ دس ہ baseerat online urdu news portal 34. urdu language | history, origin, script, words, & facts | britannica (accessed on 09/11/2024). 35. www.britannica.com/topic/din-i-ilahi accessed on 02-11-2024. 36. bahmanī sultanate | india, map, & history | britannica. 37. bahmani kingdom, map, rulers list, founder, upsc notes. https://www.baseeratonline.com/archives/217384 https://www.baseeratonline.com/archives/217384 https://www.britannica.com/topic/urdu-language http://www.britannica.com/topic/din-i-ilahi%20accessed%20on%2002-11-2024 https://www.britannica.com/place/bahmani-sultanate https://vajiramandravi.com/upsc-exam/bahmani-kingdom/ political loyalty and the ethical turn in islamic law: the case of the european council for fatwa and research hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 115 clarifying the conflicting ahadith on cauterization as a medical treatment dr. faraz ul haq ned university of engineering & technology, karachi email: drfarazulhaq@gmail.com dr. irshad ul hasan abrar the university of lahore, lahore email: irshad.abrar@yahoo.com received on: 01-10-2024 accepted on: 03-09-2025 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i3.1186 abstract this article studies the practice of cauterization (al-kay) in the light of prophetic traditions and the explanations of classical scholars, with attention to its link with tawakkul (reliance upon allah). the method followed is a textual study of the relevant ahadith together with the views of jurists. the findings show that preventive cauterization, before the onset of illness, was discouraged as it could weaken reliance on allah. therapeutic cauterization, after the appearance of disease, was generally permitted but considered disliked due to the use of fire; however, this dislike is lifted in necessity. it is also reported that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) used cauterization in certain cases, which confirms it as a valid form of treatment. the conclusion is that the ahadith can be understood together in a balanced way, affirming both medical permissibility when genuine need arises while upholding the higher virtue of trust in allah. keywords: cauterization, hadiths, various, jurisprudence, conflict introduction: islam is a comprehensive religion, in which there is happiness and comfort. allah almighty has approved it for all people and mailto:drfarazulhaq@gmail.com mailto:irshad.abrar@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i3.1186 116 political loyalty and the ethical … perfected it at the hands of the chosen one, our beloved hazrat muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions). there is no good that he has not guided his nation to, and there is no evil that he has warned it against. allah almighty said: today i have perfected your religion for you, and have completed my blessing upon you, and chosen islam as din (religion and a way of life) for you. [surat al-ma’idah 5: 3] . islamic law has been distinguished from all other religions, sects, cultures and theories by the fact that it has solid sources of legislation, which are distinguished by the fact that they are from allah almighty, who created human beings and created them. the most important sources of the religion of islam are the holy qur’én and the sunnah, as stated in the hadith on the authority of hazrat muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions), that he said: “i left among you, o people, as long as you adhere to it, you will never go astray: the book of allah almighty and the sunnah of his prophet”1 so whoever wants to know the sharê‘ah and work by it must draw from these two pure sources, and rely on these two foundations, so that he wins the blessings of the almighty allah . people vary in their perceptions and experiences, and they are sometimes ignorant of things that are not familiar to them in their cultures and customs. some problems may occur in understanding some quranic verses and prophetic ahadith, because the holy qur’én and the sunnah contain many sciences, and no one can claim that he has the complete knowledge of sunnah, so perhaps one will stop at a hadith that surprises or denounces, and it may have guidance, restriction, or specification that has been mentioned in another place. so the way of wise people in such cases is that they return to the words of sharê‘ah scholars who know the methods of deduction and its etiquette with precise rules and principles. as soon as you read their words, you will find the thoughts are cleared. allah almighty said : when news concerning peace or fear comes to them, they go about spreading it. had they referred it to the messenger and to those having authority among them, the truth of the matter would have come to the knowledge of those of them who are hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 117 able to investigate. but for allah’s grace upon you, and mercy, you would have followed the satan, save a few) (surah annisā, 4:83) among these ahadith, scholars differed in their views regarding cauterization2. it was a well-known method of treatment in both ancient and modern times. the arabs even used to say, “the last treatment is cauterization,”3 referring to its strong effect and precise application. physicians have also mentioned its clear benefit in treating wounds, ulcers, and similar conditions4. various ahadith have been reported regarding the cauterization. some of them are ahadith that permit treatment with it and mention its effect and benefit, and among them are ahadith that indicate the prohibition of treatment with it. it may look like that there is a contradiction between the meanings of these ahadith, so how can something be useful and permissible, and then it is prohibited ? so this article wanted to shed light on these narrations. how true are these? what are their meanings? is there a conflict between them? what did the scholars give the meanings of these ahadith? allah almighty is asked for success and guidance . review-of literature: there are several research articles on this topic, including one titled “the ahadith of cauterization: narrations and understanding” by dr. sultan saad al-saif 5. however, his work is primarily focused on discussing the authentication of the ahadith in this regard, providing detailed analysis of the chains of narrations. in contrast, this research is more centered on understanding the meanings and implications of these ahadith. there is another research work by muhammad hanif shiwani who has discussed cauterization in his article “cautery: a modality of treatment, islamic views and contemporary practice.”6 .this work offers an interesting comparison between classical islamic perspectives and present-day medical approaches. however, it remains largely descriptive and does not provide an in-depth analysis of the prophetic narrations themselves. this paper, therefore, attempts to bridge this gap by combining textual, juristic, and medical perspectives. 118 political loyalty and the ethical … a notable related work is “cauterization: a fiqhi study” by monira bint homoud almutlaq7, which discusses the juristic rulings of cauterization. however, unlike that study, the present research focuses on clarifying the apparently conflicting ahadith narrated on this subject. in addition, ibn qayyim al-jawziyya (d. 751 ah) discusses cauterization in zād al-maʿād, where he outlines its role as one of the prophetic treatments, its conditions, and the balance between use and abstention. the well-known book published under the title ùibb al-nabawī (medicine of the prophet) is not an independent work; rather, it is an extracted section from zād al-maʿād that was later circulated separately due to its significance. while it provides valuable explanations of certain ahadith related to cauterization, it does not cover all narrations on the subject, nor does it present the full range of classical juristic discussions. this study differs in this regard, as it aims to gather a broader range of traditions alongside the statements of classical scholars in order to present a more comprehensive picture. after reviewing the works of earlier scholars, the conclusions were found largely consistent with their findings. however, this research adds further clarity by addressing the seemingly conflicting ahadith on cauterization and by showing how the principles of prophetic medicine can be applied today while maintaining a balance between trust in divine healing and the use of permissible treatments. methodology: this research adopts a qualitative approach, focusing on a detailed analysis of the prophetic ahadith concerning cauterization. the study aims to understand the interpretations and legal rulings related to cauterization as found in classical islamic texts, while also considering their relevance and application in contemporary contexts. the primary sources of this study include the canonical collections of hadith, specifically saíêí al-bukhéri, saíêí muslim, and musnad aímad, among others. each hadith on cauterization was collected and analyzed. furthermore, commentaries from classical scholars, such as ibn abd al-barr’s al-tamhid and hafiz ibn hajar’s fatí al-béri, were used to better understand the scholarly opinions and discussions on the topic. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 119 to ensure the reliability of the ahadith analyzed, the works of hadith scholars was referred, who specialized in verifying narrations, such as ibn hajar and al-albéni. the evaluation was based on the established criteria of hadith classification, namely the continuity of the chain (ittiîal al-isnéd), reliability and precision of narrators (‘adl and ìabï), and the absence of contradiction (shudhudh) or hidden defect (‘illah). accordingly, each narration was categorized as saíêí, íasan, or ìa‘êf in line with their standards. for clarity of analysis, the ahadith were also thematically classified according to their subject matter, such as prohibition, conditional permissibility, or application in medical treatment. after collecting the ahadith and their commentaries, a comparative analysis was performed by reviewing the positions of different scholars regarding the permissibility, dislike, or recommendation of cauterization. this includes examining the differences between the scholars' views on its use as a medical treatment and the role of trust (tawakkul) in healing. introduction: introduction to cauterization, and a mention of what was mentioned in the history of its treatment . definition of ironing : cauterization ( ي )الك in the arabic language means cauterizing the wound, they say: i cauterize it, he asked to be cauterized, in order to close the wound . what is simply meant by cauterization is to heat an iron or wood and place it on a paralyzed limb. to be burned so the blood trapped and not come out, or to stop the vein from which the blood radiates8. al-khattabi said: (it is one of the treatments known to the elite and most of the public, and the arabs use cauterization a lot for the ailments they encounter9(. history of cauterization as a treatment treatment with cauterization is a famous matter in the history of the arabs before islam, and it was mentioned in ancient literature books, in books of proverbs, and elsewhere . 120 political loyalty and the ethical … indeed, its history extends to non-arab cultures, as it was mentioned in the history of ancient china . they have mentioned that it has a special effect in treating some diseases, especially skin diseases, deep wounds, and others. the method of treatment with it is to cauterize the diseased part with a hot iron or a hot stone. the treatment method can be divided into two types : direct cauterization: this is done by placing a heated iron on the site of pain and wound, and it is severe for the patient, so its use is relatively limited . scientists differ: is it beneficial to cauterize with iron or with gold? some have stated that cauterizing with gold is better for the nobility of its essence, and that it does not fester the wound. others believe that iron is better because when it reddens and intensifies, it can be recognized and used more appropriately10. indirect cauterization: this is done by burning mats or tree leaves, placing them in the site of pain, or tying them with bracelets to the site of the wound. this is relatively the easiest and most common among people the famous ailments in which cauterization is used are as follows11 1. joint diseases, such as rheumatism. 2. wounds, ulcers and headaches. 3. when the skin gets heat due to the increase in blood flow, which is useful in some treatments. 4. it prevents wounds from spoiling because it narrows the passage of spoiled material. 5. it is used to thaw rotten meat . number of ahadith (narrations) mentioned about ironing in famous sources : the ahadith about cauterization have been mentioned in the famous sources of the sunnah, including the two most authentic books of hadith: saíêí al bukhéri, saíêí al muslim, and the four famous books of sunan. the scholars of hadith have covered these ahadith in various chapters, and this also indicates that the treatment of cauterization is a hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 121 known matter in the arab environment. as for the types of ahadith, their meanings are different, as some of them indicate the nature of cauterization. some of them indicate that treatment with it is permissible, and some of them indicate that it is disliked. for example, imam al-bukhari’s tabulation in his “saíêí” under the book of medicine: (chapter on the one who was injured or cauterized by someone else, and the virtue of the one who does not cauterize)12, and the chapter on (healing is in three). and the tabulations of imam al-tirmidhi; where he mentioned two chapters in his “jémi‘”, the first of which was: (chapter on what was stated regarding the dislike of treatment by cauterization), then he mentioned: (chapter on allowing that (treatment by cauterization)13. it indicates clearly that the prophetic narrations regarding cauterization are not of one meaning. as regarding imam abu dawud and imam ibn majah, in their “sunan”14, both included a chapter on cauterization, and they included a number of ahadith in it. as for other collections of the sunnah, they also contain a large number of ahadith regarding this matter, but i will suffice with what was mentioned above in mentioning the care of the authors of the six books in collecting the dispersed ahadith in this section. types of ahadith related to cauterization therapy : the ahadith mentioned in ironing are divided into four sections, in view of their different meanings, and this is explained as follows : first: ahadith (narrations) indicating the permissibility of cauterization and that it is permissible, including : 1. jabir reported that hazrat muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) sent a physician to ubayyë bin. ka‘b. he cut the vein and then cauterised it15. 2. jabir reported that sa'd bin. mu'adh received a wound of the arrow in his vein16. hazrat muhammad rasulallah (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) cauterised it with a rod and it was swollen, to the hazrat muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) did it for the second time17. 122 political loyalty and the ethical … second: narrations indicating the prohibition of cauterization : 1. uqbah bin amir reported that hazrat muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) forbade cauterization….)18. 2. imran ibn husayn reported: the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) forbade to cauterize; we cauterized but they (cauterization) did not benefit us, nor proved useful for us. abu dawud said: he used to hear the salutation of the angels: when he cauterized, it stopped. when he abandoned, it returned to him.19 . third: ahadith indicating the permissibility of treatment by cauterization, except that they contain evidence that cauterization is disliked: 1. narrated ibn `abbas: the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) )said), "healing is in three things: a gulp of honey, cupping, and branding with fire (cauterizing)." but i forbid my followers to use (cauterization) branding with fire20 2. narrated jabir bin `abdullah: i heard the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) saying, "if there is any good in your medicines, then it is in a gulp of honey, a cupping operation, or branding (cauterization), but i do not like to be (cauterized) branded21. 3. it was narrated on the authority of sayyiduna ibn mas‘ud (ra) that once some people came to the service of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and said, "one of our companions has some disease. can we cure him by applying a scar?" the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) remained silent without giving any answer. they asked him again. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) remained silent again and after some time said: " cauterize it and apply it by heating a stone'' 22. fourth: narrations indicating praise for those who abandon treatment with cautery, and that it is contrary to trust : 1. it is reported on the authority of 'imran bin husain that the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) )said: seventy thousand people of my ummah would be admitted into paradise without rendering any account. they (the companions) said: who would be of those (fortunate persons)? he ) (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: those who do not cauterise and practise charm, but repose trust in their lord, 'ukkasha then stood up and said: supplicate (before) allah that he should make me one among them. he (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: thou hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 123 art one among them he (the narrator) said: a man stood up and said: apostle of allah, supplicate (before) allah that he should make me one among them. he the prophet said: 'ukkasha has preceded you' (in this matter)23. 2. aqqar bin al-mughirah bin shu'bah narrated from his father who said that the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said" :whoever seeks treatment by cauterization, or with ruqyah, then he has absolved himself of at-tawakkul (reliance upon allah)24. the difference between these ahadith (narrations) is clear that it is stated in few of them that the treatment is permissible by cauterization, but rather the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), commanded it, in another narrations that cauterization is a cure, then we find some ahadith that prohibit it?, rather, it came in some ahadith that it deprives a person of some virtues, and it contradicts the highest level of trust . the answer is that the ahadith permitting treatment by cauterization and that there is healing in it, and the ahadith forbidding it on the basis of hatred, are authentic and proven ahadith from the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). it was reported by the authors of well-known hadith books, and the apparent meaning of these ahadith includes that the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), told that cauterization is an effective and healing treatment, but he forbade his nation from cauterization. scholars directed these ahadith, and mentioned what repels objection and disagreement about them, and their answers can be summarized as follows : first: in directing the prohibition mentioned in the ahadith, and this is due to reasons including : 1. the prohibition contained therein came to block the pretext, as the arabs were newly infidels, and they believed in treatment by cauterization in wrong beliefs. they believe that it prevents fate, but when that prevailed in their belief, the prohibition came from the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) for this reason25 and what is forbidden in our religion as a pretext may be permitted for a valid benefit26, especially since the harm caused by ironing is not greater than its benefit.imam abu jaafar al-tahawi says: so the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), permitted them to treat themselves, and to cauterize what they used to treat 124 political loyalty and the ethical … themselves, and the companions of the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) were cauterized after him27 so it became clear that cauterization is permissible when necessary, when afflicted with chronic diseases, in which only cauterization can benefit, and there is fear of death when it is left . 2. that the prohibition is because they used to venerate his matter and say: “the last medicine is cauterization” and they see that it resolves the disease and heals it, and if he does not do that, his owner is damaged and perishes, then he forbade them from that if it was in this way, and permitted them to use it on the meaning of relying on allah almighty and seeking healing and begging for innocence with what allah almighty, the mighty and sublime, creates of what he made in it, and brings about healing in its effect, so that cauterization and medicine will be a cause, not a cause28.ibn raslan mentioned that the arabs used to see that the cure for what cannot be cured by medicine is cauterization, and they believed that whoever does not cauterize will perish, so he (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) forbade them because of this intention. allah almighty is the healer29. 3. in the hadith of imran bin husayn about the seventy thousand who will enter paradise without reckoning: “they do not seek ruqyah, they are not cauterised, and they are not used for falsification.” he mentioned these three in particular, because the heart becomes more attached and turned to the one who performs the ritual, or to ironing, cauterizing, or to falsification, as this detracts from perfection. the place of trust, so it was incomplete to complete the reward on the day of resurrection.ibn hibban said: (the reprimand against cauterization in the report of imran bin hussain is only to begin with it without a reason that necessitates it, as the arabs used to do it to want tattoos, and the news of jabir in which it is permissible to use it for a reason that occurs without relying on it to cure it, against the saying of those who claim that the news the chosen one, may allah almighty bless him and grant him peace(.30this meaning is supported by a weak hadith, which was narrated by al-harith bin muhammad bin abi usama, as in “baghiyat al-harith” on the authority of al-abbas bin abdulazim. abdul-warith told us, on the authority of ishaq bin suwayd, on the authority of al-alaa bin ziyad: (a woman came to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). she said: o messenger of allah , my son has been afflicted with what you see. shall i not iron him? so he said: do not iron your son. so she agreed that she should not iron him. then a camel struck him and knocked him down, or flattened him, so his stomach burst and it was healed. so she returned to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam). she hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 125 said: may my father and mother be sacrificed for you, o messenger of allah. i asked you for permission to iron my son, but you forbade me. then a camel passed by him, and he knocked him down, so his stomach burst and he was healed. he said: if i you would have claimed that it was the fire that healed him31. 4. what it entails of severe pain and great danger to a person. therefore, the arabs say in their proverbs: 'the last resort of medicine is cauterization,' which should not be resorted to in general circumstances, but rather when no better solution remains32.al-mazari commented on the ahadith regarding cauterization: 'and his saying, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), "i do not like to be cauterized" indicates that this treatment should be delayed until it becomes necessary and there is no other means of healing except through it. this is due to the fact that it involves hastening severe pain to alleviate pain that may be weaker than the pain of cauterization33. 5. his (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) prohibition of cauterization, implies that if a person performs it as a precaution against disease before the necessity arises and adversity befalls, then that is disliked. treatment and healing are only permitted when the need arises and necessity calls for it34. imam abu qutaiba stated that cauterization has two types: the first is the cauterization of the healthy, which is performed to prevent illness, a practice observed among many non-arab nations. they cauterize their children and young men without any actual ailment, believing that this process preserves their health and wards off diseases. similarly, the arabs practiced this during the pre-islamic era, applying a comparable method to their camels when they suffered from conditions like "naqbah" (mange) or "ur" (sores on their faces and mouths). they would take a healthy camel and cauterize it to cure it of these ailments. this practice was prohibited by the messenger of allah, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam).the second type involves cauterizing a wound when it becomes infected or continues to bleed, as well as cauterizing a severed limb. this is the cauterization that the prophet, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), mentioned as having healing properties.35 ". 6. cauterization is disliked because it involves the torment of fire, exposing the one being cauterized to the touch of fire, which is a form of torture. there is a prohibition against tormenting with fire; ahmad and abu dawood reported from hamzah al-aslami that the messenger of allah, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), appointed him to a military expedition. he said: 'i set out with them, and he said, "if you find so-and-so, burn him with fire." i turned to leave, but he called me back and said, "if you find so126 political loyalty and the ethical … and-so, kill him and do not burn him, for only the lord of the fire punishes with fire36 " 7. it is possible that he, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), prohibited it because it is only used for a specific ailment, while they would learn and use it generally.37 these are some of the explanations mentioned by the scholars regarding the reasons for the prohibition of cauterization, and all of them are plausible and similar . second: regarding the aspects that permit treatment through cauterization : 1. the explicit legal text states that there is healing in cauterization38; thus, it is considered one of the prophetic medicinal treatment . 2. this method of treatment was used by the prophet, (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam), to cauterize some of his companions39 so if the intention behind the prohibition was to abandon it entirely, the prophet, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), would not have practiced it on his companions. the claim of its specificity is countered by the authentic narration from anas, may allah be pleased with him, that he was cauterized for a side ailment while the prophet, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), was still alive40. this indicates that it is also an approving narration . 3. cauterization is one of the beneficial treatments that are effective by the permission of allah. cauterization does not contradict reliance on allah as long as a person believes that allah is the healer and that cauterization is merely a means of treatment ". 4. cauterization is permissible in cases of necessity and is allowable when its use becomes essential . 5. the prophet, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), would choose the most complete and best options; thus, he refrained from cauterization for himself, mentioning that he did not like it and highlighting the merit of those who do not cauterize. all of this indicates that while cauterization is permissible, it is not preferable summary and preference: • preventive cauterization, undertaken before illness or injury, risks conflicting with tawakkul and should therefore be avoided. • therapeutic cauterization after the onset of disease does not contradict reliance upon allah; while ordinarily disliked due to the use of fire, its dislike is lifted in cases of necessity. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 127 • the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) himself employed cauterization in specific circumstances and recognized it as a valid means of healing. • classical authorities, such as ibn ʿabd al-barr, affirmed its permissibility when genuine need is established, though abstention remains superior for the one whose certainty (yaqīn) can sustain it. reconciliation framework: • scholars explained that these narrations are not contradictory but complementary. • the discouragement of cautery was to prevent it from being taken as the first option, while its permissibility remains when no other treatment works. • in practice, this means ordinary remedies should be tried first, and cautery may be used only as a last resort. • this balanced approach preserves reliance on allah while allowing medical benefit when needed. conclusion : this study has clarified the prophetic guidance on cauterization and the way classical scholars reconciled its diverse narrations. while the ahadith may at first appear contradictory, the explanations of scholars show that they in fact present a consistent framework. the narrations can be understood together as follows: abstention is commended as an expression of tawakkul, cauterization is generally discouraged due to its painful and fiery nature, yet its permissibility remains affirmed when medical necessity requires it. in such cases, it does not contradict reliance upon allah, particularly when no other effective treatment is available. the practice of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) himself in employing cauterization under certain circumstances confirms its status as a valid, though secondary, form of healing within islam. at the same time, this research underscores a broader scholarly responsibility. the study of ahadith that appear contradictory remains essential for accurate understanding across all areas of islamic law, including prophetic medicine. these narrations should be highlighted to demonstrate their timeless relevance and suitability for diverse contexts. moreover, universities and specialized institutions are encouraged to publish and circulate reliable hadith commentaries, so that the sunnah may be preserved and applied with clarity. 128 political loyalty and the ethical … thus, the prophetic guidance on cauterization is not only spiritually elevating but also practically relevant, directing believers to uphold trust in allah while responsibly turning to treatment when genuine need arises. notes and references 1 al-hakim, abu abdullah al hakim al naisaburi, “al-mustadrak ala sahihaeen”, dar al-taseel research center, first edition, 1435 ah 2014 ad, (1/171, no. 318), abu abdullah al-marwazi in “al-sunnah”, verified by salem ahmad al-salafi, published by the cultural books foundation beirut, first edition 1408, (p. 31, no.: 68), al-bayhaqi, abu bakr ahmed bin hussain, “dala’il al-nubuwwah”, investigation: dr. abdel muti qalaji, ed. dar alkutub al-ilmiyyah, dar al-rayyan heritage, first, 1408 ah (5/449) . al-hakim said: al-bukhari cited the ahadith of ikrimah as evidence, and muslim cited abu uwais as evidence, and all of his narrators are agreed upon. al-mundhiri said in “al-targheeb wa al-tarheeb” (1/61): its origin is in alsahih. its method was found by ibn al-mulqin in “al-badr al-munir” (6/693), verified by a group of researchers, ed. dar al-hijrah in riyadh, the first, 1425 ah, and its chain of transmission was authenticated by ibn al-qayyim in “tahdhib alsunan” published by the salafi library, medina, second edition, 1388 ah, (7/279), and authenticated by abu bakr ibn al-arabi in “ahkam al-qur’an” verified by muhammad abdel qader atta, dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah beirut, ed. the third, in the year 1424 ah 2003 ad, (4/250) . 2 cauterization: burning the skin with an iron or the like to remove the sweat. see: dedicated to abu al-hasan ali bin ismail bin sayyida al-mursi, edited by khalil ibrahim jaffal, published by the arab heritage revival house beirut, first, 1417 ah 1996 ad. (1/492). 3 it should be not that it is not a prophetic hadith, it has no basis in the books of sunnah, and a group of scholars have pointed out this. see: al-asrar almarfu’a by mulla ali al-qari (p. 75), infact it is one of the famous arab proverbs. see: adab al-katib by ibn qutaybah (p. 413), al-sihah by al jawhari (6/2477), and fath al-bari by ibn hajar (10/138). 4 al-zahrawi, abu al-qasim khalaf ibn al-‘abbas. 1983. al-tasrif liman ‘ajaza ‘an al-ta’lif. manuscript published in nami press lucknow india 1900, ibn sīnā (avicenna), al-qānūn fī al-ṭibb (the canon of medicine), book iii, chapter 29 (beirut: dār ṣādir, n.d.), https://www.albayan.ae/our-homes/2008-08-121.664905 5 al-saif, sulṭān ibn saʿd ibn ʿabd allāh. “aḥādīth al-kay: riwayah wa dirāyah” (“the ahadith of cauterization: narrations and understanding”). majallat al-dirāsāt al-ʿarabiyyah, vol. 37, no. 1 (2018): 365–418. 6 muḥammad ḥanīf shiwānī, mbbs, ms (ed.), frcsi, frcs eng., frcs glasg. “cautery: a modality of treatment, islamic views and contemporary practice.” abstract of poster, bima national conference, 6 dec. 2020. vol. 6, no. 2. www.jbima.com . hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 129 7 al-mutlaq, munīrah bint ḥumūd. “cauterization: a fiqhī study.” majallat albuḥūth al-islāmiyyah, no. 120 (rabīʿ al-ākhir 1441 ah): article no. 87. general secretariat of the council of senior scholars. 8 al-azdi, abu bakr muhammad bin al-hasan bin duraid, jamharat al-lughah, edited by: ramzi munir baalbaki, ed. dar al-ilm lil-millain in beirut, the first 1987 ad (1/168), and al farabi, abu nasr ismail bin hammad al-jawhari, alsahhah, edited by: ahmed abdel ghafour attar, ed. dar al-ilm lil al-millain, beirut, al-raba’a, 1987 (6/2578 ( ,ibn raslan, shihab al-din abu al-abbas ahmad bin hussein bin ali bin raslan, sharh sunan abi dawud, published by dar al-falah, 2016, (15/565). 9 al kharrabi abu suleiman hamad bin muhammad bin ibrahim bin al-basti, maalim al-sunan, published by the scientific press aleppo, for the first year 1351 ah 1932 ad (4/218). 10 ibn qaf, amin al-dawla ibn ya’qub ibn qaf, al-umdah fi al-jarrah, publisher unknown, chapter ten on kidneys (p. 313). 11 al-umdah fi al-jarrah (p. 313), and al zahrawi, al-tasrif for those who are unable to compose by abu al-qasim khalaf bin abbas, edited by dr. abdullah al-saeed, published by the ministry of culture in amman, jordan, 2001 ad. (pp. 171-180). 12 al-bukhari, abu abdullah muhammad bin ismail bin ibrahim, sahih albukhari, illustrated edition of the royal prince, ed. dar touq al-najat, published by zuhair al-nasser, first edition (book of medicine, 7/126, no. 5704). 13al-tirmidhi, abu issa muhammad bin issa bin sura al-tirmidhi, jami’ altirmidhiو edited by: shuaib al-arnaut and those with him, ed. dar al-resala international, beirut, first edition 1432 ah 2011 ad. (chapters on medicine, 3/457, no. 2049). 14 abu daud, abi dawud suleiman bin al-ash’ath bin ishaq al-sijistani, sunan abi dawud, edited by shuaib al-arnaut and those with him, ed. dar al-resala international, beirut, first, 1430 ah. (book of medicine, 6/14, no. 3864), ibn majah, abu abdullah muhammad bin yazid bin majah al-qazwini, sunan ibn majah, edited by shuaib al-arnaut and those with him, ed. dar al-resala international, beirut, first, 1430 ah (book of medicine, 4/531, no. 3489). 15 muslim, by abi al-hussein muslim bin al-hajjaj bin muslim al-nisaburi, sahee muslim, investigation by muhammad fouad abdel-baqi, p. arab heritage revival house beirut (book of peace, 4/1730, no. 2207). 16 it is the vein of life, it is in the hand, and it was said: in every member of it there is a division, it is said in the thigh: the women, and in the back: the aorta. see: al-ain (3/62), mashariq al-anwar (1/665), and ikmal al-moallem (7/121). 17 sahih muslim (4/1730, no. 2208). 18 it was included by imam ahmad in “al-musnad” (28/638, no.: 17426). but this chain of narration is weak because of a narrator ibn lahi’ah. although there is difference among the sholars of hadith about his status in hadith, but the sound opinion is that he is weak, valid for consideration, and cannot be used as evidence alone. the narrations of his ancient companions from him are better and more just, but they do not rise to the level of evidence as stated by ibn ma’in. abu hatim, abu zar’ah, ibn abd al-barr, al-dhahabi, and others. 130 political loyalty and the ethical … ibn ma'in said: (ibn lahi'ah is weak in all of his hadith, not in some of it). maraifat ul rejal by yahya bin mu’in ibn mahrez (p. 99), and imam ahmad said: (the hadith of ibn lahi’ah is no proof, and i write much of what i write in order to take it into consideration, and some of it strengthens others). aljami’ li-akhlaq al-rawi by al-khatib (2/193), and abu zar’ah said: (his matter is confused, his hadith should be written based on consideration). aljarh wal-ta’deel (5/145-147), and ibn abi hatim said: (i said to my father: if someone who narrates on the authority of ibn lahi’ah is like ibn al-mubarak, and ibn wahb can use him as evidence? he said: no). al-jarh wal-ta'deel (5/147), and al-dhahabi said: (scholars practice is on weakening his hadith). al-kashif (1/590, no. 2934), and al-hafiz said: (the fairness in his matter is that: when he adheres to it, his hadith is good, and when he disagrees, his hadith is weak, and when he is alone, it is stopped) nataij ul afkar (2/34). 19 narrated by abu dawud in “al-sunan” (book of medicine, chapter on alkiyya, 6/15, no. 3865) via musa bin ismail. hammad narrated to us, on the authority of thabit, on the authority of mutarrif, on the authority of imran bin husayn, raìi allah ‘anhu. this chain of narration is authentic. sheikh muqbil bin hadi al-wada’i said: (this is an authentic hadith according to muslim’s conditions). the authentic chain of narration is not in the two sahihs (2/96). and his saying: (they did not succeed, nor did they prosper) with the women’s needles, and what is meant are the machines that he used, may allah almighty be pleased with him, in ironing, and this is indicated by what was stated in the narration of ibn saad in “al-tabaqat” (5/193) via mutarrif on the authority of imran, he said: (we cauterised, but they did not succeed or do not benefitied, meaning the cauterization tools). 20 sahih al-bukhari (book of medicine, chapter on healing in three, 7/123, no. 5681), and sahih muslim (book of peace, 4/1729, no. 2205). 21 sahih al-bukhari (book of medicine, chapter on medicine with honey, 7/123, no. 5683), and sahih muslim (book of peace, 4/1729, no. 2205). 22 imam ahmad in “al-musnad” (6/261, no.: 3701), and al-nasa’i in “alkubra” (kitab al-tibb, al-kiyya, 9/391, no.: 7756) via shu’bah, on the authority of abu ishaq al-subaie, on the authority of abu al-ahwas (awf bin malik bin nadlah) al-jashmi, on the authority of abdullah bin masoud. this hadith chain is correct. 23 sahih al-bukhari (the book of medicine, chapter: whoever is burned or burned by someone else, and the virtue of the one who is not burned, 7/126, no. 5705), and sahih muslim (the book of faith, 1/198, no. 218). 24 it was included by imam ahmad in “al-musnad” (4/387, no.: 1408), and altirmidhi in “al-jami’” (the chapters on medicine, chapter on what has been contradictory to ruqyah, 3/574, no.: 2055), and ibn majah in “al-sunan” (chapters medicine, chapter on key, 4/531, no. 3489). abu issa said: (this is a good and authentic hadith.) 25 explanation of the sunnah of al-baghawi (12/146) investigated by shuaib al-arna’ut zuhair al-shawish, published by al-maktab al-islami, althaniya, 1403 ah, and ardah al-ahwadi explaining sahih al-tirmidhi (1/272) published by dar al-kutub al-ilmiya, beirut. 26 the great fatwas of sheikh al-islam ibn taymiyyah (1/287) published by dar al-kutub al-ilmiya, al-oula 1408 ah. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 131 27 explanation of ma’ani al-athar by al-tahawi (4/323), published by dar alam al-kutub, first edition, 1414 ah. 28 ma’alim al-sunan by al-khattabi (4/218). 29 ibn raslan’s commentary on sunan abi dawud (15/564). 30 sahih ibn hibban (8/445). 31 al-busairi said: (this is a mursal chain). ibn hajar al-asqalani. ithaf alkhirah al-mahra fi zawa'id al-masaneed al-asharah. edited by a group of scholars. 10 vols. beirut: dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, 1995. (4/444). mursal: the term "mursal" literally means "sent" or "released." in the context of hadith, it describes a narration that is missing a key link in its chain of transmission. 32 al khatabi. abu sulayman al-husayn ibn muhammad al-khatabi, aalam al hadith, (3/2105), edited by dr. muhammad bin saad bin abdul rahman al saud, published by umm al-qura university, first edition, 1409 ah 1988 ad. 33 al mazari, abu abdullah muhammad ibn ali ibn umar al-tamimi, al mulim edited by muhammad al-shadhili al-nifer, published by the tunisian publishing house, second edition, 1988, 1991. (3/169). 34 al-baghawi, abu muhammad al-husayn ibn mas'ud al-baghawi, sharh alsunnah (12/146), and 'ardat al-ahwdhi with the explanation of sahih altirmidhi (1/272) 35 ibn qutaybah, abu muhammad abdallah ibn muslim ibn qutaybah aldinawari, tawil mukhtalif al-hadith.. published by the islamic office alishraq foundation, second edition, 1419 ah. )600-605). 36 ibn hibban. abu hatim muhammad ibn hibban al-busti, sahih ibn hibban. edited by shu'ayb al-arna'out. beirut: al-risalah foundation, second edition, 1414 ah vol. 8, 445 37 ibn al arabi, ardat al-ahwadhi bi sharh sahih al-tirmidhi. vol. 1, 272. 38 ahmad ibn hanbal. musnad ahmad.. edited by a group of researchers. beirut: al-risalah foundation, second edition, 1420 . vol. 25, 421, no. 16034 39 imam muslim narrated in his sahih (2208) from jabir, may allah be pleased with him, who said: 'sa'd ibn mu'adh was struck in his akhal (the vein in the middle of the forearm). the prophet, (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), cauterized it with his hand using a mishqās (a type of arrow with a long tip), and then it became inflamed, so he cauterized it a second time.' (to 'cauterize' means to stop the bleeding from a wound by burning it; a mishqās is an arrow with a long point; akhal refers to a vein in the middle of the forearm that is often bled.) see: jami' al-usul by ibn al-athir (7/547) 40 al-bukhari. sahih al-bukhari. book of medicine, chapter on al-dhat aljunb, 7:128, no. 5719. c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlvii july-september 2024 no.3 contents * editorial * parents in the holy qur’ān: a study of the concept of shukr, ihsén and birr al-wālidayn — khadiga musa latef * lgbt a global issue: social impact preventive solution from quranic perspective (study of quranic chapter al-a‘réf [7]: 80-81) — ahmad farhan — dr. rahman — prof. dr. ilyas * critical factors affecting the success of sharê‘ah governance: insights from islamic financial institutions — omer faruk tekdogan — ali can yenice — huseyin burgazoglu * combating islamophobia after the al-aqsa flood — dr. maya khater — dr. mohamad albakjaji — dr. jinane el baroudy * the historical bedrock of holy qur’én’s manuscript in malaysia: a study on its style of calligraphy and illumination — achmad yafik mursyid — aizan binti ali@ mat zin, phd the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 29 47 71 93 9 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 99 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur'ón: historical contexts and contemporary scientific perspectives somayyeh karami-mohajeri medicine and religion research center, kerman university of medical sciences, kerman, iran. email: somayyehkarami@gmail.com motahareh soltani pistachio safety research center, rafsanjan university of medical sciences, rafsanjan, iran. email: motahareh.soltani@gmail.com zohreh oghabian medicine and religion research center, kerman university of medical sciences, kerman, iran. mohammad khaksari hadad medicine and religion research center, kerman university of medical sciences, kerman, iran. received on: 30-06-24 accepted on: 30-03-25 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.1124 abstract the holy qur'én, revealed approximately 1400 years ago, encompasses teachings that extend beyond spiritual guidance to include insights into natural phenomena. this study investigates the holy qur'én's perspectives on metallurgy, specifically focusing on iron extraction and steel production as described in surah al-kahf. through a descriptive-analytical qualitative approach and thematic analysis of verses 96 and 97, which detail the construction of a barrier using iron and molten copper, this research explores the metallurgical processes implied in the text. surah al-kahf was chosen for its explicit references to iron and its applications, particularly in the narrative of dhul-qarnayn, offering a unique lens for examining ancient metallurgical knowledge. by comparing these quranic descriptions with modern scientific understanding of iron smelting, alloying, and purification, the study reveals a remarkable alignment between the two. the findings suggest that the holy qur'én references advanced metallurgical techniques, mailto:somayyehkarami@gmail.com mailto:motahareh.soltani@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.1124 100 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én... such as the use of fluxes and alloying agents, which parallel contemporary practices in iron and steel production. this research not only highlights the holy qur'én's scientific dimensions but also contributes to the broader discourse on the intersection of religious texts and scientific knowledge, demonstrating the potential for interdisciplinary dialogue between theology and materials science. keywords: holy qur'én, surah al-kahf, metallurgy, iron, metalling introduction the holy qur'én revealed over 1400 years ago, contains numerous references to scientific phenomena that have intrigued researchers for centuries.1 while primarily a source of spiritual guidance, it also alludes to natural phenomena and scientific concepts that have been subjects of extensive study and interpretation2. among the various scientific fields hinted at in the holy qur'én, metallurgy— specifically the mention of iron—holds a distinctive position.3 iron is referenced six times the holy qur'én, underscoring its historical and scientific significance.4 surah al-hadid (57:25) states that iron was "sent down" from the heavens, aligning with modern scientific understanding that iron formed in stellar cores and reached earth via meteorites.5 this study centers on surah al-kahf, verses 96 and 97, which narrate the story of dhul-qarnayn, who constructed a barrier using iron and copper to protect a community from gog and magog.6 these verses describe a process of filling the gap between two mountains with iron blocks, heating them until they glow red, and then pouring molten copper over them.7 this depiction presents a fascinating metallurgical process that warrants examination from a contemporary scientific perspective.8 the objective of this research is to analyze these verses and explore potential evidence of iron extraction, alloying, or other metallurgical techniques in light of modern scientific knowledge.9 by dissecting the described process, we aim to understand its implications for metalworking methods and determine whether it reflects advanced knowledge for its time.10 the holy qur'én’s scientific references have been widely explored in existing literature, covering fields such as astronomy, biology, and physics.11 however, in-depth analyses of its metallurgical allusions, particularly in the context of surah al-kahf, remain scarce.12 moqaddasi et al. have proposed that the barrier comprises a metal matrix composite of iron and copper, exhibiting properties fully comprehensible only through modern metallurgical insights.13 despite such contributions, a gap persists in understanding the specific techniques and processes mentioned in these verses from hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 101 a contemporary scientific standpoint. this research seeks to bridge that gap by examining the verses through the lens of modern metallurgy, focusing on the use of iron and copper in the described method. the metallurgical process outlined in surah al-kahf is intriguing for its detailed sequence: stacking iron blocks, heating them to a red-hot state, and pouring molten copper atop them. in modern metallurgy, such a technique could suggest the creation of a bimetallic structure or composite, where iron provides strength and copper enhances corrosion resistance.14 historically, ironworking was known in the 7th century, particularly in regions like the arabian peninsula, but the specific combination of iron and molten copper described here is unusual for that era.15 this raises questions about whether the process hints at advanced metallurgical knowledge predating its widespread recognition. to address this, our study interprets the quranic description and compares it with current metallurgical practices. iron’s significance in the holy qur'én extends beyond surah al-kahf. surah al-hadid (57:25) not only mentions iron’s celestial origin but also highlights its utility and strength, qualities critical to human civilization.16 modern science confirms that iron, formed through stellar nucleo-synthesis, was delivered to earth via meteoritic impacts, a concept that resonates with the quranic term انزلنا"anzalna" (sent down).17 this intersection of divine text and scientific fact invites further exploration of other metallurgical references, such as the barrier in surah al-kahf.18 the process described—heating iron to a glowing state and coating it with copper—may imply a rudimentary form of cladding or alloying, techniques refined in later metallurgical advancements.19 such an interpretation could position the quranic narrative as a precursor to sophisticated metalworking practices.20 the scarcity of detailed metallurgical analysis in quranic scholarship motivates this study. while general works, such as bucaille’s exploration of science in the holy qur'én, touch on natural phenomena, they rarely delve into metallurgy.21 moqaddasi et al. stand out by suggesting the barrier as a composite structure, yet their analysis lacks a comprehensive comparison with modern techniques.22 this research builds on their foundation, offering a detailed examination of the process and its scientific plausibility. the study aims to provide a detailed interpretation of the metallurgical process described in surah al-kahf, verses 96 and 97, and analyze its relevance in light of contemporary metallurgical knowledge. by examining the quranic description of stacking iron blocks, heating them until red-hot, and pouring molten copper atop 102 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én... them, this research explores the potential scientific basis behind these methods. in modern metallurgy, such a technique suggests the creation of a bimetallic composite, where iron offers structural strength and copper enhances corrosion resistance. the specific combination of these materials in the quranic narrative raises intriguing questions about whether this reflects an advanced understanding of metal properties, predating its widespread recognition in history. by bridging the gap between scriptural analysis and material science, this study not only contributes to quranic exegesis but also fosters a broader interdisciplinary dialogue on the intersection of religious texts and scientific advancements. background, history, and review of literature numerous books, papers, and scientific interpretations have been written on this topic throughout the millennium. the holy qur'én mentions several scientific breakthroughs that have only been made possible by advancements in technology, which is one of the features of the science of miracles found in the holy qur'én.23 the science of the twentieth century has been the only means of discovering many of the scientific facts that are mentioned in the quranic verses in a very succinct, profound, and amazing way.24 these scientific facts, which are based on the most recent scientific discoveries, could not have been known 1400 years ago when the holy qur'én was revealed.25 the holy qur’én is a guidebook that points people in the direction of allah almighty, using a variety of methods of reasoning, wise counsel, polite debate, and scientific evidence that supports its teachings.26 below, we have presented research related to verses 96 and 97 of surah al-kahf, which is the subject of our research, along with scientific research in various fields that examines various themes of the holy qur'én and their relationship with modern scientific understanding. 1. surah al-kahf surah al kahf has 110 ayahs and is the 18th surah in the holy qur’én. it was revealed somewhere between the 8th and 10th year of prophethood before the hijrah/migration to madinah, at a time when the persecution of muslims and islam was at a peak. the arabic word "kahf" ( کہف) means "the cave," and this surah emphasizes that allah protects those who remain righteous and follow the correct path. four narratives summarized in surah alkahf offer valuable wisdom and guidance for contemporary readers. each story, including the accounts of the companions of the cave, the man with two gardens, prophet musa’s encounter with khidr, and the parables of dhul-qarnayn, imparts profound lessons on faith, perseverance, and the intricate dynamics of power and justice. surah al-kahf serves as a timeless reservoir of moral and spiritual insights, hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 103 encouraging believers to reflect on the deeper meanings embedded within these narratives. the narratives of surah al-kahf in the holy qur'én have significantly influenced the religious and socio-political landscape of north-west nigeria.27 2. dhu al-qarnayn, the builder of the iron dam against gog and magog the holy qur’én refers to dhu al-qarnayn, often known as "the two-horned one," particularly in surah al-kahf (chapters 18:83–98) was a believer has ruled over the entire world.28 dhu alqarnayn is often regarded as a powerful and virtuous monarch known for his extensive travels and interactions with various ethnic groups and cultures. scholars have debated the identity of dhu al-qarnayn; some propose that he may represent a historical figure, such as cyrus the great or alexander the great, while others interpret him as a mythical character symbolizing ideals of leadership and justice.29 according to the holy qur'én, dhu al-qarnayn undertook three significant campaigns: first to the west, then to the east, and finally to a region with a mountain pass. during his expeditions, he encountered and addressed the needs of various populations. his most significant achievement was constructing a wall to protect a community from the invasions of the notorious tribes, gog and magog, known for their destructiveness.30 the holy qur’én mentions gog and magog, often referred to as yaʾjūj wa-maʾjūj (یاجوج و ماجوج) in arabic, as two tribes that posed a serious threat to humanity.31 in the documents of quranic commentators, gog and magog are mentioned with the mongols, who are sometimes called turks or tatars, or two peoples in the old testament with the names "gog and magog". gog and magog are portrayed as destructive, chaotic forces that wreak destruction.32 apocalyptic elements in the bible and the holy qur’én, among other religious writings, are linked to their emergence.33 the hebrew word "gog" translates to "mountain." while many people believe that "gog" refers to a title assigned to a leader, some interpretations suggest it denotes a nation. according to the first-century historian josephus, "magog" is a hebrew term used during ezekiel's time to refer to the scythians, a group with a vast territory that extended as far as china. in ezekiel 38:15, it is stated that "magog" is located "in the far north."34 according to the ancient world maps, gog and magog appear in the far northeastern part of asia, west of the caspian sea surrounded by mountains and blocked at its south end by a wall, until the eighteenth century.35 in islamic mythology, gog and magog stand for the greatest difficulties and tribulations that humanity will encounter; they 104 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én... frequently symbolize despotism and moral decline.36 gog and magog stand for chaos and devastation, while dhu al-qarnayn represents the principles of justice and leadership.37 3. dam made of iron and molten copper using iron and molten copper, dhu al-qarnayn constructed an impressive barrier that is said to be impenetrable, demonstrating sophisticated technical abilities that some academics connect to prehistoric metallurgical understanding.38 the holy qur’én says that dhu al-qarnayn built a wall to keep gog and magog in control so they couldn't destroy the earth.39 this wall is considered to be a stopgap solution because islamic eschatology indicates that they would ultimately break free during the end times, causing a great deal of upheaval. the story of the dhu al-qarnayn, which resonates strongly with the islamic worldview, highlights themes of protection, moral duty, and the ultimate victory of good over evil.40 dhu al-qarnayn constructed a massive dam using iron blocks, effectively filling the valley. depending on the interpretation, the wall may have reached a height of approximately 1,800 meters. however, it is more plausible that he built the dam to a significant height between the towering valley walls, rather than the 1,800 meters suggested by some translations.41 iron has been the main construction material of the dhu al-qarnayn dam.42 he requested pieces of iron, which he heated and then coated with molten copper to create a solid barrier. this method leveled the space between two mountain rocks, resulting in a remarkable and impregnable structure. this indicates that the dam is situated in an area abundant in iron mines.43 it was said that this barrier was so strong that gog and magog could not climb or break through it.44 this feature demonstrates the efficacy of the construction methods of dhu alqarnayn, which included fusing copper and iron to strengthen the dam.45 protection from chaos and corruption, symbolized by gog and magog, is symbolized by the dam. dhu al-qarnayn's unwillingness to take payment in kind for constructing the dam highlights his altruism and dedication to the populace's well-being, providing an example of a leader who prioritizes service above self-interest.46 the close connection of dhu al-qarnayn with allah almighty is demonstrated by his acknowledgment that divine backing was vital to the success of his activities.47 he recognizes that the dam's building is a favour from his lord and that it will ultimately be taken down when the time comes, symbolizing the transient nature of earthly walls that avert catastrophe. the strategically significant location of the dam is between two mountains. the location was presumably picked to optimize its efficacy against the dangers posed by gog and magog, who were wreaking havoc on the country with their rampant corruption.48 strong construction, impenetrability, symbolic defense hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 105 against disorder, dependence on divine assistance, and tactical geographic placement are the defining features of the dhu alqarnayn iron dam and show how dhu al-qarnayn acted as a leader and defender during difficult times.49 4. iron extraction and processing from ancient to modern times over millennia, iron extraction and processing have changed dramatically in response to advances in knowledge and technology.50 before 3000 bc, iron was first used in meteorites, which produced naturally occurring iron-nickel alloys.51 meteoric iron was used as early as 3500 bc, as evidenced by artifacts such as beads from egypt. bowl furnaces and stone-built shaft furnaces were used to recover iron from ores in areas like anatolia and persia circa 2000 bc.52 the early methods of smelting iron resulted in a spongy mass known as a bloom because the furnaces could not achieve the temperatures required to completely melt iron.26 between 1200 and 500 bc, a period known as the iron age occurred when iron largely replaced bronze in tools and weaponry. during this time, iron production methods experienced tremendous breakthroughs, most notably the creation of wrought iron, which was made by heating and hammering blooms to remove impurities. southern india started exporting wootz steel, a premium steel with a carbon concentration in between that of wrought iron and pig iron, around the fourth century bc. the fact that this steel was so highly valued and traded demonstrated the progress made in the area of metallurgy.53 the manufacturing of iron was further advanced in the medieval and early modern eras by several important innovations.54 for example, the introduction of water-powered hammers in the 1100s increased the efficiency of forging iron bars, and the development of blast furnaces in 1709 allowed for the production of cast iron at higher temperatures.55 ultimately, the industrial revolution was sparked by abraham darby's successful substitution of coke for charcoal in the smelting of iron, which substantially reduced costs and increased production efficiency.56 the manufacture of iron and steel underwent radical modifications during the industrial revolution and the contemporary age.57 the bessemer converter, created in 1856 by henry bessemer, revolutionized the production of steel and replaced wrought iron by forcing air through molten pig iron to eliminate impurities and produce mild steel. william siemens created the regenerative open-hearth furnace in 1861, which made it possible to produce steel in a more regulated manner. subsequent development of the fundamental oxygen process increased both quality and efficiency.58 by the 1950s, new techniques such as direct reduction and smelting reduction had been developed, allowing for the manufacture of iron at lower temperatures and with alternative reducing agents, such as coal and natural gas, eliminating 106 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én... the need for blast furnaces. from the utilization of meteoric iron to the development of advanced contemporary steelmaking techniques, the history of iron extraction is characterized by continuous innovation. each phase was built upon previous discoveries, leading to the modern, highly productive, and diverse iron and steel industry.59 about 1400 years ago, the holy qur'én in surah al-kahf briefly mentions a modern technique for iron extraction and suggests a contemporary method to prevent mechanical and chemical corrosion of the wall constructed by dhu al-qarnayn, mentioned in verses 96 and 97 of surah al-kahf. with inspiration from this verse, althahban et al.60 applied ancient techniques within a modern context and demonstrated that only composites created by preheating the steel rods to temperatures below the recrystallization temperature of steel (723°c) achieved optimal bonding between the copper matrix and the steel rod. the results of the microhardness test indicated that heating the steel rod to 600°c yielded the highest overall hardness value. by utilizing the step-by-step production method referenced in the holy qur'én, the researchers enhanced the mechanical and tribological properties of the iron alloys. methodology this study is descriptive-analytical qualitative research on thematical findings of verses 96 and 97 of surah al-kahf in the holy qur'én according to modern findings about the extraction of iron, alloying, and steelmaking of iron. thematic analysis of words in this verse was performed according to several authoritative sources, including the dehkhoda dictionary61, the amid dictionary62, almufradat fi gharib al-qur'én by ragheb isfahani63, quranic verses from the translation by mufti taqi usmani64 and qamus al-qur'én written by seyyed ali akbar qurashi.65 this study employs a qualitative thematic analysis to explore the metallurgical insights in surah al-kahf (verses 96-97) and their connection to modern scientific principles. to ensure a comprehensive approach, we conducted an in-depth review of classical linguistic sources, including authoritative dictionaries and quranic exegeses, to analyze key terms within their historical and semantic contexts. additionally, scientific literature on metallurgy was examined to align the quranic descriptions with modern processes such as smelting, heating, and alloying. a comparative analysis was performed to map these ancient descriptions to contemporary steelmaking techniques, while ensuring that anachronistic interpretations were avoided. to enhance scientific credibility, quantitative data related to iron properties and alloy formation was incorporated. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 107 results and discussion 1. extraction of iron, alloying, and steelmaking of iron in light of quranic verses verses 96 and 97 of surah al-kahf in the holy qur’én state the story of dhul al-qarnayn and the construction of a vast barrier made of iron and copper alloy (brass) against gog and magog. this depiction highlights the utilization of iron in ancient construction practices, shedding light on the remarkable advancements in metallurgy during that era, as if it were inscribed. below we have explained these two verses. إِذَا َحتَّٰى انفُُخوا ۖ قَاَل دَفَْيِن الصَّ بَْيَن َساَوٰى إِذَا َحتَّٰى اْلَحِدیِد ۖ ُزبََر آتُونِي نَاًرا قَاَل آتُونِي أُْفِرْغ َعلَْيِه قِْطًرا فََما اْسَطاُعوا أَن یَْظَهُروهُ ﴾ ٩٦﴿َجعَلَهُ ﴾٩٧﴿َوَما اْستََطاُعوا لَهُ نَْقبًا translation66: bring me big pieces of iron.. (they proceeded accordingly) until when he leveled up (the gap) between the two cliffs, he said, .blow.. (they complied) until when he made it (like) fire, he said, .bring me molten copper, and i will pour it upon this (96) so they (ya‘juj and ma‘juj) were not able to climb it, nor were they able to make a hole in it. (97) the term " ُزَبرَ " refers to pieces, and " ِاْلَحِدید" means iron. it can be implied that " اْلَحِدیدِ ُزَبرَ " denotes the crushed pieces of iron ore (such as hematite and magnetite), which are the initial material required for iron purification. here, even the prominence of crushing iron ore at the beginning of the iron purification process is emphasized by the term " ُزَبرَ " iron ore is found in nature as the minerals magnetite (fe2o4), hematite (fe2o3), goethite (feo (oh)), limonite (feo (oh).n(h2o)), and siderite (feco3).67 among these minerals, hematite, and magnetite are more important due to the higher percentage of iron. utilizing crushed iron ore to increase the surface area enhances the efficiency of chemical reactions, thereby improving the refining processes of iron.68 also, smaller ore fragments reduce smelting time and improve energy efficiency and production capacity.69 using smaller pieces of iron ore improves the separation of particles to remove impurities through magnetic separation and flotation.70 in addition, due to the reduced volume, it facilitates easier transportation, ultimately improving overall efficiency and reducing production costs.71 middle and straight path " ى َساٰو ", might refer to a precise location in the middle of two mountains, which could be a flat and smooth area, perhaps situated between two mountain peaks. 108 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én... similarly, " ِدَفَْين the edge and foothills of a mountain, refers to the ,"الصَّ surroundings of the mountains and the area adjacent to them. therefore, these two words together can convey the spatial concept of being between two mountains. today, the routine method for extraction of iron is iron smelting in a huge industrial fireplace called a blast furnace (figure 1). figure 1. a) a diagram of the blast furnace in the iron-making industry. b) ancient furnaces made of stone and clay.72 we can imagine that the furnace itself is a kind of space between two mountains, where these two mountains may represent the two sidewalls or lateral sections of the furnace. this furnace is likely constructed at a very tall height, which this height could be understood as a sort of flat surface between two mountains. in ancient times, iron smelting furnaces were usually constructed using stones and soil.73 therefore, we can assume that iron ore pieces and other raw materials are placed between the two mountains (or two sidewalls) of the furnace, which could be described as being between two mountains " دَفَْينَساٰو ى َبْيَن الصَّ ". therefore, the concept of the iron smelting furnace as a location between two mountains, filled with raw materials such as iron ore pieces, and constructed using stones and soil, could be logical considering the meanings of the words used in the verse. according to the root of the word " ِدَفَْين which is derived "الصَّ from the word "صدف", we can refer to the hard shell of all mollusk animals, including bivalves and gastropods that have an external cover74. these animals have one or two hard calcareous shells made of calcium carbonate and chitin that cover their soft bodies. according to the primary components of the shells of all mollusks, the term " ِدَفَْين may refer to the use of lime or calcium carbonate "الصَّ in steel production processes. lime is one of the raw materials used in the steel production process.75 lime serves as a source of calcium to purify molten iron and eliminate pollutants. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 109 consequently, the term " ِدَفَْين ,may refer to the role of minerals "الصَّ such as lime, in the steel production process. this implies that the mountains, which resemble iron smelting furnaces, contain limestone and calcium carbonate. calcium carbonate, with the chemical formula caco3, is a non-organic compound commonly found as limestone and plays a pivotal role in steelmaking processes. it serves as a cleansing and temperature-regulating agent in steel furnaces. firstly, as a cleansing agent, calcium carbonate decomposes at high temperatures in blast furnaces or electric furnaces, turning it into calcium oxide. this calcium oxide reacts with silicates and other impurities in the iron melt, forming slag that separates impurities like silicon, phosphorus, and sulfur from the raw iron, thereby enhancing steel quality. secondly, calcium carbonate, by regulating furnace temperature and slag chemistry, optimizes the steelmaking process and improves the final steel quality.76 if we consider " یساٰو " to mean equalizing two mountain slopes, it implies filling the area between two mountains with iron ore so that it becomes abundant with iron ore from the base of the mountains to near their peaks. this suggests the filling of the iron smelting furnace with iron ore, as this action is crucial for optimal performance in the iron smelting process. when refining iron, filling the furnace with iron ore up to the edge of the furnace is essential for optimal operation. this practice ensures efficient heat transfer throughout the entire charge and promotes the uniform reduction of iron ore to metallic iron. additionally, maintaining a full furnace helps stabilize the thermal conditions inside the furnace, preventing temperature fluctuations that could disrupt the reduction process.77 the term "انفُُخوا" is in the verse, meaning to blow warm air or oxygen, which indicates the process of oxygenation with hot air of 1200 degrees celsius in a blast furnace as a key stage in the iron refining process to transform iron ore from solid to liquid state.78 oxygen plays a vital role in the iron refining, particularly in methods such as oxygen steelmaking or electric arc furnace steelmaking. oxygen combines with the fuel (usually coal or wood) and accelerates the combustion reaction, thereby increasing the temperature of the furnace. oxygen also interacts with impurities present in the molten iron, facilitating the production of high-purity steel. the bessemer process, one of the earliest steel production techniques, involves blowing oxygen through molten iron. through these reactions, oxygen helps remove unwanted elements like carbon, silicon, phosphorus, and sulfur, transforming them into gases such as carbon dioxide and silicon and phosphorus oxides, which are either eliminated from the melt or separated as slag.79 historically, iron 110 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én... refining took place in furnaces with manual bellows, which supplied air to the furnace. these bellows, operated by hand or foot, provided additional oxygen to the combustion environment.80 this increased oxygen supply enhances the combustion process, generating sufficient heat for iron melting. consequently, iron separates from its ore, forming molten metal that can be cast into various shapes once cooled.81 this process is not only vital for the production of pure iron but has also enabled significant advancements in engineering and technology throughout history.82 the ability to produce iron and steel with the required mechanical properties has been fundamental to the development of civilizations and progress in construction, tools, and even military industries.83 according to the meaning of " نَاًرا" (it means fiery), the phrase " َجعَلَهُ نَاًرا: he had made it (red) as fire" can refer to the smelting process using fire until the red melted iron ore appears. this process as a critical technique in extractive metallurgy is employed for extracting various metals, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals from ores. metals are melted in a container known as a crucible, which is selected based on the melting temperature of each metal. with the application of high heat and the addition of chemicalreducing agents, the ore is decomposed, and other elements are separated as gas or slag, leaving the base metal behind. thus, the use of the word " نَاًرا: fiery " might refer to the smelting temperature of iron which is (1200 degrees celsius), at which the iron ore transitions from solid to liquid state. this stage is crucial for separating iron from its impurities. to make a fire, a fuel such as wood is needed to generate high heat for the melting of iron ore. today, coke is used for iron refining and steelmaking processes and acts as a carbon source to react with oxygen in iron oxides and produce pure molten iron. without coke, the iron refining and steelmaking process would not be efficient and of adequate quality. in ancient times, the process of steel production was typically carried out using carbon-based furnaces or bloomeries. in bloomeries, iron ore and charcoal as a carbon source were placed in a furnace to provide the necessary carbon for reacting with iron oxides. the resulting steel was typically utilized in the form of ingots as final products. although this process was simple and rudimentary, over time, with technological advancements, more complex and superior methods for steel production were developed.84 the term " ْأُْفِرغ" in arabic grammar is an imperative verb meaning "pour," while " َِعلَْيه" means "on it," and "قِْطًرا" refers to molten copper or molten metal. " أُْفِرْغ َعلَْيِه قِْطًرا" (pour molten copper onto it) may imply adding other metals to produce alloys with desired properties. as mentioned, " قِْطًرا" refers to molten copper or zinc. however, molten zinc is mostly used in metal coating processes to hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 111 prevent corrosion of iron and steel. galvanization is one of the most recognized examples of using molten zinc, where steel or iron components are immersed to create a protective layer. this protective layer prevents oxygen and moisture from reaching the metal surface corrosion. coating steel with zinc and copper are two common methods in various industries, each with its characteristics and applications. zinc coating, due to its high resistance to corrosion and rust, is suitable for parts exposed to specific environmental conditions such as marine environments or chemical industries. in addition to environmental resistance, this coating also has good electrical conductivity properties and is used for electrical components. on the other hand, copper coating steel, considering the anti-corrosion and electrical conductivity properties of copper, is used to prevent corrosion and increase electrical conductivity in metal components. additionally, as a decorative coating, copper coating on steel is used inside buildings to enhance the beauty and strength of components. the choice between these two types of coatings depends on the specific requirements and conditions of use.85 when iron rusts and oxidizes, its surface deteriorates, leading to a reduction in its volume. this process, known as rusting or corrosion, can eventually result in the formation of holes and the degradation of the metal. to prevent surface corrosion, metal coating or making alloys with some metals is useful. here, molten iron or molten copper was used for coating iron. ductility refers to the property of a material that allows it to undergo stretching or changing its shape, without fracturing, and to retain the altered shape once the external forces are removed. consequently, it represents the ability of materials, such as copper, to be permanently deformed without breaking.86 by the ductility properties of copper, the iron-copper alloy has more toughness than iron and copper alone. since copper is more resistant to the ‘thermal heat affected zone’ than iron, the dam is also thermally impermeable.87 copper, as a semi-stable metal, does not react with water. however, it does undergo a slow reaction with atmospheric oxygen, forming a protective layer of brown-black copper oxide. this layer shields the underlying metal from further corrosion, in contrast to the rust that develops on iron in moist air.88 using copper in the structure of dhu al-qarnayn’s dam makes it thermodynamically and kinetically durable in a corrosive environment. in verse 97 of surah al-kahf, the term " ً can be interpreted, based on the (hole) "نَْقبا explanations above, as referring to iron rusting and corrosion. therefore, verse 97 can be related to the discussion of producing stainless alloys and creating strong steel, which formed a solid barrier that no one could penetrate or destroy. 112 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én... in essence, these two verses vividly portray the intricate process of iron refinement through strong imagery and explicit commands, indicating not only technical knowledge but also the need for great skill and precision. this reflects a profound understanding of the technological processes used for metal production and processing at that time. the purification and utilization of iron in ancient times signify a high level of knowledge and expertise in metallurgical technologies. this verse not only touches upon the historical and mythological aspects of the story of dhu al-qarnayn but also echoes the technical knowledge regarding the extraction, refinement, and application of metals in engineering structures, which remains significant to this day. this fundamental principle was mentioned in the holy qur’én over 1400 years ago. conclusion this study has explored the quranic perspectives on iron extraction, alloying, and steelmaking through a detailed thematic analysis of verses 96 and 97 of surah al-kahf. the research demonstrates that these verses, describing dhu al-qarnayn’s construction of an iron barrier, contain terminology that strikingly parallels modern metallurgical processes. specifically, the phrase اْلَحِدیدِ " aligns with the initial step of (crushed iron ore) "ُزبََر crushing ore to enhance smelting efficiency, while " بَْيَن َساٰو ى دَفَْينِ suggests a furnace-like (filling between two mountains) "الصَّ structure. the command " اْنفُُخوا" (blow air) corresponds to oxygenation in blast furnaces, " نَاًرا reflects (made it fiery) "َجعَلَهُ the high-temperature smelting process, and " قِْطًرا ْيِه َعلَ pour) "أُْفِرْغ molten metal) indicates alloying or coating to improve durability, such as with copper to prevent corrosion. these linguistic interpretations, grounded in authoritative sources like the dehkhoda and amid dictionaries, reveal a sophisticated understanding of metallurgy embedded within the holy qur'én, revealed over 1400 years ago. the significance of these findings lies in their demonstration of the holy qur'én’s advanced scientific foresight, bridging ancient textual descriptions with contemporary materials science. by elucidating the metallurgical knowledge within these verses, this study not only enhances our appreciation of the holy qur'én’s scientific dimensions but also underscores its timeless relevance as a source of inspiration for technological inquiry. however, the interpretations rely heavily on linguistic and thematic analysis, which may vary among scholars due to differing exegetical approaches. additionally, the historical metallurgical capabilities at the time of revelation remain underexplored, hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 113 presenting a potential limitation that warrants further investigation. looking forward, future research could extend this analysis to other scientific phenomena in the holy qur'én, such as the properties of different metals or natural processes, or investigate the metallurgical practices prevalent in the arabian peninsula and surrounding regions during the 7th century to contextualize these findings historically. such studies could further solidify the correlation between quranic descriptions and scientific principles. ultimately, this work contributes to both religious and scientific discourse by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue between theology and materials science. it offers a unique perspective on the natural world, affirming the holy qur'én’s capacity to harmonize ancient wisdom with modern knowledge and encouraging a deeper exploration of its multifaceted teachings. declarations 1. acknowledgment the authors wish to thank medicine and religion research center, kerman university of medical sciences for providing a platform for this study. 2. funding this work was supported by the medicine and religion research center, kerman university of medical sciences (project no: 402000997). 3. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. notes and references 1 ali moghaddasi, "why the dhul-qarnayn's dam is impenetrable? a chemical and physical study," journal of interdisciplinary quranic studies 1 (2022): 71-82; motahareh soltani et al., "olive improves eyesight: a study of the quranic evidence and literature," international journal of early childhood 14 (2022): 4158-4163. 2 maurice bucaille and alastair d. pannell, the bible, the qur'an, and science: the holy scriptures examined in the light of modern knowledge (2003); motahareh soltani et al., "the holy qur'an's five plants resemble five sensory receptors in the microscopic appearance: an analysis," hamdard islamicus, pakistan, 46:1 (2023). 3 moore kl, the developing human: clinically oriented embryology (1988): 279280. 4 melanie guénon, "ʿabd al-majīd al-zindānī's iʿjāz ʿilmī approach: embryonic development in q. 23: 12–14 as a scientific miracle," journal of quranic studies 21 (2019): 32-56. 114 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én... 5 edward lipiński, the aramaeans: their ancient history, culture, religion (peeters publishers, 2000). 6 al-tabari, the history of al-tabarī (state university of new york press, 1985). 7 muḥammad ibn aḥmad qurṭubī, tafsīr al-qurṭubī: the general judgments of the qur'an and classification of what it contains of the sunnah and āyahs of discrimination (diwan press, 2018). 8 ismail ibn kathir, tafsîr ibn kathîr (dar-us-salam, 2000). 9 s mousa et al., "mechanical and bond behavior of an advanced quranic metalmatrix composite material (qmmc)," international manufacturing science and engineering conference, 2019, american society of mechanical engineers. 10 ibid. 11 mohammad m. haque and ahmad faris ismail, "engineering materials and manufacturing processes from quranic perspective," advanced materials research 83 (2010): 834-841. 12 s mousa, et al. mechanical and bond behavior… op.cit 13 ali moghaddasi, "why the dhul-qarnayn's dam… op.cit., 71-82. 14 ibid. 15 ibid. 16 attahir shehu mainiyo, "impact of quranic narratives in surah al-kahf on the life of muslims in north-west, nigeria," al-risalah: jurnal studi agama dan pemikiran islam 14 (2023): 299-315. 17 lipiński, the aramaeans, op.cit. 18 ibid. 19 ibid. 20 putri zulaikha, "kajian kitab tafsir marah labid syeikh nawawi al-bantani," at-taklim: jurnal pendidikan multidisiplin 2 (2025): 215-140. 21 bucaille and pannell, the bible, the qur'an,.…op.cit. 22 moghaddasi, "why the dhul-qarnayn's dam… op.cit. 23 ziauddin sardar, explorations in islamic science (mansell, 1989). 24 ibid. 25 abolqasem bagheri, fariborz hosseinjanzadeh, and mohammad shaygan mehr, "the consideration of physics and chemistry sciences in the holy quran," journal of applied environmental and biological sciences 4 (2015): 260-265. 26 ebrahim azarpour, maral moraditochaee, and hamid reza bozorgi, "transliteration quranic plants in verses of the holy quran," advances in environmental biology (2015): 121-131. 27 mainiyo, "impact of quranic narratives …. op.cit. 28 moghaddasi, "why the dhul-qarnayn's dam… op.cit 29 scott d. westrem, "against gog and magog," in text and territory: geographical imagination in the european middle ages (1998): 54-75; abdella yimam ali, "dhul qarnain, abyssinia (ethiopia) and the people of ād."; moghaddasi, “dhulqarnayn's dam,” 71–82. 30 westrem, "against gog and magog…op.cit.; ali, "dhul qarnain…,op.cit. 31 moghaddasi, "why the dhul-qarnayn's dam… op.cit 32 ibid. 33 ibid. 34 adam silverstein, "enclosed beyond alexander's barrier: on the comparative study of ῾ abbāsid culture," journal of the american oriental society 134 (2014): 287-306. 35 andrew gow, "gog and magog on mappaemundi and early printed world maps: orientalizing ethnography in the apocalyptic tradition," journal of early modern history 2 (1998): 61-88. 36 nicholas m. railton, "gog and magog: the history of a symbol," evangelical quarterly: an international review of bible and theology 75 (2003): 23-43. 37 ibid. 38 ali, “dhul qarnain and abyssinia.” …op.cit 39 railton, "gog and magog… op.cit hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 115 40 silverstein, “alexander's barrier,” 287–306; railton, “gog and magog: history of a symbol,” 23–43. 41 aymen labidi, "the holy quran revelation: copper and its astonishing benefits for humankind from a chemical perspective," (2021); moghaddasi, “dhulqarnayn's dam,” 71–82. 42 ibid. 43 labidi, “copper in the quran.”; moghaddasi, “dhul-qarnayn's dam,” 71–82. 44 ibid. 45 moghaddasi, "why the dhul-qarnayn's dam… op.cit. 46 ibid. 47 moghaddasi, "why the dhul-qarnayn's dam… op.cit.; labidi, " copper in the quran …op.cit. 48 labidi, “copper in the quran.”.. 49 ibid. 50 ian mcneil, an encyclopedia of the history of technology (routledge, 2002). 51 amelia carolina sparavigna, "meteoric iron in ancient egyptian and chinese cultures, from pyramids to circumpolar stars," available at ssrn 4113311 (2024). 52 jana siegelová and hidetoshi tsumoto, "metals and metallurgy in hittite anatolia," insights into hittite history and archaeology (2011): 275-300; andrea squitieri, "stone vessels in the near east during the iron age and the persian period: (c. 1200-330 bce)," (2017). 53 jana siegelová and hidetoshi tsumoto, "metals and metallurgy in hittite anatolia," insights into hittite history and archaeology (2011): 275-300; andrea squitieri, "stone vessels in the near east during the iron age and the persian period: (c. 1200-330 bce)," (2017). 54 jeroen de beer and jeroen de beer, "future technologies for energy-efficient iron and steel making," in potential for industrial energy-efficiency improvement in the long term (2000): 93-166. 55 pj mackey, oxygen in non-ferrous metallurgical processes past, present and future (elsevier, 1987). 56 lee t wyatt iii, the industrial revolution (bloomsbury publishing usa, 2008). 57 bs russell, "british steel industry, the," j. world trade l. 2 (1968): 243. 58 basil turner, "siemens' open hearth steel furnace," journal and abstract of proceedings of the sydney university engineering society 5 (2000). 59 thomas battle et al., the direct reduction of iron (elsevier, 2024). 60 sultan althahban et al., "the effect of reinforcement preheating temperatures on tribological behavior of advanced quranic metal-matrix composites (qmmc)," materials 15 (2022): 659. 61 mohammadali m shoja et al., "herbal diuretics in medieval persian and arabic medicine," the journal of alternative and complementary medicine 21 (2015): 309320. 62 hassan amid, amid dictionary (tehran: sika publications, 2010). 63 ragheb isfahani and hussein ibn muhammad, al-mufradat fi gharib al-quran (safwan adnan davoodi, beirut, dar al-alam al-shamiya, 1992). 64 mufti muhammad taqi usmani, the noble quran: meaning with explanatory notes (turath publishing, 2020). 65 sayyid ali akbar qurashi, qamus al qur'an, vol. 5 (islamic library, 2001). 66 mufti muhammad taqi usmani, the noble quran…op.cit., 18:96-97. 67 ahindra ghosh and amit chatterjee, iron making and steelmaking: theory and practice (phi learning pvt. ltd., 2008). 68 david c. yang, reagents in iron ore processing (routledge, 2018). 69 ghosh and chatterjee, iron making and steelmaking. 70 ibid. 71 ibid. 72 haifeng liu et al., "cast iron-smelting furnace materials in imperial china: macro-observation and microscopic study," journal of archaeological science 86 (2017): 50-59. 73 ibid. 116 the role of metallurgy in the holy qur’én... 74 antonio g. checa, "physical and biological determinants of the fabrication of molluscan shell microstructures," frontiers in marine science 5 (2018): 353. 75 ibid. 76 ghosh and chatterjee, iron making and steelmaking. 77 ibid. 78 sicong tian et al., "inherent potential of steelmaking to contribute to decarbonisation targets via industrial carbon capture and storage," nature communications 9 (2018): 4422. 79 ghosh and chatterjee, iron making and steelmaking. 80 algirdas vaclovas valiulis, a history of materials and technologies development (vgtu leidykla „technika", 2014). 81 ibid. 82 ibid. 83 ibid. 84 ibid. 85 ibid. 86 moghaddasi, “dhul-qarnayn's dam,” 71–82. 87 ibid. 88 ji eun lee, hyun dong lee, and gi eun kim, "the effect of corrosion inhibitor on corrosion control of copper pipe and green water problem," environmental engineering research 17 (2012): 17-25. c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlviii july-september 2025 no. 3 contents * editorial * the evolution of urdu sīrah literature in deccan before 1857: an overview — dr. javeed ahmad malik * the concept of educator character: a theolegalistic study based on the qur'én, hadith, and indonesian national education law — dr. nurhasnawati — dr. sawaluddin — abd. haris * political loyalty and the ethical turn in islamic law: the case of the european council for fatwé and research — abdessamad belhaj * muslim and buddhist gratitude practices: a systematic review of psychological benefits for culturally sensitive mental health interventions — muhammad abuzar * clarifying the conflicting ahadith on cauterization as a medical treatment — dr. faraz ul haq — dr. irshad ul hasan abrar * book review — md mursalim the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 9 115 35 61 89 133 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 105 integrating reflection on basmalah recitation as a strategy for forming a peaceful mindset in islamic counselling agus supriyanto guidance and counselling education, semarang state university, indonesia. email: agussupriyanto3@student.unnes.ac.id mungin eddy wibowo guidance and counselling education, semarang state university, indonesia. email: mungin.wibowo@mail.unnes.ac.id mulawarman mulawarman guidance and counselling education, semarang state university, indonesia. email: mulawarman@mail.unnes.ac.id received on: 18-02-24 accepted on: 19-11-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.948 abstract challenges for muslim addiction counsellors as social services in drug rehabilitation. however, the condition of relapse to use is due to discrimination/harmful stigma because individuals lack a peaceful mindset in every life, which impacts self-conflict. muslim addiction counsellors as social servants can integrate basmalah readings as a culture in the islamic counselling service to (بَْسَملَة) form a mindset, heart and calm spirit. this paper aims to create a peaceful mindset, peaceful nature, and quiet spirit from reflections on basmalah reading in individual drug users (clients) in the islamic counselling stages. eleven steps in the integrative literature review method are integrated with documentation studies through relevant books and journals regarding basmalah, peaceful mindset, and islamic counselling. we are integrating general and religious knowledge as a form of data validity through triangulation that combines the theory and practice of islamic addiction counselling—data analysis through reduction, interpretation, and conclusion. paper findings show that muslim addiction counsellors and clients in the therapeutic process practice islamic counselling mailto:agussupriyanto3@student.unnes.ac.id mailto:mungin.wibowo@mail.unnes.ac.id mailto:mulawarman@mail.unnes.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.948 106 integrating reflection on basmalah … from the steps of quwah and niyyah, istishérah, tafakkur, istikhérah, ‘azm, baîêrah, al-tawakkul-‘ala-allah, ‘amal, isti‘énah, muréqabah, and muíésabah to achieve blessings from god in reciting his basmallah as culture islam to foster a peaceful mindset. reciting basmallah brings up the cognitive spiritual function of achieving peaceful thoughts about blessings in life. reflection from reading basmallah in client decision-making in the islamic counselling process will give rise to peaceful thoughts because decisions are taken together with the muslim counsellor as imam to obtain blessings in life. keywords: reading basmalah, peaceful mindset, islamic counselling, counsellor, emotional spirituality introduction countries worldwide have a culture of zero tolerance towards drug abuse1 with the dream of becoming a peaceful, free country without drugs2. however, it turns out that indonesia has problematic drug use among the younger generation, impacting their social vulnerability 3 . not only in indonesia but developing and developed countries also have the same problems regarding drug use. one of the muslim countries that has a drug problem is iran, with the minority community making up 2-7% of the iranian population4. this drug use occurs in minority communities with individual issues from the culture of alcohol consumption and smoking, peer relationships, gender diversity, and the influence of social and family environmental conditions5. the gap is that there are individuals who use drugs who feel peaceful when using drugs, resulting in positive emotions of freedom, self-confidence, and achieving their desires. however, this peace is only a real deception and it turns out to have an impact on loneliness and low self-esteem, shame, social anxiety, and life stress6. users also feel discrimination and marginalisation from the community, which impacts social unrest7 or social stigma. stigma from all elements of the family and society contributes negatively to recovery services for individuals8. this stigma is an element that needs to be changed urgently by counsellors, clients, and communities outside the client, and it may impact the individual’s mind. if left unchecked, negative stigma has further impacts in the form of violence, madness, moral decadence and suicide9. wellformed thoughts have an impact on the realities of life in patterns of taste and behaviour. if a peaceful mindset is formed, it will reduce stress and enable one to manage emotions 10 . one strategy is emotional spirituality, which can reduce users seeking drugs11. drug prevention is a systematic step by the government through the national narcotics agency, which involves the family hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 107 environment and the wider community12. besides drug prevention, drug users have the right to be rehabilitated and assisted by addiction counsellors integrated with spiritual values 13 . not many rehabilitation places use a spiritual approach, but more use a psychological approach. indonesia, as a country with a majority of population that adheres to islam, has an individual drug problem. individuals who are drug users are called minority groups and require special treatment by addiction counsellors. addiction counsellors help personal development through counselling to be confident in living sustainably and fostering healthy living 14 . counselling services by addiction counsellors for drug users are needs-based. one basic need is rebuilding community partnerships by alleviating mental health problems15. addiction counsellors can create a peaceful environment in family, social and peer circles during recovery in the rehabilitation process, which emphasises spiritual aspects 16 . peace is always conditioned by a peace commission, which creates a climate that provides solutions to individual problems17. the peace made during rehabilitation involves addiction counsellors, creating peaceful individuals free from drugs 18 . addiction counsellors have competence in the context of counselling services. one capital from the research results is religious and social capital, which can be applied as an addiction counsellor strategy19. indonesia has one of the science figures, namely kyai haji ahmad dahlan. kyai haji ahmad dahlan teaches counsellors as educators to be able to integrate religious knowledge and general knowledge 20 . the counselling world uses many psychological approaches, but spiritual approaches aren’t widely used—integration of psychological and spiritual approaches as an element of successful counselling for minorities. one of the group spiritual interventions from research results effectively increased happiness among addicted individuals undergoing rehabilitation21. indonesia and malaysia aspire to be peaceful countries with peaceful values in religious teachings22. the values of peace can be interpreted as dialogue, fairness, loving, safety, and innovation23. the majority of indonesia's and malaysia's population adheres to islam. it turns out that users don’t look at religion, one of which is that 85.6% of drug users in indonesia are muslim24. this condition requires counsellors to be able to innovate to help drug abusers recover through the islamic counselling process as professional counsellors. support beliefs about recovery from drug addiction. the addiction counsellor profession can implement counselling services25. counselling as therapy integrates spiritual aspects26 so individuals can prioritise life’s sanctity27. islamic counselling and islamic guidance for individuals to grow mentally 28 . islamic counselling and guidance are cultural, sociological and pedagogical 108 integrating reflection on basmalah … strategies29. the cultural nature of islamic counselling and guidance is because islamic society’s culture is reading the holy book, praying, worshipping, contemplating, being patient, grateful, and listening to it 30 , still, not all people study it more deeply. the counsellor’s role in the counselling process as a client educator is very urgent because learning can be applied in every life. one way, individuals can foster change in themselves is through reflection in reading the al-qur'an—one of the readings integrated into daily life with reflection on bismillah reading as a muslim culture. basmalah reading is one of the readings in the holy book al-qur'én as a muslim culture to overcome drug addiction31. basmalah reading is a mandatory mantra/prayer/recitation before carrying out activities32. basmalah is one of the verses in the holy qur’én. basmalah reading can be realised in counselling by addiction counsellors as a form of appreciating gifts from god and internalising islamic values 33 . the internalisation of bismillah reading in islamic counselling can help form peaceful thoughts in individuals who use drugs and recover from drug abuse. this paper aims to develop steps and strategies for bismillah's reading reflection in islamic counselling services to foster a peaceful mindset. 2. literature review basmalah's reading about indonesian culture and malaysia as a malay nation reflects islamic teachings about strengthening faith and devotion34, and the emergence of inner peace35. in the learning process at school, bismillah reading is the opening36, while in the counselling process, it has the same thing as the opening of the counselling process. however, reading bismillah as a muslim counsellor isn’t only open but reading bismillah is a culture that has means that clients can reflect on. reading bismillah has excellent meaning, which is spoken to the god of the universe or all purposes for god 37 , and brings about peace and self-acceptance 38 . the development of religious culture by counsellors as educators is a process of strengthening spiritual intelligence39. just as the concept of bismillah in theology offers harmony between a specific vision and universal values40. counsellors, as educators, can and always learn from the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) because the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was also an example of a person who taught through the principles of monotheism and had an attitude of love41. as an educator, the counsellor will guide the client hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 109 as an individual and a creature of god. the counsellor's activities in counselling can begin by reading basmalah, which fosters peaceful thoughts. still, the counsellor must first be able to reflect on the meaning of the basmalah reading. the meaning of basmalah reading in the counselling process, if it is reflected by the counsellor and client together, helps the individual determine the solution needed with god's role. the manifestation of god's role in decision-making in counselling as an essential element of the human self belongs to god. the typology of peaceful human thought patterns is to ask god for protection with various readings42, of the qur'an because every human being has the essence of peace, and every human being is a peaceful human being. the nature of the nafs (النفس) in humans is a provision for humans to become peaceful individuals. muslims can become peaceful people by reading verses of the holy qur'én, and muslim counsellors and clients can apply this 43 . bismillah reading is one of the verses in the holy qur'én. reading the holy qur'én fosters spiritual character so that humans can balance intellectual, emotional, and spiritual character with morals through worship in social life44 . counsellors teach clients in counselling services to become peaceful individuals through various readings in the holy qurén, one of which is the bismillah reading. counsellors should implement counselling services to clients to help them form a peaceful mindset and become peaceful through a spiritual counselling approach. one of the spiritual counselling that exists in this world is islamic counselling. islamic counselling can integrate readings as a medium to support the success of counselling, and this paper limits reading as a culture of muslims in the islamic counselling process. islamic counselling can be carried out in individual or group settings so that clients can understand the nature of problems and appropriate solutions from a religious perspective45. islamic counselling integrates reflection from basmalah readings to find solutions for clients and life goals so that a vision of life emerges. islamic counselling in its soul helps clients to show the way to achieve god pleasure46, as the foundation of islam is world peace47. islamic counselling in indonesia is divided into two, namely original islamic counselling interventions and integrative islamic counselling interventions 48 . islamic counselling that integrates reflections from basmallah readings in muslim culture is a type of integrative islamic counselling because the formation of a peaceful mindset is a religious cognitive dimension. the following characteristic is the formation of spiritual competence for counsellors. muslim counsellors with muslim clients have dimensions of the therapeutic alliance, the emergence of a sociopolitical context in counselling, awareness of personal 110 integrating reflection on basmalah … characteristics and competencies that facilitate islamic counselling, and training of muslim counsellors49. in this context, a spiritual therapeutic alliance emerges between counsellor and client. meanwhile, reading bismillah with its meaning and reflection is healing for the client50. 3. methodology researchers used the integrative literature review method to develop steps and strategies for islamic counselling services reflecting on bismillah reading so that new knowledge emerged from the torraco concept51. qualitative research with an integrative method through eleven stages is shown in figure 1. data collection tool with documentation studies through relevant books or journals documents about islamic counselling, the peaceful mindset in reflection on basmallah reading, and integration of theory and practice from general science with deep religious knowledge. islamic counselling strategies and processes. book or journal documents between 2019-2023. data analysis using the concept of miles and hubermen52 through data reduction, data presentation, and concluding/verification in three steps. the data reduction process of selection, needs, determining perspectives and assumptions on topics from islamic counselling for addiction counsellors to develop a peaceful mindset. the method of presenting data from various information from various documents allows conclusions to be drawn from strategic and islamic counselling steps reflecting bismillah reading. finally, the results of the integrative literature review through the results of a synthesis of the findings, the basis for further research into a framework for muslim addiction counsellors, further research exploration, as well as the finalisation of strategies and steps for islamic counselling, reflection on bismillah reading to foster a peaceful mindset. figure 1: integrative literature review stage hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 111 4. result and discussion the findings are described in eleven stages of an integrative literature review into three sub-chapters. the first sub-chapter begins with determining the topic needs, determining the perspective and assumptions of the strategy and systematic steps for cultivating a peaceful mindset for drug users through islamic counselling, and reflecting on bismillah reading by an addiction counsellor. the next step is to present detailed critical and systematic information about islamic counselling strategies and actions for reflection on bismillah reading. finally, a synthesis of new knowledge emerged from the islamic counselling plan and steps for reflection on bismillah reading as recommendations and further research exploration for addiction counsellors, as well as the finalisation of strategy and actions for islamic reflection counselling on bismillah task to foster a peaceful mindset. 4.1. assumptions with reflection on bismillah readings integrated in islamic counselling a peaceful mindset is an integrated part of the individual self. users' thoughts are directly integrated with spiritual well-being53. this topic emerged partly from studies that revealed that spiritual perfection arises from a peaceful mindset54, and spiritual conditions prevent a person from being involved with drugs55 . these three literature studies lay the foundation for the need for muslim addiction counsellors in indonesia to integrate counselling services with religious/islamic values, also called islamic counselling. addiction counsellors as social workers can provide spiritual understanding and cope with recovering from drug use in the counselling process56 because religiosity has an impact on negative attitudes towards drug addiction57. every human being is a religious creature and a good human being, so human religiosity gives rise to reasonable values, even though there is a stigma or other human views that view it as evil. basic assumptions give rise to the user's spiritual experience in the counselling process, one of which is islamic counselling. spiritual experience is a transformative experience and can change the user's basic attitudes in the recovery process from drug abuse disorders58. the essential attitude of humans is good because they were born as good humans from a religious perspective. human nature is also at peace with various circumstances through peaceful thoughts because peaceful thoughts are based on the life that belongs to god. the role of the counsellor is to remind the client of himself as a peaceful person. muslim addiction counsellors formed the peaceful mindset that emerged from spiritual elements through 112 integrating reflection on basmalah … experience during the rehabilitation and counselling process. the role of counsellors in improving individual spirituality reduces negative stigma in the community59. addiction counsellors can also use measuring tools to develop a spiritually peaceful mindset because addiction counsellors bring out the client's quality of life60. the practice of islamic counselling with addictions to develop religious mental health can involve the family and is therapeutic. islamic counselling can be implemented in a family, individual, or group environment or consultations with a spiritual basis in the islamic religion. islamic counselling can be implemented in a family, individual, or group environment or consultations with a spiritual basis in the islamic religion. islam is the basis for addiction counsellors for individuals who are addicted according to islamic law to purify themselves through faith because the essence of humans is to believe in god61. muslim counsellors can direct clients to be able to reflect on the soul so that changes emerge through intentions towards god with various readings in the holy book al-qur'én. the culture reading basmalah is a reading that can develop its readers' hearts, minds and beings, giving rise to commitment, especially for substance users. the shared responsibility for substance users is to stay away from drugs because drugs are íarém and a big sin62. the integration of counselling with islam brings about spiritual, emotional, intellectual and personal body health with morals, worship and social life 63 . the overall concept of thinking and the formation of a peaceful mindset through the islamic counselling process by muslim addiction counselors can be seen in figure 2. figure 2: formation of a peaceful mindset through the islamic counselling process by an addiction counsellor 5. studies related to reflections from basmalah readings reading basmalah in figure 2 means "in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful." the basmalah reading is formed in 3 sentences from hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 113 1) "bismillāhi" ( ِ ,(ِبْسِم ٱَلّلٰ 2) "ar-raḥmāni," ( ِن and ,(ٱلّرْحَمٰ 3) "ar-raḥīmi" ( ِٱلّرِحيم). individuals who recite the words "bismi-llāhi", which means in the name of allah, "ar-raḥmāni," which means the most gracious, and "ar-raḥīmi" which means the most merciful, give rise to peaceful vibrations from the human tongue and heart. the effect is a vibration of peace within humans from the tongue and heart. saying and reading "bismillāhi" "ar-raḥmāni" and "ar-raḥīmi" can also be dhikr for muslims that can be applied to counsellors and clients. apart from reading, reading is in speech/spoken words, but if interpreted, it will give you a vibration of peace from god. alghazali said that reciting basmalah is a way of life for muslims so that humanity always remembers the greatness and favour of allah in a peaceful mind and in the heart to ask for his protection from the responsibilities of life64. ِحيمِ “ ِن الرَّ ْحم َٰ ِ الرَّ ”بِْسِم َللاََّٰ figure 3: basmalah reading muslim addiction counsellors must have integrity and strong character through professional values and ethics by islamic law. muslim addiction counsellors can plan, implement and evaluate islamic counselling involving various parties. islamic counselling can reflect bismillah readings as spiritual values. the values of spiritual counselling by muslim addiction counsellors in the process of implementing the use of the holy book al-qur'én, prayer, worship, contemplation, patience, gratitude, and listening to the sacred verses of the holy qur'én are wrong. one can reflect on the reading. basmalah readings can be formed if the client can selfreflect—some reflections on basmalah readings from various tafésêr with interpretation analysis of the basmalah reading65. 5.1. tafsêr ibn kathêr the companions started reading the book of bullah with basmalah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful), and the scholars agreed that basmalah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) is one of the verses from surah an-naml (اْلنّْمل). the basmalah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) reading is a verse from the beginning of each surah, there are different opinions about how to read it. the syafii school of thought says that the basmalah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) reading is emphasized with the al-fatihah letter and strengthened with other 114 integrating reflection on basmalah … letters. this opinion comes from various scholars, including the friends of the tébi‘ên and muslim imams, both salaf and khalaf. in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful. praise be to allah, the lord of the worlds, the most gracious, the most merciful, who controls the day of retribution according to imam malik. basmalah shouldn't be read at all, either loudly or slowly. according to the history of imam muslim, he doesn't say bismillahirrahmanir rahim (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful), either at the beginning or at the end of their reading. the same thing is also mentioned in the sunan books through abdullah ibn mugaffal r.a. these are the arguments that the imams rely on in this matter, all of which are close together, because in the conclusion they strongly agree that those who increase the reading of the basmalah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) and those who slow it down are valid. 5.2. tafsêr of the ministry of religion of the republic of indonesia started reading the holy qur'én by mentioning the name of allah, the greatest name for the only god worthy of worship, who has all the characteristics of perfection and is purified from all forms of shortcomings, the most merciful, the owner and source of the nature of love who bestows all kinds of gifts, both big and small, to all creatures, most merciful who never ceases to give love and kindness to those who believe. humans starting every job by saying the name of allah (basmalah / in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) will bring blessings, and by remembering allah in every job, a person will have the spiritual strength to do the best and avoid evil. 5.3. tafsêr al-misbah basmalah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) is the opening and essence of the holy verses of the holy qurén which are then detailed in the letters that follow. basmalah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) is called umm al-kitéb (mother of the qur'én) which begins by mentioning the name of allah almighty as the only god who has the right to be worshiped with all the characteristics of perfection and purified from all forms of shortcomings. he is the owner of endless mercy (the quality of love), which bestows all kinds of pleasures, both big and small. the culture reading basmillah means "in the name of allah, the most gracious and merciful," so humans believe in god’s haqêqê nature, which humans always study and guide. reading bismillah hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 115 (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful), if said loudly or slowly by the client, will give rise to grace and favour from god. therefore, any human being will have peaceful thoughts when reading basmalah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful). the culture reading bismillah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) raises spiritual aspects because it connects with god most essential attributes and names so that god grace (al-rahmén) appears in life 66 . the meaning of bismillah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) reading can be concluded as the opening reading in the holy qur'én and the first verse in surah al-fatihah 67 or what is called the mother of the al-qur'an (umm al-kitab). for muslim addiction counsellors, clients can be directed to read and reflect on the meaning of bismillah (in the name of allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) reading in life because it brings blessings68 so that a peaceful mindset is formed because life ultimately belongs to and is for god. 6. steps islamic counselling muslim addiction counsellors apply a conceptual framework by asking for help, problem-solving and change with an islamic worldview to individuals as a medium for da‘wah 69 by starting with bismillah reading as a culture muslim. the islamic counselling process of reflection on bismillah task for substance users applies eleven stages of islamic counselling from the emergence of quwah ( قوه) and niyyah ( ِنّية), istishérah (إِْسِتْشاَرة), tafakkur (الـتـفـكـّر), istikhéra (االستخارة), ‘azm (عزم), baîérah (بصيره), al-tawakkal-allah (هللا علي ,(استعانة ) isti‘énah ,(عمل ) amal‘ ,(التوكل muréqabah ( مراقبة), and muíasabah ( محاسبة النفس) which are divided into in several cycles 70 . counselling communication between muslim addiction counsellors and clients involves god 71 . the following are details of the stages of islamic counselling from rassool (2015)72, which are integrated from various sources. 6.1. awakening (quwah/ قوه) and intention ( نِيَّة) stages in the initial stage ( ِنّية), the counsellor directs the client to a state of qawah (قوه) /awakening as a form of client awareness of seeking professional help. quwwah also means revolution to change73. in the quwah phase, the counsellor will assess the client's readiness to make behavioural and psychological changes: cognitive behavioural therapy and problem alleviation. suppose the client appears ready to change his mindset and treatment. in that case, the counsellor directs the client to intend (niyyah) to change his behaviour sincerely and correctly because god is the driving force for change74. niyyah for changing behaviour begins with bismillah so that will (al-irédah) االراده , purpose (al-qaîd), and determination (al-‘azm) العزم emerge through words and deeds. niyyah describes 116 integrating reflection on basmalah … the driving force in the heart (qalb) قلب with two aspects, externally and internally. niyyah or the intention to improve religious beliefs and increase awareness of change75. 6.2. consultation stage (istihérah) consultation (istiharah/ إِْستَْشاَرة) is a process of gathering information about past patterns of thought that aren’t peaceful and the client's problems that make them not peaceful. muslim addiction counsellors consult with all sources of information (client, family, or other people/community) regarding spiritual and biopsychosocial needs as a form of process for assessing individual anxiety. the counsellor examines mental/psychological factors as cognitive, active and behavioural factors that can be observed as well as therapeutic communication. muslim addiction counsellors make efforts to discover and shape clients' potential for peace. the principle of istikhérah (إِْستَْخاَرة) is a principle of decision-making in solving problems through deliberation76, which starts with bismillah as a culture. figure 4: islamic counselling steps with reflection basmalah reading 6.3. contemplation stage (tafakkur/ الـتـفـكـّر) tafakkur (الـتـفـكـّر) is a broad process of peaceful thinking that requires contemplation and reflection. tafakkur involves the human heart, mind and spirit in review, contemplating, training, and tadabbur تدبر to be practised in life in this world and the afterlife 77. at the tafakkur / contemplation/reflection stage, the client's needs are reflected and planned together with the counsellor in analysing problems and setting realistic, tentative primary and secondary goals hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 117 of a spiritual nature. islamic contemplation/tafakkur goes through a relaxation process from meditation so that cognitive and intellectual abilities emerge based on the commands of god through the alqur'én or reading bismillah . 6.4. guidance stage (istikharah/ االستخارة) after the reflection process, muslim addiction counsellor direct clients to seek guidance from god. again, the principle of decision-making in solving problems is by praying to god. this counselling process goes through the istikhérah process by directing the client to ask god to be able to determine the best choice or decision. praying to god makes the mind peaceful. in this condition, muslim addiction counsellors can share with each other and start by reading bismillah as a form of enjoyment of communicating with god. 6.5. vision, goal and route determination stage (baîêrah/بصيره) after the client is able to determine choices and decisions about problems, the client clarifies goals and actions as a strategy for changing peaceful mindsets. peaceful thinking can create an atmosphere of peace and harmony 78. in this condition, the client imagines the spiritual rewards and peace it will bring to life in this world and the afterlife. clients imagine the benefits of solving problems and the emergence of the ultimate goal of life to think peacefully through worshipping god in order to achieve spiritual peace and prosperity. 6.6. decision or act (‘azm/ عزم) at this stage, part of the counselling process with the counsellor facilitates the client in deciding to act (‘azm/ عزم), which begins with bismillah or mentioning the name of god. this stage is a period when the client is ready to change so that his mindset is peaceful in facing challenges. clients experiment with minor changes by combining the client's intention and determination to commit to action. spiritual actions give rise to happiness and peace79. 6.7. seeking trust from allah (tawakkul) after making a decision or solution to solve the problem, the client is assured of absolute trust in god (tawakkul) which begins by reciting basmalah. tawakkul is an essential part of islamic beliefs as a form of trust or dependence on god which brings about peace and blessings clients who apply tawakkul are committed to god 118 integrating reflection on basmalah … emotionally and consciously 80 . clients who use tawakkul are devoted to god emotionally and intentionally 81. clients will place their trust in god who influences their views on life in this world and the afterlife according to the interpretation and reflection of the basmalah reading. 6.8. action (‘amal/ ل عم ) during the action stage (‘amal/ عمل), clients begin to take action to achieve the vision and goals of change and improvement with the involvement of intention and planning 82. in this condition, the achievement of small goals must be appreciated or strengthened. strengthening and supporting muslim addiction counsellors and families is essential and helps maintain positive steps towards change. changes must be made independently so that they put their trust in god, which can always be started with bismillah . 6.9. seek allah's help (isti‘énah/ استعانة) the next stage is seeking help (isti‘énah/ استعانة) as a process of seeking help from god in the process of solving problems 83 because god is the primary source of support through reading basmalah. clients always seek help from god to seek help in solving problems that aspire to a peaceful mindset, because peace comes from the heart and the owner of the heart is god. 6.10. self-monitoring cycle (muréqabah/ مراقبة) muréqabah ( مراقبة) is a self-monitoring process to be able to realise changes in behaviour. monitoring is carried out independently in the counselling process both as an intervention strategy and as an assessment to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. assessment is carried out through self-observation (from reflecting and assessing behaviour) and self-recording (assessment/scale) through the emergence of changes in behaviour, thoughts and feelings. god will also monitor clients regarding thoughts or behaviour. with the muréqabah ( مراقبة) process, clients can manage primary psychological aspects and increase selfactualization 84 . muréqabah ( مراقبة) as a form of self-monitoring turns out to be related to emotional regulation85. 6.11. self-evaluation (muíésabah/ النفس محاسبة) muíésabah/ النفس محاسبة (evaluation) is the final process to assess the usefulness of counselling so that coping skills emerge and changes in peaceful thought patterns and behaviour are realized. changes in peaceful thought patterns and peaceful conduct during the counselling period to evaluate the counselling process and results according to the client's ongoing psychosocial and spiritual hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 119 development. muíésabah (النفس محاسبة) indirectly facilitates comprehensive development to self-regulation86. the essence individual drug users who undergo a rehabilitation/recovery program actually have the potential to think peacefully. muslim addiction counsellors facilitate achieving the highest potential in the islamic counselling process87. suppose this condition gives rise to the individual being able to integrate body, mind and heart for god. this means that the individual's mindset about life will be actualized according to the purposes of god, thereby enabling integrated cognitive behavioural therapy and spiritual recovery. spiritual treatment with islamic values creates a commitment to change 88 and builds self-awareness 89 . muslim addiction counsellors and clients have joint responsibilities in therapeutic relationships and counselling processes90. however, it turns out that islamic counselling by muslim addiction counsellors is limited to muslim clients. 7. the realization of impact islamic counselling by an addiction counsellor muslim addiction counsellors are able to apply general knowledge and religious knowledge as a strategy for developing a peaceful mindset through counselling 91 . muslim addiction counsellors, as imams, can apply group and individual counselling92. islamic counselling services in group and personal settings have a therapeutic relationship between the counsellor and group members/clients. eleven stages of islamic counselling from quwah istikhara ,(الـتـفـكـّر) istisharah, tafakkur ,(ِنّية ) and niyyah (قوه ) التوكل علي ) al-tawakkal-allah ,(بصيره ) baîêrah ,(عزم) azm‘ ,(االستخارة ) and ,(مراقبة ) muréqabah ,(استعانة) isti‘énah ,(عمل) amal‘ ,(هللا muíésabah ( النفس are practiced in group and individual (محاسبة settings. as basically peaceful human beings, clients need therapeutic assistance from muslim addiction counsellors with spiritual values. reading bismillah is a strategy for counsellors because the entire series of reading bismillah aims to get blessings from god93. clients who are able to reflect on bismillah readings in islamic counselling actually form a mindset as cognitive behavioural therapy. the realization reflection on reading bismillah in islamic counselling by counsellors will reveal the meaning of peace in the life of the mind, heart and spirit clients. individuals who think peacefully will directly try to think critically and develop new thoughts. other research results support spiritual intervention as a helpful method for increasing self-esteem and happiness among addicted individuals94. as a follow-up to these findings, the meaning of life emerged in islamic group and individual counselling sessions. 120 integrating reflection on basmalah … researchers must design modules/guides/experimental tests to develop peaceful thinking for each drug user client as a human being and a peaceful individual in an islamic counselling culture. 8. conclusion muslim addiction counselors as social servants in drug rehabilitation in indonesia face challenges. the big challenge is to help individuals develop a peaceful mindset to recover and not fall back into drug addiction. islamic counselling services as a relevant strategy for individual drug users/clients to find peace of mind, heart and spirit. muslim addiction counsellors can carry out islamic counselling services with eleven stages from the emergence of quwah istikhérah ,(الـتـفـكـّر) tafakkur ,(إِْستَْشاَرة) istishérah ,(ِنّية ) and niyyah (قوه ) التوكل ) al-tawakkal-‘ala allah ,(بصيره) baîêrah ,(عزم) azm‘ ,(االستخارة) and ,(مراقبة ) muréqabah ,(استعانة) isti‘énah ,(عمل) amal‘ ,(علي هللا muíésabah (النفس each stage of islamic counselling can be .(محاسبة integrated with reflection on bismillah reading. the culture to reading bismillah in islamic counselling at the beginning of every activity, process, decision making and conclusion of activities because brings blessings so that a peaceful mindset is formed because life ultimately belongs to and is for god. furthermore, from the islamic counselling strategies and steps practised by muslim addiction counsellors, models can be developed or experimented with on a limited or extensive basis to establish a peaceful mindset. to further develop these findings, training modules and client trials were prepared for clients. however, these further findings can be used by muslim counsellors in schools, muslim health counsellors in hospitals, and muslim counsellors with disabilities and inclusion.c notes and references 1 erika magdalena chandra, “victimless crime in indonesia: should we punished them?” padjadjaran jurnal ilmu hukum (journal of law) 6, no. 2 (2019): 216– 32, https://doi.org/10.22304/pjih.v6n2.a1. 2 cecep mustafa, margaret malloch, and niall hamilton smith, “judicial perspectives on the sentencing of minor drug offenders in indonesia: discretionary practice and compassionate approaches,” crime, law and social change 74, no. 3 (october 2020): 297–313, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-020-09896-0. 3 sudirman nasir, doreen rosenthal, and timothy moore, “the social context of controlled drug use amongst young people in a slum area in makassar, indonesia,” international journal of drug policy 22, no. 6 (2011): 463–70, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2011.10.006. 4 maziyar ghiabi, "drugs politics: managing disorder in the islamic republic of iran" (cambridge university press, 2019), https://doi.org/10.21428/cb6ab371.aeaf3a99. https://doi.org/10.22304/pjih.v6n2.a1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-020-09896-0 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2011.10.006 https://doi.org/10.21428/cb6ab371.aeaf3a99 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 121 5 nurul huriah astuti et al., “illicit drug use pattern, health-risk behaviors, and social contexts among indonesian students,” journal of drug issues 52, no. 1 (january 2022): 67–82, https://doi.org/10.1177/00220426211045018. 6 ditte andersen and malene lue kessing, “stigma, problem drug use, and welfare state encounters: changing contours of stigmatization in the era of social investment,” addiction research & theory 27, no. 4 (july 4, 2019): 277–84, https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2018.1508568. 7 emma krueger et al., “successful substance use disorder recovery in transitional housing: perspectives from african american women.,” experimental and clinical psychopharmacology, 2022, https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-33833-001. 8 brandon muncan et al., “‘they look at us like junkies’: influences of drug use stigma on the healthcare engagement of people who inject drugs in new york city,” harm reduction journal 17, no. 1 (december 2020): 53, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-020-00399-8. 9 yahaya sulaiman et al., “islamic assessment of thuggery among muslims youth in nasarawa state between 2003-2019,” international journal of humanities and social sciences, 2022, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4235839. 10 monirsadat nematollahi et al., “self‐care status in children with congenital heart disease: a mixed‐method study,” journal of child and adolescent psychiatric nursing 33, no. 2 (may 2020): 77–84, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcap.12265. 11 cintami farmawati, “sufistic therapy with spiritual emotional freedom technique (seft) method for healing the behavior of drugs addict,” jurnal theologia 30, no. 1 (2019): 107–26, https://doi.org/10.21580/teo.2019.30.1.3393. 12 lisa analisa, kamarusdiana kamarusdiana, and nurul adhha, “implementation of rehabilitation for narcotics addicts in positive legal perspective and islamic law,” in al-risalah: forum kajian hukum dan sosial kemasyarakatan, vol. 22, 2022, 92– 124, https://doi.org/10.30631/alrisalah.v22i1.1122. 13 gila amitay, donya hawa-kamel, and natti ronel, “sufi non-doing offender rehabilitation: positive and peacemaking criminology in practice,” international journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology 65, no. 8 (june 2021): 916–36, https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624x21990782. 14 ira nurmala et al., “peer‐to‐peer education to prevent drug use: a qualitative analysis of the perspectives of student peer educators from surabaya, indonesia,” ed. jenni judd, health promotion journal of australia 32, no. s2 (october 2021): 206–11, https://doi.org/10.1002/hpja.400. 15 rafaela rigoni, sara woods, and joost j. breeksema, “from opiates to methamphetamine: building new harm reduction responses in jakarta, indonesia,” harm reduction journal 16, no. 1 (december 2019): 67, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-019-0341-3. 16 mde dewi sariyani et al., “self-esteem formation among people who are in rehabilitation for drug abuse in bangli mental health hospital, bali, indonesia,” intisari sains medis 10, no. 3 (2019), https://www.isainsmedis.id/index.php/ism/article/view/424. 17 úrsula oswald spring, úrsula oswald spring: pioneer on gender, peace, development, environment, food and water: with a foreword by birgit dechmann, vol. 17, pioneers in arts, humanities, science, engineering, practice (cham: springer international publishing, 2019), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-947129. 18 moses u. ikoh et al., “factors affecting entry into drug abuse among youths in lafia metropolis: implications on security,” sage open 9, no. 1 (january 2019): 215824401882342, https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018823428. 19 nirzalin nirzalin and yogi febriandi, “teungku dayah agency and religious social capital on drug eradication in aceh, indonesia,” jurnal ilmu sosial dan ilmu politik 23, no. 3 (2020): 210–22, https://doi.org/10.22146/jsp.51061. 20 purwadi purwadi et al., “the attributes of peace educators from sang pencerah, the biography of kh ahmad dahlan: a hermeneutic study,” hts teologiese studies/theological studies 78, no. 4 (2022), https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v78i4.7714. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220426211045018 https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2018.1508568 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-33833-001 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-020-00399-8 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcap.12265 https://doi.org/10.21580/teo.2019.30.1.3393 https://doi.org/10.30631/alrisalah.v22i1.1122 https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624x21990782 https://doi.org/10.1002/hpja.400 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-019-0341-3 https://www.isainsmedis.id/index.php/ism/article/view/424 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94712-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94712-9 https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018823428 https://doi.org/10.22146/jsp.51061 https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v78i4.7714 122 integrating reflection on basmalah … 21 amir jalali et al., “the effectiveness of group spiritual intervention on selfesteem and happiness among men undergoing methadone maintenance treatment,” current drug research reviews formerly: current drug abuse reviews 11, no. 1 (2019): 67–72, https://doi.org/10.2174/1874473711666180510164420. 22 muhammad azhar, “islam and globalization peace,” international journal of applied sociology 9, no. 1 (2019): 26–30. 23 kresbinol labobar and i. putu ayub darmawan, “damai model: a conflict resolution towards peaceful indonesia,” gnosi: an interdisciplinary journal of human theory and praxis 5, no. 2 (2022): 15–27. 24 aryo galih saloko and asfi manzilati, “examining the gateway hypothesis of drug use in indonesia,” jurnal administrasi kesehatan indonesia volume 9, no. 1 (2021), https://doi.org/10.20473/jaki.v9i1.2021.95-106. 25 agus supriyanto et al., “addiction counselor profession: perception of family support for recovering from drug abuse addiction,” counsellia: jurnal bimbingan dan konseling 11, no. 1 (2021): 17–30, https://doi.org/10.25273/counsellia.v11i1.8585. 26 mansur ali, “perspectives on drug addiction in islamic history and theology,” religions 5, no. 3 (2014): 912–28, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5030912. 27 n. h. n. muhammad et al., “prevention of addiction based on islamic ways,” international journal of academic research in business and social sciences 9, no. 2 (2019): 865–75, https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v9-i2/5621. 28 agus supriyanto, “islamic guidance for drug addiction,” jurnal konseling dan pendidikan 4, no. 2 (2016): 98–104, https://doi.org/10.29210/16900. 29 hisbullah nurdin, “problems and crisis of islamic education today and in the future,” international journal of asian education 1, no. 1 (2020): 21–28, https://doi.org/10.46966/ijae.v1i1.17. 30 muhammet şerif keski̇noğlu and ekşi̇ halil, “islamic spiritual counseling techniques,” spiritual psychology and counseling 4, no. 3 (2019): 333–50, https://doi.org/10.37898/spc.2019.4.3.069. 31 mukhammadsidiqov mukhammadolim, “problems of regulation of secularism and religious principles in arab countries,” bulletin social-economic and humanitarian research, no. 4 (6) (2019): 114–22. 32 waryono waryono et al., “islam rimba: islamic philosophy and local culture engagement in sumatera,” hts teologiese studies/theological studies 77, no. 4 (2021), https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v77i4.6561. 33 fitria susan meliyana and ramadhan widiantoro, “manifestations of religious tolerance: case study of chicken meat given by christians,” in accept: annual conference on community engagement for peaceful transformation, vol. 1, 2022, 132–44. 34 annisa rizda anfa and eddy setia, “mantra text tradition of mambang lukah menari: a social culture view in north sumatra indonesia,” the international journal of social sciences world (tijossw) 3, no. 1 (2021): 107–13. 35 zuleyha keskin, attaining inner peace in islam: said nursi’s perspective (singapore: springer singapore, 2021), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4517-4. 36 isakova gulibodom uktamovna, “language and culture in english classrooms: greetings, ways of expressing politeness,” journal of new century innovations 37, no. 1 (2023): 123–25. 37 samsul arifin and akhmad zaini, “decision of implementing uzlah and gerbat techniques in islamic boarding school as preparedness response for covid-19 pandemic,” unnes journal of public health 9, no. 2 (2020): 126–34, https://doi.org/10.15294/ujph.v9i2.38107. 38 seyma n. saritoprak and hisham abu-raiya, “living the good life: an islamic perspective on positive psychology,” in handbook of positive psychology, religion, and spirituality (springer international publishing cham, 2022), 179–93. 39 haer cika, muhamad dihyah, and iksan kahar, “professionalism of islamic education teachers in developing culture religiusity of muslim students in smk https://doi.org/10.2174/1874473711666180510164420 https://doi.org/10.20473/jaki.v9i1.2021.95-106 https://doi.org/10.25273/counsellia.v11i1.8585 https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5030912 https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v9-i2/5621 https://doi.org/10.29210/16900 https://doi.org/10.46966/ijae.v1i1.17 https://doi.org/10.37898/spc.2019.4.3.069 https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v77i4.6561 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4517-4 https://doi.org/10.15294/ujph.v9i2.38107 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 123 muhammadiyah marawola,” hunafa: jurnal studia islamika 18, no. 1 (2021): 91– 113, https://doi.org/10.24239/jsi.v18i1.598.91-113. 40 sayed hassan akhlaq, “introducing a comparative ecotheology: islamic concept of basmalah and luther’s commentary on the ten commandments,” consensus 41, no. 1 (2020): 2. 41 bambang qomaruzzaman, “the theology of non-violenct islamic education based on al-sira al-nabawiyya,” hts teologiese studies/theological studies 77, no. 4 (2021), https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v77i4.6268. 42 devi suci windariyah, “for gold and the blessing of god: the rational choice for using the rabu wekasan amulet in the east javanese muslim community,” al’adalah 26, no. 2 (2023): 96. 43 uman suherman et al., “dimension of peace culture based on al-quran values,” universal journal of educational research 7, no. 10 (2019): 78, https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2019.071015. 44 mukhlisin mukhlisin, rosdita indah yuniawati, and abdurrahman atsa’lawi, “the implementation of prophet’s character education at al-multazam ii,” edumasa: journal of islamic education 1, no. 1 (2023): 13–23. 45 agus supriyanto, wahyu saputra, and budi astuti, “peace guidance and counseling based on indonesian local wisdom,” in 2019 ahmad dahlan international conference series on education & learning, social science & humanities (adics-elssh 2019) (atlantis press, 2019), 12–15, https://doi.org/10.2991/adics-elssh-19.2019.37. 46 nur hikmah mubarak ali et al., “tasawwuf method approach among muslim counselors in kedah,” sciences 12, no. 5 (2022): 326–45, https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v12-i5/13285. 47 hatta hatta et al., “multicultural education to build the moderate-religious character at baitul arqam islamic boarding school,” fenomena 21, no. 2 (2022): 271–82, https://doi.org/10.35719/fenomena.v21i2.131. 48 h. fuad nashori, raden rachmy diana, and bahril hidayat, “the trends in islamic psychology in indonesia,” in research in the social scientific study of religion, volume 30 (brill, 2019), 162–80, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004416987_010. 49 qulsoom inayat, “islamophobia and the therapeutic dialogue: some reflections,” counselling psychology quarterly 20, no. 3 (september 2007): 287–93, https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070701567804. 50 maruta herding, “10 hip-hop bismillah,” music, culture and identity in the muslim world: performance, politics and piety, 2013, 230. 51 richard j. torraco, “writing integrative literature reviews: using the past and present to explore the future,” human resource development review 15, no. 4 (december 2016): 404–28, https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484316671606. 52 matthew b. miles and a. michael huberman, qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook (sage, 1994). 53 madeline nicole dunfee, robyn lewis brown, and nancy e. schoenberg, “perspectives on religious and spiritual coping among rural grandparent caregivers,” journal of family issues 42, no. 7 (july 2021): 1495–1515, https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513x20938857. 54 fatemeh hajinejad et al., “factors promoting iranian older adults’ spirituality: a qualitative content analysis,” bmc geriatrics 19, no. 1 (december 2019): 132, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1146-7. 55 joel msafiri francis et al., “the prevalence of religiosity and association between religiosity and alcohol use, other drug use, and risky sexual behaviours among grade 8-10 learners in western cape, south africa,” plos one 14, no. 2 (2019): e0211322, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211322. 56 shelbi snodgrass, lynn corcoran, and paul jerry, “spirituality in addiction recovery: a narrative review,” journal of religion and health, 2023, 1–16, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01854-z. 57 jennifer t. grant weinandy and joshua b. grubbs, “religious and spiritual beliefs and attitudes towards addiction and addiction treatment: a scoping https://doi.org/10.24239/jsi.v18i1.598.91-113 https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v77i4.6268 https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2019.071015 https://doi.org/10.2991/adics-elssh-19.2019.37 https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v12-i5/13285 https://doi.org/10.35719/fenomena.v21i2.131 https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004416987_010 https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070701567804 https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484316671606 https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513x20938857 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1146-7 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211322 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01854-z 124 integrating reflection on basmalah … review,” addictive behaviors reports 14 (2021): 100393, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2021.100393. 58 daniel gutierrez et al., “gradually sudden: vital spiritual experiences for individuals in recovery from substance use disorders.,” spirituality in clinical practice 8, no. 1 (2021): 16, https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000218. 59 ahmed n. hassan et al., “inspiring muslim minds: evaluating a spiritually adapted psycho-educational program on addiction to overcome stigma in canadian muslim communities,” community mental health journal 57 (2021): 644–54, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-020-00699-0. 60 junfei lu et al., “a critical review of spiritual well-being scales: implications for research, practice, and education in rehabilitation counseling,” rehabilitation counseling bulletin 62, no. 3 (april 2019): 144–56, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597020-00699-0. 61 muhammad et al., “prevention of addiction based on islamic ways.” 62 muhafizah el-feyza and m. riyan hidayat, “pengharaman khamr dalam alqur’an (studi atas tafsir tarjuman al-mustafid karya abd. rauf as-sinkili),” lathaif: literasi tafsir, hadis dan filologi 1, no. 2 (2022): 147–58, https://doi.org/10.31958/lathaif.v1i2.6868. 63 mukhlisin mukhlisin, rosdita indah yuniawati, and abdurrahman atsa’lawi, “the implementation of prophet’s character education at al-multazam ii,” edumasa: journal of islamic education 1, no. 1 (2023): 13–23, https://doi.org/10.53828/alburhan.v22i02.1038. 64 muhammad al-ghazali, “basmalah: some exegetical insights and practical applications.,” insights (20724586) 4 (2011). 65 shafiyyurrahman al-mubarakfuri and abu ihsan al-atsari, “shahih tafsir ibnu katsir,” 2011. 66 akhlaq, “introducing a comparative ecotheology.” 67 alwin tanjung tanjung, “keistimewaan tikrar al-qur’an,” al-kauniyah 3, no. 2 (2022): 108–22, https://doi.org/10.56874/alkauniyah.v3i2.1136. 68 ansor bahary and komaruddin fitroni, “tafsir indonesia (studi kritis atas tafsir basmalah karya kyai asmuni),” al burhan: jurnal kajian ilmu dan pengembangan budaya al-qur’an 22, no. 02 (2022): 195–224, https://doi.org/10.53828/alburhan.v22i02.1038. 69 agus riyadi and hendri hermawan adinugraha, “the islamic counseling construction in da’wah science structure,” journal of advanced guidance and counseling 2, no. 1 (2021): 11–38, https://doi.org/10.21580/jagc.2021.2.1.6543. 70 g. hussein rassool, islamic counselling: an introduction to theory and practice (routledge, 2015), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315694993. 71 nina ikhwati wahidah et al., “cooperation between teacher guidance and counseling with islamic religious education teacher to provide service guidance counseling,” in international symposium on social sciences, education, and humanities (isseh 2018) (atlantis press, 2019), 107–11, https://doi.org/10.2991/isseh-18.2019.26. 72 rassool, islamic counselling. 73 abdulrahman obeid hussein, “دراسة التراكيب الفكرية للشيخ :إحياء مصطلحات قرآنية وصوفية ياسين السالم reviving of qur’anic and mystical terminologies: a study of :عبد intellectual compositions of sheikh abdessalam yassine,” maʿālim al-qurʾān wa al-sunnah 15 (2019): 128–39, https://doi.org/10.33102/jmqs.v15i0.197. 74 lince bulutoding et al., “moslem taxpayers’ compliance behavior in malaysia,” international journal of advanced engineering research and science 7, no. 3 (2020), https://doi.org/10.22161/ijaers.73.35. 75 alireza alinouri et al., “qom university of medical sciences students’ opinions regarding istikharah, fate, destiny, scripting-amulet, and jinns,” health, spirituality and medical ethics 3, no. 2 (2016): 24–29. 76 zubair ahmed and syed muhammad nasim sarwer, “leaders’ decision making and conflict management framework in light of islamic teachings,” nuqtah journal of theological studies 2, no. 2 (2022): 224–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2021.100393 https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000218 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-020-00699-0 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-020-00699-0 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-020-00699-0 https://doi.org/10.31958/lathaif.v1i2.6868 https://doi.org/10.53828/alburhan.v22i02.1038 https://doi.org/10.56874/alkauniyah.v3i2.1136 https://doi.org/10.53828/alburhan.v22i02.1038 https://doi.org/10.21580/jagc.2021.2.1.6543 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315694993 https://doi.org/10.2991/isseh-18.2019.26 https://doi.org/10.33102/jmqs.v15i0.197 https://doi.org/10.22161/ijaers.73.35 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 125 77 indriya indriya, “konsep tafakkur dalam alquran dalam menyikapi coronavirus covid-19,” 2020, https://doi.org/10.15408/sjsbs.v7i3.15048. 78 earhart aziz and musfirah mahfooz, “the role of peace in stability of the society an analysis in islamic perspective.,” al basirah 10, no. 1 (2021), https://doi.org/10.52015/albasirah.v10i01.63. 79 jalali et al., “the effectiveness of group spiritual intervention on self-esteem and happiness among men undergoing methadone maintenance treatment.” 80 muhammad basharat and amna aslam, “لفظ توکل کا قرآن ميں استعمال اور مفہوم: the usage and meaning of the word tawakal in the holy quran,” peshawar islamicus 12, no. 2 (2021): 90–101. 81 miftachul huda et al., “strengthening divine values for self-regulation in religiosity: insights from tawakkul (trust in god),” international journal of ethics and systems 35, no. 3 (2019): 323–44. 82 rosnidar mansor et al., “the implementation of role of kuttab al-fatih (kaf) philosophy in islamic character education,” nadwa jurnal pendidikan islam 13, no. 2 (2019): 235–50, https://doi.org/10.21580/nw.2019.13.2.5184. 83 agustiar agustiar and khairunnas jamal, “structural analysis and stilistic meaning of khabariyah verses in the qur’an,” jurnal ushuluddin 29, no. 2 (2021): 176–88, https://doi.org/10.24014/jush.v29i2.13808. 84 winda sri harianti et al., “muraqabah intensification therapy (mit): an alternative islamic therapy for social media addiction,” international journal of public health science 11, no. 1 (2022): 38–46, https://doi.org/10.11591/ijphs.v11i1.21137. 85 ulfanie wiyatama and lydia freyani hawadi, “emotion regulation: potential mediators of the relationship between muraqabah and academic procrastination,” budapest international research and critics institute-journal (birci-journal) 5, no. 3 (2022): 20524–34. 86 ardimen ardimen et al., “model bimbingan kelompok dengan pendekatan muhasabah,” ta’dibuna: jurnal pendidikan islam 8, no. 2 (2019): 278–98, https://doi.org/10.32832/tadibuna.v8i2.2232. 87 rassool, islamic counselling. 88 nurul syavika and muktarruddin muktarruddin, “transformative impact of islamic therapy methods on behavior and worship awareness of drug patients in seikambing narcotics rehabilitation,” counsenesia indonesian journal of guidance and counseling 4, no. 1 (2023): 61–69, https://doi.org/10.36728/cijgc.vi.2499. 89 che z. saari et al., “critical review of sufi healing therapy in drug addiction treatment,” journal of critical reviews 7, no. 5 (2020), https://www.researchgate.net/profile/zaizul-rahman/publication/343152836. 90 sameera ahmed and mona m. amer, counseling muslims: handbook of mental health issues and interventions (routledge, 2013), https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203893814. 91 purwadi purwadi et al., “the attributes of peace educators from sang pencerah, the biography of kh ahmad dahlan: a hermeneutic study,” hts teologiese studies/theological studies 78, no. 4 (2022), https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v78i4.7714. 92 g. hussein rassool, “cultural competence in counseling the muslim patient: implications for mental health,” archives of psychiatric nursing 29, no. 5 (2015): 321–25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apnu.2015.05.009. 93 bahary and fitroni, “tafsir indonesia (studi kritis atas tafsir basmalah karya kyai asmuni).” 94 jalali et al., “the effectiveness of group spiritual intervention on self-esteem and happiness among men undergoing methadone maintenance treatment.” https://doi.org/10.15408/sjsbs.v7i3.15048 https://doi.org/10.52015/albasirah.v10i01.63 https://doi.org/10.21580/nw.2019.13.2.5184 https://doi.org/10.24014/jush.v29i2.13808 https://doi.org/10.11591/ijphs.v11i1.21137 https://doi.org/10.32832/tadibuna.v8i2.2232 https://doi.org/10.36728/cijgc.vi.2499 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/zaizul-rahman/publication/343152836 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203893814 https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v78i4.7714 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apnu.2015.05.009 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii. no. 4 7 .. editorial we extend our humble gratitude to allah, the most merciful, who bestowed ability upon us to present the fourth issue of hamdard islamicus for volume 47 (2024). in this last issue of 2024, we look into the enduring relevance of islamic principles, tracing their impact from historical movements to contemporary practices. we begin by examining pan-islamic cooperation between the ottoman caliphate and southeast asia, highlighting the role of islamic solidarity in resisting colonialism. furthermore, this study investigates the historical foundation that sets the stage for exploring sufism’s influence on religious pluralism in bengal, showcasing how sufi practices have fostered interfaith harmony and cultural cohesion. addressing modern issues, this issue examines the significant role of islamic finance in pakistan’s economic development, where islamic banking has a profound yet varied impact on financial sustainability. this is followed by a thoughtful examination of islamic legal rulings on women’s travel, discussing the authenticity and wisdom behind prophetic narrations and their interpretations in today’s context. finally, this issue explores the integration of spiritual practices in modern counselling, specifically the recitation of basmalah to foster a peaceful mindset in addiction counselling, illustrating how islamic traditions continue to provide solutions for contemporary social challenges. the details of current issue’s papers are as under: the first paper, "pan-islamic cooperation and anticolonialism between the ottoman caliphate and the malay world," explores historical pan-islamic cooperation between the ottoman caliphate and southeast asia. it highlights the diplomatic and anticolonial efforts and the enduring potential for reclaiming autonomy and dignity through solidarity. the second study, "harmony amidst diversity: exploring religious pluralism in bengal through the lens of sufi heritage and its envoys," examines sufism’s profound impact on bengal’s cultural and religious harmony. it highlights key sufi figures’ contributions and addresses genuine and pseudo-sufi influences on interfaith cohesion and societal dynamics. 8 editorial .. the third article, "islamic finance mode impacts on economic development and financial sustainability in pakistan," analyzes islamic banking’s impact on pakistan’s gdp and financial stability. it highlights significant correlations with financing modes like ijérah and murébaíah but notes varied effects on sustainability. the fourth study, "prohibitions of travel in hadiths: between cause and wisdom," examines the authenticity of prophetic narrations requiring a male guardian for a woman’s travel. it analyzes juristic interpretations and highlights the ritualistic nature of the requirement to ensure compliance with islamic law. the fifth paper, "integrating reflection on basmalah recitation as a strategy for forming a peaceful mindset in islamic counselling," highlights how integrating basmalah recitation in islamic counseling helps muslim addiction counsellors in fostering a peaceful mindset. it enables clients to overcome stigma and achieve spiritual and emotional tranquillity. from islamic finance’s role in economic development to the lessons of sufism in promoting interfaith harmony, these studies underscore islamic principles’ relevance in shaping individual lives and society. whether addressing the complexities of modern counselling, interpreting religious law, or reviving historical alliances, the islamic tradition offers rich resources for navigating the challenges of the 21st century. by revisiting and applying these values, we can find ways to build more resilient, harmonious, and self-sustaining communities. dr. shabeer khan editor c:\users\muhammad kashan\desktop\starting pages.pmd … hamdard islamicus quarterly journal of studies and research in islam recognized by the higher education commission, pakistan vol. xlviii january-march 2025 no.1 contents * editorial * socialisation and institutionalisation process of the moderate religious culture in indonesian madrasahs — nur kafid — zulkifli — muhammad faiq * influence of religion on pakistani mainstream media: an application of beliefs into action scale for journalists — dr. riaz ahmad saeed — dr. aqeel ahmed — dr. ulfat nisa * family takaful (islamic life insurance) in bangladesh: operational dilemmas and remedial approaches — dr. issa khan — dr. md. mahfujur rahman — dr. azian bin madun * the effect on socio-economic development of awqaf properties investment fund in somalia — ulya fatimatuzzahra — afni regita cahyani muis * the role of metallurgy in the holy qur'én: historical contexts and contemporary scientific perspectives — somayyeh karami-mohajeri — motahareh soltani — zohreh oghabian — mohammad khaksari hadad the hamdard islamicus does not necessarily agree with all the statements made or opinions expressed by the contributors who are themselves responsible for their views or comments. 7 99 37 57 9 77 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 9 the legal status of religious minorities in islam: a historical perspective shakeel ahmad wani university of kashmir, srinagar, jammu and kashmir, india. shakeelwani231@gmail.comemail: sayed aaqib qadri university of kashmir, srinagar, jammu and kashmir, india. aaqibqadri.scholar@kashmiruniversity.netemail: bilal ahmad wani university of kashmir, srinagar, jammu and kashmir, india. wanibilal22@gmail.com email: received on: 04-09-22 accepted on: 23-12-22 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.497 abstract this paper deals with the concept of dhimmi (non-muslims living in an islamic state) and the laws formulated for them in islam, which lie at the centre of the intellectual discourses on the islamic legal and political system vis-à-vis the issues of tolerance, democracy, and human rights. the teachings of islam, as revealed to the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) provide complete guidance for attaining success and glory in this world and the hereafter. as a comprehensive way of life, islam encompasses a unique socio-economic and political system. it deals with all private and public life aspects and local and international affairs. however, the status and treatment of minorities in muslim societies (especially in the context of islamic law) have been of special concern to muslim and non-muslim scholars alike. it has also been a much-debated subject among orientalists, who have created many misinterpretations regarding it. in light of these problems, this paper has attempted to establish a discourse on a three-fold level: it has argued that laws about minorities in mailto:shakeelwani231@gmail.com mailto:aaqibqadri.scholar@kashmiruniversity.net mailto:wanibilal22@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i1.497 10 the legal status of religious… islam are based on the concept of justice, how these laws are significant in the emancipation of humanity in general, and the minorities (non-muslims living in an islamic state) in particular has been highlighted; and the relevant quranic verses, prophetic traditions, and, the muslim statesmen’s practices and juristic views regulating the principles of how muslims are supposed to interact with non-muslims have been examined as well. to achieve these objectives, descriptive, analytical, and exploratory methods have been followed throughout the paper. keywords: minority rights, islamic law, orientalists, dhimmi. 1. introduction the tenets of islam enshrine all-encompassing mercy for all human beings muslims and non-muslims alike. in the qur’an, the prophet is described as being merciful to all humankind, commanded by allah to deliver the divine message of islam to the entire humanity. allah created human beings and endowed them with dignity that elevated their status above all his other creatures.1. he blessed them with a religion that guarantees full rights to its adherents and those who do not follow it as long as they maintain peaceful coexistence and adhere to what has been agreed with them. even if their actions contradict this peaceful cohabitation and they break their covenants and agreements, they will still be treated in a manner conducive to upholding the societal framework and integrity. it is, therefore, not surprising to witness the historical display of people belonging to various other faiths living with full civic rights and in complete security under muslim rule throughout history in india, palestine, andalusia, or any other territory. the golden period of jewish history and diaspora in terms of stabilization and advancement of learning was declared to be the era in which they lived under the muslim khilafah. non-muslims residing in muslim communities were offered a happy and prosperous life, assured security for their lives and properties, and given the title ahl al-dhimmah, which designated individuals with whom muslims had an agreement or responsibility for their safety and security of their property. its basic guidelines were laid by the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) in the early years of the muslim community in medina, where he established a city-state and formed a blueprint of the muslims' interfaith relations with christians and jews (among many other adherents of different religions). allowing diverse religious groups to develop their spiritual and material aspects under islamic rule was made possible through pledges, documents, and mutual agreements that granted privileges to different religious groups. what follows is an examination of the prescripts adopted or drafted from the period of establishment of islamic society in medina right up to the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 11 expansion of the islamic empire during the era of caliph ‘umar from a historical and legal perspective. 2. research methodology the paper has followed descriptive, explorative, and analytical methods to achieve the objectives. the study is based on primary and secondary sources, comprising arabic, urdu, and english literature. based on these sources and using descriptive and analytical methods, the study provides detailed descriptions and systematic evaluations of the available data about the subject under study. 3. research objectives the present study attempts to establish a discourse on a threefold level: it argues that laws about minorities in islam are based on the concept of justice; how these laws are significant in the emancipation of humankind in general and the minorities (nonmuslims living in an islamic state) in particular; it also examines the relevant quranic verses, prophetic traditions, and, the muslim statesmen’s practices and juristic views regulating the principles regarding the required interaction of muslims with non-muslims. 4. discussion 4.1. the concept of al-dhimmah according to lisān al-‘arab, the term dhimmah is derived from the arabic word الذمة, which means “covenant, contract (‘aqd), protection, guarantee, custody, sanctity, and duty”.2 in islam, religious minorities are referred to as dhimmis, short for ahl aldhimmah, or people of the dhimmah. this phrase became synonymous with 'people of the book', originally used to designate the followers of christianity and judaism. however, in its technical sense, the term al-dhimmah would mean ‘protection’ and was often used as a short form of dhimmat allah wa-rasūlih, or “(under the) protection of god and his prophet”.3 originally, this concept had a divine connotation or a meaning that could be directly related to the authority of god. with the passage of time and the progression of classical scholarship, it mutated into a technical-legal term, consequently losing its transcendental dimension.4 due to these developments, ahl al-dhimmah (people of the dhimmah), has become a legal term and is no longer used as a reference to the beneficiaries of divine protection. a discussion revolving around the etymology of this word is no less important, as it determines the significance of the people of the dhimmah who, in essence, are the very people promised to be protected on behalf of god and his prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) – an enormous responsibility. this protected status was awarded to the people of the book (a category that, 12 the legal status of religious… according to many scholars, includes zoroastrians and others) who agreed to pay the jizyah, or poll tax, through a contract, instead of that protection.5 in sum, the concept of the people of the dhimmah was based on non-muslim religious minorities who paid a nominal tax that exempted them from military service. the classical muslim state's authority and territorial integrity relied on its capability to deliver two precious resources to its subjects: justice and security.6 in the technical sense, christians, jews, and other minorities were not the citizens of the muslim state; they were seen as outsiders who enjoyed the protection of the state, leading to the title of dhimmah, or protected people.7 this protection was assured in several ways, one of which was by providing them with legal and internal autonomy – meaning they could observe their religious practices without any interference – and protection at times of war. despite such a clear and uncompromising theoretical framework, there have been instances throughout history where that protection was under threat, and the ruling power engaged in the persecution and oppression of religious minorities.8 however, history has never recorded this persecution on a widespread, systematic, and global level, especially if the maltreatment of christians in the islamic world was to be compared with that in the late roman empire.9 the hostile situations that occasionally arose were not directly related to islamic law principles but were the result of a confluence of social, political, and economic factors. therefore, although christians occasionally experienced suffering at the hands of muslims, it was more often the result of several interlinked factors linked to the desire for power than it was a result of christians' beliefs or identities as christians.10 5. historical foundations 5.1. the charter of medina upon his migration to medina from makkah, prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) embarked on his mission of laying strong foundations for the novel interfaith relations among the muslim and non-muslim inhabitants of the first islamic state in medina. he duly proceeded by applying the principle of respectable mutual relations and cooperation. there was a sizeable jewish community in medina, the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) had a document drawn up which outlined the duties of the immigrants (al-muhājirūn) and the helpers (al-anṣār), in which he also made an agreement between them and the jews. this agreement safeguarded the jews’ rights as non-muslim citizens of the islamic state. as a result of this, the prophet (×aìrat muhammad hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 13 rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) was successful in establishing a multi-religious, diverse political, and social community grounded on a set of universal principles which were organized in the ‘constitution of medina (ṣaḥīfat al-madīnah).11 the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) and his followers in medina made a significant political contribution by framing a constitution to govern the state's internal and exterior affairs. the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) achieved this groundbreaking and extraordinary feat in the very first year of his arrival in medina. for the success of such a daunting and sensitive task, which covered the civil, judicial, and political elements of the state, including defense and alliances, it needed to be approved by the leaders of eleven jewish inhabitant tribes who lived in the heart of medina, leaders of other arab tribes in and around the city, and by the muslims. the resulting constitution was centered on cooperation upon virtuous deeds, maintaining piety, and prohibiting evil.12 considered to be the first-ever written constitution in the world,13 the document specified the reciprocal obligations in the following manner: ‘in the name of allah, the compassionate, the merciful; this is a prescript from muhammad, the prophet (governing the relations) between the believers and the muslims of quraysh and yathrib and those who are to follow and join them…the jews shall contribute to the cost of war so long as they are fighting alongside the believers. the jews of the banu ‘awf are one community with the believers (the jews upon their religion and the muslims upon their own), their freemen, and their people, except those whose conduct is unjust and sinful, for the damage they cause shall only afflict them and their families. this also applies to the jews of the banu al-najjar, banu al-ḥārith, banu sa‘ida, banu jusham, banu al-aws, banu tha‘labah, and the jaffna, a clan of the tha‘labah and the banu al-shutayba. none of them shall go out to war except with the permission of muhammad, but no one shall be prevented from taking revenge for a wound. he who slays a man without warning slays himself and his household unless it has wronged him, for allah will accept that. the jews must bear their expenses, and the muslims their own. each must help the other against anyone who attacks the people of this document. they must seek mutual advice and 14 the legal status of religious… consultation; their loyalty will protect them against treachery. a man is not liable for his ally's misdeeds. the wronged must be helped. the jews must pay with the believers as long as the war lasts. yathrib shall be a sanctuary for the people of this document. a stranger under protection shall be his host doing no harm and committing no crime. a woman shall only be given protection with the consent of her family. if any dispute or controversy likely to cause trouble should arise, it must be referred to allah and muhammad, the messenger of allah. allah accepts what is nearest to piety and goodness in this document. quraysh and their helpers shall not be given protection. the contracting parties are bound to help one another against any attack on yathrib. if they are called to make peace and maintain it, they must do so; and if they make a similar demand on the muslims, it must be carried out except in the case of a holy war. every one shall have his portion cut out from the side to which he belongs. allah approves of this document. this deed will not protect the unjust and the sinner. the man who goes forth to fight and the man who stays at home in the city are safe unless he has been unjust and has sinned. allah is the protector of the pious and allah-fearing man, and muhammad is the messenger of allah.14 the various laws outlined in this madinan constitution were primarily created to uphold harmony and cooperation, safeguard the lives and property of medina's citizens, thwarting injustice and aggression regardless of a person's tribal or religious affiliations, and guarantee freedom of movement and religion. it supported justice, goodness, and the struggle against evil while strengthening community defense against intruders. for a long time, jews and muslims coexisted in harmony. safi ur rehman mubarakpuri commented on this treaty and emphasized that it was part of a larger framework of inter-muslim ties. he underlined the most significant clauses of the treaty in twelve key bullets:15 1. the jews of banu ‘awf comprise one community with believers. the jews will have the right to profess their religion, and the muslims, their own. 2. the jews and the muslims shall assume responsibility for their respective expenditures. 3. if attacked by an external enemy party, each shall be obliged to come to the assistance of the other ally. 4. the parties shall counsel each other. righteousness shall serve as the basis for all ties, from which sin will be excluded. 5. neither shall indulge in actions that infringe upon the rights of the other. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 15 6. the party that has been wronged must be assisted. 7. the jews shall have to contribute towards the war's expenses as long as they are fighting alongside the muslims. 8. the sanctuary of medina shall remain sacred and inviolable for all who join this treaty. 9. in a dispute between the parties to this agreement, allah, the highest, and his messenger shall have the authority to adjudicate. 10. the parties to this pact will boycott quraysh commercially and not provide them with any aid. 11. all the parties shall assist in defending medina, in case of a foreign attack, in their respective areas. 12. this treaty does not preclude either party from seeking legal retribution. muhammad said ramadan al-būṭī, a leading modern syrian jurist, endeavored to expound upon the significance of this constitution by referring to an important clause: ‘the jews of the banu ‘awf are one community with the believers (the jews having their religion and the muslims their own), and their freemen except those who behave unjustly and sinfully, for they hurt none but themselves.' he remarked that this is a clear and forthright text showing that the islamic state (of medina) was based on a mutual conglomerate between two groups, muslims and jews.16 its nature was such that no one could be excluded except those whose conduct was unjust. its beauty lies in the sub-clause ‘except those who’ applies not only to the jews but also to anyone who is a resident of medina. he maintains that when the constitution of medina stated, ‘the jews of the banu ‘awf are one community with the believers, it did not imply that they were essentially a part of the muslim community. if that were the case, it would mean their identity had been merged with the islamic state. however, the appropriate meaning is that the constitution gave them the right and freedom to be an independent and autonomous community within the islamic state. furthermore, al-būṭī asserts that other clauses in this constitution emphasize equal treatment to all the inhabitants of the islamic state regarding duties and rights, none of which are derivatives of religious diversities. muhammad hamidullah went a step ahead, arguing that by accepting the terms of this constitution, the autonomous jewish villages willingly acceded to the confederal madinan state and, as a result, acknowledged prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) as their supreme political leader. this could imply that the non-muslim subjects possessed the right to vote in the election of the head of the muslim state.17 16 the legal status of religious… one of the remarkable and striking features of the constitution of medina is that it allowed the rules of justice a place over and above religious solidarity and asserted the right of the victim of injustice and aggression to amelioration, regardless of his tribal or religious affiliation. of course, any newly established state ought to work hard to bring together all its inhabitants regardless of the diversity in religion, race, or color to ensure the perpetuation and solidity of the state. el-‘awaisi opines that islam firmly rejects the existence of any conflict which may be based on eliminating the other party so that the victor could have the stage solely to himself.18 he quotes the following verse from the qur’an as his evidence: ‘o mankind, we have created you from a male and a female and made you into races and tribes, so that you may identify one another.’19 he further adds: ‘confirming this idea, islam favored another method, namely tadāfu’ or counterbalance, as a measure of adjusting positions using movements instead of conflict. this conflictfree method is what islam sees as a way of preserving a nonislamic presence in this life. tadāfu‘ helps to preserve islam's sacred places and also the sacred sites of others. the qur’an20 declares: ‘and if allah had not counterbalanced (daf'u) some people’s deeds by others, there surely would have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of allah is commemorated in abundant measure’. thus, from an islamic point of view, tadāfu‘ is the means of preserving the plurality of sacred places and by extension, the plurality of religions’.21 a life of peace based on respect for one another is also one of islam's essential goals. the actions of prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) have the same moral standing as his other deeds in a plural society. islam's commitment to religious diversity is intended to be relevant whenever muslims coexist with followers of other faiths. 22 in light of the above remarks, it can be said that the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam)’s treatment of the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 17 people of the book, in this case, the jews, exhibited religious tolerance and judiciousness. this constitution laid the basis for envisioning a practical and viable pattern of future relations in an islamic state between muslims and non-muslims. the foundational principle of this relationship was religious tolerance and noninterference in the personal affairs of the non-muslim groups. it acknowledged the freedom of religion for all citizens. it made the non-muslim inhabitants of medina equal partners with their muslim counterparts in both the material evolvement and prosperity of the islamic state. when a group of muslim intellectuals gathered in morocco to discuss how religious minorities are treated in the muslim world, this treaty was also in the news at the time. the conference underlined the need to hold contemporary muslim leaders responsible for their actions and the need for minorities to be treated with the ethics and fairness articulated by the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) in the medina charter.23 5.2. the pact of ‘umar the second and the more historically impactful document is the pact of ‘umar ibn al-khattab (raìi allah ‘anhu), or al-shurūṭ al‘umariyyah, a list of agreements between caliph ‘umar and the people of syria.24 due to this pact, most of the "controversial issues" related to non-muslim minorities are traced back. later scholars subdivided the contract into many sub-themes. still, it may be effectively summed up as fostering christian and jewish selfgovernment and legal autonomy while requiring their help against state adversaries when necessary. the gradations of this pact are important to discuss because, as will be elucidated in the following discussion, muslim scholars based many of their legal arguments regarding religious minorities on it. a noteworthy example to cite in this regard is the compendious work of imam ibn al-qayyim titled aḥkām ahl al-dhimmah. spanning nearly two thousand pages, it is considered the most comprehensive treatise on the regulations concerning religious minorities.25 the pact of 'umar is one of the most frequently mentioned sources by ibn al-qayyim in this huge legal treatise, to which he devotes a substantial amount of examination. in addition, he mentions that the pact had become so well-known among scholars that it was deemed unnecessary to cite its sanad, or chain of narration.26 many islamophobes and orientalists, who quickly point to the pact's laws as damning proof of muslims' intolerance towards non-muslims, have abused them severely. one of the numerous alleged examples that their "discrimination rules" are based on an effort to degrade non-muslims is the requirement that christians and 18 the legal status of religious… jews dress differently from muslims,27 but such a gross misrepresentation and unqualified generalization merits a deep and contextual study. albrecht noth, who analyzed the pact of 'umar, asserts that these regulations were implemented for a long-term mutual coexistence between muslims and non-muslims and could never seek to persecute non-muslims as such.28 in a parallel manner, the pact primarily dealt with and protected what he calls the “sensitivities of muslims” and was not aimed at the victimization of religious minorities.29 seen in its proper historical perspective, the reality of the matter is that the muslims were at war with their enemies and entered new territory as a minority. when the muslim army entered a newly conquered land, employing justifiable war, the inhabitants of that land were presented with one of the three options, according to the hadith of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam): embrace islam, surrender through treaty and become a dhimmi, or leave the land.30 naturally, in most cases, the people agreed to remain upon their religions as christians, jews, or zoroastrians in exchange for protection and agreeing to abide by the rules of their respective treaties. for all practical purposes, the muslims were initially outnumbered, so there was an immediate need to take extra precautions to ensure their political and military authority would not be thrown down the gauntlet. such an environment also posed a serious threat to the still-developing muslim community.31 examining the ordinances in light of all these inevitable factors can make it easy to comprehend that the pact would have favored the muslims as they now governed the land. the nature of these laws can be discussed using a variety of methods. first, a more comprehensive analysis of the purportedly "discrimination laws" is required. one such is the idea of the "ghiyr element," which refers to the idea that non-muslims must dress differently. milka levy-rubin has offered historical proof that distinct dress regulations were popular during this time as a symbol of one's social standing throughout the sassanian empire. on the other hand, the history of these dress codes is much more fascinating. both christians and jews were required to wear the zunnar, or belt, which was a well-known item of clothing.32 being greek in origin, the belt was foreign to arab muslims, who presumably encountered it only after the islamic empire had expanded into the byzantine lands. the belt was a commonplace item of clothing among nonmuslims. consequently, the pact of 'umar obliged them to wear what they had always been accustomed to. noth further contends that the other ghiyār elements also incorporated the customs that the nonmuslims were already known to have followed. thus, he postulates hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 19 that non-muslims were not being compelled or humiliated to wear discriminatory clothes; rather, it was ensuring they did not copy the muslims in their dress.33 moreover, even then, it was not discriminatory because the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) had commanded the muslims not to imitate the nonmuslims in their dress or way of living, so in effect, this law was a two-way street.34 some scholars have even proposed that the main purpose of creating these physical distinctions coincided with making the administration run smoothly so that a non-muslim would not be punished for selling wine or the jizyah tax would not be collected from a muslim as the collector could get confused regarding who was muslim and who was not due to the similarity of their appearances.35 the pact of umar's originality can be seen in its high standards for a mixed community of muslims and non-muslims. regulations that guarantee religious legal autonomy form the basis of the pact.36 its implications are far-reaching. several religious groups, each with its own law and religious leaders, coexisted in the early islamic society. by no means was this a common historical occurrence. in hellenistic societies and under roman rule, most emperors who preceded constantine persecuted christians. people did not have the option of living autonomously.37 permitting religious communities to adhere to distinct bodies of law fostered divisions between them.38 this was also absorbed in the muslim government, which did not actively interfere with these systems and thus allowed them to develop uninterruptedly.39 for muslims, the sharīʿah incorporates their creed and religious laws. so the authorization granted to the religious minorities to freely abide by their respective legal codes is one of the strongest expressions of tolerance found in the pact of ʻumar. the pact's positive features have also been acknowledged by many christians and jews, as mentioned below. legal scholars and historians generally agree that legislation can be used as a form of social control, which explains why christian and jewish communities at that time cherished the authority of enforcing their religious regulations.40 nestorians, a christian sect, provide an example of the absence of muslim influence in community affairs. marriages in this group of nestorians were only legalized through civil courts before the synod of george i in the late 7th century ce gave the church the authority to legalize these marriages in the presence of a christian judge.41 the nestorians desired that judges be selected with the community's consent at the time, but the muslim rulers appointed judges on their behalf. imam abu hanifah (d. 767) consequently gave them the freedom to choose their own judges. this shows that these 20 the legal status of religious… communities wanted to preserve their religious liberty and that the muslim administration did not interfere in the religious affairs of other groups.42 for christians and jews, this autonomy brought the option of seeking legal guidance from the muslim courts. this became a serious concern for the christian and jewish religious leaders, who saw it threatening their judicial authority. their contention was not completely exaggerated. seeing the followers of their congregations turn away from their respective courts to seek justice from the qāḍīs (muslim judges) was enough to raise their misgivings since it had the potential to strip these elites of their social and legal power. suppose community members are not going to their leaders for religious guidance. in that case, it is impossible to command them to uphold their religion's ideals and inspire them to create a culture of normative behaviour. religious leaders went to considerable pains to ensure that their communities were obedient to preserve their influence. for instance, jewish women in the umayyad period risked losing their property rights if they sought a divorce in rabbinical courts. thus it is only logical that many turned to muslim courts to obtain a divorce and avoid losing their property rights.43 this prompted many rabbis to issue a new decree which allowed women to sue for divorce without forfeiting their property rights. as a result, more jewish women remained within their communities and maintained religious autonomy. it is worth noting that the regulations for minorities were implemented in a community defined by its religious identity. people associated themselves with their religious communities, considering the latter as their "national" identity markers. neophyte edelby points out that the uniqueness of semites among ancient nations lies in the fact that they never conceived of any system of a social organization other than theocracy, where god was the sole source of law.44 for a long time, the only social groups in the east were those based on religious affiliation. islam, in particular, argues edelby, views religions as national identities equivalent to nationality because, to every nation, god has sent a messenger.45 either way, in the modern context, whenever there is a debate regarding laws regulating minorities, they are seen as a form of religious discrimination. religion was the only conceivable form of distinctive workable identity in that era. in other words, the regulations were not made necessary by someone jewish or christian. rather, it happened because, before the rise of the nation-state, religion was the only distinctive marker of identity. 6. jizyah: history and nature hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 21 in the early days of islam, this tax was not levied on anyone in the muslim state, either in medina or elsewhere. there is a difference of opinion between muslim scholars regarding the actual date jizyah was prescribed. ibn al-qayyim mentions that jizyah was not taken from the non-muslims before the revelation of the jizyah verse in the year 8 a.h.46 abu ‘ubayd and ibn kathīr consider 9 a.h. the year of the revelation of the above verse through which allah ordained it. the verse of the qur'an which legalizes the concept of jizyah is as follows: ‘fight those people of the book who do not believe in allah, nor the last day, and do not take as unlawful what allah and his messenger have declared as unlawful, and do not profess the faith of truth; (fight them) until they pay jizyah with their own hands while they are subdued.’.47 neither the qur’an nor the sunnah of the prophet (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) set any fixed rate for the jizyah. the jurists, therefore, held varied opinions as to its amount.48 according to abu ḥanīfah, the rate was 48 dirhams for the upperclass, 24 dirhams for the middle class, and 12 dirhams for the underprivileged farmer who earned his livelihood by working in the fields. he specified this tax's minimum and maximum cap and did not entertain any further discussion.49 the hanabilah followed the opinion of caliph ‘umar. in principle, they agreed with the ḥanafis but permitted an increase and decrease in the amount according to the people's economic situation.50 imam al-shafi’ī did not stipulate the maximum limit.51 he recommended one dinar annually, the arabian gold dinar of the muslim states. on the other hand, imam malik preferred the rate of 40 dirhams if the dhimmi was poor (ahl al wariq). however, if he was rich (ahl al dhahab), it would be 4 dinars.52 therefore, the difference in his case is based on the use of silver and gold currencies. he was also not in favour of increasing this amount. imam abu yusuf stated that the islamic state has the right to take from the non-muslims only that which was mutually fixed at the time of peace-making. all treaty terms should be strictly adhered to, and no addition or subtraction be permitted.53 historically speaking, the amount stated by jurists was trivial and had to be paid annually. jizyah varied in amount and sufficient exemptions were made for the poor, females, children, slaves, monks, and hermits.54 these discrepancies in sums stated by the jurists suggested that the absence of a fixed rate allowed for flexibility depending on 22 the legal status of religious… the time, place, and related economic factors. the jizyah was obligated to try to balance the various amounts indicated above and determine the amount following people's salaries.55 al-buti has interestingly opined that the jizyah given to the islamic state by non-muslims is similar to the zakāh, the amount paid by muslims to the islamic state.56 the only difference is that muslims pay zakāh as a form of worship, considering it part of their religious duties. in contrast, dhimmis pay jizyah, which is used in strengthening the state's defense, as a token of fulfilling their pact with the muslim state, a duty to the state which protects and shelters them. al-buti believes that using the term jizyah for this tax or compensation is not essentially derived from a religious verdict or an islamic directive. he cites the example of ‘umar ibn al-khattab with the christians of banu taghlib in support of his argument. they asked ‘umar to take jizyah from them under the name of ṣadaqah, even if this meant doubling the money of jizyah. moreover, as a result, most scholars among the shafi‘ê’s, hanafis, and hanbalis agreed that it is acceptable to take jizyah from dhimmi under the name of zakāh, provided that the amount is doubled.57 7. interpretation of the jizyah verse ‘with willing submission’ (‘an yadain), taken from the last part of the verse in which jizyah is mentioned, literally means ‘from the hand’. this term has been interpreted in various ways. alzamakhshari commented upon it, saying that two meanings could be attributed to this term. firstly, the hand could be interpreted as a symbol of power or authority. secondly, it can be explained as a courtesy from the muslims to the dhimmis by saving them from any external aggression.58 al-razi agreed with him in this analysis.59 alqurṭubi quotes several meanings in his interpretation of the term. he attributes a statement to ibn ‘abbas where the latter has said that the term refers to personally paying the money to the jizyah collector and not sending it by someone else.60 the exegesis of al-tabari is simple as he defines the term by saying that jizyah is given from the hand of the dhimmi to the hand of the collector.61 abu bakr ibn al-'arabi mentions fifteen possible connotations, which include: giving the money with a feeling of humiliation, under a pledge, or being rich to be able to pay it, coming in-person to pay the jizyah and not sending it through someone else, not to thank or pray for the dhimmi when he pays it, etc.62 the ability to pay the jizyah is indicated by the hand in one of its meanings; as such, it should not be taken from those who cannot afford it. therefore, children, old, those in need, and women are hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 23 exempt. in actuality, the scripture does not pertain to people who are not engaged in any hostilities against muslims in its literal sense. it alludes to a signal of peace, a display of civil submission, or an act of interregional harmony. jizyah denotes the end of combat in this meaning.63 similarly, muslim scholars have had varying interpretations regarding the meaning of the subdued (ṣāghirūn) in the above verse. some have interpreted it to mean jizyah is to be taken from the dhimmis with belittling and disgrace.64 however, other scholars consider it to symbolize submission to the muslim political authority, not humiliation. therefore, the payment of jizyah signifies adherence to the islamic state, and the state, in return, assumes the responsibility of supporting and protecting them. for example, alshafi‘ê and ibn al-qayyim opined that ‘subdued’ (ṣāghirūn) means to accept the laws of islam that regulate the conduct of the dhimmis.65 ibn ḥazm explains this term by stating that the laws of islam will apply to them and that the dhimmi must not openly express his disbelief or do anything incompatible with islam.66 al-nawawi and ibn al-qayyim repudiated the aspect of humiliation. they declared that such behavior could not be substantiated in the qur'an, the prophet's tradition, or even his companions' practice.67 al-nawawi further adds that jizyah must be taken in a kind and respectable manner, like taking debt from someone. abu yusuf deliberated the compassion in taking the jizyah in these words: ‘no one from the dhimmis should be thrashed while extracting jizyah from them; nor should they be made to stand in the sun or persecuted in any manner. instead, kindness should be shown to them. they are to be restrained till they pay what is incumbent upon them and must not be released from this detention until jizyah is taken from them in full’. 68 al-buti asserts that as long as non-muslims submit to the state's rule in the same way that muslims do, neither group will be burdened by muslim rule. none of them would be excused from jizyah if it were regarded as a humiliation for the non-muslims' lack of belief.69 this is apparent in imam abu yusuf’s reply to caliph harun al-rashid: jizyah will not be charged from a destitute to whom charity is given, nor from blind people who have no provision or any work, nor will it be charged from a dhimmi to whom charity is given nor from one who sits (at home due to disability). but 24 the legal status of religious… if they are prosperous, then it will be charged to them. similar will be the case for blind people. likewise, jizyah would be charged by the monks who live in a monastery but are prosperous. but if they are poor people to whom prosperous co-religious people give charity, jizyah will not be charged them. jizyah is also leviable on the people of synagogues if they declare their whole property as a trust for monasteries, monks, and workers. even then, jizyah will be charged from them and the required amount will be charged to the caretakers of the monastery. but if they deny having received these donations and swear by allah to this effect and take an oath in the manner in which their co-religious people take an oath that they have not received anything from the trust, then they will be left alone. jizyah will not be levied from them.70 furthermore, immediately after the muslim conquest of alhirā by khalid ibn al-walid (raìi allah ‘anhu), he wrote a letter to caliph abu bakr (raìi allah ‘anhu) informing him of how he had applied the jizyah tax and exempted the poor, old, and handicapped non-muslims from the payment of jizyah. in his letter, he said: i counted the male population, they were seven thousand. on further examination, i found that one thousand of them were permanently sick and unfit. so, i excluded them from the imposition of jizyah and those susceptible to jizyah thus remained six thousand people. i have granted them the right that when a man becomes unfit to work because of old age, or is afflicted by a calamity, or one who was rich but became poor to the extent that he requires the charity of his religion, i shall exempt him from the jizyah and he and his family will be supported by the muslim treasury utilizing allowances as long as he lives in the muslim territory.71 the islamic shari‘ah is fundamentally transcendental and sublime beyond all material considerations, hence there can be no doubt that islam will never impose jizyah as compensation for nonmuslims’ rejection in allah. once the dhimma agreement is finalised, that person—whether they belong to the ethnic majority or the ethnic minority—immediately acquires citizenship in the islamic state and all the fundamental rights muslims are entitled to. according to al-buti, the term "minority" has very little usage among jurists and is not found in the sources of islamic shari‘ah. he adds that this terminology is present in and derived from the western societies that sought to distinguish between their populations on the lines of ethnicity. in addition, he emphasizes that this concept, in this specific sense, has no place in islamic law and is antithetical to the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 25 essence of islam, as it unjustly separates the state's population into firstand second-class citizens. therefore, everybody in the islamic state is entitled to equal citizenship rights, despite the differences in their religions or population size. the concept of firstand secondclass citizens does not exist in islamic law. 72 despite this, numerous non-muslim writers have stated that non-muslims living under the islamic state were treated as secondclass citizens.73, while others have gone further, alleging that nonmuslims were not only treated as second-class citizens but as thirdclass citizens. in the words of abraham and haddad: ‘in an islamic state, islam is the ideology of the state and, therefore, there is no room for those who are outside the state’s ideology in the government, they are seen as thirdclass citizens or aliens and possibly dangerous creatures whose loyalty is questioned and always suspect.’74 abraham and haddad established their erroneous view by selectively referring to the status of dhimmis recorded in the islamic law literature, i.e., dhimmis are not allowed to be the head of state (caliph) or judges.75 to put it mildly, their clumsy claim contradicts itself. they first acknowledged that the islamic state holds a certain set of views. an islamic state is more particularly founded on a concept or worldview, in this case islam. the state's head of state must therefore be a muslim. according to al-mawardi, a leadership role in islam is "mandated to succeed the prophethood and intended to protect the dên (religion) and administer the affairs of the world.’76 therefore, the position of a caliph, besides being political, or for that matter, a judge, is a religious position and one of the conditions that it needs to fulfill is that the leader should be muslim. hence, in islam, the head of the state is the head of the religion. this explains why a nonmuslim subject cannot be elected head of a muslim state. the caliph or judge must be a well-educated and religious person; his position entails giving orders and solving problems between the common masses according to the islamic rules with which he should be sufficiently familiar. moreover, even muslims are not entitled to become caliphs except under certain conditions that must be satisfied.77 however, this provision in no way implies that non-muslims cannot collaborate with the muslim community, hold public office, or be disenfranchised from the political and administrative life of the state. in his book "the caliphs and their non-muslim subjects," tritton cited numerous instances where muslims appointed people of 26 the legal status of religious… the book to various administrative positions.78 moreover, both almāwardi, a shafi‘ê jurist, and al-farra’, a ḥanbalī jurist did not hesitate to support the opinion that the caliph can appoint nonmuslim subjects as ministers and members of executive councils.79 therefore, excluding non-muslims from the post of state leadership is not discrimination. rather it is in itself eligibility for the post. therefore, the above writers' conclusion is completely incorrect since non-muslims have never been classified as second or third-class citizens. 8. conclusion in the preceding pages, the concept and framework of the rights and responsibilities of religious minorities have been discussed by trying to keep many contextual, historical, and axiological parameters in mind, without which there is a serious chance of falling into gross generalizations. it has been shown that throughout history, there has been a productive and lively debate on the laws regulating the relationships between muslims and non-muslims; however, the manifestations and consequent implementation of these regulations were largely dependent on the judgment of the contemporary ruler in his respective political, economic, and social milieu. it is evident from our discourse that the dhimmi paradigm that was established at an early stage of the islamic civilization was consequently flexible and was responsible for giving rise to tolerant and mutually cooperative societies. in modern times, many scholars have shown an increased tendency to move beyond the narrative of “tolerance” since the notion of minority citizenship has often been accused of leading to some forms of discrimination. hence, prominent scholars, whose contribution has been highlighted, like yusuf al-qaraḍāwi, rashid alghannushi, tariq ramadan, and abdul majid al-najjar have taken crucial steps toward creating a “fiqh of citizenship” in muslim-ruled nations that advocates equal rights for muslims and non-muslims by adopting modern forms of the citizenry. questions such as, ‘if this model was a plausible and arguably more natural form of tolerance, why has islamic history been tainted by accusations of brutality toward religious minorities?’ have also been answered in this paper by arguing that such a query is in need of being placed in its proper contextual position which will become clear only after asking certain fundamental questions like what is our prism of evaluating the muslim treatment of religious minorities in the first place; who authored the text that is being used as a reference for this discussion; at what time were they writing; and what social or political circumstances could have introduced biases into their description of the history, etc. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 27 through this paper, we have also outlined some recent historical events that have become a point of contention. we aim that a proper understanding of such events or occurrences, when understood from their proper temporal and spatial perspective, is much more nuanced than what is commonly perceived. these events are worthy of being seen as a symbol of islam’s universal and broader principles and not as something parochial or irrelevant. consequently, it is recommended that while entertaining any rising concerns over islamic approaches to tolerance and the minority question, the political and social ideologies that have contributed to our thought process must be taken into cognizance. such a breakthrough can only be achieved if the notion that liberty and tolerance can universally be defined as having a singular form throughout the changing contours of space-time is challenged. notes and reference: 1 the holy qur'an, surah 17:ayat 70, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010). 2 ibn manẓūr, muḥammad ibn mukarram, lisan al-‘arab (beirut: dār sādir, 1990),vol. 15, p. 111. 3 milka levy-rubin, non-muslims in the early islamic empire: from surrender to coexistence (new york: cambridge university press, 2011). 4 ayoub, mahmoud, “dhimmah in qurʾan and hadith (with commentary),” arab studies quarterly 5, no. 2 (spring 1983):172-191. 5 ibn qayyim al-jawziyyah, aḥkām ahl al-dhimmah, ed. yusūf al-bakrī & aḥmad al-ʿarārūri (dammām: dār ramādī lil-nashr, 1997), 79. 6 goitein, s.d., “minority self-rule and government control in islam,” studia islamica, no. 31 (1970):102. 7 ibid., p. 105. 8 cahen, claude, dhimma, in encyclopaedia of islam, 2nd ed. p. bearman, c.e. bosworth, e. van donzel, and w.p. heinrichs (leiden: brill, 1965). 9 griffith, sidney, the church in the shadow of the mosque: christians and muslims in the world of islam (new jersey: princeton university press, 2009), 148. 10 ibid., p. 148. 11 badre-eddine ezziti, “the historical development of constitutional islamic religious text of the legal status of non-muslims in islam,” international journal of innovation and applied studies 23, no. 3 (junuary 2018): 293. 12 el-‘awaisi, abd al-fattah, “umar’s assurance of safety to the people of aelia (jerusalem): a criticalanalytical study of the historical sources,” journal of islamic jerusalem studies 3, no. 2 (2000): 64. 13 hamidullah, muhammad, the first written constitution in the world (new delhi: nasir books, n.d.). 14 ibn hisham, abdul malik, al-sīrah al-nabawiyyah, ed. lajnah al-taḥqīq bi muaʾssasāt al-huda (egypt: dar al-taqwa, 1999): vol. 2, 108-110. 15 mubarakpuri, safi ur-rehman, al-raḥīq al-makhtūm (riyadh, dar-us-salam publications, 1996): 197–198. 16 al-buti, muhammad sa‘id ramadan, “muʿāmalāt al-dawlah al-islāmiyyah li ghayr al-muslimīn: al-quds namūdhajan,” journal of islamic jerusalem studies 3, no. 1 (winter 1999): 4-5. 17 hamidullah, muhammad, introduction to islam (cairo: el-falah, 1997), 289. 18 el-‘awaisi, op. cit., p. 62. 28 the legal status of religious… 19 the holy qur'an, surah 49: ayat 13. 20 the holy qur'an, surah 22: ayat 40. 21 el-‘awaisi., op. cit., pp. 62-63. 22 abu-munshar, maher younes, a historical study of muslim treatment of christians in islamic jerusalem at the time of ‘umar ibn al-khattab and salah aldin with special reference to islamic value of justice, ph.d. thesis (dundee: university of abertay, 2003): 49. 23 wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “morocco declaration” accessed 29 january 2022, www.marrakeshdeclaration.org. 24 tritton, a.s., the caliphs and their non-muslim subjects (london: frank cass and company ltd.,1970): 8. 25 ibn al-qayyim. op.cit., p. 17. 26 levy-rubin, op.cit., p.59. 27 tesneem alkiek, “religious minorities under muslim rule,” (yaqeen institute for islamic research, accessed august 5, 2021, https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/religious-minorities-under-muslim-rule. 28 noth, albrecht, problems of differentiation between muslims and non-muslims: re-reading the ‘ordinances of ʿumar’ (al-shurūṭ al-ʿumariyya) in muslims and others in early islamic society, ed. robert hoyland, the formation of the classical islamic world (farnham: ashgate publishing company, 2004). 29 ibid., p. 105. 30 ibn al-qayyim, op.cit., p. 87. 31 noth, op.cit., p. 122. 32 ibid., p. 115. 33 ibid., pp. 116-7. 34 ibid., p. 119. 35 cahen, op. cit. 36 alkiek, op.cit, p. 9. 37 morony, michael, religious communities in late sasanian and early muslim iraq, in muslims and others in early islamic society, ed. robert hoyland (london: routledge, 2004). 38 uriel, i. simonsohn, a common justice: the legal alliances of christians and jews under early islam (philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press, 2011): 5. 39 morony, op. cit., p. 9. 40 simonsohn, op.cit, pp. 10-11. 41 morony, op.cit., p. 13. 42 alkiek, op.cit., p. 11. 43morony, op.cit., p. 11. 44 edelby, neophyte, “the legislative autonomy of christians in the islamic world,” in muslims and others in early islamic society, ed. robert hoyland (england: routledge, 2004), 44. 45 ibid., p. 45. 46 ibn qayyim al-jawziyya, zād al-maʿād fi hadyi khayr al-ʿibād (cairo: almaktabah al-qayyimah, 1989): vol. 3, 370. 47 the holy qur'an, surah 9: ayat 29. 48 al-mawardi, abu al-hasan, al-aḥkām al-sulṭāniyyah: the laws of islamic governance. trans. asadullah yate (london: ta-ha publishers ltd., 1996): 209-210. 49 ibn juzayy, abu al-qasim, al-qawānīn al-fiqhiyyah: the judgements of fiqh, trans. asadullah yate (bradford: diwan press, 2019):135-137. 50 ibid., pp. 135-137. 51 ibid., pp. 135-137, see al-mawardi, al-aḥkām al-sulṭāniyyah, op. cit., p. 210. 52 malik ibn anas, al-muwatta ’ bi riwayat muhammad ibn al-hasan al-shaybani, (beirut: dar al-yarmuk, 1995):112, hadlth no: 333, ibn juzay, al-qawānīn alfiqhiyyah, op. cit., pp. 135-137. 53 abu yusuf, kitab al-kharaj, op. cit., pp. 122-126. 54 ibid., pp. 122-123, 55 abu-munshar, op.cit., p. 75. 56 al-buti, op.cit., p. 8-9. http://www.marrakeshdeclaration.org/ https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/religious-minorities-under-muslim-rule hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 1 29 57 ibid., p. 9. 58 al-zamakhshari, abu al-qasim, tafsir al-kashhaf, ed. shahin m, manshurat muhammad, & ‘ali baydun (beirut: dar al-kutub al-ilmiya, 1995): vol. 2, 254. 59 al-razi, fakhr al-din, al-tafsir al-kabir (beirut: dar alkutub al-ilmiya, 1990): vol. 8, 25. 60 al-qurtubi, abu ‘abdullah muhammad, al-jami‘ li ahkam al-qur’an (beirut: dar al-fikr, 1998): vol. 4, 49. 61 al-tabari, abu ja‘far muhammad ibn jarir, jami ‘al-bayan fi ta ’wil al-qur 'an (beirut: dar al-kutub al-ilmiyya, 1999): vol. 6, 349. 62 ibn al-arabi, abu bakr muhammad, ahkam al-qur’an, ed. muhammad ‘ata (beirut: dar al-kutub al-ilmiya, 1996): vol. 2, 479-480. 63 abu-munshar, op.cit., p. 77. 64 al-zamakhshari, op. cit., vol. 2, p 254, al-qurtubi, al-jami‘, op. cit., vol 4, p. 49, al tabari, tafsir al-tabari, op. cit., vol. 6, p.349, al-razi, al-tafsir alkabir, op. cit., vol. 8, p. 25. 65 al-shafi‘i, muhammad ibn idris, kitab al-umm (beirut, dar al-kutub al-ilmlya, 1993): vol. 4, 249. 66 ibn hazm, abu muhammad ‘ali ibn ahmad, al-muhalla bil ather, ed. sulaiman al-bindari (beirut: dar al-kutub al-ilmiya, 1984): vol. 5, 414. 67al-nawawi, yahya ibn sharaf, rawdat al-talibin, ed. zuhair al-shawesh (beirut, dar al-kutub al-ilmiya, 1998): vol.7, 503-504. 68abu yusuf, kitab ul-kharaj (islamic revenue code), trans. abid ali, ed. abdul hameed siddiqi (lahore: islamic book centre, 1979): 248. 69 abu-munshar, op.cit., p. 79. 70 abu yusuf, op. cit., pp. 246-247. 71 ibid, pp. 143-144. 72 al-buti, op. cit., p. 6. 73 hamilton, bernard, the christian world of the middle ages (cheltenham: the history press, 2003): 216. 74 abraham, a.j & haddad, g., the warriors of god: jihad (holy war) and the fundamentalists of islam, (florida: wyndham hall press, 1989): 14. 75 ibid., p. 14. 76 al-mawardi, op.cit., p. 10. 77 ibid, p.12, abu ya’la muhammad ibn al-husain al-farra’, al-ahkam assultaniyyah, corrected and commented by muhammad hamid alfaqi (beirut: dar al-fikr, 1974): 20. 78 tritton, op.cit., pp. 118-136 79 al-farra’, op. cit., p.32. political loyalty and the ethical turn in islamic law: the case of the european council for fatwa and research hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 89 muslim and buddhist gratitude practices: a systematic review of psychological benefits for culturally sensitive mental health interventions muhammad abuzar university of muhammadiyah surakarta, indonesia email: abuzarghafari885@gmail.com received on: 16-08-2024 accepted on: 15-08-2025 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.1287 abstract gratitude practices in religious contexts have been shown to improve psychological well-being, but little is known about these practices among a variety of cultural and religious groups. the objective of this systematic review is to fill in this gap by examining the gratitude practices within two distinct religions muslim and buddhism. this is the first review comparing gratitude practices in these two religions and examining their psychological benefits, while providing recommendations for mental health professionals that are culturally sensitive. we carried out literature search in the databases of pubmed, scopus and web of science from years 2015 to 2024. search terms were "buddhist gratitude practices," "muslim gratitude practices", "psychological benefits", and "gratitude interventions." out of 480 identified records, 23 studies met the inclusion criteria. results indicate that buddhist practices involving thankfulness, which in turn are related to mindfulness and meditative aspects, significantly improve the emotional stability, strengthens personality and reduce stress. muslim gratitude practices are instrumental in reinforcing mental health, elevating happiness, and building resilience. these findings provide a schema for the implementation of culturally informed gratitude interventions into therapy, particularly within multicultural contexts where western approaches may be less effective. future research should explore gratitude practices across broader cultural contexts including comparisons between secular and religious approaches. mailto:abuzarghafari885@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.1287 90 muslim and buddhist gratitude … keywords: gratitude practices, systematic review, muslim, buddhism, psychological benefits 1. introduction research shows that gratitude can help improve mental health, aid in psychological well-being as well as reduce stress and anxiety thus the overall quality of life. it is also believed that gratitude stimulates the areas of our brain to which moral cognition associates and activates regions associated with rewards such as anterior cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal region. reducing overall stress which leads to better mental health and quality of life. 1 gratitude can continue to bend the arc of your subjective well-being towards improved mental health and increased happiness living a more satisfying life. 2 in treatment settings, interventions that foster gratitude are more successful than any other in alleviating the symptoms of depression and anxiety, 3 as well as reducing stress levels among medical staff. 4 in addition, gratitude has been related to several major health benefits including psychological well-being, healthy behaviours and a greater likelihood of seeking medical help in the face of serious illness; lower levels of inflammation domestically and improve cardiovascular risk, 5 even substantially better sleep. 6 religious efficacy and having friends who are religious each independently predict gratitude. 7 it also takes forgiveness and altruism as pathways linking religiosity, spirituality to well-being via gratitude. 8 considering gratitude in a religious context emphasizes the role of humility and compassion as virtues that can lead to greater wellbeing.9 gratitude is considered a cardinal virtue in muslim, encompassing behaviours such as wholehearted acknowledgement of the blessings or favours endowed by allah almighty. it's ingrained in daily deeds & preaching, teaching to never forget or overlook the grace of allah almighty. muslim teaches expressing gratitude through prayer, good deeds and most importantly constant remembrance of the allah almighty's favours to inculcate a sense of contentment and humility.10 when a muslim is being grateful he/she acknowledges that allah almighty has a role in all aspects of their life and they are humble to serve others. 11 buddhism, also teaches to be grateful as a spiritual practice. in buddhist practice, gratitude is woven into the teachings of mindfulness and compassion – it helps practitioners to be aware that all existence are interconnected beings. 12 all buddhist teachings call for cultivating gratitude though practicing mindfulness meditation, daily reflections hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 91 and acts of kindness that affirm well-being. 13 in theravada buddhism, historical narratives tell stories that are used to inculcate followers with a spirit of gratitude: religious practices of gratitude are a powerful way to produce spiritual, mental and emotional well-being. 14 this systematic review addresses a growing need to understand the psychological benefits of gratitude practices within religious and cultural contexts. while gratitude has been widely recognized for its role in enhancing mental well-being, there is limited research comparing how it is practiced and experienced across distinct religious traditions. this review focuses on muslim and buddhist contexts, which offer contrasting worldviews, rituals, and cultural frameworks for expressing gratitude. muslim and buddhist gratitude practices were selected due to their rich spiritual traditions and their increasing relevance in multicultural therapeutic settings. despite the expanding literature on gratitude and mental health, no comprehensive review has yet compared these two traditions in terms of their psychological outcomes. by examining how gratitude is expressed and experienced within each religion, this study aims to identify both shared and unique psychological benefits. the primary objective is to compare gratitude practices in muslim and buddhist contexts and assess their contributions to psychological resilience and well-being. a secondary objective is to offer culturally sensitive insights and recommendations for mental health professionals seeking to incorporate spiritually grounded gratitude practices into therapeutic interventions. to achieve these objectives, this research addresses the following key questions: 1. what are the common gratitude practices in muslim and buddhism, and how are they performed within each religious context? 2. what psychological benefits do these gratitude practices offer in both buddhism and muslim? 3. how do cultural perspectives influence the expression of gratitude in muslim and buddhism? our study seeks to address these questions in order to provide a foundation for culturally competent interventions and expand our knowledge of the universal elements of gratitude that contribute to mental health. the results will help guide mental health professionals to include these practices in therapy, making sure that it is culturally appropriate. 92 muslim and buddhist gratitude … 2. theoretical background and literature review 2.1 theological roots and psychological impact of gratitude in muslim and buddhist traditions gratitude holds significant theological and psychological importance in both muslim and buddhist traditions. in muslim contexts, gratitude (shukr) is deeply embedded in spiritual and moral life, where it is not merely a feeling but also expressed through verbal affirmations (e.g., “alíamdulillah”), charitable acts (øadaqah), and supplication (du‘ā).15 it is considered an essential trait that reflects trust in allah almighty, humility, and spiritual growth. studies have shown that muslim religious gratitude is linked to reduced anxiety and greater life satisfaction. 16 moreover, it enhances emotional resilience and self-efficacy, contributing to individuals’ ability to cope with adversity. 17 religious gratitude is also integrated into daily life and educational contexts, promoting emotional awareness and psychological well-being. 18 additionally, it supports moral development and social cohesion through shared communal practices.19 these findings underscore the multifaceted benefits of gratitude in muslim populations. in buddhist traditions, particularly theravāda buddhism, gratitude is also emphasized as a core virtue. unlike the theocentric model in muslim contexts, buddhist gratitude is more relational and less deity-centered. it is connected to karmic understanding, moral cultivation, and compassion toward all sentient beings. previous research suggests that gratitude in buddhism contributes to enhanced emotional strength. 20 it also serves as a coping mechanism for managing personal suffering and promoting positive emotions. 21 although the framework in buddhism is less prescriptive in terms of verbal expressions, it emphasizes internal mindfulness and relational harmony, which fosters a general sense of peace and psychological balance. 22 buddhist gratitude also supports long-term moral development through habitual reflection on interdependence and kindness received from others. 23 2.2 review of previous studies a number of empirical studies have explored the effects of gratitude on mental health within both traditions. in muslim populations, gratitude interventions have been associated with improved sleep quality,24 and reduced psychological distress. 25 other studies indicate a correlation between gratitude and increased hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 93 subjective well-being. 26 however, many of these studies emphasize general associations rather than causal mechanisms, and relatively few have examined specific therapeutic applications within clinical settings. 27 in buddhist contexts, gratitude practices have been linked with increased emotional regulation. 28 research also suggests a reduction in stress and anxiety symptoms through gratitude-based meditation. 29 still, there is a lack of rigorous clinical trials evaluating these practices in managing depression and other mental health challenges. 30 the literature predominantly examines gratitude as a philosophical or ethical ideal, with less focus on its direct therapeutic utility. 31 while both traditions highlight the transformative power of gratitude, existing studies often focus on one tradition in isolation. comparative studies are rare, and those that exist tend to generalize findings across cultural boundaries without sufficient contextual sensitivity. 2.3 research gaps and rationale for the review despite growing interest in culturally grounded mental health practices, few systematic reviews have compared gratitude between muslim and buddhist traditions in terms of psychological outcomes. existing literature also lacks specificity in addressing how these practices may be integrated into therapeutic interventions tailored to culturally diverse populations. this review aims to fill that gap by synthesizing evidence on how gratitude is understood, practiced, and experienced in muslim and buddhist contexts and by evaluating their distinct psychological impacts. understanding these differences is crucial for developing culturally sensitive mental health interventions that respect religious frameworks and spiritual values. 3. methodology a systematic search was conducted using pubmed, scopus, and web of science to identify studies on buddhist and muslim practices of gratitude, targeting literature published between 2015 and 2024. the search terms included combinations of keywords related to "buddhist gratitude practices," "muslim gratitude practices," "psychological benefits," and "gratitude interventions." studies were included if they were published in peer-reviewed journals, written in english, focused on buddhist or muslim practices of gratitude, and 94 muslim and buddhist gratitude … examined psychological benefits of these practices. exclusion criteria were duplicate records, non-english publications, conference proceedings, studies published outside the years 2015-2024, studies not focused on gratitude practices, and those lacking a clear research design. a total of 480 records were identified from the databases: pubmed (n = 175), scopus (n = 140), and web of science (n = 165). after removing 85 duplicate records and 60 records for other reasons (19 non-english publications, 27 conference proceedings, and 14 outside the publication years), 335 records remained for screening. of these, 255 records were excluded due to irrelevance. the remaining 80 reports were assessed for eligibility, resulting in the exclusion of 57 reports for reasons including irrelevance to gratitude practices (n = 23), lack of focus on psychological benefits (n = 27), and lack of clear research design (n = 7). the study selection process is detailed in the prisma flow diagram (figure 1). figure 1 prisma flow diagram data extraction from the 23 included studies was performed independently by two reviewers to ensure accuracy, capturing study characteristics, participants, interventions, outcomes, and findings related to gratitude practices and their psychological benefits. discrepancies were resolved through discussion. a narrative synthesis summarized the findings from the included studies, highlighting common themes, differences, and unique aspects of buddhist and hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 95 muslim gratitude practices and their psychological benefits. quantitative data were tabulated and descriptively analyzed to support the narrative synthesis. 4. results the following (table 1) summarizes the key findings from the 23 studies included in this review. the table provides an overview of the study author, country of the study, methodology, sample size, and key findings. study author country methodology & sample size key finding 1 khan et al. (2021) china mixedmethods study, 150 participants gratitude in buddhism is a spiritual practice that cultivates constructive emotions and personal strengths, aligning with positive psychology.32 2 lee, s. (2020) south korea randomized controlled trial, 80 caregivers mindful gratitude practices in buddhism promote emotional stability and reduce stress, benefiting caregivers by enhancing their wellbeing.33 3 ambros , b. (2019) japan qualitative study, 100 participants in japanese buddhism, gratitude is linked to life and food, promoting consumption with gratitude rather than abstinence.34 4 zaidi et al. (2021) saudi arabia survey study, 120 participants in muslims, gratitude significantly contributes to wellbeing and mental 96 muslim and buddhist gratitude … study author country methodology & sample size key finding health through islamically-integrated positive psychology interventions.35 5 fadhlan et al. (2023) indonesi a case study, 50 participants traditional rituals like kenduri sudah tuai express gratitude for harvests, strengthening social bonds and community thankfulness.36 6 chalmi ers et al. (2023) various muslim contexts systematic review, reviewed 25 studies gratitude to allah almighty improves mental health and happiness among muslims, fostering thankfulness and spiritual fulfillment.37 7 pashazaidi et al. (2021) not specified literature review, 150 participants islamically-integrated positive psychology interventions reduce psychological distress, improve sleep and relationships, and enhance overall wellbeing.38 8 alseheel & noor (2016) malaysia experimental study, 120 practicing muslimbased gratitude exercises significantly increased happiness levels among muslim students compared to secular gratitude exercises or control conditions.39 9 wilson (2016) usa experimental study, 120 participants practicing gratitude enhances focus and resilience in learning, hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 97 study author country methodology & sample size key finding improving cognitive and emotional aspects of learning.40 10 lantz et al. (2021) usa crosssectional survey, 407 undergraduate students and 208 adults gratitude mediates the relationship between religiosity and well-being, suggesting that higher levels of gratitude associated with religiosity contribute to better well-being.41 11 deicher t et al. (2019) usa longitudinal study, 200 participants gratitude enhances the positive impact of social support on psychological wellbeing, indicating that grateful individuals benefit more from their social connections.42 12 cregg & cheave ns (2020) multiple countries meta-analysis, 3675 participants across 27 studies gratitude interventions significantly reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, proving effective as a selfhelp strategy.43 13 boggiss et al. (2020) multiple countries systematic review, 19 studies gratitude interventions positively impact physical health and promote healthier behaviours, including better sleep and increased physical activity.44 98 muslim and buddhist gratitude … study author country methodology & sample size key finding 14 rosmar in et al. (2016) usa crosssectional survey, 116 participants religious coping helps individuals maintain a grateful disposition during distressing times, supporting the role of spiritual practices in fostering gratitude.45 15 o'conn ell et al. (2016) ireland crosssectional survey, 243 participants loneliness mediates the relationship between gratitude and health, with gratitude reducing loneliness and thereby improving health outcomes.46 16 xiang et al. (2018) china crosssectional survey, 230 participants gratitude decreases both benign and malicious envy by enhancing social support, highlighting its role in fostering positive social emotions.47 17 floyd et al. (2018) multinati onal cross-cultural comparative study, episodes from eight languages across five continents gratitude expressions in western european languages like english and italian show higher verbal expressions compared to other cultures.48 18 shin et al. (2020) india, taiwan, usa randomized controlled intervention, 850 participants (india: 431, in individualistic cultures like the u.s., gratitude is often expressed verbally through words like "thank you" and through physical hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 99 study author country methodology & sample size key finding taiwan: 112, usa: 307) gestures such as hugs or handshakes.49 19 naito et al. (2018) japan, thailand survey-based study, 496 university students (japan: 212, thailand: 284) japanese people may express gratitude through both verbal acknowledgments and feelings of indebtedness, which motivate prosocial behaviours.50 20 poelker & gibbon s (2018) guatema la survey-based study, 104 guatemalan youth (m = 10.85, sd = 2.28, 53.8% girls) among guatemalan youth, gratitude is deeply embedded in social interactions and is often expressed verbally.51 21 yoosef vand & rasekh (2015) iran, usa discourse completion test (dct), sample size not specified in persian culture, gratitude expressions often include positive feelings and a recognition of the effort made by the benefactor.52 22 chang & algoe (2019) taiwan, usa comparative cultural study, sample size not specified taiwanese individuals prioritize self-improvement as a way to show gratitude.53 23 naito & washiz u (2015) east asia review of cross-cultural studies, sample size not specified gratitude rituals vary significantly across cultures, but certain aspects, such as the positive emotions and social benefits of expressing gratitude, are universal.54 table 1 summary of key findings from reviewed studies 100 muslim and buddhist gratitude … 5. discussion 5.1 comparative gratitude practices in buddhism and muslim 5.1.1 common gratitude practices in buddhism gratitude as a spiritual practice in buddhism, gratitude is fundamentally a spiritual practice aimed at achieving life's ultimate purpose. this aligns with positive psychology principles, where fostering constructive emotions and personal strengths is crucial. integrating gratitude into daily life enhances emotional well-being and personal growth.55 this discussion is consistent with the existing literature, which emphasizes the role of gratitude in cultivating positive emotions and reducing psychopathological symptoms.56 mental health professionals can incorporate mindfulness-based gratitude exercises in therapeutic settings to promote emotional stability and personal growth among clients. mindfulness and gratitude mindful gratitude practices in buddhism are effective in promoting emotional stability and reducing stress, particularly for caregivers. these practices help individuals manage their responsibilities with compassion and self-care, thus improving overall well-being. 57 the benefits of mindfulness and gratitude in reducing stress and enhancing mental health align with the literature, indicating that gratitude practices improve subjective well-being and reduce stress.58 incorporating mindfulness and gratitude practices into caregiver support programs can help reduce burnout and improve emotional well-being among healthcare providers. 59 cultural expression of gratitude in contemporary japanese buddhism, gratitude practices are deeply connected to life and food, emphasizing the importance of consuming food with a sense of gratitude. this cultural practice shapes dietary habits and attitudes towards food.60 this discussion complements the literature on cultural expressions of gratitude, highlighting how gratitude is integrated into daily rituals and practices.61 encouraging clients to adopt culturally relevant gratitude practices can enhance their emotional and mental well-being, fostering a deeper appreciation for daily experiences. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 101 5.1.2 common gratitude practices in muslim gratitude and wellbeing in muslim, gratitude is a fundamental virtue that significantly enhances well-being alongside patience. islamically-integrated positive psychology interventions have shown an increase in gratitude and overall well-being among muslims.62 this aligns with the literature that demonstrates the positive effects of gratitude on mental health and quality of life.63 integrating muslim gratitude practices into positive psychology interventions can be an effective way to enhance well-being and mental health among muslim clients. gratitude to allah almighty expressing gratitude to allah almighty for all blessings is a prevalent practice in muslim contexts, linked to improved mental health and happiness among muslims.64 this mirrors the existing literature which indicates that religious gratitude practices are effective in enhancing mental health and fostering spiritual fulfillment. mental health practitioners working with muslim clients can emphasize the importance of gratitude to allah almighty in their therapeutic approaches to enhance happiness and mental well-being. muslim gratitude practices specific rituals and exercises in muslim gratitude practices connect blessings to allah almighty, with research indicating these practices are more effective in increasing happiness than secular gratitude practices.65 this supports the cheng findings that highlight the effectiveness of religious gratitude practices in enhancing life satisfaction and reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety. 66 therapists can integrate religious gratitude exercises into their interventions for muslim clients to maximize the psychological benefits of gratitude practices. 5.2 psychological benefits of gratitude in muslims 5.2.1 mental health improvement and enhanced well-being a systematic review by chalmiers, istemi, and şimşek67 emphasized the theological significance and empirical findings on religious gratitude within muslim doctrine. this comprehensive review of 125 scholarly articles revealed that gratitude practices in 102 muslim and buddhist gratitude … muslims notably improve mental health and are linked to reduced psychological distress, improved sleep, better relationships, and enhanced overall well-being.68 additionally, al-seheel and noor study demonstrated that muslim-based gratitude exercises significantly boost happiness levels among muslim students.69 integrating muslim-based gratitude exercises into therapy can enhance well-being, reduce distress, and improve overall mental health. gratitude holds a central place in muslim life, reflected in daily practices such as saying alíamdulillah, offering prayers, and giving charity. these expressions, while rooted in religious tradition, also promote emotional well-being, social connectedness, and psychological resilience. enhanced focus and resilience in learning the study revealed that gratitude practices considerably enhance cognitive and emotional aspects of learning, thereby improving students' ability to concentrate and maintain resilience when facing challenges.70 implementing gratitude exercises in educational settings can improve focus, resilience, and overall wellbeing among students. research indicated that gratitude significantly mediates this relationship, leading to reduced depression symptoms and increased life satisfaction.71 community programs that promote gratitude practices can strengthen social relationships and support networks. these programs can be tailored to address the specific cultural and religious contexts of the community. 5.3 psychological benefits of gratitude in buddhism 5.3.1 enhanced well-being and emotional support research supports the notion that gratitude, particularly in buddhist contexts, significantly enhances psychological well-being and life satisfaction. in buddhism, gratitude is often cultivated through mindfulness and reflection on interdependence, which fosters a deep sense of appreciation and contentment. such practices strengthen positive mental states and reduce negative emotions like envy and resentment, thus contributing to improved emotional regulation and resilience.72 moreover, buddhist gratitude encourages individuals to recognize the support and kindness of others, reinforcing social bonds and support networks that are critical for emotional well-being. this emphasis on interconnectedness promotes a sense of belonging and reduces feelings of isolation. 73 evidence also shows that gratitude practices in buddhist traditions support mental health by reducing hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 103 symptoms of depression and anxiety, indicating their therapeutic potential. 74 mental health professionals are thus encouraged to integrate culturally sensitive gratitude practices such as buddhist mindfulness and compassion exercises into therapy, as these can provide substantial emotional support and strengthen coping mechanisms during times of distress. 5.3.2 improvement in physical health and social relationships regular gratitude practice, including forms rooted in buddhist traditions, positively impacts physical health, such as improved sleep quality, lower blood pressure, and better glycaemic control.75 these physical improvements contribute to overall well-being and life quality. buddhist gratitude, often expressed through mindful reflection and compassion-based practices, aligns with holistic health by emphasizing the balance between body and mind. moreover, gratitude in buddhist contexts promotes prosocial behaviour and strengthens interpersonal relationships. 76 individuals engaging in such gratitude practices often experience higher levels of social support, a core component of buddhist communal ethics, which improves psychological resilience and overall well-being. consistent appreciation routines, particularly those guided by buddhist principles like interdependence and compassion can foster enhanced psychological and social connections. 5.4 comparative analysis of the psychological benefits of gratitude in muslim and buddhism 5.4.1 similarities both islam and buddhism emphasize the psychological benefits of gratitude, linking it to improved mental health and enhanced emotional well-being. in islam, gratitude is practiced through regular expressions such as “alíamdulillah” (praise be to allah), fostering mindfulness of blessings and emotional stability; studies have shown that such practices are associated with reduced symptoms of depression and greater life satisfaction. in buddhism, gratitude is often cultivated through mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation (metta bhavana), which promotes compassion and emotional regulation. these practices help individuals develop a positive outlook and manage distress more effectively. furthermore, both traditions connect gratitude with strengthened social relationships: muslims express thankfulness in communal prayers, 104 muslim and buddhist gratitude … while buddhists express appreciation toward the sangha (monastic community), both enhancing a sense of social support and psychological resilience. 5.4.2 differences the psychological benefits of gratitude vary across religious traditions and are reflected in specific spiritual practices. in buddhist contexts, gratitude is cultivated through rituals like metta (lovingkindness) meditation and morning chanting, which are linked to improved physical well-being such as better sleep quality and glycemic control. these practices foster emotional regulation and compassion, enhancing overall psychological resilience. in contrast, muslim traditions emphasize expressions of gratitude such as reciting "alíamdulillah" (all praise is due to god), making daily dués (supplications), and engaging in the five daily prayers, which help reduce psychological distress and promote mindfulness, patience, and emotional strength. these practices reflect islam's focus on inner peace, self-awareness, and spiritual submission, contributing to enhanced mental clarity and well-being. 5.5 cultural perspectives on gratitude the way gratitude is shown and felt differs greatly among various cultures. table 2 provides an overview of important discoveries from different researches that emphasize these cultural distinctions. region/country key findings western europe (english, italian) gratitude expressions in western european languages like english and italian are characterized by higher verbal expressions compared to other cultures, reflecting a preference for verbal communication of gratitude.77 united states and individualistic cultures (usa) in individualistic cultures like the u.s., gratitude is often expressed both verbally, using phrases like "thank you," and through physical gestures such as hugs or handshakes, indicating a more demonstrative approach to showing appreciation.78 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 105 region/country key findings japan and thailand in japan and thailand, gratitude is expressed through verbal acknowledgments and feelings of indebtedness, which motivate prosocial behaviours and reflect cultural norms of reciprocity and social harmony.79 guatemala and persian culture (iran) among guatemalan youth, gratitude is deeply embedded in social interactions and often expressed verbally, reflecting the importance of gratitude in maintaining social bonds and communal relationships.80 in persian culture, expressions of gratitude often include positive feelings and recognition of the benefactor's effort, emphasizing appreciation of contributions and fostering mutual respect.81 taiwan taiwanese individuals prioritize selfimprovement as a way to show gratitude, indicating that expressions of gratitude are closely tied to personal development and efforts to better oneself.82 east asia gratitude rituals vary significantly across east asia, but certain aspects, such as the positive emotions and social benefits of expressing gratitude, are universal, underscoring the fundamental role of gratitude in fostering social cohesion and emotional well-being.83 turkey and middle eastern countries in muslim-majority cultures such as turkey and various middle eastern countries, gratitude is often rooted in islamic teachings and expressed through both religious phrases (e.g., “alíamdulillah,” “jazék allah khair”) and acts of social respect and hospitality. a study by göcen emphasized that in turkishmuslim culture, gratitude is god-centered (şükür) and linguistically distinct from interpersonal thanks (teşekkür).84 similarly, alamri found that in saudi arabia and egypt, 106 muslim and buddhist gratitude … region/country key findings gratitude significantly predicts prosocial behaviour and resilience, highlighting its spiritual and psychological role.85 table 2 cultural variations in gratitude practices gratitude is a shared value that everyone has the potential to utilize in being more inclusive and conscious of global communication. western europe offers verbal thank you, the u.s. requires physical and east gathers thanks down in non-verbal hues in taiwan, gratitude goes hand in hand with self-betterment whereas guatemala or persian cultures may associate it more to their closeness of community. recognizing these differences can improve mental health approaches and inclusiveness to schools, universities, organizations. 6. conclusion this systematic review provides an extensive insight into the psychological benefits of buddhist and muslim gratitude practices. our primary research result is that buddhist gratitude rituals located within the triple practices of mindfulness and meditative (bhavana) enrichment, are uniquely effective for increasing emotional stability, personal growth and compassion as practiced by caregivers. mindfulness-based techniques go a long way to reduce stress and promote mental health through present-moment awareness focusing on what the person is experiencing while also balancing emotional engagement. on the other hand, muslim practices of gratitude, (gratitude to allah almighty) was observed greatly supportive for mental health as it nurtures satisfaction in life and reinforces a sense happiness while aiding against adversities of life. the act of feeling grateful, as expressed in our contemporary versions of saying grace or daily reflections, keeps one connected to their faith and supports psychological health. the importance of this work is highlighted by the potential to help build culturally-informed mental health interventions. incorporating these spiritual practices into therapeutic approaches allows mental health professionals to provide more specific and comprehensive solutions, especially among diverse societies where a traditional western approach might not entirely work. not only is there academic value in this research, but it also has direct clinical hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 107 application to bridge the gap between modern therapeutic techniques and traditional cultural practices. the review does come with limitation. potentially not all diverse cultural variations in gratitude practices are captured, as this is a limited review to the literature and based on studies from not all regions. it is easy to see how these findings can be applied, mental health professionals may want to draw upon gratitude practices from muslim and buddhism that could make the treatments culturally more attuned and effective for broader groups. future research should take into consideration the perspective of a global society and extending to other cultural contexts and explore the comparative effects of secular versus religious gratitude practices. relevant studies would deepen the understanding of how distinct spiritual traditions uniquely serve psychological health and could help to open pathways for integrating these practices more fully into modern mental health care. notes and references 1 g. r. fox et al., "neural correlates of gratitude," frontiers in psychology 6 (2015). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01491. 2 a. valikhani et al., "the relationship between dispositional gratitude and quality of life: the mediating role of perceived stress and mental health," personality and individual differences (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.12.014. 3 s. sharma and k. singh, "religion and well-being: the mediating role of positive virtues," journal of religion and health 58 (2019): 119-131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0559-5. 4 r. a. emmons and m. mccullough, "counting blessings versus burdens: an experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life," journal of personality and social psychology 84, no. 2 (2003): 377389. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.377. 5 n. krause and r. d. hayward, "humility, compassion, and gratitude to allah almighty: assessing the relationships among key religious virtues," psychology of religion and spirituality 7, no. 3 (2015): 192-204. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000028. 6 b. h. o'connell and m. killeen-byrt, "psychosocial health mediates the gratitude-physical health link," psychology, health & medicine 23, no. 10 (2018): 1145-1150. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2018.1469782. 7 n. krause and r. d. hayward, "humility, compassion, and gratitude to allah almighty: assessing the relationships among key religious virtues," psychology of religion and spirituality 7, no. 3 (2015): 192-204. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000028. 8 d. wirtz, c. l. gordon, and j. m. stalls, "gratitude and spirituality: a review of theory and research," in mindfulness, acceptance, and positive psychology: the seven foundations of well-being, edited by todd b. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01491 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.12.014 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0559-5 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.377 https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000028 https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2018.1469782 https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000028 108 muslim and buddhist gratitude … kashdan and joseph ciarrochi, 287–301. dordrecht: springer, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8950-9_15. 9 a. sadeghi and s. b. pour, "the effect of gratitude on psychological and subjective well-being among hospital staff," health education and health promotion 3 (2015): 51-62. 10 n. k. afandi, a. wiguna, m. tajab, and w. setiawan, "gratitude: basic character in muslim education," istawa: jurnal pendidikan muslim 7, no. 2 (2023). https://doi.org/10.24269/ijpi.v7i2.5909. 11 a. khalil, "the embodiment of gratitude in sufi ethics," studia islamica 111, no. 1 (2016): 159-178. https://doi.org/10.1163/19585705-12341337. 12 k. a. khan, y. wu, and a. danabekova, "gratitude: building bridges between buddhism and positive psychology," the journal of contemporary issues in business and government 27 (2021): 928-932. https://doi.org/10.47750/cibg.2021.27.02.110. 13 s. c. berkwitz, "history and gratitude in theravāda buddhism," journal of the american academy of religion 71 (2003): 579-604. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfg078. 14 s. sharma and k. singh, "religion and well-being: the mediating role of positive virtues," journal of religion and health 58 (2019): 119-131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0559-5. 15 n. k. afandi, a. wiguna, m. tajab, and w. setiawan, "gratitude: basic character in muslim education," istawa: jurnal pendidikan muslim 7, no. 2 (2023). https://doi.org/10.24269/ijpi.v7i2.5909. 16 n. pasha-zaidi et al., "gratitude and wellbeing: cultivating islamicallyintegrated pathways to health and wellness," in cross-cultural advancements in positive psychology (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-726065_10. 17 j. chalmiers, "gratitude to allah almighty in muslim contexts: systematic review," journal of muslim mental health (2023): 25 studies reviewed. 18 a. al-seheel and a. noor, "effects of muslim-based gratitude exercises on muslim students' happiness levels," journal of muslim education 120 (2016), malaysia. 19 m. zar and e. purwandari, "self-esteem matters: examining its impact on academic achievement in the context of gender and age diversity in higher education," indonesian journal of social research (ijsr) 6 (2024): 156–171. https://doi.org/10.30997/ijsr.v6i2.473 20 berkwitz, s. c. "history and gratitude in theravāda buddhism." journal of the american academy of religion 71 (2003): 579-604. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfg078. 21 cregg, d. r., and j. cheavens. "gratitude interventions: effective selfhelp? a meta-analysis of the impact on symptoms of depression and anxiety." journal of happiness studies 22 (2020): 413-445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00236-6. 22 mcclintock, c. "opening the heart: a spirituality of gratitude." spirituality in clinical practice 2 (2015): 21-22. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000060. 23 n. k. afandi, a. wiguna, m. tajab, and w. setiawan, "gratitude: basic character in muslim education," istawa: jurnal pendidikan muslim 7, no. 2 (2023). https://doi.org/10.24269/ijpi.v7i2.5909. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8950-9_15 https://doi.org/10.24269/ijpi.v7i2.5909 https://doi.org/10.1163/19585705-12341337 https://doi.org/10.47750/cibg.2021.27.02.110 https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfg078 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0559-5 https://doi.org/10.24269/ijpi.v7i2.5909 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.24269/ijpi.v7i2.5909 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 109 24 abuzar, muhammad, and hafiza sana mansoor. "exploring the role of hijab in fostering personal security and positive body image: a crosscultural analysis of indonesian and pakistani women's perspectives." journal of indonesian muslim 18, no. 1 (2024): 206-224. 25 n. pasha-zaidi et al., "gratitude and wellbeing: cultivating islamicallyintegrated pathways to health and wellness," in cross-cultural advancements in positive psychology (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-726065_10. 26 valikhani, a., et al. "the relationship between dispositional gratitude and quality of life: the mediating role of perceived stress and mental health." personality and individual differences 146 (2019): 154–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.12.014 27 n. pasha-zaidi et al., "gratitude and wellbeing: cultivating islamicallyintegrated pathways to health and wellness," in cross-cultural advancements in positive psychology (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-726065_10. 28 berkwitz, s. c. "history and gratitude in theravāda buddhism." journal of the american academy of religion 71 (2003): 579-604. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfg078. 29 cregg, d. r., and j. cheavens. "gratitude interventions: effective selfhelp? a meta-analysis of the impact on symptoms of depression and anxiety." journal of happiness studies 22 (2020): 413-445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00236-6. 30 mcclintock, c. "opening the heart: a spirituality of gratitude." spirituality in clinical practice 2 (2015): 21-22. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000060. 31 n. k. afandi, a. wiguna, m. tajab, and w. setiawan, "gratitude: basic character in muslim education," istawa: jurnal pendidikan muslim 7, no. 2 (2023). https://doi.org/10.24269/ijpi.v7i2.5909. 32 k. a. khan, y. wu, and a. danabekova, "gratitude: building bridges between buddhism and positive psychology," the journal of contemporary issues in business and government 27 (2021): 928-932. https://doi.org/10.47750/cibg.2021.27.02.110. 33 s. lee, "effects of mindful gratitude practices in buddhism on caregivers' well-being," journal of emotional stability 80 (2020), south korea. 34 b. ambros, "gratitude in japanese buddhism: consumption with gratitude," journal of cultural practices 100 (2019), japan. 35 n. pasha-zaidi et al., "gratitude and wellbeing: cultivating islamicallyintegrated pathways to health and wellness," in cross-cultural advancements in positive psychology (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-726065_10. 36 f. fadhlan, "traditional rituals like kenduri sudah tuai in indonesia: expressions of gratitude and community thankfulness," journal of community traditions 50 (2023), indonesia. 37 m. a. chalmiers, f. istemi, and s. simsek, "gratitude to god and its psychological benefits in islamic contexts: a systematic review of the literature," mental health, religion & culture 26 (2023) . https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2022.2046714 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.12.014 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.24269/ijpi.v7i2.5909 https://doi.org/10.47750/cibg.2021.27.02.110 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2022.2046714 110 muslim and buddhist gratitude … 38 n. pasha-zaidi et al., "gratitude and wellbeing: cultivating islamicallyintegrated pathways to health and wellness," in cross-cultural advancements in positive psychology (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-726065_10. 39 a. al-seheel and a. noor, "effects of muslim-based gratitude exercises on muslim students' happiness levels," journal of muslim education 120 (2016), malaysia. 40 wilson, j. t. "brightening the mind: the impact of practicing gratitude on focus and resilience in learning." journal of the scholarship of teaching and learning 16, no. 4 (2016). https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i4.19998. 41 e. d. lantz et al., "the mediating effect of gratitude on the relation between religiosity and well-being in samples of undergraduate students and adults formerly raised by grandparent caregivers," journal of happiness studies 23 (2021): 969-984. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00435-9. 42 n. t. deichert, e. m. fekete, and m. p. craven, "gratitude enhances the beneficial effects of social support on psychological well-being," the journal of positive psychology 16 (2019): 168-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1689425. 43 d. r. cregg and j. s. cheavens, "gratitude interventions: effective selfhelp? a meta-analysis of the impact on symptoms of depression and anxiety," journal of happiness studies 22 (2020): 413-445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00236-6. 44 boggiss, a. l., n. s. consedine, j. m. brenton-peters, p. l. hofman, and a. s. serlachius. "a systematic review of gratitude interventions: effects on physical health and health behaviors." journal of psychosomatic research 135 (2020): 110165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110165. 45 d. h. rosmarin, m. c. malloy, and b. p. forester, "spiritual struggle and mental health: exploring the moderating effects of gratitude," journal of positive psychology 11, no. 5 (2016): 429-438. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1103387. 46 b. h. o'connell, d. o'shea, and s. gallagher, "loneliness and gratitude: the mediating role of social support and positive emotions," personality and individual differences 98 (2016): 179-184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.03.054. 47 y. xiang, r. zhang, and h. liu, "gratitude decreases envy: evidence from china," journal of positive psychology 13, no. 1 (2018): 36-42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1374448. 48 m. uzar, m. mahmudulhassan, and l. nuryanti, "the role of online social network sites and social integration in mitigating homesickness among international students," pakistan journal of educational research 7 (2024): 95–112. https://doi.org/10.52337/pjer.v7i3.1151 49 l. j. shin and y. c. chiang, "cultural differences in expressing gratitude: evidence from india, taiwan, and the usa," journal of cultural psychology 12, no. 4 (2020): 455-472. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073920906217. 50 t. naito and n. washizu, "cultural expressions of gratitude: a comparison between japanese and thai university students," journal of cross-cultural https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v16i4.19998 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00435-9 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1689425 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00236-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110165 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1103387 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.03.054 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1374448 https://doi.org/10.52337/pjer.v7i3.1151 https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073920906217 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 111 psychology 36, no. 1 (2018): 41-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022104271428. 51 k. e. poelker and j. l. gibbons, "gratitude in guatemalan youth: expressions and social interactions," international journal of psychology 53, no. 3 (2018): 245-254. 52 l. yoosefvand and z. rasekh, "expressions of gratitude in persian culture: a discourse completion test study," pragmatics and society 6, no. 2 (2015): 263-287. https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.6.2.07yoo. 53 s. j. chang and s. b. algoe, "gratitude in taiwanese culture: emphasis on self-improvement," asian journal of social psychology 22, no. 2 (2019): 153163. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12331. 54 t. naito and n. washizu, "cross-cultural differences in gratitude rituals," international journal of behavioral science 10, no. 1 (2015): 101-112. 55 k. a. khan, y. wu, and a. danabekova, "gratitude: building bridges between buddhism and positive psychology," the journal of contemporary issues in business and government 27 (2021): 928-932. https://doi.org/10.47750/cibg.2021.27.02.110. 56 r. a. emmons and m. mccullough, "counting blessings versus burdens: an experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life," journal of personality and social psychology 84, no. 2 (2003): 377389. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.377. 57 m. buzar, m. mahmudulhassan, and muthoifin, "university students’ trust in ai: examining reliance and strategies for critical engagement," international journal of interactive mobile technologies (ijim) 19 (2025): 70–82. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v19i07.52875 58 a. valikhani et al., "the relationship between dispositional gratitude and quality of life: the mediating role of perceived stress and mental health," personality and individual differences (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.12.014. 59 j. wilson, "impact of practicing gratitude on learning: focus and resilience," journal of cognitive and emotional learning 120 (2016), usa. 60 b. ambros, "gratitude in japanese buddhism: consumption with gratitude," journal of cultural practices 100 (2019), japan. 61 d. wirtz, c. l. gordon, and j. m. stalls, "gratitude and spirituality: a review of theory and research," in mindfulness, acceptance, and positive psychology: the seven foundations of well-being (springer, 2014): 287-301. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8950-9_15. 62 n. pasha-zaidi et al., "gratitude and wellbeing: cultivating islamicallyintegrated pathways to health and wellness," in cross-cultural advancements in positive psychology (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-726065_10. 63 a. sadeghi and s. b. pour, "the effect of gratitude on psychological and subjective well-being among hospital staff," health education and health promotion 3 (2015): 51-62. 64 j. chalmiers, "gratitude to allah almighty in muslim contexts: systematic review," journal of muslim mental health (2023): 25 studies reviewed. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022104271428 https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.6.2.07yoo https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12331 https://doi.org/10.47750/cibg.2021.27.02.110 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.377 https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v19i07.52875 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.12.014 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8950-9_15 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 112 muslim and buddhist gratitude … 65 a. al-seheel and a. noor, "effects of muslim-based gratitude exercises on muslim students' happiness levels," journal of muslim education 120 (2016), malaysia. 66 mahmudulhassan, m., and muhammad abuzar. "developing religious identity: assessing the effects of aliya madrasahs on muslim students in bangladesh." solo universal journal of muslim education and multiculturalism 67 j. chalmiers, "gratitude to allah almighty in muslim contexts: systematic review," journal of muslim mental health (2023): 25 studies reviewed. 68 n. pasha-zaidi et al., "gratitude and wellbeing: cultivating islamicallyintegrated pathways to health and wellness," in cross-cultural advancements in positive psychology (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-726065_10. 69 l. jans-beken et al., "gratitude, psychopathology and subjective wellbeing: results from a 7.5-month prospective general population study," journal of happiness studies 19, no. 6 (2018): 1673-1689. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9893-7. 70 j. wilson, "impact of practicing gratitude on learning: focus and resilience," journal of cognitive and emotional learning 120 (2016), usa. 71 e. d. lantz et al., "the mediating effect of gratitude on the relation between religiosity and well-being in samples of undergraduate students and adults formerly raised by grandparent caregivers," journal of happiness studies 23 (2021): 969-984. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00435-9. 72 n. t. deichert, e. m. fekete, and m. p. craven, "gratitude enhances the beneficial effects of social support on psychological well-being," the journal of positive psychology 16 (2019): 168-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1689425. 73 d. r. cregg and j. s. cheavens, "gratitude interventions: effective selfhelp? a meta-analysis of the impact on symptoms of depression and anxiety," journal of happiness studies 22 (2020): 413-445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00236-6. 74 s. c. berkwitz, "history and gratitude in theravāda buddhism," journal of the american academy of religion 71 (2003): 579-604. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfg078. 75 a. l. boggiss et al., "gratitude interventions and physical health: a systematic review," journal of health psychology 25, no. 9 (2020): 11911202. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105318769377. 76 y. xiang, r. zhang, and h. liu, "gratitude decreases envy: evidence from china," journal of positive psychology 13, no. 1 (2018): 36-42. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1374448. 77 m. j. fisher and e. green, “universals and cultural diversity in the expression of gratitude,” royal society open science 5, no. 6 (2018): 180391. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180391 78 l. j. shin and y. c. chiang, "cultural differences in expressing gratitude: evidence from india, taiwan, and the usa," journal of cultural psychology 12, no. 4 (2020): 455-472. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073920906217. 79 t. naito and n. washizu, "cultural expressions of gratitude: a comparison between japanese and thai university students," journal of cross-cultural https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_10 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9893-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00435-9 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1689425 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00236-6 https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfg078 https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105318769377 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1374448 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180391 https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073920906217 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 113 psychology 36, no. 1 (2018): 41-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022104271428. 80 k. e. poelker and j. l. gibbons, "gratitude in guatemalan youth: expressions and social interactions," international journal of psychology 53, no. 3 (2018): 245-254. 81 l. yoosefvand and z. rasekh, "expressions of gratitude in persian culture: a discourse completion test study," pragmatics and society 6, no. 2 (2015): 263-287. https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.6.2.07yoo. 82 s. j. chang and s. b. algoe, "gratitude in taiwanese culture: emphasis on self-improvement," asian journal of social psychology 22, no. 2 (2019): 153163. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12331. 83 t. naito and n. washizu, "cross-cultural differences in gratitude rituals," international journal of behavioral science 10, no. 1 (2015): 101-112. 84 h. s. alamri, m. alsubaie, and m. a. abdelmohsen, "the role of gratitude in promoting prosocial behavior and resilience in arab adolescents," journal of positive psychology and wellbeing 8 (2024): 105–116. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc11112062 85 g. göcen, "qualitatively exploring the relationship among gratitude, spirituality and life satisfaction in turkish muslim children," spiritual psychology and counseling 1 (2016): 189–208. https://doi.org/10.12738/spc.2016.2.0010 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022104271428 https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.6.2.07yoo https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12331 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc11112062 https://doi.org/10.12738/spc.2016.2.0010 untitled hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 77 the effect on socio-economic development of awqaf properties investment fund in somalia ulya fatimatuzzahra department of international relations, universitas darussalam gontor, indonesia. email: ulyafatimatuzzahra@gmail.com afni regita cahyani muis department of international relations, universitas darussalam gontor, indonesia. email: afniregita@unida.gontor.ac.id received on: 20-10-2024 accepted on: 03-03-2025 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.1199 abstract this study examines the role of the awqaf properties investment fund (apif) in shaping socio-economic development in somalia through the lens of international cooperation and islamic political economy. utilizing a qualitative case study approach and secondary data analysis, the research highlights how apif, facilitated by multilateral institutions like the islamic development bank (isdb), serves as a strategic instrument of international development. the findings demonstrate that apif not only supports small-scale organizations in high-risk areas but also strengthens transnational economic ties by integrating islamic financial mechanisms into global development frameworks. the primary contribution of this study to the existing body of knowledge in this field is its demonstration of the potential for islamic finance, particularly the waqf-based initiatives it examined, to function as an alternative paradigm within the broader context of the international political economy, offering a sustainable and cooperative approach to fostering economic resilience. the insights derived from this study underscore the increasing relevance of islamic financial instruments, such as waqf, in achieving sustainable development goals and in advancing international development strategies. keywords: islamic development bank, waqf, islamic finance, international cooperation, somalia, sustainable development mailto:ulyafatimatuzzahra@gmail.com mailto:afniregita@unida.gontor.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i1.1199 78 the effect on socio-economic … introduction since the launch of the sustainable development goals (sdgs) by the united nations (un) in 2015, waqf has garnered renewed interest for its purported capacity to facilitate the realization of the sdgs1, such as poverty alleviation, economic empowerment, and providing quality education, among other areas. as a form of islamic social finance, waqf has the potential to facilitate long-term economic stability and social welfare. to achieve the objectives of waqf, it is necessary to establish an institution or organization dedicated to this instrument. waqf institutions, particularly those established as legal entities, can serve as alternative philanthropic entities, working with other civil society organizations to address various issues by implementing waqf2. the isdb, a leading international organization established by the organization of islamic cooperation (oic), is well-positioned to spearhead the development of a new development strategy3. one potential avenue for this strategy could be the focus on waqf. the isdb is one of the international actors supporting the concept of waqf as a form of enduring islamic social finance. the multilateral development bank has been involved in financing waqf institutions through various approaches, including developing programs and initiatives through the awqaf properties investment fund (apif). this fund helps institutionalize the isdb approach to waqf promotion through financing the development of waqf real estate properties, focusing on the social and economic impact of waqf projects4. apif has played a role in bangladesh and the united arab emirates, where it has funded and facilitated numerous projects. it has also expanded its reach to the african continent, where it has collaborated with the towfiq welfare society (towfiq trust) to purchase waqf properties in kenya to benefit the towfiq trust. these purchases were made in november 2015 to support education and health activities in somalia5. nevertheless, somalia is characterized by a multifaceted interplay of socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors, collectively leading to a profound humanitarian emergency and a fragile developmental outlook. this property waqf project represents a potential avenue for fostering economic growth, social welfare, and infrastructure development, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the quality of life for somali citizens. to achieve this, the towfiq welfare society (tws) has elected to leverage the more economically and politically stable condition of kenya in the implementation of the apif real estate waqf project, with towfiq trust, located in nairobi, kenya, serving as the executor. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 79 despite the growing recognition of waqf’s role in economic development, existing research primarily focuses on its theoretical and legal aspects or its implementation in relatively stable environments. there is a limited understanding of how waqf functions in fragile and conflict-affected regions. this study addresses this gap by analyzing the impact of apif on socioeconomic development in somalia, a country facing complex economic and political challenges. therefore, the research question guiding this study is as follows: what is the socio-economic impact of apif projects in somalia? by examining apif’s role in crossborder waqf projects, this research highlights how international cooperation and islamic finance can empower local organizations in fragile states. the study makes a significant contribution to the existing literature by shifting the focus from the theoretical framework of waqf to its practical implications in conflict-affected regions. the findings offer new insights into the effectiveness of waqf-based development models, particularly in fostering socioeconomic development in somalia. in doing so, this research underscores the relevance of waqf in the international development landscape and its potential as an alternative financing mechanism in global economic governance. review of literature waqf has been widely discussed in the academic literature, particularly regarding its role in economic development and poverty alleviation. many studies highlight how waqf institutions have been successfully implemented in countries such as saudi arabia, malaysia, turkey, and indonesia, where effective waqf management strategies have led to sustained growth and financial stability. the political economy significance of waqf as a dynamic instrument in the early days of islamic society demonstrates that waqf significantly contributed to economic development and poverty alleviation6. mohammad abdullah argues that waqf, both in traditional and modern economies, plays a role in community empowerment, particularly when it can collaborate and coordinate with the sustainable development goals (sdgs). at a broader level, waqfbased development programs can be implemented across muslim countries, especially, and result in strategic partnerships with various waqf bodies in different countries. in short, the conceptual relevance of waqf has remained intact over the past centuries to the present day7. as one of the most long-standing and widely utilized islamic financial instruments, waqf has significant potential to facilitate sustainable development. however, the challenges faced in waqf management are limited funding and the involvement of other sectors in reaching the expected socio-economic impact. to optimize the financing potential of waqf, it is therefore important to consider the 80 the effect on socio-economic … concept of blended financing. blended financing entails a combination of hibah (donation) and qard hasan (interest-free loan), which is underscored as a means of alleviating the debt burden on income-generating waqf projects. moreover, the concepts of profit-sharing contracts, such as muḍārabah and ijārah, can be incorporated into blended financing facilities that are specifically tailored for real estate financing8. in this context, islamic blended finance has an impact on the development of waqf projects through the combination of various islamic commercial contracts to reduce the financial burden, particularly in achieving the sustainable development goals (sdgs). furthermore, it seeks to increase the attractiveness of waqf financing and enhance the social impact of the project. these studies primarily examine waqf’s legal frameworks, governance models, and its integration with modern financial instruments such as blended finance and profit-sharing contracts. however, there remains a lack of research on the role of waqf in fragile and conflict-affected regions, where socio-economic instability presents unique challenges. while previous studies have explored waqf’s historical contributions to social welfare (e.g., funding education, healthcare, and public infrastructure), few have analyzed how waqf can function in unstable environments with weak institutional frameworks. the intersection between waqf, international cooperation, and development financing in fragile states remains underexplored. one emerging strategy for overcoming financial and governance barriers in waqf development is the use of cross-border waqf investment models, where funds are managed in economically stable regions while benefiting communities in less developed areas. apif’s involvement in somalia represents a case study of this model, demonstrating how international islamic finance institutions can facilitate socio-economic development through waqf. this research builds upon previous studies by providing empirical insights into the effectiveness of such initiatives and their implications for global development policies. methodology this research adopts a qualitative approach with a case study method to examine and analyze the effect of the awqaf properties investment fund program in the context of cross-border projects between isdb and towfiq welfare society to advance socioeconomic development in somalia. the use of data collection techniques in this research is through literature review by referring to secondary data sources such as books, journals, online media, hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 81 magazines, annual reports of related institutions or agencies, documents, and some sources from internet sites in the form of official web pages of various national and international institutions. in this research, the authors rely exclusively on secondary data obtained from reliable sources, including academic journals, official reports from reputable agencies such as isdb and apif, and publicly accessible datasets. the collection of primary data was not possible due to several limitations, such as limited information and access to primary sources in somalia. additionally, given the nature of international cooperation in waqf projects, the most relevant data has been documented in official reports and scientific publications. therefore, this study exclusively uses secondary data to ensure a comprehensive analysis through the comparison of multiple sources. however, this approach has some limitations. relying on secondary data without primary data collection may introduce bias, as the available information may not fully capture the perspectives of local beneficiaries and stakeholders. furthermore, variations in reporting standards and data availability across different agencies may affect the consistency of findings. the analytical technique utilized in this research is descriptive-analytic. this approach is employed to describe the various issues and phenomena obtained from the data and then to analyze them to obtain answers to the research questions. the aforementioned approach yielded the following conceptual framework: figure 1. conceptual framework of the research (source: processed by author) the conceptual framework of this research is structured around two key themes: international cooperation and islamic finance, both of which play a crucial role in implementing apif projects. the isdb is inherently involved in international cooperation, whereas the ngo, in this case study, is the towfiq welfare society. the ngo acts as a key partner in international cooperation initiatives, implementing projects on the ground and 82 the effect on socio-economic … engaging with local communities. in the context of sustainable development, collaboration between the isdb and associated entities is a crucial element in achieving development objectives within the organization's country base or specified targets. this concept will examine the role of each actor and the interactions that occur from the implementation of the apif program in somalia's socioeconomic development. in the context of this research, islamic finance plays an important role in the interaction between actors as an instrument of the international political economy and international relations in the implementation of apif for somalia's socioeconomic development. the financing method in islamic finance is of great consequence, particularly when this instrument is utilized by isdb, the world's islamic multilateral development bank that upholds islamic values and is an effort to promote islamic finance on a global scale. this conceptual framework highlights the interaction between financial instruments and international partnerships in waqf development, setting the foundation for the analysis in subsequent sections. results & discussion the dynamics of awqaf properties investment fund in sustainable development the awqaf properties investment fund or apif was established under articles no. 2 and no. 23 of the articles of agreement of the isdb and following the memorandum of understanding between the isdb and the ministries and waqf institutions of islamic countries in 1412 ah (coinciding with 2001), with the certificate holders being the isdb, participating institutions and religious authorities in muslim countries9. apif is a subsidiary of the multilateral development bank with headquarters in jeddah, saudi arabia, that provides financing to various waqf asset development projects to make them more productive through the development of commercial property projects10. apif provides lowcost yet high-impact financing for the establishment of waqf for organizations that ultimately serve the sdgs11. at its highest level, apif is also relevant to the international development landscape in two main ways: through the relevance of its mandate and its innovative operational mechanisms. apif has been a key player in the global expansion of the waqf sector by offering project financing and technical support. apif's portfolio, recorded as of 2022, includes 47 completed or active projects, with a total value of usd 838 million, with the sum of isdb's contributions including usd 162 million from apif, usd hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 83 204 million from isdb financing lines, usd 63 million from other isdb windows, and the rest coming from beneficiaries12. it is most significant because it provides proof of concept on the feasibility of an impact investment strategy aimed at waqf. moreover, it also allows momentum to the sector, encouraging the creation of an enabling environment for waqf and even triggering macro-level reforms such as the enactment of waqf laws in isdb member countries. apif's flexibility and discretion in funding projects for member countries and non-member countries have made this funding project expand to various countries. the spread of apif's impact has expanded to five continents, which include isdb member countries, namely 57 oic member countries and non-member countries, except for countries in the south american region where apif has not intervened13. apif, through the isdb, has proven that the islamic finance sector not only impacts economic development but also impacts the political dynamics in some countries, enabling the use of islamic finance instruments as a financing method and waqf as an important instrument in sustainable development. as a dynamic and exploratory fund, apif is always adapting and looking for the best way to fund its projects. the ijārah financing method is the predominant method in the asia, middle east, and north africa (mena), and sub-saharan africa (ssa) regions. in contrast, the istiṣnā' method is the predominant method in the european region and is utilized exclusively in the north american and oceania regions. it can be concluded that the ijarah method is more widely utilized in the member country regions of mena, asia, and ssa, whereas the istiṣnā' method tends to be dominant in the non-member country regions. in other regions, alternative methods are applied. for instance, the murābahah method is utilized in the ssa region, profit sharing in mena, and other methods in the european region. project financing plays a prominent role in the ssa region in comparison to other regions. consequently, it can be concluded that the isdb has made a substantial contribution to the advancement of development projections in the region. the case study presented in this research is based on a country in sub-saharan africa, somalia, which employs the murābahah financing method. somalia is a country located in sub-saharan africa and is still one of the barren regions of africa, where many countries experience drought, poverty, and famine. the towfiq welfare society (tws) was established in somalia in the mid-1990s as a response to the need to provide essential public services amidst the political instability and resulting food and humanitarian crises that were prevalent at the time. the tws represents a distinctive humanitarian initiative in a region characterized by ethnic polarization and persistent poverty. tws is a registered non-profit organization and a non-sectarian humanitarian 84 the effect on socio-economic … charity headquartered in kismayo, the coastal capital of lower juba province, somalia14. tws was established in southern somalia in september 1995 to provide advocacy, support, and development services to the somali people and to prepare a generation capable of achieving the desired development in various important areas such as religious, moral, cultural, intellectual, and economic15, with its main areas of activity being the health, education, and social sectors. since its inception, the organization has been committed to addressing the welfare needs of somalia's southern and central provinces in a range of areas, including education, care and health, child support, agriculture, emergency relief, and environmental protection16. it should be noted that tws manages several educational facilities and institutions at different levels, both primary and secondary, spread across most districts of lower and central juba province. in addition, tws also runs the only licensed university in kismayo, kismayo university (ku), as well as non-formal institutes such as the institute of research and community development. as an organization, tws has sub-offices in mogadishu, afmadow, bu'ale, and jilib and a liaison office in nairobi, kenya17. the establishment of this organization is an initiative of local intellectuals affected by natural disasters and conflicts to rebuild the nation by designing development programs that align with the needs of local communities and government development strategies, focusing on poverty alleviation and environmental restoration18. this aligns with both the vision and mission of the isdb and the objectives of apif, where the isdb is committed to empowering communities to drive their economic and social progress and providing the infrastructure enabling communities to realize their potential19. while apif's mission is to contribute to the sustainable socio-economic development of the ummah, apif has additional objectives to revive the sunnah of waqf, to invest and develop viable waqf properties according to sharī'ah principles, and to ensure that islamic philanthropic organizations achieve sustainability, financial independence, and social development for the benefit of muslims20. the three institutions aim to promote socio-economic development consistent with their respective backgrounds. this is the context within which the cooperation in the case study of this research is situated. the strategy of awqaf properties investment fund implementation in the framework of inter-actor collaboration somalia's political and economic instability makes large projects such as the apif risky. the lack of a strong and stable government exacerbated the situation. despite efforts to establish a hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 85 legitimate government, many areas are still controlled by militant groups that actively oppose the government and often target development projects and foreign investment. in addition, a weak legal system and rampant corruption mean limited legal protection for investors. amid this adverse situation in somalia, kenya offers a much more conducive environment for implementing apif projects. towfiq welfare society has, therefore, established a trust in kenya21 to implement this project following the isdb requirements. in political terms, kenya has maintained remarkable stability since independence despite changes in the political system and crises in neighboring countries22. furthermore, kenya is the headquarters of numerous international and regional organizations, including the united nations office at nairobi (unon), one of four principal locations and headquarters of the united nations in africa. additionally, it is the site of the united nations environment programme (unep) and the united nations centre for human settlements, which is known as un-habitat23. to date, there are 3 united nations headquarters, 8 united nations country offices, 10 united nations regional offices, and 13 offices of other united nations entities, including the world bank24. establishing these offices indicates the international community's confidence in kenya's political stability and commitment to supporting global initiatives, including development projects and international cooperation. regarding economic output, kenya is the second largest economy in sub-saharan africa, after nigeria and south africa, and the most developed in east and central africa. the country's economic growth prospects are supported by the emergence of a middle class and a growing demand for high-value goods and services. this growth prospect is occurring concurrently with an improvement in the ease of doing business index25. this is a significant factor for tws in capitalizing on its neighbors' political and economic stability to advance the interests of ngos operating in fragile contexts. additionally, kenya's liberal capital controls were a significant factor for apif during the proposal assessment period. this was due to the cross-border nature of the project. in 1993, kenya repealed all exchange rate control laws and transitioned to a fully marketdetermined exchange rate system26, devoid of any foreign exchange control. this policy has attracted significant short-term capital inflows. the inflow of foreign investment into kenya via the towfiq trust project has resulted in the influx of hard currency, such as us dollars, to kenya, which can be used to settle property payments. towfiq trust was registered as a non-governmental organization (ngo) in kenya in 2013 and subsequently registered as a trust in february 2015. its primary objective is to implement income-generating projects to advance educational and health-related 86 the effect on socio-economic … activities within the jubaland region of somalia and north eastern kenya27. given the necessity of financial sustainability and dependence on donations, the towfiq trust submitted a funding proposal to the apif. in november 2015, isdb approved towfiq trust's proposal to undertake a murābahah operation, which is the purchase of waqf properties for the benefit of towfiq trust in support of towfiq welfare society's development activities28. the signing of the agreement was delayed, however, and only took place in july 2017. this was due to the time the beneficiaries took to close the financing gap, the change of scope to a different property, and the reassessment29. the signing of the financing agreement between isdb and towfiq trust represents a tangible manifestation of the international cooperation between the two institutions. notwithstanding the postponement, in a gesture of solidarity, the isdb persisted in offering its unreserved backing and aid to the beneficiaries throughout both phases. in this project, each actor plays a specific role in ensuring effective and coordinated cooperation following sustainable development goal (sdg) 17, underscoring the significance of partnerships in achieving global development goals. the apif serves as the primary financier in this initiative, while the isdb represents the principal contributor to the apif's capital fund. furthermore, isdb serves as a muḍārib, assuming the roles of manager and trustee/maintainer of apif. this enables apif to benefit from highquality support functions, including procurement, legal, know your customer (kyc), and financial controls. additionally, apif gains access to a common development ecosystem based on islamic finance provided by isdb. the fund's financial statements are prepared under the financial accounting standard (fas) issued by the accounting and auditing organization for islamic financial institutions (aaoifi). regarding matters not addressed in the aaoifi standards, apif adheres to the generally accepted accounting principles mandated by the aaoifi conceptual framework, provided that they do not contradict the rules and principles of islamic law as determined by the isdb group sharī'ah board. moreover, in addition to its role as a financier, the apif also functions as a catalyst and facilitator, guiding and supporting the project's direction and progress by utilizing the influence derived from the isdb as a muḍārib. in contrast, towfiq trust kenya assumes the roles of sponsor and executor, who is responsible for implementing the project at the ground level. meanwhile, the towfiq welfare society somalia is the beneficiary, receiving the necessary support to carry out development activities in somalia by utilizing the project's benefits in kenya. this collaboration demonstrates how the convergence of diverse actors can facilitate attaining shared hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 87 objectives. this initiative not only reinforces global partnerships following sdg 17 but also encourages sustainable development through the utilization of project outcomes, thereby ensuring that development activities are conducted in a manner that provides tangible benefits to all segments of society. the funding mechanism of awqaf properties investment fund in project implementation the awqaf properties investment fund (apif) employs a structured and efficient operational model to maximize the potential and benefits of waqf assets. the management of this type of waqf asset requires an appropriate approach that ensures not only the maintenance of the asset but also its development and the provision of sustainable benefits to society. the apif operational model serves as the regulatory framework that governs the management and operation of the fund to achieve its strategic goals. the model is designed to ensure transparency and accountability at each process stage. therefore, the invested funds can provide optimal and sustainable benefits. the apif operational model is illustrated in the following flowchart. figure 2. operational model of awqaf properties investment fund (source: apif website) the flowchart above illustrates the operational framework of apif in collaboration with beneficiary organizations for managing and developing waqf properties through co-financing. this partnership is not merely a source of funding; it also assists in managing and implementing projects to ensure that each project yields optimal results and complies with sharī'ah principles. in 88 the effect on socio-economic … essence, isdb, through apif, provides assistance and support to organizations engaged in development activities to achieve financial sustainability. this is achieved through the development of waqf land or the facilitation of the establishment of new endowments. apif provides financial support for constructing, renovating, and/or purchasing income-generating projects, including residential, commercial, retail, and mixed-use facilities. the minimum financial contribution required from the beneficiary is 25% of the total project cost or a suitable plot of land (in the case of greenfield projects)30. the project is designed so that repayment to apif will be sourced entirely from the project's income. a residual amount is anticipated to be generated to support beneficiary activities for the repayment period. upon financing repayment, all income generated can be permanently allocated to support beneficiary activities. considering the preceding explanation, the funding mechanism for this project is markedly complex, rooted in sharī'ah principles, and encompassing a multitude of islamic financial instruments. in this case, the funding flow can be depicted in the following flowchart, which illustrates the mechanism of fund flow from its source to its eventual use by beneficiaries to support development activities and ensure that the funds can be optimally utilized for the community's welfare. figure 3. apif operational model with tws (data processed by the author, source: apif impact report, 2019) the flowchart above illustrates the funding flow in apif's implementation with towfiq trust, to realize socio-economic development in somalia. apif, which was established by apif regulations and the concept of muḍārabah by isdb and other islamic entities, serves as the primary financier in this case study in collaboration with towfiq trust. towfiq trust is a project implementation trust established in kenya by tws under the terms mandated by the isdb. the collaboration between apif and towfiq hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 89 trust is evidenced by a financing agreement that enables the joint financing of a project to purchase a building, which is subsequently registered as a waqf. this co-financing employs the instrument of a murābahah contract. the revenue generated from the real estate property will be utilized for repayment to apif, with the residual funds allocated for the benefit of the beneficiaries, specifically for the socio-economic advancement of the somali community through towfiq welfare society. upon completion of the repayment, the property will be registered as a waqf or a comparable legal entity, such as a trust, and all income derived therefrom will be allocated for the benefit of the beneficiaries. the funding mechanisms illustrated in this flowchart reflect the inherent complexity and uniqueness often observed in islamic finance transactions. islamic finance is pivotal in this context, integrating sharī'ah principles that guarantee transactions are conducted equitably, transparently, and without ribā or interest. the intricate nature of the funding mechanism is underscored by many stakeholders, including isdb, apif, towfiq trust, and tws. moreover, the transactions within this framework employ a range of islamic financial principles, including muḍārabah and murābahah. all transactions within this mechanism are conducted under sharī'ah principles, which prohibit ribā and ensure that all economic activities are conducted fairly and beneficial to all parties involved. the emphasis on the utilization of funds for the benefit of the wider community reflects the fundamental tenets of islamic finance, which place significant emphasis on the social and economic well-being of the community. in this case study, the isdb approved a project for the benefit of towfiq trust, which was designed to assist towfiq welfare society in its development activities. apif and towfiq trust collaborated on a joint financing initiative structured as a murābahah contract. in islamic finance, joint financing frequently entails the application of sharī'ah principles and instruments, including murābahah, muḍārabah, mushārakah, and other related concepts. in this case, it can be concluded that islamic finance, such as murābahah, plays an important role as an instrument in international economic activities, which in this case are cross-border in scope. the property was ultimately purchased as a waqf for the benefit of the towfiq trust, an office building known as "somak house"31. the property is in an ideal location in nairobi, kenya, along the mombasa dual carriageway, approximately 6 km from the city center. the prevalence of high-rise office buildings and hotels characterizes this location. the project scope of apif includes purchasing a commercial property in nairobi. this property consists 90 the effect on socio-economic … of a seven-story office building and three small mixed-use blocks. the total land area is 2,078 square meters, the total construction area is 4,140 square meters, and the total rental area is 2,611 square meters. furthermore, the project scope encompasses the costs associated with the transfer of ownership, the provision of consultancy services, and the payment of legal fees32. a preliminary assessment of the proposal by isdb management indicated that somak house had promising and realistic project cash flow and financial statement projections, particularly given that the property was already leased with nearly 97% occupancy33. approximately nine tenants, except the present proprietor, are willing to take up residence in the property on a leasehold basis following the transfer of the deed to towfiq trust, subject to the execution of a sale agreement, together with its annexed documents, between the relevant parties34. it can be concluded that this property represents an attractive investment opportunity with promising financial prospects and aligns with the principles of islamic finance, offering stability, certainty, and social benefits. this is important in islamic financial management, where avoiding speculation and prioritizing tangible benefits are paramount. in the context of waqf, this property has significant potential to provide long-term benefits to the beneficiaries. the revenue generated from the waqf project will be allocated to towfiq welfare society in somalia to support socioeconomic development activities, with the transfer of funds to be conducted via international transfer due to the cross-border structural design of this project. in the event of constraints preventing the transfer of funds to somalia, the funds will be redirected to assist somali refugees in the north eastern province of kenya35. this ensures that the funds are still utilized for the benefit of the somali people despite the constraints that prevent direct transfers to somalia. the installment payments for this project were dispatched from kenya to the isdb via an escrow bank account following the regulatory framework that governs financial transactions in kenya36. escrow is a financial arrangement whereby a third party holds funds until a contract can be fully executed37. using escrow accounts in the installment payment process demonstrates a commitment to security and transparency in the fund transfer. it ensures that installment payments are made on time and by regulations. compared to most other projects, this project is relatively small, with a total cost of us$3.50 million. the cost includes financing of us$2.75 million, comprising us$1.0 million from the apif and us$1.75 million from the apif line of financing. additionally, beneficiary contributions of us$0.75 million, or 25% hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 91 of the total cost, are following apif requirements38. the purchased assets are projected to be registered as waqf where possible or equivalent legal status, such as a trust, at the end of the financing to ensure perpetuity until the apif mandate is achieved39, so that the property income can support the development activities undertaken by the beneficiary organizations. this is a condition of funding that applies to all projects. therefore, isdb placed an important condition on implementing the towfiq welfare society waqf project, establishing trust in kenya, as a strategic step to ensure that waqf management has a solid and well-structured foundation. isdb's involvement in the waqf project in kenya underscores the significance of strong governance and comprehensive supervisory frameworks, with a particular focus on the philanthropic ecosystem within the nmc. in this instance, isdb demonstrated flexibility in allowing registration in the nmc under the relevant trust legislation in alignment with the desired governance structure. financial management is optimized for the benefit of the ultimate beneficiaries, thereby reducing the possibility of corruption that plagues many waqfs. this is supported by tws's governance structure, which includes a board of trustees, the highest position within the organizational structure, and an executive board. the supervisory board comprises the founding members and other members who have subsequently joined the association40. furthermore, the board is authorized to supervise and address all policy-related matters. this signifies that the ongoing project will be effectively managed, and its implementation will be subject to competent and rigorous supervision by the relevant authorities. the impact of implementation on socio-economic development in somalia the impact of apif implementation can be seen in several aspects. in terms of impact on the beneficiary organizations, the organization's financial sustainability is the main goal of the sponsors after experiencing several situations of dependence on decreasing donations in recent years41. in the view of tws management, the presence of waqf assets on the organization's balance sheet represents a significant and positive achievement42. this reduces reliance on external funding sources, such as donations and official development assistance, by fostering the generation of self-sustaining social wealth. moreover, the collaboration with the isdb lends credibility to tws and its associated institutions. this illustrates the pivotal role of apif in empowering small-scale local civil society organizations that may not be eligible for commercial financing, enabling them to achieve asset ownership and financial sustainability, and facilitating institutional maturation. 92 the effect on socio-economic … furthermore, tws has made a significant contribution to the socio-economic development of somali communities by implementing numerous programs and initiatives and the management and support of various development sectors to enhance their quality of life. the table below presents some examples of these contributions. no sectors description 1 education operates several educational facilities and institutions, including seven schools and one licensed local university (kismayo university) with its hospital 2 healthcare established an educational hospital in kismayo in response to the need for medical services and the absence of government health services in spreading deadly diseases and epidemics, and has been receiving 250300 patients per day. dispatch mobile teams to various districts and locations in juba to conduct protection and improvement campaigns, especially for cholera, malaria, and malnutrition. 3 water resources and development execution of water development programs in the region to meet drinking water needs through arterial boreholes and dug wells, such as in janey abdalla small village, afmadow, camp jaroon, jamame district, and canjeel. 4 children’s support tws offers a range of services through the al-ansar center, which is dedicated to orphans and cares for more than 700. the child support sector was the first operational sector initiated in 1995. 5 agriculture tws has implemented several agricultural projects in coordination with other organizations, such as rehabilitating arable land, livelihood programs, and providing agricultural tools and equipment to farmers in the jubba valley area. it has also supported the reclamation and planting of 260 hectares of agricultural land over five years. 6 food and emergency supplies • tws has maintained the al-ansar food center since 1998. it houses children and prepares and delivers food baskets to low-income families to reduce the threat of food insecurity. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 93 • tws has worked with humanitarian aid organizations to implement emergency relief efforts in humanitarian crises, unexpected droughts, natural disasters, or famine, including food and medicine distribution and water trucking. • tws has executed a food distribution project serving 150,000 droughtaffected households in central and lower juba. • tws has implemented general food distributions (gfd) efforts for internally displaced persons (idps) in mogadishu. table 1. list of towfiq welfare society contributions to socioeconomic development in somalia data processed by author, source: apif impact report, 2019 based on the table, it is clear that tws's contributions cover a wide range of important aspects supporting somalia's socioeconomic development. as listed in the table above, the income generated from waqf assets is used to benefit the ultimate beneficiaries, which are the development programs and activities supported by tws. this shows that this apif project helps and promotes socio-economic development in somalia in various development sectors as well as assisting in achieving sustainable development targets, such as sdgs no. 1: poverty alleviation, no. 3: good health and wellbeing, no. 4: quality education, no. 8: decent work and economic growth, and no. 11: sustainable cities and communities. the cross-border investment model applied by apif in this case study is regarded as a potentially significant contributor to economic growth at the local level. however, the impact of this model on the local economy is not yet substantial, even in the context of a single operation43. hence, the impact becomes more significant when neighboring countries with stable economic and political systems expand and adopt this model. in the short term, this operation could result in an inflow of hard currency to settle property purchases, such as the us dollar, strengthening the local kenyan economy as properties are purchased within the country. furthermore, in the long term, a portion of the revenue will be retained within the local community44, as towfiq trust has plans to serve the somali community in eastern kenya. furthermore, apif has employed islamic finance at two distinct levels. apif has supported waqf, operationalizing it as a nondebt-based, long-term solution to development challenges. this has 94 the effect on socio-economic … been achieved by implementing a debt-based, short-term islamic project financing model. in this case study, the islamic financial instrument in question is murābahah. in implementing this project, apif has established a model that addresses the challenges faced in unstable and conflict-affected regions45. the potential of this model is significant in terms of its capacity to bolster economic resilience and facilitate sustainable development initiatives in areas with similar conditions. in general, the implementation of apif on socioeconomic development in somalia has been favorable and has had a positive impact. however, the effect is not significant when only one operation is considered. nevertheless, another beneficial outcome of this type of operation is that it can facilitate the promotion of waqf and utilize islamic finance as a tool in international political economy activities. a comparative analysis of project impact with other similar initiatives the implementation of apif in somalia provides a highly impactful model for supporting ngos operating in fragile and/or conflict areas. this is achieved by establishing waqf in a politically and economically stable neighboring country, in this case, kenya, which has a liberal capital control regime. moreover, the isdb affects the legitimacy and capacity of beneficiaries to secure funding through this apif. it should be noted that this form of operation does not have a significant impact when considered in the context of a single operation. furthermore, the apif project is also being implemented in several other countries. the cases highlighted by the isdb demonstrate some far-reaching impacts. to illustrate, the isdb-bisew in bangladesh exemplifies a robust decentralized waqf model that is capable of tailoring its social interventions with meticulous precision46. this outcome is attributable to the robust governance structure and the capable waqf management team. in contrast, the senegal daras waqf represents a distinctive instance of the phenomenon of pre-project impact resulting from regulatory change, manifested in the form of the adoption of a dedicated legal framework for waqf in senegal. this was driven by the prospect of receiving apif financing, which resulted in this micro-level operation reaching a macro-level impact in the form of new waqf laws47. this comparison demonstrates that, despite the apif's shared foundation, local factors are of critical importance in determining the success of the program, resulting in differing impacts and interventions according to prevailing conditions. in comparison to other analogous initiatives, such as the international waqf fund, which are oriented towards immediate hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 95 social projects (such as education, health, sustainable livelihoods, etc.) through low-risk shariah investment returns on donations48, the impact of apif is long-term and the benefits are not immediately apparent to the wider community. apif has the advantage of providing financial and technical resources that are managed with high standards of supervision and reporting through productive investment projects for waqf. it also supports the financial independence of its partners. however, this advantage is vulnerable to local challenges such as political or economic instability in beneficiary countries, such as somalia. in general, apif has the advantage of providing sustainable financial returns and empowerment to its partners using a productive waqf-based investment model, rather than relying on donations or aid. with augmented support, such as elevated stakeholder involvement and locally tailored adaptation strategies, the apif project in somalia has the potential to achieve a more substantial and sustainable impact beyond that which has previously been attained. conclusion the implementation of the apif in the promotion of waqf, as illustrated by the project conducted in collaboration with tws, has yielded positive outcomes and a beneficial impact. in this particular case study, the effect is not pronounced, particularly given the limited scope of the single operation. however, in the long term, it has the potential to significantly reduce reliance on official development assistance (oda) and replace it with domestically generated social wealth. this research is significant in demonstrating the potential of waqf instruments, particularly the isdb's apif initiative, as a means of fostering international relations and advancing sustainable economic development in developing countries with financial systems rooted in islamic principles. furthermore, this study demonstrates the significant potential of islamic financial instruments, particularly waqf, in fostering economic growth in diverse countries, particularly developing nations with constrained access to conventional financing. to enhance the viability and impact of this model, it is suggested that towfiq welfare society expand the scope of beneficiary regions, thereby extending the reach and benefits of the initiative. moreover, the apif is anticipated to promote this integrative waqf model among relevant stakeholders, thereby facilitating the long-term implementation of analogous models in diverse international contexts. to guarantee the effective and efficient distribution of funds, it would be prudent for the governments of both countries to implement policies that ensure the security of cross-border fund transfers through the enactment of clear and supportive regulations or laws. 96 the effect on socio-economic … this project illustrates the significance of a sustainable governance model for guaranteeing effective and enduring management of waqf assets. it employs the strategy of utilizing more economically and politically stable states to govern waqf assets, to support socio-economic development in fragile states. cooperation between more stable states and fragile states must be reinforced through the implementation of policies that facilitate more effective cross-border resource management. it is suggested to enhance the capabilities of local institutions to achieve self-sufficiency and reduce reliance on external assistance, particularly in terms of fund and asset management. furthermore, the author recognizes that this paper is subject to several shortcomings and limitations. primarily, the geographical coverage is constrained to a select few areas, and the data set is limited, which may result in an incomplete representation of the conditions throughout somalia. several significant suggestions and recommendations can be employed as a basis for comparison in future research efforts, including the assertion that this particular model is a distinctive one based on islamic finance as a development strategy and an effort to overcome constraints in unstable and conflict-affected areas, such as somalia. further research is recommended to adopt a long-term approach to ascertain the sustainable effects of this implementation. it is anticipated that the advancement of research in the context of apif as a whole, as well as in analogous or other case studies, will facilitate the introduction of apif and the contribution of islamic finance, particularly waqf, as an instrument in international political economy activities that can effectively assist in global development. declarations and acknowledgments this article was prepared by ulya fatimatuzzahra, an international relations student at universitas darussalam gontor. it is based on research conducted for the author's final project, which was supervised by ms. afni regita cahyani muis, m.a. the author would like to thank all parties involved, especially mr. sofi mubarok, lc., m.a., and mr. dr. iqbal maulana alfiansyah, m.a., who provided substantial input and recommendations for this research. notes and references 1 abdullahi abubakar lamido and mohamed aslam haneef, “shifting the paradigms in waqf economics: towards renewed focus on socioeconomic development,” islamic economic studies 29, no. 1 (2021): 18–32, https://doi.org/10.1108/ies-042021-0014. p. 21. 2 sri noor mustaqimatul hidayah, “empowerment of waqf as socio-economic development of society (analysis of waqf as social responsibility in islamic organizations),” adzkiya: jurnal hukum dan ekonomi syariah 11, no. 1 (2023): 99–110, https://doi.org/10.32332/adzkiya.v11i1.4325. p. 106. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.1 97 3 syed khalid rashid, “potential of waqf in contemporary world,” journal of king abdulaziz university: islamic economics 31, no. 2 (2018): 53–69, https://doi.org/10.4197/islec.31-2.4. p. 55. 4 awqaf properties investment fund, “background on awqaf,” accessed january 16, 2024, https://www.isdb.org/apif/about-awqaf. 5 awqaf properties investment fund, “success stories: the towfiq waqf in kenya: establishing a model to tackle fragility in somalia,” accessed january 16, 2024, https://www.isdb.org/apif/towfiq-waqf-kenya-establishing-model-tackle-fragilitysomalia. 6 mochammad arif budiman and dimas bagus wiranata kusuma, “the economic significance of waqf: a macro perspective,” in the 8th international conference on tawhidi methodology applied to islamic microenterprise development to alleviate poverty and to achieve social wellbeing (jakarta, 2011), 1–17. p. 5. 7 mohammad abdullah, “waqf, sustainable development goals (sdgs) and maqasid al-sharia,” international journal of social economics, 2016, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1108/ijse-10-2016-0295. p. 7. 8 yoseph ataa alsawady, mohamed cherif al amri, and mustafa omar mohammed, “investigating the additionally of islamic blended financing for supporting awqaf projects,” journal of islamic economics and finance 9, no. 2 (2023): 161–80, https://doi.org/https://doi.org.tr/10.54863/jief.1386215. p. 170. 9 investment department awqaf investment division, “awqaf properties investment fund annual report 2022,” islamic development bank, 2022, https://doi.org/10.3934/energy.2023007. p. 27. 10 ahmad zaky darmawan et al., kajian ekonomi dan keuangan syariah 2022 (bank indonesia, 2022). p. 85 11 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development,” awqaf properties investment found (jeddah, 2019). p. 29. 12 investment department, “awqaf properties investment fund annual report 2022.”, p. 28 13 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development.”, p. 41 14 ibid. p. 77. 15 towfiq welfare society, “من نحن جمعية التوفيق الخيرية,” accessed march 15, 2024, http://tws.so/. 16 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development.”, p. 77. 17 ibid. 18 ibid. 19 islamic development bank, “42 years in the service of development,” islamic development bank, 2016. p. 1 20 islamic development bank, “awqaf properties investment fund annual report 2016” (jeddah, 2016), https://doi.org/10.7557/cage.6835, p. 5; investment department, “awqaf properties investment fund annual report 2022.”, p. 28. 21 alsawady, al amri, and mohammed, “investigating the additionally of islamic blended financing for supporting awqaf projects.” p. 175 22 us department of state, “kenya (02/07): archived content,” us department of state: diplomacy in action, 2017, https://20092017.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/kenya/74179.htm#:~:text=political conditions,and crises in neighboring countries. 23 united nations kenya, “the united nations in kenya,” united nations, accessed may 25, 2024, https://kenya.un.org/en/about/about-the-un#:~:text=unep moved to the kenyatta,un agencies operating from nairobi. 24 united nations office at nairobi, “un agencies in nairobi,” united nations, accessed may 25, 2024, https://www.unon.org/content/other-un-agencies-nairobi. 25 ministry of foreign and diaspora affairs of kenya, “country profile,” office of the prime cabinet secretary and ministry of foreign and diaspora affairs, accessed may 27, 2024, https://mfa.go.ke/country-profile/. 98 the effect on socio-economic … 26 international trade administration us department of commerce, “kenya foreign exchange,” privacy shield framework, accessed june 3, 2024, https://www.privacyshield.gov/ps/article?id=kenya-foreign-exchange-controls. 27 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development.”, p. 77. 28 awqaf properties investment fund, “success stories: the towfiq waqf in kenya: establishing a model to tackle fragility in somalia,” accessed june 14, 2024, https://www.isdb.org/apif/towfiq-waqf-kenya-establishing-model-tackle-fragilitysomalia. 29 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development.”, p. 77. 30 islamic financial sector development department awqaf investment funds division, “awqaf properties investment fund annual report 2021” (jeddah, 2021). p. 106. 31 awqaf properties investment fund, “success stories: the towfiq waqf in kenya: establishing a model to tackle fragility in somalia,” accessed june 14, 2024, https://www.isdb.org/apif/towfiq-waqf-kenya-establishing-model-tackle-fragilitysomalia. 32 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development.”, p. 77 33 ibid. p. 78. 34 ibid. 35 ibid. p. 84. 36 ibid. 37 “what is escrow?,” escrow kenya, accessed june 15, 2024, https://escrowkenya.com/view/how. 38 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development.”, p. 77. 39 islamic financial sector development department awqaf investment funds division, “awqaf properties investment fund annual report 2020” (jeddah, 2020). p. 31. 40 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development.”, p. 84 41 awqaf properties investment fund, “success stories: the towfiq waqf in kenya: establishing a model to tackle fragility in somalia,” accessed june 16, 2024, https://www.isdb.org/apif/towfiq-waqf-kenya-establishing-model-tackle-fragilitysomalia. 42 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development.”, p. 84. 43 ibid. p. 83. 44 ibid. p. 84. 45 awqaf properties investment fund, “success stories: the towfiq waqf in kenya: establishing a model to tackle fragility in somalia,” accessed june 16, 2024, https://www.isdb.org/apif/towfiq-waqf-kenya-establishing-model-tackle-fragilitysomalia. 46 islamic development bank, “the development impact of the awqaf properties investment fund: a model for sustainable development.”, p. 56, 58. 47 ibid. p. 56, 85. 48 international waqf fund, “who we are?,” accessed june 17, 2024, https://waqf.org/who-we-are/. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 9 pan-islamic cooperation and anticolonialism between the ottoman caliphate and the malay world arshad islam department of history & civilization, international islamic university malaysia, kuala lumpur, malaysia email: arshadislam2@gmail.com ruqaia taha al-alwani college of arts, university of bahrain. email: drruqaia@yahoo.com received on: 30-07-24 accepted on: 25-12-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.1142 abstract human civilization has been profoundly shaped by the ancient oceanic maritime trading connections linking the mediterranean world and africa to china, via the arabian, indian, and southeast asian ports, shaping social and cultural exchanges enriched by numerous cultures, including the religion of islam. the malay world has always been at the crossroads of international maritime traffic, developing a common and diverse culture incorporating local and global elements, notably hindu-buddhist, confucian, and islamic influences, in a long and generally peaceful civilizational paradigm prior to the advent of european colonial exploitation. the active and multidimensional relations between the ottoman caliphate and the muslim rulers of india and muslim southeast asia have been largely forgotten, despite extensive materials available in ottoman, and local malay archives. this paper explores pan-islamic cooperation between the ottoman caliphate and southeast asia in the context of anti-colonial resistance, focusing on specific diplomatic relations between the sublime porte and the sultanates of aceh, riau, and jambi from the 16th century onwards, analysing the role of malay muslims in the ottoman caliphate, and the role of the ottomans in sumatran resistance to dutch colonialism. the latter 19th century witnessed increased interactions between the ottoman empire and many local sultanates in southeast asia, facilitated by the role of hadramis, ottoman consuls, the pan-islamist press, and pilgrims and clerics. the history of the pan-islamic platform offers great scope for developing countries to autonomously assist each other without mailto:arshadislam2@gmail.com mailto:drruqaia@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.1142 10 pan-islamic cooperation … neo-imperialist agendas, recovering their historical position and dignity as vibrant, compassionate societies. keywords: hadramis, islam, malay world, ottoman caliphate, pan-islamism, anti-colonialism introduction south and southeast asia have been regions of vibrant cultural exchanges across the centuries, but their fundamental role in the development of human civilization has been sorely neglected in historical studies and popular consciousness rooted in western perspectives viewing them as regions awaiting discovery by european colonialists. the crucial region of malaya is the hub of the busy seafaring route between india and china, which has been an artery of commerce since ancient times, and the malay region itself was globally famous for its profitable spice trade. spices from southeast asia were valuable international commodities, used in medicine in addition to gastronomic refinement, and prior to european encroachment from the 16th century onwards it was mainly arab traders who brought spices to the middle east (and to europe beyond). there is no specific date for the advent of arabs in this affluent region, but they certainly came considerably earlier than any other known traders, and their contact with this region goes far back in history to the pre-islamic era, as evidenced by the rapid proliferation of islamic communities and influences in maritime ports as far as china at a time when the terrestrial armies of the arabislamic civilization had not extended beyond greater persia. this paper underscores the immense potential of this region that intensifies the process of awareness between wide-ranging groups of people. arabs (particularly those of yemen and oman) were known for their voyaging skills and maritime prowess since prehistoric times, and they had extensive activities in the wider region of southeast asia. they were the leading adventurers in the indian ocean and the south china sea, producing travel books and navigational manuals for traders and seafarers. hindu taboos about deep sea voyages meant that arabs who braved the ocean main were welcomed in the ports of india, connecting the subcontinent to global maritime trade. the role of early arab navigators and their mercantile activities in this part of the world, and their innovative drive, were of great magnitude in the history of global trade, and their pioneering and unprecedented tasks in the field of navigation are a fundamental contribution to human life on this planet.1 the crucial role of early arab navigators was accentuated by islamic injunctions relating to voyages and navigation in the holy qur’én: he is the one who has subjugated the sea, so that you may eat fresh meat from it, and may take out from it ornaments hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 11 you wear, and you see the boats cleaving through it, and so that you may seek his bounty, and that you may be grateful. and he placed mountains on the earth, lest it should shake with you, and rivers and tracks, so that you may find the right way,2 (he is) the one who causes the dawn to break. he has made the night for rest, and the sun and the moon for reckoning. this is a measure set by the all-mighty, the all-knowing.3 early links between the middle east and southeast asia the arab-islamic civilization of the umayyad and abbasid dynasties was mainly preoccupied with the conquest and administration of west asia and the southern mediterranean regions, while independent and peaceful traders propagated their commercial activities across the indian ocean. the terrestrial muslim empires became engaged with this phenomenon as they began penetrating into india, with the umayyad victory over daybul in sind in 712, and the following conquest during the reign of caliph hisham b. abd almalik (723-43), who sent junaid b. ‘abd al-rahman (722-28) as a governor of sind. junaid conquered the neighbouring territories of bailman and jurz (gujarat).4 the subsequent establishment of the abbasid capital baghdad in 762 marked a more eastward-looking orientation in the muslim heartlands of the middle east. during the reign of the abbasid caliph al-mahdi (r. 775-85), abdul malik b. shihab al-masmai attacked gujarat and captured the coastal city of barbad near bharuch in 777, giving additional stimulation to muslim marine commerce and settlement from the littorals of east africa to southern china, marking a profound change of the locus of islamic civilization to the east, and asia.5 sulaiman tajir (237/851) provided a glimpse into what a typical full circle maritime trip from siraf to canton would have been during the abbasid era, and al-masudi (d. 956) described parallel oceangoing missions in the south-western indian sea, from arabia to east africa (bilad al-zanj). likewise, alhimyari described palm tree plantation among the people of sarandip (sri lanka), who freely mingled with foreigners.6 the advent of muslims in south india was incredibly significant due to the thriving maritime trade there, which was at a high point during the 9th century. many seaport towns of the region became famous because of the benign behaviour of their rulers’ admirable and conducive working atmosphere for the foreign merchants. the muslim chiefs of the malabar ports emphasized the guiding principle of fostering harmony among the thousands of traders who flocked to the ports from various parts of the world, following different religions and beliefs. traders from arabia, china, egypt, and the roman world used to visit muziris (kodungallur), a port of malabar that became a trajectory for muslim merchants and 12 pan-islamic cooperation … chieftains, and a hub of spices and ivory of great demand in global markets.7 tabari recounts that the muslims of iraq during the second decade after hijra noticed a chinese ship at the northern tip of the arabian gulf; such vessels would have passed by arab ships on their eastbound trip, dropping anchor at the ports of al-bahrain and oman. the adventurous arabs inhabiting the entire shore of the gulf, traditionally under the suzerainty of the sassanid empire (224-651), could unleash their potential under the shade of islam, and they brought drastic changes in every sphere of life for many centuries, including in trade, warfare, shipbuilding, history, and geography. sulaiman tajir took to the sea for trading purposes, and left an extensive overview of places, people, and commodities.8 by the 15th century this remarkable trading network was flourishing peacefully, making it a ripe target for the nascent european empires. ahmad ibn majid (d. 1500) described marine traffic in south and southeast asia in the 15th and 16th centuries, noting how ships could harmlessly traverse the eastern seas. it is possible that this was the same ahmad ibn majid who acted as pilot (mua‘llim) to vasco da gama (d. 1524) during his voyage from malindi (on the east coast of africa) to calicut (on the western coast of india) in 1498.9 the advent of the portuguese in the indian ocean signalled the end of peaceful arab-islamic trade between africa and china, and the beginning of militarization and conquest. da gama himself burnt alive 200-400 voyagers on an arab ship in cannanore, north of calicut, after stealing their cargo on his second expedition to india in 1502. he also detained and massacred 38 hindu fishermen to terrorize the zamorin, the hindu ruler of calicut. the portuguese seizure of malacca in 1511 and of hormuz in 1515 sealed the fate of arab navigation and seaborne commerce until arab sailors reached an understanding with the new lords of the sea, the portuguese, under admiral da gama and his successor afonso de albuquerque (d. 1515). 10 the spanish and portuguese targeted southeast asia to extend their crusades against the muslims in iberia and the southern mediterranean. afonso de albuquerque, the conqueror of malacca in 1511, explained the religious rationale for the portuguese “trading” activities in southeast asia as a means to attack ottoman finances in furtherance of the crusades: “the first of these is the great service we shall render to our lord by throwing the moslems out of this country and preventing the first of the mohammedan sect from spreading any further. i hope in our lord that, as a result of our doing this, the moslems may be driven out of india [i.e., the broader region of the indies] altogether… the king of portugal has often commanded me to go to the straits, because it seemed hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 13 to his highness that this was the best place to intercept the trade which the moslems of cairo and of mecca and jeddah carry on in these parts. so it was to do our lord’s service that we were brought here; by taking malacca, we would close the straits so that never again would the moslems be able to bring their spices by this route… “it is the source of all the spices and drugs that the moslems ship from here each year to the straits, without our being able to stop them…. since we gained control of the malabar pepper trade, cairo has not received any except what the moslems have been able to take from this region. forty or fifty [ships] sail every year from here bound for mecca, laden with all kinds of spices… “i am very sure that, if this malacca trade is taken out of their [muslim] hands, cairo and mecca will be completely lost”.11 this account concisely presents the geostrategic entailments of european colonialism in southeast asia. for europeans, this was always premised on the destruction of the ottoman caliphate, a struggle that engaged them for over four centuries. during the 16th century the spanish and portuguese transposed their crusades against the muslims of iberia and the southern mediterranean to a new theatre in southeast asia; de albuquerque himself rose to prominence crusading against north african muslims, including ottoman forces. the catholic powers were passionately committed to economic warfare against the muslims by shattering their peaceful trading activities in africa and asia, and violently commandeering the resources of the peoples of those lands, with the final goal of razing cairo and makkah. consequently, when the ottomans assumed the caliphate in 1517, it was already a matter of state to extend military and political protection to defend the muslims and other communities from north africa to china, imperilled by the european venture.12 when the portuguese and spanish were later eclipsed by other european empires (particularly the british and dutch), the ottomans continued in their responsibility to resist colonial oppression. against the backdrop of this global political struggle stretching across centuries, the muslim communities of southeast asia continued to live as best they could, and to continue their trading and cultural activities and existence to the best of their ability. the malay world was the centre of islamic civilization in southeast asia, and malacca on the malay coast (successively under portuguese, dutch, and then british domination from 1511 onwards) was the major maritime centre in the larger muslim indian ocean trading network, eclipsing centres on java and sumatra. malacca had a 14 pan-islamic cooperation … sizeable muslim population that had strong connections to western indian merchants and ports, such as cambay and gujarat.13 the ottoman era of adventure the fatimid annexation of egypt and the subsequent foundation of cairo in 969 triggered a major political and trading confrontation with the abbasids (750-1258). the fatimids effectively diverted business from the western indian ocean (from baghdad and the persian gulf) to fustat and the red sea. the profitable marine route of egypt and the red sea to the western indian ocean was supervised by the ayyubids and mamluks after the collapse of the fatimids in 1171. the ayyubids were kurds, and the mamluks were mainly central asian and turkish slaves; their increasing political power throughout the muslim world from the 10th century onwards marked the rise of the turkic peoples, including the ottomans, who began their awesome advancement as a frontier state launching fierce raids on byzantine regions early in the 13th century. the mongols routed the saljuqs in the battle of kose dag in 1243, creating great flux among the turkish nomads coming into asia minor and the anatolian plateau. the disintegration of saljuq power led to the establishment of several trivial states under volatile mongol suzerainty. after capturing bursa, and founding its capital in 1326, the ottomans became the key actors in the divisive conflict that plagued the byzantine empire in its concluding years.14 after subjugating greece, macedonia, and bulgaria the ottomans successfully got control over kosovo in 1389, which gave the avenue of further acquisition of european territories. by their rapid success the ottomans subjugated constantinople in the spectacular triumph of fatih sultan mehmet (r. 1451-81) in 1453. this ultimate feat galvanized the ottomans to become the preeminent and universal muslim rulers. in 1517 sultan selim i (r. 1512-20) subjugated the mamluk domain in syria and egypt, and assumed guardianship of the holy cities of the hejaz as khadim al-haramayn al-sharifayn (servant of the holy cities), which had been the emblem of revered supremacy amongst the muslim lands, and with that the caliphate. subsequently the ottomans had absolute authority over all muslim states worldwide, including in the indian ocean, and responsibility to combat the attempts by the portuguese in the indian ocean to destroy the muslim economy and seafaring routes to the holy cities of makkah and madinah as a prelude to a renewed crusade.15 at this crucial juncture, the ottoman sway had extended towards india, particularly the deccan, and the western coast of the subcontinent. the ottoman sultan suleyman the magnificent (r. 1520-66), wanted to help sultan muzaffar shah ii (r. 1511-26), the ruler of gujarat, against the portuguese, but the death of sultan selim hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 15 in 1520 had caused some upheavals in ottoman realms that hampered coordinated military action for a time. the subsequent years showed the growth of portuguese intensity in the indian ocean, and caused a major armed menace to the muslim states and their maritime trade, including in the mediterranean sea. the hajj of muslims from the east to makkah was also threatened by portuguese maritime terrorism. facing this rising danger, and seeking to prevent the portuguese gaining terrestrial footholds, sultan qutb-ud-din bahadur shah (r. 1526-37) of gujarat looked for support to the ottomans. at that point of time the governor of diu was malik toghan. consequently, the first ottoman armada arrived under the command of mustafa bayram at diu in 1531, with 2,000 soldiers. this ottoman gesture boosted the morale of the indian muslims.16 in addition, the ottoman conquest of aden in 1538 gave them supremacy over the red sea maritime route and increased their ability to protect the spice trade, which was a decisive move and a golden chance for the acehnese to establish connections with the ottoman empire, as the greatest islamic state and protector of muslim maritime kingdoms in india and southeast asia. 17 this kind of assistance was given a fillip by hadim suleyman pasha, who in 1538 cruised to diu on the coast of southern gujarat with a flotilla comprising 72 ships and 6,500 men; furthermore, cannon cast in egypt (dated muharram 938/ august 1530), were brought to gujarat in a flotilla by the turkish admiral hadim suleyman pasha, to fight against the portuguese at diu fort in 1538. the larger canon bears the inscription the name of sultan sulayman khan b. salim khan azza wa nasarahu, and the second line states amalahu muhammad b. hamzah (craftsmanship of muhammad b. hamzah). the larger of the two, the nilam tope cannon, is over 5.2 m (17 ft) long, with a bore of 25cm (9 ½ ins).18 khwajah safar, the governor of surat, and ali khan, a gujarati general commanding 19,000 warriors, joined the turks and the joint forces stuck an overwhelming blow to the portuguese garrison of only 800 soldiers, razing most of the fort wall, and sparing the puny garrison. the turkish navy left and cruised back to their position, whereas the gujaratis under khwajah safar set flame to parts of diu, then they left.19 at this crucial juncture, the ottomans had built relations with the mughals, who held sway in the deccan and most of northwest india. ottoman explorers and soldiers were by then recognized as proficient gunners and mariners, and were mainly employed by the mughals as elite artillerymen. a few talented turks were already serving under the sultanate of gujarat, such as rumi khan, safar khudawand khan, and his son rajab khudawand khan. rumi khan latter served under the mughal emperor humayun (r. 1530-56) as chief of artillery, and held the fiefs of ranir, surat, mahim and diu. safar khudawand khan was responsible for the 16 pan-islamic cooperation … ruling the town of surat successfully for many years, where he constructed a fort and erected fortifications in the turkish style. his son rajab khan held the position of governor of surat in 1546 and continued in this post until his death in 1560. sidi ali reis (14981563), the ottoman admiral and navigator, was given a splendid welcome in surat and other parts of gujarat as a testimony of the lofty position of the ottoman turks in the indian subcontinent. there were more than 300 turks enrolled in the gujarat army at the time of its collapse at the hands of the mughal emperor akbar (r. 1556-1605) in 1572.20 indian muslims had been active in the trade and defence of the indian ocean long before the ottoman venture into indian waters during the 16th century. many muslim merchants from egypt settled in calicut, and intermarried with local muslim women. in gujarat, tom pires met many warriors including abyssinians, arabs, egyptians, gilanis, khorasanis, persians, rumis, and turkomans, who helped sultan mahmud begada (r. 1458-1511), the sultan of gujarat, to quell the rebellious kanbi and koli groups.21 the volume of trade was inexorably increasing, and the ottoman state devised different systems for securing revenue from this. in provinces next to the indian ocean, business-oriented ottoman officials tested new taxation policies to manage traffic via the competing routes of the red sea and the persian gulf, thus enhancing revenues from both. in the red sea, the government itself became an active partner in trade by sending the frequent fleet of ships, investing in public enterprise spice cargoes from yemen and selling them in egypt for significant gain. the ottoman business managers established trading centres, including in hormuz, calicut, and aceh, and developed business for the royal coffers in the overseas trading centres. simultaneously, these plans amounted to a broad scheme for increasing indian ocean trade, for the universal benefit of all stakeholders, which proved more equitable and financially responsible than the rapacious plunder of the europeans, including the british, who in later centuries reduced india to destitution.22 a contemporary scholar has suggested that during the term of the grand vizier sokollu mehmed pasha (1565–79) the ottomans undertook a conscious strategy of establishing a ‘soft empire’ in the indian ocean, seeking to expand ottoman ascendancy through the peaceful expansion of cultural, economic, and political connections with the muslim states of the region. however, this strategy petered out after the assassination of sokollu mehmed in 1579, combined with the death of the sultan of sumatra ali ri'ayat shah i (1571-79), a close ottoman ally in the indian ocean region.23 the worsening condition of muslim states in the 18th and 19th centuries the 18th and 19th centuries were dominated by chaos and confusion in the world of muslim politics. the resurgence of russia hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 17 challenged turkish hegemony in northwest asia, as seen in the turko-russian war (1768-74) and the russian invasion of the crimea in 1783. the bulk of muslims of central asia and different parts of the globe increasingly came under european domination, particularly that of the british, french, russian, and dutch empires. in certain cases, reigns of terror, brutal tyranny, and torture led to arrivals of muslim immigrants to the areas under ottoman control. due to deteriorating political conditions, muslims were too weak to repulse intrusion in the caucasus in the 1850s and 1860s, the yunan region in china in the 1860s, egypt (1881), and the sudan (1884). the sequence of persistent setbacks revealed the vulnerability of societies and governments in the muslim countries, and their exposure to european antagonism. initial efforts at moderate fiscal improvements and embracing trivial traits of western culture under ottoman tanzimat reforms (1839-76) did little to overturn the ottomans’ deterioration. endless wars and unethical, egotistic political entrepreneurs and traitors impeded advancement, until sultan abdul hamid ii (r. 1876-1909) started to consolidate the ottoman government from 1878, which facilitated the harmonization and growth of ottoman civilization throughout ottoman lands and beyond, enabled in some cases by pan-islamic funding, and panislamism became the keystone of ottoman external strategy until the end of world war i.24 pan-islamism it is pertinent to record that an embryonic blueprint for panislamism was envisioned in the beginning of the 18th century by shah wali allah (1703-62) in his book hujjatullah al-balighah. he implored the muslims to rally around one banner and work regularly and unitedly for the success of islam. the endorsement of the ottoman sultan’s right to be the caliph of all muslims was also asserted in the treaty of kucuk kaynarca (1774). attempts to ascertain widespread islamic guidance and mutual defence against colonialist encroachment were already emergent prior to 19th century pan-islamism, but as a modern political concept, “pan-islamism” likely crystallized as a counterpart to “pan-slavism”, which became popular in eastern europe during the 1870s. the specific use of “panislamism” dates from a german work by franz von werner, türkische skizzen (turkish sketches) (university of california libraries, 1877).25 pan-islamism is entrenched in the doctrinal principle in the unity of all muslim followers in a single society (the ummah). in islam, the formal submission of muslims in subservience to allah and his messenger, the prophet muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), is the basis of life. it is an issue of commitment for muslims to obey islam, as part of which they should surrender their egoistic interests to the revealed wisdom of the holy qur’én and sunnah. this 18 pan-islamic cooperation … is manifested in the devotees being unified together in this venture, and allah has cautioned the muslims not be partitioned, which will be a root of loss in worldly terms, rising from the spiritual ailment of disagreement and arrogance, as adumbrated in the following quranic verses: o you who believe, fear allah, as he should be feared, and let not yourself die save as muslims. hold fast, all of you, to the cord of allah, and be not divided. remember the blessing of allah upon you: when you were enemies to each other, and he brought your hearts together, so that, you became brothers through his blessing. you were at the brink of a pit of fire, then he saved you from it. this is how allah makes his signs clear to you, so that you may take the right path.”. 26 obey allah and his messenger, and do not quarrel with each other, lest you should lose courage, and your prowess should evaporate; and be patient. surely, allah is with the patient.”.27 all believers are but brothers, therefore seek reconciliation between your two brothers, and fear allah, so that you may be blessed with mercy..28 these verses indicate the point that from the beginnings of islam, the muslim ummah has – according to its own understanding – only been capable to withstand those seeking its annihilation by surrender to allah, unity, and persistence, obtaining the miracle of constant survival from allah. subsequently, muslims all over the world fundamentally desire to be as one unit, like cells in a body, reciprocally helping each other in hours of necessity, which is precisely how the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) explained the spirit of the ummah as being comparable to a single human body: “the likeness of the believers in their mutual love, mercy and compassion is that of the body; when one part of it is in pain, the rest of the body joins it in restlessness and fever”.29 conceptualizations of pan-islamism as a socialist liberation ideology an early 20th-century observer, mushir h. kidwai, considered that the european fear and opposition to pan-islamism was due to islam’s historical role as an anti-imperial ideology: “islam once defied the mighty empires of rome and persia, greece and egypt and succeeded at last in extending its hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 19 influence over all the known world. it has also defied successfully the armed, fanatical and aggressive opposition of the combined forces of christendom during the crusades, and as a religion, in spite of the innumerable odds against it, it stands not only unvanquished but even progressive and victorious”. 30 he linked this implicit threat to european colonialism to the unifying force of islamic rites, particularly the hajj pilgrimage, and the supposedly socialist credentials of islam as a political ideology of liberation: “the idea of establishing practically the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of god by that great and true socialist is the germ and the basis of pan-islamism, while the unconcealable truth that embodies the first principles of islam is a fire that burns in the heart of every true musalman and is bound to do its work of kindling others with the same flame. the fact is that whether a musalman openly styles himself a pan-islamist or not, he is in spirit and at heart a pan-islamist and is sure to be ready to serve the cause of islam and even to spread it howsoever he can… every musalman became an ardent advocate and a keen lover of islam and ready to risk even his life to further its cause”. 31 as ottoman policy sultan abdul hamid ii’s adoption of pan-islamism had little to do with the “socialist” vision of kidwai described above except in so far as this related to resisting colonialism. the sultan’s primary foreign policy vision was rooted in classical islamic ethics and doctrines, relative to the existential threats of european colonialism throughout the muslim world. islam accepts, protects, and honours ethnic identities except where these run contrary to islamic ethics – for example, tribalism is specifically condemned in islamic morals, thus tribal feuds or nepotism are abhorrent to islamic sharê‘ah, while manifestations of a tribal identity (e.g. clothing and language etc.) are encouraged and celebrated; the ottoman civilization was particularly notable for its celebration of minority cultural manifestations, especially of non-muslim religious groups. however, the european colonial venture attempted to replace the universal philosophy of islamic belief with numerous types of exclusive national identities, fomenting exclusionary and fanatical nationalism at the expense of harmony among muslims and indeed other communities in traditionally muslim lands; the scars of this are still seen in the nationalist, genocidal struggles of recent history in the balkans and elsewhere. the greatest achievement of european colonialism was its classic divide-and-rule tactic applied in the muslim world, pitting 20 pan-islamic cooperation … albanians, arabs, armenians, bosnians, greeks, hindus, jews, kurds, turks and others against each other, in their struggles for exclusionary national states, thereby serving western colonial interests. this project scattered the seeds of many of the geopolitical “blunders” that continue to stain the world today (and fill the banks and treasuries of europe and north america).32 the main hindrance of this project was pan-islamism, particularly as championed by sultan abdul hamid ii. the ottoman “sultans” received the title of “caliph” when the abbasid caliph almutawakkil iii (r. 1508-17) of cairo ceded the title to sultan selim i, after the ottomans undertook the obligation to preserve the holy sanctuaries at makkah and madinah in 1517 after their conquest of the hejaz. the title was hardly used in practice until this relic of the prophetic era was galvanized by its effectiveness in anticolonial struggle by the ottomans and other muslim peoples from the late-18th century to the ultimate death of the ottoman empire ensuing world war i.33 sultan abdul hamid ii disseminated this concept and defended his status as the “commander of the believers”. the ottoman sultans obviously used expressions of islamic unity (including ittehad-e-islami, ittehad-e-din, and ukhuvvat-e-din) in their official communications with muslim rulers in india, central asia, and southeast asia, explicitly cautioning against external intrusions, and counselling muslims to bond and unite against their mutual foes. the historic role of the ottomans in serving other muslim lands counterattacked colonial expansionism, but this is often intentionally ignored nowadays. they were particularly active in averting russian hostility against central asian khanates, who needed help and defence from the caliphs to defend themselves against russian christian imperialism, and designs on bukhara, khiva, and khokand, after the crimean war.34 pan-islamism is fundamentally a sacred notion, combined with the islamic prevention of prejudice centred on ethnicity, and in contemporary political vocabulary can be recognized as a philosophy describing socio-political unity among all muslims. the darwinian empires of europe, with their obsessive taxonomy of ethnic orders and classifications of “national” cultures, always found the pluralistic and heterogeneous draperies of muslim civilisations very difficult to arrest, and observed with anxiety how tyranny or barbarity against muslims on one side of the world could cause a rebellion on the other. this pragmatic connection among muslims was triggered by sultan abdul hamid ii during the era of high imperialism, with european expansionism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. pan-islamism stimulated islamic morality and activated muslims to search for deliverance and improvement by withstanding and fighting against hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 21 colonialism and the progression of westernization, nurturing the fusion of the muslim ummah.35 pan-islamic contacts with southeast asia the countries east of india were traditionally referred to by the persian zêrbad (“below the wind”), based on maritime usage and the sheltered nature of the region. this was likely a translation of the local term negeri di bawah bayu with the same meaning (“land below the wind”), a common observation given by the mariners to sabah, simply since it is located below the typhoon belt, and hence relatively free from climatic turmoil.36 after the portuguese conquest of malacca in 1511, tom pires disembarked at sumatra, where he spent significant time at the ports of pedir and pasai. although pedir was ruined by persistent war, trade at pasai thrived, and a number of traders moved there from malacca, averting the straits by entering sumatra from its western shore. apart from several groups, including bengalis, javanese, kelings (tamils), and malays, pires noticed the presence of arabs, gujaratis, persians, rumis (greeks or other anatolians), and turks at the time of portuguese conquest of pasai in 1521. various forms of exclusion and oppression against muslim traders caused most of them to move away to nearby ports like minangkabau and pedir. the acehnese showed great resentment to the portuguese incursion, and were determined to unify muslims to fight to oust the portuguese from the 1520 onwards. this trend deepened after the accession of alauddin ri’ayat shah al-qahhar (r. 1537-71).37 this section gives a sketch of the pan-islamic contacts between the turks and the acehnese. the first formal relationships between the two states began in the mid-16th century when the portuguese controlled malacca, and the sultanate of aceh appealed the sublime porte for armed assistance from the caliph against the invaders. sultan suleyman the magnificent (r. 1520-66) responded to the calls of sultan qutb-ud-din bahadur shah (r. 1526 to 1535, 1536 to 1537) of gujarat,38 and sultan alauddin ri’ayat shah al-qahhar of aceh, an influential ruler in the southeast asia. the portuguese explorer mendes pinto visited sumatra in 1539, and stated that sultan alauddin ri’ayat shah achieved victory over the batak (in northcentral sumatra) with the help of 300 turks. mendes further stated that many turkish soldiers joined the pasai army attempting to oust the portuguese from malacca.39 these turkish fighters may have been sent to aceh in 1537 or 1538. earlier, the ottoman admiral hadim suleyman pasha led an unsuccessful operation to diu in 1538, sending emissaries to gujarat and arab ports to support him in the combat against the portuguese in 1537.40 the early relationship between the ottomans and aceh was attested to in the writing of shaikh nuruddin ar-raniri (d. 1658) in 22 pan-islamic cooperation … bustan us-salatin (1638) (the garden of kings). according to this work, sultan alauddin dispatched a mission to the sultan of rum (i.e. istanbul) in order to consolidate islamic brotherhood, and in response the ottoman sultan sent craftsmen and gunsmiths to cast cannons.41 this friendship was further strengthened on the solemn appeal of the acehnese ruler to the ottoman sultan selim ii (r. 1566-74), who consented to reinforce the aceh against the portuguese. according to divan-i humayun (ottoman imperial council) documentation, and correspondence retained in the collections of hindistan musulmanin bir arizasi discovered by naimur rahman farooqi, 42 sultan alauddin ri’ayat shah al-qahhar dispatched a petition in the middle of jumad al-thani 973/ january 1566 to sultan suleyman the magnificent, imploring him as the khalifa of islam to intervene and protect muslim pilgrims and merchants travelling to mecca and other arabian ports in the face of the firangê aggressors. it informed the sultan that the muslims of calicut and ceylon read the khuïbah in his name, and that the infidel rulers of these states are willing to fight the firangês under the sultan’s banner. moved by the contents of the petition, sultan selim ii, who had succeeded suleyman in 1566, took immediate action and commissioned a fleet of fifteen galleys and two barks, equipped with cannons, muskets, and other military hardware, to sumatra. a host of janissaries, and seven master gunners, along with the imperial master-general of artillery, were ordered to join the expedition. several carpenters, miners, blacksmiths, and painters were also directed to accompany the fleet. khizr kurtoglu, the captain of the alexandria fleet, was nominated to lead the expedition to help the king of sumatra and capture the infidel forts, to be assisted by all provincial governors.43 according to feridun bey, sultan selim ii promptly dispatched a flotilla on 15, rabi al awwal 975/ 28 september 1567 to support the acehnese sultan.44 however, fleet was diverted to quell a zaidi uprising (also known as mutahhar riot) in yemen,45 and a second fleet was promised to sumatra the following year, and portuguese, jesuit, and sumatran sources suggest that ottoman military aid reached sumatra. the ships carrying 500 turks including experts of firearms builders, gunners, engineers together with war materials comprising a number of heavy bronze guns and other combat materials anchored at aceh in 1567. these experts moulded heavy artillery for the sultan of aceh in order to oust the portuguese from malacca in 1568. this voyage and the ensuing attacks on malacca in 1570s ended in failure. the ottoman sultans took their duty of facilitating the pilgrimage of the muslims around the world seriously, and that they were willing to fulfil this moral obligation whenever the need arose.46 ottoman military specialists sent to the region in the 16th century founded a military academy named askar-i bayt al-muqaddas during the rule of sultan iskandar muda (r. 160736). these soldiers perpetually settled there and never returned to hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 23 their homeland, and it is assumed that these soldiers were buried in the turkish graveyard of banda aceh, which survives today. this diplomatic association between the two states persisted until the reign of sultan iskandar muda. after this there is no indication of any official mission sustained between the two states until the mid-19th century.47 diplomatic relations were recommenced when the acehnese sultan ibrahim mansur shah (r. 1838-70) forwarded a petition to the ottoman sultan abdul majid i (1839-61) in 1849, reiterating the pledge of eternal loyalty to the ottoman caliphate by “requesting a ship, one imperial edict, and one ottoman flag.”48 subsequently, the sultanates of riau and jambi followed the acehnese design pleading for vital support from the ottoman sultan beside the dutch menace in sumatra petitioning in 1857 and 1858 respectively desiring to be vassal states under the shadow of the ottoman caliphate.49 however, aceh kept its political control over the minor sultanates of asahan and batu bahara until the 1860s, and they considered themselves under the protection of aceh even from the time of dutch invasion in late 1873. during this troubled period, they exhibited islamic bonds of unity and support to resist european colonialism. however, at this juncture the ottoman administration was engaged with its own internal dilemmas and obsessed with westernization, afar from its traditional islamic initiatives, until the pan-islamic apparition of the last de facto caliph, sultan abdul hamid ii, who was immensely worried about the aceh-dutch war of 1873-1903. sultan abdul hamid ii efficiently expanded ottoman foreign policy universally due to the mandate of the caliphate, and his pan-islamist programme widened ottoman links to support the muslims of aceh from the dutch offensive.50 the first point of contact in ottoman–sumatran relations was mediated by arab hadramis, merchant communities from yemen and the hejaz who had many settlements in ports throughout southeast asia, particularly in sumatra, java, and malaya. they intermarried with locals and settled permanently, often rising to positions of prominence in local governments (including the sultanate of aceh; additionally, the mother of sultan taha of jambi was an arab). most of the traditional maritime trade across the indian ocean was operated by them, and they had a thriving community in aden and the hejaz (including links with the ottoman sharifian governors of makkah). many local arabs from southeast asia, as well as non-arab locals, went to study in the hejaz (as well as cairo), and along with the ×ajj, which strengthened inherent links among muslims, these connections directly contributed to the propagation of islam throughout the oceanic sea routes between africa and china.51 24 pan-islamic cooperation … due to its strategic location, riau had a unique place in this area in the nineteenth century as a well-grounded centre for printing and publication, and it was leading in the modernization of the malay world as an axis of knowledge for awareness in the global world, together with the ottoman caliphate. it is noted that some of the luminary in the region vigorously observed the ottoman news agencies to acquire news about what was going on worldwide.52 in this conducive atmosphere, the ottoman caliphate became a constant source of support for pan-islamist activities linking the middle east and southeast asia, epitomized in the diplomatic connexion between the ottoman state and riau sultanate during 1857-1904.53 this later fed into the propagation of pan-islamism, with reformist newspapers from istanbul and cairo being smuggled into the region by returning pilgrims. for this reason, the dutch attempted to prevent the acehnese from going for ×ajj, under various pretexts, but when they outlawed arab and turkish newspapers this backfired, and a thriving local pan-islamic press emerged. for instance, when the most influential arab weekly magazine, al-manar (associated with mohammad abduh’s reformist ideas and a pan-islamic ethos) was banned, the local publication al-imam emerged, which was essentially a local translation of the arabic original, giving a fillip to the circulation of islamist ideas locally, and greatly extending their reach.54 indeed, al-imam directly carried news of abdul hamid ii’s policies. alongside this, the ottomans also sent manuscripts of the holy qur’én to be disseminated to all muslims in the region, alongside tafsêr (exegesis) books, sometimes sponsored by local hadrami merchants.55 islamic issues of local religious observance and worship were vigorously observed by the local ottoman consulates, particularly those established in singapore and batavia. the ottomans appointed local hadrami merchants syed abdullah bin omer el-juneyd (d. 1865), as honorary consuls in singapore from 1864 at the latest, but they were continually hampered by the dutch (who also attempted to stifle hadrami traders by imposing various restrictions upon their activities, causing them to seek ottoman citizenship). a direct turkish consul mehmed kamil bey was appointed in 1897, against fierce dutch opposition, and he and ottoman diplomats in the region had an unusually high mortality rate from bizarre accidents. fortunately, they had stolen a march on the dutch by installing a consulate in batavia in 1881. despite anglo-dutch interference and sabotage, both consulates managed to provide direct communication between istanbul and local muslims, which enabled direct ottoman engagement to protect local muslims’ interests, such as preventing dutch suppression of the ×ajj, and encouraging local maséjid (mosques) to read the friday khuïbah in the name of the caliph. on the sultan of riau’s earnest request hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 25 the ottoman sultan allowed both eid and friday khuïbahs to be read in his name.56 however, to tighten its hold over the indonesian sultanates, the dutch authorities implementing increasingly strict measures, especially in the siak region of riau. internal disputes were stirred up by the meddling of outsiders as a pretext for dutch mediation in 1858, and the siak rulers of riau agreed to allow the dutch control, and undertook not to deal with any other foreign states without dutch approval.57 naturally under these provisions the dutch did not allow any ottoman diplomacy or envoys, whereby the dutch successfully alienated any probable or normal relationship between the local officials and the ottomans, and for quite a prolonged period (c. 1858-97) there was no substantial connexion amongst the two states. by sheer luck mehmed kamil bey was assigned to the position of ottoman consul in batavia on june 29, 1897,58 and he revitalized ottoman connections with riau and other sultanates in the indonesian archipelago. in the meantime, the dutch co-operation with the state authorities in riau was disturbed by some local nobles who resisted the blatant encroachments of colonialism on riau’s prestige. although the dutch did not take such resistance seriously, the riau rulers found a way exchanging diplomats with istanbul to overcome this situation. 59 kamil bey had an incomparable reputation as the representative of the caliph in the region, while giving immense support to riau’s elites in this matter. this dynamic approach of kamil bey became the genesis of the revival of the pan-islamist ethos in the malay world.60 by the 1900s the rulers of jambi were imitating the acehnese and dispatched multiple embassies to istanbul. the malay sultanates of southeast asia were very keen to cement their relations in the spirit of pan-islamism, and requested ottoman symbolic recognition for the malay polities, reflected in prestigious journeys to istanbul by local notables, such as the sultan of langkat in east sumatra and sultan abu bakr (r. 1885-95) of johor, dato abdul rahman bin andak (d. 1930), and sultan ibrahim of johor (1895-1959) sent dato abdul rahman bin andak as his personal emissary to istanbul in 1898.61 the diplomatic connections between the rulers of the riau islands predated the crimean war (1853-56), and they continually sent various forms of tribute to istanbul to express their devotion to the caliph during times of need. this friendship continued, and the malay rulers sent humanitarian relief to the victims of the balkan war (1912-1913), helping in the rehabilitation of orphans, widows and refugees of the martyred soldiers.62 during the early 20th century, both the ottoman and acehnese states ceased to exist, but the connections and sympathy linking their muslim populations was revived following the aceh tsunami in 2004, 26 pan-islamic cooperation … galvanizing muslim cooperation as manifest in the red crescent, turkish awqéf, and individual ngos in aceh providing emergency relief, rebuilding homes, and establishing clinics, hospitals, hostels, mosques, orphanages, and schools, as well as providing scholarships.63 conclusion the european capitalist imperialism of the 19 th century incited numerous popular muslim response and resistance trends. as the realms of the ottoman caliphate continued to be absorbed by european empires, the caliphate nevertheless continued to inspire muslims around the world. the tanðêmét reformation within the ottoman state apparently failed in achieving its aim of catching up with western materialist development by jettisoning traditional islamic and cultural features of ottoman life, and the european empires continued to gorge on the wealth of conquered muslim populations throughout the world. only the pan-islamism of abdul hamid ii was able to seriously restore the ottoman state as a serious consideration in global affairs, including material developments as well as a spiritual heart-and-minds approach. he was able to wield the emotive potential of his role as caliph to inspire a highly impactful pan-islamic programme, which subsequently fed into numerous anti-colonial and post-colonial nationalist movements worldwide. the ottoman state thus functioned as a source of inspirational as well as material (financial and logistical) succour for anticolonial resistance movements, and promoted socio-economic development in colonized (or at risk of being colonized) regions, laying the foundations of deep connections between islamic communities worldwide, and paving the way for muslim anticolonial leadership. 64 pan-islamism’s authentic anticolonial force, including resistance and promoting material development, was an internationalist force that undermined the nationalism the european empires sought to foment to divide and rule subject peoples. pan-islamism posited a humanitarian framework that transcended nationalist confines and facilitated respect and assistance among muslims and others on the basis of social and political liberation. this continues to be as pertinent today in the face of neo-colonial financial colonization as it was in the epoch of direct western political colonization. notes and references 1 wilfred h. schoff, the periplus of the erythraean sea: travel and trade in the indian ocean by a merchant of the first century, longmans, green and co., new york, 1912, pp. 26, 34, 36 . hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 27 2 al-qur’én, 16:15-16, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010) [all qur’anic citations are taken from this translation]. 3 ibid., 6: 97. 4 abu al-hasan b. yahya al-baladhuri, futuh al-buldan, ed. m. ridwan, al-maktaba tijariyya, cairo, 1932, p. 442. 5 ibn al-athir, al-kamil fi al-tarikh, vol. 6, dar sadir, beirut, 1965, p. 155; syed sulaiman nadvi, arabon ki jahaz-rani, islamic research association, bombay, 1958, p. 55. 6 al-himyari, al-rawd al-mitar fi khabar al-aqtar, maktabat al-bayan, beirut, 1994, p. 312; al-masudi, abu al-hasan ali ibn husayn, muruj al-dhahab wama’dinal jawhar, vol. i, ed., mohammad mohiyuddin a. hamid, al-maktaba athariya, beirut, 1988, pp. 153-54; ibn khaldun, tarikh ibn khaldun, vol. 3, bulaq, cairo, 1284/ 1867, p. 280; malise ruthven and azim nanji, historical atlas of the islamic world, harvard university press, cambridge, 2004, p. 79; s. m. husayn nainar, arab geographer’s knowledge of southern india, university of madras, madras, 2011, p. 135; sulaiman at-tagir and abu zaid hasan al-sirafi, silsilat altawarikh, ed., m. reinaud, johann wolfgang goethe university, frankfurt, 1994, pp. 130-3; arshad islam, “arab navigation in the indian ocean before european dominance in south and southeast asia: an historical analysis,” journal of the pakistan historical society lviii, no. 2, april-june, 2010, p.11. 7 ruthven and nanji, historical atlas, p. 79; schoff, the periplus, pp. 44, 204. 8 m. a. p. meilink-roelofsz, asian trade and european influence in the indonesian archipelago between 1500 and about 1630, martinus nijhoff, the hague, reprint, 1969, p. 15; nadvi, arabon, p. 43; sulaiman at-tagir, silsilat, p. 10; al-tabari, abu jaffar muhammad ibn jarir, tarikh al-rusul wa-al-muluk, ed., muhammad abul fadl ibrahim, vol. 2, dar al ma’ari, cairo, 1990, p. 594. 9 g. r. tibbetts, a study of the arabic texts containing material on southeast asia, royal asiatic society, leiden,1979, p. 38. 10 om prakash, the new cambridge history of india: european commercial enterprise in pre-colonial india, cambridge university press, new delhi, 2000, pp. 44-46. 11 alfred j. andrea and james h. overfield, the human record: sources of global history, volume 2: since 1500 (7th edition), wadsworth, boston, 2012, pp. 9-10. 12 giancarlo casale, the ottoman age of exploration, oxford university press, new york, 2010, p. 90; anthony reid, “aceh and the turkish connection”, in arndt graft, susanne schröter, and edwin wieringa (eds.), aceh: history politics and culture, institute of southeast asian studies, singapore, 2010, pp. 28-9. 13 h. j. de graff, “south-east asian islam to the eighteenth century”, in p. m. holt, ann k. s. lambton and bernard lewis (eds.), the cambridge history of islam, vol. 2a, cambridge university press, cambridge, 1970, pp. 125-27. 14 ruthven and nanji, historical atlas, pp. 43-45, 84-5; salih özbaran and dom manuell de lyma, “the ottoman turks and the portuguese in the persian gulf, 1534 – 1581”, journal of asian history, 6, no. 1 (1972), p. 58. 15 casale, the ottoman age of exploration, p. 30; arshad islam, “pan-islamic international cooperation and anticolonialism: south asia, turkey, and southeast asia”, hamdard islamicus, xliv, no. 1 (2021), p. 13; ruthven and nanji, historical atlas, p. 86; azmi özcan, pan-islamism: indian muslims, the ottomans and britain (1877-1924), brill, leiden, 1997, p. 3. 16 makhdum, zainuddin shaykh. tuhfat al-mujahidin, translated by s. m. h. nainar, islamic book trust, kuala lumpur, 2009, pp. 68-9, 71-2; m.s. commissariat, a history of gujarat including a survey of its chief architectural monuments and inscriptions, vol. i, longmans, green & co. ltd., bombay, 1938, pp. 337-38; casale, the ottoman age of exploration, pp. 32, 47; k. s. mathew, portuguese and the sultanate of gujarat, 1500-1573, mittal publications, delhi, 1986, pp. 79-81; taufik, farouk m, history of al-hijaz (1520-1632), (dissertations and theses), portland state university, oregon, 1973, p. 56; r.s. whiteway, rise of portuguese power in india 1497-1550, asian educational services, new delhi, 1989, p. 224; r. 28 pan-islamic cooperation … michael feener, patrick daly and anthony reid (eds). mapping the acehnese past. leiden: royal netherlands institute of southeast asian and caribbean studies, 2011, p. 67; halil inalcik and donald q. eds. an economic and social history of the ottoman empire, vol. 1, cambridge university press, new york, 1997, pp. 325-26, 358-59. 17 dejanirah couto and rui m. loureiro (eds.), revisiting hormuz portuguese interactions in the persian gulf region in the early modern period, calouste gulbenkian foundation harrassowitz verlag, wiesbaden, 2008, p. 30; inalcik, an economic and social history, pp. 327-28. 18 giancarlo casale, “the ottoman administration of the spice trade in the sixteenth-century red sea and persian gulf”, journal of the economic and social history of the orient, 49, no. 2, (2006), pp. 170-198; casale, the ottoman age, pp. 48, 90; suraiya n. faroqhi and kate fleet (eds.), the cambridge history of turkey, cambridge university press, new york, 2013, p. 35; maya petrovich, the land of the foreign padishah: india in ottoman reality and imagination, (phd. dissertation), princeton university, 2012, pp. 15-6; özbaran and lyma, “the ottoman turks”, p. 59; feener, mapping the acehnese past, p. 67; inalcik, an economic and social history, pp. 326-27. 19 makhdum, zainuddin. tuhfat al-mujahidin, pp. 82-3; casale, the ottoman age, p. 57; taufik, history of al-hijaz, p. 56. 20 abdullah muhammad omar al-makki al-asafi al-ulughkhani, zafar ul walih bi muzaffar wa alih: an arabic history of gujarat, vol. ii, ed., e. denison ross, john murray, london, 1921, pp. xxxii; n. r. farooqi, mughal ottoman relations: a study of political and diplomatic relations between mughal india and the ottoman empire, 1556-1748, idarah-i adabiyat-i delli, delhi, 1989, pp. 11, 16-7; casale, the ottoman age, pp. 54-5; feener, mapping the acehnese past, p. 68. 21al-makki, zafar ul walih, pp. xxxii; richard m. eaton, india in the persianate age: 1000-1765, penguin book ltd., london, 2019, pp. 129-30; maya, the land of the foreign padishah, p. 60; tome pires, the suma oriental of tome pires, ed., armando cortesao, routledge, new york, 2016, pp. 29-30. 22 casale, the ottoman age, pp. 41, 111; ruthven and nanji, historical atlas, p. 77; farooqi, mughal ottoman relations, pp. 156-57. 23 casale, ginacarlo. “global politics in the 1590s: one canal, twenty thousand cannibals, and an ottoman plot to rule the world”, journal of world history 18, no. 3 (2007): 276–79; n. r. farooqi. “an overview of ottoman archival documents and their relevance for medieval indian history”, the medieval history journal, 20, 1 (2017), p. 17. 24 n. r. farooqi, “pan-islamism in the nineteenth century”, islamic culture, 57, no. 4 (october 1983), pp. 286-87; s. mushir hosain kidwai, pan-islamism, lusac & co., london, 1908, p. 46; syed sulaiman nadvi, hayat-i-shibli: life of shibli, darul musannefin shibli academy, azamgarh, 2015, pp. 152-53; özcan, pan-islamism, p. 46; salih pay, “indian muslims, ottoman empire and caliphate during colonial period”, international journal of business and social science, 6, no. 2 (february 2015), pp. 285-86. 25 e. lee dwight, “the origins of pan-islamism”, the american historical review, 47, no. 2 (january 1942), pp. 278-281; farooqi, “pan-islamism in the nineteenth century”, p. 286; kidwai, pan-islamism, p. 11; shah wali allah, hujjat allah albaligha, urdu trans. abdul haq haqqani, farid book stall, lahore, n.d., pp. 648-52; shah wali allah, hujjat allah al-baligha. translated by marcia k. hermansen, leiden/boston, 1995, pp. 399-400. 26 al-qur’én, 3:103-104 27 ibid., 8:47 28 ibid., 49:11. 29 sahih al-bukhari, 6011; sahih al-muslim, 2586. 30 kidwai, pan-islamism, p. 24. 31 kidwai, pan-islamism, pp. 24-5. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 29 32 kidwai, pan-islamism, pp. 24-5; firas alkhateeb, lost islamic history reclaiming muslim civilisation from the past, c. hurst & company ltd., london, 2014, pp. 142-44. 33 philip k. hitti, history of the arabs from the earliest times to the present, macmillan publishers ltd, london, 1970, pp 704-5; p. m. holt (ed.), the cambridge history of islam, vol. 2a, cambridge university press, cambridge, 1970, pp. 31920; nadvi, hayat, pp. 550-51; özcan, pan-islamism, pp. 3, 51. 34 dwight, the origins, pp. 282-84; farooqi, “pan-islamism”, p. 287; kidwai, panislamism, pp. 46, 49-50; özcan, pan-islamism, pp. 12-3, 75; pay, “indian muslims”, p. 286; s. tanvir wasti, “the 1877 ottoman mission to afghanistan”, middle eastern studies, 30, no. 4 (december 2006), p. 956. 35 dwight, the origins, pp. 285-87; farooqi, “pan-islamism”, p. 290; kidwai, panislamism, pp. 4-5; wasti, “the 1877 ottoman mission,” pp. 956-62. 36 i. rae and morgen witzel, “the ‘land below the wind’: malaysia, singapore, indonesia, the philippines”, in the overseas chinese of south east asia: history, culture, business, palgrave macmillan, london, 2008, p. 42; maya, the land of the foreign padishah, p. 120; henry yule and a. c. burnell, hobson-jobson: a glossary of colloquial anglo-indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive, ed. william crooke, john murray, albemarle street, london, 1903, p. 984. 37 maya, the land of the foreign padishah, pp. 121-22; feener, mapping the acehnese past, p. 67. 38 feridun bey, mecmua-i munseat feridun bey, (991/1583) vol. 1, isam ( islamic research centre library, istanbul), reprint rabi’ul akhir 1274, pp. 447-49. 39 jorge santos alves, “from istanbul with love: rumours, conspiracies and commercial competition in aceh-ottoman relations, 1550s to 1570s”, in andrew peacock and annabel teh gallop (eds.). from anatolia to aceh ottomans, turks and southeast asia, oxford university press, oxford, 2015, p. 51; anthony reid, “sixteenth century turkish influence in western indonesia”, journal of southeast asian history 10, no. 3 (1969), pp. 395-414. 40 casale, the ottoman age, p. 58; anthony reid, “sixteenth century turkish influence in western indonesia”, p. 401; inalcik, an economic and social history, pp. 326-27; feener, mapping the acehnese past, pp. 67-8. 41 nuruddin al-raniri, bustan al-salatin (manuskrip 41) perpustakaan universiti malaya, kuala lumpur, n.d., pp. 283-84; c. r. boxer, “a note on portuguese reactions to the revival of the red sea spice trade and the rise of atjeh 15401600”, journal of southeast asia history, 10, no. 3 (1969), p. 420; elizabeth lambourn. “khutba and muslim networks in the indian ocean (part ii) –timurid and ottoman engagements”, in kenneth hall (ed.), the growth of non-western cities: primary and secondary urban networking, research institute: institute of art and design, lexington, (2011), p. 140; e. a. rozali, “aceh-ottoman relation in bustan al-salatin”, mediterranean journal of social sciences 5, no. 29 (2014), p. 95; teuku iskandar ed. hikayat aceh, the hague, martinus nijhoff, 1958, pp. 162-168. 42 hindistan musulmanin bir arizasi, t. s. m.a., e 8009, quoted by farooqi, mughal ottoman, p. 157. 43 inalcik, an economic and social history, p. 329; farooqi, mughal ottoman, p. 157. 44 başbakanlık osmanlı arşivleri (henceforth boa) bao, a.dvnsmhm.d.7. 597. (15 rabi al-awwal 975/28 september 1567), “tahte el raja hakimi alaaddin tarafindan isdar buyurulan name-i humayun sureti”, in mecmua-i munseat feridun bey, (991/1583) vol. 2, isam (islamic research centre library, istanbul), reprint rabi’ul akhir 1274, pp. 549-50. see also mehmet ozey, “notes on ottomanmalay world relations”, in routledge handbook of islam in southeast asia, edited by khairudin aljunied. routledge, new york, 2022, p. 105, fn. 44; inalcik, an economic and social history, p. 329. 45 bao, a.dvnsmhm.d.7. 244. (29 jumada al-thani 975/9 january 1568), “tahte el raja hakimi alaaddin tarafindan isdar buyurulan name-i humayun sureti”, in 30 pan-islamic cooperation … mecmua-i munseat feridun bey, p. 550; see also mehmet ozey, in routledge handbook of islam, p. 97, fn. 14. 46 farooqi, mughal ottoman, pp. 157-58; reid, “sixteenth century turkish influence”, pp. 413-14; feener, mapping the acehnese past, pp. 51, 68-9; inalcik, an economic and social history, pp. 329-30; ismail hakkı goksoy, “ottoman-aceh relations as documented in turkish sources”, in mapping the acehnese past, p. 69. 47 casale, the ottoman age, p. 180; anthony reid, “nineteenth century pan-islam in indonesia and malaysia”, the journal of asian studies 26, no. 2 (february 1967), p. 267; rozali, “aceh-ottoman relation”, pp. 95-6; alaeddin tekin and arshad islam, “turkish waqf after the 2004 aceh tsunami”, intellectual discourse, 26, special issue (2018), p. 1051. 48 boa, i̇.hr, 66/3208: h. (29 rajab 1266 /9 june 1850) quoted by alaeddin tekin, “restoration of riau sultanate-ottoman relations (1857-1904): explanatory factors ”, al-shajarah 26, no.2, 2021, p. 180. 49 boa, i̇. dh, 368/24377: h. (16 jumad al-thani 1273 / 10 february 1857); boa, i̇. hr, 173/9431: h. (4 jumada al-thani 1276/ 29 december 1859) quoted by alaeddin tekin, “restoration of riau sultanate”, pp. 180-81. 50 boa, y. prk. tkm. 28.56.1.1. pan-islamic activity was anathema to dutch colonial governance in the indies, and they sought to promote their own supposedly islamic credentials, conjuring fatwas legitimizing their rule and establishing consulates in jeddah to facilitate their subjects’ pilgrimages. see mehmet ozey, routledge handbook of islam, p. 97; reid, “aceh and the turkish connection”, p. 3; reid, “nineteenth century pan-islam”, p.283; kemal h. karpat. the politicization of islam: reconstructing identity, state, faith, and community in the late ottoman state, new york, oxford university press, 2001, p. 140. 51 reid, “aceh and the turkish connection”, pp. 32, 35; sumit k. mandal, becoming malay-creole histories and modern identity in the malay world, cambridge university press, new york, 2018, p. 43. 52 jan van der putten, “printing in riau: two steps towards modernity,” journal of the humanities and social sciences of southeast asia and oceania, 153, no. 4 (1997), pp. 717-736; michael laffan, “between batavia and mecca. images of agoes salim from the leiden university library,” archipel, 65, no. 1 (2003), pp. 111-112. 53 reid, “nineteenth century pan-islam”, p.282. 54 jutta e. bluhm, “a preliminary statement on the dialogue established between the reform magazine al-manar and the malayo-indonesian world”, indonesia circle, 32 (1983), p. 36. 55 boa, hr-id 1373-65; azyumardi azra, “the transmission of al-manar’s reformism to the malay-indonesian world: the case of al-imam and al-munir”, studika islamika, 6, no. 3 (1999), pp. 88-9; mandal, becoming malay, p. 150; elizabeth lambourn, “khutba and muslim”, p.140; frial ramadhan supratman, “the ottoman state, pan-islamism, and modernisation in indonesia”, al-jāmi‘ah, 54, no. 2 (2016 /1437), pp. 458-59; ali akbar, “the influence of ottoman’s qur’ans in southeast asia through the ages”, in from anatolia to aceh, pp. 331–34; burhanudin jajat. “the ulama and colonial politics: the experiences of indonesia and malaysia”, in osman bakar, ahmad murad merican, wan ali wan mamat (eds). colonialism in the malay archipelago: civilisational encounters, kuala lumpur: istac-iium, 2020, p. 165. 56 this document is already translated by mehmet ali alacagöz ahmet ergün mehmet akif terzi, osmanlı belgeleri işığında osmanlı endonezya i̇lişkileri, basım yılı ve yeri, i̇stanbul, 2017, pp. 230-233; (dvn. nmh, 9/23: h. 10 ḏū al-ḥijjah 1274/ 22 july 1858), quoted in alaeddin tekin, “restoration of riau sultanate”, p. 189); alves, “from istanbul with love”, p. 5; özcan, pan-islamism, pp. 55, 62; reid, “aceh and the turkish connection”, p. 34; reid, “nineteenth century pan-islam”, p. 271; frial ramadhan supratman, “the ottoman state”, p. 457. 57 reid, anthony. the contest for north sumatra aceh, the netherlands and britain 1858-1898, university of malaya press, kuala lumpur, 2017, p. 22. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 31 58 boa, hr. th. 199/27: h. 19 rabīʿ al-ʾawwal 1315/ 18 august 1897; boa, i̇. hr. 355/32: h. 28 muḥarram 1315/ 29 june 1897 (quoted by alaeddin tekin, “restoration of riau sultanate”, p. 192). 59 barbara watson andaya, “from rum to tokyo: the search for anti-colonial allies by the rulers of riau 1899-1914,” indonesia, 24. (1977), p. 130. 60 alaeddin tekin, “restoration of riau sultanate”, pp. 192-94. 61 secretary of state 509/1898(1),1957/0581899, no 8, native states despatch no 56, 18 may 1898, arkib negara malaysia; boa, hr.sfr (3). 428.16.5.1.(28.6.1894); see also hussain shaharom, " hubungan johor dengan turki. " jauhar, jurnal sejarah johor, bil.4 ( disember 2002), pp. 54-67. 62 as attested by ottoman archival records, the muslims of malacca sent a donation amounting 8480 franks, and the muslims of muar (johor) sent a separate donation (a. mtz (05).30.46.1 (12 rajab 1331/16 june 1913); boa. beo. 4229.317130.2.1. (6 dhul hijjah 1331/5 november 1913). see also mehmet ozey, routledge handbook of islam, p. 100. 63 schmidt, through the legation window, p. 57; reid, “nineteenth century panislam”, p. 279; alaeddin tekin and arshad islam, “turkish waqf”, pp. 1058-59. 64 reid, “aceh and the turkish connection”, p. 33. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 49 anthropomorphic of gods with allah almighty and filmography on islamophobia in the cinematic way of america and india: a critical analysis muhammad asad latif department of islamic studies, islamia university bahawalpur, bahawalpur, pakistan email: rockybaba091@gmail.com received on: 14-02-23 accepted on: 01-06-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.756 abstract it is alleged that after the islamic world froze its influence in this universe, the jews and christians started a conspiracy against islam. later, the same thinking affected the people of the west and india. so, they also provided hateful material against muslims through books, articles, and cinematic films. in berlin, 1895 skladanowsky brothers made their first debut film, and in 1905 lumiere brothers did not get a good response; they started the parables of prophets and got salutations from the audience. occasionally, western and indian filmmakers moved on to offensive pictorial scenarios of god and anti-muslims. in this regard, they are producing god in the form of male/female in the different aspects of the cinema. moreover, later hollywood introduced the anthropomorphic of ancient greek gods, like zeus, thor, and loki in cinema. in the era of 1917, dada sahib phalke through the lanka dahan portrayal, and in the 80s, ramanand saghar provided the pictorial series ramayana and later b.r chopra mahabharata. those who watch these theological movies as entertainment are prohibited (×arém) in islam, while these films violate beliefs. these cinematic portraits are shown in every muslim state on ram, hanuman, antimuslimism data, etc. this stereotypical behaviour is the major cause of the muslims as terrorist in the west and being patronizing in indian society. this research aims to identify the theological effects of religious films on muslim society. furthermore, the negative myths created by these films are to be revealed to muslim civilization. this research will set out mailto:rockybaba091@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v46i3.756 50 anthropomorphic of gods … both film industries with the methodology of descriptive cumcritical and analysis of christian hindu thinking and particularly figures out its prohibitions and suspensions through the islamic sharī‘ah. keywords: american and indian filmography, demigods of allah almighty, islamophobia, hindutva, love-jihad, islamic perspective 1. introduction belief in tawheed is a fundamental fact among islamic beliefs, and the faith and belief of every muslim is inalienable. the teaching of islam has always been filled with peace and security, love, and mercy, and is a torch and a code of life for all creatures. it also trains the society’s religious, moral, and sociability in every respect. since the beginning of islam, it has been the tradition of the jews and christians that their enlightened teachings began to subjugate the hearts of the people and the rise of islam throughout the world. furthermore, he began to be convinced of his greatness, and his enlightened teachings put the rules of life of other religions above the threshold, so he became a permanent enemy of islam and his believers. as allah almighty says in the holy qurʾān: ''the jews will never be pleased with you, nor will the christians, unless you follow their faith.''.1 it was also alleged that islam offered the best solution to the problems faced, so as a result, people began to embrace the foothills of islam and took refuge in its embrace. the enemies of islam, especially the jews and christians, were afraid of the day-by-day progress of islam, casting doubts and objections on islam, the prophet of islam (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihiwa ‘alé ólihiwa aîíébihi wa øallam) and his teachings, and not only that but also erased islam from the core of humanity. this behaviour of theirs was not something ancient but was based on eternal enmity with islam; for them, when it became clear that islam should prevail over us, they made new conspiracies to keep islam always defeated and subjugated, the result of which was the past, in many cases of the crusades and the eastern movement, clear. after the crusades, many thoughts against islam appeared in many people’s minds. islamophobia and similar terms appeared, and the influence of these evil thoughts and imaginations gradually spread to india from where it started. in order to make the indian community hate islam and the people of islam, the pandits introduced terms like hindutva2 and love-jihad.3 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 51 behind all these things, when the west started the work of film making, they did it by putting religious things in front, but actually, it was in the context of increasing financial support and gaining status. where hollywood4 presented the likenesses of prophets in the cinema. the people of the west also gave him fame, so after a few years, he presented the agenda of making a permanent film on god, demigods, and deities to the public. he also made it popular like other films. in contrast, in the style of similar films such as hindutva, love jihad, and almighty allah, india started getting promotions, many of which were based on hollywood style and specific scripts. after making movies on prophets in america, god’s movie making became very popular; at the same time, hollywood also made movies on ancient greek gods like zeus (king of gods), thor (god of thunder), odin (god of heaven), etc.5 moreover, movies and cartoons are filmed on ram (god of protection), hanuman (god of wisdom), krishna (god of love) etc. all these movies are seen as entertainment and enjoyment in muslim society on cable networks, netflix, movie theaters, and general public cinemas. the general public and scholars are unaware of this heinous act, and the viewers’ faith is challenged. although chandranath basu (1844-1910) coined the term hindutva in 1892 to promote the traditions of hinduism, in 1923, vinayak damodar savarkar (1883-1966) adapted the term to his specific ideology, while this term became a beacon for the other hindus. based on this mentality, hindutva ideology and love jihad were promoted. due to this, non-muslims started to get the impression that muslim men encouraged hindu women to accept islam, cheat, and promote the war of muslims against india.6 that is why the muslim people of india face serious problems, and these two film industries promote their image daily with the same style and behaviour. however, west stained the cinema by making films about the prophet moses and prophet jesus (‘alaihim as-salém), so after that, it has become its tradition to portray the similes of god almighty and muslims in vulgar scenes. while in its false company, bollywood has promoted several cinematic films with the participation of the hollywood industry, many of which are presented as hostile to god almighty, islam, and muslims. in this research, the same objective will be clarified that such similes in which the films of allah almighty have been presented in the cinema as ornaments and entertainments, and those portrayals in which allah almighty is reflected, from which the young generation affected, but the tragedy is that children have also been involved in this disgusting act. and if these portraits presented as enjoyment in the cinemas of the muslim 52 anthropomorphic of gods … community, then what sharī‘ah ruling will apply to it, and similarly to films that provide hateful content about islam or muslims, what kind of effects do such films have on the new generation of the current society, and what are the possible solutions for both of them, all these objectives will be included in the category of research. 2. review of literature although no permanent work has been done on the main subject of this paper, especially anti-muslimism movies, some authors mentioned a few anthropomorphic in their books as below: clive marsh’s book theology goes to the movies: an introduction to critical christian thinking.7 according to marsh, religious imagery is a primary pedagogy for today’s children (who have limited knowledge of the bible), those brought to light through cinema. marsh analyzes religious imagery in this book by bringing it into the scope of christianity. marsh discusses the role of cinema and the church in western culture and religious imagery in the west to the public. as far as presenting it as entertainment, exploitation has been kept in mind. according to the author, as much as the people of the west are trying to teach for the promotion of christianity in the church and its related schools, it can be an effective work to play such a role in the cinema in the present era. in this book, if the first chapter’s list is considered, it can be seen that only bruce almighty has been included in the parable of god. at the same time, in religious depictions, many such depictions have been released before and after, which marsh did not review. robin hard’s book is the routledge handbook of greek mythology,8 in which roman and greek ancient gods and demigods are described in detail. this work by robin is about 774 pages. it is a very comprehensive and authentic task on this important subject. so far, eight editions of this book have been published, and every time, this book has been kept in mind from beginning to end. in this regard, there are many books on this topic, but this effort of rubin is useful for every new person who needs more knowledge about the ancient world and greek myths and legends, and in the work, this is the final point. it has been ensured that every claimant is included in this topic in a high manner so that the readers do not feel the need for another book. however, hollywood’s similes through cinematography were not exploited; as a result, there are several reasons for the length of this book. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 53 catherine m. barsotti and robert k. johnston’s book, finding god in the movies: 33 films of reel faith.9 the authors wrote this book in 2004 while selecting 33 films often used in metaphors and similes: most of them were released from 1990 to 2000. the important thing about this book is that the authors included the views of the church on religious film productions, their ideas, and thoughts about film productions in a separate chapter. they wrote a list of topics above any illustration in the book. later, a section on the production notes describes the film in which people of different minds form their opinions about it. the worldwide impact is documented in a separate paragraph. at the end of each film, there is a discussion about the content of this film, what kind of difficulties were faced in the production of this film, etc. it becomes clear that in this book, the image of god almighty has been kept in mind, as mentioned on the book cover. however, the authors have used images of gods who are famous and well-known and whose influence is still present in cinematography. ancient greek gods ,they did not mention them. ashish rajadhyaksha and paul willeman's book is encyclopedia of indian cinema.10 bollywood is the third largest film industry in the world. this book was originally published in 1994, and the same text was revised in 1995. the book generally focuses on directors, performers, composers, and writers of films. in the book, the films after 1912 are arranged together, and their historical background, abstracts, and their reasons are brought to light. the parables set in the era of silent feature films, black and white, have been exploited in a separate charter and specific order. this book is a source of allegories filmed in india. many such films have been set in bollywood, in which many images of rama, vishnu hanuman, etc., which had come to the public, were not exploited by the authors and such modern ones. this book is unable to cover religious imagery. the books mentioned above on god’s film-making are the basis of the history of hollywood and bollywood. however, the basic and important gap in all these books is that they cannot be seen as islamic law. they do not see the objectives that, according to islamic theory, if a person watches these films, what order will be applied by sharī‘ah, which the researcher has thoroughly reviewed. on the other hand, movies against muslims and islam are still empty in the form of books. it is not arranged, a huge gap in the present society. the second important thing is that these films have been written in the style of historical and directorial etc. the sharī‘ah point of view, a short article, and a thesis have not been organized on this at all, which is the main topic of this research. 54 anthropomorphic of gods … 3. methodology the methodology used in the formulation of this research is descriptive-cum-critical. the series having historical and theological significance are narrated with descriptive methodology. sharê‘ah’s importance has been described with explanatory methods, and critical and analytical discussions have been discussed, considering the current situation. 4. objectives 1. films produced on anthropomorphic gods with allah almighty and islamophobia, from the point of view of islamic sharê‘ah and the trends of viewing them as entertainment in the muslim society, and their negative effects on muslims, are intended to be explained. 2. regarding this paper, the people, the scholars, and the great muftis are also unfamiliar and ignorant; therefore, such research should be applied in muslim society so that the common people can understand this problem and avoid committing this ugly and heinous act. 5. research outcomes 1. preventing the depiction of allah almighty in muslim cinema 2. revealing the myths of islamophobia, hindutva, and lo-jihad in muslim society 3. to identify the negative effects of these images on muslim societies 6. frame work of research according to this diagram, the cinematic portraits of prophets started in 1895,11 in the era of the series of prophets, films began in 1895, and from 1977 onwards, the oh god series featured george burns as god. the theme of hollywood was not limited to this, but in 1981, they also presented the ancient greek gods in the image of god. this can be clearly understood in the hollywood line of the diagram. although the term islamophobia has evolved since the 1980s, it is only since 1944 that arab countries have been portrayed as depraved and demoralized in the cinema, which the scholar explained. on the other hand, in india, dadasaheb phalke saw the film the prophet jesus (alaih as salém), which positively affected him. in 1917, he introduced the film lanka dahan, which was based on rama and hanuman, and based on this film, the ramayana and mahabharat series came. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 55 later, films based on hatred towards muslims started with sunny deol’s acting, which can be seen through border films. 7. key findings at the entry-level, theological movies in the contemporary era are a major issue. the main criterion in this paper is that these films were presented as definitive proofs that served as sources for later films. then, their negative and belief sources have been evaluated by mentioning modern materials. this factor was also considered in the research to include the fatwés of modern scholars so that their thoughts and ideas about these films can be clarified in this research. the table below condenses the findings of this critical analysis indicating the types of cinematic movies classified under the east discussion: hollywood impacted on bollywood by la vie du christ in 1906 movies on gods series came out in 1977 by oh god! ancient greek gods/ zeus/thor/loki started in 1981 theological filming in 1917 by lanka dahan leading to mahabharat/ramayana the theological filming era started in 1895 by prophets movies on hindutva /love jihad filmed in 1997 by border bad arabs movies started in 1944, and islamophobia in the era of 1959 56 anthropomorphic of gods … no type of movies film industry evaluation example 1 movies on gods/ goddess hollywood god as man oh god series/bruce almighty series/dogma 2 movies on ancient greek gods/ goddess hollywood god in the form of a deity, a demigod clash of the titans series/thor series/zeus series/hercules movies/animation s 3 movies on islamophobia hollywood hatred dialogues/ terrorist roles/bad arabs the arabian nights series/north west frontier/back to the future series/sword of islam 4 movies on gods/ goddess bollywood god as man mahabharat/rama yana/krishna, hanuman, ram movies/ animations 5 movies on hindutva/ love-jihad bollywood hatred dialogues/ terrorist roles border/maa tughy salam[greetings to you mother]/ gadar/ table 1: the types of cinematic movies table 1 indicates the basic criteria of the paper that god’s films presented in hollywood cinema have been done, and at the same time, those films that have been made in the style of ancient films have been included. continuing the same series, films on ram, sita, hanuman, etc., from india have been mentioned. since the series of islamophobia films started in hollywood, the research has also included the claim that the effects of these films had a significant impact on bollywood cinema. 8. discussion 8.1 cinematic portraits and the era of silent feature films (1895-1926) movies were, and still are, more expensive than books or paintings in the era of abstract movies, which is why filmmakers have always sought funding for their projects. when they got the capitalists hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 57 involved in their projects, they produced films that would dazzle the viewers’ minds and thoughts. according to bakker: on 1 november 1895, the german brothers max and emil skladanowsky screened their first short films to a paying public in berlin, to be followed almost two months later by the lumière brothers in paris. furthermore, they were not the only ones. in fact, in the same year, many people showed films without knowing that others were doing so. in the united states, short movies were shown to individual spectators, but all had to be discontinued because of their audience’s lack of interest. the skladanowsky brothers and the lumière brothers screened their films to larger audiences and successfully generated interest. the era of film was born. within two years, in 1897, the filmmakers discovered the possibility of attracting mass audiences through making films about jesus (alaih as salém). the era of the religious film had begun.12 the filming of the prophet jesus (alaih as salém) was being presented in a good way in cinemas, and people were also popularizing it, so in 1903, a permanent work of film-making on prophet moses (alaih as salém) began in france, which received more attention in the film industry. moreover, they did not become popular, but these filmmakers created their history. among the silent films of that era, which western film historians have been writing about in their books, there are these three films that france knows produced: • moses in the bulrushes 1903 • la vie de moise 1905 • the infancy of the moses 1911. 13 these three movies impacted the united states, so they also thought of discovering this field, and from there, a new era of filmmaking on theology began. 8.2 the era of colored films and the catholic church (19271976) in the early years, the roman catholic church allowed such religious films, although at first, they were against it. however, with time, they began to take the initiative in this work because of the expansion of their religion in the style that was happening. in the early days of hollywood, cecil b. demille’s14 films were often about prophets, the first of which was the ten commandments, released in 1923. in 1927, when he presented a film about prophet jesus (alaih 58 anthropomorphic of gods … as salém), the motion picture association (censor board) created a controversy. bakker wrote that: during the 1930s, the producers of motion pictures issued a panel code stating that no immoral material would be offered on deity, god, jesus, or any religion, and this was confirmed in 1934 by the catholic church. however, the law was ignored over time, and in the 1950s, the church fell silent on this matter. however, in 1958, pope pius xii (1876–1958) saw a spanish film “los mysterious del rosario’’, made in 1957 with the main title (the secret of the rosary). the movie had 15 episodes, and each episode was 25 minutes long, so pope pius xii blessed everyone who would see this film. in october of that same year, the open-minded pope john xiii (1881–1963) took office, and one year later, demille passed away.15 8.3 depiction of god and its era in the early days of film-making, when the parable of jesus (alaih as salém) or moses (alaih as salém) was filmed at some point in the cinema, it was often seen that the parable of the voice of allah almighty could be heard and thus the prophet’s own. the audience saw the unique scene of the conversation with allah, and the audience and a wave of enthusiasm were seen flying in them. after the motion picture association (mpa) penal code, when there was no negative progress by the church, the reason was that when the priests saw their religion being published, they issued an order to release such religious films. furthermore, because of this decree, in 1977, the movies of almighty allah began, which also led the people of the west to film ancient greek gods. 8.3.1 oh, god! film series (1977-1984) this film series has a fundamental position in allah almighty films, presented in three parts. this film series was originally filmed based on avery corman’s novel, which series name as follows: • oh, god! 1977 • oh, god! book ii 1980 • oh, god! you devil 1984 16 now, this is where the people of the west began. the beginning of god’s permanent film-making is george burns’s film series oh god (1971-1984), in which george was produced as a god, and the usa also liked it a lot because this film series portrays god in the style of smoking cigars, riding bikes and having much fun. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 59 hollywood attributed such actions and movements, evolution of lies, deceiving and hurting others to the example of allah almighty. now, this matter is not one-sided. almost all the film actors, producers, and directors were involved in this heinous work, and till now, the same work is being presented in different ways. with the advent of this film series, not only did they rely on it in america, but they offered the film industry something that the catholic church, etc., never allowed, but they practically avoided taking any action against them. 8.3.2 portrayal of allah almighty as female, promoter of homosexuality and animation as soon as the series of films on allah almighty became popular and well-known, his character was also presented as a girl, the worst example of the western film industry, as in the film dogma by ben affleck and matt damon17 in 1999.18 in which alanis morrissette was portrayed as a god figure. furthermore, the 2003 period released of the bruce almighty19 movie featuring morgan freeman as god, and this period is considered a successful era of god film-making. the main gist of this film was that jim carrey’s life was going through a difficult time, so god came into his life and resigned himself by entrusting his powers to him. the second part of this film series came in 2007, evan almighty, which also became popular. in hollywood, films and web series are launched in which the script includes the actor’s role as god. there are countless films in which such slanderous words are used about god, or his existence is denied. when such films are screened, these similes harm the muslims and states, but often, these films also affect their faith, which is a source of temptation. in its movies and series, netflix presents jesus (alaih as salém) as homosexual, that is, gay, as in the first temptation of christ 2019,20 jesus (alaih as salém) was presented (god forbid) as gay, and the honourable mary (‘alaih as-salém) was filmed using marijuana, there was also a depiction of god turning the parable of jesus (alaih as salém) towards homosexuality. in the same way, in the second-long season of netflix, lucifer (2014-present), honourable eve (‘alaih as-salém) was filmed in a very ugly state, and the wife of god came to this world. furthermore, it was presented in a scene doing lewd gestures, but in the second part of the fifth season of this series, the figure of god almighty was filmed coming down to earth, doing lewd gestures, and saying i am free from my godly powers. i have been and started giving these powers to another person.21 furthermore, almost three to four persons were filmed as god. god’s allegory is not only limited to movies, but hollywood, especially netflix, has continued to use this allegory in 60 anthropomorphic of gods … animated cartoon version series and movies, as recently as netflix’s animated movie. trollhunters comes in which a bellroc cartoon (kay bess) uses the same word for god about herself: “you cannot hunt a god.”22 and so are warner bros. animated films such as justice league: gods and monsters, etc., or cartoons in which a human claims to be god or uses words for another. many web series will say that. “god is dead now we are god’’.23 8.3.3 hollywood and ancient greek gods the hollywood film industry and its film-making are not limited to religious films. however, they have also made the ancient greek gods a part of their film industry, in which usually zeus, who is called the king of the gods in ancient greek religion, is his allegory. there is a list in which the movie clash of the titans started in 198124 furthermore, the images of allah were filmed fighting, discussing, and debating with each other for glory. the map of the greek gods is known as the seven olympians, which apollo, son of zeus,25 his brother poseidon, his wife hera (who was his sister), his bastard son26 deity god heran, etc., are included. there are many movies about zeus, poseidon, apollo, and ancient greek gods. in 2011, immortal movie came out, and luke evans got the role of zeus. further, liam neeson became zeus in the wrath of titans and clash of titans movie series. therefore, marvel and disney provide new roles of gods and their daily acting, such as the thor series by chis harmsworth, the character of god odin by anthony hopkins, loki (god of mischief) series by tom hiddleston, etc. moreover, every new year, marvel creates a new god in their character; for example, last year, marvel launched the movie black panther: wakanda for ever 2022, and in the middle of the movie, they introduced a new god, whose name was ku’kulkaan, feathered serpent god. after that, angelina jolie and salma hayek’s movie eternals 2022 by marvel filmed on gods and goddesses. 8.4 indian filmography and their gods film-making also developed after the domination of the east india company in india, along with the dark traditions of western imagination and thought. after paris, the lumiere brothers, in 1905, and later other producers introduced their short films in india. the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 61 effect was frozen among the people there; in this category, dhundi raj govind phalke (1870-1944) saw the film la vie du christ (1906)27 based on the parable of prophet jesus (alaih as salém) in mumbai in 1911, he was stunned. meanwhile, in 1912, he travelled to london, learned about the features used in film-making, and directed a film based on raja harishchandra from 1913. it was the result of the parable of jesus (alaih as salém) that 1917 for the first time in india, the film lanka dahan28 in the image of hanuman, ram and sita were introduced, and it gained popularity.29 from here, the indian film industry made a courtesy for itself. this religious film of dada sahib phalke is remembered as the best example for india, and based on this, he got the opportunity to make more such films. during the 1980s and 1990s, two such web series were launched, which gained popularity on indian soil and received repeat viewings in almost every muslim country. the first of these series by ramanand sagar, presented by ramayana30 which was aired by tv cables from 1987 to 1988. at the end of this series, br chopra produced india’s second most popular web series, mahabharat, filmed between 1988 and 1990. these web series featured hanuman, rama, sita, and various other hindu deities. in 2008, salman khan stole the script of bruce almighty 2003 and provided the movie “god tussi great ho”. amitabh bachan took a role as a god. in this movie, sajid and wajid was music composers and produced by suhail khan. muslim states enjoy watching it through cable networks, dish, etc., and tarnish their faiths. moreover, this series is now easily available on youtube and movie sites and is being watched. that is how, the demigod and deity of allah almighty are advertising. hindu gods are not limited to movies and web series in india. however, cartoon and animated series of hanuman, rama, krishna, sita, bheema, and so on are presented on pogo.31 and green gold tv32 through dish tv, cable networks, social sites, and especially youtube, muslim children also watch their characters’ actions, admire their acting, and consider them as their role models, violating their beliefs in childhood ages. 9. parables of allah almighty and its theologically problems the depiction of the allah almighty in paintings on the walls and frames’ historical background is very ancient. however, the film-making work on the allah almighty started in 1973. the contempt of the anthropomorphic and their negative style is not permissible to do so under any circumstances, whether it is in the form of novels, books, or movies. in these movies, in particular, many things are moral and religious, unlawful, and 62 anthropomorphic of gods … intolerable; many such reasons are explained below. the reason for this is that the prohibition of film-making and photography is proved in the best and most perfect way, and it will be stated that all the parables described above and similes in the allah almighty equally prove and promote the superstitious sharī‘ah intuition. 9.1 proving a body and place for allah almighty the first thing to consider in this regard is that allah almighty is presented in the form of the body in these depictions. the person the director addresses as a god is not a god. in these films, words and deeds have been proven false. it is as if the place and body are made special for allah in the film, contrary to his nature and impossible. another important reason is that the place and time are fixed for the person of allah in these films, although his figure is free from such objects as in the holy qurʾān: “nothing is like him”.33 hollywood and bollywood introduced different types, special powers, and dignity gods. these gods perform obnoxious actions that do not suit his nature and against his figure. muslim societies take these depictions as joy and entertainment, which are prohibited, restricted, and íarém in islam as in the holy qurʾān: “had there been gods beside allah, in the heavens and the earth, both of them would have fallen in disorder.”34 9.2 watching different gods’ stories as enjoyment both movie industries not only offer web series and movies but also provide animated and animation cartoons that are easily accessible to watch and download in electronic digits. however, hollywood describes stories as ancient greek gods cartoons, and bollywood produces krishna, rama, hanuman, and balram cartoons. children watch them on youtube openly, and parents, societies, and scholars are ignorant. mufti akhter raza khan writes: “agreeing with the infidels in their words, deeds, and special days is infidelity.”35 the film-making and web series mentioned several things not mentioned in the holy qurʾān and hadith, not even in the bible or any gospel, such as distorting the god in their form, and so on. it is necessary to humiliate and violate them publicly. in these films, the actors portrayed as gods call themselves gods, and others call hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 63 themselves gods while calling themselves gods is blasphemy. moreover, mufti akhtar raza khan also mentioned this fatwé in his fatwés that if a person listens to the story of ram and lakshman and enjoys it, then what is the ruling about it, he writes: “listening to the stories and incidents of hindus is forbidden, a bad deed and a bad end. it is obligatory on the perpetrator to repent and renew his faith.”36 9.3 showing non-god as god the major thing to consider in this regard is that in these parables non-gods are presented in the form of god as allah almighty said: “they have set up partners with allah, so that they may mislead (the people) from his path.”37 now, it is a lie that the person the director addresses is a god; in fact, that is no god. in these films, words and deeds have been proven false. allah almighty said: “then (let us) prey and invoke the curse of allah upon the liars.”38 many of the vile things found in movies and web series, which are religiously and morally harmful faiths, can be understood. in these films, mixing men and women is also a moral and religious evil. in these films, men and women are filmed in a very ugly and nude scene. now, this anti-sharīʿah work is a part of lawlessness because there is no film in which there is no mixing of men; although these things are not only against islam, many films have been filmed based on novels. jews and christians feel ashamed of themselves and continue criticizing these filmmakers daily. islam has always forbidden doing evil deeds, which would open the door to many evil deeds. allah almighty says: “'there has to be a group of people from among you who call towards the good, bid the fair, and forbid the unfair. furthermore, it is those who are successful.”39 9.4 theological films and their impacts on muslim society these films should be viewed and evaluated critically, and it cannot be said that there is any good in them. however, nowadays, it has become a trend that watch them as guidelines for humanity and 64 anthropomorphic of gods … lives, and the muslim generation gives examples in every stage of life in the hadith describes: “good never brings forth evil.”40 therefore, looking at the parables of gods and the film-making made on them, it cannot be said that the door of goodness will open for them, but considering many of them as infidels becomes a matter of one’s faith, which is noteworthy. watching these movies, showing them in theaters, buying their tickets, creating a channel on youtube, and uploading it or anything promoting these movies is a cooperation, and that is it. anyone who is involved in this heinous act will be guilty. in these films, mixing men and women is also a moral and religious evil. in these films, men and women are filmed in a very ugly and nude scene. this anti-sharê‘iah work is a part of lawlessness because there is no film in which there is no mixing of men; although these things are not only against islam, many films have been filmed based on novels. muslim states purchase these parables and provide them in muslim cinemas; these films are available on the netflix app, cable networks, movie sites, and youtube for entertainment and enjoyment. these all-obnoxious characters were considerable role models for humanity and the universe; muslims watch them, promote them, and violate their beliefs. the infidels started these films and pictures, although the hadiths on the prohibition of the image are mentioned in the said pages. however, making and watching these films has become the motto of the infidels, which is about prohibiting adopting the infidels. when muslims see demigod movies, they like to add their action photos to printed shirts with their names, pics, and styles and promote them, while the same thing are happening in the other non-muslims, so this tradition became famous by them. moreover, nowadays, it is usually things to like their facebook photos and subscribe to their youtube channels and programs. (chris hemsworth, anthony hopkins, salman khan, and amitabh bachchan have youtube videos and fb images.) in hadith stated that: “he is not one of us who resembles other than us, nor who resembles the jews nor the christians.”41 making pictures of allah almighty is the motto of christians, jews, and hindus, while christians, jews, and hindus make the beginning of making movies. according to the hadith described above, it has been proved that whoever does so will be committing haram deeds. in these films and web series, many people verbally and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 65 immorally abused allah almighty, hurled insults, filmed as allah almighty speaks lies, making mischief, etc., so whole muslim states purchase these films, runs into muslim cinemas, provide on youtube channel and young generations, children watching them as enjoyment although it has prohibited. these films propagate the image of demigods, ancient greek gods, hindu gods, and goddesses with allah almighty; therefore, in muslim societies have no solid restricted apps that can be reliable and helpful to avoid these parables. in bollywood, a lot of famous directors and producers find new aspects and unique ideas for their films, so they stole day after day movies from hollywood as “god tussi great ho” (as mentioned), salman khan, amitabh bachchan took the role, and most of muslims loves him as a role model. every new year, he introduced a new goal with a movie, and every single day, muslims watch it. they are ignorant of what they have done with their beliefs; however, it is íarém and violating them. in muslim states, most cartoon channels are running, including cartoon network, nickelodeon, and pogo. tv cable owners provide these channels as uhd (ultra high display), and day and night, krishna, rama, balram, and hanuman cartoons are provided as entertainment. they download them on cell phones and digital digits, and parents must be made aware of what they are watching and enjoying. in this situation, it is the muslim state’s duty, which is described in the hadith: “if people see some evil but do not change it, soon allah will send his punishment upon them all.”42 according to this hadith, this is a muslim priority that restricts those sources that provide a guideline for watching these films and cartoons. the government should also make effective factors that can block such films 10. hollywood-bollywood and their anti-muslimism propaganda westerners and hindus make films and publish articles and pamphlets using anti-islamic phrases, which gives rise to terms such as islamophobia, hinduism, and love-jihad, and thus misinterpretation of islamic teachings. because anti-islamic ideologies create a negative perspective in promoting religious beliefs, it serves as a way of viewing arab society in general and muslim society in particular from a western and indian perspective, which makes people’s conditions worse. furthermore, they present the events in other people as distortions. westerners call them 66 anthropomorphic of gods … barbaric, uncivilized, foreign, and especially the threat of today, while the followers of hindutva ideology consider muslims as snakes, invaders, and a threat to india. christopher allen’s 10-page article 2001 is noteworthy regarding how islam is seen and judged in the western world. in the view from which islam is viewed, a 1997 report by the runnymede trust is noteworthy that in the west, islam is considered a foreign thing, then if it is written in the daily mail that “fanatics (muslims) want death.” there are and that it publishes headlines like “although i was born in britain, i am a muslim first”, then there is nothing surprising in it. these newspapers only mention the causes deeply rooted in islamophobia, which is behind reason.43 the people of the west consider islam and the people of islam as a threat to them, the same way those who believe and promote the hindutva ideology adopt against islam and the people of islam. for example, in 1965, 22 between 25th april, deendayal upadhyay presented his theory called integral humanism to the indian public: it has been observed that hindus, even if they are rascals in individual life, always think of good things when they come together in a group. when two muslims come together, they propose and approve of things that they, in their capacity, would not even think of.44 this theory also rejects the supremacy of the indian constitution. furthermore, the funny thing is that in this speech, upadhyay’s special addressees are golwalkar and vinoba bhave, the head of the bhodan movement. this type of view about muslims is not limited to this thought only, but m.s golwalkar also considers muslims as a threat to india and says that: please do not waste your energy fighting the british; save your energy to fight our internal enemies, muslims, christians, and communists.45 after the creation of pakistan, that part of the muslim ummah who decided to live in india began to be seen with a critical view. however, over time, the slander and humiliation of the muslims also became common among the people of india. the leader of india, who has the perspective of hindutva ideology, has mixed prejudice and hostility towards muslims in the scorn of his people. in the same way, the west is introducing films based on islamophobia and indians based on hinduism and love jihad. making films on muslim societies and portraying them as backward and inferior, hollywood and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 67 bollywood have had a critical and negative view of muslims from the beginning. as a result, common people continue to get stuck in this quagmire, which does not have a deep study of islam. it does not happen, and because of misunderstandings, this is what ultimately causes hatred of islam. even though terms like islamophobia happened after 1980, the making of films against islam in a negative light started from the beginning of the establishment of pakistan. in films like arabian nights 1944,46 aimed to make islam look bad and make fun of its civilization. moreover, with the collusion of these two film industries, films were produced in which muslims were proved to be the aggressors, as was the case in the “north west frontier” 1959 movie. in 1985, the united states began a permanent film-making work of defaming islam by making hijébs of lebanese muslims from the “back to the future” film series. and in the same way, the british documentary film “the sword of islam” was filmed in 1988, and in it. it tried to prove how islamic fundamentalists are a great threat to the west and that they represent a threat to the west from nazism and communism, as some of his lines are: “our friends in the intelligence community tell us what wish the failure of communism, the most destabilizing conflict in the world is the one between islam and the west”. 47 during the 1990s and 2000s, sunny deol’s films portrayed muslims as terrorists, such as boarder48 and maa tujhe salaam [greetings to you, mother].49in the era of 2007, a documentary film, “safron war: radicalization of hinduism.”50 was filmed, which was a scene captured by hindu yuwa vahini51 how these groups urged hindus to kill muslims, calling them pigs, especially member of this group sunil singh made a big statement about muslims that got fame in hindustan: “grab the muslim women from the grave and rape them”.52 savarkar, golwalkar, and upadhyay developed this stereotype behaviour, and based on this ideology, they are propagating bollywood culture. this group made a famous slogan in the utter pradesh state, “hindustan main rehna hai to yogi yogi kehna hai. jo yogi yogi nhin kehy ga hindustan main nhi rhy ga” [if you want to stay in india, you must say yogi-yogi. whoever does not say yogi-yogi will not stay in india].53 that is why, a group of this member, sadhvi pragya thakur, said, in the apki adalat [your court] program, “terrorist just must be a muslim.”54 68 anthropomorphic of gods … hollywood and bollywood are making their history against muslims, and their fundamental aim is destroying the honesty of islam and muslims. a great number of hollywood movies are only filmed on islamophobia or contain hateful content against islam or muslims. and so many netflix series occasionally feature the same motto, as in the first season and also the first episode of ozark 2017present, a cop (jason butler harner) uses the words: mexicans, mafia, muslims. we all want to believe that these people are more than they are, but they are not. they would be cleaning toilets if not dealing drugs, extorting business, or flying planes into buildings. they are not criminal geniuses. they are pathological liars on the path of least resistance.55 11. analytical verdict making while the hollywood business was just getting established, they initially produced religious pictures using the parables of prophet jesus (alaih as salém), which also served as their source of income; in 1930, motion pictures and the catholic church in general and the pope in particular severely forbade film-making in terms of religion, morality, and history; but, when they saw their faith being transmitted through the media, they had no qualms about it. because of this, other producers can create films and cartoons about allah almighty, demigods, and even the gods of the greek pantheon, and as a result, all muslim states watch these portraits as entertainment. however, it has been prohibited (×arém). the third-largest film industry in the world is found in india. after dada sahib phalke’s successor in lanka dahan, people could alter their depictions of their religious deities, even in cartoons. these film industries are promoting anti-muslim and anti-islamic ideas, thoughts, and theories that lead people to hotness for muslims. both film industries providing day and night heretical theological information in muslimmajority states and movie theater operators who disseminate those ideas are against islamic principles. every home uses social media, particularly youtube, dish tv, tata sky, and cable networks, and then everyone watches animated shows about hanuman, krishna, zeus, hercules, and so on. in the contemporary digital era, both film industries present data on blasphemy, love jihad, and islamophobia. even muslim academics are unaware of these contemporary societal ills being spread by indian and american communities. in this regard, scholars and state officials should prevent such indecent and faithdefying films in every possible way. in the coming time, the muslim society and the muslim states will not be able to tarnish their faith. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 69 12. conclusion remarks and recommendations when the hollywood industry began, they started religious films by making parables of prophet jesus (alaih as salém), but at the same time, they made it his livelihood. however, in 1930, motion picture film-making was strictly forbidden religiously and morally. historically, with the catholic church in general and the pope in particular, but when they saw their religion being broadcast through the media, they had no qualms about it. that is why other producers get chances to make movies and cartoons on allah almighty, demigods even ancient greek gods. bollywood is the third huge film industry in the world. after the succession of dada sahib phalke in lanka dahan, they got to do something different with their religious gods and goddesses, even in cartoons. these film industries are developing their thoughts, ideologies, and outlooks against islam and muslims. both companies provide blasphemous theological data in muslim states, and cinema owners spread those thoughts that violate muslim beliefs. every home uses social media, especially youtube, dish tv, tata sky, and cable networks, and then they watch cartoons of hanuman, krishna, and so on. both film industries provide data on blasphemous, love jihad, and islamophobia in modern digital ways. even muslim scholars do not know these modern social evils propagated by american and indian societies. in this era, muslims need to take action against these blasphemous data through the opening department of theological filmography and media studies; it will be the first proper channel. must provide islamic theological data in societies, universities, colleges, and schools and be aware of them. for the prevention and suppression of religious images in muslim states, it is recommended to arrange such policies at the state and government level in consultation with scholars and grand muftis, by which these images are removed from social media, film sites, etc. moreover, the same way pamra, pta, and various other institutions in other muslim countries investigate blasphemy content, they should be provided with material about such images to provide action plans to prevent them in the future. in this category, there is also a need to include the petitioner that a censor board committee should be formed at the state level with the help of scholars to check what kind of content is being shown on cinemas and tv networks. furthermore, take a concrete step in the light of sharī‘ah to prevent the content that is having negative and ideological effects. 13. fund of project project is non-funded. 70 anthropomorphic of gods … notes and references 1 the holy qur'an, 2:120, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010), 38. 2 asad ul din owaisi. “in popular parlance, in popular understanding, basing on theory and basing on everything called hindutva’’. abp majha news, last modified february 5, 2023, https://youtu.be/bkhu8twlgzm. 3 melissa zimdars, fake news: understanding media and misinformation in the digital age (london: the mit press, 2020), 147-48. 4 the united states figure was given a permanent name, hollywood, by daeida wilcox in c.1886.after the united states, the name hollywood influenced china, china wood became famous internationally and similarly, every country and its famous states around the world set specific names for their film industry in the same way that in 1932, india created bollywood in mumbai and salim nasir in pakistan used the term lollywood in 1989. 5 robin hard, the routledge handbook of greek mythology (london: routledge taylor and francis group, 2004).7. 6 amalendu misra, ‘’savarkar and discourse on islam in pre-independent india’’ journal of asian history 33, no. 2 (january 1999): 142-84. 7 clive marsh, theology goes to the movies: an introduction to critical christian thinking (london: routledge francis and taylor group, 2007). 8 robin hard, the routledge handbook of greek mythology (london: routledge taylor and francis group, 2004). 9 catherine m. barsotti and robert k. johnston, finding god in the movies: 33 films of reel faith (grand rapids: baker publishing group, 2004). 10 ashish rajadhyaksha and paul willeman, encyclopaedia of indian cinema (new delhi: oxford university press, 1998) ۔ 11 freek l. bakker, the challenge of the silver screen: an analysis of the cinematic portraits of jesus, rama, buddha and muhammad (leiden: brill 2009), 1. 12 ibid. 13 richard abel, encyclopaedia of early cinema (new york: rutledge book ltd, 2oo5), 69. 14 cecil (1899-1956) was the first to have his film industry. it would be absurd to say that hollywood gained fame and popularity in the first place, thanks to him. his famous movie series was the ten commandments. 15 freek l. bakker, the challenge of the silver screen: an analysis of the cinematic portraits of jesus, rama, buddha and muhammad, 19. 16 internet movies data base, ‘’oh god movie series 1977-1984’’. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087835/. 17 he recently starred as loki (god of mischief) in thor: love and thunder 2022. 18 internet movies database, '' dogma movie 1997''. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023, https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120655/fullcredits/cast 19 internet movies data base, “bruce almighty 2003’’. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315327/. 20 internet movies data base, “the first temptation of christ’’. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023, https://m.imdb.com/title/tt11310004/. 21 lucifer, season 5, part 2, episode 3, 45 minutes. 22 troll hunters 2021, 1:20 minutes. 23 altered carbon season 1, episode 3, 27 minutes. 24 internet movies data base, class of titans 1981’’. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082186/. 25 george o conner, zeus: king of gods (new york: macmillan publishers, 2010),4 26 zeus' behaviour was presented when he came to earth, and he liked a girl. he committed adultery with her, and she gave birth to a boy who was not a god but a demigod. https://youtu.be/bkhu8twlgzm https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087835/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120655/fullcredits/cast%20consulted%20on%2006.02.2023 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315327/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt11310004/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082186/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlvi, no. 3 71 27 internet movies data base, “la vie du christ’’. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023, http://m.imdb.com/title/tt/0139714. 28 internet movies data base, “lanka dahan 1917’’. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023, http://m.imdb.com/title/tt/01 42523. 29 ashish rajadhyaksha and paul willeman, encyclopaedia of indian cinema (new delhi: oxford university press, 1998), 243. 30 internet movies data base, “ramayana’’. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268093/?ref_=ttls_li_tt. 31 pogo tv, last modified february 5, 2023, www.pogo.com. 32 green gold tv, “krishna: the great”. green gold tv, last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.greengold.tv/mobile/krishna-the-great.php. 33 the holy qur'an, 42:11, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010), 109 34 ibid., 21:22. 35 mufti akhter raza khan, almuwahib ul razviah fil fatawa al azhariah (utter pradesh: markaz adrasat ul islami, 2016), 149. 36 ibid, 149. 37 the holy qur'an, 14:30, translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani (karachi: maktaba ma’ariful quran, 2010), 109. 38 ibid, 3:61. 39 ibid., 3:104, 40 the sahih al-bukhari, 47:1465, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 41 sunan al tirmizi, 40:2695, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 42 sunan ibn e majah, 36:4005, translated by dr. muhammad muhsin kahn (riyadh: darussalam publishers and distributors, 1997). 43 christopher allen, islamophobia in the media since 9th sep 2001 (london: university of westminster, 2001), 5. 44 deendayal upadhyaya, integral humanism: an analysis of some basic elements, (noida: prabhat prakashan, 1992), 37. 45 indian express, ''oppression for the country’s sake is oppression of the country''. indian express, last modified february 5, 2023, https://indianexpress.com/article/blogs/oppression-for-the-sake-of-the-country-isoppression-of-the-country/lite/. 46 internet movies data base, arabian nights 1944’’. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034465/. 47 turner classic movies, ‘’the sword of islam’’. tcm, last modified february 5, 2023, https://prod-www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/476975/sword-of-islam/. 48 internet movies data base, ‘’border’’. imdb, last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118751/. 49 internet movies data base, ‘’maa tughy salaam’’ [greeting to you mother], last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307116/ . 50 satyen k. bordoloi, ‘’safron war: radicalization of hinduism’’. satyen k. bordoloi youtube channel, last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0dpwx-vve. 51 hindu yuwa vahini, a fascist group of bjps (bhartiya janata party) and rss (rastriya swayamsevak sangh), which organized by yogi adityanath (cm of utter pradesh). the basic goal of this group is to create a patronizing between hindus and muslims. 52 asad ul din owaisi, ‘’discrimination between hindu and muslims’’. abp news, last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4y-kxihkxg. 53 satyen k. bordoloi, ‘’safron war: radicalization of hinduism’’. satyen k. bordoloi youtube channel, last modified february 5, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0dpwx-vve. http://m.imdb.com/title/tt/0139714 http://m.imdb.com/title/tt/0142523 http://m.imdb.com/title/tt/0142523 http://m.imdb.com/title/tt/0142523 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268093/?ref_=ttls_li_tt http://www.pogo.com/ https://www.greengold.tv/mobile/krishna-the-great.php https://indianexpress.com/article/blogs/oppression-for-the-sake-of-the-country-is-oppression-of-the-country/lite/ https://indianexpress.com/article/blogs/oppression-for-the-sake-of-the-country-is-oppression-of-the-country/lite/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034465/ https://prod-www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/476975/sword-of-islam/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118751/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307116/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0dpwx-vve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4y-kxihkxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0dpwx-vve 72 anthropomorphic of gods … 54 india tv, ‘’apki adalat [your courset]’’. india tv, last modified february 5, 2023, https://youtu.be/cgzsfcxfavu. 55 ozark by netflix season 1, episode 1, 49 minutes. https://youtu.be/cgzsfcxfavu hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 9 islamic history through a western lens: a critical analysis of key introductory works (2010-2025) dr. tauseef ahmad parray higher education department, jammu and kashmir, india. email: tauseef.parray21@gmail.com accepted on: 05-06-25 received on: 18-02-25 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.1287 abstract western academia has witnessed a rapid proliferation of literature on islam, particularly in the post-9/11 era. a notable portion of this corpus consists of ‘introductory works’, predominantly authored by ‘american islamicists’. this study critically analyzes how islam is portrayed in a limited selection of significant introductory textbooks published (in revised editions) between 2010 and 2025. using critical content analysis, the findings reveal a conflict between a sophisticated understanding of islamic intellectual traditions and the framing of islam within western epistemological contexts. this study aims to enhance readers’ understanding of current pedagogical and epistemological trends in western studies of islam, highlighting the importance of critical self-reflection, diverse perspectives, and culturally attuned teaching methods. keywords: islam, introductory works on islam, islamic history, western scholarship, islamicists, content analysis introduction the academic discourse on islam (in terms of religion, civilization, and ideology) has undergone significant transformations, influenced by contributions from both muslim and non-muslim scholars. in the modern period, colonialism, modernization, and westernization have led to a notable rise in scholarship exploring islam’s theological, legal, cultural, and civilizational aspects, as well as contemporary issues and challenges.1 specifically, the post-9/11 era has witnessed an unparalleled surge in writings on islam,2 driven by the “rich and complex” nature of “muslim intellectual history”.3 mailto:tauseef.parray21@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.1287 10 islamic history through a … this phenomenon is remarkable in the extensive corpus of literature published by major western publishing houses,4 employing diverse approaches tailored to meet the specific needs and interests of various audiences, particularly students and general readers—seeking for accessible introductions to the subject. as alexander knysh aptly states, in the 21st century, “books about islam are legion”, and they cover “a wide range of different, often incompatible, approaches to the subject.”5 this growing emphasis on diverse audiences and approaches requires a detailed and critical analysis of the dominant ideas and ways of knowing (discourses6 and epistemological paradigms7) that shape how islam is researched, studied and interpreted in the contemporary western academia. the study examines the latest editions of some selected introductory works on islam published between 2010 and 2025, with the aim to critically analyze and deconstruct8 the prevalent narratives and frameworks that define and characterize this field. literature review recent research on evaluating introductory works about islam a good deal of recent academic work has been devoted to examine and evaluate introductory works about islam, providing valuable analyses and assessments. two decades ago, shari lowin (2006) noted an escalating trend in publishing introductory texts on islam,9 while hughes, in 2007, critically examined them for perpetuating assumptions and shaping frameworks through which “islam is introduced” and presented, ultimately influencing public perception and engagement. 10 in a review essay, bruce b. lawrence (2008) discussed twelve introductory books on islam, noting a “vast spectrum” of comprehensiveness by highlighting their diversity.11 in his studying islam (2010), clinton bennett compared outsider and insider perspectives12 in the works of william muir, h. a. r. gibb, and john l. esposito.13 david waines, in 2012, noted a profound “transition” towards “modern introductory textbooks”, mainly by american/ america-based scholars, both muslims and nonmuslims.14 building on hughes’ framework of “critics versus caretakers”, 15 paula schrode’s 2016 study evaluates a number of introductory works about islam, focusing on “accessibility, structure, and content”. it distinguishes between “sympathetic” and “critical” introductions, concluding that the “genre of textbooks that introduces hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 11 the academic study of islam specifically as a religion has emerged in recent decades primarily in the english-speaking world. 16 leslie f. wolf (2017) observed a considerable diversity in content and methodology in these introductory works,17 while amidu okalekan sanni (2017) identified a spectrum of approaches in introductory works on islam ranging from apologetic to polemical and stereotypical to pedantic.18 building upon these academic assessments and the author’s previous work,19 this study provides an in-depth analysis of some selected introductory works on islam, summarizing their contents, coverage, approach, and includes a comparative analysis and concluding remarks. selection criteria for the works evaluated all works selected for evaluation in this study are characterized by (i) being published by leading western publishers; (ii) frequent usage in introductory courses on islam and islamic history, especially at western academic institutions (and at a few eastern universities, including india20); (iii) multiple editions, ranging from second to fifth; and (iv) translations into various european and oriental languages. these features indicate their broad appeal and positive reception in scholarly communities.21 the selection criteria for the evaluated introductory books on islam and muslims assessed in detail in this study (such as those by shepard, esposito, brown, and knysh), include: (1) prior familiarity with the books’ content, as the author has previously reviewed many of these books in reputed journals (and other platforms)22 and as review essays and articles through scholarly evaluations (20102022). 23 (2) being published by notable western publishers like oxford university press (esposito), wiley-blackwell (brown, sonn), and routledge (shepard, knysh, denny), recognized for their extensive contributions to islamic studies and for their global reach. (3) insights into contemporary western scholarship, revealing “recent trends, tendencies and tenors” in the field.24 (4) identification of the key topics and themes, aiding in the understanding of the main questions addressed within islamic history and civilization. these criteria, collectively, ensure a comprehensive assessment of the literature and its significance within scholarly discourse. this literature review is based on english-language scholarly assessments of introductory works on islam (2010-2025), focusing on knowledge shaping, content diversity, methodologies, and (insideroutsider) perspectives. earlier seminal works and non-english works 12 islamic history through a … have not been considered (though the original publications of esposito and denny date back to 1980s). research objectives this study critically examines revised editions of introductory works on islam (published between 2010-2025), discusses their author’s backgrounds and methodologies, to assess and evaluate the current state of the field. it offers a synopsis of study approaches, evaluates selected works, and concludes with findings and recommendations for future research. research methodology critical content analysis 25 is employed to evaluate selected introductory islamic history works authored by notable contemporary islamicists. 26 these books include introducing islam by william shepard (2nd ed., 2014), 27 islam: the straight path by john l. esposito (5th ed., 2016),28 a new introduction to islam by daniel w. brown (3rd ed., 2017), 29 and islam in historical perspective by alexander knysh (3rd ed., 2025)30 followed by a brief assessment of islam: a brief history by tamara sonn (2nd ed., 2010),31 introduction to islam by carole hillenbrand (2015),32 and an introduction to islam by frederick mathewson denny (4th ed., 2016).33 all of them have received widespread acclaim and have been utilized in academic settings as introductory fundamental resources for courses on islam and islamic history. often referred to as “textbooks”,34 works of this category aim to provide readers with a foundational understanding of islam, offering a broad overview of key themes such as its historical development, core beliefs, practices, institutions, and contemporary issues. some also include theoretical and methodological insights into how islam is studied academically.35 aaron hughes, in situating islam, critically examines some introductory islamic texts, arguing that they often reinforce fixed discursive patterns and epistemological “assumptions”,36 urging selfcritique and inclusivity in pedagogy by examining these widely used textbooks to explore prevailing ‘pedagogical’ and ‘epistemological’ trends in western scholarship on islam. discussion and analysis diverse approaches to studying islam: a brief conceptual framework in studying islam and muslims, scholars from various disciplines utilize diverse approaches. for example, alexander hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 13 knysh highlights the “multiplicity of approaches to the study of islam”, stating that it encompasses various analytical frameworks and methodologies.37 the editors of observing the observer note that “teaching islam” also “involves a variety of approaches”, addressing both fundamental aspects of islam as well as modern developments.38 a number of scholars have proposed different categories and classifications for the academic study of islam. oliver scharbrodt identifies six (6) major methodological approaches in introductory works: ‘doctrinal development’, ‘phenomenological approach’, ‘insider/ outsider’ accounts, ‘historical survey’, ‘historical criticism’, and ‘revisionist’ perspectives. he emphasizes that “ideal” introductory texts should integrate “different topical and methodical orientations” to simultaneously present “islam as a religion, its history, and islamic studies as [an] academic discipline”.39 knysh, in contrast, identifies five primary methodological approaches: ‘macro’, ‘micro’, ‘functional’, ‘pragmatic’, and ‘civilizational’.40 carole hillenbrand41 identifies four, ranging from “historically” contextualized portrayal and descriptive “modern” accounts to emic/ insider perspectives, and community-specific examinations of islamic traditions. notably, her own approach exemplifies a historically nuanced approach for an objective understanding of islamic beliefs and practices, contributing to a more sophisticated and refined discourse on islamic representations. aaron hughes has proposed three main classifications for the approaches and perspectives used by the islamicists: insider/ “emic” and outsider/ “etic” approaches; “critical” and “apologetic” approaches; and an integrated “sub-disciplinary perspective”. 42 echoing similar views, leslie f. wolf proposes a taxonomy comprising descriptive (but uncritical), analytical-cum-critical, and intermediate texts (descriptive with engagement to the critical scholarship). 43 bennett identifies the ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’ approaches as broad frameworks for understanding scholarly perspectives on islam.44 david waines notes a recent proliferation in “modern introductory textbooks to islam” authored by scholars from diverse “academic backgrounds and perspectives”, predominantly american scholars, indicating a significant “transition” from traditional orientalist approach to more nuanced and multidisciplinary understanding in western scholarship. 45 shari lowin, 46 bruce lawrence, 47 paula schrode, 48 and leslie wolf 49 corroborate this, attributing the increase to rising interest in the study of islam. 14 islamic history through a … it is, thus, in this context that richard c. martin underscored the “growing demand for accessible knowledge” about islam and muslims, leading to an extensive literature covering basics of islam and its various aspects like “islamic cultures, religion, history, politics” and contemporary issues.50 let us now give a concise overview of these approaches, highlighting their distinctive features and contributions to the study of islam. macro and micro approaches: the “macro approach” examines islam’s “universal characteristics” connecting it to other “religious traditions” through “sacred” narratives. in contrast, the “micro approach” delves into specific contexts and practices of muslim societies, exploring how islam is believed, observed and interpreted in a “particular muslim community or ethnic group in a certain geographical area”.51 pragmatic and functional approaches: treating islam as an “ideological and political force” that operates with distinct “political and social structures”, the “pragmatic” approach explores “islam’s role as a means of political legitimization” and is usually applied by “sociologists and political scientists”. 52 in the “functional” approach, islam is studied “as a system of educational practices” and as “a social and psychological safety net.”53 civilizational approach: the “civilizational” approach, generally used by religious studies scholars, explores “how islam shapes the cultural and spiritual lives of muslim societies” by envisioning “islam as a progressive” phenomenon across various domains like politics, theology, philosophy, and artistic selfexpression.54 this approach, in knysh’s opinion, was “exemplified” by the american historian marshall hodgson (d. 1968) in his 3volume the venture of islam, 55 emphasizing “islam’s spiritual dimensions”.56 insider and outsider approaches: in studying islam, bennett’s comparative study categorizes views into outsider and insider approaches, noting the variance in scholarly perspectives.57 in contrast, hughes highlights the necessity of understanding “religious data” and methodologies, contextualizing them within the “insider-outsider debate” in the “academic study of religion”, including islam.58 he explains this emic-etic approach as: an insider approach—or, alternatively, the emic approach— is one that tries to understand religion from the perspective of religious practitioners. … the insider approach represents … the effort to understand religious thought and behavior hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 15 primarily from religious persons’ point of view. the outsider approach—or, alternatively, the etic approach—is one that refuses to explain religion using the categories and terms of reference that religious people use. it therefore attempts to import categories from the outside in an attempt to interpret or explain religious data. this process can be reductionist … [for] it prefers to regard religion as a human creation … [over] divine or transcendent (italics mine).59 “any attempt to understand religions”, hughes admits, “must necessarily employ both approaches.”60 that is why, in many chapters of his seminal work, muslim identities: an introduction to islam (2013), he “weave[s] both outsider and insider accounts of islam together” while balancing “critical and the apologetic approach” to present islam “as a historical force.” 61 in order to maintain “equilibrium”, he adopts “the subdisciplinary approach”, focusing on “historical, sociological, and literary [analyses] rather than theological”, and incorporates “methodologies of cognate disciplines, such as archeology, history, and near eastern studies.”62 taxonomy of introductory works: recognizing the proliferation of “introductory books on islam” in recent years which exhibit considerable diversity, both in contents and methodology, wolf proposes a tripartite taxonomy for their classification: (i) descriptive and uncritical, (ii) analytical and critical, and (iii) intermediate texts (descriptive with engagement to the critical scholarship). each category varies in terms of content coverage, comprehensiveness, and critical engagement.63 empathetic understanding: unlike bennett, knysh’s “insider approach” suggests that a more nuanced understanding of islam can be achieved by situating, and presenting, “islam from within the islamic tradition”.64 on the contrary, william shepard calls for “empathetic understanding”, merging “critical study” with “sympathetic” perspective to foster appreciation of islamic beliefs through “bracketing” process—that is, to “bracket off for time being our [non-muslims’] own views.”65 “there are indeed quite a number of introductory works on islam”, as amidu sanni, a nigerian scholar, opines, “which range from the apologetic to the polemical, and from the stereotypical to the pedantic”,66 highlighting the need for impartial, sensible, and balanced interpretations of islam. the present study is an endeavour in the same direction. nevertheless, there are certain serious flaws and failings in these works, especially concerning their interpretations on the foundational sources of islam—the holy qur’én, the hadith and sêrah of the last messenger (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam). 16 islamic history through a … a critical appraisal of the selected introductory works on islam what follows below is an appraisal and assessment of four introductory works on islam—authored by shepard, esposito, brown, and knysh—highlighting similarities and differences in their content coverage, approach, and notable features, followed by a brief comparative analysis to clarify their similarities and differences. william e. shepard’s introducing islam (2nd ed., 2014) william e. shepard (b. 1933) is a renowned scholar of islamic studies who has served as an associate professor of religious studies at the university of canterbury, christchurch (new zealand). born, brought up and educated in the usa, he specializes in modern islamic ideologies, islamic tradition, and radical thought.67 this study evaluates the second edition of his introducing islam (2014; first published in 2009)—a comprehensive and lucidly written introduction to islam, its history, and culture. introducing islam consists of a preface, introduction, and three parts with twenty-one chapters: part-i covers the history of the islamic community; part-ii examines socio-political, intellectual, philosophical, spiritual, artistic, cultural, architectural and other allied aspects of islam; and part-iii focuses on modern developments. the book provides a nuanced approach to islamic tradition, institutions, and practices within their historical, intellectual, and cultural contexts. part-i presents a historical overview of islam as a religion, civilization, and ideology from the pre-islamic period to 1700 ce, covering major empires such as the umayyads, abbasids, ottomans, and safavids. part-ii explores central aspects of islamic tradition, including the holy qur’én, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), rituals, law, theology, sects, philosophy, sufism, and islamic art and architecture, as they have developed over centuries with insights into modern developments at the end. focused on modern developments, part-iii addresses key modern challenges and transformations, including the effects of colonialism, nationalism, and globalization, religion-politics relationship in countries like turkey, egypt, iran, and indonesia, and contemporary debates on gender, democracy, and human rights. the book includes various pedagogical tools such as illustrations, text boxes, charts, discussion questions, a glossary, appendices, list of further readings, references, and an index. it draws on diverse sources, including e-resources, with a notable hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 17 feature being the ‘further reading list’ and “see also” references for deeper exploration. shepard’s engaging and concise writing makes the book accessible for both students and scholars. van der krogt praises it as “clearly written,” “attractively produced,” and “richly informed and reliable.” 68 paula schrode aptly describes it “as a classic textbook, with [numerous] teaching tools”, offering a “balanced presentation throughout” and evading “quasi-theological reasoning”.69 all in all, introducing islam reflects shepard’s forty years of teaching and research, offering a “sympathetic understanding” of islam’s religion, history, culture, and modern developments.70 the book’s clarity, balance, and accessibility make it a valuable contribution to the field of islamic studies and an exceptional resource for students and scholars of islamic and middle east studies. john l. esposito’s islam—the straight path (5th ed., 2016) a distinguished and renowned american scholar of islamic studies, john l. esposito (b. 1940) is professor of religion and international affairs and of islamic studies at georgetown university, usa. trained by professor ismail raji al-faruqi (a renowned palestinian-american scholar), he is recognized globally for his expertise in islamic studies, establishing him as a leading authority on islam. his contribution has earned significant accolades, including the ‘american academy of religion’s 2005 martin e. marty award’ and ‘pakistan’s quaid-i-azzam award’.71 this study evaluates the fifth edition of his islam: the straight path, a seminal work offering a comprehensive and accessible account of islam and its contemporary developments. originally published in 1988, the book has been revised multiple times (in 1991, 1998, 2011 and 2016), showcasing the author’s expertise as a “sympathetic” western scholar of islam.72 the book consists of six chapters, preceded by a preface and introduction, and followed by a timeline, glossary, bibliography, and index. each chapter addresses distinct aspects of islam, from past to present. chapter 1, “muhammad and the quran: messenger and message”73 describes the emergence of islam with a particular focus on the life and role of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and the teachings of the holy qur’én. chapter 2 discusses emergence and expansion of islamic civilization and rise of islamic empires.74 the third chapter focuses on the religious beliefs and practices by highlighting the 18 islamic history through a … development of islamic theology, philosophy, law/ jurisprudence, and mysticism with a specific focus on the ‘five pillars of islam’.75 the fourth chapter narrates the emergence, development, transformations of the modern islamic reform movements across the islamic world that have had a profound effect, in contemporary times, on islam—as faith, worldview, ideology and civilization.76 the fifth chapter presents a historical overview of the causes, worldview, and expressions of islamic revivalism and the resurgence of religion in politics through a series of case studies from the middle east.77 this chapter deals with recent issues like “global terrorism” and “arab spring/ arab winter?” as well.78 the last chapter, “struggle for islam in the twenty-first century,”79 focuses on the ongoing efforts toward islamic reform, introduces modern reformers, outlines their approaches, and explores key areas of reform, including democratization, pluralism, gender issues, minority rights, and interfaith relations. the chapter highlights the diversity of reformist thought 80 and the challenges involved in shaping islam’s future in a modern context.81 all chapters, except the second, end with a brief ‘conclusion’ summarizing the overall discussion precisely. some of the common features are inclusion of key terms, discussion questions, boxed information on important topics. since its first edition, esposito’s book has gained widespread recognition as an introductory textbook on islam, appealing to readers both in its english and translated versions worldwide. an “empirical survey”, presented in observing the observer (by the international institute of islamic thought, usa) of foundational “islam 101” courses, which focuses on commonly assigned texts and their authors used in teaching islam, found esposito’s book as “the second most widely-used book”, following denny’s an introduction to islam. its popularity among both muslim and non-muslim academics stems from its broad and comprehensive coverage of islamic history, faith, culture, law, theology, philosophy, mysticism, and politics.82 clinton bennett and bruce lawrence also commend its broad coverage, clarity, insider perspective, “distinctive popularity”, establishing it as a “widely used” college level resource.83 a 2016 review in the arab studies quarterly acclaims its “objective and meticulous” nature and balanced and well-researched narrative.84 moreover, hughes, in his situating islam, describes it as a “popular introductory textbook” that addresses the post-9/11 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 19 misconceptions about islam,85 while paula schrode appreciates its persuasive style and “sympathetic” approach, but views it of “limited use as an introduction to the academic study of islam.”86 overall, esposito’s islam—the straight path is a comprehensive, balanced, and remarkable introductory reference book on islam, 87 recognized for its broad coverage, meticulous presentation, and clarity, making it an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and general readers. daniel w. brown’s a new introduction to islam (3rd ed., 2017) daniel w. brown (b. 1963) is a renowned scholar of islamic studies, born and raised in pakistan. since 2013, he has been the director of the institute for the study of religion in the middle east (isrme), istanbul, turkey. his academic expertise includes teaching in islamic studies at mount holyoke college, amherst, and smith college (usa). he served as visiting scholar at the research institutes in pakistan and egypt, including the islamic research institute (iri), islamabad, institute of islamic culture (iic), lahore, and at the cairo university (egypt). his main areas of focus are modern muslim intellectual thought, islamic modernism, hadith studies, christian-muslim relations, and islam in the subcontinent.88 this study evaluates the third edition of his a new introduction to islam (first published in 2004), 89 a foundational textbook which offers a comprehensive history of islam, its culture, practices, and intellectual traditions. it also discusses modern challenges like colonialism, reform, pluralism, feminism, and globalization. the book also highlights islam’s impact on the near east’s spiritual and intellectual life and introduces students to the development of islamic studies as an academic discipline in the west.90 the book consists of eighteen chapters, divided into four parts: part-i, the formation of the islamic tradition; part-ii, the expansion of islam; part-iii, islamic institutions; and part-iv: crisis and renewal in islamic history. the book covers the foundation, growth, and renewal of islamic tradition and institutions, offering a clear and comprehensive overview of islamic history and culture. part-i examines, in the historical and religious context, islam’s rise, surveys the “central elements of islamic tradition”, including the prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) life, the holy qur’én, and the ×adêth (tradition) literature—describing the holy qur’én and ×adêth as “two thorniest [challenging] questions” in islamic studies. 91 part-ii discusses the arab conquests, early worldview, and the caliphate up to 1258 ce. part-iii examines key 20 islamic history through a … islamic institutions—law, theology and philosophy, and sufism— which brown sees as “defining features of islam” that shaped “coherence, the brilliance, and the resiliency” of islamic civilization.92 part-iv explores islam’s responses to historical challenges, patterns of renewal and reform, and contemporary issues including globalization and pluralism, global salafism, liberalism, and feminism, and muslim responses to these pressing problems “of theological, ethical and political” nature faced by the contemporary ummah (muslim community,) globally.93 key strengths of the book are its clear organization, clarity, and insightful guidance on the study of islam. the revised 3rd edition adds “significant revision[s]” in part-i, reflecting new “revisionist” scholarship on the “islamic origins”, 94 and expands part-iv to address topics like islam in the west, gender, pluralism, human rights, and recent trends in contemporary islamic thought. moreover, supplementary and pedagogical features—chronologies, tables summarizing key information, maps, diagrams and illustrations, updated resources for further study, and ‘questions for study and discussion’ at the end of each chapter—enhance its value as a comprehensive introduction to islamic studies. another remarkable feature is a two-page section on “essential resources for the study of islam” in the first chapter, ‘islam in global perspective’,95 which provides a list of important works necessary for the study of islam and muslims. this list, along with a brief description of their merits and guidelines on their use, is very informative, helpful and beneficial for the students. oliver scharbrodt praises brown’s work for its comprehensive and accessible treatment of islam, offering a balanced historical and doctrinal analysis, thereby providing a nuanced understanding of islamic tradition. 96 for diego sarrio, conveying “scholarly content in an easy-to-read and engaging style” is the “main strength” of the book.97 schrode also praises brown’s book for being “pronouncedly an introduction to the academic study of islam, dealing … with the challenges critical research has posed to traditional understandings of the origins of islam.”98 in her analysis, “brown’s book is to be recommended for university students without any reservations” for being a “well-structured, simple, yet captivating” account; an “accessible introduction to the academic study of islam”; depiction of “islamic traditions and practices in a lively manner”; and for containing “stimulating thoughts for more advanced readers”.99 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 21 nonetheless, brown’s adoption of ‘revisionist’ approach regarding the holy qur’én, ×adêth, and the sêrah (prophet’s biography)100 is deemed problematic for an introductory work,101 particularly for an (under) graduate student, as it lacks acceptance among western scholars.102 despite the book’s clarity and currency, the emphasis on revisionist perspectives is criticized for failing to provide a balanced foundation for newcomers to islamic studies.103 scholars like shepard and scharbrodt highlight the book’s “controversial questions” linked to “revisionist scholarship”, 104 indicating the need for a more nuanced introduction to islam that reflects the intricacies of the field, one that acknowledges the complexities and debates within the discipline without prioritizing revisionist views.105 moreover, the use of “new introduction” in the title night give an impression that other introductory works on islam are obsolete or insignificant.106 despite these limitations, this book provides a lucid, informative, and comprehensive overview of islam, addressing key issues and historical events, making it an essential and valuable resource for students and teachers. alexander d. knysh’s islam in historical perspective (3rd ed., 2025) professor of islamic studies in the department of middle east studies of the university of michigan, knysh (b. 1957) is a renowned russian-american scholar of islamic studies. he is also the academic director of the islamic studies project at the saint petersburg state university (spsu), russian federation. his research specialization lies in the history and development of islamic thought, with particular focus on islamic mysticism (sufism), qur’anic studies, islamic intellectual history, and modern islamic/ islamist movements. he is the author and translator of numerous books, journal articles, encyclopedia entries, and more.107 this study evaluates the third edition of knysh’s islam in historical perspective. first published in 2011 (by pearson, with 2nd edition by routledge in 2017),108 the book offers a comprehensive and nuanced introduction to islam (as religion, civilization, ideology) and muslim societies through centuries.109 structured chronologically and thematically, the book comprises twenty-four chapters spanning over 640 pages. it begins with a preface, acknowledgements, note on transliteration and dates, and a detailed introduction.110 the book ends with a comprehensive bibliography and index, with each chapter featuring pedagogical tools such as conclusions, questions to ponder, point-wise summaries, and notes. 22 islamic history through a … the contents of knysh’s book, excluding introduction, can be divided into three major thematic parts: (1) foundations of islam and emergence of islamic civilization: chapters 1-8 explore islam’s historical development up to 1258 ce and discuss islamic primary sources, the holy qur’én, ×adêth, and the prophet’s (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) biography. (2) islamic beliefs, institutions, and schools of thought: chapters 9-18 delve into the development of islamic scholarship, exploring the various schools of thought, philosophy, sects, sufism, madrasah education, and the basic beliefs and practices of islam as well as art, architecture and mosques. this part also includes a chapter on “women in islamic societies”,111 a controversial subject that is “politically and emotionally charged” and has “generated heated debates”.112 (3) islam vis-à-vis modern developments: chapters 19-24 examine islam and modernity, covering islam’s relationship with the west, responses to colonialism, islamic modernism and reform, islam as a political force, contemporary islamic thought, and global jihadism. the book presents islam as a dynamic dialogue shaped by diverse interpretations,113 offering a meticulously researched and balanced understanding of its complex history. david waines’ described first edition as “a formidable achievement”, 114 a sentiment equally applicable to its revised editions. waines commends knysh’s adoption of a “civilizational” perspective, which integrates historical, thematic, and cultural narratives, echoing hodgson’s influential work, the venture of islam.115 this comprehensive approach results in a rich and diverse exploration of topics, primary sources, and pedagogical tools, providing a nuanced understanding of islam. 116 knysh acknowledges the influence of hodgson’s civilizational approach in the introduction and claims that he has adopted “a modified version of the civilizational approach” in this book.117 in sum, knysh’s islam in historical perspective offers a clear and comprehensive introduction to islam’s history, traditions, and modern developments, enriched with summaries, questions, and notes for students and scholars. its thematic structure, in-depth analysis, and pedagogical tools make it an indispensable resource for understanding islam’s diverse traditions.118 brief comparison: comparative analysis of the evaluated books below are presented the key findings concerning the convergences and divergences in the books’ content, coverage, approach, and distinctive features: hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 23 shared characteristics: all these works have undergone multiple editions (2nd to 5th), with updates addressing contemporary issues and enhancing pedagogical features. in terms of pedagogy, the works of brown, shepard, and knysh stand out for their concise introductions to “academic approaches”, for addressing “fundamental theoretical issues”, and for maintaining “a certain level of reflexivity”.119 all these works contain current pedagogical features and teaching tools.120 structural similarities: structurally, the books cover islamic history, foundational sources, institutions and traditions, and contemporary issues,121 with most of them beginning with a preface or introduction outlining the author’s perspective or methodology adopted. that is to say, “each author”, to some degree, “makes his or her own selection of topics”.122 diversity of approaches: the works demonstrate a “multiplicity” and “plurality” of “scholarly approaches”, revealing a well-represented use of methodologies within the study of islam.123 varied perspectives on contemporary issues: collectively, these works offer a comprehensive analysis of islam and muslims, exploring different dimensions of islamic faith and its history—from past to present. all of them contain a substantial amount of information on islam vis-à-vis modern issues and challenges, providing valuable insights in knowing and understanding islam and muslims in the broader “global context”.124 scope and utility: the books cater to both students and general readers, facilitating understanding of islamic history and civilization along with their convergences and divergences. publishing houses and target audience: the books have been published by three leading western publishing houses with global reach, making them accessible to students worldwide. primarily targeted at western students, they are also suitable as ‘recommended’/ ‘suggested readings’ in eastern institutions.125 (see appendix-i at the end).126 a few more introductory works on islam besides the above evaluated works, there are many other notable ‘introductory’ works on islam, (re)published post-2000. three such works, offering valuable insights into islamic history and culture include tamara sonn’s islam: a brief history (2010), carole hillenbrand’s introduction to islam (2015), and frederick m. denny’s an introduction to islam (2016). below is presented a brief overview of these. 24 islamic history through a … tamara sonn’s islam: a brief history (2nd ed., 2010) a distinguished american academic, sonn (b. 1949) currently holds the position of hamad bin khalifa al-thani professor (emerita) in the history of islam and director of the alwaleed centre for christian-muslim understanding at the edmund a. walsh school of foreign service, georgetown university (gu), usa. sonn’s research expertise lies in islamic history and thought, and her scholarly contributions include numerous books, book chapters, encyclopedia entries, and journal articles.127 sonn’s islam: a brief history, first published in 2004, is a simple, straightforward, and thematic introduction to islam— covering its origins, development, and contemporary issues. written in a lucid and simple style, the book combines historical narrative with scholarly insights, presenting “a clear and coherent picture” of islam as “a dynamic, complex, and global religion”.128 the book comprises five chapters, preceded by a list of illustrations, foreword, two prefaces, and maps and are followed by notes, suggestions for further reading, source acknowledgements, and index. the five chapters include discussions on the holy qur’én, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), pillars of islam, caliphs, early disputes, islamic institutions and culture, crusades and pre-modern islamic empires, colonialism and reform, and modern issues like human rights and democracy. professor akber s. ahmed praises sonn for presenting “an indispensable guide to understanding islam in the twenty-first century.”129 subsequent editions (2nd in 2010 and 3rd in 2016) have incorporated recent developments in different chapters on diverse topics and themes, such as expanded descriptions of the holy qur’én, additional material on sufism, and overviews of “mainstream muslim viewpoints” on global concerns. 130 for instance, in its third edition, the fifth chapter “contemporary islam”,131 provides brief but insightful discussions on several key muslim nations of arab world and south(east) asia—including turkey, iran, pakistan and afghanistan, and indonesia—and events like ‘tunisia and arab spring’ and global terrorism (isis, boko haram, hamas, and hezbollah) as well. professor ahmed praises sonn’s scholarship, noting that she restores “perspective and balance” in her discussions and analysis on all topics, classical or contemporary. he calls this book an “essential reading for anyone wishing to make sense of the difficult times we live in”.132 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 25 situating islamic history within its broader historical, intellectual, and cultural context, sonn offers a balanced, clear, and engaging overview of islamic history, accessible for students and general readers. carole hillenbrand’s introduction to islam (1st ed., 2015) a distinguished british scholar of islamic studies, hillenbrand (b. 1943) is honorary professorial fellow in islamic and middle eastern studies at the university of edinburgh (uk) since 2008 and professor of islamic history at the university of st. andrews (uk). she is the first non-muslim to be honored with the king faisal prize in islamic studies (2005). her book, introduction to islam—which was awarded the prestigious ‘nayef al-rodhan prize for global cultural understanding’ by the british academy in 2016133—is a thematic history of islam that provides a nuanced understanding of the religion and its practices. the book consists of eleven chapters, each addressing “the most essential aspects of islamic faith and practice”, with “a oneword title” using a “lavish use of subheadings within each chapter” allowing readers to gain sensitive understanding of the essential tenets of islam.134 the titles of these chapters are: introduction; muhammad (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam); the holy qur’én; faith; law; diversity; thought; øëfism; jihéd; women; and tomorrow. some additional features are a timeline of islamic history, glossaries, illustrations, a list of further reading and index. for example, in the 7th chapter, “thought”, hillenbrand discusses islamic theology, islamic philosophy, political thought, the sunni caliphate, and modern trends in islamic thought.135 hillenbrand aims to present islamic faith and practice “accurately and objectively” for undergraduates and general readers, highlighting “core beliefs, practices, and doctrines” of muslims.136 schrode describes hillenbrand’s book as a “sympathetic approach” based “nuanced introduction” to islam, but notes it lacks “critical outlook”, making it better as a supplementary rather than a foundational text for islam.137 amidu o. sanni, in contrast, praises it as a “welcome intellectual product” and a “masterpiece” drawing on its author’s “over five-decade long engagement with islamic studies and civilization”.138 overall, hillebrand’s book has been highly praised for its well-argued, structured, researched, balanced, and judicious approach as well as for its flowing and engaging style, making it an ‘ideal introductory text’ for basic courses in islamic/ religious studies and middle east studies. 26 islamic history through a … frederick mathewson denny’s an introduction to islam (4th ed., 2016) a renowned islamic studies scholar, trained as historian, denny (b. 1939) is currently professor emeritus at university of chicago, and has previously served as professor of religious studies at university of colorado, boulder.139 his book provides an in-depth, integrated and thematic introduction to islam and muslims, placing the religion within a socio-cultural and political-historical context. first published in 1985 (by macmillan and later by pearson education), it currently runs in its fourth edition, it has gained popularity and positive reception in the academic circles, and has been “adopted” by many “courses on introductory islam”.140 the book comprises sixteen chapters broadly divided into six main parts (spanning over 600 pages): religion and common life in the pre-islamic near east; the coming of the islam: the prophet, his people, and god’s religion; the islamic religious system; the sufi way of mysticism and fellowship; patterns of islamic personal and communal life; and islam in the modern world. it also features suggestions for further reading, glossary, acknowledgements, and an index. denny’s book is not “a history of islam” but “a topical presentation, arranged roughly in order of the more universal dimensions of the tradition down to the more particular ones” through a “historical framework”, with references to and connections with the judeo-christian morals, thus making it a “comprehensive and balanced” work.141 a survey by faisal islam and zahid bukhari acknowledges it as “the most widely-used [adopted] book for teaching fundamental islam”, highlighting its integration of doctrinal, devotional, cultural, socio-political, and religious aspects of islam.142 scholars such as schrode, hughes, shepard, and elizabeth g. burr corroborate this assessment, and regard it as a “classic”, authoritative, and “excellent survey” of islamic civilization due to its clear structure, insightful content, essential summary of teachings, and accessibility to newcomers.143 denny’s textbook is considered a unique and indispensable resource in islamic and middle eastern studies. elizabeth burr notes that despite being non-muslims, both esposito and denny exemplify scholarly “multiplicity” and have become leading, “sympathetic” experts in islamic studies, effectively educating diverse audiences.144 (italics mine) hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 27 this brief assessment and analysis of books by sonn, hillenbrand and denny reveal both similarities and differences in methodology, approach, and pedagogical features. all three authors adopt a thematic approach, providing a nuanced understanding of islamic history and culture. however, hillenbrand emphasizes historical development, denny situates islam in a broader sociopolitical and cultural contexts, and sonn presents a concise, accessible narrative for general readers—together reflecting the field’s diversity. conclusion presenting a critical examination of selected introductory works on islam, published from 2010 to 2025, the study leads us to conclude that these works help us in understanding the dominant trends, tendencies and themes in 21st century western scholarship (especially euro-american)145 regarding islam. it clearly illustrates the prevalent thematic coverage, academic perspectives, and methodological structures used in this genre, which ultimately aids readers in understanding the intricacies of portraying islamic historiography in contemporary western scholarship. the assessment has also uncovered the complex methodological frameworks utilized in these writings, integrating diverse perspectives—spanning historical, civilizational, insider/ empathetic, as well as historical and revisionist—to critically analyze, evaluate, and interpret different dimensions of islam (both as a religion and civilization), encompassing theological, cultural, socio-political, and other aspects. this critical examination provides a deeper insight into islam and muslims in their historical and contemporary global settings, underscoring the complexities and subtleties of islamic traditions and experiences. this study offers detailed perspectives on the titles and themes, goals and intents, methods and intended audiences of these works. we hope, ultimately, that this research deepens our comprehension of islamic history and its continuing importance in the modern global context. the study underscores the importance of critically evaluating the methodological approaches and nuances utilized by western academics, particularly american islamicists, in examining islam, muslims, and muslim communities. the preceding discussion offers an important perspective on the current state of islamic history scholarship in the 21st century, highlighting the need for continued critical evaluation, nuanced understanding, and creative approaches. 28 islamic history through a … recommendations this study is limited to examining selected introductory works on islam, predominantly written by american islamicists. future research endeavours ought to encompass writings by islamicists from different western countries/ regions (such as canada, australia, europe, etc.) with diverse academic backgrounds (history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, comparative literature, etc.). moreover, this study focuses on the methodological approaches and subtleties utilized by western academics, which might not adequately represent the full spectrum of islamic studies. to enhance our understanding of islamic experiences and traditions, future research must incorporate and integrate interdisciplinary methods, drawing insights from sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies. by embracing a more holistic and contextualized framework, researchers can better understand the intricacies of islamic history and its continued relevance in the contemporary world. moreover, future studies ought to critically evaluate how islam and muslims are portrayed in both academic and mainstream discussions, underscoring the importance of a nuanced and accurate depictions. last, but not the least, this author believes that on comprehensive content coverage and sensitivity to spiritual and devotional aspects, the books of shepard, denny, hillenbrand, and knysh, respectively, may be recommended for academic adoption as ‘required textbooks’ or ‘recommended readings’ in eastern universities (see appendix-i below). appendix-i: my ranking (in descending order) of the evaluated works based on the criteria of (i) academic merit, (ii) accessibility, (iii) sensitivity to spiritual and devotional aspects, (iv) academic adoption, and (v) content coverage: ra nki ng criteriai: academi c merit crite riaii: acces sibilit y criteria-iii: sensitivity to spiritual and devotional aspects criteriaiv: academi c adoption criter ia-v: conte nt cover age rationale : ranking based on writing style, authoritat ive sources, ratio nale: ranki ng for gener al reader and begin rationale: ranking determined by the author’s consideration of “muslim sensibilities” in relation to the holy rationale : suitabilit y as required textbooks or recomme nded ration ale: ranki ng based on compr ehensi ve hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 29 comprehe nsion, etc. ner useful ness qur’én and the prophet’s sêrah readings for eastern universiti es topic covera ge 1. hillenbra nd espos ito shepard shepard knysh 2. shepard sonn hillenbrand denny shepar d 3. esposito hillen brand esposito hillenbra nd brown 4. denny denn y denny knysh denny 5. knysh shepa rd sonn brown hillen brand 6. brown knys h knysh esposito esposi to 7. sonn brow n brown sonn sonn notes and references 1 for this viewpoint, see tauseef ahmad parray, “debates on tradition and modernity in the subcontinent”, in lütfi sunar, ed., the routledge international handbook of contemporary muslim socio-political thought (new york & london: routledge, 2021): 59-72, p. 59 2 for a detailed overview of this aspect, see my previous works: tauseef ahmad parray, “a portrayal of 21st century western scholarship on ‘islamic history’”, greater kashmir, 10th september, 2020, p. 7; idem., “21st century western scholarship on ‘islamic history’: an evaluation of some selected recent works”, the freelancer (online portal, new delhi), 25th january 2021, retrieved from http://www.thefreelancer.co.in/eng/?p=83 [last accessed on 6th february, 2025]; idem., “contemporary western scholarship on islam: an appraisal of selected ‘introductory’ reference works on islamic history”, analisa: journal of social science & religion, 6, 2 (december 2021): 253-274; idem., 21st century trends and approaches in islamic scholarship: critical reviews on 125 recent books (aligarh, india: brown books, in association with springs, south africa: ahsan academy of research, 2023), pp. 15-18, 23-32 3 saulat parvez, “muslim intellectual history: a survey”, american journal of islam and society [ajis; previously american journal of islamic social sciences, ajiss], 39, 3-4 (2022): 206-272, p. 207 4 parray, in greater kashmir (2020), p. 7; idem., in the freelancer (2021); idem., “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa (6, 2, 2021): 253-274; idem., 21st century trends and approaches in islamic scholarship (2023), pp. 1518, 23-32 5 alexander knysh, islam in historical perspective, 3rd ed. (new york and abingdon: routledge, 2025), p. xvii 6 discourse can denote either “a learned discussion … on a philosophical, political, literary or religious topic” or “specific type of language and the set of problematics that define and delimit a given field”, or as “the ordered exposition in writing or speech of a particular subject”. for details, see j. a. cuddon (revised by m. a. r. habib), a dictionary of literary terms and literary theory, 5th ed. http://www.thefreelancer.co.in/eng/?p=83 30 islamic history through a … (chichester, west sussex, malden, ma, and oxford: john wiley & sons ltd., 2013), p. 207; peter childs and roger fowler, the routledge dictionary of literary terms (abingdon, oxon, and new york: routledge, 2006 [1973]), p. 58. in this study, discourse specifically concerns the prevailing narratives about islam in western academic and scholarly circles. 7 epistemology (from the root “episteme”, meaning ‘knowledge’ or ‘science’) essentially refers to “the science or study of knowledge” and is specifically the branch of philosophy concerned with “understanding the nature and limitations of knowledge.” it examines the nature, sources, and limitations of knowledge. cuddon, dictionary, p. 245. in this study, epistemological framework refers to the perspective employed to analyze islam within western academic circles, whereas epistemological assumptions denote the fundamental beliefs that shape these perspectives. in simple terms, this study aims to critically examine these frameworks and assumptions, demonstrating their impact on the field of islamic studies in the west. 8 deconstruction, which is closely related to the term “analysis” (or the notions of “to undo” and “to de-construct”), represents a critical analytical approach that scrutinizes the construction of texts and unveils the “mode of analytical inquiry”, while as “deconstructive reading” refers to a “reading which analyses the specificity of a text’s critical difference from itself”. deconstruction is also defined as “a critique of concepts and hierarchies which … are essential to traditional criteria of certainty, identity and truth”. for details see, cuddon dictionary, pp. 189-190; childs and fowler, the routledge dictionary, pp. 4851. in this study, deconstruction and deconstructive narrative entail the dissection of introductory works on islam to understand their narratives and uncover the perspectives that influence the authors’ presentations. 9 shari lowin, “[review] reviewed works: a new introduction to islam by daniel brown [2004]; an introduction to islam by david waines [2003]; islam: its history, teaching, and practices by s. a. nigosian [2004]”. the journal of religion [jor], 86, 1 (2006): 164-66. the books reviewed by lowin are: daniel brown, a new introduction to islam, 1st ed. (malden, ma: blackwell, 2004); david waines, an introduction to islam, 2nd ed. (new york: cambridge university press, 2003); s. a. nigosian, islam: its history, teaching, and practices (bloomington: indiana university press, 2004) 10 hughes, situating islam, pp. 79, 84-92. hughes has evaluated these works: john l. esposito, islam: the straight path. 3rd ed. (new york: oxford university press, 2005); karen armstrong, islam—a short history (new york: the modern library, 2006); frederick m. denny, an introduction to islam, 3rd ed. (london & new york: routledge, 2006). 11 bruce b. lawrence, “review essay: introducing islam or reviling muslims?” contemporary islam [cont. islam], 2, 1 (2008): 85-89. among these, he has included denny’s an introduction to islam and esposito’s islam: the straight path. 12 clinton bennett, studying islam: the critical issues (new york: continuum, 2010), pp. 1-22 13 sir william muir, the life of mahomet, 4 vols. (london: smith, elder & co., 1861); h. a. r. gibb, muhammedanism: a historical survey (london: oxford university press, 1961 [1949]): later published as islam: a historical survey hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 31 (1980); john l. esposito, islam: the straight path. 3rd ed. (new york: oxford university press, 1998) 14 david waines, “review: alexander knysh: islam in historical perspective…” (2011). bulletin of the school of oriental and african studies [bsoas], 75, 2 (2012): 382-84. waines here refers to the following works using “islam” in their titles: gibb, islam: a historical survey (1980 [1961]); alfred guillaume, islam (london: penguin, 1954); m. z. khan, islam—its meaning for modern man (london: penguin, 1962); fazlur rahman, islam. 2nd ed. (chicago: university of chicago press, 1979 [1966]). 15 aaron w. hughes, muslim identities: an introduction to islam (new york: columbia university press, 2013), p. 6 16 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), pp. 247, 252, 258, 265 17 leslie f. wolf, “review: islam—an introduction by catharina raudvere (london & new york: i. b. tauris, 2015) …”. (oxford) journal of islamic studies [jis], 28, 2 (may 2017): 221-224 18 amidu olalekan sanni, “review: islam: a new historical introduction. by carole hillenbrand. london: thames and hudson, 2015…”, the muslim world book review [mwbr], 37, 2 (2017): 23-26, p. 25 19 parray, in greater kashmir (2020), p.7; idem., in the freelancer (2021); idem., “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa (6, 2, 2021): 253-274; idem., 21st century trends and approaches in islamic scholarship (2023) 20 among these books, esposito’s book is included in a few university courses in india and is recommended by muslim scholars like abou el-fadl as a core reading on islam. for example, (1) in a master’s course on “trends in contemporary orientalism”, shah-i-hamadan institute of islamic studies, university of kashmir, srinagar (jammu & kashmir) has mentioned esposito’s islam: the straight path in its “books recommended” list: for details see pg syllabus (2018) available in pdf at https://islamicstudies.uok.edu.in/files/36892408-1fed-44319848-0761b9e02587/menu/pg_syllabus_2018_f17847ba-0d81-4d07-b9e8faaff662f518.pdf, p. 58; (2) university of madras, india has also included esposito’s islam: the straight path (3rd ed., 1998) in the books recommended list in these courses: “introduction to islam”, “islamic history-ii”, and “essentials of islam”: see syllabus at https://www.unom.ac.in/webportal/uploads/naac/1/additional/37%20m.a.%20is lamic%20studies.pdf, pp. 18, 26, 61; (3) safi institute of advanced studies, malappuram, kerala (india) has listed esposito’s book (1991 ed.) in “islamic political thought” course of their master’s in islamic studies, p. 37, retrieved from https://sias.edu.in/docs/syllabus/ma-islamic-studies.pdf (4) khaled abou el fadl has included esposito’s islam—the straight path (1998) and denny’s an introduction to islam (1994) in his “recommended reading” list: for details, see “general books on islam: recommended by dr. abou el fadl”, usuli: the institute for advanced usuli studies, retrieved from www.usuli.org/2017/12/01/general-books/on-islam/ (all urls included in this note have been last accessed on 25th may, 2025). 21 parray, “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa (6, 2, 2021), p. 255 22 for details, see, tauseef ahmad parray, “review: daniel brown, a new introduction to islam, 2nd ed. uk: wiley-blackwell”. islamic studies [is], 49, 1 (2010): 121–125; idem., “[review] william shepard, introducing islam. oxon, rn; usa & canada: routledge, 2009”, ajis, 27, 4 (2010): 117-120; idem., “review: daniel brown, a new introduction to islam, 2nd ed. uk: wileyblackwell”, ajis, 28, 1 (2011): 150-52; idem., “on reading john esposito’s islam—the straight path”, greater kashmir, 14th january, 2021, p. 7; idem., “‘islamic history’ through ‘civilizational perspective’: on reading alexander knysh’s islam in historical perspective (2017)”, kashmir observer, 19th https://islamicstudies.uok.edu.in/files/36892408-1fed-4431-9848-0761b9e02587/menu/pg_syllabus_2018_f17847ba-0d81-4d07-b9e8-faaff662f518.pdf https://islamicstudies.uok.edu.in/files/36892408-1fed-4431-9848-0761b9e02587/menu/pg_syllabus_2018_f17847ba-0d81-4d07-b9e8-faaff662f518.pdf https://islamicstudies.uok.edu.in/files/36892408-1fed-4431-9848-0761b9e02587/menu/pg_syllabus_2018_f17847ba-0d81-4d07-b9e8-faaff662f518.pdf https://www.unom.ac.in/webportal/uploads/naac/1/additional/37%20m.a.%20islamic%20studies.pdf https://www.unom.ac.in/webportal/uploads/naac/1/additional/37%20m.a.%20islamic%20studies.pdf https://sias.edu.in/docs/syllabus/ma-islamic-studies.pdf http://www.usuli.org/2017/12/01/general-books/on-islam/ 32 islamic history through a … february 2022, p. 7 (all these reviews also feature in parray, 21st century trends and approaches in islamic scholarship, 2023, pp. 183-191, 213-222); idem., “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa (6, 2, 2021): 253-274; idem., “presenting ‘islamic history’ through a ‘civilizational perspective’”, greater kashmir, 22nd may, 2025, p. 7, also available online at https://www.greaterkashmir.com/opinion/presenting-islamic-history-through-acivilizational-perspective/; idem., “how to rethink islamic history as a civilization?”, kashmir life, 24th may, 2025, retrieved from https://kashmirlife.net/rethinking-islamic-history-civilizational-lens-392013/ (last accessed on 26th may, 2025) 23 tauseef ahmad parray, “focusing socio-political reforms of the prophet: an appraisal of yasin mazhar siddiqui’s sirah works”, quarterly insights, 2, 2-3 (2010): 263-302; idem., “encyclopedic works on islamic political thought and movements in the twenty-first century”, ajis, 32, 4 (2015): 85-96; idem., “recent scholarship on ‘islamism’ discourse: an evaluation and assessment”, analisa, 1, 1 (2016): 1-18; idem., “democracy and democratization in the muslim world: an evaluation of some important works on democratization in south/ southeast asia”. analisa, 2, 1 (2017): 79-101; idem., “understanding pakistan through literature: an appraisal of some recent works”, analisa. 4, 1 (2019): 120; idem., “prophet muhammad (pbuh) and the west: a review essay”, aligarh journal of quranic studies [ajqs], 3, 1 (march 2020): 48-72; idem., “review: faces of muhammad: western perceptions of the prophet of islam from the middle ages to today, john v. tolan (2019)”, hadis ve siyer araştirmalari/ hadith and sira studies [hss], 6, 1 (2020): 129-139; idem., “contemporary western scholarship on islam…”, analisa, 6, 2 (2021): 253-274; idem., “thematic studies on the sirah and contribution of professor m. yasin mazhar siddiqui: an appraisal of some selected works”, hamdard islamicus, 45, 1 (2022): 35-59. doi: https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i1.319 24 parray, “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa (6, 2, 2021), p. 254 25 criticism is defined as the act “to analyze” and “to judge”, and is regarded “complementary to literary criticism” (childs and fowler, the routledge dictionary, p. 38); critique is described as a “detailed review and assessment of a literary work” (cuddon dictionary, p. 173); and critical theory is characterized as “a philosophical activity which should underlie criticism” but should not be seen as a component of it (childs & fowler, the routledge dictionary, p. 38). this study employs ‘critical content analysis’ (cca), a methodological approach that combines critical theory with content analysis to examine the portrayal of islam in introductory works authored by some prominent islamicists. 26 islamicist denotes “a scholar whose academic specialization is some aspect of islam”, “academic scholar who studies about islam”, or academics who “engage in the academic study of islam”. until approximately the mid-20th century, they were referred to as “orientalists” (from the root “orient”, meaning the east), and their discipline as orientalism; however, the current common term is islamicist, and the discipline is now known as islamic studies. the term islamicist is considered “appropriate” for academics in religious studies, history, anthropology, political science and other fields “who focus primarily on some aspect of islam.” islamicist must be distinguished from “islamist”, which refers to “one who calls for an islam[ic] state and society”. for this definition, brief historical context, and differentiation, see william e. shepard, introducing islam. 2nd ed. (london and new york: routledge, 2014), pp. 6, 245, 377 https://www.greaterkashmir.com/opinion/presenting-islamic-history-through-a-civilizational-perspective/ https://www.greaterkashmir.com/opinion/presenting-islamic-history-through-a-civilizational-perspective/ https://kashmirlife.net/rethinking-islamic-history-civilizational-lens-392013/ https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v45i1.319 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 33 27 shepard, introducing islam, 2nd ed. (2014) 28 john l. esposito, islam—the straight path, 5th updated ed. (new york & oxford: oxford university press, 2016) 29 daniel w. brown, a new introduction to islam, 3rd ed. (west sussex, uk: wiley-blackwell, 2017) 30 knysh, islam in historical perspective, 3rd ed. (2025) 31 tamara sonn, islam: a brief history, 2nd ed. (uk: wiley-blackwell, 2010). the first edition, a brief history of islam, was published in 2004 and the third edition appeared in 2016 under the new title, islam: history, religion, and politics. in this study, although both the 2nd and 3rd editions have been cited, the analysis is based on the 2nd edition. 32 carole hillenbrand, introduction to islam: beliefs and practices in historical perspective (new york: thames and hudson, 2015). it has been published in uk under a new title, islam—a new historical introduction, by the (same) publisher. 33 frederick mathewson denny, an introduction to islam, 4th ed. (abingdon, oxon & new york: routledge, 2016). as references of the previous editions of these seven evaluated works also appear in the references, the year of publication has been added in parenthesis with each reference to avoid confusion. 34 for the definition, nature and characteristics of textbooks, see michael strausberg and steven engler, “textbooks in the study of religion/s: introducing a new feature series”, religion, 43, 2 (2013): 131-134, pp. 131-32 (doi: 10.1080/0048721x.2013.781882). for textbooks on islam, see paula schrode, “between critics and caretakers: current introductions to islam”, religion, 46, 2 (2016): 247-268 (doi: 10.1080/0048721x.2016.1138630) 35 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), p. 248 36 aaron w. hughes, situating islam: the past and future of an academic discipline (oakville, ct: equinox publishing ltd., 2007), pp. 72, 80, 81, 84, 90 37 knysh, islam in historical perspective (2025), pp. 1-6, especially pp. 1-3 38 sulayman s. nyang, mumtaz ahmad, zahid bukhari, “introduction”, in mumtaz ahmad, zahid bukhari and sulayman nyang, eds., observing the observer: the state of islamic studies in american universities (london & washington, international institute of islamic thought [iiit], 2012): ix-xxvii, p. xxiv 39 oliver scharbrodt, “review: brown, daniel. 2004. a new introduction to islam. blackwell publishing, malden, ma (usa)…”, marburg journal of religion [mjr], 10, 1 (august 2005): 1-3 40 knysh, islam in historical perspective (2025), pp. 1-3 41 hillenbrand, introduction to islam, pp.17-18 42 hughes, muslim identities, pp. 1, 2, 4-5 43 wolf, in jis (28, 2, may 2017), p. 221 44 bennett, studying islam, pp. 1-22 45 david waines, “review: alexander knysh: islam in historical perspective. xiii, 534 pp. new york & london: prentice hall, 2011…”. bulletin of the school of oriental and african studies [bsoas], 75, 2 (2012): 382-84, pp. 382-83 46 lowin, in jor (86, 1, 2006), pp. 164-66 47 lawrence, in cont. islam (2, 1, 2008), pp. 85-89 48 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), pp. 247-268 49 wolf, in jis (28, 2, may 2017), pp. 221-224 34 islamic history through a … 50 richard c martin, “introduction”, in richard c. martin, ed., encyclopedia of islam and muslim world, 2 vols. (new york: macmillan, 2004), i: ix-xii, p. x 51 knysh, islam in historical perspective (2025), pp. 1-2 52 ibid., p. 2 53 ibid. 54 ibid. 55 marshall g. s. hodgson, the venture of islam: conscience and history in a world civilization, 3 vols. (chicago: university of chicago press, 1974). vol. i; the classical age; vol. ii: the expansion of islam in the middle periods; and vol. iii: the gunpowder empires and modern times. 56 knysh, islam in historical perspective (2025), p. 2 57 bennet, studying islam, pp. 6, 11, 22 58 hughes, muslim identities, pp. 5-6 59 ibid., p. 5 60 ibid. 61 ibid., p. xi 62 ibid., pp. xi, 1-2 63 wolf, in jis, (28, 2, may 2017), p. 221 64 knysh, islam in historical perspective (2025), p. 2 65 shepard, introducing islam (2014), pp. 3-5, esp. p.4. shepard’s concept of “empathetic understanding” emphasizes the importance of reconciling “critical study” with “sympathetic” perspective, which he considers as complimentary, rather than mutually exclusive, for studying islam and muslims. by this, he means entering “imaginatively … into the experience of another person [muslim] and seeing the world as they see it”. “in order to do this, we must often temporarily set aside many of our own beliefs and disbeliefs, values and presuppositions, and ask what would follow if the beliefs, values and presuppositions of those we are studying were in fact true. this is called ‘bracketing’, because we bracket off for the time being our own views.” 66 sanni, in mwbr (37, 2, 2017), p. 25 67 for biographical details, https://www.routledge.com/authors/i8376-williamshepard (last accessed on 12th february, 2025) 68 christopher van der krogt, “review: introducing islam. william e. shepard [2014] …”. new zealand international review [nir], 40, 2 (2015): 30-31 69 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), p. 262 70 shepard, introducing islam (2014), p. xviii; parray, 21st century trends and approaches in islamic scholarship, pp. 87-88 71 for biographical details, see https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014rbj4aak/johnesposito and https://acmcu.georgetown.edu/profile/john-esposito/ (last accessed on 12th february, 2025) 72 parray, “on reading john esposito’s islam—the straight path”, greater kashmir, 14th january, 2021, p. 7; parray, 21st century trends and approaches in islamic scholarship, pp. 213-18 73 esposito, islam—the straight path (2016), pp. 1-36 74 ibid., pp. 37-91 75 ibid., pp. 92-147 76 ibid., pp. 148-193 77 ibid., pp. 194-258 78 ibid., pp. 232-244, 245-256 79 ibid., pp. 259-306 https://www.routledge.com/authors/i8376-william-shepard https://www.routledge.com/authors/i8376-william-shepard https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014rbj4aak/john-esposito https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014rbj4aak/john-esposito https://acmcu.georgetown.edu/profile/john-esposito/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 35 80 ibid., pp. 264-269 81 ibid., pp. 274-287 82 faisal islam and zahid h. bukhari, “islam 101: a survey of ‘introduction to islam’ courses in american colleges and universities”, in in ahmad, bukhari and nyang, eds., observing the observer (2012): 178-218, pp. 179, 190 83 benett, studying islam, p. 22; clinton bennett, “chronology”, in clinton bennett, ed., the bloomsbury companion to islamic studies (london & new york: bloomsbury academic, 2013): 283-310, p. 306; lawrence, in cont. islam (2, 1, 2008), p. 88 84 “review: books in brief: reviewed work(s): political islam, world politics and europe by tibi, bassam; islam: the straight path, by esposito, john l.; anthropology’s politics: disciplining the middle east by deeb, lara, and jessica winegar”. arab studies quarterly [asq], 38, 4 (fall 2016): 728-731, pp. 729-30 85 hughes, situating islam, p. 84 86 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), p. 254 87 parray, 21st century trends and approaches in islamic scholarship, p. 218 88 for biographical details, see https://isrme.org/daniel-w-brown/ and https://www.wiley.com/en-it/a+new+introduction+to+islam%2c+3rd+edition-p9781118953464 (last accessed on 12th february, 2025) 89 daniel w. brown, a new introduction to islam, 1st ed. (malden, ma: blackwell, 2004) 90 brown, a new introduction to islam (2017), p. xvii 91 ibid., pp. 14-15 92 ibid. 93 ibid., p. 336 94 ibid., p. xviii 95 ibid., pp. 3-17, esp. pp. 16-17 96 scharbrodt, in mjr (10, 1, august 2005), p. 3 97 diego sarrio, “review: brown, daniel w., a new introduction to islam (2nd edition), wiley-blackwell, malden, ma 2009, 341 pp.”, islamochristiana, 35 (2009): 333-336, p. 333 98 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), p. 261 99 ibid., pp. 261-62 100 brown, a new introduction to islam (2017), pp. xviii, 74, 89, 90, 120 101 parray, “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa (6, 2, 2021), p. 269. cf. pp. 260, 261 102 shepard, introducing islam (2014), p. 79; parray, “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa, (6, 2, 2021), p. 261 103 shepard, introducing islam (2014), p. 405 104 scharbrodt, in mjr (10, 1, august 2005), p. 3 105 waines, in bsoas (75, 2, 2012), p. 383 106 parray, “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa, (6, 2, 2021), p. 269 https://isrme.org/daniel-w-brown/ https://www.wiley.com/en-it/a+new+introduction+to+islam%2c+3rd+edition-p-9781118953464 https://www.wiley.com/en-it/a+new+introduction+to+islam%2c+3rd+edition-p-9781118953464 36 islamic history through a … 107 for biographical details, see https://lsa.umich.edu/middleeast/people/faculty/alknysh.html and https://www.routledge.com/islam-in-historicalperspective/knysh/p/book/9780367715809 (last accessed on 12th february, 2025) 108 alexander knysh, islam in historical perspective. 1st ed. (upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall and pearson publishers, 2011) 109 alexander knysh, islam in historical perspective, 2nd ed. (abingdon and new york: routledge, 2017) 110 knysh, islam in historical perspective, 3rd ed. (2025), pp. 1-3, 3-4 111 ibid., pp. 390-412 112 ibid., pp. 391, 406 113 ibid., p. 4 114 waines, in bsoas (75, 2, 2012), p. 384 115 ibid., p. 383 116 parray, 21st century trends and approaches in islamic scholarship, p. 222 117 knysh, islam in historical perspective (2025), p. 3 118 parray, “how to rethink islamic history as a civilization?”, kashmir life, 24th may, 2025 119 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), p. 266 120 parray, “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa (6, 2, 2021), p. 268 121 ibid., p. 269 122 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), pp. 266, 267 123 parray, “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa (6, 2, 2021), pp. 269-70; knysh, islam in historical perspective (2025), pp. 1-3; p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), p. 266 124 parray, “contemporary western scholarship on islam”, analisa (6, 2, 2021), p. 270 125 ibid., p. 268. see also the universities/ courses cited in note 32. moreover, in response to this author’s email query, dated 26th may, 2025, concerning the ranking of these books, prof. marcia hermansen (theology department, loyola university chicago, usa) noted that knysh’s book adopts “a historical approach” with a lot of detailed content, while brown’s work is notable for its “use of current research” but is deemed “offensive” because of its disregard for muslim sensitivities. denny’s book adopts a “religious studies approach”, while esposito’s work is “more about politics—[and is] thin on religion”. a similar email correspondence, dated 27th may, 2025, with prof. natana j. delong-bas (boston college, usa), who has also authored islam: a living faith (minnesota: anselm academic, 2018), indicated that esposito’s book is “more political and contemporary in [its] coverage”; in contrast, hillenbrand’s is characterized as “medievalist” with less emphasis on the “contemporary era”. (the author acknowledges their responses and insights with gratitude). 126 it is noteworthy to mention that in his ‘further reading’, roberto tottoli, islam: an advanced introduction, 1st ed. (abingdon, oxon and new york: routledge, 2020), pp. 117-120, esp. p. 117, identifies the works of denny, esposito, andrew rippin, and brown as “most significant in terms of contents and diffusion” in the list of “introductions to islam available to english readers.” 127 for biographical details, see https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014tibdaaw/tamarasonn (last accessed on 12th february, 2025) 128 akbar s. ahmed, “foreword”, in sonn, islam, p. xi 129 ibid., p. xiii 130 sonn, islam, p. xvi https://lsa.umich.edu/middleeast/people/faculty/alknysh.html https://www.routledge.com/islam-in-historical-perspective/knysh/p/book/9780367715809 https://www.routledge.com/islam-in-historical-perspective/knysh/p/book/9780367715809 https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014tibdaaw/tamara-sonn https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014tibdaaw/tamara-sonn hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 37 131 tamara sonn, islam: history, religion, and politics (uk: wiley-blackwell, 2016), pp. 139-194 132 professor akbar ahmed, “foreword”, in sonn, islam (2016), pp. ix-x 133 for biographical details, see https://edwebprofiles.ed.ac.uk/profile/carolehillenbrand and https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/carole-hillenbrandfba/ (last accessed on 12th february, 2025). see also, yasir suleiman, ed., living islamic history: studies in honour of professor carole hillenbrand (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2010) 134 hillenbrand, introduction to islam, pp. 9, 20 135 ibid., pp. 169-188 136 ibid., pp. 9, 17 137 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), pp. 256, 257 138 sanni, in mwbr (37, 2, 2017), p. 26 139 for biographical details, see https://www.colorado.edu/rlst/frederick-denny and https://www.routledge.com/introduction-to-islam/denny/p/book/9780138144777 (last accessed on 12th february, 2025) 140 denny, an introduction to islam (2016), p. xi 141 frederick mathewson denny, an introduction to islam, 1st ed. (new york: macmillan publishing company, 1985), pp. vii, viii 142 islam and bukhari, “islam 101…”, in ahmad, bukhari and nyang, eds., observing the observer, p. 190 143 p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016), pp. 252, 253, 266; hughes, situating islam, p. 89; shepard, introducing islam (2014), p. 405; elizabeth g. burr, “learning to teach islam as a non-muslim in the twin cities”, teaching theology and religion [ttr], 8, 3 (2005): 155-163 144 burr, in ttr (8,3, 2005), p. 157 145 for an overview of the list of introductory works, see lowin, in jor (86, 1, 2006): 164-66; lawrence, in cont. islam (2, 1, 2008): 85-89; waines, in bsoas (75, 2, 2012): 382-84; p. schrode, in religion (46, 2, 2016): 247-268; wolf, in jis (28, 2, may 2017): 221-224; kathryn kueny, “[review] islam: an advanced introduction. by roberto tottoli. london: routledge, 2020. …”, journal of near eastern studies, 81, 2 (october 2022): 433-434. there are also few translated introductions, such as tariq ramadan, islam: the essentials (penguin, 2017)/ introduction to islam (new york: oxford university press, 2017), translated by fred a. reed; roberto tottoli, islam: an advanced introduction, 1st ed. (abingdon, oxon and new york: routledge, 2020), originally published as introduzione all’islam in 2018 from rome. https://edwebprofiles.ed.ac.uk/profile/carole-hillenbrand https://edwebprofiles.ed.ac.uk/profile/carole-hillenbrand https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/carole-hillenbrand-fba/ https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/carole-hillenbrand-fba/ https://www.colorado.edu/rlst/frederick-denny https://www.routledge.com/introduction-to-islam/denny/p/book/9780138144777 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 63 islamic brotherhood and business social responsibility (bsr) in malaysia: a qualitative exploration of islamic faith-based business practices muhammad aiman awalluddin faculty of adminisrative science and policy studies, universiti teknologi mara, malaysia email: mdaiman@uitm.edu.my anisa safiah maznorbalia dept of al-quran and hadith, academy of islamic studies, university of malaya, 50603 kuala lumpur, malaysia email: safiah@utar.edu.my amer fawwaz mohamad yasid islamic education faculty of administrative science and policy studies, universiti teknologi mara, malaysia email: amerfawwaz@uitm.edu.my accepted on: 28-04-25 received on: 16-04-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.954 abstract this study looks at how islamic brotherhood influences business social responsibility (bsr) practices among muslim entrepreneurs, focusing on islamic principles like justice, fairness, and compassion. it explores the key motivations, both internal and external, that drive bsr behaviours in muslim-owned businesses. using a qualitative approach, the study involved semi-structured interviews and snowball sampling, selecting ten respondents who met the study's criteria. thematic analysis was applied to identify emerging themes. the findings show that islamic brotherhood strengthens individuals' core values, encouraging them to engage in moral development and incorporate bsr practices into their businesses. the study suggests that muslim entrepreneurs see their businesses not just as commercial ventures, but as a way to fulfill religious and ethical duties, promote community development, and support charitable causes. these faith-based motivations align with mailto:mdaiman@uitm.edu.my mailto:safiah@utar.edu.my mailto:amerfawwaz@uitm.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.954 64 islamic brotherhood and business … ethical business practices, highlighting the importance of islamic principles in shaping responsible business behaviour within the muslim entrepreneurial community. this research is significant because it contributes to both theory and practice, showing how faith-based motivations drive ethical decision-making in business. the study also offers practical insights for policymakers and business leaders on how to design bsr strategies that appeal to muslim entrepreneurs, encouraging them to adopt practices that benefit society. keywords: islamic brotherhood, social responsibility, intrinsic motivation, pro-social behaviour, development strategy, islamic business ethics introduction throughout history, people's attitudes and behaviours, both on an individual and a communal level, have been influenced by religion. bakar, lee and hashim1 state an individual's level of religiosity is a reflection of both their confidence in god and their dedication to behaving in a manner congruent with divine doctrines. an extensive study has been conducted on the relationship between one's religious and personal beliefs and psychological well-being, and strong connections have been discovered between these variables. religion is a universal human endeavour that impacts several cultural characteristics, moral conceptions and values, and human thought and behaviour. in general, religion answers the question of what it means to be a human being.2 it provides a comprehensive and empathetic understanding of human orientation in the world and is considered an essential component of human culture. scholars believe that religiosity has a significant impact on values, which in turn affect attitudes and eventually impact individual behaviour at work.3 for example, scholars have found that managers' personal values and religious beliefs strongly influence both their own decisions and the attitudes of their subordinates.4 religion and social responsibility have been the focus of various studies researchers5 which collectively highlight religion as a foundational moral compass that shapes ethical behaviour, promotes corporate transparency, and strengthens social accountability. social responsibility (sr), broadly defined as a business's obligation to society6, appears to have a clear relationship with religion, with some researchers attributing sr's origins to theological and religious actors and contributions.7 in this context, businesses want to play a big part in formulating and spreading moral and ethical prescriptions that align with the teachings of various religions. in the same vein, academics and practitioners have paid close attention to the impact of islamic religiosity on believers' behaviour. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 65 the notion of social responsibility has a long history in islam. for instance, the underlying concept and practice of sr date back centuries in the muslim world, e.g., îadaqah, zakét and waqf .8 the sr concept in islam's religious viewpoint is derived from the holy qur'én and the words and deeds of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) (sunnah). it provides a framework for a person's interactions with nature and other people. as a result, this quality is everlasting, unchanging, and unquestionable. in other words, it sets better standards for business people to follow when carrying out their social responsibilities and running their businesses. the islamic religion promotes full social justice and eliminates human rights exploitation. some scholars suggest that profit maximization is not the ultimate goal or the only ethical outcome of trade in islam.9 allah almighty has stated that "wealth and children are the embellishment of the worldly life, and the everlasting virtues are better with your lord, both in rewards and in creating good hopes" (holy qur'én 18:46). however, profit maximisation is tolerated in islamic law if reasonable efforts and liability assumptions are made. muslim entrepreneurs should support social responsibility because it is consistent with islamic teaching and principles. for the social order to endure, it is necessary for every member of society to voluntarily abide by the same righteous principles and practices. when islam was first revealed, it brought about a social revolution based on individual and collective morality and responsibility. words such as equality, justice, fairness, brotherhood, mercy, compassion, solidarity, and freedom of choice are used throughout the holy qur'én to talk about morality in its broadest sense, which encourages believers to adhere to those principles in their daily lives. throughout the history of humanity, business organisations have consistently played a significant part in people's economic and social lives. business activities are considered a religious obligation in islam.10 by sharing prosperity for the advancement of society, the concepts of brotherhood and social justice give rise to social responsibility.11 the principle of brotherhood requires muslims to be thoughtful (iísén) toward other brothers. islam encourages entrepreneurs to aid society and alleviate its suffering.12 the influence of islam can be seen in fundamentally distinct ways in the business world. it does this by connecting the inherent purpose of human existence to the realm of business. in the islamic religion, life after death is said to be final, permanent, and never-ending. the following verse reflects the quranic guidance regarding acquiring wealth and pursuing an earthly life. allah almighty said, "and seek the (betterment of) the ultimate abode with what allah has given to you, and do not neglect your share from this world, and do good as allah did good to you, and do not 66 islamic brotherhood and business … seek to make mischief in the land. surely, allah does not like the mischief-makers." (holy qur’én, 28:77). hence, social responsibility is critical for islamic business organisations. for example, meeting the needs of needy muslims, easing the burden of muslim debtors, alleviation of poverty, and assisting stranded individuals in continuing their journey are examples of entrepreneurial social responsibility.13 the significant amount of holy qur’én’s verses and hadiths on the concept of brotherhood has driven this study to forward the notion of the islamic brotherhood as a source of motivation for bsr among muslim entrepreneurs. the concept considers intrinsic motivation, which originates from within and occurs when engaging in behaviour or activity because it is personally rewarding rather than for financial rewards. it is consistent with previous research that sr is driven by personal beliefs, values, and religious convictions.14 it is important to highlight that there is limited research on how islamic brotherhood contributes to social development. this study aims to fill this gap by exploring how islamic brotherhood promotes social responsibility among muslim entrepreneurs and, in turn, drives the broader concept of islamic social development, where every muslim is responsible for each other's well-being. by focusing on islamic brotherhood as a motivator for business social responsibility (bsr), this study provides a new perspective that moves beyond the typical external obligations or financial incentives. instead, it looks at how deeply rooted islamic values such as justice, compassion, and mutual responsibility influence entrepreneurs to act in ways that benefit the community. this study makes three key contributions. first, it uses a qualitative approach, which provides rich insights into how islamic brotherhood motivates social responsibility. this is the first study to explore this concept from a real-world, experiential standpoint. second, the research explores the internal factors that drive entrepreneurs to engage in social responsibility practices and identifies the islamic social instruments, like îadaqah, zakét, and waqf, that they use to fulfill these responsibilities. finally, the study calls for a deeper understanding of islamic brotherhood, not only as a tool for promoting social causes but also as a framework that guides entrepreneurs to align their practices with the islamic values of justice and community. this work offers a fresh perspective on how intrinsic religious values shape business practices and contribute to social development within the context of islamic entrepreneurship. the following is how the paper is organised: section 2 explores the literature review. section 3 goes over the methodology. section 4 presents the study's findings and discussion. section 5 offers the study's conclusion. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 67 literature review islamic concept of brotherhood our world has grown into one closely connected community, where the actions of one can easily impact many. no person, organisation, or nation can truly stand alone or ignore what happens beyond their borders. in this shared existence, living together peacefully has become more important than ever. islam beautifully highlights this need through its teachings of brotherhood among muslims and the broader message of solidarity with all of humanity, reminding us to care for and support one another in our shared journey. both of these tenets are founded on the equality of all men and religious cooperation and tolerance.15 the muslim brotherhood is complete and perfect. it is founded on religious and spiritual unity. according to the holy qur’én and the sunnah teachings, muslims from every corner of the globe are considered a single community. and religious unity and spiritual brotherhood serve as the primary pillars of this community; "all believers are but brothers…"(holy qur’én, 49:10). "surely, this is the fraternity of your faith, a single faith, and i am your lord; so worship me." (holy qur’én, 21:92). in islam, brotherhood and unity are twin ideals that strengthen each other to preserve a human model of the tawíêd message on earth. brotherhood provides the tie of love, affection, and concern in such a way that a believer sees a fellow believer similarly to how he sees himself in the mirror: he would desire for his fellow believer what he would want for himself in the mirror.16 the following prophetic holy tradition affirms this link of brotherhood: "muslims have only one dhimmah or covenant, obligation, debt; none of you is sincere believers unless you love for your brother what you love for yourself." "the believers, in their sympathy, mercy and affection, are like the organs of a single body; when one limb suffers from pain, the other limbs are overtaken by sleeplessness and fever". "believers are like unto pillars which support each other."17 while brotherhood assures a loving tie for the sake of the creator, unity ensures that the ummah will pursue common goals that will bring it closer to fulfilling the purpose for which it was created. the muslim brotherhood is not organised along racial or ethnic lines or motivated by economic concerns. it is based on something incomparably more excellent, rejecting error and embracing the truth as allah almighty has revealed it. it is asserted that allah almighty is the one who articulates the bond of brotherhood. this becomes evident through the shared practices of worship, which collectively express and reinforce the divine connection. moreover, the unity of the ummah is sustained through the cooperative efforts of believers who actively work to preserve it.18 68 islamic brotherhood and business … the scholars agree that islamic institutions such as zakét, îadaqah, and waqf constitute another component that brings muslims together.19 because of allah almighty's design, some people are enormously blessed with material luxury, while others are compelled to fight for their existence. the connection can be made using these islamic social and financial instruments. the receiver does not worship the giver, and the giver is not elevated to godlike status by the recipient. both parties benefit from the exchange. each one serves as a foundation upon which the command of allah almighty can be carried out. because of this activity, love in its purest and most enduring form will emerge as the fruit of one's labour. the poor people and the rich people come together as one because they are both witnesses to this divine process. in simple terms, islam views all of humanity as one big family, where every man and woman are connected as brothers and sisters. among muslims, this belief encourages stronger social ties, leading to deeper understanding and the advancement of a thriving muslim community. the concept of muslim brotherhood serves as the foundation for building a moral and virtuous society. at its core, this brotherhood teaches believers to clear their hearts of negativity such as hatred and hostility. it promotes kindness, treating others as we wish to be treated, and uniting around shared beliefs and values. faith, family bonds, and humanity form the pillars of this unity. every muslim is expected to respect and uphold these values in their interactions with others. for the sake of allah almighty, fostering a spirit of friendship, togetherness, and mutual purpose is seen as the highest form of brotherhood in islam. through this unity, muslims work hand in hand to achieve the goals of their faith and live out its values in daily life. islamic perspective on business social responsibility islam places a high value on business and social responsibility. from an islamic standpoint, bsr is very similar to the takaful concept (social solidarity), which emphasises community benefits built and based on relationship characteristics.20 regarding the takaful, analogically, business exemplifies sr by providing genuine assistance to the community, but they do not expect anything in return. at the same time, they would like to see social progress and change. several prophet’s (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) hadiths and quranic verses emphasise the benefits of doing good deeds, which can be interpreted as doing social responsibility by entrepreneurs. for example, allah almighty says, "o you who believe, shall i tell you about a trade that saves you from a painful punishment? that you believe in allah and his messenger, and carry out jihad in his way with your riches and your lives. that is much better for you, if you but know." (holy qurén: 61:10-11). hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 69 according to the verses, the definition of a bargain is something in which a person uses his resources (wealth, time, labour, and talent) to make a profit. in the same way, faith and jihad in the cause of allah almighty have been called a bargain, as if to say: if you exert all of your powers and spend all of your resources in the way of allah almighty, you will receive the profits outlined in the following verses, which when interpolated means that when the believers are asked to believe, it instantly gives the interpretation that they ought to become sincere muslims; they should not be satisfied with an oral profession of faith but should be ready to put their faith into action, in other words, making a sacrifice for faith. in addition, bsr islam has been related to maîlaíah ‘émmah, or the public interest, to promote faléí, happiness, and well-being of people.21 as a demonstration of their êmén, or perfect faith, entrepreneurs are urged by islam to be generous and to have a good intention towards all creatures and humans. according to islam, the purpose of every action or deed is crucial. in contrast, evil intent or ill will results in adverse outcomes, and good intent or good will yields positive results. therefore, an entrepreneur's intention will determine if their behaviour is worthy or not. if they intend to act reasonably, allah almighty will undoubtedly reward them. there is a hadith that states that each person will be awarded per their intentions: "surely, the reward of acts depends on the intents".22 entrepreneurs must maintain íablun min allah or a good relationship with allah almighty, íablun min an-nés or a good relationship with other humans, and a good relationship with the environment to accomplish the maqéîid-i sharê‘ah for the public interest.23 maqéîidi sharê‘ah refers to the goals intended by sharê‘ah to attain material and spiritual benefits for human welfare and good living.24 both spiritual and material motivations encourage entrepreneurs to invest their fortune to win rewards in this life and the next. the maqéîid-i sharê‘ah emphasises three interconnected dimensions: (i) seeking allah almighty 's pleasure in establishing socioeconomic justice and achieving the role of the vicegerent in preserving the environment; (ii) realising benefits to the community; and (iii) pursuing benefits to one's wealth. the concept of bsr, from an islamic perspective, contrasts with western philosophy. while western thinking is focused on selfenlightenment and extrinsic reward.25 islamic thought focuses on commitment to allah almighty for all people's reverence and gratitude.26 the principle calls for complete submission to allah almighty's will (holy qur’én 6:162) and adherence to religious requirements in all facets of one's life. people and entrepreneurial organisations in the islamic framework are held accountable to allah almighty on the day of judgment for all their actions during this life (quran 4:86). muslim entrepreneurs should consider social 70 islamic brotherhood and business … obligations in addition to conducting business by allah almighty's commands as prescribed by sharê‘ah principles. in other words, islam has taught us that our lives aren't just about us but also about sharing our wealth with others. by emphasising the importance of shared prosperity, islam goes against the conservative and major peoples' beliefs on business. that is, the sole purpose of business is to make a profit, and business is, without a doubt, a profit-oriented enterprise. according to islam, no matter how hard people work for it, no matter how strong their justifications and excuses are, and whatever wealth a person does possess, it has been given to him by allah almighty. without the grace of allah almighty, man is unable to amass riches. a person needs to understand that wealth should not be accumulated by a single person, meaning that entrepreneurs should not expect to keep all the profits for themselves. in islam, doing so is strictly forbidden. "so that it (wealth) may not circulate only between the rich among you" (holy qur’én, 59:7). wealth accumulation can lead to exploitation, social discord, and the creation of a wealth gap between rich and poor people. the islamic bsr seeks to bring justice to all people. if entrepreneurs earn a lot of profit, they are encouraged to spend it for social well-being. social activity will improve society's living conditions and increase the chances of raising future generations who can help the community. in this situation, helping one increases the likelihood that one will be able to generate another person capable of helping society in the future. the ideas of this sr are already embedded in zakét, where zakét recipients can stand on their own and also pay zakét to develop the next generation. moreover, large corporations in malaysia have effectively implemented the notion of bsr. the creation of corporate waqf by johor corporation (jcorp) has revolutionized waqf operations in malaysia. the first instance of waqf assets being in the form of business shares was issued and administered by a corporate organization. jcorp's proceeds were directed to the waqaf an-nur corporation (wancorp). jcorp has established a corporate entity to oversee waqf assets with the purpose of promoting social welfare, including offering health and medical treatment to those in need. another successful initiative is the collaboration between bsr bank muamalat malaysia berhad (bmmb) and perbadanan wakaf selangor (pws) to introduce the cash waqf plan called wakaf selangor muamalat (wsm). both parties have agreed to jointly manage and administer a waqf asset consisting of cash deposited at any bmmb branches. the collected funds will be directed towards certain waqf programs related to education and health. to summarise, social responsibility in islam encompasses accountability not only to humans but also to allah almighty, and it differs significantly from the concept of conservative of bsr in hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 71 western cultures. bsr contains more than meeting legal responsibilities or fulfilling tangible rights; it's also a moral27 and religious responsibility ensuring the continuation of business and society.28 because the objectives of islamic business entities are based on sharê‘ah, the bsr objectives and practices of islamic business entities ought to be drawn from islamic law and the principles of sharê‘ah as brought to light in the holy qur’én and assunnah. aspect islamic brotherhood-bsr westernbsr/csr primary motivation intrinsic: rooted in religious duty (e.g., iííîén) and communal identity. entrepreneurs view bsr as a spiritual obligation and expression of faith. extrinsic: driven by corporate image, legal compliance, or stakeholder expectations (e.g., reputational benefits, risk mitigation). framework grounded in islamic principles/ divine mandate. (e.g., maqéîid-i sharê’ah, zakét, waqf). aligns business practices with divine accountability and communal welfare. often follows secular or profitoriented frameworks (e.g., triple bottom line, esg criteria). focuses on sustainability reports and regulatory adherence. community engagement relational: deeply integrated into business identity. entrepreneurs feel a kinship with beneficiaries (e.g., brothers in religion). transactional: community initiatives are often projectbased or tied to corporate strategy (e.g., philanthropy as a pr tool). accountability to allah almighty and the ummah (community). to shareholders and regulators. 72 islamic brotherhood and business … table 1. summaries of islamic brotherhood-bsr and westernbsr/csr methodology this study adopted a qualitative research design to explore the motivations driving muslim entrepreneurs in selangor, malaysia, to engage in islamic-based social responsibility (bsr) practices. data collection was conducted through semi-structured, face-to-face interviews, allowing for an in-depth understanding of participants' lived experiences and personal insights. the choice of qualitative methodology is well-supported in exploring complex social phenomena. particularly, when the aim is to understand behaviours and motivations within a specific cultural and religious context. participant recruitment employed snowball sampling, a method recognised for its effectiveness in qualitative research, especially when targeting specific populations that may not be easily accessible.29 the inclusion criteria were rigorously established to ensure that participants were entrepreneurs actively engaged in waqf, îadaqah, or similar csr initiatives, with activities verified through community testimonials and formal business registration with the companies commission of malaysia. furthermore, participants were required to have a minimum of five years of entrepreneurial actions are judged by religious standards and eternal rewards or spirit accountability. measured by tangible outcomes (e.g., roi, compliance metrics). sustainability enduring due to internalized values. shared identity fosters mutual support (e.g., pandemic resilience). dependent on external incentives (e.g., tax breaks, consumer demand). vulnerable to csr-washing critiques. key instruments islamic social tools (e.g., zakét, øadaqah, waqf) ensure wealth redistribution and communal solidarity. financial donations, volunteer programs, and sustainability initiatives (e.g., carbon offsetting). hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 73 experience to ensure depth in professional exposure and sustained engagement in philanthropic efforts. recruitment began in selangor, malaysia, by leveraging informal networks within the local business community, encompassing a variety of sectors such as coffee, pastry, wellness, and local product innovations. initial participants were identified through community meetings, particularly with muslim business associations, and subsequent referrals expanded the pool to a total of ten participants (labelled r1 to r10), representing diverse yet thematically aligned backgrounds. the justification for the sample size of ten participants is anchored in qualitative research standards that advocate for depth over breadth as well as achieving data saturation.30 data saturation, the point at which no new themes emerge31 was observed after the eighth interview. however, to enhance the study’s validity and richness, interviews continued until the tenth participant, allowing for further triangulation of findings and ensuring the robustness of emerging themes.32 prior to the interviews, participants completed a preliminary instrument designed to capture their perceptions of islamic brotherhood, their understanding of bsr, and the types of islamic social instruments utilised to fulfil bsr responsibilities. the interviews commenced with an introductory statement aligned with ethical guidelines for research involving human subjects. with participants' consent, interviews were audio-recorded to preserve accuracy, and transcripts were shared with participants as part of the member-checking process, reinforcing the study's trustworthiness. to analyse the data, this study employed braun and clarke’s six-phase thematic analysis framework.33 this approach involved: (1) familiarisation with the data through iterative reading of transcripts, (2) generating initial codes, (3) searching for themes among codes, (4) reviewing themes to ensure coherence, (5) defining and naming themes, and (6) producing a final report with illustrative quotes. this systematic framework facilitated a rigorous examination of the data, allowing the researchers to identify recurring patterns and construct meaningful narratives grounded in participants’ experiences. to mitigate potential researcher bias and enhance the validity of the findings, several strategies were implemented. first, all interviews were transcribed verbatim and independently coded by two researchers.34 inter-coder reliability was ensured through regular discussions and consensus meetings to resolve discrepancies in coding. second, member-checking was employed by returning the interview transcripts to participants for verification, thus enhancing the credibility of the data. third, triangulation was achieved by crossreferencing participants’ narratives with community testimonials and existing literature on islamic philanthropy and entrepreneurship.35 74 islamic brotherhood and business … additionally, maintaining an audit trail of coding decisions and theme development contributed to the transparency and dependability of the analytical process. overall, the methodological rigor of this study, underpinned by recognised qualitative research protocols, systematic data analysis, and multiple validity checks, ensured a comprehensive exploration of the motivations influencing muslim entrepreneurs’ engagement in bsr practices. findings and discussion brotherhood concept enhance personal value for doing bsr the interview findings with ten active socio-entrepreneurs provide compelling evidence of the role the islamic brotherhood concept plays in shaping entrepreneurial values and behaviours. respondent 5, for example, highlighted the transformative power of bsr on personal growth, saying, "i engage in bsr because i love my community, particularly muslims. i want to see the community's well-being maintained, and i want to see the social recipients smile and live comfortably. when we engage in bsr, it implicitly lowers our selfishness and teaches us that inside our money resides the rights of others." this statement underscores the idea that the islamic brotherhood concept helps entrepreneurs cultivate a deep sense of community, compassion, and selflessness. the idea of money as a tool for communal benefit challenges the typical profit-driven mindset, reinforcing that wealth should serve broader societal good rather than just personal accumulation. similarly, respondent 2 explained, “even though our business is small, we only give the public what we can afford. those in need are frequently assisted with money, rice, or oil. for me, social responsibility not only represents an ethic in business, but our religion also expects it. helping others is a good thing to do, even if the person is not muslim.” this reinforces that the islamic ethos is not merely an ethical guideline but a spiritual duty that compels business owners to contribute to society, regardless of the recipient’s faith. what sets this study apart is its exploration of the deep connection between islamic values and bsr practices, specifically through the lens of islamic brotherhood. while much of the existing literature on bsr emphasizes general ethical practices or secular models of social responsibility, this study goes a step further by directly linking the practice of social responsibility with religious and spiritual values, particularly those rooted in islam. the concept of islamic brotherhood, which stresses the importance of unity and collective well-being, serves as a unique framework for understanding why and how muslim entrepreneurs engage in bsr. previous studies have also shown that religiosity influences prosocial behaviours 36, suggesting that faith can foster a greater concern hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 75 for the welfare of others, but this study provides a deeper dive into how these values are practically applied in business practices.37 the findings suggest that islamic brotherhood does more than just inspire moral behaviour, it creates a holistic value system that integrates business practices with religious duties, creating a synergy that drives both ethical decision-making and active contributions to the community. the study also offers unique insights into how entrepreneurs internalize religious values, like those derived from islamic brotherhood, and apply them to their businesses. as the entrepreneurs shared, even small businesses with limited resources still prioritize social responsibility, demonstrating that the islamic values they adhere to are not constrained by size or profit margin. this is an important contribution to the literature, as it challenges the assumption that only larger corporations can engage in meaningful bsr.38 it also supports the growing body of evidence that religiosity plays a key role in shaping attitudes toward business ethics and prosocial behaviour.39 additionally, the respondents’ responses provide new evidence that religious faith does not merely inform ethical decision-making, it actively shapes business practices by fostering a sense of duty to others and the collective good. brotherhood concept as a social conformity for doing bsr the findings of this study bring forward an important conversation about the contrast between islamic brotherhood-driven bsr and conventional, especially standard-based csr frameworks. traditionally, csr has been largely driven by corporate image, legal compliance, or market expectations, where social contributions are often viewed as part of a company’s strategy to build reputation or achieve sustainability credentials. in the standard model, csr is frequently transactional businesses give back to communities to maintain a social license to operate or to meet stakeholder demands.40 however, what emerged strongly from this research is that islamic brotherhood–based bsr operates on a fundamentally different premise. it is not transactional but relational and deeply rooted in shared faith, moral responsibility, and communal identity. respondent 8’s statement highlights this well: “there was a silent understanding that society expected us to contribute. people would say, 'we are brothers in religion. could you help me?' how can i reject them when i feel obligated to make their lives easier?” unlike standard csr, where the motivator is often external reward or risk mitigation41 here the motivator is an internalised sense of duty to one's community and faith. this is a crucial distinction because, in standard csr frameworks, philanthropy and social initiatives can sometimes feel disconnected from the lived realities of the community, an add-on 76 islamic brotherhood and business … rather than a natural extension of business practice. in contrast, bsr grounded in islamic brotherhood integrates social responsibility into the very identity of the entrepreneur. respondent 4 reinforced this by stating, “since it is an islamic value and conforms to our society's norms, the majority of people in our society are educated about it.” here, social conformity acts as a positive reinforcement mechanism, ensuring that ethical business conduct and community care are not occasional activities but continuous practices. this natural integration arguably leads to more sustainable and heartfelt community engagement. while some critics of csr argue that without regulatory enforcement, businesses might deprioritise social responsibility 42this study demonstrates that in the islamic brotherhood context, the moral and spiritual accountability felt by entrepreneurs often exceeds that of legally mandated csr. furthermore, while standard csr initiatives sometimes struggle with authenticity, facing public scepticism about "green washing" or "csr-washing", the islamic brotherhood–inspired bsr has the advantage of perceived authenticity, as it is underpinned by genuine religious teachings and societal expectations. this internalisation minimises the risk of performative actions and encourages sincere, impactful contributions to society. in essence, while standard csr models typically rely on compliance and reputational incentives, the islamic brotherhood approach to bsr transforms social responsibility into a form of spiritual fulfilment and community integration. entrepreneurs perceive their contributions not as corporate strategy, but as acts of faith and fraternity, which enhances the authenticity and sustainability of their efforts. this comparison underscores the unique value of embedding religious and cultural values into business ethics, offering a more holistic and enduring approach to social responsibility that could serve as a powerful complement or even an alternative to mainstream csr models in similar socio-religious contexts. brotherhood concept is a shared identity that promoting bsr this study reveals a compelling discovery: the deeply ingrained concept of islamic brotherhood is not merely a spiritual belief but a powerful social force that binds muslim entrepreneurs to business social responsibility (bsr) practices. unlike previous studies, which viewed religious identity as having shifted to a less centralized form43, the findings illuminate how islamic teachings actively shape behaviour, fostering a lived experience of unity and collective responsibility. the respondents internalised the view that all muslims are kin, regardless of biological relation, which not only nurtures a profound sense of belonging but also compels them to act in service of their community. this echoes the assertion that humans hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 77 have a fundamental need to belong, but here, religion intensifies that need by framing it as a divine obligation44. respondent 8 articulated this beautifully, stating, "i feel entitled to perform bsr because i consider others my kin. we practised the same religion and were taught that every muslim was related to us. if we have relatives in need, we should do everything we can to help them." this statement highlights how religious identity transcends mere affiliation to become an ethical compass that naturally extends into business practices. where earlier research primarily focused on standard motivations for corporate responsibility45, our study shows that for muslim entrepreneurs, bsr is not a strategy but an expression of faith, a daily embodiment of their spiritual commitment. the study further identifies that this shared religious identity generates not only moral motivations but also tangible social and economic benefits, especially during times of crisis. respondent 9 affirmed this by sharing, "we do good things without realising it because of the islamic cause. as muslims, we believe that helping others is pious; we do not seek compensation because we believe they will help us if we are in need... during the pandemic, my business struggled, but i received community support to keep it running." this illustrates how communal support is not transactional but deeply embedded in the belief system itself. prior studies, such as those by scholars, have discussed the role of social capital in strengthening community resilience.46 however, this research extends those findings by showing that religiously anchored identity creates a form of spiritual capital, a proactive, deeply rooted readiness to support one another without expectation of direct reciprocity. moreover, while earlier literature often presented religious groups as providers of emotional comfort47, this study uncovers a broader dynamic. shared islamic identity fosters not only emotional solidarity but also practical collaboration in entrepreneurial activities. entrepreneurs do not merely feel supported; they become active contributors to a self-sustaining economic and social ecosystem driven by their religious values. this finding adds a new dimension to the understanding of religiosity in business, highlighting how faithbased identity transforms personal belief into communal economic resilience. in sum, this study advances existing knowledge by revealing how islamic brotherhood operates as a dual force, both spiritual and structural, that shapes entrepreneurs’ approach to bsr. it transforms their sense of belonging into actionable support systems, especially during economic challenges, thus intertwining religious commitment with sustainable business practices. these insights contribute to a richer understanding of how faith can function as a dynamic enabler 78 islamic brotherhood and business … of social responsibility, moving beyond individual piety to collective well-being. theme key findings respondent statements brotherhood concept enhances personal value for doing bsr the islamic brotherhood concept improves the personal values of entrepreneurs, encouraging them to be more selfless, ethical, and compassionate toward society. it motivates them to engage in bsr as a way of contributing to societal well-being. respondent 5: "i engage in bsr because i love my community, particularly muslims. i want to see the community's wellbeing maintained and i want to see the social recipients smile and live comfortably... it teaches us that inside our money resides the rights of others." respondent 2: "helping others is a good thing to do, even if the person is not muslim." brotherhood concept as a social conformity for doing bsr social conformity plays a key role in motivating entrepreneurs to practice bsr, as societal expectations align with religious teachings. entrepreneurs often feel a sense of duty due to their religious and social identity. respondent 4: "the islamic brotherhood is a noble concept, especially for muslims, because the prophet advocated it... the majority of people in our society are educated about it." respondent 8: "...there was a silent understanding that society expected us to contribute to them... how can i reject them when i feel obligated to make their lives easier? brotherhood concept as a shared identity promoting bsr the shared identity in islam binds entrepreneurs to their communities, creating a sense of belonging and kinship that motivates them to engage in bsr activities. this shared religious identity fosters a collective commitment to help others. respondent 8: "i feel entitled to perform bsr because i consider others my kin... we practised the same religion and were taught that every muslim was related to us." respondent 9: "during the pandemic, my business struggled, but i received community support to keep it running." table 2. summaries of findings hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 79 conclusion islam mandates bsr as a component of worship to regulate the connection of muslims with allah almighty and other individuals in order to achieve blessings and prosper in both this world and the hereafter. therefore, muslim enterprises should actively participate in bsr activities by implementing islamic social practices like zakét, waqf, and îadaqah while managing business operations in alignment with allah almighty 's will and sharê’éh principles. this study concludes that bsr encompasses activities in which businesses engage to fulfill their religious, social, and economic responsibilities to maintain positive relationships with allah almighty, other human beings, and the environment so as to achieve sharê’éh objectives and general welfare. rather than viewing social action from the standpoint of extrinsic rewards, religious concepts are motivated by the desire to practise social activity without expecting anything in return. in other words, it theoretically contradicts the notion that bsr is performed for extrinsic advantage. however, the findings of this study support prior research on the informal factors of doing sr among entrepreneurs. they emphasised that intrinsic motivation (e.g., cultural norms, societal value, and aggregate society perspective) were considered the precursors of bsr activity. the findings of this study provide valuable insights, both theoretically and practically, by filling a significant gap in the literature regarding the islamic brotherhood concept in business social responsibility (bsr). while previous research on bsr has often overlooked this perspective, this study highlights key factors that encourage entrepreneurs to engage in bsr, viewed through the lens of islamic brotherhood. the study reveals that the islamic brotherhood concept plays a crucial role in motivating entrepreneurs by enhancing their intrinsic values. it shows that social conformity, the desire to meet religious expectations, and a shared identity between entrepreneurs and their communities are powerful motivators for engaging in bsr. this adds a fresh layer to existing research, extending the spiritual bsr paradigm and grounding it in practical, reality-based factors that resonate with today's entrepreneurs. the findings of this study provide a clear direction for how businesses, policymakers, and educators can work together to strengthen business social responsibility (bsr) through islamic values. policymakers and business leaders, for example, can draw from the principle of islamic brotherhood to design community programmes that go beyond surface-level contributions and genuinely address the needs of local communities. governments could offer tangible incentives such as tax deductions or grants to businesses that actively support welfare projects and community development initiatives. beyond financial incentives, encouraging 80 islamic brotherhood and business … partnerships between businesses, community groups, and religious organisations will help ensure that bsr activities are meaningful and grounded in shared values. equally important is embedding the principle of iíísan, the pursuit of excellence in helping others, into corporate business strategies, so that businesses are inspired not only to meet their responsibilities but to go further by making a lasting impact on the communities they serve. at the same time, academics and educators play a crucial role by incorporating these islamic principles into entrepreneurship training and educational programmes. future entrepreneurs should be taught how values like islamic brotherhood and ihsén can be practical tools for building not only successful but socially responsible businesses. this kind of education fosters a mind-set that views businesses as contributors to the greater good, not just as profit-driven entities. for practitioners, especially muslim entrepreneurs, these findings serve as a reminder to embed social responsibility into their daily operations and longterm planning. promoting the use of islamic social instruments, such as zakét and waqf, can further help close wealth gaps and promote justice in society. continuous public education and engagement campaigns are essential to raise awareness of these tools and inspire broader participation. altogether, by weaving these insights into policy, education, and business practice, we create a sustainable ecosystem where businesses are recognised as active partners in building resilient, fair, and thriving communities. despite the valuable insights this study provides, there are several limitations that should be acknowledged. firstly, the study primarily focuses on muslim entrepreneurs, which means its findings may not be universally applicable to all business owners across different cultural or religious backgrounds. the emphasis on islamic values, while providing depth in the context of muslim communities, limits the ability to generalize the results to entrepreneurs outside of this group. secondly, the research was conducted in a specific geographical region, which may not account for the diverse socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors that influence business social responsibility (bsr) in different parts of the world. therefore, the findings might not be applicable in regions with differing economic structures or cultural norms. additionally, the study predominantly utilizes qualitative data, which, while providing rich and in-depth insights, may be subject to researcher bias and may not fully capture the broader quantitative patterns of bsr behaviour. the impact of external factors such as government regulations, economic conditions, or industry-specific challenges was not thoroughly examined in this study, and these factors could significantly influence bsr practices in real-world scenarios. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 81 future research could expand on this study by examining the role of islamic values in business social responsibility (bsr) across different religious and cultural contexts to determine whether similar principles influence non-muslim entrepreneurs. a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data, would provide a more comprehensive understanding of bsr practices and the effectiveness of islamic social instruments like zakét and waqf. additionally, studies across various regions and industries, considering factors such as government policies, economic conditions, and cultural differences, could reveal how these external elements influence bsr behaviours. longitudinal studies could also track changes over time, offering deeper insights into the long-term impact of bsr initiatives. notes and references 1 a bakar, r lee, and n. h hashim, “parsing religiosity, guilt and materialism in consumer ethics,” journal of islamic marketing 4, no. 3 (2013): 232–44. 2 muhammad aiman awalluddin, “redefining rational (aqlī) and revelation (naqlī) into a concept of islamic systemology,” teosofi: jurnal tasawuf dan pemikiran islam 9, no. 2 (2019): 407–27, https://doi.org/10.15642/teosofi.2019.9.2.407-427. 3 mohamed mousa and walid chaouali, “inspiring workplace happiness: religiosity and organizational trust in the academic context,” asia-pacific journal of business administration 14, no. 4 (2021): 658–74, https://doi.org/10.1108/apjba-08-2021-0416. 4 edoardo ongaro and michele tantardini, “religion, spirituality, faith and public administration: a literature review and outlook,” public policy and administration 39, no. 4 (2024): 531–55, https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767221146866. 5 m. kabir hassan et al., “the religious fringe of corporate social responsibility,” international review of economics & finance 80 (2022): 243–65, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iref.2022.02.003. 6 muhammad aiman awalluddin, “shareholder activism and corporate social responsibility in malaysia,” journal of economics and administrative sciences faculty 7, no. 1 (2020): 1–19, https://doi.org/10.30798/makuiibf.532662. 7 dominik van aaken and florian buchner, “religion and csr: a systematic literature review,” journal of business economics 90, no. 5–6 (2020): 917–45, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-020-00977-z/tables/8. 8 muhammad aiman awalluddin, “exploring the role of waqf instrument in supporting educational development: a qualitative content analysis,” fitrah: jurnal kajian ilmu-ilmu keislaman 9, no. 1 (2023), https://doi.org/10.24952/fitrah.v9i1.7381. 9 rusnah muhamad, mohd edil abd. sukor, and mohd rizal muwazir@mukhazir, “corporate social responsibility: an islamic perspective,” asian journal of accounting perspectives 1, no. 1 (2008): 43–56, https://doi.org/10.22452/ajap.vol1no1.4. 10 i. m. i. h al-shaibani, kitab al-kasb min kutub al-iqtisadi al-islami (maktab almatbu’ah, syria, 1997). 11 s. n. h. naqvi, ethics and economics: an islamic synthesis (leicester: islamic foundation, 1981). 82 islamic brotherhood and business … 12 abul khayr md yunus, “some problems of business ethics: islamic point of view,” philosophy and progress, (2019): 67–92, https://doi.org/10.3329/pp.v61i12.44203. 13 anisah bagasra, “socially engaged islam: applying social psychological principles to social justice, faith-based activism and altruism in muslim communities,” cross cultural advancements in positive psychology 15 (2021): 29– 49, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72606-5_2. 14 elizabeth sepper and james d nelson, “the religious conversion of corporate social responsibility,” emory law of journal 217, no. 71 (2021), https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/vol71/iss2/2. 15 s mohagegh damad and m pahlevan, “religious tolerance & universal brotherhood,” quranic science and tradition 49, no. 1 (2016): 117–40, https://doi.org/10.22059/jqst.2016.58719. 16 sulaiman sheu adua and moshood atanda hadi, “unity: the hall mark of islam,” international journal of humanities social sciences and education 7, no. 1 (2020): 37–41, https://doi.org/10.20431/2349-0381.0701004. 17 muhammad ibn shihab al-din suyuti, al-jami’ al-saghir (dar al-fikr, 1990). 18 t el-miskin, “forging islamic brotherhood and unity: towards transcendental ideals for the ummah’s cohesion,” in unity and uniformity among muslims: some contemporary imperatives, ed. s.a jimoh (ilorin: unilorin press, 2009). 19 youssef chetioui et al., “antecedents of giving charitable donations (sadaqah) during the covid-19 pandemic: does islamic religiosity matter?,” journal of islamic marketing, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1108/jima-09-2021-0296. 20 ghafoorzai shaiq ahmad and nur farhah mahadi, “public awareness, knowledge, and perception towards takāful in afghanistan” 1, no. 2 (2023). 21 abdulrazaq suleiman ibrahim et al., “the ethical compass of islamic corporate social responsibility: a path to sustainable impact,” in corporate social responsibility a global perspective (2024), https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1005405. 22 asyraf wajdi dusuki, “understanding the objectives of islamic banking: a survey of stakeholders’ perspectives,” international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management 1, no. 2 (2008): 132–48, https://doi.org/10.1108/17538390810880982/full/xml. 23 imam al bukhari, sahih al-bukhari: revelation (mohee uddin, 2020). 24 m. m. r. k afridi and m. i navaid, morality under quran (new delhi: anmol publication pvt. ltd, 2006). 25 siv marina flø grimstad, richard glavee-geo, and barbro elisabeth fjørtoft, “smes motivations for csr: an exploratory study,” european business review 32, no. 4 (2020): 553–72, https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr-01-2019-0014. 26 a. s. ibrahim, and t. s. tijjani, “the ethical compass of islamic corporate social responsibility: a path to sustainable impact,” in corporate social responsibility— a global perspective (2024), https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1005405. 27 amin, h. a. (2024). islamic leadership: fostering good morals and ethical behavior. karachi islamicus, 4(2), 20-30. 28 muhammad aiman awalluddin et al., “micro-enterprises and csr: unveiling micro-businesses perspectives on social responsibility,” quantum journal of social sciences and humanities 5, no. 4 (024): 264–72, https://doi.org/10.55197/qjssh.v5i4.482. 29 s. b merriam and r. s grenier, qualitative research in practice: examples for discussion and analysis (john wiley & sons, 2019). 30 horward lune and bruce l. berg, qualitative research methods for the social sciences, 9th ed. (pearson, 2021). 31 r. k yin, case study research design and methods, 6th ed. (los angeles: sage, 2018). 32 ibid. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.1005405 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 83 33 virginia braun and victoria clarke, “using thematic analysis in psychology,” qualitative research in psychology 3, no. 2 (2006): 77–101, https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa. 34 harry lune and berg b. l., qualitative research methods for the social sciences, 9th ed. (new york: pearson, 2021). 35 yin, case study research. 36 jo-ann tsang, rosemary l al-kire, and juliette l ratchford, “prosociality and religion,” current opinion in psychology, religion, 40 (2021): 67–72, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.08.025. 37 kun su, “does religion benefit corporate social responsibility (csr)? evidence from china,” corporate social responsibility and environmental management 26, no. 6 (2019): 1206–21, https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1742. 38 joana costa and josé pedro fonseca, “the impact of corporate social responsibility and innovative strategies on financial performance,” risks 10, no. 5 (2022): 103, https://doi.org/10.3390/risks10050103. 39 puneeta goel, rupali misra, and a. dhanalakshmi, “examining influence of religiosity on ethical attitude towards business: evidence from india and china,” asian academy of management journal 25, no. 2 (2020): 51–83, https://doi.org/10.21315/aamj2020.25.2.3. 40 andrew johnston et al., “corporate social responsibility as obligated internalisation of social costs,” journal of business ethics 170, no. 1 (2021): 39– 52, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04329-y. 41 mohamad hassan shahrour, isabelle girerd-potin, and ollivier taramasco, “corporate social responsibility and firm default risk mitigation: the moderating role of the legal context,” finance contrôle stratégie, no. 25–1 (2022), https://doi.org/10.4000/fcs.8784. 42 virendra balon, sri yogi kottala, and k. s. reddy, “mandatory corporate social responsibility and firm performance in emerging economies: an institution-based view,” sustainable technology and entrepreneurship 1, no. 3 (2022): 100023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stae.2022.100023. 43 bulcsu bognár, “hybrid social spaces and the individualisation of religious experience in the global north: spatial aspects of religiosity in postmodern society,” religions 15, no. 2 (2024): 241, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020241. 44k.-a. allen, d. l. gray, r. f. baumeister, and m. r. leary, “the need to belong: a deep dive into the origins, implications, and future of a foundational construct,” educational psychology review 34, no. 2 (2022): 1133–1156, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09633-6. 45 jaakko siltaloppi, risto rajala, and henri hietala, “integrating csr with business strategy: a tension management perspective,” journal of business ethics 1 (2020): 3, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04569-3. 46 jaideep visave and daniel p. aldrich, “the role of social capital in strengthening community resilience against floods: a case study of mumbai, india,” climate risk management 47 (2025): 100685, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2024.100685. 47 maite blázquez and rocío sánchez-mangas, “general and covid19-specific emotional stress: religious practice as a potential coping strategy,” economics & human biology 51 (2023): 101284, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101284. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 33 harmony amidst diversity: exploring religious pluralism in bengal through the lens of sufi heritage and its envoys dr. saeyd rashed hasan chowdury department of basic islamic sciences (sufism), faculty of islamic sciences, bartin university, bartin, turkey. email: schowdury@bartin.edu.tr received on: 31-01-24 accepted on: 21-10-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.926 abstract this study explores the significant influence of sufism on bengal’s cultural, religious, and social landscape from the eleventh century to the present. it highlights the contributions of pivotal sufi figures like shah jalal, shah paran, and other sufi orders who played crucial roles in propagating islam and fostering regional socioeconomic development following the 1204 ce conquest by ikhtiyaruddin muhammad bin bakhtiyar khilji. by establishing khanqahs, these sufis provided religious instruction and spiritual guidance and promoted tolerance and moderation within bengal’s diverse society. utilising a qualitative methodology, the research draws on primary and secondary data from local and international archives to underscore sufism’s enduring impact on interfaith harmony and societal cohesion in bengal. while much literature exists on sufism in bengali, academic research is scarce. this study aims to fill that gap by offering a nuanced analysis that emphasises both the positive contributions of genuine sufi scholars (e.g. coexistence of multiple religions) and the problematic actions of pseudo-sufi groups engaged in non-islamic practices (e.g. shirk, bi‘dah and altered false beliefs). this dual focus enhances the academic understanding of sufism’s complex legacy in the region. keywords: sufism, bengal, sufi orders, propagation of islam, religious tolerance, peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and understanding. introduction sufism, a mystical dimension of islam, has played a transformative role in shaping the cultural and religious identity of mailto:schowdury@bartin.edu.tr https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i4.926 34 harmony amidst diversity....... bengal, which includes present-day bangladesh, west bengal and assam in india. rooted in profound spiritual teachings and practices, sufism facilitated intercultural dialogue and social cohesion in a region historically characterised by religious and ethnic diversity. this study explores the historical dissemination, cultural integration, and contemporary challenges of sufism in bengal, offering insights into its enduring impact on the region’s socio-religious landscape. in bengal, sufi traditions succeeded from the mid-eleventh to the seventeenth century with the arrival of mystics from arabiya, anatolia, yemen, iraq, iran, central asia, and northern and western india. local peoples were attracted to islamic mysticism, emphasising personal spirituality, love, equality, and community, transcending caste, race, and religious barriers. the conquest of bengal by bakhtiyar khalji in 1204-5 ce further intensified the propagation of sharê‘ah and ma‘rifah traditions, as ruling elites and sufis jointly contributed to establishing islam in the region. sufi leaders utilised their spiritual paths (ïarêqahs) and humanistic ideals to create an inclusive religious and cultural environment, significantly shaping bengal’s socio-religious fabric. however, in the eighteenth century, pseudo-sufi groups emerged, deviating from the core principles of genuine sufism. these groups commercialised sufi practices, encouraging rituals such as prostrating before graves and pêrs and mixed-gender dhikr sessions. the spiritual essence of sufism was diluted by such deviations, leading to misconceptions and negative perceptions about the actual teachings of sufism. this phenomenon reflects the complex interplay between authentic sufi traditions and the socio-religious transformations in bengal. the article explores the role of sufi scholars and institutions in promoting islam and the socio-educational upliftment of the indigenous people of bengal. it deals with how the sufi doctrines of experiential spirituality and flexibility found easy acceptance among the local customs and left permanent cultural marks. the paper also brings into focus the pseudo-sufi groups that have eroded the genuine sufi practices and underlines the need to preserve the spiritual essence of sufism. this paper contributes to the literature on the history and politics of sufism in bengal by investigating these themes and suggesting how its original traditions may be revived to offset the pervasive misunderstandings. the explanation of the sufism legacy stresses how sufism can be used as an instrument for common interfaith understanding, cross-cultural survival, and spiritual nourishment in the world system. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 35 2. literature review this review covers the bengali literature on sufism, including books, articles, and archival materials. though there are a lot of narrative-based works, academic analyses related to sufism in bengal are relatively few, which creates difficulties in gathering authentic and comprehensive data. however, the review critically discusses the significant contributions within the field. muhammad enamul haq’s (d. 1982) “bonge sufi provap” investigates the profound cultural impact of sufi teachings, emphasising their role in fostering peaceful coexistence, cultural integration, and religious tolerance. however, the work overlooks contemporary issues, such as the rise of fraudulent sufi practices, limiting its applicability to modern contexts.1 muhammad mojlum khan’s “the muslim heritage of bengal: the lives, thoughts and achievements of great muslim scholars, writers and reformers of bangladesh and west bengal” provides a collection of biographies of notable islamic scholars, including some prominent sufis. while insightful, the work fails to explore the origins, influence, spiritual orders (ïarêqahs), and ongoing activities of sufism in bengal, leaving significant aspects of its historical and cultural evolution unexamined.2 in banglar “musulmander samajik itihas (social history of the muslims of bengal)”, abdul karim addresses the spread of islam across various regions of bangladesh. however, he provides limited discussion on the specific roles and activities of the sufi orders, which were instrumental in this process.3 “history of the muslim bengal” by muhammad mohar ali (d. 2007) underlines the impact of sufism as early as the 12th century and rightly recognises that it played a central role in the gradual dissemination of islam. despite this, the detailed biographies of the influential sufis, an analysis of the ïarêqahs, and any discussion on pseudo-sufism concerning the contemporary era are not found, which reduces the scope of the work. 4 the famous traveller ibn battuta (d. 1369), in his travelogue riílah, narrates his encounter with the great sufi shah jalal in bengal. from battuta’s account, one gets a glimpse into shah jalal’s deep religiosity and adherence to islam but very little on the more extraordinary sufi landscape in bengal and other saints and their contributions.5 36 harmony amidst diversity....... the literature reviewed here clearly shows these vast gaps in academic studies. it ranges from acknowledging the presence of sufism to actual, on-site, and comprehensive analyses of the ïarêqahs themselves, contemporary dynamics, and the shifting relationship within the ïarêqahs. all these issues are also part of what needs to be considered regarding sufism’s impact on the history and culture of bengal. 3. methodology sufism’s impact on bengal’s cultural, religious, and social development over many centuries requires an in-depth qualitative exploration. this paper applies a qualitative research design to understand in detail the contributions of sufi traditions and the challenges posed by deviant practices. a dual focus will guide this research: assessing the positive contributions of genuine sufi scholars and the distortions introduced by pseudo-sufi groups. the research draws on primary data, especially ibn batuta’s rehla, and secondary data, including local and international archival records, historical manuscripts, and scholarly publications. critical materials include translations of sufi texts, historical accounts of islamic propagation in bengal, and analyses of the sufi order’s interactions with local populations. archival materials were sourced from institutions dedicated to preserving the history of sufism in bengal, ensuring the reliability and comprehensiveness of the data. the paper presents the data analysis through thematic content analysis, ranging from religious tolerance to peaceful mutual coexistence and the institutional role of sufism. supplementing this analysis, the historical interpretation places the findings within the historical socio-cultural development of bengal. this integrated approach allows for a complete comprehension of sufism’s multifaceted influence. the qualitative approach would thus be most apt for studying the complex cultural and historical dimensions of sufism. as a nonnumerical methodology that focuses on descriptive data rather than numerical metrics, this approach provides depth rather than breadth. it explains how sufi traditions evolved and continue to feature in bengal’s religious and social lives. this research finally synthesises the findings from historical and contemporary sources to present a holistic perspective on the legacy of sufism in bengal: how the sufi scholars succeeded in establishing islam in a region historically dominated by hinduism and buddhism, and how their teachings have been integrated into the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 37 local context. it further points out that a deviation like pseudo-sufi groups in sufism needs to be handled carefully for its true essence to prevail and serve the overall study of the tradition. 4. result and discussion the influence of sufism on the socio-religious framework of bengal was so profound that, throughout history, religious and cultural development in the region had taken place. this paper identifies sufi mystics as the chief agents for the spread of islam throughout bengal through their spiritual teachings, exemplary conduct, and incorporation of local customs. sufis’ plea for coexistence and tolerance struck a deep chord in the people of bengal, creating for themselves a unique syncretic tradition which connected islamic precepts with indigenous beliefs such as hinduism and buddhism. some of the significant findings that emerge relate to the fact that the sufi presence in bengal dates to the 11th century with the arrival of pioneers such as sultan rumi (d. 1075), fariduddin ganjshakar (d.1266), shah jalal (d. 1346), and khan jahan ali (d. 1459). these sufis established religious and educational institutions that helped spread islamic teachings, thus facilitating the translation of the holy qur’én into bengali and the composition of commentaries to make islamic knowledge accessible to the masses. this educational outreach reinforced islam as a cultural and intellectual force in bengal while preserving the region’s linguistic and artistic heritage. the discussion elaborates further that the inculcation of sufi practices into the socio-religious life of bengal contributed to the gradual and voluntary conversion of the local population. the sufis’ emphasis on spiritual devotions, personal experiences, and moral conduct attracted rural and agrarian people because they wanted to listen to this message of equality and universal love. the contact with the local tradition meant an effortless blending of islamic ways into the bengali way of life, which only reinforced peaceful coexistence and strengthened social bonding. the study concurrently depicts several challenges to authentic sufi traditions that emerged in subsequent centuries. the fundamental spiritual and moral principles of the tradition were weakened by the rise of pseudo-sufi organisations in the 18th century that exploited sufism for financial gain. shrine worship, materialistic vows, and ritualised devotion all contributed to the development of misconceptions about sufism by overshadowing its humanistic and intellectual aspects. 38 harmony amidst diversity....... 4.1. sufism in bengal: tracing its roots and transformations sufism significantly influenced the socio-cultural and religious aspects of bengal. it was crucial in bringing people of different religions to islam in bengal, especially in kolkata and asam in india and bangladesh. the sufi movement in bengal began in the 13th century, shortly after the conquest of bengal by ikhtiyaruddin muhammad bin bakhtiyar khalji. only after the conquest of bengal by khalji did the sufis receive support from the state to spread islam. in addition, the morals, ethical behaviour, and spiritual practices of the sufis greatly influenced the local population. the “humanistic ethos” of sufism played an important role in introducing the bengalis to islamic spiritual and cultural values during the middle ages. the sufis emphasised universal moral principles that were in perfect harmony with the spiritual aspirations of the local community, among them compassion, tolerance, and purity of heart. as a result of their efforts, islam was more readily accepted by everyone, and islamic culture was established in bengal. islam spread in bengal through three general channels: the sufis, muslim rulers, and arab traders. the sufis had the most lasting impact on the moral and spiritual life of the people, although muslim rulers and traders from arabia, central asia, and anatolia were the first to introduce islamic cultural and economic traditions to bengal. the muslim rulers introduced the political aspects of islam to the people, the traders introduced the morals and integrity of islam to the people, and the sufis introduced the moral aspects of islam, the issues of tazkiyatun nafs, to the ordinary people and non-muslims, due to which a large group of non-muslims in bengal readily embraced islam as their religion. many hindus and buddhists began to convert to islam. the study on muhammad enamul-haq’s seminal work, “sufi influence in bengal (the 1960s), “traces sufi’s presence in bengal back to the eleventh century.6 key figures such as sultan rumi, who arrived in bengal in 1053, and baba adam shahid, who travelled extensively with sufi scholars to spread islamic teachings, established the foundation for islamic dominance in the region.7 equally noted in the annals of sufi history in bengal is the contribution of jalaluddin tabrizi (d. 1244), who came in 1303.8 enamul-haq relates, among other things, the massive cultural impact of sufistic teachings on bengal, focusing on their role in promoting mutual coexistence, cultural interblending, and religious tolerance. muhammad mohar ali argues that the impacts of sufism in bengal were visible as early as the 12th century. the observation, as stated above, was before he left. the author also observed that in the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 39 later part of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century, many ordinary people in bangladesh converted to islam, majorly because of the influence of sufi networks. during the next six centuries, so many sufis from various parts of anatolia, yemen, iraq, iran, khorasan, central asia, pakistan, and north india came that the land of bengal became the destination for migration.9 the spread of sufism in bengal thus generated the movement. in this manner, the sufis were responsible for the sluggish yet unending spread of islam over the region.10 their interactions involved people from all walks of life, and their pedagogical modes and teachings commanded the highest regard from many quarters.11 the renowned explorer ibn battuta (d. 1377) encountered shah jalal in 1345. the event described earlier took place at the dargah of shah jalal, located close to sylhet in bangladesh. battuta was at the dargah for three days, during which time he meticulously chronicled his experiences and thoughts regarding shah jalal and the local population in the area. subsequently, the observations were consolidated and documented in a travelogue authored by the individual in question, titled “the riílah.” battuta was profoundly moved by shah jalal’s display of profound religiosity and his steadfast dedication to the islamic faith. this exhibition left battuta with a profound impression.12 according to abdul karim, the author of the book “knowledge sea, during the spread of islam throughout bangladesh,” the forefathers of bengal were a cluster of various groups of individuals who professed either the hindu or buddhist religions. the preaching of the sufis attracted them most as it was full of love, pity, and patience. the sufis proved exceptionally able to reach out with friendships to every class since it was to people with a background of muslim and non-muslim preoccupation that the sufi teachings appealed most strongly. besides, they demonstrated the ability to accommodate changes in their preachings regarding changing practices and beliefs of the natives to increase the number of people who would accept the message; it is because of the sufis that islam spread over bangladesh within a very short period.13 by the advent of the 15th century, islam had acquired the status of the most dominant religion in the region.14 carl w. ernst, 1993 maintains that though they are placed in low caste rank in society and the poorest sections, the practitioners of islam in bengal attained remarkable achievements. the author asserts that islam conveyed the message of equality and social justice, which appealed to people who had been marginalised due to caste. ernst further observes that muslim preachers in bengal received hospitality from the natives, especially those who held low ranks within the caste 40 harmony amidst diversity....... system.15 he quotes the words of shah jalal, a sufi mystic from bengal who once said that islam was essentially egalitarian and fraternal. no distinction was made between people according to caste or class. the social and theological environment of the indian subcontinent, especially bengal, changed dramatically due to the attraction of sufism among the lower castes.16 the above phenomenon led to the mass conversion of people to islam as well as paved the way for a more egalitarian social order. the sufis emphasised equality and social justice, thereby questioning the existing caste system and helping construct a more equalitarian social order. this significantly contributed to bengal, and its effects are still felt across the region. the sufi tradition in bengal today has roots firmly attached to the islamic mysticism of north india. this proximity meant a great deal of interchange, which almost tied the north indians and the bengali sufis together in beliefs, philosophy, and learning.17 while muhammed enamul-haq dates this migration of sufis from north india to bengal from the late twelfth century up to the end of the fourteenth century, there was a gradual immigration which contributed immensely to the moulding and development of sufism in bengal. the migrated sufis came with their prevailing traditions that resulted in an evolution which can be neatly divided into three historical periods in sufism within bengal.18 4.1.1. the first phase, which lasted from the 12th to the 14th century it was the early period, roughly from the 12th to the 14th century, characterised by the migration of sufis from northern india into bengal. the outcome was the establishment of madrasas and khanqahs in the region. spread and penetration of islam throughout northern india were typical features of the first phase of sufism in bengal. an important feature of this period was the arrival of sufis from north india, particularly representatives of the suhrawardiyya and chishtiya sufi orders. the sufis during this period, therefore, made it a point to amalgamate the essentials of the local culture into their religious discourse. they opted for contemplation, harmony, and confrontation of the soul as the invitation method19 to islam. this method of approach helped the people of bengal positively approach islamic mysticism. from the eleventh to the end of the fifteenth century, scores of famous sufi figures arrived in bengal.20 these sufis played a crucial role in spreading islam in the region, and their teachings and practices continue to be intrinsic to bengali culture today. some of the most well-known sufis visited hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 41 bengal, such as sheikh sultan rumi (d.1126), sheikh sharfuddin abu tawama (d. 1210), sheikh jalal tabrizi (d. 1244)21, shaikh fariduddin shakkarganj (d.1266), makhdum shah (d. 1291), jafar khan (d.1295), shah makhdum ruposh (d. 1313), sheikh sultan balkhi (d. 1343), shah jalal (d. 1347), sheikh alaul haq (d. 1382), khan jahan ali (d. 1459) and ismail khan gazi (d. 1474).22 4.1.2. the middle period of sufi history in bengal, which encompasses the period from the 15th to the 17th century the rise and growth of sufism in bengal from the 15th to the 17th century mark a significant historical period. during this period, the sufi ideology spread on a large scale, leading to several new sufi orders. in the intermediate history of sufism in bengal, political power at the local level also showed some remarkable development by the muslims and the sufis. the sultans of bengal played a significant role in promoting the growth of sufi groups across the vast expanse of their empire, whereby these communities could provide counsel and teachings to the populace. indeed, several sultans who governed the independent bengal state were said to have immense respect for sufi emissaries to the degree that they integrated themselves as disciples of these spiritual leaders. some sultans had a few persons in their family who were bestowed with the title of pir and sheikh.23 the existence of such persons signifies that the sufis achieved much political power in that period.24 4.1.3 the concluding period of sufi history in bengal, encompassing the 18th and 19th centuries the last period of sufi history in bengal, covering the 18th to the 19th century, was a period of the actual decline of sufism. the reasons for such decline are many: increased detachment of the sufis from their traditional doctrines and low educational standards eroded the quality of teachings and practice; erosion in the murshid-disciple relationship, the strong link in sufism, snapped the already weakened ties between the sufis and the people. another debilitating factor was the growing dependence on khanqahs and shrines for revenue, which turned people away from spiritual ends and made such institutions less appealingly spiritual. notably hostile to sufism, the british colonial government was another rising influence that contributed to the decline in the influence of sufism, as did other religious movements such as the brahmo samaj and the arya samaj. despite the hardship, certain sufi groups prospered by adapting to and addressing this altered religious environment to maintain their popularity among the younger muslim population. these profoundly impacted the culture and spiritual life of bengali people. 42 harmony amidst diversity....... 5. sufi sects in bengal: a scholarly exploration of their influence and legacy most of the sufi orders in bengal have profoundly influenced bengal’s religious and cultural heritage. historically, sufi orders such as the chishtiah, qadiriyyah, and naqshbandiyah have greatly influenced buddhist and hindu thought by emphasising love, compassion, spiritual discipline, and meditation.25 bengal’s most prominent sufi orders are the qadiriyyah, naqshbandiyah, chishtiah, suhrawardyya and shadili. despite differences in their prayer, zikir and meditation techniques, these orders have brought the beauty of islam to the ordinary people and non-muslims. as a result, the influence of these sufi orders has contributed significantly to religious practice, social stability, tolerance and cultural heritage. sect-e muhammadiyah reflects the unifying thread between various sufi groups, accommodating different practices while underscoring their shared heritage. the sufi order plays a significant role in bengal’s socio-cultural and economic development by fostering a sense of community and promoting values of peace and understanding.26 5.1. the chishti order: its origins and influence the chishti order originated from central asia and persia.27 abu ishaq shami (d. 940) founded the chishti order in afghanistan. however, mu’in al-din chishti (d. 633/1235) brought this order to india and made it one of the most extraordinary orders in india today. scholars also note that he was a disciple of abu al-najib suhrawardi (d.1168).28 mu’in al-din chishti was originally from sistan (eastern iran, southwest afghanistan) and was known as a sheikh who was well known in south asia. he reached delhi in 1193 during the end of the ghurid rule and later settled in ajmer-rajasthan during the establishment of the delhi sultanate.29 mu’in al-din chishti’s sufism and social welfare activities called ajmer “the nucleus for the islamization of central and southern india”. mu’in al-din established khanqahs to reach local communities and spread islam through charity. islam is famous not for bloodshed or forced conversions but for establishing chishti khanqahs and for its simple teachings on humanity, peace and generosity. the chishti group established unprecedented contacts with hindus and tried to counteract the caste system’s adverse effects somewhat. as a result, muslims and non-muslims visit mu’in al-din chishti’s tomb, and it has become a popular tourist destination and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 43 pilgrimage site in india. jalal-ud-din muhammad akbar (d. 1605) the 3rd mughal ruler is the man who initiated ajmer to become a traditional place of pilgrimage for the people.30 the leading sufis of the chishti order in india and bengal are nudruddin chishti (d. 1233), qutbuddin bakhtiar kaki (d. 1236), nizamuddin awliya (d. 1335), nasiruddin chiragh dehlavi bande nawaz (d. 1422), sayyid baqaullah sheikh kareemi safipur (d. 1362/ 1269); alaul haq pandavi and ashraf jehangir semnani (d. 1386). akhi siraj aainae hind (d. 1357) established different dargahs and religious institutions in bengal and india.31 5.2. the naqshbandiyyah order: origins and influence the origin of this order is based on khwaja yusuf alhamadani (d. 1390), who lived in central asia. later, it was systematised by baha’ al-din naqshband (1318-1389) as a tajik and turkish origin. therefore, baha’ al-din naqshband is known as the founder of the naqshbandi order.32 kaja muhammad al-baqi billah (d. 1603) introduced the naqshbandi order to bengal.33 this order, especially with the support of kaja al-hamadani, who became the leader of the mughal empire in 1526 and was loyal to his ancestors, started the naqshbandi order before the mughal conquered bengal.34 the empire’s support gave significant momentum to the order.35 this order is considered the most important quran and sunnah priorities of all the sufi orders. it strictly prohibits music, samé‘ dance and other liberal contents of sufism.36 now, many followers in bengal are introducing this order in their region. 5.3. the qadiriyya order: origins and influence this order, founded by abdul qadir gilani (d. 1166), known as the “qutb of the sufis and al-insān al-kāmil”, is an important mystical path widely followed in bangladesh and other southern parts of india. qadiriyyah, built on intense devotion to the foundations of islam, journey to allah and love for the prophets and the righteous, unlike the previously mentioned orders, was formed and nourished from arab (baghdadi) roots. the qadiriyyah order started in a province of bengal through sufis who came from yemen, such as sheikh zainuddin makhdoom and sheikh fariduddin. the zainuddin makhdoom, from the yemeni nobility and a family of scholars, came to bangladesh in the 12th century and settled in the barishal region of central bangladesh. bangladesh became an islamic centre by establishing madrasahs, mosques and high islamic complexes by zainuddin makhdoom, and barishal became known as the “religious centre in bangladesh”. he 44 harmony amidst diversity....... wrote important works on sufism, such as hidayat-ul-edkiya and tarik-il-awliya, and played a significant role in advancing sufi literature and the qadiriyyah order.37 it is stated that during the first period of the formation of qadiriyya, fariduddin bin abdul qadir khurasani came from yemen to bengal and contributed to the spread of qadiriyyah. the work “muhiddin mala”, written by ghazi muhammad and narrating the karamat of abdul qadir gilani, has become a book that all muslims read with respect and benefit from.38 the al maberi order, followed in bangladesh and southern india, is a branch of the qadiriyyah. the qadiriyyah, which is being kept alive with great effort by a few remaining sheikhs, is still the first order of bangladesh. 5.4. furfura muhammad abu bakr siddiqui al quraishi (d. 1939) was a famous pêr of west bengal, india.39 he was the founding pêr of furfura darbar sharif, considered a religious pilgrimage site for muslims of both bengal and india.40 he contributed significantly to the propagation of islamic sharê‘ah and tarêqah, preaching, establishing mosques and madrasas, publishing newspapers and magazines, and spreading education in remote areas of bengal and india. he was a follower of jahanian jahangasht (d. 1384).41 5.5. the madariyyah sufi order: origins and popularity madariyyah is a sufi order popular in north india, particularly in uttar pradesh, the mewat region, bihar and bengal, nepal and bangladesh. known for its syncretic aspects, lack of emphasis on external religious practice, and focus on internal dhikr, it was started by the sufi saint “sayed badiuddin zinda shah madar” (d. 1434), known as “qutub-ul-madar” and has its headquarters in makanpur, kanpur district of uttar pradesh. 5.6. the suhrawardiyyah sufi order: origins and contributions the founder of this order was abu al-najib suhrawardi (d. 1168). he was also ahmad ghazali’s student, abu hamid ghazali’s younger brother (d.1111). in this context, ahmad ghazali’s teachings significantly contributed to the formation of this order. this order existed in iran before the people migrated to india and bangladesh due to the mongol invasion. as a result, abu najib, suhrawardi’s nephew, brought the suhrawardiyyah to the mainstream hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 45 consciousness. abu hafs shihab al-din (d.1243) wrote extensively on the theories of sufism. the most important classical book is ‘awé’rif al-ma‘érif by shihab al-din’ umar al-suhrawardi (d. 1891). it was widely read and became an indispensable book in the madrassas of bangladesh and india. it helps to understand the sufi teachings of suhrawardiyyah. abu hafs was a global ambassador of his time. from travelling from baghdad to india to teach diplomacy between the ayyubid rulers of egypt and syria, abu hafs was a sufi leader who showed initiative in every field. abu hafs maintained cordial relations with the islamic states and continued to approve their leadership and political participation in the sufi orders. 5.7. the presence of sufi orders in bengal: contributions and challenges the sufi community has played a pioneering role in the propagation of islam through their tireless efforts and dedication in various parts of kolkata and assam in india and bangladesh. sufis are also making significant contributions to advancing religious and islamic education in the region. the famous sufi abu bakr siddique (d. 1939) established a dargah in furfura, hooghly district of kolkata, india, in 1900 and propagated islam and sufism. this dargah is still active today. the successors of abu bakr siddique and his disciples are still working to propagate islam here. in different parts of bangladesh, especially in dhaka, the sons and grandsons of abu bakr siddique are spreading islam by establishing various khanqahs, dargahs, mosques and madrasas. among abu bakr’s family members, muhammad abdul hai siddique, abul ansar muhammad abdul kahhar siddique and abu bakr abdul hai mishkat siddique are notable.42 nesaruddin ahmad, a disciple and disciple of abu bakr siddique, established a kamil masters madrasa called sarsina darussunnat kamil madrasah in the pirojpur district of barisal in 1890 and a khanqah with him. he also significantly spread islamic education throughout bengal by establishing thousands of mosques, madrasas and khanqahs across bangladesh.43 his grandson, shah mohammad mohebullah, continues this legacy as the chief pir of sarsina darbar sharif and plays an important role in the propagation of islam.44 charmonai pir, especially syed muhammad ishaq (d. 1977), played an immense role in the propagation of islam in bengal. their influence spread further when they established charmonai darbar sharif in barisal and jamia rashidiya ahsanabad kamil masters madrasa in 1924. his children, syed rezaul karim and syed faizul 46 harmony amidst diversity....... karim, established the political party islami andolan bangladesh. today, the party is one of the country’s most well-known islamic political parties.45 the uniqueness of the party lies in the fact that while, on the one hand, it urges all people to become good through sufism, on the other hand, the party tries to develop this country toward islamic governance through political activity. however, the establishment of the maizbhandari darbar sharif in patiya, chittagong, by syed ahmad ullah maizbhandari (d. 1906) significantly contributed to the country’s islamic atmosphere.46 other important sufis like abdullah hil kafi, maulana shamsul haque faridpuri, muhammad ullah hafezzi huzur, maulana atahar ali of kishoreganj, siddiq ahmad of chittagong, tajul islam of brahmanbaria, and syed abdul karim shaikh-ekawriya of sylhet too played a critical role in spreading islam by establishing their respective tariqas. it should be noted that the activities and influence of the sufi leaders did not pertain only to religious teachings but also contributed to bengal’s social and educational development. the mosques, madrasas, and khanqahs they built served as centres of learning and spiritual guidance and helped develop a strong islamic tradition in the region. the role of the sufis needs to be viewed in assessing the influence of sufism on the cultural and religious life of bengal. this historical narration gives enough evidence regarding how the sufi traditions have shaped the spiritual topography of bengal and provided the ground on which its islamic identity came to rest. sufism, along with many spiritual leaders and pêrs, has contributed a great deal to the dissemination of islam and the socioeconomic development of bengal. however, some groups have adulterated true sufism, leading to the spreading of misleading practices.47 a group of unscrupulous false pêrs take advantage of the simplicity and innate religiosity of the muslim masses to establish their khanqahs and dargahs with the express purpose of destroying the beliefs and practices of bengali muslims for their economic benefit.48 among the most prominent false sufi groups in bengal are the followers of dewanbaghi, sureshwari, enayetpuri, atroshi, chandrapuri, rajarbaghi, beshra and various baul groups.49 analysing their websites and the books published by their khénqahs reveals that they encourage people to believe that following the pirs alone, without adhering to the quran and sunnah, is sufficient for attaining paradise.50 these groups are also known to organise mixed-gender dhikr sessions, engage in practices such as lighting candles and performing prostrations at graveyards, deny the hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 47 obligation of hajj, and propagate the idea that worship is unnecessary for pêrs, who they claim will secure the salvation of their followers in the afterlife. these beliefs and practices are clearly outside the bounds of islam.51 dewanbagi pêr has been widely criticised for spreading discord related to islam. according to dewanbagi pir, allah appointed him to spread islam worldwide. his real name is mahbub khuda, commonly known as dewanbagi.52 dewanbagi has become a controversial figure who claims to be the husband of hazrat fatima, the daughter of prophet muhammad, and proclaims himself a sufi emperor. he also asserts that prophet ×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam bestowed upon him the “reviver of islam” title in a dream.53 the pêr of sureshwar continues to engage in activities that oppose islam under the guise of promoting the religion. according to the tradition of the sureshwar dargah, followers and devotees are expected to prostrate before the pêrs. furthermore, adherents of the sureshwar dargah tradition are required to prostrate before shrines. such practices lead people into acts of disbelief and shirk.54 the followers of the sureshwar dargah also misinterpret the holy qur’én and hadith by determining the dates of ramadan and eid based on the lunar calendar as observed in saudi arabia rather than according to the local lunar observations in bangladesh, thus opposing the practices of muslims in the country. following this, pêrs leads their disciples towards shirk. according to the pêr of sureshwar, worshipping anyone who does not pledge allegiance (bai’at) to the pêr is not accepted. furthermore, he believes that neither the pêr nor the murshid requires worship. according to the enayetpuri tradition, it is obligatory to follow the pêr. the power of good and evil is believed to be in the hands of the pêr, enabling the pêr to determine the well-being or misfortune of individuals. according to the atroshi tradition, it is believed that the pêr will save his followers from hell in the afterlife and that the pêr can protect his disciples from all worldly dangers. according to pêr abul fazal of chandrapuri, worshipping the pêr is unnecessary. on page 29 of the book “haqqa’l-yaqên”, written by abul fazal, it is stated that once a person has attained the state of fana maqam, there is no further need for worship.55 rajarbagi pêr has added approximately fifty-two prestigious titles before or after his name. he claims that many of these titles were granted to him by allah, some by last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), and the rest by the leaders of various sufi orders.56 according to the beshra community, men and women are encouraged 48 harmony amidst diversity....... to sing together and reject the concept of modesty between genders. they consider the consumption of alcohol and drugs to be permissible and practice prostration at the pêr’s grave.57 the goal of the baul community is to harmonise the essence of all religions. the fundamental purpose of all religions is the salvation of the soul. bauls have emphasised the harmony between islam and hinduism.58 the sufi orders have contributed substantially to islam’s spread and bengal’s socio-economic development. their impact is evident in the numerous institutions they established and the spiritual guidance they provided. however, the rise of deviant groups that distort sufi teachings presents significant challenges. addressing these challenges is crucial for maintaining the integrity of sufism and ensuring the accurate practice of islam in bengal. understanding the dual nature of sufi influence—both positive and problematic—provides valuable insights into the spiritual landscape of bengal. it underscores the importance of preserving genuine sufi traditions while addressing and correcting deviations. 6. the impact of sufism on the religious and cultural landscape of bengal the influence of islamic mysticism on bangladesh’s religious and cultural landscape became evident as early as the thirteenth century when sufis hailing from northern india and adjacent areas focused their efforts on bengal. there was a sufi presence everywhere, and no single town in bengal was untouched by their influence. their actions were significant in the propagation of islam because of the specific populations and social groups they targeted as potential adherents.59 two primary causes may be attributed to the extensive influence and popularity of the sufi movement in bengal, which can be categorised as factors. the initial point of discussion pertains to the diligent endeavours undertaken by sufis to establish their religious beliefs inside the societal framework. this, in conjunction with their unpretentious and uncomplicated ways of living, resulted in the acquisition of substantial support and safeguarding from the governing sultans, augmenting their overall influence.60 second, islam was more palatable in the nation due partly to its religious and social milieu. because of the caste system, class disparities, and moral aberrations in society, people were more receptive to a faith that went beyond material standards of wealth, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 49 race, and colour.61 people were more receptive to a transcendent religion as a result. society has responded favourably to the islamic faith’s emphasis on values like equality, coexistence in a multicultural setting, and the framework of tolerating other religious beliefs and practices.62 6.1. the sufi perspective on equality and brotherhood sufis played a significant role in establishing social justice in various parts of bengal. they beautifully presented the beauty of islam to the public, and people from the caste system of hinduism and buddhism came under the shadow of islam and became muslims and started contributing to society in various fields. at this time, the enlightened path of sufism appeared to society as a seductive force with the idea of egalitarianism and brotherhood.63 through their various initiatives, moral intentions, and selfless actions in the propagation of islam, the sufis gifted bengal with an idealistic society that people of all religions could deeply understand. through their tireless efforts, crores of the people of bengal sought the islamic faith as a beacon of light and tried to lead their lives illuminated by the ideals of islam.64 across the lush expanse of bengal, sufi luminaries, like celestial artists, craft khénqahs in every corner. these sanctuaries transcend physical spaces, becoming sanctuaries for intellectual enlightenment and humanitarian acts of grace. their influence extends far and wide, sculpting the contours of the muslim community’s evolution in this sacred land, endowing its people with an elevated social status.65 in bengali islam, preachers labour earnestly to embrace the most vulnerable and marginalised souls. in bengal’s embrace, muslim preachers and sufis find a warm welcome from locals and those trapped by the oppressive caste system’s chains.66 here, the illustrious moroccan traveller ibn battuta crossed paths with the venerable shah jalal in 1345. he bore witness to the sheikh’s saintly aura, affirming his unique stature. karamat, known to the realm, added lustre to the sheikh’s renown. the craggy denizens of these mystical mountains stood steadfast in their commitment to islam, forging an unbreakable bond with their beloved sheikh.67 moreover, sufi leaders who stood out as kind, modest, and honourable were sheikh sultan rumi (d. 1075)68, shah makhdum rupos (d. 1313), mohammad abu bakr siddique (d. 1939),69 and abdul hai siddiqi (d. 1977). their noble and modest legacy was 50 harmony amidst diversity....... ingrained in the collective consciousness and gave everyone a sense of warmth.70 6.2. the legacy of sufis in promoting welfare society the sufis tried establishing a welfare state in bengal, where justice, equality, and human status were promoted.71 the sufis influenced the region’s kings and soon converted them to islam. shah jalal (d.1347) and his followers collaborated with the muslim forces of zimmer ghazi in the war against the tyrant king gaur govinda to establish muslim rule in this part of the country in 1303.72 it is believed that khan jahan ali (d. 1459) added the districts of cessore, khulna and barisal to the muslim sultanate and established a welfare state independent of religion, caste and class.73 the sufis advised the kings on religious matters and made many efforts to prevent policy shifting and direct them towards the religious path. they contributed to the consolidation and economy of the state in times of crisis and added moral strength.74 hazrat nur qutb alam (d. 1415) raja kans established the muslim rule in bengal when a policy of oppression against muslims was attempted after the death of sultan ghiyathuddin azam sheikh (1390-1411).75 some sufis also advocated islamic policy in the administration of muslim states.76 sheikh abdul haqq (d. 1384) advised sultan ghiyathuddin azam sheikh to implement islamic policies in the affairs of the state.77 lakshmana sena (1178-1206),78 impressed by the humanitarian activities and karamah of sheikh jalaluddin tabrizi, gave him some lands to construct a mosque.79 the sheikh later established a khanka, which became a centre of learning. this played a pioneering role in transferring knowledge to bangladesh. however, there were good relations between the kings and the sufis. the sufis and the sultans of bengal were fatally linked by mutual bonds of attraction and attraction in the political formation of the state and especially in the initiation of new dynasties.80 6.3. the role of sufi institutions in the intellectual and spiritual development of bengal various institutions contributed to the intellectual development of bengal, but the sufi institutions made a significant contribution. the sufis of bengal established madrasas, khanqahs and dargahs throughout the region to teach the people the basic tenets of islam.81 these institutions, madrasas and khanqahs, served as the centres of learning and spiritual development of bengal, where hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 51 muslims were exposed to the depths of islamic knowledge and were taught how to have a good relationship with allah.82 sufis encouraged people to engage in religious studies, emphasising ethical conduct, spiritual introspection, and the search for universal truth. during the reign of nasir-ud-din mahmud shah (1394-1413)of the delhi sultanate, the sufi figure khan jahan ali (d. 1459), who preached islam at the sixty dome mosque in what is now khulna division, bangladesh, which is recognised as a unesco world heritage site. he established various religious institutions in the khulna region, including various dargahs, which played a considerable role in advancing islamic education. all these religious institutions of khan jahan ali ensured unity and coexistence among muslims.83 shah jalal and shah paran established numerous dargéhs and khénqéhs in the sylhet region of bangladesh, taught people the principles of sufism, and made an important contribution to the spread of islam among non-muslims. sufi institutions in bengal were able to integrate diverse intellectual and cultural traditions. sufis facilitated the spread of islam through the establishment of dargahs, khanqahs and religious institutions. they established an environment where cultural exchange flourished, contributing to the region’s unique identity as a place of interfaith dialogue and understanding and ensuring islam’s unique place among the people of the region.84 6.4. the humanitarian legacy of bengal’s sufis: compassion in practice there are a lot of sufis of bengal who have attracted attention through their involvement in humanitarian activities.85 figures such as shah makhdum rupos, jalaluddin tabrizi, and akhi sirajuddin usman (d. 1357) were charismatic and influential figures who persuaded people through their compelling personalities. they established centres for humanitarian work, known as “langar khénas,” where they provided aid to people experiencing poverty, beggars, and travellers. muslims and non-muslims respected the khanqahs as centres of “worldly and spiritual inspiration.”86 the sufi biography siyar’l ‘órifên reveals that jalaluddin tabrizi left baghdad around 1228 and travelled to india, where he did not receive a warm reception at the court of delhi. afterwards, he moved to lakhnauti, the former capital of bengal. records show that when he arrived in bengal, the entire population gathered around him and became his disciples.87 there, he established a public hospice and a free kitchen and purchased several gardens and lands to donate for charitable purposes. he also owned a riverport called deva mahal. 52 harmony amidst diversity....... today, the sacred tomb of tabrizi is in a shrine within the river port of deva mahal, and half of the port’s income is dedicated to maintaining the hospice.88 jalaluddin tabrizi’s discourses on forgiveness, sacrifice, justice towards humanity, unity, and love became a source of inspiration for the oppressed. famous sufi shaikh alaul haq (d. 1398) spent considerable money to feed beggars and travellers and shelter them. abu bakr siddiqui (d.1939) of furfura sharif founded numerous charitable institutions, orphanages, and free healthcare centres in bengal. he was also a great educator who believed that only education could eliminate all evil, and thus, he established many madrassas, schools, and educational centres. according to al mannan, his work was not limited to intellectual endeavours; he also contributed materially to the well-being of people and countries.89 he tirelessly carried out humanitarian aid for others. his son, abdul qahhar siddiqui (d. 2006), was involved in many social activities and charitable works and patronised many educational institutions. he was also very generous and never ignored the suffering of others. in this context, he did much for the oppressed and the poor. he provided for servants and took care of them when they were ill. he showed great kindness towards animals and even tried to save an ant drowning in water. he demonstrated kindness to orphans and lived a very humble life.90 6.5. sufism in bengal: fostering interfaith harmony and social inclusivity at the time of the emergence of islam, bengal was predominantly a hindu-buddhist region, where brahmins had established a notable political and social dominance over others. their influence, through caste governance and other discriminatory social rules, affected buddhists, lower-caste hindus, and even the sudras, who were ranked below the brahmins in the caste system.91 sudras and other lower-class people were denied access to religious texts and places of worship. when hostility between hindus and buddhists was rampant in society, the emergence of islam, mainly through sufis, had a profound impact on the political and social life of the region. the distinction between brahmin, sudra, hindu, and buddhist was no longer recognised. muslims interacted with the local population for various reasons.92 centuries of contact between hindus and muslims profoundly influenced both groups, with muslim social and religious life being significantly impacted by hinduism. during the time of shah jalal, ibn battuta mentioned the relationship between hindus and muslims, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 53 noting the agricultural society of the surma valleys beneath the sumerian hills, which were distinctly defined by hindu identity. hindus were deeply influenced by the attitude of muslims during hindu festivals. muslims shared their food, knowledge, and clothes with them.93 sarsina pir nisaruddin ahmed (d. 1952), furfura pir abdul qahhar siddiqui (d. 2006), and charmonai pir syed fazlul karim (d. 2006) were a prominent figure in the indian subcontinent, especially in the southern part of bengal, whom they spread islam. hindus mostly populated the region they served, yet there is no evidence of any conflict between muslims and hindus there. they dedicated their spare time to assisting new muslims. their character’s open-hearted, humanitarian, sympathetic, and compassionate nature were distinctive. they treated all people equally.94 furthermore, the principles of human equality and fraternity expressed by islam represented a revolutionary force within the caste system and the brahmin-dominated hindu society. since muslims did not have a caste system like the hindus, they were not required to strive for positions between high and low status; instead, all muslims equally benefited from employment and education.95 non-brahmin hindus, supported by muslim rulers, gained social respect through the education and employment they received. put, freedom existed for hindus, and muslims had liberated them from brahmin oppression.96 islam profoundly influenced local religious and social systems. the most significant impact of islam in bengal was the dismantling of brahminical supremacy.97 7. conclusion this article has examined the profound and nuanced contributions of sufism to the religious, cultural, and socio-economic landscape of bengal. sufis played a pivotal role in fostering coexistence, interfaith harmony, and religious pluralism among muslims and non-muslims in bengal. this study examines the influence of sufism in shaping the spiritual fabric of the region. it shows how sufis have, over the centuries, fostered an environment of tolerance and pluralism in bengali society through their tariqas, khanqahs, and charitable works. these issues have been brought to the fore through the activities of sufis across bangladesh and west bengal, india. this study has shown how some pseudo-sufism emerged in bengal in the 18th century, excluding authentic sufism. they used sufism as a business interest. these groups built dargahs and shrines 54 harmony amidst diversity....... in different places, made vows for worldly desires, offered money, flowers, candles, and incense sticks, prostrated themselves to graves and saints, considered it permissible for men and women to dhikr together, and encouraged ordinary people. due to this, authentic sufism is currently being damaged, and people are having a negative perception of sufism. among these groups, vaishnavism, secular mysticism, baulism, dewanbagi, rajarbagi, atrishi and other groups are involved in such activities. although this article has attempted to provide a comprehensive account of the impact of sufism in bengal, the reliance on secondary sources rather than primary sources has limited the depth of analysis. we believe that by making greater use of primary sources, future researchers will be able to further elucidate the nuanced role of sufi traditions in bengal, especially in their sociopolitical and contemporary contexts. nevertheless, this study has laid the foundation for a rich and diverse history of sufism in bengal. notes and references 1 haq, muhammad enamul. bonge sufi provap. dhaka: remon publishers, 2019, 13. 2 khan, muhammad mojlum. the muslim heritage of bengal: the lives, thoughts and achievements of great muslim scholars, writers and reformers of bangladesh and west bengal. uk: kube publishing ltd, 2013, 1-12. 3 karim, abdul. banglar musulmander samajik itihas. dhaka: jatiya sahitta prakasoni, 2007, 17. 4 ali, muhammad mohar. history of the muslim bengal. riyadh: imam muhammad ibn saud islamic university, department. of culture and publications, 1985, 33. 5 ahsan, abdullah al. the rehla of ibn battuta, trans: mehdi hussyin. baroda: oriental institute, 1953, 41-44. 6 haq, bonge sufi provap, 13. 7 göktaş, vahit, and saeyd rashed hasan chowdury. “freedom of religion, faith and religious tolerance in bangladesh: a case study on the islamic mysticism/bangladeş’te din özürlüğü, i̇nanç ve dinî hoşgörü: i̇slâm tasavvufu üzerine örnek bir araştırma.” disiplinlerarası sosyal bilimler dergisi 5 (2019): 41-67. 8 haq, muhammad enamul. a history of sufism in bengal. dhaka: asiatic society of bengal, 1975, 25. 9 ali, history of the muslim bengal, 33-35. 10 choudhury, dewan nurul hussain. amader sufiaye kiram: a collection of the life-sketch of the sufis. dhaka: islamic foundation bangladesh, 2004, 39. 11 hai, abdul sayed. muslim dorshon. dhaka: bangladesh islamic foundation, 1989, 27. 12 ahsan, the rehla of ibn battuta, 41-44. 13 schimmel, anniemarie. sufism in indo-pakistan: mystical dimensions of islam. usa: university of north carolina publication, 1975, 344. 14 haq, a history of sufism in bengal, 268. 15 ernst, carl w. eternal garden: mysticism, history, and politics at a south asian sufi center, series in muslim spirituality in south asia. albany: state university of new york press, 1992, 280-282. 16 hodgson, marshall. the initiative of islam. chicago: chicago press university publication, 1975, 113. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 55 17 chowdury, saeyd rashed hasan. “bangladeş’te i̇slâm ve tasavvuf (islam and sufism in bangladesh).” ankara: ankara kalem neşriyat, 2023, 209. 18 haq, a history of sufism in bengal, 20-21. 19 jasvi, m. (2021). the sufi method of spiritual purification in the light of kashf ul-mahjub. karachi islamicus, 1(1), 61-71. 20 khan, the muslim heritage of bengal: the lives, thoughts and achievements of great muslim scholars, writers and reformers of bangladesh and west bengal, 812. 21 alyson. callan, “female saints and bangladesh's islamic practice in sylhet.” journal of the american ethnological society 35, no. 3 (2008), 396-412. 22 al masud, abdullah, md faruk abdullah, and md ruhul amin. “the contributions of sufism in promoting religious harmony in bangladesh.” jurnal usuluddin 45, no. 2 (2017): 105-122. 23ahsan, the rehla of ibn battuta, 238-239. 24 islam, md. rafiqul. bangladesher somaje islam. dhaka: south asian cultural studies publication, 2003, 24. 25 ali, abdullah yusuf. the meaning of the holy qu'ran. kuala lumpur: islamic propagation centre international, 2009, 7-9. 26 sells, michael a. early islamic mysticism: sufi, quran, miraj, poetic and theological writings. new york: paulist press, 1996, 9-16. 27 göktaş, vahit, and saeyd rashed hasan chowdury. “an evaluation of mu'in aldin chishti's sufi influences in the indian subcontinent: the case of chishti tariqa.” şırnak üniversitesi i̇lahiyat fakültesi dergisi 31 (2023): 47-76. 28 bentounes, khaled. sufısm, the heart of islam. arizona: hohm press, 2015, 32. 29 alvi, sajida sultana. perspectives on mughal india: rulers, historians, ulama, and sufis. karachi: oxford university press, 2012, 11. 30 chowdury, saeyd rashed hasan. “shah wali allah al-dihlawi and the conclusive argument from god.” jurnal iman dan spiritualitas 4, no. 3 (2024): 267-270. 31 brannon, ingram. sufis, scholars, and scapegoats: rashid ahmad gangohi (d. 1905) and the deobandi critique of sufism. oxford: blackwell publishing ltd, 2009, 38. 32 blochmann, heinrich. contribution to the history of geography and bengal. kolkata: asian society publication, 2003, 27. 33 chowdury, saeyd rashed hasan, harun alkan, and murat i̇smaıloğlu. “a critical analysis of shah waliullah dehlawi’s sufi influences in the indian subcontinent.” sufiyye 15 (2023): 23-62. 34 chowdury, saeyd rashed hasan, and vahit göktaş. “a critical analysis of imam rabbani ahmad sirhindi’s doctrines on sufism.” teosofi: jurnal tasawuf dan pemikiran islam 11, no. 1 (2021): 93-121. 35 alvi, perspectives on mughal india: rulers, historians, ulama, and sufis, 58. 36 eric, miller roland. the mappila muslims of southwest india-a study in islamic trends. new york: university microfilms international, 1973, 13. 37 saklayen, golam. bangladeser sufi-shadhok: life and activities of sufis of bangladesh. dhaka: bangladesh islamic foundation, 1982, 23. 38 ai-ahsan, abdullah. “spread of islam in pre-mughal bengal”. journal of intellectual discourse 2, no. 1 (1994): 41-55. 39 haq, a history of sufism in bengal, 209. 40 al-mannan, abdullah mamun arif. furfura itihas. dhaka: eshayat-e-islam kutubhana, 2005, 13. 41 chawdhury, shamsur rahman. sufi dorshon. dhaka: dibboprokash prokashoni, 2010, 110. 42 chowdury, saeyd rashed hasan. “unveiling sufi legacies in dhaka of bangladesh: a chronological discourse on islamic heritage.” ulumuna 28, no. 2 (2024): 585-619. 43 matin, abdul. “reformation and vernacularization of sufism in bengal: understanding the formation of ‘silsila-e-furfura sharif’in west bengal.” in regional sufi centres in india, pp. 67-77. routledge, 2023. 56 harmony amidst diversity....... 44 chowdury, saeyd rashed hasan. “the role of political parties in bangladesh’s july revolution of 2024: insights from sufi perspectives.” international journal of research and innovation in social science 8, no. 11 (2024): 2077-2093. 45 khan, qm jalal, and qm jalal khan. “islam, politics, and human rights in bangladesh: a call for all opposition forces to confront the awami dictatorship.” bangladesh in bondage: tarique rahman, sqc, lb, and other essays (2021): 1-60. 46 harder, hans. sufism and saint veneration in contemporary bangladesh: the maijbhandaris of chittagong. routledge, 2011. 47 qasemi, abu jafar. soronkaler vondami-vondo pirder gumor pas (exposing the deceit of false sufi masters: uncovering historic deceptions). dhaka: al-eshhaq publications, 2017, 64.157. https://www.rokomari.com/book/156106/soronkalervondami-vondo-pirder-gumor-fas 48 ahmed, miraj. “the thriving business of the false sufi master atiar’s 'darbar”, amar sangbad (3 september 2024). https://www.amarsangbad.com/country/news/228485#google_vignette 49 uddin, muhammad hemayet. islamic creed and misguided beliefs (i̇slami akida o vranto-motobad). dhaka: maktabatul abrar, 2014, 461-524. https://www.rokomari.com/book/45296/islami-akida-o-vranto-motobad 50 rasulabadi, mufti harun. ways to know wrong and correct beliefs (vul akidi o shuddho akida janar upay). dhaka: anwar library, 2015, 80-86. https://www.rokomari.com/book/126712/vul-akidi-o-shuddho-akida-janar-upay 51 chowdury, “bangladeş’te i̇slâm ve tasavvuf (islam and sufism in bangladesh).”221-227. 52 somewhereinblog.net. “bangladesher vondho pirder kichu bicitro nam somuh” (some peculiar names of fake pirs in bangladesh), (3 september 2024). https://www.somewhereinblog.net/blog/azadmulla/30097421 53 khan, mohammad alamgir. “ek nojore dewanbaghir kichu akida o ukti somuho” )a glimpse of some beliefs and statements of dewanbaghi). somewhereinblog.net (4 september 2024), https://m.somewhereinblog.net/mobile/blog/engineer25best/29668230 54 ahlehaqmedia. “sureshwari pirer majar o urse gomon o tader murid howya haram” (visiting the sureshwari pir’s shrine and attending their urs and becoming their disciple is haram). (4 september 2024. ) https://ahlehaqmedia.com/4781-2/ 55 haq. mufti mansurul. “bangladesher poricito vondho pirder vranto akidabissas o tar khondo” (the false beliefs and misguided doctrines of the well-known fake pirs in bangladesh and their refutation). islamidars.com (4 september 2024). https://islamidars.com/articles/7ffe80b0-b20f-41ab-9cbc-25a06e0a3b32 56 muslim point organization. “rajarbagher pir er vul vranti ba mithachar, bekkha o dalil ba reference soho” (the falsehoods or misconceptions of the pir of rajarbagh, with explanations and evidence or references). (4 september 2024). https://www.muslimpoint.org/blog/%e0%a6%b0%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%9c% e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b0%e0%a6%ac%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%97%e0%a7 %87%e0%a6%b0-%e0%a6%aa%e0%a7%80%e0%a6%b0/ 57 somewhereinblog.net. “kukkhato vondho pir samachar” (tales of notorious fake pirs), (3 september 2024). https://m.somewhereinblog.net/mobile/blog/askan123/30117831 58 islamidars.com. “bangladeshe parichito vondho pirder vranto akida-bissas o tar khondon ) the false beliefs of well-known fake pirs in bangladesh and their refutation). (3 september 2024). https://static.islamidars.com/uploads/store/article/7ffe80b0-b20f-41ab-9cbc25a06e0a3b32/document/0ec75371d358ca4583920d47e53e4a4e.pdf 59 haq, a history of sufism in bengal, 260. 60 haq, a history of sufism in bengal, 261. 61 haq, a history of sufism in bengal, 263. 62 haq, a history of sufism in bengal, 266. 63 haq, a history of sufism in bengal, 268. https://m.somewhereinblog.net/mobile/blog/askan123/30117831 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 4 57 64 nicholson, reynold. the mystics of islam. london: routledge kegan paul publication, 1914, 35. 65 göktaş, vahit, and saeyd chowdury. “districts of bangladesh named after sufis manifesting the great impact of sufism on bengal civilization: a qualitative study.” journal of islamic thought and civilization 13, no. 1 (2023). 66 haq, muhammad enamul. a history of sufiism in bengal. dhaka: asiatic society of bengal, 1975, 33-37. 67 arnold, thomas walker. the promise of islam. lahore: kashmiri bazar prokashoni, 1961. 68 chawdhury, sufi dorshon, 110. 69 al-mannan, furfura itihas, 139. 70 haq, a history of sufism in bengal, 209. 71 alam, rashidul. muslim dorshoner itihas. dhaka: merit fuari prokashoni, 2009, 282-287. 72 masud, abdullah, and amin. “the contributions of sufism in promoting religious harmony in bangladesh,” 105-122. 73 karim, banglar musulmander samajik itihas, 154. 74 jamali, mawlana. siyar al‘arifin. delhi: rizvi publication, delhi, 1893, 164169. 75 ahmed, imtiaz. sufism: a closer look at bangladesh on the path of sufism. singapur: middle east institute, 2010, 20. 76 saklayen, golam. bangladeser sufi-shadhok: life and activities of sufis of bangladesh, 182. 77 blochmann, h. & pemberton, kelly. spiritual guidance in women pirates, saints resignation and sufism in south asia. kolkata: muslim world publication, 2007, 52. 78 masud, abdullah, and amin. “the contributions of sufism in promoting religious harmony in bangladesh,” 105-122. 79 jamali, siyar al-arifīn,171. 80 karim, banglar musulmander samajik itihas, 128. 81 karim, banglar musulmander samajik itihas, 160. 82 chawdhuri, shamsur rahman. sufi dorsan. dhaka: dibbo prokashoni, 2010, 29. 83 ahmed, sufism: a closer look at bangladesh on the path of sufism, 20. 84 masud, abdullah, and amin. “the contributions of sufism in promoting religious harmony in bangladesh,” 105-122. 85 blochmann, contribution to the history of geography and bengal, 27. 86 saklayen, bangladeşli sufi-shadhok, 182. 87 jamali, siyar alarifin, 164-169. 88 jamali, siyar al-arifin, 171. 89 karim, banglar musulmander samajik itihas, 128. 90 masud, abdullah, and amin. “the contributions of sufism in promoting religious harmony in bangladesh”, 105-122. 91 azhar, uzma. “issues in education among the muslims of delhi”, islam and muslim societies: a social science journal, vol. 5, no. 1 (2012), 30-38. 92 masud, abdullah, and amin. “the contributions of sufism in promoting religious harmony in bangladesh”, 105-122. 93 karim, banglar musulmander samajik itihas, 204. 94 rahman, fazlur. islam 2nd edition. chicago: university of chicago press, 1979. 95 karim, banglar musulmander samajik itihas, 204. 96 masud, abdullah, and amin. “the contributions of sufism in promoting religious harmony in bangladesh”, 105-122. 97 murshid, tazeen m. the sacred and the secular: bengal muslim discourses. uk: oxford university press, 1995, 32. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 61 qur’ónic emotional intelligence and its relationships with academic achievement of undergraduate students at al-madinah international university in malaysia abdelali bey zekkoub faculty of islamic sciences, al-madinah international university (mediu) email: bey.zekkoub@mediu.edu.my fouad bounama faculty of islamic sciences, al-madinah international university (mediu) email: fouad.bounama@mediu.edu.my popoola kareem hamed faculty of education, al-madinah international university (mediu) email: popoola.kareem@mediu.edu.my received on: 15-11-22 accepted on: 27-12-23 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.648 abstract the current study aimed to investigate the qur’énic emotional intelligence and its relationships with the academic achievement of undergraduate students at al-madinah international university in malaysia. a correlation methodology was used to answer the research objectives of the study. the population of this study consisted of 363 undergraduate students in the faculty of islamic sciences at al-madinah international university. out of this population, 187 undergraduate students were purposively selected as the sample size of this study. the study used a self-administer questionnaire to measure the students’ emotional intelligence and their academic achievement. the survey contains 40 items for 5 different domains of qur’ānic emotional intelligence (qei). the findings of the study were in three-fold: the result indicated that the respondents have a high level of ei in both religious domain and environmental domain, followed by moderate level for mailto:bey.zekkoub@mediu.edu.my mailto:fouad.bounama@mediu.edu.my mailto:popoola.kareem@mediu.edu.my https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.648 62 qur’anic emotional intelligence … psychological domain and divine laws domain. the finding further showed that there were no significant relationships in correlation between qei and gpa, the p= value is greater than the threshold of (.05). in terms of the differences in the student qei and their demographic, the result indicated that significant, at .05 alpha level while other demography variables were not insignificant. thus, the study recommends the importance of qei implementation in educational sections especially for students in higher education institutions. keywords: qur’énic emotional intelligence, undergraduate students, academic achievement, faculty of islamic sciences, five domains introduction intelligent quotient and conscientiousness significantly predict emotional intelligence, and identifies shared brain areas that underlie this interdependence.1 in spite of significant overlap between general intelligence and emotional intelligence the modern researchers are of the viewpoint that emotional intelligence is in a quite contrasting stance when compared to other. emotions and thinking significantly overlap and can never be viewed completely apart from each other but after daniel goleman's best seller "emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than iq", the importance of ei further got intensified in various assorted fields of academic temperament. islam not being just a religion, rather a complete way of life lays much emphasis on acquisition of emotional intelligence which is quite unlike hereditary intelligence. the holy qur’én, which is ardently believed by the muslims as the verbatim words of almighty allah, was revealed to the holy prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) has given reference of emotional intelligence in its various verses much eons before formal and organized methods of research had evolved. before the 1990s, extensive researches opened the way for perceiving ei, and this was started by writing about the intelligence and its types, such as stern who wrote about: “psychological methods of testing intelligence”, published in 19142, followed by thorndike and stein who talked about social intelligence, in their book "an evaluation of the attempts to measure social intelligence"3, published in 1937, and wechsler who published a book about: " the measurement of adult intelligence"4, published in 1944. in the 1990s, the notion of ei was set by mayer and salovey in their paper called: “the intelligence of emotion intelligence”, published in 19935, followed by goleman who contributed greatly in spreading the notion of ei across his work: "emotional intelligence, what it is and why it matters", published in 19956, and his other hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 63 book: “working with emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than iq", published in 1998.7 in the middle eastern, the scholars endorsed the notion of ei with various additional names, including "irritability intelligence"8, "affection intelligence"9, "mental superiority"10, "rational thinking"11, "spiritual intelligence"12 and "emotional intelligence"13, as considered the most widely circulated between the arab psychologists. it has been observed across the muslim scholars' literary works, that they have contributed greatly in rationalizing and controlling feelings from all human aspect in what is called و األخالق .al-akhlāq wa-al-tazkīyah(, meaning morals and purification( التزكية the noble qur’ān orders us to leave anger, negative feelings, to be patient with affliction, be satisfied with the destiny, adapt to daily problems and challenges in a positive way, work to change the grumpy reality with wisdom and legitimate means, communicate and deal well with others, understand their feelings, have a positive thinking, choosing the best words in communicating with others, and not calling them by names that they hate. in contrary, the noble qur’ān forbids backbiting, gossiping, spying, bad thinking, sadness, anxiety, hypocrisy, and everything that might provoke sorrows, fears, despair, demoralization, self-discourage, and obstruction of intelligence. moreover, the noble qur’ān urges us to bring a positive change; to create happiness and comfort for ourselves and others, and calls us to love, affection, social solidarity, and to spread mercy among all human beings from different sects, races and ethnicities. for more than fourteen centuries, islam has called for high ethics and avoidance of low ethics, the noble qur’ān is the source of these high ethics, and the messenger muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) is the application of this noble qur’ān, for this reason, allah almigty described him as: “and you are surely on an excellent standard of character”.14 ʻāʼishah (raḍi allah ʻanhā), answered the person who asked her about the character of her husband the prophet (ṣallā allāhu ʻalayhi wa-sallam), by replying him: “verily, the character of the prophet of allah almighty was the qur’ān”.15 hence, the messenger of allah almighty summed up the message of islam by saying: “i have been sent to perfect good character”. 16 michael hart has chosen the prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) as the greatest personality in the 64 qur’anic emotional intelligence … history and the first of the great hundred, and the criterion on that was as he stated: “my choice of muhammad to lead the list of the world’s most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular level”.17 from the western psychological perspectives, like goleman, ei is: “the ability to motivate oneself with the help of self-control, zeal and persistence in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope”.18 other scholars, like salovey and mayer, determined ei as “a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions”.19 further, reuven bar-on clarified that “ei is understanding oneself and others, to relate well with people, and to adapt and cope with the immediate surroundings in order to deal successfully with environmental demands”.20 moreover, watson, defined ei as “the ability to determine and manage your emotions properly. it also includes managing the emotions of others around you”.21 however, he listed three areas that make up emotional intelligence, including: “being aware of the emotions in yourself and in those around you, your ability to manage or control the various emotions inside you, also the skill of managing the emotional state of the person or persons around you, and the skill of harnessing these emotional states of mind and applying them towards the achievement of a positive outcome or resolution of a situation”.22 while, goleman categorized ei skills into five main scopes: “knowing one’s emotions, managing emotions, motivating oneself, recognizing emotions in others, handling relationships”.23 it is clear from above definitions that there is a potent connection between intelligence and emotion; which they cannot be separated one from the other. emotion is a psychological feeling to express sadness, happiness, anger, or satisfaction as a reaction to an incident, and intelligence comes to rationalize this emotion for the better, and keep it away from deviation. meanwhile, from the eastern psychological perspectives, uthman figured out that: “ei is the ability to pay attention and be well aware of one’s own emotions and feelings, understand them, formulate them clearly and organize them based on observation and awareness of others’ emotions and feelings to involve with them into positive social emotional relationships that helps the individual to mental, emotional and professional advancement and to learn more positive life’ skills”.24 further, manṣūr & lumā found that: “ei is a set of emotional, cognitive and social skills, which are represented in understanding and realizing the feelings of the individual himself, and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 65 the feelings of others, and benefiting from them in facing daily pressures, achieving individual and professional successes and building human relationships.” 25 furthermore, al-otaibi described ei as “a person’s ability to deal with his emotions, so that he brings more happiness for himself and for those around him.”26 aleid explained that: “ei is the individual’s awareness of his feelings, others’ feelings, his control over them and his ability to stimulate his motivation in a good way.”27 moreover, reda concluded that ei is: “the individual’s awareness of his feelings, others’ feelings, his awareness of them, his understanding of them, managing emotions and feelings, making decisions and controlling them.”28 based on the contemplation and understanding of the qur’ānic verses, this study deduced that ei is the constructive and effective feelings in this existence towards the almighty, the self, the people, the surroundings and the whole world. following qei definition, it has been categorized into five domains as follows: i. religious intelligence: having an effective connection with the creator; through the recognition that he almighty is observing us continuously and through the belief in his oneness in worship. according to holy qur’ān: “allah knows everything in the heavens and everything in the earth.”29 moreover, the holy qur’ān says: “i did not create the jinns and the human beings except for the purpose that they should worship me.”30 ii. psychological intelligence: having an effective connection with oneself; through observing the self and dominating the feelings. the noble qur’ān declares: “success is really attained by him who purifies it, and failure is really suffered by him who pollutes it.”31 iii. social intelligence domain: having an effective connection with human; through mastering and building up human interconnections. in this regard, the noble qur’ān says: “o mankind, we have created you from a male and a female, and made you into races and tribes, so that you may identify one another.” 32 iv. environmental intelligence: having an effective connection with environment; through adjusting with the life’s difficult circumstances. the noble qur’ān says: “indeed we have created man (to live) in hard struggle.”33 v. divine laws’ intelligence: having an effective connection with divine laws’ of the life; through observing allāh almighty; to perceive his rules. in this regard, the noble qurʾān says: “so you will never find in allah‘s practice any change, and you will never find in allah‘s practice any diversion.”34 current research is conducted to achieve three objectives. first, it explores the level of emotional intelligent from qur’ānic perspective among the undergraduate students. second, it investigates the relationships between qei and undergraduate students’ academic 66 qur’anic emotional intelligence … achievement. third, it determines the statistical significant difference in the using qei among the undergraduate students in terms of gender, age group and nationality. literature review alhamad and others aimed “to examine the correlation between ei and academic achievement among undergraduate students, the quantitative research design was conducted using a sample size of 204 students in nursing college at princess nourah bint abdulrahman university, riyadh, saudi. the research found that undergraduate nursing students who were more emotionally intelligent received excellent academic achievement.”35 further, martaputri and others sought to “detect the correlation between ei and academic achievement using a metaanalysis approach to analyze twenty scopus studies with a sample size of 5737 people. the study concluded that ei has a positive effect on academic achievement.36 tam and others seek to reveal the influence of ei on students’ learning motivation and academic achievement in a sample of 737 primary students in hong kong with a confucian heritage. the study discovered the significant role of ei in improving students’ academic achievement.”37 al-qadri and zhao attempted to “explore the relationship between ei and the academic achievement of arabic basic school in china in sample of 303 students. the study concluded a positive relationship between ei and students’ academic achievement.”38 furthermore, uğur akpur aimed to “explore the effect level of ei on academic achievement by using a meta-analytic approach to analyze twenty scopus researches published. the study revealed that the positive and significant effect of ei on academic achievement have been supported by many researchers.”39 nicolás and others explored “the relationship between ei and academic performance, with sample size of 19,861 participants. the study found in general a significant effect of ei on academic performance.”40 al habidah investigated “the relationship between ei and academic achievement among undergraduate students. the quantitative research design was conducted using a sample size of 200 students in education at kuwait, using schutte ei scale. the study discovered a high relationship between ei and academic achievement.”41 halimi and others purposed “at examining the role of ei on academic achievement among students at a private university in kuwait in a sample of 480 students, using a scale of wong and law ei (wleis). the findings indicated that the academic success was strongly associated with selfemotion appraisal and use of emotions. however, the results did not show direct correlations with age, high schooling system, gender and nationality.”42 yusri et al discussed “the relationship between hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 67 emotional intelligence and student achievement, the sample used was 248 high school students in padang city, the results showed that there was a significant interrelationship between emotional intelligence and student achievement.”43 maccann and others examined “the degree to which student ei is associated with academic performance, using a meta-analysis approach, the study found an overall effect of ρ = .20 using robust variance estimation (n = 42,529, k = 1,246 from 158 citations). the association is significantly stronger for ability ei (ρ = .24, k = 50) compared with self-rated (ρ = .12, k = 33) or mixed ei (ρ = .19, k = 90). ability, self-rated, and mixed ei explained an additional 1.7%, 0.7%, and 2.3% of the variance.”44 meanwhile, zahid and others sought to “examine the relationships between ei, academic achievement and gender differences for pakistani management students, using a sample size of 189 students. the study indicated that the self-control, sociability and well-being components of the trait ei questionnaire (teique) were positively correlated with gpa, whereas the emotionality component was negatively correlated.”45 jan and anwar attempted to “explore the association between ei, library use and academic achievement among undergraduate students from three universities in peshawar, pakistan, using a sample size of 725 students. the study concluded that students with comparatively higher ei score frequently visited their university library. therefore, a positive significant relationship was found between ei and academic achievement.”46 suleman and others investigated “the association between emotional intelligence and academic success among undergraduates of pakistan. a cross-sectional, descriptive and correlational research methods were employed in this study using a sample of 186 students. the findings revealed that there was a strong positive relationship between ei and academic success among undergraduate students.”47 moreover, fintazi and amrish investigated “the relationship between ei and academic achievement among undergraduate students, using a sample size of 150 students in mathematics at alquds university abu dis. the findings of the study showed that the percentage of ei of 60 outstanding students was high, compared to the percentage of ei of 90 nonoutstanding students which was ordinary”48. additionally, kong aimed at “examining measurement invariance of the chinese wleis across gender and age in a sample consisted of 1160 chinese individuals aged 13–40 years. the study indicated the existence of differences between ei, gender and age.”49 in general, many researchers have explored a positive significant correlation between ei and academic achievement. conversely, some outers have not found any significant relationship 68 qur’anic emotional intelligence … between ei and academic achievement. to confirm, none of the existing research on this topic focused on the relationship of qei and academic success between undergraduate students in mediu university. knowing our own self is definitely the first important step to increase the emotional intelligence. in its physical form the selfawareness should be differentiated from consciousness. selfawareness is the capability of introspection and the power to distinguish one dissociated from the direct environment. “know thyself” or knowing the spiritual dimensions of our life has been the thinking of many philosophers of ancient as well as modern times. perhaps quoting few verses from the glorious qur’én and the ×adêths will ameliorate the importance of such an important dimension of emotional intelligence. allah almighty says: “o you who believe, take care of your own selves. the one who has gone astray cannot harm you, if you are on the right path.”50 in this beautiful verse allah almighty commands, us to take care of ourselves so that we can be aware about the happiness and comfort of our spirit. most importantly it is also simplified that knowing and controlling oneself acts as armors against all the possible harm from others. at a psychological level self-awareness is well riveted with self-restraint. “what is the purpose of our existence in this world” –unveiling this mystical truth will obviously liberate us from the delusion of ostensible self-worth. according to famous sufi scholar and writer al-ghazali, the understanding of self-concept depends on the spiritual health and happiness of mankind. further as al-ghazali has arabic by four different terms, which are explicitly rëí (soul), ‘aql (reason), nafs (the desire-nature), and qalb (heart). methodology the undergraduate students of the faculty of islamic sciences at mediu university were used as the sample population for this study. mediu university is “an independent non-profit educational institution was established in 2006 at malaysia, on 20 may 2007, was registered and accredited by the ministry of higher education, by government of malaysia. in 2008, the first intake of students joined and faculties and programs were inaugurated. the university offers all levels of higher education, in both online and on campus mode. the university has a digital and traditional library. the university includes four faculties such as: (1) faculty of islamic sciences; (2) faculty of finance and administrative sciences; (3) faculty of languages; (4) faculty of computer and information technology; (5) faculty of education.”51 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/malaysia hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 69 the inductive method was used to understand the meaning of ei in the psychology field and islamic field and then to trace the emotional concepts contained in the qur’ānic guidance, followed by the deductive method to conclude the most important qei related to academic achievement and come up with new instrument of ei based on qur’ānic perspective, which can be utilized as a predictor of academic and professional success, and the descriptive method with the help of the statistical tools data by using mean score and standard deviation to identify the level of qei among students, followed by pearson correlation coefficient to examine the relationship between qei level and gpa scores, and t-test with anova to determine any significant differences between qei, gender, age and nationality variables. the sample of this study consist of 187 undergraduate students from the faculty of islamic sciences at al madinah international university malaysia who filled the survey were received. 51% of the participants were female, and 49% of them were male students. out of these 187 respondents, 29% were malaysian and 71 were international students. we obtained the sample size from raosoft sample size calculator based on the total number of 363 in a population. this study relied on the primary data collected by the selfadministered structured survey instrument. data gathered from the bachelor muslim students, during semester of november 2021-2022, in faculty of islamic sciences at al madinah international university malaysia. the instrument of this study (survey) was developed based on the qur’ānic teachings (the holy book of muslims), evaluated by experts in the field, and pilot tested by the student, before it is administered for the actual study. in order to make sure the efficacy of the instrument, the accuracy of the language style used and the instrument content’s relationship with the topic of research paper, 5 experienced professors and experts in islamic, arabic language and education fields were consulted to evaluate the instrument, and based on their valuable comments, some items were modified, shifted, added and few items were removed. so, the number of items in the survey becomes 40 instead of 48 for 5 different domains of qei. findings and discussions demographic information the participants of this study consist 187 undergraduate students who are learning islamic sciences in fis at mediu. male 70 qur’anic emotional intelligence … and females, locals and internationals, (see table 1). to determine the gpa score in islamic sciences for each respondent, the participants were asked to write how much they got in their last semester. respondent profile frequency percentage % gender female male 96 91 51.3 48.7 group age 18-25 years old 26-33 years old 34 years old and above 100 34 53 53.5 18.2 28.3 nationality malaysian international 54 133 28.9 71.1 achievement level low achievers "0-2.32" average achievers "2.33-3.66" high achievers "3.67-4" total 10 67 110 187 5.3 35.8 58.8 100.0 table 1 demographic characteristics as shown in table 4.1.1, a total of 187 (96, 51% female and 91, 49% male) students fully responded to the survey. the majority were between 18-25 years old, with 53.5 % compared to 18.2 % of 26-33 years old and 28.3% of 34 years old and above. out of these 187 respondents, 54, 28.9% were malaysian and 133, 71.1 were international. a small number of students (10, 5.3%) had achieved their gpa in the range of 0.00–2.32/4.00, followed by 67, 35.8% in the range of 2.33–3.66 compared to large number of students (110, 58.8%) had achieved their gpa in the range of 3.67–4.00. the level of emotional intelligent from qur’ānic perspective among the undergraduate students the survey for this study contained five domains of ei based on qur’ānic understanding, and each domain contained eight statements, which are considered as qei skills. the items in the survey require respondents to indicate their response base on 1 to 5 rating scale (1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= neutral, 4= agree, 5= strongly agree). in this study, level of students’ answers with a mean score of 0.00 to 1.99 are considered as low (l), 2.00 to 3.99 are hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 71 considered as moderate (m), and responses with a mean score of 4.00 to 5.00 are considered as high (h). mean sd level qei 4.07 .360 high table 2 descriptive analysis of level of qur’ānic emotional intelligence table 2 above presents the overall mean score of qei among the students, while table 3 below presents the mean scores of the five domains of qei explored in this study. the researchers hypothesized (ho1) that the level of students’ qei is expected to be weak. the findings in table 2 reveals that the students of the fis, mediu, kuala lumpur had high level of qei (m= 4.07, sd= 0.36). in addition, the respondents as shown in table 3 below also were revealed to have a high level of ei for religious domain (m= 4.40, sd= .38), social domain (m= 4.16, sd= .49) and environmental domain (m= 4.04, sd=.44), followed by moderate level for psychological domain (m= 3.87, sd= .50) and divine laws domain (m= 3.85, sd= .44). thus, the null hypothesis (ho1) has been rejected. generally, the results indicated that the respondents were highly conscious of the qei’ skills, which help them to control their own emotions, feelings towards the creator, the others, the environment and the universe. in addition, they were aware what kind of emotion to be taken under certain pressure and conditions. however, the results show that the respondents had less awareness of psychological and divine laws’ emotions as compared to the awareness of religious, social and environmental’ emotions. it was also found that the lowest mean score of the five domains is on the divine laws and psychological domains, which need to be improved between students in order to increase their ei based on qur’ānic teachings. there is a similitude between the results of the current study and alhamad et al who found that “the level of four patterns in the ei scale of students in nursing college at princess nourah bint abdulrahman university at riyadh was high, with overall (m= 69.84, sd= 11.72)”52,and with al-qadri and zhao who also found that “the level of five factors in the ei scale of arabic basic school students in china was very high with overall (m= 159.38, sd= 29.48).”53 therefor, the findings were supported by other previous outdated studies such as (boon h, azhar m and faezah h54; suad 72 qur’anic emotional intelligence … mansour and luma mohammed55; maizatul et al56) and others who also found that the degree of ei between the students was high. the authors did not find any dissimilarity results of available previous studies with the current study, but the only difference has been noticed is in using ei models such as (mayer salovey caruso test, bar-on test, goleman test and etc), while the present study has developed a new ei instrument based on qur’ānic guidance. d o m a in item m ea n s d l ev el r el ig io u s in te ll ig en ce 1 relying on allāh almighty in times of need. 4.81 .455 h 2 gratitude to allāh almighty, and acknowledging his great blessings. 4.80 .462 h 3 being aware of your intentions at all times, both outwardly and inwardly. 4.64 .628 h 4 thinking about the future; calms me down. 2.65 1.147 m 5 do not despair of allah's mercy and repent quickly; since allah forgives all sins. 4.66 .576 h 6 a sense of responsibility for the results of all actions and sayings. 4.55 .615 h 7 prayer to almighty allah; to overcome life's dilemmas. 4.65 .608 h 8 remembrance of creator; to keep the inner soundness. 4.52 .691 h overall score 4.40 .382 h p sy ch o lo g ic a l in te ll ig en ce 1 capability to adjust to problems, modern living conditions and stresses. 3.96 .809 m 2 capability to restrain hopelessness and pain from blocking reflection. 3.75 .975 m 3 capability to encourage oneself for success. 2.75 1.079 m 4 capability to act in a good way by being good model. 4.06 .780 h 5 capability to manage sentiments. 4.12 .801 h hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 73 6 capability to succumb to verity. 3.86 .917 m 7 capability to selfgrapple; to perform obligatory. 4.17 .946 h 8 capability to fathom the reality of life. 4.35 .837 h overall score 3.87 .500 m s o ci a l in te ll ig en ce 1 assist others to defeat sentiments of gloominess. 4.24 .797 h 2 reward all who do good to you. 4.41 .723 h 3 spread good and trigger joy. 4.42 .808 h 4 abstain from offending others’ sentiments while encountering pressure or hardship. 3.36 1.314 m 5 forgive the aggressors. 3.98 .904 m 6 refrain from poking fun at others. 4.21 .845 h 7 collaboration with others to attain fruitful purposes. 4.41 .807 h 8 tenderness when treating with people; to earn their confidence. 4.33 .739 h overall score 4.16 .496 h e n v ir o n m en ta l in te ll ig en ce 1 resilience to tackle tension, fright, aggravation and discouragement. 4.20 .739 h 2 the need to remember the creator and seeking his forgiveness; to ease the daily stress. 4.55 .606 h 3 asking for help by contemplating the meaning of the holy qur’én; for assessing what is significant and what is not significant in this life. 3.28 1.257 m 4 planning and problem-solving skills; to face life's challenges. 4.41 .692 h 5 capability to overcome sleeplessness while facing the stresses of life. 4.10 .871 h 6 getting the others’ advice in troublesome times. 3.67 1.139 m 7 climate protection. 4.07 .942 h 74 qur’anic emotional intelligence … 8 capability to be hopeful; to get through the rigorous times. 4.10 .804 h overall score 4.04 .448 h d iv in e l a w s in te ll ig en ce 1 the belief that everyone who works hard in this life will definitely get what he endeavours for. 4.44 .755 h 2 sense of highly avid; when surprising results occur. 2.33 1.004 m 3 the effective progress in the self; is a prerequisite for an effective social change 4.26 .854 h 4 belief in the concept of life cycle and rotation of success. 3.94 .862 m 5 realization that the world is devoted to people; to reach their ambitions and meet their necessities. 4.11 .927 h 6 admitting the differences between people. 2.73 1.175 m 7 believing that attainment of achievement and coping with the compression; is subject to the dedication of the worship of allāh almighty. 4.55 .657 h 8 the belief that sinning deprives people from their blessings and benefits and causes them hardship and suffering. 4.52 .838 h overall score 3.85 .447 m table 3 descriptive analysis of qur’ānic emotional intelligence’ domains the relationships between qei and undergraduate students’ academic achievement the second analysis considered the relationship between the five domains of qei. the results showed that five domains of qei correlated positively with each other, with a small and medium strength of relationship. this correlation was significant at 0.05 alpha level (2-tailed). in conclusion, from the analysis of the results, the researchers found a small and medium positive relationship between qei domains among students in fis at mediu. (see table. 4), meaning that the domains cannot be separated from each other during testing hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 75 the level of ei for individuals as they cover all humans’ life aspects spiritually, psychologically, socially, environmentally and divinely. table 4 relationship between qei correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). correlation between qur’ānic emotional intelligence and academic achievement table 5 presents that the mean score for study achievement of the respondents was 3.52, and sd= 0.63, with a minimum score of 0.81 and maximum score of 4.00/4.00. the researchers hypothesized (ho2) that there would not be a significant relationship between qei and gpa (ho2). the analysis of the correlation between qei and gpa showed that there were no significant correlation between them, r=.092, n= 187, p=.209. hence, the null hypothesis (ho2) has been accepted. ri pi si ei dli ri pearson correlation 1 sig. (2tailed) n 187 pi pearson correlation .419** 1 sig. (2tailed) .000 n 187 187 si pearson correlation .482** .495** 1 sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 n 187 187 187 ei pearson correlation .466** .553** .703** 1 sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 .000 n 187 187 187 187 dli pearson correlation .543** .504** .592** .547** 1 sig. (2tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 n 187 187 187 187 187 76 qur’anic emotional intelligence … dissimilarly, many studies interfered the current research finding. for instance, alhamad et al who also found that “emotional intelligence (r = 0.279) was significantly correlated (<0.001) with academic achievement among undergraduate nursing students.”57 therefore, the current results contradicted with (al-qadri and zhao58; martaputri et al59; halimi et al60; uğur akpur61; nicolás et al62; al habidah63; yusri et al64;jan & anwar65; suleman et al66; fintazi and amrish67) and supported by others outdated studies such as (boon h, azhar m and faezah68; aleid alkhamisat69; lanciano and curci70) who also found that ei was positively correlated with students’ academic achievement. we conclude from above results that students with high level of ei are more successful academically than those with low level of ei. therefore, it is possible that understand ei skills may improve students’ academic performance. in contrast, there is a similitude between the results of the current study and zahid et al who found that the emotionality component (−0.606) was negatively correlated with management students’ academic achievement, while sociability component (0.275) was not correlated with gpa in pakistani.71 this result was also supported by some outdated studies such as (aal hamed ajwa72; samirat, ghada moussa73; shaun, arla and victor74) who also found that there is no significant connection between ei and students’ gpa. in conclusion, the researchers attributed the absence of the relationship between qei and the gpa at the fis of mediu in the current study to the understanding and perception of qei in students in general who have good background of qur’ānic teachings and guidance because of learning islamic sciences at the university. therefore, the findings obtained in this study could be different if it will be conducted at other faculties, universities and with other population. qei gpa qei pearson correlation 1 .092 sig. (2-tailed) .209 n 187 187 gpa pearson correlation .092 1 sig. (2-tailed) .209 n 187 187 table 5 relationship between qei and gpa therefore, we noticed in the present study that all students with high, moderate and low gpa got high level of qei (m= 4.07, sd= 0.36), which means that qei does not have impact with their academic achievement. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 77 statistical significant difference in the using qei among the undergraduate students in terms of gender; age group and nationality in this section, the author analyzed the differences in terms of using qei between the following: a) gender, b) age, and c) nationality. qei among the undergraduate students in terms of gender the assumption (ho3) that there is no significant difference between qei and gender was accurate. the analysis of the differences between qei and gender showed that there were no significant differences in the mean score for females (m=4.04, sd=.33) compared to males (m=4.10, sd=.38) in terms of using qei . the test was not significant, t (187) = -.057, p= .278 at .05 alpha level two tailed. therefore, the null hypothesis (ho3) has been accepted. (see table 6). therefore, this result indicates that both sexes (males females) are having high degree of qei in terms of running an effective relationship with the creator, the self, others, environment and divine laws of universe and life. thus, the current results confirm large number of previous studies (al-qadri and zhao75; halimi et al76; samirat, ghada moussa77; suad mansour and luma mohammed78 and belkacem mohamed)79 who also found that there is no statistical differences in the mean score for gender in terms of using ei among students. these results support goleman’s work who found there is no differences between males and females in their ei.80 therefore, the result found in the previous literature has been endorsed by the results of the current study. meanwhile, the findings of the present study are not consistent with zahid et al who found a “significant differences between males and females in terms of using emotional intelligence in favor of male on self-control and well-being components while women scored higher on emotionality component”81, and it differs also with the result of (kong82; al masdar83 and al-astal)84 who found a significant differences between men and women in ei in favour of men. gender n m sd t sig (2 tailed) qei female 96 4.04 .33 -.057 .278 male 91 4.10 .38 table 6 qei and gender differences 78 qur’anic emotional intelligence … the authors confirm that the different results of the previous studies with the current study is due to environmental factor and ei model adopted which is totally differed with the environment and qei self-developed instrument in the current study. qei among the undergraduate students in terms of age the mean age of the participants of this study was 29.33 years, with a standard deviation of 10.563. the researchers hypothesized (ho3) that there is no significant difference between qei and age. a one way analysis of variance (anova) was conducted to evaluate the relationship between the group age and the qei. the factor group age has three levels; 1= 18-25 years old, 2= 26-33 years old and 3= 34 years old and above. the dependent variable was the average use of qei among students. the result indicated that the anova was significant, f (2, 18) = 14.47, p= .00 at .05 alpha level. table 7 presents there was a significant differences in the means between the first group age (18-25 years old) and the second group age (26-33 years old), and between the age groups (34 years old and above), but no significant difference between the age groups (26-33 years old and 34 years old and above) has been found. therefore, the null hypothesis (ho3) has been rejected. group age m sd 18-25 26-33 34 and above 18-25 years old 3.95 .34 26-33 years old 4.17 .30 -.37 to .25* 34 years old and above 4.24 .35 -.37 to .15* table 7 qei and age differences * the mean difference is significant at the .05 alpha level. therefore, the results indicated that younger students (18-25 years old) had lower mean scores (m=3.95, sd=.34) followed by students age group (26-33 years old) who had higher mean scores (m=4.17, sd=.30) and compared with students age group (34 years old and above) who had the highest mean scores (m=4.24, sd=.35). however, these findings are consistent similar to previous research of feng kong who showed that “youths had higher mean scores on self-emotion appraisals and use of emotion than teenagers and adults had higher mean scores on use of emotion than teenagers.”85 in contradict, no significant differences were gained between the age groups, supporting previous research (halimi et al86; shipley et al., 201087; waldman and avolio88). hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 79 qei among the undergraduate students in terms of nationality the researchers hypothesized (ho3) that there is no significant difference in qei among the undergraduate students in terms of nationality. the analysis of the correlation between qei and nationality showed that there were significant differences in the mean score for malaysian (m=3.87, sd=.34) compared to international (m=4.15, sd=.33) in terms of using qei . the test was significant, t (187) = -5.187, p= .000 at .05 alpha level two tailed. so, the null hypothesis (ho3) was rejected. (see table 8). therefore, international students have a higher qei score than the local students. however, this finding is consistent with james poon and irene chew who also shown that “students with foreign education background do have a higher ei score than those with local education background, with males scoring significantly higher than females.”89 on the contrary, the present finding is not consistent with halimi et al who indicated that there was “no statistically significant differences in the level of ei related to nationality.”90 nationality n m sd t sig (2 tailed) qei malaysian 54 3.87 .34 -5.187 .000 international 133 4.15 .33 table 8 qei and nationality differences conclusion in summary, this study has developed ei instrument from qur’ānic perspective, and figured out its possible connectedness with students' academic achievement in fis at mediu. the study concluded five qei’s domains: the religious, psychological, social, environmental and divine laws, with forty skills. the respondents (187 students: 96 females, 91 males, 133 international and 54 locals) were found at the high level of qei (m= 4.07, sd= 0.36). the findings of the study indicated that the respondents have a high level of ei for religious domain (m= 4.40, sd= .38), social domain (m= 4.16, sd= .49) and environmental domain (m= 4.04, sd=.44), followed by moderate level for psychological domain (m= 3.87, sd= .50) and divine laws domain (m= 3.85, sd= .44). the finding further shown that there was no significant relationships in correlation between qei and gpa (r=.092, n= 187, p=.209), nor between qei and gender (t (187) = -.057, p= .278). hence, all students with high, moderate and low gpa got high level of qei, meaning that qei does not have impact on their academic achievement. furthermore, students with foreign education background had a higher qei score 80 qur’anic emotional intelligence … (m=4.15, sd=.33) compared to those with local education background (m=3.87, sd=.34). in addition, in terms of the differences in the student qei and there demographic, the result indicated that the anova was significant, f (2, 18) = 14.47, p= .00 at .05 alpha level while other demography variables were no insignificant. therefore, there is a plethora of such pearls of emotional wisdom which islam teaches us in its various marvelous surah’s (verses) of the holy qur’én as well as from the authentic sources of the various golden ×adêths which the messenger of allah prophet muhammad (×aìrat muhammad rasëlullah khétam un nabiyyên øallallahu ‘alaihi wa ‘alé ólihi wa aîíébihi wa øallam) taught to mankind. this research work is an indeed humble endeavour to explore some of the sophisticated insights of emotional intelligence recorded in the two of the holiest books of the muslims. however, what is most vitally noteworthy is that the glorious qur’én has given reference to emotional intelligence in its various verses much eons before formal and organized methods of research had evolved. there are various methodical structures and models developed over a period of time. unquestionably they have proposed various constructs which when proficiently applied can increase long term happiness and survival. the religious emphasis laid down in the holy text is much more internally imposed experience than appreciating a heuristic model. the research work is a sincere attempt to eliminate some of the misconceptions about islam, which was become relevant issue in the rising tides of islamophobia and to make aware those who claim to be devoted muslims yet subvert the holy book for political and social gain. this meek endeavour is expended to recognize the true essence of islam by comprehending the unending cache of wisdom stored in the holy qur’én, the mysterious divine book. the present study has indicated that qei does not have a direct relationship with students’ academic achievement, it could be due to profound islamic background provided and academic programs offered in their university. therefore, the findings may not be generalized. therefore, this research finding show that although has been contact between eq level with student academic achievement but the existing relationship is not significant. this contrary with study findings result conducted which said that three from five domains emotional intelligence namely self-awareness domain, emotion control domain and empathy domain have significant relationship with student academic achievement. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 81 nevertheless, relationship that exists between emotional intelligence with student academic achievement is weak. study findings result done by nurhayati91 also gave same decision findings with ng92. there is a significant relationship between students' emotions intelligence level with their academic performance. in addition, between emotional intelligence domains which have relationship is emotion control domain, self-motivation domain and self-awareness domain. due to this, based on past research retrieval result where the student academic achievement level assessment is based on students' emotions intelligence level cannot be accepted anymore due to this study findings result. overall, based on this research finding, can be concluded that majority of students have medium level of academic performance and eq. however, there are also students having medium level of eq and capable to achieve high level of academic performance. implication and recommendation these findings have several implications for research and application contexts. the school setting is one of the most important contexts for learning emotional skills and competencies93. ei training improves other associated issues, as well as improving performance. developing emotional skills in early stages of adolescence will allow them to become consolidated personal resources to face risks and promote motivation oriented toward academic success and wellbeing.94 for this reason, this study provides relevant information for the development of programs focused on increasing emotional skills in students, as well as providing tools for teachers and counselors, providing an empirical basis for the development. furthermore, there are various recommendations have been observed during the research findings and discussions. first, it recommends conducting further studies with greater sample size, with other participants from different universities and among various exogenous variables; in order to explore the relationship between qei and academic achievement. secondly, it suggests conducting this study among all faculties of al-madinah international university; to examine whether the students of other faculties are having same high level of qei as the student of faculty of islamic sciences. thirdly, generalizing the qei instrument made by the authors; to test the qei level between students at different educational level; in order to measure the level of qei among students and educators, define it deficiencies, and work to improve it. fourthly, the curriculum designers should integrate the subject of qei into the programs at each level of higher education in order to maintain the student’s sentiments and manage them. lastly, the researchers recommend international scientific journals to single out a special issue on emotional intelligence in the light of the noble qur’ān and the 82 qur’anic emotional intelligence … prophetic tradition; in order to educate human about the importance of ei which has been highlighted in teachings of islam, also to enable the educators (professors, psychologists, university counsellors and parents) to recognize the ability of qei and its basic skills in predicting the academic achievement. declarations acknowledgement the author would like to thank the research management centre, almadinah international university, kuala lumpur, malaysia, which has provided funding for this research. notes and references 1 operskalski, j. t., paul, e. j., colom, r., barbey, a. k., & grafman, j. (2015). lesion mapping the four-factor structure of emotional intelligence. frontiers in human neuroscience, 9, 649. 2 william stern, psychological methods of testing intelligence, translated by g. m. whipple, (baltimore: warwick & york, inc, 1914). 3 thorndike r.l and stein s, "an evaluation of the attempts to measure social intelligence", psychological bulletin 34 (1937). 4 wechsler d, the measurement of adult intelligence, (baltimore: williams & wilkins, 1944). 5 mayer j. d. and peter salovey, “the intelligence of emotional intelligence”, intelligence journal 17, no. 4 (1993): 433. 6 goleman d, emotional intelligence, (new york: bantam books, 1995). 7 goleman d, working with emotional intelligence, (london: bloomsbury publishing, 1998). 8 belkacem mohamed, al-dhakāʾ al-ʾinfiʿālī wa ʿalāqatuhu bil-injāz al-dirāsī ladā talāmīdh al-taʿlīm al-thānawī: dīrāsah maydāniyyah ʿalā ʿayyinah min talāmīth al-sanah al-thāniyah min al-taʿlīm al-thānawī, (algeria: university of oran, master thesis, 2014). 9 aʿsar ṣ. and kafāfī ʿa.e, al-dhakāʾ wujdānī, (cairo, dār qubā, 2000). 10 abdessalām abdelghaffār, al-tafawwoq al-ʿaqli wa al-ʾibtikār, (cairo: dār alnahḍah, 1997). 11 abderazzaq al-ghāmidī, al-tafkīr al-ʿaqlānī wa al-tafkīr ghayr al-ʿaqlānī wa mafhūm al-dhāt wa dāfiʿyyat al-ʾinjāz, (makkah: umm al-qurā university, 2011). 12 hanan b.k, al-dhakā ar-rūḥī wa ʿalaqatuhu bidāfiʿyyat al-ʾinjāz al-ʾakādīmī ladā ṭullāb wa ṭālibāt maʿhad al-ʿulūm al-sharʿiyyah bisalṭanat ʿomān, (oman: university of nizwa, master thesis, 2013). 13 al-ʿutaybī yāsir, al-dhakā al-ʿātifī, (beirūt: dār al-fikr, 2003). 14 the meanings of the noble qur’ān (68:4), translated by mufti muhammad taqi usmani, (karachi: maktabah ma’ariful qur’ān, 2010). 15 shuʿab al-īmān of al bayhaqī, 14:1359, taḥqīq: mukhtār aḥmad nadawī, (riyyāḍ: maktabah ar-rushd, , 2003). 16 al-muwaṭaʾ of imam mālik, 47:8, (beyrūt: dār al-djīl, 1985). 17 michael h. hart, the 100: a ranking of the most influential persons in history, (usa: carol publishing group, 1992), 39-46. 18 goleman d, emotional intelligence, (new york: bantam books, 1995), 19-53. 19 mayer j. d and peter salovey, “the intelligence of emotional intelligence”, intelligence journal 17, no. 4 (1993): 433. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 83 20 bar-on r, the emotional quotient inventory (eq-i): a test of emotional intelligence, (toronto, ontario, canada: multi-health systems, 1997), 30. 21 edward j. watson, emotional intelligence, a practical guide on how to raise your eq and achieve lifelong social success, (amazon: international kindle paperwhite, 2016), 12. 22 edward j. watson, emotional intelligence, a practical guide on how to raise your eq and achieve lifelong social success, (amazon: international kindle paperwhite, 2016), 12. 23 goleman d, emotional intelligence, (new york: bantam books, 1995), 62-63. 24 farūk sayyid ʿuthnmān, al-qalaq wa ʾidārat al-ḍughūṭ an-nafsiyyah, (beirūt: dār al-fikr al-ʿarabiyy, 2001), 184. 25 suʿād manṣūr and lumā muḥammad, “mustawā al-dhakāʾ al-ʿātfī ladā ṭalabat al-jāmiʿah al-hāshimiyyah fī ḍawʾi mutaghayyirāt at-takhaṣuṣ al-ʿilmiyy wa annawʿ al-ʾijtimāʿiyy wa at-taḥṣīl al-ʾakādīmī”, al-quds open university journal for educational and psychological research and studies 7 (2014): 280. 26 yāsir al-ʿutaybī, al-dhakāʾ al-ʿātfī naẓrah jadīdah fī al-ʿalāqah bayna aldhakāʾ wa al-ʿātifah, (beirūt: dār al-fikr, 2003), 18. 27 aleid alkhamisat salih, “al-dhakāʾ al-ʿātifī wa ʿalāqatuhu binnajāh al-ʾakādīmī ʿinda ṭālibāt al-lughah al-ʿarabiyyah fī jāmiʿat ḥāʾil”, international interdisciplinary journal of education 2 (2015): 142. 28 muslim muḥammad reḍā, athar al-dhakāʾ al-ʿātifī wa al-thikah binnafs fī taḥṣīl al-lughah al-ʿarabiyyah bimaʿhad al-ʾamīn al-ḥaramayn simpang mādūrū jāwī, (mawlānā malik ibrāhīm al-ʾislāmiyyah university, 2018), 36. 29 the meanings of the noble qur'an, mufti taqi usmani, 2010, maktaba maariful quran, karachi, 58:7 30 ibid., 51:56 31 ibid., 91: 9-10 32 ibid., 49:13 33 ibid., 90:4 34ibid., 35:43 35 wafa hamad almegewly, amal rawdhan, marwah saleh, mona alrimal, rahaf alasmari, shahad alhamad, reyuof almuqri, morooj aljebreen, haya alsubaie and sally mohammed farghaly abdelaliem, “correlation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement among undergraduate nursing students”, international journal of africa nursing sciences 17 (2022): 1-6, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijans.2022.100491. 36 nurul aulia martaputri, ali muhtadi, julham hukom and diana samal, “the correlation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement: a meta analysis study”, journal of progressive education 11, no. 3 (2021): 511-523, http://dx.doi.org/10.23960/jpp.v11.i3.202102. 37 tam h. kwok, s. y. c. l., hui, a. n. n., chan, d. k., leung, c., leung, j., … lai, s, “the significance of emotional intelligence to students’ learning motivation and academic achievement: a study in hong kong with a confucian heritage”, children and youth services review 121 (2021): 1-35, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105847. 38 al-qadri abdo hasan, zhao wei, "emotional intelligence and students' academic achievement", problems of education in the 21st century 79, no. 3 (2021):360-380, https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/21.79.360. 39 akpur u, “a systematic review and meta-analysis on the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic achievement”, educational sciences: theory & practice 20, no. 4 (2020): 51–64. 40 nicolás sánchez-álvarez, maría pilar berrios martos and natalio extremera, "a meta-analysis of the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic performance in secondary education: a multi-stream comparison", frontiers in psychology 11 (2020): 1-11, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01517. 84 qur’anic emotional intelligence … 41 mubarak h jaber, “the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic achievement among students of faculty of education in kuwait", journal of faculty of education assiut university 36, no. 4 (2020): 215-249. 42 halimi f., alshammari i. and navarro, "emotional intelligence and academic achievement in higher education", journal of applied research in higher education 13, no. 2 (2020): 485-503. https://doi.org/10.1108/jarhe-11-2019-0286. 43 yusri, n. a., kibtiyah, m., & hamim, t. “emotional intelligence with learning achievements reviewed from islamic education”. international journal of islamic educational psychology, 1(2), (2020): 112-125. https://doi.org/10.18196/ijiep.v1i2.9672. 44 maccann, c., jiang, y., brown, l. e., double, k. s., bucich, m., & minbashian, a. emotional intelligence predicts academic performance: a metaanalysis. “psychological bulletin”, 146(2), (2020): 150-186. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000219. 45 zahid ahmed, muhammad asim and john pellitteri, “emotional intelligence predicts academic achievement in pakistani management students”, the international journal of management education 17, no. 2 (2019): 286-293. 46 sajjad ullah jan and mumtaz ali anwar, “emotional intelligence, library use and academic achievement of university students”, journal of the australian library and information association, 68, no. 1 (2019): 38-55, doi: 10.1080/24750158.2019.1572482. 47 suleman q, hussain i, syed ma, parveen r, lodhi is and mahmood z, “association between emotional intelligence and academic success among undergraduates: a cross-sectional study in kust, pakistan”, plos one 14, no. 7 (2019): 1-22, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219468. 48 fintazi karima and amrish sanaa, "emotional intelligence and its relation to student achievement at al quds university, abu dis", human and social sciences journal 50 (2018): 17-30. 49 kong f, “the validity of the wong and law emotional intelligence scale in a chinese sample: tests of measurement invariance and latent mean differences across gender and age”, personality and individual differences 116 (2017): 29-31. 50 noble qur’én, 5:105 51 bey zekkoub abdelali, “the effectiveness of employing the observation of the noble qur’én in enhancing the ethics of scientific research from the point view of lecturers of the faculty of islamic sciences at almadinah international university, malaysia”, majmaa journal 22 (2017): 42-84, http://ojs.mediu.edu.my/index.php/majmaa/article/view/643. 52 wafa hamad almegewly, amal rawdhan, marwah saleh, mona alrimal, rahaf alasmari, shahad alhamad, reyuof almuqri, morooj aljebreen, haya alsubaie and sally mohammed farghaly abdelaliem, “correlation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement among undergraduate nursing students”, international journal of africa nursing sciences 17 (2022): 1-6, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijans.2022.100491. 53 al-qadri abdo hasan; zhao, wei, "emotional intelligence and students' academic achievement", problems of education in the 21st century 79, no. 3 (2021):360-380, https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/21.79.360. 54 boon how chew, azhar md zain and faezah hassan, “emotional intelligence and academic performance in first and final year medical students: a cross-sectional study”, bmc medical education 13, no. 44 (2013): 1-10. 55 suʿād manṣūr and lumā muḥammad, “mustawā al-dhakāʾ al-ʿātfī ladā ṭalabat al-jāmiʿah al-hāshimiyyah fī ḍawʾi mutaghayyirāt at-takhaṣuṣ al-ʿilmiyy wa annawʿ al-ʾijtimāʿiyy wa at-taḥṣīl al-ʾakādīmī”, al-quds open university journal for educational and psychological research and studies 7 (2014): 280. 56 maizatul akmal mohd mohzan, norhaslinda hassan and norhafizah abd halil, “the influence of emotional intelligence on academic achievement”, procedia social and behavioral sciences 90 (2013): 303 – 312. 57 wafa hamad almegewly, amal rawdhan, marwah saleh, mona alrimal, rahaf alasmari, shahad alhamad, reyuof almuqri, morooj aljebreen, haya alsubaie and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 85 sally mohammed farghaly abdelaliem, “correlation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement among undergraduate nursing students”, international journal of africa nursing sciences 17 (2022): 1-6, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijans.2022.100491. 58 al-qadri abdo hasan and zhao wei, "emotional intelligence and students' academic achievement", problems of education in the 21st century 79, no. 3 (2021):360-380, https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/21.79.360. 59 nurul aulia martaputri, ali muhtadi, julham hukom and diana samal, “the correlation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement: a meta analysis study”, journal of progressive education 11, no. 3 (2021): 511-523, http://dx.doi.org/10.23960/jpp.v11.i3.202102. 60 halimi f., alshammari, i. and navarro, ., "emotional intelligence and academic achievement in higher education", journal of applied research in higher education 13, no. 2 (2020): 485-503. https://doi.org/10.1108/jarhe-11-2019-0286. 61 akpur u, “a systematic review and meta-analysis on the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic achievement”, educational sciences: theory & practice 20, no. 4 (2020): 51–64. 62 nicolás sánchez-álvarez, maría pilar berrios martos and natalio extremera, "a meta-analysis of the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic performance in secondary education: a multi-stream comparison", frontiers in psychology 11 (2020): 1-11, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01517. 63 mubarak h. jaber, “the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic achievement among students of faculty of education in kuwait", journal of faculty of education assiut university 36, no. 4 (2020): 215-249. 64 yusri, n. a., kibtiyah, m., & hamim, t. “emotional intelligence with learning achievements reviewed from islamic education”. international journal of islamic educational psychology, 1(2), (2020): 112-125. https://doi.org/10.18196/ijiep.v1i2.9672. 65 sajjad ullah jan and mumtaz ali anwar, “emotional intelligence, library use and academic achievement of university students”, journal of the australian library and information association, 68, no. 1 (2019): 38-55, doi: 10.1080/24750158.2019.1572482. 66 suleman q, hussain i, syed ma, parveen r, lodhi is and mahmood z, “association between emotional intelligence and academic success among undergraduates: a cross-sectional study in kust, pakistan”, plos one 14, no. 7 (2019): 1-22, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219468. 67 fintazi karima and amrish, sanaa, "emotional intelligence and its relation to student achievement at al quds university, abu dis", human and social sciences journal 50 (2018): 17-30. 68 boon how chew, azhar md zain and faezah hassan, “emotional intelligence and academic performance in first and final year medical students: a cross-sectional study”, bmc medical education 13, no. 44 (2013): 1-10. 69 aleid alkhamisat salih, “al-dhakāʾ al-ʿātifī wa ʿalāqatuhu binnajāh al-ʾakādīmī ʿinda ṭālibāt al-lughah al-ʿarabiyyah fī jāmiʿat ḥāʾil”, international interdisciplinary journal of education 2 (2015): 142. 70 lanciano t and curci a, “incremental validity of emotional intelligence ability in predicting academic achievement”, the american journal of psychology 127, no. 4 (2014): 447-461. 71 zahid ahmed, muhammad asim and john pellitteri, “emotional intelligence predicts academic achievement in pakistani management students”, the international journal of management education 17, no. 2 (2019): 286-293. 72 abdel-aal hamid ajwa, “emotional intelligence and its relationship to cognitive intelligence, age, academic achievement and psychological adjustment among university students”, journal of the faculty of education 13, no. 1. 73 samirat ghada moussa, the relationship between emotional intelligence and students' achievement at mu'tah university, (jordan: mu'tah university, 2005). 74 shaun n, arla l and victor m, “assessing the predictive validity of emotional intelligence”, personality and individual differences, 29 (2000): 1005-1016. 86 qur’anic emotional intelligence … 75 al-qadri abdo hasan and zhao wei, "emotional intelligence and students' academic achievement", problems of education in the 21st century 79, no. 3 (2021):360-380, https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/21.79.360. 76 halimi f., alshammari, i. and navarro, "emotional intelligence and academic achievement in higher education", journal of applied research in higher education 13, no. 2 (2020): 485-503. https://doi.org/10.1108/jarhe-11-2019-0286. 77 samirat ghada moussa, the relationship between emotional intelligence and students' achievement at mu'tah university, (jordan: mu'tah university, 2005). 78 suʿād manṣūr and lumā muḥammad, “mustawā al-dhakāʾ al-ʿātfī ladā ṭalabat al-jāmiʿah al-hāshimiyyah fī ḍawʾi mutaghayyirāt at-takhaṣuṣ al-ʿilmiyy wa annawʿ al-ʾijtimāʿiyy wa at-taḥṣīl al-ʾakādīmī”, al-quds open university journal for educational and psychological research and studies, 7 (2014): 280. 79 belkacem mohamed, al-dhakāʾ al-ʾinfiʿālī wa ʿ alāqatuhu bil-injāz al-dirāsī ladā talāmīdh al-taʿlīm al-thānawī: dīrāsah maydāniyyah ʿalā ʿayyinah min talāmīth al-sanah al-thāniyah min al-taʿlīm al-thānawī, (algeria: university of oran, master thesis, 2014), 10. 80 goleman d., working with emotional intelligence, (london: bloomsbury publishing, 1998), 42. 81 zahid ahmed, muhammad asim and john pellitteri, “emotional intelligence predicts academic achievement in pakistani management students”, the international journal of management education 17, no. 2 (2019): 286-293. 82 kong f., “the validity of the wong and law emotional intelligence scale in a chinese sample: tests of measurement invariance and latent mean differences across gender and age”, personality and individual differences 116 (2017): 29-31. 83 abdul azim al masdar, “emotional intelligence and its relationship to some emotional variables among university students”, journal of the islamic university journal for human research 16, no. 1 (2008): 587-632. 84 mustafa rashad mustafa al-astal, emotional intelligence and its relation to stress management skills students of the faculties of education in gaza universities, (gaza: thesis, faculty of education, islamic university, 2010), 124. 85 kong f., “the validity of the wong and law emotional intelligence scale in a chinese sample: tests of measurement invariance and latent mean differences across gender and age”, personality and individual differences 116 (2017): 29-31. 86 halimi f., alshammari, i. and navarro, c, "emotional intelligence and academic achievement in higher education", journal of applied research in higher education 13, no. 2, (2020): 485-503. 87 shipley n.l., jackson, m.j. and segrest, s.l. “the effects of emotional intelligence, age, work experience, and academic performance”, research in higher education journal 9 (2010): 1-18. 88 waldman d. a., and avolio, b. j. “a meta-analysis of age differences in job performance”, journal of applied psychology, 71, no. 1 (1986): 33–38. 89 james poon teng fatt and irene chew keng howe, “emotional intelligence of foreign and local university students in singapore: implications for managers”, journal of business and psychology 17, no. 3 (20030: 345 – 367. 90 halimi f., alshammari, i. and navarro, c, "emotional intelligence and academic achievement in higher education", journal of applied research in higher education 13, no. 2, (2020): 485-503. 91 nurhayati, nurhayati. "the effect of ice breaking on learning outcomes of elementary school students in thematic learning." social, humanities, and educational studies (shes): conference series. vol. 4. no. 5. 92 ng, kok-mun, et al. "a confirmatory factor analysis of the wong and law emotional intelligence scale in a sample of international college students." international journal for the advancement of counselling 30 (2008): 131144. 93 ahmed, zahid, muhammad asim, and john pellitteri. "emotional intelligence predicts academic achievement in pakistani management students." the international journal of management education 17, no. 2 (2019): 286-293. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 87 94 herrera granda, andres, sara maría yepes, willer ferney montes granada, and johny alvarez salazar. "students’ self-perception of social, emotional, and intercultural competences in a public higher education institution in colombia." journal for multicultural education 17, no. 1 (2023): 70-82. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii. no. 3 7 .. editorial we are pleased to present the third issue of the hamdard islamicus, volume no. xlvii for 2024. this series of articles explores both contemporary and historical issues through an islamic lens, offering deep insights into faith, governance, social challenges, and historical traditions. the works provide a comprehensive view of how islamic principles address moral, ethical, and societal concerns, bridging the gap between modern realities and historical perspectives. the first article parents in the holy qur’ān: a study of the concept of shukr, iísén, and birr al-wālidayn explores the quranic principles of gratitude, kindness, and righteousness towards parents, emphasizing that respect for parents is second only to worshipping allah. by examining key verses, it highlights the moral and ethical duties of children, as well as the responsibilities of parents. through linguistic and semantic analysis, the study underscores the importance of treating parents with kindness, framing this relationship within the holy qur’ān’s broader ethical framework of retribution, reward, and divine judgment. the second article lgbt a global issue: social impact and preventive solution from quranic perspective (study of quranic chapter al-a‘réf [7]: 80-81) analyzes the rise of lgbt movements through the lens of quranic teachings, specifically surah al-a‘rāf (7:80-81). it highlights the societal impacts of lgbt advocacy and proposes preventive solutions rooted in islamic sharī‘ah, faith, and moral education to address this issue within the framework of islamic ethics. as islamic finance expands globally, aligning governance with sharī‘ah law is becoming essential. the third article critical factors affecting the success of sharī‘ah governance: insights from islamic financial institutions examines the role of sharī‘ah 8 editorial .. supervisory boards (ssbs) in islamic financial institutions (ifis) and their impact on sharī‘ah compliance. the study highlights systemic risks and ssb legitimacy, following the islamic financial services board’s recommendations for effective governance. a survey of ifi managers reveals that while ssb qualifications and board nominations are critical, stakeholder’s interests have a limited influence on sharī‘ah governance success. in the aftermath of the al-aqsa flood, the fourth article combating islamophobia after the al-aqsa flood examines the rise of islamophobia and the challenges facing muslims globally. it discusses the link between the 2023 gaza conflict and increased hate crimes against muslims. the article emphasizes the need for strategies rooted in islamic teachings to combat prejudice and foster understanding. it advocates for international efforts to protect palestinian rights and mitigate the impact of islamophobia while adhering to international law. the fifth and last article the historical bedrock of the holy qur’ān’s manuscript in malaysia: a study on its style of calligraphy and illumination examines the holy qur’én’s manuscript in malaysia, focusing on its calligraphic style and illumination. islamic calligraphy is vital to malaysian heritage, with early examples in the kufic script. research reveals that local creativity and influences from turkey, china, and persia shaped these manuscripts. distinct artistic styles are evident in works from malacca and johor compared to those from kelantan and terengganu, highlighting diverse cultural interactions. we sincerely thank the authors for their scholarly contributions and welcome feedback from our esteemed readers as we anticipate delving into critical topics in islamic studies. dr. shabeer khan editor hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii. no. 3 7 editorial this issue no. 3 of hamdard islamicus volume 48, brings together a diverse collection of articles that engage with central themes in islamic studies, spanning law, philosophy, ethics, medicine, and history. the first article, “the evolution of urdu sīrah literature in deccan before 1857: an overview,” addresses a relatively underexplored topic, offering fresh insights into lesser-known works and authors. this focus enhances the broader understanding of urdu as a medium for religious expression in a specific regional context. the second article, “the concept of educator character: a theo-legalistic study based on the holy qur'én, hadith, and indonesian national education law,” investigates the normative foundations of character formation through an integration of scriptural and legal sources. “political loyalty and the ethical turn in islamic law: the case of the european council for fatwā and research” is the third article. it highlights that the interpretation of islamic jurisprudence poses a crucial challenge for muslim minorities. questions of allegiance to nation-states in non-muslim contexts are relevant not only within europe but across the wider global community of muslim minorities. engaging with this issue offers important benefits for muslims living as minorities worldwide. the fourth article, “muslim and buddhist gratitude practices: a systematic review of psychological benefits for culturally sensitive mental health interventions,” shifts to comparative religious ethics. this systematic review offers a comprehensive understanding of the psychological advantages associated with buddhist and muslim gratitude practices. the fifth and last article is “clarifying the conflicting ahadith on cauterization as a medical treatment”. this article provides relevant implications for islamic medical ethics, especially for scholars and practitioners of tibb-e-nabawi. it is a valuable contribution to the field of islamic bioethics and hadith reconciliation. in addition to these research articles, this issue includes a review of prof dr abdur raheem kidwai’s images of the prophet 8 editorial . muhammad in english literature (peter lang, 2018), a work that critically assesses representations of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and their significance for interreligious dialogue. collectively, these contributions showcase the breadth of contemporary scholarship, offering critical insights into the dynamic interplay of tradition, interpretation, and practice across multiple domains. finally, we extend our deepest gratitude to the contributors and scholars whose rigorous work is featured in this issue. their dedication enriches our understanding and advances the critical discourse within the field. to our readers i.e., academicians, practitioners, and students, we thank them for their continued engagement and intellectual curiosity, which together foster a vibrant and thoughtful academic community. dr. shabeer khan editor hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 117 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism and identity in kamila shamsie’s home fire mohammed abou adel humanities department, al yamamah university, al riyadh, saudi arabia. email: m_aboadel@yu.edu.sa mohammad issa alhourani humanities and social sciences, college of education al ain university, abu dhabi, united arab emirates email: mohammad.alhourani@aau.ac.ae georgios kormpas humanities department al yamamah university, al riyadh, saudi arabia email: g_kormpas@yu.edu.sa received on: 21-01-24 accepted on: 17-05-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.802 abstract the paper deals with kamila shamsie’s novel home fire to explore the profound social and psychological aspects and identity conflicts muslim immigrants face in the west, especially in britain. the importance of this paper is to express the conflict that the muslim expatriate experiences in his relationship with the west and explore the reasons that affect their tolerance and coexistence. the paper’s problem manifests in exploring significant facets of human interactions, including tolerance, the increasing migrations from islamic nations to non-muslim countries, and the challenges arising from identity, religion, and race, which expose migrants to significant perils. the method uses a social theoretical framework that intersects with the psychological approach. it investigates how both the original and new environments affect character development and individuals' psychological, developmental, and cognitive dimensions in the muslim diaspora. it aims to understand the reasons behind involvement in terrorist organizations and also examines the citizenship rights of muslim diaspora members. finally, the paper concludes by presenting the most prominent mailto:m_aboadel@yu.edu.sa mailto:mohammad.alhourani@aau.ac.ae mailto:g_kormpas@yu.edu.sa https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v47i2.802 118 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism ……… results, which collectively illustrate that the aggressive style of fiction has influenced the presence of paranoia in literary criticism, leading to an exaggeration of the crimes of others and justification of the self. this is not conducive to objective and neutral analysis, so adopting a more moderate and neutral approach is recommended to allow for open discussion and acceptance of differing viewpoints. this approach should address questions of identity and national belonging. keywords: fiction, islamic studies, nationalism, terrorism, tolerance. introduction it is imperative to differentiate between pivotal concepts in this scholarly article: country, nation, nationalism, and identity. a country is a political and administrative entity that possesses ultimate jurisdiction over its populace and encompasses a geographical region acknowledged globally1. conversely, a nation can be defined as a collective of individuals bound together by shared cultural, religious, customary, traditional, ancestral, and ethnic characteristics. these elements function as foundations of affiliation and allegiance among the nation’s members, irrespective of their national origins or country. the governance of a nation’s affairs is not exclusively reliant on a central authority but rather on a social entity separate from the state’s jurisdiction. consequently, a single country has the potential to encompass multiple nations. it is also accurate to state that a single nation might extend across various countries, as observed in the arab world. in such cases, these countries are not subject to identical legal systems, unlike the residents of a single country who are bound by the same laws. nevertheless, it is pertinent to consider the following question: must a collective of individuals satisfy all these characteristics to be classified as a 'nation'? regarding the islamic 'nation' (or ummah), the response would be negative, as a significant number of muslims speak languages distinct from arabic, and they may vary in culture, background, and history; their faith serves as the unifying factor. furthermore, this work addresses how the novel explores issues of identity and belonging—two complex issues characterized by significant complexity and disparity from the perspectives of the self and the other, especially in the context of migration and life in disparate societies. in addition, the paper explores complicated forms of western tolerance, particularly britain’s acceptance of muslim immigrants. it discusses how these societies view these immigrants with apprehension and suspicion, treating them as potential terrorists2 and hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 119 often making generalized judgments filled with accusations against britain’s muslims who immigrate there in search of the alleged freedoms and democratic practices that are applied selectively. this selective application denies citizenship to members of the muslim diaspora who wish to maintain their islamic identity. so, the primary purpose of this paper is to descriptively discuss the transformation of nationalism and identity among the muslim diaspora in kamila shamsie’s novel home fire, and to explore the role of fiction in depicting the complicated relationship between muslim immigrants in western societies and their governments. literature review the significance of thoroughly examining the existing literature about the topic of the present study is readily apparent. it is imperative to acknowledge the efforts of past researchers and uphold objectivity while offering a comprehensive and robust foundation for the reader. this approach is crucial for advancing study and continuing previous efforts without duplicating them, particularly considering that most studies on shamsie’s home fire have overlooked the preceding studies that examined the identical novel. in her scholarly publication titled global epistemic injustice: an ethical confrontation with jihadism, ben driss explores the various forms of injustice perpetrated against individuals residing in societies that are not their country of origin, irrespective of their nationality. the study depicts the portrayal of the alienated muslim who experiences a sense of insecurity and alienation due to the imminent risk of having their citizenship revoked and being forced into exile at the slightest sign of involvement in activities that pose a threat to national security. consequently, they are deprived of the freedom to express themselves or protect themselves3. the state perceives muslim immigrants as a possible menace. individuals are experiencing a state of silencing, oppression, and deprivation of their freedom to articulate their opinions and beliefs. they experience a sense of coercion to select between two alternatives: repress or conceal their past identities, as any allegiance, sentimentality, or affiliation with old identities could potentially result in harm4. the study above resembles chambers’ research titled sound and fury, whereby she advocates for the imperative of attentively considering the perspective of the other, even if they are affiliated with terrorism5. in their study titled can the subaltern speak? rind et al., drawing inspiration from the renowned thinker gayatri chakravorty spivak’s work, explore the concept of muslim individuals feeling a sense of inferiority. these individuals are often considered as second-class citizens despite being born in a particular 120 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism ……… country. furthermore, even if an individual holds a nationality, they are not acknowledged as a fully-fledged citizen6. a scholarly investigation titled locating cultural hegemony: a marxist analysis of home fire is presented similarly. the text advocates for the persistent endeavour of pakistani expatriates in britain to demonstrate their eligibility for citizenship, impeded by the aristocracy, which feigned dedication to the collective welfare. in reality, their objective was self-serving while simultaneously enforcing their cultural norms. conversely, the proletariat class faces challenges regarding survival, self-validation, and the freedom to express themselves7. the research conducted by rivaldy, titled muslim diasporic identities in kamila shamsie’s home fire, examines the categorization of pakistani expatriates into two distinct categories due to the enduring negative stereotypes associated with muslims in western societies. the first category comprises individuals who endeavour to eliminate or conceal their previous associations to gain acceptance into the new culture, particularly if they have political ambitions. the second category includes those who identify as muslims and exhibit a steadfast devotion to their religious, national, or cultural associations. simultaneously, they experience dissatisfaction in a society that fails to embrace their uniqueness a manifestation of the radicalism of the 21st century that detrimentally impacts the perception of contemporary britain8. in their research titled necropolitics and national identity in kamila shamsie's home fire, brigida and pinho delve into extremism among pakistani muslims. the study examines how the host's conservative attitude compels the protagonist to conform to the culture of the new society and actively seek its approval by disengaging from external influences. the manifestation of discriminatory views against minority groups frequently gives rise to rebellious dispositions. regardless, this outcome poses a direct threat to the entirety of society9. in shamsie’s novel, baglama examines the concept of 'new racism', which refers to the imposition by the host society on minority groups to exhibit their religious and cultural identities in a manner determined and deemed appropriate by the host rather than based on the actual realities associated with those identities10. political imbroglios in kamila shamsie’s home fire and mohammad hanif’s a case of exploding mangoes highlights the correlation between religion and politics and the challenges associated with disentangling these two domains, particularly in the context of western muslims. the authors also engage in a conversation regarding the role of politics, which may be likened to a double-edged sword. on the one hand, politics can provide excellent hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 121 outcomes such as wealth and peace. on the other hand, politics can also have dire consequences, potentially resulting in destruction and collapse11. european society warmly embraces any muslim who embraces an acceptable islamic identity. muslims who strive to uphold their conventional way of thinking experience marginalization and questioning of belonging12. his acceptance is contingent upon a circumstance that necessitates alteration. nevertheless, the prospect of change and reform is unattainable within religion because faith manifests a steadfast system of convictions universally applicable across all locations and eras. 13 ünal’s study is grounded in the philosophy of literary trauma. the author employs this methodology to examine the psychological impact of the diaspora, characterizing it as a societal endeavour that inflicts harm upon the muslim community. the community endures a perpetual state of hardship and experiences emotions of apprehension, impotence, and insecurity. simultaneously, ünal holds onto nostalgic recollections of his place of origin, leading to sociocultural distress. numerous scholarly investigations have examined the convergence between the novel home fire and sophocles’s renowned ancient greek tragedy antigone. these studies have aimed to identify the areas where the two approaches align by highlighting the current importance of the play about the muslim diaspora. when secular rules clash with religious laws, there is a tendency for someone to rebel against them, which stands in contrast to the submissiveness of the majority. an example of such a character is antigone (aneeka). she is against the british home secretary karamat lone’s decision to deny a burial for her brother parvaiz in britain, despite his legal violations and the withdrawal of his nationality, based on the principle that 'whoever is not with us is our enemy.' simultaneously, her sister isma is attempting to dissuade her from protesting. the narrative resembles the legendary tale of antigone, whereby king creon declines to permit the burial of his brother polyneices as a retribution for his defiance against the king’s decrees. consequently, she becomes resolute in her resistance to his decision while her sister attempts to dissuade her from continuing her opposition.14 the work is often analyzed in the play antigone. nevertheless, none of them explicitly acknowledge the preceding one as if asserting their originality in highlighting the resemblance between the play and the novel and the juxtaposition of the past and present to address a current concern. nevertheless, specific scholarly investigations have examined the intersection between the play antigone and shamsie’s 122 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism ……… novel through the lens of intertextuality theory. these studies aim to identify the shared elements between the two works, highlighting their objectives and allusions while also acknowledging the existing body of intertextual research on various literary works.15 an alternative approach uses the austin speech theory to analyze the two sisters’ personalities from a linguistic standpoint. the linguistic expressions employed in verbal communication delineate individuals’ character qualities and natures.16 koshy analyzes the work through bill brown’s thing theory. he endeavours to trace the process of the muslim immigrant’s transition from a singular identity to a collective identity (transforming the ich-du to the ich-es) and the intense suffering endured by the immigrant to disassociate themselves from the perception of being a suspected terrorist.17 the novel can be interpreted within the context of current events, such as britain’s withdrawal from the european union, the rise of right-wing ideologies advocating for the marginalization of minority groups, and the efforts to undermine the existence of muslims by presenting various challenges in the name of national stability.18 this extensive examination of the scholarly research focused on kamila shamsie’s novel home fire provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics between european civilization and the diasporic muslim minority. it sheds light on the influence of this community’s identity perception, calling for reevaluating and elucidating its attributes and the transformations it has experienced. sure, europeans hold a favourable and empathetic perspective towards the muslim diaspora, as they consider these individuals as seeking refuge from countries they perceive as violent and regressive. in contrast, their civilized nations are more inclined to accept the muslim diaspora due to their shared humanity.19 the analysis of shamsie’s novel reveals the utilization of exclusionary politics by specific individuals within european societies who employ oppressive measures against muslims in the name of safeguarding national and social security while also contributing to the proliferation of islamophobia. europe tends to precriminalize those who identify as muslims. in the most favourable circumstances, diasporic muslims are only granted acceptance provided they align with secular principles that are consistent with the european mindset. nevertheless, this acceptance form lacks compassion as it is contingent upon certain conditions. it is essential to differentiate between valid criticism, arbitrary condemnation, and criticism of individuals. the prevailing narrative, characterized by a vocabulary of critique, engendered hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 123 significant animosity and inflicted extensive harm. the western culture and state were frequently criticized for their inhumane treatment of the victim, the muslim immigrant, without acknowledging the presence of two opposing factions the right and the left and their distinct approaches to addressing the immigration issue. this conversation arose due to the increasing disparity between europeans and muslim immigrants, as well as muslims in general. it also encompasses the broader divide between the east and the west and the dichotomy between 'me' and the 'other' rather than facilitating the reduction of this divide. according to dalbert and donat’s 'just world theory,' the muslim communities, who are considered the victims, are blamed for two primary reasons. firstly, their pride hinders them from acknowledging the errors committed by select extremists, damaging their reputation. the second issue pertains to their inability to advocate for the universal perspective of their tradition and its virtuous principles. consequently, the contact between both parties predates a restricted and frequently stereotypical understanding of one another, whether within the muslim world or europe.20 identification and identity of muslims examines how american society views muslims before and after 9/11 and how muslims navigate their identity in the us both before and after the attacks.21 similarly, muslim lives in the post-9/11 fiction focuses on the portrayal of muslim characters in post-9/11 fiction, specifically in mohsin hamid’s the reluctant fundamentalist and h.m. naqvi’s home boy, who are depicted in a gray area in the aftermath of 9/11.22 rivaldy, budiman, and tambunan explore how pakistani muslim diasporic communities create their identities and define the concept of home in the novels “home fire” and “exit west” using the theories of hall’s theory of identity, brah’s “homing desire,” and bhabha’s “unhomely.”23 towards an ethics of reading muslims discusses the ethical implications of reading books that depict muslim characters in a secular literary world. it specifically looks at kamila shamsie’s novel home fire and how it addresses the challenges of reading about different cultures, particularly in its portrayal of veiled muslim women.24 the issue stems from the methodology and the identification of the underlying cause of the disagreement. instead, it is necessary to guide westerners in acknowledging islamic community members’ peaceful and virtuous disposition. this can be achieved by embracing a mindset of tranquility, rationality, and impartiality. this enhances the understanding of the ‘other’ and benefits them, prompting them to reassess the hostility they harbour towards immigrant muslims, which is rooted in unfavourable stereotypes. 124 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism ……… critical discourse aims to attain equilibrium that upholds justice towards others while unaffected by external influences. acknowledging the unique characteristics that differentiate industrialized nations in terms of advancements across all domains of human existence is imperative. simultaneously, it is essential to consider the need for these nations to comprehend and embrace the other party’s identity, enabling them to interpret the other’s conduct accurately rather than attempting to eradicate their identity and cultural, national, and religious affiliation. this method will have detrimental effects on the countries themselves as it compels immigrants to adhere only to the country’s political policies, feigning loyalty in a manner that satisfies the host nation. another potential response is the resistance to such a methodology, resulting in a confrontation and endeavours for retribution against a self-centered society that requires all individuals to embrace identical concepts and customs, thereby undergoing a metamorphosis into a novel individual devoid of any shared recollection or origins. methodology this study uses a social theoretical framework and explores how both the original and new environments affect the development of individuals in the muslim diaspora, specifically looking at psychological, developmental, and cognitive dimensions. furthermore, it employs a psychological approach to analyze the characters of the diaspora muslims in the novel home fire by applying theories and concepts in psychology to understand their motivations, behaviours, and development as the novel progresses. this includes the influence of the subconscious, repressed motivations, and psychological conflicts among expatriate muslims on their subsequent behaviour. it also reveals some of the characters' mechanisms in the face of challenges and difficulties, considering the cultural, historical, and societal influences on their behaviour. this psychoanalytic approach helps better understand the novel’s characters, motivations, and actions within the narrative context. this approach can be applied to any fictional character, providing insights into their psychological complexities and narrative role. discussion polyphony as a mirror of identity transformations polyphony highlights the distinctions among the fictitious characters, showcasing their variety and diversity in terms of their commitment and conviction.25 parvaiz, a nineteen-year-old teenager accused of terrorism and extremism, is a compassionate individual who is unable to tolerate the scenes of torture and abuse endured by the guantanamo detainees. certain immigrants endeavour to establish trust with the host community and the government, even if it necessitates the sacrifice hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 125 of a family member. this pertains to isma, who informs the uk authorities of her brother’s journey to engage in combat in syria.26 home fire portrays the marginalization and oppression experienced by south asian immigrants in european countries, particularly in britain. it also explores the challenges of attempting to travel between countries, such as america, particularly in the aftermath of the september 11th events. isma was detained at the airport for an extended interrogation of around two hours. she was queried about delicate subjects, encompassing her perspective on the shiite community. in her response, she states that the animosity between shias and sunnis typically revolves around a political power disparity, as seen in iraq or syria. as a british individual, she does not differentiate between different types of muslims.27 by carefully studying the characters in the novel, we notice a remarkable ability to draw the paradox between the real homeland and the dream homeland, between preserving identity and breaking away from it, and between deceptive slogans and bitter realities facing muslim immigrants in the west. adel’s family, comprising ismat, aneeqa, and pervez from muslim pakistan, reflects its deep connection with its country of origin. karamat’s character attempts to assimilate into the new society by naming his son raymond, a name of old french and old german origin. however, his efforts are thwarted when raymond falls in love with aneeqa. thus, the characters in home fire show the negative impact of the complex relationship between religion, politics, and citizenship on the image of the muslim diaspora in western communities, which undermines the potential for religious coexistence and tolerance. the war and the consequences of migration home fire also challenges the rationale behind war, especially when initiated by one nation against another, due to the resultant loss of innocent lives. according to isma, occupying another’s territory often leads to more problems than solutions, a notion applicable to both iraq and israel. the killing of civilians is morally reprehensible, whether through suicide bombings, aerial bombardments, or drone strikes.28 the story conveys a compassionate apprehension by questioning why some nations rationalize their military conflicts against other countries, resulting in significant loss of innocent lives and debilitating civilian populations, while simultaneously criminalizing similar actions when perpetrated by individuals. wouldn’t it be more prudent to prioritize preventing extensive terrorist activities, sometimes referred to as 'state terrorism,' due to their significantly larger and more dangerous impact? 126 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism ……… conversely, the novel portrays an asian immigrant who seeks political advantage to secure a seat in parliament. this character is depicted as a self-centered opportunist who sacrifices his national identity, particularly his islamic faith, by changing his son’s name from ayman (which sounds islamic) to the irish eamonn. this demonstrates his inclination to assimilate into the novel societal framework and marry an irish-american citizen. moreover, these muslim immigrants are eager to establish a strong sense of belonging and unwavering allegiance to the new country29. they also strive to communicate in the new language to dispel any perception of fundamentalism and extremism, gaining the trust of the new population. to achieve this objective, they are prepared, if necessary, to criticize their faith, scrutinize it, or allege its regressiveness while praising the church and its customs30. due to the presence of hostile sentiments against islam and muslims, the muslims of the diaspora refrain from voting during elections, as religion and politics are inherently intertwined.31 the character of karamat exemplifies the archetype of the traditional british patriot, as evidenced by his political expressions that convey a profound sense of affiliation and admiration for british identity. he urges his fellow citizens to assimilate into modern society by relinquishing their customary clothing, mindset and perceived antiquated conduct. failure to do so results in treatment commensurate with their disparity.32 he expresses disapproval and assigns blame to his fellow citizens without urging british individuals to understand the variations among immigrant muslims in terms of their attire, beliefs, and principles. the criticism he levies resembles the 'just world' theory. the abusive behaviour they encounter results from their unwavering determination to showcase their distinctiveness; thus, they should solely hold themselves accountable. indeed, every instance of racial prejudice they encounter is a direct result of this. simultaneously, the indigenous population is not obligated to embrace this disparity, as it is an inherent aspect of existence.33 without question, the immigrant bears the consequences of undergoing such a comprehensive transition. the individual incurs the most significant cost in his endeavour to eradicate any characteristic that might establish a connection between him and a specific social collective. this is why, karamat lone, a member of parliament of pakistani descent, endeavours to obscure his islamic heritage. appointed as the home secretary primarily due to his strong commitment to security, which aligns with the new country’s political agenda, he goes so far as to deny ever having entered a mosque. in an attempt to dispel any suspicions aimed towards him, he asserts his refusal to enter a place where gender segregation is enforced, opting instead to accompany his spouse to religious services. consequently, hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 127 he is bestowed with the moniker 'the lone wolf,' enabling him to surpass the limitations of british muslim society. he is tasked with demonstrating his inclusion among them rather than among us, is he not? presumably, he still needs to do so. i hold a strong aversion towards this nation.34 conversely, individuals such as isma and her siblings exhibit an unwavering commitment to their cultural background, linguistic practices, and religious beliefs within the recently established nation. they hold contempt for those from the immigrant community who do not align with their preferences, such as karamat lone, who rejects the mosques’ practice of gender segregation, negatively portraying islam. there are justifications for each of these two tendencies. one aspect pertains to relinquishing the previous national identity and heritage due to its failure to provide its populace with a fair and honourable existence. consequently, their sole aspiration is to acquire a fresh identity and reside in a forward-thinking nation that affords all its citizens a satisfactory life and fairness. this holds significant value from his perspective, prompting him to openly and privately express his unwavering commitment and allegiance, reflecting his genuine convictions. aneeka’s character starkly contrasts with karamat lone’s sincere devotion to his new identity, as she remains steadfast in her adherence to her history, traditions, and faith. she is among the individuals who bear the consequences of karamat’s racially biased remarks directed towards those who possess a common nationality. aneeka has been subjected to verbal abuse solely due to her choice of wearing modest islamic attire. karamat lone’s racial utterances have resulted in the worsening of the suffering of muslim immigrants and the widening of the divide between the native people and the newcomers. consequently, this enables the government to subject muslims to abuse.35 every immigrant must experience this transformative stage, which is more profound for those born into this new environment. this metamorphosis encompasses garments that may indicate an individual’s religious or cultural background. upon fortuitously encountering isma, eamonn inquires, astonished, about the rationale behind her choice to don a hijéb, whether it is due to religious duty, fashion, or visual appeal. in response, she provides the following answer: ‘you know, the only two people in massachusetts who have ever asked me about it both wanted to know if it is a style or a chemo thing.’ laughing, he said, ‘cancer or islam—which is the greater affliction’? there were still moments when a statement like that could catch a person 128 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism ……… off-guard. he held his hands up quickly in apology. ‘jesus. i mean, sorry. that came out badly. i meant; it must be difficult to be muslim in the world these days.’ ‘i’d find it more difficult to not be muslim’ she said.36 this inquiry elucidates the reasons behind the tendency of certain women in predominantly christian nations to modify the hijéb’s design to present it as stylish or visually pleasing attire rather than as a means of satisfying an islamic religious duty. occasionally, it is substituted with a cap or headgear that completely conceals the spiritual significance of the individuals who don it. the prevalence of this phenomenon has increased in the united states, particularly in the aftermath of the september 11 attacks, to mitigate the negative perception, disapproval, or even contempt.37 the erosion of religious identity between religious fundamentalism and political extremism, along with the ongoing battle against terrorism, is a valid and urgent concern that has prompted the british government to allocate significant resources towards addressing it. the severe mistreatment endured by incarcerated individuals at guantanamo has exacerbated the issue significantly rather than mitigating or resolving it. it is evident that parvaiz, influenced by his exposure to and firsthand encounters with the cruel treatment he endured, develops a strong aversion towards the british government despite his nationality. consequently, he contemplates relinquishing any allegiance to this european nation and seeks a new sense of belonging that aligns with his romantic aspirations and fantasies. this 18-year-old individual seeks retribution for his father and the realization of perceived justice. shamsie examines the thoughts of the terrorist parvaiz to illustrate the gradual evolution of his thoughts and actions. he observes his transition from a moderate and ordinary life, albeit with challenges, to a state of idealism. during this stage, he envisions all the images and stories he encounters about the caliphate state in a positive light. nevertheless, the scenes he cherished in his imagination swiftly vanished, giving way to the distressing reality of the world he perceived as perfect. eventually, the emotion of affection transforms into hatred, transitioning from one extreme to another.38 shamsie demonstrates the tactics employed by extremists to enlist fresh volunteers and their ability to convince them to join by enticing them with the prospect of a prosperous future filled with worldly allure. subsequently, the novel depicts the profound predicament and internal conflict that this group experiences upon recognizing the deceitfulness of the concepts, narratives, and promised existence. it delineates the infeasibility of reverting to one’s place of origin due to the peril of incarceration without the chance to hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 129 safeguard oneself, express remorse, or rectify one’s errors. there is a lack of conversation or empathy for this particular group of recruits, who are denied the opportunity to express themselves, especially if their father is involved in terrorism.39 parvaiz has been characterized as an individual who became a member of an extremist terrorist group. the reader experiences a sense of empathy towards the protagonist, particularly when recognizing the seriousness of his decision to visit his two sisters. the pinnacle of his predicament arises when he contemplates whether to approach the consulate and relinquish his identity or to unwillingly return to his gang due to apprehension about the repercussions of assuming control of his life. the dilemma of favouring one identity over another becomes a matter of practicality for him, even if this identity contradicts his beliefs and desires. exposing his radicalism to parvaiz would result in the authorities imposing punishment and devastation without considering any justifications. the primary aim of this endeavour would be to acquire a substantial amount of information without any consideration for the individual’s needs, except for a few fundamental ones that facilitate the acquisition of additional information. his unwavering determination compels him to persistently assert his allegiance to his newfound persona and persist in combatting and undermining his new faction, even when this contradicts his deeply held beliefs. the individual cannot return to their country of origin and resume their customary lifestyle, which previously elicited a sense of boredom but has become their sole aspiration, with each aspect now serving as a beacon of optimism. conversely, the individual experiences a sense of dissatisfaction due to their apprehensions, as they recognize a significant error in pursuing a goal that ultimately proved to be illusory. consequently, he yearns to resume his life as a typical individual. at the same time, society rejects his return, treating him as if he were a carrier of an infectious illness that must be either evaded or eliminated. the novel employs vibrant depiction to scrutinize how western governments handle deceived constituents who seek absolution and express their readiness to condemn extremism and terrorism. the novel home fire unveils concealed facets of the terrorist’s familial connections, fostering a deeper connection between the reader and the human dimension of the narrative. the family is the institution that grants forgiveness to its members for their errors and is prepared to protect them at any cost, thereby affording them an opportunity for a fresh start under the family’s safeguard. undoubtedly, this principle of the family, through its 130 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism ……… empathy, possesses the ability to safeguard and guide its members and exert influence over them. the burial of parvaiz in britain is declined by the british foreign minister, who is of pakistani ethnicity. by rescinding his british citizenship, he effectively strips parvaiz of any sense of identity. parvaiz’s anti-state actions are cited as the reason for this decision. nevertheless, his twin sister aneeka rejects and denounces this decision. the narrative depicts instances of dissent towards the decision, exemplified by the sister occupying a garden in pakistan adjacent to the coffin, symbolizing her protest against it. the work effectively portrays the profound grief experienced by the sister towards her brother, which remains unabated despite the brother’s regret before his demise. political actions that fail to consider human ramifications can have highly detrimental effects. this decision leads to the demise of karamat lone’s son, who is the minister of foreign affairs, due to his unwavering determination to refuse the burial of parvaiz in britain, where his family resides. eamonn must approach the deceased’s sister to converse and articulate his dissent towards his father’s political choice. the protagonist reaches the garden, where the sister is seated near the coffin in a state of protest. however, he is taken aback to find himself restrained by an individual donning explosives as a means of retribution for his father’s actions, which are perceived as antagonistic towards his nationality and religious beliefs. the tale concludes shortly before the explosion when aneeka embraces him. the most repulsive displays of terrorism are seen in the scene that depicts the meticulousness with which the terrorists execute the act of beheading a prisoner. the removal of the head is being documented through filming. the intended angle of the sword’s impact on the head is designed to enhance the overall effect of the scene while strategically positioning cameras and microphones around the kneeling victim who is awaiting execution. the preparations occur gradually, devoid of sorrow, regret, or empathy towards the victim. conversely, the victim is subjected to treatment akin to that of a sentimentless sheep as individuals congregate with great enthusiasm to join in the gratification derived from its decapitation. before the execution, the individual recites 'the verse of the throne' from the holy qur’én, indicating their religious allegiance. currently, parvaiz is experiencing an inability to control his hand, causing it to tremble upon seeing the sight, and his stomach is reacting violently. nevertheless, if we perceive these signs as indicative of his humanity, they are regarded as signs of vulnerability and betrayal by the executioners. another instance of extremism occurs when parvaiz, along with the other males, is prohibited from assisting a woman who is hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 131 pleading for rescue beneath a collapsed wall caused by bombing only because her face is exposed. the novel portrays parvaiz’s internal conflict as he disregards the woman’s pleas due to his reverence for the harsh and repressive legislation.40 conclusion an analysis of kamila shamsie’s novel home fire uncovers evolving and impactful relationships of muslims in the diaspora, encompassing their identity, nationality, country of residence, and community affiliation. various factors influence this transformation, the most significant being the shift in location and time, the alteration of ideas and personal beliefs, and the treatment received from the new society. this paper explores how the novel depicts some islamic countries that deprive citizens of their rights. in these countries, individuals live as strangers, unable to find work, housing, or care, which forces many to immigrate, especially to europe and america, in hopes that their problems will be solved and their rights granted in these promised lands. they believe that western slogans about freedom, democracy, etc., will apply to them regardless of religion, race, and color. however, these governments and societies often reject them, considering them unsuitable for the land unless they deny their origins, as happened with the character karamat. this research demonstrates the multifaceted nature of the muslim diaspora. there are characters devoted to uk society who lead respectable lives, yet their countries of origin fail to ensure their safety. others exhibit unwavering allegiance due to fear of danger if they continue adhering to their native culture, language, and religion. some seek new affiliations due to exposure to deviant and extremist ideologies. although they are a minority, these individuals pose a significant threat. home fire is a comprehensive exploration of the intricate personal aspects of the protagonist’s life, encompassing both psychological and intellectual factors that contribute to his transformation from an ordinary individual to an extremist terrorist. by examining the variables that contribute to the radicalization of the muslim diaspora, it highlights how racial prejudice can treat individuals as subordinates. the research closely examines the terrorist persona, characterized by their role as saboteurs and their susceptibility to brainwashing and deception. the protagonist experiences a psychological conflict when he belatedly realizes that he is on the wrong path. he loses the ability to persist in his actions and cannot retreat due to fear of the terrorist organizations he has joined. depending on home fire, this paper delves into the psyche of the immigrant who expatriates in search of reassurance and promised dreams, only to find himself faced with two choices: either 132 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism ……… strip himself of his identity and disavow his islamic religion to gain acceptance from others,41 or preserve his identity while carefully adapting to the new nationality. he then struggles with an identity conflict, experiencing rejection, being viewed as a second-class citizen, and even facing revocation of his citizenship, to the extent of being rejected both alive and dead, as happened with a private character. the paper also sheds light on the family of adel pasha, who was taken to guantanamo prison, where news of him ended with this event, leaving behind in britain "ismat" the eldest daughter, and the twins "parvaiz" and "aneeqa." meanwhile, karamat’s family abandoned his identity and religion and became involved in liberalism until he became minister of the interior. the paradox that shamsie draws for both families clarifies what is acceptable and unacceptable in the criteria of citizenship for muslim immigrants in the west. although the two immigrant families are of pakistani origin, they serve as a model for every islamic identity migrating to the west. shamsie, a novelist of pakistani origins, thus draws characters for her novel from pakistani society, especially in naming and describing attire. limitations and future directions the study shows that the critical discourse in its literary review was influenced by the novelist’s outrageous and offensive tone, closing the door to any dialogue with the other. suppose the novelist is allowed to place human issues under a magnifying glass to exaggerate their actual size and make a case for their importance artistically and ethically. in that case, this method does not allow for critical engagement and critical discourse, whose tasks are to discern calmly, objectively, and dispassionately without any prior ideological bias. this paper recommends that upcoming literary studies address on address the relationship of the ego with the 'other' through the dream of migration, the subsequent nightmarish reality, the inability to adapt to the new environment, and how feelings of oppression and inferiority contribute to involvement in terrorist organizations. acknowledgement the authors acknowledge and thank al yamamah university for its moral and financial support. hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 133 notes and references 1 kundra, nakul. “understanding nation and nationalism,” interdisciplinary literary studies 21, no. 2 (2019): 125. 2 adel, mohammed. "lords of terrorism in the contemporary novel." journal of humanities & social sciences (2522-3380) 4, no. 9 (2020). 3 ben driss, hager. “global epistemic injustice: an ethical confrontation with jihadism,” journal of contemporary issues in education 15, no. 2 (2020): 23–35; terri givens, gary freeman, and david leal, eds. immigration policy and security: us, european, and commonwealth perspectives (new york: routledge, 2009). 4 pupcenoks, juris. "immigration policy and security, us, european, and commonwealth perspectives." (2010): 1194-1195. 5 chambers, claire. “sound and fury: kamila shamsie’s home fire,” the massachusetts review 59, no. 2 (2018): 202–219. 6rind, salma, and khaleeque zaman mahesar. "can the subaltern speak? an analysis of home fire (2017) by kamila shamsi." pakistan journal of social research 4, no. 2 (2022): 793-798. 7 haque, syrrina ahsan ali, hina iqbal, naghmana siddique, and asia saeed. "locating cultural hegemony: a marxist analysis of home fire." palarch's journal of archaeology of egypt/egyptology 17, no. 9 (2020): 7925-7938. 8 rivaldy, padel muhamad rallie, manneke budiman, and shuri m. gietty tambunan. "muslim diasporic identities in kamila shamsie’s home fire (2017)." international review of humanities studies 4, no. 3 (2019): 12. 9 brigida, marcela santos, and davi pinho. "necropolitics and national identity in kamila shamsie’s home fire." interdisciplinar-revista de estudos em língua e literatura 31 (2019): 153-167. 10bağlama, sercan hamza. "kamila shamsie’s home fire: neo-racism and the ‘house muslim." motif akademi halkbilimi dergisi 13, no. 32 (2020): 1641-1652. 11 lodhi, muhammad arfan, sania muqqadas, and sobia sikander. "political imbroglios in kamila shamsie’s home fire and mohammad hanif’s a case of exploding mangoes." english language and literature studies 9, no. 1 (2019): 120133. 12 dasgupta, rohit k., and churnjeet mahn. "between visibility and elsewhere: south asian queer creative cultures and resistance." south asian diaspora 15, no. 1 (2023): 1-16. 13 abdulkadir, ü. n. a. l. "the question of diasporic trauma in kamila shamsie’s home fire." ideas: journal of english literary studies 2, no. 2 (2022): 139-151. 14banerjee, debjani. "from cheap labor to overlooked citizens: looking for british muslim identities in kamila shamsie’s home fire." south asian review 41, no. 3-4 (2020): 288-302; aroosa kanwal, “kamila shamsie: home fire,” the literary encyclopedia, (2017); pishotti, gabriella. "materializing grief: the reclamation of loss in kamila shamsie’s home fire." journal of postcolonial writing 58, no. 3 (2022): 349-360.; mukherjee, ankhi. "on antigone’s suffering." cambridge journal of postcolonial literary inquiry 8, no. 2 (2021): 214-231; weiss, naomi. "tragic form in kamila shamsie’s home fire." classical receptions journal 14, no. 2 (2022): 240-263; sophocles, antigone, trans. francis store (cambridge: harvard university press, 1912). 15 khan, saba, imdad ullah khan, saira khan, laraib rahat and shahreena, “antigone for the age of terror: transtextuality in kamila shamsie’s homefire,” humanities & social sciences reviews 9, no. 3 (2021): 1413–1420. 134 the muslim diaspora’s nationalism ……… 16 ahmad, ali, asif anjum, and tahira hashim. “an analysis of aneeka pasha and isma pashas character in home fire by kamila shamsie via illocutionary and perlocutionary speech acts,” journal of critical reviews 8, no. 2 (2021): 1288– 1297. 17 koshy, minu. “transforming the ich-du to the ich-es: the migrant as “terrorist” in kabir khan’s new york and kamila shamsie’s home fire,” text matters: a journal of literature, theory and culture, no. 11 (2021): 97–105. 18 lau, lisa, and ana mendes. “twenty-first century-antigones: the postcolonial woman shaped by 9\11 in kamila shamsie’s home fire,” studies in the novel 53, no. 1 (2021): 54–68. 19 abu shahid abdullah, md. “deconstructing western hegemony and voicing silenced histories in amitav ghosh’s the calcutta chromosome.” southeast asian review of english 57, no. 1 (2020): 6–20. 20 dalbert, claudia, and matthias donat, “belief in a just world,” international encyclopedia of social & behavioral sciences (2nd ed.), (2015): 487–492. 21 chandio, muhammad. (2018). identification and identity of muslims: a critical study of selected post-9/11 fiction. [doctor's thesis, university of sindh]. doi: 10.13140/rg.2.2.36814.84804 22 tilwani, shouket, muhammed keezhatta. 2020. muslim lives in the post-9/11 fiction: an exploratory study. hamdard islamicus, 43 (2), 338-354. https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard islamicus/ 23 rivaldy, padel muhamad rallie, manneke budiman, and shuri mariasih gietty tambunan. 2020. “rethinking home and identity of muslim diaspora in shamsie’s home fire and hamid’s exit west.” international journal of literary humanities 18 (1): 27–38. https://doi.org/10.18848/2327-7912/cgp/v18i01/27-38. 24 ahmed, rehana. 2020. towards an ethics of reading muslims: encountering difference in kamila shamsie’s home fire. textual practice, 35(7), 1-17. doi: 10.1080/0950236x.2020.1731582 25 abou adel, mohammed. "aesthetics of religious coexistence and tolerance in the shafak's turkish novel." international journal of islamic thought 24 (2023): 108-118. 26 kamila shamsie. 2017. home fire. riverhead books (hardcover). 27 ibid. 28 ibid, p. 87. 29 clini, clelia, jasmine hornabrook, paul nataraj, and emily keightley. “partition at 75: reflections on migrant memories in the british south asian diaspora,” south asian diaspora, (2023). 30 rieffer, barbara. “religion, politics and human rights: understanding the role of christianity in the promotion of human rights,” human rights & human welfare 6, no. 1 (2006): 31–42. 31 ibid. 32 ibid. 33 saini, rima. “the racialization of class and the racialization of the nation: ethnic minority identity formation across the british south asian middle classes,” south asian diaspora 14, no. 2 (2022): 109–125. 34 ibid, p. 158. 35 ibid. 36 ibid, p. 205. 37 ragazzi, francesco. "frontiers of fear–immigration and insecurity in the united states and europe." (2016): 696-698.; davis, darren w., and brian d. silver. "civil liberties vs. security: public opinion in the context of the terrorist attacks on america." american journal of political science 48, no. 1 (2004): 28-46; huddy, leonie, stanley feldman, gallya lahav, and charles taber. "fear and terrorism: https://hamdardfoundation.org/hamdard%20islamicus/ https://doi.org/10.18848/2327-7912/cgp/v18i01/27-38 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0950236x.2020.1731582 hamdard islamicus vol. xlvii, no 2 135 psychological reactions to 9/11." in framing terrorism, pp. 255-278. routledge, 2004. 38 ibid. 39 ibid. 40 ibid. 41 abu adel, muhammad. "the dialectic of arab ego and the other west." حولية کلية .no. 2 (2023): 1750-1779 ,27 اللغة العربية بجرجا political loyalty and the ethical turn in islamic law: the case of the european council for fatwa and research hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 61 political loyalty and the ethical turn in islamic law: the case of the european council for fatwó and research abdessamad belhaj institute of religion and society, university of public service, budapest, hungary. email: belhaj.abdessamad@uni-nke.hu received on: 23-04-2024 accepted on: 04-09-2025 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i3.1011 abstract the european council for fatwé and research, the authoritative sunni reformist scholarly institution (based in dublin, ireland), has so far published three fatwés and legal declarations concerning muslims' allegiance to european states; these were released in 2006, 2007 and 2015, mainly by ʿabdallāh b. bayya and yūsuf alqaraḍāwī. i suggest studying each of these discourses' arguments and theses in chronological order. next, the resources and limitations of loyalty in the ecfr’s fatwés will be examined in relation to the idea of multiple loyalties, liberal citizenship, and allegiance to nonmuslim states. specifically, emphasis will be placed on how, in the european setting, loyalty to secular states and islam can coexist, complement each other, or conflict. the legal statements on political loyalty issued by the european council for fatwé and research are analyzed to show the organization's dedication to the ideas of multiple loyalties and the harmony and complementarity of political citizenship with religious loyalty to islam. it is argued here that the ecfr's fatwés take an ethical turn in islamic law and consider virtues, the public interest, human rights, and higher goals of law as a framework for their legal statements, as opposed to just repeating strict rulings of traditionalist fiqh. keywords: political loyalty, islamic law, fiqh, efcr, fatwa mailto:belhaj.abdessamad@uni-nke.hu https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i3.1011 62 political loyalty and the ethical … 1. introduction since 9/11, studies have emerged to examine loyalties among western muslim communities raising the question of the ability of muslims to be loyal to western secular states. yet, the discussion has been skewed, and the overall image of loyalty in islamic political ethics is still mostly poorly understood. in the midst of the surge in jihadist violence in the middle east (particularly in iraq), ample research on the al-walā’ wa-l-barā’ ( والبراء loyalty and– الوالء disavowal) doctrine was published between 2009 and 2015. however, systematic knowledge of how islamic political ethics view the moral basis of loyalty and how it perceives muslim commitment to nonmuslim states remains lacking. up until now, research has primarily concentrated on using the concept of walā’ and barā’ (الوالء والبراء –loyalty and disavowal) as a response to geopolitical and religious challenges they perceive as a threat to islam.1 comparing the salafi stance on disavowal of nonmuslims to reformist stances—which are far more moderate and open than the salafi perspective—is another area of emphasis 2,3 of recent research. and finally, the traditionalist salafi take on walā’ and barā’ as theological categories of constructing the ideal muslim was briefly studied by adis duderija.4 more recent research focused on the salafi perception of muslim loyalties. thus, in 2019, damir-geilsdorf et al. investigated a group of salafists in germany whose ideas of individual loyalty and disavowal intersect with issues of identity, belonging, inclusion, and exclusion, which are strongly intertwined with the realities of everyday life.5 in 2022, fawaid and nashihah revisited the saudi salafi muḥammad bin ṣāliḥ al-‘uthaymīn’s thought on loyalty and disavowal concluding that he rejects other religious communities and that even under certain conditions they can be fought.6 in 2024, wrogemann argued that salafis believe that being loyal to islam means keeping oneself away from non-orthodox norms and non-believers. the urge for disavowal among salafis might be seen as a response to a perceived situation of religious or political threat.7 the reformist stance's ideas on political loyalty are still not well understood or contextualized. comparing them to salafi arguments—particularly extremist salafism8— or envisioning the reformist perspective as a pursuit to adapt islamic law to western citizenship, has been the main subject of inquiry. 9 it is therefore necessary to comprehend sunni reformism on political allegiance as a moral basis of group identification, the self and the other, and the processes of forming alliances and the quest for social cohesion. in hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 63 order to do this, this article will conduct a thorough examination and analysis of three discourses on loyalty by the european council for fatwés and research, the most authoritative sunni reformist body of scholars in europe. three fatwés and legal declarations regarding muslims' allegiance to european states have been released by the ecfr thus far, and they were published between 2006 and 2015. i propose analyzing the arguments and thesis of each of these discourses in chronological order. next, i will discuss the ecfr's discourse on loyalty's resources and limitations as they relate to the notion of multiple loyalties, liberal citizenship, and allegiance to a non-muslim state, as well as the possibility for compatibilism in the european setting. 2. background and review of literature based in dublin, ireland, the european council for fatwé and research (ecfr) is an autonomous islamic scholarly organization. under the direction of yūsuf al-qaraḍāwī (1926-2022), fifteen muslim sunni scholars created the ecfr in 1997 at the behest of the union of islamic organizations in europe, which is closely related to several muslim brotherhood offshoots. even though they have become respected authorities in islamic law and ethics outside of their immediate circles or organizations, the majority of the founding members lived in the muslim world. the ecfr seeks to bring muslim experts' views on jurisprudence into harmony, issuing collective fatwés that, in light of sharê‘ah requirements and goals, respond to the demands of european muslims.10 the ecfr has become a significant organization in the field of muslim law and ethics in europe, attracting the attention of researchers and followed by many muslims. yet, the impact of the ecfr is limited, especially since the field of islamic authority in europe is fragmented, and muslim communities follow various figures of authority. south asian muslims in europe, to cite only one community, reject the ecfr's authority because they follow the religous guidance of scholars in south asia. it frequently issues fatwés at meetings held in different european cities once a year on average. the ecfr, which is composed of no fewer than thirty-two muslim legal scholars, is still active in european discussions about islam and keeps up-to-date. in spite of its traditionalist nature, the ecfr continues to be a preeminent gathering of muslim scholars of fiqh committed to the european scene.11 still, the ecfr co-exist with other organisations of islamic law such as the bbsi (british board of scholars and imams), dérul ifta al-qalam in bradford and dérul ifta in leicester. 64 political loyalty and the ethical … numerous scholars have conducted extensive research on the ecfr's fatwés. thus, karen-lise johansen karman examined how the interpretation of islamic law in the ecfr’s work addresses the challenge of legal plurality in europe.12 alexandre caeiro concentrated on the islamic authority and minority fiqh initiatives of the ecfr.13 mohammed ghaly emphasized the cross-border aspect of the ecfr's decisions on bioethics.14 lena larsen investigated the transnational influences on the ecfr's legal discourse15 as well as women's issues in its fatwés.16 adil hussain khan discussed how the ecfr shaped the perception of european islam.17 uriya shavit studied the ideology and practice of the ecfr as well as its effects on particular muslim populations in europe 18 while recently chiara anna cascino examined the call to islam in the activity of the ecfr.19 however, the political aspect of the ecfr fatwés has not been the focus of any of this significant research. in particular, with the exception of a few sections in the writings of march20 and shavit21, the ecfr’s legal statements on political loyalty and citizenship have been largely disregarded. consequently, the purpose of this paper is to close the knowledge gap in academic studies of the ecfr rulings. the ecfr is widely acknowledged as the most conspicuous, consistent, and cohesive body of islamic law in europe. however, its importance in political thought has not received enough attention, possibly because religious institutions are not expected to play such a role in secular european contexts. however, as political loyalty is an ethical issue as well as a political one, every islamic institution is expected to have an opinion on the subject as part of islamic public ethics. 3. research methodology in terms of methodology, i use a text analysis method to determine the major thesis of a fatwé as well as the arguments presented in support of a particular thesis. fatwés are a unique type of text that was created in a sort of emergency and in reaction to crises at individual or collective levels and typically includes prudent statements about the issues at hand. fatwés consider the optimal course of conduct in light of islamic law, but they are also realistic enough to pay close attention to how these rulings could be applied. they are legal documents that require an analysis of the author's history, the critical examination of a series of assertions and arguments, and the way they respond to a specific situation. to comprehend the extent and boundaries of these fatwés, each of these elements will be discussed here. these legal texts also provide insight into current muslim discourses about political loyalty as well as the hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 65 current debates on islam in europe. when i examine the points at hand, i place these arguments in the context of the ongoing discussions about islam and politics in europe. additionally, i discuss the possibilities and constraints of the ecfr's political loyalty rhetoric from a political philosophy standpoint, looking at concepts like compatibilism, multiple loyalties, and liberal citizenship. despite being written by more than one figure of authority and at separate times, the three fatwés have an inherent connection. the first node to account for is that they were produced in 2006, 2007, and 2015. these are crucial, high-intensity years in the relationship between the western and islamic worlds. on the one hand, the securitization of islam that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the terrorist attacks in europe (madrid, london, paris) suspected muslims and their loyalty to the european states. conversely, the middle east's destructive years of invasion of afghanistan and iraq by the west put muslims and westerners in direct political confrontation, which also affected muslims in europe. in order to give these muslims moral guidelines of what to believe, how to behave, and who to belong to in such an intense context where identity is a point of conflict and subject of highly securitized discourses and measures, islamic figures of authority were called to produce accommodating and nuanced viewpoints. regarding the authoritative personalities who authored these fatwés, primarily yūsuf al-qaraḍāwī and ‘abdallāh b. bayya, they both share a sunni reformist school of thought and have been pioneers of this perspective for many years, often working together to support it with literature, networks, and media presence. in the early 2000s, they made a similar contribution to the adaptation of islamic law to modernity, particularly to the minority setting of muslims, assuming positions in major organizations of islamic law in the west. in the gulf countries, they have also been collaborating in a number of islamic organizations for several decades. beyond these collaborations, they share a conviction in highlighting ethics in islamic legal rulings. when tackling different legal issues, they have utilized similar methodologies to highlight the greater goals of islamic law and ethics, and they are pioneers in the so-called maqāîid shift in islamic law. the theoretical perspective that informs this article and directs the study of the three fatwés is the ethical turn taken by muslim jurists under the influence of maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah.22 instead of being satisfied with textual principles and the practice of analogy, islamic legal reasoning began, in the last three decades, to take into account the 66 political loyalty and the ethical … greater goals of sharī‘ah, such as the public interest (maîlaíah, i.e., protection of life, religions, intellect, family, and property) in more significant ways. two main factors influenced this ethical shift: the first is a crisis in terms of religious authority, tradition, and society. by taking an ethical turn, the jurist indeed compromises on some rules or procedures in favour of the local or global public interest of muslims. yet, he can preserve tradition as a foundation for the ummah's legal and ethical reasoning in times of crises. since the muslim jurist must respond to the competition of other religious or non-religious authorities who are more receptive to the modernization of muslim thought, this endeavour also has societal and political significance. throughout islamic history, the muslim jurists have learned to develop a resilient mindset, which also helps explain the ethical shift in islamic law. this is due to the tenacity of fiqh and muslim jurists, particularly sunni reformist jurists, who have been continuously adjusting and demonstrating flexibility in order to accommodate modernity since muḥammad ʿabduh (1849-1905). 4. the compatibility thesis: muslim loyalty in european countries let us start with the first fatwé about muslims' allegiance to european governments, which was issued by the ecfr in 2006 during its sixteenth session in istanbul and published as resolution 62 (2/16). here's how this fatwé unfolds: loyalty is a strong bond that links a person to a special, close, and intimate relationship, from which obligations, rights, and duties arise. this relationship has different aspects and multiple dimensions: loyalty may be to belief, or it may be to lineage, people, and homeland. it may be by covenant or contract. the qur’an and sunnah refer to all of these meanings. the highest of these loyalties is loyalty to the faith, which includes belief in its pillars, the practice of rituals, and commitment to virtuous morals. this loyalty does not contradict loyalty to the homeland, with which a person is bound by the contract of citizenship, so he should defend the territory of the homeland against any attack.23 this fatwé makes five claims about political loyalty of muslims to european states. it first introduces the idea of having multiple loyalties; muslims residing in europe display several identity dimensions related to their religion, ethnicity, citizenship, and place of origin. as a matter of fact, everyone residing in europe, outside of muslim populations, possesses numerous identities. being born into a hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 67 family that is turkish, indonesian, or moroccan and living in the netherlands, for instance, may give rise to divergent religious, ethnic, and political allegiances within these families as well as distinct connections to the dutch identity. second, islamic ethics recognize the legitimacy of having multiple loyalties and identities, as they do not preclude nonreligious forms of loyalty. hence, one cannot defend exclusive loyalty to islam by citing muslim scripture. the salafi ideology of exclusive loyalty to religion based on the principle of al-walā' wa-l-barā' ((الوالء والبراء – loyalty and disavowal)) is being particularly challenged by this counter-discourse. following 9/11 and the attacks on iraq and afghanistan, the west endorsed aggressive policies in the middle east. this led to extremist reactions within salafism, which banned any political allegiance to the west using the doctrine of loyalty and disavowal. third, since loyalty is defined in this statement as a question of rights and obligations, it implicitly reminds muslims of the obligations of trust they have to european governments and also serves as a reminder to european states to care for muslims’ rights in europe. mutual loyalty, as a contract, denotes a commitment on the part of both parties to fulfill the obligations and responsibilities acknowledged. fourth, this fatwé states that the highest kind of allegiance is religious loyalty, which includes following moral precepts, engaging in ritual practice, and believing in its tenets. there is a hierarchy of loyalties in this sense, with allegiance to islam taking precedence over all others. it is clear that this commitment is understood to mean adhering to islam as a religion and ethics (though some may contend that islam should be viewed as a political community as well). from the perspective of the ecfr, political commitment to secular european nations does not imply abandonment of fidelity to islam as a religion.24 it simply suggests that, beyond all other obligations, a muslim’s fundamental identity is derived from their loyalty to allah almighty (sincere faith) and islamic principles. this must also be interpreted as a normative declaration by a religious organization, which may not always align with the more nuanced daily experiences of muslims. fifth, this fatwé supports the notion of non-contradiction between allegiance to european states and islam. loyalty to one’s country is understood to mean that muslims should respect their commitments as citizens, namely by protecting their new country 68 political loyalty and the ethical … unconditionally from all attacks (obviously including attacks by muslims). when it comes to the hierarchy of loyalties—religion being the highest—there is conflict between elements four and five in the event that a european state assaults a muslim country. the ecfr reiterated in 2007 in its fatwé 1/17 that “citizenship does not conflict with walā’ shara‘ī (الوالء الشرعيislamic loyalty), as the presence of a muslim in a land other than muslim lands does not require him or her to commit to any of the requirements of citizenship that contradict his religion, such as defending it if it is attacked”.25 the ecfr requires “muslims to be at the forefront of those who defend their country from harm, and it is not permissible for muslims to participate in any aggression carried out by their country against any other country, whether it is islamic or not”.26 the ecfr states here that muslims should serve in the european armies in order to protect european countries. however, european armies fight aggressive wars overseas, whether in muslim or non-muslim lands. thus, it is appropriate to raise the question of whether the ecfr would allow muslims to enlist in these armies for aggressive wars. as we know from a number of historical examples, muslims served in european troops during colonial conflicts in africa and asia, as well as in conflicts between superpowers during the first and second world wars. considering the lack of recruits in the european military, the proportion of muslim youth in the population, and the fact that various european governments are willing to be involved in wars and conflicts, this question will become extremely relevant once more. therefore, for the ecfr, the main goal of debating how islamic loyalty and citizenship are compatible was to persuade muslim populations who were wary of the salafi belief that islamic loyalty and citizenship are incompatible. the compatibility thesis reassured its audience that being a citizen does not compromise one’s muslim identity. in keeping with islamic beliefs, it also emphasizes the morality of defending one’s homeland from aggression (patriotism). all things considered, the discourse of compatibility is trying to reconcile political discourses of allegiance to citizenship with religious discourses of loyalty to islam, while also legitimizing citizenship and islamizing its prerequisites. this fatwé illustrates the ethical shift in islamic law in three cases. first, this fatwé ignores a crucial aspect of the fiqh literature on the status of muslims living abroad, which is the distinction between the rulings of the abode of islam vs. the abode of war. moreover, this fatwé extrapolates a general ethical teaching regarding loyalty found hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 69 in the holy qur’én and sunnah, rather than conducting a detailed legal analysis of the quranic verses and the hadiths. finally, the fatwé also displays a discernible amount of prudence in order to enable muslims to fulfill all of their responsibilities in a non-muslim society, reconciling loyalties at the price of distinguishing the realms of faith (loyalty to god) and law (loyalty to citizenship). 5. the complementary thesis: loyalty between religion and citizenship in 2014, the ecfr published a legal judgment written by one of its main jurists, ʿabdallāh b. bayya, in 2007 and which served as the organization’s second statement on loyalty. born in 1935, bin bayya is a mauritanian muslim scholar and politician who has had prominent roles in organizations pertaining to islamic law and ethics in the gulf states and europe; bin bayya is the head of the uae council for fatwé and a prominent member of the dublin-based european council for fatwé and research.27 in recent years, because of his close ties to the united arab emirates and his opposition to the influence of the muslim brotherhood on any organization or state, including qatar, bin bayyah has lost favour as an ecfr authority and is no longer associated with the organization.28 ʿabdallāh b. bayya’s text titled al-walā' baina al-dīn wa-lmuwāïanah ( الدين بين والمواطنةالوالء loyalty between religion and citizenship) was published on the ecfr website in 2014. bin bayya starts out by stressing the concept of having various loyalties: from the perspective of meaning of walā’ (الوالءloyalty), it could be different depending on the context, which makes us state that this concept is not rigid or a legal reality like prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but rather it sometimes means belonging to the religion by supporting it and assisting its people, especially in the case of aggression against it; in this context, we should refer to the quranic verse 5:55 (your true allies are god, his messenger, and the believers–– those who keep up the prayer, pay the prescribed alms, and bow down in worship).29 loyalty could mean belonging to kinship and in this context we should refer to the quranic verse 33:6 (in god’s scripture, blood-relatives have a stronger claim than other believers and emigrants, though you may still bestow gifts on your protégé)30, and the quranic verse 19:5 (i fear [what] my kinsmen [will do] when i am gone, for my wife is barren, so grant me a successor––a gift from you)31. loyalty could be formed by the bond of oath and emancipation from slavery as in the quranic verse 33:5 (–if you do not know who 70 political loyalty and the ethical … their fathers are [they are your] ‘brothers-in-religion’ and protégés)32… there is a system of loyalties in islam, indicated by a group of verses and hadiths of the prophet, which encourage the development of virtues, whatever their source, and condemn vices, aggression, and tyranny.33 in this text, ʿ abdallāh b. bayya both restates and expands upon the idea of displaying many loyalties. as a traditionalist scholar, he illustrates the polysemy of the term "walā’" in islamic authoritative sources and demonstrates the range of contexts and usages of loyalty in islamic ethics. as noted by marina rustow, walā’, wilāya, muwālāt ( المواالة) الوالية، الوالء، -loyalty in medieval islamic political thought indicated that allah almighty, friends, allies, sponsors, clients, rulers, political and religious organizations, could all be considered objects of allegiance.34 by revealing the various meanings of loyalty found in islamic authoritative writings, he would be able to convince two audiences who have doubts about muslim allegiance to non-muslim regimes: 1. extremist muslims who would find it difficult to refute this argument in favour of various loyalties by arguing that allegiance ought to be based on one’s muslim identity or religious beliefs only. in this way, he uses verses from the holy qur’én to support his assertion, presumably in response to radical muslims who would question him about it or use a single verse out of context. 2. the second group of people is intended for regular muslims who are unsure about how to balance their religious allegiance with their other commitments. many of them were afraid that obtaining european citizenship would go against their islamic affiliations because they had been taught by salafi preachers in europe for a long time that the only valid loyalty that was acceptable was to islam. therefore, his remarks should absolve muslims who believe they have de facto numerous allegiances to their families, ethnic groups, religions, and home countries and feel obligated to support all of them simultaneously. ʿabdallāh b. bayya also expands here on the rationale behind muslims’ allegiance to non-muslims. beyond religion, loyalty is a virtue, and betrayal is a vice that is condemned along with other vices. this moral reasoning presents a sensible defense of muslim loyalties, arguing that muslims are urged to observe moral standards in addition to islamic law (even if the latter can frequently be interpreted as ethical guidelines). loyalty to one's home nation is, in fact, a necessary quality of virtue; moral coherence is essential in this situation, as religious allegiance and patriotism are related. ʿabdallāh b. bayya thus shifts the focus of the discussion to a universal moral framework that holds that both muslims and non-muslims share a moral code of virtue that hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 71 governs plural societies. yet, the relationship between loyalty to religion and to a nation is complex as bin bayya puts it: loyalty can be considered as circles and ranks, and they can communicate and interact instead of clashing and fighting. loyalty to religion is a given for every muslim, and indeed for every religious person, and it is the highest peak of the pyramid of loyalties. it does not exclude loyalty to the homeland in the concept of citizenship that we referred to, as it is not incompatible with loyalty to religion as long as the citizenship contract does not include a departure from the religion, abandonment of rituals, or a restriction on a muslim’s freedom to live his faith. the relationship between the citizenship contract and religion can be visualized in areas including what is legally required and of course desirable, such as the right to life, justice, equality, freedoms, protection of property, prevention of arbitrary imprisonment and torture, the right to social security for the poor, the elderly, and the sick, cooperation between members of society for the public good, and the duties that result from it, such as paying taxes and defense on behalf of the homeland against aggression and compliance with the laws in fulfillment of the citizenship contract, and this in reality is included in fulfilling the covenant and respecting its requirements, and this is included in loyalty to the religion (o you who have believed, fulfill [all] contracts).35 herein, the concepts of coexistence, diversity, and hierarchy of loyalty are reaffirmed by ʿ abdallāh b. bayya. even though religious commitment is the highest kind of loyalty, it can coexist with citizenship and loyalty to one’s country for two reasons. on the one hand, a contract that clearly outlines the rights and obligations of muslim citizens serves as the legal basis for citizenship. one thing, however, might make peaceful coexistence between loyalty to religion and to the homeland impossible: the contract of citizenship should not contain any clause that requires a muslim to give up their religion, rites, or freedom of practice. in principle, there should be no issues at this point because every european citizenship contract guarantees the freedom of religion. on the other hand, religion and citizenship can coexist ethically since islamic ethics upholds many of the fundamental human rights that modern constitutions promote, such as the right to life and the pursuit of justice. modern constitutions and islamic ethics both strike a balance between these rights and the responsibilities that citizens have to their country of origin (homeland security for example). then, muslims should understand that, in order to completely implement islamic ethics and the requirement of respecting agreements and contracts, they must demonstrate political loyalty to 72 political loyalty and the ethical … their home countries. ʿabdallāh b. bayya concludes his statement as follows: loyalty to islam is not a hanging, exclusionary wall that bans every worldly relationship with people that does not deny the foundation of faith with imperfection and does not mix love with hatred or submissiveness and obedience with rejection of islam. rather, a muslim should deal with people in order to bring benefits and ward off harm, and should exchange friendly feelings with them, and deal with them in accordance with the convention of ethics and good relationships with good words and beneficial deeds, in accordance with god’s saying in quran 2:83: (speak good words to all people)36 and the prophetic saying, as reported by al-tirmidhī (behave with people with good morals)37. friendships should be established, and covenants and deals should be concluded. all of this is approved by reason and accepted by the prophet’s conduct.38 in the absence of religious persecution, ʿabdallāh b. bayya advocates for regular interactions with non-muslims rather than separating muslims from european societies. his text embodies the ethical turn in islamic law in remarkable ways. he makes use of two sets of loyalty ethics. first, he endorses the ethics of virtue, which he has already mentioned, restating that a muslim should act and speak in a way that is respectful of non-muslims, as the prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) did. the ethics of friendship follow from ethics of virtue, which consist in having cordial interactions and preserving positive ties with non-muslims. he thus supports an aristotelianconservative theory of loyalty, which states that friendship and affection serve as the basis for loyalty.39 as fletcher puts it, “loyalties crystallize in common projects and shared life experiences” since friendship “rests on loyalty, requires an implicit understanding of continuity and reciprocal reliance, caring, relations and shared histories. and so, loyalty does not arise in the abstract but only in the context of particular relations”.40 on the other hand, the pursuit of the public interest, which calls for collaboration to bring about advantages and prevent harm to others, is another moral justification for maintaining positive ties with non-muslims. the ethical stance used by ʿabdallāh b. bayya in his argument regarding loyalty to non-muslims may offer a means of bridging the doctrinal gap—and corresponding differences in beliefs—that salafism emphasizes between muslims and nonmuslims. it might also be a means of evading islamic legal regulations for behaviour in non-muslim countries, which typically advise against hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 73 assimilating into society. by emphasizing values, ethics also help to reconcile the traditional islamic concept of walā’ (الوالء-loyalty) with the contemporary idea of citizenship. 6. when loyalties and affiliations conflict the leading authority of the ecfr, yūsuf al-qaraḍāwī, produced the third legal statement on loyalty of muslims in europe in 2015. the ecfr republished it on their website in 2020. yūsuf alqaraḍāwī was a well-known egyptian muslim brotherhood figure and a prominent sunni reformist scholar who resided in qatar from 1960s until his passing in 2022. he was instrumental in the founding of the international union of muslim scholars in 2004 and the european council for fatwé and research in 1997, two organizations he oversaw and influenced for many years. his authoritative writings on almsgiving, moderation, the greater purposes of sharê‘ah, and the jurisprudence of minorities enhanced islamic ethics and law. he was the most well-known and prominent sunni theologian between the early 1990s and his death in 2022, thanks to his prolific writings41 as well as his shows on aljazeera.42 in fact, a person does not have a single affiliation. a person’s affiliations may be multiple for different considerations, and we do not find any contradiction between them. a person belongs to his family, to his village, to his region, to his country or homeland, to his continent, to his religion, to his community (that is the ummah, the largest community which is founded on religion), and he belongs to the human family. which of these loyalties and affiliations has priority over others? i mean: if loyalty to the country and loyalty to religion conflict, which of them should we prioritize, and which one should we sacrifice? the way we see things in this case is that in the event of a conflict between religion and the homeland, religion takes precedence, because the homeland has an alternative, and religion has no alternative. this is why we saw the holy messenger (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) and his companions when religion and homeland conflicted, they emigrated for the sake of allah almighty and sacrificed the homeland that did not tolerate their faith, persecuted their mission, and tempted them in their religion. as allah almighty said in the holy qur’én 22:40: “ ˹those who have been driven unjustly from their homes only for saying, ‘our lord is allah.’.”43. and allah almighty said in the holy qur’én 59:8: “ ˹the poor emigrants who were driven from their homes and possessions, who seek allah’s favour and approval, those who help allah and his messenger–– these are the ones who are true–– [shall have a share]..”.44 the holy qur’én 74 political loyalty and the ethical … has made it clear in decisive detail: the religion of a muslim is dearer to him and more beloved to him than everything else, which people cherish and are keen on.45 al-qaraḍāwī begins his argument by highlighting the various identities and allegiances that a muslim in europe may have, listing a person's connections, ranging from family to human brotherhood. this concept appears to be a recurring theme in islamic discourses on loyalty throughout europe, especially in the discourse of the ecfr. additionally, he asserts that the diversity of loyalties does not, in theory, imply that one loyalty could contradict another. this is also a continuation of the compatibility thesis that was initially stated in ecfr resolution 62 (2/16). al-qaraḍāwī's reference to humanity as an identity and loyalty, which raises the question of moral duties to european societies beyond the division between muslims and nonmuslims, may be the novel aspect in this legal reasoning. what is noteworthy in al-qaraḍāwī’s statement on loyalty, though, was the likelihood of a clash between these allegiances, particularly in cases when religious and national allegiances collide. regarding this possibility, he is quite explicit in claiming that religion wins out in times of strife since one cannot change religion while it is possible to change the country of residence. muslims should migrate and leave their country if it does not accept the muslim faith, persecutes muslims who call to islam, and tempts them in their religion. in this instance, affection for islam surpasses all other forms of affection. thus, he compared the oppression of muslims in a european nation to that of mecca under quraysh rule, using the prophet's authority and verses from the holy qur’én to justify emigration. it is debatable whether a nation in modern-day europe could persecute muslims due to their religious beliefs. the question is essentially moot because european nations uphold the secular norms of freedom of religion and are generally better societies for religious freedom than many muslim societies, despite the fact that some restrictions on headscarf wear and various forms of securitization of islam do exist. it is also debatable whether it is easier to change a country than a religion. families, places of employment, and moral commitments are inherent to being a national and constitute a person’s fundamental identity. a person who emigrates into the modern world of nation-states would become more vulnerable to racism and prejudice as a result of leaving their country of origin. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 75 arguably, ideas of religion and nation have changed since the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) left mecca for medina in 622. in mecca, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) and the early muslims faced more than just a danger to their faith—they also faced the possibility of death. also, it was simpler to relocate in the 7th century due to the tribal aspect of life in arabia, provided that one could gain from alliances and tribal ties outside of their birthplace. the rights and obligations of a muslim born in mecca in the early days of islam are essentially different from those of a muslim born in europe today. it is also important to note that early muslims’ religion included a way of living both publicly and privately as muslims, governed by islamic law virtually everywhere. such a scenario would probably not arise in secular european political systems, and muslims, as european citizens, also generally accept that european positive laws, not islamic public law, govern public affairs in europe. al-qaraḍāwī published two books in which he elaborated on the ethics of islamic state. first in his book min fiqh al-dawla fī alislām (1997) he asserts that “islam’s state is a state of belief, ideas, and a clear path; it is not only a security institution which could preserve the ummah from external and internal attacks. its function is much deeper and more encompassing than that. it is to instruct and educate people about the teachings and the principles of islam, and prepare the positive environment to turn the beliefs of islam, its ideas and teachings into a concrete practical reality, and be the example for anyone who searches for guidance”.46 then, he adds that “islam’s state is a state of principles and morality; it commits itself to this goal, inside and outside its territory, with its friends and enemies, in peace and war, does not deal with double standards, and is not machiavellian”.47 in akhlāq al-islām (2017), al-qaraḍāwī argues that a set of islamic values should frame the functions of the state, especially knowledge, virtuous action, freedom, shūrā, honesty and justice. for him, the muslim state is a moral state.48 the latter has the moral obligation to embrace science and knowledge, the most virtuous action possible (implementing the higher objectives of islamic law on earth, which are worshipping allah almighty, vice-regency, and building civilisations, doing the good, and pursuing excellence in his actions).49 the islamic moral state should also guarantee freedom for its citizens so that man is relieved from all oppression (being sovereign on earth and servant only to god), protecting religious, intellectual, political, and civil freedoms.50 76 political loyalty and the ethical … this state should also respect the principle of shūrā (consultation): the ruler should consult the community, and the community should advise the ruler while both the rulers and the ruled should command the right and forbid the wrong. al-qaraḍāwī believes the basis of accepting political leadership in islam is consent and allegiance by choice.51 the moral state should also make sure trusts are rendered to their owners, corruption and treachery are forbidden, jobs are offered according to competence, social justice be prevailing so much so that rights are fulfilled and poverty is eliminated.52 al-qaraḍāwī’s approach of muslim loyalty in non-muslim countries also ethicizes fiqh to a certain extent. here, he presents the idea of human brotherhood and loyalty to humanity as a form of loyalty, which is essentially an ethical assertion unsupported by fiqh. however, he also argues for leaving countries that mistreat muslims and carefully examines the dilemma of conflicting loyalties, particularly between religion and homeland. indeed, this complies with traditional islamic law. however, in theory, such circumstances are uncommon in europe, and alqaraḍāwī does not urge persecuted muslims to relocate to muslim countries. his concern is that muslims will not be free to practice their religion, and, therefore, his legal reasoning implicitly incorporates the concept of human rights. 7. discussion: resources and limits of the ecfr’s discourse on loyalty our goal in this section is to critically examine the ramifications of the ecfr's discourse on loyalty, highlighting both its resources and limits for european societies. it is unreasonable to interpret the previously studied discourses of the ecfr as advocating for a liberal position or for cautious allegiance to non-muslim states. instead, we ought to regard these discourses as a realist political perspective on loyalty within a coherent ethics that sees all loyalties as multiple, hierarchical, and complementary. 7.1 multiple loyalties the ecfr jurists consistently argue that muslims, like everyone else, commit to multiple loyalties. if we adopt john kleinig's definition of loyalty as "intrinsically valued associational attachments,"53 then a muslim expresses loyalty to a variety of associations (of natural or conventional nature), including families, hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 77 friendships, organizations, professions, nations, and religions, rather than just one type of loyalty. the reason for this is that we are typically most loyal to and evoked by associations with which we have a strong sense of identification or involvement. in the lives of the majority of muslims, loyalty to family, ethnic community, and religion is a solid reality as most muslims have formed a strong feeling of identification or involvement with these associational attachments. hence, the fundamental identity of a muslim is formed by their ties to their family, friends, and community of origin, as well as islam, which has sufficiently influenced the social and cultural development of the majority of muslims in europe. seemingly, the ecfr jurists aim to oppose two discourses by endorsing the notion of multiple loyalties: 1. the salafi discourse which emphasizes muslims’ unique identity and duty to islam as followers of islam and exclusively members of the muslim community. 2. the islamophobic discourse which maintains that muslims can only be devoted to their faith and not to their home country (in europe). the basis of these fallacious discourses is a belief in a monolithic loyalty that is sociologically unrealistic for both muslims and non-muslims. 7.2 compatibilism and context as we have seen, the three legal statements on muslim loyalty in europe issued by the ecfr in 2006, 2007, and 2015 largely adopted the position that nation-states and religious loyalty can coexist in europe. since the foundation of the ecfr in 1997, muslim reformists who control this body of jurists have been working to modify islamic law and ethics to reflect the new circumstances that muslims in europe now confront. as media and politicians suspected muslims in most western countries after every terrorist attack muslim jurists had to adjust. thus, the ecfr jurists addressed, on the one side, a context that entailed a shift in the ethical and societal framework in which muslims live in europe (different as it is from muslim contexts) and, on the other side, tensions raised by terrorism and islamophobia. the ecfr promotes fiqh al-aqalliyyāt ( األقليات فقه the jurisprudence of muslim minorities), a set of norms that relax islamic law due to the particular circumstances of muslims in europe, in response to changes in the political and ethical environment of living islam in european societies. the socio-economic context that muslims face as minorities in europe has also been considered by the ecfr. furthermore, it has considered the necessity of keeping state and 78 political loyalty and the ethical … religious affairs separated in line with the secular nature of european states. it is possible to characterize all of the ecfr’s nearly twentyseven-year history as an attempt to adapt to secular europe, make islamic law and ethics consistent with european economies, and uphold family values. since 2001, the securitization of muslim immigrants in europe and north america has been a significant obstacle to this adaptation attempt. generally speaking, muslim citizens in europe have been placed under suspicion of being disloyal and prone to inciting and aiding islamist terrorism.54 european policies and discourses on preventing terrorism have also portrayed muslims as a threat because they tend to value their religious culture over that of the majority society, singling out muslims as suspects, and designating them a "suspect community," as a result of the media, public, and political debates.55 salafi discourses on disloyalty and loyalty, which argue that muslim allegiances to their citizenship and religion are irreconcilable and cannot be sustained, have been generated by preachers and theologians in europe and the middle east, justifying even further suspicion discourses. hence, securitization was encouraged by some european governments as well as a small number of radical muslims who did not perceive securitization as a barrier to the evolution and adaptation of muslims in europe, nor as a means of their exclusion from european politics and society. contrary to discourses produced in 2006 and 2007, the viewpoint of al-qaraḍāwī, the most recent discourse on loyalty produced by the ecfr in 2015 and republished on its website in 2020, has a certain amount of realism to it. in addition to reiterating the compatibility and complementarity theses, al-qaraḍāwī delves deeply into the topic of conflicts between loyalties. his emphasis on allegiance to islam highlights his worry about the european milieu that has changed over the past 10 years. the securitization of islam and muslims has caused societal division and sparked policies that, in the eyes of european muslims, are discriminatory or islamophobic, trapping them in a state of poverty and marginalization. in the past 20 years, islamist terrorist groups have also taken advantage of the resentment and anger that some muslim youth feel in order to drive them away from european countries and fuel additional conflict. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 79 7.3 the impact of the ecfr’s fatwés one of the issues that can be raised in connection with the ecfr's fatwés on political loyalty is how they might affect muslims and non-muslims alike, and what advantages or disadvantages they might have. unfortunately, the only way to obtain such data is through qualitative research using questionnaires and interviews with a sizable sample of participants in european countries. however, there are some scholarly literature elements and field observations were made that help to formulate the impact question. first off, a sizable portion of the religious scholars who make up the ecfr come from the uk and france. these religious leaders are drawn from the most well-known and authoritative mosques and associations in their respective countries. a study conducted in dortmund, germany by uriya shavit and fabian spengler on the local influence of the ecfr fatwés comes to the conclusion that the ecfr lacks the organizational and financial means to effectively disseminate its discourse and that very few people are aware of its presence. furthermore, the majority of muslims in the dortmund muslim communities do not adhere to a reform-oriented understanding of islamic law and the kind of cohesive discourse advocated by the ecfr, favouring the authority of iméms who have similar ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds as the immigrant communities themselves.56 without investigating the other local communities in europe, this finding cannot be applied generally. my own research on sunni authority in belgium suggests that there is disagreement over the ecfr’s bold ijtihād. the top body of religious experts in belgium, the council of theologians, challenges the ecfr’s authority. the council is mostly presided over by moroccan religious scholars who adhere to a conservative mālikī interpretation of islamic law. however, al-khalil mosque, one of the most significant mosques in brussels, adheres to the ecfr's fatwés, but the majority of the city’s mosques (roughly seventy) favour salafi interpretations or iméms of traditional madhhabs (mālikī or ḥanafī schools), depending on whether the immigrants are from morocco, turkey or pakistan. 57 it is challenging to assert that the ecfr has a broad influence in europe due to the disarray of sunni leadership, the fragmentation of authority and knowledge production.58 80 political loyalty and the ethical … 7.4 the ethical turn in islamic law the ecfr has consistently applied an ethical argumentation to encourage muslim allegiance to european states. this ethical reasoning centers on arguments based on public interest and the maintenance of the higher goals of islamic law, as well as virtue ethics (loyalty is a universal value that a muslim should uphold). what is meant by this ethical turn is not that the fiqh acquired an ethical component, for it always had such a component since fiqh as a normative-prohibitive discourse is ethical and deals with obligatory, forbidden, recommended, permitted, and reprimanded categories of acts. the ethical turn in question is the emphasis put by muslim jurists on reasoning by the higher objectives of islamic law rather than on specific rulings. this ethical turn in fiqh is undoubtedly not a monolith of the ecfr since it aligns with a tendency in islamic law across the muslim world that has shifted the emphasis from the jurisprudence of texts (fiqh al-nuîëî) to the jurisprudence of purposes (fiqh almaqāîid). muslim jurists are increasingly attempting to connect the specifics of jurisprudence with its theoretical underpinnings and the objectives of islamic norms, as well as to interpret islamic rulings within diverse ethical discourses and historical contexts.59 only in the past ten years have scholars started to discuss the ethical turn or the ethical thesis in islamic law.60 however, since the 1990s, muslim jurists have been working steadily and extensively to incorporate maqāîid into fatwés and islamic rulings. to highlight a single facet of this ethical shift, fiqh al-maqāîid has broadened from the fatwés on personal and familial issues to questions of politics and bioethics. alqaraḍāwī and his school of thought were significant in the development of this fiqh al-maqāîid, which may explain why this school of thought, including the ecfr, have initiated the minority fiqh and other ethical discourses on islamic law in the west, to bring the western secular modernity into harmony with the islamic way of life.61 conclusion the analysis of the european council for fatwé and research’s legal discourses on muslim allegiances in europe demonstrates commitment to the concepts of multiple loyalties, as well as the compatibility and complementarity of political citizenship and religious loyalty to islam. the study does, however, also shows awareness of the backdrop of islam’s securitization and the hierarchy of allegiance, which places religion above loyalty to the homeland in cases of conflict. the ecfr's legal discourse endorses an islamic ethical engagement with loyalty as respect for contracts and duties hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 81 rather than a belief in liberal citizenship’s authoritativeness. overall, rather than echoing rigid rulings of traditionalist fiqh, the ecfr's fatwés make an ethical turn in islamic law and take into account virtues, the public interest, human rights, and higher purposes of law as a frame of their legal decisions. notes and references 1 joas wagemakers, “framing the ‘threat to islam’: al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ in salafi discourse. ” arab studies quarterly 30, no.4 (2008): 1–22. 2 uriya shavit, “the polemic on al-wala' wal-bara' (loyalty and disavowal): crystallization and refutation of an islamic concept.” journal of south asian and middle eastern studies 36, no. 3 (2013): 24-49. uriya shavit, “can muslims befriend non-muslims? debating al-wala’ wal-bara’ (loyalty and disavowal) in theory and practice.” islam and christian-muslim relations 25, no. 1 (2014): 67–88. 3 said hassan, “law-abiding citizen: recent fatwas on muslim minorities’ loyalty to western nations.” the muslim world 105, no. 4 ( 2015): 516–539. 4 adis duderija, constructing a religiously ideal ',believer', and ',woman', in islam ( new york: palgrave macmillan, 2011), 92-94. 5 sabine damir-geilsdorf, mira menzfeld and yasmina hedider, “interpretations of al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ in everyday lives of salafis in germany.” religions 10, no. 2 (2019): 1-18. 6 ahmad fawaid and rifqiya ‘afifatin nashihah, “radicalism issues in the qur’anic exegesis: muḥammad bin ṣāliḥ al-‘uthaimīn’s thoughts on alwalā’, al-barā, intolerance, and the concept of jihad.” jurnal ilmiah ilmu ushuluddin 21, no. 1 (2022):1-21. 7 henning wrogemann, the call to islam (daʻwa islamiyya): a brief history and contemporary approaches. leipzig: evangelische verlagsanstalt, 2024. 8 shavit, “the polemic on al-wala' wal-bara' (loyalty and disavowal) ”, 2449. uriya shavit, “can muslims befriend non-muslims?”, 67–88. 9 andrew f. march, islam and liberal citizenship: the search for an overlapping consensus (new york: oxford university press, 2009). 10 “about us ”, the european council for fatwa and research, accessed may 27, 2024, www.e-cfr.org/en/about-us/ 11 alexandre caeiro, “transnational ʿulama, european fatwas, and islamic authority: a case study of the european council for fatwa and research.” in production and dissemination of islamic knowledge in western europe, ed. m. bruinessen and s. allievi, ( london: routledge, 2006), 12141. hisham. a. hellyer, “european council for fatwa and research.” in the oxford encyclopedia of the islamic world, ed. john l. esposito (oxford: oxford university press, 2009), i, 197. 12 karen-lise johansen karman, “islamic law in europe: the challenge of legal pluralism.” in religion and normativity, volume iii: religion, politics, and law, ed. peter lodberg (aarhus: aarhus univesity press, 2009), 94-104. karen-lise johansen karman, “interpreting islamic law for european muslims: the role and the work of the european council for fatwa and 82 political loyalty and the ethical … research.” in yearbook of muslims in europe, volume 3, ed. jørgen nielsen et al. (leiden: brill, 2011), 655–693. 13 alexandre caeiro, “the power of european fatwas: the minority fiqh project and the making of an islamic counterpublic.” international journal of middle east studies 42 , no. 3 (2010): 435-449. caeiro, “transnational ʿulama”, 121141. alexandre caeiro, “the making of the fatwa: the production of islamic legal expertise in europe. ” archives de sciences sociales des religions 155, no. 3 (2011): 81-100. 14 mohammed ghaly, “religio-ethical discussions on organ donation among muslims in europe: an example of transnational islamic bioethic.” medicine, health care and philosophy 15, no. 2 (2012): 207–220. 15 lena larsen, “islamic jurisprudence and transnational flows: exploring the european council for fatwa and research.” in from transnational relations to transnational laws: northern european laws at the crossroads, ed. shaheen sardar ali, anne griffiths, (london: routledge, 2011), 139-165. 16 lena larsen, how muftis think. manufacturing fatwas for muslim women in western europe (leiden: brill, 2018), 156–189. 17 adil hussain khan, “creating the image of european islam: the european council for fatwa and research and ireland.” in muslim political participation in europe, ed. jørgen s. nielsen (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2013), 215-238. 18 uriya shavit and fabian spengler, “does the european council for fatwa and research matter? the case of muslims in dortmund, germany.” politics, religion & ideology 18, no. 4 (2017): 363-382. uriya shavit, “the european council for fatwa and research: ideology, methodology, and impact.”, in routledge handbook of islam in the west, ed. roberto tottoli (london: routledge, 2022), 343-356. 19 chiara anna cascino, “defining the calling to islam in europe: the european council for fatwa and research’s interpretation of islamic daʿwa.” journal of arabic and islamic studies 23, no. 2 (2024): 203–224. 20 march, islam and liberal citizenship, 188-189. 21 shavit, “the european council for fatwa and research”, 348. 22 felicitas opwis, “the ethical turn in legal analogy imbuing the ratio legis with maṣlaḥa .” journal of arabic and islamic studies 21, no. 1 ( 2021): 159-182; sandra houot, “ de la “jurisprudence des minorités” et de ses déclinaisons : comment le conseil européen de la fatwâ et des recherches forge une éthique relationnelle .” archives de sciences sociales des religions 179, no. 2 (2017): 281-298. 23 “walā’ al-muslim fī al-bilād al-urūbbiyya”, the european council for fatwa and research, accessed may 27, 2024, www.ecfr.org/blog/2018/11/07/والء-المسلم-البالد-األوروبية/ the translation from arabic is mine. 24 andrew f. march, “are secularism and neutrality attractive to religious minorities? islamic discussions of western secularism in the 'jurisprudence of muslim minorities' (fiqh al-aqalliyyat discourse).” cardozo law review 30, no. 6 (2009), 2845. http://www.e-cfr.org/blog/2018/11/07/ولاء-المسلم-البلاد-الأوروبية/ http://www.e-cfr.org/blog/2018/11/07/ولاء-المسلم-البلاد-الأوروبية/ hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 83 25 “al-bayān al-khitāmī li-l-dawra al-sābiʿa ʿ ashra”, the european council for fatwa and research, accessed may 27, 2024, www.ecfr.org/blog/2007/05/19/ 2-17-الختامى-البيان / 26 “al-bayān al-khitāmī”. 27 a thorough study of bin bayya’s scholarly profile, discourse and activities can be read in: david h. warren, rivals in the gulf yusuf al-qaradawi, abdullah bin bayyah, and the qatar-uae contest over the arab spring and the gulf crisis ( abingdon: routledge, 2021), 1-15. 28 usaama al-azami, “ ‘abdullāh bin bayyah and the arab revolutions: counter‐ revolutionary neo‐ traditionalism’s ideological struggle against islamism.” the muslim world 109, no. 3 (2019): 343–361. 29 verse 55 of chapter 5 (the feast) as translated by muhammad a. s. abdel haleem: the qur’an, a new translation by muhammad a. s. abdel haleem ( oxford: oxford university press, 2004), 73. 30 verse 6 of chapter 33 (the joint forces) as translated by muhammad a. s. abdel haleem: the qur’an, 266. 31 verse 5 of chapter 19 (mary) as translated by muhammad a. s. abdel haleem: the qur’an, 191. 32 verse 4 of chapter 33 (the joint forces) as translated by muhammad a. s. abdel haleem: the qur’an, 266. 33 ʿabdallāh b. bayya, “al-walā’ bayna al-dīn wa-l-muwāṭana”, accessed may 27, 2024, www.e-cfr.org/blog/2014/01/31/ المواطنة-وبين-الدين-بين-الوالء / 34 marina rustow, “loyalty.” in the princeton encyclopedia of islamic political thought, ed. gerhard böwering et al. (princeton: princeton university press, 2013), 318. see also the distinction between acquired loyalties (oaths, contracts, etc.) and loyalties of category (class, ethnic identity, etc.) in: roy p. mottahedeh, loyalty and leadership in an early islamic society (princeton: princeton university press, 1980), 12-13. 35 bin bayya, “al-walā’”. 36 verse 83 of chapter 2 (the cow) as translated by muhammad a. s. abdel haleem: the qur’an, 11. 37 abū ‘īsā al-tirmidhī, al-jāmi‘ al-kabīr, edited by bashshār ‘awwād ma‘rūf (beyrut: dār al-gharb al-islāmī, 1996), 1987. 38 ʿ bin bayya, “al-walā’”. 39 george p. fletcher, loyalty: an essay on the morality of relationships (new york: oxford university press, 1993), 6. 40 fletcher, loyalty, 7. 41 the edition of his complete works is composed of 105 volumes. see: www.al-qaradawi.net/content/ -موسوعة-األعمال-الكاملة-للقرضاوي-عمل-ضخم-وعالم تفردم (last modified may 27, 2024) http://www.al-qaradawi.net/content/ 84 political loyalty and the ethical … 42 brigitte maréchal, les frères musulmans en europe: racines et discours (paris: presses universitaires de france, 2009); bettina gräf and jakob skovgaard-petersen, eds. global mufti: the phenomenon of yusuf alqaradawi (new york: columbia university press, 2009); lena larsen, how muftis think. manufacturing fatwas for muslim women in western europe (leiden: brill, 2018); ron shaham, rethinking islamic legal modernism: the teaching of yusuf al-qaradawi (leiden and boston: brill, 2018) ; david h. warren, rivals in the gulf: yusuf al-qaradawi, abdullah bin bayyah, and the qatar-uae contest over the arab spring and the gulf crisis ( abingdon: routledge, 2021), usaama al-azami, islam and the arab revolutions: the ulama between democracy and autocracy ( london: hurst & company, 2023). 43 verse 40 of chapter 22 (the pilgrimage) as translated by muhammad a. s. abdel haleem: the qur’an, 212. 44 verse 8 of chapter 59 (the gathering [of forces]) as translated by muhammad a. s. abdel haleem: the qur’an, 366. 45 “fiqh al-ʿaysh al-mushtarak: al--muwāṭana namūdhajan”, the european council for fatwa and research, accessed may 27, 2024,www.ecfr.org/blog/2020/11/24/ فقه-العيش-المشترك-المواطنة-نموذجا 46 yūsuf al-qaraḍāwī , min fiqh al-dawla fī al-islām (cairo: dār al-shurūq, 1997), 20. 47 al-qaraḍāwī , min fiqh al-dawla fī al-islām, 50. 48 yūsuf al-qaraḍāwī, akhlāq al-islām (cairo: dār al-mashriq, 2017), 597. 49 al-qaraḍāwī, akhlāq al-islām, 597–604. 50 al-qaraḍāwī, akhlāq al-islām, 604–609. 51 al-qaraḍāwī, akhlāq al-islām, 609–618. 52 al-qaraḍāwī, akhlāq al-islām. 619–632. 53 john kleinig , “loyalty.” in the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (summer 2022 edition), ed. edward n. zalta, accessed may 27, 2024, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/loyalty. 54 imène ajala, “muslims in france and great britain: issues of securitization, identities and loyalties post 9/11.”, journal of muslim minority affairs 34, no, 2 (2014): 123-133. 55 h. tahir, j. r. kunst, and d. l. sam, “acculturation preferences and perceived (dis)loyalty of muslims in the u.k.: two vignette-based experimental studies.”, international journal of intercultural relations 93 (2023), accessed may 27, 2024. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s014717672300007x 56 shavit and spengler, “does the european council for fatwa and research matter? ”, 381. 57 abdessamad belhaj, authority in contemporary islam: structures, figures and functions (budapest: ludovika university press, 2023), 61-90. 58 thijl sunier, making islam work: the making of islamic authority among muslims in europe (leiden: brill, 2023), 15. 59 mutaz al-khatib, “ethics and religion.” in international handbook of practical theology, ed. birgit weyel, wilhelm gräb, emmanuel lartey and cas wepener (berlin: de gruyter, 2022), 111. http://www.e-cfr.org/blog/2020/11/24/فقه-العيش-المشترك-المواطنة-نموذجاً http://www.e-cfr.org/blog/2020/11/24/فقه-العيش-المشترك-المواطنة-نموذجاً hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 85 60 ebrahim moosa, “on reading shāṭibī in rabat and tunis.” the muslim world 104, no. 4 ( 2014): 451-464; abdessamad belhaj, the ethical thesis: practical reason in islamic legal hermeneutics (piliscsaba: the avicenna institute of middle eastern studies, 2015) ; felicitas opwis, “the ethical turn in legal analogy imbuing the ratio legis with maṣlaḥa.” journal of arabic and islamic studies 21, no. 1 ( 2021): 159-182. 61 mouez khalfaoui, “maqāṣid al-sharīʿah as a legitimization for the muslim minorities law.” in the objectives of islamic law: the promises and challenges of the maqasid al-shari'a, ed. idris nassery, rumee ahmed and muna tatari (lanham: lexington, 2018), pp. 271–285; rezart beka, “maqāṣid and the renewal of islamic legal theory in ʿabdullah bin bayyah's discourse.” american journal of islam and society 38, no. 3-4 (2021): 103–145. bibliography 1. ajala, imène. “muslims in france and great britain: issues of securitization, identities and loyalties post 9/11. ”, journal of muslim minority affairs 34, no. 2 (2014): 123-133. 2. ajala, imène. european muslims and their foreign policy interests: identities and loyalties. berlin: gerlach press, 2018. 3. al-azami, usaama. “ ‘abdullāh bin bayyah and the arab revolutions: counter‐ revolutionary neo‐ traditionalism’s ideological struggle against islamism.” the muslim world 109, no. 3 (2019): 343–361. 4. al-azami, usaama. islam and the arab revolutions: the ulama between democracy and autocracy. london: hurst & company, 2023. 5. belhaj, abdessamad. the ethical thesis: practical reason in islamic legal hermeneutics. piliscsaba: the avicenna institute of middle eastern studies, 2015. 6. belhaj, abdessamad. authority in contemporary islam: structures, figures and functions. budapest: ludovika university press, 2023. 7. beka, rezart. “maqāṣid and the renewal of islamic legal theory in ʿabdullah bin bayyah's discourse.” american journal of islam and society 38, no. 3-4 (2021): 103–145. 8. cascino, chiara anna. “defining the calling to islam in europe: the european council for fatwa and research’s interpretation of islamic daʿwa.” journal of arabic and islamic studies 23, no. 2 (2024): 203– 224. 9. caeiro, alexandre. “transnational ʿulama, european fatwas, and islamic authority: a case study of the european council for fatwa and research.” in production and dissemination of islamic knowledge in western europe, edited by m. bruinessen and s. allievi, 121141. london: routledge, 2006. 10. caeiro, alexandre. “the power of european fatwas: the minority fiqh project and the making of an islamic counterpublic.” international journal of middle east studies 42 , no. 3 (2010): 435-449. 86 political loyalty and the ethical … 11. caeiro, alexandre, “the making of the fatwa: the production of islamic legal expertise in europe. ” archives de sciences sociales des religions 155, no. 3 (2011): 81-100. 12. damir-geilsdorf, sabine, menzfeld, mira and hedider, yasmina. “interpretations of al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ in everyday lives of salafis in germany.” religions 10, no. 2 (2019): 1-18. 13. duderija, adis. constructing a religiously ideal ', believer', and ',woman', in islam. new york: palgrave macmillan, 2011. 14. fawaid, ahmad and nashihah, rifqiya ‘afifatin. “radicalism issues in the qur’anic exegesis: muḥammad bin ṣāliḥ al-‘uthaimīn’s thoughts on al-walā’, al-barā, intolerance, and the concept of jihad.” jurnal ilmiah ilmu ushuluddin 21, no. 1 (2022):1-21. 15. fletcher, george p. loyalty: an essay on the morality of relationships. new york: oxford university press, 1993. 16. ghaly, mohammed. “religio-ethical discussions on organ donation among muslims in europe: an example of transnational islamic bioethic.” medicine, health care and philosophy 15, no. 2 (2012): 207– 220. 17. gräf, bettina, and jakob skovgaard-petersen, eds. global mufti: the phenomenon of yusuf al-qaradawi. new york: columbia university press, 2009. 18. hassan, said. “law-abiding citizen: recent fatwas on muslim minorities’ loyalty to western nations.” the muslim world 105, no. 4, 2015, 516–539. 19. hellyer, hisham. a. “european council for fatwa and research.” in the oxford encyclopedia of the islamic world, edited by john l. esposito, volume i, p. 197. oxford: oxford university press, 2009. 20. houot, sandra. “ de la “jurisprudence des minorités” et de ses déclinaisons : comment le conseil européen de la fatwâ et des recherches forge une éthique relationnelle .” archives de sciences sociales des religions 179, no. 2 (2017): 281-298. 21. karman, karen-lise johansen. “islamic law in europe: the challenge of legal pluralism.” in religion and normativity, volume iii: religion, politics, and law, edited by peter lodberg, 94-104. aarhus: aarhus univesity press, 2009. 22. karman, karen-lise johansen. “interpreting islamic law for european muslims: the role and the work of the european council for fatwa and research.” in yearbook of muslims in europe, volume 3, edited by jørgen nielsen et al., 655–693. leiden: brill, 2011. 23. khan, adil hussain. “creating the image of european islam: the european council for fatwa and research and ireland.” in muslim political participation in europe, edited by jørgen s. nielsen, 215-238. edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2013. 24. al-khatib, mutaz. “ethics and religion.” in international handbook of practical theology, edited by birgit weyel, wilhelm gräb, emmanuel lartey and cas wepener (berlin: de gruyter, 2022), 103-116. 25. khalfaoui, mouez. “maqāṣid al-sharīʿah as a legitimization for the muslim minorities law.” in the objectives of islamic law: the promises and challenges of the maqasid al-shari'a, edited by idris hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 87 nassery, rumee ahmed and muna tatari (lanham: lexington, 2018), pp. 271–285. 26. kleinig, john. “loyalty.” in the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (summer 2022 edition), edited by edward n. zalta. accessed may 27, 2024. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/loyalty. 27. larsen, lena. “islamic jurisprudence and transnational flows: exploring the european council for fatwa and research.” in from transnational relations to transnational laws: northern european laws at the crossroads, edited by shaheen sardar ali and anne griffiths, pp. 139-165. london: routledge, 2011. 28. larsen, lena. how muftis think. manufacturing fatwas for muslim women in western europe. leiden: brill, 2018. 29. march, andrew f. islam and liberal citizenship: the search for an overlapping consensus. new york: oxford university press, 2009. 30. march, andrew f. “are secularism and neutrality attractive to religious minorities? islamic discussions of western secularism in the 'jurisprudence of muslim minorities' (fiqh al-aqalliyyat discourse).” cardozo law review 30, no. 6 (2009): 2821-2854. 31. maréchal, brigitte. les frères musulmans en europe: racines et discours. paris: presses universitaires de france, 2009. 32. mottahedeh, roy p. loyalty and leadership in an early islamic society, princeton: princeton university press, 1980. 33. moosa, ebrahim. “on reading shāṭibī in rabat and tunis.” the muslim world 104, no. 4 ( 2014): 451-464. 34. opwis, felicitas. “the ethical turn in legal analogy imbuing the ratio legis with maṣlaḥa.” journal of arabic and islamic studies 21, no. 1 ( 2021): 159-182. 35. al-qaraḍāwī, yūsuf. min fiqh al-dawla fī al-islām. cairo: dār al-shurūq, 1997. 36. al-qaraḍāwī, yūsuf. akhlāq al-islām. cairo: dār al-mashriq, 2017. 37. rustow, marina. “loyalty.” in the princeton encyclopedia of islamic political thought, edited by gerhard böwering et al., p. 318. princeton: princeton university press, 2013. 38. shaham, ron. rethinking islamic legal modernism: the teaching of yusuf al-qaradawi. leiden and boston: brill, 2018. 39. shavit, uriya. “the polemic on al-wala' wal-bara' (loyalty and disavowal): crystallization and refutation of an islamic concept.” journal of south asian and middle eastern studies 36, no.3 (2013): 2449. 40. shavit, uriya. “can muslims befriend non-muslims? debating al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ (loyalty and disavowal) in theory and practice.” islam and christian-muslim relations 25, no. 1 (2014): 67–88. 41. shavit, uriya. shari'a and muslim minorities: the wasati and salafi approaches to fiqh al-aqalliyyat al-muslima. oxford: oxford university press, 2015. 42. shavit, uriya and fabian spengler. “does the european council for fatwa and research matter? the case of muslims in dortmund, germany.” politics, religion & ideology 18, no. 4 (2017): 363-382. 88 political loyalty and the ethical … 43. shavit, uriya. “the european council for fatwa and research: ideology, methodology, and impact.”, in routledge handbook of islam in the west, edited by roberto tottoli, 343-356. london: routledge, 2022. 44. sunier, thijl. making islam work: the making of islamic authority among muslims in europe. leiden: brill, 2023. 45. tahir, h., kunst, j. r. and d. l. sam. “acculturation preferences and perceived (dis)loyalty of muslims in the u.k.: two vignette-based experimental studies.”, international journal of intercultural relations 93 (2023). accessed may 27, 2024. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s014717672300007x 46. the qur’an, a new translation by muhammad a. s. abdel haleem. oxford: oxford university press, 2004. 47. al-tirmidhī, abū ‘īsā. al-jāmi‘ al-kabīr, edited by bashshār ‘awwād ma‘rūf. beyrut: dār al-gharb al-islāmī, 1996. 48. wagemakers, joas. “framing the ‘threat to islam’: al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ in salafi discourse. ” arab studies quarterly 30, no.4 (2008): 1–22. 49. warren, david h. rivals in the gulf: yusuf al-qaradawi, abdullah bin bayyah, and the qatar-uae contest over the arab spring and the gulf crisis. abingdon: routledge, 2021. 50. wrogemann, henning. the call to islam (daʻwa islamiyya): a brief history and contemporary approaches. leipzig: evangelische verlagsanstalt, 2024. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 35 the concept of educator character: a theo-legalistic study based on the qur'ón, hadith, and indonesian national education law dr. nurhasnawati fakultas tarbiyah dan keguruan universitas islam negeri sultan syarif kasim riau, indonesia email: nurhasnawati@uin-suska.ac.id dr. sawaluddin institut agama islam (iai) rokan bagan batu riau, indonesia email: regarsawaluddin@gmail.com abd. haris mahasiswa program doktor ilmu al-quran dan tafsir perguruan tinggi ilmu-ilmu al-quran (ptiq) jakarta, indonesia email: abd.haris@mhs.ptiq.ac.id received on: 23-04-2024 accepted on: 04-09-2025 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i3.998 abstract this article aims to describe the conception of educator character in national education from a theo-legalistic approach based on the holy qur’én, hadith, and the law on the national education system in indonesia. this study is a library-based research. library research involves collecting data from various literature sources. the primary data sources in this study are the holy qur’én, hadith, and the law on the national education system in indonesia. data collection techniques include observation, documentation, and triangulation. data analysis is conducted using content analysis, following the stages of data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing. the results of this study indicate that the conception of educator character has been explained in the holy qur’én, hadith, and law no. 20 of 2003. for example, surah arrahman (verses 1–4), surah an-najm (verses 5–6), and surah annahl (verses 43–44), along with several hadiths, outline the mailto:nurhasnawati@uin-suska.ac.id mailto:regarsawaluddin@gmail.com mailto:abd.haris@mhs.ptiq.ac.id https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i3.998 36 the concept of educator character … characteristics that an educator must possess. among the qualities highlighted are: embodying ar-raímén (compassion and mercy), sincerity in educating students, competence in public speaking, the ability to design optimal lesson plans, professional qualifications as an educator, readiness both physically and spiritually, being a source of knowledge for students, and understanding the duties, functions, and roles of an educator. furthermore, according to various hadiths, an educator should emulate the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) in teaching activities. this principle is also reflected in law no. 20 of 2003 and is further elaborated in the regulation of the minister of national education (permendiknas) of 2010. therefore, an educator who embodies these principles can effectively fulfill their role in national education. keywords: characteristics, educator, holy qur’én, hadith, law, on the national education. 1. introduction fundamentally, education is akin to an experiment that can never be concluded as long as human life persists. it is stated as such because education constitutes the most crucial aspect of human culture and civilization, perpetually evolving.1 education, a transformative force, plays a pivotal role in shaping individuals and societies. across diverse cultures and religions, it is universally recognized as the primary tool for developing character, knowledge, and ethics.2 in the context of islam, education transcends the mere transfer of knowledge; it is a powerful means of instilling strong character and morality.3 as the primary guideline in the life of a muslim, the holy qur’én and hadith not only provide clear guidance on the expected characteristics of educators within the muslim community but also serve as a source of reassurance and confidence in the islamic education system, a principle also established by law number 20 of 2003 concerning the national education system.4 al-ghazali, as cited in mahmud5, emphasized the pivotal role of educators or teachers in imparting knowledge. there can only be a teaching process with educators or teachers.6 these principles also hold relevance in a global context, where education faces various challenges, including morality, character, and ethics.7 research on the characteristics of educators according to the holy qur’én and hadith will provide insight into the islamic educational tradition and offer valuable alternative perspective in defining moral and character education worldwide.8 as plato stated, education has two fundamental aims: to help students become intelligent and to help them become hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 37 good; thus, a wise society will prioritize moral education as the primary goal of education.9 character education becomes increasingly urgent to be implemented in educational institutions, considering the proliferation of various non-educational behaviours, such as the prevalence of violence, sexual harassment, school-related businesses, corrupt practices, and the frequent arbitrary actions within school environments. without character education, the clarity of understanding regarding ambiguous moral values hinders the ability to make appropriate decisions based on wisdom. 10 thus, character education expands students’ understanding of ethical and moral values, enabling them to make morally sound and accountable decisions. of course, character education, which involves instilling good values and character in students, must be initiated by educators, as educators lacking good character will fail in the teaching process. essentially, character education is an effort to integrate intelligence, personality, and moral behaviour..11 according to thomas lichona, character education is a supportive medium for students to comprehend, care about, and act based on ethical and moral values. in line with this, suyanto asserts that character education is an enhanced moral education involving cognitive, emotional and behavioural aspects.12 research on the characteristics of educators, such as the one authored by febri giantara, which discusses the characteristics of educators from the perspective of the sayings of the prophet,13 this article focuses on understanding the characteristics of educators based on the hadiths of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), thereby elucidating essential qualities that an educator should possess, namely democracy, openness, attentiveness, and honesty.14 nurhanifah delves into the competency of educator personality according to muhammad ‘athiyah al-abrasyi. this article elaborates on the characteristics of educators as explained according to the thoughts of muhammad athiyah al-abrasyi, a prominent figure in modern islamic education.15 lusiana idawati and niko sudibjo discuss the characteristics of educators in the digital era.16 this article explains how the rapid technological advancements in the 4.0 era and the emergence of society 5.0 have impacted the education sector, which is becoming increasingly digital. 17 therefore, educators must possess specific characteristics encompassing soft skills, personal-professional skills, and character education. meanwhile, this article will attempt to 38 the concept of educator character … examine educators' characteristics from the holy qur’én perspective, the sayings of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), and their relevance to law number 20 of 2003 concerning the national education system.18 the replacement textbook on character education emphasizes that teachers are central actors in national development. a study on character education and islamic pedagogy in indonesia stated that teachers who integrate quranic values with state regulations are more effective in shaping students’ character. meanwhile, academic theses from indonesian universities also emphasize that the concept of character-based teachers can only be realized through a synthesis of religious teachings and the educational legal system. for example, a thesis research at uin sunan kalijaga showed that teachers who adhere to the prophet’s prophetic ethics can carry out their duties responsibly, in line with the mandate of the national education law. furthermore, research in the book "teachers as moral agents in national education" emphasized that teachers are not merely academic instructors, but also moral agents who must internalize spiritual and legal values in educational practice. this perspective aligns with a thesis at the indonesian university of education, which concluded that the character of an ideal educator in indonesia must be grounded in three dimensions: qur'anic spirituality, prophetic ethics, and professionalism in national education law. this article will discuss the characteristics of educators based on several surahs found in the holy qur’én, including surah arrahman verses 1-4, surah an-najm verses 5-6, and surah an-nahl verses 43-44. additionally, it will elucidate various characteristics of educators from the perspective of hadith and law number 20 of 2003. this aim is to delve deeper into the characteristics of educators found in the holy qur’én, hadith and this law and explain their relevance and application in shaping a positive educational environment. through a more profound understanding of the islamic view of education, we can identify important educator characteristics in shaping students’ character, reinforcing morality, and creating a meaningful educational environment. to facilitate the data search and analysis process, the study will focus on the examination of educator characteristics from the perspective of surah ar-rahman verses 1-4, surah an-najm verses 56, and surah an-nahl verses 43-44 in the holy qur’én. additionally, it will include relevant hadiths and law number 20 of 2003 concerning the national education system. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 39 2. results and discussion a. educator character in the holy qur’én 1. surah ar-rahman, verses 1-4 characteristics of educators found in surah ar-rahman, a part of the makki surahs, are characterized by its short verses and a strong reverence. the theme revolves around the fundamental issues of faith, namely monotheism, signs of divine power, prophethood and revelation, the day of judgment, and its contents such as paradise, hellfire, blessings and delights, horrors, tragedies, and various difficulties. the specific verses from surah ar-rahman, verses 1-4, are as follows: َ َبَيان ْ ٱل ُ َمه َّ ل َ o ع َ نَسان ِ إ ٱْل َ ق َ ل َ خ o ن ٰ ا رإ ُ ق ْ َم ٱل َّ ل َ o ع ُ َمن إ ح ٱلرَّ meaning: (allah) the most merciful taught the qur’ān, created man, [and] taught him to express himself. (surah: 55 ar-rahman: 1-4) some traits or characteristics of educators, according to surah ar-rahman verses 1-4, are as follows: firstly, having a compassionate soul (merciful and caring), an educator should possess a compassionate and caring soul towards their students, as exemplified by allah almighty in ar-rahman verses 1–2. wahbah az-zuhaili interprets surah ar-rahman in his commentary.19 (allah) the most merciful, who has taught the qur'én” (surah arrahman 55:1–2). indeed, allah swt, whose mercy encompasses all creatures in this world and the hereafter, has revealed the holy qur’én to his servant, muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions), to teach his people and make it a proof against all mankind. he has made it easy for those whom he bestows his mercy upon to memorize and understand it. when this surah portrays the blessings of allah almighty bestowed upon his servants, allah swt prioritizes the explanation of the greatest and most beneficial blessing, which is the teaching of the holy qur’én to his servants.20 this blessing becomes the axis of happiness in this world and the hereafter. then, allah almighty also explains another blessing: the creation of man as a means to enliven this universe. sheikh ahmad as-shawi (2014) in hasyiyah as-shawi ‘ala tafsir jalalain interprets the verse as follows: http://nahdlatululama.id/blog/2019/07/03/kitab-hasyiyah-as-shawi-ala-tafsir-jalalain-karangan-syekh-ahmad-ash-shawi-al-mishri-al-maliki/ http://nahdlatululama.id/blog/2019/07/03/kitab-hasyiyah-as-shawi-ala-tafsir-jalalain-karangan-syekh-ahmad-ash-shawi-al-mishri-al-maliki/ 40 the concept of educator character … ( إشار ُ َمن إ ح ة اىل أنها مشتلمة عىل وافتتح هذه السورة بلفظ ) الرَّ وذالك ألن الرحمن هو المنعم بجالئل النعم كما وكيفا نعمع ظيمة meaning: this surah begins with term ْٰحم نٰ الرَّ , which indicates that this surah encompasses many great blessings because ْٰحم نٰ الرَّ means the being who bestows great blessings, both in quality and quantity.21 allah first demonstrates his attribute of mercy (arrahman/ ْحمٰ نالرَّ ) before proceeding to the second verse by teaching the holy qur’én (ٰالقران allama al-qur'én). therefore, as educators, we‘/َعلَّم should strive to emulate the compassionate nature of allah ar-rahman ( ْحمٰ نٰ الرَّ ) by having a compassionate soul towards our students. hence, educators endeavour to love their students by treating them gently and imparting knowledge to them as they would to their own children. secondly, he has a sincere soul when educating his students. imam at-thabari interprets surah ar-rahman 55:1–4 in his commentary. “(lord) the most merciful, o mankind, through his mercy to you, has taught the holy qur’én. he bestows this blessing upon you. through the holy qur’én, he shows you everything that can please. he introduces to you everything about his wrath so that you obey him by following what pleases your lord.22 through the holy qur’én, he teaches you everything that he commands you, and everything that angers him. therefore, you deserve his rewards and are saved from his extremely severe punishment.23 besides having the attribute of rahman, an educator also needs to have a sincere soul in striving to teach knowledge to their students. like the attributes of allah the most merciful, who, in this case, is the being who always loves and cares for all his creatures. whether disbelievers, hypocrites, or believers, all are given worldly love and enjoyment in the world without discrimination according to his will. in this regard, it has been shown to educators that we must have a sincere soul when carrying out our duties and obligations as servants of allah almighty. because allah almighty, the most loving of all his creatures, also sets an example in giving without expecting any reward from humans.24 thirdly, effective public speaking or the ability to speak in front of many people. besides having a compassionate soul, rahman’ in carrying out their teaching duties, an educator is also required to be able to deliver material engagingly to arouse the interest of the students. wahbah az-zuhaili stated in his commentary. allah almighty has created various types and races of human and taught hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 41 them the ability to speak and express what is in their hearts and minds so that they can speak, communicate, and interact with others in their community, thus creating cooperation, harmony, and closeness. thus, the elements of teaching are fulfilled, namely, the book performed by the holy qur’én, educator and teacher performed directly by the prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) the learning student performed by humans, and the method or way, namely al-bayén (َٰاْلَبيَان), which is language, the ability to speak. then, allah almighty explains several natural phenomena as fields or areas of learning. undoubtedly, an educator needs the ability to speak effectively. the ability of an educator must create a pleasant classroom atmosphere that increases students' interest and enthusiasm for learning. because with good public speaking, even difficult lessons will feel enjoyable when presented engangingly.25 fourth, being an optimal curriculum designer. an educator must design learning that is perceived to facilitate students' understanding. imam ibn kathir interpreted surah ar-rahman 55:1–4 in his commentary.26 allah almighty informs all his creatures about his grace and mercy, where he reveals the holy qur’én to his servants, providing ease in reading and understanding it for anyone he grants mercy to. allah says, “the most merciful, who has taught the holy qur’én, created man, taught him eloquence” (surah ar-rahman 55:1–4). al-hasan said that the word "البيان" means speaking because the background in teaching the holy qur’én by allah almighty is about how to read it. moreover, this happens by facilitating pronunciation articulation and the exit of letters through their respective pathways from the throat, tongue, and lips according to the diversity of articulation and types of letters. allah almighty facilitates reading and understanding the holy qur’én as well as facilitates its articulation. from here, educators actively direct their students towards their learning targets through methods that facilitate them. in this regard, students convey the feelings in their hearts as a form of understanding in the learning process as explained in the fourth verse ('allamahu al-bayān). therefore, educators are required to plan and design learning materials and effective methods to be used in face-toface learning.27 2. surah an-najm verses 5-6 the theme of this surah, like other makkiyyah surahs, focuses primarily on matters of creed, emphasizing the mission and truth of the prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions) in receiving the holy qur’én based on revelation from allah almighty, monotheism, discussions about idols, 42 the concept of educator character … and affirming that idols are of no benefit whatsoever. it also discusses the power of allah almighty and the events of resurrection and recompense.28 ۥ ُ َمه َّ ل َ َوى ع ُ ق ْ ٱل ُ ِديد َ ش o َوى َ ت ٱسإ َ ف ٍۢ ة و ِمرَّ ُ ذ meaning: it is taught to him by one (angel) of strong faculties; the one of vigour. so he stood poised. (surah 53: an-najm, 5-6) as for the qualities or characteristics of educators in surah annajm verses 5-6, they include the following: firstly, educators must deliver learning materials effectively, accurately, and beautifully. this relates to the qualifications of an educator, which significantly influence the success of educational objectives. this aligns with the fifth verse of surah an-najm, where the angel gabriel conveyed revelation to prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions), allowing him to receive the complete revelation. in his commentary, quraish shihab added that in surah an-najm verse 5, the words ‘allamahu (“taught him”) do not necessarily imply that the revelation originated from the angel gabriel. a teacher will not easily teach something effectively and accurately if the instruction is unclear. don’t we teach our children to read, even though often the reading they are taught is not our work? conveying or explaining something well and correctly is a form of teaching. the angel received revelation from allah almighty with the task of correctly conveying it to the prophet (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions), which is what is meant by his teaching here.29 in this verse, the angel gabriel sets an example for us of an educator’s qualifications. an educator must master what they will convey so that it is appropriate, optimal, and maximal when the teaching process occurs. qualifications also encompass the ability to express something perfectly, especially regarding learning materials.30 imam al-qurtubi explained the perfection of expression in his commentary on surah an-najm verse 6. he stated that the word of allah almighty, "the one taught by one of strength," referring to gabriel, according to the opinion of all scholars of interpretation except hasan,ذوٰمرة, is the perfection of expression. the word (مّرة) mirrah is derived from the phrase (الحبل amartu al-habla,” which means to strengthen“ (أمرتٰ something with a rope. the phrase (ذوٰمّرة) “dhu mirrah” describes the strength of reasoning and the high ability an individual possesses. imam al-baqa'i understood it to mean firmness and extraordinary strength to carry out the task assigned without any inclination towards hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 43 other tasks, accompanied by full sincerity. some also understand it as physical strength, intellect, and reasoning.31 another explanation of the word dhu mirrah (ذوٰمرٰة,) is intellectual intelligence. gabriel's first characteristic describes how strong his mind is and how real his extremely amazing influences are. in conclusion, the angel gabriel possesses intellectual and physical strengths. it has been narrated that he once scooped up the people of lot from the black sea, which was then beneath the earth, carried them on both wings, lifted them from the land to the sky, and overturned them. he also shouted at the thamud people, causing them to die. thus, if related to the character of an educator who has perfection in what they convey, it will have implications for the understanding and learning outcomes of the learners. secondly, educators must possess strength both physically and spiritually. the readiness of these two aspects will influence how the teaching and learning process unfolds in the classroom. if an educator is physically and spiritually strong and prepared, then the teaching and learning process will reach the maximum potential as targeted. imam ibn kathir explained in his commentary that gabriel exemplified this when conveying revelation to the prophet muhammad (the final prophet of allah, peace be upon him, his progeny and companions), gabriel came in a physically strong condition. "one of strength" (annajm: 5) refers to the very strong angel, namely the angel gabriel, "who has a sharp intellect" (an-najm: 6) refers to one who has strength, according to mujahid, al-hasan, and ibn zaid. ibn abbas said that the meaning intended is a good appearance. qatadah said that one who is tall and in good shape,32 aspects (physical and spiritual) must complement each other; if one is lacking or absent, then the readiness of an educator will be questioned. perfect teaching material will only be meaningful if the intermediaries (physical and spiritual) used to convey it still need to be added. 3. surah an-nahl verses 43-44 thirdly, surah an-nahl 16:43–44 covers discussions on fundamental beliefs, namely ulëhiyyah (divinity and unity), ba‘that (resurrection), hashr (gathering), and nushër (reckoning; resurrected and gathered). the discussion in this surah begins with affirming the occurrence of ba‘that and hashr and the nearness of the time of the last day. this is expressed in the past tense (méìi), indicating the certainty of its occurrence.33 44 the concept of educator character … ِر ِإن ْ ك ِّ َل ٱلذ إ ه َ أ ۟ ٓوا ُ ل َـٔ سإ َ ِهمإ ۚ ف يإ َ وِِحٓ ِإل ُّ ا ن ۭ اَّل َ ِرج َّ ِإَّل َ ِلك بإ َ ا ِمن ق َ ن ْ َسل رإ َ وما أ َ ُمون َ ل عإ َ ت َ مإ َّل ُ نت ُ oك َّ نَ ِللن َبّيِّ ُ َر ِلت ْ ك ِّ ٱلذ َ ك يإ َ ِإل ٓ ا َ ن ْ ل َ نز َ ِر ۗ َوأ ُ ب ُّ ِت َوٱلز َ ن ِّ َبي ْ اِس ِبٱل َ ُرون َّ ك َ ف َ ت َ مإ ي ُ ه َّ َعل َ ِهمإ َول يإ َ َل ِإل ِّ ز ُ َما ن meaning: we did not send (messengers) before you other than men whom we inspired with revelation. so, ask the people (having the knowledge) of the reminder (the earlier scriptures), if you do not know. (we sent them) with clear signs and scriptures. and we sent down the reminder (the qur‘an) to you, so that you explain to the people what has been revealed for them, and so that they may ponder. (surah 16: an-nahl verses 4344) regarding the characteristics of educators contained in surah an-nahl verses 43-44: firstly, an educator must be a source of knowledge. an educator must master various treasures of knowledge that will be taught to their students. in his interpretation, quraish shihab explains the sending of the last prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) armed with divine revelation. the messengers sent before you, all brought clear miracles that proved their truth as prophets and messengers, and some also brought zabur, the scriptures containing laws and admonitions that should touch the heart," and we revealed to you the dhikr, meaning the holy qur’én", so that you explain to all humanity what has been revealed to them, namely the holy qur’én, "hopefully with your explanation, they will know and understand," "and so that they may always think," then draw lessons for the benefit of their worldly and hereafter life.34 if educators can master the knowledge, they can teach their students well, it will significantly impact their students’ future. an educator’s knowledge will stick with their students, so if the knowledge delivery is wrong, it will also hurt the students’ future. imam ibn kathir adds how the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was instructed to convey the message correctly to his people.35 secondly, an educator must understand the main duties, functions and roles. an educator not only teaches in the classroom but is also responsible for educating, guiding, nurturing, directing, training, assessing, and evaluating students. the prophet (øal allahu-‘alaihe wa sallam) indeed set a good example for his people regarding education. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) understood well the duties and roles he carried as raímatan lil hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 45 ‘élamên (a mercy to the worlds) in this world. wahbah az-zuhaili once emphasized this in his commentary when interpreting the verse :(وانزلناٰاليكٰالذكر) and we have sent down to you the holy qur’én as we sent down the holy books to the messengers before you, o muhammad. so that you can explain to people the various sharê‘ah of allah almighty, his laws, halal and haram matters, as well as the stories of previous peoples who were destroyed, because they lied to the prophets. (you, muhammad, can explain it) because you know the meanings contained in what allah swt has revealed to you. as in verse 44 of surah an-nahl, where the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was commanded to convey the contents of the holy qur’én to all his people. a messenger’s main duty is to educate, guide, nurture, and direct his people towards the path allah approves. thirdly, an educator must make the prophet saw a role model or role model in carrying out his duties. the duty of an educator is similar to the duty of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) towards his people.36 he is the essence of humanity's transformation towards the right path. if prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) had failed in his duties, islam would not have spread as rapidly as it has today because ignorance of the teachings of monotheism would have prevailed all over the world. b. characteristics of educators based on hadith an ideal educator is a role model for students, so good and positive character must be possessed by an educator, regardless of the reason, the praiseworthy character of an educator must be better than that of their students, as their profession entails a great responsibility of providing education, guidance, and direction, thus enabling students to inhance their devotion to allah almighty, love for the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), and obedience to ethics and morals as individuals and social beings. hence, teachers as educators are far more important than the material or teaching method.37 therefore, in islam, the ideal educator is the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) because he was sent to renew and improve the character of humanity. as mentioned in the hadith narrated by jabir bin abdullah, the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) referred to himself as an educator. therefore, there are several characteristics of educators according to the hadith of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), including: 46 the concept of educator character … 1. sincere educators must make their motivation in carrying out the educational process solely for the sake of allah almighty in all their educational work. sincerity in actions and speech is the foundation of faith, so allah almighty does not accept any deed except sincerity. this is evident in the hadith of umar ibn al-khattab, narrated by al-bukhari, which speaks about the importance of intention. the hadith is as follows: َما َّ َم ِإن َّ ِه َوَسل يإ َ ل َ ُ ع َّ اَّلل َّ ِ َصىل َّ اَل َرُسوُل اَّلل َ وُل ق ُ ق َ اِب ي َّ ط َ خ ْ ال َ ن إ َمَر ب ُ ع ِ َّ اَّلل َ ِإىل ُ ه ُ َرت إ ِهج إ ت َ ان َ ك إ َمن َ َوى ف َ ِرٍئ َما ن لِّ امإ ُ َما ِلك َّ اِت َوِإن يَّ ِّ َماُل ِبالن إ ع َ إ األ َ ِإىل ُ ه ُ َرت إ ِهج َ وإ َوَرُسوِلِه ف َ ا أ َ ِصيُبه ُ َيا ي إ ن ُ ِلد ُ ه ُ َرت إ ِهج إ ت َ ان َ ك إ ِ َوَرُسوِلِه َوَمن َّ اَّلل هِ يإ َ َر ِإل َ اج َ َما ه َ ِإىل ُ ه ُ َرت إ ِهج َ ا ف َ ه ُ ج وَّ نَ َ ت َ ة ي َ َرأ امإ meaning: from 'umar, the messenger of allah (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said: “verily, deeds are only by intentions, and for every person is what he intended. so whoever intends to emigrate for the sake of allah and his messenger, then his emigration was for allah and his messenger. moreover, whoever intends to emigrate for worldly gain or to marry a woman, and then his emigration was for what he emigrated for.38 suppose an educator truly seeks the virtues of being an educator. in that case, the educator must be sincere in educating because teaching in islam is an act of worship, and worship must be done sincerely for the sake of allah almighty. indeed, if one is not sincere in fulfilling their duties as an educator, riyé (seeking praise), sum'ah (showing off), or worldly gain, they may fall among the first group to be cast into the fires of hell. in sahih muslim, it is mentioned as follows: ُ ه َ ت ا َِمعإ ً ِديث َ ا ح َ ن إ ث ِّ د َ ح ُ خ يإ َّ ا الش َ ه ُّ ي َ اِم أ َّ ِل الش إ ه َ اِتُل أ َ ن ُ ه َ اَل ل َ ق َ ف َ َرة إ َري ُ ي ه ب ِ َ أ إ ن َ ع ِ َّ َرُسوَل اَّلل ُ ت َعمإ َسِمعإ َ اَل ن َ َم ق َّ ِه َوَسل يإ َ ل َ ُ ع َّ اَّلل َّ ِ َصىل َّ َرُسوِل اَّلل إ ِمن َل وَّ َ أ َّ وُل ِإن ُ ق َ َم ي َّ ِه َوَسل يإ َ ل َ ُ ع َّ اَّلل َّ ِه َصىل يإ َ ل َ ِقَياَمِة ع ْ َم ال وإ َ ي ضنَ إ ق ُ اِس ي َّ الن اَل َ ا ق َ ِفيه َ ت ْ ِمل َ َما ع َ اَل ف َ ا ق َ ه َ َعَرف َ ف ُ ِنَعَمه ُ ه َ ف َعرَّ َ َ ِبِه ف ي ِ ب ُ أ َ ف َ ِهد إ ش ُ ت ٌل اسإ ُ َرج وَ َ ت إ ب َ ذ َ اَل ك َ ق ُ ت إ ِهد إ ش ُ ت اسإ ّت َّ َ ح َ ِفيك ُ ت ْ ل َ ات َ اَل ق َ ق ُ ي إ ن َ أِل َ ت ْ ل َ ات َ ق َ ك َّ ِكن َ ل ارِ َّ ي الن ِ ن َ ف ي ِ ق ْ ل ُ أ ّت َّ َ ِهِه ح إ َوج َ ىل َ ُسِحَب ع َ ِمَر ِبِه ف ُ مَّ أ ُ ِقيَل ث إ د َ ق َ ِريٌء ف َ ج ا َ ه َ َعَرف َ ف ُ ِنَعَمه ُ ه َ ف َعرَّ َ َ ِبِه ف ي ِ ب ُ أ َ ف َ آن رإ ُ ق ْ ال َ َرأ َ َوق ُ َمه َّ ل َ َم َوع ْ ِعل ْ َم ال َّ َعل َ ٌل ت ُ َوَرج َ ت ْ ِمل َ َما ع َ اَل ف َ ق ُ ت ْ َرأ َ َوق ُ ه ُ ت مإ َّ ل َ َم َوع ْ ِعل ْ ال ُ ت مإ َّ َعل َ اَل ت َ ا ق َ ِفيه َ آن رإ ُ ق ْ ال َ ِفيك َو ُ اَل ه َ ِلُيق َ آن رإ ُ ق ْ ل َ ت ْ َرأ َ اِلٌم َوق َ اَل ع َ َم ِلُيق ْ ِعل ْ ال َ ت مإ َّ َعل َ ت َ ك َّ ِكن َ َول َ ت إ ب َ ذ َ اَل ك َ ق َ ي ِ ق ْ ل ُ أ ّت َّ َ ِهِه ح إ َوج َ ىل َ ُسِحَب ع َ ِمَر ِبِه ف ُ مَّ أ ُ ِقيَل ث إ د َ ق َ ف ٌ اِرئ َ ٌل ق ُ اِر َوَرج َّ ي الن ِ ن ف hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 47 مَ ْ اِف ال َ ن صإ َ أ إ ِمن ُ اه َ ط إ ع َ ِه َوأ يإ َ ل َ ُ ع َّ َع اَّلل َوسَّ ُ ِنَعَمه ُ ه َ ف َعرَّ َ َ ِبِه ف ي ِ ب ُ أ َ ِه ف ِّ ل ُ اِل ك َ ق َ ف إ ن ُ ي إ ن َ ِحبُّ أ ُ َسِبيل ت إ ِمن ُ ت ْ َرك َ اَل َما ت َ ا ق َ ِفيه َ ت ْ ِمل َ َما ع َ اَل ف َ ا ق َ ه َ َعَرف َ ف َ ا ل َ ِفيه ُ ت إ ق َ ف إ ن َ أ َّ ا ِإَّل َ ِفيه إ د َ ق َ ف ٌ َواد َ َو ج ُ اَل ه َ ِلُيق َ ت ْ َعل َ ف َ ك َّ ِكن َ َول َ ت إ ب َ ذ َ اَل ك َ ق َ ك ارِ َّ ي الن ِ ن َ ف ي ِ ق ْ ل ُ مَّ أ ُ ِهِه ث إ َوج َ ىل َ ُسِحَب ع َ ِمَر ِبِه ف ُ مَّ أ ُ ِقيَل ث meaning: from abu hurairah, then natil, a resident of sham asked, "o sheikh, narrate to us a hadith that you have heard from the messenger of allah...!" he replied, "yes, i heard the messenger of allah say: "indeed, the first person to be summoned on the day of resurrection will be a martyr. he will be shown the favours bestowed upon him and will recognize them clearly. then it will be said: 'what did you do in the world, o my servant?’ he will reply: 'i fought and struggled in your cause until i was martyred.' allah will say: 'you have lied. you fought so that you may be called a brave warrior. and indeed you have been called so.' then he will be ordered to be dragged on his face and thrown into hell. then, a man who acquired knowledge of the qur’an and imparted it to others will be brought forth. he will be shown the favours bestowed upon him and will recognize them clearly. allah will ask: 'what did you do with what you learned?' he will reply, 'i acquired knowledge and imparted it, i recited the qur’an for your sake.' allah will say: 'you have lied. you learned so that you may be called a scholar, and indeed you have been called so. 'then he will be ordered to be dragged on his face and thrown into hellfire. then, a man to whom allah had given abundant wealth will be brought forth. he will be shown the favours best, and he will recognize them clearly.' allah will ask: 'what did you do with what i gave you?' he will reply: 'i did not leave any means untried in spending for your sake. allah will say: 'you have lied. you did it so that people may call you generous, and indeed, they have called you so.' then he will be ordered to be dragged on his face and thrown him into hellfire."39 in the narration above, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) tells of three individuals who will be among the first to enter the hellfire. among them is a person who learns about religious knowledge and teaches it to others, but not for the sake of allah almighty, only to seek praise or riyé and show off. therefore, 48 the concept of educator character … educators should sincerely teach for the sake of allah almighty to earn rewards and avoid hellfire. 2. piety piety or taqwé, as defined by scholars, is shielding oneself so that allah almighty does not see you where he has forbidden it and ensuring that you are found where he has commanded it. it entails doing what allah almighty has commanded and abstaining from what he has forbidden. this is mentioned in the hadith of nu'man bin bashir, narrated by al-bukhari, which speaks about the significacy of taqwé. ي ب ِ َ ي أ ِ ابن َ ط إ ع َ وُل أ ُ ق َ ِ ي َ ت إ ِمن ْ ال َ ىل َ َو ع ُ َما َوه ُ ه إ ن َ ُ ع َّ َ اَّلل ي ِ ِشّتٍ َرضن َ ب َ ن إ ب َ َمان عإ ُّ الن ِ َّ َرُسوَل اَّلل َ ِهد إ ش ُ ت ّت َّ َ ح ضنَ رإ َ أ َ َّل َ ة َ َرَواح ُ ت إ ِبن ُ َرة مإ َ ع إ ت َ ال َ ق َ ف ۭ ة ِطيَّ َ ع َّ ِ َصىل َّ َرُسوَل اَّلل ب َ َ أ َ َم ف َّ ِه َوَسل يإ َ ل َ ُ ع َّ اَّلل َّ ي َصىل اَل ِإبنِّ َ ق َ َم ف َّ ِه َوَسل يإ َ ل َ ُ ع َّ اَّلل ِت َروَ إ ِبن َ َرة مإ َ ع إ ي ِمن ِ ّتن إ اب ُ ت يإ َ ط إ ع َ ا أ َ ي َ ك َ ِهد إ ش ُ أ إ ن َ ي أ ِ ّتن إ َمَرت َ أ َ ف ۭ ة ِطيَّ َ ع َ ة َ اح َ َّ وا اَّلل ُ ق َّ ات َ اَل ف َ ق َ اَل َّل َ ا ق َ ذ َ َل ه إ ِمث َ ِدك َ َساِئَر َول َ ت يإ َ ط إ ع َ اَل أ َ ِ ق َّ َرُسوَل اَّلل وإ َ نَ أ ّيإ َ وا ب ُ ِدل إ َواع ُ ه َ ت ِطيَّ َ ع َّ َرد َ َع ف َ َرج َ اَل ف َ مإ ق ُ ِدك َ َّل meaning: an-nu'man ibn basyir preached from the pulpit, recounting, 'my father gave me a gift (a donation without any expectation of reciprocation). 'amrah, the daughter of rawahah, expressed, 'i will not be content until you testify it to the messenger of allah.' so, my father went to the messenger of allah and said, 'i have given my son a gift from 'amrah, the daughter of rawahah, and she instructed me to testify it to you, o messenger...” the messenger of allah asked, "do you give all your children gifts like this?” he replied, ‘no...’ then the messenger of allah said, ’fear allah and be just to your children.’ an-nu'man remarked, "so he returned, and the prophet rejected my father's gift.’40 in the narration above, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) instructed a father, who serves as the primary and first educator for his children, to fear allah almighty. a father can act justly among his children and set a good example for them through piety. 3. possessing knowledge since the educator’s role is to impart knowledge, educators should be enthusiastic about acquiring knowledge. pursuing knowledge in islam is an individual obligation. this aligns with the hadith of amr bin al-'ash, which al-bukhéri reported, which discussed the importance of knowledge. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 49 اَل َ َعاِص ق ْ ِن ال إ ِرو ب مإ َ ِن ع إ ِ ب َّ ِد اَّلل بإ َ ع إ ن َ ِبيِه ع َ أ إ ن َ ع َ َوة رإ ُ ِن ع إ اِم ب َ ِهش إ ن َ ع ِبُض إ ق َ ي َ َ َّل َّ اَّلل َّ وُل ِإن ُ ق َ َم ي َّ ِه َوَسل يإ َ ل َ ُ ع َّ اَّلل َّ ِ َصىل َّ َرُسوَل اَّلل ُ ت َسِمعإ إ َم ان ْ ِعل ْ ال ْ ال إ ِمن ُ ه ُ ع ِ ن َ ت إ ن َ ا ي ً اع نَ ِ ت ّت َّ َ َماِء ح َ ُعل ْ ِض ال بإ َ َم ِبق ْ ِعل ْ ِبُض ال إ ق َ ي إ ِكن َ ِعَباِد َول م ْ ِ ِعل ّتإ َ ا ِبغ وإ َ ت إ ف َ أ َ وا ف ُ ُسِئل َ ف ۭ اَّل َّ ه ُ اُس ُرُءوًسا ج َّ الن َ ذ َ خ َّ اِلًما ات َ ِق ع بإ ُ مإ ي َ ا ل َ ِإذ هِ يإ َ ل َ ع ٌ ق َ ف َّ وا )ُمت ُّ ل َ ض َ وا َوأ ُّ ل َ ض َ ( ف meaning: from hisyam ibn 'urwah, from his father, from 'abdullah ibn 'amr ibn al-'as, he said, 'i heard the messenger of allah say: "indeed, allah does not take away knowledge by snatching it from his servants all at once, but he takes away knowledge by taking away the scholars, until when no ulama (scholars) remain, people will take ignorant leaders, who when asked, give fatwa without knowledge, thus they go astray and lead others astray. from the wording of the hadith above, it can be understood that those who give fatwé (legal opinions) and teach must possess knowledge. this includes educators, so educators must be knowledgeable people. an educator needs to gain knowledge, and the students they teach will certainly go astray. 4. patient. one of the fundamental traits that can contribute to the success of educators in their teaching is patience. with this quality, students will be drawn to their educators. through patience, students will exhibit commendable morals and avoid reprehensible behaviour. this is evident in several hadiths, one of which is the hadith of abu hurairah, narrated by al-bukhari, which discusses restraining anger. ُ َّ اَّلل َّ ِّ َصىل ي ّت ِ َّ ي َمَع الن ِ ش مإ َ أ ُ ت إ ن ُ اَل ك َ ق ُ ه إ ن َ ُ ع َّ َ اَّلل ي ِ ِن َماِلك َرضن إ ِس ب َ ن َ أ إ ن َ ع َم وَ َّ ِه َوَسل يإ َ ل َ ع ُ ه َ ب َ ذ َ ج َ ٌّ ف ي َراب ِ إ ع َ أ ُ ه َ َرك إ د َ أ َ اِشَيِة ف َ ح ْ ال ُ ِليظ َ ٌّ غ ي ِ َرابن إ ج َ ن ٌ د رإ ُ ِه ب يإ َ ل َ ع ِه يإ َ ل َ ُ ع َّ اَّلل َّ ِّ َصىل ي ّت ِ َّ اِتِق الن َ ِة ع َ ح إ َصف َ ِإىل ُ ت رإ َ ظ َ ن ّت َّ َ ح ۭ ة َ ِديد َ ش ۭ ة َ ب إ ذ َ ج ِتِه َ ب إ ذ َ ِة ج َّ ِشد إ اِء ِمن َ د الرِّ ُ اِشَية َ ِبِه ح إ َرت َّ ث َ أ إ د َ َم ق َّ َوَسل إ ىِلي ِمن اَل ُمرإ َ مَّ ق ُ ث اء َ ِبَعط ُ ه َ َمَر ل َ مَّ أ ُ ث َ ِحك َ ض َ ِه ف يإ َ ِإل َ ت َ ف َ ت ْ ال َ ف َ ك َ د إ ِذي ِعن َّ ِ ال َّ َماِل اَّلل meaning: from anas ibn malik, 'i once walked with the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) while he was wearing a thick and coarse cloak made in najran. then, a bedouin arab came and 50 the concept of educator character … pulled the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) with a strong tug, causing me to see the marks left on the prophet's shoulder from the forceful pull. then he said to the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), 'command that i be given the wealth you possess'. then the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) looked at the bedouin arab and smiled. then the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) commanded that he be given something from the wealth.41 the hadith above clearly and explicitly illustrates the patience the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) towards the bad behaviour of the bedouin arabs towards him. the bedouin arab pulled the prophet’s cloak forcefully and roughly, leaving marks on the prophet's shoulder. however, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) was not angry with him, nor did he retaliate against his bad behaviour. instead, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) smiled and laughed at him. this shows how noble and great the character of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) that how was his patience towards the unpleasant behaviour exhibited by the disbelievers towards him. the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) did not respond negatively to their bad behaviour but responded with kindness. 5. just and responsibility an educator is obligated to be responsible for their students. this responsibility covers aspects of faith, daily attitudes and behaviour, physical and spiritual health, and social aspects. many verses and hadiths explain that an educator must have responsibility.42 specifically, the hadith from the companion 'abdullah bin 'umar narrated by al-bukhari, about the responsibility of carrying out the trust that has been given. ُ َّ اَّلل َّ ِ َصىل َّ َسِمَع َرُسوَل اَّلل ُ ه َّ ن َ َما أ ُ ه إ ن َ ُ ع َّ َ اَّلل ي ِ َمَر َرضن ُ ِن ع إ ِ ب َّ ِد اَّلل بإ َ ع إ ن َ ع ُ ك ُّ ل ُ وُل ك ُ ق َ َم ي َّ ِه َوَسل يإ َ ل َ ع إ ن َ وٌل ع ُ ئ َو مإ َراٍع َوَمسإ ُ َماُم َراٍع َوه ِ إ اْل َ ِتِه ف َرِعيَّ ِتِه َرِعيَّ إ ن َ وٌل ع ُ ئ َو َمسإ ُ ِلِه َراٍع َوه إ ه َ ي أ ِ ن ُل ف ُ ج ِتِه َوالرَّ َرِعيَّ إ ن َ وٌل ع ُ ئ َمسإ ي ِ ن اِدُم ف َ خ ْ ا َوال َ ِته َرِعيَّ إ ن َ ع ٌ ة َ ول ُ ئ َ َمسإ َوِهي ٌ ا َراِعَية َ ِجه وإ َ ِت ز إ ي َ ي ب ِ ن ف ُ ة َ أ َمرإ ْ َوال وَ ُ ِدِه َراٍع َوه ِتِه َماِل َسيِّ َرِعيَّ إ ن َ وٌل ع ُ ئ َمسإ meaning: 'abdullah ibn 'umar heard the messenger of allah. saying: "each of you is a leader, and each leader will be held accountable for those under his leadership. the imam (head of the state) is a leader who will be held accountable for his people. a husband within his family is a leader and will be hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 51 held accountable for his family. a wife is a leader in her husband's household affairs and will be held accountable for those household matters.43 the essence of the hadith is that each person is a leader, and with leadership comes a profound responsibility. a husband, as the head of the household, is not just a figurehead but a leader of his wife and children, with a duty to guide and protect them. this leadership role carries a weight of accountability, affecting his obligations to fulfill the rights of his family. this includes the right to educate, guide, and teach them what is beneficial and what is not. a leader who truly understands this responsibility will be committed to performing their duties and responsibilities well, knowing that they will be held accountable for their leadership 44 . the same principle applies to educators, who must be responsible for their students. if educators grasp this, it will greatly assist them in performing their duties as educators to the best of their ability. however, if they are unaware of or deny their obligations and responsibilities, they will neglect the rights of their students, both in terms of teaching and attention, as well as in nurturing the souls and morals of the students. 6. gentleness and compassion. at its core, the attribute of compassion is not just a virtue but a natural instinct bestowed by allah almighty upon all living beings. it is a delicate feeling of mercy and compassion in the heart, whichdrives one towards goodness, forgiveness, and fairness. an educator must have compassion for their students, mirroring the compassion a parent has for their biological children. this is because the position of an educator is equivalent to that of a parent. however, parents have more responsibility in their households, while educators have responsibility in the field of education.45 regarding this matter, there are several hadiths, one of which is the hadith narrated by malik al-huwairits in the narration of al-bukhari, which talks about the necessity of being gentle and compassionate within the family, which should also be applied to students. ِه يإ َ اُموا ِإل َ ق َ ِجِد ف َمسإ ْ ي ال ِ ن اَل ف َ ا ب َراِبيًّ إ ع َ أ َّ ن َ ِن َماِلك أ إ ِس ب َ ن َ أ إ ن َ ع ٌ اِبت َ ا ث َ ن َ ث َّ د َ ح ِ َّ اَل َرُسوُل اَّلل َ ق َ َما ف إ ٍو ِمن ْ ل َ ا ِبد َ ع َ مَّ د ُ ث ُ ِرُموه إ ز ُ ت َ َم َّل َّ ِه َوَسل يإ َ ل َ ُ ع َّ اَّلل َّ ء َصىل هِ يإ َ ل َ ُصبَّ ع َ ف meaning: from anas ibn malik, it is narrated that a bedouin arab once urinated in the mosque and people approached him. then the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) said, ‘leave him.’ 52 the concept of educator character … then the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) asked for water to be brought and poured over it (the urine).46 the above hadith clearly illustrates the prophet's gentleness, compassion, and care towards his people, who are his students. a bedouin arab committed a reprehensible act by urinating in the mosque, which is the house of allah almighty and a place of worship for muslims. the companions, who saw witnessed the incident were angry and unable to control their emotions, almost intervening to stop the act. however, the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) did not get angry and even prevented his companions from doing anything that could harm the man, allowing him to finish urinating. then the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) instructed his companions to fetch water to cleanse the urine, and he advised and educated the men kindly. what the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) did, it should be an example for educators’ guiding their students, who may sometimes exhibit mischievous behaviour. therefore, if the explanation above is related to the competencies of educators in islamic education, it can be broadly divided into three parts, namely, first, having personal-religious competence. the first basic competency for educators concerns their religious personality, meaning that they embody higher values that will be internalized in their students. for example, the values of honesty, consultation, cleanliness, beauty, discipline, orderliness, and others. these values need to be possessed by educators so that there will be transinternalization (the transfer of the internalization of values) between educators and students, either directly or indirectly, or at least there will be transactions (action transfer) between them.47 second, socio-religious competence is the second basic competence for educators concerning their concern for social issues in line with islamic teachings. attitudes such as cooperation, mutual assistance, egalitarianism (equality of status among human beings), tolerance, and others also need to be possessed by educators to create an islamic educational atmosphere in order to achieve social transinternalization or social transactions between educators and students. third, professional-religious competence. this third basic competency concerns the ability to carry out their duties professionally, meaning they can make expert decisions on various cases. it can be accountable based on their theoretical and expert insights from an islamic perspective. an ideal educator already possesses noble and dignified character, as explained above, while still maintaining competencies in knowledge and skills. therefore, in hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 53 islamic education, educators should refer to the figure of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam) as the best role model. however, in contemporary times, the world of education is starting to lose its identity, no longer focusing on spiritual and moral values. the interest in materialism sometimes causes someone to need a sense of trustworthiness in carrying out their duties and responsibilities. this, of course, cannot be separated from the role of educators, who should be role models for their students, but indirectly have moved away from moral and ethical values. c. characteristics of educators based on law no. 20 of 2003 in law number 20 of 2003, concerning the national education system, education is described as a conscious and planned effort to create a learning atmosphere and learning process so that students actively develop their potential to have spiritual strength, self-control, personality, intelligence, noble character, and skills needed for themselves, society, the nation, and the state. this law also stated that national education aims to develop the potential of students to become people who believe and fear allah almighty, have noble character, are capable, creative, independent, and become citizens who are democratic and responsible. in order to fulfil the mandate of the national education system law, the implementation of character education has been strengthened, identified 18 values derived from religion, pancasila, culture and the national education objectives as formulated based on the minister of national education regulation (permendiknas) of 2010, as follows: 1. religious; this entails attitudes and behaviours of obedience and devotion to one’s religious teachings, tolerance towards the practice of other religions, and harmonious coexistence with followers of other faiths. 2. honesty; behaviour based on striving to be trustworthy in speech, actions, and work. 3. tolerance; attitudes and actions that respect differences in religion, race, ethnicity, opinions, attitudes, and actions of others. 4. discipline; actions that demonstrate orderly behaviour and compliance with various rules and regulations. 5. hard work actions that demonstrate disciplined behaviour and compliance with various rules and regulations. 6. creativity; thinking and doing something to produce new ways or results from something already possessed. 7. independence; attitudes and behaviours that are not easily dependent on others in completing tasks. 8. democratic; ways of thinking, behaving, and acting that value equal rights and obligations for oneself and others. 54 the concept of educator character … 9. curiosity; nattitudes and actions that seek to deepen and broaden knowledge beyond what is learned, seen, and heard. 10. national spirit; ways of thinking, acting, and having insights that prioritize the nation's interests over one's own and the group. 11. patriotism: a way of thinking, acting, and having insights that prioritize the interests of the nation and state over one's own and one's group. 12. appreciation of achievement; attitudes and actions that encourage oneself to produce something useful for society and recognize and respect the achievements of others. 13. friendly/communicative, eager to foster friendships and proactively foster collaborative cooperation by maintaining open, polite communication with others. 14. love of peace, attitudes and actions that reflect a peaceful, safe, calm, and comfortable atmosphere in their presence within a particular community or society. 15. likes to read; the habit of setting aside time to read various literature that brings virtue to oneself. 16. environmental care; attitudes and actions that consistently strive to prevent damage to the natural environment and develop efforts to repair existing environmental damage. 17. social concern; attitudes and actions that reflect caring for others and the community in need. 18. responsibility, attitude and behaviours of individuals towards fulfilling their duties and obligations, which they should do towards themselves, society, the environment (natural, social and cultural), the state, and allah almighty.48 d. relevance of educator characteristics based on the holy qur’én, hadith, and law no. 20 of 2003 factually, the implementation of knowledge transformation and internalization of moral values in learners is not a simple task, especially in the era of globalization and information, amid the complexity of society. this perspective is underpinned by numerous cases that undermine the presence of educators in schools, outside schools, and within the broader social sphere, including harassment of students. therefore, professional educators are not only described in the holy qur’én but are also found in the sayings of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), highlighting the challenges they face. in essence, the character is the value demonstrated in behaviour and is inherently ingrained in an individual's life. in this world, no attitude or behaviour is exempt from values and their hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 55 influence on human life. in the field of education or other areas of life, many values have been considered important since ancient times until now. thus, they can have a significant impact, both on educators and on learners. the character of an educator is the value or trait that has become a special characteristic and is deeply ingrained in the educator’s personality, manifested in their teaching behaviour. the values of an educator’s character found in the holy qur’én and the hadith of the prophet (øal allah-u-‘alaihe wa sallam), among others, are religious character, responsibility, sincerity, patience, and so forth, as explained earlier. what is found in the holy qur’én and hadith related to the character of educators is also relevant to what is stipulated in law no. 20 of 2003 concerning the national education system, which is elaborated in the regulation of the minister of national education (permendiknas) of 2010. what is expressed in this law, which is then elaborated in the minister of national education regulation, is the result of the implementation of the holy qur’én and hadith. thus, educators will become role models and the spearhead of the success of education, provided they possess the ideal character as mentioned above, which can support the success of education. 3. methodology this research is designed as library research. library research is a research whose data collection is carried out by collecting data from various sources of literature. the research data sources are the holy qur’én, hadith and the law on the national education system in indonesia.49 data collection techniques are carried out by observation, documentation, and triangulation. meanwhile, the data analysis technique used in this study is content analysis with a flow of data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. the approach used is an interpretive approach. the object of this research is the holy qur’én. in line with this, the research method used is the holy qur’én interpretation method. 50 the approach used is an interpretive approach. meanwhile, the steps taken in the thematic exegesis method are as follows: a) determine the topic of discussion or choose the problem of the holy qur’én to be studied; b) collect and define verses that discuss the issues or problems that have been determined; c ) arranging the order of the verses according to the period in which they were revealed, for example the makkiyah takes precedence over the madaniyah verses; d) this tafsir study requires the help of taílêli interpretations, namely about various aspects of verses concerning asbéb al-nuzël, munésabah and verses, knowledge of dilélah verses, etc. other things; e) arranging the discussion in one framework; f) completing the discussion with hadiths relating to the problem being discussed; g) studying all the selected verses by collecting all the 56 the concept of educator character … verses that have the same meaning, or compromising between ‘ém (general) and typical (special), which is muïlaq with muqayyad, or seems contradictory, so that everything meets in one meaning; in line with the steps in the thematic interpretation method, the author takes three stages of analysis techniques. the three stages of analysis are as follows: first, selecting key terms from the vocabulary of the holy qur’én in describing humans. second, determine the main meaning (basic meaning) and nasabi meaning (relational meaning). the main meaning relates to the linguistic or semantic meaning, which is an important part of the term. meanwhile, the nasabi meaning is an additional meaning that occurs because the term is connected to the context of the sentence where it is located. third, conclude and unite these concepts into one general concept. 4. conclusion as an effort to foster individuals with religious, ethical, virtuous, and scholarly dimensions (insén-i-kémil), an educator must possess an ideal character to guide learners towards educational goals by embodying the qualities contained in the holy qur’én, hadith, and law number 20 of 2003 as part of their characteristics. from the author's perspective, the holy book of the holy qur’én contains numerous lessons that can guide how to behave and act as an educator. for instance, in surah ar-rahman verses 1-4, educators must exhibit the traits of ar-rahman, showing compassion and empathy, sincerity in educating students, possessing effective public speaking skills, and designing optimal learning plans. similarly, in surah an-najm verses 5-6, educators must have the qualifications and be physically and spiritually prepared. moreover, in surah an-nahl verses 43-44, educators should serve as a source of knowledge for their students and understand their roles and responsibilities as educators. according to numerous hadiths, educators must emulate the prophet (øal allah-u‘alaihe wa sallam) as a role model in teaching activities. these principles are enshrined in law no. 20 of 2003, as elaborated in the regulation of the minister of national education (permendiknas) of 2010.therefore, if an educator possesses these ideal characteristics, they can mould students into a generation whit a solid foundation for life. acknowledgment the researcher (abd. haris) would like to express his gratitude to the indonesia endowment fund for education (lpdp) for supporting the publication funding, as well as to the state islamic college of the qur’an (ptiq) jakarta, indonesia, for their support of this research. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 57 notes and references 1john dewey, democracy and education: an introduction to the philosophy of education (new york: macmillan, 1916), 12. 2james a. banks, “multicultural education: characteristics and goals,” the journal of education 171, no. 2 (1989): 34. 3syed muhammad naquib al-attas, the concept of education in islam: a framework for an islamic philosophy of education (kuala lumpur: international institute of islamic thought and civilization, 1980), 23. 4 indonesia, undang-undang nomor 20 tahun 2003 tentang sistem pendidikan nasional, lembaran negara republik indonesia tahun 2003 nomor 78 5 mahmud, pemikiran pendidikan al-ghazali (jakarta: rajawali press, 2011), 56 6 ibid. 7 nurhanifah. "personality competencies of educators according to muhammad 'athiyah al-abrasyi." al-ikhtibar 9, no. 1 (2022): 57 and unesco, global citizenship education: preparing learners for the challenges of the twenty-first century (paris: unesco publishing, 2015), 18. 8 rosnani hashim and imron rossidy, “islamization of knowledge: a comparative analysis of the conceptions of al-attas and al-faruqi,” intellectual discourse 8, no. 1 (2000): 25. 9plato, the republic, trans. allan bloom (new york: basic books, 1968), book ii, 376–380, and kraut, richard, plato on education (new york: cambridge university press, 1997), 45–47 10sudarma, seftianti ria. the concept of character education in the perspective of law number 20 of 2003 concerning the national education system. thesis, faculty of tarbiyah and teacher training, sunan kalijaga state islamic university yogyakarta, 2018, and lickona, thomas. educating for character: how our schools can teach respect and responsibility (new york: bantam books, 1991), 34. 11 imam machali, educational leadership and character development (yogyakarta: pedagogia, 2012), 7, and berkowitz, marvin w., and melinda c. bier, “what works in character education: a research-driven guide for educators,” journal of research in character education 1, no. 1 (2003): 39– 56, and nucci, larry p., and darcia narvaez, eds. handbook of moral and character education (new york: routledge, 2008), 3–5. 12lickona, thomas. educating for character: how our schools can teach respect and responsibility (new york: bantam books, 1991), 22–30. 13febri giantara, “characteristics of educators from the perspective of the sayings of the prophet,” jurnal pendidikan islam 5, no. 2 (2020): 45–56. 14 syed muhammad naquib al-attas, the concept of education in islam: a framework for an islamic philosophy of education (kuala lumpur: international institute of islamic thought and civilization, 1980), 45, and al-bukhārī, muḥammad ibn ismā‘īl, ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, kitāb al-‘ilm (beirut: dār ṭawq al-najāh, 1422 h), 1:7. 58 the concept of educator character … 15 nurhanifah, “competency of educator personality according to muhammad 'athiyah al-abrasyi,” jurnal pendidikan islam 7, no. 1 (2021): 23–34. 16lusiana idawati and niko sudibjo, “characteristics of educators in the digital era,” jurnal pendidikan dan teknologi 6, no. 2 (2022): 45–58. 17shaping the future of education, unesco, “education in the era of the fourth industrial revolution,” accessed september 1, 2025, https://www.unesco.org/education/4ir, and l. bagheri and h. alizadeh, “education 5.0: integrating society 5.0 concepts in learning,” international journal of educational technology in higher education 18, no. 3 (2021): 12–25. 18syed muhammad naquib al-attas, the concept of education in islam: a framework for an islamic philosophy of education (kuala lumpur: international institute of islamic thought and civilization, 1980), 45, and seftianti ria sudarma, "the concept of character education in the perspective of law number 20 of 2003 concerning the national education system" (thesis, faculty of tarbiyah and teacher training, sunan kalijaga state islamic university yogyakarta, 2018), 51. 19wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-aqidah wa al-shari’ah wa almanhaj (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2000), 120–123. 20wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-aqidah wa al-shari’ah wa almanhaj (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2000), 120–125, and muhammad quraish shihab, tafsir al-misbah: pesan, kesan dan keserasian al-qur’an (jakarta: lentera hati, 2002), 50–52. 21ali mustofa and ragil saifulloh, “tafsir surah ar-rahman verses 1–4: characteristics of educators,” qolamuna 3, no. 1 (july 2017): 83, and wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-aqidah wa al-shari’ah wa almanhaj (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2000), 120–122. 22muhammad ibn jarir al-tabari, jami’ al-bayan fi tafsir al-qur’an (beirut: dar al-fikr, 2009), 2:50–52. 23wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-aqidah wa al-shari’ah wa almanhaj (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2000), 130–132, and muhammad quraish shihab, tafsir al-misbah: pesan, kesan dan keserasian al-qur’an (jakarta: lentera hati, 2002), 55–57. 24imam at-thabari, tafsir at-thabari, vol. 24: ath-thur-al-mumlahanah, trans. fahurrozi et al. (jakarta: pustaka azzam, 2009), 333–34. 25syed muhammad naquib al-attas, the concept of education in islam: a framework for an islamic philosophy of education (kuala lumpur: international institute of islamic thought and civilization, 1980), 78–80, and wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-aqidah wa al-shari’ah wa almanhaj (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2000), 128–130. 26ibn kathir, ismā‘īl ibn ‘umar, tafsir ibn kathir (beirut: dar al-fikr, 2000), 2:45–48. 27al-hasan al-basri, tafsir al-hasan al-basri (beirut: dar al-fikr, 1999), 25– 28, and wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-aqidah wa al-shari’ah wa al-manhaj (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2000), 128–130, and syed muhammad naquib al-attas, the concept of education in islam: a framework for an islamic philosophy of education (kuala lumpur: international institute of islamic thought and civilization, 1980), 78–80. https://www.unesco.org/education/4ir?utm_source=chatgpt.com hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.3 59 28reni risma nursomohon et al., “educational implications of qs an-najm verses 5–6 concerning the concept of gabriel’s teaching on efforts to increase the professionalism of educators,” islamic education 3, no. 1 (2023): 196–97, and al-ghazali, ihya’ ulum al-din, vol. 2 (beirut: dar alkutub al-‘ilmiyya, 1990), 112–115. 29imam al-qurthubi, tafsir al-qurthubi, 366–67. 30m. quraish shihab, tafsir al-mishbah, vol. 13 (jakarta: lentera hati, 2007), 410–11. 31wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-aqidah wa al-shari’ah wa almanhaj (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2000), 150–152.. 32 muhammad quraish shihab, tafsir al-misbah: pesan, kesan dan keserasian al-qur’an (jakarta: lentera hati, 2002), 105–107, and wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-aqidah wa al-shari’ah wa al-manhaj (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2000), 140–142. 33m. quraish shihab, tafsir al-mishbah, p. 235–237. 34 ade nandar et al., “educational implications of the al-qur'an surah annahl verses 43–44 concerning the duties of the apostles as ahlu dzikri on the role of educators as sources of knowledge,” islamic education 2, no. 1 (2022): 165. 35sri narwanti, character education (yogyakarta: familia, 2011), 31. 36 abdul malik fadjar, holistic thought on education (jakarta: rajagrafindo persada, 2005), 188. 37muhammad anwar hm, arifuddin ahmad, and rahmi dewanti palangkey, “character of educators according to hadith,” al-urwatul wutsqa: islamic education studies 3, no. 1 (june 2023). 38 øaíêí bukhéri and øaíêí muslim in mishkét al-maîébêh: 1. 39 øaíêí muslim: book 33, hadith 218. 40 øaíêí bukhéri: 2587 41 øaíêí bukhéri: 3149 42 ismail, “educator from an islamic perspective,” journal of islamic education, issn online: 2581-0065, print: 2089-189x. 43 øaíêí bukhéri: 2409. 44 amin, h. a. (2024). islamic leadership: fostering good morals and ethical behavior. karachi islamicus, 4(2), 20-30. 45sawaluddin, koiy syahbudin, imran rido, and s. r. “creativity on student learning outcomes in al-quran hadith subjects.” journal of innovation in educational and cultural research 3 (2022): 257–263. 46 øaíêí bukhéri: 6025. 47harahap, k. s., and ilyas husti. “desain pendidikan aqidah spritual dalam hadits dan kurikulumnya.” journal of islamic education el madani 1 (2022): 83–98 48harahap, k. s., and ilyas husti. “desain pendidikan aqidah spritual dalam hadits dan kurikulumnya.” journal of islamic education el madani 1 (2022): 83–98. 49 indonesia, undang-undang nomor 20 tahun 2003 tentang sistem pendidikan nasional, lembaran negara republik indonesia tahun 2003 nomor 78. 60 the concept of educator character … 50 muhammad quraish shihab, tafsir al-misbah: pesan, kesan dan keserasian al-qur’an (jakarta: lentera hati, 2002), 45–50, and m. quraish shihab, metodologi tafsir tematik (jakarta: lentera hati, 2005), 12–20, wahbah al-zuhayli, al-tafsir al-munir fi al-aqidah wa al-shari’ah wa almanhaj (damascus: dar al-fikr, 2000), 78–82. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 85 intellectual capital efficiency and its contribution to financial stability in islamic banks: a study of the gulf countries aziz ur rehman institute of islamic banking & finance (iiibf), international islamic university malaysia. email: mufti.aziz@hotmail.com ashurov sharofiddin institute of islamic banking & finance (iiibf), international islamic university malaysia. email: ashurov@iium.edu.my abdul salam khan orakzai department of business and administration, fuuast (federal urdu university of arts, science & technology), islamabad email: amkhanorakzai@gmail.com accepted on: 28-06-25 received on: 23-11-24 https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.1221 abstract the stability of islamic banks is critical to the financial systems of the gulf cooperation council (gcc) countries, yet the role of intellectual capital in supporting that stability remains underexplored. this study addresses the research problem of insufficient understanding of how intellectual capital efficiency (ice) specifically human capital efficiency (hce), structural capital efficiency (sce), and relational capital efficiency (rce)—affects the financial stability of islamic banks. the primary objective is to empirically investigate the contribution of ice components to enhancing financial stability, using reliable performance metrics such as the capital-to-asset ratio and net profit margin. to achieve this, the study employs a dynamic panel data approach using the hierarchical generalised method of moments (gmm) estimator. this methodology is justified due to its effectiveness in handling endogeneity issues, unobserved heterogeneity, and autocorrelation in panel data. the dataset mailto:mufti.aziz@hotmail.com mailto:ashurov@iium.edu.my mailto:amkhanorakzai@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.57144/hi.v48i2.1221 86 intellectual capital efficiency … includes 37 islamic banks operating across six gcc countries including saudi arabia, kuwait, oman, qatar, bahrain and united arab emirates from 2010 to 2021. ice variables are introduced sequentially into the model to measure their individual and combined effects. the results reveal that hce and sce have a statistically significant positive impact on financial stability, while the influence of rce is more context dependent. these findings validate the resource-based theory and provide practical insights for bank managers and policymakers, encouraging strategic investments in intellectual capital to sustain institutional resilience in competitive islamic financial markets. keywords: intellectual capital efficiency, human capital efficiency, structural capital efficiency, relational capital efficiency, financial stability, generalised method of moments (gmm). 1. introduction in 21st century the dynamic development, sharê‘ah based and productivity of islamic banking has attracted enormous attentions in all islamic countries especially in the gulf nations the main reason of this attraction is the sharê‘ah based banking and the interest free banking, another reason of attraction when it comes to intellectual capital and how closely it relates to the stability of the financial system, particularly the islamic banks.1 the relationship between knowledge-based assets and the stability of financial institutions more especially islamic banks become a central topic among academicians.2 the relationship between intellectual capital and islamic banks' financial stability has been investigated by broadly in an effort to clarify the complex factors that underlie their mutual dependence.3 islamic banking constitutes a distinct financial paradigm rooted in the principles of sharê‘ah, which categorically prohibits all forms of transactions and activities considered detrimental to individuals or society. a core objective of the islamic banking system is the prohibition of interest (ribā), which is regarded as unjust and exploitative. in place of conventional interest-based mechanisms, islamic banks promote financial dealings grounded in ethical values, mutual cooperation, and socio-economic justice, in accordance with sharīʿah tenets. consequently, the operations of islamic financial institutions require rigorous and prudent evaluation of the various economic, institutional, and governance-related variables that influence their financial soundness and systemic stability. islamic banking is a unique framework based on the principles and ideology of sharê‘ah that prohibit all those transaction and activity which are harms for any individual or for society.4 the hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 87 important purpose of islamic banking is the prohibition of interestbased transactions, islamic banks encourage and support all those moral and ethical financial behaviours which are according to sharê‘ah.5 islamic banking institutions require a cautious and careful analysis of the variables affecting their financial stability and reliability.6 this study reveals and divulges that intellectual capital, which includes the relational, structural, and human aspects of knowledge inside an organization, is a crucial and vital component.7 researcher investigated that there are several factor which affect financial stability of islamic banks, which is risky to overall economic condition of the gulf countries.8 the analysis becomes more complex even though traditional financial metrics that are still relevant because intellectual capital is now recognized as a strategic asset.9 in 21st century all over the world the organizational procedures contained in human capital and structural capital which have positive impact on different organization especially in islamic banking. the implicit expertise ingrained in human capital are all considered forms of intellectual capital.10 there are several key and important issues regarding the impact of intellectual capital on islamic banks, which has been investigated in this study. the one important question is that how can the creation of intellectual capital strengthen the ability of islamic banks in the gulf nations? the second important question is that which particular elements of intellectual capital have the greatest impact on financial stability? the research is guided by these questions in its attempt and answer to offer complex insights into the dynamics of work. the following are important aspects of this study. 1. it can help islamic banking institutions to make strategic decisions. 2. it is helpful for policymakers in creation of regulatory frameworks. 3. it supports financial stability which is very significant and important. 4. the results could provide guidance on optimal methods for utilizing intellectual property. 5. this important study is encouraging creativity, resourcefulness and strengthening of general robustness of islamic banks in the gulf nations. 2. literature review and hypothesis development 2.1 human capital efficiency in any organization there are some important component like skills, knowledge, and expertise possessed by workforce11, these components play important role in determining different factor like operational effectiveness, risk mitigation, and overall resilience.12 some studies indicate that the interest of researchers in the relationship between financial stability and human capital efficiency in the banking sector has grown in past several years.13 many studies 88 intellectual capital efficiency … proved and highlight that human capital is very important for any organization14 especially in financial institutions.15 human capital plays a vital role in risk assessment, decision-making procedures, and the general efficacy of financial institutions, because these all are greatly impacted by the expertise and abilities of banking professionals. the research makes it clear that how skilled, professionals and informed workforce are critical for any organization is to preserving financial stability.16 according to the study learning at work is facilitated by a workforce that is knowledgeable and flexible, which helps financial institutions respond to changing market conditions and it will also improve their financial stability. keeping in view, the following hypothesis is formulated.17 h1: human capital efficiency has a positive relationship with islamic bank's financial stability. 2.1 structural capital efficiency the resilience of an organization is shaped in part by structural capital, which includes institutional knowledge, processes, and systems. this role of structural capital is becoming more widely recognized. it is necessary for financial stability that organization may have an effective structure that is well-structured which improves the capacity to withstand shocks and adjust to changing conditions.18 any organization which have an effective organizational framework that is well-structured, will be improved the capacity to withstand shocks and adjust to changing conditions, which in turn leads to financial stability.19 researchers indicated that efficient internal structures and streamlined processes lead to cost savings, which in turn to improve earnings and distribution of resources, thereby positively influencing financial stability.20 handling of risk or minimize of risk, financial stability and compliance of regulation is an important challenge for any institutions and for all those organizations which have structural capital that are designed effectively. those types of organization are better able to handle risks and comply with regulations. structure organizations are also able to maintain financial stability. as we discussed above the following hypothesis is formulated. h2: structural capital efficiency has a positive relationship with islamic bank's financial stability.21 2.3 relational capital efficiency driven by the realization that relationships with stakeholders play a critical role in determining the resilience and long-term capability of financial institutions, the association between relational hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 89 capital efficiency and financial stability has become a critical area of academic inquiry. positive stakeholder relationships are facilitated by relational capital, as demonstrated by research conducted.22 researchers find out that stakeholders such as suppliers, customers, and the community have been linked to increased financial stability. organizations possessing that strong relational capital are more adept at overcoming obstacles and fostering resilience. customer loyalty and brand reputation are strongly associated with relational capital efficiency and these two components are also increase stability.23 studies conducted indicate that financial institutions possessing robust relational capital are able to cultivate customer trust, loyalty, and favourable brand perception. in turn, this lowers customer attrition and draws in new clients, which promotes stability.24 another study point out that strong management-employee relationships and an effective internal culture are hallmarks of an organizationally stable environment. crucial markers of relational capital efficiency are commitment and employee satisfaction. h3: relation capital efficiency has a positive relationship with islamic banks' financial stability.25 3. methodology 3.1 study sample investigating the relationship between intellectual capital efficiency and financial stability in islamic banks this study uses two databases. first, fitch connect provides an annual dataset comprising bank income statements and balance sheets, and the second one is world bank's indicator, which provides important information regarding two variables no one gdp per capita and no two inflation rates for every country.26 this study has an unbalanced panel data set that includes bank selected year observations from six gulf countries between 2010 and 2021; list is given below in 1st table. countries numbers of islamic banks saudi arabia 5 kuwait 6 oman 4 qatar 3 united arab emirates 7 bahrain 12 total 37 table 1. sample of banks from each country 90 intellectual capital efficiency … 3.2 research variables the financial stability of islamic banks is the variable of interest27, which is measured with zcar and npm28. the three components of intellectual capital efficiency (hce, sce, and rce) 29 are the focus of the independent variables.30 in contrast, the macroeconomic variables (gdp, inf) and bank-specific variables (bank size, foreign ownership) comprise the set of control variables.31 the names, definitions, and codes of all the variables that were selected for the current study are compiled in 2nd table. numbers variables codes definition 1 financial stability (dependent) i. financial stability zcar ratio of roa plus the capital asset ratio which is divided by the standard roa ii. financial stability npm ratio of total income over total financing 2 intellectual capital efficiency (independent) i. human capital efficiency hce value-added/ gross income-operating expenses ii. structural capital efficiency sce value-added/ total expenses for employees iii. relational capital efficiency rce value added/ expenditure related to research and development 3 bank characteristics (controls) i. total debt to equity de proportion of total debt over equity ii. bank size lnta natural log of corporate total assets iii. market share mks it is the share of assets of each bank to total bank assets iv. foreign ownership fow n dummy for is a binary variable that takes the value of one if foreign firms have ownership in the firm or zero otherwise 4 macro-economic (controls) i. inflation cpi natural log of consumer price index ii. country growth gdp natural log of total gross domestic product table 2. research variables and measurement hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 91 3.3 econometric model the model that follows is used to examine how ice affects the financial stability of ibs.32 the most popular statistical methods for testing the panel data are the fixed-effects model (fem) and the random-effects model (rem). the application of rem was recommended by the hausman test results.33 the ols ignores the data's panel structure, this approach is appropriate for ice studies.34 the present study uses gmm because it is a more suitable model to account for heteroscedasticity and endogeneity in the model. the econometric model is formulated as follows: 𝑍𝐶𝐴𝑅𝑖𝑡 = 𝛼𝑜 + 𝑍𝐶𝐴𝑅𝑖𝑡−1 + ∑3 𝑘 𝛽1𝐼𝐶𝐸𝑖𝑡 + ∑6 𝑘 𝛽2𝑋𝑖𝑡 + 𝜀𝑖𝑡 ………………1 𝑁𝑃𝑀𝑖𝑡 = 𝛼𝑜 + 𝑁𝑃𝑀𝑖𝑡−1 + ∑3 𝑘 𝛽1𝐼𝐶𝐸𝑖𝑡 + ∑6 𝑘 𝛽2𝑋𝑖𝑡 + 𝜀𝑖𝑡……………………2 in above models 1 & 2, i represent the islamic banks, t represents the years, zcar and npm represent the proxy of financial stability, ice represents the intellectual capital efficiency with four proxies (hce, sce, rce), x represent the set of control variables with five proxies (bs, lev, mks, fown, inf, gdp), and 𝜀 represents the error term. 3.4 descriptive statistics descriptive statistics of the study has been showed in 3rd table, where the financial stability mean is 10.91 percent and the net profit margin mean value is 13 percent (in terms of zcar). additionally, the descriptive findings of the intellectual capital indicators—hce, sce, and rce—show that, with a mean score of 33, 68, and 17 percent respectively. sce may be the most important factor in wealth accumulation when it compared with hce and rce. the mean of bs (2.23), mean of lev (2.29), mean of mks (0.019), mean of fown (0.06), inflation (1.54), and gdp (19.07) are the control variables. variable obs mean std. dev. min max zcar 407 0.109 1 0.042 1 0.149 5 0.817 0 net profit margin 407 0.130 6 0.125 5 0.072 6 1.072 6 human capital efficiency 407 0.335 7 0.869 3 -0.622 7.630 3 structural capital efficiency 407 0.681 2 1.694 3 -1.134 18.90 7 92 intellectual capital efficiency … relational capital efficiency 407 0.176 5 0.502 9 0.380 8 4.799 1 bank size 407 2.239 2 0.655 2 1.151 4 3.712 8 leverage 407 2.294 8 1.789 0 0.931 7 8.029 8 market share 407 0.019 3 0.029 8 0.002 47 0.202 2 foreign ownership 407 0.068 0 0.132 2 0.001 23 0.325 2 inflation 407 1.541 54 0.085 1 1.412 87 1.943 2 gross domestic product 407 19.07 12 1.239 87 7.432 75 11.97 06 table 3. descriptive statistics 3.5 correlation and multicollinearity the correlation between the variables used in the study is shown in 4th table, which shows that there is no multicollinearity issue because the correlation values are lower than 0.8. additionally, we use the variance inflation factor (vif) test to examine multicollinearity. all vif values reported in table are unable to detect any multi-collinearity among the independent variables that we have chosen.35 variables hc e sc e rc e bs le v m ks fo w n in f g d p human capital efficiency 1 structural capital efficiency 0.3 36 72 2 1 relational capital efficiency 0.4 77 33 3 0.4 65 04 1 1 bank size 0.1 09 41 6 0.0 00 47 0.0 46 09 4 1 leverage 0.0 96 0.0 83 0.0 61 0.1 42 1 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 93 65 9 06 3 08 7 00 8 market share 0.0 66 3 0.0 38 37 0.0 45 72 0.0 25 89 0.1 10 72 1 foreign ownership 0.0 66 3 0.0 38 37 0.0 45 72 0.0 25 89 0.1 10 72 0.0 16 57 5 1 inflation 0.1 59 14 2 0.0 57 64 0.0 22 72 1 0.1 24 96 7 0.0 15 74 0.1 18 91 0.1 15 74 8 1 gross domestic product 0.2 03 28 1 0.0 13 22 3 0.0 08 1 0.1 26 92 3 0.1 40 42 5 0.1 30 93 0.0 17 50 7 0. 23 4 1 variance inflation factor 1.4 52 67 2 1.5 27 16 8 1.2 94 36 8 0.9 96 38 4 1.0 15 00 8 1.1 45 37 6 0.9 96 38 4 1. 23 1. 35 4 table 4. correlation and multicollinearity analysis 4. results and discussion the effect of intellectual capital efficiency on bank financial stability is shown in 5th table. the gmm model was estimated using a hierarchical method in which the ice components were added to the model one after the other. the first column displays the results using one ice measure, and the last column display the results using all ice measures. the empirical findings show that the lag-dependent variable l1 in the form of zcar and npm has a positively significant relationship with the current value of financial stability in all columns. this suggests that the models are dynamic and free of simultaneity, endogeneity, and reverse causality issues. the present results of this study is closed related with the findings of past study36, the findings of past studies suggest that past financial stability indicators support the current year's financial stability of banks. besides this, all models pass the hansen test, rejecting the null hypothesis and proving the validity of the model's instruments. moreover, ar (2) shows that none of the models have autocorrelation problems. the results of this study regarding intellectual capital efficiency showed that hce significantly and favourably affects financial stability in terms of zcar and npm. this validates our first hypothesis, according to which ib financial stability is driven by hce. the outcomes corroborate37 who stated that hce initiates 94 intellectual capital efficiency … financial stability. this demonstrates how important ic is to boosting banks' capacity for innovation in order to enhance their financial stability. correspondingly, sce in both models shows a statistically significant and favourable effect on the fs of islamic banks. this validates our second hypothesis, according to which hce promotes ibs' financial stability. these results contradict the study by38, which claimed that sce drives bank financial stability, and is consistent with the findings of 39 . these results suggest that ibs can be very important if they allocate more funds within their framework and hierarchical order in ways that encourage innovation and development, which will support ibs' financial stability. notably, rce has a significant relationship in column 4 but an insignificant effect in column 3 on the financial stability of ibs. this is consistent with the findings of 40 and supports our third hypothesis.41 these results indicate that relationships without efficient human capital and good infrastructure perform poorly. moreover, banks are still in their infancy and need to invest more in relational capital to build strong relationships in the economy and society, our findings imply that rce enhances ib financial stability. people may be more inclined to use ibs as a direct result of their increased awareness of them and their sharê‘ah compliance business. rce thus plays a major role in maintaining the financial stability of ibs. model zcar model npm variable 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 l1. zcar 0.1 210 *** 0.1 421 *** 0.0 213 *** 0.21 25* ** l1. npm 0.1 231 *** 0.2 139 *** 0.4 325 *** 1.54 35* ** human capital efficiency 0.0 237 ** 0.02 345 *** 0.0 472 *** 0.08 68* ** structural capital efficiency 0.0 437 ** 0.07 36* ** 0.0 849 * 0.05 18* relational capital efficiency 0.0 234 0.07 45* ** 0.0 256 0.03 76* * log of total assets 0.0 271 *** 0.0 593 *** 0.0 648 *** 0.00 36* ** 0.0 351 *** 0.0 324 *** 0.0 493 *** 0.04 16* ** hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 95 leverage 0.0 233 *** 0.0 347 *** 0.0 231 *** 0.04 23* ** 0 0.0 367 0.0 451 0.00 18 market share 0.0 174 *** 0.0 435 *** 0.0 621 *** 0.08 34* ** 0.0 391 *** 0.0 299 0.0 834 0.03 68 foreign ownership 0.0 264 ** 0.0 457 ** 0.0 573 ** 0.02 04* * 0.0 326 ** 0.0 123 0.0 326 0.02 36 inflation 0.0 235 *** 0.0 321 *** 0.0 222 *** 0.02 34* ** 0.0 017 *** 0.0 234 *** 0.0 236 *** 0.02 89* ** gross domestic product 0.0 015 * 0.0 014 * 0.0 012 0.00 17* 0.0 163 * 0.0 023 *** 0.0 045 *** 0.01 28* ** year dummy 0.0 01* ** 0.0 001 *** 0.0 013 *** 0.00 04* ** 0.0 230 ** 0 0 0.00 0 constant 0.0 000 1 0.0 025 0.0 047 0.01 83 0.0 067 0.0 345 ** 0.1 034 ** 0.23 5** n. of observation s 407 407 407 407 407 407 407 407 ar(1) test statistics (pvalue) 0.2 268 0.2 304 0.4 234 0.22 34 0.0 234 0.0 022 3 0.0 078 5 0.00 345 6 ar(2) test statistics (pvalue) 0.2 092 3 0.2 744 5 0.2 602 3 0.22 476 0.3 827 7 0.4 155 5 0.2 734 0.27 722 hansen test (p-value) 0.1 923 0.1 923 0.2 134 0.29 87 0.3 245 0.4 123 0.2 378 0.34 89 table 5. gmm regression analysis according to the control variables, bank size has a positive and significant impact on the financial stability of all models in the study42, supporting the findings of other studies.43 this finding suggests that stability is significantly influenced by the size of banks.44 bank leverage affects fs negatively and not very much. market share and all financial stability variables are positively and significantly correlated. these results support those of 45 in asian nations, suggesting that increased bank market share contributes to enhanced bank stability. in all models, foreign ownership has a 96 intellectual capital efficiency … positive and significant impact on ibs' financial stability. these findings run counter to those of 46, who claimed that a sizable foreign ownership stake had a negative impact on financial performance. in addition, we discover that gdp positively and significantly correlates with the financial stability of islamic banks, while inflation negatively and significantly correlates with the fs of islamic banks, these results corroborate the hypothesis.47 according to this research, higher gdps are associated with faster national growth, which strengthens islamic banks' financial stability. 5. conclusion this study explored the relationship between intellectual capital efficiency (ice) comprising human capital efficiency (hce), structural capital efficiency (sce), and relational capital efficiency (rce) and the financial stability of islamic banks in the gulf cooperation council (gcc) region. using panel data from 37 islamic banks operating across six gulf countries from 2010 to 2021 and employing the generalized method of moments (gmm) dynamic panel estimator, the research aimed to address endogeneity, reverse causality, and simultaneity issues inherent in such longitudinal datasets. the findings demonstrate that ice particularly hce and sce plays a statistically significant and positive role in enhancing financial stability, measured through zcar and net profit margin (npm). these results align with the resource-based theory (rbt), affirming that the strategic deployment of intangible, vrin-based resources (such as intellectual capital) can confer sustainable competitive advantages and promote institutional resilience. although rce exhibited weaker or less consistent effects compared to hce and sce, it still holds strategic value, especially in customer loyalty and stakeholder relations. this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by empirically validating the theoretical propositions of rbt in the context of islamic banking—a sector that uniquely combines ethical finance with risk-sharing mechanisms. it underscores that investments in intellectual capital are not merely internal operational decisions but strategic imperatives for financial soundness in a rapidly evolving economic environment. additionally, the results present practical implications for regulators, policymakers, and bank managers, highlighting the need for integrated frameworks that promote human resource development, technological innovation, and ethical governance in islamic banking systems. hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 97 however, this study is not without limitations. it is geographically limited to islamic banks within the gulf region, which may affect the generalizability of the findings to other regions or conventional banking systems. future research could expand the scope to include comparative analyses across different banking models, economic contexts, or emerging financial technologies. further studies may also consider alternative proxies for financial stability—such as return volatility, capital adequacy ratios, or market value metrics—to validate and extend these findings. 6. practical and policy implications this research provides several actionable insights for banking practitioners, policymakers, and regulatory bodies operating in the islamic financial ecosystem: 1. human capital development: the strong association between hce and financial stability emphasizes the need for continuous investment in workforce development. bank management should prioritize professional training programs in sharê‘ah-compliant finance, risk analytics, digital banking tools, and ethical governance. governments and regulators can support this through certification frameworks, educational partnerships, and skill-development subsidies. 2. structural capital enhancement: sce was found to be a critical determinant of financial resilience. banks should focus on strengthening internal systems, digital infrastructure, and compliance mechanisms. regulatory agencies may encourage banks to disclose intellectual capital investments and governance systems in their annual reports, thereby improving transparency and accountability. 3. relational capital utilization: while rce showed a relatively weaker impact, it remains essential for reputation management and stakeholder trust. managers should foster deeper client relationships, improve service responsiveness, and engage with local communities to enhance loyalty and resilience in times of crisis. regulatory frameworks can support this by incentivizing customer-centric practices and stakeholder engagement. 4. tailored regulatory policies: policymakers across gcc nations should consider integrating intellectual capital indicators into risk assessment models and supervisory frameworks. developing policy guidelines that link ice to performance benchmarks will help standardize practices and reduce information asymmetries in the banking sector. 5. sector-wide collaboration and benchmarking: islamic banks can benefit from industry-wide benchmarking initiatives to assess and compare intellectual capital efficiency across institutions. this would facilitate knowledge-sharing and innovation 98 intellectual capital efficiency … diffusion, contributing to the overall robustness of the islamic banking ecosystem. 6. contextual sensitivity in application: given the regionspecific findings, policymakers must tailor these recommendations to local institutional, legal, and economic contexts. the gulf’s unique financial and cultural landscape requires adaptable but grounded regulatory strategies that respect sharê‘ah principles while enhancing operational efficiency. in sum, the study highlights that intellectual capital—when strategically cultivated—can significantly enhance financial stability, thereby enabling islamic banks in the gulf region to thrive in a competitive and increasingly knowledge-based global economy. notes and references 1 amina, b., mohammed, h. a., sameh, r., sherine, b., & araby, m. (2020). the efficiency of gcc banks: the role of intellectual capital. european business review, 32(3), 383–404. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr-04-2019-0053 2 bhatti, f. a., aslam, e., iqbal, a., aslam, m., & rehman, a. u. (2023). unveiling the driver of economic growth: impact of labor, capital, remittance, fdi, and export. journal of namibian studies: history politics culture, 33, 6220–6237. 3 acuña-opazo, c., & gonzález, o. c. (2021). the impacts of intellectual capital on financial performance and value-added of the production evidence from chile. journal of economics, finance and administrative science, 26(51), 127–142. https://doi.org/10.1108/jefas-08-2019-0178 4 ahmad, s., & amjad, muhammad, aslam, e. (2018). types of interest in islamic law analysis and application. pakistan journal of islamic research, 18(2), 168– 170. 5 aslam, ejaz; asif, m., sultan, a., nasir, s. z., & iqbal, a. (2023). the synergy of islamic finance and the halal industry development in islamic countries. tuijin jishu/journal of propulsion technology, 44(3), 3849–3858. 6 aslam, e., ur-rehman, a., & iqbal, a. (2021). does corporate governance matter for asset quality of islamic banks? bulletin of monetary economics and banking, 24(2), 221–236. 7 festa, g., rossi, m., kolte, a., & marinelli, l. (2021). the contribution of intellectual capital to financial stability in indian pharmaceutical companies. journal of intellectual capital, 22(2), 337–359. https://doi.org/10.1108/jic-03-2020-0091 8 amina, b., mohammed, h. a., sameh, r., sherine, b., & araby, m. (2020). the efficiency of gcc banks: the role of intellectual capital. european business review, 32(3), 383–404. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr-04-2019-0053 9 aslam, e., ur rehman, a., & iqbal, a. (2023). the mediating role of intellectual capital in corporate governance and financial efficiency of islamic banks. corporate governance: the international journal of business in society, 23(4), 1–21. 10 aslam, e., & haron, r. (2021a). corporate governance and banking performance: the mediating role of intellectual capital among oic countries. corporate governance: the international journal of business in society, 21(1), 111–136. https://doi.org/10.1108/cg-08-2020-0312 11 xu, j., & wang, b. (2019). intellectual capital, financial performance and companies’ sustainable growth: evidence from the korean manufacturing industry. sustainability (switzerland), 10(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124651 12 aslam, e., ur rehman, a., aslam, m., iqbal, a., & bhatti, f. a. (2023). liquidity dynamics: macroeconomic and bank factors in pakistan’s commercial banks. tuijin jishu/journal of propulsion technology, 44(5), 2311–2321. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr-04-2019-0053 https://doi.org/10.1108/jefas-08-2019-0178 https://doi.org/10.1108/jic-03-2020-0091 https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr-04-2019-0053 https://doi.org/10.1108/cg-08-2020-0312 https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124651 hamdard islamicus vol. xlviii, no.2 99 13 festa, g., rossi, m., kolte, a., & marinelli, l. (2021). the contribution of intellectual capital to financial stability in indian pharmaceutical companies. journal of intellectual capital, 22(2), 337–359. https://doi.org/10.1108/jic-03-2020-0091 14 tejedo-romero, f., filipe ferraz esteves araujo, j., & luiz emmendoerfer, m. (2017). corporate governance mechanisms and intellectual capital. revista brasileira de gestão de negócios, 19(65). 15 acuña-opazo, c., & gonzález, o. c. (2021). the impacts of intellectual capital on financial performance and value-added of the production evidence from chile. journal of economics, finance and administrative science, 26(51), 127–142. https://doi.org/10.1108/jefas-08-2019-0178 16 akkas, e., & asutay, m. (2022). intellectual capital disclosure and financial performance nexus in islamic and conventional banks in the gcc countries. international journal of islamic and middle eastern finance and management, 15(5), 943–966. 17 duho, k. c. t., & onumah, j. m. (2019). the determinants of intellectual capital performance of banks in ghana: an empirical approach. journal of intellectual, 1(1), 1–14. 18 mention, a.-l., & bontis, n. (2013). intellectual capital and performance within the banking sector of luxembourg and belgium. journal of intellectual capital, 14(2), 286–309. 19 rehman, a. u., aslam, e., & iqbal, a. (2021). intellectual capital efficiency and bank performance: evidence from islamic banks. borsa istanbul review, 22(1), 113–121. 20 onumah, j. m., & duho, k. c. t. (2019). intellectual capital: its impact on financial performance and financial stability of ghanaian banks. athens journal of business and economics, 5(3), 243–268. 21 xu, j., & wang, b. (2019). intellectual capital, financial performance and companies’ sustainable growth: evidence from the korean manufacturing industry. sustainability (switzerland), 10(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124651 22 dalwai, t., singh, d., & singh., a. (2021). intellectual capital, bank stability and risk-taking: evidence from asian emerging markets. competitiveness review: an international business journal, ahead-of-p(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/cr-03-2021-0031 23 buallay, a. (2019). intellectual capital and performance of islamic and conventional banking. journal of management development, 20(5), 680–700. 24 joshi, m., cahill, d., & sidhu, j. (2010). intellectual capital performance in the banking sector: an assessment of australian owned banks. journal of human resource costing & accounting, 14(2), 151–170. 25 xu, j., & wang, b. (2019). intellectual capital, financial performance and companies’ sustainable growth: evidence from the korean manufacturing industry. sustainability (switzerland), 10(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124651 26 aslam, e., & haron, r. (2021b). corporate governance and risk-taking of islamic banks: evidence from oic countries. corporate governance: the international journal of business in society, 21(7), 1460–1474. https://doi.org/10.1108/cg-082020-0311 27 aslam, e., & haron, r. (2020a). does corporate governance affect the performance of islamic banks? new insight into islamic countries. corporate governance: the international journal of business in society, 20(6), 1073–1090. https://doi.org/10.1108/cg-11-2019-0350 28 rehman, a. u., aslam, e., & iqbal, a. (2021). intellectual capital efficiency and bank performance: evidence from islamic banks. borsa istanbul review, 22(1), 113–121. 29 festa, g., rossi, m., kolte, a., & marinelli, l. (2021). the contribution of intellectual capital to financial stability in indian pharmaceutical companies. journal of intellectual capital, 22(2), 337–359. https://doi.org/10.1108/jic-03-2020-0091 30 maji, s. g., & hussain, f. (2021). technical efficiency, intellectual capital efficiency and bank performance in emerging markets: the case of india. journal of advances in management research, 18(5), 708–737. https://doi.org/10.1108/jic-03-2020-0091 https://doi.org/10.1108/jefas-08-2019-0178 https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124651 https://doi.org/10.1108/cr-03-2021-0031 https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124651 https://doi.org/10.1108/cg-08-2020-0311 https://doi.org/10.1108/cg-08-2020-0311 https://doi.org/10.1108/cg-11-2019-0350 https://doi.org/10.1108/jic-03-2020-0091 100 intellectual capital efficiency … 31 aslam, e., ijaz, f., & iqbal, a. (2016). does working capital and financial structure impact profitability of islamic and conventional banks differently? islamic banking and finance review, 3(1), 50–67. https://doi.org/10.32350/ibfr.2016.03.05 32 aslam, e., ur rehman, a., aslam, m., iqbal, a., & bhatti, f. a. (2023). liquidity dynamics: macroeconomic and bank factors in pakistan’s commercial banks. tuijin jishu/journal of propulsion technology, 44(5), 2311–2321. 33 bhatti, f. a., aslam, e., iqbal, a., aslam, m., & rehman, a. u. (2023). unveiling the driver of economic growth: impact of labor, capital, remittance, fdi, and export. journal of namibian studies: history politics culture, 33, 6220–6237. 34 aslam, e., kalim, r., & fizza, s. (2019). do cash holding and corporate governance structure matter for the performance of firms? evidence from kmi 30and kse 100-indexed firms in pakistan. global business review, 20(2), 313–330. 35 gujarati, d. n., & porter, d. (2009). basic econometrics mc graw-hill international edition. 36 bhatti, f. a., aslam, e., ur rehman, a., ashraf, s., aslam, m., & shabbir, m. s. (2023). does intellectual capital efficiency spur the financial performance of banks? a comparative analysis of islamic and conventional banks in pakistan. al-qantara, 9(3), 55–67. 37 rehman, a. u., aslam, e., & iqbal, a. (2021). intellectual capital efficiency and bank performance: evidence from islamic banks. borsa istanbul review, 22(1), 113–121. 38 ullah, a., pinglu, c., ullah, s., qian, n., & zaman, m. (2021). impact of intellectual capital efficiency on financial stability in banks: insights from an emerging economy. international journal of finance & economics, 26(2), 1–14. 39 dalwai, t., singh, d., & singh., a. (2021). intellectual capital, bank stability and risk-taking: evidence from asian emerging markets. competitiveness review: an international business journal, ahead-of-p(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/cr-03-2021-0031 40 onumah, j. m., & duho, k. c. t. (2019). intellectual capital: its impact on financial performance and financial stability of ghanaian banks. athens journal of business and economics, 5(3), 243–268. 41 xu, j., & wang, b. (2018). intellectual capital, financial performance and companies’ sustainable growth: evidence from the korean manufacturing industry. sustainability, 10(12), 4651. 42 aslam, e., haron, r., & tahir, m. n. (2019). how director remuneration impacts firm performance: an empirical analysis of executive director remuneration in pakistan. borsa istanbul review, 19(2), 186–196. 43 aslam, e., ur rehman, a., ishfaq, m., iqbal, a., bhatti, f. a., & ashraf, s. (2023). deciphering macroeconomic threads: unraveling their impact on credit risk in banks. tuijin jishu/journal of propulsion technology, 44(5), 2302–2310. 44 tahir, m., shah, q. a., khan, m. m., & afridi, m. a. (2018). intellectual capital and financial performance of banks in pakistan. dialogue (pakistan), 13(1), 105– 118. 45 aslam, e., ashraf, m. s., & iqbal, a. (2022). impact of corporate image on customer loyalty of islamic banks: the role of religiosity, collectivism, sight cues and csr. journal of islamic marketing, 14(5), 1310–1324. 46 aslam, ejaz; haron, razali; ahmad, s. (2020). a comparative analysis of the performance of islamic and conventional banks: does corporate governance matter? int. j. business excellence, 20(3), 1–13. 47 aslam, e., & haron, r. (2021b). corporate governance and risk-taking of islamic banks: evidence from oic countries. corporate governance: the international journal of business in society, 21(7), 1460–1474. https://doi.org/10.1108/cg-08-2020-0311 https://doi.org/10.32350/ibfr.2016.03.05 https://doi.org/10.1108/cr-03-2021-0031 https://doi.org/10.1108/cg-08-2020-0311